Part 12

When the winter comes and the flocks on the mountains descend to the valleys, Ekkehard leaves his hermitage, and passing, on his way to distant parts, the castle which had witnessed his discomfiture, he fastens his parchment to an arrow which he sends as a farewell greeting to his former mistress, whose resentment has softened and who receives it with tears.

There are many striking episodes in the book. The stern fury of the hermit Wiborad, immured in a living tomb near the monastery of St. Gallus; the encounter between the coarse cellarer, Rudiman, and Kerhildis, the chief serving-maid of the monastery of Reichenau; the delightful pastoral scenes between the two children Audifax and Hadumoth, bond-servants of the castle; the elaborate and learned lampoon written against Ekkehard by the monk Gunzo in revenge for catching him in a grammatical error; the realistic accounts of certain ridiculous superstitions; the lifelike description of the preparations for a German Christmas--these things give the book a deservedly high rank as a faithful reproduction of the customs of the time. Von Scheffel has invested mediæval monasticism with a fine poetic grace and charm. But it is seldom that a story which is used largely as a means of conveying historical information concerning a remote period is as vivid in the delineation of character as one where the scene is laid amid the immediate surroundings of the writer, and it can not be said that the two chief figures of the novel, Hadwig and Ekkehard, are at all impressive as portraits of actual life.

THE ROMANCE OF A POOR YOUNG MAN OCTAVE FEUILLET

“The Romance of a Poor Young Man” is a charming tale, and quite free from the cynicism which pervades much of modern French fiction. The hero (who tells his own story in his diary) is the young Marquis d’Hauterive, who, reduced to extreme poverty by the extravagance of his father, assumes the name of M. Odiot, becomes the manager of the estate of M. Laroque, and falls in love with Marguerite, the beautiful heiress of the house. She secretly returns his passion, but treats him oftentimes with great cruelty from the suspicion that he, like others, is seeking her hand in order to advance his fortunes. The noble character of both the chief personages of the novel appears naturally and simply from the recital of the things they say and do, and the narrative of the expeditions to some of the Celtic ruins in Brittany upon which he attends her has all the charm of a pastoral. The ridiculous M. Bevallan, his rival, who reveals most opportunely his commonplace character and sordid motives; the romantic Mme. Laroque, the mother of Marguerite; the ancient spinster, Mlle. de Porhoet, who bears with dignity her triple burden of high lineage, age, and poverty--indeed all the characters are skillfully drawn, and their doings form an excellent background for the action of the two chief personages of the story.

“The Romance of a Poor Young Man” is emphatically a work of exquisite finish and high creative art. Yet it does not wholly lack the extravagances which seem inevitable in modern French fiction. When the hero has been unjustly reproached by the proud beauty, who suspects his mercenary designs, he vows in his rage and despair that he will never wed her, even if she were to implore him upon her knees, unless his fortune should be equal to her own; and after every other obstacle is cleared away, he persists in adhering to this unreasonable vow. Then he learns that Marguerite and her mother propose to give their fortune to charitable uses, so as to remove the last hindrance to their union. But this, too, he will not permit, and it requires a _tour de force_ to straighten out these complications.

Mlle. de Porhoet has been conducting a long litigation to recover a certain inheritance in Spain. At the moment of her death the property becomes hers, and although she had designed it for the erection of a magnificent cathedral (the dream of her life), she now bequeaths it to the young marquis, and thus the novel has an appropriate and happy termination. But it is hard to resist the conclusion that the outcome would have been more natural if no such extraordinary event had been necessary to bring it about, but only a little more common sense on the part of the hero!

MADAME BOVARY GUSTAVE FLAUBERT

“Madame Bovary” is a type of a novel very common in modern literature. It depicts the gradual steps that lead to degradation and ruin, and the fatal influence of a single vicious character upon everything around it.

M. Bovary, a young doctor of moderate attainments, but of earnest purposes, kindly disposition, and upright life, falls in love with the daughter of a wealthy peasant in the neighborhood, who has received at a convent an education above her station, whose mind is filled with romantic notions, and whose eyes are constantly dazzled by the glamour of the rank, wealth and splendor that are just beyond her reach. She becomes more and more dissatisfied with her surroundings and with her rather uninteresting husband, who on his part is entirely devoted to her and who sacrifices his most important interests merely to gratify her whims. She falls into one intrigue after another, becoming first the victim of a _roué_, and then the paramour of a young man much like herself. To gratify her fancies she involves her husband in financial ruin, and at last ends her worthless life by suicide. The death scene is powerfully narrated, and from a merely artistic point of view the novel is a highly finished production. It is said that such works teach an important lesson--the inevitable results of wrong doing; but in this case at least it may well be questioned whether the details presented in the author’s brilliant descriptions are not more likely to lead to the imitation rather than the avoidance of conduct whose present delights are most alluring, however disastrous may be their final consequences. In this tale we see the effect of sentimental and immoral novels upon the heroine herself, and it is hard to resist the conviction that it is largely by reading such works as “Madame Bovary” that Madame Bovarys are made.

THE ORDEAL OF RICHARD FEVEREL GEORGE MEREDITH

The fiction of George Meredith, like the poetry of Browning, appeals to a limited class of intellectuals. Close attention is often required to understand the drift of events as well as the philosophy injected at every point into the narrative. A considerable general education is requisite to comprehend the literary and historical references and no little insight is needed to appreciate the subtleties of a dialogue which is often brilliant but sometimes obscure. There are elaborate explanations of the complicated motives and feelings which control the actors of the drama. They do not speak for themselves like the characters in more primitive fiction. There are no such graphic descriptions as that of the London fog in Bleak House, or of the Battle of Waterloo in Les Misérables, and there are few portraits that stand out clearly in the memory like those of Don Quixote or Beatrix Esmond. The whole work is more like a mural decoration or a tapestry than a painting with a clear perspective and strong lights and shades. The style is highly finished, and there are sometimes interesting digressions, though these have not the exquisite _abandon_ so often found in those of Thackeray, and the satire lacks something of the airiness which is often its greatest charm. The author probes many of the hidden recesses of the human heart, but his types are hardly so universal as those of other great masters of fiction. His women are far more attractive than his men.

Meredith is at his best when he is simplest, and Richard Feverel, especially in its early chapters, is simpler than many of his other novels.

Richard Feverel is the only son of Sir Austin, a baronet, who has written his philosophy of life in a series of aphorisms entitled “The Pilgrim’s Scrip.” Left alone by a faithless wife in the care of his child, to whom he is tenderly attached, he devises a scientific system of training so perfect that the boy is to be “guiltless even of the impulse to gainsay his father’s wishes.” It works well in the young lad’s early escapades, including the setting of fire to Farmer Blaize’s hay rick, but it comes to naught when the father attempts to guard his son from the perils of love and imprudent matrimony, and to hunt a wife for him, and it ends in Richard’s clandestine marriage with the fair Lucy Dorchester, the niece of this same Farmer Blaize. The father’s efforts to keep young Richard and his wife apart after their marriage as a further discipline in accordance with his absurd system of education ends with the wrecking of two lives; with the boy’s temptation and fall and a succession of follies terminating in a duel, and finally with the death of his young wife, whose gentle spirit is broken at last under the continual sufferings to which she is subjected. It is a story of unutterable sadness in its concluding chapters.

A picture of surpassing beauty is that in which young Richard rowing upon the river on his father’s estate, first encounters the fair creature who is to become his wife.

“Above green-flashing plunges of a weir, and shaken by the thunder below, lilies, golden and white, were swaying at anchor among the reeds. Meadow-sweet hung from the banks thick with weed and trailing bramble, and there also hung a daughter of earth. Her face was shaded by a broad straw hat with a flexible brim that left her lips and chin in the sun, and, sometimes nodding, sent forth a light of promising eyes. Across her shoulders, and behind, flowed large loose curls, brown in shadow, almost golden where the ray touched them. She was simply dressed, befitting decency and the season. On a closer inspection you might see that her lips were stained. This blooming young person was regaling on dewberries. They grew between the bank and the water making pretty progress to her mouth.... The little skylark went up above her, all song, to the smooth southern cloud lying along the blue; from a dewy copse dark over her nodding hat the blackbird fluted, calling to her with thrice mellow note; the kingfisher flashed emerald out of green osiers; a bow-winged heron travelled aloft, seeking solitude: a boat slipped towards her, containing a dreamy youth; and still she plucked the fruit, and ate, and mused, as if no fairy prince were invading her territories, and as if she wished not for one, or knew not her wishes. Surrounded by the green shaven meadows, the pastoral summer buzz, the weir-fall’s thundering white, amid the breath and beauty of wild flowers, she was a bit of lovely human life in a fair setting, a terrible attraction. The Magnetic Youth leaned round to note his proximity to the weir-piles, and beheld the sweet vision. Stiller and stiller grew nature, as at the meeting of two electric clouds. Her posture was so graceful, that though he was making straight for the weir, he dared not dip a scull. Just then one enticing dewberry caught her eyes. He was floating by unheeded, and saw that her hand stretched low, and could not gather what it sought. A stroke from his right brought him beside her. The damsel glanced up dismayed, and her whole shape trembled over the brink. Richard sprang from his boat into the water. Pressing a hand beneath her foot, which she had thrust against the crumbling wet sides of the bank to save herself, he enabled her to recover her balance, and gain safe earth, whither he followed her.”

The scene which succeeds--the revelation of the love of each to the other--is worthy to stand by the side of the very best in all dramatic literature, and in the later chapters the utter devotion and perfect womanliness of the young wife, who is made a sacrifice to the baronet’s impossible “system,” creates a character which is one of the most lovable ever portrayed by the fancy of a writer of fiction.

THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH CHARLES READE

“The Cloister and the Hearth” is a novel which, like “Ivanhoe” and “Romola,” illustrates the fact that it is occasionally possible for a novelist to deal with distant scenes and times long past almost as effectively as with immediate surroundings. In such cases the general groundwork of human nature is ever present, and in matters of detail the imagination supplies the place of accurate knowledge, while the style and the thoughts acquire added dignity by being transported from the commonplace.

This work is unlike most of the other novels of Charles Reade, and is of a higher quality. The dignity of style, however, is by no means uniformly sustained. There are many defects in the book, and very glaring ones. I read it for a long time before its full power and beauty dawned upon me. There is in places an artificial conciseness and often an apparent straining for effect which is unpleasant. There are instances of great carelessness of construction, and colloquialisms which resemble very closely modern slang. As the tale deals with a remote period, the diction is generally archaic; yet the archaism consists not so much in the style as in the use of obsolete English words, such as “buss me,” “hosen,” “shoon,” “cowen,” etc., which seem inappropriate since the conversation was necessarily in another language. Moreover, these archaisms are not consistently carried out in all places. Many of the jokes and saws are stilted, and some of the poetical quotations are lugged headforemost into places where they do not belong. The main plot is often stifled by the abundance of incidents, and there is an appearance of mechanism in the sudden alternations of hope and fear, success and failure, which chase each other in rapid succession through the pages. There are false notes here and there; language is used and events described which are in atrociously bad taste; incidents are told in a sensational way worthy of yellow journalism; and in places you have the conviction that the characters would not naturally do the things described. Yet, with all these defects, the story of the love of Gerard Eliassoen and Margaret Brandt is full of deep human interest, and in many places the tale is one of singular beauty.

Elias, a small tradesman of Tergou, and Catherine, his wife, have many children, and to provide for them the utmost economy is necessary. One of the sons, Gerard, an illuminator of manuscripts, is destined for the clergy. He becomes a competitor for two of the prizes offered by Philip the Good of Burgundy for the best painting and writing on vellum. On his way to the competition at Rotterdam he falls in with an old man, Peter Brandt, a so-called magician, and his daughter Margaret; and when he wins a prize, and when in addition the Princess Marie has promised him a benefice, he has fallen so deeply in love with Margaret that “the hours they spent together were the hours they lived; the rest they counted and underwent.”

His parents oppose the marriage, and the burgomaster, Ghysbrecht Van Swieten, has strong personal reasons for preventing it. Gerard and Margaret are betrothed, and have signed their marriage lines in the presence of witnesses, so that the law holds them for man and wife; but twice when they appear at the altar the wedding is interrupted, and the second time Gerard is imprisoned in the tower of the Stadthouse, from which he escapes by the device and aid of Margaret. He is pursued by Ghysbrecht and his retainers, and after many hairbreadth escapes, in which Margaret repeatedly rescues him, he flees from Holland and goes on foot to Rome, where he intends to pursue his art, and then return to claim his bride. The liveliest descriptions are given of his adventures on the way--of the German inns, of the companion who accompanies him, Denys the Burgundian soldier, a well drawn character, garrulous, brave, generous, and debonair, whose constant formula of encouragement is “_Courage, l’ami, le diable est mort!_” and whose foible, like that of many of his compatriots, is a fondness for women. There is a blood-curdling description of a combat with a bear, whose cub they have stolen; of a supper under a gibbet; of a pedantic doctor, who is burned by the irons with which he had proposed to cauterize Gerard. In places the story seems almost like some mediæval Baedeker, filled with accounts of the sights to be seen and of the customs of the people, as well as with tales of the carousals of the monks in the convents. The two companions pass into Burgundy, and Burgundian manners are vividly contrasted with those of Germany. They betake themselves to an inn, where the landlord and six confederates conspire to murder them; but after a bloody struggle, with marvelous incidents and prodigies of daring, they are rescued, and their assailants are duly hanged or broken on the wheel. But now the two friends are separated; Denys is impressed by a band of soldiers, and Gerard is left alone, to be robbed by highwaymen.

At home, in the meantime, there is a conspiracy between the burgomaster and two brothers of Gerard, who seek to prevent his marriage, and a false letter is sent to him at Rome telling him Margaret is dead.

A graphic picture is drawn of his despair, of his plunging madly into a reckless and wicked life, to drown his grief. He resolves upon suicide, but he is rescued from the Tiber and awakens to consciousness in a convent, where, filled with penitence, he embraces the monastic life, and becomes a preacher of great power. And now come alternating chapters, picturing Gerard in the cloister and on his pilgrimages, and Margaret, with her child, by the hearth at home.

Finally, on a pilgrimage to England, Gerard passes through Rotterdam, and preaches with great eloquence in the convent church. Margaret is present. The chapters are of great power which portray the recognition of the lovers, the discovery of the false letter, and the curse launched by Gerard upon his two brothers who had planned it. But soon Gerard disappears, and becomes an anchorite in a cave not far away. There is a superb description of the struggles of his soul; of the temptations that beset him; of his “turning to gloomy madness”; of his dreams, in which the face of Margaret comes to him irradiated with sunshine, while she blushes and casts on him looks of ineffable tenderness, murmuring, “Gerard, be whose thou wilt by day, but at night, be mine!”; of his terrible efforts to subdue the body, and of his spiritual conquest. But Margaret has discovered the anchorite in his retreat, where she has identified him by a mark upon the finger which he stretches forth from the small window of his cave to feed the birds; and on one occasion, as he returns to his hermitage, which he leaves only in the night, he finds that Margaret is there. He believes she is an evil spirit sent to tempt him; he seeks to exorcise her, and a dreadful scene ensues, as she tries to lead him away from his foul den. They part in fury, but she has left behind her sleeping boy, who, when he wakes, by his innocent prattle wins the heart of the monk, who is quite unconscious that the child is his own. Margaret comes upon them, and beseeches her husband to take courage now that God has sent the boy to comfort him for what he has lost in her, and “that is not so very much, for the better part of love shall never cool.” Eloquent is the pleading by which at last she wins him to go to Gouda Manse, which she has already prepared for his coming, and to care for the flock over which he had been appointed vicar.

The remainder of the story deals with the quiet life of Gerard in the Manse, and of Margaret,--still separated by the church and by their own consciences, but united by a living pledge of affection. At last she is taken down with the plague, and the final scene between the two is pathetic and beautiful to the last degree. Gerard can not survive her; he ends his days in a convent near the Manse; and when he confesses to the stern Father Jerome, he says:

“She was my good angel; she sustained me in my duty and charity; her face encouraged me in the pulpit; her lips soothed me under ingratitude. She intertwined herself with all that was good in my life; and after leaning on her so long, I could not go on alone. And, dear Jerome, believe me, I am no rebel against heaven. It is God’s will to release me. When they threw the earth upon her poor coffin, something snapped within my bosom here that mended may not be. I heard it and I felt it.... He in whose hands are the issues of life and death gave me that minute the great summons; ’twas some cord of life snapped in me. He is very pitiful. I should have lived unhappy; but He said, ‘No; enough is done, enough is suffered; poor, feeble, loving servant, thy shortcomings are forgiven, thy sorrows touch their end; come thou to thy rest!’”

The child that survived them was known as the great scholar of mediæval times, Erasmus; for the foundation of the story is laid in historic fact. The author, to use his own simile, has turned the epitome into a narrative, and the skeleton into a human figure.

There are many passages in the book that are vivid and beautiful. For instance, a fine description is given of Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy:

“He could fight as well as any king going; and he could lie as well as any, except the King of France. He was a mighty hunter, and could read and write. His tastes were wide and ardent. He loved jewels like a woman, and gorgeous apparel. He dearly loved maids of honor, and indeed paintings generally, in proof of which he ennobled Jan Van Eyck. He had also a rage for giants, dwarfs, and Turks. These last stood ever planted about him, turbaned, and blazing with jewels. His agents inveigled them from Istamboul with fair promises; but, the moment he had got them, he baptized them by brute force in a large tub, and, this done, let them squat with their faces towards Mecca, and invoke Mahound as much as they pleased, laughing in his sleeve at their simplicity in fancying they were still infidels. He had lions in cages, and fleet leopards trained by Orientals to run down hares and deer. In short, he relished all rarities, except the humdrum virtues. For anything singularly pretty, or diabolically ugly, this was your customer. The best of him was, he was open-handed to the poor; and the next best was, he fostered the arts in earnest, whereof he now gave a signal proof.”

Listen to the following description of a Mystery:

“In this representation divine personages, too sacred for me to name here, came clumsily down from heaven to talk sophistry with the cardinal Virtues, the nine Muses, and the seven deadly Sins, all present in human shape, and not unlike one another. To enliven which weary stuff, in rattled the Prince of the Powers of the Air, and an imp that kept molesting him and buffeting him with a bladder, at each thwack of which the crowd were in ecstasies. When the Vices had uttered good store of obscenity and the Virtues twaddle, the celestials, including the nine Muses, went gingerly back to heaven one by one; for there was but one cloud; and two artisans worked it up with its supernatural freight, and worked it down with a winch, in full sight of the audience. These disposed of, the bottomless pit opened and flamed in the centre of the stage; the carpenters and Virtues shoved the Vices in, and the Virtues and Beelzebub and his tormentor danced merrily round the place of eternal torture to the fife and tabor.”