'There is no hour of absolute beauty in all my past, though
some have been made musical by heavenly hope, many dignified
by intelligence. Long urged by the Furies, I rest again in
the temple of Apollo. Celestial verities dawn constellated as
thoughts in the Heaven of my mind.

'But, driven from home to home, as a renouncer, I get the
picture and the poetry of each. Keys of gold, silver, iron,
and lead, are in my casket. No one loves me; but I love many a
good deal, and see, more or less, into their eventual beauty.
Meanwhile, I have no fetter on me, no engagement, and, as I
look on others,--almost every other,--can I fail to feel this
a great privilege? I have nowise tied my hands or feet; yet
the varied calls on my sympathy have been such, that I hope
not to be made partial, cold, or ignorant, by this isolation.
I have no child; but now, as I look on these lovely children
of a human birth, what low and neutralizing cares they
bring with them to the mother! The children of the muse
come quicker, and have not on them the taint of earthly
corruption.'

Practical questions in plenty the days and months brought her to
settle,--questions requiring all her wisdom, and sometimes more than
all. None recurs with more frequency, at one period, in her journals,
than the debate with herself, whether she shall make literature a
profession. Shall it be woman, or shall it be artist?