Read Victor Hugo's _Dernier Jour d'un Condamné!_ It is powerfully
written, and the author identifies his feelings so strongly with the
condemned, that he must, while writing the book, have experienced
similar emotions to those which a person in the same terrible position
would have felt. Wonderful power of genius, that can thus excite
sympathy for the erring and the wretched, and awaken attention to a
subject but too little thought of in our selfish times, namely, the
expediency of the abolition of capital punishment! A perusal of Victor
Hugo's graphic book will do more to lead men's minds to reflect on this
point than all the dull essays; or as dull speeches, that may be
written or made on it.
Talking of ---- to-day with ---- ----, she remarked that he had every
sense but common sense, and made light of this deficiency. How
frequently do we hear people do this, as if the possession of talents
or various fine qualities can atone for its absence! Common sense is
not only positively necessary to render talent available by directing
its proper application, but is indispensable as a monitor to warn men
against error. Without this guide the passions and feelings will be
ever leading men astray, and even those with the best natural
dispositions will fall into error.
Common sense is to the individual what the compass is to the
mariner--it enables him to steer safely through the rocks, shoals, and
whirlpools that intersect his way. Were the lives of criminals
accurately known, I am persuaded that it would be found that from a
want of common sense had proceeded their guilt; for a clear perception
of crime would do more to check its perpetration, than the goodness of
heart which is so frequently urged as a preventive against it.
Conscience is the only substitute for common sense, but even this will
not supply its place in all cases. Conscience will lead a man to repent
or atone for crime, but common sense will preclude his committing it by
enabling him to judge of the result. I frequently hear people say, "So
and so are very clever," or "very cunning, and are well calculated to
make their way in the world." This opinion seems to me to be a severe
satire on the world, for as cunning can only appertain to a mean
intellect, to which it serves as a poor substitute for sense, it argues
ill for the world to suppose it can be taken in by it.
I never knew a sensible, or a good person, who was cunning; and I have
known so many weak and wicked ones who possessed this despicable
quality, that I hold it in abhorrence, except in very young children,
to whom Providence gives it before they arrive at good sense.
Went a round of the curiosity shops on the Quai d'Orsay, and bought an
amber vase of rare beauty, said to have once belonged to the Empress
Josephine. When I see the beautiful objects collected together in these
shops, I often think of their probable histories, and of those to whom
they once belonged. Each seems to identify itself with the former
owner, and conjures up in my mind a little romance.
A vase of rock crystal, set in precious stones, seen today, could never
have belonged to aught but some beauty, for whom it was selected by an
adoring lover or husband, ere yet the honeymoon had passed. A chased
gold _étui_, enriched with oriental agates and brilliants, must have
appertained to some _grande dame_, on whose table it rested in a
richly-decorated _salon_; and could it speak, what piquant disclosures
might it not make!
The fine old watch, around the dial of which sparkle diamonds, and on
the back the motto, executed in the same precious stones, "_Vous me
faites oublier les heures_," once adorned the slender waist of some
dainty dame,--a nuptial gift. The silvery sound of its bell often
reminded her of the flight of Time, and her _caro sposo_ of the effects
of it on his inconstant heart, long before her mirror told her of the
ravages of the tyrant. The _flacon_ so tastefully ornamented, has been
held to delicate nostrils when the megrim--that malady peculiar to
refined organisations and susceptible nerves--has assailed its fair
owner; and the heart-shaped pincushion of crimson velvet, inclosed in
its golden case and stuck with pins, has been likened by the giver to
his own heart, pierced by the darts of Love--a simile that probably
displeased not the fair creature to whom it was addressed.
Here are the expensive and tasteful gifts, the _gages d'amour_, not
often disinterested, as bright and beautiful as when they left the
hands of the jeweller; but the givers and the receivers where are they?
Mouldered in the grave long, long years ago! Through how many hands may
these objects not have passed since Death snatched away the persons for
whom they were originally designed! And here they are in the ignoble
custody of some avaricious vender, who having obtained them at the sale
of some departed amateur for less than half their first cost, now
expects to extort more than double.
He takes them up in his unwashed fingers, turns them--oh,
profanation!--round and round, in order to display their various
merits, descants on the delicacy of the workmanship, the sharpness of
the chiseling, the pure water of the brilliants, and the fine taste
displayed in the form; tells a hundred lies about the sum he gave for
them, the offers he has refused, the persons to whom they once
belonged, and those who wish to purchase them!
The _flacon_ of some defunct prude is placed side by side with the
_vinaigrette_ of some _jolie danseuse_ who was any thing but prudish.
How shocked would the original owner of the _flacon_ feel at the
friction! The fan of some _grande dame de la cour_ touches the
diamond-mounted _étui_ of the wife of some _financier_, who would have
given half her diamonds to enter the circle in which she who once owned
this fan found more _ennui_ than amusement. The cane of a deceased
philosopher is in close contact with the golden-hilted sword of a
_petit maître de l'ancien régime_, and the sparkling _tabatière_ of a
_Marquis Musqué_, the partaker if not the cause of half his _succès
dans le monde_, is placed by the _chapelet_ of a _religieuse de haute
naissance_, who often perhaps dropped a tear on the beads as she
counted them in saying her Ave Marias, when some unbidden thought of
the world she had resigned usurped the place of her aspirations for a
brighter and more enduring world.
"And so 't will be when I am gone," as Moore's beautiful song says; the
rare and beautiful _bijouterie_ which I have collected with such pains,
and looked on with such pleasure, will probably be scattered abroad,
and find their resting places not in gilded _salons_, but in the dingy
coffers of the wily _brocanteur_, whose exorbitant demands will
preclude their finding purchasers. Even these inanimate and puerile
objects have their moral, if people would but seek it; but what has
not, to a reflecting mind?--complained bitterly to-day, of having been
attacked by an anonymous scribbler. I was surprised to see a man
accounted clever and sensible, so much annoyed by what I consider so
wholly beneath his notice. It requires only a knowledge of the world
and a self-respect to enable one to treat such attacks with the
contempt they merit; and those who allow themselves to be mortified by
them must be deficient in these necessary qualifications for passing
smoothly through life.
It seems to me to indicate great weakness of mind, when a person
permits his peace to be at the mercy of every anonymous scribbler who,
actuated by envy or hatred (the invariable causes of such attacks),
writes a libel on him. If a person so attacked would but reflect that
few, if any, who have acquired celebrity, or have been favoured by
fortune, have ever escaped similar assaults, he would be disposed to
consider them as the certain proofs of a merit, the general
acknowledgment of which has excited the ire of the envious, thus
displayed by the only mean within their reach--anonymous abuse.
Anonymous assailants may be likened to the cuttle-fish, which employs
the inky secretions it forms as a means of tormenting its enemy and
baffling pursuit.
I have been reading the poems of Mrs. Hemans, and exquisite they are.
They affect me like sacred music, and never fail to excite religious
sentiments. England only could have produced this poetess, and peculiar
circumstances were necessary to the developement of her genius. The
music of the versification harmonises well with the elevated character
of the thoughts, which inspire the reader (at least such is their
effect on me) with a pensive sentiment of resignation that is not
without a deep charm to a mind that loves to withdraw itself from the
turmoil and bustle incidental to a life passed in a gay and brilliant
capital.
The mind of this charming poetess must be like an Æolian harp, that
every sighing wind awakes to music, but to grave and chastened melody,
the full charm of which can only be truly appreciated by those who have
sorrowed, and who look beyond this earth for repose. Well might Goëthe
write,
"Wo du das Genie erblickst
Erblickst du auch zugleich die martkrone"[7]
for where is Genius to be found that has not been tried by suffering?
Moore has beautifully said,
"The hearths that are soonest awake to the flowers,
Are always the first to be pierced by the thorns;"
and so it is with poets: they feel intensely before they can make
others feel even superficially.
And there are those who can talk lightly and irreverently of the
sufferings from which spring such exquisite, such glorious music,
unconscious that the fine organization and delicate susceptibility of
the minds of Genius which give such precious gifts to delight others,
receive deep wounds from weapons that could not make an incision on
impenetrable hearts like their own. Yes, the hearts of people of genius
may be said to resemble the American maple-trees, which must be pierced
ere they yield their honied treasures.
If Mrs. Hemans had been as happy as she deserved to be, it is probable
that she would never have written the exquisite poems I have been
reading; for the fulness of content leaves no room for the sweet and
bitter fancies engendered by an imagination that finds its Hippocrene
in the fountain of Sorrow, whose source is in the heart, and can only
flow when touched by the hand of Care.
Well may England be proud of such poetesses as she can now boast!
Johanna Baillie, the noble-minded and elevated; Miss Bowles, the pure,
the true; Miss Mitford, the gifted and the natural; and Mrs. Hemans and
Miss Landon, though last not least in the galaxy of Genius, with
imaginations as brilliant as their hearts are generous and tender. Who
can read the productions of these gifted women, without feeling a
lively interest in their welfare, and a pride in belonging to the
country that has given them birth?
Lord B---- arrived yesterday, and, Heaven be thanked! is in better
health. He says the spring is three weeks more advanced at Paris than
in London. He is delighted at the Catholic Question having been
carried; and trusts, as I do, that Ireland will derive the greatest
benefit from the measure. How few, with estates in a province where so
strong a prejudice is entertained against Roman Catholics as exists in
the north of Ireland, would have voted as Lord B---- has done; but,
like his father, Lord B---- never allows personal interest to interfere
in the discharge of a duty! If there were many such landlords in
Ireland, prejudices, the bane of that country, would soon subside. Lord
B---- came back laden with presents for me. Some of them are quite
beautiful, and would excite the envy of half my sex.
Received letters from good, dear Sir William Gell, and the no less dear
and good Archbishop of Tarentum, both urging us to return to Italy to
see them, as they say, once more before they die. Receiving letters
from absent friends who are dear to us, has almost as much of sadness
as of pleasure in it; for although it is consolatory to know that they
are in life, and are not unmindful of us, still a closely written sheet
of paper is but a poor substitute for the animated conversation, the
cordial grasp of the hand, and the kind glance of the eye; and we
become more sensible of the distance that divides us when letters
written many days ago arrive, and we remember with dread that, since
these very epistles were indited, the hands that traced them may be
chilled by death. This fear, which recurs so often to the mind in all
cases of absence from those dear to us, becomes still more vivid where
infirmity of health and advanced age render the probability of the loss
of friends the greater.
Italy--dear, beautiful Italy--with all its sunshine and attractions,
would not be the same delightful residence to me if I no longer found
there the friends who made my _séjour_ there so pleasant; and among
these the Archbishop and Sir William Gell stand prominent.
Gell writes me that some new and interesting discoveries have been made
at Pompeii. Would that I could be transported there for a few days to
see them with him, as I have beheld so many before when we were present
at several excavations together, and saw exposed to the light of day
objects that had been for two thousand years buried in darkness! There
was a thrilling feeling of interest awakened in the breast by the first
view of these so-long-interred articles of use or ornament of a bygone
generation, and on the spot where their owners perished. It was as
though the secrets of the grave were revealed; and that, to convince us
of the perishable coil of which mortals are formed, it is given us to
behold how much more durable are the commonest utensils of daily use
than the frames of those who boast themselves lords of the creation.
But here am I moralizing, when I ought to be taking advantage of this
glorious day by a promenade in the Bois de Boulogne, where I promised
to conduct Madame d'O----; so _allons en voiture_.
Read the _Disowned_, and like it exceedingly. It is full of beautiful
thoughts, sparkling with wit, teeming with sentiment, and each and all
of them based on immutable truths. The more I read of the works of this
highly gifted writer, the more am I delighted with them; for his
philosophy passes through the alembic of a mind glowing with noble and
generous sentiments, of which it imbibes the hues.
The generality of readers pause not to reflect on the truth and beauty
of the sentiments to be found in novels. They hurry on to the
_dénoûment_; and a stirring incident, skilfully managed, which serves
to develope the plot, finds more admirers than the noblest thoughts, or
most witty maxims. Yet as people who read nothing else, will read
novels, authors like Mr. Bulwer, whose minds are overflowing with
genius, are compelled to make fiction the vehicle for giving to the
public thoughts and opinions that are deserving of a higher grade of
literature.
The greater portion of novel readers, liking not to be detained from
the interest of the story by any extraneous matter, however admirable
it may be, skip over the passages that most delight those who read to
reflect, and not for mere amusement.
I find myself continually pausing over the admirable and profound
reflections of Mr. Bulwer, and almost regret that his writings do not
meet the public as the papers of the _Spectator_ did, when a single one
of them was deemed as essential to the breakfast-table of all lovers of
literature as a morning journal is now to the lovers of news. The merit
of the thoughts would be then duly appreciated, instead of being
hastily passed over in the excitement of the story which they
intersect.
A long visit from ----, and, as usual, politics furnished the topic.
How I wish people would never talk politics to me! I have no vocation
for that abstruse science,--a science in which even those who devote
all their time and talents to it, but rarely arrive at a proficiency.
In vain do I profess my ignorance and inability; people will not
believe me, and think it necessary to enter into political discussions
that _ennuient_ me beyond expression.
If ---- is to be credited, Charles the Tenth and his government are so
unpopular that his reign will not pass without some violent commotion.
A fatality appears to attend this family, which, like the house of
Stuart, seems doomed never to conciliate the affections of the people.
And yet, Charles the Tenth is said not to be disposed to tyrannical
measures, neither is he without many good qualities. But the last of
the Stuart sovereigns also was naturally a humane and good man, yet he
was driven from his kingdom and his throne,--a proof that weakness of
mind is, perhaps, of all faults in a monarch, the one most likely to
compromise the security of his dynasty.
The restoration of the Stuarts after Cromwell, was hailed with much
more enthusiasm in England than that of Louis the Eighteenth, after the
abdication of the Emperor Napoleon. Yet that enthusiasm was no pledge
that the people would bear from the descendants of the ill-fated
Charles the First--that most perfect of all gentlemen and meekest of
Christians--what they deprived him of not only his kingdom but his life
for attempting.
The house of Bourbon, like that of Stuart, has had its tragedy,
offering a fearful lesson to sovereigns and a terrific example to
subjects. It has had, also, its restoration; and, if report may be
credited, the parallel will not rest here: for there are those who
assert that as James was supplanted on the throne of England by a
relative while yet the legitimate and unoffending heir lived, so will
also the place of Charles the Tenth be filled by one between whom and
the crown stand two legitimate barriers. Time will tell how far the
predictions of ---- are just; but, _en attendant_, I never can believe
that ambition can so blind _one_ who possesses all that can render life
a scene of happiness to himself and of usefulness to others, to throw
away a positive good for the uncertain and unquiet possession of a
crown, bestowed by hands that to confer the dangerous gift must have
subverted a monarchy.
Pandora's box contained not more evils than the crown of France would
inflict on him on whose brow a revolution would place it. From that
hour let him bid adieu to peaceful slumber, to domestic happiness, to
well-merited confidence and esteem, all of which are now his own.
Popularity, never a stable possession in any country, is infinitely
less so in France, where the vivacity of perception of the people leads
them to discover grave faults where only slight errors exist, and where
a natural inconstancy, love of change, and a reckless impatience under
aught that offends them, prompt them to hurl down from the pedestal the
idol of yesterday to replace it by the idol of to-day.
I hear so much good of the Duc and Duchesse d'O---- that I feel a
lively interest in them, and heartily wish they may never be elevated
(unless by the natural demise of the legitimate heirs) to the dangerous
height to which ---- and others assert they will ultimately ascend.
Even in the contingency of a legitimate inheritance of the crown, the
Tuileries would offer a less peaceful couch to them than they find in
the blissful domestic circle at N----.
A long visit from the Duc de T----. I never meet him without being
reminded of the truth of an observation of a French writer, who
says--"_On a vu des gens se passer d'esprit en sachant mêler la
politesse avec des manières nobles et élégantes_." The Duc de T----
passes off perfectly well without _esprit_, the absence of which his
noble manners perfectly conceal; while ----, who is so very clever,
makes one continually conscious of his want of good breeding and _bon
ton_.
Finished reading _Sayings and Doings_, by Mr. Theodore Hook. Every page
teems with wit, humour, or pathos, and reveals a knowledge of the world
under all the various phases of the ever-moving scene that gives a
lively interest to all he writes. This profound acquaintance with human
life, which stamps the impress of truth on every character portrayed by
his graphic pen, has not soured his feelings or produced that cynical
disposition so frequently engendered by it.
Mr. Hook is no misanthrope, and while he exposes the ridiculous with a
rare wit and humour he evinces a natural and warm sympathy with the
good. He is a very original thinker and writer, hits off characters
with a facility and felicity that few authors possess, and makes them
invariably act in accordance with the peculiar characteristics with
which he has endowed them. The _vraisemblance_ is never for a moment
violated, which makes the reader imagine he is perusing a true
narration instead of a fiction.
House-hunting to-day. Went again over the Hôtel Monaco, but its
dilapidated state somewhat alarms us. The suite of reception rooms are
magnificent, but the garden into which they open pleases me still more,
for it is vast and umbrageous. The line old hôtels in the Faubourg
St.-Germain, and this is one of the finest, give one a good idea of the
splendour of the _noblesse de l'ancien régime_. The number and
spaciousness of the apartments, the richness of the decorations, though
no longer retaining their pristine beauty, and above all, the terraces
and gardens, have a grand effect.