Main Currents in Nineteenth Century Literature - 3. The Reaction in FranceBrandes, Georg
History
Main Currents in Nineteenth Century Literature - 3. The Reaction in France
Brandes, Georg
Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- History and criticism; Naturalism in literature; Romanticism
An interesting contrast to the French-Russian Madame de Krüdener is to
be found in the German-Russian Princess Galizin, a lady who belongs to
the end of the eighteenth, as Madame de Krüdener does to the beginning
of the nineteenth century. Madame de Krüdener's characteristics stand
out more sharply on such a background as the life of Madame de Galizin.
The Princess's is a genuinely German type of character. She is as
simple as her younger contemporary is polished and complex; she is
ingenuous and at the same time sentimental, full of soul and wanting
in brain-power. Her husband was, like Krüdener, a man of the world. He
was a friend and admirer of Diderot; it was, indeed, Diderot who first
inspired the Princess with the desire and the courage to study, but
she soon became that philosopher's ardent opponent. As careless of her
feminine attractions as Madame de Krüdener was coquettish, Madame de
Galizin had her head shaved to make it impossible for her to go into
society, and from the age of twenty-four lived a life of seclusion.
To cure herself entirely of egoism she "offered to the God of love
the sacrifice of her understanding." As an instance of her ignorance
of the world it may be mentioned that, when her son desired to enter
the military service of a foreign country, she applied first to the
Prussian, then to the Austrian commander-in-chief for permission to
send along with him a tutor who was to guard him against the irregular
habits of military life, and was astonished by receiving the answer
from both that it was impossible for an officer to join the army
accompanied by a male governess of this description.
In spite of Princess Galizin's warm-hearted sincerity, her tone is
as pietistically supernatural as Madame de Krüdener's is mystically
sensual.[4]
In Madame de Krüdener we have before us a being whose original
equipment would seem to mark her as destined to act some important
part. She possesses a vigour of life and a vividness of emotion
sufficient for two ordinary human beings; only it is not healthy vigour
and emotion, but an inward restlessness, an inward fire, which gives
out sparks incessantly on every side. There is in her an original
capital of Russian volatility and pliability, German sentimentality,
French sense of proportion, and "Asiatic" sensual charm.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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