She
recalled
to his
mind (and his artistic talent needed it) the impressions and the
freshness of the past, all of which he had lost in his somewhat
artificial life.
mind (and his artistic talent needed it) the impressions and the
freshness of the past, all of which he had lost in his somewhat
artificial life.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v21 to v25 - Rab to Tur
In rhetorical schools he enfeebles, in picturesque and
naturalistic schools he forces, heightens to excess, exaggerates.
He is an enlarging mirror. When the master is negligent, and
the disciple careful and dressed in Sunday clothes, they resem-
ble one another. On days when Châteaubriand writes badly
and Marchangy does his best, they have a deceptive resemblance.
From a little further off, from behind, and by moonlight, you
might mistake them for one another.
If it is just to judge a talent by his friends and natural fol-
lowers, it is not less legitimate to judge him and counter-judge
him (for it is in fact a sort of counter-proof) by the enemies
whom he rouses and unwittingly attracts; by his contraries, his
antipathies; by those who instinctively cannot bear him. Nothing
serves better to mark the limits of a talent, to circumscribe its
sphere and domain, than to know the exact points where revolt
against it begins. In its detail this even becomes piquant to
watch. In literature people detest one another sometimes all
their lives, and yet have never met. So the antagonism between
mental genera grows clear. What would you have? It's in the
blood, in the temperament, in first prejudices which often do
not depend on ourselves. When it is not low envy, it is racial
hatred. How will you make Boileau enjoy Quinault, and Fon-
tenelle think highly of Boileau, and Joseph de Maistre or Monta-
lembert love Voltaire? But I have said enough to-day about the
natural method in literature.
ALFRED DE MUSSET
From 'Causeries du Lundi,' May 11th, 1857. (Abridged. )
I
T Is the duty of each generation, as it is of an army, to bury
its dead and to do them the last honors. It would not be
just that the charming poet who has just been taken away
should disappear without receiving-amid all that has been said
## p. 12667 (#81) ###########################################
CHARLES AUGUSTIN SAINTE-BEUVE
12667
and what will be said, true and heart-felt, of his talent -- some
special words of farewell from an old friend, from a witness of
his first steps. The melodious strain of Alfred de Musset was so
familiar to us, so dear from the very first; it had so penetrated
our hearts in its freshness and buoyant novelty; it was, though
more youthful, so part of our own generation,-a generation
then all poetry and all devoted to feeling and expression. It is
nineteen years ago; and I see him still making his entry in the
literary world,-first in the intimate circle of Victor Hugo, then
in that of Alfred de Vigny and the Deschamps brothers. What
a début! What easy graciousness! and at the very first verses
that he recited,- his 'Andalouse,' his 'Don Paez,' and his
'Juana,' what surprise, what rapture he aroused among us! It
was spring itself; a whole springtime of poetry that budded be-
fore our eyes. He was not eighteen. His forehead was strong
and proud. His downy cheek still preserved the roses of child-
hood, his nostrils swelled with the breath of desire. He advanced
with firm tread and eye upcast, as though sure of conquest and
full of the pride of life. No one at the first sight gave a bet-
ter idea of adolescent genius. All those brilliant couplets, those
outpourings of verse that their very success has since caused
to be outworn, but which were then so new in French poetry;
all those passages marked as if with a Shakespearean accent,
those furious rushes mingled with petulant audacities and smiles,
those flashes of heat and precocious storm,—seemed to promise
a Byron to France.
The graceful delicate songs that flitted each morning from
his lips, and presently were running over the lips of all, were
indeed of his age. But passion was to him a divination. He
breathed it in with might, he sought to outrun it. He asked
its secret of friends richer in experience, still dripping from
their shipwreck.
At the dance, at receptions and gay
festivals, when he met pleasure he did not restrain himself; he
sought by reflection to distill its sadness, its bitterness. He said
to himself, even as he gave himself up with an appearance of
self-surrendering transport, and even as it were to increase its
savor, that this was only a fleeting instant, soon to be irrepara-
ble, that would never recur in this same light. And in all he
sought a stronger, keener sensation, in accord with the key to
which he had tuned his soul. He found that the roses of a day
did not fade fast enough. He would gladly uproot them all that
## p. 12668 (#82) ###########################################
12668
CHARLES AUGUSTIN SAINTE-BEUVE
he might the better breathe them in and press from them their
essence.
I only touch the subject; but if we take up and glance over
again, now that he is no more, many of the pieces and person-
ages of Alfred de Musset, we shall now perceive in this child of
genius just the opposite of Goethe: of that Goethe who detached
himself in time from his creations, even from those most inti-
mate in their origin; who worked out his characters only to a
certain point; who cut the bond in time, abandoned them to the
world, being already himself altogether elsewhere; and for whom
"poetry was a deliverance. " Goethe, even from his youth, from
the time of Werther, was preparing to live till past eighty. For
Alfred de Musset, poetry was the opposite of that.
His poetry
was himself. He was riveted wholly to it. He cast himself into
it recklessly. It was his youthful soul, it was his flesh and blood
that flowed; and when he had cast to others these shreds, these
glorious limbs of the poet, that seemed at times like limbs of
Phaëthon and of a young god (recall, for instance, the magnifi-
cent apostrophes and invocations of 'Rolla '), he kept still his
own shred, his bleeding heart, his burning weary heart. Why
was he not patient? All would have come in due time. But he
hasted to condense and to devour the years.
·
•
Musset was poet only. He wished to feel. He was of a gen-
eration whose password, the first wish inscribed at the bottom
of their hearts, had been, Poetry for its own sake, Poetry above
all. "In all the period of my fair youth," one of the poets of
that same epoch has said, "there was nothing that I desired or
summoned so with prayers or adored as I did holy Passion, "—
passion; that is to say, the living substance of poetry. So Mus-
set was superlatively prodigal above all. Like a reckless soldier,
he would not provide in advance for the second half of the jour-
He would have disdained to accept what men call wisdom,
and what seemed to him the gradual ebbing of life. It was not
for him to transform himself. When he attained the summit,
and even while he was still climbing the hillside, it seemed to
him that he had reached and passed the goal of all desires.
Satiety had laid hold on him.
Recall his first songs of page or knightly lover,
and
put opposite to this that admirable and pitiful final sonnet: the
whole poetic career of Alfred de Musset is embraced between
these two,- Glory and Pardon. What a brilliant track, boldly
## p. 12669 (#83) ###########################################
CHARLES AUGUSTIN SAINTE-BEUVE
12669
traced; what light, what eclipse, and what shadow! Poet who
was but a dazzling type of many obscurer souls of his age, who
has symbolized their flights and their falls, their grandeurs and
their miseries,- his name will not die. Let us guard it en-
graven with peculiar care; us to whom he left the burdens of
age, and who could say that day, with truth, as we returned
from his funeral, "For years our youth was dead, but we have
just buried it with him. " Let us admire, let us continue to love
and honor in its better part, the spirit, deep or fleeting, that he
breathed into his songs. But let us draw from it also this wit-
ness to the infirmity that clings to our being, and never let us
presume in pride on the gifts that human nature has received.
GOETHE: AND BETTINA BRENTANO
From Portraits of Men'
IT
IT MAY be remembered that we have already seen Jean Jacques
Rousseau in correspondence with one of his admirers, whose
partiality towards him ultimately developed into a warmer
sentiment. After reading 'La Nouvelle Heloïse,' Madame de la
Tour-Franqueville became extremely enthusiastic, believing her-
self to be a Julie d'Etange; and thereupon indited somewhat
ardent love-letters to the great author, who in his misanthropical
way treated her far from well. It is curious to note, in a simi-
lar case, how differently Goethe, the great poet of Germany,
behaved to one of his admirers who declared her love with such
wild bursts of enthusiasm. But not more in this case than in
the other must we expect to find a true, natural, and mutual
affection, the love of two beings who exchange and mingle their
most cherished feelings. The adoration in question is not real
love it is merely a kind of worship, which requires the god
and the priestess. Only, Rousseau was an invalid,- a fretful
god, suffering from hypochondria, who had fewer good than bad
days; Goethe, on the other hand, was a superior god, calm and
equable, in good health and benevolent,-in fact, the Olympian
Jupiter, who looks on smiling.
In the spring of 1807 there lived at Frankfort a charming
young girl nineteen years of age,* though of such small stature
fact twenty-two, having been born April 4, 1785. — Ed.
* She was
## p. 12670 (#84) ###########################################
12670
CHARLES AUGUSTIN SAINTE-BEUVE
that she only appeared to be twelve or thirteen. Bettina Bren-
tano, the child of an Italian father, who had settled and married
at Frankfort, came of a family noted for its originality, each
member having some singular or fantastic characteristic.
said in the town that "madness only began in the Brentano
family where it ended in other people. " Little Bettina consid-
ered this saying as a compliment. "What others call eccentricity
is quite comprehensible to me," she would remark, "and is part
of some esoteric quality that I cannot define. " She had in her
much of the devil and the imp; in fact, all that is the reverse
of the bourgeois and conventional mind, against which she waged
eternal war. A true Italian as regards her highly colored, pict-
uresque, and vivid imagination, she was quite German in her
dreamy enthusiasm, which at times verged on hallucination. She
would sometimes exclaim, "There is a demon in me, opposed to
all practical reality. " Poetry was her natural world. She felt
art and nature as they are only felt in Italy; but her essentially
Italian conceptions, after having assumed all the colors of the
rainbow, usually ended in mere vagaries. In short, in spite of
the rare qualities with which little Bettina was endowed, she
lacked what might be called sound common-sense,- a quality
hardly in keeping with all her other gifts. It seemed as if
Bettina's family, in leaving Italy for Germany, had instead of
passing through France come by the way of Tyrol, with some
band of gay Bohemians. The faults to which I have just alluded
grow sometimes graver the older one becomes; but at nineteen
they merely lend an additional charm and piquancy. It is almost
necessary to apologize in speaking so freely in relation to Bet-
tina; for Signorina Brentano-having become Frau d'Arnim, and
subsequently widow of Achim d'Arnim, one of the most distin-
guished poets of Germany-is now living in Berlin, surrounded
by some of the most remarkable men of the day. She receives
a homage and consideration not merely due to the noble quali-
ties of her mind, but to the excellency of her character. This
woman, who was once such a frolicsome imp, is now known as
one of the most unselfish and true-hearted of her sex.
-
However, it was she herself who in 1835, two years after
Goethe's death, published the correspondence that enables us to
glean an accurate knowledge of her character; allowing us-in
fact, compelling us to speak so unconstrainedly in relation to
her. This book-translated into French by a woman of merit,
-
## p. 12671 (#85) ###########################################
CHARLES AUGUSTIN SAINTE-BEUVE
12671
who has concealed her identity under the nom de plume of “St.
Sebastien Albin "—is a most curious work, enabling us to realize
the difference that distinguishes the German genius from our
own. The preface, as written by the authoress, is thus worded:
"This book is intended for good, not bad people. " This is simi-
lar to saying, "Honi soit qui mal y pense. " It was quite sud-
denly that Bettina fell in love with the great poet Goethe; but
her romantic feeling was of a purely ideal nature, for as yet she
had never seen him. While musing alone one summer morn in
the redolent and silent garden, Goethe's image presented itself
to her mind. She only knew him through his renown and his
works, in fact, through the very evil she heard spoken in rela-
tion to his cold and indifferent character. But the idea instantly
captivated her imagination; she had discovered an object for her
worship. Goethe was then fifty-eight years of age. In his youth
he had conceived a slight affection for Bettina's mother. For
many years he had lived at Weimar, at the small court of Charles
Augustus; in favor or rather intimate friendship with the prince.
There he calmly pursued his vast studies, forever creating with
prolific ease; he was then at the height of contentment, genius,
and glory.
Goethe's mother lived at Frankfort. She and Bettina became
great friends; and the young girl began to love, study, and under-
stand the son in the person of this remarkable mother, so worthy
of him to whom she had given birth. Goethe's aged parent,-
"Goethe's Lady Counselor," as she was called,- with her noble
(I was about to say august) character, and her mind so replete
with great sayings and memorable conversations, liked nothing
better than to converse about her son. In speaking of him "her
eyes would dilate like those of a child," and beam with content-
ment. Bettina became the old lady's favorite; and on entering
her room would take a stool at her feet, rush at random into
conversation, disturb the order of everything around her, and
being certain of forgiveness, would allow herself every freedom.
The worthy Frau Goethe, being gifted with great discernment
and common-sense, perceived from the very first that Bettina's
love for her son would lead to no serious consequences, and that
this flame would injure no one. She would laugh at the child's
fancy, and in so doing would profit by it. Not a day passed
without this happy mother thinking of her son; "and these
thoughts," she would say, "are gold to me. " If not to Bettina,
―――――――
## p. 12672 (#86) ###########################################
12672
CHARLES AUGUSTIN SAINTE-BEUVE
to whom could she express them, before whom could she count
her gold-this treasure not intended for the ears of the profane?
So, when the frolicsome young creature was absent, running
along the banks of the Rhine, and playing the truant in every old
tower and rock, she would be greatly missed by her dear "Lady
Counselor. " The old lady would write to her in the following
manner:
"Hasten homeward. I do not feel so well this year as last.
At times I long, with a certain foreboding, for your presence,
and for hours together I sit thinking of Wolfgang" (Goethe's
Christian name); "of the days when he was a child playing at
my feet, or relating fairy tales to his little brother James. It is
absolutely necessary that I should have some one with whom I
can converse in relation to all this, and nobody listens to me as
well as yourself. I truly wish you were here. "
On returning to the mother of the man she adored, Bettina
would hold long conversations with the venerable lady about
Goethe's childhood, his early promise, the circumstances attend-
ant on his birth; about the pear-tree his grandfather planted to
celebrate its anniversary, and which afterwards flourished so well;
about the green arm-chair where his mother would sit, relating
to him tales that made him marvel. Then they would speak
about the first signs of his awakening genius. Never was the
childhood of a god studied and watched in its minutest details
with more pious curiosity. One day, while he was crossing the
road with several other children, his mother and a friend, who
were at the window, remarked that he walked with "great maj-
esty," and afterwards told him his upright bearing distinguished
him from the other boys of his age. "That is how I wish to
begin," he replied: "later on I shall distinguish myself in many
different ways. " "And this has been realized," his mother would
add on relating the incident.
Bettina knew everything about Goethe's early life better than
he did himself, and later on he had recourse to her knowledge
when wishing to write his memoirs. She was right in saying,
"As to me, what is my life but a profound mirror of your
own? "
In his boyhood Goethe was considered one of the finest fel-
lows of his age. He was fond of skating, and one fine afternoon
he persuaded his mother to come and watch him sporting on the
ice. Goethe's mother, liking sumptuous apparel, arrayed herself
## p. 12673 (#87) ###########################################
CHARLES AUGUSTIN SAINTE-BEUVE
12673
in "a pelisse, trimmed with crimson velvet, that had a long train
and gold clasps," and she drove off in a carriage with friends.
"On arriving at the river Mein, we found my son energet-
ically skating. He flew like an arrow through the throng of
skaters; his cheeks were rosy from the fresh air, and his auburn
locks were denuded of their powder. On perceiving my crimson
pelisse, he immediately came up to the carriage, and looked at
me with a gracious smile. 'Well, what do you require? ' I said
to him. 'Mother, you are not cold in the carriage, so give me
your velvet mantle. ' 'But you do not wish to array yourself in
my cloak, do you? '-'Yes, certainly. '-There was I, taking off
my warm pelisse, which he donned; and throwing the train over
his arm, he sprang on the ice like a very son of the gods. Ah,
Bettina! if you had only seen him! Nothing could have been
finer. I clapped my hands with joy. All my life I shall see
him as he was then, proceeding from one archway and entering
through the other, the wind the while raising the train of the
pelisse, that had fallen from his arm. "
And she added that Bettina's mother was on the bank, and it
was her whom her son wished to please that day.
Have you not perceived in this simple tale told by the mother,
all the pride of a Latona? "He is a son of the gods! " These
were the words of a Roman senator's wife, of a Roman empress,
or Cornelia, rather than the utterance of a Frankfort citizen's
spouse! The feeling that then inspired this mother in regard to
her son, ultimately permeated the heart of the German nation.
Goethe is "the German fatherland. " In reading Bettina's letters,
we find ourselves, like her, studying Goethe through his mother;
and in so doing we discover his simple and more natural grand-
eur. Before the influence of court etiquette had distorted some
of his better qualities, we see in him the true sincerity of his
race. We wish his genius had been rather more influenced by
this saying of his mother, "There is nothing grander than when
the man is to be felt in the man. "
―
-
It is said that Goethe had but little affection for his mother;
that he was indifferent towards her, - not visiting her for years,
though he was only a distance of about forty miles from where
she lived. And on this point he has been accused of coldness
and egotism. But here, I think, there has been exaggeration.
Before denying any quality to Goethe it is necessary to think
twice. At first sight we imagine him to be cold; but this very
XXII-793
## p. 12674 (#88) ###########################################
12674
CHARLES AUGUSTIN SAINTE-BEUVE
coldness often conceals some underlying quality. A mother does
not continue to love and revere her son when he has been
guilty of a really serious wrong towards her. Goethe's mother
did not see anything wrongful in her son's conduct, and it does
not beseem us to be severer than she. This son loved his
mother in his own way; and though his conduct could not per-
haps be exactly regarded as the model of filial behavior, it cannot
be said that he was in any wise ungrateful. "Keep my mother's
heart warm," he would say in writing to Bettina.
"I
should like to be able to reward you for the care you take of
my mother. A chilling draught seemed to emanate from her sur-
roundings. Now that I know you are near her I feel comforted
— I feel warm. " The idea of a draught makes us smile. Fonte-
nelle could not have expressed himself better. I have sometimes
thought Goethe might be defined as a Fontenelle invested with
poetry.
At the time of his mother's death, Bettina wrote to him, allud-
ing to the cold disposition that was supposed to characterize him
- a disposition inimical to all grief: "It is said that you turn
away from all that is sad and irreparable: do not turn away from
the image of your dying mother; remember how loving and wise
she was up to the last moment, and how the poetic element pre-
dominated in her. " By this last touch, Bettina evinced her knowl-
edge of how to affect the great poet. Goethe responded in words.
replete with gratitude for the care she had shown his mother in
her old age. But from that day their relationship suffered by the
loss of the being who had forged the link between them. How-
ever, as I have already mentioned, Bettina was in love with
Goethe. We might ask what were the signs of this feeling. It
was not an ordinary affection; it was not even a passionate love,
which, like that of Dido, Juliet, or Virginia, burns and consumes
until the desire is satisfied. It was an ideal sentiment; better
than a love purely from the imagination, and yet dissimilar to
one entirely from the heart. I scarcely know how to explain
the feeling, and even Bettina herself could hardly define what
she felt. The fact is that, gifted with a vivid imagination,
exquisite poetical feeling, and a passionate love of nature, she
personified all her tastes and youthful inspirations in Goethe's
image, loving him with rapture as the incarnation of all her
dreams. Her love did not sadden her, but on the contrary,
rendered her happier. "I know a secret," she would say: "the
·
-
## p. 12675 (#89) ###########################################
CHARLES AUGUSTIN SAINTE-BEUVE
12675
greatest happiness is when two beings are united, and the Divine
genius is with them. "
It generally sufficed her to be thus united in spirit. Goethe,
whose insight into life and human nature was as profound as his
knowledge of the ideal, had from the first understood the quality
of this love, and did not shun it, though at the same time he
avoided too close a contact. The privilege of the gods is, as we
all know, the possession of eternal youth: even at fifty-eight years
of age, Goethe would not have been able to endure every day with
impunity the innocent familiarities and enticements of Bettina.
But the girl lived far away. She wrote him letters, full of life,
brilliant with sensibility, coloring, sound, and manifold fancies.
These epistles interested him, and seemed to rejuvenate his mind.
A new being, full of grace, was revealing herself to the observa-
tion of his poetical and withal scientific mind. She opened for
his inspection "an unlooked-for book, full of delightful images
and charming depictions. " It seemed to him as much worth his
while reading this book as any other; especially as his own name
was to be found on every page, encircled with a halo of glory.
He called Bettina's letters "the gospel of nature. "
"Continue,"
he would say, "preaching your gospel of nature. " He felt that
he was the god-made man of that evangel.
She recalled to his
mind (and his artistic talent needed it) the impressions and the
freshness of the past, all of which he had lost in his somewhat
artificial life. "All you tell me brings me back remembrances
of youth; it produces the effect of events gone by, which all of a
sudden we distinctly remember, though for a long time we may
have forgotten them. "
Goethe never lavished his attention on Bettina, although he
never once repulsed her. He would reply to her letters in a
sufficiently encouraging way for her to continue writing. There
was a strange scene the very first time Bettina met Goethe; and
from the way she describes the meeting, we perceive that she
does not write for the benefit of the cynical scoffer. Towards
the end of April, in 1807, she accompanied her sister and her
brother-in-law to Berlin, and they promised to return by the way
of Weimar. They were obliged to pass through the regiments
that were then occupying the land. On this journey Bettina was
arrayed in male attire, and sat on the box of the coach in order
to see farther; while at every halting-place she assisted in har-
nessing and unharnessing the horses. In the morning she would
## p. 12676 (#90) ###########################################
12676
CHARLES AUGUSTIN SAINTE-BEUVE
.
"
shoot off a pistol in the forests, and clamber up the trees like
a squirrel, for she was peculiarly agile (Goethe called her the
Little Mouse). One day, when in an uncommonly frolicsome
mood she had ascended into one of the Gothic sculptures of the
Cologne Cathedral, she commenced a letter in the following way
to Goethe's mother:-
-:
"Lady Counselor, how alarmed you would be to see me now,
seated in a Gothic rose. "
Somewhere else she says: "I prefer dancing to walking, and
I prefer flying to dancing. "
Bettina arrived at Weimar after passing several sleepless nights
on the box of the coach. She immediately called on Wieland,
who knew her family; and obtained from him a letter, intro-
ducing her to Goethe. On arriving at the house of the great
poet, she waited a few minutes before seeing him. Suddenly the
door opened, and Goethe appeared.
"He surveyed me solemnly and fixedly. I believe I stretched
out my hands towards him - I felt my strength failing me!
Goethe folded me to his heart, murmuring the while, 'Poor child!
have I frightened you? ' These were the first words he uttered,
and they entered my soul. He led me into his room, and made
me sit on the sofa before him. We were then both speechless.
He at last broke the silence. 'You will have read in the paper,'
he said, 'that a few days ago we sustained a great loss through
the death of the Duchess Amelia' (the Dowager Duchess of
Saxe-Weimar). 'Oh! ' I answered, 'I never read the papers. '-
'Indeed! I imagined that everything in relation to Weimar inter-
ested you. ' 'No, nothing interests me excepting yourself; more-
over, I am much too impatient to read a newspaper. '—'You are
a charming child. ' Then came a long pause. I was still exiled
on that fatal sofa, shy and trembling. You know it is impossible
for me to remain sitting like a well-bred person. Alas! mother"
(it was Goethe's mother to whom she was writing), "my conduct.
was utterly disgraceful. I at last exclaimed, 'I cannot remain on
this couch! ' and I arose suddenly. 'Well, do as you please,' he
replied. I threw my arms round his neck, and he drew me on
his knee, pressing me to his heart. "
In reading this scene, we must remember that it took place
in Germany, not in France! She remained long enough on his
shoulder to fall asleep; for she had been traveling for several
nights, and was exhausted with fatigue. Only on awakening did
## p. 12677 (#91) ###########################################
CHARLES AUGUSTIN SAINTE-BEUVE
12677
she begin conversing a little. Goethe plucked a leaf off the vine
that clustered round his window, and said, "This leaf and your
cheek have the same freshness and the same bloom. " My readers
may be inclined to think this scene quite childish; but Goethe
soon divulged to her his most serious and intimate thoughts.
He became nearly emotional in speaking of Schiller, saying that
he had died two springs ago; and on Bettina interrupting him to
remark that she did not care for Schiller, he explained to her all
the beauties of this poetical nature,- so dissimilar to his own,
but one of infinite grandeur; a nature he himself had the gen-
erosity to fully appreciate.
The evening of the next day Bettina saw Goethe again at
Wieland's; and on her appearing to be jealous regarding a bunch
of violets he held, which she supposed had been given him by a
woman, he threw her the flowers, remarking, "Are you not con-
tent if I give them to you? " These first scenes at Weimar were
childlike and mystic, though from the very first marked by great
intensity; it would not have been wise to enact them every day.
At their second meeting, which took place at Wartburg after
an interval of a few months, Bettina could hardly speak, so deep
was her emotion. Goethe placed his hand on her lips and said,
"Speak with your eyes-I understand everything;" and when he
saw that the eyes of the charming child, "the dark, courageous
child," were full of tears, he closed them, adding wisely, "Let us
be calm-it beseems us both to be so! " But in recalling these
scenes, are you not tempted to exclaim, "What would Voltaire
have said? »
## p. 12678 (#92) ###########################################
12678
JOSEPH XAVIER BONIFACE SAINTINE
(1798-1865)
AINTINE, the author of the familiar classic 'Picciola,' was in
many respects a fortunate man. He was endowed with a
contagious optimism, which made him friends and brought
him success. From his earliest efforts in authorship, he won readers
by the cheering spirit of his pages and his refined sympathy with his
fellows. He had no long apprenticeship of failure. His first work,
entitled 'Bonheur de l'Étude,' brought him a prize from the French
Academy when he was only twenty-one. Two years later he received
a second prize from the Academy, for a dis-
course upon mutual instruction. A volume
of pleasing verse-'Poésies'-appeared in
1823, which was characterized by the fresh
romantic spirit, kept within bounds by clas-
sical influences.
Saintine was a contributor to many jour-
nals; among them the Revue de Paris, the
Siècle, the Constitutionnel, and La Revue
Contemporaine. He did some interesting
historical work, Histoire des Guerres
d'Italie'; and made a study of German
folk-lore, Mythologie du Rhin': but he
was best known for his stories. Seul,' one
of the most interesting, is the story, sim-
ply and vividly told, of Alexander Selkirk, the original of Defoe's
Robinson Crusoe.
But by far his most famous work was 'Picciola,' which brought
him more fame and more money than all the others. It has been re-
published more than forty times, and translated into many languages,
and is still a favorite everywhere. The Academy awarded it the
Montyon prize of three thousand francs, and decorated its author with
the cross of the Legion of Honor. The story is exquisitely told,-
of the rich and scholarly but blasé young nobleman, who, while a
State prisoner in the fortress of Fenestrella, finds a little plant spring-
ing between the paving-stones of his court, watches it, loves it, makes
it his companion, and is gradually regenerated by its revelation to
him of natural and divine law. Picciola the plant becomes to him
SAINTINE
-
## p. 12679 (#93) ###########################################
JOSEPH XAVIER BONIFACE SAINTINE
12679
Picciola the ideal maiden of his heart and imagination. There is a
charming love tale too. Thérèse, a beautiful unselfish girl, is watch-
ing over her father, who is also a prisoner. Picciola is likely to
die unless the paving-stones pressing on her stem are removed. It
is Thérèse who takes charge of the Count's despairing petition to
Napoleon. After the gloom and suffering comes the happy ending.
In this book, Saintine's own love of nature is revealed in delicate
descriptive touches.
For a Parisian - he was born at Paris in 1798, and died there in
1865 he had an unusual sympathy with nature. His mind had a
healthy turn toward all that was alive and growing, and hence the
high moral tone and nobility of his work. He was a man whose vig-
orous appreciation of life was refined and strengthened by education.
He was acquainted with books, and versed in natural science; and
he wrote with scholarly finish as well as with spontaneity.
To read the touching story of Picciola makes it seem incongru-
ous to think of Saintine as a humorist. Yet with the pseudonym of
"Xavier he was a comic dramatist of great popularity. In collab-
oration with leading writers of vaudeville, he composed over two
hundred such works. Julien' and 'L'Ours et le Pacha,' witty vaude-
villes written with Eugène Scribe, were particularly brilliant successes.
In his old age Saintine gave up writing, and passed a peaceful
happy leisure, with abundant means and surrounded by friends.
―
FROM PICCIOLA ›
Copyright 1865, by Hurd & Houghton
[The Count of Charney, a rich, young, and intellectual nobleman, has
vainly and successively tried to find satisfaction in literature, science, meta-
physics, and dissipation. In disgust with existing social conditions, he con-
spires against the government of Napoleon, is arrested, and cast into the
fortress of Fenestrella. He is allowed neither books, pens, nor paper; and
is forced to exercise all his ingenuity to find the slightest diversion from his
hopeless thoughts. ]
Ο
NE day at the prescribed hour Charney was walking in the
court-yard; his head bowed, his arms crossed behind his
back, pacing slowly, as if he could so make the narrow
space which he was permitted to perambulate seem larger.
Spring announced its coming; a softer air dilated his lungs;
and to live free, and be master of the soil and of space, seemed
to him the goal of his desires.
## p. 12680 (#94) ###########################################
12680
JOSEPH XAVIER BONIFACE SAINTINE
He counted one by one the paving-stones of his little court,
- doubtless to verify the exactness of his former calculations,
for it was by no means the first time he had numbered them,—
when he perceived, there under his eyes, a little mound of earth
raised between two stones, and slightly opened at the top. He
stopped; his heart beat without his being able to tell why. But
all is hope or fear for a captive: in the most indifferent objects.
and the most insignificant events, he seeks some hidden cause
which speaks to him of deliverance.
Perhaps this slight derangement on the surface might be pro-
duced by some great work underground; perhaps a tunnel, which
would open and make a way for him to the fields and mountains.
Perhaps his friends or his former accomplices were mining to
reach him, and restore him to life and liberty.
He listened attentively, and fancied he heard a low, rumbling
noise under ground; he raised his head, and the tremulous air
bore to him the rapid stroke of the tocsin, and the continued roll
of drums along the ramparts, like a signal of war.
He started,
and with a trembling hand wiped from his forehead great drops
of sweat.
Was he to be free? Had France changed its master?
This dream was only a flash. Reflection destroyed the illus-
ion. He had no accomplices, and had never had friends. He
listened again: the same sounds struck his ear, but gave rise to
other thoughts. This stroke of the tocsin, and the roll of the
drum, were only the distant sound of a church bell that he heard
every day at the same hour, and the accustomed call to arms,
which need only excite emotion in a few straggling soldiers of
the citadel.
Charney smiled bitterly, and looked upon himself with pity,
when he thought that some insignificant animal-a mole who had
without doubt lost his way, or a field-mouse who had scratched
up the earth under his feet-had caused him to believe for
an instant in the affection of men and the overthrow of a great
empire.
In order to make his mind quite clear about it, however, he
stooped over the little mound and carefully removed some of the
particles of earth; and saw with astonishment that the wild agita-
tion which had overcome him for an instant had not even been
caused by a busy, burrowing, scratching animal, armed with
## p. 12681 (#95) ###########################################
JOSEPH XAVIER BONIFACE SAINTINE
12681
claws and teeth, but by a feeble specimen of vegetation with
scarcely strength to sprout, weak and languishing.
Raising himself, profoundly humiliated, he was about to crush
it with his heel, when a fresh breeze laden with the perfume of
honeysuckle and hawthorn was wafted to him, as if to implore
mercy for the poor plant, which perhaps one day would also have
perfume to give him.
Another thought came to him to arrest his destructive inten-
tion. How was it possible for that little plant-so tender, soft,
and fragile, that a touch might break it-to raise, separate, and
throw out earth dried and hardened by the sun, trodden under
foot by him, and almost cemented to the two blocks of granite
between which it was pressed?
He bent over it again, and examined it with renewed atten-
tion. He saw at its upper extremity a sort of a double fleshy
valve, which folded over the first leaves, preserved them from
the touch of anything that might injure them, and at the same
time enable them to pierce that earthy crust in search of air and
sun.
-
"Ah," said he to himself, "behold all the secret. It receives
from nature this principle of strength; like the young birds, who
before they are born are armed with a bill hard enough to
break the thick shell which confines them. Poor prisoner! thou
possessest at least the instruments which can aid thee to gain
thy freedom. "
He stood gazing at it a few moments, and no longer dreamed
of crushing it.
The next day, in taking his ordinary walk, he was striding
along in an absent-minded manner, and nearly trod on it by acci-
dent. He drew back quickly; and surprised at the interest with
which his new acquaintance inspired him, he paused to note its
progress.
The plant had grown, and the rays of the sun had caused it
to lose somewhat of its sickly pallor. He reflected upon the
power which that pale and slender stem possessed to absorb the
luminous essence with which to nourish and strengthen itself,
and to borrow from the prism the colors with which to clothe
itself, colors assigned beforehand to each one of its parts.
"Yes, its leaves, without doubt," thought he, "will be tinted.
with a different shade from its stem; and then its flowers, what
color will they be? Yellow, blue, red? Why, nourished by the
―
## p. 12682 (#96) ###########################################
12682
JOSEPH XAVIER BONIFACE SAINTINE
same sap as the stalk, do they not clothe themselves in the same
livery? How do they draw their azure and scarlet from the same
source where the other has only found a bright or sombre green?
So it is to be, however; for notwithstanding the confusion and
disorder of affairs here below, matter follows a regular though
blind march. Blind indeed," repeated he. "I need no other
proof of it than these two fleshy lobes which have facilitated its
egress from the earth, but which now, of no use in its preserva-
tion, nourish themselves still from its substance, and hang down,
wearying it by their weight: of what use are they? "
As he said this, day was declining, and the chilly spring even-
ing approached. The two lobes rose slowly as he watched them,
apparently desiring to justify themselves against his reproach:
they drew closer together, and inclosed in their bosom-to pro-
tect it against the cold and the attacks of insects- the tender
and fragile foliage which was about to be deprived of the sun;
and which, thus sheltered and warmed, slept under the two wings
that the plant had just softly folded over it.
The man of science comprehended more fully this mute but
decided response, in observing that the outside of the vegetable
bivalve had been slightly cut by the nibbling of a snail the night
before, of which the traces still remained.
This strange colloquy between thought on one side and action.
on the other-between the man and the plant-was not to end
here. Charney had been too long occupied with metaphysical
discussions to surrender himself easily to a good reason.
"This is all very well," said he: "here as elsewhere a happy
concurrence of fortuitous circumstances has favored this feeble
creation. It was born armed with a lever to lift the soil, and
a buckler to protect its head,-two conditions necessary to its
existence: if it had happened that these had not been fulfilled,
the plant must have died, stifled in its germ, like myriads of
other individuals of its species whom Nature has no doubt cre-
ated, unfinished, imperfect, incapable of preserving and repro-
ducing themselves, and who have had but an hour of life on
earth. Who can calculate the number of false and impotent
combinations Nature has made, before succeeding in producing
one single specimen fitted to endure? A blind man may hit the
mark, but how many arrows must he lose before he attains this
result! For thousands of ages matter has been triturated by the
double movement of attraction and repulsion: is it then strange
## p. 12683 (#97) ###########################################
JOSEPH XAVIER BONIFACE SAINTINE
12683
that chance should so many times produce the right combinations?
I grant that this envelope can protect these first leaves; but will
it grow and enlarge so as to shelter and preserve also the other
leaves against the cold and the attacks of their enemies? Next
spring, when new foliage will be born as fragile and tender as
this, will it be here to protect it again? No. Nothing then has
been planned in all this; nothing is the result of intelligent
thought, but rather of a happy chance. "
Sir Count, Nature has more than one response with which to
refute your argument. Have patience, and observe that feeble
and isolated production, sent forth and thrown into the court of
your prison, perhaps less by a stroke of chance than by the be-
nevolent foresight of Providence. These excrescences, in which
you have divined a lever and a shield, had already rendered
other services to this feeble plant. After having served it as
envelope in the frozen ground through the winter, the right time
having arrived, they lent it their nourishing breast,-as it were
suckling it when, a simple germ, it had not yet roots with which
to seek moisture from the ground, or leaves to breathe the air
and the sun. You were right, Sir Count: these protecting wings
which have until now brooded so maternally over the young
plant, will not be developed with it,-they will fall; but not till
they have accomplished their task, and when their ward will have
gained strength sufficient to do without their aid. Do not be
anxious about its future! Nature watches over this as over its
sister plants; and as long as the north winds- the chilly fogs
and snowflakes-descend from the Alps, the new leaves yet in
the bud will find there a safe asylum; a dwelling arranged for
them, closed from the air by a cement of gum and resin which
will expand according to their need, only opening under a favor-
able sky and atmosphere. They will not come out without a
warm covering of fur,-a soft cottony down which will defend
them from the late frosts or any atmospheric caprices. Did ever
mother watch more lovingly over the preservation of her child?
Behold, Sir Count, what you might have known long since, if,
descending from the abstruse regions of human science, you had
deigned to lower your eyes to examine the simple works of God.
The further north your steps had turned, the more these common
marvels would have manifested themselves to you. Where the
danger is greater, there the cares of Providence are redoubled.
## p. 12684 (#98) ###########################################
12684
JOSEPH XAVIER BONIFACE SAINTINE
The philosopher had followed attentively all the progress and
the transformations of the plant. Again he had contended with
her by reasoning, and she had ever an answer for all his argu-
ments.
"Of what use are these prickly hairs that garnish thy stem ? »
said he. And the next day she showed them to him covered
with a slight hoar-frost, which,- thanks to them,- kept at a dis-
tance, had not chilled her tender skin.
"Of what use in the fine days will be your warm coat, wadded
with down? "
The fine days arrived: she cast off her winter cloak to adorn
herself with her spring toilet of green; and her new branches
sprang forth free from these silken envelopes, henceforward use-
less.
"But if the storm rages, the wind will bruise thee, and the
hail will cut thy leaves, too tender to resist it. "
The wind blew; and the young plant, too feeble yet to dare
to fight, bent to the earth, and was defended in yielding. The
hail came: and by a new manœuvre the leaves, rising along
the stem and shielding it, pressed against each other for mutual
protection, presenting only their under side to the blows of the
enemy, and opposed their solid ribs to the weight of the atmo-
spheric projectiles; in their union was their strength. This
time the plant had come forth from the combat not without
some slight mutilations; but alive and still strong, and ready to
expand before the rays of the sun, which would heal her wounds.
"Is chance then intelligent? " said Charney: "must I spirit-
ualize matter, or materialize mind? " And he did not cease
to interrogate his mute instructress; he delighted to watch her
growth, and mark her gradual metamorphoses.
One day, after he had contemplated it for a long time, he
was surprised to find that he had been lost in thought; that his
reveries had an unaccustomed tenderness, and that his happy
thoughts continued during his walk in the court. Raising his
head, he saw at the barred window of the great wall the "fly-
catcher," who seemed to be observing him. At first he blushed,
as if the man could read his thoughts; but then he smiled, for
he no longer despised him. Had he the right to do so? Was
not his mind also absorbed in the contemplation of one of the
lowest ranks of creation ?
## p. 12685 (#99) ###########################################
JOSEPH XAVIER BONIFACE SAINTINE
12685
"Who knows," said he, "but this Italian may have discovered
in a fly as much worthy of study as I in my plant? "
On returning to his chamber, that which first struck his eye
was this maxim of the fatalist, inscribed by him upon the wall
two months before:-
"CHANCE IS BLIND, AND IS THE SOLE AUTHOR OF CREATION »
He took a bit of charcoal and wrote underneath:
«PERHAPS ! »
-
ONE day soon after, at the appointed hour, Charney was at
his post near his plant, when he saw a heavy black cloud obscur-
ing the sun, hanging like a gray floating dome over the towers
of the fortress. Soon large drops of rain began to fall: he
started to go quickly under shelter, when hailstones mingled
with the rain pattered on the pavement of the court. La Povera,
whirled and twisted by the storm, seemed on the point of being
uprooted from the earth; her wet leaves, fretting one against the
other, trembling with the tossing of the wind, uttered as it were
plaintive murmurs and cries of distress.
―
Charney paused. He remembered the reproaches of Ludovic,
and looked eagerly around for some object with which to protect
his plant; he found nothing: the hailstones became larger and
fell more quickly, and threatened its destruction. He trembled
for her; -for her whom he had seen so lately resist so well the
violence of the wind and the hail; but now he loved his plant
too well to suffer it to run any risk of injury, for the sake of
getting the better of it in an argument.
Taking then a resolution worthy of a lover,-worthy of a
father, he drew near; he placed himself before his protégée,
and interposed himself as a wall between her and the wind; he
bent over her, serving as a shield against the shock of the hail:
and there, motionless, panting from his struggles with the storm,
from which he sheltered her,-protecting her with his hands,
with his body, with his head, with his love,- he waited till the
cloud had passed.
The storm was over. But might not a similar danger menace
it when he, its protector, was held from it by bolts and bars?
Moreover, the wife of Ludovic, followed by a large dog, sometimes
## p. 12686 (#100) ##########################################
12686
JOSEPH XAVIER BONIFACE SAINTINE
came into the court. This dog in his gambols might, with one
snap of his mouth or a stroke of his paw, destroy the darling of
the philosopher. Charney spent the rest of the day in meditating
upon a plan; and the next day prepared to put it in execution.
The small portion of wood allowed him was scarcely enough
for his comfort in this climate, where the evenings and mornings
are so chilly. What matter? has he not the warmth of his bed?
He can retire earlier and rise later.
naturalistic schools he forces, heightens to excess, exaggerates.
He is an enlarging mirror. When the master is negligent, and
the disciple careful and dressed in Sunday clothes, they resem-
ble one another. On days when Châteaubriand writes badly
and Marchangy does his best, they have a deceptive resemblance.
From a little further off, from behind, and by moonlight, you
might mistake them for one another.
If it is just to judge a talent by his friends and natural fol-
lowers, it is not less legitimate to judge him and counter-judge
him (for it is in fact a sort of counter-proof) by the enemies
whom he rouses and unwittingly attracts; by his contraries, his
antipathies; by those who instinctively cannot bear him. Nothing
serves better to mark the limits of a talent, to circumscribe its
sphere and domain, than to know the exact points where revolt
against it begins. In its detail this even becomes piquant to
watch. In literature people detest one another sometimes all
their lives, and yet have never met. So the antagonism between
mental genera grows clear. What would you have? It's in the
blood, in the temperament, in first prejudices which often do
not depend on ourselves. When it is not low envy, it is racial
hatred. How will you make Boileau enjoy Quinault, and Fon-
tenelle think highly of Boileau, and Joseph de Maistre or Monta-
lembert love Voltaire? But I have said enough to-day about the
natural method in literature.
ALFRED DE MUSSET
From 'Causeries du Lundi,' May 11th, 1857. (Abridged. )
I
T Is the duty of each generation, as it is of an army, to bury
its dead and to do them the last honors. It would not be
just that the charming poet who has just been taken away
should disappear without receiving-amid all that has been said
## p. 12667 (#81) ###########################################
CHARLES AUGUSTIN SAINTE-BEUVE
12667
and what will be said, true and heart-felt, of his talent -- some
special words of farewell from an old friend, from a witness of
his first steps. The melodious strain of Alfred de Musset was so
familiar to us, so dear from the very first; it had so penetrated
our hearts in its freshness and buoyant novelty; it was, though
more youthful, so part of our own generation,-a generation
then all poetry and all devoted to feeling and expression. It is
nineteen years ago; and I see him still making his entry in the
literary world,-first in the intimate circle of Victor Hugo, then
in that of Alfred de Vigny and the Deschamps brothers. What
a début! What easy graciousness! and at the very first verses
that he recited,- his 'Andalouse,' his 'Don Paez,' and his
'Juana,' what surprise, what rapture he aroused among us! It
was spring itself; a whole springtime of poetry that budded be-
fore our eyes. He was not eighteen. His forehead was strong
and proud. His downy cheek still preserved the roses of child-
hood, his nostrils swelled with the breath of desire. He advanced
with firm tread and eye upcast, as though sure of conquest and
full of the pride of life. No one at the first sight gave a bet-
ter idea of adolescent genius. All those brilliant couplets, those
outpourings of verse that their very success has since caused
to be outworn, but which were then so new in French poetry;
all those passages marked as if with a Shakespearean accent,
those furious rushes mingled with petulant audacities and smiles,
those flashes of heat and precocious storm,—seemed to promise
a Byron to France.
The graceful delicate songs that flitted each morning from
his lips, and presently were running over the lips of all, were
indeed of his age. But passion was to him a divination. He
breathed it in with might, he sought to outrun it. He asked
its secret of friends richer in experience, still dripping from
their shipwreck.
At the dance, at receptions and gay
festivals, when he met pleasure he did not restrain himself; he
sought by reflection to distill its sadness, its bitterness. He said
to himself, even as he gave himself up with an appearance of
self-surrendering transport, and even as it were to increase its
savor, that this was only a fleeting instant, soon to be irrepara-
ble, that would never recur in this same light. And in all he
sought a stronger, keener sensation, in accord with the key to
which he had tuned his soul. He found that the roses of a day
did not fade fast enough. He would gladly uproot them all that
## p. 12668 (#82) ###########################################
12668
CHARLES AUGUSTIN SAINTE-BEUVE
he might the better breathe them in and press from them their
essence.
I only touch the subject; but if we take up and glance over
again, now that he is no more, many of the pieces and person-
ages of Alfred de Musset, we shall now perceive in this child of
genius just the opposite of Goethe: of that Goethe who detached
himself in time from his creations, even from those most inti-
mate in their origin; who worked out his characters only to a
certain point; who cut the bond in time, abandoned them to the
world, being already himself altogether elsewhere; and for whom
"poetry was a deliverance. " Goethe, even from his youth, from
the time of Werther, was preparing to live till past eighty. For
Alfred de Musset, poetry was the opposite of that.
His poetry
was himself. He was riveted wholly to it. He cast himself into
it recklessly. It was his youthful soul, it was his flesh and blood
that flowed; and when he had cast to others these shreds, these
glorious limbs of the poet, that seemed at times like limbs of
Phaëthon and of a young god (recall, for instance, the magnifi-
cent apostrophes and invocations of 'Rolla '), he kept still his
own shred, his bleeding heart, his burning weary heart. Why
was he not patient? All would have come in due time. But he
hasted to condense and to devour the years.
·
•
Musset was poet only. He wished to feel. He was of a gen-
eration whose password, the first wish inscribed at the bottom
of their hearts, had been, Poetry for its own sake, Poetry above
all. "In all the period of my fair youth," one of the poets of
that same epoch has said, "there was nothing that I desired or
summoned so with prayers or adored as I did holy Passion, "—
passion; that is to say, the living substance of poetry. So Mus-
set was superlatively prodigal above all. Like a reckless soldier,
he would not provide in advance for the second half of the jour-
He would have disdained to accept what men call wisdom,
and what seemed to him the gradual ebbing of life. It was not
for him to transform himself. When he attained the summit,
and even while he was still climbing the hillside, it seemed to
him that he had reached and passed the goal of all desires.
Satiety had laid hold on him.
Recall his first songs of page or knightly lover,
and
put opposite to this that admirable and pitiful final sonnet: the
whole poetic career of Alfred de Musset is embraced between
these two,- Glory and Pardon. What a brilliant track, boldly
## p. 12669 (#83) ###########################################
CHARLES AUGUSTIN SAINTE-BEUVE
12669
traced; what light, what eclipse, and what shadow! Poet who
was but a dazzling type of many obscurer souls of his age, who
has symbolized their flights and their falls, their grandeurs and
their miseries,- his name will not die. Let us guard it en-
graven with peculiar care; us to whom he left the burdens of
age, and who could say that day, with truth, as we returned
from his funeral, "For years our youth was dead, but we have
just buried it with him. " Let us admire, let us continue to love
and honor in its better part, the spirit, deep or fleeting, that he
breathed into his songs. But let us draw from it also this wit-
ness to the infirmity that clings to our being, and never let us
presume in pride on the gifts that human nature has received.
GOETHE: AND BETTINA BRENTANO
From Portraits of Men'
IT
IT MAY be remembered that we have already seen Jean Jacques
Rousseau in correspondence with one of his admirers, whose
partiality towards him ultimately developed into a warmer
sentiment. After reading 'La Nouvelle Heloïse,' Madame de la
Tour-Franqueville became extremely enthusiastic, believing her-
self to be a Julie d'Etange; and thereupon indited somewhat
ardent love-letters to the great author, who in his misanthropical
way treated her far from well. It is curious to note, in a simi-
lar case, how differently Goethe, the great poet of Germany,
behaved to one of his admirers who declared her love with such
wild bursts of enthusiasm. But not more in this case than in
the other must we expect to find a true, natural, and mutual
affection, the love of two beings who exchange and mingle their
most cherished feelings. The adoration in question is not real
love it is merely a kind of worship, which requires the god
and the priestess. Only, Rousseau was an invalid,- a fretful
god, suffering from hypochondria, who had fewer good than bad
days; Goethe, on the other hand, was a superior god, calm and
equable, in good health and benevolent,-in fact, the Olympian
Jupiter, who looks on smiling.
In the spring of 1807 there lived at Frankfort a charming
young girl nineteen years of age,* though of such small stature
fact twenty-two, having been born April 4, 1785. — Ed.
* She was
## p. 12670 (#84) ###########################################
12670
CHARLES AUGUSTIN SAINTE-BEUVE
that she only appeared to be twelve or thirteen. Bettina Bren-
tano, the child of an Italian father, who had settled and married
at Frankfort, came of a family noted for its originality, each
member having some singular or fantastic characteristic.
said in the town that "madness only began in the Brentano
family where it ended in other people. " Little Bettina consid-
ered this saying as a compliment. "What others call eccentricity
is quite comprehensible to me," she would remark, "and is part
of some esoteric quality that I cannot define. " She had in her
much of the devil and the imp; in fact, all that is the reverse
of the bourgeois and conventional mind, against which she waged
eternal war. A true Italian as regards her highly colored, pict-
uresque, and vivid imagination, she was quite German in her
dreamy enthusiasm, which at times verged on hallucination. She
would sometimes exclaim, "There is a demon in me, opposed to
all practical reality. " Poetry was her natural world. She felt
art and nature as they are only felt in Italy; but her essentially
Italian conceptions, after having assumed all the colors of the
rainbow, usually ended in mere vagaries. In short, in spite of
the rare qualities with which little Bettina was endowed, she
lacked what might be called sound common-sense,- a quality
hardly in keeping with all her other gifts. It seemed as if
Bettina's family, in leaving Italy for Germany, had instead of
passing through France come by the way of Tyrol, with some
band of gay Bohemians. The faults to which I have just alluded
grow sometimes graver the older one becomes; but at nineteen
they merely lend an additional charm and piquancy. It is almost
necessary to apologize in speaking so freely in relation to Bet-
tina; for Signorina Brentano-having become Frau d'Arnim, and
subsequently widow of Achim d'Arnim, one of the most distin-
guished poets of Germany-is now living in Berlin, surrounded
by some of the most remarkable men of the day. She receives
a homage and consideration not merely due to the noble quali-
ties of her mind, but to the excellency of her character. This
woman, who was once such a frolicsome imp, is now known as
one of the most unselfish and true-hearted of her sex.
-
However, it was she herself who in 1835, two years after
Goethe's death, published the correspondence that enables us to
glean an accurate knowledge of her character; allowing us-in
fact, compelling us to speak so unconstrainedly in relation to
her. This book-translated into French by a woman of merit,
-
## p. 12671 (#85) ###########################################
CHARLES AUGUSTIN SAINTE-BEUVE
12671
who has concealed her identity under the nom de plume of “St.
Sebastien Albin "—is a most curious work, enabling us to realize
the difference that distinguishes the German genius from our
own. The preface, as written by the authoress, is thus worded:
"This book is intended for good, not bad people. " This is simi-
lar to saying, "Honi soit qui mal y pense. " It was quite sud-
denly that Bettina fell in love with the great poet Goethe; but
her romantic feeling was of a purely ideal nature, for as yet she
had never seen him. While musing alone one summer morn in
the redolent and silent garden, Goethe's image presented itself
to her mind. She only knew him through his renown and his
works, in fact, through the very evil she heard spoken in rela-
tion to his cold and indifferent character. But the idea instantly
captivated her imagination; she had discovered an object for her
worship. Goethe was then fifty-eight years of age. In his youth
he had conceived a slight affection for Bettina's mother. For
many years he had lived at Weimar, at the small court of Charles
Augustus; in favor or rather intimate friendship with the prince.
There he calmly pursued his vast studies, forever creating with
prolific ease; he was then at the height of contentment, genius,
and glory.
Goethe's mother lived at Frankfort. She and Bettina became
great friends; and the young girl began to love, study, and under-
stand the son in the person of this remarkable mother, so worthy
of him to whom she had given birth. Goethe's aged parent,-
"Goethe's Lady Counselor," as she was called,- with her noble
(I was about to say august) character, and her mind so replete
with great sayings and memorable conversations, liked nothing
better than to converse about her son. In speaking of him "her
eyes would dilate like those of a child," and beam with content-
ment. Bettina became the old lady's favorite; and on entering
her room would take a stool at her feet, rush at random into
conversation, disturb the order of everything around her, and
being certain of forgiveness, would allow herself every freedom.
The worthy Frau Goethe, being gifted with great discernment
and common-sense, perceived from the very first that Bettina's
love for her son would lead to no serious consequences, and that
this flame would injure no one. She would laugh at the child's
fancy, and in so doing would profit by it. Not a day passed
without this happy mother thinking of her son; "and these
thoughts," she would say, "are gold to me. " If not to Bettina,
―――――――
## p. 12672 (#86) ###########################################
12672
CHARLES AUGUSTIN SAINTE-BEUVE
to whom could she express them, before whom could she count
her gold-this treasure not intended for the ears of the profane?
So, when the frolicsome young creature was absent, running
along the banks of the Rhine, and playing the truant in every old
tower and rock, she would be greatly missed by her dear "Lady
Counselor. " The old lady would write to her in the following
manner:
"Hasten homeward. I do not feel so well this year as last.
At times I long, with a certain foreboding, for your presence,
and for hours together I sit thinking of Wolfgang" (Goethe's
Christian name); "of the days when he was a child playing at
my feet, or relating fairy tales to his little brother James. It is
absolutely necessary that I should have some one with whom I
can converse in relation to all this, and nobody listens to me as
well as yourself. I truly wish you were here. "
On returning to the mother of the man she adored, Bettina
would hold long conversations with the venerable lady about
Goethe's childhood, his early promise, the circumstances attend-
ant on his birth; about the pear-tree his grandfather planted to
celebrate its anniversary, and which afterwards flourished so well;
about the green arm-chair where his mother would sit, relating
to him tales that made him marvel. Then they would speak
about the first signs of his awakening genius. Never was the
childhood of a god studied and watched in its minutest details
with more pious curiosity. One day, while he was crossing the
road with several other children, his mother and a friend, who
were at the window, remarked that he walked with "great maj-
esty," and afterwards told him his upright bearing distinguished
him from the other boys of his age. "That is how I wish to
begin," he replied: "later on I shall distinguish myself in many
different ways. " "And this has been realized," his mother would
add on relating the incident.
Bettina knew everything about Goethe's early life better than
he did himself, and later on he had recourse to her knowledge
when wishing to write his memoirs. She was right in saying,
"As to me, what is my life but a profound mirror of your
own? "
In his boyhood Goethe was considered one of the finest fel-
lows of his age. He was fond of skating, and one fine afternoon
he persuaded his mother to come and watch him sporting on the
ice. Goethe's mother, liking sumptuous apparel, arrayed herself
## p. 12673 (#87) ###########################################
CHARLES AUGUSTIN SAINTE-BEUVE
12673
in "a pelisse, trimmed with crimson velvet, that had a long train
and gold clasps," and she drove off in a carriage with friends.
"On arriving at the river Mein, we found my son energet-
ically skating. He flew like an arrow through the throng of
skaters; his cheeks were rosy from the fresh air, and his auburn
locks were denuded of their powder. On perceiving my crimson
pelisse, he immediately came up to the carriage, and looked at
me with a gracious smile. 'Well, what do you require? ' I said
to him. 'Mother, you are not cold in the carriage, so give me
your velvet mantle. ' 'But you do not wish to array yourself in
my cloak, do you? '-'Yes, certainly. '-There was I, taking off
my warm pelisse, which he donned; and throwing the train over
his arm, he sprang on the ice like a very son of the gods. Ah,
Bettina! if you had only seen him! Nothing could have been
finer. I clapped my hands with joy. All my life I shall see
him as he was then, proceeding from one archway and entering
through the other, the wind the while raising the train of the
pelisse, that had fallen from his arm. "
And she added that Bettina's mother was on the bank, and it
was her whom her son wished to please that day.
Have you not perceived in this simple tale told by the mother,
all the pride of a Latona? "He is a son of the gods! " These
were the words of a Roman senator's wife, of a Roman empress,
or Cornelia, rather than the utterance of a Frankfort citizen's
spouse! The feeling that then inspired this mother in regard to
her son, ultimately permeated the heart of the German nation.
Goethe is "the German fatherland. " In reading Bettina's letters,
we find ourselves, like her, studying Goethe through his mother;
and in so doing we discover his simple and more natural grand-
eur. Before the influence of court etiquette had distorted some
of his better qualities, we see in him the true sincerity of his
race. We wish his genius had been rather more influenced by
this saying of his mother, "There is nothing grander than when
the man is to be felt in the man. "
―
-
It is said that Goethe had but little affection for his mother;
that he was indifferent towards her, - not visiting her for years,
though he was only a distance of about forty miles from where
she lived. And on this point he has been accused of coldness
and egotism. But here, I think, there has been exaggeration.
Before denying any quality to Goethe it is necessary to think
twice. At first sight we imagine him to be cold; but this very
XXII-793
## p. 12674 (#88) ###########################################
12674
CHARLES AUGUSTIN SAINTE-BEUVE
coldness often conceals some underlying quality. A mother does
not continue to love and revere her son when he has been
guilty of a really serious wrong towards her. Goethe's mother
did not see anything wrongful in her son's conduct, and it does
not beseem us to be severer than she. This son loved his
mother in his own way; and though his conduct could not per-
haps be exactly regarded as the model of filial behavior, it cannot
be said that he was in any wise ungrateful. "Keep my mother's
heart warm," he would say in writing to Bettina.
"I
should like to be able to reward you for the care you take of
my mother. A chilling draught seemed to emanate from her sur-
roundings. Now that I know you are near her I feel comforted
— I feel warm. " The idea of a draught makes us smile. Fonte-
nelle could not have expressed himself better. I have sometimes
thought Goethe might be defined as a Fontenelle invested with
poetry.
At the time of his mother's death, Bettina wrote to him, allud-
ing to the cold disposition that was supposed to characterize him
- a disposition inimical to all grief: "It is said that you turn
away from all that is sad and irreparable: do not turn away from
the image of your dying mother; remember how loving and wise
she was up to the last moment, and how the poetic element pre-
dominated in her. " By this last touch, Bettina evinced her knowl-
edge of how to affect the great poet. Goethe responded in words.
replete with gratitude for the care she had shown his mother in
her old age. But from that day their relationship suffered by the
loss of the being who had forged the link between them. How-
ever, as I have already mentioned, Bettina was in love with
Goethe. We might ask what were the signs of this feeling. It
was not an ordinary affection; it was not even a passionate love,
which, like that of Dido, Juliet, or Virginia, burns and consumes
until the desire is satisfied. It was an ideal sentiment; better
than a love purely from the imagination, and yet dissimilar to
one entirely from the heart. I scarcely know how to explain
the feeling, and even Bettina herself could hardly define what
she felt. The fact is that, gifted with a vivid imagination,
exquisite poetical feeling, and a passionate love of nature, she
personified all her tastes and youthful inspirations in Goethe's
image, loving him with rapture as the incarnation of all her
dreams. Her love did not sadden her, but on the contrary,
rendered her happier. "I know a secret," she would say: "the
·
-
## p. 12675 (#89) ###########################################
CHARLES AUGUSTIN SAINTE-BEUVE
12675
greatest happiness is when two beings are united, and the Divine
genius is with them. "
It generally sufficed her to be thus united in spirit. Goethe,
whose insight into life and human nature was as profound as his
knowledge of the ideal, had from the first understood the quality
of this love, and did not shun it, though at the same time he
avoided too close a contact. The privilege of the gods is, as we
all know, the possession of eternal youth: even at fifty-eight years
of age, Goethe would not have been able to endure every day with
impunity the innocent familiarities and enticements of Bettina.
But the girl lived far away. She wrote him letters, full of life,
brilliant with sensibility, coloring, sound, and manifold fancies.
These epistles interested him, and seemed to rejuvenate his mind.
A new being, full of grace, was revealing herself to the observa-
tion of his poetical and withal scientific mind. She opened for
his inspection "an unlooked-for book, full of delightful images
and charming depictions. " It seemed to him as much worth his
while reading this book as any other; especially as his own name
was to be found on every page, encircled with a halo of glory.
He called Bettina's letters "the gospel of nature. "
"Continue,"
he would say, "preaching your gospel of nature. " He felt that
he was the god-made man of that evangel.
She recalled to his
mind (and his artistic talent needed it) the impressions and the
freshness of the past, all of which he had lost in his somewhat
artificial life. "All you tell me brings me back remembrances
of youth; it produces the effect of events gone by, which all of a
sudden we distinctly remember, though for a long time we may
have forgotten them. "
Goethe never lavished his attention on Bettina, although he
never once repulsed her. He would reply to her letters in a
sufficiently encouraging way for her to continue writing. There
was a strange scene the very first time Bettina met Goethe; and
from the way she describes the meeting, we perceive that she
does not write for the benefit of the cynical scoffer. Towards
the end of April, in 1807, she accompanied her sister and her
brother-in-law to Berlin, and they promised to return by the way
of Weimar. They were obliged to pass through the regiments
that were then occupying the land. On this journey Bettina was
arrayed in male attire, and sat on the box of the coach in order
to see farther; while at every halting-place she assisted in har-
nessing and unharnessing the horses. In the morning she would
## p. 12676 (#90) ###########################################
12676
CHARLES AUGUSTIN SAINTE-BEUVE
.
"
shoot off a pistol in the forests, and clamber up the trees like
a squirrel, for she was peculiarly agile (Goethe called her the
Little Mouse). One day, when in an uncommonly frolicsome
mood she had ascended into one of the Gothic sculptures of the
Cologne Cathedral, she commenced a letter in the following way
to Goethe's mother:-
-:
"Lady Counselor, how alarmed you would be to see me now,
seated in a Gothic rose. "
Somewhere else she says: "I prefer dancing to walking, and
I prefer flying to dancing. "
Bettina arrived at Weimar after passing several sleepless nights
on the box of the coach. She immediately called on Wieland,
who knew her family; and obtained from him a letter, intro-
ducing her to Goethe. On arriving at the house of the great
poet, she waited a few minutes before seeing him. Suddenly the
door opened, and Goethe appeared.
"He surveyed me solemnly and fixedly. I believe I stretched
out my hands towards him - I felt my strength failing me!
Goethe folded me to his heart, murmuring the while, 'Poor child!
have I frightened you? ' These were the first words he uttered,
and they entered my soul. He led me into his room, and made
me sit on the sofa before him. We were then both speechless.
He at last broke the silence. 'You will have read in the paper,'
he said, 'that a few days ago we sustained a great loss through
the death of the Duchess Amelia' (the Dowager Duchess of
Saxe-Weimar). 'Oh! ' I answered, 'I never read the papers. '-
'Indeed! I imagined that everything in relation to Weimar inter-
ested you. ' 'No, nothing interests me excepting yourself; more-
over, I am much too impatient to read a newspaper. '—'You are
a charming child. ' Then came a long pause. I was still exiled
on that fatal sofa, shy and trembling. You know it is impossible
for me to remain sitting like a well-bred person. Alas! mother"
(it was Goethe's mother to whom she was writing), "my conduct.
was utterly disgraceful. I at last exclaimed, 'I cannot remain on
this couch! ' and I arose suddenly. 'Well, do as you please,' he
replied. I threw my arms round his neck, and he drew me on
his knee, pressing me to his heart. "
In reading this scene, we must remember that it took place
in Germany, not in France! She remained long enough on his
shoulder to fall asleep; for she had been traveling for several
nights, and was exhausted with fatigue. Only on awakening did
## p. 12677 (#91) ###########################################
CHARLES AUGUSTIN SAINTE-BEUVE
12677
she begin conversing a little. Goethe plucked a leaf off the vine
that clustered round his window, and said, "This leaf and your
cheek have the same freshness and the same bloom. " My readers
may be inclined to think this scene quite childish; but Goethe
soon divulged to her his most serious and intimate thoughts.
He became nearly emotional in speaking of Schiller, saying that
he had died two springs ago; and on Bettina interrupting him to
remark that she did not care for Schiller, he explained to her all
the beauties of this poetical nature,- so dissimilar to his own,
but one of infinite grandeur; a nature he himself had the gen-
erosity to fully appreciate.
The evening of the next day Bettina saw Goethe again at
Wieland's; and on her appearing to be jealous regarding a bunch
of violets he held, which she supposed had been given him by a
woman, he threw her the flowers, remarking, "Are you not con-
tent if I give them to you? " These first scenes at Weimar were
childlike and mystic, though from the very first marked by great
intensity; it would not have been wise to enact them every day.
At their second meeting, which took place at Wartburg after
an interval of a few months, Bettina could hardly speak, so deep
was her emotion. Goethe placed his hand on her lips and said,
"Speak with your eyes-I understand everything;" and when he
saw that the eyes of the charming child, "the dark, courageous
child," were full of tears, he closed them, adding wisely, "Let us
be calm-it beseems us both to be so! " But in recalling these
scenes, are you not tempted to exclaim, "What would Voltaire
have said? »
## p. 12678 (#92) ###########################################
12678
JOSEPH XAVIER BONIFACE SAINTINE
(1798-1865)
AINTINE, the author of the familiar classic 'Picciola,' was in
many respects a fortunate man. He was endowed with a
contagious optimism, which made him friends and brought
him success. From his earliest efforts in authorship, he won readers
by the cheering spirit of his pages and his refined sympathy with his
fellows. He had no long apprenticeship of failure. His first work,
entitled 'Bonheur de l'Étude,' brought him a prize from the French
Academy when he was only twenty-one. Two years later he received
a second prize from the Academy, for a dis-
course upon mutual instruction. A volume
of pleasing verse-'Poésies'-appeared in
1823, which was characterized by the fresh
romantic spirit, kept within bounds by clas-
sical influences.
Saintine was a contributor to many jour-
nals; among them the Revue de Paris, the
Siècle, the Constitutionnel, and La Revue
Contemporaine. He did some interesting
historical work, Histoire des Guerres
d'Italie'; and made a study of German
folk-lore, Mythologie du Rhin': but he
was best known for his stories. Seul,' one
of the most interesting, is the story, sim-
ply and vividly told, of Alexander Selkirk, the original of Defoe's
Robinson Crusoe.
But by far his most famous work was 'Picciola,' which brought
him more fame and more money than all the others. It has been re-
published more than forty times, and translated into many languages,
and is still a favorite everywhere. The Academy awarded it the
Montyon prize of three thousand francs, and decorated its author with
the cross of the Legion of Honor. The story is exquisitely told,-
of the rich and scholarly but blasé young nobleman, who, while a
State prisoner in the fortress of Fenestrella, finds a little plant spring-
ing between the paving-stones of his court, watches it, loves it, makes
it his companion, and is gradually regenerated by its revelation to
him of natural and divine law. Picciola the plant becomes to him
SAINTINE
-
## p. 12679 (#93) ###########################################
JOSEPH XAVIER BONIFACE SAINTINE
12679
Picciola the ideal maiden of his heart and imagination. There is a
charming love tale too. Thérèse, a beautiful unselfish girl, is watch-
ing over her father, who is also a prisoner. Picciola is likely to
die unless the paving-stones pressing on her stem are removed. It
is Thérèse who takes charge of the Count's despairing petition to
Napoleon. After the gloom and suffering comes the happy ending.
In this book, Saintine's own love of nature is revealed in delicate
descriptive touches.
For a Parisian - he was born at Paris in 1798, and died there in
1865 he had an unusual sympathy with nature. His mind had a
healthy turn toward all that was alive and growing, and hence the
high moral tone and nobility of his work. He was a man whose vig-
orous appreciation of life was refined and strengthened by education.
He was acquainted with books, and versed in natural science; and
he wrote with scholarly finish as well as with spontaneity.
To read the touching story of Picciola makes it seem incongru-
ous to think of Saintine as a humorist. Yet with the pseudonym of
"Xavier he was a comic dramatist of great popularity. In collab-
oration with leading writers of vaudeville, he composed over two
hundred such works. Julien' and 'L'Ours et le Pacha,' witty vaude-
villes written with Eugène Scribe, were particularly brilliant successes.
In his old age Saintine gave up writing, and passed a peaceful
happy leisure, with abundant means and surrounded by friends.
―
FROM PICCIOLA ›
Copyright 1865, by Hurd & Houghton
[The Count of Charney, a rich, young, and intellectual nobleman, has
vainly and successively tried to find satisfaction in literature, science, meta-
physics, and dissipation. In disgust with existing social conditions, he con-
spires against the government of Napoleon, is arrested, and cast into the
fortress of Fenestrella. He is allowed neither books, pens, nor paper; and
is forced to exercise all his ingenuity to find the slightest diversion from his
hopeless thoughts. ]
Ο
NE day at the prescribed hour Charney was walking in the
court-yard; his head bowed, his arms crossed behind his
back, pacing slowly, as if he could so make the narrow
space which he was permitted to perambulate seem larger.
Spring announced its coming; a softer air dilated his lungs;
and to live free, and be master of the soil and of space, seemed
to him the goal of his desires.
## p. 12680 (#94) ###########################################
12680
JOSEPH XAVIER BONIFACE SAINTINE
He counted one by one the paving-stones of his little court,
- doubtless to verify the exactness of his former calculations,
for it was by no means the first time he had numbered them,—
when he perceived, there under his eyes, a little mound of earth
raised between two stones, and slightly opened at the top. He
stopped; his heart beat without his being able to tell why. But
all is hope or fear for a captive: in the most indifferent objects.
and the most insignificant events, he seeks some hidden cause
which speaks to him of deliverance.
Perhaps this slight derangement on the surface might be pro-
duced by some great work underground; perhaps a tunnel, which
would open and make a way for him to the fields and mountains.
Perhaps his friends or his former accomplices were mining to
reach him, and restore him to life and liberty.
He listened attentively, and fancied he heard a low, rumbling
noise under ground; he raised his head, and the tremulous air
bore to him the rapid stroke of the tocsin, and the continued roll
of drums along the ramparts, like a signal of war.
He started,
and with a trembling hand wiped from his forehead great drops
of sweat.
Was he to be free? Had France changed its master?
This dream was only a flash. Reflection destroyed the illus-
ion. He had no accomplices, and had never had friends. He
listened again: the same sounds struck his ear, but gave rise to
other thoughts. This stroke of the tocsin, and the roll of the
drum, were only the distant sound of a church bell that he heard
every day at the same hour, and the accustomed call to arms,
which need only excite emotion in a few straggling soldiers of
the citadel.
Charney smiled bitterly, and looked upon himself with pity,
when he thought that some insignificant animal-a mole who had
without doubt lost his way, or a field-mouse who had scratched
up the earth under his feet-had caused him to believe for
an instant in the affection of men and the overthrow of a great
empire.
In order to make his mind quite clear about it, however, he
stooped over the little mound and carefully removed some of the
particles of earth; and saw with astonishment that the wild agita-
tion which had overcome him for an instant had not even been
caused by a busy, burrowing, scratching animal, armed with
## p. 12681 (#95) ###########################################
JOSEPH XAVIER BONIFACE SAINTINE
12681
claws and teeth, but by a feeble specimen of vegetation with
scarcely strength to sprout, weak and languishing.
Raising himself, profoundly humiliated, he was about to crush
it with his heel, when a fresh breeze laden with the perfume of
honeysuckle and hawthorn was wafted to him, as if to implore
mercy for the poor plant, which perhaps one day would also have
perfume to give him.
Another thought came to him to arrest his destructive inten-
tion. How was it possible for that little plant-so tender, soft,
and fragile, that a touch might break it-to raise, separate, and
throw out earth dried and hardened by the sun, trodden under
foot by him, and almost cemented to the two blocks of granite
between which it was pressed?
He bent over it again, and examined it with renewed atten-
tion. He saw at its upper extremity a sort of a double fleshy
valve, which folded over the first leaves, preserved them from
the touch of anything that might injure them, and at the same
time enable them to pierce that earthy crust in search of air and
sun.
-
"Ah," said he to himself, "behold all the secret. It receives
from nature this principle of strength; like the young birds, who
before they are born are armed with a bill hard enough to
break the thick shell which confines them. Poor prisoner! thou
possessest at least the instruments which can aid thee to gain
thy freedom. "
He stood gazing at it a few moments, and no longer dreamed
of crushing it.
The next day, in taking his ordinary walk, he was striding
along in an absent-minded manner, and nearly trod on it by acci-
dent. He drew back quickly; and surprised at the interest with
which his new acquaintance inspired him, he paused to note its
progress.
The plant had grown, and the rays of the sun had caused it
to lose somewhat of its sickly pallor. He reflected upon the
power which that pale and slender stem possessed to absorb the
luminous essence with which to nourish and strengthen itself,
and to borrow from the prism the colors with which to clothe
itself, colors assigned beforehand to each one of its parts.
"Yes, its leaves, without doubt," thought he, "will be tinted.
with a different shade from its stem; and then its flowers, what
color will they be? Yellow, blue, red? Why, nourished by the
―
## p. 12682 (#96) ###########################################
12682
JOSEPH XAVIER BONIFACE SAINTINE
same sap as the stalk, do they not clothe themselves in the same
livery? How do they draw their azure and scarlet from the same
source where the other has only found a bright or sombre green?
So it is to be, however; for notwithstanding the confusion and
disorder of affairs here below, matter follows a regular though
blind march. Blind indeed," repeated he. "I need no other
proof of it than these two fleshy lobes which have facilitated its
egress from the earth, but which now, of no use in its preserva-
tion, nourish themselves still from its substance, and hang down,
wearying it by their weight: of what use are they? "
As he said this, day was declining, and the chilly spring even-
ing approached. The two lobes rose slowly as he watched them,
apparently desiring to justify themselves against his reproach:
they drew closer together, and inclosed in their bosom-to pro-
tect it against the cold and the attacks of insects- the tender
and fragile foliage which was about to be deprived of the sun;
and which, thus sheltered and warmed, slept under the two wings
that the plant had just softly folded over it.
The man of science comprehended more fully this mute but
decided response, in observing that the outside of the vegetable
bivalve had been slightly cut by the nibbling of a snail the night
before, of which the traces still remained.
This strange colloquy between thought on one side and action.
on the other-between the man and the plant-was not to end
here. Charney had been too long occupied with metaphysical
discussions to surrender himself easily to a good reason.
"This is all very well," said he: "here as elsewhere a happy
concurrence of fortuitous circumstances has favored this feeble
creation. It was born armed with a lever to lift the soil, and
a buckler to protect its head,-two conditions necessary to its
existence: if it had happened that these had not been fulfilled,
the plant must have died, stifled in its germ, like myriads of
other individuals of its species whom Nature has no doubt cre-
ated, unfinished, imperfect, incapable of preserving and repro-
ducing themselves, and who have had but an hour of life on
earth. Who can calculate the number of false and impotent
combinations Nature has made, before succeeding in producing
one single specimen fitted to endure? A blind man may hit the
mark, but how many arrows must he lose before he attains this
result! For thousands of ages matter has been triturated by the
double movement of attraction and repulsion: is it then strange
## p. 12683 (#97) ###########################################
JOSEPH XAVIER BONIFACE SAINTINE
12683
that chance should so many times produce the right combinations?
I grant that this envelope can protect these first leaves; but will
it grow and enlarge so as to shelter and preserve also the other
leaves against the cold and the attacks of their enemies? Next
spring, when new foliage will be born as fragile and tender as
this, will it be here to protect it again? No. Nothing then has
been planned in all this; nothing is the result of intelligent
thought, but rather of a happy chance. "
Sir Count, Nature has more than one response with which to
refute your argument. Have patience, and observe that feeble
and isolated production, sent forth and thrown into the court of
your prison, perhaps less by a stroke of chance than by the be-
nevolent foresight of Providence. These excrescences, in which
you have divined a lever and a shield, had already rendered
other services to this feeble plant. After having served it as
envelope in the frozen ground through the winter, the right time
having arrived, they lent it their nourishing breast,-as it were
suckling it when, a simple germ, it had not yet roots with which
to seek moisture from the ground, or leaves to breathe the air
and the sun. You were right, Sir Count: these protecting wings
which have until now brooded so maternally over the young
plant, will not be developed with it,-they will fall; but not till
they have accomplished their task, and when their ward will have
gained strength sufficient to do without their aid. Do not be
anxious about its future! Nature watches over this as over its
sister plants; and as long as the north winds- the chilly fogs
and snowflakes-descend from the Alps, the new leaves yet in
the bud will find there a safe asylum; a dwelling arranged for
them, closed from the air by a cement of gum and resin which
will expand according to their need, only opening under a favor-
able sky and atmosphere. They will not come out without a
warm covering of fur,-a soft cottony down which will defend
them from the late frosts or any atmospheric caprices. Did ever
mother watch more lovingly over the preservation of her child?
Behold, Sir Count, what you might have known long since, if,
descending from the abstruse regions of human science, you had
deigned to lower your eyes to examine the simple works of God.
The further north your steps had turned, the more these common
marvels would have manifested themselves to you. Where the
danger is greater, there the cares of Providence are redoubled.
## p. 12684 (#98) ###########################################
12684
JOSEPH XAVIER BONIFACE SAINTINE
The philosopher had followed attentively all the progress and
the transformations of the plant. Again he had contended with
her by reasoning, and she had ever an answer for all his argu-
ments.
"Of what use are these prickly hairs that garnish thy stem ? »
said he. And the next day she showed them to him covered
with a slight hoar-frost, which,- thanks to them,- kept at a dis-
tance, had not chilled her tender skin.
"Of what use in the fine days will be your warm coat, wadded
with down? "
The fine days arrived: she cast off her winter cloak to adorn
herself with her spring toilet of green; and her new branches
sprang forth free from these silken envelopes, henceforward use-
less.
"But if the storm rages, the wind will bruise thee, and the
hail will cut thy leaves, too tender to resist it. "
The wind blew; and the young plant, too feeble yet to dare
to fight, bent to the earth, and was defended in yielding. The
hail came: and by a new manœuvre the leaves, rising along
the stem and shielding it, pressed against each other for mutual
protection, presenting only their under side to the blows of the
enemy, and opposed their solid ribs to the weight of the atmo-
spheric projectiles; in their union was their strength. This
time the plant had come forth from the combat not without
some slight mutilations; but alive and still strong, and ready to
expand before the rays of the sun, which would heal her wounds.
"Is chance then intelligent? " said Charney: "must I spirit-
ualize matter, or materialize mind? " And he did not cease
to interrogate his mute instructress; he delighted to watch her
growth, and mark her gradual metamorphoses.
One day, after he had contemplated it for a long time, he
was surprised to find that he had been lost in thought; that his
reveries had an unaccustomed tenderness, and that his happy
thoughts continued during his walk in the court. Raising his
head, he saw at the barred window of the great wall the "fly-
catcher," who seemed to be observing him. At first he blushed,
as if the man could read his thoughts; but then he smiled, for
he no longer despised him. Had he the right to do so? Was
not his mind also absorbed in the contemplation of one of the
lowest ranks of creation ?
## p. 12685 (#99) ###########################################
JOSEPH XAVIER BONIFACE SAINTINE
12685
"Who knows," said he, "but this Italian may have discovered
in a fly as much worthy of study as I in my plant? "
On returning to his chamber, that which first struck his eye
was this maxim of the fatalist, inscribed by him upon the wall
two months before:-
"CHANCE IS BLIND, AND IS THE SOLE AUTHOR OF CREATION »
He took a bit of charcoal and wrote underneath:
«PERHAPS ! »
-
ONE day soon after, at the appointed hour, Charney was at
his post near his plant, when he saw a heavy black cloud obscur-
ing the sun, hanging like a gray floating dome over the towers
of the fortress. Soon large drops of rain began to fall: he
started to go quickly under shelter, when hailstones mingled
with the rain pattered on the pavement of the court. La Povera,
whirled and twisted by the storm, seemed on the point of being
uprooted from the earth; her wet leaves, fretting one against the
other, trembling with the tossing of the wind, uttered as it were
plaintive murmurs and cries of distress.
―
Charney paused. He remembered the reproaches of Ludovic,
and looked eagerly around for some object with which to protect
his plant; he found nothing: the hailstones became larger and
fell more quickly, and threatened its destruction. He trembled
for her; -for her whom he had seen so lately resist so well the
violence of the wind and the hail; but now he loved his plant
too well to suffer it to run any risk of injury, for the sake of
getting the better of it in an argument.
Taking then a resolution worthy of a lover,-worthy of a
father, he drew near; he placed himself before his protégée,
and interposed himself as a wall between her and the wind; he
bent over her, serving as a shield against the shock of the hail:
and there, motionless, panting from his struggles with the storm,
from which he sheltered her,-protecting her with his hands,
with his body, with his head, with his love,- he waited till the
cloud had passed.
The storm was over. But might not a similar danger menace
it when he, its protector, was held from it by bolts and bars?
Moreover, the wife of Ludovic, followed by a large dog, sometimes
## p. 12686 (#100) ##########################################
12686
JOSEPH XAVIER BONIFACE SAINTINE
came into the court. This dog in his gambols might, with one
snap of his mouth or a stroke of his paw, destroy the darling of
the philosopher. Charney spent the rest of the day in meditating
upon a plan; and the next day prepared to put it in execution.
The small portion of wood allowed him was scarcely enough
for his comfort in this climate, where the evenings and mornings
are so chilly. What matter? has he not the warmth of his bed?
He can retire earlier and rise later.
