had emptied of most of its inhabitants. Here for a while she tends the
suffering, and finally, reconciled again with life, she feels that she
must return. When she reaches Florence and learns of her husband’s
death, she seeks the helpless little Tessa and her children and takes
them under her protection.
And now Savonarola, amid the agonies of the torture, has confessed that
he was not a prophet, and he is condemned to death. She is present at
the solemn scene of execution, awaiting from him some word, free from
constraint, which should tell the final truth of his past life. But he
is silent upon the scaffold.
It is in the Epilogue that it first clearly appears that “Romola” is
a novel with a purpose, for here the heroine, many years afterwards,
in an earnest talk with Tessa’s boy, thus tells him the moral of his
father’s life:
“There was a man to whom I was very near, so that I could see a
great deal of his life, who made almost every one fond of him,
for he was young and clever and beautiful, and his manners to all
were gentle and kind. I believe, when I first knew him, he never
thought of anything cruel or base. But because he tried to slip
away from everything that was unpleasant, and cared for nothing
else so much as his own safety, he came at last to commit some
of the basest deeds, such as make men infamous. He denied his
father, and left him to misery; he betrayed every trust that was
reposed in him, that he might keep himself safe and get rich and
prosperous. Yet calamity overtook him.”
The account of the gradual degeneration of the character of Tito Melema
is, indeed, the strongest feature in the book. Tito was a man of sunny
disposition, who never made himself disagreeable, never boasted of his
own doings, was generous in small things, gave others the credit to
which they were entitled, and claimed little for himself, was frank
and engaging in manners, subtle in thought, supple in conduct, and had
an innate love of reticence, which often acted as other impulses do,
without any conscious motive. This was the character selected by the
author for her story of degradation and ruin.
The painter Piero foreshadows the outcome when he desires the face
of Tito as a model for his picture of Sinon deceiving old Priam: “A
perfect traitor,” says Piero, “should have a face which vice can write
no marks on--lips that will lie with a dimpled smile--eyes of such
agate-like brightness and depth that no infamy can dull them--cheeks
that will rise from a murder and not look haggard.”
The character of Romola herself is a very interesting one. She is full
of womanly dignity and genuine nobility of soul, honorable, proud,
self-sacrificing, devoted to her duty, but she is too clear-headed to
deceive herself as to her husband’s baseness. At first, although her
dreams of happiness have not been fulfilled, she makes every excuse;
and even afterwards she seeks a return of his confidence. But when that
is impossible, her love becomes entirely extinct.
Running side by side with the character of Romola, and in sharp
contrast to it, is that of Tessa, the innocent peasant girl, with a
baby face. In her presence, Melema finds no reproaches, nothing but
artless affection. It was pity more than anything else which first
induced Tito to take her under his protection, and his relations with
her have been developed so unconsciously that there seems very little
guilt in each particular act. No doubt the author’s purpose was to
describe the almost imperceptible steps by which men pass from virtue
to crime.
“Romola” is a historical novel, and the part of it which deals with
Savonarola is history itself, or perhaps more properly biography.
George Eliot has not created the character of the Florentine monk; she
has merely analyzed and interpreted that character by the light of
her own imagination. Whether the man she has thus drawn is the real
Savonarola or not, he is a very interesting personage, who, with many
inconsistencies and shortcomings, is essentially a great man, as well
as a benefactor of mankind. He is often a hero, though he falls short
of heroism at the supreme moment; and his last words, written in prison
before his execution, the outpouring of self-abasement, fill us with
added sympathy for his misfortunes.
“God placed thee,” he says, “in the midst of the people even as if thou
hadst been one of the excellent. In this way thou hast taught others,
and hast failed to learn thyself. Thou hast cured others, and thou
thyself hast been still diseased. Thy heart was lifted up at the beauty
of thy own deeds, and through this thou hast lost thy wisdom, and art
become, and shalt be to all eternity, nothing.”
The psychological development of each of the chief characters in this
remarkable book proceeds by a natural law from the antecedents and
surroundings of the individual. We feel as we read that the changes
of thought and motive must have occurred just as they are described,
yet in that description itself it is evident that George Eliot lacks
something of dramatic power. She tells us in great detail what her
characters think and why they act as they do. The highest form of
art would show us this from their own words and actions without the
telling. Her characters are often extremely complex. It might be
harder to make them speak for themselves than in the case of simpler
personages, such as those described by Dickens or Cervantes. Still the
reader will often wish that George Eliot had not told him so much of
motives and reasons, but had left these to necessary inference.
“Romola” is a work not addressed to the great mass of mankind, but
to the student. It presupposes considerable knowledge on the part of
the reader of Italian names, customs, and events. It is evidently the
product of an elaborate study and of a rather intimate knowledge of
Florentine institutions and history. It is essentially accurate in its
description of the public events of the time, although there are some
facts of minor importance which are not confirmed by the most authentic
records.
George Eliot follows the chronological and not the logical order in
her narrative. There is sometimes a lack of vividness which results
from this, and the book as a whole does not impress itself readily
on the memory. There are portions of the work which are overloaded
with details concerning public ceremonies or historical facts, or
illustrating the manners of the people; for instance, the long
description of the festival of San Giovanni in the early part of the
book. Indeed, the feeling is irrepressible that this work, especially
the first half of it, is too prolix, and that unimportant and
subsidiary matters becloud in a measure the essential facts upon which
the tale depends. In the latter part of the work, however, the dramatic
interest of the story becomes more intense, and the narrative proceeds
naturally and directly to the double tragedy with which it closes--the
death of Melema and the execution of Savonarola.
“Romola” is very little like “The Scarlet Letter” either in the
scenes or the construction of the plot. It is far more elaborate than
the American romance, yet there is a close similarity in the methods of
thought of George Eliot and Nathaniel Hawthorne. The husband of Hester
Prynne and the father of Tito Melema appear in the same sinister way,
demanding vengeance. Though Florence is very little like the Puritan
town, religious fanaticism is a prominent feature in both the stories.
The two books leave much the same general impression upon the mind.
CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
FEODOR DOSTOYEVSKY
Dostoyevsky is one of the masters of the Russian realistic school. His
best known novel, “Crime and Punishment,” is a psychological study of
great power. It describes the atrocious murder of two women, an old
money lender and her sister, by a young student, Raskolnikoff, and the
train of events which afterwards led to the confession of the murderer
and his transportation to Siberia.
Raskolnikoff has no sufficient motive for the crime, but he is led by
the contemplation of Napoleon and other great men who have committed
crimes to feel that he, too, is an exceptional creature, authorized
to violate all laws of morality, and that he is guilty of no sin in
killing the old women. His immediate purpose is robbery, to get the
money necessary to prosecute his studies; yet so blunderingly does he
go to work that he secures but little, and can make no use of it. The
way in which his half crazed, vacillating intellect is finally induced
to make a confession, is delineated with great dramatic skill. The
examining magistrate, Porphryrius, also an eccentric, certainly shows
great ability, not only in discerning the criminal, but in bringing him
by gradual steps into a frame of mind which leads to confession, where
there is no other sufficient evidence of guilt.
Most of the individuals described in the book are morbid, and some of
them are grotesque; yet the reader is impressed with the consciousness
that, in spite of inconsistencies and paradoxes, the story must be
essentially true to the peculiar nature of the characters described.
The maudlin babbling of the drunkard Marmeladoff, giving the story of
his debasement and the ruin and dishonor into which he has plunged
his family, is just such talk as that kind of a man would indulge in
when in liquor, and the picture which it sets before us is revolting,
but infinitely pitiful and real. All the dreadful things which happen
afterwards in the drunkard’s household--his tragical death, the
insanity of his wife, and the beggary of their children--lie heavy upon
our hearts, while they convince us that we are in a world where such
things are realities.
In the girl Sonia, the eldest daughter of this household, we have the
remarkable spectacle of a self-sacrificing, devoted and beautiful
character, who has been constrained by necessity and by pity for her
little brothers and sisters into a life of shame.
The most incomprehensible person in the story is one Svidrigailoff, an
unscrupulous man of the world, given to sensuality, who commits suicide
in a most unaccountable way after a nightmare. He is a character which
puts at fault all calculations of what a man will do under given
circumstances.
In strong contrast with the rest of the _dramatis personæ_, the mother
and sister of Raskolnikoff display a dignity, strength of character and
womanly tenderness which show us that Dostoyevsky is able to portray a
normal and healthy character, a thing which might be otherwise in doubt.
This novel, dealing as it does with the submerged tenth of society,
contains such a preponderance of repulsive features that it is by
no means agreeable, nor even desirable, reading for the general
public. Its tendency undoubtedly is to generate some of the morbid
characteristics it describes.
SMOKE
IVAN TURGENIEFF
I have never quite understood the extravagant praises showered
upon Turgenieff by his admirers. A few of his short stories in “A
Sportsman’s Sketches” are very impressive, but his novels never
appeared to me as convincing as those of Tolstoi, nor as vivid as
“Dead Souls,” by Gogol, though they are more highly finished and more
artistic in form. Turgenieff spent most of his life in France, and his
works have distinctly a French flavor. “Smoke” offers perhaps the best
illustration of his distinguishing characteristics. In the preface to a
late edition of this work, a critic declares that it is “in every sense
of the word a classic for all time.” This estimate seems high, though
the book is in many ways a remarkable one.
The scene is laid at Baden-Baden, which for a long time was the
residence of Turgenieff himself. Here we are introduced to a coterie of
Russian “reformers” and “thinkers” of various sorts, who meet at the
apartments of Gubaryoff, “a great man,” who is writing a great work
“about everything” (as the enthusiastic Bambaeff declares), “after the
style of Buckle, you know, but more profound--more profound. Everything
will be solved and made clear in it.” At this meeting there is a
perfect Babel of inane discussion and vociferation.
“Madame Suhantchikoff talked about Garibaldi, about a certain
Karl Ivanovitch, who had been flogged by the serfs of his own
household, about Napoleon III, about women’s work, about a
merchant, Pleskatchoff, who had designedly caused the death of
twelve work-women, and had received a medal for it with the
inscription ‘for public services’; about the proletariat, about
the Georgian Prince Tchuktcheulidzoff, who had shot his wife with
a cannon, and about the future of Russia. Pishtchalkin, too,
talked of the future of Russia, and of the spirit of monopoly,
and of the significance of nationalities, and of how he hated
above everything what was vulgar. There was an outburst all of
a sudden from Voroshiloff; in a single breath, almost choking
himself, he mentioned Draper, Virchow, Shelgunoff, Bichat,
Helmholtz, Starr, Stur, Reiminth, Johann Müller the physiologist,
and Johann Müller the historian--obviously confounding
them--Taine, Renan, Shtchapoff, and then Thomas Nash, Peele,
Greene--‘What sort of queer fish may they be?’ Bambaeff muttered
bewildered. ‘Shakespeare’s predecessors having the same relation
to him as the ranges of the Alps to Mont Blanc,’ Voroshiloff
replied cuttingly, and he too touched on the future of Russia.
Bambaeff also spoke of the future of Russia, and even depicted
it in glowing colors; but he was thrown into special raptures
over the thought of Russian music, in which he saw something.
‘Ah! great indeed!’ and in confirmation he began humming a song
of Varmaloff’s, but was soon interrupted by a general shout,
‘He is singing the Miserere from the Trovatore, and singing it
excruciatingly too.’ One little officer was reciting Russian
literature in the midst of the hubbub; another was quoting verses
from “The Spark”; but Tit Bindasoff went further; he declared
that all these swindlers ought to have their teeth knocked out,
... and that’s all about it, but he did not particularize who
were the swindlers alluded to. The smoke from the cigars became
stifling; all were hot and exhausted, every one was hoarse, all
eyes were growing dim, and the perspiration stood out in drops
on every face. Bottles of iced beer was brought in and drunk off
instantaneously. ‘What was I saying?’ remarked one; ‘And with
whom was I disputing, and about what?’ inquired another. And amid
all the uproar and the smoke, Gubaryoff walked indefatigably up
and down as before, swaying from side to side and twitching at
his beard; now listening, turning an ear to some controversy, now
putting in a word of his own; and every one was forced to feel
that he, Gubaryoff, was the source of it all, that he was the
master here, and the most eminent personality.”
Afterwards we are introduced into high Russian society, whose conduct
is perhaps even more ridiculous. On one occasion it amuses itself
(under the guidance of an American “medium”) in fruitless efforts to
mesmerize a crab. In another place, one Potugin, who is the pessimist
of the book, dissects the shortcomings of Russian character extremely
well.
The story is a very simple one. Litvinoff, betrothed to Tatyana
Shestoff, is lured away by the charms of Irina, a beautiful and
attractive creature to whom he had once been betrothed, but who,
tempted by the allurements of rank and wealth, had discarded him.
Now again he falls madly in love with her. She promises to leave
her husband and to follow him anywhere; but after he has broken his
engagement with Tatyana, she fails again, and he betakes himself
homeward, deeply impressed with the vanity of human life. His
reflections on the journey reveal the theme and motive of the story.
“The wind blew facing the train; whitish clouds of steam, some
singly, others mingled with other darker clouds of smoke, whirled
in endless file past the window at which Litvinoff was sitting.
He began to watch this steam, this smoke. Incessantly mounting,
rising, falling, twisting and hooking on to the grass, to the
bushes, as though in sportive antics, lengthening out, and
hiding away, clouds upon clouds flew by ... they were for ever
changing and stayed still the same in their monotonous, hurrying,
wearisome sport! Sometimes the wind changed, the line bent to
right or left, and suddenly the whole mass vanished, and at once
reappeared at the opposite window; then again the huge tail was
flung out, and again it veiled Litvinoff’s view of the vast plain
of the Rhine. He gazed and gazed, and a strange reverie came
over him.... He was alone in the compartment; there was no one
to disturb him. ‘Smoke, smoke,’ he repeated several times; and
suddenly it all seemed as smoke to him, everything, his own life,
Russian life--everything human, especially everything Russian.
‘All smoke and steam,’ he thought; ‘all seems for ever changing,
on all sides new forms, phantoms flying after phantoms, while
in reality it is all the same and the same again; everything
hurrying, flying towards something, and everything vanishing
without a trace, attaining to nothing; another wind blows, and
all is dashing in the opposite direction, and there again the
same untiring, restless--and useless gambols!’”
At last, however, after some years devoted to conscientious labor upon
his own estate, Litvinoff’s engagement with Tatyana is renewed.
Certainly the character of Irina is well drawn. There is such a mixture
of actual sincerity and deep passion in her intrigues, such a proud
contempt for the petty world around her, such a charming humility in
her momentary repentance, that it is no wonder Litvinoff yields. There
is a striking similarity between this fair creature and Beatrix in
“Henry Esmond,” though one can not but feel that the great English
novelist has drawn his heroine with a more skilful hand. It is said
that one of the mistresses of Alexander II furnished the model for
Irina.
In describing Tatyana Shestoff, the author gives us in a very few words
a charming picture of womanly dignity and reserve, especially in the
scene where Litvinoff tries to tell her that he no longer loves her.
Occasionally, in sketching his characters, Turgenieff can set before
you in a short sentence a very lively picture. Take for instance, the
following description of Bambaeff:
“He was no longer young; he had a flabby nose and soft cheeks,
that looked as if they had been boiled, dishevelled greasy
locks, and a fat squat person. Everlastingly short of cash,
everlastingly in raptures over something, Rostislaff Bambaeff
wandered, aimless but exclamatory, over the face of our
long-suffering mother-earth.”
LORNA DOONE
RICHARD BLACKMORE
How much the apparent merit of a book depends upon the mood in which
we peruse it! When I first read “Lorna Doone” I went over it rapidly,
anxious to extract the meat of it as quickly as possible; and while I
found many quaint observations and poetical descriptions, the style was
diffuse and sometimes crabbed, the narrative was often tedious, and to
my mind the book was lacking in fidelity to truth and deep knowledge of
human nature. The love passages seemed particularly weak, and I found
it hard to understand how a dull-witted countryman, such as John Ridd
declares himself to be, could write so well and so ill in different
places.
But “Lorna Doone” must not be read in that way. When I took it up
a second time, lingering over some of the more striking portions of
it and no longer disturbing myself about the plot, I found it quite
different from what it had seemed to me at first. It is a story unlike
any other, and with a charm which is all its own. The deliberate
minuteness of the narrative interferes indeed with the action of the
characters and the dramatic power of the tale--it is hard to seize the
salient points in it; it seems lacking in perspective; the picture is
like one of the very old masters, to be studied more in detail than as
a whole. The characterization of most of the personages is not very
striking, and yet there is one that is finely drawn--that of John Ridd
himself; for it is he, and not Lorna, who is the chief personage of the
story. Here the archaic diction, the homespun phrases, the Anglo-Saxon
vocabulary, and the quaint philosophy show very plainly the essential
characteristics of the narrator, a modest, sturdy, honest, big-hearted
farmer, Herculean, slow in speech and in wrath, but terrible when
aroused. The roots of his character are planted deep in the soil. “I
feel,” he says, “with every blade of grass as if it had a history,
and make a child of every bud, as if it knew and loved me.” He is a
lover both of nature and his kind, such a man in a smaller sphere as
our Lincoln must have been. What wonderful descriptions of farm life,
of the ducks, the pigs, the horses, the birds, as well as of natural
phenomena, the sunsets, the deep Doone valley, the great snowstorm
which buried all the earth!
Many of the scenes are admirably described, as where he watches the
passing of the bandits along the Doone track and sees the figure of
the little girl thrown across the saddle; the murder of his father by
the outlaws and his mother’s solitary visit to the stronghold of the
murderers in vain quest of justice; his first expedition to the Doone
Valley, and his meeting with the beautiful girl who afterwards becomes
his wife; his interview with the terrible Chief Justice Jeffreys, whose
eyes “were holes for the devil to glare from”; and, finest of all, the
sad story told by Benita, the Italian maid, of the fate of Lorna’s
parents and the attack upon the coach when Lorna was carried away. Such
excellences are more than enough to redeem the tediousness of the less
important parts of the book, and to entitle it to a high as well as a
unique place in literature.
ANNA KARENINA
LEO TOLSTOI
There are a few great works, both in art and literature, which impress
us not so much by their beauty as by their compelling power. No one
can listen to the “Ring of the Nibelungs” without feeling the hand of
a master in the creation of the harmonies it contains. No one can look
on the figures painted by Michael Angelo on the ceiling of the Sistine
Chapel without a sense of awe in the presence of forms of such majesty
and power. The nameless bronze by St. Gaudens, known as the Adams
Monument, in the Rock Creek Cemetery at Washington will impose silence
upon a chattering group of visitors the moment they enter the enclosure
of evergreens that surrounds it. The rage of Othello and the horror
of Macbeth make us shudder whether we will or no. Dante has the same
commanding power over his readers.
Among the writers of fiction there is none who impress us in this way
more profoundly than Tolstoi. His novels are often quite formless.
There is no carefully developed plot, as with Scott or Wilkie Collins.
The characters are by no means so strongly marked, they are neither
so admirable nor so detestable as those of Dickens or of Victor Hugo.
There is little humor in the narrative. The conversation is seldom
brilliant, and is sometimes tedious. The style has no ornamentation,
yet its very simplicity commands, and while we read we feel that we are
in the hands of a master.
Probably no one since Shakespeare has had the power of penetrating the
springs of human thought and action more accurately than Tolstoi. He
startles us with revelations of traits in our own character which we
have never realized, or instants in our own lives which we have never
recalled before and which we recognize at once when we see them upon
his pages, so that at every turn we exclaim, “How true that is! I have
known that myself!” He is the greatest of all realists--not a mere
photographer, for the photographer reproduces the insignificant and
the unessential. Tolstoi gives us no long preliminary descriptions of
persons or things, such as we find in Balzac or Walter Scott, but the
really suggestive fact or trait appears at the right moment and gives
a vividness and reality to the picture which no detailed account could
ever convey.