CHAPTER XXVTHE INTRODUCTION

[1]The word was one of Léonore's.

To see the subtlety and sureness of judgment with which women grasp certain details, I am lost in admiration: but a moment later, I see them praise a blockhead to the skies, let themselves be moved to tears by a piece of insipidity, or weigh gravely a fatuous affectation, as if it were a telling characteristic. I cannot conceive such simplicity. There must be some general law in all this, unknown to me.

Attentive to one merit in a man and absorbed by one detail, women feel it deeply and have no eyes for the rest. All the nervous fluid is used up in the enjoyment of this quality: there is none left to see the others.

I have seen the most remarkable men introduced to very clever women; it was always a particle of bias which decided the effect of the first inspection.

If I may be allowed a familiar detail, I shall tell the story how charming Colonel L. B—— was to be introduced to Madame de Struve of Koenigsberg—she a most distinguished woman. "Farà colpo?"[1]—we asked each other; and a wager was made as a result. I go up to Madame de Struve, and tell her the Colonel wears his ties two days running—the second he turns them—she could notice on his tie the creases downwards. Nothing more palpably untrue!

As I finish, the dear fellow is announced. The silliest little Parisian would have made more effect. Observe that Madame de Struve was one who could love. She isalso a respectable woman and there could have been no question of gallantry between them.

Never were two characters more made for each other. People blamed Madame de Struve for being romantic, and there was nothing could touch L. B. but virtue carried to the point of the romantic. Thanks to her, he had a bullet put through him quite young.

It has been given to women admirably to feel the fine shades of affection, the most imperceptible variations of the human heart, the lightest movements of susceptibility.

In this regard they have an organ which in us is missing: watch them nurse the wounded.

But, perhaps, they are equally unable to see what mind consists in—as a moral composition. I have seen the most distinguished women charmed with a clever man, who was not myself, and, at the same time and almost with the same word, admire the biggest fools. I felt caught like a connoisseur, who sees the loveliest diamonds taken for paste, and paste preferred for being more massive.

And so I concluded that with women you have to risk everything. Where General Lassale came to grief, a captain with moustaches and heavy oaths succeeded.[2]There is surely a whole side in men's merit which escapes them. For myself, I always come back to physical laws. The nervous fluid spends itself in men through the brain and in women through the heart: that is why they are more sensitive. Some great and obligatory work, within the profession we have followed all our life, is our consolation, but for them nothing can console but distraction.

Appiani, who only believes in virtue as a last resort, and with whom this evening I went routing out ideas (exposing meanwhile those of this chapter) answered:—

"The force of soul, which Eponina used with heroicdevotion, to keep alive her husband in a cavern underground and to keep him from sinking into despair, would have helped her to hide from him a lover, if they had lived at Rome in peace. Strong souls must have their nourishment."

[1][Will he impress her?—Tr.][2]Posen, 1807.

[1][Will he impress her?—Tr.]

[2]Posen, 1807.

In Madagascar, a woman exposes without a thought what is here most carefully hidden, but would die of shame sooner than show her arm. Clearly three-quarters of modesty come from example. It is perhaps the one law, daughter of civilisation, which produces only happiness.

People have noticed that birds of prey hide themselves to drink; the reason being that, obliged to plunge their head in the water, they are at that moment defenceless. After a consideration of what happens at Tahiti,[1]I see no other natural basis for modesty.

Love is the miracle of civilisation. There is nothing but a physical love of the coarsest kind among savage or too barbarian peoples.

And modesty gives love the help of imagination—that is, gives it life.

Modesty is taught little girls very early by their mothers with such jealous care, that it almost looks like fellow-feeling; in this way women take measures in good time for the happiness of the lover to come.

There can be nothing worse for a timid, sensitive woman than the torture of having, in the presence of a man, allowed herself something for which she thinks she ought to blush; I am convinced that a woman with alittle pride would sooner face a thousand deaths. A slight liberty, which touches a soft corner in the lover's heart, gives her a moment of lively pleasure.[2]If he seem to blame it, or simply not to enjoy it to the utmost, it must leave in the soul an agonising doubt. And so a woman above the common sort has everything to gain by being very reserved in her manner. The game is not fair: against the chance of a little pleasure or the advantage of seeming a little more lovable, a woman runs the risk of a burning remorse and a sense of shame, which must make even the lover less dear. An evening gaily passed, in care-devil thoughtless fashion, is dearly paid for at the price. If a woman fears she has made this kind of mistake before her lover, he must become for days together hateful in her sight. Can one wonder at the force of a habit, when the lightest infractions of it are punished by such cruel shame?

As for the utility of modesty—she is the mother of love: impossible, therefore, to doubt her claims. And for the mechanism of the sentiment—it's simple enough. The soul is busy feeling shame instead of busy desiring. You deny yourself desires and your desires lead to actions.

Evidently every woman of feeling and pride—and, these two things being cause and effect, one can hardly go without the other—must fall into ways of coldness, which the people whom they disconcert call prudery.

The accusation is all the more specious because of the extreme difficulty of steering a middle course: a woman has only to have little judgment and a lot of pride, and very soon she will come to believe that in modesty one cannot go too far. In this way, an Englishwoman takes it as an insult, if you pronounce before her the name of certain garments. An Englishwoman must be very careful, in the country, not to be seen in the eveningleaving the drawing-room with her husband; and, what is still more serious, she thinks it an outrage to modesty, to show that she is enjoying herself a little in the presence of anyonebuther husband.[3]It is perhaps due to such studied scrupulousness that the English, a people of judgment, betray signs of such boredom in their domestic bliss. Theirs the fault—why so much pride?[4]

To make up for this—and to pass straight from Plymouth to Cadiz and Seville—I found in Spain that the warmth of climate and passions caused people to overlook a little the necessary measure of restraint. The very tender caresses, which I noticed could be given in public, far from seeming touching, inspired me with feelings quite the reverse: nothing is more distressing.

We must expect to find incalculable the force of habits, which insinuate themselves into women under the pretext of modesty. A common woman, by carrying modesty to extremes, feels she is getting on a level with a woman of distinction.

Such is the empire of modesty, that a woman of feeling betrays her sentiments for her lover sooner by deed than by word.

The prettiest, richest and most easy-going woman of Bologna has just told me, how yesterday evening a fool of a Frenchman, who is here giving people a strange idea of his nation, thought good to hide under her bed. Apparently he did not want to waste the long string of absurd declarations, with which he has been pestering her for a month. But the great man should have had more presence of mind. He waited all right till Madame M—— sent away her maid and had got to bed, but he had not the patience to give the household time to go to sleep. She seized hold of the bell and had him thrownout ignominiously, in the midst of the jeers and cuffs of five or six lackeys. "And if he had waited two hours?" I asked her. "I should have been very badly off. 'Who is to doubt,' he would have said, 'that I am here by your orders?'"[5]

After leaving this pretty woman's house, I went to see a woman more worthy of being loved than any I know. Her extremely delicate nature is something greater, if possible, than her touching beauty. I found her alone, told the story of Madame M—— and we discussed it. "Listen," was what she said; "if the man, who will go as far as that, was lovable in the eyes of that woman beforehand, he'll have her pardon, and, all in good time, her love." I own I was dumbfounded by this unexpected light thrown on the recesses of the human heart. After a short silence I answered her—"But will a man, who loves, dare go to such violent extremities?"

There would be far less vagueness in this chapter had a woman written it. Everything relating to women's haughtiness or pride, to their habits of modesty and its excesses, to certain delicacies, for the most part dependent wholly on associations of feelings,[6]which cannot exist for men, and often delicacies not founded on Nature—all these things, I say, can only find their way here so far as it is permissible to write from hearsay.

A woman once said to me, in a moment of philosophical frankness, something which amounts to this:—

"If ever I sacrificed my liberty, the man whom I should happen to favour would appreciate still more myaffection, by seeing how sparing I had always been of favours—even of the slightest." It is out of preference for this lover, whom perhaps she will never meet, that a lovable woman will offer a cold reception to the man who is speaking to her at the moment. That is the first exaggeration of modesty; that one can respect. The second comes from women's pride. The third source of exaggeration is the pride of husbands.

To my idea, this possibility of love presents itself often to the fancy of even the most virtuous woman—and why not? Not to love, when given by Heaven a soul made for love, is to deprive yourself and others of a great blessing. It is like an orange-tree, which would not flower for fear of committing a sin. And beyond doubt a soul made for love can partake fervently of no other bliss. In the would-be pleasures of the world it finds, already at the second trial, an intolerable emptiness. Often it fancies that it loves Art and Nature in its grander aspects, but all they do for it is to hold out hopes of love and magnify it, if that is possible; until, very soon, it finds out that they speak of a happiness which it is resolved to forego.

The only thing I see to blame in modesty is that it leads to untruthfulness, and that is the only point of vantage, which light women have over women of feeling. A light woman says to you: "As soon, my friend, as you attract me, I'll tell you and I'll be more delighted than you; because I have a great respect for you."

The lively satisfaction of Constance's cry after her lover's victory! "How happy I am, not to have given myself to anyone, all these eight years that I've been on bad terms with my husband!"

However comical I find the line of thought, this joy seems to me full of freshness.

Here I absolutely must talk about the sort of regrets, felt by a certain lady of Seville who had been deserted by her lover. I ought to remind the reader that, in love.everything is a sign, and, above all, crave the benefit of a little indulgence for my style.[7]

As a man, I think my eye can distinguish nine points in modesty.

1. Much is staked against little; hence extreme reserve; hence often affectation. For example, one doesn't laugh at what amuses one the most. Hence it needs a great deal of judgment to have just the right amount of modesty.[8]That is why many women have not enough in intimate gatherings, or, to put it more exactly, do not insist on the stories told them being sufficiently disguised, and only drop their veils according to the degree of their intoxication or recklessness.[9]

Could it be an effect of modesty and of the deadly dullness it must impose on many women, that the majority of them respect nothing in a man so much as impudence? Or do they take impudence for character?

2. Second law: "My lover will think the more of me for it."

3. Force of habit has its way, even at the moments of greatest passion.

4. To the lover, modesty offers very flattering pleasures; it makes him feel what laws are broken for his sake.

5. And to women it offers more intoxicating pleasures, which, causing the fall of a strongly established habit, throw the soul into greater confusion. The Comte de Valmont finds himself in a pretty woman's bedroom atmidnight. The thing happens every week to him; to her perhaps every other year. Thus continence and modesty must have pleasures infinitely more lively in store for women.[10]

6. The drawback of modesty is that it is always leading to falsehood.

7. Excess of modesty, and its severity, discourages gentle and timid hearts from loving[11]—just those made for giving and feeling the sweets of love.

8. In sensitive women, who have not had several lovers, modesty is a bar to ease of manner, and for this reason they are rather apt to let themselves be led by those friends, who need reproach themselves with no such failing.[12]They go into each particular case, instead of falling back blindly on habit. Delicacy and modesty give their actions a touch of restraint; by being natural they makethemselves appear unnatural; but this awkwardness is akin to heavenly grace.

If familiarity in them sometimes resembles tenderness, it is because these angelic souls are coquettes without knowing it. They are disinclined to interrupt their dreams, and, to save themselves the trouble of speaking and finding something both pleasant and polite to say to a friend (which would end in being nothing but polite), they finish by leaning tenderly on his arm.[13]

9. Women only dare be frank by halves; which is the reason why they very rarely reach the highest, when they become authors, but which also gives a grace to their shortest note. For them to be frank means going out without afichu. For a man nothing more frequent than to write absolutely at the dictate of his imagination, without knowing where he is going.

Résumé

The usual fault is to treat woman as a kind of man, but more generous, more changeable and with whom, above all, no rivalry is possible. It is only too easy to forget that there are two new and peculiar laws, which tyrannise over these unstable beings, in conflict with all the ordinary impulses of human nature—I mean:—

Feminine pride and modesty, and those often inscrutable habits born of modesty.

[1]See the Travels of Bougainville, Cook, etc. In some animals, the female seems to retract at the moment she gives herself. We must expect from comparative anatomy some of the most important revelations about ourselves.[2]Shows one's love in a new way.[3]See the admirable picture of these tedious manners at the end ofCorinne; and Madame de Staël has made a flattering portrait.[4]The Bible and Aristocracy take a cruel revenge upon people who believe that duty is everything.[5]I am advised to suppress this detail—"You take me for a very doubtful woman, to dare tell such stories in my presence."[6]Modesty is one of the sources of taste in dress: by such and such an arrangement, a woman engages herself in a greater or less degree. This is what makes dress lose its point in old age.A provincial, who puts up to follow the fashion in Paris, engages herself in an awkward way, which makes people laugh. A woman coming to Paris from the provinces ought to begin by dressing as if she were thirty.[7]P.84, note 5.[8]See the tone of society at Geneva, above all in the "best" families—use of a Court to correct the tendency towards prudery by laughing at it—Duclos telling stories to Madame de Rochefort—"Really, you take us for too virtuous." Nothing in the world is so nauseous as modesty not sincere.[9]"Ah, my dear Fronsac, there are twenty bottles of champagne between the story, that you're beginning to tell us, and our talk at this time of day."[10]It is the story of the melancholy temperament and the sanguine. Consider a virtuous woman (even the mercenary virtue of certain of the faithful—virtue to be had for a hundredfold reward in Paradise) and a blasé debauchee of forty. Although the Valmont(13)of theLiaisons Dangereusesis not as far gone as that, the Présidente de Tourvel(13)is happier than he all the way through the book: and if the author, with all his wit, had had still more, that would have been the moral of his ingenious novel.[11]Melancholy temperament, which may be called the temperament of love. I have seen women, the most distinguished and the most made for love, give the preference, for want of sense, to the prosaic, sanguine temperament. (Story of Alfred, Grande Chartreuse, 1810.)I know no thought which incites me more to keep what is called bad company.(Here poor Visconti loses himself in the clouds.)Fundamentally all women are the same so far as concerns the movements of the heart and passion: the forms the passions take are different. Consider the difference made by greater fortune, a more cultivated mind, the habit of higher thoughts, and, above all, (and more's the pity) a more irritable pride.Such and such a word irritates a princess, but would not in the very least shock an Alpine shepherdess. Only, once their anger is up, the passion works in princess and shepherdess the same). (The Editor's only note.)[12]M.'s remark.[13]Vol.Guarna.

[2]Shows one's love in a new way.

[3]See the admirable picture of these tedious manners at the end ofCorinne; and Madame de Staël has made a flattering portrait.

[4]The Bible and Aristocracy take a cruel revenge upon people who believe that duty is everything.

[5]I am advised to suppress this detail—"You take me for a very doubtful woman, to dare tell such stories in my presence."

[6]Modesty is one of the sources of taste in dress: by such and such an arrangement, a woman engages herself in a greater or less degree. This is what makes dress lose its point in old age.A provincial, who puts up to follow the fashion in Paris, engages herself in an awkward way, which makes people laugh. A woman coming to Paris from the provinces ought to begin by dressing as if she were thirty.

[6]Modesty is one of the sources of taste in dress: by such and such an arrangement, a woman engages herself in a greater or less degree. This is what makes dress lose its point in old age.

A provincial, who puts up to follow the fashion in Paris, engages herself in an awkward way, which makes people laugh. A woman coming to Paris from the provinces ought to begin by dressing as if she were thirty.

[7]P.84, note 5.

[8]See the tone of society at Geneva, above all in the "best" families—use of a Court to correct the tendency towards prudery by laughing at it—Duclos telling stories to Madame de Rochefort—"Really, you take us for too virtuous." Nothing in the world is so nauseous as modesty not sincere.

[9]"Ah, my dear Fronsac, there are twenty bottles of champagne between the story, that you're beginning to tell us, and our talk at this time of day."

[10]It is the story of the melancholy temperament and the sanguine. Consider a virtuous woman (even the mercenary virtue of certain of the faithful—virtue to be had for a hundredfold reward in Paradise) and a blasé debauchee of forty. Although the Valmont(13)of theLiaisons Dangereusesis not as far gone as that, the Présidente de Tourvel(13)is happier than he all the way through the book: and if the author, with all his wit, had had still more, that would have been the moral of his ingenious novel.

[11]Melancholy temperament, which may be called the temperament of love. I have seen women, the most distinguished and the most made for love, give the preference, for want of sense, to the prosaic, sanguine temperament. (Story of Alfred, Grande Chartreuse, 1810.)I know no thought which incites me more to keep what is called bad company.(Here poor Visconti loses himself in the clouds.)Fundamentally all women are the same so far as concerns the movements of the heart and passion: the forms the passions take are different. Consider the difference made by greater fortune, a more cultivated mind, the habit of higher thoughts, and, above all, (and more's the pity) a more irritable pride.Such and such a word irritates a princess, but would not in the very least shock an Alpine shepherdess. Only, once their anger is up, the passion works in princess and shepherdess the same). (The Editor's only note.)

I know no thought which incites me more to keep what is called bad company.

(Here poor Visconti loses himself in the clouds.)

Fundamentally all women are the same so far as concerns the movements of the heart and passion: the forms the passions take are different. Consider the difference made by greater fortune, a more cultivated mind, the habit of higher thoughts, and, above all, (and more's the pity) a more irritable pride.

Such and such a word irritates a princess, but would not in the very least shock an Alpine shepherdess. Only, once their anger is up, the passion works in princess and shepherdess the same). (The Editor's only note.)

[12]M.'s remark.

[13]Vol.Guarna.

This is the great weapon of virtuous coquetry. With a glance, one may say everything, and yet one can always deny a glance; for it cannot be repeated textually.

This reminds me of Count G——, the Mirabeau of Rome. The delightful little government of that land has taught him an original way of telling stories by a broken string of words, which say everything—and nothing. He makes his whole meaning clear, but repeat who will his sayings word for word, it is impossible to compromise him. Cardinal Lante told him he had stolen this talent from women—yes, and respectable women, I add. This roguery is a cruel, but just, reprisal on man's tyranny.

All their lives women hear mention made by men of things claiming importance—large profits, success in war, people killed in duels, fiendish or admirable revenges, and so on. Those of them, whose heart is proud, feel that, being unable to reach these things, they are not in a position to display any pride remarkable for the importance of what it rests on. They feel a heart beat in their breast, superior by the force and pride of its movements to all which surrounds them, and yet they see the meanest of men esteem himself above them. They find out, that all their pride can only be for little things, or at least for things, which are without importance except for sentiment, and of which a third party cannot judge. Maddened by this desolating contrast between the meanness of their fortune and the conscious worth of their soul, they set about making their pride worthy of respect by the intensity of its fits or by the relentless tenacity with which they hold by its dictates. Before intimate intercourse women of this kind imagine, when they see their lover, that he has laid siege to them. Their imagination is absorbed in irritation at his endeavours, which, after all, cannot do otherwise than witness to his love—seeing that he does love. Instead of enjoying the feelings of the man of their preference, their vanity is up in arms against him; and it comes to this, that, with a soul of the tenderest, so long as its sensibility is not centred on a special object, they have only to love, inorder, like a common flirt, to be reduced to the barest vanity.

A woman of generous character will sacrifice her life a thousand times for her lover, but will break with him for ever over a question of pride—for the opening or shutting of a door. Therein lies their point of honour. Well! Napoleon came to grief rather than yield a village.

I have seen a quarrel of this kind last longer than a year. It was a woman of the greatest distinction who sacrificed all her happiness, sooner than give her lover the chance of entertaining the slightest possible doubt of the magnanimity of her pride. The reconciliation was the work of chance, and, on my friend's side, due to a moment of weakness, which, on meeting her lover, she was unable to overcome. She imagined him forty miles away, and found him in a place, where certainly he did not expect to see her. She could not hide the first transports of delight; her lover was more overcome than she; they almost fell at each other's feet and never have I seen tears flow so abundantly—it was the unlooked-for appearance of happiness. Tears are the supreme smile.

The Duke of Argyll gave a fine example of presence of mind, in not drawing Feminine Pride into a combat, in the interview he had at Richmond with Queen Caroline.[1]The more nobility in a woman's character, the more terrible are these storms—

As the blackest skyForetells the heaviest tempest.(Don Juan.)

As the blackest skyForetells the heaviest tempest.

(Don Juan.)

Can it be that the more fervently, in the normal course of life, a woman delights in the rare qualities of her lover, the more she tries, in those cruel moments, when sympathy seems turned to the reverse, to wreak her vengeance on what usually she sees in him superiorto other people? She is afraid of being confounded with them.

It is a precious long time since I read that boringClarissa; but I think it is through feminine pride that she lets herself die, and does not accept the hand of Lovelace.

Lovelace's fault was great; but as she did love him a little, she could have found pardon in her heart for a crime, of which the cause was love.

Monime, on the contrary, seems to me a touching model of feminine delicacy. What cheek does not blush with pleasure to hear from the lips of an actress worthy of the part:—

That fatal love which I had crushed and conquered,. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Your wiles detected, and I cannot nowDisown what I confess'd; you cannot razeIts memory; the shame of that avowal,To which you forced me, will abide for everPresent before my mind, and I should thinkThat you were always of my faith uncertain.The grave itself to me were less abhorrentThan marriage bed shared with a spouse, who tookCruel advantage of my simple trust,And, to destroy my peace for ever, fann'dA flame that fired my cheek for other loveThan his.[2]

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I can picture to myself future generations saying: "So that's what Monarchy[3]was good for—to produce that sort of character and their portrayal by great artists. "

And yet I find an admirable example of this delicacy even in the republics of the Middle Ages; which seems to destroy my system of the influence of governments on the passions, but which I shall cite in good faith.

The reference is to those very touching verses of Dante:

Deh! quando tu sarai tomato al mondo. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Ricordati di me, che son la Pia;Siena mi fè; disfecemi Maremma;Salsi colui, che inanellata priaDisposando, m'avea con la sua gemma.Purgatorio, Cant. V.[4]

Deh! quando tu sarai tomato al mondo. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Ricordati di me, che son la Pia;Siena mi fè; disfecemi Maremma;Salsi colui, che inanellata priaDisposando, m'avea con la sua gemma.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Purgatorio, Cant. V.[4]

The woman, who speaks with so much restraint, had suffered in secret the fate of Desdemona, and, by a word, could make known her husband's crime to the friends, whom she had left on earth.

Nello della Pietra won the hand of Madonna Pia(14), sole heiress of the Tolomei, the richest and noblest family of Sienna. Her beauty, which was the admiration of Tuscany, sowed in her husband's heart the seed of jealousy, which, envenomed by false reports and suspicions ever and anon rekindled, led him to a heinous project. It is difficult, at this hour, to decide whether his wife was altogether innocent, but Dante represents her as such.

Her husband carried her off into the fens of Volterra, famous then, as now, for the effects of thearia cattiva. Never would he tell his unhappy wife the reason of her exile in so dangerous a place. His pride did not deign to utter complaint or accusation. He lived alone with her in a deserted tower, the ruins of which by the edge of the sea I have been myself to visit. There he never broke his scornful silence, never answered his young wife's questions, never listened to her prayers. Coldly he waited at her side for the pestilential air to have its effect. The exhalations of these morasses were not long in withering those features—the loveliest, it is said,which, in that century, the world had seen. In a few months she died. Some chroniclers of those remote times report that Nello used the dagger to hasten her end. She died in the fens in some horrible way; but the kind of death was a mystery even to her contemporaries. Nello della Pietra survived to pass the rest of his days in a silence which he never broke.

Nothing nobler and more delicate than the way in which young la Pia addresses Dante. She wishes to be recalled to the memory of the friends, whom she had left on earth so young; and yet, telling who she is and giving the name of her husband, she will not allow herself the slightest complaint against a piece of cruelty unheard of, but for the future irreparable; she only points out that he knows the story of her death.

This constancy in pride's revenge is not met, I think, except in the countries of the South.

In Piedmont I happened to be the involuntary witness of something very nearly parallel; though at the time I did not know the details. I was sent with twenty-five dragoons into the woods along the Sesia, to intercept contraband. Arriving in the evening at this wild and desolate spot, I caught sight between the trees of the ruins of an old castle. I went up to it and to my great surprise—it was inhabited. I found within a nobleman of the country, of sinister appearance, a man six foot high and forty years old. He gave me two rooms with a bad grace. I passed my time playing music with my quartermaster; after some days, we discovered that our friend kept a woman in the background, whom we used to call Camille, laughingly; but we were far from suspecting the fearful truth. Six weeks later she was dead. I had the morbid curiosity to see her in the coffin, paying a monk, who was watching, to introduce me into the chapel towards midnight, under pretext of going to sprinkle holy water. There I found one of those superb faces, which are beautiful even in the arms of death;she had a large aquiline nose—the nobility and delicacy of its outline I shall never forget. Then I left that deadly spot. Five years later, a detachment of my regiment accompanying the Emperor to his coronation as King of Italy(15), I had the whole story told me. I learnt that the jealous husband, Count ——, had found one morning fastened to his wife's bed an English watch, belonging to a young man of the small town in which they lived. That very day he carried her off to the ruined castle in the midst of the woods of the Sesia. Like Nello della Pietra, he never uttered a single word. If she made him any request, he coldly and silently presented to her the English watch, which he carried always with him. Almost three years passed, spent thus alone with her. At last she died of despair, in the flower of life. Her husband tried to put a knife into the proprietor of the watch, missed him, passed on to Genoa, took ship and no one has heard of him since. His property has been divided.

As for these women with feminine pride, if you take their injuries with a good grace, which the habits of a military life make easy, you annoy these proud souls; they take you for a coward, and very soon become outrageous. Such lofty characters yield with pleasure to men whom they see overbearing with other men. That is, I fancy, the only way—you must often pick a quarrel with your neighbour in order to avoid one with your mistress.

One day Miss Cornel, the celebrated London actress, was surprised by the unexpected appearance of the rich colonel, whom she found useful. She happened to be with a little lover, whom she just liked—and nothing more. "Mr. So-and-so," says she in great confusion to the colonel, "has come to see the pony I want to sell." "I am here for something very different," put in proudly the little lover who was beginning to bore her, but whom, from the moment of that answer, she startedto love again madly.[5]Women of that kind sympathise with their lover's haughtiness, instead of exercising at his expense their own disposition to pride.

The character of the Duc de Lauzun (that of 1660[6]), if they can forgive the first day its want of grace, is very fascinating for such women, and perhaps for all women of distinction. Grandeur on a higher plane escapes them; they take for coldness the calm gaze which nothing escapes, but which a detail never disturbs. Have I not heard women at the Court of Saint-Cloud maintain that Napoleon had a dry and prosaic character?[7]A great man is like an eagle: the higher he rises the less he is visible, and he is punished for his greatness by the solitude of his soul.

From feminine pride arises what women call want of refinement. I fancy, it is not at all unlike what kings calllèse majesté, a crime all the more dangerous, becauseone slips into it without knowing. The tenderest lover may be accused of wanting refinement, if he is not very sharp, or, what is sadder, if he dares give himself up to the greatest charm of love—the delight of being perfectly natural with the loved one and of not listening to what he is told.

These are the sort of things, of which a well-born heart could have no inkling; one must have experience, in order to believe in them; for we are misled by the habit of dealing justly and frankly with our men friends.

It is necessary to keep in mind incessantly that we have to do with beings, who can, however wrongly, think themselves inferior in vigour of character, or, to put it better, can think that others believe they are inferior.

Should not a woman's true pride reside in the power of the feeling she inspires? A maid of honour to the queen and wife of Francis I was chaffed about the fickleness of her lover, who, it was said, did not really love her. A little time after, this lover had an illness and reappeared at Court—dumb. Two years later, people showing surprise one day that she still loved him, she turned to him, saying: "Speak." And he spoke.

[1]The Heart of Midlothian.[2]Racine,Mithridates, Act IV, Sc. 4. [From the Metrical English version of R. B. Boswell. (Bohn's Standard Library.—Tr.)][3]Monarchy without charter and without chambers.[4]Ah! when you are returned to the world of the living, give me a passing thought. I am la Pia. Sienna gave me life, death took me in our fens. He who, wedding me, gave me his ring, knows my story.[5]I always come back from Miss Cornel's full of admiration and profound views on the passions laid bare. Her very imperious way of giving orders to her servants has nothing of despotism in it: she merely sees with precision and rapidity what has to be done.Incensed against me at the beginning of the visit, she thinks no more about it at the end. She tells me in detail of the economy of her passion for Mortimer. "I prefer seeing him in company than alone with me." A woman of the greatest genius could do no better, for she has the courage to be perfectly natural and is unhampered by any theory. "I'm happier an actress than the wife of a peer."—A great soul whose friendship I must keep for my enlightenment.[6]Loftiness and courage in small matters, but a passionate care for these small matters.—The vehemence of the choleric temperament.—His behaviour towards Madame de Monaco (Saint-Simon, V. 383) and adventure under the bed of Madame de Montespan while the king was there.—Without the care for small matters, this character would remain invisible to the eye of women.[7]When Minna Troil heard a tale of woe or of romance, it was then her blood rushed to her cheeks and showed plainly how warm it beat, notwithstanding the generally serious, composed and retiring disposition which her countenance and demeanour seemed to exhibit. (The Pirate, Chap. III.)Souls like Minna Troil, in whose judgment ordinary circumstances are not worth emotion, by ordinary people are thought cold.

[1]The Heart of Midlothian.

[2]Racine,Mithridates, Act IV, Sc. 4. [From the Metrical English version of R. B. Boswell. (Bohn's Standard Library.—Tr.)]

[3]Monarchy without charter and without chambers.

[4]Ah! when you are returned to the world of the living, give me a passing thought. I am la Pia. Sienna gave me life, death took me in our fens. He who, wedding me, gave me his ring, knows my story.

[5]I always come back from Miss Cornel's full of admiration and profound views on the passions laid bare. Her very imperious way of giving orders to her servants has nothing of despotism in it: she merely sees with precision and rapidity what has to be done.Incensed against me at the beginning of the visit, she thinks no more about it at the end. She tells me in detail of the economy of her passion for Mortimer. "I prefer seeing him in company than alone with me." A woman of the greatest genius could do no better, for she has the courage to be perfectly natural and is unhampered by any theory. "I'm happier an actress than the wife of a peer."—A great soul whose friendship I must keep for my enlightenment.

Incensed against me at the beginning of the visit, she thinks no more about it at the end. She tells me in detail of the economy of her passion for Mortimer. "I prefer seeing him in company than alone with me." A woman of the greatest genius could do no better, for she has the courage to be perfectly natural and is unhampered by any theory. "I'm happier an actress than the wife of a peer."—A great soul whose friendship I must keep for my enlightenment.

[6]Loftiness and courage in small matters, but a passionate care for these small matters.—The vehemence of the choleric temperament.—His behaviour towards Madame de Monaco (Saint-Simon, V. 383) and adventure under the bed of Madame de Montespan while the king was there.—Without the care for small matters, this character would remain invisible to the eye of women.

[7]When Minna Troil heard a tale of woe or of romance, it was then her blood rushed to her cheeks and showed plainly how warm it beat, notwithstanding the generally serious, composed and retiring disposition which her countenance and demeanour seemed to exhibit. (The Pirate, Chap. III.)Souls like Minna Troil, in whose judgment ordinary circumstances are not worth emotion, by ordinary people are thought cold.

Souls like Minna Troil, in whose judgment ordinary circumstances are not worth emotion, by ordinary people are thought cold.

I tell thee, proud Templar, that not in thy fiercest battles hast thou displayed more of thy vaunted courage than has been shewn by women, when called upon to suffer by affection or duty. (Ivanhoe.)

I remember meeting the following phrase in a book of history: "All the men lost their head: that is the moment when women display an incontestable superiority."

Their courage has a reserve which that of their lover wants; he acts as a spur to their sense of worth. They find so much pleasure in being able, in the fire of danger, to dispute the first place for firmness with the man, who often wounds them by the proudness of his protection and his strength, that the vehemence of that enjoyment raises them above any kind of fear, which at the moment is the man's weak point. A man, too, if the same help were given him at the same moment, would show himself superior to everything; for fear never resides in the danger, but in ourselves.

Not that I mean to depreciate women's courage—I have seen them, on occasions, superior to the bravest men. Only they must have a man to love. Then they no longer feel except through him; and so the most obvious and personal danger becomes, as it were, a rose to gather in his presence.[1]

I have found also in women, who did not love, intrepidity,the coldest, the most surprising and the most exempt from nerves.

It is true, I have always imagined that they are so brave, only because they do not know the tiresomeness of wounds!

As for moral courage, so far superior to the other, the firmness of a woman who resists her love is simply the most admirable thing, which can exist on earth. All other possible marks of courage are as nothing compared to a thing so strongly opposed to nature and so arduous. Perhaps they find a source of strength in the habit of sacrifice, which is bred in them by modesty.

Hard on women it is that the proofs of this courage should always remain secret and be almost impossible to divulge.

Still harder that it should always be employed against their own happiness: the Princesse de Clèves would have done better to say nothing to her husband and give herself to M. de Nemours.

Perhaps women are chiefly supported by their pride in making a fine defence, and imagine that their lover is staking his vanity on having them—a petty and miserable idea. A man of passion, who throws himself with a light heart into so many ridiculous situations, must have a lot of time to be thinking of vanity! It is like the monks who mean to catch the devil and find their reward in the pride of hair-shirts and macerations.

I should think that Madame de Clèves would have repented, had she come to old age,—to the period at which one judges life and when the joys of pride appear in all their meanness. She would have wished to have lived like Madame de la Fayette.[2]

I have just re-read a hundred pages of this essay: and a pretty poor idea I have given of true love, of love which occupies the entire soul, fills it with fancies, now the happiest, now heart-breaking—but always sublime—and makes it completely insensible to all the rest of creation. I am at a loss to express what I see so well; I have never felt more painfully the want of talent. How bring into relief the simplicity of action and of character, the high seriousness, the glance that reflects so truly and so ingenuously the passing shade of feeling, and above all, to return to it again, that inexpressibleWhat care I?for all that is not the woman we love? A yes or a no spoken by a man in love has anunctionwhich is not to be found elsewhere, and is not found in that very man at other times. This morning (August 3rd) I passed on horseback about nine o'clock in front of the lovely English garden of Marchese Zampieri, situated on the last crests of those tree-capped hills, on which Bologna rests, and from which so fine a view is enjoyed over Lombardy rich and green—the fairest country in the world. In a copse of laurels, belonging to the Giardino Zampieri, which dominates the path I was taking, leading to the cascade of the Reno at Casa Lecchio, I saw Count Delfante. He was absorbed in thought and scarcely returned my greeting, though we had passed the night together till two o'clock in the morning. I went to the cascade, I crossed the Reno; after which, passing again, at least three hours later, under the copse of the Giardino Zampieri, I saw him still there. He was precisely in the same position, leaning against a great pine, which rises above the copse of laurels—but this detail I am afraid will be found too simple and pointless. He came up to me with tears in his eyes, asking me not to go telling people of his trance. I was touched, and suggested retracing my steps and going with him to spend the day in the country. At the end of two hours he had told me everything. His is a fine soul,but oh! the coldness of these pages, compared to his story.

Furthermore, he thinks his love is not returned—which is not my opinion. In the fair marble face of the Contessa Ghigi, with whom we spent the evening, one can read nothing. Only now and then a light and sudden blush, which she cannot check, just betrays the emotions of that soul, which the most exalted feminine pride disputes with deeper emotions. You see the colour spread over her neck of alabaster and as much as one catches of those lovely shoulders, worthy of Canova. She somehow finds a way of diverting her black and sombre eyes from the observation of those, whose penetration alarms her woman's delicacy; but last night, at something which Delfante was saying and of which she disapproved, I saw a sudden blush spread all over her. Her lofty soul found him less worthy of her.

But when all is said, even if I were mistaken in my conjectures on the happiness of Delfante, vanity apart, I think him happier than I, in my indifference, although I am in a thoroughly happy position, in appearance and in reality.

Bologna,August 3rd, 1818.

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