The Solitary Summer

"I want to be alone for a whole summer, and get to the very dregs of life. I want to be as idle as I can, so that my soul may have time to grow. Nobody shall be invited to stay with me, and if anyone calls they will be told that I am out, or away, or sick . . . Wouldn't a whole lovely summer, quite alone, be delightful?’

“Offers a generous harvest of beautiful and poetic thoughts, together with some keen observations of life, all of which are expressed in a graceful and supple pose….It is a privilege to have stood for a time upon the veranda steps and to have caught a glimpse of that sane refuge.” -Chicago Tribune

“Full of sunshine and fresh breezes, riotous with the bloom and fragrance of flowers, spicy with the damp cool breath of pines….The quaint, whimsical fancies of a cultivated, lovable woman create a golden atmosphere through which we see her life, and we dream with her on her bench in the garden, in the fields where the yellow lupins grow, and in the mossy deeps of the pine forest. We feel we have made another friend, one who sees life with gentle, smiling eyes and from a deliciously humorous point of view.” -Recreation

“A garden of absorbing interest to its owner, a library full of books to comfort rainy days, a hamlet of German peasants, three delightful babies, and a ‘man of wrath’ who by no means merits the title, – these are the simple elements from which a bright woman, too cosmopolitan to be thought wholly German, as she calls herself, has evolved a charming little book.” -The Nation

“She has a depth of feeling, a sense of humor, and an impetuous and ardent manner that make her chronicles thoroughly alive. Beside this lovable book other feminine essays on nature, literature, and life seem only tame and artificial performances.” -New York Tribune