lory to all her
father's hereditary honours. For his daughter was all her days a lioness
palisaded round with crosses, till by means of them she was transformed
into a lamb. But, all the time, the lioness was still lurking there.
Teresa's was one of those sovereign souls that are born from time to time
as if to show us what our race was created for at first, and for what it
is still destined. She was a queen among women. She was in intellect
the complete equal, and in still better things than intellect far the
superior, of Isabella and Elizabeth themselves. As she says in an
outspoken autobiographic passage, hers was one of those outstanding and
towering souls on which a thousand eyes and tongues are continually set
without any one understanding them or comprehending them. Her coming
greatness of soul is foreseen by some of her biographers in the attempt
which she made while yet a child to escape away into the country of the
Moors in search of an early martyrdom, so that she might see her Saviour
all the sooner, and stand in His presence all the purer. 'A woman,' says
Crashaw, 'for angelical height of speculation: for masculine courage of
performance, more than a woman; who, while yet a child, outran maturity,
and durst plot a martyrdom.

Scarce had she learnt to lisp the name
Of martyr, yet she thinks it shame
Life should so long sport with that breath,
Which, spent, can buy so brave a death.

Scarce had she blood enough to make
A guilty sword blush for her sake;
Yet has she heart dares hope to prove
How much less strong is death than love.

Be love but there, let poor six years
Be posed with the maturest fears
Man trembles at, we straight shall find
Love knows no nonage, nor the mind.'

Teresa's mother died just when her daughter was at that dangerous age in
which a young girl needs a wise mother most; 'the age when virtue should
begin to grow,' as she says herself. Teresa was an extraordinarily
handsome and attractive young lady, and the knowledge of that, as she
tells us, made her very vain, and puffed up her heart with foolish
imaginations. She has a powerful chapter in the opening of her
Autobiography on dangerous companionships in the days of youth. 'Oh that
all parents would take warning by me, and would look carefully into their
children's early friendships!' She suffered terribly from bad health all
her days, and that severe chastisement began to fall on he