Page:Letters of Mlle. de Lespinasse.djvu/344

Rh be regretted, because they would have formed a vast and varied and most precious collection, are her letters. They had a character, a touch, a style, which had no model and could not, I believe, have imitators. The style was neither that of Mme. de Sévigné nor that of Mme. de Maintenon. It was her own, and, in my opinion, far above theirs. Her letters were fuller, more varied, stronger in thought, drawn more completely from her own being ; for she did not live, like those two women, on what was happening at Court and in Europe; her letters were, above all things, living. Ah ! it is in that that this celestial creature can be compared to no other woman. Her letters had the impulse and the warmth of conversation. They filled the place of absence at the moment of receiving them, I made the tour of Europe and her letters followed me, consoled me, supported me. Alas! I must now expect and hope for them in vain ! It is not the seas, not time nor space that parts us, it is that which cannot be seen or measured — it is the unknown and eternal gulf.

So far, I have considered Eliza under the different aspects of her mind only ; but what was her mind, compared to her nature and her soul! How can I laud enough her virtues, her lofty spirit, her generosity, her disinterestedness, her benevolence, her love for the unfortunate ! Each of those virtues was natural and familiar to her; she practised them as one walks, as one breathes, and she drew no self-praise from them; they never shone in her conversation with pretension or conceit; and this, because the moral of virtues exercised from feeling and from native character never advertises itself; it is only the fictitious virtues which need an outward exhibition.

But to paint the virtues of Eliza it does not suffice to mention them. Each was accompanied by circumstances which