'I am pleased with your sympathy about the Tribune, for I
do not find much among my old friends. They think I ought to
produce something excellent, while I am satisfied to aid
in the great work of popular education. I never regarded
literature merely as a collection of exquisite products, but
rather as a means of mutual interpretation. Feeling that many
are reached and in some degree helped, the thoughts of every
day seem worth noting, though in a form that does not inspire
me.'
The most valuable of her contributions, according to her own judgment,
were the Criticisms on Contemporary Authors in Europe and America. A
few of these were revised in the spring of 1846, and, in connection
with some of her best articles selected from the Dial, Western
Messenger, American Monthly, &c., appeared in two volumes of Wiley and
Putnam's Library of American Books, under the title of PAPERS ON ART
AND LITERATURE.