The Influence of Italy on the Literary Career of Alphonse de Lamartine

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III EARLY LOVE AFFAIRS LAMARTINE SENT TO ITALY HIS EARLY IMPRESSION OF THE MANNERS OF THE ITALIANS THE ITALIAN UNIVERSITIES Lamartine had now sufficient preparation of mind and of spirit to undertake profitably his first journey to Italy, in 1811. This gave him the occasion both to reproduce and to define the world of thoughts, of sensations and of fancies which had been struggling within his emotional and dreamy soul. The determining motive which led his family to send him to Italy was his having fallen in love ? and his wishing to marry the object of his affections. His sentiment, however, was only one of those youthful inclinations which are more the foreshadowing than the revelation of real love. Seche ' is quite right in saying, En fait de passions, je parle ici de celles qui sont mauvaises, il ne connaissait guere jusqu'a vingt ans que le jeu. . . . Cependant, comme il avait des cama- rades qui avaient de'ja goute ' a 1'amour, 1'ide'e lui vint un jour d'y gouter lui aussi Et le voila follement 6pris tout a coup d'une jeune fille de Macon.1 1 Lamartine, p. 83. His mother wrote in January, 1810: "His passions begin to develop; I fear that his youth and his life may be very stormy ? he is agitated, melancholy; he does not know what he wants."2 The object of his thoughts was a young lady of Macon, Henriette P.3 "J'aime pour la vie," he wrote to a friend, " je ne m'appartiens plus, et je n'ai nulle e'spe'rance de bonheur Je vais prendre incessament un parti violent pour obtenir sa main a vingt-cinq ans." 4 How always like himself is Lamartine all impulses, all fire But this first flower of sentiment had a short life, like all those flowers which open their petals too early to the scorching sun. About this love-affair, which has importan...