family to a wedding party in a neighboring village, and while there,
when she overhears Rosel’s remark, “It is only our serving maid,” she
says to herself, “Don’t let a word spoil all your pleasure. If you
begin that you will walk everywhere upon thorns.”
An unknown youth, who comes riding a gray horse, dances with her. There
is a lively description of the festival, of her enthusiasm and the joy
of that dance, and of her thoughts in her little room in the still
night when she returns.
The scene now changes to the house of the Landfriedbauer, a wealthy
peasant, whose son Johannes is sent out to seek a wife. His mother
follows the boy down the road and has a long confidential talk
with him, which is charming for its _naïvete_ and shrewdness. Her
description of the signs by which a good wife may be told is quite
elaborate. Johannes must notice how she behaves towards her servants,
how she blows out the light; he must observe her if he can in anger,
“when the hidden inner man leaps out”; he must notice how she laughs,
whether her flowers thrive, whether she is willing to sing a second
part or always wants to set the key. “A girl should never go with empty
hands, and she must leap three hedges to pick up a feather.” But in her
doings she must be quiet and constant, not filled with mad eagerness,
“as if she would tear down a piece of the world.” He must notice
whether she unties a knot or cuts it, whether she keeps her copybooks
and early treasures, whether she wears her shoes inside or outside,
and whether she cares for the poor. Thus furnished with much useful
information, Johannes rides forth on his gray horse to seek his wife.
Now the father of Johannes has written to the Krappenzacher in
Amrei’s village, to take his son to the best houses there, and the
Krappenzacher, by agreement with the Rodelbauer, is to have a hundred
kronenthalers if Johannes marries Rosel. The young man is ostensibly
looking for another gray horse, so a horse of that color is put into
the Rodelbauer’s stable and the young man is brought thither to
examine him. On this occasion Rosel is to come out and milk the cows
as proof of her housewifery, but as she knows nothing about milking,
the experiment is made with a full pail and with a cow already milked.
While the men are discussing their horse trade, Rosel’s voice is heard
in song near by, and “Little Barefoot” sings the second part. Johannes
asks who they are, and the Rodelbauer tells him that Amrei is an
adopted child of whom his father was once the guardian, for he knows
that this will sound better than to say she is a servant.
In the meantime Amrei has discovered that the visitor is the same as
he who has danced with her at the wedding, and whose mother it was that
gave her a necklace when she was a child; and Johannes on his part
finds in Little Barefoot the qualities of which his mother has spoken.
In a sudden outbreak of rage and jealousy Rosel strikes Amrei to the
ground. Just at that moment Johannes appears, and naturally it is not
Rosel but Little Barefoot whom he chooses for his wife.
The lovers’ talk, their riddles and their songs as they ride off
together on the gray horse, are set forth in a narrative of singular
beauty, and when she reaches his home it is the girl and not Johannes
who has to break the news to the Landfriedbauer and his wife and seek
their blessing, while the young man stays at the miller’s in much
anxiety as to the outcome of her mission. Her plea is really eloquent
in its simple pathos. She is accepted, and the Landfriedbauer and his
wife, being anxious to avoid the reproach of having let the boy marry
a penniless girl, each gives her in secret a store of coins which has
been laid by, and when both stores are spread upon the table at a
family reunion, each parent really begins to believe what they both
say, that their new daughter-in-law has come to them with a dowry of
her own.
This modern “Cinderella” is written in a style of great simplicity,
and in my view, the village heroine, the counterpart of whom no doubt
exists in many similar communities, is entitled to a high place in
literature.
EKKEHARD
JOSEPH VON SCHEFFEL
“Ekkehard” is a novel derived very largely from mediæval records that
are now little remembered. It attempts to reproduce for the modern
reader the political and social conditions of the tenth century, and
the story is accompanied with numerous notes and references, giving
evidence of the careful researches of the author. It is to German
scholarship, indeed, that one would naturally look for a work of this
description, for although many novelists elsewhere use historical
materials for certain parts of their works, there are few who would
follow the records with such fidelity.
The scene opens at a castle on a lofty eminence near the lake of
Constance. Hadwig, the young and not inconsolable widow of the old
duke, resolves for diversion to go with her train to the monastery of
St. Gallus on the other side of the lake. This visit, illustrating
many of the details of monastic life, is graphically and attractively
described. According to the rules of the order, no woman’s foot may
pass over the threshold of the cloister, but as the duchess is the
protectress of the convent, it is determined that she may be carried
over, and the duty falls upon the young monk Ekkehard, whose flattering
words win him such favor that he is commanded to go to her castle
of Hohentwiel to instruct her in Latin and read Virgil to her. The
development of a very natural romance follows. Ekkehard is as innocent
as a child, and for a long time his mistress vainly tries to awaken in
him the passion that rises in her own heart. When a horde of barbarous
Huns attacks her possessions, and the monks of Reichenau and St. Gallus
betake themselves to the castle for defense, she gives him the sword
of her late husband and bids him distinguish himself in the combat.
The Huns are defeated, but Ekkehard has not signalized himself by any
remarkable exploit. In a contest of story-telling, too, he fails to
meet the expectations of his mistress, and when at last his own passion
is fully aroused, it is too late. He seizes an inopportune moment to
declare it. He is detected in the chapel in most unmonastic behavior,
and Hadwig is inexorable. He is imprisoned, he escapes and flees to
the regions of the higher Alps, where he dwells in a cave, and for his
own consolation composes the “Waltharïlied,” a short epic, full of
much slaughter, in which heads and hands and feet are hacked off, eyes
put out, and other unappetizing feats of arms performed amid the lusty
merriment even of those who suffer from these mutilations. This work is
an actual reproduction of a poem of the time, but many will consider it
a blemish in a romance with which it has little connection.
When the winter comes and the flocks on the mountains descend to the
valleys, Ekkehard leaves his hermitage, and passing, on his way to
distant parts, the castle which had witnessed his discomfiture, he
fastens his parchment to an arrow which he sends as a farewell greeting
to his former mistress, whose resentment has softened and who receives
it with tears.
There are many striking episodes in the book. The stern fury of
the hermit Wiborad, immured in a living tomb near the monastery of
St. Gallus; the encounter between the coarse cellarer, Rudiman, and
Kerhildis, the chief serving-maid of the monastery of Reichenau;
the delightful pastoral scenes between the two children Audifax and
Hadumoth, bond-servants of the castle; the elaborate and learned
lampoon written against Ekkehard by the monk Gunzo in revenge for
catching him in a grammatical error; the realistic accounts of certain
ridiculous superstitions; the lifelike description of the preparations
for a German Christmas--these things give the book a deservedly high
rank as a faithful reproduction of the customs of the time. Von
Scheffel has invested mediæval monasticism with a fine poetic grace and
charm. But it is seldom that a story which is used largely as a means
of conveying historical information concerning a remote period is as
vivid in the delineation of character as one where the scene is laid
amid the immediate surroundings of the writer, and it can not be said
that the two chief figures of the novel, Hadwig and Ekkehard, are at
all impressive as portraits of actual life.
THE ROMANCE OF A POOR YOUNG MAN
OCTAVE FEUILLET
“The Romance of a Poor Young Man” is a charming tale, and quite
free from the cynicism which pervades much of modern French fiction.
The hero (who tells his own story in his diary) is the young Marquis
d’Hauterive, who, reduced to extreme poverty by the extravagance of
his father, assumes the name of M. Odiot, becomes the manager of the
estate of M. Laroque, and falls in love with Marguerite, the beautiful
heiress of the house. She secretly returns his passion, but treats
him oftentimes with great cruelty from the suspicion that he, like
others, is seeking her hand in order to advance his fortunes. The
noble character of both the chief personages of the novel appears
naturally and simply from the recital of the things they say and do,
and the narrative of the expeditions to some of the Celtic ruins in
Brittany upon which he attends her has all the charm of a pastoral. The
ridiculous M. Bevallan, his rival, who reveals most opportunely his
commonplace character and sordid motives; the romantic Mme. Laroque,
the mother of Marguerite; the ancient spinster, Mlle. de Porhoet,
who bears with dignity her triple burden of high lineage, age, and
poverty--indeed all the characters are skillfully drawn, and their
doings form an excellent background for the action of the two chief
personages of the story.
“The Romance of a Poor Young Man” is emphatically a work of exquisite
finish and high creative art. Yet it does not wholly lack the
extravagances which seem inevitable in modern French fiction. When the
hero has been unjustly reproached by the proud beauty, who suspects his
mercenary designs, he vows in his rage and despair that he will never
wed her, even if she were to implore him upon her knees, unless his
fortune should be equal to her own; and after every other obstacle is
cleared away, he persists in adhering to this unreasonable vow. Then
he learns that Marguerite and her mother propose to give their fortune
to charitable uses, so as to remove the last hindrance to their union.
But this, too, he will not permit, and it requires a _tour de force_ to
straighten out these complications.
Mlle. de Porhoet has been conducting a long litigation to recover a
certain inheritance in Spain. At the moment of her death the property
becomes hers, and although she had designed it for the erection of a
magnificent cathedral (the dream of her life), she now bequeaths it
to the young marquis, and thus the novel has an appropriate and happy
termination. But it is hard to resist the conclusion that the outcome
would have been more natural if no such extraordinary event had been
necessary to bring it about, but only a little more common sense on the
part of the hero!
MADAME BOVARY
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
“Madame Bovary” is a type of a novel very common in modern literature.
It depicts the gradual steps that lead to degradation and ruin, and the
fatal influence of a single vicious character upon everything around it.
M. Bovary, a young doctor of moderate attainments, but of earnest
purposes, kindly disposition, and upright life, falls in love with the
daughter of a wealthy peasant in the neighborhood, who has received at
a convent an education above her station, whose mind is filled with
romantic notions, and whose eyes are constantly dazzled by the glamour
of the rank, wealth and splendor that are just beyond her reach. She
becomes more and more dissatisfied with her surroundings and with her
rather uninteresting husband, who on his part is entirely devoted to
her and who sacrifices his most important interests merely to gratify
her whims. She falls into one intrigue after another, becoming first
the victim of a _roué_, and then the paramour of a young man much like
herself. To gratify her fancies she involves her husband in financial
ruin, and at last ends her worthless life by suicide. The death scene
is powerfully narrated, and from a merely artistic point of view the
novel is a highly finished production. It is said that such works
teach an important lesson--the inevitable results of wrong doing; but
in this case at least it may well be questioned whether the details
presented in the author’s brilliant descriptions are not more likely
to lead to the imitation rather than the avoidance of conduct whose
present delights are most alluring, however disastrous may be their
final consequences. In this tale we see the effect of sentimental and
immoral novels upon the heroine herself, and it is hard to resist the
conviction that it is largely by reading such works as “Madame Bovary”
that Madame Bovarys are made.
THE ORDEAL OF RICHARD FEVEREL
GEORGE MEREDITH
The fiction of George Meredith, like the poetry of Browning, appeals
to a limited class of intellectuals. Close attention is often required
to understand the drift of events as well as the philosophy injected
at every point into the narrative. A considerable general education
is requisite to comprehend the literary and historical references
and no little insight is needed to appreciate the subtleties of a
dialogue which is often brilliant but sometimes obscure. There are
elaborate explanations of the complicated motives and feelings which
control the actors of the drama. They do not speak for themselves like
the characters in more primitive fiction. There are no such graphic
descriptions as that of the London fog in Bleak House, or of the
Battle of Waterloo in Les Misérables, and there are few portraits that
stand out clearly in the memory like those of Don Quixote or Beatrix
Esmond. The whole work is more like a mural decoration or a tapestry
than a painting with a clear perspective and strong lights and shades.
The style is highly finished, and there are sometimes interesting
digressions, though these have not the exquisite _abandon_ so often
found in those of Thackeray, and the satire lacks something of the
airiness which is often its greatest charm. The author probes many of
the hidden recesses of the human heart, but his types are hardly so
universal as those of other great masters of fiction. His women are far
more attractive than his men.
Meredith is at his best when he is simplest, and Richard Feverel,
especially in its early chapters, is simpler than many of his other
novels.
Richard Feverel is the only son of Sir Austin, a baronet, who has
written his philosophy of life in a series of aphorisms entitled
“The Pilgrim’s Scrip.” Left alone by a faithless wife in the care of
his child, to whom he is tenderly attached, he devises a scientific
system of training so perfect that the boy is to be “guiltless even
of the impulse to gainsay his father’s wishes.” It works well in the
young lad’s early escapades, including the setting of fire to Farmer
Blaize’s hay rick, but it comes to naught when the father attempts to
guard his son from the perils of love and imprudent matrimony, and to
hunt a wife for him, and it ends in Richard’s clandestine marriage
with the fair Lucy Dorchester, the niece of this same Farmer Blaize.
The father’s efforts to keep young Richard and his wife apart after
their marriage as a further discipline in accordance with his absurd
system of education ends with the wrecking of two lives; with the
boy’s temptation and fall and a succession of follies terminating in
a duel, and finally with the death of his young wife, whose gentle
spirit is broken at last under the continual sufferings to which she
is subjected. It is a story of unutterable sadness in its concluding
chapters.
A picture of surpassing beauty is that in which young Richard rowing
upon the river on his father’s estate, first encounters the fair
creature who is to become his wife.
“Above green-flashing plunges of a weir, and shaken by the thunder
below, lilies, golden and white, were swaying at anchor among the
reeds. Meadow-sweet hung from the banks thick with weed and trailing
bramble, and there also hung a daughter of earth. Her face was shaded
by a broad straw hat with a flexible brim that left her lips and chin
in the sun, and, sometimes nodding, sent forth a light of promising
eyes. Across her shoulders, and behind, flowed large loose curls, brown
in shadow, almost golden where the ray touched them. She was simply
dressed, befitting decency and the season. On a closer inspection you
might see that her lips were stained. This blooming young person was
regaling on dewberries. They grew between the bank and the water making
pretty progress to her mouth.... The little skylark went up above her,
all song, to the smooth southern cloud lying along the blue; from a
dewy copse dark over her nodding hat the blackbird fluted, calling to
her with thrice mellow note; the kingfisher flashed emerald out of
green osiers; a bow-winged heron travelled aloft, seeking solitude:
a boat slipped towards her, containing a dreamy youth; and still she
plucked the fruit, and ate, and mused, as if no fairy prince were
invading her territories, and as if she wished not for one, or knew
not her wishes. Surrounded by the green shaven meadows, the pastoral
summer buzz, the weir-fall’s thundering white, amid the breath and
beauty of wild flowers, she was a bit of lovely human life in a fair
setting, a terrible attraction. The Magnetic Youth leaned round to note
his proximity to the weir-piles, and beheld the sweet vision. Stiller
and stiller grew nature, as at the meeting of two electric clouds. Her
posture was so graceful, that though he was making straight for the
weir, he dared not dip a scull. Just then one enticing dewberry caught
her eyes. He was floating by unheeded, and saw that her hand stretched
low, and could not gather what it sought. A stroke from his right
brought him beside her. The damsel glanced up dismayed, and her whole
shape trembled over the brink. Richard sprang from his boat into the
water. Pressing a hand beneath her foot, which she had thrust against
the crumbling wet sides of the bank to save herself, he enabled her to
recover her balance, and gain safe earth, whither he followed her.”
The scene which succeeds--the revelation of the love of each to the
other--is worthy to stand by the side of the very best in all dramatic
literature, and in the later chapters the utter devotion and perfect
womanliness of the young wife, who is made a sacrifice to the baronet’s
impossible “system,” creates a character which is one of the most
lovable ever portrayed by the fancy of a writer of fiction.
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH
CHARLES READE
“The Cloister and the Hearth” is a novel which, like “Ivanhoe” and
“Romola,” illustrates the fact that it is occasionally possible for
a novelist to deal with distant scenes and times long past almost as
effectively as with immediate surroundings. In such cases the general
groundwork of human nature is ever present, and in matters of detail
the imagination supplies the place of accurate knowledge, while the
style and the thoughts acquire added dignity by being transported from
the commonplace.
This work is unlike most of the other novels of Charles Reade, and
is of a higher quality. The dignity of style, however, is by no means
uniformly sustained. There are many defects in the book, and very
glaring ones. I read it for a long time before its full power and
beauty dawned upon me. There is in places an artificial conciseness and
often an apparent straining for effect which is unpleasant. There are
instances of great carelessness of construction, and colloquialisms
which resemble very closely modern slang. As the tale deals with a
remote period, the diction is generally archaic; yet the archaism
consists not so much in the style as in the use of obsolete English
words, such as “buss me,” “hosen,” “shoon,” “cowen,” etc., which
seem inappropriate since the conversation was necessarily in another
language. Moreover, these archaisms are not consistently carried out
in all places. Many of the jokes and saws are stilted, and some of
the poetical quotations are lugged headforemost into places where
they do not belong. The main plot is often stifled by the abundance
of incidents, and there is an appearance of mechanism in the sudden
alternations of hope and fear, success and failure, which chase each
other in rapid succession through the pages. There are false notes
here and there; language is used and events described which are in
atrociously bad taste; incidents are told in a sensational way worthy
of yellow journalism; and in places you have the conviction that the
characters would not naturally do the things described. Yet, with all
these defects, the story of the love of Gerard Eliassoen and Margaret
Brandt is full of deep human interest, and in many places the tale is
one of singular beauty.
Elias, a small tradesman of Tergou, and Catherine, his wife, have many
children, and to provide for them the utmost economy is necessary. One
of the sons, Gerard, an illuminator of manuscripts, is destined for the
clergy. He becomes a competitor for two of the prizes offered by Philip
the Good of Burgundy for the best painting and writing on vellum. On
his way to the competition at Rotterdam he falls in with an old man,
Peter Brandt, a so-called magician, and his daughter Margaret; and when
he wins a prize, and when in addition the Princess Marie has promised
him a benefice, he has fallen so deeply in love with Margaret that “the
hours they spent together were the hours they lived; the rest they
counted and underwent.”
His parents oppose the marriage, and the burgomaster, Ghysbrecht Van
Swieten, has strong personal reasons for preventing it. Gerard and
Margaret are betrothed, and have signed their marriage lines in the
presence of witnesses, so that the law holds them for man and wife; but
twice when they appear at the altar the wedding is interrupted, and the
second time Gerard is imprisoned in the tower of the Stadthouse, from
which he escapes by the device and aid of Margaret. He is pursued by
Ghysbrecht and his retainers, and after many hairbreadth escapes, in
which Margaret repeatedly rescues him, he flees from Holland and goes
on foot to Rome, where he intends to pursue his art, and then return to
claim his bride. The liveliest descriptions are given of his adventures
on the way--of the German inns, of the companion who accompanies him,
Denys the Burgundian soldier, a well drawn character, garrulous,
brave, generous, and debonair, whose constant formula of encouragement
is “_Courage, l’ami, le diable est mort!_” and whose foible, like
that of many of his compatriots, is a fondness for women. There is a
blood-curdling description of a combat with a bear, whose cub they
have stolen; of a supper under a gibbet; of a pedantic doctor, who is
burned by the irons with which he had proposed to cauterize Gerard. In
places the story seems almost like some mediæval Baedeker, filled with
accounts of the sights to be seen and of the customs of the people,
as well as with tales of the carousals of the monks in the convents.
The two companions pass into Burgundy, and Burgundian manners are
vividly contrasted with those of Germany. They betake themselves to an
inn, where the landlord and six confederates conspire to murder them;
but after a bloody struggle, with marvelous incidents and prodigies
of daring, they are rescued, and their assailants are duly hanged or
broken on the wheel. But now the two friends are separated; Denys is
impressed by a band of soldiers, and Gerard is left alone, to be robbed
by highwaymen.
At home, in the meantime, there is a conspiracy between the burgomaster
and two brothers of Gerard, who seek to prevent his marriage, and a
false letter is sent to him at Rome telling him Margaret is dead.