She talks fast, uses no notes what ever, never hesitates for a word, always gets the right word in the right place, and has the most perfect confidence in herself. Indeed, her sentences are remarkably smoothly-woven and felicitous. Her vim, her energy, her determined look, her tremendous earnestness, would compel the respect and the attention of an audience, even if she spoke in Chinese -- would convince a third of them, too, even though she used arguments that would not stand analysis. ... She will make a right venomous old maid some day, I am afraid. She said that she was arguing upon her favorite subject with a self-sufficient youth one day, and she silenced his guns one after another till at last he staked his all upon one powerful proposition: "Would you have all women strong-minded?" "No!" she thundered, "God forbid that the millions of men of your calibre that cumber the earth should be doomed to travel its weary ways unmated!"
- Letter to San Francisco Alta California, published 5 April 1867