Love for this father was the master passion of madame de Staël's life. She looked on him as the wisest and best of men; but, more than this, his kindness and sympathy gifted him with something angelic in her eyes. He was her dearest friend--the prop of her fortunes; her adviser, her shelter, her teacher, her approver--the seal of her prosperity and her glory. He was an old man, and this imparted unspeakable tenderness to her attachment. Her very love of Paris, and her consequent absences from him, added force to her feelings. While away she gathered anecdotes and knowledge for his amusement. Their correspondence was regular and full. It contained a thousand narrations and sallies, observations on events and persons full of piquancy, a gaiety adopted for the purpose of diverting him; and over all was spread a tone of tenderness and reverence, which accompanied the very idea of her father. When she returned to him, she checked a little the demonstrations of her delight, but it overflowed in her conversation. Things, men, and politics, the effect she had herself produced, were all related with an effusion of joy, accompanied by caresses, by tears of gladness, and laughter full of love. Necker listened with proud delight. He loved her fondly. Her very faults, her want of forethought, which made his cares necessary; her uncertainty and doubts with regard to all the minor affairs of life, which she joyfully submitted to his direction; her exuberant yet uncertain spirits; her imagination that often plunged her in gloom, were so many ties to unite father and daughter in bonds of the fondest affection.