m
_Werther_, and threatened suicide with the best possible results; he had
given, perhaps, the most atrocious example of the atrocious want of
taste which accompanied the decadence of Sensibility, by marrying
Charlotte von Hardenburg out of pique, because Madame de Stael would not
marry him, then going to live with his bride near Coppet, and finally
deserting her, newly married as she was, for her very uncomely but
intellectually interesting rival. In short, according to the theory of a
certain ethical school, that the philosopher who discusses virtue should
be thoroughly conversant with vice, Benjamin Constant was a past master
in Sensibility. It was at a late period in his career, and when he had
only one trial to go through (the trial of, as it seems to me, a sincere
and hopeless affection for Madame Recamier), that he wrote _Adolphe_.
But the book has nothing whatever to do with 1815, the date which it
bears. It is, as has been said, the history of the Nemesis of
Sensibility, the prose commentary by anticipation on Mr. Swinburne's
admirable "Stage Love"--

Time was chorus, gave them cues to laugh and cry,
They would kill, befool, amuse him, let him die;
Set him webs to weave to-day and break to-morrow,
Till he died for good in play and rose in sorrow.

That is a history, in one stanza, of Sensibility, and no better account
than _Adolphe_ exists of the rising in sorrow.

The story of the book opens in full eighteenth century. A young man,
fresh from the University of Goettingen, goes to finish his education at
the _residenz_ of D----. Here he finds much society, courtly and other.
His chief resort is the house of a certain Count de P----, who lives,
unmarried, with a Polish lady named Ellenore. In the easy-going days of
Sensibility the _menage_ holds a certain place in society, though it is
looked upon a little askance. But Ellenore is, on her own theory,
thoroughly respectable, and the Count de P----, though in danger of his
fortune, is a man of position and rank. As for Adolphe, he is the result
of the struggle between Sensibility, an unquiet and ironic nature, and
the teaching of a father who, though not unquiet, is more ironically
given than himself. His main character is all that a young man's should
be from the point of view of Sensibility. "Je ne demandais alors qu'a me
livrer a ces impressions primitives et fougueuses," etc. But his father
snubs the primitive and fiery impressions, and the