On this page

• Departments (1)
  • 
• Text (5)

  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.

  • 

    r~r>*i !LtT£tOuit£» ^

  • 

    Untitled Article

  • 

    Untitled Article

  • 

    Untitled Article

  • 

    Untitled Article

• Transcript

  • 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.

    Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

    R~R≫*I !Ltt£Touit£» ^

    ICitmitttrt

    Untitled Article

    Xt any book Could be expected , from tlie 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 for a literary topic , it is Madame George Sand ' s Autobiography . The manner of the appearance of this long-expected work , however , is unfortunate . Printed in short successive instalments as the Feuilleton of La Presse newspaper , it conies before one tmder 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 Hottsehold Words , is uncomfortable enough ; a novel continued from day to day in the Times is an titter impossibility , until a coup-d ' etat in Britain , followed by a settled

    despdtism , shall create the necessary leisure throughout the community ; but , tinder 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 woist of it is , that we must wait for the conclusion of the Autobiography in the columns of the Presse before we can have it in any more satisfactory forin . 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 SAito receives a far more handsome recompense fox her work than could otherwise have come to her .

    Glancing over what has already appeared of the Autobiography in the colilmns of the Presse , we must confess to a certain degree of disappointment . JTot that we at all object to Madame Sard's distinct intimation that she does not mean to gratify the curiosity of the scandal-loving part of society by entering into details with respect to those facts of her life iipon which gossip has already fastened , as if they and they alone constituted her title to celebrity—her marriage with . M . 1 ) u » bvant , and her subsequent separation from him . On these points Madame Sand speaks with much

    sense and good taste . She declares that many of the popular impressions respecting her husband are ptirely mythical . There was no disparity of age between them 5 and he was not a man of title . " M . FuANgois Dudevaut , " she says , "has never been anything but a sub-lieutena . nt of infantry , and was only twenty-seven when I married him . " She protests also against being supposed to sympathise -with those who , knowing nothing of the circumstances , but making themselves her apologists , think they serve her * cause by attacks on her husband . The following is her explicit statement on this head :- " -

    My lmsband is living , and reads neither my writings nor the writings of others concerning me . The more reason , therefore , that I should protest against tho attacks on my behalf 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 ho still felt the necessity of it—since , in Fact , it existed . Imprudent advisers 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 to forget my grievances , in bo much that any public recrimination against him seems to me in bad taste , and creates a "belief in the persistence of resentineaits not partaken of by me .

    This is very juat and proper ; and they can have a very inadequate idea of George Sand who do not believe that , even with tho 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 tho life of such a woman—a woman of genius who has been in tho midst of tho newest thought and the ' most stirring activity of her timethere arc surely other elements of interest , if people will but have healthy tastes , than any arising from tho story of her relations with M . Fb . AjN # oi 8 D u » bvant . So far as tho Autobiography has yet proceeded , however , wo cannot say that tho interest comes out very substantially or massivoly . Down to the fifth chapter—which is tho last wo have seen , and which appeared in

    tho Presse of October tho 20 th—the authoress is still only preluding among her pi * ogenitors ; narrating stray facts and traditions roapecting thorn , nnd interweaving threads of phantasy and reflection . Madame Sakd whs "born in 1804 , but she goes back in her history to her grandfathers and grandmothers , or even farther ; and in lier last chapter she is still cngiiged with family reminiscences belonging to the times of the Revolution and the Directory . By tho father ' s side Madamo Sand , - \ vhoso maiden name is Amantiwe-Lucims-Auuorh Dunn , has royal blood in her veins 5 hor father ' s mother

    having boon tho natural damghtor of Count Maurice of Saxony , by an operasinger , Mdllo . Vorridrcs ; and this Count Matjtuok agnin having been tho natural son of Fiuaxusiuon Augustus of Saxony and tho colobratod Countess of Koenigsmark . On tho other hand , her unothor was ft poor child of Paris * the daughter of Awtoinw Diar-AnoDCR , a bird-fancier . In tho persons and incidents of this complex genealogy tboro arc , of course , materials for a varied introduction to M « ulame SwVni >' s own life ; and aomo of the sketches which ah © glvos are most picturesque and charming , though soft and < juiot iu colour . A certain lightness and want of sequence , however , tends to impart

    a fantastic and air-hung character to the book , while the remarks interspersed , by way of philosophy , though often suggestive a » d 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 known , never foreseen grief . He was beautiful as a flower , chaste and gentle as a young * lrl . He was sixteen years of age ; his health was still delicate , his mitid keen . At t&is age a boy brought up by a tender mother is a being apart in creation . He does 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 object of kind of rshi It is love t t

    a wop . , withouhe storms and fau lts 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 life . Yesterday he took no heed of it , 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 time , in our sad actual 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 tomislead him , or against the gaolers , -who keep him down . He is ugly , even when .

    nature has made him beautiful ; he is slovenly in his dress ; he has a sheepish air ,, and does not look you in the face . He devours in secret improper books , and yet the sight of a woman puts him in fear . His mother's caresses make him blush . On ^ might say he 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 his taste ; to acquire a just notion of history ; to lose the marks of ugliness which a thwarted boyhood and the embruting influence of slavery have stamped on his face ; to look about frankly , and hold Ms 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 is 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 is rather 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 iu these early chapters of her Autobiography will make itself felt .

    Untitled Article

    Lord John Rosskll ' 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 A . thenoeum—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 tho 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 . Macatnlay could have pounded his reasons into dust ; , still , here was a distinct idea , if not very originally or powerfully treated , and Lord John deserves praiso for ventilating it . Then , again , the other Russellism—that of this week , propounded at Bi'istol—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 Great Britain ,. and an accompanying assertion of the curious fact that a really good History of Great Britain is still a , desideratum in our national literature . Illustrating this idea , Lord John criticised Da . vii > Hume ' s ' History' in a stylo which may bo 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 the requisites of every speech .

    rho two Russellisms thus let loose amongst us will not fire the water under the bridge alluded to or give any appreciable impulse to tho speculation of tho age . Hut we welcome thorn , and should be glad , at his lordship ' s loisuro , to have more such . Lon » John ' s head scorns to go out in directions in which liis body has not strength to follow—i . e ., his thoughts aro in advance of his words , and his words , again , a long way in advance of his actions . Ho haa genuine sympathies with tho cause of popular oduoation , and he haa more notions on tho subject than ho can put into statesmanship . But oven his lordship gives in too much to a common cant on this subject . Tho increase among us oi popular ability and education is tho usual text at such meetings us those at which Lorw John is jpresont , and ho did more than quote it ; lie preached a Httia on it . Wow , there in much that is questionable in this modes of talking . TcBt tho alleged improvement of tho tastes of tho reading classes by referring

    Untitled Article

    Critics are siot the legislators , but the ju . dges and police of literature . They do ilOt Uia'Tse laMrs—they interpret and try to enforce them .. —Edinburgh JReview .

    Untitled Article

    1032 THE LEADER . [ Saturday ,

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 28, 1854, page 1022, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2062/page/14/