"It is difficult to describe what one means by imagination, but I think it is more than inventiveness, or fancy. I remember discussing the question with John Addington Symonds and, to give him a hasty illustration of what I meant, I said I thought naming a Highland regiment 'The Black Watch' showed a HIGH degree of imagination. He was pleased with this; and as a personal testimonial I may add that both he and Jowett told me that no one could be as good a judge of character as I was who was without imagination. In an early love-letter to me, Henry wrote:
"Imaginative insight you have more than any one I have ever met!
"I think I am deficient in one form of imagination; and Henry will agree with this. I have a great longing to help those I love: this leads me to intrepid personal criticism; and I do not always know what hurts my friends' feelings. I do not think I should mind anything that I have said to others being said to me, but one never can tell; I have a good, sound digestion and personally prefer knowing the truth; I have taken adverse criticism pretty well all my life and had a lot of it; but by some gap I have not succeeded in making my friends take it well. I am not vain or touchy; it takes a lot to offend me; but when I am hurt the scar remains. I feel differently about people who have hurt me; my confidence has been shaken; I hope I am not ungenerous, but I fear I am not really forgiving. Worldly people say that explanations are a mistake; but having it out is the only chance any one can ever have of retaining my love; and those who have neither the courage, candour nor humbleness to say they are wrong are not worth loving. I am not afraid of suffering too much in life, but much more afraid of feeling too little; and quarrels make me profoundly unhappy. One of my complaints against the shortness of life is that there is not time enough to feel pity and love for enough people. I am infinitely compassionate and moved to my foundations by the misfortunes of other people.
"As I said in my 1888 character-sketch, truthfulness with me is hardly a virtue, but I cannot discriminate between truths that need and those that need not be told. Want of courage is what makes so many people lie. It would be difficult for me to say exactly what I am afraid of. Physically and socially not much; morally, I am afraid of a good many things: reprimanding servants, bargaining in shops; or to turn to more serious matters, the loss of my health, the children's or Henry's. Against these last possibilities I pray in every recess of my thoughts.
"With becoming modesty I have said that I am imaginative, loving and brave! What then are my faults?
"I am fundamentally nervous, impatient, irritable and restless. These may sound slight shortcomings, but they go to the foundation of my nature, crippling my activity, lessening my influence and preventing my achieving anything remarkable. I wear myself out in a hundred unnecessary ways, regretting the trifles I have not done, arranging and re-arranging what I have got to do and what every one else is going to do, till I can hardly eat or sleep. To be in one position for long at a time, or sit through bad plays, to listen to moderate music or moderate conversation is a positive punishment to me. I am energetic and industrious, but I am a little too quick; I am DRIVEN along by my temperament till I tire myself and every one else.
"I did not marry till I was thirty. This luckily gave me time to read; and I collected nearly a thousand books of my own before I married. If I had had real application—as all the Asquiths have— I should by now be a well-educated woman; but this I never had. I am not at all dull, and never stale, but I don't seem to be able to grind at uncongenial things. I have a good memory for books and conversations, but bad for poetry and dates; wonderful for faces and pitiful for names.
"Physically I have done pretty well for myself. I ride better than most people and have spent or wasted more time on it than any woman of intellect ought to. I have broken both collar-bones, all my ribs and my knee-cap; dislocated my jaw, fractured my skull, gashed my nose and had five concussions of the brain; but—though my horses are to be sold next week [Footnote: My horses were sold at Tattersalls, June 11th, 1906.]—I have not lost my nerve. I dance, drive and skate well; I don't skate very well, but I dance really well. I have a talent for drawing and am intensely musical, playing the piano with a touch of the real thing, but have neglected both these accomplishments. I may say here in self- defence that marriage and five babies, five step-children and a husband in high politics have all contributed to this neglect, but the root of the matter lies deeper: I am restless.
"After riding, what I have enjoyed doing most in my life is writing. I have written a great deal, but do not fancy publishing my exercises. I have always kept a diary and commonplace books and for many years I wrote criticisms of everything I read. It is rather difficult for me to say what I think of my own writing. Arthur Balfour once said that I was the best letter-writer he knew; Henry tells me I write well; and Symonds said I had l'oreille juste; but writing of the kind that I like reading I cannot do: it is a long apprenticeship. Possibly, if I had had this apprenticeship forced upon me by circumstances, I should have done it better than anything else. I am a careful critic of all I read and I do not take my opinions of books from other people; I have not got 'a lending-library mind' as Henry well described that of a friend of ours. I do not take my opinions upon anything from other people; from this point of view—not a very high one—I might be called original.
"When I read Arthur Balfour's books and essays, I realised before I had heard them discussed what a beautiful style he wrote. Raymond, whose intellectual taste is as fine as his father's, wrote in a paper for his All Souls Fellowship that Arthur had the finest style of any living writer; and Raymond and Henry often justify my literary verdicts.