The palaces of the Roman lords are
vast in the extreme, and often display much architectural grace;
but their interiors are rarely arranged in good taste.
vast in the extreme, and often display much architectural grace;
but their interiors are rarely arranged in good taste.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v23 - Sha to Sta
Edgermond: "they do
imagine that. "
"Then I have nothing to say," continued Count d'Erfeuil
with a smile of gracious disdain. "Every man may think what he
will: but still I persist in believing that it may be affirmed with-
out presumption that we are the first in the dramatic art; and as
to the Italians, if I may be allowed to speak frankly, they do not
even suspect that there is such a thing as dramatic art. The
music of a play is everything with them, and what is spoken, noth-
ing. If the second act of a play has better music than the first,
they begin with the second act; if they like two first acts of two
different pieces, they play these two acts the same day, and put
between the two one act of a prose comedy.
The Ital-
ians are accustomed to consider the theatre as a great drawing-
room, where people listen only to the songs and the ballet. I say
rightly, where they listen to the ballet, for it is only when that
begins that there is silence in the theatre; and this ballet is a
masterpiece of bad taste. "
"All you say is true," answered Prince Castel-Forte gently:
"but you have spoken only of music and dancing; and in no
country are those considered dramatic art. "
"It is much worse," interrupted Count d'Erfeuil, "when tra-
gedies are represented: more horrors are brought together in five
acts than the imagination could conceive.
The tragedians
are perfectly in harmony with the coldness and extravagance of
the plays. They all perform these terrible deeds with the great-
est calmness. When an actor becomes excited, they say that he
appears like a preacher; for in truth there is much more anima-
tion in the pulpit than on the stage.
There is no better
comedy than tragedy in Italy.
The only comic style that
really belongs to Italy is the harlequinades: a valet, who is a
rascal, a glutton, and a coward, and an old guardian who is
a dupe, a miser, and in love,- that's the whole subject of these
plays.
You will agree that 'Tartuffe' and 'The Misan-
thrope' imply a little more genius. "
This attack from Count d'Erfeuil greatly displeased the Ital-
ians who were listening to it, but yet they laughed; and Count
d'Erfeuil in conversation liked better to display wit than court-
esy. .
Prince Castei-Forte, and other Italians who were
## p. 13833 (#667) ##########################################
MADAME DE STAËL
13833
there, were impatient to refute Count d'Erfeuil, but they thought
their cause better defended by Corinne than by any one else; and
as the pleasure of shining in conversation scarcely tempted them,
they begged Corinne to make reply, and contented themselves
with only citing the well-known names of Maffei, Metastasio,
Goldoni, Alfieri, Monti.
Corinne at once agreed that the Italians had no great body
of dramatic works; but she was ready to prove that circumstances
and not lack of talent were the cause of this. The play-writing
which is based on the observation of society, can exist only in a
country where the writer lives habitually in the centre of a pop-
ulous and brilliant world: in Italy there are only violent passions
or lazy enjoyments.
But the play-writing that is based
on the unreal, that springs from the imagination, and adapts
itself to all times as to all countries, was born in Italy.
The observation of the human heart is an inexhaustible source
for literature; but the nations who are more inclined to poetry
than to reflection give themselves up rather to the intoxication
of joy than to philosophic irony. There is something, at bottom,
sad in the humor that is based on knowledge of men: true gayety
is the gayety of the imagination only. . It is not that Italians do
not ably study men with whom they have to deal; and they dis-
cover more delicately than any others the most secret thoughts:
but it is as a method of action that they have this talent, and
they are not in the habit of making a literary use of it.
One can see in Machiavelli what terrible knowledge of the human
heart the Italians are capable of: but from such depths comedy
does not spring; and the leisureliness of society, properly so called,
can alone teach how to depict men on the comic stage.
The true character of Italian gayety is not derision, it is
fancy; it is not the painting of manners, but poetic extrava-
gances. It is Ariosto and not Molière who has the power to
amuse Italy.
But to know with certainty what comedy
and tragedy might attain to in Italy, there is need that there
should be somewhere a theatre and actors. The multitude of
little cities who all choose to have a theatre, waste by dispersing
them the few resources that could be collected.
·
.
These different ideas and many others were brilliantly devel-
oped by Corinne. She understood extremely well the rapid art
of light talk, which insists on nothing; and the business of pleas-
ing, which brings forward each talker in turn.
## p. 13834 (#668) ##########################################
13834
MADAME DE STAËL
Mr. Edgermond had so eager a desire to know what she
thought about tragedy, that he ventured to speak to her on this
subject. "Madam," he said, "what seems to me especially lack-
ing in Italian literature are tragedies: it seems to me there is less
difference between children and men than between your tragedies
and ours.
Is not this true, Lord Nelvil? »
"I think entirely with you," answered Oswald.
who is famed as the poet of love, gives to this passion, in what-
ever country, in whatever situation he represents it, precisely the
same color.
It is impossible for us who possess Shake-
"Metastasio,
•
-
speare — the poet who has most deeply sounded the history and
the passions of man - to endure the two couples of lovers who
divide between them almost all the plays of Metastasio.
With profound respect for the character of Alfieri, I shall permit
myself to make some criticisms on his plays. Their aim is so
noble, the sentiments that the author expresses are so in accord
with his personal conduct, that his tragedies must always be
praised as actions, even when criticized in some respects as liter-
ary works. But it seems to me that some of his tragedies have as
much monotony of strength as Metastasio has monotony of sweet-
ness.
>>>
"My lord," said Corinne, "I am of your opinion almost en-
tirely; but I would offer some exceptions to your observations.
It is true that Metastasio is more a lyrical than a dramatic poet.
By force of writing amorous verses, there has been cre-
ated among us a conventional language in this direction; and it
is not what the poet has felt, but what he has read, that serves
for his inspiration.
In general, our literature but little
expresses our character and our modes of life.
•
"Alfieri, by a singular chance, was, so to speak, transplanted
from antiquity into modern days: he was born to act, and he
was able only to write.
He desired to accomplish through
literature a political purpose: this purpose was undoubtedly the
noblest of all; but no matter: nothing so distorts works of imagi-
nation as to have a purpose.
Although the French mind
and that of Alfieri have not the least analogy, they are alike in
this, that both carry their own contours into all the subjects of
which they treat. ”
Count d'Erfeuil, hearing the French mind spoken of, entered
again into the conversation. "It would be impossible for us," he
said, "to endure on the stage the inconsequences of the Greeks,
•
•
·
## p. 13835 (#669) ##########################################
MADAME DE STAËL
13835
or the monstrosities of Shakespeare: the taste of the French is
too pure for that.
It would be to plunge us into bar-
barism, to wish to introduce anything foreign among us. "
"You would do well, then," said Corinne, smiling, "to surround
yourselves with the great wall of China. There are assuredly
rare beauties in your tragic authors; perhaps new ones would
develop among them if you sometimes permitted to be shown
you on the stage something not French,
the 'Merope'
of Maffei, the 'Saul' of Alfieri, the 'Aristodemo' of Monti, and
above all else, the poem of Dante - though he composed no
tragedy, it seems to me, capable of giving the idea of what
dramatic art in Italy might be. "
"When Dante lived," said Oswald, "the Italians played a great
political part in Europe and at home. Perhaps it is impossible.
for you now to have national tragedies. That such works should
be produced, it is needful that great circumstances should develop
in life the sentiments expressed on the stage. "
"It is unfortunately possible that you are right, my lord,"
answered Corinne; "nevertheless I always hope much for us from
the natural intellectual vigor in Italy:
but what is
especially lacking to us for tragedy are the actors;
. yet
there is no language in which a great actor could show as much
talent as in ours. "
"If you would convince us of what you say," interrupted
Prince Castel-Forte, "you must prove it to us:
give us
the inexpressible pleasure of seeing you play tragedy. "
"Well," she replied, "we will accomplish, if you desire it, the
project I have had for a long time, of playing the translation I
have made of Romeo and Juliet. '»
"The Romeo and Juliet' of Shakespeare! " cried Mr. Edger-
mond: "you love Shakespeare! "
"As a friend," she answered; "for he knows all the secrets of
grief. "
"And you will play it in Italian? " he exclaimed: "ah! how
fortunate we shall be to assist at such a spectacle! "
## p. 13836 (#670) ##########################################
13836
MADAME DE STAËL
FROM ON GERMANY'
―――
GⓇ
OETHE might represent the whole body of German literature:
not but that there are in it other writers superior to him
in some respects, but in himself alone he unites all that
distinguishes the German genius; and no one is as remarkable as
he for the kind of imagination which the Italians, the English,
and the French do not at all possess.
GOETHE
When one succeeds in making Goethe talk he is admirable:
his eloquence is rich with thought; his gayety is full of grace
and of wisdom; his imagination is excited by external objects as
was that of ancient artists; and none the less his reason has only
too completely the full development of our own times. Nothing
disturbs the strength of his brain; and the irregularities of his
very nature-his ill-humor, his embarrassment, his constraint—
pass like clouds beneath the summit of the mountain to which
his genius has attained.
Goethe has no longer that contagious ardor which was the in-
spiration of 'Werther'; but the warmth of his thought still suffices
to vivify his writings. One feels that he is no longer touched by
life, that he paints it from a distance: he attaches more value
now to the pictures he presents to us than to the emotions he
himself experiences; time has made of him only a spectator.
When he still played an active part in scenes of passion,— when
his own heart suffered,- his writings produced a more vivid im-
pression.
As one always believes in the ideal of one's own abilities,
Goethe maintains at present that the author should be calm even
when he composes a passionate work, and that the artist must
preserve his composure if he would act most strongly on the im-
agination of his readers. Perhaps he would not have held this
opinion in his early youth; perhaps then he was possessed by his
genius instead of being the master of it; perhaps he felt then
that since what is sublime and what is divine exist but moment-
arily in the heart of man, the poet is inferior to the inspiration
that animates him, and that he cannot criticize it without de-
stroying it.
In first seeing him, one is astonished in finding something of
coldness and of stiffness in the author of 'Werther'; but when he
•
## p. 13837 (#671) ##########################################
MADAME DE STAËL
13837
has graciously become at ease, the play of his imagination com-
pletely does away with the previous constraint. The intelligence
of this man is universal, and impartial because it is universal:
for there is no indifference in his impartiality. He is a double
existence, a double power, a double light, which illuminates both
sides of a subject simultaneously. When thinking, nothing bars
his way,— neither his times, nor his forms of life, nor his per-
sonal relations: his eagle's-glance falls straight on the objects he
observes. Had he had a political career, had his soul been devel-
oped by action, his character would be more decided, more firm,
more patriotic; but his mind would not so freely float through
the air over different points of view: passions or interests would
have traced for him a definite path.
Goethe takes pleasure, in his writings and in conversation also,
in breaking threads he has himself spun, in deriding emotions
he has excited, in casting down statues of which he has pointed
out the beauties.
Were he not estimable, fear would be
inspired by this lofty superiority, which degrades and then exalts,
is now tender and now ironical, which alternately affirms and
doubts, and all with equal success.
NAPOLEON
From 'Considerations on the French Revolution>
G
ENERAL BONAPARTE made himself as conspicuous by his char-
acter and his intellect as by his victories; and the imagi-
nation of the French began to be touched by him [1797].
His proclamations to the Cisalpine and Ligurian republics were
talked of.
A tone of moderation and of dignity pervaded
his style, which contrasted with the revolutionary harshness of
the civil rulers of France. The warrior spoke in those days
like a lawgiver, while the lawgivers expressed themselves with
soldier-like violence. General Bonaparte had not executed in his
army the decrees against the émigrés. It was said that he loved
his wife, whose character is full of sweetness; it was asserted that
he felt the beauties of Ossian; it was a pleasure to attribute to
him all the generous qualities that form a noble background for
extraordinary abilities.
Such at least was my own mood when I saw him for the first
time in Paris. I could find no words with which to reply to
## p. 13838 (#672) ##########################################
13838
MADAME DE STAËL
him when he came to me to tell me that he had tried to visit
my father at Coppet, and that he was sorry to have passed
through Switzerland without seeing him. But when I had some-
what recovered from the agitation of admiration, it was fol-
lowed by a feeling of very marked fear. Bonaparte then had no
power: he was thought even to be more or less in danger from
the vague suspiciousness of the Directory; so that the fear he
inspired was caused only by the singular effect of his personality
upon almost every one who had intercourse with him. I had
seen men worthy of high respect; I had also seen ferocious men:
there was nothing in the impression Bonaparte produced upon me
which could remind me of men of either type. I soon perceived,
on the different occasions when I met him during his stay in
Paris, that his character could not be defined by the words we
are accustomed to make use of: he was neither kindly nor vio-
lent, neither gentle nor cruel, after the fashion of other men.
Such a being, so unlike others, could neither excite nor feel sym-
pathy: he was more or less than man. His bearing, his mind,
his language, have the marks of a foreigner's nature,- an advan-
tage the more in subjugating Frenchmen.
Far from being reassured by seeing Bonaparte often, he
always intimidated me more and more. I felt vaguely that no
emotional feeling could influence him. He regards a human
creature as a fact or a thing, but not as an existence like his
own. He feels no more hate than love. For him there is no
one but himself: all other creatures are mere ciphers. The force
of his will consists in the imperturbable calculations of his ego-
tism: he is an able chess-player whose opponent is all human-
kind, whom he intends to checkmate. His success is due as
much to the qualities he lacks as to the talents he possesses.
Neither pity, nor sympathy, nor religion, nor attachment to any
idea whatsoever, would have power to turn him from his path.
He has the same devotion to his own interests that a good man
has to virtue: if the object were noble, his persistency would
be admirable.
Every time that I heard him talk, I was struck by his superi-
ority; it was of a kind, however, that had no relation to that of
men instructed and cultivated by study, or by society, such as
England and France possess examples of. But his conversation
indicated that quick perception of circumstances the hunter has
in pursuing his prey. Sometimes he related the political and
## p. 13839 (#673) ##########################################
MADAME DE STAËL
13839
military events of his life in a very interesting manner; he had
even, in narratives that admitted gayety, a touch of Italian imagi-
nation. Nothing, however, could conquer my invincible aliena-
tion from what I perceived in him. I saw in his soul a cold and
cutting sword, which froze while wounding; I saw in his mind a
profound irony, from which nothing fine or noble could escape,
not even his own glory: for he despised the nation whose suf-
frages he desired; and no spark of enthusiasm mingled with his
craving to astonish the human race.
His face, thin and pale at that time, was very agreeable: since
then he has gained flesh,-which does not become him; for one
needs to believe such a man to be tormented by his own charac-
ter, at all to tolerate the sufferings this character causes others.
As his stature is short, and yet his waist very long, he appeared
to much greater advantage on horseback than on foot; in all
ways it is war, and war only, he is fitted for. His manner in
society is constrained without being timid; it is disdainful when
he is on his guard, and vulgar when he is at ease; his air of
disdain suits him best, and so he is not sparing in the use of it.
He took pleasure already in the art of embarrassing
people by saying disagreeable things: an art which he has since
made a system of, as of all other methods of subjugating men by
degrading them.
NECKER
From Considerations on the French Revolution'
I'
T is now twelve years since death separated me from my father,
and every day my admiration for him has increased: the
remembrance that I preserve of his mind and of his virtues
serves me as a point of comparison to appreciate the worth
of other men; and although I have traveled through the whole.
of Europe, no genius of such quality, no moral nature of such
strength, has been made known to me. M. Necker might be
weak from kindness, uncertain because of reflection: but when
he believed duty to be involved in a determination, it seemed to
him he heard the voice of God; and he listened only to that,
whatever efforts might be made to affect him. I have more
confidence to-day in the lightest of his words than I should have
in any living person however admirable; all M. Necker has said
## p. 13840 (#674) ##########################################
13840
MADAME DE STAËL
to me is fixed as a rock in me. All that I have gained by my-
self may disappear; the identity of my being is in the attachment
that I retain to his memory. I have loved those whom I love
no more; I have esteemed those whom I esteem no more; the
flood of life has swept all in its current, save this great figure,
which I see on the mountain-top pointing me the life to come.
I owe
no true gratitude on this earth but to God and my
father: all my days had been days of struggle had not his ben-
ediction rested on them. But how much he suffered! The most
brilliant prosperity had marked the first half of his life: he had
become rich; he had been made first minister of France; the
boundless attachment of the French nation had rewarded him
for his devotion to it; during the seven years of his first retire-
ment, his works had been placed in the first rank of those of
statesmen: and perhaps he was the only man who had shown
himself skilled in the art of administering a great country with-
out ever departing from the most scrupulous morality, and even
from the purest delicacy. As a religious writer he never ceased
to be philosophical; as a philosophic writer he never ceased to
be religious: eloquence never carried him beyond reason, and
reason never deprived him of a single true impulse of eloquence.
To these great advantages was united the most flattering success
in society.
Alas! who could have foreseen that so much admiration would
be followed by so much injustice; that he who had loved France
with almost too great a predilection would be reproached with
having the sentiments of a foreigner; that by one party he
would be called the author of the Revolution because he respected
the rights of the nation, and that the leaders of this nation would
accuse him of having desired to sacrifice it to the support of the
monarchy? Thus, in other times, I please myself with thinking
the Chancelier de l'Hospital was threatened by the Catholics
and Protestants alternately; that Sully would have been seen to
succumb under party hatreds, had not the firmness of his master
sustained him. But neither of these two statesmen had that im-
agination of the heart which makes a man open to all kinds of
suffering. M. Necker was calm before God, calm in the presence
of death; because conscience alone speaks at that moment. But
when the interests of this world still occupied him, there was not
a reproach that did not wound him, not an enemy whose malevo-
lence did not reach him, not a day in which he did not twenty
## p. 13841 (#675) ##########################################
MADAME DE STAËL
13841
times question himself: sometimes blaming himself for ills that
he had not been able to prevent; sometimes going back behind
events, and weighing anew the different determinations he might
have made. The purest enjoyments of life were poisoned for
him by the unheard-of persecutions of party spirit. This party
spirit showed itself even in the manner in which émigrés in
the time of their need addressed themselves to him to ask help.
Many of them writing to him for this purpose, excused them-
selves for not going to see him, on the plea that the most import-
ant personages of their party had forbidden their doing so; they
judged truly at least of the generosity of M. Necker, when they
believed that this submission to the violence of their leaders
would not deter him from being of use to them.
After years so full of grief, so full of virtue, the power of
loving seemed to increase in my father at the age when it dimin-
ishes in other men; and everything about him declared, when
life ended, his return to heaven.
PERSECUTIONS BY NAPOLEON
From Ten Years of Exile
I
N THE month of March, 1811, a new Prefect [of Geneva] ar-
rived from Paris. He was a man peculiarly adapted to the
conditions of the time; that is to say, possessing a great knowl-
edge of facts, and no principles with regard to rule, . . and
placing his conscience in devotion to power. The first time that
I saw him he said to me immediately that a talent like mine was
made to celebrate the Emperor,- that he was a subject worthy
of the kind of enthusiasm that I had shown in 'Corinne. ' I
answered him, that persecuted as I had been by the Emperor,
any praise on my part addressed to him would have the air of
a petition; and that I was persuaded that the Emperor himself
would find my eulogiums absurd in such conditions. He opposed
this opinion vehemently; he came again several times to see me,
to beg me (for the sake of my interests, he said) to write some-
thing for the Emperor. Were it not more than four pages, that
would suffice, he assured me, to put an end to all my troubles.
XXIII-866
·
## p. 13842 (#676) ##########################################
13842
MADAME DE STAËL
And what he said to me he repeated to all my acquaintances. At
last one day he came proposing that I should sing the birth of
the King of Rome. I answered him, with laughter, that I had
no thought to express on this subject beyond my wishes that his
nurse might be a good one. This jest put an end to the prefect's
negotiations with me, as to the necessity that I should write
something in favor of the government.
A short time after, the physicians ordered my youngest son
the baths of Aix in Savoy, twenty miles from Coppet.
Scarcely had I been there ten days, when a courier from the
prefect of Geneva brought me orders to return home. The pre-
fect of Mont Blanc where I was [i. e. , in whose prefecture she
was], also was afraid, he said, that I might set off from Aix to
go to England, to write against the Emperor; and although
London was not very near Aix in Savoy, he sent his gendarmes
over the road to forbid my being provided with post-horses. I
am ready to laugh now at all this prefectorial activity directed.
against such an insignificant object as myself; but then I was
ready to die at the sight of a gendarme. I was always fear-
ing that from so rigorous an exile the next step might easily
be a prison, more terrible to me than death. I knew that once
arrested, once this scandal dared, the Emperor would permit
no word to be spoken for me, had any one had the courage to
attempt it, a courage scarcely probable in his court, where ter-
ror reigns every moment of the day, and about every detail of
life.
--
I returned to Geneva; and the prefect informed me that not
only he forbade me to go under any pretext into the countries
adjoining France, but that he advised me not to travel in Switz-
erland, and never to venture more than two leagues in any direc-
tion from Coppet. I observed to him that having my domicile
in Switzerland, I did not well understand by what right a French
authority could forbid my traveling in a foreign country. He
thought me, undoubtedly, rather a simpleton to discuss in those
days a question of right; and he repeated his advice, which was
singularly akin to an order. I held to my remonstrance; but
the next day I learned that one of the most distinguished men
of letters of Germany, M. Schlegel, who for eight years had
been good enough to take charge of the education of my sons,
had just received the order not only to leave Geneva, but also
## p. 13843 (#677) ##########################################
MADAME DE STAËL
13843
Coppet.
I was desirous to represent once more that in Switzer-
land the prefect of Geneva could give no orders [Geneva was then
under French rule]: but I was told that if I liked better that
this order should come from the French ambassador, I could so
have it: that this ambassador would address himself to the land-
amman, and the landamman to the canton de Vaud, and the
authorities of the canton would turn M. Schlegel out of my
house. By forcing despotism to take this roundabout way, I should
have gained ten days; but nothing more. I asked to know
why I was deprived of the society of M. Schlegel, my friend,
and that of my children. The prefect-who was accustomed, like
most of the Emperor's agents, to connect very gentle phrases
with very harsh acts-told me that it was from consideration for
me that the government removed from my house M. Schlegel,
who made me unpatriotic. Truly touched by this paternal care
on the part of the government, I inquired what M. Schlegel had
done inimical to France: the prefect spoke of his literary opin-
ions, and among other things, of a brochure by him, in which,
comparing the 'Phædra' of Euripides to that of Racine, he gave
the preference to the former. It showed much delicate feeling.
in a monarch of Corsican birth, to take sides in this manner
about the finer details of French literature. But the truth was,
M. Schlegel was exiled because he was my friend, because his
conversation animated my solitude; the system was beginning to
be worked that was to manifest itself more clearly, of making
for me a prison of my soul, by depriving me of all the enjoy-
ments of society and of friendship.
ROME ANCIENT AND MODERN
From Corinne'
ONE
NE of the most singular churches in Rome is St. Paul's: its
exterior is that of an ill-built barn; yet it is bedecked
within by eighty pillars of such exquisite material and
proportion that they are believed to have been transported from
an Athenian temple described by Pausanias. If Cicero said in
his day, "We are surrounded by vestiges of history," what would
he say now? Columns, statues, and pictures are so prodigally
crowded in the churches of modern Rome, that in St. Agnes's,
bas-reliefs turned face downward serve to pave a staircase; no
## p. 13844 (#678) ##########################################
13844
MADAME DE STAEL
one troubling himself to ascertain what they might represent.
How astonishing a spectacle was ancient Rome, had its treasures
been left where they were found! The immortal city would be
still before us nearly as it was of yore; but could the men of
our day dare to enter it?
The palaces of the Roman lords are
vast in the extreme, and often display much architectural grace;
but their interiors are rarely arranged in good taste. They have
none of those elegant apartments invented elsewhere for the per-
fect enjoyment of social life. Superb galleries, hung with the
chefs-d'œuvre of the tenth Leo's age, are abandoned to the gaze
of strangers by their lazy proprietors, who retire to their own.
obscure little chambers, dead to the pomp of their ancestors, as
were they to the austere virtues of the Roman republic. The
country-houses give one a still greater idea of solitude, and of
their owners' carelessness amid the loveliest scenes of nature.
One walks immense gardens, doubting if they have a master;
the grass grows in every path, yet in these very alleys are the
trees cut into shapes, after the fantastic mode that once reigned
in France. Strange inconsistency- this neglect of essentials and
affectation in what is useless! Most Italian towns, indeed, sur-
prise us with this mania, in a people who have constantly beneath
their eyes such models of noble simplicity. They prefer glitter
to convenience; and in every way betray the advantages and dis-
advantages of not habitually mixing with society. Their luxury
is rather that of fancy than of comfort. Isolated among them-
selves, they dread not that spirit of ridicule, which in truth sel-
dom penetrates the interior of Roman abodes. Contrasting this
with what they appear from without, one might say that they
were rather built to dazzle the peasantry than for the reception
of friends.
Translation of Isabel Hill.
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imagine that. "
"Then I have nothing to say," continued Count d'Erfeuil
with a smile of gracious disdain. "Every man may think what he
will: but still I persist in believing that it may be affirmed with-
out presumption that we are the first in the dramatic art; and as
to the Italians, if I may be allowed to speak frankly, they do not
even suspect that there is such a thing as dramatic art. The
music of a play is everything with them, and what is spoken, noth-
ing. If the second act of a play has better music than the first,
they begin with the second act; if they like two first acts of two
different pieces, they play these two acts the same day, and put
between the two one act of a prose comedy.
The Ital-
ians are accustomed to consider the theatre as a great drawing-
room, where people listen only to the songs and the ballet. I say
rightly, where they listen to the ballet, for it is only when that
begins that there is silence in the theatre; and this ballet is a
masterpiece of bad taste. "
"All you say is true," answered Prince Castel-Forte gently:
"but you have spoken only of music and dancing; and in no
country are those considered dramatic art. "
"It is much worse," interrupted Count d'Erfeuil, "when tra-
gedies are represented: more horrors are brought together in five
acts than the imagination could conceive.
The tragedians
are perfectly in harmony with the coldness and extravagance of
the plays. They all perform these terrible deeds with the great-
est calmness. When an actor becomes excited, they say that he
appears like a preacher; for in truth there is much more anima-
tion in the pulpit than on the stage.
There is no better
comedy than tragedy in Italy.
The only comic style that
really belongs to Italy is the harlequinades: a valet, who is a
rascal, a glutton, and a coward, and an old guardian who is
a dupe, a miser, and in love,- that's the whole subject of these
plays.
You will agree that 'Tartuffe' and 'The Misan-
thrope' imply a little more genius. "
This attack from Count d'Erfeuil greatly displeased the Ital-
ians who were listening to it, but yet they laughed; and Count
d'Erfeuil in conversation liked better to display wit than court-
esy. .
Prince Castei-Forte, and other Italians who were
## p. 13833 (#667) ##########################################
MADAME DE STAËL
13833
there, were impatient to refute Count d'Erfeuil, but they thought
their cause better defended by Corinne than by any one else; and
as the pleasure of shining in conversation scarcely tempted them,
they begged Corinne to make reply, and contented themselves
with only citing the well-known names of Maffei, Metastasio,
Goldoni, Alfieri, Monti.
Corinne at once agreed that the Italians had no great body
of dramatic works; but she was ready to prove that circumstances
and not lack of talent were the cause of this. The play-writing
which is based on the observation of society, can exist only in a
country where the writer lives habitually in the centre of a pop-
ulous and brilliant world: in Italy there are only violent passions
or lazy enjoyments.
But the play-writing that is based
on the unreal, that springs from the imagination, and adapts
itself to all times as to all countries, was born in Italy.
The observation of the human heart is an inexhaustible source
for literature; but the nations who are more inclined to poetry
than to reflection give themselves up rather to the intoxication
of joy than to philosophic irony. There is something, at bottom,
sad in the humor that is based on knowledge of men: true gayety
is the gayety of the imagination only. . It is not that Italians do
not ably study men with whom they have to deal; and they dis-
cover more delicately than any others the most secret thoughts:
but it is as a method of action that they have this talent, and
they are not in the habit of making a literary use of it.
One can see in Machiavelli what terrible knowledge of the human
heart the Italians are capable of: but from such depths comedy
does not spring; and the leisureliness of society, properly so called,
can alone teach how to depict men on the comic stage.
The true character of Italian gayety is not derision, it is
fancy; it is not the painting of manners, but poetic extrava-
gances. It is Ariosto and not Molière who has the power to
amuse Italy.
But to know with certainty what comedy
and tragedy might attain to in Italy, there is need that there
should be somewhere a theatre and actors. The multitude of
little cities who all choose to have a theatre, waste by dispersing
them the few resources that could be collected.
·
.
These different ideas and many others were brilliantly devel-
oped by Corinne. She understood extremely well the rapid art
of light talk, which insists on nothing; and the business of pleas-
ing, which brings forward each talker in turn.
## p. 13834 (#668) ##########################################
13834
MADAME DE STAËL
Mr. Edgermond had so eager a desire to know what she
thought about tragedy, that he ventured to speak to her on this
subject. "Madam," he said, "what seems to me especially lack-
ing in Italian literature are tragedies: it seems to me there is less
difference between children and men than between your tragedies
and ours.
Is not this true, Lord Nelvil? »
"I think entirely with you," answered Oswald.
who is famed as the poet of love, gives to this passion, in what-
ever country, in whatever situation he represents it, precisely the
same color.
It is impossible for us who possess Shake-
"Metastasio,
•
-
speare — the poet who has most deeply sounded the history and
the passions of man - to endure the two couples of lovers who
divide between them almost all the plays of Metastasio.
With profound respect for the character of Alfieri, I shall permit
myself to make some criticisms on his plays. Their aim is so
noble, the sentiments that the author expresses are so in accord
with his personal conduct, that his tragedies must always be
praised as actions, even when criticized in some respects as liter-
ary works. But it seems to me that some of his tragedies have as
much monotony of strength as Metastasio has monotony of sweet-
ness.
>>>
"My lord," said Corinne, "I am of your opinion almost en-
tirely; but I would offer some exceptions to your observations.
It is true that Metastasio is more a lyrical than a dramatic poet.
By force of writing amorous verses, there has been cre-
ated among us a conventional language in this direction; and it
is not what the poet has felt, but what he has read, that serves
for his inspiration.
In general, our literature but little
expresses our character and our modes of life.
•
"Alfieri, by a singular chance, was, so to speak, transplanted
from antiquity into modern days: he was born to act, and he
was able only to write.
He desired to accomplish through
literature a political purpose: this purpose was undoubtedly the
noblest of all; but no matter: nothing so distorts works of imagi-
nation as to have a purpose.
Although the French mind
and that of Alfieri have not the least analogy, they are alike in
this, that both carry their own contours into all the subjects of
which they treat. ”
Count d'Erfeuil, hearing the French mind spoken of, entered
again into the conversation. "It would be impossible for us," he
said, "to endure on the stage the inconsequences of the Greeks,
•
•
·
## p. 13835 (#669) ##########################################
MADAME DE STAËL
13835
or the monstrosities of Shakespeare: the taste of the French is
too pure for that.
It would be to plunge us into bar-
barism, to wish to introduce anything foreign among us. "
"You would do well, then," said Corinne, smiling, "to surround
yourselves with the great wall of China. There are assuredly
rare beauties in your tragic authors; perhaps new ones would
develop among them if you sometimes permitted to be shown
you on the stage something not French,
the 'Merope'
of Maffei, the 'Saul' of Alfieri, the 'Aristodemo' of Monti, and
above all else, the poem of Dante - though he composed no
tragedy, it seems to me, capable of giving the idea of what
dramatic art in Italy might be. "
"When Dante lived," said Oswald, "the Italians played a great
political part in Europe and at home. Perhaps it is impossible.
for you now to have national tragedies. That such works should
be produced, it is needful that great circumstances should develop
in life the sentiments expressed on the stage. "
"It is unfortunately possible that you are right, my lord,"
answered Corinne; "nevertheless I always hope much for us from
the natural intellectual vigor in Italy:
but what is
especially lacking to us for tragedy are the actors;
. yet
there is no language in which a great actor could show as much
talent as in ours. "
"If you would convince us of what you say," interrupted
Prince Castel-Forte, "you must prove it to us:
give us
the inexpressible pleasure of seeing you play tragedy. "
"Well," she replied, "we will accomplish, if you desire it, the
project I have had for a long time, of playing the translation I
have made of Romeo and Juliet. '»
"The Romeo and Juliet' of Shakespeare! " cried Mr. Edger-
mond: "you love Shakespeare! "
"As a friend," she answered; "for he knows all the secrets of
grief. "
"And you will play it in Italian? " he exclaimed: "ah! how
fortunate we shall be to assist at such a spectacle! "
## p. 13836 (#670) ##########################################
13836
MADAME DE STAËL
FROM ON GERMANY'
―――
GⓇ
OETHE might represent the whole body of German literature:
not but that there are in it other writers superior to him
in some respects, but in himself alone he unites all that
distinguishes the German genius; and no one is as remarkable as
he for the kind of imagination which the Italians, the English,
and the French do not at all possess.
GOETHE
When one succeeds in making Goethe talk he is admirable:
his eloquence is rich with thought; his gayety is full of grace
and of wisdom; his imagination is excited by external objects as
was that of ancient artists; and none the less his reason has only
too completely the full development of our own times. Nothing
disturbs the strength of his brain; and the irregularities of his
very nature-his ill-humor, his embarrassment, his constraint—
pass like clouds beneath the summit of the mountain to which
his genius has attained.
Goethe has no longer that contagious ardor which was the in-
spiration of 'Werther'; but the warmth of his thought still suffices
to vivify his writings. One feels that he is no longer touched by
life, that he paints it from a distance: he attaches more value
now to the pictures he presents to us than to the emotions he
himself experiences; time has made of him only a spectator.
When he still played an active part in scenes of passion,— when
his own heart suffered,- his writings produced a more vivid im-
pression.
As one always believes in the ideal of one's own abilities,
Goethe maintains at present that the author should be calm even
when he composes a passionate work, and that the artist must
preserve his composure if he would act most strongly on the im-
agination of his readers. Perhaps he would not have held this
opinion in his early youth; perhaps then he was possessed by his
genius instead of being the master of it; perhaps he felt then
that since what is sublime and what is divine exist but moment-
arily in the heart of man, the poet is inferior to the inspiration
that animates him, and that he cannot criticize it without de-
stroying it.
In first seeing him, one is astonished in finding something of
coldness and of stiffness in the author of 'Werther'; but when he
•
## p. 13837 (#671) ##########################################
MADAME DE STAËL
13837
has graciously become at ease, the play of his imagination com-
pletely does away with the previous constraint. The intelligence
of this man is universal, and impartial because it is universal:
for there is no indifference in his impartiality. He is a double
existence, a double power, a double light, which illuminates both
sides of a subject simultaneously. When thinking, nothing bars
his way,— neither his times, nor his forms of life, nor his per-
sonal relations: his eagle's-glance falls straight on the objects he
observes. Had he had a political career, had his soul been devel-
oped by action, his character would be more decided, more firm,
more patriotic; but his mind would not so freely float through
the air over different points of view: passions or interests would
have traced for him a definite path.
Goethe takes pleasure, in his writings and in conversation also,
in breaking threads he has himself spun, in deriding emotions
he has excited, in casting down statues of which he has pointed
out the beauties.
Were he not estimable, fear would be
inspired by this lofty superiority, which degrades and then exalts,
is now tender and now ironical, which alternately affirms and
doubts, and all with equal success.
NAPOLEON
From 'Considerations on the French Revolution>
G
ENERAL BONAPARTE made himself as conspicuous by his char-
acter and his intellect as by his victories; and the imagi-
nation of the French began to be touched by him [1797].
His proclamations to the Cisalpine and Ligurian republics were
talked of.
A tone of moderation and of dignity pervaded
his style, which contrasted with the revolutionary harshness of
the civil rulers of France. The warrior spoke in those days
like a lawgiver, while the lawgivers expressed themselves with
soldier-like violence. General Bonaparte had not executed in his
army the decrees against the émigrés. It was said that he loved
his wife, whose character is full of sweetness; it was asserted that
he felt the beauties of Ossian; it was a pleasure to attribute to
him all the generous qualities that form a noble background for
extraordinary abilities.
Such at least was my own mood when I saw him for the first
time in Paris. I could find no words with which to reply to
## p. 13838 (#672) ##########################################
13838
MADAME DE STAËL
him when he came to me to tell me that he had tried to visit
my father at Coppet, and that he was sorry to have passed
through Switzerland without seeing him. But when I had some-
what recovered from the agitation of admiration, it was fol-
lowed by a feeling of very marked fear. Bonaparte then had no
power: he was thought even to be more or less in danger from
the vague suspiciousness of the Directory; so that the fear he
inspired was caused only by the singular effect of his personality
upon almost every one who had intercourse with him. I had
seen men worthy of high respect; I had also seen ferocious men:
there was nothing in the impression Bonaparte produced upon me
which could remind me of men of either type. I soon perceived,
on the different occasions when I met him during his stay in
Paris, that his character could not be defined by the words we
are accustomed to make use of: he was neither kindly nor vio-
lent, neither gentle nor cruel, after the fashion of other men.
Such a being, so unlike others, could neither excite nor feel sym-
pathy: he was more or less than man. His bearing, his mind,
his language, have the marks of a foreigner's nature,- an advan-
tage the more in subjugating Frenchmen.
Far from being reassured by seeing Bonaparte often, he
always intimidated me more and more. I felt vaguely that no
emotional feeling could influence him. He regards a human
creature as a fact or a thing, but not as an existence like his
own. He feels no more hate than love. For him there is no
one but himself: all other creatures are mere ciphers. The force
of his will consists in the imperturbable calculations of his ego-
tism: he is an able chess-player whose opponent is all human-
kind, whom he intends to checkmate. His success is due as
much to the qualities he lacks as to the talents he possesses.
Neither pity, nor sympathy, nor religion, nor attachment to any
idea whatsoever, would have power to turn him from his path.
He has the same devotion to his own interests that a good man
has to virtue: if the object were noble, his persistency would
be admirable.
Every time that I heard him talk, I was struck by his superi-
ority; it was of a kind, however, that had no relation to that of
men instructed and cultivated by study, or by society, such as
England and France possess examples of. But his conversation
indicated that quick perception of circumstances the hunter has
in pursuing his prey. Sometimes he related the political and
## p. 13839 (#673) ##########################################
MADAME DE STAËL
13839
military events of his life in a very interesting manner; he had
even, in narratives that admitted gayety, a touch of Italian imagi-
nation. Nothing, however, could conquer my invincible aliena-
tion from what I perceived in him. I saw in his soul a cold and
cutting sword, which froze while wounding; I saw in his mind a
profound irony, from which nothing fine or noble could escape,
not even his own glory: for he despised the nation whose suf-
frages he desired; and no spark of enthusiasm mingled with his
craving to astonish the human race.
His face, thin and pale at that time, was very agreeable: since
then he has gained flesh,-which does not become him; for one
needs to believe such a man to be tormented by his own charac-
ter, at all to tolerate the sufferings this character causes others.
As his stature is short, and yet his waist very long, he appeared
to much greater advantage on horseback than on foot; in all
ways it is war, and war only, he is fitted for. His manner in
society is constrained without being timid; it is disdainful when
he is on his guard, and vulgar when he is at ease; his air of
disdain suits him best, and so he is not sparing in the use of it.
He took pleasure already in the art of embarrassing
people by saying disagreeable things: an art which he has since
made a system of, as of all other methods of subjugating men by
degrading them.
NECKER
From Considerations on the French Revolution'
I'
T is now twelve years since death separated me from my father,
and every day my admiration for him has increased: the
remembrance that I preserve of his mind and of his virtues
serves me as a point of comparison to appreciate the worth
of other men; and although I have traveled through the whole.
of Europe, no genius of such quality, no moral nature of such
strength, has been made known to me. M. Necker might be
weak from kindness, uncertain because of reflection: but when
he believed duty to be involved in a determination, it seemed to
him he heard the voice of God; and he listened only to that,
whatever efforts might be made to affect him. I have more
confidence to-day in the lightest of his words than I should have
in any living person however admirable; all M. Necker has said
## p. 13840 (#674) ##########################################
13840
MADAME DE STAËL
to me is fixed as a rock in me. All that I have gained by my-
self may disappear; the identity of my being is in the attachment
that I retain to his memory. I have loved those whom I love
no more; I have esteemed those whom I esteem no more; the
flood of life has swept all in its current, save this great figure,
which I see on the mountain-top pointing me the life to come.
I owe
no true gratitude on this earth but to God and my
father: all my days had been days of struggle had not his ben-
ediction rested on them. But how much he suffered! The most
brilliant prosperity had marked the first half of his life: he had
become rich; he had been made first minister of France; the
boundless attachment of the French nation had rewarded him
for his devotion to it; during the seven years of his first retire-
ment, his works had been placed in the first rank of those of
statesmen: and perhaps he was the only man who had shown
himself skilled in the art of administering a great country with-
out ever departing from the most scrupulous morality, and even
from the purest delicacy. As a religious writer he never ceased
to be philosophical; as a philosophic writer he never ceased to
be religious: eloquence never carried him beyond reason, and
reason never deprived him of a single true impulse of eloquence.
To these great advantages was united the most flattering success
in society.
Alas! who could have foreseen that so much admiration would
be followed by so much injustice; that he who had loved France
with almost too great a predilection would be reproached with
having the sentiments of a foreigner; that by one party he
would be called the author of the Revolution because he respected
the rights of the nation, and that the leaders of this nation would
accuse him of having desired to sacrifice it to the support of the
monarchy? Thus, in other times, I please myself with thinking
the Chancelier de l'Hospital was threatened by the Catholics
and Protestants alternately; that Sully would have been seen to
succumb under party hatreds, had not the firmness of his master
sustained him. But neither of these two statesmen had that im-
agination of the heart which makes a man open to all kinds of
suffering. M. Necker was calm before God, calm in the presence
of death; because conscience alone speaks at that moment. But
when the interests of this world still occupied him, there was not
a reproach that did not wound him, not an enemy whose malevo-
lence did not reach him, not a day in which he did not twenty
## p. 13841 (#675) ##########################################
MADAME DE STAËL
13841
times question himself: sometimes blaming himself for ills that
he had not been able to prevent; sometimes going back behind
events, and weighing anew the different determinations he might
have made. The purest enjoyments of life were poisoned for
him by the unheard-of persecutions of party spirit. This party
spirit showed itself even in the manner in which émigrés in
the time of their need addressed themselves to him to ask help.
Many of them writing to him for this purpose, excused them-
selves for not going to see him, on the plea that the most import-
ant personages of their party had forbidden their doing so; they
judged truly at least of the generosity of M. Necker, when they
believed that this submission to the violence of their leaders
would not deter him from being of use to them.
After years so full of grief, so full of virtue, the power of
loving seemed to increase in my father at the age when it dimin-
ishes in other men; and everything about him declared, when
life ended, his return to heaven.
PERSECUTIONS BY NAPOLEON
From Ten Years of Exile
I
N THE month of March, 1811, a new Prefect [of Geneva] ar-
rived from Paris. He was a man peculiarly adapted to the
conditions of the time; that is to say, possessing a great knowl-
edge of facts, and no principles with regard to rule, . . and
placing his conscience in devotion to power. The first time that
I saw him he said to me immediately that a talent like mine was
made to celebrate the Emperor,- that he was a subject worthy
of the kind of enthusiasm that I had shown in 'Corinne. ' I
answered him, that persecuted as I had been by the Emperor,
any praise on my part addressed to him would have the air of
a petition; and that I was persuaded that the Emperor himself
would find my eulogiums absurd in such conditions. He opposed
this opinion vehemently; he came again several times to see me,
to beg me (for the sake of my interests, he said) to write some-
thing for the Emperor. Were it not more than four pages, that
would suffice, he assured me, to put an end to all my troubles.
XXIII-866
·
## p. 13842 (#676) ##########################################
13842
MADAME DE STAËL
And what he said to me he repeated to all my acquaintances. At
last one day he came proposing that I should sing the birth of
the King of Rome. I answered him, with laughter, that I had
no thought to express on this subject beyond my wishes that his
nurse might be a good one. This jest put an end to the prefect's
negotiations with me, as to the necessity that I should write
something in favor of the government.
A short time after, the physicians ordered my youngest son
the baths of Aix in Savoy, twenty miles from Coppet.
Scarcely had I been there ten days, when a courier from the
prefect of Geneva brought me orders to return home. The pre-
fect of Mont Blanc where I was [i. e. , in whose prefecture she
was], also was afraid, he said, that I might set off from Aix to
go to England, to write against the Emperor; and although
London was not very near Aix in Savoy, he sent his gendarmes
over the road to forbid my being provided with post-horses. I
am ready to laugh now at all this prefectorial activity directed.
against such an insignificant object as myself; but then I was
ready to die at the sight of a gendarme. I was always fear-
ing that from so rigorous an exile the next step might easily
be a prison, more terrible to me than death. I knew that once
arrested, once this scandal dared, the Emperor would permit
no word to be spoken for me, had any one had the courage to
attempt it, a courage scarcely probable in his court, where ter-
ror reigns every moment of the day, and about every detail of
life.
--
I returned to Geneva; and the prefect informed me that not
only he forbade me to go under any pretext into the countries
adjoining France, but that he advised me not to travel in Switz-
erland, and never to venture more than two leagues in any direc-
tion from Coppet. I observed to him that having my domicile
in Switzerland, I did not well understand by what right a French
authority could forbid my traveling in a foreign country. He
thought me, undoubtedly, rather a simpleton to discuss in those
days a question of right; and he repeated his advice, which was
singularly akin to an order. I held to my remonstrance; but
the next day I learned that one of the most distinguished men
of letters of Germany, M. Schlegel, who for eight years had
been good enough to take charge of the education of my sons,
had just received the order not only to leave Geneva, but also
## p. 13843 (#677) ##########################################
MADAME DE STAËL
13843
Coppet.
I was desirous to represent once more that in Switzer-
land the prefect of Geneva could give no orders [Geneva was then
under French rule]: but I was told that if I liked better that
this order should come from the French ambassador, I could so
have it: that this ambassador would address himself to the land-
amman, and the landamman to the canton de Vaud, and the
authorities of the canton would turn M. Schlegel out of my
house. By forcing despotism to take this roundabout way, I should
have gained ten days; but nothing more. I asked to know
why I was deprived of the society of M. Schlegel, my friend,
and that of my children. The prefect-who was accustomed, like
most of the Emperor's agents, to connect very gentle phrases
with very harsh acts-told me that it was from consideration for
me that the government removed from my house M. Schlegel,
who made me unpatriotic. Truly touched by this paternal care
on the part of the government, I inquired what M. Schlegel had
done inimical to France: the prefect spoke of his literary opin-
ions, and among other things, of a brochure by him, in which,
comparing the 'Phædra' of Euripides to that of Racine, he gave
the preference to the former. It showed much delicate feeling.
in a monarch of Corsican birth, to take sides in this manner
about the finer details of French literature. But the truth was,
M. Schlegel was exiled because he was my friend, because his
conversation animated my solitude; the system was beginning to
be worked that was to manifest itself more clearly, of making
for me a prison of my soul, by depriving me of all the enjoy-
ments of society and of friendship.
ROME ANCIENT AND MODERN
From Corinne'
ONE
NE of the most singular churches in Rome is St. Paul's: its
exterior is that of an ill-built barn; yet it is bedecked
within by eighty pillars of such exquisite material and
proportion that they are believed to have been transported from
an Athenian temple described by Pausanias. If Cicero said in
his day, "We are surrounded by vestiges of history," what would
he say now? Columns, statues, and pictures are so prodigally
crowded in the churches of modern Rome, that in St. Agnes's,
bas-reliefs turned face downward serve to pave a staircase; no
## p. 13844 (#678) ##########################################
13844
MADAME DE STAEL
one troubling himself to ascertain what they might represent.
How astonishing a spectacle was ancient Rome, had its treasures
been left where they were found! The immortal city would be
still before us nearly as it was of yore; but could the men of
our day dare to enter it?
The palaces of the Roman lords are
vast in the extreme, and often display much architectural grace;
but their interiors are rarely arranged in good taste. They have
none of those elegant apartments invented elsewhere for the per-
fect enjoyment of social life. Superb galleries, hung with the
chefs-d'œuvre of the tenth Leo's age, are abandoned to the gaze
of strangers by their lazy proprietors, who retire to their own.
obscure little chambers, dead to the pomp of their ancestors, as
were they to the austere virtues of the Roman republic. The
country-houses give one a still greater idea of solitude, and of
their owners' carelessness amid the loveliest scenes of nature.
One walks immense gardens, doubting if they have a master;
the grass grows in every path, yet in these very alleys are the
trees cut into shapes, after the fantastic mode that once reigned
in France. Strange inconsistency- this neglect of essentials and
affectation in what is useless! Most Italian towns, indeed, sur-
prise us with this mania, in a people who have constantly beneath
their eyes such models of noble simplicity. They prefer glitter
to convenience; and in every way betray the advantages and dis-
advantages of not habitually mixing with society. Their luxury
is rather that of fancy than of comfort. Isolated among them-
selves, they dread not that spirit of ridicule, which in truth sel-
dom penetrates the interior of Roman abodes. Contrasting this
with what they appear from without, one might say that they
were rather built to dazzle the peasantry than for the reception
of friends.
Translation of Isabel Hill.
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1
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