There are many amiable people in the
world, and Madame Merle was far from being vulgarly good natured and
restlessly witty. She knew how to think- an accomplishment rare in
women; and she had thought to very good purpose. Of course, too, she
knew how to feel; Isabel couldn't have spent a week with her without
being sure of that. This was indeed Madame Merle's great talent, her
most perfect gift. Life had told upon her; she had felt it strongly,
and it was part of the satisfaction to be taken in her society that
when the girl talked of what she was pleased to call serious matters
this lady understood her so easily and quickly. Emotion, it is true,
had become with her rather historic; she made no secret of the fact
that the fount of passion, thanks to having been rather violently
tapped at one period, didn't flow quite so freely as of yore. She
proposed moreover, as well as expected, to cease feeling; she freely
admitted that of old she had been a little mad, and now she
pretended to be perfectly sane.
"I judge more than I used to," she said to Isabel, "but it seems
to me one has earned the right. One can't judge till one's forty;
before that we're too eager, too hard, too cruel, and in addition much
too ignorant.
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