"Mamma's life and death have taught me several things. Her
sincerity and absence of vanity and worldliness were her really
striking qualities. Her power of suffering passively, without
letting any one into her secret, was carried to a fault. We who
longed to share some part, however small, of the burden of her
emotion were not allowed to do so. This reserve to the last hour
of her life remained her inexorable rule and habit. It arose from
a wish to spare other people and fear of herself and her own
feelings. To spare others was her ideal. Another characteristic
was her pity for the obscure, the dull and the poor. The postman
in winter ought to have fur-lined gloves; and we must send our
Christmas letters and parcels before or after the busy days. Lord
Napier's [Footnote: Lord Napier and Ettrick, father of Mark
Napier.] coachman had never seen a comet; she would write and tell
him what day it was prophesied. The lame girl at the lodge must be
picked up in the brougham and taken for a drive, etc. ...

"She despised any one who was afraid of infection and was
singularly ignorant on questions of health; she knew little or
nothing of medicine and never believed in doctors; she made an
exception of Sir James Simpson, who was her friend. She told me
that he had said there was a great deal of nonsense talked about
health and diet:

"'If the fire is low, it does not matter whether you stir it with
the poker or the tongs.'

"She believed firmly in cold water and thought that most illnesses
came from 'checked perspiration.'