nse. For thirty-four years, he was
almost inseparable from her. He removed to Paris, that he might look
on her every day. Wherever she travelled, abroad or at home, he was
one of her companions. At her receptions of company, the fame of
which has gone through the world, he was invariably an honored and
active assistant. And, despite his deformed face, and uncouth
appearance and bearing, he was a great favorite with all the chosen
guests at the Abbaye-aux-Bois. To those who really knew him, his
large, beaming eyes and noble forehead, his disinterested goodness,
his literary and philosophical accomplishments, his modest
unworldliness and attentive sympathy, redeemed his physical
blemishes, and covered them with a radiance superior to that of mere
beauty. The letters of Ballanche to Madame Recamier are charming in
their originality. His praise of her is marked by an inimitable grace
of sincerity and refinement:

"Your presence, so full of magic, the sweet reflection of your soul,
will be to me a powerful inspiration. You are a perfect poem; you are
poesy itself. It is your destiny to inspire, mine to be inspired. An
occupation would do you good; your disturbed and dreamy imagination
has need of aliment. Take care of your health, spare your nerves: you
are an angel who has gone a little astray in coming into a world of
agitation and falsehood."

What a reading of her inmost heart through her envied position, what
matchless felicity of representation, in this picture of herself sent
to her in one of his letters "The phoenix, marvellous but solitary
bird, is said often to weary of himself. He feeds on perfumes, and
lives in the purest region of the air; and his brilliant existence
ends on a pyre of odoriferous woods, kindled by the sun. More than
once, without doubt, he envies the lot of the white dove, because she
has a companion like herself."

In his high estimate of her talent, he tried to persuade her to
undertake a literary work, the translation and illustration of
Petrarch, which she actually began, but left unfinished.

"Your province, like my own," he writes, "is the interior of the
sentiments; but, believe me, you have at command the genius of music,
of flowers, of brooding meditation, and of elegance. Privileged
creature, assume a little confidence, lift your charming head, and
fear not to try your hand on the golden lyre of the poets. It is my
mission to see that some trace of your noble existence remains on