To excel in work of the kind that occupied her days, a certain cast of mind was a prerequisite, and this analytical surplus was counterbalanced by what some might describe as a deficit in other areas, the non-rational faculties to which we tend to assign adjectives connoting conditions of comfort – viz. softness and warmth. The mind of my mother was one that breathed the air of abstractions, a chilly air to which only the chosen few were adapted. Intelligence of this kind was antithetical to disorder, and hence to passion.
