Her letters show Teresa as the Castilian gentlewoman
who not only treats on terms of perfect equality with people of the
highest rank in the kingdom, but is in the greatest request by them. Her
letters, of which probably only a tithe remains, show us how marvellously
the horizon of her life had expanded, and how rapidly her fame had grown.
Perhaps no more finished specimen of epistolary correspondence has ever
been penned than those letters, written in the press of multifarious
occupations, and often late at night when the rest of the convent was
sleeping.'
Her confessor, who commanded Teresa to throw her _Commentary on the Song
of Solomon_ into the fire, was a sensible man and a true friend to her
reputation, and the nun who snatched a few leaves out of the fire did
Teresa's fame no service. Judging of the whole by the part preserved to
us, there must have been many things scattered up and down the destroyed
book well worthy of her best pen. The 'instance of self-esteem' which
Teresa so delightfully narrates is well worth all the burnt fingers its
preservation had cost the devoted sister: and up and down the charred
leaves there are passages on conduct and character, on obedience and
humility and prayer, that Teresa alone could have written.
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