Page:Letters of Mlle. de Lespinasse.djvu/342

Rh all styles. She admired the mausoleum of Cardinal de Richelieu, and the little dying bird of Houdon went to her heart ; she could passionately admire Rubens, and the next moment she enjoyed a miniature by Petitot; the music of Grdtry enchanted her, but on the morrow an air from Orpheus was to her the music of heaven. She never confounded these styles ; she felt them all and in feeling them she judged them. . ..

She was accused of enthusiasm and prejudice in her feelings. People declared that they could not conceive how her heart could suffice for so many friends. Narrow and vulgar minds, was it for you to measure and comprehend hers ? In the first place, all her feelings were not passions. It was with her feelings as with her tastes, they had different degrees according to the difference in their essence. She loved from esteem, from attraction, from gratitude. She loved in Areste [d'Alembert] genius united to virtue; in Sainval [probably himself] a soul of fire which had, perhaps, some affinity with hers; in Cléon, Ergaste, Valfere, etc., such or such quality of mind or nature which justified her penchant. O you who were her friends, say if ever one of you had cause to blame her friendship! did it not seem to you, when suffering, ill, or unhappy, that you were her first object? She bound us to one another by an interest of which she was the mainspring and the goal. We felt ourselves friends in her house because we were there united by the same sentiments, — the desire to please her and the need of loving her. Alas! how many persons saw one another, sought one another, suited one another through her, who will never see, or suit, or seek themselves again ! The charm of her circle was so in her that the persons who composed it were not the same as they were elsewhere. It was only in her presence that they had their full value. "We are separated," I said yester-