French
connoisseur said that a charming woman charmed the most.

Upon the evening before we parted, I ventured--for we sat at the
sheltered end of the piazza, away from the patterers and chatterers, a
little by ourselves--to ask her a brave question. I had learned that
one might ask her anything; she had originality; she was not of the
feminine pattern; she had no paltriness nor pettiness in her thoughts;
she looked out, as men do, upon a subject; not _down_, as women are
wont. She was a woman with whom a man could converse. He need not
adapt himself and conceal himself, and play the part of a gallant at
real matters which were above gallantry. He could confide in her. Now
it was new to me to consider that I could confide in any person. In my
calling, one becomes such a receptacle of human confidence,--one soaks
up other people's lives till one becomes a great sponge, absorptive and
absorbing for ever, as sponges should. Who notices when the useful
thing gets too full? That is what it is there for. Pour on--scalding
hot, or freezing cold, or pure or foul--pour away. If one day it
refuses to absorb any more, and lies limp and valueless--why, the
Doctor has broken down; or the Doctor is dead. Who ever thought
anything could happen to the _Doctor_? One thing in the natural
history of the sponge is apt to be overlooked. When the process of
absorption reaches a certain point, let the true hand touch the wearied
thing, and grasp it in the right way, and lo! back rushes the instinct
of confidence, _out_, not in.

Something of this sort had happened to me. The novelty of real
acquaintance with a woman who did not need me had an effect upon me
which perhaps few outside of my profession can understand. This woman
truly needed nothing of me. She had not so much as a toothache or a
sore throat. If she had cares or troubles they were her own. She
leaned upon me no more than the sunrise did upon the mountain. She was
as radiant, as healthful, as vivid, and as calm; she surrounded me, she
overflowed me like the colour of the air. Nay, beyond this it was I
who had need; it was she who ministered. It was I who suffered the
whims and longings of weakness,--the thousand little cravings of the
sick for the well. It was I who learned to know that I had never known
the meaning of what is called "diversion." I learned to suspect that I
had yet to learn the true place of sympathy in therapeutics. I
learned, in short,