The power and charm of Madame Recamier were not merely in her ravishing beauty, imperturbable good nature, and all-subduing graciousness, but also in her mind and character. Madame de Stael, who was a great critic, and no flatterer, says to her,
"What a charm there is in your manner of writing! I wish you would compose a romance, put in it some celestial being, and give her your own natural expressions, without altering a word. You have a character of astonishing n.o.bleness; and the contrast of your delicate and gracious features, with your grand firmness of soul, produces an incomparable effect."
The last letter written by the dying author to her friend concluded with the words, "All that is left of me embraces you." The survivor paid the pious rites of affection to the departed, with the devotion which had marked their whole relation. And when, years afterward, on the loss of her property, Madame Recamier betook herself to the Abbaye-aux-Bois, in her humble chamber, where she was more sought and admired than ever in her proudest prosperity, the chief articles to be seen, in addition to the indispensable furniture, were, as Chateaubriand has described the scene, a library, a harp, a piano, a magnificent portrait of Madame de Stael by Gerard, and a moonlight view of Coppet. Madame de Stael had once written to her, "Your friendship is like the spring in the desert, that never fails; and it is this which makes it impossible not to love you." Death caused no decay of that sentiment, but raised and sanctified it. Her translated friend now became an object of worship; and she devoted her whole energies to extend and preserve the memory of the ill.u.s.trious writer.
The self-forgetting sympathy of Madame Recamier, and the magical atmosphere of loveliness she carried around her, obtained for her many warm friendships with women. Foremost, by far, among these was that with Madame de Stael. But others also were very dear. The widow of Matthieu de Montmorency was extremely attached to her, wrote her touching letters, and took every opportunity to see her. Madame de Boigne, too, was joined with Madame Recamier in a relation of respect and affection truly profound and vivid. This lady was greatly distinguished for her beauty as well as for her voice, which was compared with that of Catalani. She was much impressed by the n.o.ble behavior of Madame Recamier at the time of her husband"s bankruptcy; and, by her delicate attentions, secured the most grateful love in return. Their earnest and faithful affection lasted until death. A novel, ent.i.tled "Une Pa.s.sion dans le Grande Monde," in which Madame de Stael and Madame Reeamier are the two chief characters, was left for publication by Madame de Boigne at her death. It was published in 1866.
One of Madame Recamier"s sweetest friendships was with the accomplished and charming Elizabeth Foster, d.u.c.h.ess of Devonshire, the fame of whose exquisite loveliness traversed the earth. The d.u.c.h.ess said of her friend, "At first she is good, then she is intellectual, and after this she is very beautiful," a striking compliment, when spoken, in relation to an admired rival, by one who was herself so dazzlingly gifted. The order of precedence in her charms, however, was differently recognized by men. They were subdued successively by her beauty, her goodness, her judgment, her character. The d.u.c.h.ess of Devonshire had known all the romance and all the sorrow of life. Her experience had left upon her a melancholy which attracted the heart almost as quickly as it did the eye, and lent to her something pensive and caressing. Although a Protestant, she had formed, during her long residence in Rome, an entire friendship with the Cardinal Consalvi, who was the prime-minister and favorite of Pope Pius VII through his whole pontificate. These two beautiful women, as soon as they met, felt, by all the laws of elective affinity, that they belonged to each other. The death of the Pope was followed, in a few months, by that of his minister and friend. During the illness of Consalvi, Madame Recamier shared all the hopes, fears, and distresses of the d.u.c.h.ess. And when the fatal event had befallen, and the cardinal was laid in state, and the romantic and despairing woman would go to look on her dead friend, she accompanied her, deeply veiled, through the crowd, and knelt with her, amidst the solemn pomp, in tears and prayer, beside the unanswering clay. The d.u.c.h.ess was struck to the heart by this irreparable loss. All that a devoted sympathy could yield to soothe and sustain, she received from Madame Recamier. And when, soon after, unable to speak, she lay dying, she silently pressed the hand of this faithful friend, as the final act of her existence.
Madame Recamier retained to the last her enviable power of inspiring affection. Madame Lenormant says that the Countess Caffarelli found her, in her age and blindness, watching by the death-bed of Chateaubriand. Drawn by her singular goodness, she sought to share with her in these holy cares. She thus became the loving and beloved a.s.sociate of the final hour. This admirable person worthily closes the list the rich and bright list of the friends of Madame Recamier.
In her youth, the first wish of Madame Recamier was the wish to please; and she was, no doubt, a little too coquettish, not enough considerate of the masculine hearts she damaged, and the feminine hearts she pained. The Duke de Laval said, "The gift of involuntary and powerful fascination was her talisman." Not, sometimes, to make a voluntary use of that talisman, she must have been more than human.
As years and trials deepened her nature, she sought rather to make happy than merely to please. She always cared more to be respected than to be flattered, to be loved than to be admired. Admiration and sympathy were stronger in her than vanity and love of pleasure: reason and justice were strongest of all. Her judgment was as clear, her conscience as commanding, her sincerity, courage, and firmness as admirable, as her heart was rich and good. When Fouche said to her, in her misfortunes and exile, "The weak ought to be amiable," she instantly replied, "And the strong ought to be just." Her exquisite symmetry of form, her dazzling purity of complexion, her graciousness of disposition, her perfect health, her desire to please, and generous delight in pleasing, composed an all-potent philter, which the sympathy of every spectator drank with intoxicating effect. She discriminated, with perfect truthfullness, the various degrees of acquaintance and friendship. She made all feel self-complacent, by her unaffected attention causing them to perceive that she wished their happiness and valued their good opinion. Ballanche tells her, "You feel yourself the impression you make on others, and are enveloped in the incense they burn at your feet." Wherever she went, as if a celestial magnet pa.s.sed, all faces drifted towards her with admiring love and pleasure. By her lofty integrity and her matchless sweetness and skill, as by a rare alchemy, she trans.m.u.ted her fugitive lovers into permanent friends. Her talents were as attractive as her features: little by little her conversation made the listener forget even her loveliness. Saint-Beuve says, "As her beauty slowly retreated, the mind it had eclipsed gradually shone forth, as on certain days, towards twilight, the evening star appears in the quarter of the heaven opposite to the setting sun." Her voice was remarkably fresh, soft, and melodious. Her politeness never forsook her: with an extreme ease of manner, she had a horror of familiarity, as well as of all excess and violence. Her moderation of thought, serenity of soul, and velvet manner, were as unwearying as reason and harmony. Without pretence of any sort, she hid, under the full bloom of her beauty and her fame, like humble violets, modesty and disinterestedness. At the time of her death, Guizot, when a distinguished American lady asked him what was the marvel of her fascination, replied, with great emotion, "Sympathy, sympathy, sympathy." She had none of that aridity of heart which regular coquetry either presupposes or produces. Deprived by destiny of those relations which usually fill the heart of woman, she carried into the only sentiment allowed her, an ardor, a faithfullness, and a delicacy, which were unequalled; and the veracity of her soul, joined with her singular discretion, gave her friends a most enjoyable sense of security. Ballanche called her "the genius of devotedness;" and Montalembert, "the genius of confidence."
From the most dangerous and deteriorating influences of her position she found a safeguard in active works of charity. Her pecuniary generosity, in her days of opulence, was boundless. She seemed to feel that every unfortunate had a right to her interest and her a.s.sistance. "Disgrace and misfortune had for her," avowed one who knew her entirely, "the same sort of attraction that favor and success have for vulgar souls; and under no circ.u.mstances was she ever false to this characteristic." The fine taste she had for literature and art, the great pleasure she took in their beauties, the natural grace and good-will with which she expressed her admiration, furnished precisely that kind of incense which authors and artists love to breathe. Old Laharpe, who, in her young days, had derived the deepest delight from her attention and praise, wrote to her, "I love you as one loves an angel." The readiness with which the word "angel" rises to the lips of her friends is striking. Almost every one of them applies the word to her on nearly every occasion.
Madame de Krudener writes to her, "I shall have the happiness, I hope, dear angel, of embracing you to-morrow, and talking with you."
All seemed instantly to recognize something angelic in her expression. It was in her disposition as much as in her appearance, apparently in the latter because in the former, as Ballanche said to her, "In your thought, taste, and grace will ever be united in one harmonious whole. I am fascinated at the idea of so perfect a harmony, and want the whole world to know what I so easily divine. It will be your mission to make the intrinsic character of beauty fully understood; to show that it is an entirely moral thing. Had Plato known you, he need not have resorted to so subtile an argument. You would have made him alive to a truth that was always a mystery to him; and that rare genius would thus have had one more t.i.tle to the admiration of the world."
There was something celestial in her motions, that suggested the undulations of a spirit rather than joints and muscles, and made her soul and flesh one melody. As to her heavenly temper of goodness, there is but one voice from all who knew her. She accorded to the sufferings of self-love a pity and kindness seldom shown to them. She had the sweetest faculty for dressing the wounds of envy and jealousy, soothing the lacerations of rivalry and hate, a.s.suaging the bitterness of neglected and revengeful souls. For all those moral pains, or griefs of imagination, which burn in some natures with a cruel intensity, she was a true sister of charity. To the rest of her winsome gifts she added according to the unanimous testimony of the witnesses this rare and resistless quality, the power of listening to, and occupying herself with, others, the secret both of social success, and of happiness without that success. "She said little," De Tocqueville avers, "but knew what each man"s forte was, and led him to it. If any thing was said particularly well, her face brightened.
You saw that her attention was always active, always intelligent."
Lamartine said, "As radiant as Aspasia, but a pure and Christian Aspasia, it was not her features only that were beautiful: she was beautiful herself." Sarah Austin affirmed, "It was the atmosphere of benignity which seemed to exhale like a delicate perfume from her whole person, that prolonged the fascination of her beauty." And Lemoine declared, in his eloquent obituary notice, "In the hearts of those who had the honor and the happiness of living in constant intercourse with her, Madame Recamier will for ever remain the object of a sort of adoration which we should find it impossible to express." The only fault her friends would confess in her was the generous fault of too great toleration and indulgence. And to dwell unkindly on this is as ungracious a task as to try to fix a stain on a star.
Arrayed in her divine charms; armed with irresistible goodness and archness; enriched with equal wisdom and uprightness, every movement a mixture of grace and dignity; protected by an aureole of purity which always surrounded her; walking among common mortals, "like a G.o.ddess on a cloud," she made it the business of her life to soften the asperities, listen to the" plans, sympathize with the disappointments, stimulate the powers, encourage the efforts, praise the achievements, and enjoy the triumphs, of her friends. No wonder they loved her, and thronged around her alike in prosperity and in adversity. To appreciate her character is a joy; to portray her example, a duty. She was a kind of saint of the world.
The single fault which Saint-Beuve finds with the spirit of the society she formed, and governed so long with her irresistible sceptre, is that there was too much of complaisance and charity in it. Stern truth suffered, and character was enervated, while courtesy and taste flourished: "The personality or self-love of all who came into the charmed circle was too much caressed." One can scarcely help lamenting that so gracious a fault is not oftener to be met in the selfish and satirical world. For the opposite fault of a harsh carelessness is so much more frequent as to make this seem almost a virtue. Cast in an angel"s mould, and animated with an angel"s spirit, her consciousness vacant of self, vacant also of an absorbing aim, ever ready to install the aim of any worthy person who came before her, she was such a woman as Dante would have adored. It seems impossible not to recognize how much fitter a type of womanhood she is for her s.e.x to admire than those specimens who spend their days in publicly ventilating their vanity, feverishly courting notoriety and power; or those who, without cultivation, without expansion, without devotion, without aspiration, lead a life of monotonous drudgery, with not a single interest beyond their own homes.
A certain Madame Ancelot has written a book, in which, doubtless under the pain of some galling memory--she attacks Madame Recamier as a selfish coquette, enamored only of admiration, fame, and power.
Her chief weapon, as this woman a.s.serts, was a skilful application of deliberate unprincipled flattery to the pride and vanity of everybody she met. The conduct attributed to Madame Recamier in the odious examples fabricated by this slanderer, would have been insufferably repulsive even to average persons. To persons of such insight, refinement, and elevation as marked all her most intimate a.s.sociates, it would have been unutterably disgusting. The whole representation, while awakening the indignation of the reader, shows what a degrading caricature n.o.ble souls undergo when reflected in the minds of base observers. Contrast with the view of this Madame Ancelot what is said with unquestionable authority, after the intimacy of a lifetime, by the gifted and ill.u.s.trious Countess de Boigne. "Amidst the overwhelming reverses of her husband"s fortunes, I found Madame Recamier so calm, so n.o.ble, so simple, lifted so far above all the vain shows of her former life, that I was extremely struck; and I date from that moment the vivid affection which subsequent events have served only to confirm. No portrait does her justice. All praise her incomparable beauty, her active beneficence, her sweet urbanity.
Many declare her great talents; but few have discerned, through the habitual ease of her intercourse, the loftiness of her heart, the independence of her character, the impartiality of her judgment, and the fairness of her soul!" These are the words of one absolutely competent to judge, intrinsically incapable of falsifying; and also when death had removed every motive for flattery.
All who have written on this most admired and beloved woman have had much to say of the secret and the lesson of her sway. One ascribes her dominion to a subtile blandishment; another to a marvellous tact, another to an indescribable magic. But really the secret was simple.
It was the refined suavity and Womanliness of her nature, the ineffable charm of a temper of unconquerable sweetness and kindliness, a ruling "desire to give pleasure, avert pain, avoid offence, render her society agreeable to all its members, and enable every one to present himself in the most favorable light." Let the fair creatures made to adorn and reign over society add to their beauty, as Sarah Austin observes, the proper virtues of true-born and Christian women, gentleness, love, anxiety to please, fearfullness to offend, meekness, pity, an overflowing good-will manifested in kind words and deeds, and they may see in the example before us how high and lasting its empire is. This is the true secret revealed, this the genuine lesson taught, by the rare career which we have been reviewing.
After this glorious example of the moral mission of woman, glorious despite its acknowledged imperfections, it is not necessary to deny the common a.s.sertion, that men have a monopoly of the sentiment of friendship. Neither is it necessary to expatiate on the great happiness this sentiment is capable of yielding in the comparatively narrow and quiet lives of women, or to insist on the larger s.p.a.ce which ought to be a.s.signed to the cultivation of it in those lives.
The moral of the whole subject may be put into one short sentence, namely this: The chief recipe for giving richness and peace to the soul is, less of vague pa.s.sion, less of ambitious activity, anti more of dedicated sentiment in the private personal relations of the inner life.
How little matter unto us the great!
What the heart touches, that controls our fate.
From the full galaxy we turn to one, Dim to all else, but to ourselves the sun; And still, to each, some poor, obscurest life Breathes all the bliss, or kindles all the strife.
Wake up the countless dead; ask every ghost, Whose influence tortured or consoled the most?
How each pale spectre of the host would turn From the fresh laurel and the glorious urn, To point where rots, beneath a nameless stone, Some heart in which had ebbed and flowed its own!
The salon which Madame Swetchine opened in the Rue Saint-Dominique was one of the powers of Paris for over forty years. Here she drew around her all that was most select, most distinguished, most exalted, in Catholic France; and subdued all by the holy dignity of her character, the authority of her wisdom, the sweetness of her spirit, and the charm of her manners. In the homage she inspired, the favors she distributed, and the tributes she received, she was truly a queen. Her days were divided into parts, observed with strict uniformity. She reserved the morning to herself, hearing ma.s.s and visiting the poor until eight o"clock; then returning home, and closing her door until three. From three to six she received company; secluded herself from six to nine; and welcomed her friends again from nine until midnight. Her drawing-room, if not so famous, was as influential and fascinating to its frequenters as that of Madame Recamier. Unlike as they were, they have often been compared. The Recamier salon, with its slightly intoxicating perfume of elegance, was infinitely more easy, more agreeable; the Swetchine salon, with its bracing atmosphere of sanct.i.ty, was more earnest, more religious.
Though personal n.o.bleness was honored in both, polished fashion predominated in one, devout principle in the other. The presiding genius of the former was the perfection of the best spirit of the world; the presiding genius of the latter was the perfection of the best spirit of the Catholic Church. The guests of Madame Recamier went to the Abbaye-aux-Bois to please and to be pleased, to exchange eloquent thoughts, to breathe chivalrous sentiments, and to enjoy an exquisite grace of politeness never surpa.s.sed. The guests of Madame Swetchine went to the Rue Saint-Dominique to take counsel on the affairs of the higher politics, the interests of the nation, and the welfare of the Church; to enjoy a community of faith and aspiration, to refresh their best purposes, and to learn how more effectively to serve the great ends to which they were pledged. There, liberty of opinion and speech was unlimited, and a refined complacency aimed at; here, loyalty to certain foregone principles and inst.i.tutions was expected, and a tacit spiritual direction maintained: but in both were found the same delightful moderation, repose, and gracious forbearance; the same reconciling skill; the same indescribable art of ruling and leading while appearing to obey and follow.
These ill.u.s.trious women were perhaps equal in the interest they awakened, and the sway they exercised over their friends; but there was a great difference in the secret of the charm which they severally possessed. There is nothing more disagreeable in a companion than pre-occupation, if it be pre-occupation with self; nothing more fascinating, if it be pre-occupation with you, or with something of universal authority and attraction. The spell of Madame Recamier lay in her irresistible personal beauty, grace, and graciousness; that of Madame Swetchine, in her unquestionable greatness and goodness and simplicity. Each was marvellously self- detached and kind to everybody. But Madame Recamier was an unoccupied mirror, ready to reflect upon you what you brought before it; Madame Swetchine, a mirror pre-occupied with the lovely and authoritative forms of virtue, wisdom, and piety. The former personally enchanted and captivated all; the latter caused all to bow, with herself, before a common sovereignty. The one was the fairest model of nature; the other, a representative of supernatural realities, a holy symbol of G.o.d.
It is extremely interesting to trace the effect of these remarkable personalities on each other. When Madame Swetchine visited Rome, at the age of forty-two, her mind was somewhat imbued with prejudices against Madame Recamier, whom she had never seen, and who was then tarrying there. Madame Recamier was forty-seven years old, with a reputation unsullied by a breath, and a beauty which was remarkable even twenty years afterwards. The manner in which Madame Swetchine speaks of her, in a letter to Madame de Montcalm, forms the least satisfactory pa.s.sage we remember in all her correspondence:
"Madame Recamier seems sincerely to prefer a secluded life. It is fortunate, her beauty and celebrity being on the decline: ruins make little sensation in a country of ruins. It seems that to be drawn to her one must know her more; and, after such brilliant successes, certainly nothing can be more flattering than to reckon almost as many friends as formerly lovers. Perhaps, however, not that I would detract from her merit, had she but once loved--the number would have been sensibly diminished."
It is charming to see, in the rich, eloquent letter which Madame Swetchine wrote to Madame Recamier, soon after their first interview, how quickly these prejudices were dispelled on personal contact, and replaced by an earnest attachment:
"I have yielded to the penetrating, indefinable charm with which you enthrall even those for whom you do not yourself care. It seems as if we had pa.s.sed a long time together, and had many memories in common.
This would be inexplicable, did not certain sentiments have a little of eternity in them. One should say, that, when souls touch, they put off all the poor conditions of earth; and, happier and freer, already obey the laws of a better world."
The reciprocation of this interest is shown by the fact, that Madame Recamier urgently besought Madame Swetchine to make her residence in the same house with her, the Abbaye-aux-Bois; which she would probably have done, had it not been for the objections of General Swetchine.
The open secret of the wonderful influence which Madame Swetchine exerted on all who came in contact with her, of the extreme reverence and love with which they regarded her, was, therefore, the incomparable power, sincerity, generosity, and gentleness of her character. But to appreciate this truth, and learn the lesson it conveys, we must a.n.a.lyze the case more in detail. The distinguished friend who has written her life says,
"The most remarkable peculiarity of the character of Madame Swetchine was, that all the qualities, all the virtues, and all the powers were distributed in perfect harmony. She was in the same degree enthusiastic and sensible, because her reason was equal to her imagination: she thought as deeply as she felt. However often a man in mind, she always remained a woman in heart; and her personal abnegation was neither feigned nor studied. As exempt from envy as from ambition, she lived first in others, then in public works; only thought of herself after being occupied with everybody else; and great as was her dislike of egotism, never needed to rebuke it because she found such a rich joy in the opposite sentiment. Her disinterestedness reconciled others to her superiority."
Her faith stood so firm in the whirlwind of opinions, that she needed not to bolster it by bigotry. To the friends, who once murmured against her too great tolerance, she replied, "Of what use is it to live, if one is never to hear any thing but his own voice?" Her compa.s.sion and her patience were unconquerable. Nothing could draw from her the slightest sign of vexation or weariness. One of her constant visitors, for fifteen years, was a woman universally detested for her outrageous temper and her bad manners. The announcement of her name was the signal of dismay and dispersion. But the saintly hostess invariably gave her an affectionate reception; and to all the attempts made to induce her to cast off the obnoxious guest, she said, with a smile, "What do you wish? All the world avoids her; she is unhappy, and she has only me." This woman died of old age; and, during her last days, Madame Swetchine went often to see her, and pa.s.sed long hours beside her death-bed.
The face of Madame Swetchine, without being handsome, was remarkably expressive; and the inflections of her singularly rich and strong voice were exactly modulated to every thought and feeling of her soul. Dest.i.tute of egotism herself, she showed an invariable tolerance for the egotisms of others, and her management of them was a marvel of magnanimous considerateness and soothing skill. The unrestrained frankness of her affection, the intimate confidences she imparted, the n.o.ble grounds she a.s.sumed to be common to them and her, the tender compliments she was ever paying them with all the skill of a sincere heart, were irresistible. She writes to the d.u.c.h.ess de la Rochefoucauld, "Reply to all my inquiries; especially speak to me of yourself. I long to be relieved from the punishment of your reserve."
Some persons would deal with souls as carelessly as if they were pieces of mechanism; handle hearts as they would handle groceries.
Madame Swetchine was unable to contemplate without awe, or treat without scrupulous delicacy, a human spirit seeking to open and show itself to her as it was in the eyes of G.o.d.
In addition to all this, she had an amazing knowledge of the mysteries of human nature and the experience of human life. She said she had traversed the whole circle of pa.s.sions and affections, and was a true doctor of that law. "Reading in my own heart, I have learned to understand the hearts of others: the single knowledge of myself has given me the key of those innumerable enigmas called men."
She avowed herself an instinctive disciple of Lavater, and said, "The expression of the face is the accent of the figure." Her biographer says that her insight amounted almost to divination. A word, a gesture, a look, a silence, hardly noticed by others, was to her a complete revelation. She had the science of souls, as physicists have the science of bodies. While the ordinary man sees in a plant merely its color or its outline, the botanist discerns, at first sight, all its specific attributes. Such was the power of Madame Swetchine: one lineament, one trait, enabled her to recognize and reconstruct a whole character. There is no luxury greater than that of unveiling our inmost souls where we are sure of meeting a superior intelligence, invincible charity, generous sympathy, and needed support and guidance. All this was certain to be found in Madame Swetchine. She had no rivalry, no envy, no desire to eclipse any one, no bigotry or asperity; and the aged, the mature, and the youthful, alike came with grateful pleasure under her empire. Women, usually little accessible to the influence of another woman, were full of trust and docility towards her. Loving solitude, plunging into metaphysics as into a bath, she yet took great delight in the beauty, freshness; playfullness, and hopes of girls just entering society.
Her taste in every thing belonging to the toilet was known to be fine and sure: they loved, when in full dress for company, to pa.s.s under her eyes; and she deeply enjoyed admiring and praising them, at the same time pointing out any thing ill-judged or excessive. Not unfrequently, the same ones, who, in the evening, in their glittering array, had paused on their way to the ball, would return in the morning, and sit with her, face to face, in communion on far other and graver matters. Sick and erring hearts showed themselves to her in utter sincerity, while, with unwearied sympathy and adroit wisdom, she poured on them, drop by drop, the light, the truth, the life, they needed. No one can tell to how many she was a spiritual mother, her direction all the more welcome and efficacious that she was not a director by profession, but by instinctive fitness.
Madame Swetchine enjoyed friendships of extraordinary strewth and preciousness with the Countess de Nesselrode, the Princess Galitzin, Madame de Saint Aulaire, the d.u.c.h.ess de Duras, the Marchioness de Lillers, Madame Craven, the d.u.c.h.ess de la Rochefoucauld, and many other women of n.o.ble natures and rich interior lives. The record of their intercourse is an imperial banquet for the mind and heart of the reader. The study of it must make ordinary women sigh for envy and shame over their own cold relations, outward ambition, sterile experience, and suspicious caution. Madame Swetchine writes, "I have long made over all my invested capital to the account of those I love: their welfare, their hopes, are the income on which I live."
The d.u.c.h.ess de Duras writes to her, "I love you more than I should have believed it ever would be possible for me to love, after what I have experienced. I believe in you, I who have become so suspicious.
I rely on you with entire security, whatever happens." Again she writes, when her friend is absent in Russia, "I miss you every moment. Return, return. Your chamber is ready, and that of Nadine.
Come, come, dear friend: life is so short, why lose it thus?" Madame Swetchine held such a high place in the esteem of her friends, because she was so serene, so wise, so steadfast, so kind, so pure, that she soothed and strengthened all who came near her. One of her friends expresses this in saying to her, "No society pleases and agrees with me like yours." She always acted on her own aphorism, "To bear faults, to manage egotisms, is an aim perhaps best accomplished by a skilful dissimulation; but the true ideal is to correct faults and to cure self-love."
The best example, in a relation with one of her own s.e.x, of that sentiment of friendship which was such a pervasive need of Madame Swetchine"s nature, and which she experienced so profusely, was her connection with Roxandra Stourdza, a Greek maiden of great beauty and genius, born at Constantinople. Originally brought together at court, when the latter was maid of honor to the Empress Elizabeth, they formed an enthusiastic attachment, which, for half a century, largely const.i.tuted the richness, consolation, and joy of their lives. The monument of it preserved in their correspondence possesses extreme interest and value, and must secure for it a prominent place among the few historic friendships of women. The oriental Roxandra was the object of an admiration truly romantic from her friend, who seemed always to see her seated on an ideal throne, and to address her as some queen of Trebizond. Saint-Beuve says, the refined and exalted affection between these two young persons, living in the artificial world of the Russian court, and each throwing back, in her own way, the mystic influences derived from the sky of Alexandria, affected him as the exciting perfume exhaled by two rare plants nourished in a hot-house. It is unimaginable what lofty, exquisite, and mysterious sentiments they exchange. Their naked souls and minds, with all their workings, are visible in these ingenuous and crowded letters, as in a gla.s.s hive we can study the industry of bees. Saint-Beuve affirms, that the later difference in their religion, the Countess Edling always remaining in the Greek communion, Madame Swetchine becoming a zealous Catholic, finally made ice between them; and that, when the countess came to Paris to visit her old friend, she complained of finding coldness and reserve. Probably there was something in this, but not much. The friendship will be best revealed by citing, from the parties themselves, some of its characteristic expressions.
The letters of Roxandra have not been published; but, in those of Sophie, both souls are clearly reflected. For, as M. de Falloux says, Madame Swetchine never Ised hackneyed language, never repeated for one what he had first thought for another. She placed herself, with a skill, or rather a condescension, truly marvelous, at the point of view of those with whom she conversed; and she would never have so easily ended by bringing them to herself, had she not always begun by going to them. This habit was so familiar, this movement so natural to her, that, at the close of every correspondence, we have before our eyes the physiognomy of the correspondent as distinctly outlined as the physiognomy of the writer:
"Did you believe me, my dear Roxandra, when I mechanically said, on leaving you, that I should write to you only after five or six clays?
I knew not what I said at the time. If you begin to know me a little, you have seen that I could never hear so long a silence. La Bruyere has said, How difficult it is to be satisfied with any one! Ah! well, my friend, I am satisfied with you; and, were it not for my extreme self-distrust, which nourishes so many inquietudes, I should be almost tranquil, almost happy, almost reasonable. My friend, this moment I receive your letter: how can I thank you? Ah! read my grateful heart; and sometimes tell me, that you wish to keep it, in order that it may become worthy of you." "I feel so deeply the happiness of being loved by you, that you can never cease to love me." "I need to know all your thoughts, to follow all your motions, and can find no other occupation so sweet and so dear." "My heart is so full of you, that, since we parted, I have thought of nothing but writing to you." "I see in your soul as if it were my own." "Dear Roxandra, you are every way a privileged being: you unite the advantages of the most opposed characters without any of their inconveniences." "My attachment for you will, without doubt, be a consolation; but that word, when not unmeaning, is so sad that I desire my friendship to fulfil higher offices. I often envy characters whose impressions are slight and transient. The sponge pa.s.ses across the slate, and nothing is left. Perhaps such a nature best agrees with man, whose pleasures are for a moment, whose pains for a life. Adieu, my friend! How many times already that word has filled my heart with grief! Take good care of yourself; hasten to G.o.d; and, when the struggle is too severe, beseech grace instead of combating." "It seems to me that souls seek each other in the chaos of this world, like elements of the same nature tending to re-unite.
They touch, they feel themselves tallied; confidence is established without an a.s.signable cause. Reason and reflection following, and fixing the seal of their approval on the union, think they have done it all, as subaltern ministers regard the transactions of their masters nothing until they have been permitted to sign their names at the bottom. I fear no misunderstanding with you; and my grat.i.tude alone can equal the perfect security with which you inspire me." "I must show myself to you absolutely as I am." "I know of no pleasure more alluring than a sweet and confidential converse which begins with an interchange of ideas, and ends with one of sentiments. This I have found in our intercourse." "It seems to me that your good angel is very busy about you, and is covering your thorns with some few flowers. How I should like to be charged with the visible execution of this charming mission!" "When near you, I breathe the atmosphere of calmness and depth, which agrees with me: although I have not the rages of King Saul, there is in the sound of your voice something, I know not what, that reminds me of the effect of the harp of David."
"Never was there a goodness more compa.s.sionate and penetrating than yours. Yours are the words that seek pain at the bottom of the soul in order to soothe it. How well you possess that divine dexterity which applies balm to wounds almost without touching them!" "My friend, I have met nothing sweeter, more consoling to love, than you.
The admirable simplicity of your character, its steadiness, its frankness, have a charm which more than attracts: it fixes." "We must carry, untouched, to the gates of eternity the deposit each has confided to the other."
The above extracts give some idea of the warmth and preciousness of the surpa.s.sing friendship, but no idea of the high and varied range of intellectual and religious interests that entered into it. "I always," Madame Swetchine writes, "have your little ring on my finger. This symbol, fragile as all symbols, will outlive me; but I grieve not for that, since I am sure that the sentiment which makes me prize it so highly will survive it in turn." Dora Greenwell says, "The letters of Madame Swetchine are full of an intimate sweetness that has something in it, piercing even to pain, like the scent of the sweet-brier." We are reminded of this when she writes, "If life were perfectly beautiful, yet death would be perfectly desirable."
Also again, when she writes to her Roxandra, "What is the pen, sad signal of our long separation, after the pleasure of flinging myself on your neck, and pouring my soul into yours through a deluge of words?" The two friends often indulged the sweet dream of pa.s.sing their last years together, preparing; each other for the pa.s.sage equally dreaded and desired, advancing arm in arm and heart in heart towards the unknown. The dream was not destined for fulfilment. But Madame Swetchine had the great joy of seeing her favorite nephew one of the Gargarin boys whom she loved so fondly in their childhood married to Marie Stourdza, the niece and sole heiress of her friend.
The only words we have seen from Roxandra herself are worthy of the eulogies paid her, and would seem to justify the highest estimate of her character. She says, "May we all contribute, by our life and our death, to the great thought of G.o.d, the re-establishment of order and of truth among men!" And again, amid the alarming revolutions that were shaking all Europe, she says, "We are witnessing the grand judgment of human pride."
Among the wretched children of misfortune, loved and aided by the saintly charity of Madame Swetchine, she was especially drawn to the solacement of deaf mutes. She keenly felt the sadness and danger consequent on this cruel infirmity. She took, as her own maid, a poor deaf mute, named Parisse, whose temper was so bad that she was scarcely tolerated by any one. She found a charm in taking her walks with this still companion, to whom it was not necessary to speak, and who was not humiliated in keeping silence. "With Parisse," she said, "I can believe myself alone, and have a needed arm to support me, and an aid which does not encroach on my liberty." Thus she loved to appear the obliged party rather than the benefactress. The haughty and quarrelsome Parisse often put on the grand airs of an outraged queen. When the other servants were battling with her, Madame Swetchine would go among them, and say, "I love you all, but know that every one shall go before Parisse: she is the most unfortunate, and much should be excused in her." After enduring almost every thing, she succeeded, by her imperturbable good-nature and firmness, in winning the poor girl to a more amiable behavior. Parisse worshipped her mistress, and had the joy one day of being represented behind her in the likeness engraved by a celebrated artist. They became really attached friends. Is it not touchingly instructive thus to trace the religious ascent of the soul of this n.o.ble woman in her friendships, as they successively stoop from the Czarina Marie to the deaf mute Parisse? In his funeral sermon on Madame Swetchine, Lacordaire thus alludes to Parisse: "As we watched the sad setting of that beauteous star, I saw her beloved mute following her with her eyes from an adjoining chamber, the vigilant sentinel of a life which had been so lavish of itself, and whose light went out with faithful friendship on the one side, and grateful poverty on the other."
Madame Swetchine was endowed from birth with the material, the physiological conditions, for a great and original character, force competent to the finest and the grandest things, with an over-bias of that force to the brain. For long periods, she was compelled to walk in her chamber from seven to eight hours a day, to avoid intolerable nervous pressures and pains. At sixty-six, she wrote to one of her friends, "My interior life sterilizes itself by reason of superabundance; the too great fullness causes an incessant restlessness. I cannot give body to the mult.i.tude of confused ideas which crowd each other, interweave, and suffocate me for want of articulation." This profuse force, which continued throughout her life, enabled her to achieve an amount of work, and acquire a wealth of knowledge and wisdom, truly astonishing. Her youthful education, with the many difficult accomplishments she mastered, was the first resource for the occupation of her teeming energy. The second was the discharge of her domestic and public duties, with as much discretion and skill as if her sole ambition were to be a faultless housekeeper and member of the social order. The third was friendship, to whose genial duties of visiting and correspondence she devoted herself with a fullness and an ardor as pa.s.sionate as they were genuine. And yet there remained a surplusage of unappropriated soul, whose vague and constant action distressed her. She entered on an extensive study of literature, history, psychology, and philosophy. Her biographer says, that scarcely an important work on these subjects appeared in Europe for fifty years with whose contents she did not familiarize herself, pen in hand. She interspersed these arduous labors by a systematic application to philanthropic works, personally visiting the sick and the poor, and ministering to their wants. And still her force was unexhausted she had more faculty and strength longing to be used, and disturbing her with mysterious solicitations; a solitary activity, without aliment; a wheel for ever revolving in a void; a burning ardor, which, in the absence of sufficing affections below, turned upward, and became a subtile mysticism. When practical duty, friendship, literature, philosophy, and charitable deeds had failed to absorb and satisfy her, plainly there was but one resource left, religion. She entered on the path to G.o.d and his fellowship, the sublime way of the life of perfection. She entered on it with an extraordinary capacity for ascending through the various degrees of perception, feeling, and transfusion; and, at the same time, with a power of rational poise which kept her experience of piety from the two extremes of mawkishness and delirium. Such balancing good sense and sobriety, such freedom from every thing morbid, combined with so much thoroughness of faith and so much fervor, we know not where else to find. Some hearts open downward, and send their exciting drench through the body; hers opened upward, and sent its pure vapor aloft into the mind to wear celestial colors. Her head was a higher heart, playing off intelligence and affection, trans.m.u.ted into each other.
In the charming treatise on "Old Age," from the pen of Madame Swetchine, a piece of serene poetry and impa.s.sioned wisdom, a critic complains that she rather transfigures the subject than shows it.
But, however much she may have transfigured it in description, in person and experience she has shown it in the most beautiful form of truth of which it is susceptible. Year by year, to the very end, she became ever wiser, calmer, more influential, more honored and beloved, more saintly and content. Her religious abnegation grew perfect; her peace deepened; her active benevolence broadened; her spirit, always genially tolerant, acquired a mellower ripeness. In relation to one of her acquaintances, she says, "The last time I saw him, I was struck by a kind of rigidity, of bitterness, a want of charity in his judgments which injured their justice; for the more I see, the more I am convinced that we must love in order to know." The detestable Rochefoucauld said, "Old age is the h.e.l.l of women." For Madame Swetchine it had much more of paradise, as the rich ardor and impetuosity of her youth slowly moderated, and, by judicious oversight, she trained her powers into harmony among themselves and submission to G.o.d. Long before, she had said that the saddest of all sights was that of an aged woman, deprived of the consideration and respect belonging to a serious life. Now she could say of herself, "I have deserved most of the disappointments I have experienced; yet G.o.d has softened them, as if he meant them not for penalties, but trials.
Benevolence surrounds me; my need of esteem is satisfied; I have known the most distinguished people; my heart has been fortunate in friendship. Self-detached, in a calm and sweet tranquillity, I need no more, to close my course with courage." She was not one of those who never speak of themselves because they are always thinking of themselves. De Tocqueville, after receiving an epistle from her, wrote back, with grateful delight in her frank and honoring confidence, "Your letter is a full-length portrait of yourself." In fact, she always spoke of herself with the utmost freedom, because she looked at herself from without as she would at any other object.
Her last years were a fine ill.u.s.tration of her own thought, "Old age is the majestic and imposing dome of human life."