Letitia Elizabeth Landon

“ Indeed it is a doubtful fact whether clever people are ever very agreeable; they are too much absorbed by one particular pursuit, too bound lightly enough over those generalities which are the stepping-stones of conversation; they feel as if they ought to say something worth remembering. Now carelessness in the talker is what most puts the listener at ease with himself. In some cases it seems a duty to recollect, and we all know what disagreeable things duties are.
Mrs. Burgoyne, on the contrary, was simple and naïve to the age of eighty. ”

“ Our kind hostess rarely stirred from her arm-chair; but that served as an excuse to draw near to herself any one who needed encouragement: none but those who have keen feelings of their own can enter into those of others, and this susceptibility in her was cultivated by that constant attention which is the most difficult lesson of good breeding. Mrs. Burgoyne was proud—but her very pride showed itself in respect—she only claimed what she herself was ready to yield: her theory was comprised in her favourite anecdote of the late Lord Besborough. ”

“ Still, to use her own remark, "It is better to be anything rather than conspicuous: never meet the fashion, but always follow it." She had been a beauty and an heiress, and had gone through life on the sunny side. ”