jewels, so is this book, full of brightness that dazzles, yet does not
weary, of rich mosaic beauty of sensuous softness. Yet, with it all,
there is a singular lack of elevation of thought and expression;
everything tends to degrade, to drag the mind to a worse than earthly
level. The crudity of the warriors, the minute description of the
battles, the leper, Hann; even the sensual love-scene of Salammbo and
Matho, and the rites of Taint and Moloch. Possibly this is due to the
peculiar shortness and crispness of the sentences, and the painstaking
attention to details. Nothing is left for the imagination to complete.
The slightest turn of the hand, the smallest bit of tapestry and
armor,--all, all is described until one's brain becomes weary with the
scintillating flash of minutia. Such careful attention wearies and
disappoints, and sometimes, instead of photographing the scenes
indelibly upon the mental vision, there ensues only a confused mass of
armor and soldiers, plains and horses.
But the description of action and movement are incomparable, resembling
somewhat, in the rush and flow of words, the style of Victor Hugo; the
breathless rush and fire, the restrained passion and fury of a
master-hand.
Throughout the whole book this peculiarity is noticeable--there are no
dissertations, no pauses for the author to express his opinions, no
stoppages to reflect,--we are rushed onward with almost breathless
haste, and many times are fain to pause and re-read a sentence, a
paragraph, sometimes a whole page. Like the unceasing motion of a column
of artillery in battle, like the roar and fury of the Carthaginian's
elephant, so is the torrent of Flanbert's eloquence--majestic, grand,
intense, with nobility, sensuous, but never sublime, never elevating,
never delicate.
As an historian, Flanbert would have ranked high--at least in
impartiality. Not once in the whole volume does he allow his prejudices,
his opinions, his sentiments to crop out. We lose complete sight of the
author in his work. With marvellous fidelity he explains the movements,
the vices and the virtues of each party, and with Shakespearean tact, he
conceals his identity, so that we are troubled with none of that Byronic
vice of 'dipping one's pen into one's self.'
Still, for all the historian's impartiality, he is just a trifle
incorrect, here and there--the ancients mention no aqueduct in or near
Carthage. Hann was not crucified outside of Tunis. The incident of the
Carthaginian women cutting off their tresses to furnish strings for bows
and catapults is generally conceded to have occurred during the latter
portion of the third Punic War. And still another difficulty presents
itself--Salammbo was supposed to have been the only daughter of
Hamilcar; according to Flanbert she dies unmarried, or rather on her
wedding day, and yet historians tell us that after the death of the
elder Barca, Hannibal was brought up and watched over by Hamilcar's
son-in-law, Hasdrubal. Can it be possible that the crafty Numidian King,
Nari Havas, is the intrepid, fearless and whole-souled Hasdrubal? Or is
it only another deviation from the beaten track of history? In a
historical novel, however, and one so evidently arranged for dramatic
effects, such lapses from the truth only heighten the interest and
kindle the imagination to a brighter flame.
The school of realism of which Zola, Tolstoi, De Maupassant, and others
of that ilk are followers, claims its descent from the author of
Salammbo. Perhaps their claim is well-founded, perhaps not; we are
inclined to believe that it is, for every page in this novel is crowded
with details, often disgusting, which are generally left out in ordinary
works. The hideous deformity, the rottenness and repulsiveness of the
leper Hann is brought out in such vivid detail that we sicken and fain
would turn aside in disgust. But go where one will, the ghastly,
quivering, wretched picture is always before us in all its filth and
splendid misery. The reeking horrors of the battle-fields, the
disgusting details of the army imprisoned in the defile of the
battle-axe, the grimness of the sacrifices to the blood-thirsty god,
Moloch, the wretchedness of Hamilcar's slaves are presented with every
ghastly detail, with every degrading trick of expression. Picture after
picture of misery and foulness arises and pursues us as the grim witches
pursued the hapless Tam O'Shanter, clutching us in ghastly arms,
clinging to us with grim and ghoulish tenacity.
Viewing the character through the genteel crystal of nineteenth century
civilization, they are all barbarous, unnatural, intensified; but
considering the age in which they lived--the tendencies of that age, the
gods they worshipped, the practices in which they indulged,--they are
all true to life, perfect in the depiction of their natures. Spendius is
a true Greek, crafty, lying, deceitful, ungrateful. Hamilcar needs no
novelist to crystallize his character in words, he always remains the
same Hamilcar of history, so it is with Hann; but to Flanbert alone are
we indebted for the hideous realism of his external aspect. Matho is a
dusky son of Libya,--fierce, passionate, resentful, unbridled in his
speech and action, swept by the hot breath of furious love as his native
sands are swept by the burning simoon. Salammbo, cold and strange
delving deep in the mysticism of the Carthaginian gods, living apart
from human passions in her intense love for the goddess, Tanit;
Salammbo, in the earnest excess of her religious fervor, eagerly
accepting the mission given her by the puzzled Saracharabim; Salammbo,
twining the gloomy folds of the python about her perfumed limbs;
Salammbo, resisting, then yielding to the fierce love of Matho;
Salammbo, dying when her erstwhile lover expires; Salammbo, in all her
many phases reminds us of some early Christian martyr or saint, though
the sweet spirit of the Great Teacher is hidden in the punctual devotion
to the mysterious rites of Tanit. She is an inexplicable mixture of the
tropical exotic and the frigid snow-flower,--a rich and rare growth that
attracts and repulses, that interests and absorbs, that we
admire--without loving, detest--without hating.
LEGEND OF THE NEWSPAPER.
Poets sing and fables tell us,
Or old folk lore whispers low,
Of the origin of all things,
Of the spring from whence they came,
Kalevala, old and hoary,
Æneid, Iliad, Æsop, too,
All are filled with strange quaint legends,
All replete with ancient tales,--
How love came, and how old earth,
Freed from chaos, grew for us,
To a green and wondrous spheroid,
To a home for things alive;
How fierce fire and iron cold,
How the snow and how the frost,--
All these things the old rhymes ring,
All these things the old tales tell.
Yet they ne'er sang of the beginning,
Of that great unbreathing angel,
Of that soul without a haven,
Of that gracious Lady Bountiful,
Yet they ne'er told how it came here;
Ne'er said why we read it daily,
Nor did they even let us guess why
We were left to tell the tale.
Came one day into the wood-land,
Muckintosh, the great and mighty,
Muckintosh, the famous thinker,
He whose brain was all his weapons,
As against his rival's soarings,
High unto the vaulted heavens,
Low adown the swarded earth,
Rolled he round his gaze all steely,
And his voice like music prayed:
"Oh, Creator, wondrous Spirit,
Thou who hast for us descended
In the guise of knowledge mighty,
And our brains with truth o'er-flooded;
In the greatness of thy wisdom,
Knowest not our limitations?
Wondrous thoughts have we, thy servants,
Wondrous things we see each day,
Yet we cannot tell our brethren,
Yet we cannot let them know,
Of our doings and our happenings,
Should they parted be from us?
Help us, oh, Thou Wise Creator,
From the fulness of thy wisdom,
Show us how to spread our knowledge,
And disseminate our actions,
Such as we find worthy, truly."
Quick the answer came from heaven;
Muckintosh, the famous thinker,
Muckintosh, the great and mighty,
Felt a trembling, felt a quaking,
Saw the earth about him open,
Saw the iron from the mountains
Form a quaint and queer machine,
Saw the lead from out the lead mines
Roll into small lettered forms,
Saw the fibres from the flax-plant,
Spread into great sheets of paper,
Saw the ink galls from the green trees
Crushed upon the leaden forms;
Muckintosh, the famous thinker,
Muckintosh, the great and mighty,
Felt a trembling, felt a quaking,
Saw the earth about him open,
Saw the flame and sulphur smoking,
Came the printer's little devil,
Far from distant lands the printer,
Man of unions, man of cuss-words,
From the depths of sooty blackness;
Came the towel of the printer;
Many things that Muckintosh saw,--
Galleys, type, and leads and rules,
Presses, press-men, quoins and spaces,
Quads and caps and lower cases.
But to Muckintosh bewildered,
All this passed as in a dream,
Till within his nervous hand,
Hand with joy and fear a-quaking,
Muckintosh, the great and mighty,
Muckintosh, the famous thinker,
Held the first of our newspapers.
A CARNIVAL JANGLE.
There is a merry jangle of bells in the air, an all-pervading sense of
jester's noise, and the flaunting vividness of royal colors; the streets
swarm with humanity,--humanity in all shapes, manners, forms,--laughing,
pushing, jostling, crowding, a mass of men and women and children, as
varied and as assorted in their several individual peculiarities as ever
a crowd that gathered in one locality since the days of Babel.
It is Carnival in New Orleans; a brilliant Tuesday in February, when the
very air effervesces an ozone intensely exhilarating--of a nature half
spring, half winter--to make one long to cut capers. The buildings are a
blazing mass of royal purple and golden yellow, and national flags,
bunting and decorations that laugh in the glint of the Midas sun. The
streets a crush of jesters and maskers, Jim Crows and clowns, ballet
girls and Mephistos, Indians and monkeys; of wild and sudden flashes of
music, of glittering pageants and comic ones, of befeathered and belled
horses. A madding dream of color and melody and fantasy gone wild in an
effervescent bubble of beauty that shifts and changes and passes
kaleidoscope-like before the bewildered eye.
A bevy of bright-eyed girls and boys of that uncertainty of age that
hovers between childhood and maturity, were moving down Canal Street
when there was a sudden jostle with another crowd meeting them. For a
minute there was a deafening clamor of laughter, cracking of whips,
which all maskers carry, jingle and clatter of carnival bells, and the
masked and unmasked extricated themselves and moved from each other's
paths. But in the confusion a tall Prince of Darkness had whispered to
one of the girls in the unmasked crowd: "You'd better come with us, Flo,
you're wasting time in that tame gang. Slip off, they'll never miss
you; we'll get you a rig, and show you what life is."
And so it happened that when a half hour passed, and the bright-eyed
bevy missed Flo and couldn't find her, wisely giving up the search at
last, that she, the quietest and most bashful of the lot, was being
initiated into the mysteries of "what life is."
Down Bourbon Street and on Toulouse and St. Peter Streets there are
quaint little old-world places, where one may be disguised effectually
for a tiny consideration. Thither guided by the shapely Mephisto, and
guarded by the team of jockeys and ballet girls, tripped Flo. Into one
of the lowest-ceiled, dingiest and most ancient-looking of these
disguise shops they stopped.
"A disguise for this demoiselle," announced Mephisto to the woman who
met them. She was small and wizened and old, with yellow, flabby jaws
and neck like the throat of an alligator, and straight, white hair that
stood from her head uncannily stiff.
"But the demoiselle wishes to appear a boy, _un petit garcon_?" she
inquired, gazing eagerly at Flo's long, slender frame. Her voice was old
and thin, like the high quavering of an imperfect tuning fork, and her
eyes were sharp as talons in their grasping glance.
"Mademoiselle does not wish such a costume," gruffly responded Mephisto.
"_Ma foi_, there is no other," said the ancient, shrugging her
shoulders. "But one is left now, mademoiselle would make a fine
troubadour."
"Flo," said Mephisto, "it's a dare-devil scheme, try it; no one will
ever know it but us, and we'll die before we tell. Besides, we must;
it's late, and you couldn't find your crowd."
And that was why you might have seen a Mephisto and a slender troubadour
of lovely form, with mandolin flung across his shoulder, followed by a
bevy of jockeys and ballet girls, laughing and singing as they swept
down Rampart Street.
When the flash and glare and brilliancy of Canal Street have palled upon
the tired eye, and it is yet too soon to go home, and to such a prosaic
thing as dinner, and one still wishes for novelty, then it is wise to go
in the lower districts. Fantasy and fancy and grotesqueness in the
costuming and behavior of the maskers run wild. Such dances and whoops
and leaps as these hideous Indians and devils do indulge in; such wild
curvetings and great walks. And in the open squares, where whole groups
do congregate, it is wonderfully amusing. Then, too, there is a ball in
every available hall, a delirious ball, where one may dance all day for
ten cents; dance and grow mad for joy, and never know who were your
companions, and be yourself unknown. And in the exhilaration of the day,
one walks miles and miles, and dances and curvets, and the fatigue is
never felt.
In Washington Square, away down where Royal Street empties its stream
of children and men into the broad channel of Elysian Fields Avenue,
there was a perfect Indian dance. With a little imagination one might
have willed away the vision of the surrounding houses and fancied one's
self again in the forest, where the natives were holding a sacred riot.
The square was filled with spectators, masked and unmasked. It was
amusing to watch these mimic Red-men, they seemed so fierce and earnest.
Suddenly one chief touched another on the elbow. "See that Mephisto and
troubadour over there?" he whispered huskily.
"Yes, who are they?"
"I don't know the devil," responded the other quietly, "but I'd know
that other form anywhere. It's Leon, see? I know those white hands like
a woman's and that restless head. Ha!
"But there may be a mistake."
"No. I'd know that one anywhere; I feel it's him. I'll pay him now. Ah,
sweetheart, you've waited long, but you shall feast now!" He was
caressing something long, and lithe, and glittering beneath his blanket.
In a masked dance it is easy to give a death-blow between the shoulders.
Two crowds meet and laugh and shout and mingle almost inextricably, and
if a shriek of pain should arise, it is not noticed in the din, and when
they part, if one should stagger and fall bleeding to the ground, who
can tell who has given the blow? There is naught but an unknown stiletto
on the ground, the crowd has dispersed, and masks tell no tales anyway.
There is murder, but by whom? for what? _Quien sabe?_
And that is how it happened on Carnival night, in the last mad moments
of Rex's reign, a broken-hearted woman sat gazing wide-eyed and mute at
a horrible something that lay across the bed. Outside the long sweet
march music of many bands floated in in mockery, and the flash of
rockets and Bengal lights illumined the dead, white face of the girl
troubadour.
PAUL TO VIRGINIA.
FIN DE SIECLE.
I really must confess, my dear,
I cannot help but love you,
For of all girls I ever knew,
There's none I place above you;
But then you know it's rather hard,
To dangle aimless at your skirt,
And watch your every movement so,
_For I am jealous, and you're a flirt_.
There's half a score of fellows round,
You smile at every one,
And as I think to pride myself for basking in the sun
Of your sweet smiles, you laugh at me,
And treat me like a lump of dirt,
Until I wish that I were dead,
_For I am jealous, and you're a flirt_.
I'm sorry that I've ever known
Your loveliness entrancing,
Or ever saw your laughing eyes,
With girlish mischief dancing;
'Tis agony supreme and rare
To see your slender waist a-girt
With other fellows' arms, you see,
_For I am jealous, and you're a flirt_.
Now, girlie, if you'll promise me,
To never, never treat me mean,
I'll show you in a little while,
The best sweetheart you've ever seen;
You do not seem to know or care,
How often you've my feelings hurt,
While flying round with other boys,
_For I am jealous, and you're a flirt_.
THE MAIDEN'S DREAM.
The maid had been reading love-poetry, where the world lay bathed in
moon-light, fragrant with dew-wet roses and jasmine, harmonious with the
clear tinkle of mandolin and guitar. Then a lethargy, like unto that
which steeps the senses, and benumbs the faculties of the lotus-eaters,
enveloped her brain, and she lay as one in a trance,--awake, yet
sleeping; conscious, yet unburdened with care.
And there stole into her consciousness, words, thoughts, not of her own,
yet she read them not, nor heard them spoken; they fell deep into her
heart and soul, softer and more caressing than the over-shadowing wing
of a mother-dove, sweeter and more thrilling than the last high notes of
a violin, and they were these:--
Love, most potent, most tyrannical, and most gentle of the passions
which sway the human mind, thou art the invisible agency which rules
mens' souls, which governs mens' kingdoms, which controls the universe.
By thy mighty will do the silent, eternal hosts of Heaven sweep in
sublime procession across the unmeasured blue. The perfect harmony of
the spheres is attuned for thee, and by thee; the perfect coloring of
the clouds, than which no mortal pigment can dare equal, are thy
handiwork. Most ancient of the heathen deities, Eros; powerful God of
the Christians, Jehovah, all hail! For a brief possession of thy divine
fire have kingdoms waxed and waned; men in all the bitterness of hatred
fought, bled, died by millions, their grosser selves to be swept into
the bosom of their ancient mother, an immense holocaust to thee. For
thee and thee alone does the world prosper, for thee do men strive to
become better than their fellow-men; for thee, and through thee have
they sunk to such depths of degradation as causes a blush to be painted
upon the faces of those that see. All things are subservient to thee.
All the delicate intricate workings of that marvellous machine, the
human brain; all the passions and desires of the human heart,--ambition,
desire, greed, hatred, envy, jealousy, all others. Thou breedst them
all, O love, thou art all-potent, all-wise, infinite, eternal! Thy power
is felt by mortals in all ages, all climes, all conditions. Behold!
A picture came into the maiden's eye: a broad and fertile plain, tender
verdure, soft blue sky overhead, with white billowy clouds nearing the
horizon like great airy, snow-capped mountains. The soft warm breeze
from the south whispered faintly through the tall, slender palms and
sent a thrill of joy through the frisky lambkins, who capered by the
sides of their graver dams. And there among the riches of the flock
stood Laban, haughty, stern, yet withal a kindly gleam in the glance
which rested upon the group about him. Hoary the beard that rested upon
his breast, but steady the hand that stretched in blessing. Leah, the
tender-eyed, the slighted, is there; and Rachel, young and beautiful and
blushing beneath the ardent gaze of her handsome lover. "And Jacob loved
Rachel, and said, I will serve thee seven years for Rachel, thy younger
daughter."
How different the next scene! Heaven's wrath burst loose upon a single
community. Fire, the red-winged demon with brazen throat wide opened,
hangs his brooding wings upon an erstwhile happy city. Hades has climbed
through the crater of Vesuvius, and leaps in fiendish waves along the
land. Few the souls escaping, and God have mercy upon those who stumble
through the blinding darkness, made more torturingly hideous by the
intermittent flashes of lurid light. And yet there come three, whom the
darkness seems not to deter, nor obstacles impede. Only a blind person,
accustomed to constant darkness, and familiarized with these streets
could walk that way. Nearer they come, a burst of flames thrown into the
inky firmament by impish hands, reveals Glaucus, supporting the
half-fainting Ione, following Nydia, frail, blind, flower-loving Nydia,
sacrificing life for her unloving beloved.
And then the burning southern sun shone bright and golden o'er the
silken sails of the Nile serpent's ships; glinted on the armor and
weapons of the famous galley; shone with a warm caressing touch upon her
beauty, as though it loved this queen, as powerful in her sphere as he
in his. It is at Actium, and the fate of nations and generations yet
unborn hang, as the sword of Damocles hung, upon the tiny thread of
destiny. Egypt herself, her splendid barbaric beauty acting like an
inspiration upon the craven followers, leads on, foremost in this fierce
struggle. Then, the tide turns, and overpowered, they fly before
disgrace and defeat. Antony is there, the traitor, dishonored, false to
his country, yet true to his love; Antony, whom ambition could not lure
from her passionate caresses; Antony, murmuring softly,--
Egypt, thou knowest too well
My heart was to thy rudder tied by the strings,
And thou should'st tow me after.
Over my spirit
Thy full supremacy thou knewest,
And that thy beck might from the bidding of the gods
Command me.
Picture after picture flashed through the maiden's mind. Agnes, the
gentle, sacrificing, burrowing like some frantic animal through the
ruins of Lisbon, saving her lover, Franklin, by teeth and bleeding
hands. Dora, the patient, serving a loveless existence, saving her rival
from starvation and destitution. The stern, dark, exiled Florentine
poet, with that one silver ray in his clouded life--Beatrice.
She heard the piping of an elfish voice, "Mother, why does the minister
keep his hands over his heart?" and the white drawn face of Hester
Prynne, with her scarlet elf-child, passed slowly across her vision. The
wretched misery of deluded Lucius and his mysterious Lamia she saw, and
watched with breathless interest the formation of that "Brotherhood of
the Rose." There was radiant Armorel, from sea-blown, wave-washed
Lyonesse, her perfect head poised in loving caress over the magic
violin. Dark-eyed Corinne, head drooped gently as she improvised those
Rome-famed world symphonies passed, almost ere Edna and St. Elmo had
crossed the threshold of the church happy in the love now consecrated
through her to God. Oh, the pictures, the forms, the love-words which
crowded her mind! They thrilled her heart, crushed out all else save a
crushing, over-powering sense of perfect, complete joy. A joy that
sought to express itself in wondrous melodies and silences, filled with
thoughts too deep and sacred for words. Overpowered with the
magnificence of his reign, overwhelmed with the complete subjugation of
all things unto him, do you wonder that she awoke and placing both hands
into those of the lover at her side, whispered:--
Take all of me--I am thine own, heart, soul,
Brain, body, all; all that I am or dream
Is thine forever; yea, though space should teem
With thy conditions, I'd fulfil the whole,
Were to fulfil them to be loved by thee.
IN MEMORIAM.
The light streams through the windows arched high,
And o'er the stern, stone carvings breaks
In warm rich gold and crimson waves,
Then steals away in corners dark to die.
And all the grand cathedral silence falls
Into the hearts of those that worship low,
Like tender waves of hushed nothingness,
Confined nor kept by human earthly walls.
Deep music in its thundering organ sounds,
Grows diffuse through the echoing space,
Till hearts grow still in sadness' mighty joy,
Or leap aloft in swift ecstatic bounds.
Mayhap 'twas but a dream that came to me,
Or but a vision of the soul's desire,
To see the nation in one mighty whole,
Do homage on its bended, worshipping knee.