7–13 October 1839

Only this strip of paper remains to me to record my introduction to Anna Barker last Friday at Jamaica Plains.' A new person is to me ever a great event, and few days of my quiet life are so illustrated and cheered as were these two in which I enjoyed the frank and generous confidence of a being so lovely, so fortunate, and so remote from my own experiences. She seemed to me a woman singularly healthful and entire. She had no detached parts or powers. She had not talents, or affections, or accomplish- ments, or single features, of conspicuous beauty, but was a unit and whole, so that whatsoever she did became her, whether she walked or sat or spoke. She had an instinctive elegance. She had too much warmth and sympathy and desire to please than that you could say her manners were marked with dignity, yet no princess could surpass her clear and erect demeanour on each occasion. She is not an intellectual beauty, but is of that class who in society are designated as having a great deal of Soul, that is, the predomi- nating character of her nature is not thought, but emotion or sympathy, and of course she is not of my class, does not resemble the women whom I have most admired and loved, but she is so perfect in her own nature as to meet these by the fulness of her heart, and does not distance me, as I believe all others of that cast of character do. She does not sit at home in her mind, as my angels are wont to do, but instantly goes abroad into the minds of others, takes possession of so- ciety and warms it with noble sentiments. Her simple faith seemed to be, that by dealing nobly with all, all would show themselves noble, and so her conversation is the frankest I ever heard. She can afford to be sincere. The wind is not purer than she is.