Litchfield enquirer., 1869-03-25

AuSt DS q Sl0Slef Deln.
 PETROLEUM MASSEY, P. M.
 tWich is Postmaster.) 1 LAMARTINE.
 On!y lew days ago 1t was announced
 that Alphonse de Lamartine was about tc 1ssne h1s literary testament in the form o fa poem, which was to bear the suggestive
 melancholy title Forgetfulness. :" We do not know whether there is anytbino
 omlnous in the fact that the death of the poet himself is to be followed by the issue of poem with such name. Lamartipe dles-and Forgetfulness" follows him
 No man ever held fame sweeter than La. maritime did and there was time when ne could lnhale it to the full. There were long years during which he lived in actual glory as poet. romancist, historian, and statesman. Then came gradual extinction of the lights. It became evil dent that he was not statesman. The world ceased to believe in his oratory. His torlans proved that his history was his most brilliant romance. Critics found out that some of his most successful romances had all the dullness of the most orthodox history. France saw that she had living poets, to say nothing of the dead, incom- parably superior to Lamartine. At last it came that Lamartine's renown was but dlm memory. Now that he is dead, one oeglns to ask already, Will anything of La martlne's live? Was there any reality whatever Tn him; or was the mans fame put a glltterlng illusion, vapor, dream?
 The grand defect of Lamartine's oharac- ter was It's total want of simplicity. Just the same was the defect of his style as an author. Men who knew him have posi- lively affirmed that at the very time when all France, and, indeed, all the world. was being reused to lyrical enthusiasm by La martlne's .glittering, gorgeous, romantic pictures of the Girondists, the author was to be heard assuring some of his private friends that he despised the Girondists- Ehat they were a mere cdRdiNe. We do not Lamartlne; but we had distinct assurances of the fact from an eminent author, poli- tician and critic, who knew him we'll. How ever that may be, it is certain. that pre- vailing insincerity-we now speak rather of the authors style than of the mans na- ture-runs through all that Lamartine has written. Lady Hester Stanhope positively declared that the accounts he gave of his interviews with her in the Lebanon were entirely imaginary and ictitious-she used, indeed, rather more direct Saxon forms of expression. We do not believe that La maritime sat down to invent stories and pass them off as truth; but we do believe that the indulgence which he gave to mere sentiment, the egotistical ease with which he yielded himself up to any mental im- presslon that afforded him delight, and the entire want of robust manhood in his na ture, rendered him very likely indeed to confound what he ought to have seen or heard with what he really did see or hear. He loved luxury, and refinement, and flat tery. When he visited the East, he chose to travel like sultan or Q prince; and throughout his whole career he literally flung away money, when he had it, to grat- fly his own tastes and sentiments. Let it be said that many of these sentiments were in themselves noble. He loved to do deeds of splendid charity. It delighted his heart, his senses, and even his vanity. He re- joiced in actually startling poor and suffer- ing people by some dazzling act of unex- pected munifcence. But all the while he was beggaring himself and throwing away what was really the property of his credi- tors. For years and years back his career was perhaps the most humiliating ever ac
 cepted by 3 literary man. Compared with it the garret drudgery of the Grub-street poet was dignified-nay, more, the reck- less, scandalous poverty of the Quartier Latin Bohemian was honorable. Lamar tine stood at the gate of the literary world and begged. The hat was always held out
 The ingenuity of faithful friends was rack ed to devise new shifts and dodges for the raising of loans and aims to satisfy the creditors and meet the daily wants of the statesman who once stood highest among his countrymen-of the man who had flung away at least two fortunes in luxury and display. Nay, there was something even worse than that. Lamartine endeav- cred to make money by revealing some of the tenderest secrets of his early life He
 told the stories of the girls who had loved him-of the one who died for him; and he announced that their charm and pecuniary
 value lay in their truthfulness. He dug up these dead loves out of their graves, land sold them for public dissection. One is sorry to think that some passages in the
 stories thus told, and for such a purpose, are among the most beautiful, tender, and touching that ever came from Lamartine's pen. There are pages in the story of Ora
 zlelia so pathetic and so affecting that in reading them one is almost induced to think Lamartine must really have some | sAAAA0 AOAo WAao AO WAO60s we SupUOS0 kulS
 method of raising money by exhuming and
 betraying the sad secrets of foolish anC
 love-sick girls who were enamoured of tho Ipoet when the poet was young, IS withou
 example in the history of literature |
 was invented by the man who boasted tn, most refined nature and reveled Tn the loft fest sentiments among all the poets of hi
 day. t
 I Certainly Sentiment has lost it's poet il ; losing Lamartine. The difference between Sentiment and Feeling is the differenc between Lamartine and say Victor Hngo for example. Of course, we do not at
 tempt to deny that Lanartine had grea gifts. Nobody ever did, or ever could, al
 tain to the lofty pinnacle of renown O
 which he once stood, unless he were CT } dowed with rare faculties. But they were l we think, in his case, rare faculties fc seeming to be great. For long time lbewitched the world and himself. As .& #s1t8A .ss 7u s.