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diff --git a/8686-8.txt b/8686-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3f62a00 --- /dev/null +++ b/8686-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3149 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Delicious Vice, by Young E. Allison + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Delicious Vice + +Author: Young E. Allison + + +Release Date: August, 2005 [EBook #8686] +This file was first posted on August 1, 2003 +Last Updated: May 13, 2013 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DELICIOUS VICE *** + + + + +Produced by Ted Garvin, Charles Franks and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team + + + + + + + + +THE DELICIOUS VICE + +Pipe Dreams and Fond Adventures of an Habitual Novel-Reader Among Some +Great Books and Their People + +By Young E. Allison + +_Second Edition_ + +(Revised and containing new material) + +CHICAGO THE PRAIRIELAND PUBLISHING CO. 1918 Printed originally in the +Louisville Courier-Journal. Reprinted by courtesy. + +First edition, Cleveland, Burrows Bros., 1907. + +Copyright 1907-1918 + + + + + +I. A RHAPSODY ON THE NOBLE PROFESSION OF NOVEL READING + +It must have been at about the good-bye age of forty that Thomas Moore, +that choleric and pompous yet genial little Irish gentleman, turned a +sigh into good marketable "copy" for Grub Street and with shrewd economy +got two full pecuniary bites out of one melancholy apple of reflection: + + "Kind friends around me fall + Like leaves in wintry weather," + + --he sang of his own dead heart in the stilly night. + + "Thus kindly I scatter thy leaves on the bed + Where thy mates of the garden lie scentless and dead." +--he sang to the dying rose. In the red month of October the rose is +forty years old, as roses go. How small the world has grown to a man of +forty, if he has put his eyes, his ears and his brain to the uses for +which they are adapted. And as for time--why, it is no longer than a +kite string. At about the age of forty everything that can happen to a +man, death excepted, has happened; happiness has gone to the devil or +is a mere habit; the blessing of poverty has been permanently secured +or you are exhausted with the cares of wealth; you can see around +the corner or you do not care to see around it; in a word--that is, +considering mental existence--the bell has rung on you and you are up +against a steady grind for the remainder of your life. It is then there +comes to the habitual novel reader the inevitable day when, in anguish +of heart, looking back over his life, he--wishes he hadn't; then he asks +himself the bitter question if there are not things he has done that he +wishes he hadn't. Melancholy marks him for its own. He sits in his room +some winter evening, the lamp swarming shadowy seductions, the grate +glowing with siren invitation, the cigar box within easy reach for that +moment when the pending sacrifice between his teeth shall be burned out; +his feet upon the familiar corner of the mantel at that automatically +calculated altitude which permits the weight of the upper part of the +body to fall exactly upon the second joint from the lower end of the +vertebral column as it rests in the comfortable depression created by +continuous wear in the cushion of that particular chair to which every +honest man who has acquired the library vice sooner or later gets +attached with a love no misfortune can destroy. As he sits thus, +having closed the lids of, say, some old favorite of his youth, he will +inevitably ask himself if it would not have been better for him if he +hadn't. And the question once asked must be answered; and it will be an +honest answer, too. For no scoundrel was ever addicted to the delicious +vice of novel-reading. It is too tame for him. "There is no money in +it." + + * * * * * + +And every habitual novel-reader will answer that question he has asked +himself, after a sigh. A sigh that will echo from the tropic deserted +island of Juan Fernandez to that utmost ice-bound point of Siberia where +by chance or destiny the seven nails in the sole of a certain mysterious +person's shoe, in the month of October, 1831, formed a cross--thus: + + * + * * * + * + * + * + +while on the American promontory opposite, "a young and handsome woman +replied to the man's despairing gesture by silently pointing to heaven." +The Wandering Jew may be gone, but the theater of that appalling +prologue still exists unchanged. That sigh will penetrate the gloomy +cell of the Abbe Faria, the frightful dungeons of the Inquisition, the +gilded halls of Vanity Fair, the deep forests of Brahmin and fakir, the +jousting list, the audience halls and the petits cabinets of kings of +France, sound over the trackless and storm-beaten ocean--will echo, in +short, wherever warm blood has jumped in the veins of honest men and +wherever vice has sooner or later been stretched groveling in the dust +at the feet of triumphant virtue. + +And so, sighing to the uttermost ends of the earth, the old novel-reader +will confess that he wishes he hadn't. Had not read all those novels +that troop through his memory. Because, if he hadn't--and it is the +impossibility of the alternative that chills his soul with the despair +of cruel realization--if he hadn't, you see, he could begin at the very +first, right then and there, and read the whole blessed business through +for the first time. For the FIRST TIME, mark you! Is there anywhere in +this great round world a novel reader of true genius who would not do +that with the joy of a child and the thankfulness of a sage? + +Such a dream would be the foundation of the story of a really noble Dr. +Faustus. How contemptible is the man who, having staked his life freely +upon a career, whines at the close and begs for another chance; just +one more--and a different career! It is no more than Mr. Jack Hamlin, a +friend from Calaveras County, California, would call "the baby act," +or his compeer, Mr. John Oakhurst, would denominate "a squeal." How +glorious, on the other hand, is the man who has spent his life in his +own way, and, at its eventide, waves his hand to the sinking sun and +cries out: "Goodbye; but if I could do so, I should be glad to go over +it all again with you--just as it was!" If honesty is rated in heaven +as we have been taught to believe, depend upon it the novel-reader +who sighs to eat the apple he has just devoured, will have no trouble +hereafter. + +What a great flutter was created a few years ago when a blind +multi-millionaire of New York offered to pay a million dollars in cash +to any scientist, savant or surgeon in the world who would restore +his sight. Of course he would! It was no price at all to offer for the +service--considering the millions remaining. It was no more to him than +it would be to me to offer ten dollars for a peep at Paradise. Poor as I +am I will give any man in the world one hundred dollars in cash who will +enable me to remove every trace of memory of M. Alexandre Dumas' "Three +Guardsmen," so that I may open that glorious book with the virgin +capacity of youth to enjoy its full delight. More; I will duplicate the +same offer for any one or all of the following: + +"Les Miserables," of M. Hugo. + +"Don Quixote," of Senor Cervantes. + +"Vanity Fair," of Mr. Thackeray. + +"David Copperfield," of Mr. Dickens. + +"The Cloister and the Hearth," of Mr. Reade. + +And if my good friend, Isaac of York, is lending money at the old +stand and will take pianos, pictures, furniture, dress suits and plain +household plate as collateral, upon even moderate valuation, I will go +fifty dollars each upon the following: + +"The Count of Monte Cristo," of M. Dumas. + +"The Wandering Jew," of M. Sue. + +"The Memoirs of Barry Lyndon, Esq.," of Mr. Thackeray. + +"Treasure Island," of Mr. Robbie Stevenson. + +"The Vicar of Wakefield," of Mr. Goldsmith. + +"Pere Goriot," of M. de Balzac. + +"Ivanhoe," of Baronet Scott. + +(Any one previously unnamed of the whole layout of M. Dumas, excepting +only a paretic volume entitled "The Conspirators.") + +Now, the man who can do the trick for one novel can do it for all--and +there's a thousand dollars waiting to be earned, and a blessing also. +It's a bald "bluff," of course, because it can't be done as we all know. +I might offer a million with safety. If it ever could have been done the +noble intellectual aristocracy of novel-readers would have been reduced +to a condition of penury and distress centuries ago. + +For, who can put fetters upon even the smallest second of eternity? Who +can repeat a joy or duplicate a sweet sorrow? Who has ever had more than +one first sweetheart, or more than one first kiss under the honeysuckle? +Or has ever seen his name in print for the first time, ever again? Is it +any wonder that all these inexplicable longings, these hopeless hopes, +were summed up in the heart-cry of Faust-- + +"Stay, yet awhile, O moment of beauty." + + * * * * * + +Yet, I maintain, Dr. Faustus was a weak creature. He begged to be given +another and wholly different chance to linger with beauty. How much +nobler the magnificent courage of the veteran novel-reader, who in the +old age of his service, asks only that he may be permitted to do again +all that he has done, blindly, humbly, loyally, as before. + +Don't I know? Have I not been there? It is no child's play, the life of +a man who--paraphrasing the language of Spartacus, the much neglected +hero of the ages--has met upon the printed page every shape of perilous +adventure and dangerous character that the broad empire of fiction could +furnish, and never yet lowered his arm. Believe me it is no carpet duty +to have served on the British privateers in Guiana, under Commodore +Kingsley, alongside of Salvation Yeo; to have been a loyal member of +Thuggee and cast the scarf for Bowanee; to have watched the tortures of +Beatrice Cenci (pronounced as written in honest English, and I spit upon +the weaklings of the service who imagine that any freak of woman called +Bee-ah-treech-y Chon-chy could have endured the agonies related of that +sainted lady)--to have watched those tortures, I say, without breaking +down; to have fought under the walls of Acre with Richard Coeur de Lion; +to have crawled, amid rats and noxious vapors, with Jean Valjean through +the sewers of Paris; to have dragged weary miles through the snow with +Uncas, Chief of the Mohicans; to have lived among wild beasts with Morok +the lion tamer; to have charged with the impis of Umslopogaas; to have +sailed before the mast with Vanderdecken, spent fourteen gloomy years +in the next cell to Edmund Dantes, ferreted out the murders in the Rue +Morgue, advised Monsieur Le Cocq and given years of life's prime in +tedious professional assistance to that anointed idiot and pestiferous +scoundrel, Tittlebat Titmouse! Equally, of course, it has not been all +horror and despair. Life averages up fairly, as any novel-reader +will admit, and there has been much of delight--even luxury and +idleness--between the carnage hours of battle. Is it not so? Ask that +boyish-hearted old scamp whom you have seen scuttling away from the +circulating library with M. St. Pierre's memoirs of young Paul and his +beloved Virginia under his arm; or stepping briskly out of the book +store hugging to his left side a carefully wrapped biography of Lady +Diana Vernon, Mlle. de la Valliere, or Madame Margaret Woffington; or +in fact any of a thousand charming ladies whom it is certain he had met +before. Ladies too, who, born whensoever, are not one day older since +he last saw them. Nearly a hundred years of Parisian residence have not +served to induce the Princess Haydee of Yanina to forego her picturesque +Greek gowns and coiffures, or to alter the somewhat embarrassing status +of her relations with her striking but gloomy protector, the Count of +Monte Cristo. + +The old memories are crowded with pleasures. Those delicious mornings in +the allee of the park, where you were permitted to see Cosette with her +old grandfather, M. Fauchelevent; those hours of sweet pain when it was +impossible to determine whether it was Rebecca or Rowena who seemed to +give most light to the day; the flirtations with Blanche Amory, and the +notes placed in the hollow tree; the idyllic devotion of Little Emily, +dating from the morning when you saw her dress fluttering on the beam as +she ran along it, lightly, above the flowing tide--(devotion that is yet +tender, for, God forgive you Steerforth as I do, you could not smirch +that pure heart;) the melancholy, yet sweet sorrow, with which you +saw the loved and lost Little Eva borne to her grave over which the +mocking-bird now sings his liquid requiem. Has it not been sweet +good fortune to love Maggie Tulliver, Margot of Savoy, Dora Spenlow +(undeclared because she was an honest wife--even though of a most +conceited and commonplace jackass, totally undeserving of her); Agnes +Wicklow (a passion quickly cured when she took Dora's pitiful leavings), +and poor ill-fated Marie Antoinette? You can name dozens if you have +been brought up in good literary society. + + * * * * * + +These love affairs may be owned freely, as being perfectly honorable, +even if hopeless. And, of course, there have been gallantries--mere +affaires du jour--such as every man occasionally engages in. Sometimes +they seemed serious, but only for a moment. There was Beatrix Esmond, +for whom I could certainly have challenged His Grace of Hamilton, had +not Lord Mohun done the work for me. Wandering down the street in London +one night, in a moment of weak admiration for her unrivalled nerve +and aplomb, I was hesitating--whether to call on Mrs. Rawdon Crawley, +knowing that her thick-headed husband was in hoc for debt--when the +door of her house crashed open and that old scoundrel, Lord Steyne, came +wildly down the steps, his livid face blood-streaked, his topcoat on +his arm and a dreadful look in his eye. The world knows the rest as I +learned it half an hour later at the greengrocer's, where the Crawleys +owed an inexcusably large bill. Then the Duchess de Langeais--but all +this is really private. + +After all, a man never truly loves but once. And somewhere in Scotland +there is a mound above the gentle, tender and heroic Helen Mar, where +lies buried the first love of my soul. That mound, O lovely and loyal +Helen, was watered by the first blinding and unselfish tears that +ever sprang from my eyes. You were my first love; others may come and +inevitably they go, but you are still here, under the pencil pocket of +my waistcoat. + +Who can write in such a state? It is only fair to take a rest and brace +up. [Blank Page] + + + + +II. NOVEL-READERS + +AS DISTINGUISHED FROM WOMEN AND NIBBLERS AND AMATEURS + + +There is, of course, but one sort of novel-reader who is of any +importance He is the man who began under the age of fourteen and +is still sticking to it--at whatever age he may be--and full of +a terrifying anxiety lest he may be called away in the midst of +preliminary announcements of some pet author's "next forthcoming." For +my own part I cannot conceive dying with resignation knowing that the +publishers were binding up at the time anything of Henryk Sienckiewicz's +or Thomas Hardy's. So it is important that a man begin early, because he +will have to quit all too soon. + +There are no women novel-readers. There are women who read novels, of +course; but it is a far cry from reading novels to being a novel-reader. +It is not in the nature of a woman. The crown of woman's character is +her devotion, which incarnate delicacy and tenderness exalt into +perfect beauty of sacrifice. Those qualities could no more live amid the +clashings of indiscriminate human passions than a butterfly wing could +go between the mill rollers untorn. Women utterly refuse to go on with a +book if the subject goes against their settled opinions. They despise a +novel--howsoever fine and stirring it may be--if there is any taint of +unhappiness to the favorite at the close. But the most flagrant of all +their incapacities in respect to fiction is the inability to appreciate +the admirable achievements of heroes, unless the achievements are solely +in behalf of women. And even in that event they complacently consider +them to be a matter of course, and attach no particular importance to +the perils or the hardships undergone. "Why shouldn't he?" they argue, +with triumphant trust in ideals; "surely he loved her!" + +There are many women who nibble at novels as they nibble at +luncheon--there are also some hearty eaters; but 98 per cent of them +detest Thackeray and refuse resolutely to open a second book of Robert +Louis Stevenson. They scent an enemy of the sex in Thackeray, who never +seems to be in earnest, and whose indignant sarcasm and melancholy +truthfulness they shrink from. "It's only a story, anyhow," they argue +again; "he might, at least write a pleasant one, instead of bringing in +all sorts of disagreeable people--some of them positively disreputable." +As for Stevenson, whom men read with the thrill of boyhood rising new +in their veins, I believe in my soul women would tear leaves out of his +novels to tie over the tops of preserve jars, and never dream of the +sacrilege. + +Now I hold Thackeray and Stevenson to be the absolute test of capacity +for earnest novel-reading. Neither cares a snap of his fingers for +anybody's prejudices, but goes the way of stern truth by the light of +genius that shines within him. + +If you could ever pin a woman down to tell you what she thought, instead +of telling you what she thinks it is proper to tell you, or what she +thinks will please you, you would find she has a religious conviction +that Dot Perrybingle in "The Cricket of the Hearth," and Ouida's Lord +Chandos were actually a materializable an and a reasonable gentleman, +either of whom might be met with anywhere in their proper circles, I +would be willing to stand trial for perjury on the statement that I've +known admirable women--far above the average, really showing signs of +moral discrimination--who have sniveled pitifully over Nancy Sykes and +sniffed scornfully at Mrs. Tess Durbeyfield Clare. It is due to their +constitution and social heredity. Women do not strive and yearn and +stalk abroad for the glorious pot of intellectual gold at the end of the +rainbow; they pick and choose and, having chosen, sit down straightway +and become content. And a state of contentment is an abomination in the +sight of man. Contentment is to be sought for by great masculine minds +only with the purpose of being sure never quite to find it. + + * * * * * + +For all practical purposes, therefore--except perhaps as object lessons +of "the incorrect method" in reading novels--women, as novel-readers, +must be considered as not existing. And, of course, no offense is +intended. But if there be any weak-kneed readers who prefer the +gilt-wash of pretty politeness to the solid gold of truth, let them +understand that I am not to be frightened away from plain facts by any +charge of bad manners. + +On the contrary, now that this disagreeable interruption has been forced +upon me--certainly not through any seeking of mine--it may be better to +speak out and settle the matter. Men who have the happiness of being in +the married state know that nothing is to be gained by failing to settle +instantly with women who contradict and oppose them. Who was that mellow +philosopher in one of Trollope's tiresomely clever novels who said: "My +word for it, John, a husband ought not to take a cane to his wife +too soon. He should fairly wait till they are half-way home from the +church--but not longer, not longer." Of course every man with a spark +of intelligence and gallantry wishes that women COULD rise to real +novel-reading Think what courtship would be! Every true man wishes to +heaven there was nothing more to be said against women than that they +are not novel-readers. But can mere forgetting remove the canker? Do not +all of us know that the abstract good of the very existence of woman is +itself open to grave doubt--with no immediate hope of clearing up? Woman +has certainly been thrust upon us. Is there any scrap of record to show +that Adam asked for her? He was doing very well, was happy, prosperous +and healthy. There was no certainty that her creation was one of that +unquestionably wonderful series that occupied the six great days. +We cannot conceal that her creation caused a great pain in Adam's +side--undoubtedly the left side, in the region of the heart. She +has been described by young and dauntless poets as "God's best +afterthought;" but, now, really--and I advance the suggestion with +no intention to be brutal but solely as a conscientious duty to the +ascertainment of truth--why is it, that--. But let me try to present the +matter in the most unobjectionable manner possible. + +In reading over that marvelous account of creation I find frequent +explicit declaration that God pronounced everything good after he had +created it--except heaven and woman. I have maintained sometimes to +stern, elderly ladies that this might have been an error of omission by +early copyists, perpetuated and so become fixed in our translations. To +other ladies, of other age and condition, to whom such propositions +of scholarship might appear to be dull pedantry, I have ventured the +gentlemanlike explanation that, as woman was the only living thing +created that was good beyond doubt, perhaps God had paid her the +special compliment of leaving the approval unspoken, as being in a sense +supererogatory. At best, either of these dispositions of the matter is, +of course, far-fetched, maybe even frivolous. The fact still remains +by the record. And it is beyond doubt awkward and embarrassing, because +ill-natured men can refer to it in moments of hatefulness--moments +unfortunately too frequent. + +Is it possible that this last creation was a mistake of Infinite Charity +and Eternal Truth? That Charity forbore to acknowledge that it was a +mistake and that Truth, in the very nature of its eternal essence, could +not say it was good? It is so grave a matter that one wonders Helvetius +did not betray it, as he did that other secret about which the +philosophers had agreed to keep mum, so that Herr Schopenhauer could +write about it as he did about that other. Herr Schopenhauer certainly +had the courage to speak with philosophical asperity of the gentle +sex. It may be because he was never married. And then his mother wrote +novels! I have been surprised that he was not accused of prejudice. + +But if all these everyday obstacles were absent there would yet remain +insurmountable reasons why women can never be novel-readers in the sense +that men are. Your wife, for instance, or the impenetrable mystery +of womanhood that you contemplate making your wife some day--can you, +honestly, now, as a self-respecting husband of either de facto or in +futuro, quite agree to the spectacle of that adored lady sitting over +across the hearth from you in the snug room, evening after evening, with +her feet--however small and well-shaped--cocked up on the other end of +the mantel and one of your own big colorado maduros between her teeth! +We men, and particularly novel-readers, are liberal even generous, in +our views; but it is not in human nature to stand that! + +Now, if a woman can not put her feet up and smoke, how in the name +of heaven, can she seriously read novels? Certainly not sitting bolt +upright, in order to prevent the back of her new gown from rubbing the +chair; certainly not reclining upon a couch or in a hammock. A boy, yet +too young to smoke may properly lie on his stomach on the floor and read +novels, but the mature veteran will fight for his end of the mantel as +for his wife and children. It is physiological necessity, inasmuch as +the blood that would naturally go to the lower extremities, is thus +measurably lessened in quantity and goes instead to the head, where a +state of gentle congestion ensues, exciting the brain cells, setting +free the imagination to roam hand in hand with intelligence under the +spell of the wizard. There may be novel-readers who do not smoke at the +game, but surely they cannot be quite earnest or honest--you had better +put in writing all business agreements with this sort. + + * * * * * + +No boy can ever hope to become a really great or celebrated novel-reader +who does not begin his apprenticeship under the age of fourteen, and, as +I said before, stick to it as long as he lives. He must learn to scorn +those frivolous, vacillating and purposeless ones who, after beginning +properly, turn aside and whiling away their time on mere history, or +science, or philosophy. In a sense these departments of literature are +useful enough. They enable you often to perceive the most cunning and +profoundly interesting touches in fiction. Then I have no doubt that, +merely as mental exercise, they do some good in keeping the mind in +training for the serious work of novel-reading. I have always been +grateful to Carlyle's "French Revolution," if for nothing more than that +its criss-cross, confusing and impressive dullness enabled me to find +more pleasure in "A Tale of Two Cities" than was to be extracted from +any merit or interest in that unreal novel. + +This much however, may be said of history, that it is looking up in +these days as a result of studying the spirit of the novel. It was +not many years ago that the ponderous gentlemen who write criticisms +(chiefly because it has been forgotten how to stop that ancient waste +of paper and ink) could find nothing more biting to say of Macaulay's +"England" than that it was "a splendid work of imagination," of Froude's +"Caesar" that it was "magnificent political fiction," and of Taine's +"France" that "it was so fine it should have been history instead +of fiction." And ever since then the world has read only these three +writers upon these three epochs--and many other men have been writing +history upon the same model. No good novel-reader need be ashamed to +read them, in fact. They are so like the real thing we find in the +greatest novels, instead of being the usual pompous official lies of +old-time history, that there are flesh, blood and warmth in them. + +In 1877, after the railway riots, legislative halls heard the French +Revolution rehearsed from all points of view. In one capital, where I +was reporting the debate, Old Oracle, with every fact at hand from "In +the beginning" to the exact popular vote in 1876, talked two hours of +accurate historical data from all the French histories, after which +a young lawyer replied in fifteen minutes with a vivid picture of the +popular conditions, the revolt and the result. Will it be allowable, in +the interest of conveying exact impression, to say that Old Oracle was +"swiped" off the earth? No other word will relieve my conscience. +After it was all over I asked the young lawyer where he got his French +history. + +"From Dumas," he answered, "and from critical reviews of his novels. +He's short on dates and documents, but he's long on the general facts." + +Why not? Are not novels history? + +Book for book, is not a novel by a competent conscientious novelist +just as truthful a record of typical men, manners and motives as formal +history is of official men, events and motives? + +There are persons created out of the dreams of genius so real, so +actual, so burnt into the heart and mind of the world that they have +become historical. Do they not show you, in the old Ursuline Convent at +New Orleans, the cell where poor Manon Lescaut sat alone in tears? And +do they not show you her very grave on the banks of the lake? Have I +not stood by the simple grave at Richmond, Virginia, where never lay the +body of Pocahontas and listened to the story of her burial there? One +of the loveliest women I ever knew admits that every time she visits +relatives at Salem she goes out to look at the mound over the broken +heart of Hester Prynne, that dream daughter of genius who never actually +lived or died, but who was and is and ever will be. Her grave can be +easily pointed out, but where is that of Alexander, of Themistocles, of +Aristotle, even of the first figure of history--Adam? Mark Twain found +it for a joke. Dr. Hale was finally forced to write a preface to "The +Man Without a Country" to declare that his hero was pure fiction and +that the pathetic punishment so marvelously described was not only +imaginary, but legally and actually impossible. It was because Philip +Nolan had passed into history. I myself have met old men who knew sea +captains that had met this melancholy prisoner at sea and looked upon +him, had even spoken to him upon subjects not prohibited. And these old +men did not hesitate to declare that Dr. Hale had lied in his denial and +had repudiated the facts through cowardice or under compulsion from the +War Department. + + * * * * * + +Indeed, so flexible, adaptable and penetrable is the style, and so +admirably has the use and proper direction of the imagination been +developed by the school of fiction, that every branch of literature has +gained from it power, beauty and clearness. Nothing has aided more in +the spread of liberal Christianity than the remarkable series of "Lives +of Christ," from Straus to Farrar, not omitting particular mention of +the singularly beautiful treatment of the subject by Renan. In all of +these conscientious imagination has been used, as it is used in the +highest works of fiction, to give to known facts the atmosphere and +vividness of truth in order that the spirit and personality of the +surroundings of the Savior of Mankind might be newly understood by and +made fresh to modern perception. + +Of all books it is to be said--of novels as well--that none is great +that is not true, and that cannot be true which does not carry inherence +of truth. Now every book is true to some reader. The "Arabian Nights" +tales do not seem impossible to a little child, the only delight him. +The novels of "The Duchess" seem true to a certain class of readers, if +only because they treat of a society to which those readers are entirely +unaccustomed. "Robinson Crusoe" is a gospel to the world, and yet it is +the most palpably and innocently impossible of books. It is so plausible +because the author has ingeniously or accidentally set aside the usual +earmarks of plausibility. When an author plainly and easily knows +what the reader does not know and enough more to continue the chain of +seeming reality of truth a little further, he convinces the reader of +his truth and ability. Those men, therefore, who have been endowed with +the genius almost unconsciously to absorb, classify, combine, arrange +and dispense vast knowledge in a bold, striking or noble manner, are the +recognized greatest men of genius for the simple reason that the readers +of the world who know most recognize all they know in these writers, +together with that spirit of sublime imagination that suggests still +greater realms of truth and beauty. What Shakesepare was to the +intellectual leaders of his day, "The Duchess" was to countless immature +young folks of her day who were looking for "something to read." + +All truth is history, but all history is not truth. Written history is +notoriously no well-cleaner. + + + + +III. READING THE FIRST NOVEL + +BEING MOSTLY REMINISCENCES OF EARLY CRIMES AND JOYS + + +Once more and for all, the career of a novel reader should be entered +upon, if at all, under the age of fourteen. As much earlier as possible. +The life of the intellect, as of its shadowy twin, imagination, begins +early and develops miraculously. The inbred strains of nature lie +exposed to influence as a mirror to reflections, and as open to +impression as sensitized paper, upon which pictures may be printed +and from which they may also fade out. The greater the variety of +impressions that fall upon the young mind the more certain it is that +the greatest strength of natural tendency will be touched and revealed. +Good or bad, whichever it may be, let it come out as quickly as +possible. How many men have never developed their fatal weaknesses until +success was within reach and the edifice fell upon other innocent ones. +Believe me, no innate scoundrel or brute will be much helped or hindered +by stories. These have no turn or leisure for dreaming. They are eager +for the actual touch of life. What would a dull-eyed glutton, famishing, +not with hunger but with the cravings of digestive ferocity, find in +Thackeray's "Memorials of Gormandizing" or "Barmecidal Feasts?" Such +banquets are spread for the frugal, not one of whom would swap that +immortal cook-book review for a dinner with Lucullus. Rascals will not +read. Men of action do not read. They look upon it as the gambler does +upon the game where "no money passes." It may almost be said that the +capacity for novel-reading is the patent of just and noble minds. You +never heard of a great novel-reader who was notorious as a criminal. +There have been literary criminals, I grant you--Eugene Aram Dr. Dodd, +Prof. Webster, who murdered Parkmaan, and others. But they were writers, +not readers And they did not write novels. Mr. Aram wrote scientific and +school books, as did Prof. Webster, and Dr. Wainwright wrote beautiful +sermons. We never do sufficiently consider the evil that lies behind +writing sermons. The nearest you can come to a writer of fiction who +has been steeped in crime is in Benvenuto Cellini, whose marvelous +autobiographical memoir certainly contains some fiction, though it is +classed under the suspect department of History. + +How many men actually have been saved from a criminal career by the +miraculous influence of novels? Let who will deny, but at the age of +six I myself was absolutely committed to the abandoned purpose of riding +barebacked horses in a circus. Secretly, of course, because there were +some vague speculations in the family concerning what seemed to be +special adaptability to the work of preaching. Shortly after I gave that +up to enlist in the Continental Army, under Gen. Francis Marion, and no +other soldier slew more Britons. After discharge I at once volunteered +in an Indiana regiment quartered in my native town in Kentucky, and beat +the snare drum at the head of that fine body of men for a long time. But +the tendency was downward. For three months I was chief of a of robbers +that ravaged the backyards of the vicinity. Successively I became a spy +for Washington, an Indian fighter, a tragic actor. + +With character seared, abandoned and dissolute in habit through and +by the hearing and seeing and reading of history, there was but one +desperate step left So I entered upon the career of a pirate in my ninth +year. The Spanish Main, as no doubt you remember, was at that time upon +an open common across the street from our house, and it was a hundred +feet long, half as wide and would average two feet in depth. I have +often since thanked Heaven that they filled up that pathless ocean in +order to build an iron foundry upon the spot. Suppose they had excavated +for a cellar! Why during the time that Capt. Kidd, Lafitte and I +infested the coast thereabout, sailing three "low, black-hulled +schooners with long rakish masts," I forced hundreds of merchant seamen +to walk the plank--even helpless women and children. Unless the sharks +devoured them, their bones are yet about three feet under the floor of +that iron foundry. Under the lee of the Northernmost promontory, near +a rock marked with peculiar crosses made by the point of the stiletto +which I constantly carried in my red silk sash, I buried tons of plate, +and doubloons, pieces of eight, pistoles, Louis d'ors, and galleons by +the chest. At that time galleons somehow meant to me money pieces in +use, though since then the name has been given to a species of boat. The +rich brocades, Damascus and Indian stuffs, laces, mantles, shawls and +finery were piled in riotous profusion in our cave where--let the whole +truth be told if it must--I lived with a bold, black-eyed and coquettish +Spanish girl, who loved me with ungovernable jealousy that occasionally +led to bitter and terrible scenes of rage and despair. At last when I +brought home a white and red English girl whose life I spared because +she had begged me her knees by the memory of my sainted mother to spare +her for her old father, who was waiting her coming, Joquita passed all +bounds. I killed her--with a single knife thrust I remember. She was +buried right on the spot where the Tilden and Hendricks flag pole +afterwards stood in the campaign of 1876. It was with bitter melancholy +that I fancied the red stripes on the flag had their color from the +blood of the poor, foolish jealous girl below. + + * * * * * + +Ah, well-- + +Let us all own up--we men of above forty who aspire to respectability +and do actually live orderly lives and achieve even the odor of +sanctity--have we not been stained with murder?--aye worse! What man has +not his Bluebeard closet, full of early crimes and villainies? A certain +boy in whom I take a particular interest, who goes to Sunday-school and +whose life is outwardly proper--is he not now on week days a robber of +great renown? A week ago, masked and armed, he held up his own father in +a secluded corner of the library and relieved the old man of swag of +a value beyond the dreams--not of avarice, but--of successful, +respectable, modern speculation. He purposes to be a pirate whenever +there is a convenient sheet of water near the house. God speed him. +Better a pirate at six than at sixty. + +Give them work to do and good novels to read and they will get over it. +History breeds queer ideas in children. They read of military heroes, +kings and statesmen who commit awful deeds and are yet monuments of +public honor. What a sweet hero is Raleigh, who was a farmer of piracy; +what a grand Admiral was Drake; what demi-gods the fighting Americans +who murdered Indians for the crime of wanting their own! History hath +charms to move an infant breast to savagery. Good strong novels are the +best pabulum to nourish difference between virtue and vice. + +Don't I know? I have felt the miracle and learned the difference so well +that even now at an advanced age I can tell the difference and indulge +in either. It was not a week after the killing of Joquita that I read +the first novel of my life. It was "Scottish Chiefs." The dead bodies of +ten thousand novels lie between me and that first one. I have not read +it since. Ten Incas of Peru with ten rooms full of solid gold could +not tempt me to read it again. Have I not a clear cinch on a delicious +memory, compared with which gold is only Robinson Crusoe's "drug?" After +a lapse of all these years the content of that one tremendous, noble +chapter of heroic climax is as deeply burned into my memory as if it had +been read yesterday. + +A sister, old enough to receive "beaux" and addicted to the piano-forte +accomplishment, was at that time practicing across the hall an +instrumental composition, entitled, "La Rève." Under the title, printed +in very small letters, was the English translation; but I never thought +to look at it. An elocutionist had shortly before recited Poe's Raven +at a church entertainment, and that gloomy bird flapped its wings in my +young emotional vicinity when the firelight threw vague "shadows on +the floor." When the piece of music was spoken as "La Rève," its sad +cadences, suffering, of course, under practice, were instantly wedded in +my mind to Mr. Poe's wonderful bird and for years it meant the "Raven" +to me. How curious are childish impressions. Years afterward when I +saw a copy of the music and read the translation, "The Dream" under the +title, I felt a distinct shock of resentment as if the French language +had been treacherous to my sacred ideas. Then there was the romantic +name of "Ellerslie," which, notwithstanding considerable precocity in +reading and spelling I carried off as "Elleressie" Yeas afterward when +the actual syllables confronted me in a historical sketch of Wallace, +the truth entered like a stab and I closed the book. O sacred first +illusions of childhood, you are sweeter than a thousand year of fame! It +is God's providence that hardens us to endure the throwing of them down +to our eyes and strengthens us to keep their memory sweet in our hearts. + + + * * * * * + +It would be an affront then, not to assume that every reputable novel +reader has read "Scottish Chiefs." If there is any descendant or any +personal friend of that admirable lady, Miss Jane Porter, who may now be +in pecuniary distress, let that descendant call upon me privately with +perfect confidence. There are obligations that a glacial evolutionary +period can not lessen. I make no conditions but the simple proof of +proper identity. I am not rich but I am grateful. + +It was a Saturday evening when I became aware, as by prescience, that +there hung over Sir William Wallice and Helen Mar some terrible shadow +of fate. And the piano-forte across the hall played "La Rève." My heart +failed me and I closed the book. If you can't do that, my friend, then +you waste your time trying to be a novel reader. You have not the true +touch of genius for it. It is the miracle of eating your cake and having +it, too. It must have been the unconscious moving of novel reading +genius in me. For I forgot, as clearly as if it were not a possibility, +that the next day was Sunday. And so hurried off, before time, to bed, +to be alone with the burden on my heart. + + "Backward, turn backward, O Time in your flight-- + Make me a child again just for tonight." + +There are two or three novels I should love to take to bed as of +yore--not to read, but to suffer over and to contemplate and to seek +calmness and courage with which to face the inevitable. Could there be +men base enough to do to death the noble Wallace? Or to break the heart +of Helen Mar with grief? No argument could remove the presentiment, but +facing the matter gave courage. "Let tomorrow answer," I thought, as the +piano-forte in the next room played "La Rève." Then fell asleep. + +And when I awoke next morning to the full knowledge that it was Sunday, +I could have murdered the calendar. For Sunday was Dies Irae. After +Sunday-school, at least. There is a certain amount of fun to be to +extracted from Sunday-school. The remainder of those early Sundays +was confined to reading the Bible or storybooks from the Sunday-school +library--books, by the Lord Harry, that seem to be contrived especially +to make out of healthy children life-long enemies of the church, and to +bind hypocrites to the altar with hooks of steel. There was no whistling +at all permitted; singing of hymns was encouraged; no "playing"--playing +on Sunday was a distinct source of displeasure to Heaven! Are free-born +men nine years of age to endure such tyranny with resignation? Ask +the kids of today--and with one voice, as true men and free, they will +answer you, "Nit!" In the dark days of my youth liberty was in chains, +and so Sunday was passed in dreadful suspense as to what was doing in +Scotland. + + * * * * * + +Monday night after supper I rejoined Sir William in his captivity and +soon saw that my worst fears were to be realized. My father sat on the +opposite side of the table reading politics; my mother was effecting the +restoration of socks; my brother was engaged in unraveling mathematical +tangles, and in the parlor across the hall my sister sat alone with +her piano patiently debating "La Rève." Under these circumstances I +encountered the first great miracle of intellectual emotion in the +chapter describing the execution of William Wallace on Tower Hill. No +other incident of life has left upon me such a profound impression. +It was as if I had sprung at one bound into the arena of heroism. +I remember it all. How Wallace delivered himself of theological and +Christian precepts to Helen Mar after which they both knelt before the +officiating priest. That she thought or said, "My life will expire with +yours!" It was the keynote of death and life devotion. It was worthy to +usher Wallace up the scaffold steps where he stood with his hands bound, +"his noble head uncovered." There was much Christian edification, but +the presence of such a hero as he with "noble Head uncovered" would +enable any man nine years old with a spark of honor and sympathy in him +to endure agonizing amounts of edification. Then suddenly there was a +frightful shudder in my heart. The hangman approached with the rope, and +Helen Mar, with a shriek, threw herself upon Wallace's breast. Then the +great moment. If I live a thousand years these lines will always be +with me: "Wallace, with a mighty strength, burst the bonds asunder that +confined his arms and clasped her to his heart!" + + * * * * * + +In reading some critical or pretended text books on construction since +that time I came across this sentence used to illustrate tautology. It +was pointed out that the bonds couldn't be "burst" without necessarily +being asunder. The confoundedest outrages in this world are the capers +that precisionists cut upon the bodies of the noble dead. And with +impunity too. Think of a village surveyor measuring the forest of Arden +to discover the exact acreage! Or a horse-doctor elevating his eye-brow +with a contemptuous smile and turning away, as from an innocent, when +you speak of the wings of that fine horse, Pegasus! Any idiot knows +that bonds couldn't be burst without being burst asunder. But, let the +impregnable Jackass think--what would become of the noble rhythm and the +majestic roll of sound? Shakespeare was an ignorant dunce also when +he characterized the ingratitude that involves the principle of public +honor as "the unkindest cut of all." Every school child knows that it is +ungrammatical; but only those who have any sense learn after awhile +the esoteric secret that it sometimes requires a tragedy of language to +provide fitting sacrifice to the manes of despair. There never was yet +a man of genius who wrote grammatically and under the scourge of +rhetorical rules. Anthony Trollope is a most perfect example of the +exact correctness that sterilizes in its own immaculate chastity. +Thackeray would knock a qualifying adverb across the street, or thrust +it under your nose to make room for the vivid force of an idea. Trollope +would give the idea a decent funeral for the sake of having his adverb +appear at the grave above reproach from grammatical gossip. Whenever I +have risen from the splendid psychological perspective of old Job, the +solemn introspective howls of Ecclesiasticus and the generous living +philosophy of Shakespeare it has always been with the desire--of course +it is undignified, but it is human--to go and get an English grammar +for the pleasure of spitting upon it. Let us be honest. I understand +everything about grammar except what it means; but if you will give me +the living substance and the proper spirit any gentleman who desires the +grammatical rules may have them, and be hanged to him! And, while it +may appear presumptuous, I can conscientiously say that it will not be +agreeable to me to settle down in heaven with a class of persons who +demand the rules of grammar for the intellectual reason that corresponds +to the call for crutches by one-legged men. + + * * * * * + +If the foregoing appear ill-tempered pray forget it. Remember rather +that I have sought to leave my friend Sir William Wallace, holding Helen +Mar on his breast as long as possible. And yet, I also loved her! Can +human nature go farther than that? + +"Helen," he said to her, "life's cord is cut by God's own hand." He +stooped, he fell, and the fall shook the scaffold. Helen--that glorified +heroine--raised his head to her lap. The noble Earl of Gloucester +stepped forward, took the head in his hands. + +"There," he cried in a burst of grief, letting it fall again upon the +insensible bosom of Helen, "there broke the noblest heart that ever beat +in the breast of man!" + +That page or two of description I read with difficulty and agony through +blinding tears, and when Gloucester spoke his splendid eulogy my head +fell on the table and I broke into such wild sobbing that the little +family sprang up in astonishment. I could not explain until my mother, +having led me to my room, succeeded in soothing me into calmness and +I told her the cause of it. And she saw me to bed with sympathetic +caresses and, after she left, it all broke out afresh and I cried myself +to sleep in utter desolation and wretchedness. Of course the matter +got out and my father began the book. He was sixty years old, not an +indiscriminate reader, but a man of kind and boyish heart. I felt a sort +of fascinated curiosity to watch him when he reached the chapter that +had broken me. And, as if it were yesterday, I can see him under the +lamplight compressing his lips, or puffing like a smoker through them, +taking off his spectacles, and blowing his nose with great ceremony and +carelessly allowing the handkerchief to reach his eyes. Then another +paragraph and he would complain of the glasses and wipe them carefully, +also his eyes, and replace the spectacles. But he never looked at me, +and when he suddenly banged the lids together and, turning away, sat +staring into the fire with his head bent forward, making unconcealed use +of the handkerchief, I felt a sudden sympathy for him and sneaked out. +He would have made a great novel reader if he had had the heart. But he +couldn't stand sorrow and pain. The novel reader must have a heart +for every fate. For a week or more I read that great chapter and its +approaches over and over, weeping less and less, until I had worn out +that first grief, and could look with dry eyes upon my dead. And never +since have I dared to return to it. Let who will speak freely in other +tones of "Scottish Chiefs"--opinions are sacred liberties--but as for +me I know it changed my career from one of ruthless piracy to better +purposes, and certain boys of my private acquaintance are introduced to +Miss Jane Porter as soon as they show similar bent. + + + + +IV. THE FIRST NOVEL TO READ + +CONTAINING SOME SCANDALOUS REMARKS ABOUT "ROBINSON CRUSOE" + + +The very best First-Novel-To-Read in all fiction is "Robinson Crusoe." +There is no dogmatism in the declaration; it is the announcement of a +fact as well ascertained as the accuracy of the multiplication table. +It is one of the delights of novel reading that you may have any opinion +you please and fire it off with confidence, without gainsay. Those who +differ with you merely have another opinion, which is not sacred and +cannot be proved any more than yours. All of the elements of supreme +test of imaginative interest are in "Robinson Crusoe." Love is absent, +but that is not a test; love appeals to persons who cannot read or +write--it is universal, as hunger and thirst. + +The book-reading boy is easily discovered; you always catch him reading +books. But the novel-reading boy has a system of his own, a sort of +instinctive way of getting the greatest excitement out of the story, the +very best run for his money. This sort of boy soon learns to sit with +his feet drawn up on the upper rung of a chair, so that from the knees +to the thighs there is a gentle declivity of about thirty degrees; +the knees are nicely separated that the book may lie on them without +holding. That involves one of the most cunning of psychological secrets; +because, if the boy is not a novel reader, he does not want the book to +lie open, since every time it closes he gains just that much relief +in finding the place again. The novel-reading boy knows the trick of +immortal wisdom; he can go through the old book cases and pick the +treasures of novels by the way they lie open; if he gets hold of a new +or especially fine edition of his father's he need not be told to wrench +it open in the middle and break the back of the binding--he does it +instinctively. + +There are other symptoms of the born novel reader to be observed in him. +If he reads at night he is careful to so place his chair that the light +will fall on the page from a direction that will ultimately ruin the +eyes--but it does not interfere with the light. He humps himself over +the open volume and begins to display that unerring curvalinearity of +the spine that compels his mother to study braces and to fear that he +will develop consumption. Yet you can study the world's health records +and never find a line to prove that any man with "occupation or +profession--novel reading" is recorded as dying of consumption. The +humped-over attitude promotes compression of the lungs, telescoping of +the diaphragm, atrophy of the abdominal abracadabra and other +things (see Physiological Slush, p. 179, et seq.); +but--it--never--hurts--the--boy! + +To a novel reading boy the position is one of instinct, like that of +the bicycle racer. His eyes are strained, his nerves and muscles at +tension--everything ready for excitement--and the book, lying open, +leaves his hands perfectly free to drum on the sides of the chair, slap +his legs and knees, fumble in his pockets or even scratch his head as +emotion or interest demand. Does anybody deny that the highest proof of +special genius is the possession of the instinct to adapt itself to the +matter in hand? Nothing more need be said. + + * * * * * + +Now, if you will observe carefully such a boy when he comes to a certain +point in "Robinson Crusoe" you may recognize the stroke of fate in his +destiny. If he's the right sort, he will read gayly along; he drums, +he slaps himself, he beats his breast, he scratches his head. Suddenly +there will come the shock. He is reading rapidly and gloriously. +He finds his knife in his pocket, as usual, and puts it back; the +top-string is there; he drums the devil's tattoo, he wets his finger +and smears the margin of the page as he whirls it over and then--he +finds--"The--Print--of--a--Man's--Naked--Foot--on--the--Shore!!!" + +Oh, Crackey! At this tremendous moment the novel reader who has genius +drums no more. His hands have seized the upper edges of the muslin lids, +he presses the lower edges against his stomach, his back takes an +added intensity of hump, his eyes bulge, his heart thumps--he is +landed--landed! + +Terror, surprise, sympathy, hope, skepticism, doubt--come all ye +trooping emotions to threaten or console; but an end has come to fairy +stories and wonder tales--Master Studious is in the awful presence of +Human Nature. + + * * * * * + +For many years I have believed that that +Print--of--a--Man's--Naked--Foot was set in italic type in all editions +of "Robinson Crusoe." But a patient search of many editions has +convinced me that I must have been mistaken. + +The passage comes sneaking along in the midst of a paragraph in common +Roman letters and by the living jingo! you discover it just as Mr. +Crusoe discovered the footprint itself! + +No story ever written exhibits so profoundly either the perfect +design of supreme genius or the curious accidental result of slovenly +carelessness in a hack-writer. This is not said in any critical spirit, +because, Robinson Crusoe, in one sense, is above criticism, and +in another it permits the freest analysis without suffering in the +estimation of any reader. + +But for Robinson Crusoe, De Foe would never have ranked above the level +of his time. It is customary for critics to speak in awe of the "Journal +of the Plague" and it is gravely recited that that book deceived the +great Dr. Meade. Dr. Meade must have been a poor doctor if De Foe's +accuracy of description of the symptoms and effects of disease is not +vastly superior to the detail he supplies as a sailor and solitaire upon +a desert island. I have never been able to finish the "Journal." +The only books in which his descriptions smack of reality are "Moll +Flanders" and "Roxana," which will barely stand reading these days. + +In what may be called its literary manner, Robinson Crusoe is entirely +like the others. It convinces you by its own conviction of sincerity. +It is simple, wandering yet direct; there is no making of "points" or +moving to climaxes. De Foe did unquestionably possess the capacity to +put into his story the appearance of sincerity that persuades belief at +a glance. In that much he had the spark of genius; yet that same case +has not availed to make the "Journal" of the Plague anything more than +a curious and laborious conceit, while Robinson Crusoe stands among +the first books of the world--a marvelous gleam of living interest, +inextinguishably fresh and heartening to the imagination of every reader +who has sensibility two removes above a toad. + +The question arises, then, is "Robinson Crusoe" the calculated triumph +of deliberate genius, or the accidental stroke of a hack who fell upon a +golden suggestion in the account of Alexander Selkirk and increased +its value ten thousand fold by an unintentional but rather perfect +marshaling of incidents in order, and by a slovenly ignorance of +character treatment that enhanced the interest to perfect intensity? +This question may be discussed without undervaluing the book, the +extraordinary merit of which is shown in the fact that, while its idea +has been paraphrased, it has never been equalled. The "Swiss Family +Robinson," the "Schonberg-Cotta Family" for children are full of merit +and far better and more carefully written, but there are only the desert +island and the ingenious shifts introduced. Charles Reade in "Hard +Cash," Mr. Mallock in his "Nineteenth Century Romance," Clark Russel in +"Marooned," and Mayne Reid, besides others, have used the same theater. +But only in that one great book is the theater used to display the +simple, yearning, natural, resolute, yet doubting, soul and heart of man +in profound solitude, awaiting in armed terror, but not without purpose, +the unknown and masked intentions of nature and savagery. It seems +to me--and I have been tied to Crusoe's chariot wheels for a dozen +readings, I suppose--that it is the pressing in upon your emotions of +the immensity of the great castaway's solitude, in which he appears like +some tremendous Job of abandonment, fighting an unseen world, which is +the innate note of its power. + + * * * * * + +The very moment Friday becomes a loyal subject, the suspense relaxes +into pleased interest, and after Friday's funny father and the Spaniard +and others appear it becomes a common book. As for the second part of +the adventures I do not believe any matured man ever read it a second +time unless for curious or literary purposes. If he did he must be one +of that curious but simple family that have read the second part of +"Faust," "Paradise Regained," and the "Odyssey," and who now peruse +"Clarissa Harlowe" and go carefully over the catalogue of ships in +the "Iliad" as a preparation for enjoying the excitements of the city +directory. + +Every particle of greatness in "Robinson Crusoe" is compressed within +two hundred pages, the other four hundred being about as mediocre trash +as you could purchase anywhere between cloth lids. + + * * * * * + +It is interesting to apply subjective analysis to Robinson Crusoe. The +book in its very greatness has turned more critical swans into geese +than almost any other. They have praised the marvelous ingenuity with +which De Foe described how the castaway overcame single-handed, the +deprivations of all civilized conveniences; they have marveled at the +simple method in which all his labors are marshaled so as to render his +conversion of the island into a home the type of industrial and even of +social progress and theory; they have rhapsodized over the perfection +of De Foe's style as a model of literary strength and artistic +verisemblance. Only a short time ago a mighty critic of a great +London paper said seriously that "Robinson Crusoe and Gulliver appeal +infinitely more to the literary reader than to the boy, who does +not want a classic but a book written by a contemporary." What an +extraordinary boy that must be! It is probable that few boys care for +Gulliver beyond his adventures in Lilliput and Brobdignag, but they +devour that much, together with Robinson Crusoe, with just as much +avidity now as they did a century ago. Your clear-headed, healthy boy is +the first best critic of what constitutes the very liver and lights of +a novel. Nothing but the primitive problems of courage meeting peril, +virtue meeting vice, love, hatred, ambition for power and glory, will +go down with him. The grown man is more capable of dealing with social +subtleties and the problems of conscience, but those sorts of books do +not last unless they have also "action--action--action." + +Will the New Zealander, sitting amidst the prophetic ruins of St. +Paul's, invite his soul reading Robert Elsmere? Of course you can't say +what a New Zealander of that period might actually do; but what would +you think of him if you caught him at it? The greatest stories of the +world are the Bible stories, and I never saw a boy--intractable of +acquiring the Sunday-school habit though he may have been--who wouldn't +lay his savage head on his paws and quietly listen to the good old tales +of wonder out of that book of treasures. + + * * * * * + +So let us look into the interior of our faithful old friend, Robinson +Crusoe, and examine his composition as a literary whole. From the moment +that Crusoe is washed ashore on the island until after the release of +Friday's father and the Spaniard from the hands of the cannibals, there +is no book in print, perhaps, that can surpass it in interest and the +strained impression it makes upon the unsophisticated mind. It is +all comprised in about 200 pages, but to a boy to whom the world is +a theater of crowded action, to whom everything seems to have come +ready-made, to whom the necessity of obedience and accommodation to +others has been conveyed by constant friction--here he finds himself +for the first time face to face with the problem of solitude. He can +appreciate the danger from wild animals, genii, ghosts, battles, sieges +and sudden death, but in no other book before, did he ever come upon a +human being left solitary, with all these possible dangers to face. + +The voyages on the raft, the house-building, contriving, fearing, +praying, arguing--all these are full of plaintive pathos and yet of +encouragement. He witnesses despair turned into comfortable resignation +as the result of industry. It has required about twelve years. Virtue is +apparently fattening upon its own reward, when--Smash! Bang!--our young +reader runs upon "the--print--of--a--man's--naked--foot!" and security +and happiness, like startled birds, are flown forever. For twelve more +years this new unseen terror hangs over the poor solitary. Then we +have Friday, the funny cannibals later and it is all over. But the vast +solitude of that poor castaway has entered the imagination of the youth +and dominates it. + +These two hundred pages are crowded with suggestions that set a boy's +mind on fire, yet every page contains evidence of obvious slovenliness, +indolence and ignorance of human nature and common things, half of which +faults seem directly to contribute to the result, while the other half +are never noticed by the reader. + +How many of you, who sniff at this, know Crusoe's real name? Yet it +stares right out of the very first paragraphs in the book--a clean, +perhaps accidental, proof of good scholarship, which De Foe possessed. +Crusoe tells us his father was a German from Bremen, who married an +Englishwoman, from whose family name of Robinson came the son's name +which was properly Robinson Kreutznaer. This latter name, he explains, +became corrupted in the common English speech into Crusoe. That is an +excellent touch. The German pronunciation of Kreutznaer would sound like +Krites-nare, and a mere dry scholar would have evolved Crysoe out of the +name. But the English-speaking people everywhere, until within the past +twenty years or so, have given the German "eu" the sound of "oo" or "u." +Robinson's father therefore was called Crootsner until it was shaved +into Crootsno and thence smoothed to Crusoe. + +But what was the Christian name of the elder Kreutznaer? Or of the boy's +mother? Or of his brothers or sisters? Or of the first ship captain +under whom he sailed; or any of them; or even of the ship he commanded, +and in which he was wrecked; or of the dog that he carried to the +island; or of the two cats; or of the first and all the other tame +goats; or of the inlet; or of Friday's father; or of the Spaniard he +saved; or of the ship captain; or of the ship that finally saved him? +Who knows? The book is a desert as far as nomenclature goes--the only +blossoms being his own name; that of Wells, a Brazilian neighbor; Xury, +the Moorish boy; Friday, Poll, the parrot; and Will Atkins. + + * * * * * + +You may retort that all this doesn't matter. That is very true--and be +hanged to you!--but those facts prove by every canon of literary art +that Robinson Crusoe is either a coldly calculated flight of consummate +genius or an accidental freak of hack literature. When De Foe wrote, it +was only a century after Drake and his companions in authorized +piracy had made the British privateer the scourge of the seas and had +demonstrated that naval supremacy meant the control of the world. The +seafaring life was one of peril, but it carried with it honor, glory and +envy. Forty years later Nelson was born to crown British navalry with +deathless Glory. Even the commonest sailor spoke his ship's name--if it +were a fine vessel--with the same affection that he spoke his wife's +and cursed a bad ship by its name as if to tag its vileness with +proverbiality. + +When De Foe wrote Alexander Selkirk, able seaman, was alive end had +told his story of shipwreck to Sir Richard Steele, editor of the English +Gentleman and of the Tattler, who wrote it up well--but not half as well +as any one of ten thousand newspaper men of today could do under similar +circumstances. + +Now who that has read of Selkirk and Dampierre and Stradling does not +remember the two famous ships, the "Cinque Ports" and the "St. George?" +In every actvial book of the times, ship's names were sprinkled over the +page as if they had been shaken out of the pepper box. But you inquire +in vain the name of the slaver that wrecked "poor Robinson Crusoe"--a +name that would have been printed on his memory beyond forgetting +because of the very misfortune itself. Now the book is the autobiography +of a man whose only years of active life between eighteen and twenty-six +were passed as a sailor. It was written apparently after he was +seventy-two years old, at the period when every trifling incident and +name of youth would survive most brightly; yet he names no ships, no +sailor mates, carefully avoids all knowledge of or advantage attaching +to any parts of ships. It is out of character as a sailor's tale, +showing that the author either did not understand the value of or was +too indolent to acquire the ship knowledge that would give to his work +the natural smell of salt water and the bilge. It is a landlubber's sea +yarn. + +Is it in character as a revelation of human nature? No man like unto +Robinson Crusoe ever did live, does live, or ever will live, unless as a +freak deprived of human emotions. The Robinson Crusoe of Despair Island +was not a castaway, but the mature politician. Daniel Defoe of Newgate +Prison. The castaway would have melted into loving recollections; the +imprisoned lampoonist would have busied himself with schemes, ideas, +arguments and combinations for getting out, and getting on. This poor +Robin on the island weeps over nothing but his own sorrows, and, +while pretending to bewail his solitude, turns aside coldly from +companionships next only in affection to those of men. He has a dog, two +ship's cats (of whose "eminent history" he promises something that is +never related), tame goats and parrots. He gives none of them a name, +he does not occupy his yearning for companionship and love by preparing +comforts for them or by teaching them tricks of intelligence or +amusement; and when he does make a stagger at teaching Poll to talk it +is for the sole purpose of hearing her repeat "Poor Robin Crusoe!" +The dog is dragged in to work for him, but not to be rewarded. He dies +without notice, as do the cats, and not even a billet of wood marks +their graves. + +Could any being, with a drop of human blood in his veins, do that? He +thinks of his father with tears in his eyes--because he did not escape +the present solitude by taking the old man's advice! Does he recall his +mother or any of the childish things that lie so long and deep in +the heart of every natural man? Does he ever wonder what his old +school-fellows, Bob Freckles and Pete Baker, are doing these solitary +evenings when he sits under the tropics and hopes--could he not at +least hope it?--that they are, thank God, alive and happy at York? He +discourses like a parson of the utterly impossible affection that +Friday had for his cannibal sire and tells you how noble, Christian and +beautiful it was--as if, by Jove! a little of that virtue wouldn't have +ornamented his own cold, emotionless, fishy heart! + +He had no sentimental side. Think of those dreary, egotistic, awful +evenings, when, for more than twenty years this infernal hypocrite kept +himself company and tried patiently to deceive God by flattering Him +about religion! It is impossible. Why thought turns as certainly to +revery and recollection as grass turns to seed. He married. What was his +wife's name? We know how much property she had. What were the names of +the honest Portuguese Captain and the London woman who kept his money? +The cold selfishness and gloomy egotism of this creature mark him as a +monster and not as a man. + + * * * * * + +So the book is not in character as an autobiography, nor does it contain +a single softening emotion to create sympathy. Let us see whether it +be scholarly in its ease. The one line that strikes like a bolt of +lightning is the height of absurdity. We have all laughed, afterward +of course, at that--single--naked--foot--print. It could not have +been there without others, unless Friday were a one legged man, or was +playing the good old Scots game of "hop-scotch!" + +But the foot-print is not a circumstance to the cannibals. All the stage +burlesques of Robinson Crusoe combined could not produce such funny +cannibals as he discovered. Crusoe's cannibals ate no flesh but that +of men! He had no great trouble contriving how to induce Friday to eat +goat's flesh! They took all the trouble to come to his island to indulge +in picnics, during which they ate up folks, danced and then went home +before night. When the big party of 31 arrived, they had with them one +other cannibal of Friday's tribe, a Spaniard, and Friday's father. It +appears they always carefully unbound a victim before despatching him. +They brought Friday pere for lunch, although he was old, decrepit and +thin--a condition that always unfits a man among all known cannibals +for serving as food. They reject them as we do stringy old roosters for +spring chickens in the best society. Then Friday, born a cannibal and +converted to Crusoe's peculiar religion, shows that in three years he +has acquired all the emotions of filial affection prevalent at that time +among Yorkshire folk who attended dissenting chapels. More wonderful +still! old Friday pere, immersed in age and cannibalism, has the +corresponding paternal feeling. Crusoe never says exactly where these +cannibals came from, but my own belief is that they came from that +little Swiss town whence the little wooden animals for toy Noah's Arks +also came. + +A German savant--one of the patient sort that spend half a life writing +a monograph on the variation of spots on the butterfly's wings--could +get a philosophical dissertation on Doubt out of Crusoe's troubles with +pens, ink and paper; also clothes. In the volume I am using, on page 86, +third paragraph, he says: "I should lose my reckoning of time for want +of books, and pen and ink." So he kept it by notches in wood, he tells +in the fourth paragraph. In paragraph 5, same page, he says: "We are +to observe that among the many things I brought out of the ship, I +got several of less value, etc., which I omitted setting down as in +particular pens, ink and paper!" Same paragraph, lower down: "I shall +show that while my ink lasted I kept things very exact, but after that +was gone I could not make any ink by any means that I could devise." +Page 87, second paragraph: "I wanted many things, notwithstanding all +the many things that I had amassed together, and of these ink was one!" +Page 88, first paragraph: "I drew up my affairs in writing!" Now, by +George! did you ever hear of more appearing and disappearing pens, ink +and paper? + +The adventures of his clothes were as remarkable as his own. On his very +first trip to the wreck, after landing, he went "rummaging for clothes, +of which I found enough," but took no more than he wanted for present +use. On the second trip he "took all the men's clothes" (and there were +fifteen souls on board when she sailed). Yet in his famous debit and +credit calculations between good and evil he sets these down, page 88: + + EVIL | GOOD + -------------------------------------------------- + I have no clothes to | But I am in a hot climate, + cover me. | where, if I had + | clothes (!) I could hardly + | wear them. + +On page 147, bewailing his lack of a sieve, he says: "Linen, I had none +but what was mere rags." + +Page 158 (one year later): "My clothes, too, began to decay; as to +linen, I had had none a good while, except some checkered shirts, which +I carefully preserved, because many times I could bear no other clothes +on. I had almost three dozen of shirts, several thick watch coats, too +hot to wear." + +So he tried to make jackets out of the watch coats. Then this ingenious +gentleman, who had nothing to wear and was glad of it on account of the +heat, which kept him from wearing anything but a shirt, and rendered +watch coats unendurable, actually made himself a coat, waistcoat, +breeches, cap and umbrella of skins with the hair on and wore them in +great comfort! Page 175 he goes hunting, wearing this suit, belted by +two heavy skin belts, carrying hatchet, saw, powder, shot, his heavy +fowling piece and the goatskin umbrella--total weight of baggage and +clothes about ninety pounds. It must have been a cold day! + +Yet the first thing he does for the naked Friday thirteen years later +is to give him a pair--of--LINEN--trousers! Poor Robin Crusoe--what a +colossal liar was wasted on a desert island! + + * * * * * + +Of course, no boy sees the blemishes in "Robinson Crusoe;" those are +left to the Infallible Critic. The book is as ludicrous as "Hamlet" from +one aspect and as profound as "Don Quixote" from another. In its pages +the wonder tales and wonder facts meet and resolve; realism and idealism +are joined--above all, there is a mystery no critic may solve. It is +useless to criticize genius or a miracle, except to increase its wonder. +Who remembers anything in "Crusoe" but the touch of the wizard's hand? +Who associates the Duke of Athens, Hermia and Helena, with Bottom and +Snug, Titania, Oberon and Puck? Any literary master mechanic might real +off ten thousand yards of the Greek folks or of "Pericles," but when you +want something that runs thus: + + "I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows! + Where oxlip and the nodding violet grows--." + +why, then, my masters, you must put up the price and employ a genius to +work the miracle. + +Take all miracles without question. Whether work of genius or miracle of +accident, "Robinson Crusoe" gives you a generous run for your money. + + + + +V. THE OPEN POLAR SEA OF NOVELS + +WITH HIGHLY INCENDIARY ADVICE TO BOYS AND SOME MORE ANCIENT HISTORY + + +After the first novel has been read, somewhere under the seasoned age +of fourteen years, the beginner equipped with inherent genius for novel +reading is afloat upon an open sea of literature, a master mariner of +his own craft, having ports to make, to leave, to take, so splendid +of variety and wonder as to make the voyages of Sinbad sing small by +comparison. It may be proper and even a duty here to suggest to the +young novel reader that the Ten Commandments and all governmental +statutes authorize the instant killing, without pity or remorse, of +any heavy-headed and intrusive person who presumes to map out for him +a symmetrical and well-digested course of novel reading. The murder of +such folks is universally excused as self-defense and secretly applauded +as a public service. The born novel reader needs no guide, counsellor +or friend. He is his own "master." He can with perfect safety and +indescribable delight shut his eyes, reach out his hand, pull down any +plum of a book and never make a mistake. Novel reading is the only +one of the splendid occupations of life calling for no instruction or +advice. All that is necessary is to bite the apple with the largest +freedom possible to the intellectual and imaginative jaws, and let the +taste of it squander itself all the way down from the front teeth until +it is lost in the digestive joys of memory. There is no miserable quail +limit to novels--you can read thirty novels in thirty days or 365 novels +in 365 days for thirty years, and the last one will always have the +delicious taste of the pies of childhood. + +If any honest-minded boy chances to read these lines, let him charge +his mind with full contempt for any misguided elders who have designs of +"choosing only the best accepted novels" for his reading. There are no +"best" novels except by the grace of the poor ones, and, if you don't +read the poor ones, the "best" will be as tasteless as unsalted rice. +I say to boys that are worth growing up: don't let anybody give you +patronizing advice about novels. If your pastors and masters try +oppression, there is the orchard, the creek bank, the attic room, the +roof of the woodshed (under the peach tree), and a thousand other places +where you may hide and maintain your natural independence. Don't let +elderly and officious persons explain novels to you. They can not +honestly do so; so don't waste time. Every boy of fourteen, with the +genius to read 'em, is just as good a judge of novels and can understand +them quite as well as any gentleman of brains of any old age. Because +novels mean entirely different things to every blessed reader. + + * * * * * + +The main thing at the beginning is to be in the neighborhood of a good +"novel orchard" and to nibble and eat, and even "gormandize," as your +fancy leads you. Only--as you value your soul and your honor as a +gentleman--bear in mind that what you read in every novel that pleases +you is sacred truth. There are busy-bodies, pretenders to "culture," and +sticklers for the multiplication table and Euclid's pestiferous theorem, +who will tell you that novel reading is merely for entertainment and +light accomplishment, and that the histories of fiction are purely +imaginary and not to be taken seriously. That is pure falsehood. The +truth of all humanity, as well as all its untruth, flows in a noble +stream through the pages of fiction. Do not allow the elders to persuade +you that pirate stories, battles, sieges, murders and sudden deaths, the +road to transgression and the face of dishonesty are not good for you. +They are 90 per cent. pure nutriment to a healthy boy's mind, and any +other sort of boy ought particularly to read them and so learn the +shortest cut to the penitentiary for the good of the world. Whenever you +get hold of a novel that preaches and preaches and preaches, and can't +give a poor ticket-of-leave man or the decentest sort of a villain +credit for one good trait--Gee, Whizz! how tiresome they are--lose it, +you young scamp, at once, if you respect yourself. If you are pushed you +can say that Bill Jones took it away from you and threw it in the creek. +The great Victor Hugo and the authors of that noble drama "The Two +Orphans," are my authorities for the statement that some fibs--not all +fibs, but some proper fibs--are entered in heaven on both debit and +credit sides of the book of fate. + +There is one book, the Book of Books, swelling rich and full with +the wisdom and beauty and joy and sorrow of humanity--a book that set +humility like a diamond in the forehead of virtue; that found mercy and +charity outcasts among the minds of men and left them radiant queens in +the world's heart; that stickled not to describe the gorgeous esotery of +corroding passion and shamed it with the purity of Mary Magdelen; that +dragged from the despair of old Job the uttermost poison-drop of doubt +and answered it with the noble problem of organized existence; that +teems with murder and mistake and glows with all goodness and honest +aspiration--that is the Book of Books. There hasn't been one written +since that has crossed the boundary of its scope. What would that +book be after some goody-goody had expurgated it of evil and left it +sterilized in butter and sugar? Let no ignorant paternal Czar, ruling +over cottage or mansion, presume to keep from the mind and heart of +youth the vigorous knowledge and observation of evil and good, crime and +virtue together. No chaff, no wheat; no dross, no gold; no human faults +and weaknesses, no heavenly hope. And if any gentleman does not like +the sentiment, he can find me at my usual place of residence, unless he +intends violence--and be hanged, also, to him! + + * * * * * + +A novel is a novel, and there are no bad ones in the world, except those +you do not happen to like. Suppose a boy started with Robinson Crusoe +and was scientifically and criminally steered by the hand of misguided +"culture" to Scott and Dickens and Cooper and Hawthorne--all the +classics, in fact, so that he would escape the vulgar thousands? Answer +a straight question, ye old rooters between a thousand miles of muslin +lids--would you have been willing to miss "The Gunmaker of Moscow" back +yonder in the green days of say forty years ago? What do you think of +Prof. William Henry Peck's "Cryptogram?" Were not Sylvanus Cobb, Jr., +and Emerson Bennett authors of renown--honor to their dust, wherever it +lies! Didn't you read Mrs. Southworth's "Capitola" or the "Hidden Hand" +long before "Vashti" was dreamed of? Don't you remember that No. 52 +of Beadle's Dime Library (light yellowish red paper covers) was +"Silverheels, the Delaware," and that No. 77 was "Schinderhannes, +the Outlaw of the Black Forest?" I yield to no man in affection and +reverence for M. Dumas, Mr. Thackeray and others of the higher circles, +but what's the matter with Ned Buntline, honest, breezy, vigorous, +swinging old Ned? Put the "Three Guardsmen" where you will, but there is +also room for "Buffalo Bill, the Scout." When I first saw Col. Cody, an +ornament to the theatre and a painful trial to the drama, and realized +that he was Buffalo Bill in the flesh--why, I was glad I had also read +"Buffalo Bill's Last Shot"--(may he never shoot it). The day has passed +forever, probably, when Buffalo Bill shall shout to his other scouts, +"You set fire to the girl while I take care of the house!" or vice +versa, and so saying, bear the fainting heroine triumphantly off from +the treacherous redskins. But the story has lived. + + * * * * * + +It was a happy and honored custom in the old days for subscribers to +the New York Ledger and the New York Weekly to unite in requests for +the serial republication of favorite stories in those great fireside +luminaries. They were the old-fashioned, broadside sheets and, of +course, there were insuperable difficulties against preserving the +numbers. After a year or two, therefore, there would awaken a general +hunger among the loyal hosts to "read the story over," and when the +demand was sufficiently strong the publishers would repeat it, cuts, +divisions, and all, just as at first. How many times the "Gunmaker +of Moscow" was repeated in the Ledger, heaven knows. I remember I +petitioned repeatedly for "Buffalo Bill" in the Weekly, and we got +it, too, and waded through it again. By wading, I don't mean pushing +laboriously and tediously through, but, by George! half immersion in the +joy. It was a week between numbers, and a studious and appreciative boy +made no bones of reading the current weekly chapters half a dozen times +over while waiting for the next. + +It must have been ten years later that I felt a thrill at the coming of +Buffalo Bill himself in his first play. I had risen to the dignity of +dramatic critic upon a journal of limited civilization and boundless +politics, and was privileged to go behind the scenes at the theatre and +actually speak to the actors. (I interviewed Mary Anderson during her +first season, in the parlor of the local hotel, where honest George +Bristow--who kept the cigar stand and could not keep a healthy +appetite--always gave a Thanksgiving order for "two-whole-roast turkeys +and a piece of breast," and they were served, too, the whole ones going +to some near-by hospital, and the piece of breast to George's honest +stomach--good, kind soul that he was. And Miss Anderson chewed gum +during the whole period of the interview to the intense amusement of +my elder and brother dramatic critic, who has since become the honored +governor of his adopted state, and toward whom I beg to look with +affectionate memory of those days.) Now, when a man has known novels +intimately, has been dramatic critic, and has traveled with a circus, it +seems to me in all reason he can not fairly have any other earthly +joys to desire. At fifteen I was walking on tip-toe about the house +on Sundays, and going off to the end of the garden to softly whistle +"weekday" tunes, and at twenty I stood off the wings L. U. E., and had +twenty "Black Crook" coryphees in silk tights and tarletan squeeze +past in line, and nod and say, "Is it going all right in front?" +They--knew--I--was--the--Critic! When you can do that you can laugh at +Byron, roosting around upon inaccessible mountain crags and formulating +solitude and indigestion into poetry! + +I waited for Buffalo Bill's coming with feelings that can not be +described. It was impossible to expect to meet Sir William Wallace +in the flesh, or Sir Wilfred of Ivanhoe, or Capt. D'Artagnan, or +Umslopogaas, or any one of a thousand great fighting heroes; but here +was Buffalo Bill, just as great and glorious and dashing and handsome +as any of them, and my right hand tingled to be grasped in that of the +Bayard of the Prairies. And that hand's desire was attained. In his +dressing-room between acts I sat nervously on a chair while the splendid +Apollo of frontiersmen, in buckskin and beads, sat on his trunk, with +his long, shapely legs sprawled gracefully out, his head thrown back so +that the mane of brown hair should hang behind. It was glistening with +oil and redolent of barber's perfume. And we talked there as one man +to another, each apparently without fear. I was certainly nervous and +timid, but he did not notice it, and I am frank to say he did not appear +to feel the slightest personal fear of me. Thus, face to face, I saw the +man with whom I had trod Ned Buntline's boundless plains and had seen +and encountered a thousand perils and redskins. When the act call came, +and I rose to go, a man stopped at the door and said to him: + +"What shall it be to-night, Colonel?" + +"A big beef-steak and a bottle of Bass!" answered Buffalo Bill heartily, +"and tell 'ern to have it hot and ready at 11:15." + +The beef-steak and Bass' ale were the watchwords of true heroism. +The real hero requires substantial filling. He must have a head and a +heart--but no less a good, healthy and impatient stomach. + +In the daily paper the morning I write this I see the announcement of +Buffalo Bill's "Wild West Show" coming two week's hence. Good luck to +him! He can't charge prices too steep for me, and there are six seats +necessary--the best in the amphitheater. And I wish I could be sure the +vigorous spirit of Ned Buntline would be looking down from the blue sky +overhead to see his hero charge the hill of San Juan at the head of the +Rough Riders. + + * * * * * + +This digression may be wide of the subject of novel reading, but +the real novel reader is at home anywhere. He has thoughts, dreams, +reveries, fancies. All the world is his novel and all actions are +stories and all the actors are characters. When Lucile Western, the +excellent American actress, was at the height of her powers, not long +before her last appearances, she had as her leading man a big, slouchy +and careless person, who was advertised as "the talented young English +actor, William Whally." In the intimacies of private association he +was known as Bill Whally, and his descent was straight down from "Mount +Sinai's awful height." He was a Hebrew and no better or more uneven and +reckless actor ever played melodramatic "heavies." He had a love for +Shakespeare, but could not play him; he had a love of drink and could +gratify it. His vigorous talents purchased for him much forbearance. +I've seen Mr. Whally play the fastidious and elegant "Sir Archibald +Levison" in shiny black doe-skin trousers and old-fashioned cloth +gaiters, because his condition rendered the problem of dressing somewhat +doubtful, though it could not obscure his acting. He was the only +walking embodiment of "Bill Sykes" I ever saw, and I contracted the +habit of going to see him kill Miss Western as "Nancy" because he +butchered that young woman with a broken chair more satisfactorily than +anybody else I ever saw. There was a murderer for you--Bill +Sykes! Bad as he was in most things, let us not forget +that--he--killed--Nancy--and--killed--her--well and--thoroughly. If that +young woman didn't snivel herself under a just sentence of death, I'm no +fit householder to serve on a jury. Every time Miss Western came around +it was my custom to read up fresh on "Oliver Twist" and hurry around and +enjoy Bill Whally's happy application of retribution with the aid of +the old property chair. There were six other persons whom I succeeded in +persuading to applaud the scene with me every time it was acted. + +But there's a separate chapter for villains. + + * * * * * + +Let us return to the old novels. What curious pranks time plays with +tastes and vogues. Forty years ago N. P. Willis was just faded. Yet he +was long a great comet of literary glitter and obscured many men of much +greater ability. Everybody read him; the annuals hung upon his name; the +ladies regarded him as a finer and more dashing Byron than Byron. +The place he filled was much like that of Congreve, before whom +Shakespeare's great nose was out of joint for a long time; Congreve, who +was the margarita aluminata major of English poesy and drama and public +life, and is now found in junk stores and in the back line on book +shelves and whom nobody reads now. Willis had his languid affectations, +his superficial cynicism and added to them ostentatious sentimentality. + +Does anybody read William Gilmore Simm's elaborate rhetoric disguised +as novels? He must have written two dozen of them, the Richardson of the +United States. Lovers of delicious wit and intellectual humor still +read Dr. Holmes' essays, but it would probably take a physician's +prescription to make them swallow the novels. In what dark corners of +the library are Bayard Taylor's novels and travels hidden? Will you come +into the garden, Maud, and read Chancellor Walworth's mighty tragedies +and Miss Mulock's Swiss-toy historical novels, or will you beg off, +like the honest girl you are, and take a nap? Your sleepiness, dear Miss +Maud, does you credit. By the way, what the deuce is the name of anyone +of these novels? I can recall "Elsie Vernier," by Dr. Holmes and then +there is a blank. + +But what classics they were--then! In the thick of them had appeared a +newspaper story that struggled through and was printed in book form. Old +friends have told me how they waited at the country post-offices to +get a copy, delayed for weeks. It was a scandal to read it in some +localities. It was fiercely attacked as an outrageous exaggeration +produced by temporary excitement and hostile feeling, or praised as a +new gospel. It has been translated into every tongue having a printing +press, and has sold by millions of copies. It was "Uncle Tom's Cabin." +It was not a classic, but what a vigorous immortal mongrel of human +sentiment it was! What a row was kicked up over Miss Braddon's +"Octoroon," and what an impossible yellowback it was! The toughest piece +of fiction I met with as a boy was "Sanford and Merton," and I've been +aching to say so for four pages. If this world were full of Sanfords +and Mertons, then give me Jupiter or some other comfortable planet at a +secure sanitary distance removed. + +I can't even remember the writers who were grammatically and +rhetorically perfect forty years ago, and also very dull with it all. +Is there a bookshelf that holds "Leni Leoti, or The Flower of the +Prairies?" There are "Jane Eyre," "Lady Audley's Secret," and "John +Halifax, Gentleman," which will go with many and are all well worth the +reading, too. Are Mrs. Eliza A. Dupuy, Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth, +Mrs. Caroline Lee Hentz and Augusta J. Evans dead? Their novels still +live--look at the book stores. "Linda, or the Young Pilot of the Belle +Creole," "India, the Pearl of Pearl River," "The Planter's Northern +Bride," "St. Elmo"--they were fiction for you! A boy old enough to have +a first sweetheart could swallow them by the mile. + +You remember, when we were boys, the circus acrobats always--always, +remember--rubbed young children with snake-oil and walloped them with a +rawhide to educate them in tumbling and contortion? Well, if I could get +the snake-oil for the joints and a curly young wig, I'd like to get back +at five hundred of those books and devour them again--"as of yore!" + + + + +VI. RASCALS + +BEING A DISCOURSE UPON GOOD, HONEST SCOUNDRELISM AND VILLAINS. + + +The people that inhabit novels are like other peoples of the earth--if +they are peaceful, they have no history. So that, therefore, in novels, +as in nations, it is the great restless heights of society that are to +be approached with greatest awe and that engage admiration and regard. +Everybody is interested in Nero, but not one person in ten thousand can +tell you anything definite about Constantine or even Marcus Aurelius. If +you should speak off-handedly about Amelia Sedley in the presence of a +thousand average readers you would probably miss 85 per cent. of effect; +if you said Becky Sharp the whole thousand would understand. + +There is this to be said of disreputable folk, that they are clever and +picturesque and interesting, at least. + +An elderly jeweler in New York City was arrested several years ago +upon the charge of receiving stolen gold and silver plate, watches and +jewelry from well-known thieves. For forty years he had been a +respected merchant, a church officer, a husband, father, and citizen, of +irreproachable reputation, with enduring friendships. He was charitable, +liberal and kindly. For decade after decade he was the experienced, wise +and fatherly "fence" of professional burglars and thieves. Why, it would +be an education in itself to know that man, to shake his honest hand, +fresh from charity or concealment, and smoke a pipe with him and +hear him talk about things frankly. When he gave to the missionary +collection, rest assured he gave sincerely; when he "covered swag," +into the melting pot for an industrious burglar, he did so only in the +regular course of business. + +Strange as it may seem, even criminals have human feelings in common +with all of us. The old Thug who stepped aside into the bushes and +prayed earnestly while his son was throwing his first strangling +cloth around the throat of the English traveler--prayed for that son's +honorable, successful beginning in his life devotion--was a good father. +And when he was told that the son had acted with unusual skill, who +can doubt that his tears of joy were sincere and humble tears of +thankfulness? At least Bowanee knew. Can you not imagine a kind-hearted +Chinese matron saying to her neighbor over the bamboo fence, "Yes, +we sent the baby down to the beach (or the river bank or the forest) +yesterday. We couldn't afford to keep it. I hope the gods have taken its +little soul. At any rate it is sure of salvation hereafter." + + * * * * * + +Some twenty years ago I took the night train from Pineville to +Barbourville, in the Kentucky mountains, reaching the latter place +about 11 o'clock of a cold, rainy, dark November night. Only one other +passenger alighted. There was an express wagon to take us to the town, +a mile or so distant, and the wagon was already heavy with freight +packages. The road was through a narrow lane, hub-deep with mud, and +what, with stalling and resting, we were more than half an hour getting +to the hotel. My fellow passenger was about my age, and was a shrewd, +well-informed native of the vicinity. He knew the mineral, timber and +agricultural resources, was evidently an enterprising business man and +an intelligent but not voluble talker. He accepted a cigar, and advised +me to see the house in Barbourville where the late Justice Samuel Miller +was born. At the hotel he registered first, and, as he was going to +leave next day and I was to remain several days, he told the clerk to +give me the better of the two rooms vacant. It was a very pleasant act +of thoughtfulness. The name on the register was "A. Johnson." The next +day I asked the clerk about Mr. Johnson. My fellow passenger was Andy +Johnson, whose fame as a feud-fighter and slayer of men has never been +exceeded in the history of mountain feuds. He then had three or four men +to his credit, definitely, and several doubtful ascriptions. He added a +few more, I believe, before he met the inevitable. + +Now, while Mr. Johnson, in all matters where killing seemed to him to be +appropriate, was a most prompt and accurate man in accomplishing it, yet +he was not the murderer that ignorant and isolated folks conceive such +persons to be. The cigar I had given him was a very bad, cheap cigar, +and, if he had merely wanted murder, he had every reason to kill me for +giving it to him, and he had a perfect night for the deed. But he smoked +it to the stub without a complaint or remark and saw that I got the best +room in the hotel. Johnson was a cautious and considerate fellow-man, +whose murders were doubtless private hobbies and exercises growing out +of his environment and heredity. + +One of the houses I most delight to enter in a certain town is one where +I am always sure to see a devoted and happy wife and beautiful, +playful children clustering around the armchair in which sits a man who +committed one of the most cold-blooded assassinations you can imagine. +He is an honored, esteemed and model citizen. His acquittal was a +miracle in a million chances. He has justified it. It is beautiful to +see those happy children clinging to the hand that-- + +Well, dear friends, the dentist is not a cruel man in his social +capacity, and you can get delicious viands instead of nauseous medicines +at the doctor's private table. + +That is why beginning novel readers should take no advice. Strike out +alone through the highways and lanes of story, character and experience. +The best novelist is the one who fears not to tell you the truth, which +is more wonderful than fiction. It is always the best hearts that bend +to mistakes. Absolute virtue is as sterile as granite rock; absolute +vice is as poisonous as a stagnant pond. No healthy interest or +speculation can linger about either. Enter into the struggle and know +human nature; don't stay outside and try to appear superior. + +For, which of us has not his crimes of thought to account for? Think +not, because Andy Johnson or William Sykes or Dr. Webster actually +killed his man, that you are guiltless, because you haven't. Have you +never wanted to? Answer that, in your conscience and in solitude--not to +me. Speak up to yourself and then say whether the difference between you +and the recorded criminal is not merely the difference between the overt +act and the faltering wish. It is a matter of courage or of custom. +Speaking for one gentleman, who knows himself and is not afraid to +confess, I can say that, while he could not kill a mouse with his own +hand, he has often murdered men in his heart. It may have been in fiery +youth over the wrong name on a dancing card, or, later, when a rival +got the better of him in discussion, or, when the dreary bore came and +wouldn't go, or, when misdirected goodness insisted on thrusting upon +him intended kindness that was wormwood and poison to the soul. Are +we not covetous (not confessedly, of course, but actually)? Is not +covetousness the thwarted desire of theft without courage? How many +of us, now--speaking man to man--can open up our veiled thoughts and +desires and then look the Ten Commandments in the eye without blushing? + + * * * * * + +The bravest, noblest, gentlest gentleman I have ever known was the Count +de la Fere, whom we at the Hotel de Troisville, in old Paris, called +"Athos." He was not merely sans peur et sans reproche as Bayard, but was +positive in his virtues. He fought for his friends without even asking +the cause of the fray. Yet, what a prig he seemed to be at first, with +his eternal gentle melancholy, his irreproachable courtesy, unvarying +kindness and complete unselfishness. You cannot--quite--warm--to--a--man +--who--is--so--perfectly--right--that--he--embarrasses--everybody--but--the--angels. + +But, when he ordered the gloomy and awful death of the treacherous +Miladi, woman though she was, and thus as a perfect gentleman took on +human frailty also, ah! how attractively noble and strong he became I In +that respect he was the antithetical corollary of William Sykes, who was +a purposeless, useless and uninterestingly regular scoundrel, thief and +brute, until he redeemed himself by becoming the instrument of social +justice and pounding that unendurable lady, Miss Nancy, of his name, +into absence from the world. Perhaps I have remarked before--and even if +I have it is pleasant to repeat it--that Bill Sykes had his faults, as +also have most of us, but it was given to him to earn forgiveness by the +aid of a cheap chair and the providential propinquity of Miss Nancy. I +never think of it without regretting that poor Bill Whally is dead. He +did it--so--much--to--my--taste! + +Who shall we say is the most loved and respected criminal in fiction? +Not Monsignor Rodin, of "The Wandering Jew;" not Thenardier in "Les +Miserables." These are really not criminals; they are allegorical +figures of perfect crime. They are solar centers, so far off and fixed +that one may regard them only with awe, reverence and fear. They are +types of fate, desire, temptation and chastisement. Let us turn to our +own flesh and blood and speak gratefully of them. + + * * * * * + +Who says Count Fosco? Now there is a criminal worthy of affection and +confidence. What an expansive nature, with kindness presented on every +side. Even the dogs fawned upon him and the birds came at his call. +An accomplished gentleman, considerately mannered--queer, as becomes a +foreigner, yet possessing the touchstone of universal sympathy. Another +man with crime to commit almost certainly would have dispatched it with +ruthless coldness; but how kindly and gently Count Fosco administered +the cord of necessity. With what delicacy he concealed the bowstring +and spoke of the Bosphorus only as a place for moonlight excursions. He +could have presented prussic acid and sherry to a lady in such a manner +as to render the results a grateful sacrifice to his courtesy. It was +all due to his corpulence; a "lean and hungry" villain lacks repose, +patience and the tact of good humor. In almost every small social and +individual attitude Count Fosco was human. He was exceedingly attentive +to his wife in society and bullied her only in private and when +necessary. He struck no dramatic attitudes. "The world is mine oyster!" +is not said by real men bent on terrible deeds. Count Fosco is the +perfect villain, and also the perfect criminal, inasmuch as he not only +acts naturally, but deliberately determines the action instead of being +drawn into it or having it forced upon him. + +He was a highly cultivated type of Andy Johnson, inasmuch as crime +with him was not a life purpose, but what is called in business a +"side-line." All of us have our hobbies; the closely confined clerk +goes home and roots up his yard to plant flower bulbs or cabbage plants; +another fancies fowls; another man collects pewter pots and old brass +and the millionaire takes to priceless horses; others of us turn from +useful statistics and go broke on novels or poetry or music. Count Fosco +was an educated gentleman and the pleasure of life was his purpose; +crime and intrigue were his recreations. Andy Johnson was a good +business man and wealth producer; murder was the direction in which +his private understanding of personal disagreements was exercised and +vented. Some men turn to poker playing, which is as wasteful as murder +and not half as dignified. Count Fosco is the villain par excellence of +novels. I do not remember what he did, because "The Woman in White" is +the best novel in the world to read gluttonously at a sitting and then +forget absolutely. It is nearly always a new book if you use it that +way. When the world is dark, the fates bilious, the appetite dead +and the infernal twinges of pain or sickness seem beyond reach of the +doctor, "The Woman in White" is a friend indeed. + + * * * * * + +But the man of men for villains, not necessarily criminals; but the +ordinary, every-day, picturesque worthies of good, honest scoundrelism +and disreputableness is Sir Robert Louis Stevenson. You can afford +conscientiously to stuff ballot boxes in order that his election may be +secured as Poet Laureate of Rascals. Leaving out John Silver and Billy +Bones and Alan Breck, whom every privately shriven rascal of us simply +must honor and revere as giants of courage, cunning and controlled, +conscience, Stevenson turned from singles and pairs, and in "The Ebb +Tide," drove, by turns, tandem and abreast, a four-in-hand of scoundrels +so buoyant, natural, strong, and yet each so totally unlike the others, +that every honest novel reader may well be excused for shedding tears +when he reflects that the marvelous hand and heart that created them are +gone forever from the haunts of the interestingly wicked. No novelist +ever exposed the human nature of rascals as Stevenson did. + +Now, lago was not a villain; he was a venomous toad, a scorpion, a +mad-dog, a poisonous plant in a fair meadow. There was nobody lago +loved, no weakness he concealed, no point of contact with any human +being. His sister was Pandora, his brother made the shirt of Nessus, +himself dealt in Black Plagues and the Leprosy. The old Serpent was +permitted to rise from his belly and walk upright on the tip of his tail +when he met Iago, as a demonstration of moral superiority. But think +of those three Babes-in-the-Wood villains, skipper Davis, the Yankee +swashbuckler and ship scuttler; Herrick, the dreamy poet, ruined by +commerce and early love, with his days of remorse and his days of +compensatary liquor; and Huish, the great-hearted Scotch ruffian, who +chafed at the conventional concealments of trade among pals and never +could--as a true Scotchman--understand why you should wait to use a +knife upon a victim when promptness lay in the club right at hand--think +of them sailing out of Honolulu harbor on the Farallone. + +Let who will prefer to have sailed with Jason or Aeneas or Sinbad; but +the Farallone and its precious freight of rascality gets my money every +time. Think of the three incomparable reprobates afloat, with one case +of smallpox and a cargo of champagne, daring to make no port, with over +a hundred million square miles of ocean around them, every ten lookout +knots of it containing a possible peril! It was simply grand--not +pirates, shipwrecks or mutinies could beat that problem. And the pathos +of the sixth day, when, with every man Jack of them looking delirium +tremens in the face and suspecting each the other, Mr. Huish opened a +new case of champagne and--found clear spring water under the French +label! The honest scoundrels had been laid by the heels by a common wine +merchant in the regular way of business! Oh, gentlemen, there should be +honor in business; so that gallant villains can be free of betrayal. + +The keynote of these gentlemen is struck in the second chapter, where +all three of them writing lies home--Davis and Herrick, sentimental +equivocations, Huish the strongest of brag with nobody to send it to. +In a burst of weakness Davis tells Herrick what a villain he has been, +through rum, and how he can not let his daughter, "little Adar," know +it. "Yes, there was a woman on board," he said, describing the ship +he had scuttled. "Guess I sent her to hell, if there's such a place. +I never dared go home again, and I don't know," he added, bitterly, +"what's come to them." + +"Thank you, Captain," said Herrick, "I never liked you better!" + +Is it not in human nature to cuddle to a great sheepish murderer like +that, who groans in secret for his little girl--if even the girl was +truth? I think she turned out a myth, but he had the sentiment. + +Was there ever a more melancholy, remorse-stricken wretch than Cap'n +Davis? Or a gentler and seedier poet than Herrick? Or a more finely +sodden and soaked old rum sport than Huish (not--Whish!) But it was not +until they fell in with Attwater that their weakness as scoundrels was +exposed. Attwater was so splendidly religious! He was determined to have +things right if he had to have them so by bloodshed; he saved souls by +bullets. Things were right when they were as he thought they should +be. And believing so, with Torquemada, Alexander Sixtus and other most +religious brethren, he was ready to set up the stake and fagot and +cauterize sin with fire. One thing you can say about the religious folks +that are big with cocksureness and a mission--they may make mistakes, +but the mistake doesn't talk and criticise. + + * * * * * + +The only rascal worthy to travel in company with Stevenson's rascals +is the Chevalier Balibari, of Castle Barry, in Ireland, whose admirable +memoirs have been so well told by Mr. Thackeray. The Baron de la Motte +in "Denis Duval," was advantageously born to ornament the purple and +fine linen of picturesque unrighteousness--but his was a brief star that +fell unfinished from its place amidst the Pleiades. Thackeray's genius +ran more to disreputable men than to actual villains. But he drew two +scoundrels that will serve as beacon lights to any clean-souled youth +with the instinct to take warning. One was Lord Steyne, the other, Dr. +George Brand Firmin; one the aristocratic, class-bred, cynical brute, +the other the cold, tuft-hunting trained hypocrite. What encouragement +of self-respect Judas Iscariot might have received if he had met Dr. +Firmin! + +Dr. Chadband, Mr. Pecksniff, Bill Sykes, Fagin, Mr. Murdstone, of +Dickens' family--they are all strong in impression, but wholly unreal; +mere stage villains and caricatures. A villain who has no good traits, +no hobbies of kindness and affection, is never born into the world; he +is always created by grotesque novel writers. + +The villains of Dumas, Hugo, Balzac, Daudet are French. There may have +been, or may be now such prototypes alive in France--because the Dreyfus +case occurred in France, and no doubt much can happen in that fine, +fertile country which translators cannot fully convey over the +frontiers; but they have always seemed to me first cousins to my +friends, the ogres, the evil magicians and the werewolves, and, in that +much, not quite natural. + +For heroes of the genuine cavalleria type, plumed, doubleted, pumpt and +magnificent, give me Dumas; for good folks and true, the great American +Fenimore Cooper; but for the blessed company of blooming, breathing +rascals, Stevenson and Thackeray all the time. + + + + +VII. HEROES + +THE NATURE AND THE FLOWER OF THEM--THE GALLANT D'ARTAGNAN OR THE +GLORIOUS BUSSY. + + +Let us agree at the start that no perfect hero can be entirely mortal. +The nearer the element of mortality in him corresponds to the heel +measure of Achilles, the better his chance as hero. The Egyptian and +Greek heroes were invariably demi-gods on the paternal or maternal side. +Few actual historic heroes have escaped popular scandal concerning their +origin, because the savage logic in us demands lions from a lion; that +Theseus shall trace to Mars; that courage shall spring from courage. + +Another most excellent thing about the ideal hero is that the immortal +quality enables him to go about the business of his heroism without +bothering his head with the rights or wrongs of it, except as the +prevailing sentiment of social honor (as distinguished from the inborn +sentiment of honesty) requires at the time. Of course, there is a lower +grade of measly, "moral heroes," who (thank heaven and the innate sense +of human justice!) are usually well peppered with sorrow and punishment. +The hero of romance is a different stripe; Hyperion to a Satyr. He +doesn't go around groaning page after page of top-heavy debates as to +the inherent justice of his cause or his moral right to thrust a tallow +candle between the particular ribs behind which the heart of his enemy +is to be found--balancing his pros and cons, seeking a quo for each +quid, and conscientiously prowling for final authorities. When you +invade the chiropodical secret of the real hero's fine boot, or brush +him in passing--if you have looked once too often at a certain lady, or +have stood between him and the sun, or even twiddled your thumbs at him +in an indecorous or careless manner--look to it that you be prepared +to draw and mayhap to be spitted upon his sword's point, with honor. +Sdeath! A gentlemen of courage carries his life lightly at the needle +end of his rapier, as that wonderful Japanese, Samsori, used to make the +flimsiest feather preside in miraculous equilibration upon the tip of +his handsome nose. + +No hero who does more or less than is demanded by the best practical +opinion of the society of his time is worth more than thirty cents as +a hero. Boys are literary and dramatic critics so far above the critics +formed by strained formulas of the schools that you can trust them. +They have an unerring distrust of the fellow who moves around with his +confounded conscientious scruples, as if the well-settled opinion of the +breathing world were not good enough for him! Who the deuce has got any +business setting everybody else right? + +Some of these days I believe it is going to be discovered that the +atmosphere and the encompassing radiance and sweetness of Heaven are +composed of the dear sighs and loving aspirations of earthly motherhood. +If it turns out otherwise, rest assured Heaven will not have reached +its perfect point of evolution. Why is it, then, that mothers +will--will--will--try, so mistakenly, to extirpate the jewel of honest, +manly savagery from the breasts of their boys? I wonder if they know +that when grown men see one of these "pretty-mannered boys," cocksure +as a Swiss toy new painted and directed by watch spring, they feel an +unholy impulse to empty an ink-bottle over the young calf? Fauntleroy +kids are a reproach to our civilization. Men, women and children, all of +us, crowd around the grimy Deignan of the Merrimac crew, and shout and +cheer for Bill Smith, the Rough Rider, who carried his mate out of the +ruck at San Juan and twirls his hat awkwardly and explains: "Ef I hadn't +a saw him fall he would 'a' laid thar yit!"--and go straight home and +pretend to be proud of a snug little poodle of a man who doesn't play +for fear of soiling his picture-clothes, and who says: "Yes, sir, thank +you," and "No, thank you, ma'am," like a French doll before it has had +the sawdust kicked out of it! + + * * * * * + +Now, when a hero tries to stamp his acts with the precise quality of +exact justice--why, he performs no acts. He is no better than that poor +tongue-loose Hamlet, who argues you the right of everything, and then, +by the great Jingo! piles in and messes it all by doing the wrong thing +at the wrong time and in the wrong manner. It is permitted of course to +be a great moral light and correct the errors of all the dust of earth +that has been blown into life these ages; but human justice has been +measured out unerringly with poetry and irony to such folk. They are +admitted to be saints, but about the time they have got too good for +their earthly setting, they have been tied to stakes and lighted up +with oil and faggots; or a soda phosphate with a pinch of cyanide of +potassium inserted has been handed to them, as in the case of our old +friend, Socrates. And it's right. When a man gets too wise and good +for his fellows and is embarrassed by the healthful scent of good human +nature, send him to heaven for relief, where he can have the goodly +fellowship of the prophets, the company of the noble army of martyrs, +and amuse himself suggesting improvements upon the vocal selections +of cherubim and seraphim! Impress the idea upon these gentry with +warmth--and--with--oil! + + * * * * * + +The ideal hero of fiction, you say, is Capt. D'Artagnan, first name +unknown, one time cadet in the Reserves of M. de Troisville's company +of the King's Guards, intrusted with the care of the honor and safety of +His Majesty, Louis XIV. Very well; he is a noble gentleman; the +choice does honor to your heart, mind and soul; take him and hold the +remembrance of his courage, loyalty, adroitness and splendid endurance +with hooks of steel. For myself, while yielding to none who honor +the great D'Artagnan, yet I march under the flag of the Sieur Bussy +d'Amboise, a proud Clermont, of blood royal in the reign of Henry +III., who shed luster upon a court that was edified by the wisdom of M. +Chicot, the "King's Brother," the incomparable jester and philosopher, +who would have himself exceeded all heroes except that he despised the +actors and the audience of the world's theater and performed valiant +feats only that he might hang his cap and bells upon the achievements in +ridicule. + +Can it be improper to compare D'Artagnan and Bussy--when the intention +is wholly respectful and the motive pure? If a single protest is +heard, there will be an end to this paper now--at once. There are some +comparisons that strengthen both candidates. For, we must consider the +extent of the theater and the stage, the space of time covering the +achievements, the varying conditions, lights and complexities. As, +for instance, the very atmosphere in which these two heroes moved, the +accompaniment of manner which we call the "air" of the histories, and +which are markedly different. The contrast of breeding, quality and +refinement between Bussy and D'Artagnan is as great as that which +distinguishes Mercutio from the keen M. Chicot. Yet each was his own +ideal type. Birth and the superior privileges of the haute noblesse +conferred upon the Sieur Bussy the splendid air of its own sufficient +prestige; the lack of these require of D'Artagnan that his intelligence, +courage and loyal devotion should yet seem to yield something of their +greatness in the submission that the man was compelled to pay to +the master. True, this attitude was atoned for on occasion by blunt +boldness, but the abased position and the lack of subtle distinction of +air and mind of the noble, forbade to the Fourth Mousquetaire the last +gracious touch of a Bayard of heroism. But the vulgarity was itself +heroic. + + * * * * * + +Compare the first appearance of the great Gascon at the Hotel de +Troisville, or even his manner and attitude toward the King when he +sought to warn that monarch against forgetfulness of loyalty proved, +with the haughty insolence of indomitable spirit in which Bussy threw +back to Henry the shuttle of disfavor on the night of that remarkable +wedding of St. Luc with the piquant little page soubrette, Jeanne de +Brissac. + +D'Artagnan's air to his King has its pathos. It seems to say: "I speak +bluntly, sire, knowing that my life is yours and yet feeling that it is +too obscure to provoke your vengeance." A very hard draught for a man +of fire and fearlessness to take without a gulp. But into Bussy's manner +toward his King there was this flash of lightning from Olympus: "My +life, sire, is yours, as my King, to take or leave; but not even you +may dare to think of taking the life of Bussy with the dust of least +reproach upon it. My life you may blow out; my honor you do not dare +approach to question!" + +There are advantages in being a gentleman, which can not be denied. +One is that it commands credit in the King's presence as well as at the +tailor's. + +It is interesting to compare both these attitudes with that of +"Athos," the Count de la Fere, toward the King. He was lacking in +the irresistibly fierce insolence of Bussy and in the abasement of +D'Artagnan; it was melancholy, patient, persistent and terrible in its +restrained calmness. How narrowly he just escaped true greatness. I +would no more cast reproaches upon that noble gentleman than I would +upon my grandmother; but he--was--a--trifle--serous, wasn't he? He was +brave, prompt, resourceful, splendid, and, at need, gingerish as the +best colt in the paddock. It is the deuce's own pity for a man to be +born to too much seriousness. Do you know--and as I love my country, I +mean it in honest respect--that I sometimes think that the gentleness +and melancholy of Athos somehow suggests a bit of distrust. One is +almost terrified at times lest he may begin the Hamlet controversies. +You feel that if he committed a murder by mistake you are not absolutely +sure he wouldn't take a turn with Remorse. Not so Bussy; he would throw +the mistake in with good will and not create worry about it. Hang it +all, if the necessary business of murder is to halt upon the shuffling +accident of mistake, we may as well sell out the hero business and rent +the shop. It would be down to the level of Hamlet in no time. Unless, of +course, the hero took the view of it that Nero adopted. It is improbable +that Nero inherited the gift of natural remorse; but he cultivated one +and seemed to do well with it. He used to reflect upon his mother and +his wife, both of whom he had affectionately murdered, and justified +himself by declaring that a great artist, who was also the Roman +Emperor, would be lacking in breadth of emotional experience and +retrospective wisdom, unless he knew the melancholy of a two-pronged +family remorse. And from Nero's standpoint it was one of the best +thoughts that he ever formulated into language. + +To return to Bussy and D'Artagnan. In courage they were Hector and +Achilles. You remember the champagne picnic before the bastion St. +Gervais at the siege of St. Rochelle? What light-hearted gayety amid the +flying missiles of the arquebusiers! Yet, do not forget that--ignoring +the lacquey--there were four of them, and that his Eminence, the +Cardinal Duke, had said the four of them were equal to a thousand men! +If you have enough knowledge of human nature to understand the fine +game of baseball, and have at any time scraped acquaintance with the +interesting mathematical doctrine of progressive permutations, you will +see, when four men equal to a thousand are under the eyes of each other, +and of the garrison in the fort, that the whole arsenal of logarithms +would give out before you could compute the permutative possibilities +of the courage that would be refracted, reflected, compounded and +concentrated by all there, each giving courage to and receiving courage +from each and all the others. It makes my head ache to think of it. I +feel as if I could be brave myself. + +Certainly they were that day. To the bitter end of finishing the meal; +and they confessed the added courage by gamboling like boys amid awful +thunders of the arquebuses, which made a rumble in their time like their +successors, the omnibuses, still make to this day on the granite streets +of cities populated by deaf folks. + +There never was more of a gay, lilting, impudent courage than those four +mousquetaires displayed with such splendid coolness and spirit. + +But compare it with the fight which Bussy made, single-handed, against +the assassins hired by Monsereau and authorized by that effeminate +fop, the Due D'Anjou. Of course you remember it. Let me pay you the +affectionate compliment of presuming that you have read "La Dame de +Monsereau," often translated under the English title, "Chicot, the +Jester," that almost incomparable novel of historical romance, by M. +Dumas. If, through some accident or even through lack of culture, you +have failed to do so, pray do not admit it. Conceal your blemish +and remedy the matter at once. At least, seem to deserve respect and +confidence, and appear to be a worthy novel-reader if actually you are +not. There is a novel that, I assure you on my honor, is as good as +the "Three Guardsmen;" but--oh!--so--much--shorter; the pity of it, +too!--oh, the pity of it! On the second reading--now, let us speak with +frank conservatism--on the second reading of it, I give you my word, man +to man, I dreaded to turn every page, because it brought the end nearer. +If it had been granted to me to have one wish fulfilled that fine winter +night, I should have said with humility: "Beneficent Power, string it +out by nine more volumes, presto me here a fresh box of cigars, and the +account of your kindness, and my gratitude is closed." + + * * * * * + +If the publisher of this series did not have such absurd sensitiveness +about the value of space and such pitifully small ideas about the +nobility of novels, I should like to write at least twenty pages about +"Chicot." There are books that none of us ever put down in our lists of +great books, and yet which we think more of and delight more in than all +the great guns. Not one of the friends I've loved so long and well has +been President of the United States, but I wouldn't give one of them for +all the Presidents. Just across the hall at this minute I can hear the +frightful din of war--shells whistling and moaning, bullets s-e-o-uing, +the shrieks of the dying and wounded--Merciful Heaven! the "Don Juan +of Asturia" has just blown up in Manila Bay with an awful roar--again! +Again, as I'm a living man, just as she has blown up every day, and +several times every day, since May 1, 1898. There are two warriors over +in the play-room, drenched with imaginary gore, immersed in the tender +grace of bestowing chastening death and destruction upon the Spanish +foe. Don't I know that they rank somewhat below Admiral Dewey as heroes? +But do you suppose that their father would swap them for Admiral Dewey +and all the rainbow glories that fine old Yankee sea-dog ever will +enjoy--long may he live to enjoy them all!--do you think so? Of course +not! You know perfectly well that his--wife--wouldn't--let--him! + +I would not wound the susceptibilities of any reader; but speaking for +myself--"Chicot" being beloved of my heart--if there was a mean +man, living in a mean street, who had the last volume of "Chicot" in +existence, I would pour out my library's last heart's blood to get +it. He could have all of Scott but "Ivanhoe," all of Dickens but +"Copperfield," all of Hugo but "Les Miserables," cords of Fielding, +Marryat, Richardson, Reynolds, Eliot, Smollet, a whole ton of German +translations--by George! he could leave me a poor old despoiled, +destitute and ruined book-owner in things that folks buy in costly +bindings for the sake of vanity and the deception of those who also +deceive them in turn. + +Brother, "Chicot" is a book you lend only to your dearest friend, and +then remind him next day that he hasn't sent it back. + + * * * * * + +Now, as to Bussy's great fight. He had gone to the house of Madame Diana +de Monsereau. I am not au fait upon French social customs, but let us +presume his being there was entirely proper, because that excellent lady +was glad to see him. He was set upon by her husband, M. de Monsereau, +with fifteen hired assassins. Outside, the Due D'Anjou and some others +of assassins were in hiding to make sure that Monsereau killed Bussy, +and that somebody killed Monsereau! There's a "situation" for you, +double-edged treachery against--love and innocence, let us say. Bussy +is in the house with Madame. His friend, St. Luc, is with him; also +his lacquey and body-physician, the faithful Rely. Bang! the doors are +broken in, and the assassins penetrate up the stairway. The brave Bussy +confides Diana to St. Luc and Rely, and, hastily throwing up a barricade +of tables and chairs near the door of the apartment, draws his sword. +Then, ye friends of sudden death and valorous exercise, began a surfeit +of joy. Monsereau and his assassins numbered sixteen. In less than three +moderate paragraphs Bessy's sword, playing like avenging lightning, +had struck fatality to seven. Even then, with every wrist going, he +reflected, with sublime calculation: "I can kill five more, because I +can fight with all my vigor ten minutes longer!" After that? Bessy could +see no further--there spoke fate!--you feel he is to die. Once more the +leaping steel point, the shrill death cry, the miraculous parry. The +villain, Monsereau, draws his pistol. Bessy, who is fighting half +a dozen swordsmen, can even see the cowardly purpose; he watches; +he--dodges--the--bullets!--by watching the aim-- + + "Ye sons of France, behold the glory!" + +He thrusts, parries and swings the sword as a falchion. Suddenly a +pistol ball snaps the blade off six inches from the hilt. +Bessy picks up the blade and in an instant +splices--it--to--the--hilt--with--his--handkerchief! Oh, good sword +of the good swordsman! it drinks the blood of three more before +it--bends--and--loosens--under--the--strain! Bessy is shot in the thigh; +Monsereau is upon him; the good Rely, lying almost lifeless from a +bullet wound received at the outset, thrusts a rapier to Bessy's grasp +with a last effort. Bessy springs upon Monsereau with the great bound +of a panther and +pins--the--son--of--a--gun--to--the--floor--with--the--rapier--and--watches--him--die! + +You can feel faint for joy at that passage for a good dozen readings, if +you are appreciative. Poor Bessy, faint from wounds and blood-letting, +retreats valiantly to a closet window step by step and drops out, +leaving Monsereau spitted, like a black spider, dead on the floor. +Here hope and expectation are drawn out in your breast like chewing +gum stretched to the last shred of tenuation. At this point I firmly +believed that Bessy would escape. I feel sorry for the reader who does +not. You just naturally argue that the faithful Rely will surely reach +him and rub him with the balsam. That balsam of Dumas! The same that +D'Artagnan's mother gave him when he rode away on the yellow horse, +and which cured so many heroes hurt to the last gasp. That miraculous +balsam, which would make doctors and surgeons sing small today if they +had not suppressed it from the materia medica. May be they can silence +their consciences by the reflection that they suppressed it to enhance +the value and necessity of their own personal services. But let them +look at the death rate and shudder. I had confidence in Rely and the +balsam, but he could not get there in time. Then, it was forgone that +Bessy must die. Like Mercutio, he was too brilliant to live. Depend upon +it, these wizards of story tellers know when the knell of fate rings +much sooner than we halting readers do. + +Bessy drops from the closet window upon an iron fence that surrounded +the park and was impaled upon the dreadful pickets! Even then for +another moment you can cherish a hope that he may escape after all. +Suspended there and growing weaker, he hears footsteps approaching. Is +it a rescuing friend? He calls out--and a dagger stroke from the hand of +D'Anjou, his Judas master, finds his heart. That's the way Bessy died. +No man is proof against the dagger stroke of treachery. Bessy was +powerful and the due jealous. + +Diana has been carried off safely by the trustworthy St. Luc. She must +have died of grief if she had not been kept alive to be the instrument +of retributive justice. (In the sequel you will find that this Queen of +Hearts descended upon the ignoble due at the proper time like a thousand +of brick and took the last trick of justice.) + + * * * * * + +The extraordinary description of Bussy's fight is beyond everything. You +gallop along as if in a whirlwind, and it is only in cooler moments that +you discover he killed about twelve rascals with his own good arm. It +seems impossible; the scientific, careful readers have been known to +declare it impossible and sneer at it with laughter. I trust every +novel reader respects scientific folks as he should; but science is not +everything. Our scientific friends have contended that the whale did not +engulf Jonah; that the sun did not pause over the vale of Askelon; that +Baron Munchausen's horse did not hang to the steeple by his bridle; +that the beanstalk could not have supported a stout lad like Jack; that +General Monk was not sent to Holland in a cage; that Remus and Romulus +had not a devoted lady wolf for a step-mother; in fact, that loads of +things, of which the most undeniable proof exists in plain print all +over the world, never were done or never happened. Bessy was killed, +Rely was killed later, Diana died in performing her destiny, St. Luc was +killed. Nobody left to make affidavits, except M. Dumas; in his lifetime +nobody questioned it; he is now dead and unable to depose; whereupon the +scientists sniff scornfully and deny. I hope I shall always continue to +respect science in its true offices, but, brethren, are there not times +when--science--makes--you--just--a--little--tired? + +Heroes! D'Artagnan or Bessy? Choose, good friends, freely; as freely let +me have my Bessy. + + + + +VIII. HEROINES + +A SUBJECT ALMOST WITHOUT AN OBJECT--WHY THERE ARE FEW HEROINES FOR MEN. + + +Notwithstanding the subject, there are almost no heroines in novels. +There are impossibly good women, absurdly patient and brave women, but +few heroines as the convention of worldly thinking demands heroines. +There is an endless train of what Thackeray so aptly described as "pale, +pious, and pulmonary ladies" who snivel and snuffle and sigh and +linger irresolutely under many trials which a little common sense would +dissolve; but they are pathological heroines. "Little Nell," "Little +Eva," and their married sisters are unquestionable in morals, purpose +and faith; but oh! how--they--do--try--the--nerves! How brave and noble +was Jennie Deans, but how thick-headed was the dear lass! + +These women who are merely good, and enforce it by turning on the faucet +of tears, or by old-fashioned obstinacy, or stupidity of purpose, can +scarcely be called heroines by the canons of understood definition. +On the other hand, the conventions do not permit us to describe as a +heroine any lady who has what is nowadays technically called "a past." +The very best men in the world find splendid heroism and virtue in Tess +l'Durbeyfield. There is nowhere an honest, strong, good man, full of +weakness, though he may be, scarred so much, however with fault, who +does not read St. John vii., 3-11, with sympathy, reverence and Amen! +The infallible critics can prove to a hair that this passage is an +interpolation. An interpolation in that sense means something inserted +to deceive or defraud; a forgery. How can you defraud or deceive anybody +by the interpolation of pure gold with pure gold? How can that be a +forgery which hurts nobody, but gives to everybody more value in the +thing uttered? If John vii., 3-11, is an interpolation let us hope +Heaven has long ago blessed the interpolator. Does anybody--even the +infallible critic--contend that Jesus would not have so said and done +if the woman had been brought to Him? Was that not the very flower and +savor and soul of His teaching? Would He have said or done otherwise? +If the Ten Commandments were lost utterly from among men there would yet +remain these four greater: + +"Do unto others as ye would they should do unto you." + +"Suffer little children to come unto me." + +"Go and sin no more." + +"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." + +My lords and ladies, men and women, the Ten Commandments, by the side of +these sighs of gentleness, are the Police Court and the Criminal Code, +which are intended to pay cruelty off in punishment. These Four are +the tears with which sympathy soothes the wounds of suffering. Blessed +interpolator of St. John! + +There are three marvelous novels in the Bible--not Novels in the sense +of fiction, but in the sense of vivid, living narratives of human +emotions and of events. A million Novels rest on those nine verses in +John, and the nine verses are better than the million books. The story +of David and Uriah's wife is in a similar catalogue as regards quality +and usefulness; the story of Esther is a pearl of great beauty. + + * * * * * + +But to return to heroines, let us make a volte face. There is an old +story of the lady who wrote rather irritably to Thackeray, asking, +curtly, why all the good women he created were fools and the bright +women all bad. "The same complaint," he answered, "has been made, +Madame, of God and Shakespeare, and as neither has given explanation I +can not presume to attempt one." It was curt and severe, and, of course, +Thackeray did not write it as it would appear, even though he may have +said as much jestingly to some intimate who understood the epigram; +but was not the question rather impudently intrusive? Thackeray, you +remember, was the "seared cynic" who created Caroline Gann, the gentle, +beautiful, glorious "Little Sister," the staunch, pure-hearted woman +whose character not even the perfect scoundrelism of Dr. George Brand +Firmin could tarnish or disturb. If there are heroines, surely she has +her place high amid the noble group! + +There are plenty of intelligent persons sacramentally wedded to mere +conventions of good and bad. You could never persuade them that Rebecca +Sharp--that most perfect daughter of Thackeray's mind--was a heroine. +But of course she was. In that world wherein she was cast to live she +was indubitably, incomparably, the very best of all the inhabitants +to whom you are intimately introduced. Capt. Dobbin? Oh, no, I am not +forgetting good Old Dob. Of all the social door mats that ever I +wiped my feet upon Old Dob is certainly the cleanest, most patient, +serviceable and unrevolutionary. But, just a door mat, with the virtues +and attractions of that useful article of furniture--the sublime, +immortal prig of all the ages, or you can take the head of any +novel-reader under thirty for a football. You may have known many women, +from Bernadettes of Massavielle to Borgias of scant neighborhoods, but +you know you never knew one who would marry Old Dob, except as that +emotional dishrag, Amelia, married him--as the Last Chance on the +stretching high-road of uncertain years. No girl ever willingly marries +door mats. She just wipes her feet on them and passes on into the +drawing room looking for the Prince. It seems to me one of the +triumphant proofs of Becky as a heroine that she did not marry Captain +Dobbin. She might have done it any day by crooking her little finger at +him--but she didn't. + +Madame Becky, that smart daughter of an alcoholic gentleman artist +and of his lady of the French ballet, inherited the perfect non-moral +morality of the artist blood that sang mercurially through her veins. +How could she, therefore, how could she, being non-moral, be immoral? It +is clear nonsense. But she did possess the instinctive artist +morality of unerring taste for selection in choice. Examine the facts +meticulously--meticulously--and observe how carefully she selected that +best in all that worst she moved among. + +In the will I shall some day leave behind me there will be devised, in +primogenitural trust forever, the priceless treasure of conviction that +Becky was innocent of Lord Steyne. I leave it to any gentleman who has +had the great opportunity to look in familiarly upon the outer and upper +fringes of the world of unclassed and predatory women and the noble +lords that abound thereamong. Let him read over again that famous scene +where Becky writes her scorn upon Steyne's forehead in the noble blood +of that aristocratic wolf. Then let him give his decision, as an honest +juryman upon his oath, whether he is convinced that the most noble +Marquis was raging because he was losing a woman, or from the discovery +that he was one of two dupes facing each other, and that he was the fool +who had paid for both and had had "no run for his money!" Marquises of +Steyne do not resent sentimental losses--they can be hurt only in their +sportsmanship. + +You may begin with the Misses Pinkerton (in whose select school Becky +absorbed the intricate hypocrisies and saturated snobbery of the highest +English society) and follow her through all the little and big turmoils +of her life, meeting on the way of it all the elaborated differentials +of the country-gentleman and lady tribe of Crawley, the line officers +and bemedalled generals of the army (except honest O'Dowd and his lady), +the most noble Marquis and his shadowy and resigned Marchioness, the +R--y--l P--rs--n--ge himself--even down to the tuft-hunters Punter and +Loder--and if Becky is not superior to every man and woman of them in +every personal trait and grace that calls for admiration--then, why, by +George! do you take such an interest, such an undying interest, in her? +You invariably take the greatest interest in the best character in a +story--unless it's too good and gets "sweety" and "sticky" and so sours +on your philosophical stomach. You can't possibly take any interest in +Dobbin--you just naturally, emphatically, and in the most unreflecting +way in the world, say "Oh, d--n Dobbin!" and go right ahead after +somebody else. I don't say Becky was all that a perfect Sunday School +teacher should have been, but in the group in which she was born to move +she smells cleaner than the whole raft of them--to me. + + * * * * * + +Thackeray was, next to Shakespeare, the writer most wonderfully combined +of instinct and reason that English literature of grace has produced. He +has been compared with the Frenchman, Balzac. Since I have no desire to +provoke squabbles about favorite authors, let us merely definitely agree +that such a comparison is absurd and pass on. Because you must have +noticed that Balzac was often feeble in his reason and couldn't make it +keep step with his instinct, while in Thackeray they both step together +like the Siamese twins. It is a very striking fact, indeed, that during +all Becky's intense early experiences with the great world, Thackeray +does not make her guilty. All the circumstances of that world were +guilty and she is placed amidst the circumstances; but that is all. + +"The ladies in the drawing room," said one lady to Thackeray, when +"Vanity Fair" in monthly parts publishing had just reached the +catastrophe of Rawdon, Rebecca, old Steyne and the bracelet--"The +ladies have been discussing Becky Sharpe and they all agree that she was +guilty. May I ask if we guessed rightly?" + +"I am sure I don't know," replied the "seared cynic," mischievously. "I +am only a man and I haven't been able to make up my mind on that point. +But if the ladies agree I fear it may be true--you must understand your +sex much better than we men!" + +That is proof that she was not guilty with Steyne. But straightway then, +Thackeray starts out to make her guilty with others. It is so much the +more proof of her previous innocence that, incomparable artist as he +was in showing human character, he recognized that he could convince +the reader of her guilt only by disintegrating her, whipping himself +meanwhile into a ceaseless rage of vulgar abuse of her, a thing of which +Thackeray was seldom guilty. But it was not really Becky that +became guilty--it was the woman that English society and Thackeray +remorselessly made of her. I wouldn't be a lawyer for a wagon load of +diamonds, but if I had had to be a lawyer I should have preferred to +be a solicitor at the London bar in 1817 to write the brief for the +respondent in the celebrated divorce case of Crawley vs. Crawley. +Against the back-ground of the world she lived in Becky could have been +painted as meekly white and beautiful as that lovely old picture of St. +Cecilia at the Choir Organ. + +Perhaps Becky was not strictly a heroine; but she was a honey. + + * * * * * + +Men can not "create" heroines in the sense of shadowing forth what +they conceive to be the glory, beauty, courage and splendor of womanly +character. It is the indescribable sum of womanhood corresponding to the +unutterable name of God. The true man's love of woman is a spirit sense +attending upon the actual senses of seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting +and smelling. The woman he loves enters into every one of these senses +and thus is impounded five-fold upon that union of all of them, which, +together with the miracle of mind, composes what we call the human soul +as a divine essence. She is attached to every religion, yet enters with +authority into none. She is first at its birth, the last to stay +weeping at its death. In every great novel a heroine, unnamed, unspoken, +undescribed, hovers throughout like an essence. The heroism of woman +is her privacy. There is to me no more wonderful, philosophical, +psychological and delicate triumph of literary art in existence than the +few chapters in "Quo Vadis" in which that great introspective genius, +Sienkiewicz, sets forth the growth of the spell of love with which Lygia +has encompassed Vinicius, and the singular development and progress of +the emotion through which Vinicius is finally immersed in human love of +Lygia and in the Christian reverence of her spiritual purity at the same +time. It is the miracle of soul in sex. + +Every clean-hearted youth that has had the happiness to marry a good +woman--and, thank Heaven, clean youths and good women are thick as +leaves in Vallambrosa in this sturdy old world of ours--every such youth +has had his day of holy conversion, his touch of the wand conferring +upon him the miracle of love, and he has been a better and wiser man +for it. Not sense love, not the instinctive, restless love of matter for +matter, but the love that descends like the dove amid radiance. + + * * * * * + +We've all seen that bridal couple; she is as pretty as peaches; he is as +proud of her as if she were a splendid race horse; he glories in knowing +she is lovely and accepts the admiration offered to her as a tribute to +his own judgment, his own taste and even his merit, which obtained her. +There is a certain amount of silliness in her which he soon detects, +a touch of helplessness, and unsophistication in knowledge of worldly +things that he yet feels is mysteriously guarded against intrusion +upon and which makes companionship with her sometimes irksome. He feels +superior and uncompensated; from the superb isolation of his greater +knowledge, courage and independence, he grants to her a certain tender +pity and protection; he admits her faith and purity and--er--but--you +see, he is sorry she is not quite the well poised and noble creature he +is! Mr. Youngwed is at this time passing through the mental digestive +process of feeling his oats. He is all right, though, if he is half as +good as he thinks he is. He has not been touched by the live wire of +experience--yet; that's all. + +Well, in the course of human events, there comes a time when he is +frightened to death, then greatly relieved and for a few weeks becomes +as proud as if he had actually provided the last census of the United +States with most of the material contained in it. A few months later, +when the feeble whines and howls have found increased vigor of utterance +and more frequency of expression; when they don't know whether Master +Jack or Miss Jill has merely a howling spell or is threatened with fatal +convulsions; when they don't know whether they want a dog-muzzle or a +doctor; when Mr. Youngwed has lost his sleep and his temper, together, +and has displayed himself with spectacular effect as a brute, selfish, +irritable, helpless, resourceless and conquered--then--then, my dear +madame, you have doubtless observed him decrease in self-estimated size +like a balloon into which a pin has been introduced, until he looks, in +fact, like Master Frog reduced in bulk from the bull-size, to which he +aspired, to his original degree. + +At that time Mrs. Youngwed is very busy with little Jack or Jill, as the +case may be. Her husband's conduct she probably regards with resignation +as the first heavy burden of the cross she is expected to bear. She +does not reproach him, it is useless; she has perhaps suspected that +his assumed superiority would not stand the real strain. But, he is the +father of the dear baby and, for that precious darling's sake, she will +be patient. I wonder if she feels that way? She has every right to, and, +for one, I say that I'll be hanged if I find any fault with her if she +does. That is the way she must keep human, and so balance the little +open accounts that married folks ought to run between themselves for +the purpose of keeping cobwebs and mildew off, or rather of maintaining +their lives as a running stream instead of a stagnant pond. A little +good talking back now and then is good for wives and married men. +Don't be afraid, Mrs. Youngwed; and when the very worst has come, why +cry--at--him! One tear weighs more and will hit him harder than an ax. +In the lachrymal ducts with which heaven has blessed you, you are more +surely protected against the fires of your honest indignation than you +are by the fire department against a blaze in the house. And be +patient, also; remember, dear sister, that, though you can cry, he has +a gift--that--enables--him--to--swear! You and other wedded wives very +properly object to swearing, but you will doubtless admit that there +is compensation in that when he does swear in his usual good form +you--never--feel--any--apprehension--about--the--state--of--his--health! + +This natural outburst of resentment has not lasted three minutes. Mr. +Y. has returned to his couch, sulky and ashamed. He pretends to sleep +ostentatiously; he--does--not! He is thinking with remarkable intensity +and has an eye open. He sees the slender figure in the dim light, +hanging over the crib, he hears the crooning, he begins to suspect that +there is an alloy in his godlikeness. He looks to earth, listens to the +thin, wailing cries, wonders, regrets, wearies, sleeps. At that moment +Mrs. Y. should fall on her knees and rejoice. She would if she could +leave young Jack or Jill; but she can't--she--never--can. That's +what sent Mr. Y. to sleep. It is just as well perhaps that Mrs. Y. is +unobservant. + +A miracle is happening to Mr. Y. In an hour or two, let us say, there +is a new vocal alarm from the crib. Almost with the first suspicion +of fretfulness or pain the mother has heard it. Heaven's mysterious +telepathy of instinct has operated. Between angels, babies and mothers +the distance is no longer than your arm can reach. They understand, feel +and hear each other, and are linked in one chain. So, that, when Mr. +Y. has struggled laboriously awake and wonders +if--that--child--is--going--to--howl--all----. Well, he goes no further. +In the dim light he sees again the slender figure hanging over the crib, +he hears the crooning and the retreating sobs. It is just as he saw +and heard before he fell asleep. No complaints, no reproaches, no +irritation. Oh, what a brute he feels! He battles with his reason and +his bewilderment. Had he fallen asleep and left her to bear that strain; +or has she gone anew to the rescue, while he slept without thought? Up +out of his heart the tenderness wells; down into his mind the revelation +comes. The miracle works. He looks and listens. In the figure hanging +there so patiently and tenderly he sees for the first time the wonderful +vision of the sweetheart wife, not lost, but enveloped in the mystery of +motherhood; he hears in the crooning voice a tone he never before knew. +Mother and child are united in mysterious converse. Where did that girl +whom he thought so unsophisticated of the world learn that marvel of +acquaintance with that babe, so far removed from his ability to reach? +It must be that while he knew the world, she understood the secret of +heaven. She is so patient. What a brute he is to grow impatient, when +she endures day and night in rapt patience and the joy of content! She +can enter a world from which he is barred. And, that is his wife! +That was his sweetheart, and is now--ah, what is she? He feels somehow +abashed; he knows that if he were ten times better than he is he might +still feel unworthy to touch the latchet of her shoes; he feels that +reverence and awe have enveloped her, and that the first happy love and +longing are springing afresh in his heart. It is his wife and his +child; apart from him unless he can note and understand that miracle +of nature's secret. Can he? Well, he will try--oh, what a brute! And he +watches the bending figure, he hears the blending of soft crooning and +retreating sobs--and, listening, he is lost in the wonder and falls +under the spell asleep. + +Mrs. Y., you are happy henceforth, if you will disregard certain small +matters, such as whether chairs or hat-racks are for hats, or whether +the marble mantelpiece or the floor is intended for polishing boot +heels. + + * * * * * + +Of course, such an incident as has been suggested is but one of +thousands of golden moments when to the husband comes the sudden +dazzling recognition of the mergence of that half-sweetheart, +half-mistress, he has admired and a little tired of, into the +reverential glory and loveliness of wifehood, motherhood, companionhood, +through all life and on through the eternity of inheritance they shall +leave to Jacks and Jills and their little sisters and brothers. In +that lies the priceless secret of Christianity and its influence. +The unspeakably immoral Greeks reared a temple to Pity; the grossest +mythologies of Babylon, Greece, Rome and Carthage could not change +human nature. There have been always persons whose temperament made +them sympathize with grief and pity the suffering; who, caring none +for wealth, had no desire to steal; who purchased a little pleasure for +vanity in the thanks received for kindness given. But Christianity saw +the jewel underneath the passing emotion and gave it value by +cleansing and cutting it. In lust-love is the instinctive secret of the +preservation of the race; but the race is not worth preserving that it +may be preserved only for lust. Upon that animal foundation is to be +built the radiant home of confident, enduring and exchanging love +in which all the senses, tastes, hopes, aspirations and delights of +friendship, companionship and human society shall find hospitality +and comfort. When it has been achieved it is beautiful, a twin to the +delicate rose that lies in its own delicious fragrance, happy on the +pure bosom of a lovely girl--the rose that is finest and most exquisite +because it has sprung from the horrid heat of the compost; but who shall +think of the one in the presence of the pure beauty of the other? + +Nature and art are entirely unlike each other, though the one simulates +the other. The art of beauty in writing, said Balzac, is to be able +to construct a palace upon the point of a needle; the art of beauty +in living and loving is to build all the beauty of social life and +aspiration upon the sordid yet solid and persisting instincts of +savagery that lie deep at the bottom of our gross natures. + + * * * * * + +Now, it is in this tender sacred atmosphere, such as Mr. and Mrs. +Youngwed always pass through, that the man worthy of a woman's +confidence finds the radiant ideal of his heroine. He may with propriety +speak of these transfigured personalities to his intimates or write of +them with kindly pleasantry and suggestion as, perhaps, this will be +considered. But, there is a monitor within that restrains him from +analyzing and describing and dragging into the glare of publicity the +sacred details that give to life all its secret happiness, faith and +delight. To do so would be ten times worse offense against the ethics +of unwritten and unspoken things than describing with pitiless precision +the death beds of children, as Little Nell, Paul Dombey, Dora, Little +Eva, and, thank heaven! only a few others. + +How can anybody bear to read such pages without feeling that he is +an intruder where angels should veil their faces as they await the +transformation? + +"It is not permitted to do evil," says the philosopher, "that good may +result." + +There are some things that should remain unspoken and undescribed. Have +you never listened to some great brute of a sincere preacher of the +gospel, as he warned his congregation against the terrible dangers +attending the omission of purely theological rites upon infants? Have +you thought of the mothers of those children, listening, whose little +ones were sick or delicate, and who felt each word of that hard, ominous +warning as an agonizing terror? And haven't you wanted to kick the +minister out of the pulpit, through the reredos and into the middle +of next week? How can anybody harrow up such tender feelings? How can +anybody like to believe that a little child will be held to account? +Many of us do so believe, perhaps, whether or no; but is it not cruel +to shake the rod of terror over us in public? "Suffer little children +to come unto Me," said the Master; He did not instruct us to drive them +with fear and terror and trembling. Whenever I have heard such sermons I +have wanted to get up and stalk out of the church with ostentatiousness +of contempt, as if to say to the preacher that his conduct +did--not--meet--with--my--approval. But I didn't; the philosopher has +his cowardice not less than the preacher. + +But there is something meretricious and cheap in the use of material +and subjects that lie warm against the very secret heart of nature. The +mystery of love and the sanctity of death are to be used by writers and +artists only in their ennobling aspect of results. A certain class of +French writers have sickened the world by invading the sacredness of +passion and giving prostitution the semblance of self-abnegated love; a +certain class of English and American writers have purchased popularity +by the meretricious parade of the scenes of death-beds. Both are +violations of the ethics of art as they are of nature. True love as +true sorrow shrinks from exhibition and should be permitted to enjoy +the sacredness of privacy. The famous women of the world, Herodias, +Semiramis, Aspasia, Thais, Cleopatra, Sapho, Messalina, Marie de +Medici, Catherine of Russia, Elizabeth of England--all of them have been +immoral. Publicity to women is like handling to peaches--the bloom comes +off, whether or not any other harm occurs. In literature, the great +feminine figures, George Sand, Madame de Sevigne, Madame de Stael, +George Eliot--all were banned and at least one--the first--was out of +the pale. Creative thought has in it the germ of masculinity. Genius in +a woman, as we usually describe genius, means masculinity, which, of all +things, to real men is abhorrent in woman. True genius in woman is the +antithesis of the qualities that make genius in man; so is her heroism, +her beauty, her virtue, her destiny and her duty. + +Let this be said--even though it be only a jest--one of those smart +attempts at epigram, which, ladies, a man has no more power to resist +than a baby to resist the desire to improve his thumb by sucking +it--that: whenever you find a woman who looks real--that is, who +produces upon a real man the impression of being endowed with +the splendid gifts for united and patient companionship in +marriage--whenever you find her advocating equal suffrage, equal rights, +equal independence with men in all things, you may properly run away. +Equality means so much, dear sisters. No man can be your equal; you can +not be his, without laying down the very jewels of the womanliness +that men love. Be thankful you have not this strength and daring; +he possesses those in order that he many stand between you and more +powerful brutes. Now, let us try for a smart epigram: But no! hang the +epigram, let it go. This, however, may be said: That, whenever you find +a woman wanting all rights with man; wanting his morals to be judged +by hers, or willing to throw hers in with his, or itching to enter his +employments and labors and willing that he shall--of course--nurse the +children and patch the small trousers and dresses, depend upon it that +some weak and timid man has been neglecting the old manly, savage duty +of applying quiet home murder as society approves now and then. + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Delicious Vice, by Young E. 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