chapter xvii
. reminds us in half a dozen oddly indirect ways of a certain chapter in _Richard Feverel_. The place, the situation, the reader's suspense, are similar; but the actors, their emotions, their purposes are vastly different. It is a fine chapter, and the page with which it opens is the worst in the book--a solitary purple patch of "fine writing." I observe without surprise that the reviewers--whose admiring attention is seldom caught but by something out of proportion--have been fastening upon it and quoting it ecstatically.
_The Indiscretion of the Duchess_ is the tale in Mr. Hope's second manner--the manner of _The Prisoner of Zenda_. Story for story, it falls a trifle sort of _The Prisoner of Zenda_. As a set-off, the telling is firmer, surer, more accomplished. In each an aimless, superficially cynical, but naturally amiable English gentleman finds himself casually involved in circumstances which appeal first to his sportsmanlike love of adventure, and so by degrees to his chivalry, his sense of honor, and his passions. At first amused, then perplexed, then nettled, then involved heart and soul, he is left to fight his way through with the native weapons of his order--courage, tact, honesty, wit, strength of self-sacrifice, aptitude for affairs. The _donnée_ of these tales, their spirit, their postulates, are nakedly romantic. In them the author deliberately lends enchantment to his view by withdrawing to a convenient distance from real life. But, once more, the enchantment is everything and the distance nothing. If I must find fault with the later of the stories, it will not be with its general extravagance--for extravagance is part of the secret of Romance--but with the sordid and very nasty Madame Delhasse. She would be repulsive enough in any case: but as Marie's mother she is peculiarly repulsive and, let me add, improbable. Nobody looks for heredity in a tale of this sort: but even in the fairy tales it is always the heroine's _step_-mother who ends very fitly with a roll downhill in a barrel full of spikes.
But great as are the differences between _The God in the Car_ and _The Indiscretion of the Duchess_--and I ought to say that the former carries (as it ought) more weight of metal--they have their points of similarity. Both illustrate conspicuously Mr. Hope's gift of advancing the action of his story by the sprightly conversation of his characters. There is a touch of Dumas in their talk, and more than a touch of Sterne--the Sterne of the _Sentimental Journey_.
"I beg your pardon, madame," said I, with a whirl of my hat.
"I beg your pardon, sir," said the lady, with an inclination of her head.
"One is so careless in entering rooms hurriedly," I observed.
"Oh, but it is stupid to stand just by the door!" insisted the lady.
To sum up, these are two most entertaining books by one of the writers for whose next book one searches eagerly in the publishers' lists. If, however, he will not resent one small word of caution, it is that he should not let us find his name there too often. As far as we can see, he cannot write too much for us. But he may very easily write too much for his own health.
"TRILBY"
Sept. 14, 1895. Hypnotic Fiction.
A number of people--and I am one--cannot "abide" hypnotism in fiction. In my own case the dislike has been merely instinctive, and I have never yet found time to examine the instinct and discover whether or not it is just and reasonable. The appearance of a one-volume edition of _Trilby_--undoubtedly the most successful tale that has ever dealt with hypnotism--and the success of the dramatic version of _Trilby_ presented a few days ago by Mr. Tree, invite one to apply the test. Clearly there are large numbers of people who enjoy hypnotic fiction, or whose prejudices have been effectively subdued by Mr. du Maurier's tact and talent. Must we then confess that our instinct has been unjust and unreasonable, and give it up? Or--since we _must_ like _Trilby_, and there is no help for it--shall we enjoy the tale under protest and in spite of its hypnotism?
Analysis of an Aversion.
I think my first objection to these hypnotic tales is the terror they inspire. I am not talking of ordinary human terror, which, of course, is the basis of much of the best tragedy. We are terrified by the story of Macbeth; but it is with a rational and a salutary terror. We are aware all the while that the moral laws are at work. We see a hideous calamity looming, approaching, imminent: but we can see that it is the effect of causes which have been duly exhibited to us. We can reason it out: we know where we stand: our conscience approves the punishment even while our pity calls out against it. And when the blow falls, it shakes away none of our belief in the advantages of virtuous conduct. It leaves the good old impregnable position, "Be virtuous and you will be happy," stronger than ever. But the terror of these hypnotic stories resembles that of a child in a dark room. For artistic reasons too obvious to need pointing out, the hypnotizer in these stories is always the villain of the piece. For the same or similar reasons, the "subject" is always a person worthy of our sympathy, and is usually a woman. Let us suppose it to be a good and beautiful woman--for that is the commonest case. The gives us to understand that by hypnotism this good and beautiful woman is for a while completely in the power of a man who is _ex hypothesi_ a beast, and who _ex hypothesi_ can make her commit any excesses that his beastliness may suggest. Obviously we are removed outside the moral order altogether; and in its place we are presented with a state of things in which innocence, honesty, love, and the rest are entirely at the disposal and under the rule of malevolent brutality; the result, as presented to us, being qualified only by such tact as the author may choose to display. That Mr. du Maurier has displayed great tact is extremely creditable to Mr. du Maurier, and might have been predicted of him. But it does not alter the fact that a form of fiction which leaves us at the mercy of an author's tact is a very dangerous form in a world which contains so few Du Mauriers. It is lamentable enough to have to exclaim--as we must over so much of human history--
"Ah! what avails the sceptred race And what the form divine?..."
But it must be quite intolerable when a story leaves us demanding, "What avail native innocence, truthfulness, chastity, when all these can be changed into guile and uncleanliness at the mere suggestion of a dirty mesmerist?"
The answer to this, I suppose, will be, "But hypnotism is a scientific fact. People can be hypnotized, and are hypnotized. Are you one of those who would exclude the novelist from this and that field of human experience?" And then I am quite prepared to hear the old tag, "_Homo sum_," etc., once more misapplied.
Limitation of Hypnotic Fiction.
Let us distinguish. Hypnotism is a proved fact: people are hypnotized. Hypnotism is not a delimited fact: nobody yet knows precisely its conditions or its effects; or, if the discovery has been made, it has certainly not yet found its way to the novelists. For them it is as yet chiefly a field of fancy. They invent vagaries for it as they invent ghosts. And as for the "_humananum nihil a me alienum_" defence, my strongest objection to hypnotic fiction is its inhumanity. An experience is not human in the proper artistic sense (with which alone we are concerned) merely because it has befallen a man or a woman. There was an Irishman, the other day, who through mere inadvertence cut off his own head with a scythe. But the story is rather inhuman than not. Still less right have we to call everything human which can be supposed by the most liberal stretch of the imagination to have happened to a man or a woman. A story is only human in so far as it is governed by the laws which are recognized as determining human action. Now according as we regard human action, its two great determinants will be free will or necessity. But hypnotism entirely does away with free will: and for necessity, fatal or circumstantial, it substitutes the lawless and irresponsible imperative of a casual individual man, who (in fiction) usually happens to be a scoundrel.
A story may be human even though it discard one or more of the recognized conditions of human life. Thus in the confessedly supernatural story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the conflict between the two Jekylls is human enough and morally significant, because it answers to a conflict which is waged day by day--though as a rule less tremendously--in the soul of every human being. But the double Trilby signifies nothing. She is naturally in love with Little Billee: she is also in love with Svengali, but quite unnaturally and irresponsibly. There is no real conflict. As Gecko says of Svengali--
"He had but to say '_Dors!_' and she suddenly became an unconscious Trilby of marble, who could produce wonderful sounds--just the sounds he wanted and nothing else--and think his thoughts and wish his wishes--and love him at his bidding with a strange, unreal, factitious love ... just his own love for himself turned inside out--à l'envers--and reflected back on him as from a mirror ... un écho, un simulacre, quoi? pas autre chose!... It was not worth having! I was not even jealous!"
This last passage, I think, suggests that Mr. du Maurier would have produced a much less charming story, indeed, but a vastly more artistic one, had he directed his readers' attention rather upon the tragedy of Svengali than upon the tragedy of Trilby. For Svengali's position as complete master of a woman's will and yet unable to call forth more than a factitious love--"just his own love for himself turned inside out and reflected back on him as from a mirror"--is a really tragic one, and a fine variation on the old Frankenstein _motif_. The tragedy of Frankenstein resides in Frankenstein himself, not in his creature.
An Incongruous Story.
In short, _Trilby_ seems--as _Peter Ibbetson_ seemed--to fall into two parts, the natural and supernatural, which will not join. They might possibly join if Mr. du Maurier had not made the natural so exceedingly domestic, had he been less successful with the Trilby, and Little Billee, and Taffy, and the Laird, for all of whom he has taught us so extravagant a liking. But his very success with these domestic (if oddly domestic) figures, and with the very domestic tale of Little Billee's affair of the heart, proves our greatest stumbling-block when we are invited to follow the machinations of the superlative Svengali. That the story of Svengali and of Trilby's voice is a good story only a duffer would deny. So is Gautier's _La Morte Amoureuse_; perhaps the best story of its kind ever written. But suppose Thackeray had taken _La Morte Amoureuse_ and tried to write it into _Pendennis!_
MR. STOCKTON
Sept. 21, 1895. Stevenson's Testimony.
In his chapter of "Personal Memories," printed in the _Century Magazine_ of July last, Mr. Gosse speaks of the peculiar esteem in which Mr. Frank R. Stockton's stories were held by Robert Louis Stevenson. "When I was going to America to lecture, he was
## particularly anxious that I should lay at the feet of Mr. Frank R.
Stockton his homage, couched in the following lines:--
My Stockton if I failed to like, It were a sheer depravity; For I went down with the 'Thomas Hyke,' And up with the 'Negative Gravity.'
He adored these tales of Mr. Stockton's, a taste which must be shared by all good men."
It is shared at any rate by some thousands of people on this side of the Atlantic. Only, one is not quite sure how far their admiration extends. As far as can be guessed--for I have never come across any British attempt at a serious appreciation of Mr. Stockton--the general disposition is to regard him as an amusing kind of "cuss" with a queer kink in his fancy, who writes puzzling little stories that make you smile. As for taking him seriously, "why he doesn't even profess to write seriously"--an absurd objection, of course; but good enough for the present-day reviewer, who sits up all night in order that the public may have his earliest possible opinion on the Reminiscences of Bishop A, or the Personal Recollections of Field-Marshal B, or a Tour taken in Ireland by the Honorable Mrs. C. For criticism just now, as a mere matter of business convenience, provides a relative importance for books before they appear; and in this classification the space allotted to fiction and labelled "important" is crowded for the moment with works dealing with religious or sexual difficulties. Everyone has read _Rudder Grange_, _The Lady or the Tiger?_ and _A Borrowed Month_; but somehow few people seem to think of them as subjects for serious criticism.
"Classical" qualities.
And yet these stories are almost classics. That is to say, they have the classical qualities, and only need time to ripen them into classics: for nothing but age divides a story of the quality of _The Lady or the Tiger?_ (for instance) from a story of the quality of _Rip Van Winkle_. They are full of wit; but the wit never chokes the style, which is simple and pellucid. Their fanciful postulates being granted, they are absolutely rational. And they are in a high degree original. Originality, good temper, good sense, moderation, wit--these are classical qualities: and he is a rare benefactor who employs them all for the amusement of the world.
A Comparison.
At first sight it may seem absurd to compare Mr. Stockton with Defoe. You can scarcely imagine two men with more dissimilar notions of the value of gracefulness and humor, or with more divergent aims in writing. Mr. Stockton is nothing if not fanciful, and Defoe is hardly fanciful at all. Nevertheless in reading one I am constantly reminded of the other. You must remember Mr. Stockton's habit is to confine his eccentricities of fancy to the postulates of a tale. He starts with some wildly unusual--but, as a rule, not impossible--conjuncture of circumstances. This being granted, however, he deduces his story logically and precisely, appealing never to our passions and almost constantly to our common sense. His people are as full of common-sense as Defoe's. They may have more pluck than the average man or woman, and they usually have more adaptability; but they apply to extraordinary circumstances the good unsentimental reasoning of ordinary life, and usually with the happiest results. The shipwreck of Mrs. Lecks and Mrs. Aleshine was extraordinary enough, but their subsequent conduct was rational almost to precision: and in story-telling rationality does for fancy what economy of emotional utterances does for emotion. We may apply to Mr. Stockton's tales a remark which Mr. Saintsbury let fall some years ago upon dream-literature. He was speaking particularly of Flaubert's _Tentation de Saint Antoine_:--
"The capacities of dreams and hallucinations for literary treatment are undoubted. But most writers, including even De Quincey, who have tried this style, have erred, inasmuch as they have endeavoured to throw a portion of the mystery with which the waking mind invests dreams over the dream itself. Anyone's experience is sufficient to show that this is wrong. The events of dreams as they happen are quite plain and matter-of-fact, and it is only in the intervals, and, so to speak, the scene-shifting of dreaming, that any suspicion of strangeness occurs to the dreamer."
A dream, however wild, is quite plain and matter-of-fact to the dreamer; therefore, for verisimilitude, the narrative of a dream should be quite plain and matter-of-fact. In the same way the narrator of an extremely fanciful tale should--since verisimilitude is the first aim of story-telling--attempt to exclude all suspicion of the unnatural from his reader's mind. And this is only done by persuading him that no suspicion of the unnatural occurred to the actors in the story. And this again is best managed by making his characters persons of sound every-day common sense. "If _these_ are not upset by what befalls them, why"--is the unconscious inference--"why in the world should _I_ be upset?"
So, in spite of the enormous difference between the two writers, there has been no one since Defoe who so carefully as Mr. Stockton regulates the actions of his characters by strict common sense. Nor do I at the moment remember any writer who comes closer to Defoe in mathematical care for detail. In the case of the True-born Englishman this carefulness was sometimes overdone--as when he makes Colonel Jack remember with exactness the lists of articles he stole as a boy, and their value. In the _Adventures of Captain Horn_ the machinery which conceals and guards the Peruvian treasure is so elaborately described that one is tempted to believe Mr. Stockton must have constructed a working model of it with his own hands before he sat down to write the book. In a way, this accuracy of detail is part of the common-sense character of the narrative, and undoubtedly helps the verisimilitude enormously.
A Genuine American.
But to my mind Mr. Stockton's characters are even more original than the machinery of his stories. And in their originality they reflect not only Mr. Stockton himself, but the race from which they and their author spring. In fact, they seem to me about the most genuinely American things in American fiction. After all, when one comes to think of it, Mrs. Lecks and Captain Horn merely illustrate that ready adaptation of Anglo-Saxon pluck and businesslike common sense to savage and unusual circumstances which has been the real secret of the colonization of the North American Continent. Captain Horn's discovery and winning of the treasure may differ accidentally, but do not differ in essence, from a thousand true tales of commercial triumph in the great Central Plain or on the Pacific Slope. And in the heroine of the book we recognize those very qualities and aptitudes for which we have all learnt to admire and esteem the American girl. They are hero and heroine, and so of course we are presented with the better side of a national character; but then it has been the better side which has done the business. The bitterest critic of things American will not deny that Mr. Stockton's characters are typical Americans, and could not belong to any other nation in the world. Nor can he deny that they combine sobriety with pluck, and businesslike behavior with good feeling; that they are as full of honor as of resource, and as sportsmanlike as sagacious. That people with such characteristics should be recognizable by us as typical Americans is a sufficient answer to half the nonsense which is being talked just now _à propos_ of a recent silly contest for the America Cup.
Nationality apart, if anyone wants a good stirring story, _Captain Horn_ is the story for his money. It has loose ends, and the concluding chapter ties up an end that might well have been left loose; but if a better story of adventure has been written of late I wish somebody would tell me its name.
BOW-WOW
August 26, 1893. Dauntless Anthology.
It is really very difficult to know what to say to Mr. Maynard Leonard, editor of _The Dog in British Poetry_ (London: David Nutt). His case is something the same as Archdeacon Farrar's. The critic who desires amendment in the Archdeacon's prose, and suggests that something might be done by a study of Butler or Hume or Cobbett or Newman, is met with the cheerful retort, "But I have studied these writers, and admire them even more than you do." The position is impregnable; and the Archdeacon is only asserting that two and two make four when he goes on to confess that, "with the best will in the world to profit by the criticisms of his books, he has never profited in the least by any of them."
Now, Mr. Leonard has at least this much in common with Archdeacon Farrar, that before him criticism must sit down with folded hands. In the lightness of his heart he accepts every fresh argument against such and such a course as an added reason for following it:--
"While this collection of poems was being made," he tells us, "a well-known author and critic took occasion to gently ridicule (_sic_) anthologies and anthologists. He suggested, as if the force of foolishness could no further go, that the next anthology would deal with dogs."
"Undismayed by this," to use his own words, Mr. Leonard proceeded to prove it. Now it is obvious that no man can set a term to literary
## activity if it depend on the Briton's notorious unwillingness to
recognize that he is beaten. I might dare, for instance, a Scotsman to compile an anthology on "The Eel in British Poetry"; but of what avail is it to challenge an indomitable race?
I am sorry Mr. Leonard has not given the name of this critic; but have a notion it must be Mr. Andrew Lang, though I am sure he is innocent of the split infinitive quoted above. It really ought to be Mr. Lang, if only for the humor of the means by which Mr. Leonard proposes to silence him. "I am confident," says he, "that the voice of the great dog-loving public in this country would drown that of the critic in question." Mr. Leonard's metaphors, you see, like the dyer's hand, are subdued to what they work in. But is not the picture delightful? Mr. Lang, the gentle of speech; who, with his master Walton, "studies to be quiet"; who tells us in his very latest verse
"I've maistly had my fill O' this world's din"--
--Mr. Lang set down in the midst of a really representative dog show, say at Birmingham or the Crystal Palace, and there howled down! His _blandi susurri_ drowned in the combined clamor of mongrel, puppy, whelp, and hound, and "the great dog-loving public in this country"!
"_Solvitur ululando_," hopes Mr. Leonard; and we will wait for the voice of the great dog-loving public to uplift itself and settle the question. Here, at any rate, is the book, beautiful in shape, and printed by the Constables upon sumptuous paper. And the title-page bears a rubric and a reference to Tobias' dog. "It is no need," says Wyclif in one of his sermons, "to busy us what hight Tobies' hound"; but Wyclif had never to reckon with a great dog-loving public. And Mr. Leonard, having considered his work and dedicated it "To the Cynics"--which, I suppose, is Greek for "dog-loving public"--observes, "It is rather remarkable that no one has yet published such a book as this." Perhaps it is.
But if we take it for granted (1) that it was worth doing, and (2) that whatever be worth doing is worth doing well, then Mr. Leonard has reason for his complacency. "It was never my intention," he says, "to gather together a complete collection of even British poems about dogs."--When will _that_ come, I wonder?--"I have sought to secure a representative rather than an exhaustive anthology." His selections from a mass of poetry ranging from Homer to Mr. Mallock are judicious. He is not concerned (he assures us) to defend the poetical merits of all this verse:--
"--O, the wise contentment Th' anthologist doth find!"
--but he has provided it with notes--and capital notes they are--with a magnificent Table of Contents, an Index of Authors, an Index of First Lines, an Index of Dogs Mentioned by Name in the Poems, and an Index of the Species of Dogs Mentioned. So that, even if he miss transportation to an equal sky, the dog has better treatment on earth than most authors. And Mr. Nutt and the Messrs. Constable have done their best; and everyone knows how good is that best. And the wonder is, as Dr. Johnson remarked (concerning a dog, by the way), not that the thing is done so well, but that it should be done at all.
OF SEASONABLE NUMBERS:
_A Baconian Essay_
Dec. 26, 1891.
That was a Wittie Invective made by _Montaigny_ upon the _Antipodean_, Who said they must be Thieves that pulled on their breeches when Honest Folk were scarce abed. So is it Obnoxious to them that purvey _Christmas Numbers_, _Annuals_, and the like, that they commonly write under _Sirius_ his star as it were _Capricornus_, feigning to Scate and Carol and blow warm upon their Fingers, while yet they might be culling of Strawberries. And all to this end, that Editors may take the cake. I know One, the Father of a long Family, that will sit a whole June night without queeching in a Vessell of Refrigerated Water till he be Ingaged with hard Ice, that the _Publick_ may be docked no pennyweight of the Sentiments incident to the _Nativity_. For we be like Grapes, and goe to Press in August. But methinks these rigours do postulate a _Robur Corporis_ more than ordinary (whereas 'tis but one in ten if a Novelist overtop in Physique); and besides will often fail of the effect. As I _myself_ have asked--the Pseudonym being but gauze--
"O! Who can hold a fire in his hand By thinking on the frosty Caucasus?"
Yet sometimes, because some things are in kind very Casuall, which if they escape prove Excellent (as the man who by Inadvertence inherited the throne of the _Grand Turk_ with all appertayning) so that the kind is inferiour, being subject to Perill, but that which is Excellent being proved superiour, as the Blossom of March and the Blossom of May, whereof the French verse goeth:--
"Bourgeon de Mars, enfant de Paris; Si un eschape, il en vaut dix."
--so, as I was saying (till the Mischief infected my Protasis), albeit the gross of writings will moulder between _St. John's_ feast and _St. Stephen's_, yet, if one survive, 'tis odds he will prove Money in your Pocket. Therefore I counsel that you preoccupate and tie him, by Easter at the latest, to _Forty thousand words_, naming a Figure in excess: for Operation shrinketh all things, as was observed by Galenus, who said to his Friend, "I will cut off your Leg, and then you will be lesse by a Foot." Also you will do well to provide a _Pictura_ in Chromo-Lithography. For the Glaziers like it, and no harm done if they blush not: which is easily avoided by making it out of a little Child and a Puppy-dog, or else a Mother, or some such trivial Accompaniment. But Phryne marrs all. It was even rashly done of that Editor who issued a Coloured Plate, calling it "_Phryne Behind the Areopagus_": for though nothing was Seen, the pillars and Grecian elders intervening, yet 'twas Felt a great pity. And the Fellow ran for it, saying flimsily:--
"Populus me sibilat. At mihi plaudo."
Whereas I rather praise the dictum of that other writer, who said, "In this house I had sooner be turned over on the Drawing-room Table than roll under that in the Dining-room," meaning to reflect on the wine, but the Hostess took it for a compliment.
But to speak of the Letter Press. For the Sea you will use Clark Russell; for the East, Rudyard Kipling; for _Blood_, Haggard; for neat pastorall Subjects, Thomas Hardy, so he be within Bounds. I mislike his "Noble Dames." Barrie has a prettier witt; but Besant will keep in all weathers, and serve as right _Pemmican_. As for conundrums and poetry, they are but Toys: I have seen as good in crackers; which we pull, not as meaning to read or guess, but read and guess to cover the Shame of our Employment. Yet for Conundrums, if you hold the Answers till your next issue they Raise the Wind among Fools.
He that hath _Wife and Children_ hath given Hostages to _Little Folks_: he will hardly redeem but by sacrifice of a Christmas Tree. The learned Poggius, that had twelve Sons and Daughters, used to note ruefully that he might never escape but by purchase of a _dozen Annuals_, citing this to prove how greatly Tastes will diverge among the Extreamely Young, even though they come of the same geniture. So will Printed Matter multiply faster than our Parents. Yet 'tis discutable that this phrensy of _Annuals_ groweth staler by Recurrence. As that Helvetian lamented, whose Cuckoo-clock failed of a ready Purchaser, and he had to live with it. "_What Again?_" said he, and "_Surely Spring is not come yet, dash it?_" Also I cannot stomach that our Authors portend a Severity of Weather unseasonable in these Muggy Latitudes. I will eat my Hat if for these twenty Christmasses I have made six Slides worthy the Mention. Yet I know an Author that had his _Hero and Heroine_ consent together very prettily; but 'twas in a _Thaw_, and the Editor being stout, the match was broken off unblessedly, till a Pact was made that it should indeed be a Thaw, but sufficient only to let the Heroine drop through the Ice and be Rescewed.
Without _Ghosts_, we twiddle thumbs....