Meanwhile, other hands had not been idle, so that above the dreary
plethora of trash like Marquis von Gross's "Horrid Mysteries," (1796)
Mrs. Roche's "Children of the Abbey," (1798) Mrs. Dacre's "Zofloya;
Or, the Moor," (1806) and the poet Shelley's schoolboy effusions
"Zastrozzi" (1810) and "St. Irvyne" (1811) (both imitations of
"Zofloya") there arose many memorable weird works both in English and
German. Classic in merit, and markedly different from its fellows
because of its foundation in the Oriental tale rather than the
Walpolesque Gothic novel, is the celebrated "History of the Caliph
Vathek" by the wealthy dilettante William Beckford, first written in
the French language but published in English translation before the
appearance of the original. Eastern tales, introduced to European
literature early in the eighteenth century through Galland's French
translation of the inexhaustibly opulent "Arabian Nights," had become
a reigning fashion; being used both for allegory and amusement. The
sly humour which only the Eastern mind knows how to mix with weirdness
had captivated a sophisticated generation, till Bagdad and Damascus
names became as freely strewn through popular literature as dashing
Italian and Spanish ones were soon to be. Beckford, well read in
Eastern romance, caught the atmosphere with unusual receptivity;
and in his fantastic volume reflected very potently the haughty
luxury, sly disillusion, bland cruelty, urbane treachery, and shadowy
spectral horror of the Saracen spirit. His seasoning of the ridiculous
seldom mars the force of his sinister theme, and the tale marches
onward with a phantasmagoric pomp in which the laughter is that of
skeletons feasting under Arabesque domes. "Vathek" is a tale of the
grandson of the Caliph Haroun, who, tormented by that ambition for
super-terrestrial power, pleasure, and learning which animates the
average Gothic villain or Byronic hero, (essentially cognate types) is
lured by an evil genius to seek the subterranean throne of the mighty
and fabulous pre-Adamite sultans in the fiery halls of Eblis, the
Mahomedan Devil. The descriptions of Vathek's palaces and diversions,
of his scheming sorceress-mother Carathis and her witch-tower with
the fifty one-eyed negresses, of his pilgrimage to the haunted ruins
of Istakhar (Persepolis) and of the impish bride Nouronihar whom he
treacherously acquired on the way, of Istakhar's primordial towers, and
terraces in the burning moonlight of the waste, and of the terrible
Cyclopean halls of Eblis, where, lured, by glittering promises, each
victim is compelled to wander in anguish for ever, his right hand upon
his blazingly ignited and eternally burning heart, are triumphs of
weird colouring which raise the book to a permanent place in English
letters. No less notable are the three "Episodes of Vathek," intended
for insertion in the tale as narratives of Vathek's fellow-victims
in Eblis' infernal halls, which remained unpublished throughout the
author's lifetime and were discovered as recently as 1909 by the
scholar Lewis Melville whilst collecting material for his "Life and
Letters of William Beckford." Beckford, however, lacks the essential
mysticism which marks the acutest form of the weird; so that his tales
have a certain knowing Latin hardness and clearness preclusive of sheer
panic fright.
But Beckford remained alone In his devotion to the Orient. Other
writers, closer to the Gothic tradition and to European life in
general, were content to follow more faithfully in the lead of Walpole.
Among the countless producers of terror-literature in these times
may be mentioned the Utopian economic theorist William Godwin, who
followed his famous but non-supernatural "Caleb Williams" (1794) with
the intendedly weird "St. Leon" (1799) in which the theme of the elixir
of life, as developed by the imaginary secret order of "Roticrucians,"
is handled with ingeniousness if not with atmospheric convincingness.
This element of Rosicrucianism, fostered by a wave of popular magical
interest exemplified in the vogue of the charlatan Cagliostro and the
publication of Francis Barrett's "The Magus" (1801), a curious and
compendius treatise on occult principles and ceremonies, of which
a reprint was made as lately as 1896, figures in Bulwer-Lytton and
in many late Gothic novels, especially that remote and enfeebled
posterity which straggled far down into the nineteenth century and was
represented by George W.M. Reynolds' "Faust and the Demon" and "Wagner
and the Wehr-Wolf." "Caleb Williams," though non-supernatural, has many
authentic touches of terror. It is the tale of a servant persecuted
by a master whom he has found guilty of a murder, and displays an
invention and skill which have kept it alive in a fashion of this day.
It was dramatised as "The Iron Chest," and in that form was almost
equally celebrated. Godwin, however, was too much the conscious teacher
and prosaic man of thought to create a genuine weird masterpiece.
His daughter, the wife of Shelley, was much more successful; and her
inimitable "Frankenstein; or The Modern Prometheus" (1817) is one of
the horror-classics of all time. Composed in competition with her
husband, Lord Byron, and Dr. John William Polidori in an effort to
prove supremacy in horror-making, Mrs. Shelley's "Frankenstein" was
the only one of the rival narratives to be brought to an elaborate
completion; and criticism has failed to prove that the best parts
are due to Shelley rather than to her. The novel, somewhat tinged
but scarcely marred by moral didacticism, tells of the artificial
human being moulded from charnel fragments by Victor Frankenstein,
a young Swiss medical student. Created by its designer "in the mad
pride of intellectuality," the monster possesses full intelligence but
owns a hideously loathsome form. It is rejected by mankind, becomes
embittered, and at length begins the successive murder of all whom
young Frankenstein loves best, friends and family. It demands that
Frankenstein create a wife for it; and when the student finally refuses
in horror lest the world be populated with such monsters, it departs
with a hideous threat 'to be with him on his wedding night.' Upon that
night the bride is strangled, and from that time on Frankenstein hunts
down the monster, even into the wastes of the Arctic. In the end,
whilst seeking shelter on the ship of the man who tells the story,
Frankenstein himself is killed by the shocking object of the search and
creation of his presumptous pride. Some of the scenes in "Frankenstein"
are unforgettable, as when the newly animated monster enters its
creator's room, parts the curtains of his bed, and gazes at him in
the yellow moonlight with watery eyes--"if eyes they may be called."
Mrs. Shelley wrote other novels, including the fairly notable "Last
Man;" but never duplicated the success of her first effort. It has the
true touch of cosmic fear, no matter how much the movement may lag
in places. Dr. Polidori developed his competing idea as a long short
story, "The Vampyre;" in which we behold a suave villain of the true
Gothic or Byronic type, and encounter some excellent passages of stark
fright, including a terrible nocturnal experience in a shunned Grecian
wood.
(_Continued next month_)
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