Madame de Staël may be safely pronounced the greatest writer who has yet appeared among women. At an early age, she applied herself to literary composition, and produced several plays and tales. To the elements of genius, intellect, intelligence, and imagination, God added the vehemence of passion, and she became the highest representative of female authorship. We humbly submit that it is impossible to read her incomparable works without feeling the soul elate, and seeing a glory not of earth shed over this mortal scene. A philosophy profounder than the philosophy of the schools is the imperishable legacy she has left to posterity. She wrote neither to please nor to surprise, but to profit others; and whatever may be the faults or defects of her writings, they have this greatest of all merit,—intense, life-pervading, and life-breathing truth.
In 1788, on the eve of the Revolution, she issued her first work of note, the eloquent and enthusiastic “Lettres sur les Ecrits et le Caractère de J. J. Rousseau.” These letters are, however, rather a girlish eulogy than a just and discriminating criticism. The news of the king’s execution on the 21st of January, 1793, inexpressibly shocked her; and in the month of August she sought to save the life of the queen, by publishing “Réflexions sur le Procès de la Reine, par une Femme.” In this appeal, which deserves to rank among the classics of the human race, her first word is to her own sex. She then refers to her illustrious client’s devotion to her husband and children; labours to show that the death of the queen would be prejudicial to the republic; then draws a picture of what she must have suffered during her imprisonment, and argues that, if guilty, she has been sufficiently punished. Her pleadings for the fallen queen were too late to be effective. In 1794, she issued a pamphlet, entitled “Réflexions sur la Paix, adressées à M. Pitt et aux Français.” The stand-point of this spirited brochure is that of a friend of Lafayette, the Constitutionalists of France, and a British Foxite. The next pamphlet she published, was in 1795: “Réflexions sur la Paix Intérieure.” It is a valuable contribution to the political history of the times; but as it was never sold to the public, we shall not dwell upon it. This year also, she published at Lausanne, under the title “Recueil de Morceaux Détachés,” a collection of her juvenile writings. This work manifests an intimate knowledge of the principal romances, not only of France, but of Europe. In the summer of 1796, her work—“De l’Influence des Passions sur le Bonheur des Individus et des Nations,” a work full of originality and genius. She treated first of the passions; then of the sentiments which are intermediate between the passions and the resources which we find in ourselves; and finally, of the resources which we find in ourselves. Here she first revealed her almost unequalled power as a delineator of the human passions. In 1800, she published, “De la Littérature Considérée dans ses Rapports avec les Institutions sociales.” This work must take an abiding place in the history of the female mind. Few, if any, of her contemporaries of the male sex could have executed it; and none of her own sex could have planned it. “Delphine” was published in 1802. This romance greatly increased her reputation; although subjected to much adverse criticism. But far superior to it in every respect was “Corinne,” which appeared in 1807, and which breathes in every page the glowing and brilliant Italy which it partly paints. Its success was instant and immense, and won for her a really European reputation. “De l’Allemagne,” was printed at Paris in 1810, but not published. The whole edition was seized by the police; the plea afterwards given for its suppression being that it was an anti-national work. Several years afterwards, it was published in London. This celebrated work consists of four parts: Germany, and the German manners; literature and the arts; philosophy and morals; religion and enthusiasm. Sir James Mackintosh considered it the most elaborate and masculine production of the faculties of woman. It exhibits throughout an almost unparalleled union of graceful vivacity and philosophical ingenuity, and, according to Goethe, broke down the Chinese wall of prejudice which separated the rest of Europe from the fruitful and flowery empire of German thought and imagination. Her unfinished and posthumous book—“Dix Années d’Exil,” was an impassioned denunciation of Napoleon and his arbitrary rule. The whole was evidently written under a galling sense of oppression and wrong. The famous work, “Considérations sur la Revolution Française,” was also posthumous.
From this necessarily imperfect analysis of Madame de Staël’s writings, it will be seen that she was endowed in the very “prodigality of heaven” with genius of a creative order, with boundless fertility of fancy, with an intellect of intense electric light, with a tendency to search out the very quintessence of feeling, and with an eloquence of the most impassioned kind. “She could mount up with wings as an eagle, she could run and not be weary, she could walk and not be faint.”
CHARACTER OF MADAME DE STAËL.
We enjoy the immense advantage of studying Madame de Staël from a distance that is neither too great nor too little; but she presents so many sides, that it would be presumption on our part to expect to render anything like a full and true portrait. She had a good physical constitution, which is of far more importance than many clever people seem to imagine. Her personal appearance was plain; she had no good feature but her eyes. Yet by her astonishing powers of speech she made herself even more than agreeable. Years increased her charms. Her beauty—if we may so call it—was of the kind which improves with time.
Madame de Staël had a vast intellect and a burning nature—the sensibility of a woman and the strength of a giant. She has been said to resemble Mrs. Thrale in the ardour and warmth of her partialities. M. L. Chénier, Benjamin Constant, M. de Bonald, M. Villemain, M. Sainte-Beuve, have each in his turn testified admiration of her brilliant capacity, almost always oratorical, and especially distinguished by an unrivalled superabundance and movement and ardour of thought. Napoleon Bonaparte feared her more than any of his talking and writing opponents. “Why do you take any notice of her? surely you need not mind a woman!” “That woman has shafts which would reach a man if he were mounted on a rainbow!”
There is little to be said against her. There is no doubt of her vanity—but she had something to be vain of. The concealment of her second marriage was foolish; but she confessed it upon her deathbed to her children, and recommended to their protection the young child that had been its fruit. Yet blame her for these faults as we may, we must still admire her, as an affectionate daughter, a devoted wife, and a loving mother; as a leader of society, and yet free from its vices. She was noted for candour, integrity, and kindness. French by birth, Swiss by lineage, Swedish by marriage, English, German, Italian, and Spanish by the adoptive power of sympathy and knowledge, she belonged rather to Europe than to France, and after French writers have done their best, there will still remain points of view which only a non-Frenchman can seize and occupy.
SECTION IV.—CAROLINA, BARONESS NAIRNE.
“For winning simplicity, graceful expression, and exquisite pathos, her compositions are specially remarkable; but when her muse prompts to humour, the laugh is sprightly and overpowering.”
Charles Rogers, LL.D.