her demerits, is a difficult task. A woman of a
hundred opposing facets; of rare culture and charm, and of whims and
fancies and strange enthusiasms each battling with the other. Thus, by
turns tender and callous, hot-tempered and soft-hearted; childishly
simple in some things, and amazingly shrewd in others; trusting and
suspicious; arrogant and humble, yet supremely indifferent to public
opinion; grateful for kindness and loyal to her friends, but neither
forgetting nor forgiving an injury. Men had treated her worse than she
had treated them.

For the rest, a flashing, vivid personality, full of resource and high
courage, and always meeting hard knocks and buffets with equanimity.
Lola Montez had lived every moment of her life. In the course of their
career, few women could have cut a wider swath, or one more colourful
and glamorous. She had beauty and intelligence much above the average.
All the world had been her stage; and she had played many parts on it.
Some of them she had played better than others; but all of them she
had played with distinction. She had boxed the compass as no woman had
ever yet boxed it. From adventuress to evangelist; coryphee,
courtesan, and convert, each in turn. At the start a mixture of
Cleopatra and Aspasia; and at the finish a feminine Pelagian. Equally
at home in the company of princes and poets and diplomats and
demireps, during the twenty years she was before the public she had
scaled heights and sunk to depths. Thus, she had queened it in palaces
and in camps; danced in opera houses and acted in booths; she had bent
monarchs and politicians to her will; she had stood on the steps of a
throne, and in the curb of a gutter; she had known pomp and power,
riches and poverty, dazzling successes and abject failures; she had
conducted amours and liaisons and intrigues by the dozen; she had made
history in two hemispheres; a king had given up his crown for her; men
had lived for her; and men had died for her.

As with the rest of us, Lola Montez had her faults. Full measure of
them. But she also had her virtues. She was gallant and generous and
charitable. At the worst, her heart ruled her head; and if she did
many a foolish thing, she never did a mean one.

* * * * *

In the final analysis, when the last balance is struck, this will
surely be placed to her credit.

* * * * *

APPENDIX I

EXTRACTS FROM "ARTS OF BE