of literature depends largely upon our mood and upon surrounding
circumstances after my last reading of “The Vicar of Wakefield.” Upon a
former reading I had been filled with great admiration for Goldsmith’s
novel. The plot seemed admirably constructed, the characters well
drawn, and the literary charm of the book inexpressibly attractive. On
the subsequent perusal the work did not come up to the standard I had
imagined. Both the style and the plot appeared somewhat artificial, and
the combination of incidents improbable. The literary charm was there,
but even that was not so great as I had supposed. I can not altogether
account for this change of view. Perhaps it is due to the fact that my
earlier reading was just after my perusal of “Tom Jones,” and followed
a certain disappointment and disgust at Fielding’s work, whereas the
final reading followed the perusal of Manzoni’s masterpiece, “The
Betrothed,” by the side of which even “The Vicar of Wakefield” shines
with a lustre that is somewhat dim. It is perhaps also due to the fact
that the sudden alternations of fortune described in Goldsmith’s novel
are more startling, and therefore more attractive on a fresh impression
than they are when they are anticipated.
“The Vicar of Wakefield” begins with a delightful description of the
family of the good man who tells the story,--of his wife, “chosen for
the qualities that would wear well,” but whose conduct, I thought, did
not altogether justify such a selection; of his two daughters, Olivia
and Sophia, with romantic names in which the father had no choice; and
of his younger sons. Among these, he says, a family likeness prevailed,
and “properly speaking, they had but one character, that of being all
equally generous, credulous, simple, and inoffensive.” He describes the
part he took in the Whistonian controversy, maintaining that it was
unlawful for a priest of the church of England, after the death of his
first wife, to take another,--a controversy which led to a difference
with a neighboring clergyman, Mr. Wilmot, the father of Arabella, to
whom the vicar’s son George was betrothed, and ended in the breaking
off of the engagement, after it was also found that the vicar’s fortune
had been lost. Then follows a description of the removal of the family
to a new parish; of the departure of George to seek his fortune; of
the straightened circumstances and simple life of the others; of the
love of finery displayed by the wife and daughters; of their efforts
at gentility and their attempts to attract Squire Thornhill, their
dissolute landlord, and to secure him as a husband for Olivia. The
squire brings from London two women of abandoned character, whom he
introduces as ladies of high rank, and who seek to induce the daughters
of the honest clergyman to return with them to the town.
Two attractive episodes are here introduced. In order to defray the
expenses necessary to keep up appearances and to send the girls to
London, the boy Moses is sent to a fair to sell the colt, and an
amusing account is given of his return with a gross of worthless green
spectacles, which a sharper had palmed off upon him. Then the vicar
himself goes to sell the other horse, and the same man, one Ephraim
Jenkinson, who appeared to be a pious and venerable gentleman, and
displayed great learning about Sanchoniathon, Manetho, Berosus, Ocellus
Lucanus, and the cosmogony of the world, gives him a worthless draft
upon one of his neighbors in payment. These two episodes call to mind
some of the adventures of Gil Blas.
Upon his return home the vicar finds that the two great ladies
from London have departed, without his daughters, being dissuaded
from taking them by a letter of one Mr. Burchell, a friend of the
family, a gentleman in reduced circumstances, as was supposed, whose
attentions to Sophia have caused her father much anxiety. A letter
of Burchell is discovered, containing some dark insinuations, which
are erroneously thought to apply, not to the two women, but to the
vicar’s own family, and great is the indignation at Burchell for his
scandalous interference. Squire Thornhill continues his attentions to
the vicar’s eldest daughter, and is included with the family in a huge
picture, which is inadvertently made so large that it will not go into
any of the rooms of the vicar’s cottage, but has to stand against the
kitchen wall. Instead of pressing his suit openly, however, the squire
elopes with Olivia, upon whom he imposes a fictitious marriage, and
then, after a time, abandons her. The poor clergyman starts upon a vain
pursuit of his daughter, believing that Burchell is responsible for
her abduction. In his wanderings he comes upon his son George, who is
attached to a company of strolling players, and the young man gives
him an account of his adventures; of his travels in Holland, whither
he has gone to teach the Dutch English, without reflecting that for
this purpose it was necessary that he should first learn Dutch; of his
induction into the art of a connoisseur of pictures at Paris, where he
learns that the whole secret of it consists in a strict adherence to
two rules,--“the one, always to observe the picture might have been
better if the painter had taken more pains; and the other, to praise
the works of Pietro Perugino.” The squire arrives during the vicar’s
interview with his son, and agrees to purchase for George a commission
in a West India regiment, taking from the father a bond for a hundred
pounds, the purchase money.
But shortly afterwards the vicar comes upon his daughter Olivia, who
is in great distress, and he learns from her that it is the squire,
and not Burchell, who has betrayed her. When the good man returns home
he finds his dwelling in flames, and rescues his two little boys,
but is seriously burned in the conflagration, and shortly afterwards
he has an altercation with the squire, who thereupon arrests him for
non-payment of the hundred pounds, and throws him into jail. One of his
fellow-prisoners begins to talk about cosmogony, Sanchoniathon, etc.,
and he recognizes the rogue Jenkinson, who now, however, becomes his
friend. A simple and pathetic account is given of the scenes in the
prison; of his exhortations to his fellow-prisoners to reform their
evil courses; of their laughter, the pranks they play on him, and the
ultimate respect and love which he awakens. So long as his daughter
lives, the vicar will not seek to secure his release from prison by
making his submission to the squire; but he soon learns from Jenkinson
that the poor girl is dead. His second daughter, Sophia, is suddenly
abducted, and George unexpectedly comes into the prison in fetters,
prosecuted by the squire for sending a challenge and for injuring one
of his servants. At this point the climax of human wretchedness would
seem to be reached. But here everything changes. Burchell, who has
just rescued Sophia and brought her back in safety, now comes upon the
scene and discloses himself as the uncle of Squire Thornhill and the
real owner of the estate which the young squire has been enjoying.
Thornhill arrives, and his villainies are one after another unmasked.
Miss Wilmot, whom he is about to marry, learns of his infidelities,
renounces him, and again accepts her former suitor, George. The
squire impudently insists on keeping her fortune, according to the
marriage contract, but Jenkinson now reveals the fact that Thornhill
is already wedded to Olivia, since the priest who married them was
a true priest, and it was he and not the girl who had been imposed
upon. Olivia herself now appears; she is not dead, Jenkinson having
declared that she was for the purpose of inducing the good vicar to
make his submission to the squire and get out of prison. Burchell, now
Sir William Thornhill, seeks the hand of Sophia, the vicar’s property
is restored to him, and the story concludes with two weddings and
universal happiness. The conclusion is more satisfactory than that of
the book of Job, to which the story bears some slight resemblance, for
in Goldsmith’s novel even the dead are restored to life.
It is quite evident, from the foregoing outline of the plot, that
there is decidedly too much machinery in it to be altogether natural;
and this artificiality, which seems characteristic rather of the age
than of the author, is also found in the diction of the book, in which
Johnsonian antitheses sometimes appear, although these were used by
Goldsmith with more restraint and with better taste than by any other
writer of the period. For instance, in the author’s Advertisement,
speaking of the vicar, it is said:
“He is drawn as ready to teach, and ready to obey; as simple in
affluence, and majestic in adversity.”
Describing the early prosperous days of the family, the vicar says:
“We had no revolutions to fear, nor fatigues to undergo; all our
adventures were by the fire-side, and all our migrations from the
blue bed to the brown.”
Again:
“My children, the offspring of temperance, as they were educated
without softness, so they were at once well-formed and healthy;
my sons hardy and active, my daughters beautiful and blooming....
The one entertained me with her vivacity when I was gay, the
other with her sense when I was serious,” etc., etc.
Of course the language of the book is elegant and beautiful,--nothing
that Goldsmith ever wrote was otherwise; but I think that our present
era is to be congratulated upon the fact that however great its defects
of style in other particulars such formalism is now mostly obsolete.
Two of the characters in the book are extremely well drawn,--the good
vicar himself, with his simplicity, kindness, and religious reverence;
his patience, however, on two or three occasions interrupted by most
natural outbreaks of indignation; and his wife, motherly and foolish,
with her shallow schemes for the advancement of her daughters.
The three poems introduced into the story,--“The Hermit,” the
“Elegy on a Mad Dog,” and last and most beautiful of all, the verses
beginning--
“When lovely woman stoops to folly,
And finds, too late, that men betray,”
will long be known and admired in English literature. They are models
of purity and simplicity, though Goldsmith, as well as Wordsworth,
sometimes comes dangerously near the line which separates that which is
delicately beautiful from that which is sentimental and commonplace.
THE SORROWS OF YOUNG WERTHER
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
Many of the lovers of Goethe will no doubt say that his longer works,
“Wilhelm Meister” or “Elective Affinities,” are his most important
productions in the field of fiction; but it always seemed to me that,
as a portrait of actual life, his earliest and simplest story is
entitled to the highest rank. The first part of “Werther” is one of
the most charming bits of idyllic literature extant. The character of
the hero appears very clearly and naturally from his letters to his
friend. He has a sensitive, impressionable, sympathetic, unaffected,
lovable, and simple nature, subject to sudden transitions from joy to
wretchedness. He loves children; he is interested in the lowly. To
his eyes, at this time, the world and the people in it are all good.
His descriptions of natural scenery are filled with a lively and
poetic charm, and so, too, are his accounts of those he meets. Most
attractive of all is his portrait of Charlotte, when he first sees her,
cutting bread for her little brothers and sisters, then at the dance,
and afterwards, on almost every page in which her name appears. The
incidents of this story, except the concluding portion of it, are taken
largely from the author’s own experience, and Goethe, inconstant as
he was in his affections, knew not only how to love passionately, but
how to describe the object of his passion as she appeared to him; and
he has given us here a girl so attractive that we become enamored of
the portrait. Her outbursts of merriment, her constant cheerfulness,
her deep, sympathetic nature, the delicate home touches in her conduct
of the household, all go to make up a character the charm of which is
irresistible. But she is engaged to be married. Werther knows this from
the time he has first seen her; yet, like a moth, he flits around the
candle; and when Albert, her betrothed, arrives,--a character whose
cool temper and sound understanding are a sharp antithesis to his own
passionate and volatile nature,--life in his eyes suddenly changes. We
see this even in the changing views with which he regards Nature. The
universe, instead of being the source of universal joy, has grown to
be a fearful monster, forever devouring its own offspring. His buoyant
spirits become depressed; he broods over the one thought of his love
for Charlotte, until he resolves to flee. He takes service under an
ambassador, whom he describes as “the most punctilious blockhead under
heaven.” He writes with utter contempt of the hollow society by which
he is surrounded, with its meaningless gradations; and when at last he
inadvertently remains at a reception at which his rank does not entitle
him to be present, and is asked to leave, whereupon scandal arises, he
resigns his place in disgust.
In the meantime, Albert and Charlotte have become married, but the one
great passion of Werther’s life brings him back to her. He recognizes
his folly, but he can not resist it. His thoughts circle around her
alone, and his imaginations become morbid and feverish. “If Albert
should die!” “How much better fitted am I to be her husband!” Her pity
for him, and the tenderness with which she treats his hopeless passion,
inflame him all the more.
Werther’s letters to his friend are now interrupted, and the editor
fills in the gaps with a narrative and observations of his own. Werther
becomes gloomy, morose, unbalanced, and finally resolves upon suicide.
Charlotte asks him not to visit her, but in spite of this he goes, and
reads to her some melancholy passages from Ossian, not very apposite
in the facts they describe, but quite in tune with his feelings in
their mournful and melancholy character. When he sees her sympathy with
his affliction, a passionate outbreak ensues, and she parts from him,
declaring that she can never see him again. He wanders distraught at
night over the crags, and, returning home, makes his preparations for
death. He sends to Albert, asking to borrow his pistols for a journey.
Albert directs Charlotte to give them to the messenger, which she does.
A long letter from Werther to Charlotte and a simple description of the
final catastrophe end the narrative.
There is a great inconsistency between Werther’s character as it
appears in the last part of the book and that shown by his earlier
letters, an inconsistency which it seems to me is not wholly due to
the transformation in his feelings caused by his hopeless love. The
last letter which Werther writes to Charlotte is of a most compromising
character, telling her that he knows she loves him, and that she is
to be his in that curious future world which he pictures to himself,
where it would seem that passion rather than virtue is to be rewarded.
He insists on describing the harrowing details of his contemplated
suicide, reminding her that it is from her hand that he has received
the pistol, and throwing upon her the responsibility, all this
accompanied by the most tender endearments. Is this love? Is it even a
tolerable form of insanity? It may be said that no course of action is
unreasonable for a madman, yet to me the final pages seem inartistic.
In this part of the book the author evidently had to rely upon his
unaided imagination rather than upon the memory of his own experience,
and Werther’s frame of mind after he had resolved upon suicide is one
which I think Goethe had felt very imperfectly in his own consciousness.
But whatever the incongruities of the story so far as the hero is
concerned, it must be said that fiction has rarely, if ever, drawn a
character more womanly, in the best sense of the word, than Charlotte.
She is one of the most attractive types in literature.
PAUL AND VIRGINIA
BERNARDIN DE ST. PIERRE
Were it not for the immense reputation of “Paul and Virginia,” a
reputation which has lasted for more than a century, that book should
find no place in a list of the great works of fiction.
Saint Pierre considered his work a picture of nature, a sort of prose
pastoral, modelled after Theocritus; but to many it will seem rather
the picture of a counterfeit or fiat nature, which was greatly in
vogue at the time in an extremely artificial society and among those
who had little knowledge of the genuine article. I do not mean by this
to criticise the author’s description of natural scenery or natural
phenomena. His picture of the Isle-de-France, and of the surroundings
of the little cabins in which the events of the story occur, is
beautiful and lifelike; his account of the hurricane in which Virginia
perishes is realistic, and impressive; but his portrait of what human
life would be in a condition of Arcadian simplicity is far from
convincing. The author tells us in his preface that he intends to show
that our happiness consists in living according to nature and virtue.
When a definite thesis is thus proposed at the outset, the truthfulness
of the portrait may easily be overlooked and the _dramatis personæ_ may
even become impossibilities.
Here are two amiable children who grow up together in two neighboring
cabins “according to nature,”--that is, they can not read and
write,--and yet they devote themselves to amateur theatricals and to
landscape gardening. In decorating the tropical surroundings of their
humble homes they make these almost as artificial as the park of
Versailles. The names which they give to the choice spots are stilted
and unnatural. A certain rock is called “The Discovery of Friendship.”
A circle of orange trees and bananas around a small grass-plat, where
Paul and Virginia go and dance, is called “Concord.” Another tree where
their respective mothers meet to tell their griefs is christened “Tears
Wiped Away.” A neighboring hermit (the man who afterwards tells the
story) scatters appropriate Latin verses in divers other localities.
Nothing that is planted ever seems to fail. The flowers are abundant,
but somehow they seem like manufactured flowers. Even their perfume
suggests rather the pharmacy than the field, and we see nothing of any
thorns.
A few of the scenes between Paul and Virginia are natural and
beautiful. Perhaps the best part of the story is the description of
the shy maidenly reserve which takes the place of childish affection
when the girl first becomes a woman. But the bulk of the book is filled
with a curious mixture of sickly sentimentality, long Sunday-school
homilies, and a very commonplace philosophy. The climax is reached
after Virginia, who has been sent to France to be educated by her aunt,
returns to the island and perishes with the ship which is wrecked by a
hurricane upon the shore. This occurs under the eyes of her lover, who
makes heroic but ineffectual efforts to rescue her. According to the
curiously devised plot of the author, she could escape by swimming from
the sinking ship if she would accept the proffered aid of a sailor and
consent to divest herself of her clothing, but her modesty is greater
than her love of life. She turns away, lifts her eyes to heaven,
and with appropriate gestures goes down with the ship. This may be
impressive to the Gallic mind, but to many a hard-headed Anglo-Saxon it
will look like rubbish. The book ends with a description of the grief
of her lover, in spite of enormous doses of consolation ineffectually
administered to him by a friend, and finally with the death of pretty
much everybody concerned, all from broken hearts, and in a very short
space of time. Thus is demonstrated the happiness which is sure to
reward those who keep close to nature.
We are told that the events recorded actually occurred. It may be that
the skeleton of the story is founded upon fact, but if so, I feel sure
that the flesh and blood with which the imagination of the author has
clothed it is quite different from that which it actually possessed.
ATALA
FRANÇOIS CHATEAUBRIAND
I hear that not long ago, as the result of an extensive vote taken
among the subscribers of a leading French periodical, it was found that
Chateaubriand was the most popular of all French writers of fiction
of the present century. Certainly this is a surprising result when
such names as Balzac, Hugo, and Daudet are considered as competitors,
and one’s first impression is that those who gave their suffrages in
favor of Chateaubriand must have been sentimental rather than judicious
readers.
And yet a careful perusal of “Atala,” the short romance by which
Chateaubriand won his literary spurs, will perhaps give the author a
higher rank in fiction than is generally accorded to him by our colder
and less impressionable race. The plot is simplicity itself. Atala
is an Indian maiden, although a Christian, and is supposed to be the
daughter of Simaghan the chief. Her real father, however, is Lopez,
a Spaniard. Her mother before her death required from her a vow of
perpetual celibacy. Chactas, a young brave of the tribe of the Natchez,
who has lived among the Spaniards at St. Augustine, is captured by
Simaghan and is to be burned alive. Atala releases him from his bonds,
they flee together, and wander long through the forest. Their love is
so great that Atala, fearing she would break her vow, takes poison
and dies under the care of the good Father Aubry, a missionary, who
administers the last consolations of religion.
This story has been called an epic in prose, but its predominant
feature is hardly the heroic. It is rather a pastoral, if that word can
be applied to a description of primitive life where there are neither
flocks nor shepherds. “Atala” follows somewhat the same lines as “Paul
and Virginia,” and although it is supposed to contain incongruities
in attributing the qualities of civilization to savages, yet perhaps
Chateaubriand, who had had considerable personal experience with
American Indians, may not have been so wide of the mark as we think.
Moreover, Atala was part Spaniard; Chactas had been brought up among
the whites, and the counterpart of the old priest actually existed
in Jogues the Jesuit father. And if it were not so, why may not the
poet create such children of his fancy as he will, and give them what
garb and conversation and surroundings he may please, so long as they
are really human and beautiful? Atala is certainly an interesting and
natural character, the consolations of the priest are filled with
tender pathos, the style of the book is simple yet highly poetical, and
there are descriptions of nature--of the forest, the mountains, the
storm--of great beauty and vividness,--pictures that sometimes make us
wish to betake ourselves to the wilderness.
The moralizing of Chateaubriand is by no means so tedious as that of
St. Pierre, and there is nothing in Atala so essentially devoid of
common sense as the conduct of the artificial creatures who have been
“living according to Nature,” in the Ile de France.
Let us say, then, that Chateaubriand, if not preëminent, is entitled
to an honorable rank among the masters of fiction.
PRIDE AND PREJUDICE
JANE AUSTEN