There is a deep-felt apprehension indulged in by a class of our
citizens over the grave diplomatic complication found in the dismissal
of Lord Sackville West, and the refusal on the part of Her Gracious
Majesty of England to refill the vacant post at Washington with
another lord. Our national dignity is menaced so long as Mr. Phelps,
envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary residing at or near
St. James's, is permitted to remain. As soon as Sackville "got the
sack," to use a vulgar but expressive phrase, a reasonable time should
have been given Her Gracious Majesty to fill the place; and failing,
the Hon. Phelps should have been promptly recalled. This would have
been hard on the Hon. Phelps, but with our flag insulted and our eagle
scoffed at by an empty legation at the national capital, the Hon.
Phelps should have been prepared to wrap the star-spangled banner
about his diplomatic body and die--if need be--to the fierce screams
of the eagle. He might, after such a glorious demise, have been
consigned to that corner of Westminster Abbey that Dean Stanley
reserved for a distinguished American. It is true that we, in common
with the American people, have designated Senator Ingalls as the one
selected for that honor, and we are prepared to kill him any time, and
forward his remains to the spot, provided the Westminster people are
willing to receive them. But this is carrying us from our diplomatic
mutton.
Under the circumstances, it is a comfort to know that all this
apprehension of these sensitive citizens is quite uncalled for. This
because we have no diplomatic service, no diplomatic agents, and
therefore no complications to speak of.
The framers of our government, through some oversight, neglected to
supply us with a diplomatic service. They saw, it is true, no use for
such; nor was it possible to have a government as a trust, and give it
such powers.
The diplomatic service pertains exclusively to a personal government.
It originated in a sovereign delegating certain powers, attributes of
the crown, to official agents whose duty was to reside near the courts
of other sovereigns, keep a watchful eye upon their movements, report
the same to their masters, and, from time to time, negotiate treaties
of advantage to their own sovereigns. To give these diplomatic agents
dignity and influence they were clothed with sufficient power to
commit their sovereigns to their official acts. This is not possible
with us. The sovereignty in our great republic is in the people; and
it finds expression, in this direction, through the Executive and
Senate. It cannot be delegated. When, therefore, a treaty is
negotiated between us and any foreign power, it is necessary to send a
special envoy to Washington to deal with the Executive. This has to be
sanctioned by the Senate: and our absurd House of Lords has served
notice on the world that the President himself cannot commit our
government to any treaty.
Why, then, are our diplomatic agents, so called, sent abroad as
ministers? Ministers resident and _chargés d'affaires_ are merely
clerks of the State Department--no more, no less--who are sent abroad
to play at being diplomatists and get laughed at by the courts they
approach.
The diplomatic corps of Europe, being an important part of their
several governments, is made up of men possessed of fine intellect and
great culture. To meet and associate with such, we send prominent
politicians who, being such, are ignorant of their own government, its
history and character, let alone those of Europe; and they are
tolerated from a good-natured wish to be agreeable, where there is no
profit in being otherwise. We do not suffer in this so much from our
lack of good breeding--for it is difficult for a prominent American to
be other than a gentleman--as we do from the ignorance of our official
agents. Ex-President Grant, for example, in his famous trip round the
world, posed at every court he approached as a royal personage.
General Badeau ("Adjutant-in-waiting"), acting as grand master of
ceremonies, arranged the household, and exacted from all comers the
etiquette due a sovereign. If our good citizens could have known the
ripple of laughter and ridicule that followed the result, in which our
great man was spoken of as "the King of the Yankee Doodles," they
would be more ashamed than proud of the performance.
It is this ignorance of ourselves and our political fabric that places
us in a false position before the world. The clerk of the State
Department sent abroad by our government as a diplomatic agent,
instead of putting up at a hotel and opening an office in a common
business way, sets up an establishment and "takes on airs." As most
of the diplomatic business is done in a social way, he attempts to
entertain on a salary entirely inadequate to such work. As a court
costume is necessary--which means the sort of livery the diplomatic
agent affects in the presence of his own sovereign--and as we, having
no king, have no livery, our department clerk borrows one, either from
some European court or the theatre, and dances attendance in that.
No man ever stood higher in the estimation of the world, on account of
his genius, than James Russell Lowell. That esteem was considerably
shaken, in the eyes of an admirer, when, calling on his minister at
London, he found the poet's slender legs encased in tights, and his
little body clad in a gorgeous coat covered with gold buttons. Of
course, Mr. Lowell could masquerade in any dress and remain the
brilliant poet and patriot; but the significance of this livery, its
shallow pretence and humble admission, made the admirer sick.
The clerk of our State Department sent abroad under this state of
facts finds nothing to do. He is not interested in the business of the
foreign diplomatic corps; and if he were, his government has no hand
in the game, nor is the agent sufficiently instructed to take part
even were he interested. He is tolerated by those with whom he comes
in contact, and his strange associates repay their good-nature by the
amusement they get out of the poor fellow.
There is no provision in our government for such an absurdity. The
framers of our Constitution provided none; and if our recollection
serves us right, it was not until 1856 that Congress recognized its
existence by a law fixing the rank and compensation.
The thing ought to be abolished. When Andrew Jackson was first elected
President, he went to Washington fully resolved to put an end to the
absurd business. The politicians were too much for Old Hickory--and so
they are to-day too much for common-sense, the letter and spirit of
our government, and the dignity of our people. With a House of Lords
at home and a so-called diplomatic corps abroad, we are an object of
contempt from the rising of the sun till the setting thereof.
_THE PASSING SHOW._
Sensationalism in art, as in literature, no doubt has its uses. It
serves to present old truths in a new light, and by a startling
grouping of ascertained facts helps to overcome the inertia of the
average man and make him think. There is a value in novelty, provided
it is rightly used, which is an important aid to the playwright or
scenic artist. But where sensationalism is manifested by a distortion
of facts, a falsification of history, or a violation of the principles
of human nature, its effect is demoralizing both to the artist and the
spectator, the author and the reader. Such an innovation has been
attempted by Mr. Henry Irving and Miss Ellen Terry in their
presentation of "Macbeth" at the Lyceum Theatre, London. It is
excellent acting, faithful reproduction of historic costumes,
exquisite scenery, but--it is not Shakspere. Nor is it human nature.
Had it been only occasional alterations of the dramatist's lines, or
even the unnecessary division of the play into six acts instead of
five, or the cutting out of some of the characters, the genius of
Irving and Terry might have been pardoned the perversion. But when
they attempt to represent the ambitious, plotting, fiendish murderess
whom Shakspere has depicted, as a loving, devoted wife, who only seeks
to further a little job of killing for the purpose of promoting her
husband's interests, they meet with an infallible critic in the heart
of every intelligent spectator. It is against human nature, and no
amount of wonderful declamation or scenic magnificence can gloss it
over. The purpose of art is to portray nature, to refine it if you
will, but never to contradict. Lovers of the drama will be bitterly
disappointed that Mr. Irving, after having devoted the best years of
his life to the former, should at this late day, for the mere sake of
innovation, resort to the latter.
Shakspere, the great philosopher of human nature as well as the
greatest dramatist of the centuries, knew full well that unlawful
ambition which includes crime excludes the tender, womanly devotion of
the true wife, and, far from picturing Lady Macbeth as an admirer of
her husband, shows her as sneering at him for his want of courage:
"Yet do I fear thy nature;
Is too full o' the milk of human kindness."
"Hie thee hither,
That I may pour _my_ spirits in thine ear."
And this:
"We fail.
But screw your courage to the sticking-place."
Irving and Terry's play is not human nature and is not Shakspere; but,
overlooking these points, their conception is well carried out. It is
a wonderful spectacle. The resources of stage machinery have been
taxed to their utmost, and the English press is one chorus of
admiration at the marvellous landscapes, and at the quaint
ornamentation and the low, groined arches of the old Saxon castle. It
is a pity that these valuable adjuncts were not called unto the aid of
a more correct interpretation of the great ideal.
And now we are likely to have an epidemic of Macbeths. Margaret Mather
has tried it at Niblo's, and Mrs. Langtry has been incubating a new
presentation, like Terry's, with a "few innovations." Irving's
reputation as a stage manager is such that when his "Macbeth" comes to
America everyone will want to see it.
But will it ever come to America? For now, forsooth, there are some
members of the dramatic profession in this country who avow their
intention of appealing to Congress to regulate American taste by law,
and to exclude foreign actors under the contract-labor statute. This
brilliant idea originated in the fertile brain of Mr. Louis Aldrich,
and was nursed by the Actors' Order of Friendship. Into this Order
Messrs. Booth and Barrett were initiated with darkened windows and
mysterious rites, for the express purpose of fixing the stamp of their
approval upon the scheme. A delegation appeared before Congressman
Ford's Immigration Committee and begged that the proposed undemocratic
exclusion law shall contain a provision against the landing of foreign
pauper actors.
But these gentlemen lacked in logic what they possessed in assurance.
They were willing to except "stars" from the operation of the law.
Well, why not exclude "stars"? Do they not compete quite as much with
American talent as the humbler aspirants of the stage? Even a "star"
of the magnitude of Louis Aldrich himself would probably find his rays
outshone in the presence of the brighter effulgence of an Irving or a
Coquelin. It is the "stars" who compete most with native talent, and
on this principle they should be the first excluded. Besides that, if
they are excepted, who is to define a "star"? It would be amusing to
see the Supreme Court of the United States gravely sitting in judgment
on such a question. By all means, Mr. Aldrich, return at once to
Washington and amend your petition. Let Mr. Ford include "stars" also
in his bill. And then let every protectionist crank in the country
have absolute exclusion of every possible competitor and of all kinds
of goods that he wants to sell, and pay a bounty to the farmers for
their crops, and then we shall all be able to raise ourselves by our
boot-straps into a region of perfect happiness.
Of course there are two sides to every question, and, not wishing to
do an injustice, we will give the one maintained by the petitioners.
We have a law prohibiting the importation of labor contracted for
abroad. This law the courts hold is applicable to cooks, coachmen, and
ministers of the Gospel. Now why should an exception be made in behalf
of a theatrical manager who contracts for a lot of actors, more or
less cheap, in London, to play for him in the United States? Mr.
Aldrich does not ask that the man, be he star or stock, who comes of
his own motives shall be prohibited; but he does protest against the
importation of the cheap histrionic labor which is brought here,
precisely as other skilled or unskilled labor is got over, to compete
with the same labor in the United States. In other words, it is not a
question of taste, but one of bread.
Another fact is overlooked that has a decided bearing on the question.
In all matters of art we are such a set of snobs that we cannot
recognize any merit in our artists until after they have been indorsed
by English critics and English audiences. If any law can be enacted to
correct this miserable condition, let us have it at an early day. We
know that the greatest actress known to the English-speaking
world--our Clara Morris--has failed to secure the fame and fortune to
which her genius entitled her simply because she neglected to secure
English approbation--which would have been heartily given her had she
ever appeared in London.
Nor is it true that English stock is preferred to the American
product because of its superior excellence. Mr. Daly has shown the
absurdity of this claim by taking his admirable company to London and
carrying off the honors. In the face of this and every other fact, we
are told that the English comedian doing the society drama is superior
to ours because of his superior social position. That is something to
be relegated to the things which amuse. There is an adaptability about
the American that makes him at home in all conditions. It is possible
for an American actor to wear a dress suit with an ease that is
rivalled only by the French. What is the good of calling on an
Englishman to do on the stage what no Englishman can accomplish in
private life? If there is a John Bull on earth who can wear a dress
suit with ease and elegance, he has not yet been discovered.
There now, we have given both sides.
Mr. Edwin Booth offered his brother-actors a much better kind of
protection when, on New Year's Eve, he presented to them "The
Players'" club-house, with its fine library and its treasures of
dramatic art. After all, education and self-development are the only
legitimate means of attaining success; and he who offers his
fellow-beings facilities for improvement and self-help is a far
greater benefactor to them than he who endeavors to apply restrictive
methods. Such an institution has been Mr. Booth's dream for years. It
is a spacious house at No. 16 Gramercy Place, adjoining the residence
of the late Samuel J. Tilden. Mr. Booth purchased it for $75,000, and
spent $125,000 in alterations. The library is probably the finest
collection of dramatic literature in the world. Twelve hundred volumes
were presented by Mr. Booth, and two thousand by Lawrence Barrett,
besides a large number of rare works given by Augustin Daly, T. B.
Aldrich, Laurence Hutton, and others. It was a touching scene when, a
few moments before the old year died, Mr. Booth placed in the hands of
Augustin Daly for the Players' Club the title-deeds to this
magnificent property, and blushing like a girl before the assembled
actors, listened awkwardly to the simple words which Mr. Daly spoke in
reply. Then just after the midnight bells had rung he turned and lit
the Yule log, and the players began the enjoyment of their new home.
A few days afterwards Mr. Booth closed his very successful
metropolitan engagement at the Fifth Avenue Theatre with "The Fool's
Revenge," Lawrence Barrett appearing in "Yorick's Love," and both the
tragedians started on a Southern tour.
Miss Mary Anderson appears in a late issue of a sensational
publication as a severe censor of society ladies addicted to attempts
upon the stage. We say Mary Anderson; for her name appears at the end
of the article, and as she is a woman, we will not venture to say that
the property claimed is not her own. Some rude critics have charged
that Mary did not make this up out of her own fair head; and
throughout the profession a state of mind exists that is not
complimentary to the would-be authoress.
The queerest part of the business, however, is, that such strictures
should come from Miss Anderson. She raided the stage as a society
woman, and struck at once for the honors. There was, if we remember
rightly, no long, weary preparation and laborious training for the
footlights. She went from the parlor to the greenroom, and she went in
with a flourish. She was of Kentucky birth, and Henry Watterson, whose
bright intellect is only surpassed by his good heart, not only
indorsed the ambitious society girl, but made up his mind to put Mary
down the American throat whether the people would or not. Mary was not
unpalatable to the American taste, but Watterson is her father--that
is, dramatically speaking.
Then Stepfather Griffin came in. Stepfather Griffin was born a
theatrical advance and advertising agent. He did not know this. If we
were to dwell on what Stepfather Griffin does not know, we should fill
all the space of this magazine for the year.
P. Griffin "caught on" to the provincial condition of our artistic,
literary, and dramatic life, which makes the approval of England
necessary to American success. So Poppy G. transported his American
star to London. He found the Prince of Wales necessary; and
Labouchere, M. P. and proprietor of _Truth_, taught the paternal agent
how to work the oracle. The Prince of Wales is a corpulent,
good-natured son of Her Gracious Majesty who rules all the earth save
Ireland. He is ever open to the advances and blandishments of an
American woman, or African woman, or any sort of woman, provided she
is lovely; and being approached, he expressed his desire to know the
star of Columbia. "Now," said Labouchere, "having got that far, the
thing to startle England and capture Americans is for Mary to decline
an introduction on high moral and republican grounds." This was done,
and Great Britain was startled and the Yankee Doodles were captured.
She returned to her native land with an English troupe, and made
Yankee Doodle go wild.
Now Mary is absolutely the worst actress ever sent sweeping from the
drawing-room to the footlights. Possessed of a tall, angular figure,
and blessed with a sonorous and in some respects pliable voice, she
has the fatal gift of imitation. No actor can win the highest honors
of his exalted profession who is a mimic. The actor capable of giving
expression to the thought of his author really assists that author in
the creation of a character. He or she is the creator. Now the mimic
is one who reproduces second-hand the work of others. We are cursed
with a traditionary assortment of characters that have come down to us
from the Kembles; and any one capable of filling what Shakspere or
Bacon or somebody called the rôle of "a poor player who struts and
frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more" can win
applause through mimicry, but never be great. We first saw Mary as Meg
Merrilies, and the reproduction of Cushman was something marvellous.
And so we have had it ever since. As Fechter said of Booth's Hamlet,
that "he played everybody's Hamlet but his own," so it may be said of
Miss Anderson, that she reproduces in an acceptable way the wearisome
line of old characters that have come to be stage properties.
Mrs. James Brown Potter, who has been playing to New York and Brooklyn
audiences in Tom Taylor's heavy drama, "'Twixt Axe and Crown," shows
considerable improvement over her acting of one year ago, but she
chose a very inappropriate piece for her reappearance. Mrs. Potter
reads her lines very well, is a very beautiful woman, and possesses
that indispensable adjunct of the modern actress, a very handsome
wardrobe. But she is not fitted for the part of Lady Elizabeth, who in
her youthful prison exhibits the same wilful capriciousness and
headstrong pride that she afterwards showed on England's throne. Mr.
Kyrle Bellew as Edward Courtenay, the romantic lover of Elizabeth,
played his rôle quite well. Mrs. Potter is naturally better suited to
fragile, feminine, girlish parts than she is to the heroic, and there
is plenty of room for improvement; but she is painstaking, persistent,
and has time before her.
Edward Harrigan's drama of "The Lorgaire," the only new play of the
month, is a passable sketch of Irish life. It is much more ingeniously
devised than any of his previous efforts in this line, and since it
was first put upon the stage has been much improved, many offensive
lines being eliminated.
Adolph Müller's new comic opera, "The King's Fool," was first
witnessed by an American audience in Chicago at the Columbia Theatre
on Christmas Eve. Its scene is laid at the court of Pampeluna, and the
plot is the development of a conspiracy to secure the succession to
the throne, the rightful heir being brought up as a girl, the Salic
law forbidding the accession of females. The king's fool discovers the
imposition, the young prince regains his throne, and the conspirators
are punished.
A very enjoyable selection of pieces has been put on the boards at
Daly's Theatre, including "The Lottery of Love," "Needles and Pins,"
"She Would and She Wouldn't," and "Rehearsing a Tragedy." Ada Rehan
scored her usual successes. Daly's Theatre is one where the spectator
is always sure of a pleasant evening's entertainment. At the Standard
"Miss Esmeralda" replaced "Monte Cristo, Jr." The new play was in
every way brighter and wittier, and offered more opportunities to the
talents of Nellie Farren and the admirable Gaiety Company. Margaret
Mather in her repertoire produced at Niblo's Garden shows steady
improvement. She makes a lovely Juliet, but in the difficult part of
Peg Woffington she is a failure. The "Yeomen of the Guard" is
withdrawn from the Casino, not from any lack of popular favor, but
because Manager Aronson has been obliged by a contract to restore
"Nadjy" to the stage. Herr Junkermann has been giving several very
creditable presentations at the new Amberg Theatre, to the delight of
our German citizens.
Most admirable, yet most difficult and incomplete, was the first
production in America of Wagner's "Rheingold" at the Metropolitan
Opera House early in January. The stage machinery was very
complicated, and the illusions were perfect. As the curtain rose the
depths of the Rhine waters appeared to fill the scene, the sun's
struggling rays caused the precious gold to gleam; and the three Rhine
maidens appointed by Wotan to watch it were seen gracefully swimming
about the treasure. From this novel opening to the close, when the
gods cross the rainbow bridge that leads to Walhalla, the scenery was
a marvel of spectacular effect, but it did not rise to the excellence
of the displays at the Bayreuth festivals. The orchestra was in best
form, and the singing was the best that has been presented this
season--much better, for instance, than in the previous performance of
"Siegfried," where Herr Alvary's voice showed signs of wear, and Emil
Fischer actually became hoarse before the close.
"Faust," "The Huguenots," "L'Africaine," and "Fidelio" were among the
musical triumphs of the Metropolitan. Handel's "Messiah" was
beautifully given at the same theatre by the Oratorio Society, with
the Symphony Society's orchestra, under the direction of Walter
Damrosch; while concerts by the Boston Symphony orchestra, by Theodore
Thomas, and by Anton Seidl complete the list of delightful musical
entertainments of the season.
_REVIEWS._
THE CLOVEN HOOF UNDER PETTICOATS: _The Quick or the Dead_; _Eros_;
_Miss Middleton's Lovers_.--The characteristic American novel of the
day might be described as an episode clothed in epigram. It is
commonly little more than an incident, slight as to plot, startling in
contrasts of light and shade, and too often avowedly immoral in
tone--a fragment of canvas, with ragged edges, cut at random from a
picture by Gérôme, with figures questionably suggestive, and volcanic
in color. It affects a myopic realism in details, not seldom of the
sort which, with non-committal suavity, we have agreed to call
"improper." It is nothing if not erotic. It deals with humanity from
the anatomist's standpoint, and describes, with insistence and
reiteration, the physical attributes of its characters, leaving the
spiritual to be inferred from their somewhat indefinite actions, and
that sort of mental sauntering which is termed analysis, for want of a
better name. It sets its women before you in the language of the
slave-market. It leaves no doubt in your mind that they are
female--female to a fault. "You could not help feeling in her presence
that she was a woman; the atmosphere was redolent with her. You never
so much as thought of her as a human being, a sentient, reasoning
personage like yourself. She was born to be a _woman_ solely, and she
fulfilled her destiny." "She was sensuous and voluptuous. You received
from her a powerful impression of sex." "She was a naked goddess--a
pagan goddess, and there was no help for it." Realistic this may
indeed be, but it is hardly chivalrous, or consistent with that
respect which well-bred and sound-hearted men feel, or, for the
convenience of social intercourse, affect to feel toward that half of
human nature to which the mothers, sisters, and wives of the race
belong. A woman must be philosophical indeed who can accept as a
flattering testimony to her personal graces such a phrase as "She is
the most appetizing thing I have seen." To be regarded in the light of
a veal cutlet may possess the charm of gastronomic reminiscence, but
as a metaphor it is scarcely poetic.
In reading this class of fiction one is constrained to wonder what
these ingenious weavers of verbal tapestries would have done for plot
and incident--such as they are--had the Seventh Commandment been
eliminated from the Tables of the Law. It is a never-failing
well-spring, a Fortunatus' pocket, a theme more rich in variations
than the Carnival of Venice; and it is amazing as well as instructive
to the uninitiated to discover in how many original and striking ways
a wife may be unfaithful to her husband, and what startling and
dramatic situations may be evolved out of the indiscretions of a too
confiding society-girl. But even the unmentionable has limits: the
glacial smile of the nimblest ballet-dancer may lose somewhat of its
fascination in the course of time; and in the overheated atmosphere of
the "passionate" novel may lurk the faintest intimations of a yawn.
The fact is, this multiform, many-worded element in current fiction is
not true passion at all. It is a theatrical presentation, often well
set and brilliantly costumed; but too frequently you see the paint and
hear the prompter calling forgotten cues from the wings. It is keen,
witty, cynical; but it is not real. It is daring, flippantly defiant,
paroxysmal, and redundant in explosive adjectives; but it is not true
to nature. It is as different from the genuine, living human emotion
as the impetuous, fervid, and unpremeditated love-making of a youth is
from the cold-blooded, carefully-rounded, and artificial gallantries
of an aged suitor. Real passion is always poetic; there is a delicacy
in its very vehemence, and if reprehensible from the moralist's point
of view, it is never contemptible. Simulated passion, on the other
hand, is always coarse and undignified--even when, as in the case with
many of these novels, expressed in graceful and smoothly-flowing
sentences; often absurd and flavored with covert cynicism, as if it
despised itself and its object. Actual passion is almost entirely
wanting in American fiction. The purer school of James and Howells
makes no pretence of it,--ignoring its existence in human nature, as
if men and women were sentient shapes of ice,--and wisely, too; for
though the lack of it in romance is a fatal defect, it is better than
a poor imitation. Nathaniel Hawthorne, that isolated giant, drew from
the mysterious depths of his own great soul almost the only example of
true passion in the literature of this country. "The Scarlet Letter"
towers aloft like the Olympian Jove among terra-cotta statuettes,
perhaps the noblest work of fiction ever written. Here is passion,
almost awful in its intensity; suppressed, confined; struggling like a
chained Titan, and at length breaking loose and overwhelming itself
beneath its own agony and despair--passion, beautiful with youth and
hope, star-eyed, crowned with amaranth and clad in blood-red garments;
led onward by his dark brothers, Sin and Death, in swift tumultuous
flight, toward his unknown goal in the land of eternal shadows.
Compared with this lordly poem, the erotic novel of the day, with its
prurient platitudes, is as a satyr to Hyperion. Putting aside all
question of the moral law in the relation of the sexes, is there not
something foolishly undignified in these gasping, gurgling adjectives?
"Soul-scorching, flesh-melting flame of his eyes." "Flammeous breath,
sweeping her cheek, stirred her nature with a fierce, hungerous
yearning." "Ignescent passion." "Gloating upon her hungerly." "Gives
her whole body a comprehensive voluptuous twist." "All entangled in
her sweet sinuous embrace." "Languorously inviting."--But we pause
upon the verge of the unquotable, daunted, stifled, in this mephitic
atmosphere.
This is called Realism!--this affected posturing, at which good-taste
veils the face to hide the smile of contempt or the blush of common
decency--these ale-house stories transplanted to the drawing-room! Is
there--_is_ there nothing in that love, whose very name lingers upon
the lips like a song--that love which has inspired all poetry, all
romance from the beginning of time; which has thrown down embattled
walls, taken strong cities, changed the boundaries of empires,
marshalled armed thousands upon memorable fields of blood; which in
every age has nerved men to great deeds and rewarded them for great
sacrifices; the sunrise hope of youth, the evening meditation of the
old, the spirit of home, the tender light which gleams about the
hearth-stone, the glory of the world;--is there nothing, then, in this
but the blind impulse which draws animal to animal--which attracts the
groping inhabitants of the mire and the shapeless swimming lumps of
the sea? If it be so, then thrice sacred is that art which has power
to throw a mist of glamour about this hideous reality, and make it
seem beautiful to our eyes! Far better the divine lie than such truth!
But it is _not_ true: for real love, even though it pass the pale of
the law, and real passion, though it tempt to sin, have about them
always an inexpugnable dignity; and if condemned, it is not with
laughter or disgust.
The erotic in American fiction is a recent and exotic growth, not
native to the soil. It is therefore unhealthy and unwholesome. It is
out of place in this cold northern air. In its own climate it is a
gaudy flower; in this temperate zone it is a poisonous, spotted lily,
rank of smell and blistering to the touch. The licentiousness of
Théophile Gautier is elevated by the power of his transcendent genius
to the plane of true art. In America it sinks into a denizen of the
gutter.
A remarkable feature of this noxious development is the prominent part
taken in it by women. It is somewhat startling to find upon the
title-page of a work whose cold, deliberate immorality and cynical
disregard of all social decency have set the teeth on edge, the name
of a woman as the author. We are so accustomed to associate modesty
of demeanor, delicacy of thought and word, and purity of life with
woman, that a certain set of adjectives, expressive of virtue and
morality, have come to include the idea of femininity in their
signification. It is certainly surprising, if not repellent, to find
women the most industrious laborers in the work of tearing down the
structure of honor and respect for their sex, which has so long been
regarded as the basis of social existence. If this breaking of the
holy images be but another manifestation of the revolt of women
against the too narrow limits of ancient prejudice, it is only
additional proof that misguided revolution easily becomes mere
anarchy. While the dispensation which would confine women to the
nursery and kitchen, and exclude them from broader fields of action,
is happily a dead letter, it is quite certain that no condition of
civilization, however liberal, will ever justify loose principles or
lax manners, or what is almost as reprehensible and much more
despicable, the cynicism which sneers at virtue while it prudently
keeps its own skirts unsoiled. But it is probable that the women who
write this kind of fiction are misled by vanity, rather than actuated
by evil impulses. They imagine that in thus throwing off all restraint
they are giving evidence of originality of thought and force of
character; whereas they are, in fact, courting unworthy suspicion and
winning only that sort of applause which is thinly veiled contempt.
In America social licentiousness is not inherent as a national
characteristic, nor inherited from a profligate ancestry. Whatever his
practice may be, the ordinary American is theoretically moral. He
recognizes moral turpitude, at least to the extent of dreading
exposure of his own backslidings. If he break the law, he nevertheless
insists upon the sanctity of the law. In a word, the social atmosphere
is pure and wholesome, though perhaps a little chilly; and if anyone
happens to be the proprietor of a nuisance, he is very careful to keep
it well concealed from his neighbors, and neutralize the evil odor
with lavish sprinklings of perfumery.
With us Licentiousness is not a gayly-clad reveller, a familiar figure
at feasts and pleasure parties, taking his share in the festivities,
dancing, laughing, and frisking as bravely as any. He is not a jovial
Bohemian, of too free life perhaps, but not half a bad fellow--a
careless, reckless, roaring blade. On the contrary, he is a dark,
shadowy, saturnine personage: a loiterer in lonely places, a lover of
the night, skulking around corners and hiding his face in a ready
mask. He dreads the law, for he knows that if detected his companions
of yesterday will bear witness against him to-day, and lend their aid
to set him in the stocks, to be jeered at by all the world. He is
thin-blooded and pale; he shudders at the sound of his own footsteps,
and shrinks from his own shadow. He knows no songs in praise of
Gillian and the wine-cup, and if he did he would never dare sing them.
He dresses in the seedy remains of a once respectable suit; he is an
outcast, a beggar, a vagabond, down at the heels and owned by nobody.
Altogether, he is as miserable and forlorn a wretch as one would care
to see, and his _alter ego_ is hypocrisy.
For this reason the licentious in American literature is and must be
cold, artificial, and repugnant. The erotic becomes mere bald
immorality, without grace, gayety, color, or warmth to lend it dignity
or render it tolerable. In the opulent, fervid period of the
Renaissance, art was born of passion and inspired by it to greatness.
The erotic was a legitimate element of all works of the imagination,
because it was a part of the social life of the day, and because,
being genuine, it could be made beautiful. When, after the Revolution
in England and the spread of Calvinism on the Continent, the minds and
manners of men were brought under closer restraint, licentiousness in
art began to be no longer natural and spontaneous, and therefore no
longer legitimate, until in the last century it degenerated into
simple indecency. When the erotic ceased to be quite as much a matter
of course, in fiction or poetry, as hatred, jealousy, or revenge, and
the reader learned to pass it over with a frown or pick it out with a
relish, according to his natural disgust of or morbid craving for the
impure, it became a blemish. It was no longer real, but an indecent
imitation. Compare "Romeo and Juliet," that divine poem of passion,
with the abominations of Waters and Rochester, popular in their day,
but now happily forgotten, or even Wycherly, not yet quite forgotten,
and mark how wide the difference between the true and the false, the
natural and the unnatural.
To-day, in America at least, the physical is subordinate to the
spiritual. The mind is master, and the body in its bondage, if not
enfeebled, has at least become trained to passive obedience. All
impulses are submitted to the severe scrutiny of reason. Categories of
right and wrong, or perhaps the politic and the impolitic, are
strictly adhered to. Caution is largely in the ascendant. The world's
opinion is an ever-present restraining element. All these are results,
or at any rate concomitants of a loftier civilization. A society
guided by moral and intellectual forces is unquestionably upon higher
ground than one dominated by the physical. The world is, moreover, a
more comfortable place to live in than it used to be when, on account
of the color of the feather in one's hat, one must unsheathe and go at
it, hammer and tongs, to save one's skin.
Passion does still exist in the human heart, but it is restrained and
modified by the necessities and conditions of the social life of the
day. To be a fit element of fiction it must be depicted in its
nineteenth-century guise--in other words, decently. To be a truthful
picture it can be depicted in no other way. To exhibit it posturing,
writhing, and gasping in mere hysteria is to lower it beneath the
standard of wholesome and worthy art. License without love, and
immorality without passion, are as unpardonable in a novel as they are
in human nature.
_Political Oratory of Emery A. Storrs_, by Isaac E. Adams (Belford,
Clarke & Co.).--The compiler of Mr. Storrs's political speeches begins
his introductory chapter with some questionable generalizations which
are belittling and somewhat unjust to the large class of true orators
to which his hero belongs. He says: "Few examples of political oratory
have been embalmed in literature. Men, too, remembered for oratorical
power are easily reckoned, and tower conspicuously along the shores of
time. There was once a Demosthenes, once a Cicero, once a Burke. The
time will come when, looking back upon the centuries of American
history, it will be said there was, also, once a Webster and once a
Lincoln."
We must be permitted to observe that the line cannot be clearly drawn
between political and other oratory. In a broad sense, all the great
orators known to history have been political orators, because they
gained their fame chiefly in discussing the great and absorbing public
questions of their day.
To these belongs Emery A. Storrs. Let a few extracts from this volume
of speeches suffice to show the style of his oratory. At Chicago, in
the darkest hours of our civil war, he said: "I have no doubt but that
this, the most wicked rebellion that ever blackened the annals of
history, will be ground to powder. I have no doubt but that our
national integrity will be preserved. I have no doubt but that the
union of these States will be restored, and that the nation will
emerge from the fiery trial through which it has passed, brighter and
better and stronger than it has ever been before. It would be
impossible, however, that a conflict mighty as that from which we are
now, I trust, emerging should not leave its deep and permanent impress
upon our future national character. It will give tone to our politics,
our literature, and our feelings as a people, for ages to come."
At Cleveland, in the campaign of 1880, he said: "Have you seen any
trouble with the pillars of the government? The trouble was not with
the pillars--they did not rock; the trouble was with the gentlemen who
were looking at the pillars of the government. They were like the
gentleman who had been attending a lecture on astronomy. Going home
loaded with a great deal of Democratic logic, with a step weary and
uncertain, with the earth revolving a great many times upon its axis,
he affectionately clasped a lamp-post and said, 'Old Galileo was right
about it: the world does move.'"
The logic of Mr. Storrs's speeches on war topics, which were immensely
popular, is embraced in the single sentence: "I think there can be
nothing more suicidal than to intrust into the hands of these men, who
sought the destruction of our national life, the direction of our
national interests."
Hence the convenient 300-page volume under review will be valuable to
political speakers and writers who want their party zeal warmed up by
the earnest appeals of an impassioned, conscientious, and clear-minded
orator. The diction of Mr. Storrs is admirable, his language is almost
always felicitous, and in his logic there is a happy blending of grace
and force. If his range was not wide, he was always able to
concentrate learning and ability enough on any given occasion to show
a masterful oratorical power over immense masses of men.