But because I did hope that here was one woman who cared for _respublica_ as alone, or as chief, among her cares." "Do" (to Madame Mohl, Sept. 8, 1865), "read if you have not read Swinburne's _Atalanta in Calydon_. Forgive it its being an imitation of a Greek play. That is its worst fault. As you said of Macaulay's _Lays_, They are like an old man in a pinafore; or as I should say of this, It is like a Puritan togged out as a Priest going to say mass. But read it. The Atalanta herself, though she is only a sort of Ginn and not a woman at all, has more reality, more character, more individuality (to use a bad word) than all the jeunes premières in all the men novelists I ever have read--Walter Scott, Lytton Bulwer, and all of them. But then Atalanta is not a sound incarnation of any 'social or economic principle'--is she? So men will say." [66] The copy in question was lent by Tennyson to Jowett, and by him to Miss Nightingale. V On higher themes the correspondent to whom Miss Nightingale wrote most fully from her heart was from this time forth Mr. Jowett. Their acquaintance, at first confined to paper, had begun, as described in an earlier chapter, with correspondence about her _Suggestions for Thought_. The work had greatly interested him, and from time to time he continued to write to her about it. He wished her to do something with her "Suggestions," but to rewrite them in a more connected form and a gentler mood, and he sometimes gave hints for an irony less bitter than hers. Her letters to him are no longer in existence, except in the case of a few of which she preserved copies; but it is clear from the tenor of the correspondence on the other side that she was already (1862) giving to him much of her intimate confidence. She had now met a new friend who was capable of entering into her inmost and highest thoughts, not indeed always with agreement, but always with a sympathetic understanding. "As you have shown me so much confidence," he presently wrote, "I feel the strongest wish to help you in any way that I can without intruding." And again: "I cannot but wish you (as sincerely as I ever desired anything) unabated hope and trust and resolve to continue your work to the end, and many rays of light to cheer the way." A little later, drawing a bow at a venture, Mr. Jowett wondered whether she was engaged about Indian sanitary matters? He had "a reason for being interested about them which is that I lost my two brothers in India." Miss Nightingale, as we have heard, was interested in nothing else so intently at this time, and here was a fresh bond of sympathy. She asked whether, knowing what he did of her religious views, he would come and administer the Sacrament to her, as she was entirely unable to leave her room. "I shall be very glad," he wrote (Oct. 3), "to give you the Sacrament. I am sure that many other clergymen would be equally glad. Would you like Mr. and Mrs.