STAËL Madame de (Anne Louise Germaine Necker, baroness of Staël-Holstein, known as) [Paris, 1766 - id., 1817], French writer. Set of 3 long autograph letters, addressed to the great tragedian Talma: "Thursday morning"; 3 pages in-8°. Superb letter to the great tragedian in which she expresses all her admiration for him. "Do not fear that I am like Mad. Milord that I put the crown on your head at the most pathetic moment but as I can only compare you to yourself, I must tell you that yesterday you surpassed Talma in the perfection of the imagination itself. There is in this play, as defective as it is, a remnant of a tragedy stronger than ours, and your talent appeared to me as the genius of Shakespeare, but underneath these inequalities, these familiar gestures which have suddenly become the noblest thing on earth, this depth of nature, these questions of our destiny in the presence of this crowd which will die and which seemed to listen to you like the oracle of the evening, this appearance of the spectre more terrible in your eyes than in the most fearsome form This deep melancholy, this voice, these looks that reveal feelings, a character above all human proportions. It is admirable, three times admirable! July 5; 4 pages in-4°. "You left yesterday, my dear Orestes, and you saw how much this separation hurt me. This feeling will not leave me for long because the admiration you inspire cannot be erased, you are in your unique career in the world and no one before you had reached this degree of perfection where art flows with inspiration, reflection with the involuntary and genius with reason. You have done me an evil, that to make me feel more bitterly my exile and I recognized more than ever the power of Europe since independently of this small Europe, it has for you the ideal world of the poetry. Hardly had you left, that the senator Roederer arrived at my place coming from Spain to go to Strasbourg. We talked for three hours and we often mixed your name with all the interests of this world. It was Sunday at Hamlet and you delighted him. We argued about the merits of the play itself and he seemed very orthodox to me, he claims that the Emperor is the only one who can write it. [The Emperor] is too. I developed my idea of your playing on this astonishing meeting of French regularity and foreign energy, he claimed that there were French classical pieces in which you did not yet excel and when I asked which ones he could not name any []. But I should not presume to tell you what you know a thousand times better than I do. It is true, however, that I have a personal interest in your reputation []. I am going to write about the dramatic art and half of my ideas will come from you. Adrien de Montmorency, who judges everything in good taste and noble manners, says that Mad. Talma and you are also perfect in this kind, all my company is attached to you both. [] The director of the show came to see me after your departure to tell me about you. I was grateful to him for addressing me so well. His conversation was comical, but I was only laughing at it and I let pass all that he wanted to say to give me a good opinion of him. Thus everyone is agitated to succeed, there is only the genius who triumphs almost without knowing it, so you are. Farewell, write me a few lines about your health, your successes and the probability of serving you. Coppet, 1st of 7bre; 4 pages in-4°, cracks. "Will I ever express to you as I have felt, my dear Orestes, the good your letter has done me. I thought you had forgotten me. I know you must be blasé about admiration, but can you be blasé about the admiration that comes from the heart? On the one that inspires me for you as much devotion as enthusiasm? Your sublime talent gave birth in my soul to the truest friendship and now that I am no longer under the spell of your accents I justify to myself the serious attachment I will have all my life for you. You would not have the accents if you were not capable of being a good and faithful friend if you did not have generosity in character. The common man sees the wonders of art in your talent, I also discover the secrets of a beautiful nature that only sympathy can reveal to you. [] How to praise even the Emperor if one was not inspired by a feeling. There is a Russian here who told me the other day that he imitated you very well, I shouted with joy and I was tempted to give him my heart in exchange for such a talent, but alas, in fifty verses that he declaimed to me, there was only one at last that made me flinch, the rest was dreadful. How dare you prefer Bayonne to Geneva and this Basque Hermione to me! Maybe it's because