Madame de Hell and her husband spent the winter of 1841 at Odessa. Thence, in the following year, they repaired to Moldavia—a country which was just beginning to revive from the barbarism and desolation in which the Turkish rule had so long condemned it to linger. Under the prudent and energetic management of the Aga Assaki, "The Moldavian Bee" and "The Gleaner" announced the resurrection of liberal thought and the patriotic sentiment in literary articles, nearly all signed by Moldavian names and written in the national language.
In the young Princess Morosi, the daughter of the Aga Assaki, afterwards married to Edgar Quinet, Madame de Hell learned to know and love a charming wit and a rare beautiful nature. She studied the French poets with assiduity, and her great ambition was to visit France, little thinking that she would one day becomeFrench by her marriage with the illustrious French writer.
In the Caucasian steppes our traveller's life had been singularly calm and serene; in Moldavia it was agitated and disturbed by mundane occupations, by official receptions, balls, concerts, dinners, the theatre, and the thousand and one responsibilities of social life. Worn and weary with the monotonous round of pretended pleasures, she frequently looked back with regret to the solitudes of the Caspian. Yet the event which delivered her from it was one that caused her a very keen anxiety. Her husband was attacked by one of the malarious fevers of the Danube, and in order to recover his health was compelled to throw up his engagement and return to France, after some years of almost constant travel and exploration.
On their arrival they were received with the welcome earned by their patience of investigation and strenuous pursuit of knowledge. While the young and already celebrated engineer was rewarded with the Cross of the Legion of Honour, his wife, who had shared his labours and his perils, and co-operated with him in the production of his fine work on the Steppes, was honoured with the special attention of M. Villemain, then Minister of State. Shortly after her return she gave to the world a volume of poetry, entitled "Reveries of a Traveller," a work strongly written, thoughtful, and emotional, which has never obtained the reputation it fully deserves.
In 1846 the two travellers departed on a second expedition to the East, which was cut short by the premature death of M. de Hell. His widow returned to Paris towards the close of 1848, so crushed beneath the calamity that had overthrown her household gods, that, as she has since acknowledged, she never slept without the hope that her sleep might know no waking in this world, but might prove the means of re-uniting her with her beloved husband. However, she was of too clear an intellect and too strong of heart not to recognize that the ties of duty bound her to this world; she had to bring up and educate her children, and to complete and publish the important works her husband had begun. While thus engaged, she contributed several articles on the East to thePresseand numerous other journals. In 1859 she published her own narrative of adventure and travel in the steppes of the Caucasus. Great political changes have occurred since Madame de Hell's visit to that region, which have profoundly affected the character of its people and their social polity; so that her account of it, as well as her account of the Crimea, must be read with the necessary allowances. These, however, will not detract from Madame de Hell's unquestioned merit as a close and exact observer, endowed with no ordinary faculty of polished and incisive expression, and a fine capacity for appreciating and describing the picturesque aspects of nature. She wields a skilful brush with force and freedom; her pictures are always accurate in composition and full of colour.
Her later years have shown no decay of her resolute and active spirit. She has accomplished a tour in Belgium, another in Italy, a visit to London, and several excursions into the South of France. In 1868 she proceeded to Martinique, where her eldest son had for some years been established. We believe she has published her West Indian experiences and impressions. But we have given up to Madame de Hell as much of our limited space as we can spare, and now take leave of her with the acknowledgment that among modern female travellers she deserves a high rank in virtue of her intelligence, her sympathies, and her keen sensibility to all that is beautiful and good.
Among the crowd of lady travellers to whom this nineteenth century has given birth, the able and accomplished Frenchwoman, so widely known by her pseudonym of Madame Léonie d'Aunet, merits a passing allusion. Remove from her the mask she is pleased to assume before the public, and she stands revealed as Madame Biard, the wife of the great humoristic painter, whose "Sequel of a Masquerade," "Family Concert," "Combat with Polar Bears," and other pictures, are not less highly esteemed by English than by French connoisseurs. Born about 1820, she is twenty years younger than her husband, whom, in 1845, she accompanied in his excursion to Spitzbergen; an excursion which opened with, by way of prologue, a rapid tour through Belgium, Holland, Sweden, and Norway. Of the tour and the excursion she has published a brilliant narrative, which it is impossible to read without pleasure, so polished is the style, and so sharply defined are the descriptions. Her literary skill gives her an advantage over the greatmajority of female travellers, whose diaries and journals, from want of it, are often bald, colourless, and diffuse. On the other hand, she is deficient in sympathy; she judges rather with the intellect than with the heart, which is at least as necessary to the formation of a fair and intelligent opinion. Her mind, however, is so keen and so incisive, so prompt to seize the most curious facts, so apt in discovering characteristic details, that even when she speaks of places and peoples with whom we are all familiar, she compels us to listen, and irresistibly holds our attention. It has been said that in some respects her manner is that of the elder Dumas, but while she is more honest and less given to exaggeration she does not rise to the same literary standard. The famous author of "Anthony" is still first master in the art, more difficult than the world in general believes it to be, of recording the experiences of travel; he is a master in it, because he does not make the attempt, which must always be unsuccessful, of minutely recording every particular that comes under a traveller's notice, and because he is gifted beyond ordinary measure with the art andverveof theraconteur. Persons and situations he knows how to group in the most effective manner; incidents assume their most dramatic form; scenes are worked up so as to produce a definite impression on the reader's mind.
Madame d'Aunet, as a popular novelist, knows when writing that she can count upon her thousands of readers. But this is a fact which we wish she could haveforgotten or ignored. For, keeping it always before her, she is led to weigh with critical timidity every word, every phrase, and to elaborate each sentence until, in the old Greek phrase, we "smell the oil." Those passages of glowing description which at first marched on so freely and fully, come to an abrupt pause. The language, formerly so vigorous and incisive, becomes vague, colourless, hesitating; or, very frequently, gets upon stilts and assumes an air of pretentious affectation. The writer has evidently forgotten, in her over-scrupulous regard for the artistic and picturesque, that nothing is so attractive as simplicity. And Madame d'Aunet is always most charming when she is most natural—that is, when she is herself; when she writes spontaneously, and fully possessed by her subject, without casting anxious glances at the reader to see if he admires this polished period or catches that apt allusion. Therefore, we are compelled to indicate as a defect—which, if not very great, might as well have been avoided—a certain affectation and coquetry of style, displaying the solicitude of the artist rather than the frank simplicity of the story-teller. Something of this fault the English reader notes in Mr. Kinglake's "Eöthen."
In speaking of Belgium and Holland, Madame d'Aunet lets drop some felicitous expressions, some pregnant and rememberable phrases, which give the reader an exact idea of the manners of the inhabitants and of the land they dwell in. The touch is delicate, but always firm and true.
As to the Hollanders, she says:—
"These people have not the love of cleanliness, but its cultus."
Referring to the two Dutch towns which are the most rigorously watched over, she says:—
"Saardam is a page, and Broek a vignette, from the history of Holland.
"The people of Broek have neither the taste for, nor the love of, cleanliness; it is with them a fanaticism, a fetichism. A certain means of ensuring from them a favourable reception is the avoidance, not of vices, but dirt."
In Norway, Madame d'Aunet visited Christiania, Drontheim, and other localities; but it is Man rather than Nature that interests her. Nor did she penetrate far enough inland to gain a satisfactory conception of the character of the Norwegian scenery. In the heart of the Dovrefeld Mountains are grand and sublime landscapes of peak and ravine, cataract and forest, not inferior to the most famous scenes in Switzerland. Norway can boast of the finest waterfall in Europe: that of the Maan-ily, or Riukan-foss, which is as majestically beautiful as the cascade of Gavarni or the falls of Schaffhausen—which, indeed, has sometimes been compared to Niagara itself.
Mons. Gainvard's expedition quitted Hammerfest, the northernmost town in Scandinavia, and after a voyage of some weeks in duration, approached the gloomy coast of ice-bound Spitzbergen. The ice-fields and the icebergsinspired Madame d'Aunet with profound emotion, and, in describing them, she breaks out into what may be called a lyrical cry. "These Polar ices," she exclaims, "which no dust has ever stained, as spotless now as on the first day of the creation, are tinted with the vividest colours, so that they look like rocks composed of precious stones: the glitter of the diamond, the dazzling hues of the sapphire and the emerald, blend in an unknown and marvellous substance. Yonder floating islands, incessantly undermined by the sea, change their outline every moment; by an abrupt movement the base becomes the summit; a spire transforms itself into a mushroom; a column broadens out into a vast flat table, a tower is changed into a flight of steps; and all so rapidly and unexpectedly that, in spite of oneself, one dreams that some supernatural will presides over those sudden transformations. At the first glance I could not help thinking that I saw before me a city of the fays, destroyed at one fell blow by a superior power, and condemned to disappear without leaving a trace of its existence. Around me hustled fragments of the architecture of all periods and every style: campaniles, columns, minarets, ogives, pyramids, turrets, cupolas, crenelations, volutes, arcades, façades, colossal foundations, sculptures as delicate as those which festoon the shapely pillars of our cathedrals—all were massed together and confused in a common disaster. Anensembleso strange, so marvellous, the artist's brush is unable to reproduce, and the writer's words fail adequately to describe!
"This region, where everything is cold and inert, has been represented, has it not? as enveloped in a deep and sublime silence. But the reader must please to receive a very different impression; nothing can give any fit idea of the tremendous tumult of a day of thaw at Spitzbergen.
"The sea, bristling with jagged sheets of ice, clangs and clatters noisily; the lofty littoral peaks glide down to the shore, fall away, and plunge into the gulf of waters with an awful crash. The mountains are rent and splintered; the waves dash furiously against the granite capes; the icebergs, as they shiver into pieces, give vent to sharp reports like the rattle of musketry; the wind with a hoarse roar, scatters tornadoes of snow abroad.... It is terrible, it is magnificent; one seems to hear the chorus of the abysses of the old world preluding a new chaos.
"Never before has one seen or heard anything comparable to that which one sees and hears there; one has conceived of nothing like it, even in one's dreams! It belongs at once to the fantastic and to the real: it disconcerts the memory, dazes the mind, and fills it with an indescribable sense of awe and admiration.
"But if the spectacle of the bay had something magical in it, ominous and gloomy was the scene on shore. In all directions the ground was white with the bones of seals and walruses, left there by the Norwegian or Russian fishermen, who formerly visited these high latitudes for the purpose of collecting oil; for some years, however, they have abandoned a pursuitwhich was much more dangerous than profitable. These great bones, bleached by time and preserved intact by the frost, seemed so many skeletons of giants—the past dwellers in a city which had finally been swallowed up by the sea.
"The long fleshless fingers of the seals, so like to those of the human hand, rendered the illusion singularly striking and filled one with a kind of terror. I quitted the charnel-house, and directing my steps very cautiously over the slippery soil, penetrated inland. I found myself very speedily in the middle of a cemetery; but this time, the remains lying on the frozen snow were human. Several coffins, half open and empty, had formerly been occupied by human bodies, which the teeth of the white bear had recently profaned. As, owing to the thickness of the ice, it is impossible to dig graves, a number of enormous stones had, in primitive fashion, been heaped over the coffin-lids, so as to form a defence against the attacks of wild beasts; but the stout limbs of "the great man in the pelisse" (as the Norwegian fishers picturesquely call the polar bear) had removed the stones and devastated the tombs; a throng of bones strewed the shore, half broken and gnawed ... the pitiful remains of the bears' banquet. I carefully collected them, and replaced them piously in their proper receptacles.
"In the middle of this work of burial, I was seized with an indescribable horror; the thought came upon me that I was doomed, perhaps, to lay my bones amongthese dismembered skeletons. I had been forewarned of the perils of our expedition. I had accepted the warning and fancied that I comprehended all the hazard; yet these tombs made me for the moment shudder, and for the first time I dwelt with regret on the memories of France, my family, my friends, the blue sky, the gentle and serene life which I had quitted in order to incur the risks of so dangerous a voyage."
Madame d'Aunet, however, returned to Paris in safety, and satisfied with her experiences of the Polar world, attempted no second expedition. According to M. Cortambert, to whom I owe this sketch, she afterwards resided in Paris, and edited several journals intended for women's reading. She also produced some works of no inconsiderable merit.
It seems reasonable enough that a good novelist should make a good traveller; for to both is essential the possession of a faculty of quick and accurate observation. Among the novelists of the nineteenth century Frederika Bremer holds a distinguished position; we hope to show that she merits a similar place among its travellers.
She was born at Tuorla Manor House, near Abo in Finland, on the 17th of August, 1801. When she was three years old her father removed his family to the small estate of Arsta, about twenty miles from Stockholm, which he had purchased. Here she received a careful education, early attaining a good knowledge of French, so as to read and speak it with facility. Her literary powers were almost prematurely developed, like those of Charlotte Bronté, and she wrote verses to the Moon at eight years old. At ten she meditated an elaborate poem on no less a subject than "The Creation of the World." But her attention was soon turned to morepractical themes, and it is noticeable that even in this early springtime she began to think much upon the dependent and subordinate position to which woman has been so unjustly condemned by society.
She was about twelve when her father took up his abode at Nynäs. Nynäs was an old-fashioned mansion situated amidst picturesque scenery, which appears to have awakened in Frederika her first impressions of the beauty of Nature. Her education still continued; she studied English and German, and made considerable progress in history and geography.
In 1813 Nynäs was sold, and the family once more settled at Arsta. There the young Frederika learned to take a deep interest in the great political events which were then convulsing Europe—in the great uprising of the nations against the selfish tyranny of Napoleon. The patriotic fire burned brightly in her girl's heart. She wept because she had not been born a man, so that she might have girded on her sword, and joined her country-men to fight in the cause of right and freedom. A strong desire possessed her to become a warrior; it was, in truth, the bird beating against the bars: the restlessness and activity of a genius which as yet had not found its proper channel of expression. She at one time resolved to flee from home and proceed to the theatre of war, which she imagined would be a matter of no difficulty, and, attired in male costume, to become page to the Crown Prince (afterwards King Charles XIV.), who then appeared to her little less than a demi-god. Thisscheme amused her fancy for more than a year, and melted away slowly, like snow in water. Gradually her enthusiasm as patriot and warrior declined, and gave way to new and equally strong emotions. Religious fervour, she says, and the most mundane coquetry struggled within her; feelings for which she could not account seemed to beset her young bosom, filling it sometimes with a heaven and sometimes with a hell. "Like two all-consuming flames," she writes, "the desire to know and the desire to enjoy were burning in my soul, without being satisfied for many long years. The mere sight of certain words in a book—words such as Truth, Liberty, Glory, Immortality—roused within me feelings which vainly I would try to describe. I wanted in some way or other to give vent to and express the same; and I wrote verses, dramatic pieces, and a thousand different kinds of essays; composed music, drew and painted pictures, some of them worse than others."
By degrees, society in Stockholm began to appreciate the fact that the Bremer family boasted of a maiden of more than ordinary ability, who, for the family fêtes, composed little dramas of more than usual merit. They engaged the attention of the poet Frauzon, who was frequently present at the juvenile performances, and by his advice helped to form the young dramatist's taste, and correct her judgment. Her earlier efforts were in verse; but after a time she essayed to clothe her thoughts in prose, and in prose of a very vivid and forcible kind. The "Correspondence between Axel and Anna" washer first serious work; so great already was her facility of composition that she finished it in two days and two nights. Her poems did not make their appearance until twenty years later, when they had been revised and corrected by their author, whom experience had taught that polish of style and gravity of language which can be acquired only by the careful study of the best writers.
In the comparatively limited circle to which for several years she was confined, and under conditions of domestic life which were unfavourable to the happy development of her genius, she would have found it very difficult to indulge her literary tendencies, if the Countess Sonnethjelm, a Norwegian lady, had not come to her assistance by providing her with an asylum under her roof. There her powers began rapidly to expand, and she herself to comprehend that literature offered the sphere of action for which she had so ardently longed.
Afterwards, like the authoress of "Jane Eyre," she spent some time as a governess in a ladies' school at Stockholm. We have already hinted that her early life was not altogether happy; her parents do not appear to have understood or sympathized with her, and the household concord was frequently broken by the austere, not to say eccentric, temperament of its head. She says of herself that "a dark cloud came over the splendour of her youthful dreams; like early evening it came over the path of the young pilgrim of life, and earnestly, but in vain, she endeavoured to escape it. The air wasdimmed as by a heavy fall of snow; darkness increased and it became night. And in the depth of that endless winter's night she heard lamenting voices from the east and from the west, from plant and animal, from dying nature and despairing humanity; she saw life with all its beauty, its love, its throbbing heart, buried alive beneath a chill covering of ice."
In the summer of 1831 she paid a visit, which extended over a twelvemonth, to a recently married sister, then settled at Christianstadt. We are told that the young novelist had determined not to mix in society or accept any invitations, but to live in retirement, and develop herself for what she now considered to be her mission and her vocation, namely, to become an authoress; and, enriched by experience of the world, to devote her talents in a double measure to the comfort and assistance of the suffering and unhappy.
"Frederika," says her sister,[9]"found and felt that she required to learn much, and that she stood in need of a firm religious faith, which she had hitherto lacked. The contradictions which she fancied she saw in the Bible and the world had long shaken her belief, and raised doubts in her soul to such a degree that, at times, with her reflecting and inquiring mind, they seemed to darken life."
The teacher, or guide, for whom she had instinctively yearned, she found at Christianstadt in the head master of the High School, the Rev. Peter Böklin, by whose teaching, example, and character she profited greatly. His influence was as beneficial as it was powerful. Well versed in history and philosophy, he gave a new impulse to Frederika's genius, while his wise and judicious criticism corrected the errors into which spontaneity and facility betrayed her. He showed her that it was not enough to compose with ease, she must learn to think clearly and soundly; and that grace of style and picturesqueness of description were of little avail to the novelist without the creative idea.
Under these changed circumstances a change came over the tone in which she spoke of life. Writing to her mother, in October, 1831, she says:—
"Life seems now to be of value to me. Formerly it was not so. My youth has not been happy; on the contrary, it has been a time of suffering, and its days to a great extent—this is indeed the truth—have passed away in a continual wish to die. But now it is otherwise. As a compensation for that long period of pain and compulsory inactivity, another has succeeded, which gives me the means of usefulness, and therefore also of new life and gladness. We hope—we desire—my sisters and I—nothing else than to be able to do some little good while we are wandering here on earth, and according to the power that is given to us to work for the good of others, and live ourselves in peace and harmony; andperhaps our saddened youth, if it have deprived us of some of the enjoyments of life, may in a certain measure have led our minds to higher aspirations, and to a stronger desire for real usefulness."
Her literary career had begun three years before this epoch. In 1828 she published at Stockholm her "Sketches of Every-day Life" (Teckningar ur Hvardags-lifort), including, "Axel and Anna," "The Twins," and other stories. They met at once with a favourable reception. But it was not until she produced her striking picture of "The H—— Family" that the public recognized the full extent and claims of her genius. Her reputation spread with great rapidity, and was extended and confirmed by the works which proceeded in swift succession from her fertile pen. "The President's Daughter," "Nina," "The Neighbours," "The Home," and "Strife and Peace;" all these books are marked by the same general characteristics: entire purity of tone, warmth of feeling, clearness of judgment, insight into human nature, genial humour, a sharp perception of social aspects, a strong, clear style, and unusually vivid descriptive powers. Her plots are simple, and her incidents natural. In fact she seeks them in the ordinary scenes of domestic life, in its joys and sorrows, in the duties and pleasures, the lights and shadows of home—and is never induced to venture into the regions of melodramatic or philosophical fiction.
In 1841 the works we have enumerated were translatedinto German, to attain in Germany to as great and enduring a popularity as they had acquired in their native country. In the following year they were made known to the British public, through the labours of William and Mary Howitt; and the reception accorded to them was as enthusiastic as could be desired. Their merits, indeed, were precisely those which English readers might be supposed to appreciate.
It may be interesting to note that in "The Neighbours," more than in any of her other works, Frederika Bremer drew from real life. Aged Mrs. Mansfeld is almost a literal portrait of one of her most familiar acquaintances. As for Francisca Werner, she is the authoress herself. Alternately despondent, dreamy, energetic, enthusiastic, housewifely, such is the character of Francisca, and such was Frederika. She represents her heroine as small of stature, with a plain face, which is yet not without some charm of expression, as a woman of excessively simple tastes, a student, and an artist. It is an exact portrait; and "The Neighbours" is a record of her thoughts and a history of her heart and its generous impulses.
An author has gained a good deal when he succeeds in pleasing his readers; but to ensure a claim to immortality he must bare to them his personality, the secrets of his soul, the feelings of his heart. This has been done by Frederika Bremer. It is true that she reveals no stormy passions, no wild and wayward emotions; but sheshows usherself, in all her love of things good and beautiful, in all the breadth and purity of her sympathies, in all the elevation of her thoughts. We see, too, her knowledge of thedomesticities, her intimate acquaintance with the duties and responsibilities of home. Her judgments are always sound and prudent; the advice she gives is advice which, founded upon experience and reflection, we cannot reject without injury. Let us borrow a few passages from the conversations in which Mrs. Mansfeld figures:—
"Many marriages, my friends, have begun like the dawn, and fallen like the dark night. Why? Because after the marriage-feast is over, husband and wife have forgotten to be as agreeable to one another as they were before it. Seek, therefore, to please reciprocally; but in doing this have God always present before your eyes. Do not lavish all your tenderness to-day; remember that in marriage there is a to-morrow and a day after to-morrow. Keep some wood for the winter fire, and remember what is expected of a married woman. Her husband must be able to count upon her in his home; it is she to whom he must entrust the key of his heart; his honour, his household, his welfare are in the hands of his wife.
"Be to thy husband, my dear daughter, like the rays of the sun which you see among the trees; allow thyself to be guided by him, render him happy and thou thyself wilt be happy, and thou wilt understand what there is of good in life; thou wilt becomeof value in thine own eyes, before God, and before men."
To housewives and housekeepers she gives some shrewd, sensible counsel:—
"It is only at intervals that you should make a general survey of the household; this keeps servants respectful, and things orderly. If you set the clock going in proper time, it afterwards goes alone, and you have no need to be always ticking like a pendulum. Remember this, my dear daughter, some mistresses are too restless with their bunches of keys; they run about the kitchen and the pantry, but it is time lost; a woman will do well to take care of her household with her head rather than with her feet.
"Some mistresses are always at their servants' heels, by which nothing is gained.
"Servants also ought to have some liberty and calm. We must not muzzle the mouth of the ox who treads the corn. Let thy people be responsible for what they do; hold them strictly to every tie of heart and honour; give them richly that which comes back to them. The labourer is worthy of his hire. But three or four times a year, and always unexpectedly, swoop down upon them like the Last Judgment; examine every corner and recess; make a noise like thunder, and strike right and left at the fitting moment—this clears the house for many weeks!"
There is nothing sensational or romantic, quaint or picturesque, in these passages, we grant you. To thosewho have fed on the rhapsodies of a certain school of fiction they will seem vulgarly commonplace. But their practical good sense is indisputable, and they illustrate the characteristics of Frederika Bremer as a writer. They point to her combination of domesticity, household economy, and imagination; to the alliance between poetry and prose which strengthened her vivid genius.
The great object which she set before herself, after she had arrived at a full understanding of her powers, was the emancipation of her sex from the thraldom imposed upon it by tradition and conventionalism, and more definitely, the alteration of the Swedish law so far as it pressed harshly and unjustly upon women. She desired, her sister tells us, that women, like men, and together with them, should be allowed to study in the elementary schools and at the academies, in order to gain opportunities of securing employment and situations suitable for them in the service of the State. In her opinion it was a grave injustice to deny them, even such as were endowed with great talents and brilliant intellectual powers, such opportunities. She was fully convinced that they could acquire all kinds of knowledge with as much facility as men; that they ought to stand on the same level, and to prepare themselves in the public schools and universities, to become lecturers, professors, judges, physicians, and official functionaries. She predicted that if women were as free as men to gain knowledge and skill, they would, when their capacityand indispensableness in the work of society had obtained more general recognition, be found fitted for a variety of occupations, which were either already in existence, or would be required in future under a more energetic development of society; and, finally, she maintained with warmth and eloquence that woman ought to have the same right as man to benefit her native country by the exercise of her talents.
In the autumn of 1848 Frederika Bremer left home, paying first a visit to her old friend and teacher, the Rev. Peter Böklin, and afterwards proceeding to Copenhagen. In the following year she made several excursions to the Danish islands, and then, by way of London, directed her steps to New York, anxious to study the social condition of women in the United States. She remained in the great Western Republic for two years, traversing it from north to south, and collecting a mass of information on social, moral, and religious topics. Her "Homes of the New World" was, perhaps, the first discriminating and impartial work upon America and the Americans.
On her return home she met with a severe blow in the death of her beloved sister Agatha, which had taken place during her absence. Two years later (March, 1855) she lost her mother; after which event she removed from the old family house at Arsta to Stockholm. Here, in December, 1856, she published her romance of "Hersha,"—a story with a purpose—its aim being thereform of the Swedish laws affecting women. Stories with a purpose are seldom acceptable to the general public, and "Hersha" is the least popular of Frederika Bremer's works, though it is the most carefully and artistically wrought. It is satisfactory to know, however, that its purpose was attained.
In the summer of 1853, when the cholera devastated Stockholm, Frederika became president of a society of noble women, whose aim it was to take charge of, and provide a home for, those children who were orphaned by the terrible epidemic, and to give assistance to families in which the father or mother had been taken away. Two years afterwards, she placed herself at the head of a small association of ladies whose object it was to visit the prisons of Stockholm, and procure an amelioration of the condition of the prisoners, as well as to assist, on their discharge, those who seemed anxious to embark on an honest career. A considerable portion of her time, her energies, and her income was devoted to benevolent purposes, and the alleviation of human suffering she accepted as one of her holiest and happiest duties.
Having read with deep interest the works of Vinet, she was seized with a desire to study on the spot the religious movement in Protestant Switzerland called forth by the "Free Church," of which that eloquent divine was the founder. In the summer of 1856 she accordingly visited Switzerland. Thence she proceeded to Belgium, France, and Italy, and finally she extendedher tour to Greece and Palestine, so that it was not until the summer of 1861 that she returned home. Of this long and interesting journey she issued a graphic record.
Three months of the summer of 1864 she spent at Arsta with the patriarchal family who had become the owners of the paternal estate, and enjoyed so much peace and pleasantness that she resolved to accept their invitation to lodge with them permanently. She still continued her philanthropic labours, and looked forward confidently to an old age of usefulness, hallowed by the love of suffering humanity and brightened by implicit confidence in the mercy and meek submission to the will of God. But on Christmas Day, 1865, she caught cold at church, and inflammation of the lungs supervened with a severity she had not strength enough to resist. She herself did not believe there was any danger; and in spite of increasing pain and difficulty in breathing, could not be persuaded to lie down, but walked about even on the last day of her life, which was also the last day of the year. Her mind preserved its clearness and serenity. Shortly before her death, she went, leaning on her nurse's arm, from window to window in her large sitting room, as if taking leave of the surrounding landscape which she loved so deeply. Then in a low weak voice she uttered some broken sentences, and frequently repeated the words, "Light, eternal light!" Clasping her nurse's hands in her own, she exclaimed, "Ah, my child, let us speak of Christ's love,—the best, the highest love!"At three o'clock on the following morning, she peacefully drew her last breath.[10]
From this brief sketch of the life of the great Swedish novelist, we turn to a consideration of her work as a traveller.
Her visit to the United States she turned to good account, examining with a keen observant eye the manners and customs of the people. She made the acquaintance of Channing and Emerson; she went from town to town, and village to village; she investigated the character and influence of American institutions; she gave a lively consideration to the great moral and political questions which were then stirring the American mind. The result was, a strong and affectionate interest in the great Western Commonwealth—an interest so strong and deep that it made her somewhat unjust to England, which she had formerly placed in the front rank of the nations as the mother of progress and true freedom.
In the following passage she particularizes, from her point of view, the difference between the English and American character:—
"Brother Jonathan and John Bull," she says, "have the same father, but not the same mother. John Bull iscorpulent, with high-coloured cheeks, is self-assertive, and speaks in a loud voice; Brother Jonathan, who is much younger, is lank, tall, weak about the knees, not boastful, but vigorous and decided. John Bull is at least forty, while Jonathan is not yet twenty-one.
"The movements of John Bull are pompous, and somewhat affected; Jonathan's feet move as nimbly as his tongue. John Bull laughs loud and long; Jonathan does not laugh, but smiles slightly. John Bull seats himself calmly to make a good dinner, as if he were bent on some great and weighty matter; Jonathan eats rapidly, and is in a hurry to quit the table in order to found a town, dig a canal, or construct a railway. John wishes to be a gentleman; Jonathan does not trouble himself about appearances—he has so much to do, that it matters little to him if he rushes about with a hole at the elbow or a tail of his coat torn off, so long as he advances. John Bull marches, Jonathan runs. John Bull is certainly very polite to the ladies, but when he is bent on enjoying himself at the table, he puts them to the door—that is, he begs them to be so obliging as to go into another room and make tea for him, 'he will follow them immediately.' Jonathan does not act like this; he loves the society of women, and will not be deprived of it; he is the most gallant man upon earth, and if he sometimes forgets his gallantry, it is because he has forgotten himself; but this does not often happen. When John Bull has a fit of indigestion, or a stroke of ill-luck, he suffers from the spleen, andthinks of hanging himself; when Jonathan has a fit of indigestion, or a stroke of ill-luck, he goes on his travels. Now and then he has a paroxysm of lunacy, but he recovers himself quickly, and never dreams of putting an end to his existence. On the contrary, he says to himself, 'Let us think no more of it; go ahead!'
"The two brothers have taken it into their heads that they will humanize and civilize the world; but Jonathan marches with more zeal in this direction, and wishes to go much farther than John Bull; he has no fear of wounding his dignity by putting his two hands to the pie, like a true workman. The two brothers desire to become rich men; but John Bull keeps for himself and his friends the best and largest portion. Jonathan is willing to share his with everybody, to enrich all the world;[11]he is a cosmopolitan; a part of the earth serves him as larder, and he has all the treasures of the globe with which to keep up his household. John Bull is an aristocrat; Jonathan is a democrat—that is to say, he wishes to be, and thinks he is one; but it occurs to him to forget it in his relations with people of a different complexion from his own. John Bull has a good heart, which at times he conceals in his fat and phlegm under his well-wadded and buttoned-up coat. Jonathan has agood heart also, but does not hide it. His blood is warmer; he has no corpulence; he marches with coat unbuttoned or without one. Some persons maintain even that Brother Jonathan is John Bull stripped of his coat, and it is with this American saying that I take leave, for the present, of John Bull and his brother Jonathan."
The manners and customs most opposed to European ideas found favour in the eyes of Frederika Bremer, when she thought she detected in American usages the elements of progress and liberty. It is, indeed, with too light a touch that she glides by the more regrettable defects of the American character, so fascinated, so dazzled is she by the brilliant mirage of independence—independence of thought and action, often verging upon or passing into licence—which the United States presented to her. She reminds one of that Western patriot who, from the banks of the Mississippi, watching the explosion of a steamship, exclaimed, "Heavens! the Americans are a great people!" This exclamation she does not repeat in so many words, but the idea which it embodies is present in every page of her book.
But, in truth, she travelled under conditions which made it almost impossible for her to form an impartial judgment of men and things. She was everywhere received with so much enthusiastic hospitality, even by Quakers, Shakers, Plungers, and other of those strange sects described with so much unction by the late Mr.Hepworth Dixon, that her usual keen powers of observation were necessarily obscured. She saw everything through rose-coloured glasses. On the question of slavery, for example, she, the ardent champion of the emancipation of humanity, who started with the firm resolution to launch her heaviest thunderbolts at the slave-owners, was led to give forth an uncertain sound. For the astute Southerners got hold of her, fêted her, complimented her, read her works; how could she retain her impartiality when brought under such powerful influences? Can any author inveigh against the men who read his books? So it has not inaptly been said that she denounces the slave-holders only when she is in Yankee territory, and criticises the Yankees only when she is in the Southern States. Allowing herself to believe that the condition of the negroes was not so deplorable as she had supposed, she even began to extenuate the institution of slavery by arguments too transparently feeble to call for detailed confutation. It is true, she says, that slavery is an evil to-day, but to-morrow it will be a boon to humanity, and a boon to the negro world. Why? Because the American negro, enlightened by the teachings of Christianity through his contact with the white man, will, at some future time, return to Africa, the home of his ancestors, a missionary of civilization, charged with the glorious task of redeeming and regenerating it.
This was a new reading of the old falsehood, doing evil that good may come. What could the negro thinkof a Christianity that justified his subjugation by oppression? Or how could a race, kept in the bonds and fetters of an accursed degradation, be fitted to play the part of apostles and missionaries? Happily it is unnecessary to discuss the subject, since slavery no longer exists in America.
Of those beautiful descriptions of nature which lend so great a charm to Miss Bremer's fiction we find but few examples in her work on the United States. Unfortunately she travelled as a philosopher, not as an observer of nature; engaged in the study of social questions, she seems to have had neither the leisure nor the inclination to survey the magnificent scenery through which she passed. The area she traversed was very considerable; from New York she crossed the continent to New Orleans; she visited Canada, the lakes, the valley of the Mississippi, and made an excursion to Cuba; but of all the landscapes, sublime, beautiful, and picturesque that met her gaze, she says little or nothing. Even the mighty Niagara has scarcely power to move her; the rolling prairies make no impression on her imagination. From her book, therefore, we can offer no quotations. In a country like America social questions change their aspects with so much rapidity that Miss Bremer's opinions upon them are already antiquated. It is Nature only that preserves her character. The relations of the North to the South, of the slave-holder to the negro, or of the Democratic party to the Republican,may undergo, in twenty or thirty years a complete transformation; but Niagara still pours its flood of waters into the St. Lawrence, and leagues upon leagues of grassy savannahs are still untrodden by the foot of man.
The defect which we have indicated in Miss Bremer's "Homes of the New World" does not appear in the later work, "Two Years in Switzerland and Italy." Here we find that warm sympathy with Nature, that vivid appreciation of the beautiful, which we might reasonably expect from one who had the poet's feeling and fancy, though not endowed with the poet's faculty of expression.[12]In the opening chapter or "station," as she prefers to call it, we come upon a picture full of power and colour, in which the artist uses her pencil with equal grace and freedom. It is the valley of Lauterbrunnen, or "Laughing Waters":—
"From Steinbock the valley becomes ever narrower, between ever higher mountain walls; louder and louder roar the becks and the streams, which, now swollen by the rains, are hurled from the glaciers down towards the valley and the river. Here falls the Staubbach, thrown like silver rain, driven hither and thither by the wind over the field which it keeps green below; here rushes down the strong Trummelsbach, foaming from the embrace of the cliffs; there the still stronger Rosenbach,which the Jungfrau pours out of her silver horn. On all sides, near and afar off, there is a rushing and roaring and foaming, on the right hand and on the left, above me, below me, and before, out of a hundred hidden fountains, and even wilder beside me rushes on the Lutschine, with still increasing waters. It is too much, I cannot bear even my own thoughts. I am in the bosom of a wild Undine, who drowns her admirers while she embraces them—and the Titans are growing ever loftier and broader, and the valley ever narrower, gloomier, and more desolate. I felt depressed, and as it were, overwhelmed, but, nevertheless, I went forward. It is melancholy scenery, but, at the same time, grand and powerful. And scenery of this character exercises a strong attractive power, even when it astonishes. The shades of evening fell darkly over the valley, where I saw before me, in its gloomy depth, a broad, grey-white, immense wall of water, like dust hurled thundering down from a lofty mountain. It seemed to shut up the valley. That is enough. I salute the giantess, the great Schmadribach, the mother of the Lutschine river, and return. No, it is not good to be here, and the society of the Titans is more agreeable for a simple mortal at a greater distance!...
"On my return to Interlachen the Titans presented me with a glorious spectacle, and it was not without joyful admiration that I parted from their immediate neighbourhood. The great spirits which terrify can also enchant. In the light of the descending sun the white peaks and fields of the Alps stood out in the mostbrilliant colouring; the lofty Jungfrau clothed herself in rose-tint, the blue glaciers shone transparently, and the lower the sun sank the higher and clearer gleamed the Alpine pinnacles....
"Later still, new astonishment awaited me from the camp of the giants. The head of the Jungfrau was surrounded with a soft glory of light, which increased in beauty and brightness, till at length the moon, shining in full splendour, slowly advancing above, crowned the Titaness with beauty."[13]
Apart from its picturesque descriptions, however, Miss Bremer's book on Switzerland and Italy is hardly a success. She had not the qualifications of a Madame de Staël, and her observations, therefore, are frequently superficial. Moreover, she seems to have suffered in self-appreciation. In Sweden she shone as a great star in the literary firmament; and she appears to have been under an impression that her fame would have preceded her into other countries, and ensured her a triumphal reception in any town she entered; but Germany showed her very little attention, and hence she sees it in a very unfavourable light. So in Switzerland: she was caught up in the stream of tourists; her name, inscribed in the visitors' books of the hotels, received but a fugitive notice; and she who had created in her fancy an ideal Switzerland, prepared to welcome with open arms the champion of freedom generally, andthe freedom of women in particular—discovered only a nation of good housekeepers, who were thinking of everything in the world but emancipation.
Miss Bremer visited the valleys of the High Alps and the Forest Cantons; spent a Sunday on the Righi; journeyed to Basle; passed into Belgium and Flanders, surveying the antiquities of the old historic cities of Ghent, Bruges, and Antwerp; proceeded to Paris; returning to Switzerland, spent the winter at Lausanne; in the following year crossed the Alps into Italy, and through Piedmont travelled to the Eternal City; thence to Naples, where she saw an eruption of Vesuvius and the buried city of Pompeii; and, finally, explored the fair landscapes of Sicily. This vast variety of scenes she sketches always with a quick and dexterous pencil.
In the course of her two years' travel she met with several illustrious men—with some who have made, or helped to make, the history of our time—and her record of their conversations is full of interest. As might be expected, she excels in portraiture. This is her portrait of the late Cardinal Antonelli:—
"Antonelli has a strongly marked countenance of the true Italian character; handsome dark eyes, with a penetrative glance, gloomy or bright according to the sentiment which they express; dangerous eyes, it seems to me, they would be to those on whom their glance was directed in love. The countenance is pale; the features are regular—even handsome—allexcept the mouth, which is large, with large teeth, and devoid of agreeable sentiment when speaking. In short, the countenance has a commanding expression. An abundance of dark brown hair waves from under the red cap, and falls in waving curls upon the pale cheeks. The whole figure is picturesque—artistic in effect; to which also the costume—the red cardinal stockings, the large silver buckles, the short silk cloak, and the red cap—contribute in no small degree. In his demeanour he has all the self-possession and ease of a perfect man of the world."
The Roman Carnival has often been described, but never, we think, with more lively appreciation of its humorous features than by Frederika Bremer. In the following passage we recognize something of that realistic power which makes the charm of her novels. The details are touched as vividly and picturesquely as in her Swedish interiors:—
"At three o'clock in the afternoon the festival began. The Corso was filled with people and gendarmes. Military, mounted and on foot, were posted at the corners of all the streets, as well as in the square. Crowds of ragged lads were loitering about the Corso, shouting as they followed any laughably-attired mask. Windows and balconies were filling with gentlemen and ladies in dominoes, some in costume. One saw many lovely faces.... The whole Corso, from the Piazza di Venezia to the Piazza del Popolo, lookslike a festively-decorated arena. But, for the first time during many weeks, the sky is grey, and the streets are wet with rain which has fallen in the night; it even now looks threatening, and already has rained a little, but the air is soft and calm. The north wind has left Rome, and all windows are open. Some carriages, with masks in costumes and dominoes, begin to drive up and down the Corso; the war with comfits and bouquets has begun between pedestrians and those who are in carriages—between the people in the streets and the people at the windows and in the balconies. They seek either to powder one another or to make a present. Extremely beautiful bouquets and fine bonbons come amongst quantities of others which are less beautiful and not at all splendid. One is obliged, in the meantime, to hold a fine wire gauze, in the form of a little scoop, before the face, if one would escape bruises. Our balcony is decorated with red and white, and along the outside of the iron railing small boxes are hung for the bouquets and comfits. Our agreeable hostess belongs to the ornaments of her balcony, into which flowers are assiduously thrown by gentlemen in carriages and on foot.
"At five o'clock a mounted troop of soldiers, in close rank, galloped at full speed up the Corso, in order to clear the street, for now the horse-race was to begin. The people gather themselves close together by the walls of the houses; a pause succeeds, and then a loud exulting shout, which runs like wildfire along theCorso; and from the Piazza del Popolo speeds, in flying career, a little troop of small horses, adorned with gold-paper wings or flags. Away they rush at full speed along the Corso up to the Piazza di Venezia, where they are stopped, and the judges of the race award the prizes which their owners shall receive. Scarcely have the swift-footed steeds passed, when the throng of people crowd after them like a swarming ant-hillock. This closes the amusements of the day....
"On Monday the Corso was, nevertheless, more animated than on Saturday, and the warfare of comfits and flowers was carried on very gaily. People threw flowers at each other from balcony to balcony, from window to window; and people amused themselves with grand comfits, strung upon long threads fastened to long sticks, like fishing-lines, which they enticed their acquaintance, from one story to another, to catch; or they deceived the boys in the streets with these same tempting baits, which the next moment were snatched up again. If any one wishes to be polite, he fastens at the end of the string a beautiful flower, or some other pretty little thing, and allows it to be caught by the lady for whom it is intended. The street boys are in general, however, the greatest winners by this polite warfare; for everything which misses its object and falls into the street belongs to them, and that is not little....
"On Friday ... the Corso was crowded with all kinds of costumes and masks in carriages and on foot; thewindows and balconies and roofs were thronged with dominoes and fantastic costumes; bouquets of flowers and comfits showered down through the air.... Two rows of carriages drive in close file along the Corso. They assaulted each other incessantly; besides which, they threw their missiles up to the windows and balconies, and received others in return. Sometimes a masquerading gentleman designs to present you with an extremely beautiful bouquet; but if you do not take great care it is quickly snatched away by some lad, who jumps upon the step or wheel of the carriage.... Sometimes the procession of carriages is stopped by the crush, and woe then to the carriage or the ladies who happen to be stopped under a great balcony, for they are then overwhelmed by such a shower of chalk and powder comfits, which rain down upon them like hail, that the dominoes and outer attire are spoiled! One is fortunate if one can keep one's eyes uninjured; but a great many of the uneducated class amuse themselves by throwing white powder into people's faces, and if this gets into the eyes, it sometimes occasions long suffering; sometimes one receives a great blow on the head from an immense bouquet; or a great piece of confectionery, as hard as a stone; but any one who enters into the sport must tolerate it—and, happen what may, people are only the more excited and filled by the spirit of the time.... That which interested me most was to see the handsome Roman women, in their holiday costume, standing in openlogesin the lower story of thehouses. They receive, with stoical resignation, the showers of comfits and bouquets which are incessantly aimed at their gold-adorned heads. Women of the peasant class, dressed as if for a wedding festival, with bare heads, adorned with red ribbon and grand ornaments, were also the principal figures in many of the carriages....
"The streets swarmed with harlequins, punchinellos, and jesters, who leaped about, talking to people in the carriages and on foot, inviting to drink, pretending themselves to be intoxicated, and spilling the beer or water on the right hand and left; crowds of castanet-players and dancers, in every variety of laughable, grotesque, and most frequently tatterdemalion costume, beating drums, and so on—making a horrible din. Sometimes, in the midst of all this wild confusion, a kind of French courtier would come mincing along, in old-fashioned costume, leading a lady, also in antique attire, and, gazing on the right hand and the left through an immense opera-glass, making, in the meantime, the most polite bows. However much he might be pushed about, or powdered, it mattered not; he only gazed through his opera-glass, and bowed all the more, and never lost his self-possession. In the midst of all this whirl and confusion comes a brilliant procession: it is the governor of the city and the Roman senate, driving in a great number of grand carriages, with splendid horses and servants; gold and silver shine out, and liveries which appear to be covered with fire. Thebrilliantcortègeadvances with great dignity through the many-coloured mass of the Corso up to the Capitol."
Not the least interesting pages in her book are those descriptive of an interview which she enjoyed with the great founder of Italian unity, Count Cavour—the statesman who successfully realized the dreams of the theorist, and raised Italy to a place among the European Powers. When Miss Bremer saw him, he was still the Minister of the King of Sardinia; but in secret was unweariedly labouring to carry out the policy which placed on the brow of the King of Sardinia the Italian crown.
Miss Bremer had been told that nothing in his exterior revealed the astute statesman; that, on the contrary, he looked very much as one might imagine Dickens's Mr. Pickwick to look; and she confesses that at the first glance he reminded her more of an English red-complexioned country squire, who rides and hunts, eats good dinners, and takes life lightly, than of a profound and sagacious politician, who, with sure glance and firm hand, steers the vessel of the State towards its destined haven over the stormy waves of statecraft. But quickly that countenance lighted up, and the more Miss Bremer studied, during their long conversation, the more significant and agreeable she found it. They who had painted the great Minister's portrait had not understood this countenance nor the character of the head. There was in it a certain squareness, but at the same time refinement.The complexion was fresh and delicate, the forehead magnificent, open, with ample space for both broad and elevated ideas; clear, lively, and penetrating was the glance of the light blue eye; the nose and mouth, as well as the shape of the face, not unlike those of the first Napoleon, having the same delicacy and yet firmness of outline. An arch expression was visible in the play of the muscles about the nose, and the graciousness of the sunny South was in the smile. As to stature, he was not tall, but he was well-built, and his figure was solid and robust, like that of a man who can hold his footing firmly. The manners were easy, calm, and very agreeable, and indicated no ordinary power of self-control.
Cavour seemed well pleased to learn that even in remote Sweden the affairs of Piedmont were a subject of general interest, and that his own words and actions were attentively studied. From his expressions it was evident to his visitor that he well understood the Swedish government and constitution. Its mode of representation he pithily characterized as "heavy machinery."
To Miss Bremer's numerous questions regarding Piedmont and his views as to its future, he replied with kindly simplicity and absolute candour. He concluded with a forecast abundantly justified by events, that he would eventually conduct Piedmont, with complete security, into a path whence it could not turn back, and she saw that he would not hesitate to make pecuniary sacrifices for this cause.
"Piedmont," he said, "had long been like a vessel which, having run too close to the rocks, was prevented by that means from having the wind in her sails, and this impediment must be removed."
One of the means to this end mentioned by Cavour was the gigantic work which has since been successfully accomplished, the tunnelling of Mont Cenis; he was of opinion that this would facilitate communication between the social culture and social life of the most developed of the European cities.
When Miss Bremer expatiated on the brilliant hopes for the future of all Italy which Piedmont's advance on the path of freedom had awakened, he did not discourage them, but, with the prudence of the politician, refrained from anything more than vague expressions.
To her observation that she had not seen any statesman who appeared to bear so easily the burden of a statesman's life, he answered, with a smile:—
"Ah! 'tis so only in appearance; for behind, in the depth, lie weary cares, and it is not easy to keep alight the sacred fire."
In Miss Bremer's opinion the appearance was not deceptive. According to what she heard from many of his friends, Cavour occupied his seat with tolerable ease, and without undue strain discharged his duties as First Minister of Piedmont, and the shaper of its destiny. The fact was, that his nature was that of a statesman; he was born, not made, and performed his work as Mozart executed his symphonies or Raphael paintedhis pictures, without torturing his brains, without any special difficulty. In his sphere of duty he was as much a genius and an artist as they were.
At parting she earnestly urged him to give juster laws to the women of Piedmont, who, in all that appertained to the right of inheritance, were greatly inferior to men. M. de Cavour laughed, half cynically, as at an expression called forth by a certainesprit de corps; but afterwards he discoursed seriously on the difficulties which, particularly amongst an agricultural population, stood in the way of an equal right of inheritance. Miss Bremer listened with greater pleasure when he added, with the accent of conviction, that in any case equal right of inheritance would become law, sooner or later, amongst them. It existed in the spirit and tendency of all their legislation, and, besides, it was right.[14]