The friendship all divine which Jesus showed for many women, of whom Mary and Martha, the sisters of his friend Lazarus, are examples—the friendship which drew such matchless devotion from them, has been perpetuated in the Church in a relation of peculiar tenderness between the priest and the devotee.
"Many women followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering unto him." With what godlike benignity he spoke to the Samaritan woman, to the Syrophenician woman, and to the poor adulteress! With what indescribable compassion he turned to the women who accompanied him towards Calvary, bewailing and lamenting him, and said, "Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me". And what words shall be set beside those which fell from his lips when, as he hung on the cross, he saw his mother, and the disciple standing by whom he loved, and he saith unto his mother, "Woman, behold thy son!" then he saith to the disciple, "Behold thy mother!" Verily, from that hour, the Church has taken woman to itself, as the recipient of a ministration full of respect and purity. In any enumeration of renowned ecclesiastical friendships, Saint Chrysostom and Saint Olympias, the gold-mouthed bishop of Constantinople and the rich and noble widow, deserve to head the list. Under the guidance of the eloquent preacher, she labored to perfect herself in the religious life, and gave her time and wealth to all kinds of charity and good works. From her Christian affection he drew precious strength and comfort. When he was carried from his church and driven into exile, the weeping Olympias fell at his feet, and clasped them so closely that the officers had to use force in tearing him from her. Sixteen letters addressed to her by Chrysostom during his banishment are still extant, silently pronouncing her eulogy throughout the Christian world. A friendship like the foregoing, only still more complete, was that of Saint Jerome and Saint Paula. The talents, scholarship, services, and enthusiasm of Jerome are universally known; and the chief personal attachment of his life is scarcely less familiar to the public. Paula, immortalized not less in literary history as his friend than in the ecclesiastical calendar for her virtues, was one of the most distinguished women of the age. She had great riches and high rank, as well as pronounced talents and worth. The blood of the Scipios, of the Gracchi, and of Paulus Emilius, met in her veins. Jerome was her spiritual director at Rome for two years and a half-her other soul while life remained. She built and supported at her own expense an extensive monastery for Jerome and his monks at Bethlehem. When she died, Jerome wrote to her daughter the long and celebrated letter called "Epitaph of Paula," in which he exhausts the hyperboles of praise. The features of a rare character and the proofs of an extraordinary affection may be discerned within the extravagances of this eloquent panegyric. The tombs of Jerome and Paula are still to be seen side by side in the monastery at Bethlehem. Saint Clara of Assisi, on account of her high rank, great wealth, and extreme loveliness, had many offers of marriage, many temptations to enter into the gayeties and luxuries of the world. But she preferred the thorny path of mortification and the crown of celestial beatitude. The melting pathos of the preaching of Saint Francis, with the penetrative charm of his spirit, drew her to throw herself at his feet and supplicate his guidance. He approved her desire to devote herself wholly to the religious life in seclusion; and, when she had made her escape by night from the proud castle, clad in her festal garments, and with a palm-branch in her hand, he and his poor brotherhood met her at the chapel-door, with lighted tapers and hymns of praise, and led her to the altar. Francis cut off her long golden hair, and threw his own penitential habit over her. She became his disciple, daughter, and friend, never wavering, though exposed to dangers and trials of the severest character. Under his direction, she formed the famous order of Franciscan nuns, afterwards named from her the Poor Clares.
These nuns, clad in gowns of gray wool, knotted girdles, white coifs and black veils, engaged in touching works of humility and charity, have been seen in many nations now for seven centuries, keeping alive the example of their foundress. When the body of Saint Francis, on its way to burial, was borne by the church of San Damiano, where Clara and her nuns dwelt, she came forth with them weeping, saluted the remains of her friend, and kissed his hands and his garments. The memory of the relation of these sainted friends is perpetuated in many pictures of the Madonna, wherein Clara is portrayed on one side of the throne of the Virgin, and Francis on the other, both barefooted, and wearing the gray tunic and knotted cord emblematic of poverty. Perhaps the most fervent and interesting of all the friendships between director and devotee, of which the documents have been published, is that of Saint Francis of Sales and Madame de Chantal. Full materials for studying this relation are furnished in the letters that passed between the parties, both of whom were of a temperament strung to the most exquisite tones of consciousness, with minds both wise and strong, and with characters under the control of austere principles of duty and piety. Michelet, in his work on the Confessional, gives a skilful and forcible picture of this rapt friendship; but his own pervading sensuousness, not to say sensuality, does the sentiment gross injustice by mixing in it so much of flesh and earth. The union of these two mystics in spirit and deed was as taintless as that of two angels in heaven.
If throbs of agonizing passion sometimes mounted up, the invariable heroism with which they were veiled and suppressed simply adds the martyr merit to the saintly one. Saint Francis had an irresistible attractiveness of figure and face, a temper and bearing of singular sweetness. Childlike, and so fair in appearance that it was difficult to withdraw the eyes from him, he united the greatest social insight and skill with the greatest sincerity and simplicity. Madame de Chantal, early left a widow, with several children and an aged and infirm father, administered the business of her household with systematic prudence, and filled her leisure hours with fervent religious exercises. Saint Francis and Madame de Chantal seem to have been predestined for friends. Their biographers relate, that, long before they had seen each other, they met in mystical visions and ecstasies. Archbishop Fremiot, brother of Madame de Chantal, and an intimate acquaintance of Saint Francis, invited him to preach at Dijon. During his sermon, the preacher noticed one lady particularly above the rest; and, as he came down from the desk, asked, "Who is that young widow who listened so attentively to the word?" The archbishop replied, "That is my sister, the Baroness de Chantal." An inspired understanding appears to have at once united their minds. "It is enchantment," Michelet says, "to read the vivacious and delightful letters which open the correspondence of Saint Francis with his dear sister and dear daughter. Nothing can be more pure, nothing can be more ardent." He says the sentiment she awakened powerfully assisted his spiritual progress. He thought of her at the moment of partaking of the sacrament. "I have given you and your widowed heart and your children daily to the Lord, in offering up his Son." She dispensed with her former confessor, and confided her spirit to Saint Francis. She desired to take the conventual vows; but he restrained her a long time. In the name of his mother, he gave her his young sister to educate.
This occupation tranquillized her mind; but the beloved child soon died at her house, in her arms. She prayed God "to take her own life, or one of her children, in place of her dear pupil." Saint Francis now consented that she should withdraw from the world. Her household presented a piteous scene-her old father and father-in-law in tears; her son, afterwards the father of Madame de Sévigné, prostrating himself on the threshold to prevent her departure. But the passionate response in her to the supposed call of Heaven broke all lower ties; and she passed over the body of her son, and said farewell for ever to her home. Saint Francis intrusted her with the formation of a new religious order—the celebrated Order of the Visitation. In nurturing this order, writing, travelling, praying in its interests, with intervals of silent retreat, she spent the rest of her days. Her intense temperament, her absolute faith and submission, her systematic attention to business, her mystical ecstasies, her heroic sacrifice, form a most original combination. Her life seems an alternation of sober processes, stormy raptures, and stifling calms. Her restless sensibility, girdled by fixed principle, gives us the picture of a sea of fire breaking on a shore of frost. Her essay on "Desire and the Agony of Disappointment" is a gush forced from the bottom of a heart full of baffled feeling, under the pressure of a mountain of pain. The constancy and power of her attachment to Saint Francis, through all, are marvellous. On the day of his mother's death, he writes, "I have given you the place of my mother in my memorial at the mass: now you hold in my heart both her place and your own." She writes to him, "Pray that I may not survive you." Twenty years did she outlive him; finding, to the last, her greatest pleasure in remembering him, carrying out his wishes, and corresponding about him with his friends. Ten years after the death of Saint Francis, Madame de Chantal had his tomb opened in the presence of her community, and made an address before the embalmed body. A testimony to the deep impression their friendship had made is found in the myth, that, when on this occasion she reverently lifted to her head the dead hand of the saint, it acknowledged her devotion by an answering caress. The winning qualities of Madame Guion awakened an enthusiastic interest in many of those whom her remarkable religious experience brought into close relations with her. Especially they produced in her confessor, Father Lacombe, such a ruling admiration, reverence, and tenderness, that he was subdued into a caricature of her. He followed her everywhere, could not dine without her, made her directions his law. When her peculiar doctrines of the Quietist life, and her fame, had caused a disturbance in the Church, her enemies circulated scandals about the friends. The spotless and heavenly-minded woman smiled, and paid no heed to the wrong. But Father Lacombe, under the combined power of his Quietistic fanaticism, poor health, bitter persecutions, and relentless imprisonment, lost the balance of his mind altogether, and died. Fenelon also, interested in Madame Guion by her genuine piety, and by sympathy with many of her views, and finding this interest greatly deepened on personal acquaintance, formed a strong attachment for her. Convinced of her innocence, and knowing her rare worth, the misfortunes and sufferings brought on her by her persecutors served but to redouble his kindness. Her enemies then became his; and they made him pay dearly for his fidelity, by robbing him of waiting honors, and throwing him into disgrace at court.
His friendship for Madame Guion was like that of a guardian angel. It never failed. One can imagine what her feelings towards him must have been. Many noble women had a strong friendship for Fenelon. He could not come into the confiding relations of his office with them without that result. His face was all intelligence and all harmony; his voice, music; his manner, fascination; his character, heaven. His unconscious suavity, his abnegated personality, formed a mighty magnet; and every soul, with any steel of nobleness in it, fondly swayed to him. Madame Maintenon gave him, for years, all the reverence and affection of which her commonplace nature was capable; and then, at the command of her selfish bigotry, became chilled. The impassioned and unhappy La Maisonfort, so talented and so beautiful, whose pathetic story is charged with every element of romance, adored him. And the Duchess de Chevreuse and the Duchess de Beauvilliers always paid him an homage whose grace and sweetness the happiest man that ever lived might well sigh for. To the latter of these queenly women, then a sorrowing widow, he wrote, in the last letter he penned, "We shall soon find again that which we have not lost: every day we approach it with swift strides; yet a little while, and there will be no more cause for tears." Among the penitents of Bossuet, there was one—a widow, named Cornuau, to whom the great prelate gave more of his heart than to any of the rest. In submitting her spiritual life to his oversight, they were often brought together, both by letters and by personal interviews. The affectionate docility and loyalty of the novice won his kind esteem, and the condescending benignity and greatness of the noble genius kindled her enthusiasm. And so the opposite ends of the chain of their attachment were fastened. After displaying exemplary zeal, for fifteen years, in all the works of duty assigned her, she was permitted to become a nun, taking the name of Bossuet in addition to the title of Sister Saint Benigne. Despite her humble origin and the mediocrity of her intellect, Bossuet preferred her above all the high-born and brilliant ladies who constantly knelt for his benedictions. It was only natural, that, notwithstanding the work of grace, she should sometimes feel jealous. But once, after she had expressed herself "ready to burst with jealousy" of a certain great lady, whom she falsely supposed esteemed more than herself by the lofty director, when the object of her jealousy was smitten with a frightful disease, Sister Benigne, with sublime self-sacrifice, went to Paris, and became her nurse; "shut herself up with her, watched over and loved her." When Bossuet died, La Cornuau, "happily guided by her friendship, forgetting her own vanity, and mindful only of the fame of her spiritual father, did more for him, perhaps, than any panegyrist." She published the two hundred letters he had written to her, "noble letters, written in profound secrecy, never intended to see the light, but worthy of exposure to the perusal of the whole world."
A friendship, such as we might suppose would be characteristic of such ecstatic natures, was cherished between the two celebrated Spanish mystics, Saint Theresa and Saint John of the Cross. The fullest expressions of it may be found in their respective writings, now translated into many languages, and easy of access almost anywhere. Unquestionably there have been very numerous Friendships, worthy of notice, between clergymen and devout women, in the Protestant sects. But they are different from those in the Catholic communion, which has, in this respect, great advantages. In the Protestant establishment, all are on a free equality; and the religion is an element fused into the life. With the Catholics, the overwhelming authority of the Church invests the priests with godlike attributes; while celibacy detaches their hearts from the home and family, leaving them ready for other calls. The laity are placed in a passive attitude, except as to faith and affection, which are more active for the restrictions applied elsewhere; and religion is pursued and practised as an art by itself. The church ritual, by its dramatic contents and movement, peerless in its pathetic, imaginative power, intensifies and cleanses the passions of those who appreciatively celebrate or witness it, and who are naturally attracted together, as, in blended devotional emotions and aims, they cultivate that supernatural art whose infinite interests make all earthly concerns appear dwarfed and pale.
The instances already cited of the friendships thus originating suffice to indicate the wealth in this kind of experience which must remain for ever unknown to the public. But one example which has just been brought to light, and is worthy to rank with the best of earlier times, should be mentioned here. It is the relation of Madame Swetchine and the most renowned preacher of our century, Lacordaire. This friendship has been beautifully portrayed by Montalembert. A full account of it will be found farther on in these pages. The friendship that joined the souls, and still links the names, of Vittoria Colonna and Michael Angelo, is one of the most celebrated in history. Her married life with the chivalrous and magnificent Marquis of Pescara, in his palace on the bewitching isle of Ischia, was one of the most romantically happy unions ever known; and nothing could be more noble than her impassioned fidelity to his memory. It was in the twelfth year of her widowhood that she first met with Michael Angelo, then sixty-three years old. Such were their respective attributes of personal worth and majesty, rank and fame, exaltation of character and genius, stainless purity, dignity, earnestness, and devotion, that they could not fail to regard each other with ardent esteem. For ten years, till death separated them, this esteem, with a consequent sympathy and happiness, steadily grew. To her he dedicated many works of his chisel and his pencil, and addressed several exquisite poems.
Their example affords a fine illustration of the sentiment of Platonic love; and his verses repeatedly give it a rhetorical expression equally fine. He says,
Better pleaLove cannot have, than that, in loving thee,Glory to that eternal Peace is paid,Who such divinity to thee impartsAs hallows and makes pure all gentle hearts.His hope is treacherous only whose love diesWith beauty, which is varying every hour.But in chaste hearts, uninfluenced by the powerOf outward change, there blooms a deathless flower,That breathes on earth the air of Paradise.
Vittoria said, "He who admires only the works of Michael Angelo values the smallest part in him." One of the only two portraits he ever painted was hers. The aged Angelo stood by the couch of Vittoria at her death. When the last breath had gone, "he raised her hand, and kissed it with a sacred respect." It is touching to know, that the sublime old man, years afterwards, recalling that scene to a friend, lamented, that, in the awe of the moment, he had refrained from pressing his lips on those of the sainted Colonna. Hermann Grimm says, "How great the loss was which he sustained can be realized only by him who has himself felt the void which the removal of a superior intellect irretrievably leaves behind it. It must have been to him as if a long-used, magnificent book, in which he found words suiting every mood, had been suddenly closed, never to be re-opened. Nothing can compensate for the loss of a friend who has journeyed with us for many years, sharing our experiences. Vittoria was the only one who had ever fully opened her soul to him. What profit could he draw from the reverence of those who would have ceased to understand him, had he shown himself as he was in truth? His only consolation was the thought, that his own career was near its close."
Among the celebrated French women, who have had a genius and a passion for friendships, Mademoiselle de Scudéry deserves prominent mention. Her great talents, virtuous character, and affectionate disposition, made her a favorite in the distinguished society she frequented. The great Conde, Madame de Longueville, and the other famous visitors of the Hotel Rambouillet, honored her, and took delight in her companionship. Her ardent devotion to her friends, her beautiful and heroic fidelity to them, her chivalrous vein of sentiment and character, Cousin has illustrated with his minute learning and generous eloquence. Why Madame de Longueville was in disgrace with the court party, Mademoiselle de Scudéry, with a fearless and noble constancy, dedicated a book to her, and, in consequence, lost her pension, and had to write for her bread. For this her aristocratic friends, instead of forsaking her, admired and clung to her the more. Her famous work, the "Grand Cyrus," in ten thick volumes, to which Cousin has brought to light a complete key, is filled with disguised portraits of her friends and associates, and with descriptions of the times.
She draws her own likeness under the name of Sappho. In this work, the pictures, incidents, and conversations reflect a state of society, in which "the degrees and shades of friendship, from deep Platonic love to the slight impression one person makes on another at first meeting, are the real pre-occupations of existence; the smallest grace of mind or manner is observed, and of importance; there is an intense epicurism in companionship; it is both the first occupation and the greatest pleasure of life." The second edition of an English translation of the whole ten volumes of the "Grand Cyrus" was published in London in 1691. The translator, F. G., Esq., erroneously attributes the authorship to "that famous wit of France, Monsieur de Scudéry, Governour of Nostre-Dame." He confounds the sister with the brother. It is dedicated to Queen Mary, wife of William of Orange, in a style of sonorous pomp, worthy of the court of Nadir Shah. In his preface, F. G. says, "If you ask what the subject is; 'Tis the Height of Prowess, intermixed with Virtuous and Heroick Love; consequently the language lofty, and becoming the Grandeur of the Illustrious Personages that speak; so far from the least Sully of what may be thought Vain or Fulsom, that there is not anything to provoke a Blush from the most modest Virgin; while Love and Honour are in a seeming Contention which shall best instruct the willing ear with most Delight." In describing the deep and rare friendships with which the "Grand Cyrus" abounds, Mademoiselle de Scudéry had but to look into her own heart, and make copies from her experience. Especially might the union of Sappho and Phaon stand for the picture of her own connection with Pélisson." The exchange of their thoughts was so sincere that all those in Sappho's mind passed into Phaon's, and all those in Phaon's came into Sappho's. They told each other every particular of their lives; and so perfect was their union, that nothing was ever seen equal to it. Never did love join so much purity to so much ardor. He wished for nothing beyond the possession of her heart. They understood each other without words, and saw their whole hearts in each other's eyes." Pélisson was twenty-nine, and Mademoiselle de Scudéry forty-five, when they first met. Their instant mutual interest deepened, on more thorough acquaintance, into the warmest esteem and affection, and remained unshaken for over forty years. The perfection of their intimacy was known to every one; and every one believed in its entire purity. Cousin says it is touching to see these two noble persons made so happy by their friendship, a friendship which even the coarse and slanderous Tallement respected so much that he refrained from casting a single sneer at it. The story of Pélisson's imprisonment in the Bastile is known to the whole world by the anecdote of the spider.
His only companion, during those wretched years, was a large spider, which he had tamed, and was accustomed to feed and play with. One day, the brute of a jailer trod on him, and killed him; and Passon wept. His friend employed all her ingenuity, during his confinement, in inventing means of communication with him. "At times, when he was ready to fall into despair, a few lines would reach him, and bring him comfort." At length his prison was opened, and fortune smiled again. At his death, Mademoiselle de Scudéry, though eighty-six years old, wrote and published a simple and affecting memoir of him, paying a deserved tribute to his character, in which, she said, there reigned a singular and most charming combination of tenderness, delicacy, and generosity. The most constant among the large circle of admiring friends drawn around Madame de Sévigné by her merits and charms was a cultivated Italian gentleman named Corbinelli, who lived in Paris, on a moderate income, asking only leisure, and the gratification of his high tastes. He was "one of those rare exceptions who seem created by nature to be the benevolent spectators of human events, without taking any part in them beyond that of observation and interest for the actors." He had talents equal to the greatest achievements, but was indolent and unambitious.
He was one of the earliest to discern and to proclaim Madame de Sévigné's exquisite superiority of mind, disposition, and manners, and to pay reverential court to her. Lamartine gives this account of the friendship that ensued—an account not less instructive than interesting: "His admiration, his worship, which sought no return, gained him admittance to her house, where he was regarded as one of the family, and became a necessary appendage. Madame de Sévigné, at first charmed by his wit, afterward touched by his disinterested attachment, concluded by making him the confidant of her most secret emotions. Every heart that beats warmly beneath its own bosom seeks to hear itself repeated in that of another. Corbinelli became the echo of Madame de Sévigné's mind, soul, and existence. He participated in her adoration of her daughter. At Paris, he visited her every day: he sometimes followed her to Livry; and, when absent, corresponded with her frequently.
"The dominion which his friend exercised over him was so gentle, that he experienced no feeling of slavery while submitting 'implicitly to the rule of her tastes. So absolute was her empire, that, when she became a devotee, he became a mystic: he followed her, as the satellite accompanies the planet, from the worldly gayeties of her youth, even to the foot of the altar, and the ascetic self-denial of Port-Royal. He survived her, as though he had survived himself, and lived to the extraordinary age of one hundred and four years, animated to unusual life by his gentle and amiable feelings. Such was Madame de Sévigné's principal friend. If his name were erased from her letters, the monument would be mutilated." La Rochefoucauld, whose reputation the indignant eloquence of Cousin has so damaged, was the object of an admiring friendship, of which he was not worthy, from Madame de Sévigné and Madame de la Fayette. But of all the friends to whom the ardent, imaginative, faithful heart of Madame de Sévigné attached itself, no one, after her husband and her daughter, held so commanding a place as Fouquet, the unfortunate minister of Louis XIV. Fouquet must have had rare traits, besides his acknowledged greatness of mind, to have won such a pure and unconquerable affection. Cast down from power, disgraced, closely imprisoned for fifteen years in the fortress of Pignerol, scoffed at by those who had fawned on him in his prosperity, and forgotten by nearly all whom he had befriended, never did Madame de Sévigné forget him, or cease, for one day, her efforts to alleviate his condition— cheering him with letters, and toiling to secure his liberation. D'Alembert had a long and sedulously improved friendship with Madame du Deffand, of whom Henault said, "Friendship was a passion with her; and no woman ever had more friends, or better deserved them."
There was a basis for this eulogy; but it needs much qualification. She and D'Alembert prized each other's society highly, and passed much time together. But jealousy and exaction are tenacious occupants, easily recalled to the heart even of an aged and friendly woman. When D'Alembert formed a closer friendship with Mademoiselle Lespinasse, the young and charming companion of Madame du Deffand, the latter imperiously dictated the renunciation of the new friend as the condition of retaining the old. The superiority of temper, genius, and worth in Mademoiselle Lespinasse did not permit D'Alembert to hesitate; and she repaid him with memorable fidelity. The affectionate and dependent girl was harshly driven out. In her anguish, she took laudanum, but not with a fatal result. D'Alembert then called Du Deffand an old viper; but his friend checked him, and would never allow any abuse of her former mistress, much less herself indulge in vituperation of her. When D'Alembert was attacked by a malignant fever, she went to his bedside, and nursed him day and night till he was convalescent. Marmontel says, "Malice itself never assailed their pure and innocent intimacy." She afterwards formed an attachment, of the most romantic character, to the young Spanish Marquis de Mora, who reciprocated her affection with impassioned ardor. He died while on the road to join her; and she was not long in following him into the grave, though, in the mean time, a still stronger passion for Guibert had weaned her from D'Alembert. The fervent tenderness of the latter for her remained unaltered, and he was inconsolable at her departure. On hearing of her death, Madame du Deffand said, "Had she only died fifteen years earlier, I should not have lost D'Alembert." Her letters are famous in the literature of love. Sir James Mackintosh says, "They are, in my opinion, the truest picture of deep passion ever traced by a human being." Margaret Fuller writes, "I am swallowing by gasps that cauldrony beverage of selfish passion and morbid taste, the letters of Lespinasse. It is good for me. The picture, so minute in its touches, is true as death." Madame de Staël had many devoted friendships, as would naturally be expected from the overwhelming wealth and ardor of her nature. Affinity of genius and a common love of liberty drew Benjamin Constant and her into intimate relations; and she maintained for years still closer relations with the all-knowing, all-cultured August Schlegel, whose devouring egotism and ever-sensitive vanity put all her patience and generosity to the proof.
The current opinion concerning Madame de Staël, that she was an exacting and disagreeable woman, is unjust. Schiller, who shrank from her impetuous eloquence, and Heine, whose reckless satire depicts her as going through Europe, a whirlwind in petticoats, both do her wrong. William von Humboldt, who knew her well, pronounces a glowing eulogy on her exalted traits, and says that Goethe, from prejudice and ignorance, was very unjust to her. Madame Mole says, "Women are not half grateful enough to Madame de Staël for the honor she conferred upon her sex by taking up the noble side of every question, armed with her pen and her eloquence, and never once calculating what the consequences might be. As time goes on, and details sink into insignificance, she will rise as the grand figure who withstood Bonaparte at the head of six hundred thousand men, with Europe at his back. His vanity was such that he could not bear one woman should refuse to praise him; for that was her only guilt." She was capable of the utmost magnanimity and disinterestedness. Every exalted sentiment struck a powerful chord in her heart. She lived in justice, freedom, beneficence, love, aspiration. The friendship of Matthieu de Montmorency, the most intimate and devoted of all her friends, is enough to prove her exalted worth, making every abatement for her acknowledged foibles. This chivalrous nobleman came, in his youth, to America with Lafayette, and fought for the new Republic. Although one of the foremost members of the aristocracy, it was on his motion in the Constituent Assembly that the privileges of the nobility were abolished. Sympathy in opinions and in the generous strain of their characters was the basis of a connection between him and Madame de Staël, that constantly grew in strength with the trials to which it was subjected, and was not severed even by death. When his brother, ardently loved, fell under the axe of the Revolution, it was her delicate sympathy, her ingenious and indefatigable goodness, that first soothed his anguish, assuaged the horror that threatened his reason, and prepared the way for religion and peace. And in turn, when she was exiled by Napoleon, Montmorency journeyed to Switzerland to visit her, at the risk of being banished himself, as he immediately was. "Matthieu, the friend of twenty years, is the most faultless being I have ever known." "How could he think I should tarry in Germany, when, by leaving it, I had a chance of seeing him? All Germany could not pay me for the loss of two days of his society." No unkindness, suspicion, or ignobleness of any sort, ever interrupted or mixed in the affection of these high friends. When Montmorency died, suddenly, in church, years after the death of Madame de Staël, the daughter of the latter, the Duchess de Broglie, instinctively exclaimed, on hearing of the event, "Ah, my God! I seem to see the grief of my poor mother." The prejudice in England and America against friendships between men and women has operated considerably to lessen their frequency, still more to keep them from public attention when they do exist. Undoubtedly, many a charming English woman, many a charming American woman, in her time the centre of the social circles of fashion, letters, and politics, has been surrounded by a company of friends as devoted at heart as those who have gathered with more public homage about the famous dames of France and Germany. Such groups will be called to mind by the English names of Mrs. Montagu, Lady Melbourne, Lady Holland; the American names of Mrs. Madison, Mrs. Hamilton, Mrs. Seaton, Mrs. Schuyler, and many others. But, since, with the most of these latter, the details have not been taken from the category of private property, by publications of memoirs and journals, it would be impertinent to single them out for personal mention, even where it is possible.
Magdalen Herbert, mother of George Herbert, befriended Dr. Donne in his distresses, ministering to the wants of his family with generous delicacy, and comforting him by her society. His discernment of her wit and piety, her gracious and noble disposition, combined with his gratitude to make him her fast and fervent friend. His conversation, together with that of Bishop Andrews, whose renown Clarendon and Milton unite to swell, appears to have given Lady Herbert great delight. Lasting evidence of the impression her character and kindness made on him is found in his verses and letters addressed to her, and in the funeral sermon which, with many tears, he preached for her. He says in verse, in her advancing age,
No spring nor summer beauty has such graceAs I have seen on an autumnal face.
And he gratefully writes to her in his quaint prose, "Your favors to me are everywhere. I use them and have them. I enjoy them at London and leave them there, and yet find them at Mitcham. Such riddles as these become things inexpressible; and such is your goodness." There was a choice, ever-comforting, and sacred friendship between the great John Locke and the excellent Lady Damaris Masham, the only daughter of that ornament of the English Church, the learned and benignant Cudworth.
She was one of the most gifted, cultivated, and elegant women of her time. The genius and moral worth of Locke are well known to all. Domesticated in the family of Lady Masham for many years before his death, giving her all the advantage of his talents, acquirements, and sympathy, "she returned the obligation with singular benevolence and gratitude, always treating him with the utmost generosity and respect; for she had an inviolable friendship for him." She watched by him in his last illness. He asked her to read a psalm to him. As death approached, he desired her to break off reading, and in a few minutes breathed his closing breath. She wrote the fine sketch of his character published in the "Historical Dictionary." She says his manners made him very agreeable to all sorts of people, and nobody was better received than he among those of the highest rank. "His greatest amusement was to talk with sensible people, and he courted their conversation." The amiable, unfortunate Cowper, the most shrinking and melancholy of men, too gentle and too unworldly for common companionship, was especially fitted for the soothing ministrations and the healing sympathy of women. He was dependent on these friendships, and found his chief happiness in them. But for them, his career would have been as brief as it was wretched; and his name, now haloed with such sadly pleasing attractions, would have had no place in English literature, except in the dark list of madmen and suicides. Who that has read his matchless lines on his mother's picture will not bless the good women who shed so many rays of peace and bliss on his unhappy lot. His cousin, the angelic Lady Hesketh, whose disinterested tenderness lavished grateful attentions on him, with a sweet skill that failed neither in his youth nor in his age, was as a light from heaven on his path through the whole journey. Some touching verses, and innumerable references in his letters, attest his appreciation of her. Mrs. Throckmorton and her husband, in whose grounds he loved to walk, and in whose kindly and refined society he spent so many delightful hours, furnished a healthy relief from the gloom of his austere religion, in the atmosphere of their genial catholicity; and were an invaluable comfort and benefit to him. Lady Austen also, a sprightly and accomplished woman, of intellectual tastes, quick sympathies, and charming manners, whose appearance at Olney "added fresh plumes to the wings of time," was at one period an inexpressible blessing to him. "Lady Austen's conversation acted on Cowper's mind as the harp of David on the troubled spirit of Saul." He christened her "Sister Ann," and wrote cordial verses to her. Constant communications with her withdrew his attention from depressing superstitions, and enlivened his spirits. At her suggestion it was, and under her sustaining encouragement, that he composed the immortal ballad of "John Gilpin," the "Dirge for the Royal George," and his greatest work, "The Task." Love being proscribed by his repeated subjection to insanity, friendship was the resource in which he was thrice fortunate.
Far above all others in the number of his female friends, in importance, must be ranked Mary Unwin, whose name is indissolubly joined with his in the memories of all who are familiar with his plaintive story. Mrs. Unwin, wife of a clergyman, religious after the most scrupulous evangelical type, was first drawn to Cowper by a sectarian interest. They were fated to be friends, as by the striking of a die. "That woman," he soon wrote to Lady Hesketh, "is a blessing to me; and I never see her without being the better for her company." This is the secret of the charm of all true friendship—that it soothes the heart, clarifies the mind, heightens the soul. One feels so much the better for it. Almost penniless as he was, a shiftless manager, assailed by terrible depression and even madness, the Unwins took him under their roof, and gave him a home on the most generous terms. From this time until her death, the friendship of Mary was a necessity to Cowper, the greatest support and enjoyment the hapless poet knew, combining with his native humor and gentleness to combat his melancholy malady with frequent and long victories. In his fits of insanity, she watched and waited on him day and night, defying alike personal hardships and the slanderous remarks of the vile. The only drawback on Cowper's indebtedness to Mrs. Unwin was her jealous wish to restrict him to the society of her own sect of religionists, that harrowing type of piety represented by John Newton. Otherwise, he might have enjoyed much more frequent and prolonged periods of what he cheerily characterized as "absences of Mr. Blue-devil." Lady Hesketh said of her, "She seems in truth to have no will left on earth but for his good. How she has supported the constant attendance she has gone through with the last thirteen years is to me, I confess, wonderful." Cowper himself said, "It is to her, under Providence, I owe it that I am alive at all." With a devotion in which self appeared to be lost, "there she sat, on the hardest and smallest chair, leaving the best to him, knitting, with the finest possible needles, stockings of the nicest texture. He wore no others than of her knitting." After nearly a generation of her fond and sedulous ministering, repeatedly stricken with paralysis, her mind decayed, mute, almost blind, as she sat by his side, a pathetic memento of what she had been, Cowper composed for her that unsurpassed tribute, his exquisite and imperishable lines, "To Mary":
The twentieth year has well-nigh past,Since first our sky was overcast:Ah! would that this might be our last,My Mary!
Thy spirits have a fainter flow:I see thee daily weaker grow;'Tis my distress that brought thee low,My Mary!
Thy needles, once a shining store,For my sake restless heretofore,Now rust, disused, and shine no more,My Mary!
Thy indistinct expressions seemLike language uttered in a dream;Yet me they charm, whate'er the theme,My Mary!
Thy silver locks, once auburn bright,Are still more lovely in my sightThan golden beams of orient light,My Mary!
Partakers of my sad decline,Thy hands their little force resign;Yet, gently prest, press gently mine,My Mary!
Yet ah! by constant heed, I knowHow oft the sadness that I showTransforms thy smiles to looks of woe,My Mary!
And should my future lot be castWith much resemblance of the past,Thy worn-out heart will break at last,My Mary!
Lady Hesketh, ever a true angel, came and dwelt with the afflicted pair. And when Cowper, after four wretched years of separation, plunged, as he expressed it, in deeps unvisited by any human soul save his, followed his faithful sister-spirit to a better world, Lady Hesketh, that model of a third friend, built, in St. Edmund's Chapel, where he was buried, a monument displaying two tablets, both bearing poetical inscriptions; one dedicated to William Cowper, the other to Mary Unwin. The friendship of Garrick and Mrs. Clive is memorable for its sprightliness, sincerity, unbroken harmony-saving a few momentary quarrels for relish—long duration, and the large measure of happiness it yielded. Their correspondence is very entertaining, and reflects honor on them both. Their talents and virtues contributed in a high degree to adorn and elevate the profession to which they belonged. It is an interesting fact, equally creditable to all the parties, that "Pivy," as they affectionately called Kittie Clive, was as dear to the excellent Mrs. Garrick as to her brilliant husband. The friendship of David Garrick was also one of the most delightful features in the life of the admirable Hannah More. A letter written by Hannah on seeing him play Lear, greatly pleased him, and led to their acquaintance. Acquaintance soon ripened into a warm esteem, and produced a friendship of the most cordial—and intimate character, which lasted until death. He declared that the nine muses had taken up their residence in her mind; and both in his conversation and his letters he constantly called her "Nine." One day when she and Johnson, and a few others, were at table with the Garricks, David read to the company her Sir Eldred, with such inimitable feeling that the happy authoress burst into tears. Friendship filled a large space in the life of Hannah More, administering incalculable strength in her labors, joy in her successes, comfort in her afflictions. It has left its memorials in the records of a host of visits, gifts, letters, poems, dedications. Her correspondence with Sir William Pepys shows what an invaluable resource a wise, pure, comprehensive friendship is in the life of a thoughtful woman. Bishop Porteus bequeathed her a legacy of a hundred pounds. She consecrated an urn to him near her house with an inscription in memory of his long and faithful friendship. Mr. Turner, of Belmont, to whom she was for six years betrothed, but broke off the engagement after he had three times postponed the appointed wedding-day, always retained the highest esteem for her, and left her a thousand pounds at his death. She also maintained a most friendly relation, as long as his increasing habit of intemperance allowed it, with her early tutor, Langhorne, the translator of Plutarch. On occasion of an anticipated visit from her, Langhorne wrote a very pretty poem, beginning,
Blow, blow, my sweetest rose!For Hannah More will soon be here;And all that crowns the ripening yearShould triumph where she goes.
Joanna Baillie and Sir Walter Scott were deeply attached friends. United by a generous admiration for genius, by esteem for exalted worth and by community of tastes, they were drawn still more closely together by many mutual kindnesses, visits, and frequent correspondence. A copy of Scott's "Marmion," fresh from the press, was placed in Joanna's hands. She cut the leaves and began to read it aloud to a small circle of friends, when she suddenly came upon the following magnificent and electrifying tribute to herself:
Or, if to touch such chord be thine,Restore the ancient tragic line,And emulate the notes that rungFrom the wild harp that silent hungBy silver Avon's holy shoreTill twice an hundred years rolled o'er;When she, the bold enchantress, cameWith fearless hand and heart in flame,From the pale willow snatched the treasure,And swept it with a kindred measure,Till Avon's swans, while rung the groveWith Monfort's hate and Basil's love,Awakening at the inspired strain,Deemed their own Shakespeare lived again!
Joanna, though taken by surprise, read on in a firm voice, till she observed the uncontrollable emotion of a friend by her side. Then she too gave way. It is delightful to partake by sympathy in so generous a gift of joy. What a pity it is that such a loving magnanimity as that of glorious Sir Walter is not more frequent among authors! The chief advantage of Fox over Pitt consisted in the fascinating demonstrativeness of his heart and manners. This won him hosts of idolizing friends, foremost among whom were many of the choicest ladies of the kingdom.
Pre-eminent among these were the two dazzlingly lovely women, ardent friends of each other too, Mrs. Catherine Crewe and Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire. They were indefatigable in canvassing for him. On one occasion, when the conflict for votes was intense, a butcher offered to vote for Fox on condition that the Duchess of Devonshire would allow him a kiss. The enthusiastic canvasser, perhaps the most beautiful woman then living, granted it amid deafening cheers. Nor was Mrs. Crewe less efficient. At a private banquet in honor of Fox's triumph, the Prince of Wales gave as a toast, "True Blue, and Mrs. Crewe." She gave in return, "True Blue, and all of you." The Duchess of Devonshire exerted all her powers, though in vain, to reconcile Burke with Fox, after their quarrel. On the death of Fox, she wrote a poetic tribute to his memory. Dr. Beattie, author of "The Minstrel," so many of whose touching lines have rung through souls of sensibility and are familiar to all lovers of poetry—such, for example, as,
Ah, who can tell how hard it is to climbThe steep where Fame's proud temple shines afar:Ah, who can tell how many a soul sublimeHas felt the influence of malignant star,And with inglorious fortune waged eternal war!
enjoyed a delightful friendship with the Duchess of Gordon. He spent the happiest hours of his saddened life at her castle, in the enjoyment of her unvarying kindness. He sent her books; they exchanged letters; and in all the brilliant whirl of her life as a reigning beauty, an ardent politician, and a leader of fashion, she fully appreciated his worth, and reciprocated his attentions and esteem until his death.
A friendship of an uncommon character, containing the elements of a romance, has left a monument of itself in two volumes, called "Letters of William Von Humboldt to a Female Friend." Humboldt, then an undergraduate at Göttingen, during one of his vacations spent three days at Pyrmont. Much of this time he passed in the society of a lovely and very superior young lady who was staying there with her father. Each was deeply interested in the other, without suspecting that the feeling was mutual. On parting, Humboldt gave his fair friend an album-leaf as a memento. The image of the fascinating student was indelibly impressed on her imagination, a centre of ideal activity and accumulation. So, it afterwards seemed, was her image left in his imagination. Twenty-six years passed in absence and silence. Humboldt had become famous and prominent, and was blessed with a happy family. Charlotte had been married, and was now a childless widow. Deprived of her parents, her husband, her property, she was overwhelmed with misfortunes. Her large property having been devoted to the State, it occurred to her that her old friend, of the three youthful days at Pyrmont, now a minister of the king, might assist her to recover, at least a portion of it, or at all events give her valuable advice as to what to do. She gathered courage to write him a letter, enclosing his old album-leaf, recalling their early meeting, telling how sacredly the memory of him had been enshrined in her soul, and begging him to counsel and console her in her great distress. The character of the letter was such, revealing a spirit so rich, high, and pure, that the generous nature of Humboldt was much moved. He at once replied with great kindness and wisdom, and with oars of practical aid. Thus began a correspondence which lasted until his death, twenty years later, during the whole of which period they only met twice for a brief time. Charlotte's portion of the correspondence, which is clot published—so affectionately reverential, so transparently sincere and trustful, evidently gave the great scholar and statesman extreme pleasure, a most varied stimulus. His letters reveal the fragrant warmth of his heart, the rare virtues and treasures of his soul, his saintly wisdom, in a most attractive manner. They were prized by Charlotte as the religion and sanctuary of her existence, and left to be given to the world as a holy bequest after her death. An interesting fact in the character of Charlotte, often noticed in these letters, and full of fruits in her life, is that she always had an intense desire to have a friend in the fullest sense of the word—a desire which was early heightened by the repeated enthusiastic perusal of Richardson's "Clarissa Harlowe." This dream had many partial realizations—the most complete and lasting in Humboldt. Rarely has any relation of individuals been so original, and awakened so much interest, as that between Goethe and his child-friend Bettine. In publishing their correspondence, many years after its close, Bettine prefaces it with the remark: "This book is for the good, and not for the bad." She foresaw how the bad would misinterpret it, yet felt that she could afford to defy their incompetent construal. She loved Goethe to idolatry—her whole soul vibrating beneath the power of the possession; but the ideality of the passion, in her naïve and spontaneous nature, was a perfect safeguard from evil. Under this spell, all her rich, unquestioning ardors of reverence and fondness were as sacredly guided as the movements of Mignon, dancing blindfold amidst the eggs, with never a false step. Goethe's conduct towards the trustful and impassioned girl was exceedingly discreet, in its mingled kindness and wisdom. He felt the sweetness of her worship; he guarded her, as a father would, from its dangers. But, above all, he was profoundly interested in the spectacle of her young, original, unveiled soul. The electric soil of her brain teemed with a miraculous efflorescence, on which he never tired of gazing. It was to him like sitting apart in some still place, and watching the secret forces and workings of nature, reflected in a small mirror. Thus Bettine writes from the strange fullness of her mind, in mystic language, to Goethe's mother: "Would that I sat, a beggar-child, before his door, and took a piece of bread from his hand, and that he knew, by my glance, of what spirit I am the child. Then would he draw me nigh to him, and cover me with his cloak, that I might be warm. I know he would never bid me go again. I should wander in the house, and no one would know who I was nor whence I came; and years would pass, and life would pass, and in his features the whole world would be reflected to me, and I should not need to learn any thing more." And Goethe replies, "Your dear letters bestow on me so much that is delightful, that they may justly precede all else: they give me a succession of holidays, whose return always blesses me anew. Write to me all that passes in your mind. Farewell. Be ever near me, and continue to refresh me." Mont Blanc stoops, with all his snows, to kiss the rosy vale nestling at his feet. Goethe, in the course of his life, stood in the most intimate relations with a large number of the rarest women. Few men have ever appreciated female character so well. No one has exhibited their virtues, and pleaded their cause with a more impressive combination of insight, sympathy, and veneration.
His many sins towards women deserve severe condemnation and rebuke; but it is an outrageous wrong towards his noble genius to limit attention, as so many critics do, to that aspect of the case. The wondering love and study which Frederike, Lili, and others drew from him; the religious admiration and awed curiosity evoked in him by the spiritual Fraulein von Klettenburg, "over whom," as he said, "in her invalid loneliness, the Holy Ghost brooded like a dove;" the respectful affection, gratitude, and homage commanded by the extraordinary merits of his lofty and endeared friends, the Duchess Amelia, and the Grand Duchess Louise—all bore fruits in his experience and his works. The revelations they made, the examples they set, the lessons they taught, the noble suggestions they kindled, re-appear in the series of enchanting, glorious, adorable women—Gretchen, Natalia, Ottilia, Iphigenia, Makaria, and the rest— who, with their artless affection, their self-renouncement, their wisdom, their dignity, their holiness, their sufferings, appear in his master-works, breathing presentments of life, for the edification and delight of generations of readers. He has recognized, more profoundly than any other author, the essentially feminine form of that divine principle of disinterested love, that impulse of pure self-abnegation, in which resides the redemptive power of humanity; and has set it forth with incomparable clearness and constancy. At the close of Faust, he has given it statement in a form which associates his genius with that of Dante, and in a kindred height. It is the womanly element, he would say, worshipful and self-denying love, that draws us ever forward, redeeming and uplifting our grosser souls:—
Das ewig weiblicheZieht uns hinan.
Wieland and Sophia de la Roche were profoundly attached to each other during the greater part of their lives. He and his beloved wife were buried beside her; and a tasteful monument erected over them, according to his orders. It bears the inscription, in German, composed by himself:—
Love and Friendship joined these kindred souls in life,And their mortal part is covered by this common stone.
Hölderlin, whose soaring and fiery soul was caged in too exquisite an organization, lived, for some time, when he first became sick, in a peasant's hut, beside a brook, sleeping with open doors, spending hours, every day, reciting Greek poems to the murmur of the stream. The princess of Homburg, who greatly admired his genius, and his deep, pure sentiment, had made him a present of a grand piano. In the coming-on of his madness he cut most of the strings. On the few keys that still sounded he continued to fantasy until his insanity grew so engrossing, that it was necessary to remove him to an asylum. Silvio Pellico, the story of whose sufferings in the prison of Spielberg, has carried his plaintive memory into all lands, and the Marchioness Giulia di Barolo were a pair of friends brought together as by a special appointment of Heaven.
When the holy and gentle poet, patriot, and Christian came out of his prison, with a broken constitution and a wounded heart, into a bleak and prizeless world, the Marchioness—who had long been a mother to the poor of her native city, an assiduous visitor of the jails, a saintly benefactress to all the unhappy whom her charities could reach—drawn to him by a strong interest of respect and pity, gave him a home in her house, and supplied him with congenial employment. Pellico gratefully appreciated her goodness to him, and deeply reverenced her worth. In works of religion and beneficence their lives moved on. He began to write a memoir of his friend; but left it, a fragment, when his lingering consumption brought him to the grave. The pious friendship of the Marchioness did not end with his death. On his tomb, in the Campo Santo, at Turin, she placed a column surmounted by a marble bust, and inscribed with this epitaph from her own pen:
Under the weight of the crossHe learned the way to heaven.Christians pray for him, And follow him.
The pathetic life, the gentle sweetness of spirit, the mournful end of Silvio Pellico, are well known to all. The Marchioness di Barolo, whose name is linked to his in the memory of so pure and benign a union of friendship, lived the life, died the death, and bequeathed the renown of a saint.
She said, "It is a great suffering to have done all in your power for a person, and to find only ingratitude in return. There is no anger in this suffering, nor does it necessarily destroy affection; but the wound is buried deep in the heart; and if it has been inflicted by one very dearly loved, no human consolation can heal it. The most profitable education persons receive is the one they give themselves, through the love of God and labors of charity. I was a great deal alone in my youth, and I am sure it was good for me."
Wordsworth's affection for persons, not less than for nature, was remarkable for its tenacity, the perseverance with which his attention returned to it, and for the deep, clear consciousness with which he cherished it. The most beloved of his lady friends was Isabel Fenwick, who was a frequent visitor at Rydal Mount during the last twenty years of his life. She wrote, to his dictation, the autobiographical notes used in the memoir of him. Her admiring and devoted friendship was evidently a strong inspiration and precious solace to him. It was for her sake that he built the Level Terrace, on which he paced to and fro for many an hour, in sight of the valley of the Rothay and the banks of Lake Windermere. Not many finer expressions of sentiment are to be found in our tongue than Wordsworth has given in his sonnet on a portrait of his dear friend Isabel:
We gaze, nor grieve to think that we must die.But that the precious love this friend hath sownWithin our hearts, the love whose flower hath blownBright as if heaven were ever in its eye,Will pass so soon from human memory;And not by strangers to our blood alone,But by our best descendants be unknown,Unthought of this may surely claim a sigh.Yet, blessed Art, we yield not to dejection,Thou against time so feelingly dost strive:Where'er, preserved in this most true reflection,An image of her soul is kept alive,Some lingering fragrance of the pure affection,Whose flower with us will vanish, must survive.
Charming had many qualities especially fitting him for friendships with women. His sensitive delicacy of refinement, disinterested justice, tender magnanimity, earnest culture of every thing beautiful and true, immaculate purity of soul, and burning ideal enthusiasm, made him feel most joyfully at home with women of enlarged sympathies, well-trained minds, and noble aspirations. He was too shrinking, fastidious, devout, to enjoy intercourse with the rough, hard average of society.
His diffidence, depression, and loneliness, were soothed and alleviated, his noblest powers inspired, by affectionate communion with several of the choicest women of his time. "To them," his biographer says, "he could freely unveil his native enthusiasm, his fine perceptions of fitness, his love of beauty in nature and art, his romantic longings for a pure-toned society, his glorious hopes of humanity. And his profound reverence for the nature and duty of women gave that charm of unaffected courtesy to his manner, look, and tone, which won them freely to exchange their cherished thoughts as with an equal." The following extract from one of his letters to a woman, whose solemn depth of soul and mind, and wondrous range of acquirements and experience rank her with the very greatest of her sex, Harriet Martineau, is an exceedingly interesting revelation:
"MY DEAR FRIEND, I thought I had spoken my last word to you on this side the Atlantic; but I have this moment received your letter, and must write a line of acknowledgment. I know, from my own experience, that there are those who need the encouragement of praise. There are more than is thought who feel the burden of human imperfection too sorely, and who receive strength from approbation. Happy they who from just confidence in right action, and from the habit of carrying out their convictions, need little foreign support. I thank you for this expression of your heart. Without the least tendency to distrust, without the least dejection at the idea of neglect, with entire gratitude for my lot, I still feel that I have not the power, which so many others have, of awakening love, except in a very narrow circle. I knew that I enjoyed your esteem; but I expected to fade with my native land, not from your thoughts, but from your heart. Your letter satisfies me that I shall have one more friend in England. I shall not feel far from you, for what a nearness is there in the consciousness of working in the same spirit!" The friendship between Channing and Lucy Aikin, as seen in the rich series of her letters to him, extending over a period of sixteen years, must have been a valued resource, enjoyment, and stimulus to them both. An extract or two will make the reader regret that relations charged with such priceless blessings are not more cultivated. "To converse with my guide, philosopher, and friend, has now become with me not a mere indulgence, but a want. I daily discover more and more how much I have come under the influence of your mind, and what great things it has done, and I trust is still doing, for mine. I was never duly sensible, till your writings made me so, of the transcendent beauty and sublimity of Christian morals; nor did I submit my heart and temper to their chastening and meliorating influences. In particular, the spirit of unbounded benevolence, which they breathe, was a stranger to my bosom: far indeed was I from looking upon all men as my brethren. I shudder now to think how good a hater I was in the days of my youth. Time and reflection, a wider range of acquaintance, and a calmer state of the public mind, mitigated by degrees my bigotry; but I really knew not what it was to open my heart to the human race, until I had drunk deeply into the spirit of your writings. You have given me a new being. May God reward you!" At another time she writes, "O my dear friend, I was told yesterday that you had been very, very ill; and though it was added that you were now better, I have been able to think of little else since. What would I give to know how you are at this moment! The distance which separates us has something truly fearful in such circumstances."
"Never, my friend, are you forgotten, when my soul seeks communion with our common Father; and when I strive most earnestly to overcome some evil propensity, or to make some generous sacrifice, the thought of you gives me strength not my own."
There is something especially attractive, solacing, and noble in such a relation as the foregoing. It covers a large class of friendships existing between Protestant clergymen and the women who, blessed by their instructions and personal interest, have formed an attachment to them of grateful reverence and sympathy. Such an attachment is often a communication of profit and pleasure most precious to both parties.
Several instances are recorded in the memoirs of Theodore Parker. His friendship with Miss Frances Power Cobbe is particularly worthy of notice. She wrote her gratitude to him for the benefits her mind had derived from his writings. Gratefully appreciating her worth and high aims, he continued to correspond with her by letter until his death. How cordial their relation became; what kind deeds went across it; what delights it yielded; what a deep and pure blessing of encouragement, joy, and peace it was to them both—appears in the few letters given to the public. When they first met, the titanic toiler, outworn with his cares and battles, was at the edge of death. "Do not," said the expiring athlete, "do not say what you feel for me; it makes me too unhappy to leave you." During those lingering days of transition from the earthly state to the heavenly, he dared not trust himself to see her often. As he said, "it made his heart swell too high." A class of friendships of extreme moral value, and often of great attractiveness, results from the relations of noble and royal women with the scholars and philosophers chosen to serve them as tutors or advisers. The names of Zenobia and Longinus give us an example of it in antiquity. If the annals of the crowned houses of Europe, imperial and provincial, were searched with reference to this point, a large number of admirable instances would be brought to light. On the one side power, rank, grace, patronage, every courtly charm; on the other side, learning, experience, gratitude, devoted service, eminent personal worth—could not fail in many instances to give birth to the most cordial esteem, and lead to a charming intercourse. Such was the case with both Wieland and Herder, and those queenly ladies, the Duchess Mother and the reigning Duchess of the court of Weimar. The relation between Columbus and Queen Isabella, after her chivalrous confidence and patronage—must have drawn their souls towards each other with a romantic interest, only needing better opportunities for personal intimacy to warm into a fervent sympathy.
The Countess of Pembroke, wife of that Philip Herbert who was the brother of Shakespeare's friend, showed how tenderly she remembered her old instructor, Daniel, the poet-laureate, by erecting a handsome monument to him in Beckington Church, bearing this inscription: "Here lies, expecting the second coming of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, the dead body of Samuel Daniel, Esq., who was tutor to the Lady Anne Clifford in her youth. She was that daughter and heir to George Clifford, Earl of Cumberland, who, in gratitude to him, erected this monument to his memory, a long time after, when she was Countess Dowager of Pembroke, Dorset, and Montgomery." One of the most beautiful recorded friendships of this kind is that revealed in the long correspondence of Descartes and his pupil, the Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia. Her charming character and distinguished attainments add largely to the gratification with which we trace her ardent esteem and attachment for her instructor and friend, whose brilliant genius and adventurous career are of themselves fascinating. A pleasing little volume by M. de Caren was published at Paris so lately as the year 1862, under the title, "Descartes and the Princess Palatine, or the Influence of Cartesianism on the Women of the Seventeenth Century." An example of a kindred friendship is also given by Leibnitz and his pupil, Caroline of Brunswick. Soon after the electoress became Queen of Prussia, she invited him to visit her, saying, "Think not that I prefer this greatness and this crown, about which they make such a bustle here, to the conversations on philosophy we have had together in Lutzenburg." Frederick the Great relates that the queen, in her last hours, mentioned the name of Leibnitz. One of the ladies in waiting burst into tears, and the queen said to her, "Weep not for me; for I am now going to satisfy my curiosity respecting the origin of things, which Leibnitz has never been able to explain to me, respecting space, existence and non- existence, and the Infinite." Frederick adds, that, as "those persons to whom Heaven vouchsafes gifted souls raise themselves to an equality with monarchs, this queen esteemed Leibnitz well worthy of her friendship." The philosopher was affected deeply and long by the loss of her who had been his closest and best friend. He wrote, being absent at the time, to one of her favorite maids, who was also a friend of his own, "I infer your feelings from mine. I weep not; I complain not; but I know not where to look for relief. The loss of the queen appears to me like a dream; but when I awake from my revery, I find it too true. Your misfortune is not greater than mine; but your feelings are more lively, and you are nearer to the calamity. This encourages me to write, begging you to moderate your sorrow. It is not by excessive grief that we shall best honor the memory of one of the most perfect princesses of the earth; but rather by our admiration of her virtues. My letter is more philosophical than my heart, and I am unable to follow my own counsel: it is, notwithstanding, rational." Ascham relates, in his "Schoolmaster," a conversation he once held with Lady Jane Grey. She said that the sports of the gentlemen and ladies in the park were but a shadow of pleasure compared with that which she found in reading Plato. And, in explaining how she came to take such delight in learning, she said, "One of the benefits that ever God gave me is that he sent so sharp and severe parents, and so gentle a schoolmaster. For when I am in presence of either father or mother, whether I speak, keep silence, sit, stand, or go, eat, drink, be merry, or sad, be sewing, playing, or dancing, or any thing else, I must do it, as it were, in such weight, measure, and number, even so perfectly, as God made the world; or else I am so sharply taunted, so cruelly threatened; yea, presently sometimes, with pinches, nips, bobs, and other ways, which I will not name, for the honor I bear them, so without measure misordered that I think myself in hell, till time come that I must go to Mr. Elmer, who teaches me so gently, so pleasantly, with such fair allurements to learning, that I think all the time nothing while I am with him." Elizabeth Robinson, afterwards the famous Mrs. Montague, the attracting centre of a noted and memorable association of friends, both men and women, had an exemplary friendship, full of good offices and pleasure, and undisturbed by any thing until death, with her preceptor, the distinguished scholar and writer, Conyers Middleton. Hester Lynch Salusbury, at thirteen, formed a most affectionate attachment to Dr. Collier, a guest of her father, who had volunteered to supervise her education. "He was just four times my age; but the difference or agreement never crossed my mind. A friendship more tender, or more unpolluted by interest or by vanity, never existed. Love had no place at all in the connection, nor had he any rival but my mother." The young Hester afterwards became the famous Mrs. Thrale, to all the varied incidents of whose long and close friendship with Dr. Johnson the world-Wide renown of that great man has given a universal publicity. The relation of patroness, sustained with such signal grace and generosity, and with such soothing and inspiring effect, by many queenly ladies in former times, is virtually obsolete now. But it has left memorials never to die; and it is hard to imagine any office which at this day should be more grateful and gracious, more full of happiness and good to a woman of noble heart and mind, blessed with position, wealth, and culture, than that of extending appreciative sympathy, aid, and encouragement, to young men of genius, in their unbefriended, early struggles. It has been strikingly said by that noble woman, Sarah Austin, with reference to Madame Récamier, "All who were admitted to her intimacy, hastened to her with their joys and their sorrows, their projects and ideas; certain not only of secrecy and discretion, but of the warmest and readiest sympathy. If a man had the rough draught of a book, a speech, a picture, an enterprise, in his head, it Was to her that he unfolded his half-formed plan, sure of an attentive and sympathizing listener. This is one of the peculiar functions of women. It is incalculable what comfort and encouragement a kind and wise woman may give to timid merit, what support to uncertain virtue, what wings to noble aspirations." Chaucer was thus patronized by Philippa, queen of Edward III; by Anne of Bohemia, for whom he composed his "Legend of Good Women;" and most of all by Blanche of Lancaster, wife of John of Gaunt, whose courtship he celebrated allegorically in the "Parliament of Birds," whose epithalamium he sang in his "Dream," and whose death he lamented in his "Book of the Duchess." The beautiful and kindly Lady Venetia Digby patronized and befriended Ben Jonson. The attentions of so fair and gentle a creature as she was, according to the description of her in his two poems, called, "The Picture of the Body," and "The Picture of the Mind,"—could not have been otherwise than most soothing, grateful, and inspiring to him. She was found dead in her bed one morning, her cheek resting on her hand.
She past awaySo sweetly from the world, as if her clayLaid only down to slumber.
Jonson dedicated to her memory the imperishable tribute of his heart in a long poem made up of ten parts. The ninth part is inscribed, "Elegy on my Muse, the truly honored Lady Venetia Digby, who, living, gave me leave to call her so." These lines are from it:
There time that I died too, now she is dead,Who was my Muse, and life of all I said,The spirit that I wrote with and conceivedAll that was good or great with me, she weaved,And set it forth: the rest were cobwebs fine,Spun out in name of some of the old Nine,To hang a window or make dark the roomTill, swept away, they were cancelled with a broom.
Lucy, the Countess of Bedford, was likewise a great friend of Ben Jonson. He has sung her worth in one of the most magnificent of his shorter poems. She was also a kind and fast friend of Daniel and Donne, both of whom wrote verses in her honor. But Jonson vastly distanced them both. Exquisite and sublime as his praise was, it was agreed, by those who knew her, that she fully deserved it. It is a luxury to recall such a tribute:
This morning, timely rapt with holy fire,I thought to form unto my zealous MuseWhat kind of creature I could most desireTo honor, serve, and love; as poets use,I meant to make her fair and free and wise,Of greatest blood, and yet more good than great;I meant the day-star should not brighter rise,Nor lend like influence from his lucent seat.I meant she should be courteous, facile, sweet,Hating that solemn vice of greatness, pride:I meant each softest virtue there should meet,Fit in that softer bosom to reside.Only a learned and a manly soulI purposed her, that should, with even powers,The rock, the spindle, and the shears, control,Of Destiny, and spin her own free hours.Such when I meant to feign, and wished to see,My Muse bade, BEDFORD write, and that was She.
Milton had many qualities and tastes fitting him to be the delight of female society, and to delight in it. His natural bent for all the delicacies of sentiment, for every fine and high range of character, thought, and passion, has strewn many choice expressions of itself in his writings, and sprinkles his poems with eulogistic allusions to the virtues and charms of womanhood. These have too much escaped the popular notice, which has fastened on the numerous stinging utterantes wrung from certain bitter passages of his experience. Scores of critics have dwelt on the terrible traits he has given to Delilah in "Samson Agonistes," where one has called attention to the breathing emotion, the celestial coloring, the ineffable sweetness and grandeur he has lavished on the Lady in "Comus." For imperishable monuments of his friendships with the selectest women of that age, behold his Italian lines to Leonora Baroni, his sonnets "To a Virtuous Young Lady," "To the Lady Margaret Ley," "To the Memory of Mrs. Catharine Thomson," and the record of his long and unbroken intimacy with the admirable and all-accomplished Countess Ranclagh, of whom he said, "She was to me in the place of every want."
The Duchess of Queensbury was the unfailing friend and encourager of Gay. When Gay died, she eloquently rebuked the vitriolic Swift, for expressing the heartless sentiment, that a lost friend might be replaced as well as spent money. Madame Rambouillet was the friend of Voiture; Madame Sabliere of La Fontaine. Hundreds of similar examples might easily be gathered. Few of the French literary men of the seventeenth or the eighteenth century led those disorderly and disreputable lives which were the calamity and the disgrace of most of the professed writers of England at that time. Madame Mole justly observes, "They owed their exemption from these miseries chiefly to the women, who, from the earliest days of French literature, gave them all the succor they could; bringing them into contact with the rich and the great, showing them off with every kind of ingenuity and tact, so as to make them understood and valued. If we examine the private history of all their celebrated men, we find scarcely one to whom some lady was not a ministering spirit. They helped them with their wit, their influence, and their money. They did far more. They helped them with their hearts, listened to their sorrows, admired their genius before the world had become aware of it, advised them, entered patiently into all their feelings, soothed their wounded vanities and irritable fancies. What balm has been found in the listening look, for the warm and vexed spirit how has it risen again after repeated disappointment, comforted by encouragements gently administered! If the Otways and the Chattertons had possessed one such friend, their country might not have been disgraced by their fate. Are the life and happiness of the poet, of the man of genius, a trifle? What would human society be without them? Let all who hold a pen think of the kind hearts who, by the excitement of social intercourse and sympathy, have preserved a whole class from degradation and vice."