"She has all the firmness that does not exclude delicacy; she has all the softness that does not imply weakness.
"Her voice is a soft low music—not formed to rule in public assemblies, but to charm those who can distinguish a company from a crowd; it has this advantage—YOU MUST COME CLOSE TO HER TO HEAR IT.
"To describe her body describes her mind—one is the transcript of the other; her understanding is not shown in the variety of matters it exerts itself on, but in the goodness of the choice she makes.
"She does not display it so much in saying or doing striking things, as in avoiding such as she ought not to say or do.
"No person of so few years can know the world better; no person was ever less corrupted by the knowledge of it.
"Her politeness flows rather from a natural disposition to oblige, than from any rules on that subject, and therefore never fails to strike those who understand good breeding and those who do not.
"She has a steady and firm mind, which takes no more from the solidity of the female character than the solidity of marble does from its polish and lustre. She has such virtues as make us value the truly great of our own sex. She has all the winning graces that make us love even the faults we see in the weak and beautiful, in hers."
Let us give, as a companion picture, the not less beautiful delineation of a husband, that of Colonel Hutchinson, the Commonwealth man, by his widow. Shortly before his death, he enjoined her "not to grieve at the common rate of desolate women." And, faithful to his injunction, instead of lamenting his loss, she indulged her noble sorrow in depicting her husband as he had lived.
"They who dote on mortal excellences," she says, in her Introduction to the 'Life,' "when, by the inevitable fate of all things frail, their adored idols are taken from them, may let loose the winds of passion to bring in a flood of sorrow, whose ebbing tides carry away the dear memory of what they have lost; and when comfort is essayed to such mourners, commonly all objects are removed out of their view which may with their remembrance renew the grief; and in time these remedies succeed, and oblivion's curtain is by degrees drawn over the dead face; and things less lovely are liked, while they are not viewed together with that which was most excellent. But I, that am under a command not to grieve at the common rate of desolate women, [2014] while I am studying which way to moderate my woe, and if it were possible to augment my love, I can for the present find out none more just to your dear father, nor consolatory to myself, than the preservation of his memory, which I need not gild with such flattering commendations as hired preachers do equally give to the truly and titularly honourable. A naked undressed narrative, speaking the simple truth of him, will deck him with more substantial glory, than all the panegyrics the best pens could ever consecrate to the virtues of the best men."
The following is the wife's portrait of Colonel Hutchinson as a husband:—