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Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0b79690 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #62129 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/62129) 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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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) - - - - - - -</pre> - - -<div class="transnote"> -<h3>Transcriber's note.</h3> - -<p class="noin">Minor punctuation inconsistencies have been silently repaired. Variable -spelling has been retained. </p> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> -<h1>A HISTORY OF STORY-TELLING</h1> -<div class="figcenter"> -<img src="images/i_cover.jpg" width="500" height="669" alt="cover" /> -</div> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="center">EDITED BY ARTHUR RANSOME</p> - -<p class="center"><b>THE WORLD'S STORY-TELLERS</b></p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Each</span> volume contains a selection of complete stories, an -Introductory Essay by <span class="smcap">Arthur Ransome</span>, and a Frontispiece -Portrait by <span class="smcap">J. Gavin</span>.</p> - -<p>List of volumes already published:—</p> - -<ul> -<li>GAUTIER</li> -<li>HOFFMANN</li> -<li>POE</li> -<li>HAWTHORNE</li> -<li>MÉRIMÉE</li> -<li>BALZAC</li> -<li>CHATEAUBRIAND</li> -<li>THE ESSAYISTS</li> -<li>CERVANTES</li> -<li class="isub1">Others in preparation</li></ul> - -<p class="center"><i>In cloth, 1s. net; cloth gilt, gilt top, 1s. 6d. net per vol.</i></p> - -<p class="center p2 bt">LONDON AND EDINBURGH</p> - -<p class="center">T. C. <small>AND</small> E. C. JACK</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="illuspage"><a id="meung"></a>meung</div> -<div class="figcenter"> -<img src="images/i_frontis.jpg" width="400" height="540" alt="" /> -<div class="caption">JEAN DE MEUNG</div> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="figcenter"> -<img src="images/i_title.jpg" width="400" height="585" alt="i_title" /> -</div> -<hr class="chap" /> -<p class="center"> -<big><b>A HISTORY OF<br /> -STORY-TELLING</b></big> -</p> -<p class="center">STUDIES IN THE<br /> -DEVELOPMENT OF NARRATIVE -</p> -<p class="center"><small>BY</small><br /> -<big><strong>ARTHUR RANSOME</strong></big></p> -<p class="center"><small><b>Editor of 'The World's Story-Tellers'</b></small> -</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<img src="images/i_titleillus.jpg" width="150" height="148" alt="ALIENI TEMPORIS FLORES" /> -</div> - -<p class="p2 center"><small>WITH 27 PORTRAITS BY J. GAVIN</small> -</p> -<p class="p2 center"><big><b>LONDON: T. C. & E. C. JACK</b></big><br /> -16 HENRIETTA STREET, W.C.<br /> -<b>1909</b> -</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="p4 center">TO MY WIFE</p> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[vii]</a></span></p> - -<h2>PREFACE</h2> - -<p class="noin"><span class="smcap">This</span> 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.</p> - -<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[viii]</a></span> -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 <i>History of Fiction</i>, and, in -a very delightful manner, by Professor Raleigh's -<i>English Novel</i>. 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.</p> - -<p>Well, I have <i>fait une histoire</i>, suggested mainly -by the masterpieces that I love, and without too -much regard for those that happen to be loved by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[ix]</a></span> -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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[x]</a></span> -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.</p> - -<p>A tapestry indeed.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[xi]</a></span> - -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.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xii" id="Page_xii">[xii]</a></span> -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.</p> - -<p>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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xiii" id="Page_xiii">[xiii]</a></span> -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.</p> - -<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xiv" id="Page_xiv">[xiv]</a></span> -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.</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p class="right"> -ARTHUR RANSOME. -</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<h2>CONTENTS</h2> -<table summary="contents"> - -<tr><td> </td><td><small>PAGE</small></td> -</tr> -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Preface</span></td> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_vii">vii</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr><td colspan="2" class="tdc">PART I</td></tr> - -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Origins</span></td> <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_5">5</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>'<span class="smcap">The Romance of the Rose</span>'</td> <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_19">19</a></td> -</tr> -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Chaucer and Boccaccio</span></td> <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_31">31</a></td> -</tr> -<tr><td><span class="smcap">The Rogue Novel</span> </td> <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_51">51</a></td> -</tr> -<tr><td><span class="smcap">The Elizabethans</span></td> <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_67">67</a></td> -</tr> -<tr><td><span class="smcap">The Pastoral</span></td> <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_81">81</a></td> -</tr> -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Cervantes</span></td> <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_93">93</a></td> -</tr> -<tr><td><span class="smcap">The Essayists' Contribution to Story-telling</span></td> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_107">107</a></td> -</tr> -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Transition: Bunyan and Defoe</span></td> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_125">125</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Richardson and the Feminine Novel</span></td> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_139">139</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Fielding, Smollett, and the Masculine Novel</span></td> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_155">155</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td><span class="smcap">A Note on Sterne</span></td> <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_169">169</a></td></tr> -<tr><td colspan="2" class="tdc"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xvi" id="Page_xvi">[xvi]</a></span> - -PART II</td></tr> - -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Chateaubriand and Romanticism</span> </td> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_175">175</a></td> -</tr> -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Scott and Romanticism</span></td> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_187">187</a></td> -</tr> -<tr><td><span class="smcap">The Romanticism of 1830</span> </td> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_201">201</a></td> -</tr> -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Balzac</span></td> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_217">217</a></td> -</tr> -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Gautier and the East</span></td> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_231">231</a></td> -</tr> -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Poe and the New Technique</span> </td> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_243">243</a></td> -</tr> -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Hawthorne and Moral Romance</span></td> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_257">257</a></td> -</tr> -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Mérimée and Conversational Story-telling</span></td> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_273">273</a></td> -</tr> -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Flaubert</span></td> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_287">287</a></td> -</tr> -<tr><td><span class="smcap">A Note on De Maupassant</span> </td> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_298">298</a></td> -</tr> -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Conclusion</span> </td> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_305">305</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td><span class="smcap">Index</span></td> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_313">313</a></td> -</tr> -</table> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xvii" id="Page_xvii">[xvii]</a></span></p> - -<h2>ILLUSTRATIONS</h2> - -<table summary="illustrations"> -<tr><td> </td><td><small>TO FACE PAGE</small></td> -</tr> -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Jean de Meung</span></td> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#meung">22</a></td> -</tr> -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Geoffrey Chaucer</span></td> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#chaucer">38</a></td> -</tr> -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Giovanni Boccaccio</span></td> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#boccaccio">44</a></td> -</tr> -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Alain René le Sage</span></td> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#sage">60</a></td> -</tr> -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Sir Philip Sidney</span></td> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#sidney">84</a></td> -</tr> -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra</span></td> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#saavadera">96</a></td> -</tr> -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Richard Steele and Joseph Addison</span></td> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#steele">114</a></td> -</tr> -<tr><td><span class="smcap">John Bunyan</span></td> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#bunyan">126</a></td> -</tr> -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Daniel Defoe</span></td> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#defoe">132</a></td> -</tr> -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Samuel Richardson</span></td> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#richardson">140</a></td> -</tr> -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Fanny Burney</span></td> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#burney">146</a></td> -</tr> -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Jane Austen</span></td> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#austen">150</a></td> -</tr> -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Henry Fielding</span></td> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#fielding">156</a></td> -</tr> -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Tobias Smollett</span></td> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#smolet">166</a></td> -</tr> -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Jean Jacques Rousseau</span></td> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#rousseau">176</a></td> -</tr> -<tr><td><span class="smcap">François René de Chateaubriand</span></td> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#chateaubriand">180</a></td> -</tr> -<tr><td> -<span class="smcap">Sir Walter Scott</span></td> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#scott">188</a></td> -</tr> -<tr><td><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xviii" id="Page_xviii">[xviii]</a></span> -<span class="smcap">Victor Hugo</span></td> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#hugo">202</a></td> -</tr> -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Alexandre Dumas</span></td> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#dumas">210</a></td> -</tr> -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Honoré de Balzac</span></td> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#balzac">218</a></td> -</tr> -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Théophile Gautier</span></td> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#gautier">236</a></td> -</tr> -<tr><td><span class="smcap">William Godwin</span></td> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#goodwin">244</a></td> -</tr> -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Edgar Allan Poe</span></td> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#poe">250</a></td> -</tr> -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Nathaniel Hawthorne</span></td> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#hawthorne">258</a></td> -</tr> -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Prosper Mérimée</span></td> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#merimee">274</a></td> -</tr> -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Gustave Flaubert</span></td> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#flaubert">288</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Guy de Maupassant</span></td> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#maupassant">300</a></td></tr> -</table> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="center"><strong>PART I</strong></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<h2>ORIGINS</h2> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span></p> - -<h3>ORIGINS</h3> - -<div class="sidenote">Story-telling -outside -books.</div> - -<p class="noin"><span class="smcap">Story-telling</span> 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span> -a tavern, or whatever else of delicacy and embroidery -we should be glad to use in writing.</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">The -professional -story-teller.</div> - -<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span> -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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span> -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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">In early -story-telling -heroes are -more than -life size.</div> - -<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span> -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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">Silk and -homespun -stories.</div> - -<p>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 -<i>Mabinogion</i>. 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?</p> - -<p>Very few of these homespun stories were -written down. <i>Reynard the Fox</i> 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span> -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 <i>Reynard the -Fox</i>, 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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">The -swineherd -and the -king's -daughter.</div> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span></p> - -<div class="sidenote">Reduction -in the size of -the heroes.</div> - -<p>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 <i>Volsunga Saga</i>, the <i>Mabinogion</i> -and <i>Aucassin and Nicolete</i> 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 <i>Morte -Darthur</i>, 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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">Technique -of the Sagas.</div> - -<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span> -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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">Of the <i>Mabinogion</i>.</div> - -<p>The <i>Mabinogion</i>, 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span> -after picture is made and left as the tale goes on. -For example:—</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>'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.</p> - -<p>'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.'<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p></blockquote> - -<p>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, -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span>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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">Of <i>Aucassin -and -Nicolete</i>.</div> - -<p>And then when we come to <i>Aucassin and -Nicolete</i>, 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 -<i>Aucassin and Nicolete</i> 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span> -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</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="i0">'There is none in such ill case,</div> -<div class="i0">Sad with sorrow, waste with care,</div> -<div class="i0">Sick with sadness, if he hear,</div> -<div class="i0">But shall in the hearing be</div> -<div class="i0">Whole again and glad with glee,</div> -<div class="i2">So <i>sweet</i> the story.'</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span> -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.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<h2>'THE ROMANCE OF THE ROSE'</h2> -<hr class="chap" /> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span></p> - -<h3>'THE ROMANCE OF THE ROSE'</h3> - -<div class="sidenote">The -thirteenth -century.</div> - -<p class="noin"><span class="smcap">Thinking</span> 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 <i>Decameron</i>. Many -versions of old legends come to us from that time -like the <i>Life of Robert the Devil</i>, 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span> -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 <i>Gesta Romanorum</i>, -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.</p> - -<p>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 <i>Gesta Romanorum</i> 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span> -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 <i>Romance of the Rose</i>, 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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">Meung-sur-Loire.</div> - -<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span> -could not read it if I tried, and why should I? -They know all about it in the town.'</p> - -<p>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 <i>The Romance of the Rose</i>, 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:—</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="i0">'Then shall appear Jean Clopinel,</div> -<div class="i0">Joyous of heart, of body well</div> -<div class="i0">And fairly built: at Meun shall he</div> -<div class="i0">Be born where Loire flows peacefully.'<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></div> -</div></div></div> - -<p class="noin">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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">Jean de -Meung.</div> - -<p>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 -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span>shrewdness and applicability. His share of <i>The -Romance of the Rose</i> 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 <i>Aucassin and Nicolete</i>; -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.</p> - -<p>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:—</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="i0">'Let one demand of some wise clerk</div> -<div class="i0">Well versed in that most noble work</div> -<div class="i0">"Of Consolation" foretime writ</div> -<div class="i0">By great Boethius, for in it</div> -<div class="i0">Are stored and hidden most profound</div> -<div class="i0">And learned lessons: 'twould redound</div> -<div class="i0">Greatly to that man's praise who should</div> -<div class="i0">Translate that book with masterhood,'</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p class="noin">and know that he made the translation himself.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">The world -at school.</div> - -<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span> -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:—</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="i0">'For oft their quip and crank and fable</div> -<div class="i0">Is wondrous good and profitable.'</div> -</div></div></div> - -<div class="sidenote">One of the -schoolmasters.</div> - -<p class="noin">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 <i>The Romance of the Rose</i> 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span> -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.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span></p> - -<div class="sidenote">In Meung -six hundred -years ago.</div> - -<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span> -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.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<h2>CHAUCER AND BOCCACCIO</h2> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span></p> - -<h3>CHAUCER AND BOCCACCIO</h3> - -<div class="sidenote">The -Romancers -before -Chaucer.</div> - -<p class="noin"><span class="smcap">The</span> Franklin of Chaucer's pilgrims introduces -his own story by remarking that,</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="i0">'Thise olde gentil Britons in hir dayes</div> -<div class="i0">Of diverse aventures maden layes,</div> -<div class="i0">Rymeyed in hir firste Briton tonge;</div> -<div class="i0">Which layes with hir instruments they songe,</div> -<div class="i0">Or elles redden hem for hir pleasaunce;</div> -<div class="i0">And oon of hem have I in remembraunce</div> -<div class="i0">Which I shal seyn with good wil as I can.'</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p class="noin">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</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="i2">'sleep never on the mount of Parnaso,</div> -<div class="i0">Ne lerned Marcus Tullius Cithero,'</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p class="noin">these tales, whether made by the 'olde gentil -Britons' or the French, must not be forgotten in -considering him.</p> - -<p>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 -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span> -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 <i>Morte -Darthur</i> 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span> -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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">The <i>Gesta -Romanorum.</i></div> - -<p>There were tales like these representing the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span> -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 <i>Gesta Romanorum</i> 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span> -intended as an armoury for preachers. Here is an -example:—</p> - -<blockquote> - -<h4>'OF THE AVARICIOUS PURSUIT OF RICHES, WHICH -LEADS TO HELL.'</h4> - -<p>'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.</p> - -<p>'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 -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span>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.'</p></blockquote> - -<p>So much for the story, which is indeed rather -long to be quoted in so small a book. But listen -now to the application:—</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>'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.'</p></blockquote> - -<div class="sidenote">Chaucer and -Boccaccio.</div> - -<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span> -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 <i>trouveur</i> 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 <i>Canterbury Tales</i> is -not that of the <i>Song of Roland</i>, or the <i>Morte -Darthur</i>; the attitude of the <i>Decameron</i> 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.</p> - -<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span> -technique. In both of them there is a personal -honesty of workmanship that makes their work -their own. The names of the <i>trouveurs</i> 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.</p> -<div class="illuspage"><a id="chaucer"></a>chaucer</div> -<div class="figcenter"> -<img src="images/i_038f.jpg" width="400" height="636" alt="" /> -<div class="caption">GEOFFREY CHAUCER</div> -</div> - -<div class="sidenote">Chaucer.</div> - -<p>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 -'<i>Troilus and Criseyd</i>,</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="i0">'And kiss the steppes, wher-as thou seest pace</div> -<div class="i0">Virgil, Ovyde, Omer, Lucan, and Stace.'</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p class="noin">And yet few men have about them less of a -classical savour. He may well have liked 'at -his beddes heed</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="i0">'Twenty bokes clad in blak or reed,</div> -<div class="i0">Of Aristotle and his philosophye,'</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p class="noin"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span> -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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">Portraiture.</div> - -<p>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 <i>trouveurs</i> 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span> -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.</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="i0">'In al the parisshe wyf ne was ther noon</div> -<div class="i0">That to th' offering bifore hir sholde goon;</div> -<div class="i0">And if ther dide, certeyn, so wrooth was she,</div> -<div class="i0">That she was out of alle charitee.</div> -<div class="i0">Hir coverchiefs ful fyne were of ground;</div> -<div class="i0">I dorste swere they weyeden ten pound</div> -<div class="i0">That on a Sonday were upon hir heed.</div> -<div class="i0">Hir hosen weren of fyn scarlet reed,</div> -<div class="i0">Ful streite y-teyd, and shoos ful moiste and newe.</div> -<div class="i0">Bold was hir face, and fair, and reed of hewe.</div> -<div class="i0">She was a worthy womman al hir lyve,</div> -<div class="i0">Housbondes at chirche-dore she hadde fyve,</div> -<div class="i0">Withouten other companye in youthe;</div> -<div class="i0">But therof nedeth nat to speke as nouthe.</div> -<div class="i0">And thryes hadde she been at Jerusalem;</div> -<div class="i0">She hadde passed many a straunge streem;</div> -<div class="i0">At Rome she hadde been, and at Boloigne,</div> -<div class="i0">In Galice at seint Jame, and at Coloigne.</div> -<div class="i0">She coude much of wandring by the weye;</div> -<div class="i0">Gat-tothed was she, soothly for to seye.</div> -<div class="i0">Upon an amblere esily she sat,</div> -<div class="i0">Y-wimpled wel, and on hir heed an hat</div> -<div class="i0">As brood as is a bokeler or a targe;</div> -<div class="i0">A foot-mantel aboute hir hipes large,</div> -<div class="i0">And on hir feet a paire of spores sharpe.</div> -<div class="i0">In felawschip wel coude she laughe and carpe.</div> -<div class="i0">Of remedyes of love she knew perchaunce,</div> -<div class="i0">For she coude of that art the olde daunce.'</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p class="noin">She is there, solid, garrulous, herself. She does -not get husbands because she is a worshipped -goddess, but because she is a practical woman.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span> -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.</p> - -<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span> -observant spirit of the <i>Canterbury Tales</i>. 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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">Prose and -verse.</div> - -<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> Chaucer himself is -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span>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 <i>Canterbury -Tales</i> 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 <i>Decameron</i>.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">Boccaccio.</div> - -<p>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 <i>Decameron</i> glides -by like a splash of sunlight on a stream with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span> -floating blossoms. I must quote one of his poems -in Rossetti's most beautiful translation:—</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="i0">'By a clear well, within a little field</div> -<div class="i2">Full of green grass and flowers of every hue,</div> -<div class="i2">Sat three young girls, relating (as I knew)</div> -<div class="i0">Their loves. And each had twined a bough to shield</div> -<div class="i0">Her lovely face; and the green leaves did yield</div> -<div class="i2">The golden hair their shadow; while the two</div> -<div class="i2">Sweet colours mingled, both blown lightly through</div> -<div class="i0">With a soft wind for ever stirred and still'd.</div> -<div class="i0">After a little while one of them said</div> -<div class="i2">(I heard her), 'Think! If, ere the next hour struck,</div> -<div class="i2">Each of our lovers should come here to-day,</div> -<div class="i0">Think you that we should fly or feel afraid?'</div> -<div class="i2">To whom the others answered, 'From such luck</div> -<div class="i4">A girl would be a fool to run away.'</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>He could write a poem like that; he could write -the <i>Decameron</i>; 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.</p> -<div class="illuspage"><a id="boccaccio"></a>boccaccio</div> -<div class="figcenter"> -<img src="images/bocaccio.jpg" width="400" height="629" alt="" /> -<div class="caption">GIOVANNI BOCCACCIO</div> -</div> - -<p>But the Boccaccio of the <i>Decameron</i> 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 -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span>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 <i>Gesta -Romanorum</i>, 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 <i>trouveurs</i> 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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">His -story-telling.</div> - -<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span> -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 -<i>nouvelle</i>, 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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">Importance -of framework -in -books of -short tales.</div> - -<p>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 <i>Cent -Nouvelles Nouvelles</i> are very short and make a -collection of anecdotes. The <i>Exemplary Novels</i> -of Cervantes are very long and stand and fall each -one alone. But the <i>Canterbury Tales</i> are the -better for that merry company on pilgrimage.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span> -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:—</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="i0">'Help me that am the sorwful instrument</div> -<div class="i0">That helpeth lovers, as I can, to pleyne!'</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>As for good fortune, it is taken as naïvely as -by the topers in the song:—</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="i0">'Maults gone down, maults gone down</div> -<div class="i0">From an old angel to a French crown.</div> -<div class="i0">And every drunkard in this town</div> -<div class="i0">Is very glad that maults gone down.'</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p class="noin">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 -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span><i>Decameron</i> -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.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<h2>THE ROGUE NOVEL</h2> - -<hr class="chap" /> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span></p> - -<h3>THE ROGUE NOVEL</h3> - -<div class="sidenote">Democracy -in literature.</div> - -<p class="noin"><span class="smcap">Few</span> 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.</p> - -<p>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 <i>Morte Darthur</i> or the <i>Mabinogion</i>, -and when, in the <i>Heptameron</i> of Margaret of -Navarre, we hear of the drowning of a number of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span> -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.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span></p> - -<div class="sidenote"><i>Lazarillo -de Tormes.</i></div> - -<p>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 <i>Lazarillo</i> 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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">The morality -of the -underworld.</div> - -<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span> -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 <i>Reynard the Fox</i>.</p> - -<p>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.'</p> - -<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span> -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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span> -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<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a>) 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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">The form -of the -rogue novel.</div> - -<p>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. -<i>Lazarillo de Tormes</i> 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 -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span>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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">Its satirical -material.</div> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span> -<i>Lazarillo</i> 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 <i>à propos</i> of other people, and never barrenly -of himself for his own sake. Smollett in writing -<i>Roderick Random</i> 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.</p> - -<p>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 <i>Lazarillo</i>, -of <i>Tom Jones</i>, of <i>Captain Singleton</i>, of <i>Lavengro</i>, -is clear, virile, not at all ornate, the exact opposite<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span> -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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">Picaresque -autobiographies.</div> - -<p>Mention of <i>Lavengro</i> 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. <i>Lavengro</i> and the <i>Romany -Rye</i> 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.'</p> - -<div class="sidenote">The -development -of the -rogue novel.</div> - -<p>But Borrow and other makers of confessions -are not of the direct line, in spite of the roguish<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span> -and adventurous air that clings about them as -they rest upon our shelves. <i>Lazarillo</i> had many -sincerer and more immediate flatterers—Thomas -Nash, for example, whose <i>Jacke Wilton, or the -Unfortunate Traveller</i>, 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 -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span>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 <i>Morte Darthur</i>, 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.</p> -<div class="illuspage"><a id="sage"></a>sage</div> -<div class="figcenter"> -<img src="images/lesage.jpg" width="400" height="600" alt="" /> -<div class="caption">ALAIN RENÉ LE SAGE</div> -</div> - -<div class="sidenote">Its -culmination -in Le Sage.</div> - -<p>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</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="i4">'Stately Spanish galleons</div> -<div class="i4">Sailing from the Isthmus,</div> -<div class="i0">Dipping through the tropics by the palm green shores,</div> -<div class="i4">With cargoes of diamonds,</div> -<div class="i4">Emeralds, amethysts,</div> -<div class="i0">Topazes and cinnamon and gold moidores,'<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a></div> -</div></div></div> - -<p class="noin">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 -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span>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 -<i>Galatea</i> 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.</p> - -<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span> -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 <i>Don -Quixote</i> the parentage of the masculine novel.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<h2>THE ELIZABETHANS</h2> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span></p> -<h3>THE ELIZABETHANS</h3> - -<div class="sidenote">The new -conditions of -professional -story-telling.</div> - -<p class="noin"><span class="smcap">Professional</span> 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 -<i>Euphues</i>, a single book might set the fashion for -a thousand; already the novelist felt his audience -through his sales. Men like Greene, swift<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span> -'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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">Elizabethan -borrowings.</div> - -<p>There was <i>Paynter's Pallace</i>, 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 -<i>Pettie's Pallace</i>, with its delightful title, <i>A petite -Pallace of Pettie his pleasure</i>, 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:—</p> -<blockquote> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span> - -'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?'</p></blockquote> - -<p>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.</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>'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.'</p></blockquote> - -<div class="sidenote">Lyly writes -for women.</div> - -<p>There is something in the style of this, as well<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span> -as in the address to a female reader, that suggests -the <i>Euphues</i> 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span> -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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">Euphuism.</div> - -<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span> -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.'</p> -<div class="sidenote">'Cruditie -and -indigestion.'</div> -<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span> -writers of the <i>Mabinogion</i>. 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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">Lyly's -followers.</div> - -<p>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 -<i>Rosalynde</i> is introduced as <i>Euphues' Golden -Legacie</i>, 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span> -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.</p> - -<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span> -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.</p> - -<p>Greene and Lodge illustrate very well the -characteristics of Elizabethan story-telling. -<i>Pandosto</i>, <i>Rosalynde</i>, 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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">Romance -and -confession.</div> - -<p>In Greene's <i>Pandosto</i> we find reminiscences -of old romance, classical nomenclature, the influence -of the Italian <i>novelle</i>, and plenty of the -wild improbability that still had power over his -audience. <i>Pandosto</i> is a love pamphlet, and -after a euphuistic dedication and a little preface<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span> -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 <i>Jacke Wilton</i>, 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span> -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.</p> - -<p>Lodge, although his work was also various, -appealed mainly to the latter.</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>'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.'</p></blockquote> - -<div class="sidenote"><i>As You Like -It.</i></div> - -<p>That is the way in which Thomas Lodge, -newly returned to England from piracies on the -western seas, introduces his <i>Rosalynde</i>. 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span> -their books, between, for example, Cervantes -of Lepanto and the author of the <i>Galatea</i>, -between the Sidney who died at Zutphen and -the author of <i>Arcadia</i>. It is the tale of <i>As You -Like It</i>, 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.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<h2>THE PASTORAL</h2> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span></p> -<h3>THE PASTORAL</h3> - -<div class="sidenote">The -discovery -and -exploitation -of Arcadia.</div> - -<p class="noin"><span class="smcap">The</span> 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 -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span>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.'</p> - -<div class="sidenote">Shepherds' -plaints.</div> - -<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span> -Muses with, it forces Echo herself to answer him -in rhyme:—</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="i0">'In what state was I then, when I took this deadly disease?</div> -<div class="right">Ease.</div> -<div class="i0">And what manner of mind which had to that humour a vain?</div> -<div class="right">Vain.</div> -<div class="i0">Hath not reason enough vehemence to desire to reprove?</div> -<div class="right">Prove.</div> -<div class="i0">Oft prove I but what salve when reason seeks to begone?</div> -<div class="right">One.</div> -<div class="i0">Oh! what is it? what is it that may be a salve to my love?</div> -<div class="right">Love.</div> -<div class="i0">What do lovers seek for long seeking for to enjoy?</div> -<div class="right">Joy.</div> -<div class="i0">What be the joys for which to enjoy they went to the pains?</div> -<div class="right">Pains.</div> -<div class="i0">Then to an earnest love what doth best victory end?</div> -<div class="right">End.'</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p class="noin">These lines are from Sir Philip Sidney's <i>Arcadia</i>, -which, of course, was not in the Knight's library. -We are told in advance that they are hexameters. -How delightfully they scan:—</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div>'Wh<span class="above">¯</span>at d<span class="above">˘</span>o l<span class="above">˘</span>ov | -er<span class="above">¯</span>s se<span class="above">¯</span>ek | -f<span class="above">¯</span>or l<span class="above">¯</span>ong | -se<span class="above">¯</span>ekin<span class="above">¯</span>g | -f<span class="above">¯</span>or t<span class="above">˘</span>o e<span class="above">˘</span>n | j<span class="above">¯</span>oy?</div> - -<div class="right">J<span class="above">¯</span>oy.'</div></div> -</div></div> -<div class="figcenter"> -<img src="images/i_083.jpg" width="400" height="64" alt="hexameter" /> -</div> -<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span> -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.</p> - -<div class="illuspage"><a id="sidney"></a>sidney</div> - <div class="figcenter"> - -<img src="images/sidney.jpg" width="400" height="633" alt="" /> -<div class="caption">SIR PHILIP SIDNEY</div> -</div> - -<div class="sidenote">An apology -to Sidney.</div> - -<p>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 <i>Percy</i> and <i>Duglas</i> -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 <i>Pindar</i>?' 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 -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span>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.'</p> - -<div class="sidenote">The slow -progress of -Arcadian -narrative.</div> - -<p>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' -<i>Galatea</i> was never finished; the last books of -<i>Arcadia</i> were written by another hand; d'Urfé -died before putting an end to <i>l'Astrée</i>; and -Montemor abandoned his <i>Diana</i>.</p> - -<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span> -general it was simply a desire of flattering elaborate -people into thinking themselves of simple heart. <span class="sni"><span class="hidev">|</span>The motive -of the -Pastoral.<span class="hidev">|</span></span>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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">Poussin's -<i>Les Bergers -d'Arcadie</i>.</div> - -<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span> -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:<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a>—'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: <i>Et Ego in Arcadia vixi!</i> 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!'</p> - -<p>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 -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span>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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">Conventional -and -realistic art.</div> - -<p>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 <i>Plea -of Pan</i>, in some of the drawings of Aubrey -Beardsley. Sidney's <i>Arcadia</i> is terribly unwieldy, -but passage after passage in it breathes a fragrance -different from anything in the literature of -realism.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span> - -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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span> -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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">Poetic prose.</div> - -<p>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 <i>Arcadia</i>, 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.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<h2>CERVANTES</h2> - -<hr class="chap" /> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span></p> - -<h3>CERVANTES</h3> - -<div class="sidenote">Prologue.</div> - -<p class="noin"><span class="smcap">It</span> 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span> -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.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="sidenote">An active -life and a -bookish one.</div> - -<p>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 <i>Galatea</i>, and laying -literature under an international debt to him for -his <i>Exemplary Novels</i> and his <i>Don Quixote</i>. 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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span> -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.</p> - -<p>It is not without significance that his first book -should be a specimen of pastoral romance. The -<i>Galatea</i> bears no closer relation to workaday life -than Sir Philip Sidney's <i>Arcadia</i>. 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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote"><i>Don Quixote</i> -no parody.</div> - -<p>Cervantes' <i>Galatea</i> 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span> -remembering his <i>Don Quixote</i>. <i>Don Quixote</i> 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.</p> - -<div class="illuspage"><a id="saavadera"></a>saavadera</div> -<div class="figcenter"> -<img src="images/saavadera.jpg" width="400" height="619" alt="" /> -<div class="caption">MIGUEL DE CERVANTES SAAVEDRA</div> -</div> - -<div class="sidenote">The -picaresque -form.</div> - -<p>Cervantes, like Shakespeare, used all the -resources of his time, and did not disdain to -profit by other men's experiments. <i>Don Quixote</i> -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 -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span>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 <i>Don Quixote</i>. 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.'</p> - -<div class="sidenote">Rogue -novel and -romance.</div> - -<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span> -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. <i>Don Quixote</i> 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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">The ideal -not spoilt -by the -reality.</div> - -<p>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 <i>Galatea</i>; 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span> -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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">The -<i>Exemplary -Novels</i>.</div> - -<p>The <i>Exemplary Novels</i> were begun before <i>Don -Quixote</i>, 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 <i>nouvelle</i>, 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span> -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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">Oriental -story-telling.</div> - -<p>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 <i>Arabian Nights</i>. Sancho -Panza's conversation is an anthology of those -short wisdom-laden maxims that had been the -staple of Hebrew and Arabic literature. 'Set<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span> -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 <i>nouvelle</i>, 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 <i>Exemplary -Novels</i> 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.</p> - -<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span> -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 -<i>Don Quixote</i>, the <i>Exemplary Novels</i> 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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">The portrait -of Cervantes.</div> - -<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span> -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 <i>Galatea</i> and of <i>Don Quixote de -la Mancha</i>.' 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.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="sidenote">Epilogue.</div> - -<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span> -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 <i>Don Quixote</i> 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.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<h2>THE ESSAYISTS' CONTRIBUTION -TO STORY-TELLING</h2> - -<hr class="chap" /> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span></p> - -<h3>THE ESSAYISTS' CONTRIBUTION -TO STORY-TELLING</h3> - -<div class="sidenote">The -Character.</div> - -<p class="noin"><span class="smcap">The</span> 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.</p> - -<p>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 <i>Theophrastus his Characters</i> -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 -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span> -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. <span class="sni"><span class="hidev">|</span>Sir Thomas -Overbury.<span class="hidev">|</span></span> 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span> -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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">John Earle.</div> - -<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span> -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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">La Bruyère.</div> - -<p>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,'<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span> -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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">The -periodical -essayists.</div> - -<p>The periodical essayists had La Bruyère, and -Earle's <i>Microcosmography: A Piece of the World -discovered in Essays and Characters</i>, 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. '<i>Quicquid agunt homines nostri farrago -libelli</i>, is the general motto of this department of -literature.... It makes familiar with the world -of men and women, assigns their motives, exhibits<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span> -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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">Minuteness -of -observation.</div> - -<p><i>The Tatler</i>, <i>The Spectator</i>, <i>The Guardian</i>, -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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span> -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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">Mr. -Bickerstaff.</div> - -<p>The very conception of these papers contained -an accidental discovery of a possibility in fiction. -<i>The Tatler</i> 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 <i>but</i> 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 -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span> -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 <i>The Tatler</i> 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?</p> - -<div class="illuspage"><a id="steele"></a>steele</div> -<div class="figcenter"> -<img src="images/steele.jpg" width="400" height="641" alt="" /> -<div class="caption">RICHARD STEELE AND JOSEPH ADDISON</div> -</div> - -<div class="sidenote">The -Character -and the -short story.</div> - -<p>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 -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span>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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">Mr. -Bickerstaff's -letter-box.</div> - -<p>Steele probably got a few letters from unknown<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span> -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 <i>Tatler</i> and <i>Spectator</i> 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:—</p> - -<blockquote> -<p class="center"> -'<span class="smcap">To the man called the Spectator</span> -</p> - -<p>'<span class="smcap">Friend</span>,—Forasmuch as at the Birth of thy Labour, -thou didst promise upon thy Word, that letting alone the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span> -Vanities that do abound, thou wouldest only endeavour to -strengthen the crooked Morals of this our <i>Babylon</i>, I gave -Credit to thy fair Speeches, and admitted one of thy Papers -every Day, save <i>Sunday</i>, into my House; for the Edification -of my Daughter <i>Tabitha</i>, and to the End that <i>Susanna</i>, -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 <i>Tabitha</i> 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.—<i>Thy Friend as hereafter thou -dost demean Thyself</i>,</p> - -<p class="right"> -'<span class="smcap">Hezekiah Broadbrim</span>.' -</p></blockquote> - -<p>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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">Sir Roger -de Coverley—a -novel.</div> - -<p>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 <i>Spectator</i> that are concerned with Sir Roger<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span> -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, <i>Sir Roger de -Coverley</i> 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 -<i>The Vicar of Wakefield</i> and of <i>Cranford</i>, and of -all that chaste and tender kind of story-telling -that is almost peculiar to our literature.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">Johnson and -Goldsmith.</div> - -<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span> -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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">The later -essayists.</div> - -<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span> -'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. <span class="sni"><span class="hidev">|</span>The art of -reverie.<span class="hidev">|</span></span> 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 -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span> -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'?</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<h2>TRANSITION: BUNYAN AND DEFOE</h2> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span></p> -<h3>TRANSITION: BUNYAN AND DEFOE</h3> - -<div class="sidenote">The old -world of -fairy tale.</div> - -<p class="noin"><span class="smcap">The</span> 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.</p> - -<p>Robert Burton gives us a fairly accurate notion -of the story-telling of the first quarter of the -century, in a paragraph of <i>The Anatomy of -Melancholy</i>. 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, <i>quarum auditione pueri -delectantur, senes narratione</i>, which some delight<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span> -to hear, some to tell, all are well pleased with.' -In short, the material of Shakespeare's plays, of -Spenser's <i>Faërie Queene</i>, of the early rogue books, -and of the tales imitated from Italy and antiquity -by Greene and Lodge and Pettie.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">A more -sober spirit.</div> - -<p>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 <i>Exemplary Novels</i> 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 -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span> -Bunyan, a Commonwealth and a <i>Pilgrim's Progress</i>. -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.</p> - -<div class="illuspage"><a id="bunyan"></a>bunyan</div> -<div class="figcenter"> -<img src="images/bunyan.jpg" width="400" height="625" alt="" /> -<div class="caption">JOHN BUNYAN</div> -</div> - -<div class="sidenote">Bunyan's -world.</div> - -<p>Before the <i>Pilgrim's Progress</i> 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.</p> - -<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span> -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.'</p> - -<div class="sidenote">The -justification -of allegory.</div> - -<p>Bunyan's use of them was very different from -Spenser's. Hazlitt said of <i>The Faërie Queene</i> -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 <i>Gesta -Romanorum</i>, 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:</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="i0">'It came from my own heart, so to my head,</div> -<div class="i0">And thence into my fingers trickled;</div> -<div class="i0">Then to my pen, from whence immediately</div> -<div class="i0">On paper I did dribble it daintily,'</div> -</div></div></div> -<p class="noin"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span> -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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">Bunyan and -the early -painters.</div> - -<p>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 <i>Pilgrim's -Progress</i> 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span> -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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">The Fear of -Life.</div> - -<p>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 <i>Grace Abounding</i> 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.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span></p><blockquote> - -<p>'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.'</p></blockquote> - -<p>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 <i>Pilgrim's Progress</i> was the first great story of -that series of books that was to paint the English -character in the eyes of the world.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span></p> - -<div class="sidenote">Facts.</div> - -<p>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 <i>Newgate -Calendar</i> and has been so popular, none with a -book of spiritual adventure so actual as the -<i>Pilgrims Progress</i>, none with a book of bodily -adventure comparable with <i>Robinson Crusoe</i>. -Defoe and Bunyan stand for the plain facts of -religion and existence, in both of which they -found so English a delight.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">The instinct -for verisimilitude.</div> - -<p>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 <i>Romance of the Rose</i>, unlike the <i>Faërie -Queene</i>, 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.</p> - -<div class="illuspage"><a id="defoe"></a>defoe</div> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<img src="images/defoe.jpg" width="400" height="600" alt="" /> -<div class="caption">DANIEL DEFOE</div> -</div> - -<p>With an imagination scarcely less opulent than -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span>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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">Lamb and -Defoe.</div> - -<p>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 <i>narrator</i> 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span> -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.'</p> - -<div class="sidenote">The new -world of -matter-of-fact.</div> - -<p>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 <i>The -Journal of the Plague Year</i>, 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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span> -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.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<h2>RICHARDSON AND THE -FEMININE NOVEL</h2> - -<hr class="chap" /> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span></p> - -<h3>RICHARDSON AND THE -FEMININE NOVEL</h3> - -<div class="sidenote">For women -by women.</div> - -<p class="noin"><span class="smcap">Euphues</span> 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span> -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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">Samuel -Richardson.</div> - -<p>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, -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span>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.</p> - -<div class="illuspage"><a id="richardson"></a>richardson</div> -<div class="figcenter"> -<img src="images/richardson.jpg" width="400" height="551" alt="" /> -<div class="caption">SAMUEL RICHARDSON</div> -</div> - -<p>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 <i>Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded</i>, -and then, stepping on from his success, <i>Clarissa -Harlowe</i>, and finally the monstrous <i>Grandison</i>. -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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">The novel -by post.</div> - -<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span> -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 <i>The Tatler</i> or <i>Spectator</i>. -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.</p> - -<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span> -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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">Richardson -does not -attempt -illusion.</div> - -<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span> -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 <i>Tom Jones</i>.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">The passion -for respectability.</div> - -<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span> -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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span> -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 <i>vice versâ</i>, the inevitability -of Richardson annoys you; but if you read him -in the right spirit that quality is your chief -delight.</p> - -<p>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.</p> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span></p> -<div class="sidenote">Richardson's -influence.</div> - -<p>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 <i>Manon Lescaut</i> 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.</p> - -<div class="illuspage"><a id="burney"></a>burney</div> -<div class="figcenter"> -<img src="images/burney.jpg" width="400" height="480" alt="" /> -<div class="caption">FANNY BURNEY</div> -</div> - -<div class="sidenote">Fanny -Burney.</div> - -<p>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 <i>Evelina, or the History of a Young -Lady's Entrance into the World</i>. Thirty years -had passed between the publication of <i>Clarissa</i> -and that of Fanny Burney's best book, and in -those years Fielding and Smollett had written, -and <i>Humphry Clinker</i> had shown that it was -possible to describe in letters other things than a -series of attacks on the armour of respectability.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span> -Fanny Burney took more material with a lighter -hand, stealing away the business of <i>The Tatler</i>, -<i>The Spectator</i>, <i>The Citizen of the World</i>, 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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">Young lady's -'manners.'</div> - -<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span> -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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">Feminine -standards of -delicacy.</div> - -<p>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 <i>Love for Love</i>, -written less than a hundred years before she saw<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span> -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.'</p> - -<div class="illuspage"><a id="austen"></a>austen</div> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<img src="images/austen.jpg" width="400" height="590" alt="" /> -<div class="caption">JANE AUSTEN</div> -</div> -<div class="sidenote">Jane Austen.</div> - -<p>Twenty years after <i>Evelina</i>, 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.<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> 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 -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span>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 <i>Emma</i>, '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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">The analysis -of the heart.</div> - -<p>But Miss Austen's satire is not so important as -the clear, keen sight that made it possible. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span> -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.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<h2>FIELDING, SMOLLETT, AND -THE MASCULINE NOVEL</h2> - -<hr class="chap" /> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span></p> -<h3>FIELDING, SMOLLETT, AND THE -MASCULINE NOVEL</h3> - -<div class="sidenote">The English -Renaissance.</div> - -<p class="noin">I <span class="smcap">have</span> 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 -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span> -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 <i>Decameron</i>; 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.</p> -<div class="illuspage"><a id="fielding"></a>fielding</div> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<img src="images/fielding.jpg" width="400" height="608" alt="" /> -<div class="caption">HENRY FIELDING</div> -</div> -<div class="sidenote">Two points -of view.</div> - -<p>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 <i>Joseph Andrews</i>. It -often happens that one philosopher hates another -whose system though less elaborate is obviously -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span>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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote"><i>Pamela</i> and -<i>Joseph -Andrews</i>.</div> - -<p><i>Pamela</i> 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span> -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 <i>Don -Quixote</i> or <i>Le Roman Comique</i> 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.</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">Fielding and -Smollett.</div> - -<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span> -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:—</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="i4">'"'n' well," says he, "'n' how</div> -<div class="i0">Are yer arms, 'n' legs, 'n' liver, 'n' lungs, 'n' bones -a-feelin' now?"'</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p class="noin">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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span> -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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">Smollett -and Le Sage.</div> - -<p>Their choice of models was characteristic; -<i>Joseph Andrews</i> being written in imitation of -the gentle banter of Cervantes, while <i>Roderick -Random</i> 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 -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span>'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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">The -technique -of the -English -novel.</div> - -<p>The technique of the English novel was more -elaborate than that of its models. Just as <i>Joseph -Andrews</i> is more orderly than <i>Don Quixote</i>, so -<i>Roderick Random</i> 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. <i>Don Quixote</i> -and <i>Gil Blas</i> 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 -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span>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 <i>nouvelle</i>, 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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">Fielding the -better artist.</div> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span></p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote"><i>Jonathan -Wild.</i></div> - -<p>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:—</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>'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, <i>tie themselves to a -woman's apron-strings</i>; in a word, who are afflicted with -that mean, base, low vice or virtue, as it is called, of -constancy.'</p></blockquote> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span> - -And again in the passage that sums up the -book:—</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>'He laid down several maxims, as the certain means of -attaining greatness, to which, in his own pursuit of it, he -constantly adhered.</p> - -<p>As—</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>2. To know no distinction of men from affection; but to -sacrifice all with equal readiness to his interest.</p> - -<p>3. Never to communicate more of an affair than was -necessary to the person who was to execute it.</p> - -<p>4. Not to trust him who hath deceived you, nor who -knows he has been deceived by you.</p> - -<p>5. To forgive no enemy; but to be cautious and often -dilatory in revenge.</p> - -<p>6. To shun poverty and distress, and to ally himself as -close as possible to power and riches.</p> - -<p>7. To maintain a constant gravity in his countenance and -behaviour, and to affect wisdom on all occasions.</p> - -<p>8. To foment eternal jealousies in his gang, one of -another.</p> - -<p>9. Never to reward any one equal to his merit; but always -to insinuate that the reward was above it.</p> - -<p>10. That all men were knaves or fools, and much the -greater number a composition of both.</p> - -<p>11. That a good name, like money, must be parted with -or at least greatly risked, in order to bring the owner any -advantage.</p> - -<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span> -sufficient to distinguish the counterfeit jewels -from the real.</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>14. That men proclaim their own virtues, as shopkeepers -expose their goods, in order to profit by them.</p> - -<p>15. That the heart was the proper seat of hatred, and the -countenance of affection and friendship.'</p></blockquote> - -<p class="p2">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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote"><i>Ferdinand, -Count -Fathom.</i></div> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span></p> - -<p>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.</p> -<div class="illuspage"><a id="smolet"></a>smolet</div> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<img src="images/smollet.jpg" width="400" height="530" alt="" /> -<div class="caption">TOBIAS SMOLLETT</div> -</div> -<div class="sidenote">Smollett -the more -versatile.</div> - -<p>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 <i>Tom -Jones</i> 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 <i>Joseph -Andrews</i>. But <i>Humphry Clinker</i> 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 -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span>of the novel in letters, an interest wholly separate -from that of <i>Roderick Random</i>, 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span> -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 <i>Spectator</i> or the <i>Tatler</i>. 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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">The motives -of the -masculine -novel.</div> - -<p>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 <i>Cranford</i>. -What an England it was in their day. Mr. -Staytape carried Rory 'into an alehouse, where<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span> -he called for some beer and bread and cheese, on -which we <i>breakfasted</i>.' '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.</p> - -<blockquote> - -<h3>A NOTE ON STERNE</h3> - -<p class="noin"><span class="smcap">Sterne</span> 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 <i>Tristram Shandy</i> -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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span> -<i>Tristram Shandy</i> 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, <i>ab ovo</i>. 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!'</p></blockquote> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="center"><strong>PART II<br /> - -ROMANTICISM</strong></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<h2>CHATEAUBRIAND AND -ROMANTICISM</h2> - -<hr class="chap" /> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span></p> -<h3>CHATEAUBRIAND AND -ROMANTICISM</h3> - -<div class="sidenote">Chateaubriand -and -the French -Revolution.</div> - -<p class="noin"><span class="smcap">There</span> 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span> -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.</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>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 -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span>Passage, quicker than all others; France also was -to return and find the ground aquiver beneath her -feet.</p> -<div class="illuspage"><a id="rousseau"></a>rousseau</div> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<img src="images/rousseau.jpg" width="400" height="622" alt="" /> -<div class="caption">JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU</div> -</div> -<div class="sidenote">Jean-Jacques -Rousseau.</div> - -<p>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 <i>La -Nouvelle Héloïse</i> is a novel in letters whose hero<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span> -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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">The world -of the -Revolution.</div> - -<p>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 <i>Ossian</i>, '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 -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span> -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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote"><i>Atala.</i></div> - -<p>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. <i>Atala</i> and <i>René</i>, but particularly -<i>Atala</i>, seemed to be the old, vague promises -of Rousseau and <i>Ossian</i>, 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span> -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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">Nature and -emotion.</div> - -<p>Chateaubriand carried further than Rousseau -the transfiguration of nature by emotion, although -in <i>Atala</i> 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 -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span>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.</p> -<div class="illuspage"><a id="chateaubriand"></a>chateaubriand</div> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<img src="images/chateaubriand.jpg" width="400" height="615" alt="" /> -<div class="caption">FRANÇOIS RENÉ DE CHATEAUBRIAND</div> -</div> -<div class="sidenote">Particularity -in setting.</div> - -<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span> -than any who were before them in variety of subject, -and in the material of self-expression.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">Christianity.</div> - -<p>The Christianity of <i>Atala</i> was the religion that -Chateaubriand offered to his country in <i>Le Génie -du Christianisme</i>. 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 -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span>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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">The art -of Chateaubriand -survives -the -battle in -which it -was used.</div> - -<p>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. <i>Atala</i>, 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span> -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 <i>Atala</i> is like that of an old -battle-cry:—</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="i0">'So he cried, as the fight grew thick at the noon,</div> -<div class="i0"><i>Two red roses across the moon</i>!'</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p class="noin">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.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<h2>SCOTT AND ROMANTICISM</h2> - -<hr class="chap" /> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span></p> -<h3>SCOTT AND ROMANTICISM</h3> - -<div class="sidenote">Scott's place -in the -romantic -movement.</div> - -<p class="noin"><span class="smcap">The</span> 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.</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span></p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>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.</p> -<div class="illuspage"><a id="scott"></a>scott</div> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<img src="images/scott.jpg" width="400" height="655" alt="" /> -<div class="caption">SIR WALTER SCOTT</div> -</div> -<div class="sidenote">Romanticism -before the -Waverley -Novels.</div> - -<p>Before the writing of the Waverley Novels, -Romanticism in English narrative had shown itself -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span>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.</p> - -<p>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 <i>The -Castle of Otranto</i>, 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 <i>Northanger Abbey</i>, says:</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>'My dearest Catherine, what have you been doing with -yourself all this morning? Have you gone on with -<i>Udolpho</i>?'</p> - -<p>'Yes, I have been reading it ever since I woke; and I am -got to the black veil.'</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span> -'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?'</p> - -<p>'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.'</p> - -<p>'Dear creature, how much I am obliged to you; and -when you have finished <i>Udolpho</i>, we will read the Italian -together; and I have made out a list of ten or twelve more -of the same kind for you.'</p> - -<p>'Have you indeed! How glad I am! What are they -all?'</p> - -<p>'I will read you their names directly; here they are in my -pocket-book. <i>Castle of Wolfenbach</i>, <i>Clermont</i>, <i>Mysterious -Warnings</i>, <i>Necromancer of the Black Forest</i>, <i>Midnight -Bell</i>, <i>Orphan of the Rhine</i>, and <i>Horrid Mysteries</i>. These -will last us some time.'</p> - -<p>'Yes; pretty well; but are they all horrid? Are you -sure they are all horrid?'</p> - -<p>'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.'</p></blockquote> - -<div class="sidenote">Percy, -<i>Ossian</i>, and -Chatterton.</div> - -<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span> -for mediæval colouring. <i>Ossian</i>, 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 <i>Reliques</i>, 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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">Scott's life.</div> - -<p>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:—</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="i0">'And he has ridden o'er muir and moss,</div> -<div class="i2">O'er hills and mony a glen,</div> -<div class="i0">When he came to a wounded knight</div> -<div class="i2">Making a heavy mane.</div> -<div class="i0">Here maun I lye, here maun I dye,</div> -<div class="i2">By treacherie's false guiles;</div> -<div class="i0">Witless I was that e'er gave faith</div> -<div class="i2">To wicked woman's smiles.'</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span> -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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">Scott and -reality.</div> - -<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span> -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.'</p> - -<div class="sidenote">His -technique.</div> - -<p>'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 <i>Histoire de mes Bêtes</i> in which he discusses -his own:—</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>'His plan was to be tedious, mortally tedious, often for -half a volume, sometimes for a volume.</p> - -<p>'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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span> -found himself in some danger, you exclaimed to -yourself:</p> - -<p>'"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?"</p> - -<p>'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.'</p></blockquote> - -<p>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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">Improvisation.</div> - -<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span> -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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">His -character -and work.</div> - -<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span> -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. <i>Maid Marian</i> is the same story as -<i>Ivanhoe</i>. 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.</p> - -<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span> -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.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<h2>THE ROMANTICISM OF 1830</h2> - -<hr class="chap" /> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span></p> -<h3>THE ROMANTICISM OF 1830</h3> - -<div class="sidenote">The -mingling -of the arts.</div> - -<p class="noin"><span class="smcap">Dumas</span> in <i>La Femme au Collier de Velours</i> 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.'</p> - -<p>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 -<i>Hernani</i> was produced at the Comédie Française,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span> -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, -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span>although he had done his share in making their -outlook possible.</p> -<div class="illuspage"><a id="hugo"></a>hugo</div> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<img src="images/i_202f.jpg" width="400" height="616" alt="" /> -<div class="caption">VICTOR HUGO</div> -</div> -<p>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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">Local colour.</div> - -<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span> -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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">The youth -of the -Romantics.</div> - -<p>An energetic simplicity of nature was needed -for the fullest enjoyment of these new conditions, -and the greatest of the French Romantics were -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span>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 <i>Hernani</i>, when Hugo's supporters had red -tickets and a password—the Spanish word <i>hierro</i>, -which means 'steel'—was the noblest memory in -the life of at least one of Hugo's enthusiastic -lieutenants.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span> - -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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">The Preface -to <i>Cromwell</i>.</div> - -<p>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 <i>Cromwell</i>, -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span>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 <i>Les Misérables</i>, -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 <i>Notre -Dame de Paris</i>, 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.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span> - -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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">Victor Hugo -on Scott.</div> - -<p>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 <i>Quentin Durward</i>, 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span> -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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">The -Waverley -Novels and -Hugo's -romances.</div> - -<p>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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span> -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.</p> -<div class="illuspage"><a id="dumas"></a>dumas</div> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<img src="images/dumas.jpg" width="400" height="564" alt="" /> -<div class="caption">ALEXANDRE DUMAS</div> -</div> - -<div class="sidenote">Dumas on -Scott.</div> - -<p>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 <i>joie de vivre</i>—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 <i>ennui</i> 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 <i>ennui</i> on the -way. 'Commencer par l'intérêt, au lieu de commencer -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span>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 '<i>Les -Trois Mousquetaires</i>.' D'Artagnan is in a hubbub -on the first page, and the <i>ennui</i> 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 <i>La Tulipe Noire</i>. 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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote"><i>Les Trois -Mousquetaires.</i></div> - -<p>Dumas' novels are novels of the theatre. His -first piece of work was an attempt to make a -melodrama out of <i>Ivanhoe</i>, and his best books -exhibit the art of Walter Scott modified by the -rules of the stage. The curtain rises on people<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span> -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 <i>Vingt Ans Après</i>, -'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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span> -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.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<h2>BALZAC</h2> - -<hr class="chap" /> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span></p> - -<h3>BALZAC</h3> - -<div class="sidenote">His vitality.</div> - -<p class="noin"><span class="smcap">Balzac</span> 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 <i>Comédie Humaine</i> 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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">The conception -of the -<i>Comédie -Humaine</i>.</div> - -<p>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 -<i>Comédie Humaine</i> 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span> -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 <i>Reliques of English -Poetry</i>, 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 -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span>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 <i>Comédie -Humaine</i>, that the idea whose exposition by a less -full-blooded professor would have been so readily -precise, so readily dull in its precision.</p> - -<div class="illuspage"><a id="balzac"></a>balzac</div> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<img src="images/balzac.jpg" width="400" height="638" alt="" /> -<div class="caption">HONORÉ DE BALZAC</div> -</div> -<div class="sidenote">Physical -energy and -the task of -writing.</div> - -<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span> -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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">Balzac's -prose.</div> - -<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span> -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 <i>la vie splendide</i>. -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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span> -that he wrote his <i>Contes Drôlatiques</i> 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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">His -proximity -to life.</div> - -<p>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 <i>la -vie splendide</i>, 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span> -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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">His conception -of the -novel.</div> - -<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span> -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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span> -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 <i>La Messe de -l'Athée</i>, 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 <i>Eugénie Grandet</i> 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?</p> - -<div class="sidenote">Balzac's -world and -that of -Realism.</div> - -<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span> -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 <i>n</i>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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">A new -motive in -fiction.</div> - -<p>And life, as this Rabelaisian Frenchman saw it, -in the chaotic years of the nineteenth century, was a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span> -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 <i>Facino Cane</i>, 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span> -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.</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="i0">'And underneath his feet, all scattered lay</div> -<div class="i0">Dead skulls and bones of men, whose life had gone astray.'</div> -</div></div> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<h2>GAUTIER AND THE EAST</h2> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span></p> - -<h3>GAUTIER AND THE EAST</h3> - -<div class="sidenote">The East as -a means of -expression.</div> - -<p class="noin"><span class="smcap">The</span> 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 <i>Arabian -Nights</i> 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 <i>The Citizen -of the World</i> 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 <i>x</i> of algebra in illustrating the -properties of other things. The first glimmerings -of discovery are in Beckford's <i>Vathek</i>, 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.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span></p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span> -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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">The -Antique.</div> - -<p>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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">The East -and Arcadia.</div> - -<p>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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span> -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</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="i0">'A sweet attractive kinde of grace</div> -<div class="i2">A full assurance given by lookes,</div> -<div class="i0">Continual comfort in a face,</div> -<div class="i2">The lineaments of gospel bookes,'</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p class="noin">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.</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="i0">'Je comprends tout ce qu'elles disent,</div> -<div class="i0">Car le poète est un oiseau;</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span> -<div class="i0">Mais captif ses élans se brisent</div> -<div class="i0">Contre un invisible réseau!</div> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<div class="i0">Des ailes! des ailes! des ailes!</div> -<div class="i0">Comme dans le chant de Ruckert,</div> -<div class="i0">Pour voler, là-bas avec elles</div> -<div class="i0">Au soleil d'or, au printemps vert!'</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p class="noin">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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">The story-telling -of -dreams.</div> - -<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span> -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 <i>Roman -de la Momie</i> 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.</p> -<div class="illuspage"><a id="gautier"></a>gautier</div> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<img src="images/gautier.jpg" width="400" height="630" alt="" /> -<div class="caption">THÉOPHILE GAUTIER</div> -</div> -<div class="sidenote">Gautier -the man.</div> - -<p>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 -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span>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 <i>Mademoiselle de Maupin</i> 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span> -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.</p> - -<p>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 <i>Presse</i> or the <i>Figaro</i>, 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.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span> - -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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">The flowers -of the white -narcissus.</div> - -<p>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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span> -will never cease to be a disappointment.' We -leave a volume of Gautier as we leave the -<i>Mabinogion</i>, or the <i>Morte Darthur</i>, or the -<i>Volsunga Saga</i>, 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.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<h2>POE AND THE NEW TECHNIQUE</h2> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span></p> - -<h3>POE AND THE NEW TECHNIQUE</h3> - -<div class="sidenote">Self-conscious -method.</div> - -<p class="noin">'<span class="smcap">It</span> 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.</p> - -<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span> -manner that it is difficult for the reader to remember -that the author examining is in any way -connected with the author undergoing examination. -<i>The Raven</i>, for example, a profound piece of -technique, is scarcely as profound, and certainly -not as surprising, as <i>The Philosophy of Composition</i>, -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 <i>o</i> and <i>r</i> sounded together. -It was inevitable that such a man busying himself -with story-telling should bring something new into -the art.</p> - -<div class="illuspage"><a id="goodwin"></a>goodwin</div> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<img src="images/godwin.jpg" width="400" height="553" alt="" /> -<div class="caption">WILLIAM GODWIN</div> -</div> -<div class="sidenote">William -Godwin and -<i>Caleb -Williams</i>.</div> - -<p>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 <i>An Enquiry concerning Political -Justice</i> and of several novels, among them one -now most undeservedly half forgotten, called <i>Caleb -Williams</i>. 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 <i>Caleb Williams</i> -we see the beginnings of self-conscious construction -in story-telling. Of that book Hazlitt wrote: -'No one ever began <i>Caleb Williams</i> that did not -read it through: no one that ever read it could -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span>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 <i>Caleb Williams</i> -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.'</p> - -<p>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.</p> -<div class="sidenote">The -architecture -of narrative.</div> -<p>The first is taken from an essay on Hawthorne:</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>'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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span> -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.' ...</p></blockquote> - -<p>The second is more personal, and from <i>The -Philosophy of Composition</i>:</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>'I prefer commencing with the consideration of an <i>effect</i>.... -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.'</p></blockquote> - -<div class="sidenote"><i>The -Masque of -the Red -Death.</i></div> - -<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[247]</a></span> -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 <i>The Masque of the Red -Death</i>, 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[248]</a></span> -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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">The -detective -stories.</div> - -<p>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, <i>The Purloined Letter</i>, <i>The Murders in -the Rue Morgue</i>, and <i>The Mystery of Marie -Roget</i>, 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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">Poe's mind.</div> - -<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[249]</a></span> -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 <i>Mona Lisa</i>. 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.</p> - -<p>If we would understand the matter as well as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[250]</a></span> -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 <i>William Wilson</i> -he is using less flippantly than Stevenson the -idea of dual personality. In <i>The Oval Portrait</i>, -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.</p> -<div class="illuspage"><a id="poe"></a>poe</div> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<img src="images/i_250f.jpg" width="400" height="637" alt="" /> -<div class="caption">EDGAR ALLAN POE</div> -</div> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[251]</a></span></p> - -<div class="sidenote">His failures.</div> - -<p>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</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="i0">'The sweet Lenore hath "gone before," with Hope, that flew beside.'</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p class="noin">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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">His -isolation.</div> - -<p>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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[252]</a></span> -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 <i>The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[253]</a></span> -Raven</i>,' 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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">His work.</div> - -<p>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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[254]</a></span> -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.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> -<h2>HAWTHORNE AND MORAL -ROMANCE</h2> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[257]</a></span></p> - -<h3>HAWTHORNE AND MORAL -ROMANCE</h3> - -<div class="sidenote">The essayist -in story-telling.</div> - -<p class="noin"><span class="smcap">Hawthorne</span> 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 <i>Tom Jones</i>, -<i>Pilgrim's Progress</i>, and <i>Don Quixote</i>; when we<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[258]</a></span> -think of <i>Elia</i>, <i>Table Talk</i>, and <i>The Scarlet Letter</i>, -we think of Lamb, Hazlitt, and Hawthorne.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">Hawthorne -and Poe.</div> - -<p>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.</p> -<div class="illuspage"><a id="hawthorne"></a>hawthorne</div> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<img src="images/hawthorne.jpg" width="400" height="604" alt="" /> -<div class="caption">NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE</div> -</div> -<div class="sidenote">Hawthorne's -life.</div> - -<p>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 -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[259]</a></span>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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">His -notebooks.</div> - -<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[260]</a></span> -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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">The material -of his work.</div> - -<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[261]</a></span> -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.</p> - -<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[262]</a></span> -we hear of it from a man to whom it is -momentous.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">Goya's -'Monk and -Witch'.</div> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[263]</a></span></p> - -<div class="sidenote">The background -of -Hawthorne's -tales.</div> - -<p>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</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="i0">'Are in the world as on a tight-rope slung</div> -<div class="i0">Over the gape and hunger of Hell.'<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a></div> -</div></div></div> - -<p class="noin">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?</p> - -<p>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 -<i>Markheim</i>, plays, no more skilfully than he, -Hawthorne's peculiar tune. In the preface to <i>The -House of the Seven Gables</i> 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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">Romance -and Novel.</div> - -<blockquote> - -<p>'When a writer calls his work a Romance it need hardly -be observed that he wishes to claim a certain latitude, both -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[264]</a></span>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.'</p></blockquote> - -<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[265]</a></span> -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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">Devices of -craftsmanship.</div> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>Notice, for example, in <i>Rappacini's Daughter</i>, -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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[266]</a></span> -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.</p> - -<p>And then notice, in <i>The Scarlet Letter</i>, 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[267]</a></span> -dignity of portents when we know what they -meant to that poor woman and that conscience-stricken -man.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">The power -of details.</div> - -<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[268]</a></span> -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.</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">The -character -of his work.</div> - -<p>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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[269]</a></span> -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 -<i>défauts de leurs qualités</i>. 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?</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<h2>MÉRIMÉE AND CONVERSATIONAL -STORY-TELLING</h2> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[273]</a></span></p> - -<h3>MÉRIMÉE AND CONVERSATIONAL -STORY-TELLING</h3> - -<div class="sidenote">Mérimée's -attitude -towards -writing.</div> - -<p class="noin"><span class="smcap">There</span> 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[274]</a></span> -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.</p> -<div class="illuspage"><a id="merimee"></a>merimee</div> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<img src="images/merimee.jpg" width="400" height="621" alt="" /> -<div class="caption">PROSPER MÉRIMÉE</div> -</div> -<p>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. -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[275]</a></span>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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">The imaginary -author -of his tales.</div> - -<p>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 <i>curés</i> -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 <i>Colomba</i>. 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[276]</a></span> -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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">Printed and -spoken -stories.</div> - -<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[277]</a></span> -words of slang, any desire of competition with -the professional.<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> 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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">Mérimée's -adoption of -the conventions -of -anecdote.</div> - -<p>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 -<i>Modest Proposal</i> for the eating of little children -is scarcely more cruel than <i>Mateo Falcone</i>. 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 -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[278]</a></span>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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">Mérimée's -<i>anglomanie</i>.</div> - -<p>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 <i>anglomanie</i>. -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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[279]</a></span> -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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">The contrast -between his -manner and -his material.</div> - -<p>The conversational story-telling depends for its -success, not on the wit or charm of the talker, but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[280]</a></span> -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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[281]</a></span> -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, <i>outrées</i> 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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">An art of -construction.</div> - -<p>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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[282]</a></span> -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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">Pointillism -in facts.</div> - -<p>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 <i>La<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[283]</a></span> -Vénus d'Ille</i> 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 -<i>Arria Marcella</i>. 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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">Strength -or charm.</div> - -<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[284]</a></span> -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.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<h2>FLAUBERT</h2> - -<hr class="chap" /> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[287]</a></span></p> - -<h3>FLAUBERT</h3> - -<p class="noin">'<span class="smcap">I am</span> 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 <i>recoquillements</i>, -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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[288]</a></span> -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.</p> -<div class="illuspage"><a id="flaubert"></a>flaubert</div> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<img src="images/flaubert.jpg" width="400" height="561" alt="" /> -<div class="caption">GUSTAVE FLAUBERT</div> -</div> -<div class="sidenote">Flaubert -and the -bourgeois.</div> - -<p>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 -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[289]</a></span>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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">Flaubert's -prose.</div> - -<p>Flaubert's prose is due, like his unhappiness, to -his inhuman trueness of feeling. He realised that -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[290]</a></span> -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 -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[291]</a></span> -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—</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="i0">'Oui, l'œuvre sort plus belle</div> -<div class="i0">D'une forme au travail</div> -<div class="i2">Rebelle,</div> -<div class="i0">Vers, marbre, onyx, émail.'</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p class="noin">Flaubert's attitude made prose a medium as hard, -as challenging as these.</p> - -<p>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?</p> - -<div class="sidenote">Romanticism -and -realism.</div> - -<p>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 <i>Madame Bovary</i> and with the other <i>Salammbo</i>, -who put in the same book <i>St. Julien l'Hospitalier</i> -and <i>Un Cœur Simple</i>, is, on a far grander scale<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[292]</a></span> -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 -<i>Comédie Humaine</i> into the other realism of -<i>Madame Bovary</i>. <span class="sni"><span class="hidev">|</span><i>Madame -Bovary.</i><span class="hidev">|</span></span>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[293]</a></span> -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.</p> - -<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[294]</a></span> -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.'</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote"><i>Salammbo.</i></div> - -<p><i>Madame Bovary</i> and <i>L'Éducation Sentimentale</i> -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 <i>Salammbo</i>, -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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[295]</a></span> -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 <i>Madame Bovary</i>, 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 <i>Salammbo</i> 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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote"><i>Trois Contes.</i></div> - -<p>No such criticism can be urged against the -three short stories, the <i>Trois Contes</i>, 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 <i>Madame Bovary</i> and the Flaubert of -<i>Salammbo</i>. <i>Un Cœur Simple</i>, the first of the three,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[296]</a></span> -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, <i>St. Julien -l'Hospitalier</i> and <i>Hérodias</i>, 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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote"><i>La Tentation -de Saint -Antoine</i> and -<i>Bouvard et -Pécuchet</i>.</div> - -<p>That is the sum of Flaubert's work in pure -narrative. There are beside it two books, one -a <i>Tentation de Saint Antoine</i>, that he spent his -whole life in bringing to perfection, and the other, -<i>Bouvard et Pécuchet</i>, 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[297]</a></span> -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 <i>Dream of Plato</i>. 'And then, I -suppose, you awoke?' It is only permissible after -recognising the grandeur of the underlying idea.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">The statue -of <i>Le -Penseur</i>.</div> - -<p>There have been two men with such a conception -of thought. Rodin carved what Flaubert -had written. The statue of <i>Le Penseur</i>, 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[298]</a></span> -not that of <i>a</i> thinker, but of <i>the</i> 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 <i>Tentation</i> and <i>Bouvard -et Pécuchet</i>. 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 <i>Salammbo</i>, 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 <i>is</i>—like -<i>Paradise Lost</i> or the <i>Mona Lisa</i> or a religion. -'I am the last of the Fathers of the Church.'</p> - -<blockquote> - -<h3>A NOTE ON DE MAUPASSANT</h3> - -<p class="noin"><span class="smcap">De Maupassant</span> 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.</p> - -<p>'I love above all the nervous phrase, substantial, clear, -with strong muscles and browned skin. I love masculine -phrases not feminine.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[299]</a></span> - -'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.</p> - -<p>'Find out what is really your nature, and be in harmony -with it. <i>Sibi constat</i> said Horace. All is there.</p> - -<p>'Work, above all think, condense your thought; you -know that beautiful fragments are worthless; unity, unity -is everything.</p> - -<p>'The author in his work ought to be like God in the -Universe, present everywhere and visible nowhere.</p> - -<p>'Fine subjects make mediocre works.'</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p><i>La Rendezvous</i>, 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:</p> - -<p>'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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[300]</a></span> -umbrella, and stayed sitting in her room, unable to make -up her mind to go out to keep the appointment.'</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>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:</p> - -<p>'Mon cher ami, je suis très souffrante; j'ai une névralgie -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[301]</a></span>atroce qui me tient au lit. Impossible sortir. Venez -diner demain soir pour que je me fasse pardonner.</p> - -<p class="right"> -<span class="smcap">Jeanne.</span>' -</p> - -<p>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.'</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>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.</p></blockquote> -<div class="illuspage"><a id="maupassant"></a>maupassant</div> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<img src="images/maupassant.jpg" width="400" height="633" alt="" /> -<div class="caption">GUY DE MAUPASSANT</div> -</div> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<h2>CONCLUSION</h2> -<hr class="chap" /> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[305]</a></span></p> -<h3>CONCLUSION</h3> - -<p class="noin"><span class="smcap">My</span> 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 <i>Aucassin and Nicolete</i> by the side of -<i>La Morte Amoureuse</i>. 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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">Genius a -stationary -quality.</div> - -<p>I had thought I was tracing a progress of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[306]</a></span> -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.</p> - -<p>None the less, there is a kind of imperfect -contemporariness in the art that lets the finest<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[307]</a></span> -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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">The dissociation of forms.</div> - -<p>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 <i>nouvelle</i>, -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 <i>Père Goriot</i> is a novel; Gautier's <i>La -Morte Amoureuse</i> is a <i>nouvelle</i>; de Maupassant's -<i>La Petite Ficelle</i> is a short story.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">The novel.</div> - -<p>The novel was the first form to be used by men -with a clear knowledge of what it allowed them<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[308]</a></span> -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 <i>nouvelle</i>. The novel contains at least one -counterplot, the <i>nouvelle</i> 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.<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a></p> - -<div class="sidenote">The -<i>nouvelle</i>.</div> - -<p>The <i>nouvelle</i> is a novel without a counterplot, -and on a smaller scale.<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> The latter quality is -dependent on the former, since it combats the -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[309]</a></span>difficulty of sustained attention, that the novel -avoids by continual change from one to another -of its parallel stories. The <i>nouvelle</i> 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 <i>La Morte Amoureuse</i>, 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 <i>nouvelle</i> -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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">The short -story.</div> - -<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[310]</a></span> -that it allows nothing in the story that is not -directly concerned with its realisation. This is -true of many specimens of the <i>nouvelle</i>, but it is -the essential rule of the short story. Look at the -end of <i>La Petite Ficelle</i>, or of any other of the -<i>Contes</i> 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.</p> - -<div class="sidenote">The possibilities -of -narrative.</div> - -<p>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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[311]</a></span> -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.</p> - -<p>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—</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="i2">'like a dome of many-coloured glass,</div> -<div class="i0">Stains the white radiance of eternity.'</div> -</div></div></div> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[312]</a></span> -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.</p> - -<p>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?</p> - -<p>There is nothing that its pinions will not bear.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[313]</a></span></p> - -<h2>INDEX</h2> - -<ul class="hang"> -<li><span class="smcap">Abercrombie</span>, Lascelles, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>.</li> - -<li>Addison, Joseph, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a> <i>et seq.</i></li> - -<li><i>Ali Baba</i>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Amadis of Gaul</i>, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Anatomy of Melancholy, The</i>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>.</li> - -<li>Apuleius, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Arabian Nights, The</i>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Arcadia</i>, The Duchess of Pembroke's, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Arria Marcella</i>, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Astrée, l'</i>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Atala</i>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a> <i>et seq.</i></li> - -<li><i>Aucassin and Nicolete</i>, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>.</li> - -<li class="p2"><span class="smcap">Bacon</span>, Sir Francis, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>.</li> - -<li>Balzac, Honoré de, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>, <a href="#Page_217">217</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>, <a href="#Page_290">290</a>, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>, <a href="#Page_293">293</a>, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>.</li> - -<li>Barye, Antoine Louis, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>.</li> - -<li>Baudelaire, Charles, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>.</li> - -<li>Beardsley Aubrey, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>.</li> - -<li>Behn, Mrs. Aphra, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>.</li> - -<li>Beowulf, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Bergers d'Arcadie, Les</i>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>.</li> - -<li>Bible, The, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Bickerstaff, Mr.</i>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a> <i>et seq.</i></li> - -<li>Boccaccio, Giovanni, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>, <a href="#Page_306">306</a>, <a href="#Page_309">309</a>.</li> - -<li>Boigne, Mme. de, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>.</li> - -<li>Boileau, Nicolas B.-Despreaux, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>.</li> - -<li><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[314]</a></span></li> - -<li>Borrow, George, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>.</li> - -<li>Botticelli, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Bouvard et Pécuchet</i>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>.</li> - -<li>Brantôme, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>.</li> - -<li>Browne, Sir Thomas, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>.</li> - -<li>Bunyan, John, <a href="#Page_126">126</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>.</li> - -<li>Burleigh, Lord, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>.</li> - -<li>Burney, Fanny, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a> <i>et seq.</i></li> - -<li>Burns, Robert, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>.</li> - -<li>Burton, Robert, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>.</li> - -<li>Byron, Lord, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>.</li> - -<li class="p2"><i>Caleb Williams</i>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Canterbury Tales, The</i>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a> <i>et seq.</i></li> - -<li><i>Captain Singleton</i>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Caractères</i>, La Bruyère's, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Castle of Otranto, The</i>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>.</li> - -<li>Cellini, Benvenuto, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles, Les</i>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>.</li> - -<li>Cervantes, Miguel de C. Saavedra, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Characters</i>, Sir Thomas Overbury's, <a href="#Page_107">107</a> <i>et seq.</i></li> - -<li>Charlemagne, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>.</li> - -<li>Chateaubriand, François René de, <a href="#Page_175">175</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>.</li> - -<li>Chatterton, Thomas, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>.</li> - -<li>Chaucer, Geoffrey, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>, <a href="#Page_306">306</a>.</li> - -<li><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[315]</a></span></li> - -<li><i>Cinderella</i>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Citizen of the World, The</i>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Clarissa Harlowe</i>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a> <i>et seq.</i></li> - -<li>Clopinel, Jean, <a href="#Page_21">21</a> <i>et seq.</i></li> - -<li>Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Colomba</i>, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Comédie Humaine, La</i>, <a href="#Page_217">217</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>.</li> - -<li>Congreve, William, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Contes Drôlatiques, Les</i>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>.</li> - -<li>Corelli, Miss, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Cranford</i>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>.</li> - -<li>Cromwell, Oliver, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Cromwell</i>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>.</li> - -<li class="p2"><i>Dance of Death, The</i>, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>.</li> - -<li>Dante, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Decameron, The</i>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>.</li> - -<li>Defoe, Daniel, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>.</li> - -<li>Delacroix, Eugène, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>.</li> - -<li>De Quincey, Thomas, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>.</li> - -<li>Desvergnes, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Diana</i>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>.</li> - -<li>Dickens, Charles, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Don Quixote</i>, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Dream Children</i>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>.</li> - -<li>Dumas, Alexandre, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_261">261</a>, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>.</li> - -<li class="p2"><span class="smcap">Earle</span>, John, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>.</li> - -<li>Edgeworth, Maria, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Éducation Sentimentale, l'</i>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>.</li> - -<li>Edward <span class="smcap">III.</span>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Elia</i>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>.</li> - -<li>Ellis, F. S., <a href="#Page_22">22</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Émaux et Camées</i>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>.</li> - -<li>Emerson, Ralph Waldo, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>.</li> - -<li><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[316]</a></span></li> - -<li><i>Emma</i>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, An</i>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Ethan Brand</i>, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>.</li> - -<li>Euclid, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Eugénie Grandet</i>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Euphues</i>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Evelina</i>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Exemplary Novels, The</i>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>.</li> - -<li class="p2"><i>Facino Cane</i>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Faërie Queene, The</i>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Femme au Collier de Velours, La</i>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Ferdinand Count, Fathom</i>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>.</li> - -<li>Fiametta, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>.</li> - -<li>Fielding, Henry, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>, <a href="#Page_293">293</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Figaro, Le</i>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>.</li> - -<li>Flaubert, Gustave, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>, <a href="#Page_287">287</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>.</li> - -<li>Froissart, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>.</li> - -<li class="p2"><i>Galatea</i>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>.</li> - -<li>Gautier, Théophile, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>.</li> - -<li>Gavin, Miss J., <a href="#Page_102">102</a>.</li> - -<li>Gay, John, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Génie du Christianisme, Le</i>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Gesta Romanorum, The</i>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Gil Blas</i>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>.</li> - -<li>Godwin, William, <a href="#Page_244">244</a> <i>et seq.</i></li> - -<li>Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>.</li> - -<li>Goldsmith, Oliver, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>.</li> - -<li><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[317]</a></span></li> - -<li>Goya, Francisco Jose de G. y Lucientes, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Grace Abounding</i>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>.</li> - -<li>Graham, R. B. Cunninghame, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Grammont Memoirs, The</i>, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>.</li> - -<li>Greene, Robert, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Griselda</i>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Guardian, The</i>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>.</li> - -<li>Guest, Lady Charlotte, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>.</li> - -<li class="p2"><span class="smcap">Hamilton</span>, Anthony, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Hardyknute, The Ballad of</i>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>.</li> - -<li>Hawthorne, Nathaniel, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>, <a href="#Page_257">257</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>, <a href="#Page_308">308</a>.</li> - -<li>Hazlitt, William, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Heptameron, The</i>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Hernani</i>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Hérodias</i>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Histoire mes de Bêtes, l'</i>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>.</li> - -<li>Hoffmann, Ernst Theodor Wilhelm, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>.</li> - -<li>Hogarth, William, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>.</li> - -<li>Holbein, Hans, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>.</li> - -<li>Holcroft, Thomas, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>.</li> - -<li>Homer, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>.</li> - -<li>Hosea, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>.</li> - -<li><i>House of the Seven Gables, The</i>, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>.</li> - -<li>Hugo, Victor, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>, <a href="#Page_295">295</a>, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Humphry Clinker</i>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a> <i>et seq.</i></li> - -<li>Hunt, Leigh, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>.</li> - -<li class="p2"><i>Ivanhoe</i>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>.</li> - -<li class="p2"><i>Jack Wilton</i>, or <i>The Unfortunate Traveller</i>, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>.</li> - -<li><i>John Arnolfini and his Wife</i>, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>.</li> - -<li>Johnson, Samuel, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Jonathan Wild</i>, <a href="#Page_163">163</a> <i>et seq.</i></li> - -<li>Jonson, Ben, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Joseph Andrews</i>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a> <i>et seq.</i></li> - -<li><i>Journal of the Plague Year, A</i>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Julie</i>, or <i>La Nouvelle Héloïse</i>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>.</li> - -<li class="p2"><span class="smcap">Keats</span>, John, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>, <a href="#Page_310">310</a>.</li> - -<li><i>King Lear</i>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>.</li> - -<li>Kit Kats, The, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>.</li> - -<li class="p2"><span class="smcap">La Bruyère</span>, Jean de, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>.</li> - -<li>Lafontaine, Jean de, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>.</li> - -<li>Lamb, Charles, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>.</li> - -<li>Lancret, Nicolas, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Lavengro</i>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Lazarillo de Tormes</i>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a> <i>et seq.</i></li> - -<li><i>Lenore</i>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>.</li> - -<li>Leonardo da Vinci, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, <a href="#Page_248">248</a>.</li> - -<li>Le Sage, Alain René, <a href="#Page_61">61</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>.</li> - -<li>Lewis, Matthew Gregory, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>.</li> - -<li>Lockhart, John Gibson, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>.</li> - -<li>Lodge, Thomas, <a href="#Page_73">73</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>.</li> - -<li>Lorris, Guillaume de, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Love for Love</i>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>.</li> - -<li>Luna, H. de, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>.</li> - -<li>Lyly, John, <a href="#Page_70">70</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>.</li> - -<li class="p2"><span class="smcap">Mabbe</span>, James, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Mabinogion, The</i>, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_11">11</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>.</li> - -<li>Macpherson, James, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Madame Bovary</i>, <a href="#Page_291">291</a> <i>et seq.</i></li> - -<li><i>Mademoiselle de Maupin</i>, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>.</li> - -<li>Mahomet, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>.</li> - -<li>Malory, Sir Thomas, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Manon Lescaut</i>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>.</li> - -<li>Margaret, Queen of Navarre, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Markheim</i>, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>.</li> - -<li>Marot, Clément, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>.</li> - -<li>Masefield, John, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Masque of the Red Death, The</i>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Mateo Falcone</i>, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>.</li> - -<li>Maupassant, Guy de, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>, <a href="#Page_298">298</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>.</li> - -<li>Mérimée, Prosper, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Messe de l'Athée, La</i>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>.</li> - -<li>Meung, Jean de, <a href="#Page_21">21</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Microcosmography, A</i>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>.</li> - -<li>Milton, John, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Misérables, Les</i>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Modest Proposal, A</i>, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>.</li> - -<li>Molière, Jean Baptiste Poquelin de, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Monk and Witch</i>, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Mona Lisa</i>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>.</li> - -<li>Montaigne, Michel Eyquem Sieur de, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>.</li> - -<li>Montemôr, Jorge de, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>.</li> - -<li>Montesquieu, Charles de Secondat, Baron de, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Morte Amoureuse, La</i>, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>, <a href="#Page_309">309</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Morte Darthur, The</i>, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Mrs. Battle's Opinions on Whist</i>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Murders in the Rue Morgue, The</i>, <a href="#Page_248">248</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Mystery of Marie Roget, The</i>, <a href="#Page_248">248</a>.</li> - -<li class="p2"><span class="smcap">Naples</span>, Queen Joan of, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>.</li> - -<li>Nash, Thomas, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>.</li> - -<li>Nevinson, H. W., <a href="#Page_88">88</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Newgate Calendar, The</i>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>.</li> - -<li><i>New Testament, The</i>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Northanger Abbey</i>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>.</li> - -<li>Northcote, James, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Notre Dame de Paris</i>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Nouvelle Héloïse, La</i>, or <i>Julie</i>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>.</li> - -<li class="p2"><span class="smcap">Odin</span>, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Old Gentleman, The</i>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Old Lady, The</i>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Oliver Twist</i>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Ossian</i>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Oval Portrait, The</i>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>.</li> - -<li>Overbury, Sir Thomas, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>.</li> - -<li class="p2"><i>Pamela</i>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Pandosto</i>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Paradise Lost</i>, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>.</li> - -<li>Pascal, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>.</li> - -<li>Pater, Walter, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Paynter's Pallace</i>, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>.</li> - -<li>Peacock, Thomas Love, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Penseur, Le</i>, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>.</li> - -<li>Pepys, Samuel, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Percy and Duglas</i>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>.</li> - -<li>Percy, Bishop, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Père Goriot</i>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Petite Ficelle, La</i>, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>, <a href="#Page_310">310</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Petite Pallace of Petite his Pleasure, A</i>, <a href="#Page_68">68</a> <i>et seq.</i></li> - -<li>Petrarch, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>.</li> - -<li>Pettie, George, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Philosophy of Composition, The</i>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Pilgrim's Progress</i>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>.</li> - -<li>Pindar, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>.</li> - -<li>Pippin, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>.</li> - -<li>Pisan, Christine de, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Plea of Pan, The</i>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>.</li> - -<li>Poe, Edgar Allan, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>.</li> - -<li>Poussin, Nicolas, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Presse, La</i>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>.</li> - -<li>Prévost, l'Abbé, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Punch and Judy</i>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Purloined Letter, The</i>, <a href="#Page_248">248</a>.</li> - -<li class="p2"><i>Quentin Durward</i>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>.</li> - -<li class="p2"><span class="smcap">Rabelais</span>, François, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>.</li> - -<li>Radcliffe, Mrs., <a href="#Page_166">166</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Rappacini's Daughter</i>, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Raven, The</i>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, The</i>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Rendezvous, Le</i>, <a href="#Page_299">299</a>.</li> - -<li><i>René</i>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Reynard the Fox</i>, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>.</li> - -<li>Reynolds, Sir Joshua, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>.</li> - -<li>Richardson, Samuel, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>; 139 <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Robert the Devil, The Life of</i>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Robinson Crusoe</i>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Rob Roy</i>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Roderick Random</i>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_160">160</a> <i>et seq.</i></li> - -<li>Rodin, Auguste, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Romance of the Rose, The</i>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Roman Comique, Le</i>, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Roman de la Momie, Le</i>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Romany Rye, The</i>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>.</li> - -<li>Ronsard, Pierre de, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Rosalynde</i>, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>.</li> - -<li>Rossetti, Dante Gabriel, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>.</li> - -<li>Rousseau, Jean Jacques, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>.</li> - -<li class="p2"><span class="smcap">Sainte-Beuve</span>, Charles Augustin de, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>.</li> - -<li><i>St. Julien l'Hospitalier</i>, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Salammbo</i>, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>, <a href="#Page_295">295</a>, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>.</li> - -<li>Santayana, George, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>.</li> - -<li>Scarlatti, Alessandro, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Scarlet Letter, The</i>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>.</li> - -<li>Scarron, Paul, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>.</li> - -<li>Schopenhauer, Arthur, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>.</li> - -<li>Scott, Sir Walter, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>.</li> - -<li>Selkirk, Alexander, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Sense and Sensibility</i>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>.</li> - -<li>Shakespeare, William, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>.</li> - -<li>Shelley, Percy Bysshe, <a href="#Page_311">311</a>.</li> - -<li>Sidney, Sir Philip, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Sir Charles Grandison</i>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Sir Roger de Coverley</i>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a> <i>et seq.</i></li> - -<li>Smollett, Tobias, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_261">261</a>, <a href="#Page_293">293</a>, <a href="#Page_308">308</a>.</li> - -<li>Somerset, The Countess of, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>.</li> - -<li>Somerset, The Earl of, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Song of Roland, The</i>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Spectator, The</i>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>.</li> - -<li>Spenser, Edmund, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>.</li> - -<li>Steele, Sir Richard, <a href="#Page_113">113</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>.</li> - -<li>Stendhal, Henri Beyle who wrote as, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_261">261</a>.</li> - -<li>Sterne, Laurence, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>.</li> - -<li>Stevenson, Robert Louis, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Summer is icumen in</i>, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>.</li> - -<li>Swift, Dean, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>.</li> - -<li>Swinburne, Algernon Charles, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>.</li> - -<li class="p2"><i>Table Talk</i>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>.</li> - -<li>Taine, Hippolyte, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Tatler, The</i>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>.</li> - -<li>Tennyson, Alfred, Lord, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Tentation de Saint Antoine, La</i>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>.</li> - -<li>Theocritus, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>.</li> - -<li>Theophrastus, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>.</li> - -<li>Thomson, Hugh, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>.</li> - -<li>Thoreau, Henry David, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>.</li> - -<li>Tolstoy, Leo, Count, <a href="#Page_261">261</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Tom Jones</i>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Tristram Shandy</i>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Troilus and Criseyd</i>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Trois Contes</i>, <a href="#Page_295">295</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Trois Mousquetaires, Les</i>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Tulipe Noire, La</i>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>.</li> - -<li class="p2"><i>Un Cœur Simple</i>, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>, <a href="#Page_295">295</a>.</li> - -<li>Urfé, Honoré d', <a href="#Page_85">85</a>.</li> - -<li class="p2"><span class="smcap">Van Eyck</span>, Jan and Hubert, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Vathek</i>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Venus d'Ille, La</i>, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Vicar of Wakefield, The</i>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Vingt Ans Après</i>, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>.</li> - -<li>Virgil, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Volsunga Saga, The</i>, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>.</li> - -<li>Voltaire, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>.</li> - -<li class="p2"><span class="smcap">Wagner</span>, Wilhelm Richard, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>.</li> - -<li>Walpole, Horace, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>.</li> - -<li>Watteau Antoine, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Waverley Novels, The</i>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>.</li> - -<li>Wilde, Oscar, <a href="#Page_311">311</a>.</li> - -<li><i>William Wilson</i>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>.</li> - -<li>Wordsworth, William, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>.</li> - -<li class="p2"><span class="smcap">Yeats</span>, William Butler, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>.</li> - -<li><i>Young Goodman Brown</i>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>.</li> - -<li class="p2"><span class="smcap">Zola</span>, Emile, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>.</li> -</ul> - -<p class="center p2 bt">Printed by T. and A. <span class="smcap">Constable</span>, Printers to His Majesty -at the Edinburgh University Press</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> -<h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Translation by Lady Charlotte Guest, 1838.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> The quotations in this chapter are from the translation by Mr. F. -S. Ellis.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> 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.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> By H. de Luna, 1620. The earliest known edition of <i>Lazarillo</i> -was published in 1553.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> From a poem by John Masefield.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> There is another picture of the same name and subject in the -Duke of Devonshire's collection.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> It is worth noticing as an additional proof of the close connection -between the story in letters and the feminine novel that <i>Sense and -Sensibility</i> was built out of an older tale that she actually wrote in -epistolary form.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> From a poem by Lascelles Abercrombie.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> This is repeated with a new purpose from the chapter on Origins.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> 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, <i>nouvelle</i>, -or short story.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> The novelette is not the same as the <i>nouvelle</i>, but simply a short -novel as its name implies.</p></div> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<img src="images/i_back.jpg" width="400" height="520" alt="back" /> -</div> - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -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-h.htm or 62129-h.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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