of a half-century since dragged to light and commended, as has been the
case with 'Ben Bolt' of late. I was flattered by seeing my likeness--or,
rather, the likeness of a younger man than myself--in your pages; but I
must protest against some errors which, in spite of careful editing,
enter into your transcription of the song. The words of the original
were:--
'Don't you remember the school, Ben Bolt,
With the master so cruel and grim,
And the shaded nook in the running brook,
Where the children went to swim?'
"This has been changed in the song, as usually sung, to read:--
'With the master so kind and so true.
And the little nook by the clear-running brook,
Where we gathered the flowers as they grew?'
"You have copied this, but in a better shape, with the exception of
changing the rhythm. I must protest against this change, because the
school-masters of between sixty and seventy years since were, to my
memory, 'cruel and grim'; they were neither kind nor true. They seemed
to think the only way to get learning into a boy's head was by the use
of the rod. There may have been exceptions, but I never met them. At all
events, 'what I have written I have written.'"
BEN BOLT
I
Oh, don't you remember, Sweet Alice, Ben Bolt?
Sweet Alice, whose hair was so brown,
Who wept with delight when you gave her a smile,
And trembled with fear at your frown!
In the old churchyard, in the valley, Ben Bolt,
In a corner obscure and alone,
They have fitted a slab of the granite so gray.
And Alice lies under the stone!
II
Under the hickory tree, Ben Bolt,
Which stood at the foot of the hill,
Together we've lain in the noon-day shade,
And listened to Appleton's mill.
The mill-wheel has fallen to pieces, Ben Bolt,
The rafters have tumbled in,
And a quiet that crawls round the walls as you gaze,
Has followed the olden din.
III
Do you mind the cabin of logs, Ben Bolt,
At the edge of the pathless wood,
And the button-ball tree with its motley limbs,
Which nigh by the door-step stood?
The cabin to ruin has gone, Ben Bolt,
The tree you would seek in vain;
And where once the lords of the forest waved,
Grows grass and the golden grain.
IV
And don't you remember the school, Ben Bolt,
With the master so cruel and grim,
And the shaded nook in the running brook,
Where the children went to swim?
Grass grows on the master's grave, Ben Bolt,
The spring of the brook is dry,
And of all the boys who were schoolmates then,
There are only you and I.
V
There is change in the things I loved, Ben Bolt,
They have changed from the old to the new;
But I feel in the depths of my spirit the truth,
There never was change in you.
Twelve-months twenty have past, Ben Bolt,
Since first we were friends--yet I hail
Thy presence a blessing, thy friendship a truth,
Ben Bolt, of the salt-sea gale!
* * * * *
TO THE EDITORS OF THE CRITIC:--
In your columns of "Trilbyana" I have seen no mention of the fact that
George W. Cable, in his "Dr. Sevier"--a thousand times better novel and
better work, in every way, than "Trilby,"--has introduced the old song
"Ben Bolt" with wonderful effect. It is strange that the old melody
should have appealed to the two men, so widely apart, and it is but fair
that the American's first, and most skilful, use of it should have due
recognition.
PHILADELPHIA.
JOHN PATTERSON.
* * * * *
TO THE EDITORS OF THE CRITIC:--
Du Maurier says that there is but one verse of the little French song,
which Trilby sings with so much effect--"Au clair de la lune." He
mistakes; there is another, running thus:--
"Je n'ouvrirai pas la porte, J'ouvre bien la porte,
A un vieux savetier, A un patissier,
* * * * * Qui m'apporte des brioches
* * * * Dans un tablier."
The two missing lines have escaped the memory of the writer.
AUBURN, N. Y.
S. M. COX.
* * * * *
Your correspondent, S. M. Cox, offers some more verses of "Mon Ami
Pierrot." They do not quite agree with those taught me, shortly after
the Revolution of 1848, by an old French gentleman. You will notice that
the French of the last verse is quite "eighteenth-century" in style and
diction.
II III
Je n'ouvre pas ma porte Mais j'ouvre bien ma porte
A des savetiers, A des officiers,
Ils ont des alenes, Ils ont des pistoles,
C'est pour me piquer. C'est pour me les bailler.
PARIS, 1 Jan., 1895. B. F.
* * * * *
Mr. du Maurier was correct in saying that there is only one verse of "Au
Clair de la Lune"; yet there are possibly, and probably, a thousand made
in imitation of it, which go to the same air. We quote from the San
Francisco _Argonaut_:--
"It is to be observed that these _amateurs de Trilby_ do not go the
length of singing 'Au Clair de la Lune,' even repeating the first stanza
twice, as Trilby did. But perhaps they are as ignorant concerning the
song as is Mr. du Maurier, who declares there is but one verse. There
are four. The first is given in 'Trilby' thus:--
'Au clair de la lune, Ma chandelle est morte....
Mon ami Pierrot! Je n'ai plus de feu!
Prete-moi ta plume Ouvre-moi ta porte
Pour ecrire un mot. Pour l'amour de Dieu!'
The second runs:--
'Au clair de la lune Va chez la voisine--
Pierrot repondit: Je crois qu'elle y est,
Je n'ai pas de plume, Car, dans sa cuisine,
Je suis dans mon lit. On bat le briquet.'
The third stanza contains the point of the song:--
'Au clair de la lune Qui frappe de la sorte?
S'en va Arlequin Il dit a son tour:
Frapper chez la brune Ouvre-moi ta porte
Qui repond soudain: Pour le dieu d'amour.'
The fourth stanza continues in the same strain, and it goes farther."
* * * * *
"MALBROUCK S'EN VA'T EN GUERRE"
Malbrouck s'en va-t'en guerre--
_Mironton, mironton, mirontaine!_
Malbrouck s'en va-t'en guerre....
Ne sais quand reviendra!
Ne sais quand reviendra!
Ne sais quand reviendra!
Il reviendra-z-a Paques--
_Mironton, mironton, mirontaine!_
Il reviendra-z-a Paques....
Ou ... a la Trinit!
La Trinite se passe--
_Mironton, mironton, mirontaine!_
La Trinite se passe....
Malbrouck ne revient pas!
Madame a sa tour monte--
_Mironton, mironton, mirontaine!_
Madame a sa tour monte,
Si haut qu'elle peut monter!
Elle voit de loin son page--
_Mironton, mironton, mirontaine!_
Elle voit de loin son page,
Tout de noire habille!
"Mon page--mon beau page!--
_Mironton, mironton, mirontaine!_
Mon page--mon beau page!
Quelles nouvelles apportez?"
"Aux nouvelles que j'apporte--
_Mironton, mironton, mirontaine!_
Aux nouvelles que j'apporte,
Vos beaux yeux vont pleurer!"
"Quittez vos habits roses--
_Mironton, mironton, mirontaine!_
Quittez vos habits roses,
Et vos satins broches!"
"Le Sieur Malbrouck est mort--
_Mironton, mironton, mirontaine!_
Le Sieur--Malbrouck--est--mort!
Est mort--et enterre!"
* * * * *
There is no more eloquent description of the effect of music on an
impressionable nature than du Maurier gives of the impression made upon
Little Billee by the singing of Adam's "Cantique de Noel" at the
Madeleine on Christmas Eve.
CANTIQUE DE NOEL
Minuit, Chretiens, c'est l'heure solennelle,
Ou l'homme Dieu descendit jusqu'a nous,
Pour effacer la tache originelle
Et de son Pere arreter le courroux.
Le monde entier tressaille d'esperance
A cette nuit qui lui donne un sauveur.
Peuple a genoux! attends la delivrance!
Noel, Noel, voici le Redempteur!
A Search for Sources
TO THE EDITORS OF THE CRITIC:--
The liquid name, "Trilby," of du Maurier's heroine having been duly run
down to its source, will a slight excursus be amiss as to the origin of
the affectionate title applied by the novelist on his charming little
hero--"Little Billee"? Evidently the name, together with certain
descriptive touches, has been taken from Thackeray's ballad, "Little
Billee." This racy skit, as many doubtless know, is in the best vein of
the great humorist's inimitable burlesque. It narrates the tragic cruise
of
"Three sailors of Bristol city
Who took a boat and went to sea,"
the second stanza running thus:--
"There was gorging Jack, and guzzling Jimmy
_And the youngest, he was Little Billee_.
Now when they got as far as the Equator
They'd nothing left, but one split pea."
And the unpleasant ultimatum being arrived at, that "We've nothing left,
us must eat we," the poem continues:--
"Says gorging Jack to guzzling Jimmy,
With one another we shouldn't agree,
There's little Bill, _he's young and tender_,
We're old and tough, so let's eat he."
Here, I say, we have the origin of the novelist's "Little Billee,"
while, in the italicized phrases, we have also du Maurier's, "the third,
he was little Billee" (page 6), and "he was young and tender, was little
Billee."
It would be sheer nonsense, of course, to urge against the famous
novelist any charge of unacknowledged borrowing in matters so entirely
trivial. The point is merely a curious one of origins; a little
siccatine botanizing, so to speak, on the _folia disjecta_ that have
been wonderfully spun by du Maurier's genius into a fabric of grace and
beauty so rare as is this "Trilby." Nor, indeed, should the further fact
be a detraction from the gifted author of "Trilby," that his
indebtedness to Thackeray is obviously greater than in the minutiae under
consideration--that, in fact, he has caught from the great immortal the
note of much that is best in his book. In his limpid, graceful
simplicity of words, and their easy, natural flow--in his delicate,
playful humor, and tender but not overwrought pathos, we discover a
careful study of found only a few general remarks about fairies, their
habits and habitations, nothing in the least resembling the story of
Jeannie's lover. Perhaps Nodier was mistaken about his source. As he
travelled in the Highlands, he may possibly have "collected" the tale at
first hand, and, there being no folk-lore societies in those early days
of romanticism, he was not aware of the honor that thus accrued to him.
It cannot have evolved itself from a mere hint. We appeal to Mr. Lang to
take up and follow the chase farther. He might be worse occupied than in
tracing out the original John Trilby MacFarlane, and whence he got his
English-sounding name, his fairy powers and his connection with Saint
Columba--the last probably from Nodier himself, who may have been
reading Montalembert's "Monks of the West" before setting out upon his
pilgrimage. Mr. Dole, by the way, irreverently converts the Dove of the
Churches into a "Saint Columbine," unknown to any respectable
hagiographer. Think, Mr. Lang, what a delightful coil this romancing
Frenchman, let loose among your Hielan' men, fairies, monks and Scotch
novels, has made for you to straighten out, and how many strange
discoveries may be made while you are about the job!
Miss Smith (2) has prepared another translation of Nodier's story, and,
though there is little choice between her version and Mr. Dole's, we
prefer it. It seems a trifle less exact, but it is more idiomatic; and,
if anything, she perhaps intensifies the local color a little, which
does not do the tale any harm. Her book is got up in tartan cover; Mr.
Dole's has a design adapted from Paul Konewka.
* * * * *
Mr. Richard Mansfield has secured from Estes & Lauriat the right to
dramatize and produce Mr. Dole's translation of Nodier's "Trilby, le
Lutin d'Argail."
Nodier's "Trilby, le Lutin d'Argail"
It was not long after the appearance of "Trilby" that our readers
detected the French origin of the name of Mr. du Maurier's heroine. The
story of the unearthing of this delightful French fairy-tale may be
followed in this series of communications to _The Critic_:
On looking over Roche's "Prosateurs Francais," I find that one of the
"plus jolis" contes of Charles Nodier (1788-1844) is entitled "Trilby";
therefore the title of du Maurier's much-bought novel is not original
with him. I should be pleased if any reader of _The Critic_ would inform
me as to the plot of Nodier's story.
ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI RECTORY,
WM. J. MCCLURE,
MT. KISCO, N. Y., 29th Oct., 1894.
* * * * *
The following lines occur in the "Reponse a M. Charles Nodier" of Alfred
de Musset:--
"Non pas cette belle insomnie
Du genie
Ou Trilby vient, pret a chanter,
T'ecouter."
This would seem to offer some clue to the origin of the name chosen by
Mr. du Maurier for his heroine. Can you enlighten me as to the identity
of the "Trilby" referred to by Musset?
RIDGEFIELD, CONN., 19 Nov., 1894.
ROSWELL BACON.
* * * * *
In answer to the request of your correspondent in _The Critic_ of Nov.
17, I find the tale of "Trilby" in my copy of the "Contes de Charles
Nodier, illustres par Tony Johannot." "Trilby" is the story of a
household fairy of Scotland (a "Lutin familier de la Chaumiere"). It is
fantastic and touching, but it has nothing in common with du Maurier's
"Trilby."
LEESBURGH, VIRGINIA, 20 Nov., 1894.
I. L. P.
* * * * *
From the recent contributions to "Trilbyana" in your columns, it would
appear as if the name of Trilby (originally Scotch or Irish?) were not
uncommon in the writings of French authors. Charles Nodier, in his
_conte_, says that M. de Latouche--a contemporary--wrote on the same
subject, "ou cette charmante tradition etait racontee en vers
enchanteurs"--which gives one to suppose that "Trilby" was the name of
his enchantress; though, perhaps, he refers to the old story of "Le
Diable Amoureux." I find, moreover, that Balzac takes the name for a
type in his "Histoire des Treize: Ferragus: Vol. I. Scenes de la Vie
Parisienne" (page 48 of edition of 1843):--"Pour developper cette
histoire dans toute la verite de ses details, pour en suivre le cours
dans toutes ses sinuosites, il faut ici divulguer quelques secrets de
l'amour, se glisser sous les lambris d'une chambre a coucher, non pas
effrontement, mais a la maniere de Trilby [the opposite to du Maurier's
Trilby], n'effaroucher ni Dougal, ni Jeannie, n'effaroucher personne,"
etc.
TUXEDO PARK, 26 Nov., 1894.
E. L. B.
* * * * *
(_Boston Evening Transcript, 1 Dec. 1894._)
"The Listener was asked the other day where du Maurier got the name of
Trilby--a sweet and pleasant word, neither English nor French, which
seemed to suit so perfectly the adorable young person of his creation.
He was able to answer, more by accident certainly than as the result of
erudition, that the name was not invented by du Maurier but belongs to
the French classics--possibly to Scottish folk-lore. In the year 1822
there was first published in Paris a _nouvelle_, by Charles Nodier,
afterward a member of the French Academy, entitled, "Trilby, or the Fay
of Argyle"; it was a sort of fairy-story, in which a fay is in love with
a mortal woman, and the woman is very far from being indifferent to his
sentiment. This 'Trilby' attained a considerable degree of popularity;
it became, indeed, a French classic; Sainte-Beuve has particularly
praised the charm of its style. * * * In his preface to the story,
Nodier says: 'The subject of this story is derived from a preface or a
note to one of the romances of Sir Walter Scott, I do not know which
one.' This is a very indefinite acknowledgment While Nodier may have got
his subject from Scott, the Listener doubts if he got the name 'Trilby'
from him. It is just the sort of name that a French writer would give to
a Scotch fay. Nevertheless, Trilby may be a real Scotch elfin. The
Listener would hardly claim personal acquaintance with them all.
"Du Maurier's 'Trilby' is curiously prefigured, in part at least, in
Nodier's; and yet there is not the smallest thing that the most jealous
critic could call a plagiarism; it is a legitimate parentage. As you go
on with Nodier's story, you love his Trilby more and more, as you do du
Maurier's, until you think that there was never so bewitching a fairy;
and your love for Trilby is interwoven with your love for Jeannie, his
mortal sweetheart, just as your love for du Manner's Trilby is forever
mixed up with your tender sentiment for Little Billee. You feel a sort
of enchantment over you like the hypnotism that you are under in du
Maurier's strange book. And both stories, while abounding in wit and
pretty things, are deeply tragical. It has been said of Nodier's
'Trilby' that it belongs to the realm of the _supra-sensible_, and so,
in large measure, certainly does du Maurier's. Du Maurier has confessed
his obligation flatly in giving his story the very name that Nodier's
bore. It is conceivable that the image of the Frenchman's haunting fairy
dwelt with him until he resolved to reincarnate the adorable elf in the
body of a girl as adorable. He gave his Trilby a Scotch ancestry to
connect her the more naturally with the _lutin d'Argail_; and her fairy
ancestry will easily account not only for her early prankishness, but
for her later unreality. But it is a prefiguring merely, and not a
direct suggestion. Whatever du Maurier's 'Trilby' lacks, it isn't
originality!"
* * * * *
(_From Mr. C. E. L. Wingate's Boston Letter in The Critic of 20 April,
1893._)
It appears that the first mention of the French book appeared in _The
Critic_, last November. It was in the same month that Mr. Bradford
Torrey * * * happened to find a copy of Nodier's "Trilby" in the Boston
Athenaeum. He took the book to his friend, Mr. J. E. Chamberlin of _The
Youth's Companion_, who began its translation at once. A few days later
appeared a note in _The Critic_ from a correspondent in Virginia.
Thinking that secrecy was no longer worth while, Mr. Chamberlin wrote
his paragraphs for the _Transcript_ "Listener" column, incorporating a
bit of translation. This was printed on Dec. 1. Miss Minna C. Smith went
to Roberts Bros. at once, to ask them if they would consider the
publication of a translation of the romance by her _Transcript_
confrere, and Mr. F. Alcott Pratt replied that they would like very much
to see that gentleman's work. Circumstances made Mr. Chamberlin decide
not to finish the translation, and he gave Miss Smith his idea and a few
pages of the manuscript for a Christmas present. During several weeks
following she was engaged upon her careful translation. The Scotch words
and names of localities in her manuscript were corrected by Mr. J.
Murray Kay of Houghton, Mifflin & Co., an accomplished Scot, who walked
through Argyle with his daughters last summer. On March 19, an article
on Charles Nodier's story, foreshadowing Miss Smith's translation,
appeared in the _Transcript_. On the morning of March 20, Mr. Dana Estes
sent for Mr. Nathan Haskell Dole and asked him to make a translation,
which was done with remarkable rapidity, and put out on March 29.
Learning of this, Lamson, Wolffe & Co. hurried on Miss Smith's book,
which had been in the hands of their printer at the Collins press for
days, advertised it on Thursday and brought it out on Saturday, in
Scotch plaid covers.
This firm of Lamson, Wolffe & Co., by the way, has just been dissolved
for a novel reason. Mr. Wolffe is a member of the class of '95 at
Harvard. The publication of "Trilby, the Fairy of Argyle" called the
attention of the faculty to his publishing business, and he was asked to
give it up, or else forfeit his degree. He chose the former alternative,
and although the firm name will remain Lamson, Wolffe & Co., a new and,
for the present, silent member of the firm has added capital and
scholarship to the house.
* * * * *
"Trilby, the Fairy of Argyle"
_By Charles Noder. 1. Translated from the French, with introduction, by
Nathan Haskell Dole. Estes & Lauriat. 2. From the French by Minna
Caroline Smith. Boston: Lamson, Wolffe & Co._
Nodier's "Trilby," who now revisits the book-stores owing to Mr. du
Maurier's having taken his name for his heroine's, is one of the few
latter-day fairies that have fairy blood (or ichor) in their veins. He
belongs on the same shelf with Fouque's "Undine," but, though he was
only joking when he personated a father who "had not seen him since the
days of King Fergus," he is certainly of the breed of Una and Maer,
Caoilte and Mananan. That he made a sensation on his first appearance in
the world of letters is shown by Victor Hugo's ode, warning the Fairy of
Argyle to beware of ink-slinging penny-a-liners:--
"Car on en veut aux Trilbys
* * * * * * * *
Ils souilleraient d'encre noire,
Helas! ton manteau de moire,
Ton aigrette de rubis"--
advice which might be repeated apropos of Mr. du Maurier's creation.
Mr. Dole, who has made a translation (1) of Nodier's "Trilby," has
looked through all of Scott's novels, he says, to discover, if possible,
the "preface or note" from which the French author claimed to have drawn
his story, and has the deft art of "Pendennis" and "The Newcomes." And
the "Cave of Harmony," with its songs and its bumpers and long whiffs,
the gay nights and rollicking days of F. B. and Clive and Pendennis--the
glamor of all which has enticed full many a youngster towards the easy
descent, or the shining slopes (as the case may be) of art and
letters--all these scenes have doubtless served as the studies of the
pictures, almost as delightful and masterly as their prototypes, that du
Maurier gives us of the joyous Bohemian life of the three jolly
Musketeers of the Brush in the Quartier Latin in "Trilby."
AUBURN, ALA., 26 Dec., 1894.
CHARLES C. THACH.
* * * * *
As a small contribution to "Trilbyana," I would call attention to the
fact, unnoted so far, that Trilby was the name of Eugenie de Guerin's
pet dog, mentioned several times in the journal she kept for her brother
Maurice. Was the dog, perhaps, named for the fairy?
LOUISVILLE, KY.
A. C. B.
* * * * *
As there seems to be a mania for hunting up the sources of the
inspiration of certain authors, I will engage in the game also. In
Saintine's "Picciola," Book I., Chap XII., after the first paragraph,
you will find the germ of "Peter Ibbetson."
GRAND RAPIDS, MICH.
C. C.
* * * * *
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FOOTNOTES:
[A] See frontispiece.
[B] Unless in amended form.