EDITORS' TABLE.
The high-toned chivalry of American men towards the female sex is remarkable, and therefore we were astonished, as well as pained, when a friend brought to our notice the following remarks, inserted in a literary work[E] of much merit, where we should not have looked for such a violation of truth and manly sentiment as is manifested in this outrageous attack on the character of Madame de Staël. We quote the article:—
"George Sand has written her 'Confessions' in the style of Rousseau, and a Paris bookseller has contracted to give her a fortune for them. The three greatest—intellectually greatest—women of modern times have lived in France, and it is remarkable that they have been three of the most shamelessly profligate in all history. The worst of these, probably, Madame de Staël, left us no record of her long-continued, disgusting, and almost incredible licentiousness, so remarkable, that Chateaubriand deemed her the most abandoned person in France, at a period when modesty was publicly derided in the Assembly as a mere 'system of refined voluptuousness.' Few who have lately resided in Paris are ignorant of the gross sensualism of the astonishing Rachel, whose genius, though displayed in no permanent forms, is not less than that of the Shakspeare of her sex, the forever-to-be-famous Madame Dudevant, whose immoralities of conduct have perhaps been overdrawn, while those of De Staël and Rachel have rarely been spoken of save where they challenged direct observation. We perceive that Rachel is to be in New York next autumn with a company of French actors."
"'Tis a pity when charming women talk of things that they don't understand," is as true as if it had been promulgated by a man, and the author of the above extraordinary statements will perhaps allow that, in a few cases, the same may be predicated of the other sex. Some aspirants for literary fame, before attaining much knowledge of life or of books, are fond of attempting to startle by deviating from received opinions; they advance monstrous paradoxes in morals, and strive to produce a sensation by differing from the good and the wise. They have heard the vulgar adage that genius and common sense seldom go together, and they begin by rejecting common sense as a part of genius. Common sense would suggest the advantage of knowing something of the history of an illustrious person before describing his or her character; and, as we feel assured no man who has an American heart would wish to advance or maintain falsehoods against a woman, and one over whom the tomb has closed, we take pleasure in giving the writer in the "International" some information about Madame de Staël.
In the first place, he has been grossly imposed upon concerning Chateaubriand. We have lately read the "Mémoires d'outre Tombe," a work we recommend to the author of the article, in which he will find much information, and, what perhaps he values more, amusement; and, what is to our present purpose, he will find that Chateaubriand entertained the most sincere friendship and the highest respect for this lady, whom he constantly calls "the illustrious," "the admirable." Madame de Staël was the intimate friend of his sister, the charming Lucille; and also she was, as almost every one knows, the friend, mentor, and protector of Madame Récamier. Chateaubriand gives a very pathetic description of the last days of Madame de Staël, to whose dying chamber he was admitted; her name is constantly recurring through his journals, and never mentioned but in honorable terms. In one place he describes her thus:—
"The personal appearance of Madame de Staël has been much discussed; but a noble countenance, a pleasing smile, an habitual expression of goodness, the absence of all trifling affectation or stiff reserve, gracious manners, an inexhaustible variety of conversation, astonished, attracted, and conciliated almost all who approached her. I know no woman—I may say no man—who, with the perfect consciousness of immense superiority, can so entirely prevent this superiority from weighing on or offending the self-love of others."
Madame de Beaumont, a valued friend of the family of Chateaubriand, was taken by some of its members to Italy, where she died of consumption. Madame de Staël wrote to condole with Chateaubriand on this occasion; here are the reflections upon her letter made in his Journal: "This hasty letter, so affectionate and hurried, written by this illustrious woman, affected me extremely. If Heaven had permitted our friend to look back upon this earth, such a testimony of affection would surely have been grateful to her."
If Chateaubriand were "permitted to look back upon earth," what would he think of the vile aspersions upon the character of "this illustrious woman" attributed to him?
There have been many biographies written of Madame de Staël (none of which ever allude to what the writer in the "International" calls her "disgusting and almost incredible licentiousness"). We will advert here to two; one by Madame Necker de Saussure, well known in America for writings of a moral and religious nature; the other by the Duchess D'Abrantes, who thus begins her memoirs: "For a French woman to write the life of Madame de Staël is certainly a happy privilege, since France boasts the honor of her birth, though she is among those minds that belong to the entire world, and her whole sex should call her sister with a noble pride, which they may cherish with perfect safety. Madame de Staël descends to posterity with merits so great and so various, that few besides herself you claim a part of her title. Her fame is spotless, a true child of genius, but free from its aberrations. The love of right, the abhorrence of falsehood, a rare combination of generous affections, constituted the womanly heart to which nature, in a happy mood, lavished all the virtues of one sex and all the powers of the other."
It is very well known that M. Rocca, the second husband of Madame de Staël, "a man of high honor and of great intelligence" (Chateaubriand really says so), was unable to survive her loss, and died shortly after her, it was admitted, through grief. The Duchess D'Abrantes says, upon this: "He was of an age when life still offered pleasure, the world glory; but, being hopeless of ever again finding so perfect a being to occupy his heart, he formed no other wish, after closing her eyes, than that of rejoining her. A woman thus loved must have been truly excellent." And, we will add, this love was entirely founded upon and maintained by her moral qualities, as she was then fifty years old and in failing health.
Madame Necker de Saussure observes, "Madame de Staël's goodness was thorough; her noble, generous heart rose to heroism when the interest of her friends, or even of her foes, demanded energy." This was proved by the numbers she saved and concealed during the terrors of the Revolution. In every part of Europe she was courted and esteemed by the best society, and, if time and our pages permitted, we could quote tributes to her merits from a long list of eminent men, whose superiority places them above the petty aim of depressing female genius by slandering the woman who has well won its laurels. To advert to a few of these memorials: Schlegel, who knew her intimately, said she was "Femme grande et magnanime jusque dans les replis de son âme," which is curiously echoed by the well-known verse, that might serve as a translation—
"Pure in the deep recesses of the soul."
At the time of Madame de Staël's death, Lord Byron commented at length on the event in one of his notes to "Childe Harold." After expatiating on her merits as an author, he goes on—
"But the individual will gradually disappear as the author is more distinctly seen: some one, therefore, of all those whom the charms of involuntary wit, and of easy hospitality, attracted within the friendly circles of Coppet, should rescue from oblivion those virtues which, although they are said to love the shade, are, in fact, more frequently chilled than excited by the domestic cares of private life. Some one should be found to portray the unaffected graces with which she adorned those dearer relationships, the performance of whose duties is rather discovered amongst the interior secrets, than seen in the outward management, of family intercourse; and which, indeed, it requires the delicacy of genuine affection to qualify for the eye of an indifferent spectator. Some one should be found, not to celebrate, but to describe, the amiable mistress of an open mansion, the centre of a society, ever varied, and always pleased, the creator of which, divested of the ambition and the arts of public rivalry, shone forth only to give fresh animation to those around her. The mother tenderly affectionate and tenderly beloved, the friend unboundedly generous, but still esteemed, the charitable patroness of all distress, cannot be forgotten by those whom she cherished, and protected, and fed. Her loss will be mourned the most where she was known the best; and, to the sorrows of very many friends and more dependents, may be offered the disinterested regret of a stranger, who, amidst the sublimer scenes of the Leman Lake, received his chief satisfaction from contemplating the engaging qualities of the incomparable Corinna."
In "Modern French Literature," M. de Véricour, the learned and excellent author, gives an exalted place to the works of Madame de Staël, and to the extraordinary and beneficial influence she had exercised by her literary supremacy in overpowering the baneful influence of what he calls "the mocking spirit" of French writings, which had injured morals as well as good taste. He does not, of course, allude to her private character, because no question of its purity had ever been raised. Who, in describing the excellence of Mrs. Hemans' writings, would think of adding that she was a virtuous woman? But, if Mary Wollstonecraft were named, who would not express their regret, at least, that she had sinned? Thus, M. Véricour does when describing the genius of George Sand. The absence of any shadow of reproach in connection with Madame de Staël is proof that no shadow of reproach existed.
To return to the writer in the "International" (we are loth to believe it was written by either of the editors); as he appears, by the place he gives to "George Sand" and "Rachel," to be profoundly ignorant on the subject of the "intellectually greatest women of modern times," we will intimate to him two or three about whom it might be well for him to gain some information, were it only to avoid blunders. We will not be so exacting as to perplex him with Mrs. Somerville, for we are aware it is not every one who can invent a slander whose mind could appreciate "The Connection of the Physical Sciences;" neither will we refer him to Mrs. Barrett Browning, whose "genius," as pronounced by grave and reverend critics, "is of the highest order, strong, deep-seeing, enthusiastic, and loving," because such divine poetry and deep science would be evidently out of his line; but Miss Edgeworth, the author of "Frank" and "Harry and Lucy;" surely he might understand her lessons, if he would read them: these lessons always inculcate truth, are sound, improving, and elevating, and the intellect must have been great that could see moral truths so clearly.
The author of the paragraph appears to consider stage-playing as wonderfully intellectual, and his pattern of this greatness in "modern times" is Rachel. Was there not a certain Mrs. Siddons, whose genius in the histrionic art was superior to that of any living actress, and whose character was unimpeachable? According to the best French critics, men of taste and literary fame, who do not write anonymously, but subscribe their articles with their names, Rachel is only good in one line, which is passion or violence. In tender heroines, they say, she fails, and they seem to consider her powers altogether limited; for these opinions we refer the writer in the "International" to the "Revue des Deux Mondes." Were Rachel the intellectual prodigy he pronounces her to be, still the poor despised child, who sang in the streets and was brought up without law or Gospel, must have fallen into vice rather from the sad want of training than from having a good understanding, as he, in Irish parlance, intimates.
A similar remark is also true of Madame Dudevant: her intellectual greatness did not plunge her into licentiousness; she fell before she ever wrote a book; and though we do not wish to screen her from the odium her reckless course has deserved, yet it should be recorded in pity that her fine powers of mind were misdirected by a false and frivolous education, that the examples and flatteries of the most fascinating but corrupt society on earth have led her on and sustained her; yet she, by the light which her own high intellectuality has developed, is changing her course, if the examples furnished by her writings are true. Her later works are greatly improved in their moral tone; yet there is no diminution, but an increase of mental power.
Among the very extensive catalogue of French women justly famed, the selection by the writer in the "International" proves that he takes his views from what he hears;—if he would but read more, and gossip less, he would be amazed as "knowledge unrolled its ample page before him." We will not trouble him with the Reformers of Port-Royal, who certainly did some things greater than acting plays, for, to appreciate these ladies, requires an acquaintance with the theological and political history of their era. We will pass over the exalted patriot and gifted woman, Madame Roland, whose intellectual greatness, unsurpassed by that of any man of her times, or by any woman now living in France, was based on moral virtue; but it seems a pity he should not know of Madame de Sevigné, because even schoolboys have really heard of her. The wit, learning, true sentiment, and graceful style of Madame de Sevigné have won the approval of critics and moralists; intellectually great, she was a model of domestic virtue. In one of her celebrated letters, she says we must distinguish between "un âne et un ignorant"—one is "ignorant" from want of instruction, âne from want of brains. Would it not be well for the writer in the "International" to heed this distinction? Æsop has a very pertinent fable on the living ass kicking the dead lion.
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To Correspondents.—The following articles are accepted: "My Flowers, my Gem, and my Star," "To Susan," "Halcyon Day," "My Book," "The Coronal," "Perseverance," "My Summer Window," "Reaping," "Sonnet," "The Country Grave-Yard," "To Oliver Perry Allen, U.S.N.," "To Nina," "To Helen at the South."
"A Tale of the Backwoods" would be accepted, were it not for the condition annexed. We should not be able to publish it at present. Will the author inform us if he is willing to wait? The like reason—want of room—compels us to decline a very large number of MSS. this month.
"F. H." is informed that we have returned her MSS. through "Adams' Express." We sincerely hope we may not be again troubled from that source. If any definite direction had been given, it would have been returned long since.
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Music Accepted: "The Gondola Waltz," by a lady of Georgia; "A Spring Song," by C. T. P., of Chambersburg. Although accepted, the above cannot appear for some months, as we have many previously accepted musical compositions on hand.