Lady Hester's mimicry of the bard was at all close, but it was amusing: she attributed to him a curiously coxcombical lisp.
Another person whose style of speaking the Lady took off very amusingly was one who would scarcely object to suffer by the side of Lord Byron,—I mean Lamartine, who had visited her in the course of his travels; the peculiarity which attracted her ridicule was an over-refinement of manner: according to my Lady's imitation of Lamartine (I have never seen him myself), he had none of the violent grimace of his countrymen, and not even their usual way of talking, but rather bore himself mincingly, like the humbler sort of English Dandy.[1]
Lady Hester seems to have heartily despised everything approaching to exquisiteness; she told me, by the by (and her opinion upon that subject is worth having), that a downright manner, amounting even to brusqueness, is more effective than any other with the Oriental; and that amongst the English, of all ranks, and all classes, there is no man so attractive to the Orientals—no man who can negotiate with them half so effectively, as a good, honest, open-hearted, and positive naval officer of the old school.
I have told you, I think, that Lady Hester could deal fiercely with those she hated; one man above all others (he is now uprooted from society, and cast away for ever) she blasted with her wrath; you would have thought that in the scornfulness of her nature, she must have sprung upon her foe with more of fierceness than of skill, but this was not so, for with all the force and vehemence of her invective, she displayed a sober, patient and minute attention to the details of vituperation, which contributed to its success a thousand times more than mere violence.
- ↑ It is said that deaf people can hear what is said concerning themselves, and it would seem that those who live without books, or newspapers, know all that is written about them. Lady Hester Stanhope, though not admitting a book or newspaper into her fortress, seems to have known the way in which M. Lamartine mentioned her in his book, for in a letter which she wrote to me after my return to England, she says, "although neglected, as Monsieur Le M." (referring as I believe to M. Lamartine) "describes, and without books, yet my head is organized to supply the want of them, as well as acquired knowledge."
