Lanterna Rally

Author: Walter Hilliard Bidwell

Publisher: Forgotten Books

Published: 2017-11-14

Total Pages: 582

ISBN-13: 9780260996831

Excerpt from The Eclectic Magazine: Foreign Literature, Science, and Art; January to April, 1854 But it is not of the peliod in which she lived that we think first or most naturally when we hear the name of Madame de Stael: it is of the writer whose wondrous genius and glowing eloquence held captive our souls in the season of susceptive yon th, - of the author of the Lettres sur Rousseau, who sanctioned and justified our partiality for that fascinating rhapsodist, - of l'allemagne, from whose pages we first imbibed a longing to make the riches of that mighty literature onr own, - of Corinne, over whose woes and sorrows so many eyes have wept delicious tears; of that dazzling admixture of deep thought, tender sentiment, and brilliant fancy, which give to her writings a charm possessed by the productions of no other woman - and in truth, of but few men. We are not surprised at the attraction which such a subject as the Life and Times of such a woman must have had fora youth ful authoress, which Miss Norris evidently is. We wish we could say that she had proved equal to the task of delineating so stirring an epoch and so rare a character. The faults and defects of the work, however, are those of youth and inexperience. There is a want of grasp; an apparent poverty of materials; an almost entire absence of all reference to the sources from which she has derived herinformation; an imperfect power of appreciatini the political characters of whom she spea s; and a proneness - a ainet which youthful writers should especia Iy be on their guard - to indulge in trite and need less reflections, some of which are absolutely puerile, and one or two not only superficial but unsound. Instances to justify our criti cism may be found at pp. 152, 157, 245, 276. But, on the whole, the tone of the work is agreeable, the sentiments are generally just, and the admiration for Madame de Stael which pervades every page is such as we can heartily sympathize with. We trust, there fore, that the authoress will take our criticism in good part, and consider it as intended, not to discourage, but to warn and aid. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.