As regards this,
however, a critical attitude would be inconsistent with a candid
reference to the early annals of any biographer. Catherine was
decidedly not clever; she was not quick with her book, nor, indeed,
with anything else. She was not abnormally deficient, and she
mustered learning enough to acquit herself respectably in
conversation with her contemporaries, among whom it must be avowed,
however, that she occupied a secondary place. It is well known that
in New York it is possible for a young girl to occupy a primary one.
Catherine, who was extremely modest, had no desire to shine, and on
most social occasions, as they are called, you would have found her
lurking in the background. She was extremely fond of her father, and
very much afraid of him; she thought him the cleverest and handsomest
and most celebrated of men. The poor girl found her account so
completely in the exercise of her affections that the little tremor
of fear that mixed itself with her filial passion gave the thing an
extra relish rather than blunted its edge. Her deepest desire was to
please him, and her conception of happiness was to know that she had
succeeded in pleasing him. She had never succeeded beyond a certain
point. Though, on the whole, he was very kind to her, she was
perfectly aware of this, and to go beyond the point in question
seemed to her really something to live for.
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