Page:Madame de Staël (1887 Bella Duffy).djvu/99

Rh without divining the cause, was the passionate and unappeasable desire to be loved. All men who had dealings with her appear to have misunderstood her in so far that they believed her to be more dominated by her head than her heart—instead of understanding that, in her, head and heart were the systole and diastole of a temperament surprisingly forcible but not essentially strong. Or, if they did learn to comprehend her better at last, it was when she was no longer young, and feeling of a certain sort had become, alas! ridiculous. As long as she was entitled to feel and to suffer they made almost a reproach to her of the intellectual superiority which they could not deny, and cast her back upon her own thoughts for happiness.

Madame de Krüdener, on one occasion, arrived at the complacent conclusion that Madame de Staël was jealous of her. Not jealous of her beauty and golden locks, which was conceivable, and might have been true, but jealous of her literary fame! Corinne jealous of Valerie! It is true that Corinne had not yet seen the light, while Valerie had not only appeared, but had met with great success. So great an authority as St. Beuve pronounces Madame de Krüdener's novel to be a thing of joy, a work to be read thrice, "in youth, in middle life, and in old age." But it is possible to have many intellectual qualities, and yet remain at such an immeasurable distance beneath Madame de Staël that nothing but vanity could scale the height.

Moreover, Madame de Krüdener's meaner self had not been a stranger to the immediate and surprising triumph of her work. She was always intriguing, and intrigued to some purpose when her novel was