Miss Seward paid several happy tributes in verse to her admired friends. One of these, written at the close of a prolonged visit, began thus:

Oh, Cambrian Tempe! Oft with transport hailed, I leave thee now, as I did ever leave Thee and thy peerless mistresses, with heart Where lively gratitude and fond regret For mastery strive.

She also published, in a little volume by itself, an enthusiastic poem in praise of the Cambrian Arden, Llangollen Valley, adorned with an engraving of the landscape as seen from the home of its Rosalind and Celia. They fully appreciated her affection, and returned it. They sent her the gift of a jewel consisting of the head and lyre of Apollo, making a ring and seal in one. In acknowledgment of this, the pleased and grateful poet wrote, "I have to thank you, dearest ladies, for a beautiful but too costly present. It is a fine gem in itself, and a rich and elegant circlet for the finger."

When Lady Butler and Miss Ponsonby left their splendid family residences in Ireland to seek in Wales a retirement where they might spend their days in the culture of letters and friendship, a faithful and affectionate servant who pined for them, after a few months of their absence, set out to search for them in England. She had no clew to direct her pursuit; since, to avoid solicitations to return, they had kept their place of abode secret even from their nearest relatives. Learning, however, of her attempt, they sent for her. She went, and was their fond servitor until her death, thirty years afterward. Miss Seward once writes to Lady Eleanor, "I was concerned to hear that you had lately been distressed by the illness and alarmed for the life of your good Euryclea. That she is recovering, I rejoice. The loss of a domestic, faithful and affectionate as Orlando's Adam, must have cast more than a transient gloom over the Cambrian Arden: the Rosalind and Celia of real life give Llangollen Valley a right to that title." When this endeared servant died, her mourning mistresses buried her in the grave which they had prepared for themselves, and inscribed above her a cordial tribute in verse.

Drawn by the pleasing sentiment that invests the story of these ladies, the writer, being then in England, made a pilgrimage from London to Llangollen in the early autumn of 1865.

It was Saturday afternoon when I arrived at the little Welsh inn. The next morning I found my way to the classic cottage. The fingers of Time had indeed been busy on it. The vestiges of its former glory were still apparent, but the ornaments were crumbled and dim. The prismatic lantern over the door was a mixture of garishness and dust. The bowers were broken, the vines and plants dead, the walks draggled and uneven, the gates rickety, the fences tottering or prostrate. The numerous tokens of art and care in the past made the present ruinousness and desolation more pathetic. I could not help recalling the final couplet of Miss Seward's poem, prophesying the fame of this place:

While all who honor virtue gently mourn Llangollen's vanished Pair, and wreathe their sacred urn.

Threading the briery dell, and following the brook that prattled down the steep slope, I climbed the hill which directly overhangs the hamlet. It was church-time as I sat down on the top, and slowly drank in the charms of that celebrated landscape. To such a scene, at such an hour, the very heart-strings grow. The fields were clothed with a dense velvety-green. Across the narrow glen, on the strange cone of Dinas Bran, frowned threateningly, in dark mass, unsoftened by distance, the huge, bare fragments of an old castle, the immemorial type of an iron age when the hearts of men were iron. Beneath my feet, the vapors of the morning floated here and there in the sunshine, like torn folds of a satin gauze. A hundred smokes curled from the village chimneys, and the tones of the sabbath bells were wafted up to me with no mixture of profane toils. The very cattle seemed to know the holy day, and to browse and gaze, or ruminate and look around, with an unusual assurance of repose and satisfaction. But the spell must be broken, however reluctantly.

Descending into the village, just as the religious service was ended, I went into the churchyard, and copied from the triangular tomb in which the Ladies of Llangollen sleep, with their favorite servant, amid the magical loveliness of the pastoral scenery, these three inscriptions. On the first side:

IN MEMORY OF MRS. MARY CARRYL, Deceased 22 November, 1809, This Monument is erected by Eleanor Butler And Sarah Ponsonby, of Plas Newydd, in this Parish.

Released from earth and all its transient woes, She, whose remains beneath this stone repose, Steadfast in faith resigned her parting breath, Looked up with Christian joy, and smiled in death. Patient, industrious, faithful, generous, kind, Her conduct left the proudest far behind. Her virtues dignified her humble birth, And raised her mind above this sordid earth. Attachment (sacred bond of grateful breasts) Extinguished but with life, this tomb attests; Reared by two friends who will her loss bemoan, Till with her ashes here shall rest their own.

On the second side:

SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF The Right Honorable LADY ELEANOR CHARLOTTE BUTLER, Late of Plas Newydd, in this parish, Deceased 2d June, 1829, Aged Ninety Years, Daughter of the Sixteenth, Sister of the Seventeenth Earls of Ormonde and Ossory, Aunt to the late and to the present Marquess of Ormonde.

Endeared to her many friends by an almost Unequalled excellence of heart, and by manners Worthy of her illustrious birth, the admiration And delight of a very numerous acquaintance, From a brilliant vivacity of mind, undiminished To the latest period of a prolonged existence. Her amiable condescension and benevolence Secured the grateful attachment of those By whom they had been so long and so Extensively experienced: her various perfections, Crowned by the most pious and cheerful Submission to the Divine Will, can only be Appreciated where, it is humbly believed, they are Now enjoying their eternal reward; and by her. Of whom for more than fifty years they constituted That happiness which, through our blessed Redeemer, She trusts will be renewed when this Tomb Shall have closed over its Latest Tenant.

On the third side:

SARAH PONSONBY departed this life On the 9th of December, 1831, aged 76.

She did not long survive her beloved companion, Lady Eleanor Butler, with whom she had lived in this Valley for more than half a century of uninterrupted friendship But they shall no more return to their house, neither Shall their place know them any more.

In that sequestered valley, how quietly, with what blessed joy and peace, their lives kept the even tenor of their way Standing beside their grave, in the shadow of the old church, while the little Welsh river ran whispering by, and thinking how the eyes and hearts in which so long and happy a love had burned, were now fallen to atoms, and literally mixed in the dust below, as once they morally mixed in life above, I felt, What a pity that those thus blessed cannot live forever! Then I thought, No, it is better as it is. They were happy. They drained the best cup existence can offer. When the world was becoming an infirmary, and the song of the grasshopper a burden, it was meet that they should sleep. Those only are to be pitied who die without the experience of affection.

This attempt to revive the story and brighten the urn of the Ladies of Llangollen may suggest that friendship lies within the province of women as much as within the province of men; that there are pairs of feminine friends as worthy of fame as any of the masculine couples set by classic literature in the empyrean of humanity; that uncommon love clothes the lives of its subjects with the interest of unfading romance; that the true dignity, happiness, and peace of women and of men, too—are to be found rather in the quiet region of personal culture, and the affections, than in the arena of ambitious publicity. Mrs. Thrale and Fanny Burney were every thing to each other for a long time. But, on the marriage of the former with Mr. Piozzi, a breach occurred, which was never repaired. Four years after this coldness, Fanny writes in her diary, "Oh, little does she know how tenderly, at this moment, I could run into her arms, so often opened to receive me with a cordiality I believed inalienable." Two years after that, Mrs. Piozzi writes in her diary, "I met Miss Burney at an assembly last night. She appeared most fondly rejoiced in good time I answered with ease and coldness, but in exceeding good humor; and all ended, as it should do, with perfect indifference." Thirty- one years later still, Fanny enters in her diary this brief record: "I have just lost my once most dear, intimate, and admired friend, Mrs. Thrale Piozzi."

The young Bettine Brentano, several years before her acquaintance with Goethe, was placed temporarily in the house of a female religious order to pursue her studies. There she soon made the acquaintance of a canoness named Guenderode, considerably older than herself, though still young, with rare mental endowments and romantic affections. The cultivated intellect, spirituality, and mystic melancholy of Guenderode, under her singularly attractive features and calm demeanor, drew the impassioned and redundant Bettine to her by an irresistible bond. Their companionship ripened into romantic friendship. Their letters, collected and published by the survivor, compose one of the most original and stimulative delineations of the inner life of girlhood to be met with in literature. To cold and shallow readers, this correspondence will prove an unknown tongue; but those who can appreciate the reflection of wonderful personalities, and the workings of intense sentiment, will prize it as a unique treasure.

Bettine was electrical, magical, seeming ever to be overcharged with the spirit of nature; Guenderode, cloudy, opalescent, suggesting a spirit native of some realm above nature. The interplaying of the two was strangely delightful to them both; and they made day after day rich by hoarding and sharing what life brought, the wealth of their souls. The fresh vitality of Bettine, her rushing inspiration, her dithyrambic love of wild nature, breathed a balsamic breath over her drooping friend, who yet had a more than counterbalancing depth of consciousness to impart in return.

Guenderode, keyed too high for common companionship, too deep and tenacious in her moods, of a delicacy preternaturally lofty and far- reaching in its sensitiveness, was solitary, sad, thoughtful, yearning, prescient of an early death; yet, by the whole impression of her being, she gave birth, in those who lovingly looked on her, to the surmise that she was mysteriously self-sufficing and happy. Bettine writes to her, "I begin to believe thy feelings are enthroned beyond clouds which cast their shadows on the earth; while thou, borne on them, art revelling in celestial light." The best way to indicate briefly what this friendship was, will be to quote a selection of the characteristic expressions of it, though such a compilation of fragments does great wrong to a correspondence so compacted of the sparks of love and genius. Let those who find in this relation only the expression of a fantastic sentimentality, weigh what Sarah Austin says, a woman who speaks with the utmost weight of authority which learning, experience, and wisdom can give: "We, in England and France," Mrs. Austin says, "have no measure for the character of a German girl, brought up in comparative solitude, nurtured on poetry and religion, knowing little of the actual world, but holding close converse with the ideal in its grandest forms. She is capable of an enthusiasm we know not of."

At different times, Guenderode writes thus: "I have bad many thoughts of thee, dear Bettine. Some nights ago I dreamed thou wast dead: I wept bitterly at it; and the dream left, for a whole day, a mournful echo in my heart." "My mood is often very sad, and I have not power over it." "Thou art my bit of a sun that warms me, while everywhere else frost falls on me." "Thy letter, dear Bettine, I have sipped as wine from the goblet of Lyus." "I am studying the distinguished Spartan women. If I cannot be heroic, and am always ill from hesitation and timidity, I will at least fill my soul with that heroism, and feed it with that vital power, in which I am so sadly deficient." "Thou seemest to me the clay which a god is moulding with his feet; and what I perceive in thee is the fermenting fire, that, by his transcendent contact, he is strongly kneading into thee." "When I read what I have written some time ago, I think I see myself lying in my coffin, staring at my other self in astonishment."

"Clemens's letters make me think and consider, while over thine I only feel; and they are grateful as a breath of air from the Holy Land." "If two are to understand each other, it requires the inspiring influence of a third divine one. And so I accept our mutual existence as a gift of the gods, in which they themselves play the happiest part."

And thus, on the other side, Bettine at various times writes to Guenderode: "I wrote down, To-day I saw Guenderode: it was a gift of God. To-day, as I read it again, I would gladly do every thing for the love of thee. How much do I think of thee and of thy words, of the black lashes that shaded thy blue eyes as I saw thee for the first time; of thy kindly mien, and thy hand that stroked my hair!" "Thy letter today has drawn a charmed ring around me." "On the castle of the hill, in the night-dew, it was fair to be with thee. Those were the dearest hours of all my life; and, when I return, we will again dwell together there. We will have our beds close together, and talk all night." "Thou and I think in harmony: we have as yet found no third who can think with us, or to whom we have confided what we think." "Thou art the sweet cadence by which my soul is rocked." "What will become of me, if ever I pass out of the light which beams on me from thine eyes? for thou seemest to me an ever-living look, and as if on that my life hung." "I feel a deep longing to be with thee again; for, beautiful as it is here on the Rhine, it is sad to be without an echo in a living breast. Man is nothing but the desire to feel himself in another." "When I dare look up to thee from my childish pursuits, I think I see a bride whose priestly robes do not betray, nor her face express, whether she is sad or joyous in her ecstasy." "Thou lookest deeper into my breast, knowest more of my spiritual fate, than I, because I need only read in thy soul to find myself." "I would possess every thing, wealth and power of beautiful ideas, art and science, only to give it to thee, to gratify my love to thee, and my pride in thy love." "Formerly, I often thought, Why was I born? but, after thou wert with me, I never asked again." "I see thee wandering past the grove where I am at home, just as a sparrow, concealed by dense foliage, watches a solitary swan swimming on the quiet waters, and, hidden, sees how it bends its neck to dip into the flood, drawing circles around it; sacred signs of its isolation from the impure, the reckless, the unspiritual!" "I have been made happy to-day: some one secretly placed in my room a rose- tree with twenty-seven buds; these are just thy years."

Many plaintive presentiments of unknown woe, parting, death, gave a mysterious undertone of sadness to much of the correspondence of these two friends. The forebodings were destined to be more than fulfilled in the tragic reality. Poor Guenderode, wrought to madness by a disappointment in love, committed suicide. She drowned herself in a river, where her body was found entangled in the long sedge. Years afterwards, Bettine relates the story in a letter to Goethe, the perusal of which has made many a gentle heart ache. The substance of the tragedy may be briefly told:

"One day," Bettine writes, "Guenderode met me with a joyful air, and said, "Yesterday I spoke with a surgeon, who told me it was very easy to make away with one's self. She hastily opened her gown, and pointed to the spot beneath her beautiful breast. Her eyes sparkled with delight. I gazed at her, and felt uneasy. And what shall I do when thou art dead?' I asked. Oh! ere then,' said she, thou wilt not care for me any more; we shall not remain so intimate till then: I will first quarrel with thee.' I turned to the window to hide my tears and my anger. She had gone to the other window, and was silent. I glanced secretly at her: her eye was lifted to heaven; but its ray was broken, as though its whole fire were turned within. After I had observed her awhile, I could no longer control myself: I broke into loud crying, I fell on her neck, I dragged her down to a seat, and sat upon her knee, and wept, and kissed her on her mouth, and tore open her dress, and kissed her on the spot where she had learned to reach the heart. I implored her, with tears of anguish, to have mercy upon me; and fell again on her neck, and kissed her cold and trembling hands. Her lips were convulsed; and she was quite cold, stiff, and deadly pale. Speaking with difficulty, she said slowly, Bettine, do not break my heart.' I wanted to recover myself, and not give her pain. But as, amidst my smiles and tears and sobs, she grew more anxious, and laid herself on the sofa, I jestingly tried to make her believe I had taken all as a joke.

"A few days after, she showed me a dagger with a silver hilt, which she had bought at the mart. She was delighted with the beauty and sharpness of the steel. I took the blade, and pressed on her with it, exclaiming, Rather than suffer thee to kill thyself, I myself will do it.' She retreated in alarm, and I flung the dagger away. I took her by the hand, and led her to the garden, into the vine-bower, and said, Thou mayest depend on me: there is no hour when, if thou wert to utter a wish, I would hesitate for a moment. Come to my window at midnight and whistle, and I will, without preparation, go round the world with thee. What right hast thou to cast me off? How canst thou betray such devotion? Promise me now.' She hung her head and was pale. 'Guenderode,' said I, if thou art in earnest, give me a sign. She nodded.

"Two months passed away, when I again came to Frankfort. I ran to the chapter-house of the canonesses, opened the gate, and lo! there she stood, and looked coldly at me. 'Guenderode,' I cried, may I come in?' She was silent, and turned away. 'Guenderode, say but one word, and my heart beats against thine.' 'No,' she said, 'come no nearer, turn back, we must separate.' 'What does this mean?' I asked. 'Thus much, that we have been deceived, and do not belong to one another.' Ah! I turned away. First despair; first cruel blow, so dreadful to a young heart! I, who knew nothing but entire abandonment to my love, must be thus rejected."

A short period elapsed, when news was brought to Bettine that a young and beautiful lady, who was seen walking a long time at evening beside the Rhine, had been found the next morning, on the bank, among the willows. She had filled her handkerchief with stones, and tied it about her neck, probably intending to sink in the river; but, as she stabbed herself to the heart, she fell backward; and they found her thus lying under the willows by the Rhine, in a spot where the water was deepest. It was the poor, unhappy Guenderode.

The next day, Bettine, who was then with her brother and a small party of friends, sailing on the Rhine, landed at Rudesheim. "The story was in every one's mouth. I ran past all with the speed of wind, and up to the summit of Mount Ostein, a mile in height, without stopping. When I had come to the top, I had far outstripped the rest; my breath was gone, and my head burned. There lay the splendid Rhine, with his emerald island gems. I saw the streams descending to him from every side, the rich, peaceful towns on both banks, and the slopes of vines on either side. I asked myself if time would not wear out my loss. And then I resolved to raise myself above grief; for it seemed to me unworthy to utter sorrow which the future would enable me to subdue."

The dithyrambic exuberances in this relation, the romantic extravagances of sentiment, illustrate both the strength and the weakness of a genius bordering close on disease. They show how much such a genius needs to apply to itself the balancing and rectifying criticisms of a sober wisdom. They may also contribute something to awaken and enrich more cold and sluggish natures, which are yet aspiring and docile.

Lucy Aikin has left record of the warm and faithful friendships with which she was blessed by some of the most gifted and amiable women of her time. She was a person of strong character, of highly cultivated talents, and quite remarkable for her powers of conversation, an accomplishment which seems hastening to join the lost arts. The parties which modern fashion gathers, are not so much groups of friends, drawn together for rational and affectionate communion, as they are jabbering herds, among whom all individuality and docile earnestness are lost in the general buzz and clack of simultaneous speech.

One of these friends was Miss Benger, an estimable literary lady, who had considerable celebrity a quarter of a century ago. Miss Aikin has written a brief memoir of her. The following extract sufficiently shows the cordiality and comfort of their union: "To those who knew and enjoyed the friendship of Miss Benger, her writings, pleasing and beautiful as they are, were the smallest part of her merit and her attraction. Endowed with the warmest and most grateful of human hearts, she united to the utmost delicacy and nobleness of sentiment, active benevolence, which knew no limit but the furthest extent of her ability, and a boundless enthusiasm for the good and fair, wherever she discovered them. Her lively imagination, and the flow of eloquence which it inspired, aided by one of the most melodious of voices, lent an inexpressible charm to her conversation; which was heightened by an intuitive discernment of character, rare in itself, and still more so in combination with such fertility of fancy and ardency of feeling. As a companion, whether for the graver or the gayer hour, she had, indeed, few equals; and her constant forgetfullness of self, and unfailing sympathy for others, rendered her the general friend, favorite, and confidante of persons of both sexes, all classes, and all ages. Many would have concurred in judgment with Madame de Stael, when she pronounced Miss Benger the most interesting woman she had seen during her visit to England. Of envy and jealousy there was not a trace in her composition; her probity, veracity, and honor were perfect. Though as free from pride as from vanity, her sense of independence was such, that no one could fix upon her the slightest obligation capable of lowering her in any eyes. She had a generous propensity to seek those most, who needed her offices of friendship. No one was more scrupulously just to the characters and performances of others, no one more candid, no one more deserving of every kind of reliance. It is gratifying to reflect to how many hearts her unassisted merit found its way. Few persons have been more widely or deeply deplored in their sphere of acquaintance; but even those who loved her best could not but confess that their regrets were purely selfish. To her the pains of sensibility seemed to be dealt in even fuller measure than its joys: her childhood and early youth were consumed in a solitude of mind, and under a sense of contrariety between her genius and her fate, which had rendered them sad and full of bitterness; her maturer years were tried by cares, privations, and disappointments, and not seldom by unfeeling slights or thankless neglect. The irritability of her constitution, aggravated by inquietude of mind, had rendered her life one long disease. Old age, which she neither wished nor expected to attain, might have found her solitary and ill-provided: now she has taken the wings of the dove to flee away and be at rest."

Miss Aikin also held a constant intercourse, through a large part of her life, with Joanna Baillie, whom she always regarded with profound honor and love. She had a personal acquaintance with almost every literary woman of celebrity in England, from the last decade of the eighteenth, to the middle of the nineteenth, century. And of all these, with the sole exception of Mrs. Barbauld, she says, Joanna Baillie made by far the deepest impression on her. "Her genius," writes this admiring friend, "was surpassing; her character, the most endearing and exalted." No one had suspected the great genius of Joanna Baillie, so thick a veil of modest reserve had covered it. Soon after the publication of her "Plays on the Passions," Miss Aikin says, "She and her sister I well remember the scene arrived on a morning call at Mrs. Barbauld's. My aunt immediately introduced the topic of the anonymous tragedies, and gave utterance to her admiration with that generous delight in the manifestation of kindred genius which distinguished her. But not even the sudden delight of such praise, so given, could seduce our Scottish damsel into self- betrayal. The faithful sister rushed forward to bear the brunt, while the unsuspected author lay snug in the asylum of her taciturnity. She had been taught to repress all emotions, even the gentlest. Her sister once told me that their father was an excellent parent; when she had once been bitten by a dog thought to be mad, he had sucked the wound, at the hazard, as was supposed, of his own life; but that he had never given her a kiss. Joanna spoke to me once of her yearning to be caressed, when a child. She would sometimes venture to clasp her little arms about her mother's knees, who would seem to chide her; but I know she liked it. Be that as it may, the first thing which drew upon Joanna the admiring notice of society was the devoted assiduity of her attention to her mother, then blind as well as aged, whom she waited on day and night.

"An innocent and maiden grace still hovered over Miss Baillie to the end of her old age. It was one of her peculiar charms, and often brought to my mind the line addressed to the vowed Isabella, in Measure for Measure: I hold you for a thing enskyed and saintly. If there were ever human creature pure in the last recesses of the soul, it was surely this meek, this pious, this noble-minded, and nobly-gifted woman, who, after attaining her ninetieth year, carried with her to the grave the love, the reverence, the regrets, of all who had ever enjoyed the privilege of her society." The graves of these friends are side by side in the old churchyard at Hampstead.

The exquisite delicacy and wealth of Mrs. Hemans's nature, her winning beauty, modesty, and sweetness, drew a circle of dear friends around her wherever she tarried. In her poems and letters and memoirs, they numerously appear, in becoming lights, men and women, lofty and lowly in rank, from Wordsworth and Scott, to whom she paid visits, giving and receiving the choicest delight, to her own dependants, who worshipped her. She tells one of her correspondents, "I wish I could give you the least idea of what kindness is to me, how much more, how far dearer, than fame." The most interesting of her many prized friendships is that which she formed with Miss Jewsbury, who, having long admired her with the whole ardor of her powerful nature, passed a summer in Wales, near Mrs. Hemans, for the express purpose of making her acquaintance. The enthusiastic admiration on one side, the grateful appreciation of it on the other, the spiritual purity and earnestness and high literary and personal aspirations on both sides, quickly produced an attachment between these two gifted women, which yielded them full measures of encouragement, comfort, and bliss. They had just those resemblances and those contrasts of person and mind, together with community of moral aims, which made them delightfully stimulative to each other. Miss Jewsbury dedicated to her friend her "Lays of Leisure Hours," addressed her in the poem "To an Absent One," and described her in the first of the "Poetical Portraits" contained in the same book. Also, in her "Three Histories," Mrs. Hemans is the original of Egeria. "Egeria was totally different from any other woman I had ever seen, either in Italy or England. She did not dazzle, she subdued, me. I never saw another woman so exquisitely feminine. Her movements were features. Her strength and her weakness alike lay in her affections. Her gladness was like a burst of sunlight; and if, in her depression, she resembled night, it was night wearing her stars. She was a muse, a grace, a variable child, a dependent woman, the Italy of human beings." Miss Jewsbury married, and went to India, where she soon died. Mrs. Hemans paid a heartfelt tribute to her memory, in the course of which she says, "There was a strong chain of interest between us, that spell of mind on mind, which, once formed, can never be broken. I felt, too, that my whole nature was understood and appreciated by her; and this is a sort of happiness which I consider the most rare in earthly affection."

Mary Mitford and Mrs. Browning were blessed with a friendship enviably full and satisfying. It has recorded itself in a correspondence, which, if published, would add fresh honor to them both in the hearts of their admirers. It was likewise celebrated with happy heartiness by Miss Barrett, in her maiden days, in her fine poem, "To Flush, my Dog;" the dog, Flush, being a valued gift from Miss Mitford.

Margaret Fuller, after seeing an engraving of Madame Recamier, writes in her journal,

"I have so often thought over the intimacy between her and Madame de Stael. It is so true, that a woman may be in love with a woman, and a man with a man. I like to be sure of it; for it is the same love which angels feel, where Sie fragen nicht nach Mann und Weib."

Of the friendships of women, perhaps none is more historic than this. A large selection from the correspondence was published, in 1862, by Madame Lenormant, in connection with a volume called "Madame de Stael and the Grand Duchess Louise." It is impossible to read these letters, without being struck by the rare grace that reigned in the union of which they are the witnesses, and being affected by the sight of a friendship so faithful, a confidence so entire.

The first meeting of these celebrated women took place when Madame de Stael was thirty-two years old; Madame Recamier, twenty-one. Among the few existing papers from the pen of the latter is a description of this interview:

"She came to speak with me for her father, about the purchase of a house. Her toilet was odd. She wore a morning gown, and a little dress bonnet, adorned with flowers. I took her for a stranger in Paris. I was struck with the beauty of her eyes and her look. She said, with a vivid and impressive grace, that she was delighted to know me; that her father, M. Necker at these words I recognized Madame de Stael. I heard not the rest of her sentence. I blushed, my embarrassment was extreme. I had just come from reading her 'Letters on Rousseau,' and was full of the excitement. I expressed what I felt more by my looks than by my words. She at the same time awed and drew me. She fixed her wonderful eyes on me, with a curiosity full of kindness, and complimented me on my figure, in terms which would have seemed exaggerated and too direct if they had not been marked by an obvious sincerity, which made the praise very seductive. She perceived my embarrassment, and expresssd a desire to see me often, on her return to Paris; for she was going to Coppet. It was then a mere apparition in my life; but the impression was intense. I thought only of Madame de Stael, so strongly did I return the action of this ardent and forceful nature."

Madame de Stael was a plain, energetic embodiment of the most impassioned genius. Madame Recamier was a dazzling personification of physical loveliness, united with the perfection of mental harmony. She had an enthusiastic admiration for her friend, who, in return, found an unspeakable luxury in her society. Her angelic candor of soul, and the frosty purity which enveloped her as a shield, inspired the tenderest respect; while her happy equipoise calmed and refreshed the restless and expensive imagination of the renowned author. There could be no rivalry between them. Both had lofty and thoroughly sincere characters. They were partly the reflection, partly the complement, of each other; and their relation was a blessed one, charming and memorable among such records. "Are you not happy," writes Madame de Stael, "in your magical power of inspiring affection? To be sure always of being loved by those you love, seems to me the highest terrestrial happiness, the greatest conceivable privilege." Again, acknowledging the gift from her friend of a bracelet containing her portrait, she says, "It has this inconvenience: I find myself kissing it too often." In 1800, Madame Recamier had a brilliant social triumph in England: "Ah, well, beautiful Juliette! do you miss us? Have your successes in London made you forget your friends in Paris?" Madame Recamier was the original of the picture of the shawl-dance in "Corinne;" and her friend says of her, in the "Ten Years of Exile," that "her beauty expressed her character." The following passages, taken from letters written in 1804, show how the intimacy had deepened:

"For four clays, faithless beauty, I have not heard the noise of the wind without thinking it was your carriage. Come quickly. My mind and my heart have need of you more than of any other friend." "I have just seen Madame Henri Belmont. People say that all beautiful persons remind them of you. It is not so with me. I have never found any one who looks like you; and the eyes of this Madame Henri seem to me blind by the side of yours." "Dear and beautiful Juliette, they give me the hope of seeing you when I return from Italy; then only shall I no longer feel myself an exile. I will receive you in the chateau where I lost what of all the world I most loved; and you will bring the feeling of happiness which no more exists there. I love you more than any other woman in France. Alas! when shall I see you again?"

The friends passed the autumn of 1807 together at Coppet, with Matthieu de Montmorency, Benjamin Constant, and a brilliant group of associates, amidst all the romance in which the scenery and atmosphere of that enchanted spot are steeped. One day they made a party for an excursion on Mont Blanc. Weary, scorched by the sun, De Stael and Recamier protested that they would go no farther. In vain the guide boasted, both in French and German, of the spectacle presented by the Mer de Glace. "Should you persuade me in all the languages of Europe," replied Madame de Stael, "I would not go another step." During the long and cruel banishment inflicted by Napoleon on this eloquent woman, the bold champion of liberty, her friend often paid her visits, and constantly wrote her letters:

"Dear Juliette, your letters are at present the only interest of my life." "How much, dear friend, I am touched by your precious letter, in which you so kindly send me all the news! My household rush from one room to another, crying, A letter from Madame Recamier!' and then all assemble to hear her" "Every one speaks of my beautiful friend with admiration.. You have an ethereal reputation which nothing vulgar can approach." "Adieu, dear angel. My God, how I envy all those who are near you!"

When an envious slanderer had greatly vexed and grieved Madame Recamier, Madame de Stael wrote to her, "You are as famous in your kind as I am in mine, and are not banished from France. I tell you there is nothing to be feared but truth and material persecution. Beyond these two things, enemies can do absolutely nothing; and your enemy is but a contemptible woman, jealous of your beauty and purity." "Write to me. I know you address me by your deeds; but I still need your words."

In 1811, Madame de Stael resolved to flee to Sweden. Montmorency, paying her a parting visit, received from Napoleon a decree of instant exile. Madame Recamier determined, at any risk, to embrace her friend before this great distance should separate them. The generous fugitive wrote, imploring her not to come: "I am torn between the desire of seeing you, and the fear of injuring you." No dissuasion could avail; but no sooner did she arrive at Coppet than the mean soul of Napoleon sought revenge by exiling her also. The distress of Madame de Stael knew no bounds. On learning the fatal news, she wrote,

"I cannot speak to you; I fling myself at your feet; I implore you not to hate me." "What your noble generosity has cost you! If you could read my soul, you would pity me." "The only service I can do my friends is to make them avoid me. In all my distraction, I adore you. Farewell, farewell! When shall I see you again? Never in this world."

Throughout the period of their banishment, the friends kept up an incessant correspondence, and often interchanged presents.

"Dear friend," writes Madame de Stael, "how this dress has touched me! I shall wear it on Tuesday, in taking leave of the court. I shall tell everybody that it is a gift from you, and shall make all the men sigh that it is not you who are wearing it."

In return, some time later, she sends a pair of bracelets, and a copy of a new work from her pen, adding, "In your prayers, dear angel, ask God to give peace to my soul." In another letter she says, "Adieu, dear angel: promise to preserve that friendship which has given me such sweet days." And again,

"Angel of goodness, would that my eternal tenderness could recompense you a little for the penalties your generous friendship has brought on you!" "You cannot form an idea, my angel, of the emotion your letter has caused me. It is at the extremity of Moravia that these celestial words have reached me. I have shed tears of sorrow and tenderness in hearkening to the voice which comes to me in the desert, as the angel came to Hagar."

What a rare and high compliment is contained in the following passage! "You are the most amiable person in the world, dear Juliette; but you do not speak enough of yourself. You put your mind, your enchantment, in your letters, but not that which concerns yourself. Give me all the details pertaining to yourself." "The hundred fine things Madame de Boigne and Madame de Belle-garde say of you and me, prove to me that I live a double life: one in you, one in myself."

When Napoleon fell, in 1814, Madame de Stael hurried home from her long exile. The great news found Madame Recamier at Rome. In a few days, she embraced her illustrious friend in Paris. Close was their union, great their joy. It was engrossing admiration and devotion on one side; absorbing sympathy, respect, and gratitude, on the other. The power and charm of Madame Recamier were not merely in her ravishing beauty, imperturbable good nature, and all-subduing graciousness, but also in her mind and character. Madame de Stael, who was a great critic, and no flatterer, says to her,

"What a charm there is in your manner of writing! I wish you would compose a romance, put in it some celestial being, and give her your own natural expressions, without altering a word. You have a character of astonishing nobleness; and the contrast of your delicate and gracious features, with your grand firmness of soul, produces an incomparable effect."

The last letter written by the dying author to her friend concluded with the words, "All that is left of me embraces you." The survivor paid the pious rites of affection to the departed, with the devotion which had marked their whole relation. And when, years afterward, on the loss of her property, Madame Recamier betook herself to the Abbaye-aux-Bois, in her humble chamber, where she was more sought and admired than ever in her proudest prosperity, the chief articles to be seen, in addition to the indispensable furniture, were, as Chateaubriand has described the scene, a library, a harp, a piano, a magnificent portrait of Madame de Stael by Gerard, and a moonlight view of Coppet. Madame de Stael had once written to her, "Your friendship is like the spring in the desert, that never fails; and it is this which makes it impossible not to love you." Death caused no decay of that sentiment, but raised and sanctified it. Her translated friend now became an object of worship; and she devoted her whole energies to extend and preserve the memory of the illustrious writer.

The self-forgetting sympathy of Madame Recamier, and the magical atmosphere of loveliness she carried around her, obtained for her many warm friendships with women. Foremost, by far, among these was that with Madame de Stael. But others also were very dear. The widow of Matthieu de Montmorency was extremely attached to her, wrote her touching letters, and took every opportunity to see her. Madame de Boigne, too, was joined with Madame Recamier in a relation of respect and affection truly profound and vivid. This lady was greatly distinguished for her beauty as well as for her voice, which was compared with that of Catalani. She was much impressed by the noble behavior of Madame Recamier at the time of her husband's bankruptcy; and, by her delicate attentions, secured the most grateful love in return. Their earnest and faithful affection lasted until death. A novel, entitled "Une Passion dans le Grande Monde," in which Madame de Stael and Madame Reeamier are the two chief characters, was left for publication by Madame de Boigne at her death. It was published in 1866.

One of Madame Recamier's sweetest friendships was with the accomplished and charming Elizabeth Foster, Duchess of Devonshire, the fame of whose exquisite loveliness traversed the earth. The duchess said of her friend, "At first she is good, then she is intellectual, and after this she is very beautiful," a striking compliment, when spoken, in relation to an admired rival, by one who was herself so dazzlingly gifted. The order of precedence in her charms, however, was differently recognized by men. They were subdued successively by her beauty, her goodness, her judgment, her character. The Duchess of Devonshire had known all the romance and all the sorrow of life. Her experience had left upon her a melancholy which attracted the heart almost as quickly as it did the eye, and lent to her something pensive and caressing. Although a Protestant, she had formed, during her long residence in Rome, an entire friendship with the Cardinal Consalvi, who was the prime-minister and favorite of Pope Pius VII through his whole pontificate. These two beautiful women, as soon as they met, felt, by all the laws of elective affinity, that they belonged to each other. The death of the Pope was followed, in a few months, by that of his minister and friend. During the illness of Consalvi, Madame Recamier shared all the hopes, fears, and distresses of the duchess. And when the fatal event had befallen, and the cardinal was laid in state, and the romantic and despairing woman would go to look on her dead friend, she accompanied her, deeply veiled, through the crowd, and knelt with her, amidst the solemn pomp, in tears and prayer, beside the unanswering clay. The duchess was struck to the heart by this irreparable loss. All that a devoted sympathy could yield to soothe and sustain, she received from Madame Recamier. And when, soon after, unable to speak, she lay dying, she silently pressed the hand of this faithful friend, as the final act of her existence.

Madame Recamier retained to the last her enviable power of inspiring affection. Madame Lenormant says that the Countess Caffarelli found her, in her age and blindness, watching by the death-bed of Chateaubriand. Drawn by her singular goodness, she sought to share with her in these holy cares. She thus became the loving and beloved associate of the final hour. This admirable person worthily closes the list the rich and bright list of the friends of Madame Recamier.

In her youth, the first wish of Madame Recamier was the wish to please; and she was, no doubt, a little too coquettish, not enough considerate of the masculine hearts she damaged, and the feminine hearts she pained. The Duke de Laval said, "The gift of involuntary and powerful fascination was her talisman." Not, sometimes, to make a voluntary use of that talisman, she must have been more than human. As years and trials deepened her nature, she sought rather to make happy than merely to please. She always cared more to be respected than to be flattered, to be loved than to be admired. Admiration and sympathy were stronger in her than vanity and love of pleasure: reason and justice were strongest of all. Her judgment was as clear, her conscience as commanding, her sincerity, courage, and firmness as admirable, as her heart was rich and good. When Fouche said to her, in her misfortunes and exile, "The weak ought to be amiable," she instantly replied, "And the strong ought to be just." Her exquisite symmetry of form, her dazzling purity of complexion, her graciousness of disposition, her perfect health, her desire to please, and generous delight in pleasing, composed an all-potent philter, which the sympathy of every spectator drank with intoxicating effect. She discriminated, with perfect truthfullness, the various degrees of acquaintance and friendship. She made all feel self-complacent, by her unaffected attention causing them to perceive that she wished their happiness and valued their good opinion. Ballanche tells her, "You feel yourself the impression you make on others, and are enveloped in the incense they burn at your feet." Wherever she went, as if a celestial magnet passed, all faces drifted towards her with admiring love and pleasure. By her lofty integrity and her matchless sweetness and skill, as by a rare alchemy, she transmuted her fugitive lovers into permanent friends. Her talents were as attractive as her features: little by little her conversation made the listener forget even her loveliness. Saint-Beuve says, "As her beauty slowly retreated, the mind it had eclipsed gradually shone forth, as on certain days, towards twilight, the evening star appears in the quarter of the heaven opposite to the setting sun." Her voice was remarkably fresh, soft, and melodious. Her politeness never forsook her: with an extreme ease of manner, she had a horror of familiarity, as well as of all excess and violence. Her moderation of thought, serenity of soul, and velvet manner, were as unwearying as reason and harmony. Without pretence of any sort, she hid, under the full bloom of her beauty and her fame, like humble violets, modesty and disinterestedness. At the time of her death, Guizot, when a distinguished American lady asked him what was the marvel of her fascination, replied, with great emotion, "Sympathy, sympathy, sympathy." She had none of that aridity of heart which regular coquetry either presupposes or produces. Deprived by destiny of those relations which usually fill the heart of woman, she carried into the only sentiment allowed her, an ardor, a faithfullness, and a delicacy, which were unequalled; and the veracity of her soul, joined with her singular discretion, gave her friends a most enjoyable sense of security. Ballanche called her "the genius of devotedness;" and Montalembert, "the genius of confidence."

From the most dangerous and deteriorating influences of her position she found a safeguard in active works of charity. Her pecuniary generosity, in her days of opulence, was boundless. She seemed to feel that every unfortunate had a right to her interest and her assistance. "Disgrace and misfortune had for her," avowed one who knew her entirely, "the same sort of attraction that favor and success have for vulgar souls; and under no circumstances was she ever false to this characteristic." The fine taste she had for literature and art, the great pleasure she took in their beauties, the natural grace and good-will with which she expressed her admiration, furnished precisely that kind of incense which authors and artists love to breathe. Old Laharpe, who, in her young days, had derived the deepest delight from her attention and praise, wrote to her, "I love you as one loves an angel." The readiness with which the word "angel" rises to the lips of her friends is striking. Almost every one of them applies the word to her on nearly every occasion. Madame de Krudener writes to her, "I shall have the happiness, I hope, dear angel, of embracing you to-morrow, and talking with you." All seemed instantly to recognize something angelic in her expression. It was in her disposition as much as in her appearance, apparently in the latter because in the former, as Ballanche said to her, "In your thought, taste, and grace will ever be united in one harmonious whole. I am fascinated at the idea of so perfect a harmony, and want the whole world to know what I so easily divine. It will be your mission to make the intrinsic character of beauty fully understood; to show that it is an entirely moral thing. Had Plato known you, he need not have resorted to so subtile an argument. You would have made him alive to a truth that was always a mystery to him; and that rare genius would thus have had one more title to the admiration of the world."

There was something celestial in her motions, that suggested the undulations of a spirit rather than joints and muscles, and made her soul and flesh one melody. As to her heavenly temper of goodness, there is but one voice from all who knew her. She accorded to the sufferings of self-love a pity and kindness seldom shown to them. She had the sweetest faculty for dressing the wounds of envy and jealousy, soothing the lacerations of rivalry and hate, assuaging the bitterness of neglected and revengeful souls. For all those moral pains, or griefs of imagination, which burn in some natures with a cruel intensity, she was a true sister of charity. To the rest of her winsome gifts she added according to the unanimous testimony of the witnesses this rare and resistless quality, the power of listening to, and occupying herself with, others, the secret both of social success, and of happiness without that success. "She said little," De Tocqueville avers, "but knew what each man's forte was, and led him to it. If any thing was said particularly well, her face brightened. You saw that her attention was always active, always intelligent." Lamartine said, "As radiant as Aspasia, but a pure and Christian Aspasia, it was not her features only that were beautiful: she was beautiful herself." Sarah Austin affirmed, "It was the atmosphere of benignity which seemed to exhale like a delicate perfume from her whole person, that prolonged the fascination of her beauty." And Lemoine declared, in his eloquent obituary notice, "In the hearts of those who had the honor and the happiness of living in constant intercourse with her, Madame Recamier will for ever remain the object of a sort of adoration which we should find it impossible to express." The only fault her friends would confess in her was the generous fault of too great toleration and indulgence. And to dwell unkindly on this is as ungracious a task as to try to fix a stain on a star.

Arrayed in her divine charms; armed with irresistible goodness and archness; enriched with equal wisdom and uprightness, every movement a mixture of grace and dignity; protected by an aureole of purity which always surrounded her; walking among common mortals, "like a goddess on a cloud," she made it the business of her life to soften the asperities, listen to the' plans, sympathize with the disappointments, stimulate the powers, encourage the efforts, praise the achievements, and enjoy the triumphs, of her friends. No wonder they loved her, and thronged around her alike in prosperity and in adversity. To appreciate her character is a joy; to portray her example, a duty. She was a kind of saint of the world.

The single fault which Saint-Beuve finds with the spirit of the society she formed, and governed so long with her irresistible sceptre, is that there was too much of complaisance and charity in it. Stern truth suffered, and character was enervated, while courtesy and taste flourished: "The personality or self-love of all who came into the charmed circle was too much caressed." One can scarcely help lamenting that so gracious a fault is not oftener to be met in the selfish and satirical world. For the opposite fault of a harsh carelessness is so much more frequent as to make this seem almost a virtue. Cast in an angel's mould, and animated with an angel's spirit, her consciousness vacant of self, vacant also of an absorbing aim, ever ready to install the aim of any worthy person who came before her, she was such a woman as Dante would have adored. It seems impossible not to recognize how much fitter a type of womanhood she is for her sex to admire than those specimens who spend their days in publicly ventilating their vanity, feverishly courting notoriety and power; or those who, without cultivation, without expansion, without devotion, without aspiration, lead a life of monotonous drudgery, with not a single interest beyond their own homes.

A certain Madame Ancelot has written a book, in which, doubtless under the pain of some galling memory—she attacks Madame Recamier as a selfish coquette, enamored only of admiration, fame, and power. Her chief weapon, as this woman asserts, was a skilful application of deliberate unprincipled flattery to the pride and vanity of everybody she met. The conduct attributed to Madame Recamier in the odious examples fabricated by this slanderer, would have been insufferably repulsive even to average persons. To persons of such insight, refinement, and elevation as marked all her most intimate associates, it would have been unutterably disgusting. The whole representation, while awakening the indignation of the reader, shows what a degrading caricature noble souls undergo when reflected in the minds of base observers. Contrast with the view of this Madame Ancelot what is said with unquestionable authority, after the intimacy of a lifetime, by the gifted and illustrious Countess de Boigne. "Amidst the overwhelming reverses of her husband's fortunes, I found Madame Recamier so calm, so noble, so simple, lifted so far above all the vain shows of her former life, that I was extremely struck; and I date from that moment the vivid affection which subsequent events have served only to confirm. No portrait does her justice. All praise her incomparable beauty, her active beneficence, her sweet urbanity. Many declare her great talents; but few have discerned, through the habitual ease of her intercourse, the loftiness of her heart, the independence of her character, the impartiality of her judgment, and the fairness of her soul!" These are the words of one absolutely competent to judge, intrinsically incapable of falsifying; and also when death had removed every motive for flattery.

All who have written on this most admired and beloved woman have had much to say of the secret and the lesson of her sway. One ascribes her dominion to a subtile blandishment; another to a marvellous tact, another to an indescribable magic. But really the secret was simple. It was the refined suavity and Womanliness of her nature, the ineffable charm of a temper of unconquerable sweetness and kindliness, a ruling "desire to give pleasure, avert pain, avoid offence, render her society agreeable to all its members, and enable every one to present himself in the most favorable light." Let the fair creatures made to adorn and reign over society add to their beauty, as Sarah Austin observes, the proper virtues of true-born and Christian women, gentleness, love, anxiety to please, fearfullness to offend, meekness, pity, an overflowing good-will manifested in kind words and deeds, and they may see in the example before us how high and lasting its empire is. This is the true secret revealed, this the genuine lesson taught, by the rare career which we have been reviewing.

After this glorious example of the moral mission of woman, glorious despite its acknowledged imperfections, it is not necessary to deny the common assertion, that men have a monopoly of the sentiment of friendship. Neither is it necessary to expatiate on the great happiness this sentiment is capable of yielding in the comparatively narrow and quiet lives of women, or to insist on the larger space which ought to be assigned to the cultivation of it in those lives. The moral of the whole subject may be put into one short sentence, namely this: The chief recipe for giving richness and peace to the soul is, less of vague passion, less of ambitious activity, anti more of dedicated sentiment in the private personal relations of the inner life.

How little matter unto us the great! What the heart touches, that controls our fate. From the full galaxy we turn to one, Dim to all else, but to ourselves the sun; And still, to each, some poor, obscurest life Breathes all the bliss, or kindles all the strife. Wake up the countless dead; ask every ghost, Whose influence tortured or consoled the most? How each pale spectre of the host would turn From the fresh laurel and the glorious urn, To point where rots, beneath a nameless stone, Some heart in which had ebbed and flowed its own!

The salon which Madame Swetchine opened in the Rue Saint-Dominique was one of the powers of Paris for over forty years. Here she drew around her all that was most select, most distinguished, most exalted, in Catholic France; and subdued all by the holy dignity of her character, the authority of her wisdom, the sweetness of her spirit, and the charm of her manners. In the homage she inspired, the favors she distributed, and the tributes she received, she was truly a queen. Her days were divided into parts, observed with strict uniformity. She reserved the morning to herself, hearing mass and visiting the poor until eight o'clock; then returning home, and closing her door until three. From three to six she received company; secluded herself from six to nine; and welcomed her friends again from nine until midnight. Her drawing-room, if not so famous, was as influential and fascinating to its frequenters as that of Madame Recamier. Unlike as they were, they have often been compared. The Recamier salon, with its slightly intoxicating perfume of elegance, was infinitely more easy, more agreeable; the Swetchine salon, with its bracing atmosphere of sanctity, was more earnest, more religious. Though personal nobleness was honored in both, polished fashion predominated in one, devout principle in the other. The presiding genius of the former was the perfection of the best spirit of the world; the presiding genius of the latter was the perfection of the best spirit of the Catholic Church. The guests of Madame Recamier went to the Abbaye-aux-Bois to please and to be pleased, to exchange eloquent thoughts, to breathe chivalrous sentiments, and to enjoy an exquisite grace of politeness never surpassed. The guests of Madame Swetchine went to the Rue Saint-Dominique to take counsel on the affairs of the higher politics, the interests of the nation, and the welfare of the Church; to enjoy a community of faith and aspiration, to refresh their best purposes, and to learn how more effectively to serve the great ends to which they were pledged. There, liberty of opinion and speech was unlimited, and a refined complacency aimed at; here, loyalty to certain foregone principles and institutions was expected, and a tacit spiritual direction maintained: but in both were found the same delightful moderation, repose, and gracious forbearance; the same reconciling skill; the same indescribable art of ruling and leading while appearing to obey and follow.

These illustrious women were perhaps equal in the interest they awakened, and the sway they exercised over their friends; but there was a great difference in the secret of the charm which they severally possessed. There is nothing more disagreeable in a companion than pre-occupation, if it be pre-occupation with self; nothing more fascinating, if it be pre-occupation with you, or with something of universal authority and attraction. The spell of Madame Recamier lay in her irresistible personal beauty, grace, and graciousness; that of Madame Swetchine, in her unquestionable greatness and goodness and simplicity. Each was marvellously self- detached and kind to everybody. But Madame Recamier was an unoccupied mirror, ready to reflect upon you what you brought before it; Madame Swetchine, a mirror pre-occupied with the lovely and authoritative forms of virtue, wisdom, and piety. The former personally enchanted and captivated all; the latter caused all to bow, with herself, before a common sovereignty. The one was the fairest model of nature; the other, a representative of supernatural realities, a holy symbol of God.

It is extremely interesting to trace the effect of these remarkable personalities on each other. When Madame Swetchine visited Rome, at the age of forty-two, her mind was somewhat imbued with prejudices against Madame Recamier, whom she had never seen, and who was then tarrying there. Madame Recamier was forty-seven years old, with a reputation unsullied by a breath, and a beauty which was remarkable even twenty years afterwards. The manner in which Madame Swetchine speaks of her, in a letter to Madame de Montcalm, forms the least satisfactory passage we remember in all her correspondence:

"Madame Recamier seems sincerely to prefer a secluded life. It is fortunate, her beauty and celebrity being on the decline: ruins make little sensation in a country of ruins. It seems that to be drawn to her one must know her more; and, after such brilliant successes, certainly nothing can be more flattering than to reckon almost as many friends as formerly lovers. Perhaps, however, not that I would detract from her merit, had she but once loved—the number would have been sensibly diminished."

It is charming to see, in the rich, eloquent letter which Madame Swetchine wrote to Madame Recamier, soon after their first interview, how quickly these prejudices were dispelled on personal contact, and replaced by an earnest attachment:

"I have yielded to the penetrating, indefinable charm with which you enthrall even those for whom you do not yourself care. It seems as if we had passed a long time together, and had many memories in common. This would be inexplicable, did not certain sentiments have a little of eternity in them. One should say, that, when souls touch, they put off all the poor conditions of earth; and, happier and freer, already obey the laws of a better world."

The reciprocation of this interest is shown by the fact, that Madame Recamier urgently besought Madame Swetchine to make her residence in the same house with her, the Abbaye-aux-Bois; which she would probably have done, had it not been for the objections of General Swetchine.

The open secret of the wonderful influence which Madame Swetchine exerted on all who came in contact with her, of the extreme reverence and love with which they regarded her, was, therefore, the incomparable power, sincerity, generosity, and gentleness of her character. But to appreciate this truth, and learn the lesson it conveys, we must analyze the case more in detail. The distinguished friend who has written her life says,

"The most remarkable peculiarity of the character of Madame Swetchine was, that all the qualities, all the virtues, and all the powers were distributed in perfect harmony. She was in the same degree enthusiastic and sensible, because her reason was equal to her imagination: she thought as deeply as she felt. However often a man in mind, she always remained a woman in heart; and her personal abnegation was neither feigned nor studied. As exempt from envy as from ambition, she lived first in others, then in public works; only thought of herself after being occupied with everybody else; and great as was her dislike of egotism, never needed to rebuke it because she found such a rich joy in the opposite sentiment. Her disinterestedness reconciled others to her superiority."

Her faith stood so firm in the whirlwind of opinions, that she needed not to bolster it by bigotry. To the friends, who once murmured against her too great tolerance, she replied, "Of what use is it to live, if one is never to hear any thing but his own voice?" Her compassion and her patience were unconquerable. Nothing could draw from her the slightest sign of vexation or weariness. One of her constant visitors, for fifteen years, was a woman universally detested for her outrageous temper and her bad manners. The announcement of her name was the signal of dismay and dispersion. But the saintly hostess invariably gave her an affectionate reception; and to all the attempts made to induce her to cast off the obnoxious guest, she said, with a smile, "What do you wish? All the world avoids her; she is unhappy, and she has only me." This woman died of old age; and, during her last days, Madame Swetchine went often to see her, and passed long hours beside her death-bed.

The face of Madame Swetchine, without being handsome, was remarkably expressive; and the inflections of her singularly rich and strong voice were exactly modulated to every thought and feeling of her soul. Destitute of egotism herself, she showed an invariable tolerance for the egotisms of others, and her management of them was a marvel of magnanimous considerateness and soothing skill. The unrestrained frankness of her affection, the intimate confidences she imparted, the noble grounds she assumed to be common to them and her, the tender compliments she was ever paying them with all the skill of a sincere heart, were irresistible. She writes to the Duchess de la Rochefoucauld, "Reply to all my inquiries; especially speak to me of yourself. I long to be relieved from the punishment of your reserve." Some persons would deal with souls as carelessly as if they were pieces of mechanism; handle hearts as they would handle groceries. Madame Swetchine was unable to contemplate without awe, or treat without scrupulous delicacy, a human spirit seeking to open and show itself to her as it was in the eyes of God.

In addition to all this, she had an amazing knowledge of the mysteries of human nature and the experience of human life. She said she had traversed the whole circle of passions and affections, and was a true doctor of that law. "Reading in my own heart, I have learned to understand the hearts of others: the single knowledge of myself has given me the key of those innumerable enigmas called men." She avowed herself an instinctive disciple of Lavater, and said, "The expression of the face is the accent of the figure." Her biographer says that her insight amounted almost to divination. A word, a gesture, a look, a silence, hardly noticed by others, was to her a complete revelation. She had the science of souls, as physicists have the science of bodies. While the ordinary man sees in a plant merely its color or its outline, the botanist discerns, at first sight, all its specific attributes. Such was the power of Madame Swetchine: one lineament, one trait, enabled her to recognize and reconstruct a whole character. There is no luxury greater than that of unveiling our inmost souls where we are sure of meeting a superior intelligence, invincible charity, generous sympathy, and needed support and guidance. All this was certain to be found in Madame Swetchine. She had no rivalry, no envy, no desire to eclipse any one, no bigotry or asperity; and the aged, the mature, and the youthful, alike came with grateful pleasure under her empire. Women, usually little accessible to the influence of another woman, were full of trust and docility towards her. Loving solitude, plunging into metaphysics as into a bath, she yet took great delight in the beauty, freshness; playfullness, and hopes of girls just entering society. Her taste in every thing belonging to the toilet was known to be fine and sure: they loved, when in full dress for company, to pass under her eyes; and she deeply enjoyed admiring and praising them, at the same time pointing out any thing ill-judged or excessive. Not unfrequently, the same ones, who, in the evening, in their glittering array, had paused on their way to the ball, would return in the morning, and sit with her, face to face, in communion on far other and graver matters. Sick and erring hearts showed themselves to her in utter sincerity, while, with unwearied sympathy and adroit wisdom, she poured on them, drop by drop, the light, the truth, the life, they needed. No one can tell to how many she was a spiritual mother, her direction all the more welcome and efficacious that she was not a director by profession, but by instinctive fitness.

Madame Swetchine enjoyed friendships of extraordinary strewth and preciousness with the Countess de Nesselrode, the Princess Galitzin, Madame de Saint Aulaire, the Duchess de Duras, the Marchioness de Lillers, Madame Craven, the Duchess de la Rochefoucauld, and many other women of noble natures and rich interior lives. The record of their intercourse is an imperial banquet for the mind and heart of the reader. The study of it must make ordinary women sigh for envy and shame over their own cold relations, outward ambition, sterile experience, and suspicious caution. Madame Swetchine writes, "I have long made over all my invested capital to the account of those I love: their welfare, their hopes, are the income on which I live." The Duchess de Duras writes to her, "I love you more than I should have believed it ever would be possible for me to love, after what I have experienced. I believe in you, I who have become so suspicious. I rely on you with entire security, whatever happens." Again she writes, when her friend is absent in Russia, "I miss you every moment. Return, return. Your chamber is ready, and that of Nadine. Come, come, dear friend: life is so short, why lose it thus?" Madame Swetchine held such a high place in the esteem of her friends, because she was so serene, so wise, so steadfast, so kind, so pure, that she soothed and strengthened all who came near her. One of her friends expresses this in saying to her, "No society pleases and agrees with me like yours." She always acted on her own aphorism, "To bear faults, to manage egotisms, is an aim perhaps best accomplished by a skilful dissimulation; but the true ideal is to correct faults and to cure self-love."

The best example, in a relation with one of her own sex, of that sentiment of friendship which was such a pervasive need of Madame Swetchine's nature, and which she experienced so profusely, was her connection with Roxandra Stourdza, a Greek maiden of great beauty and genius, born at Constantinople. Originally brought together at court, when the latter was maid of honor to the Empress Elizabeth, they formed an enthusiastic attachment, which, for half a century, largely constituted the richness, consolation, and joy of their lives. The monument of it preserved in their correspondence possesses extreme interest and value, and must secure for it a prominent place among the few historic friendships of women. The oriental Roxandra was the object of an admiration truly romantic from her friend, who seemed always to see her seated on an ideal throne, and to address her as some queen of Trebizond. Saint-Beuve says, the refined and exalted affection between these two young persons, living in the artificial world of the Russian court, and each throwing back, in her own way, the mystic influences derived from the sky of Alexandria, affected him as the exciting perfume exhaled by two rare plants nourished in a hot-house. It is unimaginable what lofty, exquisite, and mysterious sentiments they exchange. Their naked souls and minds, with all their workings, are visible in these ingenuous and crowded letters, as in a glass hive we can study the industry of bees. Saint-Beuve affirms, that the later difference in their religion, the Countess Edling always remaining in the Greek communion, Madame Swetchine becoming a zealous Catholic, finally made ice between them; and that, when the countess came to Paris to visit her old friend, she complained of finding coldness and reserve. Probably there was something in this, but not much. The friendship will be best revealed by citing, from the parties themselves, some of its characteristic expressions.

The letters of Roxandra have not been published; but, in those of Sophie, both souls are clearly reflected. For, as M. de Falloux says, Madame Swetchine never Ised hackneyed language, never repeated for one what he had first thought for another. She placed herself, with a skill, or rather a condescension, truly marvelous, at the point of view of those with whom she conversed; and she would never have so easily ended by bringing them to herself, had she not always begun by going to them. This habit was so familiar, this movement so natural to her, that, at the close of every correspondence, we have before our eyes the physiognomy of the correspondent as distinctly outlined as the physiognomy of the writer:

"Did you believe me, my dear Roxandra, when I mechanically said, on leaving you, that I should write to you only after five or six clays? I knew not what I said at the time. If you begin to know me a little, you have seen that I could never hear so long a silence. La Bruyere has said, How difficult it is to be satisfied with any one! Ah! well, my friend, I am satisfied with you; and, were it not for my extreme self-distrust, which nourishes so many inquietudes, I should be almost tranquil, almost happy, almost reasonable. My friend, this moment I receive your letter: how can I thank you? Ah! read my grateful heart; and sometimes tell me, that you wish to keep it, in order that it may become worthy of you." "I feel so deeply the happiness of being loved by you, that you can never cease to love me." "I need to know all your thoughts, to follow all your motions, and can find no other occupation so sweet and so dear." "My heart is so full of you, that, since we parted, I have thought of nothing but writing to you." "I see in your soul as if it were my own." "Dear Roxandra, you are every way a privileged being: you unite the advantages of the most opposed characters without any of their inconveniences." "My attachment for you will, without doubt, be a consolation; but that word, when not unmeaning, is so sad that I desire my friendship to fulfil higher offices. I often envy characters whose impressions are slight and transient. The sponge passes across the slate, and nothing is left. Perhaps such a nature best agrees with man, whose pleasures are for a moment, whose pains for a life. Adieu, my friend! How many times already that word has filled my heart with grief! Take good care of yourself; hasten to God; and, when the struggle is too severe, beseech grace instead of combating." "It seems to me that souls seek each other in the chaos of this world, like elements of the same nature tending to re-unite. They touch, they feel themselves tallied; confidence is established without an assignable cause. Reason and reflection following, and fixing the seal of their approval on the union, think they have done it all, as subaltern ministers regard the transactions of their masters nothing until they have been permitted to sign their names at the bottom. I fear no misunderstanding with you; and my gratitude alone can equal the perfect security with which you inspire me." "I must show myself to you absolutely as I am." "I know of no pleasure more alluring than a sweet and confidential converse which begins with an interchange of ideas, and ends with one of sentiments. This I have found in our intercourse." "It seems to me that your good angel is very busy about you, and is covering your thorns with some few flowers. How I should like to be charged with the visible execution of this charming mission!" "When near you, I breathe the atmosphere of calmness and depth, which agrees with me: although I have not the rages of King Saul, there is in the sound of your voice something, I know not what, that reminds me of the effect of the harp of David." "Never was there a goodness more compassionate and penetrating than yours. Yours are the words that seek pain at the bottom of the soul in order to soothe it. How well you possess that divine dexterity which applies balm to wounds almost without touching them!" "My friend, I have met nothing sweeter, more consoling to love, than you. The admirable simplicity of your character, its steadiness, its frankness, have a charm which more than attracts: it fixes." "We must carry, untouched, to the gates of eternity the deposit each has confided to the other."

The above extracts give some idea of the warmth and preciousness of the surpassing friendship, but no idea of the high and varied range of intellectual and religious interests that entered into it. "I always," Madame Swetchine writes, "have your little ring on my finger. This symbol, fragile as all symbols, will outlive me; but I grieve not for that, since I am sure that the sentiment which makes me prize it so highly will survive it in turn." Dora Greenwell says, "The letters of Madame Swetchine are full of an intimate sweetness that has something in it, piercing even to pain, like the scent of the sweet-brier." We are reminded of this when she writes, "If life were perfectly beautiful, yet death would be perfectly desirable." Also again, when she writes to her Roxandra, "What is the pen, sad signal of our long separation, after the pleasure of flinging myself on your neck, and pouring my soul into yours through a deluge of words?" The two friends often indulged the sweet dream of passing their last years together, preparing; each other for the passage equally dreaded and desired, advancing arm in arm and heart in heart towards the unknown. The dream was not destined for fulfilment. But Madame Swetchine had the great joy of seeing her favorite nephew one of the Gargarin boys whom she loved so fondly in their childhood married to Marie Stourdza, the niece and sole heiress of her friend. The only words we have seen from Roxandra herself are worthy of the eulogies paid her, and would seem to justify the highest estimate of her character. She says, "May we all contribute, by our life and our death, to the great thought of God, the re-establishment of order and of truth among men!" And again, amid the alarming revolutions that were shaking all Europe, she says, "We are witnessing the grand judgment of human pride."

Among the wretched children of misfortune, loved and aided by the saintly charity of Madame Swetchine, she was especially drawn to the solacement of deaf mutes. She keenly felt the sadness and danger consequent on this cruel infirmity. She took, as her own maid, a poor deaf mute, named Parisse, whose temper was so bad that she was scarcely tolerated by any one. She found a charm in taking her walks with this still companion, to whom it was not necessary to speak, and who was not humiliated in keeping silence. "With Parisse," she said, "I can believe myself alone, and have a needed arm to support me, and an aid which does not encroach on my liberty." Thus she loved to appear the obliged party rather than the benefactress. The haughty and quarrelsome Parisse often put on the grand airs of an outraged queen. When the other servants were battling with her, Madame Swetchine would go among them, and say, "I love you all, but know that every one shall go before Parisse: she is the most unfortunate, and much should be excused in her." After enduring almost every thing, she succeeded, by her imperturbable good-nature and firmness, in winning the poor girl to a more amiable behavior. Parisse worshipped her mistress, and had the joy one day of being represented behind her in the likeness engraved by a celebrated artist. They became really attached friends. Is it not touchingly instructive thus to trace the religious ascent of the soul of this noble woman in her friendships, as they successively stoop from the Czarina Marie to the deaf mute Parisse? In his funeral sermon on Madame Swetchine, Lacordaire thus alludes to Parisse: "As we watched the sad setting of that beauteous star, I saw her beloved mute following her with her eyes from an adjoining chamber, the vigilant sentinel of a life which had been so lavish of itself, and whose light went out with faithful friendship on the one side, and grateful poverty on the other."

Madame Swetchine was endowed from birth with the material, the physiological conditions, for a great and original character, force competent to the finest and the grandest things, with an over-bias of that force to the brain. For long periods, she was compelled to walk in her chamber from seven to eight hours a day, to avoid intolerable nervous pressures and pains. At sixty-six, she wrote to one of her friends, "My interior life sterilizes itself by reason of superabundance; the too great fullness causes an incessant restlessness. I cannot give body to the multitude of confused ideas which crowd each other, interweave, and suffocate me for want of articulation." This profuse force, which continued throughout her life, enabled her to achieve an amount of work, and acquire a wealth of knowledge and wisdom, truly astonishing. Her youthful education, with the many difficult accomplishments she mastered, was the first resource for the occupation of her teeming energy. The second was the discharge of her domestic and public duties, with as much discretion and skill as if her sole ambition were to be a faultless housekeeper and member of the social order. The third was friendship, to whose genial duties of visiting and correspondence she devoted herself with a fullness and an ardor as passionate as they were genuine. And yet there remained a surplusage of unappropriated soul, whose vague and constant action distressed her. She entered on an extensive study of literature, history, psychology, and philosophy. Her biographer says, that scarcely an important work on these subjects appeared in Europe for fifty years with whose contents she did not familiarize herself, pen in hand. She interspersed these arduous labors by a systematic application to philanthropic works, personally visiting the sick and the poor, and ministering to their wants. And still her force was unexhausted she had more faculty and strength longing to be used, and disturbing her with mysterious solicitations; a solitary activity, without aliment; a wheel for ever revolving in a void; a burning ardor, which, in the absence of sufficing affections below, turned upward, and became a subtile mysticism. When practical duty, friendship, literature, philosophy, and charitable deeds had failed to absorb and satisfy her, plainly there was but one resource left, religion. She entered on the path to God and his fellowship, the sublime way of the life of perfection. She entered on it with an extraordinary capacity for ascending through the various degrees of perception, feeling, and transfusion; and, at the same time, with a power of rational poise which kept her experience of piety from the two extremes of mawkishness and delirium. Such balancing good sense and sobriety, such freedom from every thing morbid, combined with so much thoroughness of faith and so much fervor, we know not where else to find. Some hearts open downward, and send their exciting drench through the body; hers opened upward, and sent its pure vapor aloft into the mind to wear celestial colors. Her head was a higher heart, playing off intelligence and affection, transmuted into each other.

In the charming treatise on "Old Age," from the pen of Madame Swetchine, a piece of serene poetry and impassioned wisdom, a critic complains that she rather transfigures the subject than shows it. But, however much she may have transfigured it in description, in person and experience she has shown it in the most beautiful form of truth of which it is susceptible. Year by year, to the very end, she became ever wiser, calmer, more influential, more honored and beloved, more saintly and content. Her religious abnegation grew perfect; her peace deepened; her active benevolence broadened; her spirit, always genially tolerant, acquired a mellower ripeness. In relation to one of her acquaintances, she says, "The last time I saw him, I was struck by a kind of rigidity, of bitterness, a want of charity in his judgments which injured their justice; for the more I see, the more I am convinced that we must love in order to know." The detestable Rochefoucauld said, "Old age is the hell of women." For Madame Swetchine it had much more of paradise, as the rich ardor and impetuosity of her youth slowly moderated, and, by judicious oversight, she trained her powers into harmony among themselves and submission to God. Long before, she had said that the saddest of all sights was that of an aged woman, deprived of the consideration and respect belonging to a serious life. Now she could say of herself, "I have deserved most of the disappointments I have experienced; yet God has softened them, as if he meant them not for penalties, but trials. Benevolence surrounds me; my need of esteem is satisfied; I have known the most distinguished people; my heart has been fortunate in friendship. Self-detached, in a calm and sweet tranquillity, I need no more, to close my course with courage." She was not one of those who never speak of themselves because they are always thinking of themselves. De Tocqueville, after receiving an epistle from her, wrote back, with grateful delight in her frank and honoring confidence, "Your letter is a full-length portrait of yourself." In fact, she always spoke of herself with the utmost freedom, because she looked at herself from without as she would at any other object. Her last years were a fine illustration of her own thought, "Old age is the majestic and imposing dome of human life."

The death of this memorable woman, touchingly described by Falloux in a letter to Montalembert written at the time, was worthy of what had gone before it, of the preparations she had made for it, and of the glorious destiny to which she believed it the entrance. That "we are to seek God, not deludedly wait for him to seek us," was not more the maxim of her pen than of her practice. "I speak to others; but with whom do I converse, if it be not, O my God with thee?" To one of the group of tearful and venerating friends standing around her, she said, "Do not, my good friend, ask for me one day more, or one pang less." Without any decay of her faculties or waning of her moral force, bearing her sufferings with invincible patience and sweetness, maintaining a dignity of thought and speech comparable with that of the last conversation of Socrates, but with the triumph of a perfect Christian faith, she dropped what was mortal, and passed immortally into the bosom of God. It was in September, 1857, and she was seventy-five years young. The great, dazzling, guilty Paris has loosed no purer or richer spirit for the skies. Her dust hallows the cemetery of Montmartre, where, in the coming days, many a pilgrim will go to look on her monument.