for what did she care for such particulars when her eyes were at their clearest?  Her perception was intellectual; and to the penetrating glances of her mental vision the objects of the sensual world were mere irrelevance.  The kind of writing produced by such a quality of mind may seem thin and barren to those accustomed to the wealth and variety of the Romantic school.  Yet it will repay attention.  The vocabulary is very small; but every word is the right one; this old lady of high society, who had never given a thought to her style, who wrote—­and spelt—­by the light of nature, was a past mistress of that most difficult of literary accomplishments—­’l’art de dire en un mot tout ce qu’un mot peut dire.’  The object of all art is to make suggestions.  The romantic artist attains that end by using a multitude of different stimuli, by calling up image after image, recollection after recollection, until the reader’s mind is filled and held by a vivid and palpable evocation; the classic works by the contrary method of a fine economy, and, ignoring everything but what is essential, trusts, by means of the exact propriety of his presentation, to produce the required effect.  Madame du Deffand carries the classical ideal to its furthest point.  She never strikes more than once, and she always hits the nail on the head.  Such is her skill that she sometimes seems to beat the Romantics even on their own ground:  her reticences make a deeper impression than all the dottings of their i’s.  The following passage from a letter to Walpole is characteristic: 

Nous eumes une musique charmante, une dame qui joue de la harpe a merveille; elle me fit tant de plaisir que j’eus du regret que vous ne l’entendissiez pas; c’est un instrument admirable.  Nous eumes aussi un clavecin, mais quoiqu’il fut touche avec une grande perfection, ce n’est rien en comparaison de la harpe.  Je fus fort triste toute la soiree; j’avais appris en partant que Mme. de Luxembourg, qui etait allee samedi a Montmorency pour y passer quinze jours, s’etait trouvee si mal qu’on avait fait venir Tronchin, et qu’on l’avait ramenee le dimanche a huit heures du soir, qu’on lui croyait de l’eau dans la poitrine.  L’anciennete de la connaissance; une habitude qui a l’air de l’amitie; voir disparaitre ceux avec qui l’on vit; un retour sur soi-meme; sentir que l’on ne tient a rien, que tout fuit, que tout echappe, qu’on reste seule dans l’univers, et que malgre cela on craint de le quitter; voila ce qui m’occupa pendant la musique.

Here are no coloured words, no fine phrases—­only the most flat and ordinary expressions—­’un instrument admirable’—­’une grande perfection’—­’fort triste.’  Nothing is described; and yet how much is suggested!  The whole scene is conjured up—­one does not know how; one’s imagination is switched on to the right rails, as it were, by a look, by a gesture, and then left to run of itself.  In the simple, faultless rhythm of that closing sentence, the trembling melancholy of the old harp seems to be lingering still.