"Madame de Stael" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of 1848 was the Vienna described by Madame de Stael in 1810: 'Dans ce pays, l'on traite les plaisirs comme les devoirs. . . . Vous verrez des hommes et des femmes executer gravement, l'un vis-a-vis de l'autre, les pas d'un menuet dont ils sont impose l'amusement, . ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... by these qualities is drawn towards the possessor; it desires union with that treasury of virtues and becomes devoted to it. The fruits of this love are expansion of the heart, self-forgetfulness, self-denial. This is true love. Shakespeare, Valmiki, Madame de Stael, are its poets; as Kalidas, Byron, Jayadeva are of the other species of love. The effect on the heart produced by the sight of beauty is dulled by repetition. But love caused by the good qualities of a person does not lose its charm, because beauty has but one appearance, because ...
— The Poison Tree - A Tale of Hindu Life in Bengal • Bankim Chandra Chatterjee
... Josephine, who is living very happily, amusing herself with her gardens and her shrubberies.' This ci-devant Empress and Kennedy and Co., the seedsmen, are in partnership, says Miss Edgeworth. And then among the lists of all the grand people Maria meets in London in 1813 (Madame de Stael is mentioned as expected), she gives an interesting account of an actual visitor, Peggy Langan, who was grand-daughter to Thady in CASTLE RACKRENT. Peggy went to England with Mrs. Beddoes, and was for thirty ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth
... By Washington Irving. Conscript. By Erckmann-Chatrian. Conspiracy of Pontiac. By Francis Parkman, Jr. Conspirators. By Alexandre Dumas. Consuelo. By George Sand. Cook's Voyages. By Captain James Cook. Corinne. By Madame de Stael. Countess de Charney. By Alexandre Dumas. Countess Gisela. ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... and Thomas Moore; and had the honour of frequent invitations to the residence of the Princess of Wales, at Blackheath. In 1814, he visited Paris, where he was introduced to the Duke of Wellington; dined with Humboldt and Schlegel, and met his former friend and correspondent, Madame de Stael. A proposal of Sir Walter Scott, in 1816, to secure him a chair in the University of Edinburgh, was not attended with success. The "Specimens of the British Poets," a work he had undertaken for Mr Murray, appeared in 1819. In 1820, he accepted the editorship of the New Monthly ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... leave, Miss Beaufort, as was her custom, retired for an hour to read in her dressing-room, before she directed her attention to the toilet. She opened a book, and ran over a few pages of Madame de Stael's Treatise on the Passions; but such reasoning was too abstract for her present frame of mind, and ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... societies are most agreeable where there are fewest women: if there were not women superior to her I should not hesitate to assent to her proposition, and I should with pleasure read Madame de Stael's book called Le Malheur d'etre femme. If, on the contrary, all women were Madame de Pastorets, or Madame Delesserts, or Madame Gautiers, I think I should take up the book with the ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... evening with M. Fazy, who is, of course, French in education, we talked of our English literature. He. had Hamlet in French—just think of it. One never feels the national difference so much as in thinking of Shakspeare in French! Madame de Stael says of translation, that music written for one instrument cannot be played upon another. I asked if ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... them. Now as the Translators of the Bible, and Shakespeare, Milton, and Pope, could not be indebted to Macpherson, it follows that he must have owed his fine feathers to them; unless we are prepared gravely to assert, with Madame de Stael, that many of the characteristic beauties of our most celebrated English Poets are derived from the ancient Fingallian; in which case the modern translator would have been but giving back to Ossian his own.—It is consistent that Lucien Buonaparte, who could censure Milton ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... certain affinities with more famous and fortunate authors of his own day,—Chateaubriand and Madame de Stael,—are everywhere visible in Senancour. But though, like these eminent personages, he may be called a sentimental writer, and though Obermann, a collection of letters from Switzerland treating almost entirely of nature and of the human soul, may be called a work of sentiment, Senancour ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... the year were the publication of Beyle's "Lives of Mozart and Haydn"; the performance of Scribe's early plays, and the death of Madame de Stael, which occurred on July 14. This gifted daughter of Necker had not been allowed to return to France until after the fall of Napoleon. Her last work was a treatise of the Constitutional Government, entitled "Considerations sur les Principaux Evenements de la Revolution ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... for want of a better term. The Chateau Borel, embowered in the trees and thickets of its neglected grounds, had its fame in our day, like the residence of that other dangerous and exiled woman, Madame de Stael, in the Napoleonic era. Only the Napoleonic despotism, the booted heir of the Revolution, which counted that intellectual woman for an enemy worthy to be watched, was something quite unlike the autocracy in mystic vestments, engendered by the slavery ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... have accused her of ambition; and yet she loved him; but love is not always absolute devotion and self-abnegation; love is not always a virtue; it is often the result of egotism; it is, as Madame de Stael says, one personality in two persons, or a mere double personality. Frances loved the prince royal, but not the less had she been dazzled by ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... Revolution enjoyed his situation as absolute sovereign. He studied the laws of etiquette as closely as he studied the condition of his troops. He saw that the men of the old regime were more conversant in the art of flattery, more eager than the new men. As Madame de Stael says: "Whenever a gentleman of the old court recalled the ancient etiquette, suggested an additional bow, a certain way at knocking at the door of an ante-chamber, a ceremonious method of presenting a despatch, of folding a letter, of concluding it with this or that formula, he greeted ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... the dreary deserts of life, friendless and forsaken. Long ago we of America heard the deep yearnings of the souls of women in foreign lands for freedom responsive to our own. Mary Wollstonecraft, Madame de Stael, Madam Roland, George Sand, Frederica Bremer, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Frances Wright and George Eliot alike have pictured the wrongs of woman in poetry and prose. Though divided by vast mountain ranges, oceans and plains, yet the psalms of our ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... we mistake not, Madame de Stael, in her Revolution Francaise, had this performance of Schiller's in her eye. Her work is constructed on a similar though a rather looser plan of arrangement: the execution of it bears the same relation to that of Schiller; it ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... Madame de Stael was engrossed in political philosophy at an age when other girls are dressing dolls. Mozart, when but four years old, played the clavichord and composed minuets and other pieces still extant. The little Chalmers, with solemn air and earnest gestures, would preach often from a stool in the nursery. ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... discarded Catholicism, and during five years' residence established his learning on a solid foundation; time was also found for the one love episode of his life—an amour with Suzanne Curchod, an accomplished young lady, who subsequently became the wife of the French minister M. Neckar, and mother of Madame de Stael; shortly after his return to England in 1758 he published in French an Essay on the Study of Literature, and for some time served in the militia; in 1774, having four years previously inherited his father's estate, ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... strike out, and the awful, earth-shaking explosion would follow. After the Revolution, during the First Empire, so called,—the usurpation, that is, of Napoleon Bonaparte,—literature was well-nigh extinguished in France. The names, however, then surpassingly brilliant, of Chateaubriand and Madame de Stael, belong ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... The following remarks of Madame de Stael, who personally knew much of General Lafayette, [Footnote: She was also an intimate friend of Madame de Lafayette. They were accused, in the days of suspicion and terror, of being too much engaged in political affairs.] and who was well acquainted with characters ...
— Memoirs of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... contemporary fame. He wrote treatises on the same principles that he talked with friends, or that Fra Angelico painted pictures. He renewed his attempts in poetry, but failed. His poetry is in the transcendent rhythm of his prose compositions, like that of Madame de Stael, and ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord
... Madame de Stael has asserted that "Hobbes was an Atheist and a Slave." Yet I still think that Hobbes believed, and proved, the necessary existence of a Deity, and that he loved freedom, as every sage desires it. It is now time to offer an apology for one of those great men who are the contemporaries ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... literature, a MS. book with the handwritings of Savonarola, Petrarch, several autograph letters of Philip II., III., and IV. of Spain, and autographs of D. Hume, Byron, Sir D. Wilkie, Moore, Rogers, Campbell, Sir W. Scott, Southey, and foreigners of note, as Madame de Stael, ...
— The Kensington District - The Fascination of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... Madame de Stael has truly observed, that love occupies the whole life of a woman. It is not therefore surprising that women should be more skilful in detecting the symptoms of it in others. Mrs McElvina, with the usual penetration of her sex, discovered what was passing ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... Spaniard who was the banker of the Spanish Court. The great influence which she unquestionably exerted over her contemporaries was wholly due to her astounding physical beauty. Her intellectual equipment was meagre in the extreme. At one period of her life she courted the society of Madame de Stael and other intellectuals, but Princess Helene Ligne said of her that she "had more jargon than wit." As regards her physical attractions, however, no dissentient voice has ever been raised. "Her beauty," the Duchess d'Abrantes says in her memoirs, "of which the sculptors of ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... and Madame de Stael were the harbingers, owed its existence to a longing for a greater fulness of thought, a greater intenseness of feeling, a greater appropriateness and adequateness of expression, and, above all, a greater truth to life and nature. It was felt that the degenerated classicists were "barren ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... characters, distinguished by far more noble qualities than "the nobly pensive St. John!" I might add, that this seat has received, among other visiters, Sir Samuel Romilly, Sir George Beaumont, Sir Humphry Davy—poets as well as philosophers, Madame de Stael, Dugald Stewart, and Christopher ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 326, August 9, 1828 • Various
... this early season, and without a guide, we made up our minds to go in direct opposition to his counsels, and after gaining the summit, to descend by the other side, and sleep at Schmiedeberg, or some other town in Prussian Silesia. Just, albeit sharp and cutting, is the aphorism of Madame de Stael, that there is no country in the world where the expression, "It is impossible," comes so frequently into use as in Germany. Propose to a German any undertaking which he has either never tried, or which might break through his every-day habits, and he will assure you that the thing is not to ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
... volumes of Plato brought before my mind Arthur's reading, and the life with which he invested the words of these old-time philosophers that had so keen an interest for him; while Madame de Stael's "Allemagne," and my little copy of Ehlert's "Letters on Music" were associated with almost every hour of the day. They had lain upon my writing-table the entire summer, and it was my habit whenever I laid down my pen for ...
— The Story of a Summer - Or, Journal Leaves from Chappaqua • Cecilia Cleveland
... told in the biographical notice prefixed to Bentley's edition of the novels in 1833, that though Jane, when her authorship was an open secret, was once asked by a stranger to join a literary party at which Madame de Stael would be present, she immediately declined ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh
... M. de Humboldt there;" whereupon he first perceiving her, stood amazed, and at length exclaimed, "Valgame Dios! who is that girl?" Afterwards he was constantly with her, and more captivated, it is said, by her wit than by her beauty, considering her a sort of western Madame de Stael; all which leads me to suspect that the grave traveller was considerably under the influence of her fascinations, and that neither mines nor mountains, geography nor geology, petrified shells nor alpenkalkstein, ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... "Supplementary List;" the method of study therein indicated might be indefinitely extended, but the few works given form an almost necessary starting-point. A less restricted list would, of course, include the Semi-Historic examples of such Foreign authors as Madame de Stael, Balzac, Spielhagen, &c. The purport of this book being primarily in the direction of Historical Romance proper, I have confined my attention here to a few works on the ...
— A Guide to the Best Historical Novels and Tales • Jonathan Nield
... infirmity of an admirable scholar, who loved the world out of gratitude; who knew where libraries, galleries, architecture, laboratories, savants, and leisure, were to be had, and who did not quite trust the compensations of poverty and nakedness. Socrates loved Athens; Montaigne, Paris; and Madame de Stael said, she was only vulnerable on that side (namely, of Paris). It has its favorable aspect. All the geniuses are usually so ill-assorted and sickly, that one is ever wishing them somewhere else. We ...
— Representative Men • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... midst of this solemn premeditation, which tends, as Madame de Stael says, to bring more poetry into life, some women, in whom virtuous mothers either from considerations of worldly advantage of duty or sentiment, or through sheer hypocrisy, have inculcated steadfast principles, take the overwhelming fancies by which they are assailed for ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac
... the stammering: the new thoughts startled and pained her; but there was a daring grace about them. She tried, as women will, to answer him with arguments, and failed, as women will fail. She was accustomed to lay down the law a la Madame de Stael, to savants and non-savants and be heard with reverence, as a woman should be. But poor truth-seeking Lancelot did not see what sex had to do with logic; he flew at her as if she had been a very barrister, and hunted ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... master's library, chooses rather to become familiar with the Greek classics. Herodotus and Homer win, with their "vowelled" Greek, his warmest enthusiasm; whole nights of fever are devoted to them; disturbing dreams of an [179] Odyssey of his own come to him. "He felt in himself," says Madame de Stael, "an ardent attraction towards the south. In German imaginations even now traces are often to be found of that love of the sun, that weariness of the North (cette fatigue du nord), which carried the northern peoples away into the countries of the South. ...
— The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Horatio Pater
... the churches dressed as a Neo-Greek) she was always hampered by shyness. She certainly attracted all the best and most gifted of her time, and had a noble fearlessness in friendship, and a constancy which she showed by following Madame de Stael into exile, and in her devotion to Ballenche and Chateaubriand. She had the genius of friendship, a native sincerity, a certain reality of nature—those fine qualities which so often accompany the shy that we almost, as we read biography and history, begin to think ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... but a system,' once said, in her most impressive tones, Madame de Stael to Sir James Mackintosh, across a dinner-table. 'Magnificent!' murmured Sir James. 'But what does she mean?' whispered one of those helplessly commonplace creatures who, like the present writer, go ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... When Madame de Stael published her celebrated novel of Delphine, she was supposed to have painted herself in the person of the heroine, and M. Talleyrand in that of an elderly lady, who is one of the principal characters. "They tell ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... completely penetrated, shall give forth the confession of her sex, without restriction or reserve, in such a manner as to furnish the indispensable elements for formulating the rights and duties of woman. Saint Simon had asked Madame de Stael to undertake this role, but she failed to respond. When George Sand published her first novels, one Gueroult was commissioned to ascertain if the author of Lelia would undertake this important service. He found a badly ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... been written on Venice, from Schiller and Radcliffe to Madame de Stael and Madame Dudevant! and yet we hardly know if any one, with the exception of the last, has more completely imbued his mind with the peculiar spirit of Venice, or reflected its impressions with more truth than Mr Whyte. Schiller, indeed, and Mrs Radcliffe, had ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... obtain an audience of the emperor, or even an interview with Count Nesselrode, but Lafayette took up the cause with his hearty zeal for everything that concerned the United States, and, in a long interview with the emperor at the house of Madame de Stael, submitted to him the view taken by the United States of the controversy, and obtained from him his promise to exert his personal influence with the British government on his arrival at London. Baron von Humboldt, the Prussian minister at Paris, who had been influenced by British misrepresentation, ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... "foreigner"? He reflected with a sad, ironic smile that as a "foreigner with a French accent" he would have distinct advantages in the world of European diplomacy upon which he was entering. He counted many distinguished personages among his friends, from Madame de Stael to Alexander Baring of the famous London banking house. Unlike many native Americans he did not need to learn the ways of European courts, because he was to the manner born: he had no provincial habits which he must slough off or conceal. Also he knew himself and the ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... or immoral; therefore, we must believe that the robbers were strangers—if strangers, why not foreigners?—if foreigners, who so likely as the French? Signor Brunoni spoke broken English like a Frenchman; and, though he wore a turban like a Turk, Mrs Forrester had seen a print of Madame de Stael with a turban on, and another of Mr Denon in just such a dress as that in which the conjuror had made his appearance, showing clearly that the French, as well as the Turks, wore turbans. There could be no doubt Signor Brunoni was a Frenchman—a ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... save or to destroy, was no longer a subject, but a master. The general told them to let him in. As he passed, a voice called out, "There goes Cromwell." Lafayette stood still and answered, "Cromwell would not have come alone." Madame de Stael watched him as he entered the royal presence. His countenance, she says, was calm. Nobody ever saw it otherwise. Lewis received him with a sensation of relief, for he felt that he was safe. At that moment the sovereign indeed had perished, but the man was safe. ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... scholars, who worked for him in secret, and whom he understood to utilize. On the other hand, apparitions like those of a Sappho, a Diotima of the days of Socrates, a Hypatia of Alexander, a Madame Roland, Madame de Stael, George Sand, etc., deserve the greatest respect, and eclipse many a male star. The effect of women as mothers of great men is also known. Woman has achieved all that was possible to her under the, to her, as a whole, most unfavorable circumstances; all of which justifies the best hopes ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... literary spies of Germany in the pay of France. Hormayr's Archives contain a pamphlet well worthy of perusal, in which an account is given of all the arrests and persecutions that took place on account of matters connected with the press.—Madame de Stael was exiled for having spoken favorably of the German character in her work "de l'Allemagne," and the work itself was suppressed; Napoleon, on giving these orders, merely said, ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... wandered about for nearly two years. He visited Genoa, the birthplace of Columbus, and climbed Mount Vesuvius. He dined with Madame de Stael, the famous author of "Corinne." At Rome he met Washington Allston, the great American painter, then a young man not much older than he. They became good friends, and Allston afterward illustrated some of Irving's works. Irving ...
— Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, • Sherwin Cody
... Lafayette arrived at the head of twenty thousand men of the National Guard. To the amazement of the soldiers and onlookers, he dared to pass unattended through the palace doors to the Bull's Eye. "He appeared very calm," says Madame de Stael, Necker's observant daughter. "Nobody ever saw him otherwise." When he had reported his arrival to the King, Lafayette stationed guards about the palace, and, worn with hours of marching in the rain and mud, so far forgot his duty to his Sovereign and his ...
— The Story of Versailles • Francis Loring Payne
... Facing-both-Ways. Jeffrey thinks it generally a duty to conceal his fears and affect a confidence which he does not feel; but perhaps the best piece of writing in his essays is that in which he for once gives full expression to his pessimist sentiment. It occurs in a review of a book in which Madame de Stael maintains the doctrine of human perfectibility. Jeffrey explains his more despondent view in a really eloquent passage. He thinks that the increase of educated intelligence will not diminish the permanent causes of human misery. War will be as common ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... invent new terms to express His thought; but as He passed the old words through the alembic of His mind they came out with new meaning. His originality consisted in His discriminating appropriation of His inheritance, and in His using it so that it became alive with new power. Madame de Stael said that Rousseau "invented nothing, but set everything on fire." Jesus took the religion of Israel, and lived its life with God, and after Him it possessed a kindling flame it had never shown before. The faith of a small ...
— Some Christian Convictions - A Practical Restatement in Terms of Present-Day Thinking • Henry Sloane Coffin
... think of the brain she'll have," Buck reminded her excitedly. "Great Scott! With a grandmother who has made the T. A. Buck Featherloom Petticoat a household word, and a mother who was the cleverest woman advertising copy-writer in New York, this young lady ought to be a composite Hetty Green, Madame de Stael, Hypatia, and Emma McChesney Buck. She'll be a lady ...
— Emma McChesney & Co. • Edna Ferber
... position were established by custom, which regarded her vocation as entirely distinct from that of man. The result was a host of prominent and active women, but few really great ones. Undoubtedly by far the most important and influential was Madame de Stael, but her influence and work are so intimately associated with her life that any account of her which aims at giving a true estimate of her significance must necessarily ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... Madame de Stael was right when she said she greatly preferred meeting interesting men and women to admiring places or scenery. Among my pleasantest memories of Los Angeles are my visits to Madame Fremont in her pretty red cottage, presented by loving friends. It ...
— A Truthful Woman in Southern California • Kate Sanborn
... distinguished guests who spoke at the opera house on Decoration Day. He called Mrs. Keller "Mother," and he wasn't above noticing the fit of a gown on a pretty feminine figure. He thought Ivy was an expurgated edition of Lillian Russell, Madame De Stael, and Mrs. Pankburst. ...
— Buttered Side Down • Edna Ferber
... Ward. Although second-rate as regards productive power, Amiel's mind was of no inferior quality, and his journal gained a sympathy which the author had failed to obtain in his life. In addition to the Journal, he produced several volumes of poetry and wrote studies on Erasmus, Madame de Stael and other writers. He died in Geneva on the 11th of March 1881. His chief poetical works are Grains de mil, Il penseroso, Part du reve, Les Etrangeres, Charles le Temeraire, Romancero ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... contemptible, character, received, like the hermits of old, the visits of pilgrims, not only from his own nation, but from the farthest boundaries of Europe. Here too is Bonnet's abode, and, a few steps beyond, the house of that astonishing woman Madame de Stael: perhaps the first of her sex, who has really proved its often claimed equality with, the nobler man. We have before had women who have written interesting-novels and poems, in which their tact at observing drawing-room ...
— The Vampyre; A Tale • John William Polidori
... mother, before I was twenty, would have it that I was like Rousseau, and Madame de Stael used to say so too in 1813, and the 'Edinburgh Review' has something of the sort in its critique on the fourth canto of 'Childe Harold'. I can't see any point of resemblance:—he wrote prose, I verse: he was ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... Chauncey Burr, with whom she had collaborated in her "memoirs." Wielding a ready pen, he gave good value, for the chapters were well sprinkled with choice classical quotations and elegant extracts from the poets, together with allusions to Aristotle and Theophrastus, to Madame de Stael and Washington Irving. ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... or less influences the tables of this country, however, if I tell you that the ladies of the coterie, in which the remarks on the amorous sister were made, once gravely discussed in my presence the question whether Madame de Stael was right or wrong, in causing Corinne to go through certain sentimental experiences, as our canters call it at home, on a clouded day, instead of choosing one on which the sun was bright: or, vice versa; ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... the realization of an exalted dream, he had neither the wit to trace a cause to its consequence, nor the common sense to rest when he had done enough. He had no mental perspective, nor sense of proportion, and in the words of Madame de Stael he 'mistook ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... after, at seventeen, she writes: "I am studying Madame de Stael, Epictetus, Milton, Racine, and the Castilian ballads, with great delight.... I am engrossed in reading the elder Italian poets, beginning with Berni, from whom I shall proceed to Pulci and Politian." How almost infinitely above ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton
... to more modern times, Madame de Stael had a dish of very unique pattern, and, when driven by the command of Napoleon from her beloved Paris, she carried her chafing-dish with her into exile as one of her most cherished household gods. At the present day among the favored few, who have full purses, are ...
— Salads, Sandwiches and Chafing-Dish Dainties - With Fifty Illustrations of Original Dishes • Janet McKenzie Hill
... overlook their social offences because they are literary men. It is necessary for the world's sake, as well as for their own sake, that literary men and artists should take care to "provide against the evil day" like other people. "Imagination and art," says Madame de Stael, "have need to look after their own comfort and happiness in this world." The world ought to help them generously; all good men ought to help them; but what is better than all, ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... against Boisseuil is a remarkable trait. Madame de Stael has alluded to it in her best style. 'In France,' she says, 'we constantly see persons of distinguished rank, who, when accused of an improper action, will say—"It may have been wrong, but no one will dare assert it to my face!" Such ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... pleased to entitle 'a parish.' Ah" (continued the German with much bonhomie), "it was a pity to see in a great nation so much value attached to such a trifle as money. But what surprised me greatly was the tone of your poetry. Madame de Stael, who knew perhaps as much of England as she did of Germany, tells us that its chief character is the chivalresque; and, excepting only Scott, who, by the way, is not English, I did not find one chivalrous poet among ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... fancy, must have sympathized with Madame de Stael's consumptive niece, who answered to the question, "Why she was weeping all alone?" "Je me regrette." When, resting in their daily walk, shortened till it became a toil to reach the shady seat under the elms at the garden's end, they watched ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... not as yet much female poetry; but there is a truly feminine tenderness, purity, and elegance in the Psyche of Mrs. Tighe, and in some of the smaller pieces of Lady Craven. On some of the works of Madame de Stael—her Corinne especially—there is a still deeper stamp of the genius of her sex. Her pictures of its boundless devotedness—its depth and capacity of suffering—its high aspirations—its painful irritability, and inextinguishable thirst for emotion, are powerful specimens of that morbid anatomy ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... some lines so applicable to your remark, that I must forthwith interrupt you, in order to introduce them. Madame de Stael said, in one of her works, that melancholy was a source of perfection. Listen now ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... realized at last that I was in the presence of a great writer. Not a great talker. It is clear that George Eliot never was that. Impossible for her to "talk" her books, or evolve her books from conversation, like Madame de Stael. She was too self-conscious, too desperately reflective, too rich in second-thoughts for that. But in tete-a-tete, and with time to choose her words, she could—in monologue, with just enough stimulus from a companion ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Life of Madame de Stael forms part of that admirable 'Eminent Women' Series, which is so well edited by Mr. John H. Ingram. There is nothing absolutely new in Miss Duffy's book, but this was not to be expected. Unpublished correspondence, that delight of the eager biographer, ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... will remain for so long as a love of history and literature exists in the world, whereas that of Suzanne Curchod rests upon two circumstances—the first that she was once the sweetheart of Gibbon, the second that she was the mother of a Madame de Stael. ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... she was placed under the care of masters. She played with skill on the harp and piano, and being passionately fond of music, it became her solace and amusement at an advanced age. In her youth dancing was equally a passion with her. The grace with which she executed the shawl-dance suggested to Madame de Stael the dance-scene in "Corinne." It is said that great care was bestowed upon her education; but as it is also stated that long hours were passed at the toilette, that she was the pet of all her mother's friends, who, as proud of her daughter's beauty as ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... a power in the lives of many famous people, intimate with Madame de Stael, Voltaire, Montesquieu, Madame de Choiseul, the Duchess of Luxembourg, Madame Necker, Hume, Madame de Genlis. In her salon old creeds were argued down, new ideas disseminated, and bons mots and witty gossip ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... perhaps, of no great importance at a time when most people had faith in ghosts; when the most sceptical did not go further than Madame de Stael, who alleged that she did not believe in them but was afraid of them. It is not recorded what Benjamin Constant, her unhappy lover, thought about them. Nowadays things have changed and ghosts and the personal devil have joined the ranks of the ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... expressed to her. I can conceive of no finer joy coming to a man than, as his hair whitens, to have a daughter who understands him at his best, who enters into his life, sympathizes with his ideals, ministers to his mental needs, who is his companion and friend. Only a great man ever has such a daughter. Madame De Stael, who delighted in being called "the daughter of Necker," was such a woman, and the splendor of her mind was no less her father's glory than was the fact that he was the ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... are far more bitterly hostile than the men of small proportions, who are willing to have a great woman tower above them from time to time—as a Madame de Stael. Such a case, however, they would rank as an exception, not admit as a rule. To allow women to stand every day in the foremost lines of intellect and ability, is a thought altogether too expansive to be entertained ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... philosophic tone and decided judgment, which, supplemented by his picturesque description, full of life and color, have given character to his histories. They are features which might well have served to extend the remark of Madame de Stael that a great historian is almost a statesman. I can speak also from my own observation of the reputation which Motley left in the Austrian capital. Notwithstanding the decision with which, under the direction of Mr. Seward, he had addressed the minister of foreign affairs, Count Mensdorff, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... submissive. They employ philosophical reasonings to explain what is the least philosophic thing in the world, respect for force and the fear which transforms that respect into admiration."—MADAME DE STAEL (1810). ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... They have only to show themselves, to receive the attention and applause that a man of genius must work a lifetime to earn. Their world is at their feet. Wealth, power, gratified vanity, are theirs without an effort. Madame de Stael said she would willingly give all her fame for one season of the reign of a youthful beauty. She, it is true, was a woman; but David Hume, a keen observer, and moderate in his statements, noticed that even a "little miss, dressed in a new gown for a dancing-school ball, receives as complete enjoyment ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... a sound instinct for her art, disfigured though her later writings are by what Madame de Stael called her triste utilite. Her first story is her most artistic production. Castle Rackrent is simply a pleasant satire upon the illiterate and improvident gentry who have always been too common in her country. In this book she holds ...
— Irish Books and Irish People • Stephen Gwynn
... the perfection of style, there is no inferiority. Our best novelists in point of composition, and of the management of detail, have mostly been women; and there is not in all modern literature a more eloquent vehicle of thought than the style of Madame de Stael, nor, as a specimen of purely artistic excellence, anything superior to the prose of Madame Sand, whose style acts upon the nervous system like a symphony of Haydn or Mozart. High originality of conception ...
— The Subjection of Women • John Stuart Mill
... women of genius of the Old World who abused the use of alcohol and opium, were Coleridge, James Thomson, Carew, Sheridan, Steele, Addison, Hoffman, Charles Lamb, Madame de Stael, Burns, Savage, Alfred de Musset, Kleist, Caracci, Jan Steen, Morland Turner (the painter), Gerard de Nerval, Hartley Coleridge, Dussek, Handel, Glueck, Praga, Rovani, and the poet Somerville. This list is by no means complete, as the well-informed reader may see at a glance; ...
— Religion and Lust - or, The Psychical Correlation of Religious Emotion and Sexual Desire • James Weir
... had seen me not only at the time I mention but before and after, had always passed me without notice. One Sunday, when in the gallery of the Tuileries with Madame de Stael, the Queen, with her usual suite, of which Madame Campan formed one, was going, according to custom, to hear Mass, Her Majesty perceived me and most graciously addressed me in German. Madame Campan appeared greatly surprised at this, but walked on and said nothing. ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... dinner hour was twelve o'clock, noon, sharp, and that his hired man had instructions to pass Miss LOGAN at any time. Accordingly, our syren departed hungrily for the capital of the French. Her career in Paris is well known to every mere ordinary schoolboy: therefore, wherefore dwell? Madame DE STAEL'S dressmaker called on her. A committee of strong-minded milliners solicited the honor of her acquaintance. GEORGE FRANCIS TRAIN proposed an alliance with her for the purpose of hurling imperial jackassery from its tottering throne. Other ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 25, September 17, 1870 • Various
... in which they ought to have learned how successfully to maintain themselves. We now and here declare the inhumanity, cruelty, and outrage of that father and mother, who pass their daughters into womanhood, having given them no facility for earning their livelihood. Madame de Stael said: "It is not these writings that I am proud of, but the fact that I have facility in ten occupations, in any one of which ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... Madame de Stael and Madame Recamier are good illustrations of this point. The former, by her fearless expressions of wit, exposed herself to the detestation of the majority of mankind. "She has shafts," said Napoleon, "which would hit a man if he ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... who has left us such charming memoirs, under the name of Madame de Stael, "do you believe in my ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... will carry away with you the memory of a dull evening, but I could not talk, I could not. Oh, Dic—" Thereupon she began to weep, and Dic, though pained, found a certain selfish joy in comforting her, compared to which the conversation of Madame de Stael herself would have been poor and commonplace. Then came the gate, a sweet face wet with tears, and ...
— A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties • Charles Major
... lived with Johnson and Windham, with Mrs. Montague and Mrs. Thrale. Yet she was forced to own that she had never heard conversation before. The most animated eloquence, the keenest observation, the most sparkling wit, the most courtly grace, were united to charm her. For Madame de Stael was there, and M. de Talleyrand. There too was M. de Narbonne, a noble representative of French aristocracy; and with M. de Narbonne was his friend and follower General D'Arblay, an honourable and amiable man, with a handsome person, frank soldierlike ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... The plan was defeated by his having a still stronger mob. After dinner they discussed women's works: few chefs-d'oeuvres; Madame de Sevigne the best; the only three of a high class are Madame de Sevigne, Madame de Stael, and (Bobus Smith said) Sappho, but of her not above forty lines are extant: these, however, are unrivalled; Mrs Somerville is very great in the exact sciences. Lady Holland would not hear of Madame de Stael. They agreed as to Miss Austen ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... citizen or other person was taken from the protection of our national flag without any form of trial whatever." So insolent and oppressive had British aggression become before the war of 1812, that Mr. Jefferson in his somewhat celebrated letter to Madame de Stael-Holstein of May 24, 1813, said, "No American could safely cross the ocean or venture to pass by sea from one to another of our own ports. It is not long since they impressed at sea two nephews of General Washington returning from ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... enthusiastic and encyclopaedic book on Madame de Stael she quotes approvingly Sainte-Beuve's phrase that "with Corinne Madame de Stael ascended the Capitol." I forget in which of his many dealings with an author who, as he remarks in the "Coppet-and-Weimar" causeries, was "an idol of his youth and one that he never ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... Lamartine, and Victor Hugo, a lyric sun, a philosophic poet, later, perhaps in consequence of the Revolution of 1830, becoming a "Symbolist." He has been held to occupy a middle ground between De Musset and Chenier, but he has also something suggestive of Madame de Stael, and, artistically, he has much in common with Chateaubriand, though he is more coldly impersonal and probably much more sincere in his philosophy. If Sainte-Beuve, however, calls the poet in his Nouveaux Lundis ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... little preliminary information on the merits of the rest of the company, who were only invited to tea. Four maiden ladies (who had pulled on blue stockings in order to hide the increasing thickness of their ankles, and considered Miss Hendy the legitimate successor of Madame de Stael, and Mr Pitskiver in Harley Street the beau-ideal of love in a cottage) relieved the monotony of a gentleman party by as profuse a display of female charms as low gowns and short sleeves would allow. And about six o'clock there was ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... occupation congenial to their nature in the little departments of life—dressing crape; reviving black silk; converting narrow hems into broad hems; and in short, who so busy, who so important, as the ladies of Glenfern? As Madame de Stael, or de Something says, "they fulfilled their destinies." Their walk lay amongst threads and pickles; their sphere extended from the garret to the pantry; and often as they sought to diverge from it, their instinct always ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier |
