Love of Nature, that strong feeling of enthusiasm which leads to
profound admiration of the whole works of creation, belongs, it may be
presumed, to a certain peculiarity of organization, and has, no doubt,
existed in different individuals from the beginning of the world. The
old poets and philosophers, romance writers, and troubadours, had all
looked upon Nature with observing and admiring eyes. They have most of
them given incidentally charming pictures of spring, of the setting sun,
of particular spots, and of favourite flowers.
There are few writers of note, of any country, or of any age, from
whom quotations might not be made in proof of the love with which
they regarded Nature. And this remark applies as much to religious and
philosophic writers as to poets,--equally to Plato, St. François de
Sales, Bacon, and Fenelon, as to Shakespeare, Racine, Calderon, or
Burns; for from no really philosophic or religious doctrine can the love
of the works of Nature be excluded.
But before the days of Jean Jacques Rousseau, Buffon, and Bernardin
de St. Pierre, this love of Nature had not been expressed in all its
intensity. Until their day, it had not been written on exclusively.
The lovers of Nature were not, till then, as they may perhaps since be
considered, a sect apart. Though perfectly sincere in all the adorations
they offered, they were less entirely, and certainly less diligently and
constantly, her adorers.
It is the great praise of Bernardin de St. Pierre, that coming
immediately after Rousseau and Buffon, and being one of the most
proficient writers of the same school, he was in no degree their
imitator, but perfectly original and new. He intuitively perceived the
immensity of the subject he intended to explore, and has told us that
no day of his life passed without his collecting some valuable materials
for his writings. In the divine works of Nature, he diligently sought
to discover her laws. It was his early intention not to begin to write
until he had ceased to observe; but he found observation endless, and
that he was "like a child who with a shell digs a hole in the sand to
receive the waters of the ocean." He elsewhere humbly says, that not
only the general history of Nature, but even that of the smallest plant,
was far beyond his ability. Before, however, speaking further of him as
an author, it will be necessary to recapitulate the chief events of his
life.
HENRI-JACQUES BERNARDIN DE ST. PIERRE, was born at Havre in 1737. He
always considered himself descended from that Eustache de St. Pierre,
who is said by Froissart, (and I believe by Froissart only), to have so
generously offered himself as a victim to appease the wrath of Edward
the Third against Calais. He, with his companions in virtue, it is also
said, was saved by the intercession of Queen Philippa. In one of his
smaller works, Bernardin asserts this descent, and it was certainly one
of which he might be proud. Many anecdotes are related of his childhood,
indicative of the youthful author,--of his strong love of Nature, and
his humanity to animals.
That "the child is the father of the man," has been seldom more strongly
illustrated. There is a story of a cat, which, when related by him many
years afterwards to Rousseau, caused that philosopher to shed tears. At
eight years of age, he took the greatest pleasure in the regular culture
of his garden; and possibly then stored up some of the ideas which
afterwards appeared in the "Fraisier." His sympathy with all living
things was extreme.
In "Paul and Virginia," he praises, with evident satisfaction, their
meal of milk and eggs, which had not cost any animal its life. It has
been remarked, and possibly with truth, that every tenderly disposed
heart, deeply imbued with a love of Nature, is at times somewhat
Braminical. St. Pierre's certainly was.
When quite young, he advanced with a clenched fist towards a carter
who was ill-treating a horse. And when taken for the first time, by his
father, to Rouen, having the towers of the cathedral pointed out to him,
he exclaimed, "My God! how high they fly." Every one present naturally
laughed. Bernardin had only noticed the flight of some swallows who had
built their nests there. He thus early revealed those instincts which
afterwards became the guidance of his life: the strength of which
possibly occasioned his too great indifference to all monuments of
art. The love of study and of solitude were also characteristics of
his childhood. His temper is said to have been moody, impetuous, and
intractable. Whether this faulty temper may not have been produced
or rendered worse by mismanagement, cannot not be ascertained. It,
undoubtedly became afterwards, to St. Pierre a fruitful source of
misfortune and of woe.
The reading of voyages was with him, even in childhood, almost a
passion. At twelve years of age, his whole soul was occupied by Robinson
Crusoe and his island. His romantic love of adventure seeming to his
parents to announce a predilection in favour of the sea, he was sent
by them with one of his uncles to Martinique. But St. Pierre had
not sufficiently practised the virtue of obedience to submit, as was
necessary, to the discipline of a ship. He was afterwards placed with
the Jesuits at Caen, with whom he made immense progress in his studies.
But, it is to be feared, he did not conform too well to the regulations
of the college, for he conceived, from that time, the greatest
detestation for places of public education. And this aversion he has
frequently testified in his writings. While devoted to his books of
travels, he in turn anticipated being a Jesuit, a missionary or a
martyr; but his family at length succeeded in establishing him at Rouen,
where he completed his studies with brilliant success, in 1757. He soon
after obtained a commission as an engineer, with a salary of one hundred
louis. In this capacity he was sent (1760) to Dusseldorf, under the
command of Count St. Germain. This was a career in which he might have
acquired both honour and fortune; but, most unhappily for St. Pierre,
he looked upon the useful and necessary etiquettes of life as so many
unworthy prejudices. Instead of conforming to them, he sought to trample
on them. In addition, he evinced some disposition to rebel against his
commander, and was unsocial with his equals. It is not, therefore, to be
wondered at, that at this unfortunate period of his existence, he made
himself enemies; or that, notwithstanding his great talents, or the
coolness he had exhibited in moments of danger, he should have been sent
back to France. Unwelcome, under these circumstances, to his family, he
was ill received by all.
It is a lesson yet to be learned, that genius gives no charter for the
indulgence of error,--a truth yet _to be_ remembered, that only a small
portion of the world will look with leniency on the failings of the
highly-gifted; and, that from themselves, the consequences of their
own actions can never be averted. It is yet, alas! _to be_ added to
the convictions of the ardent in mind, that no degree of excellence in
science or literature, not even the immortality of a name can exempt
its possessor from obedience to moral discipline; or give him happiness,
unless "temper's image" be stamped on his daily words and actions. St.
Pierre's life was sadly embittered by his own conduct. The adventurous
life he led after his return from Dusseldorf, some of the circumstances
of which exhibited him in an unfavourable light to others, tended,
perhaps, to tinge his imagination with that wild and tender melancholy
so prevalent in his writings. A prize in the lottery had just doubled
his very slender means of existence, when he obtained the appointment of
geographical engineer, and was sent to Malta. The Knights of the Order
were at this time expecting to be attacked by the Turks. Having already
been in the service, it was singular that St. Pierre should have had the
imprudence to sail without his commission. He thus subjected himself to
a thousand disagreeables, for the officers would not recognize him
as one of themselves. The effects of their neglect on his mind were
tremendous; his reason for a time seemed almost disturbed by the
mortifications he suffered. After receiving an insufficient indemnity
for the expenses of his voyage, St. Pierre returned to France, there to
endure fresh misfortunes.
Not being able to obtain any assistance from the ministry or his family,
he resolved on giving lessons in the mathematics. But St. Pierre was
less adapted than most others for succeeding in the apparently easy,
but really ingenious and difficult, art of teaching. When education
is better understood, it will be more generally acknowledged, that,
to impart instruction with success, a teacher must possess deeper
intelligence than is implied by the profoundest skill in any one branch
of science or of art. All minds, even to the youngest, require, while
being taught, the utmost compliance and consideration; and these
qualities can scarcely be properly exercised without a true knowledge of
the human heart, united to much practical patience. St. Pierre, at this
period of his life, certainly did not possess them. It is probable that
Rousseau, when he attempted in his youth to give lessons in music, not
knowing any thing whatever of music, was scarcely less fitted for
the task of instruction, than St. Pierre with all his mathematical
knowledge. The pressure of poverty drove him to Holland. He was well
received at Amsterdam, by a French refugee named Mustel, who edited a
popular journal there, and who procured him employment, with handsome
remuneration. St. Pierre did not, however, remain long satisfied with
this quiet mode of existence. Allured by the encouraging reception given
by Catherine II. to foreigners, he set out for St. Petersburg. Here,
until he obtained the protection of the Marechal de Munich, and the
friendship of Duval, he had again to contend with poverty. The latter
generously opened to him his purse and by the Marechal he was introduced
to Villebois, the Grand Master of Artillery, and by him presented to the
Empress. St. Pierre was so handsome, that by some of his friends it was
supposed, perhaps, too, hoped, that he would supersede Orloff in the
favor of Catherine. But more honourable illusions, though they were
but illusions, occupied his own mind. He neither sought nor wished to
captivate the Empress. His ambition was to establish a republic on the
shores of the lake Aral, of which in imitation of Plato or Rousseau,
he was to be the legislator. Pre-occupied with the reformation of
despotism, he did not sufficiently look into his own heart, or seek to
avoid a repetition of the same errors that had already changed friends
into enemies, and been such a terrible barrier to his success in
life. His mind was already morbid, and in fancying that others did
not understand him, he forgot that he did not understand others. The
Empress, with the rank of captain, bestowed on him a grant of fifteen
hundred francs; but when General Dubosquet proposed to take him with him
to examine the military position of Finland, his only anxiety seemed to
be to return to France: still he went to Finland; and his own notes of
his occupations and experiments on that expedition prove, that he gave
himself up in all diligence to considerations of attack and defence. He,
who loved Nature so intently, seems only to have seen in the extensive
and majestic forests of the north, a theatre of war. In this instance,
he appears to have stifled every emotion of admiration, and to have
beheld, alike, cities and countries in his character of military
surveyor.
On his return to St. Petersburg, he found his protector Villebois,
disgraced. St. Pierre then resolved on espousing the cause of the Poles.
He went into Poland with a high reputation,--that of having refused
the favours of despotism, to aid the cause of liberty. But it was his
private life, rather than his public career, that was affected by his
residence in Poland. The Princess Mary fell in love with him, and,
forgetful of all considerations, quitted her family to reside with
him. Yielding, however, at length, to the entreaties of her mother,
she returned to her home. St. Pierre, filled with regret, resorted to
Vienna; but, unable to support the sadness which oppressed him, and
imagining that sadness to be shared by the Princess, he soon went back
to Poland. His return was still more sad than his departure; for he
found himself regarded by her who had once loved him, as an intruder.
It is to this attachment he alludes so touchingly in one of his letters.
"Adieu! friends dearer than the treasures of India! Adieu! forests of
the North, that I shall never see again!--tender friendship, and the
still dearer sentiment which surpassed it!--days of intoxication and
of happiness adeiu! adieu! We live but for a day, to die during a whole
life!"
This letter appears to one of St. Pierre's most partial biographers,
as if steeped in tears; and he speaks of his romantic and unfortunate
adventure in Poland, as the ideal of a poet's love.
"To be," says M. Sainte-Beuve, "a great poet, and loved before he had
thought of glory! To exhale the first perfume of a soul of genius,
believing himself only a lover! To reveal himself, for the first time,
entirely, but in mystery!"
In his enthusiasm, M. Sainte-Beuve loses sight of the melancholy sequel,
which must have left so sad a remembrance in St. Pierre's own mind.
His suffering, from this circumstance, may perhaps have conduced to his
making Virginia so good and true, and so incapable of giving pain.
In 1766, he returned to Havre; but his relations were by this time dead
or dispersed, and after six years of exile, he found himself once
more in his own country, without employment and destitute of pecuniary
resources.
The Baron de Breteuil at length obtained for him a commission as
Engineer to the Isle of France, whence he returned in 1771. In this
interval, his heart and imagination doubtless received the germs of his
immortal works. Many of the events, indeed, of the "Voyage à l'Ile de
France," are to be found modified by imagined circumstances in "Paul and
Virginia." He returned to Paris poor in purse, but rich in observation
and mental resources, and resolved to devote himself to literature. By
the Baron de Breteuil he was recommended to D'Alembert, who procured
a publisher for his "Voyage," and also introduced him to Mlle. de
l'Espinasse. But no one, in spite of his great beauty, was so ill
calculated to shine or please in society as St. Pierre. His manners
were timid and embarrassed, and, unless to those with whom he was very
intimate, he scarcely appeared intelligent.
It is sad to think, that misunderstanding should prevail to such an
extent, and heart so seldom really speak to heart, in the intercourse of
the world, that the most humane may appear cruel, and the sympathizing
indifferent. Judging of Mlle. de l'Espinasse from her letters, and the
testimony of her contemporaries, it seems quite impossible that she
could have given pain to any one, more particularly to a man possessing
St. Pierre's extraordinary talent and profound sensibility. Both she and
D'Alembert were capable of appreciating him; but the society in which
they moved laughed at his timidity, and the tone of raillery in which
they often indulged was not understood by him. It is certain that he
withdrew from their circle with wounded and mortified feelings, and, in
spite of an explanatory letter from D'Alembert, did not return to it.
The inflictors of all this pain, in the meantime, were possibly as
unconscious of the meaning attached to their words, as were the birds of
old of the augury drawn from their flight.
St. Pierre, in his "Préambule de l'Arcadie," has pathetically and
eloquently described the deplorable state of his health and feelings,
after frequent humiliating disputes and disappointments had driven him
from society; or rather, when, like Rousseau, he was "self-banished"
from it.
"I was struck," he says, "with an extraordinary malady. Streams of fire,
like lightning, flashed before my eyes; every object appeared to me
double, or in motion: like Œdipus, I saw two suns. . . In the
finest day of summer, I could not cross the Seine in a boat without
experiencing intolerable anxiety. If, in a public garden, I merely
passed by a piece of water, I suffered from spasms and a feeling of
horror. I could not cross a garden in which many people were collected:
if they looked at me, I immediately imagined they were speaking ill of
me." It was during this state of suffering, that he devoted himself with
ardour to collecting and making use of materials for that work which was
to give glory to his name.
It was only by perseverance, and disregarding many rough and
discouraging receptions, that he succeeded in making acquaintance with
Rousseau, whom he so much resembled. St. Pierre devoted himself to his
society with enthusiasm, visiting him frequently and constantly, till
Rousseau departed for Ermenonville. It is not unworthy of remark, that
both these men, such enthusiastic admirers of Nature and the natural
in all things, should have possessed factitious rather than practical
virtue, and a wisdom wholly unfitted for the world. St. Pierre asked
Rousseau, in one of their frequent rambles, if, in delineating St.
Preux, he had not intended to represent himself. "No," replied Rousseau,
"St. Preux is not what I have been, but what I wished to be." St. Pierre
would most likely have given the same answer, had a similar question
been put to him with regard to the Colonel in "Paul and Virginia."
This at least, appears the sort of old age he loved to contemplate, and
wished to realize.
For six years, he worked at his "Etudes," and with some difficulty found
a publisher for them. M. Didot, a celebrated typographer, whose daughter
St. Pierre afterwards married, consented to print a manuscript which had
been declined by many others. He was well rewarded for the undertaking.
The success of the "Etudes de la Nature" surpassed the most sanguine
expectation, even of the author. Four years after its publication, St.
Pierre gave to the world "Paul and Virginia," which had for some time
been lying in his portfolio. He had tried its effect, in manuscript,
on persons of different characters and pursuits. They had given it no
applause; but all had shed tears at its perusal: and perhaps, few works
of a decidedly romantic character have ever been so generally read, or
so much approved. Among the great names whose admiration of it is on
record, may be mentioned Napoleon and Humboldt.
In 1789, he published "Les Vœux d'un Solitaire," and "La Suite des
Vœux." By the _Moniteur_ of the day, these works were compared to the
celebrated pamphlet of Sieyes,--"Qu'est-ce que le tiers etat?" which
then absorbed all the public favour. In 1791, "La Chaumiere Indienne"
was published: and in the following year, about thirteen days before
the celebrated 10th of August, Louis XVI. appointed St. Pierre
superintendant of the "Jardin des Plantes." Soon afterwards, the King,
on seeing him, complimented him on his writings and told him he was
happy to have found a worthy successor to Buffon.
Although deficient in the exact knowledge of the sciences, and knowing
little of the world, St. Pierre was, by his simplicity, and the
retirement in which he lived, well suited, at that epoch, to the
situation. About this time, and when in his fifty-seventh year, he
married Mlle. Didot.
In 1795, he became a member of the French Academy, and, as was just,
after his acceptance of this honour, he wrote no more against literary
societies. On the suppression of his place, he retired to Essonne. It is
delightful to follow him there, and to contemplate his quiet existence.
His days flowed on peaceably, occupied in the publication of "Les
Harmonies de la Nature," the republication of his earlier works, and
the composition of some lesser pieces. He himself affectingly regrets an
interruption to these occupations. On being appointed Instructor to the
Normal School, he says, "I am obliged to hang my harp on the willows
of my river, and to accept an employment useful to my family and my
country. I am afflicted at having to suspend an occupation which has
given me so much happiness."
He enjoyed in his old age, a degree of opulence, which, as much as
glory, had perhaps been the object of his ambition. In any case, it is
gratifying to reflect, that after a life so full of chance and change,
he was, in his latter years, surrounded by much that should accompany
old age. His day of storms and tempests was closed by an evening of
repose and beauty.
Amid many other blessings, the elasticity of his mind was preserved to
the last. He died at Eragny sur l'Oise, on the 21st of January, 1814.
The stirring events which then occupied France, or rather the whole
world, caused his death to be little noticed at the time. The Academy
did not, however, neglect to give him the honour due to its members.
Mons. Parseval Grand Maison pronounced a deserved eulogium on his
talents, and Mons. Aignan, also, the customary tribute, taking his seat
as his successor.
Having himself contracted the habit of confiding his griefs and sorrows
to the public, the sanctuary of his private life was open alike to the
discussion of friends and enemies. The biographer, who wishes to be
exact, and yet set down nought in malice, is forced to the contemplation
of his errors. The secret of many of these, as well as of his miseries,
seems revealed by himself in this sentence: "I experience more pain from
a single thorn, than pleasure from a thousand roses." And elsewhere,
"The best society seems to me bad, if I find in it one troublesome,
wicked, slanderous, envious, or perfidious person." Now, taking into
consideration that St. Pierre sometimes imagined persons who were really
good, to be deserving of these strong and very contumacious epithets,
it would have been difficult indeed to find a society in which he could
have been happy. He was, therefore, wise, in seeking retirement, and
indulging in solitude. His mistakes,--for they were mistakes,--arose
from a too quick perception of evil, united to an exquisite and diffuse
sensibility. When he felt wounded by a thorn, he forgot the beauty and
perfume of the rose to which it belonged, and from which perhaps it
could not be separated. And he was exposed (as often happens) to the
very description of trials that were least in harmony with his defects.
Few dispositions could have run a career like his, and have remained
unscathed. But one less tender than his own would have been less soured
by it. For many years, he bore about with him the consciousness of
unacknowledged talent. The world cannot be blamed for not appreciating
that which had never been revealed. But we know not what the jostling
and elbowing of that world, in the meantime, may have been to him--how
often he may have felt himself unworthily treated--or how far that
treatment may have preyed upon and corroded his heart. Who shall
say that with this consciousness there did not mingle a quick and
instinctive perception of the hidden motives of action,--that he did
not sometimes detect, where others might have been blind, the
under-shuffling of the hands, in the by-play of the world?
Through all his writings, and throughout his correspondence, there are
beautiful proofs of the tenderness of his feelings,--the most essential
quality, perhaps, in any writer. It is at least, one that if not
possessed, can never be attained. The familiarity of his imagination
with natural objects, when he was living far removed from them, is
remarkable, and often affecting.
"I have arranged," he says to Mr. Henin, his friend and patron, "very
interesting materials, but it is only with the light of Heaven over
me that I can recover my strength. Obtain for me a _rabbit's hole_, in
which I may pass the summer in the country." And again, "With the _first
violet_, I shall come to see you." It is soothing to find, in passages
like these, such pleasing and convincing evidence that
"Nature never did betray,
The heart that loved her."
In the noise of a great city, in the midst of annoyances of many kinds
these images, impressed with quietness and beauty, came back to the mind
of St. Pierre, to cheer and animate him.
In alluding to his miseries, it is but fair to quote a passage from
his "Voyage," which reveals his fond remembrance of his native land. "I
should ever prefer my own country to every other," he says, "not because
it was more beautiful, but because I was brought up in it. Happy he,
who sees again the places where all was loved, and all was lovely!--the
meadows in which he played, and the orchard that he robbed!"
He returned to this country, so fondly loved and deeply cherished in
absence, to experience only trouble and difficulty. Away from it, he had
yearned to behold it,--to fold it, as it were, once more to his bosom.
He returned to feel as if neglected by it, and all his rapturous
emotions were changed to bitterness and gall. His hopes had proved
delusions--his expectations, mockeries. Oh! who but must look with
charity and mercy on all discontent and irritation consequent on such
a depth of disappointment: on what must have then appeared to him such
unmitigable woe. Under the influence of these saddened feelings, his
thoughts flew back to the island he had left, to place all beauty, as
well as all happiness, there!
One great proof that he did beautify the distant, may be found in the
contrast of some of the descriptions in the "Voyage à l'Ille de France,"
and those in "Paul and Virginia." That spot, which when peopled by the
cherished creatures of his imagination, he described as an enchanting
and delightful Eden, he had previously spoken of as a "rugged country
covered with rocks,"--"a land of Cyclops blackened by fire." Truth,
probably, lies between the two representations; the sadness of
exile having darkened the one, and the exuberance of his imagination
embellished the other.
St. Pierre's merit as an author has been too long and too universally
acknowledged, to make it needful that it should be dwelt on here. A
careful review of the circumstances of his life induces the belief, that
his writings grew (if it may be permitted so to speak) out of his life.
In his most imaginative passages, to whatever height his fancy soared,
the starting point seems ever from a fact. The past appears to have been
always spread out before him when he wrote, like a beautiful landscape,
on which his eye rested with complacency, and from which his mind
transferred and idealized some objects, without a servile imitation
of any. When at Berlin, he had had it in his power to marry Virginia
Tabenheim; and in Russia, Mlle. de la Tour, the niece of General
Dubosquet, would have accepted his hand. He was too poor to marry
either. A grateful recollection caused him to bestow the names of the
two on his most beloved creation. Paul was the name of a friar, with
whom he had associated in his childhood, and whose life he wished to
imitate. How little had the owners of these names anticipated that
they were to become the baptismal appellations of half a generation in
France, and to be re-echoed through the world to the end of time!
It was St. Pierre who first discovered the poverty of language
with regard to picturesque descriptions. In his earliest work, the
often-quoted "Voyages," he complains, that the terms for describing
nature are not yet invented. "Endeavour," he says, "to describe a
mountain in such a manner that it may be recognised. When you have
spoken of its base, its sides, its summit, you will have said all!
But what variety there is to be found in those swelling, lengthened,
flattened, or cavernous forms! It is only by periphrasis that all this
can be expressed. The same difficulty exists for plains and valleys.
But if you have a palace to describe, there is no longer any difficulty.
Every moulding has its appropriate name."
It was St. Pierre's glory, in some degree, to triumph over this
dearth of expression. Few authors ever introduced more new terms into
descriptive writing: yet are his innovations ever chastened, and in good
taste. His style, in its elegant simplicity, is, indeed, perfection. It
is at once sonorous and sweet, and always in harmony with the sentiment
he would express, or the subject he would discuss. Chenier might well
arm himself with "Paul and Virginia," and the "Chaumiere Indienne," in
opposition to those writers, who, as he said, made prose unnatural, by
seeking to elevate it into verse.
The "Etudes de la Nature" embraced a thousand different subjects, and
contained some new ideas on all. It is to the honour of human nature,
that after the uptearing of so many sacred opinions, a production like
this, revealing the chain of connection through the works of Creation,
and the Creator in his works, should have been hailed, as it was, with
enthusiasm.
His motto, from his favourite poet Virgil, "Taught by calamity, I pity
the unhappy," won for him, perhaps many readers. And in its touching
illusions, the unhappy may have found suspension from the realities of
life, as well as encouragement to support its trials. For, throughout,
it infuses admiration of the arrangements of Providence, and a desire
for virtue. More than one modern poet may be supposed to have drawn a
portion of his inspiration, from the "Etudes." As a work of science it
contains many errors. These, particularly his theory of the tides,(*)
St. Pierre maintained to the last, and so eloquently, that it was said
at the time, to be impossible to unite less reason with more logic.
(*) Occasioned, according to St. Pierre, by the melting of
the ice at the Poles.
In "Paul and Virginia," he was supremely fortunate in his subject. It
was an entirely new creation, uninspired by any previous work; but which
gave birth to many others, having furnished the plot to six theatrical
pieces. It was a subject to which the author could bring all his
excellences as a writer and a man, while his deficiencies and defects
were necessarily excluded. In no manner could he incorporate politics,
science, or misapprehension of persons, while his sensibility, morals,
and wonderful talent for description, were in perfect accordance with,
and ornaments to it. Lemontey and Sainte-Beuve both consider success
to be inseparable from the happy selection of a story so entirely in
harmony with the character of the author; and that the most successful
writers might envy him so fortunate a choice. Buonaparte was in the
habit of saying, whenever he saw St. Pierre, "M. Bernardin, when do you
mean to give us more Pauls and Virginias, and Indian Cottages? You ought
to give us some every six months."
The "Indian Cottage," if not quite equal in interest to "Paul and
Virginia," is still a charming production, and does great honour to the
genius of its author. It abounds in antique and Eastern gems of thought.
Striking and excellent comparisons are scattered through its pages; and
it is delightful to reflect, that the following beautiful and solemn
answer of the Paria was, with St. Pierre, the results of his own
experience:--"Misfortune resembles the Black Mountain of Bember,
situated at the extremity of the burning kingdom of Lahore; while you
are climbing it, you only see before you barren rocks; but when you have
reached its summit, you see heaven above your head, and at your feet the
kingdom of Cachemere."
When this passage was written, the rugged, and sterile rock had been
climbed by its gifted author. He had reached the summit,--his genius had
been rewarded, and he himself saw the heaven he wished to point out to
others.