Landor is a happy example of the effect of retirement on a great mind. Free from the interruptions which, if they harass not, at least impede the continuous flow of thought in those who live much in society, his mind has developed itself boldly, and acquired a vigour at which, perhaps, it might never have arrived, had he been compelled to live in a crowded city, chafed by the contact with minds of an inferior calibre.
The Imaginary Conversations could never have been written amid the vexatious interruptions incidental to one mingling much in the scenes of busy life; for the voices of the sages of old with whom, beneath his own vines, Landor loves to commune, would have been inaudible in the turmoil of a populous town, and their secrets would not have been revealed to him. The friction of society may animate the man of talent into its exercise, but I am persuaded that solitude is essential to the perfect developement of genius.
A letter from Sir William Gell, and, like all his letters, very amusing. Yet how different from Landor's! Both written beneath the sunny sky of Italy, both scholars, and nearly of the same age, nevertheless, how widely different are their letters!
Gell's filled with lively and comic details of persons, seldom fail to make me laugh; Landor's, wholly devoted to literary subjects, set me thinking. Cell would die of ennui in the solitude Landor has selected; Landor would be chafed into irritation in the constant routine of visiting and dining-out in which Gell finds amusement. But here am I attempting to draw a parallel where none can be established, for Landor is a man of genius, Gell a man of talent.
Was at the Opera last night, and saw the Duc d'Orléans there with his family. They are a fine-looking flock, male and female, and looked as happy as they are said to be.
I know no position more enviable than that of the Duc d'Orléans. Blessed with health, a princely revenue, an admirable wife, fine children, and many friends, he can have nothing to desire but a continuance of these blessings. Having experienced adversity, and nobly endured the ordeal, he must feel with an increased zest the happiness now accorded to him,—a happiness that seems so full and complete, that I can fancy no addition possible to it.
His vast wealth may enable him to exercise a generosity that even sovereigns can rarely practise; his exalted rank, while it places him near a throne, precludes him from the eating cares that never fail to attend even the most solidly established one, and leaves him free to enjoy the happiness of domestic life in a family circle said to contain every ingredient for creating it.
The fondest husband, father, and brother, he is fortunate beyond most men in his domestic relations, and furnishes to France a bright example of irreproachable conduct and well-merited felicity in them all. In the possession of so many blessings, I should, were I in his position (and he probably does, or he is not the sensible man I take him to be), tremble at the possibility of any event that could call him from the calm enjoyment of them to the giddy height and uneasy seat of a throne.
The present king is in the vale of years, the Dauphin not young, and the Duc de Bordeaux is but a child. Should any thing occur to this child, then would the Duc d'Orléans stand in direct line after the Dauphin. I thought of this contingency last night as I looked on the happy family, and felt assured that were the Duc d'Orléans called to reign in France, these same faces would look less cloudless than they did then, for I am one of those who believe that "uneasy lies the head that wears a crown."
With a good sense that characterises the Duc d'Orléans, he has sent his sons to public schools—a measure well calculated not only to give them a just knowledge of the world, so often denied to princes, but to render them popular. The Duc de Chartres is an exceedingly handsome young man, and his brothers are fine youths. The Princesses are brought up immediately under the eye of their mother, who is allowed by every one to be a faultless model for her sex.