Page:Memoirs of the Lady Hester Stanhope.djvu/196

 not talk, I read to her, out of the Speaker, a character of the first Lord Chatham. She recognized, and so did I, so many points of resemblance between herself and her grandfather, that she said, more than once, "That's me." At the words, "He reigned with unbounded control over the wilderness of free minds," I observed that there was something contradictory in control and freedom. "No, there is not," said she. "If you are walking on the road, and you inquire the way of some person you meet, he tells you the best road is in such a direction, and then takes his leave; you turn round, every now and then, as long as the person is in sight, to look at him to see if he points to you that you are going right; but you are free to go which way you will."

December 31.—I saw Lady Hester in the morning, after which I took a walk with my family: on my return, I went again to inquire how she was. One of her maids told me that, soon after I had left her, she suddenly burst into tears, and cried a great deal, they could not tell why; that she had called for Zezefôon to dress her, had, in a manner, rushed out of her bedroom, and had gone to the saloon, where, in consequence of her long confinement, she found all the sofa cushions piled up, and the sofa mattresses removed, so that she had not a place to sit down on; that then she had left the saloon abruptly, on seeing the state it