■I 
 
lilassPN'ICa, 
 Rnnk . o 4 
 
 COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 
 
ESSAYS ON 
 GREAT WRITERS 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY DWIGHT SEDGWICK, Jr. 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
 
 1903 
 

 z^ 
 ^ 
 
 THE LIBRARY OF 
 CONGRESS. 
 
 Two Copies Receiver; 
 
 SEP 9 1903 
 
 /^Copyntm Entry 
 CUSS cu XXc. No 
 
 tyssg 
 
 COPY B. 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1903, BY HENRY DWIGHT SEDGWICK, JR. 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
 Published, September, igoj 
 
To 
 MY FATHER 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Lockhart's Life of Scott 1 
 
 D'Annunzio, Novelist 39 
 
 Montaigne .93 
 
 Macaulay 139 
 
 English and French Literature . . . 199 
 
 Don Quixote 233 
 
 A Holiday with Montaigne .... 263 
 
 Some Aspects of Thackeray .... 309 
 
LOCKHART'S LIFE OP SCOTT 
 
LOCKHART'S LIFE OF SCOTT 
 
 It is wholly fit that Americans should go 
 on pilgrimage to Abbotsford. A remem- 
 brance of virtue is there which we, at least, 
 cannot find at Canterbury, Lourdes, or Loreto. 
 There is but one comparable spot in Great 
 Britain, and that is on the banks of Avon ; 
 but at Stratford, encompassed by memorials 
 of idolatry, surrounded by restoration and 
 renovation, harried and jostled by tourists, 
 the pilgrim wearily passes from bust to por- 
 trait, from Halliwell to Furness, from side- 
 board to second-best bedstead, with a sick 
 sense of human immortality, till his eye 
 fights upon the " W. Scott " scrawled on the 
 window-pane. If Walter Scott made this 
 pilgrimage, if his feet limped through the 
 churchyard of Holy Trinity, if he looked at 
 the ugly busts, if he, too, was elbowed by 
 
 1 Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, by John Gibson 
 Lockhart. Boston and New York : Houghton, Mifflin & 
 Co. 1902. 5 vols. 
 
4 LOCKHART'S LIFE OF SCOTT 
 
 American women there, then welcome all, the 
 sun shines fair on Stratford again. 
 
 Abbotsf ord has discomforts of its own, but 
 there one has glimpses of Scott's abounding 
 personality. How wonderful was that per- 
 sonality; how it sunned and warmed and 
 breathed balm upon the lean and Cassius- 
 like Lockhart, till that sweetened man became 
 transfigured, as it were, and wrote one of 
 the most acceptable and happy books of the 
 world ; — a personality, so rich and ripe, that 
 nature of necessity encased it in lovable 
 form and features. In the National Portrait 
 Gallery is a good picture of Scott, large- 
 browed, blue-eyed, ruddy-hued, the great out- 
 of-door genius ; one of his dogs looks up at 
 him with sagacious appreciation. There is 
 the large free figure, but what can a painter 
 with all his art tell us of a person whom we 
 love ? How can he describe the noble career 
 from boyhood to death ; how can he deline- 
 ate the wit, the laughter, the generosity, the 
 high devotion, the lofty character, the dog- 
 ged resolution, and the womanly tenderness 
 of heart? The biographer has the harder 
 task. A hundred great portraits have been 
 painted, from Masaccio to John Sargent, but 
 
LOCKHART'S LIFE OF SCOTT 5 
 
 the great biographies are a half dozen, and 
 one of the best is this book of Lockhart's. 
 
 As generations roll on, the past drifts 
 more and more from the field of our vision ; 
 the England of Scott's day has become a 
 classic time, the subjects of George III. are 
 strangers of foreign habits ; tastes change, 
 customs alter, books multiply, and with all 
 the rest the Waverley Novels likewise show 
 their antique dress and betray their mortality ; 
 but the life of a great man never loses its 
 interest. As a time recedes into remoteness, 
 its books, saving the few on which time has 
 no claim, become unreadable, but a man's 
 life retains and tightens its hold upon us. 
 It is hardly too much to say that Lockhart 
 has done for Scott's fame almost as much as 
 Scott himself. The greatest of Scotsmen in 
 thirty novels and half a dozen volumes of 
 poetry has sketched his own lineaments, but 
 Lockhart has filled out that sketch with neces- 
 sary amplification, admiring and just. What 
 would we not give for such a biography of 
 Homer or Virgil, of Dante or Shakespeare ? 
 But if we possessed one, dare we hope for a 
 record of so much virtue and happiness, of 
 so much honor and heroic duty? 
 
6 LOCKHART'S LIFE OF SCOTT 
 
 Walter Scott is not only a novelist, not 
 only a bountiful purveyor of enjoyment ; his 
 life sheds a light as well as a lustre on 
 England. Of right he ought to be seated on 
 St. George's horse, and honored as Britain's 
 patron saint, for he represents what Britain's 
 best should be, he, the loyal man, the constant 
 friend, joyous in youth, laborious in manhood, 
 high-minded in the sad decadent years, think- 
 ing no evil, and faithful with the greatest 
 faith, that in virtue for virtue's sake. Every 
 English-speaking person should be familiar 
 with that noble life. 
 
 One sometimes wonders if a change might 
 not without hurt be made in the studies of 
 boys ; whether Greek composition, or even 
 solid geometry, — studies rolled upward like 
 a stone to roll down again at the year's end 
 with a glorious splash into the pool of obliv- 
 ion, — might not be discontinued, and in its 
 stead a course of biography be put. Boys 
 should read and read again the biographies 
 of good men. The first two should be the 
 History of Don Quixote and Lockhart's Life 
 of Scott. In young years, so fortified against 
 enclitics and angles, yet unfolding and docile 
 to things which touch the heart, would not the 
 
LOCKHART'S LIFE OF SCOTT 7 
 
 boy derive as much benefit from an enthusi- 
 astic perusal of Lockhart's volumes as from 
 disheartening attempts to escalade the irregu- 
 lar aorist ? It was not for nothing that the 
 wise Jesuits bade their young scholars read 
 the Lives of the Saints. Are there no les- 
 sons to be learned for the living of life ? 
 
 Don Quixote and Sir Walter Scott look 
 very unlike, one with his cracked brain and 
 the other with his shrewd good sense, but 
 they have this in common, that Don Quixote 
 is an heroic man whose heroism is obscured 
 by craziness and by the irony under which 
 Cervantes hid his own great beliefs, while 
 Scott is an heroic man, whose heroism is 
 obscured by success and by the happiness 
 under which he concealed daily duty faith- 
 fully done. In the good school of hero-wor- 
 ship these men supplement one another, the 
 proud Spaniard, the canny Scot, great-hearted 
 gentlemen both. Our affection for them is 
 less a matter of argument than of instinct ; 
 their worthiness is demonstrated by our love. 
 I cannot prove to you my joy in the month 
 of May; if you feel dismal and Novem- 
 brish, why, turn up your collar and shiver 
 lustily. The Spaniard is rather for men 
 
8 LOCKHART'S LIFE OF SCOTT 
 
 who have failed as this world judges; the 
 Scot for those who live in the sunshine of 
 life. 
 
 English civilization, which with all its im- 
 perfections is to many of us the best, is a slow- 
 growing plant; though pieced and patched 
 with foreign graftings, it still keeps the same 
 sap which has brought forth fruit this thou- 
 sand years. It has fashioned certain ideals of 
 manhood, which, while changing clothes and 
 speech and modes of action, maintain a resem- 
 blance, an English type, not to be likened to 
 foreign ideals, beautiful as those may be ; we 
 have much to learn from those great examples, 
 but the noble type of the English is different. 
 Sir Thomas Malory's Round Table, Philip 
 Sidney, Falkland, Russell, Howard the philan- 
 thropist, Robertson the priest, Gordon the 
 soldier, — choose whom you will, — have a 
 national type, not over-flexible, but of a most 
 enduring temper. The traditions which have 
 gathered about these men have wrought a 
 type of English gentleman which we honor 
 in our unreasonable hearts. Our ideals are 
 tardy and antiquated ; they savor of the past, 
 of the long feudal past. We listen politely 
 to the introducer of new doctrines of right- 
 
LOCKHART'S LIFE OF SCOTT 9 
 
 eousness, of new principles of morality, and 
 nod a cold approval, " How noble ! " €i What 
 a fine fellow ! " " Excellent man ! " but there 
 is no touch of that enthusiasm with which 
 we cry, " There ! there is a gentleman ! " A 
 foolish method, no doubt, and worthy of 
 the raps and raillery it receives, but it is 
 the English way. Educated men, with their 
 exact training in sociology and science, 
 smile at us, mock us, bewail us, and still our 
 cheeks flush with pleasure as we behold 
 on some conspicuous stage the old type of 
 English hero ; and we feel, ignorantly, that 
 there is no higher title than that of gentle- 
 man, no better code of ethics than that of 
 chivalry, rooted though it be on the absurd 
 distinction between the man on horseback 
 and the man on foot. 
 
 The great cause of Sir Walter Scott's pop- 
 ularity during life and fame after death is 
 that he put into words the chivalric ideas 
 of England, that he declared in poem, in 
 romance, and in his actions, the honorable 
 service rendered by the Cavalier to society, 
 and so he stirred the deep instinctive affec- 
 tions — prejudices if you will — of British 
 conservatism. He founded the Eomantic 
 
10 LOCKHART'S LIFE OF SCOTT 
 
 School in Great Britain, not because he was 
 pricked on by Border Ballads or by Gotz von 
 Berlichingen, but because, descended from 
 the Flower of Yarrow and great-grandson of 
 a Killiecrankie man, he had been born and 
 bred a British gentleman, with all his poetic 
 nature sensitive to the beauty and charm of 
 chivalry. History as seen by a poet is quite 
 different from history as seen by a Social 
 Democrat ; and the Cavalier — if we may 
 draw distinctions that do not touch any 
 question of merit — requires a historian of 
 different temper and of different education 
 from the historian of the clerk or the plough- 
 man. The youth filled with rich enthusi- 
 asm for life, kindled into physical joy by a 
 hot gallop, quickened by a fine and tender 
 sympathy between man and beast, crammed 
 with fresh air, health, and delight, vivified 
 with beauty of April willows and autumnal 
 heather, is remote, stupidly remote perhaps, 
 from the scrivener at his desk, or the laborer 
 with his hoe. The difference is not just, it 
 is not in accord with sociological theories, it 
 must pass away; yet it has existed in the 
 past and still survives in the present, and 
 a Cavalier to most of us is the accepted type 
 
LOCKHART'S LIFE OF SCOTT 11 
 
 of gentleman, and " chivalric " is still the 
 proudest adjective of praise. Of this sec- 
 tion of life Sir Walter Scott is the great his- 
 torian, and he became its historian, not so 
 much because he was of it, as because he 
 delighted in it with all his qualities of heart 
 and head. 
 
 We still linger in the obscurity of the 
 shadow cast by the Feudal Period ; we cannot 
 avoid its errors, let us not forget the virtues 
 which it prescribes ; let us remember the pre- 
 cepts of chivalry, truth-telling, honor, devo- 
 tion, enthusiasm, compassion, reckless self- 
 sacrifice for an ideal, love of one woman, and 
 affection for the horse. For such learning 
 there is no textbook like this Life of Scott. 
 Moreover, in Lockhart's biography, we are 
 studying the English humanities, we learn 
 those special qualities which directed Scott's 
 genius, those tastes and inclinations which, 
 combining with his talents, enabled him to 
 shift the course of English literature from 
 its eighteenth-century shallows into what is 
 known as the Romantic movement. 
 
 It is a satisfaction that America should 
 render to Scott's memory the homage of this 
 new edition of Lockhart with generous print, 
 
12 LOCKHART'S LIFE OF SCOTT 
 
 broad margin, and that comfortable weight 
 that gives the hand a share in the pleasure 
 of the book and yet exacts no further ser- 
 vice. What would the boy Walter Scott 
 have said, if in vision these stately volumes, 
 like Banquo's issue royally appareled, had 
 risen before him one after one, to interrupt 
 his urchin warfare in the streets of Edin- 
 burgh? But the physical book, admirable 
 as it is, equipped for dress parade and some- 
 what ostentatious in its pride of office, is 
 but the porter of its contents. Miss Susan 
 M. Francis, with pious care, excellent judg- 
 ment, and sound discrimination, worthy 
 indeed of the true disciple, has done just 
 what other disciples have long been wishing 
 for. At appropriate places in the text, as if 
 Lockhart had paused to let Miss Francis step 
 forward and speak, come, in modest guise as 
 footnotes, pertinent passages from Scott's 
 Journal, and letters from Lady Louisa Stuart, 
 John Murray, and others. The Familiar Let- 
 ters, the Journal, and many a book to which 
 Lockhart had no access, have supplied Miss 
 Francis with the material for these rich addi- 
 tions. The reader's pleasure is proof of the 
 great pains, good taste, and long experience 
 
LOCKHART'S LIFE OF SCOTT 13 
 
 put to use in compiling these notes. The 
 editor's is an honest service honorably per- 
 formed. As a consequence — and perhaps I 
 speak as one of many — I now possess an 
 edition of Lockhart which, strong in text, 
 notes, and form, may make bold to stand 
 on the shelf beside what for me is the edi- 
 tion of the Waverley Novels. This edition 
 published in Boston — it bears the name 
 Samuel H. Parker — has a binding which 
 by some ordinance of Nature or of Time, 
 the two great givers of rights, has come to 
 be the proper dress of the Waverley Novels. 
 Its color varies from a deep mahogany to the 
 lighter hues of the horse-chestnut ; what it 
 may have been before it was tinted by the 
 hands of three generations cannot be guessed. 
 This ripe color has penetrated within and 
 stained the pages with its shifting browns. 
 It is plain that Time has pored and paused 
 over these volumes, hesitating whether he 
 should not lay aside his scythe ; he will travel 
 far before he shall find again so pleasant a 
 resting-place. This Parker edition used to 
 stand on a shelf between two windows, with 
 unregarded books above and below. On 
 another bookcase stood the Ticknor and Fields 
 
U LOCKHART'S LIFE OF SCOTT 
 
 edition of Lockhart, 1851, its back bedecked 
 with claymores and a filibeg, or some such 
 thing ; the designer seems to have thought 
 that Scott was a Highland chief. But, 
 though exceeding respectable, that edition 
 was obviously of lower rank than the Parker 
 edition of the novels ; be-claymored and fili- 
 begged it stood apart and ignored, while the 
 novels were taken out as if they had been 
 ballroom belles. In fact, there is something 
 feminine, something almost girlish, about a 
 delightful book ; without wooing it will not 
 yield the full measure of its sweetness. In 
 those days we always made proper prepara- 
 tion — a boy's method of courtship — to read 
 Scott. The proper preparation — but who 
 has not discovered it for himself ? — is to be 
 young, and to put an apple, a gillyflower, into 
 the right pocket, two slices of buttered bread, 
 quince jam between, into the left, thrust the 
 mahogany volume into the front pouch of 
 the sailor suit, then, carefully protecting 
 these protuberant burdens, shinny up into a 
 maple-tree, and there among the branches, 
 hidden by the leaves, which half hinder and 
 half invite the warm, green sunshine, sit 
 noiseless ; the body be-appled and be-jammed 
 
LOCKHART'S LIFE OF SCOTT 15 
 
 into quiescent sympathy, while the elated 
 spirit swims dolphin-like over the glorious 
 sea of romance. That one true way of read- 
 ing the Waverley Novels poor Mr. Howells 
 never knew. He must have read them, if he 
 has read them at all, seated on a high stool, 
 rough and hard, with teetering legs, in a 
 dentist's parlor. He has had need to draw a 
 prodigal portion from his Fortunatus's purse 
 of our respect and affection to justify his 
 wayward obliquity toward Scott. I wish that 
 I were in a sailor's blouse again, that I might 
 shinny back into that maple-tree, in the com- 
 pany of Mr. Howells, with Miss Francis's 
 volumes of Lockhart (one at a time), to read 
 and re-read the story of Sir Walter Scott, 
 and feel again the joy which comes from the 
 perusal of a biography written by a wise 
 lover and edited by a wise disciple, with no 
 break in the chain of affection between us 
 and the object of our veneration. Perhaps 
 Miss Francis would do us the honor to take 
 a ladder and join our party. But youth and 
 jam and gillyflowers are luxuries soon spent, 
 and Miss Francis has done her best to make 
 amends for their evanescence. She has done 
 a public kindness, and she has had a double 
 
16 LOCKHART'S LIFE OF SCOTT 
 
 reward, first, in living in familiar converse 
 with Scott's spirit, second, in the thanks which 
 must come to her thick and fast from all 
 Scott lovers. 
 
 We might well wish that every young man 
 and every boy were reading these big-printed 
 volumes, adorned with pictures of our hero, 
 of his friends, both men and dogs, and of 
 the places where he lived. Let a man econo- 
 mize on his sons' clothes, on their puddings 
 and toys, but the wise father is prodigal with 
 books. A good book should have the pomp 
 and circumstance of its rank, it should be- 
 tray its gentle condition to the most casual 
 beholder, so that he who sees it on a shelf 
 shall be tempted to stretch forth his hand, 
 and having grasped this fruit of an innocent 
 tree of knowledge, shall eat, digest, and be- 
 come a wiser, a happier, and a better man 
 
 or boy. 
 
 II 
 
 Without meaning to disparage the Future, 
 — it will have its flatterers, — or the Pre- 
 sent, which is so importunately with us al- 
 ways, there is much reason with those who 
 think that the home of poetry is in the Past. 
 There our sentiments rest, like rays of light 
 
LOCKHART'S LIFE OF SCOTT 17 
 
 which fall through storied windows and lie 
 in colored melancholy upon ancient tombs. 
 That which was once a poor, barren Present, 
 no better than our own, gains richness and 
 mystery, and, as it drifts through twilight 
 shades beyond the disturbing reach of hu- 
 man recollection, grows in refinement, in 
 tenderness, in nobility. Memory is the great 
 purgatory ; in it the commonness, the trivi- 
 ality of daily happenings become cleansed 
 and ennobled, and our petty lives, gliding 
 back into the Eden from which they seem to 
 issue, become altogether innocent and beau- 
 tiful. 
 
 In this world of memory there is an aris- 
 tocracy ; there are ephemeral things and long- 
 lived things, there is existence in every grade 
 of duration, but almost all on this great back- 
 ward march gain in beauty and interest. It 
 is so in the memory of poets, it is so with 
 everybody. There is a fairy, benevolent and 
 solemn, who presides over memory ; she is 
 capricious and fantastic, too, and busies her- 
 self with the little as well as with the big 
 things of life. If we look back on our 
 boarding-school days, what do we remem- 
 ber ? Certainly not our lessons, nor the re- 
 
18 LOCKHART'S LIFE OF SCOTT 
 
 bukes of our weary teachers, nor the once 
 everlasting study hour ; but we recall every 
 detail of the secret descent down the fire- 
 escape to the village pastry-cook's, where, 
 safeguarded by a system of signals stretch- 
 ing continuous to the point of danger, we 
 hurriedly swallowed creamcakes, Washing- 
 ton pies, raspberry turnovers, and then with 
 smeared lips and skulking gait stealthily 
 crept and climbed back to a sleep such as 
 few of the just enjoy. 
 
 This fairy of memory was potent with 
 Walter Scott. He loved the Past, he never 
 spoke of it but with admiration and respect, 
 he studied it, explored it, honored it; not 
 the personal Past, which our egotism loves, 
 but the great Past of his countrymen. This 
 sentiment is the master quality in his nov- 
 els, and gives them their peculiar interest. 
 There have been plenty of historical novels, 
 but none others bear those tender marks 
 of filial affection which characterize the Wa- 
 verley Novels. 
 
 There is another quality in Scott closely 
 connected with his feeling for the Past, 
 which we in America, with our democratic 
 doctrines, find it more difficult to appreciate 
 
LOCKHART'S LIFE OF SCOTT 19 
 
 justly. This quality, respect for rank, — a 
 very inadequate and inexact phrase, — is 
 part and parcel of a social condition very 
 different from our own. Scott had an open, 
 generous admiration for that diversity which 
 gave free play to the virtues of loyalty and 
 gratitude on one side, and of protection and 
 solicitude on the other. The Scottish laird 
 and his cotters had reciprocal duties ; instead 
 of crying " Each man for himself ! " they 
 enjoyed their mutual dependence. The tie 
 of chieftain and clansman bore no great dis- 
 similarity to that of father and son, new 
 affections were called out, a gillie took pride 
 in his chief, and the chief was fond of his 
 gillie. 
 
 Scott's respect for rank was as far removed 
 from snobbery as he from Hecuba; it was 
 not only devoid of all meanness, but it had 
 a childlike, a solemn, and admirable element, 
 a kind of acceptance of society as established 
 by the hand of God. Added to this solemn 
 acceptance was his artistic pleasure in the 
 picturesque variety and gradation of rank, 
 as in a prospect where the ground rises from 
 flatness, over undulating meadows, to roll- 
 ing hills and ranges of mountains. It is ex- 
 
20 LOCKHART'S LIFE OF SCOTT 
 
 hilarating to behold even seeming greatness, 
 and the perspective of rank throws into high 
 relief persons of birth and office, and cun- 
 ningly produces the effect of greatness. 
 That patriotism which clings to flag or king, 
 with Scott attached itself to the social order. 
 He was intensely loyal to the structure of 
 society in which he lived, not because he 
 was happy and prosperous under it, but be- 
 cause to him it was noble and beautiful. 
 When a project for innovations in the law 
 courts was proposed, he was greatly moved. 
 " No, no," said he to Jeffrey, " little by lit- 
 tle, whatever your wishes may be, you will 
 destroy and undermine, until nothing of what 
 makes Scotland Scotland shall remain ; " and 
 the tears gushed down his cheeks. The 
 social system of clanship, "We Scots are a 
 clannish body," made this sentiment easy; 
 he felt toward his chief and his clan as a 
 veteran feels toward his colonel and his regi- 
 ment. 
 
 To Scott's historic sentiment and tender- 
 ness of feeling for the established social 
 order was added a love of place, begotten 
 of associations with pleasant Teviotdale, the 
 Tweed, Leader Haughs, the Braes of Yar- 
 
LOCKHART'S LIFE OF SCOTT 21 
 
 row, bequeathed from generation to genera- 
 tion. We Americans, men of migratory 
 habits, who do not live where our fathers 
 have lived, or, if so, pull their houses down 
 that we may build others with modern lux- 
 ury, are strangers to the deep sentiment 
 which a Scotsman cherishes for his home ; 
 — not the mere stones and timber, which 
 keep him dry and warm, but the hearth at 
 which his mother and his forefathers sat and 
 took their ease after the labor of the day, the 
 ancient trees about the porch, the heather 
 and honeysuckle, the highroad down which 
 galloped the post with news of Waterloo and 
 Culloden, the little brooks of border min- 
 strelsy, and the mountains of legend ; we do 
 not share his inward feeling that his soul is 
 bound to the soul of the place by some rite 
 celebrated long before his birth, that for 
 better or worse they two are mated, and not 
 without some hidden injury can anything 
 but death part them. Perhaps such feelings 
 are childish, they certainly are not modish 
 according to our American notions, but over 
 those who entertain them they are royally 
 tyrannical. It was so with Scott, and though 
 when left to ourselves we may not feel that 
 
22 LOCKHART'S LIFE OF SCOTT 
 
 feeling, he teaches us a lively sympathy with 
 it, and gives us a deeper desire to have what 
 we may really call a home. 
 
 Scott also possessed a great theatrical im- 
 agination. He looked on life as from an 
 upper window, and watched the vast histori- 
 cal pageant march along; his eye caught 
 notable persons, dramatic incidents, pictur- 
 esque episodes, with the skill of a sagacious 
 theatre manager. Not the drama of con- 
 science, not the meetings and maladjust- 
 ments of different temperaments and person- 
 alities, not the whims of an over-civilized 
 psychology, not the sensitive indoor happen- 
 ings of life : but scenes that startle the eye, 
 alarm the ear, and keep every sense on the 
 alert ; the objective bustle and much ado 
 of life; the striking effects which contrast 
 clothes as well as character, bringing to- 
 gether Highlander and Lowlander, Crusader 
 and Saracen, jesters, prelates, turnkeys, and 
 foresters. That is why the Waverley Novels 
 divide honors with the theatre in a boy's life. 
 I can remember how easy seemed the transi- 
 tion from my thumbed and dog-eared " Guy 
 Mannering" to the front row of the pit, 
 which my impatience reached in ample time to 
 
LOCKHART'S LIFE OF SCOTT 23 
 
 study the curtain resplendent with Boccaccio's 
 garden before it was lifted on a wonderful 
 world of romance wherein the jeune premier 
 stepped forward like Frank Osbaldistone, Sir 
 Kenneth, or any of " my insipidly imbecile 
 young men," as Scott called them, to play 
 his difficult, ungrateful part, just as they 
 did, with awkwardness and self-conscious in- 
 ability, while the audience passed him by, as 
 readers do in the Waverley Novels, to gaze 
 on the glittering mise en scene, and watch 
 the real heroes of the piece. 
 
 The melodramatic theatre indicates certain 
 fundamental truths of human nature. We 
 have inherited traits of the savage, we de- 
 light in crimson and sounding brass, in sol- 
 diers and gypsies, nor can we conceal, if we 
 would, another and nearer ancestry, " The 
 child is father to the man : " the laws of 
 childhood govern us still, and it is to this 
 common nature of Child and Man that Scott 
 appeals so strongly. 
 
 " Sound, sound the clarion, fill the fife! 
 To all the sensual world proclaim, 
 One crowded hour of glorious life 
 Is worth an age without a name." 
 
 Scott was a master of the domain of simple 
 
24 LOCKHART'S LIFE OF SCOTT 
 
 theatrical drama. What is there more effec- 
 tive than his bravado scenes, which we watch 
 with that secret sympathy for bragging with 
 which we used to watch the big boys at 
 school, for we know that the biggest words 
 will be seconded by deeds. " Touch Ralph 
 de Vipont's shield — touch the Hospitaller's 
 shield ; he is your cheapest bargain." " ' Who 
 has dared/ said Richard, laying his hands 
 upon the Austrian standard, ' who has dared 
 to place this paltry rag beside the banner of 
 England? ' " " ' Die, bloodthirsty dog! ' said 
 Balfour, ' die as thou hast lived ! die, like the 
 beasts that perish — hoping nothing — be- 
 lieving nothing ' — ( And fearing nothing ! ' 
 said Bothwell." These, and a hundred such 
 passages, are very simple, but simple with a 
 simplicity not easy to attain ; they touch the 
 young barbarian in us to the quick. 
 
 In addition to these traits, Scott had that 
 shrewd practical understanding which is said 
 to mark the Scotsman. Some acute contem- 
 porary said that " Scott's sense was more 
 wonderful than his genius." In fact, his 
 sense is so all-pervasive that it often renders 
 the reader blind to the imaginative qualities 
 that spread their great wings throughout 
 
LOCKHART'S LIFE OF SCOTT 25 
 
 most of the novels. It was this good sense 
 that enabled Scott to supply the admirable 
 framework of his stories, for it taught him 
 to understand the ways of men, — farmers, 
 shopkeepers, lawyers, soldiers, lairds, gra- 
 ziers, smugglers, — to perceive how all parts 
 of society are linked together, and to trace 
 the social nerves that connect the shepherd 
 and the blacksmith with historic personages. 
 Scott had great powers of observation, but 
 these powers, instead of being allowed to 
 yield at their own will to the temptation of 
 the moment, were always under the control 
 of good sense. This controlled observation, 
 aided by the extraordinary healthiness of his 
 nature, enabled him to look upon life with 
 so much largeness, and never suffered his 
 fancy to wander off and fasten on some sore 
 spot in the body social, or on some morbid 
 individual ; but held it fixed on healthy so- 
 ciety, on sanity and equilibrium. Natural, 
 healthy life always drew upon Scott's abun- 
 dant sympathy. Dandie Dinmont, Mr. Old- 
 buck, Baillie Jarvie, and a hundred more 
 show the greatest pigment of art, the good 
 color of health. Open a novel almost at 
 random and you meet a sympathetic under- 
 
26 LOCKHART'S LIFE OF SCOTT 
 
 standing. For example, a fisher worn an is 
 pleading for a dram of whiskey : " Ay, ay, 
 — it 's easy for your honor, and like o' you 
 gentlefolks, to say sae, that hae stouth and 
 routh, and fire and fending, and meat and 
 claith, and sit dry and canny by the fireside. 
 But an* ye wanted fire and meat and dry 
 claise, and were deeing o' cauld, and had a 
 sair heart, whilk is warst ava', wi' just tip- 
 pence in your pouch, wadna ye be glad to 
 buy a dram wi' it, to be eilding and claise, 
 and a supper and heart's ease into the bar- 
 gain till the morn's morning ? " 
 
 It is easy to disparage common sense and 
 the art of arousing boyish interest, just as it 
 is easy to disparage romantic affections for 
 the past, for rank, and for place ; but Scott 
 had a power which transfigured common 
 sense, theatrical imagination, and conserva- 
 tive sentiments, — - Scott was a poet. His 
 poetic genius has given him one great ad- 
 vantage over all other English novelists. As 
 we think of the famous names, Fielding, 
 Kichardson, Jane Austen, Thackeray, Dick- 
 ens, Charlotte Bronte, George Eliot, Mere- 
 dith ; according to our taste, our education, 
 or our whimsies, we prefer this quality in 
 
LOCKHART'S LIFE OF SCOTT 27 
 
 one, we enjoy that in another, and we may, 
 as many do, put others above Scott in the 
 hierarchy of English novelists, but nobody, 
 not even the most intemperate, will compare 
 any one of them with Scott as a poet. Scott 
 had great lyrical gifts. It has been remarked 
 how many of his poems Mr. Palgrave has 
 inserted in the " Golden Treasury." Pal- 
 grave did well. There are few poems that 
 have the peculiar beauty of Scott's lyrics. 
 Take, for example, — 
 
 " A weary lot is thine, fair maid, 
 
 A weary lot is thine ! 
 To pull the thorn thy brow to braid, 
 
 And press the rue for wine. 
 A lightsome eye, a soldier's mien, 
 
 A feather of the blue, 
 A doublet of the Lincoln green — 
 
 No more of me you knew, 
 
 My love ! 
 
 No more of me you knew." 
 
 What maiden could resist 
 
 " A lightsome eye, a soldier's mien, 
 A feather of the blue ? " 
 
 Scott's poetic nature, delicate and charm- 
 ing as it is in his lyrics, picturesque and 
 vigorous as it is in his long poems, finds its 
 sturdier and most natural expression in his 
 novels ; in them it refines the prodigal dis- 
 
28 LOCKHART'S LIFE OF SCOTT 
 
 play of pictorial life, it bestows lightness and 
 vividness, it gives an atmosphere of beauty, 
 and a joyful exhilaration of enfranchise- 
 ment from the commonplace ; it mingles the 
 leaven of poetry into ordinary life, and 
 causes what we call romance. Take, for 
 example, a subject like war. War, as it is, 
 commissariat, dysentery, mule- trains, six- 
 pounders, disemboweled boys,reconcentration, 
 water-cure, lying, and swindling, has been 
 described by Zola and Tolstoi with the skill 
 of that genius which is faithful to the naked- 
 ness of fact. But for the millions who do 
 not go to the battlefield, hospital, or burial- 
 ditch, war is another matter ; for them it is 
 a brilliant affair of colors, drums, uniforms, 
 courage, enthusiasm, heroism, and victory ; 
 it is the most brilliant of stage-shows, the 
 most exciting of games. This is the familiar 
 conception of war ; and Scott has expressed 
 his thorough sympathy with immense poeti- 
 cal skill. Let the sternest Quaker read the 
 battle scene in " Marmion," and he will feel 
 his temper glow with warlike ardor ; and the 
 fighting in the novels, for instance the battle 
 in " Old Mortality," is still better. In like 
 manner in the pictures of Highland life the 
 
LOCKHART'S LIFE OF SCOTT 29 
 
 style may be poor, the workmanship careless, 
 but we are always aware that what we read 
 has been written by one who looked upon 
 what he describes with a poet's eye. 
 
 The poetry that animates the Waverley 
 Novels was not, as with some men, a rare 
 accomplishment kept for literary use, but lay 
 deep in Scott's life. As a young man he 
 fell in love with a lady who loved and mar- 
 ried another, and all his life her memory, 
 etherealized no doubt after the manner of 
 poets and lovers, stayed with him, so that 
 despite the greatest worldly success his finer 
 happiness lay in imagination. But as he 
 appeared at Abbotsford, gayest among the 
 gay, prince of good fellows, what comrade 
 conjectured that the poet had not attained 
 his heart's desire? 
 
 Ill 
 
 It is easy to find fault with Scott ; he has 
 taken no pains to hide the bounds of his 
 genius. He was careless to slovenliness, he 
 hardly ever corrected his pages, he worked 
 with a glad animal energy, writing two or 
 three hours before breakfast every morn- 
 ing, chiefly in order to free himself from the 
 
30 LOCKHART'S LIFE OF SCOTT 
 
 pressure of his fancy. So lightly did he go 
 to work that when taken sick after writing 
 "The Bride of Lammermoor " he forgot all 
 but the outline of the plot. His pen coursed 
 like a greyhound ; at times it lost the scent 
 of the story and strayed away into tedious 
 prologue and peroration, or in endless talk, 
 and then, the scent regained, it dashed on 
 into a scene of unequaled vigor and imagina- 
 tion. There are few speeches that can rank 
 with that of Jeanie Deans to Queen Caroline : 
 " But when the hour of trouble comes to the 
 mind or to the body — and seldom may it 
 visit your Leddyship — and when the hour 
 of death comes, that comes to high and low 
 — lang and late may it be yours — my 
 Leddy, then it isna what we hae dune for 
 oursells, but what we hae dune for others, 
 that we think on maist pleasantly. And the 
 thoughts that ye hae intervened to spare the 
 puir thing's life will be sweeter in that hour, 
 come when it may, than if a word of your 
 mouth could hang the haill Porteous mob at 
 the tail of ae tow." 
 
 Scott was a vigorous, happy man, who 
 rated life far higher than literature, and 
 looked upon novel-writing as a money-getting 
 
LOCKHART'S LIFE OF SCOTT 31 
 
 operation. " ' I 'd rather be a kitten and cry 
 Mew/ " he said, " than write the best poetry 
 in the world on condition of laying aside 
 common sense in the ordinary transactions 
 and business of the world." He would have 
 entertained pity, not untouched by scorn, for 
 those novelists who apply to a novel the rules 
 that govern a lyric, and come home fatigued 
 from a day spent in seeking an adjective. 
 Scott wrote with what is called inspiration ; 
 when he had written, his mind left his manu- 
 script and turned to something new. No 
 doubt we wish that it had been otherwise, 
 that Scott, in addition to his imaginative 
 power, had also possessed the faculty of self- 
 criticism ; perhaps Nature has adopted some 
 self-denying ordinance, that, where she is so 
 prodigal with her right hand, she will be 
 somewhat niggard with the left. We are 
 hard to please if we demand that she shall 
 add the delicate art of Stevenson to the virile 
 power of Walter Scott. 
 
 There is a second fault ; archaeologists 
 tell us that no man ever spoke like King 
 Eichard, Ivanhoe, and Locksley. Scott, how- 
 ever, has erred in good company. Did Moses 
 and David speak as the Old Testament nar- 
 
32 LOCKHART'S LIFE OF SCOTT 
 
 rates ? Did knights-errant ever utter such 
 words as Malory puts into the mouth of 
 Perceval ? Or did the real Antony have 
 the eloquence of Shakespeare? Historical 
 and archaeological mistakes are serious in 
 history and archaeology, and shockingly dis- 
 figure examination papers, hut in novels the 
 standards are different. Perhaps men learned 
 in demonology are put out of patience by 
 " Paradise Lost " and the " Inferno," and 
 scholars in fairy lore vex themselves over 
 Ariel and Titania ; but " Ivanhoe " is like a 
 picture, which at a few feet shows blotches 
 and daubs, but looked at from the proper 
 distance, shows the correct outline and the 
 true color. The raw conjunction of Saxon 
 and Norman, the story how the two great 
 stocks of Englishmen went housekeeping 
 together, is told better than in any history. 
 So it is with " The Talisman." The picture 
 of the crusading invasion of Palestine is no 
 doubt wholly incorrect in all details, and yet 
 what book equals it in enabling us to under- 
 stand the romantic attitude of Europe and the 
 great popular Christian sentiment which ex- 
 pressed itself in unchristian means and built 
 so differently from what it knew ? But we 
 
LOCKHART'S LIFE OF SCOTT 33 
 
 need not quarrel in defense of " Ivanhoe," 
 or " Quentin Durward," or " The Talisman." 
 Unquestionably the Scottish novels are the 
 best, " Rob Roy," " Guy Mannering," " The 
 Antiquary," " Old MortaHty," " The Heart 
 of Mid-Lothian ; " in them we find portraiture 
 of character, drawn with an art that must 
 satisfy the most difficult advocate of studies 
 from life ; and probably all of Scott's famous 
 characters were drawn from life. 
 
 A more serious charge is that Scott is not 
 interested in the soul; that the higher do- 
 mains of human faculties, love and religion, 
 are treated not at all or else inadequately. 
 At first sight there seems to be much justice 
 in this complaint, for if our minds run over 
 the names of the Waverley Novels, — the 
 very titles, like a romantic tune, play a mel- 
 ody of youth, — we remember no love scene 
 of power, nor any lovable woman except 
 Diana Vernon, and the religion in them is 
 too much like that which fills up our own 
 Sunday mornings between the fishballs of 
 breakfast and the cold roast beef of dinner. 
 Carlyle has expressed his dissatisfaction with 
 Scott's shortcomings, after the manner of an 
 eloquent advocate who sets forth his case, 
 
34 LOCKHART'S LIFE OF SCOTT 
 
 and leaves the jury to get at justice as best 
 they may. He denies that Scott touches the 
 spiritual or ethical side of life, and therefore 
 condemns him. But Carlyle does not look 
 for ethics except in exhortations, nor for 
 spiritual life except in a vociferous crying 
 after God ; whereas the soul is wayward and 
 strays outside of metaphysics and of right- 
 eous indignation. That Scott himself was a 
 good man, in a very high and solemn signifi- 
 cance of those words, cannot be questioned 
 by any one who has read his biography and 
 letters. No shadow of self-deception clouded 
 his mind when, in moments of great physical 
 pain, he said, "I should be a great fool, 
 and a most ungrateful wretch, to complain 
 of such inflictions as these. My life has 
 been in all its private and public relations as 
 fortunate, perhaps, as was ever lived, up to 
 this period ; and whether pain or misfortune 
 may lie behind the dark curtain of futurity, 
 I am already a sufficient debtor to the bounty 
 of Providence to be resigned to it;" nor 
 when he thought he was dying, " For my- 
 self I am unconscious of ever having done 
 any man an injury or omitted any fair oppor- 
 tunity of doing any man a benefit." Every 
 
LOCKHART'S LIFE OF SCOTT 35 
 
 one knows his last words, " Lockhart, be a 
 good man — be virtuous — be religious — 
 be a good man. Nothing else will give you 
 any comfort when you come to lie here." 
 
 Ethics have two methods: one is the way of 
 the great Hebrew prophets who cry, "Woe 
 to the children of this world ! Repent, re- 
 pent ! " and Carlyle's figure, as he follows 
 their strait and narrow way, shows very 
 heroic on the skyline of life ; but there is 
 still room for those teachers of ethics who 
 follow another method, who do not fix their 
 eyes on the anger of God, but on the beauti- 
 ful world which He has created. To them 
 humanity is not vile, nor this earth a magni- 
 fied Babylon ; they look for virtue and they 
 find it ; they see childhood ruddy-cheeked 
 and light-hearted, youth idealized by the 
 enchantment of first love ; they rejoice in a 
 wonderful world ; they laugh with those who 
 laugh, weep with mourners, dance with the 
 young, are crutches to the old, tell stories to 
 the moping, throw jests to the jolly, comfort 
 cold hearts, and leave everywhere a ripening 
 warmth like sunlight, and a faith that happi- 
 ness is its own justification. This was the 
 way of Walter Scott. 
 
36 LOCKHART'S LIFE OF SCOTT 
 
 No doubt spiritual life can express itself 
 in cries and prophecies, yet for most men, 
 looking over chequered lives, or into the re- 
 cesses of their own hearts, the spiritual life 
 is embodied not in loud exhortations and 
 threats, but rather in honor, loyalty, truth ; 
 and those who let this belief appear in their 
 daily life are entitled to the name, toward 
 which they are greatly indifferent, of spiritual 
 teachers. Honor, loyalty, truth, were very 
 dear to Walter Scott ; his love for them ap- 
 pears throughout his biography. He says, 
 " It is our duty to fight on, doing what good 
 we can and trusting to God Almighty, whose 
 grace ripens the seeds we commit to the 
 earth, that our benefactions shall bear fruit." 
 Among the good seeds Scott committed to 
 the earth are his novels, which, if they are 
 not spiritual, according to the significance 
 of that word as used by prophet and priest, 
 have that in them which has helped genera- 
 tions of young men to admire manliness, 
 purity, fair play, and honor, and has strength- 
 ened their inward resolutions to think no 
 unworthy thoughts, to do no unworthy 
 deeds. Literature, not preaching, has been 
 the great civilizer ; if it has not been as 
 
LOCKHART'S LIFE OF SCOTT 37 
 
 quick to kindle enthusiasm for large causes, 
 it has acted with greater sureness and has 
 built more permanently; and of all the great 
 names in literature as a power for good, who 
 shall come next to Shakespeare, Dante, and 
 Cervantes, if not Walter Scott ? 
 
D'ANNUNZIO, NOVELIST 
 
D'ANNUNZIO, NOVELIST 
 
 U ( 
 
 Tom Jones ' and Gray's i Elegy in a 
 Country Churchyard ' are both excellent, and 
 much spoke of by both sex, particularly by the 
 men." This statement by Marjorie Fleming 
 has abundant confirmation in the history of 
 English literature for the last hundred and 
 fifty years. And although this nineteenth 
 century of ours has enjoyed throwing a great 
 many stones at the eighteenth, we must ac- 
 knowledge that we cannot find in English 
 literature another novel and another poem 
 that, taken together, give us a fuller know- 
 ledge of English-speaking men. There are 
 times, in the twilights of the day, and of the 
 year, in the closing in of life, when we all 
 contemplate death ; and the Elegy tells all 
 our thoughts in lines that possess our memo- 
 ries like our mothers' voices. It shows sim- 
 ple folk in sight of death, calm, natural, seri- 
 ous, high-minded. Thomas a Kempis, Cato 
 the younger, the cavaliers of the Light Bri- 
 
42 D'ANNUNZIO, NOVELIST 
 
 gade, may have thought upon death after 
 other fashions, but for most of us the 
 thoughts of our hearts have been portrayed 
 by Gray. 
 
 " Tom Jones " is the contemplation of life 
 in ordinary Englishmen. In the innocent days 
 before Mr. Hardy and some other writers of 
 distinction " Tom Jones " was reputed coarse, 
 — one of those classics that should find their 
 places on a shelf well out of reach of young 
 arms. The manners of Squire Western and 
 of Tom himself are such as often are best 
 described in the Squire's own language. But 
 who is the man, as Thackeray says, that does 
 not feel freer after he has read the book? 
 Fielding, in his rough and ready way, has 
 described men as they are, made of the dust 
 of the earth, and that not carefully chosen. 
 We no longer read it aloud to our families, 
 as was the custom of our great-grandfathers ; 
 but we do not all read Mr. Hardy aloud to 
 our daughters. " Tom Jones " is a big, strong, 
 fearless, honest book ; it gives us a hearty 
 slap on the back, congratulating us that we 
 are alive, and we accept the congratulation 
 with pleasure. Its richness is astonishing. 
 It has flowed down through English litera- 
 
D'ANNUNZIO, NOVELIST 43 
 
 ture like a fertilizing Nile. In it we find 
 the beginnings of Sheridan, Dickens, Thack- 
 eray, George Eliot. In it we have those 
 wonderful conversations between Square and 
 Thwackum, which remind us of Don Quixote 
 and Sancho Panza. Mrs. Seagrim talks for 
 half a page, and we hold our noses against 
 the smells in her kitchen. 
 
 The power of the book is its eulogy upon 
 life. Is it not wretched to be stocks, stones, 
 tenants of Westminster Abbey, mathemati- 
 cians, or young gentlemen lost in philoso- 
 phy ? Is not the exhilaration of wine good ? 
 Is not dinner worth the eating ? Do not 
 young women make a most potent and 
 charming government ? Fielding takes im- 
 mense pleasure in the foolishness, in the foi- 
 bles of men, and he finds amusement in their 
 vices, but over virtue and vice, over wisdom 
 and folly, he always insists upon the joy and 
 the value of life. 
 
 When we shall have re-read " Tom Jones " 
 and repeated Gray's Elegy to ourselves, then 
 we shall be in the mood in which we can 
 best determine the value of foreign novels 
 for us. And so, with this avowal of our 
 point of view, we approach the stories of the 
 
44 D'ANNUNZIO, NOVELIST 
 
 distinguished Italian novelist, Gabriele d'An- 
 nunzio. 
 
 Men of action who apply themselves to 
 literature are likely to have a generous con- 
 fidence that skill will follow courage; that if 
 they write, the capacity to write effectively 
 will surely come. Plays, novels, editorials, 
 sonnets, are written by them straight upon 
 the impulse. They plunge into literature as 
 if it were as buoyant as their spirit, and 
 strike out like young sea creatures. Gabri- 
 ele d'Annunzio is a man of another complex- 
 ion. He is not a man of action, but of re- 
 flection. He is a student; he lives in the 
 world of books. Through this many-colored 
 medium of literature he sees men and wo- 
 men ; but he is saved from an obvious ar- 
 tificiality by his sensitiveness to books of 
 many kinds. He has submitted to laborious 
 discipline; he has sat at the feet of many 
 masters. His early schooling may be seen in 
 a collection of stories published in 1886 un- 
 der the name of the first, " San Pantaleone." 
 One story is in imitation of Verga, another 
 of de Maupassant ; and in " La Fattura " is 
 an attempt to bring the humor of Boccaccio 
 into a modern tale. Even in the u Decam- 
 
D'ANNUNZIO, NOVELIST 45 
 
 eron " this renowned humor has neither affec- 
 tion nor pity for father ; in its own cradle it 
 mewls like an ill-mannered foundling. In 
 the hands of d'Annunzio it acquires the in- 
 genuous charm of Mr. Noah Claypole. We 
 believe that d'Annunzio, consciously or un- 
 consciously, became aware of his native an- 
 tipathy to humor, for we have not found 
 any other attempt at it in his work. It is 
 in this absence of humor that we first feel 
 the separation between d'Annunzio and the 
 deep human feelings. In Italian literature 
 there is no joyous, mellow, merry book, in 
 which as a boy he might have nuzzled and 
 rubbed off upon himself some fruitful pollen. 
 One would as soon expect to find a portrait 
 of Mr. Pickwick by Botticelli as the spirit of 
 Dickens in any cranny of Italian literature. 
 M. de Vogue has said that d'Annunzio is 
 born out of time ; that in spirit he is one of 
 the cinqnecentisti. There is something fero- 
 cious and bitter in him. The great human 
 law of gravitation, that draws man to man, 
 does not affect him. 
 
 Nevertheless, these stories have much vigor 
 and skillful description. In " San Pantale- 
 one " d'Annunzio depicts the frenzy and fierce 
 
46 D'ANNUNZIO, NOVELIST 
 
 emotions of superstition in southern Italy. 
 Savage fanaticism interests him. The com- 
 bination of high imagination and the exalta- 
 tion of delirium with the stupidity and igno- 
 rance of beasts has a powerful attraction for 
 him. The union of the intellectual and the 
 bestial is to him the most remarkable phe- 
 nomenon of life. 
 
 This early book is interesting also in that 
 it shows ideas in the germ and in their first 
 growth which are subsequently developed in 
 the novels, and in that it betrays d'Annun- 
 zio's notion that impersonality — that deliv- 
 erance from the frailty of humanity to which 
 he would aspire — is an escape from compas- 
 sion and affection, and is most readily come 
 at through contempt. 
 
 D'Annunzio has spared no pains to make 
 his language as melodious and efficient an 
 instrument as he can. Italian prose has 
 never been in the same rank with Italian 
 poetry. There have been no great Italians 
 whose genius has forced Italian prose to bear 
 the stamp and impress of their personalities. 
 In the sixteenth century this prose was clear 
 and capable, but since then it has gradually 
 shrunk to fit the thoughts of lesser men. 
 
D'ANNUNZIO, NOVELIST 47 
 
 D'Annunzio has taken on his back the task 
 of liberating the Italian tongue ; he will give 
 it " virtue, manners, freedom, power." Not 
 having within him the necessity of utterance, 
 not hurried on by impetuous talents, he has 
 applied himself to his task with deliberation 
 and circumspection. He has studied Boc- 
 caccio and Petrarch and many men of old, 
 so that his vocabulary shall be full, and his 
 grammar as pure and flexible as the genius 
 of the language will permit. He purposes 
 to fetch from their hiding-places Italian 
 words long unused, that he shall be at no 
 loss for means to make plain the most deli- 
 cate distinctions of meaning. He intends 
 that his thoughts, which shall be gathered 
 from all intellectual Europe, shall have fit 
 words to house them. 
 
 At the time of his first novels, d'Annun- 
 zio turned to Paris, the capital of the Latin 
 world, as to his natural school. In Paris 
 men of letters (let us except a number of 
 gallant young gentlemen disdainful of read- 
 ers) begin by copying and imitation, that 
 they may acquire the mechanical parts of 
 their craft. They study Stendhal, Flaubert, 
 de Maupassant ; they contemplate a chapter, 
 
48 D'ANNUNZIO, NOVELIST 
 
 they brood over a soliloquy, they grow lean 
 over a dialogue. They learn how the master 
 marshals his ideas, how he winds up to his 
 climax, what tricks and devices he employs 
 to take his reader prisoner. From time to 
 time voices protestant are raised, crying out 
 against the sacrifice of innocent originality. 
 But the band of the lettered marches on. 
 Why should they forego knowledge gathered 
 together with great pains? Shall a young 
 man turn against the dictionary? 
 
 In Paris d'Annunzio found a number of 
 well-established methods for writing a novel. 
 Some of these methods have had a power- 
 ful influence upon him ; therefore it may be 
 worth while to remind ourselves of them, in 
 order that we may the better judge his capa- 
 city for original work and for faithful imita- 
 tion. 
 
 The first method is simply that of the old- 
 fashioned novel of character and manners, 
 and needs no description. 
 
 The second method, the familiar philo-real 
 or philo-natural, hardly may be said to be a 
 method for writing a novel ; it is a mode of 
 writing what you will ; but it has achieved 
 its reputation in the hands of novelists. This 
 
D'ANNUNZIO, NOVELIST 49 
 
 method is supposed to require careful, pains- 
 taking, and accurate observation of real per- 
 sons, places, and incidents ; but in truth it 
 lets this duty sit very lightly on its shoul- 
 ders, and commonly consists in descriptions, 
 minute, elaborate, prolix. It pretends to be 
 an apotheosis of fact ; it is a verbal ritual. 
 It has been used by many a man uncon- 
 scious of schools. In practice it is the most 
 efficacious means of causing the illusion of 
 reality within the reach of common men. 
 By half a dozen pages of deliberate and ex- 
 act enumeration of outward parts, a man 
 may frequently produce as vivid and memory- 
 haunting a picture as a poet does with a met- 
 aphor or an epithet. M. Zola, by virtue of 
 his vigor, his zeal, and his fecundity, has won 
 popular renown as leader of this school. 
 
 The third method is the psychological. 
 It consists in the delineation in detail of 
 thoughts and feelings instead of actions, the 
 inward and unseen in place of the outward 
 and visible. The novelist professes an inti- 
 mate knowledge of the wheels, cogs, cranks 
 of the brain, and of the airy portraiture of 
 the mind, and he describes them with an 
 embellishment of scientific phrase, letting the 
 
50 D'ANNUNZIO, NOVELIST 
 
 outward acts take care of themselves as best 
 they may. The danger of this method is 
 lest the portrayal of psychic states constitute 
 the novel, and lest the plot and the poor 
 little incidents squeeze in with much dis- 
 comfort. Perhaps M. Bourget is the most 
 distinguished member of this school. 
 
 The fourth mode is that of the Symbolistes. 
 These writers are not wholly purged from 
 all desire for self-assertion ; they wish room 
 wherein openly to display themselves, and to 
 this end they have withdrawn apart out of 
 the shadow of famous names. They assert 
 that they stand for freedom from old saws ; 
 that the philosophic doctrine of idealism up- 
 sets all theories based upon the reality of 
 matter ; that the business of art is to use the 
 imperfect means of expression at its com- 
 mand to suggest and indicate ideas; that 
 character, action, incidents, are but symbols 
 of ideas. They hold individuality sacred, 
 and define it to be that which man has in 
 himself unshared by any other, and deny the 
 name to all that he has in common with 
 other men. Therefore this individuality, 
 being but a small part, a paring, as it were, 
 of an individual, shows maimed and unnat- 
 
D'ANNUNZIO, NOVELIST 61 
 
 ural. And thus they run foul of seeming 
 opposites, both the individual and also the 
 abstract ; for the revered symbol is neither 
 more nor less than an essence abstracted 
 from the motley company of individuals, fil- 
 tered and refined, which returns decked out 
 in the haberdashery of generalities, under 
 the baptismal name of symbol. In order to 
 facilitate this latter process of extracting and 
 detaching unity from multiplicity, they mur- 
 mur songs of mystic sensuality, as spiritual- 
 ists burn tapers of frankincense at the dis- 
 entanglement of a spirit from its fellows in 
 the upper or nether world. One of the best 
 known of these is Maurice Maeterlinck. 
 
 There is, moreover, a doctrine that runs 
 across these various methods, like one pat- 
 tern across cloths of divers materials, which 
 affects them all. It is that the writer shall 
 persistently obtrude himself upon the reader. 
 Stated in this blunt fashion, the doctrine is 
 considered indecent ; it is not acknowledged ; 
 and, in truth, these Frenchmen do not reveal 
 their personality. It may indeed be doubted 
 if they have any such encumbrance. In its 
 place they have a bunch of theories tied up 
 with the ribbon of their literary experience ; 
 
52 D'ANNUNZIO, NOVELIST 
 
 and the exhalations of it, as if it were a 
 bunch of flowers, they suffer to transpire 
 through their pages. These theories are not 
 of the writer's own making; they are the 
 notions made popular in Paris by a number 
 of distinguished men, of whom the most 
 notable are Taine and Renan. The inevi- 
 table sequence of cause and effect and its 
 attendant corollaries, vigorously asserted and 
 reiterated by M. Taine, and the amiable irony 
 of M. Renan, have had success with men of 
 letters out of all proportion to their intel- 
 lectual value. Their theories have influenced 
 novels very much, and life very little. Why 
 should the dogmas of determinism and of 
 unskeptical skepticism affect men in a novel 
 more obviously than they affect men in the 
 street ? 
 
 Into this world of Parisian letters, in 
 among these literary methods, walked young 
 d'Annunzio, sensitive, ambitious, detached 
 from tradition, with his ten talents wrapped 
 up in an embroidered and scented napkin, 
 with his docile apprentice habit of mind, and 
 straightway set himself, with passion for art 
 and the ardor of youth, to the task of ac- 
 quiring these French methods, that he should 
 
D'ANNUNZIO, NOVELIST 53 
 
 become the absolute master of his talents, 
 and be able to put them out at the highest 
 rate of usury. Young enough to be seduced 
 by the blandishments of novelty, he passed 
 over the old-fashioned way of describing 
 character, and studied the methods of the 
 realists, the psychologists, the symbolists. 
 With his clear, cool head he very soon mas- 
 tered their methods, and in the achievement 
 quickened and strengthened his artistic capa- 
 cities, his precision, his sense of proportion, 
 his understanding of form. But the nurture 
 of his art magnified and strengthened his 
 lack of humanity. Lack of human sympathy 
 is a common characteristic of young men 
 who are rich in enthusiasm for the written 
 word, the delineated line, the carving upon 
 the cornice. Devotion to the minute refine- 
 ments of art seems to leave no room in their 
 hearts for human kindliness. The unripe- 
 ness of youth, overwork, disgust with the 
 common in human beings, help to separate 
 them from their kind. In their weariness 
 they forget that the great masters of art are 
 passionately human. D'Annunzio does not 
 wholly admit that he is a human unit, and 
 his sentiment in this matter has made him 
 
54 D'ANNUNZIO, NOVELIST 
 
 all the more susceptible to literary influences. 
 We find in him deep impressions from his 
 French studies. He has levied tribute upon 
 Zola, Bourget, and Loti. 
 
 In 1889 d'Annunzio published " II Pia- 
 cere." He lacks, as we have said, strong 
 human feelings ; he does not know the inter- 
 est in life as life ; he has no zeal to live, and 
 from the scantiness and barrenness of his 
 external world he turns to the inner world of 
 self. M. de Vogue has pointed out that his 
 heroes, Sperelli, Tullio Hermil, and Georgio 
 Aurispa, are all studies of himself. D'An- 
 nunzio does not deny this. He would argue 
 that it would be nonsense to portray others, 
 as we know ourselves best. Sperelli, the 
 hero of " II Piacere," is an exact portrait of 
 himself. He is described as "the perfect 
 type of a young Italian gentleman in the 
 nineteenth century, the true representative 
 of a stock of gentlemen and dainty artists, 
 the last descendant of an intellectual race. 
 He is saturated with art. His wonderful 
 boyhood has been nourished upon divers 
 profound studies. From his father he ac- 
 quired a taste for artistic things, a passionate 
 worship of beauty, a paradoxical disdain for 
 
D'ANNUNZIO, NOVELIST 55 
 
 prejudice, avidity for pleasure. His educa- 
 tion was a living thing ; it was not got out 
 of books, but in the glare of human reality." 
 The result was that " Sperelli chose, in the 
 practice of the arts, those instruments that 
 are difficult, exact, perfect, that cannot be 
 put to base uses, — versification and engrav- 
 ing ; and he purposed strictly to follow and 
 to renew the forms of Italian tradition, bind- 
 ing himself with fresh ties to the poets of the 
 new style and to the painters who came be- 
 fore the Renaissance. His spirit was formal 
 in its very essence. He valued expression 
 more than thought. His literary essays were 
 feats of dexterity ; studies devoted to re- 
 search, technique, the curious. He believed 
 with Taine that it would be more difficult 
 to write six beautiful lines of poetry than to 
 win a battle. His story of an hermaphrodite 
 was imitative, in its structure, of the story 
 of ' Orpheus ' by Poliziano ; it had verses of 
 exquisite delicacy, melody, and force, espe- 
 cially in the choruses sung by monsters of 
 double form, — centaurs, sirens, sphinxes. 
 His tragedy ' La Simona,' composed in lyri- 
 cal metre, was of a most curious savor. Al- 
 though its rhymes obeyed the old Tuscan 
 
56 D'ANNUNZIO, NOVELIST 
 
 models, it seemed as if it had been begot- 
 ten in the fancy of an Elizabethan poet by a 
 story from the l Decameron ; ' it held some- 
 thing of that music, rich and strange, which 
 is in some of Shakespeare's minor plays." 
 
 " II Piacere " is a study of the passion of 
 love. Sperelli's love for Elena, and after- 
 wards for Maria, is made the subject of an 
 essay in the guise of a novel upon two 
 aspects of this passion. The first is the 
 union of mind, almost non-human, unac- 
 quainted with lif e as if new-born, with the fact 
 of sex. D'Annunzio takes this fact of sex 
 in its simplest form, and portrays its effects 
 upon the mind in the latter's most sequestered 
 state, separate and apart, uninfluenced by 
 human things, divorced from all humanity. 
 He observes the isolated mind under the 
 dominion of this fact, and describes it in like 
 manner as he depicts the sea blown upon by 
 the wind. The shifting push of emotion, the 
 coming and going of thought, the involu- 
 tions and intricacy of momentary feeling, 
 the whirl of fantastic dreams, the swoop and 
 dash of memory, the grasp at the absolute, 
 the rocket-like whir of the imagination, — 
 all the motions of the mind, like the sur- 
 
D'ANNUNZIO, NOVELIST 57 
 
 face of a stormy sea, toss and froth before 
 you. 
 
 Sperelli's love for Maria, at least in the 
 beginning, is as lovely as a girl could wish. 
 It may be too much akin to his passion for 
 art, it may have in it too much of the ichor 
 that flowed in Shelley's veins. It is delicate, 
 ethereal; it is the passion of a dream man 
 for a dream maiden. It feeds on beauty ; 
 yet " like a worm i' the bud." " But long 
 it could not be, till that " his baser nature 
 " pull'd the poor wretch from its melodious 
 lay to muddy death." Yet the book is full 
 of poetry. We hardly remember chapters 
 in any novel that can match in charm those 
 that succeed the narrative of the duel. We 
 must free ourselves from habit by an effort, 
 and put out of our simple bourgeois minds 
 the fact that Maria has made marriage vows 
 to another man ; and we are able to do this, 
 for the husband has no claims upon her ex- 
 cept from those vows, and the poetry of the 
 episode ends long before those vows are 
 broken. 
 
 This novel, like the others, is decorated, 
 enameled, and lacquered with cultivation. 
 They are all like Christmas trees laden with 
 
58 D'ANNUNZIO, NOVELIST 
 
 alien fruit, — tinsel, candles, confectionery, 
 anything that will catch the eye. England, 
 France, Germany, Russia, contribute. Paint- 
 ing, sculpture, architecture, music, poetry, 
 are called upon to give color, form, structure, 
 sound, and dreaminess to embellish the de- 
 scriptions. The twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth, 
 fifteenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centu- 
 ries parade before us in long pageant, — 
 " L'uno e l'altro Guido," Gallucci, Memling, 
 Bernini, Pollajuolo, Pinturicchio, Storace, 
 Watteau, Shelley, Rameau, Bach, Gabriel 
 Rossetti, Bizet. The charm of a woman for 
 him is that she resembles a Madonna by 
 Ghirlandajo, an intaglio by Niccolo Niccoli, 
 a quatrain by Cino. His ladies are tattooed 
 with resemblances, suggestions, proportions, 
 similarities. The descriptions of their attrac- 
 tions read like an index to " The Stones of 
 Venice." He does not disdain to translate 
 Shelley's verse into Italian prose without 
 quotation marks. This passion for art is 
 d'Annunzio's means of escaping the vulgarity 
 of common men ; it is his refuge, his cleft 
 in the rock, whither he may betake himself, 
 and in which he may enjoy the pleasures of 
 intellectual content and scorn. This taste 
 
D'ANNUNZIO, NOVELIST 59 
 
 emphasizes his lack of human kindliness, and 
 it heightens the effect of unreality ; moreover 
 it limits and clips off the interest of the com- 
 mon reader. D'Annunzio is like Mr. Pater 
 in his nice tastes. He has noticed that the 
 sentences of men who write from a desire 
 to go hand in hand with other men, from 
 an eagerness to propagate their own beliefs, 
 trudge and plod, swinging their clauses and 
 parentheses like loosely strapped panniers; 
 that they observe regulations that should be 
 broken, and break rules that should be kept. 
 Therefore he girds himself like a gymnast, 
 and with dainty mincing periods glides har- 
 monious down the page ; but his grace 
 sometimes sinks into foppishness. He would 
 defend himself like Lord Foppington in the 
 play. 
 
 " Tom. Brother, you are the prince of 
 coxcombs. 
 
 " Lord Foppington. I am praud to be 
 at the head of so prevailing a party." 
 
 But even d'Annunzio's great skill cannot 
 rescue him from obvious artificiality. He 
 lives in a hothouse atmosphere of abnormal 
 refinement, at a temperature where only crea- 
 tures nurtured to a particular degree and a 
 
60 D'ANNUNZIO, NOVELIST 
 
 half Fahrenheit can survive. Sometimes one 
 is tempted to believe that d'Annunzio, con- 
 scious of his own inhumanity, deals with the 
 passions in the vain hope to lay hand upon 
 the human. He hovers like a non-human 
 creature about humanity, he is eager to 
 know it, he longs to become a man ; and 
 Setebos, his god, at his supplication turns 
 him into a new form. The changeling thinks 
 he is become a man ; but lo ! he is only an 
 intellectual beast. 
 
 Our judgment of d' Annunzio's work, how- 
 ever, is based upon other considerations than 
 that of the appropriate subordination of his 
 cultivation to his story. It depends upon our 
 theory of human conduct and our philosophy 
 of lif e, upon our answers to these questions : 
 Has the long, long struggle to obtain new 
 interests — interests that seem higher and 
 nobler than the old, interests the record of 
 which constitutes the history of civilization 
 — been mere unsuccessful folly? Are the 
 chief interests in life the primary instincts ? 
 Are we no richer than the animals, after all 
 these toiling years of renunciation and self- 
 denial ? Is the heritage which we share with 
 the beasts the best that our fathers have 
 
D'ANNUNZIO, NOVELIST 61 
 
 handed down to us ? There seem to be in 
 some corners of our world persons who an- 
 swer these questions in the affirmative, say- 
 ing, " Let us drop hypocrisy, let us face facts 
 and know ourselves, let English literature put 
 off false traditions and deal with the realities 
 of life," and much more, all sparkling with 
 brave words. Persons like Mr. George Moore, 
 who have a profound respect for adjectives, 
 say these instincts are primary, they are fun- 
 damental, and think that these two words, 
 like " open sesame," have admitted us into the 
 cave of reality. We are unable to succumb 
 to the hallucination. The circulation of the 
 blood is eminently primary and fundamen- 
 tal, yet there was literature of good repute 
 before it was dreamed of. For ourselves, 
 we find the interests of life in the secondary 
 instincts, in the thoughts, hopes, sentiments, 
 which man has won through centuries of 
 toil, — here a little, there a little. We find 
 the earlier instincts interesting only as they 
 furnish a struggle for qualities later born. 
 We are bored and disgusted by dragons of 
 the prime until we hear the hoofs of St. 
 George's horse and see St. George's helmet 
 glitter in the sun. The dragon is no more 
 
62 D'ANNUNZIO, NOVELIST 
 
 interesting than a cockroach, except to prove 
 the prowess of the hero. The bucking horse 
 may kick and curvet; we care not, till the 
 cowboy mount him. These poor primary 
 instincts are mere bulls for the toreador, 
 wild boars for the chase ; they are our mea- 
 sures for strength, self-denial, fortitude, cour- 
 age, temperance, chastity. The instinct of 
 self-preservation is the ladder up which the 
 soldier, the fireman, the lighthouse-keeper, 
 lightly trip to fame. What is the primary 
 and fundamental fear of death ? With whom 
 is it the most powerful emotion? " my 
 son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom ! 
 would God I had died for thee ! " Is it with 
 mothers ? Ask them. 
 
 D'Annunzio, with his predilections for aris- 
 tocracy, thinks that these primary instincts 
 are of unequaled importance and interest 
 because of their long descent. He forgets 
 that during the last few thousand years 
 power has been changing hands ; that de- 
 mocracy has come upon us ; and that a vir- 
 tue is judged by its value to-day, and not by 
 that which it had in the misty past. Litera- 
 ture is one long story of the vain struggles 
 of the primary instincts against the moral 
 
D'ANNUNZIO, NOVELIST 63 
 
 nature of man. From " (Edipus Tyrannus " 
 to " The Scarlet Letter " the primary passions 
 are defeated and overcome by duty, religion, 
 and the moral law. The misery of broken law 
 outlives passion and tramples on its embers. 
 The love of Paolo and Francesca is swallowed 
 up in their sin. It is the like in Faust. 
 Earthly passion cannot avail against the 
 moral powers. This network of the imagi- 
 nation binds a man more strongly than iron 
 shackles. The relations of our souls, of our 
 higher selves, to these instincts, are what 
 absorb us. We are thrilled by the stories in 
 which moral laws, children of instinct, have 
 arisen and vanquished their fathers, as the 
 beautiful young gods overcame the Titans. 
 If duty loses its savor, life no longer is 
 salted. The primary passions may continue 
 to hurl beasts at one another ; human interest 
 is gone. Were it not for conscience, honor, 
 loyalty, the primary instincts would never be 
 the subject of a story. They would stay in 
 the paddocks of physiological textbooks. 
 
 " What a piece of work is man " that he 
 has been able to cover a fact of animal life 
 with poetry more beautifully than Shake- 
 speare dresses a tale from Bandello ! He 
 
64 
 
 has created his honor as wonderful as his 
 love ; soldiers, like so many poets, have 
 digged out of cruelty and slaughter this 
 jewel of life. Where is the instinct of self- 
 preservation here? At Koncesvaux, when 
 Charlemagne's rear-guard is attacked by over- 
 whelming numbers, Koland denies Oliver's 
 request that he blow his horn for help. His 
 one thought is that poets shall not sing songs 
 to his dishonor : — 
 
 " Male cangun n'en deit estre cante*e." 
 
 And is the belief in chastity, which has 
 run round the world from east to west,, no- 
 thing but a superstition born of fear ? Has 
 it lasted so long only to be proved at the 
 end a coward and a dupe ? Is this sacrifice 
 of self mere instinctive folly in the individ- 
 ual ? Does he gain nothing by it ? Are 
 the worship of the Virgin Mary, the praise 
 of Galahad, the joys of self-denial, no more 
 than monkish ignorance and timidity ? 
 
 We are of the opinion that Vart de la 
 j)ourriture is popular because it is easily 
 acquired. It deals with the crude, the sim- 
 ple, the undeveloped. It has little to do 
 with the complicated, intertwined mass of re- 
 
D'ANNUNZIO, NOVELIST 65 
 
 lations that binds the individual to all other 
 individuals whether he will or not. It does 
 not try to unravel the conglomerate sum of 
 human ties. It does not see the myriad in- 
 fluences that rain down upon a man from all 
 that was before him, from all that is contem- 
 poraneous with him ; it does not know the 
 height above him, the depth beneath, the 
 mysteries of substance and of void. It deals 
 with materials that offer no resistance, no 
 difficulty, and cannot take the noble and 
 enduring forms of persisting things. It 
 ignores the great labors of the human mind, 
 and the transforming effect of them upon its 
 human habitation. This art cannot give 
 immortality. One by one the artists who 
 produce it drop off the tree of living litera- 
 ture and are forgotten. The supreme passion 
 of love has been told by Dante : — 
 
 " Quel giorno piu non vi leggemmo avante." 
 
 Does d'Annunzio think that he would have 
 bettered the passage? In the great delin- 
 eation of passion, vulgarity and indecency, 
 insults to manners, the monotony of vice, 
 are obliterated ; the brutality of detail slinks 
 off in silence. 
 
66 D'ANNUNZIO, NOVELIST 
 
 In 1892 d'Annunzio published " L'lnno- 
 cente." In this novel, as M. de Vogue has 
 pointed out, he has directed his powers of 
 imitation towards the great Russian novelists. 
 But his spirit and talents are of such differ- 
 ent sort from those of Tourgenieff, Tolstoi, 
 and Dostoiewsky that the copy is of the out- 
 side and show. D' Annunzio's faculties have 
 not been able to incorporate and to assimi- 
 late anything of the real Slav ; they are the 
 same, and express themselves in the same 
 way, in " L'Innocente " as in " II Piacere." 
 We therefore pass to his most celebrated 
 novel, " II Trionfo della Morte," published in 
 1894. A translation of it — that is, of as 
 much of it as was meet for French readers 
 — was soon after published in the " Revue 
 des Deux Mondes." This novel won the 
 approval of M. de Vogue, and has made Ga- 
 briele d'Annunzio a famous name through- 
 out Europe. 
 
 The plot, if we may use an old-fashioned 
 word to express new matter, is this : Georgio 
 Aurispa, a young man of fortune, who leads 
 a life of emptiness in Rome, one day meets 
 Ippolita, the wife of another man. On this 
 important day he has gone to hear Bach's 
 
D'ANNUNZIO, NOVELIST G7 
 
 Passion Music in a private chapel, and there 
 he sees the beautiful Ippolita. Bored and 
 disgusted by coarse pleasures, he throws 
 himself with rapture into a poetical passion 
 for this pale-faced, charming, slender Roman 
 woman. The story begins just before the 
 second anniversary of their meeting in the 
 chapel. The husband has absconded, and 
 Ippolita lives with her family. No sugges- 
 tion of a possible marriage is made, although 
 Aurispa frequently meditates with anguish 
 on the thought that she may forsake him. 
 He is wholly given to examining his mind 
 and feelings ; he follows their changes, he 
 explains their causes, he anticipates their 
 mutations. He picks up each sentiment deli- 
 cately, like a man playing jackstraws, holds 
 it suspended, contemplates it from this side 
 and from that, balances it before the faceted 
 mirror of his imagination, and then falls 
 into a melancholy. He dandles his senti- 
 ment for her, he purrs over it, he sings to it 
 snatches of psychical old tunes, he ministers 
 to it, fosters it, cherishes it, weeps over it, 
 wonders if it be growing or decreasing. 
 
 For some reasons of duty Ippolita is obliged 
 to be away from Eome from time to time, 
 
68 D'ANNUNZIO, NOVELIST 
 
 once in Milan with her sister. Aurispa hears 
 of her, that she is well, that she is gay. " She 
 laughs ! Then she can laugh, away from 
 me ; she can be gay ! All her letters are full 
 of sorrow, of lamentation, of hopeless long- 
 ing." The English reader is taken back to 
 that scene in " The Rivals " where Bob 
 Acres tells Faulkland that he has met Miss 
 Melville in Devonshire, and that she is very 
 well. 
 
 " Acres. She has been the belle and spirit 
 of the company wherever she has been, — so 
 lively and entertaining ! So full of wit and 
 humor ! 
 
 "Faulkland. There, Jack, there. Oh, 
 by my soul ! there is an innate levity in 
 woman that nothing can overcome. What ! 
 happy, and I away ! " 
 
 Aurispa is peculiarly sensitive ; the bunches 
 of nerve fibres at the base of his brain, the 
 ganglia in his medulla oblongata, are ex- 
 traordinarily alert, delicate, and powerful. 
 Every sensation runs through them like a 
 galloping horse ; memory echoes the beat- 
 ing of its hoofs, and imagination speeds it 
 on into the future, till it multiplies, expands, 
 and swells into a troop. Aurispa yearns to 
 
 
D'ANNUNZIO, NOVELIST 69 
 
 lose himself in happiness, and then droops 
 despondent, for a sudden jog of memory re- 
 minds him that he was in more of an ecstasy 
 when he first met Ippolita than he is to-day. 
 " Where are those delicate sensations which 
 once I had ? Where are those exquisite and 
 manifold pricks of melancholy, those deep 
 and twisted pains, wherein I lost my soul as 
 in an endless labyrinth ? " 
 
 In the zeal of his desire for fuller, more 
 enduring pleasure, he takes Ippolita to a 
 lonely house beside the sea that shall be 
 their hermitage. 
 
 Aurispa feels that there are two conditions 
 necessary to perfect happiness : one that he 
 should be the absolute master of Ippolita, 
 the other that he should have unlimited in- 
 dependence himself. " There is upon earth 
 but one enduring intoxication : absolute cer- 
 tainty in the ownership of another, — cer- 
 tainty fixed and unshakable." Aurispa pro- 
 poses to attain this condition. He puts his 
 intelligence to slavish service in discovery 
 of a method by which he shall win that 
 larger life and perfect content of which al- 
 most all men have had visions and dreams. 
 Long ago Buddha sought and thought to 
 
70 D'ANNUNZIO, NOVELIST 
 
 attain this condition. Long ago the Stoics 
 devised plans to loose themselves from the 
 knots that tie men to the common life of all. 
 Long ago the Christians meditated a philo- 
 sophy that should free them from the bonds 
 of the flesh, that they might live in the 
 spirit. Heedless of their experience, Aurispa 
 endeavors to find his content in sensuality ; 
 but once in their hermitage, he soon perceives 
 that the new life he sought is impossible. 
 He feels his love for Ippolita dwindle and 
 grow thin. He must physic it quickly or it 
 will die ; and if love fail, nothing is left but 
 death. Sometimes he thinks of her as dead. 
 Once dead, she will become such stuff as 
 thoughts are made of, a part of pure idealism. 
 " Out from a halting and lame existence she 
 will pass into a complete and perfect life, 
 forsaking forever her frail and sinful body. 
 To destroy in order to possess, — there is no 
 other way for him who seeks the absolute in 
 love." 
 
 That was for Aurispa a continuing thought, 
 but first his fancy turned for help to the re- 
 ligious sensuousness of his race. " He had 
 the gift of contemplation, interest in symbol 
 and in allegory, the power of abstraction, an 
 
D'ANNUNZIO, NOVELIST 71 
 
 extreme sensitiveness to suggestions by sight 
 or by word, an organic tendency to haunting 
 visions and to hallucinations." He lacked 
 but faith. At that time, superstition like a 
 wind swept over the southern part o£ Italy ; 
 there were rumors of a new Messiah ; an 
 emotional fever infected the whole country 
 round. A day's journey from the hermitage 
 lay the sanctuary of Casalbordino. Once the 
 Virgin had appeared there to a devout old 
 man, and had granted his prayer, and to 
 commemorate this miracle the sanctuary had 
 been built ; and now the country-folk swarmed 
 to the holy place. Georgio and Ippolita go 
 thither. All the description of this place, as 
 a note tells us, is the result of patient obser- 
 vation. About the sanctuary are gathered 
 together men and women from far and near, 
 all in a state of high exaltation. Troop upon 
 troop singing, — 
 
 " Viva Maria ! 
 Maria Evviva ! " 
 
 trudge over the dusty roads. These people 
 d'Annunzio depicts with the quick eye and 
 the patient care of an Agassiz. Monstrous 
 heads, deformed chests, shrunken legs, club- 
 feet, distorted hands, swollen tumors, sores 
 
72 D'ANNUNZIO, NOVELIST 
 
 of many colors, all loathsome diseases to 
 which flesh is heir and for which d'Annun- 
 zio's medical dictionary has names, are here 
 set forth. " How much morbid pathology 
 has done for the novelist ! " he is reported to 
 have said. Certainly its value to d'Annun- 
 zio cannot be rated too high. Aurispa and 
 Ippolita, excited by the fanatic exaltation, 
 fight their way into the church. There a 
 miserable mass of huddled humanity, shriek- 
 ing for grace, struggles toward the altar rail. 
 Behind the rail, the fat, stolid-faced priests 
 gather up the offerings. The air is filled 
 with nauseous smells. The church is a hide- 
 ous charnel-house, roofing in physical disease 
 and mental deformity. Outside, mountebanks, 
 jugglers, gamesters, foul men and women, 
 intercept what part of the offerings they can. 
 The memory of this day made Aurispa and 
 Ippolita sick, — her for human pity, him for 
 himself ; for he became conscious that there 
 is no power which can enthrall absolute plea- 
 sure. He had turned toward heaven to save 
 his life, and he has proved by experience his 
 belief in the emptiness of its grace. 
 
 With instinctive repulsion from death, he 
 looks for escape to thought. Thought which 
 
D'ANNUNZIO, NOVELIST 73 
 
 litis enslaved him may set him free. He 
 ponders upon the teaching of Nietzsche. 
 Away with the creeds of weakness, the evan- 
 gel of impotence ! Assert the justice of in- 
 justice, the righteousness of power, the joy of 
 creation and of destruction ! But Aurispa 
 cannot. Nothing is left him but death. He* 
 abandons all wish for perfect union with 
 Ippolita, yet jealousy will not suffer him to 
 leave her alive. His love for her has turned 
 into hate. In his thoughts it is she that 
 hounds him to death like a personal demon. 
 He grows supersensitive. He cannot bear 
 the red color of underdone beef. He is 
 ready to die of a joint, in juicy pain. He 
 gathers together in a heap and gloats over 
 all that he finds disagreeable and repellent 
 in Ippolita. What was she but his creation ? 
 " Now, as always, she has done nothing but 
 submit to the form and impressions that I 
 have made. Her inner life has always been 
 a fiction. When the influence of my sug- 
 gestion is interrupted, she returns to her 
 own nature, she becomes a woman again, the 
 instrument of base passion. Nothing can 
 change her, nothing can purify her." And 
 at last, by treachery and force, he drags her 
 
74 D'ANNUNZIO, NOVELIST 
 
 with him over a precipice to death be- 
 neath. 
 
 Such is the plot, but there is no pretense 
 that the plot is interesting or important except 
 as a scaffold on which to exhibit a philosophy 
 of life. That philosophy is clearly the au- 
 thor's philosophy. D'Annunzio's novel shows 
 in clear view and distinct outline how the 
 whirligig of time brings about its revenges. 
 
 Bishop Berkeley made famous the simple 
 theory of idealism, — that a man cannot go 
 outside of the inclosure of his mind ; that the 
 material world is the handiwork of fancy, 
 with no reality, no length, nor breadth, nor 
 fixedness ; that the pageant of life is the 
 march of dreams. Berkeley expected this 
 theory to destroy materialism, skepticism, and 
 infidelity. It did, in argument. Many a 
 man has taken courage in this unanswerable 
 retort to the materialist. He slings this 
 theory, like a smooth pebble from the brook, 
 at the Goliaths who advance with the pon- 
 derous weapons of scientific discovery. 
 
 The common idealist keeps his philosophy 
 for his library, and walks abroad like his 
 neighbors, subject to the rules, beliefs, and 
 habits of common sense. But d'Annunzio, 
 
D'ANNUNZIO, NOVELIST UB 
 
 who has received and adopted a bastard scion 
 of this idealism, is, as befits a man of leisure 
 and of letters, more faithful to his philosophy. 
 He has set forth his version of the theory in 
 this novel with characteristic clearness. Au- 
 rispa looks on the world as an instrument 
 that shall serve his pleasure. He will play 
 upon it what tunes he can that he may enjoy 
 the emotions and passions of life. He is 
 separate from his family and has a private 
 fortune. His world is small and dependent 
 upon him. In this world Aurispa has no 
 rival ; in it there is no male thing to bid him 
 struggle for supremacy ; it is his private pro- 
 perty, and the right of private property is 
 fixed as firm beyond the reach of question as 
 the fact of personal existence. Gradually a 
 transformation takes place ; this well-ordered 
 and obedient world changes under the domin- 
 ion of Aurispa' s thought. Little by little 
 object and subject lose their identity ; like 
 the thieves of the Seventh Bolge in the In- 
 ferno, they combine, unite, form but one 
 whole. In this change the material world is 
 swallowed up, and out from the transforma- 
 tion crawls the ideal world of Aurispa's 
 thought : — 
 
76 D'ANNUNZIO, NOVELIST 
 
 " Ogni primaio aspetto ivi era casso ; 
 Due e nessun 1' imagine perversa 
 Parea, e tal sen gia con lento passo." 
 
 This ideal world is Aurispa's. It varies with 
 his volition, for it is the aggregate of his 
 thoughts, and they are the emanations of his 
 will. In this dominion he stands like a de- 
 generate Caesar, drunk with power, frenzied 
 with his own potent impotence. Everything 
 is under his control, and yet there is a some- 
 thing imperceptible, like an invisible wall, 
 that bars his way to perfect pleasure. He 
 wanders all along it, touching, feeling, grop- 
 ing, all in vain. Think subtly as he will, he 
 finds no breach. Yet his deepest, his only 
 desire is to pass beyond. Perhaps life is this 
 barrier. He will break it down, and find his 
 absolute pleasure in death. And in exasper- 
 ation of despair before this invisible obstacle 
 he has recourse to action. In the presence 
 of action his ideal world wrestles once more 
 with reality, and amid the struggles Aurispa 
 finds that the only remedy for his impotent 
 individuality is to die. Both idealism and 
 fact push him towards death. 
 
 If we choose to regard Aurispa as living 
 in a real world, as a man responsible for his 
 
D'ANNUNZIO, NOVELIST 77 
 
 acts, as a member of human society, we have 
 little to say concerning him. He is a timid 
 prig, a voluptuous murderer, an intellectual 
 fop, smeared with self-love, vulgar to the ut- 
 most refinement of vulgarity, cruel, morbid, 
 a flatterer, and a liar. 
 
 For poor Ippolita we have compassion. 
 Had she lived out of Aurispa's world, with 
 her alluring Italian nature she might have 
 been charming. There is a rare feminine 
 attractiveness about her : had she been sub- 
 ject to sweet influences, had she been born 
 to Tourgenieff, she would have been one of 
 the delightful women of fiction. All that 
 she does has an attendant possibility of grace, 
 eager to become incorporate in action. Del- 
 icacy, sensitiveness, affection, fitness for the 
 gravity and the gayety of life, hover like 
 ministering spirits just beyond the covers of 
 the book ; they would come down to her, but 
 they cannot. This possibility died before its 
 birth. Ippolita's unborn soul, like the ro- 
 mantic episode in " II Piacere," makes us feel 
 that d'Annunzio may hereafter break loose 
 from his theories, free himself from his cigar- 
 ette-smoking philosophy, smash the looking- 
 glass in front of which he sits copying his 
 
78 D'ANNUNZIO, NOVELIST 
 
 own likeness, and start anew, able to under- 
 stand the pleasures of life and prepared to 
 share in the joys of the struggle. Surely M. 
 de Vogue is looking at these indications of 
 creative ability and poetic thought, and not 
 at accomplishment, when he hails d' Annunzio 
 as the leader of another Italian KeDaissance. 
 It is hope that calls forth M. de Vogue's 
 praise. A national literature has never yet 
 been built upon imitation, sensuality, and 
 artistic frippery. 
 
 After finishing the last page of " The Tri- 
 umph of Death," quick as a flash we pass 
 through many phases of emotion. In the in- 
 stant of time before the book leaves our hand, 
 our teeth set, our muscles contract, we desire 
 to hit out from the shoulder. Our memory 
 teems with long-forgotten physical acts, up- 
 per-cuts, left-handers, swingers, knock-outs. 
 By some mysterious process, words that our 
 waking mind could not recall surge up in 
 capital letters ; all the vocabulary of Shake- 
 spearean insult rings in our ears, — base, 
 proud, shallow, beggarly, silk-stocking knave, 
 a glass - gazing finical rogue, a coward, a 
 pander, a cullionly barber-monger, a smooth- 
 tongued bolting-hutch of beastliness. Our 
 
D'ANNUNZIO, NOVELIST 79 
 
 thoughts bound like wild things from prize- 
 fights to inquisitors, from them to Iroquois, 
 to devils. Then succeeds the feeling as of 
 stepping on a snake, a sentiment as of a 
 struggle between species of animals, of in- 
 stinctive combat for supremacy ; no sense of 
 ultimate ends or motives, but the sudden 
 knowledge that our gorge is rising and that 
 we will not permit certain things. We raise 
 no question of reason ; we put aside intelli- 
 gence, and say, The time is come for life 
 to choose between you and us. The book, 
 after leaving our hand, strikes the opposite 
 wall and flutters to the floor. We grow 
 calmer ; we draw up an indictment ; we will 
 try Aurispa-d'Annunzio before a jury of 
 English-speaking men. Call the tale. Colo- 
 nel Newcome ! Adam Bede ! Baillie Jarvie ! 
 Tom Brown ! Sam Weller ! But nonsense ! 
 these men are not eligible. Aurispa-d'An- 
 nunzio must be tried by a jury of his peers. 
 By this time we have recovered our compo- 
 sure, and rejoice in the common things of 
 life, — shaving-brushes, buttoned boots, cra- 
 vats, counting-stools, vouchers, ledgers, news- 
 papers. All the multitude of little things, 
 forgiving our old discourtesy, heap coals of 
 
80 D'ANNUNZIO, NOVELIST 
 
 fire upon our heads with their glad proofs 
 of reality. For a moment we can draw aside 
 " the veil of familiarity " from common life 
 and behold the poetry there ; we bless our 
 simple affections and our daily bread. The 
 dear kind solid earth stands faithful and 
 familiar under our feet. How beautiful it 
 is! 
 
 " Die unbegreiflich hohen Werke 
 Sind herrlich wie am ersten Tag." 
 
 D'Annunzio's latest novel, " Le Vergini 
 delle Rocce," was published in 1896. In it 
 he appears as a symbolist, and by far the 
 most accomplished of the school. The story 
 is not of real people, but concerns the in- 
 habitants of some spiritual world, as if cer- 
 tain instantaneous ideas of men, divorced 
 from the ideas of the instant before and of 
 the instant after, and therefore of a weird, 
 unnatural look, had been caught there and 
 kept to inhabit it, and should thenceforward 
 live after their own spiritual order, with no 
 further relations to humanity. These fig- 
 ures bear no doubtful resemblance to the 
 men and women in the pictures of Dante 
 Rossetti and of Burne-Jones. One might 
 fancy that a solitary maid gazing into a 
 
D'ANNUNZIO, NOVELIST 81 
 
 beryl stone would see three such strangely 
 beautiful virgins, Massimilla, Anatolia, Vio- 
 lante, move their weary young limbs daintily 
 in the crystal sphere. 
 
 The landscape is the background of an 
 English preraphaelite painter. Here d'An- 
 nunzio's style is in its delicate perfection. 
 It carries these three strange and beautiful 
 ladies along, as the river that runs down to 
 many - towered Camelot bore onward the 
 shallop of the Lady of Shalott. It is trans- 
 lucent ; everything mirrors in it with a deli- 
 cate sensitiveness, as if it were the mind of 
 some fairy asleep, in which nothing except 
 what is lovely and harmonious could reflect, 
 and as if the slightest discord, the least petty 
 failure of grace, would wake the sleeper and 
 end the images forever. D'Annunzio's sen- 
 tences have the quality of an incantation. 
 This is the work of a master apprentice. 
 But there the mastery ends. A story so far 
 removed from life, a fairy story, must have 
 order and law of its own, must be true to it- 
 self ; or else it must move in some fairy plane 
 parallel to human life, and never pretermit 
 its correspondence with humanity. 
 
 Claudio, the teller of the story, is a scion 
 
82 D'ANNUNZIO, NOVELIST 
 
 of a noble Italian family, of which one Ales- 
 sandro had been the most illustrious member. 
 When the tale begins Claudio is riding over 
 the Campagna, thinking aloud, as it were. 
 His mind is full of speculation. What is 
 become of Kome ? — Rome, the home of the 
 dominant Latin race, born to rule and to 
 bend other nations to its desires. What is 
 the Pope ? What is the King ? Who, who 
 will combine in himself the triune powers 
 of passion, intellect, and poetry, and lift the 
 Italian people back to the saddle of the 
 world ? By severe self-discipline Claudio has 
 conceived his own life as a whole, as mate- 
 rial for art, and has succeeded to so high a 
 degree that now he holds all his power of 
 passion, intellect, and poetry like a drawn 
 sword. He will embody in act the concept 
 of his life. He reflects how the Nazarene 
 failed, for he feared the world and know- 
 ledge, and turned from them to ignorance 
 and the desert ; how Bonaparte failed, for he 
 had not the conception of fashioning his life 
 as a great work of art ; and Claudio's mind 
 turns to his own ancestor, the untimely killed 
 Alessandro, and ponders that he did not live 
 and die in vain, but that his spirit still exists, 
 
D'ANNUNZIO, NOVELIST 83 
 
 ready to burst forth in some child of his 
 race. Claudio's duty is to marry a woman 
 who shall bear a son, such that his passion, 
 intellect, and poetry shall make him the re- 
 deemer of the world, and restore Rome mis- 
 tress of nations. As he rides he calls upon 
 the poets to defend the beautiful from the 
 attacks of the gross multitude, and upon the 
 patricians to assume their rightful place as 
 masters of the people, to pick up the fallen 
 whip and frighten back into its sty the Great 
 Beast that grunts in parliament and press. 
 
 Filled with these images of his desire, 
 Claudio goes back to his ancestral domain 
 in southern Italy. An aged lord, at one 
 time friend to the last Bourbons of Naples, 
 dwells in a neighboring castle with his three 
 virgin daughters. About this castle we find 
 all the literary devices of Maeterlinck. " The 
 splendor falls on castle walls," but it is a 
 strange light, as of a moon that has over- 
 powered the sun at noon. The genius of 
 the castle is the insane mother, who wanders 
 at will through its chambers, down the paths 
 of its gardens, rustling in her ancient dress, 
 with two gray attendants at her heels. She 
 is hardly seen, but, like a principle of evil, 
 
84 D'ANNUNZIO, NOVELIST 
 
 throws a spell over all the place. In front 
 of the palace the fountain splashes its waters 
 in continuous jets into its basin with mur- 
 murous sounds of mysterious horror. Two 
 sons hover about, gazing in timid fascina- 
 tion upon their mother, wondering when the 
 inheritance of madness shall fall upon them. 
 One is already doomed ; the other, with fear- 
 ful consciousness, is on the verge of doom. 
 The three daughters have each her separate 
 virtue. Massimilla is a likeness of St. Clare, 
 the companion of St. Francis of Assisi. She 
 is the spirit of the love that waits and re- 
 ceives. Her heart is a fruitful garden with 
 an infinite capability for faith. Anatolia is 
 the spirit of the love that gives. She has 
 courage, strength, and vitality enough to 
 comfort and support a host of the weak and 
 timid. Violante is the tragical spirit of the 
 power of beauty. The light of triumph and 
 the beauty of tragedy hang over her like a 
 veil. From among these three beautiful vir- 
 gins Claudio must choose one to be the 
 mother of him who, composed of passion, 
 power, and poetry, shall redeem the dis- 
 jointed world, straighten the crooked course 
 of nature, and set the crown of the world 
 
D'ANNUNZIO, NOVELIST 85 
 
 again on the forehead of Rome. He chooses 
 Anatolia, and here the book enters the realm 
 of reality. Anatolia is a real woman ; she 
 feels the duties of womanhood, her bonds to 
 her father, her mother, and her brothers, 
 and in a natural and womanly way she re- 
 fuses to be Claudio's wife. There the book 
 ends, with the promise of two more volumes. 
 Anatolia is a living being in this strange 
 world of fantasy, and though she is not true 
 to the spirit of the story, she is one of the 
 indications of d'Annunzio's power. 
 
 The faults of the book are great. But 
 all books are not meant for all persons. Who 
 shall judge the merits of such a book ? The 
 men who live in a world of action, or the men 
 who live in a world half made of dreams ? 
 Shakespeare has written " The Tempest " for 
 both divisions, but other men must be con- 
 tent to choose one or the other. This book 
 is for the latter class. Yet even for them it 
 has great faults. The mechanical contriv- 
 ances, the solitary castle, the insane mother, 
 the three virgins, the chorus of the fountain, 
 the iteration of thought, the repetition of 
 phrase, are all familiar to readers of Maeter- 
 linck. The element of the heroic, the advo- 
 
86 D'ANNUNZIO, NOVELIST 
 
 cacy of a patrician order, the love of Rome, 
 the adulation of intellectual power, are dis- 
 cordant with the mysterious nature of the 
 book. Claudio, full of monster thoughts, — 
 of a timid Christ, of an ill-rounded Napo- 
 leon, of the world's dominion restored to 
 Rome, — sits down to flirt with Massimilla 
 in the attitude of a young Baudelaire. The 
 reader feels that he has been watching a 
 preraphaelite opera bouffe. 
 
 We cannot be without some curiosity as 
 to what is d'Annunzio's attitude towards his 
 own novels. In Bourget's " Le Disciple " 
 we had a hero in very much the same tangle 
 of psychological theory as is Aurispa. The 
 disciple wandered far in his search for ex- 
 perience, for new fields and novel combina- 
 tions of sentiment. His world lost all moral- 
 ity. There was neither right nor wrong in 
 it, but it still remained a real world. In the 
 preface, the only chapter in which, under 
 the present conventionalities of novel-writ- 
 ing, the writer is allowed to speak in his own 
 voice, Bourget, with Puritan earnestness, 
 warns the young men of France to beware of 
 the dangers which he describes, to look for- 
 ward to the terrible consequences in a world 
 
D'ANNUNZIO, NOVELIST 87 
 
 in which there is neither right nor wrong, 
 to turn back while yet they may. It seems 
 reasonable to look to the prefaces to learn 
 what d'Annunzio's attitude towards his own 
 books is, and we find no consciousness in 
 them of right and wrong, of good and evil, 
 such as troubled Bourget. All d'Annunzio's 
 work is built upon a separation between hu- 
 manity — beings knowing good and evil — 
 and art. 
 
 Nevertheless, d'Annunzio has a creed. He 
 believes in the individual, that he shall take 
 and keep what he can ; that this is no world 
 in which to play at altruism and to encum- 
 ber ourselves with hypocrisy. He believes 
 that power and craft have rights better than 
 those of weakness and simplicity; that a 
 chosen race is entitled to all the advantages 
 accruing from that choice ; that a patrician 
 order is no more bound to consider the lower 
 classes than men are bound to respect the 
 rights of beasts. He proclaims this belief, 
 and preaches to what he regards as the patri- 
 cian order his mode of obtaining from life 
 all that it has to give. Art is his watch- 
 word, the art of life is his text. Know the 
 beautiful ; enjoy all that is new and strange ; 
 
88 D'ANNUNZIO, NOVELIST 
 
 be not afraid of the bogies of moral law and 
 of human tradition, — they are idols wrought 
 by ignorant plebeians. 
 
 He finds that the main hindrance to the 
 adoption of this creed is an uneasy sense of 
 relativity of life. Even the patrician order 
 entertains a suspicion that life — the noblest 
 material for art to work in — is not of the 
 absolute grain and texture that d'Annunzio's 
 theory presupposes. The individual life, 
 wrought with greatest care, and fashioned 
 into a shape of beauty after d'Annunzio's 
 model, may seem to lose all its loveliness 
 when it is complete and the artist lies on his 
 deathbed. And therefore, in order to obtain 
 disciples, d'Annunzio perceives that he must 
 persuade his patricians to accept the phe- 
 nomena of life, which the senses present, as 
 final and absolute. The main support for 
 the theory of the relativity of life is religion. 
 In long procession religious creeds troop 
 down through history, and on every banner 
 is inscribed the belief in an Absolute behind 
 the seeming. D'Annunzio must get rid of 
 all these foolish beliefs. He would argue, 
 " They are a train of superstition, ignorance, 
 and fear. They have failed and they will 
 
D'ANNUNZIO, NOVELIST 89 
 
 fail because they dare not face truth. What 
 is the religious conception of the Divine 
 love for man, and of the love of man for 
 God ? God's love is a superstitious infer- 
 ence drawn from the love of man for God ; 
 and man's love of God in its turn is but a 
 blind deduction from man's love for woman. 
 In the light of science man's love for woman 
 shrinks to an instinct. This Divine love 
 that looks so fair, that has made heroes and 
 sustained mystics, is mere sentimental milli- 
 nery spun out of a fact of animal life. This 
 fact is the root of the doctrine of relativity. 
 From it has sprung religion, idealism, mysti- 
 cism. Examine this fact scientifically ; see 
 what it is, and how far, how very far, it is 
 from justifying the inferences drawn from 
 love, and without doubt the whole intellect- 
 ual order of patricians must accept my be- 
 liefs." Another man might say : " Suppose 
 it be so ; suppose this animal fact be the 
 root from which Springs the blossoming tree 
 of Divine love : this inherent power of 
 growth dumfounds me more, makes me 
 more uncertain of my apparent perceptions, 
 than all the priestly explanations." 
 
 In d'Annunzio's idolatry of force there is 
 
90 D'ANNUNZIO, NOVELIST 
 
 a queer lack of the masculine ; his voice is 
 shrill and sounds soprano. In his morbid 
 supersensitiveness, in his odd fantasy, there 
 is a feminine strain ; and yet not wholly fem- 
 inine. In his incongruous delineation of char- 
 acter there is a mingling of hopes and fears, 
 of thoughts and feelings, that are found 
 separate and distinct in man and woman. 
 In all his novels there is an unnatural atmos- 
 phere, which is different from that in the 
 books of the mere decadents. There is the 
 presence of an intellectual and emotional 
 condition that is neither masculine nor fem- 
 inine, and yet partaking of both. There is 
 an appeal to some elements in our nature 
 of which theretofore we were unaware. As 
 sometimes on a summer's day, swimming on 
 the buoyant waters of the ocean, we fancy 
 that once we were native there, so in reading 
 this book we have a vague surmise beneath 
 our consciousness that once there was a time 
 when the sexes had not been differentiated, 
 and that we are in ourselves partakers of 
 the spiritual characteristics of each ; and yet 
 the feeling is wholly disagreeable. We feel 
 as if we had been in the secret museum 
 at Naples, and we are almost ready to bathe 
 
D'ANNUNZIO, NOVELIST 91 
 
 in hot lava that we shall no longer feel 
 unclean. 
 
 We do not believe that a novel of the first 
 rank can be made out of the materials at 
 d'Annunzio's command. Instead of humor 
 he has scorn and sneer; in place of con- 
 science he gives us swollen egotism ; for the 
 deep affections he proffers lust. We are 
 human, we want human beings, and he sets 
 up fantastic puppets; we ask for a man, and 
 under divers aliases he puts forth himself. 
 We grow weary of caparisoned paragraph 
 and bedizened sentence, of clever imitation 
 and brilliant cultivation ; we demand some- 
 thing to satisfy our needs of religion, edu- 
 cation, feeling ; we want bread, and he gives 
 us a gilded stone. There are great regions 
 of reality and romance still to be discovered 
 by bold adventurers, but Gabriele d'Annun- 
 zio will not find them unless he be born 
 again. 
 
MONTAIGNE 
 
MONTAIGNE 
 
 There have been greater men in litera- 
 ture than Montaigne, but none have been 
 more successful. His reputation is immense ; 
 he is in men's mouths next to Dante and 
 Cervantes. We look at that intelligent, con- 
 templative, unimpassioned face, with its tired 
 eyes, and wonder that he should have achieved 
 fame as immortal as that of the fierce Italian 
 or the noble Spaniard. In the affairs of fame 
 luck plays its part. Sometimes a man's gen- 
 ius keeps step with his country and his time ; 
 he gains power from sympathy, his muscles 
 harden, his head clears, as he runs a winning 
 race. Another man will fail in the enervat- 
 ing atmosphere of recognition and applause ; 
 he needs obstacles, the whip and spur of dif- 
 ficulty. Montaigne was born under a lucky 
 star. Had fate shown him all the kingdoms 
 of the world and all time, and given him the 
 choice when and where to live, he could not 
 have chosen better. 
 
96 MONTAIGNE 
 
 Montaigne's genius is French in every 
 fibre ; he embodies better than any one 
 other man the French character. In this 
 world nationality counts for much, both at 
 home and abroad. Frenchmen enjoy their 
 own ; they relish French nature, its niceties, 
 its strong personality. Sluggish in turning 
 to foreign things, they are not prone to ac- 
 quire tastes ; but whatever is native to them 
 they cultivate, study, and appreciate with 
 rare subtlety. They enjoy Montaigne as 
 men enjoy a work of art, with the satisfac- 
 tion of comprehension. 
 
 In truth, all men like a strong national 
 flavor in a book. Montaigne typifies what 
 France has been to the world : he exhibits 
 the characteristic marks of French intelli- 
 gence ; he represents the French mind. Of 
 course such representation is false in many 
 measures. A nation is too big to have her 
 character completely shown forth by one man. 
 Look at the cathedrals of the Ile-de-France ; 
 read the lives of Joan of Arc and St. Francis 
 of Sales, of the Jesuits in Canada ; remember 
 Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, and that it was, 
 as M. de Vogue says, the mad caprice of 
 France which raised Napoleon to his high 
 
MONTAIGNE 97 
 
 estate ; and we realize how fanciful it is to 
 make one man typify a nation. Neverthe- 
 less, it is common talk that France takes 
 ideas and makes them clear ; that she un- 
 ravels the tangled threads of thought, elimi- 
 nating disorder ; that she is romantic ; that 
 she is not religious ; that she shrugs her 
 shoulders at the vague passions of the soul ; 
 that she is immensely intelligent; that she 
 is fond of pleasure; and that her favorite 
 diversion is to sit beside the great boulevard 
 of human existence and make comments, 
 fresh, frank, witty, wise. 
 
 In these respects Montaigne is typical. 
 He does not create new ideas, he is no ex- 
 plorer ; he takes the notions of other men, 
 holds them up to the light, turns them round 
 and about, gazing at them. He is intellectu- 
 ally honest ; he dislikes pretense. At bottom, 
 too, he is romantic : witness his reverence for 
 Socrates, his admiration of the Stoics, his 
 desire for the citizenship of Rome. He has 
 the French cast of mind that regards men, 
 primarily, not as individuals, but rather as 
 members of society. He has the sense of 
 behavior. " All strangeness and peculiarity 
 in our manners and ways of life are to be 
 
98 MONTAIGNE 
 
 avoided as enemies to society. . . . Know- 
 ledge of how to behave in company is a very 
 useful knowledge. Like grace and beauty, 
 it conciliates at the very beginning of ac- 
 quaintance, and in consequence opens the 
 door for us to learn by the example of others, 
 and to set an example ourselves, if we have 
 anything worth teaching." 
 
 Montaigne is not religious, — certainly not 
 after the fashion of a Bishop Brooks or a 
 Father Hecker. He is a pagan rather than 
 a Christian. He likes gayety, wit, agreeable 
 society ; he is fond of conversation. He 
 boards his subject like a sociable creature, 
 he is a born talker, he talks away obscurity. 
 He follows his subject as a young dog fol- 
 lows a carriage, bounding off the road a 
 hundred times to investigate the neighbor- 
 hood. His loose-limbed mind is easy, light, 
 yet serious. He pares away the rind of 
 things, smelling the fruit joyously, not as if 
 employed in a business of funereal looks, 
 but in something human and cheerful. He 
 has good taste. 
 
 Montaigne had good luck not only in his 
 country, but also in his generation. He 
 lived at the time when the main current of 
 
MONTAIGNE 99 
 
 Latin civilization shifted from Italy to France. 
 In the beginning of the sixteenth century, 
 Italy was the intellectual head of the Latin 
 world, her thought and art were the mould- 
 ing forces of modern civilization. When the 
 seventeenth century opened, France had as- 
 sumed the primacy. The great culmination 
 of the Italian Renaissance came close to the 
 time of Montaigne's birth; when he died, 
 Italy was sinking into dependence in thought 
 and servility in art, whereas France was 
 emerging from her civil wars, under the rule 
 of one of the greatest of Frenchmen, ready 
 to become the dominant power, politically 
 and intellectually, in Europe. Coming at 
 this time, Montaigne was a pioneer. His 
 was one of the formative minds which gave 
 to French intelligence that temper which has 
 enabled it to do so much for the world in the 
 last three hundred years. He showed it a 
 great model of dexterity, lightness, and ease. 
 Not only did Montaigne help fashion the 
 French intelligence in that important period, 
 but he did much to give that intelligence a 
 tool by which it could put its capacities to 
 use. It is from Montaigne that French 
 prose gets a buoyant lightness. He has 
 
100 MONTAIGNE 
 
 been called one of the great French poets. 
 Had it not been for Montaigne and his con- 
 temporaries, the depressing influence of the 
 seventeenth century would have hardened 
 the language, taking out its grace, and mak- 
 ing it a clever mechanical contrivance. His 
 influence has been immense. It is said that 
 an hundred years after his death his Essays 
 were to be found on the bookshelves of 
 every gentleman in France. French critics 
 trace his influence on Pascal, La Bruyere, 
 Eousseau, Montesquieu, Sainte-Beuve, and 
 Kenan. To-day no one can read M. Anatole 
 France or M. Jules Lemaitre without saying 
 to himself, " This is fruit from the same rich 
 stock." 
 
 There are reasons besides these which 
 have given Montaigne his great position in 
 the world's literature. The first is his habit 
 of mind. He is a considerer, an examiner, a 
 skeptic. He prowls about the beliefs, the 
 opinions and usages, of men, and, taking up 
 a thought, lifts from it, one by one, the 
 envelopes of custom, of prejudice, of time, 
 of place. He holds up the opinion of one 
 school, praising and admiring it ; and then 
 the contradictory opinion of another school, 
 
MONTAIGNE 101 
 
 praising and admiring that. In his scales he 
 balances notion against notion, man against 
 man, usage against usage. It was his great 
 usefulness that, in a time when notable men 
 put so much trust in matters of faith that 
 they constructed theologies of adamant and 
 burnt dissenters, he calmly announced the 
 relativity of knowledge. He was no student 
 mustily thinking in a dead language, but a 
 gentleman in waiting to the king, knight of 
 the Order of St. Michael, writing in fresh, 
 poetic French, with all the captivation of 
 charm, teaching the fundamental principles 
 of doubt and uncertainty; for if there be 
 doubt there will be tolerance, if there be un- 
 certainty there will be liberality. He laid 
 the axe to the root of religious bigotry and 
 civil intolerance. " Things apart by them- 
 selves have, it may be, their weight, their 
 dimensions, their condition ; but within us, 
 the mind cuts and fashions them according 
 to its own comprehension. . . . Health, con- 
 science, authority, knowledge, riches, beauty, 
 and their contraries, strip off their outward 
 semblances at the threshold of the mind, and 
 receive at its hands new garments, of such 
 dyes as it please." 
 
102 MONTAIGNE 
 
 The emphasis of self is at the base of mod- 
 ern life. The art of the Kenaissance sprung 
 from the passion for self-expression. The 
 Kef ormation took self as the hammer which 
 broke the yoke of the Roman Church. Self 
 stood on its feet and faced God ; what need 
 of priests and intermediaries ? Montaigne is 
 a great exponent of this spirit. A man of 
 letters and a philosopher, he did not find in 
 duty an explanation of life, but he realized 
 the significance of this imperious self, this I, 
 I, I, that proclaims itself to be at the bottom 
 of everything. Step by step, as he goes from 
 Plato to Cicero, from Cicero to Seneca, from 
 Seneca to Plutarch, he discovers humanity 
 taking individual form ; compressed into the 
 likeness of a single man, it puts on familiar 
 features, it speaks with a well-known voice, 
 turns and shapes itself in the mould of a 
 single human mind : that face, that voice, 
 that mind, are his own. Start how he will, 
 every road twists and winds back to himself. 
 As if by compulsion he gradually renounces 
 all other study. In self is to be found the 
 philosophy of life. If we once firmly accept 
 the notion that we know nothing but our- 
 selves, then the universe outside becomes a 
 
MONTAIGNE 103 
 
 shadowy collection of vapors, mysterious, hy- 
 pothetical, and self hardens into the only 
 reality. Here is a basis for a religion or a 
 philosophy. So speculating, the philosopher 
 opened the eyes of the artist. If self be the 
 field of philosophy, it is the opportunity of 
 the artist. Never had a man of letters sat 
 to himself for his own portrait. Montaigne 
 is the " prince of egotists," because he is a 
 philosopher and a great artist. He is a skep- 
 tic, but he points a way to positive doctrine. 
 He is a man of letters, but he teaches the 
 primary rules of civil and religious liberty. 
 He is a member of the Holy Church, Apos- 
 tolic and Roman, but he lays the foundation 
 of a philosophy open to Reformer and to 
 infidel. Profoundly interested in the ques- 
 tions lying at the base of fife, he is one of 
 the greatest artists of the Renaissance. 
 
 II 
 
 Montaigne was a Gascon, of a family of 
 merchants. His great-grandfather, Ramon 
 Eyquem, founded the family fortunes by 
 trade, and bettered them by a prudent mar- 
 riage. He became one of the richest mer- 
 chants of Bordeaux, dealing in wine and salt 
 
104 MONTAIGNE 
 
 fish, and bought the estate of Montaigne, a 
 little seigniory near the river Dordogne, not 
 very far from the city. His son, Grimon, also 
 prospered, and in his turn left to his son, 
 Pierre, Montaigne's father, so good a property 
 that Pierre was enabled to give up trade, and 
 betake himself to arms. Pierre served for 
 several years in Italy, under Francis I. On 
 his return he married Antoinette de Louppes, 
 or Lopes, a rich lady of Spanish descent, with 
 some Jewish blood in her veins. He was an 
 active, hard-working, conscientious, capable 
 man, devoting himself to public affairs. He 
 held one office after another in the city of 
 Bordeaux, and finally was elected mayor. He 
 took especial interest in education, improv- 
 ing the schools, and making changes for the 
 better in the college. His interest amounted 
 to a hobby, if we may judge from his method 
 of educating his son. His years in Italy had 
 opened his mind, and though no scholar him- 
 self, he was a great admirer of the new learn- 
 ing, and sought the company of scholars. 
 Evidently, he was a man who liked to think, 
 and was not afraid to put his ideas into 
 practice. He enlarged the seigniory of Mon- 
 taigne and rebuilt the chateau. His son says 
 
MONTAIGNE 105 
 
 of him that he was the best father that ever 
 was ; that he was ambitious to do everything 
 that was honorable, and had a very high re- 
 gard for his word. 
 
 Michel was born on the last day of Febru- 
 ary, 1533. He was the third of eleven chil- 
 dren ; the two elder died in infancy. His 
 education began at once. Still a baby, he 
 was put in charge of some peasants who 
 lived near the chateau, in order that his 
 earliest notions should be of simple things. 
 His god-parents were country folk ; for Pierre 
 Eyquem deemed it better that his son should 
 early learn to make friends " with those who 
 stretch their arms toward us rather than with 
 those who turn their backs on us." The sec- 
 ond step in education was to direct Michel's 
 mind so that it should naturally take the he- 
 roic Roman mould. His father thought that 
 this result would be more likely to follow 
 if the baby spoke Latin. He was therefore 
 put into the hands of a learned German, who 
 spoke Latin very well, and could speak no 
 French. There were also two other scholars 
 in attendance on the little boy, — less learned, 
 however, — who took turns with the German 
 in accompanying him. They also spoke no- 
 
106 MONTAIGNE 
 
 thing but Latin in Michel's presence. ec As 
 for the rest of the household, it was an in- 
 violable rule that neither my father nor 
 mother, nor the man servant nor the maid 
 servant, should speak when I was by, except 
 some Latin words which they had learned 
 on purpose to talk with me." This rule was 
 so well obeyed that not only his father and 
 mother learned enough Latin to understand 
 it and to speak it a little, but also the ser- 
 vants who waited on him. In fact, they all 
 became so very Latin that even the people 
 in the village called various implements and 
 utensils by their Latin names. Montaigne 
 was more than six years old before he heard 
 any French spoken ; he spoke Latin as if it 
 were his native tongue. 
 
 At six Montaigne was sent to the College 
 of Guyenne, in Bordeaux, where his Latin 
 began to get bad, and served no better pur- 
 pose than to make his studies so easy that 
 he was quickly put into the higher classes. 
 He stayed at college till he had completed 
 the course in 1546, when he was thirteen 
 years old. He says that he took no know- 
 ledge of any value away with him. This 
 statement must be taken with a grain of 
 
MONTAIGNE 107 
 
 salt, for he had been under the care of fa- 
 mous scholars, and instead of wasting his 
 time over poor books or in idleness he had 
 read the best Latin authors. He did not 
 even know the name of Amadis of Gaul, but 
 fell upon Ovid, Virgil, Terence, and Plautus. 
 After them he read the Italian comedies. 
 This reading was done on the sly, the teach- 
 ers winking at it. " Had they not done so," 
 he says, " I should have left college with a 
 hatred for books, like almost all the young 
 nobility." 
 
 Whether or not, so bred, Montaigne be- 
 came more like Scipio and Cato Major, his 
 father's interest in education no doubt stim- 
 ulated his own. In all the shrewdness of 
 the Essays there is no more definite and 
 practical teaching than his advice on edu- 
 cation, especially in his asseverations of its 
 large purposes. " There is nothing so no- 
 ble," he says, " as to make a man what he 
 should be ; there is no learning comparable 
 to the knowledge of how to live this life 
 aright and according to the laws of nature." 
 Montaigne laid down, clearly and sharply, 
 principles that sound commonplace to-day : 
 that the object of education is to make, not 
 
108 MONTAIGNE 
 
 a scholar, but a man; that education shall 
 concern itself with the understanding rather 
 than with the memory ; that mind and body 
 must be developed together. It would be 
 easy to quote pages. " To know by heart is 
 not to know ; it is only holding on to what 
 has been put into the custody of the memory. 
 . . . We receive as bailiffs the opinions and 
 learning of others ; we must make them our 
 own. . . . We learn to say Cicero says this, 
 Plato thinks this, these are Aristotle's words ; 
 but we, what do we say ? What do we do ? 
 What is our opinion ? ... If the mind does 
 not acquire a better temper, if the judgment 
 does not become more sound, I had as lief 
 the schoolboy should pass his time playing 
 tennis : his body, at least, would be more sup- 
 ple. See him come back after years spent : 
 there is nothing so unfit for use; all that 
 you see more than he had before is that 
 his Latin and Greek leave him more silly 
 and conceited than when he left home. He 
 ought to have brought back a full mind : he 
 brings it back blown out ; instead of having 
 it bigger, it is only puffed up. ... It is also 
 an opinion accepted by everybody that a boy 
 ought not to be brought up round his parents' 
 
MONTAIGNE 109 
 
 knees. Natural affection makes them too ten- 
 der and too soft ; they are not able to punish 
 his faults, nor to see him nourished hardily, 
 as he should be, and run risks. They won't 
 let him come back sweating and dusty from 
 exercise, drink hot, drink cold, nor see him 
 on a horse backwards, nor facing a rough 
 fencer foil in hand, nor with his first gun. 
 There 's no help for it : if you wish to make 
 a man, you must not spare him such matters 
 of youth. You must often break the rules 
 of medicine. It is not enough to make his 
 soul firm ; his muscles must be firm too. 
 The soul is too hard pressed if she be not 
 supported well, and has too much to do if 
 she must furnish strength for both." 
 
 Montaigne himself must have learned the 
 value of exercise, for he became a great 
 horseman, more at home on horseback than 
 on foot. Till the time of ill health he seems 
 to have had a vigorous body ; he could sit 
 in the saddle for eight or ten hours, and 
 survived a very severe fall, though he " vom- 
 ited buckets of blood." 
 
 Of Montaigne's life after leaving the col- 
 lege we know little or nothing. He must 
 have studied law, — perhaps at the Univer- 
 
110 MONTAIGNE 
 
 sity of Toulouse, perhaps in Bordeaux. But 
 matters other than the classics or civil law, 
 and more profitable to a great critic of life, 
 must have been rumbling in his ears, mak- 
 ing him begin to speculate on the opinions 
 and customs of men, and their reasonable- 
 ness. Already troubles prophetic of civil 
 war were afoot. 
 
 Ill 
 
 In 1554 the king established a Court of 
 Aids at Perigueux. Pierre Eyquem was ap- 
 pointed one of the magistrates, but before 
 he took his seat he was elected mayor of 
 Bordeaux, and resigned his position as mem- 
 ber of the court in favor of his son, who, 
 under the system then prevalent, became 
 magistrate in his stead. Montaigne was 
 twenty-one years old. After a year or two 
 the Court of Aids was annulled, and its 
 magistrates were made members of the Parle- 
 ment of Bordeaux. Here Montaigne met 
 Etienne de La Boetie, who was also a mem- 
 ber. The two men at once became most lov- 
 ing friends. La Boetie had a noble, pas- 
 sionate character. Montaigne says that he 
 was cast in the heroic mould, an antique 
 
MONTAIGNE 111 
 
 Roman, the greatest man of their time. Af- 
 ter six years La Boetie died, in 1563. Seven- 
 teen years later, while traveling in Italy, 
 Montaigne wrote to a friend, " All of a sud- 
 den I fell to thinking about M. de La Boetie, 
 and I stayed so long without shaking the fit 
 off that it made me feel very sad." This 
 was the master affection of MontaigJie's life, 
 and the noblest. It was a friendship " so 
 whole, so perfect, that there are none such to 
 be read of, and among men to-day there is no 
 trace to be seen. There is need of so happy 
 a meeting to fashion it that fort one does well 
 if it happens once in three hundred years." 
 They were wont to call eacL other " brother." 
 " In truth, the name of orother is beautiful 
 and full of sweetness ; for this reason he and 
 I gave it to the bond between us." 
 
 La Boetie died of the plague, or some dis- 
 ease like it. He told Montaigne that his 
 illness was contagious, and besought him to 
 stay with him no more than a few minutes 
 at a time, but as often as he could. From 
 that time Montaigne never left him. This 
 act must be remembered, if we incline to 
 blame Montaigne for shunning Bordeaux 
 when the plague was upon it. 
 
112 MONTAIGNE 
 
 v 
 
 Two years afterwards Montaigne married 
 ^Frangoise de la Chassaigne. It was a match 
 made from considerations of suitability. The 
 Ey querns were thrifty wooers. Montaigne 
 had no romantic notions about love in mar- 
 riage ; he did not seek a " Cato's daugh- 
 ter " who should help him climb the heights 
 of life. He says : " The most useful and 
 honorable knowledge and occupation for a 
 mother of a family is the knowledge of 
 housekeeping. That should be a woman's 
 predominant attribute; that is what a man 
 should look for when he goes a-courting. 
 From what experience has taught me, I 
 should require ot a wife, above all other vir- 
 tues, that of the housewife." Nevertheless, 
 they were very happily married. She was a 
 woman of good sense and ability, and looked 
 after the affairs of the seigniory with a much 
 quicker eye than her husband. He dedicated 
 to her a translation made by La Boetie from 
 Plutarch. " Let us live," he says, " you and 
 me, after the old French fashion. ... I do 
 not think I have a friend more intimate 
 than you." 
 
 Montaigne remained magistrate for fifteen 
 years. He did not find the duties very much 
 
MONTAIGNE 113 
 
 to his taste, but he must have acquitted 
 himself well, because a year or two after his 
 retirement the king decorated him with the 
 Order of St. Michael. These years of his 
 magistracy were calm enough for Montaigne, 
 but they were not calm for France. In 1562 
 the civil wars broke out. There is some- 
 thing too fish-blooded about a man who sits 
 in the " back of his shop " and attends to 
 his judicial duties or writes essays, clammily 
 watching events, while the country is on fire. 
 But what has a skeptic to do with divine 
 rights of kings or divine revelations? 
 
 Little by little Montaigne was getting 
 ready to forsake the magistracy for literature. 
 He began by translating, at his father's wish, 
 the " Theologia Naturalis " of Raymond de 
 Sebonde, — a treatise which undertook to 
 establish the truth of the Christian religion 
 by a process of reasoning. His father died 
 before he finished it. It was published in 
 1569. The next year Montaigne resigned 
 his seat in the Parlement of Bordeaux, and 
 devoted himself to the publication of various 
 manuscripts left by La Boetie. This done, 
 the new Seigneur de Montaigne — he dropped 
 the unaristocratic name of Eyquem — retired 
 
114 MONTAIGNE 
 
 to his seigniory, " with a resolution to avoid 
 all manner of concern in affairs as much as 
 possible, and to spend the small remainder 
 of his life in privacy and peace. ,, There he 
 lived for nine years, riding over his estates, 
 planting, tending, — or more wisely suffer- 
 ing his wife to superintend, — receiving his 
 friends, hospitable, enjoying opportunities 
 to talk, or more happy still in his library. 
 Here, in the second story of his tower, shut 
 off from the buzz of household life, his 
 friends, Plutarch, Cicero, Seneca, Herodotus, 
 Plato, with a thousand volumes more, on the 
 shelves, the ceiling carved with aphorisms, 
 Latin and Greek, he used to sit fulfilling his 
 inscription : "In the year of Christ 1571, at 
 the age of thirty-eight, on his birthday, the 
 day before the calends of March, Michel de 
 Montaigne, having quitted some time ago 
 the servitude of courts and public duties, 
 has come, still in good health, to rest among 
 the Muses. In peace and safety he will pass 
 here what days remain for him to live, in the 
 hope that the Fates will allow him to perfect 
 this habitation, this sweet paternal asylum 
 consecrated to independence, tranquillity, 
 and leisure." 
 
MONTAIGNE 115 
 
 IV 
 
 It was quiet in the Chateau de Montaigne ; 
 Plutarch and Cicero sat undisturbed, except 
 for notes scribbled on their margins ; but in 
 Paris the Duke of Guise and the royal house 
 were making St. Bartholomew a memorable 
 day. Civil war again ravaged France, the 
 League conspired with Spain, Henry of Na- 
 varre rallied the Huguenots, while the king, 
 Henry III., dangled between them, making 
 and breaking edicts. The Seigneur de Mon- 
 taigne rode about his estates, or sat in his li- 
 brary, writing " Concerning Idleness," " Con- 
 cerning Pedantry," " Concerning Coaches," 
 " Concerning Solitude," " Concerning Sump- 
 tuary Laws." 
 
 The most apathetic of us, knowing that 
 Henry of Navarre and Henry of Guise are 
 in the field, become so many Hotspurs at 
 the thought of this liberal-minded gentle- 
 man, the Order of St. Michael hanging 
 round his neck, culling anecdotes out of 
 Plutarch about Cyrus or Scipio. " Zounds ! 
 how has he leisure to be sick in such a jus- 
 tling time ! " We readers are a whimsical 
 people ; cushioned in armchairs, we catch on 
 
116 MONTAIGNE 
 
 fire at the white plume of Navarre. What 
 is the free play of thought to us ? Give us 
 sword and pistol, — Ventre- Saint- Gris ! But 
 the best fighting has not been done on bat- 
 tlefields, and Montaigne has helped the cause 
 of justice and humanity better than twenty 
 thousand armed men. 
 
 Once, when there does not seem to have 
 been an immediate prospect of a fight, Mon- 
 taigne offered his services to one of the 
 king's generals. Instead of being ordered 
 to the field, he was sent back to Bordeaux 
 to harangue the Parlement on the need of 
 new fortifications. He was a loyal servant 
 of the king, and deemed the Huguenots a 
 rebellious faction, fighting against lawful au- 
 thority ; but his heart could not take sides ; 
 he was disgusted with the hypocrisy of both 
 parties, and the mask of religion. "I see 
 it is evident that we render only those offices 
 to piety which tickle our passions. There is 
 no enmity so excellent as the Christian. Our 
 zeal does wonders, when it goes following 
 our inclination toward hate, cruelty, ambi- 
 tion, avarice, detraction, rebellion. But the 
 converse, — toward goodness, kindness, tem- 
 perance, — if, as by miracle, some rare con- 
 
MONTAIGNE 117 
 
 junction takes it that way, it goes neither 
 afoot nor with wings. Our religion was 
 made to pluck out vices ; it uncovers them, 
 nurses them, encourages them. . . . Let us 
 confess the truth : he that should pick out 
 from the army, even the loyal army, those 
 who march there only for zeal of religious 
 feeling, and also those who singly consider 
 the maintenance of their country's laws or 
 the service of their sovereign, he could not 
 make a corporal's guard of them." 
 
 Montaigne was a Catholic. He did not 
 share that passionate care of conduct which 
 animated the Keformers. He did not see 
 that the truth of a religion was affected by 
 the misbehavior of its priests. When he 
 heard, in Rome, that " the general of the 
 Cordeliers had been deprived of his place, 
 and locked up, because in a sermon, in pre- 
 sence of the Pope and the cardinals, he had 
 accused the prelates of the Church of lazi- 
 ness and ostentation, without particularity, 
 only, speaking in commonplaces, on this sub- 
 ject," Montaigne merely felt that civil lib- 
 erty had been abused. He was not troubled 
 to find the ceremonies in St. Peter's " more 
 magnificent than devotional," nor to learn 
 
118 MONTAIGNE 
 
 that the Pope, Gregory XIII., had a son. 
 He was amused at the luxurious ways of the 
 cardinals. He made the acquaintance of the 
 maitre d? hotel of Cardinal Caraffa. "I made 
 him tell me of his employment. He dis- 
 coursed on the science of the gullet with the 
 gravity and countenance of a judge, as if 
 he had been talking of some grave point of 
 theology ; he deciphered a difference of ap- 
 petites, — that which one has when hungry, 
 that which one has after the second and 
 after the third course ; the means first merely 
 to please it, then to wake it and prick it ; 
 the policy of sauces," etc. He heard on the 
 portico of St. Peter's a canon of the Church 
 " read aloud a Latin bull, by which an im- 
 mense number of people were excommuni- 
 cated, among others the Huguenots, by that 
 very name, and all princes who withheld 
 any of the lands of the Church. At this 
 article the cardinals, Medici and Caraffa, who 
 were next to the Pope, laughed very hard." 
 The Master of the Sacred Palace had sub- 
 jected the Essays to examination, and found 
 fault with Montaigne's notion that torture in 
 addition to death was cruelty. Montaigne 
 replied that he did not know that the opinion 
 
MONTAIGNE 119 
 
 was heretical. To his mind, such matters 
 had nothing to do with truth or religion. 
 He accepted the Apostolic Roman Catholic 
 faith. He was not disposed to take a single 
 step out of the fold. If one, why not two ? 
 And if reason once mutinied and took con- 
 trol, where would it stop? He denied the 
 competence of human reason to investigate 
 things divine. " Man can only be what he 
 is; he can only imagine according to his 
 measure." 
 
 To a man who took pleasure in travels, 
 foibles, whims, philosophy, to a man of the 
 Renaissance full of eagerness to study the 
 ancients and to enjoy them, to a man by no 
 means attracted by the austerities of the Cal- 
 vinists, a war for the sake of supplanting the 
 old religion of France was greatly distaste- 
 ful. He could not but admit that the Hugue- 
 nots were right so far as they only wished 
 liberty of worship, nor fail to respect their 
 obedience to conscience. But his heart had 
 not the heroic temper; he wanted peace, 
 comfort, scholarship, elegance. It is one 
 thing to sit in a library and admire heroic 
 men in the pages of Plutarch, and another 
 to enjoy living in the midst of them. 
 
120 MONTAIGNE 
 
 Montaigne spent these years in pleasant 
 peacefulness, dawdling over his library, and 
 putting his Essays together scrap by scrap. 
 In 1580, at the age of forty-seven, he pub- 
 lished the first two books of his Essays, 
 which had an immediate and great success. 
 After this he was obliged to forego literature 
 for a time, because he was not well. He 
 had little confidence in doctors, but hoped 
 that he could get benefit by drinking natural 
 waters. Therefore he went traveling. He 
 also wanted to see the world : Eome, with 
 which he had been familiar from boyhood, 
 and Italy, of which he had heard so much 
 from his father, and all strange lands. Per- 
 haps, too, he was not unmindful that he was 
 now not only the Seigneur de Montaigne, 
 but the first man of letters in France, not 
 even excepting Ronsard. He set forth in 
 the summer of 1580, with his brother and 
 several friends, journeying on horseback to 
 Switzerland, Germany, and Italy. He kept 
 a journal, which contains notes of travel, and 
 also a full account of the effects of medicinal 
 waters on his health. The interest of the 
 journal consists chiefly in the pictures of 
 those countries at that time, sketched by an 
 
MONTAIGNE 121 
 
 intelligent traveler ; but now and again there 
 is a more personal interest, when Montaigne 
 sees something that excites his curiosity. 
 There is a likeness in his curiosity for for- 
 eign lands and his curiosity for ideas. He 
 travels into Germany as if it were a new vol- 
 ume of Plutarch. He is agog for novelty, 
 and new ways of life, new points of view. 
 His secretary says : " I never saw him less 
 tired nor less complaining of ill health ; he 
 was in high spirits both traveling and stop- 
 ping, so absorbed in what he met, and al- 
 ways looking for opportunities to talk to 
 strangers. ... I think if he had been alone 
 with his servants he would have gone to 
 Cracow or to Greece overland, rather than 
 directly into Italy." 
 
 In this journal, written first at his direc- 
 tion, perhaps at his dictation, by a secretary, 
 and then, with some inconvenience, as he 
 says, by himself, we find his interests and 
 affections in the light and shadow of the 
 first impression. In the Essays every para- 
 graph is the cud of long rumination. Of 
 Rome the journal says : "We see nothing of 
 Rome but the sky under which she lies and 
 the place of her abode ; knowledge of her 
 
122 MONTAIGNE 
 
 is an abstraction, framed by thought, with 
 which the senses have no concern. Those 
 who say that the ruins of Rome at least are 
 to be seen say too much, for the ruins of so 
 tremendous a fabric would bring more honor 
 and reverence to her memory ; here is no- 
 thing but her place of burial. The world, 
 hostile to her long dominion, has first broken 
 and dashed to pieces all the parts of that ad- 
 mirable body ; and because, even when dead, 
 overthrown and mutilated, she still made the 
 world afraid, it has buried even the ruins. 
 The little show of them that appears above 
 the sepulchre has been preserved by fortune, 
 to bear witness to that matchless grandeur 
 which centuries, conflagrations, conspiracies 
 of a world again and again plotting its ruin, 
 have failed to destroy utterly." 
 
 Rome, " the noblest city that ever was or 
 ever will be," had laid hold of his imagina- 
 tion. He says, "I used all the five senses 
 that nature gave me to obtain the title of 
 Roman Citizen, if it were only for the an- 
 cient honor and religious memory of its au- 
 thority." By the help of a friend, the Pope's 
 influence procured him this dignity. The 
 decree, bearing the S. P. Q. R., " pompous 
 
MONTAIGNE 123 
 
 with seals and gilt letters," gave him great 
 pleasure. 
 
 He showed special interest in strange cus- 
 toms, as in the rite of circumcision, and in 
 a ceremony of exorcising an evil spirit. This 
 examination of other ways of living, other 
 habits of thought, is the lever by which he 
 lifts himself out of prejudices, out of the 
 circle of authority, into his free and open- 
 minded state. He always wished to see men 
 who looked at life from other points of view. 
 In Rome, as his secretary writes, "M. de 
 Montaigne was vexed to find so many French- 
 men there; he hardly met anybody in the 
 street who did not greet him in his own 
 tongue." ' In the Essays Montaigne says 
 that, for education, acquaintance with men 
 is wonderfully good, and also to travel in 
 foreign lands ; not to bring back (after the 
 fashion of the French nobility) nothing but 
 the measures of the Pantheon, but to take 
 home a knowledge of foreign ways of thought 
 and of behavior, and to rub and polish our 
 minds against those of others. 
 
124 MONTAIGNE 
 
 While abroad, Montaigne received word, 
 in September, 1581, that he had been elected 
 mayor of Bordeaux, to succeed the Marechal 
 de Biron. He hesitated, he had no mind to 
 give up his freedom ; but the king sent an 
 order, flattering and peremptory, that he 
 should betake himself to his office u without 
 delay or excuse," and accordingly he went. 
 
 It seems likely that there was some hand 
 behind the scenes which pointed out to the 
 councilors a man who would be acceptable 
 to persons in high place. The Marechal de 
 Biron wished to be reelected, but both the 
 king and Henry of Navarre, the nominal 
 governor of Guyenne, were opposed to him. 
 History does not tell what happened, but the 
 mayoralty was given to this distinguished, 
 quiet gentleman, who had kept carefully 
 aloof from partisanship. The office of mayor 
 was not very burdensome ; the ordinary duties 
 of administration fell upon others. Mon- 
 taigne's first term of two years passed un- 
 eventfully. De Thou, the historian, who 
 knew him at this time, says that he learned 
 much from Montaigne, a man "very well 
 
MONTAIGNE 125 
 
 versed in public affairs, especially in those 
 concerning Guyenne, which he knows thor- 
 oughly." In 1583 he was reelected. Times 
 grew more troubled. On the death of the 
 king's brother, Navarre became heir to the 
 throne. The League, alarmed, made new 
 efforts. Guise made a secret treaty with 
 Spain that Navarre should not be recognized 
 as king. Coming storms began to blow up 
 about Bordeaux. The League plotted to 
 seize the city. Poor Montaigne found him- 
 self in the midst of excursions and alarms. 
 He was glad to lay down his charge when 
 his term ended, on July 31, 1585. In June 
 a horrible plague broke out, while Montaigne 
 was away, and people in Bordeaux died by 
 hundreds. The council asked him to come 
 to town to preside over the election of his 
 successor. He answered, "I will not spare 
 my life or anything in your service, and I 
 leave you to judge whether what I can do 
 for you by my presence at the next election 
 makes it worth while for me to run the risk 
 of going to town." The council did not in- 
 sist, and Montaigne did not go. This is the 
 act of his life which has called forth blame, 
 not from his contemporaries, but from stout- 
 
126 MONTAIGNE 
 
 hearted critics and heroic reviewers. To set 
 an example of indifference to death is out- 
 side the ordinary path of duty. We like to 
 hear tell of splendid recklessness of life, of 
 fools who go to death out of a mad desire 
 to stamp the fear of it under their feet ; and 
 when disappointed of so fine a show, we be- 
 come petulant, we betray that we are over- 
 fond of excitement. It was not the mayor's 
 duty to look after the public health ; that 
 lay upon the council. 
 
 His office ended, Montaigne went back to 
 his library, to revise and correct the first 
 two books of his Essays, to stuff them with 
 new paragraphs and quotations, and to write 
 a third. But he could not retire far enough 
 to get away from the sounds of civil war. 
 Coutras was but a little too far for him to 
 hear Navarre harangue his troops to victory, 
 and the voices of the soldiers singing the 
 psalm : — 
 
 " This is the day which the Lord hath made 
 We will rejoice and be glad in it." 
 
 A few days afterwards Henry of Navarre 
 stopped at the chateau and dined with Mon- 
 taigne. He had once before been there, 
 making a visit of two days, when Montaigne 
 
MONTAIGNE 127 
 
 was still mayor. The relations of these two 
 men are interesting, but somewhat difficult 
 to decipher. De Thou relates that Mon- 
 taigne talked to him about Henry of Navarre 
 and the Duke of Guise, and their hatred one 
 of the other, and said : " As for religion, 
 both make parade of it ; it is a fine pretext 
 to make those of their party follow them. 
 But the interest of religion does n't touch 
 either of them ; only the fear of being aban- 
 doned by the Protestants prevents the king 
 of Navarre from returning to the religion of 
 his ancestors, and the duke would betake 
 himself to the Augsburg Confession, for 
 which his uncle, Charles, Cardinal of Lor- 
 raine, had given him a taste, if he could 
 follow it without prejudice to his interests." 
 But Navarre, though he was open-minded 
 on the subject of creeds, and a most dexter- 
 ous politician, was a noble and loyal gentle- 
 man, as Montaigne, with his keen, unpreju- 
 diced eyes, could well see. Navarre had 
 been bred a Protestant, his friends were Pro- 
 testants, and he would not forswear his reli- 
 gion so long as abjuration might work harm 
 to them. When his conversion became of 
 great moment to France, and promised to 
 
128 MONTAIGNE 
 
 confer the blessings of peace on the country 
 without hurt to the Protestants, he turned 
 Catholic. This was conduct such as Mon- 
 taigne would most heartily approve. Henry 
 IV. acted as if he had been nursed on the 
 Essays. And there is much to show that De 
 Thou's conversation is a very incorrect ac- 
 count of Montaigne's opinion of Henry. 
 
 After Henry had succeeded to the throne, 
 and was still struggling with the League, 
 Montaigne wrote to him: "I have always 
 thought of you as enjoying the good for- 
 tune to which you have come, and you may 
 remember that, even when I was obliged to 
 confess it to the cure, I always hoped for 
 your success. Now, with more cause and 
 more freedom, I salute it with full affection. 
 Your success serves you where you are, but 
 it serves you no less here by reputation. 
 The noise does as much as the shot. We 
 could not draw from the justice of your 
 cause arguments to establish or win your 
 subjects so strong as we do from the news 
 of the prosperity of your enterprises. . . . 
 The inclinations of people flow in a tide. If 
 the incline is once in your favor, it will 
 sweep on of its own weight, to the very end. 
 
MONTAIGNE 129 
 
 I should have liked very much that the pri- 
 vate gain of your soldiers and the need of 
 making them content had not deprived you, 
 especially in this great city, of the noble 
 commendation of having treated your rebel- 
 lious subjects, in the hour of victory, with 
 more consideration than their own protec- 
 tors do ; and that, differently from a transi- 
 tory and usurped claim, you had shown that 
 they were yours by a fatherly and truly 
 royal protection." The letter shows admira- 
 tion and comprehension of the king, and an 
 intimacy honorable to both. There was some 
 invitation for Montaigne to come to court, 
 and an offer of money, but he answered : 
 "Sire, your Majesty will do me, if you 
 please, the favor to believe that I will never 
 stint my purse on an occasion for which I 
 would not spare my life. I have never re- 
 ceived any money from the liberality of 
 kings, — I have neither asked nor deserved 
 it; I have never received payment for the 
 steps I have taken in their service, of which 
 your Majesty in part has knowledge. What 
 I have done for your predecessors I will do 
 very much more willingly for you. I am, 
 Sire, as rich as I desire." But ill health 
 
130 MONTAIGNE 
 
 would not permit him to go, even if he had 
 wished. 
 
 In the mean time Montaigne had been in 
 Paris (in 1588) to publish a new edition of 
 the Essays. There he formed the acquaint- 
 ance of Mademoiselle de Gournay, a young 
 lady of twenty, who had conceived a great 
 enthusiasm for the Essays. Montaigne called 
 her his adopted daughter. After his death, 
 helped by Madame de Montaigne, she de- 
 voted herself to the preparation of a new 
 edition of the Essays, with all the last 
 changes and additions that the author had 
 made. 
 
 Montaigne spent the last few years of his 
 life on his seigniory. He lived quietly, his 
 health growing worse, till he died, on Sep- 
 tember 13, 1592, at the age of fifty-nine. It 
 is said that when he felt his death near, no 
 longer able to speak, he wrote a little note 
 asking his wife to summon several gentlemen 
 of the neighborhood, that he might take 
 leave of them. When they had come, he 
 had mass said in his room ; and when the 
 priest came to the elevation of the host, he 
 threw himself forward as best he could, his 
 hands clasped, and so died. 
 
MONTAIGNE 131 
 
 VI 
 
 We are wont to call a man of letters great 
 when many generations of men can go to his 
 book, read what he says on the subject that 
 concerns them, — conduct, religion, love, the 
 significance of life, — and find that he has 
 cast some light, or at least has shifted the 
 problem. Such is Montaigne. There were 
 greater men living in his time, Shakespeare, 
 Cervantes ; but life plies many questions to 
 which poetry and idealism give no direct an- 
 swer. If a man would look serenely upon 
 the world, and learn the lesson that " ripe" 
 ness is all," he must go to the poet and to 
 the idealist, but he must go to the skeptic, 
 too. Uncertainty is one of our lessons, and 
 what man has talked so wisely and so per- 
 suasively as Montaigne concerning matters 
 that lie at the threshold of the great ques- 
 tions of religion and philosophy, which must 
 underlie all reasonable life ? Hear him, for 
 instance, after finding fault with an exces- 
 sive credulity, blaming its opposite : " But 
 also, on the other part, it is presumptuous 
 and foolish to go about disdaining and con- 
 demning as false that which does not seem 
 
132 MONTAIGNE 
 
 probable to us. This is a vice common to 
 those who think they have an intelligence 
 out of the ordinary. I had that habit once, 
 and if I heard of ghosts or prophecies of 
 future events, or of magic, of witchcraft, or 
 some wonderful story which I could not en- 
 dure, I felt compassion for the poor people 
 abused by this nonsense. Now I find that 
 I myself was at least as much to be pitied. 
 Not that I have ever had any experience be- 
 yond my first beliefs, and nothing has ever 
 appealed to my curiosity ; but reason has 
 taught me that to condemn finally a thing 
 as false and impossible is to claim to com- 
 prehend the boundaries and limits of the 
 will of God and of the power of our mother 
 Nature, and that there is no more remark- 
 able folly in the world than to bring them 
 down to the measurements of our capacity 
 and intelligence. If we give the names 
 monsters or miracles, there where our rea- 
 son cannot go, how many continually come 
 before our eyes ? Consider in what a mist, 
 and how gropingly, we come to a knowledge 
 of most things that are under our hands ; 
 we shall find that it is familiarity, not know- 
 ledge, which has taken the strangeness away, 
 
MONTAIGNE 133 
 
 and that, if those things were presented to 
 us afresh, we should find them as much or 
 more unbelievable than any others." 
 
 Montaigne commends us to a prudent but 
 brave open-mindedness. He warns us against 
 the dogmas of affirmation and the dogmas of 
 denial. He bids us pause and consider. No- 
 thing could be more wrong than the vulgar 
 notion that Montaigne has something in 
 common with Mephistopheles, the spirit that 
 denies. He was a skeptic ; but a single 
 epithet is always incorrect. He was a be- 
 liever, too. He believed in education, in hu- 
 manity, in tolerance, in the many-sidedness 
 of life, in the infinite power of God, in the 
 nobleness of humanity. Nothing excites his 
 indignation so violently as the "great sub- 
 tlety" of those men who sneer at heroic 
 deeds, and attribute noble performance to 
 mean motives. He makes no pretense of 
 special interest in conduct ; but conduct is 
 not his business, — he is concerned with the 
 philosophy which underlies conduct. Some 
 men are impatient for action ; they will be- 
 lieve this, that, anything, for an excuse to be 
 up and doing. Montaigne is not a man of 
 action ; he feels uncomfortable when within 
 
134 MONTAIGNE 
 
 hearing of the whir and rush of life; he 
 likes to retire into the " back of his shop " 
 to get away and be quiet. He was for con- 
 templation and meditation. It was this 
 shrinking from action that made him a skep- 
 tic. Action is the affirmation of belief, but 
 also its begetter. I believe because I act. 
 The heart beats, the blood circulates, the 
 breath comes and goes, the impatient muscles 
 do not wait for the tardy reason to don hat 
 and overcoat, arms twitch, legs start, and the 
 man is plunged into the hurly-burly of life. 
 There he goes, in the midst of a crowd of 
 human beings, hurrying, struggling, squirm- 
 ing, all filled to surfeit with most monstrous 
 beliefs. Montaigne's heart beats more slowly ; 
 he is in no hurry to act ; the meaning of 
 life will not yield to mere importunity ; let 
 us keep cool. " If any difficulties occur in 
 reading, I do not bite my nails about them, 
 but, after an attempt or two to explain them, 
 I give them over. Should I insist upon 
 them, I should lose both myself and my 
 time ; for I have a genius that is extremely 
 volatile, and what I do not discern at the 
 first attempt becomes the more obscure to 
 me the longer I pore over it. . . . Continua- 
 
MONTAIGNE 135 
 
 tion and a too obstinate contention stupefy 
 and tire my judgment. I must withdraw it, 
 and leave it, to make new discoveries, just 
 as, in order to judge rightly of the lustre of 
 scarlet, we are ordered to pass it lightly with 
 the eye, and to run it over at several sudden 
 repeated views." 
 
 Montaigne is of the Latin people, men of 
 the south, children of the market place and 
 the piazza. He sits in peacefulness, watch- 
 ing the comedy and tragedy of the world. 
 He lives apart ; for him life is a show, a 
 school for philosophy, a subject for essays. 
 If you have been bred in the Adirondacks 
 or on the slope of Monadnock, up betimes, 
 to tire your legs all the long day, and at 
 evening to watch the setting sun and listen 
 for the first call of the owl, you will not like 
 Montaigne. There, in the morning of life, 
 the blue sky overhead, the realities of life 
 looking so strong and so noble, the specula- 
 tions of a skeptic come like a cloud of dust. 
 Montaigne is not for the young man. Youth 
 has convictions ; its f eelings purport absolute 
 verity ; it possesses reality : why go a-fish- 
 ing for dreams ? But when the blood runs 
 cooler, when we are glad to be safe on earth, 
 
136 MONTAIGNE 
 
 when of a winter's evening we listen to the 
 pleasant shoot of the bolt that shall keep us 
 to ourselves, and draw up to the fire, then 
 Montaigne is supreme. He is so agreeable, 
 so charming, so skillful in taking up one 
 subject, then another, so well practiced in 
 conversation, so perfect a host. We are 
 translated into his library. He wanders 
 about the room, taking from his shelves one 
 book after another, opening them at random, 
 reading a scrap, and then talking about it. 
 On he goes, talking wisely, wittily, kindly, 
 while the flickering firelight plays over his 
 sensitive, intelligent face, and the Gascon 
 moon shines in patches on the floor, till the 
 world we are used to dissolves under his 
 talk, and its constituent parts waver and 
 flicker with the firelight. Everything aerifies 
 into dream-made stuff, out of which our fancy 
 builds a new world, only to see it again dis- 
 solve and fade under his bewitching talk. 
 
 Montaigne talks of himself. But his self 
 is not the vulgar self of the gossip ; it is the 
 type and model of humanity. Like a great 
 artist, he makes himself both individual and 
 type. He is the psychologist studying man. 
 He is his own laboratory, his own object of 
 
MONTAIGNE 137 
 
 examination. When we try to discover the 
 movements of the mind, have we any choice ? 
 Must we not examine ourselves ? He does 
 not bring us to himself for the mere exhilara- 
 tion of talking about himself. His subject 
 is man ; through the windows of man's mind 
 he makes us gaze at the universe, forever 
 reiterating in our ears that man is a prisoner 
 in the four walls of his mind, chafe how he 
 will. If this be egotism, it is egotism with 
 all its teeth drawn. 
 
 Skeptic, philosopher, abstracted from the 
 world, Montaigne nevertheless does not shirk 
 when the choice comes between speaking 
 out and keeping silent. He had something 
 sturdy at bottom. We cannot repeat too 
 often his " We must rend the mask from 
 things as well as from men." This is no 
 easy task. Even the strength of the young 
 mountaineer may not suffice. Masks famil- 
 iar to us all our lives become very dear ; let 
 us leave them, — there are other things to 
 do. Is there not something ignoble in this 
 use of our courage, to maltreat an old, ven- 
 erable appearance ? Give us some work of 
 poetry and romance ; bid us scale heaven. 
 And so the masks of things remain unre- 
 
138 MONTAIGNE 
 
 moved. There is in Montaigne always the 
 admiration of the heroic. " All other know- 
 ledge is useless to him who does not know 
 how to be good. . . . The measure and the 
 worth of a man consist in his heart and will ; 
 in them is the home of his honor. . . . True 
 victory lieth in the fight, not in coming off 
 safely ; and the honor of courage is in com- 
 bat, not in success." Of the three philoso- 
 phies which he studied, the Epicurean, the 
 Pyrrhonian, the Stoic, his heart was inclined 
 to the last, and I think he would rather have 
 had a nod of approval from Cato the younger 
 than have heard Sainte-Beuve salute him as 
 the wisest of Frenchmen. 
 
MACAULAY 
 
MACAULAY 
 
 The history of England is the great ro- 
 mance of the modern world. The story of 
 the rise, triumph, decline and fall of the 
 Roman Empire is more dramatic ; it would 
 be impossible to match in interest the narra- 
 tive of that Roman people from their cra- 
 dle on the Palatine Hill until they walked 
 abroad masters of the world. But England 
 is now living in the height of her pride and 
 power, the great civilizing force of this cen- 
 tury. Sprung from the mingled blood of 
 Celt, Saxon, Scandinavian, and Norman, the 
 Englishman has made his island home a gar- 
 den of poetry, a school of government for 
 the nations, the factory of the world : — 
 
 " This happy breed of men, this little world ; 
 This precious stone set in the silver sea." 
 
 The story of England outdoes the Waver- 
 ley Novels. Its panorama extends like the 
 visions of an enchanter : the mightiest Julius 
 
142 MACAULAY 
 
 lands ; legionaries build walls and camps, and 
 withdraw ; wild men struggle with wild men ; 
 missionaries teach the Pater Noster to awk- 
 ward lips ; petty kingdoms weld together ; 
 Saxons strike down Celts ; Normans strike 
 down Saxons ; Crusaders cross the seas ; Run- 
 nymede listens to a great charter; English 
 judges and English priests struggle against 
 the dominion of Roman law and Roman the- 
 ology ; Hotspurs and Warwicks march across 
 the stage ; sons of serfs are born free men , 
 English kings lay claims to the lands of 
 France ; books are printed ; rebellions break 
 out against the Roman pontiffs ; traders and 
 sailors roam abroad ; Bacon reasons ; Shake- 
 speare dramatizes ; the nation shuffles off the 
 coil of royal tyranny; Royal Societies are 
 founded ; weavers weave ; spinners spin ; 
 bobbins and shuttles load ships; chapter 
 succeeds chapter, till the great volume of 
 the nineteenth century is reached. 
 
 England has created the best and freest 
 government in the world ; England has made 
 the greatest literature ; England has brought 
 forth Bacon, Newton, Darwin ; England has 
 wrought the only system of law that can 
 match that of Rome ; England has sent forth 
 
MACAULAY 143 
 
 "comme un vol de gerfauts," adventurers, 
 colonizers, civilizers ; England, by Drake and 
 Howard of Effingham, has annexed the Chan- 
 nel to her coast ; England has sent westward 
 Ealeigh and Cabot, Pilgrims to Massachu- 
 setts, younger sons to Virginia, Wolfe to 
 Canada, Clive and Warren Hastings to In- 
 dia, Dampier and Cook to Australia, Gordon 
 and Kitchener to Egypt, incorporating vi 
 et armis great regions of the earth to have 
 and to hold to her and her English heirs 
 forever. 
 
 Amid such prodigal wealth of harvest 
 there is room for many husbandmen. Hol- 
 inshed and Froissart may chronicle legend 
 and foray ; Bacon may find a narrative that 
 shall lead to political preferment ; Hakluyt 
 may gather yarns together that shall stop 
 the question, " What have the indolent Eng- 
 lish done at sea ? " Clarendon may prove the 
 badness of a fallen cause ; Hume may un- 
 cover plentiful proofs of Tory virtue ; Napier 
 may track the " thin red line of heroes " 
 threading the mountains of Spain. Out of 
 the hundred facets an historian may select 
 that one which flashes most light to him. 
 Froude may praise the red hands of Eliza- 
 
144 MACAULAY 
 
 bethan marauders ; Gardiner may follow end- 
 less links of cause and effect ; Freeman may 
 find explanations for his own historic doubts ; 
 Lingard may gratify Koman Catholics ; Green 
 may avoid personal prejudices. English his- 
 tory has great garners laden with probabili- 
 ties, theories, interests, and facts, protean 
 enough to satisfy the most wanton historical 
 desires. 
 
 By the side of the gay and splendid colors 
 of English history, there are large quiet 
 spaces of sombre hues, dull to the indolent 
 eye. While heroes, paladins, and champions 
 have been caracoling conspicuous ; sad-vis- 
 aged, shrewd, resolute men have been stead- 
 ily working, plodding, planning, construct- 
 ing, — commonly behind the scenes, but not 
 always. Men who gradually, step by step, 
 sadly and surely enlarging precedent, piecing 
 and patching, wrought the common law ; who 
 slowly and steadfastly built up the pious and 
 sombre creeds and practices of the Noncon- 
 formist churches of England. Such men 
 have had a great and controlling influence 
 on the development of modern England. 
 They have been the burghers as opposed to 
 landowners or yeomen; of the middle class 
 
MACAULAY 145 
 
 as against the aristocracy and the plebeians ; 
 the educated in distinction from the learned 
 or the ignorant. They have been the dis- 
 senters and low churchmen ; they have been 
 the party of advance, the advocates of petty 
 changes, the practical men busy with daily 
 needs, careless of sentiments and theories, 
 taking care of the pennies of life. 
 
 They are the men of double entry, magni- 
 fying routine. In business they have added 
 mechanical device to mechanical device ; they 
 have put wind, water, steam, and electricity 
 into subjection ; they have done most of the 
 reckoning in England, and their brains are 
 hieroglyphed with I. s. d. They have built 
 up cities, adding house to house, block to 
 block, factory to factory; they also have 
 made a man's house his castle. The magic 
 of science does not affect them. It is a mon- 
 ster, a Caliban, for its usefulness they would 
 not heed it, — 
 
 " But, as 't is, 
 We cannot miss him : he does make our fire, 
 Fetch in our wood, and serves in offices 
 That profit us. What ho ! slave ! " 
 
 In literature they have sustained the names 
 that have been forgotten ; of art they are in- 
 
146 MACAULAY 
 
 nocent; in religion they are for the Old Tes- 
 tament ; in English politics they are Whigs 
 and Liberals. They made the revolution of 
 1688 ; they passed the Act of Settlement, — 
 a formal declaration of an accepted principle 
 that no king had divine rights in Great Bri- 
 tain ; they maintained the House of Hanover. 
 This cautious, industrious, peering-round- 
 the-corner class is not attractive to everybody. 
 We miss the glitter and the purple of osten- 
 tatious heroism ; we feel the absence of lux- 
 ury, of recklessness, of epigram, of sangfroid. 
 Nevertheless, that class constitutes most of 
 the machinery of the civilized world, calling 
 itself the party of progress, known to its 
 enemies as Mr. Gradgrind, Mr. Worldly-wise, 
 Mr. Stay-at-home. This difference between 
 the manufacturer and the country squire, the 
 artisan and the soldier, the practical man 
 and the idealist, an eye fixed on the present 
 and an eye roaming over the past or future, 
 between Whig and Tory, is the line of de- 
 marcation between two kinds of minds : the 
 Benjamin Franklin character, inclined to wise 
 saws, wise doubts, wise practices and experi- 
 ments ; and the Dr. Johnson temperament, 
 bowing to authority, custom, the ways of 
 
MACAULAY 147 
 
 grandfathers, the traditions of grandmo- 
 thers, full of crotchets, prejudices, beliefs, 
 and idealism. 
 
 If one looks at these classes from the point 
 of view of the reader on winter evenings, the 
 attractions of Tory history (to use the politi- 
 cal epithet), English conquests, English em- 
 pire, English traditions, English poetry, are 
 beyond comparison more entertaining than 
 histories of the common law, of Presbyte- 
 rian synods, of factory acts, of Manchesters 
 and Birminghams. But when the world is 
 quiet and the politics of England can regu- 
 late themselves by private morality and by 
 the maxims of Poor Kichard's Almanac, the 
 outwardly uninteresting class is sure to be in 
 power. The great wealth of England, the 
 moral tone of her literature, the humane 
 standard among her common clergy, the sav- 
 ing ballast in her ship of state, are all tri- 
 umphs of the Whigs. 
 
 Two generations ago the chief historians 
 of England, Clarendon, Hume, Lingard, had 
 done little justice to the achievements of 
 utility and progress ; it was time that an ad- 
 vocate should arise to show the real value 
 of the work of the middle classes. Justice 
 
148 MACAULAY 
 
 demanded that at the bar of public opinion a 
 zealous believer should plead the cause of the 
 Whigs. Up rose Thomas Babington Macau- 
 lay, and first in the " Edinburgh Review/' 
 and afterwards in his History, eulogized 
 their political achievements with amazing elo- 
 quence. All that he has written on the sub- 
 ject has been a splendid repetition of his words 
 on his election as member for Edinburgh : 
 "I look with pride on all that the Whigs 
 have done for the cause of human freedom 
 and of human happiness." 
 
 II 
 
 As a political party, during Macaulay's 
 boyhood and early youth, the Whigs were at 
 a low point of their power. The horrors of 
 the Reign of Terror in Paris, the gigantic 
 attempt of Napoleon to subdue the world, the 
 obvious necessity of war, the glories of the 
 Nile, Trafalgar, of Torres Vedras and Wa- 
 terloo, had kept the majority of Englishmen 
 in the Tory ranks. But after Napoleon had 
 been caged in St. Helena ; after the Holy 
 Alliance had guaranteed the peace of Eu- 
 rope ; after the change from war to peace had 
 thrown business into confusion, the minds 
 
MACAULAY 149 
 
 of Englishmen were free to meditate on the 
 defects of the time. The law, especially in 
 the Court of Chancery, dragged itself along 
 in loops of unjust delay ; the criminal law 
 was barbarously severe ; slavery still prevailed 
 in England's colonies ; the slave trade had 
 but lately been suppressed ; Roman Catholics 
 were disfranchised ; the Church had fallen 
 into the hands of ignorant parsons ; the House 
 of Commons was in the power of nobles and 
 great landowners. But the tide was turn- 
 ing. The Tories were losing their bulwark 
 of French fears ; Lord Eldon and the Duke 
 of Wellington were growing old ; while to the 
 support of the Whigs came the great force 
 of the early nineteenth century. Machinery 
 was developing Leeds, Manchester, and Bir- 
 mingham ; machinery was doubling their pop- 
 ulation and influence ; machinery was mak- 
 ing manufacturers rich, urging them to power 
 and freedom from old restraints. Weaving 
 and spinning were forcing the landed inter- 
 ests into matters of secondary importance. 
 The factories of England were calling to Glas- 
 gow, Liverpool, and London to cover the sea 
 with English ships ; and English commerce 
 answered to the call. Behind machinery 
 
150 MACAULAY 
 
 stood the great genie steam, of pure Whig 
 principles, practical, energetic, heedless of the 
 past, eager for new things. 
 
 For a long time the opposition to old cus- 
 toms, habits of mind, ways of thought and 
 action had needed a mouthpiece. Believers 
 in change, advocates of novelty, critics of 
 what is and has been, stood in need of a 
 standard-bearer, especially in Scotland, where 
 the rising genius of Walter Scott was pran- 
 cing like " proud Cumberland." The spirit 
 of revolt was ready for articulate voice. 
 About the time when Macaulay was born, 
 Sydney Smith, Francis Jeffrey, Francis Hor- 
 ner, and Henry Brougham met in their " gar- 
 ret " in Edinburgh, and founded the " Edin- 
 burgh Review." That review now is part of 
 old political and literary history. The lives 
 of its founders have been written, their essays 
 have been collected, and the modern reader 
 ignorant of foes who have been long since 
 killed and buried, when he sees these doughty 
 champions belaboring thin air, wonders why 
 the founders of the " Edinburgh Review " are 
 still remembered. The youngest of them 
 and the most remarkable was Brougham. 
 He contributed many articles to the early 
 
MACAULAY 151 
 
 numbers, and continued to write for it 
 throughout his life ; he wrote in all as many 
 as two hundred essays. 
 
 Brougham was a man of enormous activ- 
 ity, an agitator, attacking with voice and pen 
 hundreds of abuses with perpetual vigor and 
 audacity. He worked with Wilberf orce and 
 Lord Holland against slavery and the slave 
 trade. He assailed the Orders in Council, 
 the Income Tax, the foes of Queen Caroline, 
 the enemies of law reform. He fought for 
 the diffusion of education. He argued, ha- 
 rangued, and debated in Parliament with 
 the vigor of ten. He led the bar on the 
 Northern circuit. He thundered against Lord 
 Eldon day and night. He discoursed be- 
 fore reforming societies. He lectured to 
 leagues for the promotion of scientific know- 
 ledge. Brougham became one of the most 
 famous men in the House of Commons, and 
 after the Whig triumph, when Lord Grey 
 came into power in 1830, he was given the 
 Great Seal. Such a powerful turbulent spirit 
 exerted great influence on the Keview. He 
 disliked Macaulay, — out of jealousy, as 
 Macaulay thought, — and when Jeffrey re- 
 signed his position as editor, Brougham 
 
152 MACAULAY 
 
 threw his weight against the proposal that 
 Macaulay should succeed him. 
 
 Sydney Smith was the oldest of the 
 founders, and a far more typical Whig than 
 Brougham. He was the embodiment of the 
 qualities which give its character to the Eng- 
 lish Church. Better than any history, Syd- 
 ney Smith sets forth the practical morality, 
 the subordination of religion to the business 
 of living, the intolerance of mysticism, the 
 high esteem of common sense, which distin- 
 guishes the English Church. Sydney Smith 
 was a good man, an excellent parson, a 
 shrewd preacher. He looked on life from 
 the standpoint of common sense ; he was in- 
 terested in practical results. He thought 
 that the problems of government, of reli- 
 gion, of living, were all to be solved by in- 
 telligence and patience. He brought his wit 
 to the service of the liberal cause, and was 
 perhaps the most effective contributor to the 
 Review before Macaulay. 
 
 Francis Horner is generally forgotten. He 
 was a man of hard integrity and of studious 
 mind, with a leaning to metaphysics, eco- 
 nomics, and other studies then specially cul- 
 tivated in Edinburgh. Sydney Smith said 
 
MACAULAY 153 
 
 that he had the Ten Commandments written 
 on his face. Horner died before he was 
 forty, cutting short a career in the House of 
 Commons that was assured of distinguished 
 success. 
 
 Francis Jeffrey was the controlling influ- 
 ence in this group of men. He guided and 
 governed. He selected and sifted ; he kept 
 on good terms with the fiery Brougham. 
 He looked on the Review as a factor in civi- 
 lization, and, it seems, hesitated to make it 
 a purely party organ. But Walter Scott and 
 Tory friends started the Quarterly in 1809, 
 and the " Edinburgh Review " thereupon be- 
 came identified with the Whig political party. 
 Jeffrey must have been a very attractive 
 man ; Sydney Smith was very fond of him ; 
 Brougham remained faithful to him; Scott 
 speaks affectionately of him. He was most 
 kind to Macaulay. In his old age Macau- 
 lay's success with the " History of England " 
 delighted him : " My dear Macaulay, the 
 mother that bore you, had she been yet 
 alive, could scarcely have felt prouder or 
 happier than I do at this outburst of your 
 graver fame." Jeffrey's essays have be- 
 come things of the past. The cold Words- 
 
154 MACAULAY 
 
 worthian, in his less worthy moods, looks up 
 the famous sentences of blame once so much 
 applauded. The opinions of literary men, 
 unless they chance to catch what succeeding 
 generations hold to be truth, or have dinted 
 their personality on their sentences, pass with 
 the harvests of last year. Macaulay gives 
 Jeffrey most generous praise, but Macaulay 
 spoke from a grateful heart. 
 
 In 1825 Jeffrey, not aware of all the forces 
 that were working on the Whig side, was 
 eagerly seeking young men of talents, when 
 he came upon a man of twenty-four, of fluent 
 speech, of prodigious memory and informa- 
 tion, and untrammeled by a single doubt. 
 Young Macaulay contributed to the August 
 number his essay on Milton. 
 
 Ill 
 
 The Macaulays were Scotch. An anecdote 
 of Lord Macaulay's grandfather, who was one 
 of the ministers at Inverary when Dr. John- 
 son went thither on his trip to the Hebrides, 
 is told by Bo swell, which gives an intima- 
 tion that in the Macaulay blood there was 
 both that readiness to block out a man's 
 character and make it all of a piece, and 
 
MACAULAY 155 
 
 that lack of sensitive imagination, of which 
 we find strong marks in the " History of 
 England." " When Dr. Johnson spoke of 
 people whose principles were good, but whose 
 practice was faulty, Mr. M'Aulay said, he had 
 no notion of people being in earnest in their 
 good professions whose practice was not suit- 
 able to them. The Doctor grew warm, and 
 said, ' Sir, are you so grossly ignorant of hu- 
 man nature, as not to know that a man may 
 be very sincere in good principles, without 
 having good practice ? ' This is character- 
 istic Tory criticism of characteristic Whig 
 belief. 
 
 This minister's son Zachary was of the 
 Scotch Puritan type. Early bred to busi- 
 ness he went at sixteen to Jamaica, where 
 he learned to hate negro slavery; he gave 
 up his position in consequence, went back 
 to England at about twenty-four years of 
 age, and was sent out to Sierra Leone by a 
 company formed in the interest of liberated 
 slaves. There he remained as governor of the 
 colony till 1799, when he returned to Eng- 
 land and married a Miss Mills, the daughter 
 of a Quaker of Bristol. On October 25, 1800, 
 Thomas Babington Macaulay was born. 
 
156 MACAULAY 
 
 One of Macaulay's many bits of good for- 
 tune has been his biographer ; Trevelyan is 
 unsurpassed by any Englishman except Bos- 
 well. In the " Life and Letters of Lord 
 Macaulay," the precocious boy, the brilliant 
 young man, appears in a holiday dress of 
 delightful anecdotes. In that wonderful 
 youth it is difficult to tell what effect Macau- 
 lay's father and mother had upon him. His 
 father served the anti-slavery cause, in com- 
 pany of Wilberf orce and Thornton, with stern 
 and tireless devotion. He appears to have 
 looked on his son somewhat as a means 
 which God had given him for the execution 
 of a great plan ; not that there was any lack 
 of affection, but the son never could have 
 had the pleasure of beholding in his father 
 a purpose to secure for him the fullness of 
 life, never could have realized except in 
 imagination that a father might bestow upon 
 his son the education of mere prodigal love. 
 Macaulay's mother was a devout woman, 
 somewhat given to that pious phraseology 
 which is tolerable only in privacy. There 
 is a picture of evangelical Clapham — that 
 part of London where the Macaulays lived — 
 in " The Newcomes." Colonel Newcome's 
 
MACAULAY 157 
 
 father lived there ; his brothers Hobson and 
 Brian were bred there. But Trevelyan will 
 not grant much truth to this picture. 
 
 After preparation at a small school Macau- 
 lay went into residence at Trinity College, 
 Cambridge, in October, 1818. Derwent Cole- 
 ridge, Praed, and a certain brilliant Charles 
 Austin were among his intimates. Although 
 already a great reader, Macaulay did not live 
 in books only; he took keen interest in poli- 
 tics, wrote prize poems, talked early and late. 
 He had no liking for mathematics, for sci- 
 ence, or for athletic exercises. He seems to 
 have been at that time very much what he 
 was in later years ; with the same zeal, the 
 same quick spirit, and with those prodigious 
 powers of reading and of remembering, of 
 which the like have never been known. In 
 1822 he won the prize for the best essay on 
 the "Conduct and Character of William HI." 
 Trevelyan says that the characters of James 
 and of William, the Popish Plot, the license 
 of the Restoration, " are drawn on the same 
 lines and painted in the same colors" as they 
 are in his History. This is characteristic of 
 the man. Macaulay lacked the advantage 
 of slowness in intellectual development, which 
 
158 MACAULAY 
 
 enables a growing mind to feed upon fitting 
 food in the advancing stages of its develop- 
 ment. His capacity for sympathy seems to 
 have been of a certain quality, receptive 
 only within definite limits ; it had no elasti- 
 city to admit new classes of interests. His 
 enormous fund of information did him a 
 certain injury by coddling, as it were, the 
 stunted side of his imagination. It assured 
 him that his judgment had not been taken 
 without a complete survey of all reasonably 
 available means of knowledge. It lent all 
 the weight of precocious erudition to opin- 
 ions formed too easily, and shut him off 
 from the elementary truth that not informa- 
 tion, but sensitiveness to many sides of hu- 
 manity, helps a man to just judgments. His 
 views were clear, definite, susceptible of sup- 
 port from many arguments, and honest as 
 the day ; but he never had the education of 
 a great private personal emotion. He never 
 was in love ; he never comprehended the 
 meaning of religion. Untouched by these 
 two great causes of human growth, Macaulay 
 left Cambridge a very efficient machine, self- 
 possessed, ready, eloquent, of high principle, 
 careless of vulgar success, with certain pecu- 
 
MACAULAY 159 
 
 liar powers of mind which in their order 
 have not been surpassed if they have ever 
 been equalled. 
 
 Macaulay was called to the bar in 1826 ; 
 he went on the Northern circuit, where he 
 met Brougham, but it seems that he had lit- 
 tle or no practice. His inclination lay in 
 other directions ; he displayed his oratory 
 before various societies, and his literary tal- 
 ents in " Knight's Quarterly Magazine.' ' In 
 1825 his essay on Milton had been published 
 in the " Edinburgh Review," and he was at 
 once treated by notable men of twice his age 
 with distinguished consideration. Perhaps 
 it was a misfortune for a brilliant young 
 man of Scotch ancestry, bred at home in an 
 evangelical, anti-slavery air, trained to com- 
 plete self-possession at Cambridge, to find 
 himself of instant consequence to the great 
 Whig organ. He was thereby subjected to 
 influences which strengthened his tenden- 
 cies of mind and cut him off from all sym- 
 pathy with opposite opinions; so that the 
 very virtues of conservatism, of unreasoning 
 emotions, stood over against him as so many 
 enemies to be battled with. 
 
 Petted and praised by the men whom he 
 
160 MACAULAY 
 
 had learned to look upon as the salt of Eng- 
 land, sought after by that Review for which 
 Sydney Smith, the great wit, Jeffrey, the 
 great critic, Brougham, the great reformer, 
 were eager to write, applauded by the whole 
 reading world of London, Macaulay had no 
 chance to repair the defects of his inherit- 
 ance and of his education. The essay on 
 Milton is not one of Macaulay' s best, — he 
 was but twenty-four years old, — yet it bears 
 the well-known characteristics of Macaulay's 
 style : clearness with no shadow of doubt ; 
 the assurance that only a little patience and 
 common sense are needed, and all the con- 
 fusion that time, custom, and prejudice have 
 thrown around the important matters of life 
 will uncurl and drop off, leaving one face to 
 face with certainty ; the brilliant mastery of 
 rhetoric which satisfies the immediate appe- 
 tite of the mind ; the powerful arguments 
 of the orator which upon one hearing are 
 not to be resisted ; the positiveness of com- 
 mon sense, the definiteness of complete com- 
 prehension, the art of prologue and exor- 
 dium, of paragraph and sentence, of commas 
 and semicolons. All his life Macaulay was 
 convinced that truth is as clear as day, and 
 
MACAULAY 161 
 
 that if a man has knowledge of his subject 
 and is neither a bigot nor a fool, he need 
 only write clearly and all people past rudi- 
 mentary intelligence and shell-form educa- 
 tion will receive light and be converted. He 
 felt the burden of Whig duty upon his shoul- 
 ders ; he must show the right and describe 
 the wrong, portray justice and reveal injus- 
 tice, exhibit the beneficial and expose the 
 hurtful, put the light of good literature on a 
 hill and snuff the candle of the bad. Ma- 
 caulay had the highest aims and the noblest 
 aspirations that are compatible with complete 
 mental subjection to the practical, to the use- 
 ful, to the mechanical parts of life. He is 
 intolerant of wrong, because wrong is his 
 adversary, and his adversary is wrong. He 
 hates injustice ; has not injustice been ranged 
 with Stuarts, pretenders, slavery, Popery, and 
 all the evils he is resolute to combat ? He 
 abhors cruelty ; it is inextricably bound up 
 with bigotry, fanatical loyalty, intolerant 
 privileges. He is a man of party ; he enjoys 
 friends, he delights in enemies. He rejoices 
 in his own strength, and hits out from the 
 shoulder. 
 
 He who looks back over two generations 
 
162 MACAULAY 
 
 at the fierce battles of the past finds it easy 
 to see virtue and wrong on each side, dis- 
 covers the vanity of the victory and the hol- 
 lowness of the defeat, and in his armchair, 
 turning over books, smiles at the fiery zeal and 
 convictions of men long buried. None the 
 less is it important for him that the battle 
 has been fought, that the side on which there 
 was a slight preponderance of right should 
 have conquered. We may wonder at the 
 emotions of those who fought the political 
 fight over the Reform Act, with somewhat of 
 the same compassion that we read of Atha- 
 nasian and Arian, but we need to remember 
 that not the indolent skepticisms of the past, 
 but its vigorous energies and convictions, 
 have removed stones and uprooted thorns 
 from our path. 
 
 IV 
 
 The great struggle between the old po- 
 litical institutions of England and the new 
 political needs of the middle classes was first 
 fought over the question of Roman Catholic 
 Emancipation. The reformers won. The 
 Test Acts were old statutes enacted in the 
 time of Charles II., and required all officers, 
 
MACAULAY 163 
 
 civil and military, under the government to 
 take the communion according to the rites 
 of the Anglican Church. Thereafter those 
 Acts had been in substance amended by 
 allowing dissenters to be relieved from the 
 penalties of the original Acts, but they had 
 remained in full force against the Catholics. 
 These Acts were repealed in 1828. In 1829 
 the Catholic Emancipation Act, which al- 
 lowed Roman Catholics to sit in Parliament, 
 was passed. Both parties then prepared for 
 the great issue of parliamentary reform. 
 
 At that time the House of Commons did 
 not represent the nation but the aristocracy. 
 Great landowners sent their sons and depend- 
 ents to sit for pocket boroughs. Members 
 sat for constituencies which had been estab- 
 lished hundreds of years and more ; in the 
 mean time some old towns had dwindled to 
 villages. Old Sarum had no inhabitants, 
 yet it returned two members. Old villages 
 had grown to great cities, and had no repre- 
 sentation. Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham, 
 Sheffield, returned no members ; Edinburgh, 
 Glasgow, London itself, were most imper- 
 fectly represented. The House represented 
 neither population nor property. The pros- 
 
164 MACAULAY 
 
 perous middle classes throughout the whole 
 island determined that this injustice should 
 cease, that they should share with the aris- 
 tocracy. The Whigs were on the lookout for 
 young men of talents. In the early part of 
 1830, through the influence of Lord Lans- 
 downe, Macaulay was returned to Parlia- 
 ment for a petty borough. In July George 
 IY. died, and Parliament was dissolved. The 
 new elections were held on the issue of par- 
 liamentary reform ; the Whigs were success- 
 ful. Shortly after Parliament assembled the 
 Duke of Wellington was forced to resign, 
 and Earl Grey formed a Whig ministry. 
 Brougham was made lord chancellor. On 
 the first day of March, 1831, Lord John 
 Kussell, leader in the House, introduced the 
 Eeform Bill, which proposed to disfranchise 
 some threescore boroughs, and to give repre- 
 sentation to unrepresented towns. The next 
 day Macaulay, who had addressed the House 
 but twice in the preceding Parliament, arose 
 and delivered his first great speech. He 
 said that the bill was a practical measure, 
 that it did not propose to embody a symmet- 
 rical theory of representation ; he would not 
 urge universal suffrage for fear lest in times 
 
MACAULAY 165 
 
 of discontent the laboring classes should be 
 wrought upon by passion to do hurt to the 
 state ; but this bill would bring great strength 
 of property and intelligence to the support 
 of order. He argued that to say the present 
 system was ancient, and in old times had 
 been praised by Englishmen and foreigners, 
 was no defense of it ; in those times there 
 had been a representative House of Commons, 
 but great changes in population and property 
 had taken place ; that the Tory argument 
 that Manchester was virtually represented was 
 a concession to reform, for if virtual repre- 
 sentation was good, in what respect was it 
 good wherein direct representation would not 
 be better ; that, to the fear that the middle 
 classes were desirous of abolishing the mon- 
 archy and the aristocracy, he would answer 
 that a form of government in which the 
 middle classes had no confidence could not 
 conduce to the happiness of the people ; that, 
 as to the claim that it would be unjust to 
 deprive boroughs of vested rights, history 
 showed that the right to return members 
 had never been regarded as property ; that 
 change was better than discontent. Did the 
 House wish to wait for popular rage ? " Now, 
 
166 MACAULAY 
 
 therefore, while everything at home and 
 abroad forebodes ruin to those who persist 
 in a hopeless struggle against the spirit of 
 the age, now, while the crash of the proud- 
 est throne of the Continent is still resound- 
 ing in our ears, now, while the roof of a 
 British palace affords an ignominious shelter 
 to the exiled heir of forty kings, now, while 
 we see on every side ancient institutions sub- 
 verted, and great societies dissolved, now, 
 while the heart of England is still sound, 
 now, while old feelings and old associations 
 retain a power and a charm which may too 
 soon pass away, now, in this your accepted 
 time, now, in this your day of salvation, 
 take counsel, not of prejudice, not of party- 
 spirit, not of the ignominious pride of a fatal 
 consistency, but of history, of reason, of the 
 ages which are past, of the signs of this most 
 portentous time. Renew the youth of the 
 state. Save property divided against itself. 
 Save the multitude endangered by its own 
 ungovernable passions. Save the aristocracy, 
 endangered by its own unpopular power. 
 Save the greatest, and fairest, and most 
 highly civilized community that ever existed, 
 from calamities which may in a few days 
 
MACAULAY 167 
 
 sweep away all the rich heritage of so many- 
 ages of wisdom and glory. The danger is 
 terrible. The time is short.' ' The House 
 was wild with excitement. Everybody com- 
 pared him to Burke, Fox, Canning. Peel 
 said that parts of the speech were as beau- 
 tiful as anything he had ever heard or read. 
 Macaulay, the orator, had rivaled Macaulay 
 of the " Edinburgh Review." Society ran 
 after him. Rogers gave him breakfast par- 
 ties ; Lady Holland made a pet of him. 
 Gladstone says that Macaulay had achieved 
 " immense distinction." " For a century and 
 more, perhaps no man in this country, with 
 the exception of Mr. Pitt and Lord Byron, 
 had attained at thirty-two the fame of Ma- 
 caulay. His parliamentary success and his 
 literary eminence were each of them enough, 
 as they stood at this date, to intoxicate any 
 brain and heart of a meaner order. But to 
 these was added in his case an amount and 
 quality of social attentions such as invaria- 
 bly partake of adulation and idolatry, and 
 as perhaps the high circles of London never 
 before or since have lavished on a man whose 
 claims lay only in himself, and not in his 
 descent, his rank, or his possessions." Never- 
 
168 MACAULAY 
 
 theless, Macaulay devoted himself to Parlia- 
 ment. In the autumn the House of Lords 
 threw out the bill. The country was very 
 much excited. The Commons passed the bill 
 again, the Lords indicated that their minds 
 were unchanged. Earl Grey resigned. The 
 Duke of Wellington tried to form a cabinet, 
 but could not, and advised the king to recall 
 the Whig ministry. The threat of creating 
 new peers sufficient to turn the Lords to a 
 Whig body was successful. The bill passed, 
 and on the 7th of June, 1832, became law. 
 
 The victory was much to the honor of 
 England. By the force of public opinion 
 expressed in the forms of law the fabric of 
 the British constitution had been greatly 
 changed. The chief of the coordinate 
 branches of the government had been taken 
 out of the hands of the aristocracy and given 
 to the middle classes. Englishmen had 
 effected this revolution by peaceful methods. 
 No blood was shed, no soldiers paraded the 
 streets, neither legal rights nor ordinary busi- 
 ness was suspended ; while on the Continent 
 in Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, and Po- 
 land, reformers and conservatives had been 
 shooting one another in the highways. 
 
MACAULAY 169 
 
 These important events left their mark on 
 Macaulay ; the natural bent of his shrewd 
 practical mind was increased and strength- 
 ened. He had deepened his likings and 
 broadened his dislikes. He saw all English 
 history explained and interpreted by this par- 
 liamentary struggle. When his mind again 
 went to the subject of his prize essay, he 
 felt that the country had been through a 
 revolution like that of 1688 ; and that his 
 personal experience enabled him to under- 
 stand James II. and William III. as no man 
 who had not been in the middle of that 
 struggle could do. It is no wonder that a 
 young man of strong feelings, who had borne 
 an honorable part in the contest, and had 
 won a great reputation, should have become 
 more and more convinced that the dividing 
 line between Whig and Tory was the very 
 line which separated right from wrong ; and 
 that when he looked back over the history 
 of England, he should have judged the past 
 by the present. 
 
 Macaulay' s collected essays fill several vol- 
 umes. All but a few were published in the 
 
170 MACAULAY 
 
 "Edinburgh Review" from 1825 to 1845. 
 Of his first essay, that on Milton, he himself 
 says it " contains scarcely a paragraph such 
 as my matured judgment approves, and is 
 overloaded with gaudy and ungraceful orna- 
 ment." Howbeit, a gay livery becomes the 
 opinions of youth. The essay on Milton is 
 boyish, not with the ordinary immaturity of 
 four and twenty, but with the boyishness of 
 Macaulay's own schoolboy of twelve ; he who 
 at fifteen in the Seminary of Douai learned 
 enough theology to outweigh the Jesuit 
 counselors of Charles II. and James II., and 
 whose private library would be incomplete 
 without a full edition of Burnet's pamphlets. 
 Nevertheless, of all blame laid on Charles I., 
 most people best remember the famous sum- 
 ming up : " We charge him with having 
 broken his coronation oath ; and we are told 
 that he kept his marriage vow." The essay 
 is boyish, but fifty years after it was pub- 
 lished, Mr. Gladstone, at the age of sixty- 
 five, deemed it worthy of criticism. 
 
 In the essays many little mistakes of fact 
 have been discovered by careful seekers. 
 Froude charges Macaulay with error upon 
 error : in that Macaulay makes accusation 
 
MACAULAY 171 
 
 that Alice Perrers was mistress of Edward 
 III., that Strafford debauched the daughter 
 of Sir Richard Bolton, that Henry VIII. was 
 the murderer of his wives. Froude's pleas 
 of not guilty savor a little of the technical 
 knowledge of an advocate at the criminal bar 
 retained for the defense. Macaulay's state- 
 ments may technically not be proved; as 
 jurymen we may say not guilty, but as indi- 
 viduals we are convinced of the justice of his 
 charge. Froude, champion of the Protestant 
 cause, accuses Macaulay of wrong to the Eng- 
 lish Reformation and to Cranmer; and of 
 espousal of the Catholic cause in 1829 ; but 
 betrays his own intemperate partiality by 
 adding : " The Ethiopian, it was said, had 
 changed his skin." Froude also finds fault 
 that Macaulay was too severe in his essay 
 on Robert Montgomery's bad poems. What 
 place has generosity in matters of art ? 
 
 Froude says Macaulay "was the creation 
 and representative of his own age ; what his 
 own age said and felt, whether it was wise 
 or foolish, Macaulay said and felt." In this 
 judgment Mr. John Morley and Mr. Leslie 
 Stephen concur. It may be that to be the 
 representative of the age is no very serious 
 
172 MACAULAY 
 
 fault. Shakespeare bears witness to the high 
 renaissance of England ; Dante embodies the 
 Middle Ages ; Cervantes represents the chiv- 
 alry of Spain ; Abraham Lincoln is the flower 
 of American democracy. Macaulay, it is 
 true, never tires telling of the growth of pop- 
 ulation and the increase of wealth; and many 
 men whose minds, like his, are, as Froude 
 says, "of an ordinary kind," think exactly 
 as he does. But their creed is the creed of 
 England. Is it surely wrong ? Perhaps we 
 should rejoice at the increase of wisdom and 
 not at multiplying numbers ; but what of an 
 hundred thousand mothers who rejoice over 
 an hundred thousand children ? Whose new- 
 born son shall be handed to Herod as the 
 price of wisdom ? And what becomes of the 
 sneer at commercial prosperity when we think 
 of food for the hungry, shelter for the ragged, 
 schools for the ignorant, homes for the aged ? 
 It is not the beliefs, but the skepticisms of 
 the utilitarian which are to be blamed. 
 
 It may be asked, is Froude's fame the tri- 
 umph of accuracy ? is Mr. Morley wholly free 
 from the popular positivist creed of his gener- 
 ation ? has he in " Voltaire " and " Rousseau " 
 betrayed sympathy with an alien faith ? Is 
 
MACAULAY 173 
 
 Mr. Leslie Stephen in danger lest he be flung 
 from the saddle of common sense by the 
 caracoling of his rhetoric? They all com- 
 plain that Macaulay lacks sensitiveness. The 
 complaint is just ; but are they in a position 
 to claim that their own title to distinction is 
 " d'avoir quelquefois pleure " ? 
 
 Macaulay' s essays taken one by one can 
 be splintered and chipped, but bound to- 
 gether they furnish part of the strength of 
 English literature. Their subjects have great 
 range of historical interest ; vast knowledge 
 of literature has been crammed into their 
 compass ; mastery of rhetoric colors page, 
 paragraph, and sentence. Picture follows 
 picture till the reader fancies that he is 
 whirled by spring floods from Shalott cas- 
 tle down to many towered Camelot. Like 
 a genie to the lord of his lamp, Macaulay 
 fetches the wealth of all the literature of the 
 civilized world and lays it before his readers. 
 He goes through a volume for an anecdote ; 
 he ransacks a library for an impression. 
 
 There is one danger into which Macaulay's 
 critics often fall. In the picture of a man, 
 in the narration of an episode, they find an 
 error of fact, and conclude that the picture 
 
174 MACAULAY 
 
 is unjust, that the episode is false. But 
 Maeaulay is so steeped in information that, 
 although he may be wrong as to a particular 
 fact, he is justified in his conclusion. In the 
 case of Henry VIII. there may be legal error 
 and moral truth in the epithet murderer. 
 
 The essays are the work of a rhetorician, 
 the greatest, perhaps, in English literature. 
 One defect in that literature, as compared with 
 Latin literatures, has been a lack of rhetoric. 
 The great masters of English prose, Milton 
 and Burke, appeal to the imagination. Their 
 language is sensuous and adorned, but they 
 address themselves to the intellect ; they 
 charge their speech with thought ; they are 
 careless that they lay burdens upon their read- 
 ers ; they are indifferent that they outstride 
 the crowd. The rhetorician — a Cicero, a 
 Bossuet — tries to spare his readers ; he 
 wishes to be always thronged by the multi- 
 tude. So it is with Maeaulay. He says 
 nothing that everybody cannot comprehend 
 and at once. He exerts all his powers to 
 give his readers as little to do as possible ; 
 he drains his memory to find decorations to 
 catch their eye and fix their attention. He 
 presents everything in brilliant images. He 
 
MACAULAY 175 
 
 writes to the eye and the ear. He has in 
 mind the ordinary Briton ; he does not write 
 for a sect nor for a band of disciples. He 
 is always the orator talking to men who are 
 going to vote at the close of his speech. He 
 never stops with a suggestion ; he never 
 pauses with a hint; he is never tentative, 
 never is rendered august by the clouds of 
 doubt. 
 
 Macaulay was a born orator fit to speak to 
 the multitude at the cross-roads ; not to the 
 individual in his closet : he was also a man 
 of letters, a man of the library ; no living 
 being ever had such a mass of information 
 in his head at one time. These two qualities 
 explain his devotion to literature, his admira- 
 tion of the Greeks, his love of the world's 
 great poets, and the seemingly inconsistent 
 fact that he never exceeded the stature of a 
 rhetorician. He had a skilled, delicate, and 
 educated taste in literature ; but his ear to 
 listen and his voice to speak were far apart. 
 His ear is the cunning ear of Jacob listening 
 to the sweet voice of Rachel, but his voice 
 is the voice of Esau calling afar to his shep- 
 herds. 
 
 Macaulay's poetry is himself set to metre 
 
176 MACAULAY 
 
 and rhyme. It has the swing, the vigor, the 
 balanced sentences of his prose. It has the 
 awakening power of brass instruments play- 
 ing the reveille. It used to be a subject 
 of debate whether Macaulay' s poems were 
 poetry or no ; and there are men to whom 
 those poems have not and never can have 
 the significance of the poetry native to them. 
 But they are the poetry of a strong, healthy, 
 typical Englishman. It may be doubted if 
 there be any other English poetry which 
 bears in itself half so much evidence that it 
 was written by an Englishman. The metre 
 is good, the rhyme is good, the narrative is 
 excellent. Everybody knows how the strenu- 
 ous rush of Horatius dints itself on the mem- 
 ory ; everybody can name the cities which 
 sent their tale of men to Lars Porsena. 
 
 Macaulay in his verse as in his prose pre- 
 sents one definite picture after another. Each 
 character comes on the stage in exact por- 
 traiture, whether it be Horatius, Herminius, 
 Halifax, Sunderland, or Somers. There they 
 are in the blaze of high noon ; there is no 
 twilight for them; never do their outlines 
 blend in the shades of doubt. Macaulay saw 
 the world as one vast picture-book. This 
 
MACAULAY 177 
 
 is the reason why his essays stand on the 
 Australian's shelf next to the Bible and to 
 Shakespeare. There is nothing in English 
 literature comparable to them ; there is no- 
 thing of the kind in foreign literatures. 
 Each essay is a combination of history and 
 literature, of anecdote and learning, of inci- 
 dent and portraiture, of advocacy and party 
 spirit, such as are commonly found separate 
 and distinct in the essays of a dozen differ- 
 ent men. There is somewhat of the con- 
 structive element of imagination here. As 
 the mechanical mind brings together the 
 odds and ends of its recollection, the re- 
 mainder baggage of its memory, and works 
 and fashions them into an invention, so 
 Macaulay from his vast stores unites and 
 combines scattered materials and creates an 
 imaginative picture. There is nothing to be 
 found in his work which the world did not 
 possess before ; but most of the world was 
 not aware of its possessions until Macaulay 
 gathered them together. 
 
 VI 
 
 Next in importance to Macaulay's expe- 
 rience in Parliament, as bearing upon his 
 
178 MACAULAY 
 
 historical education, are his four years of 
 service in India. One of the early acts of 
 the Reformed Parliament was to revise the 
 charter of the East India Company. Among 
 great changes it was enacted that one mem- 
 ber of the Supreme Council, which, with 
 the governor-general, was to govern India, 
 should not be chosen from the service of the 
 company. Macaulay was appointed to fill 
 that position, and in 1834, taking his sister 
 Hannah, subsequently Lady Trevelyan, he 
 sailed for India. To the general reader the 
 most interesting event connected with Ma- 
 caulay's service in India is a list of the books 
 he read on the voyages thither and back. 
 On the voyage out, he read the Iliad, the 
 Odyssey, the iEneid, Horace, Caesar, Bacon, 
 Dante, Petrarch, Ariosto, Tasso, Cervantes, 
 "The Decline and Fall of Rome," Mill's 
 " India," seventy volumes of Voltaire, Sis- 
 mondi's " History of France," and the seven 
 f olios of the " Biographica Britannica." The 
 real matters of consequence are Macaulay' s 
 study of the details of Indian administra- 
 tion, his support of complete freedom of the 
 press, his successful advocacy that all the 
 higher branches of knowledge should be 
 
MACAULAY 179 
 
 taught in the English tongue; and, more 
 than all, his labors upon the Criminal Code. 
 Of his draft of this Code after spending 
 great and continuous labor upon it, Macau- 
 lay says : " I am not ashamed to acknow- 
 ledge that there are several chapters in the 
 Code on which I have been employed for 
 months ; of which I have changed the whole 
 plan ten or twelve times ; which contain not 
 a single word as it originally stood; and 
 with which I am very far indeed from being 
 satisfied." After Macaulay's return to Eng- 
 land, in 1838, his draft was revised by a suc- 
 cessor, and was finally enacted into law after 
 the Mutiny. 
 
 In those four years Macaulay took a large 
 share in the administration of an empire ; 
 while tending its needs he observed the 
 operations of social forces which when past 
 constitute the history of a country. In 
 his leisure time he read books as no man 
 ever read before. When he returned to 
 England he had had the worst and the best 
 training for writing history that ever an 
 Englishman had : in that he had been a 
 partisan legislator at a time when the en- 
 actment of a British statute was the formal 
 
180 MACAULAY 
 
 acknowledgment of a social revolution; and 
 in that he had been administrator of the em- 
 pire of India in a time of transition. These 
 experiences gave him an intimate knowledge 
 of the machinery of government ; but some- 
 times in matters of history the hand of little 
 employment hath the daintier sense. When 
 we consider that in addition to this education 
 he had a marvelous power of expression, a 
 prodigious memory, and an interest in Eng- 
 lish history greater than in anything else, 
 it might have been guessed that Macaulay 
 would write the most brilliant history of 
 England that had yet been written. 
 
 On July 20, 1838, Macaulay, writing to 
 Napier, editor of the " Edinburgh Review," 
 of his proposed History, said that according 
 to his plan it should extend from the Revo- 
 lution to the death of George IV. ; " the 
 history would then be an entire view of all 
 the transactions which took place between 
 the Revolution which brought the Crown 
 into harmony with the Parliament and the 
 Revolution which brought the Parliament 
 into harmony with the nation." On Decem- 
 ber 18 his diary reads: "I am more and 
 more in love with my subject. I really 
 
MACAULAY 181 
 
 think that posterity will not willingly let my 
 book die." Nevertheless, it was long before 
 he was able to give himself wholly to his 
 task. In the summer of that year he was 
 asked to stand for the city of Edinburgh. 
 On his election he accepted the secretary- 
 ship at war and a seat in Lord Melbourne's 
 cabinet. The Whigs, however, were losing 
 their hold upon the people, and in the gen- 
 eral election in 1841, although Macaulay was 
 returned again from Edinburgh, the Tories 
 carried everything south of the Trent, and 
 Macaulay lost his seat in the cabinet. He 
 was glad of greater leisure, and went busily 
 to work at essays, at his " Lays of Ancient 
 Rome," and at his History. 
 
 Once again he sat in the cabinet. Sir 
 Robert Peel was beaten in June, 1846, and 
 Lord John Russell gave Macaulay a seat as 
 paymaster-general of the army. But his 
 term of office was again short, for he was 
 defeated at the polls in the next general 
 election in 1847. 
 
 Free from parliamentary duties Macaulay 
 worked at his History with unimpeded indus- 
 try; he devoured books, pamphlets, manu- 
 scripts, papers, letters; he traveled hither 
 
182 MACAULAY 
 
 and thither, to this place and to that; he 
 followed lines of march, he traced marks of 
 old walls and bastions, he ferreted out tradi- 
 tions, he listened to old gossip. " The notes 
 made during his fortnight's tour through 
 the scenes of the Irish war are equal in 
 bulk to a first-class article in the Edinburgh 
 or Quarterly reviews." The first two vol- 
 umes of the History appeared in November, 
 1848. Success was instantaneous. Macau- 
 lay had said : "I shall not be satisfied unless 
 I produce something which shall for a few 
 days supersede the last fashionable novel on 
 the tables of young ladies." He must have 
 been satisfied. Edition has succeeded edi- 
 tion, paid for and pirated, in England, in 
 America, in a dozen foreign countries, vol- 
 umes upon volumes, until it may be doubted 
 if any book, except the Bible, has had so 
 many copies printed. In December, 1855, 
 the third and fourth volumes were pub- 
 lished ; and Macaulay's fame as one of the 
 great English writers of the nineteenth cen- 
 tury was firmly fixed in English literature. 
 " All the world wondered ; " most of the 
 world applauded. Yet on the day when his 
 first volumes came out he writes in his diary : 
 
MACAULAY 183 
 
 " I read my book, and Thucydides, which, I 
 am sorry to say, I found much better than 
 mine." In comparison with any other rivals 
 he felt content; and as he was free from 
 petty vanity, his opinion is entitled to re- 
 spect. In heaped masses of detail, in bril- 
 liant narrative, in clearness of meaning, in 
 striking portraiture, in the portrayal of the 
 chief characteristics of the English character, 
 Macaulay has no English rival. 
 
 vn 
 
 It would be easy to find fault with any 
 story of past events, even if it were written 
 by Minos and Rhadamanthus together. The 
 historian must tell in a chapter the events 
 of years ; he must compress into a page the 
 character of a hero ; he must cram into a 
 paragraph an episode which brought life or 
 death to a thousand men. With innumera- 
 ble facts to choose from, he is bound to make 
 choice. By the law of individuality he will 
 not choose just the facts that Tom, Dick, or 
 Harry sets store by. That Stubbs, Freeman, 
 Hallam, Gardiner, do not have as many fault- 
 finders as Macaulay is due in a measure, 
 at least, to the fact that they have not one 
 
184 MACAULAY 
 
 fiftieth part of his readers ; and the readers 
 whom they have belong to certain general 
 classes. Macaulay's readers are of every 
 kind and description : of crabbed age and 
 fiery youth ; grave seniors, reckless ne'er-do- 
 wells ; obstinate men, reasonable men ; chol- 
 eric men, meek men ; pinched men, pampered 
 men ; misers, prodigals ; saints, sinners ; cyn- 
 ics, believers ; the melancholy man, the curi- 
 ous man, the mean man, the envious man, — 
 all kinds from Brabantio to Autolycus, from 
 Major Pendennis to Mr. Winkle ; and every 
 one a critic, caring not who knows his mind. 
 There are, however, several classes of men 
 to whom Macaulay's History wears an essen- 
 tially false aspect. These are, first, the men 
 of Tory cast of thought, of whom we have 
 spoken : men who have been taught from 
 babyhood to look upon the cause represented 
 by Tories in the history of politics as the 
 only true and just cause ; men who sit at 
 ease in the status quo and wonder why other 
 men squirm in their seats ; men whose minds 
 clinging to the past, — 
 
 " Sois-moi fiddle, 6 pauvre habit que j'aime ! " 
 
 look askance at the future and possible 
 
MACAULAY 185 
 
 change ; who face to-morrow in the posture 
 of self-defense. They judge by local custom 
 and immemorial usage, "My father used to 
 say that his grandfather said/' and cross 
 themselves. Naturally they look upon the 
 liberal type with an unjust eye. 
 
 In the second place, there are men of re- 
 ligious nature : men who give as little ear 
 to daily happenings as they do to unknown 
 tongues ; who care not for the reputed mean- 
 ing of things; who read Plato, Spinoza, 
 Wordsworth ; who roam about seeking some- 
 thing that shall satisfy their sense of bigness ; 
 who plunge into learning, bigotry, or sacri- 
 fice, as headlong as a boy dives into a sum- 
 mer pool. These men cannot take the Whig 
 interpretation of life. Macaulay's facts are 
 to them incoherent, meaningless ; he might 
 as well hold out to them a handful of 
 sand. What are those gay faceted little facts 
 to them? What care they for machinery, 
 parliamentary reform, progress, Manchester 
 prints? They delight not in gaudy day; 
 they are servants to darkness, — 
 
 "Hail thou most sacred venerable thing." 
 
 Then there is a third class of men suscepti- 
 
186 MACAULAY 
 
 ble to delicate and indefinite sensations. They 
 demand chiaroscuro, twilight, " shadows and 
 sunny glimmerings." They are of a sensi- 
 tive, skeptical quality. They hold that the 
 meaning of one solitary fact cannot be ex- 
 hausted by the most brilliant description; 
 they must needs go back to it continually, 
 like Claude Monet to his haystack ; every 
 time they find it different. They five in 
 mystery and uncertainty. The past is to 
 them as doubtful as the future. For them 
 some infinite spirit hovers over life, contin- 
 ually endowing it with its own attribute of 
 infinite change, forever wreathing this misty 
 matter into new shapes; making all things 
 uncommon, wonderful, and strange. For 
 them the highest of man's nature is in his 
 shudder of awe. For them all life has fitful 
 elements of poetry, music, and art. They 
 are sensitive to little things, moving about 
 like children in a world unrealized. They 
 are sympathetic with seeming mutually exclu- 
 sive things. Such men seek poetry every- 
 where, and find it ; they contemplate life as 
 an aggregate of possibilities, not of facts. At 
 common happenings, like opium-eaters, they 
 fall into strange dreams. They live on sym- 
 
MACAULAT 187 
 
 bols. To such an aspect of life as these men 
 behold, Macaulay was utterly strange. Of a 
 chapel in Marseilles he says : " The mass was 
 nearly over. I stayed to the end, wondering 
 that so many reasonable beings could come 
 together to see a man bow, drink, bow again, 
 wipe a cup, wrap up a napkin, spread his 
 arms, and gesticulate with his hands ; and to 
 hear a low muttering which they could not 
 understand, interrupted by the occasional 
 jingling of a bell." 
 
 Macaulay seems to have felt his estrange- 
 ment in a childlike way whenever he had to 
 do with those matters of beauty which pecu- 
 liarly call out the distinctive character of 
 this class of men. "I have written several 
 things on historical, political, and moral 
 questions, of which, on the fullest recon- 
 sideration, I am not ashamed, and by which 
 I should be willing to be estimated ; but I 
 have never written a page of criticism on 
 poetry, or the fine arts, which I would not 
 burn if I had the power." And yet Macau- 
 lay had strong feelings for two great ideal- 
 ists of the world, Dante and Cervantes. In 
 Florence his rooms looked out on a court 
 adorned with orange trees and marble stat- 
 
188 MACAULAY 
 
 ues. His diary reads : " I never look at the 
 statues without thinking of poor Mignon : — 
 
 " ' Und Marrnorbilder stehn und sehn mich an : 
 Was hat man dir, du armes Kind, gethan ? ' 
 
 I know no two lines in the world which I 
 would sooner have written than those." In 
 another part of his diary he writes : " I 
 walked far into Herefordshire, and read, 
 while walking, the last five books of the 
 Iliad, with deep interest and many tears. I 
 was afraid to be seen crying by the parties 
 of walkers that met me as I came back ; cry- 
 ing for Achilles cutting off his hair, crying 
 for Priam rolling on the ground in the court- 
 yard of his house ; mere imaginary beings, 
 creatures of an old ballad-maker who died 
 near three thousand years ago/' To such 
 sentiments few have been as susceptible as 
 Macaulay, but beyond that into the realm of 
 spiritual sensitiveness, into the borderland 
 where the senses cease to tyrannize, he could 
 not go. 
 
 Then there are men of individual idiosyn- 
 crasies : one does not like the popularity of 
 Macaulay's History, he prefers that which is 
 caviare to the general, a privacy of glorious 
 light must be his ; a second is troubled by 
 
MACAULAY 189 
 
 antitheses and rhetoric ; a third, hazy with 
 old saws, thinks that in so much glitter there 
 can be no gold ; a fourth wants humor, he 
 misses the " tender blossoming " of Charles 
 Lamb here and there; others are Quakers 
 zealous for William Penn ; doctors of philo- 
 sophy tender of Bacon's good name ; grand- 
 sons of Scotch cavaliers warm for Dundee ; 
 militiamen valiant for Marlborough ; then 
 there are Mr. Churchill Babington, Sir Fran- 
 cis Palgrave, and Gladstone himself, defend- 
 ers of the Anglican Church, and, not least, 
 Macaulay's fellow historians. How can a 
 just man please men of such varying hu- 
 mors ? How shall a man write history for a 
 fellow scholar ? How hold the balances be- 
 tween yesterday and to-morrow ? How can 
 a man be neither for the party of change 
 nor for the party that says " tarry awhile." 
 " C'est une plaisante imagination de conce- 
 voir un esprit balance justement entre deux 
 pareilles envyes." 
 
 Macaulay's History suits the majority of 
 Englishmen, by its virile directness, its hon- 
 est clearness, its bold definiteness. Macau- 
 lay is never afraid ; he never shirks, he never 
 dissembles or cloaks; he never says "per- 
 
190 MACAULAY 
 
 haps " or " maybe/' nor " the facts are ob- 
 scure/' nor " authorities differ." He makes 
 the reader know just what effect the evidence 
 has produced on his mind. To be sure, 
 there is danger in that brilliant rhetoric. 
 The glow of declamation disdains the sickly 
 hue of circumspection. The reader of the 
 year 3000, for whom Macaulay winds his 
 horn, cannot hear the shuffling syllables of 
 shambling uncertainties. Men go to the 
 window when a fire engine gallops through 
 the street; a gentler summons might not 
 fetch them. There is something of martial 
 music about Macaulay's prose. There is that 
 in it which excites a man. It belongs to a 
 great advocate, not to blindfolded Justice 
 holding her cautious scales and doling out 
 "ifs," "buts," "howevers," as she balances 
 probabilities with all the diffidence of Doubt. 
 But what is truth? Shall Pilate tell of his 
 administration in Judsea ? If he do, will it 
 be as definitive as the Koran in the eyes of 
 the Caliph Omar? Will Pilate leave the 
 Evangelists superfluous ? 
 
MACAULAY 191 
 
 VIII 
 
 Macaulay was essentially, and in his strong- 
 est characteristics, an Englishman. His mind 
 and heart were cast in English moulds. His 
 great love and unbounded admiration of Eng- 
 land sprung from his inner being. His 
 morality, his honesty, his hate of sham, his 
 carelessness of metaphysics, his frank speech, 
 his insular understanding, his positiveness, 
 are profoundly English. And there is in 
 him something of that tenderness — to which 
 in public he could give no adequate expres- 
 sion — which gives its grace to that most 
 honorable epithet, an English gentleman. 
 The real English gentleman shows his qual- 
 ity in his English home. Trevelyan has done 
 as much for admiration of Macaulay, as ora- 
 tory, essays, poetry, and history have, by giv- 
 ing us Macaulay's letters, and by telling us 
 of Macaulay at home. 
 
 It would be a far cry to another man who 
 has poured forth so much prodigal affec- 
 tion upon his sisters and their children. A 
 Raleigh, a Bayard, do their famous acts of 
 courtesy to sovereigns in presence of a court ; 
 Macaulay did his acts of chivalry in secret. 
 
192 MACAULAY 
 
 With patience, pain, and tender solicitude, 
 he spent his splendid gifts for the pleasure 
 of simple women, and of boys and girls. 
 In his youth he was the delight of his sis- 
 ters; in his manhood he was their pride, 
 their joy, and their benefactor. In all his 
 brilliant story, his letters to his sister Han- 
 nah, his little acts of kindness, his relations 
 to his nephews and nieces, are the most in- 
 teresting passages. 
 
 In the midst of his triumph after his great 
 speech on the Eef orm Bill, he writes from 
 London : " My dear Sister, — I cannot tell 
 you how delighted I am to find that my let- 
 ters amuse you. Send me some gossip, my 
 love. Tell me how you go on with German. 
 What novel have you commenced ? or rather, 
 how many dozen have you finished? Ke- 
 commend me one." While he was in India 
 he wrote, on the death of his youngest sis- 
 ter, " What she was to me no words can ex- 
 press. I will not say that she was dearer to 
 me than anything in the world, for my sister 
 who was with me was equally dear ; but she 
 was as dear to me as one human being can 
 be to another." In a late diary he writes : 
 " Margaret, alas ! alas ! And yet she might 
 
MACAULAY 193 
 
 have changed to me. But no ; that could 
 never have been. To think that she has 
 been near twenty-two years dead ; and I am 
 crying for her as if it were yesterday." 
 
 He was a great playmate with Lady Tre- 
 velyan's little girls. He romped with them ; 
 made poems for them, wrote them doggerel 
 verses and jolly letters. " Michaelmas will, 
 I hope, find us all at Clapham over a noble 
 goose. Do you remember the beautiful 
 Puseyite hymn on Michaelmas day ? It is a 
 great favorite with all Tractarians. You and 
 Alice should learn it. It begins : — 
 
 1 Though Quakers scowl, though Baptists howl, 
 
 Though Plymouth Brethren rage, 
 We Churchmen gay will wallow to-day 
 In apple-sauce, onions, and sage. 
 
 ' Ply knife and fork, and draw the cork, 
 
 And have the bottle handy ; 
 For each slice of goose will introduce 
 A thimbleful of brandy.* 
 
 Is it not good ? I wonder who the author 
 can be. Not Newman, I think. It is above 
 him. Perhaps it is Bishop Wilberforce." 
 From his home at Holly Lodge at Kensing- 
 ton he writes to his youngest niece : " I have 
 had no friends near me but my books and 
 
194 MACAULAY 
 
 my flowers, and no enemies but those exe- 
 crable dandelions. I thought that I was rid 
 of the villains ; but the day before yesterday, 
 when I got up and looked out of my win- 
 dow, I could see five or six of their great, 
 impudent, flaring, yellow faces turned up at 
 me. * Only you wait till I come down,' I 
 said. Is it Christian-like to hate a dandelion 
 so savagely?" He writes in his diary at 
 Florence that he saw in the cloister at Santa 
 Croce " a monument to a little baby, ' II piu 
 bel bambino che mai fosse ; ' not a very wise 
 inscription for parents to put up, but it 
 brought tears into my eyes. I thought of 
 the little thing (a baby niece) who lies in the 
 cemetery at Calcutta." 
 
 The end of his life was full of honors ; 
 the city of Edinburgh returned him to Parlia- 
 ment unsolicited, eager to repair the wrong 
 she had done in rejecting him ; Lord Pal- 
 merston's government made him a peer. In 
 1858 Motley writes : " It is always delightful 
 to meet Macaulay, and to see the reverence 
 with which he is regarded by everybody." 
 He died on December 28, 1859. On Macau- 
 lay's tombstone in Westminster Abbey are the 
 words : — 
 
MACAULAY 195 
 
 "His body lies buried in peace, 
 But his name liveth forever more." 
 
 And since Trevelyan's book not his name 
 only, but the manner of man that he was. 
 Of the very best type of Englishman, of the 
 very straitest sect of Whigs in all except his 
 brilliancy, there, in his biography he stands, 
 in his courage, his convictions, his honesty, 
 his nobility, his tenderness. Others may de- 
 nounce shams and preach against affectation ; 
 Macaulay's whole life was one eulogy upon 
 plain speech, one continued freedom from 
 make-believe. He never was a pretender. 
 In India, in the midst of awful beliefs, of 
 strange ceremonies, of notions that lie out- 
 side our own humanity, where intensity of 
 life is not admired, where force is incuri- 
 ously regarded, where fame and honor are 
 not the lessons of children, where chastity is 
 not the pride of woman nor possessions the 
 distinction of man, where sensuous flowers 
 exhale perfumes that would wither up " wee 
 modest " English flowers, Macaulay made no 
 pretense of appreciation, but worked at a 
 Criminal Code, and read European classics as 
 if he were in Shropshire. 
 
 In Italy he is ready to burst into tears 
 
196 MACAULAY 
 
 when he has crossed the portal of St. Peter's ; 
 but for him " nobody can think Saint Mark's 
 beautiful." He is shocked and disgusted by 
 " the monstrous absurdity of bringing doges, 
 archangels, cardinals, apostles, persons of the 
 Trinity, and members of the Council of Ten 
 into one composition." 
 
 In England all that Newman, Carlyle, Rus- 
 kin stood for, passed by him as unheeded as 
 a " threshold brook." 
 
 Macaulay's fame as a man of letters seems 
 as secure as that of any Englishman of this 
 century. Editions of the Essays and History 
 still come on. In Germany there are numer- 
 ous translations. In France Taine has said : 
 " The great novelists penetrate the soul of 
 their characters, assume their feelings, ideas, 
 language. Such was Balzac. . . . With a 
 different talent Macaulay has the same power. 
 An incomparable advocate, he pleads an in- 
 finite number of causes ; and he is master of 
 each cause, as fully as his client. Though 
 English, he had the spirit of harmony." In 
 Italy Professor Villari cites his opinion upon 
 Macchiavelli, delivered when he was twenty- 
 six, as of the greatest authority. In the 
 United States his books have been pirated, 
 
MACAULAY 197 
 
 and his style imitated. The generation of 
 the year 2000 no doubt will read him. As 
 to them of 3000, who cares ? Many men 
 greater than he are likely to be born, before 
 another of such peculiar gifts who shall 
 embody so brilliantly the best English char- 
 acteristics. 
 
ENGLISH AND FRENCH LITERATURE 
 
ENGLISH AND FRENCH LITERATURE 
 
 The French have had hospitable reception 
 from us of late years ; their books have been 
 read with diligence, their novels have strewn 
 ladies' tables, their ideas have inspired our 
 men of letters. " Englished," " done into 
 English," translated, converted, transfused 
 into English, French literature furnishes 
 forth our young ladies with conversation and 
 our young gentlemen with cosmopolitanism, 
 until the crushed worm of national preju- 
 dice begins . to squirm and turn. Flaubert 
 the high aspiring, Maupassant the cunning 
 craftsman, Bourget the puppet-shifter, Zola 
 the zealot, have had their innings ; their side 
 is out ; the fiery bowling of Mr. Kipling has 
 taken their last wicket, and those of us who 
 have been born and bred in prejudice and 
 provincialism may return to our English- 
 American ways with a fair measure of jaun- 
 tiness. We are no longer ashamed to lose 
 
202 ENGLISH AND FRENCH LITERATURE 
 
 interest when we hear of an "inevitable" 
 catastrophe or of an "impeccable" style; we 
 yawn openly over " bitterly modern spiritual 
 complexities." Let us have done with raw 
 admiration of foreigners; let us no more 
 heed Ibsen and Zola, 
 
 " Or what the Norse intends, or what the French." 
 
 Let us speak out our prejudices ; let us un- 
 cover our honest thoughts and our real affec- 
 tions. Let us openly like what nature has 
 commanded us to like, and not what we 
 should were we colossi spanning the chasm 
 between nations. 
 
 Cosmopolitanism spreads out its syllables 
 as if it were the royal city of humanity, but 
 if, whenever its praises are sung, the context 
 be regarded, the term is found to be only a 
 polysyllabic equivalent for Paris and things 
 Parisian ; it means preference of French 
 ideas and ways to English. We are not 
 cosmopolitan ; we learned our French history 
 from Shakespeare, Marryat, and Punch, and 
 from a like vantage-ground of literary sim- 
 plicity we survey the courses of English and 
 French literatures, and with the definiteness 
 of the unskeptical we believe that in novel 
 
ENGLISH AND FRENCH LITERATURE 203 
 
 and story, in drama and epic, in sermon and 
 essay, in ballad and song, the English have 
 overmatched the French. 
 
 The heart of all literature is poetry. The 
 vitality of play, story, sermon, essay, of 
 whatever there is best in prose, is the poetic 
 essence in it. English prose is better than 
 French prose, because of the poetry in it. 
 We do not mean prose as a vehicle for use- 
 ful information, but prose put to use in 
 literature. English prose gets emotional ca- 
 pacity from English poetry, not only from 
 the spirit of it, but also by adopting its 
 words. English prose has thus a great po- 
 etical vocabulary open to it, and a large and 
 generous freedom from conventional gram- 
 mar. It draws its nourishment from English 
 blank verse, and thus strengthened strides 
 onward like a bridegroom. If you are a 
 physician inditing a prescription, or a lawyer 
 drawing a will, or a civil engineer putting 
 down logarithmic matter, write in French 
 prose : your patient will die, his testament 
 be sustained, or an Eiffel Tower be erected 
 to his memory in the correctest and clearest 
 manner possible. But when you write a 
 prayer, or exhort a forlorn hope, or put into 
 
204 ENGLISH AND FRENCH LITERATURE 
 
 words any of those emotions that give life 
 its dignity, let your speech be English, that 
 your reader shall feel emotional elevation, his 
 heart lifted up within him, while his intellect 
 peers at what is beyond his reach. 
 
 If a man admits that for him poetry is the 
 chief part of literature, he must concede that 
 French prose cannot awaken in him those 
 feelings which he has on reading the English 
 Bible, Milton, Ruskin, Carlyle, or Emerson. 
 It is the alliance of our prose with our poetry 
 that makes it so noble. What English-speak- 
 ing person in his heart thinks that any 
 French poet is worthy to loose one shoe- 
 latchet in the poets' corner of English shoes? 
 
 " The man that loves another 
 
 As much as his mother tongue, 
 Can either have had no mother, 
 
 Or that mother no mother's tongue." 
 
 We have shown too much deference to this 
 inmate of clubs and weekly newspapers, this 
 international Frankenstein of literary cosmo- 
 politanism. English poetry is the greatest 
 achievement in the world ; we think so, why 
 then do we make broad our phylacteries and 
 say that we do not? Ben Jonson says, "There 
 is a necessity that all men should love their 
 
ENGLISH AND FRENCH LITERATURE 205 
 
 country ; he that professeth the contrary 
 may be delighted with his words, but his 
 heart is not there." But we here concern 
 ourselves with another matter. We desire 
 to praise the two chief qualities that have 
 combined to make English literature so great : 
 they are common sense and audacity, and 
 their combined work is commonly called, for 
 lack of a better name, romance. 
 
 Younger brother to English poetry is Eng- 
 lish romance, which of all strange things in 
 this world is most to be wondered at. Brother 
 to poetry, cousin to greed, neighbor to ideal- 
 ism, friend to curiosity, English romance in 
 deed and word is the riches of the English 
 race. Its heroes march down the rolls of 
 history like a procession of kings : Raleigh 
 and Spenser, Drake and Sidney, Bunyan and 
 Harry Vane, Hastings and Burns, Nelson 
 and Sir Walter Scott, Gordon and Kipling. 
 Strange as English romance is, if a man 
 would learn its two constituent qualities in 
 little space, he need only take from the 
 library shelf " The Principal Navigations, 
 Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of the 
 English Nation, made by Sea or Overland," 
 compiled by Richard Hakluyt, Preacher. 
 
206 ENGLISH AND FRENCH LITERATURE 
 
 Here we perceive the bond between romance, 
 greed, idealism, and curiosity ; here we see 
 how the British Empire plants its feet of 
 clay upon the love of gain. Trade, trade, 
 trade, with Eussians, Tartars, Turks, with 
 Hindoos, Hottentots, and Bushmen, with 
 Eskimo, Indian, and South Sea Islander ; 
 and yet hand in hand with greed go curi- 
 osity, love of adventure, and search for some 
 ideal good. A wonderful people are the 
 English so faithfully to serve both God and 
 Mammon, and so sturdily to put their great 
 qualities to building both an empire and a 
 
 literature. 
 
 II 
 
 Who is not pricked by curiosity upon see- 
 ing " certeine bookes of Cosmographie with 
 an universalle Mappe " ? Who is not splen- 
 didly content, of a winter evening, his ob- 
 livious boots upon the fender, his elbows 
 propped on the arms of his chair, to read 
 Mr. Preacher Hakluyt's Voyages ? Who does 
 not feel himself disposed " to wade on farther 
 and farther in the sweet study of Cosmo- 
 graphie"? Let us leave gallicized gallants, 
 literary cosmopolites, their adherents and 
 accomplices, and read old Hakluyt. 
 
ENGLISH AND FRENCH LITERATURE 207 
 
 What quicker can attune the reader's at- 
 tention to the valiant explorations that are 
 to follow than to read that " when the Em- 
 perour's sister, the spouse of Spaine, with a 
 Fleete of 130 sailes, stoutly and proudly- 
 passed the narrow Seas, Lord William How- 
 ard of Effingham, accompanied with ten 
 ships onely of Her Majestie's Navie Roiall, 
 environed their Fleete in most strange and 
 warrelike sorte, enforced them to stoope gal- 
 lant, and to vaile their bonets for the Queene 
 of England " ! 
 
 On the 9th of May, 1553, the ordinances 
 of M. Sebastian Cabota, Esquier, Governour 
 of the Mysterie and Companie of Marchants 
 Adventurers, were all drawn up. The mer- 
 chants aboard the ships were duly warned 
 "in countenance not to shew much to desire 
 the forren commodities ; nevertheless to take 
 them as for friendship ; " and Sir Hugh Wil- 
 loughby, Knight, Kichard Chancellor, their 
 officers, mariners, and company, set sail down 
 the Thames in the Edward Bonaventure, the 
 Bona Speranza, and the Confidencia, on their 
 way by the northeast passage to Cathay. 
 Before they had gone far, Thomas Nash, 
 cook's mate on the Bona Speranza, was 
 
208 ENGLISH AND FRENCH LITERATURE 
 
 ducked at the yard's-arm for pickerie. The 
 ships sailed up the North Sea, past Scan- 
 dinavia, and into the Arctic Ocean, where 
 Sir Hugh Willoughby and his two ships 
 were lost, but Chancellor entered the White 
 Sea, and landed in Russia. He then drove 
 on sledges to Moscow, where he was received 
 most graciously by his Majesty Ivan the 
 Terrible. Chancellor wrote a description of 
 the Russians, in which he tells their ways 
 and customs. Although Chancellor could 
 remember very well the days of Henry VIII. 
 and the seizure of church lands, yet he re- 
 marks that when a rich Russian grows old 
 " he shall be called before the Duke, and it 
 shall be sayd unto him, Friend, you have 
 too much living, and are unserviceable to 
 your Prince, lesse will serve you, and the rest 
 will serve other men that are more able to 
 serve, whereupon immediately his living shall 
 be taken away from him saving a little to 
 find himself e and his wife on ; and he may 
 not once repine thereat, but for answere he 
 will say, that he hath nothing, but it is God's 
 and the Duke's graces, and cannot say, as 
 we the common people in England say, if 
 wee have anything, that it is God's and our 
 
ENGLISH AND FRENCH LITERATURE 209 
 
 owne. Men may say that these men are in 
 wonderful great awe and obedience, that 
 thus one must give and grant his goods 
 which he hath bene scraping and scratching 
 for all his life, to be at his Prince's pleasure 
 and commandement." 
 
 Coming back from his second voyage, 
 Chancellor brought an ambassador from Ivan 
 Vasilivich, Emperour of all Kussia, Great 
 Duke of Smolenski, Tuerskie, Yowgoriskie, 
 Permskie, Viatskie, Bolgarskie and Sibierskie, 
 Emperour of Chernigoskie, Rezanskie, Polod- 
 skie, Rezewskie, Bielskie, Rostoskie, Yerasla- 
 veskie, Bealozarskie, Oudarskie, Obdorskie, 
 Condenskie, and manie other countries, to 
 the most famous and excellent Princes Philip 
 and Mary. (This patent inferiority of de- 
 signation was the cause of much diplomatic 
 correspondence.) Chancellor sailed out of 
 the White Sea through the Arctic Ocean ; 
 for the Russians had no access to the Baltic, 
 as they had granted exclusive privileges to 
 the Flemings. Storms overtook him on the 
 Scottish coast : Chancellor and most of the 
 men were drowned ; only " the noble person- 
 age of the Ambassadour " was saved. 
 
 In 1557 Master Anthonie Jenkinson in 
 
210 ENGLISH AND FRENCH LITERATURE 
 
 the Primerose, the Admirall, with three other 
 tall ships, took this ambassador back to Rus- 
 sia by the same northern way, seven hundred 
 and fifty leagues. Jenkinson sailed up the 
 river Dwina in a little boat, lodging in the 
 wilderness by the riverside at night ; and " he 
 that will travell those wayes, must carie with 
 him an hatchet, a tinderboxe, and a kettle, 
 to make fire and seethe meate, when he hath 
 it ; for there is small succour in those parts, 
 unless it be in townes." He was graciously 
 received in Moscow by the Emperor about 
 Christmas time, and witnessed the court cer- 
 emonies. At their Twelphtide, the Emperor 
 with his crown of Tartarian fashion upon 
 his head, and the Metropolitan attended by 
 divers bishops and nobles and a great con- 
 course of people, went in long procession to 
 the river, which was completely frozen over. 
 A hole was cut in the ice, and the Metropoli- 
 tan hallowed the water with great solemnity, 
 and did cast of the water upon the Emper- 
 or's son and upon the nobility. " That done, 
 the people with great thronging filled pots of 
 the said water to carie home to their houses, 
 and divers children were throwen in, and 
 sicke people, and plucked out quickly again, 
 
ENGLISH AND FRENCH LITERATURE 211 
 
 and divers Tartars christened. Also there 
 were brought the Emperour's best horses to 
 drink of the sayd hallowed water, and like- 
 wise many other men brought their horses 
 thither to drinke, and by that means they 
 make their horses as holy as themselves." 
 
 The English merchants were now well es- 
 tablished in Muscovy, and sent home frequent 
 reports about the manners and customs of 
 Eussians. They noticed the Russian custom 
 " every yere against Easter to die or colour 
 red with Brazell a great number of egs ; the 
 common people use to carie in their hands 
 one of their red egs, not onely upon Easter 
 day, but also three or foure days after, and 
 gentlemen and gentlewomen have egs gilded 
 which they cary in like maner. When two 
 friends meete, the one of them sayth, the 
 Lord is risen, the other answereth, it is so 
 of a truth, and then they kisse and exchange 
 their egs both men and women, continuing 
 in kissing 4 dayes together." 
 
 One of the agents of the company in Mos- 
 cow, Master Henrie Lane, had a controversy 
 with one Sheray Costromitskey concerning 
 the amount of a debt due from the Eng- 
 lish merchants. Lane proffered six hundred 
 
212 ENGLISH AND FRENCH LITERATURE 
 
 rubles, but the Russians demanded double the 
 sum, and not agreeing they had recourse to 
 law. For trial by combat Master Lane was 
 provided with a strong, willing Englishman, 
 one of the company's servants ; but the Rus- 
 sian champion was not willing to meet him, 
 and the case was brought to trial before two 
 chief judges. The English party were taken 
 within the bar, and their adversaries placed 
 outside. " Both parties were first perswaded 
 with great curtesie, to wit, I to enlarge mine 
 offer, and the Russes to mitigate their chal- 
 lenge. Notwithstanding that I protested my 
 conscience to be cleere, and their gaine by 
 accompt to bee sufficient, yet of gentlenes 
 at the magistrate's request I make proffer 
 of 100 robles more ; which was openly com- 
 mended, but of the plaintifes not accepted. 
 Then sentence passed with our names in two 
 equall balles of waxe made and holden up by 
 the Judges, their sleeves stripped up. Then 
 with standing up and wishing well to the 
 trueth attributed to him that should be first 
 drawen, by both consents from among the 
 multitude they called a tall gentleman, say- 
 ing : Thou with such a coate or cap, come 
 up : where roome with speede was made. He 
 
ENGLISH AND FRENCH LITERATURE 213 
 
 was commanded to hold his cappe (wherein 
 they put the balles) by the crown, upright 
 in sight, his arme not abasing. With like 
 circumspection they called at adventure an- 
 other tall gentleman, commanding him to 
 strip up his right sleeve, and willed him with 
 his bare arme to reach up, and in God's 
 name severally to take out the two balles ; 
 which he did delivering to either Judge one. 
 Then with great admiration the lotte in ball 
 first taken out was mine : which was by open 
 sentence so pronounced before all the peo- 
 ple, and to be the right and true parte. I 
 was willed forthwith to pay the plaintif es the 
 sum by me appointed. Out of which, for 
 their wrong or sinne, as it was termed, they 
 payd tenne in the hundred to the Emperour. 
 Many dayes after, as their maner is, the peo- 
 ple took our nation to be true and upright 
 dealers, and talked of this judgement to our 
 great credite." 
 
 Thus, with daring, good sense, and good 
 luck, English commerce laid the foundation 
 stones of the English Empire. But the 
 reader must read for himself how these mer- 
 chants flew the English flag for the first 
 time across the Caspian Sea, and made their 
 
214 ENGLISH AND FRENCH LITERATURE 
 
 way to Persia in the teeth of danger. Or 
 if the reader would learn more of English 
 courage, let him read that volume in which 
 Ealeigh describes how Sir Richard Grenville 
 fought the Revenge. 
 
 We wish only to call attention to the 
 union of boldness and prudence in these Eng- 
 lish traders at the budding time of Eliza- 
 bethan literature. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Commerce is like colonizing : it demands 
 manly virtue, forethought, audacity, quick- 
 ness to advance, slowness to yield ; it requires 
 diplomacy, flattery, lies, and buffets. Mis- 
 adventure may follow misadventure, yet the 
 money-bags of England continue to propel 
 new adventurers over the globe. Merchant 
 adventurers do not seek Utopias, — let a man 
 plan a Utopia, and the English cut his head 
 off ; they seek a gay and gallant market, where 
 black, red, or yellow men will barter taffeta 
 and furs for English homespun, English glass, 
 and English steel ; or, better yet, will give 
 England a kingdom for "a cherry or a fig." 
 The money-getting English are no misers. 
 Their gold-bags breed audacity. Nobles of 
 Devon, franklins of Kent, burghers of Lon- 
 
ENGLISH AND FRENCH LITERATURE 215 
 
 don, make many companies of merchant ad- 
 venturers, and delight to risk their posses- 
 sions for the sake of great returns. Half the 
 famous ships that beat the Spanish Armada 
 — the Bull, the Bear, the Dreadnaught, 
 the Arkraleigfh — were built for the com- 
 mercial enterprise of piracy on the Spanish 
 Main. Elizabeth and her nobles drew their 
 ten per centum per mensem from such in- 
 vestments. 
 
 Money searched for cheap routes to Ca- 
 thay, and opened up trade with Russia, Tar- 
 tary, and Persia. Hope of gain sent colonists 
 westward to Virginia, lured by the descrip- 
 tion of land " which will not onely serve the 
 ordinary turnes of you which are and shall 
 bee planters and inhabitants, but such an 
 overplus sufficiently to be yielded, as by way 
 of trafficke and exchaunge will enrich your- 
 selves the providers, and greatly profit our 
 owne countrymen." The swelling money- 
 bags of England set Clive and Hastings over 
 India, took the Cape of Good Hope, and 
 sought twentyfold increase in Australia. 
 
 English commerce is no headstrong fool. 
 It looks first, and leaps afterward. Like a 
 wary captain, it takes its reckoning by com- 
 
216 ENGLISH AND FRENCH LITERATURE 
 
 pass and sextant, and then spreads all sail. 
 It acts with the self-confidence of common 
 sense. Commerce is as prudent as Cecil and 
 as bold as Drake ; but prudence is the con- 
 trolling spirit. Common sense, also, is the 
 characteristic of English literature which has 
 exalted it so far beyond its modern rivals. 
 Powerful as have been its fantastic, mon- 
 strous, and metaphysical elements, disturbing 
 as have been affectation and demagogy, these 
 influences have been but little eddies whirling 
 round in the strong, steady current of com- 
 mon sense that has carried English literature 
 on its flood. Common sense unconsciously 
 recognizes that men are human ; that imagi- 
 nation must play round the facts of daily 
 life ; that poetry and prose must be wrought 
 out of the dust of the earth, and not out of 
 some heavenly essence. Common sense acts 
 upon instant needs, and meets the dangers 
 of the hour ; it is not diverted from its path 
 by fears or allurements of the distant future ; 
 it climbs like a child, clinging to one balus- 
 ter and then another, till it plants its steps 
 securely. There is a world of difference be- 
 tween it and " une certaine habitude raison- 
 nable qui est le propre de la race francaise en 
 
ENGLISH AND FRENCH LITERATURE 217 
 
 poesie," according to Sainte-Beuve. One is 
 bred in the closet by meditation ; the other 
 comes from living. 
 
 The good sense of Chaucer, Shakespeare, 
 Dryden, Defoe, Pope, Fielding, Walter Scott, 
 Tennyson, George Eliot, and others walls in 
 English literature, so that it can stand the 
 push of unruly genius in a Marlowe or a 
 Shelley. Against this dominating common 
 sense allegory rises in vain ; passion cannot 
 overtopple it ; too subtle thought is sloughed 
 off by it ; dreams serve but to ornament ; de- 
 sires are tamed ; parlor rhymesters are tossed 
 aside. Common sense, with its trust in com- 
 mon humanity, has made English literature. 
 The same solid wisdom which makes Eng- 
 lish money ballasts English verse and prose. 
 There is an impress as of pounds, shillings, 
 and pence on most of their pages ; not vul- 
 gar and rude, as these words suggest, but 
 like images on antique coins, stamped by con- 
 servatism, by precious things accumulated, 
 by tradition and authority. 
 
 There is a certain melancholy about pru- 
 dence ; it bears witness to innumerable pun- 
 ishments suffered by ignorance and rashness, 
 which must have been heaped up to a mon- 
 
218 ENGLISH AND FRENCH LITERATURE 
 
 strous mass in order to create prudence as an 
 instinct. But the worst punishments were 
 administered before prudence appeared, and 
 we reap the harvest. It is dismal and pa- 
 thetic to think that common men should 
 receive advantage from the sufferings of 
 Marlowe, Greene, Peele, Chatterton, Byron, 
 Shelley, and Poe. But after this manner 
 runs the world away. English literature has 
 been nourished by such sufferings, and the 
 English Empire has also received from indi- 
 viduals all that they had to give. There is 
 pathos in the reports sent by Hakluyt's trad- 
 ers to the home company. The investors 
 dangle round Hampton Court, or sit in their 
 counting-rooms in the city, while the adven- 
 turers leave England for years, brave hard- 
 ships, risk disease and death, and send their 
 duties back with humble hopes that their 
 good masters in London may be content with 
 what they do. 
 
 " Coastwise — cross-seas — round the world and back again, 
 Whither the flaw shall fail us, or the Trades drive down: 
 Plain - sail — storm - sail — lay your board and tack 
 again — 
 And all to bring a cargo up to London town ! " 
 
ENGLISH AND FRENCH LITERATURE 219 
 
 IV 
 
 Nevertheless, the desire to make money 
 is not of itself capable of great action. It 
 can put its livery upon a number of needy 
 fellows who care not what they do, — who 
 will trap beavers in Alaska, dig diamonds in 
 Brazil, carry Hampshire kerseys to Tartars ; 
 but its main function is to be the utensil for 
 the true adventurer : if he will sail, it builds 
 a ship ; if he will plant, it gives him seed ; 
 if he will rob, it loads him with powder and 
 shot ; it is the pack-mule that shall carry him 
 and his equipment over the Alps of enter- 
 prise. The real strength of money lies in 
 the wild spirits that will use it. Curiosity 
 seeking the secrets of the world, daring look- 
 ing for giant obstacles, conquerors in search 
 of possessions whereto their courage shall be 
 their title-deeds, — these must have money- 
 getters. They publish abroad their needs 
 that are to be, and farmers, miners, weavers, 
 spinners, millers, smiths, and all grubbers 
 spare and save, sweating to serve romantic 
 adventurers. 
 
 The spirit of romance has flung its bold- 
 ness into English literature. It plunders 
 
220 ENGLISH AND FRENCH LITERATURE 
 
 what it can from Greek, Latin, Italian, 
 French, and Spanish. It ramps over the 
 world : it dashes to Venice, to Malta, to Con- 
 stantinople, to the Garden of Eden, to the 
 Valley of the Shadow of Death, to Lilliput, to 
 desert islands, to Norman baron and Burgun- 
 dian noble, to Virginia, to Florence, to India, 
 to the South Sea, to Africa, and fetches home 
 to England foreign wealth by land and sea. 
 How boldly it sails east, west, south, and 
 north, and by its shining wake shows that it 
 is the same spirit of romance that has voyaged 
 from Arthurian legend to Mr. Kipling ! 
 
 French men of letters have not had enough 
 of this audacious spirit. They troop to Paris, 
 where they have been accustomed to sit on 
 their classical benches since Paris became 
 the centre of France. The romance of Vil- 
 lon is the romance of a Parisian thief ; the 
 romance of Eonsard is the romance of the 
 Parisian salon. Montaigne strolls about his 
 seigniory while England is topsy-turvy with 
 excitement of new knowledge and new feel- 
 ing. Corneille has the nobleness of a jeune 
 Jille. You can measure them all by their 
 ability to plant a colony. Wreck them on a 
 desert island, Villon will pick blackberries, 
 
ENGLISH AND FRENCH LITERATURE 221 
 
 Bonsard will skip stones, Montaigne whittle, 
 Corneille look like a gentleman, and the 
 empire of France will not increase by a 
 hand's-breadth. Take a handful of Eliza- 
 bethan poets, and Sidney chops, Shakespeare 
 cooks, Jonson digs, Bacon snares, Marlowe 
 catches a wild ass : in twenty-four hours they 
 have a log fort, a score of savage slaves, a 
 windmill, a pinnace, and the cross of St. 
 George flying from the tallest tree. 
 
 It is the adventurous capacity in English 
 men of letters that has outdone the French. 
 They lay hold of words and sentences and 
 beat them to their needs. They busy them- 
 selves with thoughts and sentiments as if 
 they were boarding pirates, going the near- 
 est way. They do not stop to put on uni- 
 forms ; whereas in France the three famous 
 literary periods of the Pleiade, the Classi- 
 cists, and the Bomanticists have been three 
 struggles over form, — quarrels to expel or 
 admit some few score words, questions of 
 rubric and vestments. The English have 
 never balked at means after this fashion. 
 Fenelon says of the French language " qu'elle 
 n'est ni variee, ni libre, ni hardie, ni propre 
 a donner de lessor." 
 
222 ENGLISH AND FRENCH LITERATURE 
 
 It is not fanciful to find this common ele- 
 ment of daring in both English trade and 
 poetry. English adventurers have sailed 
 eastward and westward, seeking new homes 
 for the extravagant spirits that find the veil 
 of familiarity hang too thick over their na- 
 tive fields and cottages. Turn to the French : 
 their merchants ply to Canada and India in 
 vain. What sails belly out before the poetry 
 of Ronsard or Malherbe ? Into what silent 
 sea is French imagination the first to break ? 
 The Elizabethan poets are a crew of mari- 
 ners, rough, rude, bold, truculent, boyish, and 
 reverent. How yarely they unfurl the great 
 sails of English literature and put to open 
 sea! The poor French poets huddle together 
 with plummet in their hands, lest they get 
 beyond their soundings. 
 
 No man can hold cheap the brilliant valor 
 of the French. From Roncesvalles to the 
 siege of Paris French soldiers have shown 
 headlong courage. Nothing else in military 
 history is so wonderful as the French soldiers 
 from the 10th of August to Waterloo. Their 
 dash and enterprise are splendid, but they 
 do not take their ease in desperate fortune 
 as if it were their own inn, as Englishmen 
 
ENGLISH AND FRENCH LITERATURE 223 
 
 do. They have not the shiftiness and cun- 
 ning that can dodge difficulties. They can- 
 not turn their bayonets into reaping-hooks, 
 their knapsacks into bushels, their cannon 
 to keels, their flags to canvas. They have 
 not the prehensile hands of the English that 
 lay hold, and do not let loose. 
 
 English courage owes its success to its 
 union with common sense. The French 
 could send forty Light Brigades to instant 
 death ; French guards are wont to die as if 
 they went a-wooing; but the French have 
 not the versatile absorption in the business 
 at hand of the English. The same distinc- 
 tion shows in the two literatures. Nothing 
 could be more brilliant than Victor Hugo in 
 1830. His verse flashes like the white plume 
 of Navarre. His was the most famous 
 charge in literature. Hernani and Ruy Bias 
 have prodigious brilliancy and courage, but 
 they lack common sense. They conquer, 
 win deafening applause, bewilder men with 
 excitement ; but, victory won, they have not 
 the aptitude for settling down. They are 
 like soldiers who know not how to go back 
 to plough and smithy. The great French 
 literature of the Komantic period did not dig 
 
224 ENGLISH AND FRENCH LITERATURE 
 
 foundation, slap on mortar, or lay arches in 
 the cellar of its house, after the English 
 fashion. Next to Victor Hugo, not count- 
 ing Goethe, the greatest man of letters in 
 Europe, of this century, is Sir Walter Scott. 
 Mark the difference between him and Hugo. 
 Scott's poetry and novels have a vigorous 
 vitality from his common sense, and there- 
 fore they are ingrained in the trunk of Eng- 
 lish literature ; the fresh sap of their ro- 
 mance quickens every root and adds greenery 
 to every bough. Victor Hugo is passionate, 
 imaginative, majestic, powerful, eloquent, 
 demagogical, but he does not stand the hard 
 test of squaring with the experience of com- 
 mon men. 
 
 Consider M. Zola, the greatest of living 
 French novelists, and we find the same lack 
 in him. His strong, sturdy talents have 
 fought a brilliant and victorious fight ; but 
 the brilliancy of his victory serves merely as 
 a light to rally his enemies ; he has offended 
 against the abiding laws of the common 
 knowledge of common men, and his books 
 have already passed the zenith of their glory. 
 There is hardly a famous man who does not 
 point the same moral. Michelet records the 
 
ENGLISH AND FRENCH LITERATURE 225 
 
 introduction of tobacco. " Des le debut de 
 cette drogue, on put prevoir son effet. Elle 
 a supprime le baiser. Ceci en 1610. Date 
 fatale qui ouvre les routes ou rhomme et la 
 femme iront divergents." Read Kenan's 
 chapters upon King David. Take Racine, 
 of whom Voltaire says " que personne n'a 
 jamais porte Fart de la parole a un plus haut 
 point, ni donne plus de charme a la langue 
 francaise." He is noble, and appeals to the 
 deepest feelings in men, — love, religion, 
 heroism. By virtue of his spiritual nature 
 he deserves great reverence, but he does not 
 touch the understanding of common men. 
 Ronsard, du Bellay, Clement Marot, have the 
 same fault; they are witty, epigrammatic, 
 musical, but they have not the one essential 
 element. The two most successful French 
 men of letters are the two possessing most 
 common sense, Moliere and Balzac. 
 
 Common sense is difficult to define, and 
 suffers from a vulgar notion that it is totally 
 separate and distinct from high virtues. It 
 is Sancho Panza, but Sancho learned to ap- 
 preciate Don Quixote. Common sense knows 
 that it must be squire to the hero until the 
 hero shall recognize his own dependence 
 
226 ENGLISH AND FRENCH LITERATURE 
 
 upon the squire. The wise and witty Vol- 
 taire failed in this respect, for he did not 
 understand the daily need of idealism. Com- 
 mon sense sees the immediate obstacle which 
 is to be overcome ; in order to sharpen a 
 pencil, instead of Durandal or Excalibur, it 
 uses a penknife. Common sense trims its 
 sails to catch the breeze, be it a cat's-paw, 
 but it does not avoid the hurricanes of pas- 
 sion. Common sense uses common words; 
 it husbands ; it practices petty economies, so 
 that the means of the hero shall be ample 
 to his great enterprise. Of itself it can do 
 little, but it makes straight the path for 
 great achievement. 
 
 Jowett was fond of repeating Coleridge's 
 remark that " the only common sense worth 
 having is based on metaphysics." This say- 
 ing is in part true, and it would not be over- 
 curious to trace the indirect influence of 
 metaphysics on the English Empire and on 
 English literature. 
 
 There is no profit, however, in attempt- 
 ing to lug reason into this matter of the 
 preference of English literature over French. 
 
ENGLISH AND FRENCH LITERATURE 227 
 
 There is no justification here except by- 
 faith. There is none to hold the scales, 
 while we heap English books into one to 
 outweigh French books in the other. Men 
 who have thrown off the bias of nationality 
 have disqualified themselves for the task, for 
 they have cut off all those prime feelings 
 and blind, indistinct sentiments that must 
 be the judges of last resort, and have set up 
 in their stead reason propped on crutches of 
 grammar, syntax, style, and euphony. In 
 fundamental matters, the intellect must take 
 counsel of the heart. Every man's memory 
 has stored in some odd corner the earliest 
 sounds of his mother's voice saying the 
 Lord's Prayer ; it remembers the simple words 
 that first distinguished the sun and the moon, 
 buttercup and dandelion, Kai the bull ter- 
 rier and Sally the cat. No cultivation, no 
 sojourning in foreign lands, no mastery of 
 many books, can erase these recollections. 
 Some men there are whose conception of hu- 
 man relations is so large and generous that 
 to them the differences between peoples are 
 slight, when matched with the resemblances. 
 Such men are noble and lovable, but they 
 are not qualified to pronounce upon the 
 
228 ENGLISH AND FRENCH LITERATURE 
 
 merits of two languages. Native language 
 is restricting and confining so far as con- 
 cerns peoples in international affairs, but it 
 ennobles and enlarges fellow countrymen. 
 Out of our native language are made our 
 home and our country. The sweet sounds 
 of speech heard only at home create our 
 fundamental affections. The separation of 
 nation from nation is a cheap price to pay 
 for the great benefit which we of one people 
 have received from the bond of common 
 speech. 
 
 That which is true of language is true of 
 literature. The great books for us are the 
 books which we read when we were young ; 
 they bewitched us with our own language, 
 they brought to us our English thoughts. 
 The power of the English Bible is not the 
 reward of merit only, — merit has never 
 enjoyed such measure of success ; it exists 
 because we read it and re-read it when we 
 were little boys. This early language of 
 our mother and of our books is part of the 
 " trailing clouds of glory " that came with 
 us from our home. Love of it is a simple 
 animal instinct, and the man who can pro- 
 claim himself free from it does not compre- 
 
ENGLISH AND FRENCH LITERATURE 229 
 
 Lend the riches of language or the great 
 passions of life. We would alter a line of 
 Wordsworth to fit this case : — 
 
 " We must be bond who speak the tongue that Shakespeare 
 
 We cannot throw off the strong shackles 
 that Shakespeare, the Bible, and all our Eng- 
 lish inheritance have put upon us; we are 
 barred and bolted in this English tongue; 
 only he who does not feel the multitudinous 
 touch of these spiritual hands of the great 
 English dead can stand up and say that the 
 English and French languages are equal. 
 
 Mr. Matthew Arnold used to instruct us 
 — as a professor of Hellenism was bound to 
 do — that we must divest ourselves of na- 
 tional prejudices. We all admired him, and 
 meant to mend our ways. He borrowed the 
 word " saugrenu " from the French to tell 
 us more exactly what manner of behavior 
 was ours ; but faster than his prose pushed 
 us on to international impartiality his poetry 
 charmed us back. Mr. Arnold's poetry is 
 essentially English; it is the poetry of an 
 English Englishman. He is a descendant 
 in direct line from Sidney, Herbert, Gray, 
 Cowper, Wordsworth. He appeals to our 
 
230 ENGLISH AND FRENCH LITERATURE 
 
 native emotion ; he has English morals, Eng- 
 lish sentiment, English beliefs and disbeliefs ; 
 his character is doubly emphasized by his 
 occasional imitation of Greek forms. He 
 has about him the atmosphere of the Angli- 
 can Church, — love of form, fondness for 
 those emotions which are afraid to acknow- 
 ledge instinct as their father, and yet shud- 
 der at logic. Mr. Arnold is an English 
 poet, and for that reason we love him, and 
 disregard his entreaties for cosmopolitan stan- 
 dards. 
 
 We are intolerant ; we are among those 
 persons from whom bigots successfully seek 
 recruits ; we have little respect, and rightly 
 enough, for the free play of our reason ; we 
 follow the capricious humor of our affections. 
 We like old trodden paths, on whose rude 
 bottoms we can still discern the prints of our 
 fathers' feet. We are yeomen of the mind, 
 as ready to throw our intellectual caps in the 
 air for a Henry VIII. as for Hampden and 
 liberty. We have the dye of conservatism ; 
 we cannot hide it for more than a few sen- 
 tences, and then only upon forewarning. We 
 have just cause to fear that our behavior is 
 bad in the presence of the sonnets of M. 
 
ENGLISH AND FRENCH LITERATURE 231 
 
 Jose Maria de Heredia ; we make faces when 
 we read Verlaine. We cannot take those 
 gentlemen as poets. They look to ns like mas- 
 queraders, harlequins, unfairly brought from 
 the darkness of the stage into the light of 
 the sun. Try as we may to read an essay 
 by M. Brunetiere, a poem by M. Sully Prud- 
 homme, or some French novel of the year, 
 all is in vain. We must accept that condi- 
 tion of the mind to which it has pleased God 
 to call us. 
 
 What a pleasure, after reading those books, 
 to go back to old Hakluyt, and read aloud 
 the lists of merchandise sent abroad or 
 fetched home : item, good velvets, crimosins, 
 purples and blacks, with some light watchet 
 colours ; item, ten or twelve pieces of westerne 
 karsies, thicked well and close shut in the 
 weaving and died into scarlet ; item, one 
 hundred brushes for garments (none made 
 of swine's hair) ; item, forty pieces of fine 
 holland. What breaking of fences, what 
 smashing of locks, what air, what comrade- 
 ship, what a sense of poetry ! Surely, there 
 is more poetry in the making of the English 
 Empire than was ever printed in France. 
 
 Let us open wide the doors of our minds 
 
232 ENGLISH AND FRENCH LITERATURE 
 
 and give hospitable reception to foreign litera- 
 ture whence soever it may come, but let us 
 not forget that it only comes as a friend to 
 our intelligence, and can never be own brother 
 to our affections. 
 
 " A health to the native-born ! " 
 
DON QUIXOTE 
 
DON QUIXOTE 
 
 It is always good news to hear that new 
 champions are coming forward to translate 
 " Don Quixote " into English. It is a bold 
 deed, well worthy a knight-errant of the pen ; 
 and if many men make the attempt, we may 
 be perhaps so fortunate as hereafter to have 
 a true English translation. " Don Quixote/' 
 it is said in the Encyclopedia Britannica, has 
 been translated into every language in Eu- 
 rope, even including Turkish, but I cannot 
 believe that any language is so fit as English 
 to give the real counterfeit presentment of 
 the book. One might guess that a Romance 
 language would do better, but, on reflection, 
 French prose lacks humor, and Italian has 
 not sufficient subtlety to give the lights and 
 shadows of " Don Quixote ; " and as for 
 German prose, in spite of Goethe it still is 
 German prose. There is a scintilla of truth, 
 so far as this translation is concerned, in the 
 saying of Charles V., that French is the Ian- 
 
236 DON QUIXOTE 
 
 guage for dancing-masters, Italian for sing- 
 ing birds, and German for horses. I should 
 like to be able to read the Turkish transla- 
 tion. I imagine that there must be a dignity 
 and self-respect in the language that would 
 befit Don Quixote to a nicety ; but for Sancho 
 it would not do, — he would be homesick 
 talking Turkish. 
 
 There are a number of English transla- 
 tions, — one by Mr. Shelton long ago, one 
 by Smollett, and others by Motteux, Jarvis, 
 Duffield, Ormsby, and Watts, — all more or 
 less inadequate, if I may judge from parts, 
 for I have never been so willful-blame as to 
 read them all. In truth, the translation is a 
 very difficult matter. Don Quixote himself 
 is one of the most delicately drawn charac- 
 ters in fiction ; almost every Spanish word he 
 speaks stands out in the reader's mind, sepa- 
 rate and distinct, like a stroke in a Rem- 
 brandt etching. How can you measure out 
 their English equivalents in the finely ad- 
 justed scales of language unless you have 
 ten talents for weights ? Epigrams are com- 
 monly of little use in finding the way to 
 truth, but Coleridge has left a saying that, 
 I think, helps us materially in this matter of 
 
DON QUIXOTE 237 
 
 translation. " Prose/ ' he said, " is words in 
 the best order ; Poetry is the best words in 
 the best order." Now, by what sleight of 
 hand shall a man keep this best order of 
 words in shifting thoughts from one lan- 
 guage to another ? In poetry we are waking 
 up to this, and Homer and Dante are ren- 
 dered into English prose. Now and again a 
 man, if he have the luck to be a man of 
 genius, may make English poetry when he 
 professes to translate a foreign poet. Such 
 a one was Mr. Fitzgerald. But I know of 
 no one who has made both poetry and a 
 translation, with a few exceptions : such as 
 Shelley in his translation of the angels' 
 chorus in " Faust," Dr. Hedge with Luther's 
 hymn, and Wordsworth with Michelangelo's 
 sonnet, "Ben pub talor col mio ardente de- 
 sio." Maybe the translators of the Old Tes- 
 tament were such. 
 
 Of all prose that I know, I should say that 
 " Don Quixote " was the hardest to translate 
 out of the original tongue ; for Cervantes has 
 used his words in the best order very often, 
 and his Spanish tongue was of so fine a tem- 
 per — for it had been framed among high- 
 strung gentlemen, quick in quarrel, urbane 
 
238 DON QUIXOTE 
 
 in manner, and o£ a broad human courtesy 
 such as gentlemen have in Utopia, and all 
 men, I needs must think, in heaven — that 
 the translator need be of a stout heart. 
 Words are delicate works. Nature has nur- 
 tured them, art has toiled over them. For 
 a thousand years those Spanish words have 
 been shaped by Spanish mouths, and now 
 some zealous translator, like a lean apothe- 
 cary, expects to catch their fragrance and 
 cork it up in English smelling-bottles. All 
 a nation's sentiment has gone into its words. 
 Great musicians, architects, painters, and 
 sculptors put into their works the feelings 
 of their country and of their age, but these 
 works remain the works of individuals and 
 bear their personal stamp, whereas all the 
 nation, at all times, from generation to gen- 
 eration, has been putting its passions into its 
 speech. The Spanish heart is not the Eng- 
 lish heart. 
 
 Moreover, the translator of Cervantes has 
 another great difficulty. Don Quixote is the 
 delineation of a man's character ; he is as 
 real as any hero in fiction from Achilles to 
 Alan Breck, and much more so than the he- 
 roes who lie buried in Westminster Abbey. 
 
DON QUIXOTE 239 
 
 " Er lebt und ist noch starker 
 Als alle Todten sind." 
 
 This very reality lies in the arrangement 
 of words, and slips through the translator's 
 fingers. The hero was alive and then is 
 done into English, a process that has much 
 similarity to embalming. To draw the like- 
 ness of a living being in words is one of the 
 most difficult tasks in art. "We all, no doubt, 
 can remember some figure coming, in the 
 days of our childhood, into our Eden from 
 the vague outer world, that impressed itself 
 deeply in our memories. Such a one I can 
 remember, — a delicately bred gentleman, one 
 of those in whom the gentle element was so 
 predominant that perhaps the man was pushed 
 too much aside. His bearing spoke of train- 
 ing and discipline received in some place 
 out of Eden that we knew not of, and there 
 was a manner of habitual forbearance, almost 
 shrinking, in his daily actions, as if he feared 
 that whatever he touched might turn to sor- 
 row, which still kept us behind the line across 
 which his tenderness was ever inviting us. 
 I think to describe his smile and to trans- 
 late " Don Quixote " would be tasks of like 
 quality. 
 
240 DON QUIXOTE 
 
 But of all books in the world " Don 
 Quixote " is the book for an English-speak- 
 ing boy. There is a time in his boyhood 
 while the sun of life throws a long shadow 
 behind him, when, after he has read the 
 Waverley Novels, Cooper, and Captain Mar- 
 ryat, he pauses, hesitating between Thack- 
 eray and Dickens. Which shall he take? 
 The course is long, for a boy is a most just 
 and generous reader. He reads his novelist 
 straight through from start to finish, " David 
 Copperfield," " Oliver Twist," "Nicholas 
 Nickleby," " Old Curiosity Shop," and all, 
 ending finally with a second reading of 
 "Pickwick." That is the way novels should 
 be read. Reading the first novel of one of 
 the great men of literature is like Aladdin 
 going down into the magic cave : it sum- 
 mons a genie, who straightway spreads a 
 wonderful prospect before you, but it is not 
 till the second or third book that you under- 
 stand all the power of the master slave. It 
 is at that moment of hesitation that " Don 
 Quixote" should be put into the boy's hands; 
 but that cannot be done now because there 
 is no satisfactory English translation. 
 
 Of course, "Don Quixote" is a man's book, 
 
DON QUIXOTE 241 
 
 also ; Cervantes has breathed into its nostrils 
 the breath of life, and, like the macrocosm, 
 it has a different look for the boy and for 
 the man of fifty. You can find in it the 
 allegory that the ideal is out of place in this 
 workaday world, that the light shineth in a 
 darkness which comprehendeth it not. You 
 can find the preaching of vanity, if such be 
 your turn of mind, in "Don Quixote" as well 
 as in the world. But the schoolboy does not 
 look for that ; there is no vain thing in life 
 for him, and perhaps his is the clearer vision. 
 And with this schoolboy, pausing as I have 
 suggested on the brink of Thackeray or 
 Dickens, a translation of "Don Quixote " has 
 the best chance of success. Its defects will 
 be of such a nature as will mar the man's 
 enjoyment, but not his. It will give him the 
 gallant gentleman pricked by a noble con- 
 tempt for the ignoble triumphant and for 
 the acquiescent many ; he shall have there 
 the lofty disregard of facts that hedge in 
 housekeepers, barbers, and parsons ; he shall 
 find courage, endurance, knightliness, and 
 reverence for woman. After a boy has once 
 been squire to Sir Kenneth, to Ivanhoe, and 
 to Claverhouse, what business has he in life 
 
242 DON QUIXOTE 
 
 but to right wrongs, to succor maidens, and 
 to relieve widows and all who are desolate 
 and oppressed? What if this gallant gen- 
 tleman be a monomaniac, and be subjected 
 to disasters at the hands of farmyard louts 
 and tavern skinkers, by windmills and galley 
 slaves : must not Ivanhoe's squire march 
 through Vanity Fair and lodge in Bleak 
 House, his long breeches unentangled in 
 spurs, and his chief weapon of offense car- 
 ried in his waistcoat pocket? Heine says 
 that he read "Don Quixote" for the first 
 time when a boy, and that then he " did not 
 know the irony that God put into the world, 
 and which the great poet had imitated in his 
 little world of print and paper." Heine is 
 mistaken ; there is no question of knowledge 
 and ignorance. The boy has his world as 
 heavy to an ounce, weighed in scales of avoir- 
 dupois, as that of a man of fifty, and there 
 is no irony in it. The boy is not the subject 
 of illusion ; there is in fact no irony there. 
 The man of fifty, le soi-disant desillusionne, 
 is certainly on the border of presumption, to 
 say that it is there, and then to call the boy 
 an ignoramus. To be sure, he commonly 
 couples his offensive epithet with some miti- 
 
DON QUIXOTE 243 
 
 gating adjective, as " happy fool," or thus, 
 "his pretty ignorance." But in place of the 
 adjective there should be an apology. Every 
 man is born into a house where there is a 
 chamber full of veritable chronicles of Tris- 
 tram and Launcelot, of Roland and Rinaldo 
 di Mont' Albano ; and if his housekeeper, 
 his barber, and his parson wall up the door 
 and tell him that Freston the great enchanter 
 has swooped down on dragon back and car- 
 ried it off by night, his acceptance of their 
 assertions and his lofty compassion for his 
 old illusions furnish but poor proof of wisdom. 
 It is for the boy that a good translation 
 should be made, and that might be done ; one 
 in which Don Quixote shall talk like a schol- 
 arly gentleman, and in which there shall be 
 no conscious grin of the translator spoiling 
 the whole, as in that wretched version by 
 Motteux. The boy wants two qualities in 
 his books, enthusiasm and loyalty ; and here 
 he has them jogging on side by side through 
 four good volumes. Sainte-Beuve says that 
 Joubert's notion of enthusiasm was wiepaix 
 ehvee ; a, boy's idea is la guerre elevee, and 
 Cervantes was of that mind. He was a sol- 
 dier of the best kind, fighting for Europe 
 
244 DON QUIXOTE 
 
 against Asia at Lepanto, and esteeming his 
 lost arm the most honorable member of his 
 body. Don Quixote is the incarnation of 
 enthusiasm ; and what loyalty was ever like 
 Sancho's, even to the deathbed where he 
 beseeches Don Quixote to live many years, 
 " for it would be the utmost foolishness 
 to die when no one had murdered him " ! 
 There are many who are loyal to a friend's 
 deeds, and some to his faults, but to be 
 loyal to another's dreams and visions is the 
 privilege of very few. Besides, the boy de- 
 mands incident, and here there is the great- 
 est variety of adventure, of that delightful 
 kind that happens in La Mancha without 
 having to be sought in Trebisond or Cathay. 
 Another reason for a good translation is 
 that "Don Quixote" is the first modern novel. 
 It is the last of the romances of chivalry and 
 the first novel ; and as, on the whole, most 
 of the great novels are English novels (for 
 what other language can show a like rich- 
 ness to " Robinson Crusoe," " Tom Jones/ 5 
 "Rob Roy," "Pride and Prejudice," "Vanity 
 Fair," "David Copperfield," "Adam Bede," 
 and " The Scarlet Letter "), there should be 
 an adequate English version of it. So many 
 
DON QUIXOTE 245 
 
 novels of much skill and force are written 
 nowadays that we are too often swayed in our 
 judgment of them by the pulse of the year or 
 of the decade. Were it not well, after read- 
 ing Mr. Meredith or Mr. Moore, to take our 
 bearings by a mark that has withstood the 
 changing sentiments of ten generations of 
 mortal men ? " You cannot fool all the peo- 
 ple all the time." Men during three hundred 
 years are of so many minds, and have such 
 diverse dispositions and temperaments, and 
 are placed in such different circumstances, 
 with various passions and prejudices, that 
 any book that receives the suffrage of all is 
 proved to be, to use Sainte-Beuve's phrase, 
 un livre de Vhumanite. By going back to 
 these great human books we learn to keep 
 our scales truly adjusted. Goethe said that 
 every year he was wont to read over a play 
 by Moliere. 
 
 There have been a great many theories 
 about the book, speculations as to what pur- 
 pose Cervantes had in view when he wrote 
 it. The chief two are that he intended a 
 burlesque upon romances of knight-errantry, 
 and that he intended an allegorical satire 
 upon human enthusiasm. Doubtless he be- 
 
246 DON QUIXOTE 
 
 gan with the purpose of ridiculing the old 
 romances, but, as Heine says, genius gallops 
 ahead of its charioteer. By the seventh 
 chapter he found himself with Don Quixote 
 and Sancho Panza seeking adventures in La 
 Mancha; he had in his heart a deep and 
 serious knowledge of life, and in his brain 
 wit and fancy such that the world has but 
 once had better, and he wrote. Men must 
 express the deep feelings within them : the 
 common man to one or two by words and 
 acts and silence, the man of genius to the 
 world by such means as nature has made 
 easiest for him. In Spain, since the inven- 
 tion of printing, the one form of popular 
 literature had been the romance of knight- 
 errantry. The three great cycles of roman- 
 tic fiction — of King Arthur and the Round 
 Table, of Charlemagne and his Paladins, and 
 of the Greek empires founded by Alexander 
 the Great — had spread all over western 
 Europe, and had long before served their 
 office. Their place in Spain was filled by the 
 romances of knight-errantry. Of these, the 
 first and best was "Amadis of Gaul," which 
 was probably written in Castile about the 
 year 1350. The old version has been long 
 
DON QUIXOTE 247 
 
 lost, but Garci-Ordonez de Montalvo wrote 
 a new one some time after the conquest of 
 Granada, which obtained wide popularity 
 and still exists. The success of this was so 
 brilliant that a great many books were writ- 
 ten in imitation of it. In the middle of the 
 sixteenth century these romances met with 
 two powerful enemies : one was the spirit of 
 the Catholic Reaction, the other the spirit of 
 classical culture. In 1543 Charles V. forbade 
 that any of these books should be printed 
 or sold in the West Indies, and in 1555 the 
 Cortes made its petition to the Emperor to 
 make the like law for Spain. The text of the 
 petition reads thus : " Moreover, we say that 
 it is most notorious, the hurt that has been 
 done and is doing in these kingdoms to young 
 men and maids and to all sorts of people 
 from reading books of lies and vanities, like 
 Amadis and all the books which have been 
 modeled upon its speech and style, also 
 rhymes and plays about love and other vain 
 things ; for young men and maids, being 
 moved by idleness to occupy themselves with 
 these books, abandon themselves to folly, 
 and, in a measure, imitate the adventures 
 which they read in those books to have hap- 
 
248 DON QUIXOTE 
 
 pened, both of love and war and other vani- 
 ties ; and they are so affected thereby that 
 whenever any similar case arises they yield 
 to it with less restraint than if they had not 
 read the books ; and often a mother leaves 
 her daughter locked up in the house, think- 
 ing that she has left her to her meditations 
 (recogida), and the girl falls to reading 
 books of that kind, so that it were better 
 if the mother had taken her with her. . . . 
 And that it is to the great hurt of the con- 
 sciences, because the more people take to 
 these vanities, the more they backslide from 
 and cease to find enjoyment in the Holy, 
 True, and Christian Doctrine." Wherefore 
 the petition asks that no more such books 
 be printed, and that all those existing be 
 gathered up and burned, and that no book 
 be printed thereafter without a license ; " for 
 that in so doing your Majesty will render a 
 great service to God, taking persons from 
 the reading of books of vanities, and bring- 
 ing them back to read religious books which 
 edify the mind and reform the body, and 
 will do these kingdoms great good and 
 mercy." Mr. Ticknor and other commenta- 
 tors have gathered together condemnations 
 
DON QUIXOTE 249 
 
 upon these romances uttered by various per- 
 sons of note prior to the publication of " Don 
 Quixote.'' There can be little doubt that 
 these faultfinders were Puritans of the Cath- 
 olic Reaction, and that the same spirit influ- 
 enced the Cortes. In this same feeling the 
 Puritans in England of Queen Elizabeth's 
 time attacked the stage. 
 
 In the preface to Part I., Cervantes repre- 
 sents himself as sitting with his chin on his 
 hand, pondering what he shall do for a 
 preface, when a friend comes in, who, after 
 making some rather dull suggestions, says, 
 " This book of yours is an invective against 
 books of knight-errantry ; . . . your writ- 
 ing has no other object than to undo the 
 authority which such books have among the 
 uneducated;" and he ends with the advice, 
 " Make it your purpose to pull to pieces the 
 ill-based contrivance of these knight-errant 
 books, which are hated by some, but praised 
 by many more ; for if you accomplish this, 
 you will have done a great deal." And Part 
 II. ends with a declaration by Cide Hamete 
 Ben Engeli (the author in disguise) that his 
 "only desire has been to make men dislike the 
 false and foolish stories of knight-errantry, 
 
250 DON QUIXOTE 
 
 which, thanks to my true Don Quixote, are 
 beginning to stumble, and will fall to the 
 ground without any doubt." These are the 
 arguments for limiting and cutting down 
 the great purposes of the book, a commen- 
 tary on the life of man, to a mere satire upon 
 silly and extravagant romances ; but the book 
 speaks for itself. 
 
 With respect to the other theory, that Cer- 
 vantes intended a satire upon human enthu- 
 siasm, Mr. Lowell, in commenting, discovers 
 two morals: the first, "that whoever quar- 
 rels with the Nature of Things, wittingly or 
 unwittingly, is certain to get the worst of 
 it ; " the second, " that only he who has the 
 imagination to conceive and the courage to 
 attempt a trial of strength with what foists 
 itself on our senses as the Order of Nature 
 for the time being can achieve great results 
 or kindle the cooperative and efficient enthu- 
 siasm of his fellow men." By this interpre- 
 tation the condemnation of the quarrel is 
 itself condemned by the deeper moral. But 
 it little profits to seek after Cervantes' mo- 
 tives ; he wrote about life, and he does not 
 draw any final conclusions. He observes 
 and writes. He tells of a gentleman who 
 
DON QUIXOTE 251 
 
 found the world out of joint, and with a 
 " frolic welcome " proclaimed that he was 
 " born to set it right." The attempt is fol- 
 lowed by the most disastrous and delight- 
 ful consequences. Don Quixote is sometimes 
 triumphant, but many more times mocked, 
 mauled, persecuted, and despitefully used by 
 clown and duke, and Sancho shares all his 
 fortunes. Side by side go Imagination on 
 his hippogriff, and Common Sense on his 
 donkey. At the end of the book, the reader, 
 loving and admiring Don Quixote, loving 
 Sancho, and having rejoiced at every piece of 
 good fortune that has come to them on their 
 ill-starred career, hates and despises all those 
 who have ill used them, including those two 
 wiseacres the Parson and the Barber. If the 
 unoffending reader must draw a moral, he 
 would seem to hit near the mark by infer- 
 ring that enthusiasm justifies its own appel- 
 lation, and that the divine in us is the only 
 thing worth heeding and loving, though it 
 behave with lunacies inconstant as the moon, 
 or go to live with publicans and sinners. 
 But why draw a moral at all ? Life is very 
 big, and there is less dogma now than there 
 used to be about the meaning or the worth 
 
252 DON QUIXOTE 
 
 of it, and an observer of life may travel 
 about and note what he sees without being 
 compelled to stand and deliver his conclu- 
 sions. What should we say if Cide Hamete 
 Ben Engeli had made an end in good Arabic 
 with " Life is but an integration of Matter 
 with a concomitant dissipation of Motion " ? 
 Let the great books of the world escape these 
 hewers of epigrams and drawers of morals. 
 Hamlet has escaped to a place of safety ; so 
 has the Book of Job. Faust is on the way 
 thither, and Don Quixote will one day keep 
 them company. It is a tale of life drawn 
 from the author's imagination, and it is 
 enough to know that a man who had lost an 
 arm in a sea-fight and had been a captive 
 slave for five years, who had been poor and 
 persecuted, began this joyous and merry his- 
 tory in prison, and continued it in the same 
 strain of joy and merriment to the end. Let 
 any man tired 
 
 " to behold Desert a beggar born, 
 And needy Nothing trimmed in jollity," 
 
 betake himself to " un lugar de La Man- 
 cha" The very words conjure up spring- 
 time, holidays, and morning sun, and he 
 shall feel like the poet 
 
DON QUIXOTE 253 
 
 " Quant erba vertz e f uehla par, 
 E 1' flor brotonon per verjan, 
 E 1' rossinhols autet e clar 
 Leva sa votz e mov son chan." 
 
 The joy of it is masculine and boyish ; it 
 maketh for life, like all good things. The 
 reader never stops to think whether there 
 be wit or humor, irony or optimism. These 
 questionings are foisted upon you by the 
 notes. If you read a Spanish edition, be- 
 ware of the notes. Some there are who, in 
 their schooldays, acquired a wise preference 
 of ignorance to notes, but I have known many 
 who would stop in the middle of a sentence 
 to read a note, and then begin again exactly 
 at the asterisk where they had left off. The 
 notes in the editions by the Spanish Acad- 
 emy, Dr. Bowie, Pellicer, and Clemencin are 
 all to be skipped. 
 
 In Don Quixote we believe that we have 
 a partial portrait of Cervantes. He has de- 
 scribed somewhere his own physical appear- 
 ance in a manner very like to the description 
 of the knight, and in the latter' s character 
 we feel sure that we have the real Cervantes. 
 Certainly there is there the likeness of a 
 high-spirited Spanish gentleman at a time 
 
254 DON QUIXOTE 
 
 when Spanish gentlemen were the first in 
 the world. Every little detail about the 
 knight is told with such an intimate affec- 
 tion that Cervantes must have been writing 
 down whatever he believed was true of his 
 own best self. The ready knowledge with 
 which he wrote is manifest from the care- 
 lessness with which he makes mistakes, as 
 with Sancho' s ass, on which Sancho sud- 
 denly mounts half a page after losing him 
 forever, and in the names of la Senora Panza, 
 and in various details. Certainly Cervantes 
 is very fond of Don Quixote, and does him 
 justice ; and he has a kindliness for the 
 reader, too, and pays him for his sore sym- 
 pathies every now and then by the joyous 
 feeling of victory which he receives when 
 Don Quixote, in the midst of a company that 
 think him mad, delivers a brilliant harangue, 
 leaving them confounded and the reader exul- 
 tant. Sancho said Don Quixote ought to have 
 been a parson, and you feel that he would 
 have adorned any position of dignity within 
 the gift of the Majesty of Spain. The art 
 with which the story is told and the char- 
 acters are drawn grows upon one's wonder. 
 For example, Don Quixote has been lowered 
 
DON QUIXOTE 255 
 
 down into the cave of Montesinos, and after 
 some hours, during which Sancho has be- 
 come much alarmed for his master's safety, 
 he reappears and gives an account of the 
 most marvelous adventures. Sancho and the 
 reader are aghast ; they know that the ad- 
 ventures cannot be true, and they know 
 equally well that Don Quixote is incapable 
 of telling a lie, and the wonder is whether 
 he is mad or has been dreaming. This same 
 wonder finally overtakes Don Quixote, and 
 you feel, without being told, that he is strug- 
 gling with his memory to find out what did 
 really happen as he faces the awful possibil- 
 ity that what he related may not have been 
 true. There is a certain low fellow in the 
 book, one Samson Carrasco, a friend of the 
 Parson and the Barber, of good purposes, but 
 of no imagination, who devises a scheme to 
 fetch Don Quixote home. This plan was to 
 arm himself as a knight-errant and take Don 
 Quixote captive. The approach of the com- 
 bat is very disagreeable ; you cover over with 
 your hand the lines ahead of where you are 
 reading, so that you may not read faster than 
 you shall acquire fortitude to bear whatever 
 may happen. And behold, Kosinante breaks 
 
256 DON QUIXOTE 
 
 into a gallop, dear horse, — Boiardo and 
 Bucephalus never did as much, — and the 
 counterfeit knight is hurled to the ground. 
 By the same dull device this vulgar Carrasco 
 finally, near the end of the story, ran atilt 
 with Don Quixote and unhorsed him. He 
 dismounted, and stood over our hero with 
 his spear. The terms of the combat were 
 that he who was conquered should confess 
 that the other's lady was the more beautiful. 
 "Don Quixote, without raising his visor, 
 with weak and feeble voice, as if he were 
 speaking from within a tomb, replied : c Dul- 
 cinea of Toboso is the most beautiful woman 
 in the world, and I am the most miserable 
 knight on earth, and it were not right that 
 the truth should suffer hurt from my weak- 
 ness; thrust home your lance, Sir Knight, 
 and since you have taken my honor, take 
 away my life also.' ' It were difficult to im- 
 agine that this is a satire upon human nature, 
 and that Cervantes made mock of the spirit 
 of chivalry. 
 
 One of the deepest and most delightful 
 elements of the book is the relation between 
 Don Quixote and Sancho Panza ; in fact, it 
 is Sancho's obedience, his profound loyalty 
 
DON QUIXOTE 257 
 
 and belief in his master, that throw both 
 their characters into high relief : and here 
 lies one of the hardest tasks for the trans- 
 lator ; for unless their conversations are given 
 with the delicacy and grace of the original, 
 they cease to be Don Quixote and Sancho, 
 and become mere comic figures. 
 
 Sancho has never had full justice done to 
 him. Affection and regard he has had in fair 
 measure, no doubt. One loves him as one 
 loves a dog ; not the noble, fair-limbed, fine- 
 haired aristocrat, but the shag-haired little vil- 
 lain, nullius films > who barks at your guests, 
 and will gnaw a drumstick in my lady's cham- 
 ber unless he be prevented. But Sancho's 
 character and intelligence have not had their 
 due. He is commonly spoken of as if he 
 were one of old Gobbo's family, selfish and 
 of loutish appetites ; but in truth he is not 
 related at all. Sancho stands charged with 
 greediness ; and as to eating, he ate well 
 whenever he had an opportunity, but he 
 worked very hard and needed food, for he 
 often went supperless to bed, and was never 
 sure of the morrow. His desire to be gober- 
 nador was the imperial fault of ambition, 
 and most honorable ; and when he governed 
 
258 DON QUIXOTE 
 
 Barataria, he bore his great office meekly, 
 and was a just and beneficent ruler. When 
 Don Quixote first told him of the great for- 
 tunes, even of a royal complexion, that some- 
 times fall to the lot of the esquire to a 
 knight - errant, his first thought was that 
 Teresa Panza would be queen and his chil- 
 dren princes. His intelligence bloomed and 
 unfolded under the sunny influence of Don 
 Quixote's company ; in fact, one of the most 
 delightful things in the whole book is the 
 elevation of Sancho's understanding as he 
 travels from Part I. into Part II. Preface- 
 makers say that Cervantes discovered how 
 popular Sancho was, and, taking his cue 
 accordingly, developed and expanded San- 
 cho's wit and gifts of speech ; but the true 
 reason is that living with a dreamer of 
 dreams ennobles the understanding. When 
 Don Quixote had forbidden the brutal la- 
 borer to thrash the boy, and made him pro- 
 mise by the laws of knighthood, the boy said, 
 " My master is no knight ; he is rich John 
 Haldudo, and he lives in Quintanar." " No 
 matter," replied Don Quixote ; " the Haldu- 
 dos may become knights ; every man is the 
 child of his own actions." By his faithfulness 
 
DON QUIXOTE 259 
 
 and loyalty to his master, Sancho's condition 
 was made gentle and his intelligence was 
 quickened. Even in the beginning Sancho 
 is by no means backward in comprehension. 
 Don Quixote resolves to get a sword that will 
 cut through any steel and prevail over all 
 enchantment. Sancho apprehends that the 
 virtue of the sword may be personal to Don 
 Quixote, and of no avail to him, as he is only 
 an esquire. And he explains that the reason 
 why Don Quixote was horribly beaten by the 
 Yanguesian cattle-drivers was that he had 
 neglected to observe his vow not to eat baked 
 bread or do sundry other things until he 
 should have obtained Mambrino's helmet. 
 Don Quixote quietly replies that that is so, 
 and that Sancho was beaten also for not re- 
 minding him. Sancho has a generous hu- 
 man sympathy, too ; for when Don Quixote 
 finds Cardenio's love-letter, he asks him to 
 read it aloud " que gusto mucho destas cosas 
 de amoves" The difference in their views 
 of life, however, and the help they render 
 each other in getting into difficulties, is the 
 precious quality of the book. 
 
 There are a hundred men who admire and 
 reverence Dante for his fierce seriousness and 
 
260 DON QUIXOTE 
 
 burning convictions about life, to one who 
 would feel that the like reverence and admi- 
 ration were due to the laughing seriousness 
 and smiling convictions of Cervantes. Heine 
 somewhere draws a picture of the gods din- 
 ing and Hephsestos limping among them to 
 pour out the wine, while their laughter floats 
 off over Olympus, when suddenly in the 
 midst of them stalks a Jew and flings down 
 a cross upon the banquet -table, and the 
 laughter dies. But with the revolving years 
 laughter has once more come to take its place 
 as a divine attribute, and Cervantes' serious- 
 ness, his sympathy and loving-kindness, may 
 set him, in the estimation of men, as high, as 
 wise, as deep, as Dante. I think with what 
 pleasure he and Shakespeare met in the 
 Happy Isles and laughed together, while 
 Dante, a guisa di hone, sat sternly apart. 
 What happier time was there ever in those 
 Islands of the Blest than that sweet April 
 wherein those two landed from Charon's 
 bark? For surely Shakespeare's spirit tar- 
 ried a few days that they might make their 
 voyage and entrance together. In Cervantes, 
 says Victor Hugo, was the deep poetic spirit 
 of the Eenaissance. In him was the milk of 
 
DON QUIXOTE 261 
 
 loving-kindness. After reading his book, 
 we see a brighter light thrown on the simple 
 human relations, the random meetings of men 
 and women in this world of ours that is not 
 so unlike to La Mancha, and we become more 
 sensitive to the value of words spoken by hu- 
 man lips to human ears, and of the touch of 
 the human hand in our greetings and part- 
 ings. It is not the usage among soldiers to 
 confess their own tenderness, and Cervantes 
 has thrown over his confession the veil of 
 irony. Heinrich Heine did the like. These 
 proud men would not have their women's 
 hearts show on their sleeves, and they mocked 
 the world. It was easily done. 
 
 " Diese Welt glaubt nicht an Flammen, 
 Und sie nimmt's fiir Poesie." 
 
 In Algiers, Cervantes, with some of his fel- 
 low captives, devised several plans of escape, 
 all of which failed, and he was threatened 
 with torture if he would not disclose the 
 names of the conspirators and the story of 
 the plot. He told nothing but that he alone 
 was responsible. So he did; so he wrote. 
 He obeyed the great prayer made to each of 
 the children of men : " Simon, son of Jonas, 
 lovest thou me ? Feed my sheep." 
 
A HOLIDAY WITH MONTAIGNE 
 
A HOLIDAY WITH MONTAIGNE 
 
 It was my good luck to spend my last 
 holidays with two companions. One was my 
 canoe, — a canvas canoe painted maroon. 
 Its paddle has but one blade. There is a 
 seat for another paddler in the bow, and 
 room amidships for a passenger to lie quite 
 comfortable. It is somewhat difficult for one 
 to paddle a canoe meant for two. You put 
 your kit and a bag of sand in the bow, lean 
 a little to one side, and take your strokes 
 as even as you can. In this way, in calm 
 weather, you make good speed ; but when the 
 wind blows a few points off the bow, nothing 
 but great experience or sudden genius will 
 help you. The canoe moves as if of a sud- 
 den it had heard music from Venusberg ; it 
 whirls about, once, twice, and breaks into a 
 jig ; then frolicking with the wind, pirouettes 
 back whence you came, bobbing its bow like 
 a dancing-master. " Certes c'est un subject 
 merveilleusement vain, divers et ondoyant 
 que " le canot. 
 
266 A HOLIDAY WITH MONTAIGNE 
 
 I started at the southern end of Lake 
 George. The cars had been hot, and the 
 freight-master and expressman had both laid 
 violent hands on my canoe. From them I 
 rescued it only by paying fees under duress, 
 which were subsequently returned to me by 
 persons in authority. The sun was high, a 
 light breeze blew upon my back, a soft gray 
 cloud hung over me like an umbrella. My 
 pack and the sand-bag balanced my stroke. 
 My sandwiches and a bottle of soda-water 
 lay safe in a tin pail under the seat. The 
 blue-gray hills rose sleepily in the distance. 
 The trees on the shore bunched themselves 
 into indistinctness, and hid all but the chim- 
 neys of the houses. A noisy, self-assured 
 little launch puffed up to us, and finding us 
 in all points uninteresting, whistled off up 
 the lake. I became perfectly content. 
 
 My other companion, carefully covered by 
 a rubber blanket, lay still a little forward of 
 the middle thwart. He was very fine in a 
 new half -calf binding, which he had got from 
 the money saved by the economy of a foot 
 in the length of the canoe. The lake was 
 so smooth that there was no danger of water- 
 drops, and I took off the rubber blanket that 
 
A HOLIDAY WITH MONTAIGNE 267 
 
 I might see him. He looked very dignified 
 in his bronze-and-black covering. I had 
 been told that a canoe trip offered me a rare 
 opportunity to learn what science in one of 
 its branches had been doing of late, — sci- 
 ence in popular dress humbling itself to the 
 level of lewd persons, like Shakespeare's Bol- 
 ingbroke on a holiday. 
 
 But I preferred the companionship of let- 
 ters, and only hesitated as to whether I should 
 take with me a man of the world or a credu- 
 lous believer. In the city, a believer is most 
 sympathetic. We like to hear a man dare to 
 affirm and be simple, to take his oath that 
 the sky is blue, the earth solid, that right is 
 right, and assert dogmas on heights, depths, 
 and breadths ; we cry out for a St. Paul, an 
 Emperor Julian, a Wendell Phillips ; we care 
 little as to the content of the beliefs, but we 
 cannot stomach the irresolute middle ground. 
 
 " Questo misero modo 
 Tengon 1' amme triste di coloro, 
 Che visser senza infamia e senza lodo." 
 
 We like to hear men trundle their push-carts 
 up and down Broadway and Tremont Street, 
 hawking old creeds. Give us anything which 
 will protect us against the incessant rolling 
 
268 A HOLIDAY WITH MONTAIGNE 
 
 and pitching of unstable thought. In the 
 city it is not well to cope with a man of the 
 world, we shrink before " son don de sou- 
 rire de son ceuvre, d'y etre superieur." He 
 has us at a disadvantage and presumes upon 
 it ; he turns all the happenings among crowd- 
 ing men and women into parables for his 
 triumph and our discomfiture. 
 
 In the country all this is reversed. In 
 quiet and fresh air, dogmas grow heavy as 
 poppy and mandragora ; they vex us. Why 
 should we join this guild of thought, that 
 club of notions, that body metaphysical ? 
 We turn impetuously to the man of the 
 world ; his knowledge can no longer put us 
 out of countenance, his experience is no bet- 
 ter than an oyster fork in a jungle. Inevit- 
 ably I rushed to Montaigne, and was justi- 
 fied. Nothing is more delightful than to be 
 with Montaigne on water and under trees ; 
 he ceases to have any of the superciliousness 
 of a man of the world, and plays the elder 
 brother come back from far travel and from 
 meeting many men. No matter how often 
 you may have read him in town, he is more 
 kind, more genuine, more simple, when you 
 meet him in this way and hear him talk at 
 
A HOLIDAY WITH MONTAIGNE 269 
 
 ease. It is a constant pleasure to find how 
 quick is his sympathy with happiness, how 
 keen his compassion for sorrow. 
 
 Lake George is pretty well surrounded by 
 a cordon of houses, but by a discriminating 
 course these may be avoided. There is a lit- 
 tle cove hid behind a point of land, which, 
 beaked with a rock, juts into the lake. It is 
 hard by a house marked " The Antlers " on 
 the map. This map you buy in the cars from 
 the newsboy. It is the appendix to a book 
 containing a eulogy on Lake George. Leave 
 the eulogy on the seat ; the map is very use- 
 ful. This little cove has a graveled edge 
 whereon to beach the canoe. From the rocky 
 beak you dive into three fathoms of trans- 
 parent water down towards the blue-green 
 rocks at the bottom. After that sandwiches 
 and soda-water. Next a pipe filled with 
 long cut, and opening volume one, the spirit 
 of Michel de Montaigne sits beside you dis- 
 coursing. A skeptic, using the word with 
 reference to life in general, is intended to 
 mean one whose ideas have no home, but 
 travel from inn to inn like wandering Jews ; 
 a man whose mind is like a fine lady before 
 a milliner's mirror, who tries on one bonnet 
 
270 A HOLIDAY WITH MONTAIGNE 
 
 after another, looks at it before and behind, 
 over the shoulder, at this angle and that, 
 but cannot prevail upon herself to say, I take 
 this, this is mine. And as this word " skep- 
 tic " is commonly used of one with whom the 
 speaker finds some fault, it carries a tinge of 
 ill ; it signifies a person who does not be- 
 lieve that men act from disinterested motives, 
 does not recognize the importance of human 
 feelings, who denies the dignity of human 
 existence, — one in whose presence we are 
 ashamed of our love for the melodramatic. 
 
 The greatest believer in humanity that 
 has ever lived in Europe is Shakespeare. If 
 a man be morbid, if somebody's toes tread 
 upon the kibes on his heel, if he be disheart- 
 ened by ill success in his government of life, 
 and, like the blind man beating the post, can 
 discover no virtue in men and women, he be- 
 takes himself to Shakespeare. There he finds 
 the dignity of man written in capital letters. 
 So it is with the books of all great men, or 
 perhaps one should say of all great men 
 whose fame and books have lived. Men and 
 women do not cherish those who despise 
 them. The books of misanthropes lie un- 
 read in national museums. Dust to dust. 
 
A HOLIDAY WITH MONTAIGNE 271 
 
 There is no resurrection for them. There- 
 fore one has a right, in approaching a man 
 whose books are on the shelves of every li- 
 brary, to assume that he is not a skeptic in 
 any unworthy sense. To judge a man, mark 
 what interests him. Positive testimony, as 
 lawyers say, outweighs negative evidence. 
 In his discourse De la Tristesse, Montaigne 
 tells how, after his capture by Cambyses, 
 Psammenitus watched with apparent serenity 
 his son marched to death, his daughter borne 
 away a slave, but on beholding one of his 
 servants maltreated burst into weeping. It 
 might be thought, says Montaigne, that his 
 fortitude, equal to the first sorrows, had at 
 last been overcome, as the last straw breaks 
 the camel's back. But when Cambyses ques- 
 tioned him, Psammenitus answered, " It is 
 because this last displeasure may be mani- 
 fested by weeping, whereas the two former 
 exceed by much all meanes and compasse to 
 be expressed by teares." He tells so many 
 anecdotes of this kind that we are bound to 
 reject the word " skeptic " as applicable to 
 Montaigne in any mean and narrow sense. 
 
 If there be in him one quality more than 
 another that wins the affection of the reader, 
 
272 A HOLIDAY WITH MONTAIGNE 
 
 it is a certain manner of courtesy, of hospi- 
 tality, familiar, yet of trained urbanity, which 
 infects all these discourses. The reader finds 
 that Montaigne is wise, but he meets no sug- 
 gestion that he himself is f oolish ; he dis- 
 covers that Montaigne is of wide experience, 
 and he does not stop to think it odd that 
 this experience, though so broad, tallies at all 
 points with his own, which, had he stopped 
 to think, he would have known to be narrow. 
 It is with such skill and good breeding that 
 your host leads you from matter to matter. 
 He spreads before you one thing after an- 
 other with the freshness and unexpectedness 
 of a conjurer who suddenly out of your own 
 memory produces meditations and reflections 
 which you had not known were there. It is 
 as if you were both ruminating upon a theme 
 of common experience. Intermingled with 
 his stories and reflections, his talk about him- 
 self, with its apparent self-revelation, pleases 
 us wholly. Montaigne affects to wish us to 
 believe that the book is about himself. He 
 keeps repeating, " C'est moy que je peins." 
 " These are but my fantasies, by which I en- 
 deavour not to make things knowen, but my- 
 self e." " Others fashion man, I repeat him ; 
 
A HOLIDAY WITH MONTAIGNE 273 
 
 and represent a particular one but ill made." 
 While the book is in your hand, this egotism, 
 or rather, say friendliness, seems to indicate 
 a discriminating intimacy with you, giving 
 you to feel that, unconsciously as it were, he 
 bends and unfolds himself in consequence of 
 the atmosphere of your personality. It is 
 this flattery in his urbanity that has made 
 people believe in his simplicity and sincer- 
 ity. Readers should be guileless as children, 
 simple, innocent, unsophisticated. And it 
 may be that Montaigne is genuine. Breed- 
 ing need not displace nature. Montaigne 
 does not become a double-dealer because his 
 manners are good and put us at our ease. 
 One is a little ashamed to question Mon- 
 taigne's portrait of himself. Yet it is hard 
 not to do so, for he has the manner of a 
 well-graced actor. There is no imputation 
 of ill upon Montaigne in suggesting that he 
 does not give us his real picture. Unless 
 a man's heart be pure gold, the public weal 
 does not demand that he wear it on his 
 sleeve. Moreover, it may be that Montaigne 
 endeavors to draw himself, and yet, his tal- 
 ents not permitting, does not. Howbeit, his 
 manner has a perpetual charm. One would 
 
274 A HOLIDAY WITH MONTAIGNE 
 
 have young men fashion their outward be- 
 havior upon M. de Montaigne. 
 
 From this little cove near " The Antlers " 
 there are some seven miles to the Narrows, 
 and it is well worth while to cover them be- 
 fore sunset, in order to see the shadows from 
 the western hills crawl up on those to the 
 east. It means a steady and industrious 
 paddle. I had consulted the map as to where 
 to spend the night, and had determined upon 
 the clump of houses denominated " Hulett's ; " 
 for the size of the asterisk on the map seemed 
 to import an inn or a lodging-house, and sug- 
 gested to my luxurious mind generous ac- 
 commodations, — perhaps Bass's ale for din- 
 ner, and a bath. The wind blew from behind 
 quite fresh. I tucked Montaigne well under 
 his blanket, tilted the canoe slightly to the 
 side I paddled on, and watched the gradual 
 sinking of the sun and the little splashes of 
 the waves as they ran beside me. After a 
 paddle of a number of miles comes fatigue be- 
 tween the shoulder-blades ; it can be likened 
 to nothing but a yoke or the old man that 
 sat astraddle of Sindbad's neck. On feel- 
 ing this yoke, to obtain relief, you paddle on 
 the other side of the boat. A better remedy 
 
A HOLIDAY WITH MONTAIGNE 275 
 
 is to take a swim. The wind blew fast up 
 the Narrows, and I was thankful it came to 
 aid me, for I could not have made head 
 against it. Spray from the wave-tops spat- 
 tered into the canoe, and it was hard to keep 
 it steady. It was as if the bow had a potent 
 desire to look round at me. First it swerved 
 to right, then to left, and after trying this 
 succession for a number of times, lulling me 
 into routine and security, after a turn to star- 
 board it made believe to turn as usual to 
 port ; but just when my paddle was ready to 
 meet that manoeuvre it swung back to star- 
 board, spattering the water so thick that 
 Montaigne stood well in need of his blan- 
 ket. Then the canoe lay limp, as if it were 
 completely exhausted and wholly meritorious, 
 like Roland in the market-place at Aix. 
 Every wave tipped it to and fro, while I 
 brandished the paddle to right and to left 
 to keep from shipping enough water to sink 
 me. After a few minutes, like a puppy that 
 has been playing dead dog, it jumped to 
 what would have been its keel if it had had 
 one, and shot on over the water. The set- 
 ting sun shed a golden brown over the hill- 
 tops to the east ; under the shadow-line the 
 
276 A HOLIDAY WITH MONTAIGNE 
 
 trees passed into gloom, and haze rose from 
 the water's edge as if to hide a troop of 
 Undines coming forth from their bath. To 
 the west, against the ebbing light, the hills 
 stood out black, and the little islands passed 
 quickly by dotted with wooden signs, " gov- 
 ernment property," which looked in the dis- 
 tance like gray tombstones. I went ashore 
 to He down, rest, and read for a few minutes 
 before dark. It may be the trees, the wind 
 moving among the leaves, the jagged out- 
 line of the leaves themselves, or merely the 
 smell of the pines, it may be the water of 
 the lake rippling over the changing colors 
 of the stones, it may be the sky framed by 
 the boughs overhead, or it may be all in com- 
 bination, yet by them and in them a man 
 grows wiser, his limitations relax their ten- 
 tacles and loose their hold, 
 
 " While with an eye made quiet by the power 
 Of harmony and the deep power of joy 
 We see into the life of things." 
 
 Nature proffers a test of genuineness for 
 a book the like of which cannot be found 
 elsewhere. Out of doors, amid the simpler 
 life of earth, motives for deception fail, 
 masks are cumbersome ; disguises grow too 
 
A HOLIDAY WITH MONTAIGNE 277 
 
 heavy to wear, and are transparent at that. 
 By some strange power, the inner reality 
 throws its shine or shadow through the 
 man's waistcoat, through the book's cover, 
 over the outer semblance. The pine is the 
 clearest-eyed tree of all trees. Its needles are 
 so many magnets pointing towards the truth. 
 Read Cervantes under the pine-tree, and 
 you will find the marks o£ Don Quixote's 
 heels and lance-butt fresh in the moss. Read 
 Dante there after the sun has set, when the 
 light begins to fail and the chill wind rises, 
 and you must stop your ears against the 
 " sospiri, pianti, ed alti guai." It makes one 
 marvel to mark how sensitive the pine-tree 
 is to its company. Its tones, its shape, its 
 colors, vary ; it draws in its needles and pro- 
 trudes them as if it fetched deep breaths. Its 
 voice has the bass notes of seriousness and 
 the treble of a boy's merriment. The deep 
 brown resin on its trunk holds the light as 
 if there were fire within. I think there is 
 a strain of Clan Alpine in us all ; we owe 
 allegiance to the pine. 
 
 Perhaps Montaigne does not sympathize 
 with great emotions, but he is interested, 
 deeply interested, in the drama of human 
 
278 A HOLIDAY WITH MONTAIGNE 
 
 existence ; he has the instinct of dramatic 
 feeling ; he cares not only for the free play 
 of life, but also for a particular outcome ; he 
 prefers one issue to another : not that Virtue 
 should be rewarded and Vice punished, but 
 that Prudence should be happily married and 
 Folly be pointed at. Common Sense is the 
 god of his divinity. 
 
 Pascal complains, " Montaigne parloit trop 
 de soi." A grievous fault if a man lack 
 charm, but Montaigne is charming. One 
 would not that young Apollo — he that is 
 killing a lizard on a tree-stump — should 
 wear jacket and trousers. Montaigne makes 
 no pretense of self-effacement. He says, I 
 will write about myself. He embroiders 
 " Ego " on his banner, and under that sign 
 he has conquered. If men dislike apparent 
 egotism, let them leave Montaigne. Such 
 men should vex themselves at all expression, 
 for all fiction and art are ripe with person- 
 ality. But is this portrait of Montaigne by 
 himself really indicative of egotism ? For 
 my part, it is as if Boswell had found Dr. 
 Johnson in himself. Here is a man with a 
 rare gift of delineation. He sits for his own 
 portrait. But above this rare gift and con- 
 
A HOLIDAY WITH MONTAIGNE 279 
 
 trolling it sits the indeterminate soul ; and 
 as essay succeeds essay, this soul, uncertain of 
 itself, half mocking his readers, half-mock- 
 ing himself, says, Here is the portrait of 
 Michel de Montaigne ; but if you ask me, 
 reader, if it be like me, — eh bien, que 
 scay-je? 
 
 In half an hour I was in the canoe again, 
 laboring vigorously. After a paddle in 
 rough waters of half a dozen miles a man 
 of ordinary brawn begins to think of shore. 
 The sun had set, the western light had faded 
 and gone. The stars were out. Hulett's, 
 with its cold bath, cool ale, and hot beef- 
 steak, began to stand out very clear and dis- 
 tinct before my mind's nose and eyes, but 
 there were no physical signs of it. Hulett's 
 has a post-office, and in view of this govern- 
 mental footing it is, to my thinking, under a 
 sort of national obligation to shine out and 
 be cheerful to all wayfarers by land and 
 water. I kept my eyes fixed over the star- 
 board bow. The miles grew longer ; ordi- 
 nary miles became nautical. The yoke upon 
 my neck would not budge, shift the paddle 
 as I might. The wind dropped down ; the 
 water reflected Jupiter looking out through 
 
280 A HOLIDAY WITH MONTAIGNE 
 
 a rift in the clouds ; the widening lake lay 
 flat to the shore, over which hung a black- 
 ness that I took to be the outline of the hills. 
 The monotony of the stroke, usually so fa- 
 vorable to reflection, played me false. The 
 beat of the paddle, which during the day had 
 had a steady half-musical splash, and had 
 scattered drops like the tang of a rhyme at 
 the end of every stroke, made no sounds but 
 bath — bath — bath — Bass — Bass — Bass 
 — Hu — Hu — Hu — letts — letts — letts. 
 But no lights ; only the flat water and the 
 dark outline widening out. Montaigne van- 
 ished from my mind. I thought of nothing, 
 and repeated to myself solemnly, " A miss is 
 as good as a mile, — a miss is as good as a 
 mile ; " wondering what conclusion I could 
 draw from this premise. Lights at last. 
 First one, which grew and expanded and 
 divided in two, then in four, and other lights 
 appeared beyond. In a few minutes I 
 dragged the canoe up on a little beach, 
 tipped it upside down, tucked a volume of 
 Montaigne under my arm, slung my night- 
 pack on my paddle, and approached a piazza 
 and voices. I skirted these, and reached a 
 back door. A low growl elicited a pleasant 
 
A HOLIDAY WITH MONTAIGNE 281 
 
 a Be quiet/' from some one in authority. 
 The light streamed from the opened door. 
 I explained my desires, and received a short 
 answer that this house took lodgers, but that 
 it was very particular, and " what 's more, 
 the house is full." I guessed that my ap- 
 pearance made against me. I trusted that 
 my speech was better than my clothes, and 
 tried to remember what I could of travelers 
 in distress. I felt for my purse. A very 
 worn and dingy leather met my fingers. I 
 withdrew my hand and talked fast, recalling 
 how Ulysses' volubility had always stood him 
 in good stead. I was successful. The house 
 expanded, put forth an extra room ; a tub 
 was found, also chops and Milwaukee beer. 
 What a blessing is the power of recuper- 
 ation in man ! Dinner done, I lighted my 
 pipe and fell into discourse with Montaigne. 
 This after-dinner time is the time of all the 
 day to sit with Montaigne. The mind rests 
 at ease upon its well-nourished servant, and 
 lack of desire begets interest. You yield 
 to the summons of hien-etre ; the land of 
 socialists, of law, of railroads and time-tables, 
 bows and withdraws, leaving you alone in 
 the world of leisure. More than in other 
 
282 A HOLIDAY WITH MONTAIGNE 
 
 worlds Montaigne is at home here. His 
 voice has leisure in it. The titles of his dis- 
 courses, " Of Sadnesse," " Of Idlenesse," 
 " Of Lyers," " Whether the Captaine of a 
 Place Besieged Ought to Sallie Forth to Par- 
 lie/' " Of the Incommodity of Greatnesse," 
 are leisurely ; his habit is leisurely. Leisure 
 sits in his chair, walks when he walks, and 
 clips out anecdotes from Plutarch for him. 
 Bordeaux, during his mayoralty, must have 
 abounded in trim gardens. Yet there is no- 
 thing lazy here. Jacques Bonhomme may 
 be lazy, bourgeois gentils-hommes may be 
 lazy, but Montaigne has leisure. As you 
 read you have time to contemplate and re- 
 flect ; you are not impatient to pass through 
 the garnishment of his essay and come to 
 the pith, in which you believe that Mon- 
 taigne will most truly say what he truly 
 thinks. Here is the intellectual charm of 
 the book, — out of all he says to lay hands 
 upon his meaning and ascertain his attitude. 
 The problem is ever present. Is there an 
 attempt on his part, by an assumed self- 
 revelation, to mislead, or does the difficulty 
 lie in his very genuineness and simplicity? 
 Does his belief lie concealed in his anec- 
 
A HOLIDAY WITH MONTAIGNE 283 
 
 dotes, or is it set forth in his egotistical sen- 
 tences ? Is he playing his game with you, 
 or only with himself ? To my mind, it is 
 as if he divided himself and were playing 
 blind-man's buff ; one half blindfolded, grop- 
 ing and clutching, the other half uncaught 
 still, crying, " Here I am ! " The same im- 
 pression is left whether he talks of himself 
 or suggests theories of life and death. 
 " The world runnes all on wheeles. All 
 things therein moove without intermission ; 
 yea, the earth, the rockes of Caucasus, and 
 the Pyramides of iEgypt, both with the 
 publike and their own motion. Constancy 
 it selfe is nothing but a languishing and 
 wavering dance. I cannot settle my object ; 
 it goeth so unquietly and staggering, with 
 a naturall drUnkennesse. I take it in this 
 plight, as it is at th' instant I ammuse my 
 selfe about it. I describe not the essence but 
 the passage ; not a passage from age to age, 
 or as the people reckon, from seaven yeares 
 to seaven, but from day to day, from min- 
 ute to minute. My history must be fitted 
 to the present." Is not this sense of uncer- 
 tainty the very effect Montaigne wishes to 
 leave upon the reader's mind ? And how 
 
284 A HOLIDAY WITH MONTAIGNE 
 
 could he do it better than by putting forth a 
 portrait of himself, saying, This is according 
 to the best of my knowledge, and refusing 
 to say, This is a true picture ? If a man, 
 set to the task of describing himself, cannot 
 accomplish it, what assurance of correspond- 
 ence have we between things in themselves 
 and our knowledge, which for the most is 
 nothing but portraits of things drawn by 
 others, and coming to us through a succes- 
 sion, each copy in which is stamped with un- 
 certainty ? Has he not left this portrait of 
 himself as the great exemplar of his doc- 
 trine ? It is his secret. Whatever it be, it 
 is his humor, his chosen method of expres- 
 sion. I believe he wishes to tell the reader 
 about himself, but cannot be sure that he is 
 showing himself as he is. He found much 
 pleasure in trying to explain himself by say- 
 ings and stories gathered from Plutarch. 
 There was something in the ingenuity of the 
 method that gratified him. 
 
 There could be no better evidence of the 
 work and anxiety spent upon these essays 
 than that given by a comparison of the two 
 first editions. Montaigne wrote them and 
 rewrote them. One can feel the hesitation 
 
A HOLIDAY WITH MONTAIGNE 285 
 
 and deliberation with which he chose his 
 words. He says : " It is a naturall, simple, 
 and unaffected speech that I love, so written 
 as it is spoken, and such upon the paper as 
 it is in the mouth, a pithie, sinnowie, full, 
 strong, compendious, and materiall speech, 
 not so delicate and affected as vehement and 
 piercing. Rather difficult than tedious, void 
 of affectation, free, loose and bold ; not Pe- 
 danticall, nor Frier-like, nor lawyer-like, but 
 rather downe right, as Suetonius calleth that 
 of Julius Caesar." The French men of let- 
 ters in the seventeenth century thought that 
 Montaigne had no art, and in England, 
 George Savile, the distinguished Marquis of 
 Halifax, in accepting the dedication of Cot- 
 ton's translation, says : He " showeth by a 
 generous kind of negligence that he did not 
 write for praise, but to give the world a true 
 picture of himself and of mankind. . . . He 
 hath no affection to set himself out, and 
 dependeth wholly upon the natural force of 
 what is his own and the excellent application 
 of what he borroweth." With great respect 
 let it be said that this is a mistake. Mon- 
 taigne had great art, and not art alone, but 
 arts and artifice of all kinds. Every great 
 
286 A HOLIDAY WITH MONTAIGNE 
 
 book is a work of art. Every book that sur- 
 vives its own generation is a work of art. 
 No one knew this better than Montaigne. 
 He desired immortality, and wrote to that 
 end. His book is the fruit of hard labor, of 
 thought deliberate, considerate, affectionate ; 
 it has been meditated awake, and dreamed 
 upon asleep ; cogitated walking, talking, 
 afoot, and on horseback. Nothing in it has 
 been left to chance and the minute. The 
 manuscript at breakfast was his newspaper, 
 after dinner his cigar ; out of doors it was 
 in his pocket, it lay under his pillow at 
 night. 
 
 Sitting in his library in the third story 
 of the chateau's tower, pacing up and down 
 the corridor leading to it, cantering on his 
 comfortable cob, promenading in his vege- 
 table garden, you would think him as far 
 and safe from disturbance as from the vol- 
 canoes in the moon. Yet when he betook 
 himself to his chateau it was but twelve 
 months before the massacre of St. Bartholo- 
 mew. Leaguers and Huguenots, men with 
 the meanest conception of leisure, ramped 
 about the land. Montaigne ate and slept 
 in his unguarded house; read Seneca and 
 
A HOLIDAY WITH MONTAIGNE 287 
 
 Jacques Amyot ; picked up sentences on the 
 vanity of life wherever he could find them, 
 fixing them into the walls of his library; was 
 amiable to his wife and tended his daugh- 
 ter's education, while idealism and turbulence 
 ranged abroad, spilling the wines of France 
 and milk of Burgundy. 
 
 For a book to succeed in, surviving its 
 own generation is a strange matter. Force, 
 says science, is eternal ; but what is force ? 
 Calvin lies neglected on the shelf, while 
 Michel de Montaigne prospers and multi- 
 plies. His children, the essayists, are like 
 sparrows in spring, singing, chattering, chirp- 
 ing everywhere. 
 
 The bed at S Point that night was 
 
 very comfortable. The next day I learned 
 by circuitous questioning — for, I regret to 
 say, I had let my hostess understand, or 
 rather I had not corrected her misunder- 
 standing, that her house had been my hope 
 and aim all the weary afternoon — that I 
 had passed Hulett's in the dark. Post-office, 
 inn, cottages, boathouse, all abed by nine 
 o'clock, and lamps extinguished. Never was 
 there such a pitiful economy of light. 
 
 To reach the northern end of the lake 
 
288 A HOLIDAY WITH MONTAIGNE 
 
 needs but a short paddle. At that point is 
 a little shop, where cider and ginger-pop are 
 sold. The proprietor has a horse and cart, 
 and for a dollar will ferry a canoe across to 
 Lake Champlain. The little river that con- 
 nects the two lakes is impassable on account 
 of its fall. The mills make a poor return 
 for the turning of their wheels by fouling 
 the water. All the way to Ticonderoga the 
 water looks like slops; there is little plea- 
 sure rowing there. I passed the night at 
 Ticonderoga Hotel, and left at dawn. The 
 day began to break as I launched my canoe. 
 Near the shore stood a clump of locust-trees, 
 whose branches interarched, dividing the 
 eastern sky into sections of orange, green, 
 and pink; their trunks black as ink from 
 rain in the night, save on the edges, where 
 the morning colors streaked the outlines with 
 yellow light. In the afternoon of the day 
 before, under the shadow of the trees, I had 
 wondered whether Montaigne had sympathy 
 for the bigger emotions of life. In the early 
 morning I knew that he had not. The rising 
 sun is imperious in its requisition. Under its 
 rays, the blood flows fast, muscles tighten, 
 eyes brighten, cheeks color, sinews swell. 
 
A HOLIDAY WITH MONTAIGNE 289 
 
 We want love, ambition, recklessness, prayer, 
 fasting, perils, and scars. Talk to us then 
 of 
 
 " Le donne, i cavalier, 1'arnie, gli amori, 
 Le cortesie, l'audaci imprese." 
 
 Keep Seneca and Epictetus for winter even- 
 ings, sewing societies, and convalescence. By 
 ill luck it happened that the sun was not an 
 hour high, and the light ran over the ripples 
 on the lake as if creation were beginning, 
 and creation's lord were 
 
 " in Werdelust 
 Schaffender Freude nah," 
 
 when I opened Montaigne and read that he 
 had once been in love. " Je m'y eschauday 
 en mon enf ance, et y souffris toutes les rages 
 que les poetes disent advenir a ceux qui s'y 
 laissent aller sans ordre et sans jugement." 
 " And truly, in my youth I suffered much 
 extremity for love ; very near this." Mon- 
 taigne, Polonius, is your knowledge of life 
 no greater than of these matters ? 
 
 Montaigne had a wife who had no part 
 in " toutes les rages." One day, when he 
 was carried home to all appearances dead, 
 he was met by " ceux de ma famille, avec 
 les cris accoustumez en telles choses." He 
 
290 A HOLIDAY WITH MONTAIGNE 
 
 had children. They died, and he says : " I 
 lost two or three at nurse, if not without 
 regret, at least without repining. . . . The 
 generality of men think it a great blessing 
 to have many children ; I, and some others, 
 think it as happy to be without them." The 
 Huguenots give up peace, content, worldly 
 prosperity, health, and friends for an idea, 
 and they vex him with their nonconformist 
 nonsense. Is not Paris worth a mass? Is 
 not peace more than the absence of branched 
 candlesticks ? The Catholics die for love of 
 the habit of ages, for tradition, for the divin- 
 ity in asceticism ; and Montaigne professes 
 to be of their faith, he too has their reli- 
 gion. He is surrounded by soldiers ; what to 
 him are the big wars, the plumed troops, the 
 neighing steed, the spirit-stirring drum? 
 
 I put Montaigne hastily back under his 
 blanket and paddled hard, chanting songs of 
 America. That night I reached Westport. 
 Lake Champlain is too big for a canoe ; it 
 is so wide that unless you hug the indented 
 shore you lose the pleasure of an ever shift- 
 ing scene. The steamboats shake the water 
 most immoderately. The only way to en- 
 counter their swell is to meet it bow on, and 
 
A HOLIDAY WITH MONTAIGNE 291 
 
 lift the boat over the crest of each roll with 
 a downward stroke of the paddle. At West- 
 port I got aboard the " Chateaugay," and dis- 
 embarked about noon at a point on the east 
 side of the lake, opposite Plattsburg. There 
 I had a very good dinner. It is not far 
 thence to the border. The lake sluggishly 
 glides into the river Richelieu. Never was a 
 less appropriate christening ; for a meeker, 
 duller, feebler river it were hard to imagine. 
 I had had thoughts of a lively current hur- 
 rying me along, but for the life of me I 
 could not tell which way the river was run- 
 ning. Running, I say, but there was no 
 more run than Richelieu in this river, except 
 down a certain rocky declivity, several miles 
 long, where the water, much against its will, 
 gives little automatic, jerky jumps, bumping 
 along till it reaches level again. The first 
 night on the river I passed at Rouse's Point. 
 Nothing but Montaigne could have enabled 
 me to free myself from the oppression of 
 the dining-room, bedroom, guests, and hotel 
 clerk. None but Jeremiah could live there. 
 I had to pay four dollars for the discomforts 
 of the night. Extortion should be resisted ; 
 but " there is nothing I hate more than driv- 
 
292 A HOLIDAY WITH MONTAIGNE 
 
 ing of bargaines : it is a meere commerce of 
 dodging and impudencie. After an hour's 
 debating and paltring, both parties will goe 
 from their words and oaths for the getting 
 or saving of a shilling." 
 
 The river Richelieu has its defects and its 
 virtues. Its chief defect, and a monstrous 
 one when days are hot and no wind blows, 
 is that it has no pool, no hollow, no recess, 
 for a bath. Bushes, lily-pads, water-docks, 
 and darnels, all manner of slimy herbs range 
 in unbroken ranks all along the sides. To 
 take a jump from the canoe in the middle 
 of the river is a facile feat, " sed revocare 
 gradum, hie labor est." I poked along for 
 hours, examining every spot that looked as 
 if a pebbled bottom might He underneath, 
 but found nothing, until I saw a tiny rivulet, 
 so little that it would take ten minutes to fill 
 a bathtub, trickling down a bank steeper than 
 ordinary. Here the oozy greenery parted 
 respectfully and left an open path for the 
 little brook to make head into the river. 
 One step from the shore the bottom sunk 
 two fathoms deep. I tried to mark the spot 
 on my map for the sake of future travelers ; 
 but there was no indication of its place ; not 
 
A HOLIDAY WITH MONTAIGNE 293 
 
 even the little house across the river was 
 noted, the presence of which, perhaps, should 
 have disturbed me. 
 
 The virtues of the Richelieu are those of 
 the people past whose houses it flows, if those 
 aggregates of roofs, walls, and chimneys 
 can be called houses. In New England a 
 house implies a family, — father and mother, 
 children, chickens, and live creatures in gen- 
 eral. These houses have bare existence, no 
 more. Not a man is to be seen. The flat 
 fields spread far away on either side, and 
 there are signs of tillage, also pastures ten- 
 anted by pigs. Along the river runs a road, 
 and at intervals of half a mile little un- 
 painted houses with closed doors and shut 
 windows stand square-toed upon it. Once 
 or twice I saw a woman sewing or knitting 
 on the doorstep, her back turned ; and I 
 would paddle nearer and strike my paddle a 
 little more noisily for the sake of a bonjour, 
 or at least of a look with a suggestion of 
 interest or human curiosity. The backs re- 
 mained like so many Ladies of Shalott fear- 
 ful of consequences. Perhaps they could 
 see me in a mirror, perhaps there had been 
 a time when they used to look ; but the river 
 
294 A HOLIDAY WITH MONTAIGNE 
 
 had been so unremunerative that now no 
 splash, how noisy soever, could provoke a 
 turn of the head. It was the land of Nod. 
 Some children I saw, but voiceless children, 
 playing drowsy games or sleepily driving 
 sleeping pigs afield. Bitten with curiosity 
 and afraid to drink the river's water, I went 
 up to one of these houses at noontide. I 
 made a half circle to the back, and found a 
 door open. In the kitchen sat two women, 
 an old man, and one or two children ; the 
 women busy sewing, the old man braiding a 
 mat from long strips of colored cloth. They 
 all looked up at me and called to the dog, 
 which had shown more interest in me than 
 I cared for. One of the defects of the 
 Kichelieu is its dogs. Never were there such 
 dogs. Dogs by courtesy, for they have legs, 
 tail, head, ears, and if you go near, they 
 growl, their hair bristles, and their tails point 
 stiffly to the ground ; but they are not the 
 dogs honest folks are wont to meet, — mere 
 gargoyles cast in animated clay. They fetch 
 their hide from long-haired dogs, Scotch 
 perhaps, their tails from English bulls, their 
 throats from hounds, their snouts from point- 
 ers, their forepaws from dachshunds, their 
 
A HOLIDAY WITH MONTAIGNE 295 
 
 hind legs from Spitz, their teeth from jack- 
 als; their braying, harking, snarling voices 
 are all their own. 
 
 " Bon jour," said I, after the dog had lain 
 down. " Voulez-vous avoir la bonte de me 
 donner du lait, madame?" The children 
 stared as before ; the women looked at each 
 other, and then at me. I repeated my ques- 
 tion, hat in hand. They still stared. " J'ai 
 soif," I continued ; " Feau du fleuve est 
 d'une telle couleur que j'en ai peur." A 
 light broke over the old man's face ; one 
 of the women questioned him. " II veut du 
 lac." "Ah, du lac," and they all smiled, 
 and then clouded up, looking dubious. " Je 
 veux en acheter," said I intelligently. " Ah, 
 il veut en acheter. C'est bien," and the 
 older woman shouted for Jacques. A round- 
 faced young man clambered down a ladder 
 from the attic above the cattle-sheds, and 
 presently brought me some very good milk, 
 with which I filled my pail and departed. 
 As I paddled off I looked back to see who 
 was watching me, making sure that at least 
 a child or the dog would have sufficient curi- 
 osity to see the last of me. Not a sign ; the 
 house stared indifferently at the water. 
 
296 'A HOLIDAY WITH MONTAIGNE 
 
 I passed one night at St. Johns, which 
 stands at the southern end of the canal. 
 The canal runs for twelve miles past the 
 Chambly Rapids, the same that vexed Samuel 
 Champlain when he made his first voyage of 
 discovery, coming down from Mont Real to 
 punish the Iroquois and to see what he could 
 see. The lying Algonquins, in their eager- 
 ness to have his company, had told him that 
 there was no obstacle for the canoes. In 
 this town I lodged in a French inn. The 
 host was large and portly, — somewhat too 
 much given to looking like the innkeeper in 
 Dore's " Don Quixote," but a very good fel- 
 low. There is red wine in his cellar, and his 
 wife cooks omelets with golden-brown tops. 
 
 Montaigne is sometimes held up as the 
 type of the man of the world. It may be 
 that he is such, but for those of us who are 
 somewhat abashed at so fine a title, who have 
 been taught to consider a man of the world 
 as a hireling of the Prince of this World, and 
 prefer to cope with a man of our hundred, 
 the name may carry them into error. It is 
 true that Montaigne went to Paris while 
 Catherine de' Medici and her sons held their 
 court, and to Venice while the fame of Le- 
 
A HOLIDAY WITH MONTAIGNE 297 
 
 panto still hung over the Adriatic ; but he 
 did not become a man of the world, suppos- 
 ing that traveling to the worldly cities of the 
 world can so fashion a man. He judges 
 them like a man with a comfortable home in 
 the country. " Ces belles villes, Venise et 
 Paris, alterent la faveur que je leur porte, par 
 l'aigre senteur, Tune de son marets, l'autre de 
 sa boue." In Venice there had been a man 
 of the world, Pietro Aretino, called Divine by 
 his compatriots, " in whom except it be an 
 high-raised, proudly pufft, mind-moving and 
 heart-danting manner of speech, yet in good 
 sooth more than ordinarie, wittie and ingen- 
 ious ; but so new f angled, so extravagant, so 
 fantastical!, so deep-laboured ; and to con- 
 clud, besides the eloquence, which be it as it 
 may be, I cannot perceive anything in it, be- 
 yond or exceeding that of many other writers 
 of his age, much lesse that it in any sort ap- 
 proacheth that ancient divinitie.' , One sus- 
 pects that it was not lack of style in Aretino 
 that repelled Montaigne, but the superabun- 
 dance of his disgusting nature. A man of 
 the world does not have likes and dislikes ; 
 he has amusements and interests, excitements 
 even, ennui, tedium, and vacuity. This aver- 
 
298 A HOLIDAY WITH MONTAIGNE 
 
 sion from Aretino betrays Montaigne. He 
 would conceal it as a mere pricking of his 
 literary thumbs, but the truth will out. There 
 was not lurking in Montaigne's closet any 
 skeleton of satiety. That is the mark of the 
 man of the world. Not abroad, but in his 
 chateau, in his study on the third story of 
 the tower, is Montaigne at his ease. The 
 world comes to him there, but what world? 
 This terrestrial globe peopled with ignorance 
 and knowledge, custom and freedom, "cap- 
 tive good " and " captain ill," where Guise 
 and Navarre break the peace in all the baili- 
 wicks of France ? By no means. It is Plu- 
 tarch's world, a novel world of Greeks and 
 Latins, more like Homer's world than an- 
 other, where princes and heroes perform 
 their exploits from some Seaman der to the 
 sea and back again. Plutarch was his ency- 
 clopaedia of interest. The man of the world 
 watches the face of the world, walking to 
 and fro to see what there may be abroad. 
 Not so Montaigne. He cares little for the 
 contemporary world of fact, even for the 
 city of Bordeaux, his charge. Plutarch for 
 him ; and what had Plutarch to do with the 
 harvests and vintages of Bordeaux, with Gas- 
 
A HOLIDAY WITH MONTAIGNE 299 
 
 con deaths and Gascon burials, with mar- 
 riages and children, with drawing water and 
 baking bread, with Ave Marias and Sunday 
 holidays ? The heroic, the superhuman, the 
 accomplishment of aspirations and hopes, — 
 these are the domain of Plutarch and also of 
 Romance. Montaigne would not have liked 
 to be dubbed romantic, and clearly he was 
 not ; yet the glance and glitter of Romance 
 caught the fancy of this late child of the Re- 
 naissance. It is said that the ebb tide of the 
 new birth tumbled him over in its waves and 
 left him lying on the wet sands of disillu- 
 sion. If this be so, why did he seek and get 
 the citizenship of Rome ? Was it not that 
 " Civis Romanus sum " was one of the great 
 permanent realities to his imagination ? Why 
 is it that he fills his pages with the romance 
 of Alexander, Scipio, and Socrates ? Why 
 do the records of fearlessness facing death, 
 of the stoic suffering the ills of life with a 
 smile, of men doing deeds that surpass the 
 measure of a man's strength, drag him to 
 them? He will not have his heroes belit- 
 tled. " Moreover, our judgments are but 
 sick, and follow after the corruption of our 
 manners. I see the greater part of the wits 
 
300 A HOLIDAY WITH MONTAIGNE 
 
 of my time puzzle their brains to draw a 
 cloud over the glory of the noble and gener- 
 ous feats of old — grande subtilite" The 
 spirit of the Renaissance that wrought by 
 land and sea in his father's time still lin- 
 gered. How could a man of letters escape 
 the spirit of freedom and belief in possi- 
 bility that the lack of geography and the 
 babyhood of science spread thick over Eu- 
 rope ? To the west lay America and mys- 
 tery. From the east news might come to- 
 morrow that the men of Asia were masters 
 of Vienna. From the spire of Bordeaux 
 Cathedral a mayor standing a-tiptoe might 
 see the cut of Drake's jib as he sailed up 
 the Gironde. Romance impregnated the air. 
 Into France, reformation, classic lore, the 
 arts of Italy, were come at double-quick, and 
 to the south, in a certain place in La Mancha, 
 El Senor Quixada, or Quesada, gave himself 
 over to reading books of knight-errantry 
 with so much zeal that he clean forgot to 
 go a-hunting, and even to attend to his pro- 
 perty ; in fact, this gentleman's curiosity and 
 nonsense in this matter reached such a pitch 
 that he sold many an acre of cornfields in 
 order to buy books of knight-errantry. Mon- 
 
A HOLIDAY WITH MONTAIGNE 301 
 
 taigne had too much of Polonius to behave 
 in that way ; nevertheless, the desire to reach 
 out beyond the chalk -line drawn by the 
 senses was potent with him. He goes round 
 and round a subject not merely to show how 
 no progress can be made towards discover- 
 ing the inner reality of it, but partly to see 
 if he cannot discover something. The make- 
 weights that kept him steadfast in sobriety 
 were his curiosity and his wit. Wit is the 
 spirit that ties a man's leg. It cannot abide 
 half-lights, shadows, and darkness. Wit must 
 deal with the immediate, with the plat of 
 ground round which it paces its intellectual 
 circuit. Wit has a lanthorn, which sheds 
 its beams, revealing unexpected knowledge, 
 but it turns the twilight beyond that circle 
 of light into darkness. Ariosto's wit makes 
 his verses, but bars him from poetry. Spen- 
 ser's lack of wit allows him to make poetry, 
 but shuts him out from readers. Shake- 
 speare and Cervantes were great enough to 
 dominate their wit, but Montaigne's clasped 
 hands with his curiosity, and the two led him 
 as the dog leads a blind man. The instinct 
 in them has guided him to immortality. In 
 curiosity Montaigne was of his father's time. 
 
302 A HOLIDAY WITH MONTAIGNE 
 
 Curiosity was one of the makers of the Re- 
 naissance. It has not the graces of resigna- 
 tion and of contemplation, it lacks the self- 
 respect of belief and the self-sufficiency of 
 unbelief, but it accomplishes more than they, 
 it must be reckoned with. It is the force 
 underlying science. It is the grand vizier of 
 change. Curiosity whispered to Columbus, 
 plucked Galileo by the sleeve, and shook the 
 apple off Newton's apple-tree. Montaigne 
 was a curious man. The English language 
 lacks nicety in not having two words for the 
 two halves of curiosity : one for Francis Ba- 
 con, one for my landlady's neighbor, she that 
 lives behind us to the left, whose window 
 commands our yard. But if there were, 
 could we apply the nobler adjective to Mon- 
 taigne ? Does he want to know, like Ulysses ? 
 Will he to ocean in an open boat, 
 
 " yearning in desire 
 To follow knowledge like a sinking star " ? 
 
 Or does he rest content with the ordinary 
 wares of knowledge, sold in market overt, 
 and is he satisfied with ruminating over 
 them, hands in pockets, leaving others to 
 buy and use ? 
 
 The placidity of his life is another proof 
 
A HOLIDAY WITH MONTAIGNE 303 
 
 of his fondness for romance. A man of the 
 world must go out into the world to seek the 
 motion and the tap-tap of the free play of 
 life, in order to satisfy the physical needs of 
 sight and sound. The man of imagination 
 and romance sits in his study, and heroes, 
 heroines, gryphons, and Ganelons come hud- 
 dling about his chair. To Montaigne the 
 world came through his books, yet he is not 
 a representative scholar. His companionship 
 with books is based on friendship, not on 
 desire for knowledge. There is no latent 
 Faust in him. He is a man of the library. 
 Of all great men of letters, more than the 
 rest he has his writing-table backgrounded 
 and shut in by bookshelves. Cicero is a man 
 of the forum, Voltaire of the theatre, Walter 
 Scott of hill and dale. Montaigne is at home 
 with books, not with men. Of the former, 
 his cronies are Plutarch, Seneca, Cicero, 
 Horace. He cares not so much about states 
 and policies as he does how states long dead 
 and policies forgotten appear to philosopher 
 and poet. He is indifferent to morals as 
 affecting the happiness of men, and eagerly 
 interested in them as a topic of conversation, 
 as an occasion whereby opinion may take 
 
304 A HOLIDAY WITH MONTAIGNE 
 
 the foils against opinion, and thought click 
 against its fellow. Nor is he fond of poetry 
 except as it serves to embroider his mono- 
 logues. Life itself interests him chiefly as a 
 matter for talk. And how good his talk is, 
 how excellent his speech ! With his heart, 
 or what of heart he had, in his books, it 
 is natural that he wished to appear among 
 men of letters in his best array. He was 
 ambitious, when men thenceforward should 
 read Cicero and Seneca, that Michel de Mon- 
 taigne should be read too, and that his style 
 should stand beside theirs, uncovered, par 
 inter pares, Sainte-Beuve, making mention 
 of Calvin, Rabelais, Pascal, and Montaigne, 
 says that Rabelais and Montaigne are poets. 
 But Montaigne clearly does not fill an Eng- 
 lish-speaking man's conception of a poet. It 
 must be, I think, that Sainte-Beuve was un- 
 der the influence of Montaigne's language, 
 and therefore called him so. That was nat- 
 ural. The French tongue at that time had 
 a strong element of poetry; it bore deep 
 marks of its originals. It had not yet come 
 under the complete dominion of narrow pros- 
 ody and syntax. The words had in a mea- 
 sure the simplicity, the indecision of outline, 
 
A HOLIDAY WITH MONTAIGNE 305 
 
 the rude strength, of the Teutonic languages. 
 Old English words, at times, like conspira- 
 tors, come fraught with greater meaning 
 that they are indistinct; their shadows fall 
 about them, hiding their feet ; they glide 
 into your presence : so it is with Montaigne's 
 words. Nowadays French words have evolu- 
 tions and drills, accepted manoeuvres ; they 
 savor of mathematics and bloodless things. 
 The French language of to-day has altered 
 its sixteenth-century habit more than Eng- 
 lish has ; no Bible arrested its development. 
 Montaigne has the simplicity, the directness 
 of expression and exposition, of the men of 
 to-day, but the poetical quality that lurks in 
 his words and phrases they have not inher- 
 ited. 
 
 At St. Johns is the custom house, but the 
 office was locked at a reasonable hour in the 
 morning for calling, and I felt under no fur- 
 ther obligations towards the Canadian gov- 
 ernment. Here also is the place to pay the 
 canal toll, and in exchange receive a ticket 
 which gives permission to pass all the locks. 
 The toll-taker wrote me out a permit, full 
 of dignity, authorizing the ship Sickle-Fin, 
 weighing not more than one ton, whereof 
 
306 A HOLIDAY WITH MONTAIGNE 
 
 Captain , naming me, was the master, 
 
 laden with ballast (Montaigne), to travel free 
 through all the locks. 
 
 It is the every-day humanity in Montaigne 
 that binds us to him. It is his lack of capa- 
 city for self-sacrifice, his inability to believe, 
 his ignorance of love, his innocence of scorn. 
 These are our common property. He likes 
 the comforts that we like ; he values secur- 
 ity, ease, simplicity, a fire on the hearth, a 
 book in the hand, fresh water in summer. 
 He never makes us ashamed. 
 
 The next night I passed at Beloeil. Here 
 I was the sport of indecision for an hour, 
 unable to make up my mind where to pass 
 the night. There were three hotels, two on 
 my left, one on my right. While looking at 
 each in turn, I resolved to go to one of the 
 other two. Finally I made my choice. I 
 selected a little wooden house, with a little 
 bar-room, a little dining-room, and a very 
 tiny larder, and beer of a despicable quality. 
 I had ham and eggs for dinner, — " Si Ton 
 avait su que Monsieur allait venir, on aurait 
 pu avoir un bifteck," — ham and eggs for 
 breakfast, and an offer to put up ham and 
 eggs for my lunch. 
 
A HOLIDAY WITH MONTAIGNE 307 
 
 The villages along the river are all on one 
 pattern. In the centre is a very large church, 
 so big that you see it far off, long before 
 there is any other indication of human life. 
 The church is built on a rectangle, with a 
 pointed roof and a tall spire tipped with a 
 weather-cock. The roof is covered with tin, 
 unpainted, which does not rust, perhaps be- 
 cause the air is so dry, and flashes very 
 gaudily in the sun. Grouped about the 
 church are large red brick buildings facing 
 a little green. These are the houses for 
 priests and nuns, with the offices for parish 
 work. Images of the Virgin and saints 
 stand about. The grass-plot and the paths 
 are well kept, and were it not that the rest 
 of the village does not seem to share in this 
 prosperity, it would be a very pleasant sight. 
 At St. Ours, where I passed the next night, 
 there was an attractive house, shut in by a 
 garden and well protected by trees, that had 
 the look of accumulated savings ; but in gen- 
 eral there was little sign of the comforts so 
 often seen in the small manufacturing vil- 
 lages of New England, — no sound of a 
 lawn-mower, no croquet, no tennis. 
 
 The river Richelieu joins the St. Law- 
 
308 A HOLIDAY WITH MONTAIGNE 
 
 rence at Sorel. There I found that the St. 
 Lawrence is too big and strong for a canoe, 
 at least when paddled in a jogging, unso- 
 phisticated way. I put my canoe aboard the 
 steamer, and bought a ticket for Quebec. 
 In my stuffy cabin, under the dim gaslight, 
 I admired Montaigne's imperturbability and 
 his ceaseless interest in things. 
 
SOME ASPECTS OF THACKERAY 
 
SOME ASPECTS OF THACKERAY 
 
 Twenty years ago, at Harvard College, 
 in the rooms of all students of certain social 
 pretensions who affected books, you were 
 sure to see on the most conspicuous shelf, in 
 green and gold or in half calf, the works of 
 William Makepiece Thackeray. The name, 
 boldly printed, greeted you as you entered 
 the door, and served, together with sundry 
 red-sealed certificates and beribboned silver 
 medals, to inform you of the general respec- 
 tability and gentility of your host. Of a 
 Sunday morning, this student was likely to 
 be discovered complacent over the " Book of 
 Snobs " or serious over " Vanity Fair." 
 
 Public opinion went that Thackeray was 
 the novelist of gentlemen and for gentlemen ; 
 that Dickens was undoubtedly strong, but he 
 had not had the privilege of knowing and 
 of delineating the things which were adapted 
 to interest the most select of Harvard under- 
 
312 SOME ASPECTS OF THACKERAY 
 
 graduates. In every fold there are some to 
 lower the general standard of critical excel- 
 lence ; there were some partisans of Dickens. 
 They were judged, as minorities are, found 
 guilty of running counter to accepted opin- 
 ions, and outlawed from further literary criti- 
 cism. 
 
 These Harvard critics did not make for 
 themselves this opinion of Thackeray ; they 
 brought it with them from home. 
 
 We suppose that parents, what time their 
 son started in the world on the first path 
 which diverged from theirs, deemed that 
 they were equipping him with the best mas- 
 ter to teach him concerning the ways of that 
 world. Theirs was the old lack of faith, 
 so common to the fearful ; they sought to 
 guard their son from the world by pointing 
 out to him its vanity, its folly, its emptiness. 
 " Oh, if he shall only know what the world 
 is," they thought, " he will escape its evils to 
 come." So they gave him Thackeray, and 
 wrote him long letters on idleness and vice. 
 His bookshelves and his inner pockets thus 
 encumbered, the youth found Harvard Col- 
 lege a miniature of the world of which he 
 had been warned. There were materials 
 
SOME ASPECTS OF THACKERAY 313 
 
 enough for such a conclusion. A seeker 
 will find what he goes forth to seek. The 
 youth learned his Thackeray well, spent four 
 years enjoying his little Vanity Fair, and 
 then departed from Cambridge to help build 
 up the larger world of Vanity which shows so 
 fine in America to-day. 
 
 There is no phenomenon so interesting as 
 the unconscious labor of boys and men over 
 the task of shaping, hewing, whittling, and 
 moulding the world into accord with their 
 anticipations. All lend helping hands to the 
 great master implement, public expectation. 
 A young fellow goes to college, and joins a 
 group of a dozen others. Brown, the rake, 
 thinks, " Here 's a Lothario who will sup at 
 Dame Quickly's with me ; " Smith, the boxer, 
 says, " A quick eye, — I '11 make a boxer of 
 him ; " Jones, who translates Homer for the 
 group, sees rhythm and Theocritus in the 
 newcomer's curly hair; Robinson, the phi- 
 losopher, feels a fellow Hegelian. These 
 rival expectations leap out to meet the stran- 
 ger ; they struggle among themselves. Of 
 the students, some agree with Brown, some 
 with Smith, others with Robinson or Jones. 
 The sturdiest of these expectations chokes 
 
314 SOME ASPECTS OF THACKERAY 
 
 out the others and survives. After a short 
 time — our young fellow yet entirely undis- 
 covered — a strong current of unanimous 
 expectation has decided that he shall be a 
 boxer. All obstacles to the execution of this 
 judgment are taken away, and moral earth- 
 works are quickly thrown up, guarding him 
 from Brown, Jones, and Robinson. Expec- 
 tation seats him beside Smith ; expectation 
 turns the conversation upon champions of 
 the ring ; expectation draws the gloves upon 
 his fists; it offers him no Eastcheap, no 
 Theocritus, no Hegel. The youth takes box- 
 ing lessons ; soon he learns the language of 
 the fraternity ; he walks, runs, avoids mince 
 pies, eschews books, and with a single eye 
 looks forward to a bout in Hemenway Gym- 
 nasium. Thus the tricksy spirit expectation 
 shapes the destinies of common humankind. 
 Thus do parents begin to expect that their son 
 will see the world with their own and Thack- 
 eray's beam-troubled eyes ; they insist that 
 he shall, and in due time he does. 
 
 Once convince a young man that Thack- 
 eray's world is the real world, that vulgarity, 
 meanness, trickery, and fraud abound, and 
 you put him in a yoke from which he shall 
 
SOME ASPECTS OF THACKERAY 315 
 
 never free himself. This is the yoke of base 
 expectation. This is what is known in Scrip- 
 ture as " the world ; " it is the habit of screw- 
 ing up the eyes and squinting in order to see 
 unworthiness, baseness, vice, and wickedness ; 
 it is a creeping blindness to nobler things. 
 The weapon against the world is, as of old, 
 to use a word of great associations, faith. 
 Faith is nothing but noble expectation, and 
 all education should be to supplant base ex- 
 pectation by noble expectation. What is the 
 human world in which we live but a mighty 
 mass of sensitive matter, highly susceptible 
 to the great force of human expectation, 
 which flows about it like an ever shifting 
 Gulf Stream, now warming and prospering 
 noble people, and then wantonly comforting 
 the unworthy ? 
 
 Feeble folk that we are, we have in this 
 power of creation an element of divinity in 
 us. Our expectations hover about like life- \ 
 giving agencies. We are conscious that our 
 hopes and our fears are at work all the time 
 helping the oncoming of that which we hope 
 or fear. The future is like a new born babe 
 stretching out its arms to the stronger. It 
 may be that this power in us is weak, inter- 
 
316 SOME ASPECTS OF THACKERAY 
 
 mittent, often pitiably feeble ; but now and 
 again comes a man with a larger measure of 
 divine life, and his great expectations pass 
 into deeds. Before every Trafalgar first 
 comes an expectation that duty will be done. 
 
 Thackeray has no faith ; he does not enter- 
 tain high expectations. His characters do 
 shameless things, and Thackeray says to the 
 reader, " Be not surprised, injured-seeming 
 friend ; you would have done the like under 
 the like temptation." At first you contra- 
 dict, you resent ; but little by little Thacke- 
 ray's opinion of you inoculates you ; the virus 
 takes; you lose your conviction that you 
 would have acted differently ; you concede 
 that such conduct was not impossible, even 
 for you, — no, nor improbable, — and, on 
 the whole, after reflection, that the conduct 
 was excusable, was good enough, was justi- 
 fied, was inevitable, was right, was scrupu- 
 lously right, and only a Don Quixote would 
 have acted otherwise. 
 
 Nothing sickens and dies so quickly as 
 noble expectation. Luxury, comfort, cus- 
 tom, the ennui of hourly exertion, the dint 
 of disappointment, assail it unceasingly : if a 
 man of ten talents, like Thackeray, joins the 
 
SOME ASPECTS OF THACKERAY 317 
 
 assailants, is it not just that admiration of 
 him should be confined to those who are 
 willing to admire talents, irrespective of the 
 use to which they are put ? J 
 
 II 
 
 England has found it hard to bring forth 
 men of faith. In the great days of Queen 
 Elizabeth, a number of uniting causes pro- 
 duced an emotional excitement which lifted 
 Englishmen and Englishwomen to such a 
 height that Shakespeare saw Othello, Ham- 
 let, Brutus, Coriolanus, Miranda, Cordelia. 
 There was the material stimulus of commerce 
 with strange countries, the prick of money ; 
 there was this curious earth, inviting wooers ; 
 there was the goad of conscience, troubled 
 to renounce the religion of old ; there was 
 the danger of foreign conquerors ; there 
 was manly devotion to a Virgin Queen. 
 England roused herself, and, " like a dew- 
 drop from the lion's mane," shook off the 
 trammels of petty interests, of vulgar self- 
 seeking, and presented to her poet great 
 sights of human nobility. Not that the 
 moral elevation of a nation is very much 
 higher at one time than at another, but a 
 
318 SOME ASPECTS OF THACKERAY 
 
 little swelling of noble desires so breaks 
 the ice of custom that a poet must see the 
 clearer waters which lie beneath. If Shake- 
 speare were alive to-day, we doubt not that 
 he would tell of new Othellos, new Cordelias ; 
 but it was easier for him then than it would 
 be now, or how could such a host of noble 
 men and women people his pages? 
 
 Since that time England has been pros- 
 perous and comfortable ; and as her comfort 
 and prosperity have increased she has drifted 
 further and further from a great acceptance 
 of the world. Dryden and his group, Field- 
 ing, Sheridan, men of talents in their differ- 
 ent generations, have succeeded, who con- 
 template themselves, and, expecting to find 
 the world a fit place for them to live in, have 
 helped to render it so. 
 
 A hundred years ago England shook her- 
 self free from the dominion of vulgar men. 
 In France, the triple burden of church, mon- 
 arch, and nobility, the prohibition of thought, 
 the injustice of power, had lain like mill- 
 stones on the people ; each individual had 
 borne his own burden, but one after another 
 each saw that not he alone groaned and 
 sweated, but his brothers also. The fardel a 
 
SOME ASPECTS OF THACKERAY 319 
 
 man can bear by himself he can no longer 
 carry when he sees an endless line of other 
 men weighted down and staggering. Sight 
 of injustice to others made each individual in 
 France throw off his own yoke ; and the most 
 exultant cry of justice, of brotherly love, ever 
 heard, was raised. No country lives alone. 
 French passion flushed to England. Eng- 
 lishmen were roused : some were for liberty ; 
 others saw their dull old homes and habits 
 transfigured in the blaze of new ideas. Noble 
 Kepublicans bred noble Tories. Everything 
 was ennobled ; babies looked more beautiful to 
 their mothers ; Virgil interested schoolboys ; 
 ragamuffins and ploughboys felt strange dis- 
 quiet as they heard the words " liberty," 
 " country," " brotherhood," " home." This 
 shock and counter-shock prepared the way for 
 the great poets of that time, and made Wal- 
 ter Scott possible. Scott had faith ; he saw 
 a noble world. But the idealism of France 
 passed away, its glow faded from the English 
 cliffs ; danger was locked up in St. Helena, 
 and prosperity and comfort, like Gog and 
 Magog, stalked through England. 
 
 Thackeray was bred when Englishmen 
 were forsaking " swords for ledgers," and de- 
 
320 SOME ASPECTS OF THACKERAY 
 
 serting " the student's bower for gold." His 
 father died when he was very young. His 
 mother married for her second husband an 
 Indian officer, and Thackeray was sent to 
 school in England. 
 
 In a new biographical edition of Thacke- 
 ray's works which Messrs. Harper & Brothers 
 are publishing, Mrs. Ritchie has written brief 
 memories of her father at the beginning of 
 each volume, with special relation to its con- 
 tents. These memories are done with filial 
 affection. Thackeray's kindness, his tender- 
 ness, his sympathetic nature, are written large 
 on every page. He has many virtues. He 
 dislikes vice, drunkenness, betrayal of women, 
 pettifogging, huckstering, lying, cheating, 
 knavery, the annoyance and tomfoolery of 
 social distinctions. He would like to leave 
 the world better than he found it, but 
 he cannot see. Pettiness, the vulgarity of 
 money, the admiration of mean things, hang 
 before him like a curtain at the theatre. Ro- 
 meo may be on fire, Hotspur leap for the 
 moon, Othello stab Iago, Lear die in Corde- 
 lia's lap ; but the sixteenth of an inch of 
 frieze and fustian keeps it all from him. 
 
 At nineteen Thackeray spent a winter at 
 
SOME ASPECTS OF Tl ACKERAY 321 
 
 Weimar. He soon writes to his mother of 
 Goethe as " the great lion of Weimar." He 
 is not eager to possess the great measures of 
 life. He is not sensitive to Goethe, but to 
 the court of Pumpernickel. He wishes he 
 were a cornet in Sir John Kennaway's yeo- 
 manry, that he might wear the yeoman's 
 dress. " A yeomanry dress is always a hand- 
 some and respectable one." 
 
 In 1838, when in Paris, he writes : " I have 
 just come from seeing ' Marion Delorme,' the 
 tragedy of Victor Hugo, and am so sickened 
 and disgusted with the horrid piece that I 
 have hardly heart to write." He did not 
 look through pain and extravagance into the 
 noble passion of the play. He^ lived in a 
 moral Pumpernickel where the ideal is kept 
 outside the town gates. And he has de- 
 scribed his home with the vividness and 
 vigor of complete comprehension. Never 
 has a period had so accomplished an his- 
 torian. The bourgeoisie have their epic in 
 " Vanity Fair." 
 
 This book reflects Thackeray's intellectual 
 image in his prime ; it is his first great novel, 
 and is filled with the most vivid and enduring 
 of his beliefs and convictions. There are in 
 
322 SOME ASPECTS OF THACKERAY 
 
 it a vigor, an ina ^pendence, and a sense of 
 power that come when a man faces his best 
 opportunity. Into it Thackeray has put what 
 he deemed the truest experiences of his life. 
 " The Newcomes " and " Pendennis " are but 
 sequels. " The Newcomes " is the story of 
 his stepfather, in Vanity Fair; " Pendennis," 
 that of Thackeray himself and his mother 
 wandering in its outskirts. There is this 
 one family of nice people, gathered into an 
 ark as it were, floating over the muddy wa- 
 ters. Thackeray was able to see that his 
 immediate family were not rogues ; he was 
 also able to draw a most noble gentleman, 
 Henry Esmond, by the help of the idealizing 
 lens of a hundred odd years ; but the world 
 he thought he saw about him is the world 
 of "Vanity Fair." 
 
 Thackeray had so many fine qualities that 
 one cannot but feel badly to see him in such 
 a place. Had his virtues — his kindness, 
 his tenderness, his charm, his capacity for 
 affection — been energetic enough to domi- 
 nate his entire character, he would have lived 
 among far different scenes ; his readers would 
 have beheld him brooding over a world where 
 passion may be very noble and very base, 
 
SOME ASPECTS OF THACKERAY 323 
 
 happy that virtue, in the strong or in the 
 weak, may sometimes be found indomitable, 
 and deeply serious, deeply conscious of that 
 inner essence in men, which at times has per- 
 suaded them to believe themselves children 
 of God. Was it Thackeray's fault that this 
 was not to be ? Or did he suffer the inci- 
 dental misfortunes which large causes bring 
 to individuals as they follow their own re- 
 gardless paths ? 
 
 in 
 
 Thackeray is the poet of respectability. 
 His working time stretches from the Reform 
 Act almost to the death of Lord Palmer ston. 
 He chronicles the contemporary life of a 
 rich, money-getting generation of merchants 
 and manufacturers, lifted into sudden impor- 
 tance in the national life by steamboats and 
 railroads, by machinery for spinning, weav- 
 ing, mining, by Arkwright, Watt, Davy, and 
 Stephenson. His is a positive, matter-of-fact 
 world, of which Peel is the statesman and 
 Macaulay the man of letters. Macaulay, in 
 his essay on Bacon, has given us the mea- 
 sure of its spiritual elevation : " We have 
 sometimes thought that an amusing fiction 
 
324 SOME ASPECTS OF THACKERAY 
 
 might be written, in which a disciple of Epic- 
 tetus and a disciple of Bacon should be in- 
 troduced as fellow travelers. They come to 
 a village where the smallpox has just begun 
 to rage, and find houses shut up, intercourse 
 suspended, the sick abandoned, mothers 
 weeping in terror over their children. The 
 Stoic assures the dismayed population that 
 there is nothing bad in the smallpox ; and 
 that, to a wise man, disease, deformity, death, 
 the loss of friends, are not evils. The Ba- 
 conian takes out a lancet and begins to vac- 
 cinate. They find a body of miners in great 
 dismay. An explosion of noisome vapors 
 has just killed many of those who were at 
 work ; and the survivors are afraid to ven- 
 ture into the cavern. The Stoic assures them 
 that such an accident is nothing but a mere 
 a7ro7rpo7]yn€vov. The Baconian, who has 
 no such fine word at his command, contents 
 himself with devising a safety-lamp. They 
 find a shipwrecked merchant wringing his 
 hands on the shore. His vessel, with an in- 
 estimable cargo, has just gone down, and he 
 is reduced in a moment from opulence to 
 beggary. The Stoic exhorts him not to seek 
 happiness in things which lie without him- 
 
SOME ASPECTS OF THACKERAY 325 
 
 self ; the Baconian constructs a diving-bell. 
 It would be easy to multiply illustrations of 
 the difference between the philosophy of 
 thorns and the philosophy of fruit, the phi- 
 losophy of words and the philosophy of 
 works." This is the very nobility of ma- 
 chinery. As we read, we listen to the buzz 
 and whirr of wheels, the drip of oil-cans, the 
 creaking and straining of muscle and steel. 
 Such things serve, no doubt, in default of 
 other agencies, to create a great empire, but 
 the England of Thackeray's day was nouveau 
 riche, self-made, proud of its lack of occu- 
 pation other than money-getting. 
 
 During the formative period of Thack- 
 eray's life the English nation was passing 
 under the influence of machinery. There 
 was the opportunity of a great man of let- 
 ters, such as Thackeray, to look to it that 
 literature should respond to the stimulus of 
 added power, and grow so potent that it 
 would determine what direction the national 
 life should take. At such a time of national 
 expansion, literature should have seen Eng- 
 land in the flush of coming greatness ; it 
 should have roused itself to re-create her in 
 nobler imagination, and have spent itself in 
 
326 SOME ASPECTS OF THACKERAY 
 
 making her accept this estimate and expec- 
 tation, and become an England dominating 
 material advantages and leading the world. 
 
 The interest in life is this potentiality and 
 malleability. The allotted task of men and 
 women is to take this potentiality and shape 
 it. Men who have strong intelligence and 
 quick perceptions, like Thackeray, accom- 
 plish a great deal in the way of giving a 
 definite form to the material with which life 
 furnishes us. What Michelangelo says of 
 marble is true of lif e : — 
 
 " Non ha l'ottimo artista alcun concetto 
 Ch'un marmo solo in se non circoscriva 
 Col suo soverchio." 
 
 The problem of life is to uncover the figures 
 hiding in this material: shall it be Caliban 
 and Circe, or Philip Sidney and Jeanne 
 d'Arc? Thackeray, with what Mrs. Ritchie 
 calls " his great deal of common sense," saw 
 Major Pendennis and Becky Sharp ; and he 
 gave more effective cuttings and chiselings 
 and form to the potential life of England 
 than any other man of his time. 
 
 The common apology for such a novelist 
 is that he describes what he sees. This is 
 the worst with which we charge him. We 
 
SOME ASPECTS OF THACKERAY 327 
 
 charge Thackeray with seeing what he de- 
 scribes ; and what justification has a man, in 
 a world like this, to spend his time looking 
 at Barnes Newcome and Sir Pitt Crawley? 
 Thackeray takes the motes and beams float- 
 ing in his mind's eye for men and women, 
 writes about them, and calls his tale a his- 
 tory. 
 
 Thackeray wrote, on finishing " Vanity 
 Fair," that all the characters were odious 
 except Dobbin. Poor Thackeray, what a 
 world to see all about him, with his tender, 
 affectionate nature ! Even Colonel New- 
 come is so crowded round by a mob of ras- 
 cally fellows that it is hard to do justice to 
 Thackeray's noblest attempt to be a poet. 
 But why see a world, and train children to 
 see a world, where 
 
 " The great man is a vulgar clown " ? 
 
 A world with such an unreal standard must 
 be an unreal world. In the real world vul- 
 gar clowns are not great men. Thackeray 
 sees a world all topsy-turvy, and it does not 
 occur to him that he, and not the world, is 
 at fault. This is the curse of faithlessness. 
 He himself says, " The world is a looking- 
 
328 SOME ASPECTS OF THACKERAY 
 
 glass, and gives back to every man the reflec- 
 tion of his own face." 
 
 Thackeray has been praised as a master 
 of reality. As reality is beyond our ken, 
 the phrase is unfortunate; but the signifi- 
 cance of it is that if a man will portray to 
 the mob the world with which the mob is 
 familiar, they will huzza themselves hoarse. 
 Has not the Parisian mob shouted for Zola ? 
 Do not the Madrilenos cheer V aides? Do 
 not Ouida and the pale youth of Rome and 
 Paris holla, " d'Annunzio ! d'Annunzio ! " 
 There is no glory here. The poet, not in 
 fine frenzy, but in sober simplicity, tells the 
 mob, not what they see, but what they can- 
 not of themselves perceive, with such a tone 
 of authority that they stand gaping and like- 
 wise see. 
 
 Thackeray's love of reality was merely an 
 embodiment of the popular feeling which 
 proposed to be direct, business-like, and not 
 to tolerate any nonsense. People felt that a 
 money-getting country must take itself seri- 
 ously. The Reform Act had brought political 
 control to the bourgeoisie, men of common 
 sense ; no ranters, no will-o'-the-wisp chasers, 
 but "burgomasters and great oneyers," — men 
 
SOME ASPECTS OF THACKERAY 329 
 
 who thought very highly of circumstances 
 under which they were prosperous, and asked 
 for no more beautiful sight than their own 
 virtues. Influenced by the sympathetic touch 
 of this atmosphere, novel-readers found their 
 former favorites old-fashioned. Disraeli, 
 Samuel Warren, Bulwer Lytton, G. P. K. 
 James, seemed false, theatrical, and senti- 
 mental. Thackeray was of this opinion, 
 and he studied the art of caricature as the 
 surest means of saving himself from any 
 such fantastic nonsense. He approached life 
 as a city man, — one who was convinced that 
 the factories of London, not the theories of 
 the philosopher, were the real motive force 
 underneath all the busy flow of outward life. 
 He found his talents exactly suited to this 
 point of view. His memory was an enormous 
 wallet, into which his hundred-handed obser- 
 vation was day and night tossing scraps and 
 bits of daily experience. He saw the meet- 
 ings of men as he passed : lords, merchants, 
 tinsmiths, guardsmen, tailors, cooks, valets, 
 nurses, policemen, boys, applewomen, — 
 everybody whom you meet of a morning be- 
 tween your house and your office in the city. 
 He remarked the gestures, he heard the 
 
330 SOME ASPECTS OF THACKERAY 
 
 words, he guessed what had gone before, he 
 divined what would happen thereafter : and 
 each sight, sound, guess, and divination was 
 safely stowed away. England of the forties, 
 as Thackeray saw it, is in "Vanity Fair," 
 " Pendennis," and "The Newcomes." "I 
 ask you to believe," he says in the preface 
 to " Pendennis," " that this person writing 
 strives to tell the truth." 
 
 Where lies the truth ? Are men merely 
 outward parts of machinery, exposed to view, 
 while down below in the engine-room steam 
 and electricity determine their movements? 
 Or do men live and carry on their daily rou- 
 tine under the influence of some great 
 thought of which they are half unconscious, 
 but by which they are shaped, moulded, and 
 moved ? A French poet says : — 
 
 " Le vrai Dieu, le Dieu fort, est le Dieu des ide'es." 
 
 But Macaulay says that the philosophy of 
 Plato began with words and ended with 
 words ; that an acre in Middlesex is better 
 than a principality in Utopia. The Brit- 
 ish public applauded Macaulay, and young 
 Thackeray took the hint. 
 
SOME ASPECTS OF THACKERAY 331 
 
 rv 
 
 Nobody can question Thackeray's style. 
 His fame is proof of its excellence. Even if 
 a man will flatter the mob by saying that he 
 sees what they see, he cannot succeed with- 
 out skill of expression. Readers are slow 
 to understand. They need grace, pithy sen- 
 tences, witty turns of phrase, calculated sweep 
 of periods and paragraphs. They must have 
 no labor of attention ; the right adjective 
 alone will catch their eyes ; they require 
 their pages plain, clear, perspicuous. In all 
 these qualities Thackeray is very nearly per- 
 fect. Hardly anybody would say that there 
 is a novel better written than " Vanity Fair." 
 The story runs as easily as the hours. Chap- 
 ter after chapter in the best prose carries the 
 reader comfortably on. Probably this excel- 
 lence is due to Thackeray's great powers of 
 observation. His eyes saw everything, sav- 
 ing for the blindness of his inward eye, and 
 his memory held it. He was exceedingly 
 sensitive. Page after page is filled with the 
 vividness of well-chosen detail. He culti- 
 vated the art of writing most assiduously. 
 From 1830 to 1847, when " Vanity Fair," 
 
332 SOME ASPECTS OF THACKERAY 
 
 the first of his great novels, was published, 
 he was writing all the time, and for almost 
 all of that time as a humorist, drawing cari- 
 catures, — a kind of writing perhaps better 
 adapted than any other to cultivate the power 
 of portraying scenes. The caricaturist is re- 
 stricted to a few lines; his task does not 
 allow him to fill in, to amplify ; he must say 
 his say in little. The success of wit is the 
 arrangement of a dozen words. This training 
 for sixteen continuous years taught Thack- 
 eray a style which, for his subjects, has no 
 equal in English literature. 
 
 To-day we greatly admire Stevenson and 
 Kipling. We applaud Stevenson's style for 
 its cultivation and its charm ; we heap praises 
 upon Kipling's for its dash, vigor, and accu- 
 racy of detail. All these praises are deserved ; 
 but when we take up Thackeray again, we 
 find pages and pages written in a style 
 more cultivated than Stevenson's and equally 
 charming, and with a dash, vigor, and nicety 
 of detail that Kipling might envy. Descrip- 
 tions that would constitute the bulk of an 
 essay for the one, or of a story for the other, 
 do hasty service as prologues to Thackeray's 
 chapters. Conversations of a happy theatri- 
 
SOME ASPECTS OF THACKERAY 333 
 
 cal turn, with enough exaggeration to appear 
 wholly natural, which Stevenson and Kipling 
 never have rivaled, come crowding together 
 in his long novels. 
 
 There are two famous scenes which are 
 good examples of Thackeray's power, — one 
 of his sentiment, one of his humor. The first 
 is Colonel Newcome's death in the Charter- 
 house. The second is the first scene between 
 Pendennis and the Fotheringay. " Pen tried 
 to engage her in conversation about poetry 
 and about her profession. He asked her 
 what she thought of Ophelia's madness, and 
 whether she was in love with Hamlet or not. 
 i In love with such a little ojus wretch as that 
 stunted manager of a Bingley ? ' She bris- 
 tled with indignation at the thought. Pen 
 explained it was not of her he spoke, but 
 of Ophelia of the play. c Oh, indeed ; if no 
 offense was meant, none was taken : but as 
 for Bingley, indeed, she did not value him, 
 — not that glass of punch.' Pen next tried 
 her on Kotzebue. ' Kotzebue ? Who was 
 he ? ' ( The author of the play in which she 
 had been performing so admirably.' ' She 
 did not know that — the man's name at the 
 beginning of the book was Thompson,' she 
 
334 SOME ASPECTS OF THACKERAY 
 
 said. Pen laughed at her adorable simpli- 
 city. He told her of the melancholy fate 
 of the author of the play, and how Sand had 
 killed him. . . . ' How beautiful she is ! ' 
 thought Pen, cantering homewards. 'How 
 simple and how tender ! How charming it 
 is to see a woman of her genius busying her- 
 self with the humble offices of domestic life, 
 cooking dishes to make her old father com- 
 fortable, and brewing him drink ! How rude 
 it was of me to begin to talk about profes- 
 sional matters, and how well she turned the 
 conversation ! . . . Pendennis, Pendennis, — 
 how she spoke the word ! Emily, Emily ! how 
 good, how noble, how beautiful, how perfect, 
 she is ! ' " 
 
 This scene is very close upon farce, and it 
 is in that borderland that Thackeray's ex- 
 traordinary skill shows itself most conspicu- 
 ous. Difficult, however, as it must be to be 
 a master there, — and the fact that Thack- 
 eray has no rival in this respect proves it, — 
 it is easy work compared to drawing a scene 
 of real love, of passion. Perhaps some ac- 
 tions of Lady Castlewood are Thackeray's 
 only attempt thereat. The world of passion 
 is not his world. His ear is not attuned to 
 
SOME ASPECTS OF THACKERAY 335 
 
 " Das tiefe, schmerzenvolle Gliick 
 Des Hasses Kraft, die Macht der Liebe." 
 
 Charlotte Bronte, Tourguenef, Hawthorne, 
 Hugo, Balzac, all excel him. Thackeray 
 hears the click of custom against custom, the 
 throb of habit, the tick-tick of vulgar life, 
 all the sounds of English social machinery. 
 What interests him is the relation that Harry 
 Foker or Blanche Amory bears to the stan- 
 dard of social excellence accepted by com- 
 mercial England in the forties. He is never 
 — at least as an artist — disturbed by any 
 scheme of metaphysics. His English com- 
 mon sense is never lured afield by any specu- 
 lations about the value of a human being 
 uncolored by the shadows of time and space. 
 He is never troubled by doubts of standards, 
 by skepticism as to uses, ends, purposes ; he 
 has a hard-and-fast British standard. He 
 draws Colonel Newcome as an object of 
 pity ; he surrounds him with tenderness and 
 sympathy. Here is Thackeray at his highest. 
 But he never suggests to the reader that 
 Colonel Newcome is not a man to be pitied, 
 but to be envied ; not a failure, but a suc- 
 cess ; not unhappy, but most fortunate. The 
 great poets of the world have turned the 
 
336 SOME ASPECTS OF THACKERAY 
 
 malefactor's cross into the symbol of holi- 
 ness. Thackeray never departs from the 
 British middle class conceptions of triumph 
 and failure. In all his numerous disserta- 
 tions and asides to the reader, he wrote like 
 the stalwart Briton he was, good, generous, 
 moral, domestic, stern, and tender. You 
 never forget his Puritan ancestry, you can 
 rely upon his honesty ; but he is not pure- 
 minded or humble. He dislikes wrong, but 
 he never has a high enough conception of 
 right to hate wrong. His view is that it is a 
 matter to be cured by policemen, propriety, 
 and satire. 
 
 Satire is the weapon of the man at odds 
 with the world and at ease with himself. 
 The dissatisfied man — a Juvenal, a Swift, 
 a youthful Thackeray — belabors the world 
 with vociferous indignation, like the wind 
 on the traveler's back, the beating makes 
 it hug its cloaking sins the tighter. Wrong 
 runs no danger from such chastisement. The 
 fight against wrong is made by the man dis- 
 contented with himself and careless of the 
 world. Satire is harmless as a moral weapon. 
 It is an old-fashioned fowling piece, fit for a 
 man of wit, intelligence, and a certain limited 
 
SOME ASPECTS OF THACKERAY 337 
 
 imagination. It runs no risk of having no ) 
 quarry ; the world to it is one vast covert of 
 lawful game. It goes a-traveling with wit, 
 because both are in search of the unworthy J 
 It is well suited to a brilliant style. It is 
 also a conventional department in literature, 
 and as such is demanded by publishers and 
 accepted by the public. 
 
 Thackeray was born with dexterity of ob- v 
 servation, nimbleness of wit, and a quick 
 sense of the incongruous and the grotesque. 
 He lost his fortune when a young man. He 
 wrote for a livelihood, and naturally turned 
 to that branch of literature which was best 
 suited to his talents. It was his misfortune 
 that satire is bad for a man's moral develop- 
 ment. It intensified his natural disbelief in 
 the worth of humanity, but gave him the 
 schooling that enabled him to use his powers 
 so brilliantly. v 
 
 Thackeray was often hampered by this 
 habit of looking at the grotesque side of 
 things. It continually dragged him into 
 farce, causing feebleness of effect where there 
 should have been power. Sir Pitt Crawley, 
 Jos Sedley, the struggle over Miss Crawley, 
 Harry Foker, the Chevalier de Florae, Aunt 
 
338 SOME ASPECTS OF THACKERAY 
 
 Hoggerty, are all in the realm of farce. This 
 is due partly to Thackeray's training, and 
 partly to his attitude toward life. If life 
 consists of money, clothes, and a bundle of 
 social relations, our daily gravity, determina- 
 tion, and vigor are farcical, because they are 
 so out of place ; they are as incongruous as 
 a fish in trousers. But Thackeray forgets 
 that there is something disagreeable in this 
 farce, as there would be in looking into 
 Circe's sty and seeing men groveling over 
 broken meats. To be sure, Thackeray makes 
 believe that he finds it comic to see crea- 
 tures of great pretensions busy themselves so 
 continually with the pettiest things. But it 
 too often seems as if the comic element con- 
 sisted in our human pretensions, and as if 
 Thackeray merely kept bringing them to the 
 reader's notice for the sake of heightening 
 the contrast between men and their doings. 
 
 V 
 Thackeray is not an innovator ; he follows 
 the traditions of English literature. He is in 
 direct descent from the men of the " Specta- 
 tor," Addison, Steele, and their friends, and 
 from Fielding. He has far greater powers 
 
SOME ASPECTS OF THACKERAY 339 
 
 of observation, wit, humor, sentiment, and 
 description than the " Spectator " group. He 
 excels Fielding in everything except as a 
 story-teller, and in a kind of intellectual 
 power that is more easily discerned in Field- 
 ing than described, — a kind of imperious 
 understanding that breaks down a path be- 
 fore it, whereas Thackeray's intelligence 
 looks in at a window or peeps through the 
 keyhole. Fielding is the bigger, coarser 
 man of the two ; Thackeray is the cleverer. 
 Each is thoroughly English. Fielding em- 
 bodies the England of George I. ; Thack- 
 eray, that same England refined by the re- 
 volutionary ideas of 1789, trained by long 
 wars, then materialized by machinery, by a 
 successful bourgeoisie, and the quick acces- 
 sion of wealth. Each is a good fellow, — 
 quick in receiving ideas, but slow to learn a 
 new point of view. Fielding is inferior to 
 Thackeray in education, in experience of 
 many men, and in foreign travel. Tom 
 Jones is the begetter of Arthur Pendennis, 
 Jonathan Wild of Barry Lyndon. Some of 
 Fielding's heroines, wandering out of " Tom 
 Jones " and " Amelia," have strayed into 
 " Pendennis," "Vanity Fair," and "The 
 
340 SOME ASPECTS OF THACKERAY 
 
 Newcomes." The fair emigrees change their 
 names, but keep their thoughts and be- 
 havior. 
 
 It is said that a lady once asked Thack- 
 eray why he made all his women fools or 
 knaves. " Madam, I know no others." It 
 may be that living in Paris in his youth hurt 
 his insight into women ; it may be that the 
 great sorrow of his wife's insanity instinc- 
 tively turned his thoughts from the higher 
 types of women ; perhaps his life in Bohemia 
 and in clubs limited his knowledge during 
 the years when novel-writing was his chief 
 occupation. The truth seems to be that 
 Thackeray, like Fielding, was a man's man, 
 — he understood one cross-section of a com- 
 mon man, his hopes, aims, fears, wishes, 
 habits, and manners ; but he was very igno- 
 rant of women. He says: "Desdemona was 
 not angry with Cassio, though there is very 
 little doubt she saw the lieutenant's partial- 
 ity for her (and I, for my part, believe that 
 many more things took place in that sad 
 affair than the worthy Moorish officer ever 
 knew of) ; why, Miranda was even very kind 
 to Caliban, and we may be pretty sure for 
 the same reason. Not that she would en- 
 
SOME ASPECTS OF THACKERAY 341 
 
 courage him in the least, the poor uncouth 
 monster, — of course not." Shakespeare and 
 Thackeray looked differently at women. 
 
 Thackeray lacked the poet's eye ; he could 
 not see and was not troubled. 
 
 c< Ahi quanto nella mente mi commossi, 
 Quando mi volsi per veder Beatrice, 
 Per non poter vedere, ben ch'io f ossi 
 Presso di lei, e nel mondo felice ! " 
 
 But poor Thackeray was never near the ideal, 
 and never in paradise. Some critic has said 
 of him that because he had Eden in his mind's 
 eye, this world appeared a Vanity Fair. No 
 criticism could be more perverted ; he had 
 Vanity Fair in his mind's eye, and therefore 
 could not see paradise. 
 
 This treatment of women is half from 
 sheer ignorance, and half from Thackeray's 
 habit of dealing in caricature with subjects 
 of which he is ignorant. He behaves toward 
 foreign countries very much as he does to- 
 ward women. France, Germany, Italy, ap- 
 pear like geography in an opera bouffe. 
 They are places for English blackguards to 
 go to, and very fit places for them, tenanted 
 as they are by natives clad in outlandish 
 trousers, and bearded and mustachioed like 
 
342 SOME ASPECTS OF THACKERAY 
 
 pards. Of the French he says : " In their 
 aptitude to swallow, to utter, to enact hum- 
 bugs, these French people, from Majesty 
 downwards, beat all the other nations of 
 this earth. In looking at these men, their 
 manners, dresses, opinions, politics, actions, 
 history, it is impossible to preserve a grave 
 countenance ; instead of having Carlyle to 
 write a history of the French Eevolution, I 
 often think it should be handed over to Dick- 
 ens or Theodore Hook. ... I can hardly 
 bring my mind to fancy that anything is 
 serious in France, — it seems to be all rant, 
 tinsel, and stage-play/' His attitude toward 
 French literature is distorted by lack of sym- 
 pathy to an astonishing degree. 
 
 Thackeray's fault was not merely a certain 
 narrowness of mind, but also that he allowed 
 himself to see only the grotesque and disa- 
 greeable, until habit and nature combined to 
 blind him to other things. 
 
 VI 
 
 Thackeray is not a democrat. Democracy, 
 like many another great and vague social 
 conception, is based upon a fundamental 
 truth, of which its adherents are often igno- 
 
SOME ASPECTS OF THACKERAY 343 
 
 rant, although they brush against it in the 
 dark and unwittingly draw in strength for 
 their belief. The fundamental truth of de- 
 mocracy is that the real pleasures of life are 
 increased by sharing them, — that exclusive- 
 ness renders pleasure insipid. One reason 
 why democracy has prevailed so greatly is 
 that everywhere, patent to everybody, in the 
 simplest family life, there is proof of this 
 truth. A man amuses himself skipping 
 stones : the occupation has a pleasure hardly 
 to be detected ; with a wife it is interesting, 
 with children it becomes exciting. Every 
 new sharer adds to the father's stock of de- 
 light, so that at last he lies awake on winter 
 nights thinking of the summer's pleasure. 
 With a slight application of logic, democrats 
 have struggled, and continually do struggle, 
 to break down all the bastions, walls, and 
 fences that time, prejudice, and ignorance 
 have erected between men. They wish to 
 have a ready channel from man to man, 
 through which the emotional floods of life 
 can pour ; 
 
 " For they, at least, 
 Have dream'd [that] human hearts might blend 
 In one, and were through faith released 
 From isolation without end." 
 
344 SOME ASPECTS OF THACKERAY 
 
 The brotherhood of man, however, is not 
 a week-day matter; men are brothers only 
 in brief moments of poetry and enthusiasm; 
 at other times they are unneighborly enough. 
 The course of our civilization (so we are pleased 
 to designate the aggregate of our incivil 
 ways and habits) has helped the separation 
 of man from man, not without excuse. Hu- 
 manity has had a hard task in civilizing itself; 
 in periods of ignorance, ill humor, and hun- 
 ger it has built up a most elaborate system, 
 which has been a great factor in material 
 prosperity. This system is the specialization 
 of labor, which serves to double the necessary 
 differences among men, and to make every 
 specialty and every difference a hindrance to 
 the joys that should be in commonalty spread. 
 The age of machinery has increased special- 
 ization, specialization has increased wealth, 
 wealth is popularly supposed to be the pana- 
 cea for human ills ; and the bars and barriers 
 between men have been repaired and strength- 
 ened. Specialization in Thackeray's time was 
 in the very air ; everything was specialized, — 
 trade was specialized, society was specialized, 
 money was specialized; there was money made, 
 money inherited from father, money inherited 
 
SOME ASPECTS OF THACKERAY 345 
 
 from grandfather, — money, like blood, grow- 
 ing purer and richer the further back it could 
 be traced. Every act of specialization pro- 
 duced a new batch of social relations. 
 
 To this elaborate system of specialization, 
 and to its dividing properties, Thackeray is 
 very sensitive. He has no gift for abstrac- 
 tion ; he does not take a man and grow 
 absorbed in him as a spiritual being, as a 
 creature in relations with some Absolute ; he 
 sees men shut off and shut up in all sorts of 
 little coops. He is all attentive to the coops. 
 The world to him is one vast zoological 
 garden, this Vanity Fair of his. He is not 
 interested in the great concerns of life which 
 make men cleave to one another, but in the 
 different occupations, clothes, habits, which 
 separate them into different groups. A de- 
 mocrat does not care for such classification ; 
 on the contrary, he wishes to efface it as 
 much as possible. He wishes to abstract 
 man from his conditions and surroundings, 
 and contemplate him as a certain quantity of 
 human essence. He looks upon the distinc- 
 tions of rank, of occupation, of customs and 
 habits, as so many barricades upon the great 
 avenues of human emotions ; Napoleon-like, 
 
346 SOME ASPECTS OF THACKERAY 
 
 he would sweep them away. He regards man 
 as a serious reality, and these accidents of so- 
 cial relations as mere shadows passing over. 
 This is the Christian position. This is the at- 
 titude of Victor Hugo, George Eliot, George 
 Sand, Hawthorne, Tourgenef, Tolstoi, Char- 
 lotte Bronte. 
 
 No wonder that Charlotte Bronte made 
 this criticism upon Thackeray's face : " To 
 me the broad brow seems to express intellect. 
 Certain lines about the nose and cheek be- 
 tray the satirist and cynic ; the mouth indi- 
 cates a childlike simplicity, — perhaps even 
 a degree of irresoluteness, inconsistency, — 
 weakness, in short, but a weakness not una- 
 miable. ... A certain not quite Christian 
 expression." This is a true likeness. Thack- 
 eray was not a Christian. He acted upon 
 all the standards which Christianity has pro- 
 claimed to be false for nearly two thousand 
 years. He had a certain childlike simplicity. 
 Some of his best passages proceed upon it. 
 Take the chapters in " Vanity Fair " where 
 Amelia is neglected by Osborne, or the scene 
 at Colonel Newcome's death. These inci- 
 dents are described as they would appear to 
 a child. The impressions seem to have been 
 
SOME ASPECTS OF THACKERAY 347 
 
 dinted on the sensitive, inexperienced mind 
 of a child. This quality is Thackeray's 
 highest. He is able to throw off the dust 
 of years, and see things with the eyes of a 
 child, — not a child trailing glory from the 
 east, but one bred in healthful ignorance. 
 
 Walter Bagehot, in his essay on Sterne 
 and Thackeray, compares the two, and, after 
 describing Sterne's shiftless, lazy life, asks, 
 What can there be in common between him 
 and the great Thackeray, industrious and 
 moral? Bagehot found that the two had 
 sensitiveness in common. There is another 
 likeness, — a certain lack of independence, a 
 swimming with the stream. Thackeray has 
 an element of weakness ; it appears contin- 
 ually in his method of writing novels. He 
 puts his character before you, but he never 
 suffers you to consider it by yourself ; he is 
 nervously suggesting this and that ; he is 
 afraid that you may misjudge what he con- 
 ceives to be his own correct moral standard. 
 He points out how virtuous he really is, how 
 good and noble. He keeps underscoring the 
 badness of his bad people, and the weakness 
 of his weak people. He is like a timid 
 mother, who will not let her brood out of 
 
348 SOME ASPECTS OF THACKERAY 
 
 sight while any one is looking at them. 
 Moreover, his satire never attacks anybody 
 or anything that a man could be found 
 publicly to defend. He charges upon social 
 malefactors who are absolutely defenseless. 
 He belabors brutality, avarice, boorishness, 
 knavery, prevarication, with most resounding 
 thwacks. 
 
 In the year 1847 " Vanity Fair" was pub- 
 lished. Thackeray won great fame as the 
 terrible satirist of society. And what did 
 society do ? Society invited him to dinner, 
 in the correct belief that it and Thackeray 
 agreed at every point. We think that such 
 satire betrays a certain weakness and lack of 
 courage. Did the Jesuits invite Moliere to 
 dinner after "Tartuffe"? 
 
 Thackeray's face had, according to the 
 criticism we have quoted, " a weakness not 
 unamiable." Certainly Thackeray was not 
 unamiable ; he must have been most lovable 
 in many ways. The childlike characteristic 
 to which we have alluded is enough to prove 
 that ; and in chapter after chapter we find 
 evidence of his human kindliness. Take, for 
 example, the passage quoted by Mr. Merivale, 
 in his somewhat pugnacious Life of Thacke- 
 
SOME ASPECTS OF THACKERAY 349 
 
 ray, from Titmarsh's letter on Napoleon's 
 funeral at Les Invalides. Here is a descrip- 
 tion of an English family in three genera- 
 tions, a somewhat foolish family, perhaps, 
 given with some affectation, but perfectly 
 genuine in its sympathy with childish hopes 
 and fears. His books are full of passages of 
 a like character. If further evidence were 
 needed, Mrs. Ritchie's prefaces to this new 
 edition supply it most abundantly. 
 
 VII 
 A novelist, however, in the end, must be 
 judged according to a common human mea- 
 sure. This the novelist, like other men de- 
 voted to special pursuits, resents ; he inter- 
 poses a claim of privilege, and demands a 
 trial by his peers. He claims that as a man 
 he may be judged by Tom, Dick, and Harry, 
 but as a novelist — in that noble and sacro- 
 sanct capacity — he is only within the juris- 
 diction of men acquainted with the difficul- 
 ties and triumphs of his art. This is the 
 old error, — the Manichean heresy of trying 
 to divide the one and indivisible into two. 
 It reminds one of Gibbon's " I sighed as a 
 lover, I obeyed as a son." It is the char- 
 
350 SOME ASPECTS OF THACKERAY 
 
 acter of the novelist that provides tissue for 
 his novels; there is no way by which the 
 novelist can sit like an absentee god and pro- 
 ject into the world a work that tells no tales 
 of him. Every man casts his work in his 
 own image. Only a great man writes a great 
 novel ; only a mean man writes a mean novel. 
 A novel is as purely a personal thing as a 
 handshake, and is to be judged by a simple 
 standard which everybody can understand. 
 
 There has been a foolish confusion of 
 nomenclature, due to the desire of critics to 
 make a special vocabulary for themselves, 
 partly to the end that they may be known 
 to be critics, partly to shut themselves off 
 into a species of the literary genus that shall 
 be judged only by members of the same 
 species. Hence the silly words u idealism " 
 and " realism." Maupassant says : " How 
 childish it is to believe in reality, since each 
 of us carries his own in his mind ! Our eyes, 
 ears, noses, tastes, create as many different va- 
 rieties of truth as there are men in the world. 
 And we who receive the teachings of these 
 senses, affected each in his own way, analyze, 
 judge, and come to our conclusions as if we 
 all were of different races. Each creates an 
 
SOME ASPECTS OF THACKERAY 351 
 
 illusion of the world for himself, poetical, sen- 
 timental, gay, melancholy, ugly, or sad, ac- 
 cording to his nature." This is a correct 
 statement, but it does not go far enough. 
 The world not only looks different to differ- 
 ent people, but, as it is the most delicately 
 plastic and sensitive matter imaginable, it is 
 always tending to become for any commu- 
 nity what the man in that community with the 
 greatest capacity for expression thinks it is. 
 Like an old Polonius, the city, the village, or 
 the household sees the world in shape like 
 a camel, or backed like a weasel or a whale, 
 according as the prince among them thinks. 
 Consider a fashion in criticism or in dress. 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds admired Annibale Car- 
 racci, and all the people who looked at pic- 
 tures, in very truth, saw beautiful pictures by 
 the great, glorious Annibale. A group of 
 dressmakers and ladies of quality in Paris 
 wear jackets with tight sleeves, and every 
 city-bred woman in France, England, and 
 America sees the beauty of tight sleeves and 
 the hideousness of loose sleeves. 
 
 Strictly speaking, everything is real and 
 everything is ideal. The world is but an 
 aggregate of opinions. The man who sees 
 
352 SOME ASPECTS OF THACKERAY 
 
 an ugly world is as pure an idealist as he 
 who sees a glorious orb rising like the sun. 
 The question for poor humanity is, Shall the 
 earth shine or float dead and dull through 
 eternity ? Every man who sees it golden 
 helps to gild it ; every man who sees it leaden 
 adds to its dross. 
 
 Shall we look with Miranda ? 
 
 " O, wonder ! 
 How many goodly creatures are there here ! 
 How beauteous mankind is ! O brave new world, 
 That has such people in 't ! " 
 
 Or with Timon ? 
 
 "All is oblique; 
 There 's nothing level in our cursed natures, 
 But direct villany." 
 
 The novelist is on the same standing-ground 
 as another; only he has the greater influ- 
 ence, and therefore the greater responsibility. 
 This world and all which inherit it are a 
 dream ; " why not make it a nobler dream 
 than it is?" 
 
 Before this great act of creation, the petty 
 details of the novelist's craft — plot, story, 
 arrangement, epigram, eloquence — drop off 
 like last year's leaves. These details will 
 always find individuals to study them, to ad- 
 mire them, to be fond of them. They will 
 
SOME ASPECTS OF THACKERAY 353 
 
 have their reward, they add to the interest 
 of life, they fill the vacant niches in the rich 
 man's time, they embroider and spangle. 
 They quicken our wits, stimulate our lazy 
 attentions, spice our daily food, help us to 
 enjoy; but they must not divert our attention 
 from the great interest of life, the struggle 
 between rival powers for the possession of the 
 world. It is a need common to us and to 
 those who shall come after us, that the world 
 suffer no detriment in our eyes. We must 
 see what poets see ; one cannot help but dog- 
 matize and say that it is base to believe the 
 world base. We need faith ; we cannot do 
 without the power of noble expectation. 
 
 " Is that Hope Faith, that lives in thought 
 On comforts which this world postpones, 
 That idly looks on life and groans 
 And shuns the lessons it has taught ; 
 
 " Which deems that after threescore years, 
 
 Love, peace, and joy become its due, 
 
 That timid wishes should come true 
 
 In some safe spot untouched by fears ? 
 
 " Or has he Faith who looks on life 
 
 As present chance to prove his heart, 
 As time to take the better part, 
 And stronger grow by constant strife ; 
 
f 
 
 713 
 
 354 SOME ASPECTS OF THACKERAY 
 
 " Who does not see the mean, the base, 
 But sees the strong, the fresh, the true, 
 Old hearts, old homes forever new, 
 And all the world a glorious place ; 
 
 " So bent that they he loves shall find 
 This earth a home both good and fair, 
 That he is careless to be heir 
 To all inheritance behind ? " 
 
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