VOL. II. THE INDICATOR. APRIL, 1850. No. 9. HANNAH MORE AND MADAME DE STAEL. R. Stewart. Every age has its great men-great in goodness and truth; and every age, too, has its master-spirits of wickedness, that have scattered error and desolation abroad, some of whom have turned the place that bloomed with the beauty of Eden to a howling waste, as if the sweep of a tornado had passed over it, or the breath of the deadly simoon. The same, on a less imposing scale, is true of woman. While every age has furnished illustrious examples of true greatness in woman, every age has also instances of the most lamentable waste of mind, or unsanctified intellectual greatness. Every being has somewhat in his character of the elements of real worth. The proportion in which these elements combine, and the circumstances which modify them during the changes through which character passes to its full formation, are all that makes the difference. Hannah More and Mad. de Stael acted an important part in the great drama of human life. One felt that to act well her part was necessary to the perfection of the scene in which she was to appear, and which had some unknown but real and close connection with the grand and coming scene concealed behind the curtain; the other acted for effect, to make an impression, regardless whether the tendency of such impression was to elevate or depress the soul. Hannah More felt that life was a relative existence, and that its value and importance consisted in its relative eternity; neither did she look at the eternity of human existence, in the abstract sense, which could give but a faint impression of the number and vastness of the relations of the present life; but her conception of life was formed under the conviction of the truth that the character in the present state is, as it were, a great centre of radiation; and that all the influences of all its actions are deathless as itself-aye, parts of itself—each of which is a living, moving, acting spirit, meeting continually and affecting other spirits-either to pour darkness on their downward course, or to bless by gilding their upward pathway, and by kindling a heavenly radiance around them, that shall shine more and more unto the perfect day, and be reflected back from innumerable points to the centre so that the whole soul shall be full of light. And this is truth. It is a law, that the soul which shuts up itself in itself, like a light in a metallic urn, and casts no brightness on approaching years, will meet them in a starless night; while the soul whose life is one continued blaze of love, sces in respective ages myriads of other spirits shining like suns by the borrowed light of its own effulgence. With these views Hannah More marked out her course, feeling that every act and event was a link in the great chain reaching back to the fall of man, and forward to his final redemption; and her life was a thread of golden light, and the running sands of her glass were assiduously numbered and turned to the best account. But Mad. de Stael-she seems never to have thought that upon every moment of life an eternity is dependent-that every moment of life is an instrument by which an eternity of happiness may be secured or lost. She seems to have forgotten that in her life she held a fearful and at the same time a priceless possession, and that He who gave it, with the rich stores of mind she held in trust, would demand an account of her stewardship. While we look upon Hannah More as a polar star, shining with a steady unchanging light in the literary heavens, showing the youthful, unskilled female the direction in which her barque is driven, and how to swing her sails, to escape the reefs that lie in the passage to the highlands of intellectual and moral excellence-we must regard Mad. de Stael as a brilliant meteor, which flashes for a little time, dazzles to blindness and disappears, leaving the weary, storm-tossed mariner in greater darkness than before. While the voice of Mad. de Stael was seldom heard beyond the silken drapery of the rich saloon, or the cabinet, or her own boudoir, the words of Hannah More were heard as often in the lowliest cottage as in the halls of cedar, opened the fountains of health to the sick, instruction to the ignorant, truth to the erring, and hope to the stricken in heart. While one, with impetuous, eagle-flight, sought the highest point of honor as her prize, and to be the gaze and admiration of succeeding ages, the other passed beyond the fame and earthly glory, and fixed her eye upon a master prize, far in the distance, even at the end of life, towards which she steadily and untiringly moved, scorning to turn aside for any earthly good, or to grasp the trifles which involve princes, kings and nations, in continued competition. She sought that crown of unfading glory in the skies, that harp of gold from whose strings the fingers of discord have pressed no jarring vibrations. To one, fame had a voice "whose thrilling tone could bid each lifepulse beat" with a swifter, stronger throb; and when she heard the plaudits of a wondering world, she sang: Thou hast a charmed cup, O Fame, A draught that mantles high, And seems to lift each earthly frame But, the other, though she merited and received the praise of the world, sought her happiness about her own quiet hearth-stone, in words of home-born love. She had heard the silvery voice of Fame floating over mountains and waters, and had seen its quick-gleaming eye, and held its chalice to her lips, and had turned away from all; for she saw that whoever took the draught of its cup, took many drops of untold bitterness; she saw that dark clouds lay behind the bright coruscations of its sky; and she heard a sorrowing echo borne upon the next zephyr that followed its clarion-call to earthly immortality. And she said, as she turned away : "A hollow sound is in thy song, A mockery in thine eye, To the sick heart that doth but long For aid, for sympathy For kindly looks to cheer it on. And tender accents that are gone." She disregarded the allurements of fame, not only because it brought no real happiness, but because a voice had commanded to seek not the honor which cometh from men; and to obey that voice was eternal life. While one would sooner have rushed into the embrace of death, than to have seen the laurel wreath, which was to her the most resplendent gift of Heaven, laid upon a rural brow, the other gave kindly kissed the hard brown hand of the peasant girl, who her with the beaming eye of kindness, even the soiled and faded flower which The she had worn in her sash through all the labors of the day. character and career of Madame De Stael afford some lessons of emulation, but they have also lessons of strong and imperative caution. She stood on an eminence in literature, in consequence of her genius and circumstances, that few female minds can hope to attain, under the present state of things; but an eminence surrounded with dangers-dangers from which every female should shrink with trembling. She was an extraordinary and brilliant woman. Perhaps there is nothing more complimentary to her intellectual power and greatness, than the fact, that she made one of the boldest and most ambitious men that ever lived, Napoleon, afraid of her. Oh! who would have such a character? Who would not rather be known to an obscure and humble few, and loved and esteemed in that little circle, than to have her name borne to the ends of the earth, as a terror to the most terrific of men? Who would not rather cherish those softer, gentler feminine traits, which grace the writings and life of Hannah More? that character which finds delight in a sunrise or in a summer shower, in the opening buds of Spring, or in the changing hues of Autumn, in the leaping brooks and the singing birds, and all the simple, joyous melodies of nature, in harmony with which the universe itself moves on? Madame De Stael certainly exhibits a great deficiency in those qualities which characterize a true woman, and her great mental strength and power cannot compensate for the want of these. It is said of her, "Had Madame De Stael been more fortunate in domestic life, she would have been less exclusively devoted to literature, and would have sought for happiness in the true destiny of a woman.” Although little is known of her domestic troubles, while they excite a sympathy for her, the fact that they were a snare and temptation, should put those on their guard who have the slightest tincture of heIt is too often the case, that a reditary or constitutional ambition. secret desire for literary fame is the first cause of domestic troubles, and afterwards the troubles become the assigned or imagined cause of a thirst for distinction. But whatever may have been the cause, it seems evident that Madame De Stael was under the sway of ambition-an insatiable and masculine ambition. This is seen in all her works; in her attempts to discuss great and difficult questions, and in her freedom to give her opinion in matters of great moment, with but |