"I don't know any poet who is so spontaneously true to himself as you are. I actually stand by you as I read, and see the harmonious movement of your lips, and the half-deprecating, half-shadowed look in your eyes.... Your verses are like music. What is this? You are not able to sing? Is this the effect of Boston on its winter guest? I can sympathize, for I have not written a line since our play was brought out last October." "The placid hills [in the Lake Country] make one love them as only Tuscan hills besides can do. Some of the greatest ballads belong here. Wordsworth, Scott, and Burns, and many song-writers have given their passion to this country-side, where one has such joy as the best dreams are made of." "In a cover somewhat like this paper in tone 'Stéphanie' presents herself to you.... We have the audacity to think it is nearly as well woven as one of the William Morris carpets. We have taken ten years over the ten pages." On one of her visits to the cure at Wiesbaden Mrs. Moulton made the acquaintance of Friedrich von Bodenstedt and visited at his house. She characterized the lyrics of the author of the "Lieder des Mirza-Schaffy" as "warm with the love of life and the life of love, and perfumed with the roses of the East." Her description of his personal appearance is not without interest. "A tall, handsome, active man of seventy-two, with gray hair, with eyes full, still, of the keen fire of youth; with the grand manner which belongs to the high-bred gentlemen of his generation, and the gift to please and to charm which is not always the dower even of a poet." Her return voyage from Europe in 1891 was a sorrowful one. Just before sailing she notes in her diary: "A sad day,--a telegram in the morning to say that mother was failing." On the day before the steamer made land she writes: "A lovely day, but I am so anxious as to what news of my poor mother awaits me to-morrow"; and the first entry on shore is: "Landed to learn that my dear mother died last Monday, October 26, and was buried Tuesday. Oh, what it is to know that I shall never see her again!" [Illustration: LOUISA REBECCA CHANDLER, MRS. MOULTON'S MOTHER _Page 199_] The letters of Mrs. Moulton show through these years a growing feeling in regard to the mystery of death. So many of her friends had gone that the brevity of life was more and more deeply impressed upon her. In the correspondence of many of her friends are traces that her letters to them, not now available, had touched upon the questions to her so vital. Mrs. Maxwell (Miss M.E. Braddon) for instance, wrote: _Mrs. Maxwell to Mrs. Moulton_