garnished and superior mind, she was no favourite with the gentlemen. But there was an indescribable something about her appearance and manners which always compelled them to inquire who she was. No person ever talked with her without remembering what she said; and every one criticised what they could not forget. Yet it was not intellect that made her unpopular. Had she chosen to affect restless misanthropy, maudlin sensibility, or any other foppery, whereby to distinguish herself, she would have found plenty of admirers and imitators, but in her mind genius was checked by manly philosophy, and she could ill-conceal her contempt for those who knew talent only by its common diseases. The consciousness of mental power that lighted up her eye with such a burning spark of pride, and the expression of scorn for ever dancing on her lip ready to embody itself into sarcasm, was unquestionably the true reason why this splendid creature became the pariah of the ball-room. She was a strange sort of Di Vernon—no, she was not a Di Vernon either; and, as I now remember her, I cannot think of a single character living, or imaginary, whom she did resemble. She fascinated her enemies, but never pleased her friends. Power! power! and above all intellectual power was the constant dream of her wild ambition. To have been sure of a Madame de Staël’s reputation, a Queen Christina’s reputed powers, the intellectual fame of an Olympia Morata, she would have renounced human sympathy for ever, and lived unloving and unloved by the world,—there was a daring desire to send her genius abroad like an electric force to become eternally active,—and this desire might have been attained under more favouring circumstances, but she had no certain foundation for her antagonism and her pride.
Sometimes I talked of love, and reminded her how even all her three heroines were its reluctant victims. On this subject she often philosophised and always laughed.
“Who,” said she scornfully, “who that has felt the gush and the thrill attendant upon fame would be weak enough to exchange dominion over many for the despotism of one?”
Thus Electra Fitz-Arden reasoned superior to the De Staëls, the Christinas and the Olympias, and thus she actually thought, but I knew her better than she knew herself. Her affections were as rich and overflowing as her mental energies; and her craving for human sympathy was in direct proportion to that intense love of beauty which, in her, amounted to an intellectual passion. That she would love exclusively and extravagantly, I had no doubt; and my penetration soon singled out an object.
At a large party I first saw her with the Hon. Charles Loring, the second son of Lord Burton, then in the full flush of manly beauty. I saw in the carriage of his neck his high lineage and his