ingsley 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 always more charming than a man.'

Lucie Austin, afterwards Lady Duf