s at all
compromised in the fate of this virtuous, unhappy lady, never entered
her mind. So little could she understand the muddy things of this
world, that in 1789, when Alfieri was publicly living with Mme. d'Albany
at Colmar, the Countess Alfieri sent him, through his friend Caluso, the
suggestion of a match which she had greatly at heart, between him and a
young lady of Asti, "fifteen or sixteen years old, without any faults,
such as he would certainly like, cultivated, docile, and clever." It is
one of the things which grate upon one most in Alfieri's character,
and which show that however much he might be cast and have chiselled
himself in antique heroic form he was yet made of the same stuff as his
contemporaries, to find that he and his friend Caluso merely amused
themselves immensely at this proposal of marriage, and concocted a
dutiful letter to the old Countess explaining that matrimony was not at
present in his plans. What would Madame Alfieri have thought had she
known the truth! It is very sad to think how, in some cases, the very
noblest and purest, just because they are so completely noble and pure
and above all the base necessities of the world of passion, must be
unable to see, in the doings of others less fortunate than themselves,
those very elements of nobility and purity which redeem the baser
circumstances of their lives. That Mme. d'Albany had loved a man not her
husband, had fled from her husband and united her life to that of her
lover, would be a horror visible to the old Countess' eyes; the platonic
purity, the fidelity, the loyalty of this long and illegitimate love,
would have escaped her. No art is so cruelly contemptuous of whatever of
beauty and sweetness imperfect reality may contain, as the art which is
able to attain an ideal perfection; and thus it is also in matters of
appreciation of man by man and woman by woman. The Countess of Albany
was apparently more frank than Alfieri, because frank rather from
temperament than from pre-occupation about a given ideal of conduct.
That the mother of Alfieri should understand so little seems to have
worried her; and when the unsuspecting old lady asked her sympathisingly
for news of Charles Edward, she wrote back as follows: "As to my husband,
he is better; but I must confess to you, Madame, that I cannot take so
lively an interest in him as you suppose, for he made me, during nine
years, the most wretched woman that ever lived. If I do not hate