The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1880-04-28
the richest fabrics Of the loom. Spring
field Republican.
GIBBONS EARL LOVE.

GIBBONS EARLY Love.
His Youthful Affection for the Mother OF
Madame de Stael.
The historian Gibbon was never mar
RED. When q mere boy, and while q
student at Oxford, he turned Roman
Catholic, and was sent to Switzerland,
where q Protestant pastor undertook
to bring him back to the faith he had
abandoned. He succeeded IN curing him
OF his Remaining procivities, but, as
the sequel showed, very little religious
belief remained after his abjaration had
been made. Much moral principle seems
to have gone with his trust IN religion
BE tells us in his very entertaining auto
biography that, his father having disap-
proved of his love tor Suzanne Churchod,
q Swiss minister's daughter, he sighed az
q lover, yet obeyed as a son, and that
the lady also calmly acquiesced in the
separation.
| A recent contributor to the Reole
des Deur Mondes, member of the De
stael family, who has had access to
some OF the correspondence between
Gibbon and Mile. Curchod, shows BY ex--
tracts from their letters and connecting
details that the statement Is false, and
also that the young man was very heart
less. He was not Of age when he became
engaged, and his letters were almost as
sonorous as his later work, the t.Decline
and Fall of the Roman Empire, but, in
the light of subsequent developments at
least, they sound very hollow. Even
suzanne appears to have suspected his
| fidelity at times, and her doubts drew
| from him such an expression as this:
"How could you doubt an instant of
my love and my fidelity? Have you not
read the depth of my soul a hundred
tlmes2 Have you not seen there a pas
sion as pure as 1t is ardent? Have YOU
not felt that your image will always hold
the first place in the heart which you
now despise, and that in the midst of
pleasures, honors, and riches, without
you could have no happinessa''
The elder Gibbon had more ambitious
views tor his son, or perhaps the general
English contempt for foreigners, and ear
~ IN their engagement the lovers seem
to have made up their minds to wait.
Still the father cannot be blamed for the
fact that from his return to England, in
1903, to 1862, when he finally broke of
the alliance, young Gibbon wrote Suzan-
ne no letters, and accompanied a little
work which he had written in French.
on the study Of "Literature," with very
cold dedicatory note. She could not
easily forget him, though the exagger-
ated despair with which he clothed his
farewell letter must have convinced any
<1o% ~
bug. She could hardly believe that the
man she loved could act thus, and when
they met, year later, she could not tell
whether all hope must be abandoned.
She wrote to him to know what to ex-.
pect, apologizing to HIM for the step,
but declaring that she could bear the
suspense no longer. She said:
"For five years, have sacrificed my
self to this chimera by conduct UNIQUE
and inconceivable. At last my mind, ro-
mantle as 1t is. has been convinced Of its
error. 1 ask Of you on my knees to dis
suade foolish heart. 81 gn complete
avowal of your indifference, and nv soul
will resign itself to its fate; CERTAINTY
will produce the tranquility for which Il
sigh. You will be the most despicable
Of men If you refuse me this act of frank
nees. and God who sees my heart and
who loves me without doubt, although
He makes me suffer severe trials--that
God, I tell you, will punish you in spite
of my prayers, if there is the least dis
guise in your answer, or if by your ST.
lence you make toy of my repose"
The letter was promptly returned to
her, and bore on it these sad words, in
scribed by her own hand: ga thinking
soul is punished enough, and everv single
thought draws blood" She followed
this with another letter, in which she
vowed that she had tancied in him man
who never existed, that he was now no
more to her than any other man, and 4
proposed friendly correspondence. This
proposition, with truly English phlegm
and caution, he did not answer for sever
al weeks, and then with chilling cool
ness. The same course characterized his
actions at a subsequent meeting. The
hearted and indignant girl de-
nounced him in a passionate letter. She
said:
"What remains to me now save to
bless the Supreme Being who has saved
me from the greatest Of evlls2 Yes, I
commence to believe it-you would have
regarded me as burden. Ny existence
would have injured your future or your
ambition, and your ill-disguised regrets
would have sent me to the tomb by the
road Of despair"
She lost the hand Of a great historian,
but of very selfish man, and won that
of M. Necker, the banker of Geneva, and
later the confidential adviser of the
French King. By him she became the
mother of Madame de Stael, and the an
cestress of the Broglies, and other dis
tinguished descendants of that famous
literary women. She met Gibbon IN
fashionable society when they had both
became celebrities. Years had softened
the memory of her wrong, and she treat
ed him kindly. He accepted the reconcile
alton, and they were friends, but nothing
more. She probably lost nothing when
she married Necker, but one cannot but
feel that the cynical historian would
have been less inclined to sheer had he
married his early love.
Ready for Job.
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