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Madame de Stael - Germany
Is Nature to be felt without enthusiasm?
Can common men address to her the tale of
their mean interests and low desires? What
have the sea and the stars to answer to the
little vanities with which each individual is
content to fill up each day? But if the soul
be really moved within us, if in the universe
it seeks a God, even if it be still sensible to
glory and to love, the clouds of heaven will
hold converse with it, the torrents will listen
to its voice, and the breeze that passes
through the grove seems to deign to whisper
to us something of those we love.
xThere are some who, although devoid of
enthusiasm, etill believe that they have a
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? 412 RELIGION AND ENTHUSIASM.
taste and relish for the fine arts; and indeed
they do love the refinement of luxury, and
they wish to acquire a knowledge of music
and of painting, that they may be able to
converse upon them with ease and with taste,
and even with that confidence which be-
comes the man of the world, when the sub-
ject turns upon imagination, or upon Na-
ture; but what are these barren pleasures,
when compared with true enthusiasm ? --
What an emotion runs through the brain when
we contemplate in the Niobe that settled
look of calm and terrible despair which seems
to reproach the gods with their jealousy of
her maternal happiness? What consolation
does the sight of beauty breathe upon us!
Beauty also is from the soul, and pure and
noble is the admiration it inspires. To feel
the grandeur of the Apollo demands in the
spectator a pride which tramples under foot
all the serpents of the earth. None but a
Christian can penetrate the countenance of
the Virgins of Raphael, and the St. Jerome
of Domenichino. None but a Christian can
recognise the same expression in fascinating
beauty, and in the depressed and grief-worn
visage; in the brilliancy of youth, and in
features changed by age and disfigured
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? INFLUENCE OF ENTHUSIASM. 413
by suffering! --the same expression which
springs from the soul, and which, like a ray
of celestial light, shoots across the early
morning of life, or the closing darkness of
age!
VCan it be said that there is such an art as
that of music for those who cannot feel en-
thusiasm? Habit may render harmonious
sounds, as it were, a necessary gratification
to them, and they enjoy them as they do the
flavour of fruits, or the ornament of colours;
but has their whole being vibrated and
trembled responsively, like a lyre, if at any
time the midnight silence has been suddenly
broken by the song, or by any of those in-
struments which resemble the human voice?
Have they in that moment felt the mystery
of their existence in that softening emotion
which reunites our separate natures, and
blends in the same enjoyment the senses of
the soul? Have the beatings of the heart
followed the cadence of the music? Have
they learned, under the influence of these
emotions so full of charms, to shed
those tears which have nothing of self
in them; those tears which do not ask for
the compassion of others, but which relieve
ourselves from the inquietude which arises
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? 414 RELIGION AND ENTHUSIASM.
from the need of something to admire and
to love ? ^
The taste for public spectacles is universal,
for the greater part of mankind have more
imagination than they themselves think; and
that which they consider as the allurement
of pleasure, as a remnant of the weakness
of childhood which still hangs about them,
is often the better part of their nature:
while they are beholding the scenes of fic-
tions, they are true, natural, and feeling;
whereas in the world dissimulation, calcu-
lation, and vanity, are the absolute masters
of their words, sentiments, and actions. But
do they think that they have felt all that a
really fine tragedy can inspire, who find in
the representation of the strongest affections
nothing but a diversion and amusement?
Do they doubt and disbelieve that rapturous
agitation, which the passions, purified by
poetry, excite within us? Ah! how many
and how great are the pleasures which spring
from fictions! The interest they raise is
without either apprehension or remorse; and
the sensibility which they call forth has
none of that painful harshness from which
real passions are hardly ever exempt.
What enchantment does not the language
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? INFLUENCE OF ENTHUSIASM. 415
of love borrow from poetry and the 6ne arts!
How beautiful is it to love at once with the
heart and with the mind! thus to vary in a
thousand fashions a sentiment which one
word is indeed sufficient to express, but for
which all the words of the world are but
poverty and weakness! to submit entirely to
the influence of those master-pieces of the
imagination, which all depend upon love,
and to discover in the wonders of nature and
genius new expressions to declare the feel-
ings of our own heart!
What have they known of love, who have
not reverenced and admired the woman
whom they loved, in whom the sentiment
is not a hymn breathed from the heart, and
who do not perceive in grace and beauty the
heavenly image of the most touching passions?
"What has she felt of love, who has not seen
in the object of her choice an exalted protec-
tor, a powerful and a gentle guide, whose
look at once commands and supplicates, and
who receives upon his knees the right of
disposing of her fate? How inexpressible
is the delight which serious reflections, united
and blended with warm and lively impres-
sions, produce! The tenderness of a friend,
in whose hands our happiness is deposited,
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? 416 RELIGTON AND ENTHUSIASM.
ought, at the gates of the tomb, in the same"
manner as in the beautiful days of our youth,
to form our chief blessing; and every thing
most serious and solemn in our existence
transforms itself into emotions of delight;
when, as in the fable of the ancients, it is the
office of love to light and to extinguish the
torch of life.
'If enthusiasm fills the soul with happiness,
by a strange and wondrous charm, it forms
also its chief support under misfortune; it
leaves behind it a deep trace and a path of
light, which do not allow absence itself to
efface us from the hearts of our friends. It
affords also to ourselves an asylum from the
utmost bitterness of sorrow, and is the only
feeling which can give tranquillity without
indifference.
Even the most simple passions, which
every heart believes itself capable of feeling,
even filial and maternal love, cannot be felt
in their full strength, unless enthusiasm be
blended with them. How can we love a
son without indulging the flattering hope
that he will be generous and gallant, without
wishing him that renown which may, as it
were, multiply his existence, and make us
hear from every side the name which our
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? INFLUENCE OF ENTHUSIASM. 41?
own heart is continually repeating? Why
should we not enjoy with rapture the talents
of a son, the beauty of a daughter? Can
there be a more strange ingratitude towards
the Deity, than indifference for his gifts?
Are they not from Heaven, since they render
it a more easy task for us to please him
whom we love?
Meanwhile, should some misfortune de-
prive our child of these advantages, the same
sentiment would then assume another form:
it would increase and exalt within us the
feeling of compassion, of sympathy, the hap-
piness of being necessary to him. Under all
circumstances, enthusiasm either animates or ?
consoles; and even in the moment when the'
blow, the most cruel that can be struck, .
reaches us, when we lose him to whom we ,
owe our own being, him whom we loved as a
tutelary angel, and who inspired us at once
with a fearless respect and a boundless con-
fidence, still enthusiasm comes to our assist-.
ance and support. It brings together within
us some sparks of that soul which has passed
away to heaven; we still live before him, and
we promise ourselves that we will one day
transmit to posterity the history of his life.
Never, we feel assured, never will his paternal
VOL, III. E E
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? 418 RELIGION AND BNTHUSIASM.
hand abandon us entirely in this world; and
his image, affectionate and tender, still in-
clines towards us, to support us, until we
are called unto him.
And in the end, when the hour of trial
comes, when it is for us in our turn to meet
the struggle of death, the increasing weak-
ness of our faculties ; the loss and ruin of our
hopes; this life, before so strong, which
now begins to give way within us; the
crowd of feelings and ideas which lived with-
in our bosom, and which the shades of the
tomb already surround and envelope; our
interests, our passions, this existence itself,
which lessens to a shadow, before it vanishes
away, all deeply distress us; and the com-
mon man appears, when he expires, to have
less of death to undergo. Blessed be God,
however, for the assistance which he has
prepared for us even in that moment; our
utterance shall be imperfect, our eyes shall
do longer distinguish the light, our reflections,
before clear and connected, shall wander
vague and confused; but Enthusiasm will not
abandon us, her brilliant wings shall wave
over the funeral couch; she will lift the veil
of death; she will recall to our recollection
those moments, when, in the fulness of
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? INFLUENCE OF ENTHUSIASM. 419
energy, we felt that the heart was imperish-
able; and our last sigh shall be a high and
generous thought, reascending to that heaven
from which it had its birth.
Y " O France! land of glory and of love!
"if the day should ever come when enthu-
"siasm. shall be extinct upon your soil, when
"all shall be governed and disposed upon
"calculation, and even the contempt of
"danger shall be founded only upon the
"conclusions of reason, in that day what
"will avail you the loveliness of your climate,
"the splendour of your intellect, the general
"fertility of your nature? Their intelligent
"activity, and an impetuosity directed by
"prudence and knowledge, may indeed give
"your children the empire of the world;
"but the only traces you will leave on the
"face of that world will be like those of the
"sandy whirlpool, terrible as the waves,
"and sterile as the desert *! "
? This last sentence is that which excited in the French
police the greatest indignation against my book. It seems to
me, that Frenchmen at least cannot be displeased with it.
F. ND OF THE THIED AND LAST VOLUME.
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? Printed by W. Clowes,
Northumberland. court, Strand, London.
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