poses duties on himself; no disagreeable result can arise to himself from his faults; but he dreads the evil he may do to her who has intrusted herself to his heart; and generosity attaches him so much the more, because society dissolves his attachment.

Fidelity is enjoined to women by a thousand different considerations. They may dread the dangers and the disgraces which are the inevitable consequences of one error. The voice of Conscience alone is audible by man; he knows he causes suffering to another; he knows that he is destroying, by his inconstancy, a sentiment which ought to last till death, and to be renewed in heaven: alone with himself, alone in the midst of seductions of every kind, he remains pure as an angel; for if angels have not been represented under the characters of women, it is because the union of strength and purity is more beautiful, and also more celestial, than even the most perfect modesty itself in a feeble being.

Imagination, when it has not memory for a bridle, detracts from what we possess, embellishes what we fear we shall not obtain, and turns sentiment into a conquered difficulty. But, in the same manner as in the arts, difficulties vanquished do not require real genius; so in sentiment security is necessary, in order to experience those affections which are the pledges of eternity, because they alone give us an idea of that which cannot come to an end.

To the young man who remains faithful, every day seems to increase the preference he feels towards her he loves; nature has bestowed on him unbounded freedom, and for a long time, at least, he never looks forward to evil days: his horse can carry him to the end of the world; war, when to that he devotes himself, frees him, at least momentarily, from domestic relations, and seems to reduce all the interest of existence to victory or death. The earth is his own, all its pleasures are offered to him; no fatigue intimidates him, no intimate assoriation is necessary to him; he clasps the hand of a companion in arms, and the only tie he thinks necessary to him is formed. A time will, no doubt, arrive when Destiny will

reveal to him her dreadful secrets; but, as yet he suspects them not. Every time that a new generation comes into pos session of its domain, does it not think that all the misfortunes of its predecessors arose from their weakness? Is it not persuaded that they were born weak and trembling, as they now are seen? Well! From the midst of so many illusions, how virtuous and sensible is he who devotes himself to a lasting attachment,—the tie which binds this life to the other! Ah, how noble is a manly and dignified expression, when, at the same time, it is modest and pure! There we behold a ray of that heavenly shame which beams from the crown of holy virgins, to light up even the warrior's brow.

If a young man chooses to share with one object the bright days of youth, he will, doubtless, among his contemporaries, meet with some who will pronounce the sentence of dupery upon him, the terror of the children of our times. But is he, who alone will be truly loved, a dupe? for the distresses, or the enjoyments of self-love, form the whole tissue of the frivolous and deceitful affections. Is he a dupe who does not amuse himself in deceiving others? to be, in his turn, still more deceived, more deeply ruined perhaps than his victim? In short, is he a dupe who has not sought for happiness in the wretched combinations of vanity, but in the eternal beauties of nature, which all proceed from constancy, from duration, and from depth?

No; God, in creating man the first, has made him the noblest of his creatures; and the most noble creature is that one which has the greater number of duties to perform. It is a singular abuse of the prerogative of a superior nature to make it serve as an instrument to free itself from the most sacred ties, whereas true superiority consists in the power of the soul and the power of the soul is virtue.

CHAPTER XX.

MODERN WRITERS OF THE ANCIENT SCHOOL IN GERMANY.

BEFORE the new school had given birth in Germany to two tendencies which seem to exclude each other, metaphysics and poetry, scientific method and enthusiasm, there were some writers who deserved an honorable place by the side of the English moralists. Mendelssohn, Garve, Sulze, Engel, etc., have written upon sentiments and duties with sensibility, religion, and candor. We do not in their works meet with that ingenious knowledge of the world which characterizes the French authors, la Rochefoucauld, la Bruyère, etc. German moralists paint society with a certain degree of ignorance which is interesting at first, but at last becomes monotonous.

Garve is the writer, of all others, who has attached the highest importance to speaking well of good company, fashion, politeness, etc. There is, throughout his manner of expressing himself on this head, a great desire to appear a man of the world, to know the reason of every thing, to be knowing like a Frenchman, and to judge favorably of the court and of the town; but the common-place ideas which he displays in his writings on these different subjects prove that he knows nothing but by hearsay, and has never taken those refined and delicate views which the relations of society afford.

When Garve speaks of virtue, he shows a pure understanding and a tranquil mind: he is particularly engaging and original in his treatise on Patience. Borne down by a cruel malady, he supported it with admirable fortitude; and whatever we have felt ourselves inspires new ideas.

Mendelssohn,1 a Jew by birth, devoted himself, from com

"The history of Mendelssohn is interesting in itself, and full of encour agement to all lovers of self-improvement. At thirteen he was a wander

merce, to the study of the fine arts and of philosophy, without renouncing, in the smallest degree, either the belief or the rites of his religion; and being a sincere admirer of the Phodon, of which he was the translator, he retained the ideas and the sentiments which were the precursors of Jesus Christ; and, educated in the Psalms and in the Bible, his writings preserve the character of Hebrew simplicity. He delighted in making ethics plain by parables, in the Eastern style; and this style is certainly the more pleasing, as it deprives precepts of the tone of reproach.

Among these fables I shall translate one which appears to me remarkable: "Under the tyrannical government of the Greeks, the Israelites were once forbidden, under pain of death, to read among themselves the divine laws. Rabbi Akiba, notwithstanding this prohibition, held assemblies, where he gave lectures on this law. Pappus heard of it, and said to him, · Akiba, dost thou not fear the threats of these cruel men?' 'I will relate thee a fable,' replied the Rabbi. A fox was walking on the bank of a river, and saw the fishes collecting together in terror at the bottom of the river. "What causes your alarm?" said the fox. The children of men," replied the fishes, “are throwing their lines into the river to catch us

ing Jewish beggar, without health, without home, almost without a language, for the jargon of broken Hebrew and provincial German which he spoke could scarcely be called one. At middle age he could write this Phædon; was a man of wealth and breeding, and ranked among the teachers of his age. Like Pope, he abode by his original creed, though often solicited to change it; indeed, the grand problem of his life was to better the inward and outward condition of his own ill-fated people, for whom he actually accomplished much benefit. He was a mild, shrewd, and worthy man, and might well love Phadon and Socrates, for his own character was Socratic. He was a friend of Lessing's-indeed a pupil; for Lessing having accidentally met him at chess, recognized the spirit that lay struggling under such incumbrances, and generously undertook to help him. By teaching the poor Jew a little Greek, he disenchanted him from the Talmud and the Rabbins. The two were afterwards colaborers in Nicolai's Deutsche Bibliothek, the first German Review of any character which, however, in the hands of Nicolai himself, it subsequently lost. Mendelssohn's works have mostly been translated into French.”— (Carlyle' Essays, p. 23.)—Ed.

"Do you know

go there upon the "Is it possible,” cried

and we are trying to escape from them." what you ought to do?" said the fox rock, where men cannot reach you." the fishes, "that thou canst be the fox, esteemed the most cunning among animals? If thou seriously givest us this advice, thou showest thyself the most ignorant of them all. The water is to us the element of life: and is it possible for us to give it up because we are threatened by dangers ?" Pappus, the application of this fable is easy: religious doctrine is to us the source of all good; by that, and for that alone, we exist; if we are pursued into that refuge, we will not withdraw ourselves from danger by seeking shelter in death.'” 1

The greater part of the world give no better advice than the fox; when they see persons of sensibility agitated by heartaches, they always propose to them to quit the air where the storm is, to enter into the vacuum which destroys life.

Engel, like Mendelsohn, teaches morals in a dramatic man

ner.

His fictions are trifling, but they bear an intimate relation to the mind. In one of them he represents an old man become mad by the ingratitude of his son; and the old man's smile, while his misfortune is being related, is painted with heart-rending truth. The man who is no longer conscious of his own existence, is as frightful an object as a corpse walking without life. "It is a tree," says Engel, "the branches of which are withered; its roots are still fixed in the earth, but its top is already seized upon by death." A young man, at the sight of this unfortunate creature, asks his father if there is on earth a destiny more dreadful than that of this poor maniac? All the sufferings which destroy, all those of which our reason is witness, seem to him nothing when compared with this deplorable self-ignorance. The father leaves his son to unfold all the horrors of the situation before him; and then suddenly asks him, if that of the wretch who has been the cause of it is not a thousand times more dreadful? The gra

1 We have not the original at hand, and retranslate from Madame de Staël-Ed.