Halévy in his “Les Petites Cardinal,” if you had not
exhausted the matter in your “Dialogues of Hetairai,” you would be amused
to find the same old traits surviving without a touch of change.
exhausted the matter in your “Dialogues of Hetairai,” you would be amused
to find the same old traits surviving without a touch of change.
Letters to Dead Authors - Andrew Lang
Even the bright fire, I fear, was
not always there to warm thine old blood, Master, or, if fire there were,
the wood was not bought with thy book-seller’s money. When autumn was
drawing in during thine early old age, in 1584, didst thou not write that
thou hadst never received a sou at the hands of all the publishers who
vended thy books? And as thou wert about putting forth thy folio edition
of 1584, thou didst pray Buon, the bookseller, to give thee sixty crowns
to buy wood withal, and make thee a bright fire in winter weather, and
comfort thine old age with thy friend Gallandius. And if Buon will not
pay, then to try the other booksellers, “that wish to take everything and
give nothing. ”
Was it knowledge of this passage, Master, or ignorance of everything
else, that made certain of the common steadfast dunces of our days speak
of thee as if thou hadst been a starveling, neglected poetaster, jealous
forsooth of Maître Françoys Rabelais? See how ignorantly M. Fleury
writes, who teaches French literature withal to them of Muscovy, and hath
indited a Life of Rabelais. “Rabelais était revêtu d’un emploi
honorable; Ronsard était traité en subalterne,” quoth this wondrous
professor. What! Pierre de Ronsard, a gentleman of a noble house,
holding the revenue of many abbeys, the friend of Mary Stuart, of the Duc
d’Orléans, of Charles IX. , _he_ is _traité en subalterne_, and is jealous
of a frocked or unfrocked _manant_ like Maître Françoys! And then this
amazing Fleury falls foul of thine epitaph on Maître Françoys and cries,
“Ronsard a voulu faire des vers méchants; il n’a fait que de méchants
vers. ” More truly saith M. Sainte-Beuve, “If the good Rabelais had
returned to Meudon on the day when this epitaph was made over the wine,
he would, methinks, have laughed heartily. ” But what shall be said of a
Professor like the egregious M. Fleury, who holds that Ronsard was
despised at Court? Was there a party at tennis when the king would not
fain have had thee on his side, declaring that he ever won when Ronsard
was his partner? Did he not give thee benefices, and many priories, and
call thee his father in Apollo, and even, so they say, bid thee sit down
beside him on his throne? Away, ye scandalous folk, who tell us that
there was strife between the Prince of Poets and the King of Mirth.
Naught have ye by way of proof of your slander but the talk of Jean
Bernier, a scurrilous, starveling apothecary, who put forth his fables in
1697, a century and a half after Maître Françoys died. Bayle quoted this
fellow in a note, and ye all steal the tattle one from another in your
dull manner, and know not whence it comes, nor even that Bayle would none
of it and mocked its author. With so little knowledge is history
written, and thus doth each chattering brook of a “Life” swell with its
tribute “that great Mississippi of falsehood,” Biography.
IV.
_To Herodotus_.
TO Herodotus of Halicarnassus, greeting. —Concerning the matters set forth
in your histories, and the tales you tell about both Greeks and
Barbarians, whether they be true, or whether they be false, men dispute
not little but a great deal. Wherefore I, being concerned to know the
verity, did set forth to make search in every manner, and came in my
quest even unto the ends of the earth. For there is an island of the
Cimmerians beyond the Straits of Heracles, some three days’ voyage to a
ship that hath a fair following wind in her sails; and there it is said
that men know many things from of old: thither, then, I came in my
inquiry. Now, the island is not small, but large, greater than the whole
of Hellas; and they call it Britain. In that island the east wind blows
for ten parts of the year, and the people know not how to cover
themselves from the cold. But for the other two months of the year the
sun shines fiercely, so that some of them die thereof, and others die of
the frozen mixed drinks; for they have ice even in the summer, and this
ice they put to their liquor. Through the whole of this island, from the
west even to the east, there flows a river called Thames: a great river
and a laborious, but not to be likened to the River of Egypt.
The mouth of this river, where I stepped out from my ship, is exceedingly
foul and of an evil savour by reason of the city on the banks. Now this
city is several hundred parasangs in circumference. Yet a man that
needed not to breathe the air might go round it in one hour, in chariots
that run under the earth; and these chariots are drawn by creatures that
breathe smoke and sulphur, such as Orpheus mentions in his “Argonautica,”
if it be by Orpheus. The people of the town, when I inquired of them
concerning Herodotus of Halicarnassus, looked on me with amazement, and
went straightway about their business—namely, to seek out whatsoever new
thing is coming to pass all over the whole inhabited world, and as for
things old, they take no keep of them.
Nevertheless, by diligence I learned that he who in this land knew most
concerning Herodotus was a priest, and dwelt in the priests’ city on the
river which is called the City of the Ford of the Ox. But whether Io,
when she wore a cow’s shape, had passed by that way in her wanderings,
and thence comes the name of that city, I could not (though I asked all
men I met) learn aught with certainty. But to me, considering this, it
seemed that Io must have come thither. And now farewell to Io.
To the City of the Priests there are two roads: one by land; and one by
water, following the river. To a well-girdled man, the land journey is
but one day’s travel; by the river it is longer but more pleasant. Now
that river flows, as I said, from the west to the east. And there is in
it a fish called chub, which they catch; but they do not eat it, for a
certain sacred reason. Also there is a fish called trout, and this is
the manner of his catching. They build for this purpose great dams of
wood, which they call weirs. Having built the weir they sit upon it with
rods in their hands, and a line on the rod, and at the end of the line a
little fish. There then they “sit and spin in the sun,” as one of their
poets says, not for a short time but for many days, having rods in their
hands and eating and drinking. In this wise they angle for the fish
called trout; but whether they ever catch him or not, not having seen it,
I cannot say; for it is not pleasant to me to speak things concerning
which I know not the truth.
Now, after sailing and rowing against the stream for certain days, I came
to the City of the Ford of the Ox. Here the river changes his name, and
is called Isis, after the name of the goddess of the Egyptians. But
whether the Britons brought the name from Egypt or whether the Egyptians
took it from the Britons, not knowing I prefer not to say. But to me it
seems that the Britons are a colony of the Egyptians, or the Egyptians a
colony of the Britons. Moreover, when I was in Egypt I saw certain
soldiers in white helmets, who were certainly British. But what they did
there (as Egypt neither belongs to Britain nor Britain to Egypt) I know
not, neither could they tell me. But one of them replied to me in that
line of Homer (if the Odyssey be Homer’s), “We have come to a sorry
Cyprus, and a sad Egypt. ” Others told me that they once marched against
the Ethiopians, and having defeated them several times, then came back
again, leaving their property to the Ethiopians. But as to the truth of
this I leave it to every man to form his own opinion.
Having come into the City of the Priests, I went forth into the street,
and found a priest of the baser sort, who for a piece of silver led me
hither and thither among the temples, discoursing of many things.
Now it seemed to me a strange thing that the city was empty, and no man
dwelling therein, save a few priests only, and their wives, and their
children, who are drawn to and fro in little carriages dragged by women.
But the priest told me that during half the year the city was desolate,
for that there came somewhat called “The Long,” or “The Vac,” and drave
out the young priests. And he said that these did no other thing but row
boats, and throw balls from one to the other, and this they were made to
do, he said, that the young priests might learn to be humble, for they
are the proudest of men. But whether he spoke truth or not I know not,
only I set down what he told me. But to anyone considering it, this
appears rather to jump with his story—namely, that the young priests have
houses on the river, painted of divers colours, all of them empty.
Then the priest, at my desire, brought me to one of the temples, that I
might seek out all things concerning Herodotus the Halicarnassian, from
one who knew. Now this temple is not the fairest in the city, but less
fair and goodly than the old temples, yet goodlier and more fair than the
new temples; and over the roof there is the image of an eagle made of
stone—no small marvel, but a great one, how men came to fashion him; and
that temple is called the House of Queens. Here they sacrifice a boar
once every year; and concerning this they tell a certain sacred story
which I know but will not utter.
Then I was brought to the priest who had a name for knowing most about
Egypt, and the Egyptians, and the Assyrians, and the Cappadocians, and
all the kingdoms of the Great King. He came out to me, being attired in
a black robe, and wearing on his head a square cap. But why the priests
have square caps I know, and he who has been initiated into the mysteries
which they call “Matric” knows, but I prefer not to tell. Concerning the
square cap, then, let this be sufficient. Now, the priest received me
courteously, and when I asked him, concerning Herodotus, whether he were
a true man or not, he smiled and answered “Abu Goosh,” which, in the
tongue of the Arabians, means “The Father of Liars. ” Then he went on to
speak concerning Herodotus, and he said in his discourse that Herodotus
not only told the thing which was not, but that he did so wilfully, as
one knowing the truth but concealing it. For example, quoth he, “Solon
never went to see Croesus, as Herodotus avers; nor did those about Xerxes
ever dream dreams; but Herodotus, out of his abundant wickedness,
invented these things. ”
“Now behold,” he went on, “how the curse of the Gods falls upon
Herodotus. For he pretends that he saw Cadmeian inscriptions at Thebes.
Now I do not believe there were any Cadmeian inscriptions there:
therefore Herodotus is most manifestly lying. Moreover, this Herodotus
never speaks of Sophocles the Athenian, and why not? Because he, being a
child at school, did not learn Sophocles by heart: for the tragedies of
Sophocles could not have been learned at school before they were written,
nor can any man quote a poet whom he never learned at school. Moreover,
as all those about Herodotus knew Sophocles well, he could not appear to
them to be learned by showing that he knew what they knew also. ” Then I
thought the priest was making game and sport, saying first that Herodotus
could know no poet whom he had not learned at school, and then saying
that all the men of his time well knew this poet, “about whom everyone
was talking. ” But the priest seemed not to know that Herodotus and
Sophocles were friends, which is proved by this, that Sophocles wrote an
ode in praise of Herodotus.
Then he went on, and though I were to write with a hundred hands (like
Briareus, of whom Homer makes mention) I could not tell you all the
things that the priest said against Herodotus, speaking truly, or not
truly, or sometimes correctly and sometimes not, as often befalls mortal
men. For Herodotus, he said, was chiefly concerned to steal the lore of
those who came before him, such as Hecatæus, and then to escape notice as
having stolen it. Also he said that, being himself cunning and
deceitful, Herodotus was easily beguiled by the cunning of others, and
believed in things manifestly false, such as the story of the
Phoenix-bird.
Then I spoke, and said that Herodotus himself declared that he could not
believe that story; but the priest regarded me not. And he said that
Herodotus had never caught a crocodile with cold pig, nor did he ever
visit Assyria, nor Babylon, nor Elephantine; but, saying that he had been
in these lands, said that which was not true. He also declared that
Herodotus, when he travelled, knew none of the Fat Ones of the Egyptians,
but only those of the baser sort. And he called Herodotus a thief and a
beguiler, and “the same with intent to deceive,” as one of their own
poets writes. And, to be short, Herodotus, I could not tell you in one
day all the charges which are now brought against you; but concerning the
truth of these things, _you_ know, not least, but most, as to yourself
being guilty or innocent. Wherefore, if you have anything to show or set
forth whereby you may be relieved from the burden of these accusations,
now is the time. Be no longer silent; but, whether through the Oracle of
the Dead, or the Oracle of Branchidæ, or that in Delphi, or Dodona, or of
Amphiaraus at Oropus, speak to your friends and lovers (whereof I am one
from of old) and let men know the very truth.
Now, concerning the priests in the City of the Ford of the Ox, it is to
be said that of all men whom we know they receive strangers most gladly,
feasting them all day. Moreover, they have many drinks, cunningly mixed,
and of these the best is that they call Archdeacon, naming it from one of
the priests’ offices. Truly, as Homer says (if the Odyssey be Homer’s),
“when that draught is poured into the bowl then it is no pleasure to
refrain. ”
Drinking of this wine, or nectar, Herodotus, I pledge you, and pour forth
some deal on the ground, to Herodotus of Halicarnassus, in the House of
Hades.
And I wish you farewell, and good be with you. Whether the priest spoke
truly, or not truly, even so may such good things betide you as befall
dead men.
V.
_Epistle to Mr. Alexander Pope_.
FROM mortal Gratitude, decide, my Pope,
Have Wits Immortal more to fear or hope?
Wits toil and travail round the Plant of Fame,
Their Works its Garden, and its Growth their Aim,
Then Commentators, in unwieldy Dance,
Break down the Barriers of the trim Pleasance,
Pursue the Poet, like Actæon’s Hounds,
Beyond the fences of his Garden Grounds,
Rend from the singing Robes each borrowed Gem,
Rend from the laurel’d Brows the Diadem,
And, if one Rag of Character they spare,
Comes the Biographer, and strips it bare!
Such, Pope, has been thy Fortune, such thy Doom.
Swift the Ghouls gathered at the Poet’s Tomb,
With Dust of Notes to clog each lordly Line,
Warburton, Warton, Croker, Bowles, combine!
Collecting Cackle, Johnson condescends
To _interview_ the Drudges of your Friends.
Thus though your Courthope holds your merits high,
And still proclaims your Poems _Poetry_,
Biographers, un-Boswell-like, have sneered,
And Dunces edit him whom Dunces feared!
They say, “what say they? ” Not in vain You ask;
To tell you what they say, behold my Task!
“Methinks already I your Tears survey”
As I repeat “the horrid Things they say. ” {48a}
Comes El-n first: I fancy you’ll agree
Not frenzied Dennis smote so fell as he;
For El-n’s Introduction, crabbed and dry,
Like Churchill’s Cudgel’s {48b} marked with _Lie_, and _Lie_!
“Too dull to know what his own System meant,
Pope yet was skilled new Treasons to invent;
A Snake that puffed himself and stung his Friends,
Few Lied so frequent, for such little Ends;
His mind, like Flesh inflamed, {49} was raw and sore,
And still, the more he writhed, he stung the more!
Oft in a Quarrel, never in the Right,
His Spirit sank when he was called to fight.
Pope, in the Darkness mining like a Mole,
Forged on Himself, as from Himself he stole,
And what for Caryll once he feigned to feel,
Transferred, in Letters never sent, to Steele!
Still he denied the Letters he had writ,
And still mistook Indecency for Wit.
His very Grammar, so De Quincey cries,
‘Detains the Reader, and at times defies! ’”
Fierce El-n thus: no Line escapes his Rage,
And furious Foot-notes growl ’neath every Page:
See St-ph-n next take up the woful Tale,
Prolong the Preaching, and protract the Wail!
“Some forage Falsehoods from the North and South,
But Pope, poor D-l, lied from Hand to Mouth; {50}
Affected, hypocritical, and vain,
A Book in Breeches, and a Fop in Grain;
A Fox that found not the high Clusters sour,
The Fanfaron of Vice beyond his power,
Pope yet possessed”—(the Praise will make you start)—
“Mean, morbid, vain, he yet possessed a Heart!
And still we marvel at the Man, and still
Admire his Finish, and applaud his Skill:
Though, as that fabled Barque, a phantom Form,
Eternal strains, nor rounds the Cape of Storm,
Even so Pope strove, nor ever crossed the Line
That from the Noble separates the Fine! ”
The Learned thus, and who can quite reply,
Reverse the Judgment, and Retort the Lie?
You reap, in armèd Hates that haunt your Name,
Reap what you sowed, the Dragon’s Teeth of Fame:
You could not write, and from unenvious Time
Expect the Wreath that crowns the lofty Rhyme,
You still must fight, retreat, attack, defend,
And oft, to snatch a Laurel, lose a Friend!
The Pity of it! And the changing Taste
Of changing Time leaves half your Work a Waste!
My Childhood fled your Couplet’s clarion tone,
And sought for Homer in the Prose of Bohn.
Still through the Dust of that dim Prose appears
The Flight of Arrows and the Sheen of Spears;
Still we may trace what Hearts heroic feel,
And hear the Bronze that hurtles on the Steel!
But, ah, your Iliad seems a half-pretence,
Where Wits, not Heroes, prove their Skill in Fence,
And great Achilles’ Eloquence doth show
As if no Centaur trained him, but Boileau!
Again, your Verse is orderly,—and more,—
“The Waves behind impel the Waves before;”
Monotonously musical they glide,
Till Couplet unto Couplet hath replied.
But turn to Homer! How his Verses sweep!
Surge answers Surge and Deep doth call on Deep;
This Line in Foam and Thunder issues forth,
Spurred by the West or smitten by the North,
Sombre in all its sullen Deeps, and all
Clear at the Crest, and foaming to the Fall,
The next with silver Murmur dies away,
Like Tides that falter to Calypso’s Bay!
Thus Time, with sordid Alchemy and dread,
Turns half the Glory of your Gold to Lead;
Thus Time,—at Ronsard’s wreath that vainly bit,—
Has marred the Poet to preserve the Wit,
Who almost left on Addison a stain,
Whose Knife cut cleanest with a poisoned pain,—
Yet Thou (strange Fate that clings to all of Thine! )
When most a Wit dost most a Poet shine.
In Poetry thy Dunciad expires,
When Wit has shot “her momentary Fires. ”
’Tis Tragedy that watches by the Bed
“Where tawdry Yellow strove with dirty Red,”
And Men, remembering all, can scarce deny
To lay the Laurel where thine Ashes lie!
VI.
_To Lucian of Samosata_.
IN what bower, oh Lucian, of your rediscovered Islands Fortunate are you
now reclining; the delight of the fair, the learned, the witty, and the
brave? In that clear and tranquil climate, whose air breathes of “violet
and lily, myrtle, and the flower of the vine,”
_Where the daisies are rose-scented_,
_And the Rose herself has got_
_Perfume which on earth is not_,
among the music of all birds, and the wind-blown notes of flutes hanging
on the trees, methinks that your laughter sounds most silvery sweet, and
that Helen and fair Charmides are still of your company. Master of
mirth, and Soul the best contented of all that have seen the world’s ways
clearly, most clear-sighted of all that have made tranquillity their
bride, what other laughers dwell with you, where the crystal and fragrant
waters wander round the shining palaces and the temples of amethyst?
Heine surely is with you; if, indeed, it was not one Syrian soul that
dwelt among alien men, Germans and Romans, in the bodily tabernacles of
Heine and of Lucian. But he was fallen on evil times and evil tongues;
while Lucian, as witty as he, as bitter in mockery, as happily dowered
with the magic of words, lived long and happily and honoured, imprisoned
in no “mattress-grave. ” Without Rabelais, without Voltaire, without
Heine, you would find, methinks, even the joys of your Happy Islands
lacking in zest; and, unless Plato came by your way, none of the ancients
could meet you in the lists of sportive dialogue.
There, among the vines that bear twelve times in the year, more excellent
than all the vineyards of Touraine, while the song-birds bring you
flowers from vales enchanted, and the shapes of the Blessed come and go,
beautiful in wind-woven raiment of sunset hues; there, in a land that
knows not age, nor winter, midnight, nor autumn, nor noon, where the
silver twilight of summer-dawn is perennial, where youth does not wax
spectre-pale and die; there, my Lucian, you are crowned the Prince of the
Paradise of Mirth.
Who would bring you, if he had the power, from the banquet where Homer
sings: Homer, who, in mockery of commentators, past and to come, German
and Greek, informed you that he was by birth a Babylonian? Yet, if you,
who first wrote Dialogues of the Dead, could hear the prayer of an
epistle wafted to “lands indiscoverable in the unheard-of West,” you
might visit once more a world so worthy of such a mocker, so like the
world you knew so well of old.
Ah, Lucian, we have need of you, of your sense and of your mockery!
Here, where faith is sick and superstition is waking afresh; where gods
come rarely, and spectres appear at five shillings an interview; where
science is popular, and philosophy cries aloud in the market-place, and
clamour does duty for government, and Thais and Lais are names of
power—here, Lucian, is room and scope for you. Can I not imagine a new
“Auction of Philosophers,” and what wealth might be made by him who
bought these popular sages and lecturers at his estimate, and vended them
at their own?
HERMES: Whom shall we put first up to auction?
ZEUS: That German in spectacles; he seems a highly respectable man.
HERMES: Ho, Pessimist, come down and let the public view you.
ZEUS: Go on, put him up and have done with him.
HERMES: Who bids for the Life Miserable, for extreme, complete, perfect,
unredeemable perdition? What offers for the universal extinction of the
species, and the collapse of the Conscious?
A PURCHASER: He does not look at all a bad lot. May one put him through
his paces?
HERMES: Certainly; try your luck.
PURCHASER: What is your name?
PESSIMIST: Hartmann.
PURCHASER: What can you teach me?
PESSIMIST: That Life is not worth Living.
PURCHASER: Wonderful! Most edifying! How much for this lot?
HERMES: Two hundred pounds.
PURCHASER: I will write you a cheque for the money. Come home,
Pessimist, and begin your lessons without more ado.
HERMES: Attention! Here is a magnificent article—the Positive Life, the
Scientific Life, the Enthusiastic Life. Who bids for a possible place in
the Calendar of the Future?
PURCHASER: What does he call himself? he has a very French air.
HERMES: Put your own questions.
PURCHASER: What’s your pedigree, my Philosopher, and previous
performances?
POSITIVIST: I am by Rousseau out of Catholicism, with a strain of the
Evolution blood.
PURCHASER: What do you believe in?
POSITIVIST: In Man, with a large M.
PURCHASER: Not in individual Man?
POSITIVIST: By no means; not even always in Mr. Gladstone. All men, all
Churches, all parties, all philosophies, and even the other sect of our
own Church, are perpetually in the wrong. Buy me, and listen to me, and
you will always be in the right.
PURCHASER: And, after this life, what have you to offer me?
POSITIVIST: A distinguished position in the Choir Invisible; but not, of
course, conscious immortality.
PURCHASER: Take him away, and put up another lot.
Then the Hegelian, with his Notion, and the Darwinian, with his notions,
and the Lotzian, with his Broad Church mixture of Religion and Evolution,
and the Spencerian, with that Absolute which is a sort of a something,
might all be offered with their divers wares; and cheaply enough, Lucian,
you would value them in this auction of Sects. “There is but one way to
Corinth,” as of old; but which that way may be, oh master of Hermotimus,
we know no more than he did of old; and still we find, of all
philosophies, that the Stoic route is most to be recommended. But we
have our Cyrenaics too, though they are no longer “clothed in purple, and
crowned with flowers, and fond of drink and of female flute-players. ”
Ah, here too, you might laugh, and fail to see where the Pleasure lies,
when the Cyrenaics are no “judges of cakes” (nor of ale, for that
matter), and are strangers in the Courts of Princes. “To despise all
things, to make use of all things, in all things to follow pleasure
only:” that is not the manner of the new, if it were the secret of the
older Hedonism.
Then, turning from the philosophers to the seekers after a sign, what
change, Lucian, would you find in them and their ways? None; they are
quite unaltered. Still our Peregrinus, and our Peregrina too, come to us
from the East, or, if from the West, they take India on their way—India,
that secular home of drivelling creeds, and of religion in its
sacerdotage. Still they prattle of Brahmins and Buddhism; though, unlike
Peregrinus, they do not publicly burn themselves on pyres, at Epsom
Downs, after the Derby. We are not so fortunate in the demise of our
Theosophists; and our police, less wise than the Hellenodicæ, would
probably not permit the Immolation of the Quack. Like your Alexander,
they deal in marvels and miracles, oracles and warnings. All such bogy
stories as those of your “Philopseudes,” and the ghost of the lady who
took to table-rapping because one of her best slippers had not been
burned with her body, are gravely investigated by the Psychical Society.
Even your ignorant Bibliophile is still with us—the man without a tinge
of letters, who buys up old manuscripts “because they are stained and
gnawed, and who goes, for proof of valued antiquity, to the testimony of
the book-worms. ” And the rich Bibliophile now, as in your satire,
clothes his volumes in purple morocco and gay _dorures_, while their
contents are sealed to him.
As to the topics of satire and gay curiosity which occupy the lady known
as “Gyp,” and M.
Halévy in his “Les Petites Cardinal,” if you had not
exhausted the matter in your “Dialogues of Hetairai,” you would be amused
to find the same old traits surviving without a touch of change. One
reads, in Halévy’s French, of Madame Cardinal, and, in your Greek, of the
mother of Philinna, and marvels that eighteen hundred years have not in
one single trifle altered the mould. Still the old shabby light-loves,
the old greed, the old luxury and squalor. Still the unconquerable
superstition that now seeks to tell fortunes by the cards, and, in your
time, resorted to the sorceress with her magical “bull-roarer” or
_turndun_. {64}
Yes, Lucian, we are the same vain creatures of doubt and dread, of
unbelief and credulity, of avarice and pretence, that you knew, and at
whom you smiled. Nay, our very “social question” is not altered. Do you
not write, in “The Runaways,” “The artisans will abandon their workshops,
and leave their trades, when they see that, with all the labour that bows
their bodies from dawn to dark, they make a petty and starveling
pittance, while men that toil not nor spin are floating in Pactolus”?
They begin to see this again as of yore; but whether the end of their
vision will be a laughing matter, you, fortunate Lucian, do not need to
care. Hail to you, and farewell!
VII.
_To Maître Françoys Rabelais_.
OF THE COMING OF THE COQCIGRUES.
MASTER,—In the Boreal and Septentrional lands, turned aside from the
noonday and the sun, there dwelt of old (as thou knowest, and as Olaus
voucheth) a race of men, brave, strong, nimble, and adventurous, who had
no other care but to fight and drink. There, by reason of the cold (as
Virgil witnesseth), men break wine with axes. To their minds, when once
they were dead and gotten to Valhalla, or the place of their Gods, there
would be no other pleasure but to swig, tipple, drink, and boose till the
coming of that last darkness and Twilight, wherein they, with their
deities, should do battle against the enemies of all mankind; which day
they rather desired than dreaded.
So chanced it also with Pantagruel and Brother John and their company,
after they had once partaken of the secret of the _Dive Bouteille_.
Thereafter they searched no longer; but, abiding at their ease, were
merry, frolic, jolly, gay, glad, and wise; only that they always and ever
did expect the awful Coming of the Coqcigrues. Now concerning the day of
that coming, and the nature of them that should come, they knew nothing;
and for his part Panurge was all the more adread, as Aristotle testifieth
that men (and Panurge above others) most fear that which they know least.
Now it chanced one day, as they sat at meat, with viands rare, dainty,
and precious as ever Apicius dreamed of, that there fluttered on the air
a faint sound as of sermons, speeches, orations, addresses, discourses,
lectures, and the like; whereat Panurge, pricking up his ears, cried,
“Methinks this wind bloweth from Midlothian,” and so fell a trembling.
Next, to their aural orifices, and the avenues audient of the brain, was
borne a very melancholy sound as of harmoniums, hymns, organ-pianos,
psalteries, and the like, all playing different airs, in a kind most
hateful to the Muses. Then said Panurge, as well as he might for the
chattering of his teeth: “May I never drink if here come not the
Coqcigrues! ” and this saying and prophecy of his was true and inspired.
But thereon the others began to mock, flout, and gird at Panurge for his
cowardice. “Here am I! ” cried Brother John, “well-armed and ready to
stand a siege; being entrenched, fortified, hemmed-in and surrounded with
great pasties, huge pieces of salted beef, salads, fricassees, hams,
tongues, pies, and a wilderness of pleasant little tarts, jellies,
pastries, trifles, and fruits of all kinds, and I shall not thirst while
I have good wells, founts, springs, and sources of Bordeaux wine,
Burgundy, wine of the Champagne country, sack and Canary. A fig for thy
Coqcigrues! ”
But even as he spoke there ran up suddenly a whole legion, or rather
army, of physicians, each armed with laryngoscopes, stethoscopes,
horoscopes, microscopes, weighing machines, and such other tools,
engines, and arms as they had who, after thy time, persecuted Monsieur de
Pourceaugnac! And they all, rushing on Brother John, cried out to him,
“Abstain! Abstain! ” And one said, “I have well diagnosed thee, and thou
art in a fair way to have the gout. ” “I never did better in my days,”
said Brother John. “Away with thy meats and drinks! ” they cried. And
one said, “He must to Royat;” and another, “Hence with him to Aix;” and a
third, “Banish him to Wiesbaden;” and a fourth, “Hale him to Gastein;”
and yet another, “To Barbouille with him in chains! ”
And while others felt his pulse and looked at his tongue, they all wrote
prescriptions for him like men mad. “For thy eating,” cried he that
seemed to be their leader, “No soup! ” “No soup! ” quoth Brother John; and
those cheeks of his, whereat you might have warmed your two hands in the
winter solstice, grew white as lilies. “Nay! and no salmon, nor any beef
nor mutton! A little chicken by times, _pericolo tuo_! Nor any game,
such as grouse, partridge, pheasant, capercailzie, wild duck; nor any
cheese, nor fruit, nor pastry, nor coffee, nor _eau de vie_; and avoid
all sweets. No veal, pork, nor made dishes of any kind. ” “Then what may
I eat? ” quoth the good Brother, whose valour had oozed out of the soles
of his sandals. “A little cold bacon at breakfast—no eggs,” quoth the
leader of the strange folk, “and a slice of toast without butter. ” “And
for thy drink”—(“What? ” gasped Brother John)—“one dessert-spoonful of
whisky, with a pint of the water of Apollinaris at luncheon and dinner.
No more! ” At this Brother John fainted, falling like a great buttress of
a hill, such as Taygetus or Erymanthus.
While they were busy with him, others of the frantic folk had built great
platforms of wood, whereon they all stood and spoke at once, both men and
women. And of these some wore red crosses on their garments, which
meaneth “Salvation;” and others wore white crosses, with a little black
button of crape, to signify “Purity;” and others bits of blue to mean
“Abstinence. ” While some of these pursued Panurge others did beset
Pantagruel; asking him very long questions, whereunto he gave but short
answers. Thus they asked:—
Have ye Local Option here? —Pan. : What?
May one man drink if his neighbour be not athirst? —Pan. : Yea!
Have ye Free Education? —Pan. : What?
Must they that have, pay to school them that have not? —Pan. : Nay!
Have ye free land? —Pan. : What?
Have ye taken the land from the farmer, and given it to the tailor out of
work and the candlemaker masterless? —Pan. : Nay!
Have your women folk votes? —Pan. : Bosh!
Have ye got religion? —Pan. : How?
Do you go about the streets at night, brawling, blowing a trumpet before
you, and making long prayers? —Pan. : Nay!
Have you manhood suffrage? —Pan. : Eh?
Is Jack as good as his master? —Pan. : Nay!
Have you joined the Arbitration Society? —Pan. : _Quoy_?
Will you let another kick you, and will you ask his neighbour if you
deserve the same? —Pan. : Nay!
Do you eat what you list? —Pan. : Ay!
Do you drink when you are athirst? —Pan. : Ay!
Are you governed by the free expression of the popular will? —Pan. : How?
Are you servants of priests, pulpits, and penny papers? —Pan. : NO!
Now, when they heard these answers of Pantagruel they all fell, some a
weeping, some a praying, some a swearing, some an arbitrating, some a
lecturing, some a caucussing, some a preaching, some a faith-healing,
some a miracle-working, some a hypnotising, some a writing to the daily
press; and while they were thus busy, like folk distraught, “reforming
the island,” Pantagruel burst out a laughing; whereat they were greatly
dismayed; for laughter killeth the whole race of Coqcigrues, and they may
not endure it.
Then Pantagruel and his company stole aboard a barque that Panurge had
ready in the harbour. And having provisioned her well with store of meat
and good drink, they set sail for the kingdom of Entelechy, where, having
landed, they were kindly entreated; and there abide to this day; drinking
of the sweet and eating of the fat, under the protection of that
intellectual sphere which hath in all places its centre and nowhere its
circumference.
Such was their destiny; there was their end appointed, and thither the
Coqcigrues can never come. For all the air of that land is full of
laughter, which killeth Coqcigrues; and there aboundeth the herb
Pantagruelion. But for thee, Master Françoys, thou art not well liked in
this island of ours, where the Coqcigrues are abundant, very fierce,
cruel, and tyrannical. Yet thou hast thy friends, that meet and drink to
thee, and wish thee well wheresoever thou hast found thy _grand
peut-être_.
VIII.
_To Jane Austen_.
MADAM,—If to the enjoyments of your present state be lacking a view of
the minor infirmities or foibles of men, I cannot but think (were the
thought permitted) that your pleasures are yet incomplete. Moreover, it
is certain that a woman of parts who has once meddled with literature
will never wholly lose her love for the discussion of that delicious
topic, nor cease to relish what (in the cant of our new age) is styled
“literary shop. ” For these reasons I attempt to convey to you some
inkling of the present state of that agreeable art which you, madam,
raised to its highest pitch of perfection.
As to your own works (immortal, as I believe), I have but little that is
wholly cheering to tell one who, among women of letters, was almost alone
in her freedom from a lettered vanity. You are not a very popular
author: your volumes are not found in gaudy covers on every bookstall;
or, if found, are not perused with avidity by the Emmas and Catherines of
our generation. ’Tis not long since a blow was dealt (in the estimation
of the unreasoning) at your character as an author by the publication of
your familiar letters. The editor of these epistles, unfortunately, did
not always take your witticisms, and he added others which were too
unmistakably his own. While the injudicious were disappointed by the
absence of your exquisite style and humour, the wiser sort were the more
convinced of your wisdom. In your letters (knowing your correspondents)
you gave but the small personal talk of the hour, for them sufficient;
for your books you reserved matter and expression which are imperishable.
Your admirers, if not very numerous, include all persons of taste, who,
in your favour, are apt somewhat to abate the rule, or shake off the
habit, which commonly confines them to but temperate laudation.
’Tis the fault of all art to seem antiquated and faded in the eyes of the
succeeding generation. The manners of your age were not the manners of
to-day, and young gentlemen and ladies who think Scott “slow,” think Miss
Austen “prim” and “dreary. ” Yet, even could you return among us, I
scarcely believe that, speaking the language of the hour, as you might,
and versed in its habits, you would win the general admiration. For how
tame, madam, are your characters, especially your favourite heroines! how
limited the life which you knew and described! how narrow the range of
your incidents! how correct your grammar!
As heroines, for example, you chose ladies like Emma, and Elizabeth, and
Catherine: women remarkable neither for the brilliance nor for the
degradation of their birth; women wrapped up in their own and the
parish’s concerns, ignorant of evil, as it seems, and unacquainted with
vain yearnings and interesting doubts. Who can engage his fancy with
their match-makings and the conduct of their affections, when so many
daring and dazzling heroines approach and solicit his regard?
Here are princesses dressed in white velvet stamped with golden
fleurs-de-lys—ladies with hearts of ice and lips of fire, who count their
roubles by the million, their lovers by the score, and even their
husbands, very often, in figures of some arithmetical importance. With
these are the immaculate daughters of itinerant Italian musicians—maids
whose souls are unsoiled amidst the contaminations of our streets, and
whose acquaintance with the art of Phidias and Praxiteles, of Dædalus and
Scopas, is the more admirable, because entirely derived from loving study
of the inexpensive collections vended by the plaster-of-Paris man round
the corner. When such heroines are wooed by the nephews of Dukes, where
are your Emmas and Elizabeths? Your volumes neither excite nor satisfy
the curiosities provoked by that modern and scientific fiction, which is
greatly admired, I learn, in the United States, as well as in France and
at home.
You erred, it cannot be denied, with your eyes open. Knowing Lydia and
Kitty so intimately as you did, why did you make of them almost
insignificant characters? With Lydia for a heroine you might have gone
far; and, had you devoted three volumes, and the chief of your time, to
the passions of Kitty, you might have held your own, even now, in the
circulating library. How Lyddy, perched on a corner of the roof, first
beheld her Wickham; how, on her challenge, he climbed up by a ladder to
her side; how they kissed, caressed, swung on gates together, met at odd
seasons, in strange places, and finally eloped: all this might have been
put in the mouth of a jealous elder sister, say Elizabeth, and you would
not have been less popular than several favourites of our time. Had you
cast the whole narrative into the present tense, and lingered lovingly
over the thickness of Mary’s legs and the softness of Kitty’s cheeks, and
the blonde fluffiness of Wickham’s whiskers, you would have left a
romance still dear to young ladies.
Or, again, you might entrance fair students still, had you concentrated
your attention on Mrs. Rushworth, who eloped with Henry Crawford. These
should have been the chief figures of “Mansfield Park. ” But you timidly
decline to tackle Passion. “Let other pens,” you write, “dwell on guilt
and misery. I quit such odious subjects as soon as I can. ” Ah, _there_
is the secret of your failure! Need I add that the vulgarity and
narrowness of the social circles you describe impair your popularity? I
scarce remember more than one lady of title, and but very few lords (and
these unessential) in all your tales. Now, when we all wish to be in
society, we demand plenty of titles in our novels, at any rate, and we
get lords (and very queer lords) even from Republican authors, born in a
country which in your time was not renowned for its literature. I have
heard a critic remark, with a decided air of fashion, on the brevity of
the notice which your characters give each other when they offer
invitations to dinner. “An invitation to dinner next day was
despatched,” and this demonstrates that your acquaintance “went out” very
little, and had but few engagements. How vulgar, too, is one of your
heroines, who bids Mr. Darcy “keep his breath to cool his porridge. ” I
blush for Elizabeth! It were superfluous to add that your characters are
debased by being invariably mere members of the Church of England as by
law established. The Dissenting enthusiast, the open soul that glides
from Esoteric Buddhism to the Salvation Army, and from the Higher
Pantheism to the Higher Paganism, we look for in vain among your studies
of character. Nay, the very words I employ are of unknown sound to you;
so how can you help us in the stress of the soul’s travailings?
You may say that the soul’s travailings are no affair of yours; proving
thereby that you have indeed but a lowly conception of the duty of the
novelist. I only remember one reference, in all your works, to that
controversy which occupies the chief of our attention—the great
controversy on Creation or Evolution. Your Jane Bennet cries: “I have no
idea of there being so much Design in the world as some persons imagine. ”
Nor do you touch on our mighty social question, the Land Laws, save when
Mrs. Bennet appears as a Land Reformer, and rails bitterly against the
cruelty “of settling an estate away from a family of five daughters, in
favour of a man whom nobody cared anything about. ” There, madam, in that
cruelly unjust performance, what a text you had for a _tendenz-romanz_.
Nay, you can allow Kitty to report that a Private had been flogged,
without introducing a chapter on Flogging in the Army. But you formally
declined to stretch your matter out, here and there, “with solemn
specious nonsense about something unconnected with the story. ” No
“padding” for Miss Austen! in fact, madam, as you were born before
Analysis came in, or Passion, or Realism, or Naturalism, or Irreverence,
or Religious Open-mindedness, you really cannot hope to rival your
literary sisters in the minds of a perplexed generation. Your heroines
are not passionate, we do not see their red wet cheeks, and tresses
dishevelled in the manner of our frank young Mænads. What says your best
successor, a lady who adds fresh lustre to a name that in fiction equals
yours? She says of Miss Austen: “Her heroines have a stamp of their own.
_They have a certain gentle self-respect and humour and hardness of
heart_ . . . Love with them does not mean a passion as much as an
interest, deep and silent. ” I think one prefers them so, and that
Englishwomen should be more like Anne Elliot than Maggie Tulliver. “All
the privilege I claim for my own sex is that of loving longest when
existence or when hope is gone,” said Anne; perhaps she insisted on a
monopoly that neither sex has all to itself. Ah, madam, what a relief it
is to come back to your witty volumes, and forget the follies of to-day
in those of Mr. Collins and of Mrs. Bennet! How fine, nay, how noble is
your art in its delicate reserve, never insisting, never forcing the
note, never pushing the sketch into the caricature! You worked, without
thinking of it, in the spirit of Greece, on a labour happily limited, and
exquisitely organised. “Dear books,” we say, with Miss Thackeray—“dear
books, bright, sparkling with wit and animation, in which the homely
heroines charm, the dull hours fly, and the very bores are enchanting. ”
IX.
_To Master Isaak Walton_.
FATHER ISAAK,—When I would be quiet and go angling it is my custom to
carry in my wallet thy pretty book, “The Compleat Angler. ” Here,
methinks, if I find not trout I shall find content, and good company, and
sweet songs, fair milkmaids, and country mirth. For you are to know that
trout be now scarce and whereas he was ever a fearful fish, he hath of
late become so wary that none but the cunningest anglers may be even with
him.
It is not as it was in your time, Father, when a man might leave his shop
in Fleet Street, of a holiday, and, when he had stretched his legs up
Tottenham Hill, come lightly to meadows chequered with waterlilies and
lady-smocks, and so fall to his sport. Nay, now have the houses so much
increased, like a spreading sore (through the breaking of that excellent
law of the Conscientious King and blessed Martyr, whereby building beyond
the walls was forbidden), that the meadows are all swallowed up in
streets. And as to the River Lea, wherein you took many a good trout, I
read in the news sheets that “its bed is many inches thick in horrible
filth, and the air for more than half a mile on each side of it is
polluted with a horrible, sickening stench,” so that we stand in dread of
a new Plague, called the Cholera. And so it is all about London for many
miles, and if a man, at heavy charges, betake himself to the fields, lo
you, folk are grown so greedy that none will suffer a stranger to fish in
his water.
So poor anglers are in sore straits. Unless a man be rich and can pay
great rents, he may not fish in England, and hence spring the discontents
of the times, for the angler is full of content, if he do but take trout,
but if he be driven from the waterside, he falls, perchance, into evil
company, and cries out to divide the property of the gentle folk. As
many now do, even among Parliament-men, whom you loved not, Father Isaak,
neither do I love them more than Reason and Scripture bid each of us be
kindly to his neighbour. But, behold, the causes of the ill content are
not yet all expressed, for even where a man hath licence to fish, he will
hardly take trout in our age, unless he be all the more cunning. For the
fish, harried this way and that by so many of your disciples, is
exceeding shy and artful, nor will he bite at a fly unless it falleth
lightly, just above his mouth, and floateth dry over him, for all the
world like the natural _ephemeris_. And we may no longer angle with worm
for him, nor with penk or minnow, nor with the natural fly, as was your
manner, but only with the artificial, for the more difficulty the more
diversion. For my part I may cry, like Viator in your book, “Master, I
can neither catch with the first nor second Angle: I have no fortune. ”
So we fare in England, but somewhat better north of the Tweed, where
trout are less wary, but for the most part small, except in the extreme
rough north, among horrid hills and lakes.
not always there to warm thine old blood, Master, or, if fire there were,
the wood was not bought with thy book-seller’s money. When autumn was
drawing in during thine early old age, in 1584, didst thou not write that
thou hadst never received a sou at the hands of all the publishers who
vended thy books? And as thou wert about putting forth thy folio edition
of 1584, thou didst pray Buon, the bookseller, to give thee sixty crowns
to buy wood withal, and make thee a bright fire in winter weather, and
comfort thine old age with thy friend Gallandius. And if Buon will not
pay, then to try the other booksellers, “that wish to take everything and
give nothing. ”
Was it knowledge of this passage, Master, or ignorance of everything
else, that made certain of the common steadfast dunces of our days speak
of thee as if thou hadst been a starveling, neglected poetaster, jealous
forsooth of Maître Françoys Rabelais? See how ignorantly M. Fleury
writes, who teaches French literature withal to them of Muscovy, and hath
indited a Life of Rabelais. “Rabelais était revêtu d’un emploi
honorable; Ronsard était traité en subalterne,” quoth this wondrous
professor. What! Pierre de Ronsard, a gentleman of a noble house,
holding the revenue of many abbeys, the friend of Mary Stuart, of the Duc
d’Orléans, of Charles IX. , _he_ is _traité en subalterne_, and is jealous
of a frocked or unfrocked _manant_ like Maître Françoys! And then this
amazing Fleury falls foul of thine epitaph on Maître Françoys and cries,
“Ronsard a voulu faire des vers méchants; il n’a fait que de méchants
vers. ” More truly saith M. Sainte-Beuve, “If the good Rabelais had
returned to Meudon on the day when this epitaph was made over the wine,
he would, methinks, have laughed heartily. ” But what shall be said of a
Professor like the egregious M. Fleury, who holds that Ronsard was
despised at Court? Was there a party at tennis when the king would not
fain have had thee on his side, declaring that he ever won when Ronsard
was his partner? Did he not give thee benefices, and many priories, and
call thee his father in Apollo, and even, so they say, bid thee sit down
beside him on his throne? Away, ye scandalous folk, who tell us that
there was strife between the Prince of Poets and the King of Mirth.
Naught have ye by way of proof of your slander but the talk of Jean
Bernier, a scurrilous, starveling apothecary, who put forth his fables in
1697, a century and a half after Maître Françoys died. Bayle quoted this
fellow in a note, and ye all steal the tattle one from another in your
dull manner, and know not whence it comes, nor even that Bayle would none
of it and mocked its author. With so little knowledge is history
written, and thus doth each chattering brook of a “Life” swell with its
tribute “that great Mississippi of falsehood,” Biography.
IV.
_To Herodotus_.
TO Herodotus of Halicarnassus, greeting. —Concerning the matters set forth
in your histories, and the tales you tell about both Greeks and
Barbarians, whether they be true, or whether they be false, men dispute
not little but a great deal. Wherefore I, being concerned to know the
verity, did set forth to make search in every manner, and came in my
quest even unto the ends of the earth. For there is an island of the
Cimmerians beyond the Straits of Heracles, some three days’ voyage to a
ship that hath a fair following wind in her sails; and there it is said
that men know many things from of old: thither, then, I came in my
inquiry. Now, the island is not small, but large, greater than the whole
of Hellas; and they call it Britain. In that island the east wind blows
for ten parts of the year, and the people know not how to cover
themselves from the cold. But for the other two months of the year the
sun shines fiercely, so that some of them die thereof, and others die of
the frozen mixed drinks; for they have ice even in the summer, and this
ice they put to their liquor. Through the whole of this island, from the
west even to the east, there flows a river called Thames: a great river
and a laborious, but not to be likened to the River of Egypt.
The mouth of this river, where I stepped out from my ship, is exceedingly
foul and of an evil savour by reason of the city on the banks. Now this
city is several hundred parasangs in circumference. Yet a man that
needed not to breathe the air might go round it in one hour, in chariots
that run under the earth; and these chariots are drawn by creatures that
breathe smoke and sulphur, such as Orpheus mentions in his “Argonautica,”
if it be by Orpheus. The people of the town, when I inquired of them
concerning Herodotus of Halicarnassus, looked on me with amazement, and
went straightway about their business—namely, to seek out whatsoever new
thing is coming to pass all over the whole inhabited world, and as for
things old, they take no keep of them.
Nevertheless, by diligence I learned that he who in this land knew most
concerning Herodotus was a priest, and dwelt in the priests’ city on the
river which is called the City of the Ford of the Ox. But whether Io,
when she wore a cow’s shape, had passed by that way in her wanderings,
and thence comes the name of that city, I could not (though I asked all
men I met) learn aught with certainty. But to me, considering this, it
seemed that Io must have come thither. And now farewell to Io.
To the City of the Priests there are two roads: one by land; and one by
water, following the river. To a well-girdled man, the land journey is
but one day’s travel; by the river it is longer but more pleasant. Now
that river flows, as I said, from the west to the east. And there is in
it a fish called chub, which they catch; but they do not eat it, for a
certain sacred reason. Also there is a fish called trout, and this is
the manner of his catching. They build for this purpose great dams of
wood, which they call weirs. Having built the weir they sit upon it with
rods in their hands, and a line on the rod, and at the end of the line a
little fish. There then they “sit and spin in the sun,” as one of their
poets says, not for a short time but for many days, having rods in their
hands and eating and drinking. In this wise they angle for the fish
called trout; but whether they ever catch him or not, not having seen it,
I cannot say; for it is not pleasant to me to speak things concerning
which I know not the truth.
Now, after sailing and rowing against the stream for certain days, I came
to the City of the Ford of the Ox. Here the river changes his name, and
is called Isis, after the name of the goddess of the Egyptians. But
whether the Britons brought the name from Egypt or whether the Egyptians
took it from the Britons, not knowing I prefer not to say. But to me it
seems that the Britons are a colony of the Egyptians, or the Egyptians a
colony of the Britons. Moreover, when I was in Egypt I saw certain
soldiers in white helmets, who were certainly British. But what they did
there (as Egypt neither belongs to Britain nor Britain to Egypt) I know
not, neither could they tell me. But one of them replied to me in that
line of Homer (if the Odyssey be Homer’s), “We have come to a sorry
Cyprus, and a sad Egypt. ” Others told me that they once marched against
the Ethiopians, and having defeated them several times, then came back
again, leaving their property to the Ethiopians. But as to the truth of
this I leave it to every man to form his own opinion.
Having come into the City of the Priests, I went forth into the street,
and found a priest of the baser sort, who for a piece of silver led me
hither and thither among the temples, discoursing of many things.
Now it seemed to me a strange thing that the city was empty, and no man
dwelling therein, save a few priests only, and their wives, and their
children, who are drawn to and fro in little carriages dragged by women.
But the priest told me that during half the year the city was desolate,
for that there came somewhat called “The Long,” or “The Vac,” and drave
out the young priests. And he said that these did no other thing but row
boats, and throw balls from one to the other, and this they were made to
do, he said, that the young priests might learn to be humble, for they
are the proudest of men. But whether he spoke truth or not I know not,
only I set down what he told me. But to anyone considering it, this
appears rather to jump with his story—namely, that the young priests have
houses on the river, painted of divers colours, all of them empty.
Then the priest, at my desire, brought me to one of the temples, that I
might seek out all things concerning Herodotus the Halicarnassian, from
one who knew. Now this temple is not the fairest in the city, but less
fair and goodly than the old temples, yet goodlier and more fair than the
new temples; and over the roof there is the image of an eagle made of
stone—no small marvel, but a great one, how men came to fashion him; and
that temple is called the House of Queens. Here they sacrifice a boar
once every year; and concerning this they tell a certain sacred story
which I know but will not utter.
Then I was brought to the priest who had a name for knowing most about
Egypt, and the Egyptians, and the Assyrians, and the Cappadocians, and
all the kingdoms of the Great King. He came out to me, being attired in
a black robe, and wearing on his head a square cap. But why the priests
have square caps I know, and he who has been initiated into the mysteries
which they call “Matric” knows, but I prefer not to tell. Concerning the
square cap, then, let this be sufficient. Now, the priest received me
courteously, and when I asked him, concerning Herodotus, whether he were
a true man or not, he smiled and answered “Abu Goosh,” which, in the
tongue of the Arabians, means “The Father of Liars. ” Then he went on to
speak concerning Herodotus, and he said in his discourse that Herodotus
not only told the thing which was not, but that he did so wilfully, as
one knowing the truth but concealing it. For example, quoth he, “Solon
never went to see Croesus, as Herodotus avers; nor did those about Xerxes
ever dream dreams; but Herodotus, out of his abundant wickedness,
invented these things. ”
“Now behold,” he went on, “how the curse of the Gods falls upon
Herodotus. For he pretends that he saw Cadmeian inscriptions at Thebes.
Now I do not believe there were any Cadmeian inscriptions there:
therefore Herodotus is most manifestly lying. Moreover, this Herodotus
never speaks of Sophocles the Athenian, and why not? Because he, being a
child at school, did not learn Sophocles by heart: for the tragedies of
Sophocles could not have been learned at school before they were written,
nor can any man quote a poet whom he never learned at school. Moreover,
as all those about Herodotus knew Sophocles well, he could not appear to
them to be learned by showing that he knew what they knew also. ” Then I
thought the priest was making game and sport, saying first that Herodotus
could know no poet whom he had not learned at school, and then saying
that all the men of his time well knew this poet, “about whom everyone
was talking. ” But the priest seemed not to know that Herodotus and
Sophocles were friends, which is proved by this, that Sophocles wrote an
ode in praise of Herodotus.
Then he went on, and though I were to write with a hundred hands (like
Briareus, of whom Homer makes mention) I could not tell you all the
things that the priest said against Herodotus, speaking truly, or not
truly, or sometimes correctly and sometimes not, as often befalls mortal
men. For Herodotus, he said, was chiefly concerned to steal the lore of
those who came before him, such as Hecatæus, and then to escape notice as
having stolen it. Also he said that, being himself cunning and
deceitful, Herodotus was easily beguiled by the cunning of others, and
believed in things manifestly false, such as the story of the
Phoenix-bird.
Then I spoke, and said that Herodotus himself declared that he could not
believe that story; but the priest regarded me not. And he said that
Herodotus had never caught a crocodile with cold pig, nor did he ever
visit Assyria, nor Babylon, nor Elephantine; but, saying that he had been
in these lands, said that which was not true. He also declared that
Herodotus, when he travelled, knew none of the Fat Ones of the Egyptians,
but only those of the baser sort. And he called Herodotus a thief and a
beguiler, and “the same with intent to deceive,” as one of their own
poets writes. And, to be short, Herodotus, I could not tell you in one
day all the charges which are now brought against you; but concerning the
truth of these things, _you_ know, not least, but most, as to yourself
being guilty or innocent. Wherefore, if you have anything to show or set
forth whereby you may be relieved from the burden of these accusations,
now is the time. Be no longer silent; but, whether through the Oracle of
the Dead, or the Oracle of Branchidæ, or that in Delphi, or Dodona, or of
Amphiaraus at Oropus, speak to your friends and lovers (whereof I am one
from of old) and let men know the very truth.
Now, concerning the priests in the City of the Ford of the Ox, it is to
be said that of all men whom we know they receive strangers most gladly,
feasting them all day. Moreover, they have many drinks, cunningly mixed,
and of these the best is that they call Archdeacon, naming it from one of
the priests’ offices. Truly, as Homer says (if the Odyssey be Homer’s),
“when that draught is poured into the bowl then it is no pleasure to
refrain. ”
Drinking of this wine, or nectar, Herodotus, I pledge you, and pour forth
some deal on the ground, to Herodotus of Halicarnassus, in the House of
Hades.
And I wish you farewell, and good be with you. Whether the priest spoke
truly, or not truly, even so may such good things betide you as befall
dead men.
V.
_Epistle to Mr. Alexander Pope_.
FROM mortal Gratitude, decide, my Pope,
Have Wits Immortal more to fear or hope?
Wits toil and travail round the Plant of Fame,
Their Works its Garden, and its Growth their Aim,
Then Commentators, in unwieldy Dance,
Break down the Barriers of the trim Pleasance,
Pursue the Poet, like Actæon’s Hounds,
Beyond the fences of his Garden Grounds,
Rend from the singing Robes each borrowed Gem,
Rend from the laurel’d Brows the Diadem,
And, if one Rag of Character they spare,
Comes the Biographer, and strips it bare!
Such, Pope, has been thy Fortune, such thy Doom.
Swift the Ghouls gathered at the Poet’s Tomb,
With Dust of Notes to clog each lordly Line,
Warburton, Warton, Croker, Bowles, combine!
Collecting Cackle, Johnson condescends
To _interview_ the Drudges of your Friends.
Thus though your Courthope holds your merits high,
And still proclaims your Poems _Poetry_,
Biographers, un-Boswell-like, have sneered,
And Dunces edit him whom Dunces feared!
They say, “what say they? ” Not in vain You ask;
To tell you what they say, behold my Task!
“Methinks already I your Tears survey”
As I repeat “the horrid Things they say. ” {48a}
Comes El-n first: I fancy you’ll agree
Not frenzied Dennis smote so fell as he;
For El-n’s Introduction, crabbed and dry,
Like Churchill’s Cudgel’s {48b} marked with _Lie_, and _Lie_!
“Too dull to know what his own System meant,
Pope yet was skilled new Treasons to invent;
A Snake that puffed himself and stung his Friends,
Few Lied so frequent, for such little Ends;
His mind, like Flesh inflamed, {49} was raw and sore,
And still, the more he writhed, he stung the more!
Oft in a Quarrel, never in the Right,
His Spirit sank when he was called to fight.
Pope, in the Darkness mining like a Mole,
Forged on Himself, as from Himself he stole,
And what for Caryll once he feigned to feel,
Transferred, in Letters never sent, to Steele!
Still he denied the Letters he had writ,
And still mistook Indecency for Wit.
His very Grammar, so De Quincey cries,
‘Detains the Reader, and at times defies! ’”
Fierce El-n thus: no Line escapes his Rage,
And furious Foot-notes growl ’neath every Page:
See St-ph-n next take up the woful Tale,
Prolong the Preaching, and protract the Wail!
“Some forage Falsehoods from the North and South,
But Pope, poor D-l, lied from Hand to Mouth; {50}
Affected, hypocritical, and vain,
A Book in Breeches, and a Fop in Grain;
A Fox that found not the high Clusters sour,
The Fanfaron of Vice beyond his power,
Pope yet possessed”—(the Praise will make you start)—
“Mean, morbid, vain, he yet possessed a Heart!
And still we marvel at the Man, and still
Admire his Finish, and applaud his Skill:
Though, as that fabled Barque, a phantom Form,
Eternal strains, nor rounds the Cape of Storm,
Even so Pope strove, nor ever crossed the Line
That from the Noble separates the Fine! ”
The Learned thus, and who can quite reply,
Reverse the Judgment, and Retort the Lie?
You reap, in armèd Hates that haunt your Name,
Reap what you sowed, the Dragon’s Teeth of Fame:
You could not write, and from unenvious Time
Expect the Wreath that crowns the lofty Rhyme,
You still must fight, retreat, attack, defend,
And oft, to snatch a Laurel, lose a Friend!
The Pity of it! And the changing Taste
Of changing Time leaves half your Work a Waste!
My Childhood fled your Couplet’s clarion tone,
And sought for Homer in the Prose of Bohn.
Still through the Dust of that dim Prose appears
The Flight of Arrows and the Sheen of Spears;
Still we may trace what Hearts heroic feel,
And hear the Bronze that hurtles on the Steel!
But, ah, your Iliad seems a half-pretence,
Where Wits, not Heroes, prove their Skill in Fence,
And great Achilles’ Eloquence doth show
As if no Centaur trained him, but Boileau!
Again, your Verse is orderly,—and more,—
“The Waves behind impel the Waves before;”
Monotonously musical they glide,
Till Couplet unto Couplet hath replied.
But turn to Homer! How his Verses sweep!
Surge answers Surge and Deep doth call on Deep;
This Line in Foam and Thunder issues forth,
Spurred by the West or smitten by the North,
Sombre in all its sullen Deeps, and all
Clear at the Crest, and foaming to the Fall,
The next with silver Murmur dies away,
Like Tides that falter to Calypso’s Bay!
Thus Time, with sordid Alchemy and dread,
Turns half the Glory of your Gold to Lead;
Thus Time,—at Ronsard’s wreath that vainly bit,—
Has marred the Poet to preserve the Wit,
Who almost left on Addison a stain,
Whose Knife cut cleanest with a poisoned pain,—
Yet Thou (strange Fate that clings to all of Thine! )
When most a Wit dost most a Poet shine.
In Poetry thy Dunciad expires,
When Wit has shot “her momentary Fires. ”
’Tis Tragedy that watches by the Bed
“Where tawdry Yellow strove with dirty Red,”
And Men, remembering all, can scarce deny
To lay the Laurel where thine Ashes lie!
VI.
_To Lucian of Samosata_.
IN what bower, oh Lucian, of your rediscovered Islands Fortunate are you
now reclining; the delight of the fair, the learned, the witty, and the
brave? In that clear and tranquil climate, whose air breathes of “violet
and lily, myrtle, and the flower of the vine,”
_Where the daisies are rose-scented_,
_And the Rose herself has got_
_Perfume which on earth is not_,
among the music of all birds, and the wind-blown notes of flutes hanging
on the trees, methinks that your laughter sounds most silvery sweet, and
that Helen and fair Charmides are still of your company. Master of
mirth, and Soul the best contented of all that have seen the world’s ways
clearly, most clear-sighted of all that have made tranquillity their
bride, what other laughers dwell with you, where the crystal and fragrant
waters wander round the shining palaces and the temples of amethyst?
Heine surely is with you; if, indeed, it was not one Syrian soul that
dwelt among alien men, Germans and Romans, in the bodily tabernacles of
Heine and of Lucian. But he was fallen on evil times and evil tongues;
while Lucian, as witty as he, as bitter in mockery, as happily dowered
with the magic of words, lived long and happily and honoured, imprisoned
in no “mattress-grave. ” Without Rabelais, without Voltaire, without
Heine, you would find, methinks, even the joys of your Happy Islands
lacking in zest; and, unless Plato came by your way, none of the ancients
could meet you in the lists of sportive dialogue.
There, among the vines that bear twelve times in the year, more excellent
than all the vineyards of Touraine, while the song-birds bring you
flowers from vales enchanted, and the shapes of the Blessed come and go,
beautiful in wind-woven raiment of sunset hues; there, in a land that
knows not age, nor winter, midnight, nor autumn, nor noon, where the
silver twilight of summer-dawn is perennial, where youth does not wax
spectre-pale and die; there, my Lucian, you are crowned the Prince of the
Paradise of Mirth.
Who would bring you, if he had the power, from the banquet where Homer
sings: Homer, who, in mockery of commentators, past and to come, German
and Greek, informed you that he was by birth a Babylonian? Yet, if you,
who first wrote Dialogues of the Dead, could hear the prayer of an
epistle wafted to “lands indiscoverable in the unheard-of West,” you
might visit once more a world so worthy of such a mocker, so like the
world you knew so well of old.
Ah, Lucian, we have need of you, of your sense and of your mockery!
Here, where faith is sick and superstition is waking afresh; where gods
come rarely, and spectres appear at five shillings an interview; where
science is popular, and philosophy cries aloud in the market-place, and
clamour does duty for government, and Thais and Lais are names of
power—here, Lucian, is room and scope for you. Can I not imagine a new
“Auction of Philosophers,” and what wealth might be made by him who
bought these popular sages and lecturers at his estimate, and vended them
at their own?
HERMES: Whom shall we put first up to auction?
ZEUS: That German in spectacles; he seems a highly respectable man.
HERMES: Ho, Pessimist, come down and let the public view you.
ZEUS: Go on, put him up and have done with him.
HERMES: Who bids for the Life Miserable, for extreme, complete, perfect,
unredeemable perdition? What offers for the universal extinction of the
species, and the collapse of the Conscious?
A PURCHASER: He does not look at all a bad lot. May one put him through
his paces?
HERMES: Certainly; try your luck.
PURCHASER: What is your name?
PESSIMIST: Hartmann.
PURCHASER: What can you teach me?
PESSIMIST: That Life is not worth Living.
PURCHASER: Wonderful! Most edifying! How much for this lot?
HERMES: Two hundred pounds.
PURCHASER: I will write you a cheque for the money. Come home,
Pessimist, and begin your lessons without more ado.
HERMES: Attention! Here is a magnificent article—the Positive Life, the
Scientific Life, the Enthusiastic Life. Who bids for a possible place in
the Calendar of the Future?
PURCHASER: What does he call himself? he has a very French air.
HERMES: Put your own questions.
PURCHASER: What’s your pedigree, my Philosopher, and previous
performances?
POSITIVIST: I am by Rousseau out of Catholicism, with a strain of the
Evolution blood.
PURCHASER: What do you believe in?
POSITIVIST: In Man, with a large M.
PURCHASER: Not in individual Man?
POSITIVIST: By no means; not even always in Mr. Gladstone. All men, all
Churches, all parties, all philosophies, and even the other sect of our
own Church, are perpetually in the wrong. Buy me, and listen to me, and
you will always be in the right.
PURCHASER: And, after this life, what have you to offer me?
POSITIVIST: A distinguished position in the Choir Invisible; but not, of
course, conscious immortality.
PURCHASER: Take him away, and put up another lot.
Then the Hegelian, with his Notion, and the Darwinian, with his notions,
and the Lotzian, with his Broad Church mixture of Religion and Evolution,
and the Spencerian, with that Absolute which is a sort of a something,
might all be offered with their divers wares; and cheaply enough, Lucian,
you would value them in this auction of Sects. “There is but one way to
Corinth,” as of old; but which that way may be, oh master of Hermotimus,
we know no more than he did of old; and still we find, of all
philosophies, that the Stoic route is most to be recommended. But we
have our Cyrenaics too, though they are no longer “clothed in purple, and
crowned with flowers, and fond of drink and of female flute-players. ”
Ah, here too, you might laugh, and fail to see where the Pleasure lies,
when the Cyrenaics are no “judges of cakes” (nor of ale, for that
matter), and are strangers in the Courts of Princes. “To despise all
things, to make use of all things, in all things to follow pleasure
only:” that is not the manner of the new, if it were the secret of the
older Hedonism.
Then, turning from the philosophers to the seekers after a sign, what
change, Lucian, would you find in them and their ways? None; they are
quite unaltered. Still our Peregrinus, and our Peregrina too, come to us
from the East, or, if from the West, they take India on their way—India,
that secular home of drivelling creeds, and of religion in its
sacerdotage. Still they prattle of Brahmins and Buddhism; though, unlike
Peregrinus, they do not publicly burn themselves on pyres, at Epsom
Downs, after the Derby. We are not so fortunate in the demise of our
Theosophists; and our police, less wise than the Hellenodicæ, would
probably not permit the Immolation of the Quack. Like your Alexander,
they deal in marvels and miracles, oracles and warnings. All such bogy
stories as those of your “Philopseudes,” and the ghost of the lady who
took to table-rapping because one of her best slippers had not been
burned with her body, are gravely investigated by the Psychical Society.
Even your ignorant Bibliophile is still with us—the man without a tinge
of letters, who buys up old manuscripts “because they are stained and
gnawed, and who goes, for proof of valued antiquity, to the testimony of
the book-worms. ” And the rich Bibliophile now, as in your satire,
clothes his volumes in purple morocco and gay _dorures_, while their
contents are sealed to him.
As to the topics of satire and gay curiosity which occupy the lady known
as “Gyp,” and M.
Halévy in his “Les Petites Cardinal,” if you had not
exhausted the matter in your “Dialogues of Hetairai,” you would be amused
to find the same old traits surviving without a touch of change. One
reads, in Halévy’s French, of Madame Cardinal, and, in your Greek, of the
mother of Philinna, and marvels that eighteen hundred years have not in
one single trifle altered the mould. Still the old shabby light-loves,
the old greed, the old luxury and squalor. Still the unconquerable
superstition that now seeks to tell fortunes by the cards, and, in your
time, resorted to the sorceress with her magical “bull-roarer” or
_turndun_. {64}
Yes, Lucian, we are the same vain creatures of doubt and dread, of
unbelief and credulity, of avarice and pretence, that you knew, and at
whom you smiled. Nay, our very “social question” is not altered. Do you
not write, in “The Runaways,” “The artisans will abandon their workshops,
and leave their trades, when they see that, with all the labour that bows
their bodies from dawn to dark, they make a petty and starveling
pittance, while men that toil not nor spin are floating in Pactolus”?
They begin to see this again as of yore; but whether the end of their
vision will be a laughing matter, you, fortunate Lucian, do not need to
care. Hail to you, and farewell!
VII.
_To Maître Françoys Rabelais_.
OF THE COMING OF THE COQCIGRUES.
MASTER,—In the Boreal and Septentrional lands, turned aside from the
noonday and the sun, there dwelt of old (as thou knowest, and as Olaus
voucheth) a race of men, brave, strong, nimble, and adventurous, who had
no other care but to fight and drink. There, by reason of the cold (as
Virgil witnesseth), men break wine with axes. To their minds, when once
they were dead and gotten to Valhalla, or the place of their Gods, there
would be no other pleasure but to swig, tipple, drink, and boose till the
coming of that last darkness and Twilight, wherein they, with their
deities, should do battle against the enemies of all mankind; which day
they rather desired than dreaded.
So chanced it also with Pantagruel and Brother John and their company,
after they had once partaken of the secret of the _Dive Bouteille_.
Thereafter they searched no longer; but, abiding at their ease, were
merry, frolic, jolly, gay, glad, and wise; only that they always and ever
did expect the awful Coming of the Coqcigrues. Now concerning the day of
that coming, and the nature of them that should come, they knew nothing;
and for his part Panurge was all the more adread, as Aristotle testifieth
that men (and Panurge above others) most fear that which they know least.
Now it chanced one day, as they sat at meat, with viands rare, dainty,
and precious as ever Apicius dreamed of, that there fluttered on the air
a faint sound as of sermons, speeches, orations, addresses, discourses,
lectures, and the like; whereat Panurge, pricking up his ears, cried,
“Methinks this wind bloweth from Midlothian,” and so fell a trembling.
Next, to their aural orifices, and the avenues audient of the brain, was
borne a very melancholy sound as of harmoniums, hymns, organ-pianos,
psalteries, and the like, all playing different airs, in a kind most
hateful to the Muses. Then said Panurge, as well as he might for the
chattering of his teeth: “May I never drink if here come not the
Coqcigrues! ” and this saying and prophecy of his was true and inspired.
But thereon the others began to mock, flout, and gird at Panurge for his
cowardice. “Here am I! ” cried Brother John, “well-armed and ready to
stand a siege; being entrenched, fortified, hemmed-in and surrounded with
great pasties, huge pieces of salted beef, salads, fricassees, hams,
tongues, pies, and a wilderness of pleasant little tarts, jellies,
pastries, trifles, and fruits of all kinds, and I shall not thirst while
I have good wells, founts, springs, and sources of Bordeaux wine,
Burgundy, wine of the Champagne country, sack and Canary. A fig for thy
Coqcigrues! ”
But even as he spoke there ran up suddenly a whole legion, or rather
army, of physicians, each armed with laryngoscopes, stethoscopes,
horoscopes, microscopes, weighing machines, and such other tools,
engines, and arms as they had who, after thy time, persecuted Monsieur de
Pourceaugnac! And they all, rushing on Brother John, cried out to him,
“Abstain! Abstain! ” And one said, “I have well diagnosed thee, and thou
art in a fair way to have the gout. ” “I never did better in my days,”
said Brother John. “Away with thy meats and drinks! ” they cried. And
one said, “He must to Royat;” and another, “Hence with him to Aix;” and a
third, “Banish him to Wiesbaden;” and a fourth, “Hale him to Gastein;”
and yet another, “To Barbouille with him in chains! ”
And while others felt his pulse and looked at his tongue, they all wrote
prescriptions for him like men mad. “For thy eating,” cried he that
seemed to be their leader, “No soup! ” “No soup! ” quoth Brother John; and
those cheeks of his, whereat you might have warmed your two hands in the
winter solstice, grew white as lilies. “Nay! and no salmon, nor any beef
nor mutton! A little chicken by times, _pericolo tuo_! Nor any game,
such as grouse, partridge, pheasant, capercailzie, wild duck; nor any
cheese, nor fruit, nor pastry, nor coffee, nor _eau de vie_; and avoid
all sweets. No veal, pork, nor made dishes of any kind. ” “Then what may
I eat? ” quoth the good Brother, whose valour had oozed out of the soles
of his sandals. “A little cold bacon at breakfast—no eggs,” quoth the
leader of the strange folk, “and a slice of toast without butter. ” “And
for thy drink”—(“What? ” gasped Brother John)—“one dessert-spoonful of
whisky, with a pint of the water of Apollinaris at luncheon and dinner.
No more! ” At this Brother John fainted, falling like a great buttress of
a hill, such as Taygetus or Erymanthus.
While they were busy with him, others of the frantic folk had built great
platforms of wood, whereon they all stood and spoke at once, both men and
women. And of these some wore red crosses on their garments, which
meaneth “Salvation;” and others wore white crosses, with a little black
button of crape, to signify “Purity;” and others bits of blue to mean
“Abstinence. ” While some of these pursued Panurge others did beset
Pantagruel; asking him very long questions, whereunto he gave but short
answers. Thus they asked:—
Have ye Local Option here? —Pan. : What?
May one man drink if his neighbour be not athirst? —Pan. : Yea!
Have ye Free Education? —Pan. : What?
Must they that have, pay to school them that have not? —Pan. : Nay!
Have ye free land? —Pan. : What?
Have ye taken the land from the farmer, and given it to the tailor out of
work and the candlemaker masterless? —Pan. : Nay!
Have your women folk votes? —Pan. : Bosh!
Have ye got religion? —Pan. : How?
Do you go about the streets at night, brawling, blowing a trumpet before
you, and making long prayers? —Pan. : Nay!
Have you manhood suffrage? —Pan. : Eh?
Is Jack as good as his master? —Pan. : Nay!
Have you joined the Arbitration Society? —Pan. : _Quoy_?
Will you let another kick you, and will you ask his neighbour if you
deserve the same? —Pan. : Nay!
Do you eat what you list? —Pan. : Ay!
Do you drink when you are athirst? —Pan. : Ay!
Are you governed by the free expression of the popular will? —Pan. : How?
Are you servants of priests, pulpits, and penny papers? —Pan. : NO!
Now, when they heard these answers of Pantagruel they all fell, some a
weeping, some a praying, some a swearing, some an arbitrating, some a
lecturing, some a caucussing, some a preaching, some a faith-healing,
some a miracle-working, some a hypnotising, some a writing to the daily
press; and while they were thus busy, like folk distraught, “reforming
the island,” Pantagruel burst out a laughing; whereat they were greatly
dismayed; for laughter killeth the whole race of Coqcigrues, and they may
not endure it.
Then Pantagruel and his company stole aboard a barque that Panurge had
ready in the harbour. And having provisioned her well with store of meat
and good drink, they set sail for the kingdom of Entelechy, where, having
landed, they were kindly entreated; and there abide to this day; drinking
of the sweet and eating of the fat, under the protection of that
intellectual sphere which hath in all places its centre and nowhere its
circumference.
Such was their destiny; there was their end appointed, and thither the
Coqcigrues can never come. For all the air of that land is full of
laughter, which killeth Coqcigrues; and there aboundeth the herb
Pantagruelion. But for thee, Master Françoys, thou art not well liked in
this island of ours, where the Coqcigrues are abundant, very fierce,
cruel, and tyrannical. Yet thou hast thy friends, that meet and drink to
thee, and wish thee well wheresoever thou hast found thy _grand
peut-être_.
VIII.
_To Jane Austen_.
MADAM,—If to the enjoyments of your present state be lacking a view of
the minor infirmities or foibles of men, I cannot but think (were the
thought permitted) that your pleasures are yet incomplete. Moreover, it
is certain that a woman of parts who has once meddled with literature
will never wholly lose her love for the discussion of that delicious
topic, nor cease to relish what (in the cant of our new age) is styled
“literary shop. ” For these reasons I attempt to convey to you some
inkling of the present state of that agreeable art which you, madam,
raised to its highest pitch of perfection.
As to your own works (immortal, as I believe), I have but little that is
wholly cheering to tell one who, among women of letters, was almost alone
in her freedom from a lettered vanity. You are not a very popular
author: your volumes are not found in gaudy covers on every bookstall;
or, if found, are not perused with avidity by the Emmas and Catherines of
our generation. ’Tis not long since a blow was dealt (in the estimation
of the unreasoning) at your character as an author by the publication of
your familiar letters. The editor of these epistles, unfortunately, did
not always take your witticisms, and he added others which were too
unmistakably his own. While the injudicious were disappointed by the
absence of your exquisite style and humour, the wiser sort were the more
convinced of your wisdom. In your letters (knowing your correspondents)
you gave but the small personal talk of the hour, for them sufficient;
for your books you reserved matter and expression which are imperishable.
Your admirers, if not very numerous, include all persons of taste, who,
in your favour, are apt somewhat to abate the rule, or shake off the
habit, which commonly confines them to but temperate laudation.
’Tis the fault of all art to seem antiquated and faded in the eyes of the
succeeding generation. The manners of your age were not the manners of
to-day, and young gentlemen and ladies who think Scott “slow,” think Miss
Austen “prim” and “dreary. ” Yet, even could you return among us, I
scarcely believe that, speaking the language of the hour, as you might,
and versed in its habits, you would win the general admiration. For how
tame, madam, are your characters, especially your favourite heroines! how
limited the life which you knew and described! how narrow the range of
your incidents! how correct your grammar!
As heroines, for example, you chose ladies like Emma, and Elizabeth, and
Catherine: women remarkable neither for the brilliance nor for the
degradation of their birth; women wrapped up in their own and the
parish’s concerns, ignorant of evil, as it seems, and unacquainted with
vain yearnings and interesting doubts. Who can engage his fancy with
their match-makings and the conduct of their affections, when so many
daring and dazzling heroines approach and solicit his regard?
Here are princesses dressed in white velvet stamped with golden
fleurs-de-lys—ladies with hearts of ice and lips of fire, who count their
roubles by the million, their lovers by the score, and even their
husbands, very often, in figures of some arithmetical importance. With
these are the immaculate daughters of itinerant Italian musicians—maids
whose souls are unsoiled amidst the contaminations of our streets, and
whose acquaintance with the art of Phidias and Praxiteles, of Dædalus and
Scopas, is the more admirable, because entirely derived from loving study
of the inexpensive collections vended by the plaster-of-Paris man round
the corner. When such heroines are wooed by the nephews of Dukes, where
are your Emmas and Elizabeths? Your volumes neither excite nor satisfy
the curiosities provoked by that modern and scientific fiction, which is
greatly admired, I learn, in the United States, as well as in France and
at home.
You erred, it cannot be denied, with your eyes open. Knowing Lydia and
Kitty so intimately as you did, why did you make of them almost
insignificant characters? With Lydia for a heroine you might have gone
far; and, had you devoted three volumes, and the chief of your time, to
the passions of Kitty, you might have held your own, even now, in the
circulating library. How Lyddy, perched on a corner of the roof, first
beheld her Wickham; how, on her challenge, he climbed up by a ladder to
her side; how they kissed, caressed, swung on gates together, met at odd
seasons, in strange places, and finally eloped: all this might have been
put in the mouth of a jealous elder sister, say Elizabeth, and you would
not have been less popular than several favourites of our time. Had you
cast the whole narrative into the present tense, and lingered lovingly
over the thickness of Mary’s legs and the softness of Kitty’s cheeks, and
the blonde fluffiness of Wickham’s whiskers, you would have left a
romance still dear to young ladies.
Or, again, you might entrance fair students still, had you concentrated
your attention on Mrs. Rushworth, who eloped with Henry Crawford. These
should have been the chief figures of “Mansfield Park. ” But you timidly
decline to tackle Passion. “Let other pens,” you write, “dwell on guilt
and misery. I quit such odious subjects as soon as I can. ” Ah, _there_
is the secret of your failure! Need I add that the vulgarity and
narrowness of the social circles you describe impair your popularity? I
scarce remember more than one lady of title, and but very few lords (and
these unessential) in all your tales. Now, when we all wish to be in
society, we demand plenty of titles in our novels, at any rate, and we
get lords (and very queer lords) even from Republican authors, born in a
country which in your time was not renowned for its literature. I have
heard a critic remark, with a decided air of fashion, on the brevity of
the notice which your characters give each other when they offer
invitations to dinner. “An invitation to dinner next day was
despatched,” and this demonstrates that your acquaintance “went out” very
little, and had but few engagements. How vulgar, too, is one of your
heroines, who bids Mr. Darcy “keep his breath to cool his porridge. ” I
blush for Elizabeth! It were superfluous to add that your characters are
debased by being invariably mere members of the Church of England as by
law established. The Dissenting enthusiast, the open soul that glides
from Esoteric Buddhism to the Salvation Army, and from the Higher
Pantheism to the Higher Paganism, we look for in vain among your studies
of character. Nay, the very words I employ are of unknown sound to you;
so how can you help us in the stress of the soul’s travailings?
You may say that the soul’s travailings are no affair of yours; proving
thereby that you have indeed but a lowly conception of the duty of the
novelist. I only remember one reference, in all your works, to that
controversy which occupies the chief of our attention—the great
controversy on Creation or Evolution. Your Jane Bennet cries: “I have no
idea of there being so much Design in the world as some persons imagine. ”
Nor do you touch on our mighty social question, the Land Laws, save when
Mrs. Bennet appears as a Land Reformer, and rails bitterly against the
cruelty “of settling an estate away from a family of five daughters, in
favour of a man whom nobody cared anything about. ” There, madam, in that
cruelly unjust performance, what a text you had for a _tendenz-romanz_.
Nay, you can allow Kitty to report that a Private had been flogged,
without introducing a chapter on Flogging in the Army. But you formally
declined to stretch your matter out, here and there, “with solemn
specious nonsense about something unconnected with the story. ” No
“padding” for Miss Austen! in fact, madam, as you were born before
Analysis came in, or Passion, or Realism, or Naturalism, or Irreverence,
or Religious Open-mindedness, you really cannot hope to rival your
literary sisters in the minds of a perplexed generation. Your heroines
are not passionate, we do not see their red wet cheeks, and tresses
dishevelled in the manner of our frank young Mænads. What says your best
successor, a lady who adds fresh lustre to a name that in fiction equals
yours? She says of Miss Austen: “Her heroines have a stamp of their own.
_They have a certain gentle self-respect and humour and hardness of
heart_ . . . Love with them does not mean a passion as much as an
interest, deep and silent. ” I think one prefers them so, and that
Englishwomen should be more like Anne Elliot than Maggie Tulliver. “All
the privilege I claim for my own sex is that of loving longest when
existence or when hope is gone,” said Anne; perhaps she insisted on a
monopoly that neither sex has all to itself. Ah, madam, what a relief it
is to come back to your witty volumes, and forget the follies of to-day
in those of Mr. Collins and of Mrs. Bennet! How fine, nay, how noble is
your art in its delicate reserve, never insisting, never forcing the
note, never pushing the sketch into the caricature! You worked, without
thinking of it, in the spirit of Greece, on a labour happily limited, and
exquisitely organised. “Dear books,” we say, with Miss Thackeray—“dear
books, bright, sparkling with wit and animation, in which the homely
heroines charm, the dull hours fly, and the very bores are enchanting. ”
IX.
_To Master Isaak Walton_.
FATHER ISAAK,—When I would be quiet and go angling it is my custom to
carry in my wallet thy pretty book, “The Compleat Angler. ” Here,
methinks, if I find not trout I shall find content, and good company, and
sweet songs, fair milkmaids, and country mirth. For you are to know that
trout be now scarce and whereas he was ever a fearful fish, he hath of
late become so wary that none but the cunningest anglers may be even with
him.
It is not as it was in your time, Father, when a man might leave his shop
in Fleet Street, of a holiday, and, when he had stretched his legs up
Tottenham Hill, come lightly to meadows chequered with waterlilies and
lady-smocks, and so fall to his sport. Nay, now have the houses so much
increased, like a spreading sore (through the breaking of that excellent
law of the Conscientious King and blessed Martyr, whereby building beyond
the walls was forbidden), that the meadows are all swallowed up in
streets. And as to the River Lea, wherein you took many a good trout, I
read in the news sheets that “its bed is many inches thick in horrible
filth, and the air for more than half a mile on each side of it is
polluted with a horrible, sickening stench,” so that we stand in dread of
a new Plague, called the Cholera. And so it is all about London for many
miles, and if a man, at heavy charges, betake himself to the fields, lo
you, folk are grown so greedy that none will suffer a stranger to fish in
his water.
So poor anglers are in sore straits. Unless a man be rich and can pay
great rents, he may not fish in England, and hence spring the discontents
of the times, for the angler is full of content, if he do but take trout,
but if he be driven from the waterside, he falls, perchance, into evil
company, and cries out to divide the property of the gentle folk. As
many now do, even among Parliament-men, whom you loved not, Father Isaak,
neither do I love them more than Reason and Scripture bid each of us be
kindly to his neighbour. But, behold, the causes of the ill content are
not yet all expressed, for even where a man hath licence to fish, he will
hardly take trout in our age, unless he be all the more cunning. For the
fish, harried this way and that by so many of your disciples, is
exceeding shy and artful, nor will he bite at a fly unless it falleth
lightly, just above his mouth, and floateth dry over him, for all the
world like the natural _ephemeris_. And we may no longer angle with worm
for him, nor with penk or minnow, nor with the natural fly, as was your
manner, but only with the artificial, for the more difficulty the more
diversion. For my part I may cry, like Viator in your book, “Master, I
can neither catch with the first nor second Angle: I have no fortune. ”
So we fare in England, but somewhat better north of the Tweed, where
trout are less wary, but for the most part small, except in the extreme
rough north, among horrid hills and lakes.
