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" [ hairand the Goddess of Lucretia what...
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One of the politer forms of social excom...
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MRS. &ASKELI/S LIFE OF CHARLOTTE BRONTE....
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- -V - . _ - We Said Last -Week That The...
Gracchus , " with his Titus , Reason draped as , were the real romantic iconoclasts of the classic faith , whatever they thought themselves to be . The most abundant periwig at th £ court of Louis XIV " ., or the bitterest satire against the " Pre ' cieuses" of Paris , were in nearer relation to the thoughts and manners of the ancients than all the travesties of classic liberty . And now henceforward the actual modern life must stand alone on its own truths , and with its own forms of utterance , and what -was before a loyal love of the lessons of the early masters and teachers of the intellectual world , will seem to many a servile and unworthy dependence . The new ideas of the dignity of labour , of the worth of men as men , of the dangers of privilege , of society Tirithout subject classes , are wholly alien to the associations of the old history of Southern Europe . The Roman Church , indeed , as we have already hinted , almost reciprocated the liberality of the Roman emperor who offered a place in the Pantheon to the Founder of Christianity , by the permission it gave to the moral dominion , of the classic -writers over the spirits of youth , and by its perpetuation , in its most solemn functions , of the ancient language , v '' ¦ ¦ ^ ^
Our enlarged politics , our improved morals , our deeper religious convictions , are a weighty compensation for these losses , and yet we linger over the old weak and faulty world with a natural tenderness . It may be quite unimportant to humanity that the Laocoon should le pronounced in four syllables ; and yet when we first heard a well-educated American pronounce it like " racoon , " it made us shudder . > Y > ahall get used to it . The number closes with two political articles on " China" and " The Nesv Parliament / ' written with vigour and ability , but with a suspicious tendency to underrate the importance , of Reform .
The . National Review keeps up its reputation for good writing- and acute criticism , the first article , on " Aurora Leigh / ' being at once more discriminating and just in its estimate of Mrs . Bahbett Browning ' s poetic genius than any we remember to have seen . At the outset the writer points out , we will not say Mrs . Browning ' s wealcness , but certainly a limitation of her power , in the want of dramatic faculty which she evinces . The effect of keeping the mind up to the lyrical pitch , through a long poem like Aurora Leigh ., would naturally produce the artificial excitement lie refers to in the following passage : — '
Verse is two very different things ; ifc may be used either as the expression of poetic thought , or as a mere external grace , to give a charm to narratives or descriptions , or pieces of humour , to which it is not in any sense necessary . Parts of Pope , of Crabbe , and of Prior , afford ready illustrations of this use of it . But when we speak of poetry , -we mean , in general , verse used as the embodiment of poetic conception , to which it clings as the body of a man does to his spirit . It is possible to take this sort of expression , which true poetic couception demands , and use it for subjectmatter which does not in itself require it ; and , instead of letting the thought kindle the imagination for its own particular occasion , to * maintain' an artificial heat for general purposes . This is what is done throughout a great part of Mrs . Barrett Browning ' s poem . A greater-master teaches another lesson . " When his matter descends , Skakspeare's forms descend with it ; and wherever the nature of his
subjectmatter demands itjhe intersperses prose-scenes , or even prose speeches , in his dramas ; and more remarkable than these changes are the subtle variations in the rhythm , and in the warmth of the imaginative colouring , answering everywhere in the nicest correspondence to the level of the subject-matter . But Mrs . Browning maintains her high unstooping- flight over all the varied surface of her story . She dresses her poetry as the ancient actors did their persons ; and , like them , she loses in truthfulness and nicety of expression what she gains in external display ; and it repels the modern reader to find , instead of changing feature and modulated voice , the rigid tragic mask and sounding mouthpiece of the Greek theatre . This undue poetic excitement shows itself in the imaginative diction alone , and is not accompanied by any corresponding elevation in the structure of the metre , or the flow of the rhythm ; in these the approach to prose is made as close as possible , bearing some such analogy to ordinary poetry as recitative does to singing ; for while the lines are rhythmical , the
periods arc almost all prosaic . The result we cannot help thinking a very unsatisfactory one ; and when , in this semi-verse , semi-prose , the matter of the author comes couched in the most daring and far-fetched metaphor , it makes the reading inconceivably difficult and wearisome . Where the matter is such as to be in keeping with this high poetic utterance , as in the last pages of the book , there is enough to kindle the answering fire in the reader ' brain ; and the bold and passionate snatchings of the imagination at depths of meaning , which no other language but its own can compel to the surface , arc intuitively followed and comprehended . It is otherwise when ordinary conversation , discussion , narrative , reasoning , or self-communing , arc expressed in the poetic forms which poetic matter alone justifies ; clothed upon-with purple diction , and made to glitter with blazing ; jewellery of metaphor ; distracting the reader from the matter before him , annoying him with their inappropriatcnoss , and often puzzling him- to seize their meaning .
The paper on ' . * The Clubs of London " is full of pleasant gossip , as well as curious and valuable information on a subject -which , considering its attractive nature , has been , as the writer remarks , singularly neglected . Only one book on the subject appeal's to exist , and this , justly described us a " trashy compilation , " was published thirty years ago . The writer of the article , however , is wrong in supposing the author of this work to have been an Irish bookseller ' s hack ; he was , we believe , a quondam me nibcr of the sublime Society of Beefsteaks , whose inner life he endeavours to expose . We must resist the temptation to quote passages illustrating the old club life of London , as well
as all attempt at characterizing three other articles of interest , on " The Phases of Force , " " The Mutual llchvtions of History and llcligion , " and " The Memoirs of St . Simon . " The only defect which strikes us in this number , which belongs , however , to tlic Review generally , is a certain want of breadth and power iu dealing with social and political questions . There arc two wholes on these subjects in . the number—on " Secondary Punishments , " and Lhc 1 « orcign Policy of the Ministry "—written conscientiously » uid with care but they still want the large insight , firm grasp , and familiar yet decisive handling manifested in the other departments of the Review .
Ike London Quarterly contains , as usual , a number of good articles , but we can only pause to notice one of more than average merit , on " The Writings of Charles Kmgslcy . " The writer passes in review all his publications-Sermons , 1 ocins Novels , and Lcctures-for the purpose of extracting the essence of his moral teaching , llus is done with skill and fairness , the passages selected being , we believe , just those which Mr . Kmoslbv would accept as containing
essential in the doctrine he-laboiirs to enforce . This doctrhT . the writer criticises , of course , from the orthodox point of view but S calmness , knowledge , and insight ; pointing out very clearly the ' close con nexion that exists between Mr . Kikgslei ' s doctrine and that of the ne Platonic mystics whom he denounces , as well as that of the mediaeval mystics whom he is disposed to accept , and showing how such a doctrine naturalk emerges in spiritualistic pantheism . * We have left ourselves no space to do justice to the last number of the Joar ual of Psycolof / icctl Medicine ; and can only hastily note as of special interest the third paper ( continued from the previous scries )* " The Physiological and Psycological Phenomena of Dreams , " and a most valuable and elaborate analysis of M . Mo * rel ' s "Traite" des Degenerescenses Physiques , Intellectuelles et Morales de 1 'Espece Humaine . " " ' ^ .
" [ Hairand The Goddess Of Lucretia What...
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One Of The Politer Forms Of Social Excom...
One of the politer forms of social excommunication is the habit , not peculiar to factitious aristocracies , of treating men of wit or genius as the escaped subjects of a menagerie , rather than as human beings blessed , or cursed it may bewith a more sensitive fibre , finer sympathies , and more delicate suscep tibilities than the average of their fellow-creatures , but nevertheless essentially human in their lives and feelings , and not entirely insensible to self-respect . In provincial society your man of genius , whose name is the pride of his country ' s literature , and the ' delight of tlie world , is complacentl y . . * and condescendingly regarded as a species of celestial mountebanli by every vulgar and respectable nobody who pays taxes , and puts his legs under a
mahogany table , whose conversation is a , .. cackle , and whose intellectual accomplishments are a congestion of feeble prejudice and sheepish conformity . If we may believe report , M . Alexa-Ncre Dumas , the Younger , has lately administered a very happy rebuke to a high Parisian lady who . had invited the fashionable dramatist , by way , we suppose , of an attraction to her habitual guests . As the story goes , M . A . Dumas //* was requested to ¦ " tell a story , " and , without shocking the courtesies of society by a positive refusal , he replied : " With pleasure , Madame , but allow me to take my turn . When M . le Capitainc d-Artillerie who came into your drawing-room just before me has fired . a . gun , I will tell a story . " We are aware that it is the fashion just now in Paris to attribute to the discoverer of the Demi-Monde , many an inedited mot in search of a father , and it is quite possible this anecdote may be a pure invention in any case , it is good enough to be true .
Mrs. &Askeli/S Life Of Charlotte Bronte....
MRS . & ASKELI / S LIFE OF CHARLOTTE BRONTE . The Life of Charlotte Bronte . In Two "Volumes . By Mrs . Gaskell . Smith , Elder , and Co
( second notice . ) Thebe were other fiends at Haworth besides its waywardness and its barbarism : there were damp and cold . The parsonage , as many parsonages have been , was surrounded by the churchyard ; the burial-ground lay lrigh , and the water flowed into the village literally poisoned with death . Sanitary improvements were talked of long ago ; but the money-loving people in the neighbourhood would do nothing that was costly . They procrastinated improvement , but continued to bury in the churchyard . Other causes , perhaps , carried off the brother , though not precisely at that time . The only son , Bramvell , had much of the power which developed itself in his sisters , hut a larger share , apparently , of the father ' s failings . His cleverness caused him to be a favourite with the ' natives ; ' as a boy , he
could get away from home better than the girls ; he became a lion at the festive gatherings even of the humblest places in the-neighbourhood ; and in that way , no doubt , he learned the wild courses which ended his life in 1848 . Mr . Bronte , with the capricious intelligence of his country , could see many things with an eagle eye , but was blind to the danger for his family ; and indeed circumstances may have been too strong for him , at least in the aggregate . He had a very limited income , and it was this which induced Charlotte and her sisters to attempt the relief of their father by going out as governesses . The experiment was made in 1839 ; but Ohai-lotte- ' s strong sense—the sense , perhaps , "brought into the family from Penzance—soon made her feel , that to be a governess she must possess more positive information than she had der ived from homo ; and by dint of persuasion , ana the help of n loan from her aunt , with her sister Emily she entered the school of Madame Hegor , at Brussels . " We have this school in VilleUe . Charlotte was culled home by the sudden death of her aunt , but she re-Haworth to
turned to the same school as teacher ; and then went to again setup a school of her own , with her sisters . The speculation failed ; no pupils were obtained , and the three girls turned their thoughts to literature us a means of assisting in the household exchequer . The small volume of poems , published at their own expense , produced no golden fruit . Charlotte and Anne ench wrote a novel , but then the difficulty was to find a publisher . Messrs . Smith and Elder returned Charlotte ' s first , manuscript , m one volume , but in terms so encouraging that she replied by offering them Jane Eyre ; it was accepted , printed , and published within two months . How it was received the public well remembers . .. It id a curious trait of the independence of the girls , that although while the work was in progress Mr . Broutti was induced to suspect something by seeing his girls so constantly at the desk , he knew nothing until Charlotte presented him one of the six copies sent to her by her publishers . A be incident reminds us of a somewhnt siinilur one in the memoirs of Iniuuime d'Arblay , where she speaks of presenting Evelina to Doctor Burney , who had a rooted objection to novels : —
She wont into his study ono afternoon after his « arly dinner , carrying with ha o copy of the book , and one or two reviews , taking care to include a notice adverse t « it : " Papa , I ' ve been -writing a boolc . " " Have you , my dear V " " Yos , and I wait you to read it . "
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), April 18, 1857, page 16, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_18041857/page/16/
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