Exclusively of her many good and engaging qualities, which were
reasonable objects of attachment, Madame de la F-------- was endeared to
me by those habits of intimacy that often supply the want of merit, and
make us adhere to our early friendships, even when not sanctioned by our
maturer judgment. Madame de la F-------- never became entirely divested
of the effects of a convent education; but if she retained a love of
trifling amusements, and a sort of infantine gaiety, she likewise
continued pious, charitable, and strictly attentive not only to the
duties, but to the decorum, essential in the female character and merits
of this sort are, I believe, now more rare than those in which she might
be deemed deficient.
I was speaking of her this morning to a lady of our acquaintance, who
acquiesced in my friendly eulogiums, but added, in a tone of superiority,
_"C'etoit pourtant une petite femme bien minutieuse_--she always put me
out of patience with her birds and her flowers, her levees of poor
people, and her persevering industry in frivolous projects." My friend
was, indeed, the most feminine creature in the world, and this is a
flippant literary lady, who talks in raptures of the Greeks and Romans,
calls Rousseau familiarly Jean Jaques, frisks through the whole circle of
science at the Lyceum, and has an utter contempt both for personal
neatness and domestic oeconomy.
Pages:
731
732
733
734
735
736
737
738
739
740
741
742
743
744
745
746
747
748
749
750
751
752
753
754
755