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, the Sister of Charity.”  The repose of her manner made this sympathy more effective.  Hers was not a stormy nature, but calm and equable.  If she had emotion to master, it was mastered in secret, and not a ripple on the surface betrayed the agitation beneath.  She had no nervous likes or dislikes, no changeful humors, few unequal moods.  She did not sparkle and then die out.  The fire was always kindled on the hearth, the lamp serenely burning.  Some women charm by their mutability; she attracted by her uniformity.  But in her uniformity there was no monotony.  Like the continuous murmur of a brook, it gladdened as well as soothed.

It was probably these sweet womanly qualities, together with the meekness with which she bore her honors, that endeared her to her feminine friends.  All her life had been a series of triumphs, which were not won by any conscious effort on her part, but were spontaneous gifts of fortune,—­

    “As though a shower of fairy wreaths
    Had fallen upon her from the sky.”

Yet her manner was entirely free from pretension or self-assertion.