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Euphorion.

Nur durch die Haine

pour l'instruire à ses dépens dans la politique de l'idée de l'auteur. La phrase serait bien extérieure. Les grands changemens politiques plus claire et l'idée plus saillante, si nous diont entraîné des changemens dans les idées, sons, comme le vers l'exprime: “Veux tu et l'Allemagne du dix-neuvième siècle, en nous prendre (nous jeunes filles), ne montres rappelant à la France son courage et sa gloire pas trop d'empressement; car au fond nous ne du siècle de Luther, est venue piquer la curi- demandons pas mieux que de t'embrasser, toi, bel osité des lettres. On parlait alors pour la enfant." Allons plus loin: première fois en France de la littérature Allemande comme un objet digne de quelque attention, sans cependant s'en occuper; car le caractère Français ne supportant pas les crises dans les études, ce n'est que bien lentement et à travers des préoccupations et des difficultés innombrables, qu'elle est parvenue tant soit peu à s'y faire jour. D'un autre côté nous voyons des écrivains capables céder à la légèreté du caractère, et manquer ainsi à leur vocation; bien différent de ces hommes de lettres de l'Allemagne qui écrivent pour instruire plutôt que pour plaire, et qui imposent leur savoir au public souvent aux dépens de leur aisance et de leur fortune, plutôt que de se laisser imposer par son ignorance, ou de céder à la dépravation du goût, et former ce bavardage social si superficiel et si nuisible à la science et aux progrès de l'instruction.

Zu Stock und Steine:
Das leicht Errungene
Das widert mir,
Nur das Erzwungene
Ergötzt mich schier.

Voici la traduction de M. Lerminier: "Ah! seulement la haine! le combat et la lutte! Ce qui s'obtient facilement me répugne, ce qui s'arrache me dilecte." Je ne sais où M. Lerminier a trouvé que

Nur durch die Haine
Zu Stock und Stiene,

Monsieur Lerminier s'est tracé un cercle peut se traduire par la haîne, le combat et la plus rétréci: il ne voulait parler que des der- lutte. Serait-ce peut-être la ressemblance niers dix-neuf ans, et il en parla avec un peu de Haine avec haîne et puis que signifie : plus d'ensemble et avec assez de connaissance, ah! seulement la haîne ! le combat et la lutte? si nous lui passons un peu trop de poésie dans Comment s'expliquer cette exclamation d'Euses vues politiques, et trop de politique dans phorion qui veut jouer à la chasse avec les ses poésies. Nous avons lu cet ouvrage avec jeunes filles? Veut-il provoquer la haîne et plaisir, et nous le croyons un des meilleurs le combat pour se faire aimer? L'Euphorion que possède la France jusqu'ici. Il est pré- de M. Lerminier ne manque pas de franchise férable à l'Allemagne de Madame de Staël, dans ce cas, puisqu'il annonce ouvertement car il est écrit avec moins de préoccupation; ses intentions. Mais essayons de démontrer il est préférable aux notices de M. Saint- son erreure par une traduction plus exacte, Marc-Girardin, car il y a plus d'unité et il nous verrons si la réponse d'Euphorion de embrasse un champ plus vaste; il est préfé- Goethe ne sera pas un peu plus claire. II rable aux voyages enfin de M. J. J. Ampère, veut jouer cache cache, et chasser les jeunes car il parle de ce que celui-ci devait nous filles à travers la forêt; il l'annonce en didire. M. Lerminier n'a cependant pas tou-sant, je ferai le chasseur et vous la proie. Sur jours réussi dans ses traductions; nous fesons la réplique piquante des jeunes filles: Willst cette remarque non pas dans l'intention de du uns fangen? il répond: Allons, courons à déprécier son ouvrage, mais seulement de travers les forêts, par-dessus les troncs et les rendre l'auteur plus exacte dans ses travaux. pierres: ce qui s'obtient facilement me répugne. Dans les vers de Faust, seconde partie : Il n'y a ni haîne, ni combat, ni lutte; ces pasEuphorion paraît avec Hélène et Faust, il sions sont de pure invention de M. Lerminier, n'écoute les remonstrances ni de Faust ni mais pas la plus heureuse. d'Hélène; il entre dans le chœur de jeunes filles et les entraîne à la danse. Il leur dit: Je suis le chasseur et vous êtes la proie, et le chœur de jeunes filles répond :

Willst du uns fangen,
Sey nicht behende;

Denn wir verlangen

Doch nur am Ende
Dich zu umarmen,
Du schönes Bild.

Et voici la traduction : "Veux tu nous prendre, ne sois pas si pétulant, car nous désirons, mais seulement à la fin, t'embrasser toi bel enfant."

M. Lerminier n'a pas compris le vers: Doch nur am Ende, en le traduisant par: mais seulement à la fin. On supposerait par cette traduction, à la fin de la danse; ce qui est loin

Nous citerons encore une phrase, qui pous rappelle la belle traduction de Faust par M. Gérard. J'y ai trouvé entre autre: Er schlägt das Buch auf, (il est question de Faust qui ouvre son livre de magie,) it traduit: il frappe sur le livre. M. Gérard a pris la particule du verbe pour la préposition, et il a traduit comme s'il y avait : er schlägt auf das Buch. M. Lerminier vient de faire une traduction moins maladroite sans doute, mais plus sensible pour ceux à qui la chose regarde, en citant des phrases détachées de Goethe.

Die Sentimentalität der Engländer ist humorisch und zart, etc. M. Lerminier a confondu le mot zart avec hart, et il a traduit: la sentimentalité des Anglais "est humoristique et dure" au lieu de humoristique et délicate," ce qui exprime précisément l'idée contraire de l'auteur.

Ces petits erreurs ne sont pas de haute im

portance sans doute; mais je crois que M. Thou takest precedence of the King of TerLerminier, qui dit avoir étudié à fond l'Alle-rors. Before death was, thou wert, and I mand, nous donne une étrange preuve de sa fear me, when Death himself shall have died, cience. thou still wilt be.

Nous ne pousserons pas plus loin nos observations sur les productions Françaises; le prochain chapitre traitera des ouvrages Anglais, et terminera la série critique des auteurs étrangers.

(To be continued.)

THE EXPIATION.

BY THE SUB-EDITOR.

"HEREAFTER!" all-embracing word! Man's glory and his dread-yet, to how few a glory, to what countless myriads a dread! Hereafter! awful meditation-avoided whilst health permits us to be gay, and too often accompanied by the affectation of doubt when disease leads the shrinking soul, in spite of herself, into the shadowy realms that conscience tells us are replete with eternal realities. The hereafter-how have I prepared myself for it? Yes-I have greatly sinned. Even here, my crime has been weighed against me. The phantom of my guilt has walked by my side, the companion of my steps through terrible years of remorse. With me it will enter the everlasting portals, and turning upon its cherished associate, become my accusing demon. I am weary of my life, and I call upon my soul to tell me where I may repose, and she answers-"Beyond the grave." But there is a voice that sounds, as it were, in the hollowness of my heart, that bids me live, and doubt, and tremble. Abjectly I obey.

Too fascinating monster, I have struggled with thee. Thy bony hand I feel is yet upon my bosom-but I no longer walk with thee willingly, no longer find thy paths "the paths of pleasantness," and none ever found them "the paths of peace." Repentance is a glorious champion against thee, but not allsufficient. It weeps over the debt that it cannot always pay. Expiation is the only conqueror-but it is a rigid exacter-how rigid, let the ineffable blood of the Divinity testify! I have sinned-I have repented-have I expiated? May I hope that the life-stream that flowed on the Mount of Calvary will mingle with my tears of contrition, and blot out the record of my guilt for ever?

What am I now? At the age of fifty, look upon this decrepit—but let me pause-anticipation is agony-the present is torture. Let me travel back to the days of my youth, when the blessed sunshine of heaven shone, not only on my brow, but through my heart, when I was all light, and life, and love.

Upon taxing my memory for its remote offering, it gives me no earlier recollection than a miserable and short voyage on board of a small ship, with some vague, very vague flittings of balconies, verandahs, and sunny walls. In due time, I found myself at a boarding school, from whence I went, in the usual vacations, to spend a month or six weeks at three houses in rotation, the owners of which, I afterwards found, were the correspondents and commercial agents of my father, who, though an Englishman, was an affluent Spanish merchant, with establishments both at Barcelona and Madrid. It may be presumed that a stone, so movable as myself, had no time to gather much of the moss of affection.

Sin! thou glorious enchantress! In thy fresh youth, the darkness of thy countenance seemeth the excess of light, and, in the morn- At twelve years of age I went to a graming loveliness of thy face thou art dreadful as mar-school at Norwich, under the control of a blood-stained maiden, elate and fresh from a master, who would have been famous for victory; defiance sits enthroned in thy daring his erudition, had he not been more famous eye, and pleasure and wantonness course for his discipline: and the severity of whose each other in smiles over thy sunny cheeks. discipline would not have been tolerated, had This; Sin, is thy glowing youth-captivating it not been for the fame of his erudition. I -terrible-irresistible. Arrayed in these staid at this seat of learning until I had atfactitious splendors, I met thee in my early tained my seventeenth year. Nothing redays among the aromatic solitudes of the southern groves; there, whilst my young pulse throbbed in rapture to the witcheries of thy silver voice, I mistook thee for a goddess, and fell down and worshipped.

Sin! I know thee now. In thy youth thou wert an enslaving companion, in thy womanhood a stern mistress a crushing tyrant-but still, some remnants of thy former beauty hung about thee-thy flowing tresses had not then stiffened-thy robes were still majestic; -but now-what art thou now in thy detested age? A loathsome skeleton clothed in silks and ermine. I looked upon thy countenance and behold only the fleshless, eyeless skull, crowned and mocked with a diadem-for even in thy hideousness thou art regal.]

markable characterized this long period. I used, once every three months to receive two letters with tolerable regularity, one from my honored father, redundant with good counsel, the other from my loving mother, shorter, but glowing with ardent prayers for my health and prosperity; but all these good wishes were conveyed in very bad English.

During my scholastic days I had had but very little religious instruction, and I may truly say that I had picked up a most heterogeneous sort of faith, compounded from all the various materials that had been placed before me in my classical reading, in sermons from the pulpit, and lastly, and most importantly, from the holy Scriptures.

When at school at Norwich, I still paid my

periodical visits to my father's correspond- my describer. This is all very dull: I mean ents, and then I could, by long practice, al- it to be so-I mean fully to convey to the most tell whether the rates of exchange were reader the Lethean monotony of my then favorable or not to this country, by the de- creeping stream of life-that he may contrast gree of cordiality or reserve with which I and shudder when he contrasts it with that was received and entertained. awful period when, leaping over the precipice, to become, as a fall of roaring and of mighty waters-a torrent devastating wherever it rushed, until it was precipitated into the vast abyss that is shrouded by all but the mists of death.

After I left Norwhich I would have said that my character had begun to develope itself, were I not conscious that, at that time, I had no character at all. Apparently, I was a compound of negatives. If I were not clever, I certainly was not dull. If not handsome in physical appearance, certainly not unprepossessing. As yet, I had evinced no decided bias for any one pursuit. Amidst the joyful I was joyous, sad amongst the sorrow-ter Honoria, whom, at that time, I had never ful, and seemingly alive only to the present impressions. Though I had no vices, as yet, I had not warmed to the loveliness of virtue: at that time, I was correct from habit, and good from a compulsion that I neither understood nor saw. I was then often compared to a figure of wax-but neither those about me, nor myself, knew, that this yielding, impressible substance, to which I had been compared, was but as an outward coating over all the elements of latent fire-wax, if you will have it so, without, but nitre, sulphur, and bitumen within.

When nearly eighteen, I was placed as a clerk in the firm of Barnaby, Falck, Perez, and Co., the principal correspondents of my father. I was, of course, domesticated with the family of that portion of the firm, the Falcks, that resided in Lothbury. The house was certainly rather old, and the situation extremely dark. Indeed, through the winter months, we were necessitated to burn candles all the day on those desks of our countinghouse that were not directly under the windows. The Falcks were a thriving race, for the old gentleman was blessed with five sons and five daughters. The sons were, like myself, common-place characters-the daughters shared among them every description of feminine characteristic: but all merely shadowed out, not filled up.

In this place I acquired a tolerable knowledge of the foreign exchanges, and a perfect initiation into the mysteries of book-keeping, Indeed, I was growing punctilious, and a magnifier of trifles. I prided myself upon the excessive neatness of those portions of the ledgers that were entrusted to me; my redink lines were invariably at mathematical right angles, with the line of perpendicular of the account book; my handwriting, though stiff, seemed, from its neatness, to have proceeded rather from the engraver than the penman; and I had as much horror of a blot upon my pages, as a waning spinster has of one upon her reputation.

Yes, I was growing a solemn trifler. With the principals of the firm I was a good young man, with my brother clerks a finical fop, with the young ladies of my acquaintance, and they were very numerous, a particularly nice young man, with a classical and romantic cast of countenance,-these terms being used according to the particular reading of

During my clerkship I regularly received the paternal and maternal letters; and another correspondent, about this time, was added to my parental ones. It was from my sisseen. The letters were written evidently under the surveillance of her preceptors-they were extremely formal in their composition, and execrably bad in their English. If I had, at this time, any one feeling more predominant than another, it was curiosity to know what this little lady was like. I had not this feeling with respect to my parents, though I had totally forgotten their persons. But this curiosity disturbed not the even tenor of my life, and its paroxysms lasted no longer than two or three days after the receipt of one of the unintelligible little missives that caused it.

Thus I passed my eighteenth, nineteenth, twentieth year, gliding by unscathed those happy periods, though so replete with temptation, so often destructive, so often fatal. Sometimes, when the dark mood is upon me, I look back upon this state of prim innocence with disdain, and brand it with the epithet of contemptible; nor can I even now comprehend, how, at that time, an awkward fold in my neckerchief, or an ill-arranged curl upon my brow, could possibly have discomposed my mind, when, in after life, I could have stood unmoved at, and almost unconscious of the laceration of my flesh, so stern or so apathetical had my nature become. It might be amusing, but it would be foreign to my purpose, to recount the insignificant littleness of my counting-house life-the stoical indifference with which I passed through the five ordeals of the masked advances of the five Misses Falck, and the still better directed tactics of their good mother, and the magnanimous self-denial of their father, that more than asked me to woo, in solemnly condemning all such manoeuvring as ungentlemanly and mean, and always finishing with, “But take care, my dear fellow, for I think that Agatha may become too susceptible of your merits."

Now, respecting Agatha, the eldest daughter, who had red hair, but was really handsome withal, though five-and-twenty, down to little Mira, who was extremely small and pretty, notwithstanding the obliquity of the glances of her bright black eyes, the same language was held forth to me, with the only difference of the name of the fair, as each, in her turn, was presumed to be my favorite. In the nature of things, I must perforce have fallen to the lot of one of these dear ladies, for they were really all amiable, and who, I

firmly believe, had a true, though not a pas- ciency of Spanish, perhaps Moorish blood, to sion-born, affection for me-which affection taint my complexion with a clear bronze, and I returned them all, in a staid and sober man-to crisp up my black hair into very enviable ner. Perhaps, in time, I should have been curls, and enough of the Saxon from the Engthe enslaved of Mira, for I was beginning to think it an agreeable occupation, that of endeavoring to catch the fleeting glances of a lady who squinted, when she was otherwise exceedingly pretty and so innocent too, as it reminded me of the time when, as a child, I used to flash the sunbeams from a broken piece of looking-glass upon the wall, and amuse myself with the vain endeavors of my playfellows to catch it.

lish, to make my cheek ruddy, and my form large and athletic. The ladies did me the honor to say of me, that I should have been a dangerous man, were I not so quiet. Well, this quiet, genteel young man, was rapidly advancing in gentility and in a quiet way, however, for he had already the acquaintance of a second-rate actor, and had ordered one suit of clothes from Stultz. For some months past I had all my gloves and hats from I wanted but three months to complete the Bond Street. These aspirations were all time when the law benignantly permits us to managed in my usual quiet way, and no one write something more manly to our names ever augured ill to me either from my new than "infant." But I remember me, that as friend or my new clothes. It appeared like yet I have not made the reader acquainted a solecism of ideas to suppose me capable of with the name I then bore-it was "Ardent an excess. Troughton." I know not why the baptismal name of Ardent was given me, excepting it may be accounted for by the prevalence among the Spaniards of the custom of calling their children by some adjective, such as Pious, Faithful, Blessed, or any other word denoting some quality that they wish, or that they suppose their children may possess. Such, however, was the name that I had received at the font; and, at the time, when I was, according to law, no more than the infant, Ardent Troughton, my first name, seemed to be in ludicrous opposition to my nature. Much small wit was expended upon it, such as, I must, if I tried ever so little, be always an ardent lover, an ardent admirer, &c., till at last my persecutions that way terminated in a quite opposite direction, and I found peace and content in the sobriquet of Quiet Troughton.

The mercantile intercourse between his agent and my father had never been suspended during the war that Godoy the Prince of Peace had entailed upon Spain against this country. Neutral and smugglers did that in a more extensive and circuitous manner, which the fair trader was soon to do. At length, when the European peninsula declared against the aggressive and encroaching policy of Napoleon, Godoy was banished,and Ardent Troughton, commonly named the Quiet, was recalled. The paternal mandate bidding me to return to the house of my father, naturally, as might have been expected, fell among us like a thunderbolt. The five Misses Falck fainted in succession. The respectable lady, the mother, went off incontinently into hysterics, and, when she thought fit to recover, she exclaimed, the tears streaming over her full round cheeks, "that she was undone," though And I was quiet. There was a calmness in what manner, I was totally at a loss to comand a sustained staidness about me, that Miss prehend. Mr. Falck almost rubbed the glasAgatha Falck was pleased to call the dignity ses out of the rims of his spectacles, perusing of repose. I was in my amity with myself, and reperusing the important document; but and with all mankind. I had witnessed bursts rub as he would, the fatal words were there, of passion, but I could understand them only and he felt that he had lost a son-in-law. upon the supposition that they were aberra-"Such a connection," he could not help extions of the intellect. Indeed, morally, so claiming, loudly. torpid was I at that time, that I found the sublime rhapsodies of Milton unnatural, and the gigantic struggles of passion in Shakspeare, disgusting. I was almost sinking into the insignificance of frivolity and imbecility, for I was beginning to grow genteel, and to pride myself upon it.

This recall caused a great sensation in every bosom of the family but my own. Even the servants had begun to look upon me as the future son-in-law, and always called me, much to the annoyance of the young gentlemen, the five Messieurs Falck, juniors, "their young master." I had so trained myself from habit, to look upon all things with indifference, that even the thoughts of again seeing my father and mother caused scarcely any pertruba

Among my own set I was regarded as a miracle of accomplishments, and Quiet Troughton had but to open his mouth and speak, and his opinions were always listened tion in my bosom. The idea of embracing to deferentially. The Spanish language was my little sister certainly was, I could not tell my mother tongue, and a Spanish master why, more exciting. I had, to my imaginaprevented my forgetting what I had learnt so tion, painted very complete pictures of my early, in my native land. I spoke French parents, but I wanted both form and color tolerably well, à l'Anglaise, and had imbibed wherewith to paint Honoria. I trembled lest enough of classical learning, to make it re- she should have red hair, like that of Agatha quisite that I should diligently forget, for Falck, lest her complexion were swarthy, like some years, in order wholly to deprive myself that of Miss Tabitha, that her eyes were of the advantage. As to my personal appear- light grey, like those of Miss Eudocia, that ance, at this time, it was rather advantage- her figure was loose and dowdy, like that of ous. I had inherited from my mother a suffi- Miss Eleanora; and notwithstanding the

pleasure I took in chasing the jack o' lan- something indescribably heart-rending in the thorn glances of Miss Mira's black eyes, I parting with an old and dear friend. I am trembled lest she should squint, like that live-sure papa has expressed all our feelings; an ly and pretty little girl. I think that I have expression that nothing but maidenly reserve now expressed all the emotions that I expe- prevents coming from our own lips. But, rienced at the thoughts of rejoining my own believe me, Mr. Ardent, as the glorious anfamily. At that period I was Quiet Trough- cient exclaimed,-all that father has said, we

ton.

feel."

I prepared every thing for my departure in I bowed to Miss Agatha, and quietly obmy usual calm and methodical manner. My served that, in all probability, I should soon worthy host and principal could not under- return.

lose, in that detested hot-bed of vice, your
faith, your health, and your life."
I bowed my acknowledgments.
"I don't think he's yielding," said Agatha
timidly.

stand it or me. He said I wanted animation, "Never," said Mr. Falck oracularly, “neas he fell into a passion with some little ar-ver! You are going into the land of all rangement that I was quietly superintending manner of abominations; into a land of trials for my voyage. Mrs. Falck said I wanted and temptations; a land of papists, a land of taste, as her eye ran down the graduated courtesans, a land of assassins. I see it-I scale of her five daughters; the sons said see it-a land of ruin for a quiet, well-behavwith a sneer, that I wanted soul, and the ed, young man like yourself. In one day daughters with a sigh that I wanted heart. they will filch your religion from you-in one "Tis the eve of my departure. The whole week your heart-in a forthnight your life. thirteen, unlucky number, are seated together Quiet, and I may say without offence, yieldat the last lugubrious supper. Every one ap-ing and weak as you are, you will rapidly peared dreadfully effected excepting myself. I am like Lance's dog, imperturbable. The young ladies' eyes are red, and their faces pale, and Mrs. Falck does not attempt to conconceal her intermittent sobs, whilst Mr. Falck looks excessively grave, and eats with a savage vigor, as if he intended to wreak the wrath of some unexpressed chagrin upon every one of the various dishes on the table. There was something quite touching in his voracity. But even this way of expressing grief, grand though it be, must have a termination. At length, when his heart, and the region of his animal economy a little below it, were perfectly full, he thrust from before him, with an oratorical flourish, and a deep, sigh, his knife, fork, and plate, and extending his arm he spoke, "My dear Ardent, this may be, nay, probably is, the last supper that we shall ever partake together." It was a hot one, for hot suppers were the fashion in Lothbury.

"Why?" said the father sternly, for he did not like to be contradicted. Agatha blushed and held down her head, but other answer made she none.

"I am sure he is not weak," said the pretty squinting Mira.

"And pray, Miss," said her father, "what do you know about it?"

"Mr. Ardent took me up the other day like a doll in his arms-and-and"

"What?" said a half dozen voices at once, the maternal treble gaining the ascendant. "He very quietly put me down again," said she, all confusion.

"Quiet Troughton," said Mr. James Falck, with his usual sneer.

"Oh, ho!" said the mother, "perhaps Ardent may return after all."

rated. The formal leave-taking was yet to

The young ladies sighed audibly: it was quite moving, the more especially as there Then the good man of the house commencwas an indistinctness in the utterance of the ed giving me a plenitude of that wholesome old gentleman that seemed not unlike pathos, advice of which age is so lavish a dispenser, though it actually proceeded from his not youth so sieve-like and so unwilling a recihaving completely swallowed his last mouth-pient. At length, it was time that we sepaful of hot apple-pie. He continued: "Mrs. Falck, I'll trouble you for the bran- go through. Perhaps old Mr. Falck really dy. Here, my dear Ardent, in the bosom of my family, my affectionate wife, my blooming daughters, my-my-my industrious sons sitting round my hospitable board, the props and stays of my old age; here in the midst, in the very pride of my domestic felicity,I will disburthen my heart of its grief,-I will open the flood-gates of my sorrows."

"Now, dont'ee, don'tee,” sobbed aloud the fat Mrs. Falck, whilst Miss Agatha handed the eau de Cologne, according to seniority, to all her sisters, down to Miss Mira.

had a little affection for me. We all arose and stood, with our heads hanging down, in a confused circle round the fire, the father in the middle. No one liked to say first the mournful word, “farewell.” At last Mr. Falck spoke.

66

My dear Ardent, it is my duty to say, that since you have been domesticated under my roof you have been a most exemplary, a most virtuous young man. You have neither blotted my ledger, nor tried to turn the heads of my daughters."

“I will, I will: I'll open my bosom before Then turning with a severe look to the spot my more than son, and pour out the volume where his five sons had huddled themselves of my woe before him--in one word, as I together, acting, perhaps, the proverb of the can never rise before nine in the morning, bundle of sticks, indicative of their strength; I will bid Mr. Troughton good-bye to-night." he continued, "You, Ardent, have never ex"Ah," simpered Miss Agatha, "there is ceeded your stipend, never stayed out late at

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