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September 9, 1854.] THE LEA DE R. 861
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We should do our utmost to enccmrage the...
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'2P22S2S SWISS'S? <2>2? &2IK21& © < S?€>...
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.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
September 9, 1854.] The Lea De R. 861
September 9 , 1854 . ] THE LEA DE R . 861
~S T| ^Fltltn I Iu» I 11
^ nrtfrtlin .
We Should Do Our Utmost To Enccmrage The...
We should do our utmost to enccmrage the Beautiful , for the Ussful encourage * itself . —Goethe .
'2p22s2s Swiss's? <2>2? &2ik21& © < S?€>...
' 2 P 22 S 2 S SWISS'S ? < 2 > 2 ? & 2 IK 21 & © S ? € > 2 Sl »» August 31 , 1854 . I HA . VE , most dear Giorgio , just engaged to send Conway over to you , as the best regimen for his present frame of mind . I shall send him hefore I return myself . His chronic disease is strong upon him just now . I met faim this evening , as I -was hastening to Harley-street ; he was walking up Regent-street , looking as he does , -with his slender figure all in black , and Ms idealized countenance , like some studious yet not altogether recluse abbaie of Rome . He surveyed the ' numbers that passed him with an air of
melancholy indifference ; and talked of " solitude in the midst of crowds . " The fact is that , disgusted with the shams and hypocrisies of the world , he has drawn back from " society , " or enters it only as a stranger , taking no part in its ways , and not penetrating through the false surface to get at the men and women really there . I rebuked him vigorously for the arrogant common places about " solitude in the midst of crowds , " for although he Ibas " seen through" the shams of his own sacred and established craft , he lias really the heart as well as the head to be still a labourer in the Eternal Catholic Church . I doubt indeed whether it has not happened ; in his case , ! as it so often ddfcs in others , that a man in whorri the religious instinct is not peculiarly strong , has been led " into the church" by a love of scholarship aiid reflection . . . ;
The acute form of his malady is a certain despairing disgust at the universal ^ unreality . " "But the reality is there * Conway , * ' I said , >* if you will only look steadily enough for it . * > ' £ > hl no , " he cried , « it is all surfjace . '' " You prove the weakness ofyour case / ' I answered , " by clinging to metaphor . A man -who is , strong in cpnyiction goes to facts . See how simple the predication of the sublimest poets . listen , if you have the chance , to the simple , the bald statement of fact from lovers . ' ; " Ah I yes , " lie exclaimed , with ihe bored air of a man who knows " . all you would say , and wonders that ' you do not save yourself the trouble of inviting a needless refutation ;— " when you get among realities there are realities ; but hireheee ! " He waved forth his hands arid shrugged his shoulders like a Frenchman—the , most misanthropical of mankinds I laughed . ¦"¦ ' ¦ ' ¦ .. ' , ¦ . ¦" :. '¦ : ¦ ¦¦ ¦ : ' v ¦'¦ ¦ . ' . ¦ : ' , ¦ ¦ ' ¦ ,:. \ . ' : ¦ ¦ ;
" Well , " he said , as if thai argument had some force ; " see what is going on now , at this very day—papers reporting the ' movements , ' as they call it , of the _ state , of parties , or of distinguished persons : who would guess at the real life of these popple ? It comes but sometimes . A man goes to the Baltic , bent on rendering the Gazette eloquent ¦; and he leaves behind him , among the rubbish at his lodgings , some broken heart of ware too common to be cared for ; an ' injured husband' breaks open his wife ' s desk , like a Cowardly spy , and s ^ eis ^ driven into the grave ; but there are some things in that desk which constitute the real substance pf the case , and they are folded up again and burned ; and other injured wives never learn that which is so common to the case pf so many . A distinguished person dies of cholera , suddenly , and horrified society sympathizes keenly , as well as deeply , with his bereft relations ; but those to whom the bereavement is absolute desolation—their fate only cdrdes out as an amusing scandal , a sort of ioke sniced
¦ with pathos , and the subject is dismissed with the declaration , ' After all , he was a good fellow . ' " " Perhaps he was , Conway ?" " If he was , why not tell his actions ?" " I don ' t know of whom your are speaking . " " No , how should you ? I am not speaking of one , but many . " He had been oppressed with stories just told to him , of people whom he partly knew—the small talk of " raon about town . " I doubted whether the tales might not be untrue ; but he knew some of the facts himself , and , undoubtedly , the plain facts , without any addition from scandsilous ^ iisto , are difficult enough , Do you remember de Boisguilbort , whom we admired so much for his ingenuous intelligence ; a splendid fellow—the very beau ideal of an English
gailor ot the new pattern—one of the mounted marines , as Stanhope calls them , who pan inde , talk , and write , as well as luind » reef , and steer . Poor fellow ! ho is gone—cut off b y ' the prevailing epidemic , ' as the papers call it . He had just got his appointment , and was counting upon engraving his name at the very top of those to be inscribed on the granite of Cronstadt ; ° and then his lovely wife had to exchange the manner of her farewell . Ho was to have set out to join his ship that day ; ho was kept at home two hours longer than he had counted , and was then sent on a longer journey , His two dear children , his lovely wife , his relations bound to him by innumerable quarterjngs—which , however , English heralds do not use ; his bright career , future as well as past ; and above all , his own splendid character—his manly , gay , tind handsome person , his bold , kind , and generous heart , his skilful , ndroxfc , finished intellect , made him loved all round , and when one so good and favoured wns stricken down , every man naturally felt that fie might full next . °
Well , Dutton , who hud tried to get a berth in the same ship with do tfoiagmlbert , but failed , had rcsolvud to soo liinx off at Portsmouth , nnd indeed to intercept him at , -wlioro ho knew , accidentally , that the young captain Imd resolved to pass the night . At the samo inn wus a young lady , whom ha only saw , and who wtiB described to him as wnitin" for her huaband , alao on liis way to join-a Mra . Brown . She was pretty—perhaps a lnoro eorious word initrht bn urmiWl tn hm . hnnutv nt oil ,,., » a < i .. i ^ w . 1
,, , serous enough ; yet she smiled very Bweotly when Dutton opened the irate ot the garden belore tho linlC rustic inn ; for I have observed this ot genuine Donuty , that it always responds to an net of grace or lcindncss however slight , and cannot reiuso to take pleasure in its like , even in the midst of
iso de Boisguilbert of course that night ; nor did Mr . Brown arrive * Next morning , the little society of the little inn was full of surmises ; Mrs * Brown , who looked pale and anxious , stopped on her way past Dutton ' a room , to ask if he knew any reason why orders for embarcation should have been countermanded . The bustling landlord brought in the Times , holding out a particular passage as perhaps explaining the delay , and then , drawing it back to read it himself . It " regretted to state that another , victim hadi been added to the list of those officers who had fallen under the prevailing epidemic , in Captain de Boisguilbert , so recently appointed to the Glaucus . " Before Dutton could seize the paper to look for himself , Mrs . Brown was on the floor , as pale and as lifeless as the " husband " whose death was thus announced to her .
Dutton is a kind-hearted fellow . He brought her to town , and to Conway ; and , as usual , that misanthropical sceptic in black cloth did his best to see that the girl ' s grief should not be aggravated by destitution , that her despair should not lead her into the only " desperate courses" left open to her . He did more . He learned her story , which was common enough and simple enough . She was the daughter , unacknowledged , of some father or mother , she did not know which , who was able to bequeath her some thousands of pounds for her education ; but she received only such an education as a very few hundreds might have paid for , and heard 310 more of her money . You will learn by this that tbere-was nobody to take care of her except herself ; and when she became acquainted with a fine ,
elderlygenerous new friend , how should she be able to discriminate between the paternal semblance of the interest shown in her by a distinguislied officer did enough to he de Boisguilbert ' s father , and the real object of the veteran ; how weigh all the consequences <» f yielding to her gratitude when de JBoisguilbertjWlip was really a fine fellow , " rescued" her from the hypocritical solicitudes of the veteran- Yet the veteran will still get his " steps , " for " has a few more ladders yet to climb ; and when deBbisguilhert ' s nearest friends caine upon the letters from this yoiing lady ^ they burned them , andhnshed up the disgraceful connexion . "In justice to his menaory , " they cbiisigned his weakness to oblivion ,- ^ -and her to starvation ; if it had not been for the humanity of the , reprobate Conway , whom those decorous pepple will never help to a-bjshopric .
" Now , why pretend , " said Conwayy " that de Boisguilbert's life was whafc his . friends / recount with pride and satisfaction ^ and leave Out i It -yvas part of his life . If clever , / honourable , andgenerous men do these thiiiga , why stigmatize' the action ? If the action is unworthy , why pretend' that the man who did it was admirable ? Either way there is a fraud , —and either way poor Lucy is the victim . " " You smile , " he added , " because Lam only repeating the very thing I heard you say when I first saw you '; but——r " "No , " I replied , " I smile because you repeat what everybody says ; and . everybody joins in the collusion . ' 1 smiled at the amount of factitious trouble which men make for themselves by these systems of pretences , and at the universality of the pretence . It is the same , or something like the same , everywhere . For all their outspeaking , they have not escaped it in . France ; they are fast cornijig to it in America . " In . America ?"
"Aye , at least I guess so ; for who can tell , the future . But strange accidents are gathering in that wide land between the Pilgrim Fathers and the Mormons . " And it is so . Look at such cases as that of the Somerset family , in one , thougjb . not the newest of the western states ; a race like some of the patrician families of ancient Home in its imperial decline , conceiving itself to be above the law , I remember an American traveller who was journeying alone , and who , at the window of a friend in Paris , thinking perhaps of his family at home , in the window of an hotel opposite saw a-dashing lady , whose high colour had attracted his notice , for he disliked high colour . He had objected to it in his wife , since it was not given to her , or continued to her , perhaps , by nature ; and hence fierce displeasure . The brilliancy , therefore , in the window opposite caught his eye : it was his wife ! But she was a Somerset , and claimed to do as she pleased . The husband conceded her
the right , for tho law of his state onabled him to obtain a divorce . Another person also conceded the right of free-will in a more involuntary and tragic way . He had been tutor in the family of the Somersets , and liad subsequently set up a school , at which a youth of the same race was a pupil . The boy committed p ome fault , was rebuked , and was punished . An elder brother , calling a third to accompany him , procured pistols , wont down to > the school , failed in making the audacious master submit , and shot the man . The proud Somerset was brought to trial , but family influence procured a virtual acquittal . However , they do things more openly in the Union , as yet , and tho Somerset found his native place too hot to hold him . He removed to another state , but a deputation of the inhabitants waited upon him , and told him that he could not Hoe there . Ho again removed j arid so , like Cain , ho continues his unrest . He contemplates coming to England * it is said ; and hero , certainly , his wealth is sure to procure him toleration , while his adventures may , for one London season , invest him with more than a Child © Harold interest .
In France you are not so sui ' e that yo \ i get to tho xoaUty . There js ofton a half penetration , nnd a conventional acquiescence in half knowledge , something like tho English . 1 have a case fresh in my observation . You see a charming- matron , a grandmother , though still not without pretensions . She wns once , all the world knows it , admired by ft distinguished o / lioer , who has since become very distinguished . Ho became u widower , she wns already 11 widow ; hut they wore not united . There is " ft history , ' then ; and you are told , in explanation , that tho officer abstained from oflering his hand because her own children , by n lmsbnnd wliom she lost whon young , would bo injured in thoir family prospects . Tho mystery sceins to 1 ) 0 solved , tho well-informed look wino , and nobody wonders at U 10 officer ' s afterwards innrrying a charming lmly of ruputo untouched , whoso single life bad been a mystery to all tho world ; so much was she courted Now , tho distinguished officer had admired ( lint cWmmg matron , and royal favour would lmvo cnnblerl him l <> redress wry balance of family interests : but there wus ft reason bolow tho second surface to which tho keen-sighted hnd reached . Am I tolling you n fable V INo ; I will not answer tor all
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 9, 1854, page 21, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_09091854/page/21/
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