the pointed sententiousness of earlier time.  One day, for instance, in the era of the Directory, a conversation was going on as to the various merits and defects of women; she heard much, and then with her accustomed suavity of voice contributed this light summary:—­“Without women, the life of man would be without aid at the beginning, without pleasure in the middle, and without solace at the end."[272]

We may be sure that it was not her power of saying things of this sort that kindled Rousseau’s flame, but rather the sprightly naturalness, frankness, and kindly softness of a character which in his opinion united every virtue except prudence and strength, the two which Rousseau would be least likely to miss.  The bond of union between them was subtle.  She found in Rousseau a sympathetic listener while she told the story of her passion for Saint Lambert, and a certain contagious force produced in him a thrill which he never felt with any one else before or after.  Thus, as he says, there was equally love on both sides, though it was not reciprocal.  “We were both of us intoxicated with passion, she for her lover, I for her; our sighs and sweet tears mingled.  Tender confidants, each of the other, our sentiments were of such close kin that it was impossible for them not to mix; and still she never forgot her duty for a moment, while for myself, I protest, I swear, that if sometimes drawn astray by my senses, still”—­still he was a paragon of virtue, subject to rather new definition.  We can appreciate the author of the New Heloisa; we can appreciate the author of Emilius; but this strained attempt to confound those two very different persons by combining tearful erotics with high ethics, is an exhibition of self-delusion that the most patient analyst of human nature might well find hard to suffer.  “The duty of privation exalted my soul.  The glory of all the virtues adorned the idol of my heart in my sight; to soil its divine image would have been to annihilate it,” and so forth.[273] Moon-lighted landscape gave a background for the sentimentalist’s picture, and dim groves, murmuring cascades, and the soft rustle of the night air, made up a scene which became for its chief actor “an immortal memory of innocence and delight.”  “It was in this grove, seated with her on a grassy bank, under an acacia heavy with flowers, that I found expression for the emotions of my heart in words that were worthy of them.  ’Twas the first and single time of my life; but I was sublime, if you can use the word of all the tender and seductive things that the most glowing love can bring into the heart of a man.  What intoxicating tears I shed at her knees, what floods she shed in spite of herself!  At length in an involuntary transport, she cried out, ’Never was man so tender, never did man love as you do!  But your friend Saint Lambert hears us, and my heart cannot love twice.’"[274] Happily, as we learn from another source, a breath of wholesome life from without brought the transcendental to grotesque end.  In the climax of tears and protestations, an honest waggoner at the other side of the park wall, urging on a lagging beast launched a round and far-sounding oath out into the silent night.  Madame d’Houdetot answered with a lively continuous peal of young laughter, while an angry chill brought back the discomfited lover from an ecstasy that was very full of peril.[275]