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HOURS IN A LIBRARY
VOL. I.
HOURS IN A LIBRARY
BY
LESLIE STEPHEN
_NEW EDITION, WITH ADDITIONS_
IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. I.
LONDON SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE 1892
[_All rights reserved_]
CONTENTS
OF
THE FIRST VOLUME
PAGE
DE FOE'S NOVELS 1
RICHARDSON'S NOVELS 47
POPE AS A MORALIST 94
SIR WALTER SCOTT 137
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 169
BALZAC'S NOVELS 199
DE QUINCEY 237
SIR THOMAS BROWNE 269
JONATHAN EDWARDS 300
HORACE WALPOLE 345
_OPINIONS OF AUTHORS_
Libraries are as the shrines where all the relics of the
ancient saints, full of true virtue, and that without
delusion or imposture, are preserved and reposed.--BACON,
_Advancement of Learning_.
We visit at the shrine, drink in some measure of the
inspiration, and cannot easily breathe in other air less
pure, accustomed to immortal fruits.--HAZLITT'S _Plain
Speaker_.
What a place to be in is an old library! It seems as though
all the souls of all the writers that have bequeathed their
labours to the Bodleian were reposing here as in some
dormitory or middle state. I seem to inhale learning,
walking amid their foliage; and the odour of their old
moth-scented coverings is fragrant as the first bloom of the
sciential apples which grew around the happy
orchard.--CHARLES LAMB, _Oxford in the Long Vacation_.
My neighbours think me often alone, and yet at such times I
am in company with more than five hundred mutes, each of
whom communicates his ideas to me by dumb signs quite as
intelligibly as any person living can do by uttering of
words; and with a motion of my hand I can bring them as near
to me as I please; I handle them as I like; they never
complain of ill-usage; and when dismissed from my presence,
though ever so abruptly, take no offence.--STERNE,
_Letters_.
In a library we are surrounded by many hundreds of dear
friends imprisoned by an enchanter in paper and leathern
boxes,--EMERSON, _Books, Society, and Solitude_.
Nothing is pleasanter than exploring in a library.--LANDOR,
_Pericles and Aspasia_.
I never come into a library (saith Heinsius) but I bolt the
door to me, excluding lust, ambition, avarice, and all such
vices whose nurse is idleness, the mother of ignorance and
melancholy herself; and in the very lap of eternity, among
so many divine souls, I take my seat with so lofty a spirit
and sweet content that I pity all our great ones and rich
men that know not their happiness.--BURTON, _Anatomy of
Melancholy_.
I do not know that I am happiest when alone; but this I am
sure of, that I am never long even in the society of her I
love without a yearning for the company of my lamp and my
utterly confused and tumbled-over library.--BYRON, _Moore's
Life_.
Montesquieu used to say that he had never known a pain or a
distress which he could not soothe by half an hour of a good
book.--JOHN MORLEY, _On Popular Culture_.
There is no truer word than that of Solomon: 'There is no
end of making books'; the sight of a great library verifies
it; there is no end--indeed, it were pity there should
be.--BISHOP HALL.
You that are genuine Athenians, devour with a golden
Epicurism the arts and sciences, the spirits and extractions
of authors.--CULVERWELL, _Light of Nature_.
He hath never fed of the dainties that are bred in a book;
he hath not eat paper, as it were; he hath not drunk ink;
his intellect is not replenished; he is only an animal, only
sensible in the duller parts.--SHAKESPEARE, _Love's Labour's
Lost_.
I have wondered at the patience of the antediluvians; their
libraries were insufficiently furnished; how then could
seven or eight hundred years of life be
supportable?--COWPER, _Life and Letters by Southey_.
Unconfused Babel of all tongues! which e'er
The mighty linguist Fame or Time the mighty traveller,
That could speak or this could hear!
Majestic monument and pyramid!
Where still the shapes of parted souls abide
Embalmed in verse; exalted souls which now
Enjoy those arts they wooed so well below,
Which now all wonders plainly see
That have been, are, or are to be
In the mysterious Library,
The beatific Bodley of the Deity!
COWLEY, _Ode on the Bodleian_.
This to a structure led well known to fame,
And called, 'The Monument of Vanished Minds,'
Where when they thought they saw in well-sought books
The assembled souls of all that men thought wise,
It bred such awful reverence in their looks,
As if they saw the buried writers rise.
Such heaps of written thought; gold of the dead,
Which Time does still disperse but not devour,
Made them presume all was from deluge freed
Which long-lived authors writ ere Noah's shower.
DAVENANT, _Gondibert_.
Books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a
progeny of life in them, to be as active as that soul whose
progeny they are; nay, they do preserve as in a vial the
purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that
bred them.--MILTON, _Areopagitica_.
Nor is there any paternal fondness which seems to savour
less of absolute instinct, and which may be so well
reconciled to worldly wisdom, as this of authors for their
books. These children may most truly be called the riches of
their father, and many of them have with true filial piety
fed their parent in his old age; so that not only the
affection but the interest of the author may be highly
injured by those slanderers whose poisonous breath brings
his book to an untimely end.--FIELDING, _Tom Jones_.
We whom the world is pleased to honour with the title of
modern authors should never have been able to compass our
great design of everlasting remembrance and never-dying fame
if our endeavours had not been so highly serviceable to the
general good of mankind.--SWIFT, _Tale of a Tub_.
A good library always makes me melancholy, where the best
author is as much squeezed and as obscure as a porter at a
coronation.--SWIFT.
In my youth I never entered a great library but my
predominant feeling was one of pain and disturbance of
mind--not much unlike that which drew tears from Xerxes on
viewing his immense army, and reflecting that in one hundred
years not one soul would remain alive. To me, with respect
to books, the same effect would be brought about by my own
death. Here, said I, are one hundred thousand books, the
worst of them capable of giving me some instruction and
pleasure; and before I can have had time to extract the
honey from one-twentieth of this hive in all likelihood I
shall be summoned away.--DE QUINCEY, _Letter to a young
man_.
A man may be judged by his library.--BENTHAM.
I ever look upon a library with the reverence of a
temple.--EVELYN, _to Wotton_.
'Father, I should like to learn to make gold.' 'And what
would'st thou do if thou could'st make it?' 'Why, I would
build a great house and fill it with books.'--SOUTHEY,
_Doctor_.
What would you have more? A wife? That is none of the
indispensable requisites of life. Books? That is one of
them, and I have more than I can use.--DAVID HUME, _Burton's
'Life_.'
Talk of the happiness of getting a great prize in the
lottery! What is that to opening a box of books? The joy
upon lifting up the cover must be something like that which
we shall feel when Peter the porter opens the door upstairs,
and says, 'Please to walk in, Sir.'--SOUTHEY, _Life_.
I would rather be a poor man in a garret with plenty of
books than a king who did not love reading.--MACAULAY.
Our books ... do not our hearts hug them, and quiet
themselves in them even more than in God?--BAXTER'S _Saint's
Rest_.
It is our duty to live among books.--NEWMAN, _Tracts for the
Times, No. 2_.
What lovely things books are!--BUCKLE, _Life by Huth_.
(Query) Whether the collected wisdom of all ages and nations
be not found in books?--BERKELEY, _Querist_.
Read we must, be writers ever so indifferent.--SHAFTESBURY,
_Characteristics_.
It's mighty hard to write nowadays without getting something
or other worth listening to into your essay or your volume.
The foolishest book is a kind of leaky boat on a sea of
wisdom; some of the wisdom will get in anyhow.--O. W.
HOLMES, _Poet at the Breakfast Table_.
I adopted the tolerating measure of the elder Pliny--'nullum
esse librum tam malum ut non in aliqua parte
prodesset.'--GIBBON, _Autobiography_.
A book's a book, although there's nothing in't.--BYRON,
_English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_.
While you converse with lords and dukes,
I have their betters here, my books;
Fixed in an elbow chair at ease
I choose companions as I please.
I'd rather have one single shelf
Than all my friends, except yourself.
For, after all that can be said,
Our best companions are the dead.
SHERIDAN _to Swift_.
We often hear of people who will descend to any servility,
submit to any insult for the sake of getting themselves or
their children into what is euphemistically called good
society. Did it ever occur to them that there is a select
society of all the centuries to which they and theirs can be
admitted for the asking?--LOWELL, _Speech at Chelsea_.
On all sides are we not driven to the conclusion that of all
things which men can do or make here below, by far the most
momentous, wonderful, and worthy are the things we call
books? For, indeed, is it not verily the highest act of
man's faculty that produces a book? It is the thought of
man. The true thaumaturgic virtue by which man marks all
things whatever. All that he does and brings to pass is the
vesture of a book.--CARLYLE, _Hero Worship_.
Yet it is just
That here in memory of all books which lay
Their sure foundations in the heart of man,
...
That I should here assert their rights, assert
Their honours, and should, once for all, pronounce
Their benediction, speak of them as powers
For ever to be hallowed; only less
For what we are and what we may become
Than Nature's self, which is the breath of God,
Or His pure word by miracle revealed.
WORDSWORTH, _Prelude_.
Take me to some lofty room,
Lighted from the western sky,
Where no glare dispels the gloom,
Till the golden eve is nigh;
Where the works of searching thought,
Chosen books, may still impart
What the wise of old have taught,
What has tried the meek of heart;
Books in long dead tongues that stirred
Loving hearts in other climes;
Telling to my eyes, unheard,
Glorious deeds of olden times:
Books that purify the thought,
Spirits of the learned dead,
Teachers of the little taught,
Comforters when friends are fled.
BARNES, _Poems of Rural Life_.
A library is like a butcher's shop; it contains plenty of
meat, but it is all raw; no person living can find a meal in
it till some good cook comes along and says, 'Sir, I see by
your looks that you are hungry; I know your taste; be
patient for a moment and you shall be satisfied that you
have an excellent appetite!'--G. ELLIS, Lockhart's
'_Scott_.'
A library is itself a cheap university.--H. SIDGWICK,
_Political Economy_.
O such a life as he resolved to live
Once he had mastered all that books can give!
BROWNING.
I will bury myself in my books and the devil may pipe to his
own.--TENNYSON.
Words! words! words!--SHAKESPEARE.
HOURS IN A LIBRARY
_DE FOE'S NOVELS_
According to the high authority of Charles Lamb, it has sometimes
happened 'that from no inferior merit in the rest, but from some
superior good fortune in the choice of a subject, some single work' (of
a particular author) 'shall have been suffered to eclipse, and cast into
the shade, the deserts of its less fortunate brethren.' And after
quoting the case of Bunyan's 'Holy War' as compared with the 'Pilgrim's
Progress,' he adds that, 'in no instance has this excluding partiality
been exerted with more unfairness than against what may be termed the
secondary novels or romances of De Foe.' He proceeds to declare that
there are at least four other fictitious narratives by the same
writer--'Roxana,' 'Singleton,' 'Moll Flanders,' and 'Colonel
Jack'--which possess an interest not inferior to 'Robinson
Crusoe'--'except what results from a less felicitous choice of
situation.' Granting most unreservedly that the same hand is perceptible
in the minor novels as in 'Robinson Crusoe,' and that they bear at every
page the most unequivocal symptoms of De Foe's workmanship, I venture to
doubt the 'partiality' and the 'unfairness' of preferring to them their
more popular rival. The instinctive judgment of the world is not really
biassed by anything except the intrinsic power exerted by a book over
its sympathies; and as in the long run it has honoured 'Robinson
Crusoe,' in spite of the critics, and has comparatively neglected
'Roxana' and the companion stories, there is probably some good cause
for the distinction. The apparent injustice to books resembles what we
often see in the case of men. A. B. becomes Lord Chancellor, whilst C.
D. remains for years a briefless barrister; and yet for the life of us
we cannot tell but that C. D. is the abler man of the two. Perhaps he
was wanting in some one of the less conspicuous elements that are
essential to a successful career; he said, 'Open, wheat!' instead of
'Open, sesame!' and the barriers remained unaffected by his magic. The
secret may really be simple enough. The complete success of such a book
as 'Robinson' implies, it may be, the precise adaptation of the key to
every ward of the lock. The felicitous choice of situation to which Lamb
refers gave just the required fitness; and it is of little use to plead
that 'Roxana,' 'Colonel Jack,' and others might have done the same trick
if only they had received a little filing, or some slight change in
shape: a shoemaker might as well argue that if you had only one toe less
his shoes wouldn't pinch you.
To leave the unsatisfactory ground of metaphor, we may find out, on
examination, that De Foe had discovered in 'Robinson Crusoe' precisely
the field in which his talents could be most effectually applied; and
that a very slight alteration in the subject-matter might change the
merit of his work to a disproportionate extent. The more special the
idiosyncrasy upon which a man's literary success is founded, the
greater, of course, the probability that a small change will disconcert
him. A man who can only perform upon the drum will have to wait for
certain combinations of other instruments before his special talent can
be turned to account. Now, the talent in which De Foe surpasses all
other writers is just one of those peculiar gifts which must wait for a
favourable chance. When a gentleman, in a fairy story, has a power of
seeing a hundred miles, or covering seven leagues at a stride, we know
that an opportunity will speedily occur for putting his faculties to
use. But the gentleman with the seven-leagued boots is useless when the
occasion offers itself for telescopic vision, and the eyes are good for
nothing without the power of locomotion. To De Foe, if we may imitate
the language of the 'Arabian Nights,' was given a tongue to which no one
could listen without believing every word that he uttered--a
qualification, by the way, which would serve its owner far more
effectually in this commonplace world than swords of sharpness or cloaks
of darkness, or other fairy paraphernalia. In other words, he had the
most marvellous power ever known of giving verisimilitude to his
fictions; or, in other words again, he had the most amazing talent on
record for telling lies. We have all read how the 'History of the
Plague,' the 'Memoirs of a Cavalier,' and even, it is said, 'Robinson
Crusoe,' have succeeded in passing themselves off for veritable
narratives. The 'Memoirs of Captain Carleton' long passed for De Foe's,
but the Captain has now gained admission to the biographical dictionary
and is credited with his own memoirs. In either case, it is as
characteristic that a genuine narrative should be attributed to De Foe,
as that De Foe's narrative should be taken as genuine. An odd testimony
to De Foe's powers as a liar (a word for which there is, unfortunately,
no equivalent that does not imply some blame) has been mentioned. Mr.
M'Queen, quoted in Captain Burton's 'Nile Basin,' names 'Captain
Singleton' as a genuine account of travels in Central Africa, and
seriously mentions De Foe's imaginary pirate as 'a claimant for the
honour of the discovery of the sources of the White Nile.' Probably,
however, this only proves that Mr. M'Queen had never read the book.
Most of the literary artifices to which De Foe owed his power of
producing this illusion are sufficiently plain. Of all the fictions
which he succeeded in palming off for truths none is more instructive
than that admirable ghost, Mrs. Veal. Like the sonnets of some great
poets, it contains in a few lines all the essential peculiarities of his
art, and an admirable commentary has been appended to it by Sir Walter
Scott. The first device which strikes us is his ingenious plan for
manufacturing corroborative evidence. The ghost appears to Mrs.
Bargrave. The story of the apparition is told by a 'very sober and
understanding gentlewoman, who lives within a few doors of Mrs.
Bargrave;' and the character of this sober gentlewoman is supported by
the testimony of a justice of the peace at Maidstone, 'a very
intelligent person.' This elaborate chain of evidence is intended to
divert our attention from the obvious circumstance that the whole story
rests upon the authority of the anonymous person who tells us of the
sober gentlewoman, who supports Mrs. Bargrave, and is confirmed by the
intelligent justice. Simple as the artifice appears, it is one which is
constantly used in supernatural stories of the present day. One of those
improving legends tells how a ghost appeared to two officers in Canada,
and how, subsequently, one of the officers met the ghost's twin brother
in London, and straightway exclaimed, 'You are the person who appeared
to me in Canada!' Many people are diverted from the weak part of the
story by this ingenious confirmation, and, in their surprise at the
coherence of the narrative, forget that the narrative itself rests upon
entirely anonymous evidence. A chain is no stronger than its weakest
link; but if you show how admirably the last few are united together,
half the world will forget to test the security of the equally essential
links which are kept out of sight. De Foe generally repeats a similar
trick in the prefaces of his fictions. ''Tis certain,' he says, in the
'Memoirs of a Cavalier,' 'no man could have given a description of his
retreat from Marston Moor to Rochdale, and thence over the moors to the
North, in so apt and proper terms, unless he had really travelled over
the ground he describes,' which, indeed, is quite true, but by no means
proves that the journey was made by a fugitive from that particular
battle. He separates himself more ostentatiously from the supposititious
author by praising his admirable manner of relating the memoirs, and the
'wonderful variety of incidents with which they are beautified;' and,
with admirable impudence, assures us that they are written in so
soldierly a style, that it 'seems impossible any but the very person who
was present in every action here related was the relater of them.' In
the preface to 'Roxana,' he acts, with equal spirit, the character of an
impartial person, giving us the evidence on which he is himself
convinced of the truth of the story, as though he would, of all things,
refrain from pushing us unfairly for our belief. The writer, he says,
took the story from the lady's own mouth: he was, of course, obliged to
disguise names and places; but was himself 'particularly acquainted with
this lady's first husband, the brewer, and with his father, and also
with his bad circumstances, and knows that first part of the story.'
The rest we must, of course, take upon the lady's own evidence, but less
unwillingly, as the first is thus corroborated. We cannot venture to
suggest to so calm a witness that he has invented both the lady and the
writer of her history; and, in short, that when he says that A. says
that B. says something, it is, after all, merely the anonymous 'he' who
is speaking. In giving us his authority for 'Moll Flanders,' he ventures
upon the more refined art of throwing a little discredit upon the
narrator's veracity. She professes to have abandoned her evil ways, but,
as he tells us with a kind of aside, and as it were cautioning us
against over-incredulity, 'it seems' (a phrase itself suggesting the
impartial looker-on) that in her old age 'she was not so extraordinary a
penitent as she was at first; it seems only' (for, after all, you
mustn't make _too_ much of my insinuations) 'that indeed she always
spoke with abhorrence of her former life.' So we are left in a qualified
state of confidence, as if we had been talking about one of his patients
with the wary director of a reformatory.
This last touch, which is one of De Foe's favourite expedients, is most
fully exemplified in the story of Mrs. Veal. The author affects to take
us into his confidence, to make us privy to the pros and cons in regard
to the veracity of his own characters, till we are quite disarmed. The
sober gentlewoman vouches for Mrs. Bargrave; but Mrs. Bargrave is by no
means allowed to have it all her own way. One of the ghost's
communications related to the disposal of a certain sum of 10_l._ a
year, of which Mrs. Bargrave, according to her own account, could have
known nothing, except by this supernatural intervention. Mrs. Veal's
friends, however, tried to throw doubt upon the story of her appearance,
considering that it was disreputable for a decent woman to go abroad
after her death. One of them, therefore, declared that Mrs. Bargrave was
a liar, and that she had, in fact, known of the 10_l._ beforehand. On
the other hand, the person who thus attacked Mrs. Bargrave had himself
the 'reputation of a notorious liar.' Mr. Veal, the ghost's brother, was
too much of a gentleman to make such gross imputations. He confined
himself to the more moderate assertion that Mrs. Bargrave had been
crazed by a bad husband. He maintained that the story must be a mistake,
because, just before her death, his sister had declared that she had
nothing to dispose of. This statement, however, may be reconciled with
the ghost's remarks about the 10_l._, because she obviously mentioned
such a trifle merely by way of a token of the reality of her appearance.
Mr. Veal, indeed, makes rather a better point by stating that a certain
purse of gold mentioned by the ghost was found, not in the cabinet where
she told Mrs. Bargrave that she had placed it, but in a comb-box. Yet,
again, Mr. Veal's statement is here rather suspicious, for it is known
that Mrs. Veal was very particular about her cabinet, and would not have
let her gold out of it. We are left in some doubts by this conflict of
evidence, although the obvious desire of Mr. Veal to throw discredit on
the story of his sister's appearance rather inclines us to believe in
Mrs. Bargrave's story, who could have had no conceivable motive for
inventing such a fiction. The argument is finally clenched by a decisive
coincidence. The ghost wears a silk dress. In the course of a long
conversation she incidentally mentioned to Mrs. Bargrave that this was a
scoured silk, newly made up. When Mrs. Bargrave reported this remarkable
circumstance to a certain Mrs. Wilson, 'You have certainly seen her,'
exclaimed that lady, 'for none knew but Mrs. Veal and myself that the
gown had been scoured.' To this crushing piece of evidence it seems that
neither Mr. Veal nor the notorious liar could invent any sufficient
reply.
One can almost fancy De Foe chuckling as he concocted the refinements of
this most marvellous narrative. The whole artifice is, indeed, of a
simple kind. Lord Sunderland, according to Macaulay, once ingeniously
defended himself against a charge of treachery, by asking whether it was
possible that any man should be so base as to do that which he was, in
fact, in the constant habit of doing. De Foe asks us in substance, Is it
conceivable that any man should tell stories so elaborate, so complex,
with so many unnecessary details, with so many inclinations of evidence
this way and that, unless the stories were true? We instinctively
answer, that it is, in fact, inconceivable; and, even apart from any
such refinements as those noticed, the circumstantiality of the stories
is quite sufficient to catch an unworthy critic. It is, indeed,
perfectly easy to tell a story which shall be mistaken for a _bonâ fide_
narrative, if only we are indifferent to such considerations as making
it interesting or artistically satisfactory.
The praise which has been lavished upon De Foe for the verisimilitude of
his novels seems to be rather extravagant. The trick would be easy
enough, if it were worth performing. The story-teller cannot be
cross-examined; and if he is content to keep to the ordinary level of
commonplace facts, there is not the least difficulty in producing
conviction. We recognise the fictitious character of an ordinary novel,
because it makes a certain attempt at artistic unity, or because the
facts are such as could obviously not be known to, or would not be told
by, a real narrator, or possibly because they are inconsistent with
other established facts. If a man chooses to avoid such obvious
confessions of unreality, he can easily be as life-like as De Foe. I do
not suppose that foreign correspondence of a newspaper is often composed
in the Strand; but it is only because I believe that the honesty of
writers in the press is far too great to allow them to commit a crime
which must be speedily detected by independent evidence. Lying is, after
all, the easiest of all things, if the liar be not too ambitious. A
little clever circumstantiality will lull any incipient suspicion; and
it must be added that De Foe, in adopting the tone of a _bonâ fide_
narrator, not unfrequently overreaches himself. He forgets his dramatic
position in his anxiety to be minute. Colonel Jack, at the end of a long
career, tells us how one of his boyish companions stole certain articles
at a fair, and gives us the list, of which this is a part: '5thly, a
silver box, with 7_s._ in small silver; 6, a pocket-handkerchief; 7,
_another_; 8, a jointed baby, and a little looking-glass.' The
affectation of extreme precision, especially in the charming item
'another,' destroys the perspective of the story. We are listening to a
contemporary, not to an old man giving us his fading recollections of a
disreputable childhood.
The peculiar merit, then, of De Foe must be sought in something more
than the circumstantial nature of his lying, or even the ingenious
artifices by which he contrives to corroborate his own narrative. These,
indeed, show the pleasure which he took in simulating truth; and he may
very probably have attached undue importance to this talent in the
infancy of novel-writing, as in the infancy of painting it was held for
the greatest of triumphs when birds came and pecked at the grapes in a
picture. It is curious, indeed, that De Foe and Richardson, the
founders of our modern school of fiction, appear to have stumbled upon
their discovery by a kind of accident. As De Foe's novels are simply
history _minus_ the facts, so Richardson's are a series of letters
_minus_ the correspondents. The art of novel-writing, like the art of
cooking pigs in Lamb's most philosophical as well as humorous apologue,
first appeared in its most cumbrous shape. As Hoti had to burn his
cottage for every dish of pork, Richardson and De Foe had to produce
fiction at the expense of a close approach to falsehood. The division
between the art of lying and the art of fiction was not distinctly
visible to either; and both suffer to some extent from the attempt to
produce absolute illusion, where they should have been content with
portraiture. And yet the defect is balanced by the vigour naturally
connected with an unflinching realism. That this power rested, in De
Foe's case, upon something more than a bit of literary trickery, may be
inferred from his fate in another department of authorship. He twice got
into trouble for a device exactly analogous to that which he afterwards
practised in fiction. On both occasions he was punished for assuming a
character for purposes of mystification. In the latest instance, it is
seen, the pamphlet called 'What if the Pretender Comes?' was written in
such obvious irony, that the mistake of his intentions must have been
wilful. The other and better-known performance, 'The Shortest Way with
the Dissenters,' seems really to have imposed upon some of his readers.
It is difficult in these days of toleration to imagine that any one can
have taken the violent suggestions of the 'Shortest Way' as put forward
seriously. To those who might say that persecuting the Dissenters was
cruel, says De Foe, 'I answer, 'tis cruelty to kill a snake or a toad
in cold blood, but the poison of their nature makes it a charity to our
neighbours to destroy those creatures, not for any personal injury
received, but for prevention.... Serpents, toads, and vipers, &c., are
noxious to the body, and poison the sensitive life: these poison the
soul, corrupt our posterity, ensnare our children, destroy the vital of
our happiness, our future felicity, and contaminate the whole mass.' And
he concludes: 'Alas, the Church of England! What with Popery on the one
hand, and schismatics on the other, how has she been crucified between
two thieves! _Now let us crucify the thieves!_ Let her foundations be
established upon the destruction of her enemies: the doors of mercy
being always open to the returning part of the deluded people; let the
obstinate be ruled with a rod of iron!' It gives a pleasant impression
of the spirit of the times, to remember that this could be taken for a
genuine utterance of orthodoxy; that De Foe was imprisoned and
pilloried, and had to write a serious protestation that it was only a
joke, and that he meant to expose the nonjuring party by putting their
secret wishes into plain English. ''Tis hard,' he says, 'that this
should not be perceived by all the town; that not one man can see it,
either Churchman or Dissenter.' It certainly was very hard; but a
perusal of the whole pamphlet may make it a degree more intelligible.
Ironical writing of this kind is in substance a _reductio ad absurdum_.
It is a way of saying the logical result of your opinions is such or
such a monstrous error. So long as the appearance of logic is preserved,
the error cannot be stated too strongly. The attempt to soften the
absurdity so as to take in an antagonist is injurious artistically, if
it may be practically useful. An ironical intention which is quite
concealed might as well not exist. And thus the unscrupulous use of the
same weapon by Swift is now far more telling than De Foe's comparatively
guarded application of it. The artifice, however, is most skilfully
carried out for the end which De Foe had in view. The 'Shortest Way'
begins with a comparative gravity to throw us off our guard; the author
is not afraid of imitating a little of the dulness of his supposed
antagonists, and repeats with all imaginable seriousness the very taunts
which a High Church bigot would in fact have used. It was not a sound
defence of persecution to say that the Dissenters had been cruel when
they had the upper hand, and that penalties imposed upon them were
merely retaliation for injuries suffered under Cromwell and from
Scottish Presbyterians; but it was one of those topics upon which a
hot-headed persecutor would naturally dwell, though De Foe gives him
rather more forcible language than he would be likely to possess. It is
only towards the end that the ironical purpose crops out in what we
should have thought an unmistakable manner. Few writers would have
preserved their incognito so long. The caricature would have been too
palpable, and invited ridicule too ostentatiously. An impatient man soon
frets under the mask and betrays his real strangeness in the hostile
camp.
De Foe in fact had a peculiarity at first sight less favourable to
success in fiction than in controversy. Amongst the political writers of
that age he was, on the whole, distinguished for good temper and an
absence of violence. Although a party man, he was by no means a man to
swallow the whole party platform. He walked on his own legs, and was not
afraid to be called a deserter by more thoroughgoing partisans. The
principles which he most ardently supported were those of religious
toleration and hatred to every form of arbitrary power. Now, the
intellectual groundwork upon which such a character is formed has
certain conspicuous merits, along with certain undeniable weaknesses.
Amongst the first may be reckoned a strong grasp of facts--which was
developed to an almost disproportionate degree in De Foe--and a
resolution to see things as they are without the gloss which is
contracted from strong party sentiment. He was one of those men of
vigorous common-sense who like to have everything down plainly and
distinctly in good unmistakable black and white, and indulge a voracious
appetite for facts and figures. He was, therefore, able--within the
limits of his vision--to see things from both sides, and to take his
adversaries' opinions as calmly as his own, so long, at least, as they
dealt with the class of considerations with which he was accustomed to
deal; for, indeed, there are certain regions of discussion to which we
cannot be borne on the wings of statistics, or even of common-sense. And
this, the weak side of his intellect, is equally unmistakable. The
matter-of-fact man may be compared to one who suffers from
colour-blindness. Perhaps he may have a power of penetrating, and even
microscopic vision; but he sees everything in his favourite black and
white or gray, and loses all the delights of gorgeous, though it may be
deceptive, colouring. One man sees everything in the forcible light and
shade of Rembrandt: a few heroes stand out conspicuously in a focus of
brilliancy from a background of imperfectly defined shadows, clustering
round the centre in strange but picturesque confusion. To another, every
figure is full of interest, with singular contrasts and sharply-defined
features; the whole effect is somewhat spoilt by the want of perspective
and the perpetual sparkle and glitter; yet when we fix our attention
upon any special part, it attracts us by its undeniable vivacity and
vitality. To a third, again, the individual figures become dimmer, but
he sees a slow and majestic procession of shapes imperceptibly
developing into some harmonious whole. Men profess to reach their
philosophical conclusions by some process of logic; but the imagination
is the faculty which furnishes the raw material upon which the logic is
employed, and, unconsciously to its owners, determines, for the most
part, the shape into which their theories will be moulded. Now, De Foe
was above the ordinary standard, in so far as he did not, like most of
us, see things merely as a blurred and inextricable chaos; but he was
below the great imaginative writers in the comparative coldness and dry
precision of his mental vision. To him the world was a vast picture,
from which all confusion was banished; everything was definite, clear,
and precise as in a photograph; as in a photograph, too, everything
could be accurately measured, and the result stated in figures; by the
same parallel, there was a want of perspective, for the most distant
objects were as precisely given as the nearest; and yet further, there
was the same absence of the colouring which is caused in natural objects
by light and heat, and in mental pictures by the fire of imaginative
passion. The result is a product which is to Fielding or Scott what a
portrait by a first-rate photographer is to one by Vandyke or Reynolds,
though, perhaps, the peculiar qualifications which go to make a De Foe
are almost as rare as those which form the more elevated artist.
To illustrate this a little more in detail, one curious proof of the
want of the passionate element in De Foe's novels is the singular
calmness with which he describes his villains. He always looks at the
matter in a purely business-like point of view. It is very wrong to
steal, or break any of the commandments: partly because the chances are
that it won't pay, and partly also because the devil will doubtless get
hold of you in time. But a villain in De Foe is extremely like a
virtuous person, only that, so to speak, he has unluckily backed the
losing side. Thus, for example, Colonel Jack is a thief from his youth
up; Moll Flanders is a thief, and worse; Roxana is a highly immoral
lady, and is under some suspicion of a most detestable murder; and
Captain Singleton is a pirate of the genuine buccaneering school. Yet we
should really doubt, but for their own confessions, whether they have
villainy enough amongst them to furnish an average pickpocket. Roxana
occasionally talks about a hell within, and even has unpleasant dreams
concerning 'apparitions of devils and monsters, of falling into gulphs,
and from off high and steep precipices.' She has, moreover, excellent
reasons for her discomfort. Still, in spite of a very erroneous course
of practice, her moral tone is all that can be desired. She discourses
about the importance of keeping to the paths of virtue with the most
exemplary punctuality, though she does not find them convenient for her
own personal use. Colonel Jack is a young Arab of the streets--as it is
fashionable to call them now-a-days--sleeping in the ashes of a
glasshouse by night, and consorting with thieves by day. Still the
exemplary nature of his sentiments would go far to establish Lord
Palmerston's rather heterodox theory of the innate goodness of man. He
talks like a book from his earliest infancy. He once forgets himself so
far as to rob a couple of poor women on the highway instead of picking
rich men's pockets; but his conscience pricks him so much that he cannot
rest till he has restored the money. Captain Singleton is a still more
striking case: he is a pirate by trade, but with a strong resemblance to
the ordinary British merchant in his habits of thought. He ultimately
retires from a business in which the risks are too great for his taste,
marries, and settles down quietly on his savings. There is a certain
Quaker who joins his ship, really as a volunteer, but under a show of
compulsion, in order to avoid the possible inconveniences of a capture.
The Quaker always advises him in his difficulties in such a way as to
avoid responsibility. When they are in action with a Portuguese
man-of-war, for example, the Quaker sees a chance of boarding, and,
coming up to Singleton, says very calmly, 'Friend, what dost thou mean?
why dost thou not visit thy neighbour in the ship, the door being open
for thee?' This ingenious gentleman always preserves as much humanity as
is compatible with his peculiar position, and even prevents certain
negroes from being tortured into confession, on the unanswerable ground
that, as neither party understands a word of the other's language, the
confession will not be to much purpose. 'It is no compliment to my
moderation,' says Singleton, 'to say, I was convinced by these reasons;
and yet we had all much ado to keep our second lieutenant from murdering
some of them to make them tell.'
Now, this humane pirate takes up pretty much the position which De Foe's
villains generally occupy in good earnest. They do very objectionable
things; but they always speak like steady, respectable Englishmen, with
an eye to the main chance. It is true that there is nothing more
difficult than to make a villain tell his own story naturally; in a way,
that is, so as to show at once the badness of the motive and the excuse
by which the actor reconciles it to his own mind. De Foe is entirely
deficient in this capacity of appreciating a character different from
his own. His actors are merely so many repetitions of himself placed
under different circumstances and committing crimes in the way of
business, as De Foe might himself have carried out a commercial
transaction. From the outside they are perfect; they are evidently
copied from the life; and Captain Singleton is himself a repetition of
the celebrated Captain Kidd, who indeed is mentioned in the novel. But
of the state of mind which leads a man to be a pirate, and of the
effects which it produces upon his morals, De Foe has either no notion,
or is, at least, totally incapable of giving us a representation. All
which goes by the name of psychological analysis in modern fiction is
totally alien to his art. He could, as we have said, show such dramatic
power as may be implied in transporting himself to a different position,
and looking at matters even from his adversary's point of view; but of
the further power of appreciating his adversary's character he shows not
the slightest trace. He looks at his actors from the outside, and gives
us with wonderful minuteness all the details of their lives; but he
never seems to remember that within the mechanism whose working he
describes there is a soul very different from that of Daniel De Foe.
Rather, he seems to see in mankind nothing but so many million Daniel De
Foes; they are in all sorts of postures, and thrown into every variety
of difficulty, but the stuff of which they are composed is identical
with that which he buttons into his own coat; there is variety of form,
but no colouring, in his pictures of life.
We may ask again, therefore, what is the peculiar source of De Foe's
power? He has little, or no dramatic power, in the higher sense of the
word, which implies sympathy with many characters and varying tones of
mind. If he had written 'Henry IV.,' Falstaff, and Hotspur, and Prince
Hal would all have been as like each other as are generally the first
and second murderer. Nor is the mere fact that he tells a story with a
strange appearance of veracity sufficient; for a story may be truth-like
and yet deadly dull. Indeed, no candid critic can deny that this is the
case with some of De Foe's narratives; as, for example, the latter part
of 'Colonel Jack,' where the details of management of a plantation in
Virginia are sufficiently uninteresting in spite of the minute financial
details. One device, which he occasionally employs with great force,
suggests an occasional source of interest. It is generally reckoned as
one of his most skilful tricks that in telling a story he cunningly
leaves a few stray ends, which are never taken up. Such is the
well-known incident of Xury, in 'Robinson Crusoe.' This contrivance
undoubtedly gives an appearance of authenticity, by increasing the
resemblance to real narratives; it is like the trick of artificially
roughening a stone after it has been fixed into a building, to give it
the appearance of being fresh from the quarry. De Foe, however,
frequently extracts a more valuable piece of service from these loose
ends. The situation which has been most praised in De Foe's novels is
that which occurs at the end of 'Roxana.' Roxana, after a life of
wickedness, is at last married to a substantial merchant. She has saved,
from the wages of sin, the convenient sum of 2,056_l._ a year, secured
upon excellent mortgages. Her husband has 17,000_l._ in cash, after
deducting a 'black article of 8,000 pistoles,' due on account of a
certain lawsuit in Paris, and 1,320_l._ a year in rent. There is a
satisfaction about these definite sums which we seldom receive from the
vague assertions of modern novelists. Unluckily, a girl turns up at this
moment who shows great curiosity about Roxana's history. It soon becomes
evident that she is, in fact, Roxana's daughter by a former and long
since deserted husband; but she cannot be acknowledged without a
revelation of her mother's subsequently most disreputable conduct. Now,
Roxana has a devoted maid, who threatens to get rid, by fair means or
foul, of this importunate daughter. Once she fails in her design, but
confesses to her mistress that, if necessary, she will commit the
murder. Roxana professes to be terribly shocked, but yet has a desire to
be relieved at almost any price from her tormentor. The maid thereupon
disappears again; soon afterwards the daughter disappears too; and
Roxana is left in terrible doubt, tormented by the opposing anxieties
that her maid may have murdered her daughter, or that her daughter may
have escaped and revealed the mother's true character. Here is a telling
situation for a sensation novelist; and the minuteness with which the
story is worked out, whilst we are kept in suspense, supplies the place
of the ordinary rant; to say nothing of the increased effect due to
apparent veracity, in which certainly few sensation novelists can even
venture a distant competition. The end of the story differs still more
widely from modern art. Roxana has to go abroad with her husband, still
in a state of doubt. Her maid after a time joins her, but gives no
intimation as to the fate of the daughter; and the story concludes by a
simple statement that Roxana afterwards fell into well-deserved misery.
The mystery is certainly impressive; and Roxana is heartily afraid of
the devil and the gallows, to say nothing of the chance of losing her
fortune. Whether, as Lamb maintained, the conclusion in which the
mystery is cleared up is a mere forgery, or was added by De Foe to
satisfy the ill-judged curiosity of his readers, I do not profess to
decide. Certainly it rather spoils the story; but in this, as in some
other cases, one is often left in doubt as to the degree in which De Foe
was conscious of his own merits.
Another instance on a smaller scale of the effective employment of
judicious silence, is an incident in 'Captain Singleton.' The Quaker of
our acquaintance meets with a Japanese priest who speaks a few words of
English, and explains that he has learnt it from thirteen Englishmen,
the only remnant of thirty-two who had been wrecked on the coast of
Japan. To confirm his story, he produces a bit of paper on which is
written, in plain English words: 'We came from Greenland and from the
North Pole.' Here are claimants for the discovery of a North-west
Passage, of whom we would gladly hear more. Unluckily, when Captain
Singleton comes to the place where his Quaker had met the priest, the
ship in which he was sailing had departed; and this put an end to an
inquiry, and perhaps 'may have disappointed mankind of one of the most
noble discoveries that ever was made or will again be made, in the
world, for the good of mankind in general; but so much for that.'
In these two fragments, which illustrate a very common device of De
Foe's, we come across two elements of positive power over our
imaginations. Even De Foe's imagination recognised and delighted in a
certain margin of mystery to this harsh world of facts and figures. He
is generally too anxious to set everything before us in broad daylight;
there is too little of the thoughts and emotions which inhabit the
twilight of the mind; of those dim half-seen forms which exercise the
strongest influence upon the imagination, and are the most tempting
subjects for the poet's art. De Foe, in truth, was little enough of a
poet. Sometimes by mere force of terse idiomatic language he rises into
real poetry, as it was understood in the days when Pope and Dryden were
our lawgivers. It is often really vigorous. The well-known verses--
Wherever God erects a house of prayer,
The devil always builds a chapel there--
which begin the 'True-born Englishman,' or the really fine lines which
occur in the 'Hymn to the Pillory,' that 'hieroglyphic state machine,
contrived to punish fancy in,' and ending--
Tell them that placed him here,
They're scandals to the times,
Are at a loss to find his guilt,
_And can't commit his crimes_--
may stand for specimens of his best manner. More frequently he
degenerates into the merest doggerel, _e.g._--