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Leader (1850-1860), 28th October 1854, Edition Country of 2, Page 14, r*ry*± ILuErflttltB*

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      1022 The Leader. [Satukday,

      1022 THE LEADER . [ Satukday ,

      R*Ry*± Iluerflttltb*

      Citenrim

      !Ritic3 Are Not The Legislators, But The...

      ! ritic 3 are not the legislators , but the judges and police of literature . They do not make laws—they interpret and try to enforce them . —Edinburgh Review .

      [P Any Book Could Be Expected, From The ...

      [ p any book could be expected , from the antecedents of its author , to excite an interest in-all the literary- circles of Europe , sufficient to attract to it whatever degree of attention can be spared at present fox a literary topic , it is Madame Oeorge Sakd ' s Autobiography . The manner of the appearance of this long-expected work , however , is unfortunate . Printed in short successive instalments as the Feuilleton ofLaPresse newspaper , it comes before one tinder great disadvantages . Our French neighbours must be differently constituted from us , to be able to tolerate these newspaper-feuilletons at all . A continued story in a magazine , or in Dickens ' s Household Words , is uncomfortable enough ; a novel continued from day to day rn the Times is an utter impossibility , until a coup-d' ' etat in Britain , followed by a settled

      despotism , shall create the necessary leisure throughout the community ; but , under no circumstances , would . British readers , accustomed to the luxury of good thick paper and clear type , take pleasure in a novel or biography printed by instalments on the thin , dingy , semi-transparent sheets on which . Madame Sand's History of My Life is now being doled out to the contented Parisians . The worst of it is , * that we must wait for the conclusionof the Autobiography in the columns of the Presse beforevrecan / have it in any more satisfactory form . Till then , . translation into English , and reproduction in any shape in France , are prohibited . Against this inconvenience is , of course , to be set the fact , that by the present mode of publication , Madame Sam > receives a far more handsome recompense for her work than could otherwise have come to her .

      ' G-laricing over what has already appeared of the Autobiography in the columns of the Presse , we must confess to a certain degree of disappointment . JSTot that we at ali object to Madame"SAino ' s distinet intimation that shedoes not mean « to gratify the curiosity of the seandal-loVing part of society by entering into details with respect to those facts of fcer life upon which gossip has already fastened , as if they and they alone constituted her title ^ to . celeb ri ty- —her marriage with M . Dijdevakt , and her subsequent separation from him . On these points 'Madame 'Sand speaks with much

      sense and . good taste . She declares that many of the populaT impressions respecting her husband are purely mythical . There was no disparity of age between ! them ; and . he was not a man of title . " M . Francois Dudevamt , " shesays ; " has never been anything but a sub-lieutenant of infantry , and was only twenty-seven when I married him . " She protests also against beingisupposed . tp sympathise with those who , knowing nothing of the circumstances , but making themselves her apologists , thinlc they serve her cause by attacks on her husband . The following is her explicit statement on this head : —

      My husband is living , and reads neither my writings nor the writings of others concerning me . The more reason , therefore , that I should protest against the attacks on iuy ; behal £ of which he is the object . I could not live with him—our characters and ideas differed essentially . He had his reasons for not consenting to a legal separation ,, though * he still felt the necessity of it—since , in fact , it existed . Imprudent advjsers induced him to provoke those public arguments which constrained us , one to accuse the other , —miserable result of an imperfect legislation , which "the future will amend . ' Since the separation has been pronounced and maintained , I have made haste 1 to forget-my grievances , in so much that any public recrimination against him seems , toime in bad taste , and creates a "belief in the peraistance of resentments not partaken of \> y me .

      j Pmsusvery just and proper ; and they can have a very inadequate idea of GEOttQE'SAND who do not believe that , even with the omission of all intimate revelations respecting the episode of her marriage , her Autobiography may yet be full of matters of extraordinary interest , and unusually instructive . 'In the life of such a woman—a woman of genius who has been in the midst of the newest thought and the most Btirring activity of her timethere . are surely other elements of interest , if people will but have healthy tastes , than any arising from the story of her relations with M . JTbanooxs Dobhvantp . Sofar as the Autobiography has yet proceeded , however , we

      cannot say that the interest comes out very substantially or massively . Down to the fifth chapter—which is the last wo have seen , and whi < ch appeared in the tPresse of October tho 20 th—the authoress is still only preluding among her progenitors \ narrating stray facts and traditions respecting them , and interweaving threads of phantasy and reflection . Ma < 3 ame Sah » was born in 1804 , but she go « a back in her history to her grandfathers and grandmothers , or even farther ; and in her last chapter she is still engnged with family reminiscences belonging to the times of tho Revolution and the Directory . By tho father ' s side Madame Sani > , whoso maiden name is Amantine-LuoWiiE-AunoRK Dupin , has royal blood in her veins ; her father ' s mother

      having been tho natural daughter of Count Mauimow 6 f Saxony , by an operasinger , Mdllo . Vci'rieres ; and this Count Mauriok again having been tho natural son of Fiu 2 » Kttic « . Augustus of Saxony and tho celebrated Countess of Koenigsmark . On tho other hand , her mother was a poor child o f Paris » the daughter of Antoinjo Pkx . ahojdi > ic , a bird-fancier . In the persons and incidonts of this complex genealogy there are , of course , materials for n varied introduction to Madamo Sawp ' s own life ; and soimo of the sketches which she gives are most picturesque and charming , though soft and quiot in colour . A certain lightness and want of sequonce , however , tends to impart

      a fantastic and air-hung character to the book , while the Temarks interspersed , by way of philosophy , though often suggestive and happy , are not always very firm nor powerful . Here is a passage referring to her father in his youth : — The poor child had never yet quitted his mother . He had never knotm , never foreseen grief . He -was beautiful as a flower , chaste and gentle as a young girl . He was sixteen years of age ; his health was still delicate , his mind keen . At this age a boy brought up by a tender mother is a being apart in creation . He xloes not belong , so to speak , to any sex ; his thoughts are pure as those of an angel ; he has not that puerile coquetry , that unquiet' curiosity , that easily offended personality , which often torment the first development of the -woman . He loves his mother as a daughter does not , and never can , love her . Drowned in the happiness of being cherished without a rival , and adoringly cared for , he regards his mother as the obiect of kind of worshi

      a p . It is love , without the storms and faults which , later , the love of another woman -will bring in its train . Yes , it is ideal love , and it has but one moment in a man ' s liffe . Yesterday he took no heed of i * , and lived as yet in the numbness of a sweet instinct ; to-morrow it will already be a love troubled or distracted by other passions , or , perhaps , in strife with the ruling attraction of a beloved one . * * * I find that poets and romancers have not sufficiently attended to this subject of observation , this source of poetry which is offered in this transient and unique moment in the life of a man . It is true , in our sad actaal world , genuine youth has no existence , or is produced in an exceptional manner . The youth we daily see is a collegian , ill-combed , ill enough instructed , infected by some gross vice which has already destroyed in him the holiness of the first ideal . Or if , by miracle , the poor boy has escaped this pest of the schools , it is impossible that he can have preserved the purity of imagination and the sacred ignorance of his age . On the contrary , he nourishes a sullen hatred against his companions , who have sought to mislead him , or against the gaolers , who keep him down . He is ugly , even when ature has made him

      n beautiful 5 he is slovenly in his dress ; he has a sheepish air , and . does not look you in the fa « e . He devours in secret improper books , and yet the signt of a woman puts him in fear . His mother's caresses make him blush . One might say lie knew himself to be a culprit . The most , beautiful languages in the world , the greatest poems of humanity , are to him but a subject of Lassitude , of revolt , and of disgust ; nourished , sulkily and without intelligence , with the purest aliments , he has a depraved taste , and aspires only after the bad . It takes him years to lose the fruits of this detestable education ; ¦ to learn his own tongue while Studying Latin , which he knows ill , and Greek , which he does not know at all ; to form histaste ; to acquire a just notion of history ; to lose the marks of ugliness-which a thwarted boyhood and the embmting influence of slavery have stamped on his face ; to look about frankly , and hold his head erect . * * * In principle , I acknowledge the advantages of public education . In fact , as it is at present practised , I do not hesitate to say that anything 3 s better in the shape of education , even that of children spoilt at home . This passage , we must say , commends itself to us only in part . It isTather thin in style , and there is a tinge of unreality , along with its truth . On the whole , however , the descriptive passages are more pleasant than these passages of reflection ; and , as Madame Sand comes down to the substantial history of her own experiences , we doubt not that the power we now miss in these early chapters of her Autobiography will make itself' felt-

      Lord John Russell's Two Educational Spee...

      Lord John Russell ' s two educational speeches—the one at the Literary Institution of Bedford , last week , and the other last Wednesday , at the opening of the new Bristol Athenaeum—deserve praise in this respect , that they did not consist of the ordinary generalities stereotyped for such occasions , but were made up each of one specific idea , deemed by his Lordship suitable for his audience and for the public at large . In fact , Lord John has used the opportunities afforded him to throw out two " Russellisms" for general consideration . The Russellism of last week , administered to the Bedford people , consisted in a suggestion whether , after all , the doctrine of the inevitable decline of great nations and empires—a doctrine brought home to

      the British heart and made picturesque by Mr . Macaulay ' s famous fancy of the future New Zealander sitting on a broken arch of London Bridge and contemplating the ruins of St . Paul ' s—is really beyond question . Lord . John gave some reasons against the doctrine , and hinted hopes of the perpetuity of London and all its bridges , and of British greatness generally .. We dare say Mr . Macaujqay could have pounded his reasons into dust ; , still , here was a distinct idea , if not very originally or powerfully treated ,, and Lord John deserves praise for ventilating it . Then , again , the other RusselHsm—that of this week , propounded at Bristol—has also an

      educational value . It consisted of a strenuous recommendation of the study of British History as a natural and useful study for citizens of Groat Britain , and an accomp anying assertion of the curious fact that a really good History of Great Britain is still a desideratum in our national literature . Illustrating this'idca , Lord John criticised Patx » Hume ' s History' in a stylo which may be characterised as certainly one or two removes from commonplace . Here also his Lordship had tho merit of being specific . He said something not bad in itself , which was sure to bo remembered—one of tho requisites of every speech .

      I he two Ruasellisms thus let loose amongst us will not ftro the water under the bridge alluded to or givo any appreciable impulse to the speculation of tho age . But wo welcome them , and should be glad , at hia lordship ' leisure , to have more such . Lonn John ' s head seems to go out in directions in which his body has not strength to follow—i . c , his thoughts are in advance of his -words , and his words , again , a long way in advance of his actions . Ho has genuine sympathies with tho causa of popular education , and he hits more notions on the subject than lie can put into statesmanship . But cvon his lordshi j ) gives in too much to « common cant on this subject . Tho increase among us ot popular ability and educsitlon is tho usual text at such meetings as those at which Loni > John is present , and ho did more than quota it ; he preached a little on it . Now , thoro is much that is questionable in this mode of talking . Tost tho alleged , improvement of tho tastes of the rending classes by referring

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 28, 1854, page 14, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_28101854/page/14/