New-York tribune., 1902-05-04
q self-consclous, decorative touch. We quote
one Of them herewith:


eea The moon by divine creation governess of
fba deep, has her clouds, her mists, her beams,
her projected shadows like the sun; but, unlike
the latter, she does not set alone: a retinue Of
stars accompanies her. As upon my native
coast she descends the vault Of heaven, she eX-
tends her silence, and communicates it to the
eea. soon she sinks to the horizon, intersects it
shows but the half Of her forehead, which
diminishes, dips, and disappears in the yielding
tntumeScence Of the waves The stars attendant
upon their queen, before plunging in her train,
seem to pause suspended upon the crest of the
pillows No sooner has the moon set, than
gust Of wind from the open sea skaters the
picture of the stars, like candles eXtinguished
after celebration
The imaginative element which enters into his
treatment of nature he brought constantly to
the treatment of other themes Are his shirts
EtoIen from him In camp? He must, in relating
the incident, recall the anecdote of Henry "
and his lost linen This is one way of saying
that he adorned everything he touched. The
adornment was often too elaborate, If not alto
gether undesirable But, the other hand,
when We turn from the general drift of these
memoirs TO certain of the details in them, we
are not only fascinated by the rhetorical brill
lance Of the writer, but feel indebted to him for
indubitably authoritative description or por-
traits He was, after all, eyewitness of ex-
traordinary events, and scattered through his
memoirs are reports of historic occurrences
which have a precious significance. He gives
for example and of their deeds and again and
again We come upon passages curiously eloquent
Cf a memorable time, as in this brief fragment
IN this society following upon the Terror" he
says, everybody feared to have the air Of pos
sessing a home. People met IN the public
places" The words are casually set forth. but
they create atmosphere. In portraiture he
conveys almost always an impression Of reality,
and here, too, when he can sink prejudice, his
Ireoccupation with the spiritual factors in his
subject results in work full of the highest vital
uy Witness these remarks Talma:
The portrait Of Talma which Nine de Stael
has drawn in her work Germany is only half
true. the brilliant writer the great actor
through a Woman's imagination, and attributed
70 him what he lacked.
Df the intermediate world Talma did not know
what 10 make: he did not understand the man
OF gentle birth; he did not know our oldtime
society, he had not sat at the table of high born
!aGies. il the Gothic tower enshrIned in the
wood he knew nothing Of the tieXibility, the
variety Of expression. the galantry' the ISht
charm Of manner the righteousness the tender
ness, the heruism based upon honor, the Chris
tiau devotion Of chivalry; he was not Tancred,
or C0ucy. or at least he turned them into heroes
of a middle age of his own creation; his Othello
was placed in the heart Of Nendome.
Then What was TaIma? Himself, his century
and antiquity. He had the deep and concen-
trated passions Of love and Of patriotism; they
burst from his breast with the force Of an eX-
posion. He had the baletul inspiration, the
deranged genius Of the Revolution through
which IL had yaSSsl The terrible SpeCtaCltS
with which he was once surrounded were re-
newed in his talent with the lamentable and dis
tam accents Of the choruses Of Sophocles and
Euripides HIS grace which VAS not conVen-
rional grace. took hold Of you like misfortune.
Dark ambition. remorSe, jealousy, melancholy
q soul physical pain. madness produced by the
gods and adversely. human affilcuon: those were
what he knew. His mere entrance upon the
stage. the mere sound of his voice were nightly
tragic. Suffering and thought were mingled on
his brow, breathed in his immovabity, IN his
poses. his gestures, his steps. As Greek he
would arrive. painting and oninous, from the
ruins of Argos. an immortal Orestes, tormented
for three thousand years by the Eumendes; as
a Freuchman. he would come from the SOHtudeS
of Saiut-Denis where the Parce Of 1l93 had cut
the thread Of the sepulchral life of the kings
The very picture Of sorrow awaiting something
uI known, but decreed by an unjust Heaven, he
went his way the galley slave Of fate, mex
orahly chained between fatality and terror.
The range Of Chateauhriands personalia is
very wide He could write Of Napoleon and Of
Washington at first hand. and Of a thousand
lesser but stiH eminent and interesting people.
TIE memoirs make, indeed a gallery Of por-
traits and for this they are, perhaps, even more
10 be priced than for their revelation of the
writer's own character. That revelation remains
Incomplete and battling We realize many Of
Chateaubriand's traits with sense Of conyic-
ton. his pride Of birth, his sensitiveness. his
interest in affairs his romantic feTVOr, his vanity
and his insincerity. Yet We come back 10
G-orge Sands eiithet. H is a phantom
gorgeous ii many ways, q Of mundane pas
sious if ever there was one. but a phantom just
tn. same In the translation Of Mr. TeiXeiTa de