HER WORKS.
Any notice of Madame de Staël would be imperfect without a review of
her works. She did not begin, like so many famous authors, to write
at an abnormally early age—it is true, she composed _Portraits_,
which were read aloud in her mother’s salon, but everybody did as
much in those days, and her attempts were not sufficiently remarkable
to stamp her at once as a literary genius. It has been said how much
her father discouraged her writing. This may account in part for the
tardy development of the taste, although more was doubtless due to
the peerless conversations in which, before the Revolution, her young
intellect found all that it could need of ideas. However this may be,
she was twenty before she wrote _Sophie, ou les Sentiments Secrets_,
that elegiac “comedy” which drew down on its authoress’s youthful head
the animadversions of her austere mother. Madame Necker was shocked at
the subject, which represented a young girl of seventeen struggling
against a secret passion for her guardian, a married man, who is in love
with her. Sophie (who, by the bye, is English) behaves in the noblest
manner as soon as she discovers that her feelings are reciprocated, and
leaves the home of which she has unwittingly destroyed the peace. Her
guardian and his wife are no less equal to the occasion, and Milord
Henri Bedford, Sophie’s slighted swain, is inspired by their example.
Everybody expresses his or her sentiments in polished and prolix verse,
and the curtain finally falls on four loftily eloquent and magnanimously
miserable people. The style is not inflated, but the piece is very dull,
and, while betraying little of the writer’s future talent, reveals two of
her defects, exaggeration of sentiment and a want of humor.
To the same date as _Sophie_ belong _Jane Grey_, a tragedy in five acts,
also in verse, of no real merit; another tragedy, _Montmorency_, and
three tales—all romantic and tiresome.
Finally, in 1788, when she was nearly twenty-two, Madame de Staël
published her _Letters on Rousseau_, and thus established her position as
an aspirant to literary fame. The book, coming from a woman, made a great
sensation. Indeed, this fact of her sex must never be lost sight of in
judging the reception accorded to Madame de Staël’s works. She attempted
subjects of historical and philosophical interest which no woman in her
country or age had approached before her.
As might be expected, she was an ardent admirer of Rousseau. Her sympathy
with the philosophy of Helvetius was naturally slight. She required
something declamatory, earnest, and didactic. In a glorification of
natural sentiments to result in some future apotheosis of humanity lay
the key to her creed. “Virtue” and still “virtue” and more “virtue” was
her cry, as though “virtue” were a tangible and definitely constituted
thing to be extracted _en bloc_ out of the materials composing humanity.
To such a mind it was inevitable that _Emile_ and the _Contrat Social_
should appeal more strongly than any number of witty epigrams at the
expense of penitents and priests.
She sympathised with the philosophy of the eighteenth century in so far
as it tended, by uprooting abuses, to promote the progress of culture
and the emancipation of the oppressed, but she required some system that
would reconstruct as well as destroy; and being a fervid believer in
theories, disliked nothing so much as the idea of leaving the human race
to take care of itself. Rousseau, as embodying a protest against the
spirit of frivolous negation, appeared to her in the light of a prophet
of perfection; and she saw in the approaching meeting of the States
General a first step towards the realization of his views. These radiant
ideals were destined to be suddenly and painfully obscured by the events
of the Terror. Her only contribution to literature during that time was
her celebrated and impassioned defence of the unhappy Queen. Public
events so fascinated her attention that she had no leisure for any other
thought. Two sentences in her _Réflexions sur la Paix_, published in
1794, reveal this preoccupation.
“During the reign of Robespierre,” she says, “when each day brought a
list of devoted victims, I could only desire death, and long for the end
of the world and of the human race which was witness to, or accomplice
in, such horrors. I should have made a reproach to myself even of
thought, because it was separate from sorrow.” In another passage she
exclaims: “Oh appalling time, of which centuries will barely dim the
trace; time which will never belong to the past!”
Nevertheless, Robespierre had hardly fallen, before her ever vivid faith
in humanity revived in full force. She looked for safety to the faction
which divided extreme revolutionaries from extreme reactionaries, and
refused to believe that it could only act as a buffer. Its moderation
was partly caused by exhaustion; yet Madame de Staël, always optimistic,
maintained that having no passions it must have convictions, and that
the trumpet-call of liberty would summon it to the front. In this she
was mistaken; but in the course of her observations on public events
she uttered one remarkable prophecy. “France,” she wrote, “may remain a
republic; but to become a monarchy it must first submit to a military
government.”
In 1790 she published her work on _The Influence of the Passions upon
Human Happiness_. This was originally to have been divided into two
parts. The first portion was to be devoted to reflections on man’s
peculiar destiny; the second, to the constitutional fate of nations. We
have to concern ourselves with the first alone, as the second, which
would have required an immense and minute knowledge of ancient and modern
governments, was never even begun.
In Madame de Staël’s view the true obstacle to individual and political
happiness lay in the force of passion. Neutralize this, and the problem
of government would be solved. Happiness, as she conceived it, was to
consist in having hope without fear, activity without anxiety, glory
without calumny, love without inconstancy—in a word, ideal good with
no admixture of evil. The happiness of nations would consist in the
combination of Republican liberty with monarchical calm, of emulation
among talents unaccompanied by factious clamor, of military spirit in
foreign affairs, and a law-abiding tendency in domestic matters. She
concluded by saying that such an ideal is impossible of attainment, and
the only achievable happiness is to be acquired by studying the true
means of avoiding moral pain. To the discovery of this spiritual Nirvana
her work was directed. The subject, as is evident, was a sterile one,
since it dealt with abstractions that have no corresponding realities. To
say that men and nations would be prosperous and contented without some
particular institution or defect, is the same as to say that a human face
would be beautiful without features. A blank surface is conceivable as
a blank surface, but not as a physiognomy; and to speculate concerning
ideal humanity divorced from social systems, imposes on thought the most
futile exercise that ever occurred to an enlightened mind. Such being the
case, it is not surprising that Madame de Staël should eventually have
abandoned her self-imposed task. Even as much of it as she accomplished
landed her on a moving morass of conclusions of which the essential
nullity must have been evident to herself before anybody. For the rest,
her analysis of the various passions is admirable. One wonders as one
reads how a young woman could have reached so perfect a comprehension
of the springs of human action. The penetration displayed is unerring,
and only equalled by the masculine vigor of touch. A good example is
the following: “Truly great men are such as have rendered a greatness
like their own less necessary to successive generations.” And here is
another striking passage: “A revolution suspends every action but that
of force. Social order establishes the ascendancy of esteem and virtue,
but a revolution limits men’s choice to their physical capacities. The
only sort of moral influence that it does not exclude is the fanaticism
of such ideas as, not being susceptible of any restraint, are weapons
of war and not exercises of the mind. To aspire to distinction in times
of revolution one must always outstrip the actual momentum of events,
and the consequence of this is a rapid descent which one has no power of
staying. In vain one perceives the abyss in front. To throw oneself from
the chariot is to be killed by the fall, so that to avoid the danger is
more perilous than to face it. One must of one’s own accord tread the
path that leads to ruin, since the least step backwards overturns the
individual but does not hinder the event.”
This is a very good example both of the clearness of Madame de Staël’s
thought and the careless confusion of her style. She introduced
metaphors just as they occurred to her, without any preparatory
gradations of thought.
The second section of the work is devoted to the examination of natural
affections such as family love, friendship, and pity. Here, again, the
analysis is delicate and true, but the mind, fatigued by the futility of
the theme, recoils from such minute dissection of emotion. Passion, being
comparatively rare, is always interesting, but sentiment does not bear
prolonged contemplation.
Finally come the remedies to be applied to the evils worked by passion.
They consist in philosophy, in study, and the practice of benevolence,
joined, if possible, to a child-like faculty of extracting from each
hour just the amount of happiness that it contains. With this lame and
impotent conclusion the book practically ends, for all the remaining
reflections do not avail to place in any clearer light the uncertain and
colorless thought of the writer.
Her next work was that on _Literature Considered in Relation to Social
Institutions_. Its object was to establish the continuous progress and
ultimate perfectibility of the human mind, and the happy influence
exercised by liberty upon literature.
The theory of the authoress was that the progress of philosophy, _i. e._
thought, had been gradual, while that of poetry had been spasmodic.
Art, indeed, offering, by its early maturity, an awkward contradiction
to her system, she proceeded to get rid of it by describing it as the
product of imagination rather than of thought, and by adding that its
plastic and sensuous qualities rendered it capable of flourishing under
systems of government which necessarily crush every other form of
intellectual activity. To prove the perfectibility of the human mind, she
then had but poetry and philosophy. To the latter she assigned the really
glorious future, while the former she regarded as finished. She was the
first of the Romanticists, in the sense that she preferred the poetry
of the north to that of the south; and her predilections in this line
carried her so far, that she placed Ossian above Homer. She considered
that the early forms of poetry—in other words, mere transcripts of
material impressions—were superior to those later creations in which
sentiment enters as an element. And this idea, which seems at first
a contradiction to her theory of perfectibility, was really intended
to confirm it. For, in her view, the value of literature consisting
exclusively in the amount of thought that it contained, introspective
poetry became a mere bridge which the mind traversed on its way to wider
horizons.
Madame de Staël was not only not a poet herself, but she was incapable of
appreciating the higher forms of poetry. In her excursions through the
regions of literature, she was always in pursuit of some theory which
would reconcile the contradictions of human destiny. Man, regarded as
socially perfectible, being her ideal, she was in haste to classify and
relegate to some convenient limbo the portions of a subject which did
not directly contribute to her hypotheses. Having disposed, therefore,
of poetry and art, she undertook to consider literature from the point
of view of psychology. She was only pleased with it when self-conscious
and analytical. Dante probably perplexed her, and she evoked to condemn
him the perruqued shade of “Le Goût.” Shakespeare she applauded, as
might be expected, chiefly in consideration of _Hamlet_; while Petrarch
pleased her principally because he was harmonious; and Ariosto because he
was fanciful. The true significance of the Renaissance escaped her. She
sought for the origin of each literature in the political and religious
institutions of the country where it arose, instead of regarding both
literature and social conditions as simultaneous products of the national
mind. Her erudition was inadequate to her task, and the purpose of her
works, by warping her judgments, contributed to make them superficial.
While pronouncing the English and French drama to be essentially
superior to the Greek, she characteristically preferred Euripides to
his two mighty predecessors. The grandeur of the dominant idea of Greek
tragedy—that of an inevitable destiny, against which man struggles in
vain—appears to have escaped her altogether. This is not surprising,
since such a conception was entirely opposed to her own order of mind and
to the age in which she lived. The root of all the social theories then
prevailing was the value of the individual. Man was not a puppet of the
gods, but the architect of his own fate. To lose hold of ideal virtue
was to become incapable of governing or being governed; and ideal virtue
was a definite entity which anybody might possess who chose. This—rather
crudely stated—was Madame de Staël’s point of view. Her enthusiasm
rejected all idea of limited responsibilities. The ethical value of the
Æschylean trilogy—the awful sense of overhanging doom which pervades
it—did not appeal to her, because it tended to the annihilation of the
struggling soul. In other words, she liked _self-conscious_ drama, and
was attracted to Euripides by his creation of artificial situations, in
which interesting personages had room and leisure to explain themselves.
With Aristophanes she was frankly disgusted; from her didactic
standpoint, because of his pronounced indecency; and on artistic grounds,
because he attacked living individuals instead of creating characters
like Tartufe and Falstaff. To his beauties she remained entirely blind,
and this, perhaps, is to be explained by her deficiency in the æsthetic
faculty. It is said that Châteaubriand first taught her to appreciate
nature, and Schlegel to perceive the loveliness of art. Chênedollé
complained that she had lived for years opposite Lake Leman “without
finding an image” in regard to it; and she herself once frankly admitted
that of her own accord she would hardly open her window to gaze on the
bay of Naples, while she would go a hundred miles to converse with a new
mind.
Its defects admitted, we may own that Madame de Staël’s work contains
many charming chapters. If, true to her theory, she provokes her reader
by preferring the Latin poets to the Greek ones, and Quintilian to
Cicero, simply because of their later date; if she persists, rather than
modify her views, that the sterile scholasticism of the Middle Ages was
not a real retrogression, and strangely overlooks, in her admiration for
Christianity, the intellectual benefits which man owes to the Arabs; on
the other hand, she has flashes of admirable insight. The chapter on the
invasion of Italy by the barbarians, and the part played by Christianity
in fusing the two races, is very suggestive. But, unfortunately, it is
suggestive _only_, and sins by a sketchiness which, more or less, mars
the whole book. This was one of Madame de Staël’s defects. She abounded
in ideas, but failed either in the power or the patience to work them out.
Two other interesting chapters are those on the “Grace, Gaiety, and
Taste of the French Nation,” and on “Literature in the Reign of Louis
XIV.” The peculiar social influences which, among successive generations
of courtiers, produced the best writers of France, are very happily
described; but here again the conclusions are indicated rather than
developed. Madame de Staël stated her conviction that the palmy days of
French wit were over, and that the literature of the future, if it wished
to flourish, must invest itself with greater gravity.
Convinced that the moment had come for the dramatist to pack up his
puppet-show and despatch it to a museum of antiquities, she laid down
rules for an ideal republican literature, and prescribed strong emotions,
careful analysis of character, and a high moral tone as indispensable
ingredients. She was in fact one of the first to admire and write that
appalling product, the novel with a purpose.
Anything duller than _Delphine_ it would be difficult to imagine.
From the first page to the last there is hardly one line of genuine
inspiration. All is forced, exaggerated, overstrained. The misfortunes of
the heroine are so needlessly multiplied, that they end by exasperating
the reader; and the _motif_ of the book—the contrast between conventional
and moral ideals—fails in true dramatic interest. The plot is as follows:
Madame de Vernon has a daughter, Mathilde, beautiful and sanctimonious,
whom she desires to marry to Léonce de Mondoville, a young Spaniard of
noble birth and aristocratic prejudices. Madame de Vernon has in the
whole world one friend, Delphine d’Albémar, a miracle of grace, wit,
and beauty, who does acts of unheard-of generosity, and generally by
some evil chance accomplishes them at the moment when they lead to
unlucky results for herself. She is a young widow, and has been left
by her elderly and devoted husband a fortune, of which she proceeds to
divest herself as rapidly as possible. One of her favorite objects of
charity is Madame de Vernon, who does not deserve her pity, since the
pecuniary embarrassments under which she suffers arise from her love
of card-playing, and general mismanagement. But Delphine adores her
friend, who is represented as extremely charming, and is in some respects
a well-drawn character. Her life is one long act of dissimulation. She
masks her cynicism cleverly, under an appearance of indolence, which
dispenses her from ever taking inconvenient resolutions, or appearing
agitated by events which should—but do not—move her. She has some faint
affection for her generous dupe—Delphine; but not enough to be prevented
from taking every mean advantage of her. There is some difficulty in
arranging Mathilde’s marriage, on account of the want of a dowry.
Delphine hastens to supply this, and then the bridegroom elect, Léonce,
appears on the scene. He is described as divinely handsome. The cold and
pietistic Mathilde falls in love with him immediately (as was her duty,
since he was to be her husband), but so, unfortunately, does Delphine.
What is still worse, he is by no means attracted by his _fiancée_, but
reciprocates the young widow’s passion. Then the drama begins. Madame
de Vernon, while seeming to see nothing, sees everything. Mathilde is
really blind. Delphine is agitated, but resolved, if possible, to be
happy. This, by the way, is the only gleam of common sense that she has
throughout the book. Unfortunately, she manages to compromise herself
(of course quite innocently) by espousing the cause of a pair of guilty
but repentant lovers; and Madame de Vernon cleverly uses the awkward
positions in which she places herself, in order to detach Léonce from
her. He marries Mathilde and is madly unhappy. Delphine pours out her
feelings in long letters to her sister-in-law and confidant, Mademoiselle
d’Albémar, letters which she writes, by the way, on recovering from
fainting fits, or when lying in bed, or when on the verge of distraction.
The whole of the novel is told in letters, and is proportionately
long-winded and unnatural.
Not long after the marriage Madame de Vernon dies, and on her death-bed
confesses her perfidy to her victim. Then the mutual passion of Delphine
and Léonce enters upon a new and harrowing phase. They determine to
remain technically virtuous, but to see one another constantly—of course
unknown to Mathilde. This unnatural situation—unnaturally prolonged,
becomes unbearable through its monotonous misery.
Finally Mathilde discovers the state of the case and conjures Delphine to
separate herself from Léonce. Madame d’Albémar consents, and disappears.
Léonce is then described by his confidant as being on the point of
madness. He alternately loses consciousness, and rushes about with
dishevelled hair and distraught looks. Delphine goes to Switzerland, and
there proceeds to compromise herself anew, this time beyond recall, for
the sake of a rejected lover who had behaved disgracefully to her.
She had taken refuge in a convent of which the superioress, Madame de
Ternan, turns out to be the aunt of Léonce. This lady is something of the
same sort as Madame de Vernon—except that her egotism, although quite as
systematic, is not so base. But it can become so on occasion, and, as she
is rather fond of Delphine and anxious to keep her with her to solace her
old age, she plays into the hands of Madame de Mondoville (the mother of
Léonce) and cleverly contrives to make Delphine take the veil. Barely has
this been done when Léonce appears and claims her as his own, Mathilde
having in the meanwhile died. Then is the exhausted reader harassed
anew by a fresh spectacle of poignant anguish. A Monsieur de Sebersci
suggests that Delphine should break her vows, quit her convent, and join
Léonce, pointing out that, thanks to the Revolution, they can be quite
respectably married in France. Delphine is horrified at first, but Léonce
having announced the firm intention of putting an end to his existence
if she remains a nun, she finally escapes and joins him. One begins to
hope that they are going to be happy at last, when the “purpose” of the
book presents itself. Madame de Staël was anxious to prove that social
conventions may not be braved with impunity, but overtake and crush the
nature which defies them. Delphine throughout had listened to no voice
but that of her conscience and her heart; she is consequently the victim
of calumny. Léonce is principally swayed by passion. He defies society
in the end to possess Delphine, but has no sooner induced her to break
her vows for him than he begins to feel the stigma of the act. He leaves
her, and seeks death on the battle-field. Death spares him, but he is
arrested as an aristocrat and condemned to be shot. Delphine follows him,
and by her eloquence wrings a pardon from the judge. Léonce, enlightened
by the approach of death as to the nothingness of the world’s opinion, is
prepared to live happily at last with the woman whom he still professes
to adore. But all at once the order for his release is rescinded and
he is taken out to die. Delphine accompanies him, and talks all along
the road. Indeed, she is superfluously eloquent, from the first page of
her history to the last. When Léonce has been strung up by her to the
highest pitch of exalted feeling, she takes poison and dies at his feet.
He is then shot; and the lovers are interred in one grave by Monsieur de
Serbellane, who has appeared again in the last chapter, after having
been the primary though unwitting cause of his unhappy friends’ woes.
It is difficult to understand why critics like Sainte Beuve should so
warmly have praised this novel. No doubt it shows talent, especially
in the analysis of mental struggle; but it is false from beginning to
end. All the characters want vitality, although some of the qualities
attributed to them are described with penetration and force. Delphine and
Léonce talk too much, and faint too much, and are simply insupportable.
Finally, the book is drearily monotonous and unrelieved by one gleam of
poetry or humor.
_Corinne_ is a classic of which everybody is bound to speak with respect.
The enormous admiration which it excited at the time of its appearance
may seem somewhat strange in this year of grace; but then it must be
remembered that Italy was not the over-written country it has since
become. Besides this, Madame de Staël was the most celebrated woman,
and, after Napoleon, the most conspicuous personage of her day. Except
Châteaubriand, she had nobody to dispute with her the palm of literary
glory in France. Her exile, her literary circle, her courageous opinions,
had kept the eyes of Europe fixed on her for years, so that any work from
her pen was sure to excite the liveliest curiosity.
_Corinne_ is a kind of glorified guide-book, with some of the qualities
of a good novel. It is very long-winded, but the appetite of the age was
robust in that respect, and the highly-strung emotions of the hero and
heroine could not shock a taste which had been formed by the _Sorrows
of Werther_. It is extremely moral, deeply sentimental, and of a deadly
earnestness—three characteristics which could not fail to recommend it to
a dreary and ponderous generation, the most deficient in taste that ever
trod the earth.
But it is artistic in the sense that the interest is concentrated from
first to last on the central figure, and the drama, such as it is,
unfolds itself naturally from its starting-point, which is the contrast
between the characters of Oswald and Corinne.
Oswald Lord Nelvil is a young man of exquisite sensibility and profound
melancholy. He comes to Rome (after distinguishing himself heroically
during a fire at Ancona) accompanied by a young Frenchman, the Count
D’Erfeuil, whom he has casually met. One of the first sights which greets
them on their arrival in the Eternal City is the triumphal procession of
“Corinne” on her way to be crowned in the Capitol. She is a musician, an
improvisatrice, a Muse or Sibyl, with all the poetry and passion of Italy
stamped upon her radiant brow. In the midst of her improvisation she
exchanges glances with Lord Nelvil, and the fate of both is sealed. He is
intended to be a typical Englishman imbued with a horror of eccentricity
in women. His ideal of the sex is a domestic angel, and he feels bound to
disapprove of Corinne, who lives alone, though young and beautiful, and
offers the spectacle of her various talents to the profane view of the
crowd. The Count D’Erfeuil mocks at everything, and is the most amusing
character in the book; feels no scruples about knowing Corinne, and,
having quickly discovered that his reserved English friend pleases her,
he persuades that gentleman to call on her also. Corinne speaks English
wonderfully, and allows Lord Nelvil to divine that there is a mystery
about her past. Once she betrays great agitation on hearing the name
of Edgermond, which is the patronymic of a certain Lucile, whom Lord
Nelvil’s father had destined him to marry. Grief at the death of this
father is, by the way, the ostensible cause of his persistent melancholy,
but he also vaguely hints at remorse. He promises that he will one day
confide his history to Corinne, who on her side prepares herself to
tell him hers. But as she greatly fears the effect of it on him, and is
deeply in love, she puts off the evil hour, and, in order to keep him
with her, offers to be his cicerone in Rome. Together they wander among
the ruins, visit the galleries, and drive on the Appian Way. Corinne
explains everything, discourses on everything, and Oswald interrupts her
with exclamations of rapture at her wit and learning. This novel form of
courtship lasts for some weeks, and finally the lovers proceed to Naples.
Corinne persuades Oswald that there is nothing at all extraordinary in
such conduct in Italy, where everyone, according to her, may do as he
likes. But the Count L’Erfeuil makes remarks which, although intended
to be merely flippant, are sensible enough to convince Lord Nelvil that
he must either marry Corinne or leave her. He is very much in love, or
fancies himself so. Nevertheless he hesitates because of the mystery
surrounding his _inamorata_. Who is she? What is her name? Whence comes
her fortune? If she is not quite blameless, he thinks he can never marry
her, for that would be derogating from the traditions of his order and
outraging the shade of his father. The mental struggle which he undergoes
is visible to Corinne and fills her with anguish and alarm. At last,
during an expedition to Vesuvius, Oswald speaks. He had been at one
time in love with an unworthy Frenchwoman; had lingered in France when
his father required his presence in England, and had finally returned,
only to find him dead. From that hour he had known no peace; remorse
had pursued him; his filial love, which was morbidly excessive, caused
him to look upon himself as almost a parricide, and he considered that
he was thenceforward morally bound to do nothing which his father might
disapprove. This absurd conclusion afflicts Corinne visibly, and the
sight of her agitation reawakens all Oswald’s doubts. He conjures her to
tell him her history. She consents; but begs for a few days’ grace, and
employs the interval in planning and carrying out a fête on Cape Misenum.
In front of the azure, tideless sea she takes her lyre and pours out an
improvisation on the past glories of that classic shore. This, although
Oswald does not know it, is an adieu to her past life, for she foresees
that what she has to tell him of herself will entirely change her
destiny. Either he will refuse to marry her, and then she will never know
happiness again, but wingless, voiceless, will go down to her tomb, or
else he will make her his wife, and the Sibyl will be lost in the peeress.
The next day she leaves with him the narrative of her youth. She is
the daughter of Lord Edgermond by an Italian wife, consequently the
half-sister of Lucile. At the age of fifteen she had gone to England,
and fallen under the rule of her stepmother, Lady Edgermond, a cold and
rigid Englishwoman, who cared for nothing outside her small provincial
town, and regarded genius as a dangerous eccentricity. In the narrow
monotony of the life imposed upon her Corinne nearly died. At the age
of twenty-one she finally escaped and returned to Italy, having dropped
her family name out of respect for Lady Edgermond’s feelings. Until her
meeting with Oswald she had led the life of a muse, singing, dancing,
playing, improvising for the whole of Roman society to admire, and had
conceived no idea of greater felicity until learning to love. This
love had been a source of peculiar torment to her from the fact of her
divining how much the unconventionality of her conduct, when fully known
to him, must shock Oswald’s English notions of propriety. In the first
moment, however, his love triumphs over these considerations, and he
resolves to marry Corinne. Only he wishes first—in order that no reproach
may attach to her—to force Lady Edgermond once again to acknowledge her
as her husband’s daughter. He goes to England, partly for this purpose,
partly because his regiment has been ordered on active service.
In England he again meets Lucile, a cold-mannered, correct, pure-minded,
but secretly ardent English girl, with an odd resemblance in many ways
to a French _jeune fille_. He mentions the subject of her step-daughter
to the upright but selfish Lady Edgermond, who has set her heart on
seeing Oswald the husband of Lucile. She is too honorable to try and
detach him from Corinne by any underhand means, but does what she knows
will be far more effectual; that is, she makes him acquainted with the
fact that his father had seen Corinne in her early girlhood, had admired
her, but had strongly pronounced against the marriage proposed by Lord
Edgermond between her and Oswald. In the view of the late Lord Nelvil,
she was too brilliant and distinguished for domestic life. This is a
terrible blow to Oswald. He begins to think he must give up Corinne, and
is strengthened in the idea by perceiving that the beautiful and virtuous
Lucile is in love with him. Finally he marries her, decided at the last
by Corinne’s inexplicable silence. She has not answered his letters for
a month, and he concludes that she has forgotten him. But her silence is
owing to her having left Venice and come to England. She loses a whole
month in London, for very insufficient reasons—necessary, however, to the
story—and at last follows Oswald to Scotland just in time to learn that
he is married, to fall senseless on the road-side, and to be picked up by
the Count D’Erfeuil. She returns heart-broken to Italy, and dies slowly
through four long years of unbroken misery.
When she is near her end Oswald comes to Florence, accompanied by his
wife and child. He had begun to regret Corinne as soon as he had married
Lucile, who, on her side, being naturally resentful, takes refuge in
coldness and reserve. As soon as Lord Nelvil learns that his old love
is in Florence and dying he wishes ardently to see her, but she refuses
to receive him. He sends the child to her, and she teaches it some of
her accomplishments. Lucile visits her secretly, and is converted by her
eloquence to the necessity of rendering herself more attractive to her
husband by displaying some graces of mind.
At last Corinne consents to see Oswald once again, but it shall be, she
determines, in public. This is one of the most unnatural scenes in the
book. Corinne invites all her friends to assemble in a lecture hall.
Thither she has herself transported and placed in an arm-chair. A young
girl clad in white and crowned with flowers recites the Song of the Swan,
or adieu to life, which Corinne has composed, while Oswald, listening
to it and gazing on the dying poetess from his place in the crowd, is
suffocated with emotion and finally faints. A few days later Corinne
dies, her last act being to point with her diaphanous hand to the moon,
which is partially obscured by a band of cloud such as she and Lord
Nelvil had once seen when in Naples.
Even as a picture of Italy, _Corinne_ leaves much to be desired. Madame
de Staël’s ideas of art were acquired. She had no spontaneous admiration
even for the things she most warmly praised, and her judgments were
conventional and essentially cold. Some of the descriptions are good
in the sense of being accurate and forcibly expressed. But even in the
best of them—that of Vesuvius—one feels the effort. Madame de Staël is
wide-eyed and conscientious, but has no flashes of inspired vision. She
can catalogue but not paint. A certain difficulty in saying enough on
æsthetic subjects is rendered evident by her vice of moralizing. Instead
of admiring a marble column as a column, or a picture as a picture, she
finds in it food for reflection on the nature of man and the destiny
of the world. Some of her remarks on Italian character are extremely
clever, and show her usual surprising power of observation; but they are
generally superficial.
This was due, in part, to her system of explaining everything by race
and political institutions, in part to her passion for generalization.
Because Italians had produced the finest art and some of the finest
music; because they had no salons and wrote sonnets; because they had
developed a curiously systematic form of conjugal infidelity; finally,
because they had no political liberty, Madame de Staël constructed a
theory which represented them as simply passionate, romantic, imaginative
and indulgent. This theory has cropped up now and again in literature
from her days to our own, and if partially correct, overlooks the subtler
shades and complex contradictions of the Italian mind.
Roman society in the beginning of this century was far from being the
transfigured and exotic thing represented in _Corinne_. The modern
Sibyl’s prototype, poor Maddalena Maria Morelli, was mercilessly
pasquinaded, and on her road to the Capitol pelted with rotten eggs.
This gives a very good idea of the sort of impression that would have
been produced on a _real_ Prince of Castel-Forte and his fellows by
the presence in their midst of a young and beautiful woman, unmarried,
nameless, and rich. Corinne’s lavish exhibition of her accomplishments is
another “false note,” as singing and dancing were but rarely, if ever,
performed by amateurs in Italy. What redeems the book are the detached
sentences of thought that gem almost every page of it. Madame de Staël
had gradually shaken off the vices of style which her warmest admirers
deplore in her, and in her _Allemagne_ she was presently to reveal
herself as singularly lucid, brilliant, and acute. This work of hers on
Germany is, perhaps, the most satisfactory of her many productions. As a
review of society, art, literature, and philosophy, it naturally lends
itself to the form best suited to her essentially analytical mind.
Madame de Staël was always obliged to generalize, that being a law of her
intelligence, and this disposition is accentuated in the _Allemagne_,
through her desire to establish such contrasts between Germany and
France, as would inspire the latter with a sense of its defects. She saw
Germany on the eve of a great awakening, and was not perhaps as fully
conscious of this as she might have been. As Saint Beuve happily says,
she was not a poet, and it is only poets who, like birds of passage, feel
a coming change of season. Germany appealed to her, however, through
everything in herself that was least French; her earnestness, her
vague but ardent religious tendencies, her spiritualism, her excessive
admiration of intellectual pursuits. She was, therefore, exceptionally
well-qualified to reveal to her own countrymen the hitherto unknown or
unappreciated beauties of the German mind.
She was, on the other hand, extremely alive to the dullness of German,
and especially of Viennese, society, and portrays it in a series of
delightfully witty phrases. The _Allemagne_ is indeed the wittiest of all
her works, and abounds in the happiest touches.
The opinions expressed on German literature are favorable towards it, and
on the whole correct. If she betrays that Schiller was personally more
sympathetic to her than Goethe, she nevertheless was quick to perceive in
the latter the strain of southern passion, the light, warmth and color,
which made his intellect less national than universal.
Her chapters on Kant and German philosophy generally, are luminous if
not exhaustive. She takes the moral sentiment as her standpoint, and
pronounces from that on the different systems. Needless to say, she
admires metaphysical speculations, and considers them as valuable in
developing intellect and strengthening character.
_Les Dix Années d’Exil_ is a charming book. Apart from its interest as
a transcript of the writer’s impressions during her exile at Coppet
and subsequent flight across Europe, it contains brilliant pictures of
different lands, and especially Russia. One is really amazed to note
how much she grasped of the national characteristics during her brief
sojourn in that country. The worst reproach that can be addressed to
her description is that, as usual, it is rather too favorable. Her
anxiety to prove that no country could flourish, during a reign such as
Napoleon’s, made her disposed to see through rose-colored spectacles the
Governments which found force to resist him.
The _Considerations on the French Revolution_ were published
posthumously. According to Sainte Beuve, this is the finest of Madame
de Staël’s works. “Her star,” he says, “rose in its full splendor only
above her tomb.” It is difficult to pronounce any summary judgment on
this book, which is partly biographical and partly historical. The first
volume is principally devoted to a vindication of Necker; the second to
an attack on Napoleon; the third to a study of the English Constitution
and the applicability of its principles to France. The first two volumes
alone were revised by the authoress before her death. We find in this
work all Madame de Staël’s natural and surprising power of comprehension.
She handles difficult political problems with an ease that would be more
astonishing still, had the book more unity. As it is, each separate
circumstance is related and explained admirably, but one is not made to
reach the core of the stupendous event of which Europe still feels the
vibration. Her portrait of Napoleon is unsurpassable for force and irony,
for sarcasm and truth. All she possessed of epigrammatic power seems to
have come unsought to enable her to avenge herself on the mean, great
man who had feared her enough to exile and persecute her.
In closing this rapid review of her works, one asks why was Madame de
Staël not a greater writer? The answer is easy; she lacked high creative
power and the sense of form. Her mind was strong of grasp and wide in
range, but continuous effort fatigued it. She could strike out isolated
sentences alternately brilliant, exhaustive and profound, but she could
not link them to other sentences so as to form an organic page. Her
thought was definite singly, but vague as a whole. She always saw things
separately, and tried to unite them arbitrarily, and it is generally
difficult to follow out any idea of hers from its origin to its end. Her
thoughts are like pearls of price profusely scattered, or carelessly
strung together, but not set in any design. On closing one of her books,
the reader is left with no continuous impression. He has been dazzled and
delighted, enlightened also by flashes; but the horizons disclosed have
vanished again, and the outlook is enriched by no new vistas.
Then she was deficient in the higher qualities of imagination. She could
analyze but not characterize; construct but not create. She could take
one defect like selfishness, or one passion like love, and display its
workings; or she could describe a whole character, like Napoleon’s, with
marvellous penetration; but she could not make her personages talk or
act like human beings. She lacked pathos, and had no sense of humor. In
short, hers was a mind endowed with enormous powers of comprehension, and
an amazing richness of ideas, but deficient in perception of beauty, in
poetry, and true originality. She was a great social personage, but her
influence on literature was not destined to be lasting, because, in spite
of foreseeing much, she had not the true prophetic sense of proportion,
and confused the things of the present with those of the future—the
accidental with the enduring.
THE END.
* * * * *
_Messrs. Roberts Brothers’ Publications._
FAMOUS WOMEN SERIES.
GEORGE SAND.
BY BERTHA THOMAS.
One volume. 16mo. Cloth. Price, $1.00.
“Miss Thomas has accomplished a difficult task with as much good sense
as good feeling. She presents the main facts of George Sand’s life,
extenuating nothing, and setting naught down in malice, but wisely
leaving her readers to form their own conclusions. Everybody knows that
it was not such a life as the women of England and America are accustomed
to live, and as the worst of men are glad to have them live.… Whatever
may be said against it, its result on George Sand was not what it would
have been upon an English or American woman of genius.”—_New York Mail
and Express._
“This is a volume of the ‘Famous Women Series,’ which was begun so
well with George Eliot and Emily Brontë. The book is a review and
critical analysis of George Sand’s life and work, by no means a detailed
biography. Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin, the maiden, or Mme. Dudevant,
the married woman, is forgotten in the renown of the pseudonym George
Sand.
“Altogether, George Sand, with all her excesses and defects, is a
representative woman, one of the names of the nineteenth century.
She was great among the greatest, the friend and compeer of the
finest intellects, and Miss Thomas’s essay will be a useful and
agreeable introduction to a more extended study of her life and
works.”—_Knickerbocker._
“The biography of this famous woman, by Miss Thomas, is the only one in
existence. Those who have awaited it with pleasurable anticipation, but
with some trepidation as to the treatment of the erratic side of her
character, cannot fail to be pleased with the skill by which it is done.
It is the best production on George Sand that has yet been published.
The author modestly refers to it as a sketch, which it undoubtedly is,
but a sketch that gives a just and discriminating analysis of George
Sand’s life, tastes, occupations, and of the motives and impulses which
prompted her unconventional actions, that were misunderstood by a narrow
public. The difficulties encountered by the writer in describing this
remarkable character are shown in the first line of the opening chapter,
which says, ‘In naming George Sand we name something more exceptional
than even a great genius.’ That tells the whole story. Misconstruction,
condemnation, and isolation are the penalties enforced upon the great
leaders in the realm of advanced thought, by the bigoted people of their
time. The thinkers soar beyond the common herd, whose soul-wings are not
strong enough to fly aloft to clearer atmospheres, and consequently they
censure or ridicule what they are powerless to reach. George Sand, even
to a greater extent than her contemporary, George Eliot, was a victim to
ignorant social prejudices, but even the conservative world was forced
to recognize the matchless genius of these two extraordinary women, each
widely different in her character and method of thought and writing.…
She has told much that is good which has been untold, and just what will
interest the reader, and no more, in the same easy, entertaining style
that characterizes all of these unpretentious biographies.”—_Hartford
Times._
_Sold everywhere. Mailed, post-paid, on receipt of price, by
the publishers_, ROBERTS BROTHERS, Boston.
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FAMOUS WOMEN SERIES.
MARY LAMB.
BY ANNE GILCHRIST.
One volume. 16mo. Cloth. Price, $1.00.
“The story of Mary Lamb has long been familiar to the readers of Elia,
but never in its entirety as in the monograph which Mrs. Anne Gilchrist
has just contributed to the Famous Women Series. Darkly hinted at by
Talfourd in his Final Memorials of Charles Lamb, it became better known
as the years went on and that imperfect work was followed by fuller and
franker biographies,—became so well known, in fact, that no one could
recall the memory of Lamb without recalling at the same time the memory
of his sister.”—_New York Mail and Express._
“A biography of Mary Lamb must inevitably be also, almost more, a
biography of Charles Lamb, so completely was the life of the sister
encompassed by that of her brother; and it must be allowed that Mrs. Anne
Gilchrist has performed a difficult biographical task with taste and
ability.… The reader is at least likely to lay down the book with the
feeling that if Mary Lamb is not famous she certainly deserves to be, and
that a debt of gratitude is due Mrs. Gilchrist for this well-considered
record of her life.”—_Boston Courier._
“Mary Lamb, who was the embodiment of everything that is tenderest in
woman, combined with this a heroism which bore her on for a while through
the terrors of insanity. Think of a highly intellectual woman struggling
year after year with madness, triumphant over it for a season, and then
at last succumbing to it. The saddest lines that ever were written are
those descriptive of this brother and sister just before Mary, on some
return of insanity, was to leave Charles Lamb. ‘On one occasion Mr.
Charles Lloyd met them slowly pacing together a little foot-path in
Hoxton Fields, both weeping bitterly, and found, on joining them, that
they were taking their solemn way to the accustomed asylum.’ What pathos
is there not here?”—_New York Times._
“This life was worth writing, for all records of weakness conquered, of
pain patiently borne, of success won from difficulty, of cheerfulness in
sorrow and affliction, make the world better. Mrs. Gilchrist’s biography
is unaffected and simple. She has told the sweet and melancholy story
with judicious sympathy, showing always the light shining through
darkness.”—_Philadelphia Press._
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price, by the Publishers, ROBERTS BROTHERS, BOSTON.
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Famous Women Series.
RACHEL.
By Mrs. NINA H. KENNARD.
One Volume. 16mo. Cloth. Price, $1.00.
“_Rachel_, by Nina H. Kennard, is an interesting sketch of the famous
woman whose passion and genius won for her an almost unrivalled fame as
an actress. The story of Rachel’s career is of the most brilliant success
in art and of the most pathetic failure in character. Her faults, many
and grievous, are overlooked in this volume, and the better aspects of
her nature and history are recorded.”—_Hartford Courant._
“The book is well planned, has been carefully constructed, and is
pleasantly written.”—_The Critic._
“The life of Mlle. Élisa Rachel Félix has never been adequately told,
and the appearance of her biography in the ‘Famous Women Series’ of
Messrs. Roberts Brothers will be welcomed.… Yet we must be glad the book
is written, and welcome it to a place among the minor biographies; and
because there is nothing else so good, the volume is indispensable to
library and study.”—_Boston Evening Traveller._
“Another life of the great actress Rachel has been written. It forms
part of the ‘Famous Women Series,’ which that firm is now bringing out,
and which already includes eleven volumes. Mrs. Kennard deals with her
subject much more amiably than one or two of the other biographers have
done. She has none of those vindictive feelings which are so obvious in
Madame B.’s narrative of the great tragedienne. On the contrary, she
wants to be fair, and she probably is as fair as the materials which
came into her possession enabled her to be. The endeavor has been made
to show us Rachel as she really was, by relying to a great extent upon
her letters.… A good many stories that we are familiar with are repeated,
and some are contradicted. From first to last, however, the sympathy
of the author is ardent, whether she recounts the misery of Rachel’s
childhood, or the splendid altitude to which she climbed when her name
echoed through the world and the great ones of the earth vied in doing
her homage. On this account Mrs. Kennard’s book is a welcome addition to
the pre-existing biographies of one of the greatest actresses the world
ever saw.”—_N.Y. Evening Telegram._
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BROTHERS, BOSTON.
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FAMOUS WOMEN SERIES.
THE COUNTESS OF ALBANY.
BY VERNON LEE.
One volume. 16mo. Cloth. Price $1.00.
“It is no disparagement to the many excellent previous sketches to say
that ‘The Countess of Albany,’ by Vernon Lee, is decidedly the cleverest
of the series of biographies of ‘Famous Women,’ published in this
country by Roberts Brothers, Boston. In the present instance there is a
freer subject, a little farther removed from contemporary events, and
sufficiently out of the way of prejudice to admit of a lucid handling.
Moreover, there is a trained hand at the work, and a mind not only
familiar with and in sympathy with the character under discussion, but
also at home with the ruling forces of the eighteenth century, which were
the forces that made the Countess of Albany what she was. The biography
is really dual, tracing the life of Alfieri, for twenty-five years the
heart and soul companion of the Countess, quite as carefully as it traces
that of the fixed subject of the sketch.”—_Philadelphia Times._
“To be unable altogether to acquiesce in Vernon Lee’s portrait of Louise
of Stolberg does not militate against our sense of the excellence
of her work. Her pictures of eighteenth-century Italy are definite
and brilliant. They are instinct with a quality that is akin to
magic.”—_London Academy._
“In the records of famous women preserved in the interesting series
which has been devoted to such noble characters as Margaret Fuller,
Elizabeth Fry, and George Eliot, the life of the Countess of Albany
holds a unique place. Louise of Albany, or Louise R., as she liked to
sign herself, possessed a character famed, not for domestic virtues,
nor even for peculiar wisdom and creative power, but rather notorious
for an easy-going indifference to conventionality and a worldly wisdom
and cynicism. Her life, which is a singular exponent of the false ideas
prevalent upon the subject of love and marriage in the eighteenth
century, is told by Vernon Lee in a vivid and discriminating manner. The
biography is one of the most fascinating, if the most sorrowful, of the
series.”—_Boston Journal._
“She is the first really historical character who has appeared on the
literary horizon of this particular series, her predecessors having been
limited to purely literary women. This brilliant little biography is
strongly written. Unlike preceding writers—German, French, and English—on
the same subject, the author does not hastily pass over the details
of the Platonic relations that existed between the Countess and the
celebrated Italian poet ‘Alfieri.’ In this biography the details of that
passionate friendship are given with a fidelity to truth, and a knowledge
of its nature, that is based upon the strictest and most conscientious
investigation, and access to means heretofore unattainable to other
biographers. The history of this friendship is not only exceedingly
interesting, but it presents a fascinating psychological study to those
who are interested in the metaphysical aspect of human nature. The book
is almost as much of a biography of ‘Alfieri’ as it is of the wife of the
Pretender, who expected to become the Queen of England.”—_Hartford Times._
_Sold by all booksellers. Mailed, postpaid, on receipt of the
price, by the publishers_, ROBERTS BROTHERS, BOSTON.
* * * * *
MESSRS. ROBERTS BROTHERS’ PUBLICATIONS.
Famous Women Series.
GEORGE ELIOT.
BY MATHILDE BLIND.
One vol. 16mo. Cloth. Price, $1.00.
“Messrs. Roberts Brothers begin a series of Biographies of Famous Women
with a life of George Eliot, by Mathilde Blind. The idea of the series
is an excellent one, and the reputation of its publishers is a guarantee
for its adequate execution. This book contains about three hundred pages
in open type, and not only collects and condenses the main facts that
are known in regard to the history of George Eliot, but supplies other
material from personal research. It is agreeably written, and with a
good idea of proportion in a memoir of its size. The critical study of
its subject’s works, which is made in the order of their appearance, is
particularly well done. In fact, good taste and good judgment pervade the
memoir throughout.”—_Saturday Evening Gazette._
“Miss Blind’s little book is written with admirable good taste and
judgment, and with notable self-restraint. It does not weary the reader
with critical discursiveness, nor with attempts to search out high-flown
meanings and recondite oracles in the plain ‘yea’ and ‘nay’ of life. It
is a graceful and unpretentious little biography, and tells all that
need be told concerning one of the greatest writers of the time. It is a
deeply interesting if not fascinating woman whom Miss Blind presents,”
says the New York _Tribune_.
“Miss Blind’s little biographical study of George Eliot is written with
sympathy and good taste, and is very welcome. It gives us a graphic if
not elaborate sketch of the personality and development of the great
novelist, is particularly full and authentic concerning her earlier
years, tells enough of the leading motives in her work to give the
general reader a lucid idea of the true drift and purpose of her art,
and analyzes carefully her various writings, with no attempt at profound
criticism or fine writing, but with appreciation, insight, and a clear
grasp of those underlying psychological principles which are so closely
interwoven in every production that came from her pen.”—_Traveller._
“The lives of few great writers have attracted more curiosity and
speculation than that of George Eliot. Had she only lived earlier in the
century she might easily have become the centre of a mythos. As it is,
many of the anecdotes commonly repeated about her are made up largely of
fable. It is, therefore, well, before it is too late, to reduce the true
story of her career to the lowest terms, and this service has been well
done by the author of the present volume.”—_Philadelphia Press._
Sold by all booksellers, or mailed, post-paid, on receipt of
price, by the publishers, ROBERTS BROTHERS, BOSTON.
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FAMOUS WOMEN SERIES.
EMILY BRONTË.
BY A. MARY F. ROBINSON.
One vol. 16mo. Cloth. Price, $1.00.
“Miss Robinson has written a fascinating biography.… Emily Brontë is
interesting, not because she wrote ‘Wuthering Heights,’ but because of
her brave, baffled, human life, so lonely, so full of pain, but with a
great hope shining beyond all the darkness, and a passionate defiance in
bearing more than the burdens that were laid upon her. The story of the
three sisters is infinitely sad, but it is the ennobling sadness that
belongs to large natures cramped and striving for freedom to heroic,
almost desperate, work, with little or no result. The author of this
intensely interesting, sympathetic, and eloquent biography, is a young
lady and a poet, to whom a place is given in a recent anthology of living
English poets, which is supposed to contain only the best poems of the
best writers.”—_Boston Daily Advertiser._
“Miss Robinson had many excellent qualifications for the task she
has performed in this little volume, among which may be named, an
enthusiastic interest in her subject and a real sympathy with Emily
Brontë’s sad and heroic life. ‘To represent her as she was,’ says Miss
Robinson, ‘would be her noblest and most fitting monument.’ … Emily
Brontë here becomes well known to us and, in one sense, this should be
praise enough for any biography.”—_New York Times._
“The biographer who finds such material before him as the lives and
characters of the Brontë family need have no anxiety as to the interest
of his work. Characters not only strong but so uniquely strong, genius
so supreme, misfortunes so overwhelming, set in its scenery so forlornly
picturesque, could not fail to attract all readers, if told even in
the most prosaic language. When we add to this, that Miss Robinson has
told their story _not_ in prosaic language, but with a literary style
exhibiting all the qualities essential to good biography, our readers
will understand that this life of Emily Brontë is not only as interesting
as a novel, but a great deal more interesting than most novels. As it
presents most vividly a general picture of the family, there seems
hardly a reason for giving it Emily’s name alone, except perhaps for
the masterly chapters on ‘Wuthering Heights,’ which the reader will
find a grateful condensation of the best in that powerful but somewhat
forbidding story. We know of no point in the Brontë history—their genius,
their surroundings, their faults, their happiness, their misery, their
love and friendships, their peculiarities, their power, their gentleness,
their patience, their pride,—which Miss Robinson has not touched upon
with conscientiousness and sympathy.”—_The Critic._
“‘Emily Brontë’ is the second of the ‘Famous Women Series,’ which Roberts
Brothers, Boston, propose to publish, and of which ‘George Eliot’ was the
initial volume. Not the least remarkable of a very remarkable family, the
personage whose life is here written, possesses a peculiar interest to
all who are at all familiar with the sad and singular history of herself
and her sister Charlotte. That the author, Miss A. Mary F. Robinson,
has done her work with minute fidelity to facts as well as affectionate
devotion to the subject of her sketch, is plainly to be seen all through
the book.”—_Washington Post._
Sold by all Booksellers, or mailed, post-paid, on receipt of
price, by the Publishers, ROBERTS BROTHERS, BOSTON.
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Famous Women Series.
MARGARET FULLER.
BY JULIA WARD HOWE.
One volume. 16mo. Cloth. Price $1.00.
“A memoir of the woman who first in New England took a position of moral
and intellectual leadership, by the woman who wrote the Battle Hymn of
the Republic, is a literary event of no common or transient interest. The
Famous Women Series will have no worthier subject and no more illustrious
biographer. Nor will the reader be disappointed,—for the narrative is
deeply interesting and full of inspiration.”—_Woman’s Journal._
“Mrs. Julia Ward Howe’s biography of _Margaret Fuller_, in the Famous
Women Series of Messrs. Roberts Brothers, is a work which has been
looked for with curiosity. It will not disappoint expectation. She has
made a brilliant and an interesting book. Her study of Margaret Fuller’s
character is thoroughly sympathetic; her relation of her life is done in
a graphic and at times a fascinating manner. It is the case of one woman
of strong individuality depicting the points which made another one of
the most marked characters of her day. It is always agreeable to follow
Mrs. Howe in this; for while we see marks of her own mind constantly,
there is no inartistic protrusion of her personality. The book is
always readable, and the relation of the death-scene is thrillingly
impressive.”—_Saturday Gazette._
“Mrs. Julia Ward Howe has retold the story of Margaret Fuller’s life
and career in a very interesting manner. This remarkable woman was
happy in having James Freeman Clarke, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and William
Henry Channing, all of whom had been intimate with her and had felt the
spell of her extraordinary personal influence, for her biographers. It
is needless to say, of course, that nothing could be better than these
reminiscences in their way.”—_New York World._
“The selection of Mrs. Howe as the writer of this biography was a
happy thought on the part of the editor of the series; for, aside from
the natural appreciation she would have for Margaret Fuller, comes
her knowledge of all the influences that had their effect on Margaret
Fuller’s life. She tells the story of Margaret Fuller’s interesting life
from all sources and from her own knowledge, not hesitating to use plenty
of quotations when she felt that others, or even Margaret Fuller herself,
had done the work better.”—_Miss Gilder, in Philadelphia Press._
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price, by the publishers_, ROBERTS BROTHERS, BOSTON, MASS.
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Famous Women Series.
MARIA EDGEWORTH.
BY HELEN ZIMMERN.
One volume. 16mo. Cloth. Price $1.00.
“This little volume shows good literary workmanship. It does not weary
the reader with vague theories; nor does it give over much expression to
the enthusiasm—not to say baseless encomium—for which too many female
biographers have accustomed us to look. It is a simple and discriminative
sketch of one of the most clever and lovable of the class at whom Carlyle
sneered as ‘scribbling women.’ … Of Maria Edgeworth, the woman, one
cannot easily say too much in praise. That home life, so loving, so
wise, and so helpful, was beautiful to its end. Miss Zimmern has treated
it with delicate appreciation. Her book is refined in conception and
tasteful in execution,—all, in short, the cynic might say, that we expect
a woman’s book to be.”—_New York Tribune._
“It was high time that we should possess an adequate biography of this
ornament and general benefactor of her time. And so we hail with uncommon
pleasure the volume just published in the Roberts Brothers’ series of
Famous Women, of which it is the sixth. We have only words of praise
for the manner in which Miss Zimmern has written her life of Maria
Edgeworth. It exhibits sound judgment, critical analysis, and clear
characterization.… The style of the volume is pure, limpid, and strong,
as we might expect from a well-trained English writer.”—_Margaret J.
Preston, in the Home Journal._
“We can heartily recommend this life of Maria Edgeworth, not only because
it is singularly readable in itself, but because it makes familiar to
readers of the present age a notable figure in English literary history,
with whose lineaments we suspect most readers, especially of the present
generation, are less familiar than they ought to be.”—_Eclectic._
“This biography contains several letters and papers by Miss Edgeworth
that have not before been made public, notably some charming letters
written during the latter part of her life to Dr. Holland and Mr. and
Mrs. Ticknor. The author had access to a life of Miss Edgeworth written
by her step-mother, as well as to a large collection of her private
letters, and has therefore been able to bring forward many facts in her
life which have not been noted by other writers. The book is written in
a pleasant vein, and is altogether a delightful one to read.”—_Utica
Herald._
_Sold by all booksellers. Mailed, post-paid, by the
publishers_, ROBERTS BROTHERS, BOSTON, MASS.
* * * * *
_Messrs. Roberts Brothers’ Publications._
Famous Women Series.
ELIZABETH FRY.
BY MRS. E. R. PITMAN.
One vol. 16mo. Cloth. Price $1.00.
“In the records of famous women there are few more noble examples of
Christian womanhood and philanthropic enthusiasm than the life of
Elizabeth Fry presents. Her character was beautifully rounded and
complete, and if she had not won fame through her public benefactions,
she would have been no less esteemed and remembered by all who knew
her because of her domestic virtues, her sweet womanly charms, and the
wisdom, purity, and love which marked her conduct as wife, mother, and
friend. She came of that sound old Quaker stock which has bred so many
eminent men and women. The time came when her home functions could no
longer satisfy the yearnings of a heart filled with the tenderest pity
for all who suffered; and her work was not far to seek. The prisons of
England, nay, of all Europe, were in a deplorable condition. In Newgate,
dirt, disease, starvation, depravity, drunkenness, &c., prevailed. All
who surveyed the situation regarded it as hopeless; all but Mrs. Fry. She
saw here the opening she had been awaiting. Into this seething mass she
bravely entered, Bible in hand, and love and pity in her eyes and upon
her lips. If any one should ask which of all the famous women recorded in
this series did the most practical good in her day and generation, the
answer must be, Elizabeth Fry.”—_New York Tribune._
“Mrs. Pitman has written a very interesting and appreciative sketch of
the life, character, and eminent services in the causes of humanity of
one of England’s most famous philanthropists. She was known as the prison
philanthropist, and probably no laborer in the cause of prison reform
ever won a larger share of success, and certainly none ever received a
larger meed of reverential love. No one can read this volume without
feelings of admiration for the noble woman who devoted her life to
befriend sinful and suffering humanity.”—_Chicago Evening Journal._
“The story of her splendid and successful philanthropy is admirably told
by her biographer, and every reader should find in the tale a breath of
inspiration. Not every woman can become an Elizabeth Fry, but no one can
fail to be impressed with the thought that no woman, however great her
talent and ambition, can fail to find opportunity to do a noble work
in life without neglecting her own feminine duties, without ceasing
to dignify all the distinctive virtues of her sex, without fretting
and crying aloud over the restrictions placed on woman’s field of
work.”—_Eclectic Monthly._
_Our publications are for sale by all booksellers, or will
be sent post-paid on receipt of advertised price._ ROBERTS
BROTHERS, BOSTON.
* * * * *
_Messrs. Roberts Brothers’ Publications._
Famous Women Series.
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT.
BY ELIZABETH ROBINS PENNELL.
One volume. 16mo. Cloth. Price $1.00.
“So far as it has been published, and it has now reached its ninth
volume, the Famous Women Series is rather better on the whole than
the English Men of Letters Series. One had but to recall the names
and characteristics of some of the women with whom it deals,—literary
women, like Maria Edgeworth, Margaret Fuller, Mary Lamb, Emily Brontë,
George Eliot, and George Sand; women of the world (not to mention the
other parties in that well-known Scriptural firm), like the naughty but
fascinating Countess of Albany; and women of philanthropy, of which the
only example given here so far is Mrs. Elizabeth Fry,—one has but to
compare the intellectual qualities of the majority of English men of
letters to perceive that the former are the most difficult to handle,
and that a series of which they are the heroines is, if successful, a
remarkable collection of biographies. We thought so as we read Miss
Blind’s study of George Sand, and Vernon Lee’s study of the Countess
of Albany, and we think so now that we have read Mrs. Elizabeth Robins
Pennell’s study of Mary Wollstonecraft, who, with all her faults, was
an honor to her sex. She was not so considered while she lived, except
by those who knew her well, nor for years after her death; but she is
so considered now, even by the granddaughters of the good ladies who so
bitterly condemned her when the century was new. She was notable for
the sacrifices that she made for her worthless father and her weak,
inefficient sisters, for her dogged persistence and untiring industry,
and for her independence and her courage. The soul of goodness was in
her, though she would be herself and go on her own way; and if she loved
not wisely, according to the world’s creed, she loved too well for her
own happiness, and paid the penalty of suffering. What she might have
been if she had not met Capt. Gilbert Imlay, who was a scoundrel, and
William Godwin, who was a philosopher, can only be conjectured. She was
a force in literature and in the enfranchisement of her sisterhood, and
as such was worthy of the remembrance which she will long retain through
Mrs. Pennell’s able memoir.”—_R. H. Stoddard, in the Mail and Express._
_Sold by all booksellers. Mailed, post-paid, on receipt of
price by the publishers_, ROBERTS BROTHERS, BOSTON
* * * * *
_Messrs. Roberts Brothers’ Publications._
Famous Women Series.
HARRIET MARTINEAU.
BY MRS. F. FENWICK MILLER.
16mo. Cloth. Price $1.00.
“The almost uniform excellence of the ‘Famous Women’ series is well
sustained in Mrs. Fenwick Miller’s life of Harriet Martineau, the latest
addition to this little library of biography. Indeed, we are disposed
to rank it as the best of the lot. The subject is an entertaining one,
and Mrs. Miller has done her work admirably. Miss Martineau was a
remarkable woman, in a century that has not been deficient in notable
characters. Her native genius, and her perseverance in developing it;
her trials and afflictions, and the determination with which she rose
superior to them; her conscientious adherence to principle, and the
important place which her writings hold in the political and educational
literature of her day,—all combine to make the story of her life one of
exceptional interest.… With the exception, possibly, of George Eliot,
Harriet Martineau was the greatest of English women. She was a poet and
a novelist, but not as such did she make good her title to distinction.
Much more noteworthy were her achievements in other lines of thought, not
usually essayed by women. She was eminent as a political economist, a
theologian, a journalist, and a historian.… But to attempt a mere outline
of her life and works is out of the question in our limited space. Her
biography should be read by all in search of entertainment.”—_Professor
Woods in Saturday Mirror._
“The present volume has already shared the fate of several of the recent
biographies of the distinguished dead, and has been well advertised by
the public contradiction of more or less important points in the relation
by the living friends of the dead genius. One of Mrs. Miller’s chief
concerns in writing this life seems to have been to redeem the character
of Harriet Martineau from the appearance of hardness and unamiability
with which her own autobiography impresses the reader.… Mrs. Miller,
however, succeeds in this volume in showing us an altogether different
side to her character,—a home-loving, neighborly, bright-natured,
tender-hearted, witty, lovable, and altogether womanly woman, as well as
the clear thinker, the philosophical reasoner, and comprehensive writer
whom we already knew.”—_The Index._
“Already ten volumes in this library are published; namely, George Eliot,
Emily Brontë, George Sand, Mary Lamb, Margaret Fuller, Maria Edgeworth,
Elizabeth Fry, The Countess of Albany, Mary Wollstonecraft, and the
present volume. Surely a galaxy of wit and wealth of no mean order! Miss
M. will rank with any of them in womanliness or gifts or grace. At home
or abroad, in public or private. She was noble and true, and her life
stands confessed a success. True, she was literary, but she was a home
lover and home builder. She never lost the higher aims and ends of life,
no matter how flattering her success. This whole series ought to be read
by the young ladies of to-day. More of such biography would prove highly
beneficial.”—_Troy Telegram._
_Our publications are for sale by all booksellers, or will be
mailed, post-paid, on receipt of price._ ROBERTS BROTHERS,
BOSTON.
* * * * *
_Messrs. Roberts Brothers’ Publications._
Famous Women Series.
MADAME ROLAND.
BY MATHILDE BLIND,
AUTHOR OF “GEORGE ELIOT’S LIFE.”
One volume. 16mo. Cloth. Price, $1.00.
“Of all the interesting biographies published in the Famous Women Series,
Mathilde Blind’s life of Mme. Roland is by far the most fascinating.… But
no one can read Mme. Roland’s thrilling story, and no one can study the
character of this noble, heroic woman without feeling certain that it
is good for the world to have every incident of her life brought again
before the public eye. Among the famous women who have been enjoying a
new birth through this set of short biographies, no single one has been
worthy of the adjective _great_ until we come to Mme. Roland.…
“We see a brilliant intellectual woman in Mme. Roland; we see a dutiful
daughter and devoted wife; we see a woman going forth bravely to place
her neck under the guillotine,—a woman who had been known as the ‘Soul of
the Girondins;’ and we see a woman struggling with and not being overcome
by an intense and passionate love. Has history a more heroic picture
to present us with? Is there any woman more deserving of the adjective
‘great’?
“Mathilde Blind has had rich materials from which to draw for Mme.
Roland’s biography. She writes graphically, and describes some of the
terrible scenes in the French Revolution with great picturesqueness. The
writer’s sympathy with Mme. Roland and her enthusiasm is very contagious;
and we follow her record almost breathlessly, and with intense feeling
turn over the last few pages of this little volume. No one can doubt
that this life was worth the writing, and even earnest students of the
French Revolution will be glad to refresh their memories of Lamartine’s
‘History of the Girondins,’ and again have brought vividly before them
the terrible tragedy of Mme. Roland’s life and death.”—_Boston Evening
Transcript._
“The thrilling story of Madame Roland’s genius, nobility, self-sacrifice,
and death loses nothing in its retelling here. The material has been
collected and arranged in an unbroken and skilfully narrated sketch, each
picturesque or exciting incident being brought out into a strong light.
The book is one of the best in an excellent series.”—_Christian Union._
_For sale by all booksellers. Mailed, post-paid, on receipt of
price by the publishers_, ROBERTS BROTHERS, BOSTON.
* * * * *