104 
CONSTANCE C. W. NADEN. 
May, 1890 . 
subject of interest. And when her conversation warmed with 
enthusiasm, as it often did in discussions on the subject of 
evolution, one always felt that it was better to listen than to 
talk. In speaking, her voice, which was usually of high pitch— 
and had a slight natural peculiarity in the pronunciation of the 
letter “ r,” rather nleasing than otherwise—was remarkablv 
clear, impressive, and penetrating, and she was equally 
confident either before a small or a large audience. Music 
had little attraction for her, but her poems exhibit a skilled 
knowledge of the laws of rhythm. For gardening she had no 
taste, though so fond of flowers and botanic studies. Her 
sense of humour was decidedly keen. This came out 
sometimes in conversation, and is conspicuous in several 
of her poems, and occasionally appears in her prose 
writings. To her friends her manner was undeviatinglv 
kind, cordial, and affectionate. Her letters, in very dainty 
hand-writing, of which a few brief extracts have been 
given, were singularly frank and genial. Her fine and sweet 
temper was especially remarkable. 
The life-long friend nreviouslv alluded to, thus writes to me 
her impressions :—“ No one had a keener appreciation of fun, 
or entered more readily into a frolic than Miss Naden in her 
college days. She shared in all the frivolities of the ladies’ 
room—the afternoon teas, at which 
The cups were every shape and size 
That chance or purpose could devise ; 
But one and all the self-same hue, 
And that was like the maidens— blue, 
and the very occasional gossip. In conversation a deux Miss 
Naden had a special charm. She not only gave of her best, 
but extracted the best that was in one. To talk to her was, 
indeed, to drink in inspiration ; to receive a letter from her 
brilliant, facile pen was to know a joy which falls to the 
lot of few. It is difficult for one who has grown up with 
Miss Naden from childhood, and known her primarily as a 
tenderly affectionate and deeply sympathetic friend, to at all 
realise the impression of hardness and reserve which she is 
said to have produced upon strangers. Like George Eliot, she 
had the intellect of a man, but the heart of the most womanly 
of women, and though science and literature were much to 
her, love and friendship were infinitely more. What we have 
lost, whom she loved and who loved her, no words can say ; 
the grief is still so recent that as yet we scarcely dare to 
gauge it.” 
And now there remains but the final scene to record. On 
Saturday, 28th December, 1889, under leaden-coloured skies, 
in a bitter north-east wind, and with “rime in the air, sucking 
