If this condition, which comes from the
soul, can give attraction even to a plain woman, with what radiance
does it not invest a woman of natural elegance, distinguished bearing,
fair, fresh, with sparkling eyes, and dressed in a taste that wrings
approval from artists and her bitterest rivals.
Have you ever, for your happiness, met a woman whose harmonious voice
gives to her speech the same charm that emanates from her manners? a
woman who knows how to speak and to be silent, whose words are happily
chosen, whose language is pure, and who concerns herself in your
interests with delicacy? Her raillery is caressing, her criticism
never wounds; she neither discourses nor argues, but she likes to lead
a discussion and stop it at the right moment. Her manner is affable
and smiling, her politeness never forced, her readiness to serve
others never servile; she reduces the respect she claims to a soft
shadow; she never wearies you, and you leave her satisfied with her
and with yourself. Her charming grace is conveyed to all the things
with which she surrounds herself. Everything about her pleases the
eye; in her presence you breathe, as it were, your native air. This
woman is natural. There is no effort about her; she is aiming at no
effect; her feelings are shown simply, because they are true. Frank
herself, she does not wound the vanity of others; she accepts men as
God made them; pitying the vicious, forgiving defects and absurdities,
comprehending all ages, and vexed by nothing, because she has had the
sense and tact to foresee all.
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