]
I have already in a previous chapter of these reminiscences given
a letter from Mrs. Browning in which she speaks of Theodosia's
"multiform faculty." And the phrase, which so occurring, might in
the case of almost any other writer be taken as a mere epistolary
civility, is in the case of one whose absolute accuracy of veracity
never swerved a hair's-breadth, equivalent to a formal certificate of
the fact to the best of her knowledge. And she knew my wife well both
before and after the marriage of either of them. Her faculty was truly
_multiform_.
She was not a great musician; but her singing had for great musicians
a charm which the performances of many of their equals in the art
failed to afford them. She had never much voice, but I have rarely
seen the hearer to whose eyes she could not bring the tears. She had
a spell for awakening emotional sympathy which I have never seen
surpassed, rarely indeed equalled.
For language she had an especial talent, was dainty in the use of
her own, and astonishingly apt in acquiring--not merely the use for
speaking as well as reading purposes, but--the delicacies of other
tongues. Of Italian, with which she was naturally _most_ conversant,
she was recognised by acknowledged experts to be a thoroughly
competent critic.
She published, now many years ago, in the _Athenaeum_, some
translations from the satirist Giusti, which any intelligent reader
would, I think, recognise to be cleverly done.
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