"M. Necker,çoisRené having been struck off the list of Emigrants, charged Madame de Staël, his daughter, to sell a house which he had. Madame Récamier bought it, and this was an occasion for her to see Madame de Staël[348].
"The sight of this celebrated woman at first filled her with excessive timidity. The face of Madame de Staël has been very widely discussed. But a proud glance, a sweet smile, an habitual expression of kindliness, the absence of any minute affectation and of any embarrassing reserve, caressing words, praises somewhat direct but seeming to escape from enthusiasm, an inexhaustible variety of enthusiasm surprise, attract and conciliate almost all who approach her. I know no woman, nor even any man, who is more convinced of her own vast superiority to all the world and who makes this conviction bear less hard upon others.
"Nothing could be more engaging than the conversations of Madame de Staël and Madame Récamier. The quickness of the one in expressing a thousand new thoughts, the quickness of the other in grasping and perceiving them; that masculine and powerful mind which disclosed all, that delicate and subtle mind which understood all; those revelations made by a trained genius to a youthful intelligence worthy to receive them: all this formed a union which it is impossible to describe without having had the happiness to witness it one's self.
"The friendship of Madame Récamier for Madame de Staël was strengthened by a sentiment which they both entertained: filial love. Madame Récamier was fondly attached to her mother, a woman of rare merit, whose health was already giving rise to fears and whose loss her daughter has never since ceased to regret. Madame de Staël had vowed a worship to her father which his death has rendered but the more exalted. Always overpowering in her manner of expressing herself, she becomes still more so, above all, when speaking of him. Her earnest voice, her eyes ready to grow wet with tears, the sincerity of her enthusiasm moved the soul of even those who did not share her opinion of that celebrated man. Ridicule has frequently been cast on the praises which she has awarded him in her writings; but, when you have heard her on that subject, it is not possible to make it an object of mockery, for nothing that is true is ridiculous."