Bella Moses combined a soft quiet manner with forceful unalterable opinions.

Evidence

Nonetheless, of Rosalie’s five children, Bella was the one most like her mother. If her looks weren’t as impressive, her mind was. Educated by private tutors and then at Charlier, the exclusive finishing school, she could speak both French and German fluently and had a wide acquaintance with the literature of both countries. And if her appearance was that of a quiet and sweet little girl, quite different from her mother, people who bothered to talk to the little girl found that the appearance was deceiving. In discussing her opinions, Bella was mannerly and soft-spoken, but the opinions delivered in that soft voice were direct, forceful—and not particularly susceptible to alteration. In fact, people who tried to alter them came to realize rather quickly that while Bella’s voice was soft, the things she might say with it could be sharp indeed. “After you had talked to her,” recalls an acquaintance, “you began to observe her more closely. And it didn’t take you long to realize that under that quiet manner was an astonishing amount of arrogance. She was her mother’s daughter.” — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 122

Categorization

• XREF: Portrait of Bella resembles the forceful-under-gentle demeanor later attributed to her son Robert Moses — the stubbornness that drives his whole career.