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I have been looking through some notices which appeared in the press after Miss Macnaughtan’s death.  Some of them allude to her wit, her energy and vivacity, the humour which was “without a touch of cynicism”; others, to her inexhaustible spirit, her geniality, and the “powers of sarcasm, which she used with strong reserve.”  Others, again, see through to the faith and philosophy which lay behind her humour, “Scottish in its penetrating tenderness.”

In my opinion my aunt’s strongest characteristic was a dazzling purity of soul, mind, and body.  She was a person whose very presence lifted the tone of the conversation.  It was impossible to think of telling her a nasty story, a “double entendre” fell flat when she was there.  She was the least priggish person in the world, but no one who knew her could doubt for an instant her transparent goodness.  I have read every word of her diary; there is not in it the record of an ugly thought, or of one action that would not bear the full light of day.  About her books she used to say that she had tried never to publish one word which her father would not like her to have written.

She had a tremendous capacity for affection, and when she once loved she loved most faithfully.  Her devotion to her father and to her eldest brother influenced her whole life, and it would have been impossible for those she loved to make too heavy claims on her kindness.

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Miss Macnaughtan had great social charm.  She was friendly and easy to know, and she had a wonderful power of finding out the interesting side of people and of seeing their good points.  Her popularity was extraordinary, although hers was too strong a personality to command universal affection.  Among her friends were people of the most varied dispositions and circumstances.  Distinction of birth, position, or intellect appealed to her, and she was always glad to meet a celebrity, but distinction was no passport to her favour unless it was accompanied by character.  To her poorer and humbler friends she was kindness itself, and she was extraordinarily staunch in her friendships.  Nothing would make her “drop” a person with whom she had once been intimate.

In attempting to give a character-sketch of a person whose nature was as complex as Miss Macnaughtan’s, one admits defeat from the start.  She had so many interests, so many sides to her character, that it seems impossible to present them all fairly.  Her love of music, literature, and art was coupled with an enthusiasm for sport, big-game shooting, riding, travel, and adventure of every kind.  She was an ambitious woman, and a brilliantly clever one, and her clearness of perception and wonderful intuition gave her a quick grasp of a subject or idea.  She had a thirst for knowledge which made learning easy, but hers was the brain of the poet and philosopher, not of the mathematician.  Accuracy of thought or information was often lacking.  Her imagination led the way, and left her with a picture of a situation or a subject, but she was very vague about facts and statistics.  As a woman of business she was shrewd, with all a Scotchwoman’s power of looking at both sides of a bawbee before she spent it, but she was also extraordinarily generous in a very simple and unostentatious way, and her hospitality was boundless.