Part 20

In presence of such a new condition of men and things, that which was formerly denominated the great world must consent that its star should decline. It has finished as the monarchy of the great King Louis has finished; it has abdicated as did the Emperor Napoleon, who regarded the great king as his predecessor, and neglected no means of reviving the state that existed in his time. We have seen this great world pass away, with its fantastic prohibitions and its immoral indulgences, with its flimsy proprieties and its scrupulous injunctions, with its heroes of good fortune and its jurisdiction of old women. {248} Our court is now only a coterie, if, indeed, it can claim even to be so much as that; a thousand other coteries share the town among them; each city of any considerable extent has its own coteries; all these partial societies are independent of each other, and make no foolish pretensions to mutual domination or remonstrance; every one amuses himself where and how he can, and no one finds fault with him; and, accordingly, no one attempts to extract glory out of his pleasures, and to believe himself on this account a great man.

With a change of manners there has been a change of tastes. General life has become simple and active, laborious and animated. Every man occupies his place, has a distinct aim, and aims at that which is worth the labor he bestows upon it. Public discussions and a free press afford an uninterrupted stream of information concerning the greatest human and national interests. The bloodless, but ardent and vehement, struggles of the tribune divide, excite, irritate, or enliven every day, and carry us onward from fear to hope, from triumph to defeat.

In order to beguile the attention of the public from these powerful attractions, literature must present something else besides distractions which it no longer needs; and must afford a means of passing the time which shall not impose any extra burden. Literature must either attract or instruct--it must raise man from himself and from all around him, or it must powerfully urge him to reflection and meditation. The rivalries of poets are no longer any thing to him; academic disputes lie out of his world. He has no disposition to engage in the controversy which would determine,

"Des deux Poinsinet lequel fait le mieux les vers;"

nor to subsist for a fortnight on that which is worth no more than one of Chamfort's epigrams, one of Panard'a songs, or one of Dorat's heroics.

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Accordingly, for the last twelve or fifteen years, that is to say, since the time when France first began to breathe quietly again after the horrors of anarchy and the confusions of conquest, while we see all that small, affected literature which had its summer of _Saint Martin_ under the empire, fall into insignificance and disrepute, at the same time that we see genteel garbs, court manners, and beautiful monarchical principles abandoned, we also see springing up on all sides a taste for whatever is solid and true. Erudition is being restored; there is a more real appreciation of the ancients now than there ever was in any former time; the knowledge of foreign languages is being extended every day; voyages are being multiplied; scientific and literary correspondence is being extended on all sides; central institutions for intellectual pursuits are established in our departments, and are beginning to undertake laborious inquiries respecting our national antiquities. The Normal School glittered only for a season, but it has left permanent memorials of its existence; it has founded, for example, a philosophical school, which now occupies a foremost position in Europe, which does not swear by the words of any master, which does not despise the labors of any of its predecessors, which does not blink any of the great problems of the world and of humanity; while it neither arrogantly attempts to decide them by a few phrases, nor infatuatedly dismisses them with disdain. Side by side with this philosophical school, a historical school has arisen, in which a union is often effected between that vast erudition which allows no details to escape it, and that powerful imagination, we would willingly say, that half-creative imagination, which knows how to revive times and men that have passed away, and presents them before us glowing with the colors of life and of truth {250} The admirable romances of the most original and fertile genius of our period, so riveting and instructive, filled at once with reality and poetic invention, with the idiosyncrasy of the writer and the erudition of the schools, with ability and gracefulness--these romances all testify, by their immense popularity, to the not less popularity of that mental disposition which they inspire. For, in fact, the delight felt by the upper classes, and the admiration expressed for them by those of high culture is but a small part of their success; they penetrate into counting-houses, they descend into shops, answering a universal and imperious necessity, and affording it an aliment which entertains without completely satisfying it.

Can we seriously believe that, in this general forward movement, the theatre will remain stationary? Can it be that the public will bring to the drama other ideas, other tastes, other dispositions than those which it carries into all other places and all other things?

The play must, in these times, address itself to the public; it must interest and excite them; no longer is it designed to relieve the monotony of a couple of hours for a select number of languid, lounging, fashionable gentlemen, or to supply materials for conversation to four or five recognized cliques and their dozens of humbler imitators who may frequent the coffee-houses. And this change must inevitably influence, sooner or later, the general tone of all dramatic writings. Those immortal beauties-- beauties for all times and all places--with which our theatre abounds, have not, thank Heaven! lost their power over our minds; but where, henceforth, will an audience be found to relish the precious metaphysical gallantry, the comic or tragic balderdash, the philosophical and sentimental declamation which so often disfigure it?

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Can we really think, for instance, that if the great Corneille were to return to earth, the Romans which he might exhibit would not be somewhat sensible of the increased efficiency of our colleges? Can we believe that the illustrious Racine, if he should revisit us, would still make Achilles talk like a French chevalier, and put madrigals into the mouth of Pyrrhus, Mithridates, or Nero? Can we believe that Voltaire, the brilliant and pathetic Voltaire, if he should once again take his place among us, would make Zaire profess indifference to all matters of religion, and declaim to the savages of America on toleration --that he would represent Mohammed employing the inflated periods of a Tartuffe, and depict Gengis-Khan under the guise of a faded libertine and a philosopher disappointed with human greatness? No! Emphatically No! Every thing in its place and time! Voltaire himself was the first to ridicule the heroes who preceded him--_tender, mild, and discreet;_ he was the first to hold up to scorn the ridiculous fashion of describing

"Caton galant et Brutus dameret."

He has attempted tragedies in which there are no love scenes; he has proposed to restore to us, once for all, the Greeks of Greece and the Romans of Rome; and the reason why he did not completely succeed was only that he was not sufficiently acquainted with them. Chenier, in his turn, has thought good to remodel Voltaire's "Œdipe." Still, Voltaire was the first who attempted to appeal to national sentiments and popular recollections, and many others since his time have followed in his track. We might trace back to a time considerably anterior to the beginning of this century, a confused sense of the necessity for a reform in the theatre, a dim consciousness how much there was in the existing state of the theatre that was formal, narrow, and contemptible. {252} Grimm's correspondence indicates this in every page. More than seventy years ago, Collé lampooned the French tragedy in a satiric poem full of wit, in which great good sense is contained beneath an inexhaustible vein of drollery. And if this want was felt thus strongly at this period, what must be the case now, when authors, as we have just said, have to do no longer with a fictitious, but with a real public? when that same public has, for more than forty years, taken its part in all the great realities of public as well as private life.

Indeed, we ourselves, who are now occupying the scene, have taken part in terrible events; we have witnessed the fall and rise of empires: and how can we be persuaded that such revolutions are accomplished by some six or seven persons, whose two or three uninteresting confidants bustle and declaim in a space of fifty square feet? We have known, and that personally, great men--conquerors, statesmen, conspirators--men of flesh and blood: powerful by their arms, by their genius, and by their eloquence; and, in order to be interested, we must be pointed to men equally real, to men who resemble them in all respects.

Still, if our actually existing poets were men of the stamp of Racine and Voltaire--if, like those great men, they knew how to animate a deplorably withered frame by lavishing upon it all the treasures of sentiment and of poetry--if, imitating the noble birds of the days of chivalry, they could, like them, although carried on the hand, release themselves from time to time from the straitness of their position, and soar into the clouds with a brilliant and rapid flight, they might win some success. But it is not so; and this is exactly the one inconvenience of a style which flourished a hundred years ago, with which we, the public of to-day, are obliged to remain contented and happy.

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Tragedies have been almost all fashioned after one model--all cast so very nearly in the same mode, that any one rather experienced in theatrical progression might boldly foretell the scheme of each scene as it arrived. In the first act there is the narrative of the dream or the storm; the second contains the declaration, the third the recognition, and so on. The Alexandrines march on in stately order, and seem, most of them, to belong to the stock of theatrical properties, as much as the decorations and costumes. The personages have their parts and movements appropriated and determined like the pieces in a game of chess; so much so, that we might call them, for the sake of convenience, by some generic name; for example, the king, the tyrant, the queen, the conspirator, the confidant--almost, as Goëthe has entitled the interlocutors in one of his dramas, the father, the mother, the sister, and so on. What, for instance, does it matter whether the queen, who has killed her husband, be called Semiramis, Clytemnestra, Joan of Naples, or Mary Stuart; whether the royal legislator is called Minos or Peter the Great; whether the usurper is called Artaban, Polyphontes, or Cromwell--when their words and actions, their thoughts and feelings, are always the same, or very nearly so? when they are only so many variations on one necessary plot?

It is said that a young poet, whose name we have forgotten, having borrowed the subject of his tragedy from the history of Spain, and finding himself on this account brought into collision with the censor of the press, took it into his head to transport the scene, by two strokes of his pen, from Barcelona to Babylon, and to carry the events back from the sixteenth century to a period somewhere near the time of the deluge; a plan which succeeded to his heart's content, besides that, as _Babylone_ rhymes to the same words as _Barcelone_, and is composed of exactly the same number of syllables, there was but little necessity for changing the most vigorous and lofty speeches. We do not guarantee the truth of the story, but we do not think it at all improbable.

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Doubtless, this insupportable monotony--the evils and puerilities of so much conventional apparatus--the disgust, the weariness, the satiety which it all excites in such a public as ours--the despondency at seeing nothing true produced for the stage--these causes have constantly led the way to all kinds of innovation. Our public is not to be captivated either by system or by caprice; it is no despiser of really excellent productions; it has no disposition to blaspheme the demi-gods of past times; but, like the little girl, it says, "My good friend, I have seen the sun so often!" Like the grand Condé, it says, "I am quite ready to forgive the Abbé D'Aubignac for not having observed the rules, but I can not forgive the rules which have made him produce such an execrable piece."

In the midst of this perplexity, not knowing what saint to invoke, who can deliver them from this

"Race d'Agamemnon qui ne finit jamais,"

these everlasting bores who, if they are hissed down today in the toga, will reappear to-morrow hooded with a turban; in this perplexity, certain talented critics make their appearance, writers of the rarest ability and of the greatest sagacity, who, with a good-natured smile, address the public in some such terms as these:

{255}

"Can you not see what all this weariness under which you groan is owing to? and whence arises this monotony which sickens you? In a given time and space only a certain number of things are possible; and the more circumscribed the space, the more limited the time, the fewer events can be brought before you. Names may be changed, costumes may be changed, but no further change is possible. And much more must this be the case if you multiply arbitrary prescriptions and prohibitions; if you demand, for instance, that the individual who weeps shall do nothing but weep, and that the laugher shall do nothing but laugh; if you forbid him who has once spoken in verse from speaking afterward in prose, or _vice versâ_, or if you forbid him who has once spoken in a verse of twelve syllables from ever making use of a verse of rather smaller dimensions; and if you determine it to be beneath the dignity of tragedy to employ any colloquial forms of expression. Bind a man hand and foot--as you please; put a mask on his countenance--very good; condemn him to recite litanies to the Virgin in a style of passive imperturbability--be it so; but do not then demand of him variety in his movements, flexibility in his physiognomy, or diversity in his language."

And the public must confess that this is very plausible reasoning.

Accordingly, when young poets, encouraged by favorable circumstances, advance timidly before the people, and humbly beg them to hold them, for a time, free from consecrated rules and cruelly rigorous fetters, promising, in return for this indulgence, to move them, to interest them, to show them living and real events--the public answers them, "Make the attempt, we will listen attentively."

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This is the secret of that which is transpiring at the present day. Are not we then, in France, in danger of being betrayed into some rash procedures? For forty years, established usages have been attacked which appeared more solid than our theatrical system; things which seemed more sacred even than Aristotle's precepts have been looked at with bold defiance.

If, at this crisis, a great dramatic poet should arise among us--if this great dramatic poet would take part with the innovators, all difficulties would very soon be overcome. But, unfortunately, we have no such dramatist; as far as talent is concerned, the authors of the new school have not hitherto had a very decided advantage over their brethren of the old school. Their works certainly possess more interest, more movement, more variety; but these merits belong to the school to which they have attached themselves, and this is the reason why their works have drawn crowds, while the productions of their more old-fashioned brethren are abandoned. But their works are indicative rather of reminiscence than of invention; more of an honest disposition to create than of a creative genius. The execution betrays absence of power and groping after effect, rather than native vigor and genuine originality. The blame rests with the individuals; and this is the reason why the public is as yet undecided which of the two opposed systems it shall finally adopt, and shows itself much more disposed to thank them for their efforts than to award them the palm of triumph.

How long, then, is this feeble flight of dramatic talent, this sterility of true genius, with which, to our great regret, the new school--that school which has hardly existed more than four or five years--has been stricken: how long is this to last? {257} The answer to such a question must remain unknown to man, and must be, left to Providence; our fervent wish, both for the credit of art and the honor of our country, is that it may not be delayed very long. Meanwhile, is it graceful, and, above all, is it just, for the partisans of the old system in literature to exult over this fact, as they too often do? Are they reasonable in asking us, with an air of raillery, what master-pieces the new theatrical system can boast of? Have they any right to say to the critics who have expounded and displayed it, "You know not whereof you are speaking; and, as a proof of this, nothing that has been done under your auspices at all corresponds to your magnificent promises?"

We might even agree with them; for if, by way of reprisal, we should afterward ask, concerning Aristotle's _Poetics_, what tragedies of worth it succeeded in inspiring in Greece; concerning Horace's _Ars Poetica_, what illustrious monuments of its truthfulness remain from the theatre of the Latins; concerning La Harpe's _Cours de Littérature_, what master-pieces we may thank it for? the answer would not be very much to their advantage.

Nature alone creates great poets; by her sole agency the world has been gifted, at long intervals, with a Sophocles, a Shakspeare, a Racine, a Molière; and after each such effort, the repose is long and protracted. No human endeavors can be so successful as to supply the lack of that which nature alone can give; and any theory for the creation of great men--any pompous _megalanthropogenesy_--is an insane imposition, either in literature or any where else. We will even go further; what is true of genius is equally true of talent: however little of it may exist, yet in whatever degree it is to be found, nature alone has all the honor. Criticism does for it nothing more than it does for every one else; it has no formula of talent ready made; it has no receipts for the manufacture of good tragedies and amusing comedies.

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Nothing is, in fact, more common than thus to misapprehend the design and nature of certain things.

When the _Organon_ of the Stagyrite philosopher was rediscovered in the Middle Ages, those who first studied it thought they had met with a kind of enchantment, and certainly they had good reason for so thinking; for this _Organon_, this admirable logical system, is one of the most wonderful monuments of the greatness and power of the human mind that exists. But immediately they started to the conclusion that the aim of logic was to teach men reasoning, and that reasoning was, if not the only, yet certainly the principal means of attaining truth--that whosoever should thoroughly master the syllogism could never again be deceived in any thing, and would have reached the utmost boundaries of human knowledge. This was a great mistake; no one can estimate the follies and sophistries, the strifes and subtleties, which this has cost us. Logic teaches man nothing which he could not already do alone, and without its assistance; the syllogistic procedure is the natural and spontaneous method; it need not be formally learned in order to its being employed. There are, besides, other conditions for good reasoning--a clear vision and an adequate conception of the subject, a just regard to all the conditions implied in the problem to be solved, and the faculty of retaining them firmly during the whole course of the deduction. And these things are all given by nature; logic can not impart the secret of acquiring them. Must we, then, on the other hand, conclude, as some philosophers have concluded, that logic is good for nothing? By no means; this would be to rush blindly to the opposite extreme. {259} The design of logic is not to teach men to reason, but to teach them how they actually do reason; it is a branch of mental philosophy; it discloses to us the nature of one of our most remarkable mental processes; it explains to us its laws, its action, its mechanism; it reveals the human mind to itself. He who studies it properly will always study it advantageously; he will rise from this study with a more enlightened and practiced, a stronger and more dexterous mental organ--more fitted, in one word, for all things, not even excepting reasoning itself; for never is it in any respect fruitless to develop human intelligence, and to enlarge and purify the judgment.

The same must be said of criticism. It also is a branch of mental philosophy. It also enlightens the mind with regard to its own operations, and shows it in reflection the method of its own activity; but it neither confines it within the limits of the schools, nor subjects it to a dwarfing and lasting pupillage.

The beautiful exists; it exists in the external world and in the soul of man, in the phenomena of nature and in the events in which humanity displays itself. Sometimes it is manifested entirely in these regions; but oftener it gives only a glimpse and a hint of its presence. Genius seizes it and makes it its own possession; it receives the impression, and then gives it out in a purer and more vivid state than that in which it first appeared; it is surprised by the vision, and it surprises in its turn by the presentation of it. Thus genius acts under the influence of an inspiration; unconsciously, yet most spontaneously, it avails itself of the processes of art. The eagle flies because it is an eagle; the stag bounds because it is a stag.

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What, then, is the province of criticism? Its position is that of a mediator between the master-pieces of art and the minds which are desirous of appreciating them; between the man of talent and the readers whom he addresses; sometimes between him and the man of genius. Whether we be small or great, gifted with insight or not, it initiates us into the secret of these marvelous beauties; it displays before us their delicate processes, their hidden relations, their mystic laws. This is its work; neither more nor less.