Francesca Carrara

"[Thoughts from Francesca]: How much responsibility is in those few and scarcely audible words which give away your very life to the keeping of another ! What a sudden change is wrought in existence ! — a change whose consequences none may foresee. It is standing on the threshold of youth, and flinging its flowers behind you. The ideal merges at once in the real, and the dream, at least, of love is over. Well if the substance, depart not with the shadow !"

"It is a painful thing to think how the purest and dearest tie that can exist — that which binds the parent to the child, and the child to the parent — is doomed to sever by the very course of nature : that a new and vivid emotion will inevitably enter the heart of youth, and before that emotion, how cold and faint seems all that was held precious before ! And yet, so inextricably blended are happiness and sorrow on our earth, that fortunate, thrice fortunate, are they who have such ties to sever."

"Is there aught more provoking than the misinterpretation of our saddest thoughts ?"

"What an extraordinary mental delusion jesting is ; that sort of laboured vivacity which fancies it is pointed when it is only personal; and more extraordinary still, it is always the resource of stupid people. "Take any shape but that !" is what I always feel tempted to exclaim when dulness attempts a joke; striving to pervert some poor innocent and ill-used word from its lawful meaning till it ceases to have any at all — worrying some unfortunate idea till, like the hunted hare, it is worried to death — dealing in witticisms whose edge has long since been worn off by constant use ; and truly to the many, witticisms not only require to be explained, like riddles, but are also like new shoes, which people require to wear many times before they get accustomed to them. … … It is said that the name of Love is often taken in vain, compelled to stand godfather to feelings with which he has nothing to do, and made answerable for all the faults and follies which interest, vanity, and idleness commit while masquerading under such semblance. Wit is just as much put upon — blamed for a thousand impertinences over which it would not have held for a moment its glittering shield ; it is like the radiant fairy doomed to wander over earth, concealed and transformed, and only allowed on rare occasions to shine forth in its true and sparkling form. It is well that wit is an impalpable and ethereal substance, or it must long since have evaporated in indignation at that peculiarly wretched and mistaken race, its imitators."

"And terrible indeed was that awakening : it was the desperate grief of the prosperous who have not dreamed that the arrows of calamity can be pointed at them, whose sky has been sunshine, and whose pathway over flowers, till the ordinary lot of mankind seems to them an injustice. They look not to drink of that cup which is measured unto all, to others they apply the rule, and to themselves the exception."

"Let the young perish in their hour of promise — how much will they be spared ! — passion, that kindles but to consume the heart, and leaves either vacancy or regret, a ruin or a desert; ambition, that only reaches its goal to find it worthless when gained, or but the starting-place for another feverish race, doomed again to end in disappointment; enemies that cross us at every step ; friends that deceive — and what friends do not ? — the blighted hope, the embittered feeling, the wasted powers, the remorse, and the despair, all these are spared by the merciful, the early grave."

"The living console themselves by the honours which they pay to the dead : and yet this self-deceit is not all in vain. Every feeling that looks to the future elevates human nature ; for life is never so low or so little as when it concentrates itself on the present. The miserable wants, the small desires, and the petty pleasures of daily existence have nothing in common with those mighty dreams which, looking forward for action and action's reward, redeem the earth over which they walk with steps like those of an angel, beneath which spring up glorious and immortal flowers. The imagination is man's noblest and most spiritual faculty ; and that ever dwells on the to-come."

"How little does what we wished fulfil, when realised, what we expected."

"Common minds always blame some one or other for every misfortune that happens; complaint relieves them, and their style of complaint is always personal."

"Ah, that talking at ! — only those who have suffered from it can understand its wearing and petty misery, especially when placed in circumstances which forbid reply."

"We are eloquent about oppression on a large scale, — we deprecate the tyranny of government, which, after all, extends but to few; and yet how little pity is bestowed upon those who suffer from that worst of tyranny in daily practice in daily life. What grievances would not most family histories disclose ! — how much comfort is put aside — how much kindly feeling wasted, by the arbitrary cruelties of temper ! I say cruelties ; for what torture of rack or wheel can equal that of words ? Take the annals of the majority of hearths for a twelvemonth, and we should be amazed at the quantity of wretchedness that would be writ in them, if writ truly."

"Well, nature makes some wise provisions, it must be confessed. We should be envious of others' happiness if, in nine cases out of ten, we did not despise it."

"Ah ! the past is the true source of confidence. We must recollect together before we can confide."

"[From Marie, Madame de Soissons]: It is a great mistake, cultivating what are called feelings. Encourage your vanities, your follies, your wishes, and you lay up perpetual sources of delight in their gratification. But feeling ! why cherish the serpent that will sting, and the fire that will consume — dreaming of a return which is never made, and of some impossible happiness which never comes ?"

"It is wonderful what a talent some people have for extracting information, and combining it when extracted — how one fact is made to elucidate another, and the conclusion inferred from evidence fine as the spider's thread ! It is a pity that this genius should be wasted on the events of ordinary life. Half the ingenuity lavished on news — by news we mean the topics of the day as connected with their own circle — half this ingenuity would set up a whole Society of Antiquaries, and immortalise at least a dozen of them."

"Ah ! what would life be without its perspective."

"[From de Joinville, on the young queen of France]: Why, she is one of those persons whom negatives seem invented to describe — I doubt whether she is worth one single bad quality."

"[From de Joinville, in continuation]: A few faults are indispensable in those with whom we are to live — they are needed to excuse our own. This sort of dull perfection is a perpetual reproach to ourselves ; besides, light cannot exist without shadow. Choose what fault you please ; but, for pity's sake, have one, if you ever mean to be liked or loved.""

"[From Francesca]: Good Heavens! how many cross purposes there are in this intricate game of human life! We only mock ourselves by laying down plans for the future — at least if those plans embrace others."

"[From Marie, Comtesse de Soissons]: Business before pleasure, I am ready to grant; but when there is none, il faut s’amuser."

"[From Marie, Comtesse de Soissons]: Marriage in real life is the very reverse of what it is in romances; we begin where they finish. I felt that a brilliant marriage was but the very commencement of my career. To assist my friends (because, if they hope nothing from you, what have you to hope from them ?) — to injure my enemies, for fear is the best preventive — to make a failure useful, if only in its experience, have been my rules. I can recommend them by the best test, success."

"[From Marie, Comtesse de Soissons]: For once we agree — words alike make the destiny of empires and of individuals. Ambition, love, hate, interest, vanity, have words for their engines, and need none more powerful. Language is a fifth element — the one by which all the others are swayed. The king addresses his people, and the heaviest impost is levied with acclamations — the general harangues his troops, and thousands rush upon the smoking cannon and the gleaming bayonets — the lover whispers his mistress, and she forgets even herself for his sake. A word will part friends, and for ever — a word floats down the stream of time when all else has perished : in short, how do we persuade, invent, create, and live, but by words ? — they are at once our subjects and our masters. Judicious those who devote at least half their life to their study."

"[From Marie, Comtesse de Soissons, to Francesca]: You will find that, at the very best, marriage is a state which requires all sorts of resources to make it even endurable; but to marry for love aggravates the evil; it adds contrast to its other disappointments. Far better to make up your mind to the worst, and say at once, I know that weariness is the regular matrimonial feeling ; but that may be alleviated by a splendid house, magnificent fetes; by influence in society, jewels, laces, a lap-dog, and half-a-dozen lovers."

"[From Marie, Comtesse de Soissons, to Francesca]: Marrying for love is like putting from shore to dwell in the morning palace the fay Morgana builds at daybreak on the coast of Naples. Fair and far the glistening halls extend, and the shining gardens seem filled with fruit and flowers ; but the wind gets up, the glittering pinnacles melt into the cloudy sky, the haunted terraces vanish, and the golden chimera, born of sunshine and vapour, is no more. Suddenly you find yourself in a little wretched boat, rocked by the waves into sea-sickness, scorched by the hot noon, tossed about by a rough breeze, and left to weep or curse your fate as may best suit your peculiar disposition."

"Ah! no questions are so difficult to ask as those which the heart deeply and dearly treasures ! When alone, we shape them into a thousand forms — imagine every possible occasion for asking them — say them over to our selves, as if there were a charm in the sound ; but the time comes, and they die unheard upon the lip, — we have not resolution to ask them."

"[From Francesca]: As far as my experience has gone, I infinitely prefer the country to the town. There is something to me at once desolate, and yet confined, in a city. The multitude of faces continually passing and repassing, all strangers, overwhelm you with a sense of your own nothingness. The brick walls are so dreary, the streets so dirty — all the associations belonging to whatever is most commonplace in our existence — that whenever I gaze from the window, I always feel lowered and dispirited. But, in the country, the green fields are so joyous, the pure air so fresh, the fine old trees, redolent of earth's loveliest mythology, the fair flowers, at the unfolding of whose leaves some line of delicious poetry springs to mind ; the singing of the wind, like a natural lute, plaining amid the leaves, all combine to carry me out of myself. I feel a thousand vague and sweet emotions, and am both better and happier. Yes, I do love the country."

"[Marie, Madame de Soissons, in reply]: Well, the fate of our sex and of the country seems to be much the same ; we are doomed to have a thousand fine things said of us which nobody means or ever acts upon. Your philosopher talks of the virtue only to be found in rural life, and remains quietly in his armchair,, and his town lodgings; your lover raves of your cruelty, which he vows he cannot survive, leaves your presence, and orders a good supper. Considering how much we say that we do not mean, how fortunate it is that we are not taken at our word ! We should then be cautious how we talked of rustic and innocent pleasures, of dying for love, and eternal constancy."

"[From the Duke of Buckingham]: I could not love a woman whose image was for ever accompanied in my memory by brick and mortar."

"[From Francesca, in reply]: All our poetical feelings, delight to link themselves with natural objects. The leaf, the flower, the star, the dew, are the inexhaustible sources of imagery."

"[From the Duke]: And one feeling, loveliest of all, delights in such connexion. The poet bears love with him to his own haunted solitude."

"[From Francesca]: Ah ! all the finer mysteries of the spirit vanish in the crowd. Vanity is to the many the stimulus that affection is to the few."

"Interest is your only true cosmetic for smoothing the brow."

"— confidence is a feminine necessity."

"A woman only can understand a woman; and it is pleasant to be understood sometimes."

"— the genius for intrigue needs a few obstacles to stimulate its powers."

"[From Marie, Comtesse de Soissons, to Francesca] We all know the worth of a lady's negative. The more forcible the resolution, the more chance there is of its being broken."

"[From Francesca of the Duke of Buckingham]: Life is to him a scène de comédie : he aims at acting his many parts brilliantly ; but, in our admiration for the actor, we lose all interest in the individual."

"[From Lord Avonleigh]: Marriage should always take young ladies by surprise."

"— a standing subject of laughter is invaluable, especially to the young, who like what they laugh at. As they advance in life, laughter, in common with all things else; grows bitter — it expresses scorn rather than mirth."

"But happiness is like that fairy flower whose home and birthplace are the air, the most unstable of elements, tossed by every wind, destroyed by every shower, — the frailest, and yet most exposed, of created things."

"Was ever music at once so sweet and so sad as the echo of his receding steps ?"

"[From The Duke of Buckingham]: Confusion is love's first symptom."

"Good Heaven ! when we observe what egregious nonsense other people talk, what woful follies other people commit, sure we must be tempted to turn upon ourselves and ask — "What do I do that is equally silly ?” … … Human egotism is very much exaggerated. No one in reality occupies less of our thoughts than we do ourselves. We seriously consider the qualities of others, we dilate on their folly, question curiously on the motives of their actions, and investigate all the recesses of their minds into which we can penetrate. We never do so by ourselves. Who ever sits down to think over himself? Self is the only individual we take for granted. Were the character of any one of our friends to be sketched with tolerable accuracy, we should recognise the likeness at once ; but let our own, drawn to the very life, be brought before us, we should not know it, and even when told, we should in all probability deny the acquaintance."

"… And herein lies the difference between the love of man and that of woman. In his active and hurried career, it is impossible that love should hold the lonely and undivided empire it does over an existence of which it is at once the occupation and the resource. It is in solitude that the imagination exercises its gigantic power ; and where are a woman's feelings nurtured but in solitude ? The one passes so few hours alone, the other passes so many. What impassioned thoughts, how much of that poetry which first creates and then colours the future, haunt the lonely mornings and the long evenings, when the tapestry grows almost mechanically beneath the hand, but when the mind is wholly given up to the heart ! A young girl has rarely anything to call forth that romance inherent in every nature but the idea of her lover; and what a world of deep and beautiful feeling is lavished there ! Every reverie in which she indulges is a poem, filled with the fanciful, the true, and yet the unreal."

"But, however deeply and entirely a man may love, he can only yield to its influence the hurried moment, the occasional thought. Every day brings its toil and its struggle ; and to meet these demands his mind must give its utmost energies. He cannot pass weeks, months — ay, and years — the eye fixed upon its daily task, but the fancies wandering far, far away. His soul must be in its labour : all the active paths in life are his own, and he must bring to their mastery, hope, thought, patience, and strength ; he may turn sometimes to the flowers on the way-side, but the great business of life must be for ever before him. The heart which a woman could utterly fill were unworthy to be her shrine. His rule over her is despotic and unmodified ; but her power over him must be shared with a thousand other influences."

"Ah ! if the doctrine of amelioration be true, what a mighty debt does the future owe to the past ! And alas for those who have gone before ! Methinks the struggle has been but ill repaid."

"The body and the soul are not friends, but enemies. The one curbs and confines, the other wears and shatters. Perpetual is the terrible struggle, till death parts the mortal and the immortal ; and life, the riddle, is lost in the deeper secrets of eternity."

"Some one says, keep your secret yourself, for how can you expect others to do that which you cannot ? Still, I am persuaded more secrets are revealed by being kept than by being told. You enlist a person's honour, and, still dearer, their vanity, on your side by confidence. We all desire to deserve the good opinion which we believe we have inspired ; but distrust awakens all that is little and mean within us. Why should we be better than we are held to be ? We are mortified by not being thought worthy of trust ; and there is also a feeling of small triumph in circumventing those who doubt either our inclination or our power of service. We like to show that we are not the nonentities for which we were taken."

"[From de Joinville]: No path appears so short as that which is well known."

"[From de Joinville]: Ah ! change is a great error — the variety of existence only reminds us of its weight. Who are the happiest individuals of our acquaintance ? Those whose existence revolves in the smallest possible circle — men whose daily horizon is bounded by their dinner — women whose hope extends not beyond their knitting needles."