No doubt, she talked very well; but like
all great talkers, she sometimes talked very ill. The great attraction
of her conversation was its reflection of one strange personality: she
glassed herself in it as in a mirror; and as she had seen much, and
known many great men, and gone through a vast variety of experience, she
had always something to tell which was interesting. But how largely it
was informed by egotism, and how narrowly at times it escaped the
reproach of silliness, may be understood, I think, from the following
specimen:--

"Doctor," one day she said to her physician, "you have no religion: what
I mean by religion is, adoration of the Almighty. Religion, as people
profess it, is nothing but a dress. One man puts on one coat, and
another another. But the feeling that I have is quite a different thing,
and I thank God that He has opened my eyes. You will never learn of me,
because you cannot comprehend my ideas, and therefore it is of no use
teaching you. Nobody opens a book to an idiot, that would foam and
splutter over it; for you never could make him read. Ah! I see my way a
little before me, and God vouchsafes to enlighten me perhaps more than
other people....

"It was ever an object with me to search out why I came into the world,
what I ought to do in it, and where I shall go to. _God has given me the
extraordinary faculty of seeing into futurity_; for a clear judgment
becomes matter of fact. It has ever been my study to know myself. I may
thank God for my sufferings, as they have enabled me to dive deeper into
the subject than, I believe, any person living. The theory of the soul,
doctor, what an awful thing!

"My religion is to try to do as well as I can in God's eyes. That is the
only merit I have. I try to do the best I can. Some of the servants
sometimes talk about my religion--_dyn es Sytt_, as they call it--and I
let them talk; for they explain it to people by saying it is to do what
is right, and to avoid all uncleanliness.

"My views of the Creator are very different. I believe that all things
are calculated, and what is written is written; but I do not suppose
that the devil is independent of God: he receives his orders. Not that
God goes and gives them to him, any more than the big my lord goes and
gives orders to his shoe-black. There is some secondary being that does
that--some _intendant_.

"There are angels of different degrees, from the highest down to the
devil. It must be an awf