The absence and wandering of mind and forgetfulness that so
often vexes you is a physical infirmity with me. It is the failing of
a mind not calculated to endure a great pressure of care, and so much
do I feel the pressure I am under, so much is my mind darkened and
troubled by care that life seriously holds out few allurements,--only
my children." She used to say laughingly sometimes in later years, "My
brother Henry and I are something like anacondas: we have our winter;
when we are tired we curl up and disappear, within ourselves, as it
were; nobody can get anything out of us; we move about and attend to
our affairs and appear like other folks perhaps, but we are not
there."
The trouble was that no one could be prepared for these vanishings,
not even herself. Perhaps a dinner company of invited guests were
eagerly listening to her conversation, when at some suggestion of a
new train of ideas, she would suddenly become silent and hardly speak
again. Occasionally at a reception she would wander away, only to be
found strolling about in the conservatory, if there were one, or
quietly observant in some coign of vantage where she was not likely to
be disturbed.
My first meeting with Mrs. Stowe found her in one of her absent moods.
We were in Florence, and she was delighting herself in the
fascinations of that lovely city. Not alone every day but every second
as it passed was full of eager interest to her.
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