con amore

“The soldier and the dominie, or the boss, as he called me, sat down to our meal, and he told me of his neat little home near Boston, his vegetables and sundry flowers that he collected into bouquets for the ladies of that city, until the writer conceited himself to be talking to that Roman Emperor who boasted so much of the products of his Dalmatain farm, or to Pliny, who wrote con amore about the poppies of his villa.”

My manse during the war : a decade of letters to the Rev. J. Thomas Murray, editor of the Methodist Protestant,

“The Contessa di Rocca Diavolo is certainly not a bad likeness of Madame M —, and on one occasion wears a gown of hers; but, of course, the things I like in that story are the descriptions of Rome and the Campagna, which are done con amore and seem to me admirable.”

Further Records, 1848-1883: A Series of Letters