'[The Comtesse] has a [italics] library [end italics] of novels - literally; so that I wonder she has not, by filling her head with such a mass of trash, committed half a dozen murders and run away from her husband at least as many times, to make herself a heroine; - and, what is more, she cannot be [italics] scrupulous [end italics] in the selection of these novels, from the specimens of some she has lent me. Yet none of this idle reading seems to have injured her mind or manners; she speaks French beautifully, has very good manners, and is, I am told, very amiable'.