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    352 NOTICES OF BOOKS.

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  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

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    The Queens Of Society. By Grrace And Phi...

    wife " The passed passion into a still calnier survive but d as in powerful a maturer attachment devotion form , and to for her the her de , and ep hter love his , of child the ;

    and it is only thus we can account for her daug . " Arnauld "Upon thi d ' Andill s subject are tlie quoted sentiments with of nmcli an old approval religieux . _, Madame a Monsieur de

    y , Sevigne having granted the old man an interview , we read , — in " the Her serious l ton conversation _hommef as she that affectionatel followed ;' y calls him proved his good sense

    which " serious conversation " is then given in a quotation from one of Madame de Sevigne's letters to her daughter : —

    heart '' He ; that said this that kind I was of a idolatry pretty heathen was that as dangerous ; that h I made t as should any an idol other look of , to a you lthoug in h my it

    might seem to me less heinous ; and , in sor , I myself . " The biographer upon this volunteers the foliowing opinion :-

    —"He talked to her for six hoursbut does not seem to have cured her ; he thoug reads h what her extr he said avagant is precisel phrases y of wha affection , t any mo for dern her indifferent der must daug think hter when . "

    adviser We cannot to weaken applaud a mother the desire ' s love on which the part seems of any to sp hav iritual e been or wisel other y

    exercisedhowever extravagantly , expressed ; and we doubt if any modern reader , will do so : neither can we subscribe to the opinion

    that " she cared too little for her son . " Facts contradict such an assertion . Madame de Sevigne is recorded to have devoted herself also ell suited

    to to the her son dissolute , thoug wo h rld after in a which different he fa had shion to . live That is it proved was w , since we ladchosen for

    find that he passed through the ordeal , married the y him by his motherbecame a respectable member of society ,

    occu-, p devot ied . himself " Yet is with the literature treatment , and she even adop " ted sho towards _wed a tendency this , at to one become time , the

    mother profligate ' s education son , greatl of y censured the son . ; but The b world efore is such too ap jud t gment so to jud is ge subbefore

    scribed to , it behoves that the mother ' s cause be heard a very sation different of over- trib tenderness unal . Such and car jud e gment ( the very generall reverse y rests of what upon Madam an accu e -

    de Sevigne is here blamed for , ) but , we think the cause of failure is oftener to be found in our unhealthy social condition , which exacts

    the removal of the boy from the mother's infLuence , to mould him impressions by the force derived of ridicule from and the examp mother le th out at of he the may gentler be rendered and better

    conformable to the moral standard of other , men . Till a state of things more in conformity with man as responsible to higher laws shall

    exist , it is scarcely possible to pass judgment ; on a mother's capacity for mouldina boy to become that man .

    Against the g heroic Madame Roland being placed in the same category with Madame Recamierthe Duchess of Devonshire , and

    _others who may merit the _" queeiidom , . " which " society" has to confer ,

    _s ve iri must ts of in a dignantl great p protest olitical and Madam social e Roland regenerating was one party of the , wi ruling thin

    352 Notices Of Books.

    352 NOTICES OF BOOKS .

• Citation
  • English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), July 1, 1860, page 352, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01071860/page/64/