read in England, continued the work of denigration. Simondi spoke with
contempt and even with bitterness, of the character of Rousseau. His
English critics pointed out that, although a republican, Simondi rose
above political prejudice. He called the _Confessions_ the most
admirable, but at the same time the most vile of all the productions of
genius. Jeffrey, once again, was eloquent in the denunciation of
Rousseau's personal character, which there seemed to be no one left in
England to defend. This was about the time that special attention began
to be drawn to Rousseau's exposure of his natural children, which had
long been known, but which now began to excite English disgust.
Moreover, the loose way in which Rousseau treated fact and logic
irritated the newer school of English and Scotch politicians much more
than it had their predecessors, and the invectives of Burke were revived
and confirmed. There were still some private, though few public,
admirers of Rousseau in England. Carlyle was too original not to
perceive the value of the Genevan philosopher's historical attitude, and
not to feel a genuine sympathy for his character. But we find him
quoting (in 1823) the habits of "John James," as he chose to call him,
not adversely but a little slightingly.
Almost the latest eulogist of Rousseau, before Morley, was the veteran
Republican poet Walter Savage Landor, whose admirable _Malesherbes and
Rousseau_ appeared, almost unnoticed, in the third series of the
_Imaginary Conversations_ (1828). This interesting composition was
certainly not written when Landor reviewed his unpublished writings in
1824; we may probably date it 1826. It was a belated expression of the
enthusiasm of a preceding generation, in full sympathy with the attitude
of Hazlitt and Byron. It attracted no attention, for England was by this
time wholly out of touch with the old preference of the impulse of the
individual in opposition to the needs of the State. There was in
England a growing cultivation of science, and by its side a growing
suspicion of rhetoric, and both of these discouraged what was
superficially lax in the views and in the expression of Rousseau. The
_Discourse on the Origin of Inequality_, which had delighted an earlier
generation of English Liberals, was now re-examined, and was rejected
with impatience as "dangerous moonshine," supported by illogical and
even ridiculous arguments. Moreover, the study of anthropology was
advancing out of the state of infancy, and was occupying serious minds
in England, who were exasperated by Rousseau's fantastic theory of the
purity of savage society, and a Golden Age of primal innocence.
Moreover, as Morley long afterwards pointed out, from about the year
1825, there was a rapid increase in England of the superficial
cultivation of letters, and particularly of scientific investigation. At
the same time, the temper of the English nation repelled, with anger,
the notion that a Swiss philosopher, of discredited personal character,
could be allowed to denounce the science and literature of Europe.
Thus from every point of view, the hold which Rousseau had held on
English admiration was giving way. His influence was like a snow man in
the sun; it melted and dripped from every limb, from all parts of its
structure. But probably what did more than anything else to exclude
Rousseau from English sympathy, and to drive his works out of popular
attention, was the sterner code of conduct which came in, as a reaction
to the swinish coarseness of the late Georgian period. We must pay some
brief attention to a moral and religious phenomenon which was probably
more than any other fatal to the prestige of Rousseau.
The great feature of the new Evangelical movement was an insistence on
points of conduct which had, indeed, always been acknowledged in the
English Church as theoretically important, but which were now exalted
into a lively pre-eminence. There was suddenly seen, throughout the
country, a marvellous increase in religious zeal, in the urging of
penitence, contrition and unworldliness upon young minds, in the
activity which made practical and operative what had hitherto been
largely nominal. There was a very wide awakening of the sense of sin,
and a quickening, even a morbid and excessive quickening, of the
Christian instinct to put off "the old man, which is corrupt according
to the deceitful lusts, and to put on the new man, which, after God, is
created in righteousness and true holiness." This conviction of sin and
humble acceptance of righteousness was to be accompanied by a
cultivation of all the contrite and retired and decent aptitudes of
conduct, so that not only should no wrong be done to the soul of others,
but no offence given. These were the objects which occupied the active
and holy minds of the early Evangelists, and of none of them more
practically, in relation to the studies and the reading of the young,
than of the great leader of the movement, Charles Simeon (1756-1836).
We have forgotten, to a great extent, the amazing influence which the
preaching and the practice of these leading Evangelicals exercised in
England between 1820 and 1840. It is certain that the young scholars of
Cambridge who surrounded Simeon from 1810 onwards were much more
numerous and no less active than those who surrounded Newman and Pusey
at Oxford about 1835; while in each case the disciples trained in the
school of enthusiasm were soon dispersed, to spread the flame of zeal
throughout the length and breadth of the Three Kingdoms. In the preface
of his famous _Helps to Composition_, a work of epoch-making character,
Simeon boldly proposed three tests to be applied to any species of
literature. When confronted by a book, the reader should ask, "Does it
uniformly tend to humble the Sinner, to exalt the Saviour, to promote
holiness?" A work that lost sight of any one of these three points was
to be condemned without mercy. The simplicity and freshness of the
Evangelicals, their ridicule of what was called "the dignity of the
pulpit," their active, breathless zeal in urging what they thought a
purer faith upon all classes of society, gave them a remarkable power
over generous and juvenile natures. They were wealthy, they were
powerful, they stormed the high places of society, and it may without
exaggeration be said that for the time being they changed the whole
character of the surface of English social life.
The work of the Evangelicals, in emphasizing the strong reaction against
the coarseness of the Georgian era, has been greatly forgotten in
England, and on the Continent has never been in the least understood. It
is responsible, to deal solely with what interests us in our present
inquiry, for the prudery and "hypocrisy" of which European criticism so
universally accuses our Victorian literature and habits of thought. It
is perhaps useless to contend against a charge so generally brought
against English ideas, and this is not the place to attempt it. But, so
far as Rousseau is concerned, it is necessary to point out that to a
generation which revolted against lasciviousness in speech, and which
believed that an indecent looseness in art and literature was a sin
against God, the charm of the _Nouvelle Heloise_ and of the
_Confessions_ could not be apparent. It is of no service to talk about
"hypocrisy"; English readers simply disliked books of that sort, and
there must be an end of it.
A single example may serve to show how rapid the change had been. Sir
James Edward Smith (1759-1828) was an eminent botanist, who travelled
widely and wrote many letters. In 1832 his _Memoirs and Correspondence_
were published, a lively work which was much read. But Smith, living at
the close of the eighteenth century, had been an ardent admirer of
Rousseau, and this appeared glaringly in his letters. Reviewers in 1832
had to find excuses for his "charitable eye" and to attribute his
partiality to Rousseau's being a botanist. There was quite a flutter,
almost a scandal. One critic plainly said that Sir J. E. Smith's
"character would not have suffered if he had made some abatement from
his extravagant eulogy" of Rousseau. The _Edinburgh Review_ was very
severe, and regretted that the worthy botanist had not realized that
"religious toleration does not imply the toleration of immorality," and
that "licentiousness of speculation is as hostile to civil liberty as
licentiousness of conduct." A critic of the same period roundly says
that "the vices and opinions of Rousseau are of so malignant an aspect
that the virtues which accompany them serve only to render them more
loathsome."
Thus Rousseau, who in 1800 was regarded in England, even by his enemies,
as the most enchanting of writers, had by 1835 sunken to be regarded as
despicable, not to be quoted by decent people, not to be read even in
secret. He was seldom mentioned, save to be reviled. The career of
Rousseau does not come within the scope of Hallam as a critic, yet that
historian was unable, in the second volume of his _Literature of Europe_
(1838), to resist a sneer at the _Contrat Social_, while he describes
Rousseau's arguments as an "insinuation" and a "calumny." We find so
grave and dignified an historian as Burton using his _Life of Hume_
(1846) as a means of placing Rousseau in the most odious light possible,
and without a word of sympathy. To the younger Herman Merivale, in 1850,
the influence of Rousseau seemed "simply mischievous," but he rejoiced
to think that his fame was "a by-gone fashion." Having, in October,
1853, been led to express an ambiguous comment on the _Confessions_,
Mrs. Jameison, then the leading English art critic, hastened to excuse
herself by explaining that "of course, we speak without reference to the
immorality which deforms that work." It would be easy to multiply such
expressions, but difficult, indeed, in the middle of the century, to
find a responsible word published by an English writer in praise of
Rousseau.
After this, till John Morley's monograph, there is very little to be
recorded. Rousseau passed out of sight and out of mind, and was known
only to those few who went to foreign sources of inspiration in that age
of hard British insularity. But we have lately learned that there were
two great authors who, in the seclusion of their own libraries, were now
subjecting themselves to the fascination of the Genevan. On February
9th, 1849, George Eliot wrote thus privately to a friend:
It would signify nothing to me if a very wise person were to stun
me with proofs that Rousseau's views of life, religion, and
government are miserably erroneous--that he was guilty of some of
the worst _bassesses_ that have degraded civilized man. I might
admit all this: and it would not be the less true that Rousseau's
genius has sent that electric thrill through my intellectual and
moral frame which has wakened me to new perceptions.... The rushing
mighty wind of his imagination has so quickened my faculties that I
have been able to shape more definitely for myself ideas which had
previously dwelt as dim _Ahnungen_ in my soul; the fire of his
genius has so fused together old thoughts and prejudices, that I
have been ready to make new combinations.
Even more remarkable is the evidence which Edward Cook, in his _Life of
Ruskin_ (1911) has produced with regard to the attitude of that
illustrious writer. It was in 1849, just when George Eliot was finding
her spirit quickened by the inspiration of Rousseau, that John Ruskin,
at the age of thirty, made a pilgrimage to Les Charmettes. The political
revolt which coloured all his later years was now beginning to move in
him, and for the first time he felt affinities existing between his own
nature and that of Rousseau. This consciousness increased upon him. In
1862 he wrote, "I know of no man whom I more entirely resemble than
Rousseau. If I were asked whom of all men of any name in past time I
thought myself to be grouped with, I should answer unhesitatingly--Rousseau.
I judge by the _Nouvelle Heloise_, the _Confessions_, the writings of
Politics and the life in the Ile St. Pierre." In 1866 Ruskin added, "The
intense resemblance between me and Rousseau increases upon my mind more
and more." Finally, in _Preterita_ (1886) he openly acknowledged his
life-long debt to Rousseau. We may therefore set down the impact of
Rousseau upon Ruskin as marking the main influence of the Genevese
writer's genius upon English literature in the nineteenth century, but
this was sympathetic, subterraneous, and, in a sense, secret. Without
Rousseau, indeed, there never would have been Ruskin, yet we are only
now beginning to recognize the fact.
Of the overt cult of Rousseau, even of careful and detailed examination
of his works, there was none until Mr. (now Viscount) Morley published
his brilliant monograph in 1873. This famous book, so remarkable for its
gravity and justice, its tempered enthusiasm, its absence of prejudice,
the harmony and illumination of its parts, is the one exception to the
public neglect of Jean Jacques by nineteenth-century Englishmen. It
removed the reproach of our insular ignorance; it rose at once to the
highest level of Continental literature on the subject. The monograph of
Morley has become a classic. Incessantly reprinted, it has remained the
text-book of English students of Rousseau. It is needless in this place
to draw attention to its eminent qualities, or to the fact that it
contained, and continues to contain, _lacunae_ which the eminent writer
has not attempted to fill up by the light of later research. In
particular, it is impossible not to regret that Lord Morley was
unacquainted with the documents, so learnedly edited and lucidly
arranged by Mr. L. J. Courtois, on the events of Rousseau's sojourn in
England. But Lord Morley, immersed in the duties of a statesman, seems
long ago to have lost all interest in the subject which he illuminated
so brilliantly nearly fifty years ago.
The wide publicity given to Morley's book did not, strangely enough,
lead to any great revival of the study of Rousseau in Great Britain.
English readers were content to accept the statements and the views of
Morley without any special attempt to examine or continue them. There
was no outburst of Rousseau study in England in consequence of the
volumes of 1873. English translations of his works continued to be few
and poor, and over the _Nouvelle Heloise_ and the _Confessions_ there
still hung a cloud of reproach. They were held to be immoral, and dull
in their immorality. During the last decade of the century, however, a
certain quickening of interest began to show itself in a variety of
ways. A Rousseauiste, who excelled all other disciples in the vehemence
of her admiration, was revealed in 1895 by the _Studies in the France of
Voltaire and Rousseau_ of Mrs. Frederika Macdonald. These, however,
were at first but little noticed, and the labours of this lady,
culminating in her violent and excessive, but learned and original _New
Criticism of J. J. Rousseau_ (1906) and _The Humane Philosophy_ (1908)
belong to the twentieth century. It is to be hoped that the essays of
Mrs. Macdonald may stimulate a new body of workers to remove the stigma
which has lain on England for a hundred years of being dry with cynical
neglect of Rousseau while all the rest of the threshing-floor of Europe
was wet with the dews of vivifying criticism.
THE CENTENARY OF LECONTE DE LISLE
Many English lovers of French poetry would have been sorry, though none
could have been surprised, if public opinion in France had been too much
agitated by the stupendous events of the War to spare a thought for one
of the greatest of modern poets on the occasion of his hundredth
birthday. But it was not so; on the eighteenth of October, 1918, when
the fighting had approached its culminating point, and when all the
fortunes of the world seemed hanging in the balance, the serenity of
French criticism found room, between the bulletins of battle, for a word
of reminder that the author of _Poemes Antiques_ and _Poemes Barbares_
was born a century before in the tropic island of La Reunion. The
recognition was not very copious, nor was it universally diffused, but
in no circumstances would it have been either the one or the other.
Leconte de Lisle has never been, and will never be, a "popular" writer.
He appeals to a select group, a limited circle, which neither expands
nor contracts. His fame has never been excessive, and it will never
disappear. It is modest, reserved, and durable.
He was commonly described as a Creole. His father, an army
surgeon--exiled by the service to what used to be called the Ile
Bourbon--was a pure Breton. Charles Marie Rene Leconte de Lisle, after
several excursions to India, which left strong traces on his poetry,
arrived still young in France, and ultimately settled in Paris. Thus he
lived for half a century, in great simplicity and uniformity, surrounded
by adoring friends, but little known to the public. In middle life he
became a librarian at the Luxembourg; as old age was approaching, he
found himself elected to succeed Victor Hugo at the French Academy. If
he was not exactly poor, his means were strictly moderate; and the most
unpleasant event of his whole life was the discovery, at the fall of the
Empire, that, although his opinions were republican, he had been
receiving a pension from the government of Napoleon III. Nothing could
be more ridiculous than the outcry then raised against him; for he was a
poet hidden in the light of thought, and no politician. It was an honour
to any government, and no shame to the austerest poet, that modest
public help should enable a man like Leconte de Lisle to exist without
anxiety. There can hardly be said to have been any other event in this
dignified and blameless career.
There is a danger--but there is also a fascination--in the instinct
which leads us, when we observe literature broadly, to find relations or
parallelisms between independent and diverse personalities. In the most
striking examples, however, where there has been no actual influence at
work, these parallelisms are apt to be very misleading. Where it is
impossible not to observe elements of likeness, as between Byron and
Musset, we may take them to be actual, and no matters of chance. But the
similarity, in certain aspects, between Alfred de Vigny and Thomas
Hardy, between Andre Chenier and Keats, between Crabbe and Verhaeren,
must be accidental, and is founded on a comparison between very limited
portions of the work of each. Nevertheless, for purposes of
illumination, it is sometimes useful--on what we may call the Lamarckian
system--to see where the orbits of certain eminent writers of
distinctive originality approach nearest to one another.
It is admitted that Leconte de Lisle is pre-eminently gifted among the
poets of France in certain clearly defined directions. His poems, which
are marked by a concinnity of method which sometimes degenerates into
monotony, are distinguished above all others by their haughty
concentration of effort, by their purity of outline, and by their
extreme precision in the use of definite imagery. They aim, with
unflinching consistency, at a realization of beauty so abstract that
the forms by which it is interpreted to the imagination are almost
wholly sculpturesque. Is there an English poet of whom, at his best, the
same language might be used? There is one, and only one, and that is
Walter Savage Landor. It cannot but be stimulating to the reader to put
side by side, let us say, the opening lines of _The Hamadryad_ and of
_Khiron_, or the dialogue of _Niobe_ and that of _Thrasymedes and
Eunoe_, and to see how closely related is the manner in which the
English and the French poet approach their themes. The spirit of pagan
beauty broods over _Hypatie et Cyrille_ as it does over the mingled
prose and verse of _Pericles and Aspasia_, and with the same religious
_desiderium_. We shall not find another revelation of the cupuscular
magnificence of the farthermost antiquity so striking as Landor's
_Gebir_, unless we seek it in the _Kain_ of Leconte de Lisle.
But we should not drive this parallel too far. If the breadth and
majesty of vision which draw these two poets together are notable, not
less so are their divergencies. Landor, who so often appears to be on
the point of uttering something magical which never gets past his lips,
is one of the most unequal of writers. He ascends and descends, with
disconcerting abruptness, from an exquisite inspiration to the darkest
level of hardness. Leconte de Lisle, on the other hand, is the victim of
no vicissitudes of style: he floats in the empyrean, borne up apparently
without an effort at a uniform height, like his own Condor:
_Il dort dans l'air glace, les ailes toutes grandes._
Many readers--particularly those on whom the romantic heresy has laid
its hands with the greatest violence--resent this Olympian
imperturbability; and the charge has been frequently brought, and is
still occasionally repeated, that Leconte de Lisle is lacking in
sensibility, that he dares to be "impassible" in an age when every heart
is worn, palpitating, on the sleeve of the impulsive lyrist. He was
accused, as the idle world always loves to accuse the visionary, of
isolating himself from his kind with a muttered _odi profanum vulgus et
arceo_. Such an opinion is founded on the aspect of reserve which his
vast legendary pictures suggest, and on the impersonal and severely
objective attitude which he adopts with regard to history and nature.
His poems breathe a disdain of life and of the resilience of human
appetite (_La Mort de Valmiki_), a love of solitude (_Le Desert_), a
determination to gaze on spectacles of horror without betraying nervous
emotion (_Le Massacre de Mona_), which seem superhuman and almost
inhuman. He was accused, in his dramas--which were perhaps the most
wilful, the least spontaneous part of his work--of affecting a Greek
frightfulness which outran the early Greeks themselves. Francisque
Sarcey said that Leconte de Lisle, in his tragedy of _Les Erinnyes_,
scratched the face of AEschylus, as though he did not find it bloody
enough already.
The subjects which Leconte de Lisle prefers are never of a sort to
promote sentimentality or even sensibility. He writes of Druids moaning
along the edge of hyperborean cliffs, of elephants marching in set
column across hot brown stretches of sand, of the black panther crouched
among the scarlet cactus-blossoms, of the polar bear lamenting among the
rocks, of the Syrian sages whose beards drip with myrrh as they sit in
council under the fig-tree of Naboth. He writes of humming-birds and of
tigers, of Malay pirates and of the sapphire cup of Bhagavat, of
immortal Zeus danced round by the young Oceanides, and of Brahma seeking
the origin of things in the cascades of the Sacred River. These are not
themes which lend themselves to personal effusion, or on which the poet
can be expected to embroider any confessions of his egotism. If Leconte
de Lisle chooses to be thus remote from common human interests--that is
to say, from the emotions of our vulgar life to-day--his is the
responsibility, and it is one which he has fully recognized. But that
his genius was not wholly marmoreal, nor of an icy impassibility, the
careful study of his works will amply assure us.
It is strange that even very careful critics have been led to overlook
the personal note in the poems of Leconte de Lisle: probably because the
wail of self-pity is so piercing in most modern verse that it deadens
the ear to the discreet murmur of the stoic poet's confession. Hence
even Anatole France has been led to declare that the author of _Poemes
Barbares_ has determined to be as obstinately absent from his work as
God is from creation; and that he has never breathed a word about
himself, his secret wishes, or his personal ideals. But what is such a
passage as the following if not a revelation of the soul of the poet in
its innermost veracity?