The Parisians, Book 1.

D'---,

ived. There is always in it something that comforts, something that sustains, but also a something that troubles and disquiets me. I suppose Goethe is righ

th images of pain and discord. I stand in awe of the calm with which you subject to your analysis the infirmities of reason and the tumults of passion. And all those laws of the social state which seem to me so fixed and immovable you treat with so quiet a scorn, as if they were but the gossamer thread

mended to me as American, but is in reality English, assures me that a single winter spent here under his care will suffice for my complete

better collect my own thoughts on it; at present they are con

en in his cynical moods, his very cynicism has in it the ring

ways do when once my soul, as it were, finds wing in music, and buoys itself in the air, relieved from the sense of earth. I knew not that I had succeeded till I came to a close, and then my eyes resting on the face of the grand prima donna, I was seized with an indescribable sadness, with a keen pang of remorse. Perfect artiste though she be, and with powers in her own realm of art which admit of no living equal, I saw at once that I had pained her: she had grown almost livid; her lips were quivering, and it was only with a great effort that she muttered out some faint words intended for applause. I comprehended by an instinct how gradually there can grow upon the mind of an ar

fully. "Nevertheless," said Savarin, "when the lily comes out there will be a furious attack on it, made by the clique that devotes itself to the rose: a lily

or your fame, Eulalie? and do you

dressed to him recommending us to his civilities. He called at once, placed his good offices at our disposal, took charge of my modest fortune, which

of of a Croesus who has so great a stake in the order of things established. One young man- a noble whom he specially presented to me, as a politician who would be at the head of affairs when the

ffeminate lisp, and harangued on them with small feeble

were many who in Fr

ay may be nearer than the world thinks, when my confreres will be so numerous tha

n air of self-content the beautiful city parades her riches! Who can gaze on her splendid palaces, her gorgeous shops, and believe that she will give ear to doctrines

ven for me, it is that I wish to distract my mind from brooding over the question that inte

AU

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irst shone upon me; when, emerging from childhood as from a dim and solitary bypath, I stood forlorn on the great thoroughfare of life, and all the prospects before me stretched sad in mists and in rain? You beamed on me then as the sun coming out from the cloud and changing the face of earth; you opened to my sight the fairy- land of poetry and art; you took me by the hand and said, "Courage! there is at each step some green gap in the hedgerows, some, soft escape from the stony thoroughfare. Beside the real life expands the ideal life to those who seek it. Droop not, seek it: the ideal lif

ost should be but time improved. Penetrate your mind with other songs than the trash of Libretti. The more you habituate yourself to the forms, the more you imbue yourself with the spirit, in which passions have been expressed and character delineated by great writers, the more completely you will accomplish yourself in your own special art of singer and actress." So, then, you allured me to a new study. Ah! in so doing did you dream that you diverted me from the old ambition? My knowledge of French and Italian, and my rearing in childhood, which had made English familiar to me, gave me the keys to the treasure-houses of three languages. Naturally I began with that in which your masterpieces are composed. Till then I had not even read your works. They were the first I chose. How they impressed, how they startled me! what depths in the mind of man, in the heart of woman, they revealed to me! But I owned to you then, and I repeat it now, neither they nor any of the works in romance and poetry wh

e poet to whom it had given birth. Certainly the reading of that poem formed an era in my existence: to this day I cannot acknowledge the faults or weaknesses which your criticisms pointed out; I believe because they are in unison with my own nature, which yearns for harmony, and, finding that, rests contented. I shrink from violent contrasts, and can discover nothing tame and insipid in a continuance of sweetness and serenity. But it was not till after I had read "La Gerusalemme" aga

rt from mere human reason; soothing, even when it excited; making earth nearer to heaven. And when I ran on in this strain to you after my own wild fashion, you took my head between your hands and kissed me, and said, "Happy are those who believe! long may that happi

ntment. It was not only that, despite my familiarity with English (thanks chiefly to the care of him whom I call my second father), there is much in the metaphorical diction of Shakspeare which I failed to comprehend; but he seemed to me so far like t

ty they are blessed. The death of the martyr is the triumph of his creed. But when we have put down the English tragedy,-when Hamlet and Ophelia are confounded in death with Polonius and the fratricidal

will not say I understood or rightly appreciated Shakspeare, for no Englishman would admit that I or even you could ever do so, but before I could recognize the justice of the place his country claims for him as the genius without an equal in the literature of Europe. Meanwhile the ardour I had put into study, and the wear and tear of the emotions which the study called forth, made themselves felt in a return of my former illness, with symptoms still more alarming; and when the year was out I was ordained to rest for perhaps another year before I could sing in public, still less appear on the stage. How I rejoiced when I hea

ealous and absorbing the art of the singer and the actress is,-how completely I must surrender myself to it, and live among b

I could compose, I mean in music. I was pleased with some things I did: they expressed in music what I could not express in words; and one secret object in coming here was to submit them t

d, "Tell me frankly, do you think that with time and study I cou

a professio

l, y

nment of your voca

es

be sung in drawing-rooms with the fame a little more or less that generally attends the compositions of female amateurs. Aim at something higher, as I know you would do, and you will not succeed. Is there any instance in modern times, perhaps in any times, of a female composer who attains ev

r in his depreciation of our whole sex I cannot say. But as this hope has left me, I have become more

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round of the theatres. I had not been to one since my arrival. I divined that the kind-hearted composer had a motive in this invitation. He thought that in witnessing the applauses best

realized. Well for me if I could once more concent

we went to the Odeon, a romantic melodrama in six acts, and I know not how many tableaux. I found no fault with the acting there. I do not give you the rest of our p

igh a fame; no country perhaps in which the state of the stage so faithfully represents the moral and intellectual condition of the people. I

pleasant caricatures of petty sections in a corrupt society. They contain no large types of human nature; their witticisms convey no luminous flashe

h genius is its vaudeville. Great dramatists create great parts. One great part, such as a

ntellect is lowered. The descent from "Polyeucte" to "Ruy Blas" is great, not so much in the poetry of form as in the elevation of thought; but the descent

ell me that S--- never rivalled Pasta, but certainly her Norma is a great performance. Her voice has lost less

nd as large an applause,-of course taking into account my brief-lived advantage of youth. Her acting, apart from her voice, does not please me. It seems to me to want intellige

full, and the stars looking so calm and so high beyond our reach of their tranquillity. The evergreens in the gardens of the villas around me silvered over, and the summer boughs, not y

he lamps. Out on those stage-robes and painted cheeks! Out on that simulated utterance of senti

onings, and return no answer, till my heart grew ful

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r work to have leisure to write to me? I know you are not ill, for if you were, all Paris would know of it. All Eur

had brooded over and revolved the loveliest of your romances; and partly because it was there that, catching, alas! not inspiration but enthusiasm from the genius that had hallowed the place, and dreaming I might originate music, I nursed my own aspi

d then I saw that he was young, and, in so regarding him, his eyes became fixed on mine. The fourth day he did not come, but two other men came, and the look of one was inquisitive and offensive. They sat themselves down on a bench in the walk, and though I did not seem to notice them, I hasten

n of customs which impose chains so i

ophy, so affectionate to friends, and so biting to foes. But certainly Savarin could not have lived in a country farm upon endives and mallows. He is town-bred and Parisian, jusqu'au bout des ongles. How he admires you, and how I love him for it! Only in one thing he disappoints m

the American women I have seen generally are, and with that frank vivacity of manner which distingu

; and as long as she declaimed on the hard fate of the women who, feeling within them powers that struggle for air and light beyond the close precinct of household duties, find themselves restricted from fair rivalry with men in such fields of knowledge and toil and glory as men since the

oiselle, don't believe a word she says: it is only tall talk! In America the women are absolute tyrants, and it is

s between the spouses, in which, I must own

ds the other sex which would improve our condition. The inequalities we suff

ges and statesmen gather, listening to your words as to an oracle,-did you feel that your pride of genius had gone o

d but merge this terrible egotism which oppresses me, into the being of some one who is what I would wish to be were I man! I would not ask him to achieve fame. Enough if I felt that he was worthy of

GRANTMESNIL TO

I set off with a few friends on a rapid tour along the Riviera to Genoa, thence to Turin o

fatigues in having insured that accuracy in desc

ing talent, and yet distinct from it. Genius you have, but genius unconcentrated, undisciplined. I see, though you are too diffident to say so openly, that you shrink from the fame of singer, because, fevered by your reading, you would fain aspire to the thorny crown of author. I echo the hard saying of t

bsorbed in their own craft, do not wish their children to adopt it? The most successful author is perhaps the last pers

iples and welcome acolytes. As for those engaged in the practical aff

least agree in this,-they would not wish their sons to be poets. There must be some sound cause in the world's philosophy for t

nutriment of wisdom in after-years; but I would never i

eriods and em

e poet's real delight is not in the mechanism of composing; the best part of that delight is in the sympathies he has established with innumerable modifications of life and form, and art and Nature, sympathies which are often found equally keen in those who have not the same gift of language. The poet is but the interpreter. What of?-Truths in the hearts of others. He utters what they feel. Is the joy in the utterance? Nay, it is in the feeling itself. So, my dear, dark-bright child of song, when I bade thee open, out of the beat

which you could not put into words. That is the peculiar distinction of music. No

are the words which the voice warbles. It is the voice itself interpreting the soul of the musician which enchants and enthralls us. And you who have that voice pretend to de

s the singer may have comforted? what hard hearts he may

up hypocrite! Out on the sta

ds the mere details by which a whole effect on the minds

e in the affluence of your youth and your intellect the cause of your restlessne

d my life in another's: expect no answer on this from me. Circe herself could gi

in itself; its experience profits no others. In no two live

e" now falls on my ear with a sound as slight and as fai

rn to look on life itself as an art. Thou couldst discover the charm in Tasso; thou couldst perceive that the requisite of all

omeliest existence; love dispr

s warning when the time come

- G