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diff --git a/old/7essg10.txt b/old/7essg10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..15e376e --- /dev/null +++ b/old/7essg10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3056 @@ +The Project Gutenberg Etext of Essays From 'The Guardian' +by Walter Horatio Pater +(#4 in our series by Walter Horatio Pater) + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the laws for your country before redistributing these files!!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. + +Please do not remove this. + +This should be the first thing seen when anyone opens the book. +Do not change or edit it without written permission. 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NO WARRANTIES +OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS TO THE E-TEXTS OR +ANY MEDIUM THEY MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF +MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. + +Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or the +exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the above +disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you may have +other legal rights. + + +ESSAYS FROM 'THE GUARDIAN' + + +NOTES BY THE E-TEXT EDITOR: + +Reliability: Although I have done my best to ensure that the text you +read is error-free in comparison with an exact reprint of the +standard edition--Macmillan's 1910 Library Edition--please exercise +scholarly caution in using it. It is not intended as a substitute +for the printed original but rather as a searchable supplement. My +e-texts may prove convenient substitutes for hard-to-get works in a +course where both instructor and students accept the possibility of +some imperfections in the text, but if you are writing a scholarly +article, dissertation, or book, you should use the standard hard-copy +editions of any works you cite. + + +Pagination and Paragraphing: To avoid an unwieldy electronic copy, I +have transferred original pagination to brackets. A bracketed +numeral such as [22] indicates that the material immediately +following the number marks the beginning of the relevant page. I +have preserved paragraph structure except for first-line indentation. + +Hyphenation: I have not preserved original hyphenation since an e- +text does not require line-end or page-end hyphenation. + +Greek typeface: For this full-text edition, I have transliterated +Pater's Greek quotations. If there is a need for the original Greek, +it can be viewed at my site, http://www.ajdrake.com/etexts, a +Victorianist archive that contains the complete works of Walter Pater +and many other nineteenth-century texts, mostly in first editions. + + + + + +CONTENTS + + + + +1. English Literature: 1-16 + +2. Amiel's "Journal Intime": 17-37 + +3. Browning: 39-51 + +4. "Robert Elsmere": 53-70 + +5. Their Majesties' Servants: 71-88 + +6. Wordsworth: 89-104 + +7. Mr. Gosse's Poems: 105-118 + +8. Ferdinand Fabre: 119-134 + +9. The "Contes" of M. Augustin Filon: 135-149 + + + + + +ESSAYS FROM 'THE GUARDIAN' + +WALTER HORATIO PATER + + +E-text Editor: Alfred J. Drake, Ph.D. +Electronic Version 1.0 / Date 10-12-01 + + + + +PATER'S NOTE: The nine papers contained in the following volume +originally appeared anonymously in The Guardian newspaper. + + + + +E-TEXT EDITOR'S NOTE: I have not preserved the title pages of this +volume, but have instead moved dates to each essay's end and included +any necessary title-page material in the heading area of the first +substantive page. + + + + + +I. ENGLISH LITERATURE + + + + +FOUR BOOKS FOR STUDENTS OF ENGLISH LITERATURE + + +[3] THE making of an anthology of English prose is what must have +occurred to many of its students, by way of pleasure to themselves, +or of profit to other persons. Such an anthology, the compass and +variety of our prose literature being considered, might well follow +exclusively some special line of interest in it; exhibiting, for +instance, what is so obviously striking, its imaginative power, or +its (legitimately) poetic beauty, or again, its philosophical +capacity. Mr. Saintsbury's well-considered Specimens of English +Prose Style, from Malory to Macaulay (Kegan Paul), a volume, as we +think, which bears fresh witness to the truth of the old remark that +it takes a scholar indeed to make a [4] good literary selection, has +its motive sufficiently indicated in the very original "introductory +essay," which might well stand, along with the best of these extracts +from a hundred or more deceased masters of English, as itself a +document or standard, in the matter of prose style. The essential +difference between poetry and prose--"that other beauty of prose"--in +the words of the motto he has chosen from Dryden, the first master of +the sort of prose he prefers:--that is Mr. Saintsbury's burden. It +is a consideration, undoubtedly, of great importance both for the +writer and the critic; in England especially, where, although (as Mr. +Saintsbury rightly points out, in correction of an imperfectly +informed French critic of our literature) the radical distinction +between poetry and prose has ever been recognized by its students, +yet the imaginative impulse, which is perhaps the richest of our +purely intellectual gifts, has been apt to invade the province of +that tact and good judgment, alike as to matter and manner, in which +we are not richer than other people. Great poetry and great prose, +it might be found, have most of their qualities in common. But [5] +their indispensable qualities are different, or even opposed; and it +is just the indispensable qualities of prose and poetry respectively, +which it is so necessary for those who have to do with either to bear +ever in mind. Order, precision, directness, are the radical merits +of prose thought; and it is more than merely legitimate that they +should form the criterion of prose style, because within the scope of +those qualities, according to Mr. Saintsbury, there is more than just +the quiet, unpretending usefulness of the bare sermo pedestris. +Acting on language, those qualities generate a specific and unique +beauty--"that other beauty of prose"--fitly illustrated by these +specimens, which the reader needs hardly be told, after what has been +now said, are far from being a collection of "purple patches." + +Whether or not he admits their practical cogency, an attentive reader +will not fail to be interested in the attempt Mr. Saintsbury has made +to give technical rules of metre for the production of the true prose +rhythm. Any one who cares to do so might test the validity of those +rules in the nearest possible way, by applying them to the varied +examples in this wide [6] survey of what has been actually well done +in English prose, here exhibited on the side of their strictly +prosaic merit--their conformity, before all other aims, to laws of a +structure primarily reasonable. Not that that reasonable prose +structure, or architecture, as Mr. Saintsbury conceives it, has been +always, or even generally, the ideal, even of those chosen writers +here in evidence. Elizabethan prose, all too chaotic in the beauty +and force which overflowed into it from Elizabethan poetry, and +incorrect with an incorrectness which leaves it scarcely legitimate +prose at all: then, in reaction against that, the correctness of +Dryden, and his followers through the eighteenth century, determining +the standard of a prose in the proper sense, not inferior to the +prose of the Augustan age in Latin, or of the "great age in France": +and, again in reaction against this, the wild mixture of poetry and +prose, in our wild nineteenth century, under the influence of such +writers as Dickens and Carlyle: such are the three periods into which +the story of our prose literature divides itself. And Mr. Saintsbury +has his well-timed, practical suggestions, upon a survey of them. + +[7] If the invasion of the legitimate sphere of prose in England by +the spirit of poetry, weaker or stronger, has been something far +deeper than is indicated by that tendency to write unconscious blank +verse, which has made it feasible to transcribe about one-half of +Dickens's otherwise so admirable Barnaby Rudge in blank-verse lines, +a tendency (outdoing our old friend M. Jourdain) commoner than Mr. +Saintsbury admits, such lines being frequent in his favourite Dryden; +yet, on the other hand, it might be maintained, and would be +maintained by its French critics, that our English poetry has been +too apt to dispense with those prose qualities, which, though not the +indispensable qualities of poetry, go, nevertheless, to the making of +all first-rate poetry--the qualities, namely, of orderly structure, +and such qualities generally as depend upon second thoughts. A +collection of specimens of English poetry, for the purpose of +exhibiting the achievement of prose excellences by it (in their +legitimate measure) is a desideratum we commend to Mr. Saintsbury. +It is the assertion, the development, the product of those very +different indispensable qualities of poetry, in the presence [8] of +which the English is equal or superior to all other modern +literature--the native, sublime, and beautiful, but often wild and +irregular, imaginative power in English poetry from Chaucer to +Shakespeare, with which Professor Minto deals, in his Characteristics +of English Poets (Blackwood), lately reprinted. That his book should +have found many readers we can well understand, in the light of the +excellent qualities which, in high degree, have gone to the making of +it: a tasteful learning, never deserted by that hold upon +contemporary literature which is so animating an influence in the +study of what belongs to the past. Beginning with an elaborate +notice of Chaucer, full of the minute scholarship of our day, he +never forgets that his subject is, after all, poetry. The followers +of Chaucer, and the precursors of Shakespeare, are alike real persons +to him--old Langland reminding him of Carlyle's "Gospel of Labour." +The product of a large store of reading has been here secreted anew +for the reader who desires to see, in bird's-eye view, the light and +shade of a long and varied period of poetic literature, by way of +preparation for Shakespeare, [9] (with a full essay upon whom the +volume closes,) explaining Shakespeare, so far as he can be explained +by literary antecedents. + +That powerful poetry was twin-brother to a prose, of more varied, but +certainly of wilder and more irregular power than the admirable, the +typical, prose of Dryden. In Dryden, and his followers through the +eighteenth century, we see the reaction against the exuberance and +irregularity of that prose, no longer justified by power, but +cognizable rather as bad taste. But such reaction was effective only +because an age had come--the age of a negative, or agnostic +philosophy--in which men's minds must needs be limited to the +superficialities of things, with a kind of narrowness amounting to a +positive gift. What that mental attitude was capable of, in the way +of an elegant, yet plain-spoken, and life-like delineation of men's +moods and manners, as also in the way of determining those moods and +manners themselves to all that was lively, unaffected, and +harmonious, can be seen nowhere better than in Mr. Austin Dobson's +Selections from Steele (Clarendon Press) prefaced by his careful +"Life." The well-known qualities of [10] Mr. Dobson's own original +work are a sufficient guarantee of the taste and discrimination we +may look for in a collection like this, in which the random +lightnings of the first of the essayists are grouped under certain +heads--"Character Sketches," "Tales and Incidents," "Manners and +Fashions," and the like--so as to diminish, for the general reader, +the scattered effect of short essays on a hundred various subjects, +and give a connected, book-like character to the specimens. + +Steele, for one, had certainly succeeded in putting himself, and his +way of taking the world--for this pioneer of an everybody's +literature had his subjectivities--into books. What a survival of +one long-past day, for instance, in "A Ramble from Richmond to +London"! What truth to the surface of common things, to their direct +claim on our interest! yet with what originality of effect in that +truthfulness, when he writes, for instance: + +"I went to my lodgings, led by a light, whom I put into the discourse +of his private economy, and made him give me an account of the +charge, hazard, profit, and loss of a family that depended upon a +link." + +[11] It was one of his peculiarities, he tells us, to live by the eye +far more than by any other sense (a peculiarity, perhaps, in an +Englishman), and this is what he sees at the early daily service then +common in some City churches. Among those who were come only to see +or be seen, "there were indeed a few in whose looks there appeared a +heavenly joy and gladness upon the entrance of a new day, as if they +had gone to sleep with expectation of it." + +The industrious reader, indeed, might select out of these specimens +from Steele, a picture, in minute detail, of the characteristic +manners of that time. Still, beside, or only a little way beneath, +such a picture of passing fashion, what Steele and his fellows really +deal with is the least transitory aspects of life, though still +merely aspects--those points in which all human nature, great or +little, finds what it has in common, and directly shows itself up. +The natural strength of such literature will, of course, be in the +line of its tendencies; in transparency, variety, and directness. To +the unembarrassing matter, the unembarrassed style! Steele is, +perhaps, the most impulsive writer of the school [12] to which he +belongs; he abounds in felicities of impulse. Yet who can help +feeling that his style is regular because the matter he deals with is +the somewhat uncontentious, even, limited soul, of an age not +imaginative, and unambitious in its speculative flight? Even in +Steele himself we may observe with what sureness of instinct the men +of that age turned aside at the contact of anything likely to make +them, in any sense, forget themselves. + +No one indicates better than Charles Lamb, to whose memory Mr. Alfred +Ainger has done such good service, the great and peculiar change +which was begun at the end of the last century, and dominates our +own; that sudden increase of the width, the depth, the complexity of +intellectual interest, which has many times torn and distorted +literary style, even with those best able to comprehend its laws. In +Mrs. Leicester's School, with other Writings in Prose and Verse +(Macmillan), Mr. Ainger has collected and annotated certain remains +of Charles and Mary Lamb, too good to lie unknown to the present +generation, in forgotten periodicals or inaccessible reprints. The +story of the Odyssey, abbreviated [13] in very simple prose, for +children--of all ages--will speak for itself. But the garland of +graceful stories which gives name to the volume, told by a party of +girls on the evening of their assembling at school, are in the +highest degree characteristic of the brother and sister who were ever +so successful in imparting to others their own enjoyment of books and +people. The tragic circumstance which strengthened and consecrated +their natural community of interest had, one might think, something +to do with the far-reaching pensiveness even of their most humorous +writing, touching often the deepest springs of pity and awe, as the +way of the highest humour is--a way, however, very different from +that of the humorists of the eighteenth century. But one cannot +forget also that Lamb was early an enthusiastic admirer of +Wordsworth: of Wordsworth, the first characteristic power of the +nineteenth century, his essay on whom, in the Quarterly Review, Mr. +Ainger here reprints. Would that he could have reprinted it as +originally composed, and ungarbled by Gifford, the editor! Lamb, +like Wordsworth, still kept the charm of a serenity, [14] a +precision, unsurpassed by the quietest essayist of the preceding age. +But it might have been foreseen that the rising tide of thought and +feeling, on the strength of which they too are borne upward, would +sometimes overflow barriers. And so it happens that these simple +stories are touched, much as Wordsworth's verse-stories were, with +tragic power. Dealing with the beginnings of imagination in the +minds of children, they record, with the reality which a very +delicate touch preserves from anything lugubrious, not those merely +preventible miseries of childhood over which some writers have been +apt to gloat, but the contact of childhood with the great and +inevitable sorrows of life, into which children can enter with depth, +with dignity, and sometimes with a kind of simple, pathetic +greatness, to the discipline of the heart. Let the reader begin with +the "Sea Voyage," which is by Charles Lamb; and, what Mr. Ainger +especially recommends, the "Father's Wedding-Day," by his sister +Mary. + +The ever-increasing intellectual burden of our age is hardly likely +to adapt itself to the exquisite, but perhaps too delicate and +limited, [15] literary instruments of the age of Queen Anne. Yet Mr. +Saintsbury is certainly right in thinking that, as regards style, +English literature has much to do. Well, the good quality of an age, +the defect of which lies in the direction of intellectual anarchy and +confusion, may well be eclecticism: in style, as in other things, it +is well always to aim at the combination of as many excellences as +possible--opposite excellences, it may be--those other beauties of +prose. A busy age will hardly educate its writers in correctness. +Let its writers make time to write English more as a learned +language; and completing that correction of style which had only gone +a certain way in the last century, raise the general level of +language towards their own. If there be a weakness in Mr. +Saintsbury's view, it is perhaps in a tendency to regard style a +little too independently of matter. And there are still some who +think that, after all, the style is the man; justified, in very great +varieties, by the simple consideration of what he himself has to say, +quite independently of any real or supposed connection with this or +that literary age or school. Let us close with the words of a most +[16] versatile master of English--happily not yet included in Mr. +Saintsbury's book--a writer who has dealt with all the perturbing +influences of our century in a manner as classical, as idiomatic, as +easy and elegant, as Steele's: + +"I wish you to observe," says Cardinal Newman, "that the mere dealer +in words cares little or nothing for the subject which he is +embellishing, but can paint and gild anything whatever to order; +whereas the artist, whom I am acknowledging, has his great or rich +visions before him, and his only aim is to bring out what he thinks +or what he feels in a way adequate to the thing spoken of, and +appropriate to the speaker." + +17th February 1886 + + + + + +II. AMIEL'S "JOURNAL INTIME" + + + + + +Amiel's Journal. The Journal Intime of Henri-Frederic Amiel. +Translated, with an Introduction and Notes, by Mrs. Humphry Ward. +Two vols. Macmillans. + +[19] CERTAIN influential expressions of opinion have attracted much +curiosity to Amiel's Journal Intime, both in France, where the book +has already made its mark, and in England, where Mrs. Humphry Ward's +translation is likely to make it widely known among all serious +lovers of good literature. Easy, idiomatic, correct, this English +version reads like an excellent original English work, and gives +fresh proof that the work of translation, if it is to be done with +effect, must be done by those who, possessing, like Mrs. Ward, +original literary gifts, are willing to make a long act of self- +denial or self-effacement [20] for the benefit of the public. In +this case, indeed, the work is not wholly one of self-effacement, for +the accomplished translator has prefaced Amiel's Journal by an able +and interesting essay of seventy pages on Amiel's life and +intellectual position. And certainly there is much in the book, thus +effectively presented to the English reader, to attract those who +interest themselves in the study of the finer types of human nature, +of literary expression, of metaphysical and practical philosophy; to +attract, above all, those interested in such philosophy, at points +where it touches upon questions of religion, and especially at the +present day. + +Henri-Frederic Amiel was born at Geneva in 1821. Orphaned of both +his parents at the age of twelve, his youth was necessarily "a little +bare and forlorn," and a deep interest in religion became fixed in +him early. His student days coming to an end, the years which +followed, from 1842 to 1848--Wanderjahre, in which he visited +Holland, Italy, Sicily, and the principal towns of Germany--seem to +have been the happiest of his life. In 1849 he became a Professor at +Geneva, and there is little more to tell of him in [21] the way of +outward events. He published some volumes of verse; to the last +apparently still only feeling after his true literary metier. Those +last seven years were a long struggle against the disease which ended +his life, consumption, at the age of fifty-three. The first entry in +his Journal is in 1848. From that date to his death, a period of +over twenty-five years, this Journal was the real object of all the +energies of his richly-endowed nature: and from its voluminous sheets +his literary executors have selected the deeply interesting volumes +now presented in English. + +With all its gifts and opportunities it was a melancholy life-- +melancholy with something not altogether explained by the somewhat +pessimistic philosophy exposed in the Journal, nor by the consumptive +tendency of Amiel's physical constitution, causing him from a very +early date to be much preoccupied with the effort to reconcile +himself with the prospect of death, and reinforcing the far from +sanguine temperament of one intellectually also a poitrinaire. + +You might think him at first sight only an admirable specimen of a +thoroughly well-educated [22] man, full, of course, of the modern +spirit; stimulated and formed by the influences of the varied +intellectual world around him; and competing, in his turn, with many +very various types of contemporary ability. The use of his book to +cultivated people might lie in its affording a kind of standard by +which they might take measure of the maturity and producible quality +of their own thoughts on a hundred important subjects. He will write +a page or two, giving evidence of that accumulated power and +attainment which, with a more strenuous temperament, might have +sufficed for an effective volume. Continually, in the Journal, we +pause over things that would rank for beauties among widely differing +models of the best French prose. He has said some things in Pascal's +vein not unworthy of Pascal. He had a right to compose "Thoughts": +they have the force in them which makes up for their unavoidable want +of continuity. + +But if, as Amiel himself challenges us to do, we look below the +surface of a very equable and even smoothly accomplished literary +manner, we discover, in high degree of development, that perplexity +or complexity of soul, the expression [23] of which, so it be with an +adequate literary gift, has its legitimate, because inevitable, +interest for the modern reader. Senancour and Maurice de Guerin in +one, seem to have been supplemented here by a larger experience, a +far greater education, than either of them had attained to. So +multiplex is the result that minds of quite opposite type might well +discover in these pages their own special thought or humour, happily +expressed at last (they might think) in precisely that just shade of +language themselves had searched for in vain. And with a writer so +vivid and impressive as Amiel, those varieties of tendency are apt to +present themselves as so many contending persons. The perplexed +experience gets the apparent clearness, as it gets also the +animation, of a long dialogue; only, the disputants never part +company, and there is no real conclusion. "This nature," he +observes, of one of the many phases of character he has discovered in +himself, "is, as it were, only one of the men which exist in me. It +is one of my departments. It is not the whole of my territory, the +whole of my inner kingdom"; and again, "there are ten men in me, +according to time, place, surrounding, [24] and occasion; and, in my +restless diversity, I am for ever escaping myself." + +Yet, in truth, there are but two men in Amiel--two sufficiently +opposed personalities, which the attentive reader may define for +himself; compare with, and try by each other--as we think, correct +also by each other. There is the man, in him and in these pages, who +would be "the man of disillusion," only that he has never really been +"the man of desires"; and who seems, therefore, to have a double +weariness about him. He is akin, of course, to Obermann, to Rene, +even to Werther, and, on our first introduction to him, we might +think that we had to do only with one more of the vague +"renunciants," who in real life followed those creations of fiction, +and who, however delicate, interesting as a study, and as it were +picturesque on the stage of life, are themselves, after all, +essentially passive, uncreative, and therefore necessarily not of +first-rate importance in literature. Taken for what it is worth, the +expression of this mood--the culture of ennui for its own sake--is +certainly carried to its ideal of negation by Amiel. But the +completer, the positive, soul, which will merely take [25] that mood +into its service (its proper service, as we hold, is in counteraction +to the vulgarity of purely positive natures) is also certainly in +evidence in Amiel's "Thoughts"--that other, and far stronger person, +in the long dialogue; the man, in short, possessed of gifts, not for +the renunciation, but for the reception and use, of all that is +puissant, goodly, and effective in life, and for the varied and +adequate literary reproduction of it; who, under favourable +circumstances, or even without them, will become critic, or poet, and +in either case a creative force; and if he be religious (as Amiel was +deeply religious) will make the most of "evidence," and almost +certainly find a Church. + +The sort of purely poetic tendency in his mind, which made Amiel +known in his own lifetime chiefly as a writer of verse, seems to be +represented in these volumes by certain passages of natural +description, always sincere, and sometimes rising to real +distinction. In Switzerland it is easy to be pleased with scenery. +But the record of such pleasure becomes really worth while when, as +happens with Amiel, we feel that there has been, and with success, an +intellectual [26] effort to get at the secret, the precise motive, +of the pleasure; to define feeling, in this matter. Here is a good +description of an effect of fog, which we commend to foreigners +resident in London: + +"Fog has certainly a poetry of its own--a grace, a dreamy charm. It +does for the daylight what a lamp does for us at night; it turns the +mind towards meditation; it throws the soul back on itself. The sun, +as it were, sheds us abroad in nature, scatters and disperses us; +mist draws us together and concentrates us--it is cordial, homely, +charged with feeling. The poetry of the sun has something of the +epic in it; that of fog and mist is elegiac and religious. Pantheism +is the child of light; mist engenders faith in near protectors. When +the great world is shut off from us, the house becomes itself a small +universe. Shrouded in perpetual mist, men love each other better; +for the only reality then is the family, and, within the family, the +heart; and the greatest thoughts come from the heart--so says the +moralist." + +It is of Swiss fog, however, that he is speaking, as, in what +follows, of Swiss frost: + +[27] "Three snowstorms this afternoon. Poor blossoming plum-trees +and peach-trees! What a difference from six years ago, when the +cherry-trees, adorned in their green spring dress and laden with +their bridal flowers, smiled at my departure along the Vaudois +fields, and the lilacs of Burgundy threw great gusts of perfume into +my face!" The weather is seldom talked of with so much real +sensitiveness to it as in this: + +"The weather is rainy, the whole atmosphere grey; it is a time +favourable to thought and meditation. I have a liking for such days +as these; they revive one's converse with oneself and make it +possible to live the inner life: they are quiet and peaceful, like a +song in a minor key. We are nothing but thought, but we feel our +life to its very centre. Our very sensations turn to reverie. It is +a strange state of mind; it is like those silences in worship which +are not the empty moments of devotion, but the full moments, and +which are so because at such times the soul, instead of being +polarized, dispersed, localized, in a single impression or thought, +feels her own totality and is conscious of herself." + +[28] "Every landscape," he writes, "is, as it were, a state of the +soul": and again, "At bottom there is but one subject of study; the +forms and metamorphoses of mind: all other subjects may be reduced to +that; all other studies bring us back to this study." And, in truth, +if he was occupied with the aspects of nature to such an excellent +literary result, still, it was with nature only as a phenomenon of +the moral order. His interest, after all, is, consistently, that of +the moralist (in no narrow sense) who deals, from predilection, with +the sort of literary work which stirs men--stirs their intellect-- +through feeling; and with that literature, especially, as looked at +through the means by which it became capable of thus commanding men. +The powers, the culture, of the literary producer: there, is the +centre of Amiel's curiosity. + +And if we take Amiel at his own word, we must suppose that but for +causes, the chief of which were bad health and a not long life, he +too would have produced monumental work, whose scope and character he +would wish us to conjecture from his "Thoughts." Such indications +there certainly are in them. He was [29] meant--we see it in the +variety, the high level both of matter and style, the animation, the +gravity, of one after another of these thoughts--on religion, on +poetry, on politics in the highest sense; on their most abstract +principles, and on the authors who have given them a personal colour; +on the genius of those authors, as well as on their concrete works; +on outlying isolated subjects, such as music, and special musical +composers--he was meant, if people ever are meant for special lines +of activity, for the best sort of criticism, the imaginative +criticism; that criticism which is itself a kind of construction, or +creation, as it penetrates, through the given literary or artistic +product, into the mental and inner constitution of the producer, +shaping his work. Of such critical skill, cultivated with all the +resources of Geneva in the nineteenth century, he has given in this +Journal abundant proofs. Corneille, Cherbuliez; Rousseau, Sismondi; +Victor Hugo, and Joubert; Mozart and Wagner--all who are interested +in these men will find a value in what Amiel has to say of them. +Often, as for instance in his excellent criticism of Quinet, he has +to make large exceptions [30]; limitations, skilfully effected by +the way, in the course of a really appreciative estimate. Still, +through all, what we feel is that we have to do with one who +criticises in this fearlessly equitable manner only because he is +convinced that his subject is of a real literary importance. A +powerful, intellectual analysis of some well-marked subject, in such +form as makes literature enduring, is indeed what the world might +have looked for from him: those institutes of aesthetics, for +instance, which might exist, after Lessing and Hegel, but which +certainly do not exist yet. "Construction," he says--artistic or +literary construction--"rests upon feeling, instinct, and," alas! +also, "upon will." The instinct, at all events, was certainly his. +And over and above that he had possessed himself of the art of +expressing, in quite natural language, very difficult thoughts; those +abstract and metaphysical conceptions especially, in which German +mind has been rich, which are bad masters, but very useful ministers +towards the understanding, towards an analytical survey, of all that +the intellect has produced. + +But something held him back: not so much [31] a reluctancy of +temperament, or of physical constitution (common enough cause why men +of undeniable gifts fail of commensurate production) but a cause +purely intellectual--the presence in him, namely, of a certain vein +of opinion; that other, constituent but contending, person, in his +complex nature. "The relation of thought to action," he writes, +"filled my mind on waking, and I found myself carried towards a +bizarre formula, which seems to have something of the night still +clinging about it. Action is but coarsened thought." That is but an +ingenious metaphysical point, as he goes on to show. But, including +in "action" that literary production in which the line of his own +proper activity lay, he followed--followed often--that fastidious +utterance to a cynical and pessimistic conclusion. + +Maia, as he calls it, the empty "Absolute" of the Buddhist, the +"Infinite," the "All," of which those German metaphysicians he loved +only too well have had so much to say: this was for ever to give the +go-by to all positive, finite, limited interests whatever. The vague +pretensions of an abstract expression acted on him with all the force +of a prejudice. "The ideal," he admits, [32] "poisons for me all +imperfect possession"; and again, "The Buddhist tendency in me blunts +the faculty of free self-government, and weakens the power of action. +I feel a terror of action and am only at ease in the impersonal, +disinterested, and objective line of thought." But then, again, with +him "action" meant chiefly literary production. He quotes with +approval those admirable words from Goethe, "In der Beschrankung +zeigt sich erst der Meister"; yet still always finds himself wavering +between "frittering myself away on the infinitely little, and longing +after what is unknown and distant." There is, doubtless, over and +above the physical consumptive tendency, an instinctive turn of +sentiment in this touching confession. Still, what strengthened both +tendencies was that metaphysical prejudice for the "Absolute," the +false intellectual conscience. "I have always avoided what attracted +me, and turned my back upon the point where secretly I desired to +be"; and, of course, that is not the way to a free and generous +productivity, in literature, or in anything else; though in +literature, with Amiel at all events, it meant the fastidiousness +which [33] is incompatible with any but the very best sort of +production. + +And as that abstract condition of Maia, to the kind and quantity of +concrete literary production we hold to have been originally possible +for him; so was the religion he actually attained, to what might have +been the development of his profoundly religious spirit, had he been +able to see that the old-fashioned Christianity is itself but the +proper historic development of the true "essence" of the New +Testament. There, again, is the constitutional shrinking, through a +kind of metaphysical prejudice, from the concrete--that fear of the +actual--in this case, of the Church of history; to which the +admissions, which form so large a part of these volumes, naturally +lead. Assenting, on probable evidence, to so many of the judgments +of the religious sense, he failed to see the equally probable +evidence there is for the beliefs, the peculiar direction of men's +hopes, which complete those judgments harmoniously, and bring them +into connection with the facts, the venerable institutions of the +past--with the lives of the saints. By failure, as we think, of that +historic sense, of [34] which he could speak so well, he got no +further in this direction than the glacial condition of rationalistic +Geneva. "Philosophy," he says, "can never replace religion." Only, +one cannot see why it might not replace a religion such as his: a +religion, after all, much like Seneca's. + +"I miss something," he himself confesses, "common worship, a positive +religion, shared with other people. Ah! when will the Church to +which I belong in heart rise into being?" To many at least of those +who can detect the ideal through the disturbing circumstances which +belong to all actual institutions in the world, it was already there. +Pascal, from considerations to which Amiel was no stranger, came to +the large hopes of the Catholic Church; Amiel stopped short at a +faith almost hopeless; and by stopping short just there he really +failed, as we think, of intellectual consistency, and missed that +appeasing influence which his nature demanded as the condition of its +full activity, as a force, an intellectual force, in the world--in +the special business of his life. "Welcome the unforeseen," he says +again, by way of a counsel of perfection in the matter of culture, +"but give to [35] your life unity, and bring the unforeseen within +the lines of your plan." Bring, we should add, the Great Possibility +at least within the lines of your plan--your plan of action or +production; of morality; especially of your conceptions of religion. +And still, Amiel too, be it remembered (we are not afraid to repeat +it), has said some things in Pascal's vein not unworthy of Pascal. + +And so we get only the Journal. Watching in it, in the way we have +suggested, the contention of those two men, those two minds in him, +and observing how the one might have ascertained and corrected the +shortcomings of the other, we certainly understand, and can +sympathize with Amiel's despondency in the retrospect of a life which +seemed to have been but imperfectly occupied. But, then, how +excellent a literary product, after all, the Journal is. And already +we have found that it improves also on second reading. A book of +"thoughts" should be a book that may be fairly dipped into, and yield +good quotable sayings. Here are some of its random offerings: + +Look twice, if what you want is a just [36] conception; look once, if +what you want is a sense of beauty." + +"It is not history which teaches conscience to be honest; it is the +conscience which educates history. Fact is corrupting--it is we who +correct it by the persistence of our ideal." + +"To do easily what is difficult for others is the mark of talent. To +do what is impossible for talent is the mark of genius." + +"Duty has the virtue of making us feel the reality of a positive +world, while at the same time detaching us from it." + +"As it is impossible to be outside God, the best is consciously to +dwell in Him." + +"He also (the Son of Man), He above all, is the great Misunderstood, +the least comprehended." + +"The pensee writer is to the philosopher what the dilettante is to +the artist." + +There are some, we know, who hold that genius cannot, in the nature +of things, be "sterile"; that there are no "mute" Miltons, or the +like. Well! genius, or only a very distinguished talent, the gift +which Amiel nursed so jealously did come into evidence. And the [37] +reader, we hope, sees also already how well his English translator +has done her work. She may justly feel, as part at least of the +reward of a labour which must have occupied much time, so many of the +freshest hours of mind and spirit, that she has done something to +help her author in the achievement of his, however discouraged still +irrepressible, desire, by giving additional currency to a book which +the best sort of readers will recognize as an excellent and certainly +very versatile companion, not to be forgotten. + +17th March 1886 + + + + + +III. BROWNING + + + + + +An Introduction to the Study of Browning. +By Arthur Symons. Cassells. + + +[41] WHETHER it be true or not that Mr. Browning is justly chargeable +with "obscurity"--with a difficulty of manner, that is, beyond the +intrinsic difficulty of his matter--it is very probable that an +Introduction to the study of his works, such as this of Mr. Symons, +will add to the number of his readers. Mr. Symons's opening essay on +the general characteristics of Mr. Browning is a just and acceptable +appreciation of his poetry as a whole, well worth reading, even at +this late day. We find in Mr. Symons the thoughtful and practised +yet enthusiastic student in literature--in intellectual problems; +always quiet and sane, praising Mr. Browning with tact, with a real +refinement and grace; saying well many [42] things which every +competent reader of the great poet must feel to be true; devoting to +the subject he loves a critical gift so considerable as to make us +wish for work from his hands of larger scope than this small volume. +His book is, according to his intention, before all things a useful +one. Appreciating Mr. Browning fairly, as we think, in all his +various efforts, his aim is to point his readers to the best, the +indisputable, rather than to the dubious portions of his author's +work. Not content with his own excellent general criticism of Mr. +Browning, he guides the reader to his works, or division of work, +seriatim, making of each a distinct and special study, and giving a +great deal of welcome information about the poems, the circumstances +of their composition, and the like, with delightful quotations. +Incidentally, his Introduction has the interest of a brief but +effective selection from Mr. Browning's poems; and he has added an +excellent biography. + +Certainly we shall not quarrel with Mr. Symons for reckoning Mr. +Browning, among English poets, second to Shakespeare alone--"He comes +very near the gigantic total of [43] Shakespeare." The quantity of +his work? Yes! that too, in spite of a considerable unevenness, is a +sign of genius. "So large, indeed, appear to be his natural +endowments that we cannot feel as if even thirty volumes would have +come near to exhausting them." Imaginatively, indeed, Mr. Browning +has been a multitude of persons; only (as Shakespeare's only untried +style was the simple one) almost never simple ones; and certainly he +has controlled them all to profoundly interesting artistic ends by +his own powerful personality. The world and all its action, as a +show of thought, that is the scope of his work. It makes him pre- +eminently a modern poet--a poet of the self-pondering, perfectly +educated, modern world, which, having come to the end of all direct +and purely external experiences, must necessarily turn for its +entertainment to the world within:-- + +"The men and women who live and move in that new world of his +creation are as varied as life itself; they are kings and beggars, +saints and lovers, great captains, poets, painters, musicians, +priests and Popes, Jews, gipsies and dervishes, street-girls, +princesses, dancers with the wicked [44] witchery of the daughter of +Herodias, wives with the devotion of the wife of Brutus, joyous girls +and malevolent grey-beards, statesmen, cavaliers, soldiers of +humanity, tyrants and bigots, ancient sages and modern spiritualists, +heretics, scholars, scoundrels, devotees, rabbis, persons of quality +and men of low estate--men and women as multiform as nature or +society has made them." + +The individual, the personal, the concrete, as distinguished from, +yet revealing in its fulness, the general, the universal--that is Mr. +Browning's chosen subject-matter: "Every man is for him an epitome of +the universe, a centre of creation." It is always the particular +soul, and the particular act or episode, as the flower of the +particular soul--the act or episode by which its quality comes to the +test--in which he interests us. With him it is always "a drama of +the interior, a tragedy or comedy of the soul, to see thereby how +each soul becomes conscious of itself." In the Preface to the later +edition of Sordello, Mr. Browning himself told us that to him little +else seems worth study except the development of a soul, the +incidents, the story, of that. And, [45] in fact, the intellectual +public generally agrees with him. It is because he has ministered +with such marvellous vigour, and variety, and fine skill to this +interest, that he is the most modern, to modern people the most +important, of poets. + +So much for Mr. Browning's matter; for his manner, we hold Mr. Symons +right in thinking him a master of all the arts of poetry. "These +extraordinary little poems," says Mr. Symons of "Johannes Agricola" +and "Porphyria's Lover"-- + +"Reveal not only an imagination of intense fire and heat, but an +almost finished art--a power of conceiving subtle mental complexities +with clearness and of expressing them in a picturesque form and in +perfect lyric language. Each poem renders a single mood, and renders +it completely." + +Well, after all, that is true of a large portion of Mr. Browning's +work. A curious, an erudite artist, certainly, he is to some extent +an experimenter in rhyme or metre, often hazardous. But in spite of +the dramatic rudeness which is sometimes of the idiosyncrasy, the +true and native colour of his multitudinous dramatis personae, or +monologists, Mr. Symons is right in [46] laying emphasis on the +grace, the finished skill, the music, native and ever ready to the +poet himself--tender, manly, humorous, awe-stricken--when speaking in +his own proper person. Music herself, the analysis of the musical +soul, in the characteristic episodes of its development is a wholly +new range of poetic subject in which Mr. Browning is simply unique. +Mr. Symons tells us:-- + +"When Mr. Browning was a mere boy, it is recorded that he debated +within himself whether he should not become a painter or a musician +as well as a poet. Finally, though not, I believe, for a good many +years, he decided in the negative. But the latent qualities of +painter and musician had developed themselves in his poetry, and much +of his finest and very much of his most original verse is that which +speaks the language of painter and musician as it had never before +been spoken. No English poet before him has ever excelled his +utterances on music, none has so much as rivalled his utterances on +art. 'Abt Vogler' is the richest, deepest, fullest poem on music in +the language. It is not the theories of the poet, but the instincts +of the [47] musician, that it speaks. 'Master Hugues of Saxe-Gotha,' +another special poem on music, is unparalleled for ingenuity of +technical interpretation: 'A Toccata of Galuppi's' is as rare a +rendering as can anywhere be found of the impressions and sensations +caused by a musical piece; but 'Abt Vogler' is a very glimpse into +the heaven where music is born." + +It is true that "when the head has to be exercised before the heart +there is chilling of sympathy." Of course, so intellectual a poet +(and only the intellectual poet, as we have pointed out, can be +adequate to modern demands) will have his difficulties. They were a +part of the poet's choice of vocation, and he was fully aware of +them:-- + +"Mr. Browning might say, as his wife said in an early preface, I +never mistook pleasure for the final cause of poetry, nor leisure for +the hour of the poet--as indeed he has himself said, to much the same +effect, in a letter printed many years ago: I never pretended to +offer such literature as should be a substitute for a cigar or a game +at dominoes to an idle man." + +"Moreover, while a writer who deals with [48] easy themes has no +excuse if he is not pellucid to a glance, one who employs his +intellect and imagination on high and hard questions has a right to +demand a corresponding closeness of attention, and a right to say +with Bishop Butler, in answer to a similar complaint: 'It must be +acknowledged that some of the following discourses are very abstruse +and difficult, or, if you please, obscure; but I must take leave to +add that those alone are judges whether or no, and how far this is a +fault, who are judges whether or no, and how far it might have been +avoided--those only who will be at the trouble to understand what is +here said, and to see how far the things here insisted upon, and not +other things, might have been put in a plainer manner.'" + +In Mr. Symons's opinion Pippa Passes is Mr. Browning's most perfect +piece of work, for pregnancy of intellect, combined with faultless +expression in a perfectly novel yet symmetrical outline: and he is +very likely right. He is certainly right in thinking Mas they +formerly stood, Mr. Browning's most delightful volumes. It is only +to be regretted [49] that in the later collected edition of the works +those two magical old volumes are broken up and scattered under other +headings. We think also that Mr. Symons in his high praise does no +more than justice to The Ring and the Book. The Ring and the Book is +at once the largest and the greatest of Mr. Browning's works, the +culmination of his dramatic method, and the turning-point more +decisively than Dramatis Personae of his style. Yet just here he +rightly marks a change in Mr. Browning's manner:-- + +"Not merely the manner of presentment, the substance, and also the +style and versification have undergone a change. I might point to +the profound intellectual depth of certain pieces as its +characteristic, or, equally, to the traces here and there of an +apparent carelessness of workmanship; or, yet again, to the new and +very marked partiality for scenes and situations of English and +modern rather than medieval and foreign life." + +Noble as much of Mr. Browning's later work is, full of intellect, +alive with excellent passages (in the first volume of the Dramatic +Idyls [50] perhaps more powerful than in any earlier work); +notwithstanding all that, we think the change here indicated matter +of regret. After all, we have to conjure up ideal poets for +ourselves out of those who stand in or behind the range of volumes on +our book-shelves; and our ideal Browning would have for his entire +structural type those two volumes of Men and Women with Pippa Passes. + +Certainly, it is a delightful world to which Mr. Browning has given +us the key, and those volumes a delightful gift to our age-record of +so much that is richest in the world of things, and men, and their +works--all so much the richer by the great intellect, the great +imagination, which has made the record, transmuted them into +imperishable things of art:-- + +"'With souls should souls have place'--this, with Mr. Browning, is +something more than a mere poetical conceit. It is the condensed +expression of an experience, a philosophy, and an art. Like the +lovers of his lyric, Mr. Browning has renounced the selfish +serenities of wild-wood and dream-palace; he has fared up and down +among men, listening to the music of humanity, [51] observing the +acts of men, and he has sung what he has heard, and he has painted +what he has seen. Will the work live? we ask; and we can answer only +in his own words-- + +It lives, +If precious be the soul of man to man." + +9th November 1887 + + + + + +IV. "ROBERT ELSMERE" + + + + +[55] THOSE who, in this bustling age, turn to fiction not merely for +a little passing amusement, but for profit, for the higher sort of +pleasure, will do well, we think (after a conscientious perusal on +our own part) to bestow careful reading on Robert Elsmere. A chef +d'oeuvre of that kind of quiet evolution of character through +circumstance, introduced into English literature by Miss Austen, and +carried to perfection in France by George Sand (who is more to the +point, because, like Mrs. Ward, she was not afraid to challenge +novel-readers to an interest in religious questions), it abounds in +sympathy with people as we find them, in aspiration towards something +better--towards a certain ideal--in a refreshing sense of second +thoughts everywhere. The author clearly has developed a remarkable +natural aptitude for literature by liberal reading and most patient +care [56] in composition--composition in that narrower sense which is +concerned with the building of a good sentence; as also in that wider +sense, which ensures, in a work like this, with so many joints, so +many currents of interest, a final unity of impression an the part of +the reader, and easy transition by him from one to the other. Well- +used to works of fiction which tell all they have to tell in one thin +volume, we have read Mrs. Ward's three volumes with unflagging +readiness. + +For, in truth, that quiet method of evolution, which she pursues +undismayed to the end, requires a certain lengthiness; and the +reader's reward will be in a secure sense that he has been in +intercourse with no mere flighty remnants, but with typical forms, of +character, firmly and fully conceived. We are persuaded that the +author might have written a novel which should have been all shrewd +impressions of society, or all humorous impressions of country life, +or all quiet fun and genial caricature. Actually she has chosen to +combine something of each of these with a very sincerely felt +religious interest; and who will deny that to trace the influence of +religion upon human character is one of the [57] legitimate functions +of the novel? In truth, the modern "novel of character" needs some +such interest, to lift it sufficiently above the humdrum of life; as +men's horizons are enlarged by religion, of whatever type it may be-- +and we may say at once that the religious type which is dear to Mrs. +Ward, though avowedly "broad," is not really the broadest. Having +conceived her work thus, she has brought a rare instinct for +probability and nature to the difficult task of combining this +religious motive and all the learned thought it involves, with a very +genuine interest in many varieties of average mundane life. + +We should say that the author's special ethical gift lay in a +delicately intuitive sympathy, not, perhaps, with all phases of +character, but certainly with the very varied class of persons +represented in these volumes. It may be congruous with this, +perhaps, that her success should be more assured in dealing with the +characters of women than with those of men. The men who pass before +us in her pages, though real and tangible and effective enough, seem, +nevertheless, from time to time to reveal their joinings. They are +composite of many different men we seem to have [58] known, and fancy +we could detach again from the ensemble and from each other. And +their goodness, when they are good, is--well! a little conventional; +the kind of goodness that men themselves discount rather largely in +their estimates of each other. Robert himself is certainly worth +knowing--a really attractive union of manliness and saintliness, of +shrewd sense and unworldly aims, and withal with that kindness and +pity the absence of which so often abates the actual value of those +other gifts. Mrs. Ward's literary power is sometimes seen at its +best (it is a proof of her high cultivation of this power that so it +should be) in the analysis of minor characters, both male and female. +Richard Leyburn, deceased before the story begins, but warm in the +memory of the few who had known him, above all of his great-souled +daughter Catherine, strikes us, with his religious mysticism, as +being in this way one of the best things in the book:-- + +"Poor Richard Leyburn! Yet where had the defeat lain? + +"'Was he happy in his school life?' Robert asked gently. 'Was +teaching what he liked?' + +[59] "'Oh! yes, only--' and then added hurriedly, as though drawn on +in spite of herself by the grave sympathy of his look, 'I never knew +anybody so good who thought himself of so little account. He always +believed that he had missed everything, wasted everything, and that +anybody else would have made infinitely more out of his life. He vas +always blaming, scourging himself. And all the time he was the +noblest, purest, most devoted--' + +"She stopped. Her voice had passed beyond her control. Elsmere was +startled by the feeling she showed. Evidently he had touched one of +the few sore places in this pure heart. It was as though her memory +of her father had in it elements of almost intolerable pathos, as +though the child's brooding love and loyalty were in perpetual +protest even now after this lapse of years against the verdict which +an over-scrupulous, despondent soul had pronounced upon itself. Did +she feel that he had gone uncomforted out of life--even by her--even +by religion? Was that the sting?" + +A little later she gives the record of his last hours:-- + +[60] "'Catherine! Life is harder, the narrower way narrower than +ever. I die--and memory caught still the piteous long-drawn breath +by which the voice was broken--'in much--much perplexity about many +things. You have a clear soul, an iron will. Strengthen the others. +Bring them safe to the day of account.'" + +And then the smaller--some of them, ethically, very small--women; +Lady Wynnstay, Mrs. Fleming, Mrs. Thornburgh; above all, Robert's +delightful Irish mother, and Mrs. Darcy; how excellent they are! +Mrs. Darcy we seem to have known, yet cannot have enough of, rejoiced +to catch sight of her capital letter on the page, as we read on. In +truth, if a high and ideal purpose, really learned in the school of +Wordsworth and among the Westmorland hills which Mrs. Ward describes +so sympathetically, with fitting dignity and truth of style, has +accompanied the author throughout; no less plain, perhaps more +pleasing to some readers, is the quiet humour which never fails her, +and tests, while it relieves, the sincerity of her more serious +thinking:-- + +"At last Mrs. Darcy fluttered off, only, however, to come hurrying +back with little, short, [61] scudding steps, to implore them all to +come to tea with her as soon as possible in the garden that was her +special hobby, and in her last new summer-house. + +"'I build two or three every summer,' she said; 'now there are +twenty-one! Roger laughs at me,' and there was a momentary +bitterness in the little eerie face; 'but how can one live without +hobbies? That's one--then I've two more. My album--oh, you will all +write in my album, won't you? When I was young--when I was Maid of +Honour'--and she drew herself up slightly--'everybody had albums. +Even the dear Queen herself! I remember how she made M. Guizot write +in it; something quite stupid, after all. Those hobbies--the garden +and the album--are quite harmless, aren't they? They hurt nobody, do +they?' Her voice dropped a little, with a pathetic expostulating +intonation in it, as of one accustomed to be rebuked." + +Mrs. Ward's women, as we have said, are more organic, sympathetic, +and really creative, than her men, and make their vitality evident by +becoming, quite naturally, the centres of very [62] life-like and +dramatic groups of people, family or social; while her men are the +very genii of isolation and division. It is depressing to see so +really noble a character as Catherine soured, as we feel, and +lowered, as time goes on, from the happy resignation of the first +volume (in which solemn, beautiful, and entire, and so very real, she +is like a poem of Wordsworth) down to the mere passivity of the third +volume, and the closing scene of Robert Elsmere's days, very +exquisitely as this episode of unbelieving yet saintly biography has +been conceived and executed. Catherine certainly, for one, has no +profit in the development of Robert's improved gospel. The "stray +sheep," we think, has by no means always the best of the argument, +and her story is really a sadder, more testing one than his. Though +both alike, we admit it cordially, have a genuine sense of the +eternal moral charm of "renunciation," something even of the thirst +for martyrdom, for those wonderful, inaccessible, cold heights of the +Imitation, eternal also in their aesthetic charm. + +These characters and situations, pleasant or profoundly interesting, +which it is good to have [63] come across, are worked out, not in +rapid sketches, nor by hazardous epigram, but more securely by +patient analysis; and though we have said that Mrs. Ward is most +successful in female portraiture, her own mind and culture have an +unmistakable virility and grasp and scientific firmness. This +indispensable intellectual process, which will be relished by +admirers of George Eliot, is relieved constantly by the sense of a +charming landscape background, for the most part English. Mrs. Ward +has been a true disciple in the school of Wordsworth, and really +undergone its influence. Her Westmorland scenery is more than a mere +background; its spiritual and, as it were, personal hold on persons, +as understood by the great poet of the Lakes, is seen actually at +work, in the formation, in the refining, of character. It has been a +stormy day:-- + +"Before him the great hollow of High Fell was just coming out from +the white mists surging round it. A shaft of sunlight lay across its +upper end, and he caught a marvellous apparition of a sunlit valley +hung in air, a pale strip of blue above it, a white thread of stream +wavering [64] through it, and all around it and below it the rolling +rain-clouds." + +There is surely something of "natural magic" in that! The wilder +capacity of the mountains is brought out especially in a weird story +of a haunted girl, an episode well illustrating the writer's more +imaginative psychological power; for, in spite of its quiet general +tenour, the book has its adroitly managed elements of sensation-- +witness the ghost, in which the average human susceptibility to +supernatural terrors takes revenge on the sceptical Mr. Wendover, and +the love-scene with Madame de Netteville, which, like those other +exciting passages, really furthers the development of the proper +ethical interests of the book. The Oxford episodes strike us as +being not the author's strongest work, as being comparatively +conventional, coming, as they do, in a book whose predominant note is +reality. Yet her sympathetic command over, her power of evoking, the +genius of places, is clearly shown in the touches by which she brings +out the so well-known grey and green of college and garden--touches +which bring the real Oxford to the mind's eye better than any +elaborate description [65] --for the beauty of the place itself +resides also in delicate touches. The book passes indeed, +successively, through distinct, broadly conceived phases of scenery, +which, becoming veritable parts of its texture, take hold on the +reader, as if in an actual sojourn in the places described. Surrey-- +its genuine though almost suburban wildness, with the vicarage and +the wonderful abode, above all, the ancient library of Mr. Wendover, +all is admirably done, the landscape naturally counting for a good +deal in the development of the profoundly meditative, country-loving +souls of Mrs. Ward's favourite characters. + +Well! Mrs. Ward has chosen to use all these varied gifts and +accomplishments for a certain purpose. Briefly, Robert Elsmere, a +priest of the Anglican Church, marries a very religious woman; there +is the perfection of "mutual love"; at length he has doubts about +"historic Christianity"; he gives up his orders; carries his +learning, his fine intellect, his goodness, nay, his saintliness, +into a kind of Unitarianism; the wife becomes more intolerant than +ever; there is a long and faithful effort on both sides, eventually +successful, on the part of these mentally [66] divided people, to +hold together; ending with the hero's death, the genuine piety and +resignation of which is the crowning touch in the author's able, +learned, and thoroughly sincere apology for Robert Elsmere's +position. + +For good or evil, the sort of doubts which troubled Robert Elsmere +are no novelty in literature, and we think the main issue of the +"religious question" is not precisely where Mrs. Ward supposes--that +it has advanced, in more senses than one, beyond the point raised by +Renan's Vie de Jesus. Of course, a man such as Robert Elsmere came +to be ought not to be a clergyman of the Anglican Church. The priest +is still, and will, we think, remain, one of the necessary types of +humanity; and he is untrue to his type, unless, with whatever +inevitable doubts in this doubting age, he feels, on the whole, the +preponderance in it of those influences which make for faith. It is +his triumph to achieve as much faith as possible in an age of +negation. Doubtless, it is part of the ideal of the Anglican Church +that, under certain safeguards, it should find room for +latitudinarians even among its clergy. Still, with these, as [67] +with all other genuine priests, it is the positive not the negative +result that justifies the position. We have little patience with +those liberal clergy who dwell on nothing else than the difficulties +of faith and the propriety of concession to the opposite force. Yes! +Robert Elsmere was certainly right in ceasing to be a clergyman. But +it strikes us as a blot on his philosophical pretensions that he +should have been both so late in perceiving the difficulty, and then +so sudden and trenchant in dealing with so great and complex a +question. Had he possessed a perfectly philosophic or scientific +temper he would have hesitated. This is not the place to discuss in +detail the theological position very ably and seriously argued by +Mrs. Ward. All we can say is that, one by one, Elsmere's objections +may be met by considerations of the same genus, and not less equal +weight, relatively to a world so obscure, in its origin and issues, +as that in which we live. + +Robert Elsmere was a type of a large class of minds which cannot be +sure that the sacred story is true. It is philosophical, doubtless, +and a duty to the intellect to recognize our doubts, [68] to locate +them, perhaps to give them practical effect. It may be also a moral +duty to do this. But then there is also a large class of minds which +cannot be sure it is false--minds of very various degrees of +conscientiousness and intellectual power, up to the highest. They +will think those who are quite sure it is false unphilosophical +through lack of doubt. For their part, they make allowance in their +scheme of life for a great possibility, and with some of them that +bare concession of possibility (the subject of it being what it is) +becomes the most important fact in the world. + +The recognition of it straightway opens wide the door to hope and +love; and such persons are, as we fancy they always will be, the +nucleus of a Church. Their particular phase of doubt, of philosophic +uncertainty, has been the secret of millions of good Christians, +multitudes of worthy priests. They knit themselves to believers, in +various degrees, of all ages. As against the purely negative action +of the scientific spirit, the high-pitched Grey, the theistic +Elsmere, the "ritualistic priest," the quaint Methodist Fleming, both +so admirably sketched, present [69] perhaps no unconquerable +differences. The question of the day is not between one and another +of these, but in another sort of opposition, well defined by Mrs. +Ward herself, between-- + +"Two estimates of life--the estimate which is the offspring of the +scientific spirit, and which is for ever making the visible world +fairer and more desirable in mortal eyes; and the estimate of Saint +Augustine." + +To us, the belief in God, in goodness at all, in the story of +Bethlehem, does not rest on evidence so diverse in character and +force as Mrs. Ward supposes. At his death Elsmere has started what +to us would be a most unattractive place of worship, where he +preaches an admirable sermon on the purely human aspect of the life +of Christ. But we think there would be very few such sermons in the +new church or chapel, for the interest of that life could hardly be +very varied, when all such sayings as that "though He was rich, for +our sakes He became poor" have ceased to be applicable to it. It is +the infinite nature of Christ which has led to such diversities of +genius in preaching as St. Francis, and Taylor, and Wesley. + +[70] And after all we fear we have been unjust to Mrs. Ward's work. +If so, we should read once more, and advise our readers to read, the +profoundly thought and delicately felt chapter--chapter forty-three +in her third volume--in which she describes the final spiritual +reunion, on a basis of honestly diverse opinion, of the husband and +wife. Her view, we think, could hardly have been presented more +attractively. For ourselves we can only thank her for pleasure and +profit in the reading of her book, which has refreshed actually the +first and deepest springs of feeling, while it has charmed the +literary sense. + +28th March 1888 + + + + + +V. THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS + + + + +Annals of the English Stage, from Thomas Betterton to Edmund Kean. +By Dr. Doran, F.S.A. Edited and revised by Robert W. Lowe. John C. +Nimmo. + +[73] THOSE who care for the history of the drama as a branch of +literature, or for the history of that general development of human +manners of which the stage has been always an element and a very +lively measure or index, will be grateful to Mr. Lowe for this +revised and charmingly illustrated edition of Dr. Doran's pleasant +old book. Three hundred years and more of a singularly varied and +vivacious sort of history!--it was a bold thing to undertake; and Dr. +Doran did his work well--did it with adequate "love." These Annals +of the English Stage, from Thomas Betterton to Edmund [74] Kean, are +full of the colours of life in their most emphatic and motley +contrasts, as is natural in proportion as the stage itself +concentrates and artificially intensifies the character and +conditions of ordinary life. The long story of "Their Majesties' +Servants," treated thus, becomes from age to age an agreeable +addition to those personal memoirs--Evelyn's, and the like--which +bring the influence and charm of a visible countenance to the dry +tenour of ordinary history, and the critic's work upon it naturally +becomes, in the first place, a mere gathering of some of the flowers +which lie so abundantly scattered here and there. + +A history of the English stage must necessarily be in part a history +of one of the most delightful of subjects--old London, of which from +time to time we catch extraordinary glimpses in Dr. Doran's pages. +From 1682 to 1695, as if the Restoration had not come, there was but +one theatre in London. In Charles I.'s time Shoreditch was the +dramatic quarter of London par excellence.-- + +"The popular taste was not only there directed towards the stage, but +it was a district [75] wherein many actors dwelt, and consequently +died. The baptismal register of St. Leonard's, Shoreditch, contains +Christian names which appear to have been chosen with reference to +the heroines of Shakespeare; and the record of burials bears the name +of many an old actor of mark whose remains now lie within the +churchyard." + +Earlier and later, the Surrey side of the Thames was the favourite +locality for play-houses. The Globe was there, and the Bear-garden, +represented in Mr. Lowe's luxurious new edition by delightful +woodcuts. For this new edition adds to the original merits of the +work the very substantial charm of abundant illustrations, first-rate +in subject and execution, and of three kinds--copper-plate likenesses +of actors and other personages connected with theatrical history; a +series of delicate, picturesque, highly detailed woodcuts of +theatrical topography, chiefly the little old theatres; and, by way +of tail-pieces to the chapters, a second series of woodcuts of a +vigour and reality of information, within very limited compass, which +make one think of Callot and the German [76] "little masters," +depicting Garrick and other famous actors in their favourite scenes. + +In the vignettes of the Bear-garden and the Swan Theatre, for +instance, the artist has managed to throw over his minute plate a +wonderful air of pleasantness, a light which, though very delicate, +is very theatrical. The river and its tiny craft, the little gabled +houses of the neighbourhood, with a garden or two dropped in, tell +delightfully in the general effect. They are worthy to rank with +Cruikshank's illustrations of Jack Sheppard and The Tower of London, +as mementoes of the little old smokeless London before the century of +Johnson, though that, too, as Dr. Doran bears witness, knew what fogs +could be. Then there is the Fortune Theatre near Cripplegate, and, +most charming of all, two views--street and river fronts--the Duke's +Theatre, Dorset Garden, in Fleet Street, designed by Wren, decorated +by Gibbons--graceful, naive, dainty, like the work of a very refined +Palladio, working minutely, perhaps more delicately than at Vicenza, +in the already crowded city on the Thames side. + +[77] The portraits of actors and other theatrical celebrities range +from Elizabeth, from the melodramatic costumes and faces of the +contemporaries of Shakespeare, to the conventional costumes, the +rotund expression, of the age of the Georges, masking a power of +imaginative impersonation probably unknown in Shakespeare's day. +Edward Burbage, like Shakespeare's own portrait, is, we venture to +think, a trifle stolid. Field--Nathaniel Field, author of The Fatal +Dowry, and an actor of reputation--in his singular costume, and with +a face of perhaps not quite reassuring subtlety, might pass for the +original of those Italian, or Italianized, voluptuaries in sin which +pleased the fancy of Shakespeare's age. Mixed up with many striking, +thoroughly dramatic physiognomies, it must be confessed that some of +these portraits scarcely help at all to explain the power of the +players to whom they belonged. That, perhaps, is what we might +naturally expect; the more, in proportion as the dramatic art is a +matter in which many very subtle and indirect channels to men's +sympathy are called into play. Edward Alleyn, from the portrait +preserved at [78] his noble foundation at Dulwich, like a fine +Holbein, figures, in blent strength and delicacy, as a genial, or +perhaps jovial, soul, finding time for sentiment,--Prynne (included, +we suppose, in this company, like the skull at the feast) as a +likable if somewhat melancholic young man; while Garrick and his wife +playing cards, after Zoffany, present a pair of just very nice young +people. On the other hand, the tail-pieces, chiefly devoted to +Garrick, prove what a wonderful natural variety there was in +Garrick's soul, and are well worth comparative study. Noticeable +again, among the whole-plate portraits, is the thoroughly reassuring +countenance of Steele, the singularly fine heads of John, Charles, +and Fanny Kemble, while the certainly plain, pinched countenance of +William Davenant reminds one of Charles Kean, and might well have +lighted up, as did his, when the soul came into it, into power and +charm, as the speaking eyes assure us even in its repose. + +The Renaissance inherited the old foolish prejudice of Roman times, +when, although the writers of plays were the intimate friends of +emperors, the actors were thought infamous. [79] Still, on the whole, +actors fared better in England than in Romanist France, where Moliere +was buried with less ceremony than a favourite dog. Very different +was the treatment of the eminent Mrs. Oldfield, who died in 1730:-- + +"Poor 'Narcissa' after death (says Walpole) was attired in a Holland +nightdress, with tucker and double ruffles of Brunswick lace, of +which latter material she also wore a headdress, and a pair of new +kid gloves. In this dress the deceased actress received such honour +as actress never received before, nor has ever received since. The +lady lay in state in the Jerusalem Chamber. Had she been really a +queen the public could not have thronged more eagerly to the +spectacle; and after the lying in state there was a funeral of as +much ceremony as has been observed at the obsequies of many a queen. +There were anthems and prayers and a sermon; and Dr. Parker, who +officiated, remarked, when all was over, to a few particular friends, +and with some equivocation, as it seems to me, that he 'buried her +very willingly, and with much satisfaction.'" + +Yet even in England players had need of [80] powerful protectors. +"Wit," said Chesterfield, opposing an unjust licensing Act, "Wit, my +lords! is the property of those who have it, and too often the only +property they have to depend on." Wit, indeed, with the other gifts +that make good company, has largely gone with theatrical talents, too +often little to the benefit of the gifted persons. Theatrical +society, rather than the theatre, has made the lives of actors as we +see them in these volumes, in many cases so tragic, even sordidly +tragic. + +If misery and madness abound in stage life, so also does an +indomitable cheerfulness, always at least a cheerful countenance. +Dr. Doran's book abounds, as might be expected, with admirable +impromptus and the like; one might collect a large posy of them. +Foote, seeing a sweep on a blood-horse, remarked, "There goes +Warburton on Shakespeare!" When he heard that the Rockingham Cabinet +was fatigued to death and at its wits' end, he exclaimed that it +could not have been the length of the journey which had tired it. +Again, when Lord Carmarthen, at a party, told him his handkerchief +was hanging from his pocket, Foote replaced [81] it with a "Thank +you, my lord; you know the company better than I." Jevon, a century +earlier, was in the habit of taking great liberties with authors and +audience. He made Settle half mad and the house ecstatic when +having, as Lycurgus, Prince of China, to "fall on his sword," he +placed it flat on the stage, and, falling over it, "died," according +to the direction of the acting copy. Quaint enough, but certainly no +instance of anybody's wit, is the account of how a French translation +of a play of Vanbrugh--not architect of Blenheim only, but +accomplished in many other ways--appeared at the Odeon, in 1862, with +all fitting raptures, as a posthumous work of Voltaire recently +discovered. The Voltairean wit vas found as "delightful in this as +in the last century." + +Of Shakespeare on the stage Dr. Doran has a hundred curious things to +note:--that Richard the Third, for instance, who has retained a so +unflattering possession of the stage, was its "first practically +useful patron." We see Queen Elizabeth full of misgiving at a +difficult time at the popularity of Richard the Second:--"The +deposition and death of King Richard the [82] Second." "Tongues +whisper to the Queen that this play is part of a great plot to teach +her subjects how to murder kings." It is perhaps not generally known +that Charles Shakespeare, William's brother, survived till the +Restoration. + +Oldys says, a propos of the restoration of the stage at that time:-- + +"The actors were greedily inquisitive into every little circumstance, +more especially in Shakespeare's dramatic character, which his +brother could relate of him. But he, it seems, was so stricken in +years, and possibly his memory so weakened by infirmities, that he +could give them but little light into their inquiries; and all that +could be recollected from him of his brother Will in that station was +the faint, general, and almost lost ideas he had of having once seen +him act a part in one of his own comedies, wherein being present to +personate a decrepit old man, he wore a long beard, and appeared so +weak and drooping and unable to walk, that he was forced to be +supported and carried by another person to a table, at which he was +seated among some company who were eating, and one of them sang a +song." + +[83] This description applies to old Adam in As You Like It. Many +are the evidences that Shakespeare's reputation had from time to time +a struggle to maintain itself. James Howard, in Pepys's day-- + +"Belonged to the faction which affected to believe that there was no +popular love for Shakespeare, to render whom palatable he arranged +Romeo and Juliet for the stage, with a double denouement--one +serious, the other hilarious. If your heart were too sensitive to +bear the deaths of the loving pair, you had only to go on the +succeeding afternoon to see them wedded, and set upon the way of a +well-assured domestic felicity." + +In 1678 Rymer asserted (was it undesignedly a true testimony to the +acting of his time?) that Shakespeare had depicted Brutus and Cassius +as "Jack Puddins." + +Here, as in many another detail, we are reminded, of course, of the +difference between our own and past times in mimic as in real life. +For Prynne one of the great horrors of the stage was the introduction +of actresses from France by Henrietta Maria, to take the place of +young [84] male actors of whom Dr. Doran has some interesting +notices. Who the lady was who first trod the stage as a professional +actress is not known, but her part was Desdemona. And yet it was +long after that-- + +"Edward Kynaston died (in 1712). He lies buried in the churchyard of +St. Paul's, Covent Garden. If not the greatest actor of his day, +Kynaston was the greatest of the 'boy-actresses.' So exalted was his +reputation 'that,' says Downes, 'it has since been disputable among +the judicious, whether any woman that succeeded him so sensibly +touched the audience as he.'" + +In Charles II.'s time it was a custom to return the price of +admission to all persons who left the theatre before the close of the +first act. Consequently, many shabby persons were wont to force +their way in without paying, on the plea that they did not intend to +remain beyond the time limited. Hence much noisy contention, to the +great discomfort even of Royalty. The brawling, drinking habits of +the time were even more discomforting. An angry word, passed one +April evening of 1682 between the son of Sir Edward Dering and a hot- +blooded young [85] Welshman, led to recrimination and sword-drawing. +The two young fellows not having elbow-room in the pit, clambered on +to the stage, and fought there, to the greater comfort of the +audience, and with a more excited fury on the part of the combatants. +The mingling of the public with the players was a practice which so +annoyed the haughty French actor, Baron, that to suggest to the +audience the absurdity of it, he would turn his back on them for a +whole act, and play to the audience on the stage. Sometimes the +noise was so loud that an actor's voice would scarcely be heard. It +was about 1710 that the word encore was introduced at the operatic +performances in the Haymarket, and very much objected to by plain- +going Englishmen. It was also the custom of some who desired the +repetition of a song to cry Altra volta! Altra volta! + +Even indirectly the history of the stage illustrates life, and +affords many unexpected lights on historical characters. Oliver +Cromwell, though he despised the stage, could condescend to laugh at, +and with, men of less dignity than actors. Buffoonery was not +entirely expelled [86] from his otherwise grave court. Oxford and +Drury Lane itself dispute the dignity of giving birth to Nell Gwynne +with Hereford, where a mean house is still pointed out as the first +home of this mother of a line of dukes, whose great-grandson was to +occupy the neighbouring palace as Bishop of Hereford for forty years. +At her burial in St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, Archbishop Tenison +preached the sermon. When this was subsequently made the ground of +exposing him to the reproof of Queen Mary, she remarked that the good +doctor, no doubt, had said nothing but what the facts authorized. + +"Who should act genteel comedy perfectly," asks Walpole, "but people +of fashion, that have sense?" And, in truth, the seventeenth century +gave many ladies to the stage, Mrs. Barry being the most famous of +them. Like many eminent actors, she was famous for the way in which +she would utter one single expression in a play. Dr. Doran gives +some curious instances from later actors. "What mean my grieving +subjects?" uttered in the character of Queen Elizabeth, was invested +by her with such emphatic grace and dignity as to call up murmurs of +approbation [87] which swelled into thunders of applause. Her noble +head is here engraved after Kneller, like the head of a magnificent +visionary man. + +Should we really care for the greatest actors of the past could we +have them before us? Should we find them too different from our +accent of thought, of feeling, of speech, in a thousand minute +particulars which are of the essence of all three? Dr. Doran's long +and interesting records of the triumphs of Garrick, and other less +familiar, but in their day hardly less astonishing, players, do not +relieve one of the doubt. Garrick himself, as sometimes happens with +people who have been the subject of much anecdote and other +conversation, here as elsewhere, bears no very distinct figure. One +hardly sees the wood for the trees. On the other hand, the account +of Betterton, "perhaps the greatest of English actors," is +delightfully fresh. That intimate friend of Dryden, Tillatson, Pope, +who executed a copy of the actor's portrait by Kneller which is still +extant, was worthy of their friendship; his career brings out the +best elements in stage life. The stage in these volumes presents +itself indeed not merely [88] as a mirror of life, but as an +illustration of the utmost intensity of life, in the fortunes and +characters of the players. Ups and downs, generosity, dark fates, +the most delicate goodness, have nowhere been more prominent than in +the private existence of those devoted to the public mimicry of men +and women. Contact with the stage, almost throughout its history, +presents itself as a kind of touchstone, to bring out the bizarrerie, +the theatrical tricks and contrasts, of the actual world. + +27th June 1888 + + + + + +VI. WORDSWORTH + + + + +The Complete Poetical Works of William Wordsworth. With an +Introduction by John Morley. Macmillans. + +The Recluse. By William Wordsworth. Macmillans. + +Selections from Wordsworth. By William Knight and other Members of +the Wordsworth Society. With Preface and Notes. Kegan Paul. + +[91] THE appearance, so close to each other, of Professor Knight's +careful and elaborately annotated Selections from William Wordsworth, +of Messrs. Macmillan's collected edition of the poet's works, with the +first book of The Recluse, now published for the first time, and of +an excellent introductory essay by Mr. John Morley, forms a welcome +proof that the study of the [92] most philosophic of English poets is +increasing among us. Surely nothing could be better, hardly anything +more directly fitted than careful reading of Wordsworth, to counter +the faults and offences of our busy generation, in regard both to +thought and taste, and to remind people, amid the enormous expansion, +at the present time, of all that is material and mechanical in life, +of the essential value, the permanent ends, of life itself. In the +collected edition the poems are printed with the dates, so far as can +be ascertained, in the order of their composition--an arrangement +which has indisputable recommendations for the student of +Wordsworth's genius; though the former method of distributing his +work into large groups of subject had its value, as throwing light +upon his poetic motives, and more especially as coming from himself. + +In his introductory essay Mr. Morley has dwelt strongly on the +circumstance of Wordsworth's remarkable personal happiness, as having +had much to do with the physiognomy of his poetic creation--a calm, +irresistible, well-being--almost mystic in character, and yet +doubtless [93] connected with physical conditions. Long ago De +Quincey noted it as a strongly determinant fact in Wordsworth's +literary career, pointing, at the same time, to his remarkable good +luck also, on the material side of life. The poet's own flawless +temperament, his fine mountain atmosphere of mind (so to express it), +had no doubt a good deal to do with that. What a store of good +fortune, what a goodly contribution to happiness, in the very best +sense of that term, is really involved in a cheerful, grateful, +physical temperament; especially, in the case of a poet--a great +poet--who will, of course, have to face the appropriate trials of a +great poet. + +Coleridge and other English critics at the beginning of the present +century had a great deal to say concerning a psychological +distinction of much importance (as it appeared to them) between the +fancy and the imagination. Stripped of a great deal of somewhat +obscure metaphysical theory, this distinction reduced itself to the +certainly vital one, with which all true criticism more or less +directly has to do, between the lower and higher degrees of intensity +in the [94] poet's conception of his subject, and his concentration +of himself upon his work. It was Wordsworth who made most of this +distinction, assuming it as the basis for the final classification +(abandoned, as we said, in the new edition) of his poetical writings. +And nowhere is the distinction more realizable than in Wordsworth's +own work. For though what may be called professed Wordsworthians, +including Matthew Arnold, found a value in all that remains of him-- +could read anything he wrote, "even the 'Thanksgiving Ode,'-- +everything, I think, except 'Vaudracour and Julia,'"--yet still the +decisiveness of such selections as those made by Arnold himself, and +now by Professor Knight, hint at a certain very obvious difference of +level in his poetic work. + +This perpetual suggestion of an absolute duality between his lower +and higher moods, and the poetic work produced in them, stimulating +the reader to look below the immediate surface of his poetry, makes +the study of Wordsworth an excellent exercise for the training of +those mental powers in us, which partake both of thought and +imagination. It begets in those [95] who fall in with him at the +right moment of their spiritual development, a habit of reading +between the lines, a faith in the effect of concentration and +collectedness of mind on the right appreciation of poetry, the +expectation that what is really worth having in the poetic order will +involve, on their part, a certain discipline of the temper not less +than of the intellect. Wordsworth meets them with the assurance that +he has much to give them, and of a very peculiar kind, if they will +follow a certain difficult way, and seems to possess the secret of +some special mental illumination. To follow that way is an +initiation, by which they will become able to distinguish, in art, +speech, feeling, manners, in men and life generally, what is genuine, +animated, and expressive from what is only conventional and +derivative, and therefore inexpressive. + +A very intimate sense of the expressiveness of outward things, which +ponders, listens, penetrates, where the earlier, less developed +consciousness passed lightly by, is an important element in the +general temper of our modern poetry. Critics of literary history +have again [96] and again remarked upon it; it is a characteristic +which reveals itself in many different forms, but is strongest and +most sympathetic in what is strongest and most serious in modern +literature; it is exemplified by writers as unlike Wordsworth as the +French romanticist poets. As a curious chapter in the history of the +human mind, its growth might be traced from Rousseau and St. Pierre +to Chateaubriand, from Chateaubriand to Victor Hugo; it has no doubt +some obscure relationship to those pantheistic theories which have +greatly occupied people's minds in many modern readings of +philosophy; it makes as much difference between the modern and the +earlier landscape art as there is between the roughly outlined masks +of a Byzantine mosaic and a portrait by Reynolds or Romney. Of this +new landscape sense the poetry of Wordsworth is the elementary and +central exposition; he is more exclusively occupied with its +development than any other poet. Wordsworth's own character, as we +have already observed, was dominated by a certain contentment, a sort +of naturally religious placidity, not often found in union with a +poetic sensibility so [97] active as his; and this gentle sense of +well-being was favourable to the quiet, habitual observation of the +inanimate, or imperfectly animate, world. His life of eighty placid +years was almost without what, with most human beings, count for +incidents. His flight from the active world, so genially celebrated +in this newly published poem of The Recluse; his flight to the Vale +of Grasmere, like that of some pious youth to the Chartreuse, is the +most marked event of his existence. His life's changes are almost +entirely inward ones; it falls into broad, untroubled, perhaps +somewhat monotonous, spaces; his biographers have very little to +tell. What it really most resembles, different as its superficies +may look, is the career of those early mediaeval religious artists, +who, precisely because their souls swarmed with heavenly visions, +passed their fifty or sixty years in tranquil, systematic industry, +seemingly with no thoughts beyond it. This placid life developed in +Wordsworth, to an extraordinary degree, an innate sensibility to +natural sights and sounds--the flower and its shadow on the stone, +the cuckoo and its echo. The poem of [98] "Resolution and +Independence" is a storehouse of such records; for its fulness of +lovely imagery it may be compared to Keats's "Saint Agnes' Eve." To +read one of his greater pastoral poems for the first time is like a +day spent in a new country; the memory is crowded for a while with +its precise and vivid incidents:-- + +The pliant harebell swinging in the breeze, +On some grey rock: +The single sheep, and the one blasted tree, +And the bleak music from that old stone wall:-- +In the meadows and the lower ground, +Was all the sweetness of a common dawn:-- +And that green corn all day is rustling in thine ears! + +Clear and delicate at once as he is in the outlining of visible +imagery, he is more finely scrupulous still in the noting of sounds; +he conceives of noble sound as even moulding the human countenance to +nobler types, and as something actually "profaned" by visible form or +colour. He has a power likewise of realizing and conveying to the +consciousness of his reader abstract and elementary impressions, +silence, darkness, absolute motionlessness, or, again, the whole +complex sentiment of a particular place, the abstract expression of +desolation in the long [99] white road, of peacefulness in a +particular folding of the hills. + +That sense of a life in natural objects, which in most poetry is but +a rhetorical artifice, was, then, in Wordsworth the assertion of what +was for him almost literal fact. To him every natural object seemed +to possess something of moral or spiritual life, to be really capable +of a companionship with man, full of fine intimacies. An emanation, +a particular spirit, belonged not to the moving leaves or water only, +but to the distant peak arising suddenly, by some change of +perspective, above the nearer horizon of the hills, to the passing +space of light across the plain, to the lichened Druidic stone even, +for a certain weird fellowship in it with the moods of men. That he +awakened "a sort of thought in sense" is Shelley's just estimate of +this element in Wordsworth's poetry. + +It was through nature, ennobled in this way by the semblance of +passion and thought, that the poet approached the spectacle of human +life. For him, indeed, human life is, in the first instance, only an +additional, and as it were incidental grace, upon this expressive +landscape. + +[100] When he thought of men and women, it was of men and women as in +the presence and under the influence of those effective natural +objects, and linked to them by many associations. Such influences +have sometimes seemed to belittle those who are the subject of them, +at the least to be likely to narrow the range of their sympathies. +To Wordsworth, on the contrary, they seemed directly to dignify human +nature, as tending to tranquillize it. He raises physical nature to +the level of human thought, giving it thereby a mystic power and +expression; he subdues man to the level of nature, but gives him +therewith a certain breadth and vastness and solemnity. + +Religious sentiment, consecrating the natural affections and rights +of the human heart, above all that pitiful care and awe for the +perishing human clay of which relic-worship is but the corruption, +has always had much to do with localities, with the thoughts which +attach themselves to definite scenes and places. And what is true of +it everywhere is truest in those secluded valleys, where one +generation after another maintains the same abiding-place; and [101] +it was on this side that Wordsworth apprehended religion most +strongly. Having so much to do with the recognition of local +sanctities, the habit of connecting the very trees and stones of a +particular spot of earth with the great events of life, till the low +walls, the green mounds, the half-obliterated epitaphs, seemed full +of oracular voices, even the religion of those people of the dales +appeared but as another link between them and the solemn imageries of +the natural world. And, again, this too tranquillized them, by +bringing them under the rule of traditional, narrowly localized +observances. "Grave livers," they seemed to him under this aspect, +of stately speech, and something of that natural dignity of manners +which underlies the highest courtesy. + +And, seeing man thus as a part of nature, elevated and solemnized in +proportion as his daily life and occupations brought him into +companionship with permanent natural objects, he was able to +appreciate passion in the lowly. He chooses to depict people from +humble life, because, being nearer to nature than others, they are on +the whole more impassioned, certainly [102] more direct in their +expression of passion, than other men; it is for this direct +expression of passion that he values their humble words. In much +that he said in exaltation of rural life he was but pleading +indirectly for that sincerity, that perfect fidelity to one's own +inward presentations, to the precise features of the picture within, +without which any profound poetry is impossible. It was not for +their tameness, but for their impassioned sincerity, that he chose +incidents and situations from common life, "related in a selection of +language really used by men." He constantly endeavours to bring his +language nearer to the real language of men; but it is to the real +language of men, not on the dead level of their ordinary intercourse, +but in certain select moments of vivid sensation, when this language +is winnowed and ennobled by sentiment. There are poets who have +chosen rural life for their subject for the sake of its passionless +repose; and there are times when Wordsworth himself extols the mere +calm and dispassionate survey of things as the highest aim of +poetical culture. But it was not for such passionless calm that he +preferred the scenes of [103] pastoral life; and the meditative poet, +sheltering himself from the agitations of the outward world, is in +reality only clearing the scene for the exhibition of great emotions, +and what he values most is the almost elementary expression of +elementary feelings. + +In Wordsworth's prefatory advertisement to the first edition of The +Prelude, published in 1850, it is stated that that work was intended +to be introductory to The Recluse: and that The Recluse, if +completed, would have consisted of three parts. The second part is +The Excursion. The third part was only planned; but the first book +of the first part was left in manuscript by Wordsworth--though in +manuscript, it is said, in no great condition of forwardness for the +printers. This book, now for the first time printed in extenso (a +very noble passage from it found place in that prose advertisement to +The Excursion), is the great novelty of this latest edition of +Wordsworth's poetic works. It was well worth adding to the poet's +great bequest to English literature. The true student of his work, +who has formulated for himself what he supposes to be the leading +characteristics [104] of Wordsworth's genius, will feel, we think, a +lively interest in putting them to test by the many and various +striking passages in what is there presented for the first time. + +17th February 1889 + + + + + +VII. MR. GOSSE'S POEMS + + + + +On Viol and Flute. By Edmund Gosse. + +[107] PERHAPS no age of literature, certainly no age of literature in +England, has been so rich as ours in excellent secondary poetry; and +it is with our poetry (in a measure) as with our architecture, +constrained by the nature of the case to be imitative. Our +generation, quite reasonably, is not very proud of its architectural +creations; confesses that it knows too much--knows, but cannot do. +And yet we could name certain modern churches in London, for +instance, to which posterity may well look back puzzled.--Could these +exquisitely pondered buildings have been indeed works of the +nineteenth century? Were they not the subtlest creations of the age +in which Gothic art was spontaneous? In truth, we have had instances +of workmen, who, through long, large, [108] devoted study of the +handiwork of the past, have done the thing better, with a more fully +enlightened consciousness, with full intelligence of what those early +workmen only guessed at. And something like this is true of some of +our best secondary poetry. It is the least that is true--the least +that can fairly be said in praise of the poetic work of Mr. Edmund +Gosse. + +Of course there can be no exact parallel between arts so different as +architecture and poetic composition: But certainly in the poetry of +our day also, though it has been in some instances powerfully +initiative and original, there is great scholarship, a large +comparative acquaintance with the poetic methods of earlier workmen, +and a very subtle intelligence of their charm. Of that fine +scholarship in this matter there is no truer example than Mr. Gosse. +It is manifested especially in the even finish of his varied work, in +the equality of his level--a high level--in species of composition so +varied as the three specimens which follow. + +Far away, in late spring, "by the sea in the south," the swallows are +still lingering around "white Algiers." In Mr. Gosse's "Return of +[109] the Swallows," the northern birds--lark and thrush--have long +been calling to them:-- + +And something awoke in the slumbering heart +Of the alien birds in their African air, +And they paused, and alighted, and twittered apart, +And met in the broad white dreamy square, +And the sad slave woman, who lifted up +From the fountain her broad-lipped earthen cup, +Said to herself, with a weary sigh, +"To-morrow the swallows will northward fly." + +Compare the following stanzas, from a kind of palinode, "1870-1871," +years of the Franco-German war and the Parisian Commune:-- + +The men who sang that pain was sweet +Shuddered to see the mask of death +Storm by with myriad thundering feet; +The sudden truth caught up our breath +Our throats like pulses beat. + +The songs of pale emaciate hours, +The fungus-growth of years of peace, +Withered before us like mown flowers; +We found no pleasure more in these +When bullets fell in showers. + +For men whose robes are dashed with blood, +What joy to dream of gorgeous stairs, +Stained with the torturing interlude +That soothed a Sultan's midday prayers, +In old days harsh and rude? + +[110] + +For men whose lips are blanched and white, +With aching wounds and torturing thirst, +What charm in canvas shot with light, +And pale with faces cleft and curst, +Past life and life's delight? + +And then Mr. Gosse's purely descriptive power, his aptitude for +still-life and landscape, is unmistakably vivid and sound. Take, for +an instance, this description of high-northern summer:-- + +The ice-white mountains clustered all around us, +But arctic summer blossomed at our feet; +The perfume of the creeping sallows found us, +The cranberry-flowers were sweet. + +Below us through the valley crept a river, +Cleft round an island where the Lap-men lay; +Its sluggish water dragged with slow endeavour +The mountain snows away. + +There is no night-time in the northern summer, +But golden shimmer fills the hours of sleep, +And sunset fades not, till the bright new-comer, +Red sunrise, smites the deep. + +But when the blue snow-shadows grew intenser +Across the peaks against the golden sky, +And on the hills the knots of deer grew denser, +And raised their tender cry, + +[111] + +And wandered downward to the Lap-men's dwelling, +We knew our long sweet day was nearly spent, +And slowly, with our hearts within us swelling, +Our homeward steps we bent. + +"Sunshine before Sunrise!" There's a novelty in that, for poetic use +at least, so far as we know, though we remember one fine paragraph +about it in Sartor Resartus. The grim poetic sage of Chelsea, +however, had never seen what he describes: not so Mr. Gosse, whose +acquaintance with northern lands and northern literature is special. +We have indeed picked out those stanzas from a quiet personal record +of certain amorous hours of early youth in that quaint arctic land, +Mr. Gosse's description of which, like his pretty poem on Lubeck, +made one think that what the accomplished group of poets to which he +belongs requires is, above all, novelty of motive, of subject. + +He takes, indeed, the old themes, and manages them better than their +old masters, with more delicate cadences, more delicate transitions +of thought, through long dwelling on earlier practice. He seems to +possess complete command of the technique of poetry--every form of +what may be called skill of hand in it; and what marks in [112] him +the final achievement of poetic scholarship is the perfect balance +his work presents of so many and varied effects, as regards both +matter and form. The memories of a large range of poetic reading are +blent into one methodical music so perfectly that at times the notes +seem almost simple. Sounding almost all the harmonies of the modern +lyre, he has, perhaps as a matter of course, some of the faults also, +the "spasmodic" and other lapses, which from age to age, in +successive changes of taste, have been the "defects" of excellent +good "qualities." He is certainly not the-- + +Pathetic singer, with no strength to sing, + +as he says of the white-throat on the tulip-tree, + +Whose leaves unfinished ape her faulty song. + +In effect, a large compass of beautiful thought and expression, from +poetry old and new, have become to him matter malleable anew for a +further and finer reach of literary art. And with the perfect grace +of an intaglio, he shows, as in truth the minute intaglio may do, the +faculty of structure, the logic of poetry. "The New Endymion" is a +good instance of such sustained [113] power. Poetic scholar!--If we +must reserve the sacred name of "poet" to a very small number, that +humbler but perhaps still rarer title is due indisputably to Mr. +Gosse. His work is like exquisite modern Latin verse, into the +academic shape of which, discreet and coy, comes a sincere, deeply +felt consciousness of modern life, of the modern world as it is. His +poetry, according with the best intellectual instincts of our +critical age, is as pointed out recently by a clever writer in the +Nineteenth Century, itself a kind of exquisite, finally revised +criticism. + +Not that he fails in originality; only, the graces, inborn certainly, +but so carefully educated, strike one more. The sense of his +originality comes to one as but an after-thought; and certainly one +sign of his vocation is that he has made no conscious effort to be +original. In his beautiful opening poem of the "White-throat," +giving his book its key-note, he seems, indeed, to accept that +position, reasons on and justifies it. Yet there is a clear note of +originality (so it seems to us) in the peculiar charm of his strictly +personal compositions; and, generally, in such touches as he gives us +of the soul, the life, of the [114] nineteenth century. Far greater, +we think, than the charm of poems strictly classic in interest, such +as the "Praise of Dionysus," exquisite as that is, is the charm of +those pieces in which, so to speak, he transforms, by a kind of +colour-change, classic forms and associations into those--say! of +Thames-side--pieces which, though in manner or subject promising a +classic entertainment, almost unaware bring you home.--No! after all, +it is not imagined Greece, dreamy, antique Sicily, but the present +world about us, though mistakable for a moment, delightfully, for the +land, the age, of Sappho, of Theocritus:-- + +There is no amaranth, no pomegranate here, +But can your heart forget the Christmas rose, +The crocuses and snowdrops once so dear? + +Quite congruously with the placid, erudite, quality of his culture, +although, like other poets, he sings much of youth, he is often most +successful in the forecast, the expression, of the humours, the +considerations, that in truth are more proper to old age:-- + +When age comes by and lays his frosty hands +So lightly on mine eyes, that, scarce aware + +[115] + +Of what an endless weight of gloom they bear, +I pause, unstirred, and wait for his commands. +When time has bound these limbs of mine with bands, +And hushed mine ears, and silvered all my hair, +May sorrow come not, nor a vain despair +Trouble my soul that meekly girdled stands. + +As silent rivers into silent lakes, +Through hush of reeds that not a murmur breaks, +Wind, mindful of the poppies whence they came, +So may my life, and calmly burn away, +As ceases in a lamp at break of day +The flagrant remnant of memorial flame. + +Euthanasia!--Yet Mr. Gosse, with all his accomplishment, is still a +young man. His youthful confidence in the perpetuity of poetry, of +the poetical interests in life, creed-less as he may otherwise seem +to be, is, we think, a token, though certainly an unconscious token, +of the spontaneous originality of his muse. For a writer of his +peculiar philosophic tenets, at all events, the world itself, in +truth, must seem irretrievably old or even decadent. + +Old, decadent, indeed, it would seem with Mr. Gosse to be also +returning to the thoughts, the fears, the consolations, of its youth +in Greece, in Italy:-- + +[116] + +Nor seems it strange indeed +To hold the happy creed +That all fair things that bloom and die +Have conscious life as well as I. + +Then let me joy to be +Alive with bird and tree, +And have no haughtier aim than this, +To be a partner in their bliss. + +Convinced, eloquent,--again and again the notes of Epicurean +philosophy fall almost unconsciously from his lips. With poetry at +hand, he appears to feel no misgivings. A large faith he might seem +to have in what is called "natural optimism," the beauty and +benignity of nature, if let alone, in her mechanical round of changes +with man and beast and flower. Her method, however, certainly +involves forgetfulness for the individual; and to this, to the +prospect of oblivion, poetry, too, may help to brace us, if, unlike +so genial and cheerful a poet as Mr. Gosse, we need bracing thereto:- +- + +Now, giant-like, the tall young ploughmen go +Between me and the sunset, footing slow; +My spirit, as an uninvited guest, +Goes with them, wondering what desire, what aim, +May stir their hearts and mine with common flame, +Or, thoughtless, do their hands suffice their soul? + +[117] + +I know not, care not, for I deem no shame +To hold men, flowers, and trees and stars the same, +Myself, as these, one atom in the whole. + +That is from one of those half-Greek, half-English idylls, reminding +one of Frederick Walker's "Ploughman," of Mason's "Evening Hymn," in +which Mr. Gosse is at his best. A favourite motive, he has treated +it even more melodiously in "Lying in the Grass":-- + +I do not hunger for a well-stored mind, +I only wish to live my life, and find +My heart in unison with all mankind. + +My life is like the single dewy star +That trembles on the horizon's primrose-bar,-- +A microcosm where all things living are. + +And if, among the noiseless grasses, Death +Should come behind and take away my breath, +I should not rise as one who sorroweth; + +For I should pass, but all the world would be +Full of desire and young delight and glee, +And why should men be sad through loss of me? + +The light is flying; in the silver-blue +The young moon shines from her bright window through: +The mowers are all gone, and I go too. + +A vein of thought as modern as it is old! More not less depressing, +certainly, to our over-meditative [118], susceptible, nervous, +modern age, than to that antiquity which was indeed the genial youth +of the world, but, sweetly attuned by his skill of touch, it is the +sum of what Mr. Gosse has to tell us of the experience of life. Or +is it, after all, to quote him once more, that beyond those ever- +recurring pagan misgivings, those pale pagan consolations, our +generation feels yet cannot adequately express-- + +The passion and the stress +Of thoughts too tender and too sad to be +Enshrined in any melody she knows? + +29th October 1890 + + + + + +VIII. FERDINAND FABRE + + + + +[NORINE]: AN IDYLL OF THE CEVENNES + + +[121] A FRENCH novelist who, with much of Zola's undoubted power, +writes always in the interest of that high type of Catholicism which +still prevails in the remote provinces of France, of that high type of +morality of which the French clergy have nobly maintained the ideal, +is worth recommending to the more serious class of English readers. +Something of the gift of Francois Millet, whose peasants are +veritable priests, of those older religious painters who could +portray saintly heads so sweetly and their merely human proteges so +truly, seems indeed to have descended to M. Ferdinand Fabre. In the +Abbe Tigrane, in Lucifer, and elsewhere, he has delineated, with +wonderful power and patience, a strictly ecclesiastical portraiture-- +[122] shrewd, passionate, somewhat melancholy heads, which, though +they are often of peasant origin, are never by any chance +undignified. The passions he treats of in priests are, indeed, +strictly clerical, most often their ambitions--not the errant humours +of the mere man in the priest, but movements of spirit properly +incidental to the clerical type itself. Turning to the secular +brothers and sisters of these peasant ecclesiastics, at first sight +so strongly contrasted with them, M. Fabre shows a great acquaintance +with the sources, the effects, of average human feeling; but still in +contact--in contact, as its conscience, its better mind, its ideal-- +with the institutions of religion. What constitutes his +distinguishing note as a writer is the recognition of the religious, +the Catholic, ideal, intervening masterfully throughout the picture +he presents of life, as the only mode of poetry realizable by the +poor; and although, of course, it does a great deal more beside, +certainly doing the high work of poetry effectively. For his +background he has chosen, has made his own and conveys very vividly +to his readers, a district of France, gloomy, in spite of its +almonds, its [123] oil and wine, but certainly grandiose. The large +towns, the sparse hamlets, the wide landscape of the Cevennes, are +for his books what the Rhineland is to those delightful authors, +Messrs. Erckmann-Chatrian. In Les Courbezon, the French Vicar of +Wakefield, as Sainte-Beuve declared, with this imposing background, +the Church and the world, as they shape themselves in the Cevennes, +the priest and the peasant, occupy about an equal share of interest. +Sometimes, as in the charming little book we wish now to introduce, +unclerical human nature occupies the foreground almost exclusively; +though priestly faces will still be found gazing upon us from time to +time. + +In form, the book is a bundle of letters from a Parisian litterateur +to the friend of his boyhood, now the cure of one of those mountain +villages. He is refreshing himself, in the midst of dusty, +sophisticated Paris, with memories of their old, delightful +existence--vagabonde, libre, agreste, pastorale--in their upland +valley. He can appeal safely to the aged cure's friendly justice, +even in exposing delicacies of sentiment which most men conceal:-- + +[124] "As for you, frank, certain of your own mind, joyous of heart, +methinks scarce understanding those whose religion makes their souls +tremble instead of fortifying them--you, I am sure, take things by +the large and kindly side of human life." + +The story our Parisian has to tell is simple enough, and we have no +intention of betraying it, but only to note some of the faces, the +scenes, that peep out in the course of it. + +The gloom of the Cevennes is the impression M. Fabre most commonly +conveys. In this book it is rather the cheerful aspect of summer, +those upland valleys of the Cevennes presenting then a symphony in +red, so to call it--as in a land of cherries and goldfinches; and he +has a genial power certainly of making you really feel the sun on the +backs of the two boys out early for a long ramble, of old peasants +resting themselves a little, with spare enjoyment, ere the end:-- + +"As we turned a sharp elbow of the stream the aspect of the country +changed. It seemed to me entirely red. Cherries in enormous bunches +were hanging everywhere over our heads.... + +[125] "It was a hut, rather low, rather dark. A log of chestnut was +smouldering in a heap of ashes. Every object was in its place: the +table, the chairs, the plates ranged on the dresser. A fairy, in +truth, reigned there, and, by the touch of her wand, brought +cleanliness and order on every side. + +"'Is it you, Norine?' asked a voice from a dark corner, three steps +from the fireplace. + +"'Yes, mon grand, it is I! The heat was growing greater every +moment, and I have taken in the goats.' + +"Norine unclosed the window. A broad light spread over the floor of +beaten earth, like a white cloth. The cottage was illuminated. I +saw an old man seated on a wooden stool in a recess, where an ample +serge curtain concealed a bed. He held himself slightly bent, the +two hands held forth, one over the other, on the knob of a knotty +staff, highly polished. In spite of eighty years, Norine's +grandfather--le grand, as they say up there--had not lost a hair: +beautiful white locks fell over his shoulders--crisp, thick, +outspread. I thought of those fine wigs of tow or hemp with which +the distaff of [126] our Prudence was always entangled. He was close +shaved, after the manner of our peasants; and the entire mask was to +be seen disengaged, all its admirable lines free, commanded by a +full-sized nose, below which the good, thick lips were smiling, full +of kindness. The eyes, however, though still clear and soft in +expression, had a certain fixity which startled me. He raised +himself. His stature seemed to me beyond proportion. He was really +beautiful, with the contentment of his face, straight as the trunk of +a chestnut, his old velvet coat thrown back, his shirt of coarse +cloth open at the breast, so that one saw the play of the ribs. + +"'Monsieur le neveu!' he cried; 'where are you? Come to me! I am +blind.' + +"I approached. He felt me, with ten fingers, laying aside his staff. + +"'And you would not take offence if a poor peasant like me embraced +you?' + +"'Quick, Jalaguier!' I cried, throwing myself into his arms. +'Quick!' He pressed me till the joints started. Leaned upon his +broad chest, I heard the beating of his heart. It beat under my ears +with a burden like our bell at [126] Camplong. What powerful +vitality in Norine's grand! 'It does an old man good:--a good hug!' +he said, letting me go." + +The boyish visitors are quite ready to sit down there to dinner:-- + +"With the peasant of the Cevennes (M. Fabre tells us) the meal is +what nature meant it to be--a few moments for self-recovery after +fatigue, a short space of silence of a quite elevated character, +almost sacred. The poor human creature has given the sweat of his +brow to extort from an ungrateful soil his daily bread; and now he +eats that well-savoured bread in silent self-respect. + +"'It is a weary thing to be thinking always of one's work (says the +grand to the somewhat sparing Norine). We must also think of our +sustenance. You are too enduring, my child! it is a mistake to +demand so much of your arms. In truth, le bon Dieu has cut you out +after the pattern of your dead father. Every morning, in my prayers, +I put in my complaint thereanent. My poor boy died from going too +fast. He could never sit still when it was a question of gathering a +few sous from the [128] fields; and those fields took and consumed +him.'" + +The boy fancies that the blind eyes are turned towards a particular +spot in the landscape, as if they saw:-- + +"'I often turn my eyes in that direction (the old man explains) from +habit. One might suppose that a peasant had the scent of the earth +on which he has laboured. I have given so much of the sweat of my +brow--there--towards Rocaillet! Angelique, my dead wife, was of +Rocaillet; and when she married me, brought a few morsels of land in +her apron. What a state they're in now!--those poor morsels of land +we used to weed and rake and hoe, my boy and I! What superb crops of +vetches we mowed then, for feeding, in due time, our lambs, our +calves! All is gone to ruin since my blindness, and especially since +Angelique left me for the churchyard, never to come back.' He paused +to my great relief. For every one of those phrases he modulated +under the fig-trees more sadly than the Lamentations of Jeremiah on +Jeudi Saint overset me--was like death." + +[129] That is good drawing, in its simple and quiet way! The actual +scene, however, is cheerful enough on this early summer day--a +symphony, as we said, in cherries and goldfinches, in which the +higher valleys of the Cevennes abound. In fact, the boys witness the +accordailles, the engagement, of Norine and Justin Lebasset. The +latter is calling the birds to sing good luck to the event:-- + +"He had a long steady look towards the fruit-trees, and then +whistled, on a note at once extremely clear and extremely soft. He +paused, watched awhile, recommenced. The note became more rapid, +more sonorous. What an astounding man he was, this Justin Lebasset! +Upright, his red beard forward, his forehead thrown back, his eyes on +the thick foliage of the cherry-trees, his hands on his haunches, in +an attitude of repose, easy, superb, he was like some youthful pagan +god, gilded with red gold, on his way across the country--like Pan, +if he chose to amuse himself by charming birds. You should have seen +the enthusiastic glances with which Norine watched him. Upright--she +too, slim, at full height, inclining from [130] time to time towards +Justin with a movement of irresistible fascination, she followed the +notes of her mate; and sometimes, her, lips half opening, added +thereto a sigh--something of a sigh, an aspiration, a prayer, towards +the goldfinch, withdrawn into the shadows. + +"The leaves were shaken in the clear, burning green; and, on a +sudden, a multitude of goldfinches, the heads red in the wind, the +wings half spread, were fluttering from branch to branch. I could +have fancied, amid the quivering of the great bunches of fruit, that +they were cherries on the wing. Justin suffered his pipe to die +away: the birds were come at his invitation, and performed their +prelude." + +It is forty years afterwards that the narrator, now a man of letters +in Paris, writes to his old friend, with tidings of Justin and +Norine:-- + +"In 1842 (he observes) you were close on fifteen; I scarcely twelve. +In my eyes your age made you my superior. And then, you were so +strong, so tender, so amiteux, to use a word from up there--a +charming word. And so God, Who had His designs for you, whereas I, +in spite of my pious childhood, wandered on [131] my way as chance +bade me, led you by the hand, attached, ended by keeping you for +Himself. He did well truly when He chose you and rejected me!" + +His finding the pair in the wilds of Paris is an adventure, in which, +in fact, a goldfinch again takes an important part--a goldfinch who +is found to understand the Cevenol dialect:-- + +"The goldfinch (escaped from its cage somewhere, into the dreary +court of the Institute) has seen me: is looking at me. If he chose +to make his way into my apartment, he would be very welcome. I feel +a strong impulse to try him with that unique patois word, which, +whistled after a peculiar manner, when I was a boy never failed to +succeed in the mountains of Orb--Beni! Beni! Viens! Viens! I dare +not! He might take fright and fly away altogether." + +In effect, the Cevenol bird, true to call, introduces Norine, his +rightful owner, whose husband Justin is slowly dying. Towards the +end of a hard life, faithful to their mountain ideal, they have not +lost their dignity, though in a comparatively sordid medium: [132] + +"As for me, my dear Arribas, I remained in deep agitation, an +attentive spectator of the scene; and while Justin and Norine, set +both alike in the winepress of sorrow, le pressoir de la douleur, as +your good books express it, murmured to each other their broken +consoling words, I saw them again, in thought, young, handsome, in +the full flower of life, under the cherry-trees, the swarming +goldfinches, of blind Barthelemy Jalaguier. Ah me! It was thus +that, five-and-forty years after, in this dark street of Paris, that +festive day was finishing, blessed, in the plenitude of nature, by +that august old man, celebrated by the alternate song of all the +birds of Rocaillet." + +Justin's one remaining hope is to go home to those native mountains, +if it may be, with the dead body of his boy, dead "the very morning +on which he should have received the tonsure from the hands of Mgr. +l'Archeveque," and buried now temporarily at the cemetery of +Montparnasse:-- + +Theodore calls me. I saw him distinctly to-night. He gave me a +sign. After all said, life is heavy, sans le fillot, and but [133] +for you it were well to be released from it....' + +"I have seen Justin Lebasset die, dear Arribas, and was touched, +edified, to the bottom of my soul. God grant, when my hour comes, I +may find that calm, that force, in the last struggle with life. Not +a complaint! not a sigh! Once only he gave Norine a sorrowful, +heartrending look; then, from lips already cold, breathed that one +word, 'Theodore!' Marcus Aurelius used to say: 'A man should leave +the world as a ripe olive falls from the tree that bore it, and with +a kiss for the earth that nourished it.' Well! the peasant of +Rocaillet had the beautiful, noble, simple death of the fruit of the +earth, going to the common receptacle of all mortal beings, with no +sense that he was torn away. Pardon, I pray, my quotation from +Marcus Aurelius, who persecuted the Christians. I give it with the +same respect with which you would quote some holy writer. Ah! my +dear Arribas! not all the saints have received canonization." + +It is to the priestly character, in truth, that M. Fabre always comes +back for tranquillizing [134] effect; and if his peasants have +something akin to Wordsworth's, his priests may remind one of those +solemn ecclesiastical heads familiar in the paintings and etchings of +M. Alphonse Legros. The reader travelling in Italy, or Belgium +perhaps, has doubtless visited one or more of those spacious +sacristies, introduced to which for the inspection of some more than +usually recherche work of art, one is presently dominated by their +reverend quiet: simple people coming and going there, devout, or at +least on devout business, with half-pitched voices, not without +touches of kindly humour, in what seems to express like a picture the +most genial side, midway between the altar and the home, of the +ecclesiastical life. Just such interiors we seem to visit under the +magic of M. Fabre's well-trained pen. He has a real power of taking +one from Paris, or from London, to places and people certainly very +different from either, to the satisfaction of those who seek in +fiction an escape. + +12th June 1889 + + + + + +IX. THE "CONTES" OF M. AUGUSTIN FILON + + + + +TALES OF A HUNDRED YEARS SINCE +["CONTES DU CENTENAIRE." PAR AUGUSTIN FILON. PARIS: HACHETTE ET +CIE. ] + + +[137] IT was a happy thought of M. Filon to put into the mouth of an +imaginary centenarian a series of delightfully picturesque studies +which aim at the minute presentment of life in France under the old +regime, and end for the most part with the Revolution. A genial +centenarian, whose years have told happily on him, he appreciates not +only those humanities of feeling and habit which were peculiar to the +last century and passed away with it, but also that permanent +humanity which has but undergone a change of surface in the new world +of our own, wholly different though it may look. With a sympathetic +sense of life as it is always, [138] M. Filon has transplanted the +creations of his fancy into an age certainly at a greater distance +from ourselves than can be estimated by mere lapse of time, and where +a fully detailed antiquarian knowledge, used with admirable tact and +economy, is indeed serviceable in giving reality of effect to scene +and character. In truth, M. Filon's very lively antiquarianism +carries with it a genuine air of personal memory. With him, as +happens so rarely, an intimate knowledge of historic detail is the +secret of life, of the impression of life; puts his own imagination +on the wing; secures the imaginative cooperation of the reader. A +stately age--to us, perhaps, in the company of the historic muse, +seeming even more stately than it actually was--it is pleasant to +find it, as we do now and again on these pages, in graceful +deshabille. With perfect lightness of touch, M. Filon seems to have +a complete command of all the physiognomic details of old France, of +old Paris and its people--how they made a holiday; how they got at +the news; the fashions. Did the English reader ever hear before of +the beautifully dressed doll which came once a month [139] from Paris +to Soho to teach an expectant world of fashion how to dress itself? +Old Paris! For young lovers at their windows; for every one +fortunate enough to have seen it: "Qu'il est joli ce paysage du Paris +nocturne d'il y a cent ans!" We think we shall best do justice to an +unusually pretty book by taking one of M. Filon's stories (not +because we are quite sure it is the cleverest of them) with a view to +the more definite illustration of his method, therein. + +Christopher Marteau was a warden of the corporation of Luthiers. He +dealt in musical instruments, as his father and grandfather had done +before him, at the sign of Saint Cecilia. With his wife, his only +child Phlipote, and Claude his apprentice, who was to marry Phlipote, +he occupied a good house of his own. Of course the disposition of +the young people, bred together from their childhood, does not at +first entirely concur with the parental arrangements. But the story +tells, reassuringly, how--to some extent how sadly--they came +heartily to do so. M. Marteau was no ordinary shopkeeper. The +various distinguished people who had fingered his clavecins, and +turned over the [140] folios of music, for half a century past, had +left their memories behind them; M. de Voltaire, for instance, who +had caressed the head of Phlipote with an aged, skeleton hand, +leaving, apparently, no very agreeable impression on the child, +though her father delighted to recall the incident, being himself a +demi-philosophe. He went to church, that is to say, only twice a +year, on the Feast of St. Cecilia and on the Sunday when the Luthiers +offered the pain benit. It was his opinion that everything in the +State needed reform except the Corporations. The relations of the +husband to his affectionate, satiric, pleasure-seeking wife, who knew +so well all the eighteen theatres which then existed in Paris, are +treated with much quiet humour. On Sundays the four set forth +together for a country holiday. At such times Phlipote would walk +half-a-dozen paces in advance of her father and mother, side by side +with her intended. But they never talked to each other: the hands, +the eyes, never met. Of what was Phlipote dreaming? and what was in +the thoughts of Claude? + +It happened one day that, like sister and brother, the lovers +exchanged confidences. "It [141] is not always," observes Phlipote, +whom every one excepting Claude on those occasions sought with +admiring eyes-- + +"'It is not always one loves those one is told to love.' + +"'What, have you, too, a secret, my little Phlipote?' + +"'I too, Claude! Then what may be yours?' + +"'Listen, Phlipote!' he answered. 'We don't wish to be husband and +wife, but we can be friends--good and faithful friends, helping each +other to change the decision of our parents.' + +"'Were I but sure you would not betray me--' + +"'Would you like me to confess first? The woman I love--Ah! but you +will laugh at my folly!' + +"'No, Claude! I shall not laugh. I know too well what one suffers.' + +"'Especially when love is hopeless.' + +"'Hopeless?' + +"'Alas! I have never spoken to her. Perhaps never shall!' + +[142] "'Well! as for me, I don't even know the name of him to whom my +heart is given!' + +"'Ah! poor Phlipote!' + +"'Poor Claude!' + +"They had approached each other. The young man took the tiny hand of +his friend, pressing it in his own. + +"'The woman I adore is Mademoiselle Guimard!' + +"'What! Guimard of the Opera?--the fiancee of Despreaux?'" + +Claude still held the hands of Phlipote, who was trembling now, and +almost on fire at the story of this ambitious love. In return she +reveals her own. It was Good Friday. She had come with her mother +to the Sainte Chapelle to hear Mademoiselle Coupain play the organ +and witness the extraordinary spectacle of the convulsionnaires, +brought thither to be touched by the relic of the True Cross. In the +press of the crowd at this exciting scene Phlipote faints, or nearly +faints, when a young man comes kindly to their aid. "She is so +young!" he explains to the mother, "she seems so delicate!" "He +looked at me," she tells Claude--"he looked at [143] me, through his +half-closed eyelids; and his words were like a caress."-- + +"'And have you seen him no More?' asks Claude, full of sympathy. + +"'Yes! once again. He pretended to be looking at the window of the +Little Dunkirk, over the way, but with cautious glances towards our +house. Only, as he did not know what storey we live on, he failed to +discover me behind my curtain, where I was but half visible.' + +"'You should have shown yourself.' + +"'Oh, Claude!' she cried, with a delicious gesture of timidity, of +shame. + +"So they prattled for a long time; he talking of the great Guimard, +she of her unknown lover, scarce listening to, but completely +understanding each other. + +"'Holloa!'cries the loud voice of Christopher Marteau. 'What are you +doing out there?' + +"The young people arose. Phlipote linked her arm gaily in that of +Claude. 'How contented I feel!' she says; 'how good it is to have a +friend--to have you whom I used to detest, because I thought you were +in love with me. Now, when I know you can't bear me, I [144] shall +be nicely in love with you.' The soft warmth of her arm seemed to +pass through Claude, and gave him strange sensations. He resumed +naively, 'Yes! and how odd it is after all that I am not in love with +you. You are so pretty!' Phlipote raised her finger coquettishly, +'No compliments, monsieur. Since we are not to marry each other, it +is forbidden to pay court to me!'" + +From that day a close intimacy established itself between the +formerly affianced pair, now become accomplices in defeating the good +intentions of their elders. In long conversations, they talked in +turn, or both together, of their respective loves. Phlipote allows +Claude entrance to her chamber, full of admiration for its graceful +arrangements, its virgin cleanliness. He inspects slowly all the +familiar objects daily touched by her, her books, her girlish +ornaments. One day she cried with an air of mischief, "If she were +here in my place, what would you do?" and no sooner were the words +uttered than his arms were round her neck. "'Tis but to teach you +what I would do were she here." They were a little troubled by this +adventure. + +[145] And the next day was a memorable one. By the kind contrivance +of Phlipote herself, Claude gains the much-desired access to the +object of his affections, but to his immense disillusion. If he +could but speak to her, he fancies he should find the courage, the +skill, to bend her. Breathless, Phlipote comes in secret with the +good news. The great actress desires some one to tune her clavecin:- +- + +"'Papa would have gone; but I begged him so earnestly to take me to +the Theatre Francais that he could not refuse; and it is yourself +will go this evening to tune the clavecin of your beloved.' + +"'Phlipote, you've a better heart than I! This morning I saw a +gentleman, who resembled point by point your description of the +unknown at the Sainte Chapelle, prowling about our shop.' + +"'And you didn't tell me!' + +"Claude hung his head. + +"'But why not?' the young girl asks imperiously. 'Why not?' + +"'In truth I could hardly say, hardly understand, myself. Do you +forgive me, Phlipote?' + +"'I suppose I must. So make yourself as smart as you can, to please +your goddess.'" + +[146] Next day she hears the story of Claude's grievous +disappointment on seeing the great actress at home--plain, five-and- +forty, ill-tempered. He had tuned the clavecin and taken flight. + +And now for Phlipote's idol! It was agreed that Whitsunday should be +spent at Versailles. On that day the royal apartments were open to +the public, and at the hour of High Mass the crowd flowed back +towards the vestibule of the chapel to witness what was called the +procession of the Cordons Bleus. The "Blue Ribbons" were the knights +of the Order Du Saint-Esprit in their robes of ceremony, who came to +range themselves in the choir according to the date of their +creation. The press was so great that the parents were separated +from the young people. Claude, however, at the side of Phlipote, +realized the ideal of a faithful and jealous guardian. The +hallebardes of the Suisses rang on the marble pavement of the +gallery. Royalty, now unconsciously presenting its ceremonies for +the last time, advanced through a cloud of splendour; but before the +Queen appeared it was necessary that all the knights of the order +down to the youngest should pass by, slow, solemn, majestic. + +[147] They wore, besides their ribbons of blue moire, the silver dove +on the shoulder, and the long mantle of sombre blue velvet lined with +yellow satin. Phlipote watched mechanically the double file of +haughty figures passing before them: then, on a sudden, with a feeble +cry, falls fainting into the arms of Claude. + +Recovered after a while, under shelter of the great staircase, she +wept as those weep whose heart is broken by a great blow. Claude, +without a word, sustained, soothed her. A sentiment of gratitude +mingled itself with her distress. "How good he is!" she thought. + +"It was a pity," says her mother a little later "a pity you did not +see the Cordons Bleus. Fancy! You will laugh at me! But in one of +the handsomest of the Chevaliers I felt sure I recognized the +stranger who helped us at the Sainte Chapelle, and was so gallant +with you." + +Phlipote did not laugh. "You are deceived, mother!" she said in a +faint voice. "Pardi!" cries the father. "'Tis what I always say. +Your stranger was some young fellow from a shop." + +Two months later the young people receive [148] the nuptial +benediction, and continue the musical business when the elders retire +to the country. At first a passionate lover, Claude was afterwards a +good and devoted husband. Phlipote never again opened her lips +regarding the vague love which for a moment had flowered in her +heart: only sometimes, a cloud of reverie veiled her eyes, which +seemed to seek sadly, beyond the circle of her slow, calm life, a +brilliant but chimeric image visible for her alone. + +And once again she saw him. It was in the terrible year 1794. She +knew the hour at which the tumbril with those condemned to die passed +the windows; and at the first signal would close them and draw the +curtain. But on this day some invincible fascination nailed her to +her place. There were ten faces; but she had eyes for one alone. +She had not forgotten, could not mistake, him--that pale head, so +proud and fine, but now thin with suffering; the beautiful mobile +eyes, now encircled with the signs of sorrow and watching. The +convict's shirt, open in large, broad folds, left bare the neck, +delicate as a woman's, and made for that youthful face an aureole, of +innocence, of martyrdom. His looks [149] met hers. Did he recognize +her? She could not have said. She remained there, paralyzed with +emotion, till the moment when the vision disappeared. + +Then she flung herself into her chamber, fell on her knees, lost +herself in prayer. There was a distant roll of drums. The man to +whom she had given her maiden soul was gone. + +"Cursed be their anger, for it was cruel!" says the reader. But +Monsieur Filon's stories sometimes end as merrily as they begin; and +always he is all delicacy--a delicacy which keeps his large yet +minute antiquarian knowledge of that vanished time ever in service to +a direct interest in humanity as it is permanently, alike before and +after '93. His book is certainly one well worth possessing. + +THE END + +16th July 1890 + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Essays From 'The Guardian' +by Walter Horatio Pater + |