According to St. Beuve, the privileged circle at Coppet after making an excursion returned from Chambéry in two coaches. Those arriving in the first coach had a rueful experience to relate—a terrific thunder-storm, shocking roads, and danger and gloom to the whole company. The party in the second coach heard their story with surprise; of thunder-storm, of steeps, of mud, of danger, they knew nothing; no, they had forgotten earth, and breathed a purer air; such a conversation between Madame de Staël and Madame Récamier and Benjamin Constant and Schlegel! they were all in a state of delight. The intoxication of the conversation had made them insensible to all notice of weather or rough roads. "If I were Queen," said Madame Tesse, "I should command Madame de Staël to talk to me every day." "When she had passed," as Longfellow wrote of Evangeline, "it seemed like the ceasing of exquisite music."
Madame de Staël was anything but beautiful, but she possessed that indefinable something before which mere conventional beauty cowers, commonplace and ashamed. Her hold upon the minds of men was wonderful. They were the creatures of her will, and she shaped careers as if she were omnipotent. Even the Emperor Napoleon feared her influence over his people so much that he destroyed her writings and banished her from France.
In the words of Whittier it could be said of her as might be said of any woman:—
Our homes are cheerier for her sake,
Our door-yards brighter blooming,
And all about the social air
Is sweeter for her coming.
A guest for two weeks at the house of Arthur M. Cavanaugh, M. P., who was without arms or legs, was very desirous of knowing how he fed himself; but the conversation and manner of the host were so charming that the visitor was scarcely conscious of his deformity.
"When Dickens entered a room," said one who knew him well, "it was like the sudden kindling of a big fire, by which every one was warmed."
It is said that when Goethe entered a restaurant people would lay down their knives and forks to admire him.
Philip of Macedon, after hearing the report of Demosthenes' famous oration, said: "Had I been there he would have persuaded me to take up arms against myself."
Henry Clay was so graceful and impressive in his manner that a Pennsylvania tavern-keeper tried to induce him to get out of the stage-coach in which they were riding, and make a speech to himself and his wife.
"I don't think much of Choate's spread-eagle talk," said a simple-minded member of a jury that had given five successive verdicts to the great advocate; "but I call him a very lucky lawyer, for there was not one of those five cases that came before us where he wasn't on the right side." His manner as well as his logic was irresistible.