From the Victoria Magazine

A PHILISTINE'S OPINION OF EUGENIE
DE GUERIN.

THE notices of Eugenie de Guerin that have fallen in the way of the writer, appear to her so much beside the mark, so like the play with Hamlet omitted, that the temptation to supply what seemed to be wanting, has proved irresistible. The view she takes is the practical common-place one, with, it may be, an imperfect appreciation of the grace, beauty, and poetry, etc., of the journal, and not much attraction to the book as supplying pabulum for cultivated tastes, but with a vivid interest in the actual woman therein presented, and the things to be learnt by the transcript of her life.

own power of ornamenting its trivial accidents is what makes it worth reading.

But a far greater beauty of Eugenie's

character lies in her evident desire and intention, in old-fashioned words, to do her duty in that state of life to which it shall please God to call her. It is probable the charm of this intention mingles more than is thought with the other qualities that have been so much admired. As we slowly read through the somewhat tedious details of her daily life, this is the wish that most constantly reappears. It is the noblest, most loveable, and also the most frequent subject of interest the book contains. Extracts would give but little idea of the incessant watchfulness, the sensitive conscience, the faithful examination by which she strove to conform her heart and mind to the highest standard that she knew. There is continual solace and consolation to the reader in the ever-recurring signs that here, at least, is one who would have cut off her right hand, and plucked out her right eye, if they interfered with her attaining the excellence she strove after.

And it is not without success that she seeks so earnestly after improvement. Her tastes and character are modified by her endeavours. A remarkable proof of this is

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Certainly the qualities in the journal that strike one first are those that have been most noticed; the vivid imagination that hangs a thought on every twig as she passes by, the delicate taste that makes such proper and graceful choice of the things to be said, the innate skill with which she gives a good, true, and kindly judgment on what passes before her. Then her skill with her pen is something wonderful, if we believe that command of the weapon must be acquired by practice; and she has the main quality that makes the difference incidentally given in her judgment of "Delbetween the cultivated and the ignorant phine." Delphine " is a French novel human being-between the clodhopper giving the history of the falling in love of a and the philosopher - not so much the man and woman pardon, of a lady and abundance of acquired knowledge as the gentleman- during the process of the bereadiness to acquire; the habit of working trothal and marriage of the gentleman to on all the material that falls in her way. some one else. All the power of the writer. One of her friends observes that she could is used to make the love appear irresistible, always find something to say on all manner in spite of the efforts of the parties to restrain of things that no one else would think of it, and the pity of the reader is so roused for remarking. "Look," she says, " you would the divided pair, and for the overwhelming find a thousand things to say on that old force of their affection, that their criminality door-latch." So Eugenie immediately thinks is quite kept out of sight. "That uncona great deal might be said thereupon, and trolled mastery of the passions," says Eugeproceeds to say something. On this occa- nie, is repulsive to me." If the author of sion she is not particularly well-inspired, "Delphine" had been capable of feeling probably because the subject was not self- this, could she have written the book? chosen. But what a differently furnished mind must result, say at fifty years of age, from this constant mental activity, to that of a woman who sees nothing in life but her Own concerns, and gradually arrives at the conviction that it is best to see nothing else. It is a true instinct that attracts all active minds to one like this. There is hope of a response, the certainty of appreciation. She calls out the mental activity of others, even of people who have never seen her. There is evidence in the book of this, and also in the very fact of its publication. Her life is called uneventful, common-place, and her

She mentions incidentally that their furniture is very poor; she wonders what people will think of it on the rare occasion when visitors come. Some days she has extra work to do in cooking, and her father apologises to her, regretting she should have so much to do. She has no money, or very little, to give away in charity. In many ways the presence of poverty is made evident; but she never indulges in querulous complaint at the common lot, still less does she seem ashamed of it, or wish to conceal it.

There are several sentences in the journal

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to which the note is appended, "This was erased," and a few more to which the writer herself has added, This is incorrect." These passages are almost always either blaming some one or complaining too much of her own trials. They are evidently erased as being guilty of exaggeration. So closely this woman watched over the indulgence of her feelings! Not merely the expression of them to others, but the indulgence in presence of her own conscience.

streets.

"You are right in saying that I am happily constituted for living in the country. It is my place; elsewhere I should be less happy, perhaps. I recognise in this a care of Providence, who does everything with love for His creatures; who does not make the violet grow in the contemplating all this valley of verdure where You see me propped on my window the nightingale sings. Then I shall go and take care of my hens, sew, spin, embroider in the great room with Marie. So from one thing to another the day passes and we come to evening without ennui.'

To translate the last word is not possible here. Weariness at evening would be a blessing compared with ennui.

says

"I have renounced poetry because I have seen that God did not ask it of me, but the sacrifice has been so much the more painful, as, in abandoning poetry. poetry has not abandoned me. On the contrary.

It will surprise the reader to learn that we have as yet not touched upon the main burden of the book; the thing that is most frequently mentioned, and that evidently has most constant possession of the writer's mind. This burden is her own misery, com- Amongst her attempts to find interests in plicated with her efforts to persuade herself life independent of outward stimulus, she she is happy, or at least that she is in the tries writing poetry, and writing this journal position that is happiest for her. A hundred for her brother to read. Of the first she times she repeats from other people's knowledge - that the world would not suit her, that it is full of wickedness and suffering, and that it is her peculiar blessing not to be exposed to its temptations; and a hundred times the reality of her suffering from solitude and vacancy forces itself to the surface, and will be chronicled, in spite of her conscientious efforts to believe and write down that her life is happy. If she could even have heartily entered into the business of self-torment that her Church holds praiseworthy, she would have suffered less. But she was too clear-sighted to do this, her cultivation was too far advanced to let her believe in the merit of it. She quotes on this subject the answer of St. François de Sales to some young woman who asked his advice as to the propriety of adopting the practice of walking barefoot; Change your hearts and keep your shoes."

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She gives this account of her employments and subjects of interest at home; and remember, she lived there above forty

years.

I see,

-p. 432.

Because I find the time lost that I spend in"Shall I tell you why I gave up the journal! writing. We owe an account of our minutes to God, and is it not making a bad use of them to employ them in tracing the days that are departing."

p. 35.

Between her longing for healthy activity "As one advances in life one gets placed in and her strenuous efforts to persuade her the position necessary to judge of one's affec- self that she ought to be happier without it, tions, and to know them under their veritable her mind almost breaks down. She asserts aspect. I have all mine before my eyes. first, dolls, playthings, birds and butterflies, that and re-asserts her happiness and her misery's I loved; beautiful and innocent affections of till the reader gets angry and contemptuous childhood. Then, reading, conversation, a lit- in spite of her suffering and her noble en tle dress and dreams, beautiful dreams! No, durance. I will not confess!" - p. 23.

27.

"A poor man has passed from a distance; | of heaven, without this woman's piety which then a little child. That is all there has been turns to love, to divine love? I should be lost, to see to-day. Is it worth speaking of?"-p. and without happiness on earth. You may believe me, I have found it so far in nothing, in no human thing, not even in you." - p. 165.

"God be thanked for this day passed without sadness. They are so rare in one's life." - p. 41.

"Would to God my thoughts and my soul had never taken flight beyond the little sphere

I am forced to move in!"

These lines are erased, Why erased ? Tender conscience! When she wrote them did she think the mind's tendency to travel beyond its immediate surroundings was something sinful? When she erased them was it because they were a complaint?

"You make me understand the world so well in your letters, which are pictures, that you detach me from all my illusions, from all which does not make us happy. Your experience instructs me, and I bless God a hundred times for my retired and tranquil life."

"I am going to see it, then, this Notre Dame at Paris! How many things for me to see when I go out of my desert!

Among the forbidden fruits of this Paradise of Paris, there are two that I should like to taste; the opera and Mdlle. Rachel. Above all Rachel, who acts Racine so well, people say. That should be fine!"

for

The want of continuity in a mind that repeats two opposite and extreme opinions years together calls to mind the opinion, of the author of "Salem Chapel," concern"It is to be ing one of her creations hoped she was not a responsible creature! " The one thing certain is her misery. Yes, there is another certainty, to us more important because more profitable. That is the cause of it. There is no doubt that sheer vacancy broke down her mind, and no doubt as to the power and capacity of of the mind it destroyed.

It is a common history enough. Solitude has been tried many a hundred years as a refining and spiritualising means, and its results have always been much the same. Eugenie de Guerin but repeats the history of many a cloistered monk and nun who had left themselves nothing to dwell upon but their own feelings, and few incidents in their outwart life to feel about. She might have copied from them her extravagant excitement at small events; her tendency to causeless happiness and causeless tears; her ever-recurring wail-she suffers, she suf fers without definite subject of complaint.. Such a wail as this has come out of many a cloister:

"I know not what saddens me, what keeps. soul! So she goes on through the book alter-me languid to-day.. Poor soul, poor what dost thou nately sinning or wishing to sin, and thank- what is the matter with thee. want- - where is thy remedy? Everything is ing God that she is kept out of temptation; green, everything blooms, everything sings, all lamenting her dreary and empty life, and the air is balmy as if it came out of a flower." repeating how well suited it is to her disposition. Is this woman, longing for tragedy and opera, the same that gave up writing poetry because she owed an account of her minutes? Can it be the same person who, after resolving to read a sermon every day during Lent, says

"That is for the soul. The mind will live as it can; I know not wherewith to nourish it; no books to my taste. Still, however, somcthing is needed. I cannot do without reading, furnishing something to that which thinks and lives."-p. 167.

"There is Minnie (her sister) praying. I am going to do the same, and tell God that He wearies me. Ah me! what would become of me without prayer, without faith, the thought

this felicity of expression
Not many stupefied solitaries would have

should be alone, and a beautiful solitude is "Oh it is so fine! let us go out. No; I worth nothing. Eve showed that in Eden."'

True: one would even eat the apple for the sake of a change.

"What shall one do then -read, write, pray,. take up a basket of sand on one's head, like that recluse, and walk? Yes, work, work. Occupy the body which injures the soul. I have been too quiet to-day, which gives time for a certain weariness which is in me to stagnate (croupir). Why am I wearied? Have I not all that I need, all that I love except you (her brother)? Sometimes I think it is the

idea of the convent that does this, which attracts | it rather with liking as something feminine and saddens me." - p. 202. - as Chinese are said to admire the staggering gait of their club-footed women

This picture would not be perfect without making acquaintance with the grace, delithe opposite state of feeling.

And the life so ordained is such that she can find nothing better to alleviate her sense of misery than to carry a basket of sand on her head! Might not the ordinary work of the world serve the same purpose? Or even the opera and Mdlle. Rachel for which amusements she wishes in the next page.

cacy, feeling, talent, fervour, poetry, and what not of a woman who has suffered so

much, just as they might make acquaintance with the heroine of a novel or a drama, as a creation to be added to their store of pictures, a thing to have its effect in enlarging the mind and refining their taste in the matter of feminine emotion, and making no protest against the mistaken notion of duty that can result in the sacrifice of such happiness as God puts within our reach. True, our career is at best but a disappointment. We blunder through our lives. The most fortunate have much to bear, the most capable only half succeed ·

"And follow out the happiest story,

It closes with a tomb!

Is it true that we are so placed on this earth that our life arranges itself without us? That we may wisely remain passive, assured that a superior power directs events? So far from it that there is no one so weak and incapable that their own exertions will not modify their condition. So far from it that God has given us faculties to be used for this purpose, and made us so that the greatest part of the imperfect happiness that this world affords is given by their activity, and by the labours, hopes, fears, and affections that spring from communion with our kind. We English people have long discarded the virtue of quietism, except with regard to the small class of women to which Eugenie belonged. We believe that what our right hand can honestly earn is ours thankfully to enjoy. And a good deal of contempt mingles with our pity for those who complain of the want of pleasures, and make no effort to obtain them. The only Some instinct or natural judgment as to exceptions to this belief are a small number the real means of increasing her pleasures of women who have come down through shows itself now and then. She seeks painmisfortune from the class rich enough to fully like a blind man for the penny provide themselves with interests and amuse-, at his feet, but in fear and ignorance she ments. They are ignorant of the connec- turns first to her brother. tion between working and the possession of the good things of this world. How should they know it? And they are imitated by a few beneath them who think, labour being a custom of the lower classes, they will rise in the world by leaving it off.

But we need not therefore fall back into admiration or tolerance of a discarded error, nor add, by false teaching, to the mass of preventible evil. People who have already a large store of good things, so that nothing they can earn would repay them for further exertion, easily get the royal impression that all is vanity, that a man's labour profiteth nothing under the sun, that women especially had better not meddle with it for fear of soiling their hands. But the rest of the world know well that it profits. The weakest and most incapable of them at least escape thereby the pressure that will warp even a strong mind into insanity. And the history of those who have secluded themselves shows that neither happiness nor holiness comes of seclusion.

These two sorts of women make great complaints in the world. Those who think them right in practising a passive morality ought surely to help and provide for them, for they have much to bear. But it is wonderful to find any but these peculiar people reading the history of the slow palsy overpowering a vigorous mind, and looking on

thrown

"How I long, how I long to hear of your having a social position! for my future attaches itself to yours; they are brothers."

Women in her position always are a burden on their relations. It is the practical result of denying themselves and neglecting the care of their own interests. Either the selfishness or the hopelessness of this expectation probably struck her, for she does not reach out boldly in that direction. What a rebuff to her blind ignorance when her brother, in weak health, marries at

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