Elizabeth Barrrett to Lady Margaret Cocks, 29 September 1837: 'I confess to you that I utterly dislike Lady Mary! [...] She had a hard shining imagination, instead of a heart -- and words studied into carelessness, beating up & down, where warm natural woman pulses ought to have beat. She had too little depth for manhood, -- & too little softness for womanhood. Take away the corner stone & the top stone from Horace Walpole's imagination -- or rather, take away what poetry he had -- & dress him up in a hoop -- & there is Lady Mary Wortley Montague ready for court!! ---- I never could bear her -- or Horace Walpole either -- and whenever I have looked at her letters, I have felt too much out of humour to be amused.' '