“She was, for her years, uncommonly familiar with English literature; spoke the French language with ease and elegance, was well versed in Italian, and had lately made great progress in her German studies. She had much taste in drawing, but had mostly abandoned that accomplishment for music; because, as she said, the latter gave greater pleasure to her friends, and she was a skilful performer both upon the piano and the harp. Shortly before her death, she had begun to pay some attention to sculpture, and had got her materials together for self-instruction in this highest branch of art. It affords an instructive lesson upon the use of time to know, that she had perfected herself in all these studies and accomplishments since her father’s accession to the Presidency, and in the leisure moments of a life almost devoted to society. In Washington, the etiquette of the place and her mother’s feeble health combined to devolve upon her, almost unaided, the entire performance of the social duties incident to her father’s station. She was but a young girl fresh from school; but all admired the self-possession, the tact, and the kindness with which she filled the position allotted to her; and how, young and retired as she was, society in her presence became something more genuine and hearty, as if ashamed of its false mockeries in the light of her sagacious mind and honest heart. “She was eminently social, and latterly her conversational powers were of the first order. She had read much; her advantages had been great, and she had reaped their entire fruit. She was a keen but kind observer of character, had been familiar with men and women of very various ranks and descriptions, and she would paint to the life the very interesting events which she had witnessed, and the character of the many distinguished persons with whom her fortune had made her acquainted. Full of information and of spirits, more anxious always to listen than to talk, yet never at a loss, even with the dullest, for something pleasant and entertaining to say, with a countenance beaming with honesty and intellect, and with a sweet cordiality of manners which invited at once confidence, affection, and respect. No wonder that wherever she went she became the centre of a circle of friends who loved her most tenderly, and at the same time looked up to her as one of a stronger mind and heart, as a guide and confidante. “She was a genuine tender-hearted woman. Observant of all the forms of elegant life, yet with the most utter contempt for its mere fashions; kind and attentive to all, yet without one point of sympathy with merely worldly people, she loved her friends with all the affection of a strong and ardent nature. She never saw or read of a kind or noble deed that her eyes did not fill with tears.