generous mind were to those who had remained faithful during her many
and great reverses of fortune. In the zenith of power, when her smile
or frown could give value or discredit to those who surrounded her,
she was a friend of the needy, a protectress of the weak. Her position
often created envy, but her winning manner, her graceful accueil
converted many an envious discontented spirit into an admiring friend.
In her trials and reverses she was made to feel how few are the friends
and followers of prosperity whose feelings do not become chilled by the
sight of adversity.
The same kind and conciliatory manner, the same noble enthusiasm, the
same powers of conversation, refined and heightened by the literary
career she had adopted to ward off the actual and pressing gripe of
poverty, were still hers; but their value was differently estimated.
The small and modest apartment could boast of but few of the _habitués_
who had formerly swelled to suffocation the crowd that formerly
frequented her gilded _salons_. Some few were to be found, however,
surrounding her couch of pain, and never had she taken so much trouble
to court and conciliate the richest nobles, the reigning princes of
her own and other lands, as she now did to show her cordial welcome,
and the heartfelt pleasure she felt in beholding the faithful few,
who dreamed not while listening to her brilliant wit, her sparkling
reminiscences of bright fêtes in which she had been a principal
actress, that the finger of death was already on her, that her moments
of life and vivacity freely given for their amusement, were stimulated
by the excessive use of opium, while her hours of racking pain and
mental anguish were confined to her own bosom.
She died in poverty; she who had given away in charity a hundred times
more than would have made her last days comparatively affluent and
easy--died in want. Her last days, nay hours, disturbed by pressing,
though trifling demands. She died in an _Hospital_ for the destitute.
I am proud to remember that she honoured me with her esteem and
friendship.
❦
[Sidenote: Philip II.]
Philip II. of Spain, said satirically, but truly, that actions in
themselves are nothing, it is the _result_ that stamps them with right
or wrong.
❦
[Sidenote: Beauty.]
Bacon says justly, the best part of beauty is that which a picture
cannot express.
[Sidenote: Jacobite Poetry.]
The following are the words to which the Jacobites sing the air of “God
save the king,” which was originally a Jacobite song. Copied from an
inscription cut on a glass drinking cup, at Fingarth, in the Carse of
Gourie, Perthshire.
God save the King, I pray,
God bless the King, I pray,
God save the King;
Send him victorious,
Happy, and glorious,
Soon to reign over us,
God save the King!
God bless the Prince of Wales,
The true born Prince of Wales[5]
Sent us by Thee;
Grant us one favour more,
The King for to restore,
As thou hast done before,
The familie!
This tradition may remind the reader of the answer of the Jacobite
Countess, to the reproach of “not praying for the King.”--“For the
King, I do pray; but I do not think it necessary to tell God _who is
the King_.”
[5] From this line it appears that these verses must have been written
about the time of the rebellion, 1715, or before it.
❦
[Sidenote: Ill-placed Confidence.]
Among the bitter varieties of sorrow, forming the inheritance of the
human kind, there are few more humiliating, more fitted to cleave into
the inmost soul, than a discovery of the unworthiness of those we love;
of a breach of confidence in that heart wherein we have deposited the
whole treasure of our affections. There is a degree of self-abasement
connected with the disappointment, which recoils with double force on
our perceptions; the sharpness of the pain admits of no mitigation.
❦
[Sidenote: Charity of Mind.]
The happiness of life is made up of minute fractions of little (_not_)
soon forgotten charities. The _humblest_ may throw in their mite.
❦
[Sidenote: Bells.]
The sound of bells is never heard in Turkey, their necessity is
superseded in the following manner: a circular gallery is built round
the turrets of the mosques, where Turkish boys are stationed, who in
a loud voice summon the Mahometans three times a day to prayers; at
sunrise, at noon, and at sunset. They do not employ watchmen, as their
maxim is, “each for himself, and God for us all.”
❦
[Sidenote: La Mélancolie.]
De ta tige détachée,
Pauvre feuille desséchée,
Où vas-tu?--Je n’en sais rien:
L’orage a brisé le chêne
Qui seul était mon soutien.
De son inconstante haleine,
Le zéphir, ou l’aquilon,
Depuis ce jour me promène
De la forêt à la plaine,
De la montagne au vallon;
Je vais où le vent me mène,
Sans me plaindre, ou m’effrayer;
Je vais où va toute chose,
Où va la feuille de rose,
Et la feuille de laurier.
❦
[Sidenote: A Fire Screen.]
Draw a landscape on paper with common Indian ink, representing a winter
scene, a mere outline, the foliage to be painted with muriate of cobalt
(green), muriate of copper (yellow), and acetate of cobalt (blue),
all which colours are invisible; but on the screen being held near
the fire, the gentle warmth will occasion the trees, flowers, &c. to
display themselves in their natural colours, and winter is magically
changed to summer. As the paper cools, the colours disappear, and the
effect may be repeated as often as required.
❦
[Sidenote: Banquo’s Son.]
Fleance, Banquo’s son, who escaped from the murderous designs of
Macbeth, fled into Wales; where for some time he kept himself close,
and having afterwards married Nesta, the daughter of Griffith ap
Llewelin, prince of North Wales, he begat Walter, who returning
into Scotland, suppressed the rebellion of the Highlanders with the
reputation of so much bravery, and managed the king’s revenues in those
parts with so great prudence, that the king made him _Steward_ of the
whole kingdom of Scotland. Whereupon, this name of an office gave the
surname of Stewart to his posterity: which, spreading through all parts
of Scotland in many noble branches, and being advanced to several
honours, hath long flourished there. Three hundred and thirty years
ago, Robert Stewart, a descendant of this house, in right of Marjorie
his mother, daughter of King Robert Bruce, obtained the kingdom of
Scotland.
❦
[Sidenote: Uncertainty.]
There are many people who falter and tremble as long as there is any
mixture of doubt in their minds as to what they can, or what they ought
to do, but who, the moment that doubt ceases, have power and will to
dare every thing.
❦
_The Drowning Fly._
In yonder glass behold a drowning fly,
Its little feet how vainly does it ply!
Its cries we hear not, yet it loudly cries;
And gentle hearts can feel its agonies.
Poor helpless victim! and will no one save?
Will no one snatch thee from the threat’ning wave?
Is there no friendly hand, no helper nigh?
And must thou, little struggler, must thou die?
Thou shalt not, whilst this hand can set thee free,
Thou shalt not die; this hand shall rescue thee.
My finger’s tip shall prove a friendly shore;
There, trembler, all thy dangers now are o’er.
Wipe thy wet wings, and banish all thy fear;
Go, join thy num’rous kindred in the air.
Away it flies, resumes its harmless play,
And lightly gambols in the golden ray.
Smile not, spectators, at this humble deed;
For you, perhaps, a nobler task’s decreed!
❦
[Sidenote: Mulgrave Family.]
The first diving bell was nothing but a very large kettle, suspended
by ropes, with the mouth downwards, and planks to sit on fixed in
the middle of its concavity. The Greeks at Toledo, in 1588, made an
experiment before the Emperor Charles V. with it, when they descended
with a lighted candle to a considerable depth. In 1683, William Phipps,
the son of a blacksmith, formed a project for unloading a rich Spanish
ship, sunk at Hispaniola; Charles II. gave him a ship, with every
necessary for the undertaking, but being unsuccessful, Phipps returned
in great poverty. He then endeavoured to procure another vessel,
but failing, he got a subscription, to which the Duke of Albemarle
contributed. In 1687, Phipps set sail in a ship of 200 tons, having
previously engaged to divide the profits according to the twenty
shares of which the subscription consisted. At first all his labours
proved fruitless, but at length, when he seemed almost to despair, he
was fortunate enough to bring up so much treasure that he returned to
England with £200,000 sterling. Of this sum he got about £20,000, and
the Duke of Albemarle £90,000. Phipps was knighted by the King, and
laid the foundation of the present house of Mulgrave.
❦
[Sidenote: Le Bonheur.]
Il ne faut jamais renoncer au bonheur. Les sources du bien et du mal
sont cachées, et nous ignorons laquelle doit s’ouvrir pour arroser
l’espace de la vie.
❦
After the massacre of St. Bartholomew, the following lines were stuck
up in every part of France:
L’on demande la convenance
De Catherine et Jesabel,
L’une Reine d’Israel,
L’autre Reine de la France,
L’une étoit de malice extrême,
Et l’autre est la malice même;
Enfin le jugement est tel,
Par une vengeance divine,
Les chiens mangèrent Jesabel,
La charogne de Catherine
Sera différente en ce cas,
Car les chiens n’en voudront pas!
The murders that Catherine is accused of, with too great probability,
are a fearful list: Queen Jane of Navarre, her own son Charles IX. the
Viscount de Chartres, the Secretary Lomerica, Du Guast, favourite of
Henri III. and others ad infinitum.
❦
[Sidenote: Epitaph.]
I’ve lost my mistress, horse, and wife,
And when I think on human life,
It’s well it is no worse;
My mistress violent and bold,
My wife curst ugly and a scold;
I’m sorry for my horse!
❦
[Sidenote: Prosperity and Adversity.]
The virtue of prosperity is temperance. The virtue of adversity is
fortitude. Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes; and
adversity is not without comforts and hopes. We see in needle-works and
embroidery it is more pleasing to have a lively work upon a sad and
solemn ground, than to have a dark and melancholy work upon a lightsome
ground. Judge therefore of the pleasure of the heart by the pleasure of
the eye. Certainly, virtue is like precious odours, most fragrant when
they are incensed or crushed; for prosperity doth best discover vice,
but adversity doth best discover virtue.
❦
[Sidenote: Condé.]
“On marche lentement, sous le poids des Lauriers,” was the answer of
Louis XIV. to the apology of the great, but gouty Condé, for detaining
him on the staircase of Versailles.
❦
[Sidenote: Resignation.]
“The miseries, the calamities, the heart-rendings, and the tears, which
are so intimately interwoven by the great Artist in our natures as
not to be separated in a single instance, are in the first place, our
security of a future state, and in the next place, seem to slope the
way before us, and by gradual operation fit our minds for viewing,
with some sort of fortitude, that hideous chasm that lies between us
and that state, death. View those miseries, then, as the special acts
of mercy and commiseration of a beneficent Creator, who with every
calamity, melts away a link of that earthly chain that fetters our
wishes to this dismal world. Accept his blessings and his goods when he
sends them, with gratitude and enjoyment; receive his afflictions too
with as joyous acceptance, and as hearty gratitude.
Thus, and not otherwise, you will realize all your Utopian flights
of desire; by turning every thing to matter of comfort, and living
contented with dispensations which you cannot alter, and if you
could, would most assuredly alter for the worse. So limited is man,
so imperfect in his nature, that the extent of his virtues borders on
vice, and the extent of his wisdom on error.”
❦
[Sidenote: Le Tems.]
Le tems passe, la vie s’écoule, l’homme meurt et s’anéantit; rien ne
lui survit que le bien ou le mal qu’il a fait.
❦
The good things which belong to _prosperity_ are to be wished, but the
good things that belong to _adversity_ are to be admired.
❦
[Sidenote: Maréchale de Luxembourg.]
La Maréchale de Luxembourg retirait de ses promenades deux effets
très-salutaires, l’exercice du corps, et la satisfaction de faire du
bien; car pour ne pas être prise au dépourvu elle imagina de remplir
la pomme de sa longue canne de pièces de monnaie. La Maréchale aimait
les inventions singulières. Un jour, qu’elle avait une fluxion, elle
imagina de faire monter une chaise à porteur dans son salon, et elle
s’y trouva si bien qu’elle y resta tout l’hiver. Quel est le plus
grand des deux? lui demanda-t-on, La Fontaine, ou Molière?--Celui-ci,
répondit-elle, sans balancer, en montrant La Fontaine, est plus
parfait, dans un genre moins parfait.
❦
[Sidenote: The Spider.]
It is an oriental idea, that the spider draws its venom from the rose;
and thus it is that too often from the sweetest sources comes the
blight of happiness and human affections.
❦
[Sidenote: Sur Fénélon.]
Sous cette pierre repose Fénélon; Passant, n’efface point par tes
pleurs cette épitaphe, afin que d’autres la lisent, et pleurent comme
toi.
❦
[Sidenote: Flowers.]
“Flowers are one of the many beautiful gifts of God to man.”
❦
[Sidenote: To-morrow.]
See where the falling day
In silence steals away,
Behind the western hills withdrawn;
Her fires are quench’d, her beauty fled,
With blushes all her face o’erspread,
As conscious she had ill fulfill’d
The promise of the dawn.
Another morning soon shall rise,
Another day salute our eyes,
As smiling and as fair as she,
And make as many promises.
But do not thou
The tale believe,
They’re sisters all
Born to deceive.
❦
_Letter of Marian Delorme to M. de Cinq. Mars._
Paris, Feb. 1641.
My dear Effiat,
While you are forgetting me at Narbonne, and giving yourself up to the
pleasures of the court and the delight of thwarting M. le Cardinal de
Richelieu, I, according to your express desire, am doing the honours of
Paris to your English lord, the Marquis of Worcester; and I carry him
about, or rather he carries me, from curiosity to curiosity, choosing
always the most grave and serious, speaking very little, listening with
extreme attention, and fixing on those whom he interrogates two large
blue eyes, which seem to pierce to the very centre of their thoughts.
He is remarkable for never being satisfied with any explanations which
are given him; and he never sees things in the light in which they
are shown him: you may judge of this by a visit we made together to
Bicêtre, where he imagined he had discovered a genius in a madman. If
this madman had not been actually raving, I verily believe your Marquis
would have entreated his liberty, and have carried him off to London,
in order to hear his extravagancies, from morning till night, at his
ease. We were crossing the court of the madhouse, and I, more dead than
alive with fright, kept close to my companion’s side, when a frightful
face appeared behind some immense bars, and a hoarse voice exclaimed,
“I am not mad! I am not mad! I have made a discovery which would
enrich the country that adopted it.” “What has he discovered?” I asked
of our guide. “Oh!” he answered, shrugging his shoulders, “something
trifling enough; you would never guess it: it is the use of the steam
of boiling water.” I began to laugh. “This man,” continued the keeper,
“is named Solomon de Caus: he came from Normandy four years ago, to
present to the king a statement of the wonderful effects that might be
produced from his invention. To listen to him, you would imagine that
with steam you could navigate ships, move carriages, in fact, there is
no end to the miracles which, he insists upon it, could be performed.
The Cardinal sent the madman away without listening to him. Solomon de
Caus, far from being discouraged, followed the Cardinal wherever he
went, with the most determined perseverance, who, tired of finding him
for ever in his path, and annoyed to death with his folly, ordered him
to be shut up in Bicêtre, where he has now been for three years and a
half, and where, as you hear, he calls out to every visitor that he is
not mad, but that he has made a valuable discovery. He has even written
a book on the subject, which I have here.”[6] Lord Worcester, who had
listened to this account with much interest, after reflecting a time,
asked for the book, of which, after having read several pages, he said,
“This man is not mad. In my country, instead of shutting him up, he
would have been rewarded. Take me to him, for I should like to ask him
some questions.”
He was, accordingly, conducted to his cell, but after a short time,
he came back sad and thoughtful--“He is, indeed, mad now,” said he,
“misfortune and captivity have alienated his reason, but it is you who
have to answer for his madness: when you cast him into that cell, you
confined the greatest genius of the age.”
After this, we went away, and since that time he has done nothing but
talk of Solomon de Caus.
Adieu, my dear friend and faithful Henry. Make haste and come back, and
pray do not be so happy where you are, as not to keep a little love for
me.
MARIAN DELORME.
[6] This book is entitled, “Les raisons de forces mouvantes avec
diverses machines tant utiles que puissantes.” Published 1615.
❦
[Sidenote: Physiognomy.]
Was there ever seen a smile on the lip, with which the upper part of
the face agrees not in expression, that was not evidently feigned and
forced,[7] to be the disguise of a mind ill at ease, and of a sick
spirit? The mind looks through the eyes, and the brow should smile in
unison with the lip, to show the joy sincere.
[7] This was uniformly remarked of Napoleon’s smile.
❦
[Sidenote: A Father’s Death Bed.]
How solemn is the sick man’s room,
To friends or kindred lingering near;
Poring on that uncertain gloom
In silent heaviness and fear!
How sad, his feeble hand in thine,
The start of every pulse to share;
With painful haste each wish divine,
Yet feel the hopelessness of care.
To turn aside the full fraught eye,
Lest those faint orbs perceive the tear;
To bear the weight of every sigh,
Lest it should reach that wakeful ear.
In the dead stillness of the night,
To lose the faint, faint sound of breath;
To listen in restrain’d affright,
To deprecate each thought of death.
And when a movement chased that fear,
And gave thy heart-blood leave to flow,
In thrilling awe the prayer to hear,
Through the clos’d curtain murmur’d low.
The prayer of him whose holy tongue
Had never yet exceeded truth;
Upon whose guardian care had hung
The whole dependance of thy youth.
Who noble, dauntless, frank, and mild,
Was for his very goodness fear’d;
Beloved with fondness like a child,
And like a blessed saint rever’d.
I have known friends--but who can feel
The kindness such a father knew?
I serv’d him still with tender zeal,
But knew not then how much was due.
And did not Providence ordain
That we should soon be laid as low,
No heart could such a stroke sustain,
No reason would survive the blow.
❦
[Sidenote: The Plague.]
The fearful progress and effects of the dreadful pestilence which
visited England during the reign of Edward III. are traced by a
masterly hand in the work from which this extract is made.
“In the malignancy of this extraordinary disease, it engrossed the ill
of all other maladies, and made doctors despicable. Of a potency equal
to death, it possessed itself of all its armouries, and was itself the
death of every other mortal distemper. The touch, yea, the very sight
of the infected was deadly; and its signs were so sudden, that families
seated in happiness at their meals, have seen the _plague-spot_ begin
to redden, and have wildly scattered themselves for ever. The cement
of society was dissolved by it. Mothers, when they saw the sign of
the infection on the babes at their bosom cast them from them with
abhorrence. Wild places were sought for shelter: some went into ships,
and anchored themselves afar off on the waters. But the angel that was
pouring the vial had a foot on the sea as well as on the dry land. No
place was so wild that the plague did not visit,--none so secret that
the quick-sighted pestilence did not discover--none could fly that it
did not overtake.
“It was as if Heaven had repented the making of mankind, and was
shovelling them all into the sepulchre. Justice was forgotten, and her
courts deserted. The terrified jailors fled from the felons that were
in fetters; the innocent and the guilty leagued themselves together,
and kept within their prisons for safety; the grass grew in the market
places; the cattle went moaning up and down the fields, wondering
what had become of their keepers: the rooks and the ravens came into
the towns, and built their nests in the mute belfries; silence was
universal, save when some infected wretch was seen clamouring at a
window.
“For a time all commerce was in coffins and shrouds; but even that
ended. Shrift there was none; churches and chapels were open, but
neither priests nor penitent entered; all went to the charnel-house.
The sexton and the physician were cast into the same deep and wide
grave; the testator and his heirs and executors were hurled from the
same cart into the same hole together. Fire became extinguished, as if
its element too had expired; the seams of the sailorless ships yawned
to the sun. Though doors were open, and coffers unwatched, there was
no theft; all offences ceased, and no cry but the universal woe of
the pestilence was heard of among men. The wells overflowed, and the
conduits ran to waste; the dogs banded themselves together, having
lost their masters and ran howling over all the land; horses perished
of famine in their stalls; old friends but looked at one another when
they met, keeping themselves far aloof; creditors claimed no debts, and
courtiers performed their promises; little children went wandering up
and down, and numbers were seen dead in all corners. Nor was it only in
England that the plague raged; it travelled over a third part of the
whole earth, like the shadow of an eclipse, as if some dreadful thing
had been interposed between the world and the sun-source of life.”
❦
[Sidenote: Trifles.]
Since trifles make the sum of human things,
And half our misery from trifles springs,
Since life’s best joys consist in peace and ease,
And few can serve, or save, but all may please,
Oh! let the ungentle spirit learn from hence,
A small unkindness is a great offence!
Large bounties to bestow, we wish in vain,
But all may shun the guilt of giving pain.
To bless mankind with tides of flowing wealth,
With power to give them, or to crown with health,
Our little lot denies.--But Heaven decrees
To all the gift of minist’ring to ease!
The gentle offerings of patient love,
Beyond all flattery, and all praise above;
The mild forbearance of another’s fault,
The taunting word suppress’d as soon as thought;
On these Heaven made the bliss of man depend,
And crush’d misfortune, when it made a _friend_.
A solitary blessing few can find:
Our joys, with those we love, are intertwined.
And he whose helpful tenderness removes
Th’ obstructing thorn that wounds the breast he loves,
Smooths not another’s rugged path alone,
But scatters roses to adorn his own!
❦