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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/36788-8.txt b/36788-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7fa31b1 --- /dev/null +++ b/36788-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8992 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Critical Studies, by Ouida + +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: Critical Studies + +Author: Ouida + +Release Date: July 19, 2011 [EBook #36788] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CRITICAL STUDIES *** + + + + +Produced by David Edwards, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +book was produced from scanned images of public domain +material from the Google Print project.) + + + + + + + + + + + + CRITICAL STUDIES + + BY OUIDA + + + _SECOND IMPRESSION_ + + LONDON + T. FISHER UNWIN + PATERNOSTER SQUARE + 1900 + + + [_All Rights reserved_] + + + + +PREFATORY NOTE + + +With exception of one, that on the poems of Mr Blunt, all these essays +have previously appeared in _The Fortnightly Review_, _The Nineteenth +Century Review_, or the _Nuova Antologia_. The two published in _The +Nuova Antologia_ were written by me in Italian. I have now turned them +into English myself. The article on D'Annunzio, in the _Fortnightly_, +was the first ever printed in English on a writer who is now well known +to all. I do not think that he has, since it was published, created +anything equal to the _Trionfo_. The character of his genius is not +adapted to the theatre, to which he now chiefly devotes himself. It will +be interesting to see if it can be adapted to political life, which has +lately tempted him. Perhaps he may become a new Rienzi. One is greatly +needed in Italy. + +OUIDA. + + + + +CONTENTS + + +I. GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO + +II. GEORGES DARIEN + +III. THE ITALIAN NOVELS OF MARION CRAWFORD + +IV. LE SECRET DU PRÉCEPTEUR + +V. L'IMPÉRIEUSE BONTÉ + +VI. WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT + +VII. JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN + +VIII. UNWRITTEN LITERARY LAWS + +IX. AUBERON HERBERT + +X. THE UGLINESS OF MODERN LIFE + +XI. THE QUALITY OF MERCY + +XII. THE DECADENCE OF LATIN RACES + +XIII. ALMA VENIESIA + + + + +CRITICAL STUDIES + + + + +I + +GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO + + +In the world of letters the name of Gabriele d'Annunzio is now famous. +There is no cultured society which does not know something at least of +the author of the _Innocente_ and the _Trionfo_, and is not aware that, +in him, one of the ablest and most delicate of living critics believes +that he has seen the personification of a renascence of Latin genius. +Imprisoned as his novels were in the limits of a language which, however +great its beauty, is but little known except in its own land, he has +been extraordinarily fortunate in finding such sponsors in the outside +world as he has obtained in M. Herelle, in René Doumic, and in the +Vicomte de Vogüé. Never has any romance been so admirably heralded as +the _Trionfo_ in the _Révue des Deux Mondes_, and never certainly, since +lyre was strung or laurels were woven, was any praise ever heard so +dulcet and so lavish as that with which he, who has been called the +second Chateaubriand, has welcomed and introduced the new Boccaccio. + +The grace and beauty of the style of the Vicomte de Vogüé, and the +culture of his intelligence, have gained him in literature this name of +the second Chateaubriand. They are both incontestable. But they are apt +to lead his readers away from the consideration of the value of his +literary judgments. He is a critic of exquisite delicacy and fineness, +but also of great enthusiasms, and these enthusiasms are at times much +stronger than his judgment and overpower it. What he admires he admires +_toto corde_, and is apt to lose in this generous ardour his power of +selection, his accuracy of appraisement. + +This fact has been always conspicuous in all his writings on Pasteur, +and it has been equally conspicuous in the unmeasured idolatry with +which he has dipped his pen in all the honey of Hymettus to sing the +praises of the man he loves. But this adoption of D'Annunzio into French +literature has, with its incontestable advantages, equal penalties and +disadvantages for the author; for one reader outside Italy who will read +him in the original text, ten thousand will know him only in the French +version, and twenty thousand will accept De Vogüé's description of his +works without attempting to judge those for themselves. In the French +version the romances gain in certain points; their excessive detail is +abridged, their crudities are softened down, their wearisome analyses +and too frequent obscenities are omitted. The translations of M. Herelle +are, as all must know, admirable in grace and elegance, but, though as +perfect as translations which are guilty of continual excisions can be, +they fail to render the genius of D'Annunzio as it is to be seen and +felt by those who read the works in the original tongue. In the French +version they are much milder, much more tempered, much less unbridled, +and much less cynically nude; but they are also much less vigorous, +virile, impassioned, and furiously scornful. Many fine passages have +been esteemed _longueurs_, and have been omitted altogether, and entire +chapters have been sacrificed to the exigencies of taste or of space. + +In the French edition of the _Trionfo_, nearly the whole book, entitled +_La Vita Nuova_, containing the pilgrimage to Casalbordino is omitted. +But without perusal of this marvellous reproduction of a scene of +Italian fanaticism and frenzy, and of similar portions of his works, it +is impossible to estimate fully the real D'Annunzio, and judge of his +magnificent powers of observation and description, as well as of his +incessant search for what is loathsome, his cruel exultation in his +examination of physical diseases and moral leprosies. + +I know not why this pilgrimage was rejected, for it is not more indecent +than other portions of the book, and it is singularly true to certain +phases of Italian life, in which all the Paganism bred in the blood and +bone of the people is displayed, mixed with the ferocity of Christian +bigotry. Let me here translate the opening of it:-- + + 'It was a marvellous and terrible spectacle, unexpected, unlike + any other assemblage of men and things, composed of mixtures so + diverse, cruel and strange, that it eclipsed the most dreadful + visions of a nightmare. All the hideousness of the eternal + idiot, all the filthiness of vice and its stupidities, all the + spasms and deformities of baptized flesh, all the tears of + penitence, all the laughter of license; the mania, the + cupidity, the craft, the lust, the fraud, the imbecility, the + silent desperation, the sacred choruses, the howls of the + possessed, the shouts of the ambulatory vendors, the clanging + of the bells, the squeal of the trumpets, the lowing, the + neighing, the bleating; the fires crackling under the + cauldrons, the heaps of fruits and sweetmeats, the display of + utensils, of stuffs, of arms, of jewels, of rosaries; the + obscene capers of the dancers, the convulsions of the + epileptic, the blows of the quarrelsome, the rush of flying, + frightened thieves through the crowd; the supreme froth of + corruption poured forth from the filthy lanes of remote cities, + and showered out on to an ignorant and astounded multitude, + like horseflies on the flanks of beasts, shoals of parasites + descended on a compact mass incapable of defending itself, all + the base temptations of brutal appetites, all the treacheries + playing on simplicity and stupidity, all the charlatanisms and + the effronteries bared in full daylight; all the opposing + contrasts were there, boiling and effervescing, around the + House of the Virgin.' + +What strength is here? What admirable choice of descriptive phrase, and +truth of design, as in a Callot or Hogarth! what sense conveyed of +press, of haste, of noise, of confusion, of stench, of uproar! We live +in this crowd as we read. + +De Vogüé asserts that the indecency of D'Annunzio is never 'polisonne ou +grivoise'; that it is never vulgar, although it is unbridled. He admits +the preference for the unclean, which almost amounts, indeed, to an +hallucination, but he urges that in D'Annunzio it is always redeemed by +art. + +'A Rabelais, a Boccaccio, a Loti, or a D'Annunzio, give expression to a +certain temperament, with the artistic resources which that temperament +imposes on them,' writes De Vogüé, in his celebrated criticism,[1] 'they +have nothing in common with tradesmen, who painfully produce the filth +demanded by a publisher and a certain public. An abyss separates the +former from the latter writers. This difference between them which our +judgment perceives, we do not show by critical demonstration; our taste +is conscious of it as our eyes distinguish a flower, venomous perhaps, +but natural, from an artificial flower coloured by poisonous dyes.' + +[Footnote 1: _Révue des Deux Mondes_, 1^re janvier 1895.] + +Now, in this passage there is much truth, but it is not equally true +that D'Annunzio is at no time to be placed in the lower class. There is +too frequently in his indecency a strain, an effort, a mannerism, an +extravagance, sought, and unnecessary. The reader, if he desires to +understand what I mean by this, can turn to page 320 in the _Trionfo_, +or to Chapter X., in the _Piacere_ (Italian version), in which there are +ingenuities of indecency introduced which have no relation whatever to +the narrative, nor any obligation to appear. + +What is, I think, more offensive to taste, and more injurious to art +than any sensual excess in description, is mere nastiness, mere filth; +and of this D'Annunzio is as guilty as Zola is, and as Zola has been, +always. + +De Vogüé may pour out his scorn as he will on the _industriel_ who +composed _La Bête Humaine_, and may cover with the roses and lilies of +his exquisite garlands of praise the creator of the _Trionfo_, the fact +remains that the Satyr shows his cloven hoof as much in one as in the +other; and the motives which move either of the writers we have no right +to condemn or to appraise, for the entrance into personal motive is +surely an intrusion which should never be attempted. + +We may, nevertheless, suggest as probable that, however dissimilar be +their atmosphere and circumstances, both Zola and D'Annunzio have been +moved to study chiefly what is called immoral, and prurient, by a +sincere desire to reach to the very depths of human nature, to shrink +from no investigation, to deny no evidence, and to protest against the +hypocrisy with which literary art has so frequently covered its eyes and +turned away from the truth. 'Let us study life alone,' says D'Annunzio, +as Zola said it; and if he seek life in its corruption, coming upon the +corpse of putrid pleasure as the gay riders in the Campo Santo of Pisa +check their startled steeds before the open biers, he does no more, and +no less, offend art than Zola offends it in _Nana_. + +Indeed, so little is De Vogüé's statement in this matter justified, that +almost every Italian who has read D'Annunzio's works will, in speaking +of him, regret his incessant recurrence to obscenity. Not from prudery, +for Italians are never prudes, but from an artistic sense, that this +perpetually intruded indecency is an error in taste, and becomes quite +as tiresome as any other form of perpetual repetition. + +The most conspicuous error of modern literature is, beyond doubt, its +verbiage. It has completely forgotten the great canon of 'Ars est celare +artem'; the supreme ability of conveying immeasurable suggestion in a +mere word, in concentrating all the music of the soul in one brief note. +All the arts err at this epoch in the same manner; literature has the +common malady; it is prolix. The indecencies of D'Annunzio, like his +other descriptions, are prolix; and the prolixity is not redeemed by the +indecency, nor the indecency by the prolixity. + +This tendency of redundancy is not his fault alone; it is that of his +time. The enormous canvases and numerous figures of modern paintings, +the crowded groups and tortured attitudes of modern sculpture, the +elaborate scenic effects, and mechanical appliances, and endless acts, +of modern opera and drama, are all forms of the same malady of +repetition; of ignorance of how, and when, to break the laurel bough +before it withers; of lack of skill to master the subtleties of +concentration and suggestion. The descriptions of the modern writer are +frequently mere inventories; they are painfully minute; they are like a +mosaic, in which millions of little cubes are grouped to make a whole. +As before a modern painting we are often unimpressed by the whole, but +struck by the dexterity of the brush-work, so in modern literature we +are little interested in the conception, but allured by the dexterity of +the treatment. Too frequently, unappily, this multiplicity of words +covers a sad poverty of ideas. But in D'Annunzio's works there is not a +page without ideas; ideas which may displease or may disgust the reader +at times, but which are, nevertheless, always worthy to arrest +attention, even when they are only studies of depravity. + +D'Annunzio is a greater writer than Zola, not because he has emulated or +surpassed Zola's indecencies, but because he is what Zola never was--a +scholar and a poet. His culture is of the most varied and classical +kind, profound as well as brilliant; and his poetic powers were shown in +his sonnets and lyrics before he wrote his romances. Zola is no scholar, +and is not, either in temperament or expression, a poet. It would be +impossible to conceive him creating such a poem as the _Villa Chigi_ or +the _Riccordi di Ripetta_ of D'Annunzio. There are passages in Zola's +works, notably in _La Terre_, which are, I think, as great as it is +possible for prose to be, but they are never touched by any poetry of +phrase or feeling. + +Also, when De Vogüé states that the indecency of D'Annunzio is not +indecency because the Italian language is never indecent, and alleges +that what would be insupportable in any other tongue is possible in +Italian, because Italian enjoys the privilege which pertained to its +mother, Latin, _i.e._, to say with grace and impunity what in any other +tongue would disgust the hearer, he says what is absolutely untrue; and +one can only wonder if he knows anything of the Italian of the streets, +of the fields, of the wine-houses, of the popular theatres. In this +affirmation, as in others, he has imagined what he says to be the fact, +and founded on the fabrications of his imagination a positive statement. +It is a frequent habit with him, and makes the weakness of his arguments +in many instances, on other themes than this. + +We know that Italian is heard only occasionally by him during his visits +to Italy, and is then heard by him only in its polished speech. To those +by whom it is heard every day, as spoken by all classes, it certainly +possesses nothing of this privilege which he claims for it. It can be, +on the contrary, very coarse and crude; it has none of the subtleties +and graces, and delicate gradations of French: it calls a spade a spade +with the rudest frankness; and its curses are of an appalling ferocity +and filthiness. + +Nor can it be said that D'Annunzio ever tries to give it delicacy or +veiled suggestion; his language is as broad and as gross as that of Ovid +or Catullus. He never allows the smallest doubt about his meaning to +exist at any time; and he is most especially explicit when treating of +those subjects which in modern literature are generally considered +forbidden. Indeed, this anxiety to paint the brothel and the madhouse as +carefully and minutely as the miniaturist paints on the ivory, leads to +his great defect, over-elaboration. He does not trust enough to the +power of suggestion, which is so strong in a great writer over the mind +of a reader. He does not remember that half a chord may fill the ear +with melody, and that a hint may rouse the senses to nausea or to +desire. + +Paradoxical as it may appear to say so, I think his wide culture has +injured his style. I think he would have been a greater Italian writer +if he had known no language save Italian and, of course, Latin and +Greek. + +The extreme culture and over-variety of modern education tends to +destroy, or at least disturb, originality; it encumbers the mind under +too vast a load of riches, it enlightens, but it also obstructs; if +Shakespeare had been less ignorant he might, perhaps, have been also +less great. + +Foreign influence is not beneficial to the Italian. It makes him unreal; +it makes him lose his charming natural grace and abandonment, it renders +him artificial; he never really becomes what is implied by the word +cosmopolitan (such a cosmopolitan as Lord Dufferin or the late Prince +Lobanoff), and he does lose much of his own national qualities. It is +very rarely that an Italian can, like the late lamented scholar Enrico +Nencioni, steep his mind deeply in all the riches of foreign literature +without in the least losing his own Italian individuality. D'Annunzio, +on the contrary, allows himself to be absorbed and assimilated by +foreign influences, to be dominated by them, to so great an extent +indeed that his style is frequently bastardised by them, and many of his +sentences read as though they were translations from foreign sources. He +claims to have greatly embellished and amplified the Italian language; +he has certainly rendered it more colloquial and more copious; but he +has often grafted foreign idioms upon it, and he has perhaps robbed it +of some of its dignity and grace. He considers that the artist should +always remodel the instrument he uses; but the figure will not hold good +in other arts, for Sarasate does not carve the shell of his violin, +Clausen does not weave the canvas he uses, Bartolomé does not blast the +marble out of the hill-side. The writer should use the language he +writes in as it comes pure from its natural springs; he will but +contaminate it if he pour into it alien streams. + +D'Annunzio would probably protest that the patchwork effects of the +foreign languages he introduces, do but correctly represent the mixture +of tongues common in our days in those phases of life which pass under +the generic name of society. In such protest there would, no doubt, be +truth; but it could only apply to certain social scenes in the +_Piacere_, and my objection is less to the introduction of foreign +phrases directly than it is to the foreign complexion and contour which +he so frequently gives to his own language; a fault never before him +known in an Italian writer. Many of his phrases are of foreign +construction. But he is not on that account a plagiarist, as has been +said of him; he is never a plagiarist, but is a too highly educated, and +a too sensitively susceptible, mental organisation. The mean charge of +plagiarism is one so easy to bring and so difficult to refute, that it +is cast by envy and inferiority at all those whose genius, like that of +D'Annunzio, is proud, passionate, and defiant of criticism. That which +has in it the elements of true greatness has always these pellets of mud +thrown at it. In some ways, on the contrary, he seems to seek an +exaggeration of original idiosyncrasies, and to no writer would +conscious imitation be more odious or impossible. + +There is unhappily, in all his works, an absolute absence of wit, of +mirth, of humour. There is not a laugh, scarcely even a smile, in any +of his pages; if we except the cruel laughter of a lover at his +mistress's physical defects. Over all his genius there broods that +'green melancholy,' which is the too-common hue of modern thought, that +dull greyness of death which has spread from the laboratories of science +over all the worlds of literature. Not only is no joyous laugh ever +heard, there is not even the indulgent smile which relieves melancholy +and bitterness in many writers whose views of life are gloomy. Nowhere +is this more seen than in the almost savage cruelty with which the poor +old _dévote_, Gioconda Aurispa, is drawn; the merciless description of +her senile love of sweetmeats, of her disappointment when her nephew +forgets to bring them, of her expectant eyes, 'almost impudent in their +entreaty,' of her short breath with its foetid odour, of her tottering +steps amongst her flowers; all is cruel, merciless, without a grain of +pity or of sympathy to redeem its biting satire of so feeble and +harmless a creature. + +Compare with such treatment the exquisite tenderness of Pierre Loti's +Tante Claire, think with how gentle a respect Thackeray drew the death +of an old man, remember the touch with which Maupassant makes us akin +even to poor Boule de Suiffe. Tragedy is not necessarily cruelty, nor +accuracy necessarily brutality. Shakespeare makes us indignant for Lear +and sharers in his sorrows; but D'Annunzio would concentrate our +thoughts only on his ridiculous thin hair blown by the winter winds, the +tremor of his toothless jaws, and palsy of his bent, unsteady limbs. In +the highest art there is always pity because there is always +comprehension. D'Annunzio has as yet no more pity than the demonstrator +in a physiological amphitheatre. But it is not impossible that such pity +may come to him later on, for pity is rarely a passion of youth; it is +usually the fruit of reflection, comparison, realisation of what is +alien and impersonal. That sense which he already feels of the inner +life of all things cannot leave him for ever insensible to the +sufferings of that life. + +At present he is absorbed in the sensual ecstasies of early manhood, and +the fumes of voluptuous delights obscure his sight to much else which +surrounds him, and which finds him callous and negligent of it. De Vogüé +sees in him the leader of a new school, but there is as yet little that +is new in his manner of judging life. It is the manner of _Le Disciple_, +though touched with warmer tones, and placed in richer landscapes, and +vibrating with stronger passions, because Italian in scene and in +temper. + +If ever there be a true Latin renascence, which is scarcely to be hoped +for, it will come, not from a writer who is saturated with French, +Russian, German, and English influences, but one who has the Latin +genius, the Latin temper, unalloyed. But does this now exist anywhere? +If it do, it is in remote mountain sides and by lonely lake waters, not +in clubhouses and on racecourses. Such a writer will more probably come, +if he come at all, from the extreme south than from the north, perhaps +even from the great and almost virgin island of the west. In the dense +cork woods and on the desolate shores of Sardinia, a Salvator Rosa of +literature might well be begotten, for there is also there a companion +whom the Muses fear not--Misery. + +I imagine that De Vogüé does not know much of the popular songs of the +south and the west of Italy. I venture to think that in those +_stornelli_, _cantileni_ _rispetti_, and the rest, there is more of the +genuine spirit of the Italian soil than in any of the works hitherto +written by D'Annunzio, because, despite their intensity of passion, they +are full of a pure poetical beauty and an idealised tenderness, which in +his pictures of love are absent. + +Even in the views which De Vogüé holds of the characters of these +romances, there seems frequently a curious misconstruction of their +salient points. For instance, he sees in the tragedy, with which the +_Trionfo_ closes, the fact that Aurispa loved so intensely that he felt +impelled to destroy what he possessed, as the only absolute means of +fully possessing it. But I do not see this. I see in Aurispa a young man +habitually self-indulgent and constitutionally feeble; who gradually +passes from frantic adoration of a woman possessed, to the nausea which +so frequently follows on such possession. The proof of this lies in the +cruel cynical criticism with which he discovers and enumerates her +physical and mental defects, with which he views the deformity of her +feet as they push the warm sand of the beach to and fro, and with which +he realises the growing disgust which she awakes in him physically and +morally. He feels that he can neither live with her, nor live without +her; that she will be his destroyer in one way or the other; it is in a +frenzy of hatred and of impotence that he seizes her in his last +embrace, and plunges with her over the cliff, into the starlit depths of +the sea below. To ignore this is to miss the whole meaning of the final +act, and the absolute veracity of the whole work. + +I have seen such physical jealousy in the man of feeble health of the +vigorous strength of the woman whom he loved, and there is no form of +jealousy more cruel or more incurable, and it is likely to become +frequent in modern life, which develops the physical strength and social +liberties of the female to so vast an extent. This is a painful fact, +but it is one which cannot be disputed. Go wherever a crowd of both +sexes congregate, and there you will see an Ippolita in all her splendid +vitality and magnificent growth, and beside her, nine times out of ten, +there will be a Giorgio Aurispa, small, frail, half-blind, pallid, +bloodless, beardless, sickly, and prematurely decrepit. + +I should myself have preferred to trace the destroying influence of +sensual passion eating its way gradually into the health and strength of +a complete masculine sanity, and of a robust masculine health, like +aquafortis biting into a copper plate. Aurispa is already mentally +diseased before the fateful day on which he sees Ippolita in the dusk of +the chapel in Rome. He views all things animate and inanimate, human and +animal, real and ideal, through that distorted medium which the mentally +deformed habitually see through as through a convex and smoked glass. He +is more than feeble, he is not sane. If he had not sought death on +account of his mistress, he would have done so because Demetrius Aurispa +had died before by his own hand; or for some other reason which in his +cerebral condition would have seemed to him imperative and irresistible, +as imaginary conditions do seem to those not sane. + +We are told throughout the book to realise this extreme weakness, +physical and moral, which ultimately drives him to destroy himself and +her. + + '"You love life?" he murmured, with a veiled bitterness. + + '"Yes, life delights me," she answered, almost with vehemence. + + 'She had, in her voice, in her attitude, in all her person, a + brightness of unusual joy and pleasure. She had in her whole + aspect that satisfaction which the living creature only feels + in those hours when life runs harmoniously in all its currents, + in which there is a perfect balance in all the vital forces in + accord with the favour and fairness of all surrounding + circumstances. As in other similar moments, her whole being + seemed to unclose in the freshness of the sea air, in the + coolness of the summer evening, like one of those magnificent + night-blooming flowers which only open the heart of their + petals as the sun passes and sets.' + +This is one of the innumerable beautiful images in which D'Annunzio +excels, and nothing can surely be finer of its kind than the whole +passage which I have quoted. But it clearly proves, especially if +compared with its context, that the passion which Aurispa once felt for +her had now become a furious envy of her more abounding life, of her +perennial and indestructible capacity of enjoyment. + +And that night, indeed, he kills her, not from excess of love, but from +envy of her exultant and exuberant vitality and hatred of its contrast +to his own impotence; from the sense, as I have said, that he could +neither live with her nor without her. In this, D'Annunzio has linked +cause and effect with excellent precision. Every minutia of feeling +described is correctly described, and such feeling is made to arise from +a natural source, precisely as dislike follows on satiety in real life. +But very frequently there is no such natural connection in his treatment +of circumstance and character. + +The _Trionfo_ is admirably balanced from its opening to its closing +pages; and the tragedy on the Pincio, with which the work opens, +fittingly and perfectly strikes the keynote of the whole, and the +_motif_ of the opera is suggested in the overture. But in the other +romances there is too often a want of unison between the action +described and its motives or sources. There is, at times, even an +absolute lack of any rational cause at all; so that, in some degree, all +his characters have in them more or less of the irresponsibility and +unconnectedness of the insane. He leaves too much unexplained; too many +actions motiveless; too many portraits floating indistinct like the +night and river studies of Whistler. It is curious that this vagueness, +this uncertainty and obscurity, should exist in one who is on the other +hand so frequently and wearisomely minute in microscopic details. He +constantly calls on us to believe what he gives us no data for +believing. Even in the _Trionfo_ he constantly introduces persons and +incidents having no connection with the narrative. The whole family of +Giorgio, the whole action passing at Guardiagrele, so elaborately +painted, lead to nothing; we neither see nor hear of them again; neither +they nor Guardiagrele ever enter his pages any more; and the momentous +scene with Giorgio's father leads to nothing, but ends in a blind alley. +Now this is a great fault in composition, and one which disappoints and +irritates the reader. Of Demetrius Aurispa, again, much is made, but +nothing is explained or continued; and his long exposition of one of +Tennyson's poems is as unnecessary as the long disquisition upon Wagner +further on in the book. + +D'Annunzio is so profoundly engrossed in the psychology of his +characters, that he frequently forgets to make their antecedents and +actions consistent or credible. For instance, few women have been drawn +in fiction more lovable, more real, more refined, more profoundly +interesting, or more truly feminine, than Giuliana Hermil, in the +_Innocente_. There is nothing in her character or in her circumstances +which can render it the least probable to us that such a woman as she is +described to be, would have been led into the half-unconscious sensual +impulse which makes her unfaithful to her conjugal vows without the +smallest excuse of passion or temptation. Nor is it conceivable for an +instant that Tullio Hermil, on hearing her confession of this +_inconsapevole_ adultery, would serenely submit to remain in ignorance +of the name of this lover of an hour, merely suspecting who it was from +an inscription found in a novel, and would merely answer with gentle +irony to her apology that the soul had had no share in her undoing! +'_Povera anima!_' he murmurs with an indulgent smile! + +I will not say that this is impossible, for nothing is so in the +relations of the sexes; but it is certainly improbable and incongruous, +since Giuliana is throughout described as the gentlest, most timid, and, +despite the infidelity in which we are asked to believe, the purest of +her sex, submissive to desertion as Griselda, and incapable of an impure +thought. It is contrary to all truth to human nature to make such a +woman err in so common, stupid, and unintelligible a manner, and to make +Tullio Hermil continue under such circumstances to live in the same +house with her until the time of her delivery. + +D'Annunzio has also a total lack of perception when the ridiculous mars +the pathetic. This is a very common defect in his countrymen, and is one +frequently traceable to a want of the humorous faculty. There is +something ridiculous, which goes far to spoil all which is intended to +be tragic in the motive or action of the _Innocente_, in the details +accompanying and explaining its culminating act. The idea of this act is +fine, and the hatred of the man for the child is natural, whilst the +conception and carrying out of the semi-crime are subtle and original. +But the filthy description of the infant (almost identical with that of +the new-born babe in Zola's _Joie de Vivre_) and the perpetual +references to its swaddling clothes, and the tedious profusion of +details with which the subject is elaborated, destroy in the mind of the +reader all sense of pity for the victim, and all blame for the act which +sends it to its grave. One feels that the little squalling, dribbling, +shapeless creature, with its scabby head and cat-like miawling, is much +better destroyed, and this is not the sensation which the author desires +to arouse; he would wish us to feel at once horror at, and compassion +for, Tullio Hermil, but we can feel nothing except a vague contempt for +this helpless young man. Had the semi-murder of it followed immediately +on its birth, or had it been found by him after absence a fair +two-year-old child, with all the rosebud loveliness of that age, this +bathos would have been avoided; and the stealthy sin of its effacement +would have carried in it the force of a powerful tragedy undiminished, +as it actually is, by gross and comic images, which may be realism but +are none the less bathos. It is perfectly natural that Tullio Hermil's +abhorrence of this spurious offspring should grow with every day until +the desire to destroy it becomes at last an over-mastering impulse; but +to make this act tragic, and to awaken that sympathy for the victim +which all true tragedy excites, the latter should be so described that +the heart of the reader should bleed for it when exposed to the icy air +which kills it, and that its martyred infancy should seem fitly lamented +by those echoes of the distant _Novena_, which at the supreme moment +float through all the silent house. + +The _Innocente_ has many passages in its pages of perfect beauty like +this episode of the _Novena_; its defects are due to its author's +incapacity to perceive where the ludicrous damages the pathetic and +destroys the terrible. The writer's artistic instinct moved him to +create a situation unique, and full of the keenest interest, abounding +in opportunity for the analysis of temptations and emotions; and of such +analysis he is a master, if too prolix in his expositions of it. But a +want of the perception which warns us off the line of demarcation +dividing the dramatic from the grotesque, has allowed him to pass this +line, and merge the dramatic in a flood of trivial and commonplace +minutiæ. Nor is it natural that, loathing this new-born bastard as +Tullio Hermil does, he should accompany his brother to invite an old +peasant to be its sponsor. The beauty and simplicity of this passage are +great, but they cannot reconcile us to the improbability of such an +errand. + + 'As we drew near the place where Giovanni de Scordio dwelt, my + brother saw in the field the tall figure of the old man. + + '"Look! There he is. He is sowing. We bring our invitation in a + solemn hour." + + 'We approached. I trembled within myself as though I were about + to commit a profanation. I did indeed profane a thing in itself + sacred and beautiful. I went to solicit the spiritual paternity + of a venerable life for an adulterous creature. + + '"Look at his height," exclaimed Frederigo, pointing to the + sower. "He is no taller than other men, and yet he looks a + giant." + + 'We paused under a tree, and watched the labourer from a + distance. Giovanni had not perceived us. + + 'He came straightway towards us up the field with measured + slowness. He wore a woollen cap, black and green, with two + wings which covered his ears in the ancient fashion. A white + sack hung by a leathern strap from throat to waist, the sack + being full of grain. With his left hand he held the sack open, + with the right he took the grain and scattered it. His gesture + was large, easy, sweeping, moderated to a serene rhythm. The + corn, flying from his hand, shone in the sun like gold dust, + falling with regularity upon the wet furrows. He advanced + slowly, his feet sinking in the moist soil, his head sometimes + lifted to the holiness of the light; all his attitude was + simple, noble, grand. + + * * * * * + + 'We entered the glebe. + + '"Good health, Giovanni," said Frederigo, going up to the old + man. "Be your seed blessed. Be blessed your bread of the + future." + + '"Good health to you," I repeated. + + 'The peasant left off work; he uncovered his head. + + '"Cover yourself, Giovanni, or we also must stand with bare + heads in the sun," said my brother. + + 'The old man put on his cap, confused, almost shy, smiling. + + 'He asked humbly, "Why so much honour?" + + 'I said with a voice which vainly strove to be steady, "I am + come to beg you to hold my son at the baptismal font." + + 'The peasant looked at me astounded, then at my brother. His + embarrassment increased. He murmured: + + '"Why to me so much honour?" + + '"What do you reply?" I asked. + + '"I am thy servant; God render the grace for the honour thou + dost me to-day, and God be praised for the joy that He gives + to my old age. All the benedictions of Heaven rest on thy + son."' + +Nothing can be finer, simpler, more effective than this scene, but when +we are conscious that the son thus spoken of is the spurious offspring +which Tullio Hermil loathes, our sympathies are turned aside by a sense +of incongruity and disgust. We are conscious that the young man would +never have gone on such an errand, never have consecrated by such +expressions the spawn of his wife's incomprehensible and unexplained +amour. It is impossible to bring one's self to believe in any part of +the story of the _Innocente_, strong as the treatment is in realism of a +certain kind, and seductive as is the admirable ease and limpidity of +the narrative, which for smoothness of recital, and wonderful semblance +of being a true narrative of real events, is not surpassed by any +novelist and has been equalled by very few writers indeed. + +In all his works D'Annunzio draws women with exquisite veracity and +skill; and a rare intuition into the workings of their minds and the +beatings of their hearts. Of men he has as yet only drawn one type, +whatever they are called, Sperelli, Aurispa, Cantelmi, Hermil, they are +always the same person: 'touched to fine issues,' steeped in +scholarship, refined, susceptible, voluptuous, but all sick with the +_maladie du siècle_; all infirm from the neurasthenia of too early and +too unbridled self-indulgence. But his women are infinitely more varied +and more intricate. They are wondrous presentments of breathing life. +All the contradictions of feminine nature are portrayed with marvellous +exactitude in the vicious, cruel, and frenzied sensualism of Ippolita, +of which we watch the gradual growth as we watch Vesuvius on a summer +night pass from slumber into fury. With what inimitable dexterity he +makes us conscious of the plebeian grossness underlying her physical +sorcery, the commonness of her base birth seen here and there through +the dazzling sorcery of her attractions; and how natural she is in her +buoyant spirits, in her gay sportiveness, in her rapid changes of mood +and humour, in her mingling of cruelty and compassion! Equally does he +convey to the reader the consciousness of the perfect high breeding in +the _Virgine delle Rocce_, of the three sisters of sorrow, so alike yet +so dissimilar; three figures stepped down from the canvas of the +Veronese, but dimmed by solitude and long neglect. Not less admirably +has he given the delicate distinction and infinite sweetness of the +Siennese, Maria Ferrés (although she is indeed an almost exact +reproduction of Giuliana Hermil), whilst that patrician courtesan Donna +Elena Muti, shameless, lascivious, and conscienceless, is nevertheless +always a high-bred woman. He has incarnated the incomparable charm of +the Italian woman, the most graceful, the most impassioned, the most +seductive woman on earth, although also perhaps the most imperious, +pitiless, and fiercely exacting in her passions. Even Ippolita, vicious +as she is, is 'l'adorable Ippolita,' as De Vogüé calls her, and her +portrait is surely one which will become as precious to future +generations as that of Manon Lescaut is to us. + +I much fear that the only work of his which will become known to the +English public in general will be the _Virgine delle Rocce_, because +(as far as it has gone) it is not indecent. The other works could not be +reproduced in English; and the _Virgine delle Rocce_ unhappily gives no +just measure of the talent and strength of the writer. At present it is +but the first of a triune romance of which the two latter parts are as +yet unpublished. It is the cleanest, the simplest, and the most romantic +of his works, but it will probably be caviare to the crowd, and it +wholly lacks the great qualities of its predecessors. It is not +well-constructed like the _Innocente_, it is not daring and intense like +the _Trionfo_; it is not brilliant like _Il Piacere_; it is rambling, +and vague, and shadowy, and it is difficult to collect the threads of +the narrative. It is published in a fragment, which is always an unwise +method of publication, but it is to be feared that when entire it will +never equal the _Innocente_ or the _Trionfo_. Indeed when severed from +the theme of sensual psychology D'Annunzio loses in strength and in +colour; he becomes desultory, almost indifferent; and wanders through +his own garden of romance with little interest in it, much as in this +latest story his own Oddo and Antonello stray through the ruins of +Linturno and drift through the water-lilies of the lonely stream. + +But this story, defective though it be, has a great charm for those +conversant with certain phases of Italian life. I have known just such a +grand old palace in the solitude of a deserted country, just such young +daughters growing up in stately poverty and perpetual joylessness; just +such paternal obsession in clinging to ruined thrones and perished +faiths; just such an interminable sequence of colourless, uninterested, +imprisoned days where the life is the life of the Lady of Shalott, and +no eyes are lifted to see that the almond-trees are in flower. + +Every page of this short book, which Frederic Leighton would have +delighted to illustrate, is impressed with Italian verity of a kind +which few foreigners have ever occasion to verify. The vast stone stairs +of the approach, the huge dim archways, the great fountains where the +stone Tritons spout and the ghosts rise with the spray in the moonlight +of midnight, the dry fish-ponds full of odorous plants self sown, the +neglected, wild, beautiful, fragrant gardens, the immense halls and +chambers frescoed, water-gilt, marble-encrusted; the silent corridors, +the ceilings lofty as the cupolas of cathedrals, the fading tapestries, +the soft grey dust, the abandonment, the poverty, the stateliness, the +infinite pathos and charm of this splendour, 'which dies so slowly +because born of true art and of what was once an heroic nobility.' All +these are portrayed with perfect fidelity in this strange and too slight +story of the three daughters of the fallen House of Montega, and no less +true to the facts of Italian life is the destiny which weighs upon them, +the insanity which dwells amongst them in the person of their mother, +whom we see living before us as she passes, carried in her perfumed and +painted sedan chair, with her strange fixed regard, her tiara of ebon +hair, her pallid face, her jewelled hands. Madness is a frequent malady +in Italy, and few noble families are without some insane member. The +afflicted person is usually kept in his or her apartments in the palace, +or in one of the villas of the family, and is courteously inquired for +by all visitors as Claudio in this story asks after the health of Donna +Aldoina. Italians are usually kind to their insane relatives and not at +all ashamed of them, but _il pazzo_ or _la pazza_ lends a weird +fantastic gloom to the ancient and stately houses which saw their birth, +and shelter their infirmity, and will hold their coffins in their +crypts. + +Possibly there seems more to me in this story than there actually is, +because I know so well the tenor of the life therein depicted; and the +absence of all objective interest, of all care for nature and for art, +of all perception of the consolations to be found in both, which render +that life so much more barren than it need be. + +D'Annunzio has typified such barrenness of thought, such narrowness of +horizon, in the family which dwells in the grand old villa of Tregento, +and many a time he must, no doubt, with his own mind filled by classic +memories, and knowledge of the arts, and touched to impassioned +appreciation of all natural beauty, have suffered acutely from the +apathy, ignorance, and unconscious self-absorption of such a domestic +atmosphere. He has no doubt constantly been met with the incapacity to +understand, the wonder of ignorance, the blank dulness of unopened +minds, such as he suggests in the following passage:-- + + 'We were near Rebursa. The rocky chain, with its sharp and + broken peaks turned to the right following the winding Saurgo, + rising tier on tier towards the massive summit of Mount Caran. + On the left of the road, the soil was smooth and undulating + like the large dunes of a seashore, becoming further off a + succession of hills, tawny and humped like camels of the + desert. + + '"Look, look!" I cried, seeing another silver cloud of blossom. + "Can you not see it, Antonello?" + + 'He did not look at the almond trees with my eyes; he looked, + but with a faint smile, wondering probably at the childlike joy + awakened in me at the sight of the first flowers. Yet, what + fairer spectacle could this rude and stony country offer to us? + + '"If my sisters only were here!" cried Oddo, to whom my + pleasure communicated itself. "Oh, if they were here!" + + 'His voice was full of regret. + + '"They need to be brought where flowers bloom," said Antonello, + softly. + + '"Look, look!" I cried again, giving myself up to my delight + with fuller ease, now that I saw some reflection of it at least + awakened in these poor shut souls. "I am glad these flowers are + mine, Oddo." + + '"My sisters must come to them," sighed Antonello, like one who + speaks in a dream of sleep. + + 'It seemed as if his feverish eyes refreshed themselves with + that vision of things so pure.... + + 'They both looked at me, somewhat confused, faintly smiling, as + if they had been brought unexpectedly before some extraordinary + sight which stupefied them, yet filled them with delicious + sensations. They had shown me their malady, had revealed to me + their suffering, had spoken to me of that melancholy prison + whence they had come and whither they would return; and I, on + the common highway open to all, had invited them to recognise + and celebrate the spring--the spring which they had both + forgotten, which they seemed to see now for the first time + after many years, which they gazed at with a mingling of fear + and joy as at a miracle.' + +Is not this delicate in expression as the sprays of the almond blossoms +themselves? + +An Italian scholar, in writing to me to-day, does indeed say with +considerable accuracy that the affectation in the style of D'Annunzio +takes from it its freedom and sincerity, that when he is writing of +almond boughs and nightingales he does not give us the impression that +these things are dear to him, but rather that he is endeavouring to say +the most beautiful things he can think of about them. 'His style,' says +my Italian correspondent, 'is the one occupation of his life, the one +absorbing interest of his work; he cares but little for nature or for +human nature, except as these are strings to his lyre.' This is in a +great measure a correct, if a too severe, censure. There is in him +nothing of that genuine emotion which wells up in the heart of Pierre +Loti as he writes; D'Annunzio is always outside that which he describes; +there is in him much of the virtuoso; he reminds me of a friend of mine, +a London celebrity, who once invited a party of artists to see a fine +work of art in his London house. When the curtain was drawn aside, the +work of art was found to be a young nude woman, of singularly beautiful +proportions, extended on a rug of black bear-skins to set off the ambers +and ivories and blue-vein traceries of her skin. D'Annunzio stretches +his subject thus bare before him in a well-adjusted light, and calls the +world to see: for the subject he has no compassion. This _preciosità_ +(Anglicè, affectation) is still more apparent in his prefaces than in +his works which they precede. These prefaces are long, elaborate, ornate +disquisitions, with much of the euphuism of pedantic scholarship; and +when in the preface to the _Trionfo_ the author claims that this +licentious romance is intended to hasten and welcome the coming of the +Uebermensch, it is impossible not to smile at such a pretension, and, as +even De Vogüé admits, at this point we are driven to sigh for the return +of the _mandolinata_. He confirms the justice of a charge of +_preciosità_ himself in his introduction to _Il Piacere_, in which he +speaks of 'the long and grave fatigue, the disgust which follows the +painful and capricious artifices of style.' This is not the language of +a true artist, for in the beauties and intricacies of style which should +all have one aim--simplicity--the writer who is a true artist finds the +same intimate satisfaction as the musician, the painter, the sculptor, +each finds in the pursuit of his art. In style is the _sfogo_ of the +writer's procreative passion. It should bring with it neither fatigue +nor disgust, but the serene joys of a satisfied desire. + +However, apart from this fault of _preciosità_ which De Vogüé does not +appear to have perceived, but which seems to many Italians +incontestable, the style of D'Annunzio is very fine; finest of all when +it is spent on the portraiture of natural scenes, and of characters +unhampered by conventionality. Read this brief episode of the simplest +kind; how alive with actuality it is! It is taken from the earlier part +of the residence of Aurispa and Ippolita at the Hermitage. + + 'Hearing a rattle of plates, he asked, "Are you hungry?" And + the question suggested by the little homely sound, put eagerly, + with childlike insistence, made Ippolita smile. + + '"Yes, a little," she answered, smiling; and both of them + looked at the table ready spread under the oak tree. In a few + minutes more their dinner was ready. + + '"You must be content with what there is," said Giorgio. "It is + very humble fare." + + '"Oh, I should be satisfied with herbs." + + 'And with a gay air she drew near the table, examined curiously + the tablecloth, the silver, the glass, the plates, finding + everything charming, delighted like a child with the blue + flowers which ornamented the fine white pottery. + + '"Everything delights me here!" + + 'She bent over the big, round loaf, which was still warm under + its golden and crisp crust. + + '"Ah! what a good smell it has!" And, as if impelled by her + childlike joy in the fresh bread, she broke off a piece of its + crust. + + '"What good bread!" + + 'Her strong, white teeth shone as they bit and closed, and all + the movements of her curving lip expressed the pleasure which + she felt; and from her whole person there seemed to emanate a + rare, fresh grace, which attracted and amazed her lover with a + new and unexpected charm. + + '"Oh, how good! Taste, how good it is!"' + +What can be more graphic, more simple, more radiant, than this picture +painted in words so few? + +Take this landscape, so true to the scenery of the Veneto:-- + + 'It was afternoon. He explored the winding paths which went, + now up, now down, leading towards the point of the Penna, on + the seashore. He looked before him and around him with + curiosity, but, perhaps, with some forced attention, as if he + wished to understand obscure meanings hidden in these simple + scenes, to wrest from them some unseizable secret. Rising in + the heart of these hills of the coast the water of a brook, + directed by a homely aqueduct made of hollowed trees, crossed + the low-lying land between the two slopes. Other little + rivulets were caught and guided by concave tiles to water the + tilled earth grown with rich vegetation, and above these + streams, ever bright and rippling, there leaned some beautiful + purple flowers;[2] all these humble things seemed to him + pregnant with profound life. All the merry waters ran down + along the incline towards the pebbly beach, and passed under a + little bridge. In the shadow of its arch some women were + washing linen, and their gestures were mirrored in the stream. + On the shingle other linen was already outspread, whitening in + the sun. Along the path a man walked with bare feet, carrying + his shoes swinging in his hand. Two children, laden with linen, + ran along laughing and playing. An old woman hung up on a line + a blue mattress. + + 'On the edge of the path there were little white shells, out of + them frail tentacles trembled and stretched to the light. From + a rock above hung twisted dead roots like entwined snakes. + Farther on there was a large peasant's house, bearing on the + summit of its roof a floral ornament in clay. An outside + staircase led up to a covered terrace. Two women sat spinning + at the head of the stair, and the flax shone in the sun like + gold. You could hear the wheels turn. By a window sat another, + weaving; you could see her rhythmical gestures in moving the + shuttle. In the courtyard a huge grey ox was lying down; he + shook his ears and moved his tail faintly but incessantly in + war against the flies. The cocks and hens cackled and crowed + around him. Farther on still another little river crossed the + road; it laughed aloud, crisp, mirthful, vivid, limpid. + + 'Near another farmhouse a thick bay hedge shut in an orchard. + The straight, shining stems rose immovable, crowned with their + glistening foliage. One of the bay trees was enveloped in the + embrace of a clematis, which lovingly conquered the martial bay + with her blossoms of snow, the veil of her nuptial freshness. + Underneath, the earth was dewy and fragrant. In an angle a + black cross leaned over the hedge, the silence had the resigned + sadness of a graveyard. At the end of a line there arose a + flight of steps, half in shade, half in sunshine; they led to a + door standing half open, protected by two branches of olive + hung from its rustic architrave. On the lowest step sat an old + man asleep, his head uncovered, his chin on his breast, his + hands on his knees; the light touched his aged brow. From the + half-open door there came, to soothe his senile sleep, the + cadence of a rocking cradle, the rise and fall of a murmured + lullaby.' + +[Footnote 2: Campanulas, spotted orchis, or foxglove, I suppose. It it +characteristic of him that he sighs for an 'unseizable secret,' and does +not take the trouble to learn the names of the flowers he sees.] + +What can be more true or more beautiful than this? Mark the contrast of +the old man sleeping on the stone steps, with the young mother, unseen +within, singing _sotto voce_ her cradle song. In totally different style +and tone take these few lines on Orvieto:-- + + 'A rock of tufa hanging above a melancholy valley; a city so + silent that it seems empty: the windows are closed, in the grey + lanes grass grows; a capuchin crosses a square; a bishop + descends from a closed carriage before the gate of a hospital; + a tower rises in a white and rainy sky; a clock strikes the + hour slowly; all at once at the end of the street a miracle in + stone--the Cathedral.' + +Is not the city of Luca Signorelli set before you with those few lines? +There is here something far beyond dexterity or ingenuity of style; +there is the poet's, the painter's, power to embrace a world at a +glance, and with a touch set before duller eyes that world in all its +varieties and suggestions, all its past and its present, all its secrets +of the grave and of the future. + +Take again this very different picture:-- + + 'He found the gorse. + + 'On a tableland the thickly-growing gorse had flowered so + densely as to spread a vast golden mantle over all the soil. + Five maidens were gathering the flowers and filling with them + skips and baskets, singing as they worked. They sang a song of + thirds and fives in perfect harmony. When one of them reached a + special phrase she lifted her whole bust out of the yellow maze + of blossom that the notes might go forth from her throat with + fuller liberty, and held it long sustained in air, looking her + companions in the eyes whilst they applauded with their hands + of flowers. + + 'When they saw the stranger they stopped and bent again over + the gorse. Stifled saucy laughter rippled under the yellow sea. + Giorgio asked,-- + + '"Which of you is Favetta?" + + 'A girl, brown as an olive, raised her head in reply, amazed, + almost terrified: "It is I, sir." + + '"Are you not the finest singer of San Vito?" + + '"No, sir. That is not true." + + '"It is true. It is true!" cried her companions. + + '"Sir! make her sing." + + '"No, sir, it is not true. I cannot sing." + + 'She hid herself, laughing, her face all aflame; she twisted + her apron whilst the others teased her. She was of short + stature but well-formed; her bosom was high and large, swollen + with songs. She had curly hair, dark eyebrows, aquiline + profile; something in her carriage wild and free. After the + first resistance she yielded. + + 'The others, taking her by the arms, held her in their circle. + They were up to their waists in the flowering gorse, whilst + round them the bees were humming. + + 'Favetta began unsteadily, but with each note her voice grew + firmer. It was limpid, liquid, crystal, clear as a water + spring. She sang a couplet and the others sang in chorus a + ritornello. They prolonged the harmonies, putting their mouths + close to form one single vocal flute; the song rose and fell in + the light air with the slow regularity of a litany. + + 'Favetta sang:-- + + '"All the springs are dry, + O poor love of mine! + He dies of thirst. + Where is the water thou broughtest me? + We have brought thee an earthen jar, + But round it is a chain of gold!" + + 'The others sang:-- + + '"Long live Love!" + + 'It was the salutation of May to Passion, pouring from young + breasts, which perchance as yet knew not its sweetness and + perchance never would know its sorrow.' + +Or take the following passage which is as essentially true in its +accurate observation as it is beautiful in its expression. Tullio Hermil +and Giuliana are listening at Villa Lilla to the first songster of that +spring. + + 'The nightingale sang. At first it was like a burst of + melodious glee; a jet of easy trills which fell through the air + like pearls falling on the glass of a harmonium. Then came a + pause. A shake arose, agile, marvellously prolonged, like a + proof of strength, in an impulse of insolence, a challenge to + some unknown rivals. + + 'A second pause. A phrase of three notes with a tone of + interrogation passed on a chain of light variations repeating + the interrogative phrase five or six times, modulated softly + like a slender reed flute on which is played a pastoral. A + third pause: the song becomes elegiac, turns to a minor key, + tender as a sigh; it is almost a groan; it expresses all the + grief of the lonely lover, a heartrending desire; a vain hope; + it flings out a last appeal, improvised, acute as a scream of + anguish: then it ceases. A longer pause, more ominous. Then one + hears a new accent which scarcely seems to come from the same + throat so humble is it, so timid, so slight; it resembles the + twitter of scarce-fledged birds, the chirrup of sparrows; then, + with a miraculous volubility, this noisy note changes into a + breathless song, more and more rapid in its trills, vibrating + in sustained shakes, turning in daring flights of sound, + leaping, growing, bounding, attaining the highest heights of + the soprano. The songster is drunk with his own song. With + pause so brief that one note scarce ceases ere another succeeds + it, he spends his delirium in ever-varied melody, impassioned + and sweet, subdued and ear-piercing, light and grave, now + interrupted by broken sighs, by lament and supplication, now by + impetuous lyrical improvisation and supreme appeal. It seems + that even the gardens are listening, that the sky stoops over + the old tree from whose summit this poet, invisible to mortal + eyes, pours out such floods of eloquence. The flowers breathe + deeply and silently. A yellow glow lingers in the west. This + last lingering glance of the dying day is sad. But a single + star has risen, alone and tremulous like a drop of luminous + dew.' + +He who can write thus is a great writer; and the charm of this passage +is not alone its poetry but its exact truth. The song of the nightingale +varies much in accord with age, with species (for there are two species, +Luscinia Philomela, and Luscinia Major), with climate, with the sense of +security, and the want of security, but the song of a nightingale in its +maturity, who is unalarmed and feels at home in the gardens of his +choice, is precisely such a song as is described in this passage, and is +more completely echoed in it than in the Pastoral Symphony of Beethoven. +This sympathy with the melody of birds is the more singular in +D'Annunzio, because Italians are almost invariably indifferent to such +melody, and snare the divine songster in the net, or shoot him whilst he +shouts his nuptial _Io Triumphe!_ with the most stolid indifference. And +it may, perhaps, be that D'Annunzio does not care for the bird himself +more than the rest of his countrymen, but only cares for his own +eloquence concerning it. It may be said, without risk of injustice to +him, that great tenderness is at no moment found in him. He has not 'the +pathetic fallacy'; but he approaches it very nearly at times. When women +shall have lost for him some of the intensity of their physical charm, +nature in her wider and more profound meanings will, perhaps, become +more visible and more dear to him. Perhaps, however, it will not, for +the Italian is rarely impersonal. + +Something of the affectation to which the delicate taste of my Italian +correspondent justly objects must be admitted to mar, by its +artificiality, the many magnificent pages dedicated by him to the sea. +Magnificent they are, true also, entirely true; but some mannerism there +is in them, some over-intricate embroidery of phrase. The sea he knows +best, and remembers always, is the Adriatic, of which the extreme beauty +of the colour, like the leaves of the silverweed, as wind and sun pass +over the meadows, has always before him been too little noted except, I +may venture to say, by myself. + + 'O, fair, clear seas of September!' he cries in the _Piacere_. + 'The water is calm and innocent as a sleeping child, and lies + outstretched under a pearl-like sky. Sometimes it is all green + of the brilliant and intense green of malachite, and on it the + small rosy sails seem like wandering fires. Sometimes it is all + azure, of an intense blue, like the ultramarine which heralds + use for blazonries, veined with gold like lapis-lazuli, and on + it the painted sails seem like a procession of standards, of + banners, of spears borne on a Catholic holy day. And yet again + at other moments it takes on a metallic gleam, a silvery + paleness, the hues of a ripening lemon, something indefinable + and strange, and on this mystical surface the boats then glide + and fade, and are seen no more as the illumined wings of + cherubim sink into the faint fundamental hues of an old + Giottesque fresco. + + 'The sea was not alone for him a delight for the eyes, but it + was a perennial wave in which he steeped his thirsting + thoughts; a magical fountain of youth in which his body + recovered health and his mind nobility. The sea had for him the + mysterious attraction of a native country, and he abandoned + himself to it with filial confidence, as a weak child in the + arms of an omnipotent father; and he derived consolation from + it, for no one had ever confided his sorrows, his desires, or + his dreams to the ear of the sea in vain.' + +So, we are told by D'Annunzio, thinks Andrea Sperelli, and so thought +also Giorgio Aurispa. But the sea has no permanent power on the soul of +either; the one returns from his contemplations of it to his life of +voluptuous pleasure, and the other drowns both himself and the woman, +whom he has adored to frenzy, in its waves, whilst the dog mourns +'forsaken beneath the olive trees, and the waters murmur softly, rocking +as in a cradle the reflections of the stars.' + +Only once in D'Annunzio's work does genuine and yearning regret, of +which it is impossible to doubt the spontaneity and sincerity, thrill +through him, and move him to intense emotion and unstudied eloquence. It +is when, in the person of Claudio Cantelmo, he speaks in furious +invective of the modern desecration of Rome; in these passages he is +strong without effort, eloquent without study, and veracious alike in +sorrow and in scorn. His invective is poured from his heart's depths, +and thrills with the force of the Latin orators of the ruined Forum. + + 'I have lived several years in Rome; in that third Rome which + should have represented "Love reigning by Latin blood on Latin + soil," and have seen radiant on its heights the wondrous lights + of a new Ideal. I have been witness to its most ignominious + evolutions, to the most obscene unions that have ever + desecrated a sacred place. And I have understood the symbolism + hidden in that act of an Asiatic conqueror, who cast myriads of + human heads in the fountains of Samarcand, when he desired to + create a capital. The wise and cruel tyrant meant to signify + the necessity of merciless destruction in the creation of a new + order of things. + + * * * * * + + 'The ship which bore the Thousand of Marsala only set sail that + the art of exchange and barter should be protected and covered + by the State! + + * * * * * + + 'It was the epoch of the most frenzied fury of the destroyers + and contractors on the site of Rome. With the storms of dust + there were propagated a sort of lunacy of gain, a malignant + delirium, seizing not only on the tradesman and money-lenders, + and the workers in brick and mortar, but also on the elect + heirs of the papal _majorat_, who primarily had looked with + scorn and disgust on the newcomers from the windows of their + palaces of travertine, indestructible under the encrustations + of ages. + + 'The magnificent patrician races founded there, renewed and + strengthened by nepotism, and the strife of opposing houses, + descended and abased themselves one by one, slid down into the + new mud, sank, and vanished. The illustrious riches, amassed + through centuries of gorgeous pillage and Mæcenic luxury, were + thrown into the whirlpool of the speculations of the Bourse. + + 'And around them, on these patrician lawns, where, only the + previous spring, the violets had blossomed more numberless than + the blades of grass, there were now mounds of lime, heaps of + bricks, the wheels of stone-laden carts creaked on the turf, on + the air were the oaths of the drivers, the shouts of the + overseers, while every hour hastened on the brutal work which + was to efface and occupy the sacred soil once dedicated to + Beauty and to Dreams. There passed over Rome a blighting + blizzard of barbarism, menacing all that greatness and + loveliness which were without equals in the memory of the + world. Even the laurels and the rose trees of the Villa + Schiarra, for so many nights of so many summers hymned by their + nightingales, fell destroyed, or remained in their desecration + behind the gates of little gardens parcelled out to the little + cockney boxes of tradesmen. The gigantic Ludovisian cypresses, + those of the Aurora, those which spread the clouds of their + solemn and mystic antiquity above the Olympian brows of Goethe, + were now laid prone in line one after another, with all their + dishonoured roots stretching towards the pallid sky, the black + dishonoured roots which still seemed to hold in their immense + network the web of a life greater than our own. + + 'Even over the box alleys of the Villa Albani, which had seemed + as immortal as their Caryatides and their Hermes, there hung + that shadow of a vandal's ruin. The contagion of destruction + spread everywhere. In the ceaseless combat of gain, in the + savage fury of avaricious greed and passions, in the disordered + haste of commercial activity, every sense of common decency was + forgotten, all respect for the past was trampled under foot. + The struggle for gain was carried on with blind fury, with + neither check nor curb. The pickaxe, the shovel, and the + cunning of fraud were the weapons employed. And week after + week, with incredible velocity, there arose on the violated + earth the huge foolish cages of brick and mortar, pierced with + square holes, surmounted with sham cornices, encrusted with + shameful stucco ornaments. A kind of immense white tumour rose + and spread on the wounded and bleeding side of the great Urbs + and drained away its life. + + 'And then, day after day, at sunset, along the princely avenues + of the Borghese Park, we could see in gorgeous brand-new + equipages the new elect of Fortune, from whom not barber, nor + tailor, nor boot-maker, had power to take away the ignoble + stamp. We could see them pass and repass with the sonorous trot + of their shining bay and brown horses; they were recognisable + at a glance by the insolence of their pose and the awkward + carriage of their rapacious and vulgar hands; and they seemed + to cry aloud,-- + + '"We are the new rulers of Rome. Bow down to us!" + + 'In truth such are its rulers; such the present masters of that + Rome which prophets and poets once likened to the bow of + Ulysses.' + +Often have I myself written similar things, but in me they have been +considered exaggerations. They cannot be so considered in Gabriele +D'Annunzio of Francavilla. + +All who love Rome and loathe her modern violation must thank him from +their hearts for such passages, and must mourn with him that we cannot +drive out the spoilers from our desecrated temples. + +This is, indeed, his greatest strength, that, whilst still a young man, +he yet has the courage to resist the intellectual tendencies of his +contemporaries, to refuse to worship their gods, to see and despise the +falseness of those scientific pretensions which enslave the multitude in +modern life. His intellect, richly stored by learning, is, in a large +measure, free of prejudice. This is a great and rare distinction in a +generation which more completely than any which has preceded it, is the +timid slave of formula and the credulous servant of professional +bigotry. + +He has kept a complete mental liberty; free from the superstitions of +religion, which, in this day, it is easy to be; but also free from the +superstitions of science, which is far harder, and incurs far greater +obloquy and opposition. + +In his study on Giorgione, he says what it needs much courage to say in +these days:-- + + 'The scientific spirit has invaded the generation of the second + half of our century. Struck by the surprising results of + physics and calculation, men were inclined to believe for a + time, that by the aid of the one or the other, they would be + able to penetrate into all mysteries and solve all problems. + But to this proud exaltation has now succeeded a discouragement + mingled with suspicion. They say to themselves, and not without + reason: "Where is this certainty that science promised us?" If + ever certainty were incomplete, deprived of solid criterion, it + is that offered by natural science. As for the sciences called + exact, some, like geometry, repose on a tottering base of + arbitrary affirmations; others, like algebra, on mere methods + of reasoning, and contain as much or as little certainty as the + formula of a syllogism.' + +This is emphatically true; but it is a fact which is by no means +recognised by all, and which is still violently denied by those fanatics +whose form of bigotry is either experimental or exact science. + +The mind of D'Annunzio refuses all bondage. It is a law to itself, as +the mind of the great writer should be. I imagine that the opinion of +him held by others, is to him of the most absolute unimportance. His +teaching is always to preserve the independence of the Ego, to live +without attention to formula or usage, to be, both materially and +spiritually, that which we were created to be by nature. + +His morality is of the most primitive kind; or rather, he has none +whatever, no more than has a South-Sea islander lying in the sun under a +cocoa-nut tree whilst the surf bathes his naked limbs. It would be +absurd to accuse him of immorality because the indulgence of the senses +is as natural and as legitimate in his estimation, as Favetta's song +amongst the golden furze, or the reapers' welcome of the purple wine. +Yet by a not rare anomaly, this demand for perfect freedom of the +passions is accompanied by a tendency to desire tyranny in political +matters. He is disposed to deify force. In one or two expressions there +is an echo of Carlyle which sounds oddly and jarringly amongst the +amorous liberties and artistic debaucheries of the rest; and is not +worthy of a writer who has so much courage in opposing scientific +pharisaism and the thraldom of the schools. He is disposed to admire +what is strong simply because it is strong, forgetful that such strength +is sustained and nourished by the suffering of the weak. It is true that +he has lived in an atmosphere in which the verities embodied in the +aspirations, abortive but always noble, of the higher efforts of +revolution have been received with fear and misunderstanding. The +tendencies and training of the _Codini_ are visible through the +eloquence of the poet and the conclusions of the philosopher. The entire +lack in him of all altruism comes from this. Mazzini must be as +unintelligible to him as Tolstoi. The mass of humanity is always to him +the filthy, surging, bestial multitudes of the crowd at Casalbordino. +But even this absence of benevolence is better than the pitiful +sycophancy of writers who are as fulsome in their flattery to Demos as +to kings; is manlier than the nauseating self-worship of a Humanity at +once its own pimp and pander, its own adorer and assassin. + +In his scorn of the human flocks of sheep, he forgets, I admit, too +entirely the justice to which the humblest unit amongst these flocks has +right, but that scorn, even when misdirected, is fresh and bracing as +the dash of his own Adriatic waves, when the east wind drives them +hurrying on to the shingle beach. He has no fear; and he never stoops to +that base flattery of his own species which is the most nauseous feature +of modern politics and of modern science. + + 'This alone is your office,' he cries to his contemporaries, if + they would resist the debasing influences of their time, + 'defend the dream which is in you. Since in this day mortals no + longer bring tribute of love and honour to the choristers of + the Muses, defend yourselves, O poets, with all your weapons, + steep the point of your rapiers in the most biting poisons. Let + your satires bear such corrosive acid in them that they shall + pierce to the very pith of the spine and destroy it. Brand to + the very bone the stupid forehead of those fools who would mark + every soul with the same label, and make every brain like + another, as the heads of nails are beaten into a common + likeness by the blows of the nailmaker. Let your mordant + laughter reach to heaven when you hear the stablemen of the + Great Beast shouting in the parliaments of the earth.... Defend + the thought which they menace, defend the beauty which they + outrage, defend the antique freedom of your masters and the + future freedom of your disciples, against the insane assaults + of drunken slaves. Despair not, though you be few in number. + You have the supreme force of the world: the written word.' + +The written word is indeed in his hand a scourge, a sword, a sheaf of +arrows from the quiver of the divine Python Slayer. + +And in no country more than in the Italy of his generation is such a +scourge, such a sword, such flame-tipped arrows, needed to slay the +courtiers, the usurers, the sycophants, the knaves, the brutes, the +sellers of justice who fasten like leeches on her body. + +This son of Italy is a great writer; a great poet. Read his works in the +original text all ye who can, men and women for whom life has no secrets +and truth has no terror. + +He is young; the time will come, as it comes to all, when the joys of +the senses will fade for him as the roses of the summer are scattered by +autumn winds. + +Let us hope that there will be later a second period of his creative +art, in which there will be developed an original genius free of exotic +influences, and untrammelled by the search for idioms and pruriencies. +Genius, like the river at its source, takes the colour of the earth it +springs from. It is only when it has reached its full volume, its +deepest currents, that it becomes clear and reflects the sky alone. + +Let us hope that such a future awaits him, and that more and more fully +will he realise what he has already said in noble words:-- + + 'Art! Here is the one faithful passion ever youthful, nay, + immortal; here is the fountain of pure joy unknown to the + multitude; here is the divine food which makes men like to + gods. How could he have stooped to drink at other cups when he + had once tasted of this?[3] How could he have bent to taste of + other joys, once having known this ecstasy? How could his + senses have let themselves be weakened and debased to lowest + lusts when they had once been stirred to that highest + sensibility which beholds the invisible, which touches the + impalpable, which divines the most hidden secrets in the heart + of nature?' + +[Footnote 3: He is writing of Andrea Sperelli in _Il Piacere_.] + +With these words, which are the greatest in meaning that he has hitherto +written, I will, for the present moment, take my leave of him. + + + + +II + +GEORGES DARIEN + + +Of all countries, France remains the land in which it is possible to +tell the most truth. The nation of Montaigne and Molière is always the +first to recognise and award the title of talent to lay bare the +shoulders of her community and use the scourge upon them. If at its +first appearance the strange and terrible revelations contained in the +work entitled _Biribi_ were met by official obstruction and attempted +suppression, the book has conquered them, and has been allowed to carry +the light of its torches into the dark places of military administration +and oppression. In Italy, as in Germany and Austria, it would have been +stopped by fine, exile, and seizure. In Russia it could never have been +issued at all. In England it would have been as costly to the author as +were his issues of Zola to the unhappy and martyrised Vizetelly. In +France alone its pictures of the most terrible facts pass unarrested, by +right of that literary liberty which the _esprit gaulois_ has always +awarded, however much government and law may have been alarmed. + +It has been said that the accusations contained in the works of Georges +Darien are a _Rétrissure à la France_, and as such should never have +been made public by a patriotic writer and a ci-devant soldier. But here +we merely meet again the hackneyed question whether the writer of talent +is bound by patriotism or any other scruple to withhold truth, or +whether he is not rather bound to disclose the truth as he believes it +to be at all costs, whether to himself or to others. It is not necessary +for me to say with which of these opinions I agree. The little which has +been done towards any true progress of the human mind has been done by +the expression of free thought, and by its fearless exposure of evils +protected by the crystallisation of time, usage, and prejudice. Over the +modern world which chatters of liberty, but does not anywhere possess +it, or even know actually what it means, there hang, in heavy and icy +weight, two ever-increasing despotisms: the scientific and the military. +Of the former it is not necessary to treat in these pages; of the latter +the yearly increase throughout Europe, ever since the war of 1870-71, +must alarm every unbiassed thinker, bringing with it, as it does, the +impoverishment of the people, the curse of youth and manhood, the +endless strain of a fiscal burden, so enormous that every class groans +under it, and the perpetual and diseased anxiety in which every nation +lives, suspecting its neighbours, and turn by turn affronting them +insolently and cringing to them obsequiously, according as it is made to +feel the power of its own strength or the weakness of its own +inferiority. Every syllable printed which tends to show the reality of +military tyranny at this moment is valuable, and should be welcomed, +however odious it may be to military authority and government; and +especially valuable when it comes from one who has passed through the +scenes which he depicts, and draws, not from imagination, but from +memory. + +Georges Darien has been the man whom he describes; treated as the worst +of criminals, though wholly guiltless of breaking any criminal law. +Georges Darien in using the first person, both in _Biribi_ and in _Bas +les Coeurs_, is but writing portions of his own autobiography; he was +a boy of ten, like his young hero in the latter book, and a volunteer +like the gunner of the second class in the 41st battery of artillery in +the former work, and to this fact there are owing that directness, +simplicity, and virility which are the distinguishing characteristics of +both these volumes. They are alive with life. The reader may resent +them, detest them, dread them and their revelations; but he must be +impressed by them; he must receive from their perusal that thrill which +can only come from reality. They are saturated with the tears of blood +of a strong man who feels his own impotency to rouse his generation and +to change humanity; who knows that his voice is the voice of the prophet +crying in the wilderness, and echoing over a desert of dead bones and +drifting sand. There are few greater pangs than to see the truth and +know it, and feel that the salvation of others lies in it, and to tell +it in vain to deaf ears, and offer its water of life to lips closed by +pride and cruelty and folly. + +The name _Biribi_ sounds too light for such a subject; it sounds like a +joke; but the joke is grim indeed, grim as the dance of skeletons round +a gallows-tree. In actual fact _Biribi_ is the nickname given by French +and native soldiers in Algeria to the punishment-battalions of the +Franco-African army; a slangy _petit nom_ given in jest to one of the +most awful hells that earth holds. The tortures which are suffered in +every army, in the best army, and in the time of greatest peace, can +scarcely ever be over-rated; and they are not the less, but the more +terrible, because almost always endured in silence and ignored by +authority. Now and then a voice is raised from the ranks, occasionally, +very rarely, some punishment, or injustice, more brutal than usual, +comes to light, and rouses public indignation. _Biribi_ is one of those +rare utterances rising from the sealed pits, in which uncared-for and +unpitied lives are beaten into senseless pulp of bruised and bleeding +flesh. + +There is great originality in the literary talent of Georges Darien. His +style is all his own. His manner of relation resembles no other. He has +nothing of the modern school, except its hopelessness; he is strong, +intense, virile, rough; he seeks no ornament, he strives for no effect; +he writes as he feels, boldly, passionately, with that eloquence which +is the offspring of simplicity and of veracity, and that potency which +comes from wide knowledge of literatures and of mankind. Belonging by +birth to the _bourgeoisie_, son of a Catholic father and a Calvinist +mother, his early years were embittered by religious strife. He has +later on travelled much; he has known the lowest classes and the hardest +ways of life; he is still young in years, but old in the most varied +experiences; and he has, certainly, uncommon powers, which have as yet +not been duly recognised, for he offends the prejudices and vested +interests of his generation, and even in France prejudice and vested +interests are strong and close many channels. + +He disdains, moreover, to appeal to that large class of readers who +require a book, cast in the form of a story, to possess a story. Like +the famous knife-grinder he has none to tell, if by story we understand, +as most people do, a love-tale in some one of its forms. _Biribi_ is the +stern and terrible narrative of the career of an _insoumis_; _Bas les +Coeurs_ is the simple, domestic record of a boy's recollections of the +_Année Terrible_. In neither is there any hint or fragment of romance. +This fact at once limits his public to the restricted number who +appreciate the skill which can afford to dispense with the elements of +romance, and to rely solely on its own power of description and analysis +of character. In this respect for literary excellence and harmonious +treatment I should place _Bas les Coeurs_ before _Biribi_. The +relation of events at Versailles, before and after the Prussian +occupation, as seen from the point of view of a family of the town, is +told with such perfect naturalness that the reader follows it with the +deepest interest, and remains fascinated by the admirable manner in +which the most tragic and momentous events of history are reflected in +the mind of a boy of ten years old. + +The tranquillity and precision of his use of the etching-needle, with +which he describes the daily life and street scenes in Versailles, +contrasts curiously with the hot colour and broad charcoal marks with +which he portrays the tortures of the punishment-battalions in Africa. + +This testifies to the flexibility of Darien's talent, since nothing can +be more different to the impetuous and turgid violence of _Biribi_ than +the restrained and delicate irony of _Bas les Coeurs_: the one is a +battle-piece of Vereschagin, crowded with begrimed and panting figures, +in which the dumb canvas seems to shriek with war and smoke with blood; +the other is a cabinet picture of Meissonier's, finished, polished, +small in measurement, illimitable in suggestion, fine as the point of a +needle, cruel as the fork of a snake's tongue. For, undoubtedly, Darien +is cruel; but he is cruel from the impotent rage which is in him, the +powerless sorrow and scorn which his country, his generation, his fellow +mortals, his vision of things as they are, awaken in his memory and in +his desires. + +The apathy and sheepishness of the general multitude fill him with +wrath; he longs to pull down on the world its temple, like Samson, +regardless of the fall of the column and the roof on himself. No one who +loves received doctrines, crystallised commonplaces, undisputed formulæ, +should open these books. Such persons will only see in them blasphemies +against their honoured gods; for this author is not suited to the smug +self-complacency of Philistinism, 'sanding its sugar and praising its +Lord.' + +To represent war as it is done in the terrible pages of _La Débâcle_, or +in the heartrending sketch of the _Attaque du Moulin_, is not difficult +to the novelist who has power and knowledge. To represent the effects of +war on entirely uninteresting and commonplace persons, and yet keep the +attention of the reader riveted to what is passing in one ordinary +household during a frightful national calamity, is a far more difficult +feat; especially when all the sympathies of the reader which would be +easily roused by noble sentiments in the sufferers are voluntarily +alienated, and the only motives and feelings depicted are sordid, +egotistic, and miserable, except in the young narrator, whose childish +intelligence is so slowly awakened to the baseness of those around him, +but whose naturally honest and patriotic little soul burns and thrills +with shame when once it becomes conscious of the meanness and cowardice +of his family and of his neighbours. The highest literary faculty seems +to me to show itself in the completeness with which the childlikeness of +the young observer is retained, the vague apprehension, the slowly +awakening comprehension, the gradually dawning horror with which the +events around him impress themselves on a mind remaining instinctively +loyal and just in the midst of corrupt and unworthy examples. + +Take this as an example of its style:-- + + 'Shouts are heard afar off in the woods. + + '"Ah, my poor child!" says my aunt, weeping, "what a hideous + thing is war!" + + 'She looks very feeble, very worn, my poor great-aunt Moreau. + The sight of her thin face, her skeleton-like hands, moves me + painfully. She sees this. + + '"At my age," she murmurs, "these events, my dear, are hard to + bear." + + 'However, she assures me the Germans are not very cruel. The + Captain in command of those billeted on her, despite his rude + exterior, is not uncivil. + + 'At that moment, indeed, this officer returns with his men; his + heels ring on the bricks of the ante-chamber. He opens the door + of the little room where we are sitting. + + '"Do not be disturbed, Madame," he says, addressing my aunt, + "on account of the firing you may have heard. There is nothing + of any consequence. A wood-cutter, in whose hut we found arms, + and whom we have shot: nothing more." + + 'He salutes and retires. My aunt shudders. She turns white, her + eyes close, her head falls back against the chair. She is + faint. I call her maid, who runs to my summons, with the cook + and the servant just come to fetch me. The three women try and + revive her. She remains so weak when again conscious, that they + carry her to her chamber. She is grieved to have fainted. + + '"When my dear little Jean came to see me," she murmurs! "It + was the thought of that poor wood-cutter--" + + 'She trembles like a leaf as I leave her. + + 'Germaine, who has come from my grandfather's to fetch me, asks + me to wait a moment; she has a message for the Prussian Captain + from my grandfather. The officer is walking up and down, + smoking, under the lime-trees. I hear his guttural voice as he + answers, "Tell your master that I shall expect him here." What + can this mean? When I reach my grandfather's house I rush to + the dining-room to question the old man, but Germaine catches + hold of my arm. + + '"You must not disturb Monsieur. He is engaged with someone." + + 'Through the door, which I hold half-opened, I have seen that + someone. He is a person dressed like a peasant, who looks not + like a peasant, nevertheless. His large hat is worn too + gracefully; his ragged blue blouse is too old to accord with + his proud and delicate features. Is he an officer of + franc-tireurs? A French spy, perhaps? Is my grandfather giving + or receiving information? Is he not, as I hope, planning to + surprise the Prussians? I question Germaine. She is astonished + at my anxiety. + + '"That man? He wanted to see the Mayor, and as the Germans have + put the Mayor in prison, he was brought here. Do not trouble + yourself about him, Monsieur Jean." + + 'I hear a sound of closing doors. It is, of course, the + stranger going away. + + 'My grandfather joins me. + + '"Well, how is your aunt?" + + 'I tell him what happened, the story of the wood-cutter and its + effect upon her. + + '"Ah! what a pity!--humph, humph!--I will go and see her. + Germaine, my cloak." + + '"Shall I come with you, grandpapa?" + + '"No, no; not worth while. I shall be back in half an hour." + + 'In twenty minutes' time he returns. + + '"You see I am as good as my word. I made haste, eh?" + + '"Is my aunt better?" + + '"Your aunt? Yes--no--that is, yes, much better." + + '"Jean," he says to me after dinner, "you were to go back the + day after to-morrow, but as I must go on business to Versailles + in the morning early, I will take you with me. Does it + disappoint you, eh?" + + '"A little, yes." + + '"Bah! you shall make up for it another time. You shall come + again soon for several days, and send your lessons to the + deuce." + + 'I laugh. I think I must have been mistaken. The man whom I saw + must have been really a peasant. My grandsire could not be so + gay if there were to be fighting at Maussy this evening. + However, before going to bed I look out over the country, and + when I lie down I strain my ear to catch a sound. All night + long I cannot sleep; I can only listen. All at once a hand + touches my elbow. I start up, screaming. Germaine laughs. + + '"What is the matter, Monsieur Jean? Were you dreaming?" + + 'I stare round me in amaze. It is broad day. + + '"Make haste and get up; the chocolate is ready; master is + waiting." + + 'Half an hour later we leave the house. We are at the end of + the street which opens on to the Versailles road, when a + platoon of Prussian soldiers, with bayonets fixed, appears upon + that road. My grandfather seizes me brutally and throws me down + under a fence behind a hedge. I look through the branches. The + Prussians pass at quick march. Amidst them marches a man, with + his hands tied behind his back. I see a broad-leafed hat, a + pale proud face, an old blue blouse. It is the man of + yesterday. I know him at a glance. + + '"Grandfather, who is that?" + + '"Eh! Who? who? Some vagabond a Prussian patrol has picked up + out of some ditch. The Prussians are very severe for--for--for + wayfarers. It is better not to be seen in these affairs--it is + better not to be mixed up--I mean--" + + 'My grandfather is lying, I am certain; I feel it. Why should + he lie? Where are they taking this fettered man? Why force me + to lie hidden under a hedge? From behind the village a loud + volley thunders through the air. + + '"Grandpapa, grandpapa, did you hear that?" + + 'The old man is livid. + + '"It is the Prussians who practise--who practise at firing--in + the morning. It is their custom--their custom--every morning--" + + 'His teeth chatter.' + +Or see this description of the troops leaving for the frontier:-- + + 'To-day the last regiment quartered here goes to the front; it + is a regiment of the line. + + 'Léon and I wait in the market-place to go with the soldiers to + the railway station. + + 'It is an epic, this departure of the troops. I have never felt + what I feel now. There is a sense and scent of battle in the + air; the midsummer sun shining on the musket-barrels and + sparkling on the accoutrements sets fire to one's brain. The + earth trembles under the passage of artillery which is about to + vomit death; and one's heart dances in one's breast whilst the + ponderous caissons, with their iron-circled wheels, shake the + stones, and the mouths of the bronze guns display their yawning + jaws. Bands play warlike tunes, men chant the _Marseillaise_, + the gold of epaulets and the lace on uniforms glow in the + light; the flags flap against the flagstaffs, on whose summits + eagles spread their wings; the shoes of the chargers glitter + like silver crescents; and one feels some mighty spirit of war + soar above these hearts of flesh and of iron who are about to + face the shock of battle. The blood steams in one's veins; the + fever of the hour devours one; and one shouts louder and + louder, faster and faster, not to become mad. + + 'It is market-day. The square is filled by country people who + have brought in their vegetables and fruits for sale. Their + stalls are under all the trees, and, here and there, take up + the pavement. We are standing between a woman selling salads + and an old man who has onions, and is on all fours beside his + skips, because every moment or so an onion slides off the heap + and rolls towards the gutter, unless he stops it. What a funny + old fellow he is to take so much trouble for an onion! Ah! + there goes another one! The old man hurries to catch it, but an + officer, booted and spurred, steps on it; slips, slides, + tumbles down. The onion-seller takes off his cap: "Oh, sir! a + thousand pardons!" + + 'The officer gets up, takes his riding-whip by the whip-end, + and brings it with all his force on the uncovered head of the + old man, who falls backward on his skull. Blood bespatters his + skips of onions. + + '"Here comes the regiment!" screams Léon. + + 'The band sounds at the end of the street. We run towards it. + + '"Did you see the poor old man?" I ask. + + '"Yes. He deserved what he got. Only think! The officer might + have broken his legs, eh?" + + 'I do not answer. I am absorbed in watching the soldiers whom + we escort, walking on the pavement, keeping step with them. + + 'The soldiers do not all keep step with one another; emotion, + enthusiasm, the delights of going to thrash the Prussians, the + natural sorrow at leaving those they love--a thousand different + feelings. There is an old soldier, a decorated soldier next to + me, who is very unsteady on his legs. A young officer, very + young, almost beardless, puts his musket straight on the old + fellow's shoulder every second. It is admirable to see the + harmony which reigns between privates and officers. The + Colonel, a grey-beard, salutes with his sword when the people + cheer him; and a trumpeter in the front rank has stuck a great + bouquet of roses to the banner of his instrument, and carries + it as a priest carries the host. Other nosegays are thrust into + the barrels of muskets. Bottles of wine show their corks from + under the piles of knapsacks, and two or three dogs are + stretched out on the haver-sacks in the baggage-waggons. The + crowd cheers the dogs. + + 'All the peasants throng to see, shouting their applause to + the regiment. Before the chemist's shop at the corner, a knot + of young men wave their caps in the air; the chemist waves his + white handkerchief; behind him I see the blue blouse of the old + onion-seller, who lies unnoticed on the ground. + + 'All at once the music breaks out into the _Marseillaise_. + + '"Allons, enfans de la patrie, + Le jour de gloire est arrivé!" + + 'Oh, how beautiful it all is! The soldiers fall into line. The + populace, shouting and cheering, accompanies them to the + station. Through the bars of the station-gates a private passes + me his drinking-cup, and asks me to get it filled at the + wine-shop in front of the gates. + + '"Wait; here is the money." + + 'But I do not wish for the brave fellow's money, I have a franc + in my pocket. I will pay for his pint. In a moment I run back + again. + + '"Thanks, young sir," says the soldier. "It is perhaps the last + drop I shall ever drink." + + '"The last!" cries Léon, red as a turkey-cock; so proud is he + to be able to rouse the spirit of a warrior. "The last? Ah! we + shall give you floods of wine when you come back from victory." + + 'The townspeople, who are crowding round us, cheer. The soldier + shakes his head dubiously. + + '"Thanks all the same," he says sadly. + + 'He does not seem very confident of success. + + '"Doubt that we shall be victorious?" says Léon in disgust as + we go homeward. "Leave the town for the frontier with so + little confidence! I would give--oh, what wouldn't I give?--to + be old enough to go and beat the Prussians. My dear Jean, that + soldier has no soul!" + + 'I am not sure. The soldier perhaps does not look on the + campaign as a picnic. Perhaps he sees more clearly than we do? + Perhaps? A great many things I had never thought of before + crowd into my brain.' + +A few days later, after Sedan, Jean sees the Germans enter Versailles. + + '"Here they are!" + + 'It is the octroi-guards who cry out this as they come flying + from the gates across the town. They brush me roughly as they + pass, and their abject terror gains on me. + + 'I follow them. But as I run I see on the other side of the + boulevard five or six inquisitive persons, who have stopped in + their walk, and hide themselves behind the trees. If they stay + to see, why may not I? I, too, get behind the stem of a tree, + and I watch with staring eyes to see what will happen. On the + road, fifty yards from the gates, a dozen horsemen are coming + onward at a walk. They stop a moment before the + octroi-officers; then they come on into the town in two lines, + almost touching the pavement. + + '"The Uhlans!" says someone behind me. Ah, I think with a + thrill, these are the Uhlans! + + 'They draw near us; their pistols are cocked. They pass me + close, and I feel that I shall fall from fright; my nails + clutch the bark of the tree which screens me. These riders are + covered with blood. There is blood on the pennons of their + lances, on the hocks of their horses, on the rents in their + torn uniforms, and one of the foremost has a white linen band + stained with red on his forehead. Ah! it is hideous! I want to + run away--I want to run away; it is impossible. Before me there + are these Germans, riding slowly, searching with piercing + glances the streets which open out to the left and to the + right. Behind them comes on a dense dark mass. One can hear the + tramp of feet. One can distinguish the spikes of helmets, the + barrels of muskets, the little drums no bigger than + tambourines, and the fifes which are playing a march. These + drummers and pipers are followed by linesmen in dark blue, shod + with boots drawn up above their trousers, the musket held + straight on the shoulder, the cloak rolled. + + 'And these men, grey with dust and mud, black with powder, with + their coats in rags--these men, who fought no doubt this + morning, and who have just made a forced march--preserve the + most marvellous exactitude, the most perfect regularity in the + dressing of their ranks, and the rhythm of their steps keeps + measure from the first line to the last of the whole column. + + 'They pass--they pass--they will never end. I have almost + forgotten my fear. I am partly in front of my sheltering tree. + The drums and the fifes cease to sound, and music replaces it + from a band marching in front of a group of staff-officers. + They play a warlike march, a battle-hymn, and all down the line + of troops, from the foremost company which has reached the + Chateau of Versailles, to the last which is leaving the + Chesnay, shouts of triumph arise and drown the brazen voice of + the cymbals. The victorious chant thunders down the wind. It is + the _Marseillaise_--the _Marseillaise_ which our own troops + played as they left for the frontier, the hymn which was to + render every French soldier invincible, which I had sung myself + when we had been so sure of supremacy, and when I had planted + my little tricolour flags on the map, all along the route from + Paris to Berlin in a Via Triumphalis! + + 'Now the artillery comes on; its black cannon on their blue + gun-carriages, with their attendants on foot and in saddle, + wearing helmets surmounted with brass balls. There are flowers + in the mouths of the cannon, and they are garlanded with ivy + and green boughs. The cavalry follow on the artillery; + dragoons, cuirassiers, hussars with white facings and a + death's-head on their shakoes. Then come the carriages, the + waggons, the vehicles with ladders, the baggage-carts.... All + at once my heart sickens and stands still. Behind the wheels of + the last waggons I seem to see some red cloth. Yes, it is our + red cloth--our soldiers. Between two rows of Prussians, who + have their bayonets fixed, our prisoners march without arms, + dirty, ragged, miserable, and ashamed. There are at least two + hundred of them, and I strain my eyes after these, my + countrymen, who are destined to rot in German fortresses.' + +It seems to me that in no contemporary fiction do we possess studies of +spectacles, of sentiments, of street-life in a momentous hour, more +accurate, more vivid, more simple in diction, more touching in +suggestion, than in the above passages. + +The sustained and withering irony and censure in this sketch, which yet +never goes out of the selected orbit of a boy's observation and +experiences, seem to me to be perfect in their kind. The incompleteness +of the child's understanding gives only a keener incisiveness to the +satire embodied in his narrative. The general reader will never forgive +such portraits as that of the elder Barbier, who, after shouting, +'Sursum Corda! Prenons serment de défendre le sol sacré de la Patrie!' +accepts the large Prussian orders, sets his steam-saws going in his +timber yard, and furnishes the wood for the besiegers of Paris; or of +that of the tobacconist Legros, who, after crying, 'Un soldat qui renie +son drapeau? Qu'il crêve comme un chien!' stands bareheaded with bent +spine to sell cigars to Bavarian officers. This is human nature: human +nature as commerce and modern teaching and the cheap Press have made it; +but Barbier and Legros will never pardon the limner who thus portrays +them. To the reproach that such portraits are nearly always those which +he selects, Darien would, no doubt, reply that it is not his fault if +they are what have been in his path to the exclusion of finer and nobler +figures. He is a realist in the full sense of that often-abused word, +and he has the courage to represent the realities which he finds. + +The _Année Terrible_ casts its black shadows over the childhood of this +writer, and as long as his life shall last the gloom it has left will +stay with him. If France herself should ever forget, which Heaven +forbid, he will not do so. His soul has been dipped in the Styx. + +What will, no doubt, alienate from him a large number of readers will be +his almost absolute want of human sympathy, or, at least, of expressions +of such sympathy. It is exceedingly rare with him to give way to any +sign of any emotion of pity. He sees human nature, in all its phases, +with little compassion for it. He sees (and this is, too often, either +through weakness or through policy, ignored by writers and thinkers) +that the great majority of men are neither the martyrs nor the heroes, +neither the victims nor the tyrants of their time, but a mass +considerable alone by its numbers, inconsiderable by any mental or moral +worth, and chiefly absorbed in different forms of selfishness and the +desire of gain. It is probably an error, though one consecrated by usage +and talent, to represent the generality of human beings as worthy +subjects either of blessing or of curse. But the author who says so will +never be forgiven by that mass of mediocrity which forms nine-tenths of +the population of the world. Darien says it, and shows it, and it is +this which will always make his works appear dreary and depressing to +the general reader, who cannot accept and pardon this manner of looking +at life for the sake of its veracity and courage. + +Of course, also, in the Press generally, the accusation of exaggeration +is always brought against exposures and delineations which are unwelcome +and embarrassing. But the writer's word may certainly be taken for it +that nothing in his descriptions is exaggerated or invented, and many +recent inquiries into the causes of deaths in the ranks, and of +executions after summary, and almost secret, court-martial in Algeria, +have confirmed the veracity of the statements made in _Biribi_. The +French Government, indeed, was, as I have said, so apprehensive of the +effect of these on the public mind that, although it did not suppress +the book, it forbade large coloured cartoons of the events described in +it to be posted up on the boulevards. In all nations the public is +treated like a child by authority; and as a child who will only walk +straight and submissively if its eyes be bandaged and its feet hobbled. + +But in these pages we are not so much concerned with the political and +military side of these works as with their literary qualities; and these +are considerable and of a strong and rare originality of style. _Il vous +empoigne_, and it is impossible to read either of his two works without +recognising their courage and ability, if we feel pained by their +withering scorn and rugged wrath. They are at times hard as the stones +over which the sick and swooning soldier is dragged, tied to the tail of +a mule. They are at times ferocious as the licensed torturer with the +three stripes on the sleeve, who throws his helpless prisoner, gagged +and bound, on the burning sands. Terrible they always are, with all the +terror of truths which have been lived through by the person who +chronicles them. It is not any betrayal of confidence to say that the +author of _Biribi_ has experienced in his own person the tortures of +which the dread record is made under this little playful-sounding word. +After such scenes as are herein described, and such sufferings as these, +the blood in a man's veins cannot be rose-water. 'La haine c'est comme +les balles; en la machant on s'empoisonne.' And it is impossible that +the military system can beget any other than hatred, violent, +unforgiving, imperishable, in the victims of that system. + + 'A young soldier, a conscript, a chasseur à cheval, has lost + two cartridges as the battalion is about to leave for Tunis. + + 'The Corporal informs the Captain in command, who turns and + looks in silence. The boy Loupat gazes at him with the eyes of + an animal watching the descent of the club which is about to + brain it, and from which it knows not how to escape. + + 'In passing through Tunis the Corporal says to him, "We shall + leave you here. That will teach you to sell your cartridges." + + 'The boy understands. The council of war, the sentence as a + thief, the indelible shame stamped on the brow of a youth + because he has lost two of the cartridges of the State! The + following morning the bugle sounds the _réveil_ at four + o'clock. It is still dark. At twenty minutes to five the + company, with knapsacks on their backs, is drawn up in line on + the road which runs through the camp. The trumpets sound the + roll-call, and all down the line each man answers "Present" as + his name is spoken. + + '"No one is missing?" + + '"Yes, Loupat, my Captain." + + '"Loupat is absent?" + + '"Yes, my Captain." + + '"The scoundrel! He has slunk off in the night to escape + court-martial, but we will find him. Go on. No one else + missing?" + + '"Look there!" A soldier points to the gymnasium. All the men + look where he points. Under the portico, on the great + architrave on the left, a body is swinging, black, at the end + of a cord. + + 'A lieutenant runs to the place, climbs to the body takes hold + of it, lets it go, returns. + + '"Dead?" says the officer in command. "Is it Loupat?" + + '"He is already cold." + + '"The scoundrel!" says the Captain again. "Well! he has done + justice on himself. Right flank, march!" + + 'We are crowded pell-mell into the railway waggons which are + bound for Tunis. I look through the opening in the door and see + far away below me--already far away--a small dark shape which + swings in the wind as on a gibbet, and which is lighted solely + by the first rays of the rising sun. + + * * * * * + + 'Another soldier, Barnaux, has had some liqueurs given him by a + comrade; Barnaux is drinking with the men of his _marabout_, + when a sergeant enters, espies the irregularity, takes the + offender before the officer in command. + + 'Barnaux refuses to say who the giver of the liqueur was. The + Captain orders him to be put in irons. They have put him _à la + crapaudine_, that is, with his arms bound behind him and + chained to his ankles. He is cast down thus on the sand of the + camp. Because he moans with pain they gag him with a dirty rag, + they tie his chin to his head with a cord. He remains all the + night thus, tied up into a shapeless packet. In the morning + when they change sentinels they perceive that he is dead. The + gag has stifled him. + + * * * * * + + 'Then the horror of the hospital; those hells which these men + so dread that they will tear the bandages off their wounds, or + cut their veins with a bit of broken glass, rather than live to + enter them. + + 'The muleteers set us down at a great tent which serves as an + infirmary; within there are planks on trestles and large pails + filled with reddened water. + + '"You see that," says Palot, who has divined with the instinct + of the dying the destination of those sinister planks. "Well, + that will be my last bed." + + 'An assistant, a filthy apron round his body, signs to us to + enter. + + 'The great tent is an unutterably miserable place; it has been + battered about by wind and weather; the currents of air blow + unchecked through it, and clouds of dust arise from the ground. + Some twenty iron beds are there, not more; and beyond those a + pile of mattresses, on which men are lying, rolled up in rough + counterpanes. There are not sheets enough for all. They make a + sick man rise and give up his place to Palot, whose pulse the + surgeon feels. + + '"Done for," says the doctor, between his teeth, without + heeding whether Palot hears him or not. + + 'To the rest of us they assign the mattresses lying on the + earth; these are full of vermin; they throw on us some + covering, stained with the vomit of our predecessors. + + 'How wretched it is, this hospital! How weary are the days + passed, with no other companions than the dying, whose + characters are poisoned by suffering and whose cries of horror + and anguish ring in one's ears! When, moved by the disgust and + despair which comes over you in this foetid hole filled with + filth and misery, you drag yourself out on your trembling limbs + into the sun, you feel so feeble, so exhausted, so helpless, + you cannot walk a step. You sit down in the torrid heat; you + are chilly, despite the high temperature; your teeth chatter, + your body is drenched with sweat. And at evening you are + obliged to return to the tent, where you pass such hideous + nights, troubled by such frightful nightmares, by such vague + sudden shapeless terrors, which seem to seize you by the throat + and freeze the blood in your veins. Oh! those horrible nights + when you see the dying shake off their covering with shrunken + fingers and try to raise their haggard faces, lighted by the + yellow-green rays of a lanthorn! + + 'These nights in which the living, who so soon will be the + dead, clutch at the rags which cover them, and shriek with rage + and fear as though they saw an enemy descend on them! These + nights in which one hears the childlike sobs of young Palot, + who is delirious, and who in his long agony calls on his + mother, "Mamma! Mamma!" + + 'They will ring for ever in my ears those two piteous words + which through three whole nights fill that wretched place with + their unpitied lament. A lament, low and tender at first, + broken with choking tears, ending in screams which make one's + hair stand up on one's skull with horror. The desperate screams + of a perishing life which has lost all sense and measure of + things or of time, of one who knows only that he will die, and + in one supreme appeal protests against his severance from those + he loves.' + + * * * * * + +And the youth Palot dies in that appeal, and they dig a hole in the red +clay under a low wall beside a Barbary fig-tree. + + 'Ah! poor little soldier, who breathe your last, calling on + your mother; you who, with your glazing eyes, saw the vision of + your home; you who are laid there, at twenty-three years of + age, to be devoured by the worms of that foreign soil on which + you have suffered so much, and where you have met your death + alone, forsaken, without a friend to soothe your last struggle, + without a hand to close your eyelids, except the brutal hand of + the hospital servant, which shut on your mouth like a muzzle + when your desperate cries disturbed his sleep. Ah, I know why + your sickness was mortal; I know it much better than the + surgeon whose steel dissected your emaciated body; and I pity + you, poor victim of the State, with all my heart and soul as I + pity your mother who waits for you, counting the days of your + absence, and who will only receive in her solitude the dry + official notice of your death! + + * * * * * + + 'Ah, no! I will not pity you, young dead soldier, nor your + mother who mourns your loss! I will not pity you, sons, who are + killed by the drinkers of blood, mothers who conceive what they + send to the shambles. Mad women who endure the pangs of + childbirth only to give up the fruit of their womb to the + Minotaur which devours them! Know you not that the she-wolves + let themselves be slain sooner than lose their offspring; that + there are beasts which die of grief when their cubs are borne + away from them? Do you not understand that it would be better + to tear your new-born creatures limb from limb than to bring + them up for one-and-twenty years, only to throw them into the + hands of those who want their flesh to feed the cannon?... And + you would ask our pity when, in some dark hour, the end comes, + and the bones of your children are gnawed by hyænas and + whitened by the sun in some forgotten corner of the earth?' + +There are many such passages in _Biribi_, burning with truth and with +pain; and it would be well if they could be stamped into the mind and +the memory of the peoples of this epoch, who go meekly and stupidly as +sheep to the slaughter, under the pressure of their sovereigns and +statesmen. Of course, such a teaching as this carries with it its own +condemnation by what is called authority, and by all those classes of +which I have spoken, to whom war is a necessity and a standing army is +the ark of the Government. But it would be well if the populace of every +country could read, learn, and digest it, and realise its truth and its +justification. As I have said, I place _Bas les Coeurs_ higher, in a +purely literary sense, than _Biribi_, in the sense of construction and +of concentration. For _Biribi_ is abrupt, at times confused; is rather a +series of terrible records and tragical incidents than a consecutive and +harmonious narrative, although it relates the career of the same +soldier from the time when he enters the ranks, to the last day +in which he flings from him for ever the grey coat and _kepi_ of the +punishment-battalion. In that punishment-battalion he has been placed, +let the reader remember, for no especial crime against law or decency, +but for those offences against the military code (the unwritten code) +which make the offender more guilty in the eyes of a court-martial than +any actually criminal accusation: to have lost a regimental article, to +have forgotten to salute a superior, to have stopped to drink at a brook +on a march, to have omitted to put the regulation number on a clothes +brush or a pewter platter, to have been out without leave, to have lost +cartridges or buttons--any one of those innumerable and incessantly +recurring actions or omissions which make a soldier an _insoumis_ to his +military superior, whether sergeant or general, corporal or colonel, +which to the military mind constitute crimes too heinous to be named, +offences which fill a punishment-book with accusations of acts in which +only the semi-insanity of perverted authority could see any provocation. +Read only of the punishment of the _tombeau_ for simple sins of +negligence or thoughtless mirth. The _tombeau_ is a canvas cover, +stretched on stakes, making a cage a mètre long by sixty centimètres +wide, into which the soldier condemned to this torment is obliged to +creep on his stomach as best he can. In this cage he spends days, +weeks, months, at the caprice of his tyrants, with a litre of water as +his only drink, and nothing but the canvas between him and scorching +heat or icy rain, or blinding desert dust. On hot days the water in his +little can evaporates rapidly; and at the will of the corporals in +charge of him he may be kept thirty-six hours without other drink and +without food at all. Remember, as you read these lines, that the +_tombeau_ has been the home for months of the man who describes it; a +home on the scorching Algerian sand in the parching African weather; a +home in which he envied the jackal its lair and the vulture its wings; a +home in which his flesh rotted and his manhood swooned. + +It is, perhaps, the finest compliment one can pay to an author to be so +much impressed by his theme that one almost forgets to speak of his +purely intellectual qualities. It is difficult to treat of either of +these works in a coldly critical spirit. For they are written with tears +of blood--such tears as are wrung from the heart's depths of all those +by whom France is beloved. + +For if militarism be her only armour, her only resource against her +foes, then must we tremble for her indeed; and tremble no less for the +whole of Europe, of which all the male youth is bruised and crushed +under militarism as in a mortar. The charge of want of patriotism has +been brought against Georges Darien for both these volumes. But it is +the flaw in human nature, not in French nature only, which he exposes; +the cynicism, the selfishness, the cowardice, the meanness, which are +so conspicuous in all modern society, in all nations and in all grades. +Were there a German invasion of Italy or of England next year, there +would probably be as many Italians or English ready to succumb to, to +cringe before, and to profit by, the conquerors as there are Versaillais +ready to do so in the volume called _Bas les Coeurs_. There is a moral +motor ataxy in the spinal marrow of modern nationalities; the love of +money, the fear of poverty, and the continual concentration of the mind +on personal interests taught by modern education and by modern commerce +make up a large percentage of human beings, who are mere time-servers, +always ready to hold the stirrup-leather of the strongest. It is not +alone the French bourgeois of 1870 who is satirised in these pictures of +Versailles under German domination; it is the whole modernity of the +last quarter of the nineteenth century under the teaching of modern +science, modern trade, and modern morality. All humanity has been +inoculated with the serum of concentrated cowardice and egotism; some +are robust enough to resist the contagion, but the majority absorb it +and develop the disease. That which Darien calls not cowardice, but +fear, is enormously developed by modern influences, and will probably +continue to increase in the coming century. He asks himself and his +reader of what elements is it composed that discipline, that blind +obedience, which is enforced in military life (and which is already +demanded in civil life by the scientific and medical tyrannies). He +replies, and it is a subtle distinction which will escape the +comprehension of many, that the soldier who thus cringes to base orders +is not a coward but a craven (_pas un lâche; un peureux_). + + 'This craven would throw himself into fire or flood to-day to + save a comrade's life; but he would blow his comrade's brains + out to-morrow at the word of command of a non-commissioned + officer. He is not base: he is frightened. His courage + disappears before a watch-word: his boldness shrinks and + vanishes under a regimental order. What cows him is the + apprehension of punishment, the fear of the men set above him. + Fear is the keystone of the ark of the temple of Janus. The + army is a laundry where they throw the consciences of men into + a tub of soap-suds, and where the characters of men are wrung + and twisted like wet linen, and are placed, shapeless, under + the wooden beater of a brutalising discipline. It is only by + means of fear that the military system has been able to + establish itself. It is only by such fear that it maintains its + position. It is obliged to affect the imagination by terror, as + it must extinguish the soul and sense of nations to prevent + each from seeing farther than the stupid limit of a frontier. + It is obliged to surround itself with a mysterious ceremony, + with a religious pomp in which horror is united to + magnificence; in which the trumpet-blast joins in the + death-shrieks; in which one can see confused together the + blood-stained robe of glory, the plume of generals, the + handcuffs of gendarmes, the marshal's baton, and the dozen + balls of the execution-volley, the golden palms of triumph and + the shattered bones of the dead. It must present this + spectacle to the crowds which stare and tremble before it as + they stand open-mouthed before a charlatan quack doctor at a + fair, whose tinsel and feathers attract them, but from whom + they shrink alarmed as soon as they see a forceps or a lancet + glitter ominously in his hand. It must do this in order that + the people, always in ecstasy before the marvellous, which it + does not attempt to analyse, shall be seized before it with awe + and admiration: even as a savage who prostrates himself in + terror and respect before the shooting-iron which he does not + understand, but which he knows possesses the power to strike + him to the earth.' + +Many will protest against this figure as an insult to the general +public, but like many other insults which carry an intolerable sting in +them, it may claim that it is merited, and does not overpass the truth. + +Darien writes with that force which can, indeed, only come from the +intimate persuasion that what it tells mankind is true, and should be +told. + + '"It is commonly said," he continues, "that the army incarnates + the nation. History puts this into our heads by means of all + her subtlest lies. Ten martial anecdotes sum up a century; a + boast describes a reign. History preaches hatred of the people, + respect for the pillager, the sanctification of carnage, the + glorification of slaughter. The weak, the sensitive, the timid + succumb beneath it, and are buried in the red clay or left on + the sand for the vultures and jackal. The strong (sometimes, + not always) lives to have his whole future poisoned by these + memories, his whole temperament warped and embittered; or he + forces his tormentors to shoot him by some unpardonable breach + of discipline; some blow to a superior, or some intentionally + insolent reply; death is the continually recurring sentence in + the military code; if the man does not bend he must be broken: + broken in two with a volley which smashes his spine. The + punishment-battalions, the workshops of the Travaux Forcés, are + the immediate consequences of the standing armies. Society, to + protect its interests, makes of a young citizen a soldier, and + of the soldier a galley slave at the first effort in him to + shake off the yoke of that discipline which degrades and + brutalises him, requiring like all tyrants and usurpers to + support its rule by terror, to make itself dreaded that its + prestige may dazzle and its tottering throne be secured. What + society requires is an obedience passive and blind, a total + imbecility, a humiliation which has no limit or hesitation; the + response of the machine to the mechanic, of the dancing dog to + the stick of his teacher. Take your man, make him surrender all + free will, power of choice, liberty, and conscience, and you + create and possess a soldier. To-day, at the end of the + nineteenth century, there is as much difference between the two + words, soldier and citizen, as there was in the time of Cæsar + between two similar words--Milites and Quirites. The standing + army is the corner-stone of the actual social structure; it is + a force which sanctions and secures the conquests of force; it + is a barrier raised much less to combat foreign invasion than + to resist and paralyse the just claims of nations. Soldiers, + those sons of the people armed against their fathers, are + nothing more or less than gendarmes in disguise."' + +This is surely absolute truth--that truth which is of all others most +feared by those in authority; those who, whether as sovereigns, +ministers, financiers, professional men, or tradesmen, live on and by +the servility and gullibility of the nations. + + 'What is discipline except fear? The soldier is reared to dread + what is behind him more than what he is forced to face; he must + be more afraid of the fellow-trooper who will be told off to + shoot him in the back, than of the adversary whom he is ordered + to attack. The army is the incarnation of fear. The soldier + must dread his commanders as a burnt child dreads the fire. He + must never laugh at their absurdities, nor raise a voice + against their injustice or their tyrannies. He must never + speak. He must not even think. His superiors do both for him. + If he laugh, or resent, or speak, or think, if he be neither a + coward nor a dolt, he is a mutineer: he must be tamed, beaten, + broken _à Biribi_.' + +And when the dreamer, Queslier, says that it will not be long before the +people will become awake to this abuse of them, and will see that the +military caste is established on prejudices and interests hostile to +them, and will arise and destroy it, Darien replies, with equal +truth:-- + + 'There will flow much water under all the bridges of the world + before the people will have ceased to adore their vain idols + bathed in blood and tears.' + +Vain idols, indeed! For thousands of years the Juggernaut of military +despotism has rolled over the living pavement of the prostrate +multitudes, and there is no sign as yet that those multitudes will arise +and shiver the blood-stained car to atoms. Darien has but little hope in +the resistance of the people. He fears that the majority of them will +always continue to be daunted, dazzled, made dumb and helpless by the +powers which ruin and slay them. William of Germany makes his insolent +and inhuman declaration that the soldier must slaughter his own +progenitors if his 'war-lord' bid him do so; and yet William of Germany +is allowed to continue his reign. + +What are we to look for from nations which lie down to be stamped on +thus? which lick the spurred boots of those who outrage them? + +_Biribi_, and what _Biribi_ represents, has its prototype in every +country of Europe; and wherever Europe introduces her 'civilisation' +there she introduces also her quick-firing cannon, her numbered +battalions of slaves, her organised butchery, her pulverisation of +virility and of volition, her destruction of initiative and of liberty. + +England considers that such arguments as those contained in this book do +not concern her because she has no conscription. But how long will she +be able, or be allowed, to be free from enforced service? The present +field-marshal, commanding-in-chief, Lord Wolesley, desires +conscription. It may well be that events, in the not far distant future, +may strengthen his hands and enable him to enforce it.[4] + +[Footnote 4: This was written by me in 1897; England has not waited long +to confirm the truth of it.] + + 'Ah, Mascarille! who wished to put history into madrigals!' + cries Darien. 'History has given us Chauvinism (Jingoism), that + epidemic which makes a nation run headlong like the Gadarene + swine, to fall into the pit of absolutism! The army incarnates + the nation, you say? No. It diminishes it. It incarnates + nothing but force, brutal and blind, which lies at the service + of whoever most pleases it; or--sad to say--whoever pays it + highest. The army is the social cancer; is the octopus of which + the tentacles drain the blood of the nations; the hundred arms + and feelers which the people should sever with blows of their + hatchets if they desire themselves to live.' + +Such language is very strong, and will rouse strong opposition in those +who have long been cradled in conventional opinions, and believe that +the established order of society, now existing, is admirable, and +intangible, because it has had the force and the cunning to so establish +itself. It is language which may, of course, be challenged by adverse +argument, which may at anyrate be met by counter-statements deserving to +be weighed against it; but it is language which is more needed than any +other in the present state of Europe, with every nation armed to the +teeth and every country an arsenal. + + + + +III + +THE ITALIAN NOVELS OF MARION CRAWFORD + + +I believe that the novels of Mr Crawford of which the scene and the +characters are Italian are not among those of his works which are the +most generally popular. This fact, if it be a fact, must be due to the +general inability of his English and American public to appreciate their +accuracy of observation and lineation. Nearly all of them have qualities +which cannot be gauged by those to whom the nationality of his +personages in these works is unknown. In my own works, of which the +scene is in Italy, I have dealt almost exclusively with the Italian +peasantry. Mr Crawford has devoted his attention to the middle and the +higher classes. I do not think his portraiture of the Italian +aristocracy always redolent of the soil, but that of the lower and +middle classes is faithful to a wonderful degree. That side of Italian +life which is given in _Marzio's Crucifix_, for instance, is drawn with +an accuracy not to be surpassed. The whole of this story indeed is +admirable in its construction and execution. There is not a page one +would wish cancelled, and nothing could be added which would increase +its excellence. It is to my taste the _capo d'opera_ of all which he has +hitherto done. + +I think in his studies of the Italian aristocracy he has given them less +charm and more backbone than they possess. He has drawn their passions +more visible and furious than they are, and their wills less mutable and +less feeble than they are in general. He seems to have mistaken their +obstinacy for strength, while, if he have perceived it, he has not +rendered that captivating courtesy and graceful animation which are so +lovable in them, and which render so many of their men and women so +irresistibly seductive. According to him they are a savage set of +_berserkers_, always cutting each other's throats, and he does not in +any way render that extreme politeness which so effectually conceals the +real thoughts of the Italian gentleman, and which never deserts him +except in rare moments of irresistible fury. No one remembers so +constantly as the Italian of all classes that language is given us to +conceal our thoughts, and no one lives so completely as the Italian does +from the cradle to the grave in strict concealment of his thoughts even +from his nearest and his dearest. + +But in his Italian _genre_ pictures, and in portraiture of the people +whom we meet every day in society, Mr Crawford has a delightful pencil; +little side studies also of more humble persons, which many writers +would neglect, are charming in his treatment; take, for instance, the +old priest of Aquila in _Saracinesca_; with how few touches he is made +to live for us. We only see him once, but he will always remain in our +memory; in his whitewashed room with its sweet smell from the pot of +pinks, and his touching regret that he has never seen Rome, and at his +age cannot hope to do so. + +His priests, by the way, are always excellently drawn, from the humble +village vicar to the learned and imposing cardinal. He has penetrated +alike their interiors and their characters with that skill which is only +born of sympathy, and it is therefore perhaps only natural that he has +not the faintest conception of the motives and views of the socialist +and republican whom he dreads and hates. + +All these charming little details, like the pot of pinks, can only be +thoroughly appreciated by those who know intimately Italian character +and habits; but they abound, and show so much of fine observation and +delicate discernment in the author that one cannot forgive him for ever +beating the big drum of florid sensation. + +Let me not be understood to mean that crime, or the impulse of crime, is +not a perfectly legitimate subject for the novelist; both can be made +so, but they are only so when treated as Mr Crawford himself treats them +in _Marzio's Crucifix_. When treated as he treats them in _To Leeward_ +and _Greifenstein_ and _Casa Braccio_ they are merely coarse and +inartistic. He has a leaning towards melodrama which is chiefly to be +regretted because it mars and strains the style most natural to him, and +does not accord with his way of looking at life, which is not either +poetic or passionate, but slightly sad, and slightly humorous, modern +and instinctively superficial, superficial in that sense in which +modern society itself is so. + +In _Marzio's Crucifix_ he is perfectly natural, and one cannot but wish +that he had never left that manner of treatment. Every motive therein is +natural, every character consistent with itself. This naturalness in his +characters is Mr Crawford's greatest attraction, and when he departs +from it, as he does in such detestable melodramas as the _Witch of +Prague_ and _Greifenstein_, he is no longer himself. It is hard to +understand that the same author can create the most delicate of +aquarelles and the most glaring of posters, or why one who can draw so +well and finely in silver-point can descend to daub with brooms in such +gross distemper. If this be the price of versatility, it were best not +to be versatile. But it is not versatility, because true versatility +consists in possessing a many-sided power which flashes like a jewel of +which all the facets are equally well cut. True versatility, moreover, +does not consist in the mere change of subject, but in the change of +style, of treatment of thought, in fact, the mutation of the entire mind +of an author, such as brings it into entire harmony with its fresh field +and its new atmosphere. There is no such change in these novels. Mr +Crawford is Mr Crawford always. As he never loses himself in his +creations, so he is always present in them to the reader; and his style +never varies, whether he treats of horrible psychological mysteries in +Prague or of pleasant carnival seasons in Rome. + +He is not strong or forcible in tragedy. When it is incidental in his +stories like the murder of Montevarchi, or the attempted assassination +of Ser Tommaso, it is admirably sketched in; but when it forms the +structure and essence of a romance he fails entirely to give it +sublimity; it becomes in his hands a mere scarecrow, which makes us only +smile as its wooden hands beat the empty air. One feels that it is not +his natural element, that he does not like it or feel at home in it, and +has merely lent himself to it from some wrong impression that the public +requires it; due, perhaps, to the suggestion of some unwise publisher or +friend. The coarse melodrama with which some of his novels ends is not +in unison with the characters or the scope of his work. It is quite true +that, as murder is, in some circumstances, justified in actual life, so +in some circumstances it may be used as a _dénouement_ in fiction with +perfect accuracy; yet it is always a violent ending which fully accords +with romance of wild life or peasant life, but always jars, unless +introduced with the most perfect skill, in stories of men and women of +the world; because the evil passions of this latter class of persons are +of a different quality, and find different modes of relief, from the +primitive and barbarous satisfaction of killing enemies or rivals. All +the influences and habits of society make it almost impossible for men +and women of society to become assassins. + +Now Mr Crawford can draw men and women of the world so well that it is a +pity he so often goes out of his way to spoil his portraits of them with +the bowl and dagger taken from a different phase of life from that in +which they move. + +He is always a gentleman, and he is at his best when writing of +gentlemen in the society which he knows so well. Duels are quite +natural in good society everywhere, except in England, and no one since +Charles Lever ever described them so well as Mr Crawford; but murders +are not general in the world of well-bred people, indeed are not very +often heard of out of the lowest strata of plebeian life. + +In _Casa Braccio_ a fine motive, that of the peasant of Subiaco's +long-cherished vengeance, with its final satisfaction, both based on a +mistake, is wasted, because no one can care in the least for the man who +is slain, and the original sin committed by this victim (marriage with a +nun), although it seems so great to Mr Crawford, appears to us no sin at +all; so that his tragic end neither moves us nor satisfies in us any +sense of justice. What are admirably rendered and true to life in _Casa +Braccio_ are not Griggs and Gloria, or Angus Dalrymple and Maria +Addorata, but the peasants of Subiaco, Stefanone, with his +long-cherished vendetta, and his wife, Sora Nanna, who wears her lost +daughter's shoes because it would have been a sin to waste them. One +regrets that two persons so perfectly natural and well drawn should be +set on a pyre of flaring melodrama which obscures their portraits in its +smoke and flame. Why could he not give us a story of Subiaco, passionate +but natural, in which the action would have passed entirely in that +interesting and little-known part of the Sabine mountains? + +When I use the term melodrama, I mean by it that which mimics the +tragic, but falls short of it; the tragic, imitated but so environed, +that it loses dignity and has something of the inflated and grotesque. +The melodrama in _Pietro Ghisleri_, in _Taquisara_, and in _The +Children of the King_ is this kind of melodrama; it does not move us for +a moment; we are, on the contrary, impatient of it in a modern period +and history, with neither of which it has any harmony. In the latter +story the conception of Rughero, though by no means new, is fine; but +the frame in which this mariner is set lacks all fitness for such a +figure; and the man whom he murders is not sinner enough, nor serious +enough in his actions, for the reader to be moved to pardon the act as +the author himself pardons it. If violent delights have violent endings, +violent endings need strong provocation and clear explanation; they +should appear to the reader to be inevitable, the offspring of an +unavoidable result. To the reader such a crime as this should appear to +be the inexorable justice of an inevitable retribution. But in the +violent _dénouement_ of _The Children of the King_ the cause is trivial, +the act under the circumstances improbable, and the rude shock of it is +not in accordance with any of the other characters and with the light, +careless modernity of the setting of this story. + +This defect of consistency, which is grave in literature, would be +ruinous on the stage where action is so much quicker, and where the +idiosyncrasies of each personage are so visible to the audience; and +such a fault is the more vexatious because it shows that the author was +never really absorbed in his own creations, was never so possessed with +them that they dominated him and made him do what they chose, as Bulwer +Lytton has said that the characters of every true novelist must do, +because a character once conceived is like a child, being once begotten, +it becomes what it must, we cannot control the subsequent shape it +takes. + +Another defect of Mr Crawford's works is usually that their interest +flags towards the close, that this close is too abrupt, and that it +gives the reader the impression of the narrative being brought to an +untimely end because the writer no longer cared about narrating it. This +defect may be noticed in nearly all his stories, beginning with _Mr +Isaacs_, in which it is conspicuous; and is startlingly and irritatingly +visible in one of his latest, _Adam Johnstone's Son_; indeed, in the +last-named story the conclusion is obviously totally different from what +it was intended to be in the opening chapters. Now, a well-constructed +novel may please you or not, may be attractive or offensive, but it will +always be accurately conceived and harmoniously balanced; and nothing +animate or intimate will be introduced into it which has not some +bearing direct or indirect upon the plot. Nothing can be more incorrect +than to excite the expectations of the reader by indications which +result in nothing, sign-posts on a road which do but lead to a blank +wall. + +A grave violation of this rule is frequently to be found in the Crawford +stories, no worse one than that in this story of Adam Johnstone's son, +where a long chapter is occupied by an incident with a brutal Neapolitan +carter on the Sorrento road. The man is knocked down by the hero, and +endeavours in return to stab him; carabineers arrive and arrest the +carter and not the Englishman (as in real life they unquestionably would +have done). The whole incident, related with much spirit, is obviously +only in its place, only pardonable as an episode, if the carter be +destined to appear again and sate his thirst for vengeance on the hero. +But he disappears from the scene for ever as the carabineers handcuff +him. We neither see nor hear any more of him, nor does the Englishman +hear any more of the matter, which in actual life certainly would have +caused him much annoyance at the local tribunal. The appetite of the +reader should not be tempted by dishes, which become a mere Barmecide's +feast, in this manner. Some intention must have been in the author's +mind when he created this scene. Why did he not carry out his intention? + +In this manner many combinations and situations of the most interesting +and uncommon kind are deliberately thrown away unused. He frequently +introduces personages about whom he excites our liveliest interest, and +whom he then forsakes or dismisses with an indifference which the reader +does not share. It is as though a painter painted into his canvas +numerous figures which he has never finished, though he sends out his +picture as a finished work. The only novels of his which are entirely +free from this defect are the _Cigarette Maker_, the _Three Fates_, and +_Marzio's Crucifix_, and here I cannot resist (though it is not within +the scope of this article, since its venue is America) pointing out how +delicate, subtle, and clever is that story entitled the _Three Fates_. +There is little movement in it, no incident of any note, its interest +lies entirely in the development of character and in the evolution of +feeling, but these are so treated that they suffice to hold the reader's +charmed attention, and the study of the man whose hesitations and +tergiversations make the subject of it is one which may be caviare to +the general, but which may be read again and again with sympathy and +curiosity by those who can appreciate psychological problems. The +persons in it are such as we may have known to-day or may know +to-morrow; and the working of their minds and inclinations is traced +with a masterly skill, and is as correct as a physiologist's diagram of +the nervous system. + +What to me is especially attractive in Mr Crawford's novels is the +atmosphere of good breeding which one breathes in them. One feels in the +company of a well-bred man. Their philosophy, their experiences, their +views, are all those of a man of the world; and there is in them a +tolerance and a total absence of prejudice (except in religious and +political matters) which are refreshing, and which are a fair approach +to, if not an actual attainment of, unbiassed liberality. There is in +them no enthusiasm for anything, no altruism, no deep emotion. They are +unfortunately entirely lacking in any perception of those myriads of +other lives not human, but as sentient as the human, such as vibrates in +every line of Pierre Loti's works. We have never in his novels any +profound tenderness like that with which the Frères Rosny speak of the +semi-humanity of inanimate things, or show us the dog gambolling on the +wayside turf in all the simple joy of its youth and its pleasure in +existence. To Mr Crawford as to Peter Bell, a primrose by the river's +side is a primrose, and it is nothing more, and the thrush or the linnet +which sings in the hawthorn above the primrose roots for him has no +existence. He has the American's indifference to all created things +which are not human. There are no animals in his books except two poor +terriers (who have their necks broken by the odious lover in _To +Leeward_), and the unhappy cat, introduced only to be poisoned in +_Taquisara_. There is nothing which indicates that he cares for nature +in any of its phases, and he calls the cicala a locust. + +In Italy he lives only for the people around him as he would live in +Pall Mall, or Broadway, or the Champs Elysées. That passion with which +Italy has inspired Shelley, Byron, George Sand, De Musset, Owen +Meredith, even the calm analytic mind of Taine, has never touched him. +He has never felt the ecstasy which is embodied in that single phrase of +Taine's, 'On nage dans la lumière.' One would say that the moonlight +shining on the waters of Tiber, under the bridge of St Angelo, is no +more to him than a flash-light illumining a grain-elevator on the +Hudson. All which is still Italy, of colour, of perfume, of light, of +legend, of rapture, of emotion, has wholly escaped him; he has never +felt its _hysterica passio_; he has never known its eternal youth, he +has never seen its lost gods rise and walk through its blossoming grass +as the star rays shine in the white cups of the narcissus of its fields. +But of the people who pass him in the Corso and on the Chiaja, who shake +hands with him at Montecitorio and on the Lung' Arno, who lounge and +talk with him at the cafés, and the legations, and the public gardens, +he is an admirable student, and an admirable photographer. + +One of the most admirable of his portraits is that of the young Don +Orsino, the hero of the novel of that name. Sant' Ilario, like his +gallant old father, might be a North German, a Hungarian, or a Scottish +noble, his temperament is, indeed, much more northern than southern; but +Don Orsino,[5] his son, is exactly that which he is represented to be, a +youthful Italian of high rank, who has been educated at an English +public school, and has all the vanity, and egotism, and _sècheresse de +coeur_ of modern youth in him. The type of the modern youngster of +rank was never so well drawn as in this story of his _début_ in +speculation and his failure in it. His character is one very difficult +to draw, that coldness, that self-reliance, that self-sufficiency, which +are something at once harder and less contemptible than conceit, the +qualities which will make him successful later on but will never make +him lovable or tender; the instincts of race which hold him back from +meanness but are not strong enough to raise him to nobility, attenuated +as they have been by modern education, all these are rendered with the +utmost skill till the boy, in his sterile and self-satisfied modernity, +lives before us, and vain and selfish though he be, we are loth to part +from him, and curious to know what his future will become. In his +history that one supreme charm of Mr Crawford's, of which I have +previously spoken, his naturalness, is conspicuous; nothing can be more +natural than the relations of Don Orsino with his mother and father and +those who surround him, and the crafty _affaristi_ who get him into +their meshes of speculation. + +[Footnote 5: A novel called _Corleone_ reproduces Don Orsino, but was +published after these pages had been printed. It has been very popular, +but in it, unfortunately, Don Orsino is given away deplorably, and +turned into a mere romantic lover, which in real life he never would +have become.] + +What is not natural in this story is the character of Madame d'Aranjuez. +She comes before us instinct with all which goes to make up an +unscrupulous adventuress. She is that, or she is nothing. She does her +uttermost to fascinate and capture the son of Saracinesca. She succeeds; +and lo! with one of those _volte-faces_ which are so frequent and so +irritating in Mr Crawford's works, she gives up the game when she has +won it, does nothing that we expect her to do, and marries the +speculator who has beggared Don Orsino on condition that this gentleman +shall restore to Don Orsino all he has lost. Nothing more improbable or +inconsistent, given the character of the woman, could possibly be +conceived; nor is it more probable that the haughty and irascible young +man would endure to be served by her mediation, however it might be +veiled. Everything surrounding this lady promises us passion, intrigue, +perhaps tragedy, certainly peril, but we are balked of them all. The +mysteries concerning her turn out to be very tame ones indeed, she +appears a wholly innocent and harmless person, and even a very large +paper-knife shaped like a dagger, which we are told always lies beside +her and which has no _raison d'être_, unless it is to be ultimately used +in killing or defending somebody, does nothing whatever and disappears +from the story, leaving us in tantalising ignorance of why we were ever +introduced to it. + +Now no French writer of any degree would have created that remarkable +paper-knife, and kept it lying beside the heroine, and laid stress on +its unusual size and splendour, unless he intended to turn it to +account as a _deus ex machina_. To draw the reader's attention to a +conspicuous object, and then to cheat the expectations raised concerning +it, is a great fault in art; but it is one of which English and American +writers are continually guilty. It is true we are told casually, towards +the end, that her husband had hit her with this paper-knife, and that +for this blow the famous fencer Spicca had killed him; but this is +mentioned incidentally, and does not sufficiently account for the +interest we have been excited to take in this weapon. Spicca is, on the +contrary, admirably drawn, and the regard we feel for the merciless old +duellist is roused in us with true art. We have that sense of Spicca +having really lived, and really been that which he is described, which +can only be aroused in a reader by life-like accurate and sympathetic +portraiture. + +There are many pathetic touches in this portrait of Spicca, and little +incidents entirely true to the life of an Italian gentleman of +aristocratic race and straitened means, as when in his distress of mind +his servant persuades him to eat 'a little mixed fry' with a fresh +salad, 'the salad is very good to-day'; and Spicca, touched and +refreshed, examines his meagre purse and takes out a ten-franc note +which he gives to the man, remarking that it will buy him a pair of +boots, and this ten-franc note is, when his purse lies on the table at +night, slipped back into it by the servant, who knows that his master +'never counts.' + +I think the most exquisitely drawn of all Mr Crawford's many characters +is this Count Spicca; because the character of a noted duellist who +invariably kills, and kills how and in what way he chooses, with +profound indifference and unerring accuracy, is one very hard to make +sympathetic to the general reader, and especially to the English reader, +by whom duelling is abhorred. But Spicca is so perfect a gentleman, so +sad and simple and calm, so natural and unassuming despite his deadly +power, that no one can regard him without interest and even affection, +and see him without sorrow ill-treated by a woman so extremely +unpleasant as Consuelo Aranjuez, for whom he has done and suffered so +much. + +The fencing of Mr Crawford is always very accurate, and we hold our +breath when Leone Saracinesca acts as his son's second. All this is +quite true to life in Italy, where duels with the sabre or rapier are +still of daily occurrence, and are resorted to after any insult, and +after a mere difference of opinion or trivial impoliteness. + +It is wonderful that these stories have not been appropriated for the +stage by those unscrupulous thieves the London dramatists, for they are +full of dramatic situations and of duologues in which the give and take +is brilliant. Some have indeed the dramatic effect of inconsistency of +which I have spoken, but all are full of fine suggestions for the +theatre. _Saracinesca_, or _Sant' Ilario_, for instance, would be +transferable to the stage with scarcely any alteration. It is full of +incidents which would be most effective on the stage; and the strong +emotions and sensational scenes which it offers would most certainly +thrill and charm an audience. + +One wonders also that their author himself does not write for the +stage, for his command of incident and of intricacies of circumstance +would raise him high above many playwrights of the London theatre. There +are scenes in nearly all his works which might be put upon the boards +with scarcely any alteration, such as the duel between Don Giovanni and +Del Ferice in _Saracinesca_, and the death scene of the librarian +Meschini in _Sant' Ilario_, while the whole story of _The Children of +the King_ would furnish matter for a romantic drama were the causes for +the crime in it made more credible. + +Here let me note a small but irritating fault in these works, _i.e._, +the childish habit (common to writers of the last century) of naming +characters after their calling, or after some moral characteristic. +Meschini is the plural of the Italian adjective mean, cowardly, or +contemptible, and is given to a man with these defects; while a very +interesting person, a French artist famous in portraiture, is +unfortunately burdened with the ridiculous and impossible name of +Gouache. Mr Crawford is indeed frequently infelicitous in names. In +_Casa Braccio_, the American lover of Gloria, a stagey sort of person, +but one whom we are invited to regard with admiration and sympathy, is +weighted with the shocking name of Griggs. Mr Crawford does not see that +were Othello or Hamlet called Griggs, either would try to move the souls +of men in vain. If a name does not matter to a rose, it does matter +immensely to a character in a book; and there are so many euphonious +names in use in the world that it is wholly unpardonable to select a +ludicrous or ugly one. The poor little natural child of Gloria in this +same novel is also burdened at its birth by the name of Walter Crowdie, +which, for a baby, has such a comical effect that the very pathetic +position of this poor infant is rendered ridiculous by it. It is perhaps +under the idea of being realistic that these droll names are selected to +jar on tragic circumstances, but then Mr Crawford's stories are not +realistic, and cannot be made so by this one expedient. + +He has also another fault which is visible in nearly all his works, and +is a grave one. He forgets at times the attributes which he has given to +his chief characters. Thus Giovanni Saracinesca is described as a man of +strong, noble, and reticent nature, and of intellect so superior that +his wife tells him he will be very great some day; and he resembles, +indeed, precisely, one of those men who become great leaders of other +men. But in the sequel (where he is called Sant' Ilario) all this +changes, and he behaves like an idiot, and of his great qualities we +hear no more and certainly see nothing. And where we still farther +follow his fortunes in the subsequent sequel of _Don Orsino_, he has +sunk into complete self-effacement, so complete that he allows his son +to be the associate and the debtor of that very Del Ferice whose utter +baseness and vileness he knows so well, and who tried in the famous duel +to murder him by foul play. Sequels are always ill-advised trials of the +author's consistency and the reader's memory, and it would have been +unquestionably better to have made Don Orsino stand alone in his history +and not figure as the son of Giovanni Saracinesca and of Corona +d'Astrardente. When a reader has followed with interest and sympathy the +fortune of an impassioned lover it is trying to see him standing in St +Peter's 'a middle-aged man,' talking to a son taller than himself. Great +art is required to make a character 'grow' quite consistently. The +continuation of histories, thus, greatly pleased Anthony Trollope and +Thackeray, but I cannot consider it a desirable thing in fiction. + +Mr Crawford misses many opportunities of developing the capacity for +analysis and deduction which he undoubtedly possesses. He is very +observant but he is content to note a fact, he does not trouble himself +to seek its origin or the influences which have made it the fact it is. +When the two young people who wish to marry in _Marzio's Crucifix_ +discuss what their house shall be like, and what colour the walls and +furniture, their biographer adds, 'Italians have lost all sense of +colour.' This is true, but it is one of the most amazing, grievous, and +extraordinary truths that exist; it is one for which I search in vain +and in perplexity for an explanation. But Mr Crawford does not seek for +any explanation. He states the fact and passes to another subject. + +Again, in this sentence he begins well: 'It is of no use to deny the +enormous influence of brandy and games of chance on the men of the +present day. Something might be gained indeed if we could trace the +causes which have made gambling especially the vice of our generation. +But I do not believe this is possible.' That is to say, he does not care +to be at the trouble of such an investigation, even though he adds the +acute sentence that most of the men and women of the world of pleasure +in our times exhibit 'the peculiar and unmistakable signs of physical +exhaustion, chief of which is cerebral anæmia. They are overtrained and +overworked, in the language of training they are "stale."' + +He says in another place, 'Italians have no imagination.' This is but +partially true; I am not sure that it is true at all. Their modern +poetry is beautiful, more beautiful than that of any other nation. Their +popular songs are poetic and impassioned as those of no other nation +are, and one may hear among their peasantry expressions of singular +beauty of sentiment and phrase. A woman of middle age, a contadina, said +to me once, 'So long as one's mother lives, one's youth is never quite +gone, for there is always somebody for whom one is young.' A rough, rude +man, a day labourer, who knew not a letter, and spent all his life bent +over his spade or plough, said to me once, one lovely night in spring, +as he looked up at the full moon, 'How beautiful she is! But she has no +heart. She sees us toiling and groaning and suffering down here, and she +is always fair and calm, and never weeps!' Another said once, when a +tree was hard to fell, 'He is sorry to come away, it has been his field +so long.' And when a flock of solan geese flew over our lands, going +from the Marches to the mountains on their homeward way, and descended +to rest, the peasants did not touch them: 'They are tired, poor souls,' +said one of the women; 'one must not grudge them the soil for their +lodging.' Surely such ideas as these in people wholly uneducated +indicate imagination in the speakers? + +And what can he possibly mean by no poets, which he says in another +place? Has he never read a line of Carducci? Much as we may mourn and +resent Carducci's turncoat and reactionary politics, no one can deny +that he is a poet of the purest kind. Has he never heard the ringing +stanzas of Cavallotti which sound like a clarion through the land? Has +he never studied the exquisite if too erotic odes of D'Annunzio, or the +touching verse of Stecchetti? There are others besides these who are +true and fine poets also; and even in the ordinary verses written for +newspapers (which in other countries are so poor and tawdry) there is +frequently in Italy a true and delicate feeling and an adorable lyrical +harmony which make one mourn to see things so fair wasted on so +ephemeral a life. + +It is through their imagination still more than by their vanity that +Italians are led by unscrupulous political flattery and cajoled into +disastrous political enterprises. They will believe anything if it be +sufficiently captivating to their self-admiration and their fancy, and +will dance blindfold on the brink of a bottomless pit. It is only an +imaginative people who love so wildly, and kill themselves so madly for +affection's sake, as the Italian people do. The other day, because a +young soldier was sent to Africa, his brother killed himself in despair, +and the father of the two youths then killed himself also. It is an +inflammable imagination which makes the nation so easily led away by the +promises and the phantasmagoria of glory with which unscrupulous +statesmen have enticed it to the brink of ruin. It was its imagination +which made it so credulous that when told by its victors that the +disgraceful surrender of Makale was a victory, it believed and rejoiced, +illuminated and hung out flags, and never saw what a dupe it was being +made until cruelly awakened from its delusions by the _déroute_ of Abbu +Carima. + +Mr Crawford has lived chiefly in cities, and in the cities, even in +Rome, the Italian is much debased by contact with foreigners; the +influence of foreigners on Italians is excessively bad, especially +American and English influence; and in the cities also the preponderance +of Jews is great. Innumerable persons who call themselves by Italian +names and speak of Italy as their country are Jews and nothing else. A +Finnish Jew known to me buys an Italian estate, and with the estate a +title, which, by the payment of a large sum to a complaisant Government, +he is allowed to adopt; he is decorated by the king for his munificent +'charities' in the land of his adoption; he marries an English woman, +and their children masquerade as Italian nobility with not a single drop +of Italian blood in their veins. Such 'Italian nobles' are numerous, +unhappily, in modern Italy, and do immeasurable discredit to the +nationality which they assume. In a generation or two their origin will +be forgotten, and they will be taken by society in general to be what +they pretend to be. Thus, unhappily, are great nations caricatured, old +titles prostituted, and Italy accredited with sons not her own, with +pretended offspring who are not even her bastards; persons who +impudently affect her name and boast of her blood, when not one single +hair of their head or fibre of their flesh has any affiliation to her. + +What stifles Italian imagination, and kills the Italian soul, is the +passion for money; pure acquisitiveness or avarice, for the desire is to +get, little or no pleasure is taken in spending. It is often alleged +that this passion is due to their poverty; but poverty is not +necessarily accompanied by avarice; the Irish people are very poor, but +they are extremely generous; the Spanish people are so also. A comical +instance of this stinginess occurred the other day at Milan: a rich +tradesman had built himself a fine set of new premises, and opened his +new establishment with much feasting; he sent fifteen francs to the +municipality to be divided among the poor, and everyone applauded his +liberality! This love of money, acquisitiveness, niggardliness, or +whatever we call it, is too general not to be injurious to the Italian +character; and it enters into all daily life and personal acts, and is +frequently the chief motor power of marriage, of career, of education. +And then added to this injurious power there is another which is more +deleterious still, which weakens, debases, and falsifies the character +from infancy: it is the direful influence of the Church. But to treat of +this matter would occupy too much space, and would lead too far away +from the stories of Mr Crawford, in which there is an unfortunate +tendency towards approval of what he calls hierarchical government, +although a tendency not strongly enough insisted on by him for it to +demand minute examination. The powers of Mr Crawford, however, are +limited by the narrowness of what is called religion, and the inability +to see the higher side of these subversive opinions which he dreads, and +which he has done his best to turn into ridicule by putting them into +the mouth of the half-mad artist Marzio. + +Indeed, his bigotry on religious subjects is very droll to see in these +days; and he speaks of 'unbelievers' in a tone worthy of Puritans in the +days of the _Mayflower_ pilgrims. It does not agree with the tone of his +books, which is invariably the tone of a man of the world; as such he +should possess that liberality of thought which is the chief, perhaps +the only, virtue of his generation; and if he had possessed it he would +undoubtedly have reached a much higher level, a much finer ideal, than +he has actually done. It would seem as if he distrusted and checked the +larger intelligence in him, as an over-cautious rider distrusts and +checks a horse which only asks to be given a free rein to go at speed +over a wide pasture; it would seem as if some extraneous 'influence' +were always at his elbow to keep his reason cribbed, cabined and +confined. + +His religious prejudices have contributed to arrest his intellectual +development, for they are puritanical and antiquated in a singular and +lamentable degree. He speaks of _liberi pensatori_ as the Church elders +of Maine or Massachusetts might have done in the days of witch-torturing +and atheist-burning. He thinks that the future great war will be between +what he calls believers and unbelievers; and he looks forward with joy +to the coming conflict when men shall again fly at each other's throat +for the glory of God. This kind of mental cecity has its inevitable +results: it makes him step lamely where he would otherwise walk with +manly alacrity, and it makes him afraid to face the light of facts which +his truer instincts tell him are existing and incontrovertible. Is this +the result of early education, of hereditary inclinations, of female or +ecclesiastical influence? I do not know; but come whence it may, this +taint of bigotry obscures his intelligence and stops his progress, and +is matter of profound regret to those who see what he would have been +without it. + +Many passages in his works show that he has perceived and grasped the +universal dominance of that corruption which so fatally exists in all +Italian life, and one could wish that he would make a more complete +exposure of it. Take this account of how the banker, Del Ferice, +obtained the decoration for a syndic who was one of his political +supporters:-- + + 'Del Ferice, left to himself, returned to the question of the + mayor's decoration. If he failed to get the man what he wanted, + the fellow would doubtless apply to someone of the opposite + party, would receive the coveted honour, and would take the + whole voting population with him at the next general election, + to the total discomfiture of Del Ferice. + + It was necessary to find some valid reason for proposing him + for the distinction. He could not decide what to do just then, + but he ultimately hit upon a successful plan. He advised his + correspondent to write a pamphlet upon the rapid improvement of + agricultural interests in his district under the existing + Ministry, and he even went so far as to compose and send some + notes on the subject. These notes proved to be so voluminous + and complete, that when the mayor had copied them he could not + find a pretext for adding a single word or correction. They + were printed upon excellent paper with ornamental margins under + the title of _Onward, Parthenope!_ The mayor got his decoration + and Del Ferice was re-elected, but no one has ever inquired + into the truth of the statements contained in the pamphlet.' + +These passages and others similar give one the conviction that Mr +Crawford, if he had 'let himself go,' might have been a satirist of no +slight force. He has preferred to write charming stories, ingenious in +construction, but slight in development, to amuse his generation; yet +there is, I think, abundant evidence that he might have done stronger +things, perhaps may do them still. He has preferred to lead a seagull's +life, skimming the surface of the deep and shunning its storms. But he +might have led the petrel's. Probably all the influences of an agreeable +social existence have tended to make him indolent and unwilling to raise +tempests in it. Few resist the pressure of a social atmosphere. His book +called _With the Immortals_, marred as it is by the incongruity and +impossibility of its setting, shows that he can reflect if he likes, and +can express his reflections. If this work had been cast in such a form +as Mr Mallock's _New Republic_, or Sir Arthur Helps' _Friends in +Council_, or Christopher North's _Noctes Ambrosianæ_ it would have been +remarkable for the arguments and dialogues contained in it. But the +ghost-element, the supernatural scenic effects, kill its excellence. Dr +Johnson, Heine, Pascal, Bayard, François de Valois and Cæsar are too +ill-assorted for us to accept them in each other's company, and the +idea of these dead men being all able to converse in English, and all +doomed to wear through ages the clothes they wore in life, is so comical +that it destroys all interest and illusion which their conversation +otherwise might excite. There is a regrettable inability in Mr Crawford +to perceive the ridiculous. He lacks humour, and the perception of the +incongruous is not alive in him; nor is there either any poetic feeling +in his way of regarding life. He is essentially a citizen of the world +as the world exists in this last quarter of the fast-fading century, and +the Sirens sing not for him, though he dwells upon their shores. + +Let him, therefore, appreciate more thoroughly his own very admirable +powers, and confine himself to painting the men and women of his time +and class, with all that cosmopolitan knowledge of them which he +possesses. I should like to see from him an Italian novel of modern +political life. He has, I make no doubt, had ample opportunities of +studying its machinery and its intrigues. He can dissect with so much +subtlety and correctness the brain and the temper of such a man as Del +Ferice, that there can be no doubt a political novel from him, placed in +Rome, would have alike accuracy and interest and irony. But he must +clear his mind of some of its cobwebs, and he must realise that the +'unbelievers' and revolutionists, who at present horrify him, constitute +the keenest intellectual element in Italy, indeed, the only healthy one, +and contain the only hope there is, if this be but a feeble one, of any +attainment by the nation in the future to any true liberty and +cleanliness in political aims. + +I cannot conclude these few remarks upon his Italian stories without a +word of thanks to him for the pleasant hours he has often given me, and +the gallery of interesting portraits with which he has enriched the +memory of all those who read his novels. + + + + +IV + +LE SECRET DU PRÉCEPTEUR + + +At the opening ceremony of a new free library at Lambeth in London, not +many weeks ago, Sir John Lubbock is reported to have made the following +remarks regarding fiction:-- + + 'Sir J. Lubbock, in moving a vote of thanks to the Prince of + Wales and the Princess Louise, remarked that the free libraries + of London now contained more than 250,000 books, whilst last + year over 100,000 people borrowed volumes, and on more than + 2,500,000 occasions books were used in the libraries + themselves. It was a fallacy to suppose that public libraries + were only used by novel readers. The proportion of works of + fiction used in the Camberwell libraries was only 65 per cent., + and, of course, in this percentage were included nearly all the + books used by children. It must also be borne in mind that it + took a great deal longer to read a history or a work of science + than it did to run through a story. Under these circumstances + he thought it might fairly be said that the people of London + exercised a very good choice in the books they read. He himself + should be very sorry to undervalue novels. Even nonsense was + extremely refreshing, and he thought the English people had + learnt more of their history from novels and from Shakespeare's + plays than from books of history.' + +In these few sentences there are embraced the views entertained in +general by the English nation with regard to the art of fiction. By the +English nation it is, and probably always will be, regarded as on a par +with chromo-lithography, the use of the kodak, and tight-rope dancing. + +'Even nonsense is refreshing,' says this kind defender of romance. He +might have added that this depends very much on the character of the +nonsense; there is dull nonsense, strained nonsense, self-conscious +nonsense, vulgar nonsense, which is duller than a dull sermon and +heavier than heavy bread; the nonsense which dilates and delights the +heart of the coarse and common fool, is as a stagnant and stinking pond +to the cultured mind; and true nonsense, _i.e._, _jeux d'esprit_, +caricatures, parodies, 'exquisite fooling,' does not come under the head +of novels at all. + +Someone had apparently been objecting to the creation of free libraries +on the score that they were chiefly used by readers of fiction, and in +support of such libraries Sir John Lubbock (not venturing to make so +heterodox an assertion as that the perusal of fiction _per se_ is +valuable and desirable) pleads that only sixty-five per cent. of the +books borrowed were novels, and refers to the rapidity with which a +novel can be 'run through,' as he phrases it, and proceeds, as an +excuse for the perusal of fiction, to state that the English public +chiefly derives its knowledge of history from novels and from +Shakespeare's plays. This declaration, which is enough to make Mr +Freeman turn in his grave, and Mr Froude writhe in his professorial +chair, is, I believe, based on an exact truth, but it never appears to +occur to the speaker that while the history to be learned from fiction +and the drama is not of the purest kind, the fine art of an admirable +book, as of an admirable play, contains many another lesson more +valuable than even those of correct history to the reader who is capable +of assimilating and appreciating it. + +Sir John Lubbock kindly adds that he should be 'very sorry to undervalue +novels.' Sweet and gracious condescension! He would be sorry to +'undervalue' Boccaccio, Cervantes, Guerrazzi, Théophile Gautier, +Merimée, Victor Hugo, Thackeray, Walter Scott, Fielding, Octave +Feuillet, Georges Sand, and Bulwer Lytton! Admirable benevolence! A +treatise on the ways of ants or bees must, of course, rank as an +infinitely higher work than a mere study of the manners, characters, and +passions of mankind. To peruse the former work is education; to read the +latter work is recreation, not absolutely injurious, perhaps, but +scarcely beneficial. Sir John Lubbock on an ant-hill has the sublimity +of the scientist: Alphonse Daudet on human nature is a mere trumpery +trifler. + +It does not appear even to occur to Sir John Lubbock that a fine novel +contains intellectual qualities of the highest kind, and combines in +itself the widest effects and the most delicate minutiæ of creative +art. A fine novel should be no more 'run through' than the sculptures of +the Vatican or the pictures of the Uffizi should be run through in +ignorance and haste: common readers, like common tourists, may do so, +but to do so is as gross and unpardonable an insult to the book as it is +to the sculptures and the paintings. + +Reflect but a moment upon all the divers and numerous qualities which +are of necessity existent in the creator of a fine novel before it can +be produced; not only imagination but wit, not only wit but scholarship, +not only scholarship but fancy, not only fancy but discrimination, +observation, knowledge of the passions, sympathy with the most opposite +temperaments, the power to call up character from the void, as the +sculptor creates figures from the clay, and, for amalgamating, +condensing, and vivifying all these talents, the mastery of an exquisite +subtlety, force, and eloquence in language. All these various gifts must +be united in one writer before a fine novel can be produced; and when it +is produced it requires (to be duly estimated) as cultured and as +respectful a study of it as an educated traveller would take to the +Vatican or to the Uffizi. + +I have derived month by month, as it has appeared in the _Révue des Deux +Mondes_, the most delicate and acute pleasure from the perusal of _Le +Secret du Précepteur_, yet it is a pleasure which can only be obtained +from it by a serene, leisurely, artistic enjoyment of its exquisite +literary qualities. It is like a wine of which the bouquet can only be +appreciated by educated palates. There is but little movement in it; +the incident is slight, the situations derive their fascination for the +reader not from their violence or their singularity, but from their +perfect probability, and from their psychological interests; and the +whole tone of it is kept carefully throughout to the smooth bantering +semi-_gouailleur_ tone of the opening recital. Ah, that style!--clear as +water, delicate, full of grace, limpid, harmonious, exquisite! It has +all the polished charm of the man of the world, and all the eloquence +and brilliancy of the artist. I have heard a great ambassador in a +beautiful tapestried chamber play the music of Schumann and Chopin and +Bach with admirable and sympathetic _maestria_; the style of Cherbuliez +reminds me of that _diplomât-virtuose_. We hear incessantly of the +magical style of Paul Bourget; but beside the style of Cherbuliez that +of Bourget is strained, tortuous, affected, artificial. The supreme +excellence of that of Cherbuliez is its consummate ease, like the ease +of a perfect manner in society. To employ all the resources of such a +style is as great a delight to the master of it as the use of the rapier +to the master of fencing, as the handling of the plastic clay to the +sculptor. To relate a narrative in such a style is as warm and full a +pleasure to the possessor of it as it is to the painter to create a +winter's night or summer's day, youth or age, dawn or moonlight, a dance +of nymphs, or a frolic of fauns, out of a few ground earths, a little +oil, and a square of canvas. But to appreciate it the reader of it must +bring with him some qualities on his own behalf. + +There are in it none of those Anglicisms so irritating in the works of +Bourget and others, such as Henry for Henri, Francis for François, +'window' for 'fenêtre,' 'le cab stoppait' for 'le fiacre s'arrêtait,' +and so many similar disfigurements of the most polished and elegant +language of the world. The temptation to use a foreign language is great +when its expressions are such as no other language can equally well +render. But who can think that 'cab' is better than 'fiacre,' or +'window' than 'fenêtre'? The French of Cherbuliez is the French of an +elegant writer, of a man of the world, and is, beside that of 'les +jeunes,' as a pure and limpid river beside a crooked and choked-up +stream. Without their professorial jargon of psychology or their +strained analysis, which so greatly fatigues the reader and resembles +nothing so much as the efforts of a cyclist to run smoothly on a stony +road, _Le Secret du Précepteur_ is full of delicate and interesting +studies of the human mind and character. Its especial triumph is to +excite and retain the interest of the reader in a character which in the +hands of most writers would have been either insignificant or absurd. + +The teller of the story is the preceptor himself, who, unlovely in face +and form, filling a subordinate and somewhat absurd position, frankly +confessing his own follies and errors, is yet the most lovable and the +most dignified of men; the intellectual grace of the scholar and the +philosopher wholly atoning for and effacing the inferiority of place and +the deformity of features. He tells us of his own extreme ugliness, so +that we are not deluded into thinking it a _belle laideur_, but accept +it as what he calls it, an ugliness which, coupled with poverty, would +scare all women away from him all the years of his life; but, despite +of it, we feel the irresistible charm of his personality, we admire his +tact, we adore his unselfishness, we are as delighted by his +self-restraint as by his courage and his will, and we take leave of him +with the regret which we feel when we part for an indefinite period from +a companion of the finest culture and the warmest sympathies. We regret +also that, like most unselfish persons, he is forced to be content with +the crumbs of happiness instead of its bread. It is strictly true to +life that he should receive no more; it proves the author a true artist +that he has been able to resist the temptation of giving so attractive a +character a happy and unnatural fate, and we who know how the awards of +life are proportioned, know that it is entirely in keeping both with art +and truth that the _bon chien_ should receive no more than the good dog +usually gets in recompense for his fidelity. We know that it could not +be otherwise; yet we regret the necessity for leaving the good dog with +his dry broken crusts. + +I regard the extreme interest and attachment with which this character +inspires us as one of the greatest triumphs of fiction, because its +attraction is stripped of all the adventitious aids to interest which +accompany beauty, rank, or position. We have a plain, poor man, in a +paltry and invidious situation, who conquers all which is against him as +a hero of romance, and arrives at the highest place in the reader's +esteem and affection by mere force of natural dignity, excellence of +heart, and the irresistible superiority of wit and intellect. He is +throughout all his actions, moreover, entirely natural. It is difficult, +in reading his account of them, to believe that he is a fictitious +character; all that he does and says is so real, so human. No one who +reads _Terre Promise_ or _Coeur de Femme_ is ever for an instant +tempted to think that the characters ever did live or ever could have +lived; they are _cartonnages_, lay figures, draped in clothes from the +costume maker's, and moving in obedience to the hand of their +manipulator. But as Maupassant's Pierre et Jean are living, as Loti's +Gaud and Fatougay live, as Rod's Michael Teissier lives, as the +delicious Yette lives, so, and with even more vitality than they, the +tutor Tristan lives in this admirable novel. And all the people around +him live in this country house near Epernay, which is the scene of +nearly all his joys and sufferings. We wish, indeed, that this scene +never changed; so well does its landscape accord with the narrative, +that one wishes the unities could have been preserved to the end. One +regrets the change of venue when the story is carried to Paris. It is +perhaps probable that the end is not what was originally intended by +Cherbuliez. + +It is a story which it is very difficult to end artistically. In point +of fact it is not ended at all; it is only broken off at a certain +crisis, and leaves the reader in the persuasion that Monique will have +many adventures, and her 'bon chien' and her husband many anxieties. The +fault in it, if fault there is, seems to me to be that, if this crisis +had been contemplated from the beginning, the character of Louis +Moufrin, extremely natural as far as it goes, should have been rendered +a little more heroic, so that more interest would have attached to his +transformation under the stings of jealousy. If this were not done the +_coup de pistolet_ should have been given, not by him, but by the +preceptor; indeed, since Tristan tells us early in his story that he is +a very fine pistol-shot, we are always expecting him to prove his skill +on someone, and one could wish that he had exercised it as he desired to +do on the odious coxcomb, Triguères. The impression is irresistibly made +on the reader's mind that this was the _dénouement_ originally +contemplated by the author, and it would have been one stronger and more +satisfactory. But perhaps he renounced it from the feeling that tragedy +as a climax would have jarred on the harmony of a book which is +throughout kept to the good-humoured and jesting tone of cultured +society. + +It would take many pages to do justice to the other persons of the +novel; all are admirably drawn; there is only some exaggeration in that +of Madame Moufrin, _mère_. But the cheery and generous merchant Brogues, +the high-bred, high-born _dévote_ who is his wife, the charming priest +Verlet, the shy, silent, tender-hearted and timid Moufrin, the +inimitable portrait of the learned, excellent and insufferable Sidonie, +and lastly, the entirely uncommon conception of the captious and +provoking _petite Japonaise_, who rules her faithful two-legged dog with +a rod of iron; all these are admirably pourtrayed, even if they yield in +importance to the central figure of the preceptor himself. The finest +and most complicated study of them all is that of Madame Brogues, with +her piety, her sensuality, her instinctive patrician revolt against the +monotony of a bourgeois interior, her complex and scornful nature, her +mingled indifference and tenderness for her daughters, the union of +touching maternal sadness and devotion to the superior claims of +_chiffons_, which traits are so admirably depicted in her last meeting +with her younger daughter Monique. + +Cherbuliez has, it is plain to see, been much struck with the large +place which _chiffons_ occupy in the lives of women of the world, and +with the power of consolation which the interests of the toilette +possess for them. The mother and daughter are both extremely touched by +their accidental meeting (the first since the elopement of the former +and the marriage of the latter); but this meeting takes place in the +Exhibition building in Paris, and their emotions do not prevent them +from studying, discussing, and purchasing beautiful fabrics. It is +exactly the union of conflicting feelings which is really to be observed +in life: the mingling of deep sentiment and sincere regret with +interests of a totally different kind which appear trivial but are +really absorbing distractions, perhaps frivolous, but entirely natural, +arising from those cares and pleasures of personal appearance which are +indestructible in the _élégante_ by anything short of death. + +There is also another passage which equally illustrates the ability and +insight of the author in his perception and representation of that dual +motive, that twin yet conflicting sentiment, which so frequently moves +us and so especially characterises the modern mind, which is frequently +complex and artificial, trivial and analytic, and thereby incapable of a +single, or of a simple, emotion. Sidonie, a very proud, chaste, and +implacable maiden, is stung to the core by her discovery of her +mother's flight; the thought of what the neighbours and the servants +will think is torture to her, and a generous and genuine grief for the +blow to her father moves her to the first tears which she has ever shed. +But still the idea, the knowledge that since she means never to marry, +she is now and will be for ever supreme mistress of her father's house +is a source of irresistible pleasure and consolation, and as she goes +upstairs she cannot resist, even on this terrible night, exercising her +first despotic and unshared power. Her mother, who loved softness and +shadow, had always insisted on the electric lamp at the foot of the +staircase being shaded and softened by folds of rose-coloured stuff, +Sidonie had the rose-coloured stuff taken away, and even on this first +evening of her reign the undimmed and intense radiance of the unveiled +light proclaims the change of domestic government, and the absolute +authority of the new ruler. This is one of the many exquisite finenesses +of touch which reveal the delicacy of observation in the writer +throughout this novel, and can be only appreciated by a reader who +brings to it that attention and capacity which Sir John Lubbock and his +audience would think it only worth while to devote to a treatise on the +stalk-eyed crustacea or a monograph upon the household flea. + +M. Jules Lemaitre, in his story of _Les Rois_, says with a sneer that +one of his personages was 'née pour gouter Auber, Cabanel, et les romans +de la _Révue des Deux Mondes_.' Now in his own volume, entitled _Les +Rois_, published this season, and received with great curiosity in +Paris, M. Jules Lemaitre has merely mixed up the tragedy of Meyerling, +the mystery of Johann Orth, and recent well-known card and debt +scandals concerning living princes; and, having reproduced with these +the individuality of Louise Michel, the life of Kropotkine, and the +career of a well-known financier, he has introduced some essays on +social and political problems into his reproductions of these +personages, dated the whole 1900, and called it a novel. But it is not a +novel, for the imagination does not enter into it. It is a photograph, +or a travesty, whatever the reader may please to call it, of actual +recent modern events, thinly disguised, but unjustly exaggerated, and an +almost impudent imitation in many ways of Daudet's _Rois en Exil_. There +is some brilliant writing in it, and some fine thoughts and expressions, +which is, of course, always the case when the writer is so intelligent a +man as Lemaitre, but a novel it is not; it is a series of scenes, almost +all borrowed or imitated from well-known events; it is a patchwork with +little harmony in its arrangement, and it has the supreme fault of +introducing long descriptions of anterior events, and bringing in new +characters, at the close of the action. There is also one suggestion, if +not more, concerning a royal person, so horrible that it seems unfair +and even cruel to make it of one who cannot resent it or defend herself. +The date of the story may be called 1900, but the events on which it is +built have already been lived through by conspicuous characters. + +It is not becoming, therefore, in so immature a story-teller as M. +Lemaitre proves himself to be, and one who is obliged to go for his +incidents to the scandals of courts, to sneer at the novels of the +_Révue des Deux Mondes_, in which, to go no further back than last +year, such admirable works as _La Vie Privét de Michael Teissier_ and +_Le Secret du Précepteur_ have first seen the light. To be a critic of +it is much easier than to be a creator of fine fiction; to pull to +pieces requires lesser qualities than to construct. + +In the past twenty months there have been some very fine novels in +French literature. _A l'Abîme_, by Paul Vassili, is a masterpiece of +originality, and the character of the great egoist, who is its hero, is +matchless in its intuition, its philosophy, and its realism; it is a +narrative of intense interest without its having any other source for +its interest than that which lies in following the evolution of a type +wholly new in literature, and the crystallisation of a naturally +generous nature into a complete philosophic selfishness through +circumstances which lead to its moral isolation amidst the full success +of a triumphant career. _Amants_ and _La Force des Choses_, of Paul +Margueritte, are beautiful novels, remarkable for originality of +conception, correctness of observation, and the talent of interesting +the reader in perfectly natural events. The former in especial is full +of truth, poetic feeling, and novelty of situation and of character; it +is entirely a story of love, but it is love pourtrayed with equal +sympathy and comprehension, and embracing scenes entirely dramatic +whilst entirely natural. If Sir John Lubbock will read these three books +and end with _Le Secret du Précepteur_, he will, I think, feel bound to +admit that such works require for their due appreciation quite as much +attentive respect in their perusal, and quite as many intellectual and +perceptive qualities in their reader, as the analysis, however +interesting, of a wasp's social habits, and the diary, however +delightful, of a caged bluebottle's appetite. The study of earthworms +demands, no doubt, the exercise of much higher faculties than are +necessary for the study of human nature. Still it is difficult to +believe that the earthworm can afford such varied and complicated +interest as man, and nowhere are the portraiture and analysis of man so +ably depicted as in a fine novel.[6] + +[Footnote 6: Since this was written Sir J. Lubbock has been made a peer; +and alas! _notre cher Maître_, Cherbuliez, has passed over to the great +majority.] + + + + +V + +L'IMPÉRIEUSE BONTÉ.[7] + + +[Footnote 7: _L'Impérieuse Bonté_, J. H. Rosny.] + +A French critic has ranked the Frères Rosny amongst the 'authors of +to-morrow,' and in a certain sense they, no doubt, belong to the class +called _les jeunes_, often wrongly, since amongst these _jeunes_ there +are men of middle age. _Les jeunes_ is an expression which is rather +intended to indicate new methods and new views than to describe the +actual age of the writers. In a sense everyone belongs to _les jeunes_ +who is emancipated from conventional tradition; but too much stress, too +much importance, has been attached to this name; true art is always +natural, and this new school is seldom natural; there is more +eccentricity of manner in it than there is genuine originality of +thought; there is too great an effort, too perpetual a strain in its +productions; frequently, as in the case of Maurice Barrés, subtlety of +language is employed to conceal absolute poverty of idea; or, as in the +case of Georges Ohnet, to clothe mere wooden puppets with a semblance of +life by skill in depicting incident; or, as in the case of Paul +Bourget, to eke out a slender modicum of incident and idiosyncrasy with +charm of style and an imposing psychology, and disarm criticism by +euphuism. + +In the two Rosnys there are some of the affectations of these writers, +but there is none of their poverty of idea. They are full of ideas; full +of meditation, of observation, of sympathy, of experience; the narrow +limits to which custom confines the novel are far too small for their +abundant powers. In portions of their work there is that more artificial +mode of treatment, that strain after recondite words and tortuous and +archaic methods of expressions, which are the blemish of _les jeunes_; +but in many other portions their true insight, their deep feeling, and +their artistic instincts raise them above this pedantry and enable them +to produce certain passages which have few equals in any literature. +_L'Impérieuse Bonté_ is a very long book, but the reader would be dull +indeed who did not wish it were longer, and who would not feel that the +writers had been forced to renounce many scenes and many reflections and +descriptions with which their minds were teeming. They convey to their +reader their own attachment to their personages; willingly, we feel +sure, they could have filled a hundred volumes with the story of their +fate; the fountain of their sympathies is fed by an eternal spring. What +is most admirable also in them is their remarkable equity; they can see +the injustice done to the rich by the poor, as well as that done to the +poor by the rich; and this quality of impartial sympathy is very rare. +There is abundance in the world of that one-sided sympathy which springs +from a _parti pris_, but that which is many-sided and perfectly just is +very unusual. The Rosnys are capable of it. + +The language indeed is at times tortuous, inflated, archaic, after the +manner of the modern school; but at other times it loses this mannerism +and becomes the clear, limpid, polished French so dear to us. It is +never clearer or simpler than in the passages concerning the Lamarques +and other sufferers which touch the heart. + +The first portion of the book is the finest; the scenes which treat of +this family are the greatest as they are the simplest of the whole. Was +there ever any passage more pathetic and more real than this description +of the last drive in the poor hired vehicle of the dying man and his +children? + + 'Lamarque drew a deep breath under the delicious weight of the + freshened air. Strength and peace brushed his tired, sickly + frame. + + '"Ah! I was sure that this would make me well." + + 'A smile came around his diaphanous nostrils, his lips parted + with childlike pleasure. Albert felt that heaven and earth were + born again in endless life. His soul shone through his blue + eyes; he began to laugh and jest with nature. But his mother + and Georges only saw more plainly in the luminous light the + deadly thinness of Lamarque, and could think of nothing except + how they should be able to make up for the expense of the five + francs for the cab. They had driven out towards a road which + looked mysterious and poetic; limes, acacias, young elms, all + kinds of shades of green, were lit by a descending sun. There + were flocks of slender trunks; a dainty philosophy of verdure; + high above, pale foliage seemed to drink in the light; then + depths where the sun-rays seemed to flow and stream like the + nebulæ of comets, where they lay like vapour on which some + fragile insect life floated like medusæ on the sea. Already + dead leaves were on the ground like the tanned flesh, or the + brown fur, of forest creatures. Spiders' webs had the colours + of the rainbow; in these birdless trees butterflies lent an + illusion of winged life and figured the flight of nestlings. + Happiness seemed crystallised in the figure of a woman + knitting; in the cry of a distant railway train; in the joy of + two children munching pears with their crusts; in the sport of + a dog who rolled on the grass with a youthful bark and the eyes + of one in love with life. The red frock of a young girl passing + by lent a note of force, of splendour, of intensity, to the + golden afternoon. + + '"It is so nice here!" said Albert. + + 'Georges, watching the silvery gossamer webs of the spiders, + remembered all the visions he had ever had of liberty and space + for kind animals and kind people. + + '"I am young again!" murmured Lamarque. + + 'He was still pale, but his pallor was less corpse-like. Even + the little François listened and enjoyed with a mute + delight--mute because shut within himself--and loved his + parents, his brothers, the driver, the trees, and the buzzing + flies. + + '"Stop," said the sick man suddenly. It was before a high gate, + through which was visible a spectacle of Eden, a large garden. + + 'They could see a great pond, over which there could float + whole broods of delicate dreams; there were tall Lombardy + poplars, and the grace of weeping willows. Drooping larches + also hung over the water-lilies; there were the thick shade of + Canadian poplars, and also the timid murmurs, the sensitive + sighs, of aspens. Then there was the charm of woodland life + reflected in the water; of the landscape repeated below, + symmetrical, and sombre in an abyss of oxidised silver. Then + came grassy walks and gentle slopes of turf; further off were + clearings in which beautiful trees were half seen, half hidden + in misty distance like a promise of abundance and of happiness. + The felicity of the place entered into the souls of the poor + family who looked on it; they had at once the anguish of + feeling that nothing like this would ever be theirs, and the + ecstasy of knowing that such beauty did exist. + + 'Standing up in their sorry hired carriage, they gazed in + rapture, saying but few words. + + '"One little corner of this garden would be wealth to us!" + sighed the mother. + + '"That corner--there," said Lamarque. + + '"One could not eat one's garden," said Albert. + + 'Georges, hypnotised, followed with his eyes the flight of an + insect. Poised in the sunlight, the creature was motionless + awhile; then descended, ascended, then, swift as a sped arrow, + vanished in the shadows. One would wish for such an atom, + taking so small a place in creation, the joys, the instincts, + the intelligence of a great animal. At anyrate, it symbolises + all the enjoyments of life, repose on a leaf, movement, ecstasy + of travel through space and towards mystery. + + '"Ah!" thought Georges, in distress, "even to come and see + this, one must have money!" + + 'The hard and heavy thought was like a blow on the tender heart + of the boy. Soon this bitterness entered into the souls of all, + even of the youngest child.' + +What I have translated as 'oxidised silver' is in the original +'blackened nickel,' one of those unfortunate, grotesque, inharmonious +expressions of which there are many in this work. To compare water, the +liquid, the mobile, the translucent, to any metal is a strange and +unfitting comparison. In this passage, which is serious and poetical, +the intrusion of such words as 'blackened nickel' seems offensive, and +mars all the impression of the phrase. But it is in this kind of offence +to the ear and the intelligence that _les jeunes_ unhappily revel; they +see in such offences signs of emancipation, of realism, of originality, +when, in truth, the usage is no sign of anything except of a faulty ear +and a lack of judgment. + +Throughout the work, however, despite these occasional blemishes, every +episode connected with the Lamarques is a masterpiece of pathos and of +simplicity, until the last scene of all, when the three children with +their mother are about to light the charcoal collected by the little +François as it dropped from the waggons when they passed along the quay, +and kept in a corner of the miserable room, in readiness for the last +hour of all. + +The characters of the three boys, so dissimilar and yet united by the +vague likeness of race, are drawn with a life-like distinctness: +Georges, pensive and philosophic, proud, gentle, observant; Albert, +sceptic and scornful, with his passionate sense that, since death killed +his father through serving others, there can be no God; and the +youngest, François, timid, imaginative, devoted, hiding himself under +the table, to still the pangs of hunger with fancies of a lonely fairy +isle where neither want nor death should come. These three children +offer one of the most perfect pictures of innocent and unmerited +suffering which literature can offer, and the limner of them and of +their sorrows is a fine writer. Jacques Fougeraye, the central figure of +the romance, yields his place to them as its chief interest; and is also +perhaps inferior in interest to his unhappy and generous patron +Dargelle. One would desire to know through what circumstances a man of +the talent and character of Fougeraye comes to be destitute in the +streets of Paris; something also of the parentage, education, influences +which have gone towards making him what he is. In the same way one would +wish to know how Lamarque fell into poverty, how his children became so +cultured and refined, how the whole family is aloof in every way from +their common and odious kindred. _Les jeunes_ do not deign to throw +light on the antecedents of their _dramatis personæ_; they are wrong, +for two reasons: one because they thus baulk the natural and legitimate +curiosity of their readers; the second, that there is no true psychology +(the word they worship) without study of the causes which have +contributed to make a man or woman what the observer of them finds them +to be. A writer like Gyp may with airy grace jump, as through a +circus-hoop, into the middle of the lives of her personages without +further explanation, but in a philosophic student of human nature in its +sad seriousness such saltatory pranks are unbecoming. + +One could well spare the hundreds of pages devoted to long and, one must +say, tiresome descriptions of moral and mental states, for a few pages +of lucid and graphic information as to the causes which brought the +characters of the book to the pass in which we find them at their first +appearance. But this is a method of composition too simple, direct, and +natural to commend itself to _les jeunes_. And when on rare occasions +they do furnish personal descriptions, these are so wrapped up in +anatomical and physiological language that we can conjure up from them +little or no real likeness. The characteristic of this new school is an +extreme vagueness, an intentional nebulosity. Their personages are never +introduced to the reader, nor are they given any pedigree; even personal +description of them is of the slightest. They come abruptly on the scene +as though they came up through a trap-door. It is left to the +intelligence of the reader to supply all the details which the author +disdains to furnish. In a book, as in life, one likes to have people +duly presented before making their acquaintance; but this is a prejudice +which the new school scorns to gratify. + +There is a certain tedium in some of the experiences of Fougeraye, such +as in his visits to the hospitals and the asylum of misshappen human +creatures; and the young woman Louise, a medical student, who has +learned to look on death with professional indifference, is so virtuous +and self-satisfied that one is indisposed to share the admiration which +Fougeraye feels for her. He himself is so unpretentious, so +warm-hearted, so single-minded, and so manly that he deserves a more +sympathetic and less vain helpmeet than this female doctor, with her too +prosy platitudes and her chill philosophies. + +Jeanne Dargelle, whom he rejects, is the least truthful, the most +artificial, figure in the book. We are never interested in her. The +breath of life has not been breathed into her; and when she kills +herself we remain indifferent; we know that in her world women do not +kill themselves, and a very proud woman would have found the idea of +dying, because her husband's secretary had no love for her, altogether +unendurable. We feel also that in real life Fougeraye would probably +have shared her passion, and the struggle it would have caused between +his temptation, and his loyalty and gratitude to Dargelle, would have +been of profound interest. The chapter following on her death, in which +Dargelle is alone with her dead body, is very fine, and reflects exactly +that strange mixture of emotions and sensations which sway the survivor +who passes long hours of solitude beside the corpse of one once dear to +him--the trivial incongruities which force themselves in amidst intense +regret, the eccentric fancies which dance like marsh-lights over the +sombre swamp of a deep despair. Who amongst us has not cried, like +Dargelle, 'Pardon, pardon!' from the depths of an aching heart, looking +on the dead features of one to whom, in the eyes of the world, we had no +fault? + +There is in the Rosnys the distressing habit, common to all the more +recent French writers, with few exceptions, of endeavouring to be +pedantic, to be involved, to express an idea barbarously and +bewilderingly instead of harmoniously and clearly; to say _épiderme_ +instead of _peau_, _véridique_ instead of _vrai_, _prunelles_ instead of +_yeux_; to use the jargon of science, the abomination of foreign or +technical idioms; to turn away from the natural, the direct, the usual, +the obvious, and seek an appearance of profundity in what is merely a +confusion of sounds. These affectations, these efforts, spoil many of +the pages, and weary the most attentive reader in many of the chapters; +as does also the incessant tendency to find similes of the most bizarre +and eccentric kind, such as the comparison of dead leaves to the fur of +animals; of a simile 'frail as the downy blow-ball of dandelion-seed'; +of a sky 'of a powdery blue, with the horizon of an aquarium'; of a +heart beating 'like a pear oscillating in a breeze,' and many others as +far-fetched, as incongruous, and as grotesque. The excessive use of +simile, however apt and exact, is always a fault; but similes as absurd +and as strained as are most of those employed by the Rosnys, become a +deformity of style, annoy the mind, and disagreeably abstract and +distract the thoughts. + +A too long, too technical, and too involved description is an inventory +which leaves no concrete whole upon the reader's mind; it is a mere +conglomeration of items. Take, as an instance, this description of +Dargelle's physiognomy; and be it remembered that we never know who or +what Dargelle is, how he came by his vast fortune, or anything, indeed, +about him, except that he is _un pauvre riche_, a capitalist, one +supposes, rich by inheritance. Here is the personal description of +him:-- + + 'A fat face, sad, meditative; his cheeks fell in; they were + flabby. The forehead was a half-circle, with three deep + wrinkles, the temples inflamed. The brow was vast but + undecided, despite heavy eyebrows above violent eyes. The lips + of a wild beast; a short beard which had never grown; flat + hair, forming a little patch behind the brow and advancing + laterally to the ears. The whole a Finnish face, very pale, + with a disposition of the skin to become scaly. The nose long, + broad, very irregular, between the snub and the aquiline, the + end raised, the bridge bowed. Hardly any back to the head; the + neck, like a Celt's, running straight up to the crown. The ears + folded backward, stiff, cartilaginous,' etc., etc., etc. + +This long and disagreeable description merely conveys the impression of +a monster; and it does not in any way agree with the character of +Dargelle, magnanimous, tender, generous, and sensitive; suffering +acutely from a sense of utter loneliness amidst the parasites, who trade +on his kind feelings. A man of this temperament would not have violent +eyes or wild-beast lips; and the elevation of his sentiments would +certainly have given some beauty of expression to his features. + +Of Jacques Fougeraye, the hero of the work, we are given no description +whatever. On the other hand, the portraiture of the frightful occupant +of a monsters' asylum is traced in fullest and most minute detail, with +an ostentation of technical knowledge, in that passion for what is +horrible and abnormal which is characteristic of this school. + +Dargelle, morally, is throughout consistent and lovable, from his first +movement of suspicion and distrust, feeling that his new favourite will +only use him and cheat him, as all the other dispensers of his charities +have done, to the last frank smile with which, though jealous of the +happiness he has himself created, he says: 'Allons donc! Je vois bien +que vous m'aimez aussi.' + +The rich man will only have the crumbs of the bread of the soul which is +called love, but his generosity is content with it. '_Le pauvre riche!_' +say the Rosnys, with rare insight into the small consolation which, to +those in full possession of them, the powers of wealth can give. +Dargelle is unique, and it is almost to be regretted that he should +occupy but a secondary place in the narrative. The description of his +physical malady is perhaps exaggerated; deafness would scarcely cause +such violent moral and mental torture; but the pathos of his last +appearance is unexaggerated, and goes to the heart of the reader. By his +mere word so many people are made happy, and yet, to secure happiness, +even relief, for himself his millions are powerless! This is what many a +rich and generous man must have felt. The irony of fate is more cruel in +a sense to the heirs, than to the disinherited, of fortune. But the pain +which the rich suffer is purely sentimental, and there are very few +indeed who have nobility of nature enough to feel this at all. + +The rich man has always material comfort, freedom from daily and hourly +anxieties; he is at liberty to go wherever he likes, to do whatever he +pleases; he enjoys, if he have the true faculty for enjoyment; he can +make himself obeyed, if the obedience be but eye-service; he can +surround himself with beautiful objects; and he can freely indulge the +luxury of generosity, although it is the one luxury of which the rich +are not enamoured, the rich man in general never gives except to see his +name in print in the newspapers. The compassion of the Rosnys for the +rich is scarcely justified, since their greatest burden is _ennui_, and +this is an artificial kind of suffering due to defective sympathies, as +cold feet are due to sluggish circulation. The statement, put in the +mouth of Dargelle, that suicide is much more general amongst the rich +than the poor, is certainly not based on fact or on statistics. The rich +man, moreover, has one great and most precious exemption: he is free +from petty, carking bodily cares; he never knows the greatest agony +possible, that of seeing those dear to him hungry and homeless; he can +be always warm in cold weather, cool in hot weather; in illness he has +every palliative and assistance; his home is his own if he care for it, +intangible and immutable; the whole world is his if he possess +perception enough to enjoy it; his sufferings may be considerable from +dyspepsia and discontent, and, if he be of a high nature, from +irritation at the ingratitude and insincerity of human nature, but it is +absurd to compare his pains with those of the poor--above all, when the +poor are of fine temper, sensitive nerve and cultured intellect like +the Fougeraye and Lamarque of the Rosnys. It is well to remind society +that there are sorrows of the soul from which the rich may suffer more +acutely than the poor; but it is to exceed this truth to represent the +rich as often suffering from this cause. The rich man is usually a +complete egotist, whose philanthropy has a political purpose or a social +ambition as its mainspring. A Dargelle may exist, does exist; but he is +one in ten millions. He is legitimate in his place as a character in +romance, but as a character in real life he is met with but very rarely. + +There are many social questions and many philosophic theories discussed +in _L'Impérieuse Bonté_. An unkind critic might say that it is rather a +social and philosophic essay than a romance. But in much it conforms to +and fulfils the highest demands of fiction, and the naturalness and +lovableness of the chief personages lend to it throughout the interest +of romance. The mission of Fougeraye in the expenditure of Dargelle's +money introduces, perforce, many phases of social misery. It was +probably to do this that the book was written; but the harmony and +interest of the action of the novel, as a novel, are not sacrificed to +this intention. In these chapters all affectation, all artifice drop +from the style, and the writers become masters of strong, simple and +infinitely touching prose. It is to be regretted that the influence of +their time should ever mislead them into tortuous and strained +exaggerations and archaisms when it is possible for them to write thus +simply and eloquently:-- + + 'The few precious things--the brooch and earrings of Madame + Lamarque, even her wedding-ring, alas! then the china service, + saved with such effort from the fire, with a little rosewood + secrétaire, and two Sèvres vases won at a lottery for charity, + the gift to it of the Empress Eugénie--all disappeared, all + were devoured by the monster Misery. Georges suffered as much + as his parents; his nature was inclined towards the adoration + of relics, of frail things, of the semi-vitality of objects. + + * * * * * + + 'It rained a little; in the shadow of the fortifications the + lamps trembled under gusts of wind; the reflections touched the + wet grass, which seemed for the moment as fresh as the turf of + meadows. Everywhere solitude--solitude filled with a sense of + near and hidden human life in the closed houses from which came + the subdued light of unseen chambers in vague suggestion of + mysterious joys. But there was no living creature out of doors + except in the openings of the ramparts; on the grass, a dog + looking as furtive as a hunting wolf. The boy's eyes gazed at + the sky, at the grass, at the long vista of burning lamps, at + the grey stony road under his feet. A sense of beauty came into + his soul, but a beauty sombre as the psalms of All Saints' Day. + + 'Beside him his mother carried the mattress which had been + sold; he bore one side of it on his shoulder. + + 'They walk thus, beaten, conquered, the child full of + suffocating revolt, the mother humble and resigned, like the + meek beasts of the stall, with occasional flickers of wrath + soon extinguished. They go thus, saying to each other a few + words, muffled and heavyhearted, which are the mere dull + echoes of their souls. "We must turn down that street. How will + it end?--why does not the family help?" At a corner they stop, + and suddenly Georges is overwhelmed with pity for his mother, + as he sees her profile wet with rain in the light of the street + lamp. + + 'He gazes at her. He remembers, in his earliest childhood, a + time when there had been two servants in their house; when his + mother had been a gentlewoman, going out for a walk with his + father, while the bonne pushed the little carriage of the baby + François. And here she was, his own mother, with a mattress for + sale on her shoulder, on foot in the mud at this time of night. + "Mamma! mamma! dear little mamma!" he cried, sobbing, without a + single selfish thought, caring only for her, so profoundly, so + intensely!' + +Again, there is the same intense sympathy in the author with the +suffering of the spirit when the two Sèvres vases are taken to their new +home, sold for twenty francs, the poor, pretty, familiar things which +look so elegant, so slender, so aristocratic amongst the coarse, vulgar +ornaments of their new owners, that Georges is proud of their +superiority amidst the anguish with which he thinks of them, lost for +ever: + + 'Frail penates, saturated with the soul of home. Ah! how many + birthday mornings, how many twilights of study, how many long + rainy days and gentle suns of springtime, how many dreams of + future voyages in far lands, how many nights fearful with storm + or mute with falling snow, had these objects seen! They had + been always there, fixing themselves inalienably on the retina + in their unalterable attitude of delicacy and art: and now they + were lost for ever, given over to an alien hand for a coin of + gold which would last two days!' + +Nothing can be more touching, more sincere, more eloquent than this +episode. + +Take again the magnificent opening chapter of the fire at which Lamarque +contracts the illness which ultimately kills him. It is too long to +quote here, but its description is of a force incomparable, and of a +truth as great. No one of his contemporaries could have written this +chapter; its sobriety and veracity, united to its splendour of diction +and its terror of suggestion, make it a _magnum opus_. + +It has only one defect; it gives the reader the impression that it cost +great effort to the author. It does not convey that sense of the +author's spontaneous fertility and joy in creation which Pierre Loti, +François Coppée, Anatole France, feel and give. _L'Impérieuse Bonté_ is +a great work, but its greatness must have cost painful thought and +unremitting labour. + +One feels that there is nothing of improvisation, of careless and happy +inspiration, about it. It is the matured fruit of profound observation, +and of complicated doubt, of an unselfish sorrow, and of a noble +altruism. It is a work which must impress and elevate all readers who +are capable of comprehending its teaching. But there is no laughter in +it, nor is there even a smile, save that sad divine smile which +accompanies the tears of pity. + + + + +VI + +WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT + + +There are few men of our time more interesting than the man who bears +this name. Fresh with English air, and dark with desert suns, +passionately liberal in thought and nobly independent in opinion, +spending his winters on the shores of the Nile, on the edge of the +desert, and his summers between the vale of Shoreham, and the +alder-shaded water of the humble Mole, he touches, and has always +touched, life at its most different facets. Not without knowledge has he +written of the green Sussex weald, and of the woodcocks and the +thrushes, the oak trees and the yew trees, of 'Evelyn's land'; not +without love as though he were also a son of the soil has he written of +that other far-off country where-- + + 'We may make terms with Nature, and awhile + Put as it were our souls to grass, and run + Barefooted and bareheaded in the smile + Of that long summer which still girds the Nile.' + +His private life, likewise, is equally of interest to the most +indifferent, since he is the husband of Byron's granddaughter, the +father-in-law of Neville Lytton, the companion in youth of Owen +Meredith, the friend of the Arab, the champion of the dumb, and the +standard-bearer of all lost causes. In few personalities is there united +so much which is uncommon, and idiosyncrasies which are so varied. He +has been so fortunate, often-times, in his friends and his fortunes, +that it is perhaps only to be human that he should, in his editor who is +his friend, fail to be so fortunate as one could wish. Mr Henley, who +selected his poems, has excluded many; one is disposed to resent and to +rebel; Mr Henley is apt at all times to arouse that sensation in the +reader of his somewhat too condescending criticisms. + +Many of the verses excluded were political; now it is precisely in +politics that Mr Blunt is most delightful to those amongst us who abhor +actual governments. + +I wish that these poems had come before the public without this species +of apology with which Mr Henley heads them. They do not need so +uncertain a prefatory note. They are certainly not likely to be popular. +They will not be recited over a little tambourine, and used to collect +monies for woollen socks and chocolate. They will be little appreciated +by the lovers of ballads of blood and fury, and odes of war which scream +like a steam-hooter. They are made to be read in quiet places where +daffodils blossom, and the black-cap sings; where lake waters lie calm +in mountain shadows, or where, through the stillness of a studio or +study, a summer breeze blows dropped rose-leaves across the threshold. + +Mr Henley raises one standard of great verse: Milton's: and below that +nothing to him is great. I know not where he places Shelley, but does +Milton ever touch the heart except perhaps in the Lycidas? Who can care +for the exiles of Eden? + +I do not think that it was necessary for Mr Henley to say that Mr Blunt +is not John Milton. It would not occur to anyone that he was. But then, +neither to my thinking is he Byron or Burns, whom Mr Henley thinks that +he is, nor is he either Owen Meredith, to whom Mr Henley likewise +compares him. He is, to my thinking, Wilfrid Scawen Blunt; alone in his +verse as he is also alone (or almost alone) in his opinions and his +politics. I dislike comparisons in criticisms. It is a meagre way to +define what is, this habit of declaring what it is not; and I love not +either the diminution of the living for the exaltation of the dead, or +the praise of the living for the depreciation of the dead. Nor is it to +me either wit or wisdom to say that Byron 'followed.' Who did he follow? +Who was his precursor? Who showed him his matchless double rhymes? Who +before him struck the splendid chords of his Juan? Who crowded into a +few years of life such accomplishment, such eloquence such romance of +existence? Who resembled Byron before Byron lived? + +Poets who are not great, and do not aspire to be so, may touch the +chords of memory, may unseal the fountains of tears, may make dead loves +arise and smile, and the springs of dead years return, and do this with +a line, a verse, a suggestion. This is what Owen Meredith did in his +song; so does his friend and comrade in his. There is a strongly virile +quality in his verse: it is not epicene, nor ever effeminate; the +thoughts are always the thoughts of a man who has felt the hoof of the +desert horse cast up the sand of the desert, and seen the circle of the +waiting vultures poised in the blue air; and heard 'God's thunder upon +Horeb'; who has read his Augustine and Chrysostom on the shores of the +Dead Sea, and his Horace and his Herrick lying on the short +sheep-cropped grass of Sussex; who knows many a bank whereon the wild +thyme grows in lowly Kentish lanes, and has walked with the shades of +Dante and of Byron in the marble streets of Ravenna, and under the dying +pines of its forest; who has loved and laughed in the artificial +passions and mocking mirth of Paris, and has dwelt in the solitudes +where the hair tents of the sons of Shem are dark against the east. + +Mr Henley, in his somewhat autocratic manner, says that a man lives for +posterity in proportion as he figures the gestures and sets forth the +emotions of his own time. We can none of us judge what posterity may do +or say. I fear it will be too engrossed with itself to take much heed of +anything which went before it. Or, possibly, there will be no posterity +at all, but only a shattered earth; scattered into space by some exploit +of that boastful Icarus called Science. But taking Mr Henley's dictum as +it stands, is it true, seeing (as its context shows) that he means an +Englishman must be judged by what he writes of England? If this were +true, where would go the Juan and the Parisina, the Anactoria and the +Atalanta in Calydon, the Cenci and the Adonaïs, the Lucille and the +Clytemnestra? Scott would be greater than Shelley, and Cowper than +Coleridge. The theory will not hold water. Which is the greater play of +Shakespeare--'King John' or 'The Tempest'? 'Henry the Fifth' or 'Romeo +and Juliet'? 'Richard the Third' or 'Hamlet'? What are esteemed the +greatest epics of the human race--Milton's and Dante's--are located in +no known province of our narrow sphere, but, in worlds, heavenly and +infernal, whither no traveller has gone, save in the spirit. 'Country' +is but a restricted boundary for whoever has the vision which sees +beyond the ordinary range of men. To the true poet his native land lies +wherever what is beautiful can be beloved, or that which is sorrowful +needs solace. + +The only thing that personally I regret in these verses is their +author's tendency to be too careless in his rhymes. Many of them grate +upon one's ear, and such as _sun_ and _stone_ vex one's sense of melody, +indeed, are not rhymes: whilst some words used, such as for instance +_Revenue_, accord ill with verse at all. He deems himself quit of +obligation to observe these delicacies of metrical beauty, because he +says peevishly that he is no poet. But he is a poet; and is so strongly +one in feeling that there is no excuse for him not to be more observant +of style. + +For style is the reed-pipe through which the singer's breath blows +music, and he should take heed that his syrinx be well chosen, and well +cut, so that each air played on it be clear as the throstle's note. + +But rough though many of his compositions are--rough and unstudied--yet, +when read in fitting atmosphere, they will be beloved, and in the mind +of the reader they will linger like the lilt of a moorland song heard on +an autumn eve. There is the _vox humana_ in their melody. They come +from the heart of a man who has suffered. They are unequal, extremely +unequal; the poet has gone through the woods and gathered together grass +and orchis, and gorse, and the sceptered meadow sweet and the bearded +barley, all together, just as they happened to come in his path; common +things sometimes, or such as seem so to those who do not see the sun +shine through and the dew tremble on them. + +They are not put together with great care. I should not think that they +were turned, and returned, and pondered over, and doubted about. They +are too spontaneous, or seem so, to be the subject of great meditation. +They are the natural children of a forest-lover. As you read them you +receive the irresistible impression that they were written involuntarily +as a full heart sighs, as a glad heart sings, but the sigh is more +frequent than the song. + +He has a great love of rural things. He says:-- + + 'You cannot know, + In your bald cities where no cowslips blow, + How dear life is to us. The tramp of feet + Brushes all other footsteps from the street + And you see nothing of the graves you tread. + With us they are still present, the poor dead. + Being so near the places where they sleep + Who sowed these fields, we in their absence reap.' + +Again:-- + + 'This ridge + Is only thirty miles from London Bridge, + And when the wind blows north, the London smoke + Comes down upon us, and the grey crows croak, + For the great city seems to reach about + With its dark arms, and grip them by the throat. + Time may yet prove them right. The wilderness + May be disforested, and Nature's face + Stamped out of beauty by the heel of man + Who has no room for beauty in his plan.' + +Again:-- + + 'The dove did lend me wings. I fled away + From the loud world which long had troubled me. + Oh, lightly did I flee when hoyden May + Threw her wild[8] mantle on the hawthorn tree. + I left the dusty highroad, and my way + Was through deep meadows, shut with copses fair, + A choir of thrushes poured its roundelay + From every hedge and every thicket there; + Mild, moon-faced kine looked on, where in the grass + All heaped I lay, from noon till eve. + And hares unwitting close to me did pass + And still the birds sang....' + +[Footnote 8: Surely _wild_ is a misprint for _white_? A mantle cannot be +wild, nor is it an epithet to apply to a hawthorn tree.] + +A certain similarity there is in his verse to Owen Meredith's, but this +is due to the fact that they were friends and companions always, in +youth and manhood, and that Wilfrid Blunt had an intense and adoring +sentiment for his friend which made him regard the other with a feeling +which was almost religious in its strength and sincerity. + +The following sonnet might have come out of 'The Wanderer,' and I +imagine the house called here Palazzo Pagani is the villa in +Bellosguardo which in 'The Wanderer' shelters the lovers of the 'Eve +and May.' + + 'This is the house where twenty years ago + They spent a spring and summer. This shut gate + Would lead you to the terrace, and below + To a rose-garden long since desolate. + Here they once lived. How often I have sat + Till it was dusk among the olive trees, + Waiting to hear their coming horse hoofs graze + Upon the gravel, till the freshening breeze + Bore down a sound of voices. Even yet + A broken echo of their laughter rings + Through the deserted terraces. And see, + While I am speaking, from the parapet + There is a hand put forth, and someone flings + Her very window open overhead. + How sweet it is, the scent of rosemary, + These are the last tears I shall ever shed.' + +Here the influence of Owen Meredith is very strong, but it is the +influence due to sympathy, not to imitation. + +But where he is entirely unlike Owen Meredith is in his passion of pity, +which is his dominant instinct, and which in the other is rarely +perceptible. Owen Meredith was entirely personal; Wilfrid Blunt is +strongly impersonal. The sorrows of man, and of one man in especial, +constituted the be all, and end all, of the former; the woes of all +creation lie heavy on the soul of the latter. The bird with a broken +wing is to Wilfrid Blunt as pitiful a tragedy as the human lover with +his ruined joys was to the author of 'The Wanderer'; the chained eagle +dying in an iron cage is to him as cruel a captive as his own soul +pining to be free from the limits of sense and the blindness of +mortality. He reaches a high level in altruism, which is in him of a +very pure kind. + +Such pity thrills through these lines on the stricken hart:-- + + 'The stricken hart had fled the brake, + His courage spent for life's dear sake, + He came to die beside the lake. + + 'The golden trout leaped up to view, + The moorfowl clapped his wings and crew, + The swallow brushed him as she flew. + + 'He looked upon the glorious sun, + His blood dropped slowly on the stone, + He loved the life so nearly won, + + 'And then he died. The ravens found + A carcase couched upon the ground, + They said their god had dealt the wound. + + 'The Eternal Father calmly shook + One page untitled from life's book-- + Few words. None ever cared to look. + + 'Yet woe for life thus idly riven, + He blindly loved what God had given, + And love, some say, has conquered Heaven.' + +What Wilfrid Blunt perceives and feels more keenly than greater English +poets, more keenly indeed than any English poet except Shelley and +Matthew Arnold, are the pathos, the value, the infinite sadness, of +these free forest, or desert, lives struck down in the fulness of their +strength and beauty by the brutal pursuit of that ravenous and +insatiable brute which is Man. It is this emotion which has inspired in +him the strange poem named 'Satan Absolved.' + +'Satan Absolved' was not written when Mr Henley edited the books of +earlier poems, and I imagine that it has scared Mr Henley and displeased +him. I do not know this, I have not asked, but I imagine that 'Satan +Absolved' must make Mr Henley extremely uncomfortable. + +Briefly, the motive of 'Satan Absolved' is the accusation brought by +Satan against Man; and against God, as the Creator and Authoriser of +Man. This will sound in many ears a profanity; but it is not so, and +Satan has sad reason in his arguments. It was a fine and lofty courage +which made the author produce it at a moment when the English people are +drunk and delirious with the lust of carnage and of conquest, and the +great thinker Herbert Spencer has accepted its dedication, whilst the +great painter Watts has given it its frontispiece. + +It is a poem which will alienate many, affright many, and to many no +doubt will appear blasphemous; but it is absolutely true in its hardy +and original conception of the sins of mankind against the other races +of the earth, and of the hypocrisy, brutality, and avarice of man, +clothed and cultured, against man primitive and helpless. It is a _cri +de coeur_, breaking almost involuntarily from a heart swollen with +indignation, and scorn, and pain, before the emptiness of creeds, the +impudence of prayer and praise, the vileness of aggression and of +war-lust. + + 'Hast Thou not heard their chanting? Nay, Thou dost not hear, + Or Thou hadst loosed Thy hand, like lightning in the clear, + To smite their ribald lips with palsy!' + +Like all poems in which Satan is the hero, the Fallen Angel dwarfs +Deity. The rebel, not the lord, is in the right. This is inevitable. + +Especially it is inevitable here, where Satan is the holder of the +scales of justice; the advocate of all those countless races upon earth, +who in their birth, and in their death, in their up-rising, and their +down-lying, in every day which dawns, and night which falls, curse Man, +their merciless master. + + 'The Earth is a lost force, Man's lazar house of woe + Undone by his lewd will. We may no longer strive, + The evil hath prevailed. There is no soul alive + That shall escape his greed. We spend our days in tears + Mourning the world's lost beauty in the night of years. + All pity is departed. Each once happy thing + That on Thy fair Earth moves how fleet of foot or wing, + How glorious in its strength, how wondrous in design, + How royal in its raiment tinctured opaline, + How rich in joyous life, the inheritor of forms, + All noble, all of worth which had survived the storms, + The chances of decay in the World's living plan, + From the remote fair past when still ignoble Man + On his four foot soles went, and howled thro' the lone hills + In moody bestial wrath, unclassed amongst Earth's ills. + Each one of them is doomed. From the deep Central Seas + To the white Poles, Man ruleth, pitiless Lord of these, + And daily he destroyeth. The great whales he driveth + Beneath the northern ice, and quarter none he giveth, + Who perish there of wounds in their huge agony. + He presseth the white bear on the white frozen sea + And slaughtereth for his pastime. The wise amorous seal + He flayeth big with young, the walrus cubs that kneel + But cannot turn his rage, alive he mangleth them, + Leaveth in breathing heaps, outrooted branch and stem. + In every land he slayeth. He hath new engines made + Which no life may withstand, nor in the forest shade, + Nor in the sunlit plain, which wound all from afar, + The timorous with the valiant, waging his false war, + Coward, himself unseen. In pity, Lord, look down + On the blank widowed plains which he hath made his own + By right of solitude. Where, Lord God, are they now, + Thy glorious bison herds, Thy ariels white as snow. + Thy antelopes in troops, the zebras of Thy plain? + Behold their whitened bones on the dull track of men. + Thy elephants, Lord, where? For ages Thou did'st build + Their frames' capacity, the hide which was their shield + No thorn might pierce, no sting, no violent tooth assail, + The tusks which were their levers, the lithe trunk their flail. + Thou strengthenedst their deep brain. Thou madest them wise to know, + And wiser to ignore, advised, deliberate, slow, + Conscious of power supreme in right. The manifest token + Of Thy high will on earth, Thy natural peace unbroken, + Unbreakable by fear. For ages did they move + Thus, kings of Thy deep forest swayed by only love. + Where are they now, Lord God? A fugitive spent few + Used as Man's living targets by the ignoble crew + Who boast their coward skill to plant the balls that fly, + Thy work of all time spoiled, their only use to die + That these sad clowns may laugh. Nay, Lord, we weep for Thee, + And spend ourselves in tears for Thy marred majesty. + Behold, Lord, what we bring,--this last proof in our hands, + Their latest fiendliest spoil from Thy fair tropic-lands, + The birds of all the Earth, unwinged to deck the heads + Of their unseemly women: plumage of such reds + As not the sunset teach, such purples as no throne, + Not even in heaven showeth, hardly, Lord, Thine own; + Such azures as the sea's, such greens as are in spring + The oak trees' tenderest buds of watched-for blossoming, + Such opalescent pearls as only in Thy skies + The lunar bow revealeth to night's sleep-tired eyes. + Behold them, Lord of Beauty, Lord of Reverence, + Lord of Compassion, Thou who metest means to ends, + Nor madest Thy world fair for less than Thine own fame, + Behold Thy birds of joy, lost, tortured, put to shame, + For these vile strumpets' whim. Arise, or cease to be + Judge of the quick and dead! These dead wings cry to Thee, + Arise, Lord, and avenge!' + +The use of the six-foot Alexandrine couplet may seem to many readers as +a thing unknown and unwelcome in English verse. Others may say that here +and there the language has not been sufficiently carefully weighed, that +there is repetition of thought in some places, and of words in others, +as for instance the word 'plain' recurs three times in seven lines. But +when hypercriticism has said and done its worst, the work remains a just +and generous indictment; heroic in its courage and vigorous in its +eloquence, pleading the cause of those who cannot plead their own. The +human race will be ill-pleased by the denunciation; for their vanity +must be wounded by one who incessantly reminds it of its kinship to 'the +lewd, bare-buttocked ape,' and who calls it full rightly, 'sad creature +without shame,' and calls it also:-- + + 'A presence saturnine, + In stealth among the rest, equipped as none of these + With Thy mind's attributes, low crouched beneath the trees, + Betraying all and each. + + * * * * * + + 'The red Japhetic stock of the bare plains, which rolled + A base-born horde on Rome erewhile in lust of gold, + Tide following tide, the Goth, Gaul, Vandal, Lombard, Hun, + Spewed forth from the white North, to new dominion + In the fair Southern lands, with famine at their heel + And rapine in their van, armed to the lips with steel. + + * * * * * + + 'The master-wolf of all men call the Sassenach, + The Anglo-Norman dog who goeth by land and sea, + As his forefathers went in chartered piracy, + Death, fire, in his right hand.' + +Again, who, in the vain-glorious Britain of our time, will pardon +this?-- + + 'The head knaves of the horde, + Those who inspire the rest and give the master word, + The leaders of their thought, their lords political, + Sages, kings, poets, priests, in their hearts one and all, + For all their faith avowed and their lip service done + In face of Thy high fires each day beneath the sun, + Ay, and their prelates too, their men of godliest worth, + Believe no word of Thee as master of their Earth, + Controllers of their acts, no word of Thy high right + To bend men to obedience, and at need to smite, + No word of Thy true law, the enforcement of Thy peace, + Thy all-deciding arm in the world's policies, + They ignore Thee on the earth. They grant Thee, as their "God," + The kingdom of the heavens, seeing it a realm untrod, + Untreadable, by man, a space, a _res nullius_, + Or No Man's Land which they, as loyal men and pious, + Leave and assign to Thee to deal with as Thou wilt, + To hold as Thy strong throne or loose as water spilt, + For sun and wind to gather in the wastes of air. + Whether of a Truth thou _art_, they know not, Lord, nor care; + Only they name Thee "God," and pay Thee their prayers vain, + As dormant over-lord and pensioned suzerain, + The mediatised blind monarch of a world, outgrown + Of its faith's swaddling clothes, which wills to walk alone.' + +These lines must be bitter in the teeth of the men of his generation, of +the men who say openly that religion is for the seventh day, not for the +week of work and war; who, churchgoers and chapelgoers alike, uphold the +campaign of blood and plunder; who prate of Helots, and treat the Kaffir +worse than any Helot that ever lived; who seek warrant in their +Scriptures for endless slaughter, and for endless slavery, of all in any +manner weaker than themselves; and who, with their jargon of +civilisation, and their doggerel of cant, bear fire and pestilence over +all the globe. + +Doubtless to man, convinced in deformity of his own beauty, in disease +of his own health, in crime of his own virtue, in blood-lust of his own +religious aims, the portrait of Man as given here in Satan's scathing +words will be very offensive. All honour be to the man who has dared to +draw it! + +It might be perhaps easy to show the fallacy of this upbraiding, and +prove the facts of the maintenance of life by the destruction of life +which has always prevailed on earth; the facts that the python and the +cobra, if not the tiger, and the eagle, slays, as man slays, for sport +in addition to food; that in the depths of the unfathomed seas, and in +the azure space of highest air, and in the green twilight of virgin +forests, the god of cruelty reigns and prevails; that the elephant and +the rhinoceros wrestled and the keen cheetah sprang on the meek +cameleopard, and the jaws of the crocodile opened for the playful +gazelle before ever the steel and the lead of the human brute touched +and slew them. But when this has been said and admitted, it does not +invalidate the truth of Satan's charge; that man has laid waste the +earth and slaughtered for greed, for savage pleasure, for mere +wantonness, as never any other creature before him or beside him on this +planet, has done or has ever wished to do. + +To blast the harmless, gentle, colossal whale with the coward's tool of +dynamite; to strip the fur coat off the living seal and drive her tender +body over sharp rocks it was never made to cross; to castrate the lion +and tear his flesh with red-hot irons that he may make the sport of +fools; to rear the timid pheasant by millions, hand fed and +unsuspecting, only that they may fall under the breechloaders of princes +and lords and gentlemen; to penetrate into virgin forests and plunge in +untroubled streams to seize the heron on her nest, and poison the +lyre-bird in his haunts, and snatch his golden plumes from the bird of +paradise, and his rosy wings from the flamingo, that commerce may +flourish and women be adorned--all these things, and more like them, +crimes of every clime and every hour, are human sins, and human sins +alone; and justify in its strongest accusations the charge of Satan +against Man as the most brutal murderer on earth; the same creature of +destruction still, in the comedy which he calls civilisation, as when in +his cave and his lake dwellings he first sharpened a stone, and then +stole out to kill. + +And it is herein there lie alike the courage and the value of the 'Satan +Absolved.' It is by no means a perfect poem; it would have been well if +it had received much more meditation and amplification, if passages +which approach the grotesque like the 'old world furniture,' the 'linen +long in press' of Heaven in the first page had been altered; and the +destiny and mission of Satan at the close are enwrapped in a mystery +which is to me at least incomprehensible; but when the utmost has been +said against it which can be urged, the poem remains a noble effort to +proclaim a supreme truth, which, as all great truths have done, dawns +slowly on the human mind--the solidarity of life. + +The preface alone to the book should make everyone obtain and cherish +it. This time the writer has penned his own presentation, and is not +ushered in by Mr Henley. It is enough to say that the introduction, like +the work, is worthy of the Englishman who, amidst a deafening roar of +national vanity and triumph, dared to denounce the injustice and the +inhumanity of Omdurman. + +It must not be forgotten that this poet is also a writer of prose; prose +clear, terse and strong. His letters to the leading journal of London, +and his works on the present state of India and the future state of +Islam are virile in thought and fearless in expression. A Sussex +landowner, and the possessor of a fortune sufficient to give him entire +independence, he has been the nominee of no party and the slave of no +prejudice. His temper is essentially _frondeur_; he has, what so few +possess, absolute independence of judgment; he refuses to see through +other men's spectacles, whether of smoked or of rose-coloured glass. +Again and again has he had the courage to oppose the policy of ministers +who were his personal friends. He opposed Mr Gladstone's and Lord +Granville's policy in Egypt, considering it alike unjust and unwise; and +he appealed alike to Parliament and to the nation against it, uselessly +but not the less manfully. The eloquence which he used so nobly at that +time must remain in the memories of many. He equally opposed the recent +campaign in the Soudan of Lord Salisbury's Cabinet, and the brutal +carnage commanded and excused by Kitchener. In India he was, at an +interval of a few years, the guest of two Viceroys, yet he never for a +moment consented to accept the views of either, although for both he had +strong personal friendship and regard. He thought (and thinks) the whole +system of English administration in India a cruel, costly and most +perilous mistake. + + 'I believe,' he says, 'the natives capable of governing + themselves much better than we can do, and at about a tenth + part of the expense. + + 'I have found a vast economic disturbance, caused partly by the + selfish commercial policy of the English Government, partly by + the no less selfish expenditure of the English official class. + I have found the Indian peasantry poor, in some districts, to + starvation; deeply in debt, and without the means of improving + their position; the wealth accumulated in a few great cities + and in a few rich hands, the public revenues spent to a large + extent abroad, and by an absentee Government. I have been + unable to convince myself that India is not a poorer country, + now, than it was a hundred years ago, when we first began to + manage its finances. I believe, in common with all native + economists, that its modern system of finance is unsound, that + far too large a revenue is raised from the land, and that this + is only maintained at its present high figure by drawing on + what may be called the capital of the country, namely, the + material welfare of the agricultural class; probably, too, the + productive power of the soil. I find a large public debt and + foresee further financial difficulties. + + 'Again, I find the ancient organisation of society broken up, + the interdependence of class upon class disturbed, the simple + customary law of the East replaced by a complicated + jurisprudence imported from the West, increased powers given to + the recovery of debt, and consequently increased facilities of + litigation and usury. Also, great centralisation of power in + the hands of officers daily more and more automatons and less + and less interested in the special districts they administer. + In a word, new machinery replacing, on many points + disadvantageously, the old. I do not say that all these things + are unprofitable, but they are not natural to the country and + are costly and out of all proportion to the good. India has + appeared to me in the light of a large estate which has been + experimented on by a series of Scotch bailiffs who have all + gone away rich.' + +In another place he says with equal frankness:-- + + 'India seems to me just as ill-governed as the rest of Asia. + There is just the same heavy taxation, government by foreign + officials, and waste of money that one sees in Turkey. The + result is the same; and I don't see much difference between + making the starving Hindoo pay for a cathedral at Calcutta and + taxing Bulgarians for a palace on the Bosphorus. Want cuts up + all these great empires in their centralised governments.' + + 'The "natives" as they call them,' he writes farther on, 'are a + race of slaves, frightened, unhappy, and terribly thin. I own + to being shocked at the Egyptian bondage in which they are + held, and my faith in British institutions has received a + severe blow.... I never could see the moral obligations + Governments acknowledge of taxing people for debts which the + Governments, and not the people, have incurred. All public + debts, even in a self-governing country, are more or less + dishonest, but in a despotism like India they are a swindle.' + 'It is my distinct impression,' he states in another portion of + his too brief work, 'from all that I have seen and heard, that + the ill-feeling now existing in India between the English there + and the indigenous races is one which, if it be not allayed by + a more generous treatment, will in a few years make the + continued connection between England and India altogether + impossible, and that a final rupture of friendly relations will + ensue between the two countries, which will be an incalculable + misfortune for both, and may possibly be marked by scenes of + violence such as nothing in the past history of either will + have equalled. The people are beginning to awake and to resent + the stupidity of those who, representing England in India, + wantonly affront them, and unless the English public at home, + with whom as yet the Indian races have no quarrel, becomes + awake, too, to the danger of its own indifference, the + irreparable result of a general race hatred will follow. Only + it should be remembered that India is a vast continent peopled + by races ten times more numerous than ourselves, and then the + convulsion, when it comes, will be on a scale altogether out of + proportion to our experience, and so the more alarming. Let + India once be united in a common sentiment of hatred for all + that is English and our rule there will _ipso facto_ cease. Let + it once finally despair of English justice, and English force + will be powerless to hold it in subjection. The huge mammal, + India's symbol, is a docile beast and may be ridden by a child. + He is sensible, docile and easily attached. But ill-treatment + he will not bear forever, and when he is angered in earnest his + vast bulk alone makes him dangerous, and puts it beyond the + strength of the strongest to guide him.' + +All who are interested in the future of England and India should read +this volume, which, although written as far back as Lord Ripon's +viceroyalty, applies in all its lessons and all its warnings with ten +times greater force to the India of to-day, which, with the three-fold +curse upon it of famine, of drought, and of plague, finds the British +Government too engrossed in its aggressive and criminal war in South +Africa to come to the relief of its Indian Empire, where tens of +thousands of human lives, and millions of animals, are wasting in death +and in despair. + + + + +VII + +JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN + + +Several years ago, at the moment when Mr Chamberlain, having abandoned +the Liberal Party, was adored by the party which calls itself +Conservative, I looked at him one evening after a dinner in a well-known +house in Belgrave Square. He was standing, surrounded by the loveliest +and most fashionable women of society, who were offering him a homage +which must have been delightful to him. It was an interesting, if rather +comical, spectacle, and I imagine that Chamberlain, though he gave no +sign of doing so, enjoyed it extremely, and laughed at it in his sleeve. +His physiognomy indicates his character; it has no distinction, but it +is full of energy, intelligence, and resolution; it is the physiognomy +of a tradesman, not of a statesman, of a person extremely keen and +acute, obstinate and cruel, but not by any means intellectual. The +eternal eyeglass serves to hide such expression as his features might +have, and the nose, short and _rétroussé_, makes plebeian lineaments +which might without this defect be sufficiently regular. In these later +times he has aged more than his years perhaps justify, and it is said +that he suffers from neuralgia and gout. He is always well dressed; 'too +well' an ex-Viceroy murmured to me that evening; and he is never seen, +as everyone knows, without an orchid in his button-hole; a flower always +culled in one of those famous orchid-houses at Highbury, which, before +his conversion, the Tory ladies longed so passionately to burn down, in +days when he was considered odious, accursed, almost an +Antichrist!--days not so very distant as the life of a nation counts. + +It was always said, at the time of his apostasy, that he left the +Radicals out of jealousy of Gladstone's greater powers, and of the +magnetism which Gladstone exercised over all his colleagues; and also +because amongst the Liberals there was Lord Rosebery, then in the +fulness of promise; there was Vernon Harcourt, then extremely eloquent +and much followed; and there was also in the Home Rule Party that great +genius, known amongst men as Charles Stewart Parnell, in whom +Chamberlain felt an irresistible superiority. If this were the reason, +he must now be content, since in his present party he has no rival in +the Cabinet, no one ventures to contradict him, and he is _de facto_, +though not yet _de jure_, the head of the present Government. There have +been many men of distinction before him in the somewhat subordinate post +of Secretary of the Colonies, notably the late Lord Carnarvon, and the +first Lord Lytton; but no one has ever made of this Department the +throne of the Suprema Lex as Mr Chamberlain has contrived to do. The +fault of whom, or the fault of what, lies at the root of this +successful usurpation? Let us endeavour to discover, for the problem is +interesting; and one of its most strange phenomena is to see Robert +Cecil, Marquis of Salisbury, fallen under the dominion of the Birmingham +screw-maker. + +In the whole of the Tory Party, Chamberlain has no one who opposes him, +no one who approaches him for strength of character and for acuteness of +perception, one may also add for unscrupulousness in principle and in +action. The sole person of the party who could have imposed authority +upon him by superiority of intellect would have been Lord Salisbury; but +either through force of energy on his own part, or by lack of energy on +his chief's, he has been able completely to rule and influence the +master of Hatfield, as he has succeeded in ruling and influencing all +others who sit round the ministerial table in Downing Street. A friend +of mine speaking once to me of Lord Salisbury, whom he knew intimately, +said, 'He is a fine big cannon, but he won't go off; I doubt if he will +ever go off.' It is probable that Chamberlain had the same opinion, and +therefore resolved himself to manoeuvre and fire the cannon. Anyhow, +he has acted well for himself in leaving the Radicals to ally himself +with their adversaries. If posterity blame him, and call him a turncoat, +I imagine that he is a man to whom the verdict of posterity is +absolutely indifferent. He is as 'hard as nails,' to use an appropriate +if common phrase; he is cynical and selfish; and to a politician of this +stamp, reputation in history is a matter of extreme indifference; fame +must seem to him only a carnival-masquer, noisily blowing a tin +trumpet. + +Napoleon, after the campaign of Egypt, said once, 'If I die to-morrow I +shall only have half a page in a universal dictionary.' To Chamberlain, +I believe, it would be wholly indifferent to have the half page, or even +a whole page. What suffices to him is to dominate and lead other men +while he lives. He is called inordinately ambitious, but his ambition is +essentially practical, not ideal. He wishes for the loaves and fishes; a +laurel crown would be to him a useless thing, unless it represented to +him solid lucre. Would he have succeeded if he had been born half a +century earlier? I doubt it. In the first half of the past century, men +admired in the ministers who ruled them very different qualities to +those which he possesses. On the other hand, his qualities are precisely +those which beget and command fortune in the actual moment; and by this +I intend no compliment either to him or to his times. + +In an epoch more courageous, more honest, more well-bred than the +present, a great Party calling itself Conservative would have repulsed +with contempt any renegade Radical, however disguised in the domino of a +Unionist. Instead, this Party has received him with open arms, nay, with +prostrate self-effacement, and worshipped him with enthusiasm; indeed, +the victory of the so-called Tories at the urns in 1895 would not have +been possible if Chamberlain had not permitted it; which he would not +have done unless he had been assured that he would enter and dominate +the Salisbury Cabinet. He has been equally happy in the occasions which +have presented themselves to him, and in his own capability in using +them; in the mediocrity of the men who combine with him, and of the men +who oppose him; in his infinite ability in influencing the first, and in +intimidating the last; he has been fortunate also in the fact that the +English people are less bigoted in religion than of old; for in an +earlier time they would have seen with horror a Unitarian entering the +Government. But his greatest good fortune of all was in the rise of the +Home Rule question at the very moment when he conceived the project of +going over to the Tory camp, which, without such an opportune reason to +give for it, would have appeared mere unworthy treachery. Without the +platform of Home Rule from which to make his _saut pèrilleux_, the leap +would have probably broken his neck; at any rate he could not have made +it with the certainty of being welcomed and rewarded by his new allies, +and of occupying amongst them a position far more conspicuous than he +ever occupied with the Radicals. + +His favouring star has also given him the marvellous good luck that in +the past year the death of Lord Salisbury's consort has so depressed and +preoccupied the Premier that the latter has almost entirely ceased to +occupy himself with the cares of office, and the Colonial Secretary has +been given more and more completely, with every month, a free hand. + +To me it has always seemed, during these later months of 1899, and +since, that the Sovereign should have bidden Lord Salisbury either +dismiss Chamberlain from office, or surrender office himself; for since +Chamberlain was allowed virtually to hold the helm of the State, he +should have been forced to accept the responsibility of the State's +navigation. + +Chamberlain has frequently declared that he has not changed in anything; +that he has not been an opportunist; that the Tory Party has come to +him, and has granted all his desires, accepted all his policy; and in +this statement of his there is some truth, if not an entire truth. As +two negatives make an affirmative, perhaps two desertions make a +fidelity! It is certain that the Tory Party has forsaken its old paths +quite as much as Chamberlain has his, indeed probably far more, for +there is no conservatism whatsoever in the acts of the so-called +Conservative Cabinets, and in his there is a great deal of radicalism +still, even of socialism, though this is oddly united to a hybrid and +artificial toryism. + +An eminent Conservative, a member of the Upper House, assured me the +other day that he honestly believed that Chamberlain had never done +anything which would prevent him at any time from being able, +honourably, to become the leader of the Radical Party. If this be +admitted, what are we to think of the Tory Party which can find no other +guide and saviour than this consistent Radical? Either the consistent +Radical, or the inconsistent Conservative Party, has 'ratted' in the +most barefaced manner. One or the other has been false to primal faith; +and there is only a very small band of independent thinkers who venture +to declare this. For Chamberlain has had the supreme cleverness to get +himself taken by the public as a patriot, and to oppose him, therefore, +lays open his opponent to a charge of want of patriotism. This is +extremely absurd; but it is to him enormously useful; and he knows that +the nation which he 'personally conducts' is not logical or critical. He +has taken its measure very accurately. + +The new hysterical creed of 'Imperialism' doubtless gained an impetus, +Home Rule equally certainly lost, by the change of front of 'Birmingham +Joe.' But the aristocratic party was harnessed like a cab-horse to the +triumphal car of the New Unionist, and has ever since then remained thus +harnessed. In the history of English politics these passages will +contribute a chapter which will not edify the readers of the next +generation; especially if its climax be, as it will be almost certainly, +the apotheosis of Chamberlain after a campaign of aggression and +conquest conceived and carried out by him and the Yellow Press which he +inspires. It is he who is responsible for the financiers' war in South +Africa; he might call it proudly, '_my war_,' as the Empress Eugénie +called the war with Germany, '_ma guerre à moi_.' If he had never been +anything higher than Mayor of Birmingham the farmers of the Transvaal +would still be ploughing their lands in peace. + +The war was desired, conceived, and imposed on his colleagues by the +Minister of the Colonies, without any appeal to or sanction of +Parliament. He denies this, but it is clearly proved by his famous +speech at Highbury and by the text of his irritating and provocative +despatches; and it was only when that war was begun, beyond all +possibility of alteration, that the Prime Minister, after long silence, +accepted the responsibility of it in his speech at the Guildhall. Lord +Salisbury, in that Mansion House speech, of course, denied the +allegation then made by the President of the French Chamber of Commerce +as to the motives and causes of the war; but no one who has attentively +followed the actions and expressions of Chamberlain before and after the +Jameson Raid, and his conduct at the enquiry held upon the conduct +therein of Cecil Rhodes, can for a moment doubt the intimate relations +which united the Colonial Secretary and the founder of Rhodesia and the +Chartered. + +Chamberlain, who, at the close of the Committee of Enquiry of 1897, had, +in common with other signatories, signed a statement that Rhodes was +culpable, declared a few days later in the House of Commons that Rhodes +was a man whose honour was untarnished! This, more than any other fact, +shows to what depths it is now possible to descend in English politics. +Certainly, in the time of Peel or of the earlier Governments of +Gladstone, a Minister capable of such conduct would have lost alike +office and seat in Parliament. Chamberlain, living in times of more +elastic morality, did not lose even a single follower. + +'Joseph Chamberlain has brought into English politics the habits and +criterions of a commercial traveller,' an eminent Englishman wrote to me +the other day. 'And of a commercial traveller not burdened by scruples.' +Now, the man of trade may have considerable qualities, great +intelligence, and great enterprise, but his mind and his acts are those +of a tradesman, not those of a gentleman, or of a statesman. Chamberlain +boasted in public one day that he belonged to the Party of Gentlemen; +now no gentleman would ever have so expressed himself. + +The tradesman inevitably brings into public life the traditions of his +counting-house; those traditions are to try, invariably, _de rouler les +autres_. Now public life should be something more than, and very +different to, the pursuit of speculation; and its aims should be higher +than the mere desire to trick a rival and send shares up or down. True, +statecraft in our day is chiefly 'land-grabbing' and an effort to bridle +democracy by taxation. Still it is a different art to the art of the +merchant's or manufacturer's office. When Chamberlain endeavours to be +diplomatic he becomes inane: a person (who must have been very _naïf_) +wrote to him the other day to ask if it were true that it had always +been his wish and intention to make war on the Boers, he replied to this +simpleton of a correspondent, 'I fear there will always be those who +will attribute to me the worst motives. Tennyson has said that every man +attributes to another the motives which would actuate himself'--and that +was all! I imagine he thought this reply very ingenious and tactful. + +He is no doubt adroit and ingenious in his management of men; but his +cunning does not wear the smiling and elegant mask which a politician's +should do. He does not possess the talent most necessary of all to a +politician, of taking refuge in exquisitely-turned phrases which seem to +reveal everything and reveal nothing. His voice is flexible and fine, +his deliverance imposes, but his statements are frequently impudently +cynical, and it is easy to discern that he holds men very cheap, and in +no way hesitates to use, to abuse, and to deceive them. He is never +really frank in his replies, though he affects candour; he often +approaches brutality; he loses his temper easily; and the spectator sees +by the nerves of his face and the movements of his limbs that he has not +the self-control and _sang-froid_, which are natural gifts of the man of +race and breeding. But despite these defects and these offences he has +conquered both society and his colleagues, and one sees scholarly and +refined men like Mr Arthur Balfour hopelessly and helplessly hypnotised +by him. He has taken with him into Downing Street the manners and the +methods with which he governed the town councillors of Birmingham; and +these succeed equally well in his altered atmosphere. 'We are all +horribly afraid of him,' one of his colleagues said the other day to a +friend of mine; probably because he is the only man amongst them +ill-bred and ill-tempered enough to be disagreeable and dangerous. In +earlier days, in those of Derby, of Palmerston, of Melbourne, +Westminster would not have tolerated him for a single session; in times +when orators quoting Greek or Latin verse were sure to be understood by +either House, when classical allusions were caught flying, when accuracy +and consistency were esteemed necessary in debate, the speeches of the +present Colonial Secretary would not have been thought tolerable. + +But the Great Britain of Lord Grey, of Canning, of Sydney Herbert, of +the Rupert of Debate, of the first half of Gladstone's political life is +dead and gone; and Disraeli has passed over its grave, of which he was +the digger. Disraeli and his influence have dominated and penetrated +English political and social atmospheres, in their highest strata, as a +contagious fever enters and reigns in a district. It was a strange +phenomenon, the Venetian Jew leading by the leash the entire English +aristocracies. To trace the manifold reasons which enabled a man so +alien and antipathetic to the British nation in blood, in manner, in +appearance, in opinions, to dominate that nation so completely would +require many folio volumes; for there has never been anything more +singular, or more due to innumerable causes, all converging to one end. + +No spectacle is more extraordinary than the power which Disraeli +acquired after being laughed down by everyone; acquired, and wields +still, so many years after his death. I think that his most potent +philtre lay in his flattery. He flattered his Sovereign, his party, and +the nation itself, with all the florid eloquence and subtle suggestion +of which he was so admirable a master. His famous 'Peace with Honour' +was an exact sample of his style; the peace was brittle and the honour +was dubious, but his manner of presenting them was so magnificent that +they were received as though they were gifts from heaven. An able writer +has said that the English are deficient in the power of observation, and +I believe it is true. They do not examine critically before committing +themselves to embrace a cause or an idea; they can easily be led into +any extravagance which humours their national humour. Disraeli played on +this weakness. He had himself a passion for advertisement, for varnish +and gilding, and florid decoration; all his speeches and all his +romances are spoilt by these; and he succeeded in inoculating with this +taste the English character to which it was naturally alien. + +The first sign of the nation having been so inoculated was given when it +allowed Disraeli to call the Queen of England the Empress of India, and +change an ancient monarchy into a _parvenu_ empire. The first step +taken, the rest followed; the mania of what is considered aggrandisement +has acquired possession of the national life, and has made of a nation, +naturally noble and great, a swollen boaster, bawling of its millions, +its might, and its superiority, although surely vanity is no more +admirable in a country than in an individual? This alteration in the +British temper, which was primarily the work of Disraeli and of the new +nobility (chiefly commercial and largely Jewish), which was called into +being, prepared the ground for Chamberlain's Imperialism, a much coarser +and greedier thing, without any of the veil of ideality which Disraeli +lent to his creeds. In the time of Disraeli, the temper of England was +still largely coloured by an old aristocracy, retaining, with the +prejudices, the principles of gentlemen; now, the financiers and the +speculators make the old aristocracy dance to whatever music they +choose, and riches are the sole thing sought. + +Every Ministry in England, on going out of office, leaves its contingent +of ennobled tradesmen, raised to the peerage solely for their money, and +for the way in which they have spent their money for the Party. In this +way the so-called Conservative leaders possess a solid phalanx of +supporters whose wealth makes them irresistible in the country, and who +practically send up to Westminster any men they choose. These great +_richards_ find Joseph Chamberlain more to their taste than Lord +Salisbury, who is too scholarly, too satirical, and too great a +gentleman for them; his health is failing, he speaks rarely, there is a +cynical contempt in his occasional speeches which cuts the _novi +homines_ like a whip. It is impossible that a man of Lord Salisbury's +pride of character and acuteness of intellect should much longer consent +to be the mere echo of his Colonial Secretary. There is every sign that +his retirement will be followed by the accession to the premiership of +Chamberlain. For months past the Imperialist Press, and notably that +journal which is the property of the Chancellor of the Primrose League, +has been insinuating that no one except Chamberlain is capable of rising +to the height required by advanced Imperialism: and what this journal +says is certain to be echoed by that party, which, with an audacity +almost sublime, still calls itself Conservative. + +Chamberlain has continued the work of Disraeli, but he has done so by +vulgarising and brutalising it. The best qualities of the English +character are, under his influence, lost in a blatant self-admiration. +Its sense of morality is blunted; its leaders accept any denial or +excuse of the Minister of the Colonies, and he is applauded when, as an +independent Member said a few weeks since in the House of Commons, he +should be called to the bar of the House. Parliament, and the nation +after it, accept the suppression of despatches and telegrams, the use +and abuse of censorship, the denial and interruption of free speech, the +closure of debate at the moment when its continuance would be +inconvenient to ministers: all things previously intolerable to the +English people. Chamberlain has educated them into the abandonment of +all their ancient virtues. If, as he is almost certain to do if he live, +he become before long the Premier of England, he will do immeasurable +harm both to Great Britain and the world. + +The reign of Queen Victoria has been a long succession of wars; few, if +any, were either necessary or inevitable. But not one of these has been +a war of defence at home; the English citizen and peasant know nothing +in their own land of the horrors of war; they have never seen its +desolation and its horrors; they have never seen their little children +crushed under the hoofs and wheels of a battery, their homes set on fire +by a shell, their sons starving, their fields devastated, their towns +beleaguered. They have never seen a battle, a siege, a trench full of +dead; therefore they do not know the hideous suffering which they +inflict when they let loose, in pride of spirit and lightness of heart +and triumphant vanity, the fiends of war upon a distant people and a +far-off land. This is the excuse of a large portion of the nation for +the present war; but it is at the same time the strongest condemnation +of those who preach war to it as a divine creed, and appeal to its most +brutal instincts, and abuse its ignorance to lead it into crime. The +victories now gained will be dearly bought, for they, and the national +madness they produce, will certainly set Joseph Chamberlain in the seat +of supreme power, and no one will have the courage to restrain his hand. +Bellona has served him so well now, she will be his chosen handmaid in +the future.[9] + +[Footnote 9: It is possible, though little to be hoped, that the +complications in China (which any far-sighted statesman would have +foreseen and provided for) may open the eyes of the British people to +the terribly heavy bill which they will pay, eventually, for the luxury +of the Chamberlain Cabinet.] + + + + +VIII + +UNWRITTEN LITERARY LAWS + + +There has been some idea mooted of forming an Academy in England on the +lines of the Academy of France, but it would never be the same kind of +institution, or exercise the same authority. The English temper is not +academic, the Royal Academy is proof enough of that. Moreover, +Englishmen are indifferent to the use or abuse of their language, and +the first care of an Academy must be to keep the national language pure, +and clear, and elegant. The well of English undefiled is sadly muddy, +nowadays, and any roaring screamer of English or American slang is as +welcome to those who call themselves critics as though he wrote like +Matthew Arnold or John Morley. Lacking an Academy of Letters, and the +writers who would make one, there is in London what is called a Society +of Authors, which is supposed to resemble the Société des Gens de +Lettres in Paris, but the English Society appears to be chiefly an +association for the multiplication and publication of inferior works, +and its authority on literature is _nil_. In addition to these, there +are persons who call themselves literary agents; but the latter have a +decidedly anti-intellectual influence, and to them is probably, in part, +due the enormous increase in the issue of rubbish of all kinds, which is +at the present time doing so much injury to the English literary +reputation. + +The number of volumes which pour annually from the English press is, at +the present hour, appalling. One house alone produces, in number, enough +volumes for the whole trade. Why are these volumes, usually worthless, +ever produced? Why do the circulating libraries accept them? Who reads +them? Who buys them? Why does one see in the lists of London +'remainders' the announcement of volumes originally published at six, +eight, ten, twelve shillings, to be sold second-hand, perfectly new and +uncut, at the miserable prices of two shillings, eighteen-pence, one +shilling, and even sixpence? Amongst these is sometimes a work of real +and scholarly worth, which it is painful to see thus sacrificed, but +rarely; for it is rarely that such a work is now issued in London. Where +is this to end? With whom does the fault of it lie? Someone, I suppose, +must gain by such an insane method of over-production, but I cannot see +who it can possibly be. One well-known publisher tells me that he must +issue books thus, or starve. He is not in danger of bodily starvation, +but the public is mentally starved by such a system. + +When the three-volume novel was abolished (a course which I urged long +before it was taken) great things were expected by many from its +abolition. I myself hoped that London would adopt the Paris method, and +issue novels and all other works, except _éditions de luxe_, at small +prices and in paper covers; not the gaudy, hideous, pictorial, paper +cover, but the pale smooth grey or cream-coloured paper, so easily +obtainable, with the title of the book clearly printed on its flank. +Instead of this result, some unwritten law, as violently despotic as +that which used to compel the three-volume issue, has decreed that the +London romance shall always appear in a cloth-bound volume at six +shillings; the most foolish price that could be selected, too dear to be +suitable for private purchase, too low to allow of a handsome edition +being issued. There is something grotesquely ludicrous, as well as +extremely painful, in seeing the lists of 'ten new six-shilling novels,' +or 'a dozen new six-shilling novels,' whereby some publishers' +advertisement lists are disfigured in the newspapers with every new +season. It makes a commerce of fiction in a manner most injurious and +deplorable. + +Again, no sooner has the six-shilling novel been a year before the +public, than the publisher issues the self-same book at +two-and-sixpence. Why does he cut his own throat thus? It is to me as +inexplicable as why the London drapers sell you a stuff at six shillings +a yard in February, but, if you wait till June, sell it you at +two-and-sixpence a yard at the clearance sales. Either the stuff is sold +at a price unjust and unfair to the purchaser in February, or it is sold +at a price unjust and unfair to the vendor in June. From this +proposition there seems to me no escape. + +It is the same with the six-shilling book as with the draper's stuffs. +If the first price be correct, why alter it to the second in a year's +time? If the second price be sufficient to pay expense of production, +why not start with it. + +The draper, moreover, has an advantage over the publisher. If I want a +stuff whilst it is a novelty, and when its like has not been worn by +shop girls and servant girls, I must buy it at its high price in +February; but if I want to read a novel whilst it is at its highest +price, I can read it in that form, taking it from the libraries, and +wait for a year to buy it at its lower price, if I then care to do so, +which it is improbable that I shall do. + +Now, why not have from first to last, in London, an edition of a novel +similar to that French form which is good enough for Pierre Loti, for +Gyp, for Anatole France, for the brilliant Frères Margueritte? Why? + +I suppose because our masters, the librarians, will not have it so; or +because some other unwritten law lies like lead on the souls of London +publishers. + +I read few English books for pleasure myself, I prefer the literatures +of other countries; but it pains me to see such a deluge of worthless +verbosity pour from London lanes and London streets where printing +presses of yore worked for Addison and Goldsmith, Thackeray and Arthur +Helps. + +If this stream of pseudo-literature be not stopped, it will carry away +and swamp all true English literature under it, as a moving bog covers +flocks and pastures, cottages and country seats. + +I have asked several London publishers why it is allowed to go on; their +answers are evasive and contradictory. They assert that most of the +volumes published are paid for by the authors; that they themselves must +publish something, or cease to exist as a trade; and that the public +does not know good from bad, so it does not matter what is printed. Yet, +surely to them, as to the drapers, the apparently insensate system must +be lucrative, or it would not be pursued? + +There was a comical lamentation in the London Press the other day for +what was called 'the death of the novel'; not the approaching death +which I expect for it by suffocation under the dust-storms of verbosity +and imbecility, but of death by its own suicide, through its own +curtailed proportions. It was indignantly asked why it was not as long +as it used to be in the 'Fifties and 'Sixties, and why novelists now +wrote short stories which in that period would have found no sale, would +not, indeed, have even found the preliminary necessary to a +sale-publication. + +Surely we remember some short stories called _The Cricket on the Hearth_ +and _The Chimes_, and others telling the adventures of the Great +Hoggarty Diamond and of one Barry Lyndon? As for the length of novels +nowadays, my own _Massarenes_, published in 1897, contains precisely the +same number of words as _Esmond_, and, I think, Mr Mallock's novels, and +those of Mrs Humphry Ward, must surely be quite as long, whilst Mr Hall +Caine's marvellous narratives appear as endless as 'the thread of Time +reel'd off the wheel of Fate.' The critic who grieves over the brevity +of present-day volumes, thinks that Thackeray and Dickens wrote at such +length because they were obliged to fill their monthly numbers! It seems +to me far more likely that they were in love with their characters, as +every writer of true talent is, and lingered tenderly over many needless +details and dialogues out of sheer pleasure in their creations; and it +must be admitted that both of them had naturally a discursive style, +which would have been the better for some excision. But were it true +that there is an unwritten law which limits or expands the length of +romances according to the public caprice or taste, surely nothing could +be more harmful to fiction than such limitation? Every story, if it be +worth the telling, has its own natural length, which cannot be stretched +or shortened arbitrarily without hurt. The sculptor knows that the form +which he creates has its own natural proportions, its own inherent +symmetry according to natural rules, which he must obey. The painter +knows that, according to the nature of his subject, and of his intended +treatment, he must take for his picture, either a small panel, a +kit-kat, or a large canvas; and that if he force its dimensions, either +by over-compression or over-extension, his work will be a failure. + +Why is the author not bound by the same canon of art? Artistically, he +certainly is so bound. Intellectually, he certainly is so bound. That +this obligation is continually defied and broken through by many English +writers, proves only that the great majority of these writers are not +artists in any sense of the word. + +The brevity or length of a literary work can have nothing to do with its +beauty or excellence. If it be beautiful, if it be excellent, its +proportions will be those which naturally grew out of its subject; and +the writer who is an artist will know, as the painter knows, that he +cannot alter the unwritten law which prescribes to him those +proportions. What has either length or brevity to do with either +excellence or beauty? What give both excellence and beauty are qualities +not to be measured by a publisher's counting up of words, or a printer's +enumeration of pages. + +A sketch of a few pages of Maupassant's is worth all the volumes put +together of Georges Ohnet; one of the _Sonnets of Proteus_ is worth the +whole swagger of the _Seven Seas_. + +There seems to be, unhappily, an unwritten law in English literature +that cheapness must of necessity be allied to ugliness. A cheap book is +in England an inferior and unlovely thing. But it need not be so. It is +not so everywhere. I have now before me a book of Pompeo Molmenti's, +issued by Bemporad, of Florence; its cost is two francs twenty-five +centièmes; less than one-and-sixpence in your money. It is bound in +thick cream-coloured paper; it is called _Il Moretto di Brescia_, being +a brief study of the life and works of the great artist of whose pure +and noble work the city of Brescia is full. That the text is of rare +scholarly excellence, and of the finest critical and appreciative +qualities, there can be no question, since it is written by the +President of the Accademia delle Arte of Venice. The type is large, the +paper fine, the illustrations (phototyped) are of extreme delicacy and +beauty, rendering worthily the works of the Moretto; the size of the +book is Imperial 8vo. + +Will you tell me where I should find anything equal to it at its price +in London? + +Your books are all ill-stitched, and fall to pieces as soon as one +handles them. Your type is usually ugly, even at its best; all foreign +readers complain of its clumsiness and confusing effect on the eyes. +Compare a page of a Parisian book at three francs and a half with a page +of a six-shilling English novel. The former is incomparably the +superior. Your cheap illustrated books are still more scandalously +treated. I have before me a book priced four-and-sixpence, more than +double the price of _Il Moretto_. It is a book for children; its +illustrations have been reproduced from earlier works, and they are not +even all of the same method or the same size; some are printed from old +wood-blocks, some are photographed; in one a child is represented the +size of a fly, in another a dog is drawn bigger than a man; anything is +thought good enough, it seems, for children. Artistic beauty is entirely +lacking in the illustrations of English juvenile books; and there is +nothing so irritating as the sight of illustrations of various qualities +bound up in the same volume. + +Even certain illustrated periodicals and journals are not above using up +their old wood-blocks in their new numbers. It is a very disgraceful and +unworthy practice. When the illustrations are fresh, the designer +frequently does not attempt to adapt them to the text; a gentlemen is +drawn like a cad, and a Newfoundland dog is drawn like a poodle; a +peasant of the Romagna is drawn like a loafer in Shoreditch, and so on +continually, without the slightest attention to accuracy. + +There is also, beyond all doubt, an unwritten law which has been so +universally observed that it has become, properly, as binding as a +written law. I mean the law that when once a romance, or a story, or a +poem have been published they cannot be altered. + +What should we think of the painter who repainted his picture after +sale, or of a sculptor who sawed off an arm from his statue, and affixed +another? Both picture and statue may have many faults; they probably +have; but such as they went out from the studio they must remain. This +is the common morality, the elementary honour, of art, and a similar +canon should certainly lie upon literature. + +Yet some writers have of late presumed that they had a right to change +the ending of their romances when these were already well known to their +readers. They would urge, I suppose, that they have a right to do what +they like with their own. But your work once given to the public is no +more your own than your daughter is when you have married her, and she +has become the _Gaia_ of her _Gaius_. + +Besides, there is an unspoken good faith on the part of the author which +should be observed in his relations towards the public. He should give +them nothing which is incomplete; nothing, at least, which is not as +harmonious as it is in his power to create. Every work of fiction +requires to be long dreamed of, long thought of, clearly seen in the +mind before written; it ought to be no more susceptible of change than a +conclusion in Euclid. To the writer, as to the reader of a story, it +should seem absolutely true; the actors in it should appear absolutely +real. The illusion of reality is only strong in the reader according to +the strength of that illusion in the writer; but some such illusion must +always exist whilst the reader reads fiction, or fiction would have no +attraction for anyone. The writer who alters his romance after it has +once appeared destroys this illusion, and says effectively to his +public, 'What fools you are to take me seriously!' Moreover, he insults +them, for he tells them that he has set before them a half-finished and +immature thing, about which he has entirely changed his mind. He is like +a cook who should snatch off the table a dish just placed on it because +he wished to alter the flavour. A Vätel or a Soyer would not do that: if +he had made a mistake he would abide by it, though he might kill himself +in despite at it. + +In the course of a literary or artistic life, or any other life from +which the blessing of privacy has been lost, there are many wrongs met +with which are real and great wrongs, yet which must be endured because +they cannot be remedied by law suits, and there is no other kind of +tribunal open; nothing analogous, for instance, to the German Courts of +Honour in military matters. + +There is, for example, a habit amongst some editors of seeking the +expression of opinion, on some political or public question, of some +well-known writer; printing this expression of opinion, and, before it +is published, showing the proof to some other writer, so that an article +of contrary views and opinions may be written in readiness for the +following number. Now this seems to me an absolutely disloyal betrayal +of trust. In the first place, the proof of an article is of necessity +entirely dependent on the good faith of the editor. It is an understood +thing, a tacit, unwritten law, that no one except the editor is to see +it until the public does so. It is never considered necessary to +stipulate this. To show it to a third person to obtain a refutation, or +a burlesque, of it before the article is published, seems to me a +distinctly incorrect thing to do; an extremely unfair thing to do. Yet +it is becoming a common practice; and a writer has no redress against +it. It is manifestly not the kind of offence which can be taken into a +tribunal, yet it is a very genuine and very annoying injury, and it is +one against which I think that authors, whose names are of value, should +be protected in some manner. + +What redress, moreover, is there for the innumerable thefts from which a +writer suffers during his career? I doubt if we, any of us, know the +extent to which we are robbed by bookmakers, who are not of the turf, +but are quite as unscrupulous as those of the turf. + +A few years ago I saw, in the pages of one of the highest class of +London periodicals, a story, contained in one number, which was nothing +more or less than the reproduction of the Derbyshire part of my +well-known novel of _Puck_: the narrative of Ben Dare and his love for +his worthless sister Anice. It was far more than a plagiarism; it was a +monstrous theft. The name of a lady was put at the end of it, as that of +the author; of course, I wrote to the editor, expecting, despite +previous experiences, to receive apology and reparation. I misunderstood +my generation. The editor wrote back, with airy indifference, that the +lady who had produced this shameless piracy had never read _Puck_. To +my citation, in reply, of the words of the Emperor Julian, 'If it be +sufficient to deny, who will ever be found guilty?' and to my objection +that an appropriation of an entire section of a novel could not by any +possibility be otherwise than an intentional theft, this model of +editors replied not at all. I ought, perhaps, to have sued the +publisher, who was doubtless quite innocent, but had I done so it is +more than probable that I should have obtained no apology or redress. To +begin a law suit is a very serious thing, and all these grievances and +piracies are so incessant, though few are quite as impudent as was this, +that if one pursued them as they merit one would spend all one's life +and substance in Courts of Law. + +Moreover, in the case of the plaintiff in any suit residing out of +England, a large sum for costs must be deposited at the English tribunal +into which the suit is brought; a kind of foregone conclusion that the +plaintiff has no valid case, which seems to me very prejudicial to that +person. + +What, then, is to be done in such circumstances? + +Nothing at all. You must endure the injury, leave unpunished the +plagiarism; and the offender escapes scot-free. + +I do not think that anyone should sue another for any mere expression of +opinion, however hostile or rudely expressed, as Mr Whistler sued Mr +Ruskin, for the liberty of the Press is of more importance than the +annoyance of individuals. + +But some protection is required against swindling in literature; and at +the present moment none exists. Practically none exists either against +libel. I saw, a few years ago, three very gross and libellous English +newspaper articles upon myself, and sent them to a high personage in the +law, who is always kind enough to give me his advice, and asked him if +he considered it worth while for me to prosecute them. He wrote me in +answer: 'All three articles are foully slanderous, yet one only, +perhaps, would come within the grip of the law; upon this one you would +most certainly obtain damages, but prosecution entails so much expense, +trouble, worry, and insult, to the aggrieved party, that I would always +say to any friend of mine what I say now to you: Do not do that which +you have a perfect right to do.' + +I followed the advice, for if one asks counsel of a person whom one +respects, one ought to submit to it; but the fact remains that, for the +most offensive social libels, there is, neither in law nor in society, +any means of obtaining redress which a great lawyer can honestly +recommend to a friend. For such matters, why cannot there be a tribunal +set apart from other tribunals; one having the attributes of a Court of +Honour, and without the odious publicity of Courts of Law? + +Against libel, even of the grossest character, what can one do, as the +law stands, which is not more disagreeable than silently to 'grin and +bear' it? The great preliminary cost; the extreme uncertainty and +irritation involved, the odious publicity necessarily incurred; the +chatter, the comments, the cross-examination; the insolence and the +jeers of the counsel for the defence, are all punishments which fall +upon the plaintiff. What consolation is it for them that he may perhaps +be awarded a thousand pounds damages, though it is more probable that he +will receive only a farthing, and be left to the enjoyment of paying his +own costs? In either result, is the game worth its very costly candle? +Is the injury made less an injury? Is the combat not in every sense most +unjust and unequal, being less a combat indeed than an assassination by +a bravo? To what can we ever look for any remedy of this except from the +unwritten law of opinion? But as the world is at present constituted it +delights far too greatly in this garbage for it ever to rebuke the +providers of it. Hogs do not rend the man who carries the swill-tub. + +In one of the Prince Consort's letters to his eldest daughter, then +Crown Princess of Prussia, he tells her to set aside a portion of her +money every year to meet the inevitable blackmail which will certainly +be levied upon her. This blackmail is levied on every kind of success as +well as on royalty. What is to be done? To submit to it, is repugnant to +all one's sense of justice; to rebel against it, however such resistance +be justified, is often ruinous. + +The true remedy would lie in a finer, juster, higher kind of public +feeling; but where is there any likelihood of this arising in the world +as it is? + +My own feeling is very strongly always against the anonymity of the +Press. Everyone surely should have the candour and courage to put his +signature after his opinions. But, unfortunately, the Press gains so +much importance (fictitious importance) from its anonymity that it is +hopeless to ask for an unwritten or a written law on this subject. The +arrogant 'we' would soon fall to zero in its influence on the public if +it were signed by a Tom, Dick, or Harry, who, as Matthew Arnold used to +say, forms his opinions from what he overhears on the knifeboard of a +city or suburban omnibus. It is, perhaps, worthy of a nation which +treats duelling as a penal offence to countenance anonymous assertions, +anonymous opinions, anonymous bravado, and anonymous insults; but the +result cannot be beneficial to the national character. + +For many months in this past year, and in the year before that, hundreds +of anonymous correspondents and leader-writers of the English Press have +been doing their utmost by violence of language to drive to war the +nations of England and of France. Is it not probable, even certain, that +if all these writers had been obliged to sign their names to these +furious articles, they would have paused before making themselves +responsible for such language? I am often accused of using too strong +language; but at all events I sign whatever I say, and I should be +ashamed to do otherwise. An anonymous Press possesses dangerous +privileges; such privileges as the mask gives a masquerade; it also, as +I have said, acquires a dignity and an importance which are not its own; +it is unfair and harmful; it protects exaggeration, hyperbole, flattery, +and calumny, but it is too useful to too many not to be sustained; it +can always serve the Bourses much better than a signed Press could do, +and obey much more efficiently the nods and signs and cypher dispatches +of the great financiers; but it is cowardly, and can easily, if it +chooses, be dishonest. + +It will, perhaps, be objected that the anonymity of the Press is more +apparent than real; that the greater writers of the London Press at +least are all recognised by their style, or well known by the initiated; +but this knowledge is limited to a few hundred persons, and can never be +shared by the general public, and it is on the general public that +anonymous journalism has its chief influence. + +To whom or what can we look for the pressure of an influence which would +enforce honesty in literature? To public opinion? Undoubtedly we might, +and we should, if public opinion were what it should be. But it is not, +and, most probably, never will be. Breeding and manners grow worse every +day; and it is they alone which could enforce that unwritten code which +is so sorely needed. It is, after all, the absence of moral and +honourable feeling in the world in general which makes the violation of +these not only condoned by others but frequently profitable to the +sinners. Take two instances of this: The sale of private letters both of +the living and of the dead; and the seizure of the plots and characters +of romances by people who are themselves dramatic adapters. The latter +is the more trivial offence of the two; but it is as impudent as it is +dishonest. It is injurious in a great degree, and extremely annoying to +the original author, whose name is bawled and placarded about in +connection with that of his robber, with no consent of his own, and +usually to his extreme irritation, whilst his ideas are borrowed, and +his characters travestied, and his entire creation belittled and +vulgarised. Would the stalls be filled nightly to witness pieces stolen +in this manner were the public governed by any unwritten law of respect +for _meum_ and _tuum_? + +The other offence of selling letters is still more heinous; it is +difficult to conceal the piracy of a romance for theatrical purposes, +but it is perfectly easy to conceal the sale of letters; head it the +sale of autographs, and it passes with entire impunity. There is, I +believe, a law (a written law) that letters are the property of the +writer of them; but it is absolutely a dead law; as dead as many of +those of the Tudors or Stuarts. I think that letters ought to be the +property of the recipient, but it should be an inalienable property +which he should be no more able to sell than he is able to sell entailed +property. To write a letter, even a brief one, is, in a sense, an act of +confidence. In writing it we assume that its contents will not be used +against us, either for injury or ridicule. If a conversation be +considered confidential, how much more should a correspondence be so! A +letter, in any degree intimate, is a hostage given into the hands of its +recipient. We are justified in expecting that any sentiments, views, or +opinions it may contain shall not go beyond the reader for whom they +have been penned. This is so much to be desired in the interests of all +letter-writers that no one, I think, can dispute its justice. What, +then, are we to say of the constant appearance in catalogues of sales of +letters of living, and of lately dead, persons? + +If it be, as I understand, illegal, why is it permitted publicly? If it +be not thus illegal, why does not general indignation render it +impossible? I have more than once seen, in the autograph-albums of men +and women of the world, letters of the most intimate character by +distinguished writers; letters which have been evidently written in the +careless, open-heartedness of a warm friendship, and which were lying on +a drawing-room or library table, open to the sneer, the jest, or the +wonder of everyone who turned over the pages of the book. + +'N'y touchez pas, N'y touchez pas! Je l'ai payé vingt louis!' cried, in +my hearing, a lady (a _rastaquouère_), who owned amongst other +autographs a letter which it was especially wrong to place in such a +collection, since the writer of it is great and is alive. Not for twenty +louis, not for twenty thousand, should it ever have been purchasable. +What traitor sold it? What servant stole it? How did it find its way +into the market, that familiar and intimate thing? Through treachery, +through death, through accident, through greed? We shall never know. It +was certainly not through friendship. + +Surely, also, some unwritten law should prescribe and limit the license +of caricature. It is scarcely fair that, because a personality has +interest and eminence attached to it, every draughtsman who can scrawl a +line can make that personality hideous or ridiculous at pleasure. + +'You cannot like it?' I said once to a person of considerable eminence, +who was the subject that week of one of the 'Portraits' of a satirical +and political English journal of wide circulation. + +'No, I do not!' he answered. 'Of course, I should not object to it if it +were a pen-and-ink drawing being handed about to amuse people in my own +country house; but when one knows that it will be seen by tens of +thousands of people who will never see me in the flesh, the thing +becomes annoying.' + +His opinion must be shared by all those who are thus pilloried, even if +they think it politic to laugh and seem indifferent. + +It is 'the penalty of distinction,' the offenders reply. But why should +distinction be weighted by a penalty, like the successful racer? I +believe that the world in general is the loser by this kind of +persecution; for dislike to the vulgar ridicule which snarls at the +heels of all eminence in this day, keeps aloof from the public arena men +who would do honour to it, but whose strength of intellect is +accompanied by shyness, pride, and sensitive reserve. Some unwritten law +should also render impossible those verbal libels which are continually +published by persons cunning enough to keep to the windward side of law +in the offensive matter which they write. This is again another +penalty-weight laid on the back of the racer who has won; and it is +precisely this kind of penalty from which an unwritten law, in the +Press, and in the world, should protect such winners of the gold cups of +life. + +The unwritten law of common honour should make such a book as that which +was recently issued on Bismarck impossible, because those who would have +the power of writing it would be above the temptation of doing so. There +may be a strong temptation to say what we know better than any other of +one whose name is eminent. But I doubt whether we should yield to the +temptation, even if we ourselves suffer in reputation by not doing so. +But the bookmakers of the world have no such excuse as this temptation +offers; they are merely footmen who have listened with pricked ears +whilst they waited at table on their masters, and when their master is +powerless to chastise, sell what they remember or invent. Even where it +is not libellous, the sickening intrusion into private life which +nowadays disgraces journalism must, to any temper of any refinement and +reserve, be an offence irritating beyond endurance. There are flatteries +and intrusions beside which censure is sweet and obloquy would be +welcome. + +There is a great pathos in the fact that the greatest man of these last +fifty years, the man of blood and iron, should, as soon as he lies in +his coffin, be insulted by such a book as this. The hand in its steel +gauntlet, which welded fragments into a nation, is powerless to defend +its owner against betrayal and false witness. The vulgar, insatiable +curiosity of the general world breeds such traitors as these makers of +post-mortem recollections; breeds them, nourishes them, recompenses +them. There would be no supply if there were no demand. The general +world has a greedy appetite for diseased food; as with its jaws it +devours putrid game, decayed oysters, and the swollen livers of tortured +geese, so it loves to devour with its frothy brain all that belittles, +ridicules, dishonours, or betrays the few amongst it--the very few!--who +are above it in mind, in will, in force, in fame. 'Come, come!' they cry +to the great man's servants when the great man lies dead; 'tell us, you +who saw him in his hours of abandonment, tell us of all that can drag +him down nearer to our level! Tell us of his varicocele, tell us of his +dyspepsia, tell us of his caprices, tell us of his humours, tell us of +his tears when his poisoned dog lay dying--you saw them through the +keyhole--tell us of his hasty words, his pettish foibles, his human +mortal waywardness--you know so much about them, you who waited behind +his chair and filled his tobacco-pouch--come, come, comfort us; his +great shadow seems still to lie upon the earth and make us small and +crawling insects crushed by his spurred boot--come, come, comfort us! +Tell us, show us, make us happy belittling him; let us, the envious, the +puny, the mean, rejoice, for you who cleaned his boot and held his bare +foot in your hired hand, can tell us that he, the maker of emperors and +of nations, he, the Mighty, had Achilles' heel!' For there is an +unwritten law, not of literature but of life, which decrees that the +jealousy of the small soul for the great soul shall be cruel and +deathless as Fate.[10] + +[Footnote 10: Since this was written, the letters of Ruskin and Rossetti +have been published: a greater offence against dead men could not be +committed.] + + + + +IX + +AUBERON HERBERT + + +This little square book, the colour of meadow forget-me-nots, is so +modest and simple that it may very easily be passed over in a period +which has little sympathy with tenderness of feeling and simplicity of +expression. The verses, of which this small volume is full, resemble the +_stornelli_ and _rispetti_ of Italian songs rather than any kind of +verse which has preceded them in English literature, unless it be the +earliest and briefest songs of Robert Lytton, with which they have a +certain kindred, both in their measure and in their themes. Auberon +Herbert is known to the world as a daring and original thinker, a +sociologist who lives three centuries before his time, a fearless +preacher of new liberties and ideal creeds; in this tiny azure booklet +he is also a poet, or, as he would rather himself say, a singer. The +verse springs from the depths of his heart, and calls to those who, like +himself, have loved and suffered and found nothing endure except the +consolations of natural beauty. + + 'In the West is the golden glory, + As the great king goes to his rest; + In the East the purple staineth + The hills from foot to crest. + + 'And I stand and look in wonder + Till my heart is cleft in twain, + Half for the vision of glory, + And half for the dying pain.' + +Like the Italian _canzone_, these little lyrics, brief as a summer +breeze, which momentarily sways the stalks of grass, must be heard with +the ear of the heart. Coldly criticised by the mind alone, they will lie +like the gathered field-poppy, inert and colourless. They are the cries +of the heart, like those brief verses which the southern lover sings to +the sobbing lute beneath the moon. He who has killed his heart in the +pressure of the world will find nothing in them. They who are steeped in +the chill indifference of mundane interests will no more heed them than +such heed the skylark's or the linnet's song, which they resemble. They +were not written in the study, or fashioned with the pruning-knife; they +were born by the edge of the sea, in the woodland shade, by the clover +path of the country hedge, in the falling rain of the peach and +pear-blossoms, in the starlight above the olives. They are the elder +children of the lonely shores and flowering pastures; they have never +known the gaslight of the streets or the electric light of the +drawing-room. They are as sweet and pure as violets. + +To those who know, and respect as they should be respected, the virile +and original philosophies of the writer, there is an added charm in +these tender blossoms in the fact that they spring from the same +intelligence as that which proclaims individualism in its boldest forms +and attacks the tyrannies of social and political superstitions. + +They are but little songs, short as a ripple of music from a woodlark's +throat, of no more account, if you will, than the blue stars of +mouse-ear by the brook's side, than the dog-rose on the bank; too simple +it may be said, speaking of emotions too trite, of sorrow too common, of +sights too familiar, in language that the dullest can scarce fail to +understand. Yes; no doubt, they are like field-flowers, like +hedge-birds; they claim to be no more than these; they were not wrestled +for as Wordsworth wrestled for an ode beneath the shadow of Rydal, or as +Coleridge strove with the rebellious forces of a halting sonnet when +lying down face foremost amongst 'the common grass.' They are +spontaneous utterances, as natural as the ripple of the water over the +cresses in a brook's bed beneath willow and alder. It may be easy to +dismiss them with indifference, to underrate them with hypercritic +sneer, and assuredly those who take pleasure in the strained archaic +obscurities of much modern verse will find no more charm in them than +the languid æsthete, musing over the pages of Verlaine and Mallarme, +would find in a sea-wet breeze blowing across a hayfield at early +morning. There is no studied mannerism, no sought-for darkness of +expression, no exaggerated ecstasy or pessimism; there is such a natural +feeling, of joy as of sorrow, as comes to the soul at once robust and +sensitive; and these are expressed with frank, unstudied _naïveté_, with +the candour as of a child, and the self-control of a man blent in their +simplicity. 'Look in your own heart and write,' has been the only +precept which their creator has obeyed. + +The most intense attachment in them is for the sea. The sea, whether +those grey sad tides which sway from the sands of Christchurch to the +rocks of Freshwater, or that azure radiance which rolls from the +headland of Antibes to the gardens of Porto Fino, has the same magic for +Auberon Herbert that it has for Algernon Swinburne; a charm much calmer +and more peaceful, but not less strong. Many of these little poems speak +of the sea only; are full of that happy sense of return and recognition +which so many amongst us feel when, after absence from the sea, we tread +again its wet salt sands, and feel its white spray dance against our +cheek. Swinburne is the great laureate of ocean, the chords of whose +mighty lyre reverberate with the ocean storm and echo the thunder of +breakers breaking upon iron shores, and of billows sweeping from pole to +pole. The song of Auberon Herbert is the homing cry of the sea-swallows +swaying on the crest of the waves. + +'Back to the Sea Mother' he calls these yearning lines:-- + + 'Kindest of mothers, from whom I have strayed, + Back again, tired, I come to thee, + Chaunting and crooning the old wave-song; + Sing it, oh! sing it again to me! + + 'Weary and spent as the hour draws near, + Hush me to sleep with the soft wave-song; + Wash all the cares away, wash all the strifes away, + All the old pains that to living belong. + + 'Down at thy side I place me to rest; + Slowly my senses are stealing from me; + Passions and pleadings have ceased in my breast, + Gently my spirit floats away free.' + +And yet again:-- + + 'Thou great strong sea, fast lock'd in dreams, + Clouds journeying to and fro, + Whose tender blue the stars come through, + I can but love ye so! + + 'Ye take possession of my heart, + And all my life renew; + Like grain of dust I grow a part, + A small stray part of you. + + 'Thy sounds, O storm, are far and faint, + As thou stridest over the sea; + And we need thy breath from many a taint + To set us clean and free. + + 'But when thou comest on mighty wings, + Deal gently with forest and tree, + For my heart is woe for the goodly things + That to-morrow will cease to be. + + 'Yes! I shall go and you will dream, + And drink the pale blue sky, + Beneath the hill that hugs you round + As silver days go by. + + 'When others come your love to claim, + You still, you pale blue sea, + Oh, shall you mean for them the same, + That once you meant for me? + + 'And shall they look on you with eyes + As tender true as mine, + And love each changing gleam that flies + Across that face of thine?' + +I dislike the translation of expression from one art to another, +otherwise I would call these verses impressionist. They have the +quickly-captured forms, the frail fugitive colour, the infinite +suggestiveness, which are the notes of the highest impressionism in +painting. + +See these eight lines:-- + + 'The sun is at rest--for the storms are o'er; + Just touch'd with the hand of night, + And a line of shadow creeps to the shore, + Then flashes in silver light-- + + 'Like a note that stops in its flight and droops, + And clings for a while to the ground; + Then trembles and wakes from its trance and breaks + Into passion and glory of sound.' + +How entirely true are these to the breaking of a smooth, pale expanse of +water into motion and light; the sudden flashing as of a million spears +with which the sea, when smitten by the sword of the Sun, rises to the +challenge of Morning. And yet by what simple and common words this +strong effect is produced! + +Or this:-- + + 'Only a bit of land-locked bay, + With a haunting face on the further side; + Yet the ocean as well might bar the way, + So far from each other our lives divide. + + 'For you jest at times, and at times you pray, + And you tread a path that cannot be mine; + And the world is with you from day to day, + And all that you are I dare not divine.' + +Or this:-- + + 'In the glory of youth the young man went; + His heart with pride was stirred; + "They should yield," he cried, "to the message sent, + And force of the burning word." + + 'The long years passed and a wearied man + Crept back to the old home door: + "I have spoken my word and none has heard, + And the great world rolls as before."' + +Or this:-- + + 'Forward we look, and we gild it all, + Rich is the picture and tender and fair, + Backward we look, and the blue mists fall, + Veiling the troubles that once were there. + + 'Ah! well, and ah! well, and lighter the load, + If heart the enchanter weave his web; + If he tells love-stories to cheat the road, + And binds in our dreams the purple thread.' + +Or this:-- + + 'Ah! love so sweet, and patient, and fond, + I wandered far from thy sight, + And I said to myself that the world beyond + Was a garden rich with delight. + + 'And there rose an image from morn to morn + Of new bewildering days, + Till my heart grew proud and I thought with scorn + Of the peaceful homely ways. + + 'For the young are light, and I never had learnt + To know the false from the true, + And my feet were drawn where the far lights burnt + With their wonder strange and new. + + 'And now how bitter to heart is the taste, + And gone are the folly and pride; + And I save what I can from the years of waste + And stand once more at thy side.' + +It will be seen that the store of words at the singer's command is +limited; his palette is set with few colours; his lute has but few +strings; and it is in this that he resembles the singers of the Italian +folk-songs and couplets which have only the limited vocabulary of the +peasant to express so many of the deepest chords of human feeling. These +English verses might, like those Italian _canzone_, be created by one to +whom all the stores of knowledge and of culture were sealed books. They +are cast in the simplest of all possible forms of expression, and there +is not one which would not suit the plaintive measure of a crooning +ballad sung in twilight by the embers of a cottage hearth. They suggest +their own music, and it would be difficult to read them aloud without +falling into some rhythmical balance of their lines. + +Auberon Herbert is, we know by his prose works, master of rich stores of +language and of scholarship; therefore this simplicity of style in his +verses springs, not from poverty of resources, but from correctness of +instinct. These songs are _naïf_ as a child's prayer at its mother's +knee at eventide; were they ornate or elaborate they would cease to be, +as they are now, the frank and spontaneous utterances of the soul, +natural, I have said, as song of linnet or of lark. + +Let those who love pure, simple, unstudied, and unborrowed things send +for the little azure book, and read it for themselves; not in noisy +railway train, or metropolitan library, or fashion-filled country house; +but in the solitude of some quiet rural place, beside some nameless +streamlet where the willow-leaves touch the blue brook-lime and the bees +hum amidst the flowering thyme. + +When we take it home, as the day dies, let us place it on a shelf +between the hymns of George Herbert and those earliest love-songs which +were signed Owen Meredith. There it will find its fit companionship. + + + + +X + +THE UGLINESS OF MODERN LIFE + + +Pierre Loti has lately written in an album published at Schweningen for +charity the following passages, which will be new to the majority of +English readers:-- + + 'The end of April is the season of change, when the Judas trees + all along the shores of the Bosphorus are in flower. Nowhere + else in the world does one find so many Judas trees as here, + where the two extremities of Asia and of Europe are face to + face. There are violet-hued tufts and violet-hued alleys; an + excess of violet colour so intense, and so unusual, that one's + sight is dazzled and bewildered by it. And the wisteria too, + which garlands the old eaves of houses with its millions of + clusters, hangs out wreaths of a lighter lilac from all the + hamlets of grey timber which lean down over the water. This + Bosphorus is a great winding river, but a river which has in it + the life and the seduction of the sea. The hills on its two + shores are covered by palaces, by mosques, by cottages and by + tombs, all surrounded by and buried in gardens. And here in + the month of April, under this sky still veiled and softened by + the clouds of the North, there is a luxury of foliage and + blossom in which this violet tone of the Judas trees is + dominant, and shines beside the dark and ghost-like cypress + groves. + + 'There are on earth other places grander, and perhaps more + beautiful; certainly there are none of greater power to charm. + This scenery of the Bosphorus, from which no stranger ever + escapes, is due to the Oriental mystery which still broods on + it; it comes from the great closed harems of which the upper + storeys hang over the waves; it comes from the veiled women + whom we see in the shadow of the gardens, and in the slender + caïques which pass. But this Turkish witchery is fading, alas! + Year by year, more and more, great gaps are made in the ranks + of the ancient impenetrable buildings, with their grated + windows, which plunge their walls into the water and which one + could enter from the water, as at Venice; and with them go the + slender caïques, the costumes, and the women's veils. + + 'Already, even since last spring, Therapia seems to exist no + longer, masked as it is by a gigantic and hideous caravanserai; + the exquisite Anatoli Hissar is disfigured by an American + college, of a sinister ugliness, which has stuck itself above + the ancient castle with an imbecile air of domination. + + 'And everywhere it is the same story, whether on the shores of + Asia or the shores of Europe; frightful new buildings cumber + the ground and factory chimneys rise beside minarets of which + they are the miserable caricatures. In vain do the Judas trees + continue their beautiful flowering; the Bosphorus will soon + perish, destroyed by idiotic speculators. And the Turks, my + dear friends the Turks, have the indolence or fatalism to let + such destruction be wrought every day under their eyes!' + +Thus Loti with his poet's soul, his prose which is a golden lyre; and it +seems to me as I translate his words that his lament for the Judas trees +and the Bosphorus is but the embodiment of a lament which sighs over the +whole world. The beauty of the earth is dying, dying like a creature +with a cancer in its breast. + +The writer of the _Foundations of Belief_ thinks that the earth was made +for man; if this presumptuous conviction had indeed any foundation at +all what an ingrate would the recipient of the gift have proved himself, +what an imbecile, as Loti calls him! + +The loss of beauty from the world is generally regarded as the purely +sentimental grievance of imaginative persons; but it is not so; it is a +loss which must impress its vacuity fatally on the human mind and +character. It tends, more than any other loss, to produce that apathy, +despondency, and cynical indifference which are so largely +characteristic of the modern temper. + +The people are taught to think that all animal life may be tortured and +slaughtered at pleasure; that physical ills are to be feared beyond all +others, and escaped at all vicarious cost; that profit is the only +question of importance in commerce; that antiquity, loveliness, and +grace are like wild flowers, mere weeds to be torn up by a steam +harrow. This is not the temper which makes noble characters, or generous +and sensitive minds. It is the temper which accumulates wealth, and +which flies readily to war to defend that wealth; but which is +absolutely barren of all impersonal sympathy, of all beautiful creation. + +Taken as a whole, artists have the kindliest natures and the happiest +temperaments of any body of men. Why? because their minds are always +more or less susceptible to the impressions and influences of +beauty--beauty of line, of hue, of proportion, of suggestion; beauty +alike of the near and of the far; and they surround themselves with +their own ideals of these in such measure as their powers permit. But, +even in artists, modern life tends to deform these ideals, and in any +exhibition of modern paintings ninety-nine out of a hundred of these +works will be ugly; they will display, perhaps, admirable technique, +complete mastery of detail, fine brush work, perhaps unexceptionable +drawing, but the combination of these qualities will produce merely a +sense of ugliness on the retina of the observer of them. + +Unless the man of genius buries himself resolutely in the country and by +the sea, as Tennyson did, as Clausen does, he cannot altogether escape +the influence of the unloveliness of modern life. It would be impossible +to painters and poets to live in Regent's Park or the Avenue de +Villiers, in Cromwell Road or the Via Nazionale, or in any of the new +quarters of English or Continental towns, unless their instincts of +beauty had become dulled and dwarfed by the atmosphere around them; life +for any length of time would be insupportable to them under the +conditions in which it is of necessity lived in modern cities; and this +perversion of their natural instincts makes the tendency to replace +beauty by eccentricity and by weirdness fatally frequent. Their critics +obey the same influences, and modern art-criticism, like the recent +studies of Robert de la Sizzeranne on English painting, is characterised +by what appears to be a total incapacity to appreciate the quality of +beauty, a total insensibility to its absence from modern art. + +In sculpture this is as remarkable as in painting, and is still more +alarming and painful, the ugliness of realism and of eccentricity being +a still more offensive blasphemy in marble than it is in colour. If the +most ordinary sense of beauty, as distinguished from deformity, were not +extinct in the world, would any one of the monuments erected within the +last half century be allowed to disfigure the cities of Europe? Carnot +in a frock coat lying in the arms of a female, supposed to represent +France, with his boots thrust out towards the spectator; Victor Emmanuel +in a cocked hat with his body like a swollen bladder stuck on two wooden +ninepins; Peabody sitting in an arm-chair as if he awaited a dentist; +old William of Prussia like a child's tin soldier magnified, and with +the greater men who made him dwarfed military manikins underneath; +black-metal Garibaldis, and Gordons, and Napiers, and Macmahons; Claude +Bernard in the act of mutilating a live dog--every imaginable +abomination in every street and square of every capital, and even of +every noticeable town, proclaim to all the quarters of the globe the +debasement of a once pure and lofty art, and the utter ineptitude and +vulgarity of modern taste. Of what use is it to attempt to educate the +nations when such things as these are set up in their midst? + +An English archbishop at a recent Royal Academy banquet said that he +hoped the time was near at hand when every child in England would learn +to draw. Apart from the gross folly of teaching a child anything for +which its own natural talent does not pre-dispose it, and the injury +done to the world by the artificial manufacture of millions of +indifferent draughtsmen, what use can it be to attempt to awaken +perception of art in a generation which is begotten where art and nature +are alike persistently outraged? + +It is entirely useless to multiply art schools, and desire that every +child should learn to draw, when all the tendencies of modern life have +become such that every rule of art is violated in it and every artistic +sense offended in an ordinary daily walk. + +Amongst even the most cultured classes few have really any sensibility +to beauty. Not one in a thousand pauses in the hurried excitements of +social life to note beauty in nature; to art there is accorded a passing +attention because it is considered _chic_ to do so; but all true sense +of art must be lacking in a generation whose women wear the spoils of +tropical birds, slain for them, on their heads and skirts, and whose men +find their principal joy for nearly half the year in the slaughter of +tame creatures, and bespatter with blood the white hellebore of their +winter woods. + +Beauty is daily more and more withdrawn from the general life of the +people. Fidgety and repressive bye-laws tend to suppress that element of +the picturesque which popular life by its liberties, and by its +open-air pastimes and peddlings, created for itself. The police are +everywhere, and street-life is joyless and colourless. Even within +doors, in the houses of poor people, the things of daily usage have lost +their old-world charm; the ugly sewing-machine has replaced the +spinning-wheel, the cooking-range the spacious open hearth, the veneered +machine-made furniture the solid home-made oaken chests and presses, a +halfpenny newspaper the old family Bible; whilst out of doors the lads +and lasses must not sing or dance, the dog must not play or bark, the +chair must not stand out on the pavement, the bells must not ring their +chimes, only the cyclist, or the automobilist, lord of all, may tear +along and leave broken limbs and bruised flesh of others behind him at +his pleasure. + +If all feeling for grace and beauty were not extinguished in the mass of +mankind at the actual moment, such a method of locomotion as cycling +could never have found acceptance; no man or woman with the slightest +æsthetic sense could assume the ludicrous position necessary for it. Nor +would the auto-car with its stench of petroleum be tolerated for an +instant in lanes and roads. Nor could modern dress be endured for a day +were there any true sense of fitness, of harmony, and of colour extant +in modern times. Even the great Catholic pageants are spoiled in their +grouping and splendour by the dull crowds of ill-dressed, dingily clad +townsfolk which drown their effect like a vast tide of muddy water +rising over a garden of flowers. It is impossible for us, even when +looking at anything so fine in colour as the Carnival at Milan, the Fête +Dieu at Brussels, the Students' Festivals in Munich, or any other of the +great Continental processions, to judge of what their extreme beauty +must have been when not only the procession itself but all the people in +the streets, all the whole vast tide of sightseers, comprising even the +very beggars, were equally full of colour and 'composed' harmoniously +with the central figures. + +A gorgeous spectacle of the streets now, whether it be popular, +military, or religious, is swamped in the mass of dull-coloured hues, +and grotesquely ugly head-gear, common to the whole population of a +city. Its effect may struggle as it will: it sinks under the +preponderating mass as a butterfly will be beaten down under a dirty, +drenching, city rain. + +There is a modern custom in Italy which is typical of the havoc made by +avarice and indifference and commerce running together hand in hand. It +is the shocking habit of stripping all evergreen trees of their leaves +to sell them to chemists, gilders, dyers, and the managers of what in +France we call _pompes funèbres_. Even magnolias are not spared, and +these magnificent trees stand naked and despoiled in nearly all the +gardens and parks all over the country. In every town there are now +offices for the consignment and purchase of these leaves; to strip and +sell, to buy and export them, has become a recognised trade, and +hundreds of tons weight are every year, from September to April, sent +out of Italy, chiefly to Germany, Austria and Russia. The injury done +to the trees is, of course, immeasurable. After a few seasons they +become anæmic, dry up, and slowly perish, whilst the aspect of the +gardens of which the bay, myrtle, box, laurel, arbutus, and magnolia +were of late such conspicuous ornaments is, of course, utterly changed +and ruined. Unless by some edict of the State the practice be speedily +stopped, another generation will see nothing of those avenues and groves +and alleys of evergreen foliage which have been the glory of Italian +palaces and villas since the days of the Cæsars. + +Follow the architectural history of any city, and you find it during the +last half-century the sorrowful record of a pitiful destruction. The +great gardens are always the first thing sacrificed. They are swept +away, and their places covered by brick and mortar with an incredible +indifference. Fine houses, even when of recent construction, like the +Pompeiian house of Prince Napoleon in Paris, are pulled down out of a +mere speculative mania to build something else, or to cut a long, +straight street as uninteresting and as unsuggestive as the boxwood +protractor which lies on a surveyor's desk. + +The greatest crime, or one of the greatest crimes (for there are others +black as night), of which the nineteenth century has been guilty has +been the driving of the people out of long familiar homes in the name +and under the pretext of hygiene, but in fact for the enrichment of +contractors, town councillors, and speculators of every kind. It began +with Haussmann; it has continued in Paris, and everywhere else, with +delirious haste ever since his time, as a burglar may drag a grey-beard +to his death. The modern ædiles with their court of ravenous parasites +cannot understand, would not deign even to consider, the sorrow of a +humble citizen driven out of a familiar little home with nooks and +corners filled with memories and a roof-tree dear to generations. Go +into an old street of any old city you will, and you will almost +certainly find a delight for the eye in archway and ogive, in lintel and +casement, in winding stair and leaning eave; in the wallflowers rooted +in the steps, in the capsicum which has seeded itself between the +stones, in the swallows' nests under the gargoyle, in the pots of basil +and mignonette on the window-sills. But the modern street with its +dreary monotony, its long and high blank spaces, its even surfaces where +not a seed can cling or a bird can build, what will it say to your eyes +or your heart? You will see its dull, pretentious uniformity repeated on +either side of you down a mile-long vista, and you will curse it. + +It is natural that the people shut up in these structures crave for +drink, for nameless vices, for the brothel, the opium den, the cheap +eating-house and gaming booth; anything, anywhere, to escape from the +monotony which surrounds them and which leaves them no more charm in +life than if they were rabbits shut up in a physiologist's experimenting +cage, and fed on gin-soaked grains. No one in whom the æsthetic sense +was really awakened could dwell in a manufacturing city, or indeed in +any modern town. The 'flat,' whether in a 'first-class mansion,' or in a +'block' for the working man, would be more intolerable than a desert +island to anyone with a sense of the true charm of life, or, one may +add, any sensitiveness to the meaning of the word 'home'; that word +which is to be found in every language, though the English people do not +think so, and which is one of the sweetest and most eloquent in all +tongues. The Americans attach extreme pride to the fact that their +'sky-scrapers' are so advanced that your horses and carriage can be +carried up on a lift to the highest storey, and the nags, if it do not +make them dizzy, can survey the city in a bird's-eye view. But even this +supreme achievement of architects and engineers cannot lend to the cube, +shared with a score of others, the charm, the idiosyncrasy, the meaning, +the soul, which exhale from the smallest cottage where those who love +dwell all alone, through whose lattices a candle shines as a star to the +returning wanderer, and on whose lowly roof memory lies like a +benediction. + +According to the statistics of modern cities the mass of middle-class +and labouring-class people change their lodgings or tenements every two +or three years; three years is even an unusually long time of residence. +What can a people who flit like this, continually, know of the real +meaning of a home? + +The same restlessness and dissatisfaction which make these classes +change their residence so frequently, make the wealthier classes flit in +another way, from continent to continent, from capital to capital, from +one pleasure-place to another, from one house-party to another, from the +yacht to the _rouge-et-noir_ tables, from the bath to the coverside, +from the homewoods to the antipodes, in an endless gyration which +yields but little pleasure, but which they deem as necessary as cayenne +pepper with their hot soup. + +I believe that this monotony and lack of interest in the towns which +they inhabit fatally affect the minds of those whose lot it is to go to +and from the streets in continual toil, and produce in them fatigue, +heaviness and gloom; what the scholar and the poet suffer from +articulately and consciously, the people in general suffer from +inarticulately and unconsciously. The gaiety of nations dies down as the +beauty around them pales and passes. They know not what it is that +affects them, but they are affected by it none the less, as a young +child is hurt by the darkness, though it knows not what dark or light +means. + +Admit that the poorer people were ill-lodged in the Middle Ages, that +the houses were ill-lit, undrained, with the gutter water splashing the +threshold, and the eaves of the opposite houses so near that the sun +could not penetrate into the street. All this may have been so, but +around two-thirds of the town were gardens and fields, the neighbouring +streets were full of painted shrines, metal lamps, gargoyles, pinnacles, +balconies of hand-forged iron or hand-carved stone, solid doors, bronzed +gates, richly-coloured frescoes; and the eyes and the hearts of the +dwellers in them had wherewithal to feed on with pleasure, not to speak +of the constant stream of many-coloured costume and of varied pageant or +procession which was for ever passing through them. Then in the niches +there were figures; at the corners there were shrines; on the rivers +there were beautiful carved bridges, of which examples are still left +to our day in the Rialto and the Vecchio. There were barges with +picture-illumined sails, and pleasure-galleys gay to the sights, and +everywhere there were towers and spires, and crenulated walls, and the +sculptured fronts of houses and churches and monasteries, and close at +hand was the greenness of wood and meadow, the freshness of the +unsullied country. Think only what that meant; no miles on miles of +dreary suburban waste to travel; no pert aggressive modern villas to +make day hateful; no underground railway stations and subways; no +hissing steam, no grinding and shrieking cable trams; no hell of factory +smoke and jerry-builders' lath and plaster; no glaring geometrical +flower beds; but the natural country running, like a happy child laden +with posies, right up to the walls of the town. + +The cobbler or craftsman, who sat and worked in his doorway, and saw the +whole vari-coloured life of a mediæval city pass by him, was a very +different being to the modern mechanic, a cypher amongst hundreds, shut +in a factory room, amongst the deafening noise of cogwheel and pistons. +Even from a practical view of his position, his guilds were a very much +finer organisation than modern trades-unions, and did far more for him +in his body and his mind. In the exercise of his labour he could then be +individual and original, he is now but one-thousandth part of an inch in +a single tooth of a huge revolving cogwheel. The mediæval house might be +in itself nothing more than a cover from bad weather, but all about it +there was infinite variety; all life in the street or alley was richly +coloured, even the gutter brawls were medleys of shining steel, and +broken plumes, and many-coloured coats, and broidered badges, a whirl of +bright hues, which sent a painter in joy to his palette. + +Indoors there were the spinning-wheel, the copper vessels, the walnut +presses, the settle by the wide warm hearth, the shrine upon the stairs +which the women made fresh with flowers. The river was gay with blazoned +hulls and painted sails; over its bridges the processions of church or +guild passed like embroidered ribbons slowly unrolling; the workman had +a busy life, and often a perilous life, but one still blent with +leisure; and the mariners' tales of wondrous lands unknown lent to life +that witchery of the remote and unattainable, that delightful thrill of +mystery and awe, which to the omniscient and cynical modern soul seem +childishness too trivial for words. + +Try and realise what life was like when Chaucer walked through Chepe, +when Henri de Valois entered Venice, when Philippe le Bel rode through +the oak woods of Vincennes, when Petrarca was crowned in Rome, when +William Shakespeare sauntered through Warwickshire lanes in cowslip +time. Read Michelet's description of a Flemish Burgher, and contrast it +with the existence of a shopkeeper in a modern town. Read Froude's +description of a sea-going merchantman of Elizabeth's days, and contrast +it with the captain of a modern liner. You will at once see how full of +colour and individuality were the former lives; how colourless, +unlovely, and deprived of all initiative are the latter. Being shorn of +freedom, interest, and beauty, modern life finds vent for the +feverishness which is cooped up in it in commercial gambling--gambling +of all kinds from the Stock Exchange to the tontine, from the foreign +loan to the suburban handicap--and existence is but one gigantic +lottery. Even when a man goes on an excursion of pleasure he will at +starting buy a penny ticket which insures his life for a hundred pounds +in case of accident! How can such a populace, always haunted by the fear +of death, possibly enjoy? + +The great increase in cold-blooded and ferocious murders, done on slight +motive and with cynical indifference, is the natural issue of this way +of looking at life. Who has no reverence for his own life has naturally +none for the lives of others. When a man regards his own existence as a +mere parcel to be adequately paid for with a hundred pounds, it follows +as the night the day that he cannot regard the life of another as worth +twenty shillings. Even death itself is made grotesque by modern science, +and the arms and legs and headless trunks flung into the air by the +explosion of a bomb are robbed of that mute majesty which the dead body +claims by right of nature. They seem no more than shreds of cloth or +fragments of chopped wood. It is to be feared, moreover, that the +extreme facilities given by science for instantaneous and widespread +slaughter will lead gradually to greater indifference still in the +public mind to assassination, and it will become so common that it will +be scarcely regarded with disapproval. + +Many verdicts in various countries show the growing indulgence of the +law to murders. In France and Italy especially even a cold-blooded +murder will meet scant punishment, whilst one due to sudden passion is +almost sure of being either wholly unpunished, or very lightly +sentenced. In many cases, even in England, the juries have been of an +extraordinary tenderness towards murderers whose guilt they were obliged +to admit. At Chester, in England, a few weeks ago, four young colliers +who set on and stoned another to death, and flung his body in a canal, +were sentenced by Mr Justice Lawrance to the punishment of four months +in prison for three of them, and nine months for the ringleader, and +nothing more. + +Many men of violent temper would think so small a price well paid to rid +themselves of a foe or of a rival. The excuse for the colliers was that +they had all been drinking. This is an excuse very generally made in +these days of culture and compulsory education. + +It will be said that this has nothing to do with the presence or absence +of beauty in national life. But it has much to do with the callousness +and apathy and egotism so general in national life; and the ugliness of +surrounding influences and poverty of design in the arts so common in +modern times are chief factors in generating this lamentable temper. + +Happiness, and its companions goodwill and kindly sympathy, are +insensibly suggested and increased by what is beautiful, artistic, and +full of good colour and varied design. Even the physical aspect of man +is affected by that which it looks upon, that by which it is surrounded, +and the French woman was a wise mother who during her pregnancy went to +gaze upon the finest works of the Louvre. How much, on the contrary, may +the embryo be affected for ill by sordid, dreary, and unlovely +conditions which environ the parent during the period of gestation? + +There can be, I think, no doubt that physical beauty is degenerating +rapidly, and the frequency with which the scrofulous mouth is seen in +children, even in children of the aristocracies, is alarming for the +future of the race. In the working classes the offspring must be fatally +affected by the poisonous trades, the sickening effluvia, the deadly +conditions amongst which modern commerce requires its slaves to spend +their lives. + +Even the country fields are sullied by chemicals and stink of sulphates, +phosphates, and human excrements. Agriculture tends to become a mere +manufacture, like any other, surrounded by the din of pistons, the fumes +of vapour, the jar of wheels. + +Beauty is the safest stimulant, the surest tonic, the most precious +inspiration; natural beauty first of all, and the beauty of the arts +closely following, twinlike handmaids to Aphrodite. But to perceive this +the mentally blind are as incapable as the physically blind; and such, +mental cecity is as general in these days as myopy is common in the +schoolrooms of this generation. + +Every year all cities, and even all towns, are severed farther and +farther from the country; every year the electric wires multiply for +telegraph and telephone; the tramways and railways increase, the +sickening grinding noises common to these methods of locomotion fill the +air, and the extraordinary ugliness, which seems attached like a doom to +any modern invention, is multiplied on all sides. That, in an age which +considers itself educated, such hideous constructions as the great +wheels of Chicago and of Earl's Court should attract sane persons as a +diversion will alone prove how completely the instinct of correct taste, +with its accompanying abhorrence of deformity, has become extinct in all +modern crowds. + +With the ever-increasing use of steam, the beauty of the sky yearly +grows dimmer and more veiled. That a race with any pretensions to +education and perception can live contentedly under such a sky as that +of London would appear an incredible fact, did we not know that it is an +indisputable one. Whoever revisits Paris after a few seasons' absence +finds the brilliancy of its life more and more dimmed with every decade +by the sullying of the atmosphere through the increase of factories, +railways and other works, and the invasion by the town of its once +beautiful girdle of wood, orchard, and garden. Every year national life +everywhere grows less varied, less picturesque, more unlovely, and every +year finds the people more contented to dwell with no other horizon than +a bank of smoke. + +It was monstrous that the selection of the glades and pastures of the +New Forest, for military manoeuvres, should ever have been permitted +by the British War Office. But the mere fact that it _was_ monstrous, +that it was an offence to history and nature, that it disturbed and +distressed wild life, that it wounded and outraged the feelings of +residents and the sentiments of artists, was a reason all-sufficient to +make the modern temper brutally enamoured of the idea. Merely because +the despatch of the battalions and field batteries thither was a +vandalism, and caused pain to more æsthetic minds, military +manoeuvres in the New Forest became all at once a project to be +insisted on and carried out at all costs. The same outrage is now being +done to Stonehenge. + +The modern temper cannot respect, cannot appreciate, cannot love, but it +can hate; and its hatred shows itself in damage and destruction +everywhere, whether it set fire to the noble old house of the Hanseatic +League at Antwerp, pull down the water towers of Dieppe, plant the +jerry-builder before the Lateran, drag a railway train up to Murren, or +trample down with ill-shod boy-soldiers the thyme and the bracken of the +Conqueor's woods and the turf which the Druids trod. + +The modern temper resembles those children in Victor Hugo's romance who, +being left alone with the beautiful and ancient _Horæ_, find no prank so +delightful as to tear from end to end the illuminated text of the book +and its perfect miniatures, clapping their hands as each fair thing +perishes. Nor is there any indication of the advent of anyone who will +take the book of the world from the destroying hands, and save what +still remains of its beauty. + +There is, on the contrary, every sign that the future will see a still +greater domination of that rude, cold, and cruel temper which takes +pleasure in innovation and obliteration, and sneers, with contemptuous +conceit, at those who are pained by such acts of desecration. It is the +same sneer, the same leering and self-satisfied snigger, with which it +views the expression and evidence of pity for, and solidarity with, what +it is pleased to call the lower animals. + +The Langdale Pikes are being pierced and blasted for iron foundries and +slate quarries. The great forest of La Haye near Nancy is being +destroyed by military fortifications, and by foundries and by factories. +All the valley of the Meuse and the Moselle is sullied with factory +smoke and blasting powder. The Bay of Amalfi and the shore of Posilippo +are defiled by cannon foundries. The Isle of St Elena at Venice is laid +waste to serve as a railway factory. All the Ardennes are scorched and +soiled, and sickened with stench of smoke and suffocating slag. The Peak +Country and the Derwent vales are being scarred and charred for railway +lines, mines, and factories. Amsterdam, so late the Venice of the North, +is becoming an unmeaning mass of modern insignificance and ugliness; +what has been done to the Venice of the South is such outrage that it +might wake Tiziano from under his weight of marble in the Frari Church, +and call the Veronese from his grave. + +To destroy Trinity Hospital in London, and place a brewery in its place +is a joy and glory to the modern municipal soul. The Hôtel Dessin in +Calais, made sacred to the name of Laurence Sterne, was a pleasant place +with an arched entrance and a large courtyard, round whose sides the +buildings were grouped; it had vines and greenery of all kinds, and over +the archway were little dormer windows. Behind it stretched fair gardens +of great extent, and beyond these was a theatre belonging to the hotel. +Of late years it had served as a museum for the town, and was thus +preserved intact; now it has been pulled down and razed to the ground, +and a huge commercial school built in its place. The funicular railways +are ruining the whole of the Swiss Alps; the greed of a few speculators +and the irreverent folly of the multitude combine to scar the sides of +the great mountains and gather on their summits troops of gaping +sightseers, to whom the solemnity of the Gletsch Alp or the virginity of +the Jungfrau are of no account. + +Zermatt, so late a virgin stronghold of the Higher Alps, is now a mere +cockney excursion, and sixty thousand trippers invade its solitude with +every summer, plodding like camels in a string, vexing the air with +inane noises, offending the mountain stillness with songs to which the +bray of mules were music, insulting the crystal clearness of the heavens +with the intrusion of their own ludicrous, blatant and imbecile +personalities, incapable even of being silent and ashamed. The island of +Naxos, whose mere name brings before us so many classic memories in all +their loveliness and glory, is being broken up into chips by the +emery-workers, and is to be mined for aluminium. + +The finest torrent in Scotland is about to be diverted from its course +and used for aluminium works. The glory of its waters is to be known no +more, merely that some engineers and manufacturers may fill their +pockets to the public loss; that some promoters and shareholders, +possessing large parliamentary influence, may add to their fortunes. To +speak of civilisation, which is a term implying culture, in the same +breath with a nation capable of such an action is ludicrous. + +The fumes of these aluminium works will, when they are in full blast, +emit hydrofluoric acid gas which will destroy all the vegetation on Loch +Ness for miles. Yet such is the apathy and want of conscience in modern +generations that the annihilation of the Falls of Foyers appears +scarcely to meet with any general indignation. + +There is no modern mania so dangerous as the present one for meddling +with water; no injury more conspicuous and irrevocable than the +perpetual interference with lake and stream and torrent. + +The lakes of Maggiore, of Como, of Garda, are all being defiled by +factories and steam-engines; and even such a writer as De Vogüé can look +contentedly forward to a time when such erections will disfigure both +banks of the Rhône. + +The isles of Lake Leman serve for commercial and communal purposes. +Thirlmere and Loch Katrine have been violated, and all the other English +and Scotch lakes will be similarly ravaged. Fucina has been dried up as +a speculation, and Trasimene is threatened. The Rhône is already dammed +up, and tapped, and tortured, until all its rich alluvial deposits are +lost to the soil of Provence. + +It would be easy to fill folios with the bare enumeration of places and +memories, of sites and scenes of which the destruction has been +accomplished within the last few years. To get money for the +preservation of anything is well-nigh impossible; but millions flow like +water when there is any scheme of destruction. In an age which prates +more than any other of its pride in education, the violation of every +law of taste, of every tie of association, of every rule of beauty, is +always greedily welcomed with a barbaric shout of triumph. + +Lath and plaster circuses or theatres are erected by the Mausoleum of +Hadrian, and the miserable caged monkeys of a menagerie pull each +other's tails where Raffaele's pavillion stood amidst the +nightingale-filled ilex groves. + +Frederic Harrison, in his admirable studies of Paris, cannot hide from +himself or his readers the loss to art and history which the +Haussmannising of the city began, the insanity of the Commune continued, +and the barbarism of the present Republic confirms. The ruin of Rome +since the Italian occupation is ten times worse and more offensive than +even such ruin as would have been entailed by a siege, for it is more +vulgar; shell and shot would have destroyed indeed, but they would not +have imbecilely and impudently reconstructed. The same sad change +awaits, if it has not already overtaken, every city of Europe, and alas! +even of Asia. The smoke fiend has entered Jerusalem, and the shriek of +the engines has scared the wild dove from her nest in the palm and +pomegranate. The Mount of Olives is 'a thing to be done,' and the +'scorcher,' sweating and grinning, drives his wheel through the +rose-thickets of Damascus. + +Factory chimneys stand as thick in Bombay as in Birmingham, and black +trails of foul vapour float over Indus and Ganges; soon their curse will +reach the Euphrates. I believe I am correct in saying that the smoke +from the funnel of a great steamer or a large factory can be traced for +forty-five miles in its passage through the air. Imagine the effect on +atmosphere of the continual crossing and re-crossing on ocean routes of +tens of thousands of such steamships yearly, of the perpetual belching +of such fumes from the innumerable factory shafts annually increased in +every part of what is called the civilised world. To India, from England +alone, the export of machines and other material for factory erection +has been at the enormous rate of £70,000 monthly! + +Only let us consider what this means, what destruction of pure light and +of fine atmosphere this involves for Hindostan. + +The snow-white marbles of the temples, the ivory doors, the silver +gates, the rosy clouds, the lotus-laden waters, the golden dawns, the +magnolia woods, the camellia groves, the feathered flocks in the bamboo +aisles, will all vanish that the smoke fiend may reign alone and the +traders who live by him grow rich. The 'light of Asia' is forced to grow +foul and dark and sickly, and its radiant suns to be shrouded in +pestilent fog in order that the British Gradgrind may put by his 200 per +cent. and fold his hands complacently on his rotund belly. + +Is the end worth the means? + +Is modern trade in truth such a godhead descended on earth that all the +loveliness of earth and air, of sky and water should be sacrificed to +its demands? + +We hear _ad nauseam_ of the gains of modern life, of what is called +civilisation: does no one count its losses? It might be well to do so. +It might act as a corrective to the inane self-worship which is at once +the most ill-founded and the most irritating feature of the age. Perhaps +other ages have in turn adored themselves in like manner, but there is +not in history any record of it. Its prophets, heroes, sages, each age +has either admired or execrated; but I do not think any age has so +admired itself as the present age, which has its prototype in William of +Germany standing between two sand banks and thinking himself greater +than Alexander because his engineers have succeeded in cutting for him a +ditch longer than usual. + +The modern world is at this moment ruled by two enemies of all beauty: +these are commerce and militarism. What the one does not destroy, the +other tramples under foot. In earlier times war, terrible always, was +beautiful, like its goddess Bellona, in its savage splendour. Its camps, +its troops, its standards, its panoply, were all full of colour and of +pomp. Even so late as the Napoleonic wars its awfulness was blended with +beauty. Now the passage of an army is like the course of so many dirty +luggage trains filled with bales of wool or hampers of fish. Its +monstrous maw licks up all loveliness as all life which it finds in its +way. Its frightful steel cylinders belch death on every gracious and +happy thing. It is unenlivened by pageantry, as it is unredeemed by +courtesy. Bellona is no more a goddess, but a hag. + +Socialism, which has the future of the world in its hands, will probably +be unable to abolish war, and will certainly not care for beauty or seek +to preserve it. The reconstruction of society which Socialism +contemplates will not be a state of things in which the interests of +either nature or art will be cherished. Collectivism must of necessity +be colourless; equality can afford none of those heights and depths, +those lights and shades, which are the essential charm of life as of +landscape. When all the arable earth is one huge allotment-ground, a +Corot will find no subject for his canvas, not even in his dreams, for +his dreams will be dead of inanition. + +There can be, I think, no hope that this loss of beauty will not be +greater and greater with every year. The tendency, continually +increasing in the modern character, is to regard beauty and nature with +cynical indifference, stirred, when stirred at all, into active +insolence; such insolence as was expressed in the joke of the Chicago +citizen who called the plank-walks of his city 'the reafforesting of our +town.' It is a temper not merely brutal, but with a leer in it which is +more offensive than its brutality. + +The great beauty which animal and bird life lends to the earth is doomed +to lessen and disappear. The automatic vehicle will render the horse +useless; and he will be considered too costly, and too slow, to be kept +even as a gambling toy. The dog will have no place in a world which has +no gratitude for such simple sincerity and faithful friendliness as he +offers. When wool, and horn, and leather, and meat foods have been +replaced by chemical inventions, cattle and sheep will have no more +tolerance than the wild buffalo has had in the United States. What are +now classed as big game will be exterminated in Asia and Africa, and +already in Europe we are told that the pleasure it affords to people to +kill them is the sole reason why stags, foxes, and gamebirds are allowed +to exist and multiply under artificial protection. All the charm which +the races of 'fur and feather' lend to the earth will be lost for ever; +for a type destroyed can never be recalled. + +Every invention of what is called science takes the human race farther +and farther from nature, nearer and nearer to an artificial, unnatural +and dependent state. One seems to hear the laugh of Goethe's +Mephistopheles behind the hiss of steam; and in the tinkle of the +electric bell there lurks the chuckle of glee with which the Tempter +sees the human fools take as a boon and a triumph the fatal gifts he has +given. + +What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own +soul? What shall it profit the world to put a girdle about its loins in +forty minutes when it shall have become a desert of stone, a wilderness +of streets, a treeless waste, a songless city, where man shall have +destroyed all life except his own, and can hear no echo of his heart's +pulsation save in the throb of an iron piston. + +The engine tearing through the disembowelled mountain, the iron and +steel houses towering against a polluted sky, the huge cylinders +generating electricity and gas, the network of wires cutting across the +poisoned air, the overgrown cities spreading like scurvy, devouring +every green thing like locusts; haste instead of leisure, Neurasthenia +instead of health, mania instead of sanity, egotism and terror instead +of courage and generosity, these are the gifts which the modern mind +creates for the world. It can chemically imitate every kind of food and +drink, it can artificially produce every form of disease and suffering, +it can carry death in a needle and annihilation in an odour, it can +cross an ocean in five days, it can imprison the human voice in a box, +it can make a dead man speak from a paper cylinder, it can transmit +thoughts over hundreds of miles of wire, it can turn a handle and +discharge scores of death-dealing tubes at one moment as easily as a +child can play a tune on a barrel organ, it can pack death and horror up +in a small tin case which has served for sardines or potted herrings, +and leave it on a window-sill, and cause by it towers to fall, and +palaces to crumble, and flames to upleap to heaven, and living men to +change to calcined corpses; all this it can do, and much more. But it +cannot give back to the earth, or to the soul, 'the sweet wild freshness +of morning.' And when all is said of its great inventions and their +marvels and mysteries, are they more marvellous or more mysterious than +the changes of chrysalis and caterpillar and butterfly, or the rise of +the giant oak from the tiny acorn, or the flight of swallow and +nightingale over ocean and continent? + +Man has created for himself in the iron beast a greater tyrant than any +Nero or Caligula. And what is the human child of the iron beast, what is +the typical, notable, most conspicuous creation of the iron beast's +epoch? + +It is the Cad, vomited forth from every city and town in hundreds, +thousands, millions, with every holy day and holy-day. The chief +creation of modern life is the Cad; he is an exclusively modern +manufacture, and it may safely be said that the poorest slave in Hellas, +the meanest fellah in Egypt, the humblest pariah in Asia was a +gentleman beside him. The Cad is the entire epitome, the complete +blossom and fruit in one, of what we are told is an age of culture. +Behold him in the vélodrome as he yells insanely after his kind as they +tear along on their tandem machines in a match, and then ask yourself +candidly, O my reader, if any age before this in all the centuries of +earth ever produced any creature so utterly low and loathsome, so +physically, mentally, individually, and collectively hideous? The helot +of Greece, the gladiator of Rome, the swash-buckler of Mediæval Europe, +nay, the mere pimp and pander of Elizabethan England, of the France of +the Valois, of the Spain of Velasquez, were dignity, purity, courage in +person beside the Cad of this breaking dawn of the twentieth century; +the Cad rushing on with his shrill scream of laughter as he knocks down +the feeble woman or the yearling child, and making life and death and +all eternity seem ridiculous by the mere existence of his own +intolerable fatuity and bestiality. + + + + +XI + +THE QUALITY OF MERCY + + +Whatever we may think of the artistic and critical influence of Mr +Ruskin on his age, we cannot but view with admiration and reverence much +of his moral teaching, and there are in his writings innumerable +isolated words of wisdom which would be well printed in letters of gold +wherever men and women congregate and youth is educated. Amongst these +is one which could not be too often reproduced before the eyes of an +indifferent, egotistic, and cynical generation. It is this: 'Whosoever +is not actively kind, is cruel.' It is an absolute truth, but one which +is very little heeded. + +I will not here speak of the three crystallised and applauded forms of +cruelty, war, sport, and scientific experiment. I wish to speak only of +what is by scientists termed 'lay' cruelty, but which I would myself +call general and scarcely conscious cruelty--the ill-treatment of all +sentient creatures not human, by human creatures, due to the apathy, +egotism, and unkindness of the latter. It is to this form of cruelty +that Mr Ruskin alludes in the sentence previously quoted. + +The cruelty of earlier times had its chief cause in violence; the +cruelty of modern times has its chief cause in cowardice and +selfishness. The character of the cruelty has altered, but its +prevalence remains equally widespread and its motive is more +contemptible. The modern world regards the pillory and the stocks as +barbarous; but it allows the railway signalman to be riveted to his post +for eighteen consecutive hours, and sees no harm in it. The human race +was then ruder, no doubt, but more generous; more violent in some ways, +but more magnanimous. Remember the familiar story of the Roman who wrung +the neck of the dove which took refuge in his bosom from the pursuing +bird of prey, and was stoned by his fellow-citizens. In the modern world +there would be no movement of indignation against such an act; +gentlewomen and men see the necks wrung of the wounded birds in the +shooting enclosures from Hurlingham to Monte Carlo without the slightest +emotion of pity or effort at censure. + +Not long ago I spoke of this to a young and beautiful Englishwoman of +the great world, and she answered, 'Yes, it is useless to attempt to +move them to any feeling for animals. You can get them to do something +for people, because they think it does them good with the masses, keeps +off revolution, and helps in canvassing. But for cruelty they do not +care in the least.' She spoke in simplicity, with no intention of +sarcasm, but she could not have uttered a greater truth, or a more +cutting satire. + +There are exceptions, doubtless, but they are not numerous enough to +leaven the great mass of indifferent and selfish people. Animals find +but few friends. Alas! they have no votes! + +There is, perhaps, one thing still more nauseating than the world's +apathy, and that is its self-praise; its admiration of its own +charities, so miserably insignificant beside the extravagance of its own +pleasures. When we think how little is done by those who could do so +much to influence even their own households to justice and tenderness, +one cannot wonder that the populace is unmoved by the occasional +invitation to them from a higher world to display those virtues which +the rich prefer rather to inculcate than to practise. + +Last year in England, in a nobleman's house, a footman beat a small dog, +which ran into the offices, with a red-hot poker, and piled burning +coals on it until it died in indescribable agony. I wrote and asked the +nobleman in question if he had dismissed this monster from his service, +the man having been only punished by the Bench with a slight fine; the +nobleman answered me so evasively that it was easy to read between the +lines and see that he had retained the footman in his service. This act +on the part of the servant was an extreme case of hideous cruelty, but +his employer's condonation is by no means an extreme case; it is, +indeed, a very common sample of a master's indifference, of that +indifference which is practically connivance. People abandon their +stables to their coachmen, their dogs to their keepers; even the animals +they call pets are frequently allowed to suffer from servants, or +children, and are bullied, neglected, and teased with impunity. + +The disgusting spectacle of dog-catching by the police is allowed to be +presented in the public streets of most capitals of Europe, continually; +and there is never the outburst of revolted feeling which such an +offence to all humane sentiment and common decency should provoke. If +such spectacles excited in the general public one-thousandth part of +such disgust as they would excite in any really civilised people, it +would be impossible for such scenes to exist, in either hemisphere, to +shock the sight and sense of those of more refined taste and more humane +feelings. + +There is an excellent association for the protection of birds, but its +aims are so little in touch with its generation that it obtains only the +most meagre support. Great names and patrician names are very rare upon +its lists, and at its public meetings its cause has its neck at once +broken by the question of sport being rigorously excluded by its +chairman, who is a noted sportsman! + +There is an institution in London which calls itself a 'home for lost +dogs'; under this affecting title it appeals for funds, as though it +were inspired solely by love and anxiety for the happiness of dogs, and +for the protection and prolongation of their lives. In reality it is an +institution for the organised suffocation of fifteen or twenty thousand +dogs annually, which have been kidnapped by the police and taken +forcibly from their owners; it is a slaughter-house for the assistance +and convenience of the police, and as such should be maintained out of +the funds of the Government. Nothing but the most criminal apathy in the +public could permit a slaughter-house to masquerade as a 'Home' and be +a petitioner to charity. The word 'home' implies peace and safety, and +should not be permitted to cover a place of legalised butchery. + +Think how odious to the horse must be the mere forcing of the bit into +his mouth and of the headstall over his ears. Without speaking of the +torture of the spur, the stinging of the lash, the dreadful weight upon +the spine from which the riding-horse suffers, and the dreadful strain +upon the lungs and withers to which the draught and driving-horse is +incessantly condemned, only realise the continued imprisonment and +galling servitude in which the equine race are forced to dwell, and ask +yourself if, in common pity or justice, that life should not be as much +alleviated and lightened as it is possible to make it. Yet is there one +owner of horses in a million who takes the trouble to see for himself +how his own stables are organised, or maintains out of gratitude, in +their old age or in their failing speed, the horses which have served +him in their prime? + +Many wild-beast shows of the present hour are as cruel as were the +gladiatorial games of Rome, and far less manly. I can imagine no +possible argument which can be put forward for the license awarded to +the travelling caravans which attend fairs and feasts all the world +over, and which are hells of animal torture. What is called the taming +of beasts is the most cruel, demoralising, and loathsome of pursuits; +the horrible wickedness of its methods is known to all, and the appetite +it awakens and stimulates in the public is to the last degree debasing. +Yet not the smallest effort is made to end it. + +The encouragement of menageries, where wild animals are cowed and +maltreated into trembling misery and forced to imitate the foolish +attitudes and comedies of men, lies entirely with the public, _i.e._, +with the world at large. If the nations were in any true sense +civilised, such forms of diversion would, I repeat, be insupportable to +them. Dancing dogs, dancing bears, performing wolves, enslaved +elephants, would one and all, from the lion tortured on a bicycle in a +circus, to the little guinea-pig playing a drum in the streets, be so +sickeningly painful to a truly civilised public that the stolid human +brutes who live by their sufferings would not dare to train and exhibit +them. + +Not long ago there was a somewhat silly discussion in the English press +on the effect of perfumes on desert animals in captivity, of the +excitement and pleasure produced on them by such odours. It occurred to +no one of the sapient correspondents that such perfumes did, no doubt, +recall to the poor imprisoned animals the intense fragrance of the +flowers in their own jungles and tropical forests. All animals are +intensely sensitive to odours, because their olfactory nerves telegraph +to their brains in a way of which our own dull nostrils are utterly +unconscious. + +With what pretension can a world call itself humane when in its codes +all 'wild' animals are unprotected by laws, and may be treated with +whatever brutality is desired? When it is a question for the dweller in +a jungle to kill a wild beast or be killed himself, one can understand +that he chooses the first of the two alternatives. But this is no excuse +for the man in cities to drag a captured lion to make the sport of +fools, and to perish wretchedly of diseased joints, thwarted longings, +and the anguish of nostalgia. + +It is idle to speak of the civilisation of a world in which such things +are possible. From a hygienic point of view alone, these poor tormented +creatures, cooped up in filthy cages, breathing fetid air night and day, +hearing each other's piteous cries, having no single want or instinct +gratified, ill-fed, diseased, miserable, and ravaged by parasites, must +be one of the most unwholesome centres of contagion conceivable. A polar +bear is at this moment being taken through Europe for exhibition in a +caravan; he is kept in a cage in which he cannot turn; he has a pan of +water two inches deep, and a few ounces of bread as his only food! + +There is no animal which is not to be attached by kindness and justice +shown to him. The lion of Rosa Bonheur fell into decline from grief at +being sent from her keeping to that of the Jardin des Plantes when she +was absent on a distant voyage. She returned to find him dying; he +recognised her voice and opened his eyes with a feeble roar of pleasure, +then laid his great head down upon her knees and died. No one who knows +human nature by long experience can assert for a moment that its +fidelity can be secured by benefits, or its sincerity insured by +affection; but when kindness and regard are shown to 'the beasts which +perish,' these never fail to give them back tenfold. + +Let me here tell a true history, which I should have told to Matthew +Arnold had he been living then, with entire certainty of his sympathy. + +A little dog of Maltese breed, who belonged to my mother, was +inconsolable at her death. For three weeks he refused all food, and was +kept alive by nourishment artificially administered. He sat up, and +begged, day after day, before her bed and before her favourite chair, +until he dropped from sheer exhaustion. He wanted for nothing that I +could give him; and no habit of his daily life was changed; but he was +unhappy. Whenever the door opened he thought she entered. He ran and +looked into every stranger's face. He knew everything which had belonged +to her. His sorrow injured his health; his heart became weak, and he +died of cardiac paralysis at six years old. + +What could human affection offer superior in fidelity and feeling? + + 'That loving heart, that patient soul, + Had they indeed no longer span + To run their course, and reach their goal, + And read their homily to man?' + +I think that not only is their affection undervalued, but that the +intelligence of animals is greatly underrated. Man having but one +conception of intelligence, his own, does not endeavour to comprehend +another which is different, and differently exhibited and expressed. I +have before now said in print that if our mind exceeds the mind of +animals and birds in much, theirs exceeds ours at least in some things, +as their sight, scent, and hearing far surpass ours. + +When we remember also that these other races are absolutely alone, are +never aided by man, are only, on the contrary, hindered by him, +opposed, thwarted, and persecuted by him, their achievements are, +relatively to their opportunities, much more wonderful than any of his. +The elements which are his great foes are likewise theirs; they have to +encounter and suffer all the woes of tempest, hurricane, flood, the +width of barren seas, the hunger on solitary shores; and they have also +in his ruthless and unceasing spite an enemy more cruel than any with +which he himself has to contend. If we meditate on this unquestionable +fact, we shall be forced to admit that Cristoforo Colombo was not a +greater hero than many a little swallow. + +But scarcely anyone does meditate on these marvels; one in a million, +one in a generation, at the most. To nearly the whole of humanity the +wonderful and beautiful races with which the world teems, which are for +ever living side by side with the human, do not exist except in so far +as they contribute to the pleasure of slaughter, or the greed of +commerce, or of gambling. For to the majority of men and women all +organisms except their own are as though they were not. + +There is no sympathy with these interesting and mysterious lives led +side by side with man, but ignored by him entirely, except when by him +persecuted. The nest of the weaver bird is to the full as ingenious and +as marvellous as the dome of St Peter's or St Paul's. The beaver State, +and the bee State, are as intricate in organisation as the Constitution +of the French Republic, and the British Monarchy, and are distinctly +superior in many parts of their organisation to either of these. The +passage of the white ants through a jungle and across a continent is +quite as admirable in unison and skill and order as the human march to +Chitral; and the annual flights of the storks, of the Solan geese, of +the wild ducks, exhibit qualities of obedience to a chosen commander, of +endurance, of observation, and of wisdom, not exceeded by any human +Arctic or Australian exploring party. + +The vain-glorious assumption that we have a monopoly of what is called +reason cannot be allowed by those who bring a reason of their own, +unbiassed, to the study of animals, not under the unnatural conditions +of the laboratory, but in natural freedom and peace. + +No skill of a Stanley or a Nansen ever exceeded that of the hound Maida +in tracing Sir Walter Scott, and no journey of a Burton or a Speke was +ever so wonderful as the migratory voyage of a martin or a nightingale. +I have said this ere now; and it can never be repeated too often, for +nothing is so cruel as the vanity of man, and nothing so opposed to his +own true progress as his blind and dogged contempt for all races not +shaped exactly like his own. + +The correspondence which has been general in the English press regarding +the muzzling of dogs, has been conspicuous for its silliness, ignorance, +and cruelty, but above all by its disgusting selfishness; and an editor +of a very popular organ was not ashamed to print that if only one human +life could be saved, etc., etc., disregarding the fact that men were at +the time being slaughtered by dysentery and fever, by the scores, for no +better object than to go and cut down cotton trees at Coomassie; whilst +deaths by starvation, a perfectly preventible cause, are so common in +English cities that the reports of them scarcely awaken a passing regret +or compassion. The veneration for human life which is developed by +journalists when a lion kills his gaoler, or when a dog is supposed to +have been the cause of his tormentor's death, is comical in these +gentlemen of the press, who, to help a speculation, open out a new mart, +or influence the share lists, will ravenously demand a military +expedition, or a naval demonstration, to sabre, shell, burn, and ravage +upon distant strands. + +The attitude of the Brahmin, to whom all forms of life are sacred, is +intelligible, estimable, and consistent; the attitude of the savage +conqueror, to whom thousands of dead men and thousands of dead beasts +are alike so much carrion, is intelligible and reasonable, whilst +brutal. The attitude of the journalist and county councilman is not +either; it possesses neither logic nor common sense, and is not +estimable or reasonable, but only contemptible. + +If there be one thing more loathsome than the carnage of war, it is the +Red Cross societies following in its train. But the modern world, being +conscious that the butchery of war ill accords with its æsthetic and +religious pretensions, gives a sop to its conscience by sending the +ambulance side by side with the gun carriage. A more robust and more +honest temper did not evade the truth that the least brutal war is the +one most immediately and conclusively destructive; the slaughter of +wounded men was more truly merciful than the modern system of surgery +and nursing, which saves shattered constitutions and ruined health to +drag out a miserable and artificially prolonged existence. + +There is, however, something which the ordinary human mind finds +soothing and delightful in this formula of 'the sanctity of human life,' +when combined with a corresponding disregard for human and for all other +life. The good Christian likes to be raised aloft, in his own eyes, from +all those other races which he imagines were given to him for his use +and abuse by a gracious Deity. He loves to think that both God and the +neighbouring policeman are watching over him; and taking care alike of +his soul and of his greatcoat. In the enormous vanity of the Christian +who believes all the laws of the universe altered for him, or in the +equally enormous vanity of the scientist who arrogates to himself the +right to dogmatise on the mysteries of creation, this attitude is not +surprising. But in either the philosophic mind; or the poetic +temperament, it is so because to the philosopher the difference between +the human and the other races cannot appear very great, whilst to the +poet the solidarity of all sentient life must always seem +unquestionable. That friend, and scholar, and poet for whom I mourn as +freshly as though he had died but yesterday did not disdain to greet a +brother's spirit in + + 'That liquid, melancholy eye + From whose pathetic, soul-fed springs + Seem'd surging the Virgilian cry, + The sense of tears in mortal things,' + +for these lines were written by Matthew Arnold to 'only a dog.' + +It is not in foolishly endeavouring to make animals our prisoners and +puppets, in trying to force them to count, to caper, or to play cards, +that we reach insight into their natures and their minds. It is in +loving them and respecting them as he loved and respected Geist and Kai. +I use the latter word advisedly, for whoever does not in a fair degree, +as with a human friend, respect the freedom, the preference, and the +idiosyncrasy of an animal will never reach true comprehension of him. + +A writer wrote the other day, 'People speak of the law of nature; but +who feels it? There is no such emotion known in the ordinary life of the +world.' The persons who will let their dinner wait whilst they watch a +sunset fade over sea or moor, or who will leave the share list unread to +see the morning dew make silver globes of the gossamer in the grass, are +so few that they may almost be said not to exist, if we except a poet +here, an artist there; and the sense of kinship with races not human can +only come to those whose own kinship with earth and air and sky is +strong enough to resist the dulling and debasing influences of +artificial life, of life amongst men and their trivialities, frauds, and +vanities. + +'The sun is God,' said Turner, when he lay dying, and, alas! saw that +sun only through the mists of London. But how many see the sun at all, +even when they live where it is most radiant? How many think of the sun +during the long day it illumines? The light is taken as a matter of +course, as our breath is drawn through our lungs. There is no gratitude +for it. + +In similar manner there is no sense of kinship with the winged children +of the air, with the four-footed dwellers beside us on the earth. Almost +the only recognition we give them is maltreatment. At other times the +indifference of our unspeakable fatuity rises in a dust cloud between us +and them. Of gratitude for their companionship, their aid, their +patience, their many virtues, there is not a trace in those who use them +and abuse them, no more than there is gratitude for the beauty of the +rose or the fragrance of the violet. + +As 'the winds of March take the world with beauty,' every pasture and +coppice is full of blossom, passed unnoticed by thousands in every daily +country walk; so in the same manner do the multitudes trample down, and +pass by, the ineffable charm and fragrance of disregarded affections, +and unappreciated qualities, in the other races of earth. + +Hang a poor woodland bird in a cage, if you can bear to look on such a +captive, above a blossoming honeysuckle or hawthorn, and note his +anguish of remembrance, his ecstasy of hope, his frantic effort to be +free. But the accursed wires are between him and the familiar blossoms, +between him and the blue sky; in a little while he realises that he is a +prisoner; the fluttering joy goes out of his heart and his wings; his +feathers grow ruffled and dull, his eyes are veiled, he sits motionless +and heartbroken, and the breeze of the springtime blows past him, and +never more will bear him on its buoyant way. + +Living wild song-birds are sold at a halfpenny each by thousands in the +London slums, and as many more die--nay, thrice as many more--before +they reach the streets, packed close and jammed together in hampers and +crates. + +Yet the English Home Secretary, on being asked by a deputation to put an +end to this abominable traffic, answered that it was desirable to do as +little as possible in the way of legislation! + +For legislators, always eager to make cruel and coercive laws, prefer to +let humane ones be substituted by what they call 'the gradual education +of the people.' But this gradual education is so extremely gradual that +its progress is imperceptible; it may even be justly suspected that it +is chiefly a backward movement; and such education, as far as education +by example goes, is hindered, not helped, by what are called the +cultured classes. + +In this, our own present day, bull fights become at once popular +wherever they are allowed, and with women as much so as with men, and I +am certain that if the gladiatorial shows of Imperial Rome were +introduced at Olympia the London crowds would in the main be delighted +with them, and the London women would eagerly turn down their thumbs. + +Why not? They go to see the tight-rope walking and the trapeze jump at +the Crystal Palace and the Aquarium; and the only possible attraction in +these is the probability that in each case the performers will be killed +one day; apart from this chance there is no interest whatever in the +spectacle. If the authorities were induced to permit them, gladiatorial +shows would become so popular with the women of Belgravia and Mayfair +that no one would care for anything less exciting, and the Oxford and +Cambridge sports would be deserted with contempt as offering no +attraction. + +The desire for excitement is the most conspicuous feature, and the most +dangerous disease of the age; anything which provides it is welcome; +people are bored despite their incessant search of distraction, and +anything which will exorcise the spectre of boredom is eagerly received; +and after all it would be absurd if persons who go to see steeplechases +pretended to be too squeamish to cry the 'Habet'! Let the managers of +Olympia obtain permission for gladiatorial games (death being +guaranteed), and I will promise them that "all London" in the most +fashionable sense of those words will crowd from April to August to see +the sport. If the ladies could be allowed to descend into the arena, to +touch the dying bodies, as Nero used to like to do, to see the faint +life still lingering shrink and writhe, this success would be still +greater; and Nero was but a primitive creature, he had but a heated iron +wand, whereas my ladies could be provided by their favourite scientist +with the much more excruciating torment of electricity. Imagine what +exquisite little jewelled instruments of torture, made to fasten on to a +bracelet, or hide within a ring, would fill the shops in Bond Street and +Piccadilly. 'We are going electrolysing!' would be heard from all the +pretty lips of the leaders of society; and they would cease to care for +their bicycles, and auto-cars, and even for the discussion of actresses' +new gowns. 'How many dead 'uns did you knock off last night?' their most +intimate friend would ask, as he would lean over the rails in Rotten +Row, sucking the crook of his cane. + +Does this appear exaggerated and libellous?[11] Well, let us look at the +example given by a London leader of fashion and politics as she goes +down at election time to shed sweetness and light around her in Poplar +or Shoreditch. + +[Footnote 11: To know how possible this is, look at the women of fashion +at the Cape in this springtime of 1900, with their admirable toilettes, +their lovely false hair, their bird-adorned hats, their picnics and +their dinners and their cheery titter: 'Let us go and see the wounded!' +_vide_ the testimony of Mr Treves, the eminent surgeon.] + +In her bonnet is, of course, an osprey aigrette; she knows it was torn +from a living creature, but then that was done far away in some Asiatic +or American creek or forest, and so really does not matter. Her Suède +gloves fit like her skin; they were the skin of a kid, and were probably +stripped from its living body as this lends suppleness to the skin. The +jacket she carries on her arm is lined with Astrakhan fur, which was +taken from an unborn lamb to give to the fur that curl and kink which +please her; it has been cut from its mother's ripped-up womb. Her +horses, as they wait for her at the corner of the street, have their +heads fixed in air, and the muscles of their necks cramped by immovable +bearing-reins. Her Japanese pug runs after her, shaking his +muzzle-tortured nose. She has a telegram in her pocket which has +momentarily vexed her. She sent her sable collie to the dog-exhibition +at Brussels, and the excitement, or the crush, or the want of water, or +something, has brought on heat apoplexy, and they wire that he is dead, +poor old nervous Ossian! She really has no luck, for her Java sparrows +died too at the bird show in Edinburgh, because the footman, sent with +them, forgot to fill their water-glass when it got dry on the journey; +a great many people send birds to shows with nobody at all to take care +of them, so she feels that she was not to blame in the very least. + +'Why will you show?' says her husband, who is vexed about Ossian; 'you +don't want to win and you don't want to sell.' + +'Oh, everybody does it,' she answers. + +He goes into his study to console himself with a new model of a pole +trap; and she, her canvassing done, runs upstairs to see her gown for +the May Drawing-Room. The train is of quite a new design, embroidered +with orchids in natural colours, and fringed with the feathers of the +small green parrakeet, a beautiful little bird which has been poisoned +by hundreds in the jungles of New Guiana to make the border to this +_manteau de cour_. + +If she were told that she is a more barbaric creature than the squaw of +the poor Indian trapper who poisoned the parrakeets, she would be +equally astonished and offended. + +Let us now look at her next-door neighbour; he is a very wealthy person +and seldom refuses a subscription, thinks private charity pernicious and +pauperising, attends his church regularly, and votes in the House of +Commons in favour of pigeon-shooting and spurious sports. If anyone asks +him if he 'likes animals' he answers cheerily, 'Oh, dear me, yes. Poor +creatures, why not?' But it does not disturb him that the horse in the +hansom cab, which he has called to take him to the City, has weals all +over its loins, and a bit that fills its mouth with blood and foam; nor +does he notice the over-driven and half-starved condition of a herd of +cattle being taken from Cannon Street to Smithfield, but only curses +them heartily for blocking the traffic. + +He eats a capon, drives behind a gelding, warms himself at a hearth of +which the coal has been procured by untold sufferings of man and beast, +has his fish crimped, and his lobsters scalded to death, in his +kitchens, relishes the green fat cut from a living turtle, reads with +approbation his head keeper's account of the last pair of owls on his +estate having been successfully trapped, writes to that worthy to turn +down two thousand more young pheasants for the autumn shooting, orders +his agent to have his young cattle on his home-farm dishorned, and buys +as a present for his daughters a card case made from the shell of a +tortoise which was roasted alive, turned on its back on the fire to give +the ruddy glow to its shell. Why not? His favourite preacher and his +popular scientist alike assure him that all the subject races are +properly sacrificed to man. It is obviously wholly impossible to +convince such a person that he is cruel: he merely studies his own +convenience, and he has divine and scientific authority for considering +that he is perfectly right in doing so. He is quite comfortable, both +for time and for eternity. It were easier to change the burglar of the +slums, the brigand of the hills, than to change this self-complacent and +pachydermatous householder who represents nine-tenths of the ruling +classes. + +Let us not mistake; he is not personally a cruel man; he would not +himself hurt anything, except in sport which he thinks is legitimate, +and in science which he is told is praiseworthy; he is amiable, +good-natured, perhaps benevolent, but he is wrapped up in habits, +customs, facts, egotisms, tyrannies which all seem to him to be good, +indeed to be essential. His horse is a thing to him like his mail +phaeton; his dog is a dummy, like his umbrella stand; his cattle are +wealth-producing stores, like his timber or wheat; he uses them all as +he requires, as he uses his hats and gloves. He sees no more unkindness +in doing away with any of them than in discarding his old boots, and he +passes the most atrocious laws and by-laws for animal torment as +cheerfully as he signs a cheque payable to self. + +His ears are wadded by prejudice, his eyes are blinded by formula, his +character is steeped in egotism; you might as well try, I repeat, to +touch the heart of the Sicilian brigand or the London crib-cracker as to +alter his views and opinions; you would speak to him in a language which +is as unintelligible to his world as Etruscan to the philologist. + +The majority of his friends, like himself, lead their short, bustling, +bumptious, and frequently wholly useless lives, purblind always and +entirely deaf where anything except their own interests is concerned. +They think but very rarely of anything except themselves, and the +competitions, ambitions, or jealousies which occupy them. But in their +pastimes cruelty is to them acceptable; it is an outlet for the +barbarian who sleeps in them, heavily drugged but not dead; the sight of +blood titillates agreeably their own slow circulation. + +Between them, and the cad who breaks the back of the bagged rabbit, +there is no difference except in the degree of power to indulge the +slaughter-lust. + +Alas! it were easier 'to quarry the granite rock with razors' than to +touch the feelings of such as this man, or this woman, where their +vanities, or their mere sheep-like love of doing as others do, are in +question. Princesses wear osprey tufts and lophophorus wings, and so +society wears them too, and cares not a straw by what violence and +wickedness they are procured; as the ladies, who attend their State +concerts, sleep none the worse when in their country houses because the +rabbit screams in the steel gins, and the hawk struggles in the pole +trap, in the woods about their ancestral houses, and have no less +appetite for luncheon amongst the bracken or the heather because shot +and bleeding creatures lie half dead in the game bags around, or because +the stag often is stretched in his dead majesty before their eyes. Why, +then, should they care because in far distant lands little feathered +creatures, lovely as flowers, innocent as the dew and the honey they +feed on, are killed by the thousands and tens of thousands because a +vulgar and depraved taste demands their tender bodies? + +What does it matter to them that, through their demands, the bird of +paradise has become so rare that, unless stringent measures be taken at +once, it will be soon totally extinct, and the golden glory of its +plumes will gleam no more in tropical sunlight? What does it matter to +them that the herons in all their various kinds, the osprey, the egret, +the crane, the ibis, are scarcely seen now in the southern and middle +States of America, and, when seen, are no longer together in confident +colonies, as of yore, but nesting singly and in fear? 'Practically all +our heronries are deserted. The birds have been slaughtered for their +plumes,' writes a physician[12] dwelling in the Delaware valley. 'What +were common birds in their season half a century ago are now rarely +seen. The struggle for existence has been a violent one and the herons +have been worsted. Scarcely a word of protest has been heard, and none +that has been effectual.' Women of the world know this, or at least have +been told it fifty times; but it makes no impression on them. They will +wear osprey-aigrettes as long as any are left in commerce, and they +think a humming-bird looks so pretty in their hair. What else matters? + +[Footnote 12: Charles Conrad Abbott, M.D.] + +That their example is copied by the women of the middle classes with +swallows and warblers, and by the servant girl and factory girl with +dyed sparrows and finches, makes no impression on them; if the fact be +noticed to them they say that the common people always will be +ridiculous, and stop their carriage in Bond Street to buy fire-screens +made of owls, or an electric lamp hung in the beak of a stuffed +flamingo. + +Why should they care, indeed!--they who walk with the guns, even if they +do not do more and secure a warm corner for their own shot; they who +bring up their young sons to regard the cowardly and brutal sport of +battue-shooting as the supreme pleasure and privilege of youth, and see +unmoved their beautiful autumnal woods turned into slaughter-places? + +One cannot but reflect how different might the world have been if women +had been different in mind and temper; if, instead of their smiling, +self-complacent tittering approbation of brutality, they had shown +scorn for and abhorrence of brutality. They clamour for electoral rights +and leave all this vast field of influence unoccupied and untilled! They +do little or nothing to soften the hearts or refine the feelings of the +men who love them, or to bring up their children in any sympathy with +animal life. Sport has become fashionable with them in the last twenty +years, and the crack shot in the coverts of Chantilly this winter was a +woman. Sporting clothes, breeches and gaiters, are now a recognised part +of the fashionable woman's toilet. + +I would not affirm (anomaly as it appears) that the pursuit of sport +cannot co-exist with a love of animals, for I have known many sporting +men and hunting men who were in a sense sincerely devoted to some +animals. But sport inevitably creates deadness of feeling. No one could +take pleasure in it who was sensitive to suffering; and therefore its +pursuit by women is much more to be regretted than its pursuit by men, +because women pursue much more violently and recklessly what they pursue +at all; and it is impossible for the sportswoman logically and +effectively to exercise any influence on her young children which could +incline them to mercy--such an influence as Lamartine's mother had on +him to the day of his death. + +There are two periods in the life of a woman when she is almost +omnipotent for good or ill. These are when men are in love with her; +and, again, when her children are young enough to be left entirely to +her and to those whom she selects to control them. How many women in ten +thousand use this unlimited power which they then possess to breathe +the quality of mercy into the souls of those who for the time are as wax +in their hands? They will crowd into the Speaker's Box to applaud +debates which concern them in no way. They will impertinently force +their second-hand opinions on Jack and Jill in the village or in the +City alleys. They will go on to platforms and sing comic songs, or +repeat temperance platitudes, and think they are a great moral force in +the improvement of the masses. This they will do, because it amuses them +and makes them of importance. But alter their own lives, abandon their +own favourite cruelties, risk the sneer of society, or lead their little +children to the love of nature and the tenderness of pity; these they +will never do. Mercy is not in them, nor humility, nor sympathy. + +Can written words do anything to touch the hearts of those who read? I +fear not. + +On how many do written words, even dipped in the heart's blood and +burning with the soul's fire, produce any lasting effect? Is not the +most eloquent voice doomed to cry without echo in the wilderness? And +what wilderness is there so barren as the desert of human indifference +and of human egotism? + +Pity is only awakened in those who are already pitiful. We cannot sow +mustard seed on granite. The whole tendency of the age is towards +cynicism, indifference, self-engrossment. The small children sneer much +more often than they smile. + +From Plutarch to Voltaire, from Celsus to Sir Arthur Helps, the finest +and most earnest pleading against cruelty has been made by the finest +and most logical minds. But the world has not listened; the majority of +men and women are neither just nor generous, neither fine nor logical. +In a few generations more, there will probably be no room at all allowed +for animals on the earth: no need of them, no toleration of them. An +immense agony will have then ceased, but with it there will also have +passed away the last smile of the world's youth. For in the future the +human race will have no tenderness for those of its own kind who are +feeble or aged, and will consign to lethal chambers all those who weary +it, obstruct it, or importune it: since the quality of mercy will day by +day be more derided, and less regarded, as one of the moral attributes +of mankind. + + + + +XII + +THE DECADENCE OF LATIN RACES + + +I have read with the attention due to the author's name the essay of +Professor Sergi on the decadence of the Latin nations. It seems to me, +when reflecting on it, that the esteemed author gives to every slight +change, the much-used, and much-abused, name of progress; and considers +mere change as an indisputable betterment. He also considers that the +Latin races cannot exist under modern conditions unless they form +themselves on the models and follow the examples of non-Latin races; if, +that is to say, they do not imitate what is foreign and alien to them. +It is clear that he does not for a moment doubt that the non-Latin are +infinitely superior to the Latin peoples, and he rebukes the latter for +remaining immovable, although, somewhat oddly, he excepts France from +his censure on account of her great commerce, and only includes in his +ban his own country and Spain. + +With Spain I do not occupy myself, as I am not sufficiently well +acquainted with her to do so; indeed, Professor Sergi himself says very +little about her; but of Italy I cannot consider that his condemnation +is merited. If she do merit it, why does she do so? + +Both questions are interesting. Professor Sergi, like too many writers +of the present time, assumes as an indisputable fact that the mere +innovation, the mere alteration of a thing, is of necessity improvement, +advancement, amelioration; and this being his rooted conviction, he +considers Great Britain and the United States the models and ideals of +modern life. For this reason he would force Italy to abandon entirely +her traditions, her instincts, and her natural genius, and substitute +for them an exact and servile imitation of these two foreign peoples who +have tastes in common with her. Unfortunately he does not inform us to +what point he carries this desire, and if the immense changes he advises +are to be dynastic and political, or merely social and intellectual. He +prints in capital letters his chief advice to the Latin nations to _move +on new lines_; but he does not explain whether he means to move to a new +Constitution, to a new Representation, to a new theory and practice of +Government; and he does not even say whether he thinks or does not think +that the Church is the greatest enemy of national progress in Latin +nations. It would be interesting to know in what proportions he holds +the two antagonistic forces of Church and State to be guilty of opposing +progress; that each is an obstacle to the higher forms of progress there +can be no question in the mind of any dispassionate thinker. But he is +careful not to commit himself to this view. Since he gives us so little +information on this head, and limits himself to the counsel, somewhat +meagre in its expression, to _move on new lines_, we may endeavour to +find out for ourselves how far his advice goes: if Italy do actually +merit his contempt for her inertia, and if the non-Latin races deserve +or do not deserve the admiration with which he pronounces on their +superiority. + +That the Italian nation is immovable is not true: for good or evil it +moves as its great son Gallileo said of the earth. The fault, the peril, +lie the other way. It is to be feared that the Italian people run the +risk of losing their finest instincts, and their most gracious +characteristics, through the exaggerated and obsequious imitation of +foreign peoples, and by a too ready adoration of new things merely +because they are new. They are the ideals of many a modern Italian. +Guglielmo Ferrero has dedicated many hundreds of pages to the +celebration of their perfections. I believe that such worship is chiefly +founded on illusion, for it is as easy to cherish illusions about a +steam mill as about a mediæval saint. + +Let us look at the actual situation of Great Britain, setting aside her +imperialist swagger, and regarding only facts. The English themselves +admit that if a European naval coalition succeeded in preventing grain +reaching their shores from America and the colonies, the nation in a +fortnight would want bread. Is that an ideal or a safe position? If, in +a sea-war, the British fleet would be successful is wholly uncertain, +since no one can say how the metal battleships would behave in any +distress; the manoeuvres have not shed much light upon this question, +and many of the marine monsters, as regards their utility in active +warfare, are still unknown quantities. Equally uncertain is what would +be the conduct of the Indian population were Great Britain vanquished +in any great war, for the majority of the peoples of Hindostan most +unwillingly endure through coercion the yoke of the British rule. + +In Ireland there is a racial hatred which nothing can extinguish, and +only demands a favourable occasion to show itself. Canada may any day +embroil England with the United States; and so may the West Indies, and +the Nebraskan and Nicaraguan questions; and so may Newfoundland with +France, and East or West Africa with Germany. In every part of the globe +Great Britain has on her hands conquests, colonies, intrigues, enemies, +open questions, and concealed questions, of every kind. Her greed is +great, and her entanglements are innumerable. There are many weak points +in her fortifications. To meet her obligations she is obliged to use +legions of Asiatics, or Africans, or employ as mercenaries men from her +distant colonies, or send the soldiers of one vanquished nation to help +vanquish another. Thus did Imperial Rome, and so went to her undoing. +Doubtless Great Britain is rich, powerful, strong, proud, and vain. So +was Rome; so was Spain. It is possible, even probable, that at some, +perhaps not distant day, Great Britain also will give way under the +enormous weight of her self-sought responsibilities, and the still more +ponderous weight of her many enemies. + +Internally, also, England is not what she used to be. The old nobility +is elbowed out of prominent place by a new aristocracy which has been +created entirely on a money basis. Every ministry, when going out of +office, creates a new batch of titled rich men, lifted into the Lords in +return for political or financial service. Wealth is now the dominant +factor of English social life; and a commerce, wholly unscrupulous, is +the sole scope of the tawdry and noisy empire of which Joseph +Chamberlain is the standard-bearer. + +What is there in all this to admire or to imitate? + +Again we have seen that in the United States, since they abandoned their +wise policy of non-intervention in external affairs, the national life +resembles the English, is vain, boastful, hypocritical, cruel, and +bellicose. The thirst of gain devours the nation. There is no other land +in which the contrast between rich and poor is so sharp and terrible; +none in which millions are thrown away with more frightful indifference +and conceited display. Lynch law in all its horror reigns over many +provinces, and unblushing corruption mounts into the highest places and +poisons all the sources of national life. Guglielmo Ferrero stands +stupefied before their innumerable newspaper offices, which he says use +up every day as much paper as would go round the circumference of the +earth! But he forgets, or ignores, that the literary quality of those +journals is usually of the poorest and vulgarest kind, and that the +chief part of their columns is filled by advertisements. He is also +transfixed with rapture before the colossal houses which Americans call +sky-scrapers, and sees the revelation of a stupendous genius in their +passion for what is big, costly, eccentric; nor does he hesitate to +compare it with the Florentine and Venetian genius! + +Actually there was never on earth two more different kinds of creation +than these; never one more absolutely soulless, and one more nobly +penetrated by the soul. The genius of the Italian masters was lofty, +generous, at once humble and sublime, never interested, always +consecrated to Art and Country; the skill of the American constructors +has no other scope than that of getting money, of making the world +stare, of producing the huge, the gross, the extravagant, the enormous, +and labours for only one God, the venal Mercury of the market-place. In +these new cities, so vehemently extolled, with their towering +constructions which hide the smoke-obscured clouds, and their network of +electric wires, of railways in the air, and trams running across each +other, there is not the faintest spark of that divine light which is +called Liberty. Americans boast of their freedom, but it only exists in +words; it has no abiding place outside a boisterous rhetoric. The old +Puritanism still exists in religious bigotry and persecution; office is +bought and sold; justice is a matter of money; private life suffers from +conventionalities and social tyrannies innumerable; political and +municipal elections are the work of a Caucus. A man cannot drink, or +stir, or do aught without his neighbour knowing and judging what he +does; even marriage is to be made a matter for doctors to allow or +disallow; the whole press is but a gigantic Paul Pry, a vast Holy Office +where the persecution by the pen ends in the execution by the revolver. + +Such is American liberty. + +What can Italy learn from such a model? + +Amongst the maladies of the brain known in this day is one which is +called the mania of grandeur. It seems to me that not only individuals, +but entire nations, are possessed by it. It is perilous and contagious. +Italy has already been inoculated by its virus. + +There is also everywhere a fatal tendency to open the door of Italy to +every foreign syndicate, and every foreign speculation, which puts +forward a prospectus or launches shares on the market. The preponderance +of Jews is enormous as owners of ground rents and estates in Italy; the +chief part of Italian cities and towns is owned by Jews; and the greater +number of the industries of all kinds in the country are in the hands of +foreigners, like the newly-projected mining enterprise in Elba. If these +mines be worth the working, why does not Italy work them herself, and +take all the profits? + +These facts are not due to any immovability; but to a dangerously lax +tendency to run into foreign roads. The Italian Faust is only too +susceptible to the invitations of the foreign Mephistopheles. + +On the other hand a very marked inclination in the Italian is towards +the modern forms of co-operation and communism. This tendency is not due +in any way to the influence of the past, but to that mixture of jealousy +and envy, of hatred of the rich, and detestation of labour, and of +humble ways and of poor means, which is as general in Italy as it is +everywhere else in our time, and which is the modern translation of the +old classic clamour for Panem et Circenses. Is it towards this already +popular communism that Professor Sergi would direct the Italian nation? +The direction is already taken, and does not need his propulsion. If +there be one thing more certain than another in the Italy of to-day it +is the preference of a large proportion of the people for different +forms of socialism and collectivism; and the persecution these doctrines +receive lends them a dangerous force. At the same time as it persecutes +them, the State, with strange self-stultification, recognises and grants +one of the largest and most insolent of socialistic and communistic +demands, _i.e._, that for the expropriation of private land in the Agro +Romano, and in the various latifundi in Sicily and elsewhere; and thus +opens the door either to a most high-handed and unjust spoliation, or to +an agrarian civil war in a not distant future. + +Again, the most terrible disease of modern society--corruption--is not +due to the past in Italy or anywhere else; it exists wherever men exist, +and is as general in the republic of France or of the United States as +under the autocracy of Russia or of Persia. The Italian disasters of +Eritrea were due rather to corruption than to incapacity. When the mules +were bought in Naples for 100 lire per head, and sold to the State at +500 lire per head, the battle of Abba-Garima, called by English people +the battle of Adowa, was lost before it was fought. + +Professor Sergi speaks of the defeat of Abba-Garima as a proof of the +decay of the Italian race; but this is a very unfair deduction. As well +might the continual defeats of the British in the first months of the +present war in South Africa be held as a proof of British poltroonery. +Any shortcomings which may have existed in the Italian army in +Abyssinia, and exist at home, are, moreover, certainly not to be traced +to old-world influences; or to any emasculating tenderness for +tradition. There is no reverence for the armies of the past in the +actual Italian army, for it is unlike any of them; it does not resemble +the armies of the Duchies, or of the Republics, or of the Florentine +Carraccio, or of the Lombard trained bands, or of the levies of the +Neapolitan Bourbons, or of the legions of Varus. The only model it +resembles is that idol of its commanders, the German Army, on which it +is shaped and governed, in all the cut-and-dried narrowness and hardness +inseparable from the German system. All this may be considered to be +inevitable now, but modern militarism is unsuited to the character of +Italians, and reacts injuriously on the genius and temper, and physical +and mental life, of the people. + +Unhappily militarism is the most conspicuous and the most tenacious of +all modern influences, and the failure of the Conference of the Hague so +immediately followed by the war of aggression in South Africa, is a sad +and irrefutable proof that the nations are not in the least likely to +free themselves from its yoke. + +Taking the modern temper in its civil systems, as in its military, it +does not seem to me any better adapted to the Italian idiosyncrasies; +and all its worst features already exist in all which is here called +government. Italian legislation confounds perpetually regulations with +laws; is fidgeting, irritating, inquisitorial, insolent, harassing; its +tyranny spoils the lives of the populace; by means of its agents it +penetrates into all the privacies of family life; its perpetual +interference between father and son, between master and man, between +mother and child, between buyer and seller, between youth and free +choice, between marriage and celibacy, between the man who takes a walk +and the dog who goes with him, constitutes incessant causes of +irritation, and is a perpetual menace which lowers over the popular life +from sunrise to sunset, and scarcely even leaves in peace the hours of +the night.[13] + +[Footnote 13: The other evening, in a theatre in Messina, a young +gentleman expressed aloud his disapprobation of the performance; a +person near bade him hold his tongue; the young man answered the +rudeness with a blow; the person immediately produced a pair of +handcuffs and clapped them on; he was a detective in plain clothes! The +Italian of whatever rank he be can never be sure that he is not +shadowed. The apprehension poisons existence to the most innocent.] + +More or less there is too much of this in all modern nations, but in +Italy it is especially odious, being in such absolute antagonism to the +courtesy and gaiety, and warm domestic affections, natural to the +Italian public, and a source of continual fret and friction to it both +in pleasure and in pain.[14] + +[Footnote 14: At Palermo in the April of this year it has been decreed +by municipal edict that, as it is contrary to hygiene for the petticoats +of women to sweep up the dust of the streets in which the spittal of the +sufferers from tuberculosis may have fallen and dried in the sun, all +women who walk in Palermo are to shorten their skirts! Health, it is +austerely added, is more important than fashion!] + +There is certainly no necessity to incite Italians to admiration of +foreign products and inventions. Such enthusiasm is only too general, +and too blind, at least in that portion of the nation which is under the +influence of the schools, the press, and the universities. An electrical +machine has many more admirers than the bell-tower of Giotto, and a +shop-window of a Bon Marché than the Palace of the Doges. The modern +temper, cynical, trivial, avaricious, vulgar, which now discolours human +life as the _oidium_ discolours the leaves of the vines, has affected +too deeply the Italian mind, and has dried up its natural sense of, and +capacity for, beauty. The glorious cities of Italy have been ruined by +scandalous disembowelling; its ancient small towns are made ridiculous +by electric light and steam tramways; the useful and picturesque dress +of its peasantry is abandoned for the ugly and stupid clothes of modern +fashion, cut out of the shoddy cloths furnished by English +manufacturers; and this want of good sense, of good taste, of all true +instincts towards form and colour, is a moral and mental malady due to +that contagion of foreign influence which has poisoned Italy as it has +poisoned Japan and India, Africa and Asia. + +Therefore every counsel to her to follow modern impulses is pernicious. +She is but too ready to do so, believing that, by this way, riches lie. +Moreover, the advice to the Italians to rise, and change, and follow new +paths, seems to me at the present time a cruel derision; because the +Italian who gives it must be well aware that the nation is not free to +do anything or make any change. It is not even allowed to speak. No +public meeting can gather together without intervention of the police. +The press cannot publish any opinions which are disapproved of by the +Government without incurring sequestration of the journal, perhaps +imprisonment of editor, writer, and printer. Where, then, can any fresh +field be found in which to plant any flowers of thought with any hope +to see them root and blossom in action? The hand of the Public +Prosecutor would pluck them up before they could stretch out a single +fibre. + +Take that question so dear to the country; the question of Italia +Irredenta. Where could it be discussed in public without 'authority' +intervening and silencing the speakers? Professor Sergi forgets, or +avoids, to say that in Italy the first conditions of a 'movement on new +lines' are wanting; civil liberty is wanting, and free speech and free +acts are forbidden. Who can walk out into the country when barriers +block up the end of every street? On the man, as on the dog, under +pretence of public safety, the muzzle is fastened, and by its enforced +use all health is destroyed. + +The Italian of our time is too quickly intimidated, forgets too soon, +wears the rosette in his button-hole when he should put crape round his +arm, dances with too ready an indifference on the grave of his hopes and +of his friends. To form a virile character there is no education so good +as the exercise of political and civil liberty; this education is but +little given anywhere; it is not given at all between Monte Rosa and +Mount Etna. The Italian is by nature too ready to be over-anxious and +over-distressed at trifles; he thinks too much of trifling difficulties +and the petty troubles of the hour; he is quickly discouraged, he is +soon overwhelmed with despair, he has small faith in his own star, and +he has not the elasticity and rebound of the Gaulois temper. Nothing +therefore can possibly be worse for him than the kind of galling public +tutelage and the perpetual molestation in which he is condemned to live; +always esteemed guilty, or likely to be guilty, however harmless he may +be. It is illogical to condemn a nation for having no virility of +character, when the systems under which it is reared, and forced to +dwell, destroys its manhood, and forbid all independence of thought, +speech, and action. + +Let us take for instance that uninteresting person, a small tradesman, +native and citizen of any Italian town; in all his smallest actions +relative to his little shop, such, for instance, as altering or +re-painting his signboard, he must obtain the permission of his +Municipality. If he venture to clean or refurbish his board without +authorisation, he will receive a summons and be compelled to pay a fine. +The same kind of torment occurs in a dozen other daily trifles, +magnified into crimes and visited with condign punishment; and, +inevitably, the worried citizen becomes timid, nervous, and either +afraid or incapable of judging or acting for himself. You cannot keep a +man in the swaddling clothes of infancy and expect him to walk erect and +well. + +A shopkeeper, a tailor in Florence, known to me, cut the cord with which +a municipal dog-catcher had throttled his dog; he did no more; he was +immediately arrested, dragged off to prison, and kept there for months +without trial: when tried he was condemned to four months of prison and +a heavy fine. + +Herbert Spencer has said, 'Govern me as little as you can'; _i.e._, +leave me to regulate my existence as I please, which is clearly the +right of every man not a criminal. The Italian is, however, 'governed to +death,' and tied up in the stifling network of an infinity of small +ordinances and wearisome prohibitions. In the sense, therefore, in which +the sufferer from tuberculosis may be said to want health, the Italian +may be accused of wanting spirit; but this is not the sense of the +reproach of Professor Sergi. Professor Sergi, like so many others of his +teachers and masters, desires to propel him along a road which has +already cost him dear. How many millions has it not cost in the last +score of years, that fatal weakness of Italians for imitating others? +The rural communes of the country have more than a milliard of debts, +almost all due to the senseless mania for demolition, for novelty, for +superfluous alterations and imitations, works worse than useless, +commended or proposed by the Government, and eagerly accepted by the +communal and provincial councils, since each member of these hoped to +rub his share of gilding off the gingerbread as it passed through his +hands. All the vast sums thus expended are all taken out of the enormous +local and imperial taxation, are divided between contractors, engineers, +members of the town and county councils, lawyers, go-betweens, and all +the innumerable middlemen who swarm in every community like mites in +cheese, at the same time that the poor peasant is taxed at the gates for +a half-dozen of eggs, or a bundle of grass, and the poor washerwoman +carrying in her linen has her petticoats pulled up over her head by a +searcher to ascertain if she have nothing saleable or taxable hidden on +her person. These are new ways, no doubt; but they are ways on which +walk the ghost of ruin and the skeleton of famine. + +If it be true, as Professor Sergi considers, that Italy can never hope +to extend her conquests and her commerce as northern and western nations +will do, then it is surely all the more needful to hold her own place in +the world by the culture and development of her own natural genius. A +nation, like a person, should be always natural; to be fashioned on +others is to be without any confidence in oneself, and lose one's +equilibrium in the stress of every difficulty. The rigid and +indigestible character of modern education is not adapted, I repeat, to +the Italian temperament, which is _prime-sautier_, subtle but +inflammatory, impressionable but unresisting, and loses enormously when +it is shut down in the hot stove of the so-called 'highest studies.' +Even the national manners, naturally so graceful and charming in all +ranks of Italian society, lose their suavity, their ease, their +elegance, under the influence of the foreigner and the vulgarity of +modern habits. Good taste passes away with good manners; and +pigeon-shooting, sleeping-cars, automobiles, bicycles and tramway crowds +bring with them the breeding suitable to them; and the modern monuments, +the modern squares, the modern houses, the whitewash daubed on old +walls, the cast-iron bridges spanning classic waters, the straight, +featureless, glaring, dusty streets, the electric trolleys cutting +across ancient marbles, all conduce to make ignoble what was noble, and +belittle all which was great. + +All this is not the fault of a too reverent admiration for an +incomparable Art, for a glorious history; it is a much worse thing; it +is an oblivion of both history and art, ingrate, unworthy, and ruinous. + +Many say that Italians are unfit for freedom; it is certain that they +have never been tried by it. Whatever their government is called, +freedom is unheard of under its rule. Year after year, century after +century, all the Italian provinces, however differently governed, have +been held down under an absolutism more or less disguised. The general +character, with heroic exceptions, has been inevitably weakened. The man +of easy temper and pleasure-loving disposition consoles himself with +amusement; the serious man seeks refuge in study or in science; one and +all accept inaction as their lot. A political _camorra_ guides the +chariot of the State, and the people draw aside, and stand silent, only +hoping to escape being crushed under its wheels. Professor Sergi must be +well aware of this sad truth; then why speak to Italy as if she were a +free country, why speak to her of expansion and vitality when he sees +her without power to purge herself of the fiscal and constitutional +disease which is in her blood? + +With as much reason might he chain up a greyhound, and bid him course +the hare; clip the wings of a skylark, and bid it mount to the clouds. + + + + +XIII + +ALMA VENIESIA + + +'Our cities are fast losing their best characteristics,' said Pompeo +Molmenti at Montecitorio, in one of those eloquent speeches which the +Chamber hears often from him, and hears, alas! always in vain. His name +is no doubt known to many English readers although his beautiful books +are not as widely read outside the peninsula as they merit. His +conspicuous position as President of the Venetian Academy has perhaps in +a manner obscured, out of Italy, his infinite merits and vast erudition +as a writer on history and art, and even Wyzewa reproaches him with +making Venice too exclusively his universe. But surely Venice is wide +enough, and great enough, to be the world of a man penetrated from his +earliest years with her beauty, and with the grandeur of her past, and +who, in his childhood, saw, accomplished by his seniors, that union of +Venice to northern and central Italy, which raised such high hopes and +caused such glorious dreams. + +His works are, as I have said, but little known in England, not known at +least as the classic scholarship, the historic learning and the artistic +erudition of their writer deserve; nor are the debates of the Italian +Chamber truthfully enough represented in the English press for the +brilliant oratory of the deputy for Salo to have found any echo in +English ears. Many-sided as great Italians usually are, politics, +literature, and history alike claim his allegiance, and art is his +adored mistress. Eloquent, dauntless, and sarcastic, his periods pierce +like arrows and lash like scourges, whether he condemns the miserable +blasphemies of the modern spirit, or holds up to mockery such individual +vanity as that of the Under-Secretary of State, who caused his own name +and titles to be cut under a verse of Dante's on one of the stones of +the church of S. Francesco at Assisi! + +I can imagine nothing more painful than for a man of fine taste and high +culture, born and bred in such a city as Venice, venerating every shadow +on its waters, the moss upon its walls, to be forced to see, day by day, +roll up and break over it the mud-wave of modern barbarism. So may have +watched, from the marble atrium of his villa, some Roman patrician of +the days of Honorius the approach, upon the golden horizon, of the +unlettered tribes drawing nearer and nearer as the sun descended, to +burn, to slaughter, to deflour, to desecrate. 'Great and sublime +attainment would be his who should save Venice from the dreadful menace +now hanging over her!' cries Pompeo Molmenti, with the bitter +consciousness that none will succeed in that endeavour, since her lot is +now cast in times when her treasures of art are in the hands of +tradesmen and speculators, to whom her past glory is naught. + +His years have been passed amongst her art and her disciples of art; he +has watched the spoilers at their work amongst her treasures, and, with +the grief of a son who beholds his mother dishonoured, he has been +overwhelmed in these most recent times by the indignity and injustice of +her lot. + +She shares that lot with her sisters; the burden of her chains lies also +on them; every city throughout the peninsula from Monte Rosa to Mount +Etna has been insulted, dishonoured, defamed, defiled, even as she +herself. But Venice is threatened with something still more than this; +she is threatened with absolute extinction. There are schemes now +simmering in the brains of speculators by which she will disappear as +completely as one of her own fishing-boats, when it is sucked under the +sea, canvas, and timbers, and crew, in a night of storm. + +A few weeks ago, Molmenti gave the solitary vote against the destruction +of more of the Calle, and the establishment of a night service of +steamers on the Canalezzo. The record of that single unsupported vote is +his own highest honour, and the shame of his contemporaries and +co-citizens. But he wrestles in vain with the forces of cupidity and +stupidity. Whether in the Council Chamber of Venice, or in the +Parliament of Montecitorio, he strives in vain to resist the trampling +hoofs of those devastating barbaric hordes which a pseudo civilisation +vomits over his country. + +What he justly calls the burial of the lagoons goes on every day; loads +of clay and sand and stones being poured into that silent water which so +lately mirrored walls which were green with the hart's-tongue, +penny-wort, and ivy-leaved toad's-flax, and reflected statues white +through ages in the dustless air, shining acacia leaves, boughs of fig +and laurel, carved niches, illumined shrines; the rubble and the rubbish +are shot down into the canals which are chosen for extinction, and the +walls are scraped, the acacias, the fig-trees, the laurels are cut down, +the fruit-boat, the _sandalo_, the bridal gondola, are pushed out of the +way by the brick-laden launches; where marble fretwork crossed the air, +there is a cast-iron pontoon, and higher still a telephone wire; under +foot there is a paved or macadamised way. Marco Polo could not find his +house now; it still exists, but all around it is disfigured, dismantled, +defaced. + +The Palazzo Narni and the Ponte del Paradiso made, a few years ago, +together one of the most beautiful corners in the world; go look at that +spot now; it is enough to make the grey-beard of Cadore rise from his +grave. There still remains on high, between the two houses, the +admirable cuspide of the Trecento, on which there is sculptured the +Madonna, who opens wide her mantle and her cloak to receive the kneeling +people; but the beautiful bridge has been destroyed, and in its place +has been built a frightful structure, with asphalte roadway and painted +metal parapet. In similar manner the elegant, yet bold, arches of the +three bridges at S. Nicolo di Tolentino exist nowhere, now, except upon +the canvases of painters, and the three banks, near the Campo di Marte, +which those graceful arches united, are now basely conjoined by three +erections of stucco and cast-iron. + + 'In the _Arzere_ of Santa Marta,' Molmenti writes in his latest + work, 'once so green and gay and sunlit, a poor quarter no + doubt, but one intensely interesting by customs and traditions, + there blocks the way now, in all its stolid vulgarity, a cotton + factory. Between the public gardens and the Lido, instead of + the lovely verdure of the island of Sant' Elena, in its grace + and its green twilight of drooped boughs, is a shapeless + expanse of mud and cinders, which spreads farther every season, + and threatens to invade the water-space which separates it from + the gardens and S. Pietro di Castello. On this desert of coke + and dirt there have been lately erected offices, sheds, + warehouses, chimneys, engines, in the midst of which there + still stands, hiding as though ashamed, the beautiful church of + the Quattro Cento. But the invasion has been useless; the + speculations have failed; and art and history mourn + unavailingly the senseless and profitless destruction of this + fairest gem of the lagoons: _insularum ocellus_. The ruin of + Sant' Elena, of the view of San Giorgio, of the bridge of San + Lio, the hideous new wing added to the noble brown marbles of + the Pal Tiepolo, the hideous iron warehouse fronting and + affronting the Ca d'Oro, the whitewash daubed on the Pal + Sagredo, the indecent alterations and additions to that jewel + of Pietro Lombardo the Pal Corner-Spinelli, the new red (like + ruddle or red ochre) with which the Pal Foscari has been + insulted, these are all offences which every traveller of + taste, every artist of culture, can see, and number, and + denounce. But countless, and unknown to the world in general, + and undreamed of by those who knew not Venice fifteen years + ago, is the enormous loss to the city by the destruction at the + hands of the Muncipal Councillors of the _Calli_, of the + _Arzere_, of the mediæval bridges, as of those of which I have + spoken above, of innumerable nooks and corners, historical and + beautiful; old wells, old fountains, old shrines, beautiful + fragments of sculpture and fresco, solemn convent walls, + graceful church spires and monastic belfries, parapets, arches, + doorways, spiral staircases winding up to hand-forged iron + balconies, lamps of metal-work fine as lace-work, all these in + innumerable numbers have been effaced, pulled down, built over, + or sold; and, above all, there have been destroyed those lovely + quiet green places, called each _il Campo_ or _il Campiello_ + (the field or the little field), where, of old, the Venetians + fed their sheep, stretches of grass enclosed by old houses, old + convents, old towers, old quays, old bridges, with always a + sculptured well in the centre of each, and the splash of oars + near at hand.' + +These have nearly all had a similar fate to that of the beautiful house +in the Campo di S. Margherita, which Molmenti especially laments, of +which the Venetian colouring, the carven galleries, the climbing vines, +the bronze railing, the falling water with its spouting jets, have all +disappeared, to give place to a yellow, plastered modern building, while +its basso-relievo of the Virgin, so long dear to all artists, has been +sold to a picture dealer. + + 'One must be blind indeed,' writes Molmenti, 'not to see the + horrible misgovernment of Venice in this latter half of the + century, and persons still young can remember a Venice poetic, + picturesque, filled with fascination and mysterious charm, now + destroyed for no other reason than a senseless and brutal craze + for novelty.' + +What language can strongly enough denounce such wicked and insensate +acts? + +He quotes the well-known lines of Philippe de Commines as to the 'most +triumphant city' that he had ever seen, 'the most beautiful street' (the +Canal Grande) 'that there could be found in all the world'; and he adds, +'the stranger who comes now into this street only finds himself in a +vast alley of shopkeepers.' + +The Canalezzo is now, indeed, as he says, little more than a huge bazaar +of tradesmen and dealers in curios, in which hundreds of advertisements, +in many-coloured posters, announce the wares which are now for sale +within the ancient palaces. The syndicate of foreign traders, now being +established in Venice, will achieve its degradation. + +Italian ministers and Italian municipalities are often accused of not +encouraging warmly enough English, German, and American tradesmen and +manufacturers to establish themselves in Italy, and of putting upon +foreign commercial establishments in Italy a prohibitive taxation; the +truth is that it would be much better were such foreign firms +discouraged more effectively. It is urged on their behalf that they +bring capital into the country; they may do so, but only to take it out +again for their own profit, and Italian labour sweats and groans only +that some millionaire of Eaton Square or Fifth Avenue may increase his +wealth, whilst at the same time Italian tradespeople, trading in their +own right, on their own soil, are undersold by the shop-keeping and +store-keeping Briton and Yankee. + +I am far from entire agreement with Molmenti in many of his views (as +for instance his admiration of English pre-Raphaelism), but I am wholly +with him in his views of the claims of Venice, and of the sacrilege +which is destroying her; wholly with him in his severe and scornful +denunciation of what he rightly calls the _gretta e meschina arte dei +nostre tempi_ (the mean and trivial art of modern times), and of the +modern density of perception and invulnerable self-conceit which render +it impossible for the modern mind to appreciate harmony of hues and of +proportions, and impossible for the modern architect to place a new +building beside an ancient one without injury or vulgarity. Giotto could +place his church at Padua on the remains of the Roman amphitheatre, with +perfect unity, although in absolute contrast. When a modern mind has +sufficient intuition to enable it to admire a work of other times, it +can think of no better way of showing its admiration than to desire to +pull down all the houses in its vicinity to lay it bare. + +Molmenti says, with entire truth, 'It is a supreme duty for the few, who +are capable of feeling them, to assert the sentiment of, and respect +for, Art against the destructive and impious tendencies of the time.' + +But, alas! it is labour of Sisyphus. + +There is now under consideration a scheme to make a tramway-road raised +on piles from Mestre to Venice parallel with the line now followed +across the lagoon by the railway. It is difficult to comprehend the +motives and views of persons who desire to turn a beautiful water-city +into a commonplace land one, or rather it is easy to perceive that the +motive inspires the views, since nothing but the greed of +concessionaires and of contractors could ever have evolved such a plan +out of any human mind. + +The concessionaire and the contractor are the modern representatives of +ghouls and vampires of old-world romance. Truly, to them, as to the +Sabreur of Offenbach, nothing is sacred. They are guided entirely by +their lust of percentage, and to this they are ready to sacrifice every +other consideration; indeed, no other consideration exists for them. +They have settled on Italy for many years past as they are now settling +on Abyssinia. Venice is essentially a water-city; dealt with as land +cities are, under the present system, it will not only be disfigured and +mutilated like them, but it will be swept away; it will cease to be. The +world will have in its stead a dreary, dingy, trading port, with +warehouses, factories, docks, grain elevators, electric works, all the +polluted, crowded, discoloured, monotonous frightfulness which you can +have now at any moment on any coastline of the United States of America. +The Venice of Giambellini and the Veronese will be no more; you will +have in its stead a petty maritime Pittsburg. + +At the present moment Molmenti has successfully combated this Mestre +project, but as the abominable scheme of the night steamers on the +Canalezzo, and the pontoon under S. Zeno, was almost unanimously +_rejected_ four times by the Venetian Council, yet, on its presentation +a fifth time, was _accepted_ (unacknowledged influences having been at +work), it is impossible to all those who love Venice as she merits not +to feel the greatest anxiety. For these speculators resemble the Röntgen +rays, and find means to penetrate through closed doors and all other +barriers. Iron still resists the Röntgen rays, and such iron the +speculators find now and then opposed to them in the scorn of such men +as the Count Antonio Donà della Rosa, who dismissed with offence and +disdain the offer of two millions in gold for the purchase of the +historic tapestries of his palace in Venice. + +Were there only fifty such men as Count Donà in every Italian province +they would be able to hold in check the rage of destruction. But the +character of Count Donà is very rare in these days anywhere, and grows +rarer with every decade. The sordid Mephistopheles of a buyer usually +finds as sordid a temper in the Faust of a seller whom he tempts. This +may be a temper which enriches individuals; it is not one which ennobles +or elevates a nation: and frequently not even individual wealth is +realised for any length of time by the base barter, for the gambling on +the Bourse, or at the club-house, often makes the ill-got gains vanish +almost as soon as they are obtained. Such persons as find no attraction +in either form of gambling, unhappily for the most part, shrink from +action and from public life. Few have the courage of Molmenti, who +throws himself into the strife careless of what enmity he incurs, and +rarely even buoyed up by any hope of success in his efforts, since to +weave ropes of sand were scarcely more hopeless labour: it is impossible +to succeed in any public work where there is no response to your appeal +from the multitudes. And the voices of those who do secretly respond in +feeling are dumb in Italy; people are afraid to speak; they are +intimidated by the cry cast against them of want of energy, and of +enmity to progress (progress, good heavens! a gin-shop instead of a +temple!); they are afraid to be called reactionary, romantic, +unpatriotic; and in municipal government, as in other government, +everything is done by the wire-pullers, the money-grubbers, the +speculators. + +The timid public huddles together, mute, submissive, and afraid, shorn +of its fleeces like a flock of sheep, but not daring to complain. + +Those who do so dare are either ignored, or, if they give trouble, are +repressed. The gondoliers of Venice have again and again risen against +the ruin of their livelihood by the 'black devils' of the _vaporetti_, +but force is at once called in and they are brutally silenced, flung +into prison, and deprived of their licence, _i.e._, of their daily +bread. Because it is so picturesque a calling, and the balancing of the +oar looks so easy a work, those who are outside it do not realise the +hardships of a gondolier. In summer, if Venice be full, it is well +enough, and brings a fair, though never a high, wage; but in the other +seasons it is a life of great and continual exposure and fatigue. In +cold weather, and Venice is intensely cold in the winter solstice, the +long vigils on the _traghetto_ are most tedious and trying, especially +through the long chill nights. When the icy winds blow in from the Alps +or the Adriatic, the gondolier stands exposed to all their fury, whilst +the passenger he carries sits warm and sheltered under the felze. + +Strong and lithe in form, often handsome in feature, almost invariably +intelligent and acquainted with legend and verse, invariably courteous +and well-bred, the gondolier should have received the utmost attention +from his rulers. It is painful to know that no body of men has ever been +so slighted, so injured, and so wantonly outraged. + +There is nowhere any more interesting and deserving community than the +Venetian gondoliers, and few more worthy of regard; yet they have been +dealt with as though they were no more than so much scum of the sea. +Their long-established rights receive no consideration, and their +injuries no compensation. + +If the vote of Venice could have been honestly polled, no steam-boat +would ever have been allowed on the Grand Canal, as, if the vote of +Florence could have been honestly polled, the centre of Florence would +be now standing untouched, and would have remained untouched for many a +generation. + +Meanwhile, it is said, by those competent to judge, that the great +Murazzi, which protect Venice from the onslaught of the sea in winter +storm, and which we all know so well as we pass out from the Lido by the +Bar of Malamocco to Chioggia, are being dangerously undermined by the +attacks of the high tides in rude weather, and require costly and +immediate repair. It is in vain that this most necessary work is urged +upon the Government in Rome. The Government neither undertakes it +itself, nor allows Venetians to undertake it. For any foolish, needless +disfiguring work, such as the installation of the electric light in the +ducal palace, against which Venetians in vain protested, the Government +is always ready to waste millions. But for a work of obvious and vital +necessity, such as that of the strengthening of the Murazzi, it has not +a soldo to spare. + +The architecture of Venice has the fragility as it has the fairness of +the dianthus or the gemmia of the sea; its walls and buttresses and +foundations are plunged into salted, sanded mud; its piles grow green +and brown and purple with weed; its snowy marbles and its ruddy stones +are mirrored in rippling or in stagnant water; they tremble under the +vibrations caused by the accursed paddle-boats; they quiver, like living +things, under the knife, as the engines roar and the cog-wheels turn. +Assailed as the city is within by the invasion of steam and barbarism, +it is entirely certain that she could not resist the force of the +inrushing waters if the Murazzi were ever to yield to the pressure of a +winter sea; and it is unhappily quite possible that the gigantic barrier +of the sea-walls may give way on some day of unusually high tides and +violent tempest, and the city herself will then be overwhelmed beneath +the Adriatic waters. + +Who would care if this were her fate? + +The contractors, and concessionaires, and jerry-builders, and +bureaucratic thieves, and foreign speculators would have the pleasure +and profit of building a spick and span new town, north-east of Mestre: +all tiresome reminiscences of the Lion of St Mark would have sunk with +the bronze horses underneath the waves. + +Many public men would breathe more freely were Venice but a memory of +the past entombed in seaweed and in sand. For there is nothing so +curiously malignant or so restlessly jealous as the enmity of a feeble +Present of a great Past. It is such malignity, it is such jealousy, +which, even more than greed of gain, and vitiated taste, caused, and +causes, and will cause, the destruction of the great cities of Italy by +Italian deputies, syndics, and municipalities, and by those foreign +companies and alien speculations to which they unhappily open their +gates. + +If the fact did not face us at every step, it would seem incredible +that, even in this age, such cities as Venice and Florence and Rome +could have been sacrificed to the ignominious interests of wire-pullers. +Each possessed, to protect it, unique beauty, splendour of association +and tradition, an heroic past: and for each had the greatest of men +laboured, in each had the charm of atmosphere and horizon lent a more +than mortal loveliness to the architecture of man. And each is now +wrecked, and ransacked, and despoiled, and obliterated, and destroyed as +though a horde of savages had been let loose in their precincts. + +There is no language strong enough to condemn the injuries from which +they suffer. + +On the walls of the Flavian Amphitheatre there grew in marvellous +fertility countless plants unknown elsewhere; survivors of sylvan worlds +destroyed, of botanical kingdoms for ever perished, the seeds of which +perchance had lodged in the sandals of the legions as they came from +Palmyra or Babylon; this most precious legacy of nature was, as everyone +knows, mercilessily destroyed in the first years of the Italian +occupation of Rome. + +The uprooting with knives and acids of the unique flora of the Colosseum +was a type of the acts which, for the last fifteen years, have hacked +away and corroded and destroyed off the face of the earth the supreme +flowers of human genius. + +In the present debasement and desecration of Italian cities there is not +even such motive and excuse as that which was urged by archaeologists +for the ruin of these plants. There is everything lost, nothing whatever +gained, in the debasement of classic and artistic cities to the level of +Buluwayo or Klondyke. + +To pull down the Palazzo Venezia and the Palazzo Torlonia, which it is +decided to do in Rome, in order that the statue of Victor Emmanuel, for +which the funds have not even yet been raised, may be visible from the +Corso, is as contemptible as it is childish. The beauty of the +Campidoglio is already ruined in order to place that statue there: might +not that suffice? To throw down the Tower of the Amadei to put in its +place a restaurant, or a drinking-shop, is so stupid an act that the +enormity of the offence to history and art is almost forgotten in its +imbecility. To cut off a portion of the Archbishop's Palace to widen a +road, and destroy half the gardens of the Orti Oricellari to make a mean +street, and to place the stations and rails of tramway companies on the +macigno pavement under the Campanile, the Battistero, and the Duomo of +Florence, are outrages to the whole educated world and the history of +five centuries. To destroy the Ponte del Paradiso in order to put a +cast-iron pontoon in its place, is an abomination which should only seem +possible to a company of clowns crazy with drink; whilst to turn the +lovely isle of Sant' Elena into a heap of cinders for the pleasure of a +carriage-building company, which company was not even guaranteed from +bankruptcy, was unquestionably as unbusinesslike and as unprofitable as +it was impious. + +There is neither common sense, nor common decency, in the chief part of +the measures taken within the last decade to humiliate and imbastardise +the cities and towns of Italy. The process of destruction began indeed +much earlier; but within the last ten years the pace has been increased +from a leisurely walk to a furious gallop. The scramble to be first to +outrage, to deface, to despoil, has become a St Vitus's dance amongst +the syndics, assessors, and councilmen; each deliriously eager for the +approving smile of the various ministers in whose hands the destinies of +these great and unrivalled Urbes unfortunately are placed. + +It must be remembered by the foreign reader that there is no Minister of +Fine Arts in Italy. There is a Minister of Education, another of Public +Works, and another of Agriculture, and between these three all +questions of art and architecture are divided, and are decided in +agreement with the various municipalities. The mischief the trio does is +incalculable, for they are seldom selected with any regard to their +æsthetic qualifications. Indeed, if ever anyone of them show any +scholarly capacity and aptitude for his office, like that which was +shown by Villari, his possession of power is very short. Of a recent +minister of agriculture it is related that, as he looked over a valley +planted with magnificent olives near Brescia, he exclaimed, 'What fine +willows!' + +A similar ignorance in matters belonging to their respective departments +is expected of the Ministers of Education and Public Works. Were there a +Minister of Fine Arts, he would undoubtedly be chosen from the +attorneys, the manufacturers, the scientists, or the rural Boeotians. + +Another minister of agriculture, Count Francesco Guicciardini, had an +admirable and thorough command of the objects of his Dicastero; skilled +in agriculture himself, and the owner of large estates, he knew what to +do and how to do it; and by his energy an outbreak of phylloxera was +arrested before any great losses had ensued. But outside agriculture, +his influence was less excellent, because he was unfortunately enabled +to meddle with matters not agricultural and beyond his knowledge; as +when he ordered the destruction of a whole quarter of the martial and +ancient city of Pistoia, and the waste of the town funds in the erection +of a new savings bank. Over the choice of a design for this building, +the townspeople of Pistoia are now violently quarrelling, whilst many +of their finest and noblest palaces are left to go empty to decay! + +A minister of the strictest probity, of the strongest desire to do what +is just and wise, is never long able to resist the pressure of those +around him, the force of example, the persuasions of local magnates, and +the insistence of the crowd of hungry perquisite-hunters. It is such +shocking and wicked waste of money as was this in Pistoia which +impoverishes every town, and disfigures each with vulgar piles of brick +and iron, and grotesque monuments of black metal, whilst a miserable +woman at their gates pays four centimes duty on a pint of milk before +she can take it past the guards to sell, and a wretched man, who owns a +little road-fed flock of goats, is taxed two hundred francs a year +before he may drive them into the streets to yield the little +nourishment which they can afford to invalids and children. Should the +law now under consideration pass, and the debts of the Communes be paid +by the State, and monies be henceforth lent lavishly by the State to the +Communes, this expenditure will increase tenfold, and the jobbery +accompanying it will be multiplied in similar measure. + +No one of the governing classes is guiltless in the matter; cabinets, +senators, deputies, prefects, mayors, town councils, provincial +councils, each and all, sin alike in this matricide, and seem to vie +with each other in suggesting and executing the abominable projects +which disgrace the close of the century. + +In this day, in everything appertaining to municipal government, the +greater is sacrificed to the lesser; the smug, the ordinary, the +expedient, the venal are first of all considered; the kind of man who +pushes to the front in affairs is bustling, sharp, keen, insensible, in +whose own existence no necessity for anything except vulgar prosperity, +as ugly as you will, is felt for an hour. To speak to such men of such +impersonal desires as moved the makers of the great cities of old, is to +speak in an unknown tongue, which they appraise as gibberish. They are, +for the present time, the rulers of the world, and the material they are +made of is the same clay, whether its shape take that of an emperor or a +contractor, of a king or a beadle, of a minister or a vestryman. At the +present hour the earth is given over to them. + +Wyzewa accepts this insatiable mania for destruction as a +characteristic, which of course it undoubtedly is, of the general +disease of modernity; but he does not seem to trace it to what is surely +its source, the greed of gain. All these engineers, builders, +contractors, town councillors, bankers, usurers, speculators, chairmen, +shareholders, and directors of companies, can make nothing out of the +ancient glory and grace of beautiful cities; the mayors can get no +savoury morsel to compensate them for all their servility and +time-serving; the deputies can find no useful plunder to enrich the crew +who have voted for them; in respecting the beauty of the past, +syndicates and tradesmen and gamblers on 'Change would reap no harvest +of gold whatever. + +What else but greed has been the motive of that shameless desecration of +Rome against which Geoffroy has raised his voice from the tomb to +protest? + +What else but greed the motive of that infamous destruction of the +entire centre of Florence, its historic towers and churches and palaces, +torn down with blind rage to be replaced by hideous hotels, and monster +shops, and grotesque monuments? the most piteous, and the most +inexcusable, injury ever done to the rights of history and of art. + +What else the motive of that wanton disfigurement of Venice which has +disgraced the last fifteen years of the municipal rule, and is about to +continue the work of ruin merely to enrich the men of greed, the English +and American tradesmen, the Hebrew speculators, the German hucksters, +the cosmopolitan inflators of bubble companies? + +The motive of all these destructions is always the same, and always of +the lowest kind: gain. Everyone concerned in them gains, or hopes to +gain. There is no other instinct or idea than this. It is, like the +present diplomacy of Europe, an all-round game of grab; and a large +percentage of the gains goes to the doctors who label the gambling +'Hygiene.' + +The plea of health is a falsehood usually advanced in excuse of such +destructions as those of the Florentine centre and the Venetian Calli +and Campielli. Those who allege it know, as well as I do, that the +unhealthiness lies not in the habitations but in the habits of the +people. Water never touches their bodies; tight-lacing is a female rule +in even the peasant class; the field-worker is as tightly cased in her +leather stays as the duchess in her satin corset. The favourite foods of +the populace are such as give worms, dysentery, and skin diseases; their +drinks are adulterated and poisonous;[15] their general habits are +unwholesome and injurious beyond all description; they are saved only by +the purity of the air which the municipalities, who chatter of hygiene, +do their best to pollute with acid and chemical fumes, and the stench of +noxious trades. + +[Footnote 15: Contadini drink the _vinaccia_, or _vinella_, made from +the dregs of the wine-vats; but others drink (and often the contadino +does so also) the chemical stuffs sold at drinking-houses and taverns +with which the streets and roads are studded.] + +The men who prate of hygiene know these facts as well as I do; they +know, I repeat, that the insalubrity is in the habits, not in the +habitations; but the conventional lie passes muster and serves its end: +it enables landlords to sell, and lawyers to pocket fees, and +contractors to make profits, and all the troops of middlemen to fatten +on the demolition of noble and ancient places and the creation of shoddy +stucco architecture in their stead. + +The sense of beauty has died with the public destruction of beauty: it +is dead in the ruling classes; and what is far worse, dead in the +populace; dead, or nearly so, in the writers, the painters, the +sculptors. If in this latter class there were any strong, true, and +delicate instinct of what is noble and beautiful, Molmenti would not +stand alone in the Council of Venice; Prince Corsini would not alone +have resisted the destruction of the Florence of the Renaissance; +D'Annunzio would not alone repeat the denunciations of two dead +foreigners, Geoffroy and Gregorovius, of the violation of ancient and of +mediæval Rome. The voices of the artists (were they artists in feeling +indeed) would be, and would have been, so powerful that no ministry and +no municipality would have ventured to ignore them. + +But most modern artists are afraid to offend their public, their +patrons, the town councils, the mayors, and communes, or the Ministers +of Education or of Public Works, to which or to whom they look for +employment; they have the decoration-hunger, which is one of the chief +curses of Continental Europe, and decorations only come from the powers +above; and in these powers above there is not the faintest glimmer of +taste or feeling, there is only jealousy of a great and unapproachable +Past. + +Therefore, the few who do feel indignation do not speak; and the +speculator, the jerry builder, the cunning lawyer and conveyancer, the +vast body of greedy and gross spoilers, have their way unchecked. + +In the case of Rome, of course, that cruellest and ugliest of all +passions, religious antagonism, has had much to do with the atrocious +ruin of the Prati del Castello, of the Trastevere generally, of the +passage of the four trams in derision in face of St Peter's, of the +hideous gimcrack houses built under the walls of the Lateran, of the +destruction of street shrines and votive chapels and ancient chapels, of +the erection of the entire quarters of what is called New Rome;[16] but +religious hatred cannot be the cause of the barbarous scraping and +daubing of classic buildings, of the degradation of the Via Nomentana, +and of Porta Pia, of the ruin of such glory and grace as that of the +Ludovisi and the Farnesina villas, of the bedaubing and beplastering, +the dwarfing and disfiguring, the vulgarising and disfiguring of +everything which is touched by the modern ædiles of Rome. No matter what +the syndic be called, whether Ruspoli or Guiccioli, or Torlonia, or +Colonna, no matter whether the cabinet be headed by Rudini or Giolitti, +by Crispi or Pelloux, the pickaxe is never at rest, and the hammer and +hatchet sound ceaselessly in street and garden, on desecrated altars, +and in devastated groves. + +[Footnote 16: It is now almost forgotten that the Ludovisi gardens ever +existed as the motley fashion of the new Roman world flocks to the +American Legation in the Pal. Piombino!] + +To what end have served the fury and haste with which ancient +ecclesiastical buildings have been razed to the ground in both the +cities and the provinces? To none whatever, so far as any diminution of +the funds and the numbers of ecclesiastical foundations can be counted. + +The suppression of the monasteries and convents was actuated by love of +gain as much as by polemical rancour, by the hunger of the newly-created +kingdom, for their treasures and riches, for their rich endowments and +saleable possessions. There was no sincerity about it; there could be +none in a nation then almost entirely Catholic; and this insincerity is +proved by the indifference with which the State allows the +re-establishment of these buildings and these orders. At this moment the +bare-footed Carmelites, a most bigoted order, have lately opened a new +church and convent in Milan, which are endowed with three millions of +money, and have been opened with great pomp by the Archbishop. Similar +institutions are being re-created in all directions, possessing all the +evils of those which were suppressed, without their artistic beauty, and +largely without their good faith and munificent charity. Rich and lovely +maidens continue to take the veil when too young to have any realisation +of what they do,[17] and the Church is as enriched as of old by their +dowers; whilst the monk is not the less dangerous to intellectual +liberty because, when he goes out of the gates for a few hours, he wears +a coat and trousers like those of the layman of the adjacent town. + +[Footnote 17: A few months ago the Prime Minister, then the Marquis di +Rudini, was present at the taking of the veil by a young relative in +Naples.] + +The ancient monasteries and convents were at least an education to the +eye: who could daily see the Certosa of Pavia, or of the Val d'Ema, and +not be purified and instructed in visual memory and artistic instinct? +The new revivals of the old orders teach nothing except a base and +strictly modern union of superstition and compromise. Indeed, the State +forces the priest to be base; it makes it the condition of allowing his +existence. If he do not succumb to the State in all things (even in +those most opposed to his conscience), he is deprived of his _placet_; +and Zanardelli has in these last few days desired to deprive him of it +without such legal forms as have hitherto been observed. For one of the +greatest of the misfortunes of Italy is that, not in the Radicals nor in +the Conservatives, nor in any one of the groups into which political +life is divided, is there the slightest trace of any respect for +individual freedom; liberty of action and of opinion obtain no fair +play whatever from any one of the parties of the State. + +True, it is not in Italy alone that the sense of symmetry and harmony is +leaving the terrestial race; the want of beauty, as the daily bread of +life, grows less and less felt every year by the modern mind wherever +that mind has been unhinged by the manias of modernity. Beauty, natural +and artistic, has become entirely indifferent to the majority of even +highly-educated modern men and women. They have no leisure to +contemplate it, no temperament capable of feeling it; it is in no sense +necessary to them; it makes no impression either on their retina or +their memory. Their lives pass before a revolving panorama, so rapidly +dissolving and changing that they have no distinct impression of any of +the scenes or subjects. Every year modern habits become more unlovely, +and modern sensibilities more blunted. The preservation of what is +beautiful, _per se_, at the present time is almost always ridiculed, +unless it can be shown to be joined to some profit or utility. The +characteristic passion of the hour is greed; greed of possession, desire +of acquisition, and passion for ostentation. Trade has become an octopus +embracing the whole world; the thirst for gain engrosses all classes; +beauty, unless it be a means of gain, is to this temper a useless, or +worse than a useless, thing: it is regarded as a stumbling-block and +encumbrance. + +It is doubtful if even the power of perceiving what is beautiful has not +in a great measure left a large part of the population in all countries. +Modern cities would not be what they are now had not the race to a +great extent grown colour-blind, and become without the sense of +proportion. Modern builders and modern engineers would remain unoccupied +were not the generations, which employ and enrich them, destitute of all +artistic feelings. + +Many of the prevailing fashions would be so intolerable to persons with +any delicate or accurate perception, that such fashions could never have +become general had any perception of this kind been general. Even the +deformity of their bodies awakens no aversion in the modern public; if +it did, the bicycle would never have been in demand. + +Such blindness and deadness to the charm of beauty is to be noted in +every nation, and is developed even in the extreme East whenever modern +European and American usage influences the Oriental. + +Japan is rapidly becoming the rival in vulgarity and hideousness of +Chicago. + +It is no doubt general and inevitable, the low tone of susceptibility, +the dense, thick-skinned temper, which accompany what is called +Civilisation, which are to be seen everywhere from cold to warm +latitudes, wherever the steam-engine screams and the shoddy suits are +worn. + +The modern temper is something even worse than inartistic; it is +brutally and aggressively hostile to beauty, whether natural or +architectural. It will go out of the way to injure, to deface, to +uproot, to level with the dust. + +To the cold, bald, hard, derisive temper of the modern majority there is +something offensive and irritating in beauty, whether it be seen in the +stately verdure of a tree in its summer glory, or of an ancient +tower,[18] brown and grey in the light of evening. To fell the tree, to +pull down the tower, is the first instinct of the modern mind, and it is +an instinct clamorous, savage, insatiable, born of incapacity and +triviality, of the hunger for destruction, and of a secret and ignoble +jealousy. + +[Footnote 18: The other day I saw from a railway train a grand old +Longobardo tower which had been coloured a bright pink!] + +There can, I think, be no doubt that modern education implants and +increases this insensibility. If it did not, modern municipalities would +not be what they are, would not do what they do. The only resistance to +this insensibility is found, and this but rarely, at the two extremes of +the social scale--the peasant and the noble, _i.e._, in those who are +least subjected to the pressure of general education. In the man, +absolutely uneducated, and in the man reared by an individual and +highly-cultured education, are alone now to be found any appreciation of +beauty, natural or artistic. + +A French writer, with no pity for the lovers of teas and porcelains, has +said recently that he looks forward with joy to the time when the whole +empire of China will be covered with factories and mines as thickly as +blades of grass grow in a meadow. Most modern persons have no higher +ideal than his. In similar phrase, Ferrero, whose political writings I +have often cited with approval, and whose striking abilities I greatly +admire, but with whose narrow socialist temper I have no sympathy, +actually states that the plain of Lombardy was created by nature to be +studded with factory chimneys! + +Even into remote mountain towns, and in small forgotten cities, on the +edge of lonely lakes, or deep-sunk in chestnut woods, or ilex-forests, +the same desecration creeps, and sullies, and pollutes. Gimcrack, gaudy +villas, and pasteboard houses, show their pert and paltry forms amidst +noble palaces, or beside patrician towers. Pistachio green paint makes +day hideous everywhere, daubed on deal shutters and blinds, accompanied +by the paltry stained doors, and the stucco mouldings, of the epoch. The +modern municipality displays its whitewashed and belettered frontage, +unashamed, on some grand old piazza, which has seen centuries of strife +and splendour. Silent sunlit bays of Tyrrhene or Adriatic, lovely as a +poem of Shelley, are made vulgar and ludicrous by lines of habitations +such as the jerry-builder of the end of the nineteenth century +procreates, wearing an air of smug imbecility which makes one long to +slap their stucco faces; of course the drinking-shop, the +cycling-casino, and the shooters' club have been run up beside them so +that their patrons and frequenters may befoul the roseate evening, and +insult the ethereal night. + +Moreover, it is strange to note how, with the vulgarisation of the towns +and of the landscapes in this classic land, the human physiognomy loses +its classic unity and grace, grows heavier, coarser, meaner, commoner, +changes indeed entirely its type and colouring; the camus or the snub +nose replaces the aquiline, the scrofulous mouth replaces the lips +shaped like a Cupid's bow; the eyes diminish in size and grow +lack-lustre; the beautiful oval outline of cheek and chin alters to the +bull-dog jaw and puffy cheeks; the clear and pure skin alters to the +sodden, pallid, unwholesome complexion of the new type. This is no +exaggerated statement; anyone can see the change for himself who will +take the trouble to observe such young Italians as throng the +second-rate and the third-rate _cafés_ and dining-saloons of cities, and +then go into the more remote country, and see the Italiote race still in +its integrity, in old-world hamlets of the Abruzzi or the Apennines, in +forest-sheltered nooks of the Sabine or the Carrara mountains, in +sea-faring, wind-swept villages of the Veneto, in nomad sheep-folds on +the oak-studded grass plains of the Basilicata, or in old walled towns, +calm and venerable, in the lap of the high hills, where the shriek of +the engine has not yet been heard; where it is still unknown, that which +Loti calls in his latest work, 'cette chose de laid, de noirâtre, de +tapageur, d'idiotement empressée, qui passe vite vite, ébranle la terre, +trouble ce calme délicieux par des sifflets et des bruits de ferailles, +le chemin de fer, le chemin de fer!--plus nivelant que le temps, +propageant la basse camelote de l'industrie, déversant chaque jour de la +banalité et des imbéciles.' + +In the provinces he will still find, in thousands of living creatures, +the youths of Luca Signorelli, the knights of Giorgione and Carpaccio, +the young gods of Paolo Veronese, the noble grey-beards of Tiziano, the +stately women of Michelangiolo, the enchanting children of Raffaelle, +and Correggio. But in the towns, and in the country where it receives +the moral and physical miasma of the towns, he will find little else but +the debased modern type, with its snigger of conceit, its cynical grin, +its criminal's jaw, its cutaneous eruptions, its dull and insolent eyes, +its stunted growth, and its breath foul with nicotine and chemical +drinks, such as the modern schools, and the modern scientists, and the +modern dram-shops have made it. + +Commerce, from being beneficent, is fast becoming a curse. It usurps and +absorbs all place and all energy. Its objects are allowed to push out of +existence all higher aims; armies and navies exist only to protect it; +and an English Premier was not ashamed at a Lord Mayor's banquet to +declare that this was their unique aim: to conquer fresh fields for +trading, and protect the trader in his invasion of the rights of others. +His Secretary of State for the Colonies and his Chancellor of the +Exchequer have, still more recently, repeated after him this singularly +ignoble view of a nation's duty, and of a soldier's and sailor's +obligation. + +The Secretary of the Colonies, indeed, rising to unwonted enthusiasm, +added that all the greatness of Great Britain lies in its commerce. No +doubt this may be a fact; but it is not an ennobling fact; and it is one +which is the parent of gross sins, and the enemy of high ideals; in the +name of commerce, murder, theft, and torture are all legalised, and the +most brutal egotism deified; it can be at best only a material greatness +which is thus consolidated. + +To measure the virtue of a nation by its commerce alone is like +measuring the virtue of a man solely by the amount of his income. This +manner of estimation is one common in the world, but it can never be +considered a high standard. However, this excuse of the prior and +dominant claims of commerce which may be put forward in the case of +Great Britain for the sacrifice to it of all other interests cannot be +alleged by Italy except in some districts of the north. What requires +protection in five-sixths of Italy, and only suffers extinction through +fiscal pressure, is small commerce: personal arts, crafts, and trades, +which flourished so happily in past times, and would still live in fair +peace and comfort were they not stoned out of existence by a merciless +taxation, direct and indirect. These neither disfigure nor offend the +beautiful and venerable little towns in which they dwell; the smith has +his anvil under a Lombard arch, the apothecary keeps his ointments and +simples in old majolica vases, the barber's pole slants under a shrine +of the Renascence, the cloth-seller piles his bales against the +sculpture of a Seicento wall, the seedsman's sacks show the shining +berries in their gaping mouths behind the iron scroll-work of mediæval +kneeling-windows. It is not they who have hurt their birthplaces. It is +the English syndicate, the Jew syndicate, the German money-changer, the +American tram-contractor, the foreign electric company, the foreign +co-operative store-keeper, who have no end but their own gain, and who +tempt to shameful acts those native to the soil, in whose hands lie the +fate of these historic, and late happy, places. + +Ferrero has, concerning this, a true and touching passage which is much +worthier of him than his views regarding Lombardy and the factories. He +says, in a recent able article on the 'Miseria e Richezza in Italia':-- + + 'The tendencies of new commercial life, in its immense + enterprises, is to send money and movement into a very few + amongst the cities of Italy, the others live content with their + small traffic and trade; though trembling when the fleet + well-springs of their small fortunes are menaced or run dry. + Many of these towns were in other days rich, and still preserve + the evidences of their splendid past in sumptuous palaces, + spacious squares, monumental churches; a sense of venerable + years, of profound repose lie on them; yet a sad and cruel + tragedy often passes between these walls; beneath the + magnificent palaces of the Renascence and the beautiful + mediæval Lombard churches, the populace perishes slowly of + hunger. The small ancient industries disappear, crushed out by + the victorious rivalry of the great tradesmen of the north. The + ruin of these small industries and of these individual crafts + began some decades ago; but it was much less cruelly felt then + than it is now, and the sole recourse or solace now left to it + is in revolt. A revolt to which the Government only replies by + fixed bayonets, and a duty on corn, which is a crime.' + +Ferrero, as a political economist is bound to do, considers that no +means should be taken to artificially sustain ancient methods of work +and trade, but he says with entire truth that to artificially depress +and deplete them is on the part of the State an abominable act. To wear +out the temper and patience of the populace with harassing edicts; to +drive to desperation those who are cheerful and contented in an honestly +supported poverty; to starve them by artificially raised food-prices, +and by gate-taxes, which ruin the small trader, the modest householder, +and the rural vendor alike; to render it, by a monstrous taxation, +impossible for small industries to exist; to levy income-tax +(_focatico_) on the poorest labourer--this is the terrible error, the +inexcusable cruelty, of which the actual, and every preceding, Italian +Cabinet is, and has been, guilty. If there be revolution in the air, who +can wonder? The granaries are guarded by battalions, whilst millions are +thrown away on bad statues to Savoy princes. These are facts which it is +not necessary for a man to know his A B C to read. But they are the +primer which is daily placed before the eyes of the many various peoples +of Italy from the Col de Tenda to Cape Sorano; and these peoples are of +rare intelligence even where wholly illiterate: often, indeed, most +intelligent where most illiterate. + +There were, not many years ago, a great measure of mirth and contentment +in all the minor cities of Italy, and in the small towns and the big +walled villages; much harmless merry-making and pastime, much simple and +neighbourly pleasure, much enjoyment of that 'ben' di Dio,' the blessed +air and sunshine. Most of it has been killed now; starved out, +strangled by regulations and penalties and imposts, and a fiendish +fiscal tyranny; dead like the poor slaughtered forgotten conscripts in +Africa. + +But this opens out a political question, and it is not of politics that +these pages treat, but of art and its outrage: above all, of such +outrage in Venice; since the President of her Academy did me, of late, +the honour to say to me, 'Non può Lei far nulla per salvare la nostra +povera Venezia?' Alas! how powerless are all our forces against the +ever-rising tide of modern barbarism! + +A precious intaglio of exquisite workmanship is being broken up and +pulverised under our eyes; and no one cares. + +I know a wide plain, intersected by many streams, and lying full in the +light of the west; these streams are filled from August to October with +millions of white water-lilies. + +Nothing more beautiful can be beheld than these countless water-courses +covered with these cups of snow, which share the clear, slowly-rippling +streams only with the water-wagtail and the sedge-warbler, the bullrush, +and the flag. They resemble exactly the river on which the Virgine delle +Rocce drift with their brothers and Claudio. But the peasants push their +black, flat-bottomed boats recklessly amongst the silver goblets of the +flowers, crashing into them and breaking them with brutal indifference, +and raking them into heaps in their boats, to be cast up on to the +oozing banks to rot and serve as land manure; the boorish insensibility +of the boatmen is typical of their time; the lilies would serve quite +as well for manure were they allowed to live out their lovely life, and +were not gathered until they were yellow and faded; but they who rake +them in do not wait for their natural season of decay; they smash and +break them in full flower as they kill birds on the nest in the fields +and hedges. + +Their fate is like the fate of that greater lily, rosy-red at sunset, +which lies cradled on the waters between Mestre and Murano; and which is +roughly and painfully being uprooted and destroyed that a pack of +foreign traders and native attorneys may wax fat and lay up gold. + +No doubt the fate of Venice is common in these days; no doubt, all over +the world, capitalists and socialists join hands across the gulf of +their differences to unite in the destruction of all that is beautiful, +graceful, harmonious, and venerable. + +But in Italy such destruction is more sad and shameful than anywhere +else in Europe, by reason of the magnificence and glory of her past, and +in view of the pitiful fact that the land, which was a Pharos of light +and leading to the earth, is now every year and every day receding +farther and farther into darkness: that dreadful darkness of the modern +world which comes of polluted waters and polluted air, of the breath of +poisoned lungs, and the pressure of starving crowds. The basest form of +venality, the lowest form of greed, have fastened on her with the +tentacles of the devil-fish; and are every hour devouring her. + + +_Colston & Coy, Limited, Printers, Edinburgh._ + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Critical Studies, by Ouida + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CRITICAL STUDIES *** + +***** This file should be named 36788-8.txt or 36788-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/6/7/8/36788/ + +Produced by David Edwards, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +book was produced from scanned images of public domain +material from the Google Print project.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Critical Studies + +Author: Ouida + +Release Date: July 19, 2011 [EBook #36788] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CRITICAL STUDIES *** + + + + +Produced by David Edwards, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +book was produced from scanned images of public domain +material from the Google Print project.) + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + + + + +<h1>CRITICAL STUDIES</h1> + +<h2>BY OUIDA</h2> + + +<h3><i>SECOND IMPRESSION</i></h3> + +<h3>LONDON<br /> +T. FISHER UNWIN<br /> +PATERNOSTER SQUARE<br /> +1900</h3> + + +<h3>[<i>All Rights reserved</i>]</h3> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[Pg v]</a></span></p> + + +<h2>PREFATORY NOTE</h2> + + +<p>With exception of one, that on the poems of Mr Blunt, all these essays +have previously appeared in <i>The Fortnightly Review</i>, <i>The Nineteenth +Century Review</i>, or the <i>Nuova Antologia</i>. The two published in <i>The +Nuova Antologia</i> were written by me in Italian. I have now turned them +into English myself. The article on D'Annunzio, in the <i>Fortnightly</i>, +was the first ever printed in English on a writer who is now well known +to all. I do not think that he has, since it was published, created +anything equal to the <i>Trionfo</i>. The character of his genius is not +adapted to the theatre, to which he now chiefly devotes himself. It will +be interesting to see if it can be adapted to political life, which has +lately tempted him. Perhaps he may become a new Rienzi. One is greatly +needed in Italy.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>OUIDA.</p> +</blockquote> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[Pg vi]</a></span></p> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + + +<table width="70%"> +<tr><td><a href="#I">I. GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO </a></td><td align="right">1</td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#II">II. GEORGES DARIEN </a></td><td align="right">50</td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#III">III. THE ITALIAN NOVELS OF MARION CRAWFORD </a></td><td align="right">85</td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#IV">IV. LE SECRET DU PRÉCEPTEUR </a></td><td align="right">112</td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#V">V. L'IMPÉRIEUSE BONTÉ </a></td><td align="right">126</td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#VI">VI. WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT </a></td><td align="right">143</td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#VII">VII. JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN </a></td><td align="right">165</td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#VIII">VIII. UNWRITTEN LITERARY LAWS </a></td><td align="right">180</td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#IX">IX. AUBERON HERBERT </a></td><td align="right">201</td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#X">X. THE UGLINESS OF MODERN LIFE </a></td><td align="right">210</td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#XI">XI. THE QUALITY OF MERCY </a></td><td align="right">239</td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#XII">XII. THE DECADENCE OF LATIN RACES </a></td><td align="right">264</td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#XIII">XIII. ALMA VENIESIA </a></td><td align="right">280</td></tr> +</table> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> +<h2>CRITICAL STUDIES</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="I" id="I"></a>I</h2> + +<h3>GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO</h3> + + +<p>In the world of letters the name of Gabriele d'Annunzio is now famous. +There is no cultured society which does not know something at least of +the author of the <i>Innocente</i> and the <i>Trionfo</i>, and is not aware that, +in him, one of the ablest and most delicate of living critics believes +that he has seen the personification of a renascence of Latin genius. +Imprisoned as his novels were in the limits of a language which, however +great its beauty, is but little known except in its own land, he has +been extraordinarily fortunate in finding such sponsors in the outside +world as he has obtained in M. Herelle, in René Doumic, and in the +Vicomte de Vogüé. Never has any romance been so admirably heralded as +the <i>Trionfo</i> in the <i>Révue des Deux Mondes</i>, and never certainly, since +lyre was strung or laurels were woven, was any praise ever heard so +dulcet and so lavish as that with which he, who has been called<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span> the +second Chateaubriand, has welcomed and introduced the new Boccaccio.</p> + +<p>The grace and beauty of the style of the Vicomte de Vogüé, and the +culture of his intelligence, have gained him in literature this name of +the second Chateaubriand. They are both incontestable. But they are apt +to lead his readers away from the consideration of the value of his +literary judgments. He is a critic of exquisite delicacy and fineness, +but also of great enthusiasms, and these enthusiasms are at times much +stronger than his judgment and overpower it. What he admires he admires +<i>toto corde</i>, and is apt to lose in this generous ardour his power of +selection, his accuracy of appraisement.</p> + +<p>This fact has been always conspicuous in all his writings on Pasteur, +and it has been equally conspicuous in the unmeasured idolatry with +which he has dipped his pen in all the honey of Hymettus to sing the +praises of the man he loves. But this adoption of D'Annunzio into French +literature has, with its incontestable advantages, equal penalties and +disadvantages for the author; for one reader outside Italy who will read +him in the original text, ten thousand will know him only in the French +version, and twenty thousand will accept De Vogüé's description of his +works without attempting to judge those for themselves. In the French +version the romances gain in certain points; their excessive detail is +abridged, their crudities are softened down, their wearisome analyses +and too frequent obscenities are omitted. The translations of M. Herelle +are, as all must know, admirable in grace and elegance, but, though as +perfect as translations<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span> which are guilty of continual excisions can be, +they fail to render the genius of D'Annunzio as it is to be seen and +felt by those who read the works in the original tongue. In the French +version they are much milder, much more tempered, much less unbridled, +and much less cynically nude; but they are also much less vigorous, +virile, impassioned, and furiously scornful. Many fine passages have +been esteemed <i>longueurs</i>, and have been omitted altogether, and entire +chapters have been sacrificed to the exigencies of taste or of space.</p> + +<p>In the French edition of the <i>Trionfo</i>, nearly the whole book, entitled +<i>La Vita Nuova</i>, containing the pilgrimage to Casalbordino is omitted. +But without perusal of this marvellous reproduction of a scene of +Italian fanaticism and frenzy, and of similar portions of his works, it +is impossible to estimate fully the real D'Annunzio, and judge of his +magnificent powers of observation and description, as well as of his +incessant search for what is loathsome, his cruel exultation in his +examination of physical diseases and moral leprosies.</p> + +<p>I know not why this pilgrimage was rejected, for it is not more indecent +than other portions of the book, and it is singularly true to certain +phases of Italian life, in which all the Paganism bred in the blood and +bone of the people is displayed, mixed with the ferocity of Christian +bigotry. Let me here translate the opening of it:—</p> + +<blockquote><p>'It was a marvellous and terrible spectacle, unexpected, unlike +any other assemblage of men and things, composed of mixtures so +diverse, cruel and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> strange, that it eclipsed the most dreadful +visions of a nightmare. All the hideousness of the eternal +idiot, all the filthiness of vice and its stupidities, all the +spasms and deformities of baptized flesh, all the tears of +penitence, all the laughter of license; the mania, the +cupidity, the craft, the lust, the fraud, the imbecility, the +silent desperation, the sacred choruses, the howls of the +possessed, the shouts of the ambulatory vendors, the clanging +of the bells, the squeal of the trumpets, the lowing, the +neighing, the bleating; the fires crackling under the +cauldrons, the heaps of fruits and sweetmeats, the display of +utensils, of stuffs, of arms, of jewels, of rosaries; the +obscene capers of the dancers, the convulsions of the +epileptic, the blows of the quarrelsome, the rush of flying, +frightened thieves through the crowd; the supreme froth of +corruption poured forth from the filthy lanes of remote cities, +and showered out on to an ignorant and astounded multitude, +like horseflies on the flanks of beasts, shoals of parasites +descended on a compact mass incapable of defending itself, all +the base temptations of brutal appetites, all the treacheries +playing on simplicity and stupidity, all the charlatanisms and +the effronteries bared in full daylight; all the opposing +contrasts were there, boiling and effervescing, around the +House of the Virgin.'</p></blockquote> + +<p>What strength is here? What admirable choice of descriptive phrase, and +truth of design, as in a Callot or Hogarth! what sense conveyed of +press, of haste, of noise, of confusion, of stench, of uproar! We live +in this crowd as we read.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span></p> + +<p>De Vogüé asserts that the indecency of D'Annunzio is never 'polisonne ou +grivoise'; that it is never vulgar, although it is unbridled. He admits +the preference for the unclean, which almost amounts, indeed, to an +hallucination, but he urges that in D'Annunzio it is always redeemed by +art.</p> + +<p>'A Rabelais, a Boccaccio, a Loti, or a D'Annunzio, give expression to a +certain temperament, with the artistic resources which that temperament +imposes on them,' writes De Vogüé, in his celebrated criticism,<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> 'they +have nothing in common with tradesmen, who painfully produce the filth +demanded by a publisher and a certain public. An abyss separates the +former from the latter writers. This difference between them which our +judgment perceives, we do not show by critical demonstration; our taste +is conscious of it as our eyes distinguish a flower, venomous perhaps, +but natural, from an artificial flower coloured by poisonous dyes.'</p> + +<p>Now, in this passage there is much truth, but it is not equally true +that D'Annunzio is at no time to be placed in the lower class. There is +too frequently in his indecency a strain, an effort, a mannerism, an +extravagance, sought, and unnecessary. The reader, if he desires to +understand what I mean by this, can turn to page 320 in the <i>Trionfo</i>, +or to Chapter X., in the <i>Piacere</i> (Italian version), in which there are +ingenuities of indecency introduced which have no relation whatever to +the narrative, nor any obligation to appear.</p> + +<p>What is, I think, more offensive to taste, and more<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> injurious to art +than any sensual excess in description, is mere nastiness, mere filth; +and of this D'Annunzio is as guilty as Zola is, and as Zola has been, +always.</p> + +<p>De Vogüé may pour out his scorn as he will on the <i>industriel</i> who +composed <i>La Bête Humaine</i>, and may cover with the roses and lilies of +his exquisite garlands of praise the creator of the <i>Trionfo</i>, the fact +remains that the Satyr shows his cloven hoof as much in one as in the +other; and the motives which move either of the writers we have no right +to condemn or to appraise, for the entrance into personal motive is +surely an intrusion which should never be attempted.</p> + +<p>We may, nevertheless, suggest as probable that, however dissimilar be +their atmosphere and circumstances, both Zola and D'Annunzio have been +moved to study chiefly what is called immoral, and prurient, by a +sincere desire to reach to the very depths of human nature, to shrink +from no investigation, to deny no evidence, and to protest against the +hypocrisy with which literary art has so frequently covered its eyes and +turned away from the truth. 'Let us study life alone,' says D'Annunzio, +as Zola said it; and if he seek life in its corruption, coming upon the +corpse of putrid pleasure as the gay riders in the Campo Santo of Pisa +check their startled steeds before the open biers, he does no more, and +no less, offend art than Zola offends it in <i>Nana</i>.</p> + +<p>Indeed, so little is De Vogüé's statement in this matter justified, that +almost every Italian who has read D'Annunzio's works will, in speaking +of him, regret his incessant recurrence to obscenity. Not from prudery, +for Italians are never prudes, but from an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> artistic sense, that this +perpetually intruded indecency is an error in taste, and becomes quite +as tiresome as any other form of perpetual repetition.</p> + +<p>The most conspicuous error of modern literature is, beyond doubt, its +verbiage. It has completely forgotten the great canon of 'Ars est celare +artem'; the supreme ability of conveying immeasurable suggestion in a +mere word, in concentrating all the music of the soul in one brief note. +All the arts err at this epoch in the same manner; literature has the +common malady; it is prolix. The indecencies of D'Annunzio, like his +other descriptions, are prolix; and the prolixity is not redeemed by the +indecency, nor the indecency by the prolixity.</p> + +<p>This tendency of redundancy is not his fault alone; it is that of his +time. The enormous canvases and numerous figures of modern paintings, +the crowded groups and tortured attitudes of modern sculpture, the +elaborate scenic effects, and mechanical appliances, and endless acts, +of modern opera and drama, are all forms of the same malady of +repetition; of ignorance of how, and when, to break the laurel bough +before it withers; of lack of skill to master the subtleties of +concentration and suggestion. The descriptions of the modern writer are +frequently mere inventories; they are painfully minute; they are like a +mosaic, in which millions of little cubes are grouped to make a whole. +As before a modern painting we are often unimpressed by the whole, but +struck by the dexterity of the brush-work, so in modern literature we +are little interested in the conception, but allured by the dexterity of +the treatment. Too frequently,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> unappily, this multiplicity of words +covers a sad poverty of ideas. But in D'Annunzio's works there is not a +page without ideas; ideas which may displease or may disgust the reader +at times, but which are, nevertheless, always worthy to arrest +attention, even when they are only studies of depravity.</p> + +<p>D'Annunzio is a greater writer than Zola, not because he has emulated or +surpassed Zola's indecencies, but because he is what Zola never was—a +scholar and a poet. His culture is of the most varied and classical +kind, profound as well as brilliant; and his poetic powers were shown in +his sonnets and lyrics before he wrote his romances. Zola is no scholar, +and is not, either in temperament or expression, a poet. It would be +impossible to conceive him creating such a poem as the <i>Villa Chigi</i> or +the <i>Riccordi di Ripetta</i> of D'Annunzio. There are passages in Zola's +works, notably in <i>La Terre</i>, which are, I think, as great as it is +possible for prose to be, but they are never touched by any poetry of +phrase or feeling.</p> + +<p>Also, when De Vogüé states that the indecency of D'Annunzio is not +indecency because the Italian language is never indecent, and alleges +that what would be insupportable in any other tongue is possible in +Italian, because Italian enjoys the privilege which pertained to its +mother, Latin, <i>i.e.</i>, to say with grace and impunity what in any other +tongue would disgust the hearer, he says what is absolutely untrue; and +one can only wonder if he knows anything of the Italian of the streets, +of the fields, of the wine-houses, of the popular theatres. In this +affirmation, as in others, he has imagined what he says to be the fact,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> +and founded on the fabrications of his imagination a positive statement. +It is a frequent habit with him, and makes the weakness of his arguments +in many instances, on other themes than this.</p> + +<p>We know that Italian is heard only occasionally by him during his visits +to Italy, and is then heard by him only in its polished speech. To those +by whom it is heard every day, as spoken by all classes, it certainly +possesses nothing of this privilege which he claims for it. It can be, +on the contrary, very coarse and crude; it has none of the subtleties +and graces, and delicate gradations of French: it calls a spade a spade +with the rudest frankness; and its curses are of an appalling ferocity +and filthiness.</p> + +<p>Nor can it be said that D'Annunzio ever tries to give it delicacy or +veiled suggestion; his language is as broad and as gross as that of Ovid +or Catullus. He never allows the smallest doubt about his meaning to +exist at any time; and he is most especially explicit when treating of +those subjects which in modern literature are generally considered +forbidden. Indeed, this anxiety to paint the brothel and the madhouse as +carefully and minutely as the miniaturist paints on the ivory, leads to +his great defect, over-elaboration. He does not trust enough to the +power of suggestion, which is so strong in a great writer over the mind +of a reader. He does not remember that half a chord may fill the ear +with melody, and that a hint may rouse the senses to nausea or to +desire.</p> + +<p>Paradoxical as it may appear to say so, I think his wide culture has +injured his style. I think he would have been a greater Italian writer +if he had known no<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> language save Italian and, of course, Latin and +Greek.</p> + +<p>The extreme culture and over-variety of modern education tends to +destroy, or at least disturb, originality; it encumbers the mind under +too vast a load of riches, it enlightens, but it also obstructs; if +Shakespeare had been less ignorant he might, perhaps, have been also +less great.</p> + +<p>Foreign influence is not beneficial to the Italian. It makes him unreal; +it makes him lose his charming natural grace and abandonment, it renders +him artificial; he never really becomes what is implied by the word +cosmopolitan (such a cosmopolitan as Lord Dufferin or the late Prince +Lobanoff), and he does lose much of his own national qualities. It is +very rarely that an Italian can, like the late lamented scholar Enrico +Nencioni, steep his mind deeply in all the riches of foreign literature +without in the least losing his own Italian individuality. D'Annunzio, +on the contrary, allows himself to be absorbed and assimilated by +foreign influences, to be dominated by them, to so great an extent +indeed that his style is frequently bastardised by them, and many of his +sentences read as though they were translations from foreign sources. He +claims to have greatly embellished and amplified the Italian language; +he has certainly rendered it more colloquial and more copious; but he +has often grafted foreign idioms upon it, and he has perhaps robbed it +of some of its dignity and grace. He considers that the artist should +always remodel the instrument he uses; but the figure will not hold good +in other arts, for Sarasate does not carve the shell<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> of his violin, +Clausen does not weave the canvas he uses, Bartolomé does not blast the +marble out of the hill-side. The writer should use the language he +writes in as it comes pure from its natural springs; he will but +contaminate it if he pour into it alien streams.</p> + +<p>D'Annunzio would probably protest that the patchwork effects of the +foreign languages he introduces, do but correctly represent the mixture +of tongues common in our days in those phases of life which pass under +the generic name of society. In such protest there would, no doubt, be +truth; but it could only apply to certain social scenes in the +<i>Piacere</i>, and my objection is less to the introduction of foreign +phrases directly than it is to the foreign complexion and contour which +he so frequently gives to his own language; a fault never before him +known in an Italian writer. Many of his phrases are of foreign +construction. But he is not on that account a plagiarist, as has been +said of him; he is never a plagiarist, but is a too highly educated, and +a too sensitively susceptible, mental organisation. The mean charge of +plagiarism is one so easy to bring and so difficult to refute, that it +is cast by envy and inferiority at all those whose genius, like that of +D'Annunzio, is proud, passionate, and defiant of criticism. That which +has in it the elements of true greatness has always these pellets of mud +thrown at it. In some ways, on the contrary, he seems to seek an +exaggeration of original idiosyncrasies, and to no writer would +conscious imitation be more odious or impossible.</p> + +<p>There is unhappily, in all his works, an absolute absence of wit, of +mirth, of humour. There is not a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> laugh, scarcely even a smile, in any +of his pages; if we except the cruel laughter of a lover at his +mistress's physical defects. Over all his genius there broods that +'green melancholy,' which is the too-common hue of modern thought, that +dull greyness of death which has spread from the laboratories of science +over all the worlds of literature. Not only is no joyous laugh ever +heard, there is not even the indulgent smile which relieves melancholy +and bitterness in many writers whose views of life are gloomy. Nowhere +is this more seen than in the almost savage cruelty with which the poor +old <i>dévote</i>, Gioconda Aurispa, is drawn; the merciless description of +her senile love of sweetmeats, of her disappointment when her nephew +forgets to bring them, of her expectant eyes, 'almost impudent in their +entreaty,' of her short breath with its fœtid odour, of her tottering +steps amongst her flowers; all is cruel, merciless, without a grain of +pity or of sympathy to redeem its biting satire of so feeble and +harmless a creature.</p> + +<p>Compare with such treatment the exquisite tenderness of Pierre Loti's +Tante Claire, think with how gentle a respect Thackeray drew the death +of an old man, remember the touch with which Maupassant makes us akin +even to poor Boule de Suiffe. Tragedy is not necessarily cruelty, nor +accuracy necessarily brutality. Shakespeare makes us indignant for Lear +and sharers in his sorrows; but D'Annunzio would concentrate our +thoughts only on his ridiculous thin hair blown by the winter winds, the +tremor of his toothless jaws, and palsy of his bent, unsteady limbs.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> In +the highest art there is always pity because there is always +comprehension. D'Annunzio has as yet no more pity than the demonstrator +in a physiological amphitheatre. But it is not impossible that such pity +may come to him later on, for pity is rarely a passion of youth; it is +usually the fruit of reflection, comparison, realisation of what is +alien and impersonal. That sense which he already feels of the inner +life of all things cannot leave him for ever insensible to the +sufferings of that life.</p> + +<p>At present he is absorbed in the sensual ecstasies of early manhood, and +the fumes of voluptuous delights obscure his sight to much else which +surrounds him, and which finds him callous and negligent of it. De Vogüé +sees in him the leader of a new school, but there is as yet little that +is new in his manner of judging life. It is the manner of <i>Le Disciple</i>, +though touched with warmer tones, and placed in richer landscapes, and +vibrating with stronger passions, because Italian in scene and in +temper.</p> + +<p>If ever there be a true Latin renascence, which is scarcely to be hoped +for, it will come, not from a writer who is saturated with French, +Russian, German, and English influences, but one who has the Latin +genius, the Latin temper, unalloyed. But does this now exist anywhere? +If it do, it is in remote mountain sides and by lonely lake waters, not +in clubhouses and on racecourses. Such a writer will more probably come, +if he come at all, from the extreme south than from the north, perhaps +even from the great and almost virgin island of the west. In the dense +cork woods and on the desolate shores of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> Sardinia, a Salvator Rosa of +literature might well be begotten, for there is also there a companion +whom the Muses fear not—Misery.</p> + +<p>I imagine that De Vogüé does not know much of the popular songs of the +south and the west of Italy. I venture to think that in those +<i>stornelli</i>, <i>cantileni</i> <i>rispetti</i>, and the rest, there is more of the +genuine spirit of the Italian soil than in any of the works hitherto +written by D'Annunzio, because, despite their intensity of passion, they +are full of a pure poetical beauty and an idealised tenderness, which in +his pictures of love are absent.</p> + +<p>Even in the views which De Vogüé holds of the characters of these +romances, there seems frequently a curious misconstruction of their +salient points. For instance, he sees in the tragedy, with which the +<i>Trionfo</i> closes, the fact that Aurispa loved so intensely that he felt +impelled to destroy what he possessed, as the only absolute means of +fully possessing it. But I do not see this. I see in Aurispa a young man +habitually self-indulgent and constitutionally feeble; who gradually +passes from frantic adoration of a woman possessed, to the nausea which +so frequently follows on such possession. The proof of this lies in the +cruel cynical criticism with which he discovers and enumerates her +physical and mental defects, with which he views the deformity of her +feet as they push the warm sand of the beach to and fro, and with which +he realises the growing disgust which she awakes in him physically and +morally. He feels that he can neither live with her, nor live without +her; that she will be his destroyer in one way or the other; it is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> in a +frenzy of hatred and of impotence that he seizes her in his last +embrace, and plunges with her over the cliff, into the starlit depths of +the sea below. To ignore this is to miss the whole meaning of the final +act, and the absolute veracity of the whole work.</p> + +<p>I have seen such physical jealousy in the man of feeble health of the +vigorous strength of the woman whom he loved, and there is no form of +jealousy more cruel or more incurable, and it is likely to become +frequent in modern life, which develops the physical strength and social +liberties of the female to so vast an extent. This is a painful fact, +but it is one which cannot be disputed. Go wherever a crowd of both +sexes congregate, and there you will see an Ippolita in all her splendid +vitality and magnificent growth, and beside her, nine times out of ten, +there will be a Giorgio Aurispa, small, frail, half-blind, pallid, +bloodless, beardless, sickly, and prematurely decrepit.</p> + +<p>I should myself have preferred to trace the destroying influence of +sensual passion eating its way gradually into the health and strength of +a complete masculine sanity, and of a robust masculine health, like +aquafortis biting into a copper plate. Aurispa is already mentally +diseased before the fateful day on which he sees Ippolita in the dusk of +the chapel in Rome. He views all things animate and inanimate, human and +animal, real and ideal, through that distorted medium which the mentally +deformed habitually see through as through a convex and smoked glass. He +is more than feeble, he is not sane. If he had not sought death on +account of his mistress, he would have done so because Demetrius Aurispa +had died before by his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> own hand; or for some other reason which in his +cerebral condition would have seemed to him imperative and irresistible, +as imaginary conditions do seem to those not sane.</p> + +<p>We are told throughout the book to realise this extreme weakness, +physical and moral, which ultimately drives him to destroy himself and +her.</p> + +<blockquote><p>'"You love life?" he murmured, with a veiled bitterness.</p> + +<p>'"Yes, life delights me," she answered, almost with vehemence.</p> + +<p>'She had, in her voice, in her attitude, in all her person, a +brightness of unusual joy and pleasure. She had in her whole +aspect that satisfaction which the living creature only feels +in those hours when life runs harmoniously in all its currents, +in which there is a perfect balance in all the vital forces in +accord with the favour and fairness of all surrounding +circumstances. As in other similar moments, her whole being +seemed to unclose in the freshness of the sea air, in the +coolness of the summer evening, like one of those magnificent +night-blooming flowers which only open the heart of their +petals as the sun passes and sets.'</p></blockquote> + +<p>This is one of the innumerable beautiful images in which D'Annunzio +excels, and nothing can surely be finer of its kind than the whole +passage which I have quoted. But it clearly proves, especially if +compared with its context, that the passion which Aurispa once felt for +her had now become a furious envy of her more abounding life, of her +perennial and indestructible capacity of enjoyment.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span></p> + +<p>And that night, indeed, he kills her, not from excess of love, but from +envy of her exultant and exuberant vitality and hatred of its contrast +to his own impotence; from the sense, as I have said, that he could +neither live with her nor without her. In this, D'Annunzio has linked +cause and effect with excellent precision. Every minutia of feeling +described is correctly described, and such feeling is made to arise from +a natural source, precisely as dislike follows on satiety in real life. +But very frequently there is no such natural connection in his treatment +of circumstance and character.</p> + +<p>The <i>Trionfo</i> is admirably balanced from its opening to its closing +pages; and the tragedy on the Pincio, with which the work opens, +fittingly and perfectly strikes the keynote of the whole, and the +<i>motif</i> of the opera is suggested in the overture. But in the other +romances there is too often a want of unison between the action +described and its motives or sources. There is, at times, even an +absolute lack of any rational cause at all; so that, in some degree, all +his characters have in them more or less of the irresponsibility and +unconnectedness of the insane. He leaves too much unexplained; too many +actions motiveless; too many portraits floating indistinct like the +night and river studies of Whistler. It is curious that this vagueness, +this uncertainty and obscurity, should exist in one who is on the other +hand so frequently and wearisomely minute in microscopic details. He +constantly calls on us to believe what he gives us no data for +believing. Even in the <i>Trionfo</i> he constantly introduces persons and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> +incidents having no connection with the narrative. The whole family of +Giorgio, the whole action passing at Guardiagrele, so elaborately +painted, lead to nothing; we neither see nor hear of them again; neither +they nor Guardiagrele ever enter his pages any more; and the momentous +scene with Giorgio's father leads to nothing, but ends in a blind alley. +Now this is a great fault in composition, and one which disappoints and +irritates the reader. Of Demetrius Aurispa, again, much is made, but +nothing is explained or continued; and his long exposition of one of +Tennyson's poems is as unnecessary as the long disquisition upon Wagner +further on in the book.</p> + +<p>D'Annunzio is so profoundly engrossed in the psychology of his +characters, that he frequently forgets to make their antecedents and +actions consistent or credible. For instance, few women have been drawn +in fiction more lovable, more real, more refined, more profoundly +interesting, or more truly feminine, than Giuliana Hermil, in the +<i>Innocente</i>. There is nothing in her character or in her circumstances +which can render it the least probable to us that such a woman as she is +described to be, would have been led into the half-unconscious sensual +impulse which makes her unfaithful to her conjugal vows without the +smallest excuse of passion or temptation. Nor is it conceivable for an +instant that Tullio Hermil, on hearing her confession of this +<i>inconsapevole</i> adultery, would serenely submit to remain in ignorance +of the name of this lover of an hour, merely suspecting who it was from +an inscription found in a novel, and would merely answer with gentle +irony to her apology that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> the soul had had no share in her undoing! +'<i>Povera anima!</i>' he murmurs with an indulgent smile!</p> + +<p>I will not say that this is impossible, for nothing is so in the +relations of the sexes; but it is certainly improbable and incongruous, +since Giuliana is throughout described as the gentlest, most timid, and, +despite the infidelity in which we are asked to believe, the purest of +her sex, submissive to desertion as Griselda, and incapable of an impure +thought. It is contrary to all truth to human nature to make such a +woman err in so common, stupid, and unintelligible a manner, and to make +Tullio Hermil continue under such circumstances to live in the same +house with her until the time of her delivery.</p> + +<p>D'Annunzio has also a total lack of perception when the ridiculous mars +the pathetic. This is a very common defect in his countrymen, and is one +frequently traceable to a want of the humorous faculty. There is +something ridiculous, which goes far to spoil all which is intended to +be tragic in the motive or action of the <i>Innocente</i>, in the details +accompanying and explaining its culminating act. The idea of this act is +fine, and the hatred of the man for the child is natural, whilst the +conception and carrying out of the semi-crime are subtle and original. +But the filthy description of the infant (almost identical with that of +the new-born babe in Zola's <i>Joie de Vivre</i>) and the perpetual +references to its swaddling clothes, and the tedious profusion of +details with which the subject is elaborated, destroy in the mind of the +reader all sense of pity for the victim, and all blame for the act which +sends it to its grave. One feels that the little squalling,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> dribbling, +shapeless creature, with its scabby head and cat-like miawling, is much +better destroyed, and this is not the sensation which the author desires +to arouse; he would wish us to feel at once horror at, and compassion +for, Tullio Hermil, but we can feel nothing except a vague contempt for +this helpless young man. Had the semi-murder of it followed immediately +on its birth, or had it been found by him after absence a fair +two-year-old child, with all the rosebud loveliness of that age, this +bathos would have been avoided; and the stealthy sin of its effacement +would have carried in it the force of a powerful tragedy undiminished, +as it actually is, by gross and comic images, which may be realism but +are none the less bathos. It is perfectly natural that Tullio Hermil's +abhorrence of this spurious offspring should grow with every day until +the desire to destroy it becomes at last an over-mastering impulse; but +to make this act tragic, and to awaken that sympathy for the victim +which all true tragedy excites, the latter should be so described that +the heart of the reader should bleed for it when exposed to the icy air +which kills it, and that its martyred infancy should seem fitly lamented +by those echoes of the distant <i>Novena</i>, which at the supreme moment +float through all the silent house.</p> + +<p>The <i>Innocente</i> has many passages in its pages of perfect beauty like +this episode of the <i>Novena</i>; its defects are due to its author's +incapacity to perceive where the ludicrous damages the pathetic and +destroys the terrible. The writer's artistic instinct moved him to +create a situation unique, and full of the keenest<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> interest, abounding +in opportunity for the analysis of temptations and emotions; and of such +analysis he is a master, if too prolix in his expositions of it. But a +want of the perception which warns us off the line of demarcation +dividing the dramatic from the grotesque, has allowed him to pass this +line, and merge the dramatic in a flood of trivial and commonplace +minutiæ. Nor is it natural that, loathing this new-born bastard as +Tullio Hermil does, he should accompany his brother to invite an old +peasant to be its sponsor. The beauty and simplicity of this passage are +great, but they cannot reconcile us to the improbability of such an +errand.</p> + +<blockquote><p>'As we drew near the place where Giovanni de Scordio dwelt, my +brother saw in the field the tall figure of the old man.</p> + +<p>'"Look! There he is. He is sowing. We bring our invitation in a +solemn hour."</p> + +<p>'We approached. I trembled within myself as though I were about +to commit a profanation. I did indeed profane a thing in itself +sacred and beautiful. I went to solicit the spiritual paternity +of a venerable life for an adulterous creature.</p> + +<p>'"Look at his height," exclaimed Frederigo, pointing to the +sower. "He is no taller than other men, and yet he looks a +giant."</p> + +<p>'We paused under a tree, and watched the labourer from a +distance. Giovanni had not perceived us.</p> + +<p>'He came straightway towards us up the field with measured +slowness. He wore a woollen cap, black and green, with two +wings which covered his ears in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> the ancient fashion. A white +sack hung by a leathern strap from throat to waist, the sack +being full of grain. With his left hand he held the sack open, +with the right he took the grain and scattered it. His gesture +was large, easy, sweeping, moderated to a serene rhythm. The +corn, flying from his hand, shone in the sun like gold dust, +falling with regularity upon the wet furrows. He advanced +slowly, his feet sinking in the moist soil, his head sometimes +lifted to the holiness of the light; all his attitude was +simple, noble, grand.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>'We entered the glebe.</p> + +<p>'"Good health, Giovanni," said Frederigo, going up to the old +man. "Be your seed blessed. Be blessed your bread of the +future."</p> + +<p>'"Good health to you," I repeated.</p> + +<p>'The peasant left off work; he uncovered his head.</p> + +<p>'"Cover yourself, Giovanni, or we also must stand with bare +heads in the sun," said my brother.</p> + +<p>'The old man put on his cap, confused, almost shy, smiling.</p> + +<p>'He asked humbly, "Why so much honour?"</p> + +<p>'I said with a voice which vainly strove to be steady, "I am +come to beg you to hold my son at the baptismal font."</p> + +<p>'The peasant looked at me astounded, then at my brother. His +embarrassment increased. He murmured:</p> + +<p>'"Why to me so much honour?"</p> + +<p>'"What do you reply?" I asked.</p> + +<p>'"I am thy servant; God render the grace for the honour thou +dost me to-day, and God be praised for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> the joy that He gives +to my old age. All the benedictions of Heaven rest on thy +son."'</p></blockquote> + +<p>Nothing can be finer, simpler, more effective than this scene, but when +we are conscious that the son thus spoken of is the spurious offspring +which Tullio Hermil loathes, our sympathies are turned aside by a sense +of incongruity and disgust. We are conscious that the young man would +never have gone on such an errand, never have consecrated by such +expressions the spawn of his wife's incomprehensible and unexplained +amour. It is impossible to bring one's self to believe in any part of +the story of the <i>Innocente</i>, strong as the treatment is in realism of a +certain kind, and seductive as is the admirable ease and limpidity of +the narrative, which for smoothness of recital, and wonderful semblance +of being a true narrative of real events, is not surpassed by any +novelist and has been equalled by very few writers indeed.</p> + +<p>In all his works D'Annunzio draws women with exquisite veracity and +skill; and a rare intuition into the workings of their minds and the +beatings of their hearts. Of men he has as yet only drawn one type, +whatever they are called, Sperelli, Aurispa, Cantelmi, Hermil, they are +always the same person: 'touched to fine issues,' steeped in +scholarship, refined, susceptible, voluptuous, but all sick with the +<i>maladie du siècle</i>; all infirm from the neurasthenia of too early and +too unbridled self-indulgence. But his women are infinitely more varied +and more intricate. They are wondrous presentments of breathing life. +All the contradictions of feminine nature are portrayed with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> marvellous +exactitude in the vicious, cruel, and frenzied sensualism of Ippolita, +of which we watch the gradual growth as we watch Vesuvius on a summer +night pass from slumber into fury. With what inimitable dexterity he +makes us conscious of the plebeian grossness underlying her physical +sorcery, the commonness of her base birth seen here and there through +the dazzling sorcery of her attractions; and how natural she is in her +buoyant spirits, in her gay sportiveness, in her rapid changes of mood +and humour, in her mingling of cruelty and compassion! Equally does he +convey to the reader the consciousness of the perfect high breeding in +the <i>Virgine delle Rocce</i>, of the three sisters of sorrow, so alike yet +so dissimilar; three figures stepped down from the canvas of the +Veronese, but dimmed by solitude and long neglect. Not less admirably +has he given the delicate distinction and infinite sweetness of the +Siennese, Maria Ferrés (although she is indeed an almost exact +reproduction of Giuliana Hermil), whilst that patrician courtesan Donna +Elena Muti, shameless, lascivious, and conscienceless, is nevertheless +always a high-bred woman. He has incarnated the incomparable charm of +the Italian woman, the most graceful, the most impassioned, the most +seductive woman on earth, although also perhaps the most imperious, +pitiless, and fiercely exacting in her passions. Even Ippolita, vicious +as she is, is 'l'adorable Ippolita,' as De Vogüé calls her, and her +portrait is surely one which will become as precious to future +generations as that of Manon Lescaut is to us.</p> + +<p>I much fear that the only work of his which will become known to the +English public in general will<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> be the <i>Virgine delle Rocce</i>, because +(as far as it has gone) it is not indecent. The other works could not be +reproduced in English; and the <i>Virgine delle Rocce</i> unhappily gives no +just measure of the talent and strength of the writer. At present it is +but the first of a triune romance of which the two latter parts are as +yet unpublished. It is the cleanest, the simplest, and the most romantic +of his works, but it will probably be caviare to the crowd, and it +wholly lacks the great qualities of its predecessors. It is not +well-constructed like the <i>Innocente</i>, it is not daring and intense like +the <i>Trionfo</i>; it is not brilliant like <i>Il Piacere</i>; it is rambling, +and vague, and shadowy, and it is difficult to collect the threads of +the narrative. It is published in a fragment, which is always an unwise +method of publication, but it is to be feared that when entire it will +never equal the <i>Innocente</i> or the <i>Trionfo</i>. Indeed when severed from +the theme of sensual psychology D'Annunzio loses in strength and in +colour; he becomes desultory, almost indifferent; and wanders through +his own garden of romance with little interest in it, much as in this +latest story his own Oddo and Antonello stray through the ruins of +Linturno and drift through the water-lilies of the lonely stream.</p> + +<p>But this story, defective though it be, has a great charm for those +conversant with certain phases of Italian life. I have known just such a +grand old palace in the solitude of a deserted country, just such young +daughters growing up in stately poverty and perpetual joylessness; just +such paternal obsession in clinging to ruined thrones and perished +faiths; just such an interminable sequence of colourless,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> uninterested, +imprisoned days where the life is the life of the Lady of Shalott, and +no eyes are lifted to see that the almond-trees are in flower.</p> + +<p>Every page of this short book, which Frederic Leighton would have +delighted to illustrate, is impressed with Italian verity of a kind +which few foreigners have ever occasion to verify. The vast stone stairs +of the approach, the huge dim archways, the great fountains where the +stone Tritons spout and the ghosts rise with the spray in the moonlight +of midnight, the dry fish-ponds full of odorous plants self sown, the +neglected, wild, beautiful, fragrant gardens, the immense halls and +chambers frescoed, water-gilt, marble-encrusted; the silent corridors, +the ceilings lofty as the cupolas of cathedrals, the fading tapestries, +the soft grey dust, the abandonment, the poverty, the stateliness, the +infinite pathos and charm of this splendour, 'which dies so slowly +because born of true art and of what was once an heroic nobility.' All +these are portrayed with perfect fidelity in this strange and too slight +story of the three daughters of the fallen House of Montega, and no less +true to the facts of Italian life is the destiny which weighs upon them, +the insanity which dwells amongst them in the person of their mother, +whom we see living before us as she passes, carried in her perfumed and +painted sedan chair, with her strange fixed regard, her tiara of ebon +hair, her pallid face, her jewelled hands. Madness is a frequent malady +in Italy, and few noble families are without some insane member. The +afflicted person is usually kept in his or her apartments in the palace, +or in one of the villas<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> of the family, and is courteously inquired for +by all visitors as Claudio in this story asks after the health of Donna +Aldoina. Italians are usually kind to their insane relatives and not at +all ashamed of them, but <i>il pazzo</i> or <i>la pazza</i> lends a weird +fantastic gloom to the ancient and stately houses which saw their birth, +and shelter their infirmity, and will hold their coffins in their +crypts.</p> + +<p>Possibly there seems more to me in this story than there actually is, +because I know so well the tenor of the life therein depicted; and the +absence of all objective interest, of all care for nature and for art, +of all perception of the consolations to be found in both, which render +that life so much more barren than it need be.</p> + +<p>D'Annunzio has typified such barrenness of thought, such narrowness of +horizon, in the family which dwells in the grand old villa of Tregento, +and many a time he must, no doubt, with his own mind filled by classic +memories, and knowledge of the arts, and touched to impassioned +appreciation of all natural beauty, have suffered acutely from the +apathy, ignorance, and unconscious self-absorption of such a domestic +atmosphere. He has no doubt constantly been met with the incapacity to +understand, the wonder of ignorance, the blank dulness of unopened +minds, such as he suggests in the following passage:—</p> + +<blockquote><p>'We were near Rebursa. The rocky chain, with its sharp and +broken peaks turned to the right following the winding Saurgo, +rising tier on tier towards the massive summit of Mount Caran. +On the left of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> the road, the soil was smooth and undulating +like the large dunes of a seashore, becoming further off a +succession of hills, tawny and humped like camels of the +desert.</p> + +<p>'"Look, look!" I cried, seeing another silver cloud of blossom. +"Can you not see it, Antonello?"</p> + +<p>'He did not look at the almond trees with my eyes; he looked, +but with a faint smile, wondering probably at the childlike joy +awakened in me at the sight of the first flowers. Yet, what +fairer spectacle could this rude and stony country offer to us?</p> + +<p>'"If my sisters only were here!" cried Oddo, to whom my +pleasure communicated itself. "Oh, if they were here!"</p> + +<p>'His voice was full of regret.</p> + +<p>'"They need to be brought where flowers bloom," said Antonello, +softly.</p> + +<p>'"Look, look!" I cried again, giving myself up to my delight +with fuller ease, now that I saw some reflection of it at least +awakened in these poor shut souls. "I am glad these flowers are +mine, Oddo."</p> + +<p>'"My sisters must come to them," sighed Antonello, like one who +speaks in a dream of sleep.</p> + +<p>'It seemed as if his feverish eyes refreshed themselves with +that vision of things so pure....</p> + +<p>'They both looked at me, somewhat confused, faintly smiling, as +if they had been brought unexpectedly before some extraordinary +sight which stupefied them, yet filled them with delicious +sensations. They had shown me their malady, had revealed to me +their suffering, had spoken to me of that melancholy prison +whence they had come and whither<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> they would return; and I, on +the common highway open to all, had invited them to recognise +and celebrate the spring—the spring which they had both +forgotten, which they seemed to see now for the first time +after many years, which they gazed at with a mingling of fear +and joy as at a miracle.'</p></blockquote> + +<p>Is not this delicate in expression as the sprays of the almond blossoms +themselves?</p> + +<p>An Italian scholar, in writing to me to-day, does indeed say with +considerable accuracy that the affectation in the style of D'Annunzio +takes from it its freedom and sincerity, that when he is writing of +almond boughs and nightingales he does not give us the impression that +these things are dear to him, but rather that he is endeavouring to say +the most beautiful things he can think of about them. 'His style,' says +my Italian correspondent, 'is the one occupation of his life, the one +absorbing interest of his work; he cares but little for nature or for +human nature, except as these are strings to his lyre.' This is in a +great measure a correct, if a too severe, censure. There is in him +nothing of that genuine emotion which wells up in the heart of Pierre +Loti as he writes; D'Annunzio is always outside that which he describes; +there is in him much of the virtuoso; he reminds me of a friend of mine, +a London celebrity, who once invited a party of artists to see a fine +work of art in his London house. When the curtain was drawn aside, the +work of art was found to be a young nude woman, of singularly beautiful +proportions, extended on a rug of black bear-skins to set off the ambers +and ivories<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> and blue-vein traceries of her skin. D'Annunzio stretches +his subject thus bare before him in a well-adjusted light, and calls the +world to see: for the subject he has no compassion. This <i>preciosità</i> +(Anglicè, affectation) is still more apparent in his prefaces than in +his works which they precede. These prefaces are long, elaborate, ornate +disquisitions, with much of the euphuism of pedantic scholarship; and +when in the preface to the <i>Trionfo</i> the author claims that this +licentious romance is intended to hasten and welcome the coming of the +Uebermensch, it is impossible not to smile at such a pretension, and, as +even De Vogüé admits, at this point we are driven to sigh for the return +of the <i>mandolinata</i>. He confirms the justice of a charge of +<i>preciosità</i> himself in his introduction to <i>Il Piacere</i>, in which he +speaks of 'the long and grave fatigue, the disgust which follows the +painful and capricious artifices of style.' This is not the language of +a true artist, for in the beauties and intricacies of style which should +all have one aim—simplicity—the writer who is a true artist finds the +same intimate satisfaction as the musician, the painter, the sculptor, +each finds in the pursuit of his art. In style is the <i>sfogo</i> of the +writer's procreative passion. It should bring with it neither fatigue +nor disgust, but the serene joys of a satisfied desire.</p> + +<p>However, apart from this fault of <i>preciosità</i> which De Vogüé does not +appear to have perceived, but which seems to many Italians +incontestable, the style of D'Annunzio is very fine; finest of all when +it is spent on the portraiture of natural scenes, and of characters +unhampered by conventionality. Read this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> brief episode of the simplest +kind; how alive with actuality it is! It is taken from the earlier part +of the residence of Aurispa and Ippolita at the Hermitage.</p> + +<blockquote><p>'Hearing a rattle of plates, he asked, "Are you hungry?" And +the question suggested by the little homely sound, put eagerly, +with childlike insistence, made Ippolita smile.</p> + +<p>'"Yes, a little," she answered, smiling; and both of them +looked at the table ready spread under the oak tree. In a few +minutes more their dinner was ready.</p> + +<p>'"You must be content with what there is," said Giorgio. "It is +very humble fare."</p> + +<p>'"Oh, I should be satisfied with herbs."</p> + +<p>'And with a gay air she drew near the table, examined curiously +the tablecloth, the silver, the glass, the plates, finding +everything charming, delighted like a child with the blue +flowers which ornamented the fine white pottery.</p> + +<p>'"Everything delights me here!"</p> + +<p>'She bent over the big, round loaf, which was still warm under +its golden and crisp crust.</p> + +<p>'"Ah! what a good smell it has!" And, as if impelled by her +childlike joy in the fresh bread, she broke off a piece of its +crust.</p> + +<p>'"What good bread!"</p> + +<p>'Her strong, white teeth shone as they bit and closed, and all +the movements of her curving lip expressed the pleasure which +she felt; and from her whole person there seemed to emanate a +rare, fresh grace, which attracted and amazed her lover with a +new and unexpected charm.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span></p> + +<p>'"Oh, how good! Taste, how good it is!"'</p></blockquote> + +<p>What can be more graphic, more simple, more radiant, than this picture +painted in words so few?</p> + +<p>Take this landscape, so true to the scenery of the Veneto:—</p> + +<blockquote><p>'It was afternoon. He explored the winding paths which went, +now up, now down, leading towards the point of the Penna, on +the seashore. He looked before him and around him with +curiosity, but, perhaps, with some forced attention, as if he +wished to understand obscure meanings hidden in these simple +scenes, to wrest from them some unseizable secret. Rising in +the heart of these hills of the coast the water of a brook, +directed by a homely aqueduct made of hollowed trees, crossed +the low-lying land between the two slopes. Other little +rivulets were caught and guided by concave tiles to water the +tilled earth grown with rich vegetation, and above these +streams, ever bright and rippling, there leaned some beautiful +purple flowers;<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> all these humble things seemed to him +pregnant with profound life. All the merry waters ran down +along the incline towards the pebbly beach, and passed under a +little bridge. In the shadow of its arch some women were +washing linen, and their gestures were mirrored in the stream. +On the shingle other linen was already outspread, whitening in +the sun. Along the path a man walked with bare feet,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> carrying +his shoes swinging in his hand. Two children, laden with linen, +ran along laughing and playing. An old woman hung up on a line +a blue mattress.</p> + +<p>'On the edge of the path there were little white shells, out of +them frail tentacles trembled and stretched to the light. From +a rock above hung twisted dead roots like entwined snakes. +Farther on there was a large peasant's house, bearing on the +summit of its roof a floral ornament in clay. An outside +staircase led up to a covered terrace. Two women sat spinning +at the head of the stair, and the flax shone in the sun like +gold. You could hear the wheels turn. By a window sat another, +weaving; you could see her rhythmical gestures in moving the +shuttle. In the courtyard a huge grey ox was lying down; he +shook his ears and moved his tail faintly but incessantly in +war against the flies. The cocks and hens cackled and crowed +around him. Farther on still another little river crossed the +road; it laughed aloud, crisp, mirthful, vivid, limpid.</p> + +<p>'Near another farmhouse a thick bay hedge shut in an orchard. +The straight, shining stems rose immovable, crowned with their +glistening foliage. One of the bay trees was enveloped in the +embrace of a clematis, which lovingly conquered the martial bay +with her blossoms of snow, the veil of her nuptial freshness. +Underneath, the earth was dewy and fragrant. In an angle a +black cross leaned over the hedge, the silence had the resigned +sadness of a graveyard. At the end of a line there arose a +flight of steps, half in shade, half in sunshine; they led to a +door standing half open, protected by two branches of olive<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> +hung from its rustic architrave. On the lowest step sat an old +man asleep, his head uncovered, his chin on his breast, his +hands on his knees; the light touched his aged brow. From the +half-open door there came, to soothe his senile sleep, the +cadence of a rocking cradle, the rise and fall of a murmured +lullaby.'</p></blockquote> + +<p>What can be more true or more beautiful than this? Mark the contrast of +the old man sleeping on the stone steps, with the young mother, unseen +within, singing <i>sotto voce</i> her cradle song. In totally different style +and tone take these few lines on Orvieto:—</p> + +<blockquote><p>'A rock of tufa hanging above a melancholy valley; a city so +silent that it seems empty: the windows are closed, in the grey +lanes grass grows; a capuchin crosses a square; a bishop +descends from a closed carriage before the gate of a hospital; +a tower rises in a white and rainy sky; a clock strikes the +hour slowly; all at once at the end of the street a miracle in +stone—the Cathedral.'</p></blockquote> + +<p>Is not the city of Luca Signorelli set before you with those few lines? +There is here something far beyond dexterity or ingenuity of style; +there is the poet's, the painter's, power to embrace a world at a +glance, and with a touch set before duller eyes that world in all its +varieties and suggestions, all its past and its present, all its secrets +of the grave and of the future.</p> + +<p>Take again this very different picture:—</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span></p><blockquote><p>'He found the gorse.</p> + +<p>'On a tableland the thickly-growing gorse had flowered so +densely as to spread a vast golden mantle over all the soil. +Five maidens were gathering the flowers and filling with them +skips and baskets, singing as they worked. They sang a song of +thirds and fives in perfect harmony. When one of them reached a +special phrase she lifted her whole bust out of the yellow maze +of blossom that the notes might go forth from her throat with +fuller liberty, and held it long sustained in air, looking her +companions in the eyes whilst they applauded with their hands +of flowers.</p> + +<p>'When they saw the stranger they stopped and bent again over +the gorse. Stifled saucy laughter rippled under the yellow sea. +Giorgio asked,—</p> + +<p>'"Which of you is Favetta?"</p> + +<p>'A girl, brown as an olive, raised her head in reply, amazed, +almost terrified: "It is I, sir."</p> + +<p>'"Are you not the finest singer of San Vito?"</p> + +<p>'"No, sir. That is not true."</p> + +<p>'"It is true. It is true!" cried her companions.</p> + +<p>'"Sir! make her sing."</p> + +<p>'"No, sir, it is not true. I cannot sing."</p> + +<p>'She hid herself, laughing, her face all aflame; she twisted +her apron whilst the others teased her. She was of short +stature but well-formed; her bosom was high and large, swollen +with songs. She had curly hair, dark eyebrows, aquiline +profile; something in her carriage wild and free. After the +first resistance she yielded.</p> + +<p>'The others, taking her by the arms, held her in their circle. +They were up to their waists in the flowering gorse, whilst +round them the bees were humming.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span></p> + +<p>'Favetta began unsteadily, but with each note her voice grew +firmer. It was limpid, liquid, crystal, clear as a water +spring. She sang a couplet and the others sang in chorus a +ritornello. They prolonged the harmonies, putting their mouths +close to form one single vocal flute; the song rose and fell in +the light air with the slow regularity of a litany.</p> + +<p>'Favetta sang:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">'"All the springs are dry,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">O poor love of mine!<br /></span> +<span class="i4">He dies of thirst.<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Where is the water thou broughtest me?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We have brought thee an earthen jar,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But round it is a chain of gold!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>'The others sang:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'"Long live Love!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>'It was the salutation of May to Passion, pouring from young +breasts, which perchance as yet knew not its sweetness and +perchance never would know its sorrow.'</p></blockquote> + +<p>Or take the following passage which is as essentially true in its +accurate observation as it is beautiful in its expression. Tullio Hermil +and Giuliana are listening at Villa Lilla to the first songster of that +spring.</p> + +<blockquote><p>'The nightingale sang. At first it was like a burst of +melodious glee; a jet of easy trills which fell through the air +like pearls falling on the glass of a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> harmonium. Then came a +pause. A shake arose, agile, marvellously prolonged, like a +proof of strength, in an impulse of insolence, a challenge to +some unknown rivals.</p> + +<p>'A second pause. A phrase of three notes with a tone of +interrogation passed on a chain of light variations repeating +the interrogative phrase five or six times, modulated softly +like a slender reed flute on which is played a pastoral. A +third pause: the song becomes elegiac, turns to a minor key, +tender as a sigh; it is almost a groan; it expresses all the +grief of the lonely lover, a heartrending desire; a vain hope; +it flings out a last appeal, improvised, acute as a scream of +anguish: then it ceases. A longer pause, more ominous. Then one +hears a new accent which scarcely seems to come from the same +throat so humble is it, so timid, so slight; it resembles the +twitter of scarce-fledged birds, the chirrup of sparrows; then, +with a miraculous volubility, this noisy note changes into a +breathless song, more and more rapid in its trills, vibrating +in sustained shakes, turning in daring flights of sound, +leaping, growing, bounding, attaining the highest heights of +the soprano. The songster is drunk with his own song. With +pause so brief that one note scarce ceases ere another succeeds +it, he spends his delirium in ever-varied melody, impassioned +and sweet, subdued and ear-piercing, light and grave, now +interrupted by broken sighs, by lament and supplication, now by +impetuous lyrical improvisation and supreme appeal. It seems +that even the gardens are listening, that the sky stoops over +the old tree from whose summit this poet, invisible<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> to mortal +eyes, pours out such floods of eloquence. The flowers breathe +deeply and silently. A yellow glow lingers in the west. This +last lingering glance of the dying day is sad. But a single +star has risen, alone and tremulous like a drop of luminous +dew.'</p></blockquote> + +<p>He who can write thus is a great writer; and the charm of this passage +is not alone its poetry but its exact truth. The song of the nightingale +varies much in accord with age, with species (for there are two species, +Luscinia Philomela, and Luscinia Major), with climate, with the sense of +security, and the want of security, but the song of a nightingale in its +maturity, who is unalarmed and feels at home in the gardens of his +choice, is precisely such a song as is described in this passage, and is +more completely echoed in it than in the Pastoral Symphony of Beethoven. +This sympathy with the melody of birds is the more singular in +D'Annunzio, because Italians are almost invariably indifferent to such +melody, and snare the divine songster in the net, or shoot him whilst he +shouts his nuptial <i>Io Triumphe!</i> with the most stolid indifference. And +it may, perhaps, be that D'Annunzio does not care for the bird himself +more than the rest of his countrymen, but only cares for his own +eloquence concerning it. It may be said, without risk of injustice to +him, that great tenderness is at no moment found in him. He has not 'the +pathetic fallacy'; but he approaches it very nearly at times. When women +shall have lost for him some of the intensity of their physical charm, +nature in her wider and more profound meanings will,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> perhaps, become +more visible and more dear to him. Perhaps, however, it will not, for +the Italian is rarely impersonal.</p> + +<p>Something of the affectation to which the delicate taste of my Italian +correspondent justly objects must be admitted to mar, by its +artificiality, the many magnificent pages dedicated by him to the sea. +Magnificent they are, true also, entirely true; but some mannerism there +is in them, some over-intricate embroidery of phrase. The sea he knows +best, and remembers always, is the Adriatic, of which the extreme beauty +of the colour, like the leaves of the silverweed, as wind and sun pass +over the meadows, has always before him been too little noted except, I +may venture to say, by myself.</p> + +<blockquote><p>'O, fair, clear seas of September!' he cries in the <i>Piacere</i>. +'The water is calm and innocent as a sleeping child, and lies +outstretched under a pearl-like sky. Sometimes it is all green +of the brilliant and intense green of malachite, and on it the +small rosy sails seem like wandering fires. Sometimes it is all +azure, of an intense blue, like the ultramarine which heralds +use for blazonries, veined with gold like lapis-lazuli, and on +it the painted sails seem like a procession of standards, of +banners, of spears borne on a Catholic holy day. And yet again +at other moments it takes on a metallic gleam, a silvery +paleness, the hues of a ripening lemon, something indefinable +and strange, and on this mystical surface the boats then glide +and fade, and are seen no more as the illumined wings of +cherubim sink into the faint fundamental hues of an old +Giottesque fresco.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span></p> + +<p>'The sea was not alone for him a delight for the eyes, but it +was a perennial wave in which he steeped his thirsting +thoughts; a magical fountain of youth in which his body +recovered health and his mind nobility. The sea had for him the +mysterious attraction of a native country, and he abandoned +himself to it with filial confidence, as a weak child in the +arms of an omnipotent father; and he derived consolation from +it, for no one had ever confided his sorrows, his desires, or +his dreams to the ear of the sea in vain.'</p></blockquote> + +<p>So, we are told by D'Annunzio, thinks Andrea Sperelli, and so thought +also Giorgio Aurispa. But the sea has no permanent power on the soul of +either; the one returns from his contemplations of it to his life of +voluptuous pleasure, and the other drowns both himself and the woman, +whom he has adored to frenzy, in its waves, whilst the dog mourns +'forsaken beneath the olive trees, and the waters murmur softly, rocking +as in a cradle the reflections of the stars.'</p> + +<p>Only once in D'Annunzio's work does genuine and yearning regret, of +which it is impossible to doubt the spontaneity and sincerity, thrill +through him, and move him to intense emotion and unstudied eloquence. It +is when, in the person of Claudio Cantelmo, he speaks in furious +invective of the modern desecration of Rome; in these passages he is +strong without effort, eloquent without study, and veracious alike in +sorrow and in scorn. His invective is poured from his heart's depths, +and thrills with the force of the Latin orators of the ruined Forum.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span></p> + +<blockquote><p>'I have lived several years in Rome; in that third Rome which +should have represented "Love reigning by Latin blood on Latin +soil," and have seen radiant on its heights the wondrous lights +of a new Ideal. I have been witness to its most ignominious +evolutions, to the most obscene unions that have ever +desecrated a sacred place. And I have understood the symbolism +hidden in that act of an Asiatic conqueror, who cast myriads of +human heads in the fountains of Samarcand, when he desired to +create a capital. The wise and cruel tyrant meant to signify +the necessity of merciless destruction in the creation of a new +order of things.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>'The ship which bore the Thousand of Marsala only set sail that +the art of exchange and barter should be protected and covered +by the State!</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>'It was the epoch of the most frenzied fury of the destroyers +and contractors on the site of Rome. With the storms of dust +there were propagated a sort of lunacy of gain, a malignant +delirium, seizing not only on the tradesman and money-lenders, +and the workers in brick and mortar, but also on the elect +heirs of the papal <i>majorat</i>, who primarily had looked with +scorn and disgust on the newcomers from the windows of their +palaces of travertine, indestructible under the encrustations +of ages.</p> + +<p>'The magnificent patrician races founded there, renewed and +strengthened by nepotism, and the strife of opposing houses, +descended and abased themselves one by one, slid down into the +new mud, sank, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> vanished. The illustrious riches, amassed +through centuries of gorgeous pillage and Mæcenic luxury, were +thrown into the whirlpool of the speculations of the Bourse.</p> + +<p>'And around them, on these patrician lawns, where, only the +previous spring, the violets had blossomed more numberless than +the blades of grass, there were now mounds of lime, heaps of +bricks, the wheels of stone-laden carts creaked on the turf, on +the air were the oaths of the drivers, the shouts of the +overseers, while every hour hastened on the brutal work which +was to efface and occupy the sacred soil once dedicated to +Beauty and to Dreams. There passed over Rome a blighting +blizzard of barbarism, menacing all that greatness and +loveliness which were without equals in the memory of the +world. Even the laurels and the rose trees of the Villa +Schiarra, for so many nights of so many summers hymned by their +nightingales, fell destroyed, or remained in their desecration +behind the gates of little gardens parcelled out to the little +cockney boxes of tradesmen. The gigantic Ludovisian cypresses, +those of the Aurora, those which spread the clouds of their +solemn and mystic antiquity above the Olympian brows of Goethe, +were now laid prone in line one after another, with all their +dishonoured roots stretching towards the pallid sky, the black +dishonoured roots which still seemed to hold in their immense +network the web of a life greater than our own.</p> + +<p>'Even over the box alleys of the Villa Albani, which had seemed +as immortal as their Caryatides and their Hermes, there hung +that shadow of a vandal's ruin.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> The contagion of destruction +spread everywhere. In the ceaseless combat of gain, in the +savage fury of avaricious greed and passions, in the disordered +haste of commercial activity, every sense of common decency was +forgotten, all respect for the past was trampled under foot. +The struggle for gain was carried on with blind fury, with +neither check nor curb. The pickaxe, the shovel, and the +cunning of fraud were the weapons employed. And week after +week, with incredible velocity, there arose on the violated +earth the huge foolish cages of brick and mortar, pierced with +square holes, surmounted with sham cornices, encrusted with +shameful stucco ornaments. A kind of immense white tumour rose +and spread on the wounded and bleeding side of the great Urbs +and drained away its life.</p> + +<p>'And then, day after day, at sunset, along the princely avenues +of the Borghese Park, we could see in gorgeous brand-new +equipages the new elect of Fortune, from whom not barber, nor +tailor, nor boot-maker, had power to take away the ignoble +stamp. We could see them pass and repass with the sonorous trot +of their shining bay and brown horses; they were recognisable +at a glance by the insolence of their pose and the awkward +carriage of their rapacious and vulgar hands; and they seemed +to cry aloud,—</p> + +<p>'"We are the new rulers of Rome. Bow down to us!"</p> + +<p>'In truth such are its rulers; such the present masters of that +Rome which prophets and poets once likened to the bow of +Ulysses.'</p></blockquote><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span></p> + +<p>Often have I myself written similar things, but in me they have been +considered exaggerations. They cannot be so considered in Gabriele +D'Annunzio of Francavilla.</p> + +<p>All who love Rome and loathe her modern violation must thank him from +their hearts for such passages, and must mourn with him that we cannot +drive out the spoilers from our desecrated temples.</p> + +<p>This is, indeed, his greatest strength, that, whilst still a young man, +he yet has the courage to resist the intellectual tendencies of his +contemporaries, to refuse to worship their gods, to see and despise the +falseness of those scientific pretensions which enslave the multitude in +modern life. His intellect, richly stored by learning, is, in a large +measure, free of prejudice. This is a great and rare distinction in a +generation which more completely than any which has preceded it, is the +timid slave of formula and the credulous servant of professional +bigotry.</p> + +<p>He has kept a complete mental liberty; free from the superstitions of +religion, which, in this day, it is easy to be; but also free from the +superstitions of science, which is far harder, and incurs far greater +obloquy and opposition.</p> + +<p>In his study on Giorgione, he says what it needs much courage to say in +these days:—</p> + +<blockquote><p>'The scientific spirit has invaded the generation of the second +half of our century. Struck by the surprising results of +physics and calculation, men were inclined to believe for a +time, that by the aid of the one or the other, they would be +able to penetrate into<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> all mysteries and solve all problems. +But to this proud exaltation has now succeeded a discouragement +mingled with suspicion. They say to themselves, and not without +reason: "Where is this certainty that science promised us?" If +ever certainty were incomplete, deprived of solid criterion, it +is that offered by natural science. As for the sciences called +exact, some, like geometry, repose on a tottering base of +arbitrary affirmations; others, like algebra, on mere methods +of reasoning, and contain as much or as little certainty as the +formula of a syllogism.'</p></blockquote> + +<p>This is emphatically true; but it is a fact which is by no means +recognised by all, and which is still violently denied by those fanatics +whose form of bigotry is either experimental or exact science.</p> + +<p>The mind of D'Annunzio refuses all bondage. It is a law to itself, as +the mind of the great writer should be. I imagine that the opinion of +him held by others, is to him of the most absolute unimportance. His +teaching is always to preserve the independence of the Ego, to live +without attention to formula or usage, to be, both materially and +spiritually, that which we were created to be by nature.</p> + +<p>His morality is of the most primitive kind; or rather, he has none +whatever, no more than has a South-Sea islander lying in the sun under a +cocoa-nut tree whilst the surf bathes his naked limbs. It would be +absurd to accuse him of immorality because the indulgence of the senses +is as natural and as legitimate in his estimation, as Favetta's song +amongst the golden furze, or the reapers' welcome of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> the purple wine. +Yet by a not rare anomaly, this demand for perfect freedom of the +passions is accompanied by a tendency to desire tyranny in political +matters. He is disposed to deify force. In one or two expressions there +is an echo of Carlyle which sounds oddly and jarringly amongst the +amorous liberties and artistic debaucheries of the rest; and is not +worthy of a writer who has so much courage in opposing scientific +pharisaism and the thraldom of the schools. He is disposed to admire +what is strong simply because it is strong, forgetful that such strength +is sustained and nourished by the suffering of the weak. It is true that +he has lived in an atmosphere in which the verities embodied in the +aspirations, abortive but always noble, of the higher efforts of +revolution have been received with fear and misunderstanding. The +tendencies and training of the <i>Codini</i> are visible through the +eloquence of the poet and the conclusions of the philosopher. The entire +lack in him of all altruism comes from this. Mazzini must be as +unintelligible to him as Tolstoi. The mass of humanity is always to him +the filthy, surging, bestial multitudes of the crowd at Casalbordino. +But even this absence of benevolence is better than the pitiful +sycophancy of writers who are as fulsome in their flattery to Demos as +to kings; is manlier than the nauseating self-worship of a Humanity at +once its own pimp and pander, its own adorer and assassin.</p> + +<p>In his scorn of the human flocks of sheep, he forgets, I admit, too +entirely the justice to which the humblest unit amongst these flocks has +right, but that scorn, even when misdirected, is fresh and bracing as +the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> dash of his own Adriatic waves, when the east wind drives them +hurrying on to the shingle beach. He has no fear; and he never stoops to +that base flattery of his own species which is the most nauseous feature +of modern politics and of modern science.</p> + +<blockquote><p>'This alone is your office,' he cries to his contemporaries, if +they would resist the debasing influences of their time, +'defend the dream which is in you. Since in this day mortals no +longer bring tribute of love and honour to the choristers of +the Muses, defend yourselves, O poets, with all your weapons, +steep the point of your rapiers in the most biting poisons. Let +your satires bear such corrosive acid in them that they shall +pierce to the very pith of the spine and destroy it. Brand to +the very bone the stupid forehead of those fools who would mark +every soul with the same label, and make every brain like +another, as the heads of nails are beaten into a common +likeness by the blows of the nailmaker. Let your mordant +laughter reach to heaven when you hear the stablemen of the +Great Beast shouting in the parliaments of the earth.... Defend +the thought which they menace, defend the beauty which they +outrage, defend the antique freedom of your masters and the +future freedom of your disciples, against the insane assaults +of drunken slaves. Despair not, though you be few in number. +You have the supreme force of the world: the written word.'</p></blockquote> + +<p>The written word is indeed in his hand a scourge, a sword, a sheaf of +arrows from the quiver of the divine Python Slayer.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span></p> + +<p>And in no country more than in the Italy of his generation is such a +scourge, such a sword, such flame-tipped arrows, needed to slay the +courtiers, the usurers, the sycophants, the knaves, the brutes, the +sellers of justice who fasten like leeches on her body.</p> + +<p>This son of Italy is a great writer; a great poet. Read his works in the +original text all ye who can, men and women for whom life has no secrets +and truth has no terror.</p> + +<p>He is young; the time will come, as it comes to all, when the joys of +the senses will fade for him as the roses of the summer are scattered by +autumn winds.</p> + +<p>Let us hope that there will be later a second period of his creative +art, in which there will be developed an original genius free of exotic +influences, and untrammelled by the search for idioms and pruriencies. +Genius, like the river at its source, takes the colour of the earth it +springs from. It is only when it has reached its full volume, its +deepest currents, that it becomes clear and reflects the sky alone.</p> + +<p>Let us hope that such a future awaits him, and that more and more fully +will he realise what he has already said in noble words:—</p> + +<blockquote><p>'Art! Here is the one faithful passion ever youthful, nay, +immortal; here is the fountain of pure joy unknown to the +multitude; here is the divine food which makes men like to +gods. How could he have stooped to drink at other cups when he +had once tasted of this?<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> How could he have bent to taste of +other joys, once having known this ecstasy?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> How could his +senses have let themselves be weakened and debased to lowest +lusts when they had once been stirred to that highest +sensibility which beholds the invisible, which touches the +impalpable, which divines the most hidden secrets in the heart +of nature?'</p></blockquote> + +<p>With these words, which are the greatest in meaning that he has hitherto +written, I will, for the present moment, take my leave of him.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="II" id="II"></a>II</h2> + +<h3>GEORGES DARIEN</h3> + + +<p>Of all countries, France remains the land in which it is possible to +tell the most truth. The nation of Montaigne and Molière is always the +first to recognise and award the title of talent to lay bare the +shoulders of her community and use the scourge upon them. If at its +first appearance the strange and terrible revelations contained in the +work entitled <i>Biribi</i> were met by official obstruction and attempted +suppression, the book has conquered them, and has been allowed to carry +the light of its torches into the dark places of military administration +and oppression. In Italy, as in Germany and Austria, it would have been +stopped by fine, exile, and seizure. In Russia it could never have been +issued at all. In England it would have been as costly to the author as +were his issues of Zola to the unhappy and martyrised Vizetelly. In +France alone its pictures of the most terrible facts pass unarrested, by +right of that literary liberty which the <i>esprit gaulois</i> has always +awarded, however much government and law may have been alarmed.</p> + +<p>It has been said that the accusations contained in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> the works of Georges +Darien are a <i>Rétrissure à la France</i>, and as such should never have +been made public by a patriotic writer and a ci-devant soldier. But here +we merely meet again the hackneyed question whether the writer of talent +is bound by patriotism or any other scruple to withhold truth, or +whether he is not rather bound to disclose the truth as he believes it +to be at all costs, whether to himself or to others. It is not necessary +for me to say with which of these opinions I agree. The little which has +been done towards any true progress of the human mind has been done by +the expression of free thought, and by its fearless exposure of evils +protected by the crystallisation of time, usage, and prejudice. Over the +modern world which chatters of liberty, but does not anywhere possess +it, or even know actually what it means, there hang, in heavy and icy +weight, two ever-increasing despotisms: the scientific and the military. +Of the former it is not necessary to treat in these pages; of the latter +the yearly increase throughout Europe, ever since the war of 1870-71, +must alarm every unbiassed thinker, bringing with it, as it does, the +impoverishment of the people, the curse of youth and manhood, the +endless strain of a fiscal burden, so enormous that every class groans +under it, and the perpetual and diseased anxiety in which every nation +lives, suspecting its neighbours, and turn by turn affronting them +insolently and cringing to them obsequiously, according as it is made to +feel the power of its own strength or the weakness of its own +inferiority. Every syllable printed which tends to show the reality of +military tyranny at this moment is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> valuable, and should be welcomed, +however odious it may be to military authority and government; and +especially valuable when it comes from one who has passed through the +scenes which he depicts, and draws, not from imagination, but from +memory.</p> + +<p>Georges Darien has been the man whom he describes; treated as the worst +of criminals, though wholly guiltless of breaking any criminal law. +Georges Darien in using the first person, both in <i>Biribi</i> and in <i>Bas +les Cœurs</i>, is but writing portions of his own autobiography; he was +a boy of ten, like his young hero in the latter book, and a volunteer +like the gunner of the second class in the 41st battery of artillery in +the former work, and to this fact there are owing that directness, +simplicity, and virility which are the distinguishing characteristics of +both these volumes. They are alive with life. The reader may resent +them, detest them, dread them and their revelations; but he must be +impressed by them; he must receive from their perusal that thrill which +can only come from reality. They are saturated with the tears of blood +of a strong man who feels his own impotency to rouse his generation and +to change humanity; who knows that his voice is the voice of the prophet +crying in the wilderness, and echoing over a desert of dead bones and +drifting sand. There are few greater pangs than to see the truth and +know it, and feel that the salvation of others lies in it, and to tell +it in vain to deaf ears, and offer its water of life to lips closed by +pride and cruelty and folly.</p> + +<p>The name <i>Biribi</i> sounds too light for such a subject; it sounds like a +joke; but the joke is grim indeed,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> grim as the dance of skeletons round +a gallows-tree. In actual fact <i>Biribi</i> is the nickname given by French +and native soldiers in Algeria to the punishment-battalions of the +Franco-African army; a slangy <i>petit nom</i> given in jest to one of the +most awful hells that earth holds. The tortures which are suffered in +every army, in the best army, and in the time of greatest peace, can +scarcely ever be over-rated; and they are not the less, but the more +terrible, because almost always endured in silence and ignored by +authority. Now and then a voice is raised from the ranks, occasionally, +very rarely, some punishment, or injustice, more brutal than usual, +comes to light, and rouses public indignation. <i>Biribi</i> is one of those +rare utterances rising from the sealed pits, in which uncared-for and +unpitied lives are beaten into senseless pulp of bruised and bleeding +flesh.</p> + +<p>There is great originality in the literary talent of Georges Darien. His +style is all his own. His manner of relation resembles no other. He has +nothing of the modern school, except its hopelessness; he is strong, +intense, virile, rough; he seeks no ornament, he strives for no effect; +he writes as he feels, boldly, passionately, with that eloquence which +is the offspring of simplicity and of veracity, and that potency which +comes from wide knowledge of literatures and of mankind. Belonging by +birth to the <i>bourgeoisie</i>, son of a Catholic father and a Calvinist +mother, his early years were embittered by religious strife. He has +later on travelled much; he has known the lowest classes and the hardest +ways of life; he is still young in years, but old in the most varied +experiences; and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> he has, certainly, uncommon powers, which have as yet +not been duly recognised, for he offends the prejudices and vested +interests of his generation, and even in France prejudice and vested +interests are strong and close many channels.</p> + +<p>He disdains, moreover, to appeal to that large class of readers who +require a book, cast in the form of a story, to possess a story. Like +the famous knife-grinder he has none to tell, if by story we understand, +as most people do, a love-tale in some one of its forms. <i>Biribi</i> is the +stern and terrible narrative of the career of an <i>insoumis</i>; <i>Bas les +Cœurs</i> is the simple, domestic record of a boy's recollections of the +<i>Année Terrible</i>. In neither is there any hint or fragment of romance. +This fact at once limits his public to the restricted number who +appreciate the skill which can afford to dispense with the elements of +romance, and to rely solely on its own power of description and analysis +of character. In this respect for literary excellence and harmonious +treatment I should place <i>Bas les Cœurs</i> before <i>Biribi</i>. The +relation of events at Versailles, before and after the Prussian +occupation, as seen from the point of view of a family of the town, is +told with such perfect naturalness that the reader follows it with the +deepest interest, and remains fascinated by the admirable manner in +which the most tragic and momentous events of history are reflected in +the mind of a boy of ten years old.</p> + +<p>The tranquillity and precision of his use of the etching-needle, with +which he describes the daily life and street scenes in Versailles, +contrasts curiously with the hot colour and broad charcoal marks with +which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> he portrays the tortures of the punishment-battalions in Africa.</p> + +<p>This testifies to the flexibility of Darien's talent, since nothing can +be more different to the impetuous and turgid violence of <i>Biribi</i> than +the restrained and delicate irony of <i>Bas les Cœurs</i>: the one is a +battle-piece of Vereschagin, crowded with begrimed and panting figures, +in which the dumb canvas seems to shriek with war and smoke with blood; +the other is a cabinet picture of Meissonier's, finished, polished, +small in measurement, illimitable in suggestion, fine as the point of a +needle, cruel as the fork of a snake's tongue. For, undoubtedly, Darien +is cruel; but he is cruel from the impotent rage which is in him, the +powerless sorrow and scorn which his country, his generation, his fellow +mortals, his vision of things as they are, awaken in his memory and in +his desires.</p> + +<p>The apathy and sheepishness of the general multitude fill him with +wrath; he longs to pull down on the world its temple, like Samson, +regardless of the fall of the column and the roof on himself. No one who +loves received doctrines, crystallised commonplaces, undisputed formulæ, +should open these books. Such persons will only see in them blasphemies +against their honoured gods; for this author is not suited to the smug +self-complacency of Philistinism, 'sanding its sugar and praising its +Lord.'</p> + +<p>To represent war as it is done in the terrible pages of <i>La Débâcle</i>, or +in the heartrending sketch of the <i>Attaque du Moulin</i>, is not difficult +to the novelist who has power and knowledge. To represent the effects of +war on entirely uninteresting and commonplace<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> persons, and yet keep the +attention of the reader riveted to what is passing in one ordinary +household during a frightful national calamity, is a far more difficult +feat; especially when all the sympathies of the reader which would be +easily roused by noble sentiments in the sufferers are voluntarily +alienated, and the only motives and feelings depicted are sordid, +egotistic, and miserable, except in the young narrator, whose childish +intelligence is so slowly awakened to the baseness of those around him, +but whose naturally honest and patriotic little soul burns and thrills +with shame when once it becomes conscious of the meanness and cowardice +of his family and of his neighbours. The highest literary faculty seems +to me to show itself in the completeness with which the childlikeness of +the young observer is retained, the vague apprehension, the slowly +awakening comprehension, the gradually dawning horror with which the +events around him impress themselves on a mind remaining instinctively +loyal and just in the midst of corrupt and unworthy examples.</p> + +<p>Take this as an example of its style:—</p> + +<blockquote><p>'Shouts are heard afar off in the woods.</p> + +<p>'"Ah, my poor child!" says my aunt, weeping, "what a hideous +thing is war!"</p> + +<p>'She looks very feeble, very worn, my poor great-aunt Moreau. +The sight of her thin face, her skeleton-like hands, moves me +painfully. She sees this.</p> + +<p>'"At my age," she murmurs, "these events, my dear, are hard to +bear."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span></p> + +<p>'However, she assures me the Germans are not very cruel. The +Captain in command of those billeted on her, despite his rude +exterior, is not uncivil.</p> + +<p>'At that moment, indeed, this officer returns with his men; his +heels ring on the bricks of the ante-chamber. He opens the door +of the little room where we are sitting.</p> + +<p>'"Do not be disturbed, Madame," he says, addressing my aunt, +"on account of the firing you may have heard. There is nothing +of any consequence. A wood-cutter, in whose hut we found arms, +and whom we have shot: nothing more."</p> + +<p>'He salutes and retires. My aunt shudders. She turns white, her +eyes close, her head falls back against the chair. She is +faint. I call her maid, who runs to my summons, with the cook +and the servant just come to fetch me. The three women try and +revive her. She remains so weak when again conscious, that they +carry her to her chamber. She is grieved to have fainted.</p> + +<p>'"When my dear little Jean came to see me," she murmurs! "It +was the thought of that poor wood-cutter—"</p> + +<p>'She trembles like a leaf as I leave her.</p> + +<p>'Germaine, who has come from my grandfather's to fetch me, asks +me to wait a moment; she has a message for the Prussian Captain +from my grandfather. The officer is walking up and down, +smoking, under the lime-trees. I hear his guttural voice as he +answers, "Tell your master that I shall expect him here." What +can this mean? When I reach my grandfather's house I rush to +the dining-room to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> question the old man, but Germaine catches +hold of my arm.</p> + +<p>'"You must not disturb Monsieur. He is engaged with someone."</p> + +<p>'Through the door, which I hold half-opened, I have seen that +someone. He is a person dressed like a peasant, who looks not +like a peasant, nevertheless. His large hat is worn too +gracefully; his ragged blue blouse is too old to accord with +his proud and delicate features. Is he an officer of +franc-tireurs? A French spy, perhaps? Is my grandfather giving +or receiving information? Is he not, as I hope, planning to +surprise the Prussians? I question Germaine. She is astonished +at my anxiety.</p> + +<p>'"That man? He wanted to see the Mayor, and as the Germans have +put the Mayor in prison, he was brought here. Do not trouble +yourself about him, Monsieur Jean."</p> + +<p>'I hear a sound of closing doors. It is, of course, the +stranger going away.</p> + +<p>'My grandfather joins me.</p> + +<p>'"Well, how is your aunt?"</p> + +<p>'I tell him what happened, the story of the wood-cutter and its +effect upon her.</p> + +<p>'"Ah! what a pity!—humph, humph!—I will go and see her. +Germaine, my cloak."</p> + +<p>'"Shall I come with you, grandpapa?"</p> + +<p>'"No, no; not worth while. I shall be back in half an hour."</p> + +<p>'In twenty minutes' time he returns.</p> + +<p>'"You see I am as good as my word. I made haste, eh?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span></p> + +<p>'"Is my aunt better?"</p> + +<p>'"Your aunt? Yes—no—that is, yes, much better."</p> + +<p>'"Jean," he says to me after dinner, "you were to go back the +day after to-morrow, but as I must go on business to Versailles +in the morning early, I will take you with me. Does it +disappoint you, eh?"</p> + +<p>'"A little, yes."</p> + +<p>'"Bah! you shall make up for it another time. You shall come +again soon for several days, and send your lessons to the +deuce."</p> + +<p>'I laugh. I think I must have been mistaken. The man whom I saw +must have been really a peasant. My grandsire could not be so +gay if there were to be fighting at Maussy this evening. +However, before going to bed I look out over the country, and +when I lie down I strain my ear to catch a sound. All night +long I cannot sleep; I can only listen. All at once a hand +touches my elbow. I start up, screaming. Germaine laughs.</p> + +<p>'"What is the matter, Monsieur Jean? Were you dreaming?"</p> + +<p>'I stare round me in amaze. It is broad day.</p> + +<p>'"Make haste and get up; the chocolate is ready; master is +waiting."</p> + +<p>'Half an hour later we leave the house. We are at the end of +the street which opens on to the Versailles road, when a +platoon of Prussian soldiers, with bayonets fixed, appears upon +that road. My grandfather seizes me brutally and throws me down +under a fence behind a hedge. I look through the branches. The +Prussians pass at quick march. Amidst them<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> marches a man, with +his hands tied behind his back. I see a broad-leafed hat, a +pale proud face, an old blue blouse. It is the man of +yesterday. I know him at a glance.</p> + +<p>'"Grandfather, who is that?"</p> + +<p>'"Eh! Who? who? Some vagabond a Prussian patrol has picked up +out of some ditch. The Prussians are very severe for—for—for +wayfarers. It is better not to be seen in these affairs—it is +better not to be mixed up—I mean—"</p> + +<p>'My grandfather is lying, I am certain; I feel it. Why should +he lie? Where are they taking this fettered man? Why force me +to lie hidden under a hedge? From behind the village a loud +volley thunders through the air.</p> + +<p>'"Grandpapa, grandpapa, did you hear that?"</p> + +<p>'The old man is livid.</p> + +<p>'"It is the Prussians who practise—who practise at firing—in +the morning. It is their custom—their custom—every morning—"</p> + +<p>'His teeth chatter.'</p></blockquote> + +<p>Or see this description of the troops leaving for the frontier:—</p> + +<blockquote><p>'To-day the last regiment quartered here goes to the front; it +is a regiment of the line.</p> + +<p>'Léon and I wait in the market-place to go with the soldiers to +the railway station.</p> + +<p>'It is an epic, this departure of the troops. I have never felt +what I feel now. There is a sense and scent of battle in the +air; the midsummer sun shining on the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> musket-barrels and +sparkling on the accoutrements sets fire to one's brain. The +earth trembles under the passage of artillery which is about to +vomit death; and one's heart dances in one's breast whilst the +ponderous caissons, with their iron-circled wheels, shake the +stones, and the mouths of the bronze guns display their yawning +jaws. Bands play warlike tunes, men chant the <i>Marseillaise</i>, +the gold of epaulets and the lace on uniforms glow in the +light; the flags flap against the flagstaffs, on whose summits +eagles spread their wings; the shoes of the chargers glitter +like silver crescents; and one feels some mighty spirit of war +soar above these hearts of flesh and of iron who are about to +face the shock of battle. The blood steams in one's veins; the +fever of the hour devours one; and one shouts louder and +louder, faster and faster, not to become mad.</p> + +<p>'It is market-day. The square is filled by country people who +have brought in their vegetables and fruits for sale. Their +stalls are under all the trees, and, here and there, take up +the pavement. We are standing between a woman selling salads +and an old man who has onions, and is on all fours beside his +skips, because every moment or so an onion slides off the heap +and rolls towards the gutter, unless he stops it. What a funny +old fellow he is to take so much trouble for an onion! Ah! +there goes another one! The old man hurries to catch it, but an +officer, booted and spurred, steps on it; slips, slides, +tumbles down. The onion-seller takes off his cap: "Oh, sir! a +thousand pardons!"</p> + +<p>'The officer gets up, takes his riding-whip by the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> whip-end, +and brings it with all his force on the uncovered head of the +old man, who falls backward on his skull. Blood bespatters his +skips of onions.</p> + +<p>'"Here comes the regiment!" screams Léon.</p> + +<p>'The band sounds at the end of the street. We run towards it.</p> + +<p>'"Did you see the poor old man?" I ask.</p> + +<p>'"Yes. He deserved what he got. Only think! The officer might +have broken his legs, eh?"</p> + +<p>'I do not answer. I am absorbed in watching the soldiers whom +we escort, walking on the pavement, keeping step with them.</p> + +<p>'The soldiers do not all keep step with one another; emotion, +enthusiasm, the delights of going to thrash the Prussians, the +natural sorrow at leaving those they love—a thousand different +feelings. There is an old soldier, a decorated soldier next to +me, who is very unsteady on his legs. A young officer, very +young, almost beardless, puts his musket straight on the old +fellow's shoulder every second. It is admirable to see the +harmony which reigns between privates and officers. The +Colonel, a grey-beard, salutes with his sword when the people +cheer him; and a trumpeter in the front rank has stuck a great +bouquet of roses to the banner of his instrument, and carries +it as a priest carries the host. Other nosegays are thrust into +the barrels of muskets. Bottles of wine show their corks from +under the piles of knapsacks, and two or three dogs are +stretched out on the haver-sacks in the baggage-waggons. The +crowd cheers the dogs.</p> + +<p>'All the peasants throng to see, shouting their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> applause to +the regiment. Before the chemist's shop at the corner, a knot +of young men wave their caps in the air; the chemist waves his +white handkerchief; behind him I see the blue blouse of the old +onion-seller, who lies unnoticed on the ground.</p> + +<p>'All at once the music breaks out into the <i>Marseillaise</i>.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'"Allons, enfans de la patrie,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Le jour de gloire est arrivé!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>'Oh, how beautiful it all is! The soldiers fall into line. The +populace, shouting and cheering, accompanies them to the +station. Through the bars of the station-gates a private passes +me his drinking-cup, and asks me to get it filled at the +wine-shop in front of the gates.</p> + +<p>'"Wait; here is the money."</p> + +<p>'But I do not wish for the brave fellow's money, I have a franc +in my pocket. I will pay for his pint. In a moment I run back +again.</p> + +<p>'"Thanks, young sir," says the soldier. "It is perhaps the last +drop I shall ever drink."</p> + +<p>'"The last!" cries Léon, red as a turkey-cock; so proud is he +to be able to rouse the spirit of a warrior. "The last? Ah! we +shall give you floods of wine when you come back from victory."</p> + +<p>'The townspeople, who are crowding round us, cheer. The soldier +shakes his head dubiously.</p> + +<p>'"Thanks all the same," he says sadly.</p> + +<p>'He does not seem very confident of success.</p> + +<p>'"Doubt that we shall be victorious?" says Léon in disgust as +we go homeward. "Leave the town for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> the frontier with so +little confidence! I would give—oh, what wouldn't I give?—to +be old enough to go and beat the Prussians. My dear Jean, that +soldier has no soul!"</p> + +<p>'I am not sure. The soldier perhaps does not look on the +campaign as a picnic. Perhaps he sees more clearly than we do? +Perhaps? A great many things I had never thought of before +crowd into my brain.'</p></blockquote> + +<p>A few days later, after Sedan, Jean sees the Germans enter Versailles.</p> + +<blockquote><p>'"Here they are!"</p> + +<p>'It is the octroi-guards who cry out this as they come flying +from the gates across the town. They brush me roughly as they +pass, and their abject terror gains on me.</p> + +<p>'I follow them. But as I run I see on the other side of the +boulevard five or six inquisitive persons, who have stopped in +their walk, and hide themselves behind the trees. If they stay +to see, why may not I? I, too, get behind the stem of a tree, +and I watch with staring eyes to see what will happen. On the +road, fifty yards from the gates, a dozen horsemen are coming +onward at a walk. They stop a moment before the +octroi-officers; then they come on into the town in two lines, +almost touching the pavement.</p> + +<p>'"The Uhlans!" says someone behind me. Ah, I think with a +thrill, these are the Uhlans!</p> + +<p>'They draw near us; their pistols are cocked.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> They pass me +close, and I feel that I shall fall from fright; my nails +clutch the bark of the tree which screens me. These riders are +covered with blood. There is blood on the pennons of their +lances, on the hocks of their horses, on the rents in their +torn uniforms, and one of the foremost has a white linen band +stained with red on his forehead. Ah! it is hideous! I want to +run away—I want to run away; it is impossible. Before me there +are these Germans, riding slowly, searching with piercing +glances the streets which open out to the left and to the +right. Behind them comes on a dense dark mass. One can hear the +tramp of feet. One can distinguish the spikes of helmets, the +barrels of muskets, the little drums no bigger than +tambourines, and the fifes which are playing a march. These +drummers and pipers are followed by linesmen in dark blue, shod +with boots drawn up above their trousers, the musket held +straight on the shoulder, the cloak rolled.</p> + +<p>'And these men, grey with dust and mud, black with powder, with +their coats in rags—these men, who fought no doubt this +morning, and who have just made a forced march—preserve the +most marvellous exactitude, the most perfect regularity in the +dressing of their ranks, and the rhythm of their steps keeps +measure from the first line to the last of the whole column.</p> + +<p>'They pass—they pass—they will never end. I have almost +forgotten my fear. I am partly in front of my sheltering tree. +The drums and the fifes cease to sound, and music replaces it +from a band marching<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> in front of a group of staff-officers. +They play a warlike march, a battle-hymn, and all down the line +of troops, from the foremost company which has reached the +Chateau of Versailles, to the last which is leaving the +Chesnay, shouts of triumph arise and drown the brazen voice of +the cymbals. The victorious chant thunders down the wind. It is +the <i>Marseillaise</i>—the <i>Marseillaise</i> which our own troops +played as they left for the frontier, the hymn which was to +render every French soldier invincible, which I had sung myself +when we had been so sure of supremacy, and when I had planted +my little tricolour flags on the map, all along the route from +Paris to Berlin in a Via Triumphalis!</p> + +<p>'Now the artillery comes on; its black cannon on their blue +gun-carriages, with their attendants on foot and in saddle, +wearing helmets surmounted with brass balls. There are flowers +in the mouths of the cannon, and they are garlanded with ivy +and green boughs. The cavalry follow on the artillery; +dragoons, cuirassiers, hussars with white facings and a +death's-head on their shakoes. Then come the carriages, the +waggons, the vehicles with ladders, the baggage-carts.... All +at once my heart sickens and stands still. Behind the wheels of +the last waggons I seem to see some red cloth. Yes, it is our +red cloth—our soldiers. Between two rows of Prussians, who +have their bayonets fixed, our prisoners march without arms, +dirty, ragged, miserable, and ashamed. There are at least two +hundred of them, and I strain my eyes after these, my +countrymen, who are destined to rot in German fortresses.'</p></blockquote><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span></p> + +<p>It seems to me that in no contemporary fiction do we possess studies of +spectacles, of sentiments, of street-life in a momentous hour, more +accurate, more vivid, more simple in diction, more touching in +suggestion, than in the above passages.</p> + +<p>The sustained and withering irony and censure in this sketch, which yet +never goes out of the selected orbit of a boy's observation and +experiences, seem to me to be perfect in their kind. The incompleteness +of the child's understanding gives only a keener incisiveness to the +satire embodied in his narrative. The general reader will never forgive +such portraits as that of the elder Barbier, who, after shouting, +'Sursum Corda! Prenons serment de défendre le sol sacré de la Patrie!' +accepts the large Prussian orders, sets his steam-saws going in his +timber yard, and furnishes the wood for the besiegers of Paris; or of +that of the tobacconist Legros, who, after crying, 'Un soldat qui renie +son drapeau? Qu'il crêve comme un chien!' stands bareheaded with bent +spine to sell cigars to Bavarian officers. This is human nature: human +nature as commerce and modern teaching and the cheap Press have made it; +but Barbier and Legros will never pardon the limner who thus portrays +them. To the reproach that such portraits are nearly always those which +he selects, Darien would, no doubt, reply that it is not his fault if +they are what have been in his path to the exclusion of finer and nobler +figures. He is a realist in the full sense of that often-abused word, +and he has the courage to represent the realities which he finds.</p> + +<p>The <i>Année Terrible</i> casts its black shadows over<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> the childhood of this +writer, and as long as his life shall last the gloom it has left will +stay with him. If France herself should ever forget, which Heaven +forbid, he will not do so. His soul has been dipped in the Styx.</p> + +<p>What will, no doubt, alienate from him a large number of readers will be +his almost absolute want of human sympathy, or, at least, of expressions +of such sympathy. It is exceedingly rare with him to give way to any +sign of any emotion of pity. He sees human nature, in all its phases, +with little compassion for it. He sees (and this is, too often, either +through weakness or through policy, ignored by writers and thinkers) +that the great majority of men are neither the martyrs nor the heroes, +neither the victims nor the tyrants of their time, but a mass +considerable alone by its numbers, inconsiderable by any mental or moral +worth, and chiefly absorbed in different forms of selfishness and the +desire of gain. It is probably an error, though one consecrated by usage +and talent, to represent the generality of human beings as worthy +subjects either of blessing or of curse. But the author who says so will +never be forgiven by that mass of mediocrity which forms nine-tenths of +the population of the world. Darien says it, and shows it, and it is +this which will always make his works appear dreary and depressing to +the general reader, who cannot accept and pardon this manner of looking +at life for the sake of its veracity and courage.</p> + +<p>Of course, also, in the Press generally, the accusation of exaggeration +is always brought against exposures and delineations which are unwelcome +and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> embarrassing. But the writer's word may certainly be taken for it +that nothing in his descriptions is exaggerated or invented, and many +recent inquiries into the causes of deaths in the ranks, and of +executions after summary, and almost secret, court-martial in Algeria, +have confirmed the veracity of the statements made in <i>Biribi</i>. The +French Government, indeed, was, as I have said, so apprehensive of the +effect of these on the public mind that, although it did not suppress +the book, it forbade large coloured cartoons of the events described in +it to be posted up on the boulevards. In all nations the public is +treated like a child by authority; and as a child who will only walk +straight and submissively if its eyes be bandaged and its feet hobbled.</p> + +<p>But in these pages we are not so much concerned with the political and +military side of these works as with their literary qualities; and these +are considerable and of a strong and rare originality of style. <i>Il vous +empoigne</i>, and it is impossible to read either of his two works without +recognising their courage and ability, if we feel pained by their +withering scorn and rugged wrath. They are at times hard as the stones +over which the sick and swooning soldier is dragged, tied to the tail of +a mule. They are at times ferocious as the licensed torturer with the +three stripes on the sleeve, who throws his helpless prisoner, gagged +and bound, on the burning sands. Terrible they always are, with all the +terror of truths which have been lived through by the person who +chronicles them. It is not any betrayal of confidence to say that the +author of <i>Biribi</i> has experienced in his own<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> person the tortures of +which the dread record is made under this little playful-sounding word. +After such scenes as are herein described, and such sufferings as these, +the blood in a man's veins cannot be rose-water. 'La haine c'est comme +les balles; en la machant on s'empoisonne.' And it is impossible that +the military system can beget any other than hatred, violent, +unforgiving, imperishable, in the victims of that system.</p> + +<blockquote><p>'A young soldier, a conscript, a chasseur à cheval, has lost +two cartridges as the battalion is about to leave for Tunis.</p> + +<p>'The Corporal informs the Captain in command, who turns and +looks in silence. The boy Loupat gazes at him with the eyes of +an animal watching the descent of the club which is about to +brain it, and from which it knows not how to escape.</p> + +<p>'In passing through Tunis the Corporal says to him, "We shall +leave you here. That will teach you to sell your cartridges."</p> + +<p>'The boy understands. The council of war, the sentence as a +thief, the indelible shame stamped on the brow of a youth +because he has lost two of the cartridges of the State! The +following morning the bugle sounds the <i>réveil</i> at four +o'clock. It is still dark. At twenty minutes to five the +company, with knapsacks on their backs, is drawn up in line on +the road which runs through the camp. The trumpets sound the +roll-call, and all down the line each man answers "Present" as +his name is spoken.</p> + +<p>'"No one is missing?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span></p> + +<p>'"Yes, Loupat, my Captain."</p> + +<p>'"Loupat is absent?"</p> + +<p>'"Yes, my Captain."</p> + +<p>'"The scoundrel! He has slunk off in the night to escape +court-martial, but we will find him. Go on. No one else +missing?"</p> + +<p>'"Look there!" A soldier points to the gymnasium. All the men +look where he points. Under the portico, on the great +architrave on the left, a body is swinging, black, at the end +of a cord.</p> + +<p>'A lieutenant runs to the place, climbs to the body takes hold +of it, lets it go, returns.</p> + +<p>'"Dead?" says the officer in command. "Is it Loupat?"</p> + +<p>'"He is already cold."</p> + +<p>'"The scoundrel!" says the Captain again. "Well! he has done +justice on himself. Right flank, march!"</p> + +<p>'We are crowded pell-mell into the railway waggons which are +bound for Tunis. I look through the opening in the door and see +far away below me—already far away—a small dark shape which +swings in the wind as on a gibbet, and which is lighted solely +by the first rays of the rising sun.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>'Another soldier, Barnaux, has had some liqueurs given him by a +comrade; Barnaux is drinking with the men of his <i>marabout</i>, +when a sergeant enters, espies the irregularity, takes the +offender before the officer in command.</p> + +<p>'Barnaux refuses to say who the giver of the liqueur was. The +Captain orders him to be put in irons. They have put him <i>à la +crapaudine</i>, that is, with his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> arms bound behind him and +chained to his ankles. He is cast down thus on the sand of the +camp. Because he moans with pain they gag him with a dirty rag, +they tie his chin to his head with a cord. He remains all the +night thus, tied up into a shapeless packet. In the morning +when they change sentinels they perceive that he is dead. The +gag has stifled him.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>'Then the horror of the hospital; those hells which these men +so dread that they will tear the bandages off their wounds, or +cut their veins with a bit of broken glass, rather than live to +enter them.</p> + +<p>'The muleteers set us down at a great tent which serves as an +infirmary; within there are planks on trestles and large pails +filled with reddened water.</p> + +<p>'"You see that," says Palot, who has divined with the instinct +of the dying the destination of those sinister planks. "Well, +that will be my last bed."</p> + +<p>'An assistant, a filthy apron round his body, signs to us to +enter.</p> + +<p>'The great tent is an unutterably miserable place; it has been +battered about by wind and weather; the currents of air blow +unchecked through it, and clouds of dust arise from the ground. +Some twenty iron beds are there, not more; and beyond those a +pile of mattresses, on which men are lying, rolled up in rough +counterpanes. There are not sheets enough for all. They make a +sick man rise and give up his place to Palot, whose pulse the +surgeon feels.</p> + +<p>'"Done for," says the doctor, between his teeth, without +heeding whether Palot hears him or not.</p> + +<p>'To the rest of us they assign the mattresses lying<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> on the +earth; these are full of vermin; they throw on us some +covering, stained with the vomit of our predecessors.</p> + +<p>'How wretched it is, this hospital! How weary are the days +passed, with no other companions than the dying, whose +characters are poisoned by suffering and whose cries of horror +and anguish ring in one's ears! When, moved by the disgust and +despair which comes over you in this fœtid hole filled with +filth and misery, you drag yourself out on your trembling limbs +into the sun, you feel so feeble, so exhausted, so helpless, +you cannot walk a step. You sit down in the torrid heat; you +are chilly, despite the high temperature; your teeth chatter, +your body is drenched with sweat. And at evening you are +obliged to return to the tent, where you pass such hideous +nights, troubled by such frightful nightmares, by such vague +sudden shapeless terrors, which seem to seize you by the throat +and freeze the blood in your veins. Oh! those horrible nights +when you see the dying shake off their covering with shrunken +fingers and try to raise their haggard faces, lighted by the +yellow-green rays of a lanthorn!</p> + +<p>'These nights in which the living, who so soon will be the +dead, clutch at the rags which cover them, and shriek with rage +and fear as though they saw an enemy descend on them! These +nights in which one hears the childlike sobs of young Palot, +who is delirious, and who in his long agony calls on his +mother, "Mamma! Mamma!"</p> + +<p>'They will ring for ever in my ears those two piteous words +which through three whole nights fill<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> that wretched place with +their unpitied lament. A lament, low and tender at first, +broken with choking tears, ending in screams which make one's +hair stand up on one's skull with horror. The desperate screams +of a perishing life which has lost all sense and measure of +things or of time, of one who knows only that he will die, and +in one supreme appeal protests against his severance from those +he loves.'</p></blockquote> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>And the youth Palot dies in that appeal, and they dig a hole in the red +clay under a low wall beside a Barbary fig-tree.</p> + +<blockquote><p>'Ah! poor little soldier, who breathe your last, calling on +your mother; you who, with your glazing eyes, saw the vision of +your home; you who are laid there, at twenty-three years of +age, to be devoured by the worms of that foreign soil on which +you have suffered so much, and where you have met your death +alone, forsaken, without a friend to soothe your last struggle, +without a hand to close your eyelids, except the brutal hand of +the hospital servant, which shut on your mouth like a muzzle +when your desperate cries disturbed his sleep. Ah, I know why +your sickness was mortal; I know it much better than the +surgeon whose steel dissected your emaciated body; and I pity +you, poor victim of the State, with all my heart and soul as I +pity your mother who waits for you, counting the days of your +absence, and who will only receive in her solitude the dry +official notice of your death!</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span></p><hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>'Ah, no! I will not pity you, young dead soldier, nor your +mother who mourns your loss! I will not pity you, sons, who are +killed by the drinkers of blood, mothers who conceive what they +send to the shambles. Mad women who endure the pangs of +childbirth only to give up the fruit of their womb to the +Minotaur which devours them! Know you not that the she-wolves +let themselves be slain sooner than lose their offspring; that +there are beasts which die of grief when their cubs are borne +away from them? Do you not understand that it would be better +to tear your new-born creatures limb from limb than to bring +them up for one-and-twenty years, only to throw them into the +hands of those who want their flesh to feed the cannon?... And +you would ask our pity when, in some dark hour, the end comes, +and the bones of your children are gnawed by hyænas and +whitened by the sun in some forgotten corner of the earth?'</p></blockquote> + +<p>There are many such passages in <i>Biribi</i>, burning with truth and with +pain; and it would be well if they could be stamped into the mind and +the memory of the peoples of this epoch, who go meekly and stupidly as +sheep to the slaughter, under the pressure of their sovereigns and +statesmen. Of course, such a teaching as this carries with it its own +condemnation by what is called authority, and by all those classes of +which I have spoken, to whom war is a necessity and a standing army is +the ark of the Government. But it would be well if the populace of every +country could read, learn, and digest it, and realise its truth and its +justification. As I have said, I place <i>Bas les<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> Cœurs</i> higher, in a +purely literary sense, than <i>Biribi</i>, in the sense of construction and +of concentration. For <i>Biribi</i> is abrupt, at times confused; is rather a +series of terrible records and tragical incidents than a consecutive and +harmonious narrative, although it relates the career of the same +soldier from the time when he enters the ranks, to the last day +in which he flings from him for ever the grey coat and <i>kepi</i> of the +punishment-battalion. In that punishment-battalion he has been placed, +let the reader remember, for no especial crime against law or decency, +but for those offences against the military code (the unwritten code) +which make the offender more guilty in the eyes of a court-martial than +any actually criminal accusation: to have lost a regimental article, to +have forgotten to salute a superior, to have stopped to drink at a brook +on a march, to have omitted to put the regulation number on a clothes +brush or a pewter platter, to have been out without leave, to have lost +cartridges or buttons—any one of those innumerable and incessantly +recurring actions or omissions which make a soldier an <i>insoumis</i> to his +military superior, whether sergeant or general, corporal or colonel, +which to the military mind constitute crimes too heinous to be named, +offences which fill a punishment-book with accusations of acts in which +only the semi-insanity of perverted authority could see any provocation. +Read only of the punishment of the <i>tombeau</i> for simple sins of +negligence or thoughtless mirth. The <i>tombeau</i> is a canvas cover, +stretched on stakes, making a cage a mètre long by sixty centimètres +wide, into which the soldier condemned to this torment is obliged to +creep<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> on his stomach as best he can. In this cage he spends days, +weeks, months, at the caprice of his tyrants, with a litre of water as +his only drink, and nothing but the canvas between him and scorching +heat or icy rain, or blinding desert dust. On hot days the water in his +little can evaporates rapidly; and at the will of the corporals in +charge of him he may be kept thirty-six hours without other drink and +without food at all. Remember, as you read these lines, that the +<i>tombeau</i> has been the home for months of the man who describes it; a +home on the scorching Algerian sand in the parching African weather; a +home in which he envied the jackal its lair and the vulture its wings; a +home in which his flesh rotted and his manhood swooned.</p> + +<p>It is, perhaps, the finest compliment one can pay to an author to be so +much impressed by his theme that one almost forgets to speak of his +purely intellectual qualities. It is difficult to treat of either of +these works in a coldly critical spirit. For they are written with tears +of blood—such tears as are wrung from the heart's depths of all those +by whom France is beloved.</p> + +<p>For if militarism be her only armour, her only resource against her +foes, then must we tremble for her indeed; and tremble no less for the +whole of Europe, of which all the male youth is bruised and crushed +under militarism as in a mortar. The charge of want of patriotism has +been brought against Georges Darien for both these volumes. But it is +the flaw in human nature, not in French nature only, which he exposes; +the cynicism, the selfishness, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> cowardice, the meanness, which are +so conspicuous in all modern society, in all nations and in all grades. +Were there a German invasion of Italy or of England next year, there +would probably be as many Italians or English ready to succumb to, to +cringe before, and to profit by, the conquerors as there are Versaillais +ready to do so in the volume called <i>Bas les Cœurs</i>. There is a moral +motor ataxy in the spinal marrow of modern nationalities; the love of +money, the fear of poverty, and the continual concentration of the mind +on personal interests taught by modern education and by modern commerce +make up a large percentage of human beings, who are mere time-servers, +always ready to hold the stirrup-leather of the strongest. It is not +alone the French bourgeois of 1870 who is satirised in these pictures of +Versailles under German domination; it is the whole modernity of the +last quarter of the nineteenth century under the teaching of modern +science, modern trade, and modern morality. All humanity has been +inoculated with the serum of concentrated cowardice and egotism; some +are robust enough to resist the contagion, but the majority absorb it +and develop the disease. That which Darien calls not cowardice, but +fear, is enormously developed by modern influences, and will probably +continue to increase in the coming century. He asks himself and his +reader of what elements is it composed that discipline, that blind +obedience, which is enforced in military life (and which is already +demanded in civil life by the scientific and medical tyrannies). He +replies, and it is a subtle distinction which will escape the +comprehension of many, that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> the soldier who thus cringes to base orders +is not a coward but a craven (<i>pas un lâche; un peureux</i>).</p> + +<blockquote><p>'This craven would throw himself into fire or flood to-day to +save a comrade's life; but he would blow his comrade's brains +out to-morrow at the word of command of a non-commissioned +officer. He is not base: he is frightened. His courage +disappears before a watch-word: his boldness shrinks and +vanishes under a regimental order. What cows him is the +apprehension of punishment, the fear of the men set above him. +Fear is the keystone of the ark of the temple of Janus. The +army is a laundry where they throw the consciences of men into +a tub of soap-suds, and where the characters of men are wrung +and twisted like wet linen, and are placed, shapeless, under +the wooden beater of a brutalising discipline. It is only by +means of fear that the military system has been able to +establish itself. It is only by such fear that it maintains its +position. It is obliged to affect the imagination by terror, as +it must extinguish the soul and sense of nations to prevent +each from seeing farther than the stupid limit of a frontier. +It is obliged to surround itself with a mysterious ceremony, +with a religious pomp in which horror is united to +magnificence; in which the trumpet-blast joins in the +death-shrieks; in which one can see confused together the +blood-stained robe of glory, the plume of generals, the +handcuffs of gendarmes, the marshal's baton, and the dozen +balls of the execution-volley, the golden palms of triumph and +the shattered bones of the dead. It must present<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> this +spectacle to the crowds which stare and tremble before it as +they stand open-mouthed before a charlatan quack doctor at a +fair, whose tinsel and feathers attract them, but from whom +they shrink alarmed as soon as they see a forceps or a lancet +glitter ominously in his hand. It must do this in order that +the people, always in ecstasy before the marvellous, which it +does not attempt to analyse, shall be seized before it with awe +and admiration: even as a savage who prostrates himself in +terror and respect before the shooting-iron which he does not +understand, but which he knows possesses the power to strike +him to the earth.'</p></blockquote> + +<p>Many will protest against this figure as an insult to the general +public, but like many other insults which carry an intolerable sting in +them, it may claim that it is merited, and does not overpass the truth.</p> + +<p>Darien writes with that force which can, indeed, only come from the +intimate persuasion that what it tells mankind is true, and should be +told.</p> + +<blockquote><p>'"It is commonly said," he continues, "that the army incarnates +the nation. History puts this into our heads by means of all +her subtlest lies. Ten martial anecdotes sum up a century; a +boast describes a reign. History preaches hatred of the people, +respect for the pillager, the sanctification of carnage, the +glorification of slaughter. The weak, the sensitive, the timid +succumb beneath it, and are buried in the red clay or left on +the sand for the vultures and jackal. The strong (sometimes, +not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> always) lives to have his whole future poisoned by these +memories, his whole temperament warped and embittered; or he +forces his tormentors to shoot him by some unpardonable breach +of discipline; some blow to a superior, or some intentionally +insolent reply; death is the continually recurring sentence in +the military code; if the man does not bend he must be broken: +broken in two with a volley which smashes his spine. The +punishment-battalions, the workshops of the Travaux Forcés, are +the immediate consequences of the standing armies. Society, to +protect its interests, makes of a young citizen a soldier, and +of the soldier a galley slave at the first effort in him to +shake off the yoke of that discipline which degrades and +brutalises him, requiring like all tyrants and usurpers to +support its rule by terror, to make itself dreaded that its +prestige may dazzle and its tottering throne be secured. What +society requires is an obedience passive and blind, a total +imbecility, a humiliation which has no limit or hesitation; the +response of the machine to the mechanic, of the dancing dog to +the stick of his teacher. Take your man, make him surrender all +free will, power of choice, liberty, and conscience, and you +create and possess a soldier. To-day, at the end of the +nineteenth century, there is as much difference between the two +words, soldier and citizen, as there was in the time of Cæsar +between two similar words—Milites and Quirites. The standing +army is the corner-stone of the actual social structure; it is +a force which sanctions and secures the conquests of force; it +is a barrier raised much less to combat<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> foreign invasion than +to resist and paralyse the just claims of nations. Soldiers, +those sons of the people armed against their fathers, are +nothing more or less than gendarmes in disguise."'</p></blockquote> + +<p>This is surely absolute truth—that truth which is of all others most +feared by those in authority; those who, whether as sovereigns, +ministers, financiers, professional men, or tradesmen, live on and by +the servility and gullibility of the nations.</p> + +<blockquote><p>'What is discipline except fear? The soldier is reared to dread +what is behind him more than what he is forced to face; he must +be more afraid of the fellow-trooper who will be told off to +shoot him in the back, than of the adversary whom he is ordered +to attack. The army is the incarnation of fear. The soldier +must dread his commanders as a burnt child dreads the fire. He +must never laugh at their absurdities, nor raise a voice +against their injustice or their tyrannies. He must never +speak. He must not even think. His superiors do both for him. +If he laugh, or resent, or speak, or think, if he be neither a +coward nor a dolt, he is a mutineer: he must be tamed, beaten, +broken <i>à Biribi</i>.'</p></blockquote> + +<p>And when the dreamer, Queslier, says that it will not be long before the +people will become awake to this abuse of them, and will see that the +military caste is established on prejudices and interests hostile to +them, and will arise and destroy it, Darien replies, with equal +truth:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span>—</p> + +<blockquote><p>'There will flow much water under all the bridges of the world +before the people will have ceased to adore their vain idols +bathed in blood and tears.'</p></blockquote> + +<p>Vain idols, indeed! For thousands of years the Juggernaut of military +despotism has rolled over the living pavement of the prostrate +multitudes, and there is no sign as yet that those multitudes will arise +and shiver the blood-stained car to atoms. Darien has but little hope in +the resistance of the people. He fears that the majority of them will +always continue to be daunted, dazzled, made dumb and helpless by the +powers which ruin and slay them. William of Germany makes his insolent +and inhuman declaration that the soldier must slaughter his own +progenitors if his 'war-lord' bid him do so; and yet William of Germany +is allowed to continue his reign.</p> + +<p>What are we to look for from nations which lie down to be stamped on +thus? which lick the spurred boots of those who outrage them?</p> + +<p><i>Biribi</i>, and what <i>Biribi</i> represents, has its prototype in every +country of Europe; and wherever Europe introduces her 'civilisation' +there she introduces also her quick-firing cannon, her numbered +battalions of slaves, her organised butchery, her pulverisation of +virility and of volition, her destruction of initiative and of liberty.</p> + +<p>England considers that such arguments as those contained in this book do +not concern her because she has no conscription. But how long will she +be able, or be allowed, to be free from enforced service? The present +field-marshal, commanding-in-chief, Lord<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> Wolesley, desires +conscription. It may well be that events, in the not far distant future, +may strengthen his hands and enable him to enforce it.<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a></p> + +<blockquote><p>'Ah, Mascarille! who wished to put history into madrigals!' +cries Darien. 'History has given us Chauvinism (Jingoism), that +epidemic which makes a nation run headlong like the Gadarene +swine, to fall into the pit of absolutism! The army incarnates +the nation, you say? No. It diminishes it. It incarnates +nothing but force, brutal and blind, which lies at the service +of whoever most pleases it; or—sad to say—whoever pays it +highest. The army is the social cancer; is the octopus of which +the tentacles drain the blood of the nations; the hundred arms +and feelers which the people should sever with blows of their +hatchets if they desire themselves to live.'</p></blockquote> + +<p>Such language is very strong, and will rouse strong opposition in those +who have long been cradled in conventional opinions, and believe that +the established order of society, now existing, is admirable, and +intangible, because it has had the force and the cunning to so establish +itself. It is language which may, of course, be challenged by adverse +argument, which may at anyrate be met by counter-statements deserving to +be weighed against it; but it is language which is more needed than any +other in the present state of Europe, with every nation armed to the +teeth and every country an arsenal.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="III" id="III"></a>III</h2> + +<h3>THE ITALIAN NOVELS OF MARION CRAWFORD</h3> + + +<p>I believe that the novels of Mr Crawford of which the scene and the +characters are Italian are not among those of his works which are the +most generally popular. This fact, if it be a fact, must be due to the +general inability of his English and American public to appreciate their +accuracy of observation and lineation. Nearly all of them have qualities +which cannot be gauged by those to whom the nationality of his +personages in these works is unknown. In my own works, of which the +scene is in Italy, I have dealt almost exclusively with the Italian +peasantry. Mr Crawford has devoted his attention to the middle and the +higher classes. I do not think his portraiture of the Italian +aristocracy always redolent of the soil, but that of the lower and +middle classes is faithful to a wonderful degree. That side of Italian +life which is given in <i>Marzio's Crucifix</i>, for instance, is drawn with +an accuracy not to be surpassed. The whole of this story indeed is +admirable in its construction and execution. There is not a page one +would wish<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> cancelled, and nothing could be added which would increase +its excellence. It is to my taste the <i>capo d'opera</i> of all which he has +hitherto done.</p> + +<p>I think in his studies of the Italian aristocracy he has given them less +charm and more backbone than they possess. He has drawn their passions +more visible and furious than they are, and their wills less mutable and +less feeble than they are in general. He seems to have mistaken their +obstinacy for strength, while, if he have perceived it, he has not +rendered that captivating courtesy and graceful animation which are so +lovable in them, and which render so many of their men and women so +irresistibly seductive. According to him they are a savage set of +<i>berserkers</i>, always cutting each other's throats, and he does not in +any way render that extreme politeness which so effectually conceals the +real thoughts of the Italian gentleman, and which never deserts him +except in rare moments of irresistible fury. No one remembers so +constantly as the Italian of all classes that language is given us to +conceal our thoughts, and no one lives so completely as the Italian does +from the cradle to the grave in strict concealment of his thoughts even +from his nearest and his dearest.</p> + +<p>But in his Italian <i>genre</i> pictures, and in portraiture of the people +whom we meet every day in society, Mr Crawford has a delightful pencil; +little side studies also of more humble persons, which many writers +would neglect, are charming in his treatment; take, for instance, the +old priest of Aquila in <i>Saracinesca</i>; with how few touches he is made +to live for us. We only see him once, but he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> will always remain in our +memory; in his whitewashed room with its sweet smell from the pot of +pinks, and his touching regret that he has never seen Rome, and at his +age cannot hope to do so.</p> + +<p>His priests, by the way, are always excellently drawn, from the humble +village vicar to the learned and imposing cardinal. He has penetrated +alike their interiors and their characters with that skill which is only +born of sympathy, and it is therefore perhaps only natural that he has +not the faintest conception of the motives and views of the socialist +and republican whom he dreads and hates.</p> + +<p>All these charming little details, like the pot of pinks, can only be +thoroughly appreciated by those who know intimately Italian character +and habits; but they abound, and show so much of fine observation and +delicate discernment in the author that one cannot forgive him for ever +beating the big drum of florid sensation.</p> + +<p>Let me not be understood to mean that crime, or the impulse of crime, is +not a perfectly legitimate subject for the novelist; both can be made +so, but they are only so when treated as Mr Crawford himself treats them +in <i>Marzio's Crucifix</i>. When treated as he treats them in <i>To Leeward</i> +and <i>Greifenstein</i> and <i>Casa Braccio</i> they are merely coarse and +inartistic. He has a leaning towards melodrama which is chiefly to be +regretted because it mars and strains the style most natural to him, and +does not accord with his way of looking at life, which is not either +poetic or passionate, but slightly sad, and slightly humorous, modern +and instinctively<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> superficial, superficial in that sense in which +modern society itself is so.</p> + +<p>In <i>Marzio's Crucifix</i> he is perfectly natural, and one cannot but wish +that he had never left that manner of treatment. Every motive therein is +natural, every character consistent with itself. This naturalness in his +characters is Mr Crawford's greatest attraction, and when he departs +from it, as he does in such detestable melodramas as the <i>Witch of +Prague</i> and <i>Greifenstein</i>, he is no longer himself. It is hard to +understand that the same author can create the most delicate of +aquarelles and the most glaring of posters, or why one who can draw so +well and finely in silver-point can descend to daub with brooms in such +gross distemper. If this be the price of versatility, it were best not +to be versatile. But it is not versatility, because true versatility +consists in possessing a many-sided power which flashes like a jewel of +which all the facets are equally well cut. True versatility, moreover, +does not consist in the mere change of subject, but in the change of +style, of treatment of thought, in fact, the mutation of the entire mind +of an author, such as brings it into entire harmony with its fresh field +and its new atmosphere. There is no such change in these novels. Mr +Crawford is Mr Crawford always. As he never loses himself in his +creations, so he is always present in them to the reader; and his style +never varies, whether he treats of horrible psychological mysteries in +Prague or of pleasant carnival seasons in Rome.</p> + +<p>He is not strong or forcible in tragedy. When it is incidental in his +stories like the murder of Montevarchi,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> or the attempted assassination +of Ser Tommaso, it is admirably sketched in; but when it forms the +structure and essence of a romance he fails entirely to give it +sublimity; it becomes in his hands a mere scarecrow, which makes us only +smile as its wooden hands beat the empty air. One feels that it is not +his natural element, that he does not like it or feel at home in it, and +has merely lent himself to it from some wrong impression that the public +requires it; due, perhaps, to the suggestion of some unwise publisher or +friend. The coarse melodrama with which some of his novels ends is not +in unison with the characters or the scope of his work. It is quite true +that, as murder is, in some circumstances, justified in actual life, so +in some circumstances it may be used as a <i>dénouement</i> in fiction with +perfect accuracy; yet it is always a violent ending which fully accords +with romance of wild life or peasant life, but always jars, unless +introduced with the most perfect skill, in stories of men and women of +the world; because the evil passions of this latter class of persons are +of a different quality, and find different modes of relief, from the +primitive and barbarous satisfaction of killing enemies or rivals. All +the influences and habits of society make it almost impossible for men +and women of society to become assassins.</p> + +<p>Now Mr Crawford can draw men and women of the world so well that it is a +pity he so often goes out of his way to spoil his portraits of them with +the bowl and dagger taken from a different phase of life from that in +which they move.</p> + +<p>He is always a gentleman, and he is at his best when writing of +gentlemen in the society which he knows so<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> well. Duels are quite +natural in good society everywhere, except in England, and no one since +Charles Lever ever described them so well as Mr Crawford; but murders +are not general in the world of well-bred people, indeed are not very +often heard of out of the lowest strata of plebeian life.</p> + +<p>In <i>Casa Braccio</i> a fine motive, that of the peasant of Subiaco's +long-cherished vengeance, with its final satisfaction, both based on a +mistake, is wasted, because no one can care in the least for the man who +is slain, and the original sin committed by this victim (marriage with a +nun), although it seems so great to Mr Crawford, appears to us no sin at +all; so that his tragic end neither moves us nor satisfies in us any +sense of justice. What are admirably rendered and true to life in <i>Casa +Braccio</i> are not Griggs and Gloria, or Angus Dalrymple and Maria +Addorata, but the peasants of Subiaco, Stefanone, with his +long-cherished vendetta, and his wife, Sora Nanna, who wears her lost +daughter's shoes because it would have been a sin to waste them. One +regrets that two persons so perfectly natural and well drawn should be +set on a pyre of flaring melodrama which obscures their portraits in its +smoke and flame. Why could he not give us a story of Subiaco, passionate +but natural, in which the action would have passed entirely in that +interesting and little-known part of the Sabine mountains?</p> + +<p>When I use the term melodrama, I mean by it that which mimics the +tragic, but falls short of it; the tragic, imitated but so environed, +that it loses dignity and has something of the inflated and grotesque. +The melodrama in <i>Pietro Ghisleri</i>,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> in <i>Taquisara</i>, and in <i>The +Children of the King</i> is this kind of melodrama; it does not move us for +a moment; we are, on the contrary, impatient of it in a modern period +and history, with neither of which it has any harmony. In the latter +story the conception of Rughero, though by no means new, is fine; but +the frame in which this mariner is set lacks all fitness for such a +figure; and the man whom he murders is not sinner enough, nor serious +enough in his actions, for the reader to be moved to pardon the act as +the author himself pardons it. If violent delights have violent endings, +violent endings need strong provocation and clear explanation; they +should appear to the reader to be inevitable, the offspring of an +unavoidable result. To the reader such a crime as this should appear to +be the inexorable justice of an inevitable retribution. But in the +violent <i>dénouement</i> of <i>The Children of the King</i> the cause is trivial, +the act under the circumstances improbable, and the rude shock of it is +not in accordance with any of the other characters and with the light, +careless modernity of the setting of this story.</p> + +<p>This defect of consistency, which is grave in literature, would be +ruinous on the stage where action is so much quicker, and where the +idiosyncrasies of each personage are so visible to the audience; and +such a fault is the more vexatious because it shows that the author was +never really absorbed in his own creations, was never so possessed with +them that they dominated him and made him do what they chose, as Bulwer +Lytton has said that the characters of every true novelist must do, +because a character once conceived is like a child, being once begotten, +it becomes<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> what it must, we cannot control the subsequent shape it +takes.</p> + +<p>Another defect of Mr Crawford's works is usually that their interest +flags towards the close, that this close is too abrupt, and that it +gives the reader the impression of the narrative being brought to an +untimely end because the writer no longer cared about narrating it. This +defect may be noticed in nearly all his stories, beginning with <i>Mr +Isaacs</i>, in which it is conspicuous; and is startlingly and irritatingly +visible in one of his latest, <i>Adam Johnstone's Son</i>; indeed, in the +last-named story the conclusion is obviously totally different from what +it was intended to be in the opening chapters. Now, a well-constructed +novel may please you or not, may be attractive or offensive, but it will +always be accurately conceived and harmoniously balanced; and nothing +animate or intimate will be introduced into it which has not some +bearing direct or indirect upon the plot. Nothing can be more incorrect +than to excite the expectations of the reader by indications which +result in nothing, sign-posts on a road which do but lead to a blank +wall.</p> + +<p>A grave violation of this rule is frequently to be found in the Crawford +stories, no worse one than that in this story of Adam Johnstone's son, +where a long chapter is occupied by an incident with a brutal Neapolitan +carter on the Sorrento road. The man is knocked down by the hero, and +endeavours in return to stab him; carabineers arrive and arrest the +carter and not the Englishman (as in real life they unquestionably would +have done). The whole incident, related with much spirit, is obviously +only in its place, only pardonable<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> as an episode, if the carter be +destined to appear again and sate his thirst for vengeance on the hero. +But he disappears from the scene for ever as the carabineers handcuff +him. We neither see nor hear any more of him, nor does the Englishman +hear any more of the matter, which in actual life certainly would have +caused him much annoyance at the local tribunal. The appetite of the +reader should not be tempted by dishes, which become a mere Barmecide's +feast, in this manner. Some intention must have been in the author's +mind when he created this scene. Why did he not carry out his intention?</p> + +<p>In this manner many combinations and situations of the most interesting +and uncommon kind are deliberately thrown away unused. He frequently +introduces personages about whom he excites our liveliest interest, and +whom he then forsakes or dismisses with an indifference which the reader +does not share. It is as though a painter painted into his canvas +numerous figures which he has never finished, though he sends out his +picture as a finished work. The only novels of his which are entirely +free from this defect are the <i>Cigarette Maker</i>, the <i>Three Fates</i>, and +<i>Marzio's Crucifix</i>, and here I cannot resist (though it is not within +the scope of this article, since its venue is America) pointing out how +delicate, subtle, and clever is that story entitled the <i>Three Fates</i>. +There is little movement in it, no incident of any note, its interest +lies entirely in the development of character and in the evolution of +feeling, but these are so treated that they suffice to hold the reader's +charmed attention, and the study of the man whose hesitations and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> +tergiversations make the subject of it is one which may be caviare to +the general, but which may be read again and again with sympathy and +curiosity by those who can appreciate psychological problems. The +persons in it are such as we may have known to-day or may know +to-morrow; and the working of their minds and inclinations is traced +with a masterly skill, and is as correct as a physiologist's diagram of +the nervous system.</p> + +<p>What to me is especially attractive in Mr Crawford's novels is the +atmosphere of good breeding which one breathes in them. One feels in the +company of a well-bred man. Their philosophy, their experiences, their +views, are all those of a man of the world; and there is in them a +tolerance and a total absence of prejudice (except in religious and +political matters) which are refreshing, and which are a fair approach +to, if not an actual attainment of, unbiassed liberality. There is in +them no enthusiasm for anything, no altruism, no deep emotion. They are +unfortunately entirely lacking in any perception of those myriads of +other lives not human, but as sentient as the human, such as vibrates in +every line of Pierre Loti's works. We have never in his novels any +profound tenderness like that with which the Frères Rosny speak of the +semi-humanity of inanimate things, or show us the dog gambolling on the +wayside turf in all the simple joy of its youth and its pleasure in +existence. To Mr Crawford as to Peter Bell, a primrose by the river's +side is a primrose, and it is nothing more, and the thrush or the linnet +which sings in the hawthorn above the primrose roots for him has no +existence.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> He has the American's indifference to all created things +which are not human. There are no animals in his books except two poor +terriers (who have their necks broken by the odious lover in <i>To +Leeward</i>), and the unhappy cat, introduced only to be poisoned in +<i>Taquisara</i>. There is nothing which indicates that he cares for nature +in any of its phases, and he calls the cicala a locust.</p> + +<p>In Italy he lives only for the people around him as he would live in +Pall Mall, or Broadway, or the Champs Elysées. That passion with which +Italy has inspired Shelley, Byron, George Sand, De Musset, Owen +Meredith, even the calm analytic mind of Taine, has never touched him. +He has never felt the ecstasy which is embodied in that single phrase of +Taine's, 'On nage dans la lumière.' One would say that the moonlight +shining on the waters of Tiber, under the bridge of St Angelo, is no +more to him than a flash-light illumining a grain-elevator on the +Hudson. All which is still Italy, of colour, of perfume, of light, of +legend, of rapture, of emotion, has wholly escaped him; he has never +felt its <i>hysterica passio</i>; he has never known its eternal youth, he +has never seen its lost gods rise and walk through its blossoming grass +as the star rays shine in the white cups of the narcissus of its fields. +But of the people who pass him in the Corso and on the Chiaja, who shake +hands with him at Montecitorio and on the Lung' Arno, who lounge and +talk with him at the cafés, and the legations, and the public gardens, +he is an admirable student, and an admirable photographer.</p> + +<p>One of the most admirable of his portraits is that of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> the young Don +Orsino, the hero of the novel of that name. Sant' Ilario, like his +gallant old father, might be a North German, a Hungarian, or a Scottish +noble, his temperament is, indeed, much more northern than southern; but +Don Orsino,<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> his son, is exactly that which he is represented to be, a +youthful Italian of high rank, who has been educated at an English +public school, and has all the vanity, and egotism, and <i>sècheresse de +cœur</i> of modern youth in him. The type of the modern youngster of +rank was never so well drawn as in this story of his <i>début</i> in +speculation and his failure in it. His character is one very difficult +to draw, that coldness, that self-reliance, that self-sufficiency, which +are something at once harder and less contemptible than conceit, the +qualities which will make him successful later on but will never make +him lovable or tender; the instincts of race which hold him back from +meanness but are not strong enough to raise him to nobility, attenuated +as they have been by modern education, all these are rendered with the +utmost skill till the boy, in his sterile and self-satisfied modernity, +lives before us, and vain and selfish though he be, we are loth to part +from him, and curious to know what his future will become. In his +history that one supreme charm of Mr Crawford's, of which I have +previously spoken, his naturalness, is conspicuous; nothing can be more +natural than the relations of Don Orsino with his mother and father and +those who surround him, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> the crafty <i>affaristi</i> who get him into +their meshes of speculation.</p> + +<p>What is not natural in this story is the character of Madame d'Aranjuez. +She comes before us instinct with all which goes to make up an +unscrupulous adventuress. She is that, or she is nothing. She does her +uttermost to fascinate and capture the son of Saracinesca. She succeeds; +and lo! with one of those <i>volte-faces</i> which are so frequent and so +irritating in Mr Crawford's works, she gives up the game when she has +won it, does nothing that we expect her to do, and marries the +speculator who has beggared Don Orsino on condition that this gentleman +shall restore to Don Orsino all he has lost. Nothing more improbable or +inconsistent, given the character of the woman, could possibly be +conceived; nor is it more probable that the haughty and irascible young +man would endure to be served by her mediation, however it might be +veiled. Everything surrounding this lady promises us passion, intrigue, +perhaps tragedy, certainly peril, but we are balked of them all. The +mysteries concerning her turn out to be very tame ones indeed, she +appears a wholly innocent and harmless person, and even a very large +paper-knife shaped like a dagger, which we are told always lies beside +her and which has no <i>raison d'être</i>, unless it is to be ultimately used +in killing or defending somebody, does nothing whatever and disappears +from the story, leaving us in tantalising ignorance of why we were ever +introduced to it.</p> + +<p>Now no French writer of any degree would have created that remarkable +paper-knife, and kept it lying beside the heroine, and laid stress on +its unusual size<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> and splendour, unless he intended to turn it to +account as a <i>deus ex machina</i>. To draw the reader's attention to a +conspicuous object, and then to cheat the expectations raised concerning +it, is a great fault in art; but it is one of which English and American +writers are continually guilty. It is true we are told casually, towards +the end, that her husband had hit her with this paper-knife, and that +for this blow the famous fencer Spicca had killed him; but this is +mentioned incidentally, and does not sufficiently account for the +interest we have been excited to take in this weapon. Spicca is, on the +contrary, admirably drawn, and the regard we feel for the merciless old +duellist is roused in us with true art. We have that sense of Spicca +having really lived, and really been that which he is described, which +can only be aroused in a reader by life-like accurate and sympathetic +portraiture.</p> + +<p>There are many pathetic touches in this portrait of Spicca, and little +incidents entirely true to the life of an Italian gentleman of +aristocratic race and straitened means, as when in his distress of mind +his servant persuades him to eat 'a little mixed fry' with a fresh +salad, 'the salad is very good to-day'; and Spicca, touched and +refreshed, examines his meagre purse and takes out a ten-franc note +which he gives to the man, remarking that it will buy him a pair of +boots, and this ten-franc note is, when his purse lies on the table at +night, slipped back into it by the servant, who knows that his master +'never counts.'</p> + +<p>I think the most exquisitely drawn of all Mr Crawford's many characters +is this Count Spicca; because the character of a noted duellist who +invariably<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> kills, and kills how and in what way he chooses, with +profound indifference and unerring accuracy, is one very hard to make +sympathetic to the general reader, and especially to the English reader, +by whom duelling is abhorred. But Spicca is so perfect a gentleman, so +sad and simple and calm, so natural and unassuming despite his deadly +power, that no one can regard him without interest and even affection, +and see him without sorrow ill-treated by a woman so extremely +unpleasant as Consuelo Aranjuez, for whom he has done and suffered so +much.</p> + +<p>The fencing of Mr Crawford is always very accurate, and we hold our +breath when Leone Saracinesca acts as his son's second. All this is +quite true to life in Italy, where duels with the sabre or rapier are +still of daily occurrence, and are resorted to after any insult, and +after a mere difference of opinion or trivial impoliteness.</p> + +<p>It is wonderful that these stories have not been appropriated for the +stage by those unscrupulous thieves the London dramatists, for they are +full of dramatic situations and of duologues in which the give and take +is brilliant. Some have indeed the dramatic effect of inconsistency of +which I have spoken, but all are full of fine suggestions for the +theatre. <i>Saracinesca</i>, or <i>Sant' Ilario</i>, for instance, would be +transferable to the stage with scarcely any alteration. It is full of +incidents which would be most effective on the stage; and the strong +emotions and sensational scenes which it offers would most certainly +thrill and charm an audience.</p> + +<p>One wonders also that their author himself does not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> write for the +stage, for his command of incident and of intricacies of circumstance +would raise him high above many playwrights of the London theatre. There +are scenes in nearly all his works which might be put upon the boards +with scarcely any alteration, such as the duel between Don Giovanni and +Del Ferice in <i>Saracinesca</i>, and the death scene of the librarian +Meschini in <i>Sant' Ilario</i>, while the whole story of <i>The Children of +the King</i> would furnish matter for a romantic drama were the causes for +the crime in it made more credible.</p> + +<p>Here let me note a small but irritating fault in these works, <i>i.e.</i>, +the childish habit (common to writers of the last century) of naming +characters after their calling, or after some moral characteristic. +Meschini is the plural of the Italian adjective mean, cowardly, or +contemptible, and is given to a man with these defects; while a very +interesting person, a French artist famous in portraiture, is +unfortunately burdened with the ridiculous and impossible name of +Gouache. Mr Crawford is indeed frequently infelicitous in names. In +<i>Casa Braccio</i>, the American lover of Gloria, a stagey sort of person, +but one whom we are invited to regard with admiration and sympathy, is +weighted with the shocking name of Griggs. Mr Crawford does not see that +were Othello or Hamlet called Griggs, either would try to move the souls +of men in vain. If a name does not matter to a rose, it does matter +immensely to a character in a book; and there are so many euphonious +names in use in the world that it is wholly unpardonable to select a +ludicrous or ugly one. The poor little natural child of Gloria in this +same novel is also burdened at its<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> birth by the name of Walter Crowdie, +which, for a baby, has such a comical effect that the very pathetic +position of this poor infant is rendered ridiculous by it. It is perhaps +under the idea of being realistic that these droll names are selected to +jar on tragic circumstances, but then Mr Crawford's stories are not +realistic, and cannot be made so by this one expedient.</p> + +<p>He has also another fault which is visible in nearly all his works, and +is a grave one. He forgets at times the attributes which he has given to +his chief characters. Thus Giovanni Saracinesca is described as a man of +strong, noble, and reticent nature, and of intellect so superior that +his wife tells him he will be very great some day; and he resembles, +indeed, precisely, one of those men who become great leaders of other +men. But in the sequel (where he is called Sant' Ilario) all this +changes, and he behaves like an idiot, and of his great qualities we +hear no more and certainly see nothing. And where we still farther +follow his fortunes in the subsequent sequel of <i>Don Orsino</i>, he has +sunk into complete self-effacement, so complete that he allows his son +to be the associate and the debtor of that very Del Ferice whose utter +baseness and vileness he knows so well, and who tried in the famous duel +to murder him by foul play. Sequels are always ill-advised trials of the +author's consistency and the reader's memory, and it would have been +unquestionably better to have made Don Orsino stand alone in his history +and not figure as the son of Giovanni Saracinesca and of Corona +d'Astrardente. When a reader has followed with interest and sympathy the +fortune of an impassioned lover it is trying to see him<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> standing in St +Peter's 'a middle-aged man,' talking to a son taller than himself. Great +art is required to make a character 'grow' quite consistently. The +continuation of histories, thus, greatly pleased Anthony Trollope and +Thackeray, but I cannot consider it a desirable thing in fiction.</p> + +<p>Mr Crawford misses many opportunities of developing the capacity for +analysis and deduction which he undoubtedly possesses. He is very +observant but he is content to note a fact, he does not trouble himself +to seek its origin or the influences which have made it the fact it is. +When the two young people who wish to marry in <i>Marzio's Crucifix</i> +discuss what their house shall be like, and what colour the walls and +furniture, their biographer adds, 'Italians have lost all sense of +colour.' This is true, but it is one of the most amazing, grievous, and +extraordinary truths that exist; it is one for which I search in vain +and in perplexity for an explanation. But Mr Crawford does not seek for +any explanation. He states the fact and passes to another subject.</p> + +<p>Again, in this sentence he begins well: 'It is of no use to deny the +enormous influence of brandy and games of chance on the men of the +present day. Something might be gained indeed if we could trace the +causes which have made gambling especially the vice of our generation. +But I do not believe this is possible.' That is to say, he does not care +to be at the trouble of such an investigation, even though he adds the +acute sentence that most of the men and women of the world of pleasure +in our times exhibit 'the peculiar and unmistakable signs of physical +exhaustion, chief of which is cerebral anæmia. They are overtrained and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> +overworked, in the language of training they are "stale."'</p> + +<p>He says in another place, 'Italians have no imagination.' This is but +partially true; I am not sure that it is true at all. Their modern +poetry is beautiful, more beautiful than that of any other nation. Their +popular songs are poetic and impassioned as those of no other nation +are, and one may hear among their peasantry expressions of singular +beauty of sentiment and phrase. A woman of middle age, a contadina, said +to me once, 'So long as one's mother lives, one's youth is never quite +gone, for there is always somebody for whom one is young.' A rough, rude +man, a day labourer, who knew not a letter, and spent all his life bent +over his spade or plough, said to me once, one lovely night in spring, +as he looked up at the full moon, 'How beautiful she is! But she has no +heart. She sees us toiling and groaning and suffering down here, and she +is always fair and calm, and never weeps!' Another said once, when a +tree was hard to fell, 'He is sorry to come away, it has been his field +so long.' And when a flock of solan geese flew over our lands, going +from the Marches to the mountains on their homeward way, and descended +to rest, the peasants did not touch them: 'They are tired, poor souls,' +said one of the women; 'one must not grudge them the soil for their +lodging.' Surely such ideas as these in people wholly uneducated +indicate imagination in the speakers?</p> + +<p>And what can he possibly mean by no poets, which he says in another +place? Has he never read a line of Carducci? Much as we may mourn and +resent Carducci's turncoat and reactionary<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> politics, no one can deny +that he is a poet of the purest kind. Has he never heard the ringing +stanzas of Cavallotti which sound like a clarion through the land? Has +he never studied the exquisite if too erotic odes of D'Annunzio, or the +touching verse of Stecchetti? There are others besides these who are +true and fine poets also; and even in the ordinary verses written for +newspapers (which in other countries are so poor and tawdry) there is +frequently in Italy a true and delicate feeling and an adorable lyrical +harmony which make one mourn to see things so fair wasted on so +ephemeral a life.</p> + +<p>It is through their imagination still more than by their vanity that +Italians are led by unscrupulous political flattery and cajoled into +disastrous political enterprises. They will believe anything if it be +sufficiently captivating to their self-admiration and their fancy, and +will dance blindfold on the brink of a bottomless pit. It is only an +imaginative people who love so wildly, and kill themselves so madly for +affection's sake, as the Italian people do. The other day, because a +young soldier was sent to Africa, his brother killed himself in despair, +and the father of the two youths then killed himself also. It is an +inflammable imagination which makes the nation so easily led away by the +promises and the phantasmagoria of glory with which unscrupulous +statesmen have enticed it to the brink of ruin. It was its imagination +which made it so credulous that when told by its victors that the +disgraceful surrender of Makale was a victory, it believed and rejoiced, +illuminated and hung<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> out flags, and never saw what a dupe it was being +made until cruelly awakened from its delusions by the <i>déroute</i> of Abbu +Carima.</p> + +<p>Mr Crawford has lived chiefly in cities, and in the cities, even in +Rome, the Italian is much debased by contact with foreigners; the +influence of foreigners on Italians is excessively bad, especially +American and English influence; and in the cities also the preponderance +of Jews is great. Innumerable persons who call themselves by Italian +names and speak of Italy as their country are Jews and nothing else. A +Finnish Jew known to me buys an Italian estate, and with the estate a +title, which, by the payment of a large sum to a complaisant Government, +he is allowed to adopt; he is decorated by the king for his munificent +'charities' in the land of his adoption; he marries an English woman, +and their children masquerade as Italian nobility with not a single drop +of Italian blood in their veins. Such 'Italian nobles' are numerous, +unhappily, in modern Italy, and do immeasurable discredit to the +nationality which they assume. In a generation or two their origin will +be forgotten, and they will be taken by society in general to be what +they pretend to be. Thus, unhappily, are great nations caricatured, old +titles prostituted, and Italy accredited with sons not her own, with +pretended offspring who are not even her bastards; persons who +impudently affect her name and boast of her blood, when not one single +hair of their head or fibre of their flesh has any affiliation to her.</p> + +<p>What stifles Italian imagination, and kills the Italian<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> soul, is the +passion for money; pure acquisitiveness or avarice, for the desire is to +get, little or no pleasure is taken in spending. It is often alleged +that this passion is due to their poverty; but poverty is not +necessarily accompanied by avarice; the Irish people are very poor, but +they are extremely generous; the Spanish people are so also. A comical +instance of this stinginess occurred the other day at Milan: a rich +tradesman had built himself a fine set of new premises, and opened his +new establishment with much feasting; he sent fifteen francs to the +municipality to be divided among the poor, and everyone applauded his +liberality! This love of money, acquisitiveness, niggardliness, or +whatever we call it, is too general not to be injurious to the Italian +character; and it enters into all daily life and personal acts, and is +frequently the chief motor power of marriage, of career, of education. +And then added to this injurious power there is another which is more +deleterious still, which weakens, debases, and falsifies the character +from infancy: it is the direful influence of the Church. But to treat of +this matter would occupy too much space, and would lead too far away +from the stories of Mr Crawford, in which there is an unfortunate +tendency towards approval of what he calls hierarchical government, +although a tendency not strongly enough insisted on by him for it to +demand minute examination. The powers of Mr Crawford, however, are +limited by the narrowness of what is called religion, and the inability +to see the higher side of these subversive opinions which he dreads, and +which he has done his best to turn into<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> ridicule by putting them into +the mouth of the half-mad artist Marzio.</p> + +<p>Indeed, his bigotry on religious subjects is very droll to see in these +days; and he speaks of 'unbelievers' in a tone worthy of Puritans in the +days of the <i>Mayflower</i> pilgrims. It does not agree with the tone of his +books, which is invariably the tone of a man of the world; as such he +should possess that liberality of thought which is the chief, perhaps +the only, virtue of his generation; and if he had possessed it he would +undoubtedly have reached a much higher level, a much finer ideal, than +he has actually done. It would seem as if he distrusted and checked the +larger intelligence in him, as an over-cautious rider distrusts and +checks a horse which only asks to be given a free rein to go at speed +over a wide pasture; it would seem as if some extraneous 'influence' +were always at his elbow to keep his reason cribbed, cabined and +confined.</p> + +<p>His religious prejudices have contributed to arrest his intellectual +development, for they are puritanical and antiquated in a singular and +lamentable degree. He speaks of <i>liberi pensatori</i> as the Church elders +of Maine or Massachusetts might have done in the days of witch-torturing +and atheist-burning. He thinks that the future great war will be between +what he calls believers and unbelievers; and he looks forward with joy +to the coming conflict when men shall again fly at each other's throat +for the glory of God. This kind of mental cecity has its inevitable +results: it makes him step lamely where he would otherwise walk with +manly alacrity, and it makes him afraid to face the light of facts which +his truer instincts tell<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> him are existing and incontrovertible. Is this +the result of early education, of hereditary inclinations, of female or +ecclesiastical influence? I do not know; but come whence it may, this +taint of bigotry obscures his intelligence and stops his progress, and +is matter of profound regret to those who see what he would have been +without it.</p> + +<p>Many passages in his works show that he has perceived and grasped the +universal dominance of that corruption which so fatally exists in all +Italian life, and one could wish that he would make a more complete +exposure of it. Take this account of how the banker, Del Ferice, +obtained the decoration for a syndic who was one of his political +supporters:—</p> + +<blockquote><p>'Del Ferice, left to himself, returned to the question of the +mayor's decoration. If he failed to get the man what he wanted, +the fellow would doubtless apply to someone of the opposite +party, would receive the coveted honour, and would take the +whole voting population with him at the next general election, +to the total discomfiture of Del Ferice.</p> + +<p>It was necessary to find some valid reason for proposing him +for the distinction. He could not decide what to do just then, +but he ultimately hit upon a successful plan. He advised his +correspondent to write a pamphlet upon the rapid improvement of +agricultural interests in his district under the existing +Ministry, and he even went so far as to compose and send some +notes on the subject. These notes proved to be so voluminous +and complete, that when the mayor had copied them he could not +find a pretext<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> for adding a single word or correction. They +were printed upon excellent paper with ornamental margins under +the title of <i>Onward, Parthenope!</i> The mayor got his decoration +and Del Ferice was re-elected, but no one has ever inquired +into the truth of the statements contained in the pamphlet.'</p></blockquote> + +<p>These passages and others similar give one the conviction that Mr +Crawford, if he had 'let himself go,' might have been a satirist of no +slight force. He has preferred to write charming stories, ingenious in +construction, but slight in development, to amuse his generation; yet +there is, I think, abundant evidence that he might have done stronger +things, perhaps may do them still. He has preferred to lead a seagull's +life, skimming the surface of the deep and shunning its storms. But he +might have led the petrel's. Probably all the influences of an agreeable +social existence have tended to make him indolent and unwilling to raise +tempests in it. Few resist the pressure of a social atmosphere. His book +called <i>With the Immortals</i>, marred as it is by the incongruity and +impossibility of its setting, shows that he can reflect if he likes, and +can express his reflections. If this work had been cast in such a form +as Mr Mallock's <i>New Republic</i>, or Sir Arthur Helps' <i>Friends in +Council</i>, or Christopher North's <i>Noctes Ambrosianæ</i> it would have been +remarkable for the arguments and dialogues contained in it. But the +ghost-element, the supernatural scenic effects, kill its excellence. Dr +Johnson, Heine, Pascal, Bayard, François de Valois and Cæsar are too +ill-assorted for us to accept them<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> in each other's company, and the +idea of these dead men being all able to converse in English, and all +doomed to wear through ages the clothes they wore in life, is so comical +that it destroys all interest and illusion which their conversation +otherwise might excite. There is a regrettable inability in Mr Crawford +to perceive the ridiculous. He lacks humour, and the perception of the +incongruous is not alive in him; nor is there either any poetic feeling +in his way of regarding life. He is essentially a citizen of the world +as the world exists in this last quarter of the fast-fading century, and +the Sirens sing not for him, though he dwells upon their shores.</p> + +<p>Let him, therefore, appreciate more thoroughly his own very admirable +powers, and confine himself to painting the men and women of his time +and class, with all that cosmopolitan knowledge of them which he +possesses. I should like to see from him an Italian novel of modern +political life. He has, I make no doubt, had ample opportunities of +studying its machinery and its intrigues. He can dissect with so much +subtlety and correctness the brain and the temper of such a man as Del +Ferice, that there can be no doubt a political novel from him, placed in +Rome, would have alike accuracy and interest and irony. But he must +clear his mind of some of its cobwebs, and he must realise that the +'unbelievers' and revolutionists, who at present horrify him, constitute +the keenest intellectual element in Italy, indeed, the only healthy one, +and contain the only hope there is, if this be but a feeble one, of any +attainment by the nation in the future to any true liberty and +cleanliness in political aims.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span></p> + +<p>I cannot conclude these few remarks upon his Italian stories without a +word of thanks to him for the pleasant hours he has often given me, and +the gallery of interesting portraits with which he has enriched the +memory of all those who read his novels.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="IV" id="IV"></a>IV</h2> + +<h3>LE SECRET DU PRÉCEPTEUR</h3> + + +<p>At the opening ceremony of a new free library at Lambeth in London, not +many weeks ago, Sir John Lubbock is reported to have made the following +remarks regarding fiction:—</p> + +<blockquote><p>'Sir J. Lubbock, in moving a vote of thanks to the Prince of +Wales and the Princess Louise, remarked that the free libraries +of London now contained more than 250,000 books, whilst last +year over 100,000 people borrowed volumes, and on more than +2,500,000 occasions books were used in the libraries +themselves. It was a fallacy to suppose that public libraries +were only used by novel readers. The proportion of works of +fiction used in the Camberwell libraries was only 65 per cent., +and, of course, in this percentage were included nearly all the +books used by children. It must also be borne in mind that it +took a great deal longer to read a history or a work of science +than it did to run through a story. Under these circumstances +he thought it might fairly be said that the people of London +exercised a very good choice in the books they read. He himself +should be very sorry to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> undervalue novels. Even nonsense was +extremely refreshing, and he thought the English people had +learnt more of their history from novels and from Shakespeare's +plays than from books of history.'</p></blockquote> + +<p>In these few sentences there are embraced the views entertained in +general by the English nation with regard to the art of fiction. By the +English nation it is, and probably always will be, regarded as on a par +with chromo-lithography, the use of the kodak, and tight-rope dancing.</p> + +<p>'Even nonsense is refreshing,' says this kind defender of romance. He +might have added that this depends very much on the character of the +nonsense; there is dull nonsense, strained nonsense, self-conscious +nonsense, vulgar nonsense, which is duller than a dull sermon and +heavier than heavy bread; the nonsense which dilates and delights the +heart of the coarse and common fool, is as a stagnant and stinking pond +to the cultured mind; and true nonsense, <i>i.e.</i>, <i>jeux d'esprit</i>, +caricatures, parodies, 'exquisite fooling,' does not come under the head +of novels at all.</p> + +<p>Someone had apparently been objecting to the creation of free libraries +on the score that they were chiefly used by readers of fiction, and in +support of such libraries Sir John Lubbock (not venturing to make so +heterodox an assertion as that the perusal of fiction <i>per se</i> is +valuable and desirable) pleads that only sixty-five per cent. of the +books borrowed were novels, and refers to the rapidity with which a +novel can be 'run through,' as he phrases it, and proceeds,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> as an +excuse for the perusal of fiction, to state that the English public +chiefly derives its knowledge of history from novels and from +Shakespeare's plays. This declaration, which is enough to make Mr +Freeman turn in his grave, and Mr Froude writhe in his professorial +chair, is, I believe, based on an exact truth, but it never appears to +occur to the speaker that while the history to be learned from fiction +and the drama is not of the purest kind, the fine art of an admirable +book, as of an admirable play, contains many another lesson more +valuable than even those of correct history to the reader who is capable +of assimilating and appreciating it.</p> + +<p>Sir John Lubbock kindly adds that he should be 'very sorry to undervalue +novels.' Sweet and gracious condescension! He would be sorry to +'undervalue' Boccaccio, Cervantes, Guerrazzi, Théophile Gautier, +Merimée, Victor Hugo, Thackeray, Walter Scott, Fielding, Octave +Feuillet, Georges Sand, and Bulwer Lytton! Admirable benevolence! A +treatise on the ways of ants or bees must, of course, rank as an +infinitely higher work than a mere study of the manners, characters, and +passions of mankind. To peruse the former work is education; to read the +latter work is recreation, not absolutely injurious, perhaps, but +scarcely beneficial. Sir John Lubbock on an ant-hill has the sublimity +of the scientist: Alphonse Daudet on human nature is a mere trumpery +trifler.</p> + +<p>It does not appear even to occur to Sir John Lubbock that a fine novel +contains intellectual qualities of the highest kind, and combines in +itself<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> the widest effects and the most delicate minutiæ of creative +art. A fine novel should be no more 'run through' than the sculptures of +the Vatican or the pictures of the Uffizi should be run through in +ignorance and haste: common readers, like common tourists, may do so, +but to do so is as gross and unpardonable an insult to the book as it is +to the sculptures and the paintings.</p> + +<p>Reflect but a moment upon all the divers and numerous qualities which +are of necessity existent in the creator of a fine novel before it can +be produced; not only imagination but wit, not only wit but scholarship, +not only scholarship but fancy, not only fancy but discrimination, +observation, knowledge of the passions, sympathy with the most opposite +temperaments, the power to call up character from the void, as the +sculptor creates figures from the clay, and, for amalgamating, +condensing, and vivifying all these talents, the mastery of an exquisite +subtlety, force, and eloquence in language. All these various gifts must +be united in one writer before a fine novel can be produced; and when it +is produced it requires (to be duly estimated) as cultured and as +respectful a study of it as an educated traveller would take to the +Vatican or to the Uffizi.</p> + +<p>I have derived month by month, as it has appeared in the <i>Révue des Deux +Mondes</i>, the most delicate and acute pleasure from the perusal of <i>Le +Secret du Précepteur</i>, yet it is a pleasure which can only be obtained +from it by a serene, leisurely, artistic enjoyment of its exquisite +literary qualities. It is like a wine of which the bouquet can only be +appreciated by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> educated palates. There is but little movement in it; +the incident is slight, the situations derive their fascination for the +reader not from their violence or their singularity, but from their +perfect probability, and from their psychological interests; and the +whole tone of it is kept carefully throughout to the smooth bantering +semi-<i>gouailleur</i> tone of the opening recital. Ah, that style!—clear as +water, delicate, full of grace, limpid, harmonious, exquisite! It has +all the polished charm of the man of the world, and all the eloquence +and brilliancy of the artist. I have heard a great ambassador in a +beautiful tapestried chamber play the music of Schumann and Chopin and +Bach with admirable and sympathetic <i>maestria</i>; the style of Cherbuliez +reminds me of that <i>diplomât-virtuose</i>. We hear incessantly of the +magical style of Paul Bourget; but beside the style of Cherbuliez that +of Bourget is strained, tortuous, affected, artificial. The supreme +excellence of that of Cherbuliez is its consummate ease, like the ease +of a perfect manner in society. To employ all the resources of such a +style is as great a delight to the master of it as the use of the rapier +to the master of fencing, as the handling of the plastic clay to the +sculptor. To relate a narrative in such a style is as warm and full a +pleasure to the possessor of it as it is to the painter to create a +winter's night or summer's day, youth or age, dawn or moonlight, a dance +of nymphs, or a frolic of fauns, out of a few ground earths, a little +oil, and a square of canvas. But to appreciate it the reader of it must +bring with him some qualities on his own behalf.</p> + +<p>There are in it none of those Anglicisms so irritating<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> in the works of +Bourget and others, such as Henry for Henri, Francis for François, +'window' for 'fenêtre,' 'le cab stoppait' for 'le fiacre s'arrêtait,' +and so many similar disfigurements of the most polished and elegant +language of the world. The temptation to use a foreign language is great +when its expressions are such as no other language can equally well +render. But who can think that 'cab' is better than 'fiacre,' or +'window' than 'fenêtre'? The French of Cherbuliez is the French of an +elegant writer, of a man of the world, and is, beside that of 'les +jeunes,' as a pure and limpid river beside a crooked and choked-up +stream. Without their professorial jargon of psychology or their +strained analysis, which so greatly fatigues the reader and resembles +nothing so much as the efforts of a cyclist to run smoothly on a stony +road, <i>Le Secret du Précepteur</i> is full of delicate and interesting +studies of the human mind and character. Its especial triumph is to +excite and retain the interest of the reader in a character which in the +hands of most writers would have been either insignificant or absurd.</p> + +<p>The teller of the story is the preceptor himself, who, unlovely in face +and form, filling a subordinate and somewhat absurd position, frankly +confessing his own follies and errors, is yet the most lovable and the +most dignified of men; the intellectual grace of the scholar and the +philosopher wholly atoning for and effacing the inferiority of place and +the deformity of features. He tells us of his own extreme ugliness, so +that we are not deluded into thinking it a <i>belle laideur</i>, but accept +it as what he calls it, an ugliness which, coupled with poverty, would +scare all women<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> away from him all the years of his life; but, despite +of it, we feel the irresistible charm of his personality, we admire his +tact, we adore his unselfishness, we are as delighted by his +self-restraint as by his courage and his will, and we take leave of him +with the regret which we feel when we part for an indefinite period from +a companion of the finest culture and the warmest sympathies. We regret +also that, like most unselfish persons, he is forced to be content with +the crumbs of happiness instead of its bread. It is strictly true to +life that he should receive no more; it proves the author a true artist +that he has been able to resist the temptation of giving so attractive a +character a happy and unnatural fate, and we who know how the awards of +life are proportioned, know that it is entirely in keeping both with art +and truth that the <i>bon chien</i> should receive no more than the good dog +usually gets in recompense for his fidelity. We know that it could not +be otherwise; yet we regret the necessity for leaving the good dog with +his dry broken crusts.</p> + +<p>I regard the extreme interest and attachment with which this character +inspires us as one of the greatest triumphs of fiction, because its +attraction is stripped of all the adventitious aids to interest which +accompany beauty, rank, or position. We have a plain, poor man, in a +paltry and invidious situation, who conquers all which is against him as +a hero of romance, and arrives at the highest place in the reader's +esteem and affection by mere force of natural dignity, excellence of +heart, and the irresistible superiority of wit and intellect. He is +throughout all his actions, moreover, entirely natural. It is difficult, +in reading his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> account of them, to believe that he is a fictitious +character; all that he does and says is so real, so human. No one who +reads <i>Terre Promise</i> or <i>Cœur de Femme</i> is ever for an instant +tempted to think that the characters ever did live or ever could have +lived; they are <i>cartonnages</i>, lay figures, draped in clothes from the +costume maker's, and moving in obedience to the hand of their +manipulator. But as Maupassant's Pierre et Jean are living, as Loti's +Gaud and Fatougay live, as Rod's Michael Teissier lives, as the +delicious Yette lives, so, and with even more vitality than they, the +tutor Tristan lives in this admirable novel. And all the people around +him live in this country house near Epernay, which is the scene of +nearly all his joys and sufferings. We wish, indeed, that this scene +never changed; so well does its landscape accord with the narrative, +that one wishes the unities could have been preserved to the end. One +regrets the change of venue when the story is carried to Paris. It is +perhaps probable that the end is not what was originally intended by +Cherbuliez.</p> + +<p>It is a story which it is very difficult to end artistically. In point +of fact it is not ended at all; it is only broken off at a certain +crisis, and leaves the reader in the persuasion that Monique will have +many adventures, and her 'bon chien' and her husband many anxieties. The +fault in it, if fault there is, seems to me to be that, if this crisis +had been contemplated from the beginning, the character of Louis +Moufrin, extremely natural as far as it goes, should have been rendered +a little more heroic, so that more interest would have attached to his +transformation<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> under the stings of jealousy. If this were not done the +<i>coup de pistolet</i> should have been given, not by him, but by the +preceptor; indeed, since Tristan tells us early in his story that he is +a very fine pistol-shot, we are always expecting him to prove his skill +on someone, and one could wish that he had exercised it as he desired to +do on the odious coxcomb, Triguères. The impression is irresistibly made +on the reader's mind that this was the <i>dénouement</i> originally +contemplated by the author, and it would have been one stronger and more +satisfactory. But perhaps he renounced it from the feeling that tragedy +as a climax would have jarred on the harmony of a book which is +throughout kept to the good-humoured and jesting tone of cultured +society.</p> + +<p>It would take many pages to do justice to the other persons of the +novel; all are admirably drawn; there is only some exaggeration in that +of Madame Moufrin, <i>mère</i>. But the cheery and generous merchant Brogues, +the high-bred, high-born <i>dévote</i> who is his wife, the charming priest +Verlet, the shy, silent, tender-hearted and timid Moufrin, the +inimitable portrait of the learned, excellent and insufferable Sidonie, +and lastly, the entirely uncommon conception of the captious and +provoking <i>petite Japonaise</i>, who rules her faithful two-legged dog with +a rod of iron; all these are admirably pourtrayed, even if they yield in +importance to the central figure of the preceptor himself. The finest +and most complicated study of them all is that of Madame Brogues, with +her piety, her sensuality, her instinctive patrician revolt against the +monotony of a bourgeois interior, her complex and scornful<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> nature, her +mingled indifference and tenderness for her daughters, the union of +touching maternal sadness and devotion to the superior claims of +<i>chiffons</i>, which traits are so admirably depicted in her last meeting +with her younger daughter Monique.</p> + +<p>Cherbuliez has, it is plain to see, been much struck with the large +place which <i>chiffons</i> occupy in the lives of women of the world, and +with the power of consolation which the interests of the toilette +possess for them. The mother and daughter are both extremely touched by +their accidental meeting (the first since the elopement of the former +and the marriage of the latter); but this meeting takes place in the +Exhibition building in Paris, and their emotions do not prevent them +from studying, discussing, and purchasing beautiful fabrics. It is +exactly the union of conflicting feelings which is really to be observed +in life: the mingling of deep sentiment and sincere regret with +interests of a totally different kind which appear trivial but are +really absorbing distractions, perhaps frivolous, but entirely natural, +arising from those cares and pleasures of personal appearance which are +indestructible in the <i>élégante</i> by anything short of death.</p> + +<p>There is also another passage which equally illustrates the ability and +insight of the author in his perception and representation of that dual +motive, that twin yet conflicting sentiment, which so frequently moves +us and so especially characterises the modern mind, which is frequently +complex and artificial, trivial and analytic, and thereby incapable of a +single, or of a simple, emotion. Sidonie, a very proud, chaste, and +implacable maiden, is stung to the core by her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> discovery of her +mother's flight; the thought of what the neighbours and the servants +will think is torture to her, and a generous and genuine grief for the +blow to her father moves her to the first tears which she has ever shed. +But still the idea, the knowledge that since she means never to marry, +she is now and will be for ever supreme mistress of her father's house +is a source of irresistible pleasure and consolation, and as she goes +upstairs she cannot resist, even on this terrible night, exercising her +first despotic and unshared power. Her mother, who loved softness and +shadow, had always insisted on the electric lamp at the foot of the +staircase being shaded and softened by folds of rose-coloured stuff, +Sidonie had the rose-coloured stuff taken away, and even on this first +evening of her reign the undimmed and intense radiance of the unveiled +light proclaims the change of domestic government, and the absolute +authority of the new ruler. This is one of the many exquisite finenesses +of touch which reveal the delicacy of observation in the writer +throughout this novel, and can be only appreciated by a reader who +brings to it that attention and capacity which Sir John Lubbock and his +audience would think it only worth while to devote to a treatise on the +stalk-eyed crustacea or a monograph upon the household flea.</p> + +<p>M. Jules Lemaitre, in his story of <i>Les Rois</i>, says with a sneer that +one of his personages was 'née pour gouter Auber, Cabanel, et les romans +de la <i>Révue des Deux Mondes</i>.' Now in his own volume, entitled <i>Les +Rois</i>, published this season, and received with great curiosity in +Paris, M. Jules Lemaitre has merely mixed up the tragedy of Meyerling, +the mystery of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> Johann Orth, and recent well-known card and debt +scandals concerning living princes; and, having reproduced with these +the individuality of Louise Michel, the life of Kropotkine, and the +career of a well-known financier, he has introduced some essays on +social and political problems into his reproductions of these +personages, dated the whole 1900, and called it a novel. But it is not a +novel, for the imagination does not enter into it. It is a photograph, +or a travesty, whatever the reader may please to call it, of actual +recent modern events, thinly disguised, but unjustly exaggerated, and an +almost impudent imitation in many ways of Daudet's <i>Rois en Exil</i>. There +is some brilliant writing in it, and some fine thoughts and expressions, +which is, of course, always the case when the writer is so intelligent a +man as Lemaitre, but a novel it is not; it is a series of scenes, almost +all borrowed or imitated from well-known events; it is a patchwork with +little harmony in its arrangement, and it has the supreme fault of +introducing long descriptions of anterior events, and bringing in new +characters, at the close of the action. There is also one suggestion, if +not more, concerning a royal person, so horrible that it seems unfair +and even cruel to make it of one who cannot resent it or defend herself. +The date of the story may be called 1900, but the events on which it is +built have already been lived through by conspicuous characters.</p> + +<p>It is not becoming, therefore, in so immature a story-teller as M. +Lemaitre proves himself to be, and one who is obliged to go for his +incidents to the scandals of courts, to sneer at the novels of the +<i>Révue<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> des Deux Mondes</i>, in which, to go no further back than last +year, such admirable works as <i>La Vie Privét de Michael Teissier</i> and +<i>Le Secret du Précepteur</i> have first seen the light. To be a critic of +it is much easier than to be a creator of fine fiction; to pull to +pieces requires lesser qualities than to construct.</p> + +<p>In the past twenty months there have been some very fine novels in +French literature. <i>A l'Abîme</i>, by Paul Vassili, is a masterpiece of +originality, and the character of the great egoist, who is its hero, is +matchless in its intuition, its philosophy, and its realism; it is a +narrative of intense interest without its having any other source for +its interest than that which lies in following the evolution of a type +wholly new in literature, and the crystallisation of a naturally +generous nature into a complete philosophic selfishness through +circumstances which lead to its moral isolation amidst the full success +of a triumphant career. <i>Amants</i> and <i>La Force des Choses</i>, of Paul +Margueritte, are beautiful novels, remarkable for originality of +conception, correctness of observation, and the talent of interesting +the reader in perfectly natural events. The former in especial is full +of truth, poetic feeling, and novelty of situation and of character; it +is entirely a story of love, but it is love pourtrayed with equal +sympathy and comprehension, and embracing scenes entirely dramatic +whilst entirely natural. If Sir John Lubbock will read these three books +and end with <i>Le Secret du Précepteur</i>, he will, I think, feel bound to +admit that such works require for their due appreciation quite as much +attentive respect in their perusal, and quite as many intellectual and +perceptive<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> qualities in their reader, as the analysis, however +interesting, of a wasp's social habits, and the diary, however +delightful, of a caged bluebottle's appetite. The study of earthworms +demands, no doubt, the exercise of much higher faculties than are +necessary for the study of human nature. Still it is difficult to +believe that the earthworm can afford such varied and complicated +interest as man, and nowhere are the portraiture and analysis of man so +ably depicted as in a fine novel.<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="V" id="V"></a>V</h2> + +<h3>L'IMPÉRIEUSE BONTÉ.<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a></h3> + + +<p>A French critic has ranked the Frères Rosny amongst the 'authors of +to-morrow,' and in a certain sense they, no doubt, belong to the class +called <i>les jeunes</i>, often wrongly, since amongst these <i>jeunes</i> there +are men of middle age. <i>Les jeunes</i> is an expression which is rather +intended to indicate new methods and new views than to describe the +actual age of the writers. In a sense everyone belongs to <i>les jeunes</i> +who is emancipated from conventional tradition; but too much stress, too +much importance, has been attached to this name; true art is always +natural, and this new school is seldom natural; there is more +eccentricity of manner in it than there is genuine originality of +thought; there is too great an effort, too perpetual a strain in its +productions; frequently, as in the case of Maurice Barrés, subtlety of +language is employed to conceal absolute poverty of idea; or, as in the +case of Georges Ohnet, to clothe mere wooden puppets with a semblance of +life by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> skill in depicting incident; or, as in the case of Paul +Bourget, to eke out a slender modicum of incident and idiosyncrasy with +charm of style and an imposing psychology, and disarm criticism by +euphuism.</p> + +<p>In the two Rosnys there are some of the affectations of these writers, +but there is none of their poverty of idea. They are full of ideas; full +of meditation, of observation, of sympathy, of experience; the narrow +limits to which custom confines the novel are far too small for their +abundant powers. In portions of their work there is that more artificial +mode of treatment, that strain after recondite words and tortuous and +archaic methods of expressions, which are the blemish of <i>les jeunes</i>; +but in many other portions their true insight, their deep feeling, and +their artistic instincts raise them above this pedantry and enable them +to produce certain passages which have few equals in any literature. +<i>L'Impérieuse Bonté</i> is a very long book, but the reader would be dull +indeed who did not wish it were longer, and who would not feel that the +writers had been forced to renounce many scenes and many reflections and +descriptions with which their minds were teeming. They convey to their +reader their own attachment to their personages; willingly, we feel +sure, they could have filled a hundred volumes with the story of their +fate; the fountain of their sympathies is fed by an eternal spring. What +is most admirable also in them is their remarkable equity; they can see +the injustice done to the rich by the poor, as well as that done to the +poor by the rich; and this quality of impartial sympathy is very rare. +There is abundance in the world of that one-sided sympathy which springs +from a <i>parti pris</i>, but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> that which is many-sided and perfectly just is +very unusual. The Rosnys are capable of it.</p> + +<p>The language indeed is at times tortuous, inflated, archaic, after the +manner of the modern school; but at other times it loses this mannerism +and becomes the clear, limpid, polished French so dear to us. It is +never clearer or simpler than in the passages concerning the Lamarques +and other sufferers which touch the heart.</p> + +<p>The first portion of the book is the finest; the scenes which treat of +this family are the greatest as they are the simplest of the whole. Was +there ever any passage more pathetic and more real than this description +of the last drive in the poor hired vehicle of the dying man and his +children?</p> + +<blockquote><p>'Lamarque drew a deep breath under the delicious weight of the +freshened air. Strength and peace brushed his tired, sickly +frame.</p> + +<p>'"Ah! I was sure that this would make me well."</p> + +<p>'A smile came around his diaphanous nostrils, his lips parted +with childlike pleasure. Albert felt that heaven and earth were +born again in endless life. His soul shone through his blue +eyes; he began to laugh and jest with nature. But his mother +and Georges only saw more plainly in the luminous light the +deadly thinness of Lamarque, and could think of nothing except +how they should be able to make up for the expense of the five +francs for the cab. They had driven out towards a road which +looked mysterious and poetic; limes, acacias, young elms, all +kinds of shades of green, were lit by a descending<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> sun. There +were flocks of slender trunks; a dainty philosophy of verdure; +high above, pale foliage seemed to drink in the light; then +depths where the sun-rays seemed to flow and stream like the +nebulæ of comets, where they lay like vapour on which some +fragile insect life floated like medusæ on the sea. Already +dead leaves were on the ground like the tanned flesh, or the +brown fur, of forest creatures. Spiders' webs had the colours +of the rainbow; in these birdless trees butterflies lent an +illusion of winged life and figured the flight of nestlings. +Happiness seemed crystallised in the figure of a woman +knitting; in the cry of a distant railway train; in the joy of +two children munching pears with their crusts; in the sport of +a dog who rolled on the grass with a youthful bark and the eyes +of one in love with life. The red frock of a young girl passing +by lent a note of force, of splendour, of intensity, to the +golden afternoon.</p> + +<p>'"It is so nice here!" said Albert.</p> + +<p>'Georges, watching the silvery gossamer webs of the spiders, +remembered all the visions he had ever had of liberty and space +for kind animals and kind people.</p> + +<p>'"I am young again!" murmured Lamarque.</p> + +<p>'He was still pale, but his pallor was less corpse-like. Even +the little François listened and enjoyed with a mute +delight—mute because shut within himself—and loved his +parents, his brothers, the driver, the trees, and the buzzing +flies.</p> + +<p>'"Stop," said the sick man suddenly. It was before a high gate, +through which was visible a spectacle of Eden, a large garden.</p> + +<p>'They could see a great pond, over which there<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> could float +whole broods of delicate dreams; there were tall Lombardy +poplars, and the grace of weeping willows. Drooping larches +also hung over the water-lilies; there were the thick shade of +Canadian poplars, and also the timid murmurs, the sensitive +sighs, of aspens. Then there was the charm of woodland life +reflected in the water; of the landscape repeated below, +symmetrical, and sombre in an abyss of oxidised silver. Then +came grassy walks and gentle slopes of turf; further off were +clearings in which beautiful trees were half seen, half hidden +in misty distance like a promise of abundance and of happiness. +The felicity of the place entered into the souls of the poor +family who looked on it; they had at once the anguish of +feeling that nothing like this would ever be theirs, and the +ecstasy of knowing that such beauty did exist.</p> + +<p>'Standing up in their sorry hired carriage, they gazed in +rapture, saying but few words.</p> + +<p>'"One little corner of this garden would be wealth to us!" +sighed the mother.</p> + +<p>'"That corner—there," said Lamarque.</p> + +<p>'"One could not eat one's garden," said Albert.</p> + +<p>'Georges, hypnotised, followed with his eyes the flight of an +insect. Poised in the sunlight, the creature was motionless +awhile; then descended, ascended, then, swift as a sped arrow, +vanished in the shadows. One would wish for such an atom, +taking so small a place in creation, the joys, the instincts, +the intelligence of a great animal. At anyrate, it symbolises +all the enjoyments of life, repose on a leaf, movement, ecstasy +of travel through space and towards mystery.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span></p> + +<p>'"Ah!" thought Georges, in distress, "even to come and see +this, one must have money!"</p> + +<p>'The hard and heavy thought was like a blow on the tender heart +of the boy. Soon this bitterness entered into the souls of all, +even of the youngest child.'</p></blockquote> + +<p>What I have translated as 'oxidised silver' is in the original +'blackened nickel,' one of those unfortunate, grotesque, inharmonious +expressions of which there are many in this work. To compare water, the +liquid, the mobile, the translucent, to any metal is a strange and +unfitting comparison. In this passage, which is serious and poetical, +the intrusion of such words as 'blackened nickel' seems offensive, and +mars all the impression of the phrase. But it is in this kind of offence +to the ear and the intelligence that <i>les jeunes</i> unhappily revel; they +see in such offences signs of emancipation, of realism, of originality, +when, in truth, the usage is no sign of anything except of a faulty ear +and a lack of judgment.</p> + +<p>Throughout the work, however, despite these occasional blemishes, every +episode connected with the Lamarques is a masterpiece of pathos and of +simplicity, until the last scene of all, when the three children with +their mother are about to light the charcoal collected by the little +François as it dropped from the waggons when they passed along the quay, +and kept in a corner of the miserable room, in readiness for the last +hour of all.</p> + +<p>The characters of the three boys, so dissimilar and yet united by the +vague likeness of race, are drawn with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> a life-like distinctness: +Georges, pensive and philosophic, proud, gentle, observant; Albert, +sceptic and scornful, with his passionate sense that, since death killed +his father through serving others, there can be no God; and the +youngest, François, timid, imaginative, devoted, hiding himself under +the table, to still the pangs of hunger with fancies of a lonely fairy +isle where neither want nor death should come. These three children +offer one of the most perfect pictures of innocent and unmerited +suffering which literature can offer, and the limner of them and of +their sorrows is a fine writer. Jacques Fougeraye, the central figure of +the romance, yields his place to them as its chief interest; and is also +perhaps inferior in interest to his unhappy and generous patron +Dargelle. One would desire to know through what circumstances a man of +the talent and character of Fougeraye comes to be destitute in the +streets of Paris; something also of the parentage, education, influences +which have gone towards making him what he is. In the same way one would +wish to know how Lamarque fell into poverty, how his children became so +cultured and refined, how the whole family is aloof in every way from +their common and odious kindred. <i>Les jeunes</i> do not deign to throw +light on the antecedents of their <i>dramatis personæ</i>; they are wrong, +for two reasons: one because they thus baulk the natural and legitimate +curiosity of their readers; the second, that there is no true psychology +(the word they worship) without study of the causes which have +contributed to make a man or woman what the observer of them finds them +to be. A writer like Gyp may with airy grace jump, as through a +circus-hoop,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> into the middle of the lives of her personages without +further explanation, but in a philosophic student of human nature in its +sad seriousness such saltatory pranks are unbecoming.</p> + +<p>One could well spare the hundreds of pages devoted to long and, one must +say, tiresome descriptions of moral and mental states, for a few pages +of lucid and graphic information as to the causes which brought the +characters of the book to the pass in which we find them at their first +appearance. But this is a method of composition too simple, direct, and +natural to commend itself to <i>les jeunes</i>. And when on rare occasions +they do furnish personal descriptions, these are so wrapped up in +anatomical and physiological language that we can conjure up from them +little or no real likeness. The characteristic of this new school is an +extreme vagueness, an intentional nebulosity. Their personages are never +introduced to the reader, nor are they given any pedigree; even personal +description of them is of the slightest. They come abruptly on the scene +as though they came up through a trap-door. It is left to the +intelligence of the reader to supply all the details which the author +disdains to furnish. In a book, as in life, one likes to have people +duly presented before making their acquaintance; but this is a prejudice +which the new school scorns to gratify.</p> + +<p>There is a certain tedium in some of the experiences of Fougeraye, such +as in his visits to the hospitals and the asylum of misshappen human +creatures; and the young woman Louise, a medical student, who has +learned to look on death with professional indifference, is so virtuous +and self-satisfied that one is indisposed to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> share the admiration which +Fougeraye feels for her. He himself is so unpretentious, so +warm-hearted, so single-minded, and so manly that he deserves a more +sympathetic and less vain helpmeet than this female doctor, with her too +prosy platitudes and her chill philosophies.</p> + +<p>Jeanne Dargelle, whom he rejects, is the least truthful, the most +artificial, figure in the book. We are never interested in her. The +breath of life has not been breathed into her; and when she kills +herself we remain indifferent; we know that in her world women do not +kill themselves, and a very proud woman would have found the idea of +dying, because her husband's secretary had no love for her, altogether +unendurable. We feel also that in real life Fougeraye would probably +have shared her passion, and the struggle it would have caused between +his temptation, and his loyalty and gratitude to Dargelle, would have +been of profound interest. The chapter following on her death, in which +Dargelle is alone with her dead body, is very fine, and reflects exactly +that strange mixture of emotions and sensations which sway the survivor +who passes long hours of solitude beside the corpse of one once dear to +him—the trivial incongruities which force themselves in amidst intense +regret, the eccentric fancies which dance like marsh-lights over the +sombre swamp of a deep despair. Who amongst us has not cried, like +Dargelle, 'Pardon, pardon!' from the depths of an aching heart, looking +on the dead features of one to whom, in the eyes of the world, we had no +fault?</p> + +<p>There is in the Rosnys the distressing habit, common<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> to all the more +recent French writers, with few exceptions, of endeavouring to be +pedantic, to be involved, to express an idea barbarously and +bewilderingly instead of harmoniously and clearly; to say <i>épiderme</i> +instead of <i>peau</i>, <i>véridique</i> instead of <i>vrai</i>, <i>prunelles</i> instead of +<i>yeux</i>; to use the jargon of science, the abomination of foreign or +technical idioms; to turn away from the natural, the direct, the usual, +the obvious, and seek an appearance of profundity in what is merely a +confusion of sounds. These affectations, these efforts, spoil many of +the pages, and weary the most attentive reader in many of the chapters; +as does also the incessant tendency to find similes of the most bizarre +and eccentric kind, such as the comparison of dead leaves to the fur of +animals; of a simile 'frail as the downy blow-ball of dandelion-seed'; +of a sky 'of a powdery blue, with the horizon of an aquarium'; of a +heart beating 'like a pear oscillating in a breeze,' and many others as +far-fetched, as incongruous, and as grotesque. The excessive use of +simile, however apt and exact, is always a fault; but similes as absurd +and as strained as are most of those employed by the Rosnys, become a +deformity of style, annoy the mind, and disagreeably abstract and +distract the thoughts.</p> + +<p>A too long, too technical, and too involved description is an inventory +which leaves no concrete whole upon the reader's mind; it is a mere +conglomeration of items. Take, as an instance, this description of +Dargelle's physiognomy; and be it remembered that we never know who or +what Dargelle is, how he came by his vast fortune, or anything, indeed, +about him, except that he is <i>un pauvre riche</i>, a capitalist, one<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> +supposes, rich by inheritance. Here is the personal description of +him:—</p> + +<blockquote><p>'A fat face, sad, meditative; his cheeks fell in; they were +flabby. The forehead was a half-circle, with three deep +wrinkles, the temples inflamed. The brow was vast but +undecided, despite heavy eyebrows above violent eyes. The lips +of a wild beast; a short beard which had never grown; flat +hair, forming a little patch behind the brow and advancing +laterally to the ears. The whole a Finnish face, very pale, +with a disposition of the skin to become scaly. The nose long, +broad, very irregular, between the snub and the aquiline, the +end raised, the bridge bowed. Hardly any back to the head; the +neck, like a Celt's, running straight up to the crown. The ears +folded backward, stiff, cartilaginous,' etc., etc., etc.</p></blockquote> + +<p>This long and disagreeable description merely conveys the impression of +a monster; and it does not in any way agree with the character of +Dargelle, magnanimous, tender, generous, and sensitive; suffering +acutely from a sense of utter loneliness amidst the parasites, who trade +on his kind feelings. A man of this temperament would not have violent +eyes or wild-beast lips; and the elevation of his sentiments would +certainly have given some beauty of expression to his features.</p> + +<p>Of Jacques Fougeraye, the hero of the work, we are given no description +whatever. On the other hand, the portraiture of the frightful occupant +of a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> monsters' asylum is traced in fullest and most minute detail, with +an ostentation of technical knowledge, in that passion for what is +horrible and abnormal which is characteristic of this school.</p> + +<p>Dargelle, morally, is throughout consistent and lovable, from his first +movement of suspicion and distrust, feeling that his new favourite will +only use him and cheat him, as all the other dispensers of his charities +have done, to the last frank smile with which, though jealous of the +happiness he has himself created, he says: 'Allons donc! Je vois bien +que vous m'aimez aussi.'</p> + +<p>The rich man will only have the crumbs of the bread of the soul which is +called love, but his generosity is content with it. '<i>Le pauvre riche!</i>' +say the Rosnys, with rare insight into the small consolation which, to +those in full possession of them, the powers of wealth can give. +Dargelle is unique, and it is almost to be regretted that he should +occupy but a secondary place in the narrative. The description of his +physical malady is perhaps exaggerated; deafness would scarcely cause +such violent moral and mental torture; but the pathos of his last +appearance is unexaggerated, and goes to the heart of the reader. By his +mere word so many people are made happy, and yet, to secure happiness, +even relief, for himself his millions are powerless! This is what many a +rich and generous man must have felt. The irony of fate is more cruel in +a sense to the heirs, than to the disinherited, of fortune. But the pain +which the rich suffer is purely sentimental, and there are very few +indeed who have nobility of nature enough to feel this at all.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span></p> + +<p>The rich man has always material comfort, freedom from daily and hourly +anxieties; he is at liberty to go wherever he likes, to do whatever he +pleases; he enjoys, if he have the true faculty for enjoyment; he can +make himself obeyed, if the obedience be but eye-service; he can +surround himself with beautiful objects; and he can freely indulge the +luxury of generosity, although it is the one luxury of which the rich +are not enamoured, the rich man in general never gives except to see his +name in print in the newspapers. The compassion of the Rosnys for the +rich is scarcely justified, since their greatest burden is <i>ennui</i>, and +this is an artificial kind of suffering due to defective sympathies, as +cold feet are due to sluggish circulation. The statement, put in the +mouth of Dargelle, that suicide is much more general amongst the rich +than the poor, is certainly not based on fact or on statistics. The rich +man, moreover, has one great and most precious exemption: he is free +from petty, carking bodily cares; he never knows the greatest agony +possible, that of seeing those dear to him hungry and homeless; he can +be always warm in cold weather, cool in hot weather; in illness he has +every palliative and assistance; his home is his own if he care for it, +intangible and immutable; the whole world is his if he possess +perception enough to enjoy it; his sufferings may be considerable from +dyspepsia and discontent, and, if he be of a high nature, from +irritation at the ingratitude and insincerity of human nature, but it is +absurd to compare his pains with those of the poor—above all, when the +poor are of fine temper, sensitive nerve and cultured intellect<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> like +the Fougeraye and Lamarque of the Rosnys. It is well to remind society +that there are sorrows of the soul from which the rich may suffer more +acutely than the poor; but it is to exceed this truth to represent the +rich as often suffering from this cause. The rich man is usually a +complete egotist, whose philanthropy has a political purpose or a social +ambition as its mainspring. A Dargelle may exist, does exist; but he is +one in ten millions. He is legitimate in his place as a character in +romance, but as a character in real life he is met with but very rarely.</p> + +<p>There are many social questions and many philosophic theories discussed +in <i>L'Impérieuse Bonté</i>. An unkind critic might say that it is rather a +social and philosophic essay than a romance. But in much it conforms to +and fulfils the highest demands of fiction, and the naturalness and +lovableness of the chief personages lend to it throughout the interest +of romance. The mission of Fougeraye in the expenditure of Dargelle's +money introduces, perforce, many phases of social misery. It was +probably to do this that the book was written; but the harmony and +interest of the action of the novel, as a novel, are not sacrificed to +this intention. In these chapters all affectation, all artifice drop +from the style, and the writers become masters of strong, simple and +infinitely touching prose. It is to be regretted that the influence of +their time should ever mislead them into tortuous and strained +exaggerations and archaisms when it is possible for them to write thus +simply and eloquently:—</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span></p><blockquote><p>'The few precious things—the brooch and earrings of Madame +Lamarque, even her wedding-ring, alas! then the china service, +saved with such effort from the fire, with a little rosewood +secrétaire, and two Sèvres vases won at a lottery for charity, +the gift to it of the Empress Eugénie—all disappeared, all +were devoured by the monster Misery. Georges suffered as much +as his parents; his nature was inclined towards the adoration +of relics, of frail things, of the semi-vitality of objects.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>'It rained a little; in the shadow of the fortifications the +lamps trembled under gusts of wind; the reflections touched the +wet grass, which seemed for the moment as fresh as the turf of +meadows. Everywhere solitude—solitude filled with a sense of +near and hidden human life in the closed houses from which came +the subdued light of unseen chambers in vague suggestion of +mysterious joys. But there was no living creature out of doors +except in the openings of the ramparts; on the grass, a dog +looking as furtive as a hunting wolf. The boy's eyes gazed at +the sky, at the grass, at the long vista of burning lamps, at +the grey stony road under his feet. A sense of beauty came into +his soul, but a beauty sombre as the psalms of All Saints' Day.</p> + +<p>'Beside him his mother carried the mattress which had been +sold; he bore one side of it on his shoulder.</p> + +<p>'They walk thus, beaten, conquered, the child full of +suffocating revolt, the mother humble and resigned, like the +meek beasts of the stall, with occasional flickers of wrath +soon extinguished. They go thus, saying to each other a few +words, muffled and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> heavyhearted, which are the mere dull +echoes of their souls. "We must turn down that street. How will +it end?—why does not the family help?" At a corner they stop, +and suddenly Georges is overwhelmed with pity for his mother, +as he sees her profile wet with rain in the light of the street +lamp.</p> + +<p>'He gazes at her. He remembers, in his earliest childhood, a +time when there had been two servants in their house; when his +mother had been a gentlewoman, going out for a walk with his +father, while the bonne pushed the little carriage of the baby +François. And here she was, his own mother, with a mattress for +sale on her shoulder, on foot in the mud at this time of night. +"Mamma! mamma! dear little mamma!" he cried, sobbing, without a +single selfish thought, caring only for her, so profoundly, so +intensely!'</p></blockquote> + +<p>Again, there is the same intense sympathy in the author with the +suffering of the spirit when the two Sèvres vases are taken to their new +home, sold for twenty francs, the poor, pretty, familiar things which +look so elegant, so slender, so aristocratic amongst the coarse, vulgar +ornaments of their new owners, that Georges is proud of their +superiority amidst the anguish with which he thinks of them, lost for +ever:</p> + +<blockquote><p>'Frail penates, saturated with the soul of home. Ah! how many +birthday mornings, how many twilights of study, how many long +rainy days and gentle suns of springtime, how many dreams of +future voyages in far lands, how many nights fearful with storm +or mute with falling snow, had these objects seen!<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> They had +been always there, fixing themselves inalienably on the retina +in their unalterable attitude of delicacy and art: and now they +were lost for ever, given over to an alien hand for a coin of +gold which would last two days!'</p></blockquote> + +<p>Nothing can be more touching, more sincere, more eloquent than this +episode.</p> + +<p>Take again the magnificent opening chapter of the fire at which Lamarque +contracts the illness which ultimately kills him. It is too long to +quote here, but its description is of a force incomparable, and of a +truth as great. No one of his contemporaries could have written this +chapter; its sobriety and veracity, united to its splendour of diction +and its terror of suggestion, make it a <i>magnum opus</i>.</p> + +<p>It has only one defect; it gives the reader the impression that it cost +great effort to the author. It does not convey that sense of the +author's spontaneous fertility and joy in creation which Pierre Loti, +François Coppée, Anatole France, feel and give. <i>L'Impérieuse Bonté</i> is +a great work, but its greatness must have cost painful thought and +unremitting labour.</p> + +<p>One feels that there is nothing of improvisation, of careless and happy +inspiration, about it. It is the matured fruit of profound observation, +and of complicated doubt, of an unselfish sorrow, and of a noble +altruism. It is a work which must impress and elevate all readers who +are capable of comprehending its teaching. But there is no laughter in +it, nor is there even a smile, save that sad divine smile which +accompanies the tears of pity.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="VI" id="VI"></a>VI</h2> + +<h3>WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT</h3> + + +<p>There are few men of our time more interesting than the man who bears +this name. Fresh with English air, and dark with desert suns, +passionately liberal in thought and nobly independent in opinion, +spending his winters on the shores of the Nile, on the edge of the +desert, and his summers between the vale of Shoreham, and the +alder-shaded water of the humble Mole, he touches, and has always +touched, life at its most different facets. Not without knowledge has he +written of the green Sussex weald, and of the woodcocks and the +thrushes, the oak trees and the yew trees, of 'Evelyn's land'; not +without love as though he were also a son of the soil has he written of +that other far-off country where—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'We may make terms with Nature, and awhile<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Put as it were our souls to grass, and run<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Barefooted and bareheaded in the smile<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of that long summer which still girds the Nile.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>His private life, likewise, is equally of interest to the most +indifferent, since he is the husband of Byron's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> granddaughter, the +father-in-law of Neville Lytton, the companion in youth of Owen +Meredith, the friend of the Arab, the champion of the dumb, and the +standard-bearer of all lost causes. In few personalities is there united +so much which is uncommon, and idiosyncrasies which are so varied. He +has been so fortunate, often-times, in his friends and his fortunes, +that it is perhaps only to be human that he should, in his editor who is +his friend, fail to be so fortunate as one could wish. Mr Henley, who +selected his poems, has excluded many; one is disposed to resent and to +rebel; Mr Henley is apt at all times to arouse that sensation in the +reader of his somewhat too condescending criticisms.</p> + +<p>Many of the verses excluded were political; now it is precisely in +politics that Mr Blunt is most delightful to those amongst us who abhor +actual governments.</p> + +<p>I wish that these poems had come before the public without this species +of apology with which Mr Henley heads them. They do not need so +uncertain a prefatory note. They are certainly not likely to be popular. +They will not be recited over a little tambourine, and used to collect +monies for woollen socks and chocolate. They will be little appreciated +by the lovers of ballads of blood and fury, and odes of war which scream +like a steam-hooter. They are made to be read in quiet places where +daffodils blossom, and the black-cap sings; where lake waters lie calm +in mountain shadows, or where, through the stillness of a studio or +study, a summer breeze blows dropped rose-leaves across the threshold.</p> + +<p>Mr Henley raises one standard of great verse: Milton's: and below that +nothing to him is great. I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> know not where he places Shelley, but does +Milton ever touch the heart except perhaps in the Lycidas? Who can care +for the exiles of Eden?</p> + +<p>I do not think that it was necessary for Mr Henley to say that Mr Blunt +is not John Milton. It would not occur to anyone that he was. But then, +neither to my thinking is he Byron or Burns, whom Mr Henley thinks that +he is, nor is he either Owen Meredith, to whom Mr Henley likewise +compares him. He is, to my thinking, Wilfrid Scawen Blunt; alone in his +verse as he is also alone (or almost alone) in his opinions and his +politics. I dislike comparisons in criticisms. It is a meagre way to +define what is, this habit of declaring what it is not; and I love not +either the diminution of the living for the exaltation of the dead, or +the praise of the living for the depreciation of the dead. Nor is it to +me either wit or wisdom to say that Byron 'followed.' Who did he follow? +Who was his precursor? Who showed him his matchless double rhymes? Who +before him struck the splendid chords of his Juan? Who crowded into a +few years of life such accomplishment, such eloquence such romance of +existence? Who resembled Byron before Byron lived?</p> + +<p>Poets who are not great, and do not aspire to be so, may touch the +chords of memory, may unseal the fountains of tears, may make dead loves +arise and smile, and the springs of dead years return, and do this with +a line, a verse, a suggestion. This is what Owen Meredith did in his +song; so does his friend and comrade in his. There is a strongly virile +quality in his verse: it is not epicene, nor ever effeminate;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> the +thoughts are always the thoughts of a man who has felt the hoof of the +desert horse cast up the sand of the desert, and seen the circle of the +waiting vultures poised in the blue air; and heard 'God's thunder upon +Horeb'; who has read his Augustine and Chrysostom on the shores of the +Dead Sea, and his Horace and his Herrick lying on the short +sheep-cropped grass of Sussex; who knows many a bank whereon the wild +thyme grows in lowly Kentish lanes, and has walked with the shades of +Dante and of Byron in the marble streets of Ravenna, and under the dying +pines of its forest; who has loved and laughed in the artificial +passions and mocking mirth of Paris, and has dwelt in the solitudes +where the hair tents of the sons of Shem are dark against the east.</p> + +<p>Mr Henley, in his somewhat autocratic manner, says that a man lives for +posterity in proportion as he figures the gestures and sets forth the +emotions of his own time. We can none of us judge what posterity may do +or say. I fear it will be too engrossed with itself to take much heed of +anything which went before it. Or, possibly, there will be no posterity +at all, but only a shattered earth; scattered into space by some exploit +of that boastful Icarus called Science. But taking Mr Henley's dictum as +it stands, is it true, seeing (as its context shows) that he means an +Englishman must be judged by what he writes of England? If this were +true, where would go the Juan and the Parisina, the Anactoria and the +Atalanta in Calydon, the Cenci and the Adonaïs, the Lucille and the +Clytemnestra? Scott would be greater than Shelley, and Cowper than +Coleridge. The theory will not hold water.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> Which is the greater play of +Shakespeare—'King John' or 'The Tempest'? 'Henry the Fifth' or 'Romeo +and Juliet'? 'Richard the Third' or 'Hamlet'? What are esteemed the +greatest epics of the human race—Milton's and Dante's—are located in +no known province of our narrow sphere, but, in worlds, heavenly and +infernal, whither no traveller has gone, save in the spirit. 'Country' +is but a restricted boundary for whoever has the vision which sees +beyond the ordinary range of men. To the true poet his native land lies +wherever what is beautiful can be beloved, or that which is sorrowful +needs solace.</p> + +<p>The only thing that personally I regret in these verses is their +author's tendency to be too careless in his rhymes. Many of them grate +upon one's ear, and such as <i>sun</i> and <i>stone</i> vex one's sense of melody, +indeed, are not rhymes: whilst some words used, such as for instance +<i>Revenue</i>, accord ill with verse at all. He deems himself quit of +obligation to observe these delicacies of metrical beauty, because he +says peevishly that he is no poet. But he is a poet; and is so strongly +one in feeling that there is no excuse for him not to be more observant +of style.</p> + +<p>For style is the reed-pipe through which the singer's breath blows +music, and he should take heed that his syrinx be well chosen, and well +cut, so that each air played on it be clear as the throstle's note.</p> + +<p>But rough though many of his compositions are—rough and unstudied—yet, +when read in fitting atmosphere, they will be beloved, and in the mind +of the reader they will linger like the lilt of a moorland song heard on +an autumn eve. There is the <i>vox<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> humana</i> in their melody. They come +from the heart of a man who has suffered. They are unequal, extremely +unequal; the poet has gone through the woods and gathered together grass +and orchis, and gorse, and the sceptered meadow sweet and the bearded +barley, all together, just as they happened to come in his path; common +things sometimes, or such as seem so to those who do not see the sun +shine through and the dew tremble on them.</p> + +<p>They are not put together with great care. I should not think that they +were turned, and returned, and pondered over, and doubted about. They +are too spontaneous, or seem so, to be the subject of great meditation. +They are the natural children of a forest-lover. As you read them you +receive the irresistible impression that they were written involuntarily +as a full heart sighs, as a glad heart sings, but the sigh is more +frequent than the song.</p> + +<p>He has a great love of rural things. He says:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'You cannot know,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In your bald cities where no cowslips blow,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How dear life is to us. The tramp of feet<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Brushes all other footsteps from the street<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And you see nothing of the graves you tread.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With us they are still present, the poor dead.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Being so near the places where they sleep<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who sowed these fields, we in their absence reap.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Again:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i12">'This ridge<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is only thirty miles from London Bridge,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And when the wind blows north, the London smoke<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span><br /></span> +<span class="i0">Comes down upon us, and the grey crows croak,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For the great city seems to reach about<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With its dark arms, and grip them by the throat.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Time may yet prove them right. The wilderness<br /></span> +<span class="i0">May be disforested, and Nature's face<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Stamped out of beauty by the heel of man<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who has no room for beauty in his plan.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Again:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'The dove did lend me wings. I fled away<br /></span> +<span class="i2">From the loud world which long had troubled me.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Oh, lightly did I flee when hoyden May<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Threw her wild<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> mantle on the hawthorn tree.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I left the dusty highroad, and my way<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Was through deep meadows, shut with copses fair,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A choir of thrushes poured its roundelay<br /></span> +<span class="i2">From every hedge and every thicket there;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Mild, moon-faced kine looked on, where in the grass<br /></span> +<span class="i2">All heaped I lay, from noon till eve.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And hares unwitting close to me did pass<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And still the birds sang....'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>A certain similarity there is in his verse to Owen Meredith's, but this +is due to the fact that they were friends and companions always, in +youth and manhood, and that Wilfrid Blunt had an intense and adoring +sentiment for his friend which made him regard the other with a feeling +which was almost religious in its strength and sincerity.</p> + +<p>The following sonnet might have come out of 'The Wanderer,' and I +imagine the house called here Palazzo Pagani is the villa in +Bellosguardo which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> in 'The Wanderer' shelters the lovers of the 'Eve +and May.'</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">'This is the house where twenty years ago<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They spent a spring and summer. This shut gate<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Would lead you to the terrace, and below<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To a rose-garden long since desolate.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Here they once lived. How often I have sat<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till it was dusk among the olive trees,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Waiting to hear their coming horse hoofs graze<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Upon the gravel, till the freshening breeze<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bore down a sound of voices. Even yet<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A broken echo of their laughter rings<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Through the deserted terraces. And see,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While I am speaking, from the parapet<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There is a hand put forth, and someone flings<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Her very window open overhead.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How sweet it is, the scent of rosemary,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">These are the last tears I shall ever shed.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Here the influence of Owen Meredith is very strong, but it is the +influence due to sympathy, not to imitation.</p> + +<p>But where he is entirely unlike Owen Meredith is in his passion of pity, +which is his dominant instinct, and which in the other is rarely +perceptible. Owen Meredith was entirely personal; Wilfrid Blunt is +strongly impersonal. The sorrows of man, and of one man in especial, +constituted the be all, and end all, of the former; the woes of all +creation lie heavy on the soul of the latter. The bird with a broken +wing is to Wilfrid Blunt as pitiful a tragedy as the human lover with +his ruined joys was to the author of 'The Wanderer'; the chained eagle +dying in an iron cage<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> is to him as cruel a captive as his own soul +pining to be free from the limits of sense and the blindness of +mortality. He reaches a high level in altruism, which is in him of a +very pure kind.</p> + +<p>Such pity thrills through these lines on the stricken hart:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'The stricken hart had fled the brake,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His courage spent for life's dear sake,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He came to die beside the lake.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'The golden trout leaped up to view,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The moorfowl clapped his wings and crew,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The swallow brushed him as she flew.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'He looked upon the glorious sun,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His blood dropped slowly on the stone,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He loved the life so nearly won,<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'And then he died. The ravens found<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A carcase couched upon the ground,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They said their god had dealt the wound.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'The Eternal Father calmly shook<br /></span> +<span class="i0">One page untitled from life's book—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Few words. None ever cared to look.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Yet woe for life thus idly riven,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He blindly loved what God had given,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And love, some say, has conquered Heaven.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>What Wilfrid Blunt perceives and feels more keenly than greater English +poets, more keenly indeed than any English poet except Shelley and +Matthew Arnold, are the pathos, the value, the infinite sadness, of +these free forest, or desert, lives struck down in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> fulness of their +strength and beauty by the brutal pursuit of that ravenous and +insatiable brute which is Man. It is this emotion which has inspired in +him the strange poem named 'Satan Absolved.'</p> + +<p>'Satan Absolved' was not written when Mr Henley edited the books of +earlier poems, and I imagine that it has scared Mr Henley and displeased +him. I do not know this, I have not asked, but I imagine that 'Satan +Absolved' must make Mr Henley extremely uncomfortable.</p> + +<p>Briefly, the motive of 'Satan Absolved' is the accusation brought by +Satan against Man; and against God, as the Creator and Authoriser of +Man. This will sound in many ears a profanity; but it is not so, and +Satan has sad reason in his arguments. It was a fine and lofty courage +which made the author produce it at a moment when the English people are +drunk and delirious with the lust of carnage and of conquest, and the +great thinker Herbert Spencer has accepted its dedication, whilst the +great painter Watts has given it its frontispiece.</p> + +<p>It is a poem which will alienate many, affright many, and to many no +doubt will appear blasphemous; but it is absolutely true in its hardy +and original conception of the sins of mankind against the other races +of the earth, and of the hypocrisy, brutality, and avarice of man, +clothed and cultured, against man primitive and helpless. It is a <i>cri +de coeur</i>, breaking almost involuntarily from a heart swollen with +indignation, and scorn, and pain, before the emptiness of creeds, the +impudence of prayer and praise, the vileness of aggression and of +war-lust.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Hast Thou not heard their chanting? Nay, Thou dost not hear,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or Thou hadst loosed Thy hand, like lightning in the clear,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To smite their ribald lips with palsy!'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Like all poems in which Satan is the hero, the Fallen Angel dwarfs +Deity. The rebel, not the lord, is in the right. This is inevitable.</p> + +<p>Especially it is inevitable here, where Satan is the holder of the +scales of justice; the advocate of all those countless races upon earth, +who in their birth, and in their death, in their up-rising, and their +down-lying, in every day which dawns, and night which falls, curse Man, +their merciless master.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'The Earth is a lost force, Man's lazar house of woe<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Undone by his lewd will. We may no longer strive,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The evil hath prevailed. There is no soul alive<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That shall escape his greed. We spend our days in tears<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Mourning the world's lost beauty in the night of years.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All pity is departed. Each once happy thing<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That on Thy fair Earth moves how fleet of foot or wing,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How glorious in its strength, how wondrous in design,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How royal in its raiment tinctured opaline,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How rich in joyous life, the inheritor of forms,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All noble, all of worth which had survived the storms,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The chances of decay in the World's living plan,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From the remote fair past when still ignoble Man<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On his four foot soles went, and howled thro' the lone hills<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In moody bestial wrath, unclassed amongst Earth's ills.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Each one of them is doomed. From the deep Central Seas<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To the white Poles, Man ruleth, pitiless Lord of these,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And daily he destroyeth. The great whales he driveth<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span><br /></span> +<span class="i0">Beneath the northern ice, and quarter none he giveth,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who perish there of wounds in their huge agony.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He presseth the white bear on the white frozen sea<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And slaughtereth for his pastime. The wise amorous seal<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He flayeth big with young, the walrus cubs that kneel<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But cannot turn his rage, alive he mangleth them,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Leaveth in breathing heaps, outrooted branch and stem.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In every land he slayeth. He hath new engines made<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which no life may withstand, nor in the forest shade,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nor in the sunlit plain, which wound all from afar,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The timorous with the valiant, waging his false war,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Coward, himself unseen. In pity, Lord, look down<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On the blank widowed plains which he hath made his own<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By right of solitude. Where, Lord God, are they now,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thy glorious bison herds, Thy ariels white as snow.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thy antelopes in troops, the zebras of Thy plain?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Behold their whitened bones on the dull track of men.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thy elephants, Lord, where? For ages Thou did'st build<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Their frames' capacity, the hide which was their shield<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No thorn might pierce, no sting, no violent tooth assail,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The tusks which were their levers, the lithe trunk their flail.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou strengthenedst their deep brain. Thou madest them wise to know,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And wiser to ignore, advised, deliberate, slow,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Conscious of power supreme in right. The manifest token<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of Thy high will on earth, Thy natural peace unbroken,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Unbreakable by fear. For ages did they move<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thus, kings of Thy deep forest swayed by only love.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where are they now, Lord God? A fugitive spent few<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Used as Man's living targets by the ignoble crew<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who boast their coward skill to plant the balls that fly,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thy work of all time spoiled, their only use to die<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That these sad clowns may laugh. Nay, Lord, we weep for Thee,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span><br /></span> +<span class="i0">And spend ourselves in tears for Thy marred majesty.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Behold, Lord, what we bring,—this last proof in our hands,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Their latest fiendliest spoil from Thy fair tropic-lands,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The birds of all the Earth, unwinged to deck the heads<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of their unseemly women: plumage of such reds<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As not the sunset teach, such purples as no throne,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Not even in heaven showeth, hardly, Lord, Thine own;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Such azures as the sea's, such greens as are in spring<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The oak trees' tenderest buds of watched-for blossoming,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Such opalescent pearls as only in Thy skies<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The lunar bow revealeth to night's sleep-tired eyes.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Behold them, Lord of Beauty, Lord of Reverence,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lord of Compassion, Thou who metest means to ends,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nor madest Thy world fair for less than Thine own fame,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Behold Thy birds of joy, lost, tortured, put to shame,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For these vile strumpets' whim. Arise, or cease to be<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Judge of the quick and dead! These dead wings cry to Thee,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Arise, Lord, and avenge!'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The use of the six-foot Alexandrine couplet may seem to many readers as +a thing unknown and unwelcome in English verse. Others may say that here +and there the language has not been sufficiently carefully weighed, that +there is repetition of thought in some places, and of words in others, +as for instance the word 'plain' recurs three times in seven lines. But +when hypercriticism has said and done its worst, the work remains a just +and generous indictment; heroic in its courage and vigorous in its +eloquence, pleading the cause of those who cannot plead their own. The +human race will be ill-pleased by the denunciation; for their vanity +must be wounded by one who incessantly reminds it of its kinship to 'the +lewd,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> bare-buttocked ape,' and who calls it full rightly, 'sad creature +without shame,' and calls it also:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'A presence saturnine,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In stealth among the rest, equipped as none of these<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With Thy mind's attributes, low crouched beneath the trees,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Betraying all and each.<br /></span> + +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'The red Japhetic stock of the bare plains, which rolled<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A base-born horde on Rome erewhile in lust of gold,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Tide following tide, the Goth, Gaul, Vandal, Lombard, Hun,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Spewed forth from the white North, to new dominion<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the fair Southern lands, with famine at their heel<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And rapine in their van, armed to the lips with steel.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'The master-wolf of all men call the Sassenach,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The Anglo-Norman dog who goeth by land and sea,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As his forefathers went in chartered piracy,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Death, fire, in his right hand.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Again, who, in the vain-glorious Britain of our time, will pardon +this?—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'The head knaves of the horde,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Those who inspire the rest and give the master word,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The leaders of their thought, their lords political,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sages, kings, poets, priests, in their hearts one and all,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For all their faith avowed and their lip service done<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In face of Thy high fires each day beneath the sun,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ay, and their prelates too, their men of godliest worth,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Believe no word of Thee as master of their Earth,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Controllers of their acts, no word of Thy high right<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To bend men to obedience, and at need to smite,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No word of Thy true law, the enforcement of Thy peace,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thy all-deciding arm in the world's policies,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span><br /></span> +<span class="i0">They ignore Thee on the earth. They grant Thee, as their "God,"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The kingdom of the heavens, seeing it a realm untrod,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Untreadable, by man, a space, a <i>res nullius</i>,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or No Man's Land which they, as loyal men and pious,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Leave and assign to Thee to deal with as Thou wilt,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To hold as Thy strong throne or loose as water spilt,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For sun and wind to gather in the wastes of air.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whether of a Truth thou <i>art</i>, they know not, Lord, nor care;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Only they name Thee "God," and pay Thee their prayers vain,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As dormant over-lord and pensioned suzerain,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The mediatised blind monarch of a world, outgrown<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of its faith's swaddling clothes, which wills to walk alone.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>These lines must be bitter in the teeth of the men of his generation, of +the men who say openly that religion is for the seventh day, not for the +week of work and war; who, churchgoers and chapelgoers alike, uphold the +campaign of blood and plunder; who prate of Helots, and treat the Kaffir +worse than any Helot that ever lived; who seek warrant in their +Scriptures for endless slaughter, and for endless slavery, of all in any +manner weaker than themselves; and who, with their jargon of +civilisation, and their doggerel of cant, bear fire and pestilence over +all the globe.</p> + +<p>Doubtless to man, convinced in deformity of his own beauty, in disease +of his own health, in crime of his own virtue, in blood-lust of his own +religious aims, the portrait of Man as given here in Satan's scathing +words will be very offensive. All honour be to the man who has dared to +draw it!<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span></p> + +<p>It might be perhaps easy to show the fallacy of this upbraiding, and +prove the facts of the maintenance of life by the destruction of life +which has always prevailed on earth; the facts that the python and the +cobra, if not the tiger, and the eagle, slays, as man slays, for sport +in addition to food; that in the depths of the unfathomed seas, and in +the azure space of highest air, and in the green twilight of virgin +forests, the god of cruelty reigns and prevails; that the elephant and +the rhinoceros wrestled and the keen cheetah sprang on the meek +cameleopard, and the jaws of the crocodile opened for the playful +gazelle before ever the steel and the lead of the human brute touched +and slew them. But when this has been said and admitted, it does not +invalidate the truth of Satan's charge; that man has laid waste the +earth and slaughtered for greed, for savage pleasure, for mere +wantonness, as never any other creature before him or beside him on this +planet, has done or has ever wished to do.</p> + +<p>To blast the harmless, gentle, colossal whale with the coward's tool of +dynamite; to strip the fur coat off the living seal and drive her tender +body over sharp rocks it was never made to cross; to castrate the lion +and tear his flesh with red-hot irons that he may make the sport of +fools; to rear the timid pheasant by millions, hand fed and +unsuspecting, only that they may fall under the breechloaders of princes +and lords and gentlemen; to penetrate into virgin forests and plunge in +untroubled streams to seize the heron on her nest, and poison the +lyre-bird in his haunts, and snatch his golden plumes from the bird of +paradise, and his rosy wings from the flamingo, that commerce may +flourish<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> and women be adorned—all these things, and more like them, +crimes of every clime and every hour, are human sins, and human sins +alone; and justify in its strongest accusations the charge of Satan +against Man as the most brutal murderer on earth; the same creature of +destruction still, in the comedy which he calls civilisation, as when in +his cave and his lake dwellings he first sharpened a stone, and then +stole out to kill.</p> + +<p>And it is herein there lie alike the courage and the value of the 'Satan +Absolved.' It is by no means a perfect poem; it would have been well if +it had received much more meditation and amplification, if passages +which approach the grotesque like the 'old world furniture,' the 'linen +long in press' of Heaven in the first page had been altered; and the +destiny and mission of Satan at the close are enwrapped in a mystery +which is to me at least incomprehensible; but when the utmost has been +said against it which can be urged, the poem remains a noble effort to +proclaim a supreme truth, which, as all great truths have done, dawns +slowly on the human mind—the solidarity of life.</p> + +<p>The preface alone to the book should make everyone obtain and cherish +it. This time the writer has penned his own presentation, and is not +ushered in by Mr Henley. It is enough to say that the introduction, like +the work, is worthy of the Englishman who, amidst a deafening roar of +national vanity and triumph, dared to denounce the injustice and the +inhumanity of Omdurman.</p> + +<p>It must not be forgotten that this poet is also a writer of prose; prose +clear, terse and strong. His letters to the leading journal of London, +and his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> works on the present state of India and the future state of +Islam are virile in thought and fearless in expression. A Sussex +landowner, and the possessor of a fortune sufficient to give him entire +independence, he has been the nominee of no party and the slave of no +prejudice. His temper is essentially <i>frondeur</i>; he has, what so few +possess, absolute independence of judgment; he refuses to see through +other men's spectacles, whether of smoked or of rose-coloured glass. +Again and again has he had the courage to oppose the policy of ministers +who were his personal friends. He opposed Mr Gladstone's and Lord +Granville's policy in Egypt, considering it alike unjust and unwise; and +he appealed alike to Parliament and to the nation against it, uselessly +but not the less manfully. The eloquence which he used so nobly at that +time must remain in the memories of many. He equally opposed the recent +campaign in the Soudan of Lord Salisbury's Cabinet, and the brutal +carnage commanded and excused by Kitchener. In India he was, at an +interval of a few years, the guest of two Viceroys, yet he never for a +moment consented to accept the views of either, although for both he had +strong personal friendship and regard. He thought (and thinks) the whole +system of English administration in India a cruel, costly and most +perilous mistake.</p> + +<blockquote><p>'I believe,' he says, 'the natives capable of governing +themselves much better than we can do, and at about a tenth +part of the expense.</p> + +<p>'I have found a vast economic disturbance, caused partly by the +selfish commercial policy of the English<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> Government, partly by +the no less selfish expenditure of the English official class. +I have found the Indian peasantry poor, in some districts, to +starvation; deeply in debt, and without the means of improving +their position; the wealth accumulated in a few great cities +and in a few rich hands, the public revenues spent to a large +extent abroad, and by an absentee Government. I have been +unable to convince myself that India is not a poorer country, +now, than it was a hundred years ago, when we first began to +manage its finances. I believe, in common with all native +economists, that its modern system of finance is unsound, that +far too large a revenue is raised from the land, and that this +is only maintained at its present high figure by drawing on +what may be called the capital of the country, namely, the +material welfare of the agricultural class; probably, too, the +productive power of the soil. I find a large public debt and +foresee further financial difficulties.</p> + +<p>'Again, I find the ancient organisation of society broken up, +the interdependence of class upon class disturbed, the simple +customary law of the East replaced by a complicated +jurisprudence imported from the West, increased powers given to +the recovery of debt, and consequently increased facilities of +litigation and usury. Also, great centralisation of power in +the hands of officers daily more and more automatons and less +and less interested in the special districts they administer. +In a word, new machinery replacing, on many points +disadvantageously, the old. I do not say that all these things +are unprofitable, but they are not natural to the country and +are costly and out of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> all proportion to the good. India has +appeared to me in the light of a large estate which has been +experimented on by a series of Scotch bailiffs who have all +gone away rich.'</p></blockquote> + +<p>In another place he says with equal frankness:—</p> + +<blockquote><p>'India seems to me just as ill-governed as the rest of Asia. +There is just the same heavy taxation, government by foreign +officials, and waste of money that one sees in Turkey. The +result is the same; and I don't see much difference between +making the starving Hindoo pay for a cathedral at Calcutta and +taxing Bulgarians for a palace on the Bosphorus. Want cuts up +all these great empires in their centralised governments.'</p> + +<p>'The "natives" as they call them,' he writes farther on, 'are a +race of slaves, frightened, unhappy, and terribly thin. I own +to being shocked at the Egyptian bondage in which they are +held, and my faith in British institutions has received a +severe blow.... I never could see the moral obligations +Governments acknowledge of taxing people for debts which the +Governments, and not the people, have incurred. All public +debts, even in a self-governing country, are more or less +dishonest, but in a despotism like India they are a swindle.' +'It is my distinct impression,' he states in another portion of +his too brief work, 'from all that I have seen and heard, that +the ill-feeling now existing in India between the English there +and the indigenous races is one which, if it be not allayed by +a more generous treatment, will in a few years make<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> the +continued connection between England and India altogether +impossible, and that a final rupture of friendly relations will +ensue between the two countries, which will be an incalculable +misfortune for both, and may possibly be marked by scenes of +violence such as nothing in the past history of either will +have equalled. The people are beginning to awake and to resent +the stupidity of those who, representing England in India, +wantonly affront them, and unless the English public at home, +with whom as yet the Indian races have no quarrel, becomes +awake, too, to the danger of its own indifference, the +irreparable result of a general race hatred will follow. Only +it should be remembered that India is a vast continent peopled +by races ten times more numerous than ourselves, and then the +convulsion, when it comes, will be on a scale altogether out of +proportion to our experience, and so the more alarming. Let +India once be united in a common sentiment of hatred for all +that is English and our rule there will <i>ipso facto</i> cease. Let +it once finally despair of English justice, and English force +will be powerless to hold it in subjection. The huge mammal, +India's symbol, is a docile beast and may be ridden by a child. +He is sensible, docile and easily attached. But ill-treatment +he will not bear forever, and when he is angered in earnest his +vast bulk alone makes him dangerous, and puts it beyond the +strength of the strongest to guide him.'</p></blockquote> + +<p>All who are interested in the future of England and India should read +this volume, which, although written as far back as Lord Ripon's +viceroyalty, applies in all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> its lessons and all its warnings with ten +times greater force to the India of to-day, which, with the three-fold +curse upon it of famine, of drought, and of plague, finds the British +Government too engrossed in its aggressive and criminal war in South +Africa to come to the relief of its Indian Empire, where tens of +thousands of human lives, and millions of animals, are wasting in death +and in despair.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="VII" id="VII"></a>VII</h2> + +<h3>JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN</h3> + + +<p>Several years ago, at the moment when Mr Chamberlain, having abandoned +the Liberal Party, was adored by the party which calls itself +Conservative, I looked at him one evening after a dinner in a well-known +house in Belgrave Square. He was standing, surrounded by the loveliest +and most fashionable women of society, who were offering him a homage +which must have been delightful to him. It was an interesting, if rather +comical, spectacle, and I imagine that Chamberlain, though he gave no +sign of doing so, enjoyed it extremely, and laughed at it in his sleeve. +His physiognomy indicates his character; it has no distinction, but it +is full of energy, intelligence, and resolution; it is the physiognomy +of a tradesman, not of a statesman, of a person extremely keen and +acute, obstinate and cruel, but not by any means intellectual. The +eternal eyeglass serves to hide such expression as his features might +have, and the nose, short and <i>rétroussé</i>, makes plebeian lineaments +which might without this defect be sufficiently regular. In these later +times he has aged more than his years perhaps<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> justify, and it is said +that he suffers from neuralgia and gout. He is always well dressed; 'too +well' an ex-Viceroy murmured to me that evening; and he is never seen, +as everyone knows, without an orchid in his button-hole; a flower always +culled in one of those famous orchid-houses at Highbury, which, before +his conversion, the Tory ladies longed so passionately to burn down, in +days when he was considered odious, accursed, almost an +Antichrist!—days not so very distant as the life of a nation counts.</p> + +<p>It was always said, at the time of his apostasy, that he left the +Radicals out of jealousy of Gladstone's greater powers, and of the +magnetism which Gladstone exercised over all his colleagues; and also +because amongst the Liberals there was Lord Rosebery, then in the +fulness of promise; there was Vernon Harcourt, then extremely eloquent +and much followed; and there was also in the Home Rule Party that great +genius, known amongst men as Charles Stewart Parnell, in whom +Chamberlain felt an irresistible superiority. If this were the reason, +he must now be content, since in his present party he has no rival in +the Cabinet, no one ventures to contradict him, and he is <i>de facto</i>, +though not yet <i>de jure</i>, the head of the present Government. There have +been many men of distinction before him in the somewhat subordinate post +of Secretary of the Colonies, notably the late Lord Carnarvon, and the +first Lord Lytton; but no one has ever made of this Department the +throne of the Suprema Lex as Mr Chamberlain has contrived to do. The +fault of whom, or the fault of what, lies<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> at the root of this +successful usurpation? Let us endeavour to discover, for the problem is +interesting; and one of its most strange phenomena is to see Robert +Cecil, Marquis of Salisbury, fallen under the dominion of the Birmingham +screw-maker.</p> + +<p>In the whole of the Tory Party, Chamberlain has no one who opposes him, +no one who approaches him for strength of character and for acuteness of +perception, one may also add for unscrupulousness in principle and in +action. The sole person of the party who could have imposed authority +upon him by superiority of intellect would have been Lord Salisbury; but +either through force of energy on his own part, or by lack of energy on +his chief's, he has been able completely to rule and influence the +master of Hatfield, as he has succeeded in ruling and influencing all +others who sit round the ministerial table in Downing Street. A friend +of mine speaking once to me of Lord Salisbury, whom he knew intimately, +said, 'He is a fine big cannon, but he won't go off; I doubt if he will +ever go off.' It is probable that Chamberlain had the same opinion, and +therefore resolved himself to manœuvre and fire the cannon. Anyhow, +he has acted well for himself in leaving the Radicals to ally himself +with their adversaries. If posterity blame him, and call him a turncoat, +I imagine that he is a man to whom the verdict of posterity is +absolutely indifferent. He is as 'hard as nails,' to use an appropriate +if common phrase; he is cynical and selfish; and to a politician of this +stamp, reputation in history is a matter of extreme indifference; fame +must seem to him only a carnival-masquer, noisily blowing a tin +trumpet.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span></p> + +<p>Napoleon, after the campaign of Egypt, said once, 'If I die to-morrow I +shall only have half a page in a universal dictionary.' To Chamberlain, +I believe, it would be wholly indifferent to have the half page, or even +a whole page. What suffices to him is to dominate and lead other men +while he lives. He is called inordinately ambitious, but his ambition is +essentially practical, not ideal. He wishes for the loaves and fishes; a +laurel crown would be to him a useless thing, unless it represented to +him solid lucre. Would he have succeeded if he had been born half a +century earlier? I doubt it. In the first half of the past century, men +admired in the ministers who ruled them very different qualities to +those which he possesses. On the other hand, his qualities are precisely +those which beget and command fortune in the actual moment; and by this +I intend no compliment either to him or to his times.</p> + +<p>In an epoch more courageous, more honest, more well-bred than the +present, a great Party calling itself Conservative would have repulsed +with contempt any renegade Radical, however disguised in the domino of a +Unionist. Instead, this Party has received him with open arms, nay, with +prostrate self-effacement, and worshipped him with enthusiasm; indeed, +the victory of the so-called Tories at the urns in 1895 would not have +been possible if Chamberlain had not permitted it; which he would not +have done unless he had been assured that he would enter and dominate +the Salisbury Cabinet. He has been equally happy in the occasions which +have presented themselves to him, and in his own capability in using +them; in the mediocrity of the men who combine with him,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> and of the men +who oppose him; in his infinite ability in influencing the first, and in +intimidating the last; he has been fortunate also in the fact that the +English people are less bigoted in religion than of old; for in an +earlier time they would have seen with horror a Unitarian entering the +Government. But his greatest good fortune of all was in the rise of the +Home Rule question at the very moment when he conceived the project of +going over to the Tory camp, which, without such an opportune reason to +give for it, would have appeared mere unworthy treachery. Without the +platform of Home Rule from which to make his <i>saut pèrilleux</i>, the leap +would have probably broken his neck; at any rate he could not have made +it with the certainty of being welcomed and rewarded by his new allies, +and of occupying amongst them a position far more conspicuous than he +ever occupied with the Radicals.</p> + +<p>His favouring star has also given him the marvellous good luck that in +the past year the death of Lord Salisbury's consort has so depressed and +preoccupied the Premier that the latter has almost entirely ceased to +occupy himself with the cares of office, and the Colonial Secretary has +been given more and more completely, with every month, a free hand.</p> + +<p>To me it has always seemed, during these later months of 1899, and +since, that the Sovereign should have bidden Lord Salisbury either +dismiss Chamberlain from office, or surrender office himself; for since +Chamberlain was allowed virtually to hold the helm of the State, he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> +should have been forced to accept the responsibility of the State's +navigation.</p> + +<p>Chamberlain has frequently declared that he has not changed in anything; +that he has not been an opportunist; that the Tory Party has come to +him, and has granted all his desires, accepted all his policy; and in +this statement of his there is some truth, if not an entire truth. As +two negatives make an affirmative, perhaps two desertions make a +fidelity! It is certain that the Tory Party has forsaken its old paths +quite as much as Chamberlain has his, indeed probably far more, for +there is no conservatism whatsoever in the acts of the so-called +Conservative Cabinets, and in his there is a great deal of radicalism +still, even of socialism, though this is oddly united to a hybrid and +artificial toryism.</p> + +<p>An eminent Conservative, a member of the Upper House, assured me the +other day that he honestly believed that Chamberlain had never done +anything which would prevent him at any time from being able, +honourably, to become the leader of the Radical Party. If this be +admitted, what are we to think of the Tory Party which can find no other +guide and saviour than this consistent Radical? Either the consistent +Radical, or the inconsistent Conservative Party, has 'ratted' in the +most barefaced manner. One or the other has been false to primal faith; +and there is only a very small band of independent thinkers who venture +to declare this. For Chamberlain has had the supreme cleverness to get +himself taken by the public as a patriot, and to oppose him, therefore, +lays open his opponent to a charge of want of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> patriotism. This is +extremely absurd; but it is to him enormously useful; and he knows that +the nation which he 'personally conducts' is not logical or critical. He +has taken its measure very accurately.</p> + +<p>The new hysterical creed of 'Imperialism' doubtless gained an impetus, +Home Rule equally certainly lost, by the change of front of 'Birmingham +Joe.' But the aristocratic party was harnessed like a cab-horse to the +triumphal car of the New Unionist, and has ever since then remained thus +harnessed. In the history of English politics these passages will +contribute a chapter which will not edify the readers of the next +generation; especially if its climax be, as it will be almost certainly, +the apotheosis of Chamberlain after a campaign of aggression and +conquest conceived and carried out by him and the Yellow Press which he +inspires. It is he who is responsible for the financiers' war in South +Africa; he might call it proudly, '<i>my war</i>,' as the Empress Eugénie +called the war with Germany, '<i>ma guerre à moi</i>.' If he had never been +anything higher than Mayor of Birmingham the farmers of the Transvaal +would still be ploughing their lands in peace.</p> + +<p>The war was desired, conceived, and imposed on his colleagues by the +Minister of the Colonies, without any appeal to or sanction of +Parliament. He denies this, but it is clearly proved by his famous +speech at Highbury and by the text of his irritating and provocative +despatches; and it was only when that war was begun, beyond all +possibility of alteration, that the Prime Minister, after long silence, +accepted the responsibility of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> it in his speech at the Guildhall. Lord +Salisbury, in that Mansion House speech, of course, denied the +allegation then made by the President of the French Chamber of Commerce +as to the motives and causes of the war; but no one who has attentively +followed the actions and expressions of Chamberlain before and after the +Jameson Raid, and his conduct at the enquiry held upon the conduct +therein of Cecil Rhodes, can for a moment doubt the intimate relations +which united the Colonial Secretary and the founder of Rhodesia and the +Chartered.</p> + +<p>Chamberlain, who, at the close of the Committee of Enquiry of 1897, had, +in common with other signatories, signed a statement that Rhodes was +culpable, declared a few days later in the House of Commons that Rhodes +was a man whose honour was untarnished! This, more than any other fact, +shows to what depths it is now possible to descend in English politics. +Certainly, in the time of Peel or of the earlier Governments of +Gladstone, a Minister capable of such conduct would have lost alike +office and seat in Parliament. Chamberlain, living in times of more +elastic morality, did not lose even a single follower.</p> + +<p>'Joseph Chamberlain has brought into English politics the habits and +criterions of a commercial traveller,' an eminent Englishman wrote to me +the other day. 'And of a commercial traveller not burdened by scruples.' +Now, the man of trade may have considerable qualities, great +intelligence, and great enterprise, but his mind and his acts are those +of a tradesman, not those of a gentleman, or of a statesman. Chamberlain +boasted in public one day that he belonged to the Party<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> of Gentlemen; +now no gentleman would ever have so expressed himself.</p> + +<p>The tradesman inevitably brings into public life the traditions of his +counting-house; those traditions are to try, invariably, <i>de rouler les +autres</i>. Now public life should be something more than, and very +different to, the pursuit of speculation; and its aims should be higher +than the mere desire to trick a rival and send shares up or down. True, +statecraft in our day is chiefly 'land-grabbing' and an effort to bridle +democracy by taxation. Still it is a different art to the art of the +merchant's or manufacturer's office. When Chamberlain endeavours to be +diplomatic he becomes inane: a person (who must have been very <i>naïf</i>) +wrote to him the other day to ask if it were true that it had always +been his wish and intention to make war on the Boers, he replied to this +simpleton of a correspondent, 'I fear there will always be those who +will attribute to me the worst motives. Tennyson has said that every man +attributes to another the motives which would actuate himself'—and that +was all! I imagine he thought this reply very ingenious and tactful.</p> + +<p>He is no doubt adroit and ingenious in his management of men; but his +cunning does not wear the smiling and elegant mask which a politician's +should do. He does not possess the talent most necessary of all to a +politician, of taking refuge in exquisitely-turned phrases which seem to +reveal everything and reveal nothing. His voice is flexible and fine, +his deliverance imposes, but his statements are frequently impudently +cynical, and it is easy to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> discern that he holds men very cheap, and in +no way hesitates to use, to abuse, and to deceive them. He is never +really frank in his replies, though he affects candour; he often +approaches brutality; he loses his temper easily; and the spectator sees +by the nerves of his face and the movements of his limbs that he has not +the self-control and <i>sang-froid</i>, which are natural gifts of the man of +race and breeding. But despite these defects and these offences he has +conquered both society and his colleagues, and one sees scholarly and +refined men like Mr Arthur Balfour hopelessly and helplessly hypnotised +by him. He has taken with him into Downing Street the manners and the +methods with which he governed the town councillors of Birmingham; and +these succeed equally well in his altered atmosphere. 'We are all +horribly afraid of him,' one of his colleagues said the other day to a +friend of mine; probably because he is the only man amongst them +ill-bred and ill-tempered enough to be disagreeable and dangerous. In +earlier days, in those of Derby, of Palmerston, of Melbourne, +Westminster would not have tolerated him for a single session; in times +when orators quoting Greek or Latin verse were sure to be understood by +either House, when classical allusions were caught flying, when accuracy +and consistency were esteemed necessary in debate, the speeches of the +present Colonial Secretary would not have been thought tolerable.</p> + +<p>But the Great Britain of Lord Grey, of Canning, of Sydney Herbert, of +the Rupert of Debate, of the first half of Gladstone's political life is +dead and gone; and Disraeli has passed over its grave,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> of which he was +the digger. Disraeli and his influence have dominated and penetrated +English political and social atmospheres, in their highest strata, as a +contagious fever enters and reigns in a district. It was a strange +phenomenon, the Venetian Jew leading by the leash the entire English +aristocracies. To trace the manifold reasons which enabled a man so +alien and antipathetic to the British nation in blood, in manner, in +appearance, in opinions, to dominate that nation so completely would +require many folio volumes; for there has never been anything more +singular, or more due to innumerable causes, all converging to one end.</p> + +<p>No spectacle is more extraordinary than the power which Disraeli +acquired after being laughed down by everyone; acquired, and wields +still, so many years after his death. I think that his most potent +philtre lay in his flattery. He flattered his Sovereign, his party, and +the nation itself, with all the florid eloquence and subtle suggestion +of which he was so admirable a master. His famous 'Peace with Honour' +was an exact sample of his style; the peace was brittle and the honour +was dubious, but his manner of presenting them was so magnificent that +they were received as though they were gifts from heaven. An able writer +has said that the English are deficient in the power of observation, and +I believe it is true. They do not examine critically before committing +themselves to embrace a cause or an idea; they can easily be led into +any extravagance which humours their national humour. Disraeli played on +this weakness. He had himself a passion for advertisement,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> for varnish +and gilding, and florid decoration; all his speeches and all his +romances are spoilt by these; and he succeeded in inoculating with this +taste the English character to which it was naturally alien.</p> + +<p>The first sign of the nation having been so inoculated was given when it +allowed Disraeli to call the Queen of England the Empress of India, and +change an ancient monarchy into a <i>parvenu</i> empire. The first step +taken, the rest followed; the mania of what is considered aggrandisement +has acquired possession of the national life, and has made of a nation, +naturally noble and great, a swollen boaster, bawling of its millions, +its might, and its superiority, although surely vanity is no more +admirable in a country than in an individual? This alteration in the +British temper, which was primarily the work of Disraeli and of the new +nobility (chiefly commercial and largely Jewish), which was called into +being, prepared the ground for Chamberlain's Imperialism, a much coarser +and greedier thing, without any of the veil of ideality which Disraeli +lent to his creeds. In the time of Disraeli, the temper of England was +still largely coloured by an old aristocracy, retaining, with the +prejudices, the principles of gentlemen; now, the financiers and the +speculators make the old aristocracy dance to whatever music they +choose, and riches are the sole thing sought.</p> + +<p>Every Ministry in England, on going out of office, leaves its contingent +of ennobled tradesmen, raised to the peerage solely for their money, and +for the way in which they have spent their money for the Party. In<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> this +way the so-called Conservative leaders possess a solid phalanx of +supporters whose wealth makes them irresistible in the country, and who +practically send up to Westminster any men they choose. These great +<i>richards</i> find Joseph Chamberlain more to their taste than Lord +Salisbury, who is too scholarly, too satirical, and too great a +gentleman for them; his health is failing, he speaks rarely, there is a +cynical contempt in his occasional speeches which cuts the <i>novi +homines</i> like a whip. It is impossible that a man of Lord Salisbury's +pride of character and acuteness of intellect should much longer consent +to be the mere echo of his Colonial Secretary. There is every sign that +his retirement will be followed by the accession to the premiership of +Chamberlain. For months past the Imperialist Press, and notably that +journal which is the property of the Chancellor of the Primrose League, +has been insinuating that no one except Chamberlain is capable of rising +to the height required by advanced Imperialism: and what this journal +says is certain to be echoed by that party, which, with an audacity +almost sublime, still calls itself Conservative.</p> + +<p>Chamberlain has continued the work of Disraeli, but he has done so by +vulgarising and brutalising it. The best qualities of the English +character are, under his influence, lost in a blatant self-admiration. +Its sense of morality is blunted; its leaders accept any denial or +excuse of the Minister of the Colonies, and he is applauded when, as an +independent Member said a few weeks since in the House of Commons, he +should be called to the bar of the House. Parliament,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> and the nation +after it, accept the suppression of despatches and telegrams, the use +and abuse of censorship, the denial and interruption of free speech, the +closure of debate at the moment when its continuance would be +inconvenient to ministers: all things previously intolerable to the +English people. Chamberlain has educated them into the abandonment of +all their ancient virtues. If, as he is almost certain to do if he live, +he become before long the Premier of England, he will do immeasurable +harm both to Great Britain and the world.</p> + +<p>The reign of Queen Victoria has been a long succession of wars; few, if +any, were either necessary or inevitable. But not one of these has been +a war of defence at home; the English citizen and peasant know nothing +in their own land of the horrors of war; they have never seen its +desolation and its horrors; they have never seen their little children +crushed under the hoofs and wheels of a battery, their homes set on fire +by a shell, their sons starving, their fields devastated, their towns +beleaguered. They have never seen a battle, a siege, a trench full of +dead; therefore they do not know the hideous suffering which they +inflict when they let loose, in pride of spirit and lightness of heart +and triumphant vanity, the fiends of war upon a distant people and a +far-off land. This is the excuse of a large portion of the nation for +the present war; but it is at the same time the strongest condemnation +of those who preach war to it as a divine creed, and appeal to its most +brutal instincts, and abuse its ignorance to lead it into crime. The +victories now gained will be dearly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> bought, for they, and the national +madness they produce, will certainly set Joseph Chamberlain in the seat +of supreme power, and no one will have the courage to restrain his hand. +Bellona has served him so well now, she will be his chosen handmaid in +the future.<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="VIII" id="VIII"></a>VIII</h2> + +<h3>UNWRITTEN LITERARY LAWS</h3> + + +<p>There has been some idea mooted of forming an Academy in England on the +lines of the Academy of France, but it would never be the same kind of +institution, or exercise the same authority. The English temper is not +academic, the Royal Academy is proof enough of that. Moreover, +Englishmen are indifferent to the use or abuse of their language, and +the first care of an Academy must be to keep the national language pure, +and clear, and elegant. The well of English undefiled is sadly muddy, +nowadays, and any roaring screamer of English or American slang is as +welcome to those who call themselves critics as though he wrote like +Matthew Arnold or John Morley. Lacking an Academy of Letters, and the +writers who would make one, there is in London what is called a Society +of Authors, which is supposed to resemble the Société des Gens de +Lettres in Paris, but the English Society appears to be chiefly an +association for the multiplication and publication of inferior works, +and its authority on literature is <i>nil</i>. In addition to these, there +are persons who call<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> themselves literary agents; but the latter have a +decidedly anti-intellectual influence, and to them is probably, in part, +due the enormous increase in the issue of rubbish of all kinds, which is +at the present time doing so much injury to the English literary +reputation.</p> + +<p>The number of volumes which pour annually from the English press is, at +the present hour, appalling. One house alone produces, in number, enough +volumes for the whole trade. Why are these volumes, usually worthless, +ever produced? Why do the circulating libraries accept them? Who reads +them? Who buys them? Why does one see in the lists of London +'remainders' the announcement of volumes originally published at six, +eight, ten, twelve shillings, to be sold second-hand, perfectly new and +uncut, at the miserable prices of two shillings, eighteen-pence, one +shilling, and even sixpence? Amongst these is sometimes a work of real +and scholarly worth, which it is painful to see thus sacrificed, but +rarely; for it is rarely that such a work is now issued in London. Where +is this to end? With whom does the fault of it lie? Someone, I suppose, +must gain by such an insane method of over-production, but I cannot see +who it can possibly be. One well-known publisher tells me that he must +issue books thus, or starve. He is not in danger of bodily starvation, +but the public is mentally starved by such a system.</p> + +<p>When the three-volume novel was abolished (a course which I urged long +before it was taken) great things were expected by many from its +abolition. I myself hoped that London would adopt the Paris<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> method, and +issue novels and all other works, except <i>éditions de luxe</i>, at small +prices and in paper covers; not the gaudy, hideous, pictorial, paper +cover, but the pale smooth grey or cream-coloured paper, so easily +obtainable, with the title of the book clearly printed on its flank. +Instead of this result, some unwritten law, as violently despotic as +that which used to compel the three-volume issue, has decreed that the +London romance shall always appear in a cloth-bound volume at six +shillings; the most foolish price that could be selected, too dear to be +suitable for private purchase, too low to allow of a handsome edition +being issued. There is something grotesquely ludicrous, as well as +extremely painful, in seeing the lists of 'ten new six-shilling novels,' +or 'a dozen new six-shilling novels,' whereby some publishers' +advertisement lists are disfigured in the newspapers with every new +season. It makes a commerce of fiction in a manner most injurious and +deplorable.</p> + +<p>Again, no sooner has the six-shilling novel been a year before the +public, than the publisher issues the self-same book at +two-and-sixpence. Why does he cut his own throat thus? It is to me as +inexplicable as why the London drapers sell you a stuff at six shillings +a yard in February, but, if you wait till June, sell it you at +two-and-sixpence a yard at the clearance sales. Either the stuff is sold +at a price unjust and unfair to the purchaser in February, or it is sold +at a price unjust and unfair to the vendor in June. From this +proposition there seems to me no escape.</p> + +<p>It is the same with the six-shilling book as with the draper's stuffs. +If the first price be correct, why alter<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> it to the second in a year's +time? If the second price be sufficient to pay expense of production, +why not start with it.</p> + +<p>The draper, moreover, has an advantage over the publisher. If I want a +stuff whilst it is a novelty, and when its like has not been worn by +shop girls and servant girls, I must buy it at its high price in +February; but if I want to read a novel whilst it is at its highest +price, I can read it in that form, taking it from the libraries, and +wait for a year to buy it at its lower price, if I then care to do so, +which it is improbable that I shall do.</p> + +<p>Now, why not have from first to last, in London, an edition of a novel +similar to that French form which is good enough for Pierre Loti, for +Gyp, for Anatole France, for the brilliant Frères Margueritte? Why?</p> + +<p>I suppose because our masters, the librarians, will not have it so; or +because some other unwritten law lies like lead on the souls of London +publishers.</p> + +<p>I read few English books for pleasure myself, I prefer the literatures +of other countries; but it pains me to see such a deluge of worthless +verbosity pour from London lanes and London streets where printing +presses of yore worked for Addison and Goldsmith, Thackeray and Arthur +Helps.</p> + +<p>If this stream of pseudo-literature be not stopped, it will carry away +and swamp all true English literature under it, as a moving bog covers +flocks and pastures, cottages and country seats.</p> + +<p>I have asked several London publishers why it is allowed to go on; their +answers are evasive and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> contradictory. They assert that most of the +volumes published are paid for by the authors; that they themselves must +publish something, or cease to exist as a trade; and that the public +does not know good from bad, so it does not matter what is printed. Yet, +surely to them, as to the drapers, the apparently insensate system must +be lucrative, or it would not be pursued?</p> + +<p>There was a comical lamentation in the London Press the other day for +what was called 'the death of the novel'; not the approaching death +which I expect for it by suffocation under the dust-storms of verbosity +and imbecility, but of death by its own suicide, through its own +curtailed proportions. It was indignantly asked why it was not as long +as it used to be in the 'Fifties and 'Sixties, and why novelists now +wrote short stories which in that period would have found no sale, would +not, indeed, have even found the preliminary necessary to a +sale-publication.</p> + +<p>Surely we remember some short stories called <i>The Cricket on the Hearth</i> +and <i>The Chimes</i>, and others telling the adventures of the Great +Hoggarty Diamond and of one Barry Lyndon? As for the length of novels +nowadays, my own <i>Massarenes</i>, published in 1897, contains precisely the +same number of words as <i>Esmond</i>, and, I think, Mr Mallock's novels, and +those of Mrs Humphry Ward, must surely be quite as long, whilst Mr Hall +Caine's marvellous narratives appear as endless as 'the thread of Time +reel'd off the wheel of Fate.' The critic who grieves over the brevity +of present-day volumes, thinks that Thackeray and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> Dickens wrote at such +length because they were obliged to fill their monthly numbers! It seems +to me far more likely that they were in love with their characters, as +every writer of true talent is, and lingered tenderly over many needless +details and dialogues out of sheer pleasure in their creations; and it +must be admitted that both of them had naturally a discursive style, +which would have been the better for some excision. But were it true +that there is an unwritten law which limits or expands the length of +romances according to the public caprice or taste, surely nothing could +be more harmful to fiction than such limitation? Every story, if it be +worth the telling, has its own natural length, which cannot be stretched +or shortened arbitrarily without hurt. The sculptor knows that the form +which he creates has its own natural proportions, its own inherent +symmetry according to natural rules, which he must obey. The painter +knows that, according to the nature of his subject, and of his intended +treatment, he must take for his picture, either a small panel, a +kit-kat, or a large canvas; and that if he force its dimensions, either +by over-compression or over-extension, his work will be a failure.</p> + +<p>Why is the author not bound by the same canon of art? Artistically, he +certainly is so bound. Intellectually, he certainly is so bound. That +this obligation is continually defied and broken through by many English +writers, proves only that the great majority of these writers are not +artists in any sense of the word.</p> + +<p>The brevity or length of a literary work can have nothing to do with its +beauty or excellence. If it be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> beautiful, if it be excellent, its +proportions will be those which naturally grew out of its subject; and +the writer who is an artist will know, as the painter knows, that he +cannot alter the unwritten law which prescribes to him those +proportions. What has either length or brevity to do with either +excellence or beauty? What give both excellence and beauty are qualities +not to be measured by a publisher's counting up of words, or a printer's +enumeration of pages.</p> + +<p>A sketch of a few pages of Maupassant's is worth all the volumes put +together of Georges Ohnet; one of the <i>Sonnets of Proteus</i> is worth the +whole swagger of the <i>Seven Seas</i>.</p> + +<p>There seems to be, unhappily, an unwritten law in English literature +that cheapness must of necessity be allied to ugliness. A cheap book is +in England an inferior and unlovely thing. But it need not be so. It is +not so everywhere. I have now before me a book of Pompeo Molmenti's, +issued by Bemporad, of Florence; its cost is two francs twenty-five +centièmes; less than one-and-sixpence in your money. It is bound in +thick cream-coloured paper; it is called <i>Il Moretto di Brescia</i>, being +a brief study of the life and works of the great artist of whose pure +and noble work the city of Brescia is full. That the text is of rare +scholarly excellence, and of the finest critical and appreciative +qualities, there can be no question, since it is written by the +President of the Accademia delle Arte of Venice. The type is large, the +paper fine, the illustrations (phototyped) are of extreme delicacy and +beauty, rendering worthily the works of the Moretto; the size of the +book is Imperial 8vo.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span></p> + +<p>Will you tell me where I should find anything equal to it at its price +in London?</p> + +<p>Your books are all ill-stitched, and fall to pieces as soon as one +handles them. Your type is usually ugly, even at its best; all foreign +readers complain of its clumsiness and confusing effect on the eyes. +Compare a page of a Parisian book at three francs and a half with a page +of a six-shilling English novel. The former is incomparably the +superior. Your cheap illustrated books are still more scandalously +treated. I have before me a book priced four-and-sixpence, more than +double the price of <i>Il Moretto</i>. It is a book for children; its +illustrations have been reproduced from earlier works, and they are not +even all of the same method or the same size; some are printed from old +wood-blocks, some are photographed; in one a child is represented the +size of a fly, in another a dog is drawn bigger than a man; anything is +thought good enough, it seems, for children. Artistic beauty is entirely +lacking in the illustrations of English juvenile books; and there is +nothing so irritating as the sight of illustrations of various qualities +bound up in the same volume.</p> + +<p>Even certain illustrated periodicals and journals are not above using up +their old wood-blocks in their new numbers. It is a very disgraceful and +unworthy practice. When the illustrations are fresh, the designer +frequently does not attempt to adapt them to the text; a gentlemen is +drawn like a cad, and a Newfoundland dog is drawn like a poodle; a +peasant of the Romagna is drawn like a loafer in Shoreditch, and so on +continually, without the slightest attention to accuracy.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span></p> + +<p>There is also, beyond all doubt, an unwritten law which has been so +universally observed that it has become, properly, as binding as a +written law. I mean the law that when once a romance, or a story, or a +poem have been published they cannot be altered.</p> + +<p>What should we think of the painter who repainted his picture after +sale, or of a sculptor who sawed off an arm from his statue, and affixed +another? Both picture and statue may have many faults; they probably +have; but such as they went out from the studio they must remain. This +is the common morality, the elementary honour, of art, and a similar +canon should certainly lie upon literature.</p> + +<p>Yet some writers have of late presumed that they had a right to change +the ending of their romances when these were already well known to their +readers. They would urge, I suppose, that they have a right to do what +they like with their own. But your work once given to the public is no +more your own than your daughter is when you have married her, and she +has become the <i>Gaia</i> of her <i>Gaius</i>.</p> + +<p>Besides, there is an unspoken good faith on the part of the author which +should be observed in his relations towards the public. He should give +them nothing which is incomplete; nothing, at least, which is not as +harmonious as it is in his power to create. Every work of fiction +requires to be long dreamed of, long thought of, clearly seen in the +mind before written; it ought to be no more susceptible of change than a +conclusion in Euclid. To the writer, as to the reader of a story, it +should seem absolutely true; the actors in it should appear absolutely +real. The illusion of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span> reality is only strong in the reader according to +the strength of that illusion in the writer; but some such illusion must +always exist whilst the reader reads fiction, or fiction would have no +attraction for anyone. The writer who alters his romance after it has +once appeared destroys this illusion, and says effectively to his +public, 'What fools you are to take me seriously!' Moreover, he insults +them, for he tells them that he has set before them a half-finished and +immature thing, about which he has entirely changed his mind. He is like +a cook who should snatch off the table a dish just placed on it because +he wished to alter the flavour. A Vätel or a Soyer would not do that: if +he had made a mistake he would abide by it, though he might kill himself +in despite at it.</p> + +<p>In the course of a literary or artistic life, or any other life from +which the blessing of privacy has been lost, there are many wrongs met +with which are real and great wrongs, yet which must be endured because +they cannot be remedied by law suits, and there is no other kind of +tribunal open; nothing analogous, for instance, to the German Courts of +Honour in military matters.</p> + +<p>There is, for example, a habit amongst some editors of seeking the +expression of opinion, on some political or public question, of some +well-known writer; printing this expression of opinion, and, before it +is published, showing the proof to some other writer, so that an article +of contrary views and opinions may be written in readiness for the +following number. Now this seems to me an absolutely disloyal betrayal +of trust. In the first place, the proof of an article is of necessity<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> +entirely dependent on the good faith of the editor. It is an understood +thing, a tacit, unwritten law, that no one except the editor is to see +it until the public does so. It is never considered necessary to +stipulate this. To show it to a third person to obtain a refutation, or +a burlesque, of it before the article is published, seems to me a +distinctly incorrect thing to do; an extremely unfair thing to do. Yet +it is becoming a common practice; and a writer has no redress against +it. It is manifestly not the kind of offence which can be taken into a +tribunal, yet it is a very genuine and very annoying injury, and it is +one against which I think that authors, whose names are of value, should +be protected in some manner.</p> + +<p>What redress, moreover, is there for the innumerable thefts from which a +writer suffers during his career? I doubt if we, any of us, know the +extent to which we are robbed by bookmakers, who are not of the turf, +but are quite as unscrupulous as those of the turf.</p> + +<p>A few years ago I saw, in the pages of one of the highest class of +London periodicals, a story, contained in one number, which was nothing +more or less than the reproduction of the Derbyshire part of my +well-known novel of <i>Puck</i>: the narrative of Ben Dare and his love for +his worthless sister Anice. It was far more than a plagiarism; it was a +monstrous theft. The name of a lady was put at the end of it, as that of +the author; of course, I wrote to the editor, expecting, despite +previous experiences, to receive apology and reparation. I misunderstood +my generation. The editor wrote back, with airy indifference, that the +lady<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> who had produced this shameless piracy had never read <i>Puck</i>. To +my citation, in reply, of the words of the Emperor Julian, 'If it be +sufficient to deny, who will ever be found guilty?' and to my objection +that an appropriation of an entire section of a novel could not by any +possibility be otherwise than an intentional theft, this model of +editors replied not at all. I ought, perhaps, to have sued the +publisher, who was doubtless quite innocent, but had I done so it is +more than probable that I should have obtained no apology or redress. To +begin a law suit is a very serious thing, and all these grievances and +piracies are so incessant, though few are quite as impudent as was this, +that if one pursued them as they merit one would spend all one's life +and substance in Courts of Law.</p> + +<p>Moreover, in the case of the plaintiff in any suit residing out of +England, a large sum for costs must be deposited at the English tribunal +into which the suit is brought; a kind of foregone conclusion that the +plaintiff has no valid case, which seems to me very prejudicial to that +person.</p> + +<p>What, then, is to be done in such circumstances?</p> + +<p>Nothing at all. You must endure the injury, leave unpunished the +plagiarism; and the offender escapes scot-free.</p> + +<p>I do not think that anyone should sue another for any mere expression of +opinion, however hostile or rudely expressed, as Mr Whistler sued Mr +Ruskin, for the liberty of the Press is of more importance than the +annoyance of individuals.</p> + +<p>But some protection is required against swindling in literature; and at +the present moment none exists.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> Practically none exists either against +libel. I saw, a few years ago, three very gross and libellous English +newspaper articles upon myself, and sent them to a high personage in the +law, who is always kind enough to give me his advice, and asked him if +he considered it worth while for me to prosecute them. He wrote me in +answer: 'All three articles are foully slanderous, yet one only, +perhaps, would come within the grip of the law; upon this one you would +most certainly obtain damages, but prosecution entails so much expense, +trouble, worry, and insult, to the aggrieved party, that I would always +say to any friend of mine what I say now to you: Do not do that which +you have a perfect right to do.'</p> + +<p>I followed the advice, for if one asks counsel of a person whom one +respects, one ought to submit to it; but the fact remains that, for the +most offensive social libels, there is, neither in law nor in society, +any means of obtaining redress which a great lawyer can honestly +recommend to a friend. For such matters, why cannot there be a tribunal +set apart from other tribunals; one having the attributes of a Court of +Honour, and without the odious publicity of Courts of Law?</p> + +<p>Against libel, even of the grossest character, what can one do, as the +law stands, which is not more disagreeable than silently to 'grin and +bear' it? The great preliminary cost; the extreme uncertainty and +irritation involved, the odious publicity necessarily incurred; the +chatter, the comments, the cross-examination; the insolence and the +jeers of the counsel for the defence, are all punishments which fall +upon the plaintiff. What consolation is it for them that he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> may perhaps +be awarded a thousand pounds damages, though it is more probable that he +will receive only a farthing, and be left to the enjoyment of paying his +own costs? In either result, is the game worth its very costly candle? +Is the injury made less an injury? Is the combat not in every sense most +unjust and unequal, being less a combat indeed than an assassination by +a bravo? To what can we ever look for any remedy of this except from the +unwritten law of opinion? But as the world is at present constituted it +delights far too greatly in this garbage for it ever to rebuke the +providers of it. Hogs do not rend the man who carries the swill-tub.</p> + +<p>In one of the Prince Consort's letters to his eldest daughter, then +Crown Princess of Prussia, he tells her to set aside a portion of her +money every year to meet the inevitable blackmail which will certainly +be levied upon her. This blackmail is levied on every kind of success as +well as on royalty. What is to be done? To submit to it, is repugnant to +all one's sense of justice; to rebel against it, however such resistance +be justified, is often ruinous.</p> + +<p>The true remedy would lie in a finer, juster, higher kind of public +feeling; but where is there any likelihood of this arising in the world +as it is?</p> + +<p>My own feeling is very strongly always against the anonymity of the +Press. Everyone surely should have the candour and courage to put his +signature after his opinions. But, unfortunately, the Press gains so +much importance (fictitious importance) from its anonymity that it is +hopeless to ask for an unwritten or a written law on this subject. The +arrogant 'we' would soon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> fall to zero in its influence on the public if +it were signed by a Tom, Dick, or Harry, who, as Matthew Arnold used to +say, forms his opinions from what he overhears on the knifeboard of a +city or suburban omnibus. It is, perhaps, worthy of a nation which +treats duelling as a penal offence to countenance anonymous assertions, +anonymous opinions, anonymous bravado, and anonymous insults; but the +result cannot be beneficial to the national character.</p> + +<p>For many months in this past year, and in the year before that, hundreds +of anonymous correspondents and leader-writers of the English Press have +been doing their utmost by violence of language to drive to war the +nations of England and of France. Is it not probable, even certain, that +if all these writers had been obliged to sign their names to these +furious articles, they would have paused before making themselves +responsible for such language? I am often accused of using too strong +language; but at all events I sign whatever I say, and I should be +ashamed to do otherwise. An anonymous Press possesses dangerous +privileges; such privileges as the mask gives a masquerade; it also, as +I have said, acquires a dignity and an importance which are not its own; +it is unfair and harmful; it protects exaggeration, hyperbole, flattery, +and calumny, but it is too useful to too many not to be sustained; it +can always serve the Bourses much better than a signed Press could do, +and obey much more efficiently the nods and signs and cypher dispatches +of the great financiers; but it is cowardly, and can easily, if it +chooses, be dishonest.</p> + +<p>It will, perhaps, be objected that the anonymity of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> the Press is more +apparent than real; that the greater writers of the London Press at +least are all recognised by their style, or well known by the initiated; +but this knowledge is limited to a few hundred persons, and can never be +shared by the general public, and it is on the general public that +anonymous journalism has its chief influence.</p> + +<p>To whom or what can we look for the pressure of an influence which would +enforce honesty in literature? To public opinion? Undoubtedly we might, +and we should, if public opinion were what it should be. But it is not, +and, most probably, never will be. Breeding and manners grow worse every +day; and it is they alone which could enforce that unwritten code which +is so sorely needed. It is, after all, the absence of moral and +honourable feeling in the world in general which makes the violation of +these not only condoned by others but frequently profitable to the +sinners. Take two instances of this: The sale of private letters both of +the living and of the dead; and the seizure of the plots and characters +of romances by people who are themselves dramatic adapters. The latter +is the more trivial offence of the two; but it is as impudent as it is +dishonest. It is injurious in a great degree, and extremely annoying to +the original author, whose name is bawled and placarded about in +connection with that of his robber, with no consent of his own, and +usually to his extreme irritation, whilst his ideas are borrowed, and +his characters travestied, and his entire creation belittled and +vulgarised. Would the stalls be filled nightly to witness pieces stolen +in this manner were the public governed by any unwritten law of respect +for <i>meum</i> and <i>tuum</i>?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span></p> + +<p>The other offence of selling letters is still more heinous; it is +difficult to conceal the piracy of a romance for theatrical purposes, +but it is perfectly easy to conceal the sale of letters; head it the +sale of autographs, and it passes with entire impunity. There is, I +believe, a law (a written law) that letters are the property of the +writer of them; but it is absolutely a dead law; as dead as many of +those of the Tudors or Stuarts. I think that letters ought to be the +property of the recipient, but it should be an inalienable property +which he should be no more able to sell than he is able to sell entailed +property. To write a letter, even a brief one, is, in a sense, an act of +confidence. In writing it we assume that its contents will not be used +against us, either for injury or ridicule. If a conversation be +considered confidential, how much more should a correspondence be so! A +letter, in any degree intimate, is a hostage given into the hands of its +recipient. We are justified in expecting that any sentiments, views, or +opinions it may contain shall not go beyond the reader for whom they +have been penned. This is so much to be desired in the interests of all +letter-writers that no one, I think, can dispute its justice. What, +then, are we to say of the constant appearance in catalogues of sales of +letters of living, and of lately dead, persons?</p> + +<p>If it be, as I understand, illegal, why is it permitted publicly? If it +be not thus illegal, why does not general indignation render it +impossible? I have more than once seen, in the autograph-albums of men +and women of the world, letters of the most intimate character by +distinguished writers; letters<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> which have been evidently written in the +careless, open-heartedness of a warm friendship, and which were lying on +a drawing-room or library table, open to the sneer, the jest, or the +wonder of everyone who turned over the pages of the book.</p> + +<p>'N'y touchez pas, N'y touchez pas! Je l'ai payé vingt louis!' cried, in +my hearing, a lady (a <i>rastaquouère</i>), who owned amongst other +autographs a letter which it was especially wrong to place in such a +collection, since the writer of it is great and is alive. Not for twenty +louis, not for twenty thousand, should it ever have been purchasable. +What traitor sold it? What servant stole it? How did it find its way +into the market, that familiar and intimate thing? Through treachery, +through death, through accident, through greed? We shall never know. It +was certainly not through friendship.</p> + +<p>Surely, also, some unwritten law should prescribe and limit the license +of caricature. It is scarcely fair that, because a personality has +interest and eminence attached to it, every draughtsman who can scrawl a +line can make that personality hideous or ridiculous at pleasure.</p> + +<p>'You cannot like it?' I said once to a person of considerable eminence, +who was the subject that week of one of the 'Portraits' of a satirical +and political English journal of wide circulation.</p> + +<p>'No, I do not!' he answered. 'Of course, I should not object to it if it +were a pen-and-ink drawing being handed about to amuse people in my own +country house; but when one knows that it will be seen by tens of +thousands of people who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> will never see me in the flesh, the thing +becomes annoying.'</p> + +<p>His opinion must be shared by all those who are thus pilloried, even if +they think it politic to laugh and seem indifferent.</p> + +<p>It is 'the penalty of distinction,' the offenders reply. But why should +distinction be weighted by a penalty, like the successful racer? I +believe that the world in general is the loser by this kind of +persecution; for dislike to the vulgar ridicule which snarls at the +heels of all eminence in this day, keeps aloof from the public arena men +who would do honour to it, but whose strength of intellect is +accompanied by shyness, pride, and sensitive reserve. Some unwritten law +should also render impossible those verbal libels which are continually +published by persons cunning enough to keep to the windward side of law +in the offensive matter which they write. This is again another +penalty-weight laid on the back of the racer who has won; and it is +precisely this kind of penalty from which an unwritten law, in the +Press, and in the world, should protect such winners of the gold cups of +life.</p> + +<p>The unwritten law of common honour should make such a book as that which +was recently issued on Bismarck impossible, because those who would have +the power of writing it would be above the temptation of doing so. There +may be a strong temptation to say what we know better than any other of +one whose name is eminent. But I doubt whether we should yield to the +temptation, even if we ourselves suffer in reputation by not doing so. +But the bookmakers<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> of the world have no such excuse as this temptation +offers; they are merely footmen who have listened with pricked ears +whilst they waited at table on their masters, and when their master is +powerless to chastise, sell what they remember or invent. Even where it +is not libellous, the sickening intrusion into private life which +nowadays disgraces journalism must, to any temper of any refinement and +reserve, be an offence irritating beyond endurance. There are flatteries +and intrusions beside which censure is sweet and obloquy would be +welcome.</p> + +<p>There is a great pathos in the fact that the greatest man of these last +fifty years, the man of blood and iron, should, as soon as he lies in +his coffin, be insulted by such a book as this. The hand in its steel +gauntlet, which welded fragments into a nation, is powerless to defend +its owner against betrayal and false witness. The vulgar, insatiable +curiosity of the general world breeds such traitors as these makers of +post-mortem recollections; breeds them, nourishes them, recompenses +them. There would be no supply if there were no demand. The general +world has a greedy appetite for diseased food; as with its jaws it +devours putrid game, decayed oysters, and the swollen livers of tortured +geese, so it loves to devour with its frothy brain all that belittles, +ridicules, dishonours, or betrays the few amongst it—the very few!—who +are above it in mind, in will, in force, in fame. 'Come, come!' they cry +to the great man's servants when the great man lies dead; 'tell us, you +who saw him in his hours of abandonment, tell us of all that can drag +him down nearer to our level! Tell us of his varicocele, tell us<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> of his +dyspepsia, tell us of his caprices, tell us of his humours, tell us of +his tears when his poisoned dog lay dying—you saw them through the +keyhole—tell us of his hasty words, his pettish foibles, his human +mortal waywardness—you know so much about them, you who waited behind +his chair and filled his tobacco-pouch—come, come, comfort us; his +great shadow seems still to lie upon the earth and make us small and +crawling insects crushed by his spurred boot—come, come, comfort us! +Tell us, show us, make us happy belittling him; let us, the envious, the +puny, the mean, rejoice, for you who cleaned his boot and held his bare +foot in your hired hand, can tell us that he, the maker of emperors and +of nations, he, the Mighty, had Achilles' heel!' For there is an +unwritten law, not of literature but of life, which decrees that the +jealousy of the small soul for the great soul shall be cruel and +deathless as Fate.<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="IX" id="IX"></a>IX</h2> + +<h3>AUBERON HERBERT</h3> + + +<p>This little square book, the colour of meadow forget-me-nots, is so +modest and simple that it may very easily be passed over in a period +which has little sympathy with tenderness of feeling and simplicity of +expression. The verses, of which this small volume is full, resemble the +<i>stornelli</i> and <i>rispetti</i> of Italian songs rather than any kind of +verse which has preceded them in English literature, unless it be the +earliest and briefest songs of Robert Lytton, with which they have a +certain kindred, both in their measure and in their themes. Auberon +Herbert is known to the world as a daring and original thinker, a +sociologist who lives three centuries before his time, a fearless +preacher of new liberties and ideal creeds; in this tiny azure booklet +he is also a poet, or, as he would rather himself say, a singer. The +verse springs from the depths of his heart, and calls to those who, like +himself, have loved and suffered and found nothing endure except the +consolations of natural beauty.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'In the West is the golden glory,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">As the great king goes to his rest;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the East the purple staineth<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The hills from foot to crest.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span><br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'And I stand and look in wonder<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Till my heart is cleft in twain,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Half for the vision of glory,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And half for the dying pain.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Like the Italian <i>canzone</i>, these little lyrics, brief as a summer +breeze, which momentarily sways the stalks of grass, must be heard with +the ear of the heart. Coldly criticised by the mind alone, they will lie +like the gathered field-poppy, inert and colourless. They are the cries +of the heart, like those brief verses which the southern lover sings to +the sobbing lute beneath the moon. He who has killed his heart in the +pressure of the world will find nothing in them. They who are steeped in +the chill indifference of mundane interests will no more heed them than +such heed the skylark's or the linnet's song, which they resemble. They +were not written in the study, or fashioned with the pruning-knife; they +were born by the edge of the sea, in the woodland shade, by the clover +path of the country hedge, in the falling rain of the peach and +pear-blossoms, in the starlight above the olives. They are the elder +children of the lonely shores and flowering pastures; they have never +known the gaslight of the streets or the electric light of the +drawing-room. They are as sweet and pure as violets.</p> + +<p>To those who know, and respect as they should be respected, the virile +and original philosophies of the writer, there is an added charm in +these tender blossoms in the fact that they spring from the same +intelligence as that which proclaims individualism in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> its boldest forms +and attacks the tyrannies of social and political superstitions.</p> + +<p>They are but little songs, short as a ripple of music from a woodlark's +throat, of no more account, if you will, than the blue stars of +mouse-ear by the brook's side, than the dog-rose on the bank; too simple +it may be said, speaking of emotions too trite, of sorrow too common, of +sights too familiar, in language that the dullest can scarce fail to +understand. Yes; no doubt, they are like field-flowers, like +hedge-birds; they claim to be no more than these; they were not wrestled +for as Wordsworth wrestled for an ode beneath the shadow of Rydal, or as +Coleridge strove with the rebellious forces of a halting sonnet when +lying down face foremost amongst 'the common grass.' They are +spontaneous utterances, as natural as the ripple of the water over the +cresses in a brook's bed beneath willow and alder. It may be easy to +dismiss them with indifference, to underrate them with hypercritic +sneer, and assuredly those who take pleasure in the strained archaic +obscurities of much modern verse will find no more charm in them than +the languid æsthete, musing over the pages of Verlaine and Mallarme, +would find in a sea-wet breeze blowing across a hayfield at early +morning. There is no studied mannerism, no sought-for darkness of +expression, no exaggerated ecstasy or pessimism; there is such a natural +feeling, of joy as of sorrow, as comes to the soul at once robust and +sensitive; and these are expressed with frank, unstudied <i>naïveté</i>, with +the candour as of a child, and the self-control of a man blent in their +simplicity. 'Look in your own<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> heart and write,' has been the only +precept which their creator has obeyed.</p> + +<p>The most intense attachment in them is for the sea. The sea, whether +those grey sad tides which sway from the sands of Christchurch to the +rocks of Freshwater, or that azure radiance which rolls from the +headland of Antibes to the gardens of Porto Fino, has the same magic for +Auberon Herbert that it has for Algernon Swinburne; a charm much calmer +and more peaceful, but not less strong. Many of these little poems speak +of the sea only; are full of that happy sense of return and recognition +which so many amongst us feel when, after absence from the sea, we tread +again its wet salt sands, and feel its white spray dance against our +cheek. Swinburne is the great laureate of ocean, the chords of whose +mighty lyre reverberate with the ocean storm and echo the thunder of +breakers breaking upon iron shores, and of billows sweeping from pole to +pole. The song of Auberon Herbert is the homing cry of the sea-swallows +swaying on the crest of the waves.</p> + +<p>'Back to the Sea Mother' he calls these yearning lines:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Kindest of mothers, from whom I have strayed,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Back again, tired, I come to thee,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Chaunting and crooning the old wave-song;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Sing it, oh! sing it again to me!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Weary and spent as the hour draws near,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Hush me to sleep with the soft wave-song;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span><br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wash all the cares away, wash all the strifes away,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">All the old pains that to living belong.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Down at thy side I place me to rest;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Slowly my senses are stealing from me;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Passions and pleadings have ceased in my breast,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Gently my spirit floats away free.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>And yet again:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Thou great strong sea, fast lock'd in dreams,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Clouds journeying to and fro,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whose tender blue the stars come through,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I can but love ye so!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Ye take possession of my heart,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And all my life renew;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like grain of dust I grow a part,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">A small stray part of you.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Thy sounds, O storm, are far and faint,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">As thou stridest over the sea;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And we need thy breath from many a taint<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To set us clean and free.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'But when thou comest on mighty wings,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Deal gently with forest and tree,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For my heart is woe for the goodly things<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That to-morrow will cease to be.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Yes! I shall go and you will dream,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And drink the pale blue sky,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Beneath the hill that hugs you round<br /></span> +<span class="i2">As silver days go by.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'When others come your love to claim,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">You still, you pale blue sea,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span><br /></span> +<span class="i0">Oh, shall you mean for them the same,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That once you meant for me?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'And shall they look on you with eyes<br /></span> +<span class="i2">As tender true as mine,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And love each changing gleam that flies<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Across that face of thine?'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>I dislike the translation of expression from one art to another, +otherwise I would call these verses impressionist. They have the +quickly-captured forms, the frail fugitive colour, the infinite +suggestiveness, which are the notes of the highest impressionism in +painting.</p> + +<p>See these eight lines:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'The sun is at rest—for the storms are o'er;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Just touch'd with the hand of night,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And a line of shadow creeps to the shore,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Then flashes in silver light—<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Like a note that stops in its flight and droops,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And clings for a while to the ground;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then trembles and wakes from its trance and breaks<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Into passion and glory of sound.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>How entirely true are these to the breaking of a smooth, pale expanse of +water into motion and light; the sudden flashing as of a million spears +with which the sea, when smitten by the sword of the Sun, rises to the +challenge of Morning. And yet by what simple and common words this +strong effect is produced!<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span></p> + +<p>Or this:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Only a bit of land-locked bay,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With a haunting face on the further side;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yet the ocean as well might bar the way,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">So far from each other our lives divide.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'For you jest at times, and at times you pray,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And you tread a path that cannot be mine;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the world is with you from day to day,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And all that you are I dare not divine.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Or this:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'In the glory of youth the young man went;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">His heart with pride was stirred;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"They should yield," he cried, "to the message sent,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And force of the burning word."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'The long years passed and a wearied man<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Crept back to the old home door:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"I have spoken my word and none has heard,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And the great world rolls as before."'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Or this:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Forward we look, and we gild it all,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Rich is the picture and tender and fair,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Backward we look, and the blue mists fall,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Veiling the troubles that once were there.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Ah! well, and ah! well, and lighter the load,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">If heart the enchanter weave his web;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If he tells love-stories to cheat the road,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And binds in our dreams the purple thread.'<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span></div></div> + +<p>Or this:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Ah! love so sweet, and patient, and fond,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I wandered far from thy sight,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And I said to myself that the world beyond<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Was a garden rich with delight.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'And there rose an image from morn to morn<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of new bewildering days,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till my heart grew proud and I thought with scorn<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of the peaceful homely ways.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'For the young are light, and I never had learnt<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To know the false from the true,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And my feet were drawn where the far lights burnt<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With their wonder strange and new.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'And now how bitter to heart is the taste,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And gone are the folly and pride;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And I save what I can from the years of waste<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And stand once more at thy side.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>It will be seen that the store of words at the singer's command is +limited; his palette is set with few colours; his lute has but few +strings; and it is in this that he resembles the singers of the Italian +folk-songs and couplets which have only the limited vocabulary of the +peasant to express so many of the deepest chords of human feeling. These +English verses might, like those Italian <i>canzone</i>, be created by one to +whom all the stores of knowledge and of culture were sealed books. They +are cast in the simplest of all possible forms of expression, and there +is not one which would not suit the plaintive measure<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> of a crooning +ballad sung in twilight by the embers of a cottage hearth. They suggest +their own music, and it would be difficult to read them aloud without +falling into some rhythmical balance of their lines.</p> + +<p>Auberon Herbert is, we know by his prose works, master of rich stores of +language and of scholarship; therefore this simplicity of style in his +verses springs, not from poverty of resources, but from correctness of +instinct. These songs are <i>naïf</i> as a child's prayer at its mother's +knee at eventide; were they ornate or elaborate they would cease to be, +as they are now, the frank and spontaneous utterances of the soul, +natural, I have said, as song of linnet or of lark.</p> + +<p>Let those who love pure, simple, unstudied, and unborrowed things send +for the little azure book, and read it for themselves; not in noisy +railway train, or metropolitan library, or fashion-filled country house; +but in the solitude of some quiet rural place, beside some nameless +streamlet where the willow-leaves touch the blue brook-lime and the bees +hum amidst the flowering thyme.</p> + +<p>When we take it home, as the day dies, let us place it on a shelf +between the hymns of George Herbert and those earliest love-songs which +were signed Owen Meredith. There it will find its fit companionship.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="X" id="X"></a>X</h2> + +<h3>THE UGLINESS OF MODERN LIFE</h3> + + +<p>Pierre Loti has lately written in an album published at Schweningen for +charity the following passages, which will be new to the majority of +English readers:—</p> + +<blockquote><p>'The end of April is the season of change, when the Judas trees +all along the shores of the Bosphorus are in flower. Nowhere +else in the world does one find so many Judas trees as here, +where the two extremities of Asia and of Europe are face to +face. There are violet-hued tufts and violet-hued alleys; an +excess of violet colour so intense, and so unusual, that one's +sight is dazzled and bewildered by it. And the wisteria too, +which garlands the old eaves of houses with its millions of +clusters, hangs out wreaths of a lighter lilac from all the +hamlets of grey timber which lean down over the water. This +Bosphorus is a great winding river, but a river which has in it +the life and the seduction of the sea. The hills on its two +shores are covered by palaces, by mosques, by cottages and by +tombs, all surrounded by and buried in gardens.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> And here in +the month of April, under this sky still veiled and softened by +the clouds of the North, there is a luxury of foliage and +blossom in which this violet tone of the Judas trees is +dominant, and shines beside the dark and ghost-like cypress +groves.</p> + +<p>'There are on earth other places grander, and perhaps more +beautiful; certainly there are none of greater power to charm. +This scenery of the Bosphorus, from which no stranger ever +escapes, is due to the Oriental mystery which still broods on +it; it comes from the great closed harems of which the upper +storeys hang over the waves; it comes from the veiled women +whom we see in the shadow of the gardens, and in the slender +caïques which pass. But this Turkish witchery is fading, alas! +Year by year, more and more, great gaps are made in the ranks +of the ancient impenetrable buildings, with their grated +windows, which plunge their walls into the water and which one +could enter from the water, as at Venice; and with them go the +slender caïques, the costumes, and the women's veils.</p> + +<p>'Already, even since last spring, Therapia seems to exist no +longer, masked as it is by a gigantic and hideous caravanserai; +the exquisite Anatoli Hissar is disfigured by an American +college, of a sinister ugliness, which has stuck itself above +the ancient castle with an imbecile air of domination.</p> + +<p>'And everywhere it is the same story, whether on the shores of +Asia or the shores of Europe; frightful new buildings cumber +the ground and factory chimneys rise beside minarets of which +they are the miserable caricatures. In vain do the Judas trees<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> +continue their beautiful flowering; the Bosphorus will soon +perish, destroyed by idiotic speculators. And the Turks, my +dear friends the Turks, have the indolence or fatalism to let +such destruction be wrought every day under their eyes!'</p></blockquote> + +<p>Thus Loti with his poet's soul, his prose which is a golden lyre; and it +seems to me as I translate his words that his lament for the Judas trees +and the Bosphorus is but the embodiment of a lament which sighs over the +whole world. The beauty of the earth is dying, dying like a creature +with a cancer in its breast.</p> + +<p>The writer of the <i>Foundations of Belief</i> thinks that the earth was made +for man; if this presumptuous conviction had indeed any foundation at +all what an ingrate would the recipient of the gift have proved himself, +what an imbecile, as Loti calls him!</p> + +<p>The loss of beauty from the world is generally regarded as the purely +sentimental grievance of imaginative persons; but it is not so; it is a +loss which must impress its vacuity fatally on the human mind and +character. It tends, more than any other loss, to produce that apathy, +despondency, and cynical indifference which are so largely +characteristic of the modern temper.</p> + +<p>The people are taught to think that all animal life may be tortured and +slaughtered at pleasure; that physical ills are to be feared beyond all +others, and escaped at all vicarious cost; that profit is the only +question of importance in commerce; that antiquity, loveliness, and +grace are like wild flowers, mere weeds<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> to be torn up by a steam +harrow. This is not the temper which makes noble characters, or generous +and sensitive minds. It is the temper which accumulates wealth, and +which flies readily to war to defend that wealth; but which is +absolutely barren of all impersonal sympathy, of all beautiful creation.</p> + +<p>Taken as a whole, artists have the kindliest natures and the happiest +temperaments of any body of men. Why? because their minds are always +more or less susceptible to the impressions and influences of +beauty—beauty of line, of hue, of proportion, of suggestion; beauty +alike of the near and of the far; and they surround themselves with +their own ideals of these in such measure as their powers permit. But, +even in artists, modern life tends to deform these ideals, and in any +exhibition of modern paintings ninety-nine out of a hundred of these +works will be ugly; they will display, perhaps, admirable technique, +complete mastery of detail, fine brush work, perhaps unexceptionable +drawing, but the combination of these qualities will produce merely a +sense of ugliness on the retina of the observer of them.</p> + +<p>Unless the man of genius buries himself resolutely in the country and by +the sea, as Tennyson did, as Clausen does, he cannot altogether escape +the influence of the unloveliness of modern life. It would be impossible +to painters and poets to live in Regent's Park or the Avenue de +Villiers, in Cromwell Road or the Via Nazionale, or in any of the new +quarters of English or Continental towns, unless their instincts of +beauty had become dulled and dwarfed by the atmosphere around them; life +for any length of time<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> would be insupportable to them under the +conditions in which it is of necessity lived in modern cities; and this +perversion of their natural instincts makes the tendency to replace +beauty by eccentricity and by weirdness fatally frequent. Their critics +obey the same influences, and modern art-criticism, like the recent +studies of Robert de la Sizzeranne on English painting, is characterised +by what appears to be a total incapacity to appreciate the quality of +beauty, a total insensibility to its absence from modern art.</p> + +<p>In sculpture this is as remarkable as in painting, and is still more +alarming and painful, the ugliness of realism and of eccentricity being +a still more offensive blasphemy in marble than it is in colour. If the +most ordinary sense of beauty, as distinguished from deformity, were not +extinct in the world, would any one of the monuments erected within the +last half century be allowed to disfigure the cities of Europe? Carnot +in a frock coat lying in the arms of a female, supposed to represent +France, with his boots thrust out towards the spectator; Victor Emmanuel +in a cocked hat with his body like a swollen bladder stuck on two wooden +ninepins; Peabody sitting in an arm-chair as if he awaited a dentist; +old William of Prussia like a child's tin soldier magnified, and with +the greater men who made him dwarfed military manikins underneath; +black-metal Garibaldis, and Gordons, and Napiers, and Macmahons; Claude +Bernard in the act of mutilating a live dog—every imaginable +abomination in every street and square of every capital, and even of +every noticeable town, proclaim to all the quarters of the globe the +debasement of a once pure and lofty art, and the utter<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span> ineptitude and +vulgarity of modern taste. Of what use is it to attempt to educate the +nations when such things as these are set up in their midst?</p> + +<p>An English archbishop at a recent Royal Academy banquet said that he +hoped the time was near at hand when every child in England would learn +to draw. Apart from the gross folly of teaching a child anything for +which its own natural talent does not pre-dispose it, and the injury +done to the world by the artificial manufacture of millions of +indifferent draughtsmen, what use can it be to attempt to awaken +perception of art in a generation which is begotten where art and nature +are alike persistently outraged?</p> + +<p>It is entirely useless to multiply art schools, and desire that every +child should learn to draw, when all the tendencies of modern life have +become such that every rule of art is violated in it and every artistic +sense offended in an ordinary daily walk.</p> + +<p>Amongst even the most cultured classes few have really any sensibility +to beauty. Not one in a thousand pauses in the hurried excitements of +social life to note beauty in nature; to art there is accorded a passing +attention because it is considered <i>chic</i> to do so; but all true sense +of art must be lacking in a generation whose women wear the spoils of +tropical birds, slain for them, on their heads and skirts, and whose men +find their principal joy for nearly half the year in the slaughter of +tame creatures, and bespatter with blood the white hellebore of their +winter woods.</p> + +<p>Beauty is daily more and more withdrawn from the general life of the +people. Fidgety and repressive bye-laws tend to suppress that element of +the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> picturesque which popular life by its liberties, and by its +open-air pastimes and peddlings, created for itself. The police are +everywhere, and street-life is joyless and colourless. Even within +doors, in the houses of poor people, the things of daily usage have lost +their old-world charm; the ugly sewing-machine has replaced the +spinning-wheel, the cooking-range the spacious open hearth, the veneered +machine-made furniture the solid home-made oaken chests and presses, a +halfpenny newspaper the old family Bible; whilst out of doors the lads +and lasses must not sing or dance, the dog must not play or bark, the +chair must not stand out on the pavement, the bells must not ring their +chimes, only the cyclist, or the automobilist, lord of all, may tear +along and leave broken limbs and bruised flesh of others behind him at +his pleasure.</p> + +<p>If all feeling for grace and beauty were not extinguished in the mass of +mankind at the actual moment, such a method of locomotion as cycling +could never have found acceptance; no man or woman with the slightest +æsthetic sense could assume the ludicrous position necessary for it. Nor +would the auto-car with its stench of petroleum be tolerated for an +instant in lanes and roads. Nor could modern dress be endured for a day +were there any true sense of fitness, of harmony, and of colour extant +in modern times. Even the great Catholic pageants are spoiled in their +grouping and splendour by the dull crowds of ill-dressed, dingily clad +townsfolk which drown their effect like a vast tide of muddy water +rising over a garden of flowers. It is impossible for us,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> even when +looking at anything so fine in colour as the Carnival at Milan, the Fête +Dieu at Brussels, the Students' Festivals in Munich, or any other of the +great Continental processions, to judge of what their extreme beauty +must have been when not only the procession itself but all the people in +the streets, all the whole vast tide of sightseers, comprising even the +very beggars, were equally full of colour and 'composed' harmoniously +with the central figures.</p> + +<p>A gorgeous spectacle of the streets now, whether it be popular, +military, or religious, is swamped in the mass of dull-coloured hues, +and grotesquely ugly head-gear, common to the whole population of a +city. Its effect may struggle as it will: it sinks under the +preponderating mass as a butterfly will be beaten down under a dirty, +drenching, city rain.</p> + +<p>There is a modern custom in Italy which is typical of the havoc made by +avarice and indifference and commerce running together hand in hand. It +is the shocking habit of stripping all evergreen trees of their leaves +to sell them to chemists, gilders, dyers, and the managers of what in +France we call <i>pompes funèbres</i>. Even magnolias are not spared, and +these magnificent trees stand naked and despoiled in nearly all the +gardens and parks all over the country. In every town there are now +offices for the consignment and purchase of these leaves; to strip and +sell, to buy and export them, has become a recognised trade, and +hundreds of tons weight are every year, from September to April, sent +out of Italy, chiefly to Germany, Austria and Russia.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> The injury done +to the trees is, of course, immeasurable. After a few seasons they +become anæmic, dry up, and slowly perish, whilst the aspect of the +gardens of which the bay, myrtle, box, laurel, arbutus, and magnolia +were of late such conspicuous ornaments is, of course, utterly changed +and ruined. Unless by some edict of the State the practice be speedily +stopped, another generation will see nothing of those avenues and groves +and alleys of evergreen foliage which have been the glory of Italian +palaces and villas since the days of the Cæsars.</p> + +<p>Follow the architectural history of any city, and you find it during the +last half-century the sorrowful record of a pitiful destruction. The +great gardens are always the first thing sacrificed. They are swept +away, and their places covered by brick and mortar with an incredible +indifference. Fine houses, even when of recent construction, like the +Pompeiian house of Prince Napoleon in Paris, are pulled down out of a +mere speculative mania to build something else, or to cut a long, +straight street as uninteresting and as unsuggestive as the boxwood +protractor which lies on a surveyor's desk.</p> + +<p>The greatest crime, or one of the greatest crimes (for there are others +black as night), of which the nineteenth century has been guilty has +been the driving of the people out of long familiar homes in the name +and under the pretext of hygiene, but in fact for the enrichment of +contractors, town councillors, and speculators of every kind. It began +with Haussmann; it has continued in Paris, and everywhere else, with +delirious haste ever since his time, as a burglar<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> may drag a grey-beard +to his death. The modern ædiles with their court of ravenous parasites +cannot understand, would not deign even to consider, the sorrow of a +humble citizen driven out of a familiar little home with nooks and +corners filled with memories and a roof-tree dear to generations. Go +into an old street of any old city you will, and you will almost +certainly find a delight for the eye in archway and ogive, in lintel and +casement, in winding stair and leaning eave; in the wallflowers rooted +in the steps, in the capsicum which has seeded itself between the +stones, in the swallows' nests under the gargoyle, in the pots of basil +and mignonette on the window-sills. But the modern street with its +dreary monotony, its long and high blank spaces, its even surfaces where +not a seed can cling or a bird can build, what will it say to your eyes +or your heart? You will see its dull, pretentious uniformity repeated on +either side of you down a mile-long vista, and you will curse it.</p> + +<p>It is natural that the people shut up in these structures crave for +drink, for nameless vices, for the brothel, the opium den, the cheap +eating-house and gaming booth; anything, anywhere, to escape from the +monotony which surrounds them and which leaves them no more charm in +life than if they were rabbits shut up in a physiologist's experimenting +cage, and fed on gin-soaked grains. No one in whom the æsthetic sense +was really awakened could dwell in a manufacturing city, or indeed in +any modern town. The 'flat,' whether in a 'first-class mansion,' or in a +'block' for the working man, would be more intolerable than a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> desert +island to anyone with a sense of the true charm of life, or, one may +add, any sensitiveness to the meaning of the word 'home'; that word +which is to be found in every language, though the English people do not +think so, and which is one of the sweetest and most eloquent in all +tongues. The Americans attach extreme pride to the fact that their +'sky-scrapers' are so advanced that your horses and carriage can be +carried up on a lift to the highest storey, and the nags, if it do not +make them dizzy, can survey the city in a bird's-eye view. But even this +supreme achievement of architects and engineers cannot lend to the cube, +shared with a score of others, the charm, the idiosyncrasy, the meaning, +the soul, which exhale from the smallest cottage where those who love +dwell all alone, through whose lattices a candle shines as a star to the +returning wanderer, and on whose lowly roof memory lies like a +benediction.</p> + +<p>According to the statistics of modern cities the mass of middle-class +and labouring-class people change their lodgings or tenements every two +or three years; three years is even an unusually long time of residence. +What can a people who flit like this, continually, know of the real +meaning of a home?</p> + +<p>The same restlessness and dissatisfaction which make these classes +change their residence so frequently, make the wealthier classes flit in +another way, from continent to continent, from capital to capital, from +one pleasure-place to another, from one house-party to another, from the +yacht to the <i>rouge-et-noir</i> tables, from the bath to the coverside, +from the homewoods<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> to the antipodes, in an endless gyration which +yields but little pleasure, but which they deem as necessary as cayenne +pepper with their hot soup.</p> + +<p>I believe that this monotony and lack of interest in the towns which +they inhabit fatally affect the minds of those whose lot it is to go to +and from the streets in continual toil, and produce in them fatigue, +heaviness and gloom; what the scholar and the poet suffer from +articulately and consciously, the people in general suffer from +inarticulately and unconsciously. The gaiety of nations dies down as the +beauty around them pales and passes. They know not what it is that +affects them, but they are affected by it none the less, as a young +child is hurt by the darkness, though it knows not what dark or light +means.</p> + +<p>Admit that the poorer people were ill-lodged in the Middle Ages, that +the houses were ill-lit, undrained, with the gutter water splashing the +threshold, and the eaves of the opposite houses so near that the sun +could not penetrate into the street. All this may have been so, but +around two-thirds of the town were gardens and fields, the neighbouring +streets were full of painted shrines, metal lamps, gargoyles, pinnacles, +balconies of hand-forged iron or hand-carved stone, solid doors, bronzed +gates, richly-coloured frescoes; and the eyes and the hearts of the +dwellers in them had wherewithal to feed on with pleasure, not to speak +of the constant stream of many-coloured costume and of varied pageant or +procession which was for ever passing through them. Then in the niches +there were figures; at the corners there were shrines; on the rivers +there were beautiful carved bridges, of which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> examples are still left +to our day in the Rialto and the Vecchio. There were barges with +picture-illumined sails, and pleasure-galleys gay to the sights, and +everywhere there were towers and spires, and crenulated walls, and the +sculptured fronts of houses and churches and monasteries, and close at +hand was the greenness of wood and meadow, the freshness of the +unsullied country. Think only what that meant; no miles on miles of +dreary suburban waste to travel; no pert aggressive modern villas to +make day hateful; no underground railway stations and subways; no +hissing steam, no grinding and shrieking cable trams; no hell of factory +smoke and jerry-builders' lath and plaster; no glaring geometrical +flower beds; but the natural country running, like a happy child laden +with posies, right up to the walls of the town.</p> + +<p>The cobbler or craftsman, who sat and worked in his doorway, and saw the +whole vari-coloured life of a mediæval city pass by him, was a very +different being to the modern mechanic, a cypher amongst hundreds, shut +in a factory room, amongst the deafening noise of cogwheel and pistons. +Even from a practical view of his position, his guilds were a very much +finer organisation than modern trades-unions, and did far more for him +in his body and his mind. In the exercise of his labour he could then be +individual and original, he is now but one-thousandth part of an inch in +a single tooth of a huge revolving cogwheel. The mediæval house might be +in itself nothing more than a cover from bad weather, but all about it +there was infinite variety; all life in the street or alley was richly +coloured, even the gutter brawls were medleys<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> of shining steel, and +broken plumes, and many-coloured coats, and broidered badges, a whirl of +bright hues, which sent a painter in joy to his palette.</p> + +<p>Indoors there were the spinning-wheel, the copper vessels, the walnut +presses, the settle by the wide warm hearth, the shrine upon the stairs +which the women made fresh with flowers. The river was gay with blazoned +hulls and painted sails; over its bridges the processions of church or +guild passed like embroidered ribbons slowly unrolling; the workman had +a busy life, and often a perilous life, but one still blent with +leisure; and the mariners' tales of wondrous lands unknown lent to life +that witchery of the remote and unattainable, that delightful thrill of +mystery and awe, which to the omniscient and cynical modern soul seem +childishness too trivial for words.</p> + +<p>Try and realise what life was like when Chaucer walked through Chepe, +when Henri de Valois entered Venice, when Philippe le Bel rode through +the oak woods of Vincennes, when Petrarca was crowned in Rome, when +William Shakespeare sauntered through Warwickshire lanes in cowslip +time. Read Michelet's description of a Flemish Burgher, and contrast it +with the existence of a shopkeeper in a modern town. Read Froude's +description of a sea-going merchantman of Elizabeth's days, and contrast +it with the captain of a modern liner. You will at once see how full of +colour and individuality were the former lives; how colourless, +unlovely, and deprived of all initiative are the latter. Being shorn of +freedom, interest, and beauty, modern life finds vent for the +feverishness which is cooped up in it in commercial<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> gambling—gambling +of all kinds from the Stock Exchange to the tontine, from the foreign +loan to the suburban handicap—and existence is but one gigantic +lottery. Even when a man goes on an excursion of pleasure he will at +starting buy a penny ticket which insures his life for a hundred pounds +in case of accident! How can such a populace, always haunted by the fear +of death, possibly enjoy?</p> + +<p>The great increase in cold-blooded and ferocious murders, done on slight +motive and with cynical indifference, is the natural issue of this way +of looking at life. Who has no reverence for his own life has naturally +none for the lives of others. When a man regards his own existence as a +mere parcel to be adequately paid for with a hundred pounds, it follows +as the night the day that he cannot regard the life of another as worth +twenty shillings. Even death itself is made grotesque by modern science, +and the arms and legs and headless trunks flung into the air by the +explosion of a bomb are robbed of that mute majesty which the dead body +claims by right of nature. They seem no more than shreds of cloth or +fragments of chopped wood. It is to be feared, moreover, that the +extreme facilities given by science for instantaneous and widespread +slaughter will lead gradually to greater indifference still in the +public mind to assassination, and it will become so common that it will +be scarcely regarded with disapproval.</p> + +<p>Many verdicts in various countries show the growing indulgence of the +law to murders. In France and Italy especially even a cold-blooded +murder will meet scant punishment, whilst one due to sudden<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span> passion is +almost sure of being either wholly unpunished, or very lightly +sentenced. In many cases, even in England, the juries have been of an +extraordinary tenderness towards murderers whose guilt they were obliged +to admit. At Chester, in England, a few weeks ago, four young colliers +who set on and stoned another to death, and flung his body in a canal, +were sentenced by Mr Justice Lawrance to the punishment of four months +in prison for three of them, and nine months for the ringleader, and +nothing more.</p> + +<p>Many men of violent temper would think so small a price well paid to rid +themselves of a foe or of a rival. The excuse for the colliers was that +they had all been drinking. This is an excuse very generally made in +these days of culture and compulsory education.</p> + +<p>It will be said that this has nothing to do with the presence or absence +of beauty in national life. But it has much to do with the callousness +and apathy and egotism so general in national life; and the ugliness of +surrounding influences and poverty of design in the arts so common in +modern times are chief factors in generating this lamentable temper.</p> + +<p>Happiness, and its companions goodwill and kindly sympathy, are +insensibly suggested and increased by what is beautiful, artistic, and +full of good colour and varied design. Even the physical aspect of man +is affected by that which it looks upon, that by which it is surrounded, +and the French woman was a wise mother who during her pregnancy went to +gaze upon the finest works of the Louvre. How much, on the contrary, may +the embryo be affected for ill by sordid,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> dreary, and unlovely +conditions which environ the parent during the period of gestation?</p> + +<p>There can be, I think, no doubt that physical beauty is degenerating +rapidly, and the frequency with which the scrofulous mouth is seen in +children, even in children of the aristocracies, is alarming for the +future of the race. In the working classes the offspring must be fatally +affected by the poisonous trades, the sickening effluvia, the deadly +conditions amongst which modern commerce requires its slaves to spend +their lives.</p> + +<p>Even the country fields are sullied by chemicals and stink of sulphates, +phosphates, and human excrements. Agriculture tends to become a mere +manufacture, like any other, surrounded by the din of pistons, the fumes +of vapour, the jar of wheels.</p> + +<p>Beauty is the safest stimulant, the surest tonic, the most precious +inspiration; natural beauty first of all, and the beauty of the arts +closely following, twinlike handmaids to Aphrodite. But to perceive this +the mentally blind are as incapable as the physically blind; and such, +mental cecity is as general in these days as myopy is common in the +schoolrooms of this generation.</p> + +<p>Every year all cities, and even all towns, are severed farther and +farther from the country; every year the electric wires multiply for +telegraph and telephone; the tramways and railways increase, the +sickening grinding noises common to these methods of locomotion fill the +air, and the extraordinary ugliness, which seems attached like a doom to +any modern invention, is multiplied on all sides. That, in an age which +considers itself educated, such hideous constructions<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> as the great +wheels of Chicago and of Earl's Court should attract sane persons as a +diversion will alone prove how completely the instinct of correct taste, +with its accompanying abhorrence of deformity, has become extinct in all +modern crowds.</p> + +<p>With the ever-increasing use of steam, the beauty of the sky yearly +grows dimmer and more veiled. That a race with any pretensions to +education and perception can live contentedly under such a sky as that +of London would appear an incredible fact, did we not know that it is an +indisputable one. Whoever revisits Paris after a few seasons' absence +finds the brilliancy of its life more and more dimmed with every decade +by the sullying of the atmosphere through the increase of factories, +railways and other works, and the invasion by the town of its once +beautiful girdle of wood, orchard, and garden. Every year national life +everywhere grows less varied, less picturesque, more unlovely, and every +year finds the people more contented to dwell with no other horizon than +a bank of smoke.</p> + +<p>It was monstrous that the selection of the glades and pastures of the +New Forest, for military manœuvres, should ever have been permitted +by the British War Office. But the mere fact that it <i>was</i> monstrous, +that it was an offence to history and nature, that it disturbed and +distressed wild life, that it wounded and outraged the feelings of +residents and the sentiments of artists, was a reason all-sufficient to +make the modern temper brutally enamoured of the idea. Merely because +the despatch of the battalions and field batteries thither was a +vandalism, and caused pain<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> to more æsthetic minds, military +manœuvres in the New Forest became all at once a project to be +insisted on and carried out at all costs. The same outrage is now being +done to Stonehenge.</p> + +<p>The modern temper cannot respect, cannot appreciate, cannot love, but it +can hate; and its hatred shows itself in damage and destruction +everywhere, whether it set fire to the noble old house of the Hanseatic +League at Antwerp, pull down the water towers of Dieppe, plant the +jerry-builder before the Lateran, drag a railway train up to Murren, or +trample down with ill-shod boy-soldiers the thyme and the bracken of the +Conqueor's woods and the turf which the Druids trod.</p> + +<p>The modern temper resembles those children in Victor Hugo's romance who, +being left alone with the beautiful and ancient <i>Horæ</i>, find no prank so +delightful as to tear from end to end the illuminated text of the book +and its perfect miniatures, clapping their hands as each fair thing +perishes. Nor is there any indication of the advent of anyone who will +take the book of the world from the destroying hands, and save what +still remains of its beauty.</p> + +<p>There is, on the contrary, every sign that the future will see a still +greater domination of that rude, cold, and cruel temper which takes +pleasure in innovation and obliteration, and sneers, with contemptuous +conceit, at those who are pained by such acts of desecration. It is the +same sneer, the same leering and self-satisfied snigger, with which it +views the expression and evidence of pity for, and solidarity with, what +it is pleased to call the lower animals.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span></p> + +<p>The Langdale Pikes are being pierced and blasted for iron foundries and +slate quarries. The great forest of La Haye near Nancy is being +destroyed by military fortifications, and by foundries and by factories. +All the valley of the Meuse and the Moselle is sullied with factory +smoke and blasting powder. The Bay of Amalfi and the shore of Posilippo +are defiled by cannon foundries. The Isle of St Elena at Venice is laid +waste to serve as a railway factory. All the Ardennes are scorched and +soiled, and sickened with stench of smoke and suffocating slag. The Peak +Country and the Derwent vales are being scarred and charred for railway +lines, mines, and factories. Amsterdam, so late the Venice of the North, +is becoming an unmeaning mass of modern insignificance and ugliness; +what has been done to the Venice of the South is such outrage that it +might wake Tiziano from under his weight of marble in the Frari Church, +and call the Veronese from his grave.</p> + +<p>To destroy Trinity Hospital in London, and place a brewery in its place +is a joy and glory to the modern municipal soul. The Hôtel Dessin in +Calais, made sacred to the name of Laurence Sterne, was a pleasant place +with an arched entrance and a large courtyard, round whose sides the +buildings were grouped; it had vines and greenery of all kinds, and over +the archway were little dormer windows. Behind it stretched fair gardens +of great extent, and beyond these was a theatre belonging to the hotel. +Of late years it had served as a museum for the town, and was thus +preserved intact; now it has been pulled down and razed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> to the ground, +and a huge commercial school built in its place. The funicular railways +are ruining the whole of the Swiss Alps; the greed of a few speculators +and the irreverent folly of the multitude combine to scar the sides of +the great mountains and gather on their summits troops of gaping +sightseers, to whom the solemnity of the Gletsch Alp or the virginity of +the Jungfrau are of no account.</p> + +<p>Zermatt, so late a virgin stronghold of the Higher Alps, is now a mere +cockney excursion, and sixty thousand trippers invade its solitude with +every summer, plodding like camels in a string, vexing the air with +inane noises, offending the mountain stillness with songs to which the +bray of mules were music, insulting the crystal clearness of the heavens +with the intrusion of their own ludicrous, blatant and imbecile +personalities, incapable even of being silent and ashamed. The island of +Naxos, whose mere name brings before us so many classic memories in all +their loveliness and glory, is being broken up into chips by the +emery-workers, and is to be mined for aluminium.</p> + +<p>The finest torrent in Scotland is about to be diverted from its course +and used for aluminium works. The glory of its waters is to be known no +more, merely that some engineers and manufacturers may fill their +pockets to the public loss; that some promoters and shareholders, +possessing large parliamentary influence, may add to their fortunes. To +speak of civilisation, which is a term implying culture, in the same +breath with a nation capable of such an action is ludicrous.</p> + +<p>The fumes of these aluminium works will, when<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span> they are in full blast, +emit hydrofluoric acid gas which will destroy all the vegetation on Loch +Ness for miles. Yet such is the apathy and want of conscience in modern +generations that the annihilation of the Falls of Foyers appears +scarcely to meet with any general indignation.</p> + +<p>There is no modern mania so dangerous as the present one for meddling +with water; no injury more conspicuous and irrevocable than the +perpetual interference with lake and stream and torrent.</p> + +<p>The lakes of Maggiore, of Como, of Garda, are all being defiled by +factories and steam-engines; and even such a writer as De Vogüé can look +contentedly forward to a time when such erections will disfigure both +banks of the Rhône.</p> + +<p>The isles of Lake Leman serve for commercial and communal purposes. +Thirlmere and Loch Katrine have been violated, and all the other English +and Scotch lakes will be similarly ravaged. Fucina has been dried up as +a speculation, and Trasimene is threatened. The Rhône is already dammed +up, and tapped, and tortured, until all its rich alluvial deposits are +lost to the soil of Provence.</p> + +<p>It would be easy to fill folios with the bare enumeration of places and +memories, of sites and scenes of which the destruction has been +accomplished within the last few years. To get money for the +preservation of anything is well-nigh impossible; but millions flow like +water when there is any scheme of destruction. In an age which prates +more than any other of its pride in education, the violation of every +law of taste, of every tie of association, of every rule of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> beauty, is +always greedily welcomed with a barbaric shout of triumph.</p> + +<p>Lath and plaster circuses or theatres are erected by the Mausoleum of +Hadrian, and the miserable caged monkeys of a menagerie pull each +other's tails where Raffaele's pavillion stood amidst the +nightingale-filled ilex groves.</p> + +<p>Frederic Harrison, in his admirable studies of Paris, cannot hide from +himself or his readers the loss to art and history which the +Haussmannising of the city began, the insanity of the Commune continued, +and the barbarism of the present Republic confirms. The ruin of Rome +since the Italian occupation is ten times worse and more offensive than +even such ruin as would have been entailed by a siege, for it is more +vulgar; shell and shot would have destroyed indeed, but they would not +have imbecilely and impudently reconstructed. The same sad change +awaits, if it has not already overtaken, every city of Europe, and alas! +even of Asia. The smoke fiend has entered Jerusalem, and the shriek of +the engines has scared the wild dove from her nest in the palm and +pomegranate. The Mount of Olives is 'a thing to be done,' and the +'scorcher,' sweating and grinning, drives his wheel through the +rose-thickets of Damascus.</p> + +<p>Factory chimneys stand as thick in Bombay as in Birmingham, and black +trails of foul vapour float over Indus and Ganges; soon their curse will +reach the Euphrates. I believe I am correct in saying that the smoke +from the funnel of a great steamer or a large factory can be traced for +forty-five miles in its passage through the air. Imagine the effect on +atmosphere<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span> of the continual crossing and re-crossing on ocean routes of +tens of thousands of such steamships yearly, of the perpetual belching +of such fumes from the innumerable factory shafts annually increased in +every part of what is called the civilised world. To India, from England +alone, the export of machines and other material for factory erection +has been at the enormous rate of £70,000 monthly!</p> + +<p>Only let us consider what this means, what destruction of pure light and +of fine atmosphere this involves for Hindostan.</p> + +<p>The snow-white marbles of the temples, the ivory doors, the silver +gates, the rosy clouds, the lotus-laden waters, the golden dawns, the +magnolia woods, the camellia groves, the feathered flocks in the bamboo +aisles, will all vanish that the smoke fiend may reign alone and the +traders who live by him grow rich. The 'light of Asia' is forced to grow +foul and dark and sickly, and its radiant suns to be shrouded in +pestilent fog in order that the British Gradgrind may put by his 200 per +cent. and fold his hands complacently on his rotund belly.</p> + +<p>Is the end worth the means?</p> + +<p>Is modern trade in truth such a godhead descended on earth that all the +loveliness of earth and air, of sky and water should be sacrificed to +its demands?</p> + +<p>We hear <i>ad nauseam</i> of the gains of modern life, of what is called +civilisation: does no one count its losses? It might be well to do so. +It might act as a corrective to the inane self-worship which is at once +the most ill-founded and the most irritating feature of the age. Perhaps +other ages have in turn adored<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> themselves in like manner, but there is +not in history any record of it. Its prophets, heroes, sages, each age +has either admired or execrated; but I do not think any age has so +admired itself as the present age, which has its prototype in William of +Germany standing between two sand banks and thinking himself greater +than Alexander because his engineers have succeeded in cutting for him a +ditch longer than usual.</p> + +<p>The modern world is at this moment ruled by two enemies of all beauty: +these are commerce and militarism. What the one does not destroy, the +other tramples under foot. In earlier times war, terrible always, was +beautiful, like its goddess Bellona, in its savage splendour. Its camps, +its troops, its standards, its panoply, were all full of colour and of +pomp. Even so late as the Napoleonic wars its awfulness was blended with +beauty. Now the passage of an army is like the course of so many dirty +luggage trains filled with bales of wool or hampers of fish. Its +monstrous maw licks up all loveliness as all life which it finds in its +way. Its frightful steel cylinders belch death on every gracious and +happy thing. It is unenlivened by pageantry, as it is unredeemed by +courtesy. Bellona is no more a goddess, but a hag.</p> + +<p>Socialism, which has the future of the world in its hands, will probably +be unable to abolish war, and will certainly not care for beauty or seek +to preserve it. The reconstruction of society which Socialism +contemplates will not be a state of things in which the interests of +either nature or art will be cherished. Collectivism must of necessity +be colourless; equality can afford none of those heights and depths, +those<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> lights and shades, which are the essential charm of life as of +landscape. When all the arable earth is one huge allotment-ground, a +Corot will find no subject for his canvas, not even in his dreams, for +his dreams will be dead of inanition.</p> + +<p>There can be, I think, no hope that this loss of beauty will not be +greater and greater with every year. The tendency, continually +increasing in the modern character, is to regard beauty and nature with +cynical indifference, stirred, when stirred at all, into active +insolence; such insolence as was expressed in the joke of the Chicago +citizen who called the plank-walks of his city 'the reafforesting of our +town.' It is a temper not merely brutal, but with a leer in it which is +more offensive than its brutality.</p> + +<p>The great beauty which animal and bird life lends to the earth is doomed +to lessen and disappear. The automatic vehicle will render the horse +useless; and he will be considered too costly, and too slow, to be kept +even as a gambling toy. The dog will have no place in a world which has +no gratitude for such simple sincerity and faithful friendliness as he +offers. When wool, and horn, and leather, and meat foods have been +replaced by chemical inventions, cattle and sheep will have no more +tolerance than the wild buffalo has had in the United States. What are +now classed as big game will be exterminated in Asia and Africa, and +already in Europe we are told that the pleasure it affords to people to +kill them is the sole reason why stags, foxes, and gamebirds are allowed +to exist and multiply under artificial protection. All the charm which +the races of 'fur<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> and feather' lend to the earth will be lost for ever; +for a type destroyed can never be recalled.</p> + +<p>Every invention of what is called science takes the human race farther +and farther from nature, nearer and nearer to an artificial, unnatural +and dependent state. One seems to hear the laugh of Goethe's +Mephistopheles behind the hiss of steam; and in the tinkle of the +electric bell there lurks the chuckle of glee with which the Tempter +sees the human fools take as a boon and a triumph the fatal gifts he has +given.</p> + +<p>What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own +soul? What shall it profit the world to put a girdle about its loins in +forty minutes when it shall have become a desert of stone, a wilderness +of streets, a treeless waste, a songless city, where man shall have +destroyed all life except his own, and can hear no echo of his heart's +pulsation save in the throb of an iron piston.</p> + +<p>The engine tearing through the disembowelled mountain, the iron and +steel houses towering against a polluted sky, the huge cylinders +generating electricity and gas, the network of wires cutting across the +poisoned air, the overgrown cities spreading like scurvy, devouring +every green thing like locusts; haste instead of leisure, Neurasthenia +instead of health, mania instead of sanity, egotism and terror instead +of courage and generosity, these are the gifts which the modern mind +creates for the world. It can chemically imitate every kind of food and +drink, it can artificially produce every form of disease and suffering, +it can carry death in a needle and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span> annihilation in an odour, it can +cross an ocean in five days, it can imprison the human voice in a box, +it can make a dead man speak from a paper cylinder, it can transmit +thoughts over hundreds of miles of wire, it can turn a handle and +discharge scores of death-dealing tubes at one moment as easily as a +child can play a tune on a barrel organ, it can pack death and horror up +in a small tin case which has served for sardines or potted herrings, +and leave it on a window-sill, and cause by it towers to fall, and +palaces to crumble, and flames to upleap to heaven, and living men to +change to calcined corpses; all this it can do, and much more. But it +cannot give back to the earth, or to the soul, 'the sweet wild freshness +of morning.' And when all is said of its great inventions and their +marvels and mysteries, are they more marvellous or more mysterious than +the changes of chrysalis and caterpillar and butterfly, or the rise of +the giant oak from the tiny acorn, or the flight of swallow and +nightingale over ocean and continent?</p> + +<p>Man has created for himself in the iron beast a greater tyrant than any +Nero or Caligula. And what is the human child of the iron beast, what is +the typical, notable, most conspicuous creation of the iron beast's +epoch?</p> + +<p>It is the Cad, vomited forth from every city and town in hundreds, +thousands, millions, with every holy day and holy-day. The chief +creation of modern life is the Cad; he is an exclusively modern +manufacture, and it may safely be said that the poorest slave in Hellas, +the meanest fellah in Egypt, the humblest<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> pariah in Asia was a +gentleman beside him. The Cad is the entire epitome, the complete +blossom and fruit in one, of what we are told is an age of culture. +Behold him in the vélodrome as he yells insanely after his kind as they +tear along on their tandem machines in a match, and then ask yourself +candidly, O my reader, if any age before this in all the centuries of +earth ever produced any creature so utterly low and loathsome, so +physically, mentally, individually, and collectively hideous? The helot +of Greece, the gladiator of Rome, the swash-buckler of Mediæval Europe, +nay, the mere pimp and pander of Elizabethan England, of the France of +the Valois, of the Spain of Velasquez, were dignity, purity, courage in +person beside the Cad of this breaking dawn of the twentieth century; +the Cad rushing on with his shrill scream of laughter as he knocks down +the feeble woman or the yearling child, and making life and death and +all eternity seem ridiculous by the mere existence of his own +intolerable fatuity and bestiality.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="XI" id="XI"></a>XI</h2> + +<h3>THE QUALITY OF MERCY</h3> + + +<p>Whatever we may think of the artistic and critical influence of Mr +Ruskin on his age, we cannot but view with admiration and reverence much +of his moral teaching, and there are in his writings innumerable +isolated words of wisdom which would be well printed in letters of gold +wherever men and women congregate and youth is educated. Amongst these +is one which could not be too often reproduced before the eyes of an +indifferent, egotistic, and cynical generation. It is this: 'Whosoever +is not actively kind, is cruel.' It is an absolute truth, but one which +is very little heeded.</p> + +<p>I will not here speak of the three crystallised and applauded forms of +cruelty, war, sport, and scientific experiment. I wish to speak only of +what is by scientists termed 'lay' cruelty, but which I would myself +call general and scarcely conscious cruelty—the ill-treatment of all +sentient creatures not human, by human creatures, due to the apathy, +egotism, and unkindness of the latter. It is to this form of cruelty +that Mr Ruskin alludes in the sentence previously quoted.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span></p> + +<p>The cruelty of earlier times had its chief cause in violence; the +cruelty of modern times has its chief cause in cowardice and +selfishness. The character of the cruelty has altered, but its +prevalence remains equally widespread and its motive is more +contemptible. The modern world regards the pillory and the stocks as +barbarous; but it allows the railway signalman to be riveted to his post +for eighteen consecutive hours, and sees no harm in it. The human race +was then ruder, no doubt, but more generous; more violent in some ways, +but more magnanimous. Remember the familiar story of the Roman who wrung +the neck of the dove which took refuge in his bosom from the pursuing +bird of prey, and was stoned by his fellow-citizens. In the modern world +there would be no movement of indignation against such an act; +gentlewomen and men see the necks wrung of the wounded birds in the +shooting enclosures from Hurlingham to Monte Carlo without the slightest +emotion of pity or effort at censure.</p> + +<p>Not long ago I spoke of this to a young and beautiful Englishwoman of +the great world, and she answered, 'Yes, it is useless to attempt to +move them to any feeling for animals. You can get them to do something +for people, because they think it does them good with the masses, keeps +off revolution, and helps in canvassing. But for cruelty they do not +care in the least.' She spoke in simplicity, with no intention of +sarcasm, but she could not have uttered a greater truth, or a more +cutting satire.</p> + +<p>There are exceptions, doubtless, but they are not numerous enough to +leaven the great mass of indifferent<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span> and selfish people. Animals find +but few friends. Alas! they have no votes!</p> + +<p>There is, perhaps, one thing still more nauseating than the world's +apathy, and that is its self-praise; its admiration of its own +charities, so miserably insignificant beside the extravagance of its own +pleasures. When we think how little is done by those who could do so +much to influence even their own households to justice and tenderness, +one cannot wonder that the populace is unmoved by the occasional +invitation to them from a higher world to display those virtues which +the rich prefer rather to inculcate than to practise.</p> + +<p>Last year in England, in a nobleman's house, a footman beat a small dog, +which ran into the offices, with a red-hot poker, and piled burning +coals on it until it died in indescribable agony. I wrote and asked the +nobleman in question if he had dismissed this monster from his service, +the man having been only punished by the Bench with a slight fine; the +nobleman answered me so evasively that it was easy to read between the +lines and see that he had retained the footman in his service. This act +on the part of the servant was an extreme case of hideous cruelty, but +his employer's condonation is by no means an extreme case; it is, +indeed, a very common sample of a master's indifference, of that +indifference which is practically connivance. People abandon their +stables to their coachmen, their dogs to their keepers; even the animals +they call pets are frequently allowed to suffer from servants, or +children, and are bullied, neglected, and teased with impunity.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span></p> + +<p>The disgusting spectacle of dog-catching by the police is allowed to be +presented in the public streets of most capitals of Europe, continually; +and there is never the outburst of revolted feeling which such an +offence to all humane sentiment and common decency should provoke. If +such spectacles excited in the general public one-thousandth part of +such disgust as they would excite in any really civilised people, it +would be impossible for such scenes to exist, in either hemisphere, to +shock the sight and sense of those of more refined taste and more humane +feelings.</p> + +<p>There is an excellent association for the protection of birds, but its +aims are so little in touch with its generation that it obtains only the +most meagre support. Great names and patrician names are very rare upon +its lists, and at its public meetings its cause has its neck at once +broken by the question of sport being rigorously excluded by its +chairman, who is a noted sportsman!</p> + +<p>There is an institution in London which calls itself a 'home for lost +dogs'; under this affecting title it appeals for funds, as though it +were inspired solely by love and anxiety for the happiness of dogs, and +for the protection and prolongation of their lives. In reality it is an +institution for the organised suffocation of fifteen or twenty thousand +dogs annually, which have been kidnapped by the police and taken +forcibly from their owners; it is a slaughter-house for the assistance +and convenience of the police, and as such should be maintained out of +the funds of the Government. Nothing but the most criminal apathy in the +public could permit a slaughter-house to masquerade as a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span> 'Home' and be +a petitioner to charity. The word 'home' implies peace and safety, and +should not be permitted to cover a place of legalised butchery.</p> + +<p>Think how odious to the horse must be the mere forcing of the bit into +his mouth and of the headstall over his ears. Without speaking of the +torture of the spur, the stinging of the lash, the dreadful weight upon +the spine from which the riding-horse suffers, and the dreadful strain +upon the lungs and withers to which the draught and driving-horse is +incessantly condemned, only realise the continued imprisonment and +galling servitude in which the equine race are forced to dwell, and ask +yourself if, in common pity or justice, that life should not be as much +alleviated and lightened as it is possible to make it. Yet is there one +owner of horses in a million who takes the trouble to see for himself +how his own stables are organised, or maintains out of gratitude, in +their old age or in their failing speed, the horses which have served +him in their prime?</p> + +<p>Many wild-beast shows of the present hour are as cruel as were the +gladiatorial games of Rome, and far less manly. I can imagine no +possible argument which can be put forward for the license awarded to +the travelling caravans which attend fairs and feasts all the world +over, and which are hells of animal torture. What is called the taming +of beasts is the most cruel, demoralising, and loathsome of pursuits; +the horrible wickedness of its methods is known to all, and the appetite +it awakens and stimulates in the public is to the last degree debasing. +Yet not the smallest effort is made to end it.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span></p> + +<p>The encouragement of menageries, where wild animals are cowed and +maltreated into trembling misery and forced to imitate the foolish +attitudes and comedies of men, lies entirely with the public, <i>i.e.</i>, +with the world at large. If the nations were in any true sense +civilised, such forms of diversion would, I repeat, be insupportable to +them. Dancing dogs, dancing bears, performing wolves, enslaved +elephants, would one and all, from the lion tortured on a bicycle in a +circus, to the little guinea-pig playing a drum in the streets, be so +sickeningly painful to a truly civilised public that the stolid human +brutes who live by their sufferings would not dare to train and exhibit +them.</p> + +<p>Not long ago there was a somewhat silly discussion in the English press +on the effect of perfumes on desert animals in captivity, of the +excitement and pleasure produced on them by such odours. It occurred to +no one of the sapient correspondents that such perfumes did, no doubt, +recall to the poor imprisoned animals the intense fragrance of the +flowers in their own jungles and tropical forests. All animals are +intensely sensitive to odours, because their olfactory nerves telegraph +to their brains in a way of which our own dull nostrils are utterly +unconscious.</p> + +<p>With what pretension can a world call itself humane when in its codes +all 'wild' animals are unprotected by laws, and may be treated with +whatever brutality is desired? When it is a question for the dweller in +a jungle to kill a wild beast or be killed himself, one can understand +that he chooses the first of the two alternatives. But this is no excuse +for the man in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> cities to drag a captured lion to make the sport of +fools, and to perish wretchedly of diseased joints, thwarted longings, +and the anguish of nostalgia.</p> + +<p>It is idle to speak of the civilisation of a world in which such things +are possible. From a hygienic point of view alone, these poor tormented +creatures, cooped up in filthy cages, breathing fetid air night and day, +hearing each other's piteous cries, having no single want or instinct +gratified, ill-fed, diseased, miserable, and ravaged by parasites, must +be one of the most unwholesome centres of contagion conceivable. A polar +bear is at this moment being taken through Europe for exhibition in a +caravan; he is kept in a cage in which he cannot turn; he has a pan of +water two inches deep, and a few ounces of bread as his only food!</p> + +<p>There is no animal which is not to be attached by kindness and justice +shown to him. The lion of Rosa Bonheur fell into decline from grief at +being sent from her keeping to that of the Jardin des Plantes when she +was absent on a distant voyage. She returned to find him dying; he +recognised her voice and opened his eyes with a feeble roar of pleasure, +then laid his great head down upon her knees and died. No one who knows +human nature by long experience can assert for a moment that its +fidelity can be secured by benefits, or its sincerity insured by +affection; but when kindness and regard are shown to 'the beasts which +perish,' these never fail to give them back tenfold.</p> + +<p>Let me here tell a true history, which I should have told to Matthew +Arnold had he been living then, with entire certainty of his sympathy.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span></p> + +<p>A little dog of Maltese breed, who belonged to my mother, was +inconsolable at her death. For three weeks he refused all food, and was +kept alive by nourishment artificially administered. He sat up, and +begged, day after day, before her bed and before her favourite chair, +until he dropped from sheer exhaustion. He wanted for nothing that I +could give him; and no habit of his daily life was changed; but he was +unhappy. Whenever the door opened he thought she entered. He ran and +looked into every stranger's face. He knew everything which had belonged +to her. His sorrow injured his health; his heart became weak, and he +died of cardiac paralysis at six years old.</p> + +<p>What could human affection offer superior in fidelity and feeling?</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'That loving heart, that patient soul,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Had they indeed no longer span<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To run their course, and reach their goal,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And read their homily to man?'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>I think that not only is their affection undervalued, but that the +intelligence of animals is greatly underrated. Man having but one +conception of intelligence, his own, does not endeavour to comprehend +another which is different, and differently exhibited and expressed. I +have before now said in print that if our mind exceeds the mind of +animals and birds in much, theirs exceeds ours at least in some things, +as their sight, scent, and hearing far surpass ours.</p> + +<p>When we remember also that these other races are absolutely alone, are +never aided by man, are only, on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> the contrary, hindered by him, +opposed, thwarted, and persecuted by him, their achievements are, +relatively to their opportunities, much more wonderful than any of his. +The elements which are his great foes are likewise theirs; they have to +encounter and suffer all the woes of tempest, hurricane, flood, the +width of barren seas, the hunger on solitary shores; and they have also +in his ruthless and unceasing spite an enemy more cruel than any with +which he himself has to contend. If we meditate on this unquestionable +fact, we shall be forced to admit that Cristoforo Colombo was not a +greater hero than many a little swallow.</p> + +<p>But scarcely anyone does meditate on these marvels; one in a million, +one in a generation, at the most. To nearly the whole of humanity the +wonderful and beautiful races with which the world teems, which are for +ever living side by side with the human, do not exist except in so far +as they contribute to the pleasure of slaughter, or the greed of +commerce, or of gambling. For to the majority of men and women all +organisms except their own are as though they were not.</p> + +<p>There is no sympathy with these interesting and mysterious lives led +side by side with man, but ignored by him entirely, except when by him +persecuted. The nest of the weaver bird is to the full as ingenious and +as marvellous as the dome of St Peter's or St Paul's. The beaver State, +and the bee State, are as intricate in organisation as the Constitution +of the French Republic, and the British Monarchy, and are distinctly +superior in many parts of their organisation to either of these. The +passage of the white ants through a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span> jungle and across a continent is +quite as admirable in unison and skill and order as the human march to +Chitral; and the annual flights of the storks, of the Solan geese, of +the wild ducks, exhibit qualities of obedience to a chosen commander, of +endurance, of observation, and of wisdom, not exceeded by any human +Arctic or Australian exploring party.</p> + +<p>The vain-glorious assumption that we have a monopoly of what is called +reason cannot be allowed by those who bring a reason of their own, +unbiassed, to the study of animals, not under the unnatural conditions +of the laboratory, but in natural freedom and peace.</p> + +<p>No skill of a Stanley or a Nansen ever exceeded that of the hound Maida +in tracing Sir Walter Scott, and no journey of a Burton or a Speke was +ever so wonderful as the migratory voyage of a martin or a nightingale. +I have said this ere now; and it can never be repeated too often, for +nothing is so cruel as the vanity of man, and nothing so opposed to his +own true progress as his blind and dogged contempt for all races not +shaped exactly like his own.</p> + +<p>The correspondence which has been general in the English press regarding +the muzzling of dogs, has been conspicuous for its silliness, ignorance, +and cruelty, but above all by its disgusting selfishness; and an editor +of a very popular organ was not ashamed to print that if only one human +life could be saved, etc., etc., disregarding the fact that men were at +the time being slaughtered by dysentery and fever, by the scores, for no +better object than to go and cut down cotton trees at Coomassie; whilst +deaths by starvation, a perfectly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span> preventible cause, are so common in +English cities that the reports of them scarcely awaken a passing regret +or compassion. The veneration for human life which is developed by +journalists when a lion kills his gaoler, or when a dog is supposed to +have been the cause of his tormentor's death, is comical in these +gentlemen of the press, who, to help a speculation, open out a new mart, +or influence the share lists, will ravenously demand a military +expedition, or a naval demonstration, to sabre, shell, burn, and ravage +upon distant strands.</p> + +<p>The attitude of the Brahmin, to whom all forms of life are sacred, is +intelligible, estimable, and consistent; the attitude of the savage +conqueror, to whom thousands of dead men and thousands of dead beasts +are alike so much carrion, is intelligible and reasonable, whilst +brutal. The attitude of the journalist and county councilman is not +either; it possesses neither logic nor common sense, and is not +estimable or reasonable, but only contemptible.</p> + +<p>If there be one thing more loathsome than the carnage of war, it is the +Red Cross societies following in its train. But the modern world, being +conscious that the butchery of war ill accords with its æsthetic and +religious pretensions, gives a sop to its conscience by sending the +ambulance side by side with the gun carriage. A more robust and more +honest temper did not evade the truth that the least brutal war is the +one most immediately and conclusively destructive; the slaughter of +wounded men was more truly merciful than the modern system of surgery +and nursing, which saves shattered constitutions and ruined health<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span> to +drag out a miserable and artificially prolonged existence.</p> + +<p>There is, however, something which the ordinary human mind finds +soothing and delightful in this formula of 'the sanctity of human life,' +when combined with a corresponding disregard for human and for all other +life. The good Christian likes to be raised aloft, in his own eyes, from +all those other races which he imagines were given to him for his use +and abuse by a gracious Deity. He loves to think that both God and the +neighbouring policeman are watching over him; and taking care alike of +his soul and of his greatcoat. In the enormous vanity of the Christian +who believes all the laws of the universe altered for him, or in the +equally enormous vanity of the scientist who arrogates to himself the +right to dogmatise on the mysteries of creation, this attitude is not +surprising. But in either the philosophic mind; or the poetic +temperament, it is so because to the philosopher the difference between +the human and the other races cannot appear very great, whilst to the +poet the solidarity of all sentient life must always seem +unquestionable. That friend, and scholar, and poet for whom I mourn as +freshly as though he had died but yesterday did not disdain to greet a +brother's spirit in</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'That liquid, melancholy eye<br /></span> +<span class="i2">From whose pathetic, soul-fed springs<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Seem'd surging the Virgilian cry,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The sense of tears in mortal things,'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>for these lines were written by Matthew Arnold to 'only a dog.'<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span></p> + +<p>It is not in foolishly endeavouring to make animals our prisoners and +puppets, in trying to force them to count, to caper, or to play cards, +that we reach insight into their natures and their minds. It is in +loving them and respecting them as he loved and respected Geist and Kai. +I use the latter word advisedly, for whoever does not in a fair degree, +as with a human friend, respect the freedom, the preference, and the +idiosyncrasy of an animal will never reach true comprehension of him.</p> + +<p>A writer wrote the other day, 'People speak of the law of nature; but +who feels it? There is no such emotion known in the ordinary life of the +world.' The persons who will let their dinner wait whilst they watch a +sunset fade over sea or moor, or who will leave the share list unread to +see the morning dew make silver globes of the gossamer in the grass, are +so few that they may almost be said not to exist, if we except a poet +here, an artist there; and the sense of kinship with races not human can +only come to those whose own kinship with earth and air and sky is +strong enough to resist the dulling and debasing influences of +artificial life, of life amongst men and their trivialities, frauds, and +vanities.</p> + +<p>'The sun is God,' said Turner, when he lay dying, and, alas! saw that +sun only through the mists of London. But how many see the sun at all, +even when they live where it is most radiant? How many think of the sun +during the long day it illumines? The light is taken as a matter of +course, as our breath is drawn through our lungs. There is no gratitude +for it.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span></p> + +<p>In similar manner there is no sense of kinship with the winged children +of the air, with the four-footed dwellers beside us on the earth. Almost +the only recognition we give them is maltreatment. At other times the +indifference of our unspeakable fatuity rises in a dust cloud between us +and them. Of gratitude for their companionship, their aid, their +patience, their many virtues, there is not a trace in those who use them +and abuse them, no more than there is gratitude for the beauty of the +rose or the fragrance of the violet.</p> + +<p>As 'the winds of March take the world with beauty,' every pasture and +coppice is full of blossom, passed unnoticed by thousands in every daily +country walk; so in the same manner do the multitudes trample down, and +pass by, the ineffable charm and fragrance of disregarded affections, +and unappreciated qualities, in the other races of earth.</p> + +<p>Hang a poor woodland bird in a cage, if you can bear to look on such a +captive, above a blossoming honeysuckle or hawthorn, and note his +anguish of remembrance, his ecstasy of hope, his frantic effort to be +free. But the accursed wires are between him and the familiar blossoms, +between him and the blue sky; in a little while he realises that he is a +prisoner; the fluttering joy goes out of his heart and his wings; his +feathers grow ruffled and dull, his eyes are veiled, he sits motionless +and heartbroken, and the breeze of the springtime blows past him, and +never more will bear him on its buoyant way.</p> + +<p>Living wild song-birds are sold at a halfpenny each by thousands in the +London slums, and as many more<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span> die—nay, thrice as many more—before +they reach the streets, packed close and jammed together in hampers and +crates.</p> + +<p>Yet the English Home Secretary, on being asked by a deputation to put an +end to this abominable traffic, answered that it was desirable to do as +little as possible in the way of legislation!</p> + +<p>For legislators, always eager to make cruel and coercive laws, prefer to +let humane ones be substituted by what they call 'the gradual education +of the people.' But this gradual education is so extremely gradual that +its progress is imperceptible; it may even be justly suspected that it +is chiefly a backward movement; and such education, as far as education +by example goes, is hindered, not helped, by what are called the +cultured classes.</p> + +<p>In this, our own present day, bull fights become at once popular +wherever they are allowed, and with women as much so as with men, and I +am certain that if the gladiatorial shows of Imperial Rome were +introduced at Olympia the London crowds would in the main be delighted +with them, and the London women would eagerly turn down their thumbs.</p> + +<p>Why not? They go to see the tight-rope walking and the trapeze jump at +the Crystal Palace and the Aquarium; and the only possible attraction in +these is the probability that in each case the performers will be killed +one day; apart from this chance there is no interest whatever in the +spectacle. If the authorities were induced to permit them, gladiatorial +shows would become so popular with the women of Belgravia and Mayfair +that no one would care for anything less<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> exciting, and the Oxford and +Cambridge sports would be deserted with contempt as offering no +attraction.</p> + +<p>The desire for excitement is the most conspicuous feature, and the most +dangerous disease of the age; anything which provides it is welcome; +people are bored despite their incessant search of distraction, and +anything which will exorcise the spectre of boredom is eagerly received; +and after all it would be absurd if persons who go to see steeplechases +pretended to be too squeamish to cry the 'Habet'! Let the managers of +Olympia obtain permission for gladiatorial games (death being +guaranteed), and I will promise them that "all London" in the most +fashionable sense of those words will crowd from April to August to see +the sport. If the ladies could be allowed to descend into the arena, to +touch the dying bodies, as Nero used to like to do, to see the faint +life still lingering shrink and writhe, this success would be still +greater; and Nero was but a primitive creature, he had but a heated iron +wand, whereas my ladies could be provided by their favourite scientist +with the much more excruciating torment of electricity. Imagine what +exquisite little jewelled instruments of torture, made to fasten on to a +bracelet, or hide within a ring, would fill the shops in Bond Street and +Piccadilly. 'We are going electrolysing!' would be heard from all the +pretty lips of the leaders of society; and they would cease to care for +their bicycles, and auto-cars, and even for the discussion of actresses' +new gowns. 'How many dead 'uns did you knock off last night?' their most +intimate friend would ask, as he would lean over the rails in Rotten +Row, sucking the crook of his cane.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span></p> + +<p>Does this appear exaggerated and libellous?<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> Well, let us look at the +example given by a London leader of fashion and politics as she goes +down at election time to shed sweetness and light around her in Poplar +or Shoreditch.</p> + +<p>In her bonnet is, of course, an osprey aigrette; she knows it was torn +from a living creature, but then that was done far away in some Asiatic +or American creek or forest, and so really does not matter. Her Suède +gloves fit like her skin; they were the skin of a kid, and were probably +stripped from its living body as this lends suppleness to the skin. The +jacket she carries on her arm is lined with Astrakhan fur, which was +taken from an unborn lamb to give to the fur that curl and kink which +please her; it has been cut from its mother's ripped-up womb. Her +horses, as they wait for her at the corner of the street, have their +heads fixed in air, and the muscles of their necks cramped by immovable +bearing-reins. Her Japanese pug runs after her, shaking his +muzzle-tortured nose. She has a telegram in her pocket which has +momentarily vexed her. She sent her sable collie to the dog-exhibition +at Brussels, and the excitement, or the crush, or the want of water, or +something, has brought on heat apoplexy, and they wire that he is dead, +poor old nervous Ossian! She really has no luck, for her Java sparrows +died too at the bird show in Edinburgh, because the footman, sent with +them, forgot to fill their water-glass<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span> when it got dry on the journey; +a great many people send birds to shows with nobody at all to take care +of them, so she feels that she was not to blame in the very least.</p> + +<p>'Why will you show?' says her husband, who is vexed about Ossian; 'you +don't want to win and you don't want to sell.'</p> + +<p>'Oh, everybody does it,' she answers.</p> + +<p>He goes into his study to console himself with a new model of a pole +trap; and she, her canvassing done, runs upstairs to see her gown for +the May Drawing-Room. The train is of quite a new design, embroidered +with orchids in natural colours, and fringed with the feathers of the +small green parrakeet, a beautiful little bird which has been poisoned +by hundreds in the jungles of New Guiana to make the border to this +<i>manteau de cour</i>.</p> + +<p>If she were told that she is a more barbaric creature than the squaw of +the poor Indian trapper who poisoned the parrakeets, she would be +equally astonished and offended.</p> + +<p>Let us now look at her next-door neighbour; he is a very wealthy person +and seldom refuses a subscription, thinks private charity pernicious and +pauperising, attends his church regularly, and votes in the House of +Commons in favour of pigeon-shooting and spurious sports. If anyone asks +him if he 'likes animals' he answers cheerily, 'Oh, dear me, yes. Poor +creatures, why not?' But it does not disturb him that the horse in the +hansom cab, which he has called to take him to the City, has weals all +over its loins, and a bit that fills its mouth with blood and foam; nor +does he notice the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> over-driven and half-starved condition of a herd of +cattle being taken from Cannon Street to Smithfield, but only curses +them heartily for blocking the traffic.</p> + +<p>He eats a capon, drives behind a gelding, warms himself at a hearth of +which the coal has been procured by untold sufferings of man and beast, +has his fish crimped, and his lobsters scalded to death, in his +kitchens, relishes the green fat cut from a living turtle, reads with +approbation his head keeper's account of the last pair of owls on his +estate having been successfully trapped, writes to that worthy to turn +down two thousand more young pheasants for the autumn shooting, orders +his agent to have his young cattle on his home-farm dishorned, and buys +as a present for his daughters a card case made from the shell of a +tortoise which was roasted alive, turned on its back on the fire to give +the ruddy glow to its shell. Why not? His favourite preacher and his +popular scientist alike assure him that all the subject races are +properly sacrificed to man. It is obviously wholly impossible to +convince such a person that he is cruel: he merely studies his own +convenience, and he has divine and scientific authority for considering +that he is perfectly right in doing so. He is quite comfortable, both +for time and for eternity. It were easier to change the burglar of the +slums, the brigand of the hills, than to change this self-complacent and +pachydermatous householder who represents nine-tenths of the ruling +classes.</p> + +<p>Let us not mistake; he is not personally a cruel man; he would not +himself hurt anything, except in sport which he thinks is legitimate, +and in science which he is told is praiseworthy; he is amiable, +good-natured,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span> perhaps benevolent, but he is wrapped up in habits, +customs, facts, egotisms, tyrannies which all seem to him to be good, +indeed to be essential. His horse is a thing to him like his mail +phaeton; his dog is a dummy, like his umbrella stand; his cattle are +wealth-producing stores, like his timber or wheat; he uses them all as +he requires, as he uses his hats and gloves. He sees no more unkindness +in doing away with any of them than in discarding his old boots, and he +passes the most atrocious laws and by-laws for animal torment as +cheerfully as he signs a cheque payable to self.</p> + +<p>His ears are wadded by prejudice, his eyes are blinded by formula, his +character is steeped in egotism; you might as well try, I repeat, to +touch the heart of the Sicilian brigand or the London crib-cracker as to +alter his views and opinions; you would speak to him in a language which +is as unintelligible to his world as Etruscan to the philologist.</p> + +<p>The majority of his friends, like himself, lead their short, bustling, +bumptious, and frequently wholly useless lives, purblind always and +entirely deaf where anything except their own interests is concerned. +They think but very rarely of anything except themselves, and the +competitions, ambitions, or jealousies which occupy them. But in their +pastimes cruelty is to them acceptable; it is an outlet for the +barbarian who sleeps in them, heavily drugged but not dead; the sight of +blood titillates agreeably their own slow circulation.</p> + +<p>Between them, and the cad who breaks the back of the bagged rabbit, +there is no difference except in the degree of power to indulge the +slaughter-lust.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span></p> + +<p>Alas! it were easier 'to quarry the granite rock with razors' than to +touch the feelings of such as this man, or this woman, where their +vanities, or their mere sheep-like love of doing as others do, are in +question. Princesses wear osprey tufts and lophophorus wings, and so +society wears them too, and cares not a straw by what violence and +wickedness they are procured; as the ladies, who attend their State +concerts, sleep none the worse when in their country houses because the +rabbit screams in the steel gins, and the hawk struggles in the pole +trap, in the woods about their ancestral houses, and have no less +appetite for luncheon amongst the bracken or the heather because shot +and bleeding creatures lie half dead in the game bags around, or because +the stag often is stretched in his dead majesty before their eyes. Why, +then, should they care because in far distant lands little feathered +creatures, lovely as flowers, innocent as the dew and the honey they +feed on, are killed by the thousands and tens of thousands because a +vulgar and depraved taste demands their tender bodies?</p> + +<p>What does it matter to them that, through their demands, the bird of +paradise has become so rare that, unless stringent measures be taken at +once, it will be soon totally extinct, and the golden glory of its +plumes will gleam no more in tropical sunlight? What does it matter to +them that the herons in all their various kinds, the osprey, the egret, +the crane, the ibis, are scarcely seen now in the southern and middle +States of America, and, when seen, are no longer together in confident +colonies, as of yore, but nesting singly and in fear? 'Practically all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span> +our heronries are deserted. The birds have been slaughtered for their +plumes,' writes a physician<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> dwelling in the Delaware valley. 'What +were common birds in their season half a century ago are now rarely +seen. The struggle for existence has been a violent one and the herons +have been worsted. Scarcely a word of protest has been heard, and none +that has been effectual.' Women of the world know this, or at least have +been told it fifty times; but it makes no impression on them. They will +wear osprey-aigrettes as long as any are left in commerce, and they +think a humming-bird looks so pretty in their hair. What else matters?</p> + +<p>That their example is copied by the women of the middle classes with +swallows and warblers, and by the servant girl and factory girl with +dyed sparrows and finches, makes no impression on them; if the fact be +noticed to them they say that the common people always will be +ridiculous, and stop their carriage in Bond Street to buy fire-screens +made of owls, or an electric lamp hung in the beak of a stuffed +flamingo.</p> + +<p>Why should they care, indeed!—they who walk with the guns, even if they +do not do more and secure a warm corner for their own shot; they who +bring up their young sons to regard the cowardly and brutal sport of +battue-shooting as the supreme pleasure and privilege of youth, and see +unmoved their beautiful autumnal woods turned into slaughter-places?</p> + +<p>One cannot but reflect how different might the world have been if women +had been different in mind and temper; if, instead of their smiling, +self-complacent<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> tittering approbation of brutality, they had shown +scorn for and abhorrence of brutality. They clamour for electoral rights +and leave all this vast field of influence unoccupied and untilled! They +do little or nothing to soften the hearts or refine the feelings of the +men who love them, or to bring up their children in any sympathy with +animal life. Sport has become fashionable with them in the last twenty +years, and the crack shot in the coverts of Chantilly this winter was a +woman. Sporting clothes, breeches and gaiters, are now a recognised part +of the fashionable woman's toilet.</p> + +<p>I would not affirm (anomaly as it appears) that the pursuit of sport +cannot co-exist with a love of animals, for I have known many sporting +men and hunting men who were in a sense sincerely devoted to some +animals. But sport inevitably creates deadness of feeling. No one could +take pleasure in it who was sensitive to suffering; and therefore its +pursuit by women is much more to be regretted than its pursuit by men, +because women pursue much more violently and recklessly what they pursue +at all; and it is impossible for the sportswoman logically and +effectively to exercise any influence on her young children which could +incline them to mercy—such an influence as Lamartine's mother had on +him to the day of his death.</p> + +<p>There are two periods in the life of a woman when she is almost +omnipotent for good or ill. These are when men are in love with her; +and, again, when her children are young enough to be left entirely to +her and to those whom she selects to control them. How many women in ten +thousand use this unlimited power which they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span> then possess to breathe +the quality of mercy into the souls of those who for the time are as wax +in their hands? They will crowd into the Speaker's Box to applaud +debates which concern them in no way. They will impertinently force +their second-hand opinions on Jack and Jill in the village or in the +City alleys. They will go on to platforms and sing comic songs, or +repeat temperance platitudes, and think they are a great moral force in +the improvement of the masses. This they will do, because it amuses them +and makes them of importance. But alter their own lives, abandon their +own favourite cruelties, risk the sneer of society, or lead their little +children to the love of nature and the tenderness of pity; these they +will never do. Mercy is not in them, nor humility, nor sympathy.</p> + +<p>Can written words do anything to touch the hearts of those who read? I +fear not.</p> + +<p>On how many do written words, even dipped in the heart's blood and +burning with the soul's fire, produce any lasting effect? Is not the +most eloquent voice doomed to cry without echo in the wilderness? And +what wilderness is there so barren as the desert of human indifference +and of human egotism?</p> + +<p>Pity is only awakened in those who are already pitiful. We cannot sow +mustard seed on granite. The whole tendency of the age is towards +cynicism, indifference, self-engrossment. The small children sneer much +more often than they smile.</p> + +<p>From Plutarch to Voltaire, from Celsus to Sir Arthur Helps, the finest +and most earnest pleading against cruelty has been made by the finest +and most logical minds. But the world has not listened; the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span> majority of +men and women are neither just nor generous, neither fine nor logical. +In a few generations more, there will probably be no room at all allowed +for animals on the earth: no need of them, no toleration of them. An +immense agony will have then ceased, but with it there will also have +passed away the last smile of the world's youth. For in the future the +human race will have no tenderness for those of its own kind who are +feeble or aged, and will consign to lethal chambers all those who weary +it, obstruct it, or importune it: since the quality of mercy will day by +day be more derided, and less regarded, as one of the moral attributes +of mankind.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="XII" id="XII"></a>XII</h2> + +<h3>THE DECADENCE OF LATIN RACES</h3> + + +<p>I have read with the attention due to the author's name the essay of +Professor Sergi on the decadence of the Latin nations. It seems to me, +when reflecting on it, that the esteemed author gives to every slight +change, the much-used, and much-abused, name of progress; and considers +mere change as an indisputable betterment. He also considers that the +Latin races cannot exist under modern conditions unless they form +themselves on the models and follow the examples of non-Latin races; if, +that is to say, they do not imitate what is foreign and alien to them. +It is clear that he does not for a moment doubt that the non-Latin are +infinitely superior to the Latin peoples, and he rebukes the latter for +remaining immovable, although, somewhat oddly, he excepts France from +his censure on account of her great commerce, and only includes in his +ban his own country and Spain.</p> + +<p>With Spain I do not occupy myself, as I am not sufficiently well +acquainted with her to do so; indeed, Professor Sergi himself says very +little about her; but of Italy I cannot consider that his condemnation +is merited. If she do merit it, why does she do so?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span></p> + +<p>Both questions are interesting. Professor Sergi, like too many writers +of the present time, assumes as an indisputable fact that the mere +innovation, the mere alteration of a thing, is of necessity improvement, +advancement, amelioration; and this being his rooted conviction, he +considers Great Britain and the United States the models and ideals of +modern life. For this reason he would force Italy to abandon entirely +her traditions, her instincts, and her natural genius, and substitute +for them an exact and servile imitation of these two foreign peoples who +have tastes in common with her. Unfortunately he does not inform us to +what point he carries this desire, and if the immense changes he advises +are to be dynastic and political, or merely social and intellectual. He +prints in capital letters his chief advice to the Latin nations to <i>move +on new lines</i>; but he does not explain whether he means to move to a new +Constitution, to a new Representation, to a new theory and practice of +Government; and he does not even say whether he thinks or does not think +that the Church is the greatest enemy of national progress in Latin +nations. It would be interesting to know in what proportions he holds +the two antagonistic forces of Church and State to be guilty of opposing +progress; that each is an obstacle to the higher forms of progress there +can be no question in the mind of any dispassionate thinker. But he is +careful not to commit himself to this view. Since he gives us so little +information on this head, and limits himself to the counsel, somewhat +meagre in its expression, to <i>move on new lines</i>, we may endeavour to +find out for ourselves how far his advice goes: if<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span> Italy do actually +merit his contempt for her inertia, and if the non-Latin races deserve +or do not deserve the admiration with which he pronounces on their +superiority.</p> + +<p>That the Italian nation is immovable is not true: for good or evil it +moves as its great son Gallileo said of the earth. The fault, the peril, +lie the other way. It is to be feared that the Italian people run the +risk of losing their finest instincts, and their most gracious +characteristics, through the exaggerated and obsequious imitation of +foreign peoples, and by a too ready adoration of new things merely +because they are new. They are the ideals of many a modern Italian. +Guglielmo Ferrero has dedicated many hundreds of pages to the +celebration of their perfections. I believe that such worship is chiefly +founded on illusion, for it is as easy to cherish illusions about a +steam mill as about a mediæval saint.</p> + +<p>Let us look at the actual situation of Great Britain, setting aside her +imperialist swagger, and regarding only facts. The English themselves +admit that if a European naval coalition succeeded in preventing grain +reaching their shores from America and the colonies, the nation in a +fortnight would want bread. Is that an ideal or a safe position? If, in +a sea-war, the British fleet would be successful is wholly uncertain, +since no one can say how the metal battleships would behave in any +distress; the manœuvres have not shed much light upon this question, +and many of the marine monsters, as regards their utility in active +warfare, are still unknown quantities. Equally uncertain is what would +be the conduct of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span> the Indian population were Great Britain vanquished +in any great war, for the majority of the peoples of Hindostan most +unwillingly endure through coercion the yoke of the British rule.</p> + +<p>In Ireland there is a racial hatred which nothing can extinguish, and +only demands a favourable occasion to show itself. Canada may any day +embroil England with the United States; and so may the West Indies, and +the Nebraskan and Nicaraguan questions; and so may Newfoundland with +France, and East or West Africa with Germany. In every part of the globe +Great Britain has on her hands conquests, colonies, intrigues, enemies, +open questions, and concealed questions, of every kind. Her greed is +great, and her entanglements are innumerable. There are many weak points +in her fortifications. To meet her obligations she is obliged to use +legions of Asiatics, or Africans, or employ as mercenaries men from her +distant colonies, or send the soldiers of one vanquished nation to help +vanquish another. Thus did Imperial Rome, and so went to her undoing. +Doubtless Great Britain is rich, powerful, strong, proud, and vain. So +was Rome; so was Spain. It is possible, even probable, that at some, +perhaps not distant day, Great Britain also will give way under the +enormous weight of her self-sought responsibilities, and the still more +ponderous weight of her many enemies.</p> + +<p>Internally, also, England is not what she used to be. The old nobility +is elbowed out of prominent place by a new aristocracy which has been +created entirely on a money basis. Every ministry, when going out<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span> of +office, creates a new batch of titled rich men, lifted into the Lords in +return for political or financial service. Wealth is now the dominant +factor of English social life; and a commerce, wholly unscrupulous, is +the sole scope of the tawdry and noisy empire of which Joseph +Chamberlain is the standard-bearer.</p> + +<p>What is there in all this to admire or to imitate?</p> + +<p>Again we have seen that in the United States, since they abandoned their +wise policy of non-intervention in external affairs, the national life +resembles the English, is vain, boastful, hypocritical, cruel, and +bellicose. The thirst of gain devours the nation. There is no other land +in which the contrast between rich and poor is so sharp and terrible; +none in which millions are thrown away with more frightful indifference +and conceited display. Lynch law in all its horror reigns over many +provinces, and unblushing corruption mounts into the highest places and +poisons all the sources of national life. Guglielmo Ferrero stands +stupefied before their innumerable newspaper offices, which he says use +up every day as much paper as would go round the circumference of the +earth! But he forgets, or ignores, that the literary quality of those +journals is usually of the poorest and vulgarest kind, and that the +chief part of their columns is filled by advertisements. He is also +transfixed with rapture before the colossal houses which Americans call +sky-scrapers, and sees the revelation of a stupendous genius in their +passion for what is big, costly, eccentric; nor does he hesitate to +compare it with the Florentine and Venetian genius!</p> + +<p>Actually there was never on earth two more different<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span> kinds of creation +than these; never one more absolutely soulless, and one more nobly +penetrated by the soul. The genius of the Italian masters was lofty, +generous, at once humble and sublime, never interested, always +consecrated to Art and Country; the skill of the American constructors +has no other scope than that of getting money, of making the world +stare, of producing the huge, the gross, the extravagant, the enormous, +and labours for only one God, the venal Mercury of the market-place. In +these new cities, so vehemently extolled, with their towering +constructions which hide the smoke-obscured clouds, and their network of +electric wires, of railways in the air, and trams running across each +other, there is not the faintest spark of that divine light which is +called Liberty. Americans boast of their freedom, but it only exists in +words; it has no abiding place outside a boisterous rhetoric. The old +Puritanism still exists in religious bigotry and persecution; office is +bought and sold; justice is a matter of money; private life suffers from +conventionalities and social tyrannies innumerable; political and +municipal elections are the work of a Caucus. A man cannot drink, or +stir, or do aught without his neighbour knowing and judging what he +does; even marriage is to be made a matter for doctors to allow or +disallow; the whole press is but a gigantic Paul Pry, a vast Holy Office +where the persecution by the pen ends in the execution by the revolver.</p> + +<p>Such is American liberty.</p> + +<p>What can Italy learn from such a model?</p> + +<p>Amongst the maladies of the brain known in this day is one which is +called the mania of grandeur. It<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span> seems to me that not only individuals, +but entire nations, are possessed by it. It is perilous and contagious. +Italy has already been inoculated by its virus.</p> + +<p>There is also everywhere a fatal tendency to open the door of Italy to +every foreign syndicate, and every foreign speculation, which puts +forward a prospectus or launches shares on the market. The preponderance +of Jews is enormous as owners of ground rents and estates in Italy; the +chief part of Italian cities and towns is owned by Jews; and the greater +number of the industries of all kinds in the country are in the hands of +foreigners, like the newly-projected mining enterprise in Elba. If these +mines be worth the working, why does not Italy work them herself, and +take all the profits?</p> + +<p>These facts are not due to any immovability; but to a dangerously lax +tendency to run into foreign roads. The Italian Faust is only too +susceptible to the invitations of the foreign Mephistopheles.</p> + +<p>On the other hand a very marked inclination in the Italian is towards +the modern forms of co-operation and communism. This tendency is not due +in any way to the influence of the past, but to that mixture of jealousy +and envy, of hatred of the rich, and detestation of labour, and of +humble ways and of poor means, which is as general in Italy as it is +everywhere else in our time, and which is the modern translation of the +old classic clamour for Panem et Circenses. Is it towards this already +popular communism that Professor Sergi would direct the Italian nation? +The direction is already taken, and does not need his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span> propulsion. If +there be one thing more certain than another in the Italy of to-day it +is the preference of a large proportion of the people for different +forms of socialism and collectivism; and the persecution these doctrines +receive lends them a dangerous force. At the same time as it persecutes +them, the State, with strange self-stultification, recognises and grants +one of the largest and most insolent of socialistic and communistic +demands, <i>i.e.</i>, that for the expropriation of private land in the Agro +Romano, and in the various latifundi in Sicily and elsewhere; and thus +opens the door either to a most high-handed and unjust spoliation, or to +an agrarian civil war in a not distant future.</p> + +<p>Again, the most terrible disease of modern society—corruption—is not +due to the past in Italy or anywhere else; it exists wherever men exist, +and is as general in the republic of France or of the United States as +under the autocracy of Russia or of Persia. The Italian disasters of +Eritrea were due rather to corruption than to incapacity. When the mules +were bought in Naples for 100 lire per head, and sold to the State at +500 lire per head, the battle of Abba-Garima, called by English people +the battle of Adowa, was lost before it was fought.</p> + +<p>Professor Sergi speaks of the defeat of Abba-Garima as a proof of the +decay of the Italian race; but this is a very unfair deduction. As well +might the continual defeats of the British in the first months of the +present war in South Africa be held as a proof of British poltroonery. +Any shortcomings which may have existed in the Italian army in +Abyssinia, and exist at home, are, moreover, certainly not to be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span> traced +to old-world influences; or to any emasculating tenderness for +tradition. There is no reverence for the armies of the past in the +actual Italian army, for it is unlike any of them; it does not resemble +the armies of the Duchies, or of the Republics, or of the Florentine +Carraccio, or of the Lombard trained bands, or of the levies of the +Neapolitan Bourbons, or of the legions of Varus. The only model it +resembles is that idol of its commanders, the German Army, on which it +is shaped and governed, in all the cut-and-dried narrowness and hardness +inseparable from the German system. All this may be considered to be +inevitable now, but modern militarism is unsuited to the character of +Italians, and reacts injuriously on the genius and temper, and physical +and mental life, of the people.</p> + +<p>Unhappily militarism is the most conspicuous and the most tenacious of +all modern influences, and the failure of the Conference of the Hague so +immediately followed by the war of aggression in South Africa, is a sad +and irrefutable proof that the nations are not in the least likely to +free themselves from its yoke.</p> + +<p>Taking the modern temper in its civil systems, as in its military, it +does not seem to me any better adapted to the Italian idiosyncrasies; +and all its worst features already exist in all which is here called +government. Italian legislation confounds perpetually regulations with +laws; is fidgeting, irritating, inquisitorial, insolent, harassing; its +tyranny spoils the lives of the populace; by means of its agents it +penetrates into all the privacies of family life; its perpetual +interference<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span> between father and son, between master and man, between +mother and child, between buyer and seller, between youth and free +choice, between marriage and celibacy, between the man who takes a walk +and the dog who goes with him, constitutes incessant causes of +irritation, and is a perpetual menace which lowers over the popular life +from sunrise to sunset, and scarcely even leaves in peace the hours of +the night.<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a></p> + +<p>More or less there is too much of this in all modern nations, but in +Italy it is especially odious, being in such absolute antagonism to the +courtesy and gaiety, and warm domestic affections, natural to the +Italian public, and a source of continual fret and friction to it both +in pleasure and in pain.<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a></p> + +<p>There is certainly no necessity to incite Italians to admiration of +foreign products and inventions. Such enthusiasm is only too general, +and too blind, at least in that portion of the nation which is under the +influence of the schools, the press, and the universities. An electrical +machine has many more admirers than<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span> the bell-tower of Giotto, and a +shop-window of a Bon Marché than the Palace of the Doges. The modern +temper, cynical, trivial, avaricious, vulgar, which now discolours human +life as the <i>oidium</i> discolours the leaves of the vines, has affected +too deeply the Italian mind, and has dried up its natural sense of, and +capacity for, beauty. The glorious cities of Italy have been ruined by +scandalous disembowelling; its ancient small towns are made ridiculous +by electric light and steam tramways; the useful and picturesque dress +of its peasantry is abandoned for the ugly and stupid clothes of modern +fashion, cut out of the shoddy cloths furnished by English +manufacturers; and this want of good sense, of good taste, of all true +instincts towards form and colour, is a moral and mental malady due to +that contagion of foreign influence which has poisoned Italy as it has +poisoned Japan and India, Africa and Asia.</p> + +<p>Therefore every counsel to her to follow modern impulses is pernicious. +She is but too ready to do so, believing that, by this way, riches lie. +Moreover, the advice to the Italians to rise, and change, and follow new +paths, seems to me at the present time a cruel derision; because the +Italian who gives it must be well aware that the nation is not free to +do anything or make any change. It is not even allowed to speak. No +public meeting can gather together without intervention of the police. +The press cannot publish any opinions which are disapproved of by the +Government without incurring sequestration of the journal, perhaps +imprisonment of editor, writer, and printer. Where, then, can any fresh +field be found in which to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span> plant any flowers of thought with any hope +to see them root and blossom in action? The hand of the Public +Prosecutor would pluck them up before they could stretch out a single +fibre.</p> + +<p>Take that question so dear to the country; the question of Italia +Irredenta. Where could it be discussed in public without 'authority' +intervening and silencing the speakers? Professor Sergi forgets, or +avoids, to say that in Italy the first conditions of a 'movement on new +lines' are wanting; civil liberty is wanting, and free speech and free +acts are forbidden. Who can walk out into the country when barriers +block up the end of every street? On the man, as on the dog, under +pretence of public safety, the muzzle is fastened, and by its enforced +use all health is destroyed.</p> + +<p>The Italian of our time is too quickly intimidated, forgets too soon, +wears the rosette in his button-hole when he should put crape round his +arm, dances with too ready an indifference on the grave of his hopes and +of his friends. To form a virile character there is no education so good +as the exercise of political and civil liberty; this education is but +little given anywhere; it is not given at all between Monte Rosa and +Mount Etna. The Italian is by nature too ready to be over-anxious and +over-distressed at trifles; he thinks too much of trifling difficulties +and the petty troubles of the hour; he is quickly discouraged, he is +soon overwhelmed with despair, he has small faith in his own star, and +he has not the elasticity and rebound of the Gaulois temper. Nothing +therefore can possibly be worse for him than the kind of galling public +tutelage and the perpetual molestation in which he is condemned to live; +always<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> esteemed guilty, or likely to be guilty, however harmless he may +be. It is illogical to condemn a nation for having no virility of +character, when the systems under which it is reared, and forced to +dwell, destroys its manhood, and forbid all independence of thought, +speech, and action.</p> + +<p>Let us take for instance that uninteresting person, a small tradesman, +native and citizen of any Italian town; in all his smallest actions +relative to his little shop, such, for instance, as altering or +re-painting his signboard, he must obtain the permission of his +Municipality. If he venture to clean or refurbish his board without +authorisation, he will receive a summons and be compelled to pay a fine. +The same kind of torment occurs in a dozen other daily trifles, +magnified into crimes and visited with condign punishment; and, +inevitably, the worried citizen becomes timid, nervous, and either +afraid or incapable of judging or acting for himself. You cannot keep a +man in the swaddling clothes of infancy and expect him to walk erect and +well.</p> + +<p>A shopkeeper, a tailor in Florence, known to me, cut the cord with which +a municipal dog-catcher had throttled his dog; he did no more; he was +immediately arrested, dragged off to prison, and kept there for months +without trial: when tried he was condemned to four months of prison and +a heavy fine.</p> + +<p>Herbert Spencer has said, 'Govern me as little as you can'; <i>i.e.</i>, +leave me to regulate my existence as I please, which is clearly the +right of every man not a criminal. The Italian is, however, 'governed to +death,' and tied up in the stifling network of an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span> infinity of small +ordinances and wearisome prohibitions. In the sense, therefore, in which +the sufferer from tuberculosis may be said to want health, the Italian +may be accused of wanting spirit; but this is not the sense of the +reproach of Professor Sergi. Professor Sergi, like so many others of his +teachers and masters, desires to propel him along a road which has +already cost him dear. How many millions has it not cost in the last +score of years, that fatal weakness of Italians for imitating others? +The rural communes of the country have more than a milliard of debts, +almost all due to the senseless mania for demolition, for novelty, for +superfluous alterations and imitations, works worse than useless, +commended or proposed by the Government, and eagerly accepted by the +communal and provincial councils, since each member of these hoped to +rub his share of gilding off the gingerbread as it passed through his +hands. All the vast sums thus expended are all taken out of the enormous +local and imperial taxation, are divided between contractors, engineers, +members of the town and county councils, lawyers, go-betweens, and all +the innumerable middlemen who swarm in every community like mites in +cheese, at the same time that the poor peasant is taxed at the gates for +a half-dozen of eggs, or a bundle of grass, and the poor washerwoman +carrying in her linen has her petticoats pulled up over her head by a +searcher to ascertain if she have nothing saleable or taxable hidden on +her person. These are new ways, no doubt; but they are ways on which +walk the ghost of ruin and the skeleton of famine.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span></p> + +<p>If it be true, as Professor Sergi considers, that Italy can never hope +to extend her conquests and her commerce as northern and western nations +will do, then it is surely all the more needful to hold her own place in +the world by the culture and development of her own natural genius. A +nation, like a person, should be always natural; to be fashioned on +others is to be without any confidence in oneself, and lose one's +equilibrium in the stress of every difficulty. The rigid and +indigestible character of modern education is not adapted, I repeat, to +the Italian temperament, which is <i>prime-sautier</i>, subtle but +inflammatory, impressionable but unresisting, and loses enormously when +it is shut down in the hot stove of the so-called 'highest studies.' +Even the national manners, naturally so graceful and charming in all +ranks of Italian society, lose their suavity, their ease, their +elegance, under the influence of the foreigner and the vulgarity of +modern habits. Good taste passes away with good manners; and +pigeon-shooting, sleeping-cars, automobiles, bicycles and tramway crowds +bring with them the breeding suitable to them; and the modern monuments, +the modern squares, the modern houses, the whitewash daubed on old +walls, the cast-iron bridges spanning classic waters, the straight, +featureless, glaring, dusty streets, the electric trolleys cutting +across ancient marbles, all conduce to make ignoble what was noble, and +belittle all which was great.</p> + +<p>All this is not the fault of a too reverent admiration for an +incomparable Art, for a glorious history; it is a much worse thing; it +is an oblivion of both history and art, ingrate, unworthy, and ruinous.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span></p> + +<p>Many say that Italians are unfit for freedom; it is certain that they +have never been tried by it. Whatever their government is called, +freedom is unheard of under its rule. Year after year, century after +century, all the Italian provinces, however differently governed, have +been held down under an absolutism more or less disguised. The general +character, with heroic exceptions, has been inevitably weakened. The man +of easy temper and pleasure-loving disposition consoles himself with +amusement; the serious man seeks refuge in study or in science; one and +all accept inaction as their lot. A political <i>camorra</i> guides the +chariot of the State, and the people draw aside, and stand silent, only +hoping to escape being crushed under its wheels. Professor Sergi must be +well aware of this sad truth; then why speak to Italy as if she were a +free country, why speak to her of expansion and vitality when he sees +her without power to purge herself of the fiscal and constitutional +disease which is in her blood?</p> + +<p>With as much reason might he chain up a greyhound, and bid him course +the hare; clip the wings of a skylark, and bid it mount to the clouds.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="XIII" id="XIII"></a>XIII</h2> + +<h3>ALMA VENIESIA</h3> + + +<p>'Our cities are fast losing their best characteristics,' said Pompeo +Molmenti at Montecitorio, in one of those eloquent speeches which the +Chamber hears often from him, and hears, alas! always in vain. His name +is no doubt known to many English readers although his beautiful books +are not as widely read outside the peninsula as they merit. His +conspicuous position as President of the Venetian Academy has perhaps in +a manner obscured, out of Italy, his infinite merits and vast erudition +as a writer on history and art, and even Wyzewa reproaches him with +making Venice too exclusively his universe. But surely Venice is wide +enough, and great enough, to be the world of a man penetrated from his +earliest years with her beauty, and with the grandeur of her past, and +who, in his childhood, saw, accomplished by his seniors, that union of +Venice to northern and central Italy, which raised such high hopes and +caused such glorious dreams.</p> + +<p>His works are, as I have said, but little known in England, not known at +least as the classic scholarship, the historic learning and the artistic +erudition of their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span> writer deserve; nor are the debates of the Italian +Chamber truthfully enough represented in the English press for the +brilliant oratory of the deputy for Salo to have found any echo in +English ears. Many-sided as great Italians usually are, politics, +literature, and history alike claim his allegiance, and art is his +adored mistress. Eloquent, dauntless, and sarcastic, his periods pierce +like arrows and lash like scourges, whether he condemns the miserable +blasphemies of the modern spirit, or holds up to mockery such individual +vanity as that of the Under-Secretary of State, who caused his own name +and titles to be cut under a verse of Dante's on one of the stones of +the church of S. Francesco at Assisi!</p> + +<p>I can imagine nothing more painful than for a man of fine taste and high +culture, born and bred in such a city as Venice, venerating every shadow +on its waters, the moss upon its walls, to be forced to see, day by day, +roll up and break over it the mud-wave of modern barbarism. So may have +watched, from the marble atrium of his villa, some Roman patrician of +the days of Honorius the approach, upon the golden horizon, of the +unlettered tribes drawing nearer and nearer as the sun descended, to +burn, to slaughter, to deflour, to desecrate. 'Great and sublime +attainment would be his who should save Venice from the dreadful menace +now hanging over her!' cries Pompeo Molmenti, with the bitter +consciousness that none will succeed in that endeavour, since her lot is +now cast in times when her treasures of art are in the hands of +tradesmen and speculators, to whom her past glory is naught.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span></p> + +<p>His years have been passed amongst her art and her disciples of art; he +has watched the spoilers at their work amongst her treasures, and, with +the grief of a son who beholds his mother dishonoured, he has been +overwhelmed in these most recent times by the indignity and injustice of +her lot.</p> + +<p>She shares that lot with her sisters; the burden of her chains lies also +on them; every city throughout the peninsula from Monte Rosa to Mount +Etna has been insulted, dishonoured, defamed, defiled, even as she +herself. But Venice is threatened with something still more than this; +she is threatened with absolute extinction. There are schemes now +simmering in the brains of speculators by which she will disappear as +completely as one of her own fishing-boats, when it is sucked under the +sea, canvas, and timbers, and crew, in a night of storm.</p> + +<p>A few weeks ago, Molmenti gave the solitary vote against the destruction +of more of the Calle, and the establishment of a night service of +steamers on the Canalezzo. The record of that single unsupported vote is +his own highest honour, and the shame of his contemporaries and +co-citizens. But he wrestles in vain with the forces of cupidity and +stupidity. Whether in the Council Chamber of Venice, or in the +Parliament of Montecitorio, he strives in vain to resist the trampling +hoofs of those devastating barbaric hordes which a pseudo civilisation +vomits over his country.</p> + +<p>What he justly calls the burial of the lagoons goes on every day; loads +of clay and sand and stones being poured into that silent water which so +lately mirrored<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span> walls which were green with the hart's-tongue, +penny-wort, and ivy-leaved toad's-flax, and reflected statues white +through ages in the dustless air, shining acacia leaves, boughs of fig +and laurel, carved niches, illumined shrines; the rubble and the rubbish +are shot down into the canals which are chosen for extinction, and the +walls are scraped, the acacias, the fig-trees, the laurels are cut down, +the fruit-boat, the <i>sandalo</i>, the bridal gondola, are pushed out of the +way by the brick-laden launches; where marble fretwork crossed the air, +there is a cast-iron pontoon, and higher still a telephone wire; under +foot there is a paved or macadamised way. Marco Polo could not find his +house now; it still exists, but all around it is disfigured, dismantled, +defaced.</p> + +<p>The Palazzo Narni and the Ponte del Paradiso made, a few years ago, +together one of the most beautiful corners in the world; go look at that +spot now; it is enough to make the grey-beard of Cadore rise from his +grave. There still remains on high, between the two houses, the +admirable cuspide of the Trecento, on which there is sculptured the +Madonna, who opens wide her mantle and her cloak to receive the kneeling +people; but the beautiful bridge has been destroyed, and in its place +has been built a frightful structure, with asphalte roadway and painted +metal parapet. In similar manner the elegant, yet bold, arches of the +three bridges at S. Nicolo di Tolentino exist nowhere, now, except upon +the canvases of painters, and the three banks, near the Campo di Marte, +which those graceful arches united, are now<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span> basely conjoined by three +erections of stucco and cast-iron.</p> + +<blockquote><p>'In the <i>Arzere</i> of Santa Marta,' Molmenti writes in his latest +work, 'once so green and gay and sunlit, a poor quarter no +doubt, but one intensely interesting by customs and traditions, +there blocks the way now, in all its stolid vulgarity, a cotton +factory. Between the public gardens and the Lido, instead of +the lovely verdure of the island of Sant' Elena, in its grace +and its green twilight of drooped boughs, is a shapeless +expanse of mud and cinders, which spreads farther every season, +and threatens to invade the water-space which separates it from +the gardens and S. Pietro di Castello. On this desert of coke +and dirt there have been lately erected offices, sheds, +warehouses, chimneys, engines, in the midst of which there +still stands, hiding as though ashamed, the beautiful church of +the Quattro Cento. But the invasion has been useless; the +speculations have failed; and art and history mourn +unavailingly the senseless and profitless destruction of this +fairest gem of the lagoons: <i>insularum ocellus</i>. The ruin of +Sant' Elena, of the view of San Giorgio, of the bridge of San +Lio, the hideous new wing added to the noble brown marbles of +the Pal Tiepolo, the hideous iron warehouse fronting and +affronting the Ca d'Oro, the whitewash daubed on the Pal +Sagredo, the indecent alterations and additions to that jewel +of Pietro Lombardo the Pal Corner-Spinelli, the new red (like +ruddle or red ochre) with which the Pal Foscari has been +insulted, these are all offences which every traveller of +taste, every<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span> artist of culture, can see, and number, and +denounce. But countless, and unknown to the world in general, +and undreamed of by those who knew not Venice fifteen years +ago, is the enormous loss to the city by the destruction at the +hands of the Muncipal Councillors of the <i>Calli</i>, of the +<i>Arzere</i>, of the mediæval bridges, as of those of which I have +spoken above, of innumerable nooks and corners, historical and +beautiful; old wells, old fountains, old shrines, beautiful +fragments of sculpture and fresco, solemn convent walls, +graceful church spires and monastic belfries, parapets, arches, +doorways, spiral staircases winding up to hand-forged iron +balconies, lamps of metal-work fine as lace-work, all these in +innumerable numbers have been effaced, pulled down, built over, +or sold; and, above all, there have been destroyed those lovely +quiet green places, called each <i>il Campo</i> or <i>il Campiello</i> +(the field or the little field), where, of old, the Venetians +fed their sheep, stretches of grass enclosed by old houses, old +convents, old towers, old quays, old bridges, with always a +sculptured well in the centre of each, and the splash of oars +near at hand.'</p></blockquote> + +<p>These have nearly all had a similar fate to that of the beautiful house +in the Campo di S. Margherita, which Molmenti especially laments, of +which the Venetian colouring, the carven galleries, the climbing vines, +the bronze railing, the falling water with its spouting jets, have all +disappeared, to give place to a yellow, plastered modern building, while +its basso-relievo of the Virgin, so long dear to all artists, has been +sold to a picture dealer.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span></p> + +<blockquote><p>'One must be blind indeed,' writes Molmenti, 'not to see the +horrible misgovernment of Venice in this latter half of the +century, and persons still young can remember a Venice poetic, +picturesque, filled with fascination and mysterious charm, now +destroyed for no other reason than a senseless and brutal craze +for novelty.'</p></blockquote> + +<p>What language can strongly enough denounce such wicked and insensate +acts?</p> + +<p>He quotes the well-known lines of Philippe de Commines as to the 'most +triumphant city' that he had ever seen, 'the most beautiful street' (the +Canal Grande) 'that there could be found in all the world'; and he adds, +'the stranger who comes now into this street only finds himself in a +vast alley of shopkeepers.'</p> + +<p>The Canalezzo is now, indeed, as he says, little more than a huge bazaar +of tradesmen and dealers in curios, in which hundreds of advertisements, +in many-coloured posters, announce the wares which are now for sale +within the ancient palaces. The syndicate of foreign traders, now being +established in Venice, will achieve its degradation.</p> + +<p>Italian ministers and Italian municipalities are often accused of not +encouraging warmly enough English, German, and American tradesmen and +manufacturers to establish themselves in Italy, and of putting upon +foreign commercial establishments in Italy a prohibitive taxation; the +truth is that it would be much better were such foreign firms +discouraged more effectively. It is urged on their behalf that they +bring capital into the country; they may do so, but only to take it out<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span> +again for their own profit, and Italian labour sweats and groans only +that some millionaire of Eaton Square or Fifth Avenue may increase his +wealth, whilst at the same time Italian tradespeople, trading in their +own right, on their own soil, are undersold by the shop-keeping and +store-keeping Briton and Yankee.</p> + +<p>I am far from entire agreement with Molmenti in many of his views (as +for instance his admiration of English pre-Raphaelism), but I am wholly +with him in his views of the claims of Venice, and of the sacrilege +which is destroying her; wholly with him in his severe and scornful +denunciation of what he rightly calls the <i>gretta e meschina arte dei +nostre tempi</i> (the mean and trivial art of modern times), and of the +modern density of perception and invulnerable self-conceit which render +it impossible for the modern mind to appreciate harmony of hues and of +proportions, and impossible for the modern architect to place a new +building beside an ancient one without injury or vulgarity. Giotto could +place his church at Padua on the remains of the Roman amphitheatre, with +perfect unity, although in absolute contrast. When a modern mind has +sufficient intuition to enable it to admire a work of other times, it +can think of no better way of showing its admiration than to desire to +pull down all the houses in its vicinity to lay it bare.</p> + +<p>Molmenti says, with entire truth, 'It is a supreme duty for the few, who +are capable of feeling them, to assert the sentiment of, and respect +for, Art against the destructive and impious tendencies of the time.'</p> + +<p>But, alas! it is labour of Sisyphus.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span></p> + +<p>There is now under consideration a scheme to make a tramway-road raised +on piles from Mestre to Venice parallel with the line now followed +across the lagoon by the railway. It is difficult to comprehend the +motives and views of persons who desire to turn a beautiful water-city +into a commonplace land one, or rather it is easy to perceive that the +motive inspires the views, since nothing but the greed of +concessionaires and of contractors could ever have evolved such a plan +out of any human mind.</p> + +<p>The concessionaire and the contractor are the modern representatives of +ghouls and vampires of old-world romance. Truly, to them, as to the +Sabreur of Offenbach, nothing is sacred. They are guided entirely by +their lust of percentage, and to this they are ready to sacrifice every +other consideration; indeed, no other consideration exists for them. +They have settled on Italy for many years past as they are now settling +on Abyssinia. Venice is essentially a water-city; dealt with as land +cities are, under the present system, it will not only be disfigured and +mutilated like them, but it will be swept away; it will cease to be. The +world will have in its stead a dreary, dingy, trading port, with +warehouses, factories, docks, grain elevators, electric works, all the +polluted, crowded, discoloured, monotonous frightfulness which you can +have now at any moment on any coastline of the United States of America. +The Venice of Giambellini and the Veronese will be no more; you will +have in its stead a petty maritime Pittsburg.</p> + +<p>At the present moment Molmenti has successfully combated this Mestre +project, but as the abominable<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span> scheme of the night steamers on the +Canalezzo, and the pontoon under S. Zeno, was almost unanimously +<i>rejected</i> four times by the Venetian Council, yet, on its presentation +a fifth time, was <i>accepted</i> (unacknowledged influences having been at +work), it is impossible to all those who love Venice as she merits not +to feel the greatest anxiety. For these speculators resemble the Röntgen +rays, and find means to penetrate through closed doors and all other +barriers. Iron still resists the Röntgen rays, and such iron the +speculators find now and then opposed to them in the scorn of such men +as the Count Antonio Donà della Rosa, who dismissed with offence and +disdain the offer of two millions in gold for the purchase of the +historic tapestries of his palace in Venice.</p> + +<p>Were there only fifty such men as Count Donà in every Italian province +they would be able to hold in check the rage of destruction. But the +character of Count Donà is very rare in these days anywhere, and grows +rarer with every decade. The sordid Mephistopheles of a buyer usually +finds as sordid a temper in the Faust of a seller whom he tempts. This +may be a temper which enriches individuals; it is not one which ennobles +or elevates a nation: and frequently not even individual wealth is +realised for any length of time by the base barter, for the gambling on +the Bourse, or at the club-house, often makes the ill-got gains vanish +almost as soon as they are obtained. Such persons as find no attraction +in either form of gambling, unhappily for the most part, shrink from +action and from public life. Few have the courage of Molmenti, who +throws himself<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span> into the strife careless of what enmity he incurs, and +rarely even buoyed up by any hope of success in his efforts, since to +weave ropes of sand were scarcely more hopeless labour: it is impossible +to succeed in any public work where there is no response to your appeal +from the multitudes. And the voices of those who do secretly respond in +feeling are dumb in Italy; people are afraid to speak; they are +intimidated by the cry cast against them of want of energy, and of +enmity to progress (progress, good heavens! a gin-shop instead of a +temple!); they are afraid to be called reactionary, romantic, +unpatriotic; and in municipal government, as in other government, +everything is done by the wire-pullers, the money-grubbers, the +speculators.</p> + +<p>The timid public huddles together, mute, submissive, and afraid, shorn +of its fleeces like a flock of sheep, but not daring to complain.</p> + +<p>Those who do so dare are either ignored, or, if they give trouble, are +repressed. The gondoliers of Venice have again and again risen against +the ruin of their livelihood by the 'black devils' of the <i>vaporetti</i>, +but force is at once called in and they are brutally silenced, flung +into prison, and deprived of their licence, <i>i.e.</i>, of their daily +bread. Because it is so picturesque a calling, and the balancing of the +oar looks so easy a work, those who are outside it do not realise the +hardships of a gondolier. In summer, if Venice be full, it is well +enough, and brings a fair, though never a high, wage; but in the other +seasons it is a life of great and continual exposure and fatigue. In +cold weather, and Venice is intensely cold in the winter solstice, the +long<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span> vigils on the <i>traghetto</i> are most tedious and trying, especially +through the long chill nights. When the icy winds blow in from the Alps +or the Adriatic, the gondolier stands exposed to all their fury, whilst +the passenger he carries sits warm and sheltered under the felze.</p> + +<p>Strong and lithe in form, often handsome in feature, almost invariably +intelligent and acquainted with legend and verse, invariably courteous +and well-bred, the gondolier should have received the utmost attention +from his rulers. It is painful to know that no body of men has ever been +so slighted, so injured, and so wantonly outraged.</p> + +<p>There is nowhere any more interesting and deserving community than the +Venetian gondoliers, and few more worthy of regard; yet they have been +dealt with as though they were no more than so much scum of the sea. +Their long-established rights receive no consideration, and their +injuries no compensation.</p> + +<p>If the vote of Venice could have been honestly polled, no steam-boat +would ever have been allowed on the Grand Canal, as, if the vote of +Florence could have been honestly polled, the centre of Florence would +be now standing untouched, and would have remained untouched for many a +generation.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, it is said, by those competent to judge, that the great +Murazzi, which protect Venice from the onslaught of the sea in winter +storm, and which we all know so well as we pass out from the Lido by the +Bar of Malamocco to Chioggia, are being dangerously undermined by the +attacks of the high tides in rude weather, and require costly and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span> +immediate repair. It is in vain that this most necessary work is urged +upon the Government in Rome. The Government neither undertakes it +itself, nor allows Venetians to undertake it. For any foolish, needless +disfiguring work, such as the installation of the electric light in the +ducal palace, against which Venetians in vain protested, the Government +is always ready to waste millions. But for a work of obvious and vital +necessity, such as that of the strengthening of the Murazzi, it has not +a soldo to spare.</p> + +<p>The architecture of Venice has the fragility as it has the fairness of +the dianthus or the gemmia of the sea; its walls and buttresses and +foundations are plunged into salted, sanded mud; its piles grow green +and brown and purple with weed; its snowy marbles and its ruddy stones +are mirrored in rippling or in stagnant water; they tremble under the +vibrations caused by the accursed paddle-boats; they quiver, like living +things, under the knife, as the engines roar and the cog-wheels turn. +Assailed as the city is within by the invasion of steam and barbarism, +it is entirely certain that she could not resist the force of the +inrushing waters if the Murazzi were ever to yield to the pressure of a +winter sea; and it is unhappily quite possible that the gigantic barrier +of the sea-walls may give way on some day of unusually high tides and +violent tempest, and the city herself will then be overwhelmed beneath +the Adriatic waters.</p> + +<p>Who would care if this were her fate?</p> + +<p>The contractors, and concessionaires, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span> jerry-builders, and +bureaucratic thieves, and foreign speculators would have the pleasure +and profit of building a spick and span new town, north-east of Mestre: +all tiresome reminiscences of the Lion of St Mark would have sunk with +the bronze horses underneath the waves.</p> + +<p>Many public men would breathe more freely were Venice but a memory of +the past entombed in seaweed and in sand. For there is nothing so +curiously malignant or so restlessly jealous as the enmity of a feeble +Present of a great Past. It is such malignity, it is such jealousy, +which, even more than greed of gain, and vitiated taste, caused, and +causes, and will cause, the destruction of the great cities of Italy by +Italian deputies, syndics, and municipalities, and by those foreign +companies and alien speculations to which they unhappily open their +gates.</p> + +<p>If the fact did not face us at every step, it would seem incredible +that, even in this age, such cities as Venice and Florence and Rome +could have been sacrificed to the ignominious interests of wire-pullers. +Each possessed, to protect it, unique beauty, splendour of association +and tradition, an heroic past: and for each had the greatest of men +laboured, in each had the charm of atmosphere and horizon lent a more +than mortal loveliness to the architecture of man. And each is now +wrecked, and ransacked, and despoiled, and obliterated, and destroyed as +though a horde of savages had been let loose in their precincts.</p> + +<p>There is no language strong enough to condemn the injuries from which +they suffer.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span></p> + +<p>On the walls of the Flavian Amphitheatre there grew in marvellous +fertility countless plants unknown elsewhere; survivors of sylvan worlds +destroyed, of botanical kingdoms for ever perished, the seeds of which +perchance had lodged in the sandals of the legions as they came from +Palmyra or Babylon; this most precious legacy of nature was, as everyone +knows, mercilessily destroyed in the first years of the Italian +occupation of Rome.</p> + +<p>The uprooting with knives and acids of the unique flora of the Colosseum +was a type of the acts which, for the last fifteen years, have hacked +away and corroded and destroyed off the face of the earth the supreme +flowers of human genius.</p> + +<p>In the present debasement and desecration of Italian cities there is not +even such motive and excuse as that which was urged by archaeologists +for the ruin of these plants. There is everything lost, nothing whatever +gained, in the debasement of classic and artistic cities to the level of +Buluwayo or Klondyke.</p> + +<p>To pull down the Palazzo Venezia and the Palazzo Torlonia, which it is +decided to do in Rome, in order that the statue of Victor Emmanuel, for +which the funds have not even yet been raised, may be visible from the +Corso, is as contemptible as it is childish. The beauty of the +Campidoglio is already ruined in order to place that statue there: might +not that suffice? To throw down the Tower of the Amadei to put in its +place a restaurant, or a drinking-shop, is so stupid an act that the +enormity of the offence to history and art is almost forgotten in its +imbecility. To cut off<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span> a portion of the Archbishop's Palace to widen a +road, and destroy half the gardens of the Orti Oricellari to make a mean +street, and to place the stations and rails of tramway companies on the +macigno pavement under the Campanile, the Battistero, and the Duomo of +Florence, are outrages to the whole educated world and the history of +five centuries. To destroy the Ponte del Paradiso in order to put a +cast-iron pontoon in its place, is an abomination which should only seem +possible to a company of clowns crazy with drink; whilst to turn the +lovely isle of Sant' Elena into a heap of cinders for the pleasure of a +carriage-building company, which company was not even guaranteed from +bankruptcy, was unquestionably as unbusinesslike and as unprofitable as +it was impious.</p> + +<p>There is neither common sense, nor common decency, in the chief part of +the measures taken within the last decade to humiliate and imbastardise +the cities and towns of Italy. The process of destruction began indeed +much earlier; but within the last ten years the pace has been increased +from a leisurely walk to a furious gallop. The scramble to be first to +outrage, to deface, to despoil, has become a St Vitus's dance amongst +the syndics, assessors, and councilmen; each deliriously eager for the +approving smile of the various ministers in whose hands the destinies of +these great and unrivalled Urbes unfortunately are placed.</p> + +<p>It must be remembered by the foreign reader that there is no Minister of +Fine Arts in Italy. There is a Minister of Education, another of Public +Works, and another of Agriculture, and between these three<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span> all +questions of art and architecture are divided, and are decided in +agreement with the various municipalities. The mischief the trio does is +incalculable, for they are seldom selected with any regard to their +æsthetic qualifications. Indeed, if ever anyone of them show any +scholarly capacity and aptitude for his office, like that which was +shown by Villari, his possession of power is very short. Of a recent +minister of agriculture it is related that, as he looked over a valley +planted with magnificent olives near Brescia, he exclaimed, 'What fine +willows!'</p> + +<p>A similar ignorance in matters belonging to their respective departments +is expected of the Ministers of Education and Public Works. Were there a +Minister of Fine Arts, he would undoubtedly be chosen from the +attorneys, the manufacturers, the scientists, or the rural Bœotians.</p> + +<p>Another minister of agriculture, Count Francesco Guicciardini, had an +admirable and thorough command of the objects of his Dicastero; skilled +in agriculture himself, and the owner of large estates, he knew what to +do and how to do it; and by his energy an outbreak of phylloxera was +arrested before any great losses had ensued. But outside agriculture, +his influence was less excellent, because he was unfortunately enabled +to meddle with matters not agricultural and beyond his knowledge; as +when he ordered the destruction of a whole quarter of the martial and +ancient city of Pistoia, and the waste of the town funds in the erection +of a new savings bank. Over the choice of a design for this building, +the townspeople of Pistoia are now violently quarrelling, whilst<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span> many +of their finest and noblest palaces are left to go empty to decay!</p> + +<p>A minister of the strictest probity, of the strongest desire to do what +is just and wise, is never long able to resist the pressure of those +around him, the force of example, the persuasions of local magnates, and +the insistence of the crowd of hungry perquisite-hunters. It is such +shocking and wicked waste of money as was this in Pistoia which +impoverishes every town, and disfigures each with vulgar piles of brick +and iron, and grotesque monuments of black metal, whilst a miserable +woman at their gates pays four centimes duty on a pint of milk before +she can take it past the guards to sell, and a wretched man, who owns a +little road-fed flock of goats, is taxed two hundred francs a year +before he may drive them into the streets to yield the little +nourishment which they can afford to invalids and children. Should the +law now under consideration pass, and the debts of the Communes be paid +by the State, and monies be henceforth lent lavishly by the State to the +Communes, this expenditure will increase tenfold, and the jobbery +accompanying it will be multiplied in similar measure.</p> + +<p>No one of the governing classes is guiltless in the matter; cabinets, +senators, deputies, prefects, mayors, town councils, provincial +councils, each and all, sin alike in this matricide, and seem to vie +with each other in suggesting and executing the abominable projects +which disgrace the close of the century.</p> + +<p>In this day, in everything appertaining to municipal government, the +greater is sacrificed to the lesser; the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span> smug, the ordinary, the +expedient, the venal are first of all considered; the kind of man who +pushes to the front in affairs is bustling, sharp, keen, insensible, in +whose own existence no necessity for anything except vulgar prosperity, +as ugly as you will, is felt for an hour. To speak to such men of such +impersonal desires as moved the makers of the great cities of old, is to +speak in an unknown tongue, which they appraise as gibberish. They are, +for the present time, the rulers of the world, and the material they are +made of is the same clay, whether its shape take that of an emperor or a +contractor, of a king or a beadle, of a minister or a vestryman. At the +present hour the earth is given over to them.</p> + +<p>Wyzewa accepts this insatiable mania for destruction as a +characteristic, which of course it undoubtedly is, of the general +disease of modernity; but he does not seem to trace it to what is surely +its source, the greed of gain. All these engineers, builders, +contractors, town councillors, bankers, usurers, speculators, chairmen, +shareholders, and directors of companies, can make nothing out of the +ancient glory and grace of beautiful cities; the mayors can get no +savoury morsel to compensate them for all their servility and +time-serving; the deputies can find no useful plunder to enrich the crew +who have voted for them; in respecting the beauty of the past, +syndicates and tradesmen and gamblers on 'Change would reap no harvest +of gold whatever.</p> + +<p>What else but greed has been the motive of that shameless desecration of +Rome against which Geoffroy has raised his voice from the tomb to +protest?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span></p> + +<p>What else but greed the motive of that infamous destruction of the +entire centre of Florence, its historic towers and churches and palaces, +torn down with blind rage to be replaced by hideous hotels, and monster +shops, and grotesque monuments? the most piteous, and the most +inexcusable, injury ever done to the rights of history and of art.</p> + +<p>What else the motive of that wanton disfigurement of Venice which has +disgraced the last fifteen years of the municipal rule, and is about to +continue the work of ruin merely to enrich the men of greed, the English +and American tradesmen, the Hebrew speculators, the German hucksters, +the cosmopolitan inflators of bubble companies?</p> + +<p>The motive of all these destructions is always the same, and always of +the lowest kind: gain. Everyone concerned in them gains, or hopes to +gain. There is no other instinct or idea than this. It is, like the +present diplomacy of Europe, an all-round game of grab; and a large +percentage of the gains goes to the doctors who label the gambling +'Hygiene.'</p> + +<p>The plea of health is a falsehood usually advanced in excuse of such +destructions as those of the Florentine centre and the Venetian Calli +and Campielli. Those who allege it know, as well as I do, that the +unhealthiness lies not in the habitations but in the habits of the +people. Water never touches their bodies; tight-lacing is a female rule +in even the peasant class; the field-worker is as tightly cased in her +leather stays as the duchess in her satin corset. The favourite foods of +the populace are such as give worms, dysentery, and skin diseases; their +drinks are<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span> adulterated and poisonous;<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> their general habits are +unwholesome and injurious beyond all description; they are saved only by +the purity of the air which the municipalities, who chatter of hygiene, +do their best to pollute with acid and chemical fumes, and the stench of +noxious trades.</p> + +<p>The men who prate of hygiene know these facts as well as I do; they +know, I repeat, that the insalubrity is in the habits, not in the +habitations; but the conventional lie passes muster and serves its end: +it enables landlords to sell, and lawyers to pocket fees, and +contractors to make profits, and all the troops of middlemen to fatten +on the demolition of noble and ancient places and the creation of shoddy +stucco architecture in their stead.</p> + +<p>The sense of beauty has died with the public destruction of beauty: it +is dead in the ruling classes; and what is far worse, dead in the +populace; dead, or nearly so, in the writers, the painters, the +sculptors. If in this latter class there were any strong, true, and +delicate instinct of what is noble and beautiful, Molmenti would not +stand alone in the Council of Venice; Prince Corsini would not alone +have resisted the destruction of the Florence of the Renaissance; +D'Annunzio would not alone repeat the denunciations of two dead +foreigners, Geoffroy and Gregorovius, of the violation of ancient and of +mediæval Rome. The voices of the artists (were<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span> they artists in feeling +indeed) would be, and would have been, so powerful that no ministry and +no municipality would have ventured to ignore them.</p> + +<p>But most modern artists are afraid to offend their public, their +patrons, the town councils, the mayors, and communes, or the Ministers +of Education or of Public Works, to which or to whom they look for +employment; they have the decoration-hunger, which is one of the chief +curses of Continental Europe, and decorations only come from the powers +above; and in these powers above there is not the faintest glimmer of +taste or feeling, there is only jealousy of a great and unapproachable +Past.</p> + +<p>Therefore, the few who do feel indignation do not speak; and the +speculator, the jerry builder, the cunning lawyer and conveyancer, the +vast body of greedy and gross spoilers, have their way unchecked.</p> + +<p>In the case of Rome, of course, that cruellest and ugliest of all +passions, religious antagonism, has had much to do with the atrocious +ruin of the Prati del Castello, of the Trastevere generally, of the +passage of the four trams in derision in face of St Peter's, of the +hideous gimcrack houses built under the walls of the Lateran, of the +destruction of street shrines and votive chapels and ancient chapels, of +the erection of the entire quarters of what is called New Rome;<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> but +religious hatred cannot be the cause of the barbarous scraping and +daubing of classic buildings, of the degradation of the Via Nomentana, +and of Porta Pia,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span> of the ruin of such glory and grace as that of the +Ludovisi and the Farnesina villas, of the bedaubing and beplastering, +the dwarfing and disfiguring, the vulgarising and disfiguring of +everything which is touched by the modern ædiles of Rome. No matter what +the syndic be called, whether Ruspoli or Guiccioli, or Torlonia, or +Colonna, no matter whether the cabinet be headed by Rudini or Giolitti, +by Crispi or Pelloux, the pickaxe is never at rest, and the hammer and +hatchet sound ceaselessly in street and garden, on desecrated altars, +and in devastated groves.</p> + +<p>To what end have served the fury and haste with which ancient +ecclesiastical buildings have been razed to the ground in both the +cities and the provinces? To none whatever, so far as any diminution of +the funds and the numbers of ecclesiastical foundations can be counted.</p> + +<p>The suppression of the monasteries and convents was actuated by love of +gain as much as by polemical rancour, by the hunger of the newly-created +kingdom, for their treasures and riches, for their rich endowments and +saleable possessions. There was no sincerity about it; there could be +none in a nation then almost entirely Catholic; and this insincerity is +proved by the indifference with which the State allows the +re-establishment of these buildings and these orders. At this moment the +bare-footed Carmelites, a most bigoted order, have lately opened a new +church and convent in Milan, which are endowed with three millions of +money, and have been opened with great pomp by the Archbishop. Similar +institutions are<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span> being re-created in all directions, possessing all the +evils of those which were suppressed, without their artistic beauty, and +largely without their good faith and munificent charity. Rich and lovely +maidens continue to take the veil when too young to have any realisation +of what they do,<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> and the Church is as enriched as of old by their +dowers; whilst the monk is not the less dangerous to intellectual +liberty because, when he goes out of the gates for a few hours, he wears +a coat and trousers like those of the layman of the adjacent town.</p> + +<p>The ancient monasteries and convents were at least an education to the +eye: who could daily see the Certosa of Pavia, or of the Val d'Ema, and +not be purified and instructed in visual memory and artistic instinct? +The new revivals of the old orders teach nothing except a base and +strictly modern union of superstition and compromise. Indeed, the State +forces the priest to be base; it makes it the condition of allowing his +existence. If he do not succumb to the State in all things (even in +those most opposed to his conscience), he is deprived of his <i>placet</i>; +and Zanardelli has in these last few days desired to deprive him of it +without such legal forms as have hitherto been observed. For one of the +greatest of the misfortunes of Italy is that, not in the Radicals nor in +the Conservatives, nor in any one of the groups into which political +life is divided, is there the slightest trace of any respect for +individual freedom; liberty of action and of opinion<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span> obtain no fair +play whatever from any one of the parties of the State.</p> + +<p>True, it is not in Italy alone that the sense of symmetry and harmony is +leaving the terrestial race; the want of beauty, as the daily bread of +life, grows less and less felt every year by the modern mind wherever +that mind has been unhinged by the manias of modernity. Beauty, natural +and artistic, has become entirely indifferent to the majority of even +highly-educated modern men and women. They have no leisure to +contemplate it, no temperament capable of feeling it; it is in no sense +necessary to them; it makes no impression either on their retina or +their memory. Their lives pass before a revolving panorama, so rapidly +dissolving and changing that they have no distinct impression of any of +the scenes or subjects. Every year modern habits become more unlovely, +and modern sensibilities more blunted. The preservation of what is +beautiful, <i>per se</i>, at the present time is almost always ridiculed, +unless it can be shown to be joined to some profit or utility. The +characteristic passion of the hour is greed; greed of possession, desire +of acquisition, and passion for ostentation. Trade has become an octopus +embracing the whole world; the thirst for gain engrosses all classes; +beauty, unless it be a means of gain, is to this temper a useless, or +worse than a useless, thing: it is regarded as a stumbling-block and +encumbrance.</p> + +<p>It is doubtful if even the power of perceiving what is beautiful has not +in a great measure left a large part of the population in all countries. +Modern cities would not be what they are now<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span> had not the race to a +great extent grown colour-blind, and become without the sense of +proportion. Modern builders and modern engineers would remain unoccupied +were not the generations, which employ and enrich them, destitute of all +artistic feelings.</p> + +<p>Many of the prevailing fashions would be so intolerable to persons with +any delicate or accurate perception, that such fashions could never have +become general had any perception of this kind been general. Even the +deformity of their bodies awakens no aversion in the modern public; if +it did, the bicycle would never have been in demand.</p> + +<p>Such blindness and deadness to the charm of beauty is to be noted in +every nation, and is developed even in the extreme East whenever modern +European and American usage influences the Oriental.</p> + +<p>Japan is rapidly becoming the rival in vulgarity and hideousness of +Chicago.</p> + +<p>It is no doubt general and inevitable, the low tone of susceptibility, +the dense, thick-skinned temper, which accompany what is called +Civilisation, which are to be seen everywhere from cold to warm +latitudes, wherever the steam-engine screams and the shoddy suits are +worn.</p> + +<p>The modern temper is something even worse than inartistic; it is +brutally and aggressively hostile to beauty, whether natural or +architectural. It will go out of the way to injure, to deface, to +uproot, to level with the dust.</p> + +<p>To the cold, bald, hard, derisive temper of the modern majority there is +something offensive and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span> irritating in beauty, whether it be seen in the +stately verdure of a tree in its summer glory, or of an ancient +tower,<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> brown and grey in the light of evening. To fell the tree, to +pull down the tower, is the first instinct of the modern mind, and it is +an instinct clamorous, savage, insatiable, born of incapacity and +triviality, of the hunger for destruction, and of a secret and ignoble +jealousy.</p> + +<p>There can, I think, be no doubt that modern education implants and +increases this insensibility. If it did not, modern municipalities would +not be what they are, would not do what they do. The only resistance to +this insensibility is found, and this but rarely, at the two extremes of +the social scale—the peasant and the noble, <i>i.e.</i>, in those who are +least subjected to the pressure of general education. In the man, +absolutely uneducated, and in the man reared by an individual and +highly-cultured education, are alone now to be found any appreciation of +beauty, natural or artistic.</p> + +<p>A French writer, with no pity for the lovers of teas and porcelains, has +said recently that he looks forward with joy to the time when the whole +empire of China will be covered with factories and mines as thickly as +blades of grass grow in a meadow. Most modern persons have no higher +ideal than his. In similar phrase, Ferrero, whose political writings I +have often cited with approval, and whose striking abilities I greatly +admire, but with whose narrow socialist temper I have no sympathy, +actually states that the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span> plain of Lombardy was created by nature to be +studded with factory chimneys!</p> + +<p>Even into remote mountain towns, and in small forgotten cities, on the +edge of lonely lakes, or deep-sunk in chestnut woods, or ilex-forests, +the same desecration creeps, and sullies, and pollutes. Gimcrack, gaudy +villas, and pasteboard houses, show their pert and paltry forms amidst +noble palaces, or beside patrician towers. Pistachio green paint makes +day hideous everywhere, daubed on deal shutters and blinds, accompanied +by the paltry stained doors, and the stucco mouldings, of the epoch. The +modern municipality displays its whitewashed and belettered frontage, +unashamed, on some grand old piazza, which has seen centuries of strife +and splendour. Silent sunlit bays of Tyrrhene or Adriatic, lovely as a +poem of Shelley, are made vulgar and ludicrous by lines of habitations +such as the jerry-builder of the end of the nineteenth century +procreates, wearing an air of smug imbecility which makes one long to +slap their stucco faces; of course the drinking-shop, the +cycling-casino, and the shooters' club have been run up beside them so +that their patrons and frequenters may befoul the roseate evening, and +insult the ethereal night.</p> + +<p>Moreover, it is strange to note how, with the vulgarisation of the towns +and of the landscapes in this classic land, the human physiognomy loses +its classic unity and grace, grows heavier, coarser, meaner, commoner, +changes indeed entirely its type and colouring; the camus or the snub +nose replaces the aquiline, the scrofulous mouth replaces the lips<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span> +shaped like a Cupid's bow; the eyes diminish in size and grow +lack-lustre; the beautiful oval outline of cheek and chin alters to the +bull-dog jaw and puffy cheeks; the clear and pure skin alters to the +sodden, pallid, unwholesome complexion of the new type. This is no +exaggerated statement; anyone can see the change for himself who will +take the trouble to observe such young Italians as throng the +second-rate and the third-rate <i>cafés</i> and dining-saloons of cities, and +then go into the more remote country, and see the Italiote race still in +its integrity, in old-world hamlets of the Abruzzi or the Apennines, in +forest-sheltered nooks of the Sabine or the Carrara mountains, in +sea-faring, wind-swept villages of the Veneto, in nomad sheep-folds on +the oak-studded grass plains of the Basilicata, or in old walled towns, +calm and venerable, in the lap of the high hills, where the shriek of +the engine has not yet been heard; where it is still unknown, that which +Loti calls in his latest work, 'cette chose de laid, de noirâtre, de +tapageur, d'idiotement empressée, qui passe vite vite, ébranle la terre, +trouble ce calme délicieux par des sifflets et des bruits de ferailles, +le chemin de fer, le chemin de fer!—plus nivelant que le temps, +propageant la basse camelote de l'industrie, déversant chaque jour de la +banalité et des imbéciles.'</p> + +<p>In the provinces he will still find, in thousands of living creatures, +the youths of Luca Signorelli, the knights of Giorgione and Carpaccio, +the young gods of Paolo Veronese, the noble grey-beards of Tiziano, the +stately women of Michelangiolo, the enchanting children of Raffaelle, +and Correggio. But in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span> towns, and in the country where it receives +the moral and physical miasma of the towns, he will find little else but +the debased modern type, with its snigger of conceit, its cynical grin, +its criminal's jaw, its cutaneous eruptions, its dull and insolent eyes, +its stunted growth, and its breath foul with nicotine and chemical +drinks, such as the modern schools, and the modern scientists, and the +modern dram-shops have made it.</p> + +<p>Commerce, from being beneficent, is fast becoming a curse. It usurps and +absorbs all place and all energy. Its objects are allowed to push out of +existence all higher aims; armies and navies exist only to protect it; +and an English Premier was not ashamed at a Lord Mayor's banquet to +declare that this was their unique aim: to conquer fresh fields for +trading, and protect the trader in his invasion of the rights of others. +His Secretary of State for the Colonies and his Chancellor of the +Exchequer have, still more recently, repeated after him this singularly +ignoble view of a nation's duty, and of a soldier's and sailor's +obligation.</p> + +<p>The Secretary of the Colonies, indeed, rising to unwonted enthusiasm, +added that all the greatness of Great Britain lies in its commerce. No +doubt this may be a fact; but it is not an ennobling fact; and it is one +which is the parent of gross sins, and the enemy of high ideals; in the +name of commerce, murder, theft, and torture are all legalised, and the +most brutal egotism deified; it can be at best only a material greatness +which is thus consolidated.</p> + +<p>To measure the virtue of a nation by its<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span> commerce alone is like +measuring the virtue of a man solely by the amount of his income. This +manner of estimation is one common in the world, but it can never be +considered a high standard. However, this excuse of the prior and +dominant claims of commerce which may be put forward in the case of +Great Britain for the sacrifice to it of all other interests cannot be +alleged by Italy except in some districts of the north. What requires +protection in five-sixths of Italy, and only suffers extinction through +fiscal pressure, is small commerce: personal arts, crafts, and trades, +which flourished so happily in past times, and would still live in fair +peace and comfort were they not stoned out of existence by a merciless +taxation, direct and indirect. These neither disfigure nor offend the +beautiful and venerable little towns in which they dwell; the smith has +his anvil under a Lombard arch, the apothecary keeps his ointments and +simples in old majolica vases, the barber's pole slants under a shrine +of the Renascence, the cloth-seller piles his bales against the +sculpture of a Seicento wall, the seedsman's sacks show the shining +berries in their gaping mouths behind the iron scroll-work of mediæval +kneeling-windows. It is not they who have hurt their birthplaces. It is +the English syndicate, the Jew syndicate, the German money-changer, the +American tram-contractor, the foreign electric company, the foreign +co-operative store-keeper, who have no end but their own gain, and who +tempt to shameful acts those native to the soil, in whose hands lie the +fate of these historic, and late happy, places.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span></p> + +<p>Ferrero has, concerning this, a true and touching passage which is much +worthier of him than his views regarding Lombardy and the factories. He +says, in a recent able article on the 'Miseria e Richezza in Italia':—</p> + +<blockquote><p>'The tendencies of new commercial life, in its immense +enterprises, is to send money and movement into a very few +amongst the cities of Italy, the others live content with their +small traffic and trade; though trembling when the fleet +well-springs of their small fortunes are menaced or run dry. +Many of these towns were in other days rich, and still preserve +the evidences of their splendid past in sumptuous palaces, +spacious squares, monumental churches; a sense of venerable +years, of profound repose lie on them; yet a sad and cruel +tragedy often passes between these walls; beneath the +magnificent palaces of the Renascence and the beautiful +mediæval Lombard churches, the populace perishes slowly of +hunger. The small ancient industries disappear, crushed out by +the victorious rivalry of the great tradesmen of the north. The +ruin of these small industries and of these individual crafts +began some decades ago; but it was much less cruelly felt then +than it is now, and the sole recourse or solace now left to it +is in revolt. A revolt to which the Government only replies by +fixed bayonets, and a duty on corn, which is a crime.'</p></blockquote> + +<p>Ferrero, as a political economist is bound to do, considers that no +means should be taken to artificially<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span> sustain ancient methods of work +and trade, but he says with entire truth that to artificially depress +and deplete them is on the part of the State an abominable act. To wear +out the temper and patience of the populace with harassing edicts; to +drive to desperation those who are cheerful and contented in an honestly +supported poverty; to starve them by artificially raised food-prices, +and by gate-taxes, which ruin the small trader, the modest householder, +and the rural vendor alike; to render it, by a monstrous taxation, +impossible for small industries to exist; to levy income-tax +(<i>focatico</i>) on the poorest labourer—this is the terrible error, the +inexcusable cruelty, of which the actual, and every preceding, Italian +Cabinet is, and has been, guilty. If there be revolution in the air, who +can wonder? The granaries are guarded by battalions, whilst millions are +thrown away on bad statues to Savoy princes. These are facts which it is +not necessary for a man to know his A B C to read. But they are the +primer which is daily placed before the eyes of the many various peoples +of Italy from the Col de Tenda to Cape Sorano; and these peoples are of +rare intelligence even where wholly illiterate: often, indeed, most +intelligent where most illiterate.</p> + +<p>There were, not many years ago, a great measure of mirth and contentment +in all the minor cities of Italy, and in the small towns and the big +walled villages; much harmless merry-making and pastime, much simple and +neighbourly pleasure, much enjoyment of that 'ben' di Dio,' the blessed +air and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span> sunshine. Most of it has been killed now; starved out, +strangled by regulations and penalties and imposts, and a fiendish +fiscal tyranny; dead like the poor slaughtered forgotten conscripts in +Africa.</p> + +<p>But this opens out a political question, and it is not of politics that +these pages treat, but of art and its outrage: above all, of such +outrage in Venice; since the President of her Academy did me, of late, +the honour to say to me, 'Non può Lei far nulla per salvare la nostra +povera Venezia?' Alas! how powerless are all our forces against the +ever-rising tide of modern barbarism!</p> + +<p>A precious intaglio of exquisite workmanship is being broken up and +pulverised under our eyes; and no one cares.</p> + +<p>I know a wide plain, intersected by many streams, and lying full in the +light of the west; these streams are filled from August to October with +millions of white water-lilies.</p> + +<p>Nothing more beautiful can be beheld than these countless water-courses +covered with these cups of snow, which share the clear, slowly-rippling +streams only with the water-wagtail and the sedge-warbler, the bullrush, +and the flag. They resemble exactly the river on which the Virgine delle +Rocce drift with their brothers and Claudio. But the peasants push their +black, flat-bottomed boats recklessly amongst the silver goblets of the +flowers, crashing into them and breaking them with brutal indifference, +and raking them into heaps in their boats, to be cast up on to the +oozing banks to rot and serve as land manure; the boorish insensibility +of the boatmen<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span> is typical of their time; the lilies would serve quite +as well for manure were they allowed to live out their lovely life, and +were not gathered until they were yellow and faded; but they who rake +them in do not wait for their natural season of decay; they smash and +break them in full flower as they kill birds on the nest in the fields +and hedges.</p> + +<p>Their fate is like the fate of that greater lily, rosy-red at sunset, +which lies cradled on the waters between Mestre and Murano; and which is +roughly and painfully being uprooted and destroyed that a pack of +foreign traders and native attorneys may wax fat and lay up gold.</p> + +<p>No doubt the fate of Venice is common in these days; no doubt, all over +the world, capitalists and socialists join hands across the gulf of +their differences to unite in the destruction of all that is beautiful, +graceful, harmonious, and venerable.</p> + +<p>But in Italy such destruction is more sad and shameful than anywhere +else in Europe, by reason of the magnificence and glory of her past, and +in view of the pitiful fact that the land, which was a Pharos of light +and leading to the earth, is now every year and every day receding +farther and farther into darkness: that dreadful darkness of the modern +world which comes of polluted waters and polluted air, of the breath of +poisoned lungs, and the pressure of starving crowds. The basest form of +venality, the lowest form of greed, have fastened on her with the +tentacles of the devil-fish; and are every hour devouring her.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> <i>Révue des Deux Mondes</i>, 1<sup>re</sup> janvier 1895.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> Campanulas, spotted orchis, or foxglove, I suppose. It it +characteristic of him that he sighs for an 'unseizable secret,' and does +not take the trouble to learn the names of the flowers he sees.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> He is writing of Andrea Sperelli in <i>Il Piacere</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> This was written by me in 1897; England has not waited long +to confirm the truth of it.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> A novel called <i>Corleone</i> reproduces Don Orsino, but was +published after these pages had been printed. It has been very popular, +but in it, unfortunately, Don Orsino is given away deplorably, and +turned into a mere romantic lover, which in real life he never would +have become.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> Since this was written Sir J. Lubbock has been made a peer; +and alas! <i>notre cher Maître</i>, Cherbuliez, has passed over to the great +majority.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> <i>L'Impérieuse Bonté</i>, J. H. Rosny.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> Surely <i>wild</i> is a misprint for <i>white</i>? A mantle cannot be +wild, nor is it an epithet to apply to a hawthorn tree.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> It is possible, though little to be hoped, that the +complications in China (which any far-sighted statesman would have +foreseen and provided for) may open the eyes of the British people to +the terribly heavy bill which they will pay, eventually, for the luxury +of the Chamberlain Cabinet.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> Since this was written, the letters of Ruskin and Rossetti +have been published: a greater offence against dead men could not be +committed.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> To know how possible this is, look at the women of fashion +at the Cape in this springtime of 1900, with their admirable toilettes, +their lovely false hair, their bird-adorned hats, their picnics and +their dinners and their cheery titter: 'Let us go and see the wounded!' +<i>vide</i> the testimony of Mr Treves, the eminent surgeon.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> Charles Conrad Abbott, M.D.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> The other evening, in a theatre in Messina, a young +gentleman expressed aloud his disapprobation of the performance; a +person near bade him hold his tongue; the young man answered the +rudeness with a blow; the person immediately produced a pair of +handcuffs and clapped them on; he was a detective in plain clothes! The +Italian of whatever rank he be can never be sure that he is not +shadowed. The apprehension poisons existence to the most innocent.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> At Palermo in the April of this year it has been decreed +by municipal edict that, as it is contrary to hygiene for the petticoats +of women to sweep up the dust of the streets in which the spittal of the +sufferers from tuberculosis may have fallen and dried in the sun, all +women who walk in Palermo are to shorten their skirts! Health, it is +austerely added, is more important than fashion!</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> Contadini drink the <i>vinaccia</i>, or <i>vinella</i>, made from +the dregs of the wine-vats; but others drink (and often the contadino +does so also) the chemical stuffs sold at drinking-houses and taverns +with which the streets and roads are studded.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> It is now almost forgotten that the Ludovisi gardens ever +existed as the motley fashion of the new Roman world flocks to the +American Legation in the Pal. Piombino!</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> A few months ago the Prime Minister, then the Marquis di +Rudini, was present at the taking of the veil by a young relative in +Naples.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> The other day I saw from a railway train a grand old +Longobardo tower which had been coloured a bright pink!</p></div> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p class="center"><i>Colston & Coy, Limited, Printers, Edinburgh.</i></p> + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Critical Studies, by Ouida + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CRITICAL STUDIES *** + +***** This file should be named 36788-h.htm or 36788-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/6/7/8/36788/ + +Produced by David Edwards, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +book was produced from scanned images of public domain +material from the Google Print project.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Critical Studies + +Author: Ouida + +Release Date: July 19, 2011 [EBook #36788] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CRITICAL STUDIES *** + + + + +Produced by David Edwards, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +book was produced from scanned images of public domain +material from the Google Print project.) + + + + + + + + + + + + CRITICAL STUDIES + + BY OUIDA + + + _SECOND IMPRESSION_ + + LONDON + T. FISHER UNWIN + PATERNOSTER SQUARE + 1900 + + + [_All Rights reserved_] + + + + +PREFATORY NOTE + + +With exception of one, that on the poems of Mr Blunt, all these essays +have previously appeared in _The Fortnightly Review_, _The Nineteenth +Century Review_, or the _Nuova Antologia_. The two published in _The +Nuova Antologia_ were written by me in Italian. I have now turned them +into English myself. The article on D'Annunzio, in the _Fortnightly_, +was the first ever printed in English on a writer who is now well known +to all. I do not think that he has, since it was published, created +anything equal to the _Trionfo_. The character of his genius is not +adapted to the theatre, to which he now chiefly devotes himself. It will +be interesting to see if it can be adapted to political life, which has +lately tempted him. Perhaps he may become a new Rienzi. One is greatly +needed in Italy. + +OUIDA. + + + + +CONTENTS + + +I. GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO + +II. GEORGES DARIEN + +III. THE ITALIAN NOVELS OF MARION CRAWFORD + +IV. LE SECRET DU PRECEPTEUR + +V. L'IMPERIEUSE BONTE + +VI. WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT + +VII. JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN + +VIII. UNWRITTEN LITERARY LAWS + +IX. AUBERON HERBERT + +X. THE UGLINESS OF MODERN LIFE + +XI. THE QUALITY OF MERCY + +XII. THE DECADENCE OF LATIN RACES + +XIII. ALMA VENIESIA + + + + +CRITICAL STUDIES + + + + +I + +GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO + + +In the world of letters the name of Gabriele d'Annunzio is now famous. +There is no cultured society which does not know something at least of +the author of the _Innocente_ and the _Trionfo_, and is not aware that, +in him, one of the ablest and most delicate of living critics believes +that he has seen the personification of a renascence of Latin genius. +Imprisoned as his novels were in the limits of a language which, however +great its beauty, is but little known except in its own land, he has +been extraordinarily fortunate in finding such sponsors in the outside +world as he has obtained in M. Herelle, in Rene Doumic, and in the +Vicomte de Voguee. Never has any romance been so admirably heralded as +the _Trionfo_ in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_, and never certainly, since +lyre was strung or laurels were woven, was any praise ever heard so +dulcet and so lavish as that with which he, who has been called the +second Chateaubriand, has welcomed and introduced the new Boccaccio. + +The grace and beauty of the style of the Vicomte de Voguee, and the +culture of his intelligence, have gained him in literature this name of +the second Chateaubriand. They are both incontestable. But they are apt +to lead his readers away from the consideration of the value of his +literary judgments. He is a critic of exquisite delicacy and fineness, +but also of great enthusiasms, and these enthusiasms are at times much +stronger than his judgment and overpower it. What he admires he admires +_toto corde_, and is apt to lose in this generous ardour his power of +selection, his accuracy of appraisement. + +This fact has been always conspicuous in all his writings on Pasteur, +and it has been equally conspicuous in the unmeasured idolatry with +which he has dipped his pen in all the honey of Hymettus to sing the +praises of the man he loves. But this adoption of D'Annunzio into French +literature has, with its incontestable advantages, equal penalties and +disadvantages for the author; for one reader outside Italy who will read +him in the original text, ten thousand will know him only in the French +version, and twenty thousand will accept De Voguee's description of his +works without attempting to judge those for themselves. In the French +version the romances gain in certain points; their excessive detail is +abridged, their crudities are softened down, their wearisome analyses +and too frequent obscenities are omitted. The translations of M. Herelle +are, as all must know, admirable in grace and elegance, but, though as +perfect as translations which are guilty of continual excisions can be, +they fail to render the genius of D'Annunzio as it is to be seen and +felt by those who read the works in the original tongue. In the French +version they are much milder, much more tempered, much less unbridled, +and much less cynically nude; but they are also much less vigorous, +virile, impassioned, and furiously scornful. Many fine passages have +been esteemed _longueurs_, and have been omitted altogether, and entire +chapters have been sacrificed to the exigencies of taste or of space. + +In the French edition of the _Trionfo_, nearly the whole book, entitled +_La Vita Nuova_, containing the pilgrimage to Casalbordino is omitted. +But without perusal of this marvellous reproduction of a scene of +Italian fanaticism and frenzy, and of similar portions of his works, it +is impossible to estimate fully the real D'Annunzio, and judge of his +magnificent powers of observation and description, as well as of his +incessant search for what is loathsome, his cruel exultation in his +examination of physical diseases and moral leprosies. + +I know not why this pilgrimage was rejected, for it is not more indecent +than other portions of the book, and it is singularly true to certain +phases of Italian life, in which all the Paganism bred in the blood and +bone of the people is displayed, mixed with the ferocity of Christian +bigotry. Let me here translate the opening of it:-- + + 'It was a marvellous and terrible spectacle, unexpected, unlike + any other assemblage of men and things, composed of mixtures so + diverse, cruel and strange, that it eclipsed the most dreadful + visions of a nightmare. All the hideousness of the eternal + idiot, all the filthiness of vice and its stupidities, all the + spasms and deformities of baptized flesh, all the tears of + penitence, all the laughter of license; the mania, the + cupidity, the craft, the lust, the fraud, the imbecility, the + silent desperation, the sacred choruses, the howls of the + possessed, the shouts of the ambulatory vendors, the clanging + of the bells, the squeal of the trumpets, the lowing, the + neighing, the bleating; the fires crackling under the + cauldrons, the heaps of fruits and sweetmeats, the display of + utensils, of stuffs, of arms, of jewels, of rosaries; the + obscene capers of the dancers, the convulsions of the + epileptic, the blows of the quarrelsome, the rush of flying, + frightened thieves through the crowd; the supreme froth of + corruption poured forth from the filthy lanes of remote cities, + and showered out on to an ignorant and astounded multitude, + like horseflies on the flanks of beasts, shoals of parasites + descended on a compact mass incapable of defending itself, all + the base temptations of brutal appetites, all the treacheries + playing on simplicity and stupidity, all the charlatanisms and + the effronteries bared in full daylight; all the opposing + contrasts were there, boiling and effervescing, around the + House of the Virgin.' + +What strength is here? What admirable choice of descriptive phrase, and +truth of design, as in a Callot or Hogarth! what sense conveyed of +press, of haste, of noise, of confusion, of stench, of uproar! We live +in this crowd as we read. + +De Voguee asserts that the indecency of D'Annunzio is never 'polisonne ou +grivoise'; that it is never vulgar, although it is unbridled. He admits +the preference for the unclean, which almost amounts, indeed, to an +hallucination, but he urges that in D'Annunzio it is always redeemed by +art. + +'A Rabelais, a Boccaccio, a Loti, or a D'Annunzio, give expression to a +certain temperament, with the artistic resources which that temperament +imposes on them,' writes De Voguee, in his celebrated criticism,[1] 'they +have nothing in common with tradesmen, who painfully produce the filth +demanded by a publisher and a certain public. An abyss separates the +former from the latter writers. This difference between them which our +judgment perceives, we do not show by critical demonstration; our taste +is conscious of it as our eyes distinguish a flower, venomous perhaps, +but natural, from an artificial flower coloured by poisonous dyes.' + +[Footnote 1: _Revue des Deux Mondes_, 1^re janvier 1895.] + +Now, in this passage there is much truth, but it is not equally true +that D'Annunzio is at no time to be placed in the lower class. There is +too frequently in his indecency a strain, an effort, a mannerism, an +extravagance, sought, and unnecessary. The reader, if he desires to +understand what I mean by this, can turn to page 320 in the _Trionfo_, +or to Chapter X., in the _Piacere_ (Italian version), in which there are +ingenuities of indecency introduced which have no relation whatever to +the narrative, nor any obligation to appear. + +What is, I think, more offensive to taste, and more injurious to art +than any sensual excess in description, is mere nastiness, mere filth; +and of this D'Annunzio is as guilty as Zola is, and as Zola has been, +always. + +De Voguee may pour out his scorn as he will on the _industriel_ who +composed _La Bete Humaine_, and may cover with the roses and lilies of +his exquisite garlands of praise the creator of the _Trionfo_, the fact +remains that the Satyr shows his cloven hoof as much in one as in the +other; and the motives which move either of the writers we have no right +to condemn or to appraise, for the entrance into personal motive is +surely an intrusion which should never be attempted. + +We may, nevertheless, suggest as probable that, however dissimilar be +their atmosphere and circumstances, both Zola and D'Annunzio have been +moved to study chiefly what is called immoral, and prurient, by a +sincere desire to reach to the very depths of human nature, to shrink +from no investigation, to deny no evidence, and to protest against the +hypocrisy with which literary art has so frequently covered its eyes and +turned away from the truth. 'Let us study life alone,' says D'Annunzio, +as Zola said it; and if he seek life in its corruption, coming upon the +corpse of putrid pleasure as the gay riders in the Campo Santo of Pisa +check their startled steeds before the open biers, he does no more, and +no less, offend art than Zola offends it in _Nana_. + +Indeed, so little is De Voguee's statement in this matter justified, that +almost every Italian who has read D'Annunzio's works will, in speaking +of him, regret his incessant recurrence to obscenity. Not from prudery, +for Italians are never prudes, but from an artistic sense, that this +perpetually intruded indecency is an error in taste, and becomes quite +as tiresome as any other form of perpetual repetition. + +The most conspicuous error of modern literature is, beyond doubt, its +verbiage. It has completely forgotten the great canon of 'Ars est celare +artem'; the supreme ability of conveying immeasurable suggestion in a +mere word, in concentrating all the music of the soul in one brief note. +All the arts err at this epoch in the same manner; literature has the +common malady; it is prolix. The indecencies of D'Annunzio, like his +other descriptions, are prolix; and the prolixity is not redeemed by the +indecency, nor the indecency by the prolixity. + +This tendency of redundancy is not his fault alone; it is that of his +time. The enormous canvases and numerous figures of modern paintings, +the crowded groups and tortured attitudes of modern sculpture, the +elaborate scenic effects, and mechanical appliances, and endless acts, +of modern opera and drama, are all forms of the same malady of +repetition; of ignorance of how, and when, to break the laurel bough +before it withers; of lack of skill to master the subtleties of +concentration and suggestion. The descriptions of the modern writer are +frequently mere inventories; they are painfully minute; they are like a +mosaic, in which millions of little cubes are grouped to make a whole. +As before a modern painting we are often unimpressed by the whole, but +struck by the dexterity of the brush-work, so in modern literature we +are little interested in the conception, but allured by the dexterity of +the treatment. Too frequently, unappily, this multiplicity of words +covers a sad poverty of ideas. But in D'Annunzio's works there is not a +page without ideas; ideas which may displease or may disgust the reader +at times, but which are, nevertheless, always worthy to arrest +attention, even when they are only studies of depravity. + +D'Annunzio is a greater writer than Zola, not because he has emulated or +surpassed Zola's indecencies, but because he is what Zola never was--a +scholar and a poet. His culture is of the most varied and classical +kind, profound as well as brilliant; and his poetic powers were shown in +his sonnets and lyrics before he wrote his romances. Zola is no scholar, +and is not, either in temperament or expression, a poet. It would be +impossible to conceive him creating such a poem as the _Villa Chigi_ or +the _Riccordi di Ripetta_ of D'Annunzio. There are passages in Zola's +works, notably in _La Terre_, which are, I think, as great as it is +possible for prose to be, but they are never touched by any poetry of +phrase or feeling. + +Also, when De Voguee states that the indecency of D'Annunzio is not +indecency because the Italian language is never indecent, and alleges +that what would be insupportable in any other tongue is possible in +Italian, because Italian enjoys the privilege which pertained to its +mother, Latin, _i.e._, to say with grace and impunity what in any other +tongue would disgust the hearer, he says what is absolutely untrue; and +one can only wonder if he knows anything of the Italian of the streets, +of the fields, of the wine-houses, of the popular theatres. In this +affirmation, as in others, he has imagined what he says to be the fact, +and founded on the fabrications of his imagination a positive statement. +It is a frequent habit with him, and makes the weakness of his arguments +in many instances, on other themes than this. + +We know that Italian is heard only occasionally by him during his visits +to Italy, and is then heard by him only in its polished speech. To those +by whom it is heard every day, as spoken by all classes, it certainly +possesses nothing of this privilege which he claims for it. It can be, +on the contrary, very coarse and crude; it has none of the subtleties +and graces, and delicate gradations of French: it calls a spade a spade +with the rudest frankness; and its curses are of an appalling ferocity +and filthiness. + +Nor can it be said that D'Annunzio ever tries to give it delicacy or +veiled suggestion; his language is as broad and as gross as that of Ovid +or Catullus. He never allows the smallest doubt about his meaning to +exist at any time; and he is most especially explicit when treating of +those subjects which in modern literature are generally considered +forbidden. Indeed, this anxiety to paint the brothel and the madhouse as +carefully and minutely as the miniaturist paints on the ivory, leads to +his great defect, over-elaboration. He does not trust enough to the +power of suggestion, which is so strong in a great writer over the mind +of a reader. He does not remember that half a chord may fill the ear +with melody, and that a hint may rouse the senses to nausea or to +desire. + +Paradoxical as it may appear to say so, I think his wide culture has +injured his style. I think he would have been a greater Italian writer +if he had known no language save Italian and, of course, Latin and +Greek. + +The extreme culture and over-variety of modern education tends to +destroy, or at least disturb, originality; it encumbers the mind under +too vast a load of riches, it enlightens, but it also obstructs; if +Shakespeare had been less ignorant he might, perhaps, have been also +less great. + +Foreign influence is not beneficial to the Italian. It makes him unreal; +it makes him lose his charming natural grace and abandonment, it renders +him artificial; he never really becomes what is implied by the word +cosmopolitan (such a cosmopolitan as Lord Dufferin or the late Prince +Lobanoff), and he does lose much of his own national qualities. It is +very rarely that an Italian can, like the late lamented scholar Enrico +Nencioni, steep his mind deeply in all the riches of foreign literature +without in the least losing his own Italian individuality. D'Annunzio, +on the contrary, allows himself to be absorbed and assimilated by +foreign influences, to be dominated by them, to so great an extent +indeed that his style is frequently bastardised by them, and many of his +sentences read as though they were translations from foreign sources. He +claims to have greatly embellished and amplified the Italian language; +he has certainly rendered it more colloquial and more copious; but he +has often grafted foreign idioms upon it, and he has perhaps robbed it +of some of its dignity and grace. He considers that the artist should +always remodel the instrument he uses; but the figure will not hold good +in other arts, for Sarasate does not carve the shell of his violin, +Clausen does not weave the canvas he uses, Bartolome does not blast the +marble out of the hill-side. The writer should use the language he +writes in as it comes pure from its natural springs; he will but +contaminate it if he pour into it alien streams. + +D'Annunzio would probably protest that the patchwork effects of the +foreign languages he introduces, do but correctly represent the mixture +of tongues common in our days in those phases of life which pass under +the generic name of society. In such protest there would, no doubt, be +truth; but it could only apply to certain social scenes in the +_Piacere_, and my objection is less to the introduction of foreign +phrases directly than it is to the foreign complexion and contour which +he so frequently gives to his own language; a fault never before him +known in an Italian writer. Many of his phrases are of foreign +construction. But he is not on that account a plagiarist, as has been +said of him; he is never a plagiarist, but is a too highly educated, and +a too sensitively susceptible, mental organisation. The mean charge of +plagiarism is one so easy to bring and so difficult to refute, that it +is cast by envy and inferiority at all those whose genius, like that of +D'Annunzio, is proud, passionate, and defiant of criticism. That which +has in it the elements of true greatness has always these pellets of mud +thrown at it. In some ways, on the contrary, he seems to seek an +exaggeration of original idiosyncrasies, and to no writer would +conscious imitation be more odious or impossible. + +There is unhappily, in all his works, an absolute absence of wit, of +mirth, of humour. There is not a laugh, scarcely even a smile, in any +of his pages; if we except the cruel laughter of a lover at his +mistress's physical defects. Over all his genius there broods that +'green melancholy,' which is the too-common hue of modern thought, that +dull greyness of death which has spread from the laboratories of science +over all the worlds of literature. Not only is no joyous laugh ever +heard, there is not even the indulgent smile which relieves melancholy +and bitterness in many writers whose views of life are gloomy. Nowhere +is this more seen than in the almost savage cruelty with which the poor +old _devote_, Gioconda Aurispa, is drawn; the merciless description of +her senile love of sweetmeats, of her disappointment when her nephew +forgets to bring them, of her expectant eyes, 'almost impudent in their +entreaty,' of her short breath with its foetid odour, of her tottering +steps amongst her flowers; all is cruel, merciless, without a grain of +pity or of sympathy to redeem its biting satire of so feeble and +harmless a creature. + +Compare with such treatment the exquisite tenderness of Pierre Loti's +Tante Claire, think with how gentle a respect Thackeray drew the death +of an old man, remember the touch with which Maupassant makes us akin +even to poor Boule de Suiffe. Tragedy is not necessarily cruelty, nor +accuracy necessarily brutality. Shakespeare makes us indignant for Lear +and sharers in his sorrows; but D'Annunzio would concentrate our +thoughts only on his ridiculous thin hair blown by the winter winds, the +tremor of his toothless jaws, and palsy of his bent, unsteady limbs. In +the highest art there is always pity because there is always +comprehension. D'Annunzio has as yet no more pity than the demonstrator +in a physiological amphitheatre. But it is not impossible that such pity +may come to him later on, for pity is rarely a passion of youth; it is +usually the fruit of reflection, comparison, realisation of what is +alien and impersonal. That sense which he already feels of the inner +life of all things cannot leave him for ever insensible to the +sufferings of that life. + +At present he is absorbed in the sensual ecstasies of early manhood, and +the fumes of voluptuous delights obscure his sight to much else which +surrounds him, and which finds him callous and negligent of it. De Voguee +sees in him the leader of a new school, but there is as yet little that +is new in his manner of judging life. It is the manner of _Le Disciple_, +though touched with warmer tones, and placed in richer landscapes, and +vibrating with stronger passions, because Italian in scene and in +temper. + +If ever there be a true Latin renascence, which is scarcely to be hoped +for, it will come, not from a writer who is saturated with French, +Russian, German, and English influences, but one who has the Latin +genius, the Latin temper, unalloyed. But does this now exist anywhere? +If it do, it is in remote mountain sides and by lonely lake waters, not +in clubhouses and on racecourses. Such a writer will more probably come, +if he come at all, from the extreme south than from the north, perhaps +even from the great and almost virgin island of the west. In the dense +cork woods and on the desolate shores of Sardinia, a Salvator Rosa of +literature might well be begotten, for there is also there a companion +whom the Muses fear not--Misery. + +I imagine that De Voguee does not know much of the popular songs of the +south and the west of Italy. I venture to think that in those +_stornelli_, _cantileni_ _rispetti_, and the rest, there is more of the +genuine spirit of the Italian soil than in any of the works hitherto +written by D'Annunzio, because, despite their intensity of passion, they +are full of a pure poetical beauty and an idealised tenderness, which in +his pictures of love are absent. + +Even in the views which De Voguee holds of the characters of these +romances, there seems frequently a curious misconstruction of their +salient points. For instance, he sees in the tragedy, with which the +_Trionfo_ closes, the fact that Aurispa loved so intensely that he felt +impelled to destroy what he possessed, as the only absolute means of +fully possessing it. But I do not see this. I see in Aurispa a young man +habitually self-indulgent and constitutionally feeble; who gradually +passes from frantic adoration of a woman possessed, to the nausea which +so frequently follows on such possession. The proof of this lies in the +cruel cynical criticism with which he discovers and enumerates her +physical and mental defects, with which he views the deformity of her +feet as they push the warm sand of the beach to and fro, and with which +he realises the growing disgust which she awakes in him physically and +morally. He feels that he can neither live with her, nor live without +her; that she will be his destroyer in one way or the other; it is in a +frenzy of hatred and of impotence that he seizes her in his last +embrace, and plunges with her over the cliff, into the starlit depths of +the sea below. To ignore this is to miss the whole meaning of the final +act, and the absolute veracity of the whole work. + +I have seen such physical jealousy in the man of feeble health of the +vigorous strength of the woman whom he loved, and there is no form of +jealousy more cruel or more incurable, and it is likely to become +frequent in modern life, which develops the physical strength and social +liberties of the female to so vast an extent. This is a painful fact, +but it is one which cannot be disputed. Go wherever a crowd of both +sexes congregate, and there you will see an Ippolita in all her splendid +vitality and magnificent growth, and beside her, nine times out of ten, +there will be a Giorgio Aurispa, small, frail, half-blind, pallid, +bloodless, beardless, sickly, and prematurely decrepit. + +I should myself have preferred to trace the destroying influence of +sensual passion eating its way gradually into the health and strength of +a complete masculine sanity, and of a robust masculine health, like +aquafortis biting into a copper plate. Aurispa is already mentally +diseased before the fateful day on which he sees Ippolita in the dusk of +the chapel in Rome. He views all things animate and inanimate, human and +animal, real and ideal, through that distorted medium which the mentally +deformed habitually see through as through a convex and smoked glass. He +is more than feeble, he is not sane. If he had not sought death on +account of his mistress, he would have done so because Demetrius Aurispa +had died before by his own hand; or for some other reason which in his +cerebral condition would have seemed to him imperative and irresistible, +as imaginary conditions do seem to those not sane. + +We are told throughout the book to realise this extreme weakness, +physical and moral, which ultimately drives him to destroy himself and +her. + + '"You love life?" he murmured, with a veiled bitterness. + + '"Yes, life delights me," she answered, almost with vehemence. + + 'She had, in her voice, in her attitude, in all her person, a + brightness of unusual joy and pleasure. She had in her whole + aspect that satisfaction which the living creature only feels + in those hours when life runs harmoniously in all its currents, + in which there is a perfect balance in all the vital forces in + accord with the favour and fairness of all surrounding + circumstances. As in other similar moments, her whole being + seemed to unclose in the freshness of the sea air, in the + coolness of the summer evening, like one of those magnificent + night-blooming flowers which only open the heart of their + petals as the sun passes and sets.' + +This is one of the innumerable beautiful images in which D'Annunzio +excels, and nothing can surely be finer of its kind than the whole +passage which I have quoted. But it clearly proves, especially if +compared with its context, that the passion which Aurispa once felt for +her had now become a furious envy of her more abounding life, of her +perennial and indestructible capacity of enjoyment. + +And that night, indeed, he kills her, not from excess of love, but from +envy of her exultant and exuberant vitality and hatred of its contrast +to his own impotence; from the sense, as I have said, that he could +neither live with her nor without her. In this, D'Annunzio has linked +cause and effect with excellent precision. Every minutia of feeling +described is correctly described, and such feeling is made to arise from +a natural source, precisely as dislike follows on satiety in real life. +But very frequently there is no such natural connection in his treatment +of circumstance and character. + +The _Trionfo_ is admirably balanced from its opening to its closing +pages; and the tragedy on the Pincio, with which the work opens, +fittingly and perfectly strikes the keynote of the whole, and the +_motif_ of the opera is suggested in the overture. But in the other +romances there is too often a want of unison between the action +described and its motives or sources. There is, at times, even an +absolute lack of any rational cause at all; so that, in some degree, all +his characters have in them more or less of the irresponsibility and +unconnectedness of the insane. He leaves too much unexplained; too many +actions motiveless; too many portraits floating indistinct like the +night and river studies of Whistler. It is curious that this vagueness, +this uncertainty and obscurity, should exist in one who is on the other +hand so frequently and wearisomely minute in microscopic details. He +constantly calls on us to believe what he gives us no data for +believing. Even in the _Trionfo_ he constantly introduces persons and +incidents having no connection with the narrative. The whole family of +Giorgio, the whole action passing at Guardiagrele, so elaborately +painted, lead to nothing; we neither see nor hear of them again; neither +they nor Guardiagrele ever enter his pages any more; and the momentous +scene with Giorgio's father leads to nothing, but ends in a blind alley. +Now this is a great fault in composition, and one which disappoints and +irritates the reader. Of Demetrius Aurispa, again, much is made, but +nothing is explained or continued; and his long exposition of one of +Tennyson's poems is as unnecessary as the long disquisition upon Wagner +further on in the book. + +D'Annunzio is so profoundly engrossed in the psychology of his +characters, that he frequently forgets to make their antecedents and +actions consistent or credible. For instance, few women have been drawn +in fiction more lovable, more real, more refined, more profoundly +interesting, or more truly feminine, than Giuliana Hermil, in the +_Innocente_. There is nothing in her character or in her circumstances +which can render it the least probable to us that such a woman as she is +described to be, would have been led into the half-unconscious sensual +impulse which makes her unfaithful to her conjugal vows without the +smallest excuse of passion or temptation. Nor is it conceivable for an +instant that Tullio Hermil, on hearing her confession of this +_inconsapevole_ adultery, would serenely submit to remain in ignorance +of the name of this lover of an hour, merely suspecting who it was from +an inscription found in a novel, and would merely answer with gentle +irony to her apology that the soul had had no share in her undoing! +'_Povera anima!_' he murmurs with an indulgent smile! + +I will not say that this is impossible, for nothing is so in the +relations of the sexes; but it is certainly improbable and incongruous, +since Giuliana is throughout described as the gentlest, most timid, and, +despite the infidelity in which we are asked to believe, the purest of +her sex, submissive to desertion as Griselda, and incapable of an impure +thought. It is contrary to all truth to human nature to make such a +woman err in so common, stupid, and unintelligible a manner, and to make +Tullio Hermil continue under such circumstances to live in the same +house with her until the time of her delivery. + +D'Annunzio has also a total lack of perception when the ridiculous mars +the pathetic. This is a very common defect in his countrymen, and is one +frequently traceable to a want of the humorous faculty. There is +something ridiculous, which goes far to spoil all which is intended to +be tragic in the motive or action of the _Innocente_, in the details +accompanying and explaining its culminating act. The idea of this act is +fine, and the hatred of the man for the child is natural, whilst the +conception and carrying out of the semi-crime are subtle and original. +But the filthy description of the infant (almost identical with that of +the new-born babe in Zola's _Joie de Vivre_) and the perpetual +references to its swaddling clothes, and the tedious profusion of +details with which the subject is elaborated, destroy in the mind of the +reader all sense of pity for the victim, and all blame for the act which +sends it to its grave. One feels that the little squalling, dribbling, +shapeless creature, with its scabby head and cat-like miawling, is much +better destroyed, and this is not the sensation which the author desires +to arouse; he would wish us to feel at once horror at, and compassion +for, Tullio Hermil, but we can feel nothing except a vague contempt for +this helpless young man. Had the semi-murder of it followed immediately +on its birth, or had it been found by him after absence a fair +two-year-old child, with all the rosebud loveliness of that age, this +bathos would have been avoided; and the stealthy sin of its effacement +would have carried in it the force of a powerful tragedy undiminished, +as it actually is, by gross and comic images, which may be realism but +are none the less bathos. It is perfectly natural that Tullio Hermil's +abhorrence of this spurious offspring should grow with every day until +the desire to destroy it becomes at last an over-mastering impulse; but +to make this act tragic, and to awaken that sympathy for the victim +which all true tragedy excites, the latter should be so described that +the heart of the reader should bleed for it when exposed to the icy air +which kills it, and that its martyred infancy should seem fitly lamented +by those echoes of the distant _Novena_, which at the supreme moment +float through all the silent house. + +The _Innocente_ has many passages in its pages of perfect beauty like +this episode of the _Novena_; its defects are due to its author's +incapacity to perceive where the ludicrous damages the pathetic and +destroys the terrible. The writer's artistic instinct moved him to +create a situation unique, and full of the keenest interest, abounding +in opportunity for the analysis of temptations and emotions; and of such +analysis he is a master, if too prolix in his expositions of it. But a +want of the perception which warns us off the line of demarcation +dividing the dramatic from the grotesque, has allowed him to pass this +line, and merge the dramatic in a flood of trivial and commonplace +minutiae. Nor is it natural that, loathing this new-born bastard as +Tullio Hermil does, he should accompany his brother to invite an old +peasant to be its sponsor. The beauty and simplicity of this passage are +great, but they cannot reconcile us to the improbability of such an +errand. + + 'As we drew near the place where Giovanni de Scordio dwelt, my + brother saw in the field the tall figure of the old man. + + '"Look! There he is. He is sowing. We bring our invitation in a + solemn hour." + + 'We approached. I trembled within myself as though I were about + to commit a profanation. I did indeed profane a thing in itself + sacred and beautiful. I went to solicit the spiritual paternity + of a venerable life for an adulterous creature. + + '"Look at his height," exclaimed Frederigo, pointing to the + sower. "He is no taller than other men, and yet he looks a + giant." + + 'We paused under a tree, and watched the labourer from a + distance. Giovanni had not perceived us. + + 'He came straightway towards us up the field with measured + slowness. He wore a woollen cap, black and green, with two + wings which covered his ears in the ancient fashion. A white + sack hung by a leathern strap from throat to waist, the sack + being full of grain. With his left hand he held the sack open, + with the right he took the grain and scattered it. His gesture + was large, easy, sweeping, moderated to a serene rhythm. The + corn, flying from his hand, shone in the sun like gold dust, + falling with regularity upon the wet furrows. He advanced + slowly, his feet sinking in the moist soil, his head sometimes + lifted to the holiness of the light; all his attitude was + simple, noble, grand. + + * * * * * + + 'We entered the glebe. + + '"Good health, Giovanni," said Frederigo, going up to the old + man. "Be your seed blessed. Be blessed your bread of the + future." + + '"Good health to you," I repeated. + + 'The peasant left off work; he uncovered his head. + + '"Cover yourself, Giovanni, or we also must stand with bare + heads in the sun," said my brother. + + 'The old man put on his cap, confused, almost shy, smiling. + + 'He asked humbly, "Why so much honour?" + + 'I said with a voice which vainly strove to be steady, "I am + come to beg you to hold my son at the baptismal font." + + 'The peasant looked at me astounded, then at my brother. His + embarrassment increased. He murmured: + + '"Why to me so much honour?" + + '"What do you reply?" I asked. + + '"I am thy servant; God render the grace for the honour thou + dost me to-day, and God be praised for the joy that He gives + to my old age. All the benedictions of Heaven rest on thy + son."' + +Nothing can be finer, simpler, more effective than this scene, but when +we are conscious that the son thus spoken of is the spurious offspring +which Tullio Hermil loathes, our sympathies are turned aside by a sense +of incongruity and disgust. We are conscious that the young man would +never have gone on such an errand, never have consecrated by such +expressions the spawn of his wife's incomprehensible and unexplained +amour. It is impossible to bring one's self to believe in any part of +the story of the _Innocente_, strong as the treatment is in realism of a +certain kind, and seductive as is the admirable ease and limpidity of +the narrative, which for smoothness of recital, and wonderful semblance +of being a true narrative of real events, is not surpassed by any +novelist and has been equalled by very few writers indeed. + +In all his works D'Annunzio draws women with exquisite veracity and +skill; and a rare intuition into the workings of their minds and the +beatings of their hearts. Of men he has as yet only drawn one type, +whatever they are called, Sperelli, Aurispa, Cantelmi, Hermil, they are +always the same person: 'touched to fine issues,' steeped in +scholarship, refined, susceptible, voluptuous, but all sick with the +_maladie du siecle_; all infirm from the neurasthenia of too early and +too unbridled self-indulgence. But his women are infinitely more varied +and more intricate. They are wondrous presentments of breathing life. +All the contradictions of feminine nature are portrayed with marvellous +exactitude in the vicious, cruel, and frenzied sensualism of Ippolita, +of which we watch the gradual growth as we watch Vesuvius on a summer +night pass from slumber into fury. With what inimitable dexterity he +makes us conscious of the plebeian grossness underlying her physical +sorcery, the commonness of her base birth seen here and there through +the dazzling sorcery of her attractions; and how natural she is in her +buoyant spirits, in her gay sportiveness, in her rapid changes of mood +and humour, in her mingling of cruelty and compassion! Equally does he +convey to the reader the consciousness of the perfect high breeding in +the _Virgine delle Rocce_, of the three sisters of sorrow, so alike yet +so dissimilar; three figures stepped down from the canvas of the +Veronese, but dimmed by solitude and long neglect. Not less admirably +has he given the delicate distinction and infinite sweetness of the +Siennese, Maria Ferres (although she is indeed an almost exact +reproduction of Giuliana Hermil), whilst that patrician courtesan Donna +Elena Muti, shameless, lascivious, and conscienceless, is nevertheless +always a high-bred woman. He has incarnated the incomparable charm of +the Italian woman, the most graceful, the most impassioned, the most +seductive woman on earth, although also perhaps the most imperious, +pitiless, and fiercely exacting in her passions. Even Ippolita, vicious +as she is, is 'l'adorable Ippolita,' as De Voguee calls her, and her +portrait is surely one which will become as precious to future +generations as that of Manon Lescaut is to us. + +I much fear that the only work of his which will become known to the +English public in general will be the _Virgine delle Rocce_, because +(as far as it has gone) it is not indecent. The other works could not be +reproduced in English; and the _Virgine delle Rocce_ unhappily gives no +just measure of the talent and strength of the writer. At present it is +but the first of a triune romance of which the two latter parts are as +yet unpublished. It is the cleanest, the simplest, and the most romantic +of his works, but it will probably be caviare to the crowd, and it +wholly lacks the great qualities of its predecessors. It is not +well-constructed like the _Innocente_, it is not daring and intense like +the _Trionfo_; it is not brilliant like _Il Piacere_; it is rambling, +and vague, and shadowy, and it is difficult to collect the threads of +the narrative. It is published in a fragment, which is always an unwise +method of publication, but it is to be feared that when entire it will +never equal the _Innocente_ or the _Trionfo_. Indeed when severed from +the theme of sensual psychology D'Annunzio loses in strength and in +colour; he becomes desultory, almost indifferent; and wanders through +his own garden of romance with little interest in it, much as in this +latest story his own Oddo and Antonello stray through the ruins of +Linturno and drift through the water-lilies of the lonely stream. + +But this story, defective though it be, has a great charm for those +conversant with certain phases of Italian life. I have known just such a +grand old palace in the solitude of a deserted country, just such young +daughters growing up in stately poverty and perpetual joylessness; just +such paternal obsession in clinging to ruined thrones and perished +faiths; just such an interminable sequence of colourless, uninterested, +imprisoned days where the life is the life of the Lady of Shalott, and +no eyes are lifted to see that the almond-trees are in flower. + +Every page of this short book, which Frederic Leighton would have +delighted to illustrate, is impressed with Italian verity of a kind +which few foreigners have ever occasion to verify. The vast stone stairs +of the approach, the huge dim archways, the great fountains where the +stone Tritons spout and the ghosts rise with the spray in the moonlight +of midnight, the dry fish-ponds full of odorous plants self sown, the +neglected, wild, beautiful, fragrant gardens, the immense halls and +chambers frescoed, water-gilt, marble-encrusted; the silent corridors, +the ceilings lofty as the cupolas of cathedrals, the fading tapestries, +the soft grey dust, the abandonment, the poverty, the stateliness, the +infinite pathos and charm of this splendour, 'which dies so slowly +because born of true art and of what was once an heroic nobility.' All +these are portrayed with perfect fidelity in this strange and too slight +story of the three daughters of the fallen House of Montega, and no less +true to the facts of Italian life is the destiny which weighs upon them, +the insanity which dwells amongst them in the person of their mother, +whom we see living before us as she passes, carried in her perfumed and +painted sedan chair, with her strange fixed regard, her tiara of ebon +hair, her pallid face, her jewelled hands. Madness is a frequent malady +in Italy, and few noble families are without some insane member. The +afflicted person is usually kept in his or her apartments in the palace, +or in one of the villas of the family, and is courteously inquired for +by all visitors as Claudio in this story asks after the health of Donna +Aldoina. Italians are usually kind to their insane relatives and not at +all ashamed of them, but _il pazzo_ or _la pazza_ lends a weird +fantastic gloom to the ancient and stately houses which saw their birth, +and shelter their infirmity, and will hold their coffins in their +crypts. + +Possibly there seems more to me in this story than there actually is, +because I know so well the tenor of the life therein depicted; and the +absence of all objective interest, of all care for nature and for art, +of all perception of the consolations to be found in both, which render +that life so much more barren than it need be. + +D'Annunzio has typified such barrenness of thought, such narrowness of +horizon, in the family which dwells in the grand old villa of Tregento, +and many a time he must, no doubt, with his own mind filled by classic +memories, and knowledge of the arts, and touched to impassioned +appreciation of all natural beauty, have suffered acutely from the +apathy, ignorance, and unconscious self-absorption of such a domestic +atmosphere. He has no doubt constantly been met with the incapacity to +understand, the wonder of ignorance, the blank dulness of unopened +minds, such as he suggests in the following passage:-- + + 'We were near Rebursa. The rocky chain, with its sharp and + broken peaks turned to the right following the winding Saurgo, + rising tier on tier towards the massive summit of Mount Caran. + On the left of the road, the soil was smooth and undulating + like the large dunes of a seashore, becoming further off a + succession of hills, tawny and humped like camels of the + desert. + + '"Look, look!" I cried, seeing another silver cloud of blossom. + "Can you not see it, Antonello?" + + 'He did not look at the almond trees with my eyes; he looked, + but with a faint smile, wondering probably at the childlike joy + awakened in me at the sight of the first flowers. Yet, what + fairer spectacle could this rude and stony country offer to us? + + '"If my sisters only were here!" cried Oddo, to whom my + pleasure communicated itself. "Oh, if they were here!" + + 'His voice was full of regret. + + '"They need to be brought where flowers bloom," said Antonello, + softly. + + '"Look, look!" I cried again, giving myself up to my delight + with fuller ease, now that I saw some reflection of it at least + awakened in these poor shut souls. "I am glad these flowers are + mine, Oddo." + + '"My sisters must come to them," sighed Antonello, like one who + speaks in a dream of sleep. + + 'It seemed as if his feverish eyes refreshed themselves with + that vision of things so pure.... + + 'They both looked at me, somewhat confused, faintly smiling, as + if they had been brought unexpectedly before some extraordinary + sight which stupefied them, yet filled them with delicious + sensations. They had shown me their malady, had revealed to me + their suffering, had spoken to me of that melancholy prison + whence they had come and whither they would return; and I, on + the common highway open to all, had invited them to recognise + and celebrate the spring--the spring which they had both + forgotten, which they seemed to see now for the first time + after many years, which they gazed at with a mingling of fear + and joy as at a miracle.' + +Is not this delicate in expression as the sprays of the almond blossoms +themselves? + +An Italian scholar, in writing to me to-day, does indeed say with +considerable accuracy that the affectation in the style of D'Annunzio +takes from it its freedom and sincerity, that when he is writing of +almond boughs and nightingales he does not give us the impression that +these things are dear to him, but rather that he is endeavouring to say +the most beautiful things he can think of about them. 'His style,' says +my Italian correspondent, 'is the one occupation of his life, the one +absorbing interest of his work; he cares but little for nature or for +human nature, except as these are strings to his lyre.' This is in a +great measure a correct, if a too severe, censure. There is in him +nothing of that genuine emotion which wells up in the heart of Pierre +Loti as he writes; D'Annunzio is always outside that which he describes; +there is in him much of the virtuoso; he reminds me of a friend of mine, +a London celebrity, who once invited a party of artists to see a fine +work of art in his London house. When the curtain was drawn aside, the +work of art was found to be a young nude woman, of singularly beautiful +proportions, extended on a rug of black bear-skins to set off the ambers +and ivories and blue-vein traceries of her skin. D'Annunzio stretches +his subject thus bare before him in a well-adjusted light, and calls the +world to see: for the subject he has no compassion. This _preciosita_ +(Anglice, affectation) is still more apparent in his prefaces than in +his works which they precede. These prefaces are long, elaborate, ornate +disquisitions, with much of the euphuism of pedantic scholarship; and +when in the preface to the _Trionfo_ the author claims that this +licentious romance is intended to hasten and welcome the coming of the +Uebermensch, it is impossible not to smile at such a pretension, and, as +even De Voguee admits, at this point we are driven to sigh for the return +of the _mandolinata_. He confirms the justice of a charge of +_preciosita_ himself in his introduction to _Il Piacere_, in which he +speaks of 'the long and grave fatigue, the disgust which follows the +painful and capricious artifices of style.' This is not the language of +a true artist, for in the beauties and intricacies of style which should +all have one aim--simplicity--the writer who is a true artist finds the +same intimate satisfaction as the musician, the painter, the sculptor, +each finds in the pursuit of his art. In style is the _sfogo_ of the +writer's procreative passion. It should bring with it neither fatigue +nor disgust, but the serene joys of a satisfied desire. + +However, apart from this fault of _preciosita_ which De Voguee does not +appear to have perceived, but which seems to many Italians +incontestable, the style of D'Annunzio is very fine; finest of all when +it is spent on the portraiture of natural scenes, and of characters +unhampered by conventionality. Read this brief episode of the simplest +kind; how alive with actuality it is! It is taken from the earlier part +of the residence of Aurispa and Ippolita at the Hermitage. + + 'Hearing a rattle of plates, he asked, "Are you hungry?" And + the question suggested by the little homely sound, put eagerly, + with childlike insistence, made Ippolita smile. + + '"Yes, a little," she answered, smiling; and both of them + looked at the table ready spread under the oak tree. In a few + minutes more their dinner was ready. + + '"You must be content with what there is," said Giorgio. "It is + very humble fare." + + '"Oh, I should be satisfied with herbs." + + 'And with a gay air she drew near the table, examined curiously + the tablecloth, the silver, the glass, the plates, finding + everything charming, delighted like a child with the blue + flowers which ornamented the fine white pottery. + + '"Everything delights me here!" + + 'She bent over the big, round loaf, which was still warm under + its golden and crisp crust. + + '"Ah! what a good smell it has!" And, as if impelled by her + childlike joy in the fresh bread, she broke off a piece of its + crust. + + '"What good bread!" + + 'Her strong, white teeth shone as they bit and closed, and all + the movements of her curving lip expressed the pleasure which + she felt; and from her whole person there seemed to emanate a + rare, fresh grace, which attracted and amazed her lover with a + new and unexpected charm. + + '"Oh, how good! Taste, how good it is!"' + +What can be more graphic, more simple, more radiant, than this picture +painted in words so few? + +Take this landscape, so true to the scenery of the Veneto:-- + + 'It was afternoon. He explored the winding paths which went, + now up, now down, leading towards the point of the Penna, on + the seashore. He looked before him and around him with + curiosity, but, perhaps, with some forced attention, as if he + wished to understand obscure meanings hidden in these simple + scenes, to wrest from them some unseizable secret. Rising in + the heart of these hills of the coast the water of a brook, + directed by a homely aqueduct made of hollowed trees, crossed + the low-lying land between the two slopes. Other little + rivulets were caught and guided by concave tiles to water the + tilled earth grown with rich vegetation, and above these + streams, ever bright and rippling, there leaned some beautiful + purple flowers;[2] all these humble things seemed to him + pregnant with profound life. All the merry waters ran down + along the incline towards the pebbly beach, and passed under a + little bridge. In the shadow of its arch some women were + washing linen, and their gestures were mirrored in the stream. + On the shingle other linen was already outspread, whitening in + the sun. Along the path a man walked with bare feet, carrying + his shoes swinging in his hand. Two children, laden with linen, + ran along laughing and playing. An old woman hung up on a line + a blue mattress. + + 'On the edge of the path there were little white shells, out of + them frail tentacles trembled and stretched to the light. From + a rock above hung twisted dead roots like entwined snakes. + Farther on there was a large peasant's house, bearing on the + summit of its roof a floral ornament in clay. An outside + staircase led up to a covered terrace. Two women sat spinning + at the head of the stair, and the flax shone in the sun like + gold. You could hear the wheels turn. By a window sat another, + weaving; you could see her rhythmical gestures in moving the + shuttle. In the courtyard a huge grey ox was lying down; he + shook his ears and moved his tail faintly but incessantly in + war against the flies. The cocks and hens cackled and crowed + around him. Farther on still another little river crossed the + road; it laughed aloud, crisp, mirthful, vivid, limpid. + + 'Near another farmhouse a thick bay hedge shut in an orchard. + The straight, shining stems rose immovable, crowned with their + glistening foliage. One of the bay trees was enveloped in the + embrace of a clematis, which lovingly conquered the martial bay + with her blossoms of snow, the veil of her nuptial freshness. + Underneath, the earth was dewy and fragrant. In an angle a + black cross leaned over the hedge, the silence had the resigned + sadness of a graveyard. At the end of a line there arose a + flight of steps, half in shade, half in sunshine; they led to a + door standing half open, protected by two branches of olive + hung from its rustic architrave. On the lowest step sat an old + man asleep, his head uncovered, his chin on his breast, his + hands on his knees; the light touched his aged brow. From the + half-open door there came, to soothe his senile sleep, the + cadence of a rocking cradle, the rise and fall of a murmured + lullaby.' + +[Footnote 2: Campanulas, spotted orchis, or foxglove, I suppose. It it +characteristic of him that he sighs for an 'unseizable secret,' and does +not take the trouble to learn the names of the flowers he sees.] + +What can be more true or more beautiful than this? Mark the contrast of +the old man sleeping on the stone steps, with the young mother, unseen +within, singing _sotto voce_ her cradle song. In totally different style +and tone take these few lines on Orvieto:-- + + 'A rock of tufa hanging above a melancholy valley; a city so + silent that it seems empty: the windows are closed, in the grey + lanes grass grows; a capuchin crosses a square; a bishop + descends from a closed carriage before the gate of a hospital; + a tower rises in a white and rainy sky; a clock strikes the + hour slowly; all at once at the end of the street a miracle in + stone--the Cathedral.' + +Is not the city of Luca Signorelli set before you with those few lines? +There is here something far beyond dexterity or ingenuity of style; +there is the poet's, the painter's, power to embrace a world at a +glance, and with a touch set before duller eyes that world in all its +varieties and suggestions, all its past and its present, all its secrets +of the grave and of the future. + +Take again this very different picture:-- + + 'He found the gorse. + + 'On a tableland the thickly-growing gorse had flowered so + densely as to spread a vast golden mantle over all the soil. + Five maidens were gathering the flowers and filling with them + skips and baskets, singing as they worked. They sang a song of + thirds and fives in perfect harmony. When one of them reached a + special phrase she lifted her whole bust out of the yellow maze + of blossom that the notes might go forth from her throat with + fuller liberty, and held it long sustained in air, looking her + companions in the eyes whilst they applauded with their hands + of flowers. + + 'When they saw the stranger they stopped and bent again over + the gorse. Stifled saucy laughter rippled under the yellow sea. + Giorgio asked,-- + + '"Which of you is Favetta?" + + 'A girl, brown as an olive, raised her head in reply, amazed, + almost terrified: "It is I, sir." + + '"Are you not the finest singer of San Vito?" + + '"No, sir. That is not true." + + '"It is true. It is true!" cried her companions. + + '"Sir! make her sing." + + '"No, sir, it is not true. I cannot sing." + + 'She hid herself, laughing, her face all aflame; she twisted + her apron whilst the others teased her. She was of short + stature but well-formed; her bosom was high and large, swollen + with songs. She had curly hair, dark eyebrows, aquiline + profile; something in her carriage wild and free. After the + first resistance she yielded. + + 'The others, taking her by the arms, held her in their circle. + They were up to their waists in the flowering gorse, whilst + round them the bees were humming. + + 'Favetta began unsteadily, but with each note her voice grew + firmer. It was limpid, liquid, crystal, clear as a water + spring. She sang a couplet and the others sang in chorus a + ritornello. They prolonged the harmonies, putting their mouths + close to form one single vocal flute; the song rose and fell in + the light air with the slow regularity of a litany. + + 'Favetta sang:-- + + '"All the springs are dry, + O poor love of mine! + He dies of thirst. + Where is the water thou broughtest me? + We have brought thee an earthen jar, + But round it is a chain of gold!" + + 'The others sang:-- + + '"Long live Love!" + + 'It was the salutation of May to Passion, pouring from young + breasts, which perchance as yet knew not its sweetness and + perchance never would know its sorrow.' + +Or take the following passage which is as essentially true in its +accurate observation as it is beautiful in its expression. Tullio Hermil +and Giuliana are listening at Villa Lilla to the first songster of that +spring. + + 'The nightingale sang. At first it was like a burst of + melodious glee; a jet of easy trills which fell through the air + like pearls falling on the glass of a harmonium. Then came a + pause. A shake arose, agile, marvellously prolonged, like a + proof of strength, in an impulse of insolence, a challenge to + some unknown rivals. + + 'A second pause. A phrase of three notes with a tone of + interrogation passed on a chain of light variations repeating + the interrogative phrase five or six times, modulated softly + like a slender reed flute on which is played a pastoral. A + third pause: the song becomes elegiac, turns to a minor key, + tender as a sigh; it is almost a groan; it expresses all the + grief of the lonely lover, a heartrending desire; a vain hope; + it flings out a last appeal, improvised, acute as a scream of + anguish: then it ceases. A longer pause, more ominous. Then one + hears a new accent which scarcely seems to come from the same + throat so humble is it, so timid, so slight; it resembles the + twitter of scarce-fledged birds, the chirrup of sparrows; then, + with a miraculous volubility, this noisy note changes into a + breathless song, more and more rapid in its trills, vibrating + in sustained shakes, turning in daring flights of sound, + leaping, growing, bounding, attaining the highest heights of + the soprano. The songster is drunk with his own song. With + pause so brief that one note scarce ceases ere another succeeds + it, he spends his delirium in ever-varied melody, impassioned + and sweet, subdued and ear-piercing, light and grave, now + interrupted by broken sighs, by lament and supplication, now by + impetuous lyrical improvisation and supreme appeal. It seems + that even the gardens are listening, that the sky stoops over + the old tree from whose summit this poet, invisible to mortal + eyes, pours out such floods of eloquence. The flowers breathe + deeply and silently. A yellow glow lingers in the west. This + last lingering glance of the dying day is sad. But a single + star has risen, alone and tremulous like a drop of luminous + dew.' + +He who can write thus is a great writer; and the charm of this passage +is not alone its poetry but its exact truth. The song of the nightingale +varies much in accord with age, with species (for there are two species, +Luscinia Philomela, and Luscinia Major), with climate, with the sense of +security, and the want of security, but the song of a nightingale in its +maturity, who is unalarmed and feels at home in the gardens of his +choice, is precisely such a song as is described in this passage, and is +more completely echoed in it than in the Pastoral Symphony of Beethoven. +This sympathy with the melody of birds is the more singular in +D'Annunzio, because Italians are almost invariably indifferent to such +melody, and snare the divine songster in the net, or shoot him whilst he +shouts his nuptial _Io Triumphe!_ with the most stolid indifference. And +it may, perhaps, be that D'Annunzio does not care for the bird himself +more than the rest of his countrymen, but only cares for his own +eloquence concerning it. It may be said, without risk of injustice to +him, that great tenderness is at no moment found in him. He has not 'the +pathetic fallacy'; but he approaches it very nearly at times. When women +shall have lost for him some of the intensity of their physical charm, +nature in her wider and more profound meanings will, perhaps, become +more visible and more dear to him. Perhaps, however, it will not, for +the Italian is rarely impersonal. + +Something of the affectation to which the delicate taste of my Italian +correspondent justly objects must be admitted to mar, by its +artificiality, the many magnificent pages dedicated by him to the sea. +Magnificent they are, true also, entirely true; but some mannerism there +is in them, some over-intricate embroidery of phrase. The sea he knows +best, and remembers always, is the Adriatic, of which the extreme beauty +of the colour, like the leaves of the silverweed, as wind and sun pass +over the meadows, has always before him been too little noted except, I +may venture to say, by myself. + + 'O, fair, clear seas of September!' he cries in the _Piacere_. + 'The water is calm and innocent as a sleeping child, and lies + outstretched under a pearl-like sky. Sometimes it is all green + of the brilliant and intense green of malachite, and on it the + small rosy sails seem like wandering fires. Sometimes it is all + azure, of an intense blue, like the ultramarine which heralds + use for blazonries, veined with gold like lapis-lazuli, and on + it the painted sails seem like a procession of standards, of + banners, of spears borne on a Catholic holy day. And yet again + at other moments it takes on a metallic gleam, a silvery + paleness, the hues of a ripening lemon, something indefinable + and strange, and on this mystical surface the boats then glide + and fade, and are seen no more as the illumined wings of + cherubim sink into the faint fundamental hues of an old + Giottesque fresco. + + 'The sea was not alone for him a delight for the eyes, but it + was a perennial wave in which he steeped his thirsting + thoughts; a magical fountain of youth in which his body + recovered health and his mind nobility. The sea had for him the + mysterious attraction of a native country, and he abandoned + himself to it with filial confidence, as a weak child in the + arms of an omnipotent father; and he derived consolation from + it, for no one had ever confided his sorrows, his desires, or + his dreams to the ear of the sea in vain.' + +So, we are told by D'Annunzio, thinks Andrea Sperelli, and so thought +also Giorgio Aurispa. But the sea has no permanent power on the soul of +either; the one returns from his contemplations of it to his life of +voluptuous pleasure, and the other drowns both himself and the woman, +whom he has adored to frenzy, in its waves, whilst the dog mourns +'forsaken beneath the olive trees, and the waters murmur softly, rocking +as in a cradle the reflections of the stars.' + +Only once in D'Annunzio's work does genuine and yearning regret, of +which it is impossible to doubt the spontaneity and sincerity, thrill +through him, and move him to intense emotion and unstudied eloquence. It +is when, in the person of Claudio Cantelmo, he speaks in furious +invective of the modern desecration of Rome; in these passages he is +strong without effort, eloquent without study, and veracious alike in +sorrow and in scorn. His invective is poured from his heart's depths, +and thrills with the force of the Latin orators of the ruined Forum. + + 'I have lived several years in Rome; in that third Rome which + should have represented "Love reigning by Latin blood on Latin + soil," and have seen radiant on its heights the wondrous lights + of a new Ideal. I have been witness to its most ignominious + evolutions, to the most obscene unions that have ever + desecrated a sacred place. And I have understood the symbolism + hidden in that act of an Asiatic conqueror, who cast myriads of + human heads in the fountains of Samarcand, when he desired to + create a capital. The wise and cruel tyrant meant to signify + the necessity of merciless destruction in the creation of a new + order of things. + + * * * * * + + 'The ship which bore the Thousand of Marsala only set sail that + the art of exchange and barter should be protected and covered + by the State! + + * * * * * + + 'It was the epoch of the most frenzied fury of the destroyers + and contractors on the site of Rome. With the storms of dust + there were propagated a sort of lunacy of gain, a malignant + delirium, seizing not only on the tradesman and money-lenders, + and the workers in brick and mortar, but also on the elect + heirs of the papal _majorat_, who primarily had looked with + scorn and disgust on the newcomers from the windows of their + palaces of travertine, indestructible under the encrustations + of ages. + + 'The magnificent patrician races founded there, renewed and + strengthened by nepotism, and the strife of opposing houses, + descended and abased themselves one by one, slid down into the + new mud, sank, and vanished. The illustrious riches, amassed + through centuries of gorgeous pillage and Maecenic luxury, were + thrown into the whirlpool of the speculations of the Bourse. + + 'And around them, on these patrician lawns, where, only the + previous spring, the violets had blossomed more numberless than + the blades of grass, there were now mounds of lime, heaps of + bricks, the wheels of stone-laden carts creaked on the turf, on + the air were the oaths of the drivers, the shouts of the + overseers, while every hour hastened on the brutal work which + was to efface and occupy the sacred soil once dedicated to + Beauty and to Dreams. There passed over Rome a blighting + blizzard of barbarism, menacing all that greatness and + loveliness which were without equals in the memory of the + world. Even the laurels and the rose trees of the Villa + Schiarra, for so many nights of so many summers hymned by their + nightingales, fell destroyed, or remained in their desecration + behind the gates of little gardens parcelled out to the little + cockney boxes of tradesmen. The gigantic Ludovisian cypresses, + those of the Aurora, those which spread the clouds of their + solemn and mystic antiquity above the Olympian brows of Goethe, + were now laid prone in line one after another, with all their + dishonoured roots stretching towards the pallid sky, the black + dishonoured roots which still seemed to hold in their immense + network the web of a life greater than our own. + + 'Even over the box alleys of the Villa Albani, which had seemed + as immortal as their Caryatides and their Hermes, there hung + that shadow of a vandal's ruin. The contagion of destruction + spread everywhere. In the ceaseless combat of gain, in the + savage fury of avaricious greed and passions, in the disordered + haste of commercial activity, every sense of common decency was + forgotten, all respect for the past was trampled under foot. + The struggle for gain was carried on with blind fury, with + neither check nor curb. The pickaxe, the shovel, and the + cunning of fraud were the weapons employed. And week after + week, with incredible velocity, there arose on the violated + earth the huge foolish cages of brick and mortar, pierced with + square holes, surmounted with sham cornices, encrusted with + shameful stucco ornaments. A kind of immense white tumour rose + and spread on the wounded and bleeding side of the great Urbs + and drained away its life. + + 'And then, day after day, at sunset, along the princely avenues + of the Borghese Park, we could see in gorgeous brand-new + equipages the new elect of Fortune, from whom not barber, nor + tailor, nor boot-maker, had power to take away the ignoble + stamp. We could see them pass and repass with the sonorous trot + of their shining bay and brown horses; they were recognisable + at a glance by the insolence of their pose and the awkward + carriage of their rapacious and vulgar hands; and they seemed + to cry aloud,-- + + '"We are the new rulers of Rome. Bow down to us!" + + 'In truth such are its rulers; such the present masters of that + Rome which prophets and poets once likened to the bow of + Ulysses.' + +Often have I myself written similar things, but in me they have been +considered exaggerations. They cannot be so considered in Gabriele +D'Annunzio of Francavilla. + +All who love Rome and loathe her modern violation must thank him from +their hearts for such passages, and must mourn with him that we cannot +drive out the spoilers from our desecrated temples. + +This is, indeed, his greatest strength, that, whilst still a young man, +he yet has the courage to resist the intellectual tendencies of his +contemporaries, to refuse to worship their gods, to see and despise the +falseness of those scientific pretensions which enslave the multitude in +modern life. His intellect, richly stored by learning, is, in a large +measure, free of prejudice. This is a great and rare distinction in a +generation which more completely than any which has preceded it, is the +timid slave of formula and the credulous servant of professional +bigotry. + +He has kept a complete mental liberty; free from the superstitions of +religion, which, in this day, it is easy to be; but also free from the +superstitions of science, which is far harder, and incurs far greater +obloquy and opposition. + +In his study on Giorgione, he says what it needs much courage to say in +these days:-- + + 'The scientific spirit has invaded the generation of the second + half of our century. Struck by the surprising results of + physics and calculation, men were inclined to believe for a + time, that by the aid of the one or the other, they would be + able to penetrate into all mysteries and solve all problems. + But to this proud exaltation has now succeeded a discouragement + mingled with suspicion. They say to themselves, and not without + reason: "Where is this certainty that science promised us?" If + ever certainty were incomplete, deprived of solid criterion, it + is that offered by natural science. As for the sciences called + exact, some, like geometry, repose on a tottering base of + arbitrary affirmations; others, like algebra, on mere methods + of reasoning, and contain as much or as little certainty as the + formula of a syllogism.' + +This is emphatically true; but it is a fact which is by no means +recognised by all, and which is still violently denied by those fanatics +whose form of bigotry is either experimental or exact science. + +The mind of D'Annunzio refuses all bondage. It is a law to itself, as +the mind of the great writer should be. I imagine that the opinion of +him held by others, is to him of the most absolute unimportance. His +teaching is always to preserve the independence of the Ego, to live +without attention to formula or usage, to be, both materially and +spiritually, that which we were created to be by nature. + +His morality is of the most primitive kind; or rather, he has none +whatever, no more than has a South-Sea islander lying in the sun under a +cocoa-nut tree whilst the surf bathes his naked limbs. It would be +absurd to accuse him of immorality because the indulgence of the senses +is as natural and as legitimate in his estimation, as Favetta's song +amongst the golden furze, or the reapers' welcome of the purple wine. +Yet by a not rare anomaly, this demand for perfect freedom of the +passions is accompanied by a tendency to desire tyranny in political +matters. He is disposed to deify force. In one or two expressions there +is an echo of Carlyle which sounds oddly and jarringly amongst the +amorous liberties and artistic debaucheries of the rest; and is not +worthy of a writer who has so much courage in opposing scientific +pharisaism and the thraldom of the schools. He is disposed to admire +what is strong simply because it is strong, forgetful that such strength +is sustained and nourished by the suffering of the weak. It is true that +he has lived in an atmosphere in which the verities embodied in the +aspirations, abortive but always noble, of the higher efforts of +revolution have been received with fear and misunderstanding. The +tendencies and training of the _Codini_ are visible through the +eloquence of the poet and the conclusions of the philosopher. The entire +lack in him of all altruism comes from this. Mazzini must be as +unintelligible to him as Tolstoi. The mass of humanity is always to him +the filthy, surging, bestial multitudes of the crowd at Casalbordino. +But even this absence of benevolence is better than the pitiful +sycophancy of writers who are as fulsome in their flattery to Demos as +to kings; is manlier than the nauseating self-worship of a Humanity at +once its own pimp and pander, its own adorer and assassin. + +In his scorn of the human flocks of sheep, he forgets, I admit, too +entirely the justice to which the humblest unit amongst these flocks has +right, but that scorn, even when misdirected, is fresh and bracing as +the dash of his own Adriatic waves, when the east wind drives them +hurrying on to the shingle beach. He has no fear; and he never stoops to +that base flattery of his own species which is the most nauseous feature +of modern politics and of modern science. + + 'This alone is your office,' he cries to his contemporaries, if + they would resist the debasing influences of their time, + 'defend the dream which is in you. Since in this day mortals no + longer bring tribute of love and honour to the choristers of + the Muses, defend yourselves, O poets, with all your weapons, + steep the point of your rapiers in the most biting poisons. Let + your satires bear such corrosive acid in them that they shall + pierce to the very pith of the spine and destroy it. Brand to + the very bone the stupid forehead of those fools who would mark + every soul with the same label, and make every brain like + another, as the heads of nails are beaten into a common + likeness by the blows of the nailmaker. Let your mordant + laughter reach to heaven when you hear the stablemen of the + Great Beast shouting in the parliaments of the earth.... Defend + the thought which they menace, defend the beauty which they + outrage, defend the antique freedom of your masters and the + future freedom of your disciples, against the insane assaults + of drunken slaves. Despair not, though you be few in number. + You have the supreme force of the world: the written word.' + +The written word is indeed in his hand a scourge, a sword, a sheaf of +arrows from the quiver of the divine Python Slayer. + +And in no country more than in the Italy of his generation is such a +scourge, such a sword, such flame-tipped arrows, needed to slay the +courtiers, the usurers, the sycophants, the knaves, the brutes, the +sellers of justice who fasten like leeches on her body. + +This son of Italy is a great writer; a great poet. Read his works in the +original text all ye who can, men and women for whom life has no secrets +and truth has no terror. + +He is young; the time will come, as it comes to all, when the joys of +the senses will fade for him as the roses of the summer are scattered by +autumn winds. + +Let us hope that there will be later a second period of his creative +art, in which there will be developed an original genius free of exotic +influences, and untrammelled by the search for idioms and pruriencies. +Genius, like the river at its source, takes the colour of the earth it +springs from. It is only when it has reached its full volume, its +deepest currents, that it becomes clear and reflects the sky alone. + +Let us hope that such a future awaits him, and that more and more fully +will he realise what he has already said in noble words:-- + + 'Art! Here is the one faithful passion ever youthful, nay, + immortal; here is the fountain of pure joy unknown to the + multitude; here is the divine food which makes men like to + gods. How could he have stooped to drink at other cups when he + had once tasted of this?[3] How could he have bent to taste of + other joys, once having known this ecstasy? How could his + senses have let themselves be weakened and debased to lowest + lusts when they had once been stirred to that highest + sensibility which beholds the invisible, which touches the + impalpable, which divines the most hidden secrets in the heart + of nature?' + +[Footnote 3: He is writing of Andrea Sperelli in _Il Piacere_.] + +With these words, which are the greatest in meaning that he has hitherto +written, I will, for the present moment, take my leave of him. + + + + +II + +GEORGES DARIEN + + +Of all countries, France remains the land in which it is possible to +tell the most truth. The nation of Montaigne and Moliere is always the +first to recognise and award the title of talent to lay bare the +shoulders of her community and use the scourge upon them. If at its +first appearance the strange and terrible revelations contained in the +work entitled _Biribi_ were met by official obstruction and attempted +suppression, the book has conquered them, and has been allowed to carry +the light of its torches into the dark places of military administration +and oppression. In Italy, as in Germany and Austria, it would have been +stopped by fine, exile, and seizure. In Russia it could never have been +issued at all. In England it would have been as costly to the author as +were his issues of Zola to the unhappy and martyrised Vizetelly. In +France alone its pictures of the most terrible facts pass unarrested, by +right of that literary liberty which the _esprit gaulois_ has always +awarded, however much government and law may have been alarmed. + +It has been said that the accusations contained in the works of Georges +Darien are a _Retrissure a la France_, and as such should never have +been made public by a patriotic writer and a ci-devant soldier. But here +we merely meet again the hackneyed question whether the writer of talent +is bound by patriotism or any other scruple to withhold truth, or +whether he is not rather bound to disclose the truth as he believes it +to be at all costs, whether to himself or to others. It is not necessary +for me to say with which of these opinions I agree. The little which has +been done towards any true progress of the human mind has been done by +the expression of free thought, and by its fearless exposure of evils +protected by the crystallisation of time, usage, and prejudice. Over the +modern world which chatters of liberty, but does not anywhere possess +it, or even know actually what it means, there hang, in heavy and icy +weight, two ever-increasing despotisms: the scientific and the military. +Of the former it is not necessary to treat in these pages; of the latter +the yearly increase throughout Europe, ever since the war of 1870-71, +must alarm every unbiassed thinker, bringing with it, as it does, the +impoverishment of the people, the curse of youth and manhood, the +endless strain of a fiscal burden, so enormous that every class groans +under it, and the perpetual and diseased anxiety in which every nation +lives, suspecting its neighbours, and turn by turn affronting them +insolently and cringing to them obsequiously, according as it is made to +feel the power of its own strength or the weakness of its own +inferiority. Every syllable printed which tends to show the reality of +military tyranny at this moment is valuable, and should be welcomed, +however odious it may be to military authority and government; and +especially valuable when it comes from one who has passed through the +scenes which he depicts, and draws, not from imagination, but from +memory. + +Georges Darien has been the man whom he describes; treated as the worst +of criminals, though wholly guiltless of breaking any criminal law. +Georges Darien in using the first person, both in _Biribi_ and in _Bas +les Coeurs_, is but writing portions of his own autobiography; he was +a boy of ten, like his young hero in the latter book, and a volunteer +like the gunner of the second class in the 41st battery of artillery in +the former work, and to this fact there are owing that directness, +simplicity, and virility which are the distinguishing characteristics of +both these volumes. They are alive with life. The reader may resent +them, detest them, dread them and their revelations; but he must be +impressed by them; he must receive from their perusal that thrill which +can only come from reality. They are saturated with the tears of blood +of a strong man who feels his own impotency to rouse his generation and +to change humanity; who knows that his voice is the voice of the prophet +crying in the wilderness, and echoing over a desert of dead bones and +drifting sand. There are few greater pangs than to see the truth and +know it, and feel that the salvation of others lies in it, and to tell +it in vain to deaf ears, and offer its water of life to lips closed by +pride and cruelty and folly. + +The name _Biribi_ sounds too light for such a subject; it sounds like a +joke; but the joke is grim indeed, grim as the dance of skeletons round +a gallows-tree. In actual fact _Biribi_ is the nickname given by French +and native soldiers in Algeria to the punishment-battalions of the +Franco-African army; a slangy _petit nom_ given in jest to one of the +most awful hells that earth holds. The tortures which are suffered in +every army, in the best army, and in the time of greatest peace, can +scarcely ever be over-rated; and they are not the less, but the more +terrible, because almost always endured in silence and ignored by +authority. Now and then a voice is raised from the ranks, occasionally, +very rarely, some punishment, or injustice, more brutal than usual, +comes to light, and rouses public indignation. _Biribi_ is one of those +rare utterances rising from the sealed pits, in which uncared-for and +unpitied lives are beaten into senseless pulp of bruised and bleeding +flesh. + +There is great originality in the literary talent of Georges Darien. His +style is all his own. His manner of relation resembles no other. He has +nothing of the modern school, except its hopelessness; he is strong, +intense, virile, rough; he seeks no ornament, he strives for no effect; +he writes as he feels, boldly, passionately, with that eloquence which +is the offspring of simplicity and of veracity, and that potency which +comes from wide knowledge of literatures and of mankind. Belonging by +birth to the _bourgeoisie_, son of a Catholic father and a Calvinist +mother, his early years were embittered by religious strife. He has +later on travelled much; he has known the lowest classes and the hardest +ways of life; he is still young in years, but old in the most varied +experiences; and he has, certainly, uncommon powers, which have as yet +not been duly recognised, for he offends the prejudices and vested +interests of his generation, and even in France prejudice and vested +interests are strong and close many channels. + +He disdains, moreover, to appeal to that large class of readers who +require a book, cast in the form of a story, to possess a story. Like +the famous knife-grinder he has none to tell, if by story we understand, +as most people do, a love-tale in some one of its forms. _Biribi_ is the +stern and terrible narrative of the career of an _insoumis_; _Bas les +Coeurs_ is the simple, domestic record of a boy's recollections of the +_Annee Terrible_. In neither is there any hint or fragment of romance. +This fact at once limits his public to the restricted number who +appreciate the skill which can afford to dispense with the elements of +romance, and to rely solely on its own power of description and analysis +of character. In this respect for literary excellence and harmonious +treatment I should place _Bas les Coeurs_ before _Biribi_. The +relation of events at Versailles, before and after the Prussian +occupation, as seen from the point of view of a family of the town, is +told with such perfect naturalness that the reader follows it with the +deepest interest, and remains fascinated by the admirable manner in +which the most tragic and momentous events of history are reflected in +the mind of a boy of ten years old. + +The tranquillity and precision of his use of the etching-needle, with +which he describes the daily life and street scenes in Versailles, +contrasts curiously with the hot colour and broad charcoal marks with +which he portrays the tortures of the punishment-battalions in Africa. + +This testifies to the flexibility of Darien's talent, since nothing can +be more different to the impetuous and turgid violence of _Biribi_ than +the restrained and delicate irony of _Bas les Coeurs_: the one is a +battle-piece of Vereschagin, crowded with begrimed and panting figures, +in which the dumb canvas seems to shriek with war and smoke with blood; +the other is a cabinet picture of Meissonier's, finished, polished, +small in measurement, illimitable in suggestion, fine as the point of a +needle, cruel as the fork of a snake's tongue. For, undoubtedly, Darien +is cruel; but he is cruel from the impotent rage which is in him, the +powerless sorrow and scorn which his country, his generation, his fellow +mortals, his vision of things as they are, awaken in his memory and in +his desires. + +The apathy and sheepishness of the general multitude fill him with +wrath; he longs to pull down on the world its temple, like Samson, +regardless of the fall of the column and the roof on himself. No one who +loves received doctrines, crystallised commonplaces, undisputed formulae, +should open these books. Such persons will only see in them blasphemies +against their honoured gods; for this author is not suited to the smug +self-complacency of Philistinism, 'sanding its sugar and praising its +Lord.' + +To represent war as it is done in the terrible pages of _La Debacle_, or +in the heartrending sketch of the _Attaque du Moulin_, is not difficult +to the novelist who has power and knowledge. To represent the effects of +war on entirely uninteresting and commonplace persons, and yet keep the +attention of the reader riveted to what is passing in one ordinary +household during a frightful national calamity, is a far more difficult +feat; especially when all the sympathies of the reader which would be +easily roused by noble sentiments in the sufferers are voluntarily +alienated, and the only motives and feelings depicted are sordid, +egotistic, and miserable, except in the young narrator, whose childish +intelligence is so slowly awakened to the baseness of those around him, +but whose naturally honest and patriotic little soul burns and thrills +with shame when once it becomes conscious of the meanness and cowardice +of his family and of his neighbours. The highest literary faculty seems +to me to show itself in the completeness with which the childlikeness of +the young observer is retained, the vague apprehension, the slowly +awakening comprehension, the gradually dawning horror with which the +events around him impress themselves on a mind remaining instinctively +loyal and just in the midst of corrupt and unworthy examples. + +Take this as an example of its style:-- + + 'Shouts are heard afar off in the woods. + + '"Ah, my poor child!" says my aunt, weeping, "what a hideous + thing is war!" + + 'She looks very feeble, very worn, my poor great-aunt Moreau. + The sight of her thin face, her skeleton-like hands, moves me + painfully. She sees this. + + '"At my age," she murmurs, "these events, my dear, are hard to + bear." + + 'However, she assures me the Germans are not very cruel. The + Captain in command of those billeted on her, despite his rude + exterior, is not uncivil. + + 'At that moment, indeed, this officer returns with his men; his + heels ring on the bricks of the ante-chamber. He opens the door + of the little room where we are sitting. + + '"Do not be disturbed, Madame," he says, addressing my aunt, + "on account of the firing you may have heard. There is nothing + of any consequence. A wood-cutter, in whose hut we found arms, + and whom we have shot: nothing more." + + 'He salutes and retires. My aunt shudders. She turns white, her + eyes close, her head falls back against the chair. She is + faint. I call her maid, who runs to my summons, with the cook + and the servant just come to fetch me. The three women try and + revive her. She remains so weak when again conscious, that they + carry her to her chamber. She is grieved to have fainted. + + '"When my dear little Jean came to see me," she murmurs! "It + was the thought of that poor wood-cutter--" + + 'She trembles like a leaf as I leave her. + + 'Germaine, who has come from my grandfather's to fetch me, asks + me to wait a moment; she has a message for the Prussian Captain + from my grandfather. The officer is walking up and down, + smoking, under the lime-trees. I hear his guttural voice as he + answers, "Tell your master that I shall expect him here." What + can this mean? When I reach my grandfather's house I rush to + the dining-room to question the old man, but Germaine catches + hold of my arm. + + '"You must not disturb Monsieur. He is engaged with someone." + + 'Through the door, which I hold half-opened, I have seen that + someone. He is a person dressed like a peasant, who looks not + like a peasant, nevertheless. His large hat is worn too + gracefully; his ragged blue blouse is too old to accord with + his proud and delicate features. Is he an officer of + franc-tireurs? A French spy, perhaps? Is my grandfather giving + or receiving information? Is he not, as I hope, planning to + surprise the Prussians? I question Germaine. She is astonished + at my anxiety. + + '"That man? He wanted to see the Mayor, and as the Germans have + put the Mayor in prison, he was brought here. Do not trouble + yourself about him, Monsieur Jean." + + 'I hear a sound of closing doors. It is, of course, the + stranger going away. + + 'My grandfather joins me. + + '"Well, how is your aunt?" + + 'I tell him what happened, the story of the wood-cutter and its + effect upon her. + + '"Ah! what a pity!--humph, humph!--I will go and see her. + Germaine, my cloak." + + '"Shall I come with you, grandpapa?" + + '"No, no; not worth while. I shall be back in half an hour." + + 'In twenty minutes' time he returns. + + '"You see I am as good as my word. I made haste, eh?" + + '"Is my aunt better?" + + '"Your aunt? Yes--no--that is, yes, much better." + + '"Jean," he says to me after dinner, "you were to go back the + day after to-morrow, but as I must go on business to Versailles + in the morning early, I will take you with me. Does it + disappoint you, eh?" + + '"A little, yes." + + '"Bah! you shall make up for it another time. You shall come + again soon for several days, and send your lessons to the + deuce." + + 'I laugh. I think I must have been mistaken. The man whom I saw + must have been really a peasant. My grandsire could not be so + gay if there were to be fighting at Maussy this evening. + However, before going to bed I look out over the country, and + when I lie down I strain my ear to catch a sound. All night + long I cannot sleep; I can only listen. All at once a hand + touches my elbow. I start up, screaming. Germaine laughs. + + '"What is the matter, Monsieur Jean? Were you dreaming?" + + 'I stare round me in amaze. It is broad day. + + '"Make haste and get up; the chocolate is ready; master is + waiting." + + 'Half an hour later we leave the house. We are at the end of + the street which opens on to the Versailles road, when a + platoon of Prussian soldiers, with bayonets fixed, appears upon + that road. My grandfather seizes me brutally and throws me down + under a fence behind a hedge. I look through the branches. The + Prussians pass at quick march. Amidst them marches a man, with + his hands tied behind his back. I see a broad-leafed hat, a + pale proud face, an old blue blouse. It is the man of + yesterday. I know him at a glance. + + '"Grandfather, who is that?" + + '"Eh! Who? who? Some vagabond a Prussian patrol has picked up + out of some ditch. The Prussians are very severe for--for--for + wayfarers. It is better not to be seen in these affairs--it is + better not to be mixed up--I mean--" + + 'My grandfather is lying, I am certain; I feel it. Why should + he lie? Where are they taking this fettered man? Why force me + to lie hidden under a hedge? From behind the village a loud + volley thunders through the air. + + '"Grandpapa, grandpapa, did you hear that?" + + 'The old man is livid. + + '"It is the Prussians who practise--who practise at firing--in + the morning. It is their custom--their custom--every morning--" + + 'His teeth chatter.' + +Or see this description of the troops leaving for the frontier:-- + + 'To-day the last regiment quartered here goes to the front; it + is a regiment of the line. + + 'Leon and I wait in the market-place to go with the soldiers to + the railway station. + + 'It is an epic, this departure of the troops. I have never felt + what I feel now. There is a sense and scent of battle in the + air; the midsummer sun shining on the musket-barrels and + sparkling on the accoutrements sets fire to one's brain. The + earth trembles under the passage of artillery which is about to + vomit death; and one's heart dances in one's breast whilst the + ponderous caissons, with their iron-circled wheels, shake the + stones, and the mouths of the bronze guns display their yawning + jaws. Bands play warlike tunes, men chant the _Marseillaise_, + the gold of epaulets and the lace on uniforms glow in the + light; the flags flap against the flagstaffs, on whose summits + eagles spread their wings; the shoes of the chargers glitter + like silver crescents; and one feels some mighty spirit of war + soar above these hearts of flesh and of iron who are about to + face the shock of battle. The blood steams in one's veins; the + fever of the hour devours one; and one shouts louder and + louder, faster and faster, not to become mad. + + 'It is market-day. The square is filled by country people who + have brought in their vegetables and fruits for sale. Their + stalls are under all the trees, and, here and there, take up + the pavement. We are standing between a woman selling salads + and an old man who has onions, and is on all fours beside his + skips, because every moment or so an onion slides off the heap + and rolls towards the gutter, unless he stops it. What a funny + old fellow he is to take so much trouble for an onion! Ah! + there goes another one! The old man hurries to catch it, but an + officer, booted and spurred, steps on it; slips, slides, + tumbles down. The onion-seller takes off his cap: "Oh, sir! a + thousand pardons!" + + 'The officer gets up, takes his riding-whip by the whip-end, + and brings it with all his force on the uncovered head of the + old man, who falls backward on his skull. Blood bespatters his + skips of onions. + + '"Here comes the regiment!" screams Leon. + + 'The band sounds at the end of the street. We run towards it. + + '"Did you see the poor old man?" I ask. + + '"Yes. He deserved what he got. Only think! The officer might + have broken his legs, eh?" + + 'I do not answer. I am absorbed in watching the soldiers whom + we escort, walking on the pavement, keeping step with them. + + 'The soldiers do not all keep step with one another; emotion, + enthusiasm, the delights of going to thrash the Prussians, the + natural sorrow at leaving those they love--a thousand different + feelings. There is an old soldier, a decorated soldier next to + me, who is very unsteady on his legs. A young officer, very + young, almost beardless, puts his musket straight on the old + fellow's shoulder every second. It is admirable to see the + harmony which reigns between privates and officers. The + Colonel, a grey-beard, salutes with his sword when the people + cheer him; and a trumpeter in the front rank has stuck a great + bouquet of roses to the banner of his instrument, and carries + it as a priest carries the host. Other nosegays are thrust into + the barrels of muskets. Bottles of wine show their corks from + under the piles of knapsacks, and two or three dogs are + stretched out on the haver-sacks in the baggage-waggons. The + crowd cheers the dogs. + + 'All the peasants throng to see, shouting their applause to + the regiment. Before the chemist's shop at the corner, a knot + of young men wave their caps in the air; the chemist waves his + white handkerchief; behind him I see the blue blouse of the old + onion-seller, who lies unnoticed on the ground. + + 'All at once the music breaks out into the _Marseillaise_. + + '"Allons, enfans de la patrie, + Le jour de gloire est arrive!" + + 'Oh, how beautiful it all is! The soldiers fall into line. The + populace, shouting and cheering, accompanies them to the + station. Through the bars of the station-gates a private passes + me his drinking-cup, and asks me to get it filled at the + wine-shop in front of the gates. + + '"Wait; here is the money." + + 'But I do not wish for the brave fellow's money, I have a franc + in my pocket. I will pay for his pint. In a moment I run back + again. + + '"Thanks, young sir," says the soldier. "It is perhaps the last + drop I shall ever drink." + + '"The last!" cries Leon, red as a turkey-cock; so proud is he + to be able to rouse the spirit of a warrior. "The last? Ah! we + shall give you floods of wine when you come back from victory." + + 'The townspeople, who are crowding round us, cheer. The soldier + shakes his head dubiously. + + '"Thanks all the same," he says sadly. + + 'He does not seem very confident of success. + + '"Doubt that we shall be victorious?" says Leon in disgust as + we go homeward. "Leave the town for the frontier with so + little confidence! I would give--oh, what wouldn't I give?--to + be old enough to go and beat the Prussians. My dear Jean, that + soldier has no soul!" + + 'I am not sure. The soldier perhaps does not look on the + campaign as a picnic. Perhaps he sees more clearly than we do? + Perhaps? A great many things I had never thought of before + crowd into my brain.' + +A few days later, after Sedan, Jean sees the Germans enter Versailles. + + '"Here they are!" + + 'It is the octroi-guards who cry out this as they come flying + from the gates across the town. They brush me roughly as they + pass, and their abject terror gains on me. + + 'I follow them. But as I run I see on the other side of the + boulevard five or six inquisitive persons, who have stopped in + their walk, and hide themselves behind the trees. If they stay + to see, why may not I? I, too, get behind the stem of a tree, + and I watch with staring eyes to see what will happen. On the + road, fifty yards from the gates, a dozen horsemen are coming + onward at a walk. They stop a moment before the + octroi-officers; then they come on into the town in two lines, + almost touching the pavement. + + '"The Uhlans!" says someone behind me. Ah, I think with a + thrill, these are the Uhlans! + + 'They draw near us; their pistols are cocked. They pass me + close, and I feel that I shall fall from fright; my nails + clutch the bark of the tree which screens me. These riders are + covered with blood. There is blood on the pennons of their + lances, on the hocks of their horses, on the rents in their + torn uniforms, and one of the foremost has a white linen band + stained with red on his forehead. Ah! it is hideous! I want to + run away--I want to run away; it is impossible. Before me there + are these Germans, riding slowly, searching with piercing + glances the streets which open out to the left and to the + right. Behind them comes on a dense dark mass. One can hear the + tramp of feet. One can distinguish the spikes of helmets, the + barrels of muskets, the little drums no bigger than + tambourines, and the fifes which are playing a march. These + drummers and pipers are followed by linesmen in dark blue, shod + with boots drawn up above their trousers, the musket held + straight on the shoulder, the cloak rolled. + + 'And these men, grey with dust and mud, black with powder, with + their coats in rags--these men, who fought no doubt this + morning, and who have just made a forced march--preserve the + most marvellous exactitude, the most perfect regularity in the + dressing of their ranks, and the rhythm of their steps keeps + measure from the first line to the last of the whole column. + + 'They pass--they pass--they will never end. I have almost + forgotten my fear. I am partly in front of my sheltering tree. + The drums and the fifes cease to sound, and music replaces it + from a band marching in front of a group of staff-officers. + They play a warlike march, a battle-hymn, and all down the line + of troops, from the foremost company which has reached the + Chateau of Versailles, to the last which is leaving the + Chesnay, shouts of triumph arise and drown the brazen voice of + the cymbals. The victorious chant thunders down the wind. It is + the _Marseillaise_--the _Marseillaise_ which our own troops + played as they left for the frontier, the hymn which was to + render every French soldier invincible, which I had sung myself + when we had been so sure of supremacy, and when I had planted + my little tricolour flags on the map, all along the route from + Paris to Berlin in a Via Triumphalis! + + 'Now the artillery comes on; its black cannon on their blue + gun-carriages, with their attendants on foot and in saddle, + wearing helmets surmounted with brass balls. There are flowers + in the mouths of the cannon, and they are garlanded with ivy + and green boughs. The cavalry follow on the artillery; + dragoons, cuirassiers, hussars with white facings and a + death's-head on their shakoes. Then come the carriages, the + waggons, the vehicles with ladders, the baggage-carts.... All + at once my heart sickens and stands still. Behind the wheels of + the last waggons I seem to see some red cloth. Yes, it is our + red cloth--our soldiers. Between two rows of Prussians, who + have their bayonets fixed, our prisoners march without arms, + dirty, ragged, miserable, and ashamed. There are at least two + hundred of them, and I strain my eyes after these, my + countrymen, who are destined to rot in German fortresses.' + +It seems to me that in no contemporary fiction do we possess studies of +spectacles, of sentiments, of street-life in a momentous hour, more +accurate, more vivid, more simple in diction, more touching in +suggestion, than in the above passages. + +The sustained and withering irony and censure in this sketch, which yet +never goes out of the selected orbit of a boy's observation and +experiences, seem to me to be perfect in their kind. The incompleteness +of the child's understanding gives only a keener incisiveness to the +satire embodied in his narrative. The general reader will never forgive +such portraits as that of the elder Barbier, who, after shouting, +'Sursum Corda! Prenons serment de defendre le sol sacre de la Patrie!' +accepts the large Prussian orders, sets his steam-saws going in his +timber yard, and furnishes the wood for the besiegers of Paris; or of +that of the tobacconist Legros, who, after crying, 'Un soldat qui renie +son drapeau? Qu'il creve comme un chien!' stands bareheaded with bent +spine to sell cigars to Bavarian officers. This is human nature: human +nature as commerce and modern teaching and the cheap Press have made it; +but Barbier and Legros will never pardon the limner who thus portrays +them. To the reproach that such portraits are nearly always those which +he selects, Darien would, no doubt, reply that it is not his fault if +they are what have been in his path to the exclusion of finer and nobler +figures. He is a realist in the full sense of that often-abused word, +and he has the courage to represent the realities which he finds. + +The _Annee Terrible_ casts its black shadows over the childhood of this +writer, and as long as his life shall last the gloom it has left will +stay with him. If France herself should ever forget, which Heaven +forbid, he will not do so. His soul has been dipped in the Styx. + +What will, no doubt, alienate from him a large number of readers will be +his almost absolute want of human sympathy, or, at least, of expressions +of such sympathy. It is exceedingly rare with him to give way to any +sign of any emotion of pity. He sees human nature, in all its phases, +with little compassion for it. He sees (and this is, too often, either +through weakness or through policy, ignored by writers and thinkers) +that the great majority of men are neither the martyrs nor the heroes, +neither the victims nor the tyrants of their time, but a mass +considerable alone by its numbers, inconsiderable by any mental or moral +worth, and chiefly absorbed in different forms of selfishness and the +desire of gain. It is probably an error, though one consecrated by usage +and talent, to represent the generality of human beings as worthy +subjects either of blessing or of curse. But the author who says so will +never be forgiven by that mass of mediocrity which forms nine-tenths of +the population of the world. Darien says it, and shows it, and it is +this which will always make his works appear dreary and depressing to +the general reader, who cannot accept and pardon this manner of looking +at life for the sake of its veracity and courage. + +Of course, also, in the Press generally, the accusation of exaggeration +is always brought against exposures and delineations which are unwelcome +and embarrassing. But the writer's word may certainly be taken for it +that nothing in his descriptions is exaggerated or invented, and many +recent inquiries into the causes of deaths in the ranks, and of +executions after summary, and almost secret, court-martial in Algeria, +have confirmed the veracity of the statements made in _Biribi_. The +French Government, indeed, was, as I have said, so apprehensive of the +effect of these on the public mind that, although it did not suppress +the book, it forbade large coloured cartoons of the events described in +it to be posted up on the boulevards. In all nations the public is +treated like a child by authority; and as a child who will only walk +straight and submissively if its eyes be bandaged and its feet hobbled. + +But in these pages we are not so much concerned with the political and +military side of these works as with their literary qualities; and these +are considerable and of a strong and rare originality of style. _Il vous +empoigne_, and it is impossible to read either of his two works without +recognising their courage and ability, if we feel pained by their +withering scorn and rugged wrath. They are at times hard as the stones +over which the sick and swooning soldier is dragged, tied to the tail of +a mule. They are at times ferocious as the licensed torturer with the +three stripes on the sleeve, who throws his helpless prisoner, gagged +and bound, on the burning sands. Terrible they always are, with all the +terror of truths which have been lived through by the person who +chronicles them. It is not any betrayal of confidence to say that the +author of _Biribi_ has experienced in his own person the tortures of +which the dread record is made under this little playful-sounding word. +After such scenes as are herein described, and such sufferings as these, +the blood in a man's veins cannot be rose-water. 'La haine c'est comme +les balles; en la machant on s'empoisonne.' And it is impossible that +the military system can beget any other than hatred, violent, +unforgiving, imperishable, in the victims of that system. + + 'A young soldier, a conscript, a chasseur a cheval, has lost + two cartridges as the battalion is about to leave for Tunis. + + 'The Corporal informs the Captain in command, who turns and + looks in silence. The boy Loupat gazes at him with the eyes of + an animal watching the descent of the club which is about to + brain it, and from which it knows not how to escape. + + 'In passing through Tunis the Corporal says to him, "We shall + leave you here. That will teach you to sell your cartridges." + + 'The boy understands. The council of war, the sentence as a + thief, the indelible shame stamped on the brow of a youth + because he has lost two of the cartridges of the State! The + following morning the bugle sounds the _reveil_ at four + o'clock. It is still dark. At twenty minutes to five the + company, with knapsacks on their backs, is drawn up in line on + the road which runs through the camp. The trumpets sound the + roll-call, and all down the line each man answers "Present" as + his name is spoken. + + '"No one is missing?" + + '"Yes, Loupat, my Captain." + + '"Loupat is absent?" + + '"Yes, my Captain." + + '"The scoundrel! He has slunk off in the night to escape + court-martial, but we will find him. Go on. No one else + missing?" + + '"Look there!" A soldier points to the gymnasium. All the men + look where he points. Under the portico, on the great + architrave on the left, a body is swinging, black, at the end + of a cord. + + 'A lieutenant runs to the place, climbs to the body takes hold + of it, lets it go, returns. + + '"Dead?" says the officer in command. "Is it Loupat?" + + '"He is already cold." + + '"The scoundrel!" says the Captain again. "Well! he has done + justice on himself. Right flank, march!" + + 'We are crowded pell-mell into the railway waggons which are + bound for Tunis. I look through the opening in the door and see + far away below me--already far away--a small dark shape which + swings in the wind as on a gibbet, and which is lighted solely + by the first rays of the rising sun. + + * * * * * + + 'Another soldier, Barnaux, has had some liqueurs given him by a + comrade; Barnaux is drinking with the men of his _marabout_, + when a sergeant enters, espies the irregularity, takes the + offender before the officer in command. + + 'Barnaux refuses to say who the giver of the liqueur was. The + Captain orders him to be put in irons. They have put him _a la + crapaudine_, that is, with his arms bound behind him and + chained to his ankles. He is cast down thus on the sand of the + camp. Because he moans with pain they gag him with a dirty rag, + they tie his chin to his head with a cord. He remains all the + night thus, tied up into a shapeless packet. In the morning + when they change sentinels they perceive that he is dead. The + gag has stifled him. + + * * * * * + + 'Then the horror of the hospital; those hells which these men + so dread that they will tear the bandages off their wounds, or + cut their veins with a bit of broken glass, rather than live to + enter them. + + 'The muleteers set us down at a great tent which serves as an + infirmary; within there are planks on trestles and large pails + filled with reddened water. + + '"You see that," says Palot, who has divined with the instinct + of the dying the destination of those sinister planks. "Well, + that will be my last bed." + + 'An assistant, a filthy apron round his body, signs to us to + enter. + + 'The great tent is an unutterably miserable place; it has been + battered about by wind and weather; the currents of air blow + unchecked through it, and clouds of dust arise from the ground. + Some twenty iron beds are there, not more; and beyond those a + pile of mattresses, on which men are lying, rolled up in rough + counterpanes. There are not sheets enough for all. They make a + sick man rise and give up his place to Palot, whose pulse the + surgeon feels. + + '"Done for," says the doctor, between his teeth, without + heeding whether Palot hears him or not. + + 'To the rest of us they assign the mattresses lying on the + earth; these are full of vermin; they throw on us some + covering, stained with the vomit of our predecessors. + + 'How wretched it is, this hospital! How weary are the days + passed, with no other companions than the dying, whose + characters are poisoned by suffering and whose cries of horror + and anguish ring in one's ears! When, moved by the disgust and + despair which comes over you in this foetid hole filled with + filth and misery, you drag yourself out on your trembling limbs + into the sun, you feel so feeble, so exhausted, so helpless, + you cannot walk a step. You sit down in the torrid heat; you + are chilly, despite the high temperature; your teeth chatter, + your body is drenched with sweat. And at evening you are + obliged to return to the tent, where you pass such hideous + nights, troubled by such frightful nightmares, by such vague + sudden shapeless terrors, which seem to seize you by the throat + and freeze the blood in your veins. Oh! those horrible nights + when you see the dying shake off their covering with shrunken + fingers and try to raise their haggard faces, lighted by the + yellow-green rays of a lanthorn! + + 'These nights in which the living, who so soon will be the + dead, clutch at the rags which cover them, and shriek with rage + and fear as though they saw an enemy descend on them! These + nights in which one hears the childlike sobs of young Palot, + who is delirious, and who in his long agony calls on his + mother, "Mamma! Mamma!" + + 'They will ring for ever in my ears those two piteous words + which through three whole nights fill that wretched place with + their unpitied lament. A lament, low and tender at first, + broken with choking tears, ending in screams which make one's + hair stand up on one's skull with horror. The desperate screams + of a perishing life which has lost all sense and measure of + things or of time, of one who knows only that he will die, and + in one supreme appeal protests against his severance from those + he loves.' + + * * * * * + +And the youth Palot dies in that appeal, and they dig a hole in the red +clay under a low wall beside a Barbary fig-tree. + + 'Ah! poor little soldier, who breathe your last, calling on + your mother; you who, with your glazing eyes, saw the vision of + your home; you who are laid there, at twenty-three years of + age, to be devoured by the worms of that foreign soil on which + you have suffered so much, and where you have met your death + alone, forsaken, without a friend to soothe your last struggle, + without a hand to close your eyelids, except the brutal hand of + the hospital servant, which shut on your mouth like a muzzle + when your desperate cries disturbed his sleep. Ah, I know why + your sickness was mortal; I know it much better than the + surgeon whose steel dissected your emaciated body; and I pity + you, poor victim of the State, with all my heart and soul as I + pity your mother who waits for you, counting the days of your + absence, and who will only receive in her solitude the dry + official notice of your death! + + * * * * * + + 'Ah, no! I will not pity you, young dead soldier, nor your + mother who mourns your loss! I will not pity you, sons, who are + killed by the drinkers of blood, mothers who conceive what they + send to the shambles. Mad women who endure the pangs of + childbirth only to give up the fruit of their womb to the + Minotaur which devours them! Know you not that the she-wolves + let themselves be slain sooner than lose their offspring; that + there are beasts which die of grief when their cubs are borne + away from them? Do you not understand that it would be better + to tear your new-born creatures limb from limb than to bring + them up for one-and-twenty years, only to throw them into the + hands of those who want their flesh to feed the cannon?... And + you would ask our pity when, in some dark hour, the end comes, + and the bones of your children are gnawed by hyaenas and + whitened by the sun in some forgotten corner of the earth?' + +There are many such passages in _Biribi_, burning with truth and with +pain; and it would be well if they could be stamped into the mind and +the memory of the peoples of this epoch, who go meekly and stupidly as +sheep to the slaughter, under the pressure of their sovereigns and +statesmen. Of course, such a teaching as this carries with it its own +condemnation by what is called authority, and by all those classes of +which I have spoken, to whom war is a necessity and a standing army is +the ark of the Government. But it would be well if the populace of every +country could read, learn, and digest it, and realise its truth and its +justification. As I have said, I place _Bas les Coeurs_ higher, in a +purely literary sense, than _Biribi_, in the sense of construction and +of concentration. For _Biribi_ is abrupt, at times confused; is rather a +series of terrible records and tragical incidents than a consecutive and +harmonious narrative, although it relates the career of the same +soldier from the time when he enters the ranks, to the last day +in which he flings from him for ever the grey coat and _kepi_ of the +punishment-battalion. In that punishment-battalion he has been placed, +let the reader remember, for no especial crime against law or decency, +but for those offences against the military code (the unwritten code) +which make the offender more guilty in the eyes of a court-martial than +any actually criminal accusation: to have lost a regimental article, to +have forgotten to salute a superior, to have stopped to drink at a brook +on a march, to have omitted to put the regulation number on a clothes +brush or a pewter platter, to have been out without leave, to have lost +cartridges or buttons--any one of those innumerable and incessantly +recurring actions or omissions which make a soldier an _insoumis_ to his +military superior, whether sergeant or general, corporal or colonel, +which to the military mind constitute crimes too heinous to be named, +offences which fill a punishment-book with accusations of acts in which +only the semi-insanity of perverted authority could see any provocation. +Read only of the punishment of the _tombeau_ for simple sins of +negligence or thoughtless mirth. The _tombeau_ is a canvas cover, +stretched on stakes, making a cage a metre long by sixty centimetres +wide, into which the soldier condemned to this torment is obliged to +creep on his stomach as best he can. In this cage he spends days, +weeks, months, at the caprice of his tyrants, with a litre of water as +his only drink, and nothing but the canvas between him and scorching +heat or icy rain, or blinding desert dust. On hot days the water in his +little can evaporates rapidly; and at the will of the corporals in +charge of him he may be kept thirty-six hours without other drink and +without food at all. Remember, as you read these lines, that the +_tombeau_ has been the home for months of the man who describes it; a +home on the scorching Algerian sand in the parching African weather; a +home in which he envied the jackal its lair and the vulture its wings; a +home in which his flesh rotted and his manhood swooned. + +It is, perhaps, the finest compliment one can pay to an author to be so +much impressed by his theme that one almost forgets to speak of his +purely intellectual qualities. It is difficult to treat of either of +these works in a coldly critical spirit. For they are written with tears +of blood--such tears as are wrung from the heart's depths of all those +by whom France is beloved. + +For if militarism be her only armour, her only resource against her +foes, then must we tremble for her indeed; and tremble no less for the +whole of Europe, of which all the male youth is bruised and crushed +under militarism as in a mortar. The charge of want of patriotism has +been brought against Georges Darien for both these volumes. But it is +the flaw in human nature, not in French nature only, which he exposes; +the cynicism, the selfishness, the cowardice, the meanness, which are +so conspicuous in all modern society, in all nations and in all grades. +Were there a German invasion of Italy or of England next year, there +would probably be as many Italians or English ready to succumb to, to +cringe before, and to profit by, the conquerors as there are Versaillais +ready to do so in the volume called _Bas les Coeurs_. There is a moral +motor ataxy in the spinal marrow of modern nationalities; the love of +money, the fear of poverty, and the continual concentration of the mind +on personal interests taught by modern education and by modern commerce +make up a large percentage of human beings, who are mere time-servers, +always ready to hold the stirrup-leather of the strongest. It is not +alone the French bourgeois of 1870 who is satirised in these pictures of +Versailles under German domination; it is the whole modernity of the +last quarter of the nineteenth century under the teaching of modern +science, modern trade, and modern morality. All humanity has been +inoculated with the serum of concentrated cowardice and egotism; some +are robust enough to resist the contagion, but the majority absorb it +and develop the disease. That which Darien calls not cowardice, but +fear, is enormously developed by modern influences, and will probably +continue to increase in the coming century. He asks himself and his +reader of what elements is it composed that discipline, that blind +obedience, which is enforced in military life (and which is already +demanded in civil life by the scientific and medical tyrannies). He +replies, and it is a subtle distinction which will escape the +comprehension of many, that the soldier who thus cringes to base orders +is not a coward but a craven (_pas un lache; un peureux_). + + 'This craven would throw himself into fire or flood to-day to + save a comrade's life; but he would blow his comrade's brains + out to-morrow at the word of command of a non-commissioned + officer. He is not base: he is frightened. His courage + disappears before a watch-word: his boldness shrinks and + vanishes under a regimental order. What cows him is the + apprehension of punishment, the fear of the men set above him. + Fear is the keystone of the ark of the temple of Janus. The + army is a laundry where they throw the consciences of men into + a tub of soap-suds, and where the characters of men are wrung + and twisted like wet linen, and are placed, shapeless, under + the wooden beater of a brutalising discipline. It is only by + means of fear that the military system has been able to + establish itself. It is only by such fear that it maintains its + position. It is obliged to affect the imagination by terror, as + it must extinguish the soul and sense of nations to prevent + each from seeing farther than the stupid limit of a frontier. + It is obliged to surround itself with a mysterious ceremony, + with a religious pomp in which horror is united to + magnificence; in which the trumpet-blast joins in the + death-shrieks; in which one can see confused together the + blood-stained robe of glory, the plume of generals, the + handcuffs of gendarmes, the marshal's baton, and the dozen + balls of the execution-volley, the golden palms of triumph and + the shattered bones of the dead. It must present this + spectacle to the crowds which stare and tremble before it as + they stand open-mouthed before a charlatan quack doctor at a + fair, whose tinsel and feathers attract them, but from whom + they shrink alarmed as soon as they see a forceps or a lancet + glitter ominously in his hand. It must do this in order that + the people, always in ecstasy before the marvellous, which it + does not attempt to analyse, shall be seized before it with awe + and admiration: even as a savage who prostrates himself in + terror and respect before the shooting-iron which he does not + understand, but which he knows possesses the power to strike + him to the earth.' + +Many will protest against this figure as an insult to the general +public, but like many other insults which carry an intolerable sting in +them, it may claim that it is merited, and does not overpass the truth. + +Darien writes with that force which can, indeed, only come from the +intimate persuasion that what it tells mankind is true, and should be +told. + + '"It is commonly said," he continues, "that the army incarnates + the nation. History puts this into our heads by means of all + her subtlest lies. Ten martial anecdotes sum up a century; a + boast describes a reign. History preaches hatred of the people, + respect for the pillager, the sanctification of carnage, the + glorification of slaughter. The weak, the sensitive, the timid + succumb beneath it, and are buried in the red clay or left on + the sand for the vultures and jackal. The strong (sometimes, + not always) lives to have his whole future poisoned by these + memories, his whole temperament warped and embittered; or he + forces his tormentors to shoot him by some unpardonable breach + of discipline; some blow to a superior, or some intentionally + insolent reply; death is the continually recurring sentence in + the military code; if the man does not bend he must be broken: + broken in two with a volley which smashes his spine. The + punishment-battalions, the workshops of the Travaux Forces, are + the immediate consequences of the standing armies. Society, to + protect its interests, makes of a young citizen a soldier, and + of the soldier a galley slave at the first effort in him to + shake off the yoke of that discipline which degrades and + brutalises him, requiring like all tyrants and usurpers to + support its rule by terror, to make itself dreaded that its + prestige may dazzle and its tottering throne be secured. What + society requires is an obedience passive and blind, a total + imbecility, a humiliation which has no limit or hesitation; the + response of the machine to the mechanic, of the dancing dog to + the stick of his teacher. Take your man, make him surrender all + free will, power of choice, liberty, and conscience, and you + create and possess a soldier. To-day, at the end of the + nineteenth century, there is as much difference between the two + words, soldier and citizen, as there was in the time of Caesar + between two similar words--Milites and Quirites. The standing + army is the corner-stone of the actual social structure; it is + a force which sanctions and secures the conquests of force; it + is a barrier raised much less to combat foreign invasion than + to resist and paralyse the just claims of nations. Soldiers, + those sons of the people armed against their fathers, are + nothing more or less than gendarmes in disguise."' + +This is surely absolute truth--that truth which is of all others most +feared by those in authority; those who, whether as sovereigns, +ministers, financiers, professional men, or tradesmen, live on and by +the servility and gullibility of the nations. + + 'What is discipline except fear? The soldier is reared to dread + what is behind him more than what he is forced to face; he must + be more afraid of the fellow-trooper who will be told off to + shoot him in the back, than of the adversary whom he is ordered + to attack. The army is the incarnation of fear. The soldier + must dread his commanders as a burnt child dreads the fire. He + must never laugh at their absurdities, nor raise a voice + against their injustice or their tyrannies. He must never + speak. He must not even think. His superiors do both for him. + If he laugh, or resent, or speak, or think, if he be neither a + coward nor a dolt, he is a mutineer: he must be tamed, beaten, + broken _a Biribi_.' + +And when the dreamer, Queslier, says that it will not be long before the +people will become awake to this abuse of them, and will see that the +military caste is established on prejudices and interests hostile to +them, and will arise and destroy it, Darien replies, with equal +truth:-- + + 'There will flow much water under all the bridges of the world + before the people will have ceased to adore their vain idols + bathed in blood and tears.' + +Vain idols, indeed! For thousands of years the Juggernaut of military +despotism has rolled over the living pavement of the prostrate +multitudes, and there is no sign as yet that those multitudes will arise +and shiver the blood-stained car to atoms. Darien has but little hope in +the resistance of the people. He fears that the majority of them will +always continue to be daunted, dazzled, made dumb and helpless by the +powers which ruin and slay them. William of Germany makes his insolent +and inhuman declaration that the soldier must slaughter his own +progenitors if his 'war-lord' bid him do so; and yet William of Germany +is allowed to continue his reign. + +What are we to look for from nations which lie down to be stamped on +thus? which lick the spurred boots of those who outrage them? + +_Biribi_, and what _Biribi_ represents, has its prototype in every +country of Europe; and wherever Europe introduces her 'civilisation' +there she introduces also her quick-firing cannon, her numbered +battalions of slaves, her organised butchery, her pulverisation of +virility and of volition, her destruction of initiative and of liberty. + +England considers that such arguments as those contained in this book do +not concern her because she has no conscription. But how long will she +be able, or be allowed, to be free from enforced service? The present +field-marshal, commanding-in-chief, Lord Wolesley, desires +conscription. It may well be that events, in the not far distant future, +may strengthen his hands and enable him to enforce it.[4] + +[Footnote 4: This was written by me in 1897; England has not waited long +to confirm the truth of it.] + + 'Ah, Mascarille! who wished to put history into madrigals!' + cries Darien. 'History has given us Chauvinism (Jingoism), that + epidemic which makes a nation run headlong like the Gadarene + swine, to fall into the pit of absolutism! The army incarnates + the nation, you say? No. It diminishes it. It incarnates + nothing but force, brutal and blind, which lies at the service + of whoever most pleases it; or--sad to say--whoever pays it + highest. The army is the social cancer; is the octopus of which + the tentacles drain the blood of the nations; the hundred arms + and feelers which the people should sever with blows of their + hatchets if they desire themselves to live.' + +Such language is very strong, and will rouse strong opposition in those +who have long been cradled in conventional opinions, and believe that +the established order of society, now existing, is admirable, and +intangible, because it has had the force and the cunning to so establish +itself. It is language which may, of course, be challenged by adverse +argument, which may at anyrate be met by counter-statements deserving to +be weighed against it; but it is language which is more needed than any +other in the present state of Europe, with every nation armed to the +teeth and every country an arsenal. + + + + +III + +THE ITALIAN NOVELS OF MARION CRAWFORD + + +I believe that the novels of Mr Crawford of which the scene and the +characters are Italian are not among those of his works which are the +most generally popular. This fact, if it be a fact, must be due to the +general inability of his English and American public to appreciate their +accuracy of observation and lineation. Nearly all of them have qualities +which cannot be gauged by those to whom the nationality of his +personages in these works is unknown. In my own works, of which the +scene is in Italy, I have dealt almost exclusively with the Italian +peasantry. Mr Crawford has devoted his attention to the middle and the +higher classes. I do not think his portraiture of the Italian +aristocracy always redolent of the soil, but that of the lower and +middle classes is faithful to a wonderful degree. That side of Italian +life which is given in _Marzio's Crucifix_, for instance, is drawn with +an accuracy not to be surpassed. The whole of this story indeed is +admirable in its construction and execution. There is not a page one +would wish cancelled, and nothing could be added which would increase +its excellence. It is to my taste the _capo d'opera_ of all which he has +hitherto done. + +I think in his studies of the Italian aristocracy he has given them less +charm and more backbone than they possess. He has drawn their passions +more visible and furious than they are, and their wills less mutable and +less feeble than they are in general. He seems to have mistaken their +obstinacy for strength, while, if he have perceived it, he has not +rendered that captivating courtesy and graceful animation which are so +lovable in them, and which render so many of their men and women so +irresistibly seductive. According to him they are a savage set of +_berserkers_, always cutting each other's throats, and he does not in +any way render that extreme politeness which so effectually conceals the +real thoughts of the Italian gentleman, and which never deserts him +except in rare moments of irresistible fury. No one remembers so +constantly as the Italian of all classes that language is given us to +conceal our thoughts, and no one lives so completely as the Italian does +from the cradle to the grave in strict concealment of his thoughts even +from his nearest and his dearest. + +But in his Italian _genre_ pictures, and in portraiture of the people +whom we meet every day in society, Mr Crawford has a delightful pencil; +little side studies also of more humble persons, which many writers +would neglect, are charming in his treatment; take, for instance, the +old priest of Aquila in _Saracinesca_; with how few touches he is made +to live for us. We only see him once, but he will always remain in our +memory; in his whitewashed room with its sweet smell from the pot of +pinks, and his touching regret that he has never seen Rome, and at his +age cannot hope to do so. + +His priests, by the way, are always excellently drawn, from the humble +village vicar to the learned and imposing cardinal. He has penetrated +alike their interiors and their characters with that skill which is only +born of sympathy, and it is therefore perhaps only natural that he has +not the faintest conception of the motives and views of the socialist +and republican whom he dreads and hates. + +All these charming little details, like the pot of pinks, can only be +thoroughly appreciated by those who know intimately Italian character +and habits; but they abound, and show so much of fine observation and +delicate discernment in the author that one cannot forgive him for ever +beating the big drum of florid sensation. + +Let me not be understood to mean that crime, or the impulse of crime, is +not a perfectly legitimate subject for the novelist; both can be made +so, but they are only so when treated as Mr Crawford himself treats them +in _Marzio's Crucifix_. When treated as he treats them in _To Leeward_ +and _Greifenstein_ and _Casa Braccio_ they are merely coarse and +inartistic. He has a leaning towards melodrama which is chiefly to be +regretted because it mars and strains the style most natural to him, and +does not accord with his way of looking at life, which is not either +poetic or passionate, but slightly sad, and slightly humorous, modern +and instinctively superficial, superficial in that sense in which +modern society itself is so. + +In _Marzio's Crucifix_ he is perfectly natural, and one cannot but wish +that he had never left that manner of treatment. Every motive therein is +natural, every character consistent with itself. This naturalness in his +characters is Mr Crawford's greatest attraction, and when he departs +from it, as he does in such detestable melodramas as the _Witch of +Prague_ and _Greifenstein_, he is no longer himself. It is hard to +understand that the same author can create the most delicate of +aquarelles and the most glaring of posters, or why one who can draw so +well and finely in silver-point can descend to daub with brooms in such +gross distemper. If this be the price of versatility, it were best not +to be versatile. But it is not versatility, because true versatility +consists in possessing a many-sided power which flashes like a jewel of +which all the facets are equally well cut. True versatility, moreover, +does not consist in the mere change of subject, but in the change of +style, of treatment of thought, in fact, the mutation of the entire mind +of an author, such as brings it into entire harmony with its fresh field +and its new atmosphere. There is no such change in these novels. Mr +Crawford is Mr Crawford always. As he never loses himself in his +creations, so he is always present in them to the reader; and his style +never varies, whether he treats of horrible psychological mysteries in +Prague or of pleasant carnival seasons in Rome. + +He is not strong or forcible in tragedy. When it is incidental in his +stories like the murder of Montevarchi, or the attempted assassination +of Ser Tommaso, it is admirably sketched in; but when it forms the +structure and essence of a romance he fails entirely to give it +sublimity; it becomes in his hands a mere scarecrow, which makes us only +smile as its wooden hands beat the empty air. One feels that it is not +his natural element, that he does not like it or feel at home in it, and +has merely lent himself to it from some wrong impression that the public +requires it; due, perhaps, to the suggestion of some unwise publisher or +friend. The coarse melodrama with which some of his novels ends is not +in unison with the characters or the scope of his work. It is quite true +that, as murder is, in some circumstances, justified in actual life, so +in some circumstances it may be used as a _denouement_ in fiction with +perfect accuracy; yet it is always a violent ending which fully accords +with romance of wild life or peasant life, but always jars, unless +introduced with the most perfect skill, in stories of men and women of +the world; because the evil passions of this latter class of persons are +of a different quality, and find different modes of relief, from the +primitive and barbarous satisfaction of killing enemies or rivals. All +the influences and habits of society make it almost impossible for men +and women of society to become assassins. + +Now Mr Crawford can draw men and women of the world so well that it is a +pity he so often goes out of his way to spoil his portraits of them with +the bowl and dagger taken from a different phase of life from that in +which they move. + +He is always a gentleman, and he is at his best when writing of +gentlemen in the society which he knows so well. Duels are quite +natural in good society everywhere, except in England, and no one since +Charles Lever ever described them so well as Mr Crawford; but murders +are not general in the world of well-bred people, indeed are not very +often heard of out of the lowest strata of plebeian life. + +In _Casa Braccio_ a fine motive, that of the peasant of Subiaco's +long-cherished vengeance, with its final satisfaction, both based on a +mistake, is wasted, because no one can care in the least for the man who +is slain, and the original sin committed by this victim (marriage with a +nun), although it seems so great to Mr Crawford, appears to us no sin at +all; so that his tragic end neither moves us nor satisfies in us any +sense of justice. What are admirably rendered and true to life in _Casa +Braccio_ are not Griggs and Gloria, or Angus Dalrymple and Maria +Addorata, but the peasants of Subiaco, Stefanone, with his +long-cherished vendetta, and his wife, Sora Nanna, who wears her lost +daughter's shoes because it would have been a sin to waste them. One +regrets that two persons so perfectly natural and well drawn should be +set on a pyre of flaring melodrama which obscures their portraits in its +smoke and flame. Why could he not give us a story of Subiaco, passionate +but natural, in which the action would have passed entirely in that +interesting and little-known part of the Sabine mountains? + +When I use the term melodrama, I mean by it that which mimics the +tragic, but falls short of it; the tragic, imitated but so environed, +that it loses dignity and has something of the inflated and grotesque. +The melodrama in _Pietro Ghisleri_, in _Taquisara_, and in _The +Children of the King_ is this kind of melodrama; it does not move us for +a moment; we are, on the contrary, impatient of it in a modern period +and history, with neither of which it has any harmony. In the latter +story the conception of Rughero, though by no means new, is fine; but +the frame in which this mariner is set lacks all fitness for such a +figure; and the man whom he murders is not sinner enough, nor serious +enough in his actions, for the reader to be moved to pardon the act as +the author himself pardons it. If violent delights have violent endings, +violent endings need strong provocation and clear explanation; they +should appear to the reader to be inevitable, the offspring of an +unavoidable result. To the reader such a crime as this should appear to +be the inexorable justice of an inevitable retribution. But in the +violent _denouement_ of _The Children of the King_ the cause is trivial, +the act under the circumstances improbable, and the rude shock of it is +not in accordance with any of the other characters and with the light, +careless modernity of the setting of this story. + +This defect of consistency, which is grave in literature, would be +ruinous on the stage where action is so much quicker, and where the +idiosyncrasies of each personage are so visible to the audience; and +such a fault is the more vexatious because it shows that the author was +never really absorbed in his own creations, was never so possessed with +them that they dominated him and made him do what they chose, as Bulwer +Lytton has said that the characters of every true novelist must do, +because a character once conceived is like a child, being once begotten, +it becomes what it must, we cannot control the subsequent shape it +takes. + +Another defect of Mr Crawford's works is usually that their interest +flags towards the close, that this close is too abrupt, and that it +gives the reader the impression of the narrative being brought to an +untimely end because the writer no longer cared about narrating it. This +defect may be noticed in nearly all his stories, beginning with _Mr +Isaacs_, in which it is conspicuous; and is startlingly and irritatingly +visible in one of his latest, _Adam Johnstone's Son_; indeed, in the +last-named story the conclusion is obviously totally different from what +it was intended to be in the opening chapters. Now, a well-constructed +novel may please you or not, may be attractive or offensive, but it will +always be accurately conceived and harmoniously balanced; and nothing +animate or intimate will be introduced into it which has not some +bearing direct or indirect upon the plot. Nothing can be more incorrect +than to excite the expectations of the reader by indications which +result in nothing, sign-posts on a road which do but lead to a blank +wall. + +A grave violation of this rule is frequently to be found in the Crawford +stories, no worse one than that in this story of Adam Johnstone's son, +where a long chapter is occupied by an incident with a brutal Neapolitan +carter on the Sorrento road. The man is knocked down by the hero, and +endeavours in return to stab him; carabineers arrive and arrest the +carter and not the Englishman (as in real life they unquestionably would +have done). The whole incident, related with much spirit, is obviously +only in its place, only pardonable as an episode, if the carter be +destined to appear again and sate his thirst for vengeance on the hero. +But he disappears from the scene for ever as the carabineers handcuff +him. We neither see nor hear any more of him, nor does the Englishman +hear any more of the matter, which in actual life certainly would have +caused him much annoyance at the local tribunal. The appetite of the +reader should not be tempted by dishes, which become a mere Barmecide's +feast, in this manner. Some intention must have been in the author's +mind when he created this scene. Why did he not carry out his intention? + +In this manner many combinations and situations of the most interesting +and uncommon kind are deliberately thrown away unused. He frequently +introduces personages about whom he excites our liveliest interest, and +whom he then forsakes or dismisses with an indifference which the reader +does not share. It is as though a painter painted into his canvas +numerous figures which he has never finished, though he sends out his +picture as a finished work. The only novels of his which are entirely +free from this defect are the _Cigarette Maker_, the _Three Fates_, and +_Marzio's Crucifix_, and here I cannot resist (though it is not within +the scope of this article, since its venue is America) pointing out how +delicate, subtle, and clever is that story entitled the _Three Fates_. +There is little movement in it, no incident of any note, its interest +lies entirely in the development of character and in the evolution of +feeling, but these are so treated that they suffice to hold the reader's +charmed attention, and the study of the man whose hesitations and +tergiversations make the subject of it is one which may be caviare to +the general, but which may be read again and again with sympathy and +curiosity by those who can appreciate psychological problems. The +persons in it are such as we may have known to-day or may know +to-morrow; and the working of their minds and inclinations is traced +with a masterly skill, and is as correct as a physiologist's diagram of +the nervous system. + +What to me is especially attractive in Mr Crawford's novels is the +atmosphere of good breeding which one breathes in them. One feels in the +company of a well-bred man. Their philosophy, their experiences, their +views, are all those of a man of the world; and there is in them a +tolerance and a total absence of prejudice (except in religious and +political matters) which are refreshing, and which are a fair approach +to, if not an actual attainment of, unbiassed liberality. There is in +them no enthusiasm for anything, no altruism, no deep emotion. They are +unfortunately entirely lacking in any perception of those myriads of +other lives not human, but as sentient as the human, such as vibrates in +every line of Pierre Loti's works. We have never in his novels any +profound tenderness like that with which the Freres Rosny speak of the +semi-humanity of inanimate things, or show us the dog gambolling on the +wayside turf in all the simple joy of its youth and its pleasure in +existence. To Mr Crawford as to Peter Bell, a primrose by the river's +side is a primrose, and it is nothing more, and the thrush or the linnet +which sings in the hawthorn above the primrose roots for him has no +existence. He has the American's indifference to all created things +which are not human. There are no animals in his books except two poor +terriers (who have their necks broken by the odious lover in _To +Leeward_), and the unhappy cat, introduced only to be poisoned in +_Taquisara_. There is nothing which indicates that he cares for nature +in any of its phases, and he calls the cicala a locust. + +In Italy he lives only for the people around him as he would live in +Pall Mall, or Broadway, or the Champs Elysees. That passion with which +Italy has inspired Shelley, Byron, George Sand, De Musset, Owen +Meredith, even the calm analytic mind of Taine, has never touched him. +He has never felt the ecstasy which is embodied in that single phrase of +Taine's, 'On nage dans la lumiere.' One would say that the moonlight +shining on the waters of Tiber, under the bridge of St Angelo, is no +more to him than a flash-light illumining a grain-elevator on the +Hudson. All which is still Italy, of colour, of perfume, of light, of +legend, of rapture, of emotion, has wholly escaped him; he has never +felt its _hysterica passio_; he has never known its eternal youth, he +has never seen its lost gods rise and walk through its blossoming grass +as the star rays shine in the white cups of the narcissus of its fields. +But of the people who pass him in the Corso and on the Chiaja, who shake +hands with him at Montecitorio and on the Lung' Arno, who lounge and +talk with him at the cafes, and the legations, and the public gardens, +he is an admirable student, and an admirable photographer. + +One of the most admirable of his portraits is that of the young Don +Orsino, the hero of the novel of that name. Sant' Ilario, like his +gallant old father, might be a North German, a Hungarian, or a Scottish +noble, his temperament is, indeed, much more northern than southern; but +Don Orsino,[5] his son, is exactly that which he is represented to be, a +youthful Italian of high rank, who has been educated at an English +public school, and has all the vanity, and egotism, and _secheresse de +coeur_ of modern youth in him. The type of the modern youngster of +rank was never so well drawn as in this story of his _debut_ in +speculation and his failure in it. His character is one very difficult +to draw, that coldness, that self-reliance, that self-sufficiency, which +are something at once harder and less contemptible than conceit, the +qualities which will make him successful later on but will never make +him lovable or tender; the instincts of race which hold him back from +meanness but are not strong enough to raise him to nobility, attenuated +as they have been by modern education, all these are rendered with the +utmost skill till the boy, in his sterile and self-satisfied modernity, +lives before us, and vain and selfish though he be, we are loth to part +from him, and curious to know what his future will become. In his +history that one supreme charm of Mr Crawford's, of which I have +previously spoken, his naturalness, is conspicuous; nothing can be more +natural than the relations of Don Orsino with his mother and father and +those who surround him, and the crafty _affaristi_ who get him into +their meshes of speculation. + +[Footnote 5: A novel called _Corleone_ reproduces Don Orsino, but was +published after these pages had been printed. It has been very popular, +but in it, unfortunately, Don Orsino is given away deplorably, and +turned into a mere romantic lover, which in real life he never would +have become.] + +What is not natural in this story is the character of Madame d'Aranjuez. +She comes before us instinct with all which goes to make up an +unscrupulous adventuress. She is that, or she is nothing. She does her +uttermost to fascinate and capture the son of Saracinesca. She succeeds; +and lo! with one of those _volte-faces_ which are so frequent and so +irritating in Mr Crawford's works, she gives up the game when she has +won it, does nothing that we expect her to do, and marries the +speculator who has beggared Don Orsino on condition that this gentleman +shall restore to Don Orsino all he has lost. Nothing more improbable or +inconsistent, given the character of the woman, could possibly be +conceived; nor is it more probable that the haughty and irascible young +man would endure to be served by her mediation, however it might be +veiled. Everything surrounding this lady promises us passion, intrigue, +perhaps tragedy, certainly peril, but we are balked of them all. The +mysteries concerning her turn out to be very tame ones indeed, she +appears a wholly innocent and harmless person, and even a very large +paper-knife shaped like a dagger, which we are told always lies beside +her and which has no _raison d'etre_, unless it is to be ultimately used +in killing or defending somebody, does nothing whatever and disappears +from the story, leaving us in tantalising ignorance of why we were ever +introduced to it. + +Now no French writer of any degree would have created that remarkable +paper-knife, and kept it lying beside the heroine, and laid stress on +its unusual size and splendour, unless he intended to turn it to +account as a _deus ex machina_. To draw the reader's attention to a +conspicuous object, and then to cheat the expectations raised concerning +it, is a great fault in art; but it is one of which English and American +writers are continually guilty. It is true we are told casually, towards +the end, that her husband had hit her with this paper-knife, and that +for this blow the famous fencer Spicca had killed him; but this is +mentioned incidentally, and does not sufficiently account for the +interest we have been excited to take in this weapon. Spicca is, on the +contrary, admirably drawn, and the regard we feel for the merciless old +duellist is roused in us with true art. We have that sense of Spicca +having really lived, and really been that which he is described, which +can only be aroused in a reader by life-like accurate and sympathetic +portraiture. + +There are many pathetic touches in this portrait of Spicca, and little +incidents entirely true to the life of an Italian gentleman of +aristocratic race and straitened means, as when in his distress of mind +his servant persuades him to eat 'a little mixed fry' with a fresh +salad, 'the salad is very good to-day'; and Spicca, touched and +refreshed, examines his meagre purse and takes out a ten-franc note +which he gives to the man, remarking that it will buy him a pair of +boots, and this ten-franc note is, when his purse lies on the table at +night, slipped back into it by the servant, who knows that his master +'never counts.' + +I think the most exquisitely drawn of all Mr Crawford's many characters +is this Count Spicca; because the character of a noted duellist who +invariably kills, and kills how and in what way he chooses, with +profound indifference and unerring accuracy, is one very hard to make +sympathetic to the general reader, and especially to the English reader, +by whom duelling is abhorred. But Spicca is so perfect a gentleman, so +sad and simple and calm, so natural and unassuming despite his deadly +power, that no one can regard him without interest and even affection, +and see him without sorrow ill-treated by a woman so extremely +unpleasant as Consuelo Aranjuez, for whom he has done and suffered so +much. + +The fencing of Mr Crawford is always very accurate, and we hold our +breath when Leone Saracinesca acts as his son's second. All this is +quite true to life in Italy, where duels with the sabre or rapier are +still of daily occurrence, and are resorted to after any insult, and +after a mere difference of opinion or trivial impoliteness. + +It is wonderful that these stories have not been appropriated for the +stage by those unscrupulous thieves the London dramatists, for they are +full of dramatic situations and of duologues in which the give and take +is brilliant. Some have indeed the dramatic effect of inconsistency of +which I have spoken, but all are full of fine suggestions for the +theatre. _Saracinesca_, or _Sant' Ilario_, for instance, would be +transferable to the stage with scarcely any alteration. It is full of +incidents which would be most effective on the stage; and the strong +emotions and sensational scenes which it offers would most certainly +thrill and charm an audience. + +One wonders also that their author himself does not write for the +stage, for his command of incident and of intricacies of circumstance +would raise him high above many playwrights of the London theatre. There +are scenes in nearly all his works which might be put upon the boards +with scarcely any alteration, such as the duel between Don Giovanni and +Del Ferice in _Saracinesca_, and the death scene of the librarian +Meschini in _Sant' Ilario_, while the whole story of _The Children of +the King_ would furnish matter for a romantic drama were the causes for +the crime in it made more credible. + +Here let me note a small but irritating fault in these works, _i.e._, +the childish habit (common to writers of the last century) of naming +characters after their calling, or after some moral characteristic. +Meschini is the plural of the Italian adjective mean, cowardly, or +contemptible, and is given to a man with these defects; while a very +interesting person, a French artist famous in portraiture, is +unfortunately burdened with the ridiculous and impossible name of +Gouache. Mr Crawford is indeed frequently infelicitous in names. In +_Casa Braccio_, the American lover of Gloria, a stagey sort of person, +but one whom we are invited to regard with admiration and sympathy, is +weighted with the shocking name of Griggs. Mr Crawford does not see that +were Othello or Hamlet called Griggs, either would try to move the souls +of men in vain. If a name does not matter to a rose, it does matter +immensely to a character in a book; and there are so many euphonious +names in use in the world that it is wholly unpardonable to select a +ludicrous or ugly one. The poor little natural child of Gloria in this +same novel is also burdened at its birth by the name of Walter Crowdie, +which, for a baby, has such a comical effect that the very pathetic +position of this poor infant is rendered ridiculous by it. It is perhaps +under the idea of being realistic that these droll names are selected to +jar on tragic circumstances, but then Mr Crawford's stories are not +realistic, and cannot be made so by this one expedient. + +He has also another fault which is visible in nearly all his works, and +is a grave one. He forgets at times the attributes which he has given to +his chief characters. Thus Giovanni Saracinesca is described as a man of +strong, noble, and reticent nature, and of intellect so superior that +his wife tells him he will be very great some day; and he resembles, +indeed, precisely, one of those men who become great leaders of other +men. But in the sequel (where he is called Sant' Ilario) all this +changes, and he behaves like an idiot, and of his great qualities we +hear no more and certainly see nothing. And where we still farther +follow his fortunes in the subsequent sequel of _Don Orsino_, he has +sunk into complete self-effacement, so complete that he allows his son +to be the associate and the debtor of that very Del Ferice whose utter +baseness and vileness he knows so well, and who tried in the famous duel +to murder him by foul play. Sequels are always ill-advised trials of the +author's consistency and the reader's memory, and it would have been +unquestionably better to have made Don Orsino stand alone in his history +and not figure as the son of Giovanni Saracinesca and of Corona +d'Astrardente. When a reader has followed with interest and sympathy the +fortune of an impassioned lover it is trying to see him standing in St +Peter's 'a middle-aged man,' talking to a son taller than himself. Great +art is required to make a character 'grow' quite consistently. The +continuation of histories, thus, greatly pleased Anthony Trollope and +Thackeray, but I cannot consider it a desirable thing in fiction. + +Mr Crawford misses many opportunities of developing the capacity for +analysis and deduction which he undoubtedly possesses. He is very +observant but he is content to note a fact, he does not trouble himself +to seek its origin or the influences which have made it the fact it is. +When the two young people who wish to marry in _Marzio's Crucifix_ +discuss what their house shall be like, and what colour the walls and +furniture, their biographer adds, 'Italians have lost all sense of +colour.' This is true, but it is one of the most amazing, grievous, and +extraordinary truths that exist; it is one for which I search in vain +and in perplexity for an explanation. But Mr Crawford does not seek for +any explanation. He states the fact and passes to another subject. + +Again, in this sentence he begins well: 'It is of no use to deny the +enormous influence of brandy and games of chance on the men of the +present day. Something might be gained indeed if we could trace the +causes which have made gambling especially the vice of our generation. +But I do not believe this is possible.' That is to say, he does not care +to be at the trouble of such an investigation, even though he adds the +acute sentence that most of the men and women of the world of pleasure +in our times exhibit 'the peculiar and unmistakable signs of physical +exhaustion, chief of which is cerebral anaemia. They are overtrained and +overworked, in the language of training they are "stale."' + +He says in another place, 'Italians have no imagination.' This is but +partially true; I am not sure that it is true at all. Their modern +poetry is beautiful, more beautiful than that of any other nation. Their +popular songs are poetic and impassioned as those of no other nation +are, and one may hear among their peasantry expressions of singular +beauty of sentiment and phrase. A woman of middle age, a contadina, said +to me once, 'So long as one's mother lives, one's youth is never quite +gone, for there is always somebody for whom one is young.' A rough, rude +man, a day labourer, who knew not a letter, and spent all his life bent +over his spade or plough, said to me once, one lovely night in spring, +as he looked up at the full moon, 'How beautiful she is! But she has no +heart. She sees us toiling and groaning and suffering down here, and she +is always fair and calm, and never weeps!' Another said once, when a +tree was hard to fell, 'He is sorry to come away, it has been his field +so long.' And when a flock of solan geese flew over our lands, going +from the Marches to the mountains on their homeward way, and descended +to rest, the peasants did not touch them: 'They are tired, poor souls,' +said one of the women; 'one must not grudge them the soil for their +lodging.' Surely such ideas as these in people wholly uneducated +indicate imagination in the speakers? + +And what can he possibly mean by no poets, which he says in another +place? Has he never read a line of Carducci? Much as we may mourn and +resent Carducci's turncoat and reactionary politics, no one can deny +that he is a poet of the purest kind. Has he never heard the ringing +stanzas of Cavallotti which sound like a clarion through the land? Has +he never studied the exquisite if too erotic odes of D'Annunzio, or the +touching verse of Stecchetti? There are others besides these who are +true and fine poets also; and even in the ordinary verses written for +newspapers (which in other countries are so poor and tawdry) there is +frequently in Italy a true and delicate feeling and an adorable lyrical +harmony which make one mourn to see things so fair wasted on so +ephemeral a life. + +It is through their imagination still more than by their vanity that +Italians are led by unscrupulous political flattery and cajoled into +disastrous political enterprises. They will believe anything if it be +sufficiently captivating to their self-admiration and their fancy, and +will dance blindfold on the brink of a bottomless pit. It is only an +imaginative people who love so wildly, and kill themselves so madly for +affection's sake, as the Italian people do. The other day, because a +young soldier was sent to Africa, his brother killed himself in despair, +and the father of the two youths then killed himself also. It is an +inflammable imagination which makes the nation so easily led away by the +promises and the phantasmagoria of glory with which unscrupulous +statesmen have enticed it to the brink of ruin. It was its imagination +which made it so credulous that when told by its victors that the +disgraceful surrender of Makale was a victory, it believed and rejoiced, +illuminated and hung out flags, and never saw what a dupe it was being +made until cruelly awakened from its delusions by the _deroute_ of Abbu +Carima. + +Mr Crawford has lived chiefly in cities, and in the cities, even in +Rome, the Italian is much debased by contact with foreigners; the +influence of foreigners on Italians is excessively bad, especially +American and English influence; and in the cities also the preponderance +of Jews is great. Innumerable persons who call themselves by Italian +names and speak of Italy as their country are Jews and nothing else. A +Finnish Jew known to me buys an Italian estate, and with the estate a +title, which, by the payment of a large sum to a complaisant Government, +he is allowed to adopt; he is decorated by the king for his munificent +'charities' in the land of his adoption; he marries an English woman, +and their children masquerade as Italian nobility with not a single drop +of Italian blood in their veins. Such 'Italian nobles' are numerous, +unhappily, in modern Italy, and do immeasurable discredit to the +nationality which they assume. In a generation or two their origin will +be forgotten, and they will be taken by society in general to be what +they pretend to be. Thus, unhappily, are great nations caricatured, old +titles prostituted, and Italy accredited with sons not her own, with +pretended offspring who are not even her bastards; persons who +impudently affect her name and boast of her blood, when not one single +hair of their head or fibre of their flesh has any affiliation to her. + +What stifles Italian imagination, and kills the Italian soul, is the +passion for money; pure acquisitiveness or avarice, for the desire is to +get, little or no pleasure is taken in spending. It is often alleged +that this passion is due to their poverty; but poverty is not +necessarily accompanied by avarice; the Irish people are very poor, but +they are extremely generous; the Spanish people are so also. A comical +instance of this stinginess occurred the other day at Milan: a rich +tradesman had built himself a fine set of new premises, and opened his +new establishment with much feasting; he sent fifteen francs to the +municipality to be divided among the poor, and everyone applauded his +liberality! This love of money, acquisitiveness, niggardliness, or +whatever we call it, is too general not to be injurious to the Italian +character; and it enters into all daily life and personal acts, and is +frequently the chief motor power of marriage, of career, of education. +And then added to this injurious power there is another which is more +deleterious still, which weakens, debases, and falsifies the character +from infancy: it is the direful influence of the Church. But to treat of +this matter would occupy too much space, and would lead too far away +from the stories of Mr Crawford, in which there is an unfortunate +tendency towards approval of what he calls hierarchical government, +although a tendency not strongly enough insisted on by him for it to +demand minute examination. The powers of Mr Crawford, however, are +limited by the narrowness of what is called religion, and the inability +to see the higher side of these subversive opinions which he dreads, and +which he has done his best to turn into ridicule by putting them into +the mouth of the half-mad artist Marzio. + +Indeed, his bigotry on religious subjects is very droll to see in these +days; and he speaks of 'unbelievers' in a tone worthy of Puritans in the +days of the _Mayflower_ pilgrims. It does not agree with the tone of his +books, which is invariably the tone of a man of the world; as such he +should possess that liberality of thought which is the chief, perhaps +the only, virtue of his generation; and if he had possessed it he would +undoubtedly have reached a much higher level, a much finer ideal, than +he has actually done. It would seem as if he distrusted and checked the +larger intelligence in him, as an over-cautious rider distrusts and +checks a horse which only asks to be given a free rein to go at speed +over a wide pasture; it would seem as if some extraneous 'influence' +were always at his elbow to keep his reason cribbed, cabined and +confined. + +His religious prejudices have contributed to arrest his intellectual +development, for they are puritanical and antiquated in a singular and +lamentable degree. He speaks of _liberi pensatori_ as the Church elders +of Maine or Massachusetts might have done in the days of witch-torturing +and atheist-burning. He thinks that the future great war will be between +what he calls believers and unbelievers; and he looks forward with joy +to the coming conflict when men shall again fly at each other's throat +for the glory of God. This kind of mental cecity has its inevitable +results: it makes him step lamely where he would otherwise walk with +manly alacrity, and it makes him afraid to face the light of facts which +his truer instincts tell him are existing and incontrovertible. Is this +the result of early education, of hereditary inclinations, of female or +ecclesiastical influence? I do not know; but come whence it may, this +taint of bigotry obscures his intelligence and stops his progress, and +is matter of profound regret to those who see what he would have been +without it. + +Many passages in his works show that he has perceived and grasped the +universal dominance of that corruption which so fatally exists in all +Italian life, and one could wish that he would make a more complete +exposure of it. Take this account of how the banker, Del Ferice, +obtained the decoration for a syndic who was one of his political +supporters:-- + + 'Del Ferice, left to himself, returned to the question of the + mayor's decoration. If he failed to get the man what he wanted, + the fellow would doubtless apply to someone of the opposite + party, would receive the coveted honour, and would take the + whole voting population with him at the next general election, + to the total discomfiture of Del Ferice. + + It was necessary to find some valid reason for proposing him + for the distinction. He could not decide what to do just then, + but he ultimately hit upon a successful plan. He advised his + correspondent to write a pamphlet upon the rapid improvement of + agricultural interests in his district under the existing + Ministry, and he even went so far as to compose and send some + notes on the subject. These notes proved to be so voluminous + and complete, that when the mayor had copied them he could not + find a pretext for adding a single word or correction. They + were printed upon excellent paper with ornamental margins under + the title of _Onward, Parthenope!_ The mayor got his decoration + and Del Ferice was re-elected, but no one has ever inquired + into the truth of the statements contained in the pamphlet.' + +These passages and others similar give one the conviction that Mr +Crawford, if he had 'let himself go,' might have been a satirist of no +slight force. He has preferred to write charming stories, ingenious in +construction, but slight in development, to amuse his generation; yet +there is, I think, abundant evidence that he might have done stronger +things, perhaps may do them still. He has preferred to lead a seagull's +life, skimming the surface of the deep and shunning its storms. But he +might have led the petrel's. Probably all the influences of an agreeable +social existence have tended to make him indolent and unwilling to raise +tempests in it. Few resist the pressure of a social atmosphere. His book +called _With the Immortals_, marred as it is by the incongruity and +impossibility of its setting, shows that he can reflect if he likes, and +can express his reflections. If this work had been cast in such a form +as Mr Mallock's _New Republic_, or Sir Arthur Helps' _Friends in +Council_, or Christopher North's _Noctes Ambrosianae_ it would have been +remarkable for the arguments and dialogues contained in it. But the +ghost-element, the supernatural scenic effects, kill its excellence. Dr +Johnson, Heine, Pascal, Bayard, Francois de Valois and Caesar are too +ill-assorted for us to accept them in each other's company, and the +idea of these dead men being all able to converse in English, and all +doomed to wear through ages the clothes they wore in life, is so comical +that it destroys all interest and illusion which their conversation +otherwise might excite. There is a regrettable inability in Mr Crawford +to perceive the ridiculous. He lacks humour, and the perception of the +incongruous is not alive in him; nor is there either any poetic feeling +in his way of regarding life. He is essentially a citizen of the world +as the world exists in this last quarter of the fast-fading century, and +the Sirens sing not for him, though he dwells upon their shores. + +Let him, therefore, appreciate more thoroughly his own very admirable +powers, and confine himself to painting the men and women of his time +and class, with all that cosmopolitan knowledge of them which he +possesses. I should like to see from him an Italian novel of modern +political life. He has, I make no doubt, had ample opportunities of +studying its machinery and its intrigues. He can dissect with so much +subtlety and correctness the brain and the temper of such a man as Del +Ferice, that there can be no doubt a political novel from him, placed in +Rome, would have alike accuracy and interest and irony. But he must +clear his mind of some of its cobwebs, and he must realise that the +'unbelievers' and revolutionists, who at present horrify him, constitute +the keenest intellectual element in Italy, indeed, the only healthy one, +and contain the only hope there is, if this be but a feeble one, of any +attainment by the nation in the future to any true liberty and +cleanliness in political aims. + +I cannot conclude these few remarks upon his Italian stories without a +word of thanks to him for the pleasant hours he has often given me, and +the gallery of interesting portraits with which he has enriched the +memory of all those who read his novels. + + + + +IV + +LE SECRET DU PRECEPTEUR + + +At the opening ceremony of a new free library at Lambeth in London, not +many weeks ago, Sir John Lubbock is reported to have made the following +remarks regarding fiction:-- + + 'Sir J. Lubbock, in moving a vote of thanks to the Prince of + Wales and the Princess Louise, remarked that the free libraries + of London now contained more than 250,000 books, whilst last + year over 100,000 people borrowed volumes, and on more than + 2,500,000 occasions books were used in the libraries + themselves. It was a fallacy to suppose that public libraries + were only used by novel readers. The proportion of works of + fiction used in the Camberwell libraries was only 65 per cent., + and, of course, in this percentage were included nearly all the + books used by children. It must also be borne in mind that it + took a great deal longer to read a history or a work of science + than it did to run through a story. Under these circumstances + he thought it might fairly be said that the people of London + exercised a very good choice in the books they read. He himself + should be very sorry to undervalue novels. Even nonsense was + extremely refreshing, and he thought the English people had + learnt more of their history from novels and from Shakespeare's + plays than from books of history.' + +In these few sentences there are embraced the views entertained in +general by the English nation with regard to the art of fiction. By the +English nation it is, and probably always will be, regarded as on a par +with chromo-lithography, the use of the kodak, and tight-rope dancing. + +'Even nonsense is refreshing,' says this kind defender of romance. He +might have added that this depends very much on the character of the +nonsense; there is dull nonsense, strained nonsense, self-conscious +nonsense, vulgar nonsense, which is duller than a dull sermon and +heavier than heavy bread; the nonsense which dilates and delights the +heart of the coarse and common fool, is as a stagnant and stinking pond +to the cultured mind; and true nonsense, _i.e._, _jeux d'esprit_, +caricatures, parodies, 'exquisite fooling,' does not come under the head +of novels at all. + +Someone had apparently been objecting to the creation of free libraries +on the score that they were chiefly used by readers of fiction, and in +support of such libraries Sir John Lubbock (not venturing to make so +heterodox an assertion as that the perusal of fiction _per se_ is +valuable and desirable) pleads that only sixty-five per cent. of the +books borrowed were novels, and refers to the rapidity with which a +novel can be 'run through,' as he phrases it, and proceeds, as an +excuse for the perusal of fiction, to state that the English public +chiefly derives its knowledge of history from novels and from +Shakespeare's plays. This declaration, which is enough to make Mr +Freeman turn in his grave, and Mr Froude writhe in his professorial +chair, is, I believe, based on an exact truth, but it never appears to +occur to the speaker that while the history to be learned from fiction +and the drama is not of the purest kind, the fine art of an admirable +book, as of an admirable play, contains many another lesson more +valuable than even those of correct history to the reader who is capable +of assimilating and appreciating it. + +Sir John Lubbock kindly adds that he should be 'very sorry to undervalue +novels.' Sweet and gracious condescension! He would be sorry to +'undervalue' Boccaccio, Cervantes, Guerrazzi, Theophile Gautier, +Merimee, Victor Hugo, Thackeray, Walter Scott, Fielding, Octave +Feuillet, Georges Sand, and Bulwer Lytton! Admirable benevolence! A +treatise on the ways of ants or bees must, of course, rank as an +infinitely higher work than a mere study of the manners, characters, and +passions of mankind. To peruse the former work is education; to read the +latter work is recreation, not absolutely injurious, perhaps, but +scarcely beneficial. Sir John Lubbock on an ant-hill has the sublimity +of the scientist: Alphonse Daudet on human nature is a mere trumpery +trifler. + +It does not appear even to occur to Sir John Lubbock that a fine novel +contains intellectual qualities of the highest kind, and combines in +itself the widest effects and the most delicate minutiae of creative +art. A fine novel should be no more 'run through' than the sculptures of +the Vatican or the pictures of the Uffizi should be run through in +ignorance and haste: common readers, like common tourists, may do so, +but to do so is as gross and unpardonable an insult to the book as it is +to the sculptures and the paintings. + +Reflect but a moment upon all the divers and numerous qualities which +are of necessity existent in the creator of a fine novel before it can +be produced; not only imagination but wit, not only wit but scholarship, +not only scholarship but fancy, not only fancy but discrimination, +observation, knowledge of the passions, sympathy with the most opposite +temperaments, the power to call up character from the void, as the +sculptor creates figures from the clay, and, for amalgamating, +condensing, and vivifying all these talents, the mastery of an exquisite +subtlety, force, and eloquence in language. All these various gifts must +be united in one writer before a fine novel can be produced; and when it +is produced it requires (to be duly estimated) as cultured and as +respectful a study of it as an educated traveller would take to the +Vatican or to the Uffizi. + +I have derived month by month, as it has appeared in the _Revue des Deux +Mondes_, the most delicate and acute pleasure from the perusal of _Le +Secret du Precepteur_, yet it is a pleasure which can only be obtained +from it by a serene, leisurely, artistic enjoyment of its exquisite +literary qualities. It is like a wine of which the bouquet can only be +appreciated by educated palates. There is but little movement in it; +the incident is slight, the situations derive their fascination for the +reader not from their violence or their singularity, but from their +perfect probability, and from their psychological interests; and the +whole tone of it is kept carefully throughout to the smooth bantering +semi-_gouailleur_ tone of the opening recital. Ah, that style!--clear as +water, delicate, full of grace, limpid, harmonious, exquisite! It has +all the polished charm of the man of the world, and all the eloquence +and brilliancy of the artist. I have heard a great ambassador in a +beautiful tapestried chamber play the music of Schumann and Chopin and +Bach with admirable and sympathetic _maestria_; the style of Cherbuliez +reminds me of that _diplomat-virtuose_. We hear incessantly of the +magical style of Paul Bourget; but beside the style of Cherbuliez that +of Bourget is strained, tortuous, affected, artificial. The supreme +excellence of that of Cherbuliez is its consummate ease, like the ease +of a perfect manner in society. To employ all the resources of such a +style is as great a delight to the master of it as the use of the rapier +to the master of fencing, as the handling of the plastic clay to the +sculptor. To relate a narrative in such a style is as warm and full a +pleasure to the possessor of it as it is to the painter to create a +winter's night or summer's day, youth or age, dawn or moonlight, a dance +of nymphs, or a frolic of fauns, out of a few ground earths, a little +oil, and a square of canvas. But to appreciate it the reader of it must +bring with him some qualities on his own behalf. + +There are in it none of those Anglicisms so irritating in the works of +Bourget and others, such as Henry for Henri, Francis for Francois, +'window' for 'fenetre,' 'le cab stoppait' for 'le fiacre s'arretait,' +and so many similar disfigurements of the most polished and elegant +language of the world. The temptation to use a foreign language is great +when its expressions are such as no other language can equally well +render. But who can think that 'cab' is better than 'fiacre,' or +'window' than 'fenetre'? The French of Cherbuliez is the French of an +elegant writer, of a man of the world, and is, beside that of 'les +jeunes,' as a pure and limpid river beside a crooked and choked-up +stream. Without their professorial jargon of psychology or their +strained analysis, which so greatly fatigues the reader and resembles +nothing so much as the efforts of a cyclist to run smoothly on a stony +road, _Le Secret du Precepteur_ is full of delicate and interesting +studies of the human mind and character. Its especial triumph is to +excite and retain the interest of the reader in a character which in the +hands of most writers would have been either insignificant or absurd. + +The teller of the story is the preceptor himself, who, unlovely in face +and form, filling a subordinate and somewhat absurd position, frankly +confessing his own follies and errors, is yet the most lovable and the +most dignified of men; the intellectual grace of the scholar and the +philosopher wholly atoning for and effacing the inferiority of place and +the deformity of features. He tells us of his own extreme ugliness, so +that we are not deluded into thinking it a _belle laideur_, but accept +it as what he calls it, an ugliness which, coupled with poverty, would +scare all women away from him all the years of his life; but, despite +of it, we feel the irresistible charm of his personality, we admire his +tact, we adore his unselfishness, we are as delighted by his +self-restraint as by his courage and his will, and we take leave of him +with the regret which we feel when we part for an indefinite period from +a companion of the finest culture and the warmest sympathies. We regret +also that, like most unselfish persons, he is forced to be content with +the crumbs of happiness instead of its bread. It is strictly true to +life that he should receive no more; it proves the author a true artist +that he has been able to resist the temptation of giving so attractive a +character a happy and unnatural fate, and we who know how the awards of +life are proportioned, know that it is entirely in keeping both with art +and truth that the _bon chien_ should receive no more than the good dog +usually gets in recompense for his fidelity. We know that it could not +be otherwise; yet we regret the necessity for leaving the good dog with +his dry broken crusts. + +I regard the extreme interest and attachment with which this character +inspires us as one of the greatest triumphs of fiction, because its +attraction is stripped of all the adventitious aids to interest which +accompany beauty, rank, or position. We have a plain, poor man, in a +paltry and invidious situation, who conquers all which is against him as +a hero of romance, and arrives at the highest place in the reader's +esteem and affection by mere force of natural dignity, excellence of +heart, and the irresistible superiority of wit and intellect. He is +throughout all his actions, moreover, entirely natural. It is difficult, +in reading his account of them, to believe that he is a fictitious +character; all that he does and says is so real, so human. No one who +reads _Terre Promise_ or _Coeur de Femme_ is ever for an instant +tempted to think that the characters ever did live or ever could have +lived; they are _cartonnages_, lay figures, draped in clothes from the +costume maker's, and moving in obedience to the hand of their +manipulator. But as Maupassant's Pierre et Jean are living, as Loti's +Gaud and Fatougay live, as Rod's Michael Teissier lives, as the +delicious Yette lives, so, and with even more vitality than they, the +tutor Tristan lives in this admirable novel. And all the people around +him live in this country house near Epernay, which is the scene of +nearly all his joys and sufferings. We wish, indeed, that this scene +never changed; so well does its landscape accord with the narrative, +that one wishes the unities could have been preserved to the end. One +regrets the change of venue when the story is carried to Paris. It is +perhaps probable that the end is not what was originally intended by +Cherbuliez. + +It is a story which it is very difficult to end artistically. In point +of fact it is not ended at all; it is only broken off at a certain +crisis, and leaves the reader in the persuasion that Monique will have +many adventures, and her 'bon chien' and her husband many anxieties. The +fault in it, if fault there is, seems to me to be that, if this crisis +had been contemplated from the beginning, the character of Louis +Moufrin, extremely natural as far as it goes, should have been rendered +a little more heroic, so that more interest would have attached to his +transformation under the stings of jealousy. If this were not done the +_coup de pistolet_ should have been given, not by him, but by the +preceptor; indeed, since Tristan tells us early in his story that he is +a very fine pistol-shot, we are always expecting him to prove his skill +on someone, and one could wish that he had exercised it as he desired to +do on the odious coxcomb, Trigueres. The impression is irresistibly made +on the reader's mind that this was the _denouement_ originally +contemplated by the author, and it would have been one stronger and more +satisfactory. But perhaps he renounced it from the feeling that tragedy +as a climax would have jarred on the harmony of a book which is +throughout kept to the good-humoured and jesting tone of cultured +society. + +It would take many pages to do justice to the other persons of the +novel; all are admirably drawn; there is only some exaggeration in that +of Madame Moufrin, _mere_. But the cheery and generous merchant Brogues, +the high-bred, high-born _devote_ who is his wife, the charming priest +Verlet, the shy, silent, tender-hearted and timid Moufrin, the +inimitable portrait of the learned, excellent and insufferable Sidonie, +and lastly, the entirely uncommon conception of the captious and +provoking _petite Japonaise_, who rules her faithful two-legged dog with +a rod of iron; all these are admirably pourtrayed, even if they yield in +importance to the central figure of the preceptor himself. The finest +and most complicated study of them all is that of Madame Brogues, with +her piety, her sensuality, her instinctive patrician revolt against the +monotony of a bourgeois interior, her complex and scornful nature, her +mingled indifference and tenderness for her daughters, the union of +touching maternal sadness and devotion to the superior claims of +_chiffons_, which traits are so admirably depicted in her last meeting +with her younger daughter Monique. + +Cherbuliez has, it is plain to see, been much struck with the large +place which _chiffons_ occupy in the lives of women of the world, and +with the power of consolation which the interests of the toilette +possess for them. The mother and daughter are both extremely touched by +their accidental meeting (the first since the elopement of the former +and the marriage of the latter); but this meeting takes place in the +Exhibition building in Paris, and their emotions do not prevent them +from studying, discussing, and purchasing beautiful fabrics. It is +exactly the union of conflicting feelings which is really to be observed +in life: the mingling of deep sentiment and sincere regret with +interests of a totally different kind which appear trivial but are +really absorbing distractions, perhaps frivolous, but entirely natural, +arising from those cares and pleasures of personal appearance which are +indestructible in the _elegante_ by anything short of death. + +There is also another passage which equally illustrates the ability and +insight of the author in his perception and representation of that dual +motive, that twin yet conflicting sentiment, which so frequently moves +us and so especially characterises the modern mind, which is frequently +complex and artificial, trivial and analytic, and thereby incapable of a +single, or of a simple, emotion. Sidonie, a very proud, chaste, and +implacable maiden, is stung to the core by her discovery of her +mother's flight; the thought of what the neighbours and the servants +will think is torture to her, and a generous and genuine grief for the +blow to her father moves her to the first tears which she has ever shed. +But still the idea, the knowledge that since she means never to marry, +she is now and will be for ever supreme mistress of her father's house +is a source of irresistible pleasure and consolation, and as she goes +upstairs she cannot resist, even on this terrible night, exercising her +first despotic and unshared power. Her mother, who loved softness and +shadow, had always insisted on the electric lamp at the foot of the +staircase being shaded and softened by folds of rose-coloured stuff, +Sidonie had the rose-coloured stuff taken away, and even on this first +evening of her reign the undimmed and intense radiance of the unveiled +light proclaims the change of domestic government, and the absolute +authority of the new ruler. This is one of the many exquisite finenesses +of touch which reveal the delicacy of observation in the writer +throughout this novel, and can be only appreciated by a reader who +brings to it that attention and capacity which Sir John Lubbock and his +audience would think it only worth while to devote to a treatise on the +stalk-eyed crustacea or a monograph upon the household flea. + +M. Jules Lemaitre, in his story of _Les Rois_, says with a sneer that +one of his personages was 'nee pour gouter Auber, Cabanel, et les romans +de la _Revue des Deux Mondes_.' Now in his own volume, entitled _Les +Rois_, published this season, and received with great curiosity in +Paris, M. Jules Lemaitre has merely mixed up the tragedy of Meyerling, +the mystery of Johann Orth, and recent well-known card and debt +scandals concerning living princes; and, having reproduced with these +the individuality of Louise Michel, the life of Kropotkine, and the +career of a well-known financier, he has introduced some essays on +social and political problems into his reproductions of these +personages, dated the whole 1900, and called it a novel. But it is not a +novel, for the imagination does not enter into it. It is a photograph, +or a travesty, whatever the reader may please to call it, of actual +recent modern events, thinly disguised, but unjustly exaggerated, and an +almost impudent imitation in many ways of Daudet's _Rois en Exil_. There +is some brilliant writing in it, and some fine thoughts and expressions, +which is, of course, always the case when the writer is so intelligent a +man as Lemaitre, but a novel it is not; it is a series of scenes, almost +all borrowed or imitated from well-known events; it is a patchwork with +little harmony in its arrangement, and it has the supreme fault of +introducing long descriptions of anterior events, and bringing in new +characters, at the close of the action. There is also one suggestion, if +not more, concerning a royal person, so horrible that it seems unfair +and even cruel to make it of one who cannot resent it or defend herself. +The date of the story may be called 1900, but the events on which it is +built have already been lived through by conspicuous characters. + +It is not becoming, therefore, in so immature a story-teller as M. +Lemaitre proves himself to be, and one who is obliged to go for his +incidents to the scandals of courts, to sneer at the novels of the +_Revue des Deux Mondes_, in which, to go no further back than last +year, such admirable works as _La Vie Privet de Michael Teissier_ and +_Le Secret du Precepteur_ have first seen the light. To be a critic of +it is much easier than to be a creator of fine fiction; to pull to +pieces requires lesser qualities than to construct. + +In the past twenty months there have been some very fine novels in +French literature. _A l'Abime_, by Paul Vassili, is a masterpiece of +originality, and the character of the great egoist, who is its hero, is +matchless in its intuition, its philosophy, and its realism; it is a +narrative of intense interest without its having any other source for +its interest than that which lies in following the evolution of a type +wholly new in literature, and the crystallisation of a naturally +generous nature into a complete philosophic selfishness through +circumstances which lead to its moral isolation amidst the full success +of a triumphant career. _Amants_ and _La Force des Choses_, of Paul +Margueritte, are beautiful novels, remarkable for originality of +conception, correctness of observation, and the talent of interesting +the reader in perfectly natural events. The former in especial is full +of truth, poetic feeling, and novelty of situation and of character; it +is entirely a story of love, but it is love pourtrayed with equal +sympathy and comprehension, and embracing scenes entirely dramatic +whilst entirely natural. If Sir John Lubbock will read these three books +and end with _Le Secret du Precepteur_, he will, I think, feel bound to +admit that such works require for their due appreciation quite as much +attentive respect in their perusal, and quite as many intellectual and +perceptive qualities in their reader, as the analysis, however +interesting, of a wasp's social habits, and the diary, however +delightful, of a caged bluebottle's appetite. The study of earthworms +demands, no doubt, the exercise of much higher faculties than are +necessary for the study of human nature. Still it is difficult to +believe that the earthworm can afford such varied and complicated +interest as man, and nowhere are the portraiture and analysis of man so +ably depicted as in a fine novel.[6] + +[Footnote 6: Since this was written Sir J. Lubbock has been made a peer; +and alas! _notre cher Maitre_, Cherbuliez, has passed over to the great +majority.] + + + + +V + +L'IMPERIEUSE BONTE.[7] + + +[Footnote 7: _L'Imperieuse Bonte_, J. H. Rosny.] + +A French critic has ranked the Freres Rosny amongst the 'authors of +to-morrow,' and in a certain sense they, no doubt, belong to the class +called _les jeunes_, often wrongly, since amongst these _jeunes_ there +are men of middle age. _Les jeunes_ is an expression which is rather +intended to indicate new methods and new views than to describe the +actual age of the writers. In a sense everyone belongs to _les jeunes_ +who is emancipated from conventional tradition; but too much stress, too +much importance, has been attached to this name; true art is always +natural, and this new school is seldom natural; there is more +eccentricity of manner in it than there is genuine originality of +thought; there is too great an effort, too perpetual a strain in its +productions; frequently, as in the case of Maurice Barres, subtlety of +language is employed to conceal absolute poverty of idea; or, as in the +case of Georges Ohnet, to clothe mere wooden puppets with a semblance of +life by skill in depicting incident; or, as in the case of Paul +Bourget, to eke out a slender modicum of incident and idiosyncrasy with +charm of style and an imposing psychology, and disarm criticism by +euphuism. + +In the two Rosnys there are some of the affectations of these writers, +but there is none of their poverty of idea. They are full of ideas; full +of meditation, of observation, of sympathy, of experience; the narrow +limits to which custom confines the novel are far too small for their +abundant powers. In portions of their work there is that more artificial +mode of treatment, that strain after recondite words and tortuous and +archaic methods of expressions, which are the blemish of _les jeunes_; +but in many other portions their true insight, their deep feeling, and +their artistic instincts raise them above this pedantry and enable them +to produce certain passages which have few equals in any literature. +_L'Imperieuse Bonte_ is a very long book, but the reader would be dull +indeed who did not wish it were longer, and who would not feel that the +writers had been forced to renounce many scenes and many reflections and +descriptions with which their minds were teeming. They convey to their +reader their own attachment to their personages; willingly, we feel +sure, they could have filled a hundred volumes with the story of their +fate; the fountain of their sympathies is fed by an eternal spring. What +is most admirable also in them is their remarkable equity; they can see +the injustice done to the rich by the poor, as well as that done to the +poor by the rich; and this quality of impartial sympathy is very rare. +There is abundance in the world of that one-sided sympathy which springs +from a _parti pris_, but that which is many-sided and perfectly just is +very unusual. The Rosnys are capable of it. + +The language indeed is at times tortuous, inflated, archaic, after the +manner of the modern school; but at other times it loses this mannerism +and becomes the clear, limpid, polished French so dear to us. It is +never clearer or simpler than in the passages concerning the Lamarques +and other sufferers which touch the heart. + +The first portion of the book is the finest; the scenes which treat of +this family are the greatest as they are the simplest of the whole. Was +there ever any passage more pathetic and more real than this description +of the last drive in the poor hired vehicle of the dying man and his +children? + + 'Lamarque drew a deep breath under the delicious weight of the + freshened air. Strength and peace brushed his tired, sickly + frame. + + '"Ah! I was sure that this would make me well." + + 'A smile came around his diaphanous nostrils, his lips parted + with childlike pleasure. Albert felt that heaven and earth were + born again in endless life. His soul shone through his blue + eyes; he began to laugh and jest with nature. But his mother + and Georges only saw more plainly in the luminous light the + deadly thinness of Lamarque, and could think of nothing except + how they should be able to make up for the expense of the five + francs for the cab. They had driven out towards a road which + looked mysterious and poetic; limes, acacias, young elms, all + kinds of shades of green, were lit by a descending sun. There + were flocks of slender trunks; a dainty philosophy of verdure; + high above, pale foliage seemed to drink in the light; then + depths where the sun-rays seemed to flow and stream like the + nebulae of comets, where they lay like vapour on which some + fragile insect life floated like medusae on the sea. Already + dead leaves were on the ground like the tanned flesh, or the + brown fur, of forest creatures. Spiders' webs had the colours + of the rainbow; in these birdless trees butterflies lent an + illusion of winged life and figured the flight of nestlings. + Happiness seemed crystallised in the figure of a woman + knitting; in the cry of a distant railway train; in the joy of + two children munching pears with their crusts; in the sport of + a dog who rolled on the grass with a youthful bark and the eyes + of one in love with life. The red frock of a young girl passing + by lent a note of force, of splendour, of intensity, to the + golden afternoon. + + '"It is so nice here!" said Albert. + + 'Georges, watching the silvery gossamer webs of the spiders, + remembered all the visions he had ever had of liberty and space + for kind animals and kind people. + + '"I am young again!" murmured Lamarque. + + 'He was still pale, but his pallor was less corpse-like. Even + the little Francois listened and enjoyed with a mute + delight--mute because shut within himself--and loved his + parents, his brothers, the driver, the trees, and the buzzing + flies. + + '"Stop," said the sick man suddenly. It was before a high gate, + through which was visible a spectacle of Eden, a large garden. + + 'They could see a great pond, over which there could float + whole broods of delicate dreams; there were tall Lombardy + poplars, and the grace of weeping willows. Drooping larches + also hung over the water-lilies; there were the thick shade of + Canadian poplars, and also the timid murmurs, the sensitive + sighs, of aspens. Then there was the charm of woodland life + reflected in the water; of the landscape repeated below, + symmetrical, and sombre in an abyss of oxidised silver. Then + came grassy walks and gentle slopes of turf; further off were + clearings in which beautiful trees were half seen, half hidden + in misty distance like a promise of abundance and of happiness. + The felicity of the place entered into the souls of the poor + family who looked on it; they had at once the anguish of + feeling that nothing like this would ever be theirs, and the + ecstasy of knowing that such beauty did exist. + + 'Standing up in their sorry hired carriage, they gazed in + rapture, saying but few words. + + '"One little corner of this garden would be wealth to us!" + sighed the mother. + + '"That corner--there," said Lamarque. + + '"One could not eat one's garden," said Albert. + + 'Georges, hypnotised, followed with his eyes the flight of an + insect. Poised in the sunlight, the creature was motionless + awhile; then descended, ascended, then, swift as a sped arrow, + vanished in the shadows. One would wish for such an atom, + taking so small a place in creation, the joys, the instincts, + the intelligence of a great animal. At anyrate, it symbolises + all the enjoyments of life, repose on a leaf, movement, ecstasy + of travel through space and towards mystery. + + '"Ah!" thought Georges, in distress, "even to come and see + this, one must have money!" + + 'The hard and heavy thought was like a blow on the tender heart + of the boy. Soon this bitterness entered into the souls of all, + even of the youngest child.' + +What I have translated as 'oxidised silver' is in the original +'blackened nickel,' one of those unfortunate, grotesque, inharmonious +expressions of which there are many in this work. To compare water, the +liquid, the mobile, the translucent, to any metal is a strange and +unfitting comparison. In this passage, which is serious and poetical, +the intrusion of such words as 'blackened nickel' seems offensive, and +mars all the impression of the phrase. But it is in this kind of offence +to the ear and the intelligence that _les jeunes_ unhappily revel; they +see in such offences signs of emancipation, of realism, of originality, +when, in truth, the usage is no sign of anything except of a faulty ear +and a lack of judgment. + +Throughout the work, however, despite these occasional blemishes, every +episode connected with the Lamarques is a masterpiece of pathos and of +simplicity, until the last scene of all, when the three children with +their mother are about to light the charcoal collected by the little +Francois as it dropped from the waggons when they passed along the quay, +and kept in a corner of the miserable room, in readiness for the last +hour of all. + +The characters of the three boys, so dissimilar and yet united by the +vague likeness of race, are drawn with a life-like distinctness: +Georges, pensive and philosophic, proud, gentle, observant; Albert, +sceptic and scornful, with his passionate sense that, since death killed +his father through serving others, there can be no God; and the +youngest, Francois, timid, imaginative, devoted, hiding himself under +the table, to still the pangs of hunger with fancies of a lonely fairy +isle where neither want nor death should come. These three children +offer one of the most perfect pictures of innocent and unmerited +suffering which literature can offer, and the limner of them and of +their sorrows is a fine writer. Jacques Fougeraye, the central figure of +the romance, yields his place to them as its chief interest; and is also +perhaps inferior in interest to his unhappy and generous patron +Dargelle. One would desire to know through what circumstances a man of +the talent and character of Fougeraye comes to be destitute in the +streets of Paris; something also of the parentage, education, influences +which have gone towards making him what he is. In the same way one would +wish to know how Lamarque fell into poverty, how his children became so +cultured and refined, how the whole family is aloof in every way from +their common and odious kindred. _Les jeunes_ do not deign to throw +light on the antecedents of their _dramatis personae_; they are wrong, +for two reasons: one because they thus baulk the natural and legitimate +curiosity of their readers; the second, that there is no true psychology +(the word they worship) without study of the causes which have +contributed to make a man or woman what the observer of them finds them +to be. A writer like Gyp may with airy grace jump, as through a +circus-hoop, into the middle of the lives of her personages without +further explanation, but in a philosophic student of human nature in its +sad seriousness such saltatory pranks are unbecoming. + +One could well spare the hundreds of pages devoted to long and, one must +say, tiresome descriptions of moral and mental states, for a few pages +of lucid and graphic information as to the causes which brought the +characters of the book to the pass in which we find them at their first +appearance. But this is a method of composition too simple, direct, and +natural to commend itself to _les jeunes_. And when on rare occasions +they do furnish personal descriptions, these are so wrapped up in +anatomical and physiological language that we can conjure up from them +little or no real likeness. The characteristic of this new school is an +extreme vagueness, an intentional nebulosity. Their personages are never +introduced to the reader, nor are they given any pedigree; even personal +description of them is of the slightest. They come abruptly on the scene +as though they came up through a trap-door. It is left to the +intelligence of the reader to supply all the details which the author +disdains to furnish. In a book, as in life, one likes to have people +duly presented before making their acquaintance; but this is a prejudice +which the new school scorns to gratify. + +There is a certain tedium in some of the experiences of Fougeraye, such +as in his visits to the hospitals and the asylum of misshappen human +creatures; and the young woman Louise, a medical student, who has +learned to look on death with professional indifference, is so virtuous +and self-satisfied that one is indisposed to share the admiration which +Fougeraye feels for her. He himself is so unpretentious, so +warm-hearted, so single-minded, and so manly that he deserves a more +sympathetic and less vain helpmeet than this female doctor, with her too +prosy platitudes and her chill philosophies. + +Jeanne Dargelle, whom he rejects, is the least truthful, the most +artificial, figure in the book. We are never interested in her. The +breath of life has not been breathed into her; and when she kills +herself we remain indifferent; we know that in her world women do not +kill themselves, and a very proud woman would have found the idea of +dying, because her husband's secretary had no love for her, altogether +unendurable. We feel also that in real life Fougeraye would probably +have shared her passion, and the struggle it would have caused between +his temptation, and his loyalty and gratitude to Dargelle, would have +been of profound interest. The chapter following on her death, in which +Dargelle is alone with her dead body, is very fine, and reflects exactly +that strange mixture of emotions and sensations which sway the survivor +who passes long hours of solitude beside the corpse of one once dear to +him--the trivial incongruities which force themselves in amidst intense +regret, the eccentric fancies which dance like marsh-lights over the +sombre swamp of a deep despair. Who amongst us has not cried, like +Dargelle, 'Pardon, pardon!' from the depths of an aching heart, looking +on the dead features of one to whom, in the eyes of the world, we had no +fault? + +There is in the Rosnys the distressing habit, common to all the more +recent French writers, with few exceptions, of endeavouring to be +pedantic, to be involved, to express an idea barbarously and +bewilderingly instead of harmoniously and clearly; to say _epiderme_ +instead of _peau_, _veridique_ instead of _vrai_, _prunelles_ instead of +_yeux_; to use the jargon of science, the abomination of foreign or +technical idioms; to turn away from the natural, the direct, the usual, +the obvious, and seek an appearance of profundity in what is merely a +confusion of sounds. These affectations, these efforts, spoil many of +the pages, and weary the most attentive reader in many of the chapters; +as does also the incessant tendency to find similes of the most bizarre +and eccentric kind, such as the comparison of dead leaves to the fur of +animals; of a simile 'frail as the downy blow-ball of dandelion-seed'; +of a sky 'of a powdery blue, with the horizon of an aquarium'; of a +heart beating 'like a pear oscillating in a breeze,' and many others as +far-fetched, as incongruous, and as grotesque. The excessive use of +simile, however apt and exact, is always a fault; but similes as absurd +and as strained as are most of those employed by the Rosnys, become a +deformity of style, annoy the mind, and disagreeably abstract and +distract the thoughts. + +A too long, too technical, and too involved description is an inventory +which leaves no concrete whole upon the reader's mind; it is a mere +conglomeration of items. Take, as an instance, this description of +Dargelle's physiognomy; and be it remembered that we never know who or +what Dargelle is, how he came by his vast fortune, or anything, indeed, +about him, except that he is _un pauvre riche_, a capitalist, one +supposes, rich by inheritance. Here is the personal description of +him:-- + + 'A fat face, sad, meditative; his cheeks fell in; they were + flabby. The forehead was a half-circle, with three deep + wrinkles, the temples inflamed. The brow was vast but + undecided, despite heavy eyebrows above violent eyes. The lips + of a wild beast; a short beard which had never grown; flat + hair, forming a little patch behind the brow and advancing + laterally to the ears. The whole a Finnish face, very pale, + with a disposition of the skin to become scaly. The nose long, + broad, very irregular, between the snub and the aquiline, the + end raised, the bridge bowed. Hardly any back to the head; the + neck, like a Celt's, running straight up to the crown. The ears + folded backward, stiff, cartilaginous,' etc., etc., etc. + +This long and disagreeable description merely conveys the impression of +a monster; and it does not in any way agree with the character of +Dargelle, magnanimous, tender, generous, and sensitive; suffering +acutely from a sense of utter loneliness amidst the parasites, who trade +on his kind feelings. A man of this temperament would not have violent +eyes or wild-beast lips; and the elevation of his sentiments would +certainly have given some beauty of expression to his features. + +Of Jacques Fougeraye, the hero of the work, we are given no description +whatever. On the other hand, the portraiture of the frightful occupant +of a monsters' asylum is traced in fullest and most minute detail, with +an ostentation of technical knowledge, in that passion for what is +horrible and abnormal which is characteristic of this school. + +Dargelle, morally, is throughout consistent and lovable, from his first +movement of suspicion and distrust, feeling that his new favourite will +only use him and cheat him, as all the other dispensers of his charities +have done, to the last frank smile with which, though jealous of the +happiness he has himself created, he says: 'Allons donc! Je vois bien +que vous m'aimez aussi.' + +The rich man will only have the crumbs of the bread of the soul which is +called love, but his generosity is content with it. '_Le pauvre riche!_' +say the Rosnys, with rare insight into the small consolation which, to +those in full possession of them, the powers of wealth can give. +Dargelle is unique, and it is almost to be regretted that he should +occupy but a secondary place in the narrative. The description of his +physical malady is perhaps exaggerated; deafness would scarcely cause +such violent moral and mental torture; but the pathos of his last +appearance is unexaggerated, and goes to the heart of the reader. By his +mere word so many people are made happy, and yet, to secure happiness, +even relief, for himself his millions are powerless! This is what many a +rich and generous man must have felt. The irony of fate is more cruel in +a sense to the heirs, than to the disinherited, of fortune. But the pain +which the rich suffer is purely sentimental, and there are very few +indeed who have nobility of nature enough to feel this at all. + +The rich man has always material comfort, freedom from daily and hourly +anxieties; he is at liberty to go wherever he likes, to do whatever he +pleases; he enjoys, if he have the true faculty for enjoyment; he can +make himself obeyed, if the obedience be but eye-service; he can +surround himself with beautiful objects; and he can freely indulge the +luxury of generosity, although it is the one luxury of which the rich +are not enamoured, the rich man in general never gives except to see his +name in print in the newspapers. The compassion of the Rosnys for the +rich is scarcely justified, since their greatest burden is _ennui_, and +this is an artificial kind of suffering due to defective sympathies, as +cold feet are due to sluggish circulation. The statement, put in the +mouth of Dargelle, that suicide is much more general amongst the rich +than the poor, is certainly not based on fact or on statistics. The rich +man, moreover, has one great and most precious exemption: he is free +from petty, carking bodily cares; he never knows the greatest agony +possible, that of seeing those dear to him hungry and homeless; he can +be always warm in cold weather, cool in hot weather; in illness he has +every palliative and assistance; his home is his own if he care for it, +intangible and immutable; the whole world is his if he possess +perception enough to enjoy it; his sufferings may be considerable from +dyspepsia and discontent, and, if he be of a high nature, from +irritation at the ingratitude and insincerity of human nature, but it is +absurd to compare his pains with those of the poor--above all, when the +poor are of fine temper, sensitive nerve and cultured intellect like +the Fougeraye and Lamarque of the Rosnys. It is well to remind society +that there are sorrows of the soul from which the rich may suffer more +acutely than the poor; but it is to exceed this truth to represent the +rich as often suffering from this cause. The rich man is usually a +complete egotist, whose philanthropy has a political purpose or a social +ambition as its mainspring. A Dargelle may exist, does exist; but he is +one in ten millions. He is legitimate in his place as a character in +romance, but as a character in real life he is met with but very rarely. + +There are many social questions and many philosophic theories discussed +in _L'Imperieuse Bonte_. An unkind critic might say that it is rather a +social and philosophic essay than a romance. But in much it conforms to +and fulfils the highest demands of fiction, and the naturalness and +lovableness of the chief personages lend to it throughout the interest +of romance. The mission of Fougeraye in the expenditure of Dargelle's +money introduces, perforce, many phases of social misery. It was +probably to do this that the book was written; but the harmony and +interest of the action of the novel, as a novel, are not sacrificed to +this intention. In these chapters all affectation, all artifice drop +from the style, and the writers become masters of strong, simple and +infinitely touching prose. It is to be regretted that the influence of +their time should ever mislead them into tortuous and strained +exaggerations and archaisms when it is possible for them to write thus +simply and eloquently:-- + + 'The few precious things--the brooch and earrings of Madame + Lamarque, even her wedding-ring, alas! then the china service, + saved with such effort from the fire, with a little rosewood + secretaire, and two Sevres vases won at a lottery for charity, + the gift to it of the Empress Eugenie--all disappeared, all + were devoured by the monster Misery. Georges suffered as much + as his parents; his nature was inclined towards the adoration + of relics, of frail things, of the semi-vitality of objects. + + * * * * * + + 'It rained a little; in the shadow of the fortifications the + lamps trembled under gusts of wind; the reflections touched the + wet grass, which seemed for the moment as fresh as the turf of + meadows. Everywhere solitude--solitude filled with a sense of + near and hidden human life in the closed houses from which came + the subdued light of unseen chambers in vague suggestion of + mysterious joys. But there was no living creature out of doors + except in the openings of the ramparts; on the grass, a dog + looking as furtive as a hunting wolf. The boy's eyes gazed at + the sky, at the grass, at the long vista of burning lamps, at + the grey stony road under his feet. A sense of beauty came into + his soul, but a beauty sombre as the psalms of All Saints' Day. + + 'Beside him his mother carried the mattress which had been + sold; he bore one side of it on his shoulder. + + 'They walk thus, beaten, conquered, the child full of + suffocating revolt, the mother humble and resigned, like the + meek beasts of the stall, with occasional flickers of wrath + soon extinguished. They go thus, saying to each other a few + words, muffled and heavyhearted, which are the mere dull + echoes of their souls. "We must turn down that street. How will + it end?--why does not the family help?" At a corner they stop, + and suddenly Georges is overwhelmed with pity for his mother, + as he sees her profile wet with rain in the light of the street + lamp. + + 'He gazes at her. He remembers, in his earliest childhood, a + time when there had been two servants in their house; when his + mother had been a gentlewoman, going out for a walk with his + father, while the bonne pushed the little carriage of the baby + Francois. And here she was, his own mother, with a mattress for + sale on her shoulder, on foot in the mud at this time of night. + "Mamma! mamma! dear little mamma!" he cried, sobbing, without a + single selfish thought, caring only for her, so profoundly, so + intensely!' + +Again, there is the same intense sympathy in the author with the +suffering of the spirit when the two Sevres vases are taken to their new +home, sold for twenty francs, the poor, pretty, familiar things which +look so elegant, so slender, so aristocratic amongst the coarse, vulgar +ornaments of their new owners, that Georges is proud of their +superiority amidst the anguish with which he thinks of them, lost for +ever: + + 'Frail penates, saturated with the soul of home. Ah! how many + birthday mornings, how many twilights of study, how many long + rainy days and gentle suns of springtime, how many dreams of + future voyages in far lands, how many nights fearful with storm + or mute with falling snow, had these objects seen! They had + been always there, fixing themselves inalienably on the retina + in their unalterable attitude of delicacy and art: and now they + were lost for ever, given over to an alien hand for a coin of + gold which would last two days!' + +Nothing can be more touching, more sincere, more eloquent than this +episode. + +Take again the magnificent opening chapter of the fire at which Lamarque +contracts the illness which ultimately kills him. It is too long to +quote here, but its description is of a force incomparable, and of a +truth as great. No one of his contemporaries could have written this +chapter; its sobriety and veracity, united to its splendour of diction +and its terror of suggestion, make it a _magnum opus_. + +It has only one defect; it gives the reader the impression that it cost +great effort to the author. It does not convey that sense of the +author's spontaneous fertility and joy in creation which Pierre Loti, +Francois Coppee, Anatole France, feel and give. _L'Imperieuse Bonte_ is +a great work, but its greatness must have cost painful thought and +unremitting labour. + +One feels that there is nothing of improvisation, of careless and happy +inspiration, about it. It is the matured fruit of profound observation, +and of complicated doubt, of an unselfish sorrow, and of a noble +altruism. It is a work which must impress and elevate all readers who +are capable of comprehending its teaching. But there is no laughter in +it, nor is there even a smile, save that sad divine smile which +accompanies the tears of pity. + + + + +VI + +WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT + + +There are few men of our time more interesting than the man who bears +this name. Fresh with English air, and dark with desert suns, +passionately liberal in thought and nobly independent in opinion, +spending his winters on the shores of the Nile, on the edge of the +desert, and his summers between the vale of Shoreham, and the +alder-shaded water of the humble Mole, he touches, and has always +touched, life at its most different facets. Not without knowledge has he +written of the green Sussex weald, and of the woodcocks and the +thrushes, the oak trees and the yew trees, of 'Evelyn's land'; not +without love as though he were also a son of the soil has he written of +that other far-off country where-- + + 'We may make terms with Nature, and awhile + Put as it were our souls to grass, and run + Barefooted and bareheaded in the smile + Of that long summer which still girds the Nile.' + +His private life, likewise, is equally of interest to the most +indifferent, since he is the husband of Byron's granddaughter, the +father-in-law of Neville Lytton, the companion in youth of Owen +Meredith, the friend of the Arab, the champion of the dumb, and the +standard-bearer of all lost causes. In few personalities is there united +so much which is uncommon, and idiosyncrasies which are so varied. He +has been so fortunate, often-times, in his friends and his fortunes, +that it is perhaps only to be human that he should, in his editor who is +his friend, fail to be so fortunate as one could wish. Mr Henley, who +selected his poems, has excluded many; one is disposed to resent and to +rebel; Mr Henley is apt at all times to arouse that sensation in the +reader of his somewhat too condescending criticisms. + +Many of the verses excluded were political; now it is precisely in +politics that Mr Blunt is most delightful to those amongst us who abhor +actual governments. + +I wish that these poems had come before the public without this species +of apology with which Mr Henley heads them. They do not need so +uncertain a prefatory note. They are certainly not likely to be popular. +They will not be recited over a little tambourine, and used to collect +monies for woollen socks and chocolate. They will be little appreciated +by the lovers of ballads of blood and fury, and odes of war which scream +like a steam-hooter. They are made to be read in quiet places where +daffodils blossom, and the black-cap sings; where lake waters lie calm +in mountain shadows, or where, through the stillness of a studio or +study, a summer breeze blows dropped rose-leaves across the threshold. + +Mr Henley raises one standard of great verse: Milton's: and below that +nothing to him is great. I know not where he places Shelley, but does +Milton ever touch the heart except perhaps in the Lycidas? Who can care +for the exiles of Eden? + +I do not think that it was necessary for Mr Henley to say that Mr Blunt +is not John Milton. It would not occur to anyone that he was. But then, +neither to my thinking is he Byron or Burns, whom Mr Henley thinks that +he is, nor is he either Owen Meredith, to whom Mr Henley likewise +compares him. He is, to my thinking, Wilfrid Scawen Blunt; alone in his +verse as he is also alone (or almost alone) in his opinions and his +politics. I dislike comparisons in criticisms. It is a meagre way to +define what is, this habit of declaring what it is not; and I love not +either the diminution of the living for the exaltation of the dead, or +the praise of the living for the depreciation of the dead. Nor is it to +me either wit or wisdom to say that Byron 'followed.' Who did he follow? +Who was his precursor? Who showed him his matchless double rhymes? Who +before him struck the splendid chords of his Juan? Who crowded into a +few years of life such accomplishment, such eloquence such romance of +existence? Who resembled Byron before Byron lived? + +Poets who are not great, and do not aspire to be so, may touch the +chords of memory, may unseal the fountains of tears, may make dead loves +arise and smile, and the springs of dead years return, and do this with +a line, a verse, a suggestion. This is what Owen Meredith did in his +song; so does his friend and comrade in his. There is a strongly virile +quality in his verse: it is not epicene, nor ever effeminate; the +thoughts are always the thoughts of a man who has felt the hoof of the +desert horse cast up the sand of the desert, and seen the circle of the +waiting vultures poised in the blue air; and heard 'God's thunder upon +Horeb'; who has read his Augustine and Chrysostom on the shores of the +Dead Sea, and his Horace and his Herrick lying on the short +sheep-cropped grass of Sussex; who knows many a bank whereon the wild +thyme grows in lowly Kentish lanes, and has walked with the shades of +Dante and of Byron in the marble streets of Ravenna, and under the dying +pines of its forest; who has loved and laughed in the artificial +passions and mocking mirth of Paris, and has dwelt in the solitudes +where the hair tents of the sons of Shem are dark against the east. + +Mr Henley, in his somewhat autocratic manner, says that a man lives for +posterity in proportion as he figures the gestures and sets forth the +emotions of his own time. We can none of us judge what posterity may do +or say. I fear it will be too engrossed with itself to take much heed of +anything which went before it. Or, possibly, there will be no posterity +at all, but only a shattered earth; scattered into space by some exploit +of that boastful Icarus called Science. But taking Mr Henley's dictum as +it stands, is it true, seeing (as its context shows) that he means an +Englishman must be judged by what he writes of England? If this were +true, where would go the Juan and the Parisina, the Anactoria and the +Atalanta in Calydon, the Cenci and the Adonais, the Lucille and the +Clytemnestra? Scott would be greater than Shelley, and Cowper than +Coleridge. The theory will not hold water. Which is the greater play of +Shakespeare--'King John' or 'The Tempest'? 'Henry the Fifth' or 'Romeo +and Juliet'? 'Richard the Third' or 'Hamlet'? What are esteemed the +greatest epics of the human race--Milton's and Dante's--are located in +no known province of our narrow sphere, but, in worlds, heavenly and +infernal, whither no traveller has gone, save in the spirit. 'Country' +is but a restricted boundary for whoever has the vision which sees +beyond the ordinary range of men. To the true poet his native land lies +wherever what is beautiful can be beloved, or that which is sorrowful +needs solace. + +The only thing that personally I regret in these verses is their +author's tendency to be too careless in his rhymes. Many of them grate +upon one's ear, and such as _sun_ and _stone_ vex one's sense of melody, +indeed, are not rhymes: whilst some words used, such as for instance +_Revenue_, accord ill with verse at all. He deems himself quit of +obligation to observe these delicacies of metrical beauty, because he +says peevishly that he is no poet. But he is a poet; and is so strongly +one in feeling that there is no excuse for him not to be more observant +of style. + +For style is the reed-pipe through which the singer's breath blows +music, and he should take heed that his syrinx be well chosen, and well +cut, so that each air played on it be clear as the throstle's note. + +But rough though many of his compositions are--rough and unstudied--yet, +when read in fitting atmosphere, they will be beloved, and in the mind +of the reader they will linger like the lilt of a moorland song heard on +an autumn eve. There is the _vox humana_ in their melody. They come +from the heart of a man who has suffered. They are unequal, extremely +unequal; the poet has gone through the woods and gathered together grass +and orchis, and gorse, and the sceptered meadow sweet and the bearded +barley, all together, just as they happened to come in his path; common +things sometimes, or such as seem so to those who do not see the sun +shine through and the dew tremble on them. + +They are not put together with great care. I should not think that they +were turned, and returned, and pondered over, and doubted about. They +are too spontaneous, or seem so, to be the subject of great meditation. +They are the natural children of a forest-lover. As you read them you +receive the irresistible impression that they were written involuntarily +as a full heart sighs, as a glad heart sings, but the sigh is more +frequent than the song. + +He has a great love of rural things. He says:-- + + 'You cannot know, + In your bald cities where no cowslips blow, + How dear life is to us. The tramp of feet + Brushes all other footsteps from the street + And you see nothing of the graves you tread. + With us they are still present, the poor dead. + Being so near the places where they sleep + Who sowed these fields, we in their absence reap.' + +Again:-- + + 'This ridge + Is only thirty miles from London Bridge, + And when the wind blows north, the London smoke + Comes down upon us, and the grey crows croak, + For the great city seems to reach about + With its dark arms, and grip them by the throat. + Time may yet prove them right. The wilderness + May be disforested, and Nature's face + Stamped out of beauty by the heel of man + Who has no room for beauty in his plan.' + +Again:-- + + 'The dove did lend me wings. I fled away + From the loud world which long had troubled me. + Oh, lightly did I flee when hoyden May + Threw her wild[8] mantle on the hawthorn tree. + I left the dusty highroad, and my way + Was through deep meadows, shut with copses fair, + A choir of thrushes poured its roundelay + From every hedge and every thicket there; + Mild, moon-faced kine looked on, where in the grass + All heaped I lay, from noon till eve. + And hares unwitting close to me did pass + And still the birds sang....' + +[Footnote 8: Surely _wild_ is a misprint for _white_? A mantle cannot be +wild, nor is it an epithet to apply to a hawthorn tree.] + +A certain similarity there is in his verse to Owen Meredith's, but this +is due to the fact that they were friends and companions always, in +youth and manhood, and that Wilfrid Blunt had an intense and adoring +sentiment for his friend which made him regard the other with a feeling +which was almost religious in its strength and sincerity. + +The following sonnet might have come out of 'The Wanderer,' and I +imagine the house called here Palazzo Pagani is the villa in +Bellosguardo which in 'The Wanderer' shelters the lovers of the 'Eve +and May.' + + 'This is the house where twenty years ago + They spent a spring and summer. This shut gate + Would lead you to the terrace, and below + To a rose-garden long since desolate. + Here they once lived. How often I have sat + Till it was dusk among the olive trees, + Waiting to hear their coming horse hoofs graze + Upon the gravel, till the freshening breeze + Bore down a sound of voices. Even yet + A broken echo of their laughter rings + Through the deserted terraces. And see, + While I am speaking, from the parapet + There is a hand put forth, and someone flings + Her very window open overhead. + How sweet it is, the scent of rosemary, + These are the last tears I shall ever shed.' + +Here the influence of Owen Meredith is very strong, but it is the +influence due to sympathy, not to imitation. + +But where he is entirely unlike Owen Meredith is in his passion of pity, +which is his dominant instinct, and which in the other is rarely +perceptible. Owen Meredith was entirely personal; Wilfrid Blunt is +strongly impersonal. The sorrows of man, and of one man in especial, +constituted the be all, and end all, of the former; the woes of all +creation lie heavy on the soul of the latter. The bird with a broken +wing is to Wilfrid Blunt as pitiful a tragedy as the human lover with +his ruined joys was to the author of 'The Wanderer'; the chained eagle +dying in an iron cage is to him as cruel a captive as his own soul +pining to be free from the limits of sense and the blindness of +mortality. He reaches a high level in altruism, which is in him of a +very pure kind. + +Such pity thrills through these lines on the stricken hart:-- + + 'The stricken hart had fled the brake, + His courage spent for life's dear sake, + He came to die beside the lake. + + 'The golden trout leaped up to view, + The moorfowl clapped his wings and crew, + The swallow brushed him as she flew. + + 'He looked upon the glorious sun, + His blood dropped slowly on the stone, + He loved the life so nearly won, + + 'And then he died. The ravens found + A carcase couched upon the ground, + They said their god had dealt the wound. + + 'The Eternal Father calmly shook + One page untitled from life's book-- + Few words. None ever cared to look. + + 'Yet woe for life thus idly riven, + He blindly loved what God had given, + And love, some say, has conquered Heaven.' + +What Wilfrid Blunt perceives and feels more keenly than greater English +poets, more keenly indeed than any English poet except Shelley and +Matthew Arnold, are the pathos, the value, the infinite sadness, of +these free forest, or desert, lives struck down in the fulness of their +strength and beauty by the brutal pursuit of that ravenous and +insatiable brute which is Man. It is this emotion which has inspired in +him the strange poem named 'Satan Absolved.' + +'Satan Absolved' was not written when Mr Henley edited the books of +earlier poems, and I imagine that it has scared Mr Henley and displeased +him. I do not know this, I have not asked, but I imagine that 'Satan +Absolved' must make Mr Henley extremely uncomfortable. + +Briefly, the motive of 'Satan Absolved' is the accusation brought by +Satan against Man; and against God, as the Creator and Authoriser of +Man. This will sound in many ears a profanity; but it is not so, and +Satan has sad reason in his arguments. It was a fine and lofty courage +which made the author produce it at a moment when the English people are +drunk and delirious with the lust of carnage and of conquest, and the +great thinker Herbert Spencer has accepted its dedication, whilst the +great painter Watts has given it its frontispiece. + +It is a poem which will alienate many, affright many, and to many no +doubt will appear blasphemous; but it is absolutely true in its hardy +and original conception of the sins of mankind against the other races +of the earth, and of the hypocrisy, brutality, and avarice of man, +clothed and cultured, against man primitive and helpless. It is a _cri +de coeur_, breaking almost involuntarily from a heart swollen with +indignation, and scorn, and pain, before the emptiness of creeds, the +impudence of prayer and praise, the vileness of aggression and of +war-lust. + + 'Hast Thou not heard their chanting? Nay, Thou dost not hear, + Or Thou hadst loosed Thy hand, like lightning in the clear, + To smite their ribald lips with palsy!' + +Like all poems in which Satan is the hero, the Fallen Angel dwarfs +Deity. The rebel, not the lord, is in the right. This is inevitable. + +Especially it is inevitable here, where Satan is the holder of the +scales of justice; the advocate of all those countless races upon earth, +who in their birth, and in their death, in their up-rising, and their +down-lying, in every day which dawns, and night which falls, curse Man, +their merciless master. + + 'The Earth is a lost force, Man's lazar house of woe + Undone by his lewd will. We may no longer strive, + The evil hath prevailed. There is no soul alive + That shall escape his greed. We spend our days in tears + Mourning the world's lost beauty in the night of years. + All pity is departed. Each once happy thing + That on Thy fair Earth moves how fleet of foot or wing, + How glorious in its strength, how wondrous in design, + How royal in its raiment tinctured opaline, + How rich in joyous life, the inheritor of forms, + All noble, all of worth which had survived the storms, + The chances of decay in the World's living plan, + From the remote fair past when still ignoble Man + On his four foot soles went, and howled thro' the lone hills + In moody bestial wrath, unclassed amongst Earth's ills. + Each one of them is doomed. From the deep Central Seas + To the white Poles, Man ruleth, pitiless Lord of these, + And daily he destroyeth. The great whales he driveth + Beneath the northern ice, and quarter none he giveth, + Who perish there of wounds in their huge agony. + He presseth the white bear on the white frozen sea + And slaughtereth for his pastime. The wise amorous seal + He flayeth big with young, the walrus cubs that kneel + But cannot turn his rage, alive he mangleth them, + Leaveth in breathing heaps, outrooted branch and stem. + In every land he slayeth. He hath new engines made + Which no life may withstand, nor in the forest shade, + Nor in the sunlit plain, which wound all from afar, + The timorous with the valiant, waging his false war, + Coward, himself unseen. In pity, Lord, look down + On the blank widowed plains which he hath made his own + By right of solitude. Where, Lord God, are they now, + Thy glorious bison herds, Thy ariels white as snow. + Thy antelopes in troops, the zebras of Thy plain? + Behold their whitened bones on the dull track of men. + Thy elephants, Lord, where? For ages Thou did'st build + Their frames' capacity, the hide which was their shield + No thorn might pierce, no sting, no violent tooth assail, + The tusks which were their levers, the lithe trunk their flail. + Thou strengthenedst their deep brain. Thou madest them wise to know, + And wiser to ignore, advised, deliberate, slow, + Conscious of power supreme in right. The manifest token + Of Thy high will on earth, Thy natural peace unbroken, + Unbreakable by fear. For ages did they move + Thus, kings of Thy deep forest swayed by only love. + Where are they now, Lord God? A fugitive spent few + Used as Man's living targets by the ignoble crew + Who boast their coward skill to plant the balls that fly, + Thy work of all time spoiled, their only use to die + That these sad clowns may laugh. Nay, Lord, we weep for Thee, + And spend ourselves in tears for Thy marred majesty. + Behold, Lord, what we bring,--this last proof in our hands, + Their latest fiendliest spoil from Thy fair tropic-lands, + The birds of all the Earth, unwinged to deck the heads + Of their unseemly women: plumage of such reds + As not the sunset teach, such purples as no throne, + Not even in heaven showeth, hardly, Lord, Thine own; + Such azures as the sea's, such greens as are in spring + The oak trees' tenderest buds of watched-for blossoming, + Such opalescent pearls as only in Thy skies + The lunar bow revealeth to night's sleep-tired eyes. + Behold them, Lord of Beauty, Lord of Reverence, + Lord of Compassion, Thou who metest means to ends, + Nor madest Thy world fair for less than Thine own fame, + Behold Thy birds of joy, lost, tortured, put to shame, + For these vile strumpets' whim. Arise, or cease to be + Judge of the quick and dead! These dead wings cry to Thee, + Arise, Lord, and avenge!' + +The use of the six-foot Alexandrine couplet may seem to many readers as +a thing unknown and unwelcome in English verse. Others may say that here +and there the language has not been sufficiently carefully weighed, that +there is repetition of thought in some places, and of words in others, +as for instance the word 'plain' recurs three times in seven lines. But +when hypercriticism has said and done its worst, the work remains a just +and generous indictment; heroic in its courage and vigorous in its +eloquence, pleading the cause of those who cannot plead their own. The +human race will be ill-pleased by the denunciation; for their vanity +must be wounded by one who incessantly reminds it of its kinship to 'the +lewd, bare-buttocked ape,' and who calls it full rightly, 'sad creature +without shame,' and calls it also:-- + + 'A presence saturnine, + In stealth among the rest, equipped as none of these + With Thy mind's attributes, low crouched beneath the trees, + Betraying all and each. + + * * * * * + + 'The red Japhetic stock of the bare plains, which rolled + A base-born horde on Rome erewhile in lust of gold, + Tide following tide, the Goth, Gaul, Vandal, Lombard, Hun, + Spewed forth from the white North, to new dominion + In the fair Southern lands, with famine at their heel + And rapine in their van, armed to the lips with steel. + + * * * * * + + 'The master-wolf of all men call the Sassenach, + The Anglo-Norman dog who goeth by land and sea, + As his forefathers went in chartered piracy, + Death, fire, in his right hand.' + +Again, who, in the vain-glorious Britain of our time, will pardon +this?-- + + 'The head knaves of the horde, + Those who inspire the rest and give the master word, + The leaders of their thought, their lords political, + Sages, kings, poets, priests, in their hearts one and all, + For all their faith avowed and their lip service done + In face of Thy high fires each day beneath the sun, + Ay, and their prelates too, their men of godliest worth, + Believe no word of Thee as master of their Earth, + Controllers of their acts, no word of Thy high right + To bend men to obedience, and at need to smite, + No word of Thy true law, the enforcement of Thy peace, + Thy all-deciding arm in the world's policies, + They ignore Thee on the earth. They grant Thee, as their "God," + The kingdom of the heavens, seeing it a realm untrod, + Untreadable, by man, a space, a _res nullius_, + Or No Man's Land which they, as loyal men and pious, + Leave and assign to Thee to deal with as Thou wilt, + To hold as Thy strong throne or loose as water spilt, + For sun and wind to gather in the wastes of air. + Whether of a Truth thou _art_, they know not, Lord, nor care; + Only they name Thee "God," and pay Thee their prayers vain, + As dormant over-lord and pensioned suzerain, + The mediatised blind monarch of a world, outgrown + Of its faith's swaddling clothes, which wills to walk alone.' + +These lines must be bitter in the teeth of the men of his generation, of +the men who say openly that religion is for the seventh day, not for the +week of work and war; who, churchgoers and chapelgoers alike, uphold the +campaign of blood and plunder; who prate of Helots, and treat the Kaffir +worse than any Helot that ever lived; who seek warrant in their +Scriptures for endless slaughter, and for endless slavery, of all in any +manner weaker than themselves; and who, with their jargon of +civilisation, and their doggerel of cant, bear fire and pestilence over +all the globe. + +Doubtless to man, convinced in deformity of his own beauty, in disease +of his own health, in crime of his own virtue, in blood-lust of his own +religious aims, the portrait of Man as given here in Satan's scathing +words will be very offensive. All honour be to the man who has dared to +draw it! + +It might be perhaps easy to show the fallacy of this upbraiding, and +prove the facts of the maintenance of life by the destruction of life +which has always prevailed on earth; the facts that the python and the +cobra, if not the tiger, and the eagle, slays, as man slays, for sport +in addition to food; that in the depths of the unfathomed seas, and in +the azure space of highest air, and in the green twilight of virgin +forests, the god of cruelty reigns and prevails; that the elephant and +the rhinoceros wrestled and the keen cheetah sprang on the meek +cameleopard, and the jaws of the crocodile opened for the playful +gazelle before ever the steel and the lead of the human brute touched +and slew them. But when this has been said and admitted, it does not +invalidate the truth of Satan's charge; that man has laid waste the +earth and slaughtered for greed, for savage pleasure, for mere +wantonness, as never any other creature before him or beside him on this +planet, has done or has ever wished to do. + +To blast the harmless, gentle, colossal whale with the coward's tool of +dynamite; to strip the fur coat off the living seal and drive her tender +body over sharp rocks it was never made to cross; to castrate the lion +and tear his flesh with red-hot irons that he may make the sport of +fools; to rear the timid pheasant by millions, hand fed and +unsuspecting, only that they may fall under the breechloaders of princes +and lords and gentlemen; to penetrate into virgin forests and plunge in +untroubled streams to seize the heron on her nest, and poison the +lyre-bird in his haunts, and snatch his golden plumes from the bird of +paradise, and his rosy wings from the flamingo, that commerce may +flourish and women be adorned--all these things, and more like them, +crimes of every clime and every hour, are human sins, and human sins +alone; and justify in its strongest accusations the charge of Satan +against Man as the most brutal murderer on earth; the same creature of +destruction still, in the comedy which he calls civilisation, as when in +his cave and his lake dwellings he first sharpened a stone, and then +stole out to kill. + +And it is herein there lie alike the courage and the value of the 'Satan +Absolved.' It is by no means a perfect poem; it would have been well if +it had received much more meditation and amplification, if passages +which approach the grotesque like the 'old world furniture,' the 'linen +long in press' of Heaven in the first page had been altered; and the +destiny and mission of Satan at the close are enwrapped in a mystery +which is to me at least incomprehensible; but when the utmost has been +said against it which can be urged, the poem remains a noble effort to +proclaim a supreme truth, which, as all great truths have done, dawns +slowly on the human mind--the solidarity of life. + +The preface alone to the book should make everyone obtain and cherish +it. This time the writer has penned his own presentation, and is not +ushered in by Mr Henley. It is enough to say that the introduction, like +the work, is worthy of the Englishman who, amidst a deafening roar of +national vanity and triumph, dared to denounce the injustice and the +inhumanity of Omdurman. + +It must not be forgotten that this poet is also a writer of prose; prose +clear, terse and strong. His letters to the leading journal of London, +and his works on the present state of India and the future state of +Islam are virile in thought and fearless in expression. A Sussex +landowner, and the possessor of a fortune sufficient to give him entire +independence, he has been the nominee of no party and the slave of no +prejudice. His temper is essentially _frondeur_; he has, what so few +possess, absolute independence of judgment; he refuses to see through +other men's spectacles, whether of smoked or of rose-coloured glass. +Again and again has he had the courage to oppose the policy of ministers +who were his personal friends. He opposed Mr Gladstone's and Lord +Granville's policy in Egypt, considering it alike unjust and unwise; and +he appealed alike to Parliament and to the nation against it, uselessly +but not the less manfully. The eloquence which he used so nobly at that +time must remain in the memories of many. He equally opposed the recent +campaign in the Soudan of Lord Salisbury's Cabinet, and the brutal +carnage commanded and excused by Kitchener. In India he was, at an +interval of a few years, the guest of two Viceroys, yet he never for a +moment consented to accept the views of either, although for both he had +strong personal friendship and regard. He thought (and thinks) the whole +system of English administration in India a cruel, costly and most +perilous mistake. + + 'I believe,' he says, 'the natives capable of governing + themselves much better than we can do, and at about a tenth + part of the expense. + + 'I have found a vast economic disturbance, caused partly by the + selfish commercial policy of the English Government, partly by + the no less selfish expenditure of the English official class. + I have found the Indian peasantry poor, in some districts, to + starvation; deeply in debt, and without the means of improving + their position; the wealth accumulated in a few great cities + and in a few rich hands, the public revenues spent to a large + extent abroad, and by an absentee Government. I have been + unable to convince myself that India is not a poorer country, + now, than it was a hundred years ago, when we first began to + manage its finances. I believe, in common with all native + economists, that its modern system of finance is unsound, that + far too large a revenue is raised from the land, and that this + is only maintained at its present high figure by drawing on + what may be called the capital of the country, namely, the + material welfare of the agricultural class; probably, too, the + productive power of the soil. I find a large public debt and + foresee further financial difficulties. + + 'Again, I find the ancient organisation of society broken up, + the interdependence of class upon class disturbed, the simple + customary law of the East replaced by a complicated + jurisprudence imported from the West, increased powers given to + the recovery of debt, and consequently increased facilities of + litigation and usury. Also, great centralisation of power in + the hands of officers daily more and more automatons and less + and less interested in the special districts they administer. + In a word, new machinery replacing, on many points + disadvantageously, the old. I do not say that all these things + are unprofitable, but they are not natural to the country and + are costly and out of all proportion to the good. India has + appeared to me in the light of a large estate which has been + experimented on by a series of Scotch bailiffs who have all + gone away rich.' + +In another place he says with equal frankness:-- + + 'India seems to me just as ill-governed as the rest of Asia. + There is just the same heavy taxation, government by foreign + officials, and waste of money that one sees in Turkey. The + result is the same; and I don't see much difference between + making the starving Hindoo pay for a cathedral at Calcutta and + taxing Bulgarians for a palace on the Bosphorus. Want cuts up + all these great empires in their centralised governments.' + + 'The "natives" as they call them,' he writes farther on, 'are a + race of slaves, frightened, unhappy, and terribly thin. I own + to being shocked at the Egyptian bondage in which they are + held, and my faith in British institutions has received a + severe blow.... I never could see the moral obligations + Governments acknowledge of taxing people for debts which the + Governments, and not the people, have incurred. All public + debts, even in a self-governing country, are more or less + dishonest, but in a despotism like India they are a swindle.' + 'It is my distinct impression,' he states in another portion of + his too brief work, 'from all that I have seen and heard, that + the ill-feeling now existing in India between the English there + and the indigenous races is one which, if it be not allayed by + a more generous treatment, will in a few years make the + continued connection between England and India altogether + impossible, and that a final rupture of friendly relations will + ensue between the two countries, which will be an incalculable + misfortune for both, and may possibly be marked by scenes of + violence such as nothing in the past history of either will + have equalled. The people are beginning to awake and to resent + the stupidity of those who, representing England in India, + wantonly affront them, and unless the English public at home, + with whom as yet the Indian races have no quarrel, becomes + awake, too, to the danger of its own indifference, the + irreparable result of a general race hatred will follow. Only + it should be remembered that India is a vast continent peopled + by races ten times more numerous than ourselves, and then the + convulsion, when it comes, will be on a scale altogether out of + proportion to our experience, and so the more alarming. Let + India once be united in a common sentiment of hatred for all + that is English and our rule there will _ipso facto_ cease. Let + it once finally despair of English justice, and English force + will be powerless to hold it in subjection. The huge mammal, + India's symbol, is a docile beast and may be ridden by a child. + He is sensible, docile and easily attached. But ill-treatment + he will not bear forever, and when he is angered in earnest his + vast bulk alone makes him dangerous, and puts it beyond the + strength of the strongest to guide him.' + +All who are interested in the future of England and India should read +this volume, which, although written as far back as Lord Ripon's +viceroyalty, applies in all its lessons and all its warnings with ten +times greater force to the India of to-day, which, with the three-fold +curse upon it of famine, of drought, and of plague, finds the British +Government too engrossed in its aggressive and criminal war in South +Africa to come to the relief of its Indian Empire, where tens of +thousands of human lives, and millions of animals, are wasting in death +and in despair. + + + + +VII + +JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN + + +Several years ago, at the moment when Mr Chamberlain, having abandoned +the Liberal Party, was adored by the party which calls itself +Conservative, I looked at him one evening after a dinner in a well-known +house in Belgrave Square. He was standing, surrounded by the loveliest +and most fashionable women of society, who were offering him a homage +which must have been delightful to him. It was an interesting, if rather +comical, spectacle, and I imagine that Chamberlain, though he gave no +sign of doing so, enjoyed it extremely, and laughed at it in his sleeve. +His physiognomy indicates his character; it has no distinction, but it +is full of energy, intelligence, and resolution; it is the physiognomy +of a tradesman, not of a statesman, of a person extremely keen and +acute, obstinate and cruel, but not by any means intellectual. The +eternal eyeglass serves to hide such expression as his features might +have, and the nose, short and _retrousse_, makes plebeian lineaments +which might without this defect be sufficiently regular. In these later +times he has aged more than his years perhaps justify, and it is said +that he suffers from neuralgia and gout. He is always well dressed; 'too +well' an ex-Viceroy murmured to me that evening; and he is never seen, +as everyone knows, without an orchid in his button-hole; a flower always +culled in one of those famous orchid-houses at Highbury, which, before +his conversion, the Tory ladies longed so passionately to burn down, in +days when he was considered odious, accursed, almost an +Antichrist!--days not so very distant as the life of a nation counts. + +It was always said, at the time of his apostasy, that he left the +Radicals out of jealousy of Gladstone's greater powers, and of the +magnetism which Gladstone exercised over all his colleagues; and also +because amongst the Liberals there was Lord Rosebery, then in the +fulness of promise; there was Vernon Harcourt, then extremely eloquent +and much followed; and there was also in the Home Rule Party that great +genius, known amongst men as Charles Stewart Parnell, in whom +Chamberlain felt an irresistible superiority. If this were the reason, +he must now be content, since in his present party he has no rival in +the Cabinet, no one ventures to contradict him, and he is _de facto_, +though not yet _de jure_, the head of the present Government. There have +been many men of distinction before him in the somewhat subordinate post +of Secretary of the Colonies, notably the late Lord Carnarvon, and the +first Lord Lytton; but no one has ever made of this Department the +throne of the Suprema Lex as Mr Chamberlain has contrived to do. The +fault of whom, or the fault of what, lies at the root of this +successful usurpation? Let us endeavour to discover, for the problem is +interesting; and one of its most strange phenomena is to see Robert +Cecil, Marquis of Salisbury, fallen under the dominion of the Birmingham +screw-maker. + +In the whole of the Tory Party, Chamberlain has no one who opposes him, +no one who approaches him for strength of character and for acuteness of +perception, one may also add for unscrupulousness in principle and in +action. The sole person of the party who could have imposed authority +upon him by superiority of intellect would have been Lord Salisbury; but +either through force of energy on his own part, or by lack of energy on +his chief's, he has been able completely to rule and influence the +master of Hatfield, as he has succeeded in ruling and influencing all +others who sit round the ministerial table in Downing Street. A friend +of mine speaking once to me of Lord Salisbury, whom he knew intimately, +said, 'He is a fine big cannon, but he won't go off; I doubt if he will +ever go off.' It is probable that Chamberlain had the same opinion, and +therefore resolved himself to manoeuvre and fire the cannon. Anyhow, +he has acted well for himself in leaving the Radicals to ally himself +with their adversaries. If posterity blame him, and call him a turncoat, +I imagine that he is a man to whom the verdict of posterity is +absolutely indifferent. He is as 'hard as nails,' to use an appropriate +if common phrase; he is cynical and selfish; and to a politician of this +stamp, reputation in history is a matter of extreme indifference; fame +must seem to him only a carnival-masquer, noisily blowing a tin +trumpet. + +Napoleon, after the campaign of Egypt, said once, 'If I die to-morrow I +shall only have half a page in a universal dictionary.' To Chamberlain, +I believe, it would be wholly indifferent to have the half page, or even +a whole page. What suffices to him is to dominate and lead other men +while he lives. He is called inordinately ambitious, but his ambition is +essentially practical, not ideal. He wishes for the loaves and fishes; a +laurel crown would be to him a useless thing, unless it represented to +him solid lucre. Would he have succeeded if he had been born half a +century earlier? I doubt it. In the first half of the past century, men +admired in the ministers who ruled them very different qualities to +those which he possesses. On the other hand, his qualities are precisely +those which beget and command fortune in the actual moment; and by this +I intend no compliment either to him or to his times. + +In an epoch more courageous, more honest, more well-bred than the +present, a great Party calling itself Conservative would have repulsed +with contempt any renegade Radical, however disguised in the domino of a +Unionist. Instead, this Party has received him with open arms, nay, with +prostrate self-effacement, and worshipped him with enthusiasm; indeed, +the victory of the so-called Tories at the urns in 1895 would not have +been possible if Chamberlain had not permitted it; which he would not +have done unless he had been assured that he would enter and dominate +the Salisbury Cabinet. He has been equally happy in the occasions which +have presented themselves to him, and in his own capability in using +them; in the mediocrity of the men who combine with him, and of the men +who oppose him; in his infinite ability in influencing the first, and in +intimidating the last; he has been fortunate also in the fact that the +English people are less bigoted in religion than of old; for in an +earlier time they would have seen with horror a Unitarian entering the +Government. But his greatest good fortune of all was in the rise of the +Home Rule question at the very moment when he conceived the project of +going over to the Tory camp, which, without such an opportune reason to +give for it, would have appeared mere unworthy treachery. Without the +platform of Home Rule from which to make his _saut perilleux_, the leap +would have probably broken his neck; at any rate he could not have made +it with the certainty of being welcomed and rewarded by his new allies, +and of occupying amongst them a position far more conspicuous than he +ever occupied with the Radicals. + +His favouring star has also given him the marvellous good luck that in +the past year the death of Lord Salisbury's consort has so depressed and +preoccupied the Premier that the latter has almost entirely ceased to +occupy himself with the cares of office, and the Colonial Secretary has +been given more and more completely, with every month, a free hand. + +To me it has always seemed, during these later months of 1899, and +since, that the Sovereign should have bidden Lord Salisbury either +dismiss Chamberlain from office, or surrender office himself; for since +Chamberlain was allowed virtually to hold the helm of the State, he +should have been forced to accept the responsibility of the State's +navigation. + +Chamberlain has frequently declared that he has not changed in anything; +that he has not been an opportunist; that the Tory Party has come to +him, and has granted all his desires, accepted all his policy; and in +this statement of his there is some truth, if not an entire truth. As +two negatives make an affirmative, perhaps two desertions make a +fidelity! It is certain that the Tory Party has forsaken its old paths +quite as much as Chamberlain has his, indeed probably far more, for +there is no conservatism whatsoever in the acts of the so-called +Conservative Cabinets, and in his there is a great deal of radicalism +still, even of socialism, though this is oddly united to a hybrid and +artificial toryism. + +An eminent Conservative, a member of the Upper House, assured me the +other day that he honestly believed that Chamberlain had never done +anything which would prevent him at any time from being able, +honourably, to become the leader of the Radical Party. If this be +admitted, what are we to think of the Tory Party which can find no other +guide and saviour than this consistent Radical? Either the consistent +Radical, or the inconsistent Conservative Party, has 'ratted' in the +most barefaced manner. One or the other has been false to primal faith; +and there is only a very small band of independent thinkers who venture +to declare this. For Chamberlain has had the supreme cleverness to get +himself taken by the public as a patriot, and to oppose him, therefore, +lays open his opponent to a charge of want of patriotism. This is +extremely absurd; but it is to him enormously useful; and he knows that +the nation which he 'personally conducts' is not logical or critical. He +has taken its measure very accurately. + +The new hysterical creed of 'Imperialism' doubtless gained an impetus, +Home Rule equally certainly lost, by the change of front of 'Birmingham +Joe.' But the aristocratic party was harnessed like a cab-horse to the +triumphal car of the New Unionist, and has ever since then remained thus +harnessed. In the history of English politics these passages will +contribute a chapter which will not edify the readers of the next +generation; especially if its climax be, as it will be almost certainly, +the apotheosis of Chamberlain after a campaign of aggression and +conquest conceived and carried out by him and the Yellow Press which he +inspires. It is he who is responsible for the financiers' war in South +Africa; he might call it proudly, '_my war_,' as the Empress Eugenie +called the war with Germany, '_ma guerre a moi_.' If he had never been +anything higher than Mayor of Birmingham the farmers of the Transvaal +would still be ploughing their lands in peace. + +The war was desired, conceived, and imposed on his colleagues by the +Minister of the Colonies, without any appeal to or sanction of +Parliament. He denies this, but it is clearly proved by his famous +speech at Highbury and by the text of his irritating and provocative +despatches; and it was only when that war was begun, beyond all +possibility of alteration, that the Prime Minister, after long silence, +accepted the responsibility of it in his speech at the Guildhall. Lord +Salisbury, in that Mansion House speech, of course, denied the +allegation then made by the President of the French Chamber of Commerce +as to the motives and causes of the war; but no one who has attentively +followed the actions and expressions of Chamberlain before and after the +Jameson Raid, and his conduct at the enquiry held upon the conduct +therein of Cecil Rhodes, can for a moment doubt the intimate relations +which united the Colonial Secretary and the founder of Rhodesia and the +Chartered. + +Chamberlain, who, at the close of the Committee of Enquiry of 1897, had, +in common with other signatories, signed a statement that Rhodes was +culpable, declared a few days later in the House of Commons that Rhodes +was a man whose honour was untarnished! This, more than any other fact, +shows to what depths it is now possible to descend in English politics. +Certainly, in the time of Peel or of the earlier Governments of +Gladstone, a Minister capable of such conduct would have lost alike +office and seat in Parliament. Chamberlain, living in times of more +elastic morality, did not lose even a single follower. + +'Joseph Chamberlain has brought into English politics the habits and +criterions of a commercial traveller,' an eminent Englishman wrote to me +the other day. 'And of a commercial traveller not burdened by scruples.' +Now, the man of trade may have considerable qualities, great +intelligence, and great enterprise, but his mind and his acts are those +of a tradesman, not those of a gentleman, or of a statesman. Chamberlain +boasted in public one day that he belonged to the Party of Gentlemen; +now no gentleman would ever have so expressed himself. + +The tradesman inevitably brings into public life the traditions of his +counting-house; those traditions are to try, invariably, _de rouler les +autres_. Now public life should be something more than, and very +different to, the pursuit of speculation; and its aims should be higher +than the mere desire to trick a rival and send shares up or down. True, +statecraft in our day is chiefly 'land-grabbing' and an effort to bridle +democracy by taxation. Still it is a different art to the art of the +merchant's or manufacturer's office. When Chamberlain endeavours to be +diplomatic he becomes inane: a person (who must have been very _naif_) +wrote to him the other day to ask if it were true that it had always +been his wish and intention to make war on the Boers, he replied to this +simpleton of a correspondent, 'I fear there will always be those who +will attribute to me the worst motives. Tennyson has said that every man +attributes to another the motives which would actuate himself'--and that +was all! I imagine he thought this reply very ingenious and tactful. + +He is no doubt adroit and ingenious in his management of men; but his +cunning does not wear the smiling and elegant mask which a politician's +should do. He does not possess the talent most necessary of all to a +politician, of taking refuge in exquisitely-turned phrases which seem to +reveal everything and reveal nothing. His voice is flexible and fine, +his deliverance imposes, but his statements are frequently impudently +cynical, and it is easy to discern that he holds men very cheap, and in +no way hesitates to use, to abuse, and to deceive them. He is never +really frank in his replies, though he affects candour; he often +approaches brutality; he loses his temper easily; and the spectator sees +by the nerves of his face and the movements of his limbs that he has not +the self-control and _sang-froid_, which are natural gifts of the man of +race and breeding. But despite these defects and these offences he has +conquered both society and his colleagues, and one sees scholarly and +refined men like Mr Arthur Balfour hopelessly and helplessly hypnotised +by him. He has taken with him into Downing Street the manners and the +methods with which he governed the town councillors of Birmingham; and +these succeed equally well in his altered atmosphere. 'We are all +horribly afraid of him,' one of his colleagues said the other day to a +friend of mine; probably because he is the only man amongst them +ill-bred and ill-tempered enough to be disagreeable and dangerous. In +earlier days, in those of Derby, of Palmerston, of Melbourne, +Westminster would not have tolerated him for a single session; in times +when orators quoting Greek or Latin verse were sure to be understood by +either House, when classical allusions were caught flying, when accuracy +and consistency were esteemed necessary in debate, the speeches of the +present Colonial Secretary would not have been thought tolerable. + +But the Great Britain of Lord Grey, of Canning, of Sydney Herbert, of +the Rupert of Debate, of the first half of Gladstone's political life is +dead and gone; and Disraeli has passed over its grave, of which he was +the digger. Disraeli and his influence have dominated and penetrated +English political and social atmospheres, in their highest strata, as a +contagious fever enters and reigns in a district. It was a strange +phenomenon, the Venetian Jew leading by the leash the entire English +aristocracies. To trace the manifold reasons which enabled a man so +alien and antipathetic to the British nation in blood, in manner, in +appearance, in opinions, to dominate that nation so completely would +require many folio volumes; for there has never been anything more +singular, or more due to innumerable causes, all converging to one end. + +No spectacle is more extraordinary than the power which Disraeli +acquired after being laughed down by everyone; acquired, and wields +still, so many years after his death. I think that his most potent +philtre lay in his flattery. He flattered his Sovereign, his party, and +the nation itself, with all the florid eloquence and subtle suggestion +of which he was so admirable a master. His famous 'Peace with Honour' +was an exact sample of his style; the peace was brittle and the honour +was dubious, but his manner of presenting them was so magnificent that +they were received as though they were gifts from heaven. An able writer +has said that the English are deficient in the power of observation, and +I believe it is true. They do not examine critically before committing +themselves to embrace a cause or an idea; they can easily be led into +any extravagance which humours their national humour. Disraeli played on +this weakness. He had himself a passion for advertisement, for varnish +and gilding, and florid decoration; all his speeches and all his +romances are spoilt by these; and he succeeded in inoculating with this +taste the English character to which it was naturally alien. + +The first sign of the nation having been so inoculated was given when it +allowed Disraeli to call the Queen of England the Empress of India, and +change an ancient monarchy into a _parvenu_ empire. The first step +taken, the rest followed; the mania of what is considered aggrandisement +has acquired possession of the national life, and has made of a nation, +naturally noble and great, a swollen boaster, bawling of its millions, +its might, and its superiority, although surely vanity is no more +admirable in a country than in an individual? This alteration in the +British temper, which was primarily the work of Disraeli and of the new +nobility (chiefly commercial and largely Jewish), which was called into +being, prepared the ground for Chamberlain's Imperialism, a much coarser +and greedier thing, without any of the veil of ideality which Disraeli +lent to his creeds. In the time of Disraeli, the temper of England was +still largely coloured by an old aristocracy, retaining, with the +prejudices, the principles of gentlemen; now, the financiers and the +speculators make the old aristocracy dance to whatever music they +choose, and riches are the sole thing sought. + +Every Ministry in England, on going out of office, leaves its contingent +of ennobled tradesmen, raised to the peerage solely for their money, and +for the way in which they have spent their money for the Party. In this +way the so-called Conservative leaders possess a solid phalanx of +supporters whose wealth makes them irresistible in the country, and who +practically send up to Westminster any men they choose. These great +_richards_ find Joseph Chamberlain more to their taste than Lord +Salisbury, who is too scholarly, too satirical, and too great a +gentleman for them; his health is failing, he speaks rarely, there is a +cynical contempt in his occasional speeches which cuts the _novi +homines_ like a whip. It is impossible that a man of Lord Salisbury's +pride of character and acuteness of intellect should much longer consent +to be the mere echo of his Colonial Secretary. There is every sign that +his retirement will be followed by the accession to the premiership of +Chamberlain. For months past the Imperialist Press, and notably that +journal which is the property of the Chancellor of the Primrose League, +has been insinuating that no one except Chamberlain is capable of rising +to the height required by advanced Imperialism: and what this journal +says is certain to be echoed by that party, which, with an audacity +almost sublime, still calls itself Conservative. + +Chamberlain has continued the work of Disraeli, but he has done so by +vulgarising and brutalising it. The best qualities of the English +character are, under his influence, lost in a blatant self-admiration. +Its sense of morality is blunted; its leaders accept any denial or +excuse of the Minister of the Colonies, and he is applauded when, as an +independent Member said a few weeks since in the House of Commons, he +should be called to the bar of the House. Parliament, and the nation +after it, accept the suppression of despatches and telegrams, the use +and abuse of censorship, the denial and interruption of free speech, the +closure of debate at the moment when its continuance would be +inconvenient to ministers: all things previously intolerable to the +English people. Chamberlain has educated them into the abandonment of +all their ancient virtues. If, as he is almost certain to do if he live, +he become before long the Premier of England, he will do immeasurable +harm both to Great Britain and the world. + +The reign of Queen Victoria has been a long succession of wars; few, if +any, were either necessary or inevitable. But not one of these has been +a war of defence at home; the English citizen and peasant know nothing +in their own land of the horrors of war; they have never seen its +desolation and its horrors; they have never seen their little children +crushed under the hoofs and wheels of a battery, their homes set on fire +by a shell, their sons starving, their fields devastated, their towns +beleaguered. They have never seen a battle, a siege, a trench full of +dead; therefore they do not know the hideous suffering which they +inflict when they let loose, in pride of spirit and lightness of heart +and triumphant vanity, the fiends of war upon a distant people and a +far-off land. This is the excuse of a large portion of the nation for +the present war; but it is at the same time the strongest condemnation +of those who preach war to it as a divine creed, and appeal to its most +brutal instincts, and abuse its ignorance to lead it into crime. The +victories now gained will be dearly bought, for they, and the national +madness they produce, will certainly set Joseph Chamberlain in the seat +of supreme power, and no one will have the courage to restrain his hand. +Bellona has served him so well now, she will be his chosen handmaid in +the future.[9] + +[Footnote 9: It is possible, though little to be hoped, that the +complications in China (which any far-sighted statesman would have +foreseen and provided for) may open the eyes of the British people to +the terribly heavy bill which they will pay, eventually, for the luxury +of the Chamberlain Cabinet.] + + + + +VIII + +UNWRITTEN LITERARY LAWS + + +There has been some idea mooted of forming an Academy in England on the +lines of the Academy of France, but it would never be the same kind of +institution, or exercise the same authority. The English temper is not +academic, the Royal Academy is proof enough of that. Moreover, +Englishmen are indifferent to the use or abuse of their language, and +the first care of an Academy must be to keep the national language pure, +and clear, and elegant. The well of English undefiled is sadly muddy, +nowadays, and any roaring screamer of English or American slang is as +welcome to those who call themselves critics as though he wrote like +Matthew Arnold or John Morley. Lacking an Academy of Letters, and the +writers who would make one, there is in London what is called a Society +of Authors, which is supposed to resemble the Societe des Gens de +Lettres in Paris, but the English Society appears to be chiefly an +association for the multiplication and publication of inferior works, +and its authority on literature is _nil_. In addition to these, there +are persons who call themselves literary agents; but the latter have a +decidedly anti-intellectual influence, and to them is probably, in part, +due the enormous increase in the issue of rubbish of all kinds, which is +at the present time doing so much injury to the English literary +reputation. + +The number of volumes which pour annually from the English press is, at +the present hour, appalling. One house alone produces, in number, enough +volumes for the whole trade. Why are these volumes, usually worthless, +ever produced? Why do the circulating libraries accept them? Who reads +them? Who buys them? Why does one see in the lists of London +'remainders' the announcement of volumes originally published at six, +eight, ten, twelve shillings, to be sold second-hand, perfectly new and +uncut, at the miserable prices of two shillings, eighteen-pence, one +shilling, and even sixpence? Amongst these is sometimes a work of real +and scholarly worth, which it is painful to see thus sacrificed, but +rarely; for it is rarely that such a work is now issued in London. Where +is this to end? With whom does the fault of it lie? Someone, I suppose, +must gain by such an insane method of over-production, but I cannot see +who it can possibly be. One well-known publisher tells me that he must +issue books thus, or starve. He is not in danger of bodily starvation, +but the public is mentally starved by such a system. + +When the three-volume novel was abolished (a course which I urged long +before it was taken) great things were expected by many from its +abolition. I myself hoped that London would adopt the Paris method, and +issue novels and all other works, except _editions de luxe_, at small +prices and in paper covers; not the gaudy, hideous, pictorial, paper +cover, but the pale smooth grey or cream-coloured paper, so easily +obtainable, with the title of the book clearly printed on its flank. +Instead of this result, some unwritten law, as violently despotic as +that which used to compel the three-volume issue, has decreed that the +London romance shall always appear in a cloth-bound volume at six +shillings; the most foolish price that could be selected, too dear to be +suitable for private purchase, too low to allow of a handsome edition +being issued. There is something grotesquely ludicrous, as well as +extremely painful, in seeing the lists of 'ten new six-shilling novels,' +or 'a dozen new six-shilling novels,' whereby some publishers' +advertisement lists are disfigured in the newspapers with every new +season. It makes a commerce of fiction in a manner most injurious and +deplorable. + +Again, no sooner has the six-shilling novel been a year before the +public, than the publisher issues the self-same book at +two-and-sixpence. Why does he cut his own throat thus? It is to me as +inexplicable as why the London drapers sell you a stuff at six shillings +a yard in February, but, if you wait till June, sell it you at +two-and-sixpence a yard at the clearance sales. Either the stuff is sold +at a price unjust and unfair to the purchaser in February, or it is sold +at a price unjust and unfair to the vendor in June. From this +proposition there seems to me no escape. + +It is the same with the six-shilling book as with the draper's stuffs. +If the first price be correct, why alter it to the second in a year's +time? If the second price be sufficient to pay expense of production, +why not start with it. + +The draper, moreover, has an advantage over the publisher. If I want a +stuff whilst it is a novelty, and when its like has not been worn by +shop girls and servant girls, I must buy it at its high price in +February; but if I want to read a novel whilst it is at its highest +price, I can read it in that form, taking it from the libraries, and +wait for a year to buy it at its lower price, if I then care to do so, +which it is improbable that I shall do. + +Now, why not have from first to last, in London, an edition of a novel +similar to that French form which is good enough for Pierre Loti, for +Gyp, for Anatole France, for the brilliant Freres Margueritte? Why? + +I suppose because our masters, the librarians, will not have it so; or +because some other unwritten law lies like lead on the souls of London +publishers. + +I read few English books for pleasure myself, I prefer the literatures +of other countries; but it pains me to see such a deluge of worthless +verbosity pour from London lanes and London streets where printing +presses of yore worked for Addison and Goldsmith, Thackeray and Arthur +Helps. + +If this stream of pseudo-literature be not stopped, it will carry away +and swamp all true English literature under it, as a moving bog covers +flocks and pastures, cottages and country seats. + +I have asked several London publishers why it is allowed to go on; their +answers are evasive and contradictory. They assert that most of the +volumes published are paid for by the authors; that they themselves must +publish something, or cease to exist as a trade; and that the public +does not know good from bad, so it does not matter what is printed. Yet, +surely to them, as to the drapers, the apparently insensate system must +be lucrative, or it would not be pursued? + +There was a comical lamentation in the London Press the other day for +what was called 'the death of the novel'; not the approaching death +which I expect for it by suffocation under the dust-storms of verbosity +and imbecility, but of death by its own suicide, through its own +curtailed proportions. It was indignantly asked why it was not as long +as it used to be in the 'Fifties and 'Sixties, and why novelists now +wrote short stories which in that period would have found no sale, would +not, indeed, have even found the preliminary necessary to a +sale-publication. + +Surely we remember some short stories called _The Cricket on the Hearth_ +and _The Chimes_, and others telling the adventures of the Great +Hoggarty Diamond and of one Barry Lyndon? As for the length of novels +nowadays, my own _Massarenes_, published in 1897, contains precisely the +same number of words as _Esmond_, and, I think, Mr Mallock's novels, and +those of Mrs Humphry Ward, must surely be quite as long, whilst Mr Hall +Caine's marvellous narratives appear as endless as 'the thread of Time +reel'd off the wheel of Fate.' The critic who grieves over the brevity +of present-day volumes, thinks that Thackeray and Dickens wrote at such +length because they were obliged to fill their monthly numbers! It seems +to me far more likely that they were in love with their characters, as +every writer of true talent is, and lingered tenderly over many needless +details and dialogues out of sheer pleasure in their creations; and it +must be admitted that both of them had naturally a discursive style, +which would have been the better for some excision. But were it true +that there is an unwritten law which limits or expands the length of +romances according to the public caprice or taste, surely nothing could +be more harmful to fiction than such limitation? Every story, if it be +worth the telling, has its own natural length, which cannot be stretched +or shortened arbitrarily without hurt. The sculptor knows that the form +which he creates has its own natural proportions, its own inherent +symmetry according to natural rules, which he must obey. The painter +knows that, according to the nature of his subject, and of his intended +treatment, he must take for his picture, either a small panel, a +kit-kat, or a large canvas; and that if he force its dimensions, either +by over-compression or over-extension, his work will be a failure. + +Why is the author not bound by the same canon of art? Artistically, he +certainly is so bound. Intellectually, he certainly is so bound. That +this obligation is continually defied and broken through by many English +writers, proves only that the great majority of these writers are not +artists in any sense of the word. + +The brevity or length of a literary work can have nothing to do with its +beauty or excellence. If it be beautiful, if it be excellent, its +proportions will be those which naturally grew out of its subject; and +the writer who is an artist will know, as the painter knows, that he +cannot alter the unwritten law which prescribes to him those +proportions. What has either length or brevity to do with either +excellence or beauty? What give both excellence and beauty are qualities +not to be measured by a publisher's counting up of words, or a printer's +enumeration of pages. + +A sketch of a few pages of Maupassant's is worth all the volumes put +together of Georges Ohnet; one of the _Sonnets of Proteus_ is worth the +whole swagger of the _Seven Seas_. + +There seems to be, unhappily, an unwritten law in English literature +that cheapness must of necessity be allied to ugliness. A cheap book is +in England an inferior and unlovely thing. But it need not be so. It is +not so everywhere. I have now before me a book of Pompeo Molmenti's, +issued by Bemporad, of Florence; its cost is two francs twenty-five +centiemes; less than one-and-sixpence in your money. It is bound in +thick cream-coloured paper; it is called _Il Moretto di Brescia_, being +a brief study of the life and works of the great artist of whose pure +and noble work the city of Brescia is full. That the text is of rare +scholarly excellence, and of the finest critical and appreciative +qualities, there can be no question, since it is written by the +President of the Accademia delle Arte of Venice. The type is large, the +paper fine, the illustrations (phototyped) are of extreme delicacy and +beauty, rendering worthily the works of the Moretto; the size of the +book is Imperial 8vo. + +Will you tell me where I should find anything equal to it at its price +in London? + +Your books are all ill-stitched, and fall to pieces as soon as one +handles them. Your type is usually ugly, even at its best; all foreign +readers complain of its clumsiness and confusing effect on the eyes. +Compare a page of a Parisian book at three francs and a half with a page +of a six-shilling English novel. The former is incomparably the +superior. Your cheap illustrated books are still more scandalously +treated. I have before me a book priced four-and-sixpence, more than +double the price of _Il Moretto_. It is a book for children; its +illustrations have been reproduced from earlier works, and they are not +even all of the same method or the same size; some are printed from old +wood-blocks, some are photographed; in one a child is represented the +size of a fly, in another a dog is drawn bigger than a man; anything is +thought good enough, it seems, for children. Artistic beauty is entirely +lacking in the illustrations of English juvenile books; and there is +nothing so irritating as the sight of illustrations of various qualities +bound up in the same volume. + +Even certain illustrated periodicals and journals are not above using up +their old wood-blocks in their new numbers. It is a very disgraceful and +unworthy practice. When the illustrations are fresh, the designer +frequently does not attempt to adapt them to the text; a gentlemen is +drawn like a cad, and a Newfoundland dog is drawn like a poodle; a +peasant of the Romagna is drawn like a loafer in Shoreditch, and so on +continually, without the slightest attention to accuracy. + +There is also, beyond all doubt, an unwritten law which has been so +universally observed that it has become, properly, as binding as a +written law. I mean the law that when once a romance, or a story, or a +poem have been published they cannot be altered. + +What should we think of the painter who repainted his picture after +sale, or of a sculptor who sawed off an arm from his statue, and affixed +another? Both picture and statue may have many faults; they probably +have; but such as they went out from the studio they must remain. This +is the common morality, the elementary honour, of art, and a similar +canon should certainly lie upon literature. + +Yet some writers have of late presumed that they had a right to change +the ending of their romances when these were already well known to their +readers. They would urge, I suppose, that they have a right to do what +they like with their own. But your work once given to the public is no +more your own than your daughter is when you have married her, and she +has become the _Gaia_ of her _Gaius_. + +Besides, there is an unspoken good faith on the part of the author which +should be observed in his relations towards the public. He should give +them nothing which is incomplete; nothing, at least, which is not as +harmonious as it is in his power to create. Every work of fiction +requires to be long dreamed of, long thought of, clearly seen in the +mind before written; it ought to be no more susceptible of change than a +conclusion in Euclid. To the writer, as to the reader of a story, it +should seem absolutely true; the actors in it should appear absolutely +real. The illusion of reality is only strong in the reader according to +the strength of that illusion in the writer; but some such illusion must +always exist whilst the reader reads fiction, or fiction would have no +attraction for anyone. The writer who alters his romance after it has +once appeared destroys this illusion, and says effectively to his +public, 'What fools you are to take me seriously!' Moreover, he insults +them, for he tells them that he has set before them a half-finished and +immature thing, about which he has entirely changed his mind. He is like +a cook who should snatch off the table a dish just placed on it because +he wished to alter the flavour. A Vaetel or a Soyer would not do that: if +he had made a mistake he would abide by it, though he might kill himself +in despite at it. + +In the course of a literary or artistic life, or any other life from +which the blessing of privacy has been lost, there are many wrongs met +with which are real and great wrongs, yet which must be endured because +they cannot be remedied by law suits, and there is no other kind of +tribunal open; nothing analogous, for instance, to the German Courts of +Honour in military matters. + +There is, for example, a habit amongst some editors of seeking the +expression of opinion, on some political or public question, of some +well-known writer; printing this expression of opinion, and, before it +is published, showing the proof to some other writer, so that an article +of contrary views and opinions may be written in readiness for the +following number. Now this seems to me an absolutely disloyal betrayal +of trust. In the first place, the proof of an article is of necessity +entirely dependent on the good faith of the editor. It is an understood +thing, a tacit, unwritten law, that no one except the editor is to see +it until the public does so. It is never considered necessary to +stipulate this. To show it to a third person to obtain a refutation, or +a burlesque, of it before the article is published, seems to me a +distinctly incorrect thing to do; an extremely unfair thing to do. Yet +it is becoming a common practice; and a writer has no redress against +it. It is manifestly not the kind of offence which can be taken into a +tribunal, yet it is a very genuine and very annoying injury, and it is +one against which I think that authors, whose names are of value, should +be protected in some manner. + +What redress, moreover, is there for the innumerable thefts from which a +writer suffers during his career? I doubt if we, any of us, know the +extent to which we are robbed by bookmakers, who are not of the turf, +but are quite as unscrupulous as those of the turf. + +A few years ago I saw, in the pages of one of the highest class of +London periodicals, a story, contained in one number, which was nothing +more or less than the reproduction of the Derbyshire part of my +well-known novel of _Puck_: the narrative of Ben Dare and his love for +his worthless sister Anice. It was far more than a plagiarism; it was a +monstrous theft. The name of a lady was put at the end of it, as that of +the author; of course, I wrote to the editor, expecting, despite +previous experiences, to receive apology and reparation. I misunderstood +my generation. The editor wrote back, with airy indifference, that the +lady who had produced this shameless piracy had never read _Puck_. To +my citation, in reply, of the words of the Emperor Julian, 'If it be +sufficient to deny, who will ever be found guilty?' and to my objection +that an appropriation of an entire section of a novel could not by any +possibility be otherwise than an intentional theft, this model of +editors replied not at all. I ought, perhaps, to have sued the +publisher, who was doubtless quite innocent, but had I done so it is +more than probable that I should have obtained no apology or redress. To +begin a law suit is a very serious thing, and all these grievances and +piracies are so incessant, though few are quite as impudent as was this, +that if one pursued them as they merit one would spend all one's life +and substance in Courts of Law. + +Moreover, in the case of the plaintiff in any suit residing out of +England, a large sum for costs must be deposited at the English tribunal +into which the suit is brought; a kind of foregone conclusion that the +plaintiff has no valid case, which seems to me very prejudicial to that +person. + +What, then, is to be done in such circumstances? + +Nothing at all. You must endure the injury, leave unpunished the +plagiarism; and the offender escapes scot-free. + +I do not think that anyone should sue another for any mere expression of +opinion, however hostile or rudely expressed, as Mr Whistler sued Mr +Ruskin, for the liberty of the Press is of more importance than the +annoyance of individuals. + +But some protection is required against swindling in literature; and at +the present moment none exists. Practically none exists either against +libel. I saw, a few years ago, three very gross and libellous English +newspaper articles upon myself, and sent them to a high personage in the +law, who is always kind enough to give me his advice, and asked him if +he considered it worth while for me to prosecute them. He wrote me in +answer: 'All three articles are foully slanderous, yet one only, +perhaps, would come within the grip of the law; upon this one you would +most certainly obtain damages, but prosecution entails so much expense, +trouble, worry, and insult, to the aggrieved party, that I would always +say to any friend of mine what I say now to you: Do not do that which +you have a perfect right to do.' + +I followed the advice, for if one asks counsel of a person whom one +respects, one ought to submit to it; but the fact remains that, for the +most offensive social libels, there is, neither in law nor in society, +any means of obtaining redress which a great lawyer can honestly +recommend to a friend. For such matters, why cannot there be a tribunal +set apart from other tribunals; one having the attributes of a Court of +Honour, and without the odious publicity of Courts of Law? + +Against libel, even of the grossest character, what can one do, as the +law stands, which is not more disagreeable than silently to 'grin and +bear' it? The great preliminary cost; the extreme uncertainty and +irritation involved, the odious publicity necessarily incurred; the +chatter, the comments, the cross-examination; the insolence and the +jeers of the counsel for the defence, are all punishments which fall +upon the plaintiff. What consolation is it for them that he may perhaps +be awarded a thousand pounds damages, though it is more probable that he +will receive only a farthing, and be left to the enjoyment of paying his +own costs? In either result, is the game worth its very costly candle? +Is the injury made less an injury? Is the combat not in every sense most +unjust and unequal, being less a combat indeed than an assassination by +a bravo? To what can we ever look for any remedy of this except from the +unwritten law of opinion? But as the world is at present constituted it +delights far too greatly in this garbage for it ever to rebuke the +providers of it. Hogs do not rend the man who carries the swill-tub. + +In one of the Prince Consort's letters to his eldest daughter, then +Crown Princess of Prussia, he tells her to set aside a portion of her +money every year to meet the inevitable blackmail which will certainly +be levied upon her. This blackmail is levied on every kind of success as +well as on royalty. What is to be done? To submit to it, is repugnant to +all one's sense of justice; to rebel against it, however such resistance +be justified, is often ruinous. + +The true remedy would lie in a finer, juster, higher kind of public +feeling; but where is there any likelihood of this arising in the world +as it is? + +My own feeling is very strongly always against the anonymity of the +Press. Everyone surely should have the candour and courage to put his +signature after his opinions. But, unfortunately, the Press gains so +much importance (fictitious importance) from its anonymity that it is +hopeless to ask for an unwritten or a written law on this subject. The +arrogant 'we' would soon fall to zero in its influence on the public if +it were signed by a Tom, Dick, or Harry, who, as Matthew Arnold used to +say, forms his opinions from what he overhears on the knifeboard of a +city or suburban omnibus. It is, perhaps, worthy of a nation which +treats duelling as a penal offence to countenance anonymous assertions, +anonymous opinions, anonymous bravado, and anonymous insults; but the +result cannot be beneficial to the national character. + +For many months in this past year, and in the year before that, hundreds +of anonymous correspondents and leader-writers of the English Press have +been doing their utmost by violence of language to drive to war the +nations of England and of France. Is it not probable, even certain, that +if all these writers had been obliged to sign their names to these +furious articles, they would have paused before making themselves +responsible for such language? I am often accused of using too strong +language; but at all events I sign whatever I say, and I should be +ashamed to do otherwise. An anonymous Press possesses dangerous +privileges; such privileges as the mask gives a masquerade; it also, as +I have said, acquires a dignity and an importance which are not its own; +it is unfair and harmful; it protects exaggeration, hyperbole, flattery, +and calumny, but it is too useful to too many not to be sustained; it +can always serve the Bourses much better than a signed Press could do, +and obey much more efficiently the nods and signs and cypher dispatches +of the great financiers; but it is cowardly, and can easily, if it +chooses, be dishonest. + +It will, perhaps, be objected that the anonymity of the Press is more +apparent than real; that the greater writers of the London Press at +least are all recognised by their style, or well known by the initiated; +but this knowledge is limited to a few hundred persons, and can never be +shared by the general public, and it is on the general public that +anonymous journalism has its chief influence. + +To whom or what can we look for the pressure of an influence which would +enforce honesty in literature? To public opinion? Undoubtedly we might, +and we should, if public opinion were what it should be. But it is not, +and, most probably, never will be. Breeding and manners grow worse every +day; and it is they alone which could enforce that unwritten code which +is so sorely needed. It is, after all, the absence of moral and +honourable feeling in the world in general which makes the violation of +these not only condoned by others but frequently profitable to the +sinners. Take two instances of this: The sale of private letters both of +the living and of the dead; and the seizure of the plots and characters +of romances by people who are themselves dramatic adapters. The latter +is the more trivial offence of the two; but it is as impudent as it is +dishonest. It is injurious in a great degree, and extremely annoying to +the original author, whose name is bawled and placarded about in +connection with that of his robber, with no consent of his own, and +usually to his extreme irritation, whilst his ideas are borrowed, and +his characters travestied, and his entire creation belittled and +vulgarised. Would the stalls be filled nightly to witness pieces stolen +in this manner were the public governed by any unwritten law of respect +for _meum_ and _tuum_? + +The other offence of selling letters is still more heinous; it is +difficult to conceal the piracy of a romance for theatrical purposes, +but it is perfectly easy to conceal the sale of letters; head it the +sale of autographs, and it passes with entire impunity. There is, I +believe, a law (a written law) that letters are the property of the +writer of them; but it is absolutely a dead law; as dead as many of +those of the Tudors or Stuarts. I think that letters ought to be the +property of the recipient, but it should be an inalienable property +which he should be no more able to sell than he is able to sell entailed +property. To write a letter, even a brief one, is, in a sense, an act of +confidence. In writing it we assume that its contents will not be used +against us, either for injury or ridicule. If a conversation be +considered confidential, how much more should a correspondence be so! A +letter, in any degree intimate, is a hostage given into the hands of its +recipient. We are justified in expecting that any sentiments, views, or +opinions it may contain shall not go beyond the reader for whom they +have been penned. This is so much to be desired in the interests of all +letter-writers that no one, I think, can dispute its justice. What, +then, are we to say of the constant appearance in catalogues of sales of +letters of living, and of lately dead, persons? + +If it be, as I understand, illegal, why is it permitted publicly? If it +be not thus illegal, why does not general indignation render it +impossible? I have more than once seen, in the autograph-albums of men +and women of the world, letters of the most intimate character by +distinguished writers; letters which have been evidently written in the +careless, open-heartedness of a warm friendship, and which were lying on +a drawing-room or library table, open to the sneer, the jest, or the +wonder of everyone who turned over the pages of the book. + +'N'y touchez pas, N'y touchez pas! Je l'ai paye vingt louis!' cried, in +my hearing, a lady (a _rastaquouere_), who owned amongst other +autographs a letter which it was especially wrong to place in such a +collection, since the writer of it is great and is alive. Not for twenty +louis, not for twenty thousand, should it ever have been purchasable. +What traitor sold it? What servant stole it? How did it find its way +into the market, that familiar and intimate thing? Through treachery, +through death, through accident, through greed? We shall never know. It +was certainly not through friendship. + +Surely, also, some unwritten law should prescribe and limit the license +of caricature. It is scarcely fair that, because a personality has +interest and eminence attached to it, every draughtsman who can scrawl a +line can make that personality hideous or ridiculous at pleasure. + +'You cannot like it?' I said once to a person of considerable eminence, +who was the subject that week of one of the 'Portraits' of a satirical +and political English journal of wide circulation. + +'No, I do not!' he answered. 'Of course, I should not object to it if it +were a pen-and-ink drawing being handed about to amuse people in my own +country house; but when one knows that it will be seen by tens of +thousands of people who will never see me in the flesh, the thing +becomes annoying.' + +His opinion must be shared by all those who are thus pilloried, even if +they think it politic to laugh and seem indifferent. + +It is 'the penalty of distinction,' the offenders reply. But why should +distinction be weighted by a penalty, like the successful racer? I +believe that the world in general is the loser by this kind of +persecution; for dislike to the vulgar ridicule which snarls at the +heels of all eminence in this day, keeps aloof from the public arena men +who would do honour to it, but whose strength of intellect is +accompanied by shyness, pride, and sensitive reserve. Some unwritten law +should also render impossible those verbal libels which are continually +published by persons cunning enough to keep to the windward side of law +in the offensive matter which they write. This is again another +penalty-weight laid on the back of the racer who has won; and it is +precisely this kind of penalty from which an unwritten law, in the +Press, and in the world, should protect such winners of the gold cups of +life. + +The unwritten law of common honour should make such a book as that which +was recently issued on Bismarck impossible, because those who would have +the power of writing it would be above the temptation of doing so. There +may be a strong temptation to say what we know better than any other of +one whose name is eminent. But I doubt whether we should yield to the +temptation, even if we ourselves suffer in reputation by not doing so. +But the bookmakers of the world have no such excuse as this temptation +offers; they are merely footmen who have listened with pricked ears +whilst they waited at table on their masters, and when their master is +powerless to chastise, sell what they remember or invent. Even where it +is not libellous, the sickening intrusion into private life which +nowadays disgraces journalism must, to any temper of any refinement and +reserve, be an offence irritating beyond endurance. There are flatteries +and intrusions beside which censure is sweet and obloquy would be +welcome. + +There is a great pathos in the fact that the greatest man of these last +fifty years, the man of blood and iron, should, as soon as he lies in +his coffin, be insulted by such a book as this. The hand in its steel +gauntlet, which welded fragments into a nation, is powerless to defend +its owner against betrayal and false witness. The vulgar, insatiable +curiosity of the general world breeds such traitors as these makers of +post-mortem recollections; breeds them, nourishes them, recompenses +them. There would be no supply if there were no demand. The general +world has a greedy appetite for diseased food; as with its jaws it +devours putrid game, decayed oysters, and the swollen livers of tortured +geese, so it loves to devour with its frothy brain all that belittles, +ridicules, dishonours, or betrays the few amongst it--the very few!--who +are above it in mind, in will, in force, in fame. 'Come, come!' they cry +to the great man's servants when the great man lies dead; 'tell us, you +who saw him in his hours of abandonment, tell us of all that can drag +him down nearer to our level! Tell us of his varicocele, tell us of his +dyspepsia, tell us of his caprices, tell us of his humours, tell us of +his tears when his poisoned dog lay dying--you saw them through the +keyhole--tell us of his hasty words, his pettish foibles, his human +mortal waywardness--you know so much about them, you who waited behind +his chair and filled his tobacco-pouch--come, come, comfort us; his +great shadow seems still to lie upon the earth and make us small and +crawling insects crushed by his spurred boot--come, come, comfort us! +Tell us, show us, make us happy belittling him; let us, the envious, the +puny, the mean, rejoice, for you who cleaned his boot and held his bare +foot in your hired hand, can tell us that he, the maker of emperors and +of nations, he, the Mighty, had Achilles' heel!' For there is an +unwritten law, not of literature but of life, which decrees that the +jealousy of the small soul for the great soul shall be cruel and +deathless as Fate.[10] + +[Footnote 10: Since this was written, the letters of Ruskin and Rossetti +have been published: a greater offence against dead men could not be +committed.] + + + + +IX + +AUBERON HERBERT + + +This little square book, the colour of meadow forget-me-nots, is so +modest and simple that it may very easily be passed over in a period +which has little sympathy with tenderness of feeling and simplicity of +expression. The verses, of which this small volume is full, resemble the +_stornelli_ and _rispetti_ of Italian songs rather than any kind of +verse which has preceded them in English literature, unless it be the +earliest and briefest songs of Robert Lytton, with which they have a +certain kindred, both in their measure and in their themes. Auberon +Herbert is known to the world as a daring and original thinker, a +sociologist who lives three centuries before his time, a fearless +preacher of new liberties and ideal creeds; in this tiny azure booklet +he is also a poet, or, as he would rather himself say, a singer. The +verse springs from the depths of his heart, and calls to those who, like +himself, have loved and suffered and found nothing endure except the +consolations of natural beauty. + + 'In the West is the golden glory, + As the great king goes to his rest; + In the East the purple staineth + The hills from foot to crest. + + 'And I stand and look in wonder + Till my heart is cleft in twain, + Half for the vision of glory, + And half for the dying pain.' + +Like the Italian _canzone_, these little lyrics, brief as a summer +breeze, which momentarily sways the stalks of grass, must be heard with +the ear of the heart. Coldly criticised by the mind alone, they will lie +like the gathered field-poppy, inert and colourless. They are the cries +of the heart, like those brief verses which the southern lover sings to +the sobbing lute beneath the moon. He who has killed his heart in the +pressure of the world will find nothing in them. They who are steeped in +the chill indifference of mundane interests will no more heed them than +such heed the skylark's or the linnet's song, which they resemble. They +were not written in the study, or fashioned with the pruning-knife; they +were born by the edge of the sea, in the woodland shade, by the clover +path of the country hedge, in the falling rain of the peach and +pear-blossoms, in the starlight above the olives. They are the elder +children of the lonely shores and flowering pastures; they have never +known the gaslight of the streets or the electric light of the +drawing-room. They are as sweet and pure as violets. + +To those who know, and respect as they should be respected, the virile +and original philosophies of the writer, there is an added charm in +these tender blossoms in the fact that they spring from the same +intelligence as that which proclaims individualism in its boldest forms +and attacks the tyrannies of social and political superstitions. + +They are but little songs, short as a ripple of music from a woodlark's +throat, of no more account, if you will, than the blue stars of +mouse-ear by the brook's side, than the dog-rose on the bank; too simple +it may be said, speaking of emotions too trite, of sorrow too common, of +sights too familiar, in language that the dullest can scarce fail to +understand. Yes; no doubt, they are like field-flowers, like +hedge-birds; they claim to be no more than these; they were not wrestled +for as Wordsworth wrestled for an ode beneath the shadow of Rydal, or as +Coleridge strove with the rebellious forces of a halting sonnet when +lying down face foremost amongst 'the common grass.' They are +spontaneous utterances, as natural as the ripple of the water over the +cresses in a brook's bed beneath willow and alder. It may be easy to +dismiss them with indifference, to underrate them with hypercritic +sneer, and assuredly those who take pleasure in the strained archaic +obscurities of much modern verse will find no more charm in them than +the languid aesthete, musing over the pages of Verlaine and Mallarme, +would find in a sea-wet breeze blowing across a hayfield at early +morning. There is no studied mannerism, no sought-for darkness of +expression, no exaggerated ecstasy or pessimism; there is such a natural +feeling, of joy as of sorrow, as comes to the soul at once robust and +sensitive; and these are expressed with frank, unstudied _naivete_, with +the candour as of a child, and the self-control of a man blent in their +simplicity. 'Look in your own heart and write,' has been the only +precept which their creator has obeyed. + +The most intense attachment in them is for the sea. The sea, whether +those grey sad tides which sway from the sands of Christchurch to the +rocks of Freshwater, or that azure radiance which rolls from the +headland of Antibes to the gardens of Porto Fino, has the same magic for +Auberon Herbert that it has for Algernon Swinburne; a charm much calmer +and more peaceful, but not less strong. Many of these little poems speak +of the sea only; are full of that happy sense of return and recognition +which so many amongst us feel when, after absence from the sea, we tread +again its wet salt sands, and feel its white spray dance against our +cheek. Swinburne is the great laureate of ocean, the chords of whose +mighty lyre reverberate with the ocean storm and echo the thunder of +breakers breaking upon iron shores, and of billows sweeping from pole to +pole. The song of Auberon Herbert is the homing cry of the sea-swallows +swaying on the crest of the waves. + +'Back to the Sea Mother' he calls these yearning lines:-- + + 'Kindest of mothers, from whom I have strayed, + Back again, tired, I come to thee, + Chaunting and crooning the old wave-song; + Sing it, oh! sing it again to me! + + 'Weary and spent as the hour draws near, + Hush me to sleep with the soft wave-song; + Wash all the cares away, wash all the strifes away, + All the old pains that to living belong. + + 'Down at thy side I place me to rest; + Slowly my senses are stealing from me; + Passions and pleadings have ceased in my breast, + Gently my spirit floats away free.' + +And yet again:-- + + 'Thou great strong sea, fast lock'd in dreams, + Clouds journeying to and fro, + Whose tender blue the stars come through, + I can but love ye so! + + 'Ye take possession of my heart, + And all my life renew; + Like grain of dust I grow a part, + A small stray part of you. + + 'Thy sounds, O storm, are far and faint, + As thou stridest over the sea; + And we need thy breath from many a taint + To set us clean and free. + + 'But when thou comest on mighty wings, + Deal gently with forest and tree, + For my heart is woe for the goodly things + That to-morrow will cease to be. + + 'Yes! I shall go and you will dream, + And drink the pale blue sky, + Beneath the hill that hugs you round + As silver days go by. + + 'When others come your love to claim, + You still, you pale blue sea, + Oh, shall you mean for them the same, + That once you meant for me? + + 'And shall they look on you with eyes + As tender true as mine, + And love each changing gleam that flies + Across that face of thine?' + +I dislike the translation of expression from one art to another, +otherwise I would call these verses impressionist. They have the +quickly-captured forms, the frail fugitive colour, the infinite +suggestiveness, which are the notes of the highest impressionism in +painting. + +See these eight lines:-- + + 'The sun is at rest--for the storms are o'er; + Just touch'd with the hand of night, + And a line of shadow creeps to the shore, + Then flashes in silver light-- + + 'Like a note that stops in its flight and droops, + And clings for a while to the ground; + Then trembles and wakes from its trance and breaks + Into passion and glory of sound.' + +How entirely true are these to the breaking of a smooth, pale expanse of +water into motion and light; the sudden flashing as of a million spears +with which the sea, when smitten by the sword of the Sun, rises to the +challenge of Morning. And yet by what simple and common words this +strong effect is produced! + +Or this:-- + + 'Only a bit of land-locked bay, + With a haunting face on the further side; + Yet the ocean as well might bar the way, + So far from each other our lives divide. + + 'For you jest at times, and at times you pray, + And you tread a path that cannot be mine; + And the world is with you from day to day, + And all that you are I dare not divine.' + +Or this:-- + + 'In the glory of youth the young man went; + His heart with pride was stirred; + "They should yield," he cried, "to the message sent, + And force of the burning word." + + 'The long years passed and a wearied man + Crept back to the old home door: + "I have spoken my word and none has heard, + And the great world rolls as before."' + +Or this:-- + + 'Forward we look, and we gild it all, + Rich is the picture and tender and fair, + Backward we look, and the blue mists fall, + Veiling the troubles that once were there. + + 'Ah! well, and ah! well, and lighter the load, + If heart the enchanter weave his web; + If he tells love-stories to cheat the road, + And binds in our dreams the purple thread.' + +Or this:-- + + 'Ah! love so sweet, and patient, and fond, + I wandered far from thy sight, + And I said to myself that the world beyond + Was a garden rich with delight. + + 'And there rose an image from morn to morn + Of new bewildering days, + Till my heart grew proud and I thought with scorn + Of the peaceful homely ways. + + 'For the young are light, and I never had learnt + To know the false from the true, + And my feet were drawn where the far lights burnt + With their wonder strange and new. + + 'And now how bitter to heart is the taste, + And gone are the folly and pride; + And I save what I can from the years of waste + And stand once more at thy side.' + +It will be seen that the store of words at the singer's command is +limited; his palette is set with few colours; his lute has but few +strings; and it is in this that he resembles the singers of the Italian +folk-songs and couplets which have only the limited vocabulary of the +peasant to express so many of the deepest chords of human feeling. These +English verses might, like those Italian _canzone_, be created by one to +whom all the stores of knowledge and of culture were sealed books. They +are cast in the simplest of all possible forms of expression, and there +is not one which would not suit the plaintive measure of a crooning +ballad sung in twilight by the embers of a cottage hearth. They suggest +their own music, and it would be difficult to read them aloud without +falling into some rhythmical balance of their lines. + +Auberon Herbert is, we know by his prose works, master of rich stores of +language and of scholarship; therefore this simplicity of style in his +verses springs, not from poverty of resources, but from correctness of +instinct. These songs are _naif_ as a child's prayer at its mother's +knee at eventide; were they ornate or elaborate they would cease to be, +as they are now, the frank and spontaneous utterances of the soul, +natural, I have said, as song of linnet or of lark. + +Let those who love pure, simple, unstudied, and unborrowed things send +for the little azure book, and read it for themselves; not in noisy +railway train, or metropolitan library, or fashion-filled country house; +but in the solitude of some quiet rural place, beside some nameless +streamlet where the willow-leaves touch the blue brook-lime and the bees +hum amidst the flowering thyme. + +When we take it home, as the day dies, let us place it on a shelf +between the hymns of George Herbert and those earliest love-songs which +were signed Owen Meredith. There it will find its fit companionship. + + + + +X + +THE UGLINESS OF MODERN LIFE + + +Pierre Loti has lately written in an album published at Schweningen for +charity the following passages, which will be new to the majority of +English readers:-- + + 'The end of April is the season of change, when the Judas trees + all along the shores of the Bosphorus are in flower. Nowhere + else in the world does one find so many Judas trees as here, + where the two extremities of Asia and of Europe are face to + face. There are violet-hued tufts and violet-hued alleys; an + excess of violet colour so intense, and so unusual, that one's + sight is dazzled and bewildered by it. And the wisteria too, + which garlands the old eaves of houses with its millions of + clusters, hangs out wreaths of a lighter lilac from all the + hamlets of grey timber which lean down over the water. This + Bosphorus is a great winding river, but a river which has in it + the life and the seduction of the sea. The hills on its two + shores are covered by palaces, by mosques, by cottages and by + tombs, all surrounded by and buried in gardens. And here in + the month of April, under this sky still veiled and softened by + the clouds of the North, there is a luxury of foliage and + blossom in which this violet tone of the Judas trees is + dominant, and shines beside the dark and ghost-like cypress + groves. + + 'There are on earth other places grander, and perhaps more + beautiful; certainly there are none of greater power to charm. + This scenery of the Bosphorus, from which no stranger ever + escapes, is due to the Oriental mystery which still broods on + it; it comes from the great closed harems of which the upper + storeys hang over the waves; it comes from the veiled women + whom we see in the shadow of the gardens, and in the slender + caiques which pass. But this Turkish witchery is fading, alas! + Year by year, more and more, great gaps are made in the ranks + of the ancient impenetrable buildings, with their grated + windows, which plunge their walls into the water and which one + could enter from the water, as at Venice; and with them go the + slender caiques, the costumes, and the women's veils. + + 'Already, even since last spring, Therapia seems to exist no + longer, masked as it is by a gigantic and hideous caravanserai; + the exquisite Anatoli Hissar is disfigured by an American + college, of a sinister ugliness, which has stuck itself above + the ancient castle with an imbecile air of domination. + + 'And everywhere it is the same story, whether on the shores of + Asia or the shores of Europe; frightful new buildings cumber + the ground and factory chimneys rise beside minarets of which + they are the miserable caricatures. In vain do the Judas trees + continue their beautiful flowering; the Bosphorus will soon + perish, destroyed by idiotic speculators. And the Turks, my + dear friends the Turks, have the indolence or fatalism to let + such destruction be wrought every day under their eyes!' + +Thus Loti with his poet's soul, his prose which is a golden lyre; and it +seems to me as I translate his words that his lament for the Judas trees +and the Bosphorus is but the embodiment of a lament which sighs over the +whole world. The beauty of the earth is dying, dying like a creature +with a cancer in its breast. + +The writer of the _Foundations of Belief_ thinks that the earth was made +for man; if this presumptuous conviction had indeed any foundation at +all what an ingrate would the recipient of the gift have proved himself, +what an imbecile, as Loti calls him! + +The loss of beauty from the world is generally regarded as the purely +sentimental grievance of imaginative persons; but it is not so; it is a +loss which must impress its vacuity fatally on the human mind and +character. It tends, more than any other loss, to produce that apathy, +despondency, and cynical indifference which are so largely +characteristic of the modern temper. + +The people are taught to think that all animal life may be tortured and +slaughtered at pleasure; that physical ills are to be feared beyond all +others, and escaped at all vicarious cost; that profit is the only +question of importance in commerce; that antiquity, loveliness, and +grace are like wild flowers, mere weeds to be torn up by a steam +harrow. This is not the temper which makes noble characters, or generous +and sensitive minds. It is the temper which accumulates wealth, and +which flies readily to war to defend that wealth; but which is +absolutely barren of all impersonal sympathy, of all beautiful creation. + +Taken as a whole, artists have the kindliest natures and the happiest +temperaments of any body of men. Why? because their minds are always +more or less susceptible to the impressions and influences of +beauty--beauty of line, of hue, of proportion, of suggestion; beauty +alike of the near and of the far; and they surround themselves with +their own ideals of these in such measure as their powers permit. But, +even in artists, modern life tends to deform these ideals, and in any +exhibition of modern paintings ninety-nine out of a hundred of these +works will be ugly; they will display, perhaps, admirable technique, +complete mastery of detail, fine brush work, perhaps unexceptionable +drawing, but the combination of these qualities will produce merely a +sense of ugliness on the retina of the observer of them. + +Unless the man of genius buries himself resolutely in the country and by +the sea, as Tennyson did, as Clausen does, he cannot altogether escape +the influence of the unloveliness of modern life. It would be impossible +to painters and poets to live in Regent's Park or the Avenue de +Villiers, in Cromwell Road or the Via Nazionale, or in any of the new +quarters of English or Continental towns, unless their instincts of +beauty had become dulled and dwarfed by the atmosphere around them; life +for any length of time would be insupportable to them under the +conditions in which it is of necessity lived in modern cities; and this +perversion of their natural instincts makes the tendency to replace +beauty by eccentricity and by weirdness fatally frequent. Their critics +obey the same influences, and modern art-criticism, like the recent +studies of Robert de la Sizzeranne on English painting, is characterised +by what appears to be a total incapacity to appreciate the quality of +beauty, a total insensibility to its absence from modern art. + +In sculpture this is as remarkable as in painting, and is still more +alarming and painful, the ugliness of realism and of eccentricity being +a still more offensive blasphemy in marble than it is in colour. If the +most ordinary sense of beauty, as distinguished from deformity, were not +extinct in the world, would any one of the monuments erected within the +last half century be allowed to disfigure the cities of Europe? Carnot +in a frock coat lying in the arms of a female, supposed to represent +France, with his boots thrust out towards the spectator; Victor Emmanuel +in a cocked hat with his body like a swollen bladder stuck on two wooden +ninepins; Peabody sitting in an arm-chair as if he awaited a dentist; +old William of Prussia like a child's tin soldier magnified, and with +the greater men who made him dwarfed military manikins underneath; +black-metal Garibaldis, and Gordons, and Napiers, and Macmahons; Claude +Bernard in the act of mutilating a live dog--every imaginable +abomination in every street and square of every capital, and even of +every noticeable town, proclaim to all the quarters of the globe the +debasement of a once pure and lofty art, and the utter ineptitude and +vulgarity of modern taste. Of what use is it to attempt to educate the +nations when such things as these are set up in their midst? + +An English archbishop at a recent Royal Academy banquet said that he +hoped the time was near at hand when every child in England would learn +to draw. Apart from the gross folly of teaching a child anything for +which its own natural talent does not pre-dispose it, and the injury +done to the world by the artificial manufacture of millions of +indifferent draughtsmen, what use can it be to attempt to awaken +perception of art in a generation which is begotten where art and nature +are alike persistently outraged? + +It is entirely useless to multiply art schools, and desire that every +child should learn to draw, when all the tendencies of modern life have +become such that every rule of art is violated in it and every artistic +sense offended in an ordinary daily walk. + +Amongst even the most cultured classes few have really any sensibility +to beauty. Not one in a thousand pauses in the hurried excitements of +social life to note beauty in nature; to art there is accorded a passing +attention because it is considered _chic_ to do so; but all true sense +of art must be lacking in a generation whose women wear the spoils of +tropical birds, slain for them, on their heads and skirts, and whose men +find their principal joy for nearly half the year in the slaughter of +tame creatures, and bespatter with blood the white hellebore of their +winter woods. + +Beauty is daily more and more withdrawn from the general life of the +people. Fidgety and repressive bye-laws tend to suppress that element of +the picturesque which popular life by its liberties, and by its +open-air pastimes and peddlings, created for itself. The police are +everywhere, and street-life is joyless and colourless. Even within +doors, in the houses of poor people, the things of daily usage have lost +their old-world charm; the ugly sewing-machine has replaced the +spinning-wheel, the cooking-range the spacious open hearth, the veneered +machine-made furniture the solid home-made oaken chests and presses, a +halfpenny newspaper the old family Bible; whilst out of doors the lads +and lasses must not sing or dance, the dog must not play or bark, the +chair must not stand out on the pavement, the bells must not ring their +chimes, only the cyclist, or the automobilist, lord of all, may tear +along and leave broken limbs and bruised flesh of others behind him at +his pleasure. + +If all feeling for grace and beauty were not extinguished in the mass of +mankind at the actual moment, such a method of locomotion as cycling +could never have found acceptance; no man or woman with the slightest +aesthetic sense could assume the ludicrous position necessary for it. Nor +would the auto-car with its stench of petroleum be tolerated for an +instant in lanes and roads. Nor could modern dress be endured for a day +were there any true sense of fitness, of harmony, and of colour extant +in modern times. Even the great Catholic pageants are spoiled in their +grouping and splendour by the dull crowds of ill-dressed, dingily clad +townsfolk which drown their effect like a vast tide of muddy water +rising over a garden of flowers. It is impossible for us, even when +looking at anything so fine in colour as the Carnival at Milan, the Fete +Dieu at Brussels, the Students' Festivals in Munich, or any other of the +great Continental processions, to judge of what their extreme beauty +must have been when not only the procession itself but all the people in +the streets, all the whole vast tide of sightseers, comprising even the +very beggars, were equally full of colour and 'composed' harmoniously +with the central figures. + +A gorgeous spectacle of the streets now, whether it be popular, +military, or religious, is swamped in the mass of dull-coloured hues, +and grotesquely ugly head-gear, common to the whole population of a +city. Its effect may struggle as it will: it sinks under the +preponderating mass as a butterfly will be beaten down under a dirty, +drenching, city rain. + +There is a modern custom in Italy which is typical of the havoc made by +avarice and indifference and commerce running together hand in hand. It +is the shocking habit of stripping all evergreen trees of their leaves +to sell them to chemists, gilders, dyers, and the managers of what in +France we call _pompes funebres_. Even magnolias are not spared, and +these magnificent trees stand naked and despoiled in nearly all the +gardens and parks all over the country. In every town there are now +offices for the consignment and purchase of these leaves; to strip and +sell, to buy and export them, has become a recognised trade, and +hundreds of tons weight are every year, from September to April, sent +out of Italy, chiefly to Germany, Austria and Russia. The injury done +to the trees is, of course, immeasurable. After a few seasons they +become anaemic, dry up, and slowly perish, whilst the aspect of the +gardens of which the bay, myrtle, box, laurel, arbutus, and magnolia +were of late such conspicuous ornaments is, of course, utterly changed +and ruined. Unless by some edict of the State the practice be speedily +stopped, another generation will see nothing of those avenues and groves +and alleys of evergreen foliage which have been the glory of Italian +palaces and villas since the days of the Caesars. + +Follow the architectural history of any city, and you find it during the +last half-century the sorrowful record of a pitiful destruction. The +great gardens are always the first thing sacrificed. They are swept +away, and their places covered by brick and mortar with an incredible +indifference. Fine houses, even when of recent construction, like the +Pompeiian house of Prince Napoleon in Paris, are pulled down out of a +mere speculative mania to build something else, or to cut a long, +straight street as uninteresting and as unsuggestive as the boxwood +protractor which lies on a surveyor's desk. + +The greatest crime, or one of the greatest crimes (for there are others +black as night), of which the nineteenth century has been guilty has +been the driving of the people out of long familiar homes in the name +and under the pretext of hygiene, but in fact for the enrichment of +contractors, town councillors, and speculators of every kind. It began +with Haussmann; it has continued in Paris, and everywhere else, with +delirious haste ever since his time, as a burglar may drag a grey-beard +to his death. The modern aediles with their court of ravenous parasites +cannot understand, would not deign even to consider, the sorrow of a +humble citizen driven out of a familiar little home with nooks and +corners filled with memories and a roof-tree dear to generations. Go +into an old street of any old city you will, and you will almost +certainly find a delight for the eye in archway and ogive, in lintel and +casement, in winding stair and leaning eave; in the wallflowers rooted +in the steps, in the capsicum which has seeded itself between the +stones, in the swallows' nests under the gargoyle, in the pots of basil +and mignonette on the window-sills. But the modern street with its +dreary monotony, its long and high blank spaces, its even surfaces where +not a seed can cling or a bird can build, what will it say to your eyes +or your heart? You will see its dull, pretentious uniformity repeated on +either side of you down a mile-long vista, and you will curse it. + +It is natural that the people shut up in these structures crave for +drink, for nameless vices, for the brothel, the opium den, the cheap +eating-house and gaming booth; anything, anywhere, to escape from the +monotony which surrounds them and which leaves them no more charm in +life than if they were rabbits shut up in a physiologist's experimenting +cage, and fed on gin-soaked grains. No one in whom the aesthetic sense +was really awakened could dwell in a manufacturing city, or indeed in +any modern town. The 'flat,' whether in a 'first-class mansion,' or in a +'block' for the working man, would be more intolerable than a desert +island to anyone with a sense of the true charm of life, or, one may +add, any sensitiveness to the meaning of the word 'home'; that word +which is to be found in every language, though the English people do not +think so, and which is one of the sweetest and most eloquent in all +tongues. The Americans attach extreme pride to the fact that their +'sky-scrapers' are so advanced that your horses and carriage can be +carried up on a lift to the highest storey, and the nags, if it do not +make them dizzy, can survey the city in a bird's-eye view. But even this +supreme achievement of architects and engineers cannot lend to the cube, +shared with a score of others, the charm, the idiosyncrasy, the meaning, +the soul, which exhale from the smallest cottage where those who love +dwell all alone, through whose lattices a candle shines as a star to the +returning wanderer, and on whose lowly roof memory lies like a +benediction. + +According to the statistics of modern cities the mass of middle-class +and labouring-class people change their lodgings or tenements every two +or three years; three years is even an unusually long time of residence. +What can a people who flit like this, continually, know of the real +meaning of a home? + +The same restlessness and dissatisfaction which make these classes +change their residence so frequently, make the wealthier classes flit in +another way, from continent to continent, from capital to capital, from +one pleasure-place to another, from one house-party to another, from the +yacht to the _rouge-et-noir_ tables, from the bath to the coverside, +from the homewoods to the antipodes, in an endless gyration which +yields but little pleasure, but which they deem as necessary as cayenne +pepper with their hot soup. + +I believe that this monotony and lack of interest in the towns which +they inhabit fatally affect the minds of those whose lot it is to go to +and from the streets in continual toil, and produce in them fatigue, +heaviness and gloom; what the scholar and the poet suffer from +articulately and consciously, the people in general suffer from +inarticulately and unconsciously. The gaiety of nations dies down as the +beauty around them pales and passes. They know not what it is that +affects them, but they are affected by it none the less, as a young +child is hurt by the darkness, though it knows not what dark or light +means. + +Admit that the poorer people were ill-lodged in the Middle Ages, that +the houses were ill-lit, undrained, with the gutter water splashing the +threshold, and the eaves of the opposite houses so near that the sun +could not penetrate into the street. All this may have been so, but +around two-thirds of the town were gardens and fields, the neighbouring +streets were full of painted shrines, metal lamps, gargoyles, pinnacles, +balconies of hand-forged iron or hand-carved stone, solid doors, bronzed +gates, richly-coloured frescoes; and the eyes and the hearts of the +dwellers in them had wherewithal to feed on with pleasure, not to speak +of the constant stream of many-coloured costume and of varied pageant or +procession which was for ever passing through them. Then in the niches +there were figures; at the corners there were shrines; on the rivers +there were beautiful carved bridges, of which examples are still left +to our day in the Rialto and the Vecchio. There were barges with +picture-illumined sails, and pleasure-galleys gay to the sights, and +everywhere there were towers and spires, and crenulated walls, and the +sculptured fronts of houses and churches and monasteries, and close at +hand was the greenness of wood and meadow, the freshness of the +unsullied country. Think only what that meant; no miles on miles of +dreary suburban waste to travel; no pert aggressive modern villas to +make day hateful; no underground railway stations and subways; no +hissing steam, no grinding and shrieking cable trams; no hell of factory +smoke and jerry-builders' lath and plaster; no glaring geometrical +flower beds; but the natural country running, like a happy child laden +with posies, right up to the walls of the town. + +The cobbler or craftsman, who sat and worked in his doorway, and saw the +whole vari-coloured life of a mediaeval city pass by him, was a very +different being to the modern mechanic, a cypher amongst hundreds, shut +in a factory room, amongst the deafening noise of cogwheel and pistons. +Even from a practical view of his position, his guilds were a very much +finer organisation than modern trades-unions, and did far more for him +in his body and his mind. In the exercise of his labour he could then be +individual and original, he is now but one-thousandth part of an inch in +a single tooth of a huge revolving cogwheel. The mediaeval house might be +in itself nothing more than a cover from bad weather, but all about it +there was infinite variety; all life in the street or alley was richly +coloured, even the gutter brawls were medleys of shining steel, and +broken plumes, and many-coloured coats, and broidered badges, a whirl of +bright hues, which sent a painter in joy to his palette. + +Indoors there were the spinning-wheel, the copper vessels, the walnut +presses, the settle by the wide warm hearth, the shrine upon the stairs +which the women made fresh with flowers. The river was gay with blazoned +hulls and painted sails; over its bridges the processions of church or +guild passed like embroidered ribbons slowly unrolling; the workman had +a busy life, and often a perilous life, but one still blent with +leisure; and the mariners' tales of wondrous lands unknown lent to life +that witchery of the remote and unattainable, that delightful thrill of +mystery and awe, which to the omniscient and cynical modern soul seem +childishness too trivial for words. + +Try and realise what life was like when Chaucer walked through Chepe, +when Henri de Valois entered Venice, when Philippe le Bel rode through +the oak woods of Vincennes, when Petrarca was crowned in Rome, when +William Shakespeare sauntered through Warwickshire lanes in cowslip +time. Read Michelet's description of a Flemish Burgher, and contrast it +with the existence of a shopkeeper in a modern town. Read Froude's +description of a sea-going merchantman of Elizabeth's days, and contrast +it with the captain of a modern liner. You will at once see how full of +colour and individuality were the former lives; how colourless, +unlovely, and deprived of all initiative are the latter. Being shorn of +freedom, interest, and beauty, modern life finds vent for the +feverishness which is cooped up in it in commercial gambling--gambling +of all kinds from the Stock Exchange to the tontine, from the foreign +loan to the suburban handicap--and existence is but one gigantic +lottery. Even when a man goes on an excursion of pleasure he will at +starting buy a penny ticket which insures his life for a hundred pounds +in case of accident! How can such a populace, always haunted by the fear +of death, possibly enjoy? + +The great increase in cold-blooded and ferocious murders, done on slight +motive and with cynical indifference, is the natural issue of this way +of looking at life. Who has no reverence for his own life has naturally +none for the lives of others. When a man regards his own existence as a +mere parcel to be adequately paid for with a hundred pounds, it follows +as the night the day that he cannot regard the life of another as worth +twenty shillings. Even death itself is made grotesque by modern science, +and the arms and legs and headless trunks flung into the air by the +explosion of a bomb are robbed of that mute majesty which the dead body +claims by right of nature. They seem no more than shreds of cloth or +fragments of chopped wood. It is to be feared, moreover, that the +extreme facilities given by science for instantaneous and widespread +slaughter will lead gradually to greater indifference still in the +public mind to assassination, and it will become so common that it will +be scarcely regarded with disapproval. + +Many verdicts in various countries show the growing indulgence of the +law to murders. In France and Italy especially even a cold-blooded +murder will meet scant punishment, whilst one due to sudden passion is +almost sure of being either wholly unpunished, or very lightly +sentenced. In many cases, even in England, the juries have been of an +extraordinary tenderness towards murderers whose guilt they were obliged +to admit. At Chester, in England, a few weeks ago, four young colliers +who set on and stoned another to death, and flung his body in a canal, +were sentenced by Mr Justice Lawrance to the punishment of four months +in prison for three of them, and nine months for the ringleader, and +nothing more. + +Many men of violent temper would think so small a price well paid to rid +themselves of a foe or of a rival. The excuse for the colliers was that +they had all been drinking. This is an excuse very generally made in +these days of culture and compulsory education. + +It will be said that this has nothing to do with the presence or absence +of beauty in national life. But it has much to do with the callousness +and apathy and egotism so general in national life; and the ugliness of +surrounding influences and poverty of design in the arts so common in +modern times are chief factors in generating this lamentable temper. + +Happiness, and its companions goodwill and kindly sympathy, are +insensibly suggested and increased by what is beautiful, artistic, and +full of good colour and varied design. Even the physical aspect of man +is affected by that which it looks upon, that by which it is surrounded, +and the French woman was a wise mother who during her pregnancy went to +gaze upon the finest works of the Louvre. How much, on the contrary, may +the embryo be affected for ill by sordid, dreary, and unlovely +conditions which environ the parent during the period of gestation? + +There can be, I think, no doubt that physical beauty is degenerating +rapidly, and the frequency with which the scrofulous mouth is seen in +children, even in children of the aristocracies, is alarming for the +future of the race. In the working classes the offspring must be fatally +affected by the poisonous trades, the sickening effluvia, the deadly +conditions amongst which modern commerce requires its slaves to spend +their lives. + +Even the country fields are sullied by chemicals and stink of sulphates, +phosphates, and human excrements. Agriculture tends to become a mere +manufacture, like any other, surrounded by the din of pistons, the fumes +of vapour, the jar of wheels. + +Beauty is the safest stimulant, the surest tonic, the most precious +inspiration; natural beauty first of all, and the beauty of the arts +closely following, twinlike handmaids to Aphrodite. But to perceive this +the mentally blind are as incapable as the physically blind; and such, +mental cecity is as general in these days as myopy is common in the +schoolrooms of this generation. + +Every year all cities, and even all towns, are severed farther and +farther from the country; every year the electric wires multiply for +telegraph and telephone; the tramways and railways increase, the +sickening grinding noises common to these methods of locomotion fill the +air, and the extraordinary ugliness, which seems attached like a doom to +any modern invention, is multiplied on all sides. That, in an age which +considers itself educated, such hideous constructions as the great +wheels of Chicago and of Earl's Court should attract sane persons as a +diversion will alone prove how completely the instinct of correct taste, +with its accompanying abhorrence of deformity, has become extinct in all +modern crowds. + +With the ever-increasing use of steam, the beauty of the sky yearly +grows dimmer and more veiled. That a race with any pretensions to +education and perception can live contentedly under such a sky as that +of London would appear an incredible fact, did we not know that it is an +indisputable one. Whoever revisits Paris after a few seasons' absence +finds the brilliancy of its life more and more dimmed with every decade +by the sullying of the atmosphere through the increase of factories, +railways and other works, and the invasion by the town of its once +beautiful girdle of wood, orchard, and garden. Every year national life +everywhere grows less varied, less picturesque, more unlovely, and every +year finds the people more contented to dwell with no other horizon than +a bank of smoke. + +It was monstrous that the selection of the glades and pastures of the +New Forest, for military manoeuvres, should ever have been permitted +by the British War Office. But the mere fact that it _was_ monstrous, +that it was an offence to history and nature, that it disturbed and +distressed wild life, that it wounded and outraged the feelings of +residents and the sentiments of artists, was a reason all-sufficient to +make the modern temper brutally enamoured of the idea. Merely because +the despatch of the battalions and field batteries thither was a +vandalism, and caused pain to more aesthetic minds, military +manoeuvres in the New Forest became all at once a project to be +insisted on and carried out at all costs. The same outrage is now being +done to Stonehenge. + +The modern temper cannot respect, cannot appreciate, cannot love, but it +can hate; and its hatred shows itself in damage and destruction +everywhere, whether it set fire to the noble old house of the Hanseatic +League at Antwerp, pull down the water towers of Dieppe, plant the +jerry-builder before the Lateran, drag a railway train up to Murren, or +trample down with ill-shod boy-soldiers the thyme and the bracken of the +Conqueor's woods and the turf which the Druids trod. + +The modern temper resembles those children in Victor Hugo's romance who, +being left alone with the beautiful and ancient _Horae_, find no prank so +delightful as to tear from end to end the illuminated text of the book +and its perfect miniatures, clapping their hands as each fair thing +perishes. Nor is there any indication of the advent of anyone who will +take the book of the world from the destroying hands, and save what +still remains of its beauty. + +There is, on the contrary, every sign that the future will see a still +greater domination of that rude, cold, and cruel temper which takes +pleasure in innovation and obliteration, and sneers, with contemptuous +conceit, at those who are pained by such acts of desecration. It is the +same sneer, the same leering and self-satisfied snigger, with which it +views the expression and evidence of pity for, and solidarity with, what +it is pleased to call the lower animals. + +The Langdale Pikes are being pierced and blasted for iron foundries and +slate quarries. The great forest of La Haye near Nancy is being +destroyed by military fortifications, and by foundries and by factories. +All the valley of the Meuse and the Moselle is sullied with factory +smoke and blasting powder. The Bay of Amalfi and the shore of Posilippo +are defiled by cannon foundries. The Isle of St Elena at Venice is laid +waste to serve as a railway factory. All the Ardennes are scorched and +soiled, and sickened with stench of smoke and suffocating slag. The Peak +Country and the Derwent vales are being scarred and charred for railway +lines, mines, and factories. Amsterdam, so late the Venice of the North, +is becoming an unmeaning mass of modern insignificance and ugliness; +what has been done to the Venice of the South is such outrage that it +might wake Tiziano from under his weight of marble in the Frari Church, +and call the Veronese from his grave. + +To destroy Trinity Hospital in London, and place a brewery in its place +is a joy and glory to the modern municipal soul. The Hotel Dessin in +Calais, made sacred to the name of Laurence Sterne, was a pleasant place +with an arched entrance and a large courtyard, round whose sides the +buildings were grouped; it had vines and greenery of all kinds, and over +the archway were little dormer windows. Behind it stretched fair gardens +of great extent, and beyond these was a theatre belonging to the hotel. +Of late years it had served as a museum for the town, and was thus +preserved intact; now it has been pulled down and razed to the ground, +and a huge commercial school built in its place. The funicular railways +are ruining the whole of the Swiss Alps; the greed of a few speculators +and the irreverent folly of the multitude combine to scar the sides of +the great mountains and gather on their summits troops of gaping +sightseers, to whom the solemnity of the Gletsch Alp or the virginity of +the Jungfrau are of no account. + +Zermatt, so late a virgin stronghold of the Higher Alps, is now a mere +cockney excursion, and sixty thousand trippers invade its solitude with +every summer, plodding like camels in a string, vexing the air with +inane noises, offending the mountain stillness with songs to which the +bray of mules were music, insulting the crystal clearness of the heavens +with the intrusion of their own ludicrous, blatant and imbecile +personalities, incapable even of being silent and ashamed. The island of +Naxos, whose mere name brings before us so many classic memories in all +their loveliness and glory, is being broken up into chips by the +emery-workers, and is to be mined for aluminium. + +The finest torrent in Scotland is about to be diverted from its course +and used for aluminium works. The glory of its waters is to be known no +more, merely that some engineers and manufacturers may fill their +pockets to the public loss; that some promoters and shareholders, +possessing large parliamentary influence, may add to their fortunes. To +speak of civilisation, which is a term implying culture, in the same +breath with a nation capable of such an action is ludicrous. + +The fumes of these aluminium works will, when they are in full blast, +emit hydrofluoric acid gas which will destroy all the vegetation on Loch +Ness for miles. Yet such is the apathy and want of conscience in modern +generations that the annihilation of the Falls of Foyers appears +scarcely to meet with any general indignation. + +There is no modern mania so dangerous as the present one for meddling +with water; no injury more conspicuous and irrevocable than the +perpetual interference with lake and stream and torrent. + +The lakes of Maggiore, of Como, of Garda, are all being defiled by +factories and steam-engines; and even such a writer as De Voguee can look +contentedly forward to a time when such erections will disfigure both +banks of the Rhone. + +The isles of Lake Leman serve for commercial and communal purposes. +Thirlmere and Loch Katrine have been violated, and all the other English +and Scotch lakes will be similarly ravaged. Fucina has been dried up as +a speculation, and Trasimene is threatened. The Rhone is already dammed +up, and tapped, and tortured, until all its rich alluvial deposits are +lost to the soil of Provence. + +It would be easy to fill folios with the bare enumeration of places and +memories, of sites and scenes of which the destruction has been +accomplished within the last few years. To get money for the +preservation of anything is well-nigh impossible; but millions flow like +water when there is any scheme of destruction. In an age which prates +more than any other of its pride in education, the violation of every +law of taste, of every tie of association, of every rule of beauty, is +always greedily welcomed with a barbaric shout of triumph. + +Lath and plaster circuses or theatres are erected by the Mausoleum of +Hadrian, and the miserable caged monkeys of a menagerie pull each +other's tails where Raffaele's pavillion stood amidst the +nightingale-filled ilex groves. + +Frederic Harrison, in his admirable studies of Paris, cannot hide from +himself or his readers the loss to art and history which the +Haussmannising of the city began, the insanity of the Commune continued, +and the barbarism of the present Republic confirms. The ruin of Rome +since the Italian occupation is ten times worse and more offensive than +even such ruin as would have been entailed by a siege, for it is more +vulgar; shell and shot would have destroyed indeed, but they would not +have imbecilely and impudently reconstructed. The same sad change +awaits, if it has not already overtaken, every city of Europe, and alas! +even of Asia. The smoke fiend has entered Jerusalem, and the shriek of +the engines has scared the wild dove from her nest in the palm and +pomegranate. The Mount of Olives is 'a thing to be done,' and the +'scorcher,' sweating and grinning, drives his wheel through the +rose-thickets of Damascus. + +Factory chimneys stand as thick in Bombay as in Birmingham, and black +trails of foul vapour float over Indus and Ganges; soon their curse will +reach the Euphrates. I believe I am correct in saying that the smoke +from the funnel of a great steamer or a large factory can be traced for +forty-five miles in its passage through the air. Imagine the effect on +atmosphere of the continual crossing and re-crossing on ocean routes of +tens of thousands of such steamships yearly, of the perpetual belching +of such fumes from the innumerable factory shafts annually increased in +every part of what is called the civilised world. To India, from England +alone, the export of machines and other material for factory erection +has been at the enormous rate of L70,000 monthly! + +Only let us consider what this means, what destruction of pure light and +of fine atmosphere this involves for Hindostan. + +The snow-white marbles of the temples, the ivory doors, the silver +gates, the rosy clouds, the lotus-laden waters, the golden dawns, the +magnolia woods, the camellia groves, the feathered flocks in the bamboo +aisles, will all vanish that the smoke fiend may reign alone and the +traders who live by him grow rich. The 'light of Asia' is forced to grow +foul and dark and sickly, and its radiant suns to be shrouded in +pestilent fog in order that the British Gradgrind may put by his 200 per +cent. and fold his hands complacently on his rotund belly. + +Is the end worth the means? + +Is modern trade in truth such a godhead descended on earth that all the +loveliness of earth and air, of sky and water should be sacrificed to +its demands? + +We hear _ad nauseam_ of the gains of modern life, of what is called +civilisation: does no one count its losses? It might be well to do so. +It might act as a corrective to the inane self-worship which is at once +the most ill-founded and the most irritating feature of the age. Perhaps +other ages have in turn adored themselves in like manner, but there is +not in history any record of it. Its prophets, heroes, sages, each age +has either admired or execrated; but I do not think any age has so +admired itself as the present age, which has its prototype in William of +Germany standing between two sand banks and thinking himself greater +than Alexander because his engineers have succeeded in cutting for him a +ditch longer than usual. + +The modern world is at this moment ruled by two enemies of all beauty: +these are commerce and militarism. What the one does not destroy, the +other tramples under foot. In earlier times war, terrible always, was +beautiful, like its goddess Bellona, in its savage splendour. Its camps, +its troops, its standards, its panoply, were all full of colour and of +pomp. Even so late as the Napoleonic wars its awfulness was blended with +beauty. Now the passage of an army is like the course of so many dirty +luggage trains filled with bales of wool or hampers of fish. Its +monstrous maw licks up all loveliness as all life which it finds in its +way. Its frightful steel cylinders belch death on every gracious and +happy thing. It is unenlivened by pageantry, as it is unredeemed by +courtesy. Bellona is no more a goddess, but a hag. + +Socialism, which has the future of the world in its hands, will probably +be unable to abolish war, and will certainly not care for beauty or seek +to preserve it. The reconstruction of society which Socialism +contemplates will not be a state of things in which the interests of +either nature or art will be cherished. Collectivism must of necessity +be colourless; equality can afford none of those heights and depths, +those lights and shades, which are the essential charm of life as of +landscape. When all the arable earth is one huge allotment-ground, a +Corot will find no subject for his canvas, not even in his dreams, for +his dreams will be dead of inanition. + +There can be, I think, no hope that this loss of beauty will not be +greater and greater with every year. The tendency, continually +increasing in the modern character, is to regard beauty and nature with +cynical indifference, stirred, when stirred at all, into active +insolence; such insolence as was expressed in the joke of the Chicago +citizen who called the plank-walks of his city 'the reafforesting of our +town.' It is a temper not merely brutal, but with a leer in it which is +more offensive than its brutality. + +The great beauty which animal and bird life lends to the earth is doomed +to lessen and disappear. The automatic vehicle will render the horse +useless; and he will be considered too costly, and too slow, to be kept +even as a gambling toy. The dog will have no place in a world which has +no gratitude for such simple sincerity and faithful friendliness as he +offers. When wool, and horn, and leather, and meat foods have been +replaced by chemical inventions, cattle and sheep will have no more +tolerance than the wild buffalo has had in the United States. What are +now classed as big game will be exterminated in Asia and Africa, and +already in Europe we are told that the pleasure it affords to people to +kill them is the sole reason why stags, foxes, and gamebirds are allowed +to exist and multiply under artificial protection. All the charm which +the races of 'fur and feather' lend to the earth will be lost for ever; +for a type destroyed can never be recalled. + +Every invention of what is called science takes the human race farther +and farther from nature, nearer and nearer to an artificial, unnatural +and dependent state. One seems to hear the laugh of Goethe's +Mephistopheles behind the hiss of steam; and in the tinkle of the +electric bell there lurks the chuckle of glee with which the Tempter +sees the human fools take as a boon and a triumph the fatal gifts he has +given. + +What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own +soul? What shall it profit the world to put a girdle about its loins in +forty minutes when it shall have become a desert of stone, a wilderness +of streets, a treeless waste, a songless city, where man shall have +destroyed all life except his own, and can hear no echo of his heart's +pulsation save in the throb of an iron piston. + +The engine tearing through the disembowelled mountain, the iron and +steel houses towering against a polluted sky, the huge cylinders +generating electricity and gas, the network of wires cutting across the +poisoned air, the overgrown cities spreading like scurvy, devouring +every green thing like locusts; haste instead of leisure, Neurasthenia +instead of health, mania instead of sanity, egotism and terror instead +of courage and generosity, these are the gifts which the modern mind +creates for the world. It can chemically imitate every kind of food and +drink, it can artificially produce every form of disease and suffering, +it can carry death in a needle and annihilation in an odour, it can +cross an ocean in five days, it can imprison the human voice in a box, +it can make a dead man speak from a paper cylinder, it can transmit +thoughts over hundreds of miles of wire, it can turn a handle and +discharge scores of death-dealing tubes at one moment as easily as a +child can play a tune on a barrel organ, it can pack death and horror up +in a small tin case which has served for sardines or potted herrings, +and leave it on a window-sill, and cause by it towers to fall, and +palaces to crumble, and flames to upleap to heaven, and living men to +change to calcined corpses; all this it can do, and much more. But it +cannot give back to the earth, or to the soul, 'the sweet wild freshness +of morning.' And when all is said of its great inventions and their +marvels and mysteries, are they more marvellous or more mysterious than +the changes of chrysalis and caterpillar and butterfly, or the rise of +the giant oak from the tiny acorn, or the flight of swallow and +nightingale over ocean and continent? + +Man has created for himself in the iron beast a greater tyrant than any +Nero or Caligula. And what is the human child of the iron beast, what is +the typical, notable, most conspicuous creation of the iron beast's +epoch? + +It is the Cad, vomited forth from every city and town in hundreds, +thousands, millions, with every holy day and holy-day. The chief +creation of modern life is the Cad; he is an exclusively modern +manufacture, and it may safely be said that the poorest slave in Hellas, +the meanest fellah in Egypt, the humblest pariah in Asia was a +gentleman beside him. The Cad is the entire epitome, the complete +blossom and fruit in one, of what we are told is an age of culture. +Behold him in the velodrome as he yells insanely after his kind as they +tear along on their tandem machines in a match, and then ask yourself +candidly, O my reader, if any age before this in all the centuries of +earth ever produced any creature so utterly low and loathsome, so +physically, mentally, individually, and collectively hideous? The helot +of Greece, the gladiator of Rome, the swash-buckler of Mediaeval Europe, +nay, the mere pimp and pander of Elizabethan England, of the France of +the Valois, of the Spain of Velasquez, were dignity, purity, courage in +person beside the Cad of this breaking dawn of the twentieth century; +the Cad rushing on with his shrill scream of laughter as he knocks down +the feeble woman or the yearling child, and making life and death and +all eternity seem ridiculous by the mere existence of his own +intolerable fatuity and bestiality. + + + + +XI + +THE QUALITY OF MERCY + + +Whatever we may think of the artistic and critical influence of Mr +Ruskin on his age, we cannot but view with admiration and reverence much +of his moral teaching, and there are in his writings innumerable +isolated words of wisdom which would be well printed in letters of gold +wherever men and women congregate and youth is educated. Amongst these +is one which could not be too often reproduced before the eyes of an +indifferent, egotistic, and cynical generation. It is this: 'Whosoever +is not actively kind, is cruel.' It is an absolute truth, but one which +is very little heeded. + +I will not here speak of the three crystallised and applauded forms of +cruelty, war, sport, and scientific experiment. I wish to speak only of +what is by scientists termed 'lay' cruelty, but which I would myself +call general and scarcely conscious cruelty--the ill-treatment of all +sentient creatures not human, by human creatures, due to the apathy, +egotism, and unkindness of the latter. It is to this form of cruelty +that Mr Ruskin alludes in the sentence previously quoted. + +The cruelty of earlier times had its chief cause in violence; the +cruelty of modern times has its chief cause in cowardice and +selfishness. The character of the cruelty has altered, but its +prevalence remains equally widespread and its motive is more +contemptible. The modern world regards the pillory and the stocks as +barbarous; but it allows the railway signalman to be riveted to his post +for eighteen consecutive hours, and sees no harm in it. The human race +was then ruder, no doubt, but more generous; more violent in some ways, +but more magnanimous. Remember the familiar story of the Roman who wrung +the neck of the dove which took refuge in his bosom from the pursuing +bird of prey, and was stoned by his fellow-citizens. In the modern world +there would be no movement of indignation against such an act; +gentlewomen and men see the necks wrung of the wounded birds in the +shooting enclosures from Hurlingham to Monte Carlo without the slightest +emotion of pity or effort at censure. + +Not long ago I spoke of this to a young and beautiful Englishwoman of +the great world, and she answered, 'Yes, it is useless to attempt to +move them to any feeling for animals. You can get them to do something +for people, because they think it does them good with the masses, keeps +off revolution, and helps in canvassing. But for cruelty they do not +care in the least.' She spoke in simplicity, with no intention of +sarcasm, but she could not have uttered a greater truth, or a more +cutting satire. + +There are exceptions, doubtless, but they are not numerous enough to +leaven the great mass of indifferent and selfish people. Animals find +but few friends. Alas! they have no votes! + +There is, perhaps, one thing still more nauseating than the world's +apathy, and that is its self-praise; its admiration of its own +charities, so miserably insignificant beside the extravagance of its own +pleasures. When we think how little is done by those who could do so +much to influence even their own households to justice and tenderness, +one cannot wonder that the populace is unmoved by the occasional +invitation to them from a higher world to display those virtues which +the rich prefer rather to inculcate than to practise. + +Last year in England, in a nobleman's house, a footman beat a small dog, +which ran into the offices, with a red-hot poker, and piled burning +coals on it until it died in indescribable agony. I wrote and asked the +nobleman in question if he had dismissed this monster from his service, +the man having been only punished by the Bench with a slight fine; the +nobleman answered me so evasively that it was easy to read between the +lines and see that he had retained the footman in his service. This act +on the part of the servant was an extreme case of hideous cruelty, but +his employer's condonation is by no means an extreme case; it is, +indeed, a very common sample of a master's indifference, of that +indifference which is practically connivance. People abandon their +stables to their coachmen, their dogs to their keepers; even the animals +they call pets are frequently allowed to suffer from servants, or +children, and are bullied, neglected, and teased with impunity. + +The disgusting spectacle of dog-catching by the police is allowed to be +presented in the public streets of most capitals of Europe, continually; +and there is never the outburst of revolted feeling which such an +offence to all humane sentiment and common decency should provoke. If +such spectacles excited in the general public one-thousandth part of +such disgust as they would excite in any really civilised people, it +would be impossible for such scenes to exist, in either hemisphere, to +shock the sight and sense of those of more refined taste and more humane +feelings. + +There is an excellent association for the protection of birds, but its +aims are so little in touch with its generation that it obtains only the +most meagre support. Great names and patrician names are very rare upon +its lists, and at its public meetings its cause has its neck at once +broken by the question of sport being rigorously excluded by its +chairman, who is a noted sportsman! + +There is an institution in London which calls itself a 'home for lost +dogs'; under this affecting title it appeals for funds, as though it +were inspired solely by love and anxiety for the happiness of dogs, and +for the protection and prolongation of their lives. In reality it is an +institution for the organised suffocation of fifteen or twenty thousand +dogs annually, which have been kidnapped by the police and taken +forcibly from their owners; it is a slaughter-house for the assistance +and convenience of the police, and as such should be maintained out of +the funds of the Government. Nothing but the most criminal apathy in the +public could permit a slaughter-house to masquerade as a 'Home' and be +a petitioner to charity. The word 'home' implies peace and safety, and +should not be permitted to cover a place of legalised butchery. + +Think how odious to the horse must be the mere forcing of the bit into +his mouth and of the headstall over his ears. Without speaking of the +torture of the spur, the stinging of the lash, the dreadful weight upon +the spine from which the riding-horse suffers, and the dreadful strain +upon the lungs and withers to which the draught and driving-horse is +incessantly condemned, only realise the continued imprisonment and +galling servitude in which the equine race are forced to dwell, and ask +yourself if, in common pity or justice, that life should not be as much +alleviated and lightened as it is possible to make it. Yet is there one +owner of horses in a million who takes the trouble to see for himself +how his own stables are organised, or maintains out of gratitude, in +their old age or in their failing speed, the horses which have served +him in their prime? + +Many wild-beast shows of the present hour are as cruel as were the +gladiatorial games of Rome, and far less manly. I can imagine no +possible argument which can be put forward for the license awarded to +the travelling caravans which attend fairs and feasts all the world +over, and which are hells of animal torture. What is called the taming +of beasts is the most cruel, demoralising, and loathsome of pursuits; +the horrible wickedness of its methods is known to all, and the appetite +it awakens and stimulates in the public is to the last degree debasing. +Yet not the smallest effort is made to end it. + +The encouragement of menageries, where wild animals are cowed and +maltreated into trembling misery and forced to imitate the foolish +attitudes and comedies of men, lies entirely with the public, _i.e._, +with the world at large. If the nations were in any true sense +civilised, such forms of diversion would, I repeat, be insupportable to +them. Dancing dogs, dancing bears, performing wolves, enslaved +elephants, would one and all, from the lion tortured on a bicycle in a +circus, to the little guinea-pig playing a drum in the streets, be so +sickeningly painful to a truly civilised public that the stolid human +brutes who live by their sufferings would not dare to train and exhibit +them. + +Not long ago there was a somewhat silly discussion in the English press +on the effect of perfumes on desert animals in captivity, of the +excitement and pleasure produced on them by such odours. It occurred to +no one of the sapient correspondents that such perfumes did, no doubt, +recall to the poor imprisoned animals the intense fragrance of the +flowers in their own jungles and tropical forests. All animals are +intensely sensitive to odours, because their olfactory nerves telegraph +to their brains in a way of which our own dull nostrils are utterly +unconscious. + +With what pretension can a world call itself humane when in its codes +all 'wild' animals are unprotected by laws, and may be treated with +whatever brutality is desired? When it is a question for the dweller in +a jungle to kill a wild beast or be killed himself, one can understand +that he chooses the first of the two alternatives. But this is no excuse +for the man in cities to drag a captured lion to make the sport of +fools, and to perish wretchedly of diseased joints, thwarted longings, +and the anguish of nostalgia. + +It is idle to speak of the civilisation of a world in which such things +are possible. From a hygienic point of view alone, these poor tormented +creatures, cooped up in filthy cages, breathing fetid air night and day, +hearing each other's piteous cries, having no single want or instinct +gratified, ill-fed, diseased, miserable, and ravaged by parasites, must +be one of the most unwholesome centres of contagion conceivable. A polar +bear is at this moment being taken through Europe for exhibition in a +caravan; he is kept in a cage in which he cannot turn; he has a pan of +water two inches deep, and a few ounces of bread as his only food! + +There is no animal which is not to be attached by kindness and justice +shown to him. The lion of Rosa Bonheur fell into decline from grief at +being sent from her keeping to that of the Jardin des Plantes when she +was absent on a distant voyage. She returned to find him dying; he +recognised her voice and opened his eyes with a feeble roar of pleasure, +then laid his great head down upon her knees and died. No one who knows +human nature by long experience can assert for a moment that its +fidelity can be secured by benefits, or its sincerity insured by +affection; but when kindness and regard are shown to 'the beasts which +perish,' these never fail to give them back tenfold. + +Let me here tell a true history, which I should have told to Matthew +Arnold had he been living then, with entire certainty of his sympathy. + +A little dog of Maltese breed, who belonged to my mother, was +inconsolable at her death. For three weeks he refused all food, and was +kept alive by nourishment artificially administered. He sat up, and +begged, day after day, before her bed and before her favourite chair, +until he dropped from sheer exhaustion. He wanted for nothing that I +could give him; and no habit of his daily life was changed; but he was +unhappy. Whenever the door opened he thought she entered. He ran and +looked into every stranger's face. He knew everything which had belonged +to her. His sorrow injured his health; his heart became weak, and he +died of cardiac paralysis at six years old. + +What could human affection offer superior in fidelity and feeling? + + 'That loving heart, that patient soul, + Had they indeed no longer span + To run their course, and reach their goal, + And read their homily to man?' + +I think that not only is their affection undervalued, but that the +intelligence of animals is greatly underrated. Man having but one +conception of intelligence, his own, does not endeavour to comprehend +another which is different, and differently exhibited and expressed. I +have before now said in print that if our mind exceeds the mind of +animals and birds in much, theirs exceeds ours at least in some things, +as their sight, scent, and hearing far surpass ours. + +When we remember also that these other races are absolutely alone, are +never aided by man, are only, on the contrary, hindered by him, +opposed, thwarted, and persecuted by him, their achievements are, +relatively to their opportunities, much more wonderful than any of his. +The elements which are his great foes are likewise theirs; they have to +encounter and suffer all the woes of tempest, hurricane, flood, the +width of barren seas, the hunger on solitary shores; and they have also +in his ruthless and unceasing spite an enemy more cruel than any with +which he himself has to contend. If we meditate on this unquestionable +fact, we shall be forced to admit that Cristoforo Colombo was not a +greater hero than many a little swallow. + +But scarcely anyone does meditate on these marvels; one in a million, +one in a generation, at the most. To nearly the whole of humanity the +wonderful and beautiful races with which the world teems, which are for +ever living side by side with the human, do not exist except in so far +as they contribute to the pleasure of slaughter, or the greed of +commerce, or of gambling. For to the majority of men and women all +organisms except their own are as though they were not. + +There is no sympathy with these interesting and mysterious lives led +side by side with man, but ignored by him entirely, except when by him +persecuted. The nest of the weaver bird is to the full as ingenious and +as marvellous as the dome of St Peter's or St Paul's. The beaver State, +and the bee State, are as intricate in organisation as the Constitution +of the French Republic, and the British Monarchy, and are distinctly +superior in many parts of their organisation to either of these. The +passage of the white ants through a jungle and across a continent is +quite as admirable in unison and skill and order as the human march to +Chitral; and the annual flights of the storks, of the Solan geese, of +the wild ducks, exhibit qualities of obedience to a chosen commander, of +endurance, of observation, and of wisdom, not exceeded by any human +Arctic or Australian exploring party. + +The vain-glorious assumption that we have a monopoly of what is called +reason cannot be allowed by those who bring a reason of their own, +unbiassed, to the study of animals, not under the unnatural conditions +of the laboratory, but in natural freedom and peace. + +No skill of a Stanley or a Nansen ever exceeded that of the hound Maida +in tracing Sir Walter Scott, and no journey of a Burton or a Speke was +ever so wonderful as the migratory voyage of a martin or a nightingale. +I have said this ere now; and it can never be repeated too often, for +nothing is so cruel as the vanity of man, and nothing so opposed to his +own true progress as his blind and dogged contempt for all races not +shaped exactly like his own. + +The correspondence which has been general in the English press regarding +the muzzling of dogs, has been conspicuous for its silliness, ignorance, +and cruelty, but above all by its disgusting selfishness; and an editor +of a very popular organ was not ashamed to print that if only one human +life could be saved, etc., etc., disregarding the fact that men were at +the time being slaughtered by dysentery and fever, by the scores, for no +better object than to go and cut down cotton trees at Coomassie; whilst +deaths by starvation, a perfectly preventible cause, are so common in +English cities that the reports of them scarcely awaken a passing regret +or compassion. The veneration for human life which is developed by +journalists when a lion kills his gaoler, or when a dog is supposed to +have been the cause of his tormentor's death, is comical in these +gentlemen of the press, who, to help a speculation, open out a new mart, +or influence the share lists, will ravenously demand a military +expedition, or a naval demonstration, to sabre, shell, burn, and ravage +upon distant strands. + +The attitude of the Brahmin, to whom all forms of life are sacred, is +intelligible, estimable, and consistent; the attitude of the savage +conqueror, to whom thousands of dead men and thousands of dead beasts +are alike so much carrion, is intelligible and reasonable, whilst +brutal. The attitude of the journalist and county councilman is not +either; it possesses neither logic nor common sense, and is not +estimable or reasonable, but only contemptible. + +If there be one thing more loathsome than the carnage of war, it is the +Red Cross societies following in its train. But the modern world, being +conscious that the butchery of war ill accords with its aesthetic and +religious pretensions, gives a sop to its conscience by sending the +ambulance side by side with the gun carriage. A more robust and more +honest temper did not evade the truth that the least brutal war is the +one most immediately and conclusively destructive; the slaughter of +wounded men was more truly merciful than the modern system of surgery +and nursing, which saves shattered constitutions and ruined health to +drag out a miserable and artificially prolonged existence. + +There is, however, something which the ordinary human mind finds +soothing and delightful in this formula of 'the sanctity of human life,' +when combined with a corresponding disregard for human and for all other +life. The good Christian likes to be raised aloft, in his own eyes, from +all those other races which he imagines were given to him for his use +and abuse by a gracious Deity. He loves to think that both God and the +neighbouring policeman are watching over him; and taking care alike of +his soul and of his greatcoat. In the enormous vanity of the Christian +who believes all the laws of the universe altered for him, or in the +equally enormous vanity of the scientist who arrogates to himself the +right to dogmatise on the mysteries of creation, this attitude is not +surprising. But in either the philosophic mind; or the poetic +temperament, it is so because to the philosopher the difference between +the human and the other races cannot appear very great, whilst to the +poet the solidarity of all sentient life must always seem +unquestionable. That friend, and scholar, and poet for whom I mourn as +freshly as though he had died but yesterday did not disdain to greet a +brother's spirit in + + 'That liquid, melancholy eye + From whose pathetic, soul-fed springs + Seem'd surging the Virgilian cry, + The sense of tears in mortal things,' + +for these lines were written by Matthew Arnold to 'only a dog.' + +It is not in foolishly endeavouring to make animals our prisoners and +puppets, in trying to force them to count, to caper, or to play cards, +that we reach insight into their natures and their minds. It is in +loving them and respecting them as he loved and respected Geist and Kai. +I use the latter word advisedly, for whoever does not in a fair degree, +as with a human friend, respect the freedom, the preference, and the +idiosyncrasy of an animal will never reach true comprehension of him. + +A writer wrote the other day, 'People speak of the law of nature; but +who feels it? There is no such emotion known in the ordinary life of the +world.' The persons who will let their dinner wait whilst they watch a +sunset fade over sea or moor, or who will leave the share list unread to +see the morning dew make silver globes of the gossamer in the grass, are +so few that they may almost be said not to exist, if we except a poet +here, an artist there; and the sense of kinship with races not human can +only come to those whose own kinship with earth and air and sky is +strong enough to resist the dulling and debasing influences of +artificial life, of life amongst men and their trivialities, frauds, and +vanities. + +'The sun is God,' said Turner, when he lay dying, and, alas! saw that +sun only through the mists of London. But how many see the sun at all, +even when they live where it is most radiant? How many think of the sun +during the long day it illumines? The light is taken as a matter of +course, as our breath is drawn through our lungs. There is no gratitude +for it. + +In similar manner there is no sense of kinship with the winged children +of the air, with the four-footed dwellers beside us on the earth. Almost +the only recognition we give them is maltreatment. At other times the +indifference of our unspeakable fatuity rises in a dust cloud between us +and them. Of gratitude for their companionship, their aid, their +patience, their many virtues, there is not a trace in those who use them +and abuse them, no more than there is gratitude for the beauty of the +rose or the fragrance of the violet. + +As 'the winds of March take the world with beauty,' every pasture and +coppice is full of blossom, passed unnoticed by thousands in every daily +country walk; so in the same manner do the multitudes trample down, and +pass by, the ineffable charm and fragrance of disregarded affections, +and unappreciated qualities, in the other races of earth. + +Hang a poor woodland bird in a cage, if you can bear to look on such a +captive, above a blossoming honeysuckle or hawthorn, and note his +anguish of remembrance, his ecstasy of hope, his frantic effort to be +free. But the accursed wires are between him and the familiar blossoms, +between him and the blue sky; in a little while he realises that he is a +prisoner; the fluttering joy goes out of his heart and his wings; his +feathers grow ruffled and dull, his eyes are veiled, he sits motionless +and heartbroken, and the breeze of the springtime blows past him, and +never more will bear him on its buoyant way. + +Living wild song-birds are sold at a halfpenny each by thousands in the +London slums, and as many more die--nay, thrice as many more--before +they reach the streets, packed close and jammed together in hampers and +crates. + +Yet the English Home Secretary, on being asked by a deputation to put an +end to this abominable traffic, answered that it was desirable to do as +little as possible in the way of legislation! + +For legislators, always eager to make cruel and coercive laws, prefer to +let humane ones be substituted by what they call 'the gradual education +of the people.' But this gradual education is so extremely gradual that +its progress is imperceptible; it may even be justly suspected that it +is chiefly a backward movement; and such education, as far as education +by example goes, is hindered, not helped, by what are called the +cultured classes. + +In this, our own present day, bull fights become at once popular +wherever they are allowed, and with women as much so as with men, and I +am certain that if the gladiatorial shows of Imperial Rome were +introduced at Olympia the London crowds would in the main be delighted +with them, and the London women would eagerly turn down their thumbs. + +Why not? They go to see the tight-rope walking and the trapeze jump at +the Crystal Palace and the Aquarium; and the only possible attraction in +these is the probability that in each case the performers will be killed +one day; apart from this chance there is no interest whatever in the +spectacle. If the authorities were induced to permit them, gladiatorial +shows would become so popular with the women of Belgravia and Mayfair +that no one would care for anything less exciting, and the Oxford and +Cambridge sports would be deserted with contempt as offering no +attraction. + +The desire for excitement is the most conspicuous feature, and the most +dangerous disease of the age; anything which provides it is welcome; +people are bored despite their incessant search of distraction, and +anything which will exorcise the spectre of boredom is eagerly received; +and after all it would be absurd if persons who go to see steeplechases +pretended to be too squeamish to cry the 'Habet'! Let the managers of +Olympia obtain permission for gladiatorial games (death being +guaranteed), and I will promise them that "all London" in the most +fashionable sense of those words will crowd from April to August to see +the sport. If the ladies could be allowed to descend into the arena, to +touch the dying bodies, as Nero used to like to do, to see the faint +life still lingering shrink and writhe, this success would be still +greater; and Nero was but a primitive creature, he had but a heated iron +wand, whereas my ladies could be provided by their favourite scientist +with the much more excruciating torment of electricity. Imagine what +exquisite little jewelled instruments of torture, made to fasten on to a +bracelet, or hide within a ring, would fill the shops in Bond Street and +Piccadilly. 'We are going electrolysing!' would be heard from all the +pretty lips of the leaders of society; and they would cease to care for +their bicycles, and auto-cars, and even for the discussion of actresses' +new gowns. 'How many dead 'uns did you knock off last night?' their most +intimate friend would ask, as he would lean over the rails in Rotten +Row, sucking the crook of his cane. + +Does this appear exaggerated and libellous?[11] Well, let us look at the +example given by a London leader of fashion and politics as she goes +down at election time to shed sweetness and light around her in Poplar +or Shoreditch. + +[Footnote 11: To know how possible this is, look at the women of fashion +at the Cape in this springtime of 1900, with their admirable toilettes, +their lovely false hair, their bird-adorned hats, their picnics and +their dinners and their cheery titter: 'Let us go and see the wounded!' +_vide_ the testimony of Mr Treves, the eminent surgeon.] + +In her bonnet is, of course, an osprey aigrette; she knows it was torn +from a living creature, but then that was done far away in some Asiatic +or American creek or forest, and so really does not matter. Her Suede +gloves fit like her skin; they were the skin of a kid, and were probably +stripped from its living body as this lends suppleness to the skin. The +jacket she carries on her arm is lined with Astrakhan fur, which was +taken from an unborn lamb to give to the fur that curl and kink which +please her; it has been cut from its mother's ripped-up womb. Her +horses, as they wait for her at the corner of the street, have their +heads fixed in air, and the muscles of their necks cramped by immovable +bearing-reins. Her Japanese pug runs after her, shaking his +muzzle-tortured nose. She has a telegram in her pocket which has +momentarily vexed her. She sent her sable collie to the dog-exhibition +at Brussels, and the excitement, or the crush, or the want of water, or +something, has brought on heat apoplexy, and they wire that he is dead, +poor old nervous Ossian! She really has no luck, for her Java sparrows +died too at the bird show in Edinburgh, because the footman, sent with +them, forgot to fill their water-glass when it got dry on the journey; +a great many people send birds to shows with nobody at all to take care +of them, so she feels that she was not to blame in the very least. + +'Why will you show?' says her husband, who is vexed about Ossian; 'you +don't want to win and you don't want to sell.' + +'Oh, everybody does it,' she answers. + +He goes into his study to console himself with a new model of a pole +trap; and she, her canvassing done, runs upstairs to see her gown for +the May Drawing-Room. The train is of quite a new design, embroidered +with orchids in natural colours, and fringed with the feathers of the +small green parrakeet, a beautiful little bird which has been poisoned +by hundreds in the jungles of New Guiana to make the border to this +_manteau de cour_. + +If she were told that she is a more barbaric creature than the squaw of +the poor Indian trapper who poisoned the parrakeets, she would be +equally astonished and offended. + +Let us now look at her next-door neighbour; he is a very wealthy person +and seldom refuses a subscription, thinks private charity pernicious and +pauperising, attends his church regularly, and votes in the House of +Commons in favour of pigeon-shooting and spurious sports. If anyone asks +him if he 'likes animals' he answers cheerily, 'Oh, dear me, yes. Poor +creatures, why not?' But it does not disturb him that the horse in the +hansom cab, which he has called to take him to the City, has weals all +over its loins, and a bit that fills its mouth with blood and foam; nor +does he notice the over-driven and half-starved condition of a herd of +cattle being taken from Cannon Street to Smithfield, but only curses +them heartily for blocking the traffic. + +He eats a capon, drives behind a gelding, warms himself at a hearth of +which the coal has been procured by untold sufferings of man and beast, +has his fish crimped, and his lobsters scalded to death, in his +kitchens, relishes the green fat cut from a living turtle, reads with +approbation his head keeper's account of the last pair of owls on his +estate having been successfully trapped, writes to that worthy to turn +down two thousand more young pheasants for the autumn shooting, orders +his agent to have his young cattle on his home-farm dishorned, and buys +as a present for his daughters a card case made from the shell of a +tortoise which was roasted alive, turned on its back on the fire to give +the ruddy glow to its shell. Why not? His favourite preacher and his +popular scientist alike assure him that all the subject races are +properly sacrificed to man. It is obviously wholly impossible to +convince such a person that he is cruel: he merely studies his own +convenience, and he has divine and scientific authority for considering +that he is perfectly right in doing so. He is quite comfortable, both +for time and for eternity. It were easier to change the burglar of the +slums, the brigand of the hills, than to change this self-complacent and +pachydermatous householder who represents nine-tenths of the ruling +classes. + +Let us not mistake; he is not personally a cruel man; he would not +himself hurt anything, except in sport which he thinks is legitimate, +and in science which he is told is praiseworthy; he is amiable, +good-natured, perhaps benevolent, but he is wrapped up in habits, +customs, facts, egotisms, tyrannies which all seem to him to be good, +indeed to be essential. His horse is a thing to him like his mail +phaeton; his dog is a dummy, like his umbrella stand; his cattle are +wealth-producing stores, like his timber or wheat; he uses them all as +he requires, as he uses his hats and gloves. He sees no more unkindness +in doing away with any of them than in discarding his old boots, and he +passes the most atrocious laws and by-laws for animal torment as +cheerfully as he signs a cheque payable to self. + +His ears are wadded by prejudice, his eyes are blinded by formula, his +character is steeped in egotism; you might as well try, I repeat, to +touch the heart of the Sicilian brigand or the London crib-cracker as to +alter his views and opinions; you would speak to him in a language which +is as unintelligible to his world as Etruscan to the philologist. + +The majority of his friends, like himself, lead their short, bustling, +bumptious, and frequently wholly useless lives, purblind always and +entirely deaf where anything except their own interests is concerned. +They think but very rarely of anything except themselves, and the +competitions, ambitions, or jealousies which occupy them. But in their +pastimes cruelty is to them acceptable; it is an outlet for the +barbarian who sleeps in them, heavily drugged but not dead; the sight of +blood titillates agreeably their own slow circulation. + +Between them, and the cad who breaks the back of the bagged rabbit, +there is no difference except in the degree of power to indulge the +slaughter-lust. + +Alas! it were easier 'to quarry the granite rock with razors' than to +touch the feelings of such as this man, or this woman, where their +vanities, or their mere sheep-like love of doing as others do, are in +question. Princesses wear osprey tufts and lophophorus wings, and so +society wears them too, and cares not a straw by what violence and +wickedness they are procured; as the ladies, who attend their State +concerts, sleep none the worse when in their country houses because the +rabbit screams in the steel gins, and the hawk struggles in the pole +trap, in the woods about their ancestral houses, and have no less +appetite for luncheon amongst the bracken or the heather because shot +and bleeding creatures lie half dead in the game bags around, or because +the stag often is stretched in his dead majesty before their eyes. Why, +then, should they care because in far distant lands little feathered +creatures, lovely as flowers, innocent as the dew and the honey they +feed on, are killed by the thousands and tens of thousands because a +vulgar and depraved taste demands their tender bodies? + +What does it matter to them that, through their demands, the bird of +paradise has become so rare that, unless stringent measures be taken at +once, it will be soon totally extinct, and the golden glory of its +plumes will gleam no more in tropical sunlight? What does it matter to +them that the herons in all their various kinds, the osprey, the egret, +the crane, the ibis, are scarcely seen now in the southern and middle +States of America, and, when seen, are no longer together in confident +colonies, as of yore, but nesting singly and in fear? 'Practically all +our heronries are deserted. The birds have been slaughtered for their +plumes,' writes a physician[12] dwelling in the Delaware valley. 'What +were common birds in their season half a century ago are now rarely +seen. The struggle for existence has been a violent one and the herons +have been worsted. Scarcely a word of protest has been heard, and none +that has been effectual.' Women of the world know this, or at least have +been told it fifty times; but it makes no impression on them. They will +wear osprey-aigrettes as long as any are left in commerce, and they +think a humming-bird looks so pretty in their hair. What else matters? + +[Footnote 12: Charles Conrad Abbott, M.D.] + +That their example is copied by the women of the middle classes with +swallows and warblers, and by the servant girl and factory girl with +dyed sparrows and finches, makes no impression on them; if the fact be +noticed to them they say that the common people always will be +ridiculous, and stop their carriage in Bond Street to buy fire-screens +made of owls, or an electric lamp hung in the beak of a stuffed +flamingo. + +Why should they care, indeed!--they who walk with the guns, even if they +do not do more and secure a warm corner for their own shot; they who +bring up their young sons to regard the cowardly and brutal sport of +battue-shooting as the supreme pleasure and privilege of youth, and see +unmoved their beautiful autumnal woods turned into slaughter-places? + +One cannot but reflect how different might the world have been if women +had been different in mind and temper; if, instead of their smiling, +self-complacent tittering approbation of brutality, they had shown +scorn for and abhorrence of brutality. They clamour for electoral rights +and leave all this vast field of influence unoccupied and untilled! They +do little or nothing to soften the hearts or refine the feelings of the +men who love them, or to bring up their children in any sympathy with +animal life. Sport has become fashionable with them in the last twenty +years, and the crack shot in the coverts of Chantilly this winter was a +woman. Sporting clothes, breeches and gaiters, are now a recognised part +of the fashionable woman's toilet. + +I would not affirm (anomaly as it appears) that the pursuit of sport +cannot co-exist with a love of animals, for I have known many sporting +men and hunting men who were in a sense sincerely devoted to some +animals. But sport inevitably creates deadness of feeling. No one could +take pleasure in it who was sensitive to suffering; and therefore its +pursuit by women is much more to be regretted than its pursuit by men, +because women pursue much more violently and recklessly what they pursue +at all; and it is impossible for the sportswoman logically and +effectively to exercise any influence on her young children which could +incline them to mercy--such an influence as Lamartine's mother had on +him to the day of his death. + +There are two periods in the life of a woman when she is almost +omnipotent for good or ill. These are when men are in love with her; +and, again, when her children are young enough to be left entirely to +her and to those whom she selects to control them. How many women in ten +thousand use this unlimited power which they then possess to breathe +the quality of mercy into the souls of those who for the time are as wax +in their hands? They will crowd into the Speaker's Box to applaud +debates which concern them in no way. They will impertinently force +their second-hand opinions on Jack and Jill in the village or in the +City alleys. They will go on to platforms and sing comic songs, or +repeat temperance platitudes, and think they are a great moral force in +the improvement of the masses. This they will do, because it amuses them +and makes them of importance. But alter their own lives, abandon their +own favourite cruelties, risk the sneer of society, or lead their little +children to the love of nature and the tenderness of pity; these they +will never do. Mercy is not in them, nor humility, nor sympathy. + +Can written words do anything to touch the hearts of those who read? I +fear not. + +On how many do written words, even dipped in the heart's blood and +burning with the soul's fire, produce any lasting effect? Is not the +most eloquent voice doomed to cry without echo in the wilderness? And +what wilderness is there so barren as the desert of human indifference +and of human egotism? + +Pity is only awakened in those who are already pitiful. We cannot sow +mustard seed on granite. The whole tendency of the age is towards +cynicism, indifference, self-engrossment. The small children sneer much +more often than they smile. + +From Plutarch to Voltaire, from Celsus to Sir Arthur Helps, the finest +and most earnest pleading against cruelty has been made by the finest +and most logical minds. But the world has not listened; the majority of +men and women are neither just nor generous, neither fine nor logical. +In a few generations more, there will probably be no room at all allowed +for animals on the earth: no need of them, no toleration of them. An +immense agony will have then ceased, but with it there will also have +passed away the last smile of the world's youth. For in the future the +human race will have no tenderness for those of its own kind who are +feeble or aged, and will consign to lethal chambers all those who weary +it, obstruct it, or importune it: since the quality of mercy will day by +day be more derided, and less regarded, as one of the moral attributes +of mankind. + + + + +XII + +THE DECADENCE OF LATIN RACES + + +I have read with the attention due to the author's name the essay of +Professor Sergi on the decadence of the Latin nations. It seems to me, +when reflecting on it, that the esteemed author gives to every slight +change, the much-used, and much-abused, name of progress; and considers +mere change as an indisputable betterment. He also considers that the +Latin races cannot exist under modern conditions unless they form +themselves on the models and follow the examples of non-Latin races; if, +that is to say, they do not imitate what is foreign and alien to them. +It is clear that he does not for a moment doubt that the non-Latin are +infinitely superior to the Latin peoples, and he rebukes the latter for +remaining immovable, although, somewhat oddly, he excepts France from +his censure on account of her great commerce, and only includes in his +ban his own country and Spain. + +With Spain I do not occupy myself, as I am not sufficiently well +acquainted with her to do so; indeed, Professor Sergi himself says very +little about her; but of Italy I cannot consider that his condemnation +is merited. If she do merit it, why does she do so? + +Both questions are interesting. Professor Sergi, like too many writers +of the present time, assumes as an indisputable fact that the mere +innovation, the mere alteration of a thing, is of necessity improvement, +advancement, amelioration; and this being his rooted conviction, he +considers Great Britain and the United States the models and ideals of +modern life. For this reason he would force Italy to abandon entirely +her traditions, her instincts, and her natural genius, and substitute +for them an exact and servile imitation of these two foreign peoples who +have tastes in common with her. Unfortunately he does not inform us to +what point he carries this desire, and if the immense changes he advises +are to be dynastic and political, or merely social and intellectual. He +prints in capital letters his chief advice to the Latin nations to _move +on new lines_; but he does not explain whether he means to move to a new +Constitution, to a new Representation, to a new theory and practice of +Government; and he does not even say whether he thinks or does not think +that the Church is the greatest enemy of national progress in Latin +nations. It would be interesting to know in what proportions he holds +the two antagonistic forces of Church and State to be guilty of opposing +progress; that each is an obstacle to the higher forms of progress there +can be no question in the mind of any dispassionate thinker. But he is +careful not to commit himself to this view. Since he gives us so little +information on this head, and limits himself to the counsel, somewhat +meagre in its expression, to _move on new lines_, we may endeavour to +find out for ourselves how far his advice goes: if Italy do actually +merit his contempt for her inertia, and if the non-Latin races deserve +or do not deserve the admiration with which he pronounces on their +superiority. + +That the Italian nation is immovable is not true: for good or evil it +moves as its great son Gallileo said of the earth. The fault, the peril, +lie the other way. It is to be feared that the Italian people run the +risk of losing their finest instincts, and their most gracious +characteristics, through the exaggerated and obsequious imitation of +foreign peoples, and by a too ready adoration of new things merely +because they are new. They are the ideals of many a modern Italian. +Guglielmo Ferrero has dedicated many hundreds of pages to the +celebration of their perfections. I believe that such worship is chiefly +founded on illusion, for it is as easy to cherish illusions about a +steam mill as about a mediaeval saint. + +Let us look at the actual situation of Great Britain, setting aside her +imperialist swagger, and regarding only facts. The English themselves +admit that if a European naval coalition succeeded in preventing grain +reaching their shores from America and the colonies, the nation in a +fortnight would want bread. Is that an ideal or a safe position? If, in +a sea-war, the British fleet would be successful is wholly uncertain, +since no one can say how the metal battleships would behave in any +distress; the manoeuvres have not shed much light upon this question, +and many of the marine monsters, as regards their utility in active +warfare, are still unknown quantities. Equally uncertain is what would +be the conduct of the Indian population were Great Britain vanquished +in any great war, for the majority of the peoples of Hindostan most +unwillingly endure through coercion the yoke of the British rule. + +In Ireland there is a racial hatred which nothing can extinguish, and +only demands a favourable occasion to show itself. Canada may any day +embroil England with the United States; and so may the West Indies, and +the Nebraskan and Nicaraguan questions; and so may Newfoundland with +France, and East or West Africa with Germany. In every part of the globe +Great Britain has on her hands conquests, colonies, intrigues, enemies, +open questions, and concealed questions, of every kind. Her greed is +great, and her entanglements are innumerable. There are many weak points +in her fortifications. To meet her obligations she is obliged to use +legions of Asiatics, or Africans, or employ as mercenaries men from her +distant colonies, or send the soldiers of one vanquished nation to help +vanquish another. Thus did Imperial Rome, and so went to her undoing. +Doubtless Great Britain is rich, powerful, strong, proud, and vain. So +was Rome; so was Spain. It is possible, even probable, that at some, +perhaps not distant day, Great Britain also will give way under the +enormous weight of her self-sought responsibilities, and the still more +ponderous weight of her many enemies. + +Internally, also, England is not what she used to be. The old nobility +is elbowed out of prominent place by a new aristocracy which has been +created entirely on a money basis. Every ministry, when going out of +office, creates a new batch of titled rich men, lifted into the Lords in +return for political or financial service. Wealth is now the dominant +factor of English social life; and a commerce, wholly unscrupulous, is +the sole scope of the tawdry and noisy empire of which Joseph +Chamberlain is the standard-bearer. + +What is there in all this to admire or to imitate? + +Again we have seen that in the United States, since they abandoned their +wise policy of non-intervention in external affairs, the national life +resembles the English, is vain, boastful, hypocritical, cruel, and +bellicose. The thirst of gain devours the nation. There is no other land +in which the contrast between rich and poor is so sharp and terrible; +none in which millions are thrown away with more frightful indifference +and conceited display. Lynch law in all its horror reigns over many +provinces, and unblushing corruption mounts into the highest places and +poisons all the sources of national life. Guglielmo Ferrero stands +stupefied before their innumerable newspaper offices, which he says use +up every day as much paper as would go round the circumference of the +earth! But he forgets, or ignores, that the literary quality of those +journals is usually of the poorest and vulgarest kind, and that the +chief part of their columns is filled by advertisements. He is also +transfixed with rapture before the colossal houses which Americans call +sky-scrapers, and sees the revelation of a stupendous genius in their +passion for what is big, costly, eccentric; nor does he hesitate to +compare it with the Florentine and Venetian genius! + +Actually there was never on earth two more different kinds of creation +than these; never one more absolutely soulless, and one more nobly +penetrated by the soul. The genius of the Italian masters was lofty, +generous, at once humble and sublime, never interested, always +consecrated to Art and Country; the skill of the American constructors +has no other scope than that of getting money, of making the world +stare, of producing the huge, the gross, the extravagant, the enormous, +and labours for only one God, the venal Mercury of the market-place. In +these new cities, so vehemently extolled, with their towering +constructions which hide the smoke-obscured clouds, and their network of +electric wires, of railways in the air, and trams running across each +other, there is not the faintest spark of that divine light which is +called Liberty. Americans boast of their freedom, but it only exists in +words; it has no abiding place outside a boisterous rhetoric. The old +Puritanism still exists in religious bigotry and persecution; office is +bought and sold; justice is a matter of money; private life suffers from +conventionalities and social tyrannies innumerable; political and +municipal elections are the work of a Caucus. A man cannot drink, or +stir, or do aught without his neighbour knowing and judging what he +does; even marriage is to be made a matter for doctors to allow or +disallow; the whole press is but a gigantic Paul Pry, a vast Holy Office +where the persecution by the pen ends in the execution by the revolver. + +Such is American liberty. + +What can Italy learn from such a model? + +Amongst the maladies of the brain known in this day is one which is +called the mania of grandeur. It seems to me that not only individuals, +but entire nations, are possessed by it. It is perilous and contagious. +Italy has already been inoculated by its virus. + +There is also everywhere a fatal tendency to open the door of Italy to +every foreign syndicate, and every foreign speculation, which puts +forward a prospectus or launches shares on the market. The preponderance +of Jews is enormous as owners of ground rents and estates in Italy; the +chief part of Italian cities and towns is owned by Jews; and the greater +number of the industries of all kinds in the country are in the hands of +foreigners, like the newly-projected mining enterprise in Elba. If these +mines be worth the working, why does not Italy work them herself, and +take all the profits? + +These facts are not due to any immovability; but to a dangerously lax +tendency to run into foreign roads. The Italian Faust is only too +susceptible to the invitations of the foreign Mephistopheles. + +On the other hand a very marked inclination in the Italian is towards +the modern forms of co-operation and communism. This tendency is not due +in any way to the influence of the past, but to that mixture of jealousy +and envy, of hatred of the rich, and detestation of labour, and of +humble ways and of poor means, which is as general in Italy as it is +everywhere else in our time, and which is the modern translation of the +old classic clamour for Panem et Circenses. Is it towards this already +popular communism that Professor Sergi would direct the Italian nation? +The direction is already taken, and does not need his propulsion. If +there be one thing more certain than another in the Italy of to-day it +is the preference of a large proportion of the people for different +forms of socialism and collectivism; and the persecution these doctrines +receive lends them a dangerous force. At the same time as it persecutes +them, the State, with strange self-stultification, recognises and grants +one of the largest and most insolent of socialistic and communistic +demands, _i.e._, that for the expropriation of private land in the Agro +Romano, and in the various latifundi in Sicily and elsewhere; and thus +opens the door either to a most high-handed and unjust spoliation, or to +an agrarian civil war in a not distant future. + +Again, the most terrible disease of modern society--corruption--is not +due to the past in Italy or anywhere else; it exists wherever men exist, +and is as general in the republic of France or of the United States as +under the autocracy of Russia or of Persia. The Italian disasters of +Eritrea were due rather to corruption than to incapacity. When the mules +were bought in Naples for 100 lire per head, and sold to the State at +500 lire per head, the battle of Abba-Garima, called by English people +the battle of Adowa, was lost before it was fought. + +Professor Sergi speaks of the defeat of Abba-Garima as a proof of the +decay of the Italian race; but this is a very unfair deduction. As well +might the continual defeats of the British in the first months of the +present war in South Africa be held as a proof of British poltroonery. +Any shortcomings which may have existed in the Italian army in +Abyssinia, and exist at home, are, moreover, certainly not to be traced +to old-world influences; or to any emasculating tenderness for +tradition. There is no reverence for the armies of the past in the +actual Italian army, for it is unlike any of them; it does not resemble +the armies of the Duchies, or of the Republics, or of the Florentine +Carraccio, or of the Lombard trained bands, or of the levies of the +Neapolitan Bourbons, or of the legions of Varus. The only model it +resembles is that idol of its commanders, the German Army, on which it +is shaped and governed, in all the cut-and-dried narrowness and hardness +inseparable from the German system. All this may be considered to be +inevitable now, but modern militarism is unsuited to the character of +Italians, and reacts injuriously on the genius and temper, and physical +and mental life, of the people. + +Unhappily militarism is the most conspicuous and the most tenacious of +all modern influences, and the failure of the Conference of the Hague so +immediately followed by the war of aggression in South Africa, is a sad +and irrefutable proof that the nations are not in the least likely to +free themselves from its yoke. + +Taking the modern temper in its civil systems, as in its military, it +does not seem to me any better adapted to the Italian idiosyncrasies; +and all its worst features already exist in all which is here called +government. Italian legislation confounds perpetually regulations with +laws; is fidgeting, irritating, inquisitorial, insolent, harassing; its +tyranny spoils the lives of the populace; by means of its agents it +penetrates into all the privacies of family life; its perpetual +interference between father and son, between master and man, between +mother and child, between buyer and seller, between youth and free +choice, between marriage and celibacy, between the man who takes a walk +and the dog who goes with him, constitutes incessant causes of +irritation, and is a perpetual menace which lowers over the popular life +from sunrise to sunset, and scarcely even leaves in peace the hours of +the night.[13] + +[Footnote 13: The other evening, in a theatre in Messina, a young +gentleman expressed aloud his disapprobation of the performance; a +person near bade him hold his tongue; the young man answered the +rudeness with a blow; the person immediately produced a pair of +handcuffs and clapped them on; he was a detective in plain clothes! The +Italian of whatever rank he be can never be sure that he is not +shadowed. The apprehension poisons existence to the most innocent.] + +More or less there is too much of this in all modern nations, but in +Italy it is especially odious, being in such absolute antagonism to the +courtesy and gaiety, and warm domestic affections, natural to the +Italian public, and a source of continual fret and friction to it both +in pleasure and in pain.[14] + +[Footnote 14: At Palermo in the April of this year it has been decreed +by municipal edict that, as it is contrary to hygiene for the petticoats +of women to sweep up the dust of the streets in which the spittal of the +sufferers from tuberculosis may have fallen and dried in the sun, all +women who walk in Palermo are to shorten their skirts! Health, it is +austerely added, is more important than fashion!] + +There is certainly no necessity to incite Italians to admiration of +foreign products and inventions. Such enthusiasm is only too general, +and too blind, at least in that portion of the nation which is under the +influence of the schools, the press, and the universities. An electrical +machine has many more admirers than the bell-tower of Giotto, and a +shop-window of a Bon Marche than the Palace of the Doges. The modern +temper, cynical, trivial, avaricious, vulgar, which now discolours human +life as the _oidium_ discolours the leaves of the vines, has affected +too deeply the Italian mind, and has dried up its natural sense of, and +capacity for, beauty. The glorious cities of Italy have been ruined by +scandalous disembowelling; its ancient small towns are made ridiculous +by electric light and steam tramways; the useful and picturesque dress +of its peasantry is abandoned for the ugly and stupid clothes of modern +fashion, cut out of the shoddy cloths furnished by English +manufacturers; and this want of good sense, of good taste, of all true +instincts towards form and colour, is a moral and mental malady due to +that contagion of foreign influence which has poisoned Italy as it has +poisoned Japan and India, Africa and Asia. + +Therefore every counsel to her to follow modern impulses is pernicious. +She is but too ready to do so, believing that, by this way, riches lie. +Moreover, the advice to the Italians to rise, and change, and follow new +paths, seems to me at the present time a cruel derision; because the +Italian who gives it must be well aware that the nation is not free to +do anything or make any change. It is not even allowed to speak. No +public meeting can gather together without intervention of the police. +The press cannot publish any opinions which are disapproved of by the +Government without incurring sequestration of the journal, perhaps +imprisonment of editor, writer, and printer. Where, then, can any fresh +field be found in which to plant any flowers of thought with any hope +to see them root and blossom in action? The hand of the Public +Prosecutor would pluck them up before they could stretch out a single +fibre. + +Take that question so dear to the country; the question of Italia +Irredenta. Where could it be discussed in public without 'authority' +intervening and silencing the speakers? Professor Sergi forgets, or +avoids, to say that in Italy the first conditions of a 'movement on new +lines' are wanting; civil liberty is wanting, and free speech and free +acts are forbidden. Who can walk out into the country when barriers +block up the end of every street? On the man, as on the dog, under +pretence of public safety, the muzzle is fastened, and by its enforced +use all health is destroyed. + +The Italian of our time is too quickly intimidated, forgets too soon, +wears the rosette in his button-hole when he should put crape round his +arm, dances with too ready an indifference on the grave of his hopes and +of his friends. To form a virile character there is no education so good +as the exercise of political and civil liberty; this education is but +little given anywhere; it is not given at all between Monte Rosa and +Mount Etna. The Italian is by nature too ready to be over-anxious and +over-distressed at trifles; he thinks too much of trifling difficulties +and the petty troubles of the hour; he is quickly discouraged, he is +soon overwhelmed with despair, he has small faith in his own star, and +he has not the elasticity and rebound of the Gaulois temper. Nothing +therefore can possibly be worse for him than the kind of galling public +tutelage and the perpetual molestation in which he is condemned to live; +always esteemed guilty, or likely to be guilty, however harmless he may +be. It is illogical to condemn a nation for having no virility of +character, when the systems under which it is reared, and forced to +dwell, destroys its manhood, and forbid all independence of thought, +speech, and action. + +Let us take for instance that uninteresting person, a small tradesman, +native and citizen of any Italian town; in all his smallest actions +relative to his little shop, such, for instance, as altering or +re-painting his signboard, he must obtain the permission of his +Municipality. If he venture to clean or refurbish his board without +authorisation, he will receive a summons and be compelled to pay a fine. +The same kind of torment occurs in a dozen other daily trifles, +magnified into crimes and visited with condign punishment; and, +inevitably, the worried citizen becomes timid, nervous, and either +afraid or incapable of judging or acting for himself. You cannot keep a +man in the swaddling clothes of infancy and expect him to walk erect and +well. + +A shopkeeper, a tailor in Florence, known to me, cut the cord with which +a municipal dog-catcher had throttled his dog; he did no more; he was +immediately arrested, dragged off to prison, and kept there for months +without trial: when tried he was condemned to four months of prison and +a heavy fine. + +Herbert Spencer has said, 'Govern me as little as you can'; _i.e._, +leave me to regulate my existence as I please, which is clearly the +right of every man not a criminal. The Italian is, however, 'governed to +death,' and tied up in the stifling network of an infinity of small +ordinances and wearisome prohibitions. In the sense, therefore, in which +the sufferer from tuberculosis may be said to want health, the Italian +may be accused of wanting spirit; but this is not the sense of the +reproach of Professor Sergi. Professor Sergi, like so many others of his +teachers and masters, desires to propel him along a road which has +already cost him dear. How many millions has it not cost in the last +score of years, that fatal weakness of Italians for imitating others? +The rural communes of the country have more than a milliard of debts, +almost all due to the senseless mania for demolition, for novelty, for +superfluous alterations and imitations, works worse than useless, +commended or proposed by the Government, and eagerly accepted by the +communal and provincial councils, since each member of these hoped to +rub his share of gilding off the gingerbread as it passed through his +hands. All the vast sums thus expended are all taken out of the enormous +local and imperial taxation, are divided between contractors, engineers, +members of the town and county councils, lawyers, go-betweens, and all +the innumerable middlemen who swarm in every community like mites in +cheese, at the same time that the poor peasant is taxed at the gates for +a half-dozen of eggs, or a bundle of grass, and the poor washerwoman +carrying in her linen has her petticoats pulled up over her head by a +searcher to ascertain if she have nothing saleable or taxable hidden on +her person. These are new ways, no doubt; but they are ways on which +walk the ghost of ruin and the skeleton of famine. + +If it be true, as Professor Sergi considers, that Italy can never hope +to extend her conquests and her commerce as northern and western nations +will do, then it is surely all the more needful to hold her own place in +the world by the culture and development of her own natural genius. A +nation, like a person, should be always natural; to be fashioned on +others is to be without any confidence in oneself, and lose one's +equilibrium in the stress of every difficulty. The rigid and +indigestible character of modern education is not adapted, I repeat, to +the Italian temperament, which is _prime-sautier_, subtle but +inflammatory, impressionable but unresisting, and loses enormously when +it is shut down in the hot stove of the so-called 'highest studies.' +Even the national manners, naturally so graceful and charming in all +ranks of Italian society, lose their suavity, their ease, their +elegance, under the influence of the foreigner and the vulgarity of +modern habits. Good taste passes away with good manners; and +pigeon-shooting, sleeping-cars, automobiles, bicycles and tramway crowds +bring with them the breeding suitable to them; and the modern monuments, +the modern squares, the modern houses, the whitewash daubed on old +walls, the cast-iron bridges spanning classic waters, the straight, +featureless, glaring, dusty streets, the electric trolleys cutting +across ancient marbles, all conduce to make ignoble what was noble, and +belittle all which was great. + +All this is not the fault of a too reverent admiration for an +incomparable Art, for a glorious history; it is a much worse thing; it +is an oblivion of both history and art, ingrate, unworthy, and ruinous. + +Many say that Italians are unfit for freedom; it is certain that they +have never been tried by it. Whatever their government is called, +freedom is unheard of under its rule. Year after year, century after +century, all the Italian provinces, however differently governed, have +been held down under an absolutism more or less disguised. The general +character, with heroic exceptions, has been inevitably weakened. The man +of easy temper and pleasure-loving disposition consoles himself with +amusement; the serious man seeks refuge in study or in science; one and +all accept inaction as their lot. A political _camorra_ guides the +chariot of the State, and the people draw aside, and stand silent, only +hoping to escape being crushed under its wheels. Professor Sergi must be +well aware of this sad truth; then why speak to Italy as if she were a +free country, why speak to her of expansion and vitality when he sees +her without power to purge herself of the fiscal and constitutional +disease which is in her blood? + +With as much reason might he chain up a greyhound, and bid him course +the hare; clip the wings of a skylark, and bid it mount to the clouds. + + + + +XIII + +ALMA VENIESIA + + +'Our cities are fast losing their best characteristics,' said Pompeo +Molmenti at Montecitorio, in one of those eloquent speeches which the +Chamber hears often from him, and hears, alas! always in vain. His name +is no doubt known to many English readers although his beautiful books +are not as widely read outside the peninsula as they merit. His +conspicuous position as President of the Venetian Academy has perhaps in +a manner obscured, out of Italy, his infinite merits and vast erudition +as a writer on history and art, and even Wyzewa reproaches him with +making Venice too exclusively his universe. But surely Venice is wide +enough, and great enough, to be the world of a man penetrated from his +earliest years with her beauty, and with the grandeur of her past, and +who, in his childhood, saw, accomplished by his seniors, that union of +Venice to northern and central Italy, which raised such high hopes and +caused such glorious dreams. + +His works are, as I have said, but little known in England, not known at +least as the classic scholarship, the historic learning and the artistic +erudition of their writer deserve; nor are the debates of the Italian +Chamber truthfully enough represented in the English press for the +brilliant oratory of the deputy for Salo to have found any echo in +English ears. Many-sided as great Italians usually are, politics, +literature, and history alike claim his allegiance, and art is his +adored mistress. Eloquent, dauntless, and sarcastic, his periods pierce +like arrows and lash like scourges, whether he condemns the miserable +blasphemies of the modern spirit, or holds up to mockery such individual +vanity as that of the Under-Secretary of State, who caused his own name +and titles to be cut under a verse of Dante's on one of the stones of +the church of S. Francesco at Assisi! + +I can imagine nothing more painful than for a man of fine taste and high +culture, born and bred in such a city as Venice, venerating every shadow +on its waters, the moss upon its walls, to be forced to see, day by day, +roll up and break over it the mud-wave of modern barbarism. So may have +watched, from the marble atrium of his villa, some Roman patrician of +the days of Honorius the approach, upon the golden horizon, of the +unlettered tribes drawing nearer and nearer as the sun descended, to +burn, to slaughter, to deflour, to desecrate. 'Great and sublime +attainment would be his who should save Venice from the dreadful menace +now hanging over her!' cries Pompeo Molmenti, with the bitter +consciousness that none will succeed in that endeavour, since her lot is +now cast in times when her treasures of art are in the hands of +tradesmen and speculators, to whom her past glory is naught. + +His years have been passed amongst her art and her disciples of art; he +has watched the spoilers at their work amongst her treasures, and, with +the grief of a son who beholds his mother dishonoured, he has been +overwhelmed in these most recent times by the indignity and injustice of +her lot. + +She shares that lot with her sisters; the burden of her chains lies also +on them; every city throughout the peninsula from Monte Rosa to Mount +Etna has been insulted, dishonoured, defamed, defiled, even as she +herself. But Venice is threatened with something still more than this; +she is threatened with absolute extinction. There are schemes now +simmering in the brains of speculators by which she will disappear as +completely as one of her own fishing-boats, when it is sucked under the +sea, canvas, and timbers, and crew, in a night of storm. + +A few weeks ago, Molmenti gave the solitary vote against the destruction +of more of the Calle, and the establishment of a night service of +steamers on the Canalezzo. The record of that single unsupported vote is +his own highest honour, and the shame of his contemporaries and +co-citizens. But he wrestles in vain with the forces of cupidity and +stupidity. Whether in the Council Chamber of Venice, or in the +Parliament of Montecitorio, he strives in vain to resist the trampling +hoofs of those devastating barbaric hordes which a pseudo civilisation +vomits over his country. + +What he justly calls the burial of the lagoons goes on every day; loads +of clay and sand and stones being poured into that silent water which so +lately mirrored walls which were green with the hart's-tongue, +penny-wort, and ivy-leaved toad's-flax, and reflected statues white +through ages in the dustless air, shining acacia leaves, boughs of fig +and laurel, carved niches, illumined shrines; the rubble and the rubbish +are shot down into the canals which are chosen for extinction, and the +walls are scraped, the acacias, the fig-trees, the laurels are cut down, +the fruit-boat, the _sandalo_, the bridal gondola, are pushed out of the +way by the brick-laden launches; where marble fretwork crossed the air, +there is a cast-iron pontoon, and higher still a telephone wire; under +foot there is a paved or macadamised way. Marco Polo could not find his +house now; it still exists, but all around it is disfigured, dismantled, +defaced. + +The Palazzo Narni and the Ponte del Paradiso made, a few years ago, +together one of the most beautiful corners in the world; go look at that +spot now; it is enough to make the grey-beard of Cadore rise from his +grave. There still remains on high, between the two houses, the +admirable cuspide of the Trecento, on which there is sculptured the +Madonna, who opens wide her mantle and her cloak to receive the kneeling +people; but the beautiful bridge has been destroyed, and in its place +has been built a frightful structure, with asphalte roadway and painted +metal parapet. In similar manner the elegant, yet bold, arches of the +three bridges at S. Nicolo di Tolentino exist nowhere, now, except upon +the canvases of painters, and the three banks, near the Campo di Marte, +which those graceful arches united, are now basely conjoined by three +erections of stucco and cast-iron. + + 'In the _Arzere_ of Santa Marta,' Molmenti writes in his latest + work, 'once so green and gay and sunlit, a poor quarter no + doubt, but one intensely interesting by customs and traditions, + there blocks the way now, in all its stolid vulgarity, a cotton + factory. Between the public gardens and the Lido, instead of + the lovely verdure of the island of Sant' Elena, in its grace + and its green twilight of drooped boughs, is a shapeless + expanse of mud and cinders, which spreads farther every season, + and threatens to invade the water-space which separates it from + the gardens and S. Pietro di Castello. On this desert of coke + and dirt there have been lately erected offices, sheds, + warehouses, chimneys, engines, in the midst of which there + still stands, hiding as though ashamed, the beautiful church of + the Quattro Cento. But the invasion has been useless; the + speculations have failed; and art and history mourn + unavailingly the senseless and profitless destruction of this + fairest gem of the lagoons: _insularum ocellus_. The ruin of + Sant' Elena, of the view of San Giorgio, of the bridge of San + Lio, the hideous new wing added to the noble brown marbles of + the Pal Tiepolo, the hideous iron warehouse fronting and + affronting the Ca d'Oro, the whitewash daubed on the Pal + Sagredo, the indecent alterations and additions to that jewel + of Pietro Lombardo the Pal Corner-Spinelli, the new red (like + ruddle or red ochre) with which the Pal Foscari has been + insulted, these are all offences which every traveller of + taste, every artist of culture, can see, and number, and + denounce. But countless, and unknown to the world in general, + and undreamed of by those who knew not Venice fifteen years + ago, is the enormous loss to the city by the destruction at the + hands of the Muncipal Councillors of the _Calli_, of the + _Arzere_, of the mediaeval bridges, as of those of which I have + spoken above, of innumerable nooks and corners, historical and + beautiful; old wells, old fountains, old shrines, beautiful + fragments of sculpture and fresco, solemn convent walls, + graceful church spires and monastic belfries, parapets, arches, + doorways, spiral staircases winding up to hand-forged iron + balconies, lamps of metal-work fine as lace-work, all these in + innumerable numbers have been effaced, pulled down, built over, + or sold; and, above all, there have been destroyed those lovely + quiet green places, called each _il Campo_ or _il Campiello_ + (the field or the little field), where, of old, the Venetians + fed their sheep, stretches of grass enclosed by old houses, old + convents, old towers, old quays, old bridges, with always a + sculptured well in the centre of each, and the splash of oars + near at hand.' + +These have nearly all had a similar fate to that of the beautiful house +in the Campo di S. Margherita, which Molmenti especially laments, of +which the Venetian colouring, the carven galleries, the climbing vines, +the bronze railing, the falling water with its spouting jets, have all +disappeared, to give place to a yellow, plastered modern building, while +its basso-relievo of the Virgin, so long dear to all artists, has been +sold to a picture dealer. + + 'One must be blind indeed,' writes Molmenti, 'not to see the + horrible misgovernment of Venice in this latter half of the + century, and persons still young can remember a Venice poetic, + picturesque, filled with fascination and mysterious charm, now + destroyed for no other reason than a senseless and brutal craze + for novelty.' + +What language can strongly enough denounce such wicked and insensate +acts? + +He quotes the well-known lines of Philippe de Commines as to the 'most +triumphant city' that he had ever seen, 'the most beautiful street' (the +Canal Grande) 'that there could be found in all the world'; and he adds, +'the stranger who comes now into this street only finds himself in a +vast alley of shopkeepers.' + +The Canalezzo is now, indeed, as he says, little more than a huge bazaar +of tradesmen and dealers in curios, in which hundreds of advertisements, +in many-coloured posters, announce the wares which are now for sale +within the ancient palaces. The syndicate of foreign traders, now being +established in Venice, will achieve its degradation. + +Italian ministers and Italian municipalities are often accused of not +encouraging warmly enough English, German, and American tradesmen and +manufacturers to establish themselves in Italy, and of putting upon +foreign commercial establishments in Italy a prohibitive taxation; the +truth is that it would be much better were such foreign firms +discouraged more effectively. It is urged on their behalf that they +bring capital into the country; they may do so, but only to take it out +again for their own profit, and Italian labour sweats and groans only +that some millionaire of Eaton Square or Fifth Avenue may increase his +wealth, whilst at the same time Italian tradespeople, trading in their +own right, on their own soil, are undersold by the shop-keeping and +store-keeping Briton and Yankee. + +I am far from entire agreement with Molmenti in many of his views (as +for instance his admiration of English pre-Raphaelism), but I am wholly +with him in his views of the claims of Venice, and of the sacrilege +which is destroying her; wholly with him in his severe and scornful +denunciation of what he rightly calls the _gretta e meschina arte dei +nostre tempi_ (the mean and trivial art of modern times), and of the +modern density of perception and invulnerable self-conceit which render +it impossible for the modern mind to appreciate harmony of hues and of +proportions, and impossible for the modern architect to place a new +building beside an ancient one without injury or vulgarity. Giotto could +place his church at Padua on the remains of the Roman amphitheatre, with +perfect unity, although in absolute contrast. When a modern mind has +sufficient intuition to enable it to admire a work of other times, it +can think of no better way of showing its admiration than to desire to +pull down all the houses in its vicinity to lay it bare. + +Molmenti says, with entire truth, 'It is a supreme duty for the few, who +are capable of feeling them, to assert the sentiment of, and respect +for, Art against the destructive and impious tendencies of the time.' + +But, alas! it is labour of Sisyphus. + +There is now under consideration a scheme to make a tramway-road raised +on piles from Mestre to Venice parallel with the line now followed +across the lagoon by the railway. It is difficult to comprehend the +motives and views of persons who desire to turn a beautiful water-city +into a commonplace land one, or rather it is easy to perceive that the +motive inspires the views, since nothing but the greed of +concessionaires and of contractors could ever have evolved such a plan +out of any human mind. + +The concessionaire and the contractor are the modern representatives of +ghouls and vampires of old-world romance. Truly, to them, as to the +Sabreur of Offenbach, nothing is sacred. They are guided entirely by +their lust of percentage, and to this they are ready to sacrifice every +other consideration; indeed, no other consideration exists for them. +They have settled on Italy for many years past as they are now settling +on Abyssinia. Venice is essentially a water-city; dealt with as land +cities are, under the present system, it will not only be disfigured and +mutilated like them, but it will be swept away; it will cease to be. The +world will have in its stead a dreary, dingy, trading port, with +warehouses, factories, docks, grain elevators, electric works, all the +polluted, crowded, discoloured, monotonous frightfulness which you can +have now at any moment on any coastline of the United States of America. +The Venice of Giambellini and the Veronese will be no more; you will +have in its stead a petty maritime Pittsburg. + +At the present moment Molmenti has successfully combated this Mestre +project, but as the abominable scheme of the night steamers on the +Canalezzo, and the pontoon under S. Zeno, was almost unanimously +_rejected_ four times by the Venetian Council, yet, on its presentation +a fifth time, was _accepted_ (unacknowledged influences having been at +work), it is impossible to all those who love Venice as she merits not +to feel the greatest anxiety. For these speculators resemble the Roentgen +rays, and find means to penetrate through closed doors and all other +barriers. Iron still resists the Roentgen rays, and such iron the +speculators find now and then opposed to them in the scorn of such men +as the Count Antonio Dona della Rosa, who dismissed with offence and +disdain the offer of two millions in gold for the purchase of the +historic tapestries of his palace in Venice. + +Were there only fifty such men as Count Dona in every Italian province +they would be able to hold in check the rage of destruction. But the +character of Count Dona is very rare in these days anywhere, and grows +rarer with every decade. The sordid Mephistopheles of a buyer usually +finds as sordid a temper in the Faust of a seller whom he tempts. This +may be a temper which enriches individuals; it is not one which ennobles +or elevates a nation: and frequently not even individual wealth is +realised for any length of time by the base barter, for the gambling on +the Bourse, or at the club-house, often makes the ill-got gains vanish +almost as soon as they are obtained. Such persons as find no attraction +in either form of gambling, unhappily for the most part, shrink from +action and from public life. Few have the courage of Molmenti, who +throws himself into the strife careless of what enmity he incurs, and +rarely even buoyed up by any hope of success in his efforts, since to +weave ropes of sand were scarcely more hopeless labour: it is impossible +to succeed in any public work where there is no response to your appeal +from the multitudes. And the voices of those who do secretly respond in +feeling are dumb in Italy; people are afraid to speak; they are +intimidated by the cry cast against them of want of energy, and of +enmity to progress (progress, good heavens! a gin-shop instead of a +temple!); they are afraid to be called reactionary, romantic, +unpatriotic; and in municipal government, as in other government, +everything is done by the wire-pullers, the money-grubbers, the +speculators. + +The timid public huddles together, mute, submissive, and afraid, shorn +of its fleeces like a flock of sheep, but not daring to complain. + +Those who do so dare are either ignored, or, if they give trouble, are +repressed. The gondoliers of Venice have again and again risen against +the ruin of their livelihood by the 'black devils' of the _vaporetti_, +but force is at once called in and they are brutally silenced, flung +into prison, and deprived of their licence, _i.e._, of their daily +bread. Because it is so picturesque a calling, and the balancing of the +oar looks so easy a work, those who are outside it do not realise the +hardships of a gondolier. In summer, if Venice be full, it is well +enough, and brings a fair, though never a high, wage; but in the other +seasons it is a life of great and continual exposure and fatigue. In +cold weather, and Venice is intensely cold in the winter solstice, the +long vigils on the _traghetto_ are most tedious and trying, especially +through the long chill nights. When the icy winds blow in from the Alps +or the Adriatic, the gondolier stands exposed to all their fury, whilst +the passenger he carries sits warm and sheltered under the felze. + +Strong and lithe in form, often handsome in feature, almost invariably +intelligent and acquainted with legend and verse, invariably courteous +and well-bred, the gondolier should have received the utmost attention +from his rulers. It is painful to know that no body of men has ever been +so slighted, so injured, and so wantonly outraged. + +There is nowhere any more interesting and deserving community than the +Venetian gondoliers, and few more worthy of regard; yet they have been +dealt with as though they were no more than so much scum of the sea. +Their long-established rights receive no consideration, and their +injuries no compensation. + +If the vote of Venice could have been honestly polled, no steam-boat +would ever have been allowed on the Grand Canal, as, if the vote of +Florence could have been honestly polled, the centre of Florence would +be now standing untouched, and would have remained untouched for many a +generation. + +Meanwhile, it is said, by those competent to judge, that the great +Murazzi, which protect Venice from the onslaught of the sea in winter +storm, and which we all know so well as we pass out from the Lido by the +Bar of Malamocco to Chioggia, are being dangerously undermined by the +attacks of the high tides in rude weather, and require costly and +immediate repair. It is in vain that this most necessary work is urged +upon the Government in Rome. The Government neither undertakes it +itself, nor allows Venetians to undertake it. For any foolish, needless +disfiguring work, such as the installation of the electric light in the +ducal palace, against which Venetians in vain protested, the Government +is always ready to waste millions. But for a work of obvious and vital +necessity, such as that of the strengthening of the Murazzi, it has not +a soldo to spare. + +The architecture of Venice has the fragility as it has the fairness of +the dianthus or the gemmia of the sea; its walls and buttresses and +foundations are plunged into salted, sanded mud; its piles grow green +and brown and purple with weed; its snowy marbles and its ruddy stones +are mirrored in rippling or in stagnant water; they tremble under the +vibrations caused by the accursed paddle-boats; they quiver, like living +things, under the knife, as the engines roar and the cog-wheels turn. +Assailed as the city is within by the invasion of steam and barbarism, +it is entirely certain that she could not resist the force of the +inrushing waters if the Murazzi were ever to yield to the pressure of a +winter sea; and it is unhappily quite possible that the gigantic barrier +of the sea-walls may give way on some day of unusually high tides and +violent tempest, and the city herself will then be overwhelmed beneath +the Adriatic waters. + +Who would care if this were her fate? + +The contractors, and concessionaires, and jerry-builders, and +bureaucratic thieves, and foreign speculators would have the pleasure +and profit of building a spick and span new town, north-east of Mestre: +all tiresome reminiscences of the Lion of St Mark would have sunk with +the bronze horses underneath the waves. + +Many public men would breathe more freely were Venice but a memory of +the past entombed in seaweed and in sand. For there is nothing so +curiously malignant or so restlessly jealous as the enmity of a feeble +Present of a great Past. It is such malignity, it is such jealousy, +which, even more than greed of gain, and vitiated taste, caused, and +causes, and will cause, the destruction of the great cities of Italy by +Italian deputies, syndics, and municipalities, and by those foreign +companies and alien speculations to which they unhappily open their +gates. + +If the fact did not face us at every step, it would seem incredible +that, even in this age, such cities as Venice and Florence and Rome +could have been sacrificed to the ignominious interests of wire-pullers. +Each possessed, to protect it, unique beauty, splendour of association +and tradition, an heroic past: and for each had the greatest of men +laboured, in each had the charm of atmosphere and horizon lent a more +than mortal loveliness to the architecture of man. And each is now +wrecked, and ransacked, and despoiled, and obliterated, and destroyed as +though a horde of savages had been let loose in their precincts. + +There is no language strong enough to condemn the injuries from which +they suffer. + +On the walls of the Flavian Amphitheatre there grew in marvellous +fertility countless plants unknown elsewhere; survivors of sylvan worlds +destroyed, of botanical kingdoms for ever perished, the seeds of which +perchance had lodged in the sandals of the legions as they came from +Palmyra or Babylon; this most precious legacy of nature was, as everyone +knows, mercilessily destroyed in the first years of the Italian +occupation of Rome. + +The uprooting with knives and acids of the unique flora of the Colosseum +was a type of the acts which, for the last fifteen years, have hacked +away and corroded and destroyed off the face of the earth the supreme +flowers of human genius. + +In the present debasement and desecration of Italian cities there is not +even such motive and excuse as that which was urged by archaeologists +for the ruin of these plants. There is everything lost, nothing whatever +gained, in the debasement of classic and artistic cities to the level of +Buluwayo or Klondyke. + +To pull down the Palazzo Venezia and the Palazzo Torlonia, which it is +decided to do in Rome, in order that the statue of Victor Emmanuel, for +which the funds have not even yet been raised, may be visible from the +Corso, is as contemptible as it is childish. The beauty of the +Campidoglio is already ruined in order to place that statue there: might +not that suffice? To throw down the Tower of the Amadei to put in its +place a restaurant, or a drinking-shop, is so stupid an act that the +enormity of the offence to history and art is almost forgotten in its +imbecility. To cut off a portion of the Archbishop's Palace to widen a +road, and destroy half the gardens of the Orti Oricellari to make a mean +street, and to place the stations and rails of tramway companies on the +macigno pavement under the Campanile, the Battistero, and the Duomo of +Florence, are outrages to the whole educated world and the history of +five centuries. To destroy the Ponte del Paradiso in order to put a +cast-iron pontoon in its place, is an abomination which should only seem +possible to a company of clowns crazy with drink; whilst to turn the +lovely isle of Sant' Elena into a heap of cinders for the pleasure of a +carriage-building company, which company was not even guaranteed from +bankruptcy, was unquestionably as unbusinesslike and as unprofitable as +it was impious. + +There is neither common sense, nor common decency, in the chief part of +the measures taken within the last decade to humiliate and imbastardise +the cities and towns of Italy. The process of destruction began indeed +much earlier; but within the last ten years the pace has been increased +from a leisurely walk to a furious gallop. The scramble to be first to +outrage, to deface, to despoil, has become a St Vitus's dance amongst +the syndics, assessors, and councilmen; each deliriously eager for the +approving smile of the various ministers in whose hands the destinies of +these great and unrivalled Urbes unfortunately are placed. + +It must be remembered by the foreign reader that there is no Minister of +Fine Arts in Italy. There is a Minister of Education, another of Public +Works, and another of Agriculture, and between these three all +questions of art and architecture are divided, and are decided in +agreement with the various municipalities. The mischief the trio does is +incalculable, for they are seldom selected with any regard to their +aesthetic qualifications. Indeed, if ever anyone of them show any +scholarly capacity and aptitude for his office, like that which was +shown by Villari, his possession of power is very short. Of a recent +minister of agriculture it is related that, as he looked over a valley +planted with magnificent olives near Brescia, he exclaimed, 'What fine +willows!' + +A similar ignorance in matters belonging to their respective departments +is expected of the Ministers of Education and Public Works. Were there a +Minister of Fine Arts, he would undoubtedly be chosen from the +attorneys, the manufacturers, the scientists, or the rural Boeotians. + +Another minister of agriculture, Count Francesco Guicciardini, had an +admirable and thorough command of the objects of his Dicastero; skilled +in agriculture himself, and the owner of large estates, he knew what to +do and how to do it; and by his energy an outbreak of phylloxera was +arrested before any great losses had ensued. But outside agriculture, +his influence was less excellent, because he was unfortunately enabled +to meddle with matters not agricultural and beyond his knowledge; as +when he ordered the destruction of a whole quarter of the martial and +ancient city of Pistoia, and the waste of the town funds in the erection +of a new savings bank. Over the choice of a design for this building, +the townspeople of Pistoia are now violently quarrelling, whilst many +of their finest and noblest palaces are left to go empty to decay! + +A minister of the strictest probity, of the strongest desire to do what +is just and wise, is never long able to resist the pressure of those +around him, the force of example, the persuasions of local magnates, and +the insistence of the crowd of hungry perquisite-hunters. It is such +shocking and wicked waste of money as was this in Pistoia which +impoverishes every town, and disfigures each with vulgar piles of brick +and iron, and grotesque monuments of black metal, whilst a miserable +woman at their gates pays four centimes duty on a pint of milk before +she can take it past the guards to sell, and a wretched man, who owns a +little road-fed flock of goats, is taxed two hundred francs a year +before he may drive them into the streets to yield the little +nourishment which they can afford to invalids and children. Should the +law now under consideration pass, and the debts of the Communes be paid +by the State, and monies be henceforth lent lavishly by the State to the +Communes, this expenditure will increase tenfold, and the jobbery +accompanying it will be multiplied in similar measure. + +No one of the governing classes is guiltless in the matter; cabinets, +senators, deputies, prefects, mayors, town councils, provincial +councils, each and all, sin alike in this matricide, and seem to vie +with each other in suggesting and executing the abominable projects +which disgrace the close of the century. + +In this day, in everything appertaining to municipal government, the +greater is sacrificed to the lesser; the smug, the ordinary, the +expedient, the venal are first of all considered; the kind of man who +pushes to the front in affairs is bustling, sharp, keen, insensible, in +whose own existence no necessity for anything except vulgar prosperity, +as ugly as you will, is felt for an hour. To speak to such men of such +impersonal desires as moved the makers of the great cities of old, is to +speak in an unknown tongue, which they appraise as gibberish. They are, +for the present time, the rulers of the world, and the material they are +made of is the same clay, whether its shape take that of an emperor or a +contractor, of a king or a beadle, of a minister or a vestryman. At the +present hour the earth is given over to them. + +Wyzewa accepts this insatiable mania for destruction as a +characteristic, which of course it undoubtedly is, of the general +disease of modernity; but he does not seem to trace it to what is surely +its source, the greed of gain. All these engineers, builders, +contractors, town councillors, bankers, usurers, speculators, chairmen, +shareholders, and directors of companies, can make nothing out of the +ancient glory and grace of beautiful cities; the mayors can get no +savoury morsel to compensate them for all their servility and +time-serving; the deputies can find no useful plunder to enrich the crew +who have voted for them; in respecting the beauty of the past, +syndicates and tradesmen and gamblers on 'Change would reap no harvest +of gold whatever. + +What else but greed has been the motive of that shameless desecration of +Rome against which Geoffroy has raised his voice from the tomb to +protest? + +What else but greed the motive of that infamous destruction of the +entire centre of Florence, its historic towers and churches and palaces, +torn down with blind rage to be replaced by hideous hotels, and monster +shops, and grotesque monuments? the most piteous, and the most +inexcusable, injury ever done to the rights of history and of art. + +What else the motive of that wanton disfigurement of Venice which has +disgraced the last fifteen years of the municipal rule, and is about to +continue the work of ruin merely to enrich the men of greed, the English +and American tradesmen, the Hebrew speculators, the German hucksters, +the cosmopolitan inflators of bubble companies? + +The motive of all these destructions is always the same, and always of +the lowest kind: gain. Everyone concerned in them gains, or hopes to +gain. There is no other instinct or idea than this. It is, like the +present diplomacy of Europe, an all-round game of grab; and a large +percentage of the gains goes to the doctors who label the gambling +'Hygiene.' + +The plea of health is a falsehood usually advanced in excuse of such +destructions as those of the Florentine centre and the Venetian Calli +and Campielli. Those who allege it know, as well as I do, that the +unhealthiness lies not in the habitations but in the habits of the +people. Water never touches their bodies; tight-lacing is a female rule +in even the peasant class; the field-worker is as tightly cased in her +leather stays as the duchess in her satin corset. The favourite foods of +the populace are such as give worms, dysentery, and skin diseases; their +drinks are adulterated and poisonous;[15] their general habits are +unwholesome and injurious beyond all description; they are saved only by +the purity of the air which the municipalities, who chatter of hygiene, +do their best to pollute with acid and chemical fumes, and the stench of +noxious trades. + +[Footnote 15: Contadini drink the _vinaccia_, or _vinella_, made from +the dregs of the wine-vats; but others drink (and often the contadino +does so also) the chemical stuffs sold at drinking-houses and taverns +with which the streets and roads are studded.] + +The men who prate of hygiene know these facts as well as I do; they +know, I repeat, that the insalubrity is in the habits, not in the +habitations; but the conventional lie passes muster and serves its end: +it enables landlords to sell, and lawyers to pocket fees, and +contractors to make profits, and all the troops of middlemen to fatten +on the demolition of noble and ancient places and the creation of shoddy +stucco architecture in their stead. + +The sense of beauty has died with the public destruction of beauty: it +is dead in the ruling classes; and what is far worse, dead in the +populace; dead, or nearly so, in the writers, the painters, the +sculptors. If in this latter class there were any strong, true, and +delicate instinct of what is noble and beautiful, Molmenti would not +stand alone in the Council of Venice; Prince Corsini would not alone +have resisted the destruction of the Florence of the Renaissance; +D'Annunzio would not alone repeat the denunciations of two dead +foreigners, Geoffroy and Gregorovius, of the violation of ancient and of +mediaeval Rome. The voices of the artists (were they artists in feeling +indeed) would be, and would have been, so powerful that no ministry and +no municipality would have ventured to ignore them. + +But most modern artists are afraid to offend their public, their +patrons, the town councils, the mayors, and communes, or the Ministers +of Education or of Public Works, to which or to whom they look for +employment; they have the decoration-hunger, which is one of the chief +curses of Continental Europe, and decorations only come from the powers +above; and in these powers above there is not the faintest glimmer of +taste or feeling, there is only jealousy of a great and unapproachable +Past. + +Therefore, the few who do feel indignation do not speak; and the +speculator, the jerry builder, the cunning lawyer and conveyancer, the +vast body of greedy and gross spoilers, have their way unchecked. + +In the case of Rome, of course, that cruellest and ugliest of all +passions, religious antagonism, has had much to do with the atrocious +ruin of the Prati del Castello, of the Trastevere generally, of the +passage of the four trams in derision in face of St Peter's, of the +hideous gimcrack houses built under the walls of the Lateran, of the +destruction of street shrines and votive chapels and ancient chapels, of +the erection of the entire quarters of what is called New Rome;[16] but +religious hatred cannot be the cause of the barbarous scraping and +daubing of classic buildings, of the degradation of the Via Nomentana, +and of Porta Pia, of the ruin of such glory and grace as that of the +Ludovisi and the Farnesina villas, of the bedaubing and beplastering, +the dwarfing and disfiguring, the vulgarising and disfiguring of +everything which is touched by the modern aediles of Rome. No matter what +the syndic be called, whether Ruspoli or Guiccioli, or Torlonia, or +Colonna, no matter whether the cabinet be headed by Rudini or Giolitti, +by Crispi or Pelloux, the pickaxe is never at rest, and the hammer and +hatchet sound ceaselessly in street and garden, on desecrated altars, +and in devastated groves. + +[Footnote 16: It is now almost forgotten that the Ludovisi gardens ever +existed as the motley fashion of the new Roman world flocks to the +American Legation in the Pal. Piombino!] + +To what end have served the fury and haste with which ancient +ecclesiastical buildings have been razed to the ground in both the +cities and the provinces? To none whatever, so far as any diminution of +the funds and the numbers of ecclesiastical foundations can be counted. + +The suppression of the monasteries and convents was actuated by love of +gain as much as by polemical rancour, by the hunger of the newly-created +kingdom, for their treasures and riches, for their rich endowments and +saleable possessions. There was no sincerity about it; there could be +none in a nation then almost entirely Catholic; and this insincerity is +proved by the indifference with which the State allows the +re-establishment of these buildings and these orders. At this moment the +bare-footed Carmelites, a most bigoted order, have lately opened a new +church and convent in Milan, which are endowed with three millions of +money, and have been opened with great pomp by the Archbishop. Similar +institutions are being re-created in all directions, possessing all the +evils of those which were suppressed, without their artistic beauty, and +largely without their good faith and munificent charity. Rich and lovely +maidens continue to take the veil when too young to have any realisation +of what they do,[17] and the Church is as enriched as of old by their +dowers; whilst the monk is not the less dangerous to intellectual +liberty because, when he goes out of the gates for a few hours, he wears +a coat and trousers like those of the layman of the adjacent town. + +[Footnote 17: A few months ago the Prime Minister, then the Marquis di +Rudini, was present at the taking of the veil by a young relative in +Naples.] + +The ancient monasteries and convents were at least an education to the +eye: who could daily see the Certosa of Pavia, or of the Val d'Ema, and +not be purified and instructed in visual memory and artistic instinct? +The new revivals of the old orders teach nothing except a base and +strictly modern union of superstition and compromise. Indeed, the State +forces the priest to be base; it makes it the condition of allowing his +existence. If he do not succumb to the State in all things (even in +those most opposed to his conscience), he is deprived of his _placet_; +and Zanardelli has in these last few days desired to deprive him of it +without such legal forms as have hitherto been observed. For one of the +greatest of the misfortunes of Italy is that, not in the Radicals nor in +the Conservatives, nor in any one of the groups into which political +life is divided, is there the slightest trace of any respect for +individual freedom; liberty of action and of opinion obtain no fair +play whatever from any one of the parties of the State. + +True, it is not in Italy alone that the sense of symmetry and harmony is +leaving the terrestial race; the want of beauty, as the daily bread of +life, grows less and less felt every year by the modern mind wherever +that mind has been unhinged by the manias of modernity. Beauty, natural +and artistic, has become entirely indifferent to the majority of even +highly-educated modern men and women. They have no leisure to +contemplate it, no temperament capable of feeling it; it is in no sense +necessary to them; it makes no impression either on their retina or +their memory. Their lives pass before a revolving panorama, so rapidly +dissolving and changing that they have no distinct impression of any of +the scenes or subjects. Every year modern habits become more unlovely, +and modern sensibilities more blunted. The preservation of what is +beautiful, _per se_, at the present time is almost always ridiculed, +unless it can be shown to be joined to some profit or utility. The +characteristic passion of the hour is greed; greed of possession, desire +of acquisition, and passion for ostentation. Trade has become an octopus +embracing the whole world; the thirst for gain engrosses all classes; +beauty, unless it be a means of gain, is to this temper a useless, or +worse than a useless, thing: it is regarded as a stumbling-block and +encumbrance. + +It is doubtful if even the power of perceiving what is beautiful has not +in a great measure left a large part of the population in all countries. +Modern cities would not be what they are now had not the race to a +great extent grown colour-blind, and become without the sense of +proportion. Modern builders and modern engineers would remain unoccupied +were not the generations, which employ and enrich them, destitute of all +artistic feelings. + +Many of the prevailing fashions would be so intolerable to persons with +any delicate or accurate perception, that such fashions could never have +become general had any perception of this kind been general. Even the +deformity of their bodies awakens no aversion in the modern public; if +it did, the bicycle would never have been in demand. + +Such blindness and deadness to the charm of beauty is to be noted in +every nation, and is developed even in the extreme East whenever modern +European and American usage influences the Oriental. + +Japan is rapidly becoming the rival in vulgarity and hideousness of +Chicago. + +It is no doubt general and inevitable, the low tone of susceptibility, +the dense, thick-skinned temper, which accompany what is called +Civilisation, which are to be seen everywhere from cold to warm +latitudes, wherever the steam-engine screams and the shoddy suits are +worn. + +The modern temper is something even worse than inartistic; it is +brutally and aggressively hostile to beauty, whether natural or +architectural. It will go out of the way to injure, to deface, to +uproot, to level with the dust. + +To the cold, bald, hard, derisive temper of the modern majority there is +something offensive and irritating in beauty, whether it be seen in the +stately verdure of a tree in its summer glory, or of an ancient +tower,[18] brown and grey in the light of evening. To fell the tree, to +pull down the tower, is the first instinct of the modern mind, and it is +an instinct clamorous, savage, insatiable, born of incapacity and +triviality, of the hunger for destruction, and of a secret and ignoble +jealousy. + +[Footnote 18: The other day I saw from a railway train a grand old +Longobardo tower which had been coloured a bright pink!] + +There can, I think, be no doubt that modern education implants and +increases this insensibility. If it did not, modern municipalities would +not be what they are, would not do what they do. The only resistance to +this insensibility is found, and this but rarely, at the two extremes of +the social scale--the peasant and the noble, _i.e._, in those who are +least subjected to the pressure of general education. In the man, +absolutely uneducated, and in the man reared by an individual and +highly-cultured education, are alone now to be found any appreciation of +beauty, natural or artistic. + +A French writer, with no pity for the lovers of teas and porcelains, has +said recently that he looks forward with joy to the time when the whole +empire of China will be covered with factories and mines as thickly as +blades of grass grow in a meadow. Most modern persons have no higher +ideal than his. In similar phrase, Ferrero, whose political writings I +have often cited with approval, and whose striking abilities I greatly +admire, but with whose narrow socialist temper I have no sympathy, +actually states that the plain of Lombardy was created by nature to be +studded with factory chimneys! + +Even into remote mountain towns, and in small forgotten cities, on the +edge of lonely lakes, or deep-sunk in chestnut woods, or ilex-forests, +the same desecration creeps, and sullies, and pollutes. Gimcrack, gaudy +villas, and pasteboard houses, show their pert and paltry forms amidst +noble palaces, or beside patrician towers. Pistachio green paint makes +day hideous everywhere, daubed on deal shutters and blinds, accompanied +by the paltry stained doors, and the stucco mouldings, of the epoch. The +modern municipality displays its whitewashed and belettered frontage, +unashamed, on some grand old piazza, which has seen centuries of strife +and splendour. Silent sunlit bays of Tyrrhene or Adriatic, lovely as a +poem of Shelley, are made vulgar and ludicrous by lines of habitations +such as the jerry-builder of the end of the nineteenth century +procreates, wearing an air of smug imbecility which makes one long to +slap their stucco faces; of course the drinking-shop, the +cycling-casino, and the shooters' club have been run up beside them so +that their patrons and frequenters may befoul the roseate evening, and +insult the ethereal night. + +Moreover, it is strange to note how, with the vulgarisation of the towns +and of the landscapes in this classic land, the human physiognomy loses +its classic unity and grace, grows heavier, coarser, meaner, commoner, +changes indeed entirely its type and colouring; the camus or the snub +nose replaces the aquiline, the scrofulous mouth replaces the lips +shaped like a Cupid's bow; the eyes diminish in size and grow +lack-lustre; the beautiful oval outline of cheek and chin alters to the +bull-dog jaw and puffy cheeks; the clear and pure skin alters to the +sodden, pallid, unwholesome complexion of the new type. This is no +exaggerated statement; anyone can see the change for himself who will +take the trouble to observe such young Italians as throng the +second-rate and the third-rate _cafes_ and dining-saloons of cities, and +then go into the more remote country, and see the Italiote race still in +its integrity, in old-world hamlets of the Abruzzi or the Apennines, in +forest-sheltered nooks of the Sabine or the Carrara mountains, in +sea-faring, wind-swept villages of the Veneto, in nomad sheep-folds on +the oak-studded grass plains of the Basilicata, or in old walled towns, +calm and venerable, in the lap of the high hills, where the shriek of +the engine has not yet been heard; where it is still unknown, that which +Loti calls in his latest work, 'cette chose de laid, de noiratre, de +tapageur, d'idiotement empressee, qui passe vite vite, ebranle la terre, +trouble ce calme delicieux par des sifflets et des bruits de ferailles, +le chemin de fer, le chemin de fer!--plus nivelant que le temps, +propageant la basse camelote de l'industrie, deversant chaque jour de la +banalite et des imbeciles.' + +In the provinces he will still find, in thousands of living creatures, +the youths of Luca Signorelli, the knights of Giorgione and Carpaccio, +the young gods of Paolo Veronese, the noble grey-beards of Tiziano, the +stately women of Michelangiolo, the enchanting children of Raffaelle, +and Correggio. But in the towns, and in the country where it receives +the moral and physical miasma of the towns, he will find little else but +the debased modern type, with its snigger of conceit, its cynical grin, +its criminal's jaw, its cutaneous eruptions, its dull and insolent eyes, +its stunted growth, and its breath foul with nicotine and chemical +drinks, such as the modern schools, and the modern scientists, and the +modern dram-shops have made it. + +Commerce, from being beneficent, is fast becoming a curse. It usurps and +absorbs all place and all energy. Its objects are allowed to push out of +existence all higher aims; armies and navies exist only to protect it; +and an English Premier was not ashamed at a Lord Mayor's banquet to +declare that this was their unique aim: to conquer fresh fields for +trading, and protect the trader in his invasion of the rights of others. +His Secretary of State for the Colonies and his Chancellor of the +Exchequer have, still more recently, repeated after him this singularly +ignoble view of a nation's duty, and of a soldier's and sailor's +obligation. + +The Secretary of the Colonies, indeed, rising to unwonted enthusiasm, +added that all the greatness of Great Britain lies in its commerce. No +doubt this may be a fact; but it is not an ennobling fact; and it is one +which is the parent of gross sins, and the enemy of high ideals; in the +name of commerce, murder, theft, and torture are all legalised, and the +most brutal egotism deified; it can be at best only a material greatness +which is thus consolidated. + +To measure the virtue of a nation by its commerce alone is like +measuring the virtue of a man solely by the amount of his income. This +manner of estimation is one common in the world, but it can never be +considered a high standard. However, this excuse of the prior and +dominant claims of commerce which may be put forward in the case of +Great Britain for the sacrifice to it of all other interests cannot be +alleged by Italy except in some districts of the north. What requires +protection in five-sixths of Italy, and only suffers extinction through +fiscal pressure, is small commerce: personal arts, crafts, and trades, +which flourished so happily in past times, and would still live in fair +peace and comfort were they not stoned out of existence by a merciless +taxation, direct and indirect. These neither disfigure nor offend the +beautiful and venerable little towns in which they dwell; the smith has +his anvil under a Lombard arch, the apothecary keeps his ointments and +simples in old majolica vases, the barber's pole slants under a shrine +of the Renascence, the cloth-seller piles his bales against the +sculpture of a Seicento wall, the seedsman's sacks show the shining +berries in their gaping mouths behind the iron scroll-work of mediaeval +kneeling-windows. It is not they who have hurt their birthplaces. It is +the English syndicate, the Jew syndicate, the German money-changer, the +American tram-contractor, the foreign electric company, the foreign +co-operative store-keeper, who have no end but their own gain, and who +tempt to shameful acts those native to the soil, in whose hands lie the +fate of these historic, and late happy, places. + +Ferrero has, concerning this, a true and touching passage which is much +worthier of him than his views regarding Lombardy and the factories. He +says, in a recent able article on the 'Miseria e Richezza in Italia':-- + + 'The tendencies of new commercial life, in its immense + enterprises, is to send money and movement into a very few + amongst the cities of Italy, the others live content with their + small traffic and trade; though trembling when the fleet + well-springs of their small fortunes are menaced or run dry. + Many of these towns were in other days rich, and still preserve + the evidences of their splendid past in sumptuous palaces, + spacious squares, monumental churches; a sense of venerable + years, of profound repose lie on them; yet a sad and cruel + tragedy often passes between these walls; beneath the + magnificent palaces of the Renascence and the beautiful + mediaeval Lombard churches, the populace perishes slowly of + hunger. The small ancient industries disappear, crushed out by + the victorious rivalry of the great tradesmen of the north. The + ruin of these small industries and of these individual crafts + began some decades ago; but it was much less cruelly felt then + than it is now, and the sole recourse or solace now left to it + is in revolt. A revolt to which the Government only replies by + fixed bayonets, and a duty on corn, which is a crime.' + +Ferrero, as a political economist is bound to do, considers that no +means should be taken to artificially sustain ancient methods of work +and trade, but he says with entire truth that to artificially depress +and deplete them is on the part of the State an abominable act. To wear +out the temper and patience of the populace with harassing edicts; to +drive to desperation those who are cheerful and contented in an honestly +supported poverty; to starve them by artificially raised food-prices, +and by gate-taxes, which ruin the small trader, the modest householder, +and the rural vendor alike; to render it, by a monstrous taxation, +impossible for small industries to exist; to levy income-tax +(_focatico_) on the poorest labourer--this is the terrible error, the +inexcusable cruelty, of which the actual, and every preceding, Italian +Cabinet is, and has been, guilty. If there be revolution in the air, who +can wonder? The granaries are guarded by battalions, whilst millions are +thrown away on bad statues to Savoy princes. These are facts which it is +not necessary for a man to know his A B C to read. But they are the +primer which is daily placed before the eyes of the many various peoples +of Italy from the Col de Tenda to Cape Sorano; and these peoples are of +rare intelligence even where wholly illiterate: often, indeed, most +intelligent where most illiterate. + +There were, not many years ago, a great measure of mirth and contentment +in all the minor cities of Italy, and in the small towns and the big +walled villages; much harmless merry-making and pastime, much simple and +neighbourly pleasure, much enjoyment of that 'ben' di Dio,' the blessed +air and sunshine. Most of it has been killed now; starved out, +strangled by regulations and penalties and imposts, and a fiendish +fiscal tyranny; dead like the poor slaughtered forgotten conscripts in +Africa. + +But this opens out a political question, and it is not of politics that +these pages treat, but of art and its outrage: above all, of such +outrage in Venice; since the President of her Academy did me, of late, +the honour to say to me, 'Non puo Lei far nulla per salvare la nostra +povera Venezia?' Alas! how powerless are all our forces against the +ever-rising tide of modern barbarism! + +A precious intaglio of exquisite workmanship is being broken up and +pulverised under our eyes; and no one cares. + +I know a wide plain, intersected by many streams, and lying full in the +light of the west; these streams are filled from August to October with +millions of white water-lilies. + +Nothing more beautiful can be beheld than these countless water-courses +covered with these cups of snow, which share the clear, slowly-rippling +streams only with the water-wagtail and the sedge-warbler, the bullrush, +and the flag. They resemble exactly the river on which the Virgine delle +Rocce drift with their brothers and Claudio. But the peasants push their +black, flat-bottomed boats recklessly amongst the silver goblets of the +flowers, crashing into them and breaking them with brutal indifference, +and raking them into heaps in their boats, to be cast up on to the +oozing banks to rot and serve as land manure; the boorish insensibility +of the boatmen is typical of their time; the lilies would serve quite +as well for manure were they allowed to live out their lovely life, and +were not gathered until they were yellow and faded; but they who rake +them in do not wait for their natural season of decay; they smash and +break them in full flower as they kill birds on the nest in the fields +and hedges. + +Their fate is like the fate of that greater lily, rosy-red at sunset, +which lies cradled on the waters between Mestre and Murano; and which is +roughly and painfully being uprooted and destroyed that a pack of +foreign traders and native attorneys may wax fat and lay up gold. + +No doubt the fate of Venice is common in these days; no doubt, all over +the world, capitalists and socialists join hands across the gulf of +their differences to unite in the destruction of all that is beautiful, +graceful, harmonious, and venerable. + +But in Italy such destruction is more sad and shameful than anywhere +else in Europe, by reason of the magnificence and glory of her past, and +in view of the pitiful fact that the land, which was a Pharos of light +and leading to the earth, is now every year and every day receding +farther and farther into darkness: that dreadful darkness of the modern +world which comes of polluted waters and polluted air, of the breath of +poisoned lungs, and the pressure of starving crowds. The basest form of +venality, the lowest form of greed, have fastened on her with the +tentacles of the devil-fish; and are every hour devouring her. + + +_Colston & Coy, Limited, Printers, Edinburgh._ + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Critical Studies, by Ouida + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CRITICAL STUDIES *** + +***** This file should be named 36788.txt or 36788.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/6/7/8/36788/ + +Produced by David Edwards, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +book was produced from scanned images of public domain +material from the Google Print project.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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