Produced by Larry B. Harrison, Chris Pinfield and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
(This book was produced from images made available by the
HathiTrust Digital Library.)
Transcriber's Note.
Apparent typographical errors have been corrected.
Italics are indicated by _underscores_ and bold font by +plus signs+.
Small capitals have been replaced by full capitals. Paragraphs in
smaller font have been indented.
JANUARY, 1899.
[Illustration:
UNIVERSAL
BROTHERHOOD
·A·MAGAZINE
DEVOTED TO THE
BRŌTHERHŌŌD·OF·HUMANITY
THE·THEŌSŌPHICAL·MŌVEMENT
PHILŌSŌPHY·SCIENCE·AND·ART
FOUNDED·IN·1886·UNDER·THE·TITLE·OF·THE·PATH·BY
·Wᵐ·Q·JUDGE]
VOLUME XIII. No. 10. CONTENTS.
Frontispiece: William Q. Judge.
A Happy New Year, Katherine A. Tingley. 527
Comrades; Greeting! E. Aug. Neresheimer. 528
Alphonse de Lamartine, Alexander Wilder, M.D. 529
Point Loma and its Legend, Frank M. Pierce. 541
Evolution and Involution, H. A. Freeman. 542
The Cycle of Life,
_Translated from the Polish by V. A. H._ Mary Konopnitsky. 549
Gods, Heroes and Men, Amos J. Johnson. 551
The Philosophy of Suicide, T. B. Wilson. 554
The Ethics of Sex, Grace G. Bohn. 558
The Sokratic Club, Solon. 562
Fragment—Omniscience, Adhiratha. 566
Form or Matter, W. E. Gates. 568
Students' Column, Conducted by J. H. Fussell. 572
Young Folks' Department:
A Christmas Story, M. S. L. 575
Brotherhood Activities, 579
Mrs. Katherine A. Tingley, Mr. E. A. Neresheimer, Editors.
$ 2.00 PER YEAR.
ISSUED MONTHLY.
PER COPY 20 CENTS
Entered as second class matter at New York Post-office.
"Universal Brotherhood"
DEVOTED TO
_The Brotherhood of Humanity, the Theosophical Movement, Philosophy,
Science and Art._
FOUNDED IN 1886 UNDER THE TITLE OF "THE PATH," BY
+WILLIAM Q. JUDGE.+
KATHERINE A. TINGLEY } EDITORS.
E. A. NERESHEIMER }
BUSINESS NOTICE.
+Universal Brotherhood+ is published on the twenty-fifth day of the
month preceding date of issue.
+Main Office+: Theosophical Publishing Co., 144 Madison Avenue, New York
City.
+London+: Theosophical Book Company, 8 Vernon Place, Bloomsbury Square,
W. C.
+Dublin+: 18, Eustace Street.
+Cable Address+: "Judge," New York.
+Annual Subscription+ for the United States, Canada and Mexico, $2.00; 6
months $1.00; 3 months 50 cents; single copy, 20 cents. Foreign
countries in the Postal Union, 9_s._ per annum; six months 4_s._ 6_d._;
single copy, 1_s._ Payable in advance.
+Remittances+ should be made by draft, check, post office order or
registered letter. All remittances should be made payable and sent to
Theosophical Publishing Company.
+Change of Address.+ No change of address will be made within ten days
previous to mailing day.
+Manuscripts+ must be accompanied by postage for return if found
unavailable.
+Advertising Rates+, which are moderate, may be obtained on application
to the publishers.
+Agents.+—Active Agents are desired in every part of the world, to whom
liberal inducements will be offered.
+Communications+ intended for the Editorial Department should be
addressed "Editor, Universal Brotherhood, 144 Madison Avenue, New York
City," and should include no other matter. Those intended for the
Business and Publishing Department should be addressed to "Theosophical
Publishing Co., 144 Madison Avenue, New York City". _It is particularly
requested that this notice be complied with._
+The Editors are not responsible for signed or unsigned articles in
this Magazine, to which neither of their names are attached.+
ANNOUNCEMENT.
UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD is a Magazine devoted to the promulgation of the
principles of the Brotherhood of Humanity in the widest sense. It is an
organ whose aim is to show that the Unity or Brotherhood of Mankind it
an actual fact in nature. If this principle were better understood by
the multitude or even by certain classes of Society there would be less
strife and competition and more sympathy and co-operation.
The demonstration of these broad ideas from the Ethical, Scientific and
Practical points of view will prove that there is much agreement between
these systems on this topic, and that it is an underlying ground-work by
means of which all Religions and all Philosophies agree also.
This magazine will endeavor to show the great similarity between the
Religions of the world, in their fundamental beliefs and doctrines as
also the value of studying other systems than our own.
A sound basis for ethics should be found.
Those who would assist the cause of Brotherhood should realize that it
is of the first importance to discover as much as possible concerning
the nature of man and man's relation to the world around him. The laws
that govern his physical, mental, moral and spiritual being should be
studied and investigated.
It is hoped that every sympathizer with the cause of brotherhood will
endeavor to assist us in enlarging the circulation of this magazine.
Subscribers will greatly oblige by sending us the names and addresses of
individuals known to them as willing to investigate liberal ideas.
All writers who are interested in the above objects are invited to
contribute articles.
It is in the hands of our readers to push the circulation of UNIVERSAL
BROTHERHOOD to an almost unlimited extent. +All profits arising from
the publication of this magazine, or from the business conducted by the
Theosophical Publishing Co., are devoted to propaganda of Brotherhood.
All who assist us in this work are directly helping the great cause of
humanity.+
_Please mention_ UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD _when you write advertisers_.
[Illustration:
(illegible signature)
A HAPPY NEW YEAR.]
AUM
"Do not act as if you had ten thousand years to throw away. Death
stands at your elbow. Be good for something, while you live, and it is
in your power."
"The first duty taught in Theosophy, is to do one's duty unflinchingly
by every duty."—_Gems from the East._
UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD
VOL. XIV.
JANUARY, 1899.
No. 10.
A HAPPY NEW YEAR.
Once more we enter upon a new year, and the Greetings of our hearts rise
spontaneously and go out to our loved ones and comrades throughout the
world, to all the people of the earth, and to all creatures. We look
back through twenty-three years and we see that lion-hearted pioneer H. P.
Blavatsky standing alone, proclaiming her message to the world. Then
a few gather around her and among them is our beloved Chief, William Q.
Judge. A little later, H. P. B. leaves America for Europe and India, and
the picture comes before us of W. Q. Judge meeting in New York, night
after night, often alone, sometimes with but one or two. We know now
what he was doing. We can see now how faithfully he tended the seed that
has grown to a tree which is for the healing of the nations, and how he
watched the spark that is now bursting into flame, a beacon of Truth,
Light and Liberation for discouraged humanity.
How small a beginning! How glorious the result even now! But could I
show you the picture of a few years hence you would say it is beyond
belief. But it is not. The tide has turned. The sorrow and suffering
which have oppressed Humanity for ages are nearing their end, the day of
hope has already dawned, the new age and the new year of Universal
Brotherhood has begun.
How glorious then is the opportunity of all to-day, and how great the
responsibility of each one to help and not obstruct or hinder this work
for humanity. Success cannot be attained without effort. The evil in the
world and in man's own nature cannot be overcome without a struggle. But
is it not a glorious thing to fight on and still fight? Some, perhaps,
may fall, some have fallen in the struggle, but the victory is certain,
and if all, when they are sore-pressed, would but remember the words of
H. P. B., they would take new courage and new strength to go ever
forward.
"Trials you must pass through or you will not be purified."
"Twenty failures are not irremediable if followed by as many undaunted
struggles upward! Is it not so that mountains are climbed?"
And can we not see already how glorious is the work that has been
accomplished. But two short years to the end of the Century and we shall
see the Sun shining gloriously. The battle is already won, the darkness
is already fast disappearing before the light of day. The work of H. P. B.
and W. Q. J. has spread around the world and with each New Year the
note of Brotherhood resounds more clearly and the Happy New Year shall
be realized.
What a Greeting the Chief would, and I know, does send to all. This
UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD Magazine is the outgrowth of _The Path_ in which
year after year he sent out his Greetings to the members and once again
that our new members and friends may become as familiar with him as
those of us who knew him personally and worked with and loved him we
send his portrait as a New Year's Greeting.
KATHERINE A. TINGLEY.
COMRADES; GREETING!
Universal Brotherhood, the keynote of the coming cycle! Let its melody
be diffused to the four points of the compass from the very depths of
our hearts at this important hour at the closing of the year 1898, that
it may reach the hearts of other men and women. The time is opportune
and propitious, for the whole race has already been touched by the
virtue of compassion.
Our organization, firmly founded on this high ideal, has sent its
tendrils from the bosom of love and sympathy to discouraged humanity
through its many channels of dissemination of the sublime philosophy of
solace and happiness.
This greatest movement for the redemption of all mankind has been led
through the initial stages of development with great success by the
Master-hand of Wisdom; all brethren in the work may now take heart and
strength from the certainty that the possibility of accomplishment is in
sight. Signs are not wanting that the truths of our ideals are breaking
through the strong crust of conventionality, and that the world has
already been brought nearer to the realization of it by the efforts of
this organization. Love to all workers!
E. AUG. NERESHEIMER.
"Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow.
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.
"Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more;
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind."
TENNYSON, _In Memoriam_.
ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE.
BY ALEXANDER WILDER, M. D.
III. EARLY MANHOOD.
Goethe has pictured Faust as having first acquired the learning of the
schools, philosophy, medicine, jurisprudence and theology; then as going
forth with Mephisto in quest of excitement, to which comes a tragic
ending. The shock of this paralyzes him for a time from further
endeavor. In the Second Book of the drama, he again rises up with strong
resolve to begin an active career in the busy world.
Somewhat in analogy with this is the history of every one who leaves
adolescence behind and attempts without the discipline of experience, to
find a place and engage in the future work of life. Too often, however,
it is more the varied wanderings of a Jung-Stilling, requiring the
vicissitudes of years of preparation.
Lamartine desired to enter upon a military life, but it was repugnant to
the wishes of his family that he should take service, either in the army
of Bonaparte, or of any country that might be opposed to France. His
father retained his royalist sentiments with characteristic
stubbornness, and his older uncle, the recognized head of the family,
though a former friend of Mirabeau, had refused the office of Senator
when offered to him by the Emperor. Young Lamartine was thus handicapped
and forced to idleness.
He spent some winters in Paris, and mingled with the gaieties and
dissipations which young men encountered at the metropolis. The result
was self-abasement. He incurred debts at the gaming table, which his
limited allowance though eked out by secret contributions from his
mother, were insufficient to meet; and he formed acquaintances that were
a serious drawback to him in later years.
Perhaps he, like Bunyan, depicted himself in darker colors than there
was really occasion. "There was not," says he, "air enough in the sky,
fire enough in the sun, or space enough on the earth for the want of
breath, excitement and burning that consumed me. I was a living fever; I
had the delirium and inquietude of it in every part. The sober habits of
my years of study, and the tranquil piety of my mother and our teachers,
have been put far away from me. My friendships were as unworthy as my
feelings. I had become intimate with the most giddy and turbulent young
men of my country and period."
Nevertheless while he was going forward so readily in disorderly ways he
was actually repelled by them. Indeed, he was only imitating others, and
not really following his own natural disposition. When he came to be
alone, the solitude purified him.
In 1813 he again visited Italy. His first opportunity for activity now
came.
Paris having surrendered and Napoleon having abdicated, the Allied
Powers of Europe placed Louis XVIII. on the throne of France. This
prince had always been liberal in his views, and he now proclaimed a
constitutional government. This conciliated all parties, royalists and
republicans alike. Lamartine was enrolled in the Royal Guard, and was of
the force that marched against Bonaparte upon his return from Elba.
The statement has been generally accepted and believed that the
reception of the Emperor on this occasion was of the nature of a
triumph. Lamartine declares that this was unqualifiedly untrue. The
enthusiasm, he affirms, was confined entirely to the soldiers and to the
dregs of the population. France, itself, the real France, had become
utterly weary of this fighting for the aggrandizement of this one man. It
had welcomed Louis XVIII., but not as the king of a counter-revolution.
It did not contemplate any going back to former conditions. The king was
received as the king of the Liberal Constitution.
"All the movement of the Revolution of 1789 which had been interrupted
was commenced anew by us after the fall of the Imperial Government. The
entire France,—the France that thought and not the France that
clamored—was perfectly conscious that the return of Bonaparte meant the
return of the military régime and tyranny. Of this it stood in dread.
The Twentieth of March [1815] was a conspiracy of the army and not a
movement of the nation. If there had not been an army organized in
France that was ready to fly under the eagles of its Emperor, the
Emperor would never have reached Paris."
Nevertheless Lamartine was confounded by what took place. In the brief
space of eight days apart, he saw one France ready to rise up in mass
against Bonaparte, and then another France prostrate at his feet. From
that day he despaired of the omnipotence of opinion and believed even
more than he ought in the power of bayonets.
Louis XVIII., the Count d'Artois and son, with Marshal Marmont and the
royal forces left Paris the night before Bonaparte made his entry. As
they passed the cities on their retreat, the citizens brought them food,
execrating the "Pretorians" who had overturned the institutions and
peace of the country. Royalists and Republicans alike participated in
this denunciation of the treason of the army.
At Arras the king left the troops and went on by himself to Belgium. The
Count d'Artois and Marshal Marmont, the commander of the forces,
followed soon afterward, after having issued a proclamation absolving
the men from their oath. Thus abandoned, the question arose, what was
next to be done. After a desultory discussion, a musketeer declared that
the true and safe course was to leave France and take service abroad.
Lamartine opposed this proposition. Though but twenty-four years of age,
he had won the respect of his comrades. Stepping on the wheel of a wagon
he addressed them. It was his first attempt to speak in public. He
referred to the significant fact that his family had been loyal to the
monarchy, but had not emigrated during the Revolution. He had been
nurtured in such sentiments. Louis XVIII. had now given France a
representative government. The cause of Republican Liberty and the cause
of the Bourbons had thus become united. If now the two parties should
continue to act together, the reign of Bonaparte would be short and his
fall complete. But if the royalists should now emigrate, they would, by
so doing abandon the Republicans to the army. The blood of the
Republicans would smother all resistance to the Empire. The duty,
therefore, of those now present, both to their country and to their
families, forbade that they should follow the king out of the French
territory.
Most of the men voted to remain; a few rode away. Being now without
officers, a temporary organization was effected, posts established
around Bethune and a patrol provided. Four days later a capitulation
took place, by which they were permitted to go to their families, but
excluded from Paris.
Lamartine, however, put on the dress of a citizen and went in a
cabriolet to Paris. A few days later he was present at a review of the
troops.
The Emperor, he observed, exhibited none of that ideal of intellectual
beauty and innate royalty, which writers had so often depicted. He
seemed to be conscious that the ground was not solid under his feet. His
movements indicated distrust and hesitation. As the troops defiled
before him they cheered with "a concentrated accent of hopelessness."
Lamartine went home with renewed confidence.
The Imperial conscription filled the Chevalier, his father, with dismay.
Lamartine declared to him that he would in no case enter the ranks
himself or procure a substitute. He would sooner be shot to death.
Leaving home, he put on the dress of a peasant laborer, and eluding the
videttes on the frontier, crossed into Switzerland.
For some weeks he was the guest of the Baron de Vincy, an emigrant
nobleman whose property had been confiscated. Himself almost without
money and his entertainers impoverished, he could not bring himself to
burden them longer. Leaving them abruptly, he made his way to Geneva. He
was actually considering the project of applying to be a tutor in a
Russian family and travelling to the Crimea, Circassia and Persia, when
the final overthrow of Bonaparte called him back to France.
He became again a member of the military household of the king. Here he
found his oldest and most beloved of friends, the Count Aymon de Virieu.
They had been in college together, had travelled in Italy, their fathers
had shared danger together in the Royal Guard on the fatal Tenth of
August. They were ever after as two brothers, one in thought, one in
soul, one in purse. They continued members of the Guard till it was
disbanded.
Some years afterward Virieu made Lamartine acquainted with several
persons of distinction whose good offices indirectly facilitated
Lamartine's entry into public life.
Virieu was boisterous, full of jest, and a skeptic in religion. He was
through his mother, descended from Montaigne, and he had inherited that
author's disposition. He quoted him incessantly.
Lamartine, on the contrary, had inherited from his mother, a melancholic
temperament, quiet, serious and religious. He could not bear Montaigne's
skepticism, nor his salacious utterances. "Man is born to believe," he
declared. "To believe in nothing is the way to accomplish nothing, and
impurity in speech is a soiling of the soul."
He spent a summer with Virieu and his family in Dauphiné. Their way of
living was a reflection of his boyhood life at home, and brought calm
and repose to his mind.
Virieu afterward became serious like his mother and withdrawing from
public life on account of his health, died some years later. "In him,"
says Lamartine, "I lost the living witness of the first half of my own
life. I felt that death had torn out the dearest page of my history, and
that it was enshrouded with him."
Another fellow-student whom Lamartine repeatedly mentions, was the baron
Louis de Vignet, of Chambery, in Savoy. They were often competitors for
the prizes. Vignet gave up the profession of law and accepted a life of
poverty for the sake of his mother and sister. He had been a skeptic and
scoffer in religion and repulsive in temper, but watching with his dying
mother, he became changed and was modest, pensive, gentle and melancholy.
He had hesitated to renew his acquaintance with Lamartine during the
latter's wild career in Paris, but now, meeting accidentally, the two
were drawn together at once. Vignet greeted Lamartine more as a father
than as a comrade, and they quickly formed a compact of friendship. As
if to seal it they went together to Charmettes to visit the house where
Rousseau had lived, and afterward went to Servolex together.
Vignet was a nephew of the Counts de Maistre, two of whom were
distinguished in the political arena and world of letters. Lamartine was
received by the elders as a son, and the younger members of the family
as a brother. He remained with them during the summer. The wholesome
influence took his mind away from the philosophy of the guardhouse and
the effeminate literature then current in France. It was indeed an
important epoch in his history. Time, death, difference of country and
opinion afterward separated them, but he always vividly remembered that
summer at the house of Colonel de Maistre and Louis de Vignet.
A diversion of the household consisted of recitations of verse. Vignet
had collected a large number of effusions which were current among the
Savoyards. Lamartine also ventured to recite his own verses before
Colonel de Maistre and his daughters. The old man admired his pure
French diction and predicted to his nephew that Lamartine would become
distinguished.
Another summer found Lamartine at home in Milly. The family had gone
away; the father and uncles to a hunting party in Burgundy, the mother
on a journey, and the sisters on visits to friends, or to the convent.
He was left alone with no companionship but an old servant-woman, his
horse and his dog. The silence, the loneliness of the garden, and the
empty rooms reminded him of the tomb. It was in keeping with his state
of mind. He felt himself, or rather he desired to feel himself dead.
In this mood he again resumed familiar relations with the Abbé Dumont,
his former schoolmaster at Bussières. The abbé had himself become the
parish priest. There had been a tragedy in his life before he gave up
his place in the world to take orders. He was the original of Jocelyn in
Lamartine's little poem.
Lamartine rode daily to the parsonage. The two discoursed on topics more
or less abstruse, such as the state of man on the earth, the vanity of
ambition, the religions, philosophies and literature of different
peoples, the esteem bestowed on one great man over another, the
superiority of certain authors to their rivals, the greatness of spirit
in some and littleness in others. To set forth their views they quoted
authors of every age, like Plato, Cicero, Seneca, Fénélon, Bossuet,
Voltaire, Rousseau.
Poetry was more severely handled. Dumont appreciated only the sense of
language, and did not care for the musicalness of what was uttered. They
both agreed that in the study of rhythm and the mechanic consonance of
rhyme there was a puerile attempt to associate a sensual delight of
sound to some grand thought or manly sentiment. Versifying pertains to
the speech of a people's infancy, prose to that of its maturity.
Lamartine conceived that poetry does not consist in the mere
sensuousness of verse, but in the ideas, the sentiment, the image. "To
change an utterance into music does not perfect it, but materializes it.
The simple sentence justly and forcibly expressing the pure thought or
naked sentiment without a dream as to the sound or form of phrase, is
the genuine style, the expression, the WORD."
These conversations naturally drifted to the supreme questions of the
time—to politics, philosophy and religion. Dumont was that
contradictory character, found so often in many countries—a royalist
although a democrat, and opposed to the Revolution, although he detested
the ancient régime and actually accepted the very aims and doctrines
which the Revolution contemplated. Both he and Lamartine had been "fed
with the marrow of Greek and Roman literature." They adored Liberty as a
well-sounding term before they came to consider it as a holy thing and
as the moral quality in every free man.
Dumont was philosophic, like the century in which he was born. In his
house there was no token to show that he was a priest—neither breviary,
nor crucifix, nor image of a saint, nor priestly garment. All these he
relegated to the sacristy. He considered the mystic rites of
Christianity which he performed as belonging to the routine of his
profession, to be little else than a ritual of no importance, a code of
morals illustrated by symbolic dogmas and traditional practices, that
did not encroach on his mental independence and reason. He spoke of God
to an infantile people, using the dialect of the sanctuary. But when he
returned home he discoursed in the language of Plato, Cicero and
Rousseau. His mind was incredulous, but his soul, softened by his sad
fortune, was religious. His great goodness of heart enabled him to give
to this vague piety the form and reality of a precise faith. He
constrained his intelligence to bow under the yoke of Catholicism and
the dogmas of religion. He read and admired the writings of
Chateaubriand and others of the time, but he was not convinced; he did
not believe what they taught.
Lamartine, on the other hand, was influenced by the religion of his
infancy. Piety always came back to him when he was alone; it made him
better, as though the thought of man when he is isolated from others was
his best counsellor. It was not so much a matter of conviction, as a
wish that it should be true. The poetry and affectionateness of religion
swayed his will. He could contemplate the mystery of the Incarnation as
filling, or at least bridging over, the unmeasurable space between
humanity and God. If he did not quite admit this as actual fact, he
revered it as a wonderful poem of the soul. He embellished it with the
charms of his imagination, he embalmed it with his desires, he colored
it with the tints of his thought and enthusiasm; in short,—he
subordinated his rebellious reason to this earnest desire to believe, so
that he might be able to love and pray. He put away from him, as by
force, every shadow of doubt and repugnance, and almost succeeded in
producing the illusions for which he was so eager, and in conforming the
habit of his soul to the current sentiment of the epoch. If he did not
really worship his mother's God as his own God, he at least carried him
in his heart as an idol.
The cordial relations of the two friends were maintained for years. The
priest continued to minister in his little church and gave much
assistance to the mother of Lamartine in her charities. Above his grave
in the cemetery is a stone with a brief epitaph, and beneath it the
words: "Alphonse de Lamartine à son ami."
The mental depression under which Lamartine labored, seriously affected
his health. The family physician was alarmed. Plainly enough it was from
causes outside of the province of medicine and so instead of prescribing
medicines he ordered the young man to go to Aix in Savoy, to the hot
sulphur springs. He borrowed money from a friend of the family and went.
Vignet procured a room for him, and paid him several visits during his
sojourn. It was early Autumn. October had just begun, and the leaves on
the trees had put on their colors. The bathing season was over, and the
usual guests had gone away, leaving the place solitary.
There was another patient in the house. This was a lady from Paris. She
was in a decline and had been at Aix several months. Lamartine, however,
had no inclination to see her.
An accident on the lake brought them together in which he rescued her
from imminent peril of life. The acquaintance thus begun became at once
an ardent attachment. Lamartine describes it as "repose of the heart,
after having met with the long-sought and till then unfound object of
its restless adoration; the long-desired idol of that vague, unquiet
adoration of supreme beauty which agitates the soul till the divinity
has been discovered."
This lady, the "Julie" of his story, was the wife of an old man, a
friend of the Emperor Napoleon. He had first seen her at the convent
where she was receiving her education. She was a native of the island
where the _Virginia_ of the romance was said to have been born, and had
been brought to France. She was without friends to protect her or the
necessary dowry to attract proposals of marriage. The old gentleman in
pity for her friendless condition, had married her, receiving her as a
daughter and not as a wife. Her health had given way, and he sent her to
Aix in hope that the mountain air and bathing might restore her.
She had no liking for gallantry. Yet she did not affect prudery or
reserve. She declared her understanding of their peculiar relations in
terms the most forceful: "Eternity in one instant and the Infinite in
one sensation." Then she said further: "I do not know whether this is
what is called love; nor do I wish to know; but it is the most supreme
and entire happiness that the soul of one created being can draw from
the soul, eyes and voice of another being like herself—a being who,
till now, was wanting to her happiness, and whose existence she
completes."
She had lived among philosophers of the French school, and did not have
views like those of the women of Europe who bowed before another
criterion than their conscience. "I believe," said she, "in the God who
has engraved his symbol in Nature, his law in our hearts, his morality
in our reason. Reason, feeling and conscience are the only revelation in
which I believe." She then asked that this their mutual affection should
remain "like a pure thought" and so be in no way blended with any other
relations.
In this way six weeks passed by. They adhered strictly to their line of
action, yet she fretted jealously at the thought that Lamartine would
love another after her death, and even attempted suicide; but presently
yielded the point, and even predicted that he would yet find another
like and as dear as herself.
Winter drew near and they left Savoy for their respective homes. Unknown
to her, Lamartine followed her travelling coach to Paris, and then went
to Milly where Vignet was awaiting him.
He remained at home till January. He had exhausted his allowance of
money. His mother observed his restlessness and attributed it to want of
diversion. She presented him with a diamond, the last jewel which she
had retained from her young girlhood, and bade him go to Paris. "It is
the last token of my love," said she,—"and I stake it in the lottery of
Providence."
This gift had a wholesome influence. He became thenceforth more prudent
in the expending of money, and never parted with the gem till his other
resources were exhausted. He no more affected to be engaged in study
while actually spending his time in dissipation. He directed his days to
reading in history, science, political economy and diplomacy. The Count
de Virieu was in Paris and received him to share his modest lodgings.
Nevertheless, his money though now carefully managed, was finally
exhausted. He was called upon by old creditors to pay the "debts of
honor" that he had incurred in former years. He had renewed his intimacy
with Julie, and her husband gave him the warmest of welcomes. Her health
was failing fast, and he took frequent excursions with her about Paris
in the hope of benefit. At the end of the winter the alternative was
presented to support himself or go back to Milly.
When in college he had written verses which his friends there greatly
admired. He continued to do so at different times, and had brought a
collection of them to Paris. He now offered them to publishers but
without success. He was obliged to submit. He made a farewell excursion
with Julie to St. Cloud, and left Paris the next morning.
That summer was for him more terrible than ever. He saw no hope of
emerging from poverty and obscurity. Crops failed that year and the
resources of the family were straitened to actual penury. His health
suffered and serious results were apprehended. He was again ordered to
go to Aix. His mother procured the money for him by surreptitiously
selling trees that were growing on their little farm.
A note from Julie informed him that her husband was ill, but told him to
go to Aix and wait for her. When he arrived there, there came a package
forwarded from Chambery enclosing letters from Paris. One of these was
from Julie[1] containing a lock of hair and bidding him farewell. It had
been herself and not her husband, that was ill and dying. She had given
up her former disbelief. "God will send you another sister," she wrote,
"and she will be the pious helpmate of your life. I will ask it of him."
A letter from the husband asked Lamartine to continue to him as a son.
The shock almost bereft him of reason. He wandered for months over the
mountains of Savoy and Switzerland, as he describes, "like a darkened
soul that had lost the light of heaven and had no mind for that of
earth." His mother secretly procured money for him in the hope that
travel would alleviate his condition, the cause of which she did not
imagine. Autumn was passing, however, and she could no longer frame
excuses for his absence. He must return home.
As he was returning in the boat from Lyons, he contemplated the
prospects before him. He had chafed for an active life, and destiny was
compelling him to fold his wings in the nest from which he had been
eager to escape. Now, in his exhaustion, he was willing to give up,
hoping soon to die. "I was convinced," says he, "that in those months of
love, of delirium and of grief, my heart had exhausted all the delights
and bitternesses of a long life; that I had nothing more than for some
months more to bury the memory of Julie under the ashes of my heart; and
that the angel whose steps I had followed in thought into another life
would soon call me to shorten my absence and begin the eternal love. The
feeling that this was sure, now gave me comfort and enabled me to accept
with patience the interval which I believed would be a short one between
the parting and the reunion."
When the boat arrived at Mâcon, Lamartine saw nobody at the landing to
welcome him. But as he picked up his valise he found himself suddenly
embraced and almost smothered by the caresses of a dog. It was Azor, the
same that had so abruptly broken up his Ossianic interview, seven years
before, with Lucy, on the terrace. It was necessary to give him a strap
of the valise to hold to keep him from getting under the feet of other
travellers.
The Chevalier, his father, however, was only a little way off. He was
watching with an opera-glass to see whether the dog had found his son.
He now conducted him home by the most frequented streets, as if to show
him to those whom he met. The dog had already gone to announce him, and
Lamartine found his mother and sisters at the door.
The house had been recently purchased for a winter residence. The mother
had besought this outlay for the sake of her five daughters, to be able
to provide them with tutors and governesses and to introduce them
advantageously into society. The Chevalier lost no time in showing his
son the various rooms and conveniences and bringing him to the apartment
for himself.
Lamartine had retired for the evening when his mother came into the
room. She had noted his profound depression and now silently caressed
him.
"Who would have told me," said she, "that in twenty-two years I would
see my child blighted in the vigor of his soul and heart, and his
countenance enshrouded in a secret grief?"
Then, forbearing to enquire further, she explained the embarrassed
condition of the family. Their property, always small, had been greatly
reduced by the expenses of his education, travels, and wayward
adventures. "I do not mention this to reproach you," said she; "you know
that if my tears could have been changed into gold for you, I would have
put it into your hands."
The purchase of the house, the saving of money to furnish dowries for
his sisters, and bad harvests had narrowed their circumstances. His
father had worried at the thought of leaving his children without a
patrimony; and though he had taken great delight in them in their tender
years, he reproached himself now for their existence.
What she could do to help, she had done. In their various exigencies she
had been generously helped by Madame Paradis, their neighbor. This lady
had done this from affection, only stipulating that their father should
not know. She had furnished the money for Lamartine's expenses.
"I had hoped," she continued, "that your father's family would perceive
the craving for activity which is wasting your youth, and be prompted to
the outlay necessary to enable you to enter and go through with the
preparatory course for an administrative or diplomatic career. I have
reasoned with them, prayed, conjured, wept, humbled myself before them
as it is glorious and agreeable for a mother to humiliate herself for
her son. It is in vain."
As he was to be the heir to their estates, they saw no necessity for him
to desire or be ambitious for an active career beyond their sphere of
life. Hence her pleading had only brought harsh words and unkind feeling
toward herself without doing him any service.
If Providence had granted her wish she would have made use of every
opportunity to open for him a larger horizon, and a career worthy of
him. But he must wait. She also asked him to make her his only
confidant. A complaint to his father would drive him to despair, because
he could not help. "Accept this obscure and unoccupied life for a few
years," she pleaded. "I will pray God to move the hearts of your uncles
and aunts, and to open for my son that field of activity, extent, glory
and happy fortune, which he has permitted a mother to desire for such a
son as you."
To such an appeal Lamartine could only acquiesce. The life upon which he
thus entered has had many counterparts. The older uncle gave law to the
whole family as its recognized head. He and his nephew had many angry
encounters. The mother would endeavor anxiously to reconcile them. The
Chevalier, bearing in mind the interest of all his children, remained
neutral.
The uncle, regarding Alphonse as his prospective successor, desired him
to remain quietly at home, cultivate science, apply himself to
agriculture and domestic economy, and in time become the head of a
family in the province. Lamartine acknowledged that such a career would
have been the most natural and happy. "But," he adds, "everyone when
coming into the world has his allotment marked out in his nature. This
career was not for me, and my uncle had not been able to read the fact
in my eyes."
His life at Mâcon that winter was as monotonous as that of monks in a
cloister. He spent the forenoons in his room with his books and dog.
Dinner was at noon; and after that all assembled at the mansion of the
uncle. This was a season to be dreaded. His mother was then subjected to
reproaches and remonstrances from every one for every trifling fault of
her children. The aunts seemed to regard them as their own, and actually
loved their brother's wife; but they desired to exercise the rights of
motherhood without the burdens. Sometimes she would repel their attacks,
but oftener she only wept. Then would follow explanations, excuses and
caresses; and so it would go, only to be resumed the next day.
She was a woman superior to them all, high-spirited and dignified; but
the future interest of her children depended on their good-will, and for
this reason she was submissive. "We called this the Hour of Martyrdom,"
says Lamartine, "and we sought to make it up to her by redoubling our
tenderness after we came out."
In the afternoon, she helped the tutors with her daughters, or herself
received visitors. Her house and discourse were to her neighbors an
attraction far exceeding that of the majestic austerity at the great
house, the Hotel de Lamartine. The Chevalier would go out to visit some
former comrade, or one of the older inhabitants, when they would amuse
themselves with playing at checkers, backgammon or "Boston."
Lamartine himself would repair to his room, or walk out with his dog in
the paths that intersected the fields behind the Alms House. There were
grand views in the distance, but he only gazed on the Alps as the
prisoner looks on the wall beyond which he has tasted of sunshine, love
and freedom.
He also visited a comrade of his father's at the place. The man was
unable to use his limbs, and kept himself cheerful by working as a
jeweler and repairer of watches. Lamartine helped him and became daily a
welcome visitor.
The leading families of Mâcon cultivated social relations, and there was
a drawing-room party somewhere every night. Lamartine accompanied his
mother and sisters, but made his escape before diversions began.
At his uncle's, however, it was different. The visitors included the
most eminent men of the district, diplomats, scholars and others of
distinction. Ten of these, with his uncle, organized the Academy of
Mâcon. It held meetings in the library which were usually attended by
thirty or forty members. Papers were presented on subjects of
importance, social, industrial or scientific.
Lamartine was admitted to membership despite his youth at the
proposition of his uncle. He delivered his first discourse upon the
_Advantages Derived from Interchange of Ideas between Peoples by Means
of Literature_. Years after he burned this paper in disgust at its
commonplace character.
One of the most interesting members of this Academy, M. de Larnaud, he
describes as "a Universal Dictionary in a human form, all the ashes of
the Alexandrian Library contained in the skull of a living man." M. de
Larnaud, he declares, "knew everything and impassioned everything." He
had engaged in the Revolution in 1789 with the ardor of a delirium, but
after the massacre of the Tenth of August, he turned his sympathies to
the victims. He was intimate with the Girondins,—above all with Madame
Roland and Vergniaud—and he accepted heartily their doctrine of a free
Republic which should be wise and pure. He did not mourn their fate on
the scaffold which was their pedestal for history, but he mourned that
vote which they gave "for the death of the king to save the people."
Although a nation is often saved by a martyrdom, he knew that it is
never saved by a crime.
M. de Larnaud had no less enthusiasm for poetry and literature than for
politics. He was a comrade of Rouget de Lisle, the author of the
_Marsellaise Hymn_; he had taken part at sittings of the Academies; he
was a member of all the _Cercles_; he followed all the Courts, visited
all the _Salôns_, attended all the theatres, absorbing all that was
knowable, all that pertained to the two orders of things. He remembered
everything and would tell it with a manner and gesture that made the
hearer understand and behold it all. Everything—antiquity, past history
and present—was to be learned from him.
He was quick to perceive the bent of Lamartine. He visited the young man
in his chamber and discoursed familiarly with him, as though both were
of the same age and plane of intelligence. He did not venture, however,
to speak with like freedom in the drawing-room in presence of the uncle,
the pious aunts, and the various classes of visitors. But in young
Lamartine's chamber he would display his old-time enthusiasm for the
great men and great achievements at the beginning of the Revolution
before the period of the ascendancy of the populace, the Commune of
Paris, and the Terror. The philosopher was again manifest in him under
the simulacrum of the man of the world, and he denounced the Imperial
régime of Bonaparte with fierceness.
From him Lamartine derived the conception of the scenes, the men and
characters which he set forth so admirably in the _History of the
Girondists_. His friendship remained constant till his death.
One day as Lamartine was walking in the street his dog made the
acquaintance of another dog belonging to a physician of the place. The
owner was M. de Ronot, who had been a fellow-student at College. Warm
friendship now sprang up between them. Lamartine pays him this tribute:
"I was often absent from the land of my birth, especially after death
had blighted all the roots of my family; but I knew that there was one
who watched for my return, who followed with his eye my adverse
fortunes, who fought against the envies, hatreds and calumnies that
grovelled on the soil of our homestead—alas, about our gravestones, and
who received with delight everything in my life that was good fortune,
and with grief everything that was sad."
He died many years afterward with the name of Lamartine on his lips. It
was at the period when Lamartine was in deepest adversity, and abandoned
by the many who in brighter times had ardently professed their
friendship.
When the time came in spring for the family to go back to Milly, the
whole family welcomed this modest abode as an asylum. The mother resumed
the instructing of her daughters, and her visits to the sick and poor.
Lamartine often went with her. He always found living in a city to be
intolerable, but he brought his melancholy with him. He renewed his
intimacy with the Abbé Dumont at the garden of the parsonage, and
gradually recovered health and spirits.
Translations of Byron's poems appeared that season in French journals.
Lamartine was prompted to endeavors of similar character. That autumn he
wrote several of his _Meditations_, and read portions of them to his
father. The old Chevalier, who knew nothing of the new school of poetry,
was deeply affected, but feared to utter praise, lest it should be from
parental partiality.
The second winter at the new house in Mâcon was passed like the first.
Lamartine had no liking for the social entertainments. When Lent came,
he left home and spent the spring and summer with his other uncle, the
Abbé Lamartine, at D'Urcy in Upper Burgundy.
This uncle had been compelled, by the accident of having been a second
son, to take priest's orders. Thus interdicted from having a family of
his own he bestowed his affection richly upon his younger brother and
children. He considered them as his own, and Lamartine was recognized as
his heir. They spent the summer and autumn in their younger years, at
his patriarchal mansion, and he took an actual part in their education.
It was here that Lamartine acquired his passion for life in the country.
The abbé had spent his noviciate at Paris, and mingled in society in the
time of Louis XV. He was a man of the world rather than of the Church.
Relinquishing the priestly functions at the Revolution, he now lived by
himself on his share of the paternal estate, a Homeric life,
hermit-like, as a philosopher and cultivator of the soil.
His housekeeper, herself formerly a nun, persuaded him to purchase dogs
and a horse for his nephew. Lamartine had always been beloved by all the
domestics, and his uncle, who was the most affectionate of men, treated
him as a personal friend rather than as a kinsman.
One afternoon in the latter part of July, he was riding back from a
jaunt in the neighboring forest when a letter-carrier delivered him a
note from two Roman ladies at an inn at Pont-de-Pany. His uncle, in whom
humor was a prominent quality, demanded at once to know the mystery.
"There must be no mystery with me," said he. "The heroes of a romance
always need a confidant, and I have known both parts in my time."
He continued his badinage, promising to be discreet as well as faithful;
but Lamartine, unable to endure it, protested that he could not form any
new attachment.
"That linden-tree is older than you," the uncle replied. "I have cut it
five times in twenty years, and it has more sap and branches now than
when I came here."
"Burn it at the root," Lamartine retorted in desperation, "and then see
whether it will spring up again."