women of distinction; the humble undistinguished were made joyous guests
there, whether commonplace or counting among the hopeful. Their hostess
knew how to shelter the sensitively silent at table, if they were unable
to take encouragement and join the flow. Their faces at least responded
to her bright look on one or the other of them when something worthy of
memory sparkled flying. She had the laugh that rocks the frame, but it
was usually with a triumphant smile that she greeted things good to the
ear; and her own manner of telling was concise, on the lines of the
running subject, to carry it along, not to produce an effect--which is
like the horrid gap in air after a blast of powder. Quotation came when
it sprang to the lips and was native. She was shrewd and cogent,
invariably calm in argument, sitting over it, not making it a duel, as
the argumentative are prone to do; and a strong point scored against her
received the honours due to a noble enemy. No pose as mistress of a
salon shuffling the guests marked her treatment of them; she was their
comrade, one of the pack. This can be the case only when a governing
lady is at all points their equal, more than a player of trump cards. In
England, in her day, while health was with her, there was one house where
men and women conversed. When that house perforce was closed, a light
had gone out in our country.

The fatal brilliancy of skin indicated the fell disease which ultimately
drove her into exile, to die in exile. Lucie Duff Gordon was of the
order of women of whom a man of many years may say that their like is to
be met but once or twice in a lifetime.




MEMOIR