It was therefore necessary for
me to draw upon recollections rather than on written documents for my
materials; while the subject itself supplied me with nothing striking or
prominent with which to arrest the attention of the reader. It has been
said that the happiest individuals, like nations during their happiest
periods, have no history. In the case of my aunt, it was not only that
her course of life was unvaried, but that her own disposition was
remarkably calm and even. There was in her nothing eccentric or angular;
no ruggedness of temper; no singularity of manner; none of the morbid
sensibility or exaggeration of feeling, which not unfrequently
accompanies great talents, to be worked up into a picture. Hers was a
mind well balanced on a basis of good sense, sweetened by an affectionate
heart, and regulated by fixed principles; so that she was to be
distinguished from many other amiable and sensible women only by that
peculiar genius which shines out clearly enough in her works, but of
which a biographer can make little use. The motive which at last induced
me to make the attempt is exactly expressed in the passage prefixed to
these pages.
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