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78 MADAME DE GIBARDHST.
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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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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• In Her, The Published Following Two Ye...
Tlie plot of the novel thus whimsically Introduced is a strange mixture of the conventional and the supernatural ; the hero _> Edgar
de Lorville , is of the approved Parisian type _, and Is discovered walking in the Tuileries Gardens with an air of profound and
abstracted melancholy , and carrying an opera-glass , " as shabby as an -lass in a vaudeville . " We are frankly informedand quietly
aske opera d g to believe , in page 13 , that Edgar , travelling , in Bohemia ( perhaps In that famous town of Bohemia by the seamentioned by
Shakespere ) , has met with " a philosopher unknown , to the world , and so much the more learned , for he had spent in acquiring
learnown ing * the reputations time which . " This philosop _" astonishing hers usuall man y devote , ' after to stud spreading ying crystals their _,
and the science of optics , and more than once _constilting Gall and struct _. Lavater a , lens throug so h " years perfectl of toil harmonized and vig with il , contrives the visual at last rays to which
conreproduced so faithfully y the slightest expressions of the , human imperceptible physiognomy , details which showed those fug in itive such c a ontractions marvellous of manner our features those
caused by the' different , movements of the _soiil , that the eye , aided hy this torch , penetrated the deepest thought , and translated , as it and the short of which
wer was e , , that the most he who intim looke ate d deceits throug . " h this The eye long -glass knew exactly what one was thinking aboutand the knowledge was aptas we
shall every see , to prove a little _imcomfort ; able . One of M . de Lorville , ' s fancies consisted in taking his opera-glass to the playwhere he
, amused himself in reading the absurd discrepancy between the sublime speeches of the dramatis perso ? _ice and the private thoughts of
the actors ; between Charlotte Corday stabbing Marat , and musing the effect of her costumeand the pretty bonnets in the boxes
• upon at which that heroine was , staring at the moment when she received sentence of death . Well would it have been for Mm if he
would have continued to use it only on such occasions . But the unhappy young man goes to a great ball at the house of the
Ambassador of and there he meets and dances with a charming young lady , a " , ravishing blonde" with two great black eyes , air of
softly laisance veiled as by if long she lent eyelashes herself , an to the unfinished leasures smile of , others and an , though herself comp she felt far removed from them—nay p " an attitude of languor
and even of suffering bestowed an inexpressibl , e charm upon her whole " He this lovely young lady for the next ;
contre danse _person ; . she pout engages s a little , and Edgar , seizing the opportunity of lancing at her through the -lassis aware that she is
thinking g , "It is very tiresome to dance eye with g peop , le one does not know . " He is enchanted with this testimony to her freedom from a desire
after new conquests ; but when he comes to claim her , he finds she has quite livelyand he finds her more and more delightful
every grown moment , and ends , by falling head over ears in love before
the country dance is ended . Meanwhile , Mdlle . d'Armilly throws
78 Madame De Gibardhst.
78 MADAME DE _GIBARDHST .
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Oct. 1, 1860, page 78, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01101860/page/6/
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