Woman in the Nineteenth Century Part 22

I need not say that this dignified feeling was not comprehended.

Madame Gudin was not received at the table, but she had shown the n.o.bleness of her character. For the rest, Madame K----, on arriving at Paris, had the bad taste to boast of having been distinguished above Madame Gudin, and the story reaching the Tuileries, where Monsieur and Madame Gudin are highly favored, excited no little mirth in the circle there.

"ELLEN: OR, FORGIVE AND FORGET."

We notice this coa.r.s.ely-written little fiction because it is one of a cla.s.s which we see growing with pleasure. We see it with pleasure, because, in its way, it is genuine. It is a transcript of the crimes, calumnies, excitements, half-blind love of right, and honest indignation at the sort of wrong which it can discern, to be found in the cla.s.s from which it emanates.

That cla.s.s is a large one in our country villages, and these books reflect its thoughts and manners as half-penny ballads do the life of the streets of London. The ballads are not more true to the facts; but they give us, in a coa.r.s.er form, far more of the spirit than we get from the same facts reflected in the intellect of a d.i.c.kens, for instance, or of any writer far enough above the scene to be properly its artist.

So, in this book, we find what Cooper, Miss Sedgwick and Mrs.

Kirkland, might see, as the writer did, but could hardly believe in enough to speak of it with such fidelity.

It is a current superst.i.tion that country people are more pure and healthy in mind and body than those who live in cities. It may be so in countries of old-established habits, where a genuine peasantry have inherited some of the practical wisdom and loyalty of the past, with most of its errors. We have our doubts, though, from the stamp upon literature, always the nearest evidence of truth we can get, whether, even there, the difference between town and country life is as much in favor of the latter as is generally supposed. But in our land, where the country is at present filled with a mixed population, who come seeking to be purified by a better life and culture from all the ills and diseases of the worst forms of civilization, things often _look_ worse than in the city; perhaps because men have more time and room to let their faults grow and offend the light of day.

There are exceptions, and not a few; but, in a very great proportion of country villages, the habits of the people, as to food, air, and even exercise, are ignorant and unhealthy to the last degree. Their want of all pure faith, and appet.i.te for coa.r.s.e excitement, is shown by continued intrigues, calumnies, and crimes.

We have lived in a beautiful village, where, more favorably placed than any other person in it, both as to withdrawal from bad a.s.sociations and nearness to good, we heard inevitably, from domestics, work-people, and school-children, more ill of human nature than we could possibly sift were we to elect such a task from all the newspapers of this city, in the same s.p.a.ce of time.

We believe the amount of ill circulated by means of anonymous letters, as described in this book, to be as great as can be imported in all the French novels (and that is a bold word). We know ourselves of two or three cases of morbid wickedness, displayed by means of anonymous letters, that may vie with what puzzled the best wits of France in a famous law-suit not long since. It is true, there is, to balance all this, a healthy rebound,--a surprise and a shame; and there are heartily good people, such as are described in this book, who, having taken a direction upward, keep it, and cannot be bent downward nor aside. But, then, the reverse of the picture is of a blackness that would appall one who came to it with any idyllic ideas of the purity and peaceful loveliness of agricultural life.

But what does this prove? Only the need of a dissemination of all that is best, intellectually and morally, through the whole people. Our groves and fields have no good fairies or genii who teach, by legend or gentle apparition, the truths, the principles, that can alone preserve the village, as the city, from the possession of the fiend.

Their place must be taken by the school-master, and he must be one who knows not only "readin', writin', and 'rithmetic," but the service of G.o.d and the destiny of man. Our people require a thoroughly-diffused intellectual life, a religious aim, such as no people at large ever possessed before; else they must sink till they become dregs, rather than rise to become the cream of creation, which they are too apt to flatter themselves with the fancy of being already.

The most interesting fiction we have ever read in this coa.r.s.e, homely, but genuine cla.s.s, is one called "Metallek." It may be in circulation in this city; but we bought it in a country nook, and from a pedlar; and it seemed to belong to the country. Had we met with it in any other way, it would probably have been to throw it aside again directly, for the author does not know how to write English, and the first chapters give no idea of his power of apprehending the poetry of life. But happening to read on, we became fixed and charmed, and have retained from its perusal the sweetest picture of life lived in this land, ever afforded us, out of the pale of personal observation. That such things are, private observation has made us sure; but the writers of books rarely seem to have seen them; rarely to have walked alone in an untrodden path long enough to hold commune with the spirit of the scene.

In this book you find the very life; the most vulgar prose, and the most exquisite poetry. You follow the hunter in his path, walking through the n.o.blest and fairest scenes only to shoot the poor animals that were happy there, winning from the pure atmosphere little benefit except to good appet.i.te, sleeping at night in the dirty hovels, with people who burrow in them to lead a life but little above that of the squirrels end foxes. There is throughout that air of room enough, and free if low forms of human nature, which, at such times, makes bearable all that would otherwise be so repulsive.

But when we come to the girl who is the presiding deity, or rather the tutelary angel of the scene, how are all discords harmonized; how all its latent music poured forth! It is a portrait from the life--it has the mystic charm of fulfilled reality, how far beyond the fairest ideals ever born of thought! Pure, and brilliantly blooming as the flower of the wilderness, she, in like manner, shares while she sublimes its nature. She plays round the most vulgar and rude beings, gentle and caressing, yet unsullied; in her wildness there is nothing cold or savage; her elevation is soft and warm. Never have we seen natural religion more beautifully expressed; never so well discerned the influence of the natural nun, who needs no veil or cloister to guard from profanation the beauty she has dedicated to G.o.d, and which only attracts human love to hallow it into the divine.

The lonely life of the girl after the death of her parents,--her fearlessness, her gay and sweet enjoyment of nature, her intercourse with the old people of the neighborhood, her sisterly conduct towards her "suitors,"--all seem painted from the life; but the death-bed scene seems borrowed from some sermon, and is not in harmony with the rest.

In this connection we must try to make amends for the stupidity of an earlier notice of the novel, called "Margaret, or the Real and Ideal,"

&c. At the time of that notice we had only looked into it here and there, and did no justice to a work full of genius, profound in its meaning, and of admirable fidelity to nature in its details. Since then we have really read it, and appreciated the sight and representation of soul-realities; and we have lamented the long delay of so true a pleasure.

A fine critic said, "This is a Yankee novel; or rather let it be called _the_ Yankee novel, as nowhere else are the thought and dialect of our villages really represented." Another discovered that it must have been written in Maine, by the perfection with which peculiar features of scenery there are described.

A young girl could not sufficiently express her delight at the simple nature with which scenes of childhood are given, and especially at Margaret's first going to meeting. She had never elsewhere found written down what she had felt.

A mature reader, one of the most spiritualized and harmonious minds we have ever met, admires the depth and fulness in which the workings of the spirit through the maiden's life are seen by the author, and shown to us; but laments the great apparatus with which the consummation of the whole is brought about, and the formation of a new church and state, before the time is yet ripe, under the banner of Mons. Christi.

But all these voices, among those most worthy to be heard, find in the book a _real presence_, and draw from it auspicious omens that an American literature is possible even in our day, because there are already in the mind here existent developments worthy to see the light, gold-fishes amid the moss in the still waters.

For ourselves, we have been most charmed with the way the Real and Ideal are made to weave and shoot rays through one another, in which Margaret bestows on external nature what she receives through books, and wins back like gifts in turn, till the pond and the mythology are alternate sections of the same chapter. We delight in the teachings she receives through Chilion and his violin, till on the grave of "one who tried to love his fellow-men" grows up the full white rose-flower of her life. The ease with which she a.s.similates the city life when in it, making it a part of her imaginative tapestry, is a sign of the power to which she has grown.

We have much more to think and to say of the book, as a whole, and in parts; and should the mood and summer leisure ever permit a familiar and intimate acquaintance with it, we trust they will be both thought and said. For the present, we will only add that it exhibits the same state of things, and strives to point out such remedies as we have hinted at in speaking of the little book which heads this notice; itself a rude charcoal sketch, but if read as hieroglyphics are, pointing to important meanings and results.

"COURRIER DES ETATS UNIS."

No other nation can hope to vie with the French in the talent of communicating information with ease, vivacity and consciousness. They must always be the best narrators and the best interpreters, so far as presenting a clear statement of outlines goes. Thus they are excellent in conversation, lectures, and journalizing.

After we know all the news of the day, it is still pleasant to read the bulletin of the _"Courrier des Etats Unis."_ We rarely agree with the view taken; but as a summary it is so excellently well done, every topic put in its best place, with such a light and vigorous hand, that we have the same pleasure we have felt in fairy tales, when some person under trial is helped by a kind fairy to sort the silks and feathers to their different places, till the glittering confusion a.s.sumes the order,--of a kaleidoscope.

Then, what excellent correspondents they have in Paris! What a humorous and yet clear account we have before us, now, of the Thiers game! We have traced Guizot through every day with the utmost distinctness, and see him perfectly in the sick-room. Now, here is Thiers, playing with his chess-men, Jesuits, &c. A hundred clumsy English or American papers could not make the present crisis in Paris so clear as we see it in the gla.s.s of these nimble Frenchmen.

Certainly it is with newspaper-writing as with food; the English and Americans have as good appet.i.tes, but do not, and never will, know so well how to cook as the French. The Parisian correspondent of the _"Schnellpost"_ also makes himself merry with the play of M.

Thiers. Both speak with some feeling of the impressive utterance of Lamartine in the late debates. The Jesuits stand their ground, but there is a wave advancing which will not fail to wash away what ought to go,--nor are its roarings, however much in advance of the wave itself, to be misinterpreted by intelligent ears. The world is raising its sleepy lids, and soon no organization can exist which from its very nature interferes in any way with the good of the whole.

In Germany the terrors of the authorities are more and more directed against the communists. They are very anxious to know what communism really is, or means. They have almost forgotten, says the correspondent, the repression of the Jews, and like objects, in this new terror. Meanwhile, the Russian Emperor has issued an edict, commanding the Polish Jews, both men and women, to lay aside their national garb. He hopes thus to mingle them with the rest of the ma.s.s he moves. It will be seen whether such work can be done by beginning upon the outward man.

The Paris correspondent of the _"Courrier,"_ who gives an account of amus.e.m.e.nts, has always many sprightly pa.s.sages ill.u.s.trative of the temper of the times. Horse-races are now the fashion, in which he rejoices, as being likely to give to France good horses of her own. A famous lottery is on the point of coming off,--to give an organ to the Church of St. Eustache,--on which it does not require a very high tone of morals to be severe. A public exhibition has been made of the splendid array of prizes, including every article of luxury, from jewels and cashmere shawls down to artificial flowers.

A n.o.bleman, president of the Horticultural Society, had given an entertainment, in which the part of the different flowers was acted by beautiful women, that of fruit and vegetables by distinguished men.

Such an amus.e.m.e.nt would admit of much light grace and wit, which may still be found in France, if anywhere in the world.

There is also an amusing story of the stir caused among the French political leaders by the visit of a n.o.bleman of one of the great English families, to Paris. "He had had several audiences, previous to his departure from London, of Queen Victoria; he received a despatch daily from the English court. But in reply to all overtures made to induce him to open his mission, he preserved a gloomy silence. All attentions, all signs of willing confidence, are lavished on him in vain. France is troubled. 'Has England,' thought she, 'a secret from us, while we have none from her?' She was on the point of inventing one, when, lo! the secret mission turns out to be the preparation of a ball-dress, with whose elegance, fresh from Parisian genius, her Britannic majesty wished to dazzle and surprise her native realm."

'T is a pity Americans cannot learn the grace which decks these trifling jests with so much prettiness. Till we can import something of that, we have no right to rejoice in French fashions and French wines. Such a nervous, driving nation as we are, ought to learn to fly along gracefully, on the light, fantastic toe. Can we not learn something of the English beside the knife and fork conventionalities which, with them, express a certain solidity of fortune and resolve?

Can we not get from the French something beside their worst novels?

"COURRIER DES ETATS UNIS."

OUR PROTEGEE, QUEEN VICTORIA.

The _Courrier_ laughs, though with features somewhat too disturbed for a graceful laugh, at a notice, published a few days since in the _Tribune_, of one of its jests which scandalized the American editor. It does not content itself with a slight notice, but puts forth a manifesto, in formidably large type, in reply.

With regard to the jest itself, we must remark that Mr. Greeley saw this only in a translation, where it had lost whatever of light and graceful in its manner excused a piece of raillery very coa.r.s.e in its substance. We will admit that, had he seen it as it originally stood, connected with other items in the playful chronicle of Pierre Durand, it would have impressed him differently.

But the cause of irritation in the _Courrier_, and of the sharp repartees of its manifesto, is, probably, what was said of the influence among us of "French literature and French morals," to which the "organ of the French-American population" felt called on to make a spirited reply, and has done so with less of wit and courtesy than could have been expected from the organ of a people who, whatever may be their faults, are at least acknowledged in wit and courtesy preeminent. We hope that the French who come to us will not become, in these respects, Americanized, and subst.i.tute the easy sneer, and use of such terms as "ridiculous," "virtuous misanthropy," &c., for the graceful and poignant raillery of their native land, which tickles even where it wounds.

We may say, in reply to the _Courrier_, that if Fourierism "recoils towards a state of nature," it arises largely from the fact that its author lived in a country where the natural relations are, if not more cruelly, at least more lightly violated, than in any other of the civilized world. The marriage of convention has done its natural office in sapping the morals of France, till breach of the marriage vow has become one of the chief topics of its daily wit, one of the acknowledged traits of its manners, and a favorite--in these modern times we might say the favorite--subject of its works of fiction. From the time of Moliere, himself an agonized sufferer behind his comic mask from the infidelities of a wife he was not able to cease to love, through memoirs, novels, dramas, and the volleyed squibs of the press, one fact stares us in the face as one of so common occurrence, that men, if they have not ceased to suffer in heart and morals from its poisonous action, have yet learned to bear with a shrug and a careless laugh that marks its frequency. Understand, we do not say that the French are the most deeply stained with vice of all nations. We do not think them so. There are others where there is as much, but there is none where it is so openly acknowledged in literature, and therefore there is none whose literature alone is so likely to deprave inexperienced minds, by familiarizing them with wickedness before they have known the lure and the shock of pa.s.sion. And we believe that this is the very worst way for youth to be misled, since the miasma thus pervades the whole man, and he is corrupted in head and heart at once, without one strengthening effort at resistance.

Were it necessary, we might substantiate what we say by quoting from the _Courrier_ within the last fortnight, jokes and stories such as are not to be found so _frequently_ in the prints of any other nation. There is the story of the girl Adelaide, which, at another time, we mean to quote, for its terrible pathos. There is a man on trial for the murder of his wife, of whom the witnesses say, "he was so fond of her you would never have known she was his wife!"

Here is one, only yesterday, where a man kills a woman to whom he was married by his relatives at eighteen, she being much older, and disagreeable to him, but their properties matching. After twelve years' marriage, he can no longer support the yoke, and kills both her and her father, and "his only regret is that he cannot kill all who had anything to do with the match."

Either infidelity or such crimes are the natural result of marriages made as they are in France, by agreement between the friends, without choice of the parties. It is this horrible system, and not a native incapacity for pure and permanent relations, that leads to such results.

We must observe, _en pa.s.sant_, that this man was the father of five children by this hated woman--a wickedness not peculiar to France or any nation, and which cannot foil to do its work of filling the world with sickly, weak, or depraved beings, who have reason to curse their brutal father that he does not murder them as well as their wretched mother,--who, more unhappy than the victim of seduction, is made the slave of sense in the name of religion and law.