Page:Blanchard on L. E. L.pdf/79

Rh to take interest; from these it would appear that no monthly number escaped her critical observation; and that she took as much pains to let the editor (or at least his lady) know what she thought of each contribution in succession, as though she had been called upon to play the critic officially. Many of these notes have reference to the "New Monthly," at the period when it was under the management of Mr. S. C. Hall; and, if it came within the scope of our design to print any of them here, they would prove how unwearied was her application, how interested she was in even the fleeting literature of her day, and how habitual was her anxiety for the welfare of her friends. How many such commentaries would she write, and through how many motley pages would she read, before the materials for her letter were collected! To those who, looking at the quantity of her published prose and poetry, might wonder how she found time for all these private and unproductive exercises of her pen, it may be desirable to explain, not merely that she wrote, but that she read, with remarkable rapidity. Books, indeed, of the highest character, she would dwell upon with "amorous delay;" but those of ordinary interest, or the nine-day wonders of literature, she would run through in a much shorter space of time than would seem consistent with that thorough understanding of their contents at which she always arrived, or with that accurate observation of the less striking features which she would generally prove to have been bestowed, by reference almost to the very page in which they might be noted. Of some work which she scarcely seemed to have glanced through, she would give an elaborate and succinct account, pointing out the gaps in the plot, or the discrepancies in the characters, and supporting her judgment by all but verbatim quotations.