2/11 Her poetry is graceful, the thoughts are natural, and the versification is polished. She is a very youthful authoress, and a beauty as well as a _bel esprit_. Her mother's novels have beguiled many an hour of mine that might otherwise have been weary, for they have the rare advantage of displaying an equal knowledge of the world with a lively sensibility. They possess the art of giving interest even to trifles, and have a natural eloquence _de plume_, as well as _de langue_, that renders the task an easy one. It is the custom in England to decry French novels, because the English unreasonably expect that the literature of other countries should be judged by the same criterion by which they examine their own, without making sufficient allowance for the different manners and habits of the nations. |