This was a woman artificially educated, but in reality ignorant;
a woman whose instincts and feelings were lofty while the thought
which should have controlled them was wanting. She squandered
the wealth of her nature in obedience to social conventions; she
was ready to brave society, yet she hesitated till her scruples
degenerated into artifice. With more wilfulness than real force
of character, impressionable rather than enthusiastic, gifted
with more brain than heart; she was supremely a woman, supremely
a coquette, and above all things a Parisienne, loving a brilliant
life and gaiety, reflecting never, or too late; imprudent to the
verge of poetry, and humble in the depths of her heart, in spite
of her charming insolence. Like some straight-growing reed, she
made a show of independence; yet, like the reed, she was ready to
bend to a strong hand. She talked much of religion, and had it
not at heart, though she was prepared to find in it a solution of
her life. How explain a creature so complex? Capable of heroism,
yet sinking unconsciously from heroic heights to utter a spiteful
word; young and sweet-natured, not so much old at heart as aged
by the maxims of those about her; versed in a selfish philosophy
in which she was all unpractised, she had all the vices of a
courtier, all the nobleness of developing womanhood. She trusted
nothing and no one, yet there were times when she quitted her
sceptical attitude for a submissive credulity.
How should any portrait be anything but incomplete of her, in
whom the play of swiftly-changing colour made discord only to
produce a poetic confusion? For in her there shone a divine
brightness, a radiance of youth that blended all her bewildering
characteristics in a certain completeness and unity informed by
her charm.
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