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MADAME DE STAEL. 375
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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« Science Tells Us That There Is No Such...
upon her through the involuntary disgrace of M . do Montmorency and Madame de Recamier on her account . On the proscription of
these friends , she writes , " I ani the Orestes of exile ; fatality pursues me throughout my life . "
Promiscuous association "with the world Is Invariably dangerous , and likely to injure the full development of our powers , when it
robs us of those joys which are to be found in solitude and reflection . And it is worthy of remarkthat this martyrdom to ennui is an
especial feature in the French , character . Madame du Deffand and De Bussy likewise complain of it in their memoirs . But the
narrowness of thought , and the want of originality in French literature at this periodmay partly account for the indifference which
Frenchmen manifested , with regard to attractions of foreign society . Till the days of Madame de Stael the sentences of their literature had
continued to march with the measured routine of Descartes or Bossuet , and every night of imagination or bold speculation had been
restrained by the dread of official interference . It was impossible in one century to break free from the trammels of ages . Many
of the barriers were already overthrown , and Parisians were startled with the novelty of theories and convictions which had long been
familiar to the freedmen of other countries . But the blessings of emancipation are not to be enjoyed at once .
The uneducated laborer , who knows nothing beyond his bread-getting employment and every-day routineridicules the philosopher as
beside himself . Thus condemnation , or contempt for what it cannot understand is amongst one of the most common devices by which
folly is wont to veil its ignorance . We have said that the intellect of Madame de Stael was singularly clear ; but this clearness may
have been owing in part to the narrowness of its range . Jortin has authoritatively declared that " no man who Is not
intelligible can be intelligent ; " and in our days Mr . Ruskin makes himself merry as to what he terms the " cloud-worship " of the
moderns ; whilst Whately speaks scornfully of this " mystical , dim , half-intelliible kind of affected grandeur . " But a dim and
uncertain method g of expression may arise from two causes . It may either be dated to the imbecility of the writer , who , like a careless
watercolor artist , finds it convenient to wash over the form of an object which he cannot define ; or from the originality of a genius ,
who , in the midst of many mortifications and failures , is lighting upon new thoughts which he finds it difficult to explain to
contemporaries , but which a future generation may recognise and value . < c Les esprits" it has been well remarked" qui se contentent cVun
certain portio , n etroite et distinct de la verite , acquise , auront toujours heaucoup _d'avantage dans la discussion sur ceux qui clier client dans
Vinconnu une verite plus vaste et plus ideale . " hyj The ) otheses labors as nets of K to ant catch , of truth Novalis or , in or clearing of Schiller brushwood , in letting from down the
path in which posterity was to follow , , was often a thankless task—
Madame De Stael. 375
MADAME DE STAEL . 375
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Aug. 1, 1862, page 375, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01081862/page/15/
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