diff options
Diffstat (limited to '1594.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | 1594.txt | 6188 |
1 files changed, 6188 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/1594.txt b/1594.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a16c69f --- /dev/null +++ b/1594.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6188 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Essays in Little, by Andrew Lang, Edited by +W. H. Davenport Adams + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Essays in Little + + +Author: Andrew Lang + +Editor: W. H. Davenport Adams + +Release Date: December 29, 2007 [eBook #1594] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ESSAYS IN LITTLE*** + + +Transcribed from the 1891 Henry and Co. edition by David Price, email +ccx074@pglaf.org + + + + + +ESSAYS IN LITTLE. + + +by +ANDREW LANG. + +_WITH PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR_. + +LONDON: +HENRY AND CO., BOUVERIE STREET, E.C. +1891. + +_Printed by Hazell_, _Watson_, _& Vincy_, _Ld._, _London and Aylesbury_. + +CONTENTS. + +Preface +Alexandre Dumas +Mr. Stevenson's works +Thomas Haynes Bayly +Theodore de Banville +Homer and the Study of Greek +The Last Fashionable Novel +Thackeray +Dickens +Adventures of Buccaneers +The Sagas +Charles Kingsley +Charles Lever: His books, adventures and misfortunes +The poems of Sir Walter Scott +John Bunyan +To a Young Journalist +Mr. Kipling's stories + +{Portrait of Andrew Lang: p0.jpg} + + + + +PREFACE + + +Of the following essays, five are new, and were written for this volume. +They are the paper on Mr. R. L. Stevenson, the "Letter to a Young +Journalist," the study of Mr. Kipling, the note on Homer, and "The Last +Fashionable Novel." The article on the author of "Oh, no! we never +mention Her," appeared in the New York _Sun_, and was suggested by Mr. +Dana, the editor of that journal. The papers on Thackeray and Dickens +were published in _Good Words_, that on Dumas appeared in _Scribner's +Magazine_, that on M. Theodore de Banville in _The New Quarterly Review_. +The other essays were originally written for a newspaper "Syndicate." +They have been re-cast, augmented, and, to a great extent, re-written. + +A. L. + + + + +ALEXANDRE DUMAS + + +Alexandre Dumas is a writer, and his life is a topic, of which his +devotees never weary. Indeed, one lifetime is not long enough wherein to +tire of them. The long days and years of Hilpa and Shalum, in +Addison--the antediluvian age, when a picnic lasted for half a century +and a courtship for two hundred years, might have sufficed for an +exhaustive study of Dumas. No such study have I to offer, in the brief +seasons of our perishable days. I own that I have not read, and do not, +in the circumstances, expect to read, all of Dumas, nor even the greater +part of his thousand volumes. We only dip a cup in that sparkling +spring, and drink, and go on,--we cannot hope to exhaust the fountain, +nor to carry away with us the well itself. It is but a word of gratitude +and delight that we can say to the heroic and indomitable master, only an +_ave_ of friendship that we can call across the bourne to the shade of +the Porthos of fiction. That his works (his best works) should be even +still more widely circulated than they are; that the young should read +them, and learn frankness, kindness, generosity--should esteem the tender +heart, and the gay, invincible wit; that the old should read them again, +and find forgetfulness of trouble, and taste the anodyne of dreams, that +is what we desire. + +Dumas said of himself ("Memoires," v. 13) that when he was young he tried +several times to read forbidden books--books that are sold _sous le +manteau_. But he never got farther than the tenth page, in the + + "scrofulous French novel + On gray paper with blunt type;" + +he never made his way so far as + + "the woful sixteenth print." + +"I had, thank God, a natural sentiment of delicacy; and thus, out of my +six hundred volumes (in 1852) there are not four which the most +scrupulous mother may not give to her daughter." Much later, in 1864, +when the _Censure_ threatened one of his plays, he wrote to the Emperor: +"Of my twelve hundred volumes there is not one which a girl in our most +modest quarter, the Faubourg Saint-Germain, may not be allowed to read." +The mothers of the Faubourg, and mothers in general, may not take Dumas +exactly at his word. There is a passage, for example, in the story of +Miladi ("Les Trois Mousquetaires") which a parent or guardian may well +think undesirable reading for youth. But compare it with the original +passage in the "Memoires" of D'Artagnan! It has passed through a medium, +as Dumas himself declared, of natural delicacy and good taste. His +enormous popularity, the widest in the world of letters, owes absolutely +nothing to prurience or curiosity. The air which he breathes is a +healthy air, is the open air; and that by his own choice, for he had +every temptation to seek another kind of vogue, and every opportunity. + +Two anecdotes are told of Dumas' books, one by M. Edmond About, the other +by his own son, which show, in brief space, why this novelist is so +beloved, and why he deserves our affection and esteem. M. Villaud, a +railway engineer who had lived much in Italy, Russia, and Spain, was the +person whose enthusiasm finally secured a statue for Dumas. He felt so +much gratitude to the unknown friend of lonely nights in long exiles, +that he could not be happy till his gratitude found a permanent +expression. On returning to France he went to consult M. Victor Borie, +who told him this tale about George Sand. M. Borie chanced to visit the +famous novelist just before her death, and found Dumas' novel, "Les +Quarante Cinq" (one of the cycle about the Valois kings) lying on her +table. He expressed his wonder that she was reading it for the first +time. + +"For the first time!--why, this is the fifth or sixth time I have read +'Les Quarante Cinq,' and the others. When I am ill, anxious, melancholy, +tired, discouraged, nothing helps me against moral or physical troubles +like a book of Dumas." Again, M. About says that M. Sarcey was in the +same class at school with a little Spanish boy. The child was homesick; +he could not eat, he could not sleep; he was almost in a decline. + +"You want to see your mother?" said young Sarcey. + +"No: she is dead." + +"Your father, then?" + +"No: he used to beat me." + +"Your brothers and sisters?" + +"I have none." + +"Then why are you so eager to be back in Spain?" + +"To finish a book I began in the holidays." + +"And what was its name?" + +"'Los Tres Mosqueteros'!" + +He was homesick for "The Three Musketeers," and they cured him easily. + +That is what Dumas does. He gives courage and life to old age, he charms +away the half-conscious _nostalgie_, the _Heimweh_, of childhood. We are +all homesick, in the dark days and black towns, for the land of blue +skies and brave adventures in forests, and in lonely inns, on the battle- +field, in the prison, on the desert isle. And then Dumas comes, and, +like Argive Helen, in Homer, he casts a drug into the wine, the drug +nepenthe, "that puts all evil out of mind." Does any one suppose that +when George Sand was old and tired, and near her death, she would have +found this anodyne, and this stimulant, in the novels of M. Tolstoi, M. +Dostoiefsky, M. Zola, or any of the "scientific" observers whom we are +actually requested to hail as the masters of a new art, the art of the +future? Would they make her laugh, as Chicot does? make her forget, as +Porthos, Athos, and Aramis do? take her away from the heavy, familiar +time, as the enchanter Dumas takes us? No; let it be enough for these +new authors to be industrious, keen, accurate, _precieux_, pitiful, +charitable, veracious; but give us high spirits now and then, a light +heart, a sharp sword, a fair wench, a good horse, or even that old Gascon +rouncy of D'Artagnan's. Like the good Lord James Douglas, we had liefer +hear the lark sing over moor and down, with Chicot, than listen to the +starved-mouse squeak in the _bouge_ of Therese Raquin, with M. Zola. Not +that there is not a place and an hour for him, and others like him; but +they are not, if you please, to have the whole world to themselves, and +all the time, and all the praise; they are not to turn the world into a +dissecting-room, time into tedium, and the laurels of Scott and Dumas +into crowns of nettles. + +There is no complete life of Alexandre Dumas. The age has not produced +the intellectual athlete who can gird himself up for that labour. One of +the worst books that ever was written, if it can be said to be written, +is, I think, the English attempt at a biography of Dumas. Style, +grammar, taste, feeling, are all bad. The author does not so much write +a life as draw up an indictment. The spirit of his work is grudging, +sneering, contemptuous, and pitifully peddling. The great charge is that +Dumas was a humbug, that he was not the author of his own books, that his +books were written by "collaborators"--above all, by M. Maquet. There is +no doubt that Dumas had a regular system of collaboration, which he never +concealed. But whereas Dumas could turn out books that _live_, whoever +his assistants were, could any of his assistants write books that live, +without Dumas? One might as well call any barrister in good practice a +thief and an impostor because he has juniors to "devil" for him, as make +charges of this kind against Dumas. He once asked his son to help him; +the younger Alexandre declined. "It is worth a thousand a year, and you +have only to make objections," the sire urged; but the son was not to be +tempted. Some excellent novelists of to-day would be much better if they +employed a friend to make objections. But, as a rule, the collaborator +did much more. Dumas' method, apparently, was first to talk the subject +over with his _aide-de-camp_. This is an excellent practice, as ideas +are knocked out, like sparks (an elderly illustration!), by the contact +of minds. Then the young man probably made researches, put a rough +sketch on paper, and supplied Dumas, as it were, with his "brief." Then +Dumas took the "brief" and wrote the novel. He gave it life, he gave it +the spark (_l'etincelle_); and the story lived and moved. + +It is true that he "took his own where he found it," like Molere and that +he took a good deal. In the gallery of an old country-house, on a wet +day, I came once on the "Memoires" of D'Artagnan, where they had lain +since the family bought them in Queen Anne's time. There were our old +friends the Musketeers, and there were many of their adventures, told at +great length and breadth. But how much more vivacious they are in Dumas! +M. About repeats a story of Dumas and his ways of work. He met the great +man at Marseilles, where, indeed, Alexandre chanced to be "on with the +new love" before being completely "off with the old." Dumas picked up M. +About, literally lifted him in his embrace, and carried him off to see a +play which he had written in three days. The play was a success; the +supper was prolonged till three in the morning; M. About was almost +asleep as he walked home, but Dumas was as fresh as if he had just got +out of bed. "Go to sleep, old man," he said: "I, who am only fifty-five, +have three _feuilletons_ to write, which must be posted to-morrow. If I +have time I shall knock up a little piece for Montigny--the idea is +running in my head." So next morning M. About saw the three +_feuilletons_ made up for the post, and another packet addressed to M. +Montigny: it was the play _L'Invitation a la Valse_, a chef-d'oeuvre! +Well, the material had been prepared for Dumas. M. About saw one of his +novels at Marseilles in the chrysalis. It was a stout copy-book full of +paper, composed by a practised hand, on the master's design. Dumas +copied out each little leaf on a big leaf of paper, _en y semant l'esprit +a pleines mains_. This was his method. As a rule, in collaboration, one +man does the work while the other looks on. Is it likely that Dumas +looked on? That was not the manner of Dumas. "Mirecourt and others," M. +About says, "have wept crocodile tears for the collaborators, the victims +of his glory and his talent. But it is difficult to lament over the +survivors (1884). The master neither took their money--for they are +rich, nor their fame--for they are celebrated, nor their merit--for they +had and still have plenty. And they never bewailed their fate: the +reverse! The proudest congratulate themselves on having been at so good +a school; and M. Auguste Maquet, the chief of them, speaks with real +reverence and affection of his great friend." And M. About writes "as +one who had taken the master red-handed, and in the act of +collaboration." Dumas has a curious note on collaboration in his +"Souvenirs Dramatiques." Of the two men at work together, "one is always +the dupe, and _he_ is the man of talent." + +There is no biography of Dumas, but the small change of a biography +exists in abundance. There are the many volumes of his "Memoires," there +are all the tomes he wrote on his travels and adventures in Africa, +Spain, Italy, Russia; the book he wrote on his beasts; the romance of +_Ange Pitou_, partly autobiographical; and there are plenty of little +studies by people who knew him. As to his "Memoires," as to all he wrote +about himself, of course his imagination entered into the narrative. Like +Scott, when he had a good story he liked to dress it up with a cocked hat +and a sword. Did he perform all those astonishing and innumerable feats +of strength, skill, courage, address, in revolutions, in voyages, in +love, in war, in cookery? The narrative need not be taken "at the foot +of the letter"; great as was his force and his courage, his fancy was +greater still. There is no room for a biography of him here. His +descent was noble on one side, with or without the bend sinister, which +he said he would never have disclaimed, had it been his, but which he did +not happen to inherit. On the other side he _may_ have descended from +kings; but, as in the case of "The Fair Cuban," he must have added, +"African, unfortunately." Did his father perform these mythical feats of +strength? did he lift up a horse between his legs while clutching a +rafter with his hands? did he throw his regiment before him over a wall, +as Guy Heavistone threw the mare which refused the leap ("Memoires," i. +122)? No doubt Dumas believed what he heard about this ancestor--in +whom, perhaps, one may see a hint of the giant Porthos. In the +Revolution and in the wars his father won the name of Monsieur de +l'Humanite, because he made a bonfire of a guillotine; and of Horatius +Cocles, because he held a pass as bravely as the Roman "in the brave days +of old." + +This was a father to be proud of; and pluck, tenderness, generosity, +strength, remained the favourite virtues of Dumas. These he preached and +practised. They say he was generous before he was just; it is to be +feared this was true, but he gave even more freely than he received. A +regiment of seedy people sponged on him always; he could not listen to a +tale of misery but he gave what he had, and sometimes left himself short +of a dinner. He could not even turn a dog out of doors. At his +Abbotsford, "Monte Cristo," the gates were open to everybody but +bailiffs. His dog asked other dogs to come and stay: twelve came, making +thirteen in all. The old butler wanted to turn them adrift, and Dumas +consented, and repented. + +"Michel," he said, "there are some expenses which a man's social position +and the character which he has had the ill-luck to receive from heaven +force upon him. I don't believe these dogs ruin me. Let them bide! But, +in the interests of their own good luck, see they are not thirteen, an +unfortunate number!" + +"Monsieur, I'll drive one of them away." + +"No, no, Michel; let a fourteenth come. These dogs cost me some three +pounds a month," said Dumas. "A dinner to five or six friends would cost +thrice as much, and, when they went home, they would say my wine was +good, but certainly that my books were bad." In this fashion Dumas fared +royally "to the dogs," and his Abbotsford ruined him as certainly as that +other unhappy palace ruined Sir Walter. He, too, had his miscellaneous +kennel; he, too, gave while he had anything to give, and, when he had +nothing else, gave the work of his pen. Dumas tells how his big dog, +Mouton once flew at him and bit one of his hands, while the other held +the throat of the brute. "Luckily my hand, though small, is powerful; +what it once holds it holds long--money excepted." He could not "haud a +guid grip o' the gear." Neither Scott nor Dumas could shut his ears to a +prayer or his pockets to a beggar, or his doors on whoever knocked at +them. + +"I might at least have asked him to dinner," Scott was heard murmuring, +when some insufferable bore at last left Abbotsford, after wasting his +time and nearly wearing out his patience. Neither man _preached_ +socialism; both practised it on the Aristotelian principle: the goods of +friends are common, and men are our friends. + +* * * * * + +The death of Dumas' father, while the son was a child, left Madame Dumas +in great poverty at Villers Cotterets. Dumas' education was sadly to +seek. Like most children destined to be bookish, he taught himself to +read very young: in Buffon, the Bible, and books of mythology. He knew +all about Jupiter--like David Copperfield's Tom Jones, "a child's +Jupiter, an innocent creature"--all about every god, goddess, fawn, +dryad, nymph--and he never forgot this useful information. Dear +Lempriere, thou art superseded; but how much more delightful thou art +than the fastidious Smith or the learned Preller! Dumas had one volume +of the "Arabian Nights," with Aladdin's lamp therein, the sacred lamp +which he was to keep burning with a flame so brilliant and so steady. It +is pleasant to know that, in his boyhood, this great romancer loved +Virgil. "Little as is my Latin, I have ever adored Virgil: his +tenderness for exiles, his melancholy vision of death, his foreboding of +an unknown God, have always moved me; the melody of his verses charmed me +most, and they lull me still between asleep and awake." School days did +not last long: Madame Dumas got a little post--a licence to sell +tobacco--and at fifteen Dumas entered a notary's office, like his great +Scotch forerunner. He was ignorant of his vocation for the stage--Racine +and Corneille fatigued him prodigiously--till he saw _Hamlet_: _Hamlet_ +diluted by Ducis. He had never heard of Shakespeare, but here was +something he could appreciate. Here was "a profound impression, full of +inexplicable emotion, vague desires, fleeting lights, that, so far, lit +up only a chaos." + +Oddly enough, his earliest literary essay was the translation of Burger's +"Lenore." Here, again, he encounters Scott; but Scott translated the +ballad, and Dumas failed. _Les mortes vont vite_! the same refrain woke +poetry in both the Frenchman and the Scotchman. + + "Ha! ha! the Dead can ride with speed: + Dost fear to ride with me?" + +So Dumas' literary career began with a defeat, but it was always a +beginning. He had just failed with "Lenore," when Leuven asked him to +collaborate in a play. He was utterly ignorant, he says; he had not +succeeded in gallant efforts to read through "Gil Blas" and "Don +Quixote." "To my shame," he writes, "the man has not been more fortunate +with those masterpieces than the boy." He had not yet heard of Scott, +Cooper, Goethe; he had heard of Shakespeare only as a barbarian. Other +plays the boy wrote--failures, of course--and then Dumas poached his way +to Paris, shooting partridges on the road, and paying the hotel expenses +by his success in the chase. He was introduced to the great Talma: what +a moment for Talma, had he known it! He saw the theatres. He went home, +but returned to Paris, drew a small prize in a lottery, and sat next a +gentleman at the play, a gentleman who read the rarest of Elzevirs, "Le +Pastissier Francais," and gave him a little lecture on Elzevirs in +general. Soon this gentleman began to hiss the piece, and was turned +out. He was Charles Nodier, and one of the anonymous authors of the play +he was hissing! I own that this amusing chapter lacks verisimilitude. It +reads as if Dumas had chanced to "get up" the subject of Elzevirs, and +had fashioned his new knowledge into a little story. He could make a +story out of anything--he "turned all to favour and to prettiness." Could +I translate the whole passage, and print it here, it would be longer than +this article; but, ah, how much more entertaining! For whatever Dumas +did he did with such life, spirit, wit, he told it with such vivacity, +that his whole career is one long romance of the highest quality. +Lassagne told him he must read--must read Goethe, Scott, Cooper, +Froissart, Joinville, Brantome. He read them to some purpose. He +entered the service of the Duc d'Orleans as a clerk, for he wrote a clear +hand, and, happily, wrote at astonishing speed. He is said to have +written a short play in a cottage where he went to rest for an hour or +two after shooting all the morning. The practice in a notary's office +stood him, as it stood Scott, in good stead. When a dog bit his hand he +managed to write a volume without using his thumb. I have tried it, but +forbear--in mercy to the printers. He performed wild feats of rapid +caligraphy when a clerk under the Duc d'Orleans, and he wrote his plays +in one "hand," his novels in another. The "hand" used in his dramas he +acquired when, in days of poverty, he used to write in bed. To this +habit he also attributed the _brutalite_ of his earlier pieces, but there +seems to be no good reason why a man should write like a brute because it +is in bed that he writes. + +In those days of small things he fought his first duel, and made a study +of Fear and Courage. His earliest impulse was to rush at danger; if he +had to wait, he felt his courage oozing out at the tips of his fingers, +like Bob Acres, but in the moment of peril he was himself again. In +dreams he was a coward, because, as he argues, the natural man _is_ a +poltroon, and conscience, honour, all the spiritual and commanding part +of our nature, goes to sleep in dreams. The animal terror asserts itself +unchecked. It is a theory not without exceptions. In dreams one has +plenty of conscience (at least that is my experience), though it usually +takes the form of remorse. And in dreams one often affronts dangers +which, in waking hours, one might probably avoid if one could. + +* * * * * + +Dumas' first play, an unimportant vaudeville, was acted in 1825. His +first novels were also published then; he took part of the risk, and only +four copies were sold. He afterward used the ideas in more mature works, +as Mr. Sheridan Le Fanu employed three or four times (with perfect +candour and fairness) the most curious incident in "Uncle Silas." Like +Mr. Arthur Pendennis, Dumas at this time wrote poetry "up to" pictures +and illustrations. It is easy, but seldom lucrative work. He translated +a play of Schiller's into French verse, chiefly to gain command of that +vehicle, for his heart was fixed on dramatic success. Then came the +visit of Kean and other English actors to Paris. He saw the true +_Hamlet_, and, for the first time on any stage, "the play of real +passions." Emulation woke in him: a casual work of art led him to the +story of Christina of Sweden, he wrote his play _Christine_ (afterward +reconstructed); he read it to Baron Taylor, who applauded; the Comedie +Francaise accepted it, but a series of intrigues disappointed him, after +all. His energy at this moment was extraordinary, for he was very poor, +his mother had a stroke of paralysis, his bureau was always bullying and +interfering with him. But nothing could snub this "force of nature," and +he immediately produced his _Henri Trois_, the first romantic drama of +France. This had an instant and noisy success, and the first night of +the play he spent at the theatre, and at the bedside of his unconscious +mother. The poor lady could not even understand whence the flowers came +that he laid on her couch, the flowers thrown to the young man--yesterday +unknown, and to-day the most famous of contemporary names. All this tale +of triumph, checkered by enmities and diversified by duels, Dumas tells +with the vigour and wit of his novels. He is his own hero, and loses +nothing in the process; but the other characters--Taylor, Nodier, the Duc +d'Orleans, the spiteful press-men, the crabbed old officials--all live +like the best of the persons in his tales. They call Dumas vain: he had +reason to be vain, and no candid or generous reader will be shocked by +his pleasant, frank, and artless enjoyment of himself and of his +adventures. Oddly enough, they are small-minded and small-hearted people +who are most shocked by what they call "vanity" in the great. Dumas' +delight in himself and his doings is only the flower of his vigorous +existence, and in his "Memoires," at least, it is as happy and +encouraging as his laugh, or the laugh of Porthos; it is a kind of +radiance, in which others, too, may bask and enjoy themselves. And yet +it is resented by tiny scribblers, frozen in their own chill +self-conceit. + +There is nothing incredible (if modern researches are accurate) in the +stories he tells of his own success in Hypnotism, as it is called now, +Mesmerism or Magnetism as it was called then. Who was likely to possess +these powers, if not this good-humoured natural force? "I believe that, +by aid of magnetism, a bad man might do much mischief. I doubt whether, +by help of magnetism, a good man can do the slightest good," he says, +probably with perfect justice. His dramatic success fired Victor Hugo, +and very pleasant it is to read Dumas' warm-hearted praise of that great +poet. Dumas had no jealousy--no more than Scott. As he believed in no +success without talent, so he disbelieved in genius which wins no +success. "Je ne crois pas au talent ignore, au genie inconnu, moi." +Genius he saluted wherever he met it, but was incredulous about invisible +and inaudible genius; and I own to sharing his scepticism. People who +complain of Dumas' vanity may be requested to observe that he seems just +as "vain" of Hugo's successes, or of Scribe's, as of his own, and just as +much delighted by them. + +He was now struck, as he walked on the boulevard one day, by the first +idea of _Antony_--an idea which, to be fair, seems rather absurd than +tragic, to some tastes. "A lover, caught with a married woman, kills her +to save her character, and dies on the scaffold." Here is indeed a part +to tear a cat in! + +* * * * * + +The performances of M. Dumas during the Revolution of 1830, are they not +written in the Book of the Chronicles of Alexandre the Great? But they +were not literary excellences which he then displayed, and we may leave +this king-maker to hover, "like an eagle, above the storms of anarchy." + +Even to sketch his later biography is beyond our province. In 1830 he +had forty years to run, and he filled the cup of the Hours to the brim +with activity and adventure. His career was one of unparalleled +production, punctuated by revolutions, voyages, exiles, and other +intervals of repose. The tales he tells of his prowess in 1830, and with +Garibaldi, seem credible to me, and are borne out, so far, by the +narrative of M. Maxime Ducamp, who met him at Naples, in the Garibaldian +camp. Like Mr. Jingle, in "Pickwick," he "banged the field-piece, +twanged the lyre," and was potting at the foes of the republic with a +double-barrelled gun, when he was not composing plays, romances, memoirs, +criticisms. He has told the tale of his adventures with the Comedie +Francaise, where the actors laughed at his _Antony_, and where Madame +Mars and he quarrelled and made it up again. His plays often won an +extravagant success; his novels--his great novels, that is--made all +Europe his friend. He gained large sums of money, which flowed out of +his fingers, though it is said by some that his Abbotsford, Monte Cristo, +was no more a palace than the villa which a retired tradesman builds to +shelter his old age. But the money disappeared as fast as if Monte +Cristo had really been palatial, and worthy of the fantasy of a Nero. He +got into debt, fled to Belgium, returned, founded the _Mousquetaire_, a +literary paper of the strangest and most shiftless kind. In "Alexandre +Dumas a la Maison d'Or," M. Philibert Audebrand tells the tale of this +Micawber of newspapers. Everything went into it, good or bad, and the +name of Dumas was expected to make all current coin. For Dumas, +unluckily, was as prodigal of his name as of his gold, and no reputation +could bear the drafts he made on his celebrity. His son says, in the +preface to _Le Fils Naturel_: "Tragedy, dramas, history, romance, comedy, +travel, you cast all of them in the furnace and the mould of your brain, +and you peopled the world of fiction with new creations. The newspaper, +the book, the theatre, burst asunder, too narrow for your puissant +shoulders; you fed France, Europe, America with your works; you made the +wealth of publishers, translators, plagiarists; printers and copyists +toiled after you in vain. In the fever of production you did not always +try and prove the metal which you employed, and sometimes you tossed into +the furnace whatever came to your hand. The fire made the selection: +what was your own is bronze, what was not yours vanished in smoke." + +The simile is noble and worthy of the Cyclopean craftsman, Dumas. His +great works endured; the plays which renewed the youth of the French +stage, the novels which Thackeray loved to praise, these remain, and we +trust they may always remain, to the delight of mankind and for the +sorrow of prigs. + +* * * * * + +So much has been written of Dumas' novels that criticism can hardly hope +to say more that is both new and true about them. It is acknowledged +that, in such a character as Henri III., Dumas made history live, as +magically as Scott revived the past in his Louis XI., or Balfour of +Burley. It is admitted that Dumas' good tales are told with a vigour and +life which rejoice the heart; that his narrative is never dull, never +stands still, but moves with a freedom of adventure which perhaps has no +parallel. He may fall short of the humour, the kindly wisdom, the genial +greatness of Sir Walter at his best, and he has not that supernatural +touch, that tragic grandeur, which Scott inherits from Homer and from +Shakespeare. In another Homeric quality, [Greek text], as Homer himself +calls it, in the "delight of battle" and the spirit of the fray, Scott +and Dumas are alike masters. Their fights and the fights in the +Icelandic sagas are the best that have ever been drawn by mortal man. +When swords are aloft, in siege or on the greensward, or in the midnight +chamber where an ambush is laid, Scott and Dumas are indeed themselves. +The steel rings, the bucklers clash, the parry and lunge pass and answer +too swift for the sight. If Dumas has not, as he certainly has not, the +noble philosophy and kindly knowledge of the heart which are Scott's, he +is far more swift, more witty, more diverting. He is not prolix, his +style is not involved, his dialogue is as rapid and keen as an assault at +arms. His favourite virtues and graces, we repeat it, are loyalty, +friendship, gaiety, generosity, courage, beauty, and strength. He is +himself the friend of the big, stupid, excellent Porthos; of Athos, the +noble and melancholy swordsman of sorrow; of D'Artagnan, the indomitable, +the trusty, the inexhaustible in resource; but his heart is never on the +side of the shifty Aramis, with all his beauty, dexterity, bravery, and +brilliance. The brave Bussy, and the chivalrous, the doomed La Mole, are +more dear to him; and if he embellishes their characters, giving them +charms and virtues that never were theirs, history loses nothing, and +romance and we are the gainers. In all he does, at his best, as in the +"Chevalier d'Harmenthal," he has movement, kindness, courage, and gaiety. +His philosophy of life is that old philosophy of the sagas and of Homer. +Let us enjoy the movement of the fray, the faces of fair women, the taste +of good wine; let us welcome life like a mistress, let us welcome death +like a friend, and with a jest--if death comes with honour. + +Dumas is no pessimist. "Heaven has made but one drama for man--the +world," he writes, "and during these three thousand years mankind has +been hissing it." It is certain that, if a moral censorship could have +prevented it, this great drama of mortal passions would never have been +licensed, at all, never performed. But Dumas, for one, will not hiss it, +but applauds with all his might--a charmed spectator, a fortunate actor +in the eternal piece, where all the men and women are only players. You +hear his manly laughter, you hear his mighty hands approving, you see the +tears he sheds when he had "slain Porthos"--great tears like those of +Pantagruel. + +* * * * * + +His may not be the best, nor the ultimate philosophy, but it _is_ a +philosophy, and one of which we may some day feel the want. I read the +stilted criticisms, the pedantic carpings of some modern men who cannot +write their own language, and I gather that Dumas is out of date. There +is a new philosophy of doubts and delicacies, of dallyings and +refinements, of half-hearted lookers-on, desiring and fearing some new +order of the world. Dumas does not dally nor doubt: he takes his side, +he rushes into the smoke, he strikes his foe; but there is never an +unkind word on his lip, nor a grudging thought in his heart. + +It may be said that Dumas is not a master of words and phrases, that he +is not a _raffine_ of expression, nor a jeweller of style. When I read +the maunderings, the stilted and staggering sentences, the hesitating +phrases, the far-sought and dear-bought and worthless word-juggles; the +sham scientific verbiage, the native pedantries of many modern so-called +"stylists," I rejoice that Dumas was not one of these. He told a plain +tale, in the language suited to a plain tale, with abundance of wit and +gaiety, as in the reflections of his Chicot, as in all his dialogues. But +he did not gnaw the end of his pen in search of some word that nobody had +ever used in this or that connection before. The right word came to him, +the simple straightforward phrase. Epithet-hunting may be a pretty +sport, and the bag of the epithet-hunter may contain some agreeable +epigrams and rare specimens of style; but a plain tale of adventure, of +love and war, needs none of this industry, and is even spoiled by +inopportune diligence. Speed, directness, lucidity are the +characteristics of Dumas' style, and they are exactly the characteristics +which his novels required. Scott often failed, his most loyal admirers +may admit, in these essentials; but it is rarely that Dumas fails, when +he is himself and at his best. + +* * * * * + +In spite of his heedless education, Dumas had true critical qualities, +and most admired the best things. We have already seen how he writes +about Shakespeare, Virgil, Goethe, Scott. But it may be less familiarly +known that this burly man-of-all-work, ignorant as he was of Greek, had a +true and keen appreciation of Homer. Dumas declares that he only thrice +criticised his contemporaries in an unfavourable sense, and as one +wishful to find fault. The victims were Casimir Delavigne, Scribe, and +Ponsard. On each occasion Dumas declares that, after reflecting, he saw +that he was moved by a little personal pique, not by a disinterested love +of art. He makes his confession with a rare nobility of candour; and yet +his review of Ponsard is worthy of him. M. Ponsard, who, like Dumas, was +no scholar, wrote a play styled _Ulysse_, and borrowed from the Odyssey. +Dumas follows Ponsard, Odyssey in hand, and while he proves that the +dramatist failed to understand Homer, proves that he himself was, in +essentials, a capable Homeric critic. Dumas understands that far-off +heroic age. He lives in its life and sympathises with its temper. Homer +and he are congenial; across the great gulf of time they exchange smiles +and a salute. + +"Oh! ancient Homer, dear and good and noble, I am minded now and again to +leave all and translate thee--I, who have never a word of Greek--so empty +and so dismal are the versions men make of thee, in verse or in prose." + +How Dumas came to divine Homer, as it were, through a language he knew +not, who shall say? He _did_ divine him by a natural sympathy of +excellence, and his chapters on the "Ulysse" of Ponsard are worth a +wilderness of notes by learned and most un-Homeric men. For, indeed, who +can be less like the heroic minstrel than the academic philologist? + +This universality deserves note. The Homeric student who takes up a +volume of Dumas at random finds that he is not only Homeric naturally, +but that he really knows his Homer. What did he nor know? His rapidity +in reading must have been as remarkable as his pace with the pen. As M. +Blaze de Bury says: "Instinct, experience, memory were all his; he sees +at a glance, he compares in a flash, he understands without conscious +effort, he forgets nothing that he has read." The past and present are +photographed imperishably on his brain, he knows the manners of all ages +and all countries, the names of all the arms that men have used, all the +garments they have worn, all the dishes they have tasted, all the terms +of all professions, from swordsmanship to coach-building. Other authors +have to wait, and hunt for facts; nothing stops Dumas: he knows and +remembers everything. Hence his rapidity, his facility, his positive +delight in labour: hence it came that he might be heard, like Dickens, +laughing while he worked. + +* * * * * + +This is rather a eulogy than a criticism of Dumas. His faults are on the +surface, visible to all men. He was not only rapid, he was hasty, he was +inconsistent; his need of money as well as his love of work made him put +his hand to dozens of perishable things. A beginner, entering the forest +of Dumas' books, may fail to see the trees for the wood. He may be +counselled to select first the cycle of d'Artagnan--the "Musketeers," +"Twenty Years After," and the "Vicomte de Bragelonne." Mr. Stevenson's +delightful essay on the last may have sent many readers to it; I confess +to preferring the youth of the "Musketeers" to their old age. Then there +is the cycle of the Valois, whereof the "Dame de Monsereau" is the +best--perhaps the best thing Dumas ever wrote. The "Tulipe Noire" is a +novel girls may read, as Thackeray said, with confidence. The "Chevalier +d'Harmenthal" is nearly (not quite) as good as "Quentin Durward." "Monte +Cristo" has the best beginning--and loses itself in the sands. The +novels on the Revolution are not among the most alluring: the famed +device "L. P. D." (_lilia pedibus destrue_) has the bad luck to suggest +"London Parcels Delivery." That is an accident, but the Revolution is in +itself too terrible and pitiful, and too near us (on both sides!) for +fiction. + +On Dumas' faults it has been no pleasure to dwell. In a recent work I +find the Jesuit Le Moyne quoted, saying about Charles V.: "What need that +future ages should be made acquainted so religious an Emperor was not +always chaste!" The same reticence allures one in regard to so +delightful an author as Dumas. He who had enriched so many died poor; he +who had told of conquering France, died during the Terrible Year. But he +could forgive, could appreciate, the valour of an enemy. Of the Scotch +at Waterloo he writes: "It was not enough to kill them: we had to push +them down." Dead, they still stood "shoulder to shoulder." In the same +generous temper an English cavalry officer wrote home, after Waterloo, +that he would gladly have given the rest of his life to have served, on +that day, in our infantry or in the French cavalry. These are the +spirits that warm the heart, that make us all friends; and to the great, +the brave, the generous Dumas we cry, across the years and across the +tomb, our _Ave atque vale_! + + + + +MR. STEVENSON'S WORKS + + +Perhaps the first quality in Mr. Stevenson's works, now so many and so +various, which strikes a reader, is the buoyancy, the survival of the +child in him. He has told the world often, in prose and verse, how vivid +are his memories of his own infancy. This retention of childish +recollections he shares, no doubt, with other people of genius: for +example, with George Sand, whose legend of her own infancy is much more +entertaining, and perhaps will endure longer, than her novels. Her +youth, like Scott's and like Mr. Stevenson's, was passed all in fantasy: +in playing at being some one else, in the invention of imaginary +characters, who were living to her, in the fabrication of endless +unwritten romances. Many persons, who do not astonish the world by their +genius, have lived thus in their earliest youth. But, at a given moment, +the fancy dies out of them: this often befalls imaginative boys in their +first year at school. "Many are called, few chosen"; but it may be said +with probable truth, that there has never been a man of genius in +letters, whose boyhood was not thus fantastic, "an isle of dreams." We +know how Scott and De Quincey inhabited airy castles; and Gillies tells +us, though Lockhart does not, that Scott, in manhood, was occasionally so +lost in thought, that he knew not where he was nor what he was doing. + +The peculiarity of Mr. Stevenson is not only to have been a fantastic +child, and to retain, in maturity, that fantasy ripened into imagination: +he has also kept up the habit of dramatising everything, of playing, half +consciously, many parts, of making the world "an unsubstantial fairy +place." This turn of mind it is that causes his work occasionally to +seem somewhat freakish. Thus, in the fogs and horrors of London, he +plays at being an Arabian tale-teller, and his "New Arabian Nights" are a +new kind of romanticism--Oriental, freakish, like the work of a +changeling. Indeed, this curious genius, springing from a family of +Scottish engineers, resembles nothing so much as one of the fairy +children, whom the ladies of Queen Proserpina's court used to leave in +the cradles of Border keeps or of peasants' cottages. Of the Scot he has +little but the power of touching us with a sense of the supernatural, and +a decided habit of moralising; for no Scot of genius has been more +austere with Robert Burns. On the other hand, one element of Mr. +Stevenson's ethical disquisitions is derived from his dramatic habit. His +optimism, his gay courage, his habit of accepting the world as very well +worth living in and looking at, persuaded one of his critics that he was +a hard-hearted young athlete of iron frame. Now, of the athlete he has +nothing but his love of the open air: it is the eternal child that drives +him to seek adventures and to sojourn among beach-combers and savages. +Thus, an admiring but far from optimistic critic may doubt whether Mr. +Stevenson's content with the world is not "only his fun," as Lamb said of +Coleridge's preaching; whether he is but playing at being the happy +warrior in life; whether he is not acting that part, himself to himself. +At least, it is a part fortunately conceived and admirably sustained: a +difficult part too, whereas that of the pessimist is as easy as whining. + +Mr. Stevenson's work has been very much written about, as it has engaged +and delighted readers of every age, station, and character. Boys, of +course, have been specially addressed in the books of adventure, children +in "A Child's Garden of Verse," young men and maidens in "Virginibus +Puerisque,"--all ages in all the curiously varied series of volumes. +"Kidnapped" was one of the last books which the late Lord Iddesleigh +read; and I trust there is no harm in mentioning the pleasure which Mr. +Matthew Arnold took in the same story. Critics of every sort have been +kind to Mr. Stevenson, in spite of the fact that the few who first became +acquainted with his genius praised it with all the warmth of which they +were masters. Thus he has become a kind of classic in his own day, for +an undisputed reputation makes a classic while it lasts. But was ever so +much fame won by writings which might be called scrappy and desultory by +the _advocatus diaboli_? It is a most miscellaneous literary baggage +that Mr. Stevenson carries. First, a few magazine articles; then two +little books of sentimental journeyings, which convince the reader that +Mr. Stevenson is as good company to himself as his books are to others. +Then came a volume or two of essays, literary and social, on books and +life. By this time there could be no doubt that Mr. Stevenson had a +style of his own, modelled to some extent on the essayists of the last +century, but with touches of Thackeray; with original breaks and turns, +with a delicate freakishness, in short, and a determined love of saying +things as the newspapers do not say them. All this work undoubtedly +smelt a trifle of the lamp, and was therefore dear to some, and an +offence to others. For my part, I had delighted in the essays, from the +first that appeared in _Macmillan's Magazine_, shortly after the Franco- +German war. In this little study, "Ordered South," Mr. Stevenson was +employing himself in extracting all the melancholy pleasure which the +Riviera can give to a wearied body and a mind resisting the clouds of +early malady, + + "Alas, the worn and broken board, + How can it bear the painter's dye! + The harp of strained and tuneless chord, + How to the minstrel's skill reply! + To aching eyes each landscape lowers, + To feverish pulse each gale blows chill, + And Araby's or Eden's bowers + Were barren as this moorland hill,"-- + +wrote Scott, in an hour of malady and depression. But this was not the +spirit of "Ordered South": the younger soul rose against the tyranny of +the body; and that familiar glamour which, in illness, robs Tintoretto of +his glow, did not spoil the midland sea to Mr. Stevenson. His gallant +and cheery stoicism were already with him; and so perfect, if a trifle +overstudied, was his style, that one already foresaw a new and charming +essayist. + +But none of those early works, nor the delightful book on Edinburgh, +prophesied of the story teller. Mr. Stevenson's first published tales, +the "New Arabian Nights," originally appeared in a quaintly edited weekly +paper, which nobody read, or nobody but the writers in its columns. They +welcomed the strange romances with rejoicings: but perhaps there was only +one of them who foresaw that Mr. Stevenson's _forte_ was to be fiction, +not essay writing; that he was to appeal with success to the large +public, and not to the tiny circle who surround the essayist. It did not +seem likely that our incalculable public would make themselves at home in +those fantastic purlieus which Mr. Stevenson's fancy discovered near the +Strand. The impossible Young Man with the Cream Tarts, the ghastly +revels of the Suicide Club, the Oriental caprices of the Hansom Cabs--who +could foresee that the public would taste them! It is true that Mr. +Stevenson's imagination made the President of the Club, and the cowardly +member, Mr. Malthus, as real as they were terrible. His romance always +goes hand in hand with reality; and Mr. Malthus is as much an actual man +of skin and bone, as Silas Lapham is a man of flesh and blood. The world +saw this, and applauded the "Noctes of Prince Floristan," in a fairy +London. + +Yet, excellent and unique as these things were, Mr. Stevenson had not yet +"found himself." It would be more true to say that he had only +discovered outlying skirts of his dominions. Has he ever hit on the road +to the capital yet? and will he ever enter it laurelled, and in triumph? +That is precisely what one may doubt, not as without hope. He is always +making discoveries in his realm; it is less certain that he will enter +its chief city in state. His next work was rather in the nature of +annexation and invasion than a settling of his own realms. "Prince Otto" +is not, to my mind, a ruler in his proper soil. The provinces of George +Sand and of Mr. George Meredith have been taken captive. "Prince Otto" +is fantastic indeed, but neither the fantasy nor the style is quite Mr. +Stevenson's. There are excellent passages, and the Scotch soldier of +fortune is welcome, and the ladies abound in subtlety and wit. But the +book, at least to myself, seems an extremely elaborate and skilful +_pastiche_. I cannot believe in the persons. I vaguely smell a moral +allegory (as in "Will of the Mill"). I do not clearly understand what it +is all about. The scene is fairyland; but it is not the fairyland of +Perrault. The ladies are beautiful and witty; but they are escaped from +a novel of Mr. Meredith's, and have no business here. The book is no +more Mr. Stevenson's than "The Tale of Two Cities" was Mr. Dickens's. + +It was probably by way of mere diversion and child's play that Mr. +Stevenson began "Treasure Island." He is an amateur of boyish pleasures +of masterpieces at a penny plain and twopence coloured. Probably he had +looked at the stories of adventure in penny papers which only boys read, +and he determined sportively to compete with their unknown authors. +"Treasure Island" came out in such a periodical, with the emphatic +woodcuts which adorn them. It is said that the puerile public was not +greatly stirred. A story is a story, and they rather preferred the +regular purveyors. The very faint archaism of the style may have +alienated them. But, when "Treasure Island" appeared as a real book, +then every one who had a smack of youth left was a boy again for some +happy hours. Mr. Stevenson had entered into another province of his +realm: the king had come to his own again. + +They say the seamanship is inaccurate; I care no more than I do for the +year 30. They say too many people are killed. They all died in fair +fight, except a victim of John Silver's. The conclusion is a little too +like part of Poe's most celebrated tale, but nobody has bellowed +"Plagiarist!" Some people may not look over a fence: Mr. Stevenson, if +he liked, might steal a horse,--the animal in this case is only a +skeleton. A very sober student might add that the hero is impossibly +clever; but, then, the hero is a boy, and this is a boy's book. For the +rest, the characters live. Only genius could have invented John Silver, +that terribly smooth-spoken mariner. Nothing but genius could have drawn +that simple yokel on the island, with his craving for cheese as a +Christian dainty. The blustering Billy Bones is a little masterpiece: +the blind Pew, with his tapping stick (there are three such blind tappers +in Mr. Stevenson's books), strikes terror into the boldest. Then, the +treasure is thoroughly satisfactory in kind, and there is plenty of it. +The landscape, as in the feverish, fog-smothered flat, is gallantly +painted. And there are no interfering petticoats in the story. + +As for the "Black Arrow," I confess to sharing the disabilities of the +"Critic on the Hearth," to whom it is dedicated. "Kidnapped" is less a +story than a fragment; but it is a noble fragment. Setting aside the +wicked old uncle, who in his later behaviour is of the house of Ralph +Nickleby, "Kidnapped" is all excellent--perhaps Mr. Stevenson's +masterpiece. Perhaps, too, only a Scotchman knows how good it is, and +only a Lowland Scot knows how admirable a character is the dour, brave, +conceited David Balfour. It is like being in Scotland again to come on +"the green drive-road running wide through the heather," where David +"took his last look of Kirk Essendean, the trees about the manse, and the +big rowans in the kirkyard, where his father and mother lay." Perfectly +Scotch, too, is the mouldering, empty house of the Miser, with the +stamped leather on the walls. And the Miser is as good as a Scotch +Trapbois, till he becomes homicidal, and then one fails to recognise him +unless he is a little mad, like that other frantic uncle in "The Merry +Men." The scenes on the ship, with the boy who is murdered, are better--I +think more real--than the scenes of piratical life in "The Master of +Ballantrae." The fight in the Round House, even if it were exaggerated, +would be redeemed by the "Song of the Sword of Alan." As to Alan Breck +himself, with his valour and vanity, his good heart, his good conceit of +himself, his fantastic loyalty, he is absolutely worthy of the hand that +drew Callum Bey and the Dougal creature. It is just possible that we +see, in "Kidnapped," more signs of determined labour, more evidence of +touches and retouches, than in "Rob Roy." In nothing else which it +attempts is it inferior; in mastery of landscape, as in the scene of the +lonely rock in a dry and thirsty land, it is unsurpassed. If there are +signs of laboured handling on Alan, there are none in the sketches of +Cluny and of Rob Roy's son, the piper. What a generous artist is Alan! +"Robin Oig," he said, when it was done, "ye are a great piper. I am not +fit to blow in the same kingdom with you. Body of me! ye have mair music +in your sporran than I have in my head." + +"Kidnapped," we said, is a fragment. It ends anywhere, or nowhere, as if +the pen had dropped from a weary hand. Thus, and for other reasons, one +cannot pretend to set what is not really a whole against such a rounded +whole as "Rob Roy," or against "The Legend of Montrose." Again, +"Kidnapped" is a novel without a woman in it: not here is Di Vernon, not +here is Helen McGregor. David Balfour is the pragmatic Lowlander; he +does not bear comparison, excellent as he is, with Baillie Nicol Jarvie, +the humorous Lowlander: he does not live in the memory like the immortal +Baillie. It is as a series of scenes and sketches that "Kidnapped" is +unmatched among Mr. Stevenson's works. + +In "The Master of Ballantrae" Mr. Stevenson makes a gallant effort to +enter what I have ventured to call the capital of his kingdom. He does +introduce a woman, and confronts the problems of love as well as of +fraternal hatred. The "Master" is studied, is polished _ad unguem_; it +is a whole in itself, it is a remarkably daring attempt to write the +tragedy, as, in "Waverley," Scott wrote the romance, of Scotland about +the time of the Forty-Five. With such a predecessor and rival, Mr. +Stevenson wisely leaves the pomps and battles of the Forty-Five, its +chivalry and gallantry, alone. He shows us the seamy side: the +intrigues, domestic and political; the needy Irish adventurer with the +Prince, a person whom Scott had not studied. The book, if completely +successful, would be Mr. Stevenson's "Bride of Lammermoor." To be frank, +I do not think it completely successful--a victory all along the line. +The obvious weak point is Secundra Dass, that Indian of unknown +nationality; for surely his name marks him as no Hindoo. The Master +could not have brought him, shivering like Jos Sedley's black servant, to +Scotland. As in America, this alien would have found it "too dam cold." +My power of belief (which verges on credulity) is staggered by the +ghastly attempt to reanimate the buried Master. Here, at least to my +taste, the freakish changeling has got the better of Mr. Stevenson, and +has brought in an element out of keeping with the steady lurid tragedy of +fraternal hatred. For all the rest, it were a hard judge that had +anything but praise. The brilliant blackguardism of the Master; his +touch of sentiment as he leaves Durisdeer for the last time, with a sad +old song on his lips; his fascination; his ruthlessness; his irony;--all +are perfect. It is not very easy to understand the Chevalier Bourke, +that Barry Lyndon, with no head and with a good heart, that creature of a +bewildered kindly conscience; but it is easy to like him. How admirable +is his undeflected belief in and affection for the Master! How excellent +and how Irish he is, when he buffoons himself out of his perils with the +pirates! The scenes are brilliant and living, as when the Master throws +the guinea through the Hall window, or as in the darkling duel in the +garden. It needed an austere artistic conscience to make Henry, the +younger brother, so unlovable with all his excellence, and to keep the +lady so true, yet so much in shadow. This is the best woman among Mr. +Stevenson's few women; but even she is almost always reserved, veiled as +it were. + +The old Lord, again, is a portrait as lifelike as Scott could have drawn, +and more delicately touched than Scott would have cared to draw it: a +French companion picture to the Baron Bradwardine. The whole piece reads +as if Mr. Stevenson had engaged in a struggle with himself as he wrote. +The sky is never blue, the sun never shines: we weary for a "westland +wind." There is something "thrawn," as the Scotch say, about the story; +there is often a touch of this sinister kind in the author's work. The +language is extraordinarily artful, as in the mad lord's words, "I have +felt the hilt dirl on his breast-bone." And yet, one is hardly thrilled +as one expects to be, when, as Mackellar says, "the week-old corpse +looked me for a moment in the face." + +Probably none of Mr. Stevenson's many books has made his name so familiar +as "Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde." I read it first in manuscript, alone, at +night; and, when the Butler and Mr. Urmson came to the Doctor's door, I +confess that I threw it down, and went hastily to bed. It is the most +gruesome of all his writings, and so perfect that one can complain only +of the slightly too obvious moral; and, again, that really Mr. Hyde was +more of a gentleman than the unctuous Dr. Jekyll, with his "bedside +manner." + +So here, not to speak of some admirable short stories like "Thrawn +Janet," is a brief catalogue--little more--of Mr. Stevenson's literary +baggage. It is all good, though variously good; yet the wise world asks +for the masterpiece. It is said that Mr. Stevenson has not ventured on +the delicate and dangerous ground of the novel, because he has not +written a modern love story. But who has? There are love affairs in +Dickens, but do we remember or care for them? Is it the love affairs +that we remember in Scott? Thackeray may touch us with Clive's and Jack +Belsize's misfortunes, with Esmond's melancholy passion, and amuse us +with Pen in so many toils, and interest us in the little heroine of the +"Shabby Genteel Story." But it is not by virtue of those episodes that +Thackeray is so great. Love stories are best done by women, as in "Mr. +Gilfil's Love Story"; and, perhaps, in an ordinary way, by writers like +Trollope. One may defy critics to name a great English author in fiction +whose chief and distinguishing merit is in his pictures of the passion of +Love. Still, they all give Love his due stroke in the battle, and +perhaps Mr. Stevenson will do so some day. But I confess that, if he +ever excels himself, I do not expect it to be in a love story. + +Possibly it may be in a play. If he again attempt the drama, he has this +in his favour, that he will not deal in supernumeraries. In his tales +his minor characters are as carefully drawn as his chief personages. +Consider, for example, the minister, Henderland, the man who is so fond +of snuff, in "Kidnapped," and, in the "Master of Ballantrae," Sir William +Johnson, the English Governor. They are the work of a mind as attentive +to details, as ready to subordinate or obliterate details which are +unessential. Thus Mr. Stevenson's writings breathe equally of work in +the study and of inspiration from adventure in the open air, and thus he +wins every vote, and pleases every class of reader. + + + + +THOMAS HAYNES BAYLY + + +I cannot sing the old songs, nor indeed any others, but I can read them, +in the neglected works of Thomas Haynes Bayly. The name of Bayly may be +unfamiliar, but every one almost has heard his ditties chanted--every one +much over forty, at all events. "I'll hang my Harp on a Willow Tree," +and "I'd be a Butterfly," and "Oh, no! we never mention Her," are dimly +dear to every friend of Mr. Richard Swiveller. If to be sung everywhere, +to hear your verses uttered in harmony with all pianos and quoted by the +world at large, be fame, Bayly had it. He was an unaffected poet. He +wrote words to airs, and he is almost absolutely forgotten. To read him +is to be carried back on the wings of music to the bowers of youth; and +to the bowers of youth I have been wafted, and to the old booksellers. +You do not find on every stall the poems of Bayly; but a copy in two +volumes has been discovered, edited by Mr. Bayly's widow (Bentley, 1844). +They saw the light in the same year as the present critic, and perhaps +they ceased to be very popular before he was breeched. Mr. Bayly, +according to Mrs. Bayly, "ably penetrated the sources of the human +heart," like Shakespeare and Mr. Howells. He also "gave to minstrelsy +the attributes of intellect and wit," and "reclaimed even festive song +from vulgarity," in which, since the age of Anacreon, festive song has +notoriously wallowed. The poet who did all this was born at Bath in Oct. +1797. His father was a genteel solicitor, and his great-grandmother was +sister to Lord Delamere, while he had a remote baronet on the mother's +side. To trace the ancestral source of his genius was difficult, as in +the case of Gifted Hopkins; but it was believed to flow from his maternal +grandfather, Mr. Freeman, whom his friend, Lord Lavington, regarded as +"one of the finest poets of his age." Bayly was at school at Winchester, +where he conducted a weekly college newspaper. His father, like Scott's, +would have made him a lawyer; but "the youth took a great dislike to it, +for his ideas loved to dwell in the regions of fancy," which are closed +to attorneys. So he thought of being a clergyman, and was sent to St. +Mary's Hall, Oxford. There "he did not apply himself to the pursuit of +academical honours," but fell in love with a young lady whose brother he +had tended in a fatal illness. But "they were both too wise to think of +living upon love, and, after mutual tears and sighs, they parted never to +meet again. The lady, though grieved, was not heartbroken, and soon +became the wife of another." They usually do. Mr. Bayly's regret was +more profound, and expressed itself in the touching ditty: + + "Oh, no, we never mention her, + Her name is never heard, + My lips are now forbid to speak + That once familiar word; + From sport to sport they hurry me + To banish my regret, + And when they only worry me-- + +[I beg Mr. Bayly's pardon] + + "And when they win a smile from me, + They fancy I forget. + + "They bid me seek in change of scene + The charms that others see, + But were I in a foreign land + They'd find no change in me. + 'Tis true that I behold no more + The valley where we met; + I do not see the hawthorn tree, + But how can I forget?" + + * * * * * + + "They tell me she is happy now, + +[And so she was, in fact.] + + The gayest of the gay; + They hint that she's forgotten me; + But heed not what they say. + Like me, perhaps, she struggles with + Each feeling of regret: + 'Tis true she's married Mr. Smith, + But, ah, does she forget!" + +The temptation to parody is really too strong; the last lines, actually +and in an authentic text, are: + + "But if she loves as I have loved, + She never can forget." + +Bayly had now struck the note, the sweet, sentimental note, of the early, +innocent, Victorian age. Jeames imitated him: + + "R. Hangeline, R. Lady mine, + Dost thou remember Jeames!" + +We should do the trick quite differently now, more like this: + + "Love spake to me and said: + 'Oh, lips, be mute; + Let that one name be dead, + That memory flown and fled, + Untouched that lute! + Go forth,' said Love, 'with willow in thy hand, + And in thy hair + Dead blossoms wear, + Blown from the sunless land. + + "'Go forth,' said Love; 'thou never more shalt see + Her shadow glimmer by the trysting tree; + But _she_ is glad, + With roses crowned and clad, + Who hath forgotten thee!' + But I made answer: 'Love! + Tell me no more thereof, + For she has drunk of that same cup as I. + Yea, though her eyes be dry, + She garners there for me + Tears salter than the sea, + Even till the day she die.' + So gave I Love the lie." + +I declare I nearly weep over these lines; for, though they are only +Bayly's sentiment hastily recast in a modern manner, there is something +so very affecting, mouldy, and unwholesome about them, that they sound as +if they had been "written up to" a sketch by a disciple of Mr. +Rossetti's. + +In a mood much more manly and moral, Mr. Bayly wrote another poem to the +young lady: + + "May thy lot in life be happy, undisturbed by thoughts of me, + The God who shelters innocence thy guard and guide will be. + Thy heart will lose the chilling sense of hopeless love at last, + And the sunshine of the future chase the shadows of the past." + +It is as easy as prose to sing in this manner. For example: + + "In fact, we need not be concerned; 'at last' comes very soon, and our + Emilia quite forgets the memory of the moon, the moon that shone on + her and us, the woods that heard our vows, the moaning of the waters, + and the murmur of the boughs. She is happy with another, and by her + we're quite forgot; she never lets a thought of us bring shadow on her + lot; and if we meet at dinner she's too clever to repine, and mentions + us to Mr. Smith as 'An old flame of mine.' And shall I grieve that it + is thus? and would I have her weep, and lose her healthy appetite and + break her healthy sleep? Not so, she's not poetical, though ne'er + shall I forget the fairy of my fancy whom I once thought I had met. + The fairy of my fancy! It was fancy, most things are; her emotions + were not steadfast as the shining of a star; but, ah, I love her image + yet, as once it shone on me, and swayed me as the low moon sways the + surging of the sea." + +Among other sports his anxious friends hurried the lovelorn Bayly to +Scotland, where he wrote much verse, and then to Dublin, which completed +his cure. "He seemed in the midst of the crowd the gayest of all, his +laughter rang merry and loud at banquet and hall." He thought no more of +studying for the Church, but went back to Bath, met a Miss Hayes, was +fascinated by Miss Hayes, "came, saw, but did _not_ conquer at once," +says Mrs. Haynes Bayly (_nee_ Hayes) with widow's pride. Her lovely name +was Helena; and I deeply regret to add that, after an education at +Oxford, Mr. Bayly, in his poems, accentuated the penultimate, which, of +course, is short. + + "Oh, think not, Helena, of leaving us yet," + +he carolled, when it would have been just as easy, and a hundred times +more correct, to sing-- + + "Oh, Helena, think not of leaving us yet." + +Miss Hayes had lands in Ireland, alas! and Mr. Bayly insinuated that, +like King Easter and King Wester in the ballad, her lovers courted her +for her lands and her fee; but he, like King Honour, + + "For her bonny face + And for her fair bodie." + +In 1825 (after being elected to the Athenaeum) Mr. Bayly "at last found +favour in the eyes of Miss Hayes." He presented her with a little ruby +heart, which she accepted, and they were married, and at first were well- +to-do, Miss Hayes being the heiress of Benjamin Hayes, Esq., of Marble +Hill, in county Cork. A friend of Mr. Bayly's described him thus: + + "I never have met on this chilling earth + So merry, so kind, so frank a youth, + In moments of pleasure a smile all mirth, + In moments of sorrow a heart of truth. + I have heard thee praised, I have seen thee led + By Fashion along her gay career; + While beautiful lips have often shed + Their flattering poison in thine ear." + +Yet he says that the poet was unspoiled. On his honeymoon, at Lord +Ashdown's, Mr. Bayly, flying from some fair sirens, retreated to a bower, +and there wrote his world-famous "I'd be a Butterfly." + + "I'd be a butterfly, living a rover, + Dying when fair things are fading away." + +The place in which the deathless strains welled from the singer's heart +was henceforth known as "Butterfly Bower." He now wrote a novel, "The +Aylmers," which has gone where the old moons go, and he became rather a +literary lion, and made the acquaintance of Theodore Hook. The loss of a +son caused him to write some devotional verses, which were not what he +did best; and now he began to try comedies. One of them, _Sold for a +Song_, succeeded very well. In the stage-coach between Wycombe Abbey and +London he wrote a successful little _lever de rideau_ called +_Perfection_; and it was lucky that he opened this vein, for his wife's +Irish property got into an Irish bog of dishonesty and difficulty. Thirty- +five pieces were contributed by him to the British stage. After a long +illness, he died on April 22nd, 1829. He did not live, this butterfly +minstrel, into the winter of human age. + +Of his poems the inevitable criticism must be that he was a Tom Moore of +much lower accomplishments. His business was to carol of the most vapid +and obvious sentiment, and to string flowers, fruits, trees, breeze, +sorrow, to-morrow, knights, coal-black steeds, regret, deception, and so +forth, into fervid anapaestics. Perhaps his success lay in knowing +exactly how little sense in poetry composers will endure and singers will +accept. Why, "words for music" are almost invariably trash now, though +the words of Elizabethan songs are better than any music, is a gloomy and +difficult question. Like most poets, I myself detest the sister art, and +don't know anything about it. But any one can see that words like +Bayly's are and have long been much more popular with musical people than +words like Shelley's, Keats's, Shakespeare's, Fletcher's, Lovelace's, or +Carew's. The natural explanation is not flattering to musical people: at +all events, the singing world doted on Bayly. + + "She never blamed him--never, + But received him when he came + With a welcome sort of shiver, + And she tried to look the same. + + "But vainly she dissembled, + For whene'er she tried to smile, + A tear unbidden trembled + In her blue eye all the while." + +This was pleasant for "him"; but the point is that these are lines to an +Indian air. Shelley, also, about the same time, wrote Lines to an Indian +air; but we may "swear, and save our oath," that the singers preferred +Bayly's. Tennyson and Coleridge could never equal the popularity of what +follows. I shall ask the persevering reader to tell me where Bayly ends, +and where parody begins: + + "When the eye of beauty closes, + When the weary are at rest, + When the shade the sunset throws is + But a vapour in the west; + When the moonlight tips the billow + With a wreath of silver foam, + And the whisper of the willow + Breaks the slumber of the gnome,-- + Night may come, but sleep will linger, + When the spirit, all forlorn, + Shuts its ear against the singer, + And the rustle of the corn + Round the sad old mansion sobbing + Bids the wakeful maid recall + Who it was that caused the throbbing + Of her bosom at the ball." + +Will this not do to sing just as well as the original? and is it not true +that "almost any man you please could reel it off for days together"? +Anything will do that speaks of forgetting people, and of being forsaken, +and about the sunset, and the ivy, and the rose. + + "Tell me no more that the tide of thine anguish + Is red as the heart's blood and salt as the sea; + That the stars in their courses command thee to languish, + That the hand of enjoyment is loosened from thee! + + "Tell me no more that, forgotten, forsaken, + Thou roamest the wild wood, thou sigh'st on the shore. + Nay, rent is the pledge that of old we had taken, + And the words that have bound me, they bind thee no more! + + "Ere the sun had gone down on thy sorrow, the maidens + Were wreathing the orange's bud in thy hair, + And the trumpets were tuning the musical cadence + That gave thee, a bride, to the baronet's heir. + + "Farewell, may no thought pierce thy breast of thy treason; + Farewell, and be happy in Hubert's embrace. + Be the belle of the ball, be the bride of the season, + With diamonds bedizened and languid in lace." + +This is mine, and I say, with modest pride, that it is quite as good as-- + + "Go, may'st thou be happy, + Though sadly we part, + In life's early summer + Grief breaks not the heart. + + "The ills that assail us + As speedily pass + As shades o'er a mirror, + Which stain not the glass." + +Anybody could do it, we say, in what Edgar Poe calls "the mad pride of +intellectuality," and it certainly looks as if it could be done by +anybody. For example, take Bayly as a moralist. His ideas are out of +the centre. This is about his standard: + + "CRUELTY. + + "'Break not the thread the spider + Is labouring to weave.' + I said, nor as I eyed her + Could dream she would deceive. + + "Her brow was pure and candid, + Her tender eyes above; + And I, if ever man did, + Fell hopelessly in love. + + "For who could deem that cruel + So fair a face might be? + That eyes so like a jewel + Were only paste for me? + + "I wove my thread, aspiring + Within her heart to climb; + I wove with zeal untiring + For ever such a time! + + "But, ah! that thread was broken + All by her fingers fair, + The vows and prayers I've spoken + Are vanished into air!" + +Did Bayly write that ditty or did I? Upon my word, I can hardly tell. I +am being hypnotised by Bayly. I lisp in numbers, and the numbers come +like mad. I can hardly ask for a light without abounding in his artless +vein. Easy, easy it seems; and yet it was Bayly after all, not you nor +I, who wrote the classic-- + + "I'll hang my harp on a willow tree, + And I'll go to the war again, + For a peaceful home has no charm for me, + A battlefield no pain; + The lady I love will soon be a bride, + With a diadem on her brow. + Ah, why did she flatter my boyish pride? + She is going to leave me now!" + +It is like listening, in the sad yellow evening, to the strains of a +barrel organ, faint and sweet, and far away. A world of memories come +jigging back--foolish fancies, dreams, desires, all beckoning and bobbing +to the old tune: + + "Oh had I but loved with a boyish love, + It would have been well for me." + +How does Bayly manage it? What is the trick of it, the obvious, simple, +meretricious trick, which somehow, after all, let us mock as we will, +Bayly could do, and we cannot? He really had a slim, serviceable, +smirking, and sighing little talent of his own; and--well, we have not +even that. Nobody forgets + + "The lady I love will soon be a bride." + +Nobody remembers our cultivated epics and esoteric sonnets, oh brother +minor poet, _mon semblable_, _mon frere_! Nor can we rival, though we +publish our books on the largest paper, the buried popularity of + + "Gaily the troubadour + Touched his guitar + When he was hastening + Home from the war, + Singing, "From Palestine + Hither I come, + Lady love! Lady love! + Welcome me home!" + +Of course this is, historically, a very incorrect rendering of a +Languedoc crusader; and the impression is not mediaeval, but of the comic +opera. Any one of us could get in more local colour for the money, and +give the crusader a cithern or citole instead of a guitar. This is how +we should do "Gaily the Troubadour" nowadays:-- + + "Sir Ralph he is hardy and mickle of might, + _Ha_, _la belle blanche aubepine_! + Soldans seven hath he slain in fight, + _Honneur a la belle Isoline_! + + "Sir Ralph he rideth in riven mail, + _Ha_, _la belle blanche aubepine_! + Beneath his nasal is his dark face pale, + _Honneur a la belle Isoline_! + + "His eyes they blaze as the burning coal, + _Ha_, _la belle blanche aubepine_! + He smiteth a stave on his gold citole, + _Honneur a la belle Isoline_! + + "From her mangonel she looketh forth, + _Ha_, _la belle blanche aubepine_! + 'Who is he spurreth so late to the north?' + _Honneur a la belle Isoline_! + + "Hark! for he speaketh a knightly name, + _Ha_, _la belle blanche aubepine_! + And her wan cheek glows as a burning flame, + _Honneur a la belle Isoline_! + + "For Sir Ralph he is hardy and mickle of might, + _Ha_, _la belle blanche aubepine_! + And his love shall ungirdle his sword to-night, + _Honneur a la belle Isoline_!" + +Such is the romantic, esoteric, old French way of saying-- + + "Hark, 'tis the troubadour + Breathing her name + Under the battlement + Softly he came, + Singing, "From Palestine + Hither I come. + Lady love! Lady love! + Welcome me home!" + +The moral of all this is that minor poetry has its fashions, and that the +butterfly Bayly could versify very successfully in the fashion of a time +simpler and less pedantic than our own. On the whole, minor poetry for +minor poetry, this artless singer, piping his native drawing-room notes, +gave a great deal of perfectly harmless, if highly uncultivated, +enjoyment. + +It must not be fancied that Mr. Bayly had only one string to his bow--or, +rather, to his lyre. He wrote a great deal, to be sure, about the +passion of love, which Count Tolstoi thinks we make too much of. He did +not dream that the affairs of the heart should be regulated by the +State--by the Permanent Secretary of the Marriage Office. That is what +we are coming to, of course, unless the enthusiasts of "free love" and +"go away as you please" failed with their little programme. No doubt +there would be poetry if the State regulated or left wholly unregulated +the affections of the future. Mr. Bayly, living in other times, among +other manners, piped of the hard tyranny of a mother: + + "We met, 'twas in a crowd, and I thought he would shun me. + He came, I could not breathe, for his eye was upon me. + He spoke, his words were cold, and his smile was unaltered, + I knew how much he felt, for his deep-toned voice faltered. + I wore my bridal robe, and I rivalled its whiteness; + Bright gems were in my hair,--how I hated their brightness! + He called me by my name as the bride of another. + Oh, thou hast been the cause of this anguish, my mother!" + +In future, when the reformers of marriage have had their way, we shall +read: + + "The world may think me gay, for I bow to my fate; + But thou hast been the cause of my anguish, O State!" + +For even when true love is regulated by the County Council or the village +community, it will still persist in not running smooth. + +Of these passions, then, Mr. Bayly could chant; but let us remember that +he could also dally with old romance, that he wrote: + + "The mistletoe hung in the castle hall, + The holly branch shone on the old oak wall." + +When the bride unluckily got into the ancient chest, + + "It closed with a spring. And, dreadful doom, + The bride lay clasped in her living tomb," + +so that her lover "mourned for his fairy bride," and never found out her +premature casket. This was true romance as understood when Peel was +consul. Mr. Bayly was rarely political; but he commemorated the heroes +of Waterloo, our last victory worth mentioning: + + "Yet mourn not for them, for in future tradition + Their fame shall abide as our tutelar star, + _To instil by example the glorious ambition_ + _Of falling_, _like them_, _in a glorious war_. + Though tears may be seen in the bright eyes of beauty, + One consolation must ever remain: + Undaunted they trod in the pathway of duty, + Which led them to glory on Waterloo's plain." + +Could there be a more simple Tyrtaeus? and who that reads him will not be +ambitious of falling in a glorious war? Bayly, indeed, is always simple. +He is "simple, sensuous, and passionate," and Milton asked no more from a +poet. + + "A wreath of orange blossoms, + When next we met, she wore. + _The expression of her features_ + _Was more thoughtful than before_." + +On his own principles Wordsworth should have admired this unaffected +statement; but Wordsworth rarely praised his contemporaries, and said +that "Guy Mannering" was a respectable effort in the style of Mrs. +Radcliffe. Nor did he even extol, though it is more in his own line, + + "Of what is the old man thinking, + As he leans on his oaken staff?" + +My own favourite among Mr. Bayly's effusions is not a sentimental ode, +but the following gush of true natural feeling:-- + + "Oh, give me new faces, new faces, new faces, + I've seen those around me a fortnight and more. + Some people grow weary of things or of places, + But persons to me are a much greater bore. + I care not for features, I'm sure to discover + Some exquisite trait in the first that you send. + My fondness falls off when the novelty's over; + I want a new face for an intimate friend." + +This is perfectly candid: we should all prefer a new face, if pretty, +every fortnight: + + "Come, I pray you, and tell me this, + All good fellows whose beards are grey, + Did not the fairest of the fair + Common grow and wearisome ere + Ever a month had passed away?" + +For once Mr. Bayly uttered in his "New Faces" a sentiment not usually +expressed, but universally felt; and now he suffers, as a poet, because +he is no longer a new face, because we have welcomed his juniors. To +Bayly we shall not return; but he has one rare merit,--he is always +perfectly plain-spoken and intelligible. + + "Farewell to my Bayly, farewell to the singer + Whose tender effusions my aunts used to sing; + Farewell, for the fame of the bard does not linger, + My favourite minstrel's no longer the thing. + But though on his temples has faded the laurel, + Though broken the lute, and though veiled is the crest, + My Bayly, at worst, is uncommonly moral, + Which is more than some new poets are, at their best." + +Farewell to our Bayly, about whose songs we may say, with Mr. Thackeray +in "Vanity Fair," that "they contain numberless good-natured, simple +appeals to the affections." We are no longer affectionate, good-natured, +simple. We are cleverer than Bayly's audience; but are we better +fellows? + + + + +THEODORE DE BANVILLE + + +There are literary reputations in France and England which seem, like the +fairies, to be unable to cross running water. Dean Swift, according to +M. Paul de Saint-Victor, is a great man at Dover, a pigmy at Calais--"Son +talent, qui enthousiasme l'Angleterre, n'inspire ailleurs qu'un morne +etonnement." M. Paul De Saint-Victor was a fair example of the French +critic, and what he says about Swift was possibly true,--for him. There +is not much resemblance between the Dean and M. Theodore de Banville, +except that the latter too is a poet who has little honour out of his own +country. He is a charming singer at Calais; at Dover he inspires _un +morne etonnement_ (a bleak perplexity). One has never seen an English +attempt to describe or estimate his genius. His unpopularity in England +is illustrated by the fact that the London Library, that respectable +institution, does not, or did not, possess a single copy of any one of +his books. He is but feebly represented even in the collection of the +British Museum. It is not hard to account for our indifference to M. De +Banville. He is a poet not only intensely French, but intensely +Parisian. He is careful of form, rather than abundant in manner. He has +no story to tell, and his sketches in prose, his attempts at criticism, +are not very weighty or instructive. With all his limitations, however, +he represents, in company with M. Leconte de Lisle, the second of the +three generations of poets over whom Victor Hugo reigned. + +M. De Banville has been called, by people who do not like, and who +apparently have not read him, _un saltimbanque litteraire_ (a literary +rope-dancer). Other critics, who do like him, but who have limited their +study to a certain portion of his books, compare him to a worker in gold, +who carefully chases or embosses dainty processions of fauns and maenads. +He is, in point of fact, something more estimable than a literary rope- +dancer, something more serious than a working jeweller in rhymes. He +calls himself _un raffine_; but he is not, like many persons who are +proud of that title, _un indifferent_ in matters of human fortune. His +earlier poems, of course, are much concerned with the matter of most +early poems--with Lydia and Cynthia and their light loves. The verses of +his second period often deal with the most evanescent subjects, and they +now retain but a slight petulance and sparkle, as of champagne that has +been too long drawn. In a prefatory plea for M. De Banville's poetry one +may add that he "has loved our people," and that no poet, no critic, has +honoured Shakespeare with brighter words of praise. + +Theodore de Banville was born at Moulin, on March 14th 1823, and he is +therefore three years younger than the dictionaries of biography would +make the world believe. He is the son of a naval officer, and, according +to M. Charles Baudelaire, a descendant of the Crusaders. He came much +too late into the world to distinguish himself in the noisy exploits of +1830, and the chief event of his youth was the publication of "Les +Cariatides" in 1842. This first volume contained a selection from the +countless verses which the poet produced between his sixteenth and his +nineteenth year. Whatever other merits the songs of minors may possess, +they have seldom that of permitting themselves to be read. "Les +Cariatides" are exceptional here. They are, above all things, readable. +"On peut les lire a peu de frais," M. De Banville says himself. He +admits that his lighter works, the poems called (in England) _vers de +societe_, are a sort of intellectual cigarette. M. Emile de Girardin +said, in the later days of the Empire, that there were too many +cigarettes in the air. Their stale perfume clings to the literature of +that time, as the odour of pastilles yet hangs about the verse of Dorat, +the designs of Eisen, the work of the Pompadour period. There is more +than smoke in M. De Banville's ruling inspiration, his lifelong devotion +to letters and to great men of letters--Shakespeare, Moliere, Homer, +Victor Hugo. These are his gods; the memory of them is his muse. His +enthusiasm is worthy of one who, though born too late to see and know the +noble wildness of 1830, yet lives on the recollections, and is +strengthened by the example, of that revival of letters. Whatever one +may say of the _renouveau_, of romanticism, with its affectations, the +young men of 1830 were sincere in their devotion to liberty, to poetry, +to knowledge. One can hardly find a more brilliant and touching belief +in these great causes than that of Edgar Quinet, as displayed in the +letters of his youth. De Banville fell on more evil times. + +When "Les Cariatides" was published poets had begun to keep an eye on the +Bourse, and artists dabbled in finance. The new volume of song in the +sordid age was a November primrose, and not unlike the flower of Spring. +There was a singular freshness and hopefulness in the verse, a wonderful +"certitude dans l'expression lyrique," as Sainte-Beuve said. The mastery +of musical speech and of various forms of song was already to be +recognised as the basis and the note of the talent of De Banville. He +had style, without which a man may write very nice verses about heaven +and hell and other matters, and may please thousands of excellent people, +but will write poetry--never. Comparing De Banville's boy's work with +the boy's work of Mr. Tennyson, one observes in each--"Les Cariatides" as +in "The Hesperides"--the _timbre_ of a new voice. Poetry so fresh seems +to make us aware of some want which we had hardly recognised, but now are +sensible of, at the moment we find it satisfied. + +It is hardly necessary to say that this gratifying and welcome +strangeness, this lyric originality, is nearly all that M. De Banville +has in common with the English poet whose two priceless volumes were +published in the same year as "Les Cariatides?" The melody of Mr. +Tennyson's lines, the cloudy palaces of his imagination, rose + + "As Ilion, like a mist rose into towers," + +when Apollo sang. The architecture was floating at first, and confused; +while the little theatre of M. De Banville's poetry, where he sat piping +to a dance of nixies, was brilliantly lit and elegant with fresh paint +and gilding. "The Cariatides" support the pediment and roof of a theatre +or temple in the Graeco-French style. The poet proposed to himself + + "A cote de Venus et du fils de Latone + Peindre la fee et la peri." + +The longest poem in the book, and the most serious, "La Voie Lactee," +reminds one of the "Palace of Art," written before the after-thought, +before the "white-eyed corpses" were found lurking in corners. Beginning +with Homer, "the Ionian father of the rest,"-- + + "Ce dieu, pere des dieux qu'adore Ionie,"-- + +the poet glorifies all the chief names of song. There is a long +procession of illustrious shadows before Shakespeare comes--Shakespeare, +whose genius includes them all. + + "Toute creation a laquelle on aspire, + Tout reve, toute chose, emanent de Shakespeare." + +His mind has lent colour to the flowers and the sky, to + + "La fleur qui brode un point sur les manteau des plaines, + Les nenuphars penches, et les pales roseaux + Qui disent leur chant sombre au murmure des eaux." + +One recognises more sincerity in this hymn to all poets, from Orpheus to +Heine, than in "Les Baisers de Pierre"--a clever imitation of De Musset's +stories in verse. Love of art and of the masters of art, a passion for +the figures of old mythology, which had returned again after their exile +in 1830, gaiety, and a revival of the dexterity of Villon and +Marot,--these things are the characteristics of M. De Banville's genius, +and all these were displayed in "Les Cariatides." Already, too, his +preoccupation with the lighter and more fantastic sort of theatrical +amusements shows itself in lines like these: + + "De son lit a baldaquin + Le soleil de son beau globe + Avait l'air d'un arlequin + Etalant sa garde-robe; + + "Et sa soeur au front changeant + Mademoiselle la Lune + Avec ses grands yeux d'argent + Regardait la terre brune." + +The verse about "the sun in bed," unconsciously Miltonic, is in a vein of +bad taste which has always had seductions for M. De Banville. He mars a +fine later poem on Roncevaux and Roland by a similar absurdity. The +angel Michael is made to stride down the steps of heaven four at a time, +and M. De Banville fancies that this sort of thing is like the simplicity +of the ages of faith. + +In "Les Cariatides," especially in the poems styled "En Habit Zinzolin," +M. De Banville revived old measures--the _rondeau_ and the "poor little +triolet." These are forms of verse which it is easy to write badly, and +hard indeed to write well. They have knocked at the door of the English +muse's garden--a runaway knock. In "Les Cariatides" they took a +subordinate place, and played their pranks in the shadow of the grave +figures of mythology, or at the close of the procession of Dionysus and +his Maenads. De Banville often recalls Keats in his choice of classical +themes. "Les Exiles," a poem of his maturity, is a French "Hyperion." +"Le Triomphe de Bacchus" reminds one of the song of the Bassarids in +"Endymion"-- + + "So many, and so many, and so gay." + +There is a pretty touch of the pedant (who exists, says M. De Banville, +in the heart of the poet) in this verse: + + "Il reve a Cama, l'amour aux cinq fleches fleuries, + Qui, lorsque soupire au milieu des roses prairies + La douce Vasanta, parmi les bosquets de santal, + Envoie aux cinq sens les fleches du carquois fatal." + +The Bacchus of Titian has none of this Oriental languor, no memories of +perfumed places where "the throne of Indian Cama slowly sails." One +cannot help admiring the fancy which saw the conquering god still steeped +in Asiatic ease, still unawakened to more vigorous passion by the fresh +wind blowing from Thrace. Of all the Olympians, Diana has been most +often hymned by M. De Banville: his imagination is haunted by the figure +of the goddess. Now she is manifest in her Hellenic aspect, as Homer +beheld her, "taking her pastime in the chase of boars and swift deer; and +with her the wild wood-nymphs are sporting the daughters of Zeus; and +Leto is glad at heart, for her child towers over them all, and is easy to +be known where all are fair" (Odyssey, vi.). Again, Artemis appears more +thoughtful, as in the sculpture of Jean Goujon, touched with the sadness +of moonlight. Yet again, she is the weary and exiled spirit that haunts +the forest of Fontainebleau, and is a stranger among the woodland folk, +the _fades_ and nixies. To this goddess, "being triple in her divided +deity," M. De Banville has written his hymn in the characteristic form of +the old French _ballade_. The translator may borrow Chaucer's apology-- + + "And eke to me it is a grete penaunce, + Syth rhyme in English hath such scarsete + To folowe, word by word, the curiosite + Of _Banville_, flower of them that make in France." + + "BALLADE SUR LES HOTES MYSTERIEUX DE LA FORET + + "Still sing the mocking fairies, as of old, + Beneath the shade of thorn and holly tree; + The west wind breathes upon them pure and cold, + And still wolves dread Diana roving free, + In secret woodland with her company. + Tis thought the peasants' hovels know her rite + When now the wolds are bathed in silver light, + And first the moonrise breaks the dusky grey, + Then down the dells, with blown soft hair and bright, + And through the dim wood Dian thrids her way. + + "With water-weeds twined in their locks of gold + The strange cold forest-fairies dance in glee; + Sylphs over-timorous and over-bold + Haunt the dark hollows where the dwarf may be, + The wild red dwarf, the nixies' enemy; + Then, 'mid their mirth, and laughter, and affright, + The sudden goddess enters, tall and white, + With one long sigh for summers passed away; + The swift feet tear the ivy nets outright, + And through the dim wood Dian thrids her way. + + "She gleans her sylvan trophies; down the wold + She hears the sobbing of the stags that flee, + Mixed with the music of the hunting rolled, + But her delight is all in archery, + And nought of ruth and pity wotteth she + More than the hounds that follow on the flight; + The tall nymph draws a golden bow of might, + And thick she rains the gentle shafts that slay, + She tosses loose her locks upon the night, + And Dian through the dim wood thrids her way. + + ENVOI. + + "Prince, let us leave the din, the dust, the spite, + The gloom and glare of towns, the plague, the blight; + Amid the forest leaves and fountain spray + There is the mystic home of our delight, + And through the dim wood Dian thrids her way." + +The piece is characteristic of M. De Banville's genius. Through his +throng of operatic nixies and sylphs of the ballet the cold Muse +sometimes passes, strange, but not unfriendly. He, for his part, has +never degraded the beautiful forms of old religion to make the laughing- +stock of fools. His little play, _Diane au Bois_, has grace, and +gravity, and tenderness like the tenderness of Keats, for the failings of +immortals. "The gods are jealous exceedingly if any goddess takes a +mortal man to her paramour, as Demeter chose Iasion." The least that +mortal poets can do is to show the Olympians an example of toleration. + +"Les Cariatides" have delayed us too long. They are wonderfully varied, +vigorous, and rich, and full of promise in many ways. The promise has +hardly been kept. There is more seriousness in "Les Stalactites" (1846), +it is true, but then there is less daring. There is one morsel that must +be quoted,--a fragment fashioned on the air and the simple words that +used to waken the musings of George Sand when she was a child, dancing +with the peasant children: + + "Nous n'irons plus an bois: les lauries sont coupes, + Les amours des bassins, les naiades en groupe + Voient reluire au soleil, en cristaux decoupes + Les flots silencieux qui coulaient de leur coupe, + Les lauriers sont coupes et le cerf aux abois + Tressaille au son du cor: nous n'irons plus au bois! + Ou des enfants joueurs riait la folle troupe + Parmi les lys d'argent aux pleurs du ciel trempes, + Voici l'herbe qu'on fauche et les lauriers qu'on coupe; + Nous n'irons plus au bois; les lauriers sont coupes." + +In these days Banville, like Gerard de Nerval in earlier times, +RONSARDISED. The poem 'A la Font Georges,' full of the memories of +childhood, sweet and rich with the air and the hour of sunset, is written +in a favourite metre of Ronsard's. Thus Ronsard says in his lyrical +version of five famous lines of Homer-- + + "La gresle ni la neige + N'ont tels lieux pour leur siege + Ne la foudre oncques la + Ne devala." + + (The snow, and wind, and hail + May never there prevail, + Nor thunderbolt doth fall, + Nor rain at all.) + +De Banville chose this metre, rapid yet melancholy, with its sad emphatic +cadence in the fourth line, as the vehicle of his childish memories: + + "O champs pleins de silence, + Ou mon heureuse enfance + Avait des jours encor + Tout files d'or!" + + O ma vieille Font Georges, + Vers qui les rouges-gorges + Et le doux rossignol + Prenaient leur vol! + +So this poem of the fountain of youth begins, "tout file d'or," and +closes when the dusk is washed with silver-- + + "A l'heure ou sous leurs voiles + Les tremblantes etoiles + Brodent le ciel changeant + De fleurs d'argent." + +The "Stalactites" might detain one long, but we must pass on after +noticing an unnamed poem which is the French counterpart of Keats' "Ode +to a Greek Urn": + + "Qu'autour du vase pur, trop beau pour la Bacchante, + La verveine, melee a des feuilles d'acanthe, + Fleurisse, et que plus bas des vierges lentement + S'avancent deux a deux, d'un pas sur et charmant, + Les bras pendants le long de leurs tuniques droites + Et les cheyeux tresses sur leurs tetes etroites." + +In the same volume of the definite series of poems come "Les Odelettes," +charming lyrics, one of which, addressed to Theophile Gautier, was +answered in the well-known verses called "L'Art." If there had been any +rivalry between the writers, M. De Banville would hardly have cared to +print Gautier's "Odelette" beside his own. The tone of it is infinitely +more manly: one seems to hear a deep, decisive voice replying to tones +far less sweet and serious. M. De Banville revenged himself nobly in +later verses addressed to Gautier, verses which criticise the genius of +that workman better, we think, than anything else that has been written +of him in prose or rhyme. + +The less serious poems of De Banville are, perhaps, the better known in +this country. His feats of graceful metrical gymnastics have been +admired by every one who cares for skill pure and simple. "Les Odes +Funambulesques" and "Les Occidentales" are like ornamental skating. The +author moves in many circles and cuts a hundred fantastic figures with a +perfect ease and smoothness. At the same time, naturally, he does not +advance nor carry his readers with him in any direction. "Les Odes +Funambulesques" were at first unsigned. They appeared in journals and +magazines, and, as M. de Banville applied the utmost lyrical skill to +light topics of the moment, they were the most popular of "Articles de +Paris." One must admit that they bore the English reader, and by this +time long _scholia_ are necessary for the enlightenment even of the +Parisian student. The verses are, perhaps, the "bird-chorus" of French +life, but they have not the permanent truth and delightfulness of the +"bird-chorus" in Aristophanes. One has easily too much of the Carnival, +the masked ball, the _debardeurs_, and the _pierrots_. The people at +whom M. De Banville laughed are dead and forgotten. There was a certain +M. Paul Limayrac of those days, who barked at the heels of Balzac, and +other great men, in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_. In his honour De +Banville wrote a song which parodied all popular aspirations to be a +flower. M. Limayrac was supposed to have become a blossom: + + "Sur les coteaux et dans les landes + Voltigeant comme un oiseleur + Buloz en ferait des guirlandes + Si Limayrac devenait fleur!" + +There is more of high spirits than of wit in the lyric, which became as +popular as our modern invocation of Jingo, the god of battles. It +chanced one night that M. Limayrac appeared at a masked ball in the opera- +house. He was recognised by some one in the crowd. The turbulent waltz +stood still, the music was silent, and the dancers of every hue howled at +the critic + + "Si Paul Limayrac devenait fleur!" + +Fancy a British reviewer, known as such to the British public, and +imagine that public taking a lively interest in the feuds of men of +letters! Paris, to be sure, was more or less of a university town thirty +years ago, and the students were certain to be largely represented at the +ball. + +The "Odes Funambulesques" contain many examples of M. De Banville's skill +in reviving old forms of verse--_triolets_, _rondeaux_, _chants royaux_, +and _ballades_. Most of these were composed for the special annoyance of +M. Buloz, M. Limayrac, and a M. Jacquot who called himself De Mirecourt. +The _rondeaux_ are full of puns in the refrain: "Houssaye ou c'est; lyre, +l'ire, lire," and so on, not very exhilarating. The _pantoum_, where +lines recur alternately, was borrowed from the distant Malay; but +primitive _pantoum_, in which the last two lines of each stanza are the +first two of the next, occur in old French folk-song. The popular trick +of repetition, affording a rest to the memory of the singer, is perhaps +the origin of all refrains. De Banville's later satires are directed +against permanent objects of human indignation--the little French +debauchee, the hypocritical friend of reaction, the bloodthirsty +_chauviniste_. Tired of the flashy luxury of the Empire, his memory goes +back to his youth-- + + "Lorsque la levre de l'aurore + Baisait nos yeux souleves, + Et que nous n'etions pas encore + La France des petits creves." + +The poem "Et Tartufe" prolongs the note of a satire always popular in +France--the satire of Scarron, Moliere, La Bruyere, against the clerical +curse of the nation. The Roman Question was Tartufe's stronghold at the +moment. "French interests" demanded that Italy should be headless. + + "Et Tartufe? Il nous dit entre deux cremus + Que pour tout bon Francais l'empire est a Rome, + Et qu'ayant pour aieux Romulus et Remus + Nous tetterons la louve a jamais--le pauvre homme." + +The new Tartufe worships St. Chassepot, who once, it will not be +forgotten, "wrought miracles"; but he has his doubts as to the morality +of explosive bullets. The nymph of modern warfare is addressed as she +hovers above the Geneva Convention,-- + + "Quoi, nymphe du canon raye, + Tu montres ces pudeurs risibles + Et ce petit air effraye + Devant les balles exploisibles?" + +De Banville was for long almost alone among poets in his freedom from +_Weltschmerz_, from regret and desire for worlds lost or impossible. In +the later and stupider corruption of the Empire, sadness and anger began +to vex even his careless muse. She had piped in her time to much wild +dancing, but could not sing to a waltz of mushroom speculators and +decorated capitalists. "Le Sang de la Coupe" contains a very powerful +poem, "The Curse of Venus," pronounced on Paris, the city of pleasure, +which has become the city of greed. This verse is appropriate to our own +commercial enterprise: + + "Vends les bois ou dormaient Viviane et Merlin! + L'Aigle de mont n'est fait que pour ta gibeciere; + La neige vierge est la pour fournir ta glaciere; + Le torrent qui bondit sur le roc sybillin, + Et vole, diamant, neige, ecume et poussiere, + N'est plus bon qu'a tourner tes meules de moulin!" + +In the burning indignation of this poem, M. De Banville reaches his +highest mark of attainment. "Les Exiles" is scarcely less impressive. +The outcast gods of Hellas, wandering in a forest of ancient Gaul, remind +one at once of the fallen deities of Heine, the decrepit Olympians of +Bruno, and the large utterance of Keats's "Hyperion." Among great +exiles, Victor Hugo, "le pere la-bas dans l'ile," is not forgotten: + + "Et toi qui l'accueillis, sol libre et verdoyant, + Qui prodigues les fleurs sur tes coteaux fertiles, + Et qui sembles sourire a l'ocean bruyant, + Sois benie, ile verte, entre toutes les iles." + +The hoarsest note of M. De Banville's lyre is that discordant one struck +in the "Idylles Prussiennes." One would not linger over poetry or prose +composed during the siege, in hours of shame and impotent scorn. The +poet sings how the sword, the flashing Durendal, is rusted and broken, +how victory is to him-- + + " . . . qui se cela + Dans un trou, sous la terre noire." + +He can spare a tender lyric to the memory of a Prussian officer, a lad of +eighteen, shot dead through a volume of Pindar which he carried in his +tunic. + +It is impossible to leave the poet of gaiety and good-humour in the mood +of the prisoner in besieged Paris. His "Trente Six Ballades Joyeuses" +make a far more pleasant subject for a last word. There is scarcely a +more delightful little volume in the French language than this collection +of verses in the most difficult of forms, which pour forth, with absolute +ease and fluency, notes of mirth, banter, joy in the spring, in letters, +art, and good-fellowship. + + "L'oiselet retourne aux forets; + Je suis un poete lyrique,"-- + +he cries, with a note like a bird's song. Among the thirty-six every one +will have his favourites. We venture to translate the "Ballad de +Banville": + + "AUX ENFANTS PERDUS + + "I know Cythera long is desolate; + I know the winds have stripped the garden green. + Alas, my friends! beneath the fierce sun's weight + A barren reef lies where Love's flowers have been, + Nor ever lover on that coast is seen! + So be it, for we seek a fabled shore, + To lull our vague desires with mystic lore, + To wander where Love's labyrinths, beguile; + There let us land, there dream for evermore: + 'It may be we shall touch the happy isle.' + + "The sea may be our sepulchre. If Fate, + If tempests wreak their wrath on us, serene + We watch the bolt of Heaven, and scorn the hate + Of angry gods that smite us in their spleen. + Perchance the jealous mists are but the screen + That veils the fairy coast we would explore. + Come, though the sea be vexed, and breakers roar, + Come, for the breath of this old world is vile, + Haste we, and toil, and faint not at the oar; + 'It may be we shall touch the happy isle.' + + "Grey serpents trail in temples desecrate + Where Cypris smiled, the golden maid, the queen, + And ruined is the palace of our state; + But happy loves flit round the mast, and keen + The shrill wind sings the silken cords between. + Heroes are we, with wearied hearts and sore, + Whose flower is faded and whose locks are hoar. + Haste, ye light skiffs, where myrtle thickets smile; + Love's panthers sleep 'mid roses, as of yore: + 'It may be we shall touch the happy isle.' + + ENVOI. + + "Sad eyes! the blue sea laughs, as heretofore. + All, singing birds, your happy music pour; + Ah, poets, leave the sordid earth awhile; + Flit to these ancient gods we still adore: + 'It may be we shall touch the happy isle.'" + +Alas! the mists that veil the shore of our Cythera are not the summer +haze of Watteau, but the smoke and steam of a commercial time. + +It is as a lyric poet that we have studied M. De Banville. "Je ne +m'entends qu'a la meurique," he says in his ballad on himself; but he can +write prose when he pleases. + +It is in his drama of _Gringoire_ acted at the Theatre Francais, and +familiar in the version of Messrs. Pollock and Besant, that M. De +Banville's prose shows to the best advantage. Louis XI. is supping with +his bourgeois friends and with the terrible Olivier le Daim. Two +beautiful girls are of the company, friends of Pierre Gringoire, the +strolling poet. Presently Gringoire himself appears. He is dying of +hunger; he does not recognise the king, and he is promised a good supper +if he will recite the new satirical "Ballade des Pendus," which he has +made at the monarch's expense. Hunger overcomes his timidity, and, +addressing himself especially to the king, he enters on this goodly +matter: + + "Where wide the forest boughs are spread, + Where Flora wakes with sylph and fay, + Are crowns and garlands of men dead, + All golden in the morning gay; + Within this ancient garden grey + Are clusters such as no mail knows, + Where Moor and Soldan bear the sway: + _This is King Louis' orchard close_! + + "These wretched folk wave overhead, + With such strange thoughts as none may say; + A moment still, then sudden sped, + They swing in a ring and waste away. + The morning smites them with her ray; + They toss with every breeze that blows, + They dance where fires of dawning play: + _This is King Louis' orchard close_! + + "All hanged and dead, they've summoned + (With Hell to aid, that hears them pray) + New legions of an army dread, + Now down the blue sky flames the day; + The dew dies off; the foul array + Of obscene ravens gathers and goes, + With wings that flap and beaks that flay: + _This is King Louis' orchard close_! + + ENVOI. + + "Prince, where leaves murmur of the May, + A tree of bitter clusters grows; + The bodies of men dead are they! + _This is King Louis' orchard close_! + +Poor Gringoire has no sooner committed himself, than he is made to +recognise the terrible king. He pleads that, if he must join the ghastly +army of the dead, he ought, at least, to be allowed to finish his supper. +This the king grants, and in the end, after Gringoire has won the heart +of the heroine, he receives his life and a fair bride with a full dowry. + +_Gringoire_ is a play very different from M. De Banville's other dramas, +and it is not included in the pretty volume of "Comedies" which closes +the Lemerre series of his poems. The poet has often declared, with an +iteration which has been parodied by M. Richepin, that "comedy is the +child of the ode," and that a drama without the "lyric" element is +scarcely a drama at all. While comedy retains either the choral ode in +its strict form, or its representative in the shape of lyric enthusiasm +(_le lyrisme_), comedy is complete and living. _Gringoire_, to our mind, +has plenty of lyric enthusiasm; but M. De Banville seems to be of a +different opinion. His republished "Comedies" are more remote from +experience than _Gringoire_, his characters are ideal creatures, familiar +types of the stage, like Scapin and "le beau Leandre," or ethereal +persons, or figures of old mythology, like Diana in _Diane au Bois_, and +Deidamia in the piece which shows Achilles among women. M. De Banville's +dramas have scarcely prose enough in them to suit the modern taste. They +are masques for the delicate diversion of an hour, and it is not in the +nature of things that they should rival the success of blatant +buffooneries. His earliest pieces--_Le Feuilleton d'Aristophane_ (acted +at the Odeon, Dec. 26th, 1852), and _Le Cousin du Roi_ (Odeon, April 4th, +1857)--were written in collaboration with Philoxene Boyer, a generous but +indiscreet patron of singers. + + "Dans les salons de Philoxene + Nous etions quatre-vingt rimeurs," + +M. De Banville wrote, parodying the "quatre-vingt ramuers" of Victor +Hugo. The memory of M. Boyer's enthusiasm for poetry and his amiable +hospitality are not unlikely to survive both his compositions and those +in which M. De Banville aided him. The latter poet began to walk alone +as a playwright in _Le Beau Leandre_ (Vaudeville, 1856)--a piece with +scarcely more substance than the French scenes in the old Franco-Italian +drama possess. We are taken into an impossible world of gay +non-morality, where a wicked old bourgeois, Orgon, his daughter +Colombine, a pretty flirt, and her lover Leandre, a light-hearted scamp, +bustle through their little hour. Leandre, who has no notion of being +married, says, "Le ciel n'est pas plus pur que mes intentions." And the +artless Colombine replies, "Alors marions-nous!" To marry Colombine +without a dowry forms, as a modern novelist says, "no part of Leandre's +profligate scheme of pleasure." There is a sort of treble intrigue. +Orgon wants to give away Colombine dowerless, Leandre to escape from the +whole transaction, and Colombine to secure her _dot_ and her husband. The +strength of the piece is the brisk action in the scene when Leandre +protests that he can't rob Orgon of his only daughter, and Orgon insists +that he can refuse nothing except his ducats to so charming a son-in-law. +The play is redeemed from sordidness by the costumes. Leandre is dressed +in the attire of Watteau's "L'Indifferent" in the Louvre, and wears a +diamond-hilted sword. The lady who plays the part of Colombine may +select (delightful privilege!) the prettiest dress in Watteau's +collection. + +This love of the glitter of the stage is very characteristic of De +Banville. In his _Deidamie_ (Odeon, Nov. 18th, 1876) the players who +took the roles of Thetis, Achilles, Odysseus, Deidamia, and the rest, +were accoutred in semi-barbaric raiment and armour of the period +immediately preceding the Graeco-Phoenician (about the eighth century +B.C.). Again we notice the touch of pedantry in the poet. As for the +play, the sombre thread in it is lent by the certainty of Achilles' early +death, the fate which drives him from Deidamie's arms, and from the sea +king's isle to the leagues under the fatal walls of Ilion. Of comic +effect there is plenty, for the sisters of Deidamie imitate all the acts +by which Achilles is likely to betray himself--grasp the sword among the +insidious presents of Odysseus, when he seizes the spear, and drink each +one of them a huge beaker of wine to the confusion of the Trojans. {70} +On a Parisian audience the imitations of the tone of the Odyssey must +have been thrown away. For example, here is a passage which is as near +being Homeric as French verse can be. Deidamie is speaking in a +melancholy mood: + + "Heureux les epoux rois assis dans leur maison, + Qui voient tranquillement s'enfuir chaque saison-- + L'epoux tenant son sceptre, environne de gloire, + Et l'epouse filant sa quenouille d'ivoire! + Mais le jeune heros que, la glaive a son franc! + Court dans le noir combat, les mains teintes de sang, + Laisse sa femme en pleurs dans sa haute demeure." + +With the accustomed pedantry, M. De Banville, in the scene of the +banquet, makes the cup-bearer go round dealing out a little wine, with +which libation is made, and then the feast goes on in proper Homeric +fashion. These overwrought details are forgotten in the parting scenes, +where Deidamie takes what she knows to be her last farewell of Achilles, +and girds him with his sword: + + "La lame de l'epee, en sa forme divine + Est pareille a la feuille austere du laurier!" + +Let it be noted that each of M. De Banville's more serious plays ends +with the same scene, with slight differences. In _Florise_ (never put on +the stage) the wandering actress of Hardy's troupe leaves her lover, the +young noble, and the shelter of his castle, to follow where art and her +genius beckon her. In _Diane au Bois_ the goddess "that leads the +precise life" turns her back on Eros, who has subdued even her, and +passes from the scene as she waves her hand in sign of a farewell +ineffably mournful. Nearer tragedy than this M. De Banville does not +care to go; and if there is any deeper tragedy in scenes of blood and in +stages strewn with corpses, from that he abstains. His _Florise_ is +perhaps too long, perhaps too learned; and certainly we are asked to +believe too much when a kind of etherealised Consuelo is set before us as +the _prima donna_ of old Hardy's troupe: + + "Mais Florise n'est pas une femme. Je suis + L'harmonieuse voix que berce vos ennuis; + Je suis la lyre aux sons divers que le poete + Fait resonner et qui sans lui serait muette-- + Une comedienne enfin. Je ne suis pas + Une femme." + +An actress who was not a woman had little to do in the company of +Scarron's Angelique and Mademoiselle de l'Estoile. Florise, in short, is +somewhat too allegorical and haughty a creature; while Colombine and +Nerine (Vaudeville, June 1864) are rather tricksy imps than women of +flesh and blood. M. De Banville's stage, on the whole, is one of glitter +and fantasy; yet he is too much a Greek for the age that appreciates "la +belle Helene," too much a lyric dramatist to please the contemporaries of +Sardou; he lends too much sentiment and dainty refinement to characters +as flimsy as those of Offenbach's drama. + +Like other French poets, M. De Banville has occasionally deigned to write +_feuilletons_ and criticisms. Not many of these scattered leaves are +collected, but one volume, "La Mer de Nice" (Poulet-Malassis et De +Broise, Paris, 1861), may be read with pleasure even by jealous admirers +of Gautier's success as a chronicler of the impressions made by southern +scenery. + +To De Banville (he does not conceal it) a journey to a place so far from +Paris as the Riviera was no slight labour. Even from the roses, the +palms, the siren sea, the wells of water under the fronds of maiden-hair +fern, his mind travels back wistfully to the city of his love. + +"I am, I have always been, one of those devotees of Paris who visit +Greece only when they gaze on the face, so fair and so terrible, of the +twice-victorious Venus of the Louvre. One of those obstinate adorers of +my town am I, who will never see Italy, save in the glass that reflects +the tawny hair of Titian's Violante, or in that dread isle of Alcinous +where Lionardo shows you the mountain peaks that waver in the blue behind +the mysterious Monna Lisa. But the Faculty of Physicians, which has, I +own, the right to be sceptical, does not believe that neuralgia can be +healed by the high sun which Titian and Veronese have fixed on the +canvas. To me the Faculty prescribes the real sun of nature and of life; +and here am I, condemned to learn in suffering all that passes in the +mind of a poet of Paris exiled from that blessed place where he finds the +Cyclades and the islands blossoming, the vale of Avalon, and all the +heavenly homes of the fairies of experience and desire." + +Nice is Tomi to this Ovid, but he makes the best of it, and sends to the +editor of the _Moniteur_ letters much more diverting than the "Tristia." +To tell the truth, he never overcomes his amazement at being out of Paris +streets, and in a glade of the lower Alps he loves to be reminded of his +dear city of pleasure. Only under the olives of Monaco, those solemn and +ancient trees, he feels what surely all men feel who walk at sunset +through their shadow--the memory of a mysterious twilight of agony in an +olive garden. + +"Et ceux-ci, les pales oliviers, n'est-ce pas de ces heures desolees ou, +comme torture supreme, le Sauveur acceptait en son ame l'irreparable +misere du doute, n'est-ce pas alors qu'il ont appris de lui a courber le +front sous le poids imperieux des souvenirs?" + +The pages which M. De Banville consecrates to the Villa Sardou, where +Rachel died, may disenchant, perhaps, some readers of Mr. Matthew +Arnold's sonnet. The scene of Rachel's death has been spoiled by +"improvements" in too theatrical taste. All these notes, however, were +made many years ago; and visitors of the Riviera, though they will find +the little book charming where it speaks of seas and hills, will learn +that France has greatly changed the city which she has annexed. As a +practical man and a Parisian, De Banville has printed (pp. 179-81) a +recipe for the concoction of the Marseilles dish, _bouillabaisse_, the +mess that Thackeray's ballad made so famous. It takes genius, however, +to cook _bouillabaisse_; and, to parody what De Banville says about his +own recipe for making a mechanical "ballade," "en employment ce moyen, on +est sur de faire une mauvaise, irremediablement mauvaise +_bouillabaisse_." The poet adds the remark that "une bouillabaisse +reussie vaut un sonnet sans defaut." + +There remains one field of M. De Banville's activity to be shortly +described. Of his "Emaux Parisiens," short studies of celebrated +writers, we need say no more than that they are written in careful prose. +M. De Banville is not only a poet, but in his "Petit Traite de Poesie +Francaise" (Bibliotheque de l'Echo de la Sorbonne, s.d.) a teacher of the +mechanical part of poetry. He does not, of course, advance a paradox +like that of Baudelaire, "that poetry can be taught in thirty lessons." +He merely instructs his pupil in the material part--the scansion, metres, +and so on--of French poetry. In this little work he introduces these +"traditional forms of verse," which once caused some talk in England: the +_rondel_, _rondeau_, _ballade,_ _villanelle_, and _chant royal_. It may +be worth while to quote his testimony as to the merit of these modes of +expression. "This cluster of forms is one of our most precious +treasures, for each of them forms a rhythmic whole, complete and perfect, +while at the same time they all possess the fresh and unconscious grace +which marks the productions of primitive times." Now, there is some +truth in this criticism; for it is a mark of man's early ingenuity, in +many arts, to seek complexity (where you would expect simplicity), and +yet to lend to that complexity an infantine naturalness. One can see +this phenomenon in early decorative art, and in early law and custom, and +even in the complicated structure of primitive languages. Now, just as +early, and even savage, races are our masters in the decorative use of +colour and of carving, so the nameless master-singers of ancient France +may be our teachers in decorative poetry, the poetry some call _vers de +societe_. Whether it is possible to go beyond this, and adapt the old +French forms to serious modern poetry, it is not for any one but time to +decide. In this matter, as in greater affairs, _securus judicat orbis +terrarum_. For my own part I scarcely believe that the revival would +serve the nobler ends of English poetry. Now let us listen again to De +Banville. + +"In the _rondel_, as in the _rondeau_ and the _ballade_, all the art is +to bring in the refrain without effort, naturally, gaily, and each time +with novel effect and with fresh light cast on the central idea." Now, +you can _teach_ no one to do that, and M. De Banville never pretends to +give any recipes for cooking _rondels_ or _ballades_ worth reading. +"Without poetic _vision_ all is mere marquetery and cabinet-maker's work: +that is, so far as poetry is concerned--nothing." It is because he was a +poet, not a mere craftsman, that Villon was and remains the king, the +absolute master, of ballad-land." About the _rondeau_, M. De Banville +avers that it possesses "nimble movement, speed, grace, lightness of +touch, and, as it were, an ancient fragrance of the soil, that must charm +all who love our country and our country's poetry, in its every age." As +for the _villanelle_, M. De Banville declares that it is the fairest +jewel in the casket of the muse Erato; while the _chant royal_ is a kind +of fossil poem, a relic of an age when kings and allegories flourished. +"The kings and the gods are dead," like Pan; or at least we no longer +find them able, by touch royal or divine, to reanimate the magnificent +_chant royal_. + +This is M. De Banville's apology in _pro lyra sua_, that light lyre of +many tones, in whose jingle the eternal note of modern sadness is heard +so rarely. If he has a lesson to teach English versifiers, surely it is +a lesson of gaiety. They are only too fond of rue and rosemary, and now +and then prefer the cypress to the bay. M. De Banville's muse is content +to wear roses in her locks, and perhaps may retain, for many years, a +laurel leaf from the ancient laurel tree which once sheltered the poet at +Turbia. + + + + +HOMER AND THE STUDY OF GREEK + + +The Greek language is being ousted from education, here, in France, and +in America. The speech of the earliest democracies is not democratic +enough for modern anarchy. There is nothing to be gained, it is said, by +a knowledge of Greek. We have not to fight the battle of life with +Hellenic waiters; and, even if we had, Romaic, or modern Greek, is much +more easily learned than the old classical tongue. The reason of this +comparative ease will be plain to any one who, retaining a vague memory +of his Greek grammar, takes up a modern Greek newspaper. He will find +that the idioms of the modern newspaper are the idioms of all newspapers, +that the grammar is the grammar of modern languages, that the opinions +are expressed in barbarous translations of barbarous French and English +journalistic _cliches_ or commonplaces. This ugly and undignified +mixture of the ancient Greek characters, and of ancient Greek words with +modern grammar and idioms, and stereotyped phrases, is extremely +distasteful to the scholar. Modern Greek, as it is at present printed, +is not the natural spoken language of the peasants. You can read a Greek +leading article, though you can hardly make sense of a Greek rural +ballad. The peasant speech is a thing of slow development; there is a +basis of ancient Greek in it, with large elements of Slavonic, Turkish, +Italian, and other imposed or imported languages. Modern literary Greek +is a hybrid of revived classical words, blended with the idioms of the +speeches which have arisen since the fall of the Roman Empire. Thus, +thanks to the modern and familiar element in it, modern Greek "as she is +writ" is much more easily learned than ancient Greek. Consequently, if +any one has need for the speech in business or travel, he can acquire as +much of it as most of us have of French, with considerable ease. People +therefore argue that ancient Greek is particularly superfluous in +schools. Why waste time on it, they ask, which could be expended on +science, on modern languages, or any other branch of education? There is +a great deal of justice in this position. The generation of men who are +now middle-aged bestowed much time and labour on Greek; and in what, it +may be asked, are they better for it? Very few of them "keep up their +Greek." Say, for example, that one was in a form with fifty boys who +began the study--it is odds against five of the survivors still reading +Greek books. The worldly advantages of the study are slight: it may lead +three of the fifty to a good degree, and one to a fellowship; but good +degrees may be taken in other subjects, and fellowships may be abolished, +or "nationalised," with all other forms of property. + +Then, why maintain Greek in schools? Only a very minute percentage of +the boys who are tormented with it really learn it. Only a still smaller +percentage can read it after they are thirty. Only one or two gain any +material advantage by it. In very truth, most minds are not framed by +nature to excel and to delight in literature, and only to such minds and +to schoolmasters is Greek valuable. + +This is the case against Greek put as powerfully as one can state it. On +the other side, we may say, though the remark may seem absurd at first +sight, that to have mastered Greek, even if you forget it, is not to have +wasted time. It really is an educational and mental discipline. The +study is so severe that it needs the earnest application of the mind. The +study is averse to indolent intellectual ways; it will not put up with a +"there or thereabouts," any more than mathematical ideas admit of being +made to seem "extremely plausible." He who writes, and who may venture +to offer himself as an example, is naturally of a most slovenly and +slatternly mental habit. It is his constant temptation to "scamp" every +kind of work, and to say "it will do well enough." He hates taking +trouble and verifying references. And he can honestly confess that +nothing in his experience has so helped, in a certain degree, to +counteract those tendencies--as the labour of thoroughly learning certain +Greek texts--the dramatists, Thucydides, some of the books of Aristotle. +Experience has satisfied him that Greek is of real educational value, +and, apart from the acknowledged and unsurpassed merit of its literature, +is a severe and logical training of the mind. The mental constitution is +strengthened and braced by the labour, even if the language is forgotten +in later life. + +It is manifest, however, that this part of education is not for +everybody. The real educational problem is to discover what boys Greek +will be good for, and what boys will only waste time and dawdle over it. +Certainly to men of a literary turn (a very minute percentage), Greek is +of an inestimable value. Great poets, even, may be ignorant of it, as +Shakespeare probably was, as Keats and Scott certainly were, as Alexandre +Dumas was. But Dumas regretted his ignorance; Scott regretted it. We +know not how much Scott's admitted laxity of style and hurried careless +habit might have been modified by a knowledge of Greek; how much of +grace, permanence, and generally of art, his genius might have gained +from the language and literature of Hellas. The most Homeric of modern +men could not read Homer. As for Keats, he was born a Greek, it has been +said; but had he been born with a knowledge of Greek, he never, probably, +would have been guilty of his chief literary faults. This is not +certain, for some modern men of letters deeply read in Greek have all the +qualities of fustian and effusiveness which Longinus most despised. Greek +will not make a luxuriously Asiatic mind Hellenic, it is certain; but it +may, at least, help to restrain effusive and rhetorical gabble. Our +Asiatic rhetoricians might perhaps be even more barbarous than they are +if Greek were a sealed book to them. However this may be, it is, at +least, well to find out in a school what boys are worth instructing in +the Greek language. Now, of their worthiness, of their chances of +success in the study, Homer seems the best touchstone; and he is +certainly the most attractive guide to the study. + +At present boys are introduced to the language of the Muses by +pedantically written grammars, full of the queerest and most arid +metaphysical and philological verbiage. The very English in which these +deplorable books are composed may be scientific, may be comprehensible by +and useful to philologists, but is utterly heart-breaking to boys. + +Philology might be made fascinating; the history of a word, and of the +processes by which its different forms, in different senses, were +developed, might be made as interesting as any other story of events. But +grammar is not taught thus: boys are introduced to a jargon about matters +meaningless, and they are naturally as much enchanted as if they were +listening to a _chimaera bombinans in vacuo_. The grammar, to them, is a +mere buzz in a chaos of nonsense. They have to learn the buzz by rote; +and a pleasant process that is--a seductive initiation into the +mysteries. When they struggle so far as to be allowed to try to read a +piece of Greek prose, they are only like the Marchioness in her +experience of beer: she once had a sip of it. Ten lines of Xenophon, +narrating how he marched so many parasangs and took breakfast, do not +amount to more than a very unrefreshing sip of Greek. Nobody even tells +the boys who Xenophon was, what he did there, and what it was all about. +Nobody gives a brief and interesting sketch of the great march, of its +history and objects. The boys straggle along with Xenophon, knowing not +whence or whither: + + "They stray through a desolate region, + And often are faint on the march." + +One by one they fall out of the ranks; they mutiny against Xenophon; they +murmur against that commander; they desert his flag. They determine that +anything is better than Greek, that nothing can be worse than Greek, and +they move the tender hearts of their parents. They are put to learn +German; which they do not learn, unluckily, but which they find it +comparatively easy to shirk. In brief, they leave school without having +learned anything whatever. + +Up to a certain age my experiences at school were precisely those which I +have described. Our grammar was not so philological, abstruse and arid +as the instruments of torture employed at present. But I hated Greek +with a deadly and sickening hatred; I hated it like a bully and a thief +of time. The verbs in [Greek text] completed my intellectual +discomfiture, and Xenophon routed me with horrible carnage. I could have +run away to sea, but for a strong impression that a life on the ocean +wave "did not set my genius," as Alan Breck says. Then we began to read +Homer; and from the very first words, in which the Muse is asked to sing +the wrath of Achilles, Peleus' son, my mind was altered, and I was the +devoted friend of Greek. Here was something worth reading about; here +one knew where one was; here was the music of words, here were poetry, +pleasure, and life. We fortunately had a teacher (Dr. Hodson) who was +not wildly enthusiastic about grammar. He would set us long pieces of +the Iliad or Odyssey to learn, and, when the day's task was done, would +make us read on, adventuring ourselves in "the unseen," and construing as +gallantly as we might, without grammar or dictionary. On the following +day we surveyed more carefully the ground we had pioneered or skirmished +over, and then advanced again. Thus, to change the metaphor, we took +Homer in large draughts, not in sips: in sips no epic can be enjoyed. We +now revelled in Homer like Keats in Spenser, like young horses let loose +in a pasture. The result was not the making of many accurate scholars, +though a few were made; others got nothing better than enjoyment in their +work, and the firm belief, opposed to that of most schoolboys, that the +ancients did not write nonsense. To love Homer, as Steele said about +loving a fair lady of quality, "is a liberal education." + +Judging from this example, I venture very humbly to think that any one +who, even at the age of Cato, wants to learn Greek, should begin where +Greek literature, where all profane literature begins--with Homer +himself. It was thus, not with grammars _in vacuo_, that the great +scholars of the Renaissance began. It was thus that Ascham and Rabelais +began, by jumping into Greek and splashing about till they learned to +swim. First, of course, a person must learn the Greek characters. Then +his or her tutor may make him read a dozen lines of Homer, marking the +cadence, the surge and thunder of the hexameters--a music which, like +that of the Sirens, few can hear without being lured to the seas and +isles of song. Then the tutor might translate a passage of moving +interest, like Priam's appeal to Achilles; first, of course, explaining +the situation. Then the teacher might go over some lines, minutely +pointing out how the Greek words are etymologically connected with many +words in English. Next, he might take a substantive and a verb, showing +roughly how their inflections arose and were developed, and how they +retain forms in Homer which do not occur in later Greek. There is no +reason why even this part of the lesson should be uninteresting. By this +time a pupil would know, more or less, where he was, what Greek is, and +what the Homeric poems are like. He might thus believe from the first +that there are good reasons for knowing Greek; that it is the key to many +worlds of life, of action, of beauty, of contemplation, of knowledge. +Then, after a few more exercises in Homer, the grammar being judiciously +worked in along with the literature of the epic, a teacher might discern +whether it was worth while for his pupils to continue in the study of +Greek. Homer would be their guide into the "realms of gold." + +It is clear enough that Homer is the best guide. His is the oldest +extant Greek, his matter is the most various and delightful, and most +appeals to the young, who are wearied by scraps of Xenophon, and who +cannot be expected to understand the Tragedians. But Homer is a poet for +all ages, all races, and all moods. To the Greeks the epics were not +only the best of romances, the richest of poetry; not only their oldest +documents about their own history,--they were also their Bible, their +treasury of religious traditions and moral teaching. With the Bible and +Shakespeare, the Homeric poems are the best training for life. There is +no good quality that they lack: manliness, courage, reverence for old age +and for the hospitable hearth; justice, piety, pity, a brave attitude +towards life and death, are all conspicuous in Homer. He has to write of +battles; and he delights in the joy of battle, and in all the movement of +war. Yet he delights not less, but more, in peace: in prosperous cities, +hearths secure, in the tender beauty of children, in the love of wedded +wives, in the frank nobility of maidens, in the beauty of earth and sky +and sea, and seaward murmuring river, in sun and snow, frost and mist and +rain, in the whispered talk of boy and girl beneath oak and pine tree. + +Living in an age where every man was a warrior, where every city might +know the worst of sack and fire, where the noblest ladies might be led +away for slaves, to light the fire and make the bed of a foreign master, +Homer inevitably regards life as a battle. To each man on earth comes +"the wicked day of destiny," as Malory unconsciously translates it, and +each man must face it as hardily as he may. + +Homer encourages them by all the maxims of chivalry and honour. His +heart is with the brave of either side--with Glaucus and Sarpedon of +Lycia no less than with Achilles and Patroclus. "Ah, friend," cries +Sarpedon, "if once escaped from this battle we were for ever to be +ageless and immortal, neither would I myself fight now in the foremost +ranks, nor would I urge thee into the wars that give renown; but now--for +assuredly ten thousand fates of death on every side beset us, and these +may no man shun, nor none avoid--forward now let us go, whether we are to +give glory or to win it!" And forth they go, to give and take renown and +death, all the shields and helms of Lycia shining behind them, through +the dust of battle, the singing of the arrows, the hurtling of spears, +the rain of stones from the Locrian slings. And shields are smitten, and +chariot-horses run wild with no man to drive them, and Sarpedon drags +down a portion of the Achaean battlement, and Aias leaps into the trench +with his deadly spear, and the whole battle shifts and shines beneath the +sun. Yet he who sings of the war, and sees it with his sightless eyes, +sees also the Trojan women working at the loom, cheating their anxious +hearts with broidery work of gold and scarlet, or raising the song to +Athene, or heating the bath for Hector, who never again may pass within +the gates of Troy. He sees the poor weaving woman, weighing the wool, +that she may not defraud her employers, and yet may win bread for her +children. He sees the children, the golden head of Astyanax, his +shrinking from the splendour of the hero's helm. He sees the child +Odysseus, going with his father through the orchard, and choosing out +some apple trees "for his very own." It is in the mouth of the ruthless +Achilles, the fatal, the fated, the swift-footed hero with the hands of +death, that Homer places the tenderest of his similes. "Wherefore +weepest thou, Patroclus, like a fond little maid, that runs by her +mother's side, praying her mother to take her up, snatching at her gown, +and hindering her as she walks, and tearfully looking at her till her +mother takes her up?--like her, Patroclus, dost thou softly weep." + +This is what Chesterfield calls "the porter-like language of Homer's +heroes." Such are the moods of Homer, so full of love of life and all +things living, so rich in all human sympathies, so readily moved when the +great hound Argus welcomes his master, whom none knew after twenty years, +but the hound knew him, and died in that welcome. With all this love of +the real, which makes him dwell so fondly on every detail of armour, of +implement, of art; on the divers-coloured gold-work of the shield, on the +making of tires for chariot-wheels, on the forging of iron, on the rose- +tinted ivory of the Sidonians, on cooking and eating and sacrificing, on +pet dogs, on wasps and their ways, on fishing, on the boar hunt, on +scenes in baths where fair maidens lave water over the heroes, on +undiscovered isles with good harbours and rich land, on ploughing, +mowing, and sowing, on the furniture of houses, on the golden vases +wherein the white dust of the dead is laid,--with all this delight in the +real, Homer is the most romantic of poets. He walks with the surest foot +in the darkling realm of dread Persephone, beneath the poplars on the +solemn last beach of Ocean. He has heard the Siren's music, and the song +of Circe, chanting as she walks to and fro, casting the golden shuttle +through the loom of gold. He enters the cave of the Man Eater; he knows +the unsunned land of the Cimmerians; in the summer of the North he has +looked, from the fiord of the Laestrygons, on the Midnight Sun. He has +dwelt on the floating isle of AEolus, with its wall of bronze unbroken, +and has sailed on those Phaeacian barks that need no help of helm or oar, +that fear no stress either of wind or tide, that come and go and return +obedient to a thought and silent as a dream. He has seen the four +maidens of Circe, daughters of wells and woods, and of sacred streams. He +is the second-sighted man, and beholds the shroud that wraps the living +who are doomed, and the mystic dripping from the walls of blood yet +unshed. He has walked in the garden closes of Phaeacia, and looked on +the face of gods who fare thither, and watch the weaving of the dance. He +has eaten the honey-sweet fruit of the lotus, and from the hand of Helen +he brings us that Egyptian nepenthe which puts all sorrow out of mind. +His real world is as real as that in _Henry V._, his enchanted isles are +charmed with the magic of the _Tempest_. His young wooers are as +insolent as Claudio, as flushed with youth; his beggar-men are brethren +of Edie Ochiltree; his Nausicaa is sister to Rosalind, with a different +charm of stately purity in love. His enchantresses hold us yet with +their sorceries; his Helen is very Beauty: she has all the sweetness of +ideal womanhood, and her repentance is without remorse. His Achilles is +youth itself, glorious, cruel, pitiful, splendid, and sad, ardent and +loving, and conscious of its doom. Homer, in truth, is to be matched +only with Shakespeare, and of Shakespeare he has not the occasional +wilfulness, freakishness, and modish obscurity. He is a poet all of +gold, universal as humanity, simple as childhood, musical now as the flow +of his own rivers, now as the heavy plunging wave of his own Ocean. + +Such, then, as far as weak words can speak of him, is the first and +greatest of poets. This is he whom English boys are to be ignorant of, +if Greek be ousted from our schools, or are to know only in the +distorting mirror of a versified, or in the pale shadow of a prose +translation. Translations are good only as teachers to bring men to +Homer. English verse has no measure which even remotely suggests the +various flow of the hexameter. Translators who employ verse give us a +feeble Homer, dashed with their own conceits, and moulded to their own +style. Translators who employ prose "tell the story without the song," +but, at least, they add no twopenny "beauties" and cheap conceits of +their own. + +I venture to offer a few examples of original translation, in which the +mannerisms of poets who have, or have not, translated Homer, are +parodied, and, of course (except in the case of Pope), exaggerated. The +passage is the speech of the Second-sighted Man, before the slaying of +the wooers in the hall:-- + + "Ah! wretched men, what ill is this ye suffer? In night are swathed + your heads, your faces, your knees; and the voice of wailing is + kindled, and cheeks are wet with tears, and with blood drip the walls, + and the fair main beams of the roof, and the porch is full of shadows, + and full is the courtyard, of ghosts that hasten hellward below the + darkness, and the sun has perished out of heaven, and an evil mist + sweeps up over all." + +So much for Homer. The first attempt at metric translation here given is +meant to be in the manner of Pope: + + "Caitiffs!" he cried, "what heaven-directed blight + Involves each countenance with clouds of night! + What pearly drop the ashen cheek bedews! + Why do the walls with gouts ensanguined ooze? + The court is thronged with ghosts that 'neath the gloom + Seek Pluto's realm, and Dis's awful doom; + In ebon curtains Phoebus hides his head, + And sable mist creeps upward from the dead." + +This appears pretty bad, and nearly as un-Homeric as a translation could +possibly be. But Pope, aided by Broome and Fenton, managed to be much +less Homeric, much more absurd, and infinitely more "classical" in the +sense in which Pope is classical: + + "O race to death devote! with Stygian shade + Each destined peer impending fates invade; + With tears your wan distorted cheeks are drowned; + With sanguine drops the walls are rubied round: + Thick swarms the spacious hall with howling ghosts, + To people Orcus and the burning coasts! + Nor gives the sun his golden orb to roll, + But universal night usurps the pole." + +Who could have conjectured that even Pope would wander away so far from +his matchless original? "Wretches!" cries Theoclymenus, the seer; and +that becomes, "O race to death devote!" "Your heads are swathed in +night," turns into "With Stygian shade each destined peer" (peer is +good!) "impending fates invade," where Homer says nothing about Styx nor +peers. The Latin Orcus takes the place of Erebus, and "the burning +coasts" are derived from modern popular theology. The very grammar +detains or defies the reader; is it the sun that does not give his golden +orb to roll, or who, or what? + +The only place where the latter-day Broome or Fenton can flatter himself +that he rivals Pope at his own game is-- + + "What pearly drop the ashen cheek bedews!" + +This is, if possible, _more_ classical than Pope's own-- + + "With tears your wan distorted cheeks are drowned." + +But Pope nobly revindicates his unparalleled power of translating +funnily, when, in place of "the walls drip with blood," he writes-- + + "With sanguine drops the walls are rubied round." + +Homer does not appear to have been acquainted with rubies; but what of +that? And how noble, how eminently worthy of Pope it is to add that the +ghosts "howl"! I tried to make them gibber, but ghosts _do_ gibber in +Homer (though not in this passage), so Pope, Fenton, Broome, and Co., +make them howl. + +No, Pope is not lightly to be rivalled by a modern translator. The +following example, a far-off following of a noted contemporary poet, may +be left unsigned-- + + "Wretches, the bane hath befallen, the night and the blight of your + sin + Sweeps like a shroud o'er the faces and limbs that were gladsome + therein; + And the dirge of the dead breaketh forth, and the faces of all men are + wet, + And the walls are besprinkled with blood, and the ghosts in the + gateway are met, + Ghosts in the court and the gateway are gathered, Hell opens her lips, + And the sun in his splendour is shrouded, and sickens in spasm of + eclipse." + +The next is longer and slower: the poet has a difficulty in telling his +story: + + "Wretches," he cried, "what doom is this? what night + Clings like a face-cloth to the face of each,-- + Sweeps like a shroud o'er knees and head? for lo! + The windy wail of death is up, and tears + On every cheek are wet; each shining wall + And beauteous interspace of beam and beam + Weeps tears of blood, and shadows in the door + Flicker, and fill the portals and the court-- + Shadows of men that hellwards yearn--and now + The sun himself hath perished out of heaven, + And all the land is darkened with a mist." + +That could never be mistaken for a version by the Laureate, as perhaps +any contemporary hack's works might have been taken for Pope's. The +difficulty, perhaps, lies here: any one knows where to have Pope, any one +knows that he will evade the _mot propre_, though the precise evasion he +may select is hard to guess. But the Laureate would keep close to his +text, and yet would write like himself, very beautifully, but not with an +Homeric swiftness and strength. Who is to imitate him? As to Mr. +William Morris, he might be fabled to render [Greek text] "niddering +wights," but beyond that, conjecture is baffled. {91} Or is _this_ the +kind of thing?-- + + "Niddering wights, what a bane do ye bear, for your knees in the + night, + And your heads and your faces, are shrouded, and clamour that knows + not delight + Rings, and your cheeks are begrutten, and blood is besprent on the + walls, + Blood on the tapestry fair woven, and barrow-wights walk in the halls. + Fetches and wraiths of the chosen of the Norns, and the sun from the + lift + Shudders, and over the midgarth and swan's bath the cloud-shadows + drift." + +It may be argued that, though this is perhaps a translation, it is not +English, never was, and never will be. But it is quite as like Homer as +the performance of Pope. + +Such as these, or not so very much better than these as might be wished, +are our efforts to translate Homer. From Chapman to Avia, or Mr. William +Morris, they are all eminently conscientious, and erroneous, and futile. +Chapman makes Homer a fanciful, euphuistic, obscure, and garrulous +Elizabethan, but Chapman has fire. Pope makes him a wit, spirited, +occasionally noble, full of points, and epigrams, and queer rococo +conventionalisms. Cowper makes him slow, lumbering, a Milton without the +music. Maginn makes him pipe an Irish jig:-- + + "Scarcely had she begun to wash + When she was aware of the grisly gash!" + +Lord Derby makes him respectable and ponderous. Lord Tennyson makes him +not less, but certainly not more, than Tennysonian. Homer, in the +Laureate's few fragments of experiment, is still a poet, but he is not +Homer. Mr. Morris, and Avia, make him Icelandic, and archaistic, and +hard to scan, though vigorous in his fetters for all that. Bohn makes +him a crib; and of other translators in prose it has been said, with a +humour which one of them appreciates, that they render Homer into a +likeness of the Book of Mormon. + +Homer is untranslatable. None of us can bend the bow of Eurytus, and +make the bow-string "ring sweetly at the touch, like the swallow's song." +The adventure is never to be achieved; and, if Greek is to be dismissed +from education, not the least of the sorrows that will ensue is English +ignorance of Homer. + + + + +THE LAST FASHIONABLE NOVEL + + +The editor of a great American newspaper once offered the author of these +lines a commission to explore a lost country, the seat of a fallen and +forgotten civilisation. It was not in Yucatan, or Central Africa, or +Thibet, or Kafiristan, this desolate region, once so popular, so gaudy, +so much frequented and desired. It was only the fashionable novels of +the Forties, say from 1835 to 1850, that I was requested to examine and +report upon. But I shrank from the colossal task. I am no Mr. Stanley; +and the length, the difficulties, the arduousness of the labour appalled +me. Besides, I do not know where that land lies, the land of the old +Fashionable Novel, the Kor of which Thackeray's Lady Fanny Flummery is +the Ayesha. What were the names of the old novels, and who were the +authors, and in the circulating library of what undiscoverable watering- +place are they to be found? We have heard of Mrs. Gore, we have heard of +_Tremayne_, _and Emilia Wyndham_, and the _Bachelor of the Albany_; and +many of us have read _Pelham_, or know him out of Carlyle's art, and +those great curses which he spoke. But who was the original, or who were +the originals, that sat for the portrait of the "Fashionable Authoress," +Lady Fanny Flummery? and of what work is _Lords and Liveries_ a parody? +The author is also credited with _Dukes and Dejeuners_, _Marchionesses +and Milliners_, etc. Could, any candidate in a literary examination name +the prototypes? "Let mantua-makers puff her, but not men," says +Thackeray, speaking of Lady Fanny Flummery, "and the Fashionable +Authoress is no more. Blessed, blessed thought! No more fiddle-faddle +novels! When will you arrive, O happy Golden Age!" + +Well, it has arrived, though we are none the happier for all that. The +Fashionable Novel has ceased to exist, and the place of the fashionable +authoress knows her no more. Thackeray plainly detested Lady Fanny. He +writes about her, her books, her critics, her successes, with a certain +bitterness. Can it be possible that a world which rather neglected +_Barry Lyndon_ was devoted to _Marchionesses and Milliners_? Lady Fanny +is represented as having editors and reviewers at her feet; she sits +among the flowers, like the Sirens, and around her are the bones of +critics corrupt in death. She is puffed for the sake of her bouquets, +her dinners, her affabilities and condescensions. She gives a reviewer a +great garnet pin, adorned wherewith he paces the town. Her adorers +compare her to "him who sleeps by Avon." In one of Mr. Black's novels +there is a lady of this kind, who captivates the tribe of "Log Rollers," +as Mr. Black calls them. This lady appears to myself to be a quite +impossible She. One has never met her with her wiles, nor come across +her track, even, and seen the bodies and the bones of those who perished +in puffing her. Some persons of rank and fashion have a taste for the +society of some men of letters, but nothing in the way of literary +puffery seems to come of it. Of course many critics like to give their +friends and acquaintances an applausive hand, and among their +acquaintances may be ladies of fashion who write novels; but we read +nowhere such extraordinary adulations as Augustus Timson bestowed on Lady +Fanny. The fashionable authoress is nearly extinct, though some persons +write well albeit they are fashionable. The fashionable novel is as dead +as a door nail: _Lothair_ was nearly the last of the species. There are +novelists who write about "Society," to be sure, like Mr. Norris; but +their tone is quite different. They do not speak as if Dukes and Earls +were some strange superior kind of beings; their manner is that of men +accustomed to and undazzled by Earls, writing for readers who do not care +whether the hero is a lord or a commoner. They are "at ease," though not +terribly "in Zion." Thackeray himself introduces plenty of the peerage, +but it cannot be said that he is always at ease in their society. He +remembers that they are lords, and is on his guard, very often, and +suspicious and sarcastic, except, perhaps when he deals with a gentleman +like Lord Kew. He examines them like curious wild animals in the Jardin +des Plantes. He is an accomplished naturalist, and not afraid of the +lion; but he remembers that the animal is royal, and has a title. Mr. +Norris, for instance, shows nothing of this mood. Mr. Trollope was not +afraid of his Dukes: he thought none the worse of a man because he was +the high and puissant prince of Omnium. As for most novelists, they no +longer paint fashionable society with enthusiasm. Mr. Henry James has +remarked that young British peers favour the word "beastly,"--a point +which does not always impress itself into other people so keenly as into +Mr. Henry James. In reading him you do not forget that his Tufts are +Tufts. But then Tufts are really strange animals to the denizens of the +Great Republic. Perhaps the modern realism has made novelists desert the +world where Dukes and Dowagers abound. Novelists do not know very much +about it; they are not wont to haunt the gilded saloons, and they prefer +to write about the manners which they know. A very good novel, in these +strange ruinous times, might be written with a Duke for hero; but nobody +writes it, and, if anybody did write it in the modern manner, it would +not in the least resemble the old fashionable novel. + +Here a curious point arises. We have all studied the ingenious lady who +calls herself Ouida. Now, is Ouida, or rather was Ouida in her early +state sublime, the last of the old fashionable novelists, or did +Thackeray unconsciously prophesy of her when he wrote his burlesque +_Lords and Liveries_? Think of the young earl of Bagnigge, "who was +never heard to admire anything except a _coulis de dindonneau a la St. +Menehould_, . . . or the bouquet of a flask of Medoc, of Carbonnell's +best quality, or a _goutte_ of Marasquin, from the cellars of Briggs and +Hobson." We have met such young patricians in _Under Two Flags_ and +_Idalia_. But then there is a difference: Ouida never tells us that her +hero was "blest with a mother of excellent principles, who had imbued his +young mind with that morality which is so superior to all the vain pomps +of the world." But a hero of Ouida's might easily have had a father who +"was struck down by the side of the gallant Collingwood in the Bay of +Fundy." The heroes themselves may have "looked at the Pyramids without +awe, at the Alps without reverence." They do say "_Corpo di Bacco_," and +the Duca de Montepulciano does reply, "_E' bellissima certamente_." And +their creator might conceivably remark "Non cuivis contigit." But Lady +Fanny Flummery's ladies could not dress as Ouida's ladies do: they could +not quote Petronius Arbiter; they had never heard of Suetonius. No age +reproduces itself. There is much of our old fashionable authoress in +Ouida's earlier tales; there is plenty of the Peerage, plenty of queer +French in old novels and Latin yet more queer; but where is the _elan_ +which takes archaeology with a rush, which sticks at no adventure, +however nobly incredible? where is the pathos, the simplicity, the purple +splendour of Ouida's manner, or manners? No, the spirit of the world, +mirroring itself in the minds of individuals, simpered, and that simper +was Lady Fanny Flummery. But it did many things more portentous than +simpering, when it reflected itself in Ouida. + +Is it that we do no longer gape on the aristocracy admiringly, and write +of them curiously, as if they were creatures in a Paradise? Is it that +Thackeray has converted us? In part, surely, we are just as snobbish as +ever, though the gods of our adoration totter to their fall, and "a +hideous hum" from the mob outside thrills through the temples. In +fiction, on the other hand, the world of fashion is "played out." Nobody +cares to read or write about the dear duchess. If a peer comes into a +novel he comes in, not as a coroneted curiosity, but as a man, just as if +he were a dentist, or a stockbroker. His rank is an accident; it used to +be the essence of his luminous apparition. I scarce remember a lord in +all the many works of Mr. Besant, nor do they people the romances of Mr. +Black. Mr. Kipling does not deal in them, nor Mr. George Meredith much; +Mr. Haggard hardly gets beyond a baronet, and _he_ wears chain mail in +Central Africa, and tools with an axe. Mrs. Oliphant has a Scotch peer, +but he is less interesting and prominent than his family ghost. No, we +have only Ouida left, and Mr. Norris--who writes about people of fashion, +indeed, but who has nothing in him of the old fashionable novelist. + +Is it to a Republic, to France, that we must look for our fashionable +novels--to France and to America. Every third person in M. Guy de +Maupassant's tales has a "de," and is a Marquis or a Vicomte. As for M. +Paul Bourget, one really can be happy with him in the fearless old +fashion. With him we meet Lord Henry Bohun, and M. De Casal (a Vicomte), +and all the Marquises and _Marquises_; and all the pale blue boudoirs, +and sentimental Duchesses, whose hearts are only too good, and who get +into the most complicated amorous scrapes. That young Republican, M. +Bourget, sincerely loves a _blason_, a pedigree, diamonds, lace, silver +dressing cases, silver baths, essences, pomatums, _le grand luxe_. So +does Gyp: apart from her wit, Gyp is delightful to read, introducing us +to the very best of bad company. Even M. Fortune du Boisgobey likes a +Vicomte, and is partial to the _noblesse_, while M. Georges Ohnet is +accused of entering the golden world of rank, like a man without a +wedding garment, and of being lost and at sea among his aristocrats. They +order these things better in France: they still appeal to the fine old +natural taste for rank and luxury, splendour and refinement. What is Gyp +but a Lady Fanny Flummery _reussie_,--Lady Fanny with the trifling +additional qualities of wit and daring? Observe her noble scorn of M. +George Ohnet: it is a fashionable arrogance. + +To my mind, I confess, the decay of the British fashionable novel seems +one of the most threatening signs of the times. Even in France +institutions are much more permanent than here. In France they have +fashionable novels, and very good novels too: no man of sense will deny +that they are far better than our dilettantism of the slums, or our +religious and social tracts in the disguise of romance. If there is no +new tale of treasure and bandits and fights and lions handy, may I have a +fashionable novel in French to fall back upon! Even Count Tolstoi does +not disdain the _genre_. There is some uncommonly high life in _Anna +Karenine_. He adds a great deal of psychology, to be sure; so does M. +Paul Bourget. But he takes you among smart people, who have everything +handsome about them--titles, and lands, and rents. Is it not a hard +thing that an honest British snob, if he wants to move in the highest +circles of fiction, must turn to French novelists, or Russian, or +American? As to the American novels of the _elite_ and the _beau monde_, +their elegance is obscured to English eyes, because that which makes one +New Yorker better than another, that which creates the Upper Ten Thousand +(dear phrase!) of New York, is so inconspicuous. For example, the +scientific inquirer may venture himself among the novels of two young +American authors. Few English students make this voyage of exploration. +But the romances of these ingenious writers are really, or really try to +be, a kind of fashionable novels. It is a queer domain of fashion, to be +sure, peopled by the strangest aborigines, who talk and are talked about +in a language most interesting to the philologist. Here poor Lady Fanny +Flummery would have been sadly to seek, for her characters, though noble, +were moral, and her pen was wielded on the side of Church and State. But +these western fashionables have morals and a lingo of their own, made in +equal parts of the American idioms and of expressions transferred from +the jargon of Decadence and the _Parnassiculet Contemporain_. As one +peruses these novels one thinks of a new tale to be told--_The Last of +the Fashionables_, who died away, like the buffalo and the grisly bear, +in some canon or forest of the Wild West. I think this distinguished +being, _Ultimus hominum venustiorum_, will find the last remnants of the +Gentlemanly Party in some Indian tribe, Apaches or Sioux. I see him +raised to the rank of chief, and leading the red-skinned and painted +cavaliers on the war-path against the Vulgarians of the ultimate +Democracy. To depict this dandy chief would require the art at once of a +Cooper and a Ouida. Let me attempt-- + + + +THE LAST FIGHT OF FOUR HAIR-BRUSHES + + +By this time the Sioux were flying in all directions, mowed down by the +fire of Gatling and Maxim guns. The scrub of Little Big Horn Creek was +strewn with the bodies of writhing braves. On the livid and volcanic +heights of Mount Buncombe, the painted tents were blazing merrily. But +on a mound above the creek, an ancient fortress of some long-forgotten +people, a small group of Indian horsemen, might be observed, steady as +rocks in the refluent tide of war. The fire from their Winchester +repeaters blazed out like the streamers of the Northern Lights. Again +and again the flower of the United States army had charged up the mound, +only to recoil in flight, or to line the cliff with their corpses. The +First Irish Cuirassiers had been annihilated: Parnell's own, alas! in the +heat of the combat had turned their fratricidal black-thorns on +M'Carthy's brigade, and these two gallant squadrons were mixed and +broken, falling beneath the blows of brothers estranged. + +But at last the fire from the Redmen on the bluff slackened and grew +silent. The ammunition was exhausted. There was a movement in the group +of braves. Crazy Horse and Bald Coyote turned to Four Hair-Brushes, who +sat his steed Atalanta, last winner of the last Grand National, with all +the old careless elegance of the Row. + +"Four Hair-Brushes," said Crazy Horse (and a tear rolled down his painted +cheek), "nought is left but flight." + +"Then fly," said Four Hair-Brushes, languidly, lighting a cigarette, +which he took from a diamond-studded gold _etui_, the gift of the Kaiser +in old days. + +"Nay, not without the White Chief," said Bald Coyote; and he seized the +reins of Four Hair-Brushes, to lead him from that stricken field. + +"Vous etes trop vieux jeu, mon ami," murmured Four Hair-Brushes, "je ne +suis ni Edouard II., ni Charles Edouard a Culloden. Quatre-brosses +meurt, mais il ne se rend pas." + +The Indian released his hold, baffled by the erudition and the calm +courage of his captain. + +"I make tracks," he said; and, swinging round so that his horse concealed +his body, he galloped down the bluff, and through the American cavalry, +scattering death from the arrows which he loosed under his horse's neck. + +Four Hair-Brushes was alone. + +Unarmed, as ever, he sat, save for the hunting-whip in his right hand. + +"Scalp him!" yelled the Friendly Crows. + +"Nay, take him alive: a seemlier knight never backed steed!" cried the +gallant Americans. + +From their midst rode a courteous cavalier, Captain John Barry, the +scholar, the hero of sword and pen. + +"Yield thee, Sir Knight!" he said, doffing his _kepi_ in martial +courtesy. + +Four Hair-Brushes replied to his salute, and was opening his curved and +delicate lips to speak, when a chance bullet struck him full in the +breast. He threw up his arms, reeled, and fell. The gallant American, +leaping from saddle to ground, rushed to raise his head. + +Through the war-paint he recognised him. + +"Great Heaven!" he cried, "it is--" + +"Hush!" whispered Four Hair-Brushes, with a weary smile: "let Annesley de +Vere of the Blues die unnamed. Tell them that I fell in harness." + +He did, indeed. Under his feathered and painted cloak Barry found that +Annesley, ever careful of his figure, ever loyal in love, the last of the +Dandies, yet wore the corset of Madame de Telliere. It was wet with his +life-blood. + +"So dies," said Barry, "the last English gentleman." + + + + +THACKERAY + + +"I thought how some people's towering intellects and splendid cultivated +geniuses rise upon simple, beautiful foundations hidden out of sight." +Thus, in his Letters to Mrs. Brookfield, Mr. Thackeray wrote, after +visiting the crypt of Canterbury Cathedral, with its "charming, +harmonious, powerful combination of arches and shafts, beautiful +whichever way you see them developed, like a fine music." The simile +applies to his own character and genius, to his own and perhaps to that +of most great authors, whose works are our pleasure and comfort in this +troublesome world. There are critics who profess a desire to hear +nothing, or as little as may be, of the lives of great artists, whether +their instrument of art was the pen, or the brush, or the chisel, or the +strings and reeds of music. With those critics perhaps most of us agree, +when we read books that gossip about Shelley, or Coleridge, or Byron. +"Give us their poetry," we say, "and leave their characters alone: we do +not want tattle about Claire and chatter about Harriet; we want to be +happy with 'The Skylark' or 'The Cloud.'" Possibly this instinct is +correct, where such a poet as Shelley is concerned, whose life, like his +poetry, was as "the life of winds and tides," whose genius, unlike the +skylark's, was more true to the point of heaven than the point of home. +But reflection shows us that on the whole, as Mr. Thackeray says, a man's +genius must be builded on the foundations of his character. Where that +genius deals with the mingled stuff of human life--sorrow, desire, love, +hatred, kindness, meanness--then the foundation of character is +especially important. People are sometimes glad that we know so little +of Shakespeare the man; yet who can doubt that a true revelation of his +character would be not less worthy, noble and charming than the general +effect of his poems? In him, it is certain, we should always find an +example of nobility, of generosity, of charity and kindness and +self-forgetfulness. Indeed, we find these qualities, as a rule, in the +biographies of the great sympathetic poets and men of genius of the pen--I +do not say in the lives of rebels of genius, "meteoric poets" like Byron. +The same basis, the same foundations of rectitude, of honour, of +goodness, of melancholy, and of mirth, underlie the art of Moliere, of +Scott, of Fielding, and as his correspondence shows, of Thackeray. + +It seems probable that a complete biography of Thackeray will never be +written. It was his wish to live in his works alone: that wish his +descendants respect; and we must probably regard the Letters to Mr. and +Mrs. Brookfield as the last private and authentic record of the man which +will be given, at least to this generation. In these Letters all +sympathetic readers will find the man they have long known from his +writings--the man with a heart so tender that the world often drove him +back into a bitterness of opposition, into an assumed hardness and +defensive cynicism. There are readers so unluckily constituted that they +can see nothing in Thackeray but this bitterness, this cruel sense of +meanness and power of analysing shabby emotions, sneaking vanities, +contemptible ambitions. All of us must often feel with regret that he +allowed himself to be made too unhappy by the spectacle of failings so +common in the world he knew best, that he dwelt on them too long and +lashed them too complacently. One hopes never to read "Lovel the +Widower" again, and one gladly skips some of the speeches of the Old +Campaigner in "The Newcomes." They are terrible, but not more terrible +than life. Yet it is hard to understand how Mr. Ruskin, for example, can +let such scenes and characters hide from his view the kindness, +gentleness, and pity of Thackeray's nature. The Letters must open all +eyes that are not wilfully closed, and should at last overcome every +prejudice. + +In the Letters we see a man literally hungering and thirsting after +affection, after love--a man cut off by a cruel stroke of fate from his +natural solace, from the centre of a home. + + "God took from me a lady dear," + +he says, in the most touching medley of doggerel and poetry, made +"instead of writing my _Punch_ this morning." Losing "a lady dear," he +takes refuge as he may, he finds comfort as he can, in all the affections +within his reach, in the society of an old college friend and of his +wife, in the love of all children, beginning with his own; in a generous +liking for all good work and for all good fellows. + +Did any man of letters except Scott ever write of his rivals as Thackeray +wrote of Dickens? Artists are a jealous race. "Potter hates potter, and +poet hates poet," as Hesiod said so long ago. This jealousy is not mere +envy, it is really a strong sense of how things ought to be done, in any +art, touched with a natural preference for a man's own way of doing them. +Now, what could be more unlike than the "ways" of Dickens and Thackeray? +The subjects chosen by these great authors are not more diverse than +their styles. Thackeray writes like a scholar, not in the narrow sense, +but rather as a student and a master of all the refinements and resources +of language. Dickens copies the chaff of the street, or he roams into +melodramatics, "drops into poetry"--blank verse at least--and touches all +with peculiarities, we might say mannerisms, of his own. I have often +thought, and even tried to act on the thought, that some amusing +imaginary letters might be written, from characters of Dickens about +characters of Thackeray, from characters of Thackeray about characters of +Dickens. They might be supposed to meet each other in society, and +describe each other. Can you not fancy Captain Costigan on Dick +Swiveller, Blanche Amory on Agnes, Pen on David Copperfield, and that +"tiger" Steerforth? What would the family solicitor of "The Newcomes" +have to say of Mr. Tulkinghorn? How would George Warrington appreciate +Mr. Pickwick? Yes, the two great novelists were as opposed as two men +could be--in manner, in style, in knowledge of books, and of the world. +And yet how admirably Thackeray writes about Dickens, in his letters as +in his books! How he delights in him! How manly is that emulation which +enables an author to see all the points in his rival, and not to carp at +them, but to praise, and be stimulated to keener effort! + +Consider this passage. "Have you read Dickens? O! it is charming! Brave +Dickens! It has some of his very prettiest touches--those inimitable +Dickens touches which make such a great man of him, and the reading of +the book has done another author a great deal of good." + +Thackeray is just as generous, and perhaps more critical, in writing of +Kingsley. "A fine, honest, go-a-head fellow, who charges a subject +heartily, impetuously, with the greatest courage and simplicity; but with +narrow eyes (his are extraordinarily brave, blue and honest), and with +little knowledge of the world, I think. But he is superior to us +worldlings in many ways, and I wish I had some of his honest pluck." + +I have often wished that great authors, when their days of creation were +over, when "their minds grow grey and bald," would condescend to tell us +the history of their books. Sir Walter Scott did something of this kind +in the prefaces to the last edition of the Waverley Novels published +during his life. What can be more interesting than his account, in the +introduction to the "Fortunes of Nigel," of how he worked, how he +planned, and found all his plots and plans overridden by the demon at the +end of his pen! But Sir Walter was failing when he began those literary +confessions; good as they are, he came to them too late. Yet these are +not confessions which an author can make early. The pagan Aztecs only +confessed once in a lifetime--in old age, when they had fewer temptations +to fall to their old loves: then they made a clean breast of it once for +all. So it might be with an author. While he is in his creative vigour, +we want to hear about his fancied persons, about Pendennis, Beatrix, +Becky, not about himself, and how he invented them. But when he has +passed his best, then it is he who becomes of interest; it is about +himself that we wish him to speak, as far as he modestly may. Who would +not give "Lovel the Widower" and "Philip" for some autobiographical and +literary prefaces to the older novels? They need not have been more +egotistic than the "Roundabout Papers." They would have had far more +charm. Some things cannot be confessed. We do not ask who was the +original Sir Pitt Crawley, or the original Blanche Amory. But we might +learn in what mood, in what circumstances the author wrote this passage +or that. + +The Letters contain a few notes of this kind, a few literary confessions. +We hear that Emmy Sedley was partly suggested by Mrs. Brookfield, partly +by Thackeray's mother, much by his own wife. There scarce seems room for +so many elements in Emmy's personality. For some reason ladies love her +not, nor do men adore her. I have been her faithful knight ever since I +was ten years old and read "Vanity Fair" somewhat stealthily. Why does +one like her except because she is such a thorough woman? She is not +clever, she is not very beautiful, she is unhappy, and she can be +jealous. One pities her, and that is akin to a more tender sentiment; +one pities her while she sits in the corner, and Becky's green eyes +flatter her oaf of a husband; one pities her in the poverty of her +father's house, in the famous battle over Daffy's Elixir, in the +separation from the younger George. You begin to wish some great joy to +come to her: it does not come unalloyed; you know that Dobbin had bad +quarters of an hour with this lady, and had to disguise a little of his +tenderness for his own daughter. Yes, Emmy is more complex than she +seems, and perhaps it needed three ladies to contribute the various +elements of her person and her character. One of them, the jealous one, +lent a touch to Helen Pendennis, to Laura, to Lady Castlewood. Probably +this may be the reason why some persons dislike Thackeray so. His very +best women are not angels. {109} Are the very best women angels? It is +a pious opinion--that borders on heresy. + +When the Letters began to be written, in 1847, Thackeray had his worst +years, in a worldly sense, behind him. They were past: the times when he +wrote in _Galignani_ for ten francs a day. Has any literary ghoul +disinterred his old ten-franc articles in _Galignani_? The time of +"Barry Lyndon," too, was over. He says nothing of that masterpiece, and +only a word about "The Great Hoggarty Diamond." "I have been re-reading +it. Upon my word and honour, if it doesn't make you cry, I shall have a +mean opinion of you. It was written at a time of great affliction, when +my heart was very soft and humble. Amen. Ich habe auch viel geliebt." +Of "Pendennis," as it goes on, he writes that it is "awfully stupid," +which has not been the verdict of the ages. He picks up materials as he +passes. He dines with some officers, and perhaps he stations them at +Chatteris. He meets Miss G---, and her converse suggests a love passage +between Pen and Blanche. Why did he dislike fair women so? It runs all +through his novels. Becky is fair. Blanche is fair. Outside the old +yellow covers of "Pendennis," you see the blonde mermaid, "amusing, and +clever, and depraved," dragging the lover to the sea, and the nut-brown +maid holding him back. Angelina, of the "Rose and the Ring," is the +Becky of childhood; she is fair, and the good Rosalba is _brune_. In +writing "Pendennis" he had a singular experience. He looked over his own +"back numbers," and found "a passage which I had utterly forgotten as if +I had never read or written it." In Lockhart's "Life of Scott," James +Ballantyne says that "when the 'Bride of Lammermoor' was first put into +his hands in a complete shape, he did not recollect one single incident, +character, or conversation it contained." That is to say, he remembered +nothing of his own invention, though his memory of the traditional parts +was as clear as ever. Ballantyne remarks, "The history of the human mind +contains nothing more wonderful." The experience of Thackeray is a +parallel to that of Scott. "Pendennis," it must be noted, was +interrupted by a severe illness, and "The Bride of Lammermoor" was +dictated by Sir Walter when in great physical pain. On one occasion +Thackeray "lit upon a very stupid part of 'Pendennis,' I am sorry to say; +and yet how well written it is! What a shame the author don't write a +complete good story! Will he die before doing so? or come back from +America and do it?" + +Did he ever write "a complete, good story"? Did any one ever do such a +thing as write a three-volume, novel, or a novel of equal length, which +was "a complete, good story"? Probably not; or if any mortal ever +succeeded in the task, it was the great Alexander Dumas. "The Three +Musketeers," I take leave to think, and "Twenty Years After," are +complete good stories, good from beginning to end, stories from beginning +to end without a break, without needless episode. Perhaps one may say as +much for "Old Mortality," and for "Quentin Durward." But Scott and Dumas +were born story-tellers; narrative was the essence of their genius at its +best; the current of romance rolls fleetly on, bearing with it persons +and events, mirroring scenes, but never ceasing to be the main thing--the +central interest. Perhaps narrative like this is the chief success of +the novelist. He is triumphant when he carries us on, as Wolf, the +famous critic, was carried on by the tide of the Iliad, "in that pure and +rapid current of action." Nobody would claim this especial merit for +Thackeray. He is one of the greatest of novelists; he displays human +nature and human conduct so that we forget ourselves in his persons, but +he does not make us forget ourselves in their fortunes. Whether Clive +does or does not marry Ethel, or Esmond, Beatrix, does not very greatly +excite our curiosity. We cannot ring the bells for Clive's second +wedding as the villagers celebrated the bridal of Pamela. It is the +development of character, it is the author's comments, it is his own +personality and his unmatched and inimitable style, that win our +admiration and affection. We can take up "Vanity Fair," or "Pendennis," +or "The Newcomes," just where the book opens by chance, and read them +with delight, as we may read Montaigne. When one says one can take up a +book anywhere, it generally means that one can also lay it down anywhere. +But it is not so with Thackeray. Whenever we meet him he holds us with +his charm, his humour, his eloquence, his tenderness. If he has not, in +the highest degree, the narrative power, he does possess, in a degree +perhaps beyond any other writer of English, that kind of poetic quality +which is not incompatible with prose writing. + +A great deal has been said about prose poetry. As a rule, it is very +poor stuff. As prose it has a tendency to run into blank verse; as +poetry it is highly rhetorical and self-conscious. It would be invidious +and might be irritating to select examples from modern masters of prose- +poetry. They have never been poets. But the prose of a poet like Milton +may be, and is, poetical in the true sense; and so, upon occasions, was +the prose of Thackeray. Some examples linger always in the memory, and +dwell with their music in the hearing. One I have quoted elsewhere; the +passage in "The Newcomes" where Clive, at the lecture on the Poetry of +the Domestic Affections, given by Sir Barnes Newcome, sees Ethel, whom he +has lost. + +"And the past, and its dear histories, and youth and its hopes and +passions, and tones and looks, for ever echoing in the heart and present +in the memory--those, no doubt, poor Clive saw and heard as he looked +across the great gulf of time and parting and grief, and beheld the woman +he had loved for many years." "The great gulf of time, and parting, and +grief,"--some of us are on the farther side of it, and our old selves, +and our old happiness, and our old affections beyond, grow near, grow +clear, now and then, at the sight of a face met by chance in the world, +at the chance sound of a voice. Such are human fortunes, and human +sorrows; not the worst, not the greatest, for these old loves do not +die--they live in exile, and are the better parts of our souls. Not the +greatest, nor the worst of sorrows, for shame is worse, and hopeless +hunger, and a life all of barren toil without distractions, without joy, +must be far worse. But of those myriad tragedies of the life of the +poor, Thackeray does not write. How far he was aware of them, how deeply +he felt them, we are not informed. His highest tragedy is that of the +hunger of the heart; his most noble prose sounds in that meeting of Harry +Esmond with Lady Castlewood, in the immortal speech which has the burden, +"bringing your sheaves with you!" All that scene appears to me no less +unique, no less unsurpassable, no less perfect, than the "Ode to the +Nightingale" of Keats, or the _Lycidas_ of Milton. It were superfluous +to linger over the humour of Thackeray. Only Shakespeare and Dickens +have graced the language with so many happy memories of queer, pleasant +people, with so many quaint phrases, each of which has a kind of +freemasonry, and when uttered, or recalled, makes all friends of +Thackeray into family friends of each other. The sayings of Mr. Harry +Foker, of Captain Costigan, of Gumbo, are all like old dear family +phrases, they live imperishable and always new, like the words of Sir +John, the fat knight, or of Sancho Panza, or of Dick Swiveller, or that +other Sancho, Sam Weller. They have that Shakespearian gift of being +ever appropriate, and undyingly fresh. + +These are among the graces of Thackeray, these and that inimitable style, +which always tempts and always baffles the admiring and despairing +copyist. Where did he find the trick of it, of the words which are +invariably the best words, and invariably fall exactly in the best +places? "The best words in the best places," is part of Coleridge's +definition of poetry; it is also the essence of Thackeray's prose. In +these Letters to Mrs. Brookfield the style is precisely the style of the +novels and essays. The style, with Thackeray, was the man. He could not +write otherwise. But probably, to the last, this perfection was not +mechanical, was not attained without labour and care. In Dr. John +Brown's works, in his essay on Thackeray, there is an example of a proof- +sheet on which the master has made corrections, and those corrections +bring the passage up to his accustomed level, to the originality of his +rhythm. Here is the piece:-- + + "Another Finis, another slice of life which _Tempus edax_ has + devoured! And I may have to write the word once or twice, perhaps, + and then an end of Ends. [Finite is ever and Infinite beginning.] Oh, + the troubles, the cares, the _ennui_, [the complications,] the + repetitions, the old conversations over and over again, and here and + there all the delightful passages, the dear, the brief, the forever- + remembered! + + "[And then] A few chapters more, and then the last, and behold Finis + itself coming to an end, and the Infinite beginning." + + "How like music this," writes Dr. John Brown--"like one trying the + same air in different ways, as it were, searching out and sounding all + its depths!" The words were almost the last that Thackeray wrote, + perhaps the very last. They reply, as it were, to other words which + he had written long before to Mrs. Brookfield. + + "I don't pity anybody who leaves the world; not even a fair young girl + in her prime; I pity those remaining. On her journey, if it pleases + God to send her, depend on it there's no cause for grief, that's but + an earthly condition. Out of our stormy life, and brought nearer the + Divine light and warmth, there must be a serene climate. Can't you + fancy sailing into the calm?" + +Ah! nowhere else shall we find the Golden Bride, "passionless bride, +divine Tranquillity." + +As human nature persistently demands a moral, and, as, to say truth, +Thackeray was constantly meeting the demand, what is the lesson of his +life and his writings? So people may ask, and yet how futile is the +answer! Life has a different meaning, a different riddle, a different +reply for each of us. There is not one sphinx, but many sphinxes--as +many as there are women and men. We must all answer for ourselves. +Pascal has one answer, "Believe!" Moliere has another, "Observe!" +Thackeray's answer is, "Be good and enjoy!" but a melancholy enjoyment +was his. Dr. John Brown says: + +"His persistent state, especially for the later half of his life, was +profoundly _morne_, there is no other word for it. This arose in part +from temperament, from a quick sense of the littleness and wretchedness +of mankind . . . This feeling, acting on a harsh and savage nature, ended +in the _saeva indignatio_ of Swift; acting on the kindly and sensitive +nature of Mr. Thackeray, it led only to compassionate sadness." + +A great part of his life, and most of his happiness, lay in love. "Ich +habe auch viel geliebt," he says, and it is a hazardous kind of happiness +that attends great affection. Your capital is always at the mercy of +failures, of death, of jealousy, of estrangement. But he had so much +love to give that he could not but trust those perilous investments. + +Other troubles he had that may have been diversions from those. He did +not always keep that manly common sense in regard to criticism, which he +shows in a letter to Mrs. Brookfield. "Did you read the _Spectator's_ +sarcastic notice of 'Vanity Fair'? I don't think it is just, but think +Kintoul (Rintoul?) is a very honest man, and rather inclined to deal +severely with his private friends lest he should fall into the other +extreme: to be sure he keeps out of it, I mean the other extreme, very +well." + +That is the way to take unfavourable criticisms--not to go declaring that +a man is your enemy because he does not like your book, your ballads, +your idyls, your sermons, what you please. Why cannot people keep +literature and liking apart? Am I bound to think Jones a bad citizen, a +bad man, a bad householder, because his poetry leaves me cold? Need he +regard me as a malevolent green-eyed monster, because I don't want to +read him? Thackeray was not always true in his later years to these +excellent principles. He was troubled about trifles of criticisms and +gossip, _bagatelles_ not worth noticing, still less worth remembering and +recording. Do not let us record them, then. + +We cannot expect for Thackeray, we cannot even desire for him, a +popularity like that of Dickens. If ever any man wrote for the people, +it was Dickens. Where can we find such a benefactor, and who has +lightened so many lives with such merriment as he? But Thackeray wrote, +like the mass of authors, for the literary class--for all who have the +sense of style, the delight in the best language. He will endure while +English literature endures, while English civilisation lasts. We cannot +expect all the world to share our affection for this humourist whose +mirth springs from his melancholy. His religion, his education, his life +in this unsatisfying world, are not the life, the education, the religion +of the great majority of human kind. He cannot reach so many ears and +hearts as Shakespeare or Dickens, and some of those whom he reaches will +always and inevitably misjudge him. _Mais c'est mon homme_, one may say, +as La Fontaine said of Moliere. Of modern writers, putting Scott aside, +he is to me the most friendly and sympathetic. Great genius as he was, +he was also a penman, a journalist; and journalists and penmen will +always look to him as their big brother, the man in their own line of +whom they are proudest. As devout Catholics did not always worship the +greatest saints, but the friendliest saints, their own, so we scribes +burn our cheap incense to St. William Makepeace. He could do all that +any of us could do, and he did it infinitely better. A piece of verse +for _Punch_, a paragraph, a caricature, were not beneath the dignity of +the author of "Esmond." He had the kindness and helpfulness which I, for +one, have never met a journalist who lacked. He was a good Englishman; +the boy within him never died; he loved children, and boys, and a little +slang, and a boxing match. If he had failings, who knew them better than +he? How often he is at once the boy at the swishing block and Dr. Birch +who does not spare the rod! Let us believe with that beloved physician, +our old friend Dr. John Brown, that "Mr. Thackeray was much greater, much +nobler than his works, great and noble as they are." Let us part with +him, remembering his own words: + + "Come wealth or want, come good or ill, + Let young and old accept their part, + And bow before the awful Will, + And bear it with an honest heart." + + + + +DICKENS + + +"I cannot read Dickens!" How many people make this confession, with a +front of brass, and do not seem to know how poor a figure they cut! +George Eliot says that a difference of taste in jokes is a great cause of +domestic discomfort. A difference of taste in books, when it is decided +and vigorous, breaks many a possible friendship, and nips many a young +liking in the bud. I would not willingly seem intolerant. A man may not +like Sophocles, may speak disrespectfully of Virgil, and even sneer at +Herodotus, and yet may be endured. But he or she (it is usually she) who +contemns Scott, and "cannot read Dickens," is a person with whom I would +fain have no further converse. If she be a lady, and if one meets her at +dinner, she must of course be borne with, and "suffered gladly." But she +has dug a gulf that nothing can bridge; she may be fair, clever and +popular, but she is Anathema. I feel towards her (or him if he wears a +beard) as Bucklaw did towards the person who should make inquiries about +that bridal night of Lammermoor. + +But this admission does not mean that one is sealed of the tribe of +Charles--that one is a Dickensite pure and simple, convinced and +devout--any more than Mr. Matthew Arnold was a Wordsworthian. Dickens +has many such worshippers, especially (and this is an argument in favour +of the faith) among those who knew him in his life. He must have had a +wonderful charm; for his friends in life are his literary partisans, his +uncompromising partisans, even to this day. They will have no +half-hearted admiration, and scout him who tries to speak of Dickens as +of an artist not flawless, no less than they scorn him who cannot read +Dickens at all. At one time this honourable enthusiasm (as among the +Wordsworthians) took the shape of "endless imitation." That is over; +only here and there is an imitator of the master left in the land. All +his own genius was needed to carry his mannerisms; the mannerisms without +the genius were an armour that no devoted David had proved, that none +could wear with success. + +Of all great writers since Scott, Dickens is probably the man to whom the +world owes most gratitude. No other has caused so many sad hearts to be +lifted up in laughter; no other has added so much mirth to the toilsome +and perplexed life of men, of poor and rich, of learned and unlearned. "A +vast hope has passed across the world," says Alfred de Musset; we may say +that with Dickens a happy smile, a joyous laugh, went round this earth. +To have made us laugh so frequently, so inextinguishably, so kindly--that +is his great good deed. It will be said, and with a great deal of truth, +that he has purged us with pity and terror as well as with laughter. But +it is becoming plain that his command of tears is less assured than of +old, and I cannot honestly regret that some of his pathos--not all, by +any means--is losing its charm and its certainty of appeal. Dickens's +humour was rarely too obvious; it was essentially personal, original, +quaint, unexpected, and his own. His pathos was not infrequently derived +from sources open to all the world, and capable of being drawn from by +very commonplace writers. Little Nells and Dombeys, children unhappy, +overthrown early in the _melee_ of the world, and dying among weeping +readers, no longer affect us as they affected another generation. Mrs. +Beecher Stowe and the author of "Misunderstood," once made some people +weep like anything by these simple means. Ouida can do it; plenty of +people can do it. Dickens lives by virtue of what none but he can do: by +virtue of Sairey Gamp, and Sam Weller, and Dick Swiveller, and Mr. +Squeers, with a thousand other old friends, of whom we can never weary. +No more than Cleopatra's can custom stale _their_ infinite variety. + +I do not say that Dickens' pathos is always of the too facile sort, which +plays round children's death-beds. Other pathos he has, more fine and +not less genuine. It may be morbid and contemptible to feel "a great +inclination to cry" over David Copperfield's boyish infatuation for +Steerforth; but I feel it. Steerforth was a "tiger,"--as Major Pendennis +would have said, a tiger with his curly hair and his ambrosial whiskers. +But when a little boy loses his heart to a big boy he does not think of +this. Traddles thought of it. "Shame, J. Steerforth!" cried Traddles, +when Steerforth bullied the usher. Traddles had not lost his heart, nor +set up the big boy as a god in the shrine thereof. But boys do these +things; most of us have had our Steerforths--tall, strong, handsome, +brave, good-humoured. Far off across the years I see the face of such an +one, and remember that emotion which is described in "David Copperfield," +chap. xix., towards the end of the chapter. I don't know any other +novelist who has touched this young and absolutely disinterested belief +of a little boy in a big one--touched it so kindly and seriously, that is +there is a hint of it in "Dr. Birch's School Days." + +But Dickens is always excellent in his boys, of whom he has drawn dozens +of types--all capital. There is Tommy Traddles, for example. And how +can people say that Dickens could not draw a gentleman? The boy who +shouted, "Shame, J. Steerforth!" was a gentleman, if one may pretend to +have an opinion about a theme so difficult. The Dodger and Charley Bates +are delightful boys--especially Bates. Pip, in the good old days, when +he was the prowling boy, and fought Herbert Pocket, was not less +attractive, and Herbert himself, with his theory and practice of the art +of self-defence--could Nelson have been more brave, or Shelley (as in Mr. +Matthew Arnold's opinion) more "ineffectual"? Even the boys at Dotheboys +Hall are each of them quite distinct. Dickens's boys are almost as dear +to me as Thackeray's--as little Rawdon himself. There is one exception. +I cannot interest myself in Little Dombey. Little David Copperfield is a +jewel of a boy with a turn for books. Doubtless he is created out of +Dickens's memories of himself as a child. That is true pathos again, and +not overwrought, when David is sent to Creakle's, and his poor troubled +mother dare hardly say farewell to him. + +And this brings us back to that debatable thing--the pathos of +Dickens--from which one has been withdrawn by the attractions of his +boys. Little Dombey is a prize example of his pathos. Little Nell is +another. Jeffrey, of the _Edinburgh Review_, who criticised "Marmion" +and the "Lady of the Lake" so vindictively, shed tears over Little Nell. +It is a matter of taste, or, as Science might say, of the lachrymal +glands as developed in each individual. But the lachrymal glands of this +amateur are not developed in that direction. Little Dombey and Little +Nell leave me with a pair of dry eyes. I do not "melt visibly" over +Little Dombey, like the weak-eyed young man who took out his books and +trunk to the coach. The poor little chap was feeble and feverish, and +had dreams of trying to stop a river with his childish hands, or to choke +it with sand. It may be very good pathology, but I cannot see that it is +at all right pathos. One does not like copy to be made out of the +sufferings of children or of animals. One's heart hardens: the object is +too manifest, the trick is too easy. Conceive a child of Dombey's age +remarking, with his latest breath, "Tell them that the picture on the +stairs at school is not Divine enough!" That is not the delirium of +infancy, that is art-criticism: it is the _Athenaeum_ on Mr. Holman Hunt. +It is not true to nature; it is not good in art: it is the kind of thing +that appears in Sunday-school books about the virtuous little boy who +died. There is more true pathos in many a page of "Huckleberry Finn." +Yet this is what Jeffrey gushed over. "There has been nothing like the +actual dying of that sweet Paul." So much can age enfeeble the +intellect, that he who had known Scott, and yet nibbled at his fame, +descended to admiring the feeblest of false sentiment. As for Little +Nell, who also has caused floods of tears to be shed, her case is +sufficiently illustrated by the picture in the first edition ("Master +Humphrey's Clock,", 1840, p. 210): + + "'When I die + Put near me something that has loved the light, + And had the sky above it always.' Those + Were her words." + + "Dear, gentle, patient, noble Nell was dead!" + +The pathos is about as good as the prose, and _that_ is blank verse. Are +the words in the former quotation in the least like anything that a +little girl would say? A German sentimentalist might have said them; +Obermann might have murmured them in his weaker moments. Let us try a +piece of domestic pathos by another hand. It is the dawn of Waterloo. + +"Heart-stained and shame-stricken, he stood at the bed's foot, and looked +at the sleeping girl. How dared he--who was he--to pray for one so +spotless! God bless her! God bless her! He came to the bedside, and +looked at the hand, the little soft hand, lying asleep, and he bent over +the pillow noiselessly towards the gentle pale face. Two fair arms +closed tenderly round his neck as he stooped down. 'I am awake, George,' +the poor child said, with a sob." + +I know I am making enemies of a large proportion of the readers of this +page. "Odious, sneering beast!" is the quotation which they will apply, +perhaps unconscious of its origin, to a critic who is humble but would +fain be honest, to a critic who thinks that Dickens has his weak places, +and that his pathos is one of these. It cannot be helped. Each of us +has his author who is a favourite, a friend, an idol, whose immaculate +perfection he maintains against all comers. For example, things are +urged against Scott; I receive them in the attitude of the deaf adder of +St. Augustine, who stops one ear with his tail and presses the other +against the dust. The same with Moliere: M. Scherer utters complaints +against Moliere! He would not convince me, even if I were convinced. So, +with regard to Dickens, the true believer will not listen, he will not be +persuaded. But if any one feels a little shaken, let him try it another +way. There is a character in M. Alphonse Daudet's "Froment Jeune et +Rissler Aine"--a character who, people say, is taken bodily from Dickens. +This is Desiree Delobelle, the deformed girl, the daughter of _un rate_, +a pretentious imbecile actor. She is poor, stunted, laborious, toiling +at a small industry; she is in love, is rejected, she tries to drown +herself, she dies. The sequence of ideas is in Dickens's vein; but read +the tale, and I think you will see how little the thing is overdone, how +simple and unforced it is, compared with analogous persons and scenes in +the work of the English master. The idiotic yell of "plagiarism" has +been raised, of course, by critical _cretins_. M. Daudet, as I +understand what he says in "Trente Ans de Paris," had not read Dickens at +all, when he wrote "Froment Jeune"--certainly had not read "Our Mutual +Friend." But there is something of Dickens's genius in M. Daudet's, and +that something is kept much better in hand by the Frenchman, is more +subordinated to the principles of taste and of truth. + +On the other hand, to be done with this point, look at Delobelle, the +father of Desiree, and compare him with Dickens's splendid strollers, +with Mr. Vincent Crummles, and Mr. Lenville, and the rest. As in Desiree +so in Delobelle, M. Daudet's picture is much the more truthful. But it +is truthful with a bitter kind of truth. Now, there is nothing not +genial and delightful in Crummles and Mrs. Crummles and the Infant +Phenomenon. Here Dickens has got into a region unlike the region of the +pathetic, into a world that welcomes _charge_ or caricature, the world of +humour. We do not know, we never meet Crummleses quite so +unsophisticated as Vincent, who is "not a Prussian," who "can't think who +puts these things into the papers." But we do meet stage people who come +very near to this _naivete_ of self-advertisement, and some of whom are +just as dismal as Crummles is delightful. + +Here, no doubt, is Dickens's _forte_. Here his genius is all pure gold, +in his successful studies or inventions of the humorous, of character +parts. One literally does not know where to begin or end in one's +admiration for this creative power that peopled our fancies with such +troops of dear and impossible friends. "Pickwick" comes practically +first, and he never surpassed "Pickwick." He was a poor story-teller, +and in "Pickwick" he had no story to tell; he merely wandered at +adventure in that merrier England which was before railways were. +"Pickwick" is the last of the stories of the road that begin in the +wandering, aimless, adventurous romances of Greece, or in Petronius +Arbiter, and that live with the life of "Gil Blas" and "Don Quixote," of +"Le Roman Comique," of "Tom Jones" and "Joseph Andrews." These tales are +progresses along highways bristling with adventure, and among inns full +of confusion, Mr. Pickwick's affair with the lady with yellow curl-papers +being a mild example. Though "Tom Jones" has a plot so excellent, no +plot is needed here, and no consecutive story is required. Detached +experiences, vagrants of every rank that come and go, as in real life, +are all the material of the artist. With such materials Dickens was +exactly suited; he was at home on high-road and lane, street and field- +path, in inns and yeomen's warm hospitable houses. Never a humour +escaped him, and he had such a wealth of fun and high spirits in these +glad days as never any other possessed before. He was not in the least a +bookish man, not in any degree a scholar; but Nature taught him, and +while he wrote with Nature for his teacher, with men and women for his +matter, with diversion for his aim, he was unsurpassable--nay, he was +unapproachable. + +He could not rest here; he was, after all, a child of an age that grew +sad, and earnest, and thoughtful. He saw abuses round him--injustice, +and oppression, and cruelty. He had a heart to which those things were +not only abhorrent, but, as it were, maddening. He knew how great an +influence he wielded, and who can blame him for using it in any cause he +thought good? Very possibly he might have been a greater artist if he +had been less of a man, if he had been quite disinterested, and had never +written "with a purpose." That is common, and even rather obsolete +critical talk. But when we remember that Fielding, too, very often wrote +"with a purpose," and that purpose the protection of the poor and +unfriended; and when we remember what an artist Fielding was, I do not +see how we can blame Dickens. Occasionally he made his art and his +purpose blend so happily that his work was all the better for his +benevolent intentions. We owe Mr. Squeers, Mrs. Squeers, Fanny Squeers, +Wackford and all, to Dickens's indignation against the nefarious school +pirates of his time. If he is less successful in attacking the Court of +Chancery, and very much less successful still with the Red Tape and +Circumlocution Office affairs, that may be merely because he was less in +the humour, and not because he had a purpose in his mind. Every one of a +man's books cannot be his masterpiece. There is nothing in literary talk +so annoying as the spiteful joy with which many people declare that an +author is "worked out," because his last book is less happy than some +that went before. There came a time in Dickens' career when his works, +to my own taste and that of many people, seemed laboured, artificial--in +fact, more or less failures. These books range from "Dombey and Son," +through "Little Dorrit," I dare not say to "Our Mutual Friend." One is +afraid that "Edwin Drood," too, suggests the malady which Sir Walter +already detected in his own "Peveril of the Peak." The intense strain on +the faculties of Dickens--as author, editor, reader, and man of the +world--could not but tell on him; and years must tell. "Philip" is not +worthy of the author of "Esmond," nor "Daniel Deronda" of the author of +"Silas Marner." At that time--the time of the Dorrits and +Dombeys--_Blackwood's Magazine_ published a "Remonstrance with Boz"; nor +was it quite superfluous. But Dickens had abundance of talent still to +display--above all in "Great Expectations" and "A Tale of Two Cities." +The former is, after "Pickwick," "Copperfield," "Martin Chuzzlewit," and +"Nicholas Nickleby"--after the classics, in fact--the most delightful of +Dickens's books. The story is embroiled, no doubt. What are we to think +of Estelle? Has the minx any purpose? Is she a kind of Ethel Newcome of +odd life? It is not easy to say; still, for a story of Dickens's the +plot is comparatively clear and intelligible. For a study of a child's +life, of the nature Dickens drew best--the river and the marshes--and for +plenty of honest explosive fun, there is no later book of Dickens's like +"Great Expectations." Miss Havisham, too, in her mouldy bridal +splendour, is really impressive; not like Ralph Nickleby and Monk in +"Oliver Twist"--a book of which the plot remains to me a mystery. {128} +Pip and Pumblechook and Mr. Wopsle and Jo are all immortal, and cause +laughter inextinguishable. The rarity of this book, by the way, in its +first edition--the usual library three volumes--is rather difficult to +explain. One very seldom sees it come into the market, and then it is +highly priced. + +I have mentioned more than once the obscurity of Dickens's plots. This +difficulty may be accounted for in a very flattering manner. Where do we +lose ourselves? Not in the bare high-road, but among lanes, between +hedges hung with roses, blackberries, morning glories, where all about us +is so full of pleasure that our attention is distracted and we miss our +way. Now, in Dickens--in "Oliver Twist," in "Martin Chuzzlewit," in +"Nicholas Nickleby"--there is, as in the lanes, so much to divert and +beguile, that we cease to care very much where the road leads--a road so +full of happy marvels. The dark, plotting villains--like the tramp who +frightened Sir Walter Scott so terribly, as he came from Miss Baillie's +at Hampstead--peer out from behind the hedges now and then. But we are +too much amused by the light hearts that go all the way, by the Dodger +and Crummles and Mrs. Gamp, to care much for what Ralph, and Monk, and +Jonas Chuzzlewit are plotting. It may not be that the plot is so +confused, but that we are too much diverted to care for the plot, for the +incredible machinations of Uriah Heap, to choose another example. Mr. +Micawber cleared these up; but it is Mr. Micawber that hinders us from +heeding them. + +This, at least, is a not unfriendly explanation. Yet I cannot but +believe that, though Dickens took great pains with his plots, he was not +a great plotter. He was not, any more than Thackeray, a story-teller +first and foremost. We can hold in our minds every thread of Mr. Wilkie +Collins' web, or of M. Fortune du Boisgobey's, or of M. Gaboriau's--all +great weavers of intrigues. But Dickens goes about darkening his +intrigue, giving it an extra knot, an extra twist, hinting here, +ominously laughing there, till we get mystified and bored, and give +ourselves up to the fun of the humours, indifferent to the destinies of +villains and victims. Look at "Edwin Drood." A constant war about the +plot rages in the magazines. I believe, for one, that Edwin Drood was +resuscitated; but it gives me no pleasure. He was too uninteresting. +Dickens's hints, nods, mutterings, forebodings, do not at all impress one +like that deepening and darkening of the awful omens in "The Bride of +Lammermoor." Here Scott--unconsciously, no doubt--used the very manner +of Homer in the Odyssey, and nowhere was his genius more Homeric. That +was romance. + +The "Tale of Two Cities" is a great test of the faith--that is in +Dickensites. Of all his works it is the favourite with the wrong sort! +Ladies prefer it. Many people can read it who cannot otherwise read +Dickens at all. This in itself proves that it is not a good example of +Dickens, that it is not central, that it is an outlying province which he +conquered. It is not a favourite of mine. The humour of the humorous +characters rings false--for example, the fun of the resurrection-man with +the wife who "flops." But Sidney Carton has drawn many tears down cheeks +not accustomed to what Mr. B. in "Pamela" calls "pearly fugitives." + +It sometimes strikes one that certain weaknesses in our great novelists, +in Thackeray as well as Dickens, were caused by their method of +publication. The green and yellow leaves flourished on the trees for two +whole years. Who (except Alexandre the Great) could write so much, and +yet all good? Do we not all feel that "David Copperfield" should have +been compressed? As to "Pendennis," Mr. Thackeray's bad health when he +wrote it might well cause a certain languor in the later pages. Moreover, +he frankly did not care for the story, and bluffly says, in the preface, +that he respited Colonel Altamont almost at the foot of the gallows. +Dickens took himself more in earnest, and, having so many pages to fill, +conscientiously made Uriah Heap wind and wriggle through them all. + +To try to see blots in the sun, and to pick holes in Dickens, seems +ungrateful, and is indeed an ungrateful task; to no mortal man have more +people owed mirth, pleasure, forgetfulness of care, knowledge of life in +strange places. There never was such another as Charles Dickens, nor +shall we see his like sooner than the like of Shakespeare. And he owed +all to native genius and hard work; he owed almost nothing to literature, +and that little we regret. He was influenced by Carlyle, he adopted his +method of nicknames, and of hammering with wearisome iteration on some +peculiarity--for example, on Carker's teeth, and the patriarch's white +hair. By the way, how incredible is all the Carker episode in "Dombey"! +Surely Dickens can never have intended Edith, from the first, to behave +as she did! People may have influenced him, as they influenced Scott +about "St. Ronan's Well." It has been said that, save for Carlyle, +Dickens was in letters a self-taught artist, that he was no man's pupil, +and borrowed from none. No doubt this makes him less acceptable to the +literary class than a man of letters, like Thackeray--than a man in whose +treasure chamber of memory all the wealth of the Middle Ages was stored, +like Scott. But the native naked genius of Dickens,--his heart, his +mirth, his observation, his delightful high spirits, his intrepid +loathing of wrong, his chivalrous desire to right it,--these things will +make him for ever, we hope and believe, the darling of the English +people. + + + + +ADVENTURES OF BUCCANEERS + + +Most of us, as boys, have envied the buccaneers. The greatest of all +boys, Canon Kingsley, once wrote a pleasing and regretful poem in which +the Last Buccaneer represents himself as a kind of picturesque +philanthropist:-- + + "There were forty craft in Aves that were both swift and stout, + All furnished well with small arms, and cannons round about; + And a thousand men in Aves made laws so fair and free, + To choose their valiant captains and obey them loyally. + Thence we sailed against the Spaniard with his hoards of plate and + gold, + Which he wrung with cruel tortures from Indian folk of old; + Likewise the merchant captains, with hearts as hard as stone, + Who flog men and keel-haul them, and starve them to the bone." + +The buccaneer is "a gallant sailor," according to Kingsley's poem--a +Robin Hood of the waters, who preys only on the wicked rich, or the cruel +and Popish Spaniard, and the extortionate shipowner. For his own part, +when he is not rescuing poor Indians, the buccaneer lives mainly "for +climate and the affections":-- + + "Oh, sweet it was in Aves to hear the landward breeze, + A swing with good tobacco in a net between the trees, + With a negro lass to fan you, while you listened to the roar + Of the breakers on the reef outside that never touched the shore." + +This is delightfully idyllic, like the lives of the Tahitian shepherds in +the Anti-Jacobin--the shepherds whose occupation was a sinecure, as there +were no sheep in Tahiti. + +Yet the vocation was not really so touchingly chivalrous as the poet +would have us deem. One Joseph Esquemeling, himself a buccaneer, has +written the history and described the exploits of his companions in plain +prose, warning eager youths that "pieces-of-eight do not grow on every +tree," as many raw recruits have believed. Mr. Esquemeling's account of +these matters may be purchased, with a great deal else that is +instructive and entertaining, in "The History of the Buccaneers in +America." My edition (of 1810) is a dumpy little book, in very small +type, and quite a crowd of publishers took part in the venture. The +older editions are difficult to procure if your pockets are not stuffed +with pieces-of-eight. You do not often find even this volume, but "when +found make a note of," and you have a reply to Canon Kingsley. + +A charitable old Scotch lady, who heard our ghostly foe evil spoken of, +remarked that, "If we were all as diligent and conscientious as the +Devil, it would be better for us." Now, the buccaneers were certainly +models of diligence and conscientiousness in their own industry, which +was to torture people till they gave up their goods, and then to run them +through the body, and spend the spoils over drink and dice. Except +Dampier, who was a clever man, but a poor buccaneer (Mr. Clark Russell +has written his life), they were the most hideously ruthless miscreants +that ever disgraced the earth and the sea. But their courage and +endurance were no less notable than their greed and cruelty, so that a +moral can be squeezed even out of these abandoned miscreants. The +soldiers and sailors who made their way within gunshot of Khartoum, +overcoming thirst, hunger, heat, the desert, and the gallant children of +the desert, did not fight, march, and suffer more bravely than the +scoundrels who sacked Mairaibo and burned Panama. Their good qualities +were no less astounding and exemplary than their almost incredible +wickedness. They did not lie about in hammocks much, listening to the +landward wind among the woods--the true buccaneers. To tell the truth, +most of them had no particular cause to love the human species. They +were often Europeans who had been sold into slavery on the West Indian +plantations, where they learned lessons of cruelty by suffering it. Thus +Mr. Joseph Esquemeling, our historian, was beaten, tortured, and nearly +starved to death in Tortuga, "so I determined, not knowing how to get any +living, to enter into the order of the pirates or robbers of the sea." +The poor Indians of the isles, much pitied by Kingsley's buccaneer, had a +habit of sticking their prisoners all over with thorns, wrapped in oily +cotton, whereto they then set fire. "These cruelties many Christians +have seen while they lived among these barbarians." Mr. Esquemeling was +to see, and inflict, plenty of this kind of torment, which was not out of +the way nor unusual. One planter alone had killed over a hundred of his +servants--"the English did the same with theirs." + +A buccaneer voyage began in stealing a ship, collecting desperadoes, and +torturing the local herdsmen till they gave up their masters' flocks, +which were salted as provisions. Articles of service were then drawn up, +on the principle "no prey, no pay." The spoils, when taken, were loyally +divided as a rule, though Captain Morgan, of Wales, made no more scruple +about robbing his crew than about barbecuing a Spanish priest. "They are +very civil and charitable to each other, so that if any one wants what +another has, with great willingness they give it to one another." In +other matters they did not in the least resemble the early Christians. A +fellow nick-named The Portuguese may be taken as our first example of +their commendable qualities. + +With a small ship of four guns he had taken a great one of twenty guns, +with 70,000 pieces-of-eight . . . He himself, however, was presently +captured by a larger vessel, and imprisoned on board. Being carelessly +watched, he escaped on two earthen jars (for he could not swim), reached +the woods in Campechy, and walked for a hundred and twenty miles through +the bush. His only food was a few shell-fish, and by way of a knife he +had a large nail, which he whetted to an edge on a stone. Having made a +kind of raft, he struck a river, and paddled to Golpho Triste, where he +found congenial pirates. With twenty of these, and a boat, he returned +to Campechy, where he had been a prisoner, and actually captured the +large ship in which he had lain captive! Bad luck pursued him, however: +his prize was lost in a storm; he reached Jamaica in a canoe, and never +afterwards was concerned as leader in any affair of distinction. Not +even Odysseus had more resource, nor was more long-enduring; but Fortune +was The Portuguese's foe. + +Braziliano, another buccaneer, served as a pirate before the mast, and +"was beloved and respected by all." Being raised to command, he took a +plate ship; but this success was of indifferent service to his otherwise +amiable character. "He would often appear foolish and brutish when in +drink," and has been known to roast Spaniards alive on wooden spits "for +not showing him hog yards where he might steal swine." One can hardly +suppose that Kingsley would have regretted _this_ buccaneer, even if he +had been the last, which unluckily he was not. His habit of sitting in +the street beside a barrel of beer, and shooting all passers-by who would +not drink with him, provoked remark, and was an act detestable to all +friends of temperance principles. + +Francois L'Olonnois, from southern France, had been kidnapped, and sold +as a slave in the Caribbee Islands. Recovering his freedom, he plundered +the Spanish, says my buccaneer author, "till his unfortunate death." With +two canoes he captured a ship which had been sent after him, carrying ten +guns and a hangman for his express benefit. This hangman, much to the +fellow's chagrin, L'Olonnois put to death like the rest of his prisoners. +His great achievements were in the Gulf of Venezuela or Bay of Maracaibo. +The gulf is a strong place; the mouth, no wider than a gun-shot, is +guarded by two islands. Far up the inlet is Maracaibo, a town of three +thousand people, fortified and surrounded by woods. Yet farther up is +the town of Gibraltar. To attack these was a desperate enterprise; but +L'Olonnois stole past the forts, and frightened the townsfolk into the +woods. As a rule the Spaniards made the poorest resistance; there were +examples of courage, but none of conduct. With strong forts, heavy guns, +many men, provisions, and ammunition, they quailed before the desperate +valour of the pirates. The towns were sacked, the fugitives hunted out +in the woods, and the most abominable tortures were applied to make them +betray their friends and reveal their treasures. When they were silent, +or had no treasures to declare, they were hacked, twisted, burned, and +starved to death. + +Such were the manners of L'Olonnois; and Captain Morgan, of Wales, was +even more ruthless. + +Gibraltar was well fortified and strengthened after Maracaibo fell; new +batteries were raised, the way through the woods was barricaded, and no +fewer than eight hundred men were under arms to resist a small pirate +force, exhausted by debauch, and having its retreat cut off by the forts +at the mouth of the great salt-water loch. But L'Olonnois did not +blench: he told the men that audacity was their one hope, also that he +would pistol the first who gave ground. The men cheered +enthusiastically, and a party of three hundred and fifty landed. The +barricaded way they could not force, and in a newly cut path they met a +strong battery which fired grape. But L'Olonnois was invincible. He +tried that old trick which rarely fails, a sham retreat, and this lured +the Spaniards from their earthwork on the path. The pirates then turned, +sword in hand, slew two hundred of the enemy, and captured eight guns. +The town yielded, the people fled to the woods, and then began the wonted +sport of torturing the prisoners. Maracaibo they ransomed afresh, +obtained a pilot, passed the forts with ease, and returned after sacking +a small province. On a dividend being declared, they parted 260,000 +pieces-of-eight among the band, and spent the pillage in a revel of three +weeks. + +L'Olonnois "got great repute" by this conduct, but I rejoice to add that +in a raid on Nicaragua he "miserably perished," and met what Mr. +Esquemeling calls "his unfortunate death." For L'Olonnois was really an +ungentlemanly character. He would hack a Spaniard to pieces, tear out +his heart, and "gnaw it with his teeth like a ravenous wolf, saying to +the rest, 'I will serve you all alike if you show me not another way'" +(to a town which he designed attacking). In Nicaragua he was taken by +the Indians, who, being entirely on the Spanish side, tore him to pieces +and burned him. Thus we really must not be deluded by the professions of +Mr. Kingsley's sentimental buccaneer, with his pity for "the Indian folk +of old." + +Except Denis Scott, a worthy bandit in his day, Captain Henry Morgan is +the first renowned British buccaneer. He was a young Welshman, who, +after having been sold as a slave in Barbadoes, became a sailor of +fortune. With about four hundred men he assailed Puerto Bello. "If our +number is small," he said, "our hearts are great," and so he assailed the +third city and place of arms which Spain then possessed in the West +Indies. The entrance of the harbour was protected by two strong castles, +judged as "almost impregnable," while Morgan had no artillery of any +avail against fortresses. Morgan had the luck to capture a Spanish +soldier, whom he compelled to parley with the garrison of the castle. +This he stormed and blew up, massacring all its defenders, while with its +guns he disarmed the sister fortress. When all but defeated in a new +assault, the sight of the English colours animated him afresh. He made +the captive monks and nuns carry the scaling ladders; in this unwonted +exploit the poor religious folk lost many of their numbers. The wall was +mounted, the soldiers were defeated, though the Governor fought like a +Spaniard of the old school, slew many pirates with his own hand, and +pistolled some of his own men for cowardice. He died at his post, +refusing quarter, and falling like a gentleman of Spain. Morgan, too, +was not wanting in fortitude: he extorted 100,000 pieces-of-eight from +the Governor of Panama, and sent him a pistol as a sample of the gun +wherewith he took so great a city. He added that he would return and +take this pistol out of Panama; nor was he less good than his word. In +Cuba he divided 250,000 pieces-of-eight, and a great booty in other +treasure. A few weeks saw it all in the hands of the tavern-keepers and +women of the place. + +Morgan's next performance was a new sack of Maracaibo, now much stronger +than L'Olonnois had found it. After the most appalling cruelties, not +fit to be told, he returned, passing the castles at the mouth of the port +by an ingenious stratagem. Running boatload after boatload of men to the +land side, he brought them back by stealth, leading the garrison to +expect an attack from that quarter. The guns were massed to landward, +and no sooner was this done than Morgan sailed up through the channel +with but little loss. Why the Spaniards did not close the passage with a +boom does not appear. Probably they were glad to be quit of Morgan on +any terms. + +A great Spanish fleet he routed by the ingenious employment of a fire- +ship. In a later expedition a strong place was taken by a curious +accident. One of the buccaneers was shot through the body with an arrow. +He drew it out, wrapped it in cotton, fired it from his musket, and so +set light to a roof and burned the town. + +His raid on Panama was extraordinary for the endurance of his men. For +days they lived on the leather of bottles and belts. "Some, who were +never out of their mothers' kitchens, may ask how these pirates could eat +and digest these pieces of leather, so hard and dry? Whom I answer--that +could they once experience what hunger, or rather famine is, they would +find the way, as the pirates did." It was at the close of this march +that the Indians drove wild bulls among them; but they cared very little +for these new allies of the Spaniards: beef, in any form, was only too +welcome. + +Morgan burned the fair cedar houses of Panama, but lost the plate ship +with all the gold and silver out of the churches. How he tortured a poor +wretch who chanced to wear a pair of taffety trousers belonging to his +master, with a small silver key hanging out, it is better not to repeat. +The men only got two hundred pieces-of-eight each, after all their toil, +for their Welshman was indeed a thief, and bilked his crews, no less than +he plundered the Spaniards, without remorse. Finally, he sneaked away +from the fleet with a ship or two; and it is to be feared that Captain +Morgan made rather a good thing by dint of his incredible cruelty and +villainy. + +And so we leave Mr. Esquemeling, whom Captain Morgan also deserted; for +who would linger long when there is not even honour among thieves? +Alluring as the pirate's profession is, we must not forget that it had a +seamy side, and was by no means all rum and pieces-of-eight. And there +is something repulsive to a generous nature in roasting men because they +will not show you where to steal hogs. + + + + +THE SAGAS + + +"The general reader," says a frank critic, "hates the very name of a +Saga." The general reader, in that case, is to be pitied, and, if +possible, converted. But, just as Pascal admits that the sceptic can +only become religious by living as if he _were_ religious--by stupefying +himself, as Pascal plainly puts it, with holy water--so it is to be +feared that there is but a single way of winning over the general reader +to the Sagas. Preaching and example, as in this brief essay, will not +avail with him. He must take Pascal's advice, and live for an hour or +two as if he were a lover of Sagas. He must, in brief, give that old +literature a fair chance. He has now his opportunity: Mr. William Morris +and Mr. Eirikr Magnusson are publishing a series of cheap +translations--cheap only in coin of the realm--a _Saga Library_. If a +general reader tries the first tale in the first volume, story of "Howard +the Halt,"--if he tries it honestly, and still can make no way with it, +then let him take comfort in the doctrine of Invincible Ignorance. Let +him go back to his favourite literature of gossiping reminiscence, or of +realistic novels. We have all, probably, a drop of the Northmen's blood +in us, but in that general reader the blood is dormant. + +What is a Saga? It is neither quite a piece of history nor wholly a +romance. It is a very old story of things and adventures that really +happened, but happened so long ago, and in times so superstitious, that +marvels and miracles found their way into the legend. The best Sagas are +those of Iceland, and those, in translations, are the finest reading that +the natural man can desire. If you want true pictures of life and +character, which are always the same at bottom, or true pictures of +manners, which are always changing, and of strange customs and lost +beliefs, in the Sagas they are to be found. Or if you like tales of +enterprise, of fighting by land and sea, fighting with men and beasts, +with storms and ghosts and fiends, the Sagas are full of this +entertainment. + +The stories of which we are speaking were first told in Iceland, perhaps +from 950 to 1100 B.C. When Norway and Sweden were still heathen, a +thousand years ago, they were possessed by families of noble birth, +owning no master, and often at war with each other, when the men were not +sailing the seas, to rob and kill in Scotland, England, France, Italy, +and away east as far as Constantinople, or farther. Though they were +wild sea robbers and warriors, they were sturdy farmers, great +shipbuilders; every man of them, however wealthy, could be his own +carpenter, smith, shipwright, and ploughman. They forged their own good +short swords, hammered their own armour, ploughed their own fields. In +short, they lived like Odysseus, the hero of Homer, and were equally +skilled in the arts of war and peace. They were mighty lawyers, too, and +had a most curious and minute system of laws on all subjects--land, +marriage, murder, trade, and so forth. These laws were not written, +though the people had a kind of letters called runes. But they did not +use them much for documents, but merely for carving a name on a sword- +blade, or a tombstone, or on great gold rings such as they wore on their +arms. Thus the laws existed in the memory and judgment of the oldest and +wisest and most righteous men of the country. The most important was the +law of murder. If one man slew another, he was not tried by a jury, but +any relation of the dead killed him "at sight," wherever he found him. +Even in an Earl's hall, Kari struck the head off one of his friend Njal's +Burners, and the head bounded on the board, among the trenchers of meat +and the cups of mead or ale. But it was possible, if the relations of a +slain man consented, for the slayer to pay his price--every man was +valued at so much--and then revenge was not taken. But, as a rule, one +revenge called for another. Say Hrut slew Hrap, then Atli slew Hrut, and +Gisli slew Atli, and Kari slew Gisli, and so on till perhaps two whole +families were extinct and there was peace. The gods were not offended by +manslaughter openly done, but were angry with treachery, cowardice, +meanness, theft, perjury, and every kind of shabbiness. + +This was the state of affairs in Norway when a king arose, Harold Fair- +Hair, who tried to bring all these proud people under him, and to make +them pay taxes and live more regularly and quietly. They revolted at +this, and when they were too weak to defy the king they set sail and fled +to Iceland. There in the lonely north, between the snow and fire, the +hot-water springs, the volcano of Hecla, the great rivers full of salmon +that rush down such falls as Golden Foot, there they lived their +old-fashioned life, cruising as pirates and merchants, taking foreign +service at Mickle Garth, or in England or Egypt, filling the world with +the sound of their swords and the sky with the smoke of their burnings. +For they feared neither God nor man nor ghost, and were no less cruel +than brave; the best of soldiers, laughing at death and torture, like the +Zulus, who are a kind of black Vikings of Africa. On some of them +"Bersark's gang" would fall--that is, they would become in a way mad, +slaying all and sundry, biting their shields, and possessed with a +furious strength beyond that of men, which left them as weak as children +when it passed away. These Bersarks were outlaws, all men's enemies, and +to kill them was reckoned a great adventure, and a good deed. The women +were worthy of the men--bold, quarrelsome, revengeful. Some were loyal, +like Bergthora, who foresaw how all her sons and her husband were to be +burned; but who would not leave them, and perished in the burning without +a cry. Some were as brave as Howard's wife, who enabled her husband, old +and childless, to overthrow the wealthy bully, the slayer of his only +son. Some were treacherous, as Halgerda the Fair. Three husbands she +had, and was the death of every man of them. Her last lord was Gunnar of +Lithend, the bravest and most peaceful of men. Once she did a mean +thing, and he slapped her face. She never forgave him. At last enemies +besieged him in his house. The doors were locked--all was quiet within. +One of the enemies climbed up to a window slit, and Gunnar thrust him +through with his lance. "Is Gunnar at home?" said the besiegers. "I +know not--but his lance is," said the wounded man, and died with that +last jest on his lips. For long Gunnar kept them at bay with his arrows, +but at last one of them cut the arrow string. "Twist me a string with +thy hair," he said to his wife, Halgerda, whose yellow hair was very long +and beautiful. "Is it a matter of thy life or death?" she asked. "Ay," +he said. "Then I remember that blow thou gavest me, and I will see thy +death." So Gunnar died, overcome by numbers, and they killed Samr, his +hound, but not before Samr had killed a man. + +So they lived always with sword or axe in hand--so they lived, and +fought, and died. + +Then Christianity was brought to them from Norway by Thangbrand, and if +any man said he did not believe a word of it, Thangbrand had the +schoolboy argument, "Will you fight?" So they fought a duel on a _holm_ +or island, that nobody might interfere--holm-gang they called it--and +Thangbrand usually killed his man. In Norway, Saint Olaf did the like, +killing and torturing those who held by the old gods--Thor, Odin, and +Freya, and the rest. So, partly by force and partly because they were +somewhat tired of bloodshed, horsefights, and the rest, they received the +word of the white Christ and were baptised, and lived by written law, and +did not avenge themselves by their own hands. + +They were Christians now, but they did not forget the old times, the old +feuds and fightings and Bersarks, and dealings with ghosts, and with dead +bodies that arose and wrought horrible things, haunting houses and +strangling men. The Icelandic ghosts were able-bodied, well +"materialised," and Grettir and Olaf Howard's son fought them with +strength of arm and edge of steel. _True_ stories of the ancient days +were told at the fireside in the endless winter nights by story tellers +or Scalds. It was thought a sin for any one to alter these old stories, +but as generations passed more and more wonderful matters came into the +legend. It was believed that the dead Gunnar, the famed archer, sang +within his cairn or "Howe," the mound wherein he was buried, and his +famous bill or cutting spear was said to have been made by magic, and to +sing in the night before the wounding of men and the waking of war. +People were thought to be "second-sighted"--that is, to have prophetic +vision. The night when Njal's house was burned his wife saw all the meat +on the table "one gore of blood," just as in Homer the prophet +Theoclymenus beheld blood falling in gouts from the walls, before the +slaying of the Wooers. The Valkyries, the Choosers of the slain, and the +Norns who wove the fates of men at a ghastly loom were seen by living +eyes. In the graves where treasures were hoarded the Barrowwights dwelt, +ghosts that were sentinels over the gold: witchwives changed themselves +into wolves and other monstrous animals, and for many weeks the heroes +Signy and Sinfjotli ran wild in the guise of wolves. + +These and many other marvels crept into the Sagas, and made the listeners +feel a shudder of cold beside the great fire that burned in the centre of +the skali or hall where the chief sat, giving meat and drink to all who +came, where the women span and the Saga man told the tales of long ago. +Finally, at the end of the middle ages, these Sagas were written down in +Icelandic, and in Latin occasionally, and many of them have been +translated into English. + +Unluckily, these translations have hitherto been expensive to buy, and +were not always to be had easily. For the wise world, which reads +newspapers all day and half the night, does not care much for books, +still less for good books, least of all for old books. You can make no +money out of reading Sagas: they have nothing to say about stocks and +shares, nor about Prime Ministers and politics. Nor will they amuse a +man, if nothing amuses him but accounts of races and murders, or gossip +about Mrs. Nokes's new novel, Mrs. Stokes's new dresses, or Lady Jones's +diamonds. The Sagas only tell how brave men--of our own blood very +likely--lived, and loved, and fought, and voyaged, and died, before there +was much reading or writing, when they sailed without steam, travelled +without railways, and warred hand-to-hand, not with hidden dynamite and +sunk torpedoes. But, for stories of gallant life and honest purpose, the +Sagas are among the best in the world. + +Of Sagas in English one of the best is the "Volsunga," the story of the +Niflungs and Volsungs. This book, thanks to Mr. William Morris, can be +bought for a shilling. It is a strange tale in which gods have their +parts, the tale of that oldest Treasure Hunt, the Hunt for the gold of +the dwarf Andvari. This was guarded by the serpent, Fafnir, who had once +been a man, and who was killed by the hero Sigurd. But Andvari had +cursed the gold, because his enemies robbed him of it to the very last +ring, and had no pity. Then the brave Sigurd was involved in the evil +luck. He it was who rode through the fire, and woke the fair enchanted +Brynhild, the Shield-maiden. And she loved him, and he her, with all +their hearts, always to the death. But by ill fate she was married to +another man, Sigurd's chief friend, and Sigurd to another woman. And the +women fell to jealousy and quarrelling as women will, and they dragged +the friends into the feud, and one manslaying after another befell, till +that great murder of men in the Hall of Atli, the King. The curse came +on one and all of them--a curse of blood, and of evil loves, and of +witchwork destroying good and bad, all fearless, and all fallen in one +red ruin. + +The "Volsunga Saga" has this unique and unparalleled interest, that it +gives the spectacle of the highest epic genius, struggling out of +savagery into complete and free and conscious humanity. It is a mark of +the savage intellect not to discriminate abruptly between man and the +lower animals. In the tales of the lower peoples, the characters are +just as often beasts as men and women. Now, in the earlier and wilder +parts of the "Volsunga Saga," otters and dragons play human parts. Signy +and his son, and the mother of their enemy, put on the skins of wolves, +become wolves, and pass through hideous adventures. The story reeks with +blood, and ravins with lust of blood. But when Sigurd arrives at full +years of manhood, the barbarism yields place, the Saga becomes human and +conscious. + +These legends deal little with love. But in the "Volsunga Saga" the +permanent interest is the true and deathless love of Sigurd and Brynhild: +their separation by magic arts, the revival of their passion too late, +the man's resigned and heroic acquiescence, the fiercer passion of the +woman, who will neither bear her fate nor accept her bliss at the price +of honour and her plighted word. + +The situation, the _nodus_, is neither ancient merely nor modern merely, +but of all time. Sigurd, having at last discovered the net in which he +was trapped, was content to make the best of marriage and of friendship. +Brynhild was not. "The hearts of women are the hearts of wolves," says +the ancient Sanskrit commentary on the Rig Veda. But the she-wolf's +heart broke, like a woman's, when she had caused Sigurd's slaying. Both +man and woman face life, as they conceive it, with eyes perfectly clear. + +The magic and the supernatural wiles are accidental, the human heart is +essential and eternal. There is no scene like this in the epics of +Greece. This is a passion that Homer did not dwell upon. In the Iliad +and Odyssey the repentance of Helen is facile; she takes life easily. +Clytemnestra is not brought on the stage to speak for herself. In this +respect the epic of the North, without the charm and the delightfulness +of the Southern epic, excels it; in this and in a certain bare veracity, +but in nothing else. We cannot put the Germanic legend on the level of +the Greek, for variety, for many-sided wisdom, for changing beauty of a +thousand colours. But in this one passion of love the "Volsunga Saga" +excels the Iliad. + +The Greek and the Northern stories are alike in one thing. Fate is all- +powerful over gods and men. Odin cannot save Balder; nor Thetis, +Achilles; nor Zeus, Sarpedon. But in the Sagas fate is more constantly +present to the mind. Much is thought of being "lucky," or "unlucky." +Howard's "good luck" is to be read in his face by the wise, even when, to +the common gaze, he seems a half-paralytic dotard, dying of grief and +age. + +Fate and evil luck dog the heroes of the Sagas. They seldom "end well," +as people say,--unless, when a brave man lies down to die on the bed he +has strewn of the bodies of his foes, you call _that_ ending well. So +died Grettir the Strong. Even from a boy he was strong and passionate, +short of temper, quick of stroke, but loyal, brave, and always unlucky. +His worst luck began after he slew Glam. This Glam was a wicked heathen +herdsman, who would not fast on Christmas Eve. So on the hills his dead +body was found, swollen as great as an ox, and as blue as death. + +What killed him they did not know. But he haunted the farmhouse, riding +the roof, kicking the sides with his heels, killing cattle and destroying +all things. Then Grettir came that way, and he slept in the hall. At +night the dead Glam came in, and Grettir arose, and to it they went, +struggling and dashing the furniture to bits. Glam even dragged Grettir +to the door, that he might slay him under the sky, and for all his force +Grettir yielded ground. Then on the very threshold he suddenly gave way +when Glam was pulling hardest, and they fell, Glam undermost. Then +Grettir drew the short sword, "Kari's loom," that he had taken from a +haunted grave, and stabbed the dead thing that had lived again. But, as +Glam lay a-dying in the second death, the moon fell on his awful eyes, +and Grettir saw the horror of them, and from that hour he could not +endure to be in the dark, and he never dared to go alone. This was his +death, for he had an evil companion who betrayed him to his enemies; but +when they set on Grettir, though he was tired and sick of a wound, many +died with him. No man died like Grettir the Strong, nor slew so many in +his death. + +Besides those Sagas, there is the best of all, but the longest, "Njala" +(pronounced "Nyoula"), the story of Burnt Njal. That is too long to +sketch here, but it tells how, through the hard hearts and jealousy of +women, ruin came at last on the gentle Gunnar, and the reckless +Skarphedin of the axe, "The Ogress of War," and how Njal, the wisest, the +most peaceful, the most righteous of men, was burned with all his house, +and how that evil deed was avenged on the Burners of Kari. + +The site of Njal's house is yet to be seen, after these nine hundred +years, and the little glen where Kari hid when he leaped through the +smoke and the flame that made his sword-blade blue. Yes, the very black +sand that Bergthora and her maids threw on the fire lies there yet, and +remnants of the whey they cast on the flames, when water failed them. +They were still there beneath the earth when an English traveller dug up +some of the ground last year, and it is said that an American gentleman +found a gold ring in the house of Njal. The story of him and of his +brave sons, and of his slaves, and of his kindred, and of Queens and +Kings of Norway, and of the coming of the white Christ, are all in the +"Njala." That and the other Sagas would bear being shortened for general +readers; once they were all that the people had by way of books, and they +liked them long. But, shortened or not, they are brave books for men, +for the world is a place of battle still, and life is war. These old +heroes knew it, and did not shirk it, but fought it out, and left +honourable names and a glory that widens year by year. For the story of +Njal and Gunnar and Skarphedin was told by Captain Speedy to the guards +of Theodore, King of Abyssinia. They liked it well; and with queer +altered names and changes of the tale, that Saga will be told in +Abyssinia, and thence carried all through Africa where white men have +never wandered. So wide, so long-enduring a renown could be given by a +nameless Sagaman. + + + + +CHARLES KINGSLEY + + +When I was very young, a distinguished _Review_ was still younger. I +remember reading one of the earliest numbers, being then myself a boy of +ten, and coming on a review of a novel. Never, as it seemed to me, or +seems to my memory, was a poor novel more heavily handled: and yet I felt +that the book must be a book to read on the very earliest opportunity. It +was "Westward Ho!" the most famous, and perhaps the best novel, of +Charles Kingsley. Often one has read it since, and it is an example of +those large, rich, well-fed romances, at which you can cut and come +again, as it were, laying it down, and taking it up on occasion, with the +certainty of being excited, amused--and preached at. + +Lately I have re-read "Westward Ho!" and some of Kingsley's other books, +"Hypatia," "Hereward the Wake," and the poems, over again. The old +pleasure in them is not gone indeed, but it is modified. One must be a +boy to think Kingsley a humourist. At the age of twelve or ten you take +the comic passages which he conscientiously provides, without being vexed +or offended; you take them merely in the way of business. Better things +are coming: struggles with the Inquisition, storms at sea, duels, the +Armada, wanderings in the Lotus land of the tropical west; and for the +sake of all this a boy puts up good-naturedly with Kingsley's humour. +Perhaps he even grins over Amyas "burying alternately his face in the +pasty and the pasty in his face," or he tries to feel diverted by the +Elizabethan waggeries of Frank. But there is no fun in them--they are +mechanical; they are worse than the humours of Scott's Sir Percy Shafto, +which are not fine. + +The same sense of everything not being quite so excellent as one +remembered it haunts one in "Hereward the Wake, the Last of the English." +Kingsley calls him "the Last of the English," but he is really the first +of the literary Vikings. In the essay on the Sagas here I have tried to +show, very imperfectly, what the Norsemen were actually like. They +caught Kingsley's fancy, and his "Hereward," though born on English soil, +is really Norse--not English. But Kingsley did not write about the +Vikings, nor about his Elizabethan heroes in "Westward Ho!" in a +perfectly simple, straightforward way. He was always thinking of our own +times and referring to them. That is why even the rather ruffianly +Hereward is so great an enemy of saints and monks. That is why, in +"Hypatia" (which opens so well), we have those prodigiously dull, stupid, +pedantic, and conceited reflections of Raphael Ben Ezra. That is why, in +all Kingsley's novels, he is perpetually exciting himself in defence of +marriage and the family life, as if any monkish ideas about the +blessedness of bachelorhood were ever likely to drive the great Anglo- +Saxon race into convents and monasteries. That is the very last thing we +have to be afraid of; but Kingsley was afraid of it, and was eternally +attacking everything Popish and monkish. + +Boys and young people, then, can read "Westward Ho!" and "Hypatia," and +"Hereward the Wake," with far more pleasure than their elders. They +hurry on with the adventures, and do not stop to ask what the moralisings +mean. They forgive the humour of Kingsley because it is well meant. They +get, in short, the real good of this really great and noble and manly and +blundering genius. They take pleasure in his love of strong men, gallant +fights, desperate encounters with human foes, with raging seas, with +pestilence, or in haunted forests. For in all that is good of his +talent--in his courage, his frank speech, his love of sport, his clear +eyes, his devotion to field and wood, river, moor, sea, and +storms--Kingsley is a boy. He has the brave, rather hasty, and not over +well-informed enthusiasm of sixteen, for persons and for causes. He saw +an opponent (it might be Father Newman): his heart lusted for a fight; he +called his opponent names, he threw his cap into the ring, he took his +coat off, he fought, he got a terrible scientific drubbing. It was like +a sixth-form boy matching himself against the champion. And then he bore +no malice. He took his defeat bravely. Nay, are we not left with a +confused feeling that he was not far in the wrong, though he had so much +the worse of the fight? + +Such was Kingsley: a man with a boy's heart; a hater of cruelty and +injustice, and also with a brave, indomitable belief that his own country +and his own cause were generally in the right, whatever the quarrel. He +loved England like a mistress, and hated her enemies, Spain and the Pope, +though even in them he saw the good. He is for ever scolding the Spanish +for their cruelties to the Indians, but he defends our doings to the +Irish, which (at that time) were neither more nor less oppressive than +the Spanish performances in America. "Go it, our side!" you always hear +this good Kingsley crying; and one's heart goes out to him for it, in an +age when everybody often proves his own country to be in the wrong. + +Simple, brave, resolute, manly, a little given to "robustiousness," +Kingsley transfigured all these qualities by possessing the soul and the +heart of a poet. He was not a very great poet, indeed, but a true +poet--one of the very small band who are cut off, by a gulf that can +never be passed, from mere writers of verse, however clever, educated, +melodious, ingenious, amiable, and refined. He had the real spark of +fire, the true note; though the spark might seldom break into flame, and +the note was not always clear. Never let us confuse true poets with +writers of verse, still less with writers of "poetic prose." Kingsley +wrote a great deal of that-perhaps too much: his descriptions of scenes +are not always as good as in Hereward's ride round the Fens, or when the +tall, Spanish galleon staggers from the revenge of man to the vengeance +of God, to her doom through the mist, to her rest in the sea. Perhaps +only a poet could have written that prose; it is certain no writer of +"poetic prose" could have written Kingsley's poems. + +His songs are his best things; they really are songs, not merely lyric +poems. They have the merit of being truly popular, whether they are +romantic, like "The Sands o' Dee," which actually reproduces the best +qualities of the old ballad; or whether they are pathetic, like the +"Doll's Song," in "Water Babies"; or whether they attack an abuse, as in +the song of "The Merry Brown Hares"; or whether they soar higher, as in +"Deep, deep Love, within thine own abyss abiding"; or whether they are +mere noble nonsense, as in "Lorraine Loree":-- + + "She mastered young Vindictive; oh, the gallant lass was she, + And kept him straight and won the race, as near as near could be; + But he killed her at the brook against a pollard willow tree; + Oh, he killed her at the brook, the brute, for all the world to see, + And no one but the baby cried for poor Lorraine Loree." + +The truth about Charles Kingsley seems to be that he rather made a brave +and cheery noise in this night-battle of modern life, than that he +directed any movement of forces. He kept cheering, as it were, and +waving his sword with a contagious enthusiasm. Being a poet, and a man +both of heart and of sentiment, he was equally attached to the best +things of the old world and to the best of the new world, as far as one +can forecast what it is to be. He loved the stately homes of England, +the ancient graduated order of society, the sports of the past, the +military triumphs, the patriotic glories. But he was also on the side of +the poor: as "Parson Lot" he attempted to be a Christian Socialist. + +Now, the Socialists are the people who want to take everything; the +Christians are the persons who do not want to give more than they find +convenient. Kingsley himself was ready to give, and did give, his time, +his labour, his health, and probably his money, to the poor. But he was +by no means minded that they should swallow up the old England with +church and castle, manor-house and tower, wealth, beauty, learning, +refinement. The man who wrote "Alton Locke," the story of the starved +tailor-poet, was the man who nearly wept when he heard a fox bark, and +reflected that the days of fox-hunting were numbered. He had a poet's +politics, Colonel Newcome's politics. He was for England, for the poor, +for the rich, for the storied houses of the chivalrous past, for the +cottage, for the hall; and was dead against the ideas of Manchester, and +of Mr. John Bright. "My father," he says in a letter, "would have put +his hand to a spade or an axe with any man, and so could I pretty well, +too, when I was in my prime; and my eldest son is now working with his +own hands at farming, previous to emigrating to South America, where he +will do the drudgery of his own cattle-pens and sheepfolds; and if I were +twenty-four and unmarried I would go out there too, and work like an +Englishman, and live by the sweat of my brow." + +This was the right side of his love of the Vikings; it was thus _they_ +lived, when not at war--thus that every gentleman who has youth and +health should work, winning new worlds for his class, in place of this +miserable, over-crowded, brawling England. This, I think, was, or should +have been, the real lesson and message of Kingsley for the generations to +come. Like Scott the scion of an old knightly line, he had that drop of +wild blood which drives men from town into the air and the desert, +wherever there are savage lands to conquer, beasts to hunt, and a hardy +life to be lived. But he was the son of a clergyman, and a clergyman +himself. The spirit that should have gone into action went into talking, +preaching, writing--all sources of great pleasure to thousands of people, +and so not wasted. Yet these were not the natural outlets of Kingsley's +life: he should have been a soldier, or an explorer; at least, we may +believe that he would have preferred such fortune. He did his best, the +best he knew, and it is all on the side of manliness, courage, kindness. +Perhaps he tried too many things--science, history, fairy tales, +religious and political discussions, romance, poetry. Poetry was what he +did best, romance next; his science and his history are entertaining, but +without authority. + +This, when one reads it again, seems a cold, unfriendly estimate of a man +so ardent and so genuine, a writer so vivacious and courageous as +Kingsley. Even the elderly reviewer bears to him, and to his brother +Henry, a debt he owes to few of their generation. The truth is we should +_read_ Kingsley; we must not criticise him. We must accept him and be +glad of him, as we accept a windy, sunny autumn day--beautiful and +blusterous--to be enjoyed and struggled with. If once we stop and +reflect, and hesitate, he seems to preach too much, and with a confidence +which his knowledge of the world and of history does not justify. To be +at one with Kingsley we must be boys again, and that momentary change +cannot but be good for us. Soon enough--too soon--we shall drop back on +manhood, and on all the difficulties and dragons that Kingsley drove away +by a blast on his chivalrous and cheery horn. + + + + +CHARLES LEVER: HIS BOOKS, ADVENTURES AND MISFORTUNES + + +Surely it is a pleasant thing that there are books, like other +enjoyments, for all ages. You would not have a boy prefer whist to +fives, nor tobacco to toffee, nor Tolstoi to Charles Lever. The ancients +reckoned Tyrtaecus a fine poet, not that he was particularly melodious or +reflective, but that he gave men heart to fight for their country. +Charles Lever has done as much. In his biography, by Mr. Fitzpatrick, it +is told that a widow lady had but one son, and for him she obtained an +appointment at Woolwich. The boy was timid and nervous, and she fancied +that she must find for him some other profession--perhaps that of +literature. But he one day chanced on Lever's novels, and they put so +much heart into him that his character quite altered, and he became the +bravest of the brave. + +Lever may not do as much for every one, but he does teach contempt of +danger, or rather, delight in it: a gay, spontaneous, boyish kind of +courage--Irish courage at its best. We may get more good from that than +harm from all his tales of much punch and many drinking bouts. These are +no longer in fashion and are not very gay reading, perhaps, but his +stories and songs, his duels and battles and hunting scenes are as merry +and as good as ever. Wild as they seem in the reading, they are not far +from the truth, as may be gathered out of "Barrington's Memoirs," and +their tales of the reckless Irish life some eighty years ago. + +There were two men in Charles Lever--a glad man and a sad man. The +gaiety was for his youth, when he poured out his "Lorrequers" and +"O'Malleys," all the mirth and memories of his boyhood, all the tales of +fighting and feasting he gleaned from battered, seasoned old warriors, +like Major Monsoon. Even then, Mr. Thackeray, who knew him, and liked +and laughed at him, recognised through his merriment "the fund of sadness +beneath." "The author's character is _not_ humour, but sentiment . . . +extreme delicacy, sweetness and kindliness of heart. The spirits are +mostly artificial, the _fond_ is sadness, as appears to me to be that of +most Irish writing and people." Even in "Charles O'Malley," what a +true, dark picture that is of the duel beside the broad, angry river on +the level waste under the wide grey sky! Charles has shot his opponent, +Bodkin, and with Considine, his second, is making his escape. "Considine +cried out suddenly, 'Too infamous, by Jove: we are murdered men!'" + +"'What do you mean?' said I. + +"'Don't you see that?' said he, pointing to something black which floated +from a pole at the opposite side of the river. + +"'Yes; what is it?' + +"'It's his coat they've put upon an oar, to show the people he's +killed--that's all. Every man here's his tenant; and look there! they're +not giving us much doubt as to their intentions.' + +"Here a tremendous yell burst forth from the mass of people along the +shore, which, rising to a terrific cry, sank gradually down to a low +wailing, then rose and fell several times, as the Irish death-cry filled +the air, and rose to heaven, as if imploring vengeance on a murderer." + +Passages like this, and that which follows--the dangerous voyage through +the storm on the flooded Shannon, and through the reefs--are what Mr. +Thackeray may have had in his mind when he spoke of Lever's underlying +melancholy. Like other men with very high spirits, he had hours of +gloom, and the sadness and the thoughtfulness that were in him came forth +then and informed his later books. These are far more carefully written, +far more cunningly constructed, than the old chapters written from month +to month as the fit took him, with no more plan or premeditation than +"Pickwick." But it is the early stories that we remember, and that he +lives by--the pages thrown off at a heat, when he was a lively doctor +with few patients, and was not over-attentive to them. These were the +days of Harry Lorrequer and Tom Burke; characters that ran away with him, +and took their own path through a merry world of diversion. Like the +knights in Sir Thomas Malory, these heroes "ride at adventure," ride +amazing horses that dread no leap, be it an Irish stone wall on a +mountain crest, or be it the bayonets of a French square. + +Mr. Lever's biographer has not been wholly successful in pleasing the +critics, and he does not seem to affect very critical airs himself, but +he tells a straightforward tale. The life of Charles Lever is the +natural commentary on his novels. He was born at Dublin in 1806, the son +of a builder or architect. At school he was very much flogged, and the +odds are that he deserved these attentions, for he had high spirits +beyond the patience of dominies. Handsome, merry and clever, he read +novels in school hours, wore a ring, and set up as a dandy. Even then he +was in love with the young lady whom he married in the end. At a fight +with boys of another school, he and a friend placed a mine under the +ground occupied by the enemy, and blew them, more or less, into the air. +Many an eyebrow was singed off on that fatal day, when, for the only +time, this romancer of the wars "smelled powder." He afterwards pleaded +for his party before the worthy police magistrate, and showed great +promise as a barrister. At Trinity College, Dublin, he was full of his +fun, made ballads, sang them through the streets in disguise (like +Fergusson, the Scottish poet), and one night collected thirty shillings +in coppers. + +The original of Frank Webber, in "Charles O'Malley," was a chum of his, +and he took part in the wonderful practical jokes which he has made +immortal in that novel. + +From Trinity College, Dublin, Lever went to Gottingen, where he found fun +and fighting enough among the German students. From that hour he became +a citizen of the world, or, at least, of Europe, and perhaps, like the +prophets, was most honoured when out of his own country. He returned to +Dublin and took his degree in medicine, after playing a famous practical +joke. A certain medical professor was wont to lecture in bed. One night +he left town unexpectedly. Lever, by chance, came early to lecture, +found the Professor absent, slipped into his bed, put on his nightcap, +and took the class himself. On another day he was standing outside the +Foundling Hospital with a friend, a small man. Now, a kind of stone +cradle for foundlings was built outside the door, and, when a baby was +placed therein, a bell rang. Lever lifted up his friend, popped him into +the cradle, and had the joy of seeing the promising infant picked out by +the porter. + +It seems a queer education for a man of letters; but, like Sir Walter +Scott when revelling in Liddesdale, he "was making himself all the time." +He was collecting myriads of odd experiences and treasures of anecdotes; +he was learning to know men of all sorts; and later, as a country doctor, +he had experiences of mess tables, of hunting, and of all the ways of his +remarkable countrymen. When cholera visited his district he stuck to his +work like a man of heart and courage. But the usual tasks of a country +doctor wearied him; he neglected them, he became unpopular with the +authorities, he married his first love and returned to Brussels, where he +practised as a physician. He had already begun his first notable book, +"Harry Lorrequer," in the _University Magazine_. It is merely a string +of Irish and other stories, good, bad, and indifferent--a picture gallery +full of portraits of priests, soldiers, peasants and odd characters. The +plot is of no importance; we are not interested in Harry's love affairs, +but in his scrapes, adventures, duels at home and abroad. He fights +people by mistake whom he does not know by sight, he appears on parade +with his face blackened, he wins large piles at _trente et quarante_, he +disposes of coopers of claret and bowls of punch, and the sheep on a +thousand hills provide him with devilled kidneys. The critics and the +authors thought little of the merry medley, but the public enjoyed it, +and defied the reviewers. One paper preferred the book to a wilderness +of "Pickwicks"; and as this opinion was advertised everywhere by +M'Glashan, the publisher, Mr. Dickens was very much annoyed indeed. +Authors are easily annoyed. But Lever writes _ut placeat pueris_, and +there was a tremendous fight at Rugby between two boys, the "Slogger +Williams" and "Tom Brown" of the period, for the possession of "Harry +Lorrequer." When an author has the boys of England on his side, he can +laugh at the critics. Not that Lever laughed: he, too, was easily vexed, +and much depressed, when the reviews assailed him. Next he began +"Charles O'Malley"; and if any man reads this essay who has not read the +"Irish Dragoon," let him begin at once. "O'Malley" is what you can +recommend to a friend. Here is every species of diversion: duels and +steeplechases, practical jokes at college (good practical jokes, not +booby traps and apple-pie beds); here is fighting in the Peninsula. If +any student is in doubt, let him try chapter xiv.--the battle on the +Douro. This is, indeed, excellent military writing, and need not fear +comparison as art with Napier's famous history. Lever has warmed to his +work; his heart is in it; he had the best information from an +eye-witness; and the brief beginning, on the peace of nature before the +strife of men, is admirably poetical. + +To reach the French, under Soult, Wellesley had to cross the deep and +rapid Douro, in face of their fire, and without regular transport. "He +dared the deed. What must have been his confidence in the men he +commanded! what must have been his reliance on his own genius!" + +You hold your breath as you read, while English and Germans charge, till +at last the field is won, and the dust of the French columns retreating +in the distance blows down the road to Spain. + +The Great Duke read this passage, and marvelled how Lever knew certain +things that he tells. He learned this, and much more, the humours of +war, from the original of Major Monsoon. Falstaff is alone in the +literature of the world, but if ever there came a later Falstaff, Monsoon +was the man. And where have you such an Irish Sancho Panza as Micky +Free, that independent minstrel, or such an Irish Di Vernon as Baby +Blake? The critics may praise Lever's thoughtful and careful later +novels as they will, but "Charles O'Malley" will always be the pattern of +a military romance. The anecdote of "a virtuous weakness" in +O'Shaughnessy's father's character would alone make the fortune of many a +story. The truth is, it is not easy to lay down "Charles O'Malley," to +leave off reading it, and get on with the account of Lever. + +His excellent and delightful novel scarcely received one favourable +notice from the press. This may have been because it was so popular; but +Lever became so nervous that he did not like to look at the papers. When +he went back to Dublin and edited a magazine there, he was more fiercely +assailed than ever. It is difficult for an Irishman to write about the +Irish, or for a Scot to write about the Scottish, without hurting the +feelings of his countrymen. While their literary brethren are alive they +are not very dear to the newspaper scribes of these gallant nations; and +thus Jeffrey was more severe to Scott than he need have been, while the +Irish press, it appears, made an onslaught on Lever. Mr. Thackeray met +Lever in Dublin, and he mentions this unkind behaviour. "Lorrequer's +military propensities have been objected to strongly by his squeamish +Hibernian brethren . . . But is Lorrequer the only man in Ireland who is +fond of military spectacles? Why does the _Nation_ publish these +edifying and Christian war songs? . . . And who is it that prates about +the Irish at Waterloo, and the Irish at Fontenoy, and the Irish at +Seringapatam, and the Irish at Timbuctoo? If Mr. O'Connell, like a wise +rhetorician, chooses, and very properly, to flatter the national military +passion, why not Harry Lorrequer?" + +Why not, indeed? But Mr. Lever was a successful Irishman of letters, and +a good many other Irish gentlemen of letters, honest Doolan and his +friends, were not successful. That is the humour of it. + +Though you, my youthful reader, if I have one, do not detest Jones +because he is in the Eleven, nor Brown because he has "got his cap," nor +Smith because he does Greek Iambics like Sophocles; though you rather +admire and applaud these champions, you may feel very differently when +you come to thirty years or more, and see other men doing what you cannot +do, and gaining prizes beyond your grasp. And then, if you are a +reviewer, you "will find fault with a book for what it does not give," as +thus, to take Mr. Thackeray's example:-- + +"Lady Smigsmag's novel is amusing, but lamentably deficient in geological +information." "Mr. Lever's novels are trashy and worthless, for his +facts are not borne out by any authority, and he gives us no information +about the political state of Ireland. 'Oh! our country, our green and +beloved, our beautiful and oppressed?'" and so forth. + +It was not altogether a happy time that Lever passed at home. Not only +did his native critics belabour him most ungrudgingly for "Tom Burke," +that vivid and chivalrous romance, but he made enemies of authors. He +edited a magazine! Is not that enough? He wearied of wading through +waggon-loads of that pure unmitigated rubbish which people are permitted +to "shoot" at editorial doors. How much dust there is in it to how few +pearls! He did not return MSS. punctually and politely. The office cat +could edit the volunteered contributions of many a magazine, but Lever +was even more casual and careless than an experienced office cat. He +grew crabbed, and tried to quarrel with Mr. Thackeray for that delightful +parody "Phil Fogarty," nearly as good as a genuine story by Lever. + +Beset by critics, burlesqued by his friend, he changed his style (Mr. +Fitzpatrick tells us) and became more sober--and not so entertaining. He +actually published a criticism of Beyle, of Stendhal, that psychological +prig, the darling of culture and of M. Paul Bourget. Harry Lorrequer on +Stendhal!--it beggars belief. He nearly fought a duel with the gentleman +who is said to have suggested Mr. Pecksniff to Dickens! Yet they call +his early novels improbable. Nothing could be less plausible than a +combat between Harry Lorrequer and a gentleman who, even remotely, +resembled the father of Cherry and Merry. + +Lever went abroad again, and in Florence or the Baths of Lucca, in +Trieste or Spezia, he passed the rest of his life. He saw the Italian +revolution of 1848, and it added to his melancholy. This is plain from +one of his novels with a curious history--"Con Cregan." He wrote it at +the same time as "The Daltons," and he did not sign it. The reviewers +praised "Con Cregan" at the expense of the signed work, rejoicing that +Lever, as "The Daltons" proved, was exhausted, and that a new Irish +author, the author of "Con Cregan," was coming to eclipse him. In short, +he eclipsed himself, and he did not like it. His right hand was jealous +of what his left hand did. It seems odd that any human being, however +dull and envious, failed to detect Lever in the rapid and vivacious +adventures of his Irish "Gil Blas," hero of one of the very best among +his books, a piece not unworthy of Dumas. "Con" was written after +midnight, "The Daltons" in the morning; and there can be no doubt which +set of hours was more favourable to Lever's genius. Of course he liked +"The Daltons" best; of all people, authors appear to be their own worst +critics. + +It is not possible even to catalogue Lever's later books here. Again he +drove a pair of novels abreast--"The Dodds" and "Sir Jasper Carew"--which +contain some of his most powerful situations. When almost an old man, +sad, outworn in body, straitened in circumstances, he still produced +excellent tales in this later manner--"Lord Kilgobbin," "That Boy of +Norcott's," "A Day's Ride," and many more. These are the thoughts of a +tired man of the world, who has done and seen everything that such men +see and do. He says that he grew fat, and bald, and grave; he wrote for +the grave and the bald, not for the happier world which is young, and +curly, and merry. He died at last, it is said, in his sleep; and it is +added that he did what Harry Lorrequer would not have done--he left his +affairs in perfect order. + +Lever lived in an age so full of great novelists that, perhaps, he is not +prized as he should be. Dickens, Bulwer, Thackeray, Trollope, George +Eliot, were his contemporaries. But when we turn back and read him once +more, we see that Lever, too, was a worthy member of that famous +company--a romancer for boys and men. + + + + +THE POEMS OF SIR WALTER SCOTT + + +Yesterday, as the sun was very bright, and there was no wind, I took a +fishing-rod on chance and Scott's poems, and rowed into the middle of St. +Mary's Loch. Every hill, every tuft of heather was reflected in the +lake, as in a silver mirror. There was no sound but the lapping of the +water against the boat, the cry of the blackcock from the hill, and the +pleasant plash of a trout rising here and there. So I read "The Lay of +the Last Minstrel" over again, here, in the middle of the scenes where +the story is laid and where the fights were fought. For when the Baron +went on pilgrimage, + + "And took with him this elvish page + To Mary's Chapel of the Lowes," + +it was to the ruined chapel _here_ that he came, + + "For there, beside our Ladye's lake, + An offering he had sworn to make, + And he would pay his vows." + +But his enemy, the Lady of Branksome, gathered a band, + + "Of the best that would ride at her command," + +and they all came from the country round. Branksome, where the lady +lived, is twenty miles off, towards the south, across the ranges of +lonely green hills. Harden, where her ally, Wat of Harden, abode, is +within twelve miles; and Deloraine, where William dwelt, is nearer still; +and John of Thirlestane had his square tower in the heather, "where +victual never grew," on Ettrick Water, within ten miles. These +gentlemen, and their kinsfolk and retainers, being at feud with the Kers, +tried to slay the Baron, in the Chapel of "Lone St. Mary of the Waves." + + "They were three hundred spears and three. + Through Douglas burn, up Yarrow stream, + Their horses prance, their lances gleam. + They came to St. Mary's Lake ere day; + But the chapel was void, and the Baron away. + They burned the chapel for very rage, + And cursed Lord Cranstoun's goblin-page." + +The Scotts were a rough clan enough to burn a holy chapel because they +failed to kill their enemy within the sacred walls. But, as I read +again, for the twentieth time, Sir Walter's poem, floating on the lonely +breast of the lake, in the heart of the hills where Yarrow flows, among +the little green mounds that cover the ruins of chapel and castle and +lady's bower, I asked myself whether Sir Walter was indeed a great and +delightful poet, or whether he pleases me so much because I was born in +his own country, and have one drop of the blood of his Border robbers in +my own veins? + +It is not always pleasant to go back to places, or to meet people, whom +we have loved well, long ago. If they have changed little, we have +changed much. The little boy, whose first book of poetry was "The Lady +of the Lake," and who naturally believed that there was no poet like Sir +Walter, is sadly changed into the man who has read most of the world's +poets, and who hears, on many sides, that Scott is outworn and doomed to +deserved oblivion. Are they right or wrong, the critics who tell us, +occasionally, that Scott's good novels make up for his bad verse, or that +verse and prose, all must go? _Pro captu lectoris_, by the reader's +taste, they stand or fall; yet even pessimism can scarcely believe that +the Waverley Novels are mortal. They were once the joy of every class of +minds; they cannot cease to be the joy of those who cling to the +permanently good, and can understand and forgive lapses, carelessnesses, +and the leisurely literary fashion of a former age. But, as to the +poems, many give them up who cling to the novels. It does not follow +that the poems are bad. In the first place, they are of two kinds--lyric +and narrative. Now, the fashion of narrative in poetry has passed away +for the present. The true Greek epics are read by a few in Greek; by +perhaps fewer still in translations. But so determined are we not to +read tales in verse, that prose renderings, even of the epics, nay, even +of the Attic dramas, have come more or less into vogue. This accounts +for the comparative neglect of Sir Walter's lays. They are spoken of as +Waverley Novels spoiled. This must always be the opinion of readers who +will not submit to stories in verse; it by no means follows that the +verse is bad. If we make an exception, which we must, in favour of +Chaucer, where is there better verse in story telling in the whole of +English literature? The readers who despise "Marmion," or "The Lady of +the Lake," do so because they dislike stories told in poetry. From +poetry they expect other things, especially a lingering charm and magic +of style, a reflective turn, "criticism of life." These things, except +so far as life can be criticised in action, are alien to the Muse of +narrative. Stories and pictures are all she offers: Scott's pictures, +certainly, are fresh enough, his tales are excellent enough, his manner +is sufficiently direct. To take examples: every one who wants to read +Scott's poetry should begin with the "Lay." From opening to close it +never falters:-- + + "Nine and twenty knights of fame + Hung their shields in Branksome Hall; + Nine and twenty squires of name + Brought their steeds to bower from stall, + Nine and twenty yeomen tall + Waited, duteous, on them all . . . + Ten of them were sheathed in steel, + With belted sword, and spur on heel; + They quitted not their harness bright + Neither by day nor yet by night: + They lay down to rest + With corslet laced, + Pillowed on buckler cold and hard; + They carved at the meal + With gloves of steel, + And they drank the red wine through the helmet barred." + +Now, is not that a brave beginning? Does not the verse clank and chime +like sword sheath on spur, like the bits of champing horses? Then, when +William of Deloraine is sent on his lonely midnight ride across the +haunted moors and wolds, does the verse not gallop like the heavy +armoured horse? + + "Unchallenged, thence passed Deloraine, + To ancient Riddell's fair domain, + Where Aill, from mountains freed, + Down from the lakes did raving come; + Each wave was crested with tawny foam, + Like the mane of a chestnut steed, + In vain! no torrent, deep or broad, + Might bar the bold moss-trooper's road; + At the first plunge the horse sunk low, + And the water broke o'er the saddle-bow." + +These last two lines have the very movement and note, the deep heavy +plunge, the still swirl of the water. Well I know the lochs whence Aill +comes red in flood; many a trout have I taken in Aill, long ago. This, +of course, causes a favourable prejudice, a personal bias towards +admiration. But I think the poetry itself is good, and stirs the spirit, +even of those who know not Ailmoor, the mother of Aill, that lies dark +among the melancholy hills. + +The spirit is stirred throughout by the chivalry and the courage of +Scott's men and of his women. Thus the Lady of Branksome addresses the +English invaders who have taken her boy prisoner:-- + + "For the young heir of Branksome's line, + God be his aid, and God be mine; + Through me no friend shall meet his doom; + Here, while I live, no foe finds room. + Then if thy Lords their purpose urge, + Take our defiance loud and high; + Our slogan is their lyke-wake dirge, + Our moat, the grave where they shall lie." + +Ay, and though the minstrel says he is no love poet, and though, indeed, +he shines more in war than in lady's bower, is not this a noble stanza on +true love, and worthy of what old Malory writes in his "Mort d'Arthur"? +Because here Scott speaks for himself, and of his own unhappy and +immortal affection:-- + + "True love's the gift which God has given + To man alone beneath the Heaven. + It is not Fantasy's hot fire, + Whose wishes, soon as granted, fly; + _It liveth not in fierce desire_, + _With dead desire it dock not die_: + It is the secret sympathy, + The silver link, the silken tie, + Which heart to heart and mind to mind, + In body and in soul can bind." + +Truth and faith, courage and chivalry, a free life in the hills and by +the streams, a shrewd brain, an open heart, a kind word for friend or +foeman, these are what you learn from the "Lay," if you want to learn +lessons from poetry. It is a rude legend, perhaps, as the critics said +at once, when critics were disdainful of wizard priests and ladies +magical. But it is a deathless legend, I hope; it appeals to every young +heart that is not early spoiled by low cunning, and cynicism, and love of +gain. The minstrel's own prophecy is true, and still, and always, + + "Yarrow, as he rolls along, + Bears burden to the minstrel's song." + +After the "Lay" came "Marmion, a Tale of Flodden Field." It is far more +ambitious and complicated than the "Lay," and is not much worse written. +Sir Walter was ever a rapid and careless poet, and as he took more pains +with his plot, he took less with his verse. His friends reproved him, +but he answered to one of them-- + + "Since oft thy judgment could refine + My flattened thought and cumbrous line, + Still kind, as is thy wont, attend, + And in the minstrel spare the friend: + _Though wild as cloud_, _as stream_, _as gale_, + _Flow forth_, _flow unrestrained_, _my tale_!" + +Any one who knows Scott's country knows how cloud and stream and gale all +sweep at once down the valley of Ettrick or of Tweed. West wind, wild +cloud, red river, they pour forth as by one impulse--forth from the far- +off hills. He let his verse sweep out in the same stormy sort, and many +a "cumbrous line," many a "flattened thought," you may note, if you will, +in "Marmion." For example-- + + "And think what he must next have felt, + At buckling of the falchion belt." + +The "Lay" is a tale that only verse could tell; much of "Marmion" might +have been told in prose, and most of "Rokeby." But prose could never +give the picture of Edinburgh, nor tell the tale of Flodden Fight in +"Marmion," which I verily believe is the best battle-piece in all the +poetry of all time, better even than the stand of Aias by the ships in +the Iliad, better than the slaying of the Wooers in the Odyssey. Nor +could prose give us the hunting of the deer and the long gallop over +hillside and down valley, with which the "Lady of the Lake" begins, +opening thereby the enchanted gates of the Highlands to the world. "The +Lady of the Lake," except in the battle-piece, is told in a less rapid +metre than that of the "Lay," less varied than that of "Marmion." +"Rokeby" lives only by its songs; the "Lord of the Isles" by Bannockburn, +the "Field of Waterloo" by the repulse of the Cuirassiers. But all the +poems are interspersed with songs and ballads, as the beautiful ballad of +"Alice Brand"; and Scott's fame rests on _these_ far more than on his +later versified romances. Coming immediately after the very tamest poets +who ever lived, like Hayley, Scott wrote songs and ballads as wild and +free, as melancholy or gay, as ever shepherd sang, or gipsy carolled, or +witch-wife moaned, or old forgotten minstrel left to the world, music +with no maker's name. For example, take the Outlaw's rhyme-- + + "With burnished brand and musketoon, + So gallantly you come, + I read you for a bold dragoon + That lists the tuck of drum. + I list no more the tuck of drum, + No more the trumpet hear; + But when the beetle sounds his hum, + My comrades take the spear. + And, oh, though Brignal banks be fair, + And Greta woods be gay, + Yet mickle must the maiden dare, + Would reign my Queen of May!" + +How musical, again, is this!-- + + "This morn is merry June, I trow, + The rose is budding fain; + But she shall bloom in winter snow, + Ere we two meet again. + He turned his charger as he spake, + Upon the river shore, + He gave his bridle-reins a shake, + Said, 'Adieu for evermore, + My love! + Adieu for evermore!'" + +Turning from the legends in verse, let it not be forgotten that Scott was +a great lyrical poet. Mr. Palgrave is not too lenient a judge, and his +"Golden Treasury" is a touchstone, as well as a treasure, of poetic gold. +In this volume Wordsworth contributes more lyrics than any other poet: +Shelley and Shakespeare come next; then Sir Walter. For my part I would +gladly sacrifice a few of Wordsworth's for a few more of Scott's. But +this may be prejudice. Mr. Palgrave is not prejudiced, and we see how +high is his value for Sir Walter. + +There are scores of songs in his works, touching and sad, or gay as a +hunter's waking, that tell of lovely things lost by tradition, and found +by him on the moors: all these--not prized by Sir Walter himself--are in +his gift, and in that of no other man. For example, his "Eve of St. +John" is simply a masterpiece, a ballad among ballads. Nothing but an +old song moves us like-- + + "Are these the links o' Forth, she said, + Are these the bends o' Dee!" + +He might have done more of the best, had he very greatly cared. Alone +among poets, he had neither vanity nor jealousy; he thought little of his +own verse and his own fame: would that he had thought more! would that he +had been more careful of what was so precious! But he turned to prose; +bade poetry farewell. + + "Yet, once again, farewell, thou Minstrel Harp, + Yet, once again, forgive my feeble sway. + _And little reck I of the censure sharp_ + _May idly cavil at an idle lay_." + +People still cavil idly, complaining that Scott did not finish, or did +not polish his pieces; that he was not Keats, or was not Wordsworth. He +was himself; he was the Last Minstrel, the latest, the greatest, the +noblest of natural poets concerned with natural things. He sang of free, +fierce, and warlike life, of streams yet rich in salmon, and moors not +yet occupied by brewers; of lonely places haunted in the long grey +twilights of the North; of crumbling towers where once dwelt the Lady of +Branksome or the Flower of Yarrow. Nature summed up in him many a past +age a world of ancient faiths; and before the great time of Britain +wholly died, to Britain, as to Greece, she gave her Homer. When he was +old, and tired, and near his death--so worn with trouble and labour that +he actually signed his own name wrong--he wrote his latest verse, for a +lady. It ends-- + + "My country, be thou glorious still!" + +and so he died, within the sound of the whisper of Tweed, foreseeing the +years when his country would no more be glorious, thinking of his country +only, forgetting quite the private sorrow of his own later days. + +People will tell you that Scott was not a great poet; that his bolt is +shot, his fame perishing. Little he cared for his fame! But for my part +I think and hope that Scott can never die, till men grow up into manhood +without ever having been boys--till they forget that + + "One glorious hour of crowded life + Is worth an age without a name!" + +Thus, the charges against Sir Walter's poetry are, on the whole, little +more than the old critical fallacy of blaming a thing for not being +something else. "It takes all sorts to make a world," in poetry as in +life. Sir Walter's sort is a very good sort, and in English literature +its place was empty, and waiting for him. Think of what he did. English +poetry had long been very tame and commonplace, written in couplets like +Pope's, very artificial and smart, or sensible and slow. He came with +poems of which the music seemed to gallop, like thundering hoofs and +ringing bridles of a rushing border troop. Here were goblin, ghost, and +fairy, fight and foray, fair ladies and true lovers, gallant knights and +hard blows, blazing beacons on every hill crest and on the bartisan of +every tower. Here was a world made alive again that had been dead for +three hundred years--a world of men and women. + +They say that the archaeology is not good. Archaeology is a science; in +its application to poetry, Scott was its discoverer. Others can name the +plates of a coat of armour more learnedly than he, but he made men wear +them. They call his Gothic art false, his armour pasteboard; but he put +living men under his castled roofs, living men into his breastplates and +taslets. Science advances, old knowledge becomes ignorance; it is poetry +that does not die, and that will not die, while-- + + "The triple pride + Of Eildon looks over Strathclyde." + + + + +JOHN BUNYAN + + +Dr. Johnson once took Bishop Percy's little daughter on his knee, and +asked her what she thought of the "Pilgrim's Progress." The child +answered that she had not read it. "No?" replied the Doctor; "then I +would not give one farthing for you," and he set her down and took no +further notice of her. + +This story, if true, proves that the Doctor was rather intolerant. We +must not excommunicate people because they have not our taste in books. +The majority of people do not care for books at all. + +There is a descendant of John Bunyan's alive now, or there was lately, +who never read the "Pilgrim's Progress." Books are not in his line. Nay, +Bunyan himself, who wrote sixty works, was no great reader. An Oxford +scholar who visited him in his study found no books at all, except some +of Bunyan's own and Foxe's "Book of Martyrs." + +Yet, little as the world in general cares for reading, it has read Bunyan +more than most. One hundred thousand copies of the "Pilgrim" are +believed to have been sold in his own day, and the story has been done +into the most savage languages, as well as into those of the civilised +world. + +Dr. Johnson, who did not like Dissenters, praises the "invention, +imagination, and conduct of the story," and knew no other book he wished +longer except "Robinson Crusoe" and "Don Quixote." Well, Dr. Johnson +would not have given a farthing for _me_, as I am quite contented with +the present length of these masterpieces. What books do _you_ wish +longer? I wish Homer had written a continuation of the Odyssey, and told +us what Odysseus did among the far-off men who never tasted salt nor +heard of the sea. A land epic after the sea epic, how good it would have +been--from Homer! But it would have taxed the imagination of Dante to +continue the adventures of Christian and his wife after they had once +crossed the river and reached the city. + +John Bunyan has been more fortunate than most authors in one of his +biographies. + +His life has been written by the Rev. Dr. Brown, who is now minister of +his old congregation at Bedford; and an excellent life it is. Dr. Brown +is neither Roundhead nor Cavalier; for though he is, of course, on +Bunyan's side, he does not throw stones at the beautiful Church of +England. + +Probably most of us are on Bunyan's side now. It might be a good thing +that we should all dwell together in religious unity, but history shows +that people cannot be bribed into brotherhood. They tried to bully +Bunyan; they arrested and imprisoned him--unfairly even in law, according +to Dr. Brown, not unfairly, Mr. Froude thinks--and he would not be +bullied. + +What was much more extraordinary, he would not be embittered. In spite +of all, he still called Charles II. "a gracious Prince." When a subject +is in conscience at variance with the law, Bunyan said, he has but one +course--to accept peaceably the punishment which the law awards. He was +never soured, never angered by twelve years of durance, not exactly in a +loathsome dungeon, but in very uncomfortable quarters. When there came a +brief interval of toleration, he did not occupy himself in brawling, but +in preaching, and looking after the manners and morals of the little +"church," including one woman who brought disagreeable charges against +"Brother Honeylove." The church decided that there was nothing in the +charges, but somehow the name of Brother Honeylove does not inspire +confidence. + +Almost everybody knows the main facts of Bunyan's life. They may not +know that he was of Norman descent (as Dr. Brown seems to succeed in +proving), nor that the Bunyans came over with the Conqueror, nor that he +was a gipsy, as others hold. On Dr. Brown's showing, Bunyan's ancestors +lost their lands in process of time and change, and Bunyan's father was a +tinker. He preferred to call himself a brazier--his was the rather +unexpected trade to which Mr. Dick proposed apprenticing David +Copperfield. + +Bunyan himself, "the wondrous babe," as Dr. Brown enthusiastically styles +him, was christened on November 30th, 1628. He was born in a cottage, +long fallen, and hard by was a marshy place, "a veritable slough of +despond." Bunyan may have had it in mind when he wrote of the slough +where Christian had so much trouble. He was not a travelled man: all his +knowledge of people and places he found at his doors. He had some +schooling, "according to the rate of other poor men's children," and +assuredly it was enough. + +The great civil war broke out, and Bunyan was a soldier; he tells us not +on which side. Dr. Brown and Mr. Lewis Morris think he was on that of +the Parliament, but his old father, the tinker, stood for the King. Mr. +Froude is rather more inclined to hold that he was among the "gay +gallants who struck for the crown." He does not seem to have been much +under fire, but he got that knowledge of the appearance of war which he +used in his siege of the City of Mansoul. One can hardly think that +Bunyan liked war--certainly not from cowardice, but from goodness of +heart. + +In 1646 the army was disbanded, and Bunyan went back to Elstow village +and his tinkering, his bell-ringing, his dancing with the girls, his +playing at "cat" on a Sunday after service. + +He married very young and poor. He married a pious wife, and read all +her library--"The Plain Man's Pathway to Heaven," and "The Practice of +Piety." He became very devout in the spirit of the Church of England, +and he gave up his amusements. Then he fell into the Slough of Despond, +then he went through the Valley of the Shadow, and battled with Apollyon. + +People have wondered _why_ he fancied himself such a sinner? He +confesses to having been a liar and a blasphemer. If I may guess, I +fancy that this was merely the literary genius of Bunyan seeking for +expression. His lies, I would go bail, were tremendous romances, wild +fictions told for fun, never lies of cowardice or for gain. As to his +blasphemies, he had an extraordinary power of language, and that was how +he gave it play. "Fancy swearing" was his only literary safety-valve, in +those early days, when he played cat on Elstow Green. + +Then he heard a voice dart from heaven into his soul, which said, "Wilt +thou leave thy sins and go to heaven, or have thy sins and go to hell?" +So he fell on repentance, and passed those awful years of mental torture, +when all nature seemed to tempt him to the Unknown Sin. + +What did all this mean? It meant that Bunyan was within an ace of +madness. + +It happens to a certain proportion of men, religiously brought up, to +suffer like Bunyan. They hear voices, they are afraid of that awful +unknown iniquity, and of eternal death, as Bunyan and Cowper were afraid. + +Was it not De Quincey who was at school with a bully who believed he had +been guilty of the unpardonable offence? Bullying is an offence much +less pardonable than most men are guilty of. Their best plan (in +Bunyan's misery) is to tell Apollyon that the Devil is an ass, to do +their work and speak the truth. + +Bunyan got quit of his terror at last, briefly by believing in the +goodness of God. He did not say, like Mr. Carlyle, "Well, if all my +fears are true, what then?" His was a Christian, not a stoical +deliverance. + +The "church" in which Bunyan found shelter had for minister a converted +major in a Royalist regiment. It was a quaint little community, the +members living like the early disciples, correcting each other's faults, +and keeping a severe eye on each other's lives. Bunyan became a minister +in it; but, Puritan as he was, he lets his Pilgrims dance on joyful +occasions, and even Mr. Ready-to-Halt waltzes with a young lady of the +Pilgrim company. + +As a minister and teacher Bunyan began to write books of controversy with +Quakers and clergymen. The points debated are no longer important to us; +the main thing was that he got a pen into his hand, and found a proper +outlet for his genius, a better way than fancy swearing. + +If he had not been cast into Bedford jail for preaching in a cottage, he +might never have dreamed his immortal dream, nor become all that he was. +The leisures of gaol were long. In that "den" the Muse came to him, the +fair kind Muse of the Home Beautiful. He saw all that company of his, so +like and so unlike Chaucer's: Faithful, and Hopeful, and Christian, the +fellowship of fiends, the truculent Cavaliers of Vanity Fair, and Giant +Despair, with his grievous crabtree cudgel; and other people he saw who +are with us always,--the handsome Madam Bubble, and the young woman whose +name was Dull, and Mr. Worldly Wiseman, and Mr. Facing Bothways, and +Byends, all the persons of the comedy of human life. + +He hears the angelic songs of the City beyond the river; he hears them, +but repeat them to us he cannot, "for I'm no poet," as he says himself. +He beheld the country of Beulah, and the Delectable Mountains, that +earthly Paradise of nature where we might be happy yet, and wander no +farther, if the world would let us--fair mountains in whose streams Izaak +Walton was then even casting angle. + +It is pleasant to fancy how Walton and Bunyan might have met and talked, +under a plane tree by the Ouse, while the May showers were falling. +Surely Bunyan would not have likened the good old man to Formalist; and +certainly Walton would have enjoyed travelling with Christian, though the +book was by none of his dear bishops, but by a Non-conformist. They were +made to like but not to convert each other; in matters ecclesiastical +they saw the opposite sides of the shield. Each wrote a masterpiece. It +is too late to praise "The Complete Angler" or the "Pilgrim's Progress." +You may put ingenuity on the rack, but she can say nothing new that is +true about the best romance that ever was wedded to allegory, nor about +the best idyl of old English life. + +The people are living now--all the people: the noisy bullying judges, as +of the French Revolutionary Courts, or the Hanging Courts after +Monmouth's war; the demure, grave Puritan girls; and Matthew, who had the +gripes; and lazy, feckless Ignorance, who came to so ill an end, poor +fellow; and sturdy Old Honest, and timid Mr. Fearing; not single persons, +but dozens, arise on the memory. + +They come, as fresh, as vivid, as if they were out of Scott or Moliere; +the Tinker is as great a master of character and fiction as the greatest, +almost; his style is pure, and plain, and sound, full of old idioms, and +even of something like old slang. But even his slang is classical. + +Bunyan is everybody's author. The very Catholics have their own edition +of the Pilgrim: they have cut out Giant Pope, but have been too +good-natured to insert Giant Protestant in his place. Unheralded, +unannounced, though not uncriticised (they accused the Tinker of being a +plagiarist, of course), Bunyan outshone the Court wits, the learned, the +poets of the Restoration, and even the great theologians. + +His other books, except "Grace Abounding" (an autobiography), "The Holy +War," and "Mr. Badman," are only known to students, nor much read by +them. The fashion of his theology, as of all theology, passed away; it +is by virtue of his imagination, of his romance, that he lives. + +The allegory, of course, is full of flaws. It would not have been manly +of Christian to run off and save his own soul, leaving his wife and +family. But Bunyan shrank from showing us how difficult, if not +impossible, it is for a married man to be a saint. Christiana was really +with him all through that pilgrimage; and how he must have been hampered +by that woman of the world! But had the allegory clung more closely to +the skirts of truth, it would have changed from a romance to a satire, +from "The Pilgrim's Progress" to "Vanity Fair." There was too much love +in Bunyan for a satirist of that kind; he had just enough for a +humourist. + +Born in another class, he might have been, he would have been, a writer +more refined in his strength, more uniformly excellent, but never so +universal nor so popular in the best sense of the term. + +In the change of times and belief it is not impossible that Bunyan will +live among the class whom he least thought of addressing--scholars, +lovers of worldly literature--for devotion and poverty are parting +company, while art endures till civilisation perishes. + +Are we better or worse for no longer believing as Bunyan believed, no +longer seeing that Abyss of Pascal's open beside our armchairs? The +question is only a form of that wide riddle, Does any theological or +philosophical opinion make us better or worse? The vast majority of men +and women are little affected by schemes and theories of this life and +the next. They who even ask for a reply to the riddle are the few: most +of us take the easy-going morality of our world for a guide, as we take +Bradshaw for a railway journey. It is the few who must find out an +answer: on that answer their lives depend, and the lives of others are +insensibly raised towards their level. Bunyan would not have been a +worse man if he had shared the faith of Izaak Walton. Izaak had his +reply to all questions in the Church Catechism and the Articles. Bunyan +found his in the theology of his sect, appealing more strongly than +orthodoxy to a nature more bellicose than Izaak's. Men like him, with +his indomitable courage, will never lack a solution of the puzzle of the +earth. At worst they will live by law, whether they dare to speak of it +as God's law, or dare not. They will always be our leaders, our Captain +Greathearts, in the pilgrimage to the city where, led or unled, we must +all at last arrive. They will not fail us, while loyalty and valour are +human qualities. The day may conceivably come when we have no Christian +to march before us, but we shall never lack the company of Greatheart. + + + + +TO A YOUNG JOURNALIST + + +Dear Smith,-- + +You inform me that you desire to be a journalist, and you are kind enough +to ask my advice. Well, be a journalist, by all means, in any honest and +honourable branch of the profession. But do not be an eavesdropper and a +spy. You may fly into a passion when you receive this very plainly +worded advice. I hope you will; but, for several reasons, which I now go +on to state, I fear that you won't. I fear that, either by natural gift +or by acquired habit, you already possess the imperturbable temper which +will be so useful to you if you do join the army of spies and +eavesdroppers. If I am right, you have made up your mind to refuse to +take offence, as long as by not taking offence you can wriggle yourself +forward in the band of journalistic reptiles. You will be revenged on +me, in that case, some day; you will lie in wait for me with a dirty +bludgeon, and steal on me out of a sewer. If you do, permit me to assure +you that I don't care. But if you are already in a rage, if you are +about tearing up this epistle, and are starting to assault me personally, +or at least to answer me furiously, then there is every hope for you and +for your future. I therefore venture to state my reasons for supposing +that you are inclined to begin a course which your father, if he were +alive, would deplore, as all honourable men in their hearts must deplore +it. When you were at the University (let me congratulate you on your +degree) you edited, or helped to edit, _The Bull-dog_. It was not a very +brilliant nor a very witty, but it was an extremely "racy" periodical. It +spoke of all men and dons by their nicknames. It was full of second-hand +slang. It contained many personal anecdotes, to the detriment of many +people. It printed garbled and spiteful versions of private +conversations on private affairs. It did not even spare to make comments +on ladies, and on the details of domestic life in the town and in the +University. The copies which you sent me I glanced at with extreme +disgust. + +In my time, more than a score of years ago, a similar periodical, but a +much more clever periodical, was put forth by members of the University. +It contained a novel which, even now, would be worth several ill-gotten +guineas to the makers of the _chronique scandaleuse_. But nobody bought +it, and it died an early death. Times have altered, I am a fogey; but +the ideas of honour and decency which fogies hold now were held by young +men in the sixties of our century. I know very well that these ideas are +obsolete. I am not preaching to the world, nor hoping to convert +society, but to _you_, and purely in your own private, spiritual +interest. If you enter on this path of tattle, mendacity, and malice, +and if, with your cleverness and light hand, you are successful, society +will not turn its back on you. You will be feared in many quarters, and +welcomed in others. Of your paragraphs people will say that "it is a +shame, of course, but it is very amusing." There are so many shames in +the world, shames not at all amusing, that you may see no harm in adding +to the number. "If I don't do it," you may argue, "some one else will." +Undoubtedly; but _why should you do it_? + +You are not a starving scribbler; if you determine to write, you can +write well, though not so easily, on many topics. You have not that last +sad excuse of hunger, which drives poor women to the streets, and makes +unhappy men act as public blabs and spies. If _you_ take to this +_metier_, it must be because you like it, which means that you enjoy +being a listener to and reporter of talk that was never meant for any +ears except those in which it was uttered. It means that the hospitable +board is not sacred for _you_; it means that, with you, friendship, +honour, all that makes human life better than a low smoking-room, are +only valuable for what their betrayal will bring. It means that not even +the welfare of your country will prevent you from running to the Press +with any secret which you may have been entrusted with, or which you may +have surprised. It means, this peculiar kind of profession, that all +things open and excellent, and conspicuous to all men, are with you of no +account. Art, literature, politics, are to cease to interest you. You +are to scheme to surprise gossip about the private lives, dress, and talk +of artists, men of letters, politicians. Your professional work will +sink below the level of servants' gossip in a public-house parlour. If +you happen to meet a man of known name, you will watch him, will listen +to him, will try to sneak into his confidence, and you will blab, for +money, about him, and your blab will inevitably be mendacious. In short, +like the most pitiable outcasts of womankind, and, without their excuse, +you will live by selling your honour. You will not suffer much, nor +suffer long. Your conscience will very speedily be seared with a red-hot +iron. You will be on the road which leads from mere dishonour to crime; +and you may find yourself actually practising _chantage_, and extorting +money as the price of your silence. This is the lowest deep: the vast +majority, even of social _mouchards_, do not sink so low as this. + +The profession of the critic, even in honourable and open criticism, is +beset with dangers. It is often hard to avoid saying an unkind thing, a +cruel thing, which is smart, and which may even be deserved. Who can say +that he has escaped this temptation, and what man of heart can think of +his own fall without a sense of shame? There are, I admit, authors so +antipathetic to me, that I cannot trust myself to review them. Would +that I had never reviewed them! They cannot be so bad as they seem to +me: they must have qualities which escape my observation. Then there is +the temptation to hit back. Some one writes, unjustly or unkindly as you +think, of you or of your friends. You wait till your enemy has written a +book, and then you have your innings. It is not in nature that your +review should be fair: you must inevitably be more on the look-out for +faults than merits. The _ereintage_, the "smashing" of a literary foe is +very delightful at the moment, but it does not look well in the light of +reflection. But these deeds are mere peccadilloes compared with the +confirmed habit of regarding all men and women as fair game for personal +tattle and the sating of private spite. Nobody, perhaps, begins with +this intention. Most men and women can find ready sophistries. If a +report about any one reaches their ears, they say that they are doing him +a service by publishing it and enabling him to contradict it. As if any +mortal ever listened to a contradiction! And there are charges--that of +plagiarism, for example--which can never be disproved, even if +contradictions were listened to by the public. The accusation goes +everywhere, is copied into every printed rag; the contradiction dies with +the daily death of a single newspaper. You may reply that a man of sense +will be indifferent to false accusations. He may, or may not be,--that +is not the question for you; the question for you is whether you will +circulate news that is false, probably, and spiteful, certainly. + +In short, the whole affair regards yourself more than it regards the +world. Plenty of poison is sold: is it well for you to be one of the +merchants? Is it the business of an educated gentleman to live by the +trade of an eavesdropper and a blab? In the Memoirs of M. Blowitz he +tells you how he began his illustrious career by procuring the +publication of remarks which M. Thiers had made to him. He then "went to +see M. Thiers, not without some apprehension." Is that the kind of +emotion which you wish to be habitual in your experience? Do you think +it agreeable to become shame-faced when you meet people who have +conversed with you frankly? Do you enjoy being a sneak, and feeling like +a sneak? Do you find blushing pleasant? Of course you will soon lose +the power of blushing; but is that an agreeable prospect? Depend on it, +there are discomforts in the progress to the brazen, in the journey to +the shameless. You may, if your tattle is political, become serviceable +to men engaged in great affairs. They may even ask you to their houses, +if that is your ambition. You may urge that they condone your deeds, and +are even art and part in them. But you must also be aware that they call +you, and think you, a reptile. You are not one of those who will do the +devil's work without the devil's wages; but do you seriously think that +the wages are worth the degradation? + +Many men think so, and are not in other respects bad men. They may even +be kindly and genial. Gentlemen they cannot be, nor men of delicacy, nor +men of honour. They have sold themselves and their self-respect, some +with ease (they are the least blamable), some with a struggle. They have +seen better things, and perhaps vainly long to return to them. These are +"St. Satan's Penitents," and their remorse is vain: + + _Virtutem videant_, _intabescantque relicta_. + +If you don't wish to be of this dismal company, there is only one course +open to you. Never write for publication one line of personal tattle. +Let all men's persons and private lives be as sacred to you as your +father's,--though there are tattlers who would sell paragraphs about +their own mothers if there were a market for the ware. There is no half- +way house on this road. Once begin to print private conversation, and +you are lost--lost, that is, to delicacy and gradually, to many other +things excellent and of good report. The whole question for you is, Do +you mind incurring this damnation? If there is nothing in it which +appals and revolts you, if your conscience is satisfied with a few ready +sophisms, or if you don't care a pin for your conscience, fall to! + +_Vous irez loin_! You will prattle in print about men's private lives +their hidden motives, their waistcoats, their wives, their boots, their +businesses, their incomes. Most of your prattle will inevitably be lies. +But go on! nobody will kick you, I deeply regret to say. You will earn +money. You will be welcomed in society. You will live and die content, +and without remorse. I do not suppose that any particular _inferno_ will +await you in the future life. Whoever watches this world "with larger +other eyes than ours" will doubtless make allowance for you, as for us +all. I am not pretending to be a whit better than you; probably I am +worse in many ways, but not in your way. Putting it merely as a matter +of taste, I don't like the way. It makes me sick--that is all. It is a +sin which I can comfortably damn, as I am not inclined to it. You may +put it in that light; and I have no way of converting you, nor, if I have +not dissuaded you, of dissuading you, from continuing, on a larger scale, +your practices in _The Bull-dog_. + + + + +MR. KIPLING'S STORIES + + +The wind bloweth where it listeth. But the wind of literary inspiration +has rarely shaken the bungalows of India, as, in the tales of the old +Jesuit missionaries, the magical air shook the frail "medicine tents," +where Huron conjurors practised their mysteries. With a world of romance +and of character at their doors, Englishmen in India have seen as if they +saw it not. They have been busy in governing, in making war, making +peace, building bridges, laying down roads, and writing official reports. +Our literature from that continent of our conquest has been sparse +indeed, except in the way of biographies, of histories, and of rather +local and unintelligible _facetiae_. Except the novels by the author of +"Tara," and Sir Henry Cunningham's brilliant sketches, such as +"Dustypore," and Sir Alfred Lyall's poems, we might almost say that India +has contributed nothing to our finer literature. That old haunt of +history, the wealth of character brought out in that confusion of races, +of religions, and the old and new, has been wealth untouched, a treasure- +house sealed: those pagoda trees have never been shaken. At last there +comes an Englishman with eyes, with a pen extraordinarily deft, an +observation marvellously rapid and keen; and, by good luck, this +Englishman has no official duties: he is neither a soldier, nor a judge; +he is merely a man of letters. He has leisure to look around him, he has +the power of making us see what he sees; and, when we have lost India, +when some new power is ruling where we ruled, when our empire has +followed that of the Moguls, future generations will learn from Mr. +Kipling's works what India was under English sway. + +It is one of the surprises of literature that these tiny masterpieces in +prose and verse were poured, "as rich men give that care not for their +gifts," into the columns of Anglo-Indian journals. There they were +thought clever and ephemeral--part of the chatter of the week. The +subjects, no doubt, seemed so familiar, that the strength of the +handling, the brilliance of the colour, were scarcely recognised. But +Mr. Kipling's volumes no sooner reached England than the people into +whose hands they fell were certain that here were the beginnings of a new +literary force. The books had the strangeness, the colour, the variety, +the perfume of the East. Thus it is no wonder that Mr. Kipling's repute +grew up as rapidly as the mysterious mango tree of the conjurors. There +were critics, of course, ready to say that the thing was merely a trick, +and had nothing of the supernatural. That opinion is not likely to hold +its ground. Perhaps the most severe of the critics has been a young +Scotch gentleman, writing French, and writing it wonderfully well, in a +Parisian review. He chose to regard Mr. Kipling as little but an +imitator of Bret Harte, deriving his popularity mainly from the novel and +exotic character of his subjects. No doubt, if Mr. Kipling has a +literary progenitor, it is Mr. Bret Harte. Among his earlier verses a +few are what an imitator of the American might have written in India. But +it is a wild judgment which traces Mr. Kipling's success to his use, for +example, of Anglo-Indian phrases and scraps of native dialects. The +presence of these elements is among the causes which have made Englishmen +think Anglo-Indian literature tediously provincial, and India a bore. Mr. +Kipling, on the other hand, makes us regard the continent which was a +bore an enchanted land, full of marvels and magic which are real. There +has, indeed, arisen a taste for exotic literature: people have become +alive to the strangeness and fascination of the world beyond the bounds +of Europe and the United States. But that is only because men of +imagination and literary skill have been the new conquerors--the Corteses +and Balboas of India, Africa, Australia, Japan, and the isles of the +southern seas. All such conquerors, whether they write with the polish +of M. Pierre Loti, or with the carelessness of Mr. Boldrewood, have, at +least, seen new worlds for themselves; have gone out of the streets of +the over-populated lands into the open air; have sailed and ridden, +walked and hunted; have escaped from the fog and smoke of towns. New +strength has come from fresher air into their brains and blood; hence the +novelty and buoyancy of the stories which they tell. Hence, too, they +are rather to be counted among romanticists than realists, however real +is the essential truth of their books. They have found so much to see +and to record, that they are not tempted to use the microscope, and pore +for ever on the minute in character. A great deal of realism, especially +in France, attracts because it is novel, because M. Zola and others have +also found new worlds to conquer. But certain provinces in those worlds +were not unknown to, but were voluntarily neglected by, earlier +explorers. They were the "Bad Lands" of life and character: surely it is +wiser to seek quite new realms than to build mud huts and dunghills on +the "Bad Lands." + +Mr. Kipling's work, like all good work, is both real and romantic. It is +real because he sees and feels very swiftly and keenly; it is romantic, +again, because he has a sharp eye for the reality of romance, for the +attraction and possibility of adventure, and because he is young. If a +reader wants to see petty characters displayed in all their meannesses, +if this be realism, surely certain of Mr. Kipling's painted and frisky +matrons are realistic enough. The seamy side of Anglo-Indian life: the +intrigues, amorous or semi-political--the slang of people who describe +dining as "mangling garbage" the "games of tennis with the seventh +commandment"--he has not neglected any of these. Probably the sketches +are true enough, and pity 'tis true: for example, the sketches in "Under +the Deodars" and in "The Gadsbys." That worthy pair, with their friends, +are to myself as unsympathetic, almost, as the characters in "La Conquete +de Plassans." But Mr. Kipling is too much a true realist to make their +selfishness and pettiness unbroken, unceasing. We know that "Gaddy" is a +brave, modest, and hard-working soldier; and, when his little silly bride +(who prefers being kissed by a man with waxed moustaches) lies near to +death, certainly I am nearer to tears than when I am obliged to attend +the bed of Little Dombey or of Little Nell. Probably there is a great +deal of slangy and unrefined Anglo-Indian society; and, no doubt, to +sketch it in its true colours is not beyond the province of art. At +worst it is redeemed, in part, by its constancy in the presence of +various perils--from disease, and from "the bullet flying down the pass." +Mr. Kipling may not be, and very probably is not, a reader of "Gyp"; but +"The Gadsbys," especially, reads like the work of an Anglo-Indian +disciple, trammelled by certain English conventions. The more Pharisaic +realists--those of the strictest sect--would probably welcome Mr. Kipling +as a younger brother, so far as "Under the Deodars" and "The Gadsbys" are +concerned, if he were not occasionally witty and even flippant, as well +as realistic. But, very fortunately, he has not confined his observation +to the leisures and pleasures of Simla; he has looked out also on war and +on sport, on the life of all native tribes and castes; and has even +glanced across the borders of "The Undiscovered Country." + +Among Mr. Kipling's discoveries of new kinds of characters, probably the +most popular is his invention of the British soldier in India. He avers +that he "loves that very strong man, Thomas Atkins"; but his affection +has not blinded him to the faults of the beloved. Mr. Atkins drinks too +much, is too careless a gallant in love, has been educated either too +much or too little, and has other faults, partly due, apparently, to +recent military organisation, partly to the feverish and unsettled state +of the civilised world. But he is still brave, when he is well led; +still loyal, above all, to his "trusty chum." Every Englishman must hope +that, if Terence Mulvaney did not take the city of Lungtung Pen as +described, yet he is ready, and willing so to take it. Mr. Mulvaney is +as humorous as Micky Free, but more melancholy and more truculent. He +has, perhaps, "won his way to the mythical" already, and is not so much a +soldier, as an incarnation, not of Krishna, but of many soldierly +qualities. On the other hand, Private Ortheris, especially in his +frenzy, seems to shew all the truth, and much more than the life of, a +photograph. Such, we presume, is the soldier, and such are his +experiences and temptations and repentance. But nobody ever dreamed of +telling us all this, till Mr. Kipling came. As for the soldier in +action, the "Taking of Lungtung Pen," and the "Drums of the Fore and +Aft," and that other tale of the battle with the Pathans in the gorge, +are among the good fights of fiction. They stir the spirit, and they +should be distributed (in addition, of course, to the "Soldier's Pocket +Book") in the ranks of the British army. Mr. Kipling is as well informed +about the soldier's women-kind as about the soldier: about Dinah Shadd as +about Terence Mulvaney. Lever never instructed us on these matters: +Micky Free, if he loves, rides away; but Terence Mulvaney is true to his +old woman. Gallant, loyal, reckless, vain, swaggering, and +tender-hearted, Terence Mulvaney, if there were enough of him, "would +take St. Petersburg in his drawers." Can we be too grateful to an author +who has extended, as Mr. Kipling in his military sketches has extended, +the frontiers of our knowledge and sympathy? + +It is a mere question of individual taste; but, for my own part, had I to +make a small selection from Mr. Kipling's tales, I would include more of +his studies in Black than in White, and many of his excursions beyond the +probable and natural. It is difficult to have one special favourite in +this kind; but perhaps the story of the two English adventurers among the +freemasons of unknown Kafiristan (in the "Phantom Rickshaw") would take a +very high place. The gas-heated air of the Indian newspaper office is so +real, and into it comes a wanderer who has seen new faces of death, and +who carries with him a head that has worn a royal crown. The contrasts +are of brutal force; the legend is among the best of such strange +fancies. Then there is, in the same volume, "The Strange Ride of +Morrowbie Jukes," the most dreadful nightmare of the most awful Bunker in +the realms of fancy. This is a very early work; if nothing else of Mr. +Kipling's existed, his memory might live by it, as does the memory of the +American Irishman by the "Diamond Lens." The sham magic of "In the House +of Suddhu" is as terrible as true necromancy could be, and I have a +_faiblesse_ for the "Bisara of Pooree." "The Gate of the Hundred +Sorrows" is a realistic version of "The English Opium Eater," and more +powerful by dint of less rhetoric. As for the sketches of native +life--for example, "On the City Wall"--to English readers they are no +less than revelations. They testify, more even than the military +stories, to the author's swift and certain vision, his certainty in his +effects. In brief, Mr. Kipling has conquered worlds, of which, as it +were, we knew not the existence. + +His faults are so conspicuous, so much on the surface, that they hardly +need to be named. They are curiously visible to some readers who are +blind to his merits. There is a false air of hardness (quite in +contradiction to the sentiment in his tales of childish life); there is a +knowing air; there are mannerisms, such as "But that is another story"; +there is a display of slang; there is the too obtrusive knocking of the +nail on the head. Everybody can mark these errors; a few cannot overcome +their antipathy, and so lose a great deal of pleasure. + +It is impossible to guess how Mr. Kipling will fare if he ventures on one +of the usual novels, of the orthodox length. Few men have succeeded both +in the _conte_ and the novel. Mr. Bret Harte is limited to the _conte_; +M. Guy de Maupassant is probably at his best in it. Scott wrote but +three or four short tales, and only one of these is a masterpiece. Poe +never attempted a novel. Hawthorne is almost alone in his command of +both kinds. We can live only in the hope that Mr. Kipling, so skilled in +so many species of the _conte_, so vigorous in so many kinds of verse, +will also be triumphant in the novel: though it seems unlikely that its +scene can be in England, and though it is certain that a writer who so +cuts to the quick will not be happy with the novel's almost inevitable +"padding." Mr. Kipling's longest effort, "The Light which Failed," can, +perhaps, hardly be considered a test or touchstone of his powers as a +novelist. The central interest is not powerful enough; the characters +are not so sympathetic, as are the interest and the characters of his +short pieces. Many of these persons we have met so often that they are +not mere passing acquaintances, but already find in us the loyalty due to +old friends. + + + + +FOOTNOTES: + + +{70} The subject has been much more gravely treated in Mr. Robert +Bridges's "Achilles in Scyros." + +{91} Conjecture may cease, as Mr. Morris has translated the Odyssey. + +{109} For Helen Pendennis, see the "Letters," p. 97. + +{128} Mr. Henley has lately, as a loyal Dickensite, been defending the +plots of Dickens, and his tragedy. _Pro captu lectoris_; if the reader +likes them, then they are good for the reader: "good absolute, not for me +though," perhaps. The plot of "Martin Chuzzlewit" may be good, but the +conduct of old Martin would strike me as improbable if I met it in the +"Arabian Nights." That the creator of Pecksniff should have taken his +misdeeds seriously, as if Mr. Pecksniff had been a Tartuffe, not a +delight, seems curious. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ESSAYS IN LITTLE*** + + +******* This file should be named 1594.txt or 1594.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/5/9/1594 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://www.gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/pglaf. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://www.gutenberg.org/about/contact + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: +http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + |