think, about the best part of
them. You do not tell me what you think of Mr. Disraeli. I once met
him at a ball at the Duke of Sutherland's in the long picture gallery
of Stafford House. I was walking with Lord Shrewsbury, and without a
word of warning he stopped and introduced him, mentioning with
reckless mendacity that I had read every book he had written and
admired them all, then he coolly walked off and left me standing face
to face with the great statesman. He talked to me for some time, and
I studied him carefully. I should say he was a man with one steady
aim: endless patience, untiring perseverance, iron concentration;
marking out one straight line before him so unbending that despite
themselves men stand aside as it is drawn straightly and steadily on.
A man who believes that determination brings strength, strength brings
endurance, and endurance brings success. You know how often in his
novels he speaks of the influence of women, socially, morally, and
politically, yet his manner was the least interested or deferential in
talking that I have ever met with in a man of his class. He certainly
thought this particular woman of singularly small account, or else the
brusque and tactless allusion to his books may perhaps have annoyed
him as it did me; but whatever the cause, when he promptly left me at
the first approach of a mutual acquaintance, I felt distinctly
snubbed. Of the two men, Mr. Gladstone was infinitely more agreeable
in his manner, he left one with the pleasant feeling of measuring a
little higher in cubic inches than one did before, than which I know
no more delightful sensation. A Paris, bientot.

Elsewhere, we find cleverly-written descriptions of life in Italy, in
Algiers, at Hombourg, at French boarding-houses; stories about Napoleon
III., Guizot, Prince Gortschakoff, Montalembert, and others; political
speculations, literary criticisms, and witty social scandal; and
everywhere a keen sense of humour, a wonderful power of observation. As
reconstructed in these letters, the Inconnue seems to have been not
unlike Merimee himself. She had the same restless, unyielding,
independent character. Each desired to analyse the other. Each, being a
critic, was better fitted for friendship than for love. 'We are so
different,' said Merimee once to her, 'that we can hardly understand each
other.' But it was because they wer