states she "had the opportunity of embodying many a sad and serious thought which had arisen in hours of solitude and despondency."
In the lighter departments of criticism, she was also a devoted labourer, and it is stated that "were her opinions upon books and authors impartially extracted and collected in volumes, there would be seen in them the result of great miscellaneous reading, research in more than one foreign language, acuteness and brilliancy of remark, without one ungenerous or vindictive sentiment, one trace of unkindly or interested feeling."
L. E. L. has herself remarked, that "a history of the how and where works of imagination have been produced, would often be more extraordinary than the works themselves." A friend of hers observes, that "though a dilettante of literature would assign for the scene of her authorship a fairy-like boudoir, with rose-coloured and silver hangings, filled with all the luxuries of a fastidious taste," yet the reality was of a very different nature; for though her drawing-room was prettily furnished, "it was her invariable habit to write in her bed-room,—"a homely-looking, almost uncomfortable room, fronting the street, and barely furnished—with a simple white bed, at the foot of which was a small, old, oblong-shaped sort of dressing-table, quite covered with a common worn writing-desk, heaped with papers, while some strewed the ground, the table being too small for aught besides the desk. A little high-backed cane chair, which gave you any idea but that of comfort, and a few books scattered about, completed the author's paraphernalia."
Love and chivalry were the favourite topics of Miss
