in the ballets of
the "Tarantella" and the wild legend of "Gisele, the Willye,"
exhibited tragic power of a very high order, while the same strongly
dramatic element was the cause of her pre-eminence in all national
and characteristic dances, such as El Jaleo de Xeres, the
Cracovienne, et cetera. This predominance of the intellectual
element in her dancing may have been the result of original
organization, or it may have been owing to the mental training which
Ellsler received from Frederic von Genz, Gensius, the German writer
and diplomatist, who educated her, and whose mistress she became
while still quite a young girl. However that may be, Mrs. Grote
always maintained that her genius lay full as much in her head as in
her heels. I am not sure that the finest performance of hers that I
ever witnessed was not a minuet in which she danced the man's part,
in full court-suit of the time of Louis XVI., with most admirable
grace and nobility of demeanor.

Mrs. Grote labored hard to procure her acceptance in society; her
personal kindness to her was of the most generous description: but
her great object of making "an honest woman" of her, I believe
failed signally in every way.

On one occasion I paid Mrs. Grote a visit at Burnham Beeches. Our
party consisted only of my sister and myself; the Viennese composer,
Dessauer; and Chorley, the musical critic of the _Athenaeum_, who
was very intimately acquainted with us all. The eccentricities of
our hostess, with which some of us were already tolerably familiar,
were a source of unfeigned amazement and awe to Dessauer, who,
himself the most curious, quaint, and withal nervously excitable and
irritable humorist, was thrown into alternate convulsions of
laughter and spasms of terror at the portentous female figure, who,
with a stick in her hand, a man's hat on her head, and a coachman's
box-coat of drab cloth with manifold capes over her petticoats
(English women had not yet then adopted a costume undistinguishable
from that of the other sex), stalked about the house and grounds,
alternately superintending various matters of the domestic economy,
and discussing, with equal knowledge and discrimination, questions
of musical criticism and taste.

One most ludicrous scene which took place on this occasion I shall
never forget. She had l