us considerateness and soothing skill. The
unrestrained frankness of her affection, the intimate confidences she
imparted, the noble grounds she assumed to be common to them and her,
the tender compliments she was ever paying them with all the skill of
a sincere heart, were irresistible. She writes to the Duchess de la
Rochefoucauld, "Reply to all my inquiries; especially speak to me of
yourself. I long to be relieved from the punishment of your reserve."
Some persons would deal with souls as carelessly as if they were
pieces of mechanism; handle hearts as they would handle groceries.
Madame Swetchine was unable to contemplate without awe, or treat
without scrupulous delicacy, a human spirit seeking to open and show
itself to her as it was in the eyes of God.

In addition to all this, she had an amazing knowledge of the
mysteries of human nature and the experience of human life. She said
she had traversed the whole circle of passions and affections, and
was a true doctor of that law. "Reading in my own heart, I have
learned to understand the hearts of others: the single knowledge of
myself has given me the key of those innumerable enigmas called men."
She avowed herself an instinctive disciple of Lavater, and said, "The
expression of the face is the accent of the figure." Her biographer
says that her insight amounted almost to divination. A word, a
gesture, a look, a silence, hardly noticed by others, was to her a
complete revelation. She had the science of souls, as physicists have
the science of bodies. While the ordinary man sees in a plant merely
its color or its outline, the botanist discerns, at first sight, all
its specific attributes. Such was the power of Madame Swetchine: one
lineament, one trait, enabled her to recognize and reconstruct a
whole character. There is no luxury greater than that of unveiling
our inmost souls where we are sure of meeting a superior
intelligence, invincible charity, generous sympathy, and needed
support and guidance. All this was certain to be found in Madame
Swetchine. She had no rivalry, no envy, no desire to eclipse any one,
no bigotry or asperity; and the aged, the mature, and the youthful,
alike came with grateful pleasure under her empire. Women, usually
little accessible to the influence of another woman, were full of
trust and docility towards her. Loving solitude, plunging into
metaphysics as into a bath, she yet took great delight in the beauty,
freshness; playfullness,