Chapter 23

A source of very much pleasure to me was my acquaintance with the old author and Collège de France Professor, Philarète Chasles. Grégoire introduced me to him and I gradually became at home, as it were, in his house, was always a welcome visitor, and was constantly invited there. In his old age he was not a man to be taken very seriously, being diffusive, vague and vain. But there was no one else so communicative, few so entertaining, and for the space of fifty years he had known everybody who had been of any mark in France. He was born in 1798; his father, who was a Jacobin and had been a member of the Convention, did not have him baptised, but brought him up to believe in Truth, (hence the name Philarète,) and apprenticed him to a printer. At the Restoration of the Royal Family, he was imprisoned, together with his father, but released through the influence of Chateaubriand; he then went to England, where he remained for full seven years (1819-1826), working as a typographer, and made a careful study of English literature, then almost unknown in France. After having spent some further time in Germany, he returned to Paris and published a number of historical and critical writings.

Philarète Chasles, as librarian to the Mazarin Library, had his apartments in the building itself, that is, in the very centre of Paris; in the Summer he lived in the country at Meudon, where he had had his veranda decorated with pictures of Pompeian mosaic. He was having a handsome new house with a tower built near by. He needed room, for he had a library of 40,000 volumes.

His niece kept house for him; she was married to a German from Cologne, Schulz by name, who was a painter on glass. The pair lived apart. Madame Schulz was pretty, caustic, spiteful, and blunt. Her daughter, the fourteen-year-old Nanni, was enchantingly lovely, as developed and mischievous as a girl of eighteen. Everyone who came to the house was charmed with her, and it was always full of guests, young students from Alsace and Provence, young negroes from Hayti, young ladies from Jerusalem, and poetesses who would have liked to read their poems aloud and would have liked still better to induce Chasles to make them known by an article.

Chasles chatted with everyone, frequently addressing his conversation to me, talking incessantly about the very men and women that I most cared to hear about, of those still living whom I most admired, such as George Sand, and Mérimée, and, in fact, of all the many celebrities he had known. As a young man, he had been taken to the house of Madame Récamier, and had there seen Chateaubriand, an honoured and adored old man, and Sainte-Beuve an eager and attentive listener, somewhat overlooked on account of his ugliness, in whom there was developing that lurking envy of the great, and of those women clustered round, which he ought to have combatted, to produce just criticism.

Chasles had known personally Michelet and Guizot, the elder Dumas and Beyle, Cousin and Villemain, Musset and Balzac; he knew the Comtesse d'Agoult, for so many years the friend of Liszt, and Madame Colet, the mistress, first of Cousin, then of Musset, and finally of Flaubert, of whom my French uncle, who had met her on his travels, had drawn me a very unattractive picture. Chasles was on terms of daily intimacy with Jules Sandeau; even as an old man he could not forget George Sand, who had filched the greater part of his name and made it more illustrious than the whole became. Sandeau loved her still, forty years after she had left him.

Chasles was able, in a few words, to conjure up very vividly the images of the persons he was describing to his listener, and his anecdotes about them were inexhaustible. He took me behind the scenes of literature and I saw the stage from all its sides. The personal history of his contemporaries was, it is quite true, more particularly its chronicle of scandals, but his information completed for me the severe and graceful restraint of all Taine said. And side by side with his inclination for gay and malicious gossip, Chasles had a way of sketching out great synopses of intellectual history, which made one realise, as one reflected,' the progress of development of the literatures with which one was familiar. Those were pleasant evenings, those moonlight Spring evenings in the open veranda out there at Meudon, when the old man with the sharp-pointed beard and the little skull-cap on one side of his head, was spokesman. He had the aptest and most amusing way of putting things. For instance, to my question as to whether Guizot had really been as austere by nature as he was in manner, he replied: "It is hard to say; when one wishes to impress, one cannot behave like a harlequin."

Although I had a keen enough eye for Philarète Chasles' weaknesses, I felt exceedingly happy in his house. There I could obtain without difficulty the information I wished for, and have the feeling of being thoroughly "in Paris." Paris was and still is the only city in the world that is and wishes to be the capital not only of its own country but of Europe; the only one that takes upon itself as a duty, not merely to meet the visitor half-way by opening museums, collections, buildings, to him, but the only one where people habitually, in conversation, initiate the foreigner in search of knowledge into the ancient, deep culture of the nation, so that its position with regard to that of other races and countries is made clear to one.

VI.

I had not let a single day elapse before I took my seat again in the _Théâtre Français_, to which I had free admission for an indefinite period. The first time I arrived, the doorkeeper at the theatre merely called the sub-officials together; they looked at me, noted my appearance, and for the future I might take my seat wherever I liked, when the man at the entrance had called out his _Entrée_. They were anything but particular, and in the middle of the Summer, after a visit of a month to London, I found my seat reserved for me as before.

The first evening after my arrival, I sat, quietly enjoying _Hernani_ (the lyric beauty of which always rejoiced my heart), with Mounet-Sully in the leading rôle, Bressant as Charles V, and as Doña Sol, Mlle. Lloyd, a minor actress, who, however, at the conclusion of the piece, rose to the level of the poetry. The audience were so much in sympathy with the spirit of the piece that a voice from the gallery shouted indignantly: "_Le roi est un lâche!_" Afterwards, during the same evening, I saw, in a transport of delight, Mme. de Girardin's charming little piece, _La Joie fait Peur_. A certain family believe that their son, who is a young naval officer, fallen in the far East, has been cruelly put to death. He comes back, unannounced, to his broken-hearted mother, his despairing bride, his sister, and an old man-servant. This old, bent, faithful retainer, a stock dramatic part, was played by Régnier with the consummate art that is Nature itself staged. He has hidden the returned son behind a curtain for fear that his mother, seeing him unexpectedly, should die of joy. The sister comes in. Humming, the servant begins to dust, to prevent her going near the curtain; but unconsciously, in his delight, his humming grows louder and louder, until, in a hymn of jubilation, tratara-tratara! he flings the broom up over his head, then stops short suddenly, noticing that the poor child is standing there, mute with astonishment, not knowing what to think. Capital, too, was the acting of a now forgotten actress, Mlle. Dubois, who played the young girl. Her exclamation, as she suddenly sees her brother, "_Je n'ai pas peur, va_!" was uttered so lightly and gaily, that all the people round me, and I myself, too, burst into tears.

I was much impressed by Edmond Thierry, then director of the _Théâtre Français_. I thought him the most refined man I had so far met, possessed of all the old French courtesy, which seemed to have died out in Paris. A conversation with him was a regular course in Dramaturgy, and although a young foreigner like myself must necessarily have been troublesome to him, he let nothing of this be perceptible. I was so charmed by him that nearly two years later I introduced a few unimportant words of his about Molière's _Misanthrope_ into my lectures on the first part of _Main Currents in European Literature_, simply for the pleasure of mentioning his name.

It was, moreover, a very pleasant thing to pay him a visit, even when he was interrupted. For actors streamed in and out of his house. One day, for instance, the lovely Agar burst into the room to tell her tale of woe, being dissatisfied with the dress that she was to wear in a new part. I saw her frequently again when war had been declared, for she it was who, every evening, with overpowering force and art, sang the _Marseillaise_ from before the footlights.

The theatrical performances were a delight to me. I had been charmed as much only by Michael Wiehe and Johanne Luise Heiberg in my salad days when they played together in Hertz's _Ninon_. But my artistic enjoyment went deeper here, for the character portrayal was very much more true to life. The best impressions I had brought with me of Danish art were supremely romantic, Michael Wiehe as Henrik in _The Fairies_, as the Chevalier in _Ninon_, as Mortimer in Schiller's _Mary Stuart_. But this was the real, living thing.

One evening I saw _Ristori_ play the sleep-walking scene in Macbeth with thrilling earnestness and supreme virtuosity. You felt horror to the very marrow of your bones, and your eyes filled with tears of emotion and anxiety. Masterly was the regular breathing that indicated slumber, and the stiff fingers when she washed her hands and smelt them to see if there were blood upon them. But Mme. Favart, who with artistic self-restraint co-ordinated herself into the whole, without any virtuosity at all, produced no less an effect upon me. As the leading character in Feuillet's _Julie_, she was perfection itself; when I saw her, it seemed to me as though no one at home in Denmark had any idea of what feminine characterisation was. What had been taken for such (Heiberg's art, for instance,) only seemed like a graceful and brilliant convention, that fell to pieces by the side of this.

The performances at the _Théâtre Français_ lasted longer than they do now. In one evening you could see Gozlan's _Tempête dans un verre d'Eau_, Augier's _Gabrielle_, and Banville's _Gringoire_. When I had seen Mme. Favart and Régnier in _Gabrielle_, Lafontaine as Louis XI, his wife as Loyse, Mlle. Ponsin as Nicole, and Coquelin, at that time still young and fresh, as Gringoire, I felt that I had enjoyed one of the greatest and most elevating pleasures the world had to offer. I went home, enraptured and enthusiastic, as much edified as the believer returning from his church. I could see _Gringoire_ a dozen times in succession and find only one expression for what I felt: "This is holy."

The piece appealed to me so much, no doubt, because it was more in agreement than the rest with what in Denmark was considered true poetry. But during the three years since I had last seen him, Coquelin had made immense strides in this rôle. He rendered it now with an individuality, a heartfelt sincerity and charm, that he had not previously attained; in contrast to harsh King Louis and unfeeling Loyse, was so poor, and hungry, and ill and merry and tender and such a hero and such a genius--that I said to myself: "Who, ever has seen this, has lived."

Quite a short while after my arrival--April 12, 1870--I saw for the first time Sarah Bernhardt, who had just begun to make a name at the Odéon. She was playing in George Sand's beautiful and mutinous drama _L'autre_, from which the great-grandmother in Björnson's _Leonarda_ is derived. The piece is a plea for the freedom of love, or rather, for indulgence with regard to what are branded by society as the sins of love. Sarah Bernhardt was the young girl who, in her innocence, judges all moral irregularities with the utmost severity, until her eyes are opened to what the world really is. She is, without knowing it, the child of unlawful love, and the father's curse is that of not daring to be anything to his child--whom he has educated and over whom he watches--not daring to claim his right to her affection, as he would otherwise stain her mother's memory. In his presence, the young girl utters all the hard words that society has for those who break her laws; she calls her unknown father false and forsworn. George Sand has collected all the justified protests and every prejudice for this young girl to utter, because in her they inspire most respect, and are to their best advantage.--So far her father has not revealed himself. Then at last it dawns upon her that it is he, her benefactor, who is the _other one_ whom she has just condemned, and as the curtain falls she flings herself, melted, into his arms.

Sarah played the part with great modesty, with what one might assume to be the natural melancholy of the orphan, and the enthusiasm of the young virgin for strict justice, and yet in such wise that, through all the coldness, through the expressive uncertainty of her words, and especially through the lovely, rich ring of her voice, one suspected tenderness and mildness long held back.

VII.

I tried, while I was in Paris, to understand something of the development of French literature since the beginning of the century, to arrange it in stages, and note the order of their succession; I wanted, at the same time, to form for myself a similar general view of Danish literature, and institute parallels between the two, being convinced beforehand that the spirit of the age must be approximately the same in two European countries that were, so to speak, intellectually allied. This was my first naïve attempt to trace The Main Currents in Nineteenth Century Literature.

The French poetry of the nineteenth century seemed to me to fall into three groups: Romanticism, the School of Common Sense, the Realistic Art. I defined them as follows:

I. What the French call _Romanticism_ has many distinguishing marks. It is, firstly, a _break with Graeco-Roman antiquity_. It therefore harks back to the Gallic, and to the Middle Ages. It is a resurrection of the poets of the sixteenth century. But the attempt is a failure, for Ronsard and the Pleiad [Footnote: The poets who formed the first and greater Pleiad were, besides Ronsard, Dubellay, Remi, Belleau, Jodelle, Dorat, Baif and Pontus de Thiard.] are also Greek-taught, are Anacreontics. If we except the _Chanson de Roland_, there is no original mediaeval literature that can be compared with the Icelandic. For that reason the choice of subjects is extended from the Middle Ages in France to the Middle Ages in other countries, for instance, Germany, whence Victor Hugo derives his drama _Les Burgraves_. The poets select foreign matter, Alfred de Vigny treats Chatterton and Musset Italian and Spanish themes. Mérimée harks back to the French Middle Ages (The Peasant Rising), but as he there finds too little originality, he flees, as a poet, to less civilised nationalities, Spaniards, South Americans, Corsicans, Russians, etc. Romanticism becomes ethnographical.

Its second distinguishing mark is _tempestuous violence_. It is connected with the 1830 revolution. It attacks society and the conditions of property (Saint Simon, Fourier, Proudhon), attacks marriage and the official verdict upon sexual relations (Dumas) Antony Rousseau's old doctrine that Nature is good, the natural state the right one, and that society alone has spoilt everything. George Sand in particular worships Rousseau, and writes in essential agreement with him.

In the later French literature the influence of Voltaire and that of Rousseau are alternately supreme. Voltaire rules until 1820, Rousseau again until 1850, then Voltaire takes the reins once more with About, Taine, and Sarcey. In Renan Voltaire is merged with Rousseau, and now, later still, Diderot has taken the place of both.

II. The _School of Common Sense_ (_l'école de bon sens_) follows upon Romanticism. As the latter worshipped passion, so the School of Common Sense pays homage to sound human intelligence. In certain individuals it is possible to trace the transition--Musset's _Un Caprice_ in contrast with the wanton works of his youth. George Sand's village novels, in contrast with her novels on Marriage. The popular tone and the landscape drawing here, which, for that matter, are all derived from Rousseau, lead on into a tranquil idyl. Works like Ponsard's _Lucrèce_ and Augier's _Gabrielle_ show the reaction from Romanticism. In the tragedy it is Lucrèce, in the modern play, Gabrielle, upon whom the action hinges. In Ponsard and Augier common sense, strict justice, and a conventional feeling of honour, are acclaimed. Marriage is glorified in all of Ponsard, Augier and Octave Feuillet's dramas. Literature has no doubt been influenced in some degree by the ruling orders of the monarchy of July. Louis Philippe was the bourgeois King. An author like Scribe, who dominates the stages of Europe, is animated by the all-powerful bourgeois spirit, educated and circumscribed as it was. Cousin, in his first manner, revolutionary Schellingism, corresponded to romanticism; his eclecticism as a moralising philosopher corresponds to the School of Common Sense. The distinctive feature which they have in common becomes a so-called Idealism. Ponsard revives the classical traditions of the seventeenth century. In criticism this endeavour in the direction of the sensible and the classical, is represented by Nisard, Planche, and Sainte-Beuve in his second manner.

III. The third tendency of the century Is _Realistic Art_, with physiological characteristics. It finds its support in positivist philosophy; Herbart in Germany, Bentham and Mill in England, Comte and Littré in France. In criticism, Sainte-Beuve's third manner. On the stage, the younger Dumas. In novels, the brothers Goncourt, and Flaubert. In Art, a certain brutality in the choice of subject, _Gérôme and Régnault_. In politics, the accomplished fact (_le fait accompli_), the Empire, the brutal pressure from above and general levelling by universal suffrage from below. In lyric poetry, the strictly technical artists of form of the _Parnasse_, Coppée, who describes unvarnished reality, and the master workmen (_les maîtres de la facture_), Leconte Delisle, Gautier and his pupils, who write better verse than Lamartine and Hugo, but have no new thoughts or feelings--the poetic language materialists.

In conclusion, a great many indistinct beginnings, of which it is as yet impossible to say whither they are tending.

This, my first attempt to formulate for myself a general survey of one of the great literatures of the nineteenth century, contained much that was true enough, but revealed very plainly the beginner's lack of ability to estimate the importance of phenomena, an inclination to over-estimate purely evanescent apparitions, and a tendency to include that which was merely externally similar, under one heading. The insignificant School of Common Sense could not by any means be regarded as marking an epoch. Neither, with any justice, could men like Augier and Dumas be placed in different groups. The attempt to point out realism in the lyric art was likewise exceedingly audacious.

However, this division and grouping seemed to me at that time to be a great discovery, and great was my disappointment when one day I consulted Chasles on the subject and he thought it too forced, and another day submitted it to Renan, who restricted himself to the reply:

"No! no! Things do not proceed so systematically!"

As this survey of the literature of France was also intended to guide me with regard to the Danish, I groped my way forward in the following manner:

I. _Romanticism_. Oehlenschläger's attitude towards the past corresponds exactly to Victor Hugo's; only that the resurrection of the Middle Ages in poetry is much more successful (_Earl Hakon, The Gods of the North_), by reason of the fresh originality in Snorre and the _Edda_. Grundtvig's _Scenes from the Lives of the Warriors of the North_ likewise owes all its value to the Edda and the Sagas. Oehlenschläger's _Aladdin_ is the Northern pendant to Hugo's _Les Orientales_. Gautier, as a poet, Delacroix as a painter, affect the East, as Oehlenschläger does in _Ali and Gulhyndi_. Steffens and Sibbern, as influenced by Schelling, correspond to Cousin. Hauch not infrequently seeks his poetic themes in Germany, as do Nodier and Gérard de Nerval. Ingemann's weak historical novels correspond to the French imitations of Sir Walter Scott (Alfred de Vigny's _Cinq-Mars_, Dumas' _Musketeers_). Oehlenschläger's tragedies correspond to the dramas of Victor Hugo. With the Danes, as with the French, hatred of intelligence, as cold; only that the Danes glorify imagination and enthusiasm, the French, passion. Romanticism lasts in Denmark (without Revolutions and Restorations) until about 1848, as in France.

II. The _School of Common Sense_ is in Denmark partly a worship of the sound sense of the people, partly a moralising tendency. Grundtvig, with his popular manner, his appreciation of the unsophisticated peasant nature, had points of contact with the pupils of Rousseau. Moralising works are Heiberg's _A Soul after Death_, Paludan-Müller's _Adam Homo_, and Kierkegaard's _Either-Or_. The funny thing about the defence of marriage contained in this last book is that it defends what no one in Denmark attacks. It can only be understood from the contemporary movement in the intellectual life of Europe, which is now asserting the universal validity of morality, as it formerly did the right of passion. Its defence of Protestantism corresponds to Octave Feuillet's defence of Catholicism, only that Feuillet is conciliatory, Kierkegaard vehement. Björnson's peasant novels, which are a continuation of Grundtvig and Blicher, are, by their harmony and their peaceable relations to all that is, an outcome of love of common sense; they have the same anti-Byronic stamp as the School of Common Sense. The movement comes to us ten years later. But Björnson has simultaneously something of Romanticism and something of Realism. We have not men to place separately in the various frames.

III. _Realistic Art_. There is so far only an attempt at a realistic art.

Thus, in Björnson's _Arne_ and _Sigurd Slembe_. Note also an attempt in Bergsöe's clumsy use of realistic features, and in his seeking after effect. Richardt corresponds in our lyric art as an artist in language to the poets of the _Parnasse_, while Heiberg's philosophy and most of his poetry may be included in the School of Common Sense. Bröchner's _Ideal Realism_ forms the transitional stage to the philosophy of Reality. Ibsen's attack upon the existing state of things corresponds to realism in the French drama. He is Dumas on Northern soil. In the _Love Comedy_, as a scoffer he is inharmonious. In _Peer Gynt_, he continues in the moralising tendency with an inclination to coarse and brutal realistic effects (relations with Anitra).

In Germany we find ourselves at the second stage still, sinking deeper and deeper into dialect and popular subjects (from Auerbach to Claus Groth and Fritz Reuter).

It is unnecessary to point out to readers of the present day how incomplete and arbitrary this attempt at a dissection of Danish literature was. I started from the conviction that modern intellectual life in Europe, in different countries, must necessarily in all essentials traverse the same stages, and as I was able to find various unimportant points of similarity in support of this view, I quite overlooked the fact that the counterbalancing weight of dissimilarities rendered the whole comparison futile.

IX.