The Press.
London, England, 1858-10-16 00:00:00

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THE PRESS, OCTOBER 16, 1858
itis to see how she folded him to her scenes of her husband's childhood ; we next be- I treats of "Anecdotes of Abstraction of Mind,"
our
awhile the nurse carried him away, hold her in
the streets of Lisbon, when he writes author happily shows his aptitude for dovetailing
little busket-cradle, just below
to his mother, "I could hardly get Emmie to in a sort of literary mosaic-work the " •
,ula look into it. . . . In curios:-
' been very quiet up to this " speak a word (of French). The only thing to ties" of his reading. His best manner is seen in
-hing baby's face as be lay "be done was for her to tell me the sentences the following passage :
This intense abstraction operates visibly•, this
InNiVltatbae forcible description
.
'ming hysterical fit. . . " when we wanted anything, and for me to speak
who certainly was a woman of
iried next day,
he should be "takehne "them:' By and bye she gathers more confi- b
the ae
rt isolo4nnt
es ofo fitaghdeeannifulasciurl,:ltili)aestisiiaallsy.
him and gazing dence, and we read that she " went into fits of P
the first genius, gives of herself on her first reading of
was having a " laughter at hearing " her husband " give direc-Telemachus and Tasso. "My respiration ruse • I felt
Sbe did not " tions in Ilinclostanee ; not that she could do
' awoke in " any better." A little later she is the patient rapid fire colouring my face, and my voice 1 ' ' had
At e.i.inging, mi..
At ten and assiduous nurse by the bedside of the fevered
abnetdraEyremd inn yi
a agitationto r T an;crie (17 ahso Ew
etiveelirar, till rtionrg lthv liee perfect
. mac
T had
transformation, I did not yet think that I myself was any
and delirious patient, and, with the true poetic
Ise
delicacy of a woman's love, divines that whatever thing,f or any one. The whole had no connection vet
reminds him of his first love for her will givet
myself, I sought for nothing around rue; I was [hero,l ;
''im pleasure and do him good. So she lays on saw only the objects which existed for them ;it
was a
pillow passion-flowers wet with dew, like those dream without being awakened."—Metastasio describes a
'ed to send to him in the days of the dream similar situation. " When I apply with a little attention,
ttbiemunietrvels of my sensorium. are put into a violent
grow as red in the face as a drunkard, and am
^edes marriage. But the joyous spirit is
led down. She still clings too fondly obliged to quit my work." When Malebranche first took
its bright associations—her happi- up Descartes on Man, the germ and origiu of his philo-
human. She can write to her sophy, lie was obliged frequently to interrupt his reading
•g letter about her pet spaniel
b, a violent palpitaion of the heart. When the first
rod of the Essay on the Arts and Sciences rushed on the
two "lovely monkeys," de- nd of Rousseau, it occasioned such a feverish agitation
"ile and practical husband that it approached to a delirium.
lm this innocent levity Phis delicious inebriation of the imagination occasioned
-ful and heartrending the ancients, who sometimes perceived the effects, to
'e babe. Long and believe it was not short of divine inspiration. Fielding
her sorrow ; but says, " I do not doubt but that the must pathetic and
affecting scenes have been writ with tears." He perhaps
had yet under- would have been pleased to have confirmed his observation
ly after the by the following circumstances. The tremors of Dryden,
'leered to after having written an Ode, a circumstance tradition has
'•usband acoidently handed down, were not unusual with him; in
Is to the preface to his Tales he tells us that in translating
"•er Homer be found greater pleasure than is Virgil ; but it
was not a pleasure without pain ; the continual agitation
' of the spirits most needs be a weakener to any constitu-
tion, especially in age, and many pauses are required for
freslituent betwixt the heats.
instances taken from Alm. Roland, Metas-
' talebranche, and Rousseau are happy; and
'sraeli's anecdotes are generally very
the matter illustrated. It is when he
'y critical opinion that our eminent
'hus in the very next article we
1 Richardson, of whom he
Shakspeare of novelists has
erastination and the minute
',lain characters, and the
-• is extremely unjust ;
't have his peculiar
- defects?
" the Shake-
lbtain an
• in the
-quire
'ud