The Friendships of Women Part 7

Pre-eminent among these were the two dazzlingly lovely women, ardent friends of each other too, Mrs. Catherine Crewe and Georgiana Cavendish, d.u.c.h.ess of Devonshire. They were indefatigable in canva.s.sing for him. On one occasion, when the conflict for votes was intense, a butcher offered to vote for Fox on condition that the d.u.c.h.ess of Devonshire would allow him a kiss. The enthusiastic canva.s.ser, perhaps the most beautiful woman then living, granted it amid deafening cheers. Nor was Mrs. Crewe less efficient. At a private banquet in honor of Fox's triumph, the Prince of Wales gave as a toast, "True Blue, and Mrs. Crewe." She gave in return, "True Blue, and all of you." The d.u.c.h.ess of Devonshire exerted all her powers, though in vain, to reconcile Burke with Fox, after their quarrel. On the death of Fox, she wrote a poetic tribute to his memory. Dr. Beattie, author of "The Minstrel," so many of whose touching lines have rung through souls of sensibility and are familiar to all lovers of poetry--such, for example, as,

Ah, who can tell how hard it is to climb The steep where Fame's proud temple shines afar: Ah, who can tell how many a soul sublime Has felt the influence of malignant star, And with inglorious fortune waged eternal war!

enjoyed a delightful friendship with the d.u.c.h.ess of Gordon. He spent the happiest hours of his saddened life at her castle, in the enjoyment of her unvarying kindness. He sent her books; they exchanged letters; and in all the brilliant whirl of her life as a reigning beauty, an ardent politician, and a leader of fashion, she fully appreciated his worth, and reciprocated his attentions and esteem until his death.

A friendship of an uncommon character, containing the elements of a romance, has left a monument of itself in two volumes, called "Letters of William Von Humboldt to a Female Friend." Humboldt, then an undergraduate at Gottingen, during one of his vacations spent three days at Pyrmont. Much of this time he pa.s.sed in the society of a lovely and very superior young lady who was staying there with her father. Each was deeply interested in the other, without suspecting that the feeling was mutual. On parting, Humboldt gave his fair friend an alb.u.m-leaf as a memento. The image of the fascinating student was indelibly impressed on her imagination, a centre of ideal activity and acc.u.mulation. So, it afterwards seemed, was her image left in his imagination. Twenty-six years pa.s.sed in absence and silence. Humboldt had become famous and prominent, and was blessed with a happy family. Charlotte had been married, and was now a childless widow. Deprived of her parents, her husband, her property, she was overwhelmed with misfortunes. Her large property having been devoted to the State, it occurred to her that her old friend, of the three youthful days at Pyrmont, now a minister of the king, might a.s.sist her to recover, at least a portion of it, or at all events give her valuable advice as to what to do. She gathered courage to write him a letter, enclosing his old alb.u.m-leaf, recalling their early meeting, telling how sacredly the memory of him had been enshrined in her soul, and begging him to counsel and console her in her great distress. The character of the letter was such, revealing a spirit so rich, high, and pure, that the generous nature of Humboldt was much moved. He at once replied with great kindness and wisdom, and with oars of practical aid. Thus began a correspondence which lasted until his death, twenty years later, during the whole of which period they only met twice for a brief time. Charlotte's portion of the correspondence, which is clot published--so affectionately reverential, so transparently sincere and trustful, evidently gave the great scholar and statesman extreme pleasure, a most varied stimulus. His letters reveal the fragrant warmth of his heart, the rare virtues and treasures of his soul, his saintly wisdom, in a most attractive manner. They were prized by Charlotte as the religion and sanctuary of her existence, and left to be given to the world as a holy bequest after her death. An interesting fact in the character of Charlotte, often noticed in these letters, and full of fruits in her life, is that she always had an intense desire to have a friend in the fullest sense of the word--a desire which was early heightened by the repeated enthusiastic perusal of Richardson's "Clarissa Harlowe."

This dream had many partial realizations--the most complete and lasting in Humboldt. Rarely has any relation of individuals been so original, and awakened so much interest, as that between Goethe and his child-friend Bettine. In publishing their correspondence, many years after its close, Bettine prefaces it with the remark: "This book is for the good, and not for the bad." She foresaw how the bad would misinterpret it, yet felt that she could afford to defy their incompetent construal. She loved Goethe to idolatry--her whole soul vibrating beneath the power of the possession; but the ideality of the pa.s.sion, in her nave and spontaneous nature, was a perfect safeguard from evil. Under this spell, all her rich, unquestioning ardors of reverence and fondness were as sacredly guided as the movements of Mignon, dancing blindfold amidst the eggs, with never a false step. Goethe's conduct towards the trustful and impa.s.sioned girl was exceedingly discreet, in its mingled kindness and wisdom. He felt the sweetness of her worship; he guarded her, as a father would, from its dangers. But, above all, he was profoundly interested in the spectacle of her young, original, unveiled soul. The electric soil of her brain teemed with a miraculous efflorescence, on which he never tired of gazing. It was to him like sitting apart in some still place, and watching the secret forces and workings of nature, reflected in a small mirror. Thus Bettine writes from the strange fullness of her mind, in mystic language, to Goethe's mother: "Would that I sat, a beggar-child, before his door, and took a piece of bread from his hand, and that he knew, by my glance, of what spirit I am the child. Then would he draw me nigh to him, and cover me with his cloak, that I might be warm. I know he would never bid me go again. I should wander in the house, and no one would know who I was nor whence I came; and years would pa.s.s, and life would pa.s.s, and in his features the whole world would be reflected to me, and I should not need to learn any thing more." And Goethe replies, "Your dear letters bestow on me so much that is delightful, that they may justly precede all else: they give me a succession of holidays, whose return always blesses me anew. Write to me all that pa.s.ses in your mind.

Farewell. Be ever near me, and continue to refresh me." Mont Blanc stoops, with all his snows, to kiss the rosy vale nestling at his feet. Goethe, in the course of his life, stood in the most intimate relations with a large number of the rarest women. Few men have ever appreciated female character so well. No one has exhibited their virtues, and pleaded their cause with a more impressive combination of insight, sympathy, and veneration.

His many sins towards women deserve severe condemnation and rebuke; but it is an outrageous wrong towards his n.o.ble genius to limit attention, as so many critics do, to that aspect of the case. The wondering love and study which Frederike, Lili, and others drew from him; the religious admiration and awed curiosity evoked in him by the spiritual Fraulein von Klettenburg, "over whom," as he said, "in her invalid loneliness, the Holy Ghost brooded like a dove;" the respectful affection, grat.i.tude, and homage commanded by the extraordinary merits of his lofty and endeared friends, the d.u.c.h.ess Amelia, and the Grand d.u.c.h.ess Louise--all bore fruits in his experience and his works. The revelations they made, the examples they set, the lessons they taught, the n.o.ble suggestions they kindled, re-appear in the series of enchanting, glorious, adorable women--Gretchen, Natalia, Ottilia, Iphigenia, Makaria, and the rest-- who, with their artless affection, their self-renouncement, their wisdom, their dignity, their holiness, their sufferings, appear in his master-works, breathing presentments of life, for the edification and delight of generations of readers. He has recognized, more profoundly than any other author, the essentially feminine form of that divine principle of disinterested love, that impulse of pure self-abnegation, in which resides the redemptive power of humanity; and has set it forth with incomparable clearness and constancy. At the close of Faust, he has given it statement in a form which a.s.sociates his genius with that of Dante, and in a kindred height. It is the womanly element, he would say, worshipful and self-denying love, that draws us ever forward, redeeming and uplifting our grosser souls:--

Das ewig weibliche Zieht uns hinan.

Wieland and Sophia de la Roche were profoundly attached to each other during the greater part of their lives. He and his beloved wife were buried beside her; and a tasteful monument erected over them, according to his orders. It bears the inscription, in German, composed by himself:--

Love and Friendship joined these kindred souls in life, And their mortal part is covered by this common stone.

Holderlin, whose soaring and fiery soul was caged in too exquisite an organization, lived, for some time, when he first became sick, in a peasant's hut, beside a brook, sleeping with open doors, spending hours, every day, reciting Greek poems to the murmur of the stream. The princess of Homburg, who greatly admired his genius, and his deep, pure sentiment, had made him a present of a grand piano. In the coming-on of his madness he cut most of the strings.

On the few keys that still sounded he continued to fantasy until his insanity grew so engrossing, that it was necessary to remove him to an asylum. Silvio Pellico, the story of whose sufferings in the prison of Spielberg, has carried his plaintive memory into all lands, and the Marchioness Giulia di Barolo were a pair of friends brought together as by a special appointment of Heaven.

When the holy and gentle poet, patriot, and Christian came out of his prison, with a broken const.i.tution and a wounded heart, into a bleak and prizeless world, the Marchioness--who had long been a mother to the poor of her native city, an a.s.siduous visitor of the jails, a saintly benefactress to all the unhappy whom her charities could reach--drawn to him by a strong interest of respect and pity, gave him a home in her house, and supplied him with congenial employment. Pellico gratefully appreciated her goodness to him, and deeply reverenced her worth. In works of religion and beneficence their lives moved on. He began to write a memoir of his friend; but left it, a fragment, when his lingering consumption brought him to the grave. The pious friendship of the Marchioness did not end with his death. On his tomb, in the Campo Santo, at Turin, she placed a column surmounted by a marble bust, and inscribed with this epitaph from her own pen:

Under the weight of the cross He learned the way to heaven.

Christians pray for him, And follow him.

The pathetic life, the gentle sweetness of spirit, the mournful end of Silvio Pellico, are well known to all. The Marchioness di Barolo, whose name is linked to his in the memory of so pure and benign a union of friendship, lived the life, died the death, and bequeathed the renown of a saint.

She said, "It is a great suffering to have done all in your power for a person, and to find only ingrat.i.tude in return. There is no anger in this suffering, nor does it necessarily destroy affection; but the wound is buried deep in the heart; and if it has been inflicted by one very dearly loved, no human consolation can heal it. The most profitable education persons receive is the one they give themselves, through the love of G.o.d and labors of charity. I was a great deal alone in my youth, and I am sure it was good for me."

Wordsworth's affection for persons, not less than for nature, was remarkable for its tenacity, the perseverance with which his attention returned to it, and for the deep, clear consciousness with which he cherished it. The most beloved of his lady friends was Isabel Fenwick, who was a frequent visitor at Rydal Mount during the last twenty years of his life. She wrote, to his dictation, the autobiographical notes used in the memoir of him. Her admiring and devoted friendship was evidently a strong inspiration and precious solace to him. It was for her sake that he built the Level Terrace, on which he paced to and fro for many an hour, in sight of the valley of the Rothay and the banks of Lake Windermere. Not many finer expressions of sentiment are to be found in our tongue than Wordsworth has given in his sonnet on a portrait of his dear friend Isabel:

We gaze, nor grieve to think that we must die.

But that the precious love this friend hath sown Within our hearts, the love whose flower hath blown Bright as if heaven were ever in its eye, Will pa.s.s so soon from human memory; And not by strangers to our blood alone, But by our best descendants be unknown, Unthought of this may surely claim a sigh.

Yet, blessed Art, we yield not to dejection, Thou against time so feelingly dost strive: Where'er, preserved in this most true reflection, An image of her soul is kept alive, Some lingering fragrance of the pure affection, Whose flower with us will vanish, must survive.

Charming had many qualities especially fitting him for friendships with women. His sensitive delicacy of refinement, disinterested justice, tender magnanimity, earnest culture of every thing beautiful and true, immaculate purity of soul, and burning ideal enthusiasm, made him feel most joyfully at home with women of enlarged sympathies, well-trained minds, and n.o.ble aspirations. He was too shrinking, fastidious, devout, to enjoy intercourse with the rough, hard average of society.

His diffidence, depression, and loneliness, were soothed and alleviated, his n.o.blest powers inspired, by affectionate communion with several of the choicest women of his time. "To them," his biographer says, "he could freely unveil his native enthusiasm, his fine perceptions of fitness, his love of beauty in nature and art, his romantic longings for a pure-toned society, his glorious hopes of humanity. And his profound reverence for the nature and duty of women gave that charm of unaffected courtesy to his manner, look, and tone, which won them freely to exchange their cherished thoughts as with an equal." The following extract from one of his letters to a woman, whose solemn depth of soul and mind, and wondrous range of acquirements and experience rank her with the very greatest of her s.e.x, Harriet Martineau, is an exceedingly interesting revelation:

"MY DEAR FRIEND, I thought I had spoken my last word to you on this side the Atlantic; but I have this moment received your letter, and must write a line of acknowledgment. I know, from my own experience, that there are those who need the encouragement of praise. There are more than is thought who feel the burden of human imperfection too sorely, and who receive strength from approbation. Happy they who from just confidence in right action, and from the habit of carrying out their convictions, need little foreign support. I thank you for this expression of your heart. Without the least tendency to distrust, without the least dejection at the idea of neglect, with entire grat.i.tude for my lot, I still feel that I have not the power, which so many others have, of awakening love, except in a very narrow circle. I knew that I enjoyed your esteem; but I expected to fade with my native land, not from your thoughts, but from your heart.

Your letter satisfies me that I shall have one more friend in England. I shall not feel far from you, for what a nearness is there in the consciousness of working in the same spirit!" The friendship between Channing and Lucy Aikin, as seen in the rich series of her letters to him, extending over a period of sixteen years, must have been a valued resource, enjoyment, and stimulus to them both. An extract or two will make the reader regret that relations charged with such priceless blessings are not more cultivated. "To converse with my guide, philosopher, and friend, has now become with me not a mere indulgence, but a want. I daily discover more and more how much I have come under the influence of your mind, and what great things it has done, and I trust is still doing, for mine. I was never duly sensible, till your writings made me so, of the transcendent beauty and sublimity of Christian morals; nor did I submit my heart and temper to their chastening and meliorating influences. In particular, the spirit of unbounded benevolence, which they breathe, was a stranger to my bosom: far indeed was I from looking upon all men as my brethren. I shudder now to think how good a hater I was in the days of my youth. Time and reflection, a wider range of acquaintance, and a calmer state of the public mind, mitigated by degrees my bigotry; but I really knew not what it was to open my heart to the human race, until I had drunk deeply into the spirit of your writings. You have given me a new being. May G.o.d reward you!" At another time she writes, "O my dear friend, I was told yesterday that you had been very, very ill; and though it was added that you were now better, I have been able to think of little else since. What would I give to know how you are at this moment! The distance which separates us has something truly fearful in such circ.u.mstances."

"Never, my friend, are you forgotten, when my soul seeks communion with our common Father; and when I strive most earnestly to overcome some evil propensity, or to make some generous sacrifice, the thought of you gives me strength not my own."

There is something especially attractive, solacing, and n.o.ble in such a relation as the foregoing. It covers a large cla.s.s of friendships existing between Protestant clergymen and the women who, blessed by their instructions and personal interest, have formed an attachment to them of grateful reverence and sympathy. Such an attachment is often a communication of profit and pleasure most precious to both parties.

Several instances are recorded in the memoirs of Theodore Parker. His friendship with Miss Frances Power Cobbe is particularly worthy of notice. She wrote her grat.i.tude to him for the benefits her mind had derived from his writings. Gratefully appreciating her worth and high aims, he continued to correspond with her by letter until his death.

How cordial their relation became; what kind deeds went across it; what delights it yielded; what a deep and pure blessing of encouragement, joy, and peace it was to them both--appears in the few letters given to the public. When they first met, the t.i.tanic toiler, outworn with his cares and battles, was at the edge of death. "Do not," said the expiring athlete, "do not say what you feel for me; it makes me too unhappy to leave you." During those lingering days of transition from the earthly state to the heavenly, he dared not trust himself to see her often. As he said, "it made his heart swell too high." A cla.s.s of friendships of extreme moral value, and often of great attractiveness, results from the relations of n.o.ble and royal women with the scholars and philosophers chosen to serve them as tutors or advisers. The names of Zen.o.bia and Longinus give us an example of it in antiquity. If the annals of the crowned houses of Europe, imperial and provincial, were searched with reference to this point, a large number of admirable instances would be brought to light. On the one side power, rank, grace, patronage, every courtly charm; on the other side, learning, experience, grat.i.tude, devoted service, eminent personal worth--could not fail in many instances to give birth to the most cordial esteem, and lead to a charming intercourse. Such was the case with both Wieland and Herder, and those queenly ladies, the d.u.c.h.ess Mother and the reigning d.u.c.h.ess of the court of Weimar. The relation between Columbus and Queen Isabella, after her chivalrous confidence and patronage--must have drawn their souls towards each other with a romantic interest, only needing better opportunities for personal intimacy to warm into a fervent sympathy.

The Countess of Pembroke, wife of that Philip Herbert who was the brother of Shakespeare's friend, showed how tenderly she remembered her old instructor, Daniel, the poet-laureate, by erecting a handsome monument to him in Beckington Church, bearing this inscription: "Here lies, expecting the second coming of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, the dead body of Samuel Daniel, Esq., who was tutor to the Lady Anne Clifford in her youth. She was that daughter and heir to George Clifford, Earl of c.u.mberland, who, in grat.i.tude to him, erected this monument to his memory, a long time after, when she was Countess Dowager of Pembroke, Dorset, and Montgomery." One of the most beautiful recorded friendships of this kind is that revealed in the long correspondence of Descartes and his pupil, the Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia. Her charming character and distinguished attainments add largely to the gratification with which we trace her ardent esteem and attachment for her instructor and friend, whose brilliant genius and adventurous career are of themselves fascinating. A pleasing little volume by M. de Caren was published at Paris so lately as the year 1862, under the t.i.tle, "Descartes and the Princess Palatine, or the Influence of Cartesianism on the Women of the Seventeenth Century." An example of a kindred friendship is also given by Leibnitz and his pupil, Caroline of Brunswick. Soon after the electoress became Queen of Prussia, she invited him to visit her, saying, "Think not that I prefer this greatness and this crown, about which they make such a bustle here, to the conversations on philosophy we have had together in Lutzenburg." Frederick the Great relates that the queen, in her last hours, mentioned the name of Leibnitz. One of the ladies in waiting burst into tears, and the queen said to her, "Weep not for me; for I am now going to satisfy my curiosity respecting the origin of things, which Leibnitz has never been able to explain to me, respecting s.p.a.ce, existence and non- existence, and the Infinite." Frederick adds, that, as "those persons to whom Heaven vouchsafes gifted souls raise themselves to an equality with monarchs, this queen esteemed Leibnitz well worthy of her friendship." The philosopher was affected deeply and long by the loss of her who had been his closest and best friend. He wrote, being absent at the time, to one of her favorite maids, who was also a friend of his own, "I infer your feelings from mine. I weep not; I complain not; but I know not where to look for relief. The loss of the queen appears to me like a dream; but when I awake from my revery, I find it too true. Your misfortune is not greater than mine; but your feelings are more lively, and you are nearer to the calamity. This encourages me to write, begging you to moderate your sorrow. It is not by excessive grief that we shall best honor the memory of one of the most perfect princesses of the earth; but rather by our admiration of her virtues. My letter is more philosophical than my heart, and I am unable to follow my own counsel: it is, notwithstanding, rational." Ascham relates, in his "Schoolmaster," a conversation he once held with Lady Jane Grey. She said that the sports of the gentlemen and ladies in the park were but a shadow of pleasure compared with that which she found in reading Plato. And, in explaining how she came to take such delight in learning, she said, "One of the benefits that ever G.o.d gave me is that he sent so sharp and severe parents, and so gentle a schoolmaster. For when I am in presence of either father or mother, whether I speak, keep silence, sit, stand, or go, eat, drink, be merry, or sad, be sewing, playing, or dancing, or any thing else, I must do it, as it were, in such weight, measure, and number, even so perfectly, as G.o.d made the world; or else I am so sharply taunted, so cruelly threatened; yea, presently sometimes, with pinches, nips, bobs, and other ways, which I will not name, for the honor I bear them, so without measure misordered that I think myself in h.e.l.l, till time come that I must go to Mr. Elmer, who teaches me so gently, so pleasantly, with such fair allurements to learning, that I think all the time nothing while I am with him." Elizabeth Robinson, afterwards the famous Mrs. Montague, the attracting centre of a noted and memorable a.s.sociation of friends, both men and women, had an exemplary friendship, full of good offices and pleasure, and undisturbed by any thing until death, with her preceptor, the distinguished scholar and writer, Conyers Middleton. Hester Lynch Salusbury, at thirteen, formed a most affectionate attachment to Dr. Collier, a guest of her father, who had volunteered to supervise her education. "He was just four times my age; but the difference or agreement never crossed my mind. A friendship more tender, or more unpolluted by interest or by vanity, never existed. Love had no place at all in the connection, nor had he any rival but my mother." The young Hester afterwards became the famous Mrs. Thrale, to all the varied incidents of whose long and close friendship with Dr. Johnson the world-Wide renown of that great man has given a universal publicity. The relation of patroness, sustained with such signal grace and generosity, and with such soothing and inspiring effect, by many queenly ladies in former times, is virtually obsolete now. But it has left memorials never to die; and it is hard to imagine any office which at this day should be more grateful and gracious, more full of happiness and good to a woman of n.o.ble heart and mind, blessed with position, wealth, and culture, than that of extending appreciative sympathy, aid, and encouragement, to young men of genius, in their unbefriended, early struggles. It has been strikingly said by that n.o.ble woman, Sarah Austin, with reference to Madame Recamier, "All who were admitted to her intimacy, hastened to her with their joys and their sorrows, their projects and ideas; certain not only of secrecy and discretion, but of the warmest and readiest sympathy. If a man had the rough draught of a book, a speech, a picture, an enterprise, in his head, it Was to her that he unfolded his half-formed plan, sure of an attentive and sympathizing listener. This is one of the peculiar functions of women. It is incalculable what comfort and encouragement a kind and wise woman may give to timid merit, what support to uncertain virtue, what wings to n.o.ble aspirations." Chaucer was thus patronized by Philippa, queen of Edward III; by Anne of Bohemia, for whom he composed his "Legend of Good Women;" and most of all by Blanche of Lancaster, wife of John of Gaunt, whose courtship he celebrated allegorically in the "Parliament of Birds," whose epithalamium he sang in his "Dream," and whose death he lamented in his "Book of the d.u.c.h.ess." The beautiful and kindly Lady Venetia Digby patronized and befriended Ben Jonson. The attentions of so fair and gentle a creature as she was, according to the description of her in his two poems, called, "The Picture of the Body," and "The Picture of the Mind,"--could not have been otherwise than most soothing, grateful, and inspiring to him. She was found dead in her bed one morning, her cheek resting on her hand.

She past away So sweetly from the world, as if her clay Laid only down to slumber.

Jonson dedicated to her memory the imperishable tribute of his heart in a long poem made up of ten parts. The ninth part is inscribed, "Elegy on my Muse, the truly honored Lady Venetia Digby, who, living, gave me leave to call her so." These lines are from it:

There time that I died too, now she is dead, Who was my Muse, and life of all I said, The spirit that I wrote with and conceived All that was good or great with me, she weaved, And set it forth: the rest were cobwebs fine, Spun out in name of some of the old Nine, To hang a window or make dark the room Till, swept away, they were cancelled with a broom.

Lucy, the Countess of Bedford, was likewise a great friend of Ben Jonson. He has sung her worth in one of the most magnificent of his shorter poems. She was also a kind and fast friend of Daniel and Donne, both of whom wrote verses in her honor. But Jonson vastly distanced them both. Exquisite and sublime as his praise was, it was agreed, by those who knew her, that she fully deserved it. It is a luxury to recall such a tribute:

This morning, timely rapt with holy fire, I thought to form unto my zealous Muse What kind of creature I could most desire To honor, serve, and love; as poets use, I meant to make her fair and free and wise, Of greatest blood, and yet more good than great; I meant the day-star should not brighter rise, Nor lend like influence from his lucent seat.

I meant she should be courteous, facile, sweet, Hating that solemn vice of greatness, pride: I meant each softest virtue there should meet, Fit in that softer bosom to reside.

Only a learned and a manly soul I purposed her, that should, with even powers, The rock, the spindle, and the shears, control, Of Destiny, and spin her own free hours.

Such when I meant to feign, and wished to see, My Muse bade, BEDFORD write, and that was She.

Milton had many qualities and tastes fitting him to be the delight of female society, and to delight in it. His natural bent for all the delicacies of sentiment, for every fine and high range of character, thought, and pa.s.sion, has strewn many choice expressions of itself in his writings, and sprinkles his poems with eulogistic allusions to the virtues and charms of womanhood. These have too much escaped the popular notice, which has fastened on the numerous stinging utterantes wrung from certain bitter pa.s.sages of his experience.

Scores of critics have dwelt on the terrible traits he has given to Delilah in "Samson Agonistes," where one has called attention to the breathing emotion, the celestial coloring, the ineffable sweetness and grandeur he has lavished on the Lady in "Comus." For imperishable monuments of his friendships with the selectest women of that age, behold his Italian lines to Leonora Baroni, his sonnets "To a Virtuous Young Lady," "To the Lady Margaret Ley," "To the Memory of Mrs. Catharine Thomson," and the record of his long and unbroken intimacy with the admirable and all-accomplished Countess Ranclagh, of whom he said, "She was to me in the place of every want."

The d.u.c.h.ess of Queensbury was the unfailing friend and encourager of Gay. When Gay died, she eloquently rebuked the vitriolic Swift, for expressing the heartless sentiment, that a lost friend might be replaced as well as spent money. Madame Rambouillet was the friend of Voiture; Madame Sabliere of La Fontaine. Hundreds of similar examples might easily be gathered. Few of the French literary men of the seventeenth or the eighteenth century led those disorderly and disreputable lives which were the calamity and the disgrace of most of the professed writers of England at that time. Madame Mole justly observes, "They owed their exemption from these miseries chiefly to the women, who, from the earliest days of French literature, gave them all the succor they could; bringing them into contact with the rich and the great, showing them off with every kind of ingenuity and tact, so as to make them understood and valued. If we examine the private history of all their celebrated men, we find scarcely one to whom some lady was not a ministering spirit. They helped them with their wit, their influence, and their money. They did far more. They helped them with their hearts, listened to their sorrows, admired their genius before the world had become aware of it, advised them, entered patiently into all their feelings, soothed their wounded vanities and irritable fancies. What balm has been found in the listening look, for the warm and vexed spirit how has it risen again after repeated disappointment, comforted by encouragements gently administered! If the Otways and the Chattertons had possessed one such friend, their country might not have been disgraced by their fate. Are the life and happiness of the poet, of the man of genius, a trifle? What would human society be without them? Let all who hold a pen think of the kind hearts who, by the excitement of social intercourse and sympathy, have preserved a whole cla.s.s from degradation and vice."

The extent to which women have been the occasions, the suggesters, and sustaining encouragers of artistic creations in literature, painting, sculpture, and music, will astonish any one who will take the trouble to look up the history of it. When Orpheus found that Eurydice was gone, he threw his harp away. Women have delighted to administer inspiration, praise, and comfort, to great poets, orators, philosophers, because it gratifies their natural talent for admiring, and because they are reverentially grateful to the genius which can so clearly read their secrets, and so powerfully portray their souls to themselves. Sophocles, the highest Greek poet, whose firm and delicate portraitures of feminine character were not equalled in antique literature, must have had many admirers and friends among the choice women of Athens. And Virgil, we cannot imagine any high- souled, refined woman knowing the tender Virgil without a respectful and affectionate attachment. Octavia fainted away when he read before her his undying description of the death of Marcellus. The kiss of Aileen Margaret on the lips of the sleeping minstrel, Alain Chartier, is a type of woman's homage to literary genius. The same thing was shown, a little earlier in the same century, at the funeral of Heinrich von Meissen, surnamed Frauenlob, from the infinite praises he had lavished on the Virgin Mary, and on the female s.e.x in general.

After his death in the outer quarters of the cathedral at Mayence, which were set apart for hospitality to strangers and honored guests, a great company of women, it is related, sighing and weeping, bore his coffin to the burial, and poured into his sepulchre such an abundance of wine as ran over the whole circ.u.mference of the church.

Five hundred years later, the women of Mayence celebrated his memory by tributary eulogies, and by the erection of a beautiful new monument, faced with a marble portrait of him.

Bernardin Saint Pierre says, "There is in woman an easy gayety, which scatters the sadness of man." It may be said, on the other hand, that there is in the man of literary genius a masterly insight, joined with sympathetic tenderness and masculine strength, which administers to woman that reflective and glorifying interpretation, and that supporting guidance, whereof she continually stands in such need.

What woman would not be proud and grateful at receiving such a tribute as that which Waller paid to the Countess of Carlisle, on seeing her dressed in mourning?

When from black clouds no part of sky is clear, But just so much as lets the sun appear, Heaven then would seem thy image, and reflect Those sable vestments and that bright aspect.

A spark of virtue by the deepest shade Of sad adversity is fairer made: No less advantage doth thy beauty get, A Venus rising from a sea of jet!

What woman capable of appreciating the genius of Racine could read the works in which his choice thoughts and effusive sentiments are enshrined, purified and confirmed echoes of the finest sighs ever breathed by the heart, and not be drawn to him honoring esteem and love? It was this mastery of the interior life, this impa.s.sioned voicing of its subtilest secrets, that made Rousseau so irresistibly attractive to women. To the many who befriended him, or paid precious tributes to him in his life, the name of Madame de Verdelin has recently been added, by the publication of her correspondence. Sainte Beuve has prefixed her recovered portrait in an essay marked by his best touches. After quoting her final letter, he says, "From that day, Madame de Verdelin wholly disappears. She is known only through Rousseau. A ray of his glory fell on her; that ray--withdrawn, she repa.s.ses into the shade, and every trace is lost." The gifted critic says he feels a deep gratification in thus recalling the image of this generous woman. "She is a conquest for us: we pay the debt of Rousseau to her." He concludes what he has written with reference to these friendships of mind to mind, these intimacies of intelligence and feeling, these affections of women and authors, more tender than those of men, and yet quite distinct from love, by saying, with instructive emphasis, "Evidently, social morality has taken a step forward: a new chapter, unknown to the ancients, too much forgotten by the moderns, is henceforth to be added in all treatises of friendship."

Perhaps no author has ever written more that must speak with irresistible power to the inmost hearts of all women who have souls sensitive enough, complex, cultivated, and forcible enough, for an adequate reaction on the richness of his works, than Jean Paul Richter. In all the heights and depths and subtilties of the natural affections, and of imaginative or ideal emotion, as well as in truthful and endlessly varied expressions of those mysteries, he has no equal, scarcely a rival, in literature. In spite of his poverty and confining toil, he made, in his day, a profound personal sensation. And such is the personal spell of his ineffable tenderness, n.o.bleness, and grandeur, even as exerted on the reader from his printed pages, that many a strong man, pilgriming thither from remote lands, has been known to kneel with convulsive emotion on his lowly grave at Bayreuth. His life was heroic in labor, and spotless in purity. When his heart sank in death, it seems as though the earth itself ought to have collapsed with the breaking of so great a thing. His sensibility was a world-harp, responding to every tremulous breath of air or flame. Sweet, pure, wise, mighty, modest, no wonder he drew upon himself the affectionate interest of many lofty ladies, and found treasures of inspiration and solace in their conversation and letters. Reviewing his life in the circle of his friends, he seems as a sun, with pale and burning moons and planets revolving around him. Charlotte von Kalb; Caroline Herder; Emilie von Berlepsch; Josephine von Sydow; the mother and the wife of Carl August; the daughters of the Duke of Mecklenburg, to whom, as "The Four Lovely and n.o.ble Sisters on the Throne," he dedicated his "t.i.tan," such, with many others like them, were the gracious women with whom Jean Paul, in his much-tried life, interchanged homage, friendly counsels, and sacred joys. The intelligent and enthusiastic praises they poured on him for his works must have been to him a divine luxury. And ah I how much he needed such comforts, he who could say, in one of his frequent moments of sadness, "Reckoning off from the neighborhood of my heart, I find life cold and empty"! A whole volume of his before unpublished "Correspondence with Renowned Women" was given to the public in 1865, a glowing treasury of gems of the heart.

Rahel Levin was such a fascinating queen of society, such a signal and fortunate mistress of friendships with celebrated men, that her character and career are on this account full both of interest and instruction. The secrets of influence, the charms that attract attention, awaken confidence, exert authority, dispense pleasure, and minister to human wants, are scarcely anywhere more clearly shown than in her person and story. The p.r.o.nounced character, the uncommon talents, the rare combination of extreme candor and tact, the broad, intellectual culture, and impulsive demonstrativeness of the youthful Jewess, very soon gave her a prominent position in society, and made her fascination felt and talked about. Her first advent and sway prophesied her future renown as the most celebrated woman in Germany who has kept an open drawing-room for the practice of conversation and the joy of intellectual society. It was said of her, at that early period, "She was full of an obliging good temper, that made her antic.i.p.ate wishes, divine annoyances in order to relieve them, and forget herself in seeking to make others happy."

Her thirtieth year she spent in France, where she had the finest opportunities for studying the famous salon-life of Paris. Without being captivated or at all overborne by it, she no doubt drew many lessons and profited much from it, on carrying her German soul back to her German home. Returning to Berlin, she bewitched all the choice spirits of that city. Married to Varnhagen von Ense, her house was, for a quarter of a century, the rendezvous of whatever was n.o.blest, purest, strongest, most distinguished in Germany. She moved among them as a queen, looked up to by all. She had glowing and sustained friendships, emphatically rich and faithful friendships, of the highest moral order, with Marwitz, Gentz, Prince Louis Ferdinand, Brinckmann, and Veit; besides relations of earnest affection and communion with many other honored contemporaries, such as Schleiermacher, Schlegel, and Jean Paul.

In addition to sketches of her by different hands, we possess five volumes, drawn chiefly from her own pen and edited by her husband, containing records of her thoughts, portraits of her closest friends, and full accounts of her intercourse and correspondence with them. In all this literary transcript, as in the course of experience which it copies, the most conspicuous element is friendship, the reception, reciprocation, culture, and expression of friendship. The king among her friends was her lover and husband, Varnhagen von Ense; her union with whom was not more a marriage of persons, than it was a marriage of minds, souls, interior lives, and social interests and ends. It is princ.i.p.ally through him, next after her own writings, that welearn the characteristics of Rahel, which made such deep impressions on people, and held them so fast to her. He thus describes her, as she first dawned on him amidst the highest society of Berlin: "There appeared a light, graceful figure, of small stature, but strong make, with delicate and full limbs, feet and hands remarkably small; the countenance, encircled with rich, dark locks, spoke intellectual superiority; the quick, and yet firm, deep glances left the observer in doubt whether they gave or received more; an expression of suffering lent a soft grace to the clear features. She moved in a dark dress, light almost as a shadow, but also with freedom and sureness; her greeting was as easy as it was kindly. But what struck me most was the sonorous and mellow voice which seemed to swell from the inmost depths of the soul, and a conversation the most extraordinary that I had ever met with. She threw out, in the most facile and unpretending fashion, thoughts full of originality and humor, where wit was united with simplicity, and acuteness with amiability; and into the whole a deep truth was cast, as it were out of iron, giving to every sentence a completeness of impression which rendered it hard for the strongest, in any way, to break or rend it.

In her presence, I had the conviction that a genuine human being stood before me, in its most pure and perfect type; through her whole frame, and in all her motions, nature and intellect in fresh, breezy reciprocity; organic shape, elastic fibre, living connection with every thing around; the greatest originality and simplicity in perception and utterance; the combined imposingness of innocence and wisdom; in word and deed, alertness, dexterity, precision; and all imbosomed in an atmosphere of the purest goodness and benevolence; all guided by an energetic sense of duty, and heightened by a n.o.ble self-forgetfullness in the presence of the joys and griefs of others."

Such is a glimpse of the Rahel, who, for thirty years, exemplified in her drawing-room, amidst the joy and admiration of the most glorious circle of her countrymen, that rich, strong, free, and n.o.ble ideal of womanhood, which Herder, Schiller, Richter, and Goethe, ill.u.s.trated in so many of their works. So many contrasted qualities met and were reconciled in her, that different friends and critics report her in quite different likenesses. According to one, she never thought p.r.o.nouncedly, but gave forth the exquisite perfume of thought: her life was made of tears, smiles, dreams, fantasies, flutterings of wings, too celestial for the gross air of earth. According to another, she was too recklessly thorough, and used too shattering an emphasis. In fact, both these sides were true. Gentz, the celebrated politician, called her "a great man," and confessed himself to be, in comparison, a woman. Yet no one who knew her could deny that she strikingly possessed the best traits of her s.e.x, purity, tenderness, modesty, patience, and self-sacrifice. In 1813, during the horrors of disease in Berlin, and the horrors of war in Prague, she gave herself up with joy to nursing the sick and the wounded. "The feast of doing good," she called it. "Never have I seen elsewhere," said Varnhagen, "such a ma.s.s of masculine breadth and penetration, alongside of which, however, swelled, without remission, the warm flow of womanly mildness and beauty. Never have I seen an eye and a mouth animated with such loveliness, and yet, at times, giving vent to such outbreaks of enthusiasm and indignation."

Her intellectual power and her tact formed, no doubt, one strong element of the attraction which drew and kept so many artists, philosophers, preachers, statesmen, and brilliant social leaders by her side. But her heroic and unconquerable truthfullness was a still more royal and authoritative trait. She sought for truth; she spoke truth; she indignantly denounced all falsehoods and shams. Some of her sentences on this point seem burned into the page, as by the flame of a blowpipe. "The whole literary and fashionable world is baked together of lies." To those who expressed their respect and admiration of her she said, "Natural candor, absolute purity of soul, and sincerity of heart are the only things worthy of homage: the rest is conventionality." She wrote to a friend, "Never try to suppress a generous impulse, or to crowd out a genuine feeling: despair or discouragement is the only fruit of dry reasoning, unenlightened by the heart." In the following sentence she betrays, by the law of opposites, the deepest charm of such a nature as her own; namely, a thoroughly sincere and fluent spontaneousness of character. "I have just found out the thing that I most utterly hate: it is pedantry. To see such a big nothing in full march is to me the most revolting and the most unendurable of all sights."

Another fine and winning quality in Rahel was her profound interest in exalted and original characters, and her ardent veneration for them. This drew them gratefully to her in return. She had an almost idolatrous admiration for Goethe. All aspirants for true interior greatness naturally love and revere those who exemplify their ideal to them. She once called Goethe and Fichte the first and second eyes of Germany. A soul capable of such enthusiasm for great souls is rare, and is most charming. Her maxim, like that of all the highest and strongest of the guiding souls of our race, was, "Act only from your inmost conscience, and only good will come to you." A vast, tonic freedom and charity breathe in some of her sentences. "A catholic sympathy with all possible systems; a resolute liberation from the exclusive trammels of any; an entire surrender into the hands of Him who wields all possibilities; and an honest dealing with the depths of our own hearts, this seems to me more than all philosophy, and a thing well pleasing to G.o.d."

It is no wonder that the favored friends of such a woman honored her even to the verge of worship, as we find then doing in their letters.

Though not technically--or professedly a religious woman, she was really one. She felt the mystery of things; she revered the providential guides of the race; she owned the law of the whole; she bowed in submissive adoration before G.o.d. "Since the decease of my mother," she said, "I know death better. I see him everywhere. He has a.s.sumed a new power over me." A fatal disease struck her at sixty- two. Her husband scarcely left her bedside. Until the last, he continued to read her favorite books to her. The young Heine, how different then from the dreadful wreck he became! hearing that fresh rose-leaves, applied to her inflamed eyes, were grateful, sent her his first hook of poems, enveloped in a basket of roses. With what fitter words can we take leave of Rahel and her friends than these of her own: "I have thought an epitaph. It is this, Good men, when any thing good happens to mankind, then think affectionately in your peace also of mine."