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Paul and Virginia

by Bernardin de Saint Pierre

April, 2000  [Etext #2127]


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Etext prepared by Dagny, dagnyj@hotmail.com
and John Bickers, jbickers@ihug.co.nz





Paul and Virginia

by Bernardin de Saint Pierre




WITH A
MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR



PREFACE

In introducing to the Public the present edition of this well known
and affecting Tale,--the /chef d'oeuvre/ of its gifted author, the
Publishers take occasion to say, that it affords them no little
gratification, to apprise the numerous admirers of "Paul and
Virginia," that the /entire/ work of St. Pierre is now presented to
them. All the previous editions have been disfigured by
interpolations, and mutilated by numerous omissions and alterations,
which have had the effect of reducing it from the rank of a
Philosophical Tale, to the level of a mere story for children.

Of the merits of "Paul and Virginia," it is hardly necessary to utter
a word; it tells its own story eloquently and impressively, and in a
language simple, natural and true, it touches the common heart of the
world. There are but few works that have obtained a greater degree of
popularity, none are more deserving it; and the Publishers cannot
therefore refrain from expressing a hope that their efforts in thus
giving a faithful transcript of the work,--an acknowledged classic by
the European world,--may be, in some degree, instrumental in awakening
here, at home, a taste for those higher works of Fancy, which, while
they seek to elevate and strengthen the understanding, instruct and
purify the heart. It is in this character that the Tale of "Paul and
Virginia" ranks pre-eminent. [Prepared from an edition published by
Porter & Coates, Philadelphia, U.S.A.]



MEMOIR OF BERNARDIN DE ST. PIERRE

Love of Nature, that strong feeling of enthusiasm which leads to
profound admiration of the whole works of creation, belongs, it may be
presumed, to a certain peculiarity of organization, and has, no doubt,
existed in different individuals from the beginning of the world. The
old poets and philosophers, romance writers, and troubadours, had all
looked upon Nature with observing and admiring eyes. They have most of
them given incidentally charming pictures of spring, of the setting
sun, of particular spots, and of favourite flowers.

There are few writers of note, of any country, or of any age, from
whom quotations might not be made in proof of the love with which they
regarded Nature. And this remark applies as much to religious and
philosophic writers as to poets,--equally to Plato, St. Francois de
Sales, Bacon, and Fenelon, as to Shakespeare, Racine, Calderon, or
Burns; for from no really philosophic or religious doctrine can the
love of the works of Nature be excluded.

But before the days of Jean Jacques Rousseau, Buffon, and Bernardin de
St. Pierre, this love of Nature had not been expressed in all its
intensity. Until their day, it had not been written on exclusively.
The lovers of Nature were not, till then, as they may perhaps since be
considered, a sect apart. Though perfectly sincere in all the
adorations they offered, they were less entirely, and certainly less
diligently and constantly, her adorers.

It is the great praise of Bernardin de St. Pierre, that coming
immediately after Rousseau and Buffon, and being one of the most
proficient writers of the same school, he was in no degree their
imitator, but perfectly original and new. He intuitively perceived the
immensity of the subject he intended to explore, and has told us that
no day of his life passed without his collecting some valuable
materials for his writings. In the divine works of Nature, he
diligently sought to discover her laws. It was his early intention not
to begin to write until he had ceased to observe; but he found
observation endless, and that he was "like a child who with a shell
digs a hole in the sand to receive the waters of the ocean." He
elsewhere humbly says, that not only the general history of Nature,
but even that of the smallest plant, was far beyond his ability.
Before, however, speaking further of him as an author, it will be
necessary to recapitulate the chief events of his life.

HENRI-JACQUES BERNARDIN DE ST. PIERRE, was born at Havre in 1737. He
always considered himself descended from that Eustache de St. Pierre,
who is said by Froissart, (and I believe by Froissart only), to have
so generously offered himself as a victim to appease the wrath of
Edward the Third against Calais. He, with his companions in virtue, it
is also said, was saved by the intercession of Queen Philippa. In one
of his smaller works, Bernardin asserts this descent, and it was
certainly one of which he might be proud. Many anecdotes are related
of his childhood, indicative of the youthful author,--of his strong
love of Nature, and his humanity to animals.

That "the child is the father of the man," has been seldom more
strongly illustrated. There is a story of a cat, which, when related
by him many years afterwards to Rousseau, caused that philosopher to
shed tears. At eight years of age, he took the greatest pleasure in
the regular culture of his garden; and possibly then stored up some of
the ideas which afterwards appeared in the "Fraisier." His sympathy
with all living things was extreme.

In "Paul and Virginia," he praises, with evident satisfaction, their
meal of milk and eggs, which had not cost any animal its life. It has
been remarked, and possibly with truth, that every tenderly disposed
heart, deeply imbued with a love of Nature, is at times somewhat
Braminical. St. Pierre's certainly was.

When quite young, he advanced with a clenched fist towards a carter
who was ill-treating a horse. And when taken for the first time, by
his father, to Rouen, having the towers of the cathedral pointed out
to him, he exclaimed, "My God! how high they fly." Every one present
naturally laughed. Bernardin had only noticed the flight of some
swallows who had built their nests there. He thus early revealed those
instincts which afterwards became the guidance of his life: the
strength of which possibly occasioned his too great indifference to
all monuments of art. The love of study and of solitude were also
characteristics of his childhood. His temper is said to have been
moody, impetuous, and intractable. Whether this faulty temper may not
have been produced or rendered worse by mismanagement, cannot not be
ascertained. It, undoubtedly became afterwards, to St. Pierre a
fruitful source of misfortune and of woe.

The reading of voyages was with him, even in childhood, almost a
passion. At twelve years of age, his whole soul was occupied by
Robinson Crusoe and his island. His romantic love of adventure seeming
to his parents to announce a predilection in favour of the sea, he was
sent by them with one of his uncles to Martinique. But St. Pierre had
not sufficiently practised the virtue of obedience to submit, as was
necessary, to the discipline of a ship. He was afterwards placed with
the Jesuits at Caen, with whom he made immense progress in his
studies. But, it is to be feared, he did not conform too well to the
regulations of the college, for he conceived, from that time, the
greatest detestation for places of public education. And this aversion
he has frequently testified in his writings. While devoted to his
books of travels, he in turn anticipated being a Jesuit, a missionary
or a martyr; but his family at length succeeded in establishing him at
Rouen, where he completed his studies with brilliant success, in 1757.
He soon after obtained a commission as an engineer, with a salary of
one hundred louis. In this capacity he was sent (1760) to Dusseldorf,
under the command of Count St. Germain. This was a career in which he
might have acquired both honour and fortune; but, most unhappily for
St. Pierre, he looked upon the useful and necessary etiquettes of life
as so many unworthy prejudices. Instead of conforming to them, he
sought to trample on them. In addition, he evinced some disposition to
rebel against his commander, and was unsocial with his equals. It is
not, therefore, to be wondered at, that at this unfortunate period of
his existence, he made himself enemies; or that, notwithstanding his
great talents, or the coolness he had exhibited in moments of danger,
he should have been sent back to France. Unwelcome, under these
circumstances, to his family, he was ill received by all.

It is a lesson yet to be learned, that genius gives no charter for the
indulgence of error,--a truth yet /to be/ remembered, that only a
small portion of the world will look with leniency on the failings of
the highly-gifted; and, that from themselves, the consequences of
their own actions can never be averted. It is yet, alas! /to be/ added
to the convictions of the ardent in mind, that no degree of excellence
in science or literature, not even the immortality of a name can
exempt its possessor from obedience to moral discipline; or give him
happiness, unless "temper's image" be stamped on his daily words and
actions. St. Pierre's life was sadly embittered by his own conduct.
The adventurous life he led after his return from Dusseldorf, some of
the circumstances of which exhibited him in an unfavourable light to
others, tended, perhaps, to tinge his imagination with that wild and
tender melancholy so prevalent in his writings. A prize in the lottery
had just doubled his very slender means of existence, when he obtained
the appointment of geographical engineer, and was sent to Malta. The
Knights of the Order were at this time expecting to be attacked by the
Turks. Having already been in the service, it was singular that St.
Pierre should have had the imprudence to sail without his commission.
He thus subjected himself to a thousand disagreeables, for the
officers would not recognize him as one of themselves. The effects of
their neglect on his mind were tremendous; his reason for a time
seemed almost disturbed by the mortifications he suffered. After
receiving an insufficient indemnity for the expenses of his voyage,
St. Pierre returned to France, there to endure fresh misfortunes.

Not being able to obtain any assistance from the ministry or his
family, he resolved on giving lessons in the mathematics. But St.
Pierre was less adapted than most others for succeeding in the
apparently easy, but really ingenious and difficult, art of teaching.
When education is better understood, it will be more generally
acknowledged, that, to impart instruction with success, a teacher must
possess deeper intelligence than is implied by the profoundest skill
in any one branch of science or of art. All minds, even to the
youngest, require, while being taught, the utmost compliance and
consideration; and these qualities can scarcely be properly exercised
without a true knowledge of the human heart, united to much practical
patience. St. Pierre, at this period of his life, certainly did not
possess them. It is probable that Rousseau, when he attempted in his
youth to give lessons in music, not knowing any thing whatever of
music, was scarcely less fitted for the task of instruction, than St.
Pierre with all his mathematical knowledge. The pressure of poverty
drove him to Holland. He was well received at Amsterdam, by a French
refugee named Mustel, who edited a popular journal there, and who
procured him employment, with handsome remuneration. St. Pierre did
not, however, remain long satisfied with this quiet mode of existence.
Allured by the encouraging reception given by Catherine II. to
foreigners, he set out for St. Petersburg. Here, until he obtained the
protection of the Marechal de Munich, and the friendship of Duval, he
had again to contend with poverty. The latter generously opened to him
his purse and by the Marechal he was introduced to Villebois, the
Grand Master of Artillery, and by him presented to the Empress. St.
Pierre was so handsome, that by some of his friends it was supposed,
perhaps, too, hoped, that he would supersede Orloff in the favor of
Catherine. But more honourable illusions, though they were but
illusions, occupied his own mind. He neither sought nor wished to
captivate the Empress. His ambition was to establish a republic on the
shores of the lake Aral, of which in imitation of Plato or Rousseau,
he was to be the legislator. Pre-occupied with the reformation of
despotism, he did not sufficiently look into his own heart, or seek to
avoid a repetition of the same errors that had already changed friends
into enemies, and been such a terrible barrier to his success in life.
His mind was already morbid, and in fancying that others did not
understand him, he forgot that he did not understand others. The
Empress, with the rank of captain, bestowed on him a grant of fifteen
hundred francs; but when General Dubosquet proposed to take him with
him to examine the military position of Finland, his only anxiety
seemed to be to return to France: still he went to Finland; and his
own notes of his occupations and experiments on that expedition prove,
that he gave himself up in all diligence to considerations of attack
and defence. He, who loved Nature so intently, seems only to have seen
in the extensive and majestic forests of the north, a theatre of war.
In this instance, he appears to have stifled every emotion of
admiration, and to have beheld, alike, cities and countries in his
character of military surveyor.

On his return to St. Petersburg, he found his protector Villebois,
disgraced. St. Pierre then resolved on espousing the cause of the
Poles. He went into Poland with a high reputation,--that of having
refused the favours of despotism, to aid the cause of liberty. But it
was his private life, rather than his public career, that was affected
by his residence in Poland. The Princess Mary fell in love with him,
and, forgetful of all considerations, quitted her family to reside
with him. Yielding, however, at length, to the entreaties of her
mother, she returned to her home. St. Pierre, filled with regret,
resorted to Vienna; but, unable to support the sadness which oppressed
him, and imagining that sadness to be shared by the Princess, he soon
went back to Poland. His return was still more sad than his departure;
for he found himself regarded by her who had once loved him, as an
intruder. It is to this attachment he alludes so touchingly in one of
his letters. "Adieu! friends dearer than the treasures of India!
Adieu! forests of the North, that I shall never see again!--tender
friendship, and the still dearer sentiment which surpassed it!--days
of intoxication and of happiness adeiu! adieu! We live but for a day,
to die during a whole life!"

This letter appears to one of St. Pierre's most partial biographers,
as if steeped in tears; and he speaks of his romantic and unfortunate
adventure in Poland, as the ideal of a poet's love.

"To be," says M. Sainte-Beuve, "a great poet, and loved before he had
thought of glory! To exhale the first perfume of a soul of genius,
believing himself only a lover! To reveal himself, for the first time,
entirely, but in mystery!"

In his enthusiasm, M. Sainte-Beuve loses sight of the melancholy
sequel, which must have left so sad a remembrance in St. Pierre's own
mind. His suffering, from this circumstance, may perhaps have conduced
to his making Virginia so good and true, and so incapable of giving
pain.

In 1766, he returned to Havre; but his relations were by this time
dead or dispersed, and after six years of exile, he found himself once
more in his own country, without employment and destitute of pecuniary
resources.

The Baron de Breteuil at length obtained for him a commission as
Engineer to the Isle of France, whence he returned in 1771. In this
interval, his heart and imagination doubtless received the germs of
his immortal works. Many of the events, indeed, of the "Voyage a l'Ile
de France," are to be found modified by imagined circumstances in
"Paul and Virginia." He returned to Paris poor in purse, but rich in
observation and mental resources, and resolved to devote himself to
literature. By the Baron de Breteuil he was recommended to D'Alembert,
who procured a publisher for his "Voyage," and also introduced him to
Mlle. de l'Espinasse. But no one, in spite of his great beauty, was so
ill calculated to shine or please in society as St. Pierre. His
manners were timid and embarrassed, and, unless to those with whom he
was very intimate, he scarcely appeared intelligent.

It is sad to think, that misunderstanding should prevail to such an
extent, and heart so seldom really speak to heart, in the intercourse
of the world, that the most humane may appear cruel, and the
sympathizing indifferent. Judging of Mlle. de l'Espinasse from her
letters, and the testimony of her contemporaries, it seems quite
impossible that she could have given pain to any one, more
particularly to a man possessing St. Pierre's extraordinary talent and
profound sensibility. Both she and D'Alembert were capable of
appreciating him; but the society in which they moved laughed at his
timidity, and the tone of raillery in which they often indulged was
not understood by him. It is certain that he withdrew from their
circle with wounded and mortified feelings, and, in spite of an
explanatory letter from D'Alembert, did not return to it. The
inflictors of all this pain, in the meantime, were possibly as
unconscious of the meaning attached to their words, as were the birds
of old of the augury drawn from their flight.

St. Pierre, in his "Preambule de l'Arcadie," has pathetically and
eloquently described the deplorable state of his health and feelings,
after frequent humiliating disputes and disappointments had driven him
from society; or rather, when, like Rousseau, he was "self-banished"
from it.

"I was struck," he says, "with an extraordinary malady. Streams of
fire, like lightning, flashed before my eyes; every object appeared to
me double, or in motion: like OEdipus, I saw two suns. . . In the
finest day of summer, I could not cross the Seine in a boat without
experiencing intolerable anxiety. If, in a public garden, I merely
passed by a piece of water, I suffered from spasms and a feeling of
horror. I could not cross a garden in which many people were
collected: if they looked at me, I immediately imagined they were
speaking ill of me." It was during this state of suffering, that he
devoted himself with ardour to collecting and making use of materials
for that work which was to give glory to his name.

It was only by perseverance, and disregarding many rough and
discouraging receptions, that he succeeded in making acquaintance with
Rousseau, whom he so much resembled. St. Pierre devoted himself to his
society with enthusiasm, visiting him frequently and constantly, till
Rousseau departed for Ermenonville. It is not unworthy of remark, that
both these men, such enthusiastic admirers of Nature and the natural
in all things, should have possessed factitious rather than practical
virtue, and a wisdom wholly unfitted for the world. St. Pierre asked
Rousseau, in one of their frequent rambles, if, in delineating St.
Preux, he had not intended to represent himself. "No," replied
Rousseau, "St. Preux is not what I have been, but what I wished to
be." St. Pierre would most likely have given the same answer, had a
similar question been put to him with regard to the Colonel in "Paul
and Virginia." This at least, appears the sort of old age he loved to
contemplate, and wished to realize.

For six years, he worked at his "Etudes," and with some difficulty
found a publisher for them. M. Didot, a celebrated typographer, whose
daughter St. Pierre afterwards married, consented to print a
manuscript which had been declined by many others. He was well
rewarded for the undertaking. The success of the "Etudes de la Nature"
surpassed the most sanguine expectation, even of the author. Four
years after its publication, St. Pierre gave to the world "Paul and
Virginia," which had for some time been lying in his portfolio. He had
tried its effect, in manuscript, on persons of different characters
and pursuits. They had given it no applause; but all had shed tears at
its perusal: and perhaps, few works of a decidedly romantic character
have ever been so generally read, or so much approved. Among the great
names whose admiration of it is on record, may be mentioned Napoleon
and Humboldt.

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

Although deficient in the exact knowledge of the sciences, and knowing
little of the world, St. Pierre was, by his simplicity, and the
retirement in which he lived, well suited, at that epoch, to the
situation. About this time, and when in his fifty-seventh year, he
married 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 literary
societies. On the suppression of his place, he retired to Essonne. It
is delightful to follow him there, and to contemplate his quiet
existence. His days flowed on peaceably, occupied in the publication
of "Les Harmonies de la Nature," the republication of his earlier
works, and the composition of some lesser pieces. He himself
affectingly regrets an interruption to these occupations. On being
appointed Instructor to the Normal School, he says, "I am obliged to
hang my harp on the willows of my river, and to accept an employment
useful to my family and my country. I am afflicted at having to
suspend an occupation which has given me so much happiness."

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

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

Having himself contracted the habit of confiding his griefs and
sorrows to the public, the sanctuary of his private life was open
alike to the discussion of friends and enemies. The biographer, who
wishes to be exact, and yet set down nought in malice, is forced to
the contemplation of 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 from a 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 into consideration that St. Pierre
sometimes imagined persons who were really good, to be deserving of
these strong and very contumacious epithets, it would have been
difficult indeed to find a society in which he could have been happy.
He was, therefore, wise, in seeking retirement, and indulging in
solitude. His mistakes,--for they were mistakes,--arose from a too
quick perception of evil, united to an exquisite and diffuse
sensibility. When he felt wounded by a thorn, he forgot the beauty and
perfume of the rose to which it belonged, and from which perhaps it
could not be separated. And he was exposed (as often happens) to the
very description of trials that were least in harmony with his
defects. Few dispositions could have run a career like his, and have
remained unscathed. But one less tender than his own would have been
less soured by it. For many years, he bore about with him the
consciousness of unacknowledged talent. The world cannot be blamed for
not appreciating that which had never been revealed. But we know not
what the jostling and elbowing of that world, in the meantime, may
have been to him--how often he may have felt himself unworthily
treated--or how far that treatment may have preyed upon and corroded
his heart. Who shall say that with this consciousness there did not
mingle a quick and instinctive perception of the hidden motives of
action,--that he did not sometimes detect, where others might have
been blind, the under-shuffling of the hands, in the by-play of the
world?

Through all his writings, and throughout his correspondence, there are
beautiful proofs of the tenderness of his feelings,--the most
essential quality, perhaps, in any writer. It is at least, one that if
not possessed, can never be attained. The familiarity of his
imagination with natural objects, when he was living far removed from
them, is remarkable, and often affecting.

"I have arranged," he says to Mr. Henin, his friend and patron, "very
interesting materials, but it is only with the light of Heaven over me
that I can recover my strength. Obtain for me a /rabbit's hole/, in
which I may pass the summer in the country." And again, "With the
/first violet/, I shall come to see you." It is soothing to find, in
passages like 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 kinds
these images, impressed with quietness and beauty, came back to the
mind of St. Pierre, to cheer and animate him.

In alluding to his miseries, it is but fair to quote a passage from
his "Voyage," which reveals his fond remembrance of his native land.
"I should ever prefer my own country to every other," he says, "not
because it 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!--the meadows in which he played, and the orchard that he
robbed!"

He returned to this country, so fondly loved and deeply cherished in
absence, to experience only trouble and difficulty. Away from it, he
had yearned 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
rapturous emotions were changed to bitterness and gall. His hopes had
proved delusions--his expectations, mockeries. Oh! who but must look
with charity and mercy on all discontent and irritation consequent on
such a depth of disappointment: on what must have then appeared to him
such unmitigable woe. Under the influence of these saddened feelings,
his thoughts flew back to the island he had left, to place all beauty,
as well as all happiness, there!

One great proof that he did beautify the distant, may be found in the
contrast 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 the cherished creatures of his imagination, he described as
an enchanting and delightful Eden, he had previously spoken of as a
"rugged country covered with rocks,"--"a land of Cyclops blackened by
fire." Truth, probably, lies between the two representations; the
sadness of exile having darkened the one, and the exuberance of his
imagination embellished the other.

St. Pierre's merit as an author has been too long and too universally
acknowledged, to make it needful that it should be dwelt on here. A
careful review of the circumstances of his life induces the belief,
that his 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 been always spread out before him when he wrote, like a beautiful
landscape, on which his eye rested with complacency, and from which
his mind transferred and idealized some objects, without a servile
imitation of any. When at Berlin, he had had it in his power to marry
Virginia Tabenheim; and in Russia, Mlle. de la Tour, the niece of
General Dubosquet, would have accepted his hand. He was too poor to
marry either. A grateful recollection caused him to bestow the names
of the two on his most beloved creation. Paul was the name of a friar,
with whom he had associated in his childhood, and whose life he wished
to imitate. How little had the owners of these names anticipated that
they were to become the baptismal appellations of half a generation in
France, and to be re-echoed through the world to the end of time!

It was St. Pierre who first discovered the poverty of language with
regard to picturesque descriptions. In his earliest work, the often-
quoted "Voyages," he complains, that the terms for describing nature
are not yet invented. "Endeavour," he says, "to describe a mountain in
such a manner that it may be recognised. When you have spoken of its
base, its sides, its summit, you will have said all! But what variety
there is to be found in those swelling, lengthened, flattened, or
cavernous forms! It is only by periphrasis that all this can be
expressed. The same difficulty exists for plains and valleys. But if
you have a palace to describe, there is no longer any difficulty.
Every moulding has its appropriate name."

It was St. Pierre's glory, in some degree, to triumph over this dearth
of expression. Few authors ever introduced more new terms into
descriptive writing: yet are his innovations ever chastened, and in
good taste. His style, in its elegant simplicity, is, indeed,
perfection. It is at once sonorous and sweet, and always in harmony
with the sentiment he would express, or the subject he would discuss.
Chenier might well arm himself with "Paul and Virginia," and the
"Chaumiere Indienne," in opposition to those writers, who, as he said,
made prose unnatural, by seeking to elevate it into verse.

The "Etudes de la Nature" embraced a thousand different subjects, and
contained some new ideas on all. It is to the honour of human nature,
that after the uptearing of so many sacred opinions, a production like
this, revealing the chain of connection through the works of Creation,
and the Creator in his works, should have been hailed, as it was, with
enthusiasm.

His motto, from his favourite poet Virgil, "Taught by calamity, I pity
the unhappy," won for him, perhaps many readers. And in its touching
illusions, the unhappy may have found suspension from the realities of
life, as well as encouragement to support its trials. For, throughout,
it infuses admiration of the arrangements of Providence, and a desire
for virtue. More than one modern poet may be supposed to have drawn a
portion of his inspiration, from the "Etudes." As a work of science it
contains many errors. These, particularly his theory of the tides,[*]
St. Pierre maintained to the last, and so eloquently, that it was said
at the time, to be impossible to unite less reason with more logic.

[*] Occasioned, according to St. Pierre, by the melting of the ice at
    the Poles.

In "Paul and Virginia," he was supremely fortunate in his subject. It
was an entirely new creation, uninspired by any previous work; but
which gave birth to many others, having furnished the plot to six
theatrical pieces. It was a subject to which the author could bring
all his excellences as a writer and a man, while his deficiencies and
defects were necessarily excluded. In no manner could he incorporate
politics, science, or misapprehension of persons, while his
sensibility, morals, and wonderful talent for description, were in
perfect accordance with, and ornaments to it. Lemontey and Sainte-
Beuve both consider success to be inseparable from the happy selection
of a story so entirely in harmony with the character of the author;
and that the most successful writers might envy him so fortunate a
choice. Buonaparte was in the habit of saying, whenever he saw St.
Pierre, "M. Bernardin, when do you mean to give us more Pauls and
Virginias, and Indian Cottages? You ought to give us some every six
months."

The "Indian Cottage," if not quite equal in interest to "Paul and
Virginia, is still a charming production, and does great honour to the
genius of its author. It abounds in antique and Eastern gems of
thought. Striking and excellent comparisons are scattered through its
pages; and it is delightful to reflect, that the following beautiful
and solemn answer of the Paria was, with St. Pierre, the results of
his own experience:--"Misfortune resembles the Black Mountain of
Bember, situated at the extremity of the burning kingdom of Lahore;
while you are climbing it, you only see before you barren rocks; but
when you have reached its summit, you see heaven above your head, and
at your feet the kingdom of Cachemere."

When this passage was written, the rugged, and sterile rock had been
climbed by its gifted author. He had reached the summit,--his genius
had been rewarded, and he himself saw the heaven he wished to point
out to others.

SARAH JONES.


[For the facts contained in this brief Memoir, I am indebted to St.
Pierre's own works, to the "Biographie Universelle," to the "Essai sur
la Vie et les Ouvrages de Bernardin de St. Pierre," by M. Aime Martin,
and to the very excellent and interesting "Notice Historique et
Litteraire," of M. Sainte-Beauve.]
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