Part 22

The latest social subject dealt with by French dramatists has been the fertile one of divorce, which M. Sardou has treated both seriously and comically. Before _Odette_ and _Divorçons_, he had, however, written the less known _Daniel Rochat_, which ends with a divorce in Switzerland, the divorced persons being of course citizens of the Helvetian Republic; and though the main subject of _Daniel Rochat_ is the union, followed immediately afterwards by the separation, of two persons who are prevented from living together as husband and wife by incompatibility of religious convictions, it may all the same be classed with M. Sardou’s other divorce pieces. The author lets it be seen that the mistake made by _Daniel Rochat_ can easily be remedied in Switzerland, a country, where divorce is easy; whereas it would have been without remedy in France, where divorce was at that time impossible. The case, however, though an effective one for the dramatist—at least for such a dramatist as M. Sardou—is of too exceptional a character to merit attention from the dramatic moralist or legist.

The practice of treating subjects of the day in dramatic form is one which, from a purely artistic point of view, cannot be commended. The process involves almost necessarily forced motives and distorted characters. Works, too, produced on this system must, from the nature of the case, be of ephemeral interest. Who, for instance, now that France, like England, Germany, and the United States, has a law of divorce, can care for pieces in which the interest turns upon the iniquity of treating as indissoluble every contract, to whatever painful consequences it may have led, which has once been signed in presence of Monsieur le Maire? In Shakespeare and Molière so little are affairs of the day touched upon (without ever being made the subject of an entire work) that a reader might find it difficult to determine from internal evidence at what period either of these writers lived. The characteristic talk of _Les Précieuses_ is about the only indication in the case of Molière of the time to which the piece belongs. There is scarcely a work, on the other hand, from the pen of M. Sardou (who may be taken as the representative comedy writer of modern France) which does not bear the impress and color of the time, and which (especially in the case of his later pieces) does not in a very direct manner reproduce the incidents or reflect the ideas of the life around him. If immediate and striking success with a Paris audience be the author’s aim, it must be admitted that M. Sardou’s method is more effective than that of his predecessor, Scribe, whose comedies are masterpieces of ingenuity, but are for the most part independent of place and time. Many of Scribe’s pieces have been quite as successful in England as in France. This cannot be said of any of Sardou’s plays, with the solitary exception of “_Les Pattes de Mouche_,” one of his earliest works, written at a time when Scribe was still his model. But so far as Paris at the present moment is concerned, M. Sardou hits the mark, and hits it harder than ever Scribe did.

The stage in France would be used for the discussion of political as well as social questions, did the censorship permit it. Of this we had a sign in M. Sardou’s _Rabagas_, produced soon after the Commune, in various pieces brought out during the revolutionary days of 1848, and in _Les Cosaques_, which, after being previously rejected by the censorship, was authorised for representation just before the outbreak of the Crimean war, when, as a matter of policy, antagonism to Russia was encouraged and stimulated by the Government. As a rule, however, no performance likely to call forth manifestations of political feeling, or to give offence to a friendly State, or to its people, is allowed. M. Sardou’s _L’oncle Sam_ was objected to as calculated to hurt the feelings of the Americans; and the authors of a little piece called _L’Etrangère_—not to be confounded with the five-act comedy of the same name—were required to change it because (as set forth in a document which figures among the _Papiers secrets de l’Empire_) numbers of foreigners visit Paris and might be annoyed at seeing the leading character of the very objectionable little piece put forward as a typical lady from abroad! All social questions of the day have, however, for the last thirty years been left freely to the dramatist to treat as he may think fit. Or it may be that such questions have always been left to him, and that it is only during the last quarter of a century or so that he has thought fit to occupy himself with them.

The true character of women who have none was the first theme to be treated controversially, with examples in lieu of arguments; then the desirability of getting married in certain cases where the marriage ceremony had been dispensed with; then, in due time, the rights of natural children and their compromising effect in connection with mothers proposing to lead a new life. The son-in-law question—of such slight interest to Englishmen—had meantime sprung up; and the quiet, studious son-in-law, bullied by his wife’s mother; the fashionably extravagant son-in-law, devouring the substance of his wife’s father; the idle but well-meaning son-in-law, misunderstood by every one, were turn by turn exhibited. Finally, the divorce question produced a whole crop of pieces, serious and comic; and it may be that the treatment of this question by a succession of dramatists, who dwelt on the misery and disgrace resulting from marriages practically dissolved, but legally indissoluble, had some effect in hastening the adoption of M. Naquet’s Bill. The cruel position of a husband chained to a disreputable wife, and unable to set himself free, has been shown in one of M. Sardou’s most effective pieces, which, thirty years ago, when England also was without a divorce law, would have been as effective in England as in France. But it was difficult for English audiences to realise the situation; and now that continued wedlock between husbands and wives who hate one another is no longer enforced by law, the difficulty for French audiences may soon be equally great. With the passing of M. Naquet’s Divorce Bill such pieces as the _Odette_ of M. Sardou, the _Diane de Lys_ of M. Alexandre Dumas the younger, and the _Fiammina_ of M. Mario Uchard lost all significance. When the pressure of the matrimonial knot has become quite unbearable it is now no longer necessary either that the wife should retire to a convent or that the husband should be shot. The difficulty is solved by the simpler, though less dramatic, means of a divorce. It is matter of publicity that immediately after M. Naquet’s Bill became law the author of _La Fiammina_ took precisely this view of his own matrimonial trouble.

There has been a recent instance, too, in Germany, of a subject of the day—this time a serious one—being dealt with by a dramatist. _Die Gräfin Lea_, a play by Herr Rudolf Lindau, contains a striking exhibition of that prejudice against everything Jewish, to which in Germany the high-sounding name of anti-Semiticism has been given. In a very ingenious succession of scenes he shows that the widow, who by reason not only of her Jewish faith, but also of her low origin, is deemed by her husband’s relatives unworthy to succeed to his nobiliary estate, is an excellent and charming woman, who would not be out of place even in the very highest position. The tribunal before which the case is brought takes just this view of the matter, and the Countess Lea triumphs. But the dramatists argument in favor of the Jews is somewhat weak; and he leaves us to suppose that if the Countess Lea had been an ill-bred, commonplace Jewess, instead of a Jewess of great refinement, the court might equitably have given judgment against her. A reply to Herr Lindau’s piece, such as in France it would certainly have elicited, might easily have been written. But in Germany, as in England and all countries except France, the stage has not enough hold upon society to cause social questions to be often discussed in stage pieces. In France, on the other hand, the public takes such an interest in the theatre that the “boards” are almost to them what the platform is to the English and the Americans.

The production of a whole series of pieces on one particular subject of debate implies a continuous attention on the part of the intelligent public such as no stage but that of Paris—and the Paris stage only in modern times—seems ever to have enjoyed. Until the end of the last century the French dramatist was poorly paid, and as dramatist had little offered to him in the way of distinction beyond the hollow applause of the public. It was not until Beaumarchais obtained the decree fixing the remuneration to dramatic authors at so much per cent. on the gross receipts that writers of all kinds, and of every degree of eminence, began to occupy themselves with the stage; and it was not until all the best literary talent in the country had thus been attracted to the drama that the French Academy opened its doors to dramatists as such. Victor Hugo was a poet first and a dramatist afterwards. The elder Dumas was a dramatist first and a novelist afterwards—and he was never admitted to the Academy at all. The election of Scribe, a dramatist, and virtually nothing else, was quite an event. Since that time, however, the entry of a highly successful dramatist of long-established reputation into the Academy has come to be looked upon as a matter of course. The last dramatist elected as such was a very admirable farce writer, M. Labiche, author of _Un Chapeau de Paille d’Italie_, _Le Voyage de M. Perrichon_, _Les Petites Mains_, and other similar pieces, full of humor, but without the least academical pretensions.—_Fortnightly Review._

A COMMENT ON CHRISTMAS.

BY MATTHEW ARNOLD.

It is a long time since I quoted Bishop Wilson, but he is full of excellent things, and one of his apophthegms came into my mind the other day as I read an angry and unreasonable expostulation addressed to myself. Bishop Wilson’s apophthegm is this: _Truth provokes those whom it does not convert_. “Miracles,” I was angrily reproached for saying, “do not happen, and more and more of us are becoming convinced that they do not happen; nevertheless, what is really best and most valuable in the Bible is independent of miracles. For the sake of this I constantly read the Bible myself, and I advise others to read it also.” One would have thought that at a time when the French newspapers are attributing all our failures and misfortunes to our habit of reading the Bible, and when our own Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal is protesting that the golden rule is a delusion and a snare for practical men, the friends of the old religion of Christendom would have had a kindly feeling towards any one—whether he admitted miracles or not—who maintained that the root of the matter for all of us was in the Bible, and that to the use of the Bible we should still cling. But no; _Truth provokes those whom it does not convert_; so angry are some good people at being told that miracles do not happen, that if we say this, they cannot bear to have us using the Bible at all, or recommending the Bible. Either take it and recommend it with its miracles, they say, or else leave it alone, and let its enemies find confronting them none but orthodox defenders of it like ourselves!

The success of these orthodox champions is not commensurate with their zeal; and so, in spite of all rebuke, I find myself, as a lover of the Bible, perpetually tempted to substitute for their line of defence a different method, however it may provoke them. Christmas comes round again, and brings the most beautiful and beloved festival of the Christian year. What is Christmas, and what does it say to us? Our French friends will reply that Christmas is an exploded legend, and says to us nothing at all. The _Guardian_, on the other hand, lays it down that Christmas commemorates the miracle of the Incarnation, and that the Incarnation is the fundamental truth for Christians. Which is right, the _Guardian_ or our French friends? Or are neither the one nor the other of them right, and is the truth about Christmas something quite different from what either of them imagine? The inquiry is profitable; and I kept Christmas, this last winter, by following it.

* * * * *

Who can ever lose out of his memory the roll and march of those magnificent words of prophecy, which, ever since we can remember, we have heard read in church on Christmas-day, and have been taught to regard as the grand and wonderful prediction of “the miracle of the Incarnation?” “The Lord himself shall give you a sign: Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. Butter and honey shall he eat, until he shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good. For before the child shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land that thou abhorrest shall be forsaken of both her kings.” We all know the orthodox interpretation. Immanuel is Jesus Christ, to be born of the Virgin Mary; the meaning of the name Immanuel, _God with us_, signifies the union of the divine nature and ours in Christ, God and man in one Person. “Butter and honey shall he eat”—the Christ shall be very man, he shall have a true human body, he shall be sustained, while he is growing up, with that ordinary nourishment wherewith human children are wont to be fed. And the sign that the promised birth of Immanuel, God and man in one Person, from the womb of a virgin, shall really happen, is this: the two kings of Syria and Israel who are now, in the eighth century before Christ, threatening the kingdom of Judah, shall be overthrown, and their country devastated. “_For_ before the child shall know”—before this promised coming of Jesus Christ, and as a sign to guarantee it, the kings of Syria and Israel shall be conquered and overthrown. And conquered and overthrown they presently were.

But then comes the turn of criticism. The study of history, and of all documents on which history is based, is diligently prosecuted; a number of learned, patient, impartial investigators read and examine the prophets. It becomes apparent what the prophets really mean to say. It becomes certain that in the famous words read on Christmas-day the prophet Isaiah was not meaning to speak of Jesus Christ to be born more than seven centuries later. It becomes certain that his Immanuel is a prince of Judah to be born in a year or two’s time. It becomes certain that there is no question at all of a child miraculously conceived and born of a virgin; what the prophet says is that a young woman, a damsel, at that moment unmarried, shall have time, before certain things happen, to be married and to bear a son, who shall be called Immanuel. There is no question in the name _Immanuel_ of a union of the human and divine natures, of God and man in one Person. “God present with his people and protecting them” is what the prophet means the name to signify. In “Butter and honey shall he eat,” there is no question of the Christ’s being very man, with a true human body. What the prophet intends to say is, that when the prince Immanuel, presently to be born, reaches adult age, agriculture shall have ceased in the desolated realm of Judah; the land, overrun by enemies, shall have returned to a wild state, the inhabitants shall live on the produce of their herds and on wild honey. But before this comes to pass, before the visitation of God’s wrath upon the kingdom of Judah, and while the prince Immanuel is still but a little child, not as yet able to discern betwixt good and evil, “to refuse the evil and choose the good,” the present enemies of Judah, the kings of Syria and Israel, shall be overthrown and their land made desolate. Finally, this overthrow and desolation are not, with the prophet, the sign and guarantee of Immanuel’s coming. Immanuel is himself intended as a sign; all the rest is accompaniment of this sign, not proof of it.

This, the true and sure sense of those noble words of prophecy which we hear read on Christmas-day, is obscured by slight errors in the received translation, and comes out clearer when the errors are corrected:

“The Lord himself shall give you a sign: Behold, the damsel shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

Milk-curd and honey shall he eat, when he shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good.

For before the child shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land shall be forsaken, whose two kings make thee afraid.”

Syria and Israel shall be made desolate in Immanuel’s infancy, says the prophet; but the chastisement and desolation of Judah also shall follow later, by the time Immanuel is a youth. Further yet, however, Isaiah carries his prophecy of Immanuel and of the events of his life. In his manhood, the prophet continues, Immanuel, the promised child of the royal house of David, shall reign in righteousness over a restored, far-spreading, prosperous, and peaceful kingdom of the chosen people. “Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom.” This completion of the prophecy, too, we hear read in church on Christmas-day. Naturally, the received and erroneous interpretation, which finds, as we have seen, in the first part of the prophecy “the miracle of the Incarnation,” governs our understanding of the latter part also. But in the latter part, as well as in the former, the prophet undoubtedly has in view, not a scion of the house of David to be born and to reign seven centuries later, but a scion of the house of David to be born immediately; a scion who in his youth should see Judah afflicted, in his manhood should reign over it restored and triumphant.

Well, then, the “miracle of the Incarnation,” the preternatural conception and birth of Jesus Christ, which the Church celebrates at Christmas, and which is, says the _Guardian_, the fundamental truth for Christians, gets no support at all from the famous prophecy which is commonly supposed to announce it. Need I add that it gets no support at all from any single word of Jesus Christ himself, from any single word in the letters of Paul, Peter, James, or John? The miraculous conception and birth of Jesus is a legend, a lovely and attractive legend, which soon formed itself, naturally and irresistibly, around the origin of the Saviour; a legend which by the end of the first century had established itself, and which passed into two out of the four Gospel narratives that in the century following acquired canonicity. In the same way, a precisely similar legend formed itself around the origin of Plato, although to the popular imagination Plato was an object incomparably less fitted to offer stimulus. The father of Plato, said the Athenian story, was upon his marriage warned by Apollo in a dream that his wife, Perictiona, was about to bring forth a babe divinely conceived, and that he was to live apart from her until the child had been born. Among the students of philosophy, who were Plato’s disciples, this story, although authorized by his family, languished and died. Had Plato founded a popular religion the case would have been very different. Then the legend would have survived and thriven; and for Plato, too, there would have certainly been a world-famous “miracle of the Incarnation” investing his origin. But Plato, as Bossuet says, formed fewer disciples than Paul formed churches. It was these churches, this multitude, it was the popular masses with their receptivity, with their native tendencies of mind, heart, and soul, which made the future of the Christian legend of the miracle of the Incarnation.

But because the story of the miracle of the Incarnation is a legend, and because two of the canonical Gospels propound the legend seriously, basing it upon an evidently fantastic use of the words of prophecy, and because the festival of Christmas adopts and consecrates this legend, are we to cast the Gospels aside, and cast the celebration of Christmas aside; or else to give up our common sense, and to say that things are not what they are, and that Isaiah really predicted the preternatural conception and birth of Jesus Christ, and that the miracle of the Incarnation really happened as the _Guardian_ supposes, and that Christians, in commemorating it, commemorates a solid fact of history, and a fact which is the fundamental truth for Christians? By no means. The solid fact of history marked by Christmas is the birth of Jesus, the miraculous circumstances with which that birth is invested and presented are legendary. The solid fact in itself, the birth of Jesus with its inexhaustible train of consequences, its “unspeakable riches,” is foundation enough, and more than enough, for the Christmas festival; yet even the legend and miracle investing the fact, and now almost inseparable from it, have, moreover, their virtue of symbol.

Symbol is a dangerous word, and we ought to be very cautious in employing it. People have a difficulty in owning that a thing is unhistorical, and often they try to get out of the difficulty by saying that the thing is symbolical. Thus they think to save the credit of whoever delivered the thing in question, as if he had himself intended to deliver it as symbolical and figurative, not as historical. They save it, however, at the expense of truth. In very many cases, undoubtedly, when this shift of symbol is resorted to for saving the credit of a narrator of legend, the narrator had not himself the least notion that what he propounded was figure, but fully imagined himself to be propounding historical fact. The Gospel narrators of the miracle of the Incarnation were in this position of mind; they did not in the least imagine themselves to be speaking symbolically. Nevertheless, a thing may have important value as symbol, although its utterer never told or meant it symbolically. Let us see how this is so with the Christian legend of the Incarnation.