inconsequence.

"My mother hardly had one intimate friend and never allowed any
one to feel necessary to her. Most people thought her gentle to
docility and full of quiet composure. So much is this the general
impression that, out of nearly a hundred letters which I received,
there is not one that does not allude to her restful nature. As a
matter of fact, Mamma was one of the most restless creatures that
ever lived. She moved from room to room, table to table, and topic
to topic, not, it is true, with haste or fretfulness, but with no
concentration of either thought or purpose; and I never saw her
put up her feet in my life.

"Her want of confidence in herself and of grip upon life prevented
her from having the influence which her experience of the world
and real insight might have given her; and her want of expansion
prevented her own generation and discouraged ours from approaching
her closely.

"Few women have speculative minds nor can they deliberate: they
have instincts, quick apprehensions and powers of observation; but
they are seldom imaginative and neither their logic nor their
reason are their strong points. Mamma was in all these ways like
the rest of her sex.

"She had much affection for, but hardly any pride in her children.
Laura's genius was a phrase to her; and any praise of Charty's
looks or Lucy's successes she took as mere courtesy on the part of
the speaker. I can never remember her praising me, except to say
that I had social courage, nor did she ever encourage me to draw,