Famous Affinities of History — Volume 3 by Lydon Orr
page 77 of 122 (63%)
page 77 of 122 (63%)
|
Bollmann, at the period when Mme. de Stael was in her prime. The
worthy doctor set her down as a genius--an extraordinary, eccentric woman in all that she did. She slept but a few hours out of the twenty-four, and was uninterruptedly and fearfully busy all the rest of the time. While her hair was being dressed, and even while she breakfasted, she used to keep on writing, nor did she ever rest sufficiently to examine what she had written. Such then was Mme. de Stael, a type of the time in which she lived, so far as concerns her worship of sensibility--of sensibility, and not of love; for love is too great to be so scattered and made a thing to prattle of, to cheapen, and thus destroy. So we find at the last that Germaine de Stael, though she was much read and much feted and much followed, came finally to that last halting-place where confessedly she was merely an old woman, eccentric, and unattractive. She sued her former lovers for the money she had lent them, she scolded and found fault--as perhaps befits her age. But such is the natural end of sensibility, and of the woman who typifies it for succeeding generations. THE STORY OF KARL MARX Some time ago I entered a fairly large library--one of more than |
|