It is this horrible system, and not a native
incapacity for pure and permanent relations, that leads to such
results.
We must observe, _en passant_, that this man was the father of
five children by this hated woman--a wickedness not peculiar to France
or any nation, and which cannot foil to do its work of filling the
world with sickly, weak, or depraved beings, who have reason to curse
their brutal father that he does not murder them as well as their
wretched mother,--who, more unhappy than the victim of seduction, is
made the slave of sense in the name of religion and law.
The last steamer brings us news of the disgrace of Victor Hugo, one of
the most celebrated of the literary men of France, and but lately
created one of her peers. The affair, however, is to be publicly
"hushed up."
But we need not cite many instances to prove, what is known to the
whole world, that these wrongs are, if not more frequent, at least
more lightly treated by the French, in literature and discourse, than
by any nation of Europe. This being the case, can an American, anxious
that his country should receive, as her only safeguard from endless
temptations, good moral instruction and mental food, be otherwise than
grieved at the promiscuous introduction among us of their writings?
We know that there are in France good men, pure books, true wit.
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