, but the
voice of each was a sort of laugh in solution, and this would produce a
sense of laughter in others, even though in the words of the speaker
herself there was no special felicity.

The Duchess of Montrose, by the mere tone in which she mentioned a
name, would often convey a whole criticism of the person named; and
though her topics and language were not infrequently of a kind which
caused austere censors to reprehend, and even to avoid, her, yet if such
censors found themselves by chance in her company, they would one and
all be listening to her before five minutes was over.

The Duchess of Somerset's voice had the same spell of ambushed laughter
in it, but she was a far greater mistress of the actual arts of
language, if "art" be a word appropriate to the exercise of natural
genius. I was asked by her daughter, Lady Guendolen Ramsden, to help her
in compiling a volume of family memoirs, which would, so we hoped, have
comprised a number of the Duchess's letters; but most of these had to be
discarded as not suitable for publication, because of the numerous
sketches contained in them of various friends or connections, which were
drawn with a wit and precision worthy of Miss Austen herself in her
least merciful moments. One specimen, however, may be given without
compunction. She was describing a visit paid by her to a well-known
country house, and mentioned that among the company were a prominent
statesman and his wife, the former of whom was dear to caricaturists on
account of his superabundant figure. "Sir ---- and Lady ---- are here,"
she wrote. "She is expecting; but he shows it most."

Here are examples of conversational or descriptive art which, in a large
and mixed society, would, even if possible, be hardly so much as
perceptible. I may take as two other examples Sophy, Lady Roden, and
Lady Dorothy Nevill. Unlike Lady Dorothy, whose chronicled sayings have
made her a public character, Lady Roden was known only to a small circle
of intimates. She was a daughter of Byron's celebrated friend Mr.
Hobhouse, subsequently Lord Broughton, and had received something of a
really classical education under the semipaternal auspices of Thomas
Love Peacock. Hence her conversation had a certain natural crispness
which enabled her to indicate by touches, however light, any oddities of
demeanor or conduct on the part of friends or acquaintances to persons
whose standards were more or less like her own. There was a sill