She was, I think, to an exceptional degree surrounded by very many
friends, mostly women, but including many men, at every period of her
life. But the circumstances of it caused the world of her intimates
during her youth, her middle life, and her old age, to be to a great
degree peopled by different figures.
She was during all her life full of, and fond of, fun; had an
exquisite sense of humour; and at all times valued her friends and
acquaintances more exclusively, I think, than most people do, for
their intrinsic qualities, mainly those of heart, and, not so much
perhaps intellect, accurately speaking, as brightness. There is a
passage in my brother's _Autobiography_ which grates upon my mind,
and, I think, very signally fails to hit the mark.
He writes (vol. i. p. 28):--"She loved society, affecting a somewhat
Liberal _role_, and professing an emotional dislike to tyrants, which
sprung from the wrongs of would-be regicides and the poverty of
patriot exiles. An Italian marquis who had escaped with only a second
shirt from the clutches of some archduke whom he had wished to
exterminate, or a French _proletaire_ with distant ideas of
sacrificing himself to the cause of liberty, were always welcome to
the modest hospitality of her house. In after years, when marquises of
another caste had been gracious to her, she became a strong Tory, and
thought that archduchesses were sweet. But with her, politics were
always an affair of the heart, as indeed were all her convictions.
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