George Ticknor, Life, letters and journals of George Ticknor
George Hillard, Ed.

[138] happy combinations and thoughts, sometimes more brilliant than just. His general tone was declamatory, though not extravagantly so, and its general effect that of interesting the feelings and attention, without producing conviction or changing opinion.

Sunday, June 1.— Passing Mad. de Stael's this afternoon, I called to ask for her; but, seeing accidentally the Duchess de Broglie, she carried me to her mother's room, where I found her sitting up, with Schlegel, her son, and Rocca—whom the world has talked about so much—sitting with her. She was full of the news just received of troubles in Portuguese America,—from which she hopes much more than will ever happen,—and of a review that Constant has just printed in the Mercure, which she says is equal in felicity of diction to anything that has been written in France these thirty years. While we were talking of it several persons came in,—Barante, whom I almost always find there; Lady Jersey, a sensible, beautiful English woman; and finally Constant himself, who seemed well pleased to collect the tributes of applause which were offered to him by all, and especially by the beautiful Duchess de Broglie, who with her usual naivete told him what she thought of his review, and what she had heard of the opinions of others. It was a very amusing scene, and there was a great deal of French wit, epigram, and compliment lavished in the conversation; but it was interrupted by the arrival of the patriarch of French medicine, Dr. Portal, who, of course, sent every one out of the apartment with as little ceremony as he himself came in.

In the evening I was—as I usually am on Sunday eve—at Miss Williams's, and was amused to hear Humboldt, with his decisive talent and minute knowledge of the subject, show how utterly idle are all the expectations now entertained of the immediate and violent emancipation of South America. Without knowing it, he answered every argument Mad. de Stael had used, this morning, to persuade me that the fate of the South was as much decided as the fate of our Independence was at the capture of Yorktown; and I note the fact at this moment, to wait the event that will decide which of these two personages is right.

June 2.—I called this morning on Chateaubriand. He is now poor, for his occupation is gone, and he lives in a hotel garni, not far from my lodgings. We talked a good deal about our American Indians, and the prevalent notions of civilizing them; upon which he has the rational opinions that nobody can entertain, I suspect, but one who has seen them. He told me, too, a good deal about his journey