It seemed as if truth passed directly from your heart to ours without the aid of a medium, at least, I felt that everywhere the thoughts struck you, nowhere the words, and this, in my opinion, is the perfection of composition, it is soul speaking to soul. …… Truly, one cannot despair when God sends us such teachers.
"But you will wish me away for another four months, if I write you such long notes, so I shall conclude with kind compliments to Mrs. Duffy, and remain, yours very sincerely,
"FRANCESCA ELGEE."
This letter is a convincing proof of the way in which Speranza threw a glamour over the most ordinary things. Of common sense she had not a vestige. When a stone was thrown in Smith O'Brien's face at Limerick, she wrote the following grandiloquent letter to Gavan Duffy:—
"What can be done with such idiots and savages? …… This noble Smith O'Brien who has sacrificed all for the people, and who could gain nothing in return, for no position, however exalted, could add to his dignity, whose life has been a sacrifice to his country, a self-immolation,—and this is the man who has to be guarded by English from Irish murderers! I cannot endure to think of it. We are disgraced for ever before Europe, and justly so. Adieu."
