In our opinion this egotism was the result of the vigor of her nature, which, in conversation, broke all conventional bounds, and came out in its whole wealth of thought and acquisition, eager for controversy or ravenous for sympathy, and communicating to her mind a bright and strong sense of individual power which at the time almost palliated its excesses. The excitement of her mind produced that effect which we often see in persons who are enraged—a condition in which expressions, regretted afterward for their extravagance, seem at the time too weak to convey the hot feeling of wrong which burns beneath them. In her journals, where she sharply scrutinises what she is and what she has produced, and where there is no excitement to stimulate her powers, she is sufficiently humble, acutely feels her imperfections, and the “mountainous me” dwindles into a mole-hill. She seems to have had the aspirations and the ambitions of great genius, had sufficient breadth of mind to take in the wide varieties of human power in history and literature, and had a corresponding scorn for the little and the common in mental effort; but she lacked a creative imagination, and was incapable of producing anything which at all realized the intimations of her nature. In conversation she rose instantly into sympathetic companionship with creative minds, and in the heat of the moment mistook it for a companionship and community in power. In this mood she might despise many who were her superiors in the shaping power of genius, though her inferiors in its loftiest aspirations. These volumes are full of instances of her sincerity, her geniality, her love of the beautiful in nature and art, her fine critical powers, her enthusiasm for great measures of reform in America and Europe, and the noble scale on which she conducted her mental and moral culture. Though many may take exception to the generosity of the praise which her biographers lavish on her various graces and gifts of mind, every one must acknowledge the extreme richness of the materials which are frankly exhibited, to enable the reader to judge for himself. We doubt if there is any other American biography in which the whole interior truth relating to the character of the subject is so completely set forth, or which presents to the curious in mental organization so interesting a study in psychology. * * * * * _Ravenscliffe. By the author of “The Old Men’s Tales,” etc. etc. New York: Harper & Brother._