‘I think one marked point, physical and mental, in her, was her tireless energy. Her very walk was indicative of this; the elastic springiness of every step. Also of another point in her character, stern determination,--the resolute folding in of her arms and hands, as she paced along a road or up and down a garden,--drawing herself up to her full height the while, with sparkling eye and compressed lips. She was teeming with life and energy;--whether it were over her favourite chess, when she would wait patiently but eagerly, thinking out each move; or enjoying the small-talk of society, watching faces and reading characters, to treasure them up for painting in one of her forthcoming volumes; or teaching a niece the beauties of sound and thought in the Italian of Dante; or playing at some game of thought with young people; or reading aloud one of her two favourite dearly-loved and untiringly-studied authors, Shakespeare and Boswell’s _Life of Johnson_. She was very sociable, lively, and threw her whole heart into the kindly entertaining of guests of all ages. Her eldest brother used to be very much struck with the unselfish way in which she bore any interruptions and calls upon her time. Even in the midst of her literary work, she would at once rise, leave it, and give her whole attention to any subject an incomer might wish to speak to her about.