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from her mind, and restore her usual
happy complacency. Books, music, and painting, divided the hours of her leisure, and many beautiful summer evenings were spent in the pavilion, where the refined conversation of ma- dame, the poetry of Tasso, the lute of Julia, and the friendship of Emilia, combined to form a species of happiness, such as elevated and highly susceptible minds are alone capable of receiving or communicating. Madame understood and practised all the graces of conversation, and her young pupils perceived its value, and caught the spirit of its character.
Conversation may be divided into
two classes — the familiar and the sentimental.
It is the province of the familiar,
to diffuse cheerfulness and ease — to open
the heart of man to man, and to beam a
temperate sunshine upon the mind. —
Nature and art must conspire to render
us susceptible of the charms, and to