manage egotisms, is an aim perhaps best accomplished
by a skilful dissimulation; but the true ideal is to correct faults
and to cure self-love."

The best example, in a relation with one of her own sex, of that
sentiment of friendship which was such a pervasive need of Madame
Swetchine's nature, and which she experienced so profusely, was her
connection with Roxandra Stourdza, a Greek maiden of great beauty and
genius, born at Constantinople. Originally brought together at court,
when the latter was maid of honor to the Empress Elizabeth, they
formed an enthusiastic attachment, which, for half a century, largely
constituted the richness, consolation, and joy of their lives. The
monument of it preserved in their correspondence possesses extreme
interest and value, and must secure for it a prominent place among
the few historic friendships of women. The oriental Roxandra was the
object of an admiration truly romantic from her friend, who seemed
always to see her seated on an ideal throne, and to address her as
some queen of Trebizond. Saint-Beuve says, the refined and exalted
affection between these two young persons, living in the artificial
world of the Russian court, and each throwing back, in her own way,
the mystic influences derived from the sky of Alexandria, affected
him as the exciting perfume exhaled by two rare plants nourished in a
hot-house. It is unimaginable what lofty, exquisite, and mysterious
sentiments they exchange. Their naked souls and minds, with all their
workings, are visible in these ingenuous and crowded letters, as in a
glass hive we can study the industry of bees. Saint-Beuve affirms,
that the later difference in their religion, the Countess Edling
always remaining in the Greek communion, Madame Swetchine becoming a
zealous Catholic, finally made ice between them; and that, when the
countess came to Paris to visit her old friend, she complained of
finding coldness and reserve. Probably there was something in this,
but not much. The friendship will be best revealed by citing, from
the parties themselves, some of its characteristic expressions.

The letters of Roxandra have not been published; but, in those of
Sophie, both souls are clearly reflected. For, as M. de Falloux says,
Madame Swetchine never Ised hackneyed language, never repeated for
one what he had first thought for another. She placed herself, with a
skill, or rather a condescension, truly marvelous, at the point of
view of those