Page:Blanchard on L. E. L.pdf/216

216 We have said nothing of the religious principles of L. E. L., nor need we after this, which so eloquently expresses much in a few words; unless it be to remark, that even in regard to her religious feelings and belief, she was not always free from misrepresentation. She was a constant attendant at Divine worship. Faith and hope she had at all times in the beauty and heavenliness of Christianity; and, if her charity exceeded even these in its truth and steadfastness, it was only because that has been pronounced to be the greatest of the Three.

To the foregoing may be added, as another instance of her superiority to literary jealousy, and of ungrudging admiration of genius and virtue in her own sex, her recollection of one "who was equally amiable and accomplished"—of her who married and went to India, "full of hope and belief, and thinking she might do much good; but the tomb suddenly closed upon her warm and kindly heart." The allusion is to the author of "The Three Histories," the excellent Miss Jewsbury, afterwards the wife of the Rev. Mr. Fletcher.

"I never met with any woman who possessed her powers of conversation. If her language had a fault, it was its extreme perfection. It was like reading an eloquent book—full of thought and poetry. She died too soon; and what noble aspirings, what generous enthusiasm, what kindly emotions went down to the grave with her unfulfilled destiny. There is no word that will so thoroughly describe her as "highminded;" she was such in every sense of the word. There was no envy, no bitterness about her; and it must be a lofty nature that delights in admiration. Greatly impressed as I was with her powers, it surprised me to note how much she desponded over them.

"Alas! it was the shadow of the early grave that rested upon her."