husband's intellectual labors, as I did in his repasts; because one was as natural to me as the other. As we had ever a perfect intercommunity of knowledge and opinions, he talked to me in private of political measures with entire confidence. If he wrote treatises on the arts, I did the same, though the subject was tedious to me. If he wished to write an essay for some Academy, we sat down to write in concert, that we might afterward compare our productions, choose the best, or compress them into one. I never interfered with his administration, but if a circular, letter, or important State paper were wanted, we talked the matter over with our usual freedom, and, impressed with his ideas and teeming with my own, I sometimes took up the pen, which I had more leisure to conduct than he had. Without me, Roland would have been quite as good a Minister, for his knowledge, his activity, and his integrity were all his own; but I infused into his writings that mixture of spirit and gentleness, of authoritative reason
