Morning journal and courier., 1883-03-23
Brilliant People From Abroad.
 CErnrsa tha I.nndn1n IUnrld

dust of our constitutional soil from off the soles of her anarchic feet. Her visit to Eng land was failure, and the cause is not far to l find. The lady may carry the defects of her nationality to point which is little too ad- vanced even for us but she is only an ex- treme illustration of the type of character which we admire in the female foreigner, and the reason why her lectures fell fiat in England were social and not political. If Louise Michel had been born and bred to @ better station if she had consorted with second-rate diplomatists and shady financiers, instead of with the blouse-habited apostles of the gospel of dynamite and the fanatics of the gutter; if she had acquired any of the veneer of fashion, and had come among us with few decent introductions, she would have been one of the ionesses of the winter season-would- have been handed on from one country house to another, like the Amer ican stranger of the period, and would have proved a formidable rival to Mme Novikoff The polite world would have seen In her a charming specimen of piquant audacity. A subtle beauty would have been discovered in the perfume of petroleum which she diffused around her. If some of her doctrines caused society to simulate 8 shudder, her partisans would have maintained that she was ''so very French and that they look at these things in different light on the other side of the Channel. It is with our politics as it is with our plays. The sentiments which, clothed in
 
 ion blush to the cheek of the young person, gre received with an approving simper when disguised in the garb of a foreign tongue. Louise Michel's first fault was her 1owly ori- gin; her second, the uncomeliness of her person. Had she belonged to a higher social stratum, or been endowed with very mod crate amount of personal attractions, she would have been in universal request. She might have deported half dozen husbands to Cayenne, and her reputation in her own country might have been annihilated years ago. But England is the home of the exile the never-failing asylum of dethroned mon- archs, and of played-out demireps of both sexes. The adventures of foreign origin has but to watch her opportunity and she will find here her happy hunting ground. If she only has the knack of uttering smart i'm pertlnences in an innocent manner she at once wins the fame of 8 brilliant woman. She may say or do anything and everything will be forgiven her. The doors of the most select social menageries will open to her; eminent writers will help her to publish es- says which she has never written, and will introduce them with sensational preface and while her countrymen and countrywo- men are puzzled at the drolI gullibiIity of ''those English, the brilliant creature her self continues her triumphal progress un- checked.
 Years pass on, and a hitherto unsuspected daughter of this sparkling paragon appears upon the scene. Her birth and her paterni- ty are alike yelled in mystery. But she is pre- scented at Court by Duchess; and time does not wither the freshness nor custom stale the infinite variety of her mother. A splendid match is within the young lady's reach. She is smiled upon in the highest quarters: and some day the mandate will go forth to the obedient courier to lead her to the altar. But the brilliant woman is not always per- petually domesticated among us. More ire quently she pays us visits at inter vals of three or four months, and we receive her with the same rapture as New York beauty gazes upon the latest Parisian fashions. Yet her appearance is not altogether in her favor. She is an elderly little spinster, with coarse gray hair twisted up into corkscrew curls But she is fortunate in the possession of a powerful set of patrons and patronesses, who have long since laid it down as first princi- pie that her eyes have expression whose beauty dedes the ravages of time, that, the viVacity of her ways never loses it's irresisti- ble fascination, and that she cannot open her lips except in epigrams The circle of ad- oration spread. in series of ever widening rounds. The movements of the brilliant woman" may be compared to those of for eign army of occupation She is billeted first on one rural or metropolitan mansion and then on another Wherever she goes free quarters and the best of everything await her. Fools rush in where angels dare not tread, and it may happen that some lackless individual presumes to criticise this exposure of spinsters Unless the critic retracts the odious sentiment he will be boycotted. The success of the brilliant woman, who is also 8 foreigner, is one of the postulates of the society in which she moves. To speak dis paragingly of the attributes which have SC cured her this success is to insult the judg- ment and taste of those whose plaudits have conferred it on her. She has become the vogue, and all comments unfavorable to her q oI.1 Long after her wit her genius, and brillian- cy have become as monotonous as London dinner parties in the season, she continues to take rank as courted and honored guest. Society is so far loyal to her that it will not publicly modify it's once recorded verdict, and, having enthroned the brilliant woman, will not degrade her to 8 meaner pedestal.
 There is, in fact no way of emanclpatlng ourselves from the social thraldom in which she holds us. Our constancy would be more creditable if 1t were not mere variety Of ou self-love. It is our conceit which makes u s true to the idols that our impulse and en : thusiasm have set up. The reception we ac cord to the brilliant foreigner in petticoats who comes here equipped with any kind O f credentials is ludicrous in it's effusiv vensss. English society piques itself upon being cos mopoli an, and the consequence is that it is becoming more and more the dupe of the designing stranger. The soiled dove wing her flight across the Straits of Dover, con- trives t6 effect an entrance into a distin guished drawing room, and is immediately launched on great career of social conquest It is desirable that she should possess some l onplishments-should be able to sing the chansons of the Seine by the waters Of the Thames or to dance as the daughter of He- rodias danced before Herod. If these con ditions are forthcoming, she straightway be- comes the fashion, and there is no more dan ger of her being displaced by an obscure rival than of a famous brand of champagne being superseded by an unknown vintage. It is possible that she may possess kind of historical interest, and we may be dimly con- scious that she is an authentic monument of 1 the Second Empire. But why go back into the past The empire has fallen, and she remains.
 Chief Engineer Gerdinier, of Bridgeport, 1 =. LIoIIs IY..l