ders in the
thirteenth
century.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v30 - Guide to Systematic Readings
Her husband is aunt, Madame de Neuillant; or as wife
a sanctimonious tyrant who has crushed of the crippled poet of burlesque, Paul
out whatever love she may once have Scarron; or in her subsequent glory,-
felt for him. M. Trembloz is simple- she is a shrewd utilitarian, making the
hearted, but gifted with marvelous elo- best of her present, and concerning her-
quence; sees that sh suffers; he self little with the future. She success-
understands her, and it is only a ques- fully serves two masters, and by clever
tion of a few meetings when they find scheming and religious devotion lays up
themselves deeply in love. But like the treasure both in this world and in the
mythical lovers. of the White Rocks, next. Her friends have declared her to
they resolve to meet no more. Unfor- be an angel of goodness; her enemies
tunately, their secret is discovered and have accused her of great deceit and im-
reported to M. de Bussens, who charges morality.
Both were wrong.
She was
her with unfaithfulness. She confesses not passionate enough to be wicked, and
that she loves the pastor. Her husband her head always governed her heart.
is implacable, and sends her away, de- "A wish to stand well with the world,
priving her of their charming son Mau- and win its esteem, was her master pas-
rice, who loves her and is desperately sion;" and her other chief preoccupation
afraid of his father.
with spiritual affairs, which she
M. Rod raises the eternal question of treats as a sort of prudent investment,
what shall be done with incompatible - a preparation against a rainy day,
marriage, but makes no attempt to cut which only the thoughtless could neglect. ”
the Gordian knot. The petty society of Her ruling characteristics were tact and
a Swiss provincial town is graphically good sense. They showed her how to
depicted; but perhaps the cleverest por- make herself agreeable, and how to
trait in the book is the keen, ambitious serve other people; and thus she gained
Madame Trembloz, the mother of the the popularity she craved.
pastor, who in her way is as much of a
tyrant as is M. de Bussens in his. The
Barber of Seville, The, by Pierre Au-
episode of the young girl, Rose Char- gustin Caron (who later assumed
mot, who is brought before the directors the nomme de guerre Beaumarchais »),
of the Orphan Asylum and charged with appeared in 1775 as a five-act French
having gone astray, brings to light all comedy. It is the first of the Figaro
the narrowness of the self-righteous and trilogy, the later plays being the Mar-
Pharisaical spirit rampant in such a pro- riage of Figaro) and the 'Guilty Mother. '
vincial town, and forms a background The whole drift of the Barbier,) as of
for the nobleness of the pastor and the Mariage, is a satirization of the
Madame de Bussens, who alone take the privileged classes, from the political and
part. The story is written in a «rights-of-man” point of view rather
fascinating style.
than from that of the social moralist.
was
## p. 308 (#344) ############################################
308
SYNOPSES OF NOTED BOOKS
The plays proved to be formidable polit- brother of the charlatanism of his doc-
ical engines.
tors and the selfish designs of his wife.
Full of sparkling, incisive, and direct Argan is deaf to all reason; but to
dialogue, eminently artistic as a piece please his brother, asks the apothecary
of dramatic construction, yet lacking the to defer the administering of an in-
high literary merit which characterizes jection. Purgon is indignant at this
some of the author's other work, the (Bar- «crime of Lèse Faculté,” and to Ar-
bier,' the embodiment of Beaumarchais's gon's great despair, declines to treat
vivacious genius, lives to the world in its him longer. Toinette, a servant-girl,
leading character, Figaro the inimitable. disguised as a traveling physician, es-
The simple plot follows the efforts and amines into his case, and tells him
(useless precautions) of Bartholo, tutor the diagnosis of Purgon was entirely
and guardian of Rosine,-a coquettish erroneous. In her proper character she
beauty loved by Count Almaviva, - to defends Béline, and to prove to Bé-
prevent his pupil-ward from marrying, for ralde that his opinion of her is false,
he himself loves her. But Bartholo is out- asks Argon to counterfeit death. He
witted, though with difficulty, by younger does so, and learns the true character
and more adroit gallants, whose schemes of his wife and Angélique's love for
form the episodes of the comedy. Don him.
Basilio, an organist and Rosine's teacher He consents to her marriage with
of singing, is the typical calumniator, Cléante, with the proviso that he shall
operating by covert insinuation rather become a physician. Béralde suggests
than by open disparagement. Figaro is, that Argan himself become one, assur-
as the title indicates, a barber of Seville, ing him that with the bonnet and
where the action is laid, though the play gown come Latin and knowledge. He
has an air unmistakably French. He is consents, and by a crowd of carnival
presented as a master in cunning, dexter- masqueraders is made a member of the
ity, and intrigue, never happier than when Faculty. To the questions as to what
he has several audacious plots on hand. treatment is necessary in several cases,
«Perpetually witty, inexhaustibly ingen- he replies: «Injection first, blood-letting
ious, perennially gay,” says Austin Dob- next, purge next. ” He takes the oaths
son, “he is pre-eminently the man of his to obey the laws of the Faculty, to be
country, the irrepressible mouthpiece of in all cases of the ancient opinion,
the popular voice, the cynical and incor- be it good or bad, and to use only the
rigible laugher
who opposes to
remedies prescribed by the Faculty,
rank, prescription, and prerogative, noth- even though his patient should die of
ing but his indomitable audacity or his his illness. It was when responding
sublime indifference. ”
"Juro” (I swear), to one of these ques-
Malade
lade Imaginaire, Le, by Molière. tions, that Molière attacked by
This comedy is in three acts, and a fit of coughing, causing the rupture
was first produced in Paris in 1673. It of a blood-vessel, from the effects of
was the last work of the author; and which he died a few hours later.
in it, as Argan, he made his last ap-
pearance
the stage. Argan, who Av
vare, L' (The Miser) one of the most
imagines himself ill, is completely un- famous of Molière's prose comedies,
der the dominion of Monsieur Purgon first produced September 9th, 1668. It
his physician. By his advice, he wishes is founded on the (Aulularia) of Plautus
to marry his daughter Angélique to (which see above), and was paraphrased
Thomas Diafoirus, a young booby, just by Fielding in his comedy of The Miser. )
graduated as a doctor. Béline, his sec- Harpagon, a sexagenarian miser who in-
ond wife, wishes him to oblige both carnates the spirit of avarice, has deter-
of his daughters to become nuns, that mined to marry a young woman named
she may inherit his property. Angé- Mariane, who lives in obscure poverty
lique is at first pleased, thinking that he with her invalid mother. He has likewise
wishes her to marry Cléante with whom determined to bestow the hand of his own
she is in love. Argan insists upon the daughter Elise upon Anselme, a friend
marriage with Thomas, whose studied or- and companion of his own age, who has
atorical speeches entirely captivate him.
consented to take her without a dot or
Béralde, the brother of Argan, pleads marriage portion. But the young women
for Cléante, and tries to convince his prefer to choose their own lovers. Har-
.
(
was
on
## p. 309 (#345) ############################################
SYNOPSES OF NOTED BOOKS
309
pagon's son, Cléante, is the favored suitor des Débats, the preceding year, the author
of Mariane. Valère is desperately smit- makes this reference to it: _«In my work
ten with Elise, and for the purpose of upon the "Genius of Christianity, or the
wooing her has introduced himself into Beauties of the Christian Religion,' a cer-
the Harpagon household under the guise tain portion is devoted exclusively to the
of the house-steward. Harpagon's dear- poesy of Christianity;
the work
est possession is a casket containing ten is terminated by a story extracted from
thousand francs, which he has buried in my Travels in America,' and written
his garden, and with which his thoughts beneath the very huts of the savages. It
are ever occupied. La Flêche, a valet, is entitled Atala. ))) Atala) is an extrav-
discovers the chest. Harpagon's despair agant and artificial but beautiful romance
and fury, the complications ensuing, and of two lovers, ---a young Indian brave,
the distentanglement necessary to a suc- Chactas (i. e. , Choctaw), and an Indian
cessful stage ending, are given with all maiden, Atala. Châteaubriand drew his
Molière's inexhaustible verve and humor. conception of Chactas -a savage, half
civilized by contact with European culture
Alzire, a well-known tragedy, by Vol-
- from the tradition of an Indian chief,
taire. The time is the sixteenth cen- who, having been a galley-slave at Mar-
tury. Montèze, the native king of a part seilles, was afterwards liberated and pre-
of Potosi, has, with his daughter Alzire sented to Louis XIV. The pivot of the
and a large number of American Indians, romance is the power of Christianity to
fallen into the power of Guzman, the subdue the wildest passions of man. Atala,
Spanish governor of Peru. The Spaniard a Christian, has taken the vow of vir-
falls in love with Alzire, who has become ginity by the death-bed of her mother.
a Christian. Having been betrothed to Afterwards she finds herself in love with
an Indian chief now believed to be dead, Chactas, who has been taken prisoner by
she hesitates to marry the governor, but
her tribe. She aids him to escape, and
is persuaded by her father, and by Alvares together they roam through the pathless
the father of Guzman. After the mar- forests of the New World surrounded by
riage, Zamore, her first lover, reappears luxuriant nature, haunted by the genius of
among a crowd of prisoners. His fury the wilderness, the genius of productive
becomes uncontrollable when he learns life. Chactas would fain be one with na-
that Guzman, who has already wrested ture in his abandonment to instinct; but
from him everything else he valued, - Atala, although she is consumed with love
power, wealth, and liberty,- has now de- for him, is obedient to what she believes
prived him of his betrothed. In vain to be a higher law. In a great tempest
does Alzire ontrive the captive's escape.
of lightning and rain they lose their way,
He will not fly without her. In disguise being found and sheltered by a pious
he penetrates to the chamber of his en- hermit, Father Aubrey, who takes them
emy, and mortally wounds him.
Both to his cave. Atala tells him the story of
Alzire and Alvares seek to save him, but her vow, and of her temptation. He re-
cannot unless he adopts Christianity. He plies that she may be released, but his
refuses; but when his rival Guzman says, assurance comes too late. She has taken
«Your God has enjoined on you vengeance a poison, that she may become death's
and murder: mine commands me to pity bride ere she has given herself to an-
and forgive my murderer,” he is over- other. The hermit fills her last hours
come, and makes a profession of faith. with the comfort of his ministrations, and
Dying, Guzman unites the lovers. This she departs reconciled and soothed. Chac-
play is often rated as Voltaire's dramatic tas carries her in his arms to the grave
masterpiece. In elegance of diction, in prepared by the hermit, the wind blow-
picturesqueness and vigor of conception, ing her long hair back against his face.
it leaves little to be desired. The dram- Together they leave her to her sleep in
atist's intention was to contrast the noble the wilderness. Atala, despite its arti-
but imperfect virtues of the natural man ficiality, retains its charm to this day.
with those of the man trained under the Châteaubriand's savages are Europeans,
influences of Christianity and civilization. his forests are in Arcadia; nevertheless
the narrative has a fascination which
Atala, a romance of the American wil. gives it a place among the fairy-tales of
derness, by Châteaubriand, was pub- fiction, – due not only to its charm of
lished in 1801. In a letter in the Journal | style but its noble elevation of thought.
## p. 310 (#346) ############################################
310
SYNOPSES OF NOTED BOOKS
published in 1816, the third in 1619, and René, by François Auguste Château-
Ast
strea ('L'Astrée), a famous French works of fiction, it lives only in the limbo
novel, is in five volumes. The first of the forgotten.
volume appeared in 1609, the second was
briand, published separately in 1807.
in 1627 his posthumous notes and man-
(René) and Atala) are the fruits of
uscripts were compiled into the fourth
Chateaubriand's American travels, and
and fifth volumes, and published by his
they abound in the exquisite descrip-
secretary Baro. Probably no other novel
tion of natural scenery for which he is
was ever so successful, all cultivated Eu-
noted.
rope being enthusiastic over it for many (René, an episode of the prose epic
years. The period is the fourth century.
Les Natchez,' is in effect a monologue of
Céladon, a shepherd, lover of the beautiful
the young European of that name, who
shepherdess Astrea, lives in the enchanted
has fled to the New World and its soli-
land of Foreste. While their marriage tudes; and who relates to his adopted
awaits parental sanction, a jealous shep-
father Chactas, and the French mission-
herd persuades Astrea that Céladon loves
Aminthe. She therefore angrily repulses
ary Father Souël, his previous life and
the causes of his self-exile. Seated under
him. Céladon throws himself into the
a great tree in the haunts of the Natchez
river Lignon, and Astrea faints on the
Indians, of whose tribe Chactas is a
bank. Her parents sorrow so bitterly chief, the young man tells his listeners
over her grief that both soon die. As-
the story of his boyhood, and his rest-
trea may now weep unreservedly with-
out being suspected of mourning for
less wanderings from land to land in
search of mental peace. He has passed
Céladon. But Céladon lives. He has
through ancient countries and modern,
been succored by the Princess Galatea
has studied humanity in its earliest
and her attendant nymphs, taken to court,
monuments and in the life of his own
and tenderly cared for. Thence he es-
day, and finding no satisfaction in any
capes to
a gloomy cavern, where he
phase of life, has remained long in for-
spends his time bewailing Astrea. Meet-
est solitudes, - only to meet there thoughts
ing a friendly shepherd, he sends a letter
of death.
to the most beautiful shepherdess in the
He tells further how he was rescued
world. » Astrea at once sets out to find
from this temptation by the love of his
him. Thus the story rambles on, a long,
sister Amélie, who came to him and led
inconsequent sequence of descriptions,
his mind back to life, then disappeared
adventures, and moral reflections. War
breaks out in Foreste. Céladon, who,
from his sight forever in the living
death of a convent, where she hid a
disguised as a druidess, has become As-
trea's friend is with her taken prisoner,
heart oppressed by a feeling for René
too strong for her peace. The tragedy
but both escape. At last he reveals him-
of his sister's confession has driven René
self, but is repulsed. Once more he re-
to these wildernesses.
solves to die; all the characters accom-
The episodes of René and Atala are
panying him to the Fountain of Truth,
whose guardian lions devour hypocrites
beautiful in melody and description, but
and defend the virtuous. They spare
inevitably unreal in their suggestions of
Indian life and character. As a kind of
him; and Astrea, looking into the truth-
compromise between the forms of prose
revealing water, is at last convinced of
his fidelity. Everybody is a model of
and poetry, the whole work is perhaps
virtue, and the story ends with a gen-
less thoroughly satisfactory than would
eral marriage fête. Whether L'Astrée)
be an equally fine attempt in either
requires a key is not important. Euric
department of literature.
may have been Henri IV. , Céladon and
AT
drienne Lecou vreur, a play by Scribe
Astrea other names for D'Urfé and his and Légouvé, which first appeared
wife Diane; but probably the story is in 1849, possesses witty dialogue and
fanciful. Its charm lies in its pastoral strong dramatic situations. The scene is
setting, and its loftily romantic concep- laid in Paris, in March 1730, Maurice,
tion of love. It is a day-dream, which Count de Saxe, a former admirer of the
solaced the soldier-author himself. The Princess de Bouillon, now loves and is
story is written in straightforward, fluent loved by Adrienne Lecouvreur, a beau-
French, and is full of sentir ent and in-
actress of the Comédie Française;
genuity; but like so many other immortal whonot knowing his real name and
## p. 311 (#347) ############################################
SYNOPSES OF NOTED BOOKS.
311
rank, believes him a poor soldier of for-
tune. Though the action resulting from
this mistake occupies the space of two
days only, it is very complicated; yet
the unity of the play is vividly clear,
and the strongly contrasted characters
stand out with great distinctness, while
the dialogue is epigrammatic and full of
power.
nature as anything in literature. The
fashionable people who recognized them-
selves under their Roman disguises were
charmed with Mademoiselle de Scudé-
ri's skill as a portrait-painter. The work
marks the transition from the era of
Montaigne to that of Corneille; and as
such may, to some extent, be considered
epoch-making.
Clélie,
a romance in ten volumes by
Mademoiselle de Scudéri. The name
Od Number, The, an English trans-
of her brother figured on the title-pages lation by Jonathan Sturgis, of thir-
of the first volumes; but the secret of teen stories by Guy de Maupassant,
the authorship having been discovered, appeared in 1889. Each tale is an ad-
her name replaced it. It would be diffi- mirable example of the literary art
cult to summarize the incidents of this which made Maupassant the acknowl-
once famous production. The subject is edged master of the short story. All
the siege of Rome after the expulsion of show an acute realization of the irony
Tarquin the Proud. The heroine is the of life, and are written in a pessi-
young Roman girl who was a bostage mistic strain. The unerring choice of
of Porsena, and swam across the Tiber words, the exquisite precision of the
under a shower of arrows from the
descriptive touches, carry home the sens-
Etruscan army. Lucretia, Horatius, Mu- ation which Maupassant wished to con-
cius Scævola, Brutus, and all the heroes vey. Many kinds of life are revealed.
of the young republic, are actors in the In The Piece of ing,' we have
drama; and all are desperately in love, the petty shrewdness, thrift, and obsti-
and spend most of their time in asking nacy, of the Norman peasant. Maitre
questions and solving riddles that have Hanchecorne, on his way to the mar-
a serious connection with love, and espe- ket-place, is seen to pick up something
cially with a very mysterious species of from the ground and thrust it into his
gallantry, according to the taste of the pocket. Thereupon he is accused of
time in which it was written. They stealing a missing purse. His find was
draw maps of love on the noted country only a bit of string; but neither his
of Tendre. We see the river of Incli- guilt nor innocence can be proved, and
nation, on its right bank the villages of he rests under the imputation all his
Jolis-Vers and Epîtres Galantes, and days. In time he himself is almost per-
its left those of Complaisance, Petits- suaded of his guilt.
Soins, and Assiduities. Further on are (La Mère Sauvage) is a study of the
the hamlets of Abandon and Perfidie. primitive passions of
old peasant
By following the natural twists and woman, who, learning that her son has
turns of the river, the lover will have been killed by the Prussians in battle,
a pretty fair chance of arriving at the avenges him by burning to death the
city of Tendre sur-Estime; and should he four kindly young Prussians who have
be successful, it will then be his own been quartered upon her.
fault if he do not reach the city of (The Necklace) is a picture of bour-
Tendre-sur-Inclination. The French crit- geois life.
Monsieur Loisel, a petty
ics of the present century do not ac- official, and his pretty young wife, are
cept Boileau's sweeping condemnation of honored with an invitation to an offi-
Clélie; they consider that the work cial reception. On their return, Madame
which excited the admiration of Madame Loisel loses the diamond necklace which
de Sévigné and Madame de La Fayette she has borrowed from her rich friend,
has merits that fully justify their ad- Madame Forestier. Without mentioning
miration. The manners and language the loss, they make it good, thus in-
assigned the Roman characters in the curring a debt which burdens the rest
romance are utterly ridiculous and gro- of their lives. It takes ten years to
tesque; but if we consider the Romans pay it; and they become inured to
as masks behind which the great lords work and poverty, and prematurely old.
and ladies of the time simper and bab- Meeting Madame Forestier one day,
ble, its pictures of life are
an
Madanie Loisel tells her the whole
as true to
## p. 312 (#348) ############################################
SYNOPSES OF NOTED BOOKS
a
312
story. "My poor Mathilde! ) says her this and other dramatic pieces by Maeter-
friend, «My necklace was paste, worth linck has been made by Richard Hovey.
at most five hundred francs. ” There
is something poignant about the con-
En Route, a novel, by J. K. Huysman,
tinual revelation of needless pain in is Kegan The
these tales; but their brilliancy, their author, whose literary career began in
vividness, their admirable art, and un- 1875, has devoted himself largely to
erring sense of values,” will long com- what may be termed a kind of brutal
pel a hearing for them.
mysticism. His works Marthe,' Les
Sæurs Vatard,' and (En Ménage,' deal
Lior
ion of Flanders, The, by Hendrik largely with themes that are sordid and
Conscience, published in 1838. In scarred with hatred and ugliness, as if
this Flemish historical romance, among his mission were mainly to portray la
the best he has written, the author deals bêtise de l'humanite. » A morbid de-
with one of the mos glorious episodes light in what is corrupt leads to
in his country's history; the expulsion of corrupt mysticism. What is known as
the armies of Philip le Bel in the thir- Satanism finds its extreme expression
teenth century from Flemish soil by a in his novel (La-Bas. ) It is a (surfeit
rising of the common people. His hero of supernaturalism producing a mental
is Robert de Bethune, the Lion of nausea. ” En Route) depicts the reli-
Flanders"); whose father, Guy de Dam- gious » conversion of a young debauché
pierre, had incurred the enmity of his of Paris, Dartal by name,-a character
French suzerain by siding with the Eng- who first appears in La-Bas. ) He is
lish king.
The story opens with a stir- blasé, empty of motives of capacity for
ring picture of the turbulence and fury pleasure or endeavor. He takes to vis-
of the Flemings on learning of the ap- iting the churches; feels a certain spell
proach of the French army. Conscience produced by the ritual and music; and
shows in this novel that he was a close at length, drawn into the monastic re-
student of Sir Walter Scott. He has a treat of La Trappe, he becomes a con-
thorough knowledge of the manners as vert to religion, and dwells with delight
well as of the history of the period in and much fine analysis on his experi-
which its scenes are laid, and he has
ence of a kind of ecstasy of restraints,
been entirely successful in giving a a «frenzy of chastity. ” The story is
faithful and lifelike conception of Flan- autobiographic: the history of a soul.
ders in the thirteenth century.
It abounds in passages of great brill-
iancy and beauty; and in some of the
Blind, The (Les Aveugles”), by Mau- meditations on the inner meaning of the
rice Maeterlinck, the young Belgian ritual, and the effect of the music of
poet-dramatist, is a play of symbolism, the church, his interpretations will meet
which, like the earlier (The Intruder, with a very sympathetic response from
is one of the writer's best-known and
many readers.
His description of the
most striking works. It is an eerie kind
Breviary is a splendid piece of writing.
of allegory. On an island, in a mystic The book may be called a faithful ae-
norland wood, under the night stars, sit count of the ritualistic disease," as it
a company of blind folk, men and wo- affects the French mind. "It was not
men, under the guidance of an old priest so much himself advancing into the un-
returned from the dead. They grope
known, as the unknown surrounding,
about in a maze and query as to their penetrating, possessing him little by
location and destiny, - a strange, striking little. ” He closes suddenly with his en-
effect being produced by the grewsome tering into the (night obscure” of the
setting of the scene and the implication mystics. It is inexpressible. Nothing
of the words, through which the reader can reveal the anguish necessary to pass
gathers that this is a symbolic picture through to enter this mystic knowledge. ”
of life, in which mankind wanders with- The soul of the writer seems to think
out faith or sight in the forest of ignor- aloud in the pages of his book; he
ance and unfaith, depending upon frankly portrays his condition: (too
priesteraft that is defunct, and knowing much writer to become a monk; too
naught of the hereafter. The poetry and much monk to remain a writer. ” The
humanity of this picture-play are very reader remains in bt, after all
strong. A good English translation of whither the hero of the book is en route.
»
a
as
## p. 313 (#349) ############################################
SYNOPSES OF NOTED BOOKS
313
G"
hosts, a powerful play by Henrik head of the so-called school of natural-
Ibsen (1881), gives dramatic em- ism, has carried his theories farther than
bodiment to the modern realization of any of his disciples. In 1869 he began
heredity. Ibsen, treating this subject his task,- a study in hereditary influ-
on its tragic side, considers the case of ence, with a complete genealogical tree,
the darker passions as they are handed and a plan for twenty novels, - from
down from father to son. The fatalistic which very little variation is seen when
atmosphere of "Ghosts) resembles that of the series is completed twenty-two years
a Greek drama. It is a Greek tragedy after. Beginning with the Coup d'État
translated into the littleness and barren- in 1852, he ends his series with the
ness of modern life.
downfall of Napoleon III. , adding Doc-
Oswald Alving, the son of a dissipated, tor Pascal, which is a résumé of the
worthless father, has been brought up series. With the ancestors whom the
by his mother in ignorance of his dead author chooses for his characters we
parent's shame. Yet he has within him should perhaps expect that animal pas-
the seeds of a transmitted disease, - the sion would be the motive of most of
evil sown by a previous generation. He these novels; but one must charge M.
has gone into the world to make a name Zola with poor judgment or a departure
for himself, but he is forced to return to from the scientific spirit, when he places
his mother's home. He drinks to excess, a character, which by his own deduc-
and he exhibits tendencies to other more tions seems to show no trace of the
dangerous vices. His wretched mother family lesion, in La Terre, the
sees in him the ghost of his father; she coarsest one of the series — for Macquart
sees the old hateful life clothed in the is the most decent of the entire com-
form of the boy she has reared so care- munity. Whatever may have been the
fully. He himself feels the poison work- author's intention, the general public
ing in his veins. The play closes upon does not read his books as a study in
the first sign of his incipient madness. heredity. Each one is complete in itself;
In this drama, the mother, Mrs. Alving, and while in 1896 the first novel of the
is the type of the new woman in revolt series had reached a sale of only 31,000
against the hideous lies of society, be- copies, there had been sold
113,000
cause she has suffered through them. copies of La Terre, 176,000 of Nana,'
She is learning to think for herself; to and 187,000 of La Débâcle. ) The first
weigh social morality in the balances. to appear was La Fortune des Rou-
Her adviser, Pastor Manders, has been gons' (The Rougon Family: 1871). Ad-
called the consummate flower of con- elaide Fouqué, whose father was insane,
ventional morality. ” He is a type of was married in 1786 to Rougon, a dull,
the world's cautiousness and policy in easy-going gardener. After her hus-
matters ethical; of that world's disposi- band's death she had two illegitimate
tion to cover up or refuse to see the children, Antoine and Ursule, by Mac-
sins of society. He is of those who quart, a drunkard and a smuggler. The
make of marriage a talisman to juggle offspring of the marriage was Pierre
Rougon. By chicanery, Rougon obtains
(Ghosts) is perhaps the most remark- possession of the property, sells it, and
able of Ibsen's dramas in its search- through marriage with a daughter of a
ing judgment, its recognition of terrible merchant, enters into an old business
fact, its logical following of the merci- firm. Ursule is married to an honest
less logic of nature.
workman named Mouret; and Antoine,
who inherits his father's appetite for
Rouge
ougon-Macquart, Les, by Émile Zola. drink, marries a market-woman, also in-
There is perhaps no literary work temperate.
of the last part of the century that has (La Curée ) (Rush for the Spoil: 1872)
caused so much comment as this series is a study of the financial world of Paris
of twenty novels, relating the natural at the time Haussmann laid out the
and social history of a family under the boulevards. Aristide, son of Pierre, who
Second Empire. It is a phenomenon that has changed his name to Saccard, be-
cannot be ignored in a history of litera- comes immensely wealthy by political
ture, not only because of the variety of intrigue, - acting as straw-man for the
subjects treated, but from the fact that
government in the purchase of the prop-
the author, being the acknowledged erty needed to lay out the new boule-
away vice.
## p. 314 (#350) ############################################
314
SYNOPSES OF NOTED BOOKS
is the family representative. There are
fine descriptions of Paris seen from a
height, varying with the spiritual phases
of the characters.
Nana' (1880). A study of the life
of a courtesan and actress. Nana is
the daughter of Gervaise and the drunk-
ard Coupeau. She grows up in the
streets and disreputable haunts until she
comes under the notice of a theatre
manager. Her great physical beauty
attracts men of all classes, and none
resist her. The grandest names
soiled; and those who do not leave
with her their fortunes, leave their honor
or their life. The greatest fortunes are
dissipated by her, and yet at her door
is heard the continual ring of the cred-
itor. She contracts the black smallpox,
and dies deserted and wretched. The
description of her
her appearance
after
death is a shocking contrast to the pict-
of voluptuousness in the other
are
ures
scenes.
vards. He is helped by his elder brother
Eugène, who has entered political life.
La Conquête de Plassans) (The Con-
quest of Plassans: 1874). The struggle
for the control of a village in which the
Abbé Faujas obtains complete ascend-
ency over Marthe Rougon, who is mar-
ried to François Mouret. The latter,
accused of insanity, is placed in an asy-
lum, and finally becomes insane. Escap-
ing, he sets fire to his house, destroying
himself and the abbé therein.
(Le Ventre de Paris, (The Markets
of Paris; or, Fat and Thin: 1875). Lisa
Macquart is the member of the family
who, as a market-woman, furnishes op-
portunity for a detailed study of the
markets. Zola looks upon this work as
a sort of modern Iliad, the song of the
eternal battle between the lean of this
world and the fat. Of this book a
prominent critic said that he had been
able to read it only by holding his nose.
(La Faute de l'Abbé Mouret (The
Abbé's Temptation: 1875). A study of
the clergy, religious life, and mysticism,
in which Serge Mouret is the leading
character. It is almost needless to say
that the abbé does not resist tempta-
tion; but by repentance he is able later
to perform, with little perturbation, the
burial service over the woman he had
loved.
"Son Excellence Eugène Rougon) (His
Excellency Eugène Rougon: 1876). A
story of political life, in which are real-
istic descriptions of the Imperial Court,
of the functions of Prime Minister (Rou-
gon) and his cabinet, and a careful pen
picture of Napoleon III. , his manners
and customs.
L'Assommoir) (Drink: 1877). A
story of life among the workmen of
Paris, and of the killing effect which the
cheap drinking-shop has on them. Ger-
vaise, the daughter of Antoine, is the
character around whom the scenes re-
volve. It was this work which brought
Zola his reputation and fortune.
Une Page d'Amour) (A Love Epi-
sode: 1878). A physical and psycho-
logical study of the various phases of
a woman's passion. The struggle is
between her love for her child and her
passion for a doctor who has saved the
child's life. The night on which she
cedes herself to the doctor, the child,
looking from an open window for her
return, contracts a sickness from which
it dies. Hélène, the daughter of Ursule,
(Pot-Bouille) (Piping Hot: 1882). A
study of the life of the bourgeoisie.
Octave, the son of François Mouret,
comes to Paris determined to make his
fortune through women's love for him.
A study of life in the tenement flats,
where the skeletons of the different
family closets are made to dance for
our amusement, to the music of the
servants' quarrels ascending from the
kitchens.
(Au Bonheur des Dames) (The La-
dies' Paradise: 1883). A study of the
mammoth department stores. Octave,
by his marriage with the widow He-
douin, and her subsequent death, be-
proprietor of the shop.
A
description is given of the growth of
the business, of the struggle for exist-
by the smaller stores and of
their being swallowed up by the giant,
and of the entire routine of a great
comes
ence
store.
a
(La Joie de Vivre) (How Jolly Life
Is! ). Pauline Quenu, the daughter of
Lisa, is a foil to the character of Nana:
woman of well-balanced mind, giv-
ing up her lover to her friend, and
upon their separation, taking their child
and becoming its true mother. Always
triumphant and smiling, she is
sacrificing herself to the selfish, whin-
ing egoism of those who surround her.
(Germinal) (Master and Man: 1885).
A study of life in the mines. The
illegitimate son of Gervaise, Étienne
ever
## p. 315 (#351) ############################################
SYNOPSES OF NOTED BOOKS
315
wealth, starts the “Banque Universelle »
for the exploitation of different schemes
in the Orient. A description is given
of the unscrupulous methods employed
to float great schemes. Saccard's bank
becomes the leading institution of the
stock exchange. Subscriptions pour in
by the million, - widows, orphans, and
millionaires fighting to get the shares;
and Saccard is the financial ruler, rolling
in wealth and luxury. Then comes the
struggle with the bears, the final de-
feat, and the ruin of the investors.
(La Débâcle) (The Downfall: 1892).
A study of the Franco-Prussian War and
the Siege of Paris. Napoleon III. again
enters on the scene, in the most degrad-
ing and belittling position imaginable.
Jean Macquart is the hero of the tale.
"Le Docteur Pascal' (1892). Pascal
Rougon, son of Pierre, has collected all
the data relating to his family, and
sums up their history. Adelaide Fouqué
is insane; Eugène, a deputy to Congress;
Saccard, an editor; Octave, a successful
merchant; Jean Macquart, married again
and father of a healthy family. Doctor
Pascal diagnoses his own mortal disease,
hour by hour; and as he feels the last
moment approaching, jumps from his
bed, adds the date and cause of his
death to the genealogical tree, as well
as the birth of his illegitimate child by
his niece, in the words, “Unknown child
to be born in 1894. What will it be ? )))
Lanier, a socialist, is forced to work
in the mines. Low wages and fines
cause a strike, of which Lanier is one
of the leaders. He counsels modera-
tion; but hunger drives the miners to
desperation, and force is met by force.
Several are killed, Lanier is deported,
and the miners fall back into their old
slavery. This work is generally con-
sidered to be the author's best.
(L'Euvre) (Labor: 1886). A study
of artist life. Claude Lanier, illegiti-
mate son of Gervaise, a painter with a
vivid power of conception, lacking the
power of execution; and, in despair of
attaining his ideal, hangs himself before
an unfinished picture.
(La Terre) (The Soil: 1888). A study
of peasant life and the greed for land; a
greed which causes hatred between sis-
ters, neglect of parents, and ends in the
murder of Jean Macquart's wife by her
sister. This story abounds in vulgarity,
and the brutish instincts of the peasants
make them lower than the beasts that
surround them. It has aroused
opposition than any other of his works.
(Le Rêve) (The Dream: 1888). This
has been likened to a fairy story; and it
is said Zola wrote it in deference to the
sentiment against his admission to the
Academy, to show that his strength did
not wholly lie in «realism. ” Angelique,
the illegitimate daughter of Sidonie
Rougon, is placed in a foundling asy-
lum, and adopted by a family whose
occupation is the making of church vest-
ments. She dreams of her prince, who
soon presents himself in the person of a
painter of church windows, who is really
the son of a bishop who took orders
after his wife's death. He opposes his
son's marriage to a woman of the lower
classes; but consents when called to ad-
minister the last sacrament to Angelique,
and she dies in her husband's arms.
(La Bête Humaine) (Human Brutes:
1890). A study of railway life, in which
Jacques Lanier, a locomotive engineer,
inherits the family lesion in the form
of a maniacal desire to murder women.
There is a stirring description of
struggle on a moving locomotive be-
tween Lanier and his drunken fireman,
in which both are precipitated under the
wheels, and the express train is left to
drive along without check.
( L'Argent) (Money: 1891). A study
of stock speculation and “wild-cat» com-
panies. Aristide Saccard, having lost his
more
Salammbo,. . . by
Gustave Flaubert.
(1864. ) This historical romance was
the fruit of M. Flaubert's visit to the
ruins of old Carthage, and is a kind of
revivification of the ancient capital and
its people. The scenes testify to the
great erudition of the author, but critics
complain that the picture has too little
perspective. All is painted with equal
brilliance -matter essential and unes-
sential.
The sacred garment of Tanit is made
the object around which the action re-
volves; and the fate of Carthage is
bound up in the preservation of this
vestment within her walls. The central
point of the story is the boundless pas-
sion of Matho, a common soldier among
the mercenaries, for Salammbô, the
beautiful daughter of the great Hamil-
car; and the fate of the vestment of
Tanit continually overshadows the fate
of his love. By a mad act of daring,
he gets possession
of the carefully
a
## p. 316 (#352) ############################################
316
SYNOPSES OF NOTED BOOKS
school somewhat like the Dotheboys
Hall made famous by Dickens, until his
final release from a bed in the char-
ity hospital. He becomes dull, sickly,
inert; but his finer qualities die hard,
and are perhaps only latent even during
his worst days of labor in an iron foun-
dry, and of fevered exhaustion as stoker
on an ocean steamer. But life never
becomes quite hopeless; for love and
sympathy reach even to Jack, and offer
him a partial compensation. After the
publication of Jack, Daudet wrote a
sketch of the original of the hero; for in
its main outline the story is a true one.
Here, as usual, he took a framework of
fact, upon which his poetic instinct and
sympathetic imagination reared a mem-
orable work of art.
guarded treasure, and through its influ-
ence on the popular mind, heads a rising
of the troops, who proceed against Car-
thage. Urged on by the High Priest,
Salammbô is persuaded that it is her
sacred duty to recover the stolen vest-
ment, and so bring back the protection
of the goddess to the arms of Carthage.
Under his instruction, she is led secretly
by night to the tent of Matho to obtain
the vestment. Obedient to the pontiff,
she endures the soldier's wild transports
of joy, and succeeds in carrying away
the vestment, which in his self-forget-
ting adoration he has wrapped about
her. Fortune returns to the Carthagin-
ians, the rebellious leader is taken, and
Salammbô's wedding to the man of her
father's choice is made the scene of
Matho's martyrdom. Looking down at
the torn and dying man, whose eyes
alone retain the semblance of humanity,
Salammbô suddenly recalls the tender
babble of those agonized lips, the adora-
tion of those eyes on that night in his
tent. She realizes what this man has
suffered for love of her, and her heart
breaks. In the act of drinking the wine
her bridegroom offers, she sinks back
dead. And thus the two beings whose
touch has profaned the garment of
Tanit pass from the earth. The most
brilliant of romances dealing with the
classic world, this story holds its place
through all variations of popular taste,
among the masterpieces of fiction.
Jack, by Alphonse Daudet (1876), is a
story of experience and emotion.
Less skillful treatment would have made
so tragical a tale revolting. But Daudet
does not content himself with cold psy-
chological analysis or brilliant exposition
of character. His dominant quality is a
passionate sympathy, which communi-
cates itself to his readers, and forces
them to share his pity or anger or ad-
miration. Jack, introduced to us as a
pretty boy, beautifully dressed, might
have lived an adequate life but for his
light and selfish mother. He is sacri-
ficed to her moral weakness, and to the
bitter selfishness of his stepfather D'Ar-
genton. The latter, a noble idealist in
theory, while petty and base in practice,
is jealous of this inconvenient, superfluous
Jack, and thrusts him outside the home.
Jack's life is a long martyrdom, from
his homesick days with the little black
King of Dahomey, in a nondescript
a
Problematic Characters (“Problema-
tische Naturen'), a romance by
Friedrich Spielhagen. (3 vols. , 1860. )
For this, his first important production,
Spielhagen chose as motto a quotation
from Goethe, in which is to be found
the underlying thought of the romance:
« There are problematical natures which
are not equal to the conditions among
which they are placed, and whom no
conditions satisfy. Thence arises the
monstrous conflict which consumes life
without enjoyment. ” In the narrative,
the strongest illustration of this class
of persons is the character of Oswald
Stein, the hero. He is introduced as
private tutor in a noble family; as
man of good, honorable, and kindly in-
tentions, and of much personal charm.
But the development of the story shows
him to lack one essential trait, the
absence of which his courage and his
warmth prove insufficient to the de-
mands of duty; he is inconstant. The
three volumes lead him from one
periment in the realm of sentiment to
another,— his most striking experience
involving Melitta, a beautiful and warm-
hearted lady of rank in the neighbor-
hood. Oswald proves himself incapable
of a real fidelity and lasting affection
towards any
of the fair beings who
lavish their hearts upon him.
One of
them says of him that he is fickle sim-
ply because he forever pursues an
attainable ideal, and is forever disap-
pointed! This aspiring and sympathetic
soul arouses sympathy, however, only in
his character of faithful and brotherly
friend to his charge, Bruno. Bruno
ex-
un-
## p. 317 (#353) ############################################
SYNOPSES OF NOTED BOOKS
317
himself is another problematic character,
but he is not called upon to set his fit-
ful temper and stormy heart against the
hard necessities of life: he dies while
still a loving, heroic, moody boy, little
understood, and loved by few. At his
death, Oswald departs for fresh scenes;
and the conclusion of the romance is
not at all a conclusion of the action,
which is reached in a later novel.
to help him, with Mary St. John at their
head. After waiting so many years, he
at last finds his father, sunk to the low-
est depth of poverty and degradation.
He gradually wins his affection, and re-
stores him to health. They start for
India together; but the ship is lost, and
they are never heard from again.
This is not at all a story of action,
nor is it told with great skill: it is
mainly an account of the growth of
Robert's soul. His strong good-sense,
courage, and helpfulness, are shown.
The story has the decided metaphysical
character of all Macdonald's stories.
coner
Old Sir Douglas, by the Hon. Mrs.
comes
Robert Falconer, a story, by George
Macdonald. (1875. ) Robert Fal.
a sanctimonious tyrant who has crushed of the crippled poet of burlesque, Paul
out whatever love she may once have Scarron; or in her subsequent glory,-
felt for him. M. Trembloz is simple- she is a shrewd utilitarian, making the
hearted, but gifted with marvelous elo- best of her present, and concerning her-
quence; sees that sh suffers; he self little with the future. She success-
understands her, and it is only a ques- fully serves two masters, and by clever
tion of a few meetings when they find scheming and religious devotion lays up
themselves deeply in love. But like the treasure both in this world and in the
mythical lovers. of the White Rocks, next. Her friends have declared her to
they resolve to meet no more. Unfor- be an angel of goodness; her enemies
tunately, their secret is discovered and have accused her of great deceit and im-
reported to M. de Bussens, who charges morality.
Both were wrong.
She was
her with unfaithfulness. She confesses not passionate enough to be wicked, and
that she loves the pastor. Her husband her head always governed her heart.
is implacable, and sends her away, de- "A wish to stand well with the world,
priving her of their charming son Mau- and win its esteem, was her master pas-
rice, who loves her and is desperately sion;" and her other chief preoccupation
afraid of his father.
with spiritual affairs, which she
M. Rod raises the eternal question of treats as a sort of prudent investment,
what shall be done with incompatible - a preparation against a rainy day,
marriage, but makes no attempt to cut which only the thoughtless could neglect. ”
the Gordian knot. The petty society of Her ruling characteristics were tact and
a Swiss provincial town is graphically good sense. They showed her how to
depicted; but perhaps the cleverest por- make herself agreeable, and how to
trait in the book is the keen, ambitious serve other people; and thus she gained
Madame Trembloz, the mother of the the popularity she craved.
pastor, who in her way is as much of a
tyrant as is M. de Bussens in his. The
Barber of Seville, The, by Pierre Au-
episode of the young girl, Rose Char- gustin Caron (who later assumed
mot, who is brought before the directors the nomme de guerre Beaumarchais »),
of the Orphan Asylum and charged with appeared in 1775 as a five-act French
having gone astray, brings to light all comedy. It is the first of the Figaro
the narrowness of the self-righteous and trilogy, the later plays being the Mar-
Pharisaical spirit rampant in such a pro- riage of Figaro) and the 'Guilty Mother. '
vincial town, and forms a background The whole drift of the Barbier,) as of
for the nobleness of the pastor and the Mariage, is a satirization of the
Madame de Bussens, who alone take the privileged classes, from the political and
part. The story is written in a «rights-of-man” point of view rather
fascinating style.
than from that of the social moralist.
was
## p. 308 (#344) ############################################
308
SYNOPSES OF NOTED BOOKS
The plays proved to be formidable polit- brother of the charlatanism of his doc-
ical engines.
tors and the selfish designs of his wife.
Full of sparkling, incisive, and direct Argan is deaf to all reason; but to
dialogue, eminently artistic as a piece please his brother, asks the apothecary
of dramatic construction, yet lacking the to defer the administering of an in-
high literary merit which characterizes jection. Purgon is indignant at this
some of the author's other work, the (Bar- «crime of Lèse Faculté,” and to Ar-
bier,' the embodiment of Beaumarchais's gon's great despair, declines to treat
vivacious genius, lives to the world in its him longer. Toinette, a servant-girl,
leading character, Figaro the inimitable. disguised as a traveling physician, es-
The simple plot follows the efforts and amines into his case, and tells him
(useless precautions) of Bartholo, tutor the diagnosis of Purgon was entirely
and guardian of Rosine,-a coquettish erroneous. In her proper character she
beauty loved by Count Almaviva, - to defends Béline, and to prove to Bé-
prevent his pupil-ward from marrying, for ralde that his opinion of her is false,
he himself loves her. But Bartholo is out- asks Argon to counterfeit death. He
witted, though with difficulty, by younger does so, and learns the true character
and more adroit gallants, whose schemes of his wife and Angélique's love for
form the episodes of the comedy. Don him.
Basilio, an organist and Rosine's teacher He consents to her marriage with
of singing, is the typical calumniator, Cléante, with the proviso that he shall
operating by covert insinuation rather become a physician. Béralde suggests
than by open disparagement. Figaro is, that Argan himself become one, assur-
as the title indicates, a barber of Seville, ing him that with the bonnet and
where the action is laid, though the play gown come Latin and knowledge. He
has an air unmistakably French. He is consents, and by a crowd of carnival
presented as a master in cunning, dexter- masqueraders is made a member of the
ity, and intrigue, never happier than when Faculty. To the questions as to what
he has several audacious plots on hand. treatment is necessary in several cases,
«Perpetually witty, inexhaustibly ingen- he replies: «Injection first, blood-letting
ious, perennially gay,” says Austin Dob- next, purge next. ” He takes the oaths
son, “he is pre-eminently the man of his to obey the laws of the Faculty, to be
country, the irrepressible mouthpiece of in all cases of the ancient opinion,
the popular voice, the cynical and incor- be it good or bad, and to use only the
rigible laugher
who opposes to
remedies prescribed by the Faculty,
rank, prescription, and prerogative, noth- even though his patient should die of
ing but his indomitable audacity or his his illness. It was when responding
sublime indifference. ”
"Juro” (I swear), to one of these ques-
Malade
lade Imaginaire, Le, by Molière. tions, that Molière attacked by
This comedy is in three acts, and a fit of coughing, causing the rupture
was first produced in Paris in 1673. It of a blood-vessel, from the effects of
was the last work of the author; and which he died a few hours later.
in it, as Argan, he made his last ap-
pearance
the stage. Argan, who Av
vare, L' (The Miser) one of the most
imagines himself ill, is completely un- famous of Molière's prose comedies,
der the dominion of Monsieur Purgon first produced September 9th, 1668. It
his physician. By his advice, he wishes is founded on the (Aulularia) of Plautus
to marry his daughter Angélique to (which see above), and was paraphrased
Thomas Diafoirus, a young booby, just by Fielding in his comedy of The Miser. )
graduated as a doctor. Béline, his sec- Harpagon, a sexagenarian miser who in-
ond wife, wishes him to oblige both carnates the spirit of avarice, has deter-
of his daughters to become nuns, that mined to marry a young woman named
she may inherit his property. Angé- Mariane, who lives in obscure poverty
lique is at first pleased, thinking that he with her invalid mother. He has likewise
wishes her to marry Cléante with whom determined to bestow the hand of his own
she is in love. Argan insists upon the daughter Elise upon Anselme, a friend
marriage with Thomas, whose studied or- and companion of his own age, who has
atorical speeches entirely captivate him.
consented to take her without a dot or
Béralde, the brother of Argan, pleads marriage portion. But the young women
for Cléante, and tries to convince his prefer to choose their own lovers. Har-
.
(
was
on
## p. 309 (#345) ############################################
SYNOPSES OF NOTED BOOKS
309
pagon's son, Cléante, is the favored suitor des Débats, the preceding year, the author
of Mariane. Valère is desperately smit- makes this reference to it: _«In my work
ten with Elise, and for the purpose of upon the "Genius of Christianity, or the
wooing her has introduced himself into Beauties of the Christian Religion,' a cer-
the Harpagon household under the guise tain portion is devoted exclusively to the
of the house-steward. Harpagon's dear- poesy of Christianity;
the work
est possession is a casket containing ten is terminated by a story extracted from
thousand francs, which he has buried in my Travels in America,' and written
his garden, and with which his thoughts beneath the very huts of the savages. It
are ever occupied. La Flêche, a valet, is entitled Atala. ))) Atala) is an extrav-
discovers the chest. Harpagon's despair agant and artificial but beautiful romance
and fury, the complications ensuing, and of two lovers, ---a young Indian brave,
the distentanglement necessary to a suc- Chactas (i. e. , Choctaw), and an Indian
cessful stage ending, are given with all maiden, Atala. Châteaubriand drew his
Molière's inexhaustible verve and humor. conception of Chactas -a savage, half
civilized by contact with European culture
Alzire, a well-known tragedy, by Vol-
- from the tradition of an Indian chief,
taire. The time is the sixteenth cen- who, having been a galley-slave at Mar-
tury. Montèze, the native king of a part seilles, was afterwards liberated and pre-
of Potosi, has, with his daughter Alzire sented to Louis XIV. The pivot of the
and a large number of American Indians, romance is the power of Christianity to
fallen into the power of Guzman, the subdue the wildest passions of man. Atala,
Spanish governor of Peru. The Spaniard a Christian, has taken the vow of vir-
falls in love with Alzire, who has become ginity by the death-bed of her mother.
a Christian. Having been betrothed to Afterwards she finds herself in love with
an Indian chief now believed to be dead, Chactas, who has been taken prisoner by
she hesitates to marry the governor, but
her tribe. She aids him to escape, and
is persuaded by her father, and by Alvares together they roam through the pathless
the father of Guzman. After the mar- forests of the New World surrounded by
riage, Zamore, her first lover, reappears luxuriant nature, haunted by the genius of
among a crowd of prisoners. His fury the wilderness, the genius of productive
becomes uncontrollable when he learns life. Chactas would fain be one with na-
that Guzman, who has already wrested ture in his abandonment to instinct; but
from him everything else he valued, - Atala, although she is consumed with love
power, wealth, and liberty,- has now de- for him, is obedient to what she believes
prived him of his betrothed. In vain to be a higher law. In a great tempest
does Alzire ontrive the captive's escape.
of lightning and rain they lose their way,
He will not fly without her. In disguise being found and sheltered by a pious
he penetrates to the chamber of his en- hermit, Father Aubrey, who takes them
emy, and mortally wounds him.
Both to his cave. Atala tells him the story of
Alzire and Alvares seek to save him, but her vow, and of her temptation. He re-
cannot unless he adopts Christianity. He plies that she may be released, but his
refuses; but when his rival Guzman says, assurance comes too late. She has taken
«Your God has enjoined on you vengeance a poison, that she may become death's
and murder: mine commands me to pity bride ere she has given herself to an-
and forgive my murderer,” he is over- other. The hermit fills her last hours
come, and makes a profession of faith. with the comfort of his ministrations, and
Dying, Guzman unites the lovers. This she departs reconciled and soothed. Chac-
play is often rated as Voltaire's dramatic tas carries her in his arms to the grave
masterpiece. In elegance of diction, in prepared by the hermit, the wind blow-
picturesqueness and vigor of conception, ing her long hair back against his face.
it leaves little to be desired. The dram- Together they leave her to her sleep in
atist's intention was to contrast the noble the wilderness. Atala, despite its arti-
but imperfect virtues of the natural man ficiality, retains its charm to this day.
with those of the man trained under the Châteaubriand's savages are Europeans,
influences of Christianity and civilization. his forests are in Arcadia; nevertheless
the narrative has a fascination which
Atala, a romance of the American wil. gives it a place among the fairy-tales of
derness, by Châteaubriand, was pub- fiction, – due not only to its charm of
lished in 1801. In a letter in the Journal | style but its noble elevation of thought.
## p. 310 (#346) ############################################
310
SYNOPSES OF NOTED BOOKS
published in 1816, the third in 1619, and René, by François Auguste Château-
Ast
strea ('L'Astrée), a famous French works of fiction, it lives only in the limbo
novel, is in five volumes. The first of the forgotten.
volume appeared in 1609, the second was
briand, published separately in 1807.
in 1627 his posthumous notes and man-
(René) and Atala) are the fruits of
uscripts were compiled into the fourth
Chateaubriand's American travels, and
and fifth volumes, and published by his
they abound in the exquisite descrip-
secretary Baro. Probably no other novel
tion of natural scenery for which he is
was ever so successful, all cultivated Eu-
noted.
rope being enthusiastic over it for many (René, an episode of the prose epic
years. The period is the fourth century.
Les Natchez,' is in effect a monologue of
Céladon, a shepherd, lover of the beautiful
the young European of that name, who
shepherdess Astrea, lives in the enchanted
has fled to the New World and its soli-
land of Foreste. While their marriage tudes; and who relates to his adopted
awaits parental sanction, a jealous shep-
father Chactas, and the French mission-
herd persuades Astrea that Céladon loves
Aminthe. She therefore angrily repulses
ary Father Souël, his previous life and
the causes of his self-exile. Seated under
him. Céladon throws himself into the
a great tree in the haunts of the Natchez
river Lignon, and Astrea faints on the
Indians, of whose tribe Chactas is a
bank. Her parents sorrow so bitterly chief, the young man tells his listeners
over her grief that both soon die. As-
the story of his boyhood, and his rest-
trea may now weep unreservedly with-
out being suspected of mourning for
less wanderings from land to land in
search of mental peace. He has passed
Céladon. But Céladon lives. He has
through ancient countries and modern,
been succored by the Princess Galatea
has studied humanity in its earliest
and her attendant nymphs, taken to court,
monuments and in the life of his own
and tenderly cared for. Thence he es-
day, and finding no satisfaction in any
capes to
a gloomy cavern, where he
phase of life, has remained long in for-
spends his time bewailing Astrea. Meet-
est solitudes, - only to meet there thoughts
ing a friendly shepherd, he sends a letter
of death.
to the most beautiful shepherdess in the
He tells further how he was rescued
world. » Astrea at once sets out to find
from this temptation by the love of his
him. Thus the story rambles on, a long,
sister Amélie, who came to him and led
inconsequent sequence of descriptions,
his mind back to life, then disappeared
adventures, and moral reflections. War
breaks out in Foreste. Céladon, who,
from his sight forever in the living
death of a convent, where she hid a
disguised as a druidess, has become As-
trea's friend is with her taken prisoner,
heart oppressed by a feeling for René
too strong for her peace. The tragedy
but both escape. At last he reveals him-
of his sister's confession has driven René
self, but is repulsed. Once more he re-
to these wildernesses.
solves to die; all the characters accom-
The episodes of René and Atala are
panying him to the Fountain of Truth,
whose guardian lions devour hypocrites
beautiful in melody and description, but
and defend the virtuous. They spare
inevitably unreal in their suggestions of
Indian life and character. As a kind of
him; and Astrea, looking into the truth-
compromise between the forms of prose
revealing water, is at last convinced of
his fidelity. Everybody is a model of
and poetry, the whole work is perhaps
virtue, and the story ends with a gen-
less thoroughly satisfactory than would
eral marriage fête. Whether L'Astrée)
be an equally fine attempt in either
requires a key is not important. Euric
department of literature.
may have been Henri IV. , Céladon and
AT
drienne Lecou vreur, a play by Scribe
Astrea other names for D'Urfé and his and Légouvé, which first appeared
wife Diane; but probably the story is in 1849, possesses witty dialogue and
fanciful. Its charm lies in its pastoral strong dramatic situations. The scene is
setting, and its loftily romantic concep- laid in Paris, in March 1730, Maurice,
tion of love. It is a day-dream, which Count de Saxe, a former admirer of the
solaced the soldier-author himself. The Princess de Bouillon, now loves and is
story is written in straightforward, fluent loved by Adrienne Lecouvreur, a beau-
French, and is full of sentir ent and in-
actress of the Comédie Française;
genuity; but like so many other immortal whonot knowing his real name and
## p. 311 (#347) ############################################
SYNOPSES OF NOTED BOOKS.
311
rank, believes him a poor soldier of for-
tune. Though the action resulting from
this mistake occupies the space of two
days only, it is very complicated; yet
the unity of the play is vividly clear,
and the strongly contrasted characters
stand out with great distinctness, while
the dialogue is epigrammatic and full of
power.
nature as anything in literature. The
fashionable people who recognized them-
selves under their Roman disguises were
charmed with Mademoiselle de Scudé-
ri's skill as a portrait-painter. The work
marks the transition from the era of
Montaigne to that of Corneille; and as
such may, to some extent, be considered
epoch-making.
Clélie,
a romance in ten volumes by
Mademoiselle de Scudéri. The name
Od Number, The, an English trans-
of her brother figured on the title-pages lation by Jonathan Sturgis, of thir-
of the first volumes; but the secret of teen stories by Guy de Maupassant,
the authorship having been discovered, appeared in 1889. Each tale is an ad-
her name replaced it. It would be diffi- mirable example of the literary art
cult to summarize the incidents of this which made Maupassant the acknowl-
once famous production. The subject is edged master of the short story. All
the siege of Rome after the expulsion of show an acute realization of the irony
Tarquin the Proud. The heroine is the of life, and are written in a pessi-
young Roman girl who was a bostage mistic strain. The unerring choice of
of Porsena, and swam across the Tiber words, the exquisite precision of the
under a shower of arrows from the
descriptive touches, carry home the sens-
Etruscan army. Lucretia, Horatius, Mu- ation which Maupassant wished to con-
cius Scævola, Brutus, and all the heroes vey. Many kinds of life are revealed.
of the young republic, are actors in the In The Piece of ing,' we have
drama; and all are desperately in love, the petty shrewdness, thrift, and obsti-
and spend most of their time in asking nacy, of the Norman peasant. Maitre
questions and solving riddles that have Hanchecorne, on his way to the mar-
a serious connection with love, and espe- ket-place, is seen to pick up something
cially with a very mysterious species of from the ground and thrust it into his
gallantry, according to the taste of the pocket. Thereupon he is accused of
time in which it was written. They stealing a missing purse. His find was
draw maps of love on the noted country only a bit of string; but neither his
of Tendre. We see the river of Incli- guilt nor innocence can be proved, and
nation, on its right bank the villages of he rests under the imputation all his
Jolis-Vers and Epîtres Galantes, and days. In time he himself is almost per-
its left those of Complaisance, Petits- suaded of his guilt.
Soins, and Assiduities. Further on are (La Mère Sauvage) is a study of the
the hamlets of Abandon and Perfidie. primitive passions of
old peasant
By following the natural twists and woman, who, learning that her son has
turns of the river, the lover will have been killed by the Prussians in battle,
a pretty fair chance of arriving at the avenges him by burning to death the
city of Tendre sur-Estime; and should he four kindly young Prussians who have
be successful, it will then be his own been quartered upon her.
fault if he do not reach the city of (The Necklace) is a picture of bour-
Tendre-sur-Inclination. The French crit- geois life.
Monsieur Loisel, a petty
ics of the present century do not ac- official, and his pretty young wife, are
cept Boileau's sweeping condemnation of honored with an invitation to an offi-
Clélie; they consider that the work cial reception. On their return, Madame
which excited the admiration of Madame Loisel loses the diamond necklace which
de Sévigné and Madame de La Fayette she has borrowed from her rich friend,
has merits that fully justify their ad- Madame Forestier. Without mentioning
miration. The manners and language the loss, they make it good, thus in-
assigned the Roman characters in the curring a debt which burdens the rest
romance are utterly ridiculous and gro- of their lives. It takes ten years to
tesque; but if we consider the Romans pay it; and they become inured to
as masks behind which the great lords work and poverty, and prematurely old.
and ladies of the time simper and bab- Meeting Madame Forestier one day,
ble, its pictures of life are
an
Madanie Loisel tells her the whole
as true to
## p. 312 (#348) ############################################
SYNOPSES OF NOTED BOOKS
a
312
story. "My poor Mathilde! ) says her this and other dramatic pieces by Maeter-
friend, «My necklace was paste, worth linck has been made by Richard Hovey.
at most five hundred francs. ” There
is something poignant about the con-
En Route, a novel, by J. K. Huysman,
tinual revelation of needless pain in is Kegan The
these tales; but their brilliancy, their author, whose literary career began in
vividness, their admirable art, and un- 1875, has devoted himself largely to
erring sense of values,” will long com- what may be termed a kind of brutal
pel a hearing for them.
mysticism. His works Marthe,' Les
Sæurs Vatard,' and (En Ménage,' deal
Lior
ion of Flanders, The, by Hendrik largely with themes that are sordid and
Conscience, published in 1838. In scarred with hatred and ugliness, as if
this Flemish historical romance, among his mission were mainly to portray la
the best he has written, the author deals bêtise de l'humanite. » A morbid de-
with one of the mos glorious episodes light in what is corrupt leads to
in his country's history; the expulsion of corrupt mysticism. What is known as
the armies of Philip le Bel in the thir- Satanism finds its extreme expression
teenth century from Flemish soil by a in his novel (La-Bas. ) It is a (surfeit
rising of the common people. His hero of supernaturalism producing a mental
is Robert de Bethune, the Lion of nausea. ” En Route) depicts the reli-
Flanders"); whose father, Guy de Dam- gious » conversion of a young debauché
pierre, had incurred the enmity of his of Paris, Dartal by name,-a character
French suzerain by siding with the Eng- who first appears in La-Bas. ) He is
lish king.
The story opens with a stir- blasé, empty of motives of capacity for
ring picture of the turbulence and fury pleasure or endeavor. He takes to vis-
of the Flemings on learning of the ap- iting the churches; feels a certain spell
proach of the French army. Conscience produced by the ritual and music; and
shows in this novel that he was a close at length, drawn into the monastic re-
student of Sir Walter Scott. He has a treat of La Trappe, he becomes a con-
thorough knowledge of the manners as vert to religion, and dwells with delight
well as of the history of the period in and much fine analysis on his experi-
which its scenes are laid, and he has
ence of a kind of ecstasy of restraints,
been entirely successful in giving a a «frenzy of chastity. ” The story is
faithful and lifelike conception of Flan- autobiographic: the history of a soul.
ders in the thirteenth century.
It abounds in passages of great brill-
iancy and beauty; and in some of the
Blind, The (Les Aveugles”), by Mau- meditations on the inner meaning of the
rice Maeterlinck, the young Belgian ritual, and the effect of the music of
poet-dramatist, is a play of symbolism, the church, his interpretations will meet
which, like the earlier (The Intruder, with a very sympathetic response from
is one of the writer's best-known and
many readers.
His description of the
most striking works. It is an eerie kind
Breviary is a splendid piece of writing.
of allegory. On an island, in a mystic The book may be called a faithful ae-
norland wood, under the night stars, sit count of the ritualistic disease," as it
a company of blind folk, men and wo- affects the French mind. "It was not
men, under the guidance of an old priest so much himself advancing into the un-
returned from the dead. They grope
known, as the unknown surrounding,
about in a maze and query as to their penetrating, possessing him little by
location and destiny, - a strange, striking little. ” He closes suddenly with his en-
effect being produced by the grewsome tering into the (night obscure” of the
setting of the scene and the implication mystics. It is inexpressible. Nothing
of the words, through which the reader can reveal the anguish necessary to pass
gathers that this is a symbolic picture through to enter this mystic knowledge. ”
of life, in which mankind wanders with- The soul of the writer seems to think
out faith or sight in the forest of ignor- aloud in the pages of his book; he
ance and unfaith, depending upon frankly portrays his condition: (too
priesteraft that is defunct, and knowing much writer to become a monk; too
naught of the hereafter. The poetry and much monk to remain a writer. ” The
humanity of this picture-play are very reader remains in bt, after all
strong. A good English translation of whither the hero of the book is en route.
»
a
as
## p. 313 (#349) ############################################
SYNOPSES OF NOTED BOOKS
313
G"
hosts, a powerful play by Henrik head of the so-called school of natural-
Ibsen (1881), gives dramatic em- ism, has carried his theories farther than
bodiment to the modern realization of any of his disciples. In 1869 he began
heredity. Ibsen, treating this subject his task,- a study in hereditary influ-
on its tragic side, considers the case of ence, with a complete genealogical tree,
the darker passions as they are handed and a plan for twenty novels, - from
down from father to son. The fatalistic which very little variation is seen when
atmosphere of "Ghosts) resembles that of the series is completed twenty-two years
a Greek drama. It is a Greek tragedy after. Beginning with the Coup d'État
translated into the littleness and barren- in 1852, he ends his series with the
ness of modern life.
downfall of Napoleon III. , adding Doc-
Oswald Alving, the son of a dissipated, tor Pascal, which is a résumé of the
worthless father, has been brought up series. With the ancestors whom the
by his mother in ignorance of his dead author chooses for his characters we
parent's shame. Yet he has within him should perhaps expect that animal pas-
the seeds of a transmitted disease, - the sion would be the motive of most of
evil sown by a previous generation. He these novels; but one must charge M.
has gone into the world to make a name Zola with poor judgment or a departure
for himself, but he is forced to return to from the scientific spirit, when he places
his mother's home. He drinks to excess, a character, which by his own deduc-
and he exhibits tendencies to other more tions seems to show no trace of the
dangerous vices. His wretched mother family lesion, in La Terre, the
sees in him the ghost of his father; she coarsest one of the series — for Macquart
sees the old hateful life clothed in the is the most decent of the entire com-
form of the boy she has reared so care- munity. Whatever may have been the
fully. He himself feels the poison work- author's intention, the general public
ing in his veins. The play closes upon does not read his books as a study in
the first sign of his incipient madness. heredity. Each one is complete in itself;
In this drama, the mother, Mrs. Alving, and while in 1896 the first novel of the
is the type of the new woman in revolt series had reached a sale of only 31,000
against the hideous lies of society, be- copies, there had been sold
113,000
cause she has suffered through them. copies of La Terre, 176,000 of Nana,'
She is learning to think for herself; to and 187,000 of La Débâcle. ) The first
weigh social morality in the balances. to appear was La Fortune des Rou-
Her adviser, Pastor Manders, has been gons' (The Rougon Family: 1871). Ad-
called the consummate flower of con- elaide Fouqué, whose father was insane,
ventional morality. ” He is a type of was married in 1786 to Rougon, a dull,
the world's cautiousness and policy in easy-going gardener. After her hus-
matters ethical; of that world's disposi- band's death she had two illegitimate
tion to cover up or refuse to see the children, Antoine and Ursule, by Mac-
sins of society. He is of those who quart, a drunkard and a smuggler. The
make of marriage a talisman to juggle offspring of the marriage was Pierre
Rougon. By chicanery, Rougon obtains
(Ghosts) is perhaps the most remark- possession of the property, sells it, and
able of Ibsen's dramas in its search- through marriage with a daughter of a
ing judgment, its recognition of terrible merchant, enters into an old business
fact, its logical following of the merci- firm. Ursule is married to an honest
less logic of nature.
workman named Mouret; and Antoine,
who inherits his father's appetite for
Rouge
ougon-Macquart, Les, by Émile Zola. drink, marries a market-woman, also in-
There is perhaps no literary work temperate.
of the last part of the century that has (La Curée ) (Rush for the Spoil: 1872)
caused so much comment as this series is a study of the financial world of Paris
of twenty novels, relating the natural at the time Haussmann laid out the
and social history of a family under the boulevards. Aristide, son of Pierre, who
Second Empire. It is a phenomenon that has changed his name to Saccard, be-
cannot be ignored in a history of litera- comes immensely wealthy by political
ture, not only because of the variety of intrigue, - acting as straw-man for the
subjects treated, but from the fact that
government in the purchase of the prop-
the author, being the acknowledged erty needed to lay out the new boule-
away vice.
## p. 314 (#350) ############################################
314
SYNOPSES OF NOTED BOOKS
is the family representative. There are
fine descriptions of Paris seen from a
height, varying with the spiritual phases
of the characters.
Nana' (1880). A study of the life
of a courtesan and actress. Nana is
the daughter of Gervaise and the drunk-
ard Coupeau. She grows up in the
streets and disreputable haunts until she
comes under the notice of a theatre
manager. Her great physical beauty
attracts men of all classes, and none
resist her. The grandest names
soiled; and those who do not leave
with her their fortunes, leave their honor
or their life. The greatest fortunes are
dissipated by her, and yet at her door
is heard the continual ring of the cred-
itor. She contracts the black smallpox,
and dies deserted and wretched. The
description of her
her appearance
after
death is a shocking contrast to the pict-
of voluptuousness in the other
are
ures
scenes.
vards. He is helped by his elder brother
Eugène, who has entered political life.
La Conquête de Plassans) (The Con-
quest of Plassans: 1874). The struggle
for the control of a village in which the
Abbé Faujas obtains complete ascend-
ency over Marthe Rougon, who is mar-
ried to François Mouret. The latter,
accused of insanity, is placed in an asy-
lum, and finally becomes insane. Escap-
ing, he sets fire to his house, destroying
himself and the abbé therein.
(Le Ventre de Paris, (The Markets
of Paris; or, Fat and Thin: 1875). Lisa
Macquart is the member of the family
who, as a market-woman, furnishes op-
portunity for a detailed study of the
markets. Zola looks upon this work as
a sort of modern Iliad, the song of the
eternal battle between the lean of this
world and the fat. Of this book a
prominent critic said that he had been
able to read it only by holding his nose.
(La Faute de l'Abbé Mouret (The
Abbé's Temptation: 1875). A study of
the clergy, religious life, and mysticism,
in which Serge Mouret is the leading
character. It is almost needless to say
that the abbé does not resist tempta-
tion; but by repentance he is able later
to perform, with little perturbation, the
burial service over the woman he had
loved.
"Son Excellence Eugène Rougon) (His
Excellency Eugène Rougon: 1876). A
story of political life, in which are real-
istic descriptions of the Imperial Court,
of the functions of Prime Minister (Rou-
gon) and his cabinet, and a careful pen
picture of Napoleon III. , his manners
and customs.
L'Assommoir) (Drink: 1877). A
story of life among the workmen of
Paris, and of the killing effect which the
cheap drinking-shop has on them. Ger-
vaise, the daughter of Antoine, is the
character around whom the scenes re-
volve. It was this work which brought
Zola his reputation and fortune.
Une Page d'Amour) (A Love Epi-
sode: 1878). A physical and psycho-
logical study of the various phases of
a woman's passion. The struggle is
between her love for her child and her
passion for a doctor who has saved the
child's life. The night on which she
cedes herself to the doctor, the child,
looking from an open window for her
return, contracts a sickness from which
it dies. Hélène, the daughter of Ursule,
(Pot-Bouille) (Piping Hot: 1882). A
study of the life of the bourgeoisie.
Octave, the son of François Mouret,
comes to Paris determined to make his
fortune through women's love for him.
A study of life in the tenement flats,
where the skeletons of the different
family closets are made to dance for
our amusement, to the music of the
servants' quarrels ascending from the
kitchens.
(Au Bonheur des Dames) (The La-
dies' Paradise: 1883). A study of the
mammoth department stores. Octave,
by his marriage with the widow He-
douin, and her subsequent death, be-
proprietor of the shop.
A
description is given of the growth of
the business, of the struggle for exist-
by the smaller stores and of
their being swallowed up by the giant,
and of the entire routine of a great
comes
ence
store.
a
(La Joie de Vivre) (How Jolly Life
Is! ). Pauline Quenu, the daughter of
Lisa, is a foil to the character of Nana:
woman of well-balanced mind, giv-
ing up her lover to her friend, and
upon their separation, taking their child
and becoming its true mother. Always
triumphant and smiling, she is
sacrificing herself to the selfish, whin-
ing egoism of those who surround her.
(Germinal) (Master and Man: 1885).
A study of life in the mines. The
illegitimate son of Gervaise, Étienne
ever
## p. 315 (#351) ############################################
SYNOPSES OF NOTED BOOKS
315
wealth, starts the “Banque Universelle »
for the exploitation of different schemes
in the Orient. A description is given
of the unscrupulous methods employed
to float great schemes. Saccard's bank
becomes the leading institution of the
stock exchange. Subscriptions pour in
by the million, - widows, orphans, and
millionaires fighting to get the shares;
and Saccard is the financial ruler, rolling
in wealth and luxury. Then comes the
struggle with the bears, the final de-
feat, and the ruin of the investors.
(La Débâcle) (The Downfall: 1892).
A study of the Franco-Prussian War and
the Siege of Paris. Napoleon III. again
enters on the scene, in the most degrad-
ing and belittling position imaginable.
Jean Macquart is the hero of the tale.
"Le Docteur Pascal' (1892). Pascal
Rougon, son of Pierre, has collected all
the data relating to his family, and
sums up their history. Adelaide Fouqué
is insane; Eugène, a deputy to Congress;
Saccard, an editor; Octave, a successful
merchant; Jean Macquart, married again
and father of a healthy family. Doctor
Pascal diagnoses his own mortal disease,
hour by hour; and as he feels the last
moment approaching, jumps from his
bed, adds the date and cause of his
death to the genealogical tree, as well
as the birth of his illegitimate child by
his niece, in the words, “Unknown child
to be born in 1894. What will it be ? )))
Lanier, a socialist, is forced to work
in the mines. Low wages and fines
cause a strike, of which Lanier is one
of the leaders. He counsels modera-
tion; but hunger drives the miners to
desperation, and force is met by force.
Several are killed, Lanier is deported,
and the miners fall back into their old
slavery. This work is generally con-
sidered to be the author's best.
(L'Euvre) (Labor: 1886). A study
of artist life. Claude Lanier, illegiti-
mate son of Gervaise, a painter with a
vivid power of conception, lacking the
power of execution; and, in despair of
attaining his ideal, hangs himself before
an unfinished picture.
(La Terre) (The Soil: 1888). A study
of peasant life and the greed for land; a
greed which causes hatred between sis-
ters, neglect of parents, and ends in the
murder of Jean Macquart's wife by her
sister. This story abounds in vulgarity,
and the brutish instincts of the peasants
make them lower than the beasts that
surround them. It has aroused
opposition than any other of his works.
(Le Rêve) (The Dream: 1888). This
has been likened to a fairy story; and it
is said Zola wrote it in deference to the
sentiment against his admission to the
Academy, to show that his strength did
not wholly lie in «realism. ” Angelique,
the illegitimate daughter of Sidonie
Rougon, is placed in a foundling asy-
lum, and adopted by a family whose
occupation is the making of church vest-
ments. She dreams of her prince, who
soon presents himself in the person of a
painter of church windows, who is really
the son of a bishop who took orders
after his wife's death. He opposes his
son's marriage to a woman of the lower
classes; but consents when called to ad-
minister the last sacrament to Angelique,
and she dies in her husband's arms.
(La Bête Humaine) (Human Brutes:
1890). A study of railway life, in which
Jacques Lanier, a locomotive engineer,
inherits the family lesion in the form
of a maniacal desire to murder women.
There is a stirring description of
struggle on a moving locomotive be-
tween Lanier and his drunken fireman,
in which both are precipitated under the
wheels, and the express train is left to
drive along without check.
( L'Argent) (Money: 1891). A study
of stock speculation and “wild-cat» com-
panies. Aristide Saccard, having lost his
more
Salammbo,. . . by
Gustave Flaubert.
(1864. ) This historical romance was
the fruit of M. Flaubert's visit to the
ruins of old Carthage, and is a kind of
revivification of the ancient capital and
its people. The scenes testify to the
great erudition of the author, but critics
complain that the picture has too little
perspective. All is painted with equal
brilliance -matter essential and unes-
sential.
The sacred garment of Tanit is made
the object around which the action re-
volves; and the fate of Carthage is
bound up in the preservation of this
vestment within her walls. The central
point of the story is the boundless pas-
sion of Matho, a common soldier among
the mercenaries, for Salammbô, the
beautiful daughter of the great Hamil-
car; and the fate of the vestment of
Tanit continually overshadows the fate
of his love. By a mad act of daring,
he gets possession
of the carefully
a
## p. 316 (#352) ############################################
316
SYNOPSES OF NOTED BOOKS
school somewhat like the Dotheboys
Hall made famous by Dickens, until his
final release from a bed in the char-
ity hospital. He becomes dull, sickly,
inert; but his finer qualities die hard,
and are perhaps only latent even during
his worst days of labor in an iron foun-
dry, and of fevered exhaustion as stoker
on an ocean steamer. But life never
becomes quite hopeless; for love and
sympathy reach even to Jack, and offer
him a partial compensation. After the
publication of Jack, Daudet wrote a
sketch of the original of the hero; for in
its main outline the story is a true one.
Here, as usual, he took a framework of
fact, upon which his poetic instinct and
sympathetic imagination reared a mem-
orable work of art.
guarded treasure, and through its influ-
ence on the popular mind, heads a rising
of the troops, who proceed against Car-
thage. Urged on by the High Priest,
Salammbô is persuaded that it is her
sacred duty to recover the stolen vest-
ment, and so bring back the protection
of the goddess to the arms of Carthage.
Under his instruction, she is led secretly
by night to the tent of Matho to obtain
the vestment. Obedient to the pontiff,
she endures the soldier's wild transports
of joy, and succeeds in carrying away
the vestment, which in his self-forget-
ting adoration he has wrapped about
her. Fortune returns to the Carthagin-
ians, the rebellious leader is taken, and
Salammbô's wedding to the man of her
father's choice is made the scene of
Matho's martyrdom. Looking down at
the torn and dying man, whose eyes
alone retain the semblance of humanity,
Salammbô suddenly recalls the tender
babble of those agonized lips, the adora-
tion of those eyes on that night in his
tent. She realizes what this man has
suffered for love of her, and her heart
breaks. In the act of drinking the wine
her bridegroom offers, she sinks back
dead. And thus the two beings whose
touch has profaned the garment of
Tanit pass from the earth. The most
brilliant of romances dealing with the
classic world, this story holds its place
through all variations of popular taste,
among the masterpieces of fiction.
Jack, by Alphonse Daudet (1876), is a
story of experience and emotion.
Less skillful treatment would have made
so tragical a tale revolting. But Daudet
does not content himself with cold psy-
chological analysis or brilliant exposition
of character. His dominant quality is a
passionate sympathy, which communi-
cates itself to his readers, and forces
them to share his pity or anger or ad-
miration. Jack, introduced to us as a
pretty boy, beautifully dressed, might
have lived an adequate life but for his
light and selfish mother. He is sacri-
ficed to her moral weakness, and to the
bitter selfishness of his stepfather D'Ar-
genton. The latter, a noble idealist in
theory, while petty and base in practice,
is jealous of this inconvenient, superfluous
Jack, and thrusts him outside the home.
Jack's life is a long martyrdom, from
his homesick days with the little black
King of Dahomey, in a nondescript
a
Problematic Characters (“Problema-
tische Naturen'), a romance by
Friedrich Spielhagen. (3 vols. , 1860. )
For this, his first important production,
Spielhagen chose as motto a quotation
from Goethe, in which is to be found
the underlying thought of the romance:
« There are problematical natures which
are not equal to the conditions among
which they are placed, and whom no
conditions satisfy. Thence arises the
monstrous conflict which consumes life
without enjoyment. ” In the narrative,
the strongest illustration of this class
of persons is the character of Oswald
Stein, the hero. He is introduced as
private tutor in a noble family; as
man of good, honorable, and kindly in-
tentions, and of much personal charm.
But the development of the story shows
him to lack one essential trait, the
absence of which his courage and his
warmth prove insufficient to the de-
mands of duty; he is inconstant. The
three volumes lead him from one
periment in the realm of sentiment to
another,— his most striking experience
involving Melitta, a beautiful and warm-
hearted lady of rank in the neighbor-
hood. Oswald proves himself incapable
of a real fidelity and lasting affection
towards any
of the fair beings who
lavish their hearts upon him.
One of
them says of him that he is fickle sim-
ply because he forever pursues an
attainable ideal, and is forever disap-
pointed! This aspiring and sympathetic
soul arouses sympathy, however, only in
his character of faithful and brotherly
friend to his charge, Bruno. Bruno
ex-
un-
## p. 317 (#353) ############################################
SYNOPSES OF NOTED BOOKS
317
himself is another problematic character,
but he is not called upon to set his fit-
ful temper and stormy heart against the
hard necessities of life: he dies while
still a loving, heroic, moody boy, little
understood, and loved by few. At his
death, Oswald departs for fresh scenes;
and the conclusion of the romance is
not at all a conclusion of the action,
which is reached in a later novel.
to help him, with Mary St. John at their
head. After waiting so many years, he
at last finds his father, sunk to the low-
est depth of poverty and degradation.
He gradually wins his affection, and re-
stores him to health. They start for
India together; but the ship is lost, and
they are never heard from again.
This is not at all a story of action,
nor is it told with great skill: it is
mainly an account of the growth of
Robert's soul. His strong good-sense,
courage, and helpfulness, are shown.
The story has the decided metaphysical
character of all Macdonald's stories.
coner
Old Sir Douglas, by the Hon. Mrs.
comes
Robert Falconer, a story, by George
Macdonald. (1875. ) Robert Fal.
