Comparison of 1860 and 1867 Editions of Lucile

Part I Canto III Verse II
1860 Chapman & Hall / Ticknor & Fields

II
Lucile de Nevers (if her riddle I read)
Was a woman of genius: whose genius, indeed,
In the abstract, nor yet in the abstract mere woman:
But THE WOMAN OF GENIUS, essentially human,
Yet for ever at war with her own human nature.
The genius, now fused in the woman gave stature
And strength to her sex; now the woman, at war
Wiith the genius, impeded its flight to the star.
As it is with all genius, the essence and soul
Of her nature was truth. When she sought to control,
Or to stifle, or palter in aught with that truth,
“Twas when life seem’d to grant it no issues.
-----------------------------------Her youth
One occasion had known, when, if fused in another,
That tumult of soul, which she now sought to smother,
Finding scope within man’s larger life, and conroll’d
By man’s clearer judgment perchance might have roll’d
Into channels enriching the troubled existence
Which it now only vex’d with an inward resistance.
But that chance fell too soon, when the crude sense of power
Which had been to her nature so fatal a dower,
Was too fierce and unfashion’d to fuse itself yet
In the life of another, and served but to fret
And to startle the man it yet haunted and thrall’d;
And that moment, once lost, had never been recall’d.
But it left her heart sore; and to shelter her heart
From approach, she then sought, in that delicate art
Of concealment, those thousand adroit strategies
Of feminine wit, which repel while they please,
A weapon, at once, and a shield, to conceal
And defend all that woman can earnestly feel.
Thus, striving her instincts to hide and repress,
She felt frighten'd at times by her very success:
She pined for the hill-tops, the clouds, and the stars:
Golden wires may annoy us as much as steel bars
If they keep us behind prison-windows: impassion'd
Her heart rose and burst the light cage she had fashion'd
Out of glittering trifles around it.
Wings of desolate flight, and soar’d up from the world.
In this dual identity possibly lay
The secret and charm of her singular sway
Over men of the world. ‘Twas the genius, all warm
With the woman, that gave to the woman a charm
Indescribably strange; there appear’d in her life
A puzzle, a mystery – something at strife
With such men, which yet thrall’d and enchain’d them in part,
And, perplexing the fancy, still haunted the heart.
That intensity, earnestness, depth, or veracity,
Which starward impell’d her with such pertinacity
As turns to the loadstar the needle, reflected
Itself upon others: she therefore affected
Unconsciously, those amongst whom she was thrown,
As the magnet the metals it neighbors.
-------------------------------------Unknown
To herself, all her instincts, without hesitation,
Embraced the idea of self-immolation.
Unlike man’s stern intellect, which, while it stands
Aloof from the minds that it sways and commands
By a power wrench’d from labor, sublimely compels
All around and beneath the high sphere where it dwells
To its fix’d and imperial purpose; in her
The soft spirit of woman that seeks to confer
Its sweet self on the loved, had her life but been blended
With some man’s whose heart had her own comprehended,
All its wealth at his feet would have lavishly thrown.
For him she had then been ambitious alone:
For him had aspired; in him had transfused
All the gladness and grace of her nature; and used
For him only the spells of its delicate power:
Like the ministering fairy that brings from her bower
To some mage all the treasures, whose use the fond elf,
More enrich’d by her love, disregards for herself.
But standing apart, as she ever had done,
And her genius, which needed a vent, finding none
In the broad fields of action thrown wide to man’s power,
She unconsciously made it her bulwark and tower,
And built in it her refuge, whence lightly she hurl’d
Her contempt at the fashions and forms of the world.
And indeed, her chief fault was this unconscious scorn
Of the world, to whose usages woman is born,
Not the WORLD, where that word implies all human nature,
The creator’s great gift to the needs of the creature:
That large heart, with its sorrow to solace, its care
To assuage, and its grant aspirations to share:
But the world, with encroachments that chafe and perplex,
With its men against man, and its sex against sex.
“Ah, what will the world say?” with her was a query
Never uttered, or uttered alone with a dreary
Rejection in thought of the answer before
It was heard: hence the thing which she sought to ignore
And escape from in thought, she encounter’d in act
By the blindness with which she opposed it.
-----------------------------------------In fact,
Had Lucile found in life that communion which links
All that woman but dreams, feels, conceives of, and thinks,
With what man acts and is,-- concentrating the strength
Of her genius within her affections, at length
Finding woman’s full use through man’s life, by man’s skill
Readapted to forms fix’d for life, the strong will
And high heart which the world’s creeds now recklessly braved,
From the world’s crimes the man of the world would have saved;
Reconciled, as it were, the divine with the human,
And, exalting the man, have completed the woman.
But the permanent cause why she now miss'd and fail'd
That firm hold upon life she so keenly assail'd,
Was, in all those diurnal occasions that place
The world and the woman opposed face to face,
Where the woman must yield, she, refusing to stir,
Offended the world, which in turn wounded her.
For the world is a nettle; disturb it, it stings:
Grasp it firmly, it stings not. On one of two things,
If you would not be stung, it behoves you to settle:
Avoid it, or crush it. She crush'd not the nettle;
For she could not; nor would she avoid it: she tried
With the weak hand of woman to thrust it aside,
And it stung her. A woman is too slight a thing
To trample the world without feeling its sting.
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Part I Canto III Verse II
1867 Chapman & Hall

II
Lucile de Nevers (if her riddle I read)
Was a woman of genius: whose genius, indeed,
-
-
With her life was at war. Once, but once, in that life
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-
-
-
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The chance had been hers to escape from this strife
In herself; finding peace in the life of another
From the passionate wants she, in hers, failed to smother.
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-
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But the chance fell too soon, when the crude restless power
Which had been to her nature so fatal a dower,
-
-
Only wearied the man it yet haunted and thrall'd;
And that moment, once lost, had been never recall'd.
Yet it left her heart sore: and, to shelter her heart
From approach, she then sought, in that delicate art
Of concealment, those thousand adroit strategies
Of feminine wit, which repel while they please,
A weapon, at once, and a shield to conceal
And defend all that women can earnestly feel.
Thus, striving her instincts to hide and repress,
She felt frighten'd at times by her very success:
She pined for the hill-tops, the clouds, and the stars:
Golden wires may annoy us as much as steel bars
If they keep us behind prison windows: impassion'd
Her heart rose and burst the light cage she had fashion'd
Out of glittering trifles around it.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
----------------------------------Unknown
To herself, all her instincts, without hesitation,
Embraced the idea of self-immolation.
The strong spirit in her, had her life been but blended
With some man's whose heart had her own comprehended,
All its wealth at his feet would have lavishly thrown.
For him she had struggled and striven alone;
-
-
-
-
-
-
For him had aspired; in him had transfused
All the gladness and grace of her nature; and used
For him only the spells of its delicate power:
Like the ministering fairy that brings from her bower
To some mage all the treasures, whose use the fond elf,
More enrich'd by her love, disregards for herself.
But standing apart, as she ever had done,
And her genius, which needed a vent, finding none
In the broad fields of action thrown wide to man's power,
She unconsciously made it her bulwark and tower,
And built in it her refuge, whence lightly she hurl'd
Her contempt at the fashions and forms of the world.
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-
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And the permanent cause why she now miss'd and fail'd
That firm hold upon life she so keenly assail'd,
Was, in all those diurnal occasions that place
Say--the world and the woman opposed face to face,
Where the woman must yield, she, refusing to stir,
Offended the world, which in turn wounded her.
As before, in the old-fashion'd manner, I fit
To this character, also, its moral: to wit,
Say--the world is a nettle; disturb it, it stings:
Grasp it firmly, it stings not. On one of two things,
If you would not be stung, it behoves you to settle
Avoid it, or crush it. She crush'd not the nettle;
For she could not; nor would she avoid it: she tried
With the weak hand of woman to thrust it aside,
And it stung her. A woman is too slight a thing
To trample the world without feeling its sting.

 

Last revised: 10 January 2012