Free The Fall of the House of Wilde by Emer O'Sullivan Page A

Carleton or judged too literally – one must not paraphrase a Poet into the prose of everyday life. I do not attach the meaning to his phrases which you see in them – if I did I would then feel with you on the subject, but these phrases I read merely as phrases – a poetical passionate Nature will call simple admiration by some extravagant hyperbole and Carleton is one who it seems to me cannot help throwing the fire of his nature into every word he writes, if he were colder he would not be the genius he is. I perfectly feel this when reading his letters and attach no importance to his professions which, from another, might seem serious.
    Indeed, Jane thought Carleton’s correspondence was worthy of preservation. She had in fact told Carleton she ‘would some day publish his letters’.
    Hilson would stand for none of this nonsense. As far as he was concerned, Jane did not respect family values, and worse, given her class, she should not be on such familiar terms with what he called ‘this great Peasant’. To which Jane had this to say in response: ‘Now pray understand me. I allow no latitude in feeling, the moral code is as stern and unyielding for genius as for all . . . Believe me, not one of his domestic feelings have grown cold for knowing me.’ And on the issue of class:
    You say too that ‘from his position in life he ought never to have written to me’. Is it from
you
I hear such a sentiment – you with all your noble philosophy, your free, untrammelled mind and your Carlyle inspirations – why – in my philosophy, Carleton the peasant born stands higher, far higher in the scale of nobility than I, the Lady of gentle blood and privileged by birth and position to mix in the first circles in my native country. I think that Carleton honours
me
by his acquaintance . . .
    Intellect, not birth, conferred superiority in Jane’s universe. Jane upheld a world where poetic genius stood at the centre, deserving the respect society confers on social rank, which for Jane was but a false mantle cloaking the true order of merit.
    Nevertheless, she still wanted to stand high in Hilson’s regard, judging by the epilogue of regrets into which she slipped.
    I esteem your candour, your kindness and your good sense most highly, even perhaps gratefully, and your opinions will influence me in my future conduct, as my judgement in these matters may be weak and prejudiced and I would rather kill myself than run the chance of casting a shadow over the peace and repose of any heart that lies within the circle of a trusting domestic love – will you ever pardon me for writing all this on a matter purely personal? I fear you will fling me into the fire, note acquaintanceship and all. 2
    Jane was not interested in stealing Carleton from his wife. She delighted in her sexual magnetism, and loved to beguile literary and intellectual greats. Older men, especially, paid her homage. Jane’s need to be adored by older men may have been bound up with the absence of a father, as her own had left home when she was a baby, and died when she was three. Similarly, her refusal to subscribe to the patriarchal social order probably owed itself to the same origin.
    Jane wrote to keep herself. The first work she translated was a German novel,
Sidonia von Borcke
, published in 1847, written by J. W. Meinhold, a Lutheran pastor. Jane’s translation,
Sidonia the Sorceress
, came out in 1849. The novel was inspired by the real life of Sidonia von Bork, a seductress and serial murderer, burned in Germany as a witch in 1620.
    Denied entry into the reigning ducal family of Pomerania, Sidonia takes revenge by whetting the sexual appetite of her suitors, only to ruthlessly cut them off, relishing the depths of the despair into which they sink. She then poisons them, and finally destroys the reigning ducal family of Pomerania. Meinhold’s novel plunges into