_My Last Duchess._




W. M. THACKERAY.


To be doing good for some one else, is the life of most good women.
They are exuberant of kindness, as it were, and must impart it to
some one.--_Henry Esmond._


Who ever accused women of being just? They are always sacrificing
themselves or somebody for somebody else's sake.--_Pendennis._


I think it is not national prejudice which makes me believe that a
high-bred English lady is the most complete of all Heaven's
subjects in this world. In whom else do you see so much grace, and
so much virtue; so much faith, and so much tenderness; with such a
perfect refinement and chastity? And by high-bred ladies I don't
mean duchesses and countesses. Be they ever so high in station,
they can be but ladies, and no more. But almost every man who lives
in the world has the happiness, let us hope, of counting a few such
persons amongst his circle of acquaintance,--women, in whose
angelical natures there is something awful, as well as beautiful,
to contemplate; at whose feet the wildest and fiercest of us must
fall down and humble ourselves, in admiration of that adorable
purity which never seems to do or to think wrong.--_Pendennis._