BY FRANCES MARY OWEN. Authoress of "John Keats, a Study," "Across the Hills," "Hero and Patriot," All rights reserved. London: JOHN BUMPUS, 350, OXFORD STREET. W. 1887. THANKS are due to the Editors of the various Magazines and Publications, in which some of the Essays and Poems have already appeared, for their for their kind permission to reprint them. PREFACE. Of the Essays and Poems contained in the following pages, only a small number were intended for publication, and of those only one or two received their final revision at the hands of the writer. But it has been thought advisable to publish them in their present form, not only, or chiefly, for their intrinsic merit, but as an echo from the life which has left its true memorial in the hearts of all with whom it came in contact. It is believed that there is much to interest those to whom Frances Mary Owen is unknown, or only a literary name; while to that ever widening circle of friends, whom, as life went on, her presence touched 'to change or bless,' her own words will be the best and most fitting memorial. Of that noble heart's rare gift of sympathy and rarer power of love, no one who knew her ever found the end, and she admitted no limit in the range of friendship. In the larger world of work and thought, and the obscure homes of suffering or sin, her loss speaks still with equal and unchanging eloquence. Of her it is enough to say, "He shall ascend who loves with truest love, Leaving all paths for that which Christ has trod, For he who lifts his brother's soul above M. VON G. |