It is not that Vinnie is--or rather was, since she is dead for me--an
educated girl in the Copenhagen sense of the word. The verdict of the
Danish educational establishments upon her would be that she was a
deplorably uneducated girl. She was incomprehensibly dull at languages.
She would be childishly amused at a jest or joke or compliment as old as
the hills (such as the Italians were fond of using), and think it new,
for she knew nothing of the European storehouse of stereotyped remarks
and salted drivel. Her own conversation was new; a breath of the
independence of the great Republic swept through it. She was no fine
lady, she was _an American girl_, who had not attained her rank by
birth, or through inherited riches, but had fought for it herself with a
talent that had made its way to the surface without early training,
through days and nights of industry, and a mixture of enthusiasm and
determination.
She was vain; she certainly was that. But again like a child, delighted
at verses in her honour in the American papers, pleased at homage and
marks of distinction, but far more ambitious than vain of personal
advantages. She laughed when we read in the papers of Vinnie Ream, that,
in spite of the ill-fame creative lady artists enjoy, far from being a
monster with green eyes, she ventured to be beautiful.
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