wearied from her hard work, and famous. While here she determined upon a statue of Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra, and read much concerning her and her times. She had touched fiction and poetry; now she would attempt history. She could scarcely have chosen a more heroic or pathetic subject. The brave leader of a brave people, a skilful warrior, marching at the head of her troops, now on foot, and now on horseback, beautiful in face, and cultured in mind, acquainted with Latin, Greek, Syriac, and Egyptian, finally captured by Aurelian, and borne through the streets of Rome, adorning his triumphal procession.
After Miss Hosmer’s return to Rome, she worked on “Zenobia” with energy and enthusiasm, as she molded the clay, and then the plaster. When brought to this country, it awakened the greatest interest; crowds gathered to see it. In Chicago it was exhibited at the Sanitary Fair in behalf of the soldiers. Whittier said: “It very fully expresses my conception of what historical sculpture should be. It tells its whole proud and melancholy story. In looking at it, I felt that the artist had been as truly serving her country while working out her magnificent design abroad, as our soldiers in the field, and our public officers in their departments.” From its exhibition Miss Hosmer received five thousand dollars. It was purchased by Mr. A.W. Griswold, of New York. So great a work was the statue considered in London, that some of the papers declared Gibson to be its author. Miss Hosmer at once began suits for libel, and retractions were speedily made.
In 1860 Miss Hosmer again visited America, to see her father, who was seriously ill. How proud Dr. Hosmer must have been of his gifted daughter now that her fame was in two hemispheres! Surely he had not “spoiled” her. She could now spend for him as he had spent for her in her childhood. While here, she received a commission from St. Louis for a bronze portrait-statue of Missouri’s famous statesman, Thomas Hart Benton. The world wondered if she could bring out of the marble a man with all his strength and dignity, as she had a woman with all her grace and nobility.
She visited St. Louis, to examine portraits and mementos of Colonel Benton, and then hastened across the ocean to her work. The next year a photograph of the model was sent to the friends, and the likeness pronounced good. The statue was cast at the great royal foundry at Munich, and in due time shipped to this country. May 27, 1868, it was unveiled in Lafayette Park, in the presence of an immense concourse of people, the daughter, Mrs. John C. Fremont, removing the covering. The statue is ten feet high, and weighs three and one-half tons. It rests on a granite pedestal, ten feet square, the whole being twenty-two feet square. On the west side of the pedestal are the words from Colonel Benton’s famous speech on the Pacific Railroad, “There is the East–there is India.” Both press and people were heartily pleased with this statue, for which Miss Hosmer received ten thousand dollars, the whole costing thirty thousand.
She was now in the midst of busy and successful work. Orders crowded upon her. Her “Sleeping Faun,” which was exhibited at the Dublin Exhibition in 1865, was sold on the day of opening for five thousand dollars, to Sir Benjamin Guinness. Some discussion having arisen about the sale, he offered ten thousand, saying, that if money could buy it, he would possess it. Miss Hosmer, however, would receive only the five thousand. The faun is represented reclining against the trunk of a tree, partly draped in the spoils of a tiger. A little faun, with mischievous look, is binding the faun to the tree with the tiger-skin. The newspapers were enthusiastic about the work.
The _London Times_ said: “In the groups of statues are many works of exquisite beauty, but there is one which at once arrests attention and extorts admiration. It is a curious fact that amid all the statues in this court, contributed by the natives of lands in which the fine arts were naturalized thousands of years ago, one of the finest should be the production of an American artist.” The French _Galignani_ said, “The gem of the classical school, in its nobler style of composition, is due to an American lady, Miss Hosmer.” The _London Art Journal_ said, “The works of Miss Hosmer, Hiram Powers, and others we might name, have placed American on a level with the best modern sculptors of Europe.” This work was repeated for the Prince of Wales and for Lady Ashburton, of England.
Not long ago I visited the studio of Miss Hosmer in the Via Margutta, at Rome, and saw her numerous works, many of them still unfinished. Here an arm seemed just reaching out from the rough block of marble; here a sweet face seemed like Pygmalion’s statue, coming into life. In the centre of the studio was the “Siren Fountain,” executed for Lady Marion Alford. A siren sits in the upper basin and sings to the music of her lute. Three little cupids sit on dolphins, and listen to her music.
For some years Miss Hosmer has been preparing a golden gateway for an art gallery at Ashridge Hall, England, ordered by Earl Brownlow. These gates, seventeen feet high, are covered with bas-reliefs representing the Air, Earth, and Sea. The twelve hours of the night show “Aeolus subduing the Winds,” the “Descent of the Zephyrs,” “Iris descending with the Dew,” “Night rising with the Stars,” “The Rising Moon,” “The Hour’s Sleep,” “The Dreams Descend,” “The Falling Star,” “Phosphor and Hesper,” “The Hours Wake,” “Aurora Veils the Stars,” and “Morning.” More than eighty figures are in the nineteen bas-reliefs. Miss Hosmer has done other important works, among them a statue of the beautiful Queen of Naples, who was a frequent visitor to the artist’s studio, and several well-known monuments. With her girlish fondness for machinery, she has given much thought to mechanics in these later years, striving to find, like many another, the secret of producing perpetual motion. She spends much of her time now in England. She is still passionately fond of riding, the Empress of Austria, who owns more horses than any woman in the world, declaring “that there was nothing she looked forward to with more interest in Rome, than to see Miss Hosmer ride.”
Many of the closing years of the sculptor’s long life were spent in Rome, where she had a wide circle of eminent American and English friends, among whom were Hawthorne, Thackeray, George Eliot, and the Brownings. She made several discoveries in her work, one of which was a process of hardening limestone so that it resembled marble. She also wrote both prose and poetry, and would have been successful as an author, if she had not given the bulk of her time to her beloved sculpture.
After her long sojourn in Rome she spent several years in England, executing important commissions, and then turned her face toward America. In Watertown, where she was born, she again made her home; and here she breathed her last, February 21, 1908, after an illness of three weeks. She was in her seventy-eighth year. By her long life of earnest work and self-reliant purpose, coupled with her high gift, she has made for herself an abiding place in the history of art.
MADAME DE STAEL.
[Illustration: MADAME DE STAEL.
From the painting by Mlle. Godefroy.]
It was the twentieth of September, 1881. The sun shone out mild and beautiful upon Lake Geneva, as we sailed up to Coppet. The banks were dotted with lovely homes, half hidden by the foliage, while brilliant flower-beds came close to the water’s edge. Snow-covered Mont Blanc looked down upon the restful scene, which seemed as charming as anything in Europe.
We alighted from the boat, and walked up from the landing, between great rows of oaks, horsechestnuts, and sycamores, to the famous home we had come to look upon,–that of Madame de Stael. It is a French chateau, two stories high, drab, with green blinds, surrounding an open square; vines clamber over the gate and the high walls, and lovely flowers blossom everywhere. As you enter, you stand in a long hall, with green curtains, with many busts, the finest of which is that of Monsieur Necker. The next room is the large library, with furniture of blue and white; and the next, hung with old Gobelin tapestry, is the room where Madame Recamier used to sit with Madame de Stael, and look out upon the exquisite scenery, restful even in their troubled lives. Here is the work-table of her whom Macaulay called “the greatest woman of her times,” and of whom Byron said, “She is a woman by herself, and has done more than all the rest of them together, intellectually; she ought to have been a man.”
Next we enter the drawing-room, with carpet woven in a single piece; the furniture red and white. We stop to look upon the picture of Monsieur Necker, the father, a strong, noble-looking man; of the mother, in white silk dress, with powdered hair, and very beautiful; and De Stael herself, in a brownish yellow dress, with low neck and short sleeves, holding in her hand the branch of flowers, which she always carried, or a leaf, that thus her hands might be employed while she engaged in the conversation that astonished Europe. Here also are the pictures of the Baron, her husband, in white wig and military dress; here her idolized son and daughter, the latter beautiful, with mild, sad face, and dark hair and eyes.
What brings thousands to this quiet retreat every year? Because here lived and wrote and suffered the only person whom the great Napoleon feared, whom Galiffe, of Geneva, declared “the most remarkable woman that Europe has produced”; learned, rich, the author of _Corinne_ and _Allemagne_, whose “talents in conversation,” says George Ticknor, “were perhaps the most remarkable of any person that ever lived.”
April 27, 1766, was the daughter of James Necker, Minister of Finance under Louis XVI., a man of fine intellect, the author of fifteen volumes; and Susanna, daughter of a Swiss pastor, beautiful, educated, and devotedly Christian. Necker had become rich in early life through banking, and had been made, by the republic of Geneva, her resident minister at the Court of Versailles.
When the throne of Louis seemed crumbling, because the people were tired of extravagance and heavy taxation, Necker was called to his aid, with the hope that economy and retrenchment would save the nation. He also loaned the government two million dollars. The home of the Neckers, in Paris, naturally became a social centre, which the mother of the family was well fitted to grace. Gibbon had been deeply in love with her.
He says: “I found her learned without pedantry, lively in conversation, pure in sentiment, and elegant in manners; and the first sudden emotion was fortified by the habits and knowledge of a more familiar acquaintance…. At Crassier and Lausanne I indulged my dream of felicity; but on my return to England I soon discovered that my father would not hear of this strange alliance, and that, without his consent, I was myself destitute and helpless. After a painful struggle, I yielded to my fate; I sighed as a lover; I obeyed as a son.” Gibbon never married, but retained his life-long friendship and admiration for Madame Necker.
It was not strange, therefore, that Gibbon liked to be present in her _salon_, where Buffon, Hume, Diderot, and D’Alembert were wont to gather. The child of such parents could scarcely be other than intellectual, surrounded by such gifted minds. Her mother, too, was a most systematic teacher, and each day the girl was obliged to sit by her side, erect, on a wooden stool, and learn difficult lessons.
“She stood in great awe of her mother,” wrote Simond, the traveller, “but was exceedingly familiar with and extravagantly fond of her father. Madame Necker had no sooner left the room one day, after dinner, than the young girl, till then timidly decorous, suddenly seized her napkin, and threw it across the table at the head of her father, and then flying round to him, hung upon his neck, suffocating all his reproofs by her kisses.” Whenever her mother returned to the room, she at once became silent and restrained.
The child early began to show literary talent, writing dramas, and making paper kings and queens to act her tragedies. This the mother thought to be wrong, and it was discontinued. But when she was twelve, the mother having somewhat relented, she wrote a play, which she and her companions acted in the drawing-room. Grimm was so pleased with her attempts, that he sent extracts to his correspondents throughout Europe. At fifteen she wrote an essay on the _Revocation of the Edict of Nantes_, and another upon Montesquieu’s _Spirit of Laws_.
Overtaxing the brain with her continuous study, she became ill, and the physician, greatly to her delight, prescribed fresh air and sunshine. Here often she roamed from morning till night on their estate at St. Ouen. Madame Necker felt deeply the thwarting of her educational plans, and years after, when her daughter had acquired distinction, said, “It is absolutely nothing compared to what I would have made it.”
Monsieur Necker’s restriction of pensions and taxing of luxuries soon aroused the opposition of the aristocracy, and the weak but good-hearted King asked his minister to resign. Both wife and daughter felt the blow keenly, for both idolized him, so much so that the mother feared lest she be supplanted by her daughter. Madame de Stael says of her father, “From the moment of their marriage to her death, the thought of my mother dominated his life. He was not like other men in power, attentive to her by occasional tokens of regard, but by continual expressions of most tender and most delicate sentiment.” Of herself she wrote, “Our destinies would have united us forever, if fate had only made us contemporaries.” At his death she said, “If he could be restored to me, I would give all my remaining years for six months.” To the last he was her idol.
For the next few years the family travelled most of the time, Necker bringing out a book on the _Finances_, which had a sale at once of a hundred thousand copies. A previous book, the _Compte Rendu au Roi_, showing how for years the moneys of France had been wasted, had also a large sale. For these books, and especially for other correspondence, he was banished forty leagues from Paris. The daughter’s heart seemed well-nigh broken at this intelligence. Loving Paris, saying she would rather live there on “one hundred francs a year, and lodge in the fourth story,” than anywhere else in the world, how could she bear for years the isolation of the country? Joseph II., King of Poland, and the King of Naples, offered Necker fine positions, but he declined.
Mademoiselle Necker had come to womanhood, not beautiful, but with wonderful fascination and tact. She could compliment persons without flattery, was cordial and generous, and while the most brilliant talker, could draw to herself the thoughts and confidences of others. She had also written a book on _Rousseau_, which was much talked about. Pitt, of England, Count Fersen, of Sweden, and others, sought her in marriage, but she loved no person as well as her father. Her consent to marriage could be obtained only by the promise that she should never be obliged to leave him.
Baron de Stael, a man of learning and fine social position, ambassador from Sweden, and the warm friend of Gustavus, was ready to make any promises for the rich daughter of the Minister Necker. He was thirty-seven, she only a little more than half his age, twenty, but she accepted him because her parents were pleased. Going to Paris, she was, of course, received at Court, Marie Antoinette paying her much attention. Necker was soon recalled from exile to his old position.
The funds rose thirty per cent, and he became the idol of the people. Soon representative government was demanded, and then, though the King granted it, the breach was widened. Necker, unpopular with the bad advisers of the King, was again asked to leave Paris, and make no noise about it; but the people, hearing of it, soon demanded his recall, and he was hastily brought back from Brussels, riding through the streets like “the sovereign of a nation,” said his daughter. The people were wild with delight.
But matters had gone too far to prevent a bloody Revolution. Soon a mob was marching toward Versailles; thousands of men, women, and even children armed with pikes. They reached the palace, killed the guards, and penetrated to the queen’s apartments, while some filled the court-yard and demanded bread. The brave Marie Antoinette appeared on the balcony leading her two children, while Lafayette knelt by her side and kissed her hand. But the people could not be appeased.
Necker finding himself unable to serve his king longer, fled to his Swiss retreat at Coppet, and there remained till his death. Madame de Stael, as the wife of the Swedish ambassador, continued in the turmoil, writing her father daily, and taking an active interest in politics. “In England,” she said, “women are accustomed to be silent before men when political questions are discussed. In France, they direct all conversation, and their minds readily acquire the facility and talent which this privilege requires.” Lafayette, Narbonne, and Talleyrand consulted with her. She wrote the principal part of Talleyrand’s report on Public Instruction in 1790. She procured the appointment of Narbonne to the ministry; and later, when Talleyrand was in exile, obtained his appointment to the Department of Foreign Affairs.
Matters had gone from bad to worse. In 1792 the Swedish government suspended its embassy, and Madame de Stael prepared to fly, but stayed for a time to save her friends. The seven prisons of Paris were all crowded under the fearful reign of Danton and Marat. Great heaps of dead lay before every prison door. During that Reign of Terror it is estimated that eighteen thousand six hundred persons perished by the guillotine. Whole squares were shot down. “When the police visited her house, where some of the ministers were hidden, she met them graciously, urging that they must not violate the privacy of an ambassador’s house. When her friends were arrested, she went to the barbarous leaders, and with her eloquence begged for their safety, and thus saved the lives of many.
At last she must leave the terror-stricken city. Supposing that her rank as the wife of a foreign ambassador would protect her, she started with a carriage and six horses, her servants in livery. At once a crowd of half-famished and haggard women crowded around, and threw themselves against the horses. The carriage was stopped, and the occupants were taken to the Assembly. She plead her case before the noted Robespierre, and then waited for six hours for the decision of the Commune. Meantime she saw the hired assassins pass beneath the windows, their bare arms covered with the blood of the slain. The mob attempted to pillage her carriage, but a strong man mounted the box and defended it. She learned afterward that it was the notorious Santerre, the person who later superintended the execution of Louis XVI., ordering his drummers to drown the last words of the dying King. Santerre had seen Necker distribute corn to the poor of Paris in a time of famine, and now he was befriending the daughter for this noble act. Finally she was allowed to continue her journey, and reached Coppet with her baby, Auguste, well-nigh exhausted after this terrible ordeal.
The Swiss home soon became a place of refuge for those who were flying from the horrors of the Commune. She kept a faithful agent, who knew the mountain passes, busy in this work of mercy.
The following year, 1793, longing for a change from these dreadful times, she visited England, and received much attention from prominent persons, among them Fanny Burny, the author of _Evelina_, who owned “that she had never heard conversation before. The most animated eloquence, the keenest observation, the most sparkling wit, the most courtly grace, were united to charm her.”
On Jan. 21 of this year, the unfortunate King had met his death on the scaffold before an immense throng of people. Six men bound him to the plank, and then his head was severed from his body amid the shouts and waving of hats of the blood-thirsty crowd. Necker had begged to go before the Convention and plead for his king, but was refused. Madame de Stael wrote a vigorous appeal to the nation in behalf of the beautiful and tenderhearted Marie Antoinette; but on Sept. 16, 1793, at four o’clock in the morning, in an open cart, in the midst of thirty thousand troops and a noisy rabble, she, too, was borne to the scaffold; and when her pale face was held up bleeding before the crowd, they jeered and shouted themselves hoarse.
The next year 1794, Madame Necker died at Coppet, whispering to her husband, “We shall see each other in Heaven.” “She looked heavenward,” said Necker in a most affecting manner, “listening while I prayed; then, in dying, raised the finger of her left hand, which wore the ring I had given her, to remind me of the pledge engraved upon it, to love her forever.” His devotion to her was beautiful. “No language,” says his daughter, “can give any adequate idea of it. Exhausted by wakefulness at night, she slept often in the daytime, resting her head on his arm. I have seen him remain immovable, for hours together, standing in the same position for fear of awakening her by the least movement. Absent from her during a few hours of sleep, he inquired, on his return, of her attendant, if she had asked for him? She could no longer speak, but made an effort to say ‘yes, yes.'”
When the Revolution was over, and France had become a republic, Sweden sent back her ambassador, Baron de Stael, and his wife returned to him at Paris. Again her _salon_ became the centre for the great men of the time. She loved liberty, and believed in the republican form of government. She had written her book upon the _Influence of the Passions on the Happiness of Individuals and Nations_, prompted by the horrors of the Revolution, and it was considered “irresistible in energy and dazzling in thought.”
She was also devoting much time to her child, Auguste, developing him without punishment, thinking that there had been too much rigor in her own childhood. He well repaid her for her gentleness and trust, and was inseparable from her through life, becoming a noble Christian man, and the helper of all good causes. Meantime Madame de Stael saw with alarm the growing influence of the young Corsican officer, Bonaparte. The chief executive power had been placed in the hands of the Directory, and he had control of the army. He had won brilliant victories in Italy, and had been made commander-in-chief of the expedition against Egypt He now returned to Paris, turned out the Directory, drove out the Council of Five Hundred from the hall of the Assembly at the point of the bayonet, made the government into a consulate with three consuls, of whom he was the first, and lived at the Tuileries in almost royal style.
All this time Madame de Stael felt the egotism and heartlessness of Napoleon. Her _salon_ became more crowded than ever with those who had their fears for the future. “The most eloquent of the Republican orators were those who borrowed from her most of their ideas and telling phrases. Most of them went forth from her door with speeches ready for the next day, and with resolution to pronounce them–a courage which was also derived from her.” Lucien and Joseph Bonaparte, the brothers of Napoleon, were proud of her friendship, and often were guests at her house, until forbidden by their brother.
When Benjamin Constant made a speech against the “rising tyranny,” Napoleon suspected that she had prompted it, and denounced her heartily, all the time declaring that he loved the Republic, and would always defend it! He said persons always came away from De Stael’s home “less his friends than when they entered.” About this time her book, _Literature considered in its Relation to Social Institutions_, was published, and made a surprising impression from its wealth of knowledge and power of thought. Its analysis of Greek and Latin literature, and the chief works in Italian, English, German, and French, astonished everybody, because written by a woman!
Soon after Necker published his _Last Views of Politics and Finance_, in which he wrote against the tyranny of a single man. At once Napoleon caused a sharp letter to be written to Necker advising him to leave politics to the First Consul, “who was alone able to govern France,” and threatening his daughter with exile for her supposed aid in his book. She saw the wisdom of escaping from France, lest she be imprisoned, and immediately hastened to Coppet. A few months later, in the winter of 1802, she returned to Paris to bring home Baron de Stael, who was ill, and from whom she had separated because he was spending all her fortune and that of her three children. He died on the journey.
Virtually banished from France, she now wrote her _Delphine_, a brilliant novel which was widely read. It received its name from a singular circumstance.
“Desirous of meeting the First Consul for some urgent reason,” says Dr. Stevens in his charming biography of Madame de Stael, “she went to the villa of Madame de Montessan, whither he frequently resorted. She was alone in one of the _salles_ when he arrived, accompanied by the consular court of brilliant young women. The latter knew the growing hostility of their master toward her, and passed, without noticing her, to the other end of the _salle_, leaving her entirely alone. Her position was becoming extremely painful, when a young lady, more courageous and more compassionate than her companions, crossed the _salle_ and took a seat by her side. Madame de Stael was touched by this kindness, and asked for her Christian name. ‘Delphine,’ she responded. ‘Ah, I will try to immortalize it,’ exclaimed Madame de Stael; and she kept her word. This sensible young lady was the Comtesse de Custine.”
Her home at Coppet became the home of many great people. Sismondi, the author of the _History of the Italian Republics_, and _Literature of Southern Europe_, encouraged by her, wrote here several of his famous works. Bonstetten made his home here for years. Schlegel, the greatest critic of his age, became the teacher of her children, and a most intimate friend. Benjamin Constant, the author and statesman, was here. All repaired to their rooms for work in the morning, and in the evening enjoyed philosophic, literary, and political discussions.
Bonstetten said: “In seeing her, in hearing her, I feel myself electrified…. She daily becomes greater and better; but souls of great talent have great sufferings: they are solitary in the world, like Mont Blanc.”
In the autumn of 1803, longing for Paris, she ventured to within ten leagues and hired a quiet home. Word was soon borne to Napoleon that the road to her house was thronged with visitors. He at once sent an officer with a letter signed by himself, exiling her to forty leagues from Paris, and commanding her to leave within twenty-four hours.
At once she fled to Germany. At Frankfort her little daughter was dangerously ill. “I knew no person in the city,” she writes. “I did not know the language; and the physician to whom I confided my child could not speak French. But my father shared my trouble; he consulted physicians at Geneva, and sent me their prescriptions. Oh, what would become of a mother trembling for the life of her child, if it were not for prayer!”
Going to Weimar, she met Goethe, Wieland, Schiller, and other noted men. At Berlin, the greatest attention was shown her. The beautiful Louise of Prussia welcomed her heartily. During this exile her father died, with his latest breath saying,” She has loved me dearly! She has loved me dearly!” On his death-bed he wrote a letter to Bonaparte telling him that his daughter was in nowise responsible for his book, but it was never answered. It was enough for Napoleon to know that she did not flatter him; therefore he wished her out of the way.
Madame de Stael was for a time completely overcome by Necker’s death. She wore his picture on her person as long as she lived. Only once did she part with it, and then she imagined it might console her daughter in her illness. Giving it to her, she said, “Gaze upon it, gaze upon it, when you are in pain.”
She now sought repose in Italy, preparing those beautiful descriptions for her _Corinne_, and finally returning to Coppet, spent a year in writing her book. It was published in Paris, and, says Sainte-Beuve, “its success was instantaneous and universal. As a work of art, as a poem, the romance of _Corinne_ is an immortal monument.” Jeffrey, in the _Edinburgh Review_, called the author the greatest writer in France since Voltaire and Rousseau, and the greatest woman writer of any age or country. Napoleon, however, in his official paper, caused a scathing criticism on _Corinne_ to appear; indeed, it was declared to be from his own pen. She was told by the Minister of Police, that she had but to insert some praise of Napoleon in _Corinne_, and she would be welcomed back to Paris. She could not, however, live a lie, and she feared Napoleon had evil designs upon France.
Again she visited Germany with her children, Schlegel, and Sismondi. So eager was everybody to see her and hear her talk, that Bettina von Arnim says in her correspondence with Goethe: “The gentlemen stood around the table and planted themselves behind us, elbowing one another. They leaned quite over me, and I said in French, ‘Your adorers quite suffocate me.'”
While in Germany, her eldest son, then seventeen, had an interview with Bonaparte about the return of his mother. “Your mother,” said Napoleon, “could not be six months in Paris before I should be compelled to send her to Bicetre or the Temple. I should regret this necessity, for it would make a noise and might injure me a little in public opinion. Say, therefore, to her that as long as I live she cannot re-enter Paris. I see what you wish, but it cannot be; she will commit follies; she will have the world about her.”
On her return to Coppet, she spent two years in writing her _Allemagne_, for which she had been making researches for four years. She wished it published in Paris, as _Corinne_ had been, and submitted it to the censors of the Press. They crossed out whatever sentiments they thought might displease Napoleon, and then ten thousand copies were at once printed, she meantime removing to France, within her proscribed limits, that she might correct the proof-sheets.
What was her astonishment to have Napoleon order the whole ten thousand destroyed, and her to leave France in three days! Her two sons attempted to see Bonaparte, who was at Fontainebleau, but were ordered to turn back, or they would be arrested. The only reason given for destroying the work was the fact that she had been silent about the great but egotistical Emperor.
Broken in spirit, she returned to Geneva. Amid all this darkness a new light was about to beam upon her life. In the social gatherings made for her, she observed a young army officer, Monsieur Rocca, broken in health from his many wounds, but handsome and noble in face, and, as she learned, of irreproachable life. Though only twenty-three and she forty-five, the young officer was fascinated by her conversation, and refreshed in spirits by her presence. She sympathized with his misfortunes in battle; she admired his courage. He was lofty in sentiments, tender in heart, and gave her what she had always needed, an unselfish and devoted love. When discouraged by his friends, he replied, “I will love her so much that I will finish by making her marry me.”
They were married in 1811, and the marriage was a singularly happy one. The reason for it is not difficult to perceive. A marriage that has not a pretty face or a passing fancy for its foundation, but appreciation of a gifted mind and noble heart,–such a marriage stands the test of time.
The marriage was kept secret from all save a few intimate friends, Madame de Stael fearing that if the news reached Napoleon, Rocca would be ordered back to France. Her fears were only too well founded. Schlegel, Madame Recamier, all who had shown any sympathy for her, began to be exiled. She was forbidden under any pretext whatever from travelling in Switzerland, or entering any region annexed to France. She was advised not to go two leagues from Coppet, lest she be imprisoned, and this with Napoleon usually meant death.
The Emperor seemed about to conquer the whole world. Whither could she fly to escape his persecution? She longed to reach England, but there was an edict against any French subject entering that country without special permit. Truly his heel was upon France. The only way to reach that country was through Austria, Russia, and Sweden, two thousand leagues. But she must attempt it. She passed an hour in prayer by her parent’s tomb, kissed his armchair and table, and took his cloak to wrap herself in should death come.
May 23, 1812, she, with Rocca and two of her children, began their flight by carriage, not telling the servants at the chateau, but that they should return for the next meal.
They reached Vienna June 6, and were at once put under surveillance. Everywhere she saw placards admonishing the officers to watch her sharply. Rocca had to make his way alone, because Bonaparte had ordered his arrest. They were permitted to remain only a few hours in any place. Once Madame de Stael was so overcome by this brutal treatment that she lost consciousness, and was obliged to be taken from her carriage to the roadside till she recovered. Every hour she expected arrest and death.
Finally, worn in body, she reached Russia, and was cordially received by Alexander and Empress Elizabeth. From here she went to Sweden, and had an equally cordial welcome from Bernadotte, the general who became king. Afterward she spent four months in England, bringing out _Allemagne._ Here she received a perfect ovation. At Lord Lansdowne’s the first ladies in the kingdom mounted on chairs and tables to catch a glimpse of her. Sir James Mackintosh said: “The whole fashionable and literary world is occupied with Madame de Stael, the most celebrated woman of this, or perhaps of any age.” Very rare must be the case where a woman of fine mind does not have many admirers among gentlemen.
Her _Allemagne_ was published in 1813, the manuscript having been secretly carried over Germany, Poland, Russia, Sweden, and the Baltic Sea. The first part treated of the manners of Germany; the second, its literature and art; the third, its philosophy and morals; the fourth, its religion. The book had a wonderful sale, and was soon translated into all the principal tongues of Europe. Lamartine said: “Her style, without losing any of its youthful vigor and splendor, seemed now to be illuminated with more lofty and eternal lights as she approached the evening of life, and the diviner mysteries of thought. This style no longer paints, no longer chants; it adores…. Her name will live as long as literature, as long as the history of her country.”
Meantime, great changes had taken place in France. Napoleon had been defeated at Leipsic, leaving a quarter of a million murdered on his battle-fields; he had abdicated, and was on his way to Elba. She immediately returned to Paris, with much the same feeling as Victor Hugo, when he wept as he came from his long exile under “Napoleon the Little.” Again to her _salon_ came kings and generals, Alexander of Russia, Wellington, and others.
But soon Napoleon returned, and she fled to Coppet. He sent her an invitation to come to Paris, declaring he would now live for the peace of Europe, but she could not trust him. She saw her daughter, lovely and beautiful, married to the Duc de Broglie, a leading statesman, and was happy in her happiness. Rocca’s health was failing, and they repaired to Italy for a time.
In 1816 they returned to Paris, Napoleon having gone from his final defeat to St. Helena. But Madame de Stael was broken with her trials. She seemed to grow more and more frail, till the end came. She said frequently, “My father awaits me on the other shore.” To Chateaubriand she said, “I have loved God, my father, and my country.” She could not and would not go to sleep the last night, for fear she might never look upon Rocca again. He begged her to sleep and he would awaken her often. “Good night,” she said, and it was forever. She never wakened. They buried her beside her father at Coppet, under the grand old trees. Rocca died in seven months, at the age of thirty-one. “I hoped,” he said, “to have died in her arms.”
Her little son, and Rocca’s, five years old, was cared for by Auguste and Albertine, her daughter. After Madame de Stael’s death, her _Considerations on the French Revolution_ and _Ten Years of Exile_ were published. Of the former, Sainte-Beuve says: “Its publication was an event. It was the splendid public obsequies of the authoress. Its politics were destined to long and passionate discussions and a durable influence. She is perfect only from this day; the full influence of her star is only at her tomb.”
Chateaubriand said, “Her death made one of those breaches which the fall of a superior intellect produces once in an age, and which can never be closed.”
As kind as she was great, loving deeply and receiving love in return, she has left an imperishable name. No wonder that thousands visit that quiet grave beside Lake Geneva.
ROSA BONHEUR
[Illustration: ROSA BONHEUR.]
In a simple home in Paris could have been seen, in 1829, Raymond Bonheur and his little family,–Rosa, seven years old, August, Isadore, and Juliette. He was a man of fine talent in painting, but obliged to spend his time in giving drawing-lessons to support his children. His wife, Sophie, gave lessons on the piano, going from house to house all day long, and sometimes sewing half the night, to earn a little more for the necessities of life.
Hard work and poverty soon bore its usual fruit, and the tired young mother died in 1833. The three oldest children were sent to board with a plain woman, “La mere Catherine,” in the Champs Elysees, and the youngest was placed with relatives. For two years this good woman cared for the children, sending them to school, though she was greatly troubled because Rosa persisted in playing in the woods of the Bois de Boulogne, gathering her arms full of daisies and marigolds, rather than to be shut up in a schoolroom. “I never spent an hour of fine weather indoors during the whole of the two years,” she has often said since those days.
Finally the father married again and brought the children home. The two boys were placed in school, and M. Bonheur paid their way by giving drawing lessons three times a week in the institution. If Rosa did not love school, she must be taught something useful, and she was accordingly placed in a sewing establishment to become a seamstress.
The child hated sewing, ran the needle into her fingers at every stitch, cried for the fresh air and sunshine, and finally, becoming pale and sickly, was taken back to the Bonheur home. The anxious painter would try his child once more in school; so he arranged that she should attend, with compensation met in the same way as for his boys. Rosa soon became a favorite with the girls in the Fauborg St. Antoine School, especially because she could draw such witty caricatures of the teachers, which she pasted against the wall, with bread chewed into the consistency of putty. The teachers were not pleased, but so struck were they with the vigor and originality of the drawings, that they carefully preserved the sketches in an album.
The girl was far from happy. Naturally sensitive–as what poet or painter was ever born otherwise?–she could not bear to wear a calico dress and coarse shoes, and eat with an iron spoon from a tin cup, when the other girls wore handsome dresses, and had silver mugs and spoons. She grew melancholy, neglected her books, and finally became so ill that she was obliged to be taken home.
And now Raymond Bonheur very wisely decided not to make plans for his child for a time, but see what was her natural tendency. It was well that he made this decision in time, before she had been spoiled by his well-meant but poor intentions.
Left to herself, she constantly hung about her father’s studio, now drawing, now modeling, copying whatever she saw him do. She seemed never to be tired, but sang at her work all the day long.
Monsieur Bonheur suddenly awoke to the fact that his daughter had great talent. He began to teach her carefully, to make her accurate in drawing, and correct in perspective. Then he sent her to the Louvre to copy the works of the old masters. Here she worked with the greatest industry and enthusiasm, not observing anything that was going on around her. Said the director of the Louvre, “I have never seen an example of such application and such ardor for work.”
One day an elderly English gentleman stopped beside her easel, and said: “Your copy, my child, is superb, faultless. Persevere as you have begun, and I prophesy that you will be a great artist.” How glad those few words made her! She went home thinking over to herself the determination she had made in the school when she ate with her iron spoon, that sometime she would be as famous as her schoolmates, and have some of the comforts of life.
Her copies of the old masters were soon sold, and though they brought small prices, she gladly gave the money to her father, who needed it now more than ever. His second wife had two sons when he married her, and now they had a third, Germain, and every cent that Rosa could earn was needed to help support seven children. “La mamiche,” as they called the new mother, was an excellent manager of the meagre finances, and filled her place well.
Rosa was now seventeen, loving landscape, historical, and genre painting, perhaps equally; but happening to paint a goat, she was so pleased in the work, that she determined to make animal painting a specialty. Having no money to procure models, she must needs make long walks into the country on foot to the farms. She would take a piece of bread in her pocket, and generally forget to eat it. After working all day, she would come home tired, often drenched with rain, and her shoes covered with mud.
She took other means to study animals. In the outskirts of Paris were great _abattoirs_, or slaughter-pens. Though the girl tenderly loved animals, and shrank from the sight of suffering, she forced herself to see the killing, that she might know how to depict the death agony on canvas. Though obliged to mingle more or less with drovers and butchers, no indignity was ever offered her. As she sat on a bundle of hay, with her colors about her, they would crowd around to look at the pictures, and regard her with honest pride. The world soon learns whether a girl is in earnest about her work, and treats her accordingly.
The Bonheur family had moved to the sixth story of a tenement house in the Rue Rumfort, now the Rue Malesherbes. The sons, Auguste and Isadore, had both become artists; the former a painter, the latter a sculptor. Even little Juliette was learning to paint. Rosa was working hard all day at her easel, and at night was illustrating books, or molding little groups of animals for the figure-dealers. All the family were happy despite their poverty, because they had congenial work.
On the roof, Rosa improvised a sort of garden, with honeysuckles, sweet-peas, and nasturtiums, and here they kept a sheep, with long, silky wool, for a model. Very often Isadore would take him on his back and carry him down the six flights of stairs,–the day of elevators had not dawned,–and after he had enjoyed grazing, would bring him back to his garden home. It was a docile creature, and much loved by the whole family. For Rosa’s birds, the brothers constructed a net, which they hung outside the window, and then opened the cage into it.
At nineteen Rosa was to test the world, and see what the critics would say. She sent to the Fine Arts Exhibition two pictures, “Goats and Sheep” and “Two Rabbits.” The public was pleased, and the press gave kind notices. The next year “Animals in a Pasture,” a “Cow lying in a Meadow,” and a “Horse for sale,” attracted still more attention. Two years later she exhibited twelve pictures, some from her father and brother being hung on either side of hers, the first time they had been admitted. More and more the critics praised, and the pathway of the Bonheur family grew less thorny.
Then, in 1849, when she was twenty-seven, came the triumph. Her magnificent picture, “Cantal Oxen,” took the gold medal, and was purchased by England. Horace Vernet, the president of the commission of awards, in the midst of a brilliant assembly, proclaimed the new laureate, and gave her, in behalf of the government, a superb Sevres vase.
Raymond Bonheur seemed to become young again at this fame of his child. It brought honors to him also, for he was at once made director of the government school of design for girls. But the release from poverty and anxiety came too late, and he died the same year, greatly lamented by his family. “He had grand ideas,” said his daughter, “and had he not been obliged to give lessons for our support, he would have been more known, and to-day acknowledged with other masters.”
Rosa was made director in his place, and Juliette became a professor in the school. This same year appeared her “Plowing Scene in the Nivernais,” now in the Luxembourg Gallery, thought to be her most important work after her “Horse Fair.” Orders now poured in upon her, so that she could not accede to half the requests for work. A rich Hollander offered her one thousand crowns for a painting which she could have wrought in two hours; but she refused.
Four years later, after eighteen long months of preparatory studies, her “Horse Fair” was painted. This created the greatest enthusiasm both in England and America. It was sold to a gentleman in England for eight thousand dollars, and was finally purchased by A. T. Stewart, of New York, for his famous collection. No one who has seen this picture will ever forget the action and vigor of these Normandy horses. In painting it, a petted horse, it is said, stepped back upon the canvas, putting his hoof through it, thus spoiling the work of months.
So greatly was this picture admired, that Napoleon III. was urged to bestow upon her the Cross of the Legion of Honor, entitled her from French usage. Though she was invited to the state dinner at the Tuileries, always given to artists to whom the Academy of Fine Arts has awarded its highest honors, Napoleon had not the courage to give it to her, lest public opinion might not agree with him in conferring it upon a woman. Possibly he felt, more than the world knew, the insecurity of his throne.
Henry Bacon, in the _Century_, thus describes the way in which Rosa Bonheur finally received the badge of distinction. “The Emperor, leaving Paris for a short summer excursion in 1865, left the Empress as Regent. From the imperial residence at Fontainebleau it was only a short drive to By (the home of Mademoiselle Bonheur). The countersign at the gate was forced, and unannounced, the Empress entered the studio where Mademoiselle Rosa was at work. She rose to receive the visitor, who threw her arms about her neck and kissed her. It was only a short interview. The imperial vision had departed, the rumble of the carriage and the crack of the outriders’ whips were lost in the distance. Then, and not till then, did the artist discover that as the Empress had given the kiss, she had pinned upon her blouse the Cross of the Legion of Honor.” Since then she has received the Leopold Cross of Honor from the King of Belgium, said to be the first ever conferred upon a woman; also a decoration from the King of Spain. Her brother Auguste, now dead, received the Cross of the Legion of Honor in 1867, two years after Rosa.
In preparing to paint the “Horse Fair” and other similar pictures, which have brought her much into the company of men, she has found it wise to dress in male costume. A laughable incident is related of this mode of dress. One day when she returned from the country, she found a messenger awaiting to announce to her the sudden illness of one of her young friends. Rosa did not wait to change her male attire, but hastened to the bedside of the young lady. In a few minutes after her arrival, the doctor, who had been sent for, entered, and seeing a young man, as he supposed, seated on the side of the bed, with his arm round the neck of the sick girl, thought he was an intruder, and retreated with all possible speed. “Oh! run after him! He thinks you are my lover, and has gone and left me to die!” cried the sick girl. Rosa flew down stairs, and soon returned with the modest doctor.
She also needs this mannish costume, for her long journeys over the Pyrenees into Spain or in the Scottish Highlands. She is always accompanied by her most intimate friend, Mademoiselle Micas, herself an artist of repute, whose mother, a widow, superintends the home for the two devoted friends.
Sometimes in the Pyrenees these two ladies see no one for six weeks but muleteers with their mules. The people in these lonely mountain passes live entirely upon the curdled milk of sheep. Once Rosa Bonheur and her friend were nearly starving, when Mademoiselle Micas obtained a quantity of frogs, and covering the hind legs with leaves, roasted them over a fire. On these they lived for two days.
In Scotland she painted her exquisite “Denizens of the Mountains,” “Morning in the Highlands,” and “Crossing a Loch in the Highlands.” In England she was treated like a princess. Sir Edwin Landseer, whom some persons thought she would marry, is reported to have said, when he first looked upon her “Horse Fair,” “It surpasses me, though it’s a little hard to be beaten by a woman.” On her return to France she brought a skye-terrier, named “Wasp,” of which she is very fond, and for which she has learned several English phrases. When she speaks to him in English, he wags his tail most appreciatively.
Rosa Bonheur stands at the head of her profession, an acknowledged master. Her pictures bring enormous sums, and have brought her wealth. A “View in the Pyrenees” has been sold for ten thousand dollars, and some others for twice that sum.
She gives away much of her income. She has been known to send to the _Mont de Piete_ her gold medals to raise funds to assist poor artists. A woman artist, who had been refused help by several wealthy painters, applied to Rosa Bonheur, who at once took down from the wall a small but valuable painting, and gave it to her, from which she received a goodly sum. A young sculptor who greatly admired her work, enclosed twenty dollars, asking her for a small drawing, and saying that this was all the money he possessed. She immediately sent him a sketch worth at least two hundred dollars. She has always provided most generously for her family, and for servants who have grown old in her employ.
She dresses very simply, always wearing black, brown, or gray, with a close fitting jacket over a plain skirt. When she accepts a social invitation, which is very rare, she adorns her dress with a lace collar, but without other ornament. Her working dress is usually a long gray linen or blue flannel blouse, reaching nearly from head to foot. She has learned that the conventional tight dress of women is not conducive to great mental or physical power. She is small in stature, with dainty hands and feet, blue eyes, and a noble and intelligent face.
She is an indefatigable worker, rising usually at six in the morning, and painting throughout the day.
So busy is she that she seldom permits herself any amusements. On one occasion she had tickets sent her for the theatre. She worked till the carriage was announced. “_Je suis prete_,” said Rosa, and went to the play in her working dress. A daintily gloved man in the box next to hers looked over in disdain, and finally went into the vestibule and found the manager.
“Who is this woman in the box next to mine?” he said, in a rage. “She’s in an old calico dress, covered with paint and oil. The odor is terrible. Turn her out. If you do not, I will never enter your theatre again.”
The manager went to the box, and returning, informed him that it was the great painter.
“Rosa Bonheur!” he gasped. “Who’d have thought it? Make my apology to her. I dare not enter her presence again.”
She usually walks at the twilight, often thinking out new subjects for her brush, at that quiet hour. She said to a friend: “I have been a faithful student since I was ten years old. I have copied no master. I have studied Nature, and expressed to the best of my ability the ideas and feelings with which she has inspired me. Art is an absorbent–a tyrant. It demands heart, brain, soul, body, the entireness of the votary. Nothing less will win its highest favor. I wed art. It is my husband, my world, my life-dream, the air I breathe. I know nothing else, feel nothing else, think nothing else, My soul finds in it the most complete satisfaction…. I have no taste for general society,–no interest in its frivolities. I only seek to be known through my works. If the world feel and understand them, I have succeeded…. If I had got up a convention to debate the question of my ability to paint ‘_Marche au Chevaux_’ [The Horse Fair], for which England paid me forty thousand francs, the decision would have been against me. I felt the power within me to paint; I cultivated it, and have produced works that have won the favorable verdicts of the great judges. I have no patience with women who ask _permission to think_!”
For years she lived in Rue d’Assas, a retired street half made up of gardens. Here she had one of the most beautiful studios of Paris, the room lighted from the ceiling, the walls covered with paintings, with here and there old armor, tapestry, hats, cloaks, sandals, and skins of tigers, leopards, foxes, and oxen on the floor. One Friday, the day on which she received guests, one of her friends, coming earlier than usual, found her fast asleep on her favorite skin, that of a magnificent ox, with stuffed head and spreading horns. She had come in tired from the School of Design, and had thrown herself down to rest. Usually after greeting her friends she would say, “Allow me to resume my brush; we can talk just as well together.” For those who have any great work to do in this worlds there is little time for visiting; interruptions cannot be permitted. No wonder Carlyle groaned when some person had taken two hours of his time. He could better have spared money to the visitor.
For several years Rosa Bonheur has lived near Fontainebleau, in the Chateau By. Henry Bacon says: “The chateau dates from the time of Louis XV., and the garden is still laid out in the style of Le Notre. Since it has been in the present proprietor’s possession, a quaint, picturesque brick building, containing the carriage house and coachman’s lodge on the first floor, and the studio on the second, has been added; the roof of the main building has been raised, and the chapel changed into an orangery: beside the main carriage-entrance, which is closed by iron gates and wooden blinds, is a postern gate, with a small grated opening, like those found in convents. The blinds to the gate and the slide to the grating are generally closed, and the only communication with the outside world is by the bell-wire, terminating in a ring beside the gate. Ring, and the jingle of the bell is at once echoed by the barking of numerous dogs,–the hounds and bassets in chorus, the grand Saint Bernard in slow measure, like the bass-drum in an orchestra. After the first excitement among the dogs has begun to abate, a remarkably small house-pet that has been somewhere in the interior arrives upon the scene, and with his sharp, shrill voice again starts and leads the canine chorus. By this time the eagle in his cage has awakened, and the parrot, whose cage is built into the corner of the studio looking upon the street, adds to the racket.
“Behind the house is a large park divided from the forest by a high wall; a lawn and flower-beds are laid out near the buildings; and on the lawn, in pleasant weather, graze a magnificent bull and cow, which are kept as models. In a wire enclosure are two chamois from the Pyrenees, and further removed from the house, in the wooded part of the park, are enclosures for sheep and deer, each of which knows its mistress. Even the stag, bearing its six-branched antlers, receives her caresses like a pet dog. At the end of one of the linden avenues is a splendid bronze, by Isadore Bonheur, of a Gaul attacking a lion.
“The studio is very large, with a huge chimney at one end, the supports of which are life-size dogs, modeled by Isadore Bonheur. Portraits of the father and mother in oval frames hang at each side, and a pair of gigantic horns ornaments the centre. The room is decorated with stuffed heads of animals of various kinds,–boars, bears, wolves, and oxen; and birds perch in every convenient place.”
When Prussia conquered France, and swept through this town, orders were given that Rosa Bonheur’s home and paintings be carefully preserved. Even her servants went unmolested. The peasants idolized the great woman who lived in the chateau, and were eager to serve her. She always talked to them pleasantly. Rosa Bonheur died at her home at 11 P.M., Thursday, May 25, 1899.
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.
[Illustration: Elizabeth Barrett Browning Rome. February. 1859]
Ever since I had received in my girlhood, from my best friend, the works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, in five volumes in blue and gold, I had read and re-read the pages, till I knew scores by heart. I had longed to see the face and home of her whom the English call “Shakespeare’s daughter,” and whom Edmund Clarence Stedman names “the passion-flower of the century.”
I shall never forget that beautiful July morning spent in the Browning home in London. The poet-wife had gone out from it, and lay buried in Florence, but here were her books and her pictures. Here was a marble bust, the hair clustering about the face, and a smile on the lips that showed happiness. Near by was another bust of the idolized only child, of whom she wrote in _Casa Guidi Windows_:–
“The sun strikes through the windows, up the floor: Stand out in it, my own young Florentine, Not two years old, and let me see thee more! It grows along thy amber curls to shine Brighter than elsewhere. Now look straight before And fix thy brave blue English eyes on mine, And from thy soul, which fronts the future so With unabashed and unabated gaze,
Teach me to hope for what the Angels know When they smile clear as thou dost!”
Here was the breakfast-table at which they three had often sat together. Close beside it hung a picture of the room in Florence, where she lived so many years in a wedded bliss as perfect as any known in history. Tears gathered in the eyes of Robert Browning, as he pointed out her chair, and sofa, and writing-table.
Of this room in Casa Guidi, Kate Field wrote in the _Atlantic Monthly_, September, 1861: “They who have been so favored can never forget the square ante-room, with its great picture and piano-forte, at which the boy Browning passed many an hour; the little dining room covered with tapestry, and where hung medallions of Tennyson, Carlyle, and Robert Browning; the long room filled with plaster casts and studies, which was Mr. Browning’s retreat; and, dearest of all, the large drawing-room, where _she_ always sat. It opens upon a balcony filled with plants, and looks out upon the old iron-gray church of Santa Felice. There was something about this room that seemed to make it a proper and especial haunt for poets. The dark shadows and subdued light gave it a dreamy look, which was enhanced by the tapestry-covered walls, and the old pictures of saints that looked out sadly from their carved frames of black wood. Large bookcases, constructed of specimens of Florentine carving selected by Mr. Browning, were brimming over with wise-looking books. Tables were covered with more gayly bound volumes, the gifts of brother authors. Dante’s grave profile, a cast of Keats’ face and brow taken after death, a pen-and-ink sketch of Tennyson, the genial face of John Kenyon, Mrs. Browning’s good friend and relative, little paintings of the boy Browning, all attracted the eye in turn, and gave rise to a thousand musings. But the glory of all, and that which sanctified all, was seated in a low armchair near the door. A small table, strewn with writing materials, books and newspapers, was always by her side.”
Then Mr. Browning, in the London home, showed us the room where he writes, containing his library and hers. The books are on simple shelves, choice, and many very old and rare. Here are her books, many in Greek and Hebrew. In the Greek, I saw her notes on the margin in Hebrew, and in the Hebrew she had written her marginal notes in Greek. Here also are the five volumes of her writings, in blue and gold.
The small table at which she wrote still stands beside the larger where her husband composes. His table is covered with letters and papers and books; hers stands there unused, because it is a constant reminder of those companionable years, when they worked together. Close by hangs a picture of the “young Florentine,” Robert Barrett Browning, now grown to manhood, an artist already famed. He has a refined face, as he sits in artist garb, before his easel, sketching in a peasant’s house. The beloved poet who wrote at the little table, is endeared to all the world. Born in 1809, in the county of Durham, the daughter of wealthy parents, she passed her early years partly in the country in Herefordshire, and partly in the city. That she loved the country with its wild flowers and woods, her poem, _The Lost Bower_, plainly shows.
“Green the land is where my daily
Steps in jocund childhood played, Dimpled close with hill and valley,
Dappled very close with shade;
Summer-snow of apple-blossoms running up from glade to glade.
* * * * *
“But the wood, all close and clenching Bough in bough and root in root,–
No more sky (for overbranching)
At your head than at your foot,– Oh, the wood drew me within it, by a glamour past dispute.
“But my childish heart beat stronger Than those thickets dared to grow:
_I_ could pierce them! I could longer Travel on, methought, than so.
Sheep for sheep-paths! braver children climb and creep where they would go.
* * * * *
“Tall the linden-tree, and near it
An old hawthorne also grew;
And wood-ivy like a spirit
Hovered dimly round the two,
Shaping thence that bower of beauty which I sing of thus to you.
“And the ivy veined and glossy
Was enwrought with eglantine;
And the wild hop fibred closely,
And the large-leaved columbine,
Arch of door and window mullion, did right sylvanly entwine.
* * * * *
“I have lost–oh, many a pleasure,
Many a hope, and many a power–
Studious health, and merry leisure, The first dew on the first flower!
But the first of all my losses was the losing of the bower.
* * * * *
“Is the bower lost then? Who sayeth
That the bower indeed is lost?
Hark! my spirit in it prayeth
Through the sunshine and the frost,– And the prayer preserves it greenly, to the last and uttermost.
“Till another open for me
In God’s Eden-land unknown,
With an angel at the doorway,
White with gazing at His throne, And a saint’s voice in the palm-trees, singing, ‘All is lost … and _won_!'”
Elizabeth Barrett wrote poems at ten, and when seventeen, published an _Essay on Mind, and Other Poems_. The essay was after the manner of Pope, and though showing good knowledge of Plato and Bacon, did not find favor with the critics. It was dedicated to her father, who was proud of a daughter who preferred Latin and Greek to the novels of the day.
Her teacher was the blind Hugh Stuart Boyd, whom she praises in her _Wine of Cyprus_.
“Then, what golden hours were for us!– While we sate together there;
* * * * *
“Oh, our Aeschylus, the thunderous!
How he drove the bolted breath
Through the cloud to wedge it ponderous In the gnarled oak beneath.
Oh, our Sophocles, the royal,
Who was born to monarch’s place, And who made the whole world loyal,
Less by kingly power than grace.
“Our Euripides, the human,
With his droppings of warm tears, And his touches of things common
Till they rose to touch the spheres! Our Theocritus, our Bion,
And our Pindar’s shining goals!– These were cup-bearers undying,
Of the wine that’s meant for souls.”
More fond of books than of social life, she was laying the necessary foundation for a noble fame. The lives of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, George Eliot, and Margaret Fuller, emphasize the necessity of almost unlimited knowledge, if woman would reach lasting fame. A great man or woman of letters, without great scholarship, is well-nigh an impossible thing.
Nine years after her first book, _Prometheus Bound and Miscellaneous Poems_ was published in 1835. She was now twenty-six. A translation from the Greek of Aeschylus by a woman caused much comment, but like the first book it received severe criticism. Several years afterward, when she brought her collected poems before the world, she wrote: “One early failure, a translation of the _Prometheus of Aeschylus_, which, though happily free of the current of publication, may be remembered against me by a few of my personal friends, I have replaced here by an entirely new version, made for them and my conscience, in expiation of a sin of my youth, with the sincerest application of my mature mind.” “This latter version,” says Mr. Stedman, “of a most sublime tragedy is more poetical than any other of equal correctness, and has the fire and vigor of a master-hand. No one has succeeded better than its author in capturing with rhymed measures the wilful rushing melody of the tragic chorus.”
In 1835 Miss Barrett made the acquaintance of Mary Russell Mitford, and a life-long friendship resulted. Miss Mitford says: “She was certainly one of the most interesting persons I had ever seen. Everybody who then saw her said the same. Of a slight, delicate figure, with a shower of dark curls falling on either side of a most expressive face, large tender eyes, richly fringed by dark eyelashes, a smile like a sunbeam, and such a look of youthfulness, that I had some difficulty in persuading a friend, in whose carriage we went together to Cheswick, that the translatress of the _Prometheus of Aeschylus_, the authoress of the _Essay on Mind_, was old enough to be introduced into company, in technical language, was out. We met so constantly and so familiarly that, in spite of the difference of age, intimacy ripened into friendship, and after my return into the country, we corresponded freely and frequently, her letters being just what letters ought to be,–her own talk put upon paper.”
The next year Miss Barrett, never robust, broke a blood-vessel in the lungs. For a year she was ill, and then with her eldest and favorite brother, was carried to Torquay to try the effect of a warmer climate. After a year spent here, she greatly improved, and seemed likely to recover her usual health.
One beautiful summer morning she went on the balcony to watch her brother and two other young men who had gone out for a sail. Having had much experience, and understanding the coast, they allowed the boatman to return to land. Only a few minutes out, and in plain sight, as they were crossing the bar, the boat went down, and the three friends perished. Their bodies even were never recovered.
The whole town was in mourning. Posters were put upon every cliff and public place, offering large rewards “for linen cast ashore marked with the initials of the beloved dead; for it so chanced that all the three were of the dearest and the best: one, an only son; the other, the son of a widow”; but the sea was forever silent.
The sister, who had seen her brother sink before her eyes, was utterly prostrated. She blamed herself for his death, because he came to Torquay for her comfort. All winter long she heard the sound of waves ringing in her ears like the moans of the dying. From this time forward she never mentioned her brother’s name, and later, exacted from Mr. Browning a promise that the subject should never be broached between them.
The following year she was removed to London in an invalid carriage, journeying twenty miles a day. And then for seven years, in a large darkened room, lying much of the time upon her couch, and seeing only a few most intimate friends, the frail woman lived and wrote. Books more than ever became her solace and joy. Miss Mitford says, “She read almost every book worth reading, in almost every language, and gave herself heart and soul to that poetry of which she seem born to be the priestess.” When Dr. Barry urged that she read light books, she had a small edition of Plato bound so as to resemble a novel, and the good man was satisfied. She understood her own needs better than he.
When she was twenty-nine, she published _The Seraphim and Other Poems_. The _Seraphim_ was a reverential description of two angels watching the Crucifixion. Though the critics saw much that was strikingly original, they condemned the frequent obscurity of meaning and irregularity of rhyme. The next year, _The Romaunt of the Page_ and other ballads appeared, and in 1844, when she was thirty-five, a complete edition of her poems, opening with the _Drama of Exile_. This was the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Eden, the first scene representing “the outer side of the gate of Eden shut fast with cloud, from the depth of which revolves a sword of fire self-moved. Adam and Eve are seen in the distance flying along the glare.”
In one of her prefaces she said: “Poetry has been to me as serious a thing as life itself,–and life has been a _very_ serious thing; there has been no playing at skittles for me in either. I never mistook pleasure for the final cause of poetry, nor leisure for the hour of the poet. I have done my work, so far, as work,–not as mere hand and head work, apart from the personal being, but as the completest expression of that being to which I could attain,–and as work I offer it to the public, feeling its shortcomings more deeply than any of my readers, because measured from the height of my aspiration; but feeling also that the reverence and sincerity with which the work was done should give it some protection from the reverent and sincere.”
While the _Drama of Exile_ received some adverse criticism, the shorter poems became the delight of thousands. Who has not held his breath in reading the _Rhyme of the Duchess May_?–
“And her head was on his breast, where she smiled as one at rest,– _Toll slowly_.
‘Ring,’ she cried, ‘O vesper-bell, in the beech-wood’s old chapelle!’ But the passing-bell rings best!
“They have caught out at the rein, which Sir Guy threw loose–in vain,– _Toll slowly_.
For the horse in stark despair, with his front hoofs poised in air, On the last verge rears amain.
“Now he hangs, he rocks between, and his nostrils curdle in!– _Toll slowly_.
Now he shivers head and hoof, and the flakes of foam fall off, And his face grows fierce and thin!
“And a look of human woe from his staring eyes did go, _Toll slowly_.
And a sharp cry uttered he, in a foretold agony of the headlong death below.”
Who can ever forget that immortal _Cry of the Children_, which awoke all England to the horrors of child-labor? That, and Hood’s _Song of the Shirt_, will never die.
Who has not read and loved one of the most tender poems in any language, _Bertha in the Lane_?–
“Yes, and He too! let him stand
In thy thoughts, untouched by blame. Could he help it, if my hand
He had claimed with hasty claim? That was wrong perhaps–but then
Such things be–and will, again. Women cannot judge for men.
* * * * *
“And, dear Bertha, let me keep
On this hand this little ring,
Which at night, when others sleep, I can still see glittering.
Let me wear it out of sight,
In the grave,–where it will light All the Dark up, day and night.”
No woman has ever understood better the fulness of love, or described it more purely and exquisitely.
One person among the many who had read Miss Barrett’s poems, felt their genius, because he had genius in his own soul, and that person was Robert Browning. That she admired his poetic work was shown in _Lady Geraldine’s Courtship_, when Bertram reads to his lady-love:–
“Or at times a modern volume,–Wordsworth’s solemn-thoughted idyl, Howitt’s ballad verse, or Tennyson’s enchanted reverie, Or from Browning some _Pomegranate_, which, if cut deep down the middle, Shows a heart within blood-tinctured, of a veined humanity.”
Mr. Browning determined to meet the unknown singer. Years later he told the story to Elizabeth C. Kinney, when she had gone with the happy husband and wife on a day’s excursion from Florence. She says: “Finding that the invalid did not receive strangers, he wrote her a letter, intense with his desire to see her. She reluctantly consented to an interview. He flew to her apartment, was admitted by the nurse, in whose presence only could he see the deity at whose shrine he had long worshipped. But the golden opportunity was not to be lost; love became oblivious to any save the presence of the real of its ideal. Then and there Robert Browning poured his impassioned soul into hers; though his tale of love seemed only an enthusiast’s dream. Infirmity had hitherto so hedged her about, that she deemed herself forever protected from all assaults of love. Indeed, she felt only injured that a fellow-poet should take advantage, as it were, of her indulgence in granting him an interview, and requested him to withdraw from her presence, not attempting any response to his proposal, which she could not believe in earnest. Of course, he withdrew from her sight, but not to withdraw the offer of his heart and hand; on the contrary, to repeat it by letter, and in such wise as to convince her how ‘dead in earnest’ he was. Her own heart, touched already when she knew it not, was this time fain to listen, be convinced, and overcome.
“As a filial daughter, Elizabeth told her father of the poet’s love, and of the poet’s love in return, and asked a parent’s blessing to crown their happiness. At first he was incredulous of the strange story; but when the truth flashed on him from the new fire in her eyes, he kindled with rage, and forbade her ever seeing or communicating with her lover again, on the penalty of disinheritance and banishment forever from a father’s love. This decision was founded on no dislike for Mr. Browning personally, or anything in him or his family; it was simply arbitrary. But the new love was stronger than the old in her,–it conquered.” Mr. Barrett never forgave his daughter, and died unreconciled, which to her was a great grief.
In 1846, Elizabeth Barrett arose from her sick-bed to marry the man of her choice, who took her at once to Italy, where she spent fifteen happy years. At once, love seemed to infuse new life into the delicate body and renew the saddened heart. She was thirty-seven. She had wisely waited till she found a person of congenial tastes and kindred pursuits. Had she married earlier, it is possible that the cares of life might have deprived the world of some of her noblest works.
The marriage was an ideal one. Both had a grand purpose in life. Neither individual was merged in the other. George S. Hillard, in his _Six Months in Italy_, when he visited the Brownings the year after their marriage, says, “A happier home and a more perfect union than theirs it is not easy to imagine; and this completeness arises not only from the rare qualities which each possesses, but from their perfect adaptation to each other…. Nor is she more remarkable for genius and learning, than for sweetness of temper and purity of spirit. It is a privilege to know such beings singly and separately, but to see their powers quickened, and their happiness rounded, by the sacred tie of marriage, is a cause for peculiar and lasting gratitude. A union so complete as theirs–in which the mind has nothing to crave nor the heart to sigh for–is cordial to behold and soothing to remember.”
“Mr. Browning,” says one who knew him well, “did not fear to speak of his wife’s genius, which he did almost with awe, losing himself so entirely in her glory that one could see that he did not feel worthy to unloose her shoe-latchet, much less to call her his own.”
When mothers teach their daughters to cultivate their minds as did Mrs. Browning, as well as to emulate her sweetness of temper, then will men venerate women for both mental and moral power. A love that has reverence for its foundation knows no change.
“Mrs. Browning’s conversation was most interesting. She never made an insignificant remark. All that she said was _always_ worth hearing; a greater compliment could not be paid her. She was a most conscientious listener, giving you her mind and heart, as well as her magnetic eyes. _Persons_ were never her theme, unless public characters were under discussion, or friends were to be praised. One never dreamed of frivolities in Mrs. Browning’s presence, and gossip felt itself out of place. Yourself, not herself, was always a pleasant subject to her, calling out all her best sympathies in joy, and yet more in sorrow. Books and humanity, great deeds, and above all, politics, which include all the grand questions of the day, were foremost in her thoughts, and therefore oftenest on her lips. I speak not of religion, for with her everything was religion.
“Thoughtful in the smallest things for others, she seemed to give little thought to herself. The first to see merit, she was the last to censure faults, and gave the praise that she felt with a generous hand. No one so heartily rejoiced at the success of others, no one was so modest in her own triumphs. She loved all who offered her affection, and would solace and advise with any. Mrs. Browning belonged to no particular country; the world was inscribed upon the banner under which she fought. Wrong was her enemy; against this she wrestled, in whatever part of the globe it was to be found.”
Three years after her marriage her only son was born. The Italians ever after called her “the mother of the beautiful child.” And now some of her ablest and strongest work was done. Her _Casa Guidi Windows_ appeared in 1851. It is the story of the struggle for Italian liberty. In the same volume were published the _Portuguese Sonnets_, really her own love-life. It would be difficult to find any thing more beautiful than these.
“First time he kissed me he but only kissed The fingers of this hand wherewith I write, And ever since, it grew more clean and white, Slow to world-greetings, quick with its ‘Oh, list,’ When the angels speak. A ring of amethyst I could not wear here, plainer to my sight, Than that first kiss. The second passed in height The first, and sought the forehead, and half-missed Half falling on the hair. O beyond meed! That was the chrism of love, which love’s own crown With sanctifying sweetness, did precede. The third upon my lips was folded down In perfect, purple state; since when, indeed, I have been proud and said, ‘My love, my own!’
* * * * *
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways, I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of being and ideal Grace. I love thee to the level of every day’s Most quiet need, by sun and candle light. I love thee freely, as men strive for Right, I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise. I love thee with the passion put to use In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith. I love thee with a love I seemed to lose With my lost saints–I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears of all my life!–and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.”
Mrs. Browning’s next great poem, in 1856, was _Aurora Leigh_, a novel in blank verse, “the most mature,” she says in the preface, “of my works, and the one into which my highest convictions upon Life and Art have entered.” Walter Savage Landor said of it: “In many pages there is the wild imagination of Shakespeare. I had no idea that any one in this age was capable of such poetry.”
For fifteen years this happy wedded life, with its work of brain and hand, had been lived, and now the bond was to be severed. In June, 1861, Mrs. Browning took a severe cold, and was ill for nearly a week. No one thought of danger, though Mr. Browning would not leave her bedside. On the night of June 29, toward morning she seemed to be in a sort of ecstasy. She told her husband of her love for him, gave him her blessing, and raised herself to die in his arms. “It is beautiful,” were her last words as she caught a glimpse of some heavenly vision. On the evening of July 1, she was buried in the English cemetery, in the midst of sobbing friends, for who could carry out that request?–
“And friends, dear friends, when it shall be That this low breath is gone from me,
And round my bier ye come to weep, Let one most loving of you all
Say, ‘Not a tear must o’er her fall,– He giveth his beloved sleep!'”
The Italians, who loved her, placed on the doorway of Casa Guidi a white marble tablet, with the words:–
“_Here wrote and died E.B. Browning, who, in the heart of a woman, united the science of a sage and the spirit of a poet, and made with her verse a golden ring binding Italy and England.
“Grateful Florence placed this memorial, 1861_.”
For twenty-five years Robert Browning and his artist-son have done their work, blessed with the memory of her whom Mr. Stedman calls “the most inspired woman, so far as known, of all who have composed in ancient or modern tongues, or flourished in any land or time.”
GEORGE ELIOT.
[Illustration: GEORGE ELIOT–1864.]
Going to the Exposition at New Orleans, I took for reading on the journey, the life of George Eliot, by her husband, Mr. J.W. Cross, written with great delicacy and beauty. An accident delayed us, so that for three days I enjoyed this insight into a wonderful life. I copied the amazing list of books she had read, and transferred to my note-book many of her beautiful thoughts. To-day I have been reading the book again; a clear, vivid picture of a very great woman, whose works, says the _Spectator_, “are the best specimens of powerful, simple English, since Shakespeare.”
What made her a superior woman? Not wealthy parentage; not congenial surroundings. She had a generous, sympathetic heart for a foundation, and on this she built a scholarship that even few men can equal. She loved science, and philosophy, and language, and mathematics, and grew broad enough to discuss great questions and think great thoughts. And yet she was affectionate, tender, and gentle.
Mary Ann Evans was born Nov. 22, 1819, at Arbury Farm, a mile from Griff, in Warwickshire, England. When four months old the family moved to Griff, where the girl lived till she was twenty-one, in a two-story, old-fashioned, red brick house, the walls covered with ivy. Two Norway firs and an old yew-tree shaded the lawn. The father, Robert Evans, a man of intelligence and good sense, was bred a builder and carpenter, afterward becoming a land-agent for one of the large estates. The mother was a woman of sterling character, practical and capable.
For the three children, Christiana, Isaac, and Mary Ann, there was little variety in the commonplace life at Griff. Twice a day the coach from Birmingham to Stamford passed by the house, and the coachman and guard in scarlet were a great diversion. She thus describes, the locality in _Felix Holt_: “Here were powerful men walking queerly, with knees bent outward from squatting in the mine, going home to throw themselves down in their blackened flannel, and sleep through the daylight, then rise and spend much of their high wages at the alehouse with their fellows of the Benefit Club; here the pale, eager faces of handloom weavers, men and women, haggard from sitting up late at night to finish the week’s work, hardly begun till the Wednesday. Everywhere the cottages and the small children were dirty, for the languid mothers gave their strength to the loom.”
Mary Ann was an affectionate, sensitive child, fond of out-door sports, imitating everything she saw her brother do, and early in life feeling in her heart that she was to be “somebody.” When but four years old, she would seat herself at the piano and play, though she did not know one note from another, that the servant might see that she was a distinguished person! Her life was a happy one, as is shown in her _Brother and Sister Sonnet_:–
“But were another childhood’s world my share, I would be born a little sister there.”
At five, the mother being in poor health, the child was sent to a boarding-school with her sister, Chrissy, where she remained three or four years. The older scholars petted her, calling her “little mamma.” At eight she went to a larger school, at Nuneaton, where one of the teachers, Miss Lewis, became her life-long friend. The child had the greatest fondness for reading, her first book, a _Linnet’s Life_, being tenderly cared for all her days. _Aesop’s Fables_ were read and re-read. At this time a neighbor had loaned one of the Waverley novels to the older sister, who returned it before Mary Ann had finished it. Distressed at this break in the story, she began to write out as nearly as she could remember, the whole volume for herself. Her amazed family re-borrowed the book, and the child was happy. The mother sometimes protested against the use of so many candles for night reading, and rightly feared that her eyes would be spoiled.
At the next school, at Coventry, Mary Ann so surpassed her comrades that they stood in awe of her, but managed to overcome this when a basket of dainties came in from the country home. In 1836 the excellent mother died. Mary Ann wrote to a friend in after life, “I began at sixteen to be acquainted with the unspeakable grief of a last parting, in the death of my mother.” In the following spring Chrissy was married, and after a good cry with her brother over this breaking up of the home circle, Mary Ann took upon herself the household duties, and became the care-taker instead of the school-girl. Although so young she took a leading part in the benevolent work of the neighborhood.
Her love for books increased. She engaged a well-known teacher to come from Coventry and give her lessons in French, German, and Italian, while another helped her in music, of which she was passionately fond. Later, she studied Greek, Latin, Spanish, and Hebrew. Shut up in the farm-house, hungering for knowledge, she applied herself with a persistency and earnestness that by-and-by were to bear their legitimate fruit. That she felt the privation of a collegiate course is undoubted. She says in _Daniel Deronda_: “You may try, but you can never imagine what it is to have a man’s force of genius in you, and yet to suffer the slavery of being a girl.”
She did not neglect her household duties. One of her hands, which were noticeable for their beauty of shape, was broader than the other, which, she used to say with some pride, was owing to the butter and cheese she had made. At twenty she was reading the _Life of Wilberforce_, Josephus’ _History of the Jews_, Spenser’s _Faery Queen, Don Quixote_, Milton, Bacon, Mrs. Somerville’s _Connection of the Physical Sciences_, and Wordsworth. The latter was always an especial favorite, and his life, by Frederick Myers in the _Men of Letters_ series, was one of the last books she ever read.
Already she was learning the illimitableness of knowledge. “For my part,” she says, “I am ready to sit down and weep at the impossibility of my understanding or barely knowing a fraction of the sum of objects that present themselves for our contemplation in books and in life.”
About this time Mr. Evans left the farm, and moved to Foleshill, near Coventry. The poor people at Griff were very sorry, and said, “We shall never have another Mary Ann Evans.” Marian, as she was now called, found at Foleshill a few intellectual and companionable friends, Mr. and Mrs. Bray, both authors, and Miss Hennell, their sister.
Through the influence of these friends she gave up some of her evangelical views, but she never ceased to be a devoted student and lover of the Bible. She was happy in her communing with nature. “Delicious autumn,” she said. “My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird, I would fly about the earth, seeking the successive autumns…. I have been revelling in Nichol’s _Architecture, of the Heavens and Phenomena of the Solar System_, and have been in imagination winging my flight from system to system, from universe to universe.”
In 1844, when Miss Evans was twenty-five years old, she began the translation of Strauss’ _Life of Jesus_. The lady who was to marry Miss Hennell’s brother had partially done the work, and asked Miss Evans to finish it. For nearly three years she gave it all the time at her command, receiving only one hundred dollars for the labor.
It was a difficult and weary work. “When I can work fast,” she said, “I am never weary, nor do I regret either that the work has been begun or that I have undertaken it. I am only inclined to vow that I will never translate again, if I live to correct the sheets for Strauss.” When the book was finished, it was declared to be “A faithful, elegant, and scholarlike translation … word for word, thought for thought, and sentence for sentence.” Strauss himself was delighted with it.
The days passed as usual in the quiet home. Now she and her father, the latter in failing health, visited the Isle of Wight, and saw beautiful Alum Bay, with its “high precipice, the strata upheaved perpendicularly in rainbow,–like streaks of the brightest maize, violet, pink, blue, red, brown, and brilliant white,–worn by the weather into fantastic fretwork, the deep blue sky above, and the glorious sea below.” Who of us has not felt this same delight in looking upon this picture, painted by nature?
Now Ralph Waldo Emerson, as well as other famous people, visited the Bray family. Miss Evans writes: “I have seen Emerson,–the first _man_ I have ever seen.” High praise indeed from our “great, calm soul,” as he called Miss Evans. “I am grateful for the Carlyle eulogium (on Emerson). I have shed some quite delicious tears over it. This is a world worth abiding in while one man can thus venerate and love another.”
Each evening she played on the piano to her admiring father, and finally, through months of illness, carried him down tenderly to the grave. He died May 31, 1849.
Worn with care, Miss Evans went upon the Continent with the Brays, visiting Paris, Milan, the Italian lakes, and finally resting for some months at Geneva’. As her means were limited, she tried to sell her _Encyclopaedia Britannica_ at half-price, so that she could have money for music lessons, and to attend a course of lectures on experimental physics, by the renowned Professor de la Rive. She was also carefully reading socialistic themes, Proudhon, Rousseau, and others. She wrote to friends: “The days are really only two hours long, and I have so many things to do that I go to bed every night miserable because I have left out something I meant to do…. I take a dose of mathematics every day to prevent my brain from becoming quite soft.”
On her return to England, she visited the Brays, and met Mr. Chapman, the editor of the _Westminster Review_, and Mr. Mackay, upon whose _Progress of the Intellect_ she had just written a review. Mr. Chapman must have been deeply impressed with the learning and ability of Miss Evans, for he offered her the position of assistant editor of the magazine,–a most unusual position for a woman, since its contributors were Froude, Carlyle, John Stuart Mill, and other able men.
Miss Evans accepted, and went to board with Mr. Chapman’s family in London. How different this from the quiet life at Foleshill! The best society, that is, the greatest in mind, opened wide its doors to her. Herbert Spencer, who had just published _Social Statics_, became one of her best friends. Harriet Martineau came often to see her. Grote was very friendly.
The woman-editor was now thirty-two; her massive head covered with brown curls, blue-gray eyes, mobile, sympathetic mouth, strong chin, pale face, and soft, low voice, like Dorothea’s in _Middlemarch_,–“the voice of a soul that has once lived in an Aeolian harp.” Mr. Bray thought that Miss Evans’ head, after that of Napoleon, showed the largest development from brow to ear of any person’s recorded.
She had extraordinary power of expression, and extraordinary psychological powers, but her chief attraction was her universal sympathy. “She essentially resembled Socrates,” says Mathilde Blind, “in her manner of eliciting whatsoever capacity for thought might be latent in the people she came in contact with; were it only a shoemaker or day-laborer, she would never rest till she had found out in what points that particular man differed from other men of his class. She always rather educed what was in others than impressed herself on them; showing much kindliness of heart in drawing out people who were shy. Sympathy was the keynote of her nature, the source of her iridescent humor, of her subtle knowledge of character, of her dramatic genius.” No person attains to permanent fame without sympathy.
Miss Evans now found her heart and hands full of work. Her first article was a review of Carlyle’s _Life of John Sterling_. She was fond of biography. She said: “We have often wished that genius would incline itself more frequently to the task of the biographer, that when some great or good person dies, instead of the dreary three-or-five volume compilation of letter and diary and detail, little to the purpose, which two-thirds of the public have not the chance, nor the other third the inclination, to read, we could have a real ‘life,’ setting forth briefly and vividly the man’s inward and outward struggles, aims, and achievements, so as to make clear the meaning which his experience has for his fellows.
“A few such lives (chiefly autobiographies) the world possesses, and they have, perhaps, been more influential on the formation of character than any other kind of reading…. It is a help to read such a life as Margaret Fuller’s. How inexpressibly touching that passage from her journal, ‘I shall always reign through the intellect, but the life! the life! O my God! shall that never be sweet?’ I am thankful, as if for myself, that it was sweet at last.”
The great minds which Miss Evans met made life a constant joy, though she was frail in health. Now Herbert Spencer took her to hear _William Tell_ or the _Creation_. She wrote of him: “We have agreed that we are not in love with each other, and that there is no reason why we should not have as much of each other’s society as we like. He is a good, delightful creature, and I always feel better for being with him…. My brightest spot, next to my love of _old_ friends, is the deliciously calm, _new_ friendship that Herbert Spencer gives me. We see each other every day, and have a delightful _camaraderie_ in everything. But for him my life would be desolate enough.”
There is no telling what this happy friendship might have resulted in, if Mr. Spencer had not introduced to Miss Evans, George Henry Lewes, a man of brilliant conversational powers, who had written a _History of Philosophy_, two novels, _Ranthorpe_, and _Rose, Blanche, and Violet_, and was a contributor to several reviews. Mr. Lewes was a witty and versatile man, a dramatic critic, an actor for a short time, unsuccessful as an editor of a newspaper, and unsuccessful in his domestic relations.
That he loved Miss Evans is not strange; that she admired him, while she pitied him and his three sons in their broken home-life, is perhaps not strange. At first she did not like him, nor did Margaret Fuller, but Miss Evans says: “Mr. Lewes is kind and attentive, and has quite won my regard, after having had a good deal of my vituperation. Like a few other people in the world, he is much better than he seems. A man of heart and conscience wearing a mask of flippancy.”
Miss Evans tired of her hard work, as who does not in this working world? “I am bothered to death,” she writes, “with article-reading and scrap-work of all sorts; it is clear my poor head will never produce anything under these circumstances; _but I am patient_…. I had a long call from George Combe yesterday. He says he thinks the _Westminster_ under _my_ management the most important means of enlightenment of a literary nature in existence; the _Edinburgh_, under Jeffrey, nothing to it, etc. I wish _I_ thought so too.”
Sick with continued headaches, she went up to the English lakes to visit Miss Martineau. The coach, at half-past six in the evening, stopped at “The Knoll,” and a beaming face came to welcome her. During the evening, she says, “Miss Martineau came behind me, put her hands round me, and kissed me in the prettiest way, telling me she was so glad she had got me here.”
Meantime Miss Evans was writing learned and valuable articles on _Taxation, Woman in France, Evangelical Teaching_, etc. She received five hundred dollars yearly from her father’s estate, but she lived simply, that she might spend much of this for poor relations.
In 1854 she resigned her position on the _Westminster_, and went with Mr. Lewes to Germany, forming a union which thousands who love her must regard as the great mistake of a very great life.
Mr. Lewes was collecting materials for his _Life of Goethe_. This took them to Goethe’s home at Weimar. “By the side of the bed,” she says, “stands a stuffed chair where he used to sit and read while he drank his coffee in the morning. It was not until very late in his life that he adopted the luxury of an armchair. From the other side of the study one enters the library, which is fitted up in a very make-shift fashion, with rough deal shelves, and bits of paper, with Philosophy, History, etc., written on them, to mark the classification of the books. Among such memorials one breathes deeply, and the tears rush to one’s eyes.”
George Eliot met Liszt, and “for the first time in her life beheld real inspiration,–for the first time heard the true tones of the piano.” Rauch, the great sculptor, called upon them, and “won our hearts by his beautiful person and the benignant and intelligent charm of his conversation.”
Both writers were hard at work. George Eliot was writing an article on _Weimar_ for _Fraser_, on _Cumming_ for _Westminster_, and translating Spinoza’s _Ethics_. No name was signed to these productions, as it would not do to have it known that a woman wrote them. The education of most women was so meagre that the articles would have been considered of little value. Happily Girton and Newnham colleges are changing this estimate of the sex. Women do not like to be regarded as inferior; then they must educate themselves as thoroughly as the best men are educated.
Mr. Lewes was not well. “This is a terrible trial to us poor scribblers,” she writes, “to whom health is money, as well as all other things worth having.” They had but one sitting-room between them, and the scratching of another pen so affected her nerves, as to drive her nearly wild. Pecuniarily, life was a harder struggle than ever, for there were four more mouths to be fed,–Mr. Lewes’ three sons and their mother.
“Our life is intensely occupied, and the days are far too short,” she writes. They were reading in every spare moment, twelve plays of Shakespeare, Goethe’s works, _Wilhelm Meister, Goetz von Berlichingen, Hermann and Dorothea, Iphigenia, Wanderjahre, Italianische Reise_, and others; Heine’s poems; Lessing’s _Laocooen_ and _Nathan the Wise_; Macaulay’s _History of England_; Moore’s _Life of Sheridan_; Brougham’s _Lives of Men of Letters_; White’s _History of Selborne_; Whewell’s _History of Inductive Sciences_; Boswell; Carpenter’s _Comparative Physiology_; Jones’ _Animal Kingdom_; Alison’s _History of Europe_; Kahnis’ _History of German Protestantism_; Schrader’s _German Mythology_; Kingsley’s _Greek Heroes_; and the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_ in the original. She says, “If you want delightful reading, get Lowell’s _My Study Windows_, and read the essays called _My Garden Acquaintances_ and _Winter_.” No wonder they were busy.
On their return from Germany they went to the sea-shore, that Mr. Lewes might perfect his _Sea-side Studies_. George Eliot entered heartily into the work. “We were immensely excited,” she says, “by the discovery of this little red mesembryanthemum. It was a _crescendo_ of delight when we found a ‘strawberry,’ and a _fortissimo_ when I, for the first time, saw the pale, fawn-colored tentacles of an _Anthea cereus_ viciously waving like little serpents in a low-tide pool.” They read here Gosse’s _Rambles on the Devonshire Coast_, Edward’s _Zoology_, Harvey’s sea-side book, and other scientific works.
And now at thirty-seven George Eliot was to begin her creative work. Mr. Lewes had often said to her, “You have wit, description, and philosophy–those go a good way towards the production of a novel.” “It had always been a vague dream of mine,” she says, “that sometime or other I might write a novel … but I never went further toward the actual writing than an introductory chapter, describing a Staffordshire village, and the life of the neighboring farm-houses; and as the years passed on I lost any hope that. I should ever be able to write a novel, just as I desponded about everything else in my future life. I always thought I was deficient in dramatic power, both of construction and dialogue, but I felt I should be at my ease in the descriptive parts.”
After she had written a portion of _Amos Barton_ in her _Scenes of Clerical Life_, she read it to Mr. Lewes, who told her that now he was sure she could write good dialogue, but not as yet sure about her pathos. One evening, in his absence, she wrote the scene describing Milly’s death, and read it to Mr. Lewes, on his return. “We both cried over it,” she says, “and then he came up to me and kissed me, saying, ‘I think your pathos is better than your fun!'”
Mr. Lewes sent the story to Blackwood, with the signature of “George Eliot,”–the first name chosen because it was his own name, and the last because it pleased her fancy. Mr. Lewes wrote that this story by a friend of his, showed, according to his judgment, “such humor, pathos, vivid presentation, and nice observation as have not been exhibited, in this style, since the _Vicar of Wakefield_.”
Mr. John Blackwood accepted the story, but made some comments which discouraged the author from trying another. Mr. Lewes wrote him the effects of his words, which he hastened to withdraw, as there was so much to be said in praise that he really desired more stories from the same pen, and sent her a check for two hundred and fifty dollars.
This was evidently soothing, as _Mr. Gilfil’s Love Story_ and _Janet’s Repentance_ were at once written. Much interest began to be expressed about the author. Some said Bulwer wrote the sketches. Thackeray praised them, and Arthur Helps said, “He is a great writer.” Copies of the stories bound together, with the title _Scenes of Clerical Life_, were sent to Froude, Dickens, Thackeray, Tennyson, Ruskin, and Faraday. Dickens praised the humor and the pathos, and thought the author was a woman.
Jane Welch Carlyle thought it “a _human_ book, written out of the heart of a live man, not merely out of the brain of an author, full of tenderness and pathos, without a scrap of sentimentality, of sense without dogmatism, of earnestness without twaddle–a book that makes one feel friends at once and for always with the man or woman who wrote it.” She guessed the author was “a man of middle age, with a wife, from whom he has got those beautiful _feminine_ touches in his book, a good many children, and a dog that he has as much fondness for as I have for my little Nero.”
Mr. Lewes was delighted, and said, “Her fame is beginning.” George Eliot was growing happier, for her nature had been somewhat despondent. She used to say, “Expecting disappointments is the only form of hope with which I am familiar.” She said, “I feel a deep satisfaction in having done a bit of faithful work that will perhaps remain, like a primrose-root in the hedgerow, and gladden and chasten human hearts in years to come.” “‘Conscience goes to the hammering in of nails’ is my gospel,” she would say. “Writing is part of my religion, and I can write no word that is not prompted from within. At the same time I believe that almost all the best books in the world have been written with the hope of getting money for them.”
“My life has deepened unspeakably during the last year: I feel a greater capacity for moral and intellectual enjoyment, a more acute sense of my deficiencies in the past, a more solemn desire to be faithful to coming duties.”
For _Scenes of Clerical Life_ she received six hundred dollars for the first edition, and much more after her other books appeared.
And now another work, a longer one, was growing in her mind, _Adam Bede_, the germ of which, she says, was an anecdote told her by her aunt, Elizabeth Evans, the Dinah Morris of the book. A very ignorant girl had murdered her child, and refused to confess it. Mrs. Evans, who was a Methodist preacher, stayed with her all night, praying with her, and at last she burst into tears and confessed her crime. Mrs. Evans went with her in the cart to the place of execution, and ministered to the unhappy girl till death came.
When the first pages of _Adam Bede_ were shown to Mr. Blackwood, he said, “That will do.” George Eliot and Mr. Lewes went to Munich, Dresden, and Vienna for rest and change, and she prepared much of the book in this time. When it was finished, she wrote on the manuscript, _Jubilate_. “To my dear husband, George Henry Lewes, I give the Ms. of a work which would never have been written but for the happiness which his love has conferred on my life.”
For this novel she received four thousand dollars for the copyright for four years. Fame had actually come. All the literary world were talking about it. John Murray said there had never been such a book. Charles Reade said, putting his finger on Lisbeth’s account of her coming home with her husband from their marriage, “the finest thing since Shakespeare.” A workingman wrote: “Forgive me, dear sir, my boldness in asking you to give us a cheap edition. You would confer on us a great boon. I can get plenty of trash for a few pence, but I am sick of it.” Mr. Charles Buxton said, in the House of Commons: “As the farmer’s wife says in _Adam Bede_, ‘It wants to be hatched over again and hatched different.'” This of course greatly helped to popularize the book.
To George Eliot all this was cause for the deepest gratitude. They were able now to rent a home at Wandworth, and move to it at once. The poverty and the drudgery of life seemed over. She said: “I sing my magnificat in a quiet way, and have a great deal of deep, silent joy; but few authors, I suppose, who have had a real success, have known less of the flush and the sensations of triumph that are talked of as the accompaniments of success. I often think of my dreams when I was four or five and twenty. I thought then how happy fame would make me…. I am assured now that _Adam Bede_ was worth writing,–worth living through those long years to write. But now it seems impossible that I shall ever write anything so good and true again.” Up to this time the world did not know who George Eliot was; but as a man by the name of Liggins laid claim to the authorship, and tried to borrow money for his needs because Blackwood would not pay him, the real name of the author had to be divulged.
Five thousand copies of _Adam Bede_ were sold the first two weeks, and sixteen thousand the first year. So excellent was the sale that Mr. Blackwood sent her four thousand dollars in addition to the first four. The work was soon translated into French, German, and Hungarian. Mr. Lewes’ _Physiology of Common Life_ was now published, but it brought little pecuniary return.
The reading was carried on as usual by the two students. The _Life of George Stephenson_; the _Electra_ of Sophocles; the _Agamemnon_ of