Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1886-04-10

leader of Partisan society. The tradi-
tons of the saloon, all the way from the
Marquise du Rambouinet down to Nine.
Recamier, do not afford parallel to this
anomaly. But Mime. Mohl was so placed
that it all came about very naturally.
As Miss Mary Clark she had lived in
France with her mother and sister from
infancy. Accident would have it that
Just as her mother was looking for a
new apartment Nine. Recamier found the
one she occupied too large for her and
wished to exchange it for smaller one
in the same building. The Clarkes did
not know Nine. Recamer, but they had
common friends who effected the intro
duction, and an arrangement was made
whereby Mrs. Clarke took possession of
the larger apartment, still allowing Mme
Recamier the use of the drawing room
for her evening receptions. This natural
ly placed the ladies upon terms of in
timacy which soon grew into friendship,
and it was in the salon OF Nine. Recamier
that Mary Clarke formed for herself that
social ideal which she spent the rest of
her life in putting into practice. $50
ciety had, in fact, how become her one
absorbing interest, her vocation; she
adopted it as one adopted art, politics,
phila 1thropy, or any other calling. She
determined to have salon, and hence
forth this salon became the business of
her ife."
The Clarkes lived with Nine. Recamier
for several years, and then removed to
the apartment in the Rue du BAG, which
they were to occupy for the rest of their
lives. Here come such men as Fauriel,
Merimee, De Tocqueville, Guizot, Cousin
Constant, Thierry, Theirs, De Maupras
(before he became tool of Louis Ma
poleon, and consequently 'unft for de-
cent society,"" as Nine. Mohl put it,, j.
J. Ampere, and many others of equal
celebrity LII course of time Here also
came Julius Mohl, learned in oriental
language, and poor breakfasting at cost
of five sous on boiled potatoes, bread and
sausage. When his resources were about
exhausted he was appointed professor of
Persian in the college of France, and
this was the turning point in his affairs.
The description of Sainte- Beuve will give
some idea of what manner of man he was.
He describes him as ''the very embodi-
ment of earning and of inquiry, the ORR
entail savant more than savant, sage
with mind clear, loyal and vast; a
German mind passed through an English
filter cloudless, unruffied mirror. open
and limpid; of pure and frank morality,
early disenchanted with ali things; with
a grain of irony devoid of all bitterness;
the laugh of child under a bald head;
Goethe-Eke intelligence, but free from
all prejudice" In 1916 Mrs. Clarke
died, and year after her daughter mar
ried the man who had bestowed upon her
his patient love for upward of a score Of
years. She was then 81 and he AZ years
of age. The marriage was private, al
most to the point of secrecy, and created
little stars, owing to other and more en-
crossing subjects then calling upon the
public attention.
Nine. Mohrs long life, it will be seen,
begao with the revolution (she was born
in 1870, and covered the entire revolu-
tionary period. She was a sympathetic
spectator of the events of 1880, and the
only letter to Mohl which Miss O'Meara
has been able to find, gives graphic &C
count of what she saw of the July reyo-
luton which was her opportunity, and she
took advantage oft. While the salon life
of Paris was largely broken up by political
dissension, her salon became more BRILL
ant than ever, because political discus
sion was not encouraged there. She
was an ardent admirer of Louis Philippe,
a state of feeling which was, perhaps,
less creditable than her ardent hatred for
Louis Napoleon. She used to declare
that the only man she ever hated with
her whole mind and her whole soul, was
Napoleon III. With his usurpation of
power her salon for the first time took a
touch of political tone and at the same
time entered upon its most brilliant
period. Here, at least, was one place
where the intellectual atmosphere was
always clear, and where the gods of the
hour received the exact amount of trib-
ute which was intrinsically their due
Such center as this was no small boon
for earnest minds which refused to be
dazzled by the theatrical splendors of
the empire and who had no homage to
bring to social system founded upon
universal corruption. Her salon twas
permanent protest against the spirit and
tendency of the day against pretension,
purse pride, .vulgarity in every form.
While it was being loudly proclaimed by
high and low, that luxury had rendered
quiet sociability impossible, that the
pleasures of conversation we're a thing
of the past, that unless you could enter
tain in the modern sense of the word, no
one would come to you, this old woman,
without rank of fortune, living in high
perched, shabbily furnished rooms, with
out either suppers or chandeliers, ENJOY
ed position unrivaled in its way, and
contrived to attract to her house all that
was best worth having in Paris"
Her refusal to make any sort of COM
promise with the empire or its works
was as absolute and as dignifed, III its
entirely different way, as that of the
GREAT Frenchman who lived in exile at
Guernsey, But her hatred for Louis
Napoleon did not make her unjust, as is
shown by such an anecdote as this:
s.Soon after his marriage, when Islander
was busy with the name of his beauti
fnl Spanish bride, Nine. Mohl, who
kpew how utterly groundless
these stories were, Indignantly denied
them. and once on rather important oc-
,el.5 &bo Ep,procc warmly no.