nd."

"It has always seemed to me," she one day observed, "that women, in
travelling, might complete the task of the most scientific travellers;
for, as a fact, woman carries certain special aptitudes into literature.
She perceives more quickly than man everything connected with national
life and the manners of the people. A wide field, much too neglected,
lies open, therefore, to her observation. But, in order that she may
fitly explore it, she needs, what she too often fails to possess, a
knowledge of languages and of history, as well as the capability of
conforming herself to the different habitudes of nations, and the
faculty of enduring great fatigues.

"Happily for myself, I was not deficient in linguistic knowledge. In my
family the only language made use of was French. M. Papadopoulos at an
early age taught me Greek, which in the East is as important as French
in the West. The Germanic tongues terrified me at first, the peoples of
Pelasgic origin having no taste for those idioms. But I was industrious
enough and patient enough to triumph over all such difficulties, and
though the study of languages is far from being popular in the Latin
countries, I did not cease to pursue it until the epoch of my marriage.

"M. Papadopoulos has often referred to my passionate love of history
even in my early childhood. This passion has constantly developed. The
more I have travelled, the more clearly I have perceived that one cannot
know a people unless one knows thoroughly its antecedents; that is, if
one be not fully acquainted with its annals and its chief writers. In
studying a nation only in its contemporary manifestations, one is
exposed to the error into which one would assuredly fall if one
attempted to estimate the character of an individual after living only a
few hours in his company.

"Besides, to understand nations thoroughly, it is necessary to examine,
without any aristocratic prejudice, all the classes of which they are
composed. In Switzerland, I lived among the mountains, that I might gain
an exact idea of the Alpine life. In Greece, I traversed on horseback
the solitudes of the Peloponnesus. In Italy, I have established
relations with people of all faiths and conditions, and whenever the
opportunity has occurred, have questioned with equal curiosity the
merchant and the savant, the fisherman and the politician. When I appear
to be resting myself, I am really making those patient investigations,
indispensa