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. {21}
Lady Hester seems to have heartily despised everything approaching
to exquisiteness. She told me, by-the-bye (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.
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