Page:Letters of Mlle. de Lespinasse.djvu/345

320 enhanced its merit and its charm. The same virtues in other persons did not produce the same effect. Her soul was strong and lofty. All that was vile and base, or merely petty and feeble, excited her contempt and indignation. She would often have let herself go into vehement pronouncements if the indulgence and amenity of mind which were natural to her had not tempered her first impulse. By this great nobility of soul and character she was, in a way, replaced in the rank where her birth would have put her could it have been recognized ; the silence she kept about her fate added to its interest, and the delicate position in which she was never affected injuriously either her own bearing or the consideration in which she was held. She received many women, and women of high rank, with whom she had that noble ease which, accompanying respect, compels a return of consideration from the other person. She paid to their position what she would, if need were, have refused to their pride ; but no one was ever tempted to indulge in that sentiment with her. They felt she had other advantages that more than placed her on their level ; but she herself never made those advantages felt. They were wrapped in manners so gentle, so amiable, so simple, that they never wounded either pretension or mediocrity.

Oh! how that dignity of soul and character shone in the constant contempt she felt for riches and the means of acquiring it. Her fortune was more than slight. She was surrounded by powerful friends who could have served her in this respect without wounding her delicacy. She asked nothing from them and refused their assistance often. One day I was talking with her on this point and I reproached her for rejecting an offer of service that had just been made to her. "Ah!" I said, "if Gonsalve had made you that offer would you have refused him?" "Yes," she replied, " Gon-