Letters from Egypt | Page 2

would have been set shining from within,
perhaps with a mild lustre; sensibly to the observant, more credibly of
the golden sort. Her dislike of superlatives, when the marked effect had
to be produced, and it was not the literary performance she could relish

as well as any of us, renders hard the task of portraying a woman whose
character calls them forth. To him knowing her, they would not fit; her
individuality passes between epithets. The reading of a sentence of
panegyric (commonly a thing of extension) deadened her countenance,
if it failed to quicken the corners of her lips; the distended truth in it
exhibited the comic shadow on the wall behind. That haunting demon
of human eulogy is quashed by the manner she adopted, from instinct
and training. Of her it was known to all intimate with her that she could
not speak falsely in praise, nor unkindly in depreciation, however much
the constant play of her humour might tempt her to exalt or diminish
beyond the bounds. But when, for the dispersion of nonsense about
men or things, and daintiness held up the veil against rational eyesight,
the gros mot was demanded, she could utter it, as from the Bench, with
a like authority and composure.
In her youth she was radiantly beautiful, with dark brows on a brilliant
complexion, the head of a Roman man, and features of Grecian line,
save for the classic Greek wall of the nose off the forehead. Women,
not enthusiasts, inclined rather to criticize, and to criticize so
independent a member of their sex particularly, have said that her entry
into a ballroom took the breath. Poetical comparisons run under heavy
weights in prose; but it would seem in truth, from the reports of her,
that wherever she appeared she could be likened to a Selene breaking
through cloud; and, further, the splendid vessel was richly freighted.
Trained by a scholar, much in the society of scholarly men, having an
innate bent to exactitude, and with a ready tongue docile to the curb,
she stepped into the world armed to be a match for it. She cut her way
through the accustomed troops of adorers, like what you will that is
buoyant and swims gallantly. Her quality of the philosophical humour
carried her easily over the shoals or the deeps in the way of a woman
claiming her right to an independent judgement upon the minor rules of
conduct, as well as upon matters of the mind. An illustrious foreigner,
en tete-a-tete with her over some abstract theme, drops abruptly on a
knee to protest, overpowered; and in that posture he is patted on the
head, while the subject of conversation is continued by the benevolent
lady, until the form of ointment she administers for his beseeching
expression and his pain compels him to rise and resume his allotted part

with a mouth of acknowledging laughter. Humour, as a beautiful
woman's defensive weapon, is probably the best that can be called in
aid for the bringing of suppliant men to their senses. And so
manageable are they when the idea of comedy and the chord of
chivalry are made to vibrate, that they (supposing them of the
impressionable race which is overpowered by Aphrodite's favourites)
will be withdrawn from their great aims, and transformed into happy
crust-munching devotees--in other words, fast friends. Lady Duff
Gordon had many, and the truest, and of all lands. She had, on the other
hand, her number of detractors, whom she excused. What woman is
without them, if she offends the conventions, is a step in advance of her
day, and, in this instance, never hesitates upon the needed occasion to
dub things with their right names? She could appreciate their
disapproval of her in giving herself the airs of a man, pronouncing
verdicts on affairs in the style of a man, preferring association with men.
So it was; and, besides, she smoked. Her physician had hinted at the
soothing for an irritated throat that might come of some whiffs of
tobacco. She tried a cigar, and liked it, and smoked from that day, in
her library chair and on horseback. Where she saw no harm in an act,
opinion had no greater effect on her than summer flies to one with a fan.
The country people, sorely tried by the spectacle at first, remembered
the gentle deeds and homely chat of an eccentric lady, and pardoned
her, who was often to be seen discoursing familiarly with the tramp on
the road, incapable of denying her house- door to the lost dog attached
by some instinct to her heels. In the circles named 'upper' there was
mention of women unsexing themselves. She preferred the society of
men, on the plain ground that they discuss matters of weight,