As in the case of Russia, so in the case of this interesting and courageous woman; one must go to neither extremity, neither to the _bourgeoisie_ nor to the _apacherie_, if one would discover the truth of her nature.
Nor need one fear to go direct to the lady herself, for she is the very soul of candour.

Moreover, she has that charming spirit of friendliness and communication which distinguished La Bruyere, a philosopher "always accessible, even in his deepest studies, who tells you to come in, for you bring him something more precious than gold or silver, _if it is the opportunity of obliging you_." Certainly Miss Royden does not resemble, in her attitude towards either God or the human race, that curious _religieuse_ Mdme.

de Maintenon, who having been told by her confessor in the floodtime of her beauty that "God wished her to become the King's mistress," at the end of that devout if somewhat painful experience, replied to a suggestion about writing her memoirs, "Only saints would find pleasure in its perusal." Miss Royden's memoirs, if they are ever written, would have, I think, the rather unusual merit of pleasing both saints and sinners; the saints by the depth and beauty of her spiritual experience, the sinners by her freedom from every shade of cant and by her strong, almost masculine, sympathy with the difficulties of our human nature.

Catherine the Great, in her colloquies with the nervous and hesitating Diderot, used to say, "Proceed; _between men_ all is allowable." One may affirm of Miss Royden that she is at once a true woman and a great man.
It is this perfect balance of the masculine and feminine in her personality which makes her so effective a public speaker, so powerful an influence in private discourse, and so safe a writer on questions of extreme delicacy, such as the problem of sex.

She is always on the level of the whole body of humanity, a complete person, a veritable human being, neither a member of a class nor the representative of a sex.
Perhaps it may be permitted to mention two events in her life which help one to understand how it is she has come to play this masculine and feminine part in public life.
One day, a day of torrential rain, when she was a girl living in her father's house in Cheshire, she and her sister saw a carriage and pair coming through the park towards the house.