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]