the New York decorator Elsie de Wolfe, later a friend, would write in her 1913 book The House in Good Taste: “A woman’s environment will speak for her life, whether she likes it or not.”

She cared about fashion because she cared about aesthetics, and fashion was her most immediate access to beauty—she could literally put her hands on it.

Corot and Jean-François Millet, were part of the Barbizon School, a group of plein air painters who lived and worked southwest of Paris and were prized for their rustic landscapes and bucolic genre scenes.

a constellation of her interests and passions and ambitions and love of beauty.

She was already skilled in casting a spell with her surroundings, creating moods and feelings and experiences. During their visit, Isabella gestured to Sullivan, saying, “Everything here is a remembrance.” The seeing, purchasing, having, arranging, and admiring: all of it was filled with memories of chasing beauty.

helped her acquire a large coffered ceiling from Orvieto, the hill town near Rome, decorated with painted scenes from ancient myths.

Mr. Gardner wrote a reassuring note, stating that he was holding up. He didn’t want them to worry or feel guilt. “I am & have been very well . . . My children & Grandchildren have been so devoted, and their thoughtfulness and affection so persistent, that notwithstanding our sad bereavement & our lasting sorrow, no gloom has been allowed to settle

Norton quoted too from Emerson and his essay “On Beauty,” but more than Emerson and other Americans, Norton had been influenced by two Englishmen, the philosopher John Stuart Mill and the art critic John Ruskin. Mill’s claim that the study of art was on par with an intellectual and moral education had been part of Norton’s argument to Harvard when

Unlike other Western travelers, she had no impulse to contribute to proselytizing. Instead, she found this kind of immersion freeing and intensely moving.