BY MRS. JAMESON.
"Un peu de chaque chose, et rien du tout,--à la française!"--MONTAIGNE.
With Illustrations and Etchings.
SECOND EDITION, CORRECTED.
LONDON:
LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS.
1855.
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PREFACE.
I must be allowed to say a few words in explanation of the contents of
this little volume, which is truly what its name sets forth--a book of
common-places, and nothing more. If I have never, in any work I have
ventured to place before the public, aspired to _teach_, (being myself a
_learner_ in all things,) at least I have hitherto done my best to
deserve the indulgence I have met with; and it would pain me if it could
be supposed that such indulgence had rendered me presumptuous or
careless.
For many years I have been accustomed to make a memorandum of any
thought which might come across me--(if pen and paper were at hand), and
to mark (and _remark_) any passage in a book which excited either a
sympathetic or an antagonistic feeling. This collection of notes
accumulated insensibly from day to day. The volumes on Shakspeare's
Women, on Sacred and Legendary Art, and various other productions,
sprung from seed thus lightly and casually sown, which, I hardly know
how, grew up and expanded into a regular, readable form, with a
beginning, a middle, and an end. But what was to be done with the
fragments which remained--without beginning, and without end--links of a
hidden or a broken chain? Whether to preserve them or destroy them
became a question, and one I could not answer for myself. In allowing a
portion of them to go forth to the world in their original form, as
unconnected fragments, I have been guided by the wishes of others, who
deemed it not wholly uninteresting or profitless to trace the path,
sometimes devious enough, of an "inquiring spirit," even by the little
pebbles dropped as vestiges by the way side.
A book so supremely egotistical and subjective can do good only in one
way. It may, like conversation with a friend, open up sources of
sympathy and reflection; excite to argument, agreement, or disagreement;
and, like every spontaneous utterance of thought out of an earnest mind,
suggest far higher and better thoughts than any to be found here to
higher and more productive minds. If I had not the humble hope of such a
possible result, instead of sending these memoranda to the printer, I
should have thrown them into the fire; for I lack that creative faculty
which can work up the teachings of heart-sorrow and world-experience
into attractive forms of fiction or of art; and having no intention of
leaving any such memorials to be published after my death, they must
have gone into the fire as the only alternative left.
The passages from books are not, strictly speaking, _selected_; they are
not given here on any principle of choice, but simply because that by
some process of assimilation they became a part of the individual mind.
They "found _me_,"--to borrow Coleridge's expression,--"found me in some
depth of my being;" I did not "find _them_."
For the rest, all those passages which are marked by inverted commas
must be regarded as borrowed, though I have not always been able to give
my authority. All passages not so marked are, I dare not say, original
or new, but at least the unstudied expression of a free discursive mind.
Fruits, not advisedly plucked, but which the variable winds have shaken
from the tree: some ripe, some "harsh and crude."
Wordsworth's famous poem of "The Happy Warrior" (of which a new
application will be found at page 87.), is supposed by Mr. De Quincey to
have been first suggested by the character of Nelson. It has since been
applied to Sir Charles Napier (the Indian General), as well as to the
Duke of Wellington; all which serves to illustrate my position, that the
lines in question are equally applicable to any man or any woman whose
moral standard is irrespective of selfishness and expediency.
With regard to the fragment on Sculpture, it may be necessary to state
that it was written in 1848. The first three paragraphs were inserted in
the Art Journal for April, 1849. It was intended to enlarge the whole
into a comprehensive essay on "Subjects fitted for Artistic Treatment;"
but this being now impossible, the fragment is given as originally
written; others may think it out, and apply it better than I shall live
to do.
August, 1854.
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CONTENTS.