Though Jasmin was always thankful for her help,he did not abandon his own words without some little contention.
He had worked out the subject in his mind,and any new word,or mode of deion,might interrupt the beauty of the verses.
When he at length recognised the justice of her criticism,he would say,"Marie,you are right;and I will again think over the subject,and make it fit more completely into the Gascon idiom."In certain cases passages were suppressed;in others they were considerably altered.
When Jasmin,after much labour and correction,had finished his poem,he would call about him his intimate friends,and recite the poem to them.He had no objection to the most thorough criticism,by his wife as well as by his friends.When the poem was long and elaborate,the auditors sometimes began to yawn.
Then the wife stepped in and said:"Jasmin,you must stop;leave the remainder of the poem for another day."Thus the recital ceased for the time.
The people of Agen entertained a lively sympathy for their poet.
Even those who might to a certain extent depreciate his talent,did every justice to the nobility of his character.Perhaps some might envy the position of a man who had risen from the ranks and secured the esteem of men of fortune and even of the leaders of literary opinion.Jasmin,like every person envied or perhaps detracted,had his hours of depression.But the strong soul of his wife in these hours came to his relief,and assuaged the spirit of the man and the poet.
Jasmin was at one time on the point of abandoning verse-making.
Yet he was encouraged to proceed by the demands which were made for his songs and verses.Indeed,no fete was considered complete without the recitations of Jasmin.It was no doubt very flattering;yet fame has its drawbacks.His invitations were usually unceremonious.
Jasmin was no doubt recognised as a poet,and an excellent reciter;yet he was a person who handled the razor and the curling-tongs.When he was invited to a local party,it was merely that he might recite his verses gratuitously.He did not belong to their social circle,and his wife was not included.
What sympathy could she have with these distinguished personages?
At length Jasmin declined to go where his wife could not be invited.He preferred to stay at home with his family;and all further invitations of this sort were refused.
Besides,his friend Nodier had warned him that a poet of his stamp ought not to appear too often at the feasts of the lazy;that his time was too precious for that;that a poet ought,above all,not to occupy himself with politics,for,by so doing,he ran the risk of injuring his talent.
Some of his local critics,not having comprehended the inner life of Jasmin,compared his wife to the gardener of Boileau and the maid-servant of Moliere.But the comparison did not at all apply.Jasmin had no gardener nor any old servant or housekeeper.Jasmin and Marie were quite different.They lived the same lives,and were all in all to each other.They were both of the people;and though she was without culture,and had not shared in the society of the educated,she took every interest in the sentiments and the prosperity of her admirable husband.
One might ask,How did Jasmin acquire his eloquence of declamation--his power of attracting and moving assemblies of people in all ranks of life?It was the result,no doubt,partly of the gifts with which the Creator had endowed him,and partly also of patience and persevering study.He had a fine voice,and he managed it with such art that it became like a perfectly tuned instrument in the hands of a musician.
His voice was powerful and pathetic by turns,and he possessed great sweetness of intonation,--combined with sympathetic feeling and special felicity of emphasis.And feeling is the vitalising principle of poetry.Jasmin occasionally varied his readings by singing or chaunting the songs which occurred in certain parts of his poems.This,together with his eloquence,gave such immense vital power to the recitations of the Agenaise bard.
And we shall find,from the next chapter,that Jasmin used his pathetic eloquence for very noble,--one might almost say,for divine purposes.
Footnotes for Chapter VII.
[1]The translation appeared in 'Bentley's Miscellany'for March 1840.It was published for a charitable purpose.Mrs.Craven,in her 'Life of Lady Georgiana Fullerton,'says:"It was put in at once,and its two hundred and seventy lines brought to the author twelve guineas on the day on which it appeared.
Lady Fullerton was surprised and delighted.All her long years of success,different indeed in degree,never effaced the memory of the joy."
[2]The refrain,in the original Gascon,is as follows:
"Las carreros diouyon flouri,Tan belo nobio bay sourti;Diouyon flouri,diouyon graua,Tan belo nobio bay passa!"
[3]In Gascon:
"Las carreros diouyon gemi,Tan belo morto bay sourti!
Diouyon gemi,diouyon ploura,Tan belo morto bay passa!"
[4]in Gascon:
"Jour per aoutres,toutjour!et per jou,malhurouzo,Toutjour ney,toutjour ney!
Que fay negre len d'el!Oh!que moun amo es tristo!"
[5]Sainte-Beuve:'Causeries du Lundi,'iv.240-1(edit.1852);and 'Portraits Contemporains,'ii.61(edit,1847).
