Page:Madame de Staël (1887 Bella Duffy).djvu/157

Rh how much grief becomes her." All these epigrammatic previsions turned out to be apparently unfounded; for there is no proof that Madame de Staël mourned her son with anything approaching to the passion with which she had grieved for her father. Sismondi, indeed, always censorious, is rather severe on what he is pleased to consider her want of maternal feeling; and, as she was never known to hide her sentiments, it is only fair to conclude that comparative silence meant comparative insensibility. Albert de Staël was very high-spirited and impetuous, and rather wild. Judging from a severe and somewhat self-righteous epistle addressed to him on one occasion by his mother, he had many of the faults that irritated, and none of the qualities that pleased her. Auguste and Albertine, inspired by their adoring veneration, presumably tried to mould their tastes and pursuits by hers; but Albert appears to have been different—for his mother reproaches him with remaining unmoved by her own intellect, the dignity of his brother, the charm of his sister, and the talents of M. Schlegel! She assures him that he is unfit to appreciate the mother whom he possesses, and very characteristically requests to be told of what service it has been to him to be "the grandson of Necker." Neither the invocation of this august memory, nor the general drift of the arguments, strike one as happily chosen for moving a thoughtless lad in his teens, who was probably drawn towards his brother and sister by other reasons than their respective dignity and charm, and was more than likely to be secretly bored by the disquisitions of the learned Schlegel. However this may be, the letter gives the full measure of the contempt which Madame de Staël could feel for folly and frivolity; and, if these