ge--as mischievous as his extravagances
will let him be'; speaks of Kingsley and Maurice as 'pernicious'; and
talks of John Stuart Mill as a 'demagogue.' She was no doctrinaire. 'One
ounce of education demanded is worth a pound imposed. It is no use to
give the meat before you give the hunger.' She was delighted at a letter
of St. Hilaire's, in which he said, 'We have a system and no results; you
have results and no system.' Yet she had a deep sympathy with the wants
of the people. She was horrified at something Babbage told her of the
population of some of the manufacturing towns who are _worked out_ before
they attain to thirty years of age. 'But I am persuaded that the remedy
will not, cannot come from the people,' she adds. Many of her letters
are concerned with the question of the higher education of women. She
discusses Buckle's lecture on 'The Influence of Women upon the Progress
of Knowledge,' admits to M. Guizot that women's intellectual life is
largely coloured by the emotions, but adds: 'One is not precisely a fool
because one's opinions are greatly influenced by one's affections. The
opinions of men are often influenced by worse things.' Dr. Whewell
consults her about lecturing women on Plato, being slightly afraid lest
people should think it ridiculous; Comte writes her elaborate letters on
the relation of women to progress; and Mr. Gladstone promises that Mrs.
Gladstone will carry out at Hawarden the suggestions contained in one of
her pamphlets. She was always very practical, and never lost her
admiration for plain sewing.

All through the book we come across interesting and amusing things. She
gets St. Hilaire to order a large, sensible bonnet for her in Paris,
which was at once christened the 'Aristotelian,' and was supposed to be
the only useful bonnet in England. Grote has to leave Paris after the
coup d'etat, he tells her, because he cannot bear to see the
establishment of a Greek tyrant. Alfred de Vigny, Macaulay, John
Stirling, Southey, Alexis de Tocqueville, Hallam, and Jean Jacques Ampere
all contribute to these pleasant pages. She seems to have inspired the
warmest feelings of friendship in those who knew her. Guizot writes to
her: 'Madame de Stael used to say that the best thing in the world was a
serious Frenchman. I turn the compliment, and say that the best thing in
the world is an affectionate Englishman. How much more an Englishwoman!
Given equal qualities, a woman is alw