Paul et Virginie. English Read online

contemplate, andwished to realize.

  For six years, he worked at his "Etudes," and with some difficulty founda publisher for them. M. Didot, a celebrated typographer, whose daughterSt. Pierre afterwards married, consented to print a manuscript which hadbeen declined by many others. He was well rewarded for the undertaking.The success of the "Etudes de la Nature" surpassed the most sanguineexpectation, even of the author. Four years after its publication, St.Pierre gave to the world "Paul and Virginia," which had for some timebeen lying in his portfolio. He had tried its effect, in manuscript,on persons of different characters and pursuits. They had given it noapplause; but all had shed tears at its perusal: and perhaps, few worksof a decidedly romantic character have ever been so generally read, orso much approved. Among the great names whose admiration of it is onrecord, may be mentioned Napoleon and Humboldt.

  In 1789, he published "Les Veoeux d'un Solitaire," and "La Suite desVoeux." By the _Moniteur_ of the day, these works were compared to thecelebrated pamphlet of Sieyes,--"Qu'est-ce que le tiers etat?" whichthen absorbed all the public favour. In 1791, "La Chaumiere Indienne"was published: and in the following year, about thirteen days beforethe celebrated 10th of August, Louis XVI. appointed St. Pierresuperintendant of the "Jardin des Plantes." Soon afterwards, the King,on seeing him, complimented him on his writings and told him he washappy to have found a worthy successor to Buffon.

  Although deficient in the exact knowledge of the sciences, and knowinglittle of the world, St. Pierre was, by his simplicity, and theretirement in which he lived, well suited, at that epoch, to thesituation. About this time, and when in his fifty-seventh year, hemarried Mlle. Didot.

  In 1795, he became a member of the French Academy, and, as was just,after his acceptance of this honour, he wrote no more against literarysocieties. On the suppression of his place, he retired to Essonne. It isdelightful to follow him there, and to contemplate his quiet existence.His days flowed on peaceably, occupied in the publication of "LesHarmonies de la Nature," the republication of his earlier works, andthe composition of some lesser pieces. He himself affectingly regrets aninterruption to these occupations. On being appointed Instructor to theNormal School, he says, "I am obliged to hang my harp on the willowsof my river, and to accept an employment useful to my family and mycountry. I am afflicted at having to suspend an occupation which hasgiven me so much happiness."

  He enjoyed in his old age, a degree of opulence, which, as much asglory, had perhaps been the object of his ambition. In any case, it isgratifying to reflect, that after a life so full of chance and change,he was, in his latter years, surrounded by much that should accompanyold age. His day of storms and tempests was closed by an evening ofrepose and beauty.

  Amid many other blessings, the elasticity of his mind was preserved tothe last. He died at Eragny sur l'Oise, on the 21st of January, 1814.The stirring events which then occupied France, or rather the wholeworld, caused his death to be little noticed at the time. The Academydid not, however, neglect to give him the honour due to its members.Mons. Parseval Grand Maison pronounced a deserved eulogium on histalents, and Mons. Aignan, also, the customary tribute, taking his seatas his successor.

  Having himself contracted the habit of confiding his griefs and sorrowsto the public, the sanctuary of his private life was open alike to thediscussion of friends and enemies. The biographer, who wishes to beexact, and yet set down nought in malice, is forced to the contemplationof his errors. The secret of many of these, as well as of his miseries,seems revealed by himself in this sentence: "I experience more pain froma single thorn, than pleasure from a thousand roses." And elsewhere,"The best society seems to me bad, if I find in it one troublesome,wicked, slanderous, envious, or perfidious person." Now, taking intoconsideration that St. Pierre sometimes imagined persons who were reallygood, to be deserving of these strong and very contumacious epithets,it would have been difficult indeed to find a society in which he couldhave been happy. He was, therefore, wise, in seeking retirement, andindulging in solitude. His mistakes,--for they were mistakes,--arosefrom a too quick perception of evil, united to an exquisite and diffusesensibility. When he felt wounded by a thorn, he forgot the beauty andperfume of the rose to which it belonged, and from which perhaps itcould not be separated. And he was exposed (as often happens) to thevery description of trials that were least in harmony with his defects.Few dispositions could have run a career like his, and have remainedunscathed. But one less tender than his own would have been less souredby it. For many years, he bore about with him the consciousness ofunacknowledged talent. The world cannot be blamed for not appreciatingthat which had never been revealed. But we know not what the jostlingand elbowing of that world, in the meantime, may have been to him--howoften he may have felt himself unworthily treated--or how far thattreatment may have preyed upon and corroded his heart. Who shallsay that with this consciousness there did not mingle a quick andinstinctive perception of the hidden motives of action,--that he didnot sometimes detect, where others might have been blind, theunder-shuffling of the hands, in the by-play of the world?

  Through all his writings, and throughout his correspondence, there arebeautiful proofs of the tenderness of his feelings,--the most essentialquality, perhaps, in any writer. It is at least, one that if notpossessed, can never be attained. The familiarity of his imaginationwith natural objects, when he was living far removed from them, isremarkable, and often affecting.

  "I have arranged," he says to Mr. Henin, his friend and patron, "veryinteresting materials, but it is only with the light of Heaven overme that I can recover my strength. Obtain for me a _rabbit's hole_, inwhich I may pass the summer in the country." And again, "With the _firstviolet_, I shall come to see you." It is soothing to find, in passageslike these, such pleasing and convincing evidence that

  "Nature never did betray, The heart that loved her."

  In the noise of a great city, in the midst of annoyances of many kindsthese images, impressed with quietness and beauty, came back to the mindof St. Pierre, to cheer and animate him.

  In alluding to his miseries, it is but fair to quote a passage fromhis "Voyage," which reveals his fond remembrance of his native land. "Ishould ever prefer my own country to every other," he says, "not becauseit was more beautiful, but because I was brought up in it. Happy he,who sees again the places where all was loved, and all was lovely!--themeadows in which he played, and the orchard that he robbed!"

  He returned to this country, so fondly loved and deeply cherished inabsence, to experience only trouble and difficulty. Away from it, he hadyearned to behold it,--to fold it, as it were, once more to his bosom.He returned to feel as if neglected by it, and all his rapturousemotions were changed to bitterness and gall. His hopes had proveddelusions--his expectations, mockeries. Oh! who but must look withcharity and mercy on all discontent and irritation consequent on sucha depth of disappointment: on what must have then appeared to him suchunmitigable woe. Under the influence of these saddened feelings, histhoughts flew back to the island he had left, to place all beauty, aswell as all happiness, there!

  One great proof that he did beautify the distant, may be found in thecontrast of some of the descriptions in the "Voyage a l'Ile de France,"and those in "Paul and Virginia." That spot, which when peopled by thecherished creatures of his imagination, he described as an enchantingand delightful Eden, he had previously spoken of as a "rugged countrycovered with rocks,"--"a land of Cyclops blackened by fire." Truth,probably, lies between the two representations; the sadness ofexile having darkened the one, and the exuberance of his imaginationembellished the other.

  St. Pierre's merit as an author has been too long and too universallyacknowledged, to make it needful that it should be dwelt on here. Acareful review of the circumstances of his life induces the belief, thathis writings grew (if it may be permitted so to speak) out of his life.In his most imaginative passages, to whatever height his fancy soared,the starting point seems ever from a fact. The past appears to have beenalways spread out be
fore him when he wrote, like a beautiful landscape,on which his eye rested with complacency, and from which his mindtransferred and idealized some objects, without a servile imitationof any. When at Berlin, he had had it in his power to marry VirginiaTabenheim; and in Russia, Mlle. de la Tour, the niece of GeneralDubosquet, would have accepted his hand. He was too poor to marryeither. A grateful recollection caused him to bestow the names of thetwo on his most beloved creation. Paul was the name of a friar, withwhom he had associated in his childhood, and whose life he wished toimitate. How little had the owners of these names anticipated thatthey were to become the baptismal appellations of half a generation inFrance, and to be re-echoed through the world to the end of time!

  It was St. Pierre who first