Page:Madame de Staël (1887 Bella Duffy).djvu/181

Rh another striking passage: "A revolution suspends every action but that of force. Social order establishes the ascendancy of esteem and virtue, but a revolution limits men's choice to their physical capacities. The only sort of moral influence that it does not exclude is the fanaticism of such ideas as, not being susceptible of any restraint, are weapons of war and not exercises of the mind. To aspire to distinction in times of revolution one must always outstrip the actual momentum of events, and the consequence of this is a rapid descent which one has no power of staying. In vain one perceives the abyss in front. To throw oneself from the chariot is to be killed by the fall, so that to avoid the danger is more perilous than to face it. One must of one's own accord tread the path that leads to ruin, since the least step backwards overturns the individual but does not hinder the event."

This is a very good example both of the clearness of Madame de Staël's thought and the careless confusion of her style. She introduced metaphors just as they occurred to her, without any preparatory gradations of thought.

The second section of the work is devoted to the examination of natural affections such as family love, friendship, and pity. Here, again, the analysis is delicate and true, but the mind, fatigued by the futility of the theme, recoils from such minute dissection of emotion. Passion, being comparatively rare, is always interesting, but sentiment does not bear prolonged contemplation.

Finally come the remedies to be applied to the evils worked by passion. They consist in philosophy, in study, and the practice of benevolence, joined, if