CHAPTER XVIII.
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.