Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. IX.—February, 1851.—Vol. II.

Silence prevailed for some time in the room they had so lately left. Play was at an end, and the children sat, some at a solitary occupation, some in idleness, but all with dull and fretful faces, apparently little cheered by the many means of enjoyment so lavishly scattered around them. By-and-by, a new-comer entered. He was a pale, sickly-looking boy, very lame, and possessing few of the personal attractions which distinguished the rest of the children of the family. Even his dress seemed plainer and less becoming than that of the others; but he had not been long in the room before the charm which his presence diffused made Marian suspect that he was the wearer of the talisman – and so it proved. And now the children played again, if less noisily, more cheerfully than before, and all seemed happier. Even the little dog had a different expression, as he lay with his nose resting on his paws, ready to start up at the first playful word; and Marian obeyed her conductor's summons to depart with a lighter heart. But she had no wish to linger in that magnificent abode. The manners of these children, in spite of their gay clothes and their fashionable airs, filled her with disgust, which was probably expressed in her countenance; for the fairy smiled as she looked at her, and said, in a gentle voice – "Ah! Marian, it is one thing to be a beholder of a scene of variance, and another to be one of the actors in it. Passion does not now blind your eyes, and you can see strife and anger in their true and hateful colors. But is it always so?"

Marian blushed. She felt the rebuke the fairy's words conveyed, and she hung her head in silence.

"I have not wished to pain you needlessly by these scenes," continued the fairy; "but to make you more sensible of the value of the talisman which it is in my power to bestow upon you, and to cause you to guard it well. For I must warn you, Marian, that it is easily lost, and, when lost, most difficult to be regained. Neglect, and the want of regular use, will cause it to vanish, you know not where, and a miracle would be required to put it once more in your power. Are you willing to accept it, and to do your best to guard such an invaluable treasure?"

Marian's eyes shone with thankfulness, as she intimated her delight and gratitude. The fairy attached the charm to her neck, and scarcely was it fastened, when a tranquil happiness, such as she had never before experienced, was diffused through her whole being. She felt so calm, so much at ease, that she was content to sit silent until they alighted in her father's garden, and there her guide immediately vanished. And now Marian's life was indeed a happy one. She seemed to walk surrounded by an atmosphere of love and joy. All loved her, and, for her part, her heart went forth in love to every one with whom she communicated. If any childish differences arose between herself and her brothers or sisters, it was but to show the talisman, and voices became once more gentle, brows once more bright. No wonder the precious talisman was the object of sedulous attention and most constant watchfulness! Well did it deserve all the care that could be lavished on it, and for a time that of Marian was unwearied. But this watchfulness relaxed, and on one or two occasions of extreme emergency, the talisman could not be found until after some moments of anxious search. This troubled its owner, and caused her to increase her vigilance. But again her efforts slackened, and one unlucky morning, when her brothers had been more than usually tormenting, she was horrified to perceive that it was entirely gone! In the vague hope of relief from the friendly fairy, she hurried down the garden, and sought the lily. But, alas! the lily was no longer to be seen. Nothing remained but the brown stalk and withered leaves, which was more melancholy than if the place of the fairy flower had been a perfect blank. Marian stretched forth her hands in despair toward the place where the fairy had disappeared, and burst into tears.

"Oh, Marian, where have you been all this time?" cried the voice of little Lucy, close to her. "Nobody has seen you since you left us on the lawn, two hours ago, and we want you. Cousin Fanny has come to tea, and I am to have my little tea-things, and you must make tea."

Marian rubbed her eyes, and looked much amazed; then she muttered something about the fairy.

"Fairy!" cried Lucy, with a merry laugh; "what nonsense you are talking! As if there were any real fairies! But do come; we can do nothing without you; and just give me one kiss first."

Marian pressed a kiss of reconciliation (for such the child meant it to be) on the lifted face. Then she said, as she took her hand to accompany her to the house, "Oh, Lucy, Lucy, you must have the talisman!"

And now my story is told, and you, young folks, must guess my riddle – What was the talisman?

MICHELET, THE FRENCH HISTORIAN

In 1847, three works, on the same important subject issued from the Parisian press. Lamartine published his "History of the Girondins," Louis Blanc and Michelet the first volumes of their respective "Histories of the French Revolution." All three were strange productions, and all of them attracted much attention. It has even been said that they so powerfully affected the public mind, as greatly to have contributed to bring about the Revolution of February, 1849. This, however, is an exaggeration and an error. It is an exaggeration, inasmuch as, in the general case – whatever may be the ultimate influence which a writer produces on his age – it will seldom begin sensibly to operate in so short a space of time as a single year; it is an error, for a little consideration will show that the works in question were not the causes, but the signs or prognostics, of the approaching movement. They did not help to kindle the flame that was so soon to break forth: they were, on the contrary, a preliminary ebullition ejected by it. Beyond this, there was no real connection between these precursors and the events they foreshadowed; foreshadowings, however, they undoubtedly were, and each of a different kind – Lamartine being the symptom of the poetical, Louis Blanc of the political and social, Michelet of the philosophical agitation that had long been smouldering in the heart of France, and was at length to force its way into open existence.

The fate of these three authors has corresponded to their characteristics. The enterprise of February once accomplished, and the excitement of it past, men soon came to reckon the cost and value of the work, and the merits and qualifications of the workmen. The poet, in this estimate, was pronounced to be a dreamer, and his splendid visions were condemned as wanting reality; he was thrown aside into the shade. The socialist-politician, at the same time, was discovered to be half-charlatan, half-Utopian; his plans and theories were found to lead to no practical result, and, indeed, to stand no practical test; he was sent into exile. The philosopher alone remained, not more, not less than what he had been. And this shows the advantage which philosophy, be it true or false, possesses – in this, that, so long as it confines itself to the closet, and abstains from pushing forward into open action, it does not attract popular attention, needs no popular support, and thus escapes popular censure. The poet lives by applause, or the hope of gaining it; the politician by success, or the struggle to succeed: the one must have sympathy, the other, tools; but the philosopher depends on himself and his system; he is sustained by his own convictions, relies on his sturdy faith, and is thus as much beyond the want of external vindication as he is beyond the reach of external justice. So it has been with Michelet. He has remained in his obscurity; he has been a spectator, and not an actor; his name will not be written in the annals of these years; but, in return, he has maintained his position; and while the brilliant star of Lamartine is eclipsed, and the portentous but vapory blaze of Louis Blanc has exhaled, the farthing candle of the retired sage remains unextinguished and visible.

Of course, when we speak of obscurity and farthing candles, we allude to Michelet only in his character of a public man – a character which can scarcely be said to belong to him at all. In other respects, he is sufficiently distinguished. His learning is considerable; his reasoning is generally specious; his style is almost always singular. As a thinker, if not very profound, he is often very original; as a rhetorician, he makes up by his earnestness what he lacks in eloquence; so that, if he does not carry his readers along with him, he at all events secures their attention; and, as a professor, he bears a reputation which, though not perhaps very enviable, is very great.

Of the two families from which he springs, the one was from Picardy, the other from the Ardennes; both were of the peasant class. Be it remarked, however, that the English word peasant does not adequately render the French word paysan; yeoman, perhaps, would be nearer the mark, for a French paysan may be comparatively a rich man, and he is almost always the owner of the land he tills. His paternal family, however, left the country, and settled in Paris, where, after the Reign of Terror, his father was employed in the office which printed the "Assignats." Printing at that time was a thriving trade, and the elder Michelet having found means to establish a press of his own, seemed in a prosperous way when his son was born. The future historian first saw the light in 1798 – a dim religious light, for the hot assailant of priestcraft and Jesuitism was born in the church of a deserted convent, then "occupied, not profaned, by our printing-office; for what is the press in modern times but the holy ark?"

The fortune of the family flourished but for a short time. In 1800 it received a severe blow by a measure which suppressed a great number of journals, and in 1810 it was totally ruined by a decree of Napoleon, which limited the number of printers in Paris to sixty, suppressing a great number of the smaller establishments, and, among others, that of the Michelets. It seems, however, that they found means to print (it was for behoof of their creditors) some trivial works of which they possessed the copyright. They worked themselves, unaided. "My mother, in bad health, cut, folded, and sewed the sheets; I, a mere child set the types; my grandfather, very old and feeble, undertook the severe labor of the presswork, and printed with his trembling hands."

Michelet was now twelve years old, and knew nothing but a word or two of Latin, which he had learned from an old bookseller who had been a schoolmaster, and was still an enthusiast in grammar. "He left me, when he died, all he had in the world – a manuscript; it was a very remarkable grammar, but incomplete, he not having been able to devote to it but thirty or forty years." Michelet, we may take this opportunity of remarking, has a perpetual under-current of humor. "Our place of work was in a cellar, where I had for companions my grandfather, when he came, and at all times a spider – an industrious spider, that worked beside me, and harder than I did – no doubt of it."

Michelet's religious education had been entirely neglected. However, among the few books he read, happened to be the "Imitation of Christ." "In these pages, I perceived all of a sudden, beyond this dreary world, another life and hope. The feeling of religion thus acquired was very strong in me; it nourished itself from every thing, fortifying itself in its progress by a multitude of holy and tender things in art and poetry which are erroneously believed alien to it." In the then existing museum of French monuments, he received "his first lively impressions of history." He peopled the tombs in his imagination, felt the presence of their occupants, and "never entered without a kind of terror those low vaults in which slumbered Dagobert, Chilpéric, and Frédégonde." As for any thing like a regular education, all he had of it at this time was a short daily lesson from his friend, the grammarian, to whom he went in the morning before his work began.

A friend of his father proposed to get the lad a situation in the Imperial Printing Office. It was a great temptation: things had become more and more gloomy with the family. "My mother grew worse, and France also (Moscow – 1813!); we were in extreme penury." Yet his parents declined the offer; they had great faith in his future, and resolved to give him the education necessary to develop his talents. He was sent to the Collége de Charlemagne. Great indeed, must have been their faith, but it has not been unrewarded. If Michelet had entered the Imperial Printing Office, what would have become of him? He would soon have earned a livelihood, and would probably have now been a respectable master-printer, but nothing more. As many great men are spoiled for all great things, by tying them down to uncongenial professions, as there are little men spoiled for all useful things by hoisting them up to professions for which they are unqualified.

At college, the poor youth's difficulties were of course very great. He knew nothing of Greek, nor of classical versification, and he had no one to help him – "my father, however, set himself to making Latin verses – he who had never made any before." His professor, M. Andrieu d'Alba, "a man of heart, a man of God," was kind enough to him, but his comrades were very much the contrary; they ridiculed him and bemocked his dress and his poverty. "I was in the middle of them like an owl at mid-day, quite scared." He began to feel, indeed, that he was poor; he fell into a state of misanthropy rare at such an age; he thought, "that all the rich were bad – that all men were bad," for he saw few that were not richer than he was. "Nevertheless," he adds, and this is singular, if true, "in all my excessive antipathy to mankind, so much good remained in me, that I had no envy."

But one day – a Thursday morning – in the midst of all his troubles and privations (there was no fire, though the snow lay all round, and there were great doubts if there would be any bread that evening), "I struck my hand, burst open by the cold, on my oaken table (I have that table still), and felt a manly joy of vigor and a future for me." Doubtless, in the lives of many men, there have been such moments – moments when all is dark, when the necessaries of life are wanting, and there is no friend to cheer or pity – moments when the tides of life and hope are equally at their ebb, and when, if ever it were allowable, a man might be permitted to despair – when, nevertheless, a confidence, an inspiration suddenly buoys up the spirit in triumph and exultation, and a determination arises, and a freshness is infused which bears them on thenceforth, conquering and to conquer. Thirty years afterward, Michelet is seated at the same oaken table, and looks at his hand, still showing the scar of 1813. But all else is changed: he is in easy circumstances; he is the popular author, the popular professor; but he remembers, and his heart says to him, "Thou art warm, and others are cold; this is not just. Oh! who will bring me comfort for this hard inequality?" And he consoles himself characteristically with the thought of working for the people by giving to his country her history; for, to Michelet, history and the people are much the same thing as grammar was to his old friend, the schoolmaster with the unfinished manuscript.

Notwithstanding all his difficulties, Michelet finished his studies at college quickly and well. He then looked out for the means of living; would not live by his pen; began giving lessons in languages, philosophy, and history, and seems to have been fortunate enough to find sufficient employment. He would not live by his pen, for he thought, he says, with Rousseau, "that literature should be the reserved treasure, the fair luxury and inner flower of the spirit," as if, when it is all these fine things, it could not be a ministering angel too. In 1821, he was made professor in a college (a college in France, be it remarked, generally corresponds to our public school). In 1827, two of his works, which appeared at the same time, his "Choice Works of J.B. Vico," and his "Summary of Modern History," procured him a professorship in the Normal School. "This I quitted with regret in 1837, when the eclectic influence was dominant in it. In 1838, the Institute and the Collége de France having both named me as their candidate, I obtained the chair I now occupy," that of professor of history in the Collége de France – a position similar to that of professor in our universities. From his teaching, Michelet says he found the happiest results. "If, as an historian, I have a special merit which maintains me beside my illustrious predecessors, I owe it to teaching, which to me was friendship. These great historians have been brilliant, judicious, profound; but I, over and above, have loved." He should have added that, besides having loved much, he had also hated much; and that if as an historian he has "a special merit" in the eyes of those whose partisan he is, he owes it to the fierce animosity he shows to their opponents.

Michelet married young. He tells us no more of his mother. His father, however, it appears, survived till 1846, and so had the satisfaction of seeing his hopes of his son realized. The death of this parent is thus alluded to in the preface to the "History of the Revolution: " "And as every thing is of a mixed nature in this life, at the moment when I was so happy in renewing the tradition of France, my own was broken up forever. I have lost him who so often told me the story of the Revolution – him who was to me at once the image and the venerable witness of the great age: I mean the eighteenth century; I have lost my father, with whom I had lived all my life, eight-and-forty years." And then immediately follows a passage, part of which we quote, as well exemplifying Michelet's style and mode of thought: "When this happened, I was looking, I was elsewhere, I was realizing hastily this work so long dreamed of, I was at the foot of the Bastile, I was taking the fortress, I was planting on its towers the immortal flag. This blow came upon me, unexpected, like a bullet from the Bastile."

In his place of professor, Michelet, as we have said, still remains. In 1846, he formally renounced all intention of ever entering on public life, and so following the example of so many other distinguished men in France, who have considered and used the professorial chair only as a stepping-stone to the parliamentary tribune. "I have judged myself," he says in his "Peuple." "I have neither the health, nor the talent, nor the art of managing men necessary for such a thing." And in 1848, when tempted and urged to come prominently forward, he kept his resolution wisely. The particular reason he assigned for continuing in his retirement, was curious: "Now, more than ever, is the time," he said to his friends, "for me to teach the people of France their history, and to that, therefore, alone I devote myself."

From the foregoing sketch of his life, and from the extracts we have given from his writings, a good deal will have been gathered of the character of Michelet. To those who read his works at length, it will be exposed in full, for never did an author throw his individual personality more prominently forward. Whatever be his subject, he never for a moment allows you to forget that it is he who is treating of it. We do not say that this is offensive – we do not say he is egotistical from vanity or self-importance – we only note what must be evident to all his readers, that, from his passionate temperament, he puts self into the midst of every thing, and that his said self being of a very odd appearance and idiosyncrasy, Michelet, more than any thing else, is prominent in Michelet's pages.

Michelet is a man of very great research, and of very general information. True learning, however, is research and information well digested. Such digestion his partial organization does not admit of. With him, every thing takes the nature of his peculiar preconceived ideas, and his materials, instead of affording him healthy nutriment, promote only a most undue secretion of bile. As to his style, it is unique. It arrests the attention, but too often it is only the singularity of the expression, and not the merit of the thought which does so; too often we find little but words, words, words; too often what at first seemed striking proves, on examination, to be poor and commonplace. His style has been compared to that of Carlyle, and, in so far as it is abrupt and out of the way, with reason; but beyond this there is no likeness. The French writer is far inferior in originality and vigor to the English. As was said of an imitator of Dr. Johnson, "He has the nodosity of the oak, without its strength; the contortions of the sibyl, without her inspiration." Add to this, that a kind of maudlin sentimentality pervades all his writings, and gives them a sickly look and an air of affectation.

As a professor, Michelet does not shine. He is a bad lecturer, not having the art of conveying his ideas orally. He wanders sadly from his subject. His elocution is painful. Nevertheless, his lecture-room is always crowded long before the appointed hour. The reason is, that he holds a kind of political club. We were present on one occasion last year. The vast hall was filled to the ceiling. Students sang revolutionary songs. One read some verses. A hiss was heard. "Who hissed?" "I did." "Sortons." They were going to fight a duel. A gentleman of some five-and-thirty years made a conciliatory speech. They resolved not to fight a duel. More verses, noise, and tumult – all this in the presence of ladies, a number of whom occupied the lower benches. The professor entered – a thin, pale man, with grayish, ill-arranged hair, through which he passed his fingers at times. Shuffling to his chair, he seated himself, and then stretched his arms across the table before him, clutching it on the other side with one hand, as if he were afraid somebody was about to take it from him. The first half of his lecture was a reply to some newspaper attack on him; he said, however, that it was contrary to his usual practice to notice such things in that place, and we hope it was. The rest of the lecture was on education. Education should not be called education, but initiation – that was all. Not a word of history. Tremendous applause as he concluded.

FREAKS OF NATURE

The celebrated Hunterian Museum in London contains, perhaps, the largest collection of natural curiosities, especially in the department of anatomy, in the world. One of the most striking specimens, described in the catalogue, is the skeleton of a boy, born in Bengal some seventy years ago, remarkable for the singular conformation of his head. The description states that the child was healthy and was more than four years old at the time of its death, which was occasioned by the bite of a poisonous snake. When born, the body of the child was naturally formed, but the head appeared double, there being, besides the proper head of the child, another of the same size, and to appearance almost equally perfect, attached to its upper part. This upper head was upside down, the two being united together by a firm adhesion between their crowns, but without any indentation at their union, there being a smooth continued surface from one to the other. The face of the upper head was not over that of the lower, but had an oblique position, the centre of it being immediately above the right eye. When the child was six months old, both of the heads were covered with black hair, in nearly the same quantity. At this period the skulls seemed to have been completely ossified, except a small space on the top. The eyelids of the superior head were never completely shut, but remained a little open, even when the child was asleep, and the eyeballs moved at random. When the child was roused, the eyes of both heads moved at the same time; but those of the superior head did not appear to be directed to the same object, but wandered in different directions. The tears flowed from the eyes of the superior head almost constantly, but never from the eyes of the other except when crying. The superior head seemed to sympathize with the child in most of its natural actions. When the child cried, the features of this head were affected in a similar manner, and the tears flowed plentifully. When it sucked the mother, from the mouth of the superior head the saliva flowed more copiously than at any other time, for it always flowed a little from it. When the child smiled, the features of the superior head sympathized in that action. When the skin of the superior head was pinched, the child seemed to feel little or no pain, at least not in the same proportion as was felt from a similar violence being committed on its own head or body. A fuller account of this remarkable case may be found in the "Philosophical Transactions," by those who like to seek it.