STAEL-HOLSTEIN
STANSFELD
which he had taken part. Since that time
he has issued a series of very successful
novels and dramas, besides translations
from the Italian, Spanish, French, German,
and Swedish. He has written also a Life
of Francois Villon (1916) and translated
his work (Poetry of Franqois Villon, 1913).
STAEL-HOLSTEIN, the Baroness Anne Louise Germaine de (" Mme. de Stael "), French writer. B. Apr. 22, 1766. Ed. by mother. Her mother, a Protestant Swiss, brought her up in the strictest orthodoxy, but her father, the famous French Minister of Finance, Necker, was more liberal, and in the circle of his friends she soon outgrew the narrow piety imposed on her. She was very clever, and wrote political essays at the age of fifteen. In 1786 she married the Swedish Ambassador, the Baron de Stael. The marriage was not fortunate, and they separated in 1796 ; but Mme. de Stael returned to take care of him in his last illness (1798-1802). In 1786 she produced a drama (Sophie) which opened for her a period of long and fertile literary activity. She studied and followed Rousseau, though the course of the Revo lution chilled her democratic ardour. In 1792 she left Paris for five years. Napoleon again drove her into exile, and she travelled in Germany and Italy, producing her long autobiographical novel Delphine (4 vols.) in 1802. In Germany she modified her earlier Voltairean attitude, and took up the study of philosophy, but she never returned to Christianity. Chateaubriand said : " My rage is to see Jesus Christ everywhere : Mme. de Stael s is perfectibility." The American envoy J. Q. Adams, who knew her in Paris, says, in a letter to his mother in Nov., 1812 : " She spoke much about the preservation of religion, in which, she gave me to understand, she did not herself believe " (Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, vol. xxiii, 1913, letter dated Nov. 22, 1812). D. July 14, 1817.
STANDRING, George, writer. B. Oct. 18, 1855. Mr. Standring was for some
755
years a church chorister, but in 1873 he
became a Rationalist. In 1875 he was
honorary secretary of the National Secular
Society, and at a later date he was Vice-
President. In 1875 also he founded The
Republican Chronicle, and he contributed
frequently to the National Reformer, Free
thinker, Progress, and other periodicals.
For many years he lectured in the Secular
Societies.
STANHOPE, Lady Hester Lucy,
traveller. B. Mar. 12, 1776. She was a daughter of the third Earl Stanhope, and her mother was the daughter of Earl Chatham and sister of William Pitt [SEE] . Her education was unsatisfactory, but she had a strong character and fascina ting personality, and in 1803 Pitt, her uncle, induced her to keep house for him. She had great influence through Pitt, who had a very high regard for her ability and character. When he died, in 1806, she retired to live in Wales. She had developed very advanced ideas, and the conven tionalities and hypocrisies of life in England disgusted her. In 1810 she set out for the East, and in 1814 she settled down to live on the slopes of Mount Lebanon. Many distinguished Europeans visited her in the sort of feudal state she kept up, and all bear witness to the virility of her intelligence. The Arabs regarded her as almost superhuman. Lady Stanhope en tirely abandoned Christianity, and adopted a mixture of Mohammedanism and other oriental beliefs. D. June 23, 1839.
STANSFELD, The Right Honourable Sir James, B.A., LL.D., politician. B. Oct. 5, 1820. Ed. London University College. He studied in the Middle Temple, and was called to the bar in 1849, though he never practised law. He owned a brewery in Fulham, and he used his con siderable fortune very generously in support of advanced causes. With Mr. W. H. Ashurst [SEE] , whose daughter he married, he did much in London for the oppressed nationalities of Europe and the struggling 756
