She did not long survive her beloved companion, Lady Eleanor Butler, with whom she had lived in this Valley for more than half a century of uninterrupted friendship But they shall no more return to their house, neither Shall their place know them any more.
In that sequestered valley, how quietly, with what blessed joy and peace, their lives kept the even tenor of their way Standing beside their grave, in the shadow of the old church, while the little Welsh river ran whispering by, and thinking how the eyes and hearts in which so long and happy a love had burned, were now fallen to atoms, and literally mixed in the dust below, as once they morally mixed in life above, I felt, What a pity that those thus blessed cannot live forever! Then I thought, No, it is better as it is. They were happy. They drained the best cup existence can offer. When the world was becoming an infirmary, and the song of the gra.s.shopper a burden, it was meet that they should sleep.
Those only are to be pitied who die without the experience of affection.
This attempt to revive the story and brighten the urn of the Ladies of Llangollen may suggest that friendship lies within the province of women as much as within the province of men; that there are pairs of feminine friends as worthy of fame as any of the masculine couples set by cla.s.sic literature in the empyrean of humanity; that uncommon love clothes the lives of its subjects with the interest of unfading romance; that the true dignity, happiness, and peace of women and of men, too--are to be found rather in the quiet region of personal culture, and the affections, than in the arena of ambitious publicity. Mrs. Thrale and f.a.n.n.y Burney were every thing to each other for a long time. But, on the marriage of the former with Mr.
Piozzi, a breach occurred, which was never repaired. Four years after this coldness, f.a.n.n.y writes in her diary, "Oh, little does she know how tenderly, at this moment, I could run into her arms, so often opened to receive me with a cordiality I believed inalienable." Two years after that, Mrs. Piozzi writes in her diary, "I met Miss Burney at an a.s.sembly last night. She appeared most fondly rejoiced in good time I answered with ease and coldness, but in exceeding good humor; and all ended, as it should do, with perfect indifference." Thirty- one years later still, f.a.n.n.y enters in her diary this brief record: "I have just lost my once most dear, intimate, and admired friend, Mrs. Thrale Piozzi."
The young Bettine Brentano, several years before her acquaintance with Goethe, was placed temporarily in the house of a female religious order to pursue her studies. There she soon made the acquaintance of a canoness named Gunderode, considerably older than herself, though still young, with rare mental endowments and romantic affections. The cultivated intellect, spirituality, and mystic melancholy of Gunderode, under her singularly attractive features and calm demeanor, drew the impa.s.sioned and redundant Bettine to her by an irresistible bond. Their companionship ripened into romantic friendship. Their letters, collected and published by the survivor, compose one of the most original and stimulative delineations of the inner life of girlhood to be met with in literature. To cold and shallow readers, this correspondence will prove an unknown tongue; but those who can appreciate the reflection of wonderful personalities, and the workings of intense sentiment, will prize it as a unique treasure.
Bettine was electrical, magical, seeming ever to be overcharged with the spirit of nature; Gunderode, cloudy, opalescent, suggesting a spirit native of some realm above nature. The interplaying of the two was strangely delightful to them both; and they made day after day rich by h.o.a.rding and sharing what life brought, the wealth of their souls. The fresh vitality of Bettine, her rushing inspiration, her dithyrambic love of wild nature, breathed a balsamic breath over her drooping friend, who yet had a more than counterbalancing depth of consciousness to impart in return.
Gunderode, keyed too high for common companionship, too deep and tenacious in her moods, of a delicacy preternaturally lofty and far- reaching in its sensitiveness, was solitary, sad, thoughtful, yearning, prescient of an early death; yet, by the whole impression of her being, she gave birth, in those who lovingly looked on her, to the surmise that she was mysteriously self-sufficing and happy.
Bettine writes to her, "I begin to believe thy feelings are enthroned beyond clouds which cast their shadows on the earth; while thou, borne on them, art revelling in celestial light." The best way to indicate briefly what this friendship was, will be to quote a selection of the characteristic expressions of it, though such a compilation of fragments does great wrong to a correspondence so compacted of the sparks of love and genius. Let those who find in this relation only the expression of a fantastic sentimentality, weigh what Sarah Austin says, a woman who speaks with the utmost weight of authority which learning, experience, and wisdom can give: "We, in England and France," Mrs. Austin says, "have no measure for the character of a German girl, brought up in comparative solitude, nurtured on poetry and religion, knowing little of the actual world, but holding close converse with the ideal in its grandest forms. She is capable of an enthusiasm we know not of."
At different times, Gunderode writes thus: "I have bad many thoughts of thee, dear Bettine. Some nights ago I dreamed thou wast dead: I wept bitterly at it; and the dream left, for a whole day, a mournful echo in my heart." "My mood is often very sad, and I have not power over it." "Thou art my bit of a sun that warms me, while everywhere else frost falls on me." "Thy letter, dear Bettine, I have sipped as wine from the goblet of Lyus." "I am studying the distinguished Spartan women. If I cannot be heroic, and am always ill from hesitation and timidity, I will at least fill my soul with that heroism, and feed it with that vital power, in which I am so sadly deficient." "Thou seemest to me the clay which a G.o.d is moulding with his feet; and what I perceive in thee is the fermenting fire, that, by his transcendent contact, he is strongly kneading into thee."
"When I read what I have written some time ago, I think I see myself lying in my coffin, staring at my other self in astonishment."
"Clemens"s letters make me think and consider, while over thine I only feel; and they are grateful as a breath of air from the Holy Land." "If two are to understand each other, it requires the inspiring influence of a third divine one. And so I accept our mutual existence as a gift of the G.o.ds, in which they themselves play the happiest part."
And thus, on the other side, Bettine at various times writes to Gunderode: "I wrote down, To-day I saw Gunderode: it was a gift of G.o.d. To-day, as I read it again, I would gladly do every thing for the love of thee. How much do I think of thee and of thy words, of the black lashes that shaded thy blue eyes as I saw thee for the first time; of thy kindly mien, and thy hand that stroked my hair!"
"Thy letter today has drawn a charmed ring around me." "On the castle of the hill, in the night-dew, it was fair to be with thee. Those were the dearest hours of all my life; and, when I return, we will again dwell together there. We will have our beds close together, and talk all night." "Thou and I think in harmony: we have as yet found no third who can think with us, or to whom we have confided what we think." "Thou art the sweet cadence by which my soul is rocked."
"What will become of me, if ever I pa.s.s out of the light which beams on me from thine eyes? for thou seemest to me an ever-living look, and as if on that my life hung." "I feel a deep longing to be with thee again; for, beautiful as it is here on the Rhine, it is sad to be without an echo in a living breast. Man is nothing but the desire to feel himself in another." "When I dare look up to thee from my childish pursuits, I think I see a bride whose priestly robes do not betray, nor her face express, whether she is sad or joyous in her ecstasy." "Thou lookest deeper into my breast, knowest more of my spiritual fate, than I, because I need only read in thy soul to find myself." "I would possess every thing, wealth and power of beautiful ideas, art and science, only to give it to thee, to gratify my love to thee, and my pride in thy love." "Formerly, I often thought, Why was I born? but, after thou wert with me, I never asked again." "I see thee wandering past the grove where I am at home, just as a sparrow, concealed by dense foliage, watches a solitary swan swimming on the quiet waters, and, hidden, sees how it bends its neck to dip into the flood, drawing circles around it; sacred signs of its isolation from the impure, the reckless, the unspiritual!" "I have been made happy to-day: some one secretly placed in my room a rose- tree with twenty-seven buds; these are just thy years."
Many plaintive presentiments of unknown woe, parting, death, gave a mysterious undertone of sadness to much of the correspondence of these two friends. The forebodings were destined to be more than fulfilled in the tragic reality. Poor Gunderode, wrought to madness by a disappointment in love, committed suicide. She drowned herself in a river, where her body was found entangled in the long sedge.
Years afterwards, Bettine relates the story in a letter to Goethe, the perusal of which has made many a gentle heart ache. The substance of the tragedy may be briefly told:
"One day," Bettine writes, "Gunderode met me with a joyful air, and said, "Yesterday I spoke with a surgeon, who told me it was very easy to make away with one"s self. She hastily opened her gown, and pointed to the spot beneath her beautiful breast. Her eyes sparkled with delight. I gazed at her, and felt uneasy. And what shall I do when thou art dead?" I asked. Oh! ere then," said she, thou wilt not care for me any more; we shall not remain so intimate till then: I will first quarrel with thee." I turned to the window to hide my tears and my anger. She had gone to the other window, and was silent.
I glanced secretly at her: her eye was lifted to heaven; but its ray was broken, as though its whole fire were turned within. After I had observed her awhile, I could no longer control myself: I broke into loud crying, I fell on her neck, I dragged her down to a seat, and sat upon her knee, and wept, and kissed her on her mouth, and tore open her dress, and kissed her on the spot where she had learned to reach the heart. I implored her, with tears of anguish, to have mercy upon me; and fell again on her neck, and kissed her cold and trembling hands. Her lips were convulsed; and she was quite cold, stiff, and deadly pale. Speaking with difficulty, she said slowly, Bettine, do not break my heart." I wanted to recover myself, and not give her pain. But as, amidst my smiles and tears and sobs, she grew more anxious, and laid herself on the sofa, I jestingly tried to make her believe I had taken all as a joke.
"A few days after, she showed me a dagger with a silver hilt, which she had bought at the mart. She was delighted with the beauty and sharpness of the steel. I took the blade, and pressed on her with it, exclaiming, Rather than suffer thee to kill thyself, I myself will do it." She retreated in alarm, and I flung the dagger away. I took her by the hand, and led her to the garden, into the vine-bower, and said, Thou mayest depend on me: there is no hour when, if thou wert to utter a wish, I would hesitate for a moment. Come to my window at midnight and whistle, and I will, without preparation, go round the world with thee. What right hast thou to cast me off? How canst thou betray such devotion? Promise me now." She hung her head and was pale. "Gunderode," said I, if thou art in earnest, give me a sign.
She nodded.
"Two months pa.s.sed away, when I again came to Frankfort. I ran to the chapter-house of the canonesses, opened the gate, and lo! there she stood, and looked coldly at me. "Gunderode," I cried, may I come in?"
She was silent, and turned away. "Gunderode, say but one word, and my heart beats against thine." "No," she said, "come no nearer, turn back, we must separate." "What does this mean?" I asked. "Thus much, that we have been deceived, and do not belong to one another." Ah! I turned away. First despair; first cruel blow, so dreadful to a young heart! I, who knew nothing but entire abandonment to my love, must be thus rejected."
A short period elapsed, when news was brought to Bettine that a young and beautiful lady, who was seen walking a long time at evening beside the Rhine, had been found the next morning, on the bank, among the willows. She had filled her handkerchief with stones, and tied it about her neck, probably intending to sink in the river; but, as she stabbed herself to the heart, she fell backward; and they found her thus lying under the willows by the Rhine, in a spot where the water was deepest. It was the poor, unhappy Gunderode.
The next day, Bettine, who was then with her brother and a small party of friends, sailing on the Rhine, landed at Rudesheim. "The story was in every one"s mouth. I ran past all with the speed of wind, and up to the summit of Mount Ostein, a mile in height, without stopping. When I had come to the top, I had far outstripped the rest; my breath was gone, and my head burned. There lay the splendid Rhine, with his emerald island gems. I saw the streams descending to him from every side, the rich, peaceful towns on both banks, and the slopes of vines on either side. I asked myself if time would not wear out my loss. And then I resolved to raise myself above grief; for it seemed to me unworthy to utter sorrow which the future would enable me to subdue."
The dithyrambic exuberances in this relation, the romantic extravagances of sentiment, ill.u.s.trate both the strength and the weakness of a genius bordering close on disease. They show how much such a genius needs to apply to itself the balancing and rectifying criticisms of a sober wisdom. They may also contribute something to awaken and enrich more cold and sluggish natures, which are yet aspiring and docile.
Lucy Aikin has left record of the warm and faithful friendships with which she was blessed by some of the most gifted and amiable women of her time. She was a person of strong character, of highly cultivated talents, and quite remarkable for her powers of conversation, an accomplishment which seems hastening to join the lost arts. The parties which modern fashion gathers, are not so much groups of friends, drawn together for rational and affectionate communion, as they are jabbering herds, among whom all individuality and docile earnestness are lost in the general buzz and clack of simultaneous speech.
One of these friends was Miss Benger, an estimable literary lady, who had considerable celebrity a quarter of a century ago. Miss Aikin has written a brief memoir of her. The following extract sufficiently shows the cordiality and comfort of their union: "To those who knew and enjoyed the friendship of Miss Benger, her writings, pleasing and beautiful as they are, were the smallest part of her merit and her attraction. Endowed with the warmest and most grateful of human hearts, she united to the utmost delicacy and n.o.bleness of sentiment, active benevolence, which knew no limit but the furthest extent of her ability, and a boundless enthusiasm for the good and fair, wherever she discovered them. Her lively imagination, and the flow of eloquence which it inspired, aided by one of the most melodious of voices, lent an inexpressible charm to her conversation; which was heightened by an intuitive discernment of character, rare in itself, and still more so in combination with such fertility of fancy and ardency of feeling. As a companion, whether for the graver or the gayer hour, she had, indeed, few equals; and her constant forgetfullness of self, and unfailing sympathy for others, rendered her the general friend, favorite, and confidante of persons of both s.e.xes, all cla.s.ses, and all ages. Many would have concurred in judgment with Madame de Stael, when she p.r.o.nounced Miss Benger the most interesting woman she had seen during her visit to England. Of envy and jealousy there was not a trace in her composition; her probity, veracity, and honor were perfect. Though as free from pride as from vanity, her sense of independence was such, that no one could fix upon her the slightest obligation capable of lowering her in any eyes. She had a generous propensity to seek those most, who needed her offices of friendship. No one was more scrupulously just to the characters and performances of others, no one more candid, no one more deserving of every kind of reliance. It is gratifying to reflect to how many hearts her una.s.sisted merit found its way. Few persons have been more widely or deeply deplored in their sphere of acquaintance; but even those who loved her best could not but confess that their regrets were purely selfish. To her the pains of sensibility seemed to be dealt in even fuller measure than its joys: her childhood and early youth were consumed in a solitude of mind, and under a sense of contrariety between her genius and her fate, which had rendered them sad and full of bitterness; her maturer years were tried by cares, privations, and disappointments, and not seldom by unfeeling slights or thankless neglect. The irritability of her const.i.tution, aggravated by inquietude of mind, had rendered her life one long disease. Old age, which she neither wished nor expected to attain, might have found her solitary and ill-provided: now she has taken the wings of the dove to flee away and be at rest."
Miss Aikin also held a constant intercourse, through a large part of her life, with Joanna Baillie, whom she always regarded with profound honor and love. She had a personal acquaintance with almost every literary woman of celebrity in England, from the last decade of the eighteenth, to the middle of the nineteenth, century. And of all these, with the sole exception of Mrs. Barbauld, she says, Joanna Baillie made by far the deepest impression on her. "Her genius,"
writes this admiring friend, "was surpa.s.sing; her character, the most endearing and exalted." No one had suspected the great genius of Joanna Baillie, so thick a veil of modest reserve had covered it.
Soon after the publication of her "Plays on the Pa.s.sions," Miss Aikin says, "She and her sister I well remember the scene arrived on a morning call at Mrs. Barbauld"s. My aunt immediately introduced the topic of the anonymous tragedies, and gave utterance to her admiration with that generous delight in the manifestation of kindred genius which distinguished her. But not even the sudden delight of such praise, so given, could seduce our Scottish damsel into self- betrayal. The faithful sister rushed forward to bear the brunt, while the unsuspected author lay snug in the asylum of her taciturnity. She had been taught to repress all emotions, even the gentlest. Her sister once told me that their father was an excellent parent; when she had once been bitten by a dog thought to be mad, he had sucked the wound, at the hazard, as was supposed, of his own life; but that he had never given her a kiss. Joanna spoke to me once of her yearning to be caressed, when a child. She would sometimes venture to clasp her little arms about her mother"s knees, who would seem to chide her; but I know she liked it. Be that as it may, the first thing which drew upon Joanna the admiring notice of society was the devoted a.s.siduity of her attention to her mother, then blind as well as aged, whom she waited on day and night.
"An innocent and maiden grace still hovered over Miss Baillie to the end of her old age. It was one of her peculiar charms, and often brought to my mind the line addressed to the vowed Isabella, in Measure for Measure: I hold you for a thing enskyed and saintly. If there were ever human creature pure in the last recesses of the soul, it was surely this meek, this pious, this n.o.ble-minded, and n.o.bly-gifted woman, who, after attaining her ninetieth year, carried with her to the grave the love, the reverence, the regrets, of all who had ever enjoyed the privilege of her society." The graves of these friends are side by side in the old churchyard at Hampstead.
The exquisite delicacy and wealth of Mrs. Hemans"s nature, her winning beauty, modesty, and sweetness, drew a circle of dear friends around her wherever she tarried. In her poems and letters and memoirs, they numerously appear, in becoming lights, men and women, lofty and lowly in rank, from Wordsworth and Scott, to whom she paid visits, giving and receiving the choicest delight, to her own dependants, who worshipped her. She tells one of her correspondents, "I wish I could give you the least idea of what kindness is to me, how much more, how far dearer, than fame." The most interesting of her many prized friendships is that which she formed with Miss Jewsbury, who, having long admired her with the whole ardor of her powerful nature, pa.s.sed a summer in Wales, near Mrs. Hemans, for the express purpose of making her acquaintance. The enthusiastic admiration on one side, the grateful appreciation of it on the other, the spiritual purity and earnestness and high literary and personal aspirations on both sides, quickly produced an attachment between these two gifted women, which yielded them full measures of encouragement, comfort, and bliss. They had just those resemblances and those contrasts of person and mind, together with community of moral aims, which made them delightfully stimulative to each other.
Miss Jewsbury dedicated to her friend her "Lays of Leisure Hours,"
addressed her in the poem "To an Absent One," and described her in the first of the "Poetical Portraits" contained in the same book.
Also, in her "Three Histories," Mrs. Hemans is the original of Egeria. "Egeria was totally different from any other woman I had ever seen, either in Italy or England. She did not dazzle, she subdued, me. I never saw another woman so exquisitely feminine. Her movements were features. Her strength and her weakness alike lay in her affections. Her gladness was like a burst of sunlight; and if, in her depression, she resembled night, it was night wearing her stars. She was a muse, a grace, a variable child, a dependent woman, the Italy of human beings." Miss Jewsbury married, and went to India, where she soon died. Mrs. Hemans paid a heartfelt tribute to her memory, in the course of which she says, "There was a strong chain of interest between us, that spell of mind on mind, which, once formed, can never be broken. I felt, too, that my whole nature was understood and appreciated by her; and this is a sort of happiness which I consider the most rare in earthly affection."
Mary Mitford and Mrs. Browning were blessed with a friendship enviably full and satisfying. It has recorded itself in a correspondence, which, if published, would add fresh honor to them both in the hearts of their admirers. It was likewise celebrated with happy heartiness by Miss Barrett, in her maiden days, in her fine poem, "To Flush, my Dog;" the dog, Flush, being a valued gift from Miss Mitford.
Margaret Fuller, after seeing an engraving of Madame Recamier, writes in her journal,
"I have so often thought over the intimacy between her and Madame de Stael. It is so true, that a woman may be in love with a woman, and a man with a man. I like to be sure of it; for it is the same love which angels feel, where Sie fragen nicht nach Mann und Weib."
Of the friendships of women, perhaps none is more historic than this.
A large selection from the correspondence was published, in 1862, by Madame Lenormant, in connection with a volume called "Madame de Stael and the Grand d.u.c.h.ess Louise." It is impossible to read these letters, without being struck by the rare grace that reigned in the union of which they are the witnesses, and being affected by the sight of a friendship so faithful, a confidence so entire.
The first meeting of these celebrated women took place when Madame de Stael was thirty-two years old; Madame Recamier, twenty-one. Among the few existing papers from the pen of the latter is a description of this interview:
"She came to speak with me for her father, about the purchase of a house. Her toilet was odd. She wore a morning gown, and a little dress bonnet, adorned with flowers. I took her for a stranger in Paris. I was struck with the beauty of her eyes and her look. She said, with a vivid and impressive grace, that she was delighted to know me; that her father, M. Necker at these words I recognized Madame de Stael. I heard not the rest of her sentence. I blushed, my embarra.s.sment was extreme. I had just come from reading her "Letters on Rousseau," and was full of the excitement. I expressed what I felt more by my looks than by my words. She at the same time awed and drew me. She fixed her wonderful eyes on me, with a curiosity full of kindness, and complimented me on my figure, in terms which would have seemed exaggerated and too direct if they had not been marked by an obvious sincerity, which made the praise very seductive. She perceived my embarra.s.sment, and expresssd a desire to see me often, on her return to Paris; for she was going to Coppet. It was then a mere apparition in my life; but the impression was intense. I thought only of Madame de Stael, so strongly did I return the action of this ardent and forceful nature."
Madame de Stael was a plain, energetic embodiment of the most impa.s.sioned genius. Madame Recamier was a dazzling personification of physical loveliness, united with the perfection of mental harmony.
She had an enthusiastic admiration for her friend, who, in return, found an unspeakable luxury in her society. Her angelic candor of soul, and the frosty purity which enveloped her as a shield, inspired the tenderest respect; while her happy equipoise calmed and refreshed the restless and expensive imagination of the renowned author. There could be no rivalry between them. Both had lofty and thoroughly sincere characters. They were partly the reflection, partly the complement, of each other; and their relation was a blessed one, charming and memorable among such records. "Are you not happy,"
writes Madame de Stael, "in your magical power of inspiring affection? To be sure always of being loved by those you love, seems to me the highest terrestrial happiness, the greatest conceivable privilege." Again, acknowledging the gift from her friend of a bracelet containing her portrait, she says, "It has this inconvenience: I find myself kissing it too often." In 1800, Madame Recamier had a brilliant social triumph in England: "Ah, well, beautiful Juliette! do you miss us? Have your successes in London made you forget your friends in Paris?" Madame Recamier was the original of the picture of the shawl-dance in "Corinne;" and her friend says of her, in the "Ten Years of Exile," that "her beauty expressed her character." The following pa.s.sages, taken from letters written in 1804, show how the intimacy had deepened:
"For four clays, faithless beauty, I have not heard the noise of the wind without thinking it was your carriage. Come quickly. My mind and my heart have need of you more than of any other friend." "I have just seen Madame Henri Belmont. People say that all beautiful persons remind them of you. It is not so with me. I have never found any one who looks like you; and the eyes of this Madame Henri seem to me blind by the side of yours." "Dear and beautiful Juliette, they give me the hope of seeing you when I return from Italy; then only shall I no longer feel myself an exile. I will receive you in the chateau where I lost what of all the world I most loved; and you will bring the feeling of happiness which no more exists there. I love you more than any other woman in France. Alas! when shall I see you again?"
The friends pa.s.sed the autumn of 1807 together at Coppet, with Matthieu de Montmorency, Benjamin Constant, and a brilliant group of a.s.sociates, amidst all the romance in which the scenery and atmosphere of that enchanted spot are steeped. One day they made a party for an excursion on Mont Blanc. Weary, scorched by the sun, De Stael and Recamier protested that they would go no farther. In vain the guide boasted, both in French and German, of the spectacle presented by the Mer de Glace. "Should you persuade me in all the languages of Europe," replied Madame de Stael, "I would not go another step." During the long and cruel banishment inflicted by Napoleon on this eloquent woman, the bold champion of liberty, her friend often paid her visits, and constantly wrote her letters:
"Dear Juliette, your letters are at present the only interest of my life." "How much, dear friend, I am touched by your precious letter, in which you so kindly send me all the news! My household rush from one room to another, crying, A letter from Madame Recamier!" and then all a.s.semble to hear her" "Every one speaks of my beautiful friend with admiration.. You have an ethereal reputation which nothing vulgar can approach." "Adieu, dear angel. My G.o.d, how I envy all those who are near you!"
When an envious slanderer had greatly vexed and grieved Madame Recamier, Madame de Stael wrote to her, "You are as famous in your kind as I am in mine, and are not banished from France. I tell you there is nothing to be feared but truth and material persecution.
Beyond these two things, enemies can do absolutely nothing; and your enemy is but a contemptible woman, jealous of your beauty and purity." "Write to me. I know you address me by your deeds; but I still need your words."
In 1811, Madame de Stael resolved to flee to Sweden. Montmorency, paying her a parting visit, received from Napoleon a decree of instant exile. Madame Recamier determined, at any risk, to embrace her friend before this great distance should separate them. The generous fugitive wrote, imploring her not to come: "I am torn between the desire of seeing you, and the fear of injuring you." No dissuasion could avail; but no sooner did she arrive at Coppet than the mean soul of Napoleon sought revenge by exiling her also. The distress of Madame de Stael knew no bounds. On learning the fatal news, she wrote,
"I cannot speak to you; I fling myself at your feet; I implore you not to hate me." "What your n.o.ble generosity has cost you! If you could read my soul, you would pity me." "The only service I can do my friends is to make them avoid me. In all my distraction, I adore you.
Farewell, farewell! When shall I see you again? Never in this world."
Throughout the period of their banishment, the friends kept up an incessant correspondence, and often interchanged presents.
"Dear friend," writes Madame de Stael, "how this dress has touched me! I shall wear it on Tuesday, in taking leave of the court. I shall tell everybody that it is a gift from you, and shall make all the men sigh that it is not you who are wearing it."
In return, some time later, she sends a pair of bracelets, and a copy of a new work from her pen, adding, "In your prayers, dear angel, ask G.o.d to give peace to my soul." In another letter she says, "Adieu, dear angel: promise to preserve that friendship which has given me such sweet days." And again,
"Angel of goodness, would that my eternal tenderness could recompense you a little for the penalties your generous friendship has brought on you!" "You cannot form an idea, my angel, of the emotion your letter has caused me. It is at the extremity of Moravia that these celestial words have reached me. I have shed tears of sorrow and tenderness in hearkening to the voice which comes to me in the desert, as the angel came to Hagar."
What a rare and high compliment is contained in the following pa.s.sage! "You are the most amiable person in the world, dear Juliette; but you do not speak enough of yourself. You put your mind, your enchantment, in your letters, but not that which concerns yourself. Give me all the details pertaining to yourself." "The hundred fine things Madame de Boigne and Madame de Belle-garde say of you and me, prove to me that I live a double life: one in you, one in myself."
When Napoleon fell, in 1814, Madame de Stael hurried home from her long exile. The great news found Madame Recamier at Rome. In a few days, she embraced her ill.u.s.trious friend in Paris. Close was their union, great their joy. It was engrossing admiration and devotion on one side; absorbing sympathy, respect, and grat.i.tude, on the other.