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diff --git a/old/62129-0.txt b/old/62129-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 5182601..0000000 --- a/old/62129-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,7807 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of A History of Story-telling, by Arthur Ransome - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: A History of Story-telling - Studies in the development of narrative - -Author: Arthur Ransome - -Illustrator: J. Gavin - -Release Date: May 14, 2020 [EBook #62129] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A HISTORY OF STORY-TELLING *** - - - - -Produced by MFR, Eleni Christofaki and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive) - - - - - - - - - -Transcriber's note. - -Minor punctuation inconsistencies have been silently repaired. Variable -spelling has been retained. Sidenotes are presented [within square -brackets]. - -Mark up: - - _italic_ - =bold= - - - - -A HISTORY OF STORY-TELLING - - - - -EDITED BY ARTHUR RANSOME - -THE WORLD'S STORY-TELLERS - - -EACH volume contains a selection of complete stories, an Introductory -Essay by ARTHUR RANSOME, and a Frontispiece Portrait by J. GAVIN. - -List of volumes already published:-- - - GAUTIER - HOFFMANN - POE - HAWTHORNE - MÉRIMÉE - BALZAC - CHATEAUBRIAND - THE ESSAYISTS - CERVANTES - Others in preparation - -_In cloth, 1s. net; cloth gilt, gilt top, 1s. 6d. net per vol._ - - -LONDON AND EDINBURGH - -T. C. AND E. C. JACK - - - - -[Illustration: JEAN DE MEUNG] - - - - - A HISTORY OF - STORY-TELLING - - STUDIES IN THE - DEVELOPMENT OF NARRATIVE - - BY - ARTHUR RANSOME - Editor of 'The World's Story-Tellers' - - [Illustration: ALIENI TEMPORIS FLORES] - - WITH 27 PORTRAITS BY J. GAVIN - - LONDON: T. C. & E. C. JACK - 16 HENRIETTA STREET, W.C. - 1909 - - - - -TO MY WIFE - - - - -PREFACE - - -THIS is a spring day, and I am writing in a flood of sunlight in front -of a brown French inn. Above my head there is the dusty branch of a -tree stuck out of a window, the ancient sign that gave point to the -proverb, 'Good wine needs no bush.' Good books, I suppose, need no -prefaces. But honest authors realise that their books are never as good -as they had planned them. A preface, put on last and worn in front, to -show what they would have liked their books to be, is the pleasantest -of their privileges. And I am not inclined to do without it. - -A book that calls itself a history of a subject with as many byeways -and blind alleys as exist in the history of story-telling, is precisely -the kind of book that one would wish one's enemy to have written. -Everybody who reads it grumbles because something or other is left -out that, if they had had the writing of it, would have been put in. -And yet in the case of this particular book (how many authors have -thought the same!) criticism of omissions is like quarrelling with a -guinea-pig because it has not got a tail. It is not the guinea-pig's -business to have a tail, and it is not the business of this book to be -a chronicle, full of facts, and admirable for reference. That place -is already filled by Dunlop's _History of Fiction_, and, in a very -delightful manner, by Professor Raleigh's _English Novel_. The word -history can be used in a different sense. The French say that such an -one makes a history of a thing when he makes a great deal of talk about -it. That is what I set out to do. My business was not to be noting down -dates and facts--this book was published in such a year and this in the -year preceding. I was to write with a livelier imp astride my pen. The -schoolmaster was to be sent to steal apples in the orchard. I was to -write of story-telling as a man might write of painting or jewellery -or any other art he loved. I was to take here a book and there a book, -and notice the development of technique, the conquests of new material, -the gradual perfecting of form. I would talk of old masters and modern -ones, and string my chapters like beads, a space between each, along -the history of the art. - -Well, I have _fait une histoire_, suggested mainly by the masterpieces -that I love, and without too much regard for those that happen to be -loved by other people. And now that it is done, I think of it sadly -enough. It should have been so beautiful. When I see an old church, -like the priory church at Cartmel, standing grey and solemn in the mist -above the houses, or hear an old song, like 'Summer is icumen in,' or -see a browned old picture, like Poussin's 'Bergers d'Arcadie,' I feel -that these things have meant more to man than battles. These are his -dreams and his ideals, resting from age to age, long after the din of -fighting has died and been forgotten, recorded each in its own way, -in stone, in melody, in colour, and in the tales also that, changing -continually, have 'held children from play and old men from the -chimney-corner,' the dreams lie hid. What a tapestry they should have -made. For the story of this art, or indeed of any art, is the story -of man. Looking back through the years, as I sit here and close my -eyes against the sunlight, I see the hard men and fierce women of the -Sagas living out their lives in the cold and vigorous north--Pippin, -the grandfather of Charlemagne, sticking his sword indifferently -through the devil, Beaumains and his scornful lady riding through the -green wood. In the dungeon of the tower sits Aucassin sorrowing for -Nicolete his so sweet friend. Among the orange-trees on the Italian -slope the gold-haired Fiammetta watches for her lover. With battered -armour and ascetic face Don Quixote, upright in his saddle, rides on -the bare roads of Spain, dreaming of Dulcinea del Toboso. Gil Blas -swindles his way through life and comes out top as an honest rascal -will. Clarissa sits in her chamber blotting with tears her interminable -correspondence. Tom Jones draws blood from many meaner noses. My Uncle -Toby looks, not in the white, for the mote in the Widow Wadman's -eye. Mrs. Bennet begs her husband, to 'come and make Lizzy marry Mr. -Collins.' Old Goriot pawns his plate and moves to cheaper and yet -cheaper rooms to keep his daughters in their luxury. Raphael, nearing -death, watches the relentless shrinking of the morsel of shagreen. -There falls the House of Usher. There floats the white face of Marie -Roget down the waters of the Seine. Quasimodo leers through the rosace; -Mateo Falcone feels the earth with the butt of his gun and finds it -not too hard for the digging of a child's grave; Clarimonde throws her -passionate regard across the cathedral to the young novice about to -take his vows; and, with a clatter of hoofs, the musketeers ride off -for the reputation of the Queen of France. - -A tapestry indeed. - -I turn over my chapters, torn rags of colour loosely patched together, -and then look back to my dream, that gorgeous thing that for these -five years past has glittered and swung before me. I look from one to -the other and back again, and am almost ready to tear up the book in -order to regain the delightful possession of the dream. It was a task -to be taken up reverently and with love; and indeed these are the only -qualifications I can honestly claim. But it needed far more. Now that I -have done my best, I look at the result and am afraid. I hate, like I -hate the tourists in Notre Dame, impertinent little books on splendid -subjects. With my heart in my mouth I ask myself if I have made one. - - * * * * * - -Impertinent or no, my book is very vulnerable, and since it is my own I -must defend it, so far as that is possible, by defining my intentions. -The chapters are, as I meant them be, threaded like beads along the -history of the art, and it is very easy to quarrel not only with the -beads, but also with the spaces between them. There is no one who -reads the book who will not find somewhere a space where he would have -had a gleaming bead, a bead, where he would have had a contemptuous -space. I could not put everything in; but have left material for many -complementary volumes. It would perhaps be possible, writing only of -authors I have not considered, to produce a history of story-telling -no more incomplete than this. But it will be found, and the fact is -perhaps my justification, that few of my omissions have been made by -accident. In order to have the satisfaction of coming to an end at -all, I had to seek the closest limits, and those limits, once chosen, -barred, to my own surprise, more than one great story-teller from any -detailed discussion. - -My object not being an expanded bibliography of story-telling, but -rather a series of chapters that would trace the development of the -art, many admirable writers, who were content with the moulds that -were ready made to their hands, fell outside my range, however noble, -however human was the material they poured into the ancient matrices. -Dickens and Thackeray, for example, pouring their energy and feeling -and wit and humour into the moulds designed by the eighteenth century, -had, economically, to be passed over, since across the channel and in -America men were writing stories, not necessarily greater, nor of wider -appeal to mankind, but of more vital interest to their fellow artists. -Throughout the book we hunt, my readers and I, with the hare. Always -we discuss the art in those examples that seem the most advanced of -their time. Just as with the Romantic movement I pass over from England -to France, though the book contains no survey of French fiction, so -when Cervantes is the leading story-teller, the artist nearest our own -time, I shall be in Spain, though Spanish literature does not make a -continuous thread in the history. I shall think more of the art than -of my own country, or indeed of any country, and shall neglect all -literatures in turn when they are producing nothing that is memorable -in the progress of the technique of story-telling, however freely they -may be contributing great or brilliant tales to the world's resources -of amusement. - -Then too, it will be noticed that I neglect my opportunities. -What a semblance of erudition I might have made by discussing, -among the origins of story-telling, the Greek and Latin specimens -of narrative. But it seemed desirable, since it was possible, to -trace the development of the art entirely in the literatures of our -own civilisation. French and English, the two greatest European -literatures, contain, grafted on their national stocks, every flower -of the art that was cultivated by Greece or Rome. I have used for -discussion only the books known and made by our own ancestors, and -when, at the Renaissance, they lifted forms out of Antiquity and -filled them with imitations of classical matter, I have considered -the imitations rather than the originals, if only because any further -influence they may have had on the development of the art was exerted -not by the classical writers but by the Englishmen, Frenchmen, -Spaniards, and Italians who made their manners and materials their own. - -The book represents many years of reading, and two of writing where it -should have taken ten. It has travelled about with me piecemeal, and, -if I dated my chapters from the places where I wrote them, they would -trace a very various itinerary. In France, in England, and in Scotland -it has shared my adventures, and indeed it is a wilful, rambling thing, -more than a little reminiscent of its infancy. Do not expect it to be -too consistent. There is, I fear, no need for me to ask you not to read -it all at once. - - ARTHUR RANSOME. - - - - -CONTENTS - - - PAGE - - PREFACE vii - - PART I - - ORIGINS 5 - 'THE ROMANCE OF THE ROSE' 19 - CHAUCER AND BOCCACCIO 31 - THE ROGUE NOVEL 51 - THE ELIZABETHANS 67 - THE PASTORAL 81 - CERVANTES 93 - THE ESSAYISTS' CONTRIBUTION TO STORY-TELLING 107 - TRANSITION: BUNYAN AND DEFOE 125 - RICHARDSON AND THE FEMININE NOVEL 139 - FIELDING, SMOLLETT, AND THE MASCULINE NOVEL 155 - A NOTE ON STERNE 169 - - PART II - - CHATEAUBRIAND AND ROMANTICISM 175 - SCOTT AND ROMANTICISM 187 - THE ROMANTICISM OF 1830 201 - BALZAC 217 - GAUTIER AND THE EAST 231 - POE AND THE NEW TECHNIQUE 243 - HAWTHORNE AND MORAL ROMANCE 257 - MÉRIMÉE AND CONVERSATIONAL STORY-TELLING 273 - FLAUBERT 287 - A NOTE ON DE MAUPASSANT 298 - CONCLUSION 305 - - INDEX 313 - - - - -ILLUSTRATIONS - - - TO FACE PAGE - - JEAN DE MEUNG 22 - GEOFFREY CHAUCER 38 - GIOVANNI BOCCACCIO 44 - ALAIN RENÉ LE SAGE 60 - SIR PHILIP SIDNEY 84 - MIGUEL DE CERVANTES SAAVEDRA 96 - RICHARD STEELE AND JOSEPH ADDISON 114 - JOHN BUNYAN 126 - DANIEL DEFOE 132 - SAMUEL RICHARDSON 140 - FANNY BURNEY 146 - JANE AUSTEN 150 - HENRY FIELDING 156 - TOBIAS SMOLLETT 166 - JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU 176 - FRANÇOIS RENÉ DE CHATEAUBRIAND 180 - SIR WALTER SCOTT 188 - VICTOR HUGO 202 - ALEXANDRE DUMAS 210 - HONORÉ DE BALZAC 218 - THÉOPHILE GAUTIER 236 - WILLIAM GODWIN 244 - EDGAR ALLAN POE 250 - NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 258 - PROSPER MÉRIMÉE 274 - GUSTAVE FLAUBERT 288 - GUY DE MAUPASSANT 300 - - - - -PART I - - - - -ORIGINS - - - - -ORIGINS - - -[Story-telling outside books.] - -STORY-TELLING has nowadays only a shamefaced existence outside books. -We leave the art to the artist, perhaps because he has brought it to -such perfection that we do not care to expose our amateur bunglings. If -a man has a story to tell after dinner he carefully puts it into slang, -or tells it with jerk and gesture in as few words as possible; it is as -if he were to hold up a little placard deprecating the idea that he is -telling a story at all. The only tales in which we allow ourselves much -detail of colouring and background are those in which public opinion -has prohibited professional competition. We tell improper stories -as competently as ever. But, for the other tales, we set them out -concisely, almost curtly, refusing any attempt to imitate the fuller, -richer treatment of literature. Our tales are mere plots. We allow -ourselves scarcely two sentences of dialogue to clinch them at the -finish. We give them no framework. We are shy, except perhaps before a -single intimate friend, of trying in a spoken story to reproduce the -effect of moonlight in the trees, the flickering firelight on the faces -in a tavern, or whatever else of delicacy and embroidery we should be -glad to use in writing. - -But in the beginning story-telling was not an affair of pen and ink. -It began with the Warning Examples naturally told by a mother to her -children, and with the Embroidered Exploits told by a boaster to his -wife or friends. The early woman would persuade her child from the -fire with a tale of how just such another as he had touched the yellow -dancer, and had had his hair burned and his eyelashes singed so that -he could not look in the face of the sun. Enjoying the narrative, she -would give it realistic and credible touches, and so make something -more of it than the dull lie of utility. The early man, fresh from an -encounter with some beast of the woods, would not be so little of an -artist as to tell the actual facts; how he heard a noise, the creaking -of boughs and crackling in the undergrowth, and ran. No; he would -describe the monster, sketch his panic moments, the short, fierce -struggle, his stratagem, and his escape. In these two primitive tales, -and their combination in varying proportions, are the germs of all -the others. There is no story written to-day which cannot trace its -pedigree to those two primitive types of narrative, generated by the -vanity of man and the exigencies of his life. - -[The professional story-teller.] - -At first there would be no professional story-tellers. But it would -not be long before, by the camp fire, in the desert tents, and in -the huts at night, wherever simple men were together relating the -experiences of vigorous days, there would be found some one whose -adventures were always the pleasantest to hear, whose deeds were the -most marvellous, whose realistic details the most varied. Probably it -would also be found that this same man could also give the neatest -point to the tales of wisdom that were the children of the Warning -Example. Men would begin to quote his stories, and gradually the -discrepancy between his life and the life that he lived as he recounted -it to his nightly audiences would grow too great to be ignored. His -adventures would become too tremendous for himself, and, to save his -modesty and preserve his credit, he would father them upon some dead -chief, a strong man who had done things that others had not, and, being -dead, was unable to contradict with his stone axe his too enthusiastic -biographer. Such a man, like many a modern story-teller, would likely -use his hold over the imagination of his fellows to become the medicine -man of his tribe, the depositary of their traditions, their sage as -well as their entertainer. He would create gods besides rebuilding men, -and while his people were sheltering in the huts and listening atremble -to the dying rolls of the thunder, would describe how his hero, the -dead chief of long ago, was even now wrestling with the Thunder God and -getting his knee upon that mighty throat. In the beginning man was a -very little thing in the face of a stupendous Universe. Story-telling -raised him higher and higher until at last heaven and earth were hidden -by the gigantic figure of a man. In the Arthur legend, in the legend of -Charlemagne, in the Sagas, we can watch men becoming heroes, and heroes -supernatural. Then story-telling, having done so much, was to set to -work in the opposite direction, and we shall see the figures of men -gradually shrinking into their true proportions through each successive -phase of the art, until, now that we have examples of all stages -permanently before us, we manufacture gods, heroes, men, and creatures -less than men, with almost equal profusion. - -[In early story-telling heroes are more than life size.] - -But in the beginning of written story-telling, when life was a huge -battle in which it was the proper thing to die, when the heroes of -stories were not finished off with marriage but by the more definite -means of a battle-axe, when life was a thing of such swiftness, -fierceness, and force, it was clear to his biographer that the creature -who conquered it was surely more than man. His were the attributes of -the gods, with whom he was not frightened to struggle or to be allied. -Sigurd's pedigree is carried back to Odin. Pippin struck a sword -through the devil who met him as he went to bath, and found that 'the -shape was so far material that it defiled all those waters with blood -and gore and horrid slime. Even this did not upset the unconquerable -Pippin. He said to his chamberlain: "Do not mind this little affair. -Let the defiled water run for a while; and then, when it flows clear -again, I will take my bath without delay."' Beowulf fought with dragons -and died boasting gloriously. Theirs are the figures of men a thousand -times man's height, very man-like, but gigantic, like the watchers -shadowed on the mountain mist. - -[Silk and homespun stories.] - -Each nation showed its peculiar spirit in huge cycles of narrative. -The solid force of the Vikings and their sword-bright imagery survives -in the Sagas; the French chivalry in the legends of Charlemagne and -Arthur; the Celtic feeling for the veiled things in the spells and -dreams of the _Mabinogion_. These were the great stories of their -peoples. But side by side with them were others. The thralls of the -Vikings heard of Brunhild and Gudrun, the serfs of France heard of -Roland and Bertha with the Large Feet; but they had also tales of their -own. The tales of silk have been preserved for us in writing, but what -of the tales of homespun yarn that no old clerk thought worthy of a -manuscript with gold leaves, and sweet faces, and blue and scarlet -flowers entwined around its borders? - -Very few of these homespun stories were written down. _Reynard the -Fox_ had few brethren except in spoken story-telling. Perhaps just -because they never were written down, we can guess from the folk-lore -that has survived among us to our own day, and from the tales we hear -from savages, what were those tales of Jean and Jaques, that were -perhaps nearer modern story-telling than the great books that were -known by their masters. In folk-tale, as in _Reynard the Fox_, we find -very different virtues from those of the knights, heroes, kings, and -gods. In the silken tales the virtues are those of Don Quixote; in the -homespun stories they are those of Sancho Panza. Chivalry would seem an -old conceit; bravery, foolhardiness. Sagacity, cunning, and mischief -are their motives. In the silken tales there is no scorn shown save of -cowards, in the folk-tales none save of fools. Perhaps the proverbs -illustrate them best. 'Do not close the stable door after the horse has -gone.' 'A stitch in time saves nine.' 'A bird in the hand is worth two -in the bush.' These are all short stories summed in a sentence, and any -one of them might serve as the motive of a modern novel. - -[The swineherd and the king's daughter.] - -From the time that stories began to be written down, we can watch them -coming nearer and nearer to this level, nearer and nearer the ordinary -man. The history of story-telling henceforth is that of the abasement -of the grand and the uplifting of the lowly, and of the mingling of the -two. The folk-tale of the swineherd who married the king's daughter is -the history alike of the progress of humanity and of the materials of -story-telling. - -[Reduction in the size of the heroes.] - -But before the heroes of written story-telling could begin to be -humble, they had to leave off being gods. It is possible to observe -the transformation by comparing a set of early stories composed at -practically the same time, but in different countries, in different -stages of civilisation, and so, for the purpose of our argument, -in sequence. The _Volsunga Saga_, the _Mabinogion_ and _Aucassin -and Nicolete_ were all composed about the same time, but there are -centuries of development between them. The heroes of the sagas are 'too -largely thewed for life'; Aucassin is a boy. Love in the sagas is a -fierce passion, the mainspring of terrific deeds; Aucassin's love is -a tender obsession that keeps him from his arms, and lets him ride, -careless and dreaming, into the midst of his enemies. In the _Morte -Darthur_, as we have it in Malory's version of the much older tales, -we can see the two spirits pulling at cross purposes in the same book. -Beneath there is the rugged brutality of the old fighting tales, -overlaid now with the softer texture of chivalry and gentleness. The -one shows through the other like the grey rock through the green turf -of our north country fields. - -[Technique of the Sagas.] - -The technique of the old tales varies most precisely with the humanity -and loss of super-humanity of their heroes. In the sagas it is very -simple. The effect is got by sheer weight and mass of magnificent -human material. The details are those of personal appearance and -armour; there are no settings. The men ride out gorgeous and bright -in battle array, with gold about their helms, and painted shields, on -great white horses against a sombre sky. There is no other background -to the tales than heaven and the watchful gods. It was not until a -later stage in their development that story-tellers painted their full -canvas, and put in woodland and castle and all those other accessories -that force their human figures to a human height. At first, like the -early painters, they were content with the outlines of men doing -things; their audiences, with unspoilt imaginations, filled in the rest -themselves. Then, too, they told their tales in a short sing-song form -of verse that served well to keep them in mind, but prevented any great -variation in emphasis. A lament for the dead warrior, a pæan for his -victory, and an account of his wife's beauty, a genealogical tree, were -all forced to jog to the same tune, and the atmosphere and scent of -their telling could only be altered by the intonations of the singer. -They still depended for their effect on the men who recited them, and -had not achieved the completeness of expression that would give them -independence. - -[Of the _Mabinogion_.] - -The _Mabinogion_, that took literary form at about the same time, were -made by a Celtic nation, far further advanced as artists than the -Scandinavians. The men are not so great in their biographers' eyes as -to hide all else. Picture after picture is made and left as the tale -goes on. For example:-- - - 'And at the mouth of the river he beheld a castle, the fairest that - man ever saw, and the gate of the castle was open, and he went - into the castle. And in the castle he saw a fair hall, of which - the roof seemed to be all gold; the walls of the hall seemed to be - entirely of glittering precious gems; the doors all seemed to be of - gold. Golden seats he saw in the hall, and silver tables. And on - a seat opposite to him he beheld two auburn-haired youths playing - at chess. He saw a silver board for the chess, and golden pieces - thereon. The garments of the youths were of jet black satin, and - chaplets of ruddy gold bound their hair, whereon were sparkling - jewels of great price, rubies, and gems, alternately with imperial - stones. Buskins of new Cordovan leather on their feet, fastened by - slides of red gold. - - 'And beside a pillar in the hall he saw a hoary-headed man, in - a chair of ivory, with the figures of two eagles of ruddy gold - thereon. Bracelets of gold were upon his arms, and many rings were - on his hands, and a golden torque about his neck; and his hair was - bound with a golden diadem. He was of powerful aspect. A chessboard - of gold was before him and a rod of gold, and a steel file in his - hand. And he was carving out chessmen.'[1] - -These two paragraphs are almost perfect in their kind. See only how -the details are presented in a perfectly natural order, each one -as it would strike a man advancing into the hall, who would see -everything before discovering exactly what the old man was about with -his chessboard, his gold, and his steel file. The Welsh bards were -trained more rigorously than the skalds, and were more delicate in -their craftsmanship. And yet it is interesting to see how these two -paragraphs are the work of a man writing for people in whose eyes gold -and ivory and precious stones have still the glory of the new. The -feeling of that little piece of story is the same we know ourselves -when we have a little child before us, and are telling it wonderful -things to make it open its eyes. The opening of eyes was one of the -effects at which the early artists aimed. - -[Of _Aucassin and Nicolete_.] - -And then when we come to _Aucassin and Nicolete_, also written at -the same time, but in a country still less barbaric, we find an even -more delicate artistry, and a material far nearer that of later -story-telling. Not only have the heroes become men, but the wondrous -background has become that of real life. There are no castles in -_Aucassin and Nicolete_ whose walls are built 'of precious gems, whose -doors are all of gold.' Nicolete 'went through the streets of Beaucaire -keeping to the shadow, for the moon shone very bright; and she went on -till she came to the tower where her friend was. The tower had cracks -in it here and there, and she crouched against one of the piers, and -wrapped herself in her mantle, and thrust her head into a chink in the -tower, which was old and ancient, and heard Aucassin within weeping, -and making very great sorrow, and lamenting for his sweet friend whom -he loved so much.' Now that is a real tower, as we see again when -presently Nicolete has to go along its wall, and let herself down into -the ditch, hurting her feet sorely before climbing out on the other -side. And is not that an admirable sense for reality that suggested -the keeping to the shadow as she crept through the town? As for the -humanity of the tale; we have been smitten to awe and worship by the -heroes of the sagas, interested in the heroes of the magic-laden -Mabinogion, and now we are made to be sorry for Aucassin. Like the -swing of a pendulum, the character of heroes has swung from that of -God-like ruffians, through that of men, almost to womanhood. We have -had terrible tales, and wondrous tales, and now - - 'There is none in such ill case, - Sad with sorrow, waste with care, - Sick with sadness, if he hear, - But shall in the hearing be - Whole again and glad with glee, - So _sweet_ the story.' - -Loveliness and delicacy are here for their own sakes. We have already -passed the early stages of narrative. We are in the time of sweetly -patterned art; in the monastery over in England a monk is writing -the air of 'Summer is icumen in,' the first known piece of finished, -ordered music; everywhere clerks and holy men, aloof a little from the -turmoil of life, are making gardens in the margins of missals, and on -the roads throughout the world the vagabond students, as separate from -the turmoil as the monks, are singing the Latin songs that promised the -Renaissance. - - - - -'THE ROMANCE OF THE ROSE' - - - - -'THE ROMANCE OF THE ROSE' - - -[The thirteenth century.] - -THINKING of the Renaissance now, we are apt to see only the flowers -of its spring, the work of men like Boccaccio and Chaucer, who were -strong enough and aloof enough to lift their heads above the flood of -classical learning that refreshed them, and to write as blithely as if -there had been never a book in the world before them. It is easy to -forget those dull years after Chaucer that showed how exceptional he -had been in being at once a student and an artist. It is still easier -to forget the winter years of ploughing and sowing and premature birth -that were before him, the years when no one thought that poetry could -be more esteemed than knowledge, those greedy years of rough and ready -erudition between the making of the students' songs and the building of -the _Decameron_. Many versions of old legends come to us from that time -like the _Life of Robert the Devil_, whose son fought with Charlemagne. -Many of the legends of the kind that the son of Mr. Bickerstaff's -friend was such a proficient in, and many collections of miracles and -small romances of chivalry less beautiful than that of Aucassin, were -at least written down in these years. The monasteries held most of -the learned men, and became more important than the minstrels in the -history of story-telling. They produced the books of miracles, and also -several armouries of warning examples, many of them taken from the -classics, for the vanquishing of scrupulous sinners and the edification -of all. Books like the _Gesta Romanorum_, volumes of tales more or less -irrelevantly tagged with morals, were the forerunners of collections -of less instructive stories, like those of Boccaccio's country-house -party, or those of Chaucer's pilgrims riding to Canterbury. These -books, with their frequent reference to antiquity, showed signs of the -new spirit that was spreading over Europe; the miracle-tales and the -exaggerated wondering biographies held the essence of the old. Rome in -the former was the city built by Romulus and Remus; Rome in the latter -was the place that had been rescued by Charlemagne, the place that was -ruled by the Pope. - -But in that thirteenth century, when so many new things were struggling -to birth, one book stands out above all others as the most perfect -illustration of its spirit. The very fact that it is so much less of a -story than the anecdotes of the _Gesta Romanorum_ had almost made me -pass it over in a more detailed criticism of them, but this same fact -perfects it as an example of an artist's attitude in the time of the -revival of classical learning. It was almost an accident that let me -see these years of novel study and eager wisdom so clearly expressed in -the long rhyming narrative of the _Romance of the Rose_, that was known -above all other books for a hundred years, that was read by Ronsard, -modernised by Marot, and partly translated by Chaucer. The accident was -such that I think there is no irrelevance in describing it. - -[Meung-sur-Loire.] - -Walking through France with the manuscript of my history on my back, -I came at evening of an April day into the little grey French town of -Meung, set on the side of a hill above the Loire. Small cobbled streets -twisted this way and that, up and down, between the old houses, and -walking under the gateway, the Porte d'Amont, with its low arch and -narrow windows overhead, I felt I was stepping suddenly from the broad, -practical France, whose roadside crucifixes are made of iron a hundred -at a time, into a forgotten corner of that older France whose spirit -clings about the new, like the breath of lavender in a room where it -has once been kept. In the inn where I left my knapsack there was a -miller who drank a bottle of wine with me, and talked of old Jean -Clopinel, who was born here in Meung those centuries ago. 'And it was -a big book he had the writing of too, and a wise book, so they tell -me, and good poetry; but it's written in the old French that's not our -language any longer; I could not read it if I tried, and why should I? -They know all about it in the town.' - -Indeed the town seemed a piece of the old French itself, with its -partly ruined church, and the little château crowned with conical -cap-like towers, the broad Loire flowing below. I thought of _The -Romance of the Rose_, Jean Clopinel's book, the book that meant so -much to the Middle Ages, the book that, unwieldy as it is, is still -deliciously alive. I thought of Jean Clopinel and his description of -himself, put as a prophecy into the mouth of the God of Love:-- - - 'Then shall appear Jean Clopinel, - Joyous of heart, of body well - And fairly built: at Meun shall he - Be born where Loire flows peacefully.'[2] - -I made up my mind to look at the old book again when I should have -left the road, and be within reach of a larger library than my own -manuscript and a single volume of Defoe. - -[Jean de Meung.] - -Jean de Meung, joyous of heart, belongs absolutely to the mediæval -revival of learning. He was less of a poet than a scholar, more pleased -with a display of knowledge than of beauty, and yet so far undamped by -his learning as to be always ready to put plainly out such observations -upon life as keep a reader smiling to-day at their shrewdness and -applicability. His share of _The Romance of the Rose_ is a strange and -suggestive contrast with the beginning that was written by Guillaume -de Lorris. The first part, earlier by forty years than the second, and -about a fifth of the length, is a delicious allegory on love, with -the sweetness and purity of _Aucassin and Nicolete_; the second opens -solidly with a good round speech by Reason, filling something like two -thousand lines, and ransacking antiquity to fit her wise saws with -ancient instances according to the new fashion of the time. - -Taine finds this garrulous Jean 'the most tedious of doctors'; but it -is difficult not to throw yourself into his own delight in his new-won -knowledge, hard not to enjoy his continual little revelations of -character, as when you read:-- - - 'Let one demand of some wise clerk - Well versed in that most noble work - "Of Consolation" foretime writ - By great Boethius, for in it - Are stored and hidden most profound - And learned lessons: 'twould redound - Greatly to that man's praise who should - Translate that book with masterhood,' - -and know that he made the translation himself. - -[The world at school.] - -The very popularity of the book proves that the whole world was at -school then, and eager to be taught. Lorris, poet though he is, reminds -his readers that his embroidered tale hides something really valuable, -that it is 'fair wit with wisdom closely wed,' knowing well that he -could find no better bait to keep them with him to the end. And Jean, -when it comes to his turn, admirably expresses the contemporary point -of view. He has no doubts at all between the comparative worths of -manner and matter. He justifies the classics by saying:-- - - 'For oft their quip and crank and fable - Is wondrous good and profitable.' - -[One of the schoolmasters.] - -The permanent value of knowledge is always before him, and having -learnt a great deal himself, what wonder that he should empty it all -out, only now and again giving the tale a perfunctory prod forward -before continuing his discourse? Knowledge comes always before culture, -and knowledge taken with such abandon is almost inspiriting. I cannot -be bored by a scholar who in the thirteenth century is so independent -and so frank. Eager quarry work such as his had to precede the refined -statuary of the Renaissance, and in _The Romance of the Rose_ the -pedagogue is far too human to be dismissed as a dealer in books alone. -Wisdom and observation were not disunited in him, and there are in that -rambling, various repository of learning promises enough of realistic -story-telling and of the criticism of life, sufficiently valuable -to excuse its atrocious narrative, even were that not justified by -the classical allusion with which it is so abundantly loaded. It -gives me pleasure to hear Jean Clopinel defend plain speaking, and, -protesting against calling spades anything but spades, prepare the -way for Rabelais. What matter if the romance suffer a little, and the -Rose lie pressed beneath a weight of scholarship? Jean himself moves -on unhampered. He talked of women's table-manners so well that Chaucer -himself could do no better than borrow from him. He attacked womenkind -in general so mercilessly (with the authority of the classics behind -him) that he won a stern rebuke from Christine de Pisan, that popular -authoress of a century later, just as Schopenhauer might be censured by -Miss Corelli. He looks at kings, and, turning away, remarks that it is -best, if a man wishes to feel respectful towards them, that he should -not see them too close. Nor does he forget to let us know his views -on astronomy, on immortality, or his preference of nature over art in -sculpture and painting. This last opinion of his is an illustration -of that good and honest Philistinism that he needed for his work. All -these things and a thousand others he puts, without a shudder, into the -continuation of a story on the art of loving, that begins with a spring -morning account of a dreamer's vision of a rose and a garden, and Mirth -and Idleness, Youth and Courtesy, dancing together as if in a picture -by Botticelli. - -[In Meung six hundred years ago.] - -I went down that night just after sunset and crossed the river in the -dusk. Resting in the middle of the bridge and looking over the dim -reflections to the far-distant bank, with its grove of huge trees, and -the tower of the church with the outline of the gateway on the hill -behind just showing against the sky, I dreamed that I was back in the -old days, when the minstrel was giving place to the scholar, and that -up there on the hill, in the little town of Meung, was Jean, Doctor of -Divinity, poring at his books. I remembered the bust by Desvergnes, -that beautiful scholar's face, and thought how strong a personality his -must have been, to leave after six hundred years and more the memory of -himself and the feeling of his time so vividly impressed upon the town. -For even now, though they do not read his book in Meung, they know all -about it, and talk of him with that reverence in speaking that children -use when they talk of a master whom they do not often see. I could not -help feeling that their attitude was traditional. It has been the same -for all these years, and perhaps long ago the townsfolk, passing in -the narrow streets, hushed themselves before one door, and whispered, -'Yes; he is in there writing a book; there are not many who can do -that,' while old Jean Clopinel inside nursed his lame leg and dipped -from folio to folio, as he took gem and pebble from the dead tongue and -put his vivid thought and gleeful knowledge in black letter on the -parchment, in black-lettered French, the speech of his own people, that -all might see how fine a thing it was to look into antiquity and to be -wise. - - - - -CHAUCER AND BOCCACCIO - - - - -CHAUCER AND BOCCACCIO - - -[The Romancers before Chaucer.] - -THE Franklin of Chaucer's pilgrims introduces his own story by -remarking that, - - 'Thise olde gentil Britons in hir dayes - Of diverse aventures maden layes, - Rymeyed in hir firste Briton tonge; - Which layes with hir instruments they songe, - Or elles redden hem for hir pleasaunce; - And oon of hem have I in remembraunce - Which I shal seyn with good wil as I can.' - -Chaucer had many of them 'in remembraunce,' and though he shared the -knowledge of Jean de Meung, and was not, like the Franklin, a man who - - 'sleep never on the mount of Parnaso, - Ne lerned Marcus Tullius Cithero,' - -these tales, whether made by the 'olde gentil Britons' or the French, -must not be forgotten in considering him. - -The romancers who preceded him, and, clad in bright colours, chanted -their stories before the ladies and knights in the rush-carpeted halls, -turning somersaults between their chapters, as many a modern novelist -might for the enlivenment of his narrative, were not scholars, but -had great store of legendary matter from which they made their tales. -Their material continued to be used, more and more elaborately, until -the time of Cervantes, and in such books as the _Morte Darthur_ we can -see what manner of material it was. They were not in the least afraid -of the supernatural, and they knew the undying attraction of hard -blows. Their tales were compiled without reference to the classics, -and contain all the characteristics of primitive story-telling noted -in the chapter on Origins. They represented, fairly accurately, the -Embroidered Exploit. They were tales of heroes, knights, and kings, -half elfin stuff, half history, elaborate genealogical narratives in -which the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children, and the -grandsons' misfortunes are connected with their parents' revenge on -the previous generation. There were great dragon-slayers before the -Lord, and many who, like Charlemagne, were mighty killers of Saracens -in the cause of Christendom. And then there were such tales as that of -Melusine, whose father, King Helymas, married a fairy, and out of love -for her broke his promise not to inquire how she was when she lay in -childbed. Melusine suffers accordingly, spending every Saturday bathing -herself, with her delicate white limbs hidden beneath a serpent's scaly -skin. There comes to her a young knight called Raymondin whom she -saves by her wisdom, enriches by her magic, weds with great pomp, and -presents in successive years with ten sons, each curiously deformed by -reason of the fairy blood. Raymondin, in espousing her, promises to -make no inquiries about her doings on Saturdays. He breaks his promise, -like his father-in-law before him, and when, in anger at the ill-deeds -of one of his sons, he reproaches her with what she is, she sadly takes -leave of him, and flies off through the window, 'transfigured lyke a -serpent grete and long in fifteen foote of lengthe.' There were tales -too of more charming fancy, like that of the queen who bore seven -children at a birth, six boys and a girl, with silver chains about -their necks. The midwife, in her devilish way, showed her seven puppies -with silver collars instead of her litter of babes, privately sending -the children to be killed. The children, however, left in the forest, -were nurtured by a nanny-goat and cared for by a hermit, until the -midwife discovered that they were not dead, when she sent men to see -that they were properly scotched. But the men were so softened by the -accident of meeting a crowd busied with the burning of a woman who had -killed her child, that they had only heart to take the chains from off -the babies' necks, whereupon they flew away as white swans. That is the -beginning of the tale. - -[The _Gesta Romanorum._] - -There were tales like these representing the Embroidered Exploit, -and there were others illustrating in a curious manner the growth of -the Warning Example. These latter were the forerunners of the tales -of Boccaccio, who, like Chaucer, stands as it were with a Janus-head, -looking both ways, modern and primitive at once. The _Gesta Romanorum_ -is a perfectly delightful book, whose purpose was, however, not -pleasure but edification. It is a collection of stories containing -amusement and religion, diversion and instruction--a primrose path from -the everlasting bonfire. The anecdotes are from a thousand sources. -Many of them are taken from the classics, but the references are so -inaccurate as to make it pretty certain that the monkish writer had not -read them, but had gleaned them from the conversation of other monks he -knew. And some of them cannot have come to him within the monastery. -I can imagine the old man, with his hood well thrown back, lolling on -a bench, behind a tankard of good wine and a dish of fruit, laughing -gleefully at the tale of the rich patroness or pious knight who wished -to entertain themselves and him. For almost the only things monkish -about the stories are the applications or morals, some of which are so -far fetched as to make it clear that the monk compiler has included a -tale for the pleasure he has himself won from it, and, after writing it -down, been hard put to it to find a moral that should justify its place -in a book intended as an armoury for preachers. Here is an example:-- - - - 'OF THE AVARICIOUS PURSUIT OF RICHES, WHICH LEADS TO HELL.' - - 'A certain carpenter, residing in a city near the sea, very - covetous and very wicked, collected a large sum of money, and - placed it in the trunk of a tree, which he stationed by his - fireside, and which he never lost sight of. A place like this, he - thought, no one could suspect; but it happened, that while all his - household slept, the sea overflowed its boundaries, broke down - that side of the building where the log was situated, and carried - it away. It floated many miles from its original destination, and - reached at length a city in which there lived a person who kept - open house. Arising early in the morning, he perceived the trunk - of a tree in the water, and thinking it would be of service to - him, he brought it to his own home. He was a liberal, kind-hearted - man, and a great benefactor to the poor. It one day chanced that - he entertained some pilgrims in his house; and the weather being - extremely cold, he cut up the log for firewood. When he had struck - two or three blows with the axe, he heard a rattling sound; - and cleaving it in twain, the gold pieces rolled out in every - direction. Greatly rejoiced at the discovery, he reposited them in - a secure place, until he should ascertain who was the owner. - - 'Now the carpenter, bitterly lamenting the loss of his money, - travelled from place to place in pursuit of it. He came, by - accident, to the house of the hospitable man who had found the - trunk. He failed not to mention the object of his search; and the - host, understanding that the money was his, reflected whether his - title to it were good. "I will prove," said he to himself, "if God - will that the money should be returned to him." Accordingly he made - three cakes, the first of which he filled with earth, the second - with the bones of dead men, and in the third he put a quantity of - the gold which he had discovered in the trunk. "Friend," said he, - addressing the carpenter, "we will eat three cakes, composed of the - best meat in my house. Chuse which you will have." The carpenter - did as he was directed, he took the cakes and weighed them in - his hand, one after another, and finding that the earth weighed - heaviest, he chose it. "And if I want more, my worthy host," added - he, "I will have that"--laying his hand upon the cake containing - the bones. "You may keep the third cake yourself." "I see clearly," - murmured the host, "I see very clearly that God does not will the - money to be returned to this wretched man." Calling, therefore, - the poor and infirm, the blind and the lame, and opening the cake - of gold in the presence of the carpenter, to whom he spoke, "Thou - miserable varlet, this is thine own gold. But thou preferredst the - cake of earth and dead men's bones. I am persuaded, therefore, that - God wills not that I return thee thy money." Without delay, he - distributed the whole among the paupers, and drove the carpenter - away in great tribulation.' - -So much for the story, which is indeed rather long to be quoted in so -small a book. But listen now to the application:-- - - 'My beloved, the carpenter is any worldly-minded man; the trunk of - the tree denotes the human heart, filled with the riches of this - life. The host is a wise confessor. The cake of earth is the world; - that of the bones of dead men is the flesh; and that of gold is the - kingdom of heaven.' - -[Chaucer and Boccaccio.] - -The modern novel could have no beginning in a literature so far removed -from ordinary life as the romances, so brief in narration, so pious -in ideal as the Gesta. Something more of flesh and blood, something -of coarser grain than dreams, on the one hand, and on the other -something fuller fleshed than the skeletonic anecdote (however marrowy -its bones) was needed to produce it. It needed men and women, and it -needed a more delicate narrative form, portraiture, and the fine art of -story-telling, Chaucer, and Boccaccio. Chaucer, for all that he wrote -in verse, was not a _trouveur_ when he was at his best. Boccaccio was -not a collector of anecdotes. The new classical learning had given them -humaner outlooks. The attitude of the _Canterbury Tales_ is not that -of the _Song of Roland_, or the _Morte Darthur_; the attitude of the -_Decameron_ is not that of the Gesta. Chaucer and Boccaccio, sometimes -at least, were plain men, pleasantly conscious of their humanity, -telling stories to amuse their friends. - -Chaucer was a middle-class Englishman, Boccaccio a middle-class -Italian. They both wrote in languages that were scarcely older than -themselves, in languages that were rather popular than learned. They -were both in a sense mediators between the classical culture and -their own people. There the resemblance ends, and their personal -characters begin to seal the impressions they made on their respective -literatures. They represent two quite distinct advances in the art of -story-telling, the one in material, the other in technique. In both of -them there is a personal honesty of workmanship that makes their work -their own. The names of the _trouveurs_ are lost, or, at least, not -connected with what they did. They were workers on a general theme, and -counted no more in the production of the whole than the thousand men -who chiselled out each his piece of carving round the arches of Notre -Dame. They were the tools of their nations. Chaucer and Boccaccio were -men whose workmanship had its special marks, its private personality. -They were artists in their own right and not artisans. - -[Illustration: GEOFFREY CHAUCER] - -[Chaucer.] - -Chaucer's was a fairly simple nature. He seems to have taken to -Renaissance fashions just as he took to Renaissance learning, without -in the least disturbing the solid Englishness of his foundation. He -married a Damsell Philippa without letting his marriage interfere with -an ideal and unrequited passion like that of Petrarch for Laura. He -had Jean de Meung's own reverence for the classics. 'Go litel book, go -litel my tragedie,' he says in '_Troilus and Criseyd_, - - 'And kiss the steppes, wher-as thou seest pace - Virgil, Ovyde, Omer, Lucan, and Stace.' - -And yet few men have about them less of a classical savour. He may well -have liked 'at his beddes heed - - 'Twenty bokes clad in blak or reed, - Of Aristotle and his philosophye,' - -but he was a man of the true 'Merry England,' when oxen were roasted -whole on feast-days, and pigs ran in the London streets. He followed -the Court, but he knew the populace. His father was a vintner in Thames -Street, and in the Cheapside taverns Chaucer found some of the material -that his travels and learning taught him how to use. On St. George's -day 1374 he was granted a pitcher of wine daily for life by his Majesty -Edward the Third. It is probable that he met Petrarch at Padua. These -two facts seem to me to present no very hollow portrait of the man. - -[Portraiture.] - -He brought into the art of story-telling a new clearness of sight in -looking at other people and at the manners of the time. The romances -had not represented contemporary life, but rather contemporary ideals. -No one can pretend to find in Lancelot, in Roland, in Isoud of the -White Hands, character-sketch or portrait. Lancelot is the perfect -knight, Roland the perfect warrior, Isoud the beautiful woman. They -were not a knight, a warrior, a woman. Those who heard the tales used -the names as servant-girls use names in modern novels of plot, as pegs -on which to hang their own emotions and their own ambitions. The lady -who listened with her chin upon her hands as the _trouveurs_ chanted -before her, took herself the part of Isoud, and gave her lover or the -lover for whom she hoped the attributes of Tristram. The jack-squire -listening near the foot of the table himself felt Roland's steed -between his legs. These names of romance were qualities not people. The -Wife of Bath is a very different matter. - - 'In al the parisshe wyf ne was ther noon - That to th' offering bifore hir sholde goon; - And if ther dide, certeyn, so wrooth was she, - That she was out of alle charitee. - Hir coverchiefs ful fyne were of ground; - I dorste swere they weyeden ten pound - That on a Sonday were upon hir heed. - Hir hosen weren of fyn scarlet reed, - Ful streite y-teyd, and shoos ful moiste and newe. - Bold was hir face, and fair, and reed of hewe. - She was a worthy womman al hir lyve, - Housbondes at chirche-dore she hadde fyve, - Withouten other companye in youthe; - But therof nedeth nat to speke as nouthe. - And thryes hadde she been at Jerusalem; - She hadde passed many a straunge streem; - At Rome she hadde been, and at Boloigne, - In Galice at seint Jame, and at Coloigne. - She coude much of wandring by the weye; - Gat-tothed was she, soothly for to seye. - Upon an amblere esily she sat, - Y-wimpled wel, and on hir heed an hat - As brood as is a bokeler or a targe; - A foot-mantel aboute hir hipes large, - And on hir feet a paire of spores sharpe. - In felawschip wel coude she laughe and carpe. - Of remedyes of love she knew perchaunce, - For she coude of that art the olde daunce.' - -She is there, solid, garrulous, herself. She does not get husbands -because she is a worshipped goddess, but because she is a practical -woman. Bold indeed would be the lady who in imagination played her -part. The Wife is no empty fancy dress in which we move and live; she -is well filled out with her own flesh, and we watch her from outside as -we would watch a neighbour. Hers is no veil of dreams, but a good and -costly one, bought at Bristol Fair by one or other of her five husbands -whom she has badgered into getting it. - -Story-tellers before Chaucer seemed scarcely to have realised that men -were more than good or bad, brave or coward. You hated a man, or you -loved him, laughed at, or admired him; it never occurred to you to -observe him. Every man was man, every woman woman. It was not until the -Renaissance that modern story-telling found one of its motives, which -is, that there are as many kinds of man and woman as there are men and -women in the world. Then, at last, character and individuality became -suddenly important. Passion, reverence, charm had existed before in -story-telling. To these was now added another possibility of the art -in portrait painting. So was the modern world differentiated from the -dark ages; blinking in the unaccustomed light, men began to look at one -another. In painting, almost simultaneously with literature, the new -power found expression. The Van Eycks were alive before Chaucer was -dead, and in the careful, serene painting of 'John Arnolfini and his -Wife,' is the observant spirit of the _Canterbury Tales_. That woman -standing there in her miraculously real green robe, her linen neat upon -her head, her hand laid in her husband's, and her eyes regarding his -pious, solemn gesture as if she had consented in her own mind to see -him painted as he wished, and not betray her sense of humour, the man, -the pattens on the floor, the little dog, and the detailed chandelier, -are all painted as if in Chaucer's verse. The identity of them is the -amazing thing; their difference from all the other men and women of -the town, the difference of their room from all other rooms, and their -little dog from all other little dogs. To compare that married couple -with any knight and lady carved in stone, hands folded over breasts, on -a tomb in an old church, is to compare the modern with the mediæval, -and the Wife of Bath with Guenevere or the Wife of Sir Segwarides. - -[Prose and verse.] - -After Chaucer, narrative scarcely developed except in prose. Scott, -indeed, nearly five centuries later, wrote his first tales in verse, -but the rhyming story-teller disappeared in the greater author of -the Waverley Novels.[3] Chaucer himself is interesting for marking -the transition. He had many attributes of later narrative, in his -round English humour, in his concern with actual life, although in -this essay I have only needed him to illustrate the beginnings of the -portrait-making that has since become so important a byway of the art. -But while his verse in the _Canterbury Tales_ has the effect of good -prose, his prose, excellent elsewhere, is here unwieldy and beyond his -governance. He expressed the new attitude in the old way; but when he -was only nine years old, there had been written in Italy prose tales -that have hardly been excelled as examples of the two forms of the -short story. Chaucer was born in 1340. In 1349 Boccaccio finished the -_Decameron_. - -[Boccaccio.] - -Boccaccio had a more intricate mind than Chaucer's, and a more -elaborate life. He is said to have been an illegitimate son of a -Florentine merchant and a Frenchwoman, and the two nations certainly -seem to have contributed to his character. He spent six years of his -youth apprenticed to a merchant in Paris, forsook business, and was -sent to learn law, and only in the end persuaded his father to let him -devote himself to books. He had a knowledge of the world uncommon even -in his day, and a knowledge of letters that was rare. He was something -of a scholar, something of a courtier, and, particularly, something of -a poet. Sentence after sentence in the _Decameron_ glides by like a -splash of sunlight on a stream with floating blossoms. I must quote -one of his poems in Rossetti's most beautiful translation:-- - - 'By a clear well, within a little field - Full of green grass and flowers of every hue, - Sat three young girls, relating (as I knew) - Their loves. And each had twined a bough to shield - Her lovely face; and the green leaves did yield - The golden hair their shadow; while the two - Sweet colours mingled, both blown lightly through - With a soft wind for ever stirred and still'd. - After a little while one of them said - (I heard her), 'Think! If, ere the next hour struck, - Each of our lovers should come here to-day, - Think you that we should fly or feel afraid?' - To whom the others answered, 'From such luck - A girl would be a fool to run away.' - -He could write a poem like that; he could write the _Decameron_; he -could write books of greater impropriety; and at the end of his life -could beg his friends to leave such books alone, devoting himself to -the compilation of ponderous works of classical learning. There is -a legend of a deathbed vision of Judgment where Boccaccio figured, -which, being reported to him, nearly gave the wit, the scholar, and the -gallant the additional mask of the Carthusian religious. - -[Illustration: GIOVANNI BOCCACCIO] - -But the Boccaccio of the _Decameron_ was the mature young man, of -personal beauty, and nimble tongue, a Dioneo, who had his own way -with the company in which he found himself, and was licensed, like a -professional jester, to say the most scandalous things. He knew the -rich colour, classical learning, and jollity of morals of the Court -of Naples. Here he heard the travelling story-tellers, and perhaps -learnt from them a little of the art of narrative. He knew the _Gesta -Romanorum_, and began to collect tales himself with the idea of making -some similar collection. Noting story after story that he heard told -(for it would be ridiculous to reason from the widespread origin of -his tales that he had a stupendous knowledge of the world's books), -he wrote them with a perfect feeling for value and proportion. In -him the story-teller ceased to be an improviser. In his tales the -longwindedness of the _trouveurs_ was gone, gone also the nakedness -of the anecdote. He refused to excuse them with the moral tags of -the Gesta. These new forms were not things of utility that needed -justification; they were things of independent beauty. - -[His story-telling.] - -Boccaccio was intent simply on the art of telling tales. He knew enough -of classical literature to feel the possible dignity and permanence of -prose, and he told his stories as they were told to him in a supple, -pleasant vernacular that obeyed him absolutely and never led him off by -its own strangeness into byways foreign to the tales and to himself. -He found his material in anecdotes of current gossip, like Cecco -Angiolieri's misadventure with his money, his palfrey, and his clothes, -and in popular tales like that of the overpatient Griselda. He took -it in the rough and shaped it marvellously, creating two forms, the -short story proper, the skilful development of a single episode, and -the little novel, the French _nouvelle_, a tale whose incidents are -many and whose plot may be elaborate. From his day to our own these two -forms have scarcely altered, and in the use of both of them he showed -that invaluable art, so strenuously attained by later story-tellers, of -compelling us to read with him to the end, even if we know it, for the -mere joy of narrative, the delight of his narrating presence. We are -so well content with Chaucer's gorgeous improvisations that we never -ask whether this piece or that is relevant to the general theme. But in -Boccaccio there are no irrelevancies, praise that can be given to few -story-tellers before the time of the self-conscious construction of men -like Poe, and the austere selection of men like Mérimée and Flaubert. - -[Importance of framework in books of short tales.] - -Even without their setting his tales would have been something -memorable, something that lifted the art to a new level and made less -loving workmanship an obvious backsliding. But stories put together do -not make good books. The _Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles_ are very short and -make a collection of anecdotes. The _Exemplary Novels_ of Cervantes -are very long and stand and fall each one alone. But the _Canterbury -Tales_ are the better for that merry company on pilgrimage. And when -Queen Joan of Naples, profligate, murderess, and bluestocking, asked -Boccaccio to put his stories in a book, it was well that he should have -the plague of 1348 to set as purple velvet underneath his gems--the -morality inseparable from the tales was so simple and so careless. -Boccaccio's attitude was that of his age. Man has wants: if he can -satisfy them, good: if not, why then it may ease his sorrow to hear it -professionally expressed:--'Help me,' as Chaucer says:-- - - 'Help me that am the sorwful instrument - That helpeth lovers, as I can, to pleyne!' - -As for good fortune, it is taken as naïvely as by the topers in the -song:-- - - 'Maults gone down, maults gone down - From an old angel to a French crown. - And every drunkard in this town - Is very glad that maults gone down.' - -When Troilus is happy with Cressida, Chaucer smiles aside:--'With worse -hap God let us never mete.' And Boccaccio, after describing a scene -that in England at the present day would be the prelude to a case at -law, and columns of loathsomely prurient newspaper reports, ejaculates -with simple piety:--'God grant us the like.' The _Decameron_ owes -much of its dignity and permanence to its double frame, to the Court -of Story-telling in the garden on the hill, and to the deeper irony -that places it, sweet, peaceful, and insouciant, in the black year of -pestilence and death. - - - - -THE ROGUE NOVEL - - - - -THE ROGUE NOVEL - - -[Democracy in literature.] - -FEW characters in literature have had so large or so honourable a -progeny as the gutter-snipe. If the Kings' daughters of High Romance, -charming, delicate creatures, had only wedded with Kings' sons, as -delicately fashioned as themselves, we should never have known the -sterling dynasty of the Tom Joneses and the Humphry Clinkers, with -their honest hearts and coarse hides warranted to wear. All those Kings -of men, whose thrones were beer-barrels, whose sceptres, oaken cudgels, -whose perennial counsellor was Jollity, whose enemy, Introspection, -would never have come to their own, and indeed would never have been -born, if it had not been for the sixteenth century entry of the rascal -into the Palace gardens, for the escapades of such shaggy-headed, -smutfaced, barefooted urchins as Lazarillo de Tormes. - -To such rogues as he must be attributed much of our present humanity; -for until we could laugh at those of low estate, we held them of -little account. There is small mention made of serving-men in the -_Morte Darthur_ or the _Mabinogion_, and when, in the _Heptameron_ of -Margaret of Navarre, we hear of the drowning of a number of them in -trying to render easy the passage of their masters through the floods, -the comment is extremely short: 'One must not despair for the loss of -servants, for they are easy to replace.' On a similar occasion 'all -the company were filled with a joy inestimable, praising the Creator, -who, contenting himself with serving-men, had saved the masters and -mistresses,' an index alike to the ferocity they still attributed to -God and the rather exclusive humanity of themselves. Do you not think -with sudden awe of the revolution to come? Do you not hear a long way -off the trampling of a million serving-men, prepared to satisfy God -with other lives? It is a fine contrast to turn from these queenly -sentences to this little book, the autobiography of a beggar, who -thinks himself sufficiently important to set down the whole truth about -his birth, lest people should make any mistake. 'My father, God be -kind to him, had for fifteen years a mill on the river of Tormes.... -I was scarcely eight when he was accused of having, with evil intent, -made leakage in his check sacks.... Letting himself be surprised, he -confessed all, and suffered patiently the chastisement of justice, -which makes me hope that he is, according to the Gospel, of the number -of those happy in the Glory of God.' No very reputable parentage this, -in a day when it was the fashion to derive heroes from Charlemagne or -Amadis. - -[_Lazarillo de Tormes._] - -It is a short step from the ironic to the sincere. The author of the -book is laughing at his hero, and makes a huge joke of his pretensions. -But to recognise, even in jest, that a vagabond rogue could have -pretensions, or indeed any personal character at all beyond that of a -tool in the hand of whoever was kind enough to use him, was to look -upon him with a humaner eye and, presently, to recognise him in earnest -as a fellow creature. It seems to me significant that the first rogues -in our literature should come from Spain, a country that has never -quite forgotten its Moorish occupation. In the Spanish student, who, so -tradition says, wrote _Lazarillo_ while in the University of Salamanca, -there must have been something of the spirit of the race that lets the -hunchback tell his story to the Caliph, and is glad when the son of the -barber marries the daughter of the Grand Vizier. For, joke as it is, -the book is the story of a beggar, told as a peculiarly fearless and -brazen beggar would tell it, without suggesting or demanding either -condescension or pity. - -[The morality of the underworld.] - -There is genius in the little book. Its author perhaps did better than -he meant, for he brings on every page the moral atmosphere of the -underworld, the old folk-morality, the same in sixteenth-century Spain -as in the oldest tales of sagacity and cunning. Lazarillo's shameless -mother apprentices him to a blind beggar who promises to treat him like -a son and begins his education at once. He takes the boy to a big -stone on the outskirts of the town, and bids him listen to the noise -within it. The boy puts his head close to the stone to hear the better, -and the old rascal gives him a thundering blow, which, the stone being -an admirable anvil, nearly cracks his skull. That is his first lesson -... never to be unsuspicious ... and it is as characteristic of the -others as of _Reynard the Fox_. - -There never was so excellent a beggar as Lazarillo's master; no trick -of the trade was unknown to him. As a fortune-teller, he could prophesy -what his victims wished to hear. As a doctor he had his remedies for -toothache, and for fainting-fits; not an illness could be mentioned -but he had a physic ready to his hands. Then too, 'he knew by heart -more prayers than all the blind men of Spain. He recited them very -distinctly, in a low tone, grave and clear, calling the attention of -the whole church; he accompanied them with a posture humble and devout, -without gesticulations or grimaces of mouth, after the manner of those -blind men who have not been properly brought up.' Indeed his only fault -was avarice. 'He was not content with making me die of hunger,' says -his pupil; 'he was doing the same himself.' - -Under such a master Lazarillo's wits sharpen quickly. 'A fool would -have been dead a hundred times; but by my subtlety and my good -tricks, I always, or mostly (in spite of all his care), succeeded -in getting hold of the biggest and best portion.' Lazarillo becomes -as astute a rascal as his teacher, and, living fairly and squarely -in the conditions of the underworld, his villainy does not damp his -spirits, or disturb his peace of nights. I was reminded of him by a -young tramp with whom I walked in the north country, a rogue with as -merry a heart as he, and a similar well-fitting morality. With me, from -whom he knew there was nothing to gain but good fellowship, he was a -good fellow, walked with a merry stride, whistled as he went, sang me -songs in the Gaelic of his childhood, and told me of the jolly tricks -he had played with a monkey he had brought from over sea. We walked -like men in the sunshine. But when, beyond a turn in the road, he saw -some person coming a little better dressed, why then his face flashed -into a winking melancholy, his stride degenerated as if by magic into -a slouch, and it was odd if his mean figure and despairing hand did -not attract a copper, for which he would call down a blessing. Then, -as soon as we were out of sight of his benefactor, he would resume his -natural walk and burst again into whistling and merriment. Lazarillo -is as frank as he. He recognises his needs (Hunger is not an easy -fellow to ignore), and would be much surprised if you denied his right -to satisfy them. Nor is he disappointed in you. Every honest man must -love a rogue, and you are as consciencelessly glad as himself when -Lazarillo, by kneeling before him and sucking the liquor through a -straw, diddles the blind man who greedily guards the wine bowl between -his ragged knees. You feel that he has but his due when he happens -upon a wife and a living and (if you read the continuation of his -history[4]) find nothing blameworthy in the fact that he spends his -last years in the clothes and reputation of a dead hermit, subsisting -on the charity of the religious. - -[The form of the rogue novel.] - -I have talked at some length about the contents of this little book in -order to illustrate the new material then brought into story-telling. -Let me now consider the new form that came with it. _Lazarillo de -Tormes_ was a very simple development from the plain anecdote or merry -quip of folklore or gossip, which was, as we have seen in the last -chapter, one of the popular early forms of narrative. Boccaccio raised -the anecdote to a higher level of art by giving it a fuller technique -and expanding it into the short story. The inventors of the rogue -novels achieved a similar result by stringing a number of anecdotes -together about a particular hero, making as it were cycles of anecdotes -comparable in their humbler way with the grand cycles of romance. -Lazarillo himself is not an elaborate conception, but simply a fit -rogue to play the main part in a score or so of roguish exploits, idly -following one another as they occurred to the mind of the narrator. His -life is a jest-book turned into a biography, a collection of anecdotes -metamorphosed into a novel. - -[Its satirical material.] - -The new form gave story-telling a wider scope. In writing a collection -of anecdotes it was difficult to realise the hero who was no more than -a name that happened to be common to them all. It was impossible to -make much of the minor characters who walk on or off the tiny stage of -each adventure. But in stringing them along a biography, in producing -instead of a number of embroidered exploits a single embroidered life, -there need be no limit to the choice and elaboration of the embroidery. -Though the hero was no more than a quality, a puppet guaranteed to -jump on the pull of a string, the setting of his life turned easily -into a satirical picture of contemporary existence, and satire became -eventually one of the principal aims with which such novels were -written. - -The low estate of the rogue novel's hero made satire from his lips -not only easy but palatable. In writing the opinions of a rogue you -can politely assume that his standpoint is not that of his readers. -For that reason they can applaud the rascal's wit playing over other -people, or, if it touches them too closely, regard it with compassion -as lions might listen to the criticism of jackals. _Lazarillo_ -contains plenty of good-humoured, bantering portraits: the seller -of forged indulgences, the miserly priest, and particularly the -out-at-elbows gentleman who walks abroad each day to lunch with a -rich friend, and is unable on his return from his hungry promenade to -keep from eyeing, and at last from sharing, the rough bread that his -servant has begged or stolen for himself. Lazarillo's merit is that he -writes of himself _à propos_ of other people, and never barrenly of -himself for his own sake. Smollett in writing _Roderick Random_ is true -to his traditions in getting his own back from schoolmasters and the -Navy Office. And the arms of Dickens, who reformed the workhouses in -telling the story of Oliver Twist, must have had quartered upon them -the rampant begging bowl of the little Spanish rogue. - -Now the characteristic language of satire is as pointed as the blade -of a rapier, and for this we owe some gratitude to these rascally -autobiographies whose plainness of style was nearer talk than that -of any earlier form of narrative. The prose of the picaresque novel -has been in every age remarkably free from the literary tricks most -fashionable at the time. When your hero dresses in rags you cannot -do better than clothe his opinions in simplicity. The writing of -_Lazarillo_, of _Tom Jones_, of _Captain Singleton_, of _Lavengro_, -is clear, virile, not at all ornate, the exact opposite to that of -the Pastorals. Such heroes deliver their sentences, like Long Melford, -straight from the shoulder, and would consider fine writing as so much -aimless trifling in the air. - -[Picaresque autobiographies.] - -Mention of _Lavengro_ suggests a paragraph on one of the most curious -developments to be noticed in the history of the art. All that we have -examined so far have been from truth to fiction; this is a movement -from fiction to truth. Stories of the deeds of a man have become -romances of the deeds of a hero. A biography has changed as we watched -it into a tale of miracle. Here is a quite different phenomenon. An -imaginary autobiography that pretends to be real, of a rascally hero, -makes it possible for rogues to write real autobiographies that pretend -to be imaginary. _Lavengro_ and the _Romany Rye_ are two parts of a -rogue novel constructed like the oldest of the kind. They contain a -hero somehow put on a different plane from that of respectable society, -and the books are made up of the people he meets and the things they -say and do to him, or make him do and say. 'Why,' says Borrow, whose -attitude towards life is as confident as Lazarillo's, 'there is not a -chapter in the present book which is not full of adventures, with the -exception of the present one, and this is not yet terminated.' - -[The development of the rogue novel.] - -But Borrow and other makers of confessions are not of the direct -line, in spite of the roguish and adventurous air that clings about -them as they rest upon our shelves. _Lazarillo_ had many sincerer and -more immediate flatterers--Thomas Nash, for example, whose _Jacke -Wilton, or the Unfortunate Traveller_, holds in itself, as one of the -earliest pieces of realism in English literature, more than enough -of interest for an essay. He had also many younger brothers at home, -and an enormous progeny, and it has so happened that the influence of -the rogue novel on our own fiction was exerted through them, and not -through his early imitations in France and England. Cervantes used its -form for the adventures of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, and, combining -the picaresque spirit with that of the tales of chivalry, produced the -first realistic romance. Many lesser writers were content to follow -Lazarillo's lead without such independent ingenuity. They brought up -their literary children to be heroes after Lazarillo's fashion and -were proud to have him as a godfather. In their hands the rogue novel -retained its form and gained only a multiplicity of incident, a hundred -writers earnestly devising new swindles and more exciting adventures -for the hero, whose personality under all their buffetings remained -constant to its original characteristics. No nation has shown more -fertility in fancy than the Spanish. We owe to Spain half the trap-door -excitements, half the eavesdropping discoveries, half the ingenious -plots and counter-plots of the theatre. And when we remember that -for a hundred and fifty years the rogue novel had been one of the most -popular forms of Spanish literature, we need not wonder that Le Sage, -in turning over volume after volume of the lives of Spanish rascals, -should find that the Spanish language was an Open Sesame to an Ali -Baba's cave of opulent invention. Just as a hundred forgotten trouveurs -chanted the tales of the _Morte Darthur_, before Malory made from their -songs the epic that we know, so the rogue novel had seeded and repeated -itself again and again, before it met its great man who seized the -vitality of a hundred bantlings to make a breeched book. - -[Illustration: ALAIN RENÉ LE SAGE] - -[Its culmination in Le Sage.] - -Just as Malory was not a Frenchman but an Englishman, so Le Sage was -not a Spaniard but a Frenchman, and a Frenchman in a very different age -from that which produced his models. The - - 'Stately Spanish galleons - Sailing from the Isthmus, - Dipping through the tropics by the palm green shores, - With cargoes of diamonds, - Emeralds, amethysts, - Topazes and cinnamon and gold moidores,'[5] - -no longer brought the wealth of the Incas to Cadiz and Barcelona, -but had been burnt as firewood in the cabins on the Irish coast. The -Elizabethan age had come and gone. Cervantes had been dead a hundred -years. Molière had brought comedy to the French stage. Watteau was -painting, and Boileau was formulating the eighteenth-century code of -letters, when in a little garden summer-house behind a Paris street, Le -Sage sat at his desk, dipped through Spanish books, and wrote with a -light heart of the people that he knew, disguised in foreign clothes, -and moving in places he had never seen. He made his travels by his -own fireside, and the contrast between Cervantes' active life and his -peaceable _Galatea_ is no greater than that between the adventurous Gil -Blas and Le Sage's sedentary industry. His lack of personal experience -left him very free in the handling of his material, and made him just -the man to recast the old adventures of a century before, to translate -them, spilling none of their vitality, to a later time, to fill them -out with a more delicate fancy, to finish them with a more fastidious -pen, and to build from them a new and delicious French book, Spanish in -colouring, but wholly Parisian in appeal. - -Gil Blas is a Frenchman in a Spanish cloak, Le Sage, as he imagined -himself under the tattered mantle of Lazarillo. His disguise left him -doubly licensed for the criticism of contemporary France. He was of -low estate, so that he could see things from below, upside down, and -comment upon them. His circumstances were Spanish, so that he could -observe French things, call them by Spanish names, and laugh at them -without being inexcusably impertinent. He had also a very excellent -technique. Le Sage had read La Bruyère and La Bruyère's translation of -Theophrastus, and was the better able to allow his hero to take the -hint from Lazarillo, and use his autobiography as an outlet for his -social satire. Everything that Lazarillo had done, Gil Blas did in a -larger and more skilful fashion. The book summed up the rogue novels in -itself, and in its own right brought their influence to bear on English -narrative. Smollett translated it, and it shares with _Don Quixote_ the -parentage of the masculine novel. - - - - -THE ELIZABETHANS - - - - -THE ELIZABETHANS - - -[The new conditions of professional story-telling.] - -PROFESSIONAL story-tellers before the sixteenth century seem very far -removed from the novelists of our circulating libraries. Theirs was -a simpler patronage; they had but to please one rich man, and they -could live. The invention of printing made them leap suddenly into the -conditions of modernity. It changed the audience of the castle hall -into the audience of the world, and patrons into the public. A man told -his stories in his own room. He was not sure of a single listener; he -might have ten thousand without raising his voice or pressing harder -with his pen. Poets might write for their friends or the Court; but -Elizabethan story-tellers were already able to exist by writing for -the booksellers. Middlemen were between their audience and themselves. -They had no chance of excusing the defects of their wares by charm -of voice or charm of personality, unless they could get that charm -on paper. The characteristics of modern story-telling were rapidly -appearing; already, as in the case of _Euphues_, a single book might -set the fashion for a thousand; already the novelist felt his audience -through his sales. Men like Greene, swift 'yarkers up' of pamphlets, -had to write what the Elizabethan public wanted--with the result that -there is very little purely English story-telling of the period. The -Elizabethans wanted silks and gold from overseas. They fell in love -with what was new and strange. They were hungry for all countries but -their own, and for all times but those in which they lived. There never -were such thieves. They stole from Spain, from France, from Italy, from -Portugal, and, curiously mixing impudence and awe, copied crudely and -continually from a newly discovered antiquity. - -[Elizabethan borrowings.] - -There was _Paynter's Pallace_, peopled with characters from the -love-tales of France and Italy, in whose adventures Elizabethan -playwrights found a score of plots. And then there was _Pettie's -Pallace_, with its delightful title, _A petite Pallace of Pettie his -pleasure_, that shows how late our language lost its French. Pettie -steals his tales from the classics, with a most engaging air of right -of way. Wherever the Elizabethans went they carried their heads high -and were not abashed. They were ready to nod to Cæsar, call Endymion -a Johnny-head-in-air, and clink a glass in honour of Ulysses. All -the world was so new that Antiquity seemed only yesterday. Classical -allusion was used with the most lavish hand. Progne, inveighing against -her husband, explains his iniquity as follows:-- - - 'He sheweth his cursed cruel kind, he plainly proves himself to - proceed of the progeny of that traitor Aeneas, who wrought the - confusion of Queen Dido, who succoured him in his distress. It is - evident he is engendered of Jason's race, who disloyally forsook - Medea that made him win the golden fleece! He is descended of - the stock of Demophoon, who through his faithless dealing forced - Phyllis to hang herself! He seems of the seed of Theseus, who - left Ariadne in the deserts to be devoured, through whose help he - subdued the monster Minotaur, and escaped out of the intricate - labyrinth! He cometh of Nero his cruel kind, who carnally abused - his own mother Agrippina, and then caused her to be slain and - ripped open, that he might see the place wherein he lay being an - infant in her belly! So that what but filthiness is to be gathered - of such grafts? What boughs but beastliness grow out of such stems?' - -And yet, quite undismayed by such family connections, so intimate was -he with antiquity, the story-teller sums up the deeds of his characters -as though he were a prosecuting counsel, and they even now cowering in -the dock before him. - - 'It were hard here, Gentlewoman, for you to give sentence, who more - offended of the husband or the wife, seeing the doings of both the - one and the other near in the highest degree of devilishness--such - unbridled lust and beastly cruelty in him, such monstrous mischief - and murder in her; in him such treason, in her such treachery; in - him such falseness, in her such furiousness; in him such devilish - desire, in her such revengeful ire; in him such devilish heat, - in her such haggish hate, that I think them both worthy to be - condemned to the most bottomless pit in hell.' - -[Lyly writes for women.] - -There is something in the style of this, as well as in the address to -a female reader, that suggests the _Euphues_ of John Lyly, published -two years later. Lyly, alchemist of Spanish magniloquence into English -euphuism, who settled the style of the Elizabethan romance, and brought -into it many elements still characteristic of English story-telling, -wrote as well as his letter to 'Gentlemen Readers,' and to his 'verrie -good friends, the Gentlemen Schollers of Oxford,' Epistles dedicatory -to women--'To the Ladies and Gentlewoemen of England, John Lyly wisheth -what they would.' They were grateful to him, and since he said that he -would rather 'lye shut in a Ladye's Casket, then open in a Scholler's -studie,' there was scarce a gentlewoman in London but knew much of him -by heart, addressed her husband or lover in terms his Lucia might have -used, and woke nearly as eager to read in him as in her looking-glass. -His was a very modern success. Then, too, the end of all his tales -was high morality. He winds up each with a reflection, and like most -English story-telling, they contain more of the Warning Example than of -the Embroidered Exploit. He reminds the 'Gentlewoemen of England' that -he has 'diligently observed that there shall be nothing found that may -offend the chaste mind with unseemly tearmes or uncleanly talke.' And -yet he wrote of love a hundred years before the eighteenth century, -and throughout those hundred years, and for some fifty afterwards, -the chaste mind was to be almost disregarded. Mrs. Aphra Behn was -to pour forth what Swinburne called her 'weltering sewerage,' and -Fielding and Smollett were to write, before the chaste mind was to -exert any very lasting influence on literature. Fielding and Smollett -wrote for men, while, like an earlier Richardson, 'could Euphues take -the measure of a woman's minde, as the Tailour doth of hir bodie, he -would go as neere to fit them for a fancie as the other doth for a -fashion.' Elizabethan women must have been less squeamish than their -descendants on the subject of themselves. For in this book planned to -fit them, Lyly writes like an Elizabethan Schopenhauer:--'Take from -them their periwigges, their paintings, their Jewells, their rowles, -their boulstrings, and thou shalt soone perceive that a woman is the -least part of hir selfe.' That is the gentle art of being rude, in -which so much of early wit consisted. But, as it was designed as a -'Cooling Carde for Philautus and all fond lovers,' whose affections -were misplaced or unrequited, the women, accepting not without pride -responsibility for the disease, must have found it easy to forgive him -and to smile at so impotent a cure. - -[Euphuism.] - -The style of Euphues had a much wider influence than his matter. Like -Pettie's, it is precious, but with a preciousness at the same time -so elaborate and infectious that I am finding it difficult even now, -in thinking about it, to keep from imitating it. Its principle is a -battledore-and-shuttlecock motion, in which the sense, sometimes a -little bruised, is kept up between similar sounds or words that are -not quite puns but nearly so. An idea that could be expressed in a -single very short sentence is expanded as long as the breath lasts, -or longer, by the insertion of separate contrasts, like those used in -the intermediate lines of one of the forms of Japanese poetry. There -was something of this in Pettie's peroration that was quoted three -paragraphs ago; and here is an example from Lyly:--'Alas, Euphues, by -how much the more I love the high clymbing of thy capacitie, by so much -the more I feare thy fall.' (There is the idea; all that follows is its -embroidery.) 'The fine Christall is sooner erased then the hard Marble; -the greenest Beech burneth faster then the dryest Oke; the fairest -silke is soonest soyled; and the sweetest wine tourneth to the sharpest -Vinegar. The Pestilence doth most infect the clearest complection, and -the Caterpiller cleaveth into the ripest fruite: the most delycate -witte is allured with small enticement unto vice, and most subject to -yeelde unto vanitie.' - -['Cruditie and indigestion.'] - -Such a style could not but attract a newly educated people, still able -to marvel at knowledge. Its lavishness of information is comparable -to that generosity of gold and precious gems that has been noticed as -characteristic of the writers of the _Mabinogion_. The Briton wondered -at wealth, the Elizabethan at learning. It is not surprising that in -this state of civilisation a fact-laden style should be brought to -perfection. 'It is a sign of cruditie and indigestion,' says Montaigne, -'for a man to yeelde up his meat even as he swallowed the same: the -stomach hath not wrought his full operation unlesse it have changed -forme and altered fashion of that which was given him to boyle and -concoct.' In Elizabethan England, when knowledge was so new and so -delightful that men did not scruple to invent it, it is easy to imagine -John Lyly writing with a huge Bestiary open to the left of him, and -a classical dictionary open to the right, from which he might dig -out metaphors learned and ingenious, and present them immediately to -his readers without putting any undue strain on his own intellectual -digestion. - -[Lyly's followers.] - -His imitators were no less numerous than his readers. If they could -not write they talked his peculiar language. If they were novelists -they wrote in something like his manner, and with cheerful consciences -used his name as a trade-mark to attract his popularity to themselves. -Lodge's _Rosalynde_ is introduced as _Euphues' Golden Legacie_, and -many other stories were connected by some ingenious silken thread to -Lyly's garlanded triumphal car. It is too easy to laugh at euphuism. -It was the first prophecy of the ordered poetic prose in which such -delicate work has been done in our own time. In the hands of Lodge and -Greene, who tempered it with homelier periods, it showed at once its -possibilities of beauty. Nor with Lyly was it continued pedantry. A -golden smile appears sometimes beneath the mask. Euphues, crossing to -England, tells the story of Callimachus to Philautus and the sailors, -and when he says, 'You must imagine (because it were too long to -tell all his journey) that he was Sea-sick (as thou beginnest to be, -Philautus),' we perceive that Lyly is not always to be hidden behind -his sentences. The stories he introduces, the tale of Callimachus and -Cassander, or the pretty history of old Fidus and his Issida, are as -pleasant as the tales of Lodge and Greene. - -How near he was to being a story-teller may be seen from the work of -these two men. They tried to imitate him in everything; but Greene -wrote in a hurry for the press, and you could not expect Lodge, writing -on the high seas, to be as consistently euphuistical as an Oxford -gentleman, holding an appointment from Lord Burleigh, and having -nothing else to do. Euphuism fell away from both journalist and sailor, -leaving a pleasant glow over their style. They were more intent than -Lyly on the plain forwarding of the narrative. For the long rhetorical -harangues they substituted shorter, simpler speeches to express the -feelings of their characters. The harangue was a step from the bald -statement that so-and-so 'made great dole,' and these shorter speeches -were a further step from the by no means bald declamations on the -subject of the dole, towards the working up of emotion by a closer -copy of the action and dialogue in which emotion expresses itself. -Dialogue was yet to be introduced from the theatre. In Lyly it meant -argument, but in the best of his imitators it had become already a tool -imperfectly understood but sometimes used for the actual progress of -the tale. - -Greene and Lodge illustrate very well the characteristics of -Elizabethan story-telling. _Pandosto_, _Rosalynde_, and some of -Greene's confessions let us know pretty clearly what it was that the -public of the day found interesting. Greene was a Bohemian, 'with a -jolley red peaked beard' who could 'yark up a pamphlet in a single -night,' and do it so well that the booksellers were glad to pay 'for -the very dregs of his wit.' Lodge was an undergraduate at Oxford, a -pirate, and later a very successful physician. Both were, like their -audiences, exceedingly alive. - -[Romance and confession.] - -In Greene's _Pandosto_ we find reminiscences of old romance, classical -nomenclature, the influence of the Italian _novelle_, and plenty of the -wild improbability that still had power over his audience. _Pandosto_ -is a love pamphlet, and after a euphuistic dedication and a little -preface on jealousy, 'from which oft ensueth bloody revenge as this -ensuing history manifestly proveth,' Greene leads off with, 'In the -country of Bohemia there reigned a king called Pandosto.' Bohemia -is an island--no matter. Pandosto, in a most obliging manner, 'to -close up the comedy with a tragical stratagem,' slays himself at the -finish--no matter again. We must remember that for the Elizabethans, -fortunate people who believed in the Lamia and the Boas, probability -and improbability had no existence as relative terms. Everything was -credible, and one of the joys of romance reading was the exercise of -an athletic faith. Another was the gathering of knowledge, and Greene -met this demand with books whose breathings of realism illustrate, like -Nash's _Jacke Wilton_, the rogue novel in England, and give his name -a double importance. These other books were more personal to their -writer, and depend more closely on his own life and character. Greene -was a wild liver with a conscience. He enjoyed debauch and the company -of rogues better than virtue and the society of sober citizens. But -his conscience oscillated between hibernation and wakefulness with -a periodicity that corresponded to the fulness and emptiness of his -purse, and in times of poverty and righteousness he wrote confessions -of his own misdoing, and books on the methods of rapscallions with whom -he consorted, that brought him the money to continue on his riotous -career, and satisfied the curiosity of his public as well as his -romances had delighted their imaginations. - -Lodge, although his work was also various, appealed mainly to the -latter. - - 'Roome for a souldier and a sailer that gives you the fruits of his - labors that he wrote, in the ocean, when everie line was wet with a - surge, and every humorous passion countercheckt with a storme. If - you like it, so; and yet I will be yours in duetie, if you be mine - in favour. But if Momus, or any squinteied asse, that hath mighty - eares to conceive with Midas, and yet little reason to judge, if - he come abord our barke to find fault with the tackling, when hee - knowes not the shrowds, Ile down into the hold, and fetch out a - rustie pollax, that sawe no sunne this seaven yeare, and either - well bebast him, or heave the cockescombe over boord to feed cods. - But curteous gentlemen, that favour most, backbite none, and pardon - what is overslipt, let such come and welcome; Ile into the stewards - roome, and fetch them a kanne of our best bevradge.' - -[_As You Like It._] - -That is the way in which Thomas Lodge, newly returned to England from -piracies on the western seas, introduces his _Rosalynde_. With such a -preface, you would expect a ruffianly tale, full of hard knocks and -coarse words, certainly not the dainty little pastoral, romantic fairy -story, found in Euphues' cell, and holding lessons of much profit for -the guidance of his friend's children. The very contrast between its -buccaneering author and its own fragility is the same as that between -the pastoral writers and their books, between, for example, Cervantes -of Lepanto and the author of the _Galatea_, between the Sidney who died -at Zutphen and the author of _Arcadia_. It is the tale of _As You Like -It_, and Shakespeare, in turning it into a play, chose the right title -for it, since it contains every one of the surest baits with which to -hook an Elizabethan audience. It was brought from overseas, and in that -time when ships were sailing up to London Bridge with all the new-found -riches of the world, the hint of travel was a sufficient promise of -delight. It begins with a dying knight who leaves a legacy between his -sons, and its audience had not yet tired of Sir Bevis and Sir Isumbras. -It has the fairy-tale notion of the youngest born, and was not England -youngest son of all the world? There are beautiful women in it, and one -of them dresses like a man--a delicious, romantic thing to dream upon. -And finally, is it not left by Euphues himself, and therefore full of -profit as of pleasure, of wit as of wisdom, and written in something -not too far from that embroidered manner, as dear to the Elizabethans -as their new won luxuries, their newly imported frivolities. - - - - -THE PASTORAL - - - - -THE PASTORAL - - -[The discovery and exploitation of Arcadia.] - -THE Pastoral, whose influence touches even the Elizabethan novels not -professedly Arcadian, had been fished up from sunken antiquity by the -early scholars of the Renaissance. They were fascinated by the serene -country pieces of Virgil, and the leafy embroideries of Theocritus, and -were, of course, too newly learned, too eager for the name of learning, -to be able to apply the old form to their own material. Instead, they -did their best to write not only in a classical manner, but also of a -classical country. They used Greek names, Latin names, any but homespun -names of their own times. It was not on purpose that Arcadia was set by -them in the Golden Age; they had aimed at a century more prosaic. The -best time of all the world had a date for them, and they did their best -to live up to its particular antiquity. But in using conventions so -different from real life, in a time of hurry and stress, it was natural -that they should be led into daydreams of a greater simplicity than -their own elaborate existence. It was natural, too, that by refining -character, tempering the wind, and keeping the year at its sweetest -season, they should end in the making of books that were beyond all -measure artificial. From the time of Boccaccio to the time of Cervantes -these books had multiplied, and become more and more like arrangements -of marionettes in landscapes dotted with Noah's Ark trees, until, -when the curate in Don Quixote's library defends them to the niece -and calls them 'ingenious books that can do nobody any prejudice,' -the niece hurriedly replies, 'Oh! good sir, burn them with the rest I -beseech you; for should my uncle get cured of his knight-errant frenzy, -and betake himself to the reading of these books, we should have him -turn shepherd, and so wander through the woods and fields; nay, and -what would be worse yet, turn poet, which they say is a catching and -incurable disease.' - -[Shepherds' plaints.] - -The niece was right, for when shepherds love sweet shepherdesses, it -seems that for the benefit of a Renaissance public they must pour their -sorrows out in verse, as elegant and classical as may be. No sooner -does one shepherd begin his song than another joins him and another, -until there is a chorus of complaining lovers; the infection is so -virulent that it leaps from man to man, and if a shepherd-boy breathe a -poem to his lass, it is great odds that she will cap it with another, -and then they will keep it up between them like a shuttlecock. The -disease is so strong indeed that if poor Corydon has no one to cross -Muses with, it forces Echo herself to answer him in rhyme:-- - - 'In what state was I then, when I took this deadly disease? - Ease. - And what manner of mind which had to that humour a vain? - Vain. - Hath not reason enough vehemence to desire to reprove? - Prove. - Oft prove I but what salve when reason seeks to begone? - One. - Oh! what is it? what is it that may be a salve to my love? - Love. - What do lovers seek for long seeking for to enjoy? - Joy. - What be the joys for which to enjoy they went to the pains? - Pains. - Then to an earnest love what doth best victory end? - End.' - -These lines are from Sir Philip Sidney's _Arcadia_, which, of course, -was not in the Knight's library. We are told in advance that they are -hexameters. How delightfully they scan:-- - - - ˘ ˘ | - - | - - | - - | - ˘ ˘ | - - 'What do lov | ers seek | for long | seeking | for to en | joy? - - - Joy.' - -On the next page a shepherdess 'threw down the burden of her mind -in Anacreon's kind of verses.' And 'Basilius, when she had fully -ended her song, fell prostrate upon the ground and thanked the gods -they had preserved his life so long as to hear the very music they -themselves had used in an earthly body.' Presently follows a copy of -'Phaleuciaks,' and then Dorus 'had long he thought kept silence from -saying something which might tend to the glory of her, in whom all -glory to his seeming was included, but now he broke it, singing those -verses called Asclepiadiks.' And they thought the night had passed -quickly. - -[Illustration: SIR PHILIP SIDNEY] - -[An apology to Sidney.] - -This is no insult to Sir Philip Sidney, but only to the rather -exorbitant demands of the form he had chosen. His own sonnets vindicate -him as a poet, and some of them, even Hazlitt owned, who did not -like him, 'are sweet even to a sense of faintness, luscious as the -woodbine, and graceful and luxurious like it.' Sidney lets us see -his own attitude in that splendid sentence which begins, 'Certainly -I must confesse my own barbarousnes, I neuer heard the olde song -of _Percy_ and _Duglas_ that I found not my heart mooued more then -with a Trumpet; and yet is it sung but by some blinde Crouder, with -no rougher voyce then rude stile'; I should be almost sorry that -he finished it by saying 'which, being so euill apparrelled in the -dust and cobwebbes of that vnciuill age, what would it worke trymmed -in the gorgeous eloquence of _Pindar_?' but that it rings with the -sincerity of his classicism. Taste has changed, and now we find his -'barbarousnes' in the question rather than in the confession. But the -sentence illustrating at once his sensitiveness to simplicity and his -predilection for the classics, shows how genuine was the expression -that the busy, chivalric diplomatist found for himself in the confines -of Arcadia. The classic metres brought as near as might be our Tudor -English to 'the language of the Gods.' - -[The slow progress of Arcadian narrative.] - -The continual downpour of poetry, the Arcadian substitute for rain, -was not the only drag on the narrative of the pastoral story-tellers. -Serenity was considered essential, and so, while the story was being -everlastingly shunted, so that the lovesick shepherds might plain, it -had also for every step it took forward to take another back in order -to catch again the chosen atmosphere of lovesick repose. The result -was 'a note of linked sweetness long drawn out,' a series of agitated -standstills, and a narrative impossible to end. Cervantes' _Galatea_ -was never finished; the last books of _Arcadia_ were written by another -hand; d'Urfé died before putting an end to _l'Astrée_; and Montemor -abandoned his _Diana_. - -In the history of story-telling it is not the form of the pastoral that -is important, but the motive that gave it its popularity. We begin to -understand the motive when we notice that it became the fashion to -hide real people under the names of Corydon and Phyllis, and to put -ribboned crooks and silver horns into the hands of enemies and friends. -At first it was the genuine feeling that made Boccaccio enshrine his -Fiammetta; at the end it degenerated into mere privy gossip and books -uninteresting without their keys; but in general it was simply a -desire of flattering elaborate people into thinking themselves of -simple heart. [The motive of the Pastoral.] The pastorals were like the -paintings of Watteau and Lancret, where we find the ladies of a lively -court playing innocent games under the trees, while, if we searched in -the brushwood, we should find in the soft earth under the brambles the -hoofmarks of the sporting satyrs. The feelings of author and subjects -were those of the Vicar of Wakefield's family when they sat before the -portrait painter:--'Olivia would be drawn as an Amazon, sitting upon a -bank of flowers, dressed in a green Joseph richly laced with gold, and -a whip in her hand. Sophia was to be a shepherdess, with as many sheep -as the painter could put in for nothing.' Elizabethan ladies liked to -think of themselves sitting on banks garlanding flowers, troubled only -by the sweet difficulties of love, and with innumerable sheep, since -the writer was able to put them in so very inexpensively. - -[Poussin's _Les Bergers d'Arcadie_.] - -There is another artist who, living before Cervantes and Sidney were -dead, gives in his pictures, cleaner and sweeter than Watteau, an idea -of the pastoral spirit. You can imagine one of Watteau's shepherdesses -using paint. It would be impossible to suspect the same of one of -Sidney's, or of one of Nicolas Poussin's, that solemn, sweet-minded man -who was shocked as if by sacrilege at Scarron's irreverent treatment -of Virgil. There is in the Louvre (how many times have I been to see -it) a picture called 'Les Bergers d'Arcadie.' Hazlitt mentions it, most -inaccurately as to facts, but most precisely as to feeling, in his -essay on the painter:[6]--'But above all, who shall celebrate in terms -of fit praise, his picture of the shepherds in the Vale of Tempe going -out on a fine morning in the spring, and coming to a tomb with this -inscription: _Et Ego in Arcadia vixi!_ The eager curiosity of some, the -expression of others who start back with fear and surprise, the clear -breeze playing with the branches of the shadowing trees, "the valleys -low where the mild zephyrs use," the distant, uninterrupted, sunny -prospects speak (and for ever will speak on) of ages past to ages yet -to come!' - -In those sentences Hazlitt, who found the written pastoral dull, shows -us the very secret of its life. In trying to copy the classic country -writing, it came to be an attempt to reconstruct the time that has -always been past since the beginning of the world. Real shepherds -never do and never did show fear and surprise and eager curiosity on -their weather-beaten faces; but then in Arcadia is no rain. Sweet, -sunny days, soft, peaceful nights, green grass, white sheep, and -smooth-cheeked shepherds Grecian limbed; the whole is the convention of -a dream. It was the dream of busy men in close touch with a life whose -end was apt to come short and sharp between the lifting of a flagon -and putting the lips to it. And in Sidney's dream especially, there is -something of the true Renaissance worship of the ancient gods. Sidney's -dream was of a pastoral life; yes, but to him other things in it were -more important than its rusticity. For him, at least, it must be a life -where the goatfoot god still moved in the green undergrowth, where -Diana hunted the white fawns, while Silenus tippled in the valley, and -Apollo looked serenely from the wooded hill. - -[Conventional and realistic art.] - -This was the same art as that of Malory, though not that of the -chansons or the sagas. It is the art in which life is simplified into -a convention, and human figures worked into a tapestry. The pastoral -romances are duller than those of chivalry, partly, no doubt, because -their conventions are not home-made but taken as strictly as possible -from another civilisation, and partly because they are too long for -their motives--the pattern is repeated too often. But they do not -represent a dead or a dying art, but rather a stage in the infancy -of an art that has blossomed in our own day, in some of the work of -Théophile Gautier, for example; in Mr. Nevinson's _Plea of Pan_, -in some of the drawings of Aubrey Beardsley. Sidney's _Arcadia_ is -terribly unwieldy, but passage after passage in it breathes a fragrance -different from anything in the literature of realism. - -Indeed it is well to mark thus early the distinction between these -two arts, the one that seeks to show us our own souls, the other -that shows us life, that one that, using symbols disentangled from -ordinary existence, can legitimately fill books with things beautiful -in themselves, and the other that reconciles us to ugliness by showing -us some vital interest, some hidden loveliness, some makeshift beauty -in things as they generally are. The spirit of the one set statues -of lovely forms in the bedchambers of the Grecian women, the spirit -of the other praises ugly babies to their mothers. Both spirits have -shown their right to be by the works of art whose inspiration they -have been. We must only be careful not to criticise the art of the one -by the canons that rule the art of the other. There are two worlds, -the actual and the ideal. If Tom Jones were to open a door by saying -'Open Sesame' to it, we should have a right to laugh, just as we -should be legitimately disappointed if Ali Baba were to turn a key and -enter the robber's treasury in the ordinary way. We cannot blame the -Arcadian shepherds because they are not like the shepherds we meet -about the hills, any more than we can blame that little kitchen slut -called Cinderella for riding to a king's ball in a gold chariot made -of a pumpkin. Truth to an ideal is all we may ask of dreams. And the -pastorals, in spite of their borrowed conventions, do hold an ideal, -suffocated though it sometimes is under an impossible technique, and -the weight of ornament which is so tempting to those who have but newly -learned the secrets of its manufacture. - -[Poetic prose.] - -Our later Arcadians have not so hampered themselves. They have made -short stories instead of labyrinthine narratives, and they have -been able, as Sidney tried to do, to disclaim any competition with -utilitarian homespun literature by the use of a poetic prose. In the -prose of Sidney's _Arcadia_, imitated from that of Lyly, but a little -less noisily eccentric, falling perhaps too often between poetry and -prose, we can see the promise of that new prose of ornament perfected -by the artists of the nineteenth century, a prose firm, unshaken by the -recurrent rhythms of verse, but richer in colour and melody than the -prose of use. - - - - -CERVANTES - - - - -CERVANTES - - -[Prologue.] - -IT is curious how many odds and ends may be heaped together and woven -into a patchwork of thought, by a mind concentrating itself upon one -idea, and, as if in spite of itself, making excursions after each -chance butterfly and puff of wind, each half promise of real or phantom -value it perceives. The mind returns continually to where it stood, -bringing with it always something new, like a starling adding to its -nest, until at last the original idea is so covered over with half -visualised images, half clarified obscurities, dimly comprehended -notions, that it is itself no longer to be seen but by a reverse -process of picking away and throwing aside, one by one, the accretions -that have been brought to it by the adventuring mind. For the last hour -I have been sitting in my easy-chair, a cup of tea at my elbow, a pipe -in my mouth, a good fire at my feet, trying not to let myself stray too -far from the consideration of Cervantes and his place in the history -of story-telling. All that hour, without effort, almost against my -will, my mind has been playing about the subject, and bringing straw -and scraps of coloured cloth, until now the plain notion of Cervantes -is dotted over and burdened with a dozen other things--a comparison -between an active life and a bookish one, the relation between parody -and progress, the mingling of rogue novel and romance, Sir Walter -Scott, and the remembrance of a band of Spanish village musicians. -Perhaps if I disentangle this superstructure piece by piece Cervantes -himself will become as visible as he intends to allow me to present him. - - * * * * * - -[An active life and a bookish one.] - -Cervantes was one of the men who write books in two languages; in -literature and in life. Indeed, his contribution to his country's -history is scarcely less vivid than his share in the history of -story-telling. Cervantes the soldier, losing the use of his hand in -the naval battle of Lepanto, in which he took so glorious a part -that the grandiloquent Spanish tradition attributed to him, a mere -private soldier, more than half the merit of the victory, is quite -as attractive as Cervantes the impecunious author, writing plays for -the theatre and poems for the nobility, collecting taxes for the -king, pleasing himself with his _Galatea_, and laying literature -under an international debt to him for his _Exemplary Novels_ and his -_Don Quixote_. Like Sir Philip Sidney, he won admiration from his -contemporaries as much for his personal worth as for his intellect. -The maimed hand meant to them and him as much as any printed books. -His own life was as romantic as his romance. Wherever he had found -himself, boarding a Turkish galley, plotting for freedom in the prisons -of Algiers, he had played the game as stirringly as d'Artagnan. Don -Quixote's patriotism was no more obstinate and glamorous than his, and -Sancho Panza's wisdom was gained in no school of harder knocks. - -It is not without significance that his first book should be a specimen -of pastoral romance. The _Galatea_ bears no closer relation to workaday -life than Sir Philip Sidney's _Arcadia_. This old soldier began his -career as a man of letters by trying to settle upon an estate in -Arcady, the very country whose cardboard foliage he was afterwards to -ridicule, and the last book he wrote, in spite of the humaner work -that had preceded it, was a romance not dissimilar from his first. -Partly this must have been due to the fashion of the time; but it is -not extravagant to find in it an illustration of the wistful manner in -which men write about their opposites. Men like Stevenson, caged in -sick rooms, may love to be buccaneers on paper. The real adventurers -set the balance even by imagining themselves tending sheep on a smooth -grassy slope. - -[_Don Quixote_ no parody.] - -Cervantes' _Galatea_ is not a great work. Its shepherds weep more -than Sir Philip Sidney's, and sing considerably worse. But it had -its success, and Cervantes was never anything but proud of it, a -fact that should not be forgotten in remembering his _Don Quixote_. -_Don Quixote_ has often been described as a parody of the heroic and -pastoral romances, which indeed had become a little foolish. But -Cervantes was not the man to jeer at what he loved. Instead, he fills -the old skins that had held the wine of dreams with the new wine of -experience. He did not parody the old romances, but re-wrote them in -a different way. Parody laughs and writes a full stop; the art of -Cervantes, Fielding, and Rabelais ends always in a hyphen, a sign that -allows all manner of developments. - -[Illustration: MIGUEL DE CERVANTES SAAVEDRA] - -[The picaresque form.] - -Cervantes, like Shakespeare, used all the resources of his time, and -did not disdain to profit by other men's experiments. _Don Quixote_ -owed a triple debt to the common-sensible humorous rogue novel invented -seventy years before, as well as to the more serious tales of knights -and pastoral life that made his existence possible. Thieves and -shepherds and paragons of chivalry assisted at his birth. The thieves -in particular were responsible for the design, or lack of design, in -the construction of the book. The rogue novels were made by stringing -a series of disconnected 'merry quips' along the autobiography or -biography of a disreputable hero. They were like Punch and Judy shows. -The character of Punch is as stable as his red nose or his hump back. -His deeds do not change him, and, so long as he is always well in the -front of his stage we ask for no other connecting thread in the -entertainment than his habit of punctuating his conversation with a -well-directed log of wood. Let him continue his villainous career, let -his squeaking inhuman voice continue to exult, and we are perfectly -contented. It was so with the rogues, and it is so with _Don Quixote_. -As the Bachelor says, 'many of those that love mirth better than -melancholy, cry out, give us more Quixoteries: let but Don Quixote lay -on, and Sancho talk, be it what it will, we are satisfied.' - -[Rogue novel and romance.] - -Three hundred years after the Bachelor, we too are satisfied with -Sancho's chatter, and his master's Quixoteries, because they are both -pretty closely connected with humanity. If Don Quixote is among the -clouds, Sancho Panza sits firm upon his donkey, and between the two of -them the book itself moves spaciously upon a mellowed earth. There is -a perpetual interplay between dignity and impudence, the ridiculous -and the sublime, and the partners, as if at tennis, lend vigour and -give opportunity to each other. Sancho is not a mere village bellyful -of common sense, whose business is to make the Knight of the Doleful -Countenance appear ridiculous. He, too, has his delusions; he, too, -prefers sometimes those two birds twittering distantly in the bush; -Romance, smilingly enough, has touched his puzzled forehead also. And -Don Quixote, with ideals no less noble than those of Amadis of Gaul or -Don Belianis of Greece, with notions of life no less exaggerated than -those in the interminable pastorals, is yet a man of blood and bone. -His ideals and notions are properly fleshed, and are in the book as a -soul in a body. _Don Quixote_ is a book of dreams set upon earth, and -earthly shrewdness reaching vainly after dreams. The rogue novels and -the romances were, either of them, the one without the other. - -[The ideal not spoilt by the reality.] - -We see Don Quixote's adventures with the realist's eye of disillusion, -and find that external perfection does not matter to our dreams. ''Tis -not the deed but the intent.' The gorgeous charger of the knight of -chivalry is become a poor old starveling hack that should have been -horsemeat these dozen years. Mambrino's helmet is but a barber's bason -after all. Lancelot's Guinevere is Dulcinea of the Mill. Her feet are -large and her shoulders one higher than the other. The castle is a -wayside inn, the routed army a flock of luckless sheep. The goatherds -do not talk after the fashion of the Court, like those in _Galatea_; -but, 'with some coarse compliment, after the country way, they desired -Don Quixote to sit down upon a trough with the bottom upwards.' Gone -are the rose-flecked cloudy pinnacles of dawn; we know them now for -drenching rain. And yet--the play's the thing, and is not judged by its -trappings, but by its beating heart. Not one scene in the Romances, not -one glimpse of the Happy Valley in the Pastorals, has ever moved us -like this book, which is so near life that when we close it we seem not -to have flown on an enchanted carpet from a thousand leagues away, but -to have stepped merely from one room to another of our own existence. - -[The _Exemplary Novels_.] - -The _Exemplary Novels_ were begun before _Don Quixote_, and published -afterwards. They are examples rather of a form in story-telling than -of any particular piety. Cervantes was, he tells us, 'the first to -essay novels in the Castilian tongue, for the many novels which go -about in print in Spanish are all translated from foreign languages, -while these are my own, neither imitated nor stolen.' He took the form -of the Italian short story, not the episode but the _nouvelle_, the -little novel that had inspired the Elizabethans. He took this form and -filled it with his own material, told in his own manner. In thinking of -that manner I am reminded of the band of Spanish village musicians who -seemed at first to have no obvious connection with my subject. There -were perhaps a dozen of them grouped on the stage of a London music -hall, and they played small windy tunes, occasionally blaring out with -trumpets, using a musical scale entirely different from our own. I -remembered a Japanese I had heard playing on a bamboo flute, and then -the semitones of a little henna-stained flageolet from Kairouan. For -theirs was Eastern music, and I wondered if these Spaniards still owed -their scale to the old rulers of Granada. They set me thinking whether -the peculiar movement of Cervantes' narrative had not also an Eastern -origin. The facts favour the supposition. Up to the battle of Lepanto -the Turks were so far a ruling nation as to be the supreme sea-power; -until even later the most likely of incidents for the use of the -story-teller was that which happened to Cervantes himself--capture by -a Moslem pirate and imprisonment in Algiers. Only a hundred years had -passed since the Moors had been driven from Granada. It would indeed be -surprising if in Cervantes' work we found no sign of Eastern influence. -'I tell it you,' quoth Sancho of his tale, 'as all stories are told -in my country, and I cannot for the blood of me tell it in any other -way, nor is it fit I should alter the custom.' Many characteristics of -Cervantes' narrative remind us that he was writing in a country only -recently freed from the Moors, and in a time when it took the united -forces of Venice, Spain, and the Papacy to beat the Turks at sea. - -[Oriental story-telling.] - -Cervantes is not ignorant, for example, of the literary trick -of letting his heroes quote from the poets, after the engaging, -erudite manner of the heroes of the _Arabian Nights_. Sancho Panza's -conversation is an anthology of those short wisdom-laden maxims that -had been the staple of Hebrew and Arabic literature. 'Set a hen -upon an egg'; 'While a man gets he never can lose'; 'Where there is -no hook, to be sure there can hang no bacon'; shrewd Ali and careful -Hakim exchange such sentences to-day in the market-places of the -East. But these are small things and beside the main point. I want to -suggest that Cervantes had caught, whether in his Algerine prison, or -in his Morocco-Spanish Spain, the yarning, leisurely, humanity-laden, -unflinching atmosphere of Oriental story-telling. The form of the -_nouvelle_, Eastern in origin, had been passed on from Naples to Paris -and to London, without noticeable improvement, but it seems to me that -now in Spain it met the East again, and was accordingly recreated. It -is just the element of Eastern narrative, accidental in the genius of -Cervantes, that makes his examples of that form so infinitely more -important than those of the English Elizabethans. Scott told Lockhart -that the reading of the _Exemplary Novels_ first turned his mind to -the writing of fiction, and in Scott there is precisely the mood of -uninterruptible story-telling that Cervantes shares with the Princess -Scherazada. - -The novels are delightful specimens of ambling, elaborate narrative, -full of the easiest, most confident knowledge of humanity, illustrating -with serene clarity a point of view that is to-day as refreshing as it -is surprising. The happy endings, when the seducer falls in love at -sight on meeting the seduced of years before, and satisfies all her -scruples, and turns her sorrow to unblemished joy by marrying her, show -an ethic of respectability no less assured than Richardson's. They are -enriched by passages whose observation is as minute as Fielding's. They -are never tales about nothing. There is always meat on their bones. -They are among the few stories that can be read on a summer afternoon -under an apple-tree, for they will bear contact with nature, and are -never in a hurry. Even if Cervantes had not written _Don Quixote_, the -_Exemplary Novels_ would have assured him a place in the history of his -art. There is no cleverness in them, any more than in the greater book. -The whole body of Cervantes' work is an illustration of the impregnable -advantage that plain humanity possesses over intellect. - -[The portrait of Cervantes.] - -And now, after these various questions for the schoolmen, questions to -more than one of which the cautious man must answer with Sir Roger, -that 'much might be said on both sides,' let us return to the old -story-teller himself, who will survive by innumerable generations our -little praises and discussions as he has lived benevolent and secure -through the centuries that have already passed over his grave. The -only authentic portrait of Cervantes is in his own words. A hundred -artists have tried to supplement these words with paint, and their -pictures have at least a family likeness. The portrait made by Miss -Gavin after a careful comparison parison of many others represents -very fairly the traditional Cervantes type, and does not materially -belie the lineaments that he describes:--'He whom you here behold, with -aquiline visage, with chestnut hair, smooth and unruffled brow, with -sparkling eyes, and a nose arched though well proportioned, a silver -beard, although not twenty years ago it was golden, large moustache, -small mouth, teeth not important, for he has but six of them, and -those in ill condition and worse placed because they do not correspond -the one with the other, the body between two extremes, neither large -nor small, the complexion bright, rather white than brown, somewhat -heavy-shouldered, and not very nimble on his feet; this, I say, is -the portrait of the author of the _Galatea_ and of _Don Quixote de -la Mancha_.' That is the sort of statement of himself that an honest -humorous man might make to a friend. Part of the satisfaction given -by his books is due to the comfortable knowledge that there is a -man behind them, a man who knew the world and had not frozen in it. -Cervantes, for all his intimacy with life, never became worldly enough -to believe in hatred. He assumed that all his readers were his friends, -and made them so by the assumption. - - * * * * * - -[Epilogue.] - -No: Cervantes is too simple a man to do anything but suffer in -discussion. There are men whom you know well, who seem to elude you -like the final mystery of metaphysics when you try to talk about them. -My history and not Cervantes is the clearer for the rags and tatters -of observation I have picked off him one by one. I had put them there -myself. It was necessary, for the purposes of my book, to notice the -Eastern character of his story-telling and his position between rogue -novel and romance, but, now that it is done, I am glad to go back to -him without pre-occupations. There is yet hot water in the kettle, and -tea in the pot, and four hours to spend with _Don Quixote_ before I go -to bed. Cervantes, at least, will bear me no malice, but tell me his -story as simply as before I had tried to bring it into argument. - - - - -THE ESSAYISTS' CONTRIBUTION TO STORY-TELLING - - - - -THE ESSAYISTS' CONTRIBUTION TO STORY-TELLING - - -[The Character.] - -THE detailed, silver-point portrait studies of Fanny Burney, the -miniatures of Jane Austen, and the stronger etchings of Fielding -and Smollett, owed their existence to something outside the art of -story-telling, something other than the grave, humorous pictures of -Chaucer, or the hiding of real people under the homespun of lovesick -shepherds, or the gay autobiographies of swindling rogues. They owed it -to an art which in its beginnings seemed far enough away from any sort -of narrative. In those happy, thievish times when plagiary was a virtue -to be cried upon the housetops, this art, or rather this artistic form, -had been, like much else, stolen from antiquity. - -When literature was for the first time become a fashionable toy, and -when, even at Court, a gallant or a soldier was far outmatched by a -wit, the little book of _Theophrastus his Characters_ suggested a -pastime that offered no less opportunity than poetry for the display -of nimbleness and sparkling fancy. Life had become very diverse and -elaborate, and how delightful to take one of its flowerings, one man, -one woman, of a particular species, and exhibit it in a small space, -in a select number of points and quips, each one barbed and sticking -in the chosen target. Sir Thomas Overbury, trying to define the art he -used so skilfully, said, in his clear way:--'To square out a character -by our English levell, it is a picture (reall or personall) quaintly -drawne, in various colours, all of them heightned by one shadowing. -It is a quicke and soft touch of many strings, all shutting up in one -musicall close: it is wit's descant on any plaine song.' The thing had -to be witty; it had to be short. A busy courtier could compose one -in a morning while his barber was arranging his coiffure, and show -it round in the afternoon for the delectation of his friends and the -increase of his vanity. He could take a subject like 'A Woman,' and -with quick sentences pin her to the paper like a butterfly on cork. -Then he could take another title, like 'A Very Woman,' and repeat his -triumph with another variety of the species. [Sir Thomas Overbury.] -Sir Thomas Overbury, that charming, insolent, honest man, the friend -of Somerset, venomously done to death by his Countess for having given -too good advice to her husband, is perhaps the most notable of the -early practitioners. He is not to be despised for his sage poem on the -choice of a wife, but he is at his best in the making of these little -portraits, like that of the 'Faire and happy Milk-mayd,' wherein, in -accordance with his definition, he could polish each detail without -jarring his musical close, and without nullifying the single shadowing -designed to heighten the whole. The form was fitted to the times like -their fashions in clothes. The Character belonged to that age, like the -novel to the nineteenth century. Sir Thomas, as his title-page tells -us, was assisted by 'other much learned gentlemen'; he was presently -followed by a man as different from himself as gentle John Earle, -Doctor of Divinity, and just such a student as an Inns of Court man -like Sir Thomas would naturally despise. So general was the inclination -of the age to portraiture. - -[John Earle.] - -With Earle we are nearer the drawing of individuals, and so to a -tenderer touch on idiosyncrasies. He relies less on quaint conceits -(though he has plenty of them and charming ones at command; witness the -child whose 'father hath writ him as his owne little story, wherein hee -reads those dayes of his life that hee cannot remember') and trusts -more often to fragments of real observation. His Characters are not so -consistently wit's descant on a plain song. He is often content to give -us a plain descant on a plain song--less concerned with his cleverness -than with his subjects. With Earle we are already some way from the -age of Elizabeth, and indeed Overbury, though he was able to quarrel -with Ben Jonson, and in spite of his Renaissance death, seems to have -a part in a less youthful century. In his wisdom, in his wise advice -unwisely given to his friend, there is something already of the flavour -of Addison; an essence ever so slight of the sound morality of the -periodical essayists whose work owed more than a little to his own. - -[La Bruyère.] - -The same impulse that suggested the pleasure and profit of collecting -Londoners as Theophrastus had collected his Athenians, suggested -also the noting of contemporary manners. Manners and Characters, -especially since Characters meant peculiarities, belonged to each -other. Overbury's 'Pyrate' is a picture of the times quite as much as -of that sterling fellow they produced, to whom if you gave 'sea roome -in never so small a vessell, like a witch in a sieve, you would think -he were going to make merry with the devill.' And the portrait of 'The -Faire and happy Milk-mayd' betrays in its painting more than a little -of the artist and of the age in which she sat for him. This is true of -the plain Character, unexpanded and unframed; it is still more true of -the Character in the form it very speedily took. The Character became -a paragraph in a discursive essay, and La Bruyère, who copied directly -from Theophrastus, does not make series of separate portraits, but -notices in his original less his picturing of types than his suggestion -of their circumstances, dividing his own work into large sections, -'de la ville,' 'de la Cour,' 'des Biens de Fortune,' 'de la Société -et de la Conversation,' where he seems to stroll slowly through a -garden-walk of philosophy, pointing his remarks with his stick, and -using such portraits as he cares to make to illustrate his general -observations. His Characters are almost anecdotes. He is like the more -advanced naturalist who, no longer content with his butterflies on -cork and his stuffed birds stiff on perches, attempts to place them in -the setting of their ordinary existence, where they may illustrate at -once that existence and their own natures by some characteristic pose. -How near is this to the desire of seeing them alive and in continuous -action, which, if he had had it, would perhaps have made him combine -his notes and sketches in a novel. - -[The periodical essayists.] - -The periodical essayists had La Bruyère, and Earle's _Microcosmography: -A Piece of the World discovered in Essays and Characters_, and Sir -Thomas Overbury with his much learned gentlemen, and Theophrastus, the -father of them all, well in their memory. They too were collectors -of Characters and observers of public morals and censurers of -private follies. La Bruyère's aims with something more were theirs. -Hazlitt's is so excellent a description of their work that I shall -quote it instead of writing a stupid one. '_Quicquid agunt homines -nostri farrago libelli_, is the general motto of this department of -literature.... It makes familiar with the world of men and women, -assigns their motives, exhibits their whims, characterises their -pursuits in all their singular and endless variety, ridicules their -absurdities, exposes their inconsistencies, "holds the mirror up to -nature, and shows the very age and body of the time its form and -pressure"; takes minutes of our dress, air, looks, words, thoughts, -and actions; shows us what we are, and what we are not; plays the -whole game of human life over before us, and by making us enlightened -spectators of its many coloured scenes, enables us (if possible) -to become tolerably reasonable agents in the one in which we have -to perform a part.' We might be listening to a description of the -eighteenth century novel of manners. Fanny Burney would have recognised -these pretensions for her secret own, though she might have blushed to -see them so emblazoned. - -[Minuteness of observation.] - -_The Tatler_, _The Spectator_, _The Guardian_, and the rest of them, -are like a long series of skirmishes in a determined campaign on the -part of the essayists to cross the borderland of narrative. Their -traditions, the Character, Montaigne, and Bacon, were very different -from those of the story-tellers. The canvases prescribed for them were -not huge things almost shutting out the sky, but a very small stock -size, two or three pages only, to lie two days on coffee-house tables, -and be used for wrapping butter on the third. The essayists were like -men compelled to examine an elephant with a pocket microscope. Each -subject, small as it was, hid all others for the moment, so that their -observation made mountain peaks and ranges out of pimples and creases. -These very limitations sharpened the weapons of their struggle, the -weapons that were at last to be taken over by the novelists. The small -canvas made carelessness impossible, and this compulsory attention to -detail gave a new dignity to the trivialities that the novelists had so -far overlooked. - -[Mr. Bickerstaff.] - -The very conception of these papers contained an accidental discovery -of a possibility in fiction. _The Tatler_ was not written by Steele, -or Swift, or Addison, or indeed by any one of its contributors, but -by a Mr. Isaac Bickerstaff, an oldish gentleman, a bachelor, a lover -of children and discreet good fellowship, of an austere but kindly -life, possessed by a pleasant, old-gentlemanly desire to better the -manners of the town. This is personal, yes, but ... and the _but_ has -the dignity of the sentence ... the personality is imaginary. It is a -Character so far alive as to be able to conduct a magazine. It was a -utilitarian conception. Steele was, or pretended to be, vastly annoyed -when the authorship was found out and his own jolly person discovered -under the sober clothes of Mr. Bickerstaff. 'The work,' he says, 'has -indeed for some time been disagreeable to me, and the purpose of it -wholly lost by my being so long understood as its author.... The -general purpose of the whole has been to recommend truth, innocence, -honour, and virtue as the chief ornaments of life; but I considered -that severity of manners was absolutely necessary to him who would -censure others, and for that reason, and that only, chose to talk -in a mask. I shall not carry my humility so far as to call myself a -vicious man, but at the same time must confess, my life is at best but -pardonable. And, with no greater character than this, a man would make -but an indifferent progress in attacking prevailing and fashionable -vices, which Mr. Bickerstaff has done with a freedom of spirit, that -would have lost both its beauty and efficacy, had it been pretended -to by Mr. Steele.' It is as if we were to hear Defoe apologising for -dressing up as Robinson Crusoe, assuring us that his book is but an -allegory, and telling us with due solemnity that he has lived with his -wife these many years, and hardly above once set foot on shipboard, and -then only between London Bridge and Greenwich. Steele was quite unaware -that _The Tatler_ was an embryo novel. And yet, what is it, but an -imaginary character, sometimes meeting other imaginary characters, and -experiencing subjects instead of undergoing adventures? - -[Illustration: RICHARD STEELE AND JOSEPH ADDISON] - -[The Character and the short story.] - -Mr. Bickerstaff was in himself a contribution to character-study in -fiction; the daily talks that were put into his mouth by Steele and -his friends, supplied others no less valuable. The Character, the neat -driven team of short sentences, became in his hands something like -a story. It became an anecdote with no other point than to bring alive -the person described. And the portraits became less general. Types -turned into individuals. Ned Softly, for example, is not called 'a very -Poet,' and hit off with, 'He will ever into Company with a Copy of -Verses in his Pocket; and these will be read to all that suffer him. -Every Opinion he taketh for Praise, and Ridicule in his Ears soundeth -like Flattery.' He is given the name by which he is known in private -life. We see him walk into the room, hear his preliminaries, watch -his battery unmasked as he opens his pocket, listen to his verses, -hear them again, line by ridiculous line, observe him batten on the -opinions he extracts, and see him hide his darlings at the approach -of sterner-featured critics. The Character is become a little scene. -The moth has no pin through his middle, but flaps his way where we may -see him best. Here is the very art that Fanny Burney, that charming -show-woman, was to use for the exhibition of Madame Duval; here the -alchemy that was to turn puppets into people. It is the same that gave -Pygmalion his mistress. The essayists owed much to their own hearts, or -to the heart they set in 'our' Mr. Bickerstaff, for if you love a man -as well as you laugh at him, it is great odds that he will come alive. - -[Mr. Bickerstaff's letter-box.] - -Steele probably got a few letters from unknown correspondents, dull -and stupid as such things are. Perhaps in laughingly parodying them -at the coffee-house tables he caught the idea of inventing better -ones for Mr. Bickerstaff's assistance. Perhaps, when hard pressed for -time, thrown to the last minute for his work by some merry expedition -with the Kit Kats to talk and drink wine under the mulberry-tree -on Hampstead Heath, he found he could get quicker into a subject -through the letter of a servant girl than through Mr. Bickerstaff's -first-personal lucubrations. However that may be, much of the best -reading in both _Tatler_ and _Spectator_ is held in the letters -supposed to be written to the man who was supposed to write the whole. -These letters are not mere statements of fact, to serve instead of -Latin quotations as texts for essays. They are imitations, 'liker than -life itself,' of the letters of reality. Each one of them is written -by some individual person whose impress on its writing is so clear -that the letter makes a portrait of himself. Even the cock in Clare -Market has a personality quite his own when he sends Mr. Bickerstaff -a petition. And as for the Quaker; remember how he would have been -described in the old manner, and read this:-- - - 'TO THE MAN CALLED THE SPECTATOR - - 'FRIEND,--Forasmuch as at the Birth of thy Labour, thou didst - promise upon thy Word, that letting alone the Vanities that do - abound, thou wouldest only endeavour to strengthen the crooked - Morals of this our _Babylon_, I gave Credit to thy fair Speeches, - and admitted one of thy Papers every Day, save _Sunday_, into my - House; for the Edification of my Daughter _Tabitha_, and to the End - that _Susanna_, the Wife of my Bosom, might profit thereby. But - alas! my Friend, I find that thou art a Liar, and that the Truth is - not in thee; else why didst thou in a Paper which thou didst lately - put forth, make Mention of those vain Coverings for the Heads of - our Females, which thou lovest to liken unto Tulips, and which are - lately sprung up among us? Nay, why didst thou make Mention of them - in such a Seeming, as if thou didst approve the Invention, insomuch - that my Daughter _Tabitha_ beginneth to wax wanton, and to lust - after these foolish Vanities? Surely thou dost see with the Eyes - of the Flesh. Verily, therefore, unless thou dost speedily amend - and leave off following thine own Imagination, I will leave off - thee.--_Thy Friend as hereafter thou dost demean Thyself_, - - 'HEZEKIAH BROADBRIM.' - -Could anything of the kind be better? It needed only a series of such -letters, consistent to a few characters, and dealing with a succession -of events, to produce a 'Humphry Clinker.' The letters of Matthew -Bramble and his sister, and Lyddy, 'who had a languishing eye and read -romances,' are built no more cunningly than this of Hezekiah. - -[Sir Roger de Coverley--a novel.] - -If I were asked which was the first English novel of character-study, -as I am asking myself now, I should reply, as I reply now, those essays -in the _Spectator_ that are concerned with Sir Roger de Coverley. -Set that little series of pictures in a book by themselves, as has -been done with appropriate and delightful illustrations by Mr. Hugh -Thomson, and in reading them you will find it hard to remember that you -are not enjoying a more than usually leisurely kind of narrative. The -knight is shown to us in different scenes; we watch him at the assizes, -leaning over to the judge to congratulate him on the good weather -his lordship enjoys; we see him smile in greeting of Will Wimble; we -watch him fidget in his seat with impatience of the misdeeds of the -villain in the play; we hear of his death with a tear in our eye that -is a testimony to the completeness and humanity of the portraiture. -If only his love-story were thinly spread throughout the book and not -begun and ended in a chapter, _Sir Roger de Coverley_ would be a novel -indeed. As it is, in that delicate picture of a country gentleman and -country life--for Sir Roger does not stand against a black curtain for -his portraiture, but before his tenants and his friends--we have the -promise of _The Vicar of Wakefield_ and of _Cranford_, and of all that -chaste and tender kind of story-telling that is almost peculiar to our -literature. - -[Johnson and Goldsmith.] - -Johnson and Goldsmith followed the tradition. Even the ponderous Doctor -could step lightly at times, and never so lightly as when he obeyed the -instinct that turns discussion into fiction and essays into sketches. -He too can write his letters, and that from Mrs. Deborah Ginger, -the unfortunate wife of a city wit, is a story in itself. And as for -Goldsmith, he can hardly hold his pen for half a paragraph before it -breaks away from the hard road of ideas and goes merrily along the -bridle-path of mere humanity. His letters from Lien Chi Altangi, that -serious Chinese busied in exposing the follies of the Occident, turn -continually to story-telling. A wise remark will usher in an Eastern -tale, and, not even in the papers of Steele or Addison are the subjects -of characters, like the little beau, who would have been a 'mere -indigent gallant,' magicked so deliciously to life. Finally, he did -with 'The Man in Black' what Addison and Steele could so well have done -with Sir Roger. Fielding and Smollett had written before him, and he -saw that he could follow their art without resigning any of the graces -of the essayist. - -[The later essayists.] - -The eighteenth century saw the absorption of the periodical essayists -into avowed story-telling. Miss Burney left them nothing to do -but to write sketches for chapters that might have appeared in -her books. The essayists who came later could only make beautiful -examples of a form that was already a little old-fashioned, though, -following other suggestions, they experimented in a new direction and -found another art to teach to story-tellers. Leigh Hunt's pair of -early nineteenth-century portraits, 'The Old Gentleman,' and 'The -Old Lady,' betray the family likeness of the character as it was -known to Overbury. Lamb's portrait of Mrs. Battle is nearer modern -story-telling. He does not let us into more than one of Sarah Battle's -secrets, but in telling us of her attitude towards the game of whist -he shows us how she looked upon the game of life. We would know her -if we met her, even if she were not seated at the card-table, the -candles unsnuffed, the fire merry on the hearth, and in the faces of -her and her partner and foes the frosty joy of 'the rigour of the -game.' Hazlitt, though he stuck close to his Montaigne, and cared less -to illustrate himself by other people than by his own opinions, gives -us characters too--that noble one of his father!--and his account of -Jack Cavanagh the fives player, and his description of his going down -to see the fight, are splendid passages of biography and narrative. -But the gift of the later essayists to story-telling was the new -art of reverie, and of the description of an event so soaked in the -describer's personality as to be at once an essay and a story. [The art -of reverie.] Few forms are richer in opportunity either for essayist or -story-teller, than that which made possible Lamb's 'Dream Children,' -and in which the child De Quincey, who had been in Hell, could show -us the calamity of three generations of beautiful children, and ask -at last whether death or life were the more terrible, the more to be -feared. It is sufficient to mention the names of Walter Pater and -Mr. Cunninghame Graham to show that some of the finest work of modern -times has been done in this kind of story-telling, and is being so done -to-day. And this art, this most delicate art of suggested narrative, is -it not also--to return, perhaps a little fancifully, to the tragic old -knight's definition--is it not also 'a picture in various colours, all -of them heightned by one shadowing'? Is it not also 'a quicke and soft -touch of many strings, all shutting up in one musicall close'? - - - - -TRANSITION: BUNYAN AND DEFOE - - - - -TRANSITION: BUNYAN AND DEFOE - - -[The old world of fairy tale.] - -THE hundred years between the Elizabethan romancers and the English -novelists was not a period of great story-telling like the fifty that -were to follow it, or the first half of the nineteenth century. It -is of interest here mainly because it witnessed a complete change of -audience, the gradual transition of all the arts from a light-hearted -and credulous old world to a careful and common-sense new one. The -change is made very clear by a comparison of the stories popular before -and after. - -Robert Burton gives us a fairly accurate notion of the story-telling -of the first quarter of the century, in a paragraph of _The Anatomy -of Melancholy_. He is referring to spoken tales, but his description -applies quite as well to tales in print. 'The ordinary recreations -which we have in winter, and in the most solitarie times busie our -minds with, are cards, tables and dice ... merry tales of errant -knights, queens, lovers, lords, ladies, giants, dwarfs, theeves, -cheaters, witches, fayries, goblins, friers, etc., such as the old -woman told Psyche in Apuleius, Bocace novels, and the rest, _quarum -auditione pueri delectantur, senes narratione_, which some delight to -hear, some to tell, all are well pleased with.' In short, the material -of Shakespeare's plays, of Spenser's _Faërie Queene_, of the early -rogue books, and of the tales imitated from Italy and antiquity by -Greene and Lodge and Pettie. - -[A more sober spirit.] - -By 1640 things had already changed a little. James Mabbe, the quaint -flavour of whose Tudor style, endearing as the moss on an old house, -reminds us that he published his translation of six of the _Exemplary -Novels_ before Cervantes had been dead for a quarter of a century, -felt that he had to apologise for them to the more sober spirit of the -time. 'Your wisest and learnedst Men,' he writes, 'both in Church and -Common-weale, will sometimes leave off their more serious discourses, -and entertain themselves with matters of harmelesse Merriment and -Disports. Such are these stories I present unto your view. I will -not promise any great profit you shall reape by reading them, but I -promise they will be pleasing and delightful, the Sceane is so often -varied, the Passages are so pretty, the Accidents so strange, and in -the end wrought to so happy a Conclusion.' That marks very neatly the -mid-seventeenth-century attitude towards the art. It was not impossible -that the simple unascetic humanity of Cervantes would be taken amiss -by these people who were stirred by the forces that were producing a -Cromwell and a Bunyan, a Commonwealth and a _Pilgrim's Progress_. -Only, in contradiction to this, the translator could make a confident -appeal to a Pepysian delight in pretty passages, strange accidents, -and happy conclusions--a delight only different from that of the -Elizabethans in its anxiety to be able to write 'harmelesse' when it -had enjoyed them. - -[Illustration: JOHN BUNYAN] - -[Bunyan's world.] - -Before the _Pilgrim's Progress_ was written there had come to be -two parties in the audience: one with an epicurean delight in loose -living, and one whose care was for a stern decency that postponed all -flamboyance to a future life. The men of the first party flung their -roses the more joyously for their antagonism to the sober black of -the others, and were all the merrier for the thought that most of the -community held them damned, although, when Bunyan wrote, theirs was -the outward victory. Consciences were violently stirred, and so were -either hardened absolutely, or else unmistakably alive. If you were -good you were very very good, and if you were bad you were horrid, -like the little girl in the rhyme. There had been revolutions and -counter-revolutions; and likes and dislikes were pretty strongly -marked, because men had had to fight for them. - -Bunyan's business was the description of a pilgrim's progress through -a world thus vividly good and bad. His choice of allegory as a method -allowed him to illustrate at the same time the earnestness of his times -and their extraordinary clarity of sensation. It was a form ready to -his hand. The authorised version of the Bible, published in 1611, its -English retaining the savour of a style then out of date, formed at -once his writing and his method, as it constituted his education. 'My -Bible and Concordance are my only library in my writings.' And, himself -a minor prophet, he could quote from Hosea: 'I have used similitudes.' - -[The justification of allegory.] - -Bunyan's use of them was very different from Spenser's. Hazlitt said -of _The Faërie Queene_ that, if you left the allegory alone, it would -leave you; and his advice may be safely followed. It is not so with -Bunyan, and his allegory must be defended in another manner. It needs -defence, for although it is one of the oldest and pleasantest ways -of producing wisdom-laden stories, it is so easy to use badly that -people have become a little out of patience with it. We remember the -far-fetched explanations tagged on to the _Gesta Romanorum_, and refuse -any longer to be fobbed off with puzzles that are easy to make and hard -to solve. We demand that a book shall have cost its author at least as -much as it costs us. Allegory is like fantasy, either worthless, or not -to be bought with rubies and precious stones; with anything, in fact, -but blood. When Bunyan writes: - - 'It came from my own heart, so to my head, - And thence into my fingers trickled; - Then to my pen, from whence immediately - On paper I did dribble it daintily,' - -he sets up the one plea that is an absolute justification of his -method; that it is 'dribbled daintily,' and came from the depths of -him. The old monks wrote their stories, and searched their heads for a -meaning. But Bunyan thought for himself, and could not think without -seeing. His heart's talk was in passionate imagery. - -[Bunyan and the early painters.] - -He was the son of a tinker, and a tinker himself, and saw his visions -as clearly as he saw his tin pans. His book is never opalescent with -the shifting colours of a vague mysticism. It is painted in tints as -sharp and bright and simple as Anglo-Saxon words. Bunyan had to throw -himself into no trance in order to watch the pilgrim's arrival at the -New Jerusalem. The Celestial City was as real to him as London, and -there seemed to him no need to describe it in a whisper. His eyes -were as childlike as those of the early painters, who clothed the -builders of the Tower of Babel in fifteenth-century Italian costume, -put a little bonnet on the head and a flying cloak about the shoulders -of Tobias, and set soft leather boots on the feet of the angel. The -whole of the _Pilgrim's Progress_ is contemporary with Mr. Pepys. 'Now -Christiana, if need was, could play upon the viol, and her daughter -Mercy upon the lute; so, since they were so merry disposed, she played -them a lesson, and Ready-to-halt would dance. So he took Despondency's -daughter, named Much-afraid, by the hand, and to dancing they went -in the road. True, he could not dance without one crutch in his -hand; but, I promise you, he footed it well. Also the girl was to be -commended, for she answered the music handsomely.' It might be Mr. -Pepys himself describing the frolic of some friends. And yet it was -the most natural, righteous thing in the world, since Great Heart had -killed Giant Despair, and Despondency and Much-afraid had just been -freed from the dungeons of Doubting Castle. - -[The Fear of Life.] - -It is characteristic of the English spirit that the greatest national -classic of piety should be written by a man whose relish for life was -in no way blunted by his thoughts of immortality. Bunyan had a fear of -life no less real than his fear of God, and loved both God and life the -better for fearing them. Men set capital letters to the Fear of God, -and there is a Fear of Life no less different from cowardice. Bunyan, -a brave man, imprisoned again and again for his beliefs, and more than -once in imminent danger of hanging, shows in a passage of his _Grace -Abounding_ this Fear of Life in a very glare of light. Bunyan had loved -bell-ringing, and, after he had come to consider it not the occupation -of a man whose profession was so perilous and serious as a Christian's, -he could not help going to the belfry to watch those whose scruples -still allowed them his favourite pastime. - - 'But quickly after, I began to think, "How if one of the bells - should fall?" Then I chose to stand under a main beam, that lay - athwart the steeple from side to side, thinking here I might stand - sure; but then I thought again, should the bell fall with a swing, - it might first hit the wall, and then rebounding upon me, might - kill me for all this beam. This made me stand in the steeple door; - and now thought I, I am safe enough, for if a bell should then - fall, I can slip out behind these thick walls, and so be preserved - notwithstanding. So after this I would yet go to see them ring, - but would not go any further than the steeple door; but then it - came into my head, 'How if the steeple itself should fall?' And - the thought (it may, for aught I know, when I stood and looked - on) did continually so shake my mind, that I durst not stand at - the steeple-door any longer, but was forced to flee, for fear the - steeple should fall upon my head.' - -A man who felt as vividly as that, and was as stout as Bunyan, taking -existence as he would take a nettle, took it with a grip as firm as -that of love, and loved and feared his life as he loved and feared -his God. He knew that brightness and clarity of sensation desired by -Stendhal when he wrote, 'The perfection of civilisation would be to -combine all the delicate pleasures of the nineteenth century with the -more frequent presence of danger.' Life was very actual to him, and -so, in this account of a pious dream, we find the clearest prophecy of -that sense for reality that distinguishes the novels of the eighteenth -century. The _Pilgrim's Progress_ was the first great story of that -series of books that was to paint the English character in the eyes of -the world. - -[Facts.] - -A fact is something very like an Englishman. It is a thing complete in -itself, and satisfactory on that account. There is no vanity about a -fact, and, as a people, we hate showing off. I can think of no other -nation as hungry for fact as ours, none with a book that corresponds -to the _Newgate Calendar_ and has been so popular, none with a book of -spiritual adventure so actual as the _Pilgrims Progress_, none with a -book of bodily adventure comparable with _Robinson Crusoe_. Defoe and -Bunyan stand for the plain facts of religion and existence, in both of -which they found so English a delight. - -[The instinct for verisimilitude.] - -Bunyan's book is an account of a dream. It is not a frank fairy tale -demanding a certain licence of nature to make possible its supernatural -events. Like the _Romance of the Rose_, unlike the _Faërie Queene_, it -takes its licence in its first sentence--'As I slept, I dreamed'--and -is able thenceforth to be as miraculous as it pleases without much loss -of credibility, since miracle, if not consistency and continuity, is of -the very element of a dream. It was an instinct for reality that made -Bunyan give his story such a setting. Giants and dwarfs could no longer -be jostled with thieves and cheaters as when Burton wrote. And Defoe, -writing another forty years later, shows this same instinct for reality -very much more conscientiously developed. - -[Illustration: DANIEL DEFOE] - -With an imagination scarcely less opulent than Bunyan's, Defoe, -if he had described a dream, would have managed somehow to make it -as short-winded and inconsequent as a real one. He was in love with -verisimilitude, and delighted in facts for their own sakes. 'To read -Defoe,' wrote Charles Lamb, 'is like hearing evidence in a Court of -Justice.' No compliment could have pleased him better. - -[Lamb and Defoe.] - -The letter in which Lamb paid it him was written at the East India -House, immediately after the labour of entering the accounts of a tea -sale. Careless as it is, it contains a criticism of Defoe's books that -goes to the root of his method. Here is its kernel. 'The author,' -writes Lamb, 'never appears in these self-narratives (for so they ought -to be called, or rather, autobiographies), but the _narrator_ chains us -down to an implicit belief in everything he says.' (It is interesting -to notice that Defoe, a very early realist, obeyed the spirit of -Flaubert's maxim, that a writer should be everywhere invisible in his -work, and that his books should, so to speak, tell themselves.) 'There -is all the minute detail of a log-book in it. Dates are painfully -impressed upon the memory. Facts are repeated over and over in varying -phases, till you cannot choose but believe them.' Then follows the -sentence already quoted. Lamb goes on: 'So anxious the story-teller -seems that the truth should be clearly comprehended, that when he has -told us a matter of fact or a motive in a line or two farther down he -repeats it, with his favourite figure of speech, 'I say,' so and so, -though he had made it abundantly plain before. This is an imitation of -the common people's way of speaking, or rather of the way in which they -are addressed by a master or mistress, who wishes to impress something -on their memories, and has a wonderful effect upon matter-of-fact -readers.' - -[The new world of matter-of-fact.] - -There is little to add to that, though Lamb 'had not looked into -them latterly,' or he would have noticed in Defoe's books, with his -quick eye for such things, Defoe's wary way with anything that seems -to him at all incredible. In _The Journal of the Plague Year_, for -example, none of the more dramatic anecdotes are vouched for by the -writer. He heard them from some one else, did not see them with his -own eyes, finds them hard to believe, and so rivets the belief of his -readers. We shall observe in discussing Hawthorne the more advanced -possibilities of this ingenious trick. The best books of Defoe's -are rogue novels, and in none of them was he content with a merely -literary reality. His heroes are as solid as ordinary men, or more so. -The figure of Selkirk shrinks away like a faint shadow behind that of -Crusoe, whose imaginary adventures his own had suggested, and there -can be no doubt in anybody's mind as to which of the two is the more -credible. And then there is that style of his, homelier even than -Bunyan's, though less markedly so, since he is describing homelier -things. There is no Euphuism here; Defoe was not the man to deal in -gossamers. The essayist's delicacy of line had not yet been given to -the story-tellers, and Defoe was not the man to deal with silver point. -His style is as simple and effective as a bricklayer's hod. He carries -facts in it, and builds with them alone. The resulting books are like -solid Queen Anne houses. There is no affectation about them; they are -not decorated with carving; but they are very good for 'matter-of-fact -readers' to live in. Matter-of-fact readers made Defoe's audience, and -the hundred years since Burton wrote had made a matter-of-fact English -nation out of the credulous Elizabethans. The eighteenth century opens -with this note. The tales the old woman told Psyche have been blown -away like dead leaves into heaps for the children to play in, and -grown-up people, serious now, have done with fairy tale and are ready -for the English novel. - - - - -RICHARDSON AND THE FEMININE NOVEL - - - - -RICHARDSON AND THE FEMININE NOVEL - - -[For women by women.] - -EUPHUES had addressed a dedication to the 'Ladies and Gentlewomen -of England,' and had said openly that he would rather lie shut in -a tiring closet than open in a study; but, writing for women as he -did, he never tried to write as if he were himself a woman. On the -contrary, Lyly's attitude was that of the gallant. The Elizabethan -romancers who followed him were read by women but content to be men. -Mrs. Behn, whose 'weltering sewerage' we have not had space to discuss, -wrote for women, but certainly not less coarsely than if she had been -writing for her own heroes. It was not until the eighteenth century -that there was fairly launched a new story-telling, characteristically -English in origin, without the fine careless heroism and improbability -of romance, that it held was 'calculated for amusement only,' and -different also from the mischievous realism of the picaresque. These -ships, with their gallant scarlet and gold pennons, and their merry -skull and cross-bones, had been long afloat before there came to join -them a white barge with a lily at the prow and on her decks girls in -white dresses, with their heads close together telling stories to each -other. The author of a tale had hitherto been either a man, a god, or -a rascal; he had never been content to be a girl. And the first of the -new craftswomen was a fat and solid little printer and alderman of the -City of London, called Samuel Richardson. - -[Samuel Richardson.] - -Richardson was an author of a kind quite new to English -letters--neither a great gentleman like Sidney, nor a roisterer like -Greene, nor a fanatic preacher like Bunyan, nor a journalist like -Defoe; just a quiet, conscientious, little business man, who, after a -duteous apprenticeship, had married his master's daughter like a proper -Whittington, and, when she died, had married again, with admirable -judgment in each case. It is not every one who can marry two wives and -be unhappy with neither. As a boy, he had written love-letters for -young women who were shy of their abilities. Girlish in his youth, he -had preferred the tea-table to the tavern. Surrounded by women in his -manhood, he was a grotesque little figure of a man, as inquisitive as -an old maid, as serious over detail as a village gossip; walking in the -Park, and looking at the feet of the women he met, and, as they passed -him, quickly scanning their faces, and saying to himself, 'that kind -of person,' or 'this kind of person,' and then going on to observe and -summarise the next. He was accustomed, like a Japanese draughtsman, or -a woman in a theatre, to complete and instantaneous observation. -His was just the mind to show women what they could do; and this, with -their constant applause and help, he did. - -[Illustration: SAMUEL RICHARDSON] - -He had a lifetime of feminine society behind him when he was asked -to write a series of letters on 'the useful concerns in common life' -for the guidance of servant-girls, and, setting himself to the task, -produced _Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded_, and then, stepping on from his -success, _Clarissa Harlowe_, and finally the monstrous _Grandison_. -The books were written in a close atmosphere of femininity. 'My -worthy-hearted wife and the young lady who is with us, when I had read -them some part of the story, which I had begun without their knowing -it, used to come into my little closet every night, with--"Have you any -more of Pamela, Mr. R.? We are come to hear a little more of Pamela."' -Every letter of Clarissa's was canvassed by the tea-parties that wept -and trembled for her fate, and worshipped her proud little creator. -And all his friends contributed their ideas of the perfect man to the -making of Sir Charles Grandison. No author had ever written so before. - -[The novel by post.] - -I believe that the femininity of the resulting books was due to his -choice of the epistolary method as well as to his own temperament, and -his enviable opportunities of studying the character of the audience -at which he aimed. If he had not happened upon it, if he had tried -to tell his stories in the manner fashionable at the time, they would -but have been exaggerations and amplifications of tales that Steele -would have put most comfortably into a single number of _The Tatler_ -or _Spectator_. If he had used the autobiographical form he would have -been prohibited from much of his detail, and all the effect of lighting -his subject from several points of view. But letters were so new in -story-telling that they helped him to be new himself, just as a new -and unusual fashion of coat helps a man to be militantly original, -within as well as without. And then letters, always describing events -that have scarcely happened, excuse the most unlimited detail, the -most elaborately particularised gossip or confession. Letters were the -perfect medium for the expression of the feminine mind. - -I do not deny that there are disadvantages in the novel by post, -that concerns many characters in elaborate play. Richardson has, for -example, to keep his corresponding couples, naughty Lovelace and -uneasy Belford, Clarissa and the giddy Miss Howe, dodging apart again -and again for the purpose of exchanging letters. We are tortured by -Pamela's efforts for the good of her story, her letters sandwiched -between tiles and buried in earth, the incredible agility of her -postman John, and the forethought and luck that enables her to provide -herself with ink and paper in the most impossible circumstances. And -when Mr. Belford writes of Clarissa, 'there never was a woman so young -who wrote so much and with such celerity,' we look at the huge volumes -and find it easy to believe him. When we hear that 'Her thoughts -keeping pace with her pen she hardly ever stopped or hesitated, and -very seldom blotted out or altered,' we reflect that she certainly -had not the time. And when later we are told that 'Last night, for -the first time since Monday last, she got to her pen and ink; but -she pursues her writing with such eagerness and hurry as show her -discomposure,' we cannot help smiling to think how very advantageous -such discomposure must be to Mr. Richardson, who is to edit the -correspondence. There is this difficulty of credibility, and also -occasional even more obvious awkwardnesses, as when the characters, -always very obliging to their creator, have to enclose copies of -letters that would not otherwise have got into print. - -[Richardson does not attempt illusion.] - -On the other hand, we cannot count these as serious blemishes on a -form of art so far removed from any attempt at illusion. There is in -Richardson's novels no sort of visualised presentment of life. We see -his principal characters through little panes of glass over their -hearts, and in no other way. I cannot for the life of me imagine what -Clarissa really looked like, but I know well enough what she thought. -Spasmodic reminders of Pamela's abstract prettiness produce little -but an impatient desire to see a portrait. I remember but one glimpse -of her, and that is in the first volume, when she has dressed herself -up in her new homespun clothes, dangles a straw hat by its two blue -strings, and looks at herself in the looking-glass. There comes an -expression a little later, 'a pretty neat damsel,' and again, 'a tight -prim lass,' and I think that the ghost of a little girl shows in the -looking-glass, but only for a moment, like the reflection of a bird -flying over a pool of water. Richardson's characters are decreasingly -real from their hearts outwards. They have no feet. But their hearts -are so beautifully exhibited that we cannot ask for anything else. -To quarrel over them with Richardson is like quarrelling with the -delightful Euclid because no one has ever been able to draw a straight -line that should really be length without breadth. Such a line does -not exist outside his books, yet Euclid is all in the right when he -talks of geometry. Pamela and Clarissa do not exist outside their -propositions, yet Johnson, talking fairly honestly, was able to say -that there was more knowledge of the human heart in a letter of -Richardson's than in all _Tom Jones_. - -[The passion for respectability.] - -It is knowledge of the human heart from the girl's point of view--the -unromantic girl, for Richardson could never bring himself to believe -in great passions. He would never have used as the text of a novel -that sentence from the New Testament that has inspired so many later -story-tellers: 'Her sins are forgiven her because she loved much.' -Richardson's only passion is one not usually so called, and that is -a passion for respectability. The desire for respectability, for her -children's sake if not for her own, is part of every woman's armour -in the battle of this world. In Richardson's two best novels it is -something far more than this, an obsession that love cannot conquer nor -goodness override. In Clarissa it is so Quixotic, so forlorn a hope -as to be noble; but Pamela's respectability is a little disgusting. -What, after all, is Pamela's story but the tale of a servant-girl -who declaims continually about her honesty, writes foolish verse -about it, lets her head fall on her master's shoulder, and refuses to -be his except as his wife? She is quite right, of course, and most -estimable. But her affronted virtue does not seem much more than a -practical commercial asset, when she successfully marries the man who -by every means in his power has sought to destroy it. Clarissa, on -the other hand, has nothing to gain, nothing even to retain, except -her self-respect. The respect of Howes, Belfords, and Harlowes could -weigh but little with a being lifted from ordinary Philistine life -into a conflict as unworldly as hers. She has the ivory dignity of -some flowers, and the curious power of the book that traces her -misfortunes is due to the spectacle of so flowerlike and fragile a -being engaged in a struggle so terribly unequal. The struggle itself -could hardly have been imagined by a wholly masculine writer. It is -a kind of elaborate proposition, not a picture of life. It is like a -chess problem in which we know that white mates in two moves, and are -interested only in seeing how he does it. In Richardson, as in Euclid, -we know always what is coming. Our artistic pleasure is in the logic -and sequence of the intervening steps. If you expect a theorem to turn -into a problem or _vice versâ_, the inevitability of Richardson annoys -you; but if you read him in the right spirit that quality is your chief -delight. - -It is interesting to notice that Richardson, inventing girls' theorems, -is unable to draw a hero in whom a man can believe. Lovelace, for -example, is touched in in a way that makes women fall in love with -him, but men feel for cobwebs in the air. Pamela's master is frankly -incredible. And it is no bad illustration of Richardson's femininity -that Charles Grandison, planned as the perfect man, has been found -unbearable in the smoking-room, insipid at the tea-table, and has -probably had no conquests but a few Georgian ladies'-maids. But the -women, abstractions, algebraical formulæ, as they are, let us into -secrets of the machinery of a woman's mind that no earlier novelist had -been able to examine. - -[Richardson's influence.] - -Richardson's precise, intimate, feminine knowledge of women and -feminine method of writing had a wider influence than that we are -tracing in this chapter. He showed story-tellers a new world to conquer -and quite unexplored possibilities in the telling of a tale. It was -for this that he was translated by the Abbé Prévost, the Jesuit, -soldier, priest and novelist, who wrote in _Manon Lescaut_ of a passion -greater and more self-sacrificing than any that had come in the way of -the little printer of Salisbury Court. And when St. Preux and Julie -exchange those letters that brought a new freedom of sentiment into -literature, Rousseau, who taught them how to write, had himself been -taught by Richardson. - -[Illustration: FANNY BURNEY] - -[Fanny Burney.] - -I do not intend any detailed portraiture of the later writers of the -feminine novel, but only in a brief mention of two of them to suggest -the course they took in the development of their art, until in the -nineteenth century it combined with and became indistinguishable from -the masculine novel that held it at first in a not lightly to be -reconciled hostility. Let us look along the bookshelf for a volume -called _Evelina, or the History of a Young Lady's Entrance into the -World_. Thirty years had passed between the publication of _Clarissa_ -and that of Fanny Burney's best book, and in those years Fielding and -Smollett had written, and _Humphry Clinker_ had shown that it was -possible to describe in letters other things than a series of attacks -on the armour of respectability. Fanny Burney took more material -with a lighter hand, stealing away the business of _The Tatler_, _The -Spectator_, _The Citizen of the World_, and trying not only to 'draw -characters from nature' but also to 'mark the manners of the time.' -She had learnt from a diligent perusal of Richardson, avoided a too -elaborate postal system, and made her butterfly task the easier by -writing of herself, whereas he had to invent the Clarissas and Pamelas -of his more bee-like labours. - -[Young lady's 'manners.'] - -Fanny Burney was the daughter of a popular music-master, whose house -was always full of all sorts of people, so that she had the best of -opportunities for observing that surface of life which she was able so -incomparably to reproduce. She was able to see manners in contrast. Now -'manners' described by a man in a coffee-house--by Steele, for example, -or Goldsmith, mean the habits and foibles of contemporary society. -'Manners' 'marked' at a young lady's rosewood desk mean vulgarity and -its opposite, and the various shades between the two. In the essayist's -eyes, manners were simply manners, to be described each one for its -own sake. The feminine novelist found manners either good or bad, and -was concerned with the tracing of a gossamer thread of distinction. -The story of Evelina is not so much that of her love-affair with Lord -Orville, but of the suffering or satisfaction of a sensitive person -exposed alternately to atmospheres of bad manners or good. Evelina -threads her way shyly along the border-line, and illustrates both -sides by their effects upon her happiness. We are sorrier for her when -she hears Miss Branghton cry out joyfully, 'Miss is going to marry a -Lord,' than when she is in more serious trouble over her acknowledgment -by her father. All the minor characters for whom the story makes a -frame are set there as types less of character than of behaviour. -There is Mrs. Selwyn with her habit of 'setting down' young men, and -her characteristic praise of Lord Orville, 'there must have been -some mistake about the birth of that young man; he was, undoubtedly, -designed for the last age; for he is really polite.' There is Captain -Mirvan, representing good birth and brutality of manners; Madame Duval, -low birth seeking to veil itself in lofty affectation; the Branghtons, -frank vulgarity; Mr. Smith, the tinsel gentility of the Holborn beau. -Each character is in the book in order to inflict its peculiar type -of manners on the heroine, so that we may watch the result. Evelina -herself, delicious as she is, is given to us as a touchstone between -good breeding and vulgarity. - -[Feminine standards of delicacy.] - -Miss Burney marks very clearly the introduction of the feminine -standards of delicacy that were to rule the English novel of the -nineteenth century. Evelina's criticism of _Love for Love_, written -less than a hundred years before she saw it, distinguishes honestly -between her own point of view and that of the best of men. 'Though it -(the play) was fraught with wit and entertainment, I hope I shall never -see it represented again; for it is so extremely indelicate--to use -the softest word I can--that Miss Mirvan and I were perpetually out of -countenance, and could neither make any observations ourselves, nor -venture to listen to those of others. This was the more provoking, as -Lord Orville was in excellent spirits, and exceedingly entertaining.' - -[Illustration: JANE AUSTEN] - -[Jane Austen.] - -Twenty years after _Evelina_, the novel of femininity took a further -step in technique and breadth of design. Miss Austen, who in the last -decade of the eighteenth century was writing the novels that were not -to be published till after the first decade of the nineteenth, learnt -from both her precursors. She was a proper follower of Richardson, but -dispensed altogether with the artifice of letters, although the whole -of her work is so intimate and particular in expression that it would -almost seem to be written in a letter to the reader.[7] Like Miss -Burney she had read the masculine novels of an ordinary life, whose -strings were not so finely stretched as those of life in the books of -the sentimental little printer; she had read Fielding and Smollett and -the Essayists, and Miss Burney herself, but she carried the satire -she had learnt from them deeper than Miss Burney's criticism of well -or ill-bred manners. She deals more directly with existence. Miss -Burney with lovable skill made her puppets play her game. Miss Austen's -puppets played a game of their own. She remarked before writing _Emma_, -'I am going to take a heroine whom no one but myself will much like,' -exactly as if she were a little girl rather capriciously choosing a -new plaything. But Emma, once chosen, illustrates no special theorem, -and is compelled to tread no tight-rope over the abyss of vulgarity. -Miss Austen's world has the vitality of independent life, and is yet -close under observation, like society in a doll's house. Her people are -alive and real, and yet so small that she found it easy to see round -them and be amused. Indeed, she grew so accustomed to laughing at them -that she came to include the reader in her play. I am not sure if it -would not be wise for any one who found a page of hers a little dull -or incomprehensible, to consider very carefully and seriously if she -is not being mischievous enough and insolent enough to win her silvery -laugh from his own self. To read her is like being in the room with an -unscrupulously witty woman; it is delightful, but more than a trifle -dangerous. - -[The analysis of the heart.] - -But Miss Austen's satire is not so important as the clear, keen sight -that made it possible. The feminine novel finds its justification -and characteristic in the quick light gossiping knowledge of Miss -Burney, in Miss Austen's bric-à-brac of observation, in Richardson's -topographical accuracy among the hidden alleys and byways of the -heart. Its tenderness of detail is its most valuable contribution to -story-telling, associated though it is with feminine standards of -decency, and the sharp point of feminine raillery. The first of these -concomitants is a gift of doubtful, and certainly not universal, -virtue. The second is no more than a variation, a different-tinted, -other-textured version of the satire of men. But the gift to which -they were attached has made possible some of the finest work of later -artists, in those stories whose absorbing interest is the unravelling -of tangled skeins of intricate psychology. Theirs is a minuteness in -the dissection of the heart quite different from, and indeed hostile -to, the free-and-easy way of men like Fielding and Smollett, and -wherever we meet with this fine and delicate surgery practice we can -trace its ancestry with some assurance to the feminine novel of the -eighteenth century. - - - - -FIELDING, SMOLLETT, AND THE MASCULINE NOVEL - - - - -FIELDING, SMOLLETT, AND THE MASCULINE NOVEL - - -[The English Renaissance.] - -I HAVE always felt that the English Renaissance was considerably later -than that of France or Italy, and happened in the eighteenth century. -When we speak of the Italian or the French Renaissance we mean the -times in the histories of Italy or France when the peculiar genius -of each of these countries showed the most energetic and satisfying -efflorescence. In Italy and in France this time was that of the revival -of classical learning, when Boccaccio lectured on Dante at Florence -and Ronsard gardened and rhymed. In England, although from the time -of Chaucer to the time of Shakespeare we were picking continental -flowers, and flowering ourselves individually and gorgeously, yet we -had no general efflorescence in our national right, no sudden and -complete self-portraiture in several arts at once. And this in the -eighteenth century was what we had. All our national characteristics -were unashamedly on view. Our solidity, our care for matter of fact, -our love of oversea adventure, were exhibited in Defoe. Our sturdy -spirituality had only recently found expression in Bunyan. Richardson -discovered the young person who, rustling her petticoats, sits with -so demure an air of permanence on Victorian literature, and represents -indeed so real a part of our national character that we shall never be -able to forget her blushes altogether. Our serious turn for morality -showed itself at once in the aims all our authors professed, and in the -pictures of Hogarth who, with courage unknown elsewhere, dared to paint -ugliness as ugly. This is the century that represents us in the eyes -of the world. If we would think of the Italian spirit we remember the -_Decameron_; if of the French, we remember Ronsard's 'Mignonne, allons -voir si la rose,' or Marot's 'Mignonne, je vous donne le bon jour.' -But if a Frenchman tries to describe an Englishman his model is not a -Chaucer but a Jean Bull, and the only adequate portraits of Jean Bull -are to be found in the novels of Fielding and Smollett. - -[Illustration: HENRY FIELDING] - -[Two points of view.] - -Out of this general efflorescence were to spring two branches of -story-telling different and hostile from the start. The novel was -given sex. Richardson had scarcely invented the feminine novel before -Fielding and Smollett were at work producing books of a masculinity -correspondingly pronounced. Fielding was the first to mark the -difference, and Richardson to the end of his life hated him for writing -_Joseph Andrews_. It often happens that one philosopher hates another -whose system though less elaborate is obviously founded on a broader -basis than his own. Fielding could afford to laugh at Richardson, but -Richardson could never laugh at Fielding. He could only enjoy the -lesser satisfaction of holding his rival accursed. Their upbringings -had been as different as the resulting books. Eton, law studies at -Leyden and the Middle Temple, were a different training for the art of -story-telling than the Dick Whittington youth of the little business -man. Richardson saw the game of life from the outside. Harry Fielding -knew the rough and tumble. Richardson was all for virtue; so was -Fielding, but, as he would have put it himself, for virtue that is -virtue. Virtue at the expense of nature he could no more understand -than Benvenuto Cellini, who, if the facts in the case of Pamela had -been set before him, would have thought her a devilish artful young -woman, and, if he had met her, congratulated her upon her capture. -Fielding had a short, rough and ready creed, and that was that a good -heart goes farther than a capful of piety towards keeping the world a -habitable place. - -[_Pamela_ and _Joseph Andrews_.] - -_Pamela_ made him laugh. He wanted to make money by writing, so he sat -down to put the laugh on paper, with the ultimate notion of filling -his pocket by publishing a squib. He set out to parody Pamela in the -person of her brother Mr. Joseph Andrews. He had not gone very far in -the performance before Parson Adams came into the story, and became -so prodigiously delightful that it occurred to Fielding that he had -here as admirable a couple for adventure as Cervantes himself could -have wished, with the result that Mr. Andrews' correspondence does -not compare at all favourably with his sister's, while his biography -is infinitely more entertaining. When the book was done, its creator -printed on the title-page: 'Written in imitation of the Manner of -Cervantes, Author of Don Quixote,' made no very particular reference -to his original purpose, and described his book as 'A Comic Epic in -Prose.' The masculine novel was on its way. Like _Don Quixote_ or -_Le Roman Comique_ it represented a smiling move towards reality, or -the criticism of reality, in Fielding's hands through the high and -difficult art of ridicule, in the hands of Smollett, whose first book -was published six years later, through the easier art of caricature. - -These two men between them made the masculine novel of the eighteenth -century. Its scope and character are best mapped out by a study -of their respective lives, which were sufficiently unlike to make -their books almost as different from each other's as they were from -Richardson's. - -[Fielding and Smollett.] - -They both looked on man as man, a simple creature seldom wholly bad. -They were not the fellows to tolerate humbug about platonic love, -or the soul, or religion. Religion meant the Established Church, -and a parson was a man, good or bad, a representative of the State -perhaps, but not a representative of God. Love was no opal passion -between Endymion and the moon. It meant desire between man and woman, -as tender as you liked, but still desire. It was as simple a thing as -valour, which meant ability to use the fists and stand fire. Fielding -and Smollett knew a fairly brutal world. But their positions in it -had been different. Fielding had always had his head above water. He -is continually thinking of fair play, and feels, as we do, a thrill -at the heart when he sees Tom Jones and an innkeeper shake hands -after bleeding each other's noses. Smollett had had a harder time. -He had known what it was to be denied the privileges of a gentleman. -He had been in a subordinate position in the navy when that was an -organisation of licensed brutality. He was as accustomed to seeing -men's bodies cross-questioned, as Fielding to reading law-cases and -examining men's minds. He writes always on a more animal level than -Fielding. After every fight he lines up his characters for medical -treatment:-- - - '"'n' well," says he, "'n' how - Are yer arms, 'n' legs, 'n' liver, 'n' lungs, 'n' bones - a-feelin' now?"' - -Fielding only inquires after their hearts. Put their portraits side -by side, and the difference is clear. Fielding's is the face of the -fortunate man who has had his bad times and come smiling through; -Smollett's that of the man not bruised but permanently scarred by the -experiences he has suffered. An old sailor once said to me that you -can judge of the roughness of a man's employment by the coarseness of -his language; those whose work is roughest, using the coarsest words. -Fielding is seldom disgusting. His heroes are constantly putting their -feet into it; but not into unnecessary filth. It is impossible to say -the same of Smollett. - -[Smollett and Le Sage.] - -Their choice of models was characteristic; _Joseph Andrews_ being -written in imitation of the gentle banter of Cervantes, while _Roderick -Random_ copied the more acid satire of Le Sage. Indeed, Le Sage -was not serious enough. 'The disgraces of Gil Blas,' says Smollett -in his preface, 'are for the most part such as rather excite mirth -than compassion; he himself laughs at them; and his transitions from -distress to happiness, or at least ease, are so sudden, that neither -the reader has time to pity him, nor himself to be acquainted with -affliction. This conduct, in my opinion, not only deviates from -probability, but prevents that generous indignation, which ought to -animate the reader against the sordid and vicious disposition of the -world.' That is a moving and very remarkable paragraph. Between those -lines is the memory of more than enough 'acquaintance with affliction,' -and there is something terrible in the assumption, made with such -absolute conviction, that good luck 'deviates from probability.' -Smollett had not known much happiness, and found so light-hearted an -aim as Le Sage's impossible. His own was almost vengeful. 'I have -attempted to represent modest merit struggling with every difficulty to -which a friendless orphan is exposed, from his own want of experience, -as well as from the selfishness, envy, malice, and base indifference of -mankind.' Roderick Random is a rogue and a skunk, but we cannot blame -Tobias Smollett if he did not know it. Random's more objectionable -qualities are those that pull him through his difficulties. A nicer man -would have gone under. The difficulties are at fault for making not -Random but Smollett what he was. - -[The technique of the English novel.] - -The technique of the English novel was more elaborate than that of its -models. Just as _Joseph Andrews_ is more orderly than _Don Quixote_, so -_Roderick Random_ is a step between the pure rogue novel, the string -of adventures only connected by the person of the adventurer, and the -modern novel of definite plot. _Don Quixote_ and _Gil Blas_ could be -cut off anywhere. Their creators had only to kill them. But the curtain -could not be rung down on the adventures of Random or Andrew before -quite a number of different threads had been properly gathered and -explained. There were a few pretty wild coincidences to be discovered. -Rory, Joseph, and Fanny all find their true parents; perhaps but rough -and ready means to give rotundity to a story, but still pleasant -mysteries, to be kept like sweetmeats and dessert as lures for flagging -appetites. The novel had assumed some of the elaborate interest of the -_nouvelle_, as practised by Cervantes and the Elizabethans, and the -influence of the stage perhaps partly accounts for the construction -of the English imitations, more consistent than that of their Spanish -and Franco-Spanish models. The art of play-writing had reached its -period of most scrupulous technique so recently that these two men who -had failed in the theatre were not likely to forget its methods when -experimenting with the more plastic art of narrative. - -[Fielding the better artist.] - -Of the two, Fielding is always the better artist. He is more interested -in his art, more single-minded. He never forgets his duties as a -novelist, and continually turns to the reader, just as if he were a -sculptor executing a difficult piece of work in the presence of an -audience whose admiration he expects. He was ready to laugh at himself -for it too: 'We assure the reader we would rather have suffered half -mankind to be hanged than have saved one contrary to the strictest laws -of unity and probability.' He did not always keep up this admirable -conscientiousness; but he did so more consistently than Smollett. - -The delicacy of their craftsmanship is best compared not in their -greatest books but in those two novels in which they essayed the same -task, the portraiture of a rogue, and a rogue not after the merry -sympathetic fashion of Lazarillo, but one whom the authors themselves -accounted a villain and expected their readers to detest. - -[_Jonathan Wild._] - -The ironic biographer of Jonathan Wild realised the difficulties of -the undertaking. He saw that unless he adopted an attitude which would -make it proper for him always to express approval of his hero, his -readers would begin to cast this way and that, not knowing whether to -sympathise or hate, as the genius of the author or the villainy of the -hero were alternately prominent in their eyes. Accordingly, choosing -the name of a real and famous gallows-bird who had been hung some -twenty years before, Fielding took his tone from those little penny -biographies that used to be hawked among the crowd who waited at Tyburn -to see their hero swing. He ironically takes this tone; and sustains it -without a false note for a couple of hundred pages. How admirably he -uses it:-- - - 'The hero, though he loved the chaste Laetitia with excessive - tenderness, was not of that low snivelling breed of mortals - who, as is generally expressed, _tie themselves to a woman's - apron-strings_; in a word, who are afflicted with that mean, base, - low vice or virtue, as it is called, of constancy.' - -And again in the passage that sums up the book:-- - - 'He laid down several maxims, as the certain means of attaining - greatness, to which, in his own pursuit of it, he constantly - adhered. - - As-- - - 1. Never to do more mischief than was necessary to the effecting - of his purpose; for that mischief was too precious a thing to be - thrown away. - - 2. To know no distinction of men from affection; but to sacrifice - all with equal readiness to his interest. - - 3. Never to communicate more of an affair than was necessary to the - person who was to execute it. - - 4. Not to trust him who hath deceived you, nor who knows he has - been deceived by you. - - 5. To forgive no enemy; but to be cautious and often dilatory in - revenge. - - 6. To shun poverty and distress, and to ally himself as close as - possible to power and riches. - - 7. To maintain a constant gravity in his countenance and behaviour, - and to affect wisdom on all occasions. - - 8. To foment eternal jealousies in his gang, one of another. - - 9. Never to reward any one equal to his merit; but always to - insinuate that the reward was above it. - - 10. That all men were knaves or fools, and much the greater number - a composition of both. - - 11. That a good name, like money, must be parted with or at least - greatly risked, in order to bring the owner any advantage. - - 12. That virtues, like precious stones, were easily counterfeited; - that the counterfeits in both cases adorned the wearer equally; - and that very few had knowledge or discernment sufficient to - distinguish the counterfeit jewels from the real. - - 13. That many men were undone by not going deep enough in roguery; - as in gaming any man may be a loser who doth not play the whole - game. - - 14. That men proclaim their own virtues, as shopkeepers expose - their goods, in order to profit by them. - - 15. That the heart was the proper seat of hatred, and the - countenance of affection and friendship.' - -The whole scheme is worked out with a scrupulous attention to the main -idea, and a consistency of mood that would not have been unworthy one -of the self-conscious artists of a hundred years later. Poe himself -could have built no more skilfully, and, lacking Fielding's knowledge -of rascaldom, the straw for his bricks would not have been so good. - -[_Ferdinand, Count Fathom._] - -Smollett had the knowledge; but, a less perspicuous artist, did not -realise the difficulties of using it. His villain is never frank in his -villainy. Smollett intended from the beginning to disobey Fielding's -principle, meant to save his rogue from the gallows, meant to do it -all along, and was consequently handicapped in making him respectably -wicked. Ferdinand, Count Fathom, does damnable deeds, but his author's -purpose is completely nullified by his promise of eventual conversion. -The book is not true to itself, but fails because Smollett was not -sufficient of an artist to be able to send his hero to hell. - -It is interesting to notice in one of the dullest scenes of this -unsatisfactory book, that Smollett touched for the first time, in a -fumbling, hesitant manner, the note of quasi-supernatural horror that -was soon to be sounded with clarity and almost too facile skill. In the -hero's device for the undoing of Celinda there is the first warning of -the Radcliffes and Lewises and their kind, with their groans upon the -battlements, their figures in white, and their unearthly music in the -wind. Smollett did not wait long enough to find out what could be done -with this new sensation. He jangled the note, and, in his inartistic -way, passed on to paint and to reform the wickedness of the Count. - -[Illustration: TOBIAS SMOLLETT] - -[Smollett the more versatile.] - -I am a little ungracious to Smollett in saying so loud that he was an -artist inferior to Fielding. Inferior he was, but when I set their -best books side by side, I remember that there is little to choose -between the pleasures they have given me, and am compelled to admit -that the less scrupulous Smollett had the wider range. I read _Tom -Jones_ in one sitting of twenty-four hours, and should like to write -an essay on it, but can find no excuse for discussing here that epic -of good-heartedness, since its characteristics are not different from -those already noticed in _Joseph Andrews_. But _Humphry Clinker_ would -have held me for as long if it had had as many pages, and in the -history of the art, has, as an example of the novel in letters, an -interest wholly separate from that of _Roderick Random_, which is a -specimen of the picaresque. When Smollett came to write that book he -was fifty years old and just about to die. He seems to have forgotten -his old feud with life, and to look at things with a kindlier eye -as one just ready to depart. His late-won detachment helped him to -a scheme as clear as one of Fielding's, although even in this he is -sometimes submerged in human nature. His notion was to describe the -same scenes and events simultaneously from several points of view, in -letters from different persons, so as to keep a story moving gently -forward, with half a dozen personalities revolving round it, able to -realise themselves or be realised in their own letters or those of -their friends. In none of his other books are the characters so rounded -and complete. There is Matthew Bramble, the old knight, outwardly -morose and secretly generous; his sister, an old maid determined not to -remain one, for ever grumbling at her brother's generosities; Lyddy, -their romantic niece, and Jerry, their young blood of a nephew; and, as -persons of the counterplot, Mistress Winifred Jenkins and Mary Jones; -not to speak of the ubiquitous Clinker. The letters tell the whole -story, and yet, written long after Richardson's, they have an older -manner. Richardson's letters, with all their passionate reiteration -of detail, do not concern themselves with foibles. They do not make -you smile at their writers, and if you had laughed, as Fielding did, -he would have been prodigiously annoyed. Smollett's letters have the -same aim as the letters of the _Spectator_ or the _Tatler_. They -are different only in less brilliant polish, and in their grouping -round a story. The Humphry Clinker correspondence is as important as -the letters of Clarissa in forming the most delicate and humorous -epistolary style employed by Miss Evelina Anville. - -[The motives of the masculine novel.] - -The extreme difficulty I have experienced throughout this chapter -in thinking of the technique of these novelists, instead of their -material, is a tribute to their power. It is the same with Hogarth. -It is impossible to get at the artist for thinking of the life upon -his canvases. It is almost impossible to consider Fielding or Smollett -as technicians (I have had to do it in their least human books), -for thinking of the England that they represented. And now that I -am looking about for a concluding paragraph on the work of these -two men, when I should be summing up the general characteristics of -their craftsmanship, I look at the pile of their books on the table -before me, and feel a full and comfortable stomach, and cannot get -out of my nose the smell of beer and beef and cheese associated as -closely with their pages as lavender with the pages of _Cranford_. -What an England it was in their day. Mr. Staytape carried Rory 'into -an alehouse, where he called for some beer and bread and cheese, on -which we _breakfasted_.' 'Our landlord and we sat down at a board, and -dined upon a shin of beef most deliciously; our reckoning amounting to -twopence halfpenny each, bread and small beer included.' The bright -glances of Mistress Waters 'hit only a vast piece of beef which he was -carrying into his plate, and harmless spent their force.' Her sighs -were drowned 'by the coarse bubbling of some bottled ale.' Square -meals are the best antidotes for sentiment, and in every scene of -these novelists there is always some one who has fed too recently to -allow any hairsplitting delicacy in the room with him. No confessional -disentangling of emotions, but beer, beef, cheese, a good heart, a -sound skin, and the lack of these things, are the motives of the -masculine novel. - - - A NOTE ON STERNE - - STERNE hardly comes within the scope of this book, since his was - the art, not of telling stories, but of withholding them, not of - keeping things on the move, but of keeping them on the point of - moving. It is not without much difficulty and two or three chapters - that a character of Sterne's crosses the room. The nine books - of _Tristram Shandy_ bring him through the midwife's hands, and - a little further. I believe we hear breeches talked of for him. - Another nine books would perhaps let him put one leg into them. - _Tristram Shandy_ is a continuous denial of the forms that Fielding - and Smollett were doing their best to fix. But it is read by many - who find them superficial, because Sterne writes of universal, - whereas they write of a limited and particular humanity. They - write of a Mr. Jones or a Mr. Random, while the hero of Sterne's - book is man. He begins, as he puts it himself, _ab ovo_. He saw - that the whole of humanity is a constellation revolving round the - birth of a child, and contrived to introduce into his book every - imaginable incident connected with that event. If Tristram Shandy - does not grow up quick enough to take to himself a wife, My Uncle - Toby is taken as a husband by the Widow Wadman. If he does not - die, Yorick does. If My Uncle Toby's affairs do not go far enough - to produce a baby, Tristram is born. In this book, where nothing - seems to happen, everything does. It is the Life and Opinions, not - of Tristram Shandy, but of Humanity, illustrated, not in a single - character over a long period, but in half a dozen over a short one. - For the story of the three generations of the giants, Rabelais - needed land and sea, Paris and Touraine. For the adventures of his - strolling players, Scarron needed a dozen little towns along the - Loire, with inns and châteaux and what not. But for the adventures - of Humanity, Sterne, who learnt from both of them, needed only a - bowling-green, a study, a bedroom, and a parlour. There is really - little else of background to the story. And it is all there; birth, - love, death, and all the sad comedy of man misunderstood, and - fortunate when, like Uncle Toby, he does not try to understand, the - beginning in triviality, and the end in 'Alas, poor Yorick!' - - - - -PART II - -ROMANTICISM - - - - -CHATEAUBRIAND AND ROMANTICISM - - - - -CHATEAUBRIAND AND ROMANTICISM - - -[Chateaubriand and the French Revolution.] - -THERE are some men who seem epitomes of their periods, of all the -weaknesses, strengths, ideals and follies and wisdoms of their times. -All the tangled skeins of different movements seem embroidered into -the pattern of a face; and that face is theirs. We seek in them the -years in which they lived, and are never disappointed. Sir Philip -Sidney means the age of Elizabeth, Dr. Johnson the common-sense English -eighteenth century, Rousseau the stirring of revolutionary France, -Goethe the awakening of Germany. Of these men was Chateaubriand. He -was born before the storm and died after it. He gathered up the best -of the things that were before the revolution, and handed them on to -the men who, when the revolution had left a new France, were to make -that new country the centre of European literature. Rousseau and the -Romantics meet in him. He wrote when France, her eyes still bright and -wide after the sight of blood, was seeking in religion for one thing, -at least, that might be covered by the tossing waves of revolution and -yet survive. Christianity in his finest story is the rock on which -his lovers break themselves. And Christianity was the first earthwork -attacked before the revolution, and the first reoccupied afterwards. - -Chateaubriand stands curiously in the midst of the opposing elements. -Like Byron he was a patrician and a fighter. He too would have died -for freedom. But whereas Byron fought, contemptuously sometimes, for -revolutionaries, Chateaubriand fought against them. - -When some of the ragged ones marched joyously down his street carrying -the heads of two of their enemies bleeding on the ends of pikes, he -cried at them, 'Brigands! Is this what you mean by Liberty?' and -declared that if he had had a gun he would have shot them down like -wolves. And if Chateaubriand had not been an aristocrat, he could never -so well have represented his times. He would have fought and written -as a revolutionist, instead of caring passionately for one party, and -pinning to it the ideals of the other, so claiming both for his own. -Everything that could make him one with his period and country was his. -After a childhood of severe repression, he had seen the fall of the -Bastille, and then sought liberty and the North-West Passage, coming -back from America to find the revolution successful against himself. -Could any man's life be so perfect an analogy of the meteor-like -progress of France? France also sought liberty and a North-West -Passage, quicker than all others; France also was to return and find -the ground aquiver beneath her feet. - -[Illustration: JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU] - -[Jean-Jacques Rousseau.] - -After that she was to be mistress of Europe. The three stages of -Romanticism correspond with these three stages of France; the last that -of Hugo and Gautier and Dumas, the Romanticism of 1830, promised by -that of Chateaubriand, itself made possible by the unrestful writing -of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. It is impossible to understand any one of -the three without referring to the others. Rousseau was the son of a -watchmaker, in a day when superiority of intellect in a man of low -birth won him either neglect or the most insufferable patronage. -His mother died in bearing him, and his father, although he made a -second marriage, never mentioned her without tears. He seems to have -been a very simple-hearted man, and found such pleasure in romances -that he would sit up all night reading them to his little son, going -ashamedly to bed in the morning when the swallows began to call in -the eaves. These two traits in his father are characteristic of the -work of Rousseau himself. His life was spent in emphasising the -compatibility of low birth with lofty animation, and so in preparing -that democratisation of literature that generously attributes humanity -to men who are not gentlemen. Richardson gave him a suitable narrative -form for what he had to say, and _La Nouvelle Héloïse_ is a novel in -letters whose hero is a poor tutor in love with his pupil. The book -is full of an emotional oratory so fresh and sincere that it seems as -if the ice of fifty years of passionless reasoning has suddenly broken -over the springs of the human heart. There is in it too an Ossianic -sharing of feelings with Nature, as if man had realised with the tears -in his eyes that he had not always lived in towns. - -[The world of the Revolution.] - -Chateaubriand had not Rousseau's birthright of handicap. He could not -feel the righteous energy of the watchmaker's son against a people who -did not know their own language and were yet in a position to employ -him as a footman. He was outside that quarrel. He left Rousseau's -social reform behind him on the threshold of his world, but had learnt -from him to carry his heart upon his sleeve, and to cry, like _Ossian_, -'The murmur of thy streams, O Lara! brings back the memory of the past. -The sound of thy woods, Garmallar, is lovely in mine ear.' He took with -him Rousseau's twin worships of passion and nature into the melancholy -turmoil that was waiting for him, sad with an unrest not of classes but -of a nation. He knew, like France, what it was to question everything -while standing firm upon nothing. In that maelstrom nothing seemed -fixed; there was nothing a man might grasp for a moment to keep his -head above the waters of infinite doubt. Everything seemed possible, -and much of the Romantic melancholy is a despairing cry for a little -impossibility from which at least there could be no escape. It is -one thing to question religion by the light of atheism, or atheism by -the light of religion; it is another thing, and far more terrible, to -question both while sure of neither, and to see not one word in all the -universe, not God, nor Man, nor State, nor Church, without a question -mark at its side, a ghastly reminder of uncertainty, like, in some old -engravings, the waiting figure of Death muffled in each man's shadow. - -[_Atala._] - -That was the world of the Revolution, a world whose permanent -instability had been suddenly made manifest by a violent removal of the -apparently stable crust. With the overturning of one mountain every -other shuddered in its bed, and seemed ready at any moment to shake -with crash and groan into the valleys. This was the world for whose -expression the face of Chateaubriand, nervous, passionate, the fire of -vision in his eye, the wind of chaos in his tempestuous hair, seems so -marvellously made. This was the world in which, like the spirit of his -age, he wrote the books the times expected because they were their own. -_Atala_ and _René_, but particularly _Atala_, seemed to be the old, -vague promises of Rousseau and _Ossian_, reaffirmed with the clarity -of a silver trumpet. Chactas and Atala, those savage lovers, who 'took -their way towards the star that never moves, guiding their steps by the -moss on the tree stems,' walked like young deities of light before -these people who had known the half-mummied courtesies of an eighteenth -century civilisation. 'She made him a cloak of the inner bark of the -ash, and mocassins of the musk rat's skin, and he set on her head a -wreath of blue mallows, and on her neck red berries of the azalea, -smiling as he did so to see how fair she was.' The world is young -again, and man has won his way back into Eden, conscious of sorrow, -conscious of evil, but alive and unafraid to be himself. - -[Nature and emotion.] - -Chateaubriand carried further than Rousseau the transfiguration of -nature by emotion, although in _Atala_ nature is still a stage effect, -subjected to its uses as illustration of the feelings of the humans in -the tale. Chateaubriand tunes up the elements with crash of thunder, -bright forked lightning, and fall of mighty tree, to the moment when, -in the supreme crisis the hand of Atala's God intervenes between the -lovers, and the bell of the forest hermitage sounds in the appropriate -silence. But in those vivid, fiery descriptions there is already -something besides the theatrical, a new generosity of sentiment that -was to let Barye make lions and tigers instead of what would once -have been rather impersonal decorations, and to allow Corot to give -landscapes their own personality without always seeking to impose on -them the irrelevant interest of human figures. Nature is never excluded -from the story, and when the action is less urgent the setting is given -a greater freedom. The lovers never meet on a studio background, -but are always seen with trees and rivers, and forest dawn and forest -night, more real than any that had been painted before. Chateaubriand -is never content to call a tree a tree or a bird a bird, but gives them -the dignity of their own names. Aurora no longer rises from her rosy -bed in the approved convention for the dawn, but a bar of gold shapes -itself in the east, the sparrow-hawks call from the rocks, and the -martens retire to the hollows of the elms. - -[Illustration: FRANÇOIS RENÉ DE CHATEAUBRIAND] - -[Particularity in setting.] - -It was through caring for his setting in this way that Chateaubriand -came as if by accident to the discovery of local colour. He wanted -his savages to love in the wilderness, and happening to have seen a -wilderness, reproduced it, and made his savages not merely savages but -Muskogees, fashioned their talk to fit their race, and made it quite -clear that this tale, at any rate, could not be imagined as passing -on the Mountains of the Moon. When the older story-tellers named a -locality they did little more than the Elizabethan stage managers, who -placed a label on the stage and expected it to be sufficient to conjure -up a forest or a battlefield. Chateaubriand, in making his writing -more completely pictorial, visualised his scenes in detail, and so -showed the Romantics the way to that close distinction between country -and country, age and age, race and race, that made the artists of the -nineteenth century richer than any who were before them in variety of -subject, and in the material of self-expression. - -[Christianity.] - -The Christianity of _Atala_ was the religion that Chateaubriand -offered to his country in _Le Génie du Christianisme_. I can never be -quite sure that it was his own, but in that amazing book, divided and -subdivided like an ancient treatise on some occult science, he showed -with passionate use of reasoning and erudition that Christianity was -not the ugly thing that it had been pictured by the eighteenth century -philosophers, and, more, that it at least was older than France, -and permanent in a world where kings, emperors, and republics swung -hither and thither like dead leaves in the wind. The teaching came to -Paris like a gospel. These people, anchorless as they were, were not -difficult converts, because they were eager to be converted, and to be -able, if only for a moment in their lives, to whisper, 'I believe' in -something other than uncertainty. All society became Christian for a -time, and when that time passed, the effects of the book did not all -pass with it. The artists of a younger generation had learned that -Christianity was the belief that had brought most loveliness into the -world, and that the Gods of Antiquity were not the only deities who -were favourable to beautiful things. The false taste of the end of the -eighteenth century had been pierced by Gothic spires, and through the -dull cloud of correct and half-hearted imitation showed again the -pinnacles and gargoyles and flying buttresses of the naïve and trustful -mediæval art. Atala joins hands with Nicolete, and links Victor Hugo -with the builders of Notre Dame. - -[The art of Chateaubriand survives the battle in which it was used.] - -There is little wonder that a writer who answered so fully the needs -of his own generation, and did so much to cut a way for the generation -to come, became instantly famous, immediately execrated. Chateaubriand -wrote: 'La polémique est mon allure naturelle.... Il me faut toujours -un adversaire, n'importe où.' In 1800 he had no difficulty in finding -them. But it takes two to make a quarrel. It would not have been -surprising if books that belonged so absolutely to the battles of their -times should have struck their blows, and been then forgotten for want -of opposition. Manifestations of the time spirit, and particularly -fighting manifestations, not infrequently manifest it only to the -time, and are worthless to future generations. _Atala_, after setting -in an uproar the Paris of 1802 is for us but a beautiful piece of -colour whose pattern has faded away. Unless we can feel with the men -of the dawn that we are tossing on mad waves, clutching at religion -as at a rock beneath the shifting waters, and breathlessly thankful -for any proof of its steadfastness and power: unless we can remember -with them the old love of drawing-rooms and bent knees and kisses on -gloved hands, and feel with them a passionate novelty in the love of -wild things in the open air; unless we can remember the tamed, docile -nature of the pastorals, and open our eyes upon a first view of any -sort of real country; unless, in a word, we can dream back a hundred -years, the beauty of _Atala_ is like that of an old battle-cry:-- - - 'So he cried, as the fight grew thick at the noon, - _Two red roses across the moon_!' - -The cry no longer calls to battle. The combatants are dead. The bugle -sounds to armies of white bones, and we who overhear it think only of -the skill of the trumpeter. And Chateaubriand had something in him -that was independent of his doctrines, independent of his enemies. -Flaubert, looking back to him over the years, saw in his books, when -the dust of their battles settled about them, early examples of a most -scrupulous technique. Chateaubriand the fighter, the man of his time, -was forgotten in the old master of a new prose. These books shaped in -the din of battle were models for men writing in a fat, quiet day of -peace. Then it was possible, the clangour no longer sounding in the -ears, to notice the mastery of form, the elaboration, carried so far -and no further, of the main idea into the significant detail that was -to make the idea alive; then became clear the economy that makes of -every fact a vivid illustration of some trait in the people of the -story, a heightening of the lights or a deepening of the shadows of the -tale. - - - - -SCOTT AND ROMANTICISM - - - - -SCOTT AND ROMANTICISM - - -[Scott's place in the romantic movement.] - -THE genius of a man like Scott does not leap into the world a complete -and novel creation, like Minerva from the skull of Jupiter, ready -for battle, and accoutred in the armour that it never afterwards -forsakes. Nor does it with the strength of its own hand turn one world -into another, or the audience of Fielding and Smollett into that -of the Waverley Novels. The world is prepared for it; it finds its -weapons lying round its cradle, and works its miracle with the world's -co-operation. - -Romanticism, although, in our indolence, we like to think of it as the -work of a single man, as a stream gushing from the hard rock at the -stroke of a Moses, was no conjuring trick, nor sudden invention, but a -force as old as story-telling. The rock had been built gradually over -it, and was as gradually taken away. It suits our convenience and the -pictorial inclination of our minds to imagine it as the work of one man -or two; but there is hardly need to remind ourselves of facts we have -so wilfully forgotten, and that, if we choose, we can trace without -difficulty a more diffuse as well as a more ancient origin of the -spring. - -Romanticism was a movement too large and too various to be defined in -a paragraph, or to allow an essay on any single man to describe, even -in the art of story-telling, its several sources, and the innumerable -streams that flowed from them to fertilise the nineteenth century. -It carried with it liberty and toleration, liberty of expression and -toleration of all kinds of spiritual and physical vitality. It was -comparable with and related to the French Revolution. It allowed men -to see each other in their relations with the universe as well as with -each other, and made existence a thing about which it was possible -to be infinitely curious. Old desires for terror and fantasy and -magnificence arose in the most civilised of minds. Glamour was thrown -over the forest and the palace, and the modern and ancient worlds came -suddenly together, so that all the ages seemed to be contemporary and -all conditions of human life simultaneous and full of promise. - -Scott was a part of this revivified world, and his importance in it -is not that of its inventor, but of the man who brought so many of -its qualities into the art of story-telling that his novels became a -secondary inspiration, and moved men as different as Hugo, Balzac, and -Dumas, to express themselves in narrative. - -[Illustration: SIR WALTER SCOTT] - -[Romanticism before the Waverley Novels.] - -Before the writing of the Waverley Novels, Romanticism in English -narrative had shown itself but a stuttering and one-legged -abortion, remarkable only for its extravagances. It had not, except in -poetry, been humane enough to be literature. It had made only violent -gesticulations like a man shut up in a sack. - -Horace Walpole, protesting, I suppose, against Fielding and Smollett, -had said that the 'great resources of fancy had been dammed up by a -strict adherence to common life,' while the older romances were 'all -imagination and improbability.' He had tried to combine the two in _The -Castle of Otranto_, a book in which portraits sigh and step down from -their canvases, dead hermits reappear as skeletons in sackcloth, and -gigantic ghosts in armour rise to heaven in a clap of thunder. These -eccentricities were efforts after the strangeness of all true romance, -and their instant popularity showed how ready people were for mystery -and ancient tale. Before Scott succeeded in doing what Walpole had -attempted, in writing a tale that should be strange but sane, ancient -but real, a crowd of novels, whose most attractive quality was their -'horridness,' had turned the heads of the young women who read them. -Miss Thorpe, in _Northanger Abbey_, says: - - 'My dearest Catherine, what have you been doing with yourself all - this morning? Have you gone on with _Udolpho_?' - - 'Yes, I have been reading it ever since I woke; and I am got to the - black veil.' - - 'Are you indeed? How delightful! Oh! I would not tell you what is - behind the black veil for the world! Are not you wild to know?' - - 'Oh! yes, quite; what can it be? But do not tell me: I would not - be told upon any account. I know it must be a skeleton; I am sure - it is Laurentina's skeleton. Oh! I am delighted with the book! I - should like to spend my whole life in reading it, I assure you; if - it had not been to meet you, I would not have come away from it for - all the world.' - - 'Dear creature, how much I am obliged to you; and when you have - finished _Udolpho_, we will read the Italian together; and I have - made out a list of ten or twelve more of the same kind for you.' - - 'Have you indeed! How glad I am! What are they all?' - - 'I will read you their names directly; here they are in my - pocket-book. _Castle of Wolfenbach_, _Clermont_, _Mysterious - Warnings_, _Necromancer of the Black Forest_, _Midnight Bell_, - _Orphan of the Rhine_, and _Horrid Mysteries_. These will last us - some time.' - - 'Yes; pretty well; but are they all horrid? Are you sure they are - all horrid?' - - 'Yes, quite sure, for a particular friend of mine, a Miss Andrews, - a sweet girl, one of the sweetest creatures in the world, has read - every one of them. I wish you knew Miss Andrews, you would be - delighted with her. She is netting herself the sweetest cloak you - can imagine.' - -[Percy, _Ossian_, and Chatterton.] - -These things were but the clothes of romantic story-telling, walking -bodiless about the world, while a poetry old enough to be astonishingly -new was nurturing the body that was to stretch them for itself. -Chatterton's ballads, imitations as they were, showed a sudden and -novel feeling for mediæval colouring. _Ossian_, that book of majestic -moments, carried imagination out again to stand between the wind and -the hill. Scott disliked its vagueness, but it helped in preparing his -world. Percy's _Reliques_, excused by their compiler on the frivolous -ground of antiquarian interest, brought the rough voice and rude style -of Sir Philip Sidney's blind beggar ringing across the centuries, and -in those old tales, whose rhymes clash like sword on targe, Scott found -the inspiration that Macpherson's disorderly, splendid flood swept down -on other men. - -[Scott's life.] - -Scott's life was no patchwork but woven on a single loom. He did not -turn suddenly in manhood to discover the colour of his life. It had -been his in babyhood. An old clergyman, a friend of his aunt, protested -that 'one may as well speak in the mouth of a cannon as where that -child is,' while Walter Scott, aged three or four, shouted the ballad -of Hardyknute:-- - - 'And he has ridden o'er muir and moss, - O'er hills and mony a glen, - When he came to a wounded knight - Making a heavy mane. - Here maun I lye, here maun I dye, - By treacherie's false guiles; - Witless I was that e'er gave faith - To wicked woman's smiles.' - -As he grew older, he was able, like Froissart, to 'inquire of the truth -of the deeds of war and adventures' that were to be the background -of much of his work. He knew old Lowland gentlemen who had paid -blackmail to Rob Roy, was told of the '15 and the '45 by veterans who -had used their swords on those occasions, and heard of the executions -after Culloden from one who had seen at Carlisle the rebels' heads -above the Scottish Gate. The warlike knowledge of his childhood was -ripened and mellowed for story-telling by the enthusiasms of his -youth. Riding through the Lowland valleys collecting the border -minstrelsy, his good nature and pleasant way let him learn in a broad -acquaintanceship fashion the character of his countrymen. He had not -Balzac's deep-cutting analytic knowledge of men, but knew them as -a warm-hearted fellow of themselves. He knew them as one man knows -another, and not with the passionately speculative knowledge belonging -to a mind that contemplates them from another world. He did not analyse -them, but wrote of their doings with an unconscious externality that -very much simplified their motives and made them fit participators in -the sportsman-like life of his books. - -[Scott and reality.] - -Ballads and sagas and the historical reading to which they had given -their savour; a free open air life, and a broad, humorous understanding -of men; these were the things that Scott had behind him when Cervantes -moved him to write narrative, and when the gold that shines through -the dress of education in the stories of Maria Edgeworth made him -fall in love with local as well as historical colour, anxious to draw -his nation as she had drawn hers, and to paint Scottish character in -prose as Burns had painted it in verse. The historical character of his -work should not disguise from us its more vital qualities. Hazlitt, -whose keen eye was not to be put out by the gold and pomp of trappings -and armour, notices that Scott represents a return to the real. He -is noticing the most invigorating quality of Romanticism. Scott's -importance is not his because he wrote historical novels, but because -his historical novels were humane. He had found out, as Hazlitt says, -that 'there is no romance like the romance of real life.' - -[His technique.] - -'As for his technique, there is no need to praise him, who had so many -other virtues, for that of delicate craftsmanship, which he had not. -He was not a clever performer, but an honest one whose methods were no -more elaborate than himself. Dumas describes them in that chapter of -the _Histoire de mes Bêtes_ in which he discusses his own:-- - - 'His plan was to be tedious, mortally tedious, often for half a - volume, sometimes for a volume. - - 'But during this volume he posed his characters; during this volume - he made so minute a description of their physiques, characters, and - habits; you learnt so well how they dressed, how they walked, how - they talked, that when, at the beginning of the second volume, one - of these characters found himself in some danger, you exclaimed to - yourself: - - '"What, that poor gentleman in an applegreen coat, who limped as - he walked, and lisped as he talked, how is he going to get out of - that?" - - 'And you were very much astonished, after being bored for half a - volume, a volume, sometimes indeed for a volume and a half; you - were astonished to find that you were enormously concerned for the - gentleman who lisped in talking, limped in walking, and had an - applegreen coat.' - -The sensation of reading a Waverley Novel is that of leaning on the -parapet of a bridge on a summer day, watching the sunlight on a twig -that lies motionless in a backwater. The day is so calm and the -sunlight so pleasant that we continue watching the twig for a time -quite disproportionate to the interest we feel in it, until, when it is -at last carried into the main current, we follow its swirling progress -down the stream, and are no more able to take our eyes from it than if -we were watching the drowning of ourselves. - -[Improvisation.] - -Scott knew very well the disadvantages of improvisation, of piling -up his interest and our own together. But he could work in no other -manner. He said: 'There is one way to give novelty, to depend for -success on the interest of a well contrived story. But, wo's me! that -requires thought, consideration--the writing out of a regular plan or -plot--above all, the adhering to one, which I can never do, for the -ideas rise as I write, and bear such a disproportioned extent to that -which each occupied at the first concoction, that (cocksnowns!) I shall -never be able to take the trouble.' His was a mind entirely different -from Poe's, or Mérimée's, or Flaubert's, those scrupulous technicians -with whom was the future of Romanticism, and it was an artistic virtue -in him to realise the fact, to proceed on his own course, leaving as he -went large, rough, incomparable things, as impressive as the boulder -stones of which the country people say that a giant threw them as he -passed. - -[His character and work.] - -His swift, confused writing gets its effect because he never asked -too much from it. He never tried to do anything with it beyond the -description of his characters and the telling of their story. He -had no need to catch an atmosphere by subtleties of language. His -conception of the beings and life of another age did not make them -different except in externals, from our own. He did not, like Gautier -or Flaubert, regard the past as a miraculous time in which it was -possible to be oneself, or in which true feeling was not veiled in -inexactitudes. Very simple himself, he did not feel in the present -those laxities of sensation or inexactitudes of expression that made -the past a place of refuge. He was not dissatisfied with life as he -found it, and was not disposed to alter it when he dressed it for a -masquerade. Nor was that difficult for him. His mind was full of the -stage properties of the past, and, as he walked about, he lived in any -time he chose and was the same in all of them. He lived with humanity -rather than in any particular half-century, and did not feel, like -Peacock, the need of dainty, careful movement in order not to break the -fabric he was building. _Maid Marian_ is the same story as _Ivanhoe_. -Scott seems to have stepped straight out of his story to write it, -Peacock to be looking a long way back, and building very skilfully -the replica of something he had never seen but in a peculiarly happy -vision. Scott is quite at home in his tale, and can treat it as rudely -as he likes. Peacock seems to be playing very warily on the fragile -keys of a spinet. - -Sir Walter's fingers would have broken a spinet. His was no elaborately -patterned music threaded with the light delicacies of melody. He -struck big chords and used the loud pedal. His was the art of a Wagner -rather than that of a Scarlatti. 'The Big Bow-wow strain,' he wrote, -comparing himself with Jane Austen, 'I can do like any now going; but -the exquisite touch, which renders ordinary commonplace things and -characters interesting, from the truth of the description and the -sentiment, is denied to me.' 'One man can do but one thing. Universal -pretensions end in nothing.' Scott knew that jewellery-work was not -for him, and never tried his eyes by peering through the watchmaker's -glass. He saw life, as a short-sighted man sees a landscape, in its -essentials. He could spread over it what dress of detail he preferred, -and chose that which came readiest to his hand, flinging over humanity -the cloak of his boyish dreams. Humanity was not hampered by it, but -moves through his pages like a stout wind over a northern moor. - - - - -THE ROMANTICISM OF 1830 - - - - -THE ROMANTICISM OF 1830 - - -[The mingling of the arts.] - -DUMAS in _La Femme au Collier de Velours_ thus describes Hoffmann's -room: 'It was the room of a genius at once capricious and picturesque, -for it had the air of a studio, a music-shop, and a study, all -together. There was a palette, brushes, and an easel, and on the easel -the beginnings of a sketch. There was a guitar, a violin, and a piano, -and on the piano an open sonata. There was pen, ink, and paper, and on -the paper the first scrawled lines of a ballad. Along the walls were -bows, arrows, and arbalests of the fifteenth century, sixteenth-century -drawings, seventeenth-century musical instruments, chests of all -times, tankards of all shapes, jugs of all kinds, and, lastly, glass -necklaces, feather fans, stuffed lizards, dried flowers, a whole world -of things, but a whole world not worth twenty-five silver thalers.' - -That account, whether from hearsay, conjecture, or knowledge, I do -not know, is not only an admirable portrait of the room and brain of -an arch-romantic, but might serve as a parable of the Romanticism -of 1830. In that year Hugo's _Hernani_ was produced at the Comédie -Française, and the young men who battled with the Philistines for its -success were drawn from the studios as well as from the libraries, -and had their David in Théophile Gautier. Never before had the arts -been so inextricably entangled, had antiquarianism been so lively and -humane, had gems and worthless baubles been so confounded together. -Chateaubriand had reaffirmed the pictorial rights of literature. -Delacroix was painting pictures from Byron and from Dante, in bold, -predominant colours, very different from the lassitudinous livery -of the schools. There was a new generosity of sentiment responsible -for Corot's landscapes and Barye's beasts. The sudden widening of -knowledge and sympathy was expressed in the new broadness and courage -of technique, and the same forces that covered the palette with vivid -reds and blues, and compelled the sculptor to a virile handling of his -chisel, found outlet in words also. Writers, like painters, seized -the human, coloured, passionate elements in foreign literatures, -looking everywhere for the liberty and brilliance they desired. The -open-throated, sinewy, gladiatorial muse of Byron found here devoted -worshippers, and the spacious movements of Shakespeare, his people -alive and free, independent of the dramas in which for a few hours -in the Globe Theatre they had had a part to play, delighted men with -an outlook very different from, and hostile to, that of Voltaire, -although he had done his share in making their outlook possible. - -[Illustration: VICTOR HUGO] - -The studio and the study were very close together. Gautier, Hugo, and -Mérimée were all painters in their own right, and there is a difference -between the writers who have only seen life from a library, and those -who have seen it from behind an easel. The writer who has once felt -them can never forget the eye-delighting pleasures of the palette, -but composes in colour-schemes, and feels for the tints of words as -well as for their melody. The work of the Romantics was visualised -and coloured in a manner then new. It was almost shocking to men who -had been accustomed, as it were, to write in the severest monotone, -and to refuse, if indeed they had ever thought of it, such luxury of -realisation. - -[Local colour.] - -There is no need, except for the sake of the argument, to state the -fact that pictures are called up in a reader's mind by a careful -selection of details presented in a proper order. It is well known -that a few details correctly chosen have a more compelling power on -the imagination than a complete and catalogued description. These men, -writing pictorially, gave a new responsibility to single touches. It -became clear that visualisation was impossible unless observation -preceded it, and details accordingly took upon themselves the exigent -dignity of local colour. Local colour, from distinguishing between -places, was brought to mark the difference between times. Archæology -became suddenly of absorbing interest; its materials were more than -its materials; they were made the symbols of lives as real and as red -in the veins as those of the archæologists themselves. Notre Dame was -no longer to be expressed in a learned antiquarian paper, but in a -passionate book. And Victor Hugo visualising with the accuracy of a -poet, found that just as archæology meant little without life, so the -life was vapid without the archæology. Quasimodo shoves his hideous -face through a hole in order to be elected king of fools, but Hugo does -not allow that marvellous grimace to fill the picture. The hole must -be there as well, and so 'une vitre brisée à la jolie rosace audessus -de la porte laissa libre un cercle de pierre par lequel il fut convenu -que les concurrents passeraient la tête.' The setting is as important -as the head; humanity and its trappings are worthless by themselves, -and valuable only together. Here is the source of Realism, within -Romanticism itself. Indeed almost the whole development of the art in -the nineteenth century is due to this new care for the frame, and to -this new honesty in dealing with the man within it. - -[The youth of the Romantics.] - -An energetic simplicity of nature was needed for the fullest enjoyment -of these new conditions, and the greatest of the French Romantics were -almost like big interested children in their attitude towards life -and themselves. As soon as we find a Romantic like Mérimée, reserved, -subtle, a tender-hearted Machiavellian, we find a man who is to -dissociate himself from them sooner or later, and to produce something -different a little from the purely Romantic ideals. There is something -beautiful and inspiriting in the youth of the Romantics. I like to -think of Gautier, the olive-skinned boy from the studio in the rue -St. Louis, overcome with nervousness at the idea of touching the hand -of Hugo, himself only twenty-seven, sitting down and trembling like -a girl on the stairs before the master's door. And then the splendid -prank of Dumas, who, on the eve of revolution, went down into the -country like one of his own heroes, held up a town, and with a very -few friends obtained the submission of the governor, and captured an -arsenal for his party. They were boys, and some hostility was needed -for their uttermost delight. In England the battles of art are more -like squabbles, but in the Paris of 1830 it seemed as if the town were -divided into camps for the defence of classicism and the support of -the new ideas. It was as if each point of vantage had to be taken by -storm, and the great night of _Hernani_, when Hugo's supporters had -red tickets and a password--the Spanish word _hierro_, which means -'steel'--was the noblest memory in the life of at least one of Hugo's -enthusiastic lieutenants. - -Such a joyous and vigorous thing was the Romanticism of 1830. It -touched story-telling through Balzac, Hugo, Dumas, Gautier, and -Mérimée, of whom the first three, in turning from the theatre to the -art of narrative, found inspiration in Sir Walter Scott. Scott's -influence has been one of bulk rather than of quality on English -story-telling. But in France, instead of tracing his progeny in -insipid copies, we follow it through the bold variations of these -three powerful and original minds. Through them it returned to England -again. Balzac, as the most important of the three, in view of the -later developments of the novel, I have discussed in a separate -chapter. Gautier's Oriental and Antique inspiration, and Mérimée's -combination of ascetic narrative with vivid subject, are also themes -for separate and particular consideration. But Hugo and Dumas are so -generally representative of the Romantic movement in story-telling, -that in writing of them in this chapter I feel I am but filling in the -background already sketched for the others. - -[The Preface to _Cromwell_.] - -The theatre was, in 1830, the scene of the most decisive battle between -Romanticism and Classicism. The fight of the painters, of the poets, -of the story-tellers, seemed concentrated in the more obvious combat -of the dramatists, whose armies could see their enemies, and even come -to blows with them. And in Hugo's preface to _Cromwell_, that preface -which is now so much more interesting than the play that follows -it, he claims several things for the dramatist that by act if not by -argument he was later to claim for the artist in narrative. He demands -that the sublime and ridiculous should be together in literature -and, as in life, win their force from each other. The drama, and so -the novel, which also attempts in some sort a reproduction of human -existence, is not to be written on a single note. It is not to be -wholly sublime or wholly ridiculous, but both at once. The general in -his triumphal car is to be genuinely afraid of toppling over. And so, -in _Les Misérables_, the student's frolic is whole-heartedly described, -without in any way binding the author to make light of the sorrow of -Fantine when she finds that her own desertion is the merry surprise -at the end of it. The sublime will not be the less sublime for being -mingled with the grotesque, and so, in _Notre Dame de Paris_, the -deepest passion in the book is felt by a hideous and deformed dwarf, -and by this same dwarf rather than by any more obvious impersonation -of justice, the lascivious priest is flung from the tower. Looking up -in his agony, as he clings to the bending cornice his desperate hands -have clutched, he does not meet the eyes of some person of a grandeur -matching the moment, but sees the grotesque face of Quasimodo, utterly -indifferent to him, looking, like one of the gargoyles, over Paris, -with tears on his distorted cheeks. - -In this same preface, too, Hugo justifies innovations in language, -very necessary for an art whose new won freedom was to let it explore -so much that was unknown. When the body changes, he asks, would you -keep the coat the same? Triumphantly appealing to history, he points -out that 'the language of Montaigne is no longer that of Rabelais, the -language of Pascal is no longer that of Montaigne, and the language of -Montesquieu is no longer that of Pascal.' He is justifying there the -coloured prose of Chateaubriand, the opulent vocabulary of Gautier, and -his own infinitely various effects in prose and verse. - -[Victor Hugo on Scott.] - -He was, until Sainte-Beuve took the work from his hands, at once -the leader and the defender of Romanticism. And, critic and artist, -severally and in the combination that we have grown accustomed to -expect in fulfilment of both these functions, his was too sovereign a -mind to adopt or borrow anything from another writer without knowing -very clearly what he intended to do with it. Writing of _Quentin -Durward_, he said: 'Après le roman pittoresque mais prosaïque de -Walter Scott il restera un autre roman à créer, plus beau et plus -complet encore selon nous. C'est le roman, à la fois drame et épopée, -pittoresque mais poètique, réel mais idéal, vrai mais grand, qui -enchâssera Walter Scott dans Homère.' That romance is Victor Hugo's -own. His tremendous books are conceived in the manner of an epic -poet rather than of a novelist or a romancer. The relations of his -characters are not solely concerned with themselves but with some -large principle that animates the book in which they live. If he is -without Norns or Fates, if he sets his characters against a background -other than that of Destiny, he substitutes the power of the law or the -power of the sea, and illumines with a story not only the actors who -take part in it, but also the spirit of the Gothic or the spirit of -revolution. - -[The Waverley Novels and Hugo's romances.] - -To turn from the Waverley Novels to the romances of Hugo, is like -stepping from the open air into a vast amphitheatre whose enclosed -immensity is more overwhelming than the clear sky. Scott writes, on a -plain human level, tales that we can readily believe, chronicles that -are like private documents, or memoirs such as might have been written -by the ancestors of our own families. Hugo does not tell his tale from -the point of view of its actors, but puts them before us in a setting -far larger than the one they saw. Their petty adventures are but -threads chosen arbitrarily from a far more intricate design, and they -themselves but illustrations of some greater motion than any to which -in their own right they could aspire. There are hundreds of them, and -with our narrow powers of interest and attention we fasten on one or -two, like children choosing colours on a race-course, and follow them -to the end, while Hugo, with his godlike eye, sees them all as threads -in his pattern, poor, small lives, twisted in accordance with a design -beyond their comprehension. In Scott's open air we can live and breathe -and be content, and stand firmly with our feet upon the ground. In -Hugo's amphitheatre we see an ordered spectacle of life and death, and -are, as it were, present at the shapings of the ends of man. - -[Illustration: ALEXANDRE DUMAS] - -[Dumas on Scott.] - -There is a much less terrible pleasure to be had from the works of -Dumas. Behind all Hugo's books is the solemnity, behind Dumas' the joy -of living, the _joie de vivre_--the French phrase, although identical, -seems better to express it. To compare Hugo's with Dumas' criticism of -the Scott novel is to see very clearly the difference in weight and -depth between the two men. Hugo sees in Scott the promise of another -and a greater kind of romance. Dumas sees only that it is possible -to improve on Scott's technique. He notices that Scott spends half -a volume or so in describing his characters before setting them in -action, and in his gay way justifies him by saying: 'Il n'y a pas de -feu sans fumée, il n'y a pas de soleil sans ombre. L'ennui, c'est -l'ombre; l'ennui c'est la fumée.' Sacrifice fifty pages of _ennui_ -to the gods, and then away with your story. Dumas decides to improve -on this, to set his characters moving, and to pour his libations of -_ennui_ on the way. 'Commencer par l'intérêt, au lieu de commencer - par l'ennui; commencer par l'action, au lieu de commencer par la -préparation; parler des personnages après les avoir fait paraître, au -lieu de les faire paraître après avoir parlé d'eux.' This is not very -sublime, after the suggestion that Hugo won from the same subject; but -it produced '_Les Trois Mousquetaires_.' D'Artagnan is in a hubbub on -the first page, and the _ennui_ of description is given us so sparsely -that, watching for it chapter by chapter, we almost consider ourselves -swindled when we reach the last and are still without it. 'The purpose -of this tale is not to describe interiors,' Dumas petulantly ejaculates -when tired of talking about Cornelius' room in _La Tulipe Noire_. No; -certainly not; neither of rooms nor of men. Damn psychology, and hey -for full-blooded adventure. Dumas took a free stage for his duels and -headlong rides and gallant adventures and ingenious stratagems. His -men moved too fast not to feel themselves encumbered in a furnished -room; there was little point in describing a landscape for them, -since, before it was done, they were several leagues off in another; -too intricate furniture in their own heads would have cost them -hesitancies, unguarded stabs, and possible falls from a galloping horse. - -[_Les Trois Mousquetaires._] - -Dumas' novels are novels of the theatre. His first piece of work was -an attempt to make a melodrama out of _Ivanhoe_, and his best books -exhibit the art of Walter Scott modified by the rules of the stage. -The curtain rises on people moving about. It falls on a climax. The -action of all its scenes is in crescendo. Alter Scott to fit these -rules, and you have something like the form that Dumas for more than -half a century has imposed on non-psychological fiction. How admirably -he filled it himself. Those splendid fellows of his, whose cavalier way -fairly takes us off our feet, are not dead puppets made to wield toy -swords at the pulling of a string. There is something exuberant and -infectious even in the restraint of Athos. They are all alive, not with -an independent, almost hostile existence like that of the characters -of Balzac, but with a vitality they owe to their creator and to us, -the free coursing blood of boyish dreams. They are the things that at -one time or another we have set our hearts on being, the things that -Dumas actually was. Where they ride a jolly spirit goes with them, -and we know that Dumas had only to settle in a quiet village to turn -it into a place of gay and prosperous festivity. 'Madeleine,' says -D'Artagnan at the end of _Vingt Ans Après_, 'give me the room on the -first floor. I must keep up my dignity now that I am captain of the -musketeers. But always keep my room on the fifth floor; one never -knows what may happen.' Is not that just the attitude of Dumas, who -remarked upon his deathbed, 'I took twenty francs with me to Paris. -Well, I have kept them. There they are,' and pointed to his last louis -on the mantelpiece. In the flamboyant youthfulness of Dumas, who died -a boy at sixty-seven, and called Mazarin 'still young, for he was only -fifty-six,' is perhaps that characteristic that made Romanticism in -France so complete and satisfactory a Renaissance. When such men as he -were writing books the world had won its youth again. - - - - -BALZAC - - - - -BALZAC - - -[His vitality.] - -BALZAC used to tell a story of his father, who, when asked to carve -a partridge, not knowing how to set about it, rolled up his sleeves, -gripped his knife and fork, and cut it in four with such energy as to -cleave the plate at the same time and embed the knife in the table. -That was the manner of setting about things natural to Balzac himself. -He was a 'joyous wild boar' of a man, with the build and strength -of a navvy. He was never ill. Gautier tells us that the habitual -expression of that powerful face was a kind of Rabelaisian glee. Now a -man who could write the _Comédie Humaine_ and look aside from it with -a Rabelaisian glee was perhaps the only kind of man who could have -attempted such a task without being turned, willy nilly, into a pedant. - -[The conception of the _Comédie Humaine_.] - -There was a logic, a completeness, in the groundwork of the scheme, -that would have sterilised the imagination of a man with less exuberant -vitality. Compare for a moment the _Comédie Humaine_ with the novels of -Sir Walter Scott. Scott meant to Balzac what Maria Edgeworth had meant -to himself. He had seen in her an attempt to paint Irish country and -character, and had decided to do the same for Scotland. Balzac after -those ten years of bad mediæval stories, those ten years of labour for -the Rachel of his own soul, saw in him an attempt to paint Scottish -country and character, and decided to do the same for France. But, -whereas Scott had been brought up on the _Reliques of English Poetry_, -and in the country of purple heather, grey rock, and leaping stream, -Balzac was nourished on philosophy and science, and spent his youth in -a Paris lodging. Scott saw men rather than kinds of man. Bailie Nicol -Jarvie is more Nicol Jarvie than Bailie. Balzac comes at life in a -much more scientific spirit. 'Does not Society make of man,' he asks, -as Chaucer has unconsciously asked before him, 'as many different men -as there are varieties in zoology? The differences between a soldier, -a labourer, an administrator, an idler, a savant, a statesman, a -merchant, a sailor, a poet, a pauper, a priest, are, though more -difficult to seize, as considerable as those that distinguish the wolf, -the lion, the ass, the crow, the shark, the sea-calf, the goat, etc.' -Balzac made up his mind to collect specimens of the social species, -not pressed and dried, like the old 'Characters' of the seventeenth -century, but exhibited alive and in their natural surroundings. He was -to make a world with the colour of contemporary France, an 'august lie, -true in its details,' a world complete in itself, a world in which -all the characters were to show the impress of that state of life to -which it should please Balzac to call them. That was the idea that -turned the Waverley Novels into the _Comédie Humaine_, that the idea -whose exposition by a less full-blooded professor would have been so -readily precise, so readily dull in its precision. - -[Illustration: HONORÉ DE BALZAC] - -[Physical energy and the task of writing.] - -Now there are few harder tasks for a man of overflowing physical energy -than this, of covering innumerable sheets of paper with wriggling -unnatural lines traced with the end of a pen. It is likely to become -a torment; the feet cross and uncross, the fingers itch, the inkpot -flies across the room, and the energy defeats itself. There is the -legend of Scott's hand, covering sheet after sheet so swiftly and -with such regularity that it was painful to watch it; but Scott's was -not the bomb-like brute energy of Balzac. Balzac, to give life to -his scientific ideas, needed a more fiery vitality than Scott's, who -began and ended with merely human notions. The actual writing of his -books was proportionately more difficult for him. There was no mere -eccentricity in his habit of getting the sketches for his books set up -in type, and enlarging them from proofs in the middle of large sheets -of paper, covering the vast margins with the additions that were to -make the books themselves. It was a wise attempt to give himself the -same physical outlet as that enjoyed by the painter or sculptor, to -give himself something to pull about, something actual, something that -could be attacked, anything rather than the terrible silkworm spinning -of a single endless fibre. His energy would have been wasted in a -hundred ways unless, so far as was possible, he had fitted his work -to himself and himself to his work. Giant of concentration as he was, -he added cubits to his stature by taking thought. He made his writing -hours different from every one else's, wore a white frock something -like a monk's habit, and found in the drinking of enormous quantities -of coffee a stimulant as much theatrical as medicinal. These things -meant much to him, and his use of them was an action similar to that -of Poe's schoolboy, who, when guessing odd or even the marbles in his -playmate's hand, would imitate the expression of his adversary's face -and see what thoughts arose in his mind. The paraphernalia of work were -likely to induce the proper spirit. When all his fellow Parisians were -in bed, Balzac, gathering the voluminous white folds about his sturdy -person, and glancing at the coffee stewing on the fire, sat down to his -writing-table with the conviction of an alderman sitting down to a city -dinner. There could never be a doubt in his mind as to the purpose for -which he was there. - -[Balzac's prose.] - -This navvy-work of production had its influence on the character of -his writing. But it was never in Balzac's nature to have understood -Gautier's craftsman's delight in the polishing and chasing of -diminutive things. Balzac, the working machine, was simply enormous -energy so coaxed and trained as to produce an enormous output. The raw -material of his rich humanity passed through violent processes. It had -but small chance of any very delicate finish. Balzac thought in books -and in cycles of books, never in pages, paragraphs, or sentences. -Although he was much preoccupied with 'style,' envying the men whose -writing would be charming to the ear even if it meant nothing to the -mind, the best of his own prose is unbeautiful, rugged, fiercely -energetic, peculiarly his own, and therefore not to be grumbled at. -He would have liked to write finely, just as he would have liked _la -vie splendide_. But his mind, delivering pickaxe blows, or furiously -wrestling with great masses of material, could not clothe itself in -stately periods. Always, out of any splendour that he made for it, -shows a brown, brawny arm, and the splendour becomes an impertinence. -He had ideas on art, as he had ideas on science, but his was too large -a humanity to allow itself to be subordinate to either. He was too -full-blooded a man to be withered by a theory. He was too eager to say -what he had in his mouth to be patient in the modulation of his voice. -He was almost too much of a man to be an artist. To think of that man -fashioning small, perfect poems, who avowed that he wrote his _Contes -Drôlatiques_ because he happened to notice the fall in the French birth -rate, is to think of a Colossus tinkering at the mechanism of a watch. - -[His proximity to life.] - -Then, too, he had been too close to life to think of art for art's -sake. During the years that followed his setting up author in a garret, -he had watched the existence of those who are so near starvation that -they seem to make a living by sweeping the doorstep of Death. And, -at the same time that, walking out in the evenings, and following a -workman and his wife on their way home, he had been able to feel their -rags upon his back, and to walk with their broken shoes upon his feet, -he had also had his glimpses of _la vie splendide_, the more vivid, no -doubt, for their contrast with the sober realities he knew. To this -man, however great a writer he might become, life would always mean -more than books. It always did. He could cut short other people's -lamentations by saying, 'Well, but let us talk of real things; let us -talk of Eugénie Grandet,' but Eugénie Grandet, the miser's daughter, -interested him much more than the mere novel of that name. His people -never existed for the sake of his books, but always his books for the -sake of his people. He makes a story one-legged or humpbacked without -scruple, so long as by doing so he can make his reader see a man and -his circumstances exactly as they appeared to himself. He was not like -a pure artist, an instrument on which life played, producing beautiful -things. His concern with life was always positive. His world was not -a world of dream and patterned imagery, but, according to his mood, -was an elaborate piece of mechanism and he an impassioned mechanician, -or a zoological garden and he an impassioned zoologist. It is almost -matter for wonder that such a man should choose to express himself in -narrative. - -[His conception of the novel.] - -And yet the novel, as he conceived it, gave him the best of -opportunities for putting his results before the world. If we allow -ourselves to set all our attention on politics and finance and social -theory, we lose in life all but the smell of blue-books, and the grey -colour of Stock Exchange returns. If Balzac had written science, and -not stories, we should have only had the ideas of his novels without -that passionate presentment of concrete things that gives those ideas -their vitality. Indeed, the novels are far greater than the ideas, just -as the poetic, seeing man in Balzac was greater than the scientist. -Weariless in distinguishing man from man, type from type, specimen -from specimen, by the slightest indication of the clay, he was able -in novels, as he could never have done in works of science, to give -the colour of each man's life expressed in his actions, in his talk, -in his choice of clothes, in the furniture of his room. The action of -all novels, like that of all plays, is performed in the brain of the -reader or spectator. The novelist's and dramatist's characters are -like pieces on a chessboard, symbols of possibilities not obviously -expressed. In older fiction these possibilities were left so vague -that the reader could adopt any part he chose, without in the least -interfering with the story, independent as that was of personal -character. Never before Balzac made them had the chessmen assumed so -much of human detail. In his books they are no longer pegs of wood, -depending for their meanings on the reader's generosity, for their -adventures on the ingenuity of the author. They make their moves in -their own rights. The hero of a Balzac novel is not the reader, in -borrowed clothes, undergoing a series of quite arbitrary experiences. -He cannot be made to do what the author requires, but fills his own -suits, and has a private life. Balzac knows and makes his reader feel -that his characters have not leapt ready-made into the world to eat -and drink through a couple of hundred pages and vanish whence they -came. They have left their mark on things, and things have left their -mark on them. They have lived in pages where he has not seen them, and -Balzac never drags them to take a part in existences to which they do -not belong. I can remember no case where Balzac uses a stock scene, a -room, or a garden, or a valley that would do for anything. There was -only one room, one valley, one garden, where the characters could -have said those words, lost that money, or kissed those kisses, and -Balzac's stupendous energy is equal not only to pouring life into his -people, but also to forcing the particular scene upon his canvas with -such vivid strokes that every cobble seems to have a heart, and every -flower in a pot to sway its blossoms with the sun. Even in the short -stories, where he often follows gods that are not his own, writing of -madness like a Hoffmann, and of intrigue like a Boccaccio, his peculiar -genius is apparent in the environments. How carefully, in _La Messe -de l'Athée_, he works out the conditions of life that made the story -possible for its actors. And, in the longer novels, there is scarcely -a sentence unweighted with evidence that is of real import to him who -would truly understand the characters and happenings of the book. How -much does not the story of _Eugénie Grandet_ owe to that description of -the little money-getting, vine-growing town of Saumur, with its cobbled -streets, its old houses, its greedy faces watching the weather from the -house doors, the only proper setting for the narrow power of Goodman -Grandet, and the leaden monotony of his daughter's life? - -[Balzac's world and that of Realism.] - -Balzac's fierce determination that his lies should be true in their -details has often been remarked in claiming him as the first of the -French realists. And, indeed, others of his characteristics, his -interest in life as it is, the scientific bias that found its parody -in Zola, his fearlessness in choice of subject, his entire freedom -from classical ideals, are certainly attributes of realism. Realism -is ready, like Balzac, to deal with stock exchanges and bakeries and -all the side shops of civilisation; realism finds Greek Greek and not -an Elixir of Life; realism tries to see life as it is. But realism -(an impossible ideal) needs for its approximate attainment a man of -ordinary energy; and this Balzac was not. Balzac used Thor's hammer, -not one from the carpenter's shop. He lived like ten men and so do his -characters. A crossing-sweeper in a story by Balzac would wear out -his broom in half an hour, but the broom of a crossing-sweeper of de -Maupassant or Flaubert would be certain of an average life. Balzac's -world is not the world of realism, because it goes too fast, like a -clock without a pendulum, running at full speed. His world is more -alive than ours, and so are his men. They are demons, men carried to -the _n_th power. Fire runs in their veins instead of blood, and we -watch them with something like terror, as if we were peeping into hell. -They are superhuman like Balzac himself, and have become a kind of -lesser divinities. None but he would have dared 'to frame their fearful -symmetry.' None but they could so well have illustrated existence as -Balzac saw it. - -[A new motive in fiction.] - -And life, as this Rabelaisian Frenchman saw it, in the chaotic years of -the nineteenth century, was a terrible thing except to the blind and -the numbed, and to those who, like himself, possessed 'unconquerable -souls.' He found two primary motives in existence. Passion and the -production of children was one. He said that this was the only one. -But his life and his work made it clear that there was another, and -that this other was money. Money, the need of it, the spending of -it, fantastic but always acute plans for getting hold of it, like -that suggested in _Facino Cane_, filled his own life, and were not -banished even from his love-letters. His own obsession by debts and -business forced on him as a novelist a new way of looking at life, -and, through him, gave another outlook to story-telling. In the older -novels, Fielding's for example, rich were rich, and poor were poor, -and only to be changed from one to the other by some calamity or fairy -godmother of a coincidence. People were static; unless they turned -out to be Somebody's illegitimate son or rightful heir, their clothes -were not of a finer cut as they grew older, and if they ate off wooden -platters in the first chapter, they supped no more daintily in the -last. In romantic tales and fairy stories, a hero might cut his way -to fortune through dragons or piratical Turks; in the rogue novels he -might swindle a dinner, and after long switchbacking between twopence -and nothing, happen by accident upon a competence; he never, before -Balzac took him in hand, went grimly at life, closing his heart, -concentrating his energies, compelling even love to help him in his -steady climb from poverty to opulence. He left that to the villain, -and the story-teller took care that the villain eventually got his -deserts. The older novelists were vastly interested in the progress -of a love-affair; Balzac looks kindly at that, but his real interest -is in the progress of a financial superman. The wealth and poverty -of Balzac's characters is the quality that makes or breaks them. The -mainspring of their actions is the desire of getting on in life. What -is the tragedy of Eugénie Grandet, but money? What is the tragedy of -Père Goriot, but money? Eliminate wealth and poverty from either of -them and they cease to exist. If old Goriot had been rich and indulgent -to his daughters he would have been an estimable father; but he is -poor; his daughters must be luxurious, and so he is Père Goriot. -The story is that of Lear and his kingdom, translated into hundred -franc notes and lacking the Cordelia. Love, Wisdom, Gentleness are -inconsequent dreamers in a house of Mammon. They talk in window corners -and behind curtains, ashamed of their disinterestedness. They are like -the old gods banished from the temples, whispering in secret places in -the woods, and going abroad quietly in the twilight, while in the glare -of noon the clanking brazen giant strides heavily across the world. - - 'And underneath his feet, all scattered lay - Dead skulls and bones of men, whose life had gone astray.' - - - - -GAUTIER AND THE EAST - - - - -GAUTIER AND THE EAST - - -[The East as a means of expression.] - -THE East is an invention of the nineteenth century. We have only -to look at the works of Voltaire or of Goldsmith to see that the -Orient did not exist before the time of the Romantic movement. To -early writers it meant nothing but polygamy, moguls, elephants, and -'bonzes,' and the eighteenth-century translation of the _Arabian -Nights_ did little more than supply an entertaining form to an ironical -philosopher. Even when it became the fashion to make imaginary -Orientals expose the follies of the West, the East had not yet become -alive for us. We find scarcely a hint in the hundred and twenty letters -of _The Citizen of the World_ that it meant more than a dialectical -expression for topsy-turvydom, a place to which you could refer as -to Lilliput or to Brobdingnag, useful like the _x_ of algebra in -illustrating the properties of other things. The first glimmerings of -discovery are in Beckford's _Vathek_, an extravagant book, belittled -by a schoolboyish humour--as when the Caliph plays football with the -rotund figure of the Indian Magician--but written by a man to whom the -East did really mean some sort of gorgeous dream. - -For the East is not an expression of philosophy, or of geography, but -of temperament; it is a dream that has led many to leave their people -for its people, their homes for desert tents, in the effort to turn its -conventions into realities of life. Men have fallen in love with it, as -they have fallen in love with statues or with the beautiful women of -pictures. It means more than itself, like a man whom time has lifted -into Godhead. It has been given the compelling power of a religion. I -believe it was an invention made possible by the discovery of local -colour. With the emphasis of local colour came an emphasised difference -in places. Minds only mildly preferring one place to another when both -were vague, most vigorously preferred one or other place when both were -realised in vivid detail, and could be readily compared. Fastidious -minds seeking the stage-properties of expression could choose them in -the booths of all the world. Men who did not care for the settings of -their own lives were able to fill out their dim Arcadias with detail, -and vein their phantom goddesses with blood. - -The East, when Gautier was growing up in the rich tastes of the -Romantic movement, was ready to supply the most delicious conventions. -Goethe had shown its possibilities. It was there like a many-coloured -curtain behind which he could build a world less entangled, less -unmanageable than his own. Its newness must not be forgotten in -considering his use of it, and in thinking of his use of Antiquity we -must remember that it was as novel as the East. - -[The Antique.] - -Now the Antique was one of the cudgels with which the Classicists tried -to beat the heads of the Romanticists in the battles of that time. It -did not mean to Gautier what it meant to them. Its metamorphosis was -simultaneous with the birth of the East, and had almost the same cause. -Insisting on local colour in places, the Romanticists insisted also on -local colour in humanity. Cromwell was to be allowed to say that he -had the parliament in his bag and the king in his pocket. Cæsar was to -be allowed to talk like a man and even to be one. So that for Gautier -Antiquity meant not a cold inhumanity that had been beautiful, but a -warm, full-blooded life that worshipped simple, energetic gods, and -found expression in a thousand ways other than the speech of blank -verse and heroic actions that had been so often represented in pictures -of an annoying timidity of colouring. The East and the Antique together -had been touched as if by magic, and turned from the abstract into the -concrete, from the heroic into the human, and so into the very material -for personal expression. - -[The East and Arcadia.] - -Gautier's attitude towards the East is not unlike that of the -Elizabethans towards Arcadia. Sir Philip Sidney, courtier, soldier, -and busy statesman, wrote in terms of shepherds, shepherdesses, and -shipwrecked princes, and worked in an ideal atmosphere where no cares -were greater than love, or a thorn in a lamb's foot. He, with - - 'A sweet attractive kinde of grace - A full assurance given by lookes, - Continual comfort in a face, - The lineaments of gospel bookes,' - -seemed to belong to that Golden Age which has never been now, but -always long ago. And Gautier, busy writer of articles and travel-books, -massive and vividly alive, could not persuade himself to be Parisian -and contemporary. Nor would it be extravagant to compare him with the -pastoral writers of to-day, Celtic and Gaelic, who like him lift their -emotions into a simpler, more congenial atmosphere, and like him insist -continually on the local colour of their dreams. These writers, sitting -in London or in Edinburgh, hear, without moving from their comfortable -chairs, the cry of the curlew on the moor, and are transported to a -quiet bay, half enclosed by cliffs, 'in two white curves, like the -wings of the solander when she hollows them as she breasts the north -wind,' and under the spells of an intenser imagined life find their -own emotions more vivid and more easily expressed. Gautier, sitting in -Paris, sees the swallows fluttering about the roofs and flying south in -autumn. - - 'Je comprends tout ce qu'elles disent, - Car le poète est un oiseau; - Mais captif ses élans se brisent - Contre un invisible réseau! - - Des ailes! des ailes! des ailes! - Comme dans le chant de Ruckert, - Pour voler, là-bas avec elles - Au soleil d'or, au printemps vert!' - -That cry for wings is the keynote of his most passionately beautiful -work. When he is at his best; when he is not projecting young men with -a mathematical freedom of morals into a Western society; in those -moments when he is most himself, we hear clipped feathers beat against -the bars. He sought to escape from Paris to the Enchanted Islands, and -from the nineteenth century to the Golden Age. The Enchanted Islands -he had identified with the East, and the Golden Age was the time of -the Pharaohs or of the making of the Venus. As the Christian fingers -his crucifix and is able to kneel upon the footsteps of the throne, -so Gautier found talismans to help his dreams to their desires. A -mummy's foot, a marble hand took him to the times he loved, or half -revealed the perfections that reality refused. A curiosity shop was a -postern-gate to heaven, and a merchant of antiquities held St. Peter's -keys. - -[The story-telling of dreams.] - -His art is that of making his dreams come true. He is not an observer -of life, like Richardson, Fielding, or De Maupassant. He does not copy -the surface of contemporary existence; but cuts away all but passion, -and clothes that in symbols whose strangeness disentangled it and -helped him to make it real. Beautiful women step down to him from their -tapestries, and, living on drops of his blood, come back to him out of -their graves. The Princess Hermonthis claims her little foot that he -has bought as a paper-weight, and takes him to the tomb of the Pharaohs -and the pre-adamite kings sitting with their thousand peoples waiting -for the final day. The Pompeian harlot is brought alive by the love of -a youth for the imprint her perfect breasts have left in molten lava. -He is ill at ease in his most famous _Roman de la Momie_ until he has -finished with the Englishman and the doctor, and is translating the -scroll of papyrus buried three thousand years ago with Tahoser in the -sarcophagus. - -[Illustration: THÉOPHILE GAUTIER] - -[Gautier the man.] - -But it is too easy to construct a man out of his work. It is more -interesting to compare the man of this world with the man he would -have liked to be, and the man he chose to express. Gautier was not -pure dreamer. Though the world of his art was as far from the world of -Paris, as the world of Mr. Yeats from the world of London or Dublin, -he was not a seer, or a poet between whom and reality hung a veil of -dreams. He was a solid man, one of whose proudest memories was a blow -that registered five hundred and thirty-two pounds on an automatic -instrument, the result of daily washing down five pounds of gory -mutton with three bottles of red Bordeaux. He was a Porthos, and the -Gautier of his stories, that gorgeous barbaric figure, was his boast, -cherished as Porthos cherished his dignity. The traits he loved in -himself were those that gave colour to his fiction. His olive skin, his -strength, his vitality, his scorn of the religion of sacrifice--these -were the details he caressed. He was never tired of insisting on -everything that helped in this Oriental and Antique projection of -himself. His hero in _Mademoiselle de Maupin_ exclaims: 'I am a man of -the Homeric times; the world where I live does not belong to me, and -I do not understand the society about me. Christ has not yet come for -me; I am as pagan as Alcibiades and Phidias.... I find the earth as -beautiful as heaven, and I think that perfection of form is virtue. -I love a statue better than a phantom, and full noon better than -twilight. Three things please me: gold, marble and purple, splendour, -solidity, colour.' When a reviewer described him as a being, 'fat, -jovial, and sanguinary,' he quotes the description with gratitude, and -explains gleefully that it refers to his taste for bull-fights. He -begins a book: 'People have often caricatured us, dressed like a Turk, -cross-legged on cushions.... The caricature is only an exaggeration -of the truth.' That was how he liked to think of himself, and how he -would like to be imagined. It is interesting to know that he was a -kindly bear of a man, who was always called by his Christian name, and -delighted in astonishing his friends with outbursts of genius served up -in a joyous obscenity. - -He was not a man of wealth as his work suggests; but an extremely -industrious journalist. Like Balzac, he was proud of his prodigious -activity. He confesses that he wrote about three hundred volumes: but -that is the estimate of Porthos; his biographer puts the number at -sixty. From his twenty-fifth year he was an artist on a treadmill, and -only at every hundredth, or two hundredth, or three hundredth turn of -the wheel could he escape for a little and try to satisfy himself. That -is why his poems and shorter stories are the most perfect specimens of -his later work. He needed things that could be roughed out in a sitting -and carried about without risk until the time when he could work on -them again. He was able to hurry out of sight his dozen sheets for the -_Presse_ or the _Figaro_, sit down on his cushions, let his fingers run -through the long hair of a Persian cat, and turn over again and again -one of the minute Enamels or Cameos of his poetry. In so small a space -he could afford to be fastidious. He could take up the little thing -a week later, and a month after that, and file and polish it to his -content. It was the same with the stories. The story-telling Gautier -was a Gautier on holiday. - -He was a complete man, and could, in active life, have twisted the -present if he had chosen. But he did not choose. As for politics, -'what does it matter whether one is ruled by a sabre, a sprinkler of -holy-water, or an umbrella?' He has been censured for this, but the -censure means no more than to say he was a perfect artist unfortunately -not interested in local government. One does not ask a shoemaker if his -soles and uppers are Socialist or only gentle Liberal. As for his own -life, he worked hard, brought up his children, but found his emotions -too intricate to please him. He had to separate them, and translate -them into terms of another time and place. Modernity rattled past him, -like the chariots of the king past the potter, who would not look up -from his wheel lest an ugly curve should throw awry the vessel he was -shaping. Gautier did his duty by this world and left it, discovering -for others what Baudelaire called 'the consolation of the arts,' and -finding peace himself in the less encumbered simplicity of his Ancient -and Oriental Arcadia. - -[The flowers of the white narcissus.] - -His work was the construction of a paradise for himself in which other -people are allowed to walk. His stories are a substitute for opium -and haschisch, and take us into a world like that of old romance and -myth, where we meet our own souls walking in strange clothes. 'Art,' -says Santayana, 'so long as it needs to be a dream, will never cease -to be a disappointment.' We leave a volume of Gautier as we leave the -_Mabinogion_, or the _Morte Darthur_, or the _Volsunga Saga_, or a -book of fairy-tales. We have to readjust ourselves before meeting the -difficulties of life. But opposite Santayana's sentence we may set one -from Mahomet. 'If any man have two loaves, let him sell one, and buy -flowers of the white narcissus; for the one is food for the body and -the other is food for the soul.' And perhaps this art, where the world -is simplified into the conventions of a tapestry, by its intense appeal -to primitive emotions, may help us like a touchstone to distinguish -between the things to which more than lip-service is slavery, and the -things to which less than life-service is death. - - - - -POE AND THE NEW TECHNIQUE - - - - -POE AND THE NEW TECHNIQUE - - -[Self-conscious method.] - -'IT is the curse,' says Poe, 'of a certain order of mind that it can -never rest satisfied with the consciousness of its ability to do a -thing. Not even is it content with doing it. It must both know and -show how it was done.' It is all very well to call it a curse; it is -the curse that gave us Leonardo's notebooks, Reynolds' Discourses, -and Stevenson's few essays on the art of writing; the curse that is -among the reasons of Leonardo's excellence, Reynolds' excellence, -Stevenson's excellence, and the excellence of Poe himself. It is the -curse that is the secret of all real knowledge of technique. The man -who is as interested in the way of doing a thing as in the thing when -done, is the man who is likely to put a new tool in the hands of his -fellow-craftsmen. - -Poe's methods were such a delight to him that his works have an uncanny -atmosphere about them, as if he had not written them but had been -present, passionately observant and critical, while they were being -written by somebody else. More than once he used his pen to make a -new thing out of a discussion of an old one, and on these occasions -he dissects his own motives in so impersonal a manner that it is -difficult for the reader to remember that the author examining is in -any way connected with the author undergoing examination. _The Raven_, -for example, a profound piece of technique, is scarcely as profound, -and certainly not as surprising, as _The Philosophy of Composition_, -in which its construction is minutely analysed, and Poe callously -explains, as a matter of scientific rather than personal interest, that -the whole poem was built on the refrain 'Nevermore,' and that this -particular refrain was chosen on account of the sonority and ease of -_o_ and _r_ sounded together. It was inevitable that such a man busying -himself with story-telling should bring something new into the art. - -[Illustration: WILLIAM GODWIN] - -[William Godwin and _Caleb Williams_.] - -Another story-teller, who, like Poe, was a philosopher and deeply -interested in technique, had existed before, and from him Poe had that -strengthening of his ideas that is given by outside confirmation. He -refers often to William Godwin, the author of _An Enquiry concerning -Political Justice_ and of several novels, among them one now most -undeservedly half forgotten, called _Caleb Williams_. It is seldom -possible to point to any one book as the sign-post of a literary -cross-roads, but there can be no doubt that in _Caleb Williams_ we see -the beginnings of self-conscious construction in story-telling. Of that -book Hazlitt wrote: 'No one ever began _Caleb Williams_ that did not -read it through: no one that ever read it could possibly forget it, -or speak of it after any length of time but with an impression as if -the events and feelings had been personal to himself.' And the author -not only had done this, but had known how it was done. It is usual to -say that Poe himself was the first to choose an effect and then plan a -story to produce it. But _Caleb Williams_ was published in 1794, and in -a preface to one of the later editions Godwin gave his methods away. On -him also lay that fruitful curse. He wrote: 'I formed a conception of a -book of fictitious adventure that should in some way be distinguished -by a very powerful interest. Pursuing this idea, I invented first the -third volume of my tale, then the second, and last of all the first.' - -Godwin perhaps did not realise how revolutionary was his attitude, -and even Hazlitt, delighted as he was by their results, does not -seem to have noticed the novelty of his methods. But Poe, finding -Godwin's ideas of the very temper of his own, developed them logically -as far as they would go, and in two paragraphs that I am going to -quote, expressed in a final manner the principles of self-conscious -construction. - -[The architecture of narrative.] - -The first is taken from an essay on Hawthorne: - - 'A skilful literary artist has constructed a tale. If wise, he - has not fashioned his thoughts to accommodate his incidents; but, - having conceived, with deliberate care, a certain unique or single - effect to be worked out, he then invents such incidents--he then - contrives such events as may best aid him in establishing this - preconceived effect. If his very initial sentence tend not to the - outbringing of the effect, then he has failed in his first step. - In the whole composition there should be no word written, of which - the tendency, direct or indirect, is not to the one pre-established - design. And by such means, with such care and skill, a picture is - at length painted which leaves in the mind of him who contemplates - it with a kindred art a sense of the fullest satisfaction. The idea - of the tale has been presented unblemished, because undisturbed.' - ... - -The second is more personal, and from _The Philosophy of Composition_: - - 'I prefer commencing with the consideration of an _effect_.... - Keeping originality always in view, I say to myself, in the first - place, "Of the innumerable effects or impressions of which the - heart, the intellect, or (more generally) the soul is susceptible, - what one shall I, on the present occasion, select?" Having chosen - a novel first, and secondly a vivid effect, I consider whether it - can be best wrought out by incident or tone--whether by ordinary - incidents and peculiar tone, or the converse, or by peculiarity - both of incident and tone--afterwards looking about me (or rather - within) for such combination of event and tone as shall best aid me - in the construction of the effect.' - -[_The Masque of the Red Death._] - -Here, of course, he is exaggerating actual fact to make his meaning -more clear; but I am sure that even the exaggeration is deliberate. -If he did not literally work in that way he certainly worked in that -spirit. A writer of Poe's fertility of imagination would be at least -biassed in choosing his effect by consideration of material already in -his head. But, the effect once chosen, he left nothing to chance. He -would never, like the older story-tellers, allow himself to be carried -away by a wave of his own emotion. He stands beside de Maupassant and -the conscious artists of the latter half of the nineteenth century. His -emotional material is never emptied carelessly in front of the reader. -Chosen scraps of it are laid before him, one by one, in a chosen order, -producing a more powerful effect than the unrestrained discharge of the -whole. The first sentences of one of his stories prepare its readers -for the atmosphere demanded by its conclusion. In _The Masque of the -Red Death_, for example, revolting horror is the emotion on which he -built. So, from the terrible opening lines, 'The Red Death had long -devastated the country. No pestilence had ever been so fatal and so -hideous. Blood was its Avatar and seal--the redness and the horror of -blood. There were sharp pains and sudden dizziness, and then profuse -bleeding at the pores, with dissolution ...' to the end, 'And now was -acknowledged the presence of the Red Death. He had come like a thief in -the night. And one by one dropped the revellers in the blood-bedewed -hall of their revel, and died, each in the despairing posture of his -fall. And the life of the ebony clock went out with that of the last -of the gay. And the flames of the tripods expired. And Darkness and -Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all,' we are led -on through consciously created disquietude and terror. How menacing -is the sentence that immediately follows the prelude: 'But the Prince -Prospero was happy and dauntless and sagacious.' We feel at once that -the shadow of death is at his elbow. - -[The detective stories.] - -Perhaps Poe's technique is more easily examined in those of his tales -in which the same faculties that planned the construction supplied also -the motive. The three great detective stories, _The Purloined Letter_, -_The Murders in the Rue Morgue_, and _The Mystery of Marie Roget_, -are made of reasoning and built on curiosity, the very mainspring -of analysis. It is a profitable delight to take any one of these -stories, and, working backwards from the end to the beginning, to -follow the mind of the architect. Each of the tales states a difficulty -and secretes an explanation that is gradually to be reached by the -reader, who identifies the processes of his own mind with those of -the analytical Dupin. Starting always with the solution, we can watch -Poe refusing the slightest irrelevance, and at the same time artfully -piling up detail upon detail in exactly that order best calculated to -keep the secret, to heighten the curiosity, to disturb the peace of the -reader's mind, and to hold him in conjectural suspense until the end. - -[Poe's mind.] - -But it is easy, in considering the technique of Poe's stories, his -smiling refusal of 'inspiration,' his confident mastery over his -material, to let the brilliance of his analytical powers hide from -us his intimacy with the beautiful, the richness and vividness of -his imagination, and, particularly, the passionate character of his -mind. Like Leonardo da Vinci, he was a man whose works were the result -of the energetic fusing of an emotional personality into moulds -designed by reason. Not all Leonardo's theories and calculations -would have sufficed to make a _Mona Lisa_. And if Poe had been merely -a skilled technician, like so many of his imitators, we should have -had from him only unbeautiful toys no less valueless than theirs. All -Poe's work depends, like all Leonardo's, on his power of retaining -the poetry, the energy of his material, after submitting it to his -constructive science, and then, when the moulds have been made, of -pouring it into them red-hot and fluid, as if in the primal vitality -of its conception. In those very detective stories, that seem built by -and of the coldest-blooded reason, what is it that makes them great -but Poe's absorbing passion for the manner of mind of their leading -character. Dupin is not a mere detective. He is not an analyst, but -analysis. He is the embodiment of the logical spirit in mankind, just -as Nicolete, in the old French tale, is the embodiment of the loving -spirit in womankind. It is for this reason that some have accused Dupin -and Nicolete of a lack of individuality. They are not individual, but -universal. - -If we would understand the matter as well as the manner of his -stories, we must think of him as two men, and remember that the -same sensibility that served the man of anagrams, and ciphers, and -detective puzzles, served also the worshipper of beauty, and made him -tremble like a lover at the faintest whisper of her name. Delicately -balanced, alike as analyst and æsthete, he was moved profoundly by -the smallest circumstance. Just as a glass of wine was sufficient to -overturn his reason, so the least wind of suggestion stirred his brain -in a deep and surprising manner. Nothing that happened to him touched -him only on the surface. Everything dropped to the depths of him, and -sometimes returned enriched and recreated. Ideas that others would have -passed over became for him and for his readers powerful, haunting and -inevitable. Ideas of mesmerism, of hypnotism, and of madness, that have -been for so many lesser artists only the materials for foolishness, -were pregnant for him with wonderful effects and stories that, once -read, can never be forgotten. In _William Wilson_ he is using less -flippantly than Stevenson the idea of dual personality. In _The Oval -Portrait_, where a painter transfers the very soul of his lady to his -canvas, and, as the portrait seems to breathe alive, turns round to -find her dead, he is using the subtle, half-thought things that an -earlier writer would scarcely have felt, or, if he had, would have -brushed, like cobwebs, secretly aside. - -[Illustration: EDGAR ALLAN POE] - -[His failures.] - -With a mind so sensitive, a coinage so rare, and a technique so -thorough, it is curious that he should so frequently have failed. And -yet, when we examine his failures they are not difficult to explain. -They are due in every case, saving only his attempts to be funny, -which are like hangman's jokes, to sudden rents in the veils of his -illusions, made by single impossible phrases whose impossibility -he seems to have been unable to recognise. I could give a hundred -examples, but perhaps none better than the excruciating line in an -otherwise beautiful poem, where he tells us that - - 'The sweet Lenore hath "gone before," with Hope, that flew beside.' - -Lapses like that destroy like lightning flashes the mysterious -atmosphere he has been at pains to create. They are the penalty he had -to pay for being a citizen in a youthful democracy. Americans are never -safe from the pitfalls of a language that is older than their nation. - -[His isolation.] - -In the America of that time, Poe was like the little boy in the -grocer's shop, who, while the shopmen are busy with paper and string, -dreams of green meadows and scribbles verses on the sugar bags. Even -in Europe he would have been one of those men 'who live on islands in -the sea of souls.' There are some like Scott and Gautier who are always -called by their Christian names, and can talk unreservedly with a -thousand. There are others more aloof in mind of whom it is difficult -even to think with familiarity. It seems fitting enough to hear of -Scott as Walter or Wattie, and of Gautier as Théo, even in old age; -but who would have dared to call that man Tommy who heard in tavern -song some echo of the music of the spheres? There are men who cannot be -habitually good companions, and, when the talk is at its loudest, turn -from the crowd, pull aside the curtain, and look up to see the pale -moon far above the housetops. Such a man was Poe. He would have been -lonely even in the city of Europe where he could perhaps have found -three men of his own aloofness from the inessential, his own hatred -of the commonplace, his own intense belief in individualism. He was -extraordinarily lonely in America. His love of beauty, his elevation -of his work above its results in gold, were next to incomprehensible -by that people in that chaotic state of their development. Energetic -and wholly practical, fiercely busied with material advancement, -they could not understand his passionate, impractical, intellectual -existence. His biographer, a literary man, remembered not that he was -a great artist, but that he died through drink, not that he had made -beautiful things but that he had gained little money by doing so. In -the Poe who 'reeled across Broadway on the day of the publication of -_The Raven_,' in the Poe who died in an hospital, they forgot the -reality, and, in their hurry, found it easy to make a melodrama out of -a gentle and inoffensive life. Their traditional idea of Poe allows his -extravagances to represent him. It is as if we were to describe some -hills by saying there was a lightning flash between the peaks. I prefer -to think of the little cottage at Fordham, where he lived with his wife -and her mother, and their pets, parrots and bobolinks, a peaceful, -small citadel held by those three friends against the world. Throughout -Poe's harassed existence this note of gentleness and quiet is always -sounding somewhere below the discords of penury and suffering. - -[His work.] - -The result of his isolation, his poverty, his sensibility, and his -intellectual energy was a great deal of work of no value whatever, some -melancholy and beautiful verse, critical articles of a kind then new in -America, a philosophical poem, some tales of the same flavour as the -most delightful of Euclid's propositions, and some other stories that -can only be fully enjoyed by those who come to them with the reverence -and careful taste it is proper to bring to a glass of priceless wine. -It is by them chiefly that he will be remembered. They are a delicacy, -not a staple of food. They are not stories from which we can learn -life; but they are the key to strange knowledge of ourselves. They -leave us richer, not in facts but in emotions. We find our way with -their help into novel corners of sensation. They are like rare coloured -goblets or fantastic metal-work, and we find, often with surprise, -that we have waited for them. That is their vindication, that the test -between the valueless and the invaluable of the fantastic. There are -tales of twisted extravagance that stir us with no more emotion than is -given by an accidental or capricious decoration never felt or formed in -the depths of a man. But these stories, like those patterns, however -grotesque, that have once meant the world to a mind sensible to beauty, -have a more than momentary import. Like old melody, like elaborate and -beautiful dancing, like artificial light, like the sight of poison -or any other concentrated power, they are among the significant -experiences that are open to humanity. - - - - -HAWTHORNE AND MORAL ROMANCE - - - - -HAWTHORNE AND MORAL ROMANCE - - -[The essayist in story-telling.] - -HAWTHORNE is one of the earliest story-tellers whom we remember as much -for himself as for his books. He is loved or hated, as an essayist is -loved or hated, without reference to the subjects on which he happened -to write. He wrote in a community for whom a writer was still so novel -as to possess some rags of the old splendours of the sage; an author -was something wonderful, and no mere business man. He had not to expect -any hostility in his reader, but rather a readiness to admire (of which -he seldom took advantage), and an eagerness to enjoy him for his own -sake. He could assume, as an essayist assumes when he dances naked -before his readers, that they were not there to scoff. He brought a -sweet ingenuous spirit into modern story-telling that would perhaps -have been impossible had he been writing for a more sophisticated -audience. We love him for it. He made books, he said, 'for his known -and unknown friends.' As he says it, he brings us all into the circle. -When we think of Fielding, Bunyan, or Cervantes, we think of _Tom -Jones_, _Pilgrim's Progress_, and _Don Quixote_; when we think of -_Elia_, _Table Talk_, and _The Scarlet Letter_, we think of Lamb, -Hazlitt, and Hawthorne. - -[Hawthorne and Poe.] - -This engaging, unsuspicious, essayistical attitude of his would have -been quite impossible to Poe; but we must remember that Hawthorne -and Poe, although contemporary, knew very different Americas. Poe's -birth was a kind of accident, and he approached America penniless, so -that she was a hostile place to him, a country of skinflint editors -and large terrible towns, from which to escape in books, and, as far -as possible, in life. He hated the New America, but he belonged to -her. Hawthorne belonged to the old. His family connected him with her -history; he was never at her mercy; as we learn from his rambling -prefaces, that would be intolerable in a less lovable writer, she was -endeared to him by a delightful boyhood, and did not refuse him a -peaceful youth of devotion to his art. She never treated him otherwise -than tenderly, and he did not leave her until as a representative of -her people, nor sought escape from her in books, except for those of -his shadowy creatures who could move with greater freedom in a less -bread-and-buttery fairyland. - -[Illustration: NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE] - -[Hawthorne's life.] - -His life, as we learn it from those prefaces and from his biographers, -was as gentle as the man himself. We read of quiet days of work in -a study from whose windows he could watch the sunlight through the -willow boughs; of days on the river with Thoreau in a canoe which -that angular reformer had built with his own hands; of meetings -with Emerson walking in the woods, 'with that pure intellectual gleam -diffused about his person like the garment of a shining one'; of -evenings before the red fire in a little room with white moonlight -bringing out the patterns on the carpet, weaving the tapestries -of dream that were next day to come alive upon the paper. These -people, who were to make the intellectual life of America, were not -American in the peace of their existence. Hawthorne, in the newest -of all countries, wrote 'in a clear, brown, twilight atmosphere.' -He was a lover of secondhand things, and so clothed things with his -imagination that all he touched was green with ivy. No contemporary or -even historical romances have about them such ancient tenderness and -legendary dusk as his. It is extraordinary to think that he was born -within two years of Poe. He thought 'the world was very weary, and -should recline its vast head on the first convenient pillow and take an -age-long nap.' America, at least, had a thousand other things to do, -but it was not until he had seen Europe that Hawthorne recognised the -fact. - -[His notebooks.] - -His notebooks reflect at the same time this quiet life and its -excitements, the stirring adventures of an artist in search of -perfection. He 'had settled down by the wayside of life like a man -under an enchantment.' None but the artist can know how happy such -enchantment is. He notices the flashing soles of a boy's bare feet -running past him in the wood, and 'a whirlwind, whirling the dried -leaves round in a circle, not very violently.' He writes one day, 'The -tops of the chestnut trees have a whitish appearance, they being, I -suppose, in bloom'; two days later, unsatisfied, he makes another -attempt to fit his words to his impression:--'The tops of the chestnut -trees are peculiarly rich, as if a more luscious sunshine were falling -on them than anywhere else, "Whitish," as above, don't express it.' One -of his biographers, himself no mean artist, suggests that Hawthorne's -must have been a dull existence, if in it such trifles were worthy of -note. But the frequency of such notes, interspersed by innumerable -sketches for stories, is not a sign of the poverty of Hawthorne's life -but of its opulence. For Hawthorne, busied always with dim things not -easily expressed, every walk was a treasure hunt that might supply some -phrase, some simile, that would give blood and sinew to the ghost of an -idea. - -[The material of his work.] - -His friends were as far removed from the ordinary as himself. He was -never 'bustled in the world of workaday.' Even his spell of life as -surveyor in the Customs was such that his description of it reads -not unlike Charles Lamb's recollections of the old clerks in the -South-Sea House. The Customs House was a place of sleep and cobwebs, -and the people in it, mostly retired sea-captains, 'partook of the -genius of the place.' 'Pour connaître l'homme,' says Stendhal, 'il -suffit de l'étudier soi-même; pour connaître les hommes, il faut les -pratiquer.' Hawthorne had never kept company with men; his nature -and his circumstances made him learn man from his own heart. He was -never hampered as a romancer by the kind of knowledge that would have -made him a novelist. He deals not with manners, for he had little -opportunity of studying them, nor with passions, for they had not -greatly troubled him, but with conscience. He plays upon the strings of -conscience, and, dusty as the instrument may be, his playing wakes an -echo. - -Perhaps if he had been less personal, less lovable, we could not have -tolerated his tampering with those secret strings whose music is so -novel and so poignant. Certainly we would have found him intolerable -if he had been less serious. If he had jangled those fibres with a -laugh they would have given no response. If he had waked them with a -careless discord they would have broken. We can bear it because he is -Hawthorne; we listen to him because he is in earnest. All, in such -matters, depends upon the attitude of the artist. War, for example, is -a terrible thing in Tolstoy, a joyous thing in Dumas, and an ordinary -thing, neither terrible nor joyous, in Smollett. We take to ourselves -something of an artist's outlook, and sin is nothing to us unless we -hear of it from a man to whom it is momentous. - -[Goya's 'Monk and Witch'.] - -I remember a little picture by Goya representing a monk and a witch. -The woman, with white staring eyeballs, wide nostrils, fallen jaw, -shrinks back against the monk in puling terror; and he, crazed utterly, -his eyes fixed on nothingness, shrieks with gaping mouth some horrid -incantation that drowns the gasping breathing of the witch. Theirs is -no physical fear of fire or sword or scourge: they have sinned, and -seen the face of God. Before me are a set of reproductions of Holbein's -'Dance of Death.' Death lies before the feet of the burgess in the -road, plucks unconcernedly at the robe of the abbot, viciously sticks -a spear through the middle of the knight, and snuffs the altar candles -in the nun's cell, where her young lover is playing on a guitar. But -the picture of Judgment at the end is no more than a careless grace -after meat. It is there with propriety but without conviction. Death is -a full stop, not a comma. What is it to me that the burgess may have -cheated, the abbot be a hypocrite, the knight a roysterer, and the -nun a wanton? Death is close at hand to put a stop to the doings of -them all. I do not know what was the sin of the monk or the witch, and -yet the mere memory of their spiritual terror moves me more than the -pictures before my eyes. Their peril is not of this world. - -[The background of Hawthorne's tales.] - -Hawthorne's finest stories are a Dance of Death, in which Death is -no mere end of a blind alley, but a dividing of the ways. Those dim -people he found in his own soul are important to us by their chances of -salvation or damnation. Their feet - - 'Are in the world as on a tight-rope slung - Over the gape and hunger of Hell.'[8] - -The background to their actions is not happiness and misery, questions -of this world only, but righteousness and mortal sin. The fortunes -of Hawthorne's characters are shaping for Eternity. When Ethan Brand -flings himself into the furnace, what one of Hawthorne's readers ever -thought he died there? - -Even this dignity of grave belief, combined with the charm of the -writer, would not excuse unskilful playing. But Hawthorne is as -dexterous on his chosen instrument as Poe on his, and as consciously -an artist as Stevenson, who indeed, in _Markheim_, plays, no more -skilfully than he, Hawthorne's peculiar tune. In the preface to _The -House of the Seven Gables_ there is a paragraph that, though long, it -is not impertinent to quote. It shows how carefully he had thought out -the possibilities, and how scrupulously he had defined the limits, of -his chosen art. - -[Romance and Novel.] - - 'When a writer calls his work a Romance it need hardly be observed - that he wishes to claim a certain latitude, both as to its fashion - and material, which he would not have felt himself entitled to - assume had he professed to be writing a Novel. The latter form - of composition is presumed to aim at a very minute fidelity, not - merely to the possible, but to the probable and ordinary course - of man's experience. The former--while, as a work of art, it must - subject itself to laws, and while it sins unpardonably so far as - it may swerve aside from the truth of the human heart--has fairly - a right to present that truth under circumstances, to a great - extent, of the writer's own choosing or creation. If he thinks - fit, also, he may so manage his atmospherical medium as to bring - out or mellow the lights, and deepen and enrich the shadows of the - picture. He will be wise, no doubt, to make a very moderate use of - the privileges here stated, and especially to mingle the Marvellous - rather as a slight, delicate, and evanescent flavour, than as any - portion of the actual substance of the dish offered to the public. - He can hardly be said, however, to commit a literary crime, even if - he disregard this caution.' - -There is a hint here of the provincial pedant; 'dishes offered -to the public' are a little out of date; but the principles are -sound. Hawthorne could not give clear outlines to the results of -his 'burrowings in our common nature' unless he set them in an -atmospherical medium that made such outlines possible for things so -vague and so mysterious. Romance left him free to do so. He could -make a world to fit them, a patterned world, coloured to suggest -New England, Italy, or Nowhere. He was never forced to shock us by -introducing them into quite ordinary life. He never loses command over -his 'atmospherical medium,' and never weakens the importance of his -characters by letting them escape from the dominion of morals. And yet -his stories are not 'impaled on texts.' Moral feeling makes them alive, -but it is treated like the Marvellous--'mingled as a slight, delicate, -and evanescent flavour.' No artist had ever such tricky balances to -keep. No artist keeps his balance more successfully. - -[Devices of craftsmanship.] - -His artistry is as subtle in the details as in the design. It is hard -to examine his stories unmoved. But, if we quiet our consciences, and -still the throbbing of our hearts, and force ourselves to read them -paragraph by paragraph with scientific calm, we find there are few -tales from which we can learn more delicate devices of craftsmanship -in making afraid, and in giving reality to intangible and mysterious -things. Before such skill the most prosaic reader surrenders his reason -and shudders with the rest. - -Notice, for example, in _Rappacini's Daughter_, Hawthorne's way of -making credible the marvellous. He states the miracle quite simply, -and by asking 'Was it really so?' lays, without making his intention -obvious, a double emphasis on every point. On every point he throws -a doubt, and stamps belief into the mind. When Giovanni wonders if -Beatrice is like the flowers in that rich garden of death, in breath -and body poisonous, 'to be touched only with a glove, nor to be -approached without a mask,' Hawthorne suggests that he had grown -morbid. We know at once that he had not. A beautiful insect flutters -about her and dies at her feet. 'Now here it could not be but that -Giovanni Guasconti's eyes deceived him.' We know that they did not. -As Beatrice goes into the house, Giovanni fancies that the flowers -he had given her were already withering in her grasp. 'It was an -idle thought,' says Hawthorne, 'there could be no possibility of -distinguishing a faded flower from a fresh one at so great a distance.' -We see the dead petals fall like leaves in autumn as she steps across -the threshold. - -And then notice, in _The Scarlet Letter_, his use of simple actions -made significant by their contexts. When Hester Prynne has thrown -aside, as if for ever, the searing symbol of her outlawry, her child -refuses to recognise her, until she picks it miserably up, and pains -her bosom once again with the embroidered scarlet character. 'Now -thou art my mother, indeed!' cries the child, 'and I am thy little -Pearl!' And when Hester tells her that one day the minister will share -a fireside with them, and hold her on his knees, and teach her many -things, and love her dearly--'And will he always keep his hand over -his heart?' the child inquires. It is quite natural in her to notice a -peculiar habit, and to cling to a familiar piece of ornament; but her -words and actions assume the dignity of portents when we know what -they meant to that poor woman and that conscience-stricken man. - -[The power of details.] - -The imagination needs straws to make its bricks, and Hawthorne is -careful never to set it the impossible task. He knows how to squeeze -all the emotion in his material into one small fragment of pictorial -suggestion that can be confidently left to produce its effect in -concert with the reader's mind. Remember how Goodman Brown, at setting -out, looked back and saw 'the head of Faith still peeping after -him with a melancholy air in spite of her pink ribbons.' A trifle, -apparently, but one that is not to be wasted. After his talk with the -devil, he thought he heard his wife's voice above him in the air, as -an unseen multitude of saints and sinners were encouraging her to -that awful meeting in the forest. '"Faith!" he shouted in a voice of -agony and desperation, and the echoes of the forest mocked him, crying -"Faith! Faith!" as if bewildered wretches were seeking her all through -the wilderness. The cry of grief, rage, and terror was yet piercing the -night when the unhappy wretch held his breath for a response. There -was a scream, drowned immediately in a louder murmur of voices, fading -into far-off laughter, as the dark cloud swept away, leaving the dear -and silent sky above Goodman Brown. But something fluttered lightly -down through the air and caught on the branch of a tree. The young man -seized it, and beheld a pink ribbon.'--A pink ribbon, a merry little -thing that we can see and touch, is made a sudden, awful summary of -horror and despair. - -He makes nature throb with his own mood, and by imperceptible art -weights the simplest words with the emotion of his tale. How are the -very tones of madness caught as the young man flourishes the devil's -stick and strides along the forest path. '"Ha! ha! ha!" roared Goodman -Brown when the wind laughed at him. "Let us hear which will laugh -loudest. Think not to frighten me with your deviltry. Come witch, come -wizard, come Indian powpow, come devil himself and here comes Goodman -Brown. You may as well fear him as he fear you."' That paragraph is the -work of a master. - -[The character of his work.] - -And yet, artist as he was, Hawthorne lived too near provincialism to -show no signs of its influence in his outlook and his work. He could -not enjoy statues without clothes. He was able to commit the enormity -of typifying a search for the absolute beautiful by the making of a -tiny toy butterfly that flapped its wings just like a real one. Nor -did he ever reach that conception of his art, of all art, that sets -prettiness in niches round rather than upon the altar of the temple. -He valued perhaps too highly the simple flowerlike embroidery that is -characteristic of his work. When, while he was in the Custom House, -this power of facile prettiness deserted him for a season, he produced -nothing, and feared that all his power was gone, for it was not in -him to conjure without a wand. He thought afterwards that he might -have written something with the pedestrian fidelity of the novel; but -that was the one thing he could never do. A man who is accustomed to -see his pages glimmer with opalescent colour, and to feel the touch -of elfin fingers on his brow, is oddly disconcerted in those moments -when the little people must be brushed aside like midges, and the -glimmering veil be torn by the elbows of a ruder reality. Such men are -not so common that we can complain of the _défauts de leurs qualités_. -And indeed, in his more solemn stories, instinct with the spiritual -terror of Goya's miniature, the grace that never leaves him adds to -the effect. A rapier seems never more cruel than in a hand elaborately -gloved. What kind of man is that, we ask, who, balancing souls between -Heaven and Hell, can never quite forget his friendship with the -fairies? - - - - -MÉRIMÉE AND CONVERSATIONAL STORY-TELLING - - - - -MÉRIMÉE AND CONVERSATIONAL STORY-TELLING - - -[Mérimée's attitude towards writing.] - -THERE is a lean athletic air about the tales of Prosper Mérimée. Their -author is like a man who throws balls at the cocoa-nuts in the fair--to -bring them down, and not for the pleasure of throwing. His writing was -something quite outside himself, undertaken for the satisfaction of -feeling himself able to do it. He was in the habit of setting himself -tasks. 'I will blacken some paper,' he writes, 'in 1829,' and he keeps -his word. He was not an author, in the modern professional sense, -but a man, one of whose activities was authorship. There is a real -difference between writers of these classes, the amateurs existing -outside their work, the professionals breathing only through it. -Gautier, full-blooded, brutal, splendid creature, is almost invisible -but in his books. Mérimée, irreproachably dressed, stands beside his, -looking in another direction. I am reminded of the sporting gentlemen -of Hazlitt's day who now and again would step into the ring and show -that they too had a pretty way with the gloves. Late in his life, when -one of his juvenile theatrical pieces was to be played for the first -time, Mérimée went to the performance, and heard a hostile noise in the -house. 'Is it me they are hissing?' he asked, 'I am going to hiss with -the rest.' I think of Congreve asking Voltaire to consider him as a -plain gentleman, not as an author. - -[Illustration: PROSPER MÉRIMÉE] - -Writing was only one of the interests of Mérimée's life; only one -of the innumerable tasks he set himself. He learnt half a dozen -languages without being a mere linguist. He travelled in half a dozen -countries without being a traveller. He was extremely erudite, but -never a bookish scholar. He fulfilled with enthusiasm his duties as -Inspector of Ancient Monuments without lapsing into a dusty-handed -antiquary. He saw much of the fashionable life of Paris without being -a man of the world. He was a courtier without being nothing but a -courtier, and could accomplish a state mission without turning into a -diplomatist. He studied 'la théologie, la tactique, la poliorcétique, -l'architecture, l'épigraphie, la numismatique, la magie et la cuisine,' -without being solely a theologian, a tactician, a specialist in -sieges, an architect, a decipherer of inscriptions, a coin collector, -a wizard, or an undiluted cook. No more was he a writer, as Dumas, -Hazlitt, Hawthorne, and Keats were writers. On no shore did he burn -his boats. His character was as various as his activities. He was -sensualist and sentimentalist, dandy and Bohemian. Evenings begun in -the salon of Mme. de Boigne or at the Hôtel Castellane were, his -biographer tells us, finished behind the scenes at the Opera. He wrote -delightful love-letters, but whole series of his letters to his friends -are unfitted for print by consistent indecency. He read his tales to -his Empress, and told them in the gipsy tongue by the camp-fires of -Andalusian muleteers. His experiments in literature were analogous -to his experiments in cooking. Both were expressions of an intense -curiosity about life and the methods of life, and a thirst for personal -practical efficiency in them all. Never had man more facets in which to -see the world. It is important in this essay, that considers only one -of them, not to forget that there were others. - -[The imaginary author of his tales.] - -It is indeed not easy to see more than one facet of a man's personality -at once, and difficult not to assume that this one facet is the whole. -The _curés_ of the old churches in France who saw Mérimée busied in -protecting the ancient buildings from ruin and restoration would -have been amazed by the witty dandy of the dinners in the Café de -la Rotonde, or by the author of _Colomba_. Each one of such a man's -expressions suggests a complete portrait, but only the composite -picture tells the truth. It is difficult not to reason from his work -and build up an imaginary author--a discreet, slightly ironical person, -who smiles only with the corners of his mouth, never laughs, never -weeps, modestly disclaims any very personal connection with his tales, -and is careful to seem as little moved as may be by the terrible or -mysterious things he sets before us. This imaginary polite person, -who represented Mérimée in conversation as well as in books, is not -Mérimée, but, just now, as I see him quietly smiling in the air before -me, I know who he is. He is the conventional raconteur, whose manner -every Englishman assumes in the telling of anecdote or ghost story. - -[Printed and spoken stories.] - -Perhaps each nation has its own. Perhaps each nation adopts an attitude -for anecdote peculiar to its own genius. The French at any rate is -very different from the English. The Frenchman will gesticulate in -his tale, suit the expression of his face to its emotions, and try, -ingratiatingly, to win our indulgence for his story, that becomes, -as he tells it, part of himself. The Englishman, more tenacious of -his dignity, less willing to hazard it for an effect, throws all -responsibility upon the thing itself. In England, the distinction -between printed story-telling and story-telling by word of mouth is -more marked than elsewhere. The object of both is to interest and -move us, but, while the literary artist makes no bones about it, and -takes every advantage possible, giving the setting of his tale, its -colour scheme, its scent, its atmosphere, the plain Englishman shrinks -from all assumption of craftsmanship, sets out his facts bare, rough -like uncut stones, and repudiates by a purposely disordered language, -perhaps by a few words of slang, any desire of competition with the -professional.[9] And we, the audience, allow ourselves to be moved -more readily by an amateur than by a man who avows his intention of -moving us. The avowed intention provokes a kind of hostility; it is a -declaration of war, an open announcement of a plan to usurp the throne -of our own mind, and to order the sensations we like to think we can -control. We are more lenient with the amateur; we wish to save his -face; politeness and good-fellowship are traitors in our citadel, and -we conspire with the enemy to compass our own yielding. - -[Mérimée's adoption of the conventions of anecdote.] - -Mérimée gives his tales no more background than an Englishman could -put without immodesty into an after-dinner conversation. He does not -decorate them with words, nor try to suggest atmosphere by rhythm or -any other of the subtler uses of language. He does not laugh at his -jokes, nor, in moments of pathos, show any mist in his eyes. The only -openly personal touches in his stories are those sentences of irony as -poignant as those of another great conversationalist, whose _Modest -Proposal_ for the eating of little children is scarcely more cruel -than _Mateo Falcone_. His style is without felicities. It has none of -the Oriental pomp of Gautier's prose, none of the torrential eloquence -of Hugo's; but its limitations are its virtues. Pomp is the ruin of a -plain fact as of a plain man, and rhetoric rolls facts along too fast -to do anything but smooth them. This style, that seems to disclaim any -pretension to be a style at all, leaves facts unencumbered, with their -corners unpolished. It emphasises Mérimée's continual suggestion that -he is not a story-teller, and so helps to betray us into his power. -But I cannot understand those critics who find it a style of clear -glass that shows us facts through no personality whatever. Always, in -reading a Mérimée, I have an impression of listening to a man who has -seen the world, and was young once upon a time, who loves Brantôme, and -who in another century would have been a friend of Anthony Hamilton, -and perhaps have written or had a minor part in memoirs like those -of the Count Grammont. And this man is the imaginary mouthpiece of -English anecdote, the mask handed from speaker to speaker at an English -dinner-table. - -[Mérimée's _anglomanie_.] - -Mérimée himself had something of the appearance of an Englishman; -everything except the smile, according to Taine. No Frenchman can write -of him without referring to his _anglomanie_. His mother had English -relatives, and Hazlitt, Holcroft, and Hazlitt's worshipped Northcote -were among his father's friends. He was not baptized in the Catholic -religion. He seems to have grown up in an atmosphere not unlike that of -many English intellectual families, and very early made friends across -the Channel for himself. This Englishness perhaps partly accounts for -the peculiar attitude he took as a story-teller, and also made possible -that curious reconciliation between the virtues of rival schools that -the attitude demanded; made possible, that is to say, the apparent -paradox of a man whose subjects were Romantic, whose style was almost -Classical, and whose stories were yet a prophecy of the Realists. It -is not a French characteristic to recognise virtues in more than one -type at once, and to combine them. 'Le Roi est mort; vive le Roi.' The -French invented that saying. They do not recognise compromises, but are -exclusive in their judgments, and regulate their opinions by general -rules. A Romantic hates all Classicists, a Realist finds his worst term -of opprobrium in the word Romantic. An Englishman, on the other hand, -does not think of regulating his affections or actions by a theory. If -he has principles, he locks them up with his black clothes for use on -special occasions. He keeps a sturdy affection for Oliver Cromwell, -without letting his love for the Commonwealth abate in the least his -loyalty to the King. Mérimée seems extraordinarily English in being -able to own Romantic ideals, without using Romantic method. - -[The contrast between his manner and his material.] - -The conversational story-telling depends for its success, not on the -wit or charm of the talker, but on the plots of his stories. No more -exigent test of the intrinsic power of a tale can be applied than -this, of telling it badly in conversation. A good story will sometimes -gain by the naked recital of its facts; a bad one is immediately -betrayed. Bad stories, in this sense, are those that resemble the -women of whom Lyly wrote:--'Take from them their periwigges, their -paintings, their Jewells, their rowles, their boulstrings, and thou -shalt soone perceive that a woman is the least part of hir selfe.' -How many times, in repeating to a friend the story of a book, you -have become suddenly aware it was an empty, worthless thing that, in -clothes more gorgeous than it had a right to wear, had made you its -dupe for a moment. Mérimée was compelled by his method to tell good -stories or none. His material, to be sufficiently strong to stand -without support, to be built with rigid economy, and to make its -effects out of its construction, to be told as if with a desire of -making no impression, and to make an impression all the stronger for -such telling, could not be of a light or delicate nature. His events -had to be striking, visible, conclusive. He had to choose stories in -which something happened. There is death in almost every one of his -tales. Hence comes the amazing contrast between his work and that of -the Romantics. The large gesture, the simple violent passions are his -as well as theirs, because he needed them, but, while they matched -their subjects in their temperaments, and wrote of hot blood with -pulsing veins, everything in Mérimée's stories is vivid and passionate -except the author. The atmosphere of his tales is not warm or moist, -but extraordinarily rarified. In that clear air his colours seem almost -white. If they were not so brilliant we should not perceive them at -all. Even his women are chosen for the attitude. The women a man loves -are usually reflected in his work. But Mérimée's women are the women -of Romance, dying for love or for hate, ready at any moment to throw -their emotions into dramatic action, while the women he loved were -capricious, whimsical, tender seldom, _outrées_ never. The writer -needed picturesque women as clear as facts. The man loved women who -never betrayed themselves, but were sufficiently elusive to give him an -Epicurean pleasure in pursuing them. - -[An art of construction.] - -The art of Mérimée's tales is one of expository construction. He was -compelled by his self-denials to be as conscious an artist as Poe. He -is like a good chess-player who surrenders many pieces, and is forced -to make most wonderful play with the few that remain. His effects are -got from the material of his tales, not superimposed on the vital stuff -like the front of a Venetian palace on the plain wall. He takes his -dramatic material, and sets it before us in his undecorated style, -so that no morsel of its vitality is wasted, smothering no wild -gesture in elaborate drapery, but cutting it out so nakedly that every -quivering sinew can be seen. His art has been compared to drawing, but -it is more like sculpture. His stories are so cleanly carved out of -existence that they are 'without deception.' We can examine them from -above and from below, in a dozen different lights. There is no point of -view from which the artist begs us to refrain. Behind a drawing there -is a bare sheet. Behind a story of Mérimée's there is the other side. - -[Pointillism in facts.] - -His art is more like painting in those few tales of the marvellous -that are his ghost stories, as the others are his anecdotes. Mérimée -had the archæologist's hatred of the mysterious, and the artist's -delight in creating it. He reconciled the two by producing mysterious -effects by statements of the utmost clarity, the very clarity of the -statements throwing the reader off his guard so that he does not -perceive the purposeful skill with which they are chosen and put -together. There is a school of painting in France, whose followers -call themselves Pointillists; they get their effects by laying spots -of simple colours side by side, each one separate, each one though in -the right position with regard to other spots of other colours placed -in its neighbourhood. At a sufficient distance they merge luminously -into the less simple colours of the picture. Mérimée's treatment of -the marvellous was not unlike this. The vague mystery of _La Vénus -d'Ille_ is not reflected by any vagueness or mystery in the telling -of the tale. It is impossible to point to the single sentence, the -single paragraph that makes the mystery mysterious. You cannot find -them because they do not exist. Instead, there are a hundred morsels of -fact. Not one of them is incredible; not one is without a reasonable -explanation if an explanation is necessary. And yet all these concrete, -simple facts combine imperceptibly in producing the extraordinary -supernatural feeling of the tale. Compare this negative manner of -treating a miracle with the frank, positive fairy-tale of Gautier's -_Arria Marcella_. The effects of both tales are perfectly achieved, -but Arria Marcella belongs to written story-telling. We believe in her -because Gautier wishes us to believe, and uses every means of colour -and rhythm and sensual suggestion to compel his readers to subject -their imaginations to his own. The Venus belongs to story-telling -by word of mouth. Hers is a ghost story whose shudder we covet, and -experience, in spite of ourselves, in spite of the half-incredulous -story-teller, by virtue of those simple facts so cunningly put together. - -[Strength or charm.] - -But to write analytically of such stories is to write with compass and -rule, dully, awkwardly, technically, badly. It is impossible to express -the excellence of a bridge except by showing how perfectly its curves -represent the principles of its design, and to talk like an architect -of the method of its building. And that is so very inadequate. It is -easy to write of warmth, of delicacy, of sweetness; there is nothing -harder in the world than to write of the icy strength that is shown -not in action but in construction. And although there is a real charm -about the shy, active, intellectual man who made them, a charm that is -shown in his love-letters, yet there is no charm at all about Mérimée's -stories. The difference between them and such tales as Nathaniel -Hawthorne's is that between the little Grecian lady in baked clay, who -stands upon my mantelpiece, still removing with what grace of curved -body and neck and delicate arm the thorn that pricked her tiny foot -some thousand years ago, and the copy of an Egyptian god, standing -upright, one straight leg advanced, his jackal head set square upon -his shoulders, his arms stiff at his sides, his legs like pillars, so -strong in the restraint of every line that to look at him is a bracing -of the muscles. There is no charm in him, no grace, no delicacy, and -he needs neither delicacy, grace, nor charm. Erect in his own economy -of strength he has an implacable, strenuous power that any added -tenderness would weaken and perhaps destroy. - - - - -FLAUBERT - - - - -FLAUBERT - - -'I AM the last of the fathers of the church,' said Flaubert, and on -this text his niece remarks that 'with his long chestnut coat, and -little black silk skull-cap, he had something the air of one of the -Port-Royal solitaries.' The metaphor is accurately chosen. Flaubert -lived in an atmosphere of monastic devotion to his art, and the -solitaries of Port-Royal were not more constant than he to their -intellectual preoccupations. A man of excessive openness to sensation, -he fled it and was fascinated by it. He would take ever so little of -the world and torture himself with its examination because it hurt -him to look at it. Life, and especially that life whose sensitiveness -was so slight as, in comparison with his own, to have no existence, -brought him continual pain. 'La bêtise entre mes pores.' Stupidity -touching him anywhere made him shrink like a snail touched with a -feather. He had _recoquillements_, shrinkings up, when with his dearest -friends, and it was pain to him to be recalled to ordinary existence. -He escaped from modernity in dreams of the Orient, but was continually -drawn back by memory of the unhappiness that was waiting for him, to -the contemplation of those ordinary people whose slightest act, as he -imagined it, struck such a grating discord with himself. An exuberant -life like Gautier's was impossible to such a man. He could not be so -gregarious a recluse as Balzac. He had to fashion a peculiar retreat, -a room with two windows, from one of which he could see the stars, -and from the other watch and listen to the people whom he hated and -found so efficient as the instruments of his self torture. He found -the seclusion he desired in a most absolute devotion to the art of -literature, which was in his hands the art of making beauty out of -pain. Pain, self-inflicted, was at the starting-point of all his works, -and in most of them went with him step by step throughout. - -[Illustration: GUSTAVE FLAUBERT] - -[Flaubert and the bourgeois.] - -An analysis of the pain that Flaubert suffered in examining -Philistines, that white light of suffering which throws up so clearly -the bourgeois figures on which he let it play, supplies the key -not only to the matter of much of his work, but to its manner, and -particularly to that wonderful prose of his, whose scrupulosity has -been and is so frequently misunderstood. Flaubert was not pained by a -bourgeois because he felt differently from himself. He was pained by -a bourgeois because a bourgeois did not know that he felt differently -from himself, because a bourgeois never knew how he felt at all. -Whole wolves hate a lame one. It has never been stated with what -inveterate hatred a lame one regards whole wolves. And Flaubert was -less fitted for life than an ordinary man. He was given to know when -he was honest or dishonest to himself. In so far was he, on their own -ground, weaker than those others, who never know whether they tell the -truth or a lie. He was born as it were with no skin over his heart. -He had no need to make guesses at his feelings. What more terrible -nightmare could be imagined for such a man than to hear men and women, -educated, as the bourgeois are, into a horrible facility of speech, -using the language of knowledge and emotion, unchecked by any doubts as -to their possible inaccuracy. In all bourgeois life, where language and -action have larger scales than are necessary, there is a discrepancy -between expression and the thing for which expression is sought. For -Flaubert, sensitive to this discrepancy as the ordinary man is not, it -was a perpetual pain. And just as a man who has a nerve exposed in one -of his teeth, touches it again and again, in spite of himself, for the -exquisite twinge that reminds him it is there, so Flaubert in more than -one half of his books is occupied in hurting himself by the delicate -and infinitely varied search for this particular discord. - -[Flaubert's prose.] - -Flaubert's prose is due, like his unhappiness, to his inhuman trueness -of feeling. He realised that flexible as language is, there are almost -insuperable difficulties in the way of any one who wishes to put an -idea accurately into words. He went to the bottom of all writing and -announced that literature is founded on the word; and that unless you -have the right word you have the wrong literature. He was a little -puzzled at the survival of the mighty improvisations of older times, -although he loved them; but there was no doubt in his mind that his -own way was not 'a primrose path to the everlasting bonfire' of bad -books. Whatever he wrote, he would have it in words chosen one by -one, scrupulously matched in scent, colour, and atmosphere to the -ideas or emotions he wished to express. His whole creed was to tell -the truth. What exactly did he feel? These were the letters that were -always flaming before him. It is vivid discomfort to a labourer to be -cross-questioned, and forced to find words for his unrealised meanings. -With increased facility of speech we grow callous, and, compromising -with our words, write approximations to the thoughts that, not having -accurately described, we can scarcely be said to possess. Flaubert, in -disgust at such inexactitudes, forced on his own highly educated brain -the discomfort of the cross-questioned labourer. Knowing the truth, he -would say it or nothing, and rejected phrase after phrase in his search -for precision. It was gain and loss to him; gain in texture, loss in -scope. 'What a scope Balzac had,' he cried, and then: 'What a writer -he would have been if only he had been able to write.' The work of such -men is loosely knit in comparison with his, because built in a less -resisting material. 'Oui,' says Gautier-- - - 'Oui, l'œuvre sort plus belle - D'une forme au travail - Rebelle, - Vers, marbre, onyx, émail.' - -Flaubert's attitude made prose a medium as hard, as challenging as -these. - -It is difficult to believe that the older writers bought their -excellence so dearly. Their thoughts cannot have been so biassed, for -it is the expression of every bias, of the background, of the smell, of -the feel of an idea that makes circumspicuity of writing so difficult. -Montaigne, for example, sitting peaceably in his tower, asking himself -with lively interest what were his opinions, was not at all like the -almost terrible figure of Flaubert, striding to and fro in his chamber, -wringing phrases from his nerves, asking passionately, ferociously, -what he meant, and almost throttling himself for an accurate answer. Is -it harder than it was to produce a masterpiece? - -[Romanticism and realism.] - -Flaubert, who held Chateaubriand a master, was the friend of Gautier, -and the director in his art of Guy de Maupassant, who wrote with one -hand _Madame Bovary_ and with the other _Salammbo_, who put in the same -book _St. Julien l'Hospitalier_ and _Un Cœur Simple_, is, on a far -grander scale than Mérimée, an illustration as well as a reason of the -development of romanticism into realism. Flaubert's passionate care -for the truth, would, if he had lived before the Romantic movement, -have confined itself to the elaboration of a very scrupulous prose. But -after the discovery of local colour, after the surprising discovery -of the variety that exists in things, as great as the variety that -exists in words and in their combinations, it was sure to apply itself -not only to the writing but also to those external things that had -suggested the ideas the writing was to embody. It would try to make -the sentences true to their author; it would also try to make them -true to the life they were to represent. It was Flaubert who said to -De Maupassant as they passed a cabstand, 'Young man, describe that -horse in one sentence so as to distinguish him from every other horse -in the world, and I shall begin to believe that you have possibilities -as a writer.' This demand for accurate portraiture turned the romantic -realism of Balzac's _Comédie Humaine_ into the other realism of _Madame -Bovary_. [_Madame Bovary._] Balzac had his models, yes, as hints in the -back of his head, but he made his characters alive with his own energy -and his own brain. As I have already pointed out, they are all too -alive to be true. But Flaubert, true to himself in his manner, wished -to be true to life in his matter. Madame Bovary, that second-rate, -ordinary, foolish, weak, little provincial wife, has no atmosphere -about her but her own. She has not been inoculated with the blood of -Flaubert, as all the veins of all the characters of Balzac have been -scorched with fire from those of that 'joyful wild boar.' When Flaubert -wrote that everything in the book was outside himself, he was saying -no more than the truth. He was as honest towards her and her life as -he was towards his own ideas. She talks like herself. Now the older -writers, like Fielding and Smollett, are content to let their people -talk as men and women should talk to be fit for good literature. Even -the characters of men like Balzac or Hugo say what they think, as -nearly as their creators are themselves able to express it. Flaubert -is infinitely more scrupulous. The Bovary never says what she thinks. -Flaubert knew well enough what she was thinking, but sought out exactly -those phrases and sentences beneath which she would have hidden her -thought, those horrible bourgeois inaccuracies that it was torture for -him to hear. - -A life so wholly concerned with intangible things seems too -intellectual for humanity. I am glad to turn aside from it for a moment -to remember the Flaubert who was loved by those who spent their days -with him; the uncle who taught her letters to his little niece, and -who would, as she says, have done anything imaginable to enliven her -when sad or ill. 'One of his greatest pleasures was the amusement of -those about him,' although he never saw a woman without thinking of -her skeleton, a child without remembering that it would one day be -old, or a cradle without finding in it the promise of a grave. He was -one of the men who love their friends the dearer for their dislike of -mankind in general. He never shaved without laughing at 'the intrinsic -absurdity of human life,' and yet he lived out his own share in it -with steadfast purpose, 'yoking himself to his work like an ox to the -plough.' - -The result of his incessant labour divides itself into four kinds; -novels of the bourgeoisie, a novel of the East, three short stories, -and two other books that are, as it were, twin keys to the whole. - -[_Salammbo._] - -_Madame Bovary_ and _L'Éducation Sentimentale_ are the novels of the -bourgeoisie, novels with an entirely new quality of vision, due to -the sustained contrast between his own articulate habit of mind and -the unconsciously inarticulate minds of his characters; these are the -books commonly described as his contributions to Realism by men too -ready to set him on their own level. Opposed to these two books there -is _Salammbo_, an Oriental and ancient romance, a reposeful dream for -him, in which move characters whose feelings and expressions are no -more blurred than his own. All these books offer more delight at each -re-reading, although the last, considered as an example of narrative, -is almost a failure. The Romantics too often miss the trees for the -wood. Flaubert's method makes it rather easy to miss the wood for the -trees. But his trees are of such interest and beauty that we are ready -to examine them singly. In writing _Madame Bovary_, his subject was -close within his reach. Madame was too near to allow him to cover her -up with a library of knowledge about his own times. But in _Salammbo_ -he was so anxious to be true to the life that he did not know, that he -read until he knew too much. The book is made of perfect sentences, -perfect descriptions, while the story itself is buried beneath a -dust-heap of antiquity. Cartloads after cartloads of gorgeous things -are emptied on the top of each other, until the whole is a glittering -mass with here and there some splendid detail shining so brilliantly -among the rest that we would like to remove it for a museum. The mass -stirs: there are movements within it; but they are too heavily laden to -shake themselves free and become visible and intelligible. - -[_Trois Contes._] - -No such criticism can be urged against the three short stories, -the _Trois Contes_, in which Flaubert proves himself not only one -of the greatest writers of all time, but also one of the greatest -story-tellers. This little book is a fit pendant to the novels, since -it represents both the Flaubert of _Madame Bovary_ and the Flaubert of -_Salammbo_. _Un Cœur Simple_, the first of the three, is the story -of a servant woman and her parrot, a subject that de Maupassant might -have chosen. So completely is it weaned from himself, that no one -would suspect that Flaubert wrote it after his mother's death, for the -pleasure, in describing the provincial household, of remembering his -own childhood. It and the two stories, _St. Julien l'Hospitalier_ and -_Hérodias_, which are purely romantic in subject and treatment, and -more scrupulous in technique than the finest of Gautier, are among the -most beautiful tales that the nineteenth century produced. All three -answer the supreme test of a dozen readings as admirably as those old -improvisations from whose spirit they are so utterly alien. - -[_La Tentation de Saint Antoine_ and _Bouvard et Pécuchet_.] - -That is the sum of Flaubert's work in pure narrative. There are beside -it two books, one a _Tentation de Saint Antoine_, that he spent his -whole life in bringing to perfection, and the other, _Bouvard et -Pécuchet_, that he left unfinished at his death. They are among the -most wonderful philosophic books of the world. In an Oriental dream, -a dialogue form with stage directions so explicit and descriptive as -to do the work of narrative, and in a story whose form might have been -dictated by Voltaire, whose material was the same as that used in the -novels, he expressed man in the presence of Religion, and man in the -presence of Knowledge. The legend of St. Anthony is treated by the -Flaubert who loved the East, the story of Bouvard and Pécuchet by -the Flaubert who tortured himself with observation of the bourgeois. -St. Anthony is tempted of love and of all the religions; at last, not -triumphing, but shaken and very weary, he kneels again, and Flaubert -leaves him. Bouvard and Pécuchet, the two clerks given by the accident -of a legacy the aloofness and the opportunity for development that was -Anthony's, are tempted of love and of all the knowledges; at last made -very miserable they return to their desks; that is where Flaubert would -have left them if he had lived. To discuss the settings of these two -great expositions is to ask the question that was asked by a disciple -at the end of Voltaire's _Dream of Plato_. 'And then, I suppose, you -awoke?' It is only permissible after recognising the grandeur of the -underlying idea. - -[The statue of _Le Penseur_.] - -There have been two men with such a conception of thought. Rodin carved -what Flaubert had written. The statue of _Le Penseur_, that stands -in front of the Panthéon in Paris, is the statue of a man tormented -like St. Anthony, baffled like Bouvard and Pécuchet. This statue does -not represent man's dream of the power of thought, of the dominion of -thought. That head is no clear mechanism, faultless and frictionless; -that attitude is not one of placid contemplation. The head is in -torture, the whole body grips itself in the agony of articulation. The -statue is not that of _a_ thinker, but of _the_ thinker; man before -the Universe, man unable to wrest the words out of himself. Flaubert -had such a vision as that when he wrote the _Tentation_ and _Bouvard et -Pécuchet_. He hated mankind because they could not share it with him. -They did not know as he knew, or see as he saw, but knelt or worked, -and were happy. This one stupendous conception of the true relation -between man and thought is that on which all Flaubert's work is -founded. Expressed in these two books, it is implied in all the others -(even in _Salammbo_, which is almost an attempt to escape from it). It -is not a message; it does not say anything; it is as dumb as Rodin's -statue; it simply _is_--like _Paradise Lost_ or the _Mona Lisa_ or a -religion. 'I am the last of the Fathers of the Church.' - - - A NOTE ON DE MAUPASSANT - - DE MAUPASSANT for seven years submitted all he wrote to Flaubert's - criticism. If we add to the preceding essay some sentences from - Flaubert's correspondence, it will be easy to imagine the lines - that criticism must have taken, and interesting to compare them - with the resulting craftsman. - - 'I love above all the nervous phrase, substantial, clear, with - strong muscles and browned skin. I love masculine phrases not - feminine. - - 'What dull stupidity it is always to praise the lie, and to say - that poetry lives on illusion: as if disillusion were not a hundred - times more poetic. - - 'Find out what is really your nature, and be in harmony with it. - _Sibi constat_ said Horace. All is there. - - 'Work, above all think, condense your thought; you know that - beautiful fragments are worthless; unity, unity is everything. - - 'The author in his work ought to be like God in the Universe, - present everywhere and visible nowhere. - - 'Fine subjects make mediocre works.' - - These sentences might well be taken as de Maupassant's inspiration. - De Maupassant, a man of powerful mind, with Flaubert's example - before him, makes each of his tales a rounded unity, and a thing - outside himself, and yet a thing that no one else could have - written. He shunned fine subjects. His stories are like sections - of life prepared for examination, and in looking at them we are - flattered into thinking that we have clearer eyes than usual. He - chooses some quite ordinary incident, and by working up selected - details of it, turns it into a story as exciting to the curiosity - as a detective puzzle. He allows no abstract feminine-phrased - discourses on the psychology of his characters: he does not take - advantage of their confessions. Their psychology is manifested in - things said and in things done. The works, as in life, are hidden - in the fourth dimension, where we cannot see them. - - _La Rendezvous_, a tiny story of seven pages, will illustrate his - methods. The chosen incident is that of a woman going to see her - lover, meeting some one else on the way, and going off with him - instead. That is all. Let us see how de Maupassant works it out. - Here is his first paragraph: - - 'Her hat on her head, her cloak on her back, a black veil across - her face, another in her pocket, which she would put on over the - first as soon as she was in the guilty cab, she was tapping the - point of her boot with the end of her umbrella, and stayed sitting - in her room, unable to make up her mind to go out to keep the - appointment.' - - The whole of her indecision is expressed before it is explained. - Then there is a paragraph that lets us know that she had been - keeping the appointment regularly for two years, and we sympathise - with her a little. A description of her room follows, made by - mention of a clock ticking the seconds, a half-read book on a - rosewood desk, and a perfume. The clock strikes and she goes out, - lying to the servant. We watch her, loitering on the way, telling - herself that the Vicomte awaiting her would be opening the window, - listening at the door, sitting down, getting up, and, since she - had forbidden him to smoke on the days of her visits, throwing - desperate glances at the cigarette-box. De Maupassant's characters - think in pictures of physical action. People do so in real life. - - The heroine sits in a square watching children, and reflects, - always in the concrete, how much the Vicomte is going to bore - her, and on the terrible danger of rendezvous, and so on, making - pictures all the time. At last, when she is three-quarters of an - hour late, she gets up and sets out for his rooms. She has not gone - ten steps before she meets a diplomatic baron, of whose character - in her eyes de Maupassant has been careful to let us have a hint - beforehand. He asks her, after the usual politenesses, to come and - see his Japanese collections. He is an adroit person this baron. - He does not make love to her. He laughs at her. He ends, after a - delightful little dialogue, in half hurrying, half frightening her - into a cab. They have scarcely started when she cries out that - she has forgotten that she had promised her husband to invite the - Vicomte to dinner. They stop at a post office. The baron goes - in and gets her a telegram card. She writes on it in pencil--it - would be vandalism to spoil the message by translating it from the - French--she writes: - - 'Mon cher ami, je suis très souffrante; j'ai une névralgie - atroce qui me tient au lit. Impossible sortir. Venez diner - demain soir pour que je me fasse pardonner. - - JEANNE.' - - She licks the edge, closes it carefully, writes the Vicomte's - address, and then, handing it to the baron, 'Now, will you be so - good as to drop this in the box for telegrams.' - - There de Maupassant ends, without comment of any kind. His stories - have always 'the look of a gentleman,' and know how to move, when - to stop, what to put in and what to leave out. They are impersonal, - but not more impersonal than Mérimée's. There is a man behind them, - and in contradistinction to the school of writers with whom he has - been confounded, he does not blink the fact, but obeys Flaubert's - maxim, allowing his presence to be felt but keeping himself - invisible. De Maupassant, the pupil of Flaubert, makes even clearer - than his master the intimate connection between those apparently - hostile things, Romanticism and Realism. Lesser and coarser minds - may have needed the stimulus of a revolt when none was; but the - great men on the heights knew that the suns of dawn and sunset were - the same. - - De Maupassant's position in this book is commensurate neither with - his genius nor with what I should like to say of him, and hope - to write in another place. I had wished my book to end with the - Romantic Movement, and so with Flaubert, who seems to me to mark - its ultimate development without a change of name. De Maupassant is - here only to show how direct is the descent of the least exuberant - of modern story-telling from the Romanticism that made possible - the work of Chateaubriand, Hugo, or Balzac. His true position is - in a book that should begin with Flaubert and end with some great - writer of to-morrow, whose work should show by what alchemy the - story-telling of to-day will be changed into that of the future. - -[Illustration: GUY DE MAUPASSANT] - - - - -CONCLUSION - - - - -CONCLUSION - - -MY table is covered with a green cloth, and on it, under the lamplight, -are two bowls of roses. One is full of the rich garden flowers, whose -hundred folded petals hold in their depths the shadows of their -colourings--cream, crimson, and the rose and orange of an autumn -sunset. In the other are three or four wild roses from the hedge on the -far side of the lane. I scarcely know which give me greater pleasure. -In comparing them I seem to be setting _Aucassin and Nicolete_ by the -side of _La Morte Amoureuse_. How many flowers must represent the -gradual growth of one into the other. How large a collection would be -necessary to illustrate every stage of the transformation of the simple -beauty of the wild blossoms into the luxuriant loveliness, majesty, and -variety of the roses in the opposite bowl. I have attempted such a task -in this book; not the impossible one of collecting every flower in any -way different from those that had opened before it, but of bringing -together a score or so to make the difference between first and last a -little less tantalising and obscure. - -[Genius a stationary quality.] - -I had thought I was tracing a progress of the art itself; but I no -longer think so. Century after century has laid its gift before the -story-teller, its gift of a form, an unworked vein, a point of view. He -has learnt to hold us with an episode, and also, evening after evening, -to keep us interested in the lives of a dozen different people whose -adventures in the pages of a book he makes no less actual than our -own. In this last century of the art we have seen men looking back to -all the ages before them, and bringing into modern story-telling the -finest qualities of the most ancient, recreating it, and winning for -it the universal acknowledgment that is given to painting, poetry, or -music. Much seems to have been done, and yet, who would dare assign to -a modern story-teller, however excellent a craftsman, a place above -Boccaccio? Who says that his digressions make old Dan Chaucer out of -date? Art does not progress but in consciousness of its technique and -in breadth of power. Genius is a stationary quality. Techniques and the -conditions of production, qualified the one by the other, and modified -by genius, move past it side by side, like an endless procession before -a seated king. The works they carry between them are not to be judged -by their place in the cavalcade, but by the spirit before whom they -pass, who wakes from time to time to give them life and meaning. - -None the less, there is a kind of imperfect contemporariness in the -art that lets the finest works of all times remain side by side to -be imitated or compared. And this power of survival that belongs to -works of genius accounts for two phenomena, which give genius itself a -spurious air of progress. The one is an ever clearer consciousness of -technique, the other an ever wider range of possibilities, both due to -the increasing number of works of art that are ready for comparison or -imitation. - -[The dissociation of forms.] - -In the latter half of my book, and particularly in the chapters on -Poe, Mérimée, Hawthorne, and Flaubert, we have been partly busied in -remarking the later stages of self-conscious craftsmanship. There -remains to be discussed the dissociation of one form from another -that naturally accompanied this more observant technique. I want to -distinguish here between the short story, the _nouvelle_, and the -novel, which are not short, middle-sized, and lengthy specimens of the -same thing, but forms whose beauties are individual and distinct. They -demand quite different skills, and few men have excelled in more than -one of them. Before proceeding to closer definition, let me name an -example of each, to keep in our minds for purposes of reference while -considering their several moulds. Balzac's _Père Goriot_ is a novel; -Gautier's _La Morte Amoureuse_ is a _nouvelle_; de Maupassant's _La -Petite Ficelle_ is a short story. - -[The novel.] - -The novel was the first form to be used by men with a clear knowledge -of what it allowed them to do, and what it expected of them in return. -Smollett's is its simplest definition. 'A novel,' he says, 'is a large -diffused picture, comprehending the characters of life, disposed in -different groups and exhibited in various attitudes, for the purpose -of a uniform plan and general occurrence, to which every individual -figure is subservient.' It is, as near as may be, a piece of life, -and one of its similarities to ordinary existence is perhaps the -characteristic that best marks its difference from the _nouvelle_. The -novel contains at least one counterplot, the _nouvelle_ none. Life has -as many counterplots as it has actors, as many heroes and heroines as -play any part in it at all. No man is a hero to his valet, because in -that particular plot the valet happens to be a hero to himself. The -novelist does not attempt so equable a characterisation, but by telling -the adventures of more than one group of people, and by threading -their tales in and out through each other, he contrives to give a -conventional semblance of the intricate story-telling of life.[10] - -[The _nouvelle_.] - -The _nouvelle_ is a novel without a counterplot, and on a smaller -scale.[11] The latter quality is dependent on the former, since it -combats the difficulty of sustained attention, that the novel avoids -by continual change from one to another of its parallel stories. The -_nouvelle_ was with Boccaccio little more than a plot made actual by -the more important sentences of dialogue, and by concise sketching -of its principal scenes. It has now grown to be a most delicate and -delightful form, without breathlessness and without compression, its -aim of pure story being implicit in the manner of its telling. It is -differentiated from the short story, the advantage of whose brevity it -shares in a lesser degree, by the separate importance of its scenes, -which are not bound to be subjected so absolutely to its conclusion. -For example, the splendid cathedral scene in _La Morte Amoureuse_, -where, at the moment of ordination, a young priest is stricken with -passion for a courtesan, would be unjustifiable in a short story unless -it ended in the climax of the tale. The priest would have to die on -the steps of the altar, or the woman to kill herself at his feet as he -passed, a vowed celebate, down the cathedral aisle. The short story -must be a single melody ending with itself; the _nouvelle_ a piece of -music, the motive of whose opening bars, recurring again and again -throughout, is finally repeated with the increase in meaning that is -given it by the whole performance. - -[The short story.] - -The short story proper is in narrative prose what the short lyric is -in poetry. It is an episode, an event, a scene, a sentence, whose -importance is such that it allows nothing in the story that is not -directly concerned with its realisation. This is true of many specimens -of the _nouvelle_, but it is the essential rule of the short story. -Look at the end of _La Petite Ficelle_, or of any other of the _Contes_ -of de Maupassant. 'Une 'tite ficelle ... une 'tite ficelle ... t'nez -la, voila, m'sieu le Maire.' 'A little bit of string ... a little bit -of string ... look, there it is, M. le Maire.' That sentence, repeated -by the dying man in his delirium, needs for the full pathos of its -effect every word of the story. From the first paragraph about an -ordinary market day, the accident of the old man picking up a piece of -string in a place where a purse had been lost, the false accusation, -and his guilt-seeming protestation of innocence, every detail in the -story is worked just so far as to make the reader's mind as ready and -sensitive as possible for the final infliction of those few words. -Keats once coated the inside of his mouth with cayenne pepper to feel -as keenly as he could 'the delicious coolness of claret.' The art -of the short story is just such a making ready for such a momentary -sensation. - -[The possibilities of narrative.] - -Just as Time, with the clearer consciousness of technique, has made the -moulds of the art more markedly distinct, so it has given the artist -an infinite choice of amalgams with which to fill them. Although some -of the most delightful examples of narrative are still produced with -the old and worthy object of telling a tale to pass the time, although -there are still men who lay their mats upon the ground, squat down on -them, and keep their audiences happy by stories that demand no more -intellectual attention than the buzz of bees in the magnolia flowers; -yet, if we consider only those artists who have been discussed in -the preceding chapters, we perceive at once how many are the other -possibilities of narrative, and, if we examine the story-telling -of our own day, we shall find that most of them are illustrated in -contemporary practice. - -Story-telling has grown into a means of expression with a gamut as -wide as that of poetry, which is as wide as that of humanity. 'It is -literature,' says Wilde, 'that shows us the body in its swiftness and -the soul in its unrest'; and the same art that helps us to laze away -a summer afternoon is a key that lets us into the hearts of men we -have never seen, and not infrequently opens our own to us, when, in -the bustle of existence, we have gone out and found ourselves unable -to return. It is a Gyges' ring with which, upon our finger, we can go -about the world and mingle in the business of men to whom we would not -bow, or who would not bow to us. It breaks the gold or iron collars of -our classes and sets each man free as a man to understand all other men -soever. It opens our eyes like Shelley's to see that life-- - - 'like a dome of many-coloured glass, - Stains the white radiance of eternity.' - -We become conscious of that radiance when, by this art made free of -time, we can dream the dreams of the Pharaohs, pray with the hermits -in the Thebaid, and send our hazardous guesses like seeking dogs into -the dim forests of futurity. Our eyes may fitly shine, and we become -as little children in brief resting-hours out of the grown-up world, -when this art makes those tints ours that we never knew, and sends us, -divested of our monotones, to choose among all the glittering colours -of mankind. - -And if we are not listeners only, but have ourselves something to -fit with wings and to send out to find those men who will know the -whispering sound of its flight and take it to themselves, how much do -we not owe to this most manifold art of story-telling? - -There is nothing that its pinions will not bear. - - - - -INDEX - - -ABERCROMBIE, Lascelles, 263. - -Addison, Joseph, 110, 113 _et seq._ - -_Ali Baba_, 89. - -_Amadis of Gaul_, 52, 97. - -_Anatomy of Melancholy, The_, 125. - -Apuleius, 125. - -_Arabian Nights, The_, 46, 100, 101, 231. - -_Arcadia_, The Duchess of Pembroke's, 78, 83 _et seq._, 196. - -_Arria Marcella_, 283. - -_Astrée, l'_, 85. - -_Atala_, 179 _et seq._ - -_Aucassin and Nicolete_, 11, 14, 15, 249, 305. - - -BACON, Sir Francis, 112. - -Balzac, Honoré de, 188, 192, 206, 212, 217 _et seq._, 238, 288, 290, -292, 293, 301, 307. - -Barye, Antoine Louis, 180, 202. - -Baudelaire, Charles, 239. - -Beardsley Aubrey, 88. - -Behn, Mrs. Aphra, 70, 139. - -Beowulf, 9. - -_Bergers d'Arcadie, Les_, 87. - -Bible, The, 128. - -_Bickerstaff, Mr._, 19, 113 _et seq._ - -Boccaccio, Giovanni, 19, 20 _et seq._, 56, 82, 85, 125, 155, 225, 306, -309. - -Boigne, Mme. de, 275. - -Boileau, Nicolas B.-Despreaux, 62. - -Borrow, George, 59. - -Botticelli, 25. - -_Bouvard et Pécuchet_, 296, 297, 298. - -Brantôme, 278. - -Browne, Sir Thomas, 252. - -Bunyan, John, 126 _et seq._, 140, 155, 257. - -Burleigh, Lord, 74. - -Burney, Fanny, 107, 112, 115, 119, 147 _et seq._ - -Burns, Robert, 193. - -Burton, Robert, 125, 132, 134. - -Byron, Lord, 176, 202. - - -_Caleb Williams_, 244, 245. - -_Canterbury Tales, The_, 37 _et seq._ - -_Captain Singleton_, 58. - -_Caractères_, La Bruyère's, 110. - -_Castle of Otranto, The_, 189. - -Cellini, Benvenuto, 157. - -_Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles, Les_, 46. - -Cervantes, Miguel de C. Saavedra, 32, 60, 61, 78, 82, 85, 86, 93 _et -seq._, 126, 158, 162, 192, 257. - -_Characters_, Sir Thomas Overbury's, 107 _et seq._ - -Charlemagne, 8, 9, 32, 52. - -Chateaubriand, François René de, 175 _et seq._, 202, 208, 291, 301. - -Chatterton, Thomas, 190. - -Chaucer, Geoffrey, 19, 20, 21, 31 _et seq._, 107, 155, 156, 218, 306. - -_Cinderella_, 89. - -_Citizen of the World, The_, 148, 231. - -_Clarissa Harlowe_, 140 _et seq._ - -Clopinel, Jean, 21 _et seq._ - -Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 42. - -_Colomba_, 275. - -_Comédie Humaine, La_, 217 _et seq._, 292. - -Congreve, William, 274. - -_Contes Drôlatiques, Les_, 222. - -Corelli, Miss, 25. - -_Cranford_, 118, 168. - -Cromwell, Oliver, 126. - -_Cromwell_, 206. - - -_Dance of Death, The_, 262. - -Dante, 155, 202. - -_Decameron, The_, 19, 37 _et seq._, 156. - -Defoe, Daniel, 114, 132 _et seq._, 140, 155. - -Delacroix, Eugène, 202. - -De Quincey, Thomas, 120. - -Desvergnes, 26. - -_Diana_, 85. - -Dickens, Charles, 58. - -_Don Quixote_, 10, 60, 82, 96 _et seq._, 158, 161, 257. - -_Dream Children_, 120. - -Dumas, Alexandre, 177, 188, 193, 201, 205, 206, 210 _et seq._, 261, 274. - - -EARLE, John, 109, 110, 111. - -Edgeworth, Maria, 192, 217. - -_Éducation Sentimentale, l'_, 294. - -Edward III., 39. - -_Elia_, 258. - -Ellis, F. S., 22. - -_Émaux et Camées_, 238. - -Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 259. - -_Emma_, 151. - -_Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, An_, 244. - -_Ethan Brand_, 263. - -Euclid, 144, 146, 253. - -_Eugénie Grandet_, 222, 225, 228. - -_Euphues_, 67, 70 _et seq._, 139. - -_Evelina_, 147 _et seq._, 168. - -_Exemplary Novels, The_, 46, 94, 99, 101, 102, 126. - - -_Facino Cane_, 227. - -_Faërie Queene, The_, 126, 128, 132. - -_Femme au Collier de Velours, La_, 201. - -_Ferdinand Count, Fathom_, 165. - -Fiametta, 85. - -Fielding, Henry, 71, 96, 107, 119, 147, 150, 152, 156 _et seq._, 187, -227, 235, 257, 293. - -_Figaro, Le_, 238. - -Flaubert, Gustave, 46, 133, 184, 195, 226, 287 _et seq._, 307. - -Froissart, 191. - - -_Galatea_, 62, 78, 85, 94, 95, 98, 103. - -Gautier, Théophile, 88, 177, 195, 202, 203, 205, 206, 208, 217, 221, -231 _et seq._, 251, 273, 277, 283, 288, 291, 307. - -Gavin, Miss J., 102. - -Gay, John, 42. - -_Génie du Christianisme, Le_, 182. - -_Gesta Romanorum, The_, 20, 34 _et seq._, 45, 128. - -_Gil Blas_, 61, 62, 63, 161. - -Godwin, William, 244 _et seq._ - -Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 175, 232. - -Goldsmith, Oliver, 42, 118 _et seq._, 148, 231. - -Goya, Francisco Jose de G. y Lucientes, 262, 269. - -_Grace Abounding_, 130. - -Graham, R. B. Cunninghame, 121. - -_Grammont Memoirs, The_, 278. - -Greene, Robert, 67, 74, 126, 140. - -_Griselda_, 46. - -_Guardian, The_, 112. - -Guest, Lady Charlotte, 13. - - -HAMILTON, Anthony, 278. - -_Hardyknute, The Ballad of_, 191. - -Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 134, 245, 257 _et seq._, 274, 283, 307, 308. - -Hazlitt, William, 84, 111, 128, 193, 244, 245, 258, 273, 274, 278. - -_Heptameron, The_, 51. - -_Hernani_, 201, 205. - -_Hérodias_, 296. - -_Histoire mes de Bêtes, l'_, 193. - -Hoffmann, Ernst Theodor Wilhelm, 201, 225. - -Hogarth, William, 156, 168. - -Holbein, Hans, 262. - -Holcroft, Thomas, 278. - -Homer, 208. - -Hosea, 128. - -_House of the Seven Gables, The_, 263. - -Hugo, Victor, 177, 183, 201, 203 _et seq._, 277, 295, 301. - -_Humphry Clinker_, 51, 117, 147, 166 _et seq._ - -Hunt, Leigh, 119. - - -_Ivanhoe_, 196, 211. - - -_Jack Wilton_, or _The Unfortunate Traveller_, 60, 76. - -_John Arnolfini and his Wife_, 41. - -Johnson, Samuel, 118, 144, 175. - -_Jonathan Wild_, 163 _et seq._ - -Jonson, Ben, 109. - -_Joseph Andrews_, 156 _et seq._ - -_Journal of the Plague Year, A_, 134. - -_Julie_, or _La Nouvelle Héloïse_, 147, 177. - - -KEATS, John, 42, 274, 310. - -_King Lear_, 228. - -Kit Kats, The, 115. - - -LA BRUYÈRE, Jean de, 63, 110, 111. - -Lafontaine, Jean de, 42. - -Lamb, Charles, 120, 133, 258, 260. - -Lancret, Nicolas, 86. - -_Lavengro_, 58, 59. - -_Lazarillo de Tormes_, 51 _et seq._ - -_Lenore_, 251. - -Leonardo da Vinci, 243, 248. - -Le Sage, Alain René, 61 _et seq._, 160. - -Lewis, Matthew Gregory, 166. - -Lockhart, John Gibson, 101. - -Lodge, Thomas, 73 _et seq._, 126. - -Lorris, Guillaume de, 23. - -_Love for Love_, 149. - -Luna, H. de, 56. - -Lyly, John, 70 _et seq._, 90, 139, 280. - - -MABBE, James, 126. - -_Mabinogion, The_, 9, 11 _et seq._, 51, 73, 240. - -Macpherson, James, 191. - -_Madame Bovary_, 291 _et seq._ - -_Mademoiselle de Maupin_, 237. - -Mahomet, 240. - -Malory, Sir Thomas, 11, 61, 88. - -_Manon Lescaut_, 147. - -Margaret, Queen of Navarre, 51. - -_Markheim_, 263. - -Marot, Clément, 21, 156. - -Masefield, John, 61. - -_Masque of the Red Death, The_, 247. - -_Mateo Falcone_, 277. - -Maupassant, Guy de, 226, 235, 247, 291, 292, 298 _et seq._, 307. - -Mérimée, Prosper, 46, 195, 203, 205, 206, 273 _et seq._, 292, 301, 307. - -_Messe de l'Athée, La_, 225. - -Meung, Jean de, 21 _et seq._, 31. - -_Microcosmography, A_, 111. - -Milton, John, 42. - -_Misérables, Les_, 207. - -_Modest Proposal, A_, 277. - -Molière, Jean Baptiste Poquelin de, 61. - -_Monk and Witch_, 262. - -_Mona Lisa_, 249, 298. - -Montaigne, Michel Eyquem Sieur de, 73, 112, 120, 208. - -Montemôr, Jorge de, 85. - -Montesquieu, Charles de Secondat, Baron de, 208. - -_Morte Amoureuse, La_, 305, 307, 309. - -_Morte Darthur, The_, 8, 11, 32, 37, 51, 61, 240. - -_Mrs. Battle's Opinions on Whist_, 120. - -_Murders in the Rue Morgue, The_, 248. - -_Mystery of Marie Roget, The_, 248. - - -NAPLES, Queen Joan of, 47. - -Nash, Thomas, 60, 76. - -Nevinson, H. W., 88. - -_Newgate Calendar, The_, 132. - -_New Testament, The_, 144. - -_Northanger Abbey_, 189. - -Northcote, James, 278. - -_Notre Dame de Paris_, 204, 207. - -_Nouvelle Héloïse, La_, or _Julie_, 147, 177. - - -ODIN, 8. - -_Old Gentleman, The_, 119. - -_Old Lady, The_, 120. - -_Oliver Twist_, 58. - -_Ossian_, 178, 179, 191. - -_Oval Portrait, The_, 250. - -Overbury, Sir Thomas, 108, 109, 110, 111. - - -_Pamela_, 140 _et seq._, 157. - -_Pandosto_, 75, 76. - -_Paradise Lost_, 298. - -Pascal, 208. - -Pater, Walter, 121. - -_Paynter's Pallace_, 68. - -Peacock, Thomas Love, 196. - -_Penseur, Le_, 297. - -Pepys, Samuel, 129. - -_Percy and Duglas_, 84. - -Percy, Bishop, 191. - -_Père Goriot_, 228, 307. - -_Petite Ficelle, La_, 307, 310. - -_Petite Pallace of Petite his Pleasure, A_, 68 _et seq._ - -Petrarch, 38. - -Pettie, George, 68, 69, 126. - -_Philosophy of Composition, The_, 244, 246. - -_Pilgrim's Progress_, 126 _et seq._, 257. - -Pindar, 84. - -Pippin, 8. - -Pisan, Christine de, 25. - -_Plea of Pan, The_, 88. - -Poe, Edgar Allan, 46, 165, 195, 220, 243 _et seq._, 258, 259, 263, 281, -307. - -Poussin, Nicolas, 86, 87. - -_Presse, La_, 238. - -Prévost, l'Abbé, 147. - -_Punch and Judy_, 96. - -_Purloined Letter, The_, 248. - - -_Quentin Durward_, 208. - - -RABELAIS, François, 25, 96, 170, 208. - -Radcliffe, Mrs., 166. - -_Rappacini's Daughter_, 265. - -_Raven, The_, 244, 253. - -_Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, The_, 191, 218. - -_Rendezvous, Le_, 299. - -_René_, 179. - -_Reynard the Fox_, 9, 54. - -Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 243. - -Richardson, Samuel, 71; 139 _et seq._, 155, 156, 157, 158, 167, 235. - -_Robert the Devil, The Life of_, 19. - -_Robinson Crusoe_, 114, 132. - -_Rob Roy_, 192. - -_Roderick Random_, 58, 160 _et seq._ - -Rodin, Auguste, 297. - -_Romance of the Rose, The_, 19 _et seq._, 132. - -_Roman Comique, Le_, 158. - -_Roman de la Momie, Le_, 236. - -_Romany Rye, The_, 59. - -Ronsard, Pierre de, 21, 155, 158. - -_Rosalynde_, 73, 75, 77, 78. - -Rossetti, Dante Gabriel, 42, 44. - -Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 147, 175, 177, 178, 179, 180. - - -SAINTE-BEUVE, Charles Augustin de, 208. - -_St. Julien l'Hospitalier_, 291, 296. - -_Salammbo_, 291, 294, 295, 298. - -Santayana, George, 239. - -Scarlatti, Alessandro, 196. - -_Scarlet Letter, The_, 258, 266. - -Scarron, Paul, 86, 170. - -Schopenhauer, Arthur, 25. - -Scott, Sir Walter, 42, 101, 187 _et seq._, 206, 208, 210, 211, 212, -217, 218, 219, 251. - -Selkirk, Alexander, 134. - -_Sense and Sensibility_, 150. - -Shakespeare, William, 78, 96, 126, 155, 202. - -Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 311. - -Sidney, Sir Philip, 78, 83 _et seq._, 95, 140, 175, 191, 233. - -_Sir Charles Grandison_, 140. - -_Sir Roger de Coverley_, 117 _et seq._ - -Smollett, Tobias, 58, 71, 107, 119, 147, 150, 152, 156 _et seq._, 187, -261, 293, 308. - -Somerset, The Countess of, 108. - -Somerset, The Earl of, 108. - -_Song of Roland, The_, 37. - -_Spectator, The_, 112, 116, 117, 142, 148, 168. - -Spenser, Edmund, 42, 126, 128. - -Steele, Sir Richard, 113 _et seq._, 142, 148. - -Stendhal, Henri Beyle who wrote as, 131, 261. - -Sterne, Laurence, 169, 170. - -Stevenson, Robert Louis, 243, 250. - -_Summer is icumen in_, 15. - -Swift, Dean, 113. - -Swinburne, Algernon Charles, 71. - - -_Table Talk_, 258. - -Taine, Hippolyte, 23, 278. - -_Tatler, The_, 112, 113, 142, 148, 168. - -Tennyson, Alfred, Lord, 42. - -_Tentation de Saint Antoine, La_, 296, 297, 298. - -Theocritus, 81. - -Theophrastus, 63, 107, 110, 111. - -Thomson, Hugh, 118. - -Thoreau, Henry David, 258. - -Tolstoy, Leo, Count, 261. - -_Tom Jones_, 51, 58, 89, 144, 166, 257. - -_Tristram Shandy_, 169, 170. - -_Troilus and Criseyd_, 38, 47. - -_Trois Contes_, 295. - -_Trois Mousquetaires, Les_, 211, 212. - -_Tulipe Noire, La_, 211. - - -_Un Cœur Simple_, 291, 295. - -Urfé, Honoré d', 85. - - -VAN EYCK, Jan and Hubert, 41, 42. - -_Vathek_, 231. - -_Venus d'Ille, La_, 283. - -_Vicar of Wakefield, The_, 86, 118, 119. - -_Vingt Ans Après_, 212. - -Virgil, 81, 86. - -_Volsunga Saga, The_, 11, 240. - -Voltaire, 202, 231, 274, 296, 297. - - -WAGNER, Wilhelm Richard, 196. - -Walpole, Horace, 189. - -Watteau Antoine, 61, 86. - -_Waverley Novels, The_, 42, 187 _et seq._, 209. - -Wilde, Oscar, 311. - -_William Wilson_, 250. - -Wordsworth, William, 42. - - -YEATS, William Butler, 236. - -_Young Goodman Brown_, 267, 268. - - -ZOLA, Emile, 226. - - -Printed by T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to His Majesty at the -Edinburgh University Press - - - - -FOOTNOTES: - -[1] Translation by Lady Charlotte Guest, 1838. - -[2] The quotations in this chapter are from the translation by Mr. F. -S. Ellis. - -[3] It would be possible to trace an interesting history of narrative -in verse from Chaucer to our own day. But although the names of -Spenser, Milton, Lafontaine, Gay, Goldsmith, Keats, Coleridge, -Wordsworth, Tennyson, Rossetti, which with many others come instantly -to mind, show how various and suggestive such an essay might be, yet -the purpose of this book would hardly be served by its inclusion. It -would be more nearly concerned with the history of poetry than with -that of story-telling. - -[4] By H. de Luna, 1620. The earliest known edition of _Lazarillo_ was -published in 1553. - -[5] From a poem by John Masefield. - -[6] There is another picture of the same name and subject in the Duke -of Devonshire's collection. - -[7] It is worth noticing as an additional proof of the close connection -between the story in letters and the feminine novel that _Sense and -Sensibility_ was built out of an older tale that she actually wrote in -epistolary form. - -[8] From a poem by Lascelles Abercrombie. - -[9] This is repeated with a new purpose from the chapter on Origins. - -[10] The distinction between novel and romance made in the chapter on -Hawthorne is one of material rather than of form. It is possible to use -the material of romance in the form of either novel, _nouvelle_, or -short story. - -[11] The novelette is not the same as the _nouvelle_, but simply a -short novel as its name implies. - - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's A History of Story-telling, by Arthur Ransome - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A HISTORY OF STORY-TELLING *** - -***** This file should be named 62129-0.txt or 62129-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/2/1/2/62129/ - -Produced by MFR, Eleni Christofaki and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive) - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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