ualities. Though nurtured and ripened by experience, it
was not the offspring of art. It was an effect, not a cause,--not simply
the result of an intense desire to please, regulated by a fine intuitive
perception, but of higher, finer characteristics, such as natural
sweetness of temper, kindness of heart, and forgetfulness of self. Her
successes were the triumph of impulse rather than of design. In order to
please she did not study character, she divined it. Keenly alive to
outward influences, and losing in part her own personality when coming
in contact with that of others, she readily adapted herself to their
moods,--and her apprehension was quick, if not profound. It is always
gratifying to feel one's self understood, and every person who talked
with Madame Recamier enjoyed this pleasant consciousness. No one felt a
humiliating sense of inferiority in her presence, and this was owing as
much to the character of her intellect as to her tact. Partial friends
detected genius in her conversation and letters, and tried to excite her
to literary effort; but other and stronger evidence forces us to look
upon such praise as mere delicate flattery. A woman more beautiful than
gifted was far more likely to be gratified by a compliment to her
intellect than to her personal charms, as Madame de Stael was more
delighted at an allusion to the beauty of her neck and arms than to the
merits of "L'Allemagne" or "Corinne." But if Madame Recamier did not
possess genius, she had unerring instincts which stood her in lieu of
it, and her mind, if not original, was appreciative. The genuine
admiration she felt for her literary friends stimulated as well as
gratified them. She drew them out, and, dazzled by their own brilliancy,
they gave her credit for thoughts which were in reality their own. To
this faculty of intelligent appreciation was joined another still more
captivating. She was a good listener. "_Bien ecouter c'est presque
repondre_," quotes Jean Paul from Marivaux, and Sainte-Beuve said of
Madame Recamier that she listened "_avec seduction_." She was also an
extremely indulgent and charitable person, and was severe neither on the
faults nor on the foibles of others. "No one knew so well as she how to
spread balm on the wounds that are never acknowledged, how to calm and
exorcise the bitterness of rivalry or literary animosity. For moral
chagrins and imaginary sorrows, which are so intense in some natures,
she was, _par excellence_