Letter 6/9/1857 (Bridge of Allan) - 'I am very glad those are the reasons for your dislike of Mme de Genlis - both because I can entirely agree in the general principle of them - and because I can defend - or think I can defend, my favourite from the application of them. ... I would go farther than most people in requiring sincerity, whether in art or education, I have found it, in practical matters, so curiously difficult to determine what is, or is not, insincerity... let us go at once to the examples of all sincerity in Him who was the Truth... tell me what rule you have fixed upon as in all cases setting limits to dissimulation - I will try and apply your rule to Mme de Genlis - and then say what I can for her. I like her for her love of heroism - her unselfishness - her general grace of feeling - her love of nature, blooming out as it does through the fashions and the ignorance of her time as a girl's love of wild sweetbriar might be detected among the formalities of her court bouquet - and her exquisite expression of the truths she does perceive.'