Greeks and Romans) was, I believe, a Pope--Pius II. It is not what
we have come to expect from the Vatican; but his novel, I ought to
add, was “only a little one.” The second, if I don’t mistake, was
Mademoiselle de Scudéry, who did the thing on a large scale. _Artamène,
ou Le Grand Cyrus_ is in twenty volumes; and though men be so strong
(some of them) as to have read it, it is not unkind to say that, for
the general, it is as dead as King Pandion. “Works,” then, won’t secure
more for an author than his name in a dictionary. You must have quality
to do that. The little _Princesse de Clèves_, written by a contemporary
of Mademoiselle’s, all compact in a small octavo of 170 pp., has
quality. First published in 1678, at this hour, says Mr. Ashton, in
his study of its author,[2] “there are preparing simultaneously an art
edition, a critical edition, and an édition de luxe, to say nothing of
the popular edition, which has just appeared.” Here is “that eternity
of fame,” or something like it, hoped for by the poet. I suppose the
nearest we can approach to that would be _Robinson Crusoe_.
The authoress of the little classic was Marie-Madeleine Pioche de La
Vergne, who was born in 1634. She was of _petite noblesse_ on both
sides, but her mother’s remarriage to the Chevalier Renaud de Sévigné
lifted her into high society, and brought her acquainted with the
incomparable Marquise. If it had done nothing else for her, in doing
that it served two delightful women, and the world ever after. But it
did more. It procured for Mlle. de La Vergne her entry to the Hôtel
de Rambouillet; it gave her the wits for her masters; it gave her the
companionship of La Rochefoucauld; and it gave _us_ the Princesse de
Clèves. She married, or was married to, a provincial seigneur of so
little importance that everybody thought he was separated from his wife
some twenty years before he was. When separation did come, it was only
that insisted on by death; and through Mr. Ashton’s diligence we now
know when he died. Nothing about him, however, seems to matter much,
except the bare possibility that the relations between him, his wife,
and La Rochefoucauld, which may have been difficult and must have been
delicate, may also have given Madame de Lafayette the theme of her
novels.
She wrote three novels altogether, and it is a curious thing about them
that they all deal with the same subject--namely, jealousy. Love, of
course, the everlasting French triangular love, is at the bottom of
them: inclination and duty contend for the heroine. But the jealousy
which consumes husband and lover alike is the real theme. Only in
the _Princesse de Clèves_ is the treatment fresh, the subject deeply
plumbed, the _dénoument_ original and unexpected. Those valuable
considerations, and the eloquence with which they are brought to bear,
may account for its instant popularity. It has another quality which
recommends it to readers of to-day--psychology. To a surprising extent,
considering its epoch, it does consider of men and women from within
outwards--not as clothes-props to be decked with rhetoric, but as
reasonable souls in human bodies, and sometimes as unreasonable souls.
Here’s the story. Mademoiselle de Chartres, a high-born young beauty
of the Court of Henri II--is there any other novel in the world the
name of whose heroine is never revealed?--is married by her mother in
the opening pages to the Prince de Clèves, without inclination of her
own, or any marked distaste. The prince, we are told, is “parfaitement
bien fait,” brave, splendid, “with a prudence which is not at all
consistent with youth.” I do not learn that he was, in fact, a youth.
All goes well, nevertheless, until the return to Court of a certain Duc
de Nemours, a renowned breaker of hearts, more brave, more splendid,
more “bien fait,” and much less prudent, certainly, than the Prince de
Clèves. He arrives during a ball at the Louvre; Madame de Clèves nearly
steps into his arms by accident; their eyes meet; his are dazzled, hers
troubled, and the seed is sown. For a space of time she does not know
that she loves, or guess that _he_ does: the necessary discoveries are
provided for by some very good inventions. An accident to Nemours in a
tournament, in the trouble which it causes her, reveals him the truth;
his stealing of her picture, which she happens to witness, reveals it
to her.
Discovery of the state of affairs, naturally, spurs the young man;
but it terrifies the lady. Greatly agitated, she prevails upon her
unsuspecting lord to take her into the country. Nemours follows them,
as she presently learns. Then, when her husband insists on her return
with him to Paris and the daily intercourse with the person she dreads,
driven into a corner, she confesses that she dare not obey him, since
her heart is not her own. Nothing will induce her to say more; and
the prince, disturbed as he is, is greatly touched by the nobility
and candour of her avowal. Unfortunately, he is not the only one to
be touched; for Nemours, who had been on the point of paying a visit
to his enchantress, stands in the ante-room and overhears the whole
conversation. He knew it all before, no doubt--but wait a moment. He is
so exalted by the sense of his mistress’s virtue that, on his way back
to Paris, he casts the whole story into a tale of “a friend” of his,
but with such a spirit of conviction thrilling in his tones, that it is
quite easy for him who receives it to be certain that “the friend” was
Nemours himself. That is really excellent invention, quite unforced,
and as simple as kissing. Naturally the tale is repeated, and puts
husband and wife at cross-purposes, since it makes either suspect the
other of having betrayed the secret. More, it tells the husband the
name of his wife’s lover. Further misunderstandings ensue, and last of
all, the husband dies of it. I confess that that seems to me rather
stiff. Men have died and worms have eaten them--but not the worms of
jealousy.
The end of the book is perfectly original. When her grief and remorse
have worn themselves out, what is to prevent the lovers coming
together? A curious blend in her of piety and prudence, which again
seems to me very reasonable. Madame de Clèves feels that, practically,
Nemours was the death of her husband. He had not meant to be, did not
suspect that he was: she knows that, and allows that time might work
in his favour. “M. de Clèves,” she admits, “has only just expired,
and the melancholy object is too close at hand to allow me to take a
clear view of things.” Leave all that to time, then, by all means. But,
says she, at this moment “I am happy in the certainty of your love;
and though I know that my own will last for ever, can I be so sure of
yours? Do men keep their passion alight in these lifelong unions? Have
I the right to expect a miracle in my favour? Dare I put myself in the
position of seeing the certain end of that passion which constitutes
the whole of my happiness?” M. de Clèves, she goes on, was remarkable
for constancy--a lover throughout his married life. Was it not probable
that that was precisely because she did not at all respond? “You,” she
tells the young man, “have had many affairs of the heart, and will no
doubt have more. I shall not always be your happiness. I shall see you
kneel to some other woman as now you kneel to me.” No--she prefers him
to dangle, “always to be blest!” “I believe,” she owns, with remarkable
frankness, “that as the memory of M. de Clèves would be weakened
were it not kept awake by the interests of my peace of mind, so also
those interests themselves have need to be kept alive in me by the
remembrance of my duty.” This lady would rather be loved than love, it
is clear; but how long M. de Nemours would continue to sigh, being
given so unmistakably to understand that there would be nothing to sigh
for, is not so well established.
He was very much distressed, but she would not budge. “The reasons that
she had for not marrying again appeared to her strong on the score of
duty, insurmountable on that of repose.” So she retired to a convent,
“and her life, which was not a long one, left behind her an example of
inimitable virtues.”
So far as we are concerned to-day, the _Princesse de Clèves_ lives
upon its psychological insight. But for that I don’t see how it could
possibly have survived. It is a recital, in solid blocks of narrative
interspersed with harangues. It is extremely well-written in a terse,
measured style of the best tradition; Love is its only affair; nobody
under the rank of a Duke is referred to; as Horace Walpole said of
Vauxhall in its glory, the floor seems to be of beaten princes. None of
these excellencies are in its favour to-day. Why then does it exist?
Because it exhibits mental process logically and amusingly; and because
it offers a fresh and striking aspect of a situation as old as Abraham.
FOOTNOTE:
[2] _Madame de Lafayette: La vie et ses Œuvres_, par H. Ashton.
Cambridge University Press.
THE OTHER DOROTHY
Two Dorothys in our literature showed themselves worthy of a name
declaratory of so much. Dorothy Osborne was one, Dorothy Wordsworth,
much more famous, was another. If I were teacher of the Sixth Form in
a girls’ school I should take my class methodically through the pair,
satisfied that if I did my duty by them it would have as fair a view
of the moral and mystical philosophy of its sex as needs could ask
or require. The text-books exist; little but appreciation could be
expected from the teacher. Dorothy Wordsworth’s Letters and Journals
fill the better part of three small volumes. They need but little
annotation, save cross-references to her brother’s poems, and to
Coleridge’s. She was the muse of those two, and had perhaps more of
the soul, or substance, of poetry in her than either. They informed
what she taught them, and she taught them through the great years.
Of the two Dorothean voices hers was of the heights. More beautiful
interpretation of nature hardly exists in our tongue. “She tells us
much, but implies more. We may see deeply into ourselves, but she sees
deeply into a deeper self than most of us can discern. It is not only
that, knowing her, we are grounded in the rudiments of honour and
lovely living; it is to learn that human life can be so lived, and to
conclude that of that at least is the Kingdom of Heaven.” If I quote
from a paragraph of my own about her, it is only to save myself from
saying the same thing in other words. It is the only thing to say of a
woman long enskied and sainted by her lovers.
Dorothy Osborne, whose little budget of seventy-seven letters and a
few scraps more has been exquisitely edited by the late Judge Parry,
did not dwell apart: starry as she was, she was much before her world.
She was daughter of a stout old cavalier, Sir Peter, and shared with
him the troubles of Civil War and sequestration of goods under the
Commonwealth. For six years, also, she was the lover and beloved of
William Temple, whom, until the end of that term, she had little hope
or prospect of marrying. Her father and his had other ideas of the
marriage of their children, and means of carrying them out. Sir Peter
Osborne had lost heavily by his defence of Guernsey for the King, and
sought to re-establish himself in the settlement of Dorothy. Sir John
Temple gave his son an allowance and was not disposed to increase it,
except for a handsome equivalent from the other side. When Sir Peter
died it was no better. Dorothy’s brothers brought up suitor after
suitor, of whom Henry Cromwell, the Protector’s second son, was the
most formidable, and Sir Justinian Isham, an elderly widower, with
four daughters older than herself, the most persistent. She was fairly
beset; and when she made her guardians understand that her heart was
fixed, the truth came out that they disliked and distrusted William
Temple. They doubted his principles, accused him of being sceptical in
religion, and (not without cause) of lukewarmness in politics. Temple
was a prudent youth, and was already on the fence, which he rarely
left all his life. During the Commonwealth he was a good deal abroad,
but whether abroad or at home, neither for the King nor his enemies.
He was moderately educated--Macaulay says that he had no Greek--but it
may have been too much for the Osbornes. Possibly he gave himself airs,
though Dorothy did not think so. However it was, the lovers could only
meet by accident, and must correspond under cover. That correspondence,
a year and a half of it, is all we have of her writing, and good as it
is, the thing it does best of all is to measure the extent of our loss.
Love-letters apart--and there must have been the worth of five years or
more of them lost--she was writing, we hear, at one time weekly to her
bosom-friend, Lady Diana Rich, a beauty of whose mind she had as high
an opinion as of her person. All that has gone. Later, when she had
been many years married, she made another close friend in Queen Mary
II, but the letters which went to her address in what a relative of
Dorothy’s describes as a “constant correspondence,” letters which were
greatly admired for their “fine style, delicate turn of wit and good
sense,” are supposed to have been burnt among her private papers just
before the Queen died. So they have gone too, and with them what chance
we may have had--as I think, a fair chance--of possessing ourselves of
a native Madame de Sévigné. It does not do, and is foolish, to press
might-have-beens too far, if only because you cannot press them home.
How are you to set off seventy-odd letters, for one thing, against
seventeen hundred? There are obvious parallels, however, with Madame
de Sévigné which there is no harm in remarking. She and Dorothy were
almost exactly coevals. Both were born in 1627; Madame died in 1696,
Miladi Temple (as she became) in 1695. Each was well-born, each had
one absorbing attachment, each was handsome. Dorothy, in the portrait
prefixed to the _Wayfarer_ edition, has a calm, grave face, remarkable
for its broad brow, level-gazing, uncompromising eyes, and fine Greek
nose, not at all a “petit nez carré.” She looks, as her letters prove
her to have been, a young woman of character and breeding. She does not
show the enchanting mobility of Madame de Sévigné, nor can she have
had it. At any rate, she was a beautiful woman, whose conversation, as
I judge, would have been distinguished by originality and a “delicate
turn of wit,” as her letters certainly are. Further resemblances, if
there are any, must be sought in the documents, to which I shall now
turn.
We are to read a woman’s love-letters, always “kittle work,” however
long ago the pen has fallen still, whether they are the letters of a
fond mother to her child or of a girl to her sweetheart; yet there is
no reason why we should shrink from the one intrusion and make light
of the other. Indeed, of the two, it is Madame de Sévigné who displays
the pageant of her bleeding heart, and is able more than once to make
the judicious grieve, and even the injudicious uncomfortable. There
was nothing of the “jolie païenne” in Dorothy Osborne. She served no
dangerous idolatry. There is not a phrase in her touching and often
beautiful letters, not even in those where her heart wails within
her and the sound of it enfolds and enhances her words--not there,
even, is there a word or a phrase which imperils her maiden dignity.
She loved, in her own way of speaking, “passionately and nobly.” It
is perfectly true. At all times, under all stresses, her nobility
held her passion bitted and bridled. She rode it on the curb, not, as
was Madame’s delightful weakness, “la bride sur le cou.” Her extreme
tenderness for the man she loved is implicit in every line. Nobody
could mistake; but when, man-like, he seemed to demand of her more and
ever more testimony, she was not to be turned further from her taste in
expression than from “dear” to “dearest.” Towards the end of the long
probation--and in our seventy-seven letters we have, in fact, the last
year and a half of it--a certain quickening of the pulse is discernible
in her writing, a certain breathlessness in the phraseology. “Dear!
Shall we ever be so happy, think you? Ah! I dare not hope it,” she
writes to him in one of the later letters, and cutting short the
formalities, ends very plainly, “Dear, I am yours.” Nothing more ardent
escapes her throughout, yet in that very frugality of utterance,
never was exalted and faithful love made more manifest. When--as did
happen--misunderstandings were magnified by Temple’s jealousy, and
aggravated by her honesty, she was hurt and showed it. Separation then
seemed the only remedy; despair gave her eloquence, and we have for
once a real cry of the heart:
“If you have ever loved me, do not refuse the last request I shall ever
make you; ’tis to preserve yourself from the violence of your passion.
Vent it all upon me; call me and think me what you please; make me,
if it be possible, more wretched than I am. I’ll bear it without the
least murmur. Nay, I deserve it all, for had you never seen me you had
certainly been happy.... I am the most unfortunate woman breathing, but
I was never false. No; I call Heaven to witness that if my life could
satisfy for the least injury my fortune has done you ... I would lay it
down with greater joy than any person ever received a crown; and if I
ever forget what I owe you, or ever entertain a thought of kindness for
any person in the world besides, may I live a long and miserable life.
’Tis the greatest curse I can invent: if there be a greater, may I feel
it. This is all I can say. Tell me if it be possible I can do anything
for you, and tell me how I can deserve your pardon for all the trouble
I have given you. I would not die without it.”
Eloquent, fierce words, indignant, dry with offended honour, but
certainly not lacking in nobility. It is the highest note struck in the
series, and can hurt nobody’s delicacy to read now. Happily the storm
passed over, the sky cleared, and the sun came out. From the sounding
of that wounded note there is a _diminuendo_ to be observed. The very
next letter is lower in tone, though she has some sarcasms for him
which probably did him good. In the next but one: “I will not reproach
you how ill an interpretation you made (of the attentions of Henry
Cromwell), because we’ll have no more quarrels.” Nor did they, though
they were still a year off marriage. So much of the love affair which
called the letters into being I must needs have given. I shall not
refer to it again.
Her head went into her letters as well as her heart; and though love
was naturally the fount of her inspiration, she wrote as much to
entertain and enhearten her lover as to relieve herself. There is
enough literary quality in what we have left to make it a valuable
possession. It is by no means only to be learned from her with what
courage a seven years of star-crossed love may be borne; how gently
the fretting and chafing of a self-conscious man turned; how modesty
can veil passion without hiding it. At her discretion raillery can be
pungent without ceasing to be playful, and the rough and dirty currency
of the world handled without soiling her fingers, with a freedom bred
of innocence of thought. This still and well-bred Dorothy was a critic
of her day, and though she was pious had no fugitive and cloistered
virtue. All about her were living the survivors of a Court not quite so
profligate, perhaps, as that of the first or the third Stuart king, but
profligate enough. It was not the less so for being in hiding. She did
not approve of much that her acquaintance did, but she accepted it and,
as far as might be, excused it. “I am altogether of your mind,” she
writes, “that my Lady Sunderland is not to be followed in her marrying
fashion, and that Mr. Smith never appeared less her servant than in
desiring it. To speak truth, ’twas convenient for neither of them, and
in meaner people had been plain undoing of one another, which I cannot
understand to be kindness of either side. She had lost by it much of
the repute she had gained by keeping herself a widow; it was then
believed that wit and discretion were to be reconciled in her person
that have so seldom been persuaded to meet in anybody else. But we are
all mortal.” From that, which is temperate statement, go on to consider
a passage of temperate argument which is surely notable in a girl of
her age. She was twenty-six when she wrote:
“’Tis strange to see the folly that possesses the young people of this
age, and the liberties they take to themselves. I have the charity to
believe they appear very much worse than they are, and that the want
of a Court to govern themselves by is in great part the cause of their
ruin. Though that was no perfect school of virtue, yet vice there wore
her mask, and appeared so unlike herself that she gave no scandal. Such
as were really as discreet as they seemed to be gave good example, and
the eminency of their condition made others strive to imitate them,
or at least they durst not own a contrary course. All who had good
principles and inclinations were encouraged in them, and such as had
neither were forced to put on a handsome disguise that they might not
be out of countenance at themselves.”
Is that not excellent discourse upon the subject of “young people”
from a girl of six-and-twenty? Dorothy, it will be seen, writes the
modern as opposed to the seventeenth-century English, but does it
in mid-career of the century. Comparison with her contemporary, the
Duchess of Newcastle, is proof enough. “Madam,” writes that very
“blue” lady, “here was the Lord W. N. to visit me, whose discourse, as
you say, is like a pair of bellows to a spark of fire in a chimney,
where are coals or wood, for as this spark would sooner go out than
inkindle the fuel, if it were not blown, so his discourse doth set the
hearer’s brain on a light flame, which heats the wit, and inlightens
the understanding.” And so on--like a wounded snake. Dorothy, I think,
was almost the first to do what Milton never did, and what Dryden
was to make the standard of good prose. James Howell preceded her
slightly in that use, but was not so sure a hand at it. In cogency
and simplicity of expression hers is like good eighteenth-century
letter-writing. She apologises to her lover for “disputing again.” He
had been a churl to find fault with such sagacious reflections.
There is no sign that she was the least bit “blue,” though she read
the books of that _coterie_, and esteemed them, with reservations. She
had the Cléopâtre of Calprenède, the _Grand Cyrus_ of la Scudéri, and
passed them on, volume by volume, to Temple, remarking of “L’amant
non aimé” in the latter that he was an ass. She had Lord Broghill’s
_Parthenissa_ hot from the press. “’Tis handsome language,” she says of
it. “You would know it to be writ by a person of good quality, though
you were not told it; but, on the whole, I am not much taken with
it.” The stories were too much like all the others, she thought--and
certainly they were: “the ladies are so kind they make no sport.” One
thing in _Parthenissa_ made her angry. “I confess I have no patience
for our _faiseurs de Romance_ when they make women court. It will
never enter into my head that ’tis possible any woman can love where
she is not first loved; and much less that if they should do that, they
could have the face to own it.” That is high doctrine, yet inquiry
yields the best sort of support to it.