gaiety which partook of no improper levity, but proceeded solely from
the vivacity of the mind and the freshness of the imagination. He
attempted to praise her sensibility, but it was easily perceived that
personal regret mingled itself with this part of his speech. He lamented
the difficulty which a woman of her superior cast experienced of meeting
with the object of which she has formed to herself an ideal portrait--a
portrait clad with every endowment the heart and mind can wish for. He
however took pleasure in painting the passionate sensibility which the
poetry of Corinne inspired, and the art she possessed of seizing every
striking relation between the beauties of nature and the most intimate
impressions of the soul. He exalted the originality of Corinne's
expressions, those expressions which were the offspring of her character
and manner of feeling, without ever permitting any shade of affectation
to disfigure a species of charm not only natural but involuntary.

He spoke of her eloquence as possessing an irresistible force and energy
which must the more transport her hearers the more they possessed within
themselves true intellectual sensibility. "Corinne," said he, "is
indubitably the most celebrated woman of our country, and nevertheless
it is only her friends who can properly delineate her; for we must
always have recourse, in some degree, to conjecture, in order to
discover the genuine qualities of the soul. They may be concealed from
our knowledge by celebrity as well as obscurity, if some sort of
sympathy does not assist us to penetrate them." He enlarged upon her
talent for extemporisation, which did not resemble any thing of that
description known in Italy. "It is not only to the fecundity of her mind
that we ought to attribute it;" said he; "but to the deep emotion which
every generous thought excites in her. She cannot pronounce a word that
recalls such thoughts without enthusiasm, that inexhaustible source of
sentiments and of ideas animating and inspiring her." The Prince