The record-union., 1898-09-19
Remains Early Life
and His Sisters Love.

The early life of Ernest Renan- and
the story of his sisters devotion have
been narrated already; but the man
ner In which Mime. James Darmesteter
has just told it, in her Life of
Renan," published by Houghton, Milf
fin & Co., will appeal to the hearts of
all who read it. Below will be found
a. portion of this remarkable record OF
self-Sacrifice, self -abnegation and un-
faltering love!
Chateaubriand and Lamennais were
scarcely past their prime when the
young Renan first went to school IN
TTeguier. In him, as in them, the
racial strain is strong. Under the eH-
uberance of Chateaubriand, the revolt
of Lamennais, the sentiment and irony
of Renan. we meet the same irregular
genius mobile and sensitive beyond the
like of woman, yet, in the last resort
stubborn as Breton granite under It's
careless grace of flowers.
All these were great writer's, but IN
their style, as in their intellectual quail
ity, they have small share in that Latin
order which is the birthTight of Bos-
suet, Racine. or even a NoItalre-
Their genius is a sort of hippOgriff, as
Renan used to say Of himself, belong
ing to no known race Of mortal herds.
Their style is a midsummer medley
saved from incongruity by an 1nfall1-
bic grace. Romance and Antiquity
meet there. and the old world and the
ultra -modern-the harp of Tristan and
the echo of Paris. Celtic magicians,
they see the world through a haze of
their own at once dim and dazzling,
full Of uncertain glimpses and brilliant
mists, like the variable weather of their
moorS.
There are men of genius whose birth
place is of no moment. Who remembers
that Shelley was born in Sussex? But
Renan is as Breton as Merlin himself.
Those who know nothing of Celtic place
must find it hard to understand him.
When I write: "Renan was born at
Treguier," 1 would desire that my
readers would call up, not necessarily
Treguier. but the gray steepness Of any
large hill town in Brittany, Scotland,
Northumberland, Wales, Ireland, or
Cornwall Let them remember not only
the gaunt and solitary aspect Of the
place, but the kind of persons who
dwell in these small gray cities, at once
so damp and so scantily foliaged, under
the incessant droppings of the uncer-
tain heaven. There is q great differ
ence in worldly things. And the dream
er-we may count him as 10 per cent
of the population-be he poet, saint,
beggar, or merely drunkard-is capa-
BILE of a pure detachment from material
interests which no Buddhist sage could
surpass. There is a vibrating "other
worldliness" in the air; the gift OF
prayer is constant; religious eloquence
the brightest privilege, and religious
fervor a comonplace. Yet, all round
in the high places and the country
holy-wells. Nab and Merlin, the fairies
and the witches, keep their devotees.
And all over the gray, yelled, melan-
choly distinction, which first strikes us
as the note of such a place there is the
special poetic, Celtic quality, the al
most immaterial beauty which has sc
lingering a charm. Many landscapes
surely are lOvelier than these weather
beaten moors of wet heath and harsh
gorse, of wild broom and juniper. Look
at them, overhung by the 'wre3thing
hiIl-mists, traversad and scanned across
by the deep-sunken river valleys which
hide such unSuSpected wealth of hang