ed womanhood,
undertook a translation of the Iliad. She showed no inclination for the
frivolous amusements of a frivolous society. Her view of life and its
responsibilities was a serious one, and she addressed all her energies
to the work of self-improvement and self-culture. She read and re-read
the literary masterpieces of England, France and Germany. As a linguist
she earned special distinction.

"Her intellectual faculties," says her master, M. Papadopoulos,
"expanded with so much rapidity, that the professors charged with her
instruction could not keep any other pupil abreast of her in the same
studies. Not only did she make a wholly unexpected and unhoped-for
progress, but it became necessary for her teachers to employ with her a
particular method: her genius could not submit to the restraint of
ordinary rules."

She was still in the springtime and flush of youth, when she went on a
tour to Germany, and visited several German courts, where she excited
the same sentiments of admiration as in her own country; it was
impossible to see her without being attracted by so much intellect,
grace and amiability. Travelling enlarged her horizon: she was able to
survey, as from a watch-tower, the course of great political events, and
she found herself mixing continually with the most celebrated savants
and statesmen of the age. Her friendly relations with persons of very
diverse opinions, while enabling her to compare and contrast a great
variety of theories, did but strengthen in her "the idea and sentiment
of liberty, which can alone conduct society to its true aim." Finally,
from the Italian revolution of 1848, which awoke her warmest
sympathies, she learned to understand the fatal consequences of despotic
government, as well as the inevitable mistakes of freedom, when first
unfettered and allowed to walk alone.

At the age of twenty she was married (February, 1849), and soon
afterwards she set out for St. Petersburg, where she was recognised as
the ornament of the higher society. In the midst of her numerous
engagements, in the midst of the homage rendered to her wit and grace,
she found time to collect a mass of valuable notes on the condition and
inner life of the great Russian Empire, several provinces of which she
knew from personal observation. From St. Petersburg to Moscow, from
Odessa to Revel, her untiring activity carried her. Most social
questions are at work under an apparent calm, and offer, therefore,
sub