_Inklings of Adventure. By the Author of Pencillings by the Way. New
York: Saunders and Otley._
These volumes are inscribed “to the distinguished American orator and
statesman, Edward Everett,” and are introduced by a Preface over the
signature of N. P. Willis, in which “the papers which are to follow,”
are said to record some passages in the life of a certain Philip
Slingsby. Mr. W. assures us that although his name stands in the
title-page of the book as its author, (which, upon reference, we find
not to be the case) he can only take to himself that share of the
praise or blame which may attach [be attached] to it as a literary
composition. Most assuredly (setting all this _badinage_ aside, which
may possibly have a fuller meaning than lies upon its surface) we can
see no reason for praising or blaming Mr. Willis _except_ in his
character of literateur, for any thing to be found in the volumes
before us. We cannot sufficiently express our disgust at that
unscrupulous indelicacy which is in the habit of deciding upon the
literary merits of this gentleman by a reference to his private
character and manners, and feel, indeed, a species of indignation in
the thought, that when we propose to say a few words, without any such
reference, about the present “_Inklings of Adventure_,” we are
proposing a course of indisputable originality.
Subjoined is the Table of Contents. Pedlar Karl—Niagara; Lake Ontario;
The St. Lawrence—The Cherokee's Threat—F. Smith—Edith Linsey
(including Frost and Flirtation; Love and Speculation; A Digression;
and Scenery and a Scene)—Scenes of Fear (containing the Disturbed
Vigil; the Mad Senior; and the Lunatic's Skate)—Incidents on the
Hudson—The Gipsey of Sardis—Tom Fane and I—Larks in Vacation
(embracing Driving Stanhope _pro. tem._; Saratoga Springs; and Mrs.
Captain Thompson)—A Log in the Archipelago—and Miscellaneous Papers
(being the Revenge of the Signor Basil; Love and Diplomacy; Minute
Philosophies; and the Mad-house of Palermo.)
It will be seen that a great many of these papers (we believe all of
them) have been published before. It is not our design, therefore, to
speak of them in detail. Perhaps an outline of some individual sketch,
with an occasional reference to others, will be found to impart a
sufficient idea of the general character of the whole. We open the
book at random, and here are six or seven pages with the running title
of _Niagara_. It will be a matter of some interest to see how a poet
(one whom we _know_ to be such) will think it proper to handle a
subject so momentous.
Mr. Willis—Mr. Slingsby we mean—commences by _dating_ his visit to the
Falls, with reference not to any positive or acknowledged æra, but,
relatively, to an æra in his personal experience. He does not say I
went in 1810—or in 1820. “It was in my senior vacation,” says he, “and
I was bound to Niagara for the first time.” We are thus slyly made
acquainted with a trio of items, which, when duly considered, are to
give weight and character to the subsequent details. We are informed,
firstly—that Mr. Slingsby has been to college—secondly, and
presumptively, that he {598} graduated, (it is his senior vacation)
and thirdly, that he has since paid other visits to Niagara, (he is on
his way thither for the _first_ time.) But in the narration of a trip
to the great waterfall, some wit, some repartee, has been thought
indispensable, and wit cannot so effectively be displayed, as by means
of a foil. Our author, therefore, has a companion, and describes him.
He is an ugly fellow, of course—seven feet high, ill-dressed, solemn,
and sensible. We now see the advantage of all this—and are prepared
for the Rembrandtities of contrast. To enjoy them in perfection we
must imagine Mr. Slingsby (whom we never saw) as a delicate little
gentleman, with a pretty face and figure—fair, funny, fanciful,
fashionable, and frisky.
The friends leaving Buffalo cross the outlet of Lake Erie at the
ferry, and take horses on the northern bank of the Niagara for the
Falls. Mr. Slingsby during the ride, is now lost in admiration of the
“noble stream hurrying on headlong to its fearful leap, as broad as
the Hellespont, and as blue as the sky,” and now excessively merry at
the expense of his ally and foil, “who rides along,” we are told,
“like the man of rags you see paraded on an ass in the carnival.” Thus
the narrative proceeds in a vein of mingled sentiment and
_very-good-joke_. Let us give another example of this. “The river,”
says Mr. Slingsby, “now broke into rapids foaming furiously, and the
subterranean thunder increased like a succession of earthquakes, each
louder than the last. [A bull.] I had never heard a sound so broad and
universal. It was impossible not to suspend the breath, and feel
absorbed, to the exclusion of all other thoughts, in the great
phenomenon with which the earth seemed trembling to its centre. A tall
misty cloud, changing its shape continually, as it felt the shocks of
the air, rose up before us, and with our eyes fixed upon it, and our
horses at a hard gallop, we found ourselves unexpectedly in front of a
large white——hotel!”
Having eaten dinner at the large white hotel, Job Smith, the foil, is
made to utter some of his solemn drolleries, forcing Mr. Slingsby [oh
the quiz!] to leave the table and walk with a smile towards the
window. A belle, Miss ——, is thus discovered, and introduced. Of her,
“every soul of the fifteen millions of inhabitants between us and the
Gulf of Mexico have heard.” She is, moreover, “one of those miracles
of nature that occur, perhaps, once in the rise and fall of an
empire.” Besides all this, she is “kind, playful, unaffected, and
radiantly, gloriously beautiful.” Mr. Slingsby, therefore, adopts her
as foil No. 2, for a species of sentimental gallantry—Job Smith being
only foil No. 1, for light wit. It must now be seen at a glance that
our author can hardly fail to make a decided hit of his visit to
Niagara.
Having made an appointment with Miss —— to accompany her in the
morning behind the sheet of the Fall, Mr. Slingsby goes to bed.
Getting up at daybreak, however, he determines upon paying a solitary
visit to the cataract. But Job (that droll fellow!) has anticipated
him in this manœuvre, and “the angular outline of his tall gaunt
figure, stretching up from Table Rock in strong relief against the
white body of the spray,” is the first object that meets Mr. Slingby's
eye as he descends. We have now his first impressions of Niagara.
These are, in general terms, awe, and intense admiration, mingled with
a little disappointment. We cut short the impressions (herein
following the author's example) for the sake of some witticisms at the
expense of Mr. Smith. It may be best to copy a page or two with a view
of showing the pervading air with which the narrative is conducted.
“A _nice_ fall, as an Englishman would say, my dear Job.”
“Awful!”
Halleck the American poet (a better one never “strung pearls”) has
written some admirable verses on Niagara, describing its effect on the
different individuals of a mixed party, among whom was a tailor. The
sea of incident that has broken over me in years of travel, has washed
out of my memory all but the two lines descriptive of its impression
upon Snip:
“The tailor made one single note—
Gods! what a place to sponge a coat!”
“Shall we go to breakfast, Job?”
“How slowly and solemnly they drop into the abysm!”
It was not an original remark of Mr. Smith's. Nothing is so surprising
to the observer as the extraordinary deliberateness with which the
waters of Niagara take their tremendous plunge. All hurry and foam and
fret, till they reach the smooth limit of the curve,—and then the laws
of gravitation seem suspended, and, like Cæsar, they pause and
determine, since it is inevitable, to take the death leap with
becoming dignity.
“Shall we go to breakfast, Job?” I was obliged to raise my voice to be
heard, to a pitch rather exhausting for a empty stomach.
His eyes remained fixed upon the shifting rainbows bending and
vanishing in the spray. There was no moving him, and I gave in for
another five minutes.
“Do you think it probable, Job, that the waters of Niagara strike on
the axis of the world?”
No answer.
“Job!”
“What?”
“Do you think his Majesty's half of the cataract is finer than ours?”
“Much.”
“For _water_, merely, perhaps. But look at the delicious verdure on
the American shore, the glorious trees, the massed foliage, the
luxuriant growth even to the very rim of the ravine! By Jove! it seems
to me things grow better in a republic. Did you ever see a more barren
and scraggy shore than the one you stand upon?”
“How exquisitely” said Job, soliloquizing “that small green island
divides the fall! What a rock it must be founded on, not to have been
washed away in the ages that these waters have split against it!”
“I'll lay you a bet it is washed away before the year two
thousand—payable in any currency with which we may then be
conversant.”
“Don't trifle!”
“With time or geology do you mean? Is'nt it perfectly clear, from the
looks of that ravine, that Niagara has _backed up_ all the way from
Lake Ontario? These rocks are not adamant, and the very precipice you
stand on has cracked, and looks ready for the plunge. It must
gradually wear back to Lake Erie, and then there will be a sweep I
should like to live long enough to see. The instantaneous junction of
two seas, with a difference of two hundred feet in their levels will
be a spectacle—eh, Job?”
“Tremendous!”
“Do you intend to wait and see it, or will you come to breakfast?”
He was immovable. I left him on the rock, went up to the hotel and
ordered mutton-chops and coffee, and when they were on the table, gave
two of the waiters a dollar each to bring him up _nolens-volens_. He
arrived in a great rage, but with a good appetite, and we finished our
breakfast just in time to meet Miss ——, as she stepped like Aurora
from her chamber.
{599} The adventure beneath the sheet is now detailed. The party
descend to the bottom of the precipice at the side of the Fall—equip
themselves in dresses of coarse linen—and proceed. The guide going
first, takes the right hand of Miss ——, Mr. Slingsby is honored
with the left, and Job brings up the rear. The usual difficulties of
wind and water are encountered and surmounted, and the chamber behind
the sheet finally attained in safety. The same medley of tone,
however, still prevails. For example—“Whatever sister of Arethusa
inhabits there,” says Mr. Slingsby, “we could but congratulate her on
the beauty of her abode. A lofty and well lighted hall, shaped like a
long pavilion, extended as far as we could see through the spray, and
with the two objections, that you could not have heard a pistol at
your ear for the noise, and that the floor was somewhat precipitous,
one could scarce imagine a more agreeable retreat for a gentleman who
was disgusted with the world, and subject to dryness of the skin. In
one respect it resembled the enchanted dwelling of the Witch of Atlas,
where Shelley tells us,
Th' invisible rain did ever sing
A silver music on the mossy lawn.
It is lucky for Witches and Naiads that they are not subject to
rheumatism.”
It will not be difficult to foretell, from the general air of the
narration (as observed up to this date) in what manner Mr. Slingsby
will think it incumbent upon him to wind it up. He will give it a
melo-dramatic finale? Most assuredly. The lady is adventurous, and has
walked over a narrow ledge, which has broken with her weight. The
guide seizes Mr. Slingsby by the shoulder. He turns—and “what is his
horror” at beholding Miss —— standing far in behind the sheet, upon
the last visible point of rock, with the water pouring over her in
torrents, and a “gulf of foam” between the lady and the gentleman,
which the gentleman “can in no way understand how she has passed
over.” This gulf is six feet across, and, of course, says Mr.
Slingsby, “it was impossible to jump it.” [We have jumped one and
twenty feet six inches ourselves, but then we are no Mr. Slingsby, and
never could make a joke about Niagara.] That gentleman does not jump,
but he does something nevertheless. He “fixes his eyes upon the lovely
form standing like a spirit in the misty shroud of the spray,” and
endeavors “to sustain her upon her dangerous foot-hold—_by the
intensity of his gaze_.” He may possibly, however, with this end in
view, have made use of an eye-glass.
There being nothing better to be done, the guide having absconded, and
the lady being upon the eve of destruction, our friend Job, and his
legs, are brought into requisition. He stands upon one edge of “the
foaming gulf,” and stretches himself across to the other. Miss —— is
so kind as to make use of him as a bridge. The guide returns with a
rope, pulls up the bridge by means of a running-noose around one of
its legs—and the “Visit to _Niagara_” terminates with an Io Pean in
honor of the “foaming gulf,” the “supernatural strength” of Mr. Smith,
and the “intensity of the gaze” of the devoted Mr. Slingsby.
The paper of which we have just given an outline will afford a very
fair conception of the usual merits and demerits of the sketches of
Mr. Willis. Here are many comparatively long passages of a force, or
delicacy, or beauty—shall we say unsurpassed by any similar passages
in any writer of English? We shall not say too much if we do. The
bantering humor interspersed is of the best order. Who can read the
endeavor (quoted above) of Mr. Slingsby to get Mr. Smith to his
breakfast, without feeling at once impressed with a keen sense of the
mingled wit, broad drollery, dramatic effect, and gentlemanly
_insouciance_ of the whole affair? The final question of Mr. S. (after
amusing his friend with the idea of a junction, some hundred years
hence, between Ontario and Erie)—“Do you intend to wait and see it, or
will you come to breakfast?”—is inimitably brought about—very quiet,
and very quizzical. The catastrophe of the two waiters, and the
arrival in a great rage, but with a good appetite, of Mr. Smith, is a
palpable hit not to be attained, and not to be appreciated by the
rabble. Of force, we have abundant specimens in such sentences, as
“Job flounced up, like a snake touched with a torpedo, and sprang to
the window”—“I can imagine the surprise of the gentle element, after
sleeping away a se'nnight of moonlight in the peaceful bosom of Lake
Erie, at finding itself of a sudden in such a coil”—or “As far down
towards Lake Ontario as the eye can reach, the immense volumes of
water rise like huge monsters to the light, boiling and flashing out
in rings of foam, with an appearance of vexation and rage that I have
seen in no other cataract of the world.” The little sentence,
“Whatever sister of Arethusa inhabits there, we could but congratulate
her upon the beauty of her abode,” is, among many other similar
things, sufficient evidence of a rare delicacy of expression—and we
feel at once that writer to be a poet—an Idealist—who tells us “that
Miss —— in her uncouth habiliments, looked like a fairy in
disguise,” and that the sheet of Niagara is “what a child might
imagine the arch of the sky to be where it bends over the edge of the
horizon.”
The minor defects are few. Among these few it is sufficient to specify
a too frequent allusion to the “axis of the world,” and the
absurdities, gravely narrated, which go to make up the catastrophe of
the sketch, in the rescue of the young lady. Upon the whole, we may
speak of the mere wording as in every respect worthy of a man of taste
and a scholar. With the exception of “_soubriquet_,” written for
_sobriquet_, (a very common error) it would be difficult to find any
verbal fault, in the present instance, to which a critic would be
pardoned for alluding.
But the whole narrative is disfigured, and indeed utterly ruined, by
the grievous sin of affectation. It is this sin, and not, we are
convinced, any imbecility in the conceptions of Mr. Willis, (with our
readers' leave we will drop Mr. Slingsby) which has beguiled him into
the egregious folly of writing a long article, in a jocular manner,
about the cataract of Niagara. He may say, a pleasant sketch is
intended, no more—and that the intention is fulfilled. But the utter
want of keeping, consequent upon handling such subject in such manner,
is sufficient to convince us at a glance, that his intention, even
such as it is, is _not_, in any due degree, fulfilled. The question is
not whether the thing pleases, (one who writes as well as Mr. Willis
will please _in spite_ of a thousand faults,) but whether, if
otherwise handled, it might not have pleased the more. While laughing
at the mystification of our friend Job, we are in no proper {600}
frame of mind for the grandeur of the fall—and while absorbed in the
majesty of the monarch of cataracts, we are aware of an oppressive
revulsion of feeling if disturbed for the absurd fripperies and
frivolities, or the still more absurd melo-dramatic adventures, of the
fop and the woman of fashion. This matter is too obvious for denial. A
writer, then, who, in despite of common sense, shall be continually
endeavoring to reconcile these obstinate oils and waters of the soul,
will be continually laboring at a disadvantage—and this latter point,
neglected by gentlemen who should know better, is a point to which the
most dunder-headed artizan would not forget to give a proper attention
in the making of a pair of breeches, or the building of a pig-stye. If
all ethics be not at fault, those mental impressions, however vivid,
will be necessarily evanescent, which are deficient in unity. In a
word, it may safely be asserted, that a writer neglectful of the
_totality of effect_, will fall short of his end, if that end be a
remembrance in the “language of his land.” Compositions grossly
failing in this essential, have been habitually discharged from the
memory of man. And in this essential Mr. Willis invariably fails—we
should rather say, this essential Mr. Willis invariably disregards. He
seems especially to have fallen into that heresy (now common in
literary, although deduced from mere fashionable life) which would
brand as a species of Rosa-Matilda-ism any sustained and unmingled
severity of sentiment. Never, surely, in whatever light we regard it,
was a heresy more untenable. When applied to the brief essay, or short
tale, it is ridiculous—and Mr. Willis should remember that he is an
essayist, or nothing.
In the particular here pointed out, we have accused our author of
affectation. It is a sin of which the public _loudly_ accuse him, and
in general terms. When we say the accusation is just, we wish to be
understood as speaking positively. In a relative view, the case is
different. Mr. Willis is not a jot more entitled to be called
“affected,” than nine-tenths of the gentlemen who are in the habit of
so calling him—than nine-tenths of the most popular writers in our
land. But his affectation, differing from the tone of their own, is in
some measure more readily perceptible. It is, however, a positive
folly, no doubt, which induces so clever a writer so frequently to
disclaim all knowledge of geography and “figures”—to speak bad French
in preference to good English—to talk about Niagara being “as _fine a
thing_ as I have seen in my travels,” and about having “pic-nic'd from
the Simplegades westward”—to think “gave upon the bay” a forcible
phrase, merely because it is a Gallicism—to begin a quotation with
“Saith well an American poet,” &c. &c.—to delight in such inversions
as “She looked loveliest when driving, did Blanche Carroll”—to inform
us that “he never looks back in composition,” and to make use of such
pretty little expressions on his title-pages as _Pencillings by the
Way_, and _Inklings of Adventure_.
_Niagara_ is by no means the best of the sketches before us—it may,
very possibly, be the worst. None of them are entitled to the merit of
_plot_. And indeed it appears an idiosyncrasy in Mr. Willis that he
has little feeling for _incident_. In an exceedingly delicate vein of
sentiment he is peculiarly at home. _Edith Linsey_ is thus, we think,
the happiest effort of his pen. Here is indeed some very beautiful
writing. The imitation of Elia is not only an exquisite imitation, but
evinces a close affinity of intellect between the imitator and the
imitated. We are quite sure no man in America can, more fully than Mr.
Willis, enter into the soul of Charles Lamb. In a graceful _badinage_
our author pre-eminently excels. To originality he has little
claim—his _manner_—the touchstone of the essayist—is not peculiarly
his own. His scholarship is sufficient and available—his command of
language very great. In a vigorous figurative expression—a quality
seldom allowed him—he has indeed few equals. As this point is
disputed, we will adduce from the volumes before us one or two
instances, more to show what we mean by vigor of expression, than to
prove our position by a number of quotations.
“You ask, in England, who has the privilege of this water?—or you say
of an oak, that it stood in such a man's time; but with us water is an
element unclaimed and unrented, _and a tree dabbles in the clouds as
they go over, and is like a great idiot, without soul or
responsibility._”
“As you walk in the long porticoes of the hotel, the dark forest
mounts up before you like a leafy wall, and the clouds seem just to
clear the pine-tops, _and the eagles sail across from horizon to
horizon, without lifting their wings as if you saw them from the
bottom of a well_.”
“As far down towards Lake Ontario as the eye can reach, the immense
volumes of water _rise like huge monsters to the light, boiling and
flashing out in rings of foam, with an appearance of vexation and
rage_ that I have seen in no other cataract of the world.”
“He who has soiled his bright honor with the tools of ambition—he who
has leant his soul upon the charity of a sect in religion—he who has
loved, hoped, and trusted in the greater arena of life and
manhood—must look back on days like these, _as the broken-winged eagle
to the sky—as the Indian's subdued horse to the prairie_.”
“_The chain of the Green Mountains, after a gallop of some hundred
miles from Canada to Connecticut, suddenly pulls up on the shore of
Long Island Sound, and stands rearing with a bristling mane of pine
trees, three hundred feet in air, as if checked in mid career by the
sea._”
“Next to their own loves ladies like nothing on earth like mending or
marring the loves of others; and while the violets and
already-drooping wild flowers were coquettishly chosen or rejected by
those slender fingers, _the sun might have swung back to the east like
a pendulum_, and those seven and twenty Misses would have watched
their lovely school-fellow the same.”
An autumn forest—“_It is as if a myriad of rainbows were laced through
the tree-tops—as if the sunsets of a summer—gold, purple and
crimson—had been fused in the alembic of the west, and poured back in
a new deluge of light and color over the wilderness._”
“_The gold of the sunset had glided up the dark pine-tops, and
disappeared, like a ring taken slowly from an Ethiop's finger._”
“Just above, there is a sudden turn in the glen, which sends the water
like a catapult against the opposite angle of the rock, and, in the
action of years, it has worn out a cavern of unknown depth, into which
_the whole mass of the river plunges with the abandonment of a flying
fiend into hell, and, re-appearing like the angel that has pursued
him, glides swiftly, but with divine serenity, on his way._”
We believe that the high powers of Mr. Willis are properly estimated
by the judicious among his countrymen. His foibles, his faults, and
his deficiencies—let us not forget to say, his merits—are quite as
well known to himself as to us. His intellect, if not of the loftiest
order, very closely approaches it—and he has stepped upon the
threshhold of nearly every species of literary excellence.
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