surprised than herself at her own fame. One is instinctively
sure that she would never have seated herself deliberately to
write a book of any sort whatever. While she was planning a form
for her thoughts, they would have flown. She was essentially a
woman of the great world, for which she was fitted by her
position, her temperament, her esprit, her tastes, and her
character. She loved its variety, its movement, its gaiety; she
judged leniently even its faults and its frailties. If they
often furnished a target for her wit, behind her sharpest
epigrams one detects an indulgent smile.

The natural outlet for her full mind and heart was in
conversation. When she was alone, they found vent in
conversation of another sort. She talks on paper. Her letters
have the unstudied freedom, the rapidity, the shades, the
inflections of spoken words. She gives her thoughts their own
course, "with reins upon the neck," as she was fond of saying,
and without knowing where they will lead her. But it is the
personal element that inspires her. Let her heart be piqued, or
touched by a profound affection, and her mind is illuminated; her
pen flies. Her nature unveils itself, her emotions chase one
another in quick succession, her thoughts crystallize with
wonderful brilliancy, and the world is reflected in a thousand
varying colors. The sparkling wit, the swift judgment, the
subtle insight, the lightness of touch, the indefinable charm of
style--these belong to her temperament and her genius. But the
clearness, the justness of expression, the precision, the
simplicity that was never banal--such qualities nature does not
bestow. One must find their source in careful training, in wise
criticism, in early familiarity with good models.