Sophia Peabody Hawthorne...
I feel so feeble and well mundane in trying to form the words to describe how she engaged experience... she had a combination of your sense awareness and a depth that revealed the extraordinary in what would have been 'ordinary' to most of her affluent class.
She was so On Point.
Anyway here are a couple of her observations.
June 8th. - This day has been memorable by my seeing Mr and Mrs Browning for the first time. At noon Mr Browning called upon us. * * * * * His grasp of the hand gives new value to life, revealing so much fervor and sincerity of nature. He invited us most cordially to go at eight and spend the evening. * * * * * and so at eight we went to the illustrious Casa Guidi. We found a little boy in an upper hall, with a servant. I asked him if he were Pennini, and he said 'Yes'. In the dim light he looked like a wiaf of poetry, drifted up into the dark corner, with long, curling, brown hair and buff silk tunic, embroidered with white. He took us through an ante-room, into the drawing-room, and out upon the balcony. In a brighter light he was lovelier still, with brown eyes, fair skin, and a slender, graceful figure. In a moment Mr Browning appeared, and welcomed us cordially. In a church near by, opposite the house, a melodious choir was chanting. The balcony was full of flowers in vases, growing and blooming. In the dark blue fields of space overhead, the stars, flowers of light, were also blossoming, one by one, as evening deepened. The music, the stars, the flowers, Mr Browning and his child, all combined to entrance my wits.
She describes Mrs Browning in a Way, that I would like to envision Guldal:
I know she is Sagacious, but nothing like this.
Then Mrs Browning came out to us - very small, delicate, dark and expressive. She looked like a spirit. A cloud of hair falls on each side her face in curls, so as partly to veil her features. But out of the veil look sweet, sad eyes, musing and far-seeing and weird. Her fairy fingers seem too airy to hold, and yet their pressure was very firm and strong. The smallest possible amount of substance encloses her soul, and every particle of it is infused with heart and intellect. I was never conscious of so little unredeemed, perishable dust in any human being. I gave her a branch of small pink roses, twelve on the stem, in various stages of bloom, which I had plucked from our terrace vine, and she fastened it in her black-velvet dress with most lovely effect to her whole aspect. Such roses were fit emblems of her.
LOL....
Have a Good Workout... and Yeah, Saturday is the Day.