Page:Every Woman's Encyclopedia Volume 1.djvu/697

 671 LOVK ILOVE«LETTERS OF FAMOUS PEOPLE By LADY MARGARET SACKVILLE JULIE DE LESPINASSE To liirn from Dorothy Osborne to Julie de Lespinasse is like passing at evening from a warm room, full of pleasant talk, fldwers, and firelight, straight into the raging heart of a storm. The personality of Julie is one of incom- parable fascination, and the story of her tragic, passionate life' one of the most haunting ever written. She was a " grande amoureuse " if ever there was one. To her, love was literally the whole of existence, and when her torment was at its highest she still rejoiced in her capacity for such suffering. She was of those martyrs who leap voluntarily into the fire, welcoming the flames which consume them. Her whole being was an unresting flame which even- tually burnt itself out from lack of fuel. Such intensity of feeling can never be happy, but it turns to undiluted tragedy when, as with Julie, its object is in no way capable of adequate response. M. de Guilbert, for whose sake Julie de Lespinasse endured such fine torture, was not naturally endowed with the gifts neces- sary to the chief factor in such a drama. That he should be the inspirer of a " grande passion " was one of those ironies in which Fate appears so unkindly to rejoice. His was a brilliant, evidently attractive, evi- dently egotistical, restless personality, of the type of those who are most themselves in a crowd, but who have little to give in intimacy. His head so obviously governed his heart that no one could ever have been much deceived. It was unfortunate for Julie that such a one should have power to oust her first lover, De Mora, from her affections. The remorse of her inevitable faithlessness to- wards this last was an anguish added to all else she had to endure which lasted to the end of her days. Her story serves as an illus- tration to the fable of the earthen and the porcelain vessel — the harder nature, De Guil- bert's, escaped uninjured, that oi Julie, fragile and exquisitely sensitive, was shattered. The refinement, subtlety, and keenness of her temperament makes Julie's abandon- ment to passion all the more interesting. She was the very antithesis of the sensual woman, her whole nature was as finely tempered as a sharp blade, her intellect and wit were the astonishment of an age when women were witty and intellectual as a matter of course. She had a background of that reserve and delicacy which belongs by right to a highly wrought nature. Her passion was never hysteria, her cries were wrung from her solely by the extremity of her anguish. When she grows shrill, it is the outbreak of a strong mind which has momentarily lost control through suffering, not the self-conscious lamentations of a feeble one. She always remains fundamentally the ^rcat lady; in Julie de Lespinasse is nothing of the worldling. Apart from her passion, Julie is for ever one of the magical women of the world. She possessed an irresistible fascination. With little beauty, through her gifts of personality and manner she held one of the most famous salons of Paris, securing the devoted friendship of all whose intimacy was best worth having. She was endowed with that innate charm which — one of the wholly inimitable things, the rarest and most delightful — to those who e.xercise it, much is pardoned. If the one soul who was of supreme im- portance to her fell short of absolute sur- render, it was because the faculty for surrender, which re^iires self-abnegation, did not exist in it. The perversity of cir- cumstances caused her to stake her life on such a soul to her own undoing. She suffered indescribable physical and mental pain, but when her body was weakest her .spirit burnt the more ardently. Well might she " thank the gods for an unconquerable soul." These are the victims and martyrs of tragic destinies who add so greatly to the value and significance of life. And Julie accepted life, whatever it might bring, with her whole soul. As she herself asserts in characteristic words : "If I have often said that life is a great evil, I have some- times felt that it is a great good ; the wish not to have been born, so common to those who are unhappy, will never escape from me. I, on the contrary, inspired by an active desire to die, thank Nature, who caused my birth." Here are a few drops, caught almost at random, from the full nood of her passion as it foams by : " My friend," she writes. " returning home yesterday at midnight, I found your letter. I was not expecting such good fortune, but what grieves me is the number of da>'s which pass without my seeing you. Ah, if you only knew what those days were, what life is, stripped of the interest and delight of seeing you ! My friend, the world, business, change suffice you, and for me my happiness is you and only you ; I should not wish to I've if I might not see you and love you all the moments of my life. " 1 yield to mv heart's needs, my friend, I love you. I feel as much pleasure and grief as though I were pronouncing these words for the first and last time in my life. Ah ! why have you condemned me to this ? Why am I reduced to this ? You will know one day — alas, you will hear me ! It is awful to me to be no longer free to suffer for you and through you. Do I love you enough ? Adieu, my friend." To de continued.