Illi mors gravis incubat Qui notus nimis omnibus Ignotus moritus sibi.
--Seneca.
Nous serons par nos lois les juges des ouvrages.--Les Femmes Savantes.
Vincent called on me the next day. “I have news for you,” said he,
“though somewhat of a lugubrious nature. Lugete Veneres Cupidinesque.
You remember the Duchesse de Perpignan!”
“I should think so,” was my answer.
“Well then,” pursued Vincent, “she is no more. Her death was worthy
of her life. She was to give a brilliant entertainment to all the
foreigners at Paris: the day before it took place a dreadful eruption
broke over her complexion. She sent for the doctors in despair. ‘Cure me
against to-morrow,’ she said, ‘and name your own reward.’ ‘Madame, it is
impossible to do so with safety to your health.’ ‘Au diable! with your
health,’ said the duchesse, ‘what is health to an eruption?’ The doctors
took the hint; an external application was used--the duchesse woke in
the morning as beautiful as ever--the entertainment took place--she
was the Armida of the scene. Supper was announced. She took the arm
of the--ambassador, and moved through the crowd amidst the audible
admiration of all. She stopped for a moment at the door; all eyes were
upon her. A fearful and ghastly convulsion passed over her countenance,
her lips trembled, she fell on the ground with the most terrible
contortions of face and frame. They carried her to bed. She remained for
some days insensible; when she recovered, she asked for a looking-glass.
Her whole face was drawn on one side, not a wreck of beauty was
left;--that night she poisoned herself!”
I cannot express how shocked I was at this information. Much as I had
cause to be disgusted with the conduct of that unhappy woman, I could
find in my mind no feeling but commiseration and horror at her death;
and it was with great difficulty that Vincent persuaded me to accept an
invitation to Lady Roseville’s for the evening, to meet Glanville and
himself.
However, I cheered up as the night came on; and though my mind was still
haunted with the tale of the morning, it was neither in a musing nor a
melancholy mood that I entered the drawing-room at Lady Roseville’s--“So
runs the world away.”
Glanville was there in his “customary mourning,” and looking remarkably
handsome.
“Pelham,” he said, when he joined me, “do you remember at Lady--‘s one
night, I said I would introduce you to my sister? I had no opportunity
then, for we left the house before she returned from the refreshment
room. May I do so now?”
I need not say what was my answer. I followed Glanville into the next
room; and to my inexpressible astonishment and delight, discovered in
his sister the beautiful, the never-forgotten stranger I had seen at
Cheltenham.
For once in my life I was embarrassed--my bow would have shamed a major
in the line, and my stuttered and irrelevant address, an alderman in the
presence of His Majesty. However, a few moments sufficed to recover me,
and I strained every nerve to be as agreeable and seduisant as possible.
After I had conversed with Miss Glanville for some time, Lady Roseville
joined us. Stately and Juno-like as was that charming personage in
general, she relaxed into a softness of manner to Miss Glanville, that
quite won my heart. She drew her to a part of the room, where a
very animated and chiefly literary conversation was going on--and I,
resolving to make the best of my time, followed them, and once more
found myself seated beside Miss Glanville. Lady Roseville was on the
other side of my beautiful companion; and I observed that, whenever she
took her eyes from Miss Glanville, they always rested upon her brother,
who, in the midst of the disputation and the disputants, sat silent,
gloomy, and absorbed.
The conversation turned upon Scott’s novels; thence on novels in
general; and finally on the particular one of Anastasius.
“It is a thousand pities” said Vincent, “that the scene of that novel is
so far removed from us. Could the humour, the persons, the knowledge
of character, and of the world, come home to us, in a national, not
an exotic garb, it would be a more popular, as it is certainly a more
gifted work, than even the exquisite novel of Gil Blas. But it is a
great misfortune for Hope that--
“‘To learning he narrowed his mind, And gave up to the East what was
meant for mankind.’
“One often loses, in admiration at the knowledge of peculiar costume,
the deference one would have paid to the masterly grasp of universal
character.”
“It must require,” said Lady Roseville, “an extraordinary combination of
mental powers to produce a perfect novel.”
“One so extraordinary,” answered Vincent, “that, though we have one
perfect epic poem, and several which pretend to perfection, we have not
one perfect novel in the world. Gil Blas approaches more to perfection
than any other (owing to the defect I have just mentioned in
Anastasius); but it must be confessed that there is a want of dignity,
of moral rectitude, and of what I may term moral beauty, throughout the
whole book. If an author could combine the various excellencies of Scott
and Le Sage, with a greater and more metaphysical knowledge of morals
than either, we might expect from him the perfection we have not yet
discovered since the days of Apuleius.”
“Speaking of morals,” said Lady Roseville, “do you not think every
novel should have its distinct but, and inculcate, throughout, some one
peculiar moral, such as many of Marmontel’s and Miss Edgeworth’s?”
“No!” answered Vincent, “every good novel has one great end--the same in
all--viz. the increasing our knowledge of the heart. It is thus that a
novel writer must be a philosopher. Whoever succeeds in shewing us more
accurately the nature of ourselves and species, has done science, and,
consequently, virtue, the most important benefit; for every truth is
a moral. This great and universal end, I am led to imagine, is rather
crippled than extended by the rigorous attention to the one isolated
moral you mention.
“Thus Dryden, in his Essay on the Progress of Satire, very rightly
prefers Horace to Juvenal, so far as instruction is concerned; because
the miscellaneous satires of the former are directed against every
vice--the more confined ones of the latter (for the most part) only
against one. All mankind is the field the novelist should cultivate--all
truth, the moral he should strive to bring home. It is in occasional
dialogue, in desultory maxims, in deductions from events, in analysis of
character, that he should benefit and instruct. It is not enough--and I
wish a certain novelist who has lately arisen would remember this--it
is not enough for a writer to have a good heart, amiable sympathies,
and what are termed high feelings, in order to shape out a moral, either
true in itself, or beneficial in its inculcation. Before he touches his
tale, he should be thoroughly acquainted with the intricate science of
morals, and the metaphysical, as well as the more open, operations of
the mind. If his knowledge is not deep and clear, his love of the good
may only lead him into error; and he may pass off the prejudices of a
susceptible heart for the precepts of virtue. Would to God that people
would think it necessary to be instructed before they attempt to
instruct. ‘Dire simplement que la vertu est vertu parce qu’elle est
bonne en son fonds, et le vice tout au contraire, ce n’est pas les faire
connoitre.’ For me, if I was to write a novel, I would first make myself
an acute, active, and vigilant observer of men and manners. Secondly, I
would, after having thus noted effects by action in the world, trace the
causes by books, and meditation in my closet. It is then, and not till
then, that I would study the lighter graces of style and decoration; nor
would I give the rein to invention, till I was convinced that it would
create neither monsters of men nor falsities of truth. For my vehicles
of instruction or amusement, I would have people as they are--neither
worse nor better--and the moral they should convey, should be rather
through jest or irony, than gravity and seriousness. There never was
an imperfection corrected by portraying perfection; and if levity or
ridicule be said so easily to allure to sin, I do not see why they
should not be used in defence of virtue. Of this we may be sure, that as
laughter is a distinct indication of the human race, so there never was
a brute mind or a savage heart that loved to indulge in it.” [Note: The
Philosopher of Malmesbury express a very different opinion of the origin
of laughter, and, for my part, I think his doctrine, in great measure,
though not altogether--true.--See Hobbes on Human Nature, and the answer
to him in Campbell’s Rhetoric.]
Vincent ceased.
“Thank you, my lord,” said Lady Roseville, as she took Miss Glanville’s
arm and moved from the table. “For once you have condescended to give
us your own sense, and not other people’s; you have scarce made a single
quotation.”
“Accept,” answered Vincent, rising--
“‘Accept a miracle instead of wit.’”