I was lately reading a review of Lady Morgan's Salvator Rosa. A passage
in it touched me deeply, 'et pour cause.' It is the very original
description of her hero, nearly as follows.
"With a thirst for praise, which scarcely any applause could satisfy,
Salvator united a quickness of perception that rendered him suspicious
of pleasing, even at the moment he was most successful. A gaping mouth,
a closing lid, a languid look, or an impatient hem! threw him into utter
confusion, and deprived him of all presence of mind, of all power of
concealing his mortification.... Abandoned by the idle and the great,
whom his delightful talents had so long contributed to amuse, he
voluntarily excluded himself from the few true and staunch friends who
clung to him in his adversity, and shut himself up equally from all he
loved and all he despised.... His reference to this journey is curious,
as being illustrative of those high imaginations, and lofty and lonely
feelings, in which lay all the secret of his peculiar genius: while his
pantings after solitude, his vain repinings, exhibit the struggles of a
mind divided between a natural love of repose and a factitious ambition
for the world's notice and the _eclat_ of fame,--no unusual contrast in
those who, being highly gifted and highly organized, are placed by
nature above their species in all the splendid endowments of intellect;
and who are, by the same nature, again drawn down to its level through
their social and sympathetic affections.... His fine but fatal
organization, which rendered him so susceptible of impressions, whether
of good or evil, and which left him at times no shelter against
'horrible imaginings,' or against those real inflictions, calumny and
slander, plunged him too frequently into fits of listless melancholy,
when, disabused of all illusion, he saw the species to which he belonged
in all the nakedness of its inherent infirmity."
Yes, this picture is copied from the very soul; and it is no less true,
that a man born with such a disposition can never feel at ease or happy
in the world which surrounds him, unless he be placed very much above
it, or live in it entirely unnoticed.
So far I was led by the thoughts of others. Now I must conclude for
to-day with a few of my own, the subject of which lies far nearer to our
inmost hearts; and discuss a question, the full investigation of which
must interest every one, be he ever so little a philosopher by
profession.
What is conscience?
Conscience has unquestionably a twofold nature, as it has a twofold
source. The one flows from our highest strength, the other from our
greatest weakness; the one from the spirit of God dwelling in us, the
other from sensual fear. Perfectly to dissever and distinguish these two
kinds of conscience, is necessary to that serenity of mind which can
arise only out of the utmost possible clearness: for man, when he has
once got beyond the original dominant instinct of feeling, attains to
the Permanent, even the recognition of truth, only by mental labour and
conflict,--the moral 'sweat of his brow.'
Man, however, is a whole, compounded of countless parts; and it is only
in the perfect equipoise of these parts, that, _as man_--that is, as a
being at once sensual and spiritual--he can obtain perfect happiness and
contentment. It is the common, ever-recurring error, to strive to
cultivate one side predominantly:--with one man it is the province of
religion; with another, that of severe reason; with the man of the
world, those of the understanding and the senses alone. But all these
together, exercised, enjoyed, and blended, so to speak, with artist-like
skill, can alone produce the most perfect Life for this earth, and for
our destinies while upon it,--the complete, entire Truth.
Under this point of view, then, must that which we call Conscience be
considered, and the true distinguished from the false.
Under the head of the True, I understand the infallible suggestions of
the divine spirit in us; which restrains us from evil, generally, as
from the wholly one-sided, inconsistent, and negative: and this requires
no further explanation. By the False, I mean that which arises only from
the Conventional; from custom, authority, from subtleties which have
grown out of these foundations, and from overstrained anxiety;--in a
word, from fear. Delicate, excitable natures, in whom the cerebral
system predominates, in whom, therefore, the head and the fancy are more
powerful and active than the heart: in whom the distributing intellect
too easily breaks up and scatters the depth and intensity of the full
feelings, are most subject to this kind of error. It is, however, so
difficult to follow these subtle ramifications and secret
counter-workings, that we often take that for a primary feeling, which
is only the retro-action of a sophistical intellect.
Now, as right and wrong, applied to the individual actions of human life
with all their various conditions and intricacies, must obviously be
relative; nothing remains but that every man should, with the help of
all the powers of his soul, make quite clear to himself, sincerely and
faithfully lay down to himself, what he can reasonably regard as right
and what as wrong; and having ascertained it, thenceforward tranquilly
apply that standard; and not trouble himself further about his so-called
conscience; that is, the inward uneasiness and uncertainty which disturb
the mind under new and conflicting circumstances. These cannot possibly
be avoided; since the distinctions we have heard of right and wrong,
reasonable and absurd, in our childhood and early youth, will ever
exercise an irresistible influence.[41]
To give a few exemplifications.--A man of gentle temper, educated in the
fear of God and the love of man, who becomes a soldier, the first time
he has to take deliberate aim at human life will hardly do it without a
strong pang of conscience. So, at least, it was with me. Nevertheless it
is his duty; a duty which may be justified on higher, although worldly
grounds; so long at least as mankind are not further advanced than they
now are.
In like manner, he who after a long struggle forswears the religion of
his fathers--the daily repeated lesson of his youth,--and embraces
another on full conviction that it is better, will generally feel a
slight, but difficultly subdued inquietude; and it is with that, just as
it is with the most absurd fear of ghosts in those who have been
educated in the belief of ghosts. They have a _ghost-conscience_, which
they cannot get rid of. Nay, even more; with irritable characters, the
mere persuasion that others hold them guilty of an evil action will give
them so much the feeling of an evil conscience, that it appears in all
its usual outward signs--embarrassment, blushing, and turning pale.
This may be carried so far as to lead to insanity. For instance: A man
universally believed to have killed another, or one who really, though
quite innocently, has killed another, may never enjoy a moment's
tranquillity or happiness again. We even read of a Bramin, whose
religious creed makes the murder of an insect as criminal as that of a
man, who killed himself because an English 'savant' told him that he
never drank a glass of water without destroying thousands of invisible
creatures. 'Il n'y a qu'un pas du sublime au ridicule.'
Ugoni, in his Life of one of the most conscientious of men, Passaroni,
relates that as he was one day going over the bridge of the 'Porta
Orientale,' he saw a man lying fast asleep on the broad stone parapet,
whence, if suddenly waked, he would probably have fallen into the river.
He seized him by the arm, with difficulty aroused him, and with still
greater made him understand why he had waked him. The porter, in a
passion, requited his trouble with a hearty curse, and bid him go to the
devil. Passaroni, greatly mortified and grieved at being the innocent
cause of the man's wrath, pulled out a handful of coin, and gave it to
him to drink the giver's health. Thereupon he left him quite satisfied;
but had scarcely reached the end of the bridge, when it struck him that
his gift would probably produce even worse consequences than his waking
of the man had done; for that it would very likely lead the poor fellow
into the crime of drunkenness. He immediately hurried back in great
anxiety, found the man fortunately at the same spot, where he had laid
himself down again exactly in his old position, and begged him, with
some embarrassment, to give him back so much of the money as he did not
want for his most pressing necessities. But as the rage of the porter,
who thought himself fooled, now boiled over more furiously than ever,
Passaroni devised another expedient: "Here, my friend," said he, "as you
will not give me anything back, take another scudo, and promise me
solemnly, that if you spend all the rest of the money in drink, you will
buy something with that scudo to eat with it." Having received this
promise from the 'fachino,' Passaroni's conscience was at length at
rest, and he went contentedly home.
We must, I repeat,--if we would not be either unhappy, or ridiculous,
and like a reed shaken with every wind,--_educate_ our consciences as
well as all the other faculties of our souls: that is, while we preserve
them in all their purity, prescribe to them due limits; for even the
noblest are otherwise liable to deterioration and perversion. The
simplest and most universally applicable and universally intelligible
guide is the precept of Christ, "Do not unto others (nor, we might add,
to yourselves) what ye would not that others do unto you."
But as there exist, as yet, no true Christians, certain exceptions to
this rule are, and, in the present state of society, must be, permitted,
as for instance, the case of the soldier above cited; or that of a man
who obeys the laws of honour, which in certain stations it is utterly
impossible to brave. And then there remains no other solution of the
difficulty, than to allow to others the same liberty of making
exceptions that we find ourselves compelled to claim;--in this way we
just manage to preserve charity, and, at all events, that justice which
is called the 'lex talionis.'
That man has a happy, an enviable existence, to whom nature and
surrounding circumstances have made it easy or possible to walk
constantly in a beaten track; to be, from youth upwards, kind and
loving, moderate in his desires and pure in his actions. The first fault
is pregnant with sorrow and evil; for, as our philosophical poet so
truly says,
"Das eben ist der Fluch des Bösen
Dass es fortwuchernd immer Böses muss gebahren!"
And regeneration in this life is not always to be attained. May it not,
then, be the last and highest act of mercy of Eternal Love, to have
appointed death as a means of wiping out the confused and blotted
scrawl, and restoring the troubled, misguided, soul to the condition of
a pure white sheet, ready for happier trials? For that upon which the
Holy has already been written here, must far higher bliss be in store.
All-loving Justice punishes not as weak man punishes; but it can reward
only where reward is due,--where it follows as an inevitable consequence
of the past.
_January 21st._
It is become very cold again, and the fire-place, '_wo Tag und Nacht die
Kohle brennt_,' is unhappily quite insufficient to produce a warm room,
such as our stoves--which, spite of their ugliness, I now think of as
admirably efficient--procure us. To set my blood in motion I ride the
more, and to-day, on my way home, saw one of the many Cosmorames
exhibited here, which certainly affords a very agreeable _chamber
journey_, as they call it in B----. The picture of the Coronation of
Charles the Tenth in the Cathedral at Rheims, doubtless gave me a far
more commodious view of it than I should have had in the crowded church.
But what tasteless costume, from the King to the lowest courtier! New
and old mixed in the most ludicrous and offensive manner! If people will
perform such farces, the least they can do is to make them as pretty as
those at Franconi's. The ruins of Palmyra lay outstretched in solemn
majesty in the boundless Desert, which a caravan in the distant horizon
is slowly traversing under a torrid sun.
The most perfect illusion was the great fire at Edinburg:--it actually
burned. You saw the flames stream upwards; then clouds of black smoke
ascend; while the view of the whole landscape incessantly changed with
the changes of this fearful light, just as in a real fire. Probably the
proprietor's kitchen was behind the picture, and the fire which heated
the fancy of credulous spectators like myself, roasted the leg of mutton
which our shillings paid for.
_January 28th._
For some days I have vegetated too completely to have much to write to
you about. This morning I was not a little surprised to see R----, whom
I thought almost with you, enter my room. He had been shipwrecked on his
way to Hamburg, and driven back by the storm to Harwich; had passed a
whole night in imminent peril, and is so heartily frightened, that he
will hear no more of the sea as long as he lives. I therefore send him
by Calais, and only write that you may not be uneasy. He has
unfortunately lost some of the things he took for you.
Hyde Park afforded a new spectacle this morning. The large lake was
frozen, and swarmed with a gay and countless multitude of skaters and
others, who enjoyed these wintry pleasures, so rare here, with true
child-like delight. A few years ago, in weather like this, a strange
wager was laid. The notorious Hunt deals in shoe-blacking: a large sort
of wagon filled with it and drawn by four fine horses, which the young
gentleman his son drives 'four-in-hand,' daily traverses the city in all
directions. This young Hunt betted a hundred pounds that he would drive
the equipage in question at full speed across the 'Serpentine,' and won
his wager in brilliant style. A caricature immortalized this feat, and
the sale of his blacking, as is reasonable, increased threefold.
My house is grown very musical, for Miss A----, a newly-engaged
opera-singer, has come to live in it. The thin English walls give me the
advantage of hearing her every morning gratis.
I have not been well for some days. The town air does not agree with me,
and compels me to follow a 'régime' like that in your song:--
"un bouillon
d'un roguon
de papillon."
_C---- Hall, Feb. 2d._
Lord D----, to whose wife I had been introduced in London, invited me to
visit him for a few days at his country house. I accepted his invitation
with more pleasure because C---- Hall is the place of which Repton says
that he had laboured at its embellishment, together with its proprietor,
forty years ago. Indeed it does him the greatest honour; though, from
all I saw and heard, it appeared to me that the admirable taste of its
Lord was entitled to the largest share of the merit; especially in
sparing old trees which Repton would have removed. Nevertheless an
honourable feeling of gratitude has dedicated an alcove, commanding a
wonderfully beautiful prospect, to the man to whom landscape-gardening
is so much indebted. Repton's son, who was with us, had told Lady D----
a great deal about M----; and as she is almost as good a 'parkomane' as
myself, we had a very attractive subject in common, and walked about for
some hours in the flower-garden, which is still more tasteful than
splendid, and is adorned with some graceful marble statues by Canova.
I did not see the master of the house, who was suffering from gout, till
we came down to dinner, when I met a large company; amongst others Lord
M----, who had just been to inspect the ships of war lying in the
Thames.
Lord D---- was lying on a sofa, covered with a Scotch plaid, and
embarrassed me a little by his first address.
"You don't know me," said he, "and yet we saw each other very often
thirty years ago." Now as I was in frocks at the time he spoke of, I was
obliged to beg for a further explanation, though I cannot say I was much
delighted at having my age so fully discussed before all the
company,--for you know I claim not to look more than thirty. However, I
could but admire Lord D----'s memory. He remembered every circumstance
of his visit to my parents with the Duke of Portland, and recalled to me
many a little forgotten incident. What originals were then to be found,
and how joyously and heartily people entered into all sorts of amusement
in those days, his conversation gave me new and very entertaining proof
of.
He mentioned among others a certain Baron, who believed as firmly in
ghosts as in the Gospel, and held Cagliostro for a sort of Messias. One
day when he went out alone, to skate on the lake near our house, the
whole party dressed themselves in sheets and other things borrowed from
the wardrobe of the theatre, and presented to the eyes of the terrified
Illuminatus the awful appearance of a party of ghosts, in broad
daylight, on the ice. In mortal terror he fell on his knees, spite of
his skates; and with a volubility which the venerable Lord could not
think of, even now, without laughing, uttered "Abracadabra," and bits of
Faust's incantations, interspersed with fragments of quavering psalms.
During this, one of the ghosts, who, with the help of a long stick under
his sheet, made himself sometimes tall and sometimes low, slipped and
fell, stripped of all disguise, directly before the knees of the praying
Baron. His faith was too robust, however, to be shaken by such a trifle.
On the contrary, his terror was increased to such a pitch, that he
sprang up, fell again, in consequence of his unlucky 'chaussure,' but
soon scrambled up, and with a dexterity no one gave him credit for
before, vanished like the wind, amid the cheers of the whole company.
Even the confession of the whole joke by the actors in it never could
convince him that he had been hoaxed, and no power on earth could ever
induce him to see the frightful lake again as long as he remained at
M----.
You know I cannot avoid the reflections which often fill me with
melancholy even on the most joyous occasions. So was it with me now, as
Lord D---- thus conjured up before me the picture of departed times;--as
he eulogized my grandfather's amiable character, described my mother's
high spirit, and what a wild child I was: 'Hélas, ils sont passés ces
jours de fête.' The amiable man has long lain mouldering in his grave;
the high-spirited young woman is old, and no longer high-spirited; and
even the wild boy is more than tamed--nay, not very far from those days
in which he will say, "I have no pleasure in them:" the mad-cap young
Englishman who played the ghost on the ice, lay before me, an old man,
tortured with gout, stretched helpless on a sofa,--the tale of the merry
pranks of his youth interrupted by sighs extorted by pain; while the
poor fool whom he so terrified as ghost has long been a ghost himself,
and the good Lord would be not a little alarmed if his visit happened to
be returned. "Oh world, world!" as Napoleon said.[42]
_February 3d:--Evening._
Lord D---- possesses a fine collection of pictures, among which are
Titian's celebrated Venus; the death of Regulus, by Salvator Rosa; a
large picture of Rubens, which has frequently been engraved; and a very
fine Guido. In the two latter indeed, a not very agreeable subject, a
lifeless head, is the principal object; in the one that of Cyrus, in the
other that of John the Baptist. But Guido's Herodias is another of those
figures instinct with the genius of poetical, divine beauty, uniting the
most lovely womanliness with the deepest tragic expression, which leave
so indelible an impression, and are so seldom found in reality. There is
a lady of your acquaintance who corresponds with this ideal, Countess
A---- of B----. She was, when I knew her,[43] the most beautiful and
richly dressed woman I ever beheld. Perfect symmetry, absolute harmony,
reigned in her person and in her mind; so that the most heterogeneous
things equally became her. Majestic as a queen, when she was 'en
representation;' distinguished by the most easy and graceful manners,
the most exquisite knowledge of the world, when doing the honours of her
own house; and by the most 'naïve,' touching kindness and sweetness in
the circle of her family;--but under every aspect rendered more
interesting and impressive by a trace of thoughtful melancholy never
wholly effaced, allied to that perfect feminine tenderness which gives
to woman the highest and most resistless charm in the eyes of men;--her
resemblance to this picture of Guido's was striking. Two very pretty
attendants of Herodias are in admirable contrast with the main figure.
They are perfect ladies-in-waiting, who have no soul for anything beyond
their court and their service; and their beauty receives from its very
unmeaningness a certain rather animal character, which we can
contemplate with an agreeable carelessness--a sort of repose to the mind
after the profound and thrilling impression made by the main figure. The
one is watching the glance of her mistress with an unmeaning smile; the
other looks at the head of the Martyr in the charger with the same
indifference as if it were 'a pudding.'
I must describe to you, once for all, the 'vie de château' in England;
of course only the common canvas, on which the Special is in every case
embroidered by each man according to his fancy. The groundwork is in all
the same, nor did I find it at all altered from what I formerly saw
here. It forms, without any question, the most agreeable side of English
life; for there is great freedom, and a banishment of most of the
wearisome ceremonies which, with us, tire both host and guest.
Notwithstanding this, one finds not less luxury than in the town; this
is rendered less burthensome by the custom I mentioned of receiving
guests only during a short period of the year, and on invitation.
The ostentation which, doubtless, lies at the root of such customs, we
may well forgive, for the better reception it procures us.
Strangers have generally only one room allotted to them, usually a
spacious apartment on the first floor. Englishmen seldom go into this
room except to sleep, and to dress twice a-day, which, even without
company and in the most strictly domestic circle, is always 'de riguer;'
for all meals are commonly taken in company, and any one who wants to
write does it in the library. There, also, those who wish to converse
give each other 'rendezvous,' to avoid either the whole society, or
particular parties, in the formation of which people are quite at
liberty. Here you have an opportunity of gossiping for hours with the
young ladies, who are always very literarily inclined. Many a marriage
is thus concocted or destroyed, between the 'corpus juris' on the one
side and Bouffler's Works on the other, while fashionable novels, as a
sort of intermediate link, lie on the tables in the middle.
Ten or eleven is the hour for breakfast, at which you may appear in
'negligée.' It is always of the same kind as that I described to you in
the inn, only of course more elegant and complete. The ladies do the
honours of the table very agreeably. If you come down later, when the
breakfast is removed, a servant brings you what you want. In many houses
he is on the watch till one o'clock, or even later, to see that
stragglers do not starve. That half-a-dozen newspapers must lie on the
table for every one to read who likes, is, of course, understood. The
men now either go out hunting or shooting, or on business; the host does
the same, without troubling himself in the least degree about his guests
(the truest kindness and good breeding;) and about half an hour before
dinner the company meet again in the drawing-room in elegant toilette.
The course and order of dinner I have already described to you.
* * * * *
England is the true land of contrasts--'du haut et du bas' at every
step. Thus, even in elegant houses in the country, coachmen and grooms
wait at dinner, and are not always free from the odour of the stable. At
the second breakfast, the 'luncheon,' which is served a few hours after
the first, and is generally eaten only by the women (who like to make
'la petite bouche' at dinner,) there are no napkins, and altogether less
neatness and elegance than at the other meals.
This as parenthesis:--I now return to the 'order of the day.' When the
men have drunk as much as they wish, they go in search of tea, coffee,
and the ladies, and remain for some hours with them, though without
mixing much. To-day, for instance, I observed the company was
distributed in the following manner. Our suffering host lay on the sofa,
dosing a little; five ladies and gentlemen were very attentively reading
in various sorts of books (of this number I was one, having some views
of parks before me;) another had been playing for a quarter of an hour
with a long-suffering dog; two old Members of Parliament were disputing
vehemently about the 'Corn Bill;' and the rest of the company were in a
dimly-lighted room adjoining, where a pretty girl was playing on the
piano-forte, and another, with a most perforating voice, singing
ballads.
I cannot help remarking here, that Lord and Lady D---- are among the
most enlightened, unpretending, and therefore most agreeable, of the
people of rank here. He is of the moderate Opposition, and desires the
real good of his country, and nothing else; a patriot wholly devoid of
egotism,--the noblest title that a cultivated man can bear. She is
goodness, cordiality, and unpretendingness itself.
A light supper of cold meats and fruits is brought, at which every one
helps himself, and shortly after midnight all retire. A number of small
candlesticks stand ready on a side-table; every man takes his own, and
lights himself up to bed; for the greater part of the servants, who have
to rise early, are, as is fair and reasonable, gone to bed. The eternal
sitting of servants in an ante-room is not the custom here; and except
at appointed times, when their services are expected, they are little
seen, and one waits on oneself.
At night I found a most excellent chintz bed with a canopy. It was so
enormously large that I lay like an icicle in it,--for the distant fire
was too remote to give any sensible warmth.
_February 5th._
Between ourselves be it said, however agreeable, however unconstrained
may be one's abode in another's house, it is always too constrained, too
unaccustomed, above all too dependent for me, proud and fond of ease as
I am, ever to feel perfectly at home. This I can be nowhere but within
my own walls, and, next to that, in a travelling carriage or an inn.
This may not be the best taste in the world, but it is mine. There are
so many men who have no taste of their own, at all, that I am delighted
with myself for having one, though it be not of the best. I shall
therefore not exhaust the term of my invitation, but evacuate my large
bed to-morrow, and proceed to Brighton, a watering-place now in great
fashion.
I have ridden all over the park here, in company with Lord D----'s very
kind and polite son. It is less remarkable for features of striking
beauty, than for the absence of all defect. Some views through wooded
valleys, of the distant Thames, the town of Gravesend and its rising
masts, have however a grand character; but nothing can exceed the
incomparable skill with which the walls of wood within the park are
planted, in masterly imitation of nature. As a study, I should recommend
Cobham, in some respects, more than any of the parks I have described;
though in extent and costliness it is surpassed by many. It is very
modest, but to the admirer of nature its character is only the more
delightful and satisfactory. It has also a great variety of hill,
valley, and wood.
I took leave of Lady D---- in her own room; a little sanctuary,
furnished with delightful disorder and profusion:--the walls full of
small 'consoles,' surmounted with mirrors and crowded with choice
curiosities; and the floor covered with splendid camellias, in baskets,
looking as if they grew there.
Among these flowers, dear Julia, I take my leave of you. I entreat you
to send me an answer of equal length, that your conscience may not
reproach you with loving me less than I love you.
Your hearty Friend, L----.