Page:Blanchard on L. E. L.pdf/217

Rh No one who conversed as L. E. L. did could be insensible to the enjoyment of such companionship as Miss Jewshury's. There was in it a moral, as well as an intellectual fascination; and L. E. L.'s gayer, and much less guarded and disciplined spirits were not proof against its influence. She had been tamed from high raillery, or almost childish glee, to a seriousness not less natural in her, though less seldom indulged in society, by the mastery of that eloquence, which she compares to a book full of thought and poetry. This charm was mutual. In thought, habit, manner, few persons bore less resemblance to each other; but there were some strong affinities of feeling between them, that brought them near and made them friends; some fine sympathies, which they had in common, and which fitted them to enjoy the converse both were so able to maintain. Perhaps the very contrasts between them favoured in some respects this appreciation of each other's powers. What L. E. L. thought of her grave and high-minded friend, she, on various occasions, expressed with characteristic warmth; how that friend thought and felt towards the brilliant L. E. L. we see expressed in a correspondence that followed their first meeting in London. At parting, Miss Jewsbury, playfully expressing her dislike "to be associated either on the 'red-leaved table' of a drawing-room, or of a heart, with an olive-coloured book," withdraws the dim volume her friend had detained as a memorial, and substitutes one more appropriate. "The English of all which," she continues, "is, that you will never see Pascal again, but must take the accompanying memorial, instead of a very warm friend. And now, farewell! The feeling with which I bid you farewell would amount to real