United States or Venezuela ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
As I was one of the first to appreciate Mademoiselle Scudery's genius, and to detect behind the name of the brother the tender sentiments and delicate refinement of the sister's chaster pen, so I believe I was the first to call the Duchesse 'Mandane, a sobriquet which soon became general among her intimates. "You are not to read 'Le Grand Cyrus," your aunt tells you, because it is a romance!
I thought, when I sent you all the volumes of la Scudery's enchanting romance, I had laid up for you a year of enjoyment, and that, touched by the baguette of that exquisite fancy, your convent walls would fall, like those of Jericho at the sound of Jewish trumpets, and you would be transported in imagination to the finest society in the world the company of Cyrus and Mandane under which Oriental disguise you are shown every feature of mind and person in Conde and his heroic sister, my esteemed friend, the Duchesse de Longueville.
Look at those boots, Breton, lad; a spur gone, the soles loose, the heels cracked. And that cloak! The mud on the skirts is a week old. And that scabbard was new when I left Paris. When I came up I looked like a swashbuckler in one of Scudéry's plays. I let no one see me. Indeed, I doubt if any would have recognized me.
From this new state of things arose a modified kind of romance, in which elevated sentiments replaced the achievements of mediaeval fiction and the military exploits of Mademoiselle de Scudery's tales.
Rowe has written likewise a Tragedy on this subject, which is a stock play at both houses; it is as much superior to that of our author, as the genius of the former was greater than that of the latter. Cyrus the Great, a Tragedy. This play was at first rejected, but it afterwards got upon the stage, and was acted with great success; the plot is taken from Scudery's Romance of the Grand Cyrus.
How elaborately artificial seemed the Scudery's polished tirades, her refinements and quintessences of the grand passion, as compared with the fervid simplicity of the woman-page a love so humble, so intense, so unselfish! Sir Denzil came to Chilton nearly every day, and was always graciously received by her ladyship.
Ah, but these steps are so imperceptible that one does not perceive how far one goes till one looks back to find the way closed. Behold the irony of fate! During the second year Monsieur le Comte falls in love with one of Scudery's actresses, and, commits all sorts of follies for her sake. Ah well, there were gallants enough. And one found favor in madame's eyes; at least, so it seemed to him.
His red-heeled shoes, his periwig and cannon sleeves, were indispensable to fashion, but not enough for fame. The favoured guest of the Hotel de Rambouillet, and of Mademoiselle de Scudery's "Saturdays," must have wit and learning, or at least that capacity for smart speech and pedantic allusion which might pass current for both in a society where the critics were chiefly feminine.
"I shall never care for such trumpery as love. I mean to have a grand house ever so much grander than Fareham House. Perhaps I may marry a Frenchman, and have a salon, and all the wits about me on my day. I would make it gayer than Mademoiselle de Scudery's Saturdays, which my governess so loves to talk of. There should be less talk and more dancing.
I have been his fool, his amusement. Other women have had his love, the guilty love that he praises! He has come to me straight from their wicked houses, their feasting, and riot, and drunkenness has come and pretended to love poetry, and Scudery's romances, and music, and innocent conversation come to rest himself after dissolute pleasures, bringing me the leavings of that hellish company!
Word Of The Day