BOOK III (continued 2)

CLX

In a man who, to be released from life, has taken poison, the moral part of his being is dead. Dazed by what he has done and by what he is about to experience, he no longer attends to anything. There are some rare exceptions.

CLXI

An old sea captain, to whom I respectfully offered my manuscript, thought it the silliest thing in the world to honour with six hundred pages so trivial a thing as love. But, however trivial, love is still the only weapon which can strike strong souls, and strike home.

What was it prevented M. de M——, in 1814, from despatching Napoleon in the forest of Fontainebleau? The contemptuous glance of a pretty woman coming into the Bains-Chinois.[1] What a difference in the destiny of the world if Napoleon and his son had been killed in 1814!

CLXII

I quote the following lines from a French letter received from Znaim, remarking at the same time that there is not a man in the provinces capable of understanding my brilliant lady correspondent:—

"... Chance means a lot in love. When for a whole year I have read no English, I find the first novel I pick up delicious. One who is used to the love of a prosaic being—slow, shy of all that is refined, and passionately responsive to none but material interests, the love of shekels, the glory of a fine stable and bodily desires, etc.—can easily feel disgust at the behaviour of impetuous genius, ardent and uncurbed in fancy, mindful of love, forgetful of all the rest, always active and always headlong, just where the other let himself be led and never acted for himself. The shock, which genius causes, may offend what, last year at Zithau, we used to call feminine pride, l'orgueil féminin—(is that French?) With the man of genius comes the startling feeling which with his predecessor was unknown—and, remember, this predecessor came to an untimely end in the wars and remains a synonym for perfection. This feeling may easily be mistaken for repulsion by a soul, lofty but without that assurance which is the fruit of a goodly number of intrigues."

CLXIII

"Geoffry Rudel, of Blaye, was a very great lord, prince of Blaye, and he fell in love, without knowing her, with the Princess of Tripoli, for the great goodness and great graciousness, which he heard tell of her from the pilgrims, who came from Antioch. And he made for her many fair songs, with good melodies and suppliant words, and, for the desire he had to see her, he took the cross and set out upon the sea to go to her. And it happened that in the ship a grievous malady took him, in such wise that those that were with him believed him to be dead, but they contrived to bring him to Tripoli into a hostelry, like one dead. They sent word to the countess and she came to his bed and took him in her arms. Then he knew that she was the countess and he recovered his sight and his hearing and he praised God, giving Him thanks that He had sustained his life until he had seen her. And thus he died in the arms of the countess, and she gave him noble burial in the house of the Temple at Tripoli. And then the same day she took the veil for the sorrow she had for him and for his death."[1]

CLXIV

Here is a singular proof of the madness called crystallisation, to be found in Mistress Hutchinson's Memoirs:

"He told to M. Hutchinson a very true story of a gentleman who not long before had come for some time to lodge in Richmond, and found all the people he came in company with bewailing the death of a gentlewoman that had lived there. Hearing her so much deplored, he made enquiry after her, and grew so in love with the description, that no other discourse could at first please him nor could he at last endure any other; he grew desperately melancholy and would go to a mount where the print of her foot was cut and lie there pining and kissing it all the day long, till at length death in some months' space concluded his languishment. This story was very true." (Vol. I, p. 83.)

CLXV

Lisio Visconti was anything but a great reader. Not to mention what he may have seen while knocking about the world, his essay is based on the Memoirs of some fifteen or twenty persons of note. In case it happens that the reader thinks such trifling points worthy of a moment's attention, I give the books from which Lisio drew his reflexions and conclusions:—

The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini.

The novels of Cervantes and Scarron.

Manon Lescaut and Le Doyen de Killerine, by the Abbé Prévôt.

The Latin Letters of Héloïse to Abelard.

Tom Jones.

Letters of a Portuguese Nun.

Two or three stories by Auguste La Fontaine.

Pignotti's History of Tuscany.

Werther.

Brantôme.

Memoirs of Carlo Gozzi (Venice, 1760)—only the eighty pages on the history of his love affairs.

The Memoirs of Lauzun, Saint-Simon, d'Épinay, de Staël, Marmontel, Bezenval, Roland, Duclos, Horace Walpole, Evelyn, Hutchinson.

Letters of Mademoiselle Lespinasse.

CLXVI

One of the most important persons of our age, one of the most prominent men in the Church and in the State, related to us this evening (January, 1822), at Madame de M——'s, the very real dangers he had gone through under the Terror.

"I had the misfortune to be one of the most prominent members of the Constituent Assembly. I stayed in Paris, trying to hide myself as best I could, so long as there was any hope of success there for the good cause. At last, as the danger grew greater and greater, while the foreigner made no energetic move in our favour, I decided to leave—only I had to leave without a passport. Everyone was going off to Coblentz, so I determined to make for Calais. But my portrait had been so widely circulated eighteen months before, that I was recognised at the last post. However, I was allowed to pass and arrived at an inn at Calais, where, you can imagine, I did not sleep a wink—and very lucky it was, since at four o'clock in the morning I heard someone pronounce my name quite distinctly. While I got up and was dressing in all haste I could clearly distinguish, in spite of the darkness, the National Guards with their rifles; the people had opened the main door for them and they were entering the courtyard of the inn. Fortunately it was raining in torrents—a winter morning, very dark and with a high wind. The darkness and the noise of the wind enabled me to escape by the back courtyard and stables. There I stood in the street at seven o'clock in the morning, utterly resourceless! i I imagined they were following me from my inn. Hardly knowing what I was doing, I went down to the port, on to the jetty. I own I had rather lost my head—everywhere the vision of the guillotine floated before my eyes.

A packet-boat was leaving the port in a very rough sea—it was already a hundred yards from the jetty. Suddenly I heard a shout from out at sea, as if I were being called. I saw a small boat approaching. "Hi! sir, come on! We're waiting for you!" Mechanically I got into the boat. A man was in it. "I saw you walking on the jetty with a scared look," he whispered, "I thought you might be some poor fugitive. I've told them you are a friend I was expecting; pretend to be sea-sick and go and hide below in a dark corner of the cabin."

"Oh, what a fine touch!" cried our hostess. She was almost speechless and had been moved to tears by the Abbé's long and excellently told story of his perils. "How you must have thanked your unknown benefactor! What was his name?"

"I do not know his name," the Abbé answered, a little confused.

And there was a moment of profound silence in the room.

CLXVII

The Father and the Son

(A dialogue of 1787)

The Father (Minister of ——): "I congratulate you, my son; it's a splendid thing for you to be invited to the Duke of ——; it's a distinction for a man of your age. Don't fail to be at the Palace punctually at six o'clock."

The Son: "I believe, sir, you are dining there also."

The Father: "The Duke of —— is always more than kind to our family, and, as he's asking you for the first time, he has been pleased to invite me as well."

The son, a young man of high birth and most distinguished intellect, does not fail to be at the Palace punctually at six o'clock. Dinner was at seven. The son found himself placed opposite his father. Each guest had a naked woman next to him. The dinner was served by a score of lackeys in full livery.[1]

CLXVIII

London, August, 1817.

Never in my life have I been so struck or intimidated by the presence of beauty as to-night, at a concert given by Madame Pasta.

She was surrounded, as she sang, by three rows of young women, so beautiful—of a beauty so pure and heavenly—that I felt myself lower my eyes, out of respect, instead of raising them to admire and enjoy. This has never happened to me in any other land, not even in my beloved Italy.

CLXIX

In France one-thing is absolutely impossible in the arts, and that is "go." A man really carried away would be too much laughed at—he would look too happy. See a Venetian recite Buratti's satires.