FullReads

Madame Recamier was a beautiful, but not a brilliant woman, yet she held men her slaves for years. To know her was to fall under her charm, and to feel it once was to remain her adorer for life. She will go down to history as the type of a fascinating woman. Being asked once by an acquaintance what spell she worked on mankind that enabled her to hold them for ever at her feet, she laughingly answered:

“I have always found two words sufficient. When a visitor comes into my salon, I say, ‘Enfin!’ and when he gets up to go away, I say, ‘Deja!'”

“What is this wonderful ‘charm’ he is writing about?” I hear some sprightly maiden inquire as she reads these lines. My dear young lady, if you ask the question, you have judged yourself and been found wanting. But to satisfy you as far as I can, I will try and define it–not by telling you what it is; that is beyond my power–but by negatives, the only way in which subtle subjects can be approached.

A woman of charm is never flustered and never distraite. She talks little, and rarely of herself, remembering that bores are persons who insist on talking about themselves. She does not break the thread of a conversation by irrelevant questions or confabulate in an undertone with the servants. No one of her guests receives more of her attention than another and none are neglected. She offers to each one who speaks the homage of her entire attention. She never makes an effort to be brilliant or entertain with her wit. She is far too clever for that. Neither does she volunteer information nor converse about her troubles or her ailments, nor wander off into details about people you do not know.

She is all things–to each man she likes, in the best sense of that phrase, appreciating his qualities, stimulating him to better things.

–for his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness and a smile and eloquence of beauty;
and she glides
Into his darker musings with a mild and healing sympathy that steals away
Their sharpness ere he is aware.