It may be affirmed without delay that Isabel was probably very liable to the sin of self-esteem; she often surveyed with complacency the field of her own nature; she was in the habit of taking for granted, on scanty evidence, that she was right; she treated herself to occasions of homage.

Meanwhile her errors and delusions were frequently such as a biographer interested in preserving the dignity of his subject must shrink from specifying.

Her thoughts were a tangle of vague outlines which had never been corrected by the judgement of people speaking with authority.

In matters of opinion she had had her own way, and it had led her into a thousand ridiculous zigzags.

At moments she discovered she was grotesquely wrong, and then she treated herself to a week of passionate humility.