pas de
societe sans vous." "C'est tres ennuyeux de diner sans vous; la societe
ne va pas quand vous n'etes pas la";' Sir James Smith, the botanist;
Crabb Robinson; the Gurneys; Mrs. Barbauld; Dr. Alderson and his charming
daughter, Amelia Opie; and many other well-known people. Her letters are
extremely sensible and thoughtful. 'Nothing at present,' she says in one
of them, 'suits my taste so well as Susan's Latin lessons, and her
philosophical old master . . . When we get to Cicero's discussions on the
nature of the soul, or Virgil's fine descriptions, my mind is filled up.
Life is either a dull round of eating, drinking, and sleeping, or a spark
of ethereal fire just kindled. . . . The character of girls must depend
upon their reading as much as upon the company they keep. Besides the
intrinsic pleasure to be derived from solid knowledge, a woman ought to
consider it as her best resource against poverty.' This is a somewhat
caustic aphorism: 'A romantic woman is a troublesome friend, as she
expects you to be as imprudent as herself, and is mortified at what she
calls coldness and insensibility.' And this is admirable: 'The art of
life is not to estrange oneself from society, and yet not to pay too dear
for it.' This, too, is good: 'Vanity, like curiosity, is wanted as a
stimulus to exertion; indolence would certainly get the better of us if
it were not for these two powerful principles'; and there is a keen touch
of humour in the following: 'Nothing is so gratifying as the idea that
virtue and philanthropy are becoming fashionable.' Dr. James Martineau,
in a letter to Mrs. Ross, gives us a pleasant picture of the old lady
returning from market 'weighted by her huge basket, with the shank of a
leg of mutton thrust out to betray its contents,' and talking divinely
about philosophy, poets, politics, and every intellectual topic of the
day. She was a woman of admirable good sense, a type of Roman matron,
and quite as careful as were the Roman matrons to keep up the purity of
her native tongue.

Mrs. Taylor, however, was more or less limited to Norwich. Mrs. Austin
was for the world. In London, Paris, and Germany, she ruled and
dominated society, loved by every one who knew her. 'She is "My best and
brightest" to Lord Jeffrey; "Dear, fair and wise" to Sydney Smith; "My
great ally" to Sir James Stephen; "Sunlight through waste weltering
chaos" to Thomas Carlyle (while he needed her aid); "La petite mere du
gen