f blank loss will they long continue to
lament one whose public success as an author was only commensurate with
the charm of her private companionship. Inheriting from both parents the
intellectual faculties which she so nobly exercised, her work has been
ended in the very noontide of life by premature failure of health; and
the long exile she endured for the sake of a better climate has failed to
arrest, though it delayed, the doom foretold by her physicians. To that
exile we owe the most popular, perhaps, of her contributions to the
literature of her country, "Letters from the Cape," and "Letters from
Egypt," the latter more especially interesting from the vivid, life-like
descriptions of the people among whom she dwelt, her aspirations for
their better destiny, and the complete amalgamation of her own pursuits
and interests with theirs. She was a settler, not a traveller among
them. Unlike Lady Hester Stanhope, whose fantastic and half-insane
notions of rulership and superiority have been so often recorded for our
amazement, Lady Duff Gordon kept the simple frankness of heart and desire
to be of service to her fellow-creatures without a thought of self or a
taint of vanity in her intercourse with them. Not for lack of flattery
or of real enthusiastic gratitude on their part. It is known that when
at Thebes, on more than one of her journeys, the women raised the "cry of
joy" as she passed along, and the people flung branches and raiment on
her path, as in the old Biblical descriptions of Eastern life. The
source of her popularity was in the liberal kindliness of spirit with
which she acted on all occasions, more especially towards those she
considered the victims of bad government and oppressive laws. She says
of herself: "one's pity becomes a perfect passion when one sits among the
people as I do, and sees all they endure. Least of all can I forgive
those among Europeans and Christians who can help to break these bruised
reeds." And again: "Would that I could excite the interest of my country
in their suffering! Some conception of the value of public opinion in
England has penetrated even here." Sympathizing, helping, doctoring
their sick, teaching their children, learning the language, Lady Duff
Gordon lived in Egypt, and in Egypt she has died, leaving a memory of her
greatness and goodness such as no other European woman ever acquired in
that country. It is touching to trace her lingering hopes of life an