CHAPTER VI
SHE
I am at home. There was never anybody who felt so strange in her home.
It is not a month since I left my sisters, and I hardly remember that
I know them. They all, and even papa, appear to be thinking about such
petty things. They complain that I tell them nothing. What have I to
tell? My Prince! my own Leboo, if I might lie in the stall with you,
then I should feel thoroughly happy! That is, if I could fall asleep.
Evelina declares we are not eight miles from Dayton. It seems to me I
am eight millions of miles distant, and shall be all my life travelling
along a weary road to get there again just for one long sunny day.
And it might rain when I got there after all! My trouble nobody knows.
Nobody knows a thing!
The night before my departure, Miss Pollingray did me the honour
to accompany me up to my bedroom. She spoke to me searchingly about
Charles; but she did not demand compromising answers. She is not in
favour of early marriages, so she merely wishes to know the footing upon
which we stand: that of friends. I assured her we were simply friends.
‘It is the firmest basis of an attachment,’ she said; and I did not look
hurried.
But I gained my end. I led her to talk of the beautiful Marquise. This
is the tale. Mr. Pollingray, when a very young man, and comparatively
poor, went over to France with good introductions, and there saw and
fell in love with Louise de Riverolles. She reciprocated his passion.
If he would have consented to abjure his religion and worship with her,
Madame de Riverolles, her mother, would have listened to her entreaties.
But Gilbert was firm. Mr. Pollingray, I mean, refused to abandon his
faith. Her mother, consequently, did not interfere, and Monsieur de
Riverolles, her father, gave her to the Marquis de Marzardouin, a roue
young nobleman, immensely rich, and shockingly dissipated. And she
married him. No, I cannot understand French girls. Do as I will, it is
quite incomprehensible to me how Louise, loving another, could suffer
herself to be decked out in bridal finery and go to the altar and
take the marriage oaths. Not if perdition had threatened would I have
submitted. I have a feeling that Mr. Pollingray should have shown at
least one year’s resentment at such conduct; and yet I admire him for
his immediate generous forgiveness of her. It was fatherly. She was
married at sixteen. His forgiveness was the fruit of his few years’
seniority, said Miss Pollingray, whose opinion of the Marquise I cannot
arrive at. At any rate, they have been true and warm friends ever since,
constantly together interchangeing visits. That is why Mr. Pollingray
has been more French than English for those long years.
Miss Pollingray concluded by asking me what I thought of the story. I
said: ‘It is very strange French habits are so different from ours. I
dare say... I hope..., perhaps... indeed, Mr. Pollingray seems happy
now.’ Her idea of my wits must be that they are of the schoolgirl
order--a perfect receptacle for indefinite impressions.
‘Ah!’ said she. ‘Gilbert has burnt his heart to ashes by this time.’
I slept with that sentence in my brain. In the morning, I rose and
dressed, dreaming. As I was turning the handle of my door to go down to
breakfast, suddenly I swung round in a fit of tears. It was so piteous
to think that he should have waited by her twenty years in a slow
anguish, his heart burning out, without a reproach or a complaint. I saw
him, I still see him, like a martyr.
‘Some people,’ Miss Pollingray said, I permitted themselves to think
evil of my brother’s assiduous devotion to a married woman. There is not
a spot on his character, or on that of the person whom Gilbert loved.’
I would believe it in the teeth of calumny. I would cling to my belief
in him if I were drowning.
I consider that those twenty years are just nothing, if he chooses to
have them so. He has lived embalmed in a saintly affection. No wonder he
considers himself still youthful. He is entitled to feel that his future
is before him.
No amount of sponging would get the stains away from my horrid red
eyelids. I slunk into my seat at the breakfast-table, not knowing that
one of the maids had dropped a letter from Charles into my hand, and
that I had opened it and was holding it open. The letter, as I found
afterwards, told me that Charles has received an order from his uncle
to go over to Mr. Pollingray’s estate in Dauphiny on business. I am not
sorry that they should have supposed I was silly enough to cry at the
thought of Charles’s crossing the Channel. They did imagine it, I know;
for by and by Miss Pollingray whispered: ‘Les absents n’auront pas tort,
cette fois, n’est-ce-pas? ‘And Mr. Pollingray was cruelly gentle: an
air of ‘I would not intrude on such emotions’; and I heightened their
delusions as much as I could: there was no other way of accounting for
my pantomime face. Why should he fancy I suffered so terribly? He talked
with an excited cheerfulness meant to relieve me, of course, but there
was no justification for his deeming me a love-sick kind of woe-begone
ballad girl. It caused him likewise to adopt a manner--what to call it,
I cannot think: tender respect, frigid regard, anything that accompanies
and belongs to the pressure of your hand with the finger-tips. He said
goodbye so tenderly that I would have kissed his sleeve. The effort to
restrain myself made me like an icicle. Oh! adieu, mon parrain!
ETEXT EDITOR’S BOOKMARKS:
A wise man will not squander his laughter if he can help it
A woman is hurt if you do not confide to her your plans
Gentleman in a good state of preservation
Imparting the usual chorus of yesses to his own mind
In every difficulty, patience is a life-belt
Knew my friend to be one of the most absent-minded of men
Rapture of obliviousness
Telling her anything, she makes half a face in anticipation
When you have done laughing with her, you can laugh at her
THE SENTIMENTALISTS
AN UNFINISHED COMEDY
By George Meredith
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
HOMEWARE.
PROFESSOR SPIRAL.
ARDEN,............. In love with Astraea.
SWITHIN,........... Sympathetics. OSIER,
DAME DRESDEN,...... Sister to Homeware.
ASTRAEA,........... Niece to Dame Dresden and Homeware.
LYRA,.............. A Wife.
LADY OLDLACE.
VIRGINIA.
WINIFRED.
THE SENTIMENTALISTS
AN UNFINISHED COMEDY
The scene is a Surrey garden in early summer. The paths are shaded by
tall box-wood hedges. The--time is some sixty years ago.
SCENE I
PROFESSOR SPIRAL, DAME DRESDEN, LADY OLDLACE,
VIRGINIA, WINIFRED, SWITHIN, and OSIER
(As they slowly promenade the garden, the professor is delivering one of
his exquisite orations on Woman.)
SPIRAL: One husband! The woman consenting to marriage takes but one. For
her there is no widowhood. That punctuation of the sentence called death
is not the end of the chapter for her. It is the brilliant proof of her
having a soul. So she exalts her sex. Above the wrangle and clamour of
the passions she is a fixed star. After once recording her obedience
to the laws of our common nature--that is to say, by descending once to
wedlock--she passes on in sovereign disengagement--a dedicated widow.
(By this time they have disappeared from view. HOMEWARE appears;
he craftily avoids joining their party, like one who is unworthy of
such noble oratory. He desires privacy and a book, but is disturbed
by the arrival of ARDEN, who is painfully anxious to be polite to
‘her uncle Homeware.’)
SCENE II
HOMEWARE, ARDEN
ARDEN: A glorious morning, sir.
HOMEWARE: The sun is out, sir.
ARDEN: I am happy in meeting you, Mr. Homeware.
HOMEWARE: I can direct you to the ladies, Mr. Arden. You will find them
up yonder avenue.
ARDEN: They are listening, I believe, to an oration from the mouth of
Professor Spiral.
HOMEWARE: On an Alpine flower which has descended to flourish on English
soil. Professor Spiral calls it Nature’s ‘dedicated widow.’
ARDEN: ‘Dedicated widow’?
HOMEWARE: The reference you will observe is to my niece Astraea.
ARDEN: She is dedicated to whom?
HOMEWARE: To her dead husband! You see the reverse of Astraea, says the
professor, in those world-infamous widows who marry again.
ARDEN: Bah!
HOMEWARE: Astraea, it is decided, must remain solitary, virgin cold,
like the little Alpine flower. Professor Spiral has his theme.
ARDEN: He will make much of it. May I venture to say that I prefer my
present company?
HOMEWARE: It is a singular choice. I can supply you with no weapons for
the sort of stride in which young men are usually engaged. You belong to
the camp you are avoiding.
ARDEN: Achilles was not the worse warrior, sir, for his probation in
petticoats.
HOMEWARE: His deeds proclaim it. But Alexander was the better chieftain
until he drank with Lais.
ARDEN: No, I do not plead guilty to Bacchus.
HOMEWARE: You are confessing to the madder form of drunkenness.
ARDEN: How, sir, I beg?
HOMEWARE: How, when a young man sees the index to himself in everything
spoken!
ARDEN: That might have the look. I did rightly in coming to you, sir.
HOMEWARE: ‘Her uncle Homeware’?
ARDEN: You read through us all, sir.
HOMEWARE: It may interest you to learn that you are the third of the
gentlemen commissioned to consult the lady’s uncle Homeware.
ARDEN: The third.
HOMEWARE: Yes, she is pursued. It could hardly be otherwise. Her
attractions are acknowledged, and the house is not a convent. Yet, Mr.
Arden, I must remind you that all of you are upon an enterprise held to
be profane by the laws of this region. Can you again forget that Astraea
is a widow?
ARDEN: She was a wife two months; she has been a widow two years.
HOMEWARE: The widow of the great and venerable Professor Towers is not
to measure her widowhood by years. His, from the altar to the tomb. As
it might be read, a one day’s walk!
ARDEN: Is she, in the pride of her youth, to be sacrificed to a
whimsical feminine delicacy?
HOMEWARE: You have argued it with her?
ARDEN: I have presumed.
HOMEWARE: And still she refused her hand!
ARDEN: She commended me to you, sir. She has a sound judgement of
persons.
HOMEWARE: I should put it that she passes the Commissioners of Lunacy,
on the ground of her being a humorous damsel. Your predecessors had also
argued it with her; and they, too, discovered their enemy in a whimsical
feminine delicacy. Where is the difference between you? Evidently
she cannot perceive it, and I have to seek: You will have had many
conversations with Astraea?
ARDEN: I can say, that I am thrice the man I was before I had them.
HOMEWARE: You have gained in manhood from conversations with a widow in
her twenty-second year; and you want more of her.
ARDEN: As much as I want more wisdom.
HOMEWARE: You would call her your Muse?
ARDEN: So prosaic a creature as I would not dare to call her that.
HOMEWARE: You have the timely mantle of modesty, Mr. Arden. She has
prepared you for some of the tests with her uncle Homeware.
ARDEN: She warned me to be myself, without a spice of affectation.
HOMEWARE: No harder task could be set a young man in modern days. Oh,
the humorous damsel. You sketch me the dimple at her mouth.
ARDEN: Frankly, sir, I wish you to know me better; and I think I can
bear inspection. Astraea sent me to hear the reasons why she refuses me
a hearing.
HOMEWARE: Her reason, I repeat, is this; to her idea, a second wedlock
is unholy. Further, it passes me to explain. The young lady lands
us where we were at the beginning; such must have been her humorous
intention.
ARDEN: What can I do?
HOMEWARE: Love and war have been compared. Both require strategy and
tactics, according to my recollection of the campaign.
ARDEN: I will take to heart what you say, sir.
HOMEWARE: Take it to head. There must be occasional descent of lovers’
heads from the clouds. And Professor Spiral,--But here we have a belated
breeze of skirts.
(The reference is to the arrival of LYRA, breathless.)
SCENE III
HOMEWARE, ARDEN, LYRA
LYRA: My own dear uncle Homeware!
HOMEWARE: But where is Pluriel?
LYRA: Where is a woman’s husband when she is away from him?
HOMEWARE: In Purgatory, by the proper reckoning. But hurry up the
avenue, or you will be late for Professor Spiral’s address.
LYRA: I know it all without hearing. Their Spiral! Ah, Mr. Arden! You
have not chosen badly. The greater my experience, the more do I value my
uncle Homeware’s company.
(She is affectionate to excess but has a roguish eye withal, as of
one who knows that uncle Homeware suspects all young men and most
young women.)
HOMEWARE: Agree with the lady promptly, my friend.
ARDEN: I would gladly boast of so lengthened an experience, Lady
Pluriel.
LYRA: I must have a talk with Astraea, my dear uncle. Her letters breed
suspicions. She writes feverishly. The last one hints at service on the
West Coast of Africa.
HOMEWARE: For the draining of a pestiferous land, or an enlightenment of
the benighted black, we could not despatch a missionary more effective
than the handsomest widow in Great Britain.
LYRA: Have you not seen signs of disturbance?
HOMEWARE: A great oration may be a sedative.
LYRA: I have my suspicions.
HOMEWARE: Mr. Arden, I could counsel you to throw yourself at Lady
Pluriel’s feet, and institute her as your confessional priest.
ARDEN: Madam, I am at your feet. I am devoted to the lady.
LYRA: Devoted. There cannot be an objection. It signifies that a man
asks for nothing in return!
HOMEWARE: Have a thought upon your words with this lady, Mr. Arden!
ARDEN: Devoted, I said. I am. I would give my life for her.
LYRA: Expecting it to be taken to-morrow or next day? Accept my
encomiums. A male devotee is within an inch of a miracle. Women had been
looking for this model for ages, uncle.
HOMEWARE: You are the model, Mr Arden!
LYRA: Can you have intended to say that it is in view of marriage you
are devoted to the widow of Professor Towers?
ARDEN: My one view.
LYRA: It is a star you are beseeching to descend.
ARDEN: It is.
LYRA: You disappoint me hugely. You are of the ordinary tribe after all;
and your devotion craves an enormous exchange, infinitely surpassing the
amount you bestow.
ARDEN: It does. She is rich in gifts; I am poor. But I give all I have.
LYRA: These lovers, uncle Homeware!
HOMEWARE: A honey-bag is hung up and we have them about us. They would
persuade us that the chief business of the world is a march to the
altar.
ARDEN: With the right partner, if the business of the world is to be
better done.
LYRA: Which right partner has been chosen on her part, by a veiled
woman, who marches back from the altar to discover that she has chained
herself to the skeleton of an idea, or is in charge of that devouring
tyrant, an uxorious husband. Is Mr. Arden in favour with the Dame,
uncle?
HOMEWARE: My sister is an unsuspicious potentate, as you know.
Pretenders to the hand of an inviolate widow bite like waves at a rock.
LYRA: Professor Spiral advances rapidly.
HOMEWARE: Not, it would appear, when he has his audience of ladies and
their satellites.
LYRA: I am sure I hear a spring-tide of enthusiasm coming.
ARDEN: I will see.
(He goes up the path.)
LYRA: Now! my own dear uncle, save me from Pluriel. I have given him the
slip in sheer desperation; but the man is at his shrewdest when he is
left to guess at my heels. Tell him I am anywhere but here. Tell him I
ran away to get a sense of freshness in seeing him again. Let me have
one day of liberty, or, upon my word, I shall do deeds; I shall console
young Arden: I shall fly to Paris and set my cap at presidents and
foreign princes. Anything rather than be eaten up every minute, as I am.
May no woman of my acquaintance marry a man of twenty years her senior!
She marries a gigantic limpet. At that period of his life a man becomes
too voraciously constant.
HOMEWARE: Cupid clipped of wing is a destructive parasite.
LYRA: I am in dead earnest, uncle, and I will have a respite, or else
let decorum beware!
(Arden returns.)
ARDEN: The ladies are on their way.
LYRA: I must get Astraea to myself.
HOMEWARE: My library is a virgin fortress, Mr. Arden. Its gates are open
to you on other topics than the coupling of inebriates.
(He enters the house--LYRA disappears in the garden--Spiral’s
audience reappear without him.)
SCENE IV
DAME DRESDEN, LADY OLDLACE, VIRGINIA, WINIFRED,
ARDEN, SWITHIN, OSIER
LADY OLDLACE: Such perfect rhythm!
WINIFRED: Such oratory!
LADY OLDLACE: A master hand. I was in a trance from the first sentence
to the impressive close.
OSIER: Such oratory is a whole orchestral symphony.
VIRGINIA: Such command of intonation and subject!
SWITHIN: That resonant voice!
LADY OLDLACE: Swithin, his flow of eloquence! He launched forth!
SWITHIN: Like an eagle from a cliff.
OSIER: The measure of the words was like a beat of wings.
SWITHIN: He makes poets of us.
DAME DRESDEN: Spiral achieved his pinnacle to-day!
VIRGINIA: How treacherous is our memory when we have most the longing to
recall great sayings!
OSIER: True, I conceive that my notes will be precious.
WINIFRED: You could take notes!
LADY OLDLACE: It seems a device for missing the quintessential.
SWITHIN: Scraps of the body to the loss of the soul of it. We can allow
that our friend performed good menial service.
WINIFRED: I could not have done the thing.
SWITHIN: In truth; it does remind one of the mess of pottage.
LADY OLDLACE: One hardly felt one breathed.
VIRGINIA: I confess it moved me to tears.
SWITHIN: There is a pathos for us in the display of perfection. Such
subtle contrast with our individual poverty affects us.
WINIFRED: Surely there were passages of a distinct and most exquisite
pathos.
LADY OLDLACE: As in all great oratory! The key of it is the pathos.
VIRGINIA: In great oratory, great poetry, great fiction; you try it
by the pathos. All our critics agree in stipulating for the pathos. My
tears were no feminine weakness, I could not be a discordant instrument.
SWITHIN: I must make confession. He played on me too.
OSIER: We shall be sensible for long of that vibration from the touch of
a master hand.
ARDEN: An accomplished player can make a toy-shop fiddle sound you a
Stradivarius.
DAME DRESDEN: Have you a right to a remark, Mr. Arden? What could have
detained you?
ARDEN: Ah, Dame. It may have been a warning that I am a discordant
instrument. I do not readily vibrate.
DAME DRESDEN: A discordant instrument is out of place in any civil
society. You have lost what cannot be recovered.
ARDEN: There are the notes.
OSIER: Yes, the notes.
SWITHIN: You can be satisfied with the dog’s feast at the table, Mr.
Arden!
OSIER: Ha!
VIRGINIA: Never have I seen Astraea look sublimer in her beauty than
with her eyes uplifted to the impassioned speaker, reflecting every
variation of his tones.
ARDEN: Astraea!
LADY OLDLACE: She was entranced when he spoke of woman descending from
her ideal to the gross reality of man.
OSIER: Yes, yes. I have the words [reads]: ‘Woman is to the front of
man, holding the vestal flower of a purer civilization. I see,’ he says,
‘the little taper in her hands transparent round the light, against
rough winds.’
DAME DRESDEN: And of Astraea herself, what were the words? ‘Nature’s
dedicated widow.’
SWITHIN: Vestal widow, was it not?
VIRGINIA: Maiden widow, I think.
DAME DRESDEN: We decide for ‘dedicated.’
WINIFRED: Spiral paid his most happy tribute to the memory of her late
husband, the renowned Professor Towers.
VIRGINIA: But his look was at dear Astraea.
ARDEN: At Astraea? Why?
VIRGINIA: For her sanction doubtless.
ARDEN: Ha!
WINIFRED: He said his pride would ever be in his being received as the
successor of Professor Towers.
ARDEN: Successor!
SWITHIN: Guardian was it not?
OSIER: Tutor. I think he said.
(The three gentlemen consult Osier’s notes uneasily.)
DAME DRESDEN: Our professor must by this time have received in full
Astraea’s congratulations, and Lyra is hearing from her what it is to
be too late. You will join us at the luncheon table, if you do not feel
yourself a discordant instrument there, Mr. Arden?
ARDEN (going to her): The allusion to knife and fork tunes my strings
instantly, Dame.
DAME DRESDEN: You must help me to-day, for the professor will be tired,
though we dare not hint at it in his presence. No reference, ladies, to
the great speech we have been privileged to hear; we have expressed our
appreciation and he could hardly bear it.
ARDEN: Nothing is more distasteful to the orator!
VIRGINIA: As with every true genius, he is driven to feel humbly human
by the exultation of him.
SWITHIN: He breathes in a rarified air.
OSIER: I was thrilled, I caught at passing beauties. I see that here and
there I have jotted down incoherencies, lines have seduced me, so that
I missed the sequence--the precious part. Ladies, permit me to rank him
with Plato as to the equality of women and men.
WINIFRED: It is nobly said.
OSIER: And with the Stoics, in regard to celibacy.
(By this time all the ladies have gone into the house.)
ARDEN: Successor! Was the word successor?
(ARDEN, SWITHIN, and OSIER are excitedly searching the notes
when SPIRAL passes and strolls into the house. His air of
self-satisfaction increases their uneasiness they follow him.
ASTRAEA and LYRA come down the path.)
SCENE V
ASTRAEA, LYRA
LYRA: Oh! Pluriel, ask me of him! I wish I were less sure he would not
be at the next corner I turn.
ASTRAEA: You speak of your husband strangely, Lyra.
LYRA: My head is out of a sack. I managed my escape from him this
morning by renouncing bath and breakfast; and what a relief, to be in
the railway carriage alone! that is, when the engine snorted. And if
I set eyes on him within a week, he will hear some truths. His idea of
marriage is, the taking of the woman into custody. My hat is on, and on
goes Pluriel’s. My foot on the stairs; I hear his boot behind me. In
my boudoir I am alone one minute, and then the door opens to the
inevitable. I pay a visit, he is passing the house as I leave it. He
will not even affect surprise. I belong to him, I am cat’s mouse. And
he will look doating on me in public. And when I speak to anybody, he is
that fearful picture of all smirks. Fling off a kid glove after a round
of calls; feel your hand--there you have me now that I am out of him for
my half a day, if for as long.
ASTRAEA: This is one of the world’s happy marriages!
LYRA: This is one of the world’s choice dishes! And I have it planted
under my nostrils eternally. Spare me the mention of Pluriel until he
appears; that’s too certain this very day. Oh! good husband! good
kind of man! whatever you please; only some peace, I do pray, for the
husband-haunted wife. I like him, I like him, of course, but I want to
breathe. Why, an English boy perpetually bowled by a Christmas pudding
would come to loathe the mess.
ASTRAEA: His is surely the excess of a merit.
LYRA: Excess is a poison. Excess of a merit is a capital offence in
morality. It disgusts, us with virtue. And you are the cunningest of
fencers, tongue, or foils. You lead me to talk of myself, and I hate the
subject. By the way, you have practised with Mr. Arden.
ASTRAEA: A tiresome instructor, who lets you pass his guard to
compliment you on a hit.
LYRA: He rather wins me.
ASTRAEA: He does at first.
LYRA: Begins Plurielizing, without the law to back him, does he?
ASTRAEA: The fencing lessons are at an end.
LYRA: The duetts with Mr. Swithin’s violoncello continue?
ASTRAEA: He broke through the melody.
LYRA: There were readings in poetry with Mr. Osier, I recollect.
ASTRAEA: His own compositions became obtrusive.
LYRA: No fencing, no music, no poetry! no West Coast of Africa either, I
suppose.
ASTRAEA: Very well! I am on my defence. You at least shall not
misunderstand me, Lyra. One intense regret I have; that I did not
live in the time of the Amazons. They were free from this question of
marriage; this babble of love. Why am I so persecuted? He will not
take a refusal. There are sacred reasons. I am supported by every woman
having the sense of her dignity. I am perverted, burlesqued by the fury
of wrath I feel at their incessant pursuit. And I despise Mr. Osier and
Mr. Swithin because they have an air of pious agreement with the Dame,
and are conspirators behind their mask.
LYRA: False, false men!
ASTRAEA: They come to me. I am complimented on being the vulnerable
spot.
LYRA: The object desired is usually addressed by suitors, my poor
Astraea!
ASTRAEA: With the assumption, that as I am feminine I must necessarily
be in the folds of the horrible constrictor they call Love, and that I
leap to the thoughts of their debasing marriage.
LYRA: One of them goes to Mr. Homeware.
ASTRAEA: All are sent to him in turn. He can dispose of them.
LYRA: Now that is really masterly fun, my dear; most creditable to you!
Love, marriage, a troop of suitors, and uncle Homeware. No, it would
not have occurred to me, and--I am considered to have some humour.
Of course, he disposes of them. He seemed to have a fairly favourable
opinion of Mr. Arden.
ASTRAEA: I do not share it. He is the least respectful of the sentiments
entertained by me. Pray, spare me the mention of him, as you say of your
husband. He has that pitiful conceit in men, which sets them thinking
that a woman must needs be susceptible to the declaration of the mere
existence of their passion. He is past argument. Impossible for him
to conceive a woman’s having a mind above the conditions of her sex. A
woman, according to him, can have no ideal of life, except as a ball to
toss in the air and catch in a cup. Put him aside.... We creatures are
doomed to marriage, and if we shun it, we are a kind of cripple. He
is grossly earthy in his view of us. We are unable to move a step
in thought or act unless we submit to have a husband. That is his
reasoning. Nature! Nature! I have to hear of Nature! We must be above
Nature, I tell him, or, we shall be very much below. He is ranked among
our clever young men; and he can be amusing. So far he passes muster;
and he has a pleasant voice. I dare say he is an uncle Homeware’s good
sort of boy. Girls like him. Why does he not fix his attention upon one
of them; Why upon me? We waste our time in talking of him.... The secret
of it is, that he has no reverence. The marriage he vaunts is a mere
convenient arrangement for two to live together under command of nature.
Reverence for the state of marriage is unknown to him. How explain my
feeling? I am driven into silence. Cease to speak of him.... He is the
dupe of his eloquence--his passion, he calls it. I have only to trust
myself to him, and--I shall be one of the world’s married women! Words
are useless. How am I to make him see that it is I who respect the state
of marriage by refusing; not he by perpetually soliciting. Once married,
married for ever. Widow is but a term. When women hold their own against
him, as I have done, they will be more esteemed. I have resisted and
conquered. I am sorry I do not share in the opinion of your favourite.
LYRA: Mine?
ASTRAEA: You spoke warmly of him.
LYRA: Warmly, was it?
ASTRAEA: You are not blamed, my dear: he has a winning manner.
LYRA: I take him to be a manly young fellow, smart enough; handsome too.
ASTRAEA: Oh, he has good looks.
LYRA: And a head, by repute.
ASTRAEA: For the world’s work, yes.
LYRA: Not romantic.
ASTRAEA: Romantic ideas are for dreamy simperers.
LYRA: Amazons repudiate them.
ASTRAEA: Laugh at me. Half my time I am laughing at myself. I should
regain my pride if I could be resolved on a step. I am strong to resist;
I have not strength to move.
LYRA: I see the sphinx of Egypt!
ASTRAEA: And all the while I am a manufactory of gunpowder in this quiet
old-world Sabbath circle of dear good souls, with their stereotyped
interjections, and orchestra of enthusiasms; their tapering delicacies:
the rejoicing they have in their common agreement on all created things.
To them it is restful. It spurs me to fly from rooms and chairs and
beds and houses. I sleep hardly a couple of hours. Then into the early
morning air, out with the birds; I know no other pleasure.
LYRA: Hospital work for a variation: civil or military. The former
involves the house-surgeon: the latter the grateful lieutenant.
ASTRAEA: Not if a woman can resist... I go to it proof-armoured.
LYRA: What does the Dame say?
ASTRAEA: Sighs over me! Just a little maddening to hear.
LYRA: When we feel we have the strength of giants, and are bidden to
sit and smile! You should rap out some of our old sweet-innocent garden
oaths with her--‘Carnation! Dame!’ That used to make her dance on her
seat.--‘But, dearest Dame, it is as natural an impulse for women to have
that relief as for men; and natural will out, begonia! it will!’ We ran
through the book of Botany for devilish objurgations. I do believe our
misconduct caused us to be handed to the good man at the altar as the
right corrective. And you were the worst offender.
ASTRAEA: Was I? I could be now, though I am so changed a creature.
LYRA: You enjoy the studies with your Spiral, come!
ASTRAEA: Professor Spiral is the one honest gentleman here. He does
homage to my principles. I have never been troubled by him: no silly
hints or side-looks--you know, the dog at the forbidden bone.
LYRA: A grand orator.
ASTRAEA: He is. You fix on the smallest of his gifts. He is
intellectually and morally superior.
LYRA: Praise of that kind makes me rather incline to prefer his
inferiors. He fed gobble-gobble on your puffs of incense. I coughed and
scraped the gravel; quite in vain; he tapped for more and more.
ASTRAEA: Professor Spiral is a thinker; he is a sage. He gives women
their due.
LYRA: And he is a bachelor too--or consequently.
ASTRAEA: If you like you may be as playful with me as the Lyra of our
maiden days used to be. My dear, my dear, how glad I am to have you
here! You remind me that I once had a heart. It will beat again with you
beside me, and I shall look to you for protection. A novel request
from me. From annoyance, I mean. It has entirely altered my character.
Sometimes I am afraid to think of what I was, lest I should suddenly
romp, and perform pirouettes and cry ‘Carnation!’ There is the bell. We
must not be late when the professor condescends to sit for meals.
LYRA: That rings healthily in the professor.
ASTRAEA: Arm in arm, my Lyra.
LYRA: No Pluriel yet!
(They enter the house, and the time changes to evening of the same
day. The scene is still the garden.)
SCENE VI
ASTRAEA, ARDEN
ASTRAEA: Pardon me if I do not hear you well.
ARDEN: I will not even think you barbarous.
ASTRAEA: I am. I am the object of the chase.
ARDEN: The huntsman draws the wood, then, and not you.
ASTRAEA: At any instant I am forced to run,
Or turn in my defence: how can I be
Other than barbarous? You are the cause.
ARDEN: No: heaven that made you beautiful’s the cause.
ASTRAEA: Say, earth, that gave you instincts. Bring me down
To instincts! When by chance I speak awhile
With our professor, you appear in haste,
Full cry to sight again the missing hare.
Away ideas! All that’s divinest flies!
I have to bear in mind how young you are.
ARDEN: You have only to look up to me four years,
Instead of forty!
ASTRAEA: Sir?
ARDEN There’s my misfortune!
And worse that, young, I love as a young man.
Could I but quench the fire, I might conceal
The youthfulness offending you so much.
ASTRAEA: I wish you would. I wish it earnestly.
ARDEN: Impossible. I burn.
ASTRAEA: You should not burn.
ARDEN ‘Tis more than I. ‘Tis fire. It masters will.
You would not say I should not’ if you knew fire.
It seizes. It devours.
ASTRAEA: Dry wood.
ARDEN: Cold wit!
How cold you can be! But be cold, for sweet
You must be. And your eyes are mine: with them
I see myself: unworthy to usurp
The place I hold a moment. While I look
I have my happiness.
ASTRAEA: You should look higher.
ARDEN: Through you to the highest. Only through you!
Through you
The mark I may attain is visible,
And I have strength to dream of winning it.
You are the bow that speeds the arrow: you
The glass that brings the distance nigh. My world
Is luminous through you, pure heavenly,
But hangs upon the rose’s outer leaf,
Not next her heart. Astraea! my own beloved!
ASTRAEA: We may be excellent friends. And I have faults.
ARDEN: Name them: I am hungering for more to love.
ASTRAEA: I waver very constantly: I have
No fixity of feeling or of sight.
I have no courage: I can often dream
Of daring: when I wake I am in dread.
I am inconstant as a butterfly,
And shallow as a brook with little fish!
Strange little fish, that tempt the small boy’s net,
But at a touch straight dive! I am any one’s,
And no one’s! I am vain.
Praise of my beauty lodges in my ears.
The lark reels up with it; the nightingale
Sobs bleeding; the flowers nod; I could believe
A poet, though he praised me to my face.
ARDEN: Never had poet so divine a fount
To drink of!
ASTRAEA: Have I given you more to love
ARDEN: More! You have given me your inner mind,
Where conscience in the robes of Justice shoots
Light so serenely keen that in such light
Fair infants, I newly criminal of earth,’
As your friend Osier says, might show some blot.
Seraphs might! More to love? Oh! these dear faults
Lead you to me like troops of laughing girls
With garlands. All the fear is, that you trifle,
Feigning them.
ASTRAEA: For what purpose?
ARDEN: Can I guess?
ASTRAEA:
I think ‘tis you who have the trifler’s note.
My hearing is acute, and when you speak,
Two voices ring, though you speak fervidly.
Your Osier quotation jars. Beware!
Why were you absent from our meeting-place
This morning?
ARDEN: I was on the way, and met
Your uncle Homeware
ASTRAEA: Ah!
ARDEN: He loves you.
ASTRAEA: He loves me: he has never understood.
He loves me as a creature of the flock;
A little whiter than some others.
Yes; He loves me, as men love; not to uplift;
Not to have faith in; not to spiritualize.
For him I am a woman and a widow
One of the flock, unmarked save by a brand.
He said it!--You confess it! You have learnt
To share his error, erring fatally.
ARDEN: By whose advice went I to him?
ASTRAEA: By whose?
Pursuit that seemed incessant: persecution.
Besides, I have changed since then: I change; I change;
It is too true I change. I could esteem
You better did you change. And had you heard
The noble words this morning from the mouth
Of our professor, changed were you, or raised
Above love-thoughts, love-talk, and flame and flutter,
High as eternal snows. What said he else,
My uncle Homeware?
ARDEN: That you were not free:
And that he counselled us to use our wits.
ASTRAEA: But I am free I free to be ever free!
My freedom keeps me free! He counselled us?
I am not one in a conspiracy.
I scheme no discord with my present life.
Who does, I cannot look on as my friend.
Not free? You know me little. Were I chained,
For liberty I would sell liberty
To him who helped me to an hour’s release.
But having perfect freedom...
ARDEN: No.
ASTRAEA: Good sir,
You check me?
ARDEN: Perfect freedom?
ASTRAEA: Perfect!
ARDEN: No!
ASTRAEA: Am I awake? What blinds me?
ARDEN: Filaments
The slenderest ever woven about a brain
From the brain’s mists, by the little sprite called
Fancy.
A breath would scatter them; but that one breath
Must come of animation. When the heart
Is as, a frozen sea the brain spins webs.
ASTRAEA: ‘Tis very singular!
I understand.
You translate cleverly. I hear in verse
My uncle Homeware’s prose. He has these notions.
Old men presume to read us.
ARDEN: Young men may.
You gaze on an ideal reflecting you
Need I say beautiful? Yet it reflects
Less beauty than the lady whom I love
Breathes, radiates. Look on yourself in me.
What harm in gazing? You are this flower
You are that spirit. But the spirit fed
With substance of the flower takes all its bloom!
And where in spirits is the bloom of the flower?
ASTRAEA: ‘Tis very singular. You have a tone
Quite changed.
ARDEN: You wished a change. To show you, how
I read you...
ASTRAEA: Oh! no, no. It means dissection.
I never heard of reading character
That did not mean dissection. Spare me that.
I am wilful, violent, capricious, weak,
Wound in a web of my own spinning-wheel,
A star-gazer, a riband in the wind...
ARDEN: A banner in the wind! and me you lead,
And shall! At least, I follow till I win.
ASTRAEA: Forbear, I do beseech you.
ARDEN: I have had
Your hand in mine.
ASTRAEA: Once.
ARDEN: Once!
Once! ‘twas; once, was the heart alive,
Leaping to break the ice. Oh! once, was aye
That laughed at frosty May like spring’s return.
Say you are terrorized: you dare not melt.
You like me; you might love me; but to dare,
Tasks more than courage. Veneration, friends,
Self-worship, which is often self-distrust,
Bar the good way to you, and make a dream
A fortress and a prison.
ASTRAEA: Changed! you have changed
Indeed. When you so boldly seized my hand
It seemed a boyish freak, done boyishly.
I wondered at Professor Spiral’s choice
Of you for an example, and our hope.
Now you grow dangerous. You must have thought,
And some things true you speak-save ‘terrorized.’
It may be flattering to sweet self-love
To deem me terrorized.--‘Tis my own soul,
My heart, my mind, all that I hold most sacred,
Not fear of others, bids me walk aloof.
Who terrorizes me? Who could? Friends? Never!
The world? as little. Terrorized!
ARDEN: Forgive me.
ASTRAEA: I might reply, Respect me. If I loved,
If I could be so faithless as to love,
Think you I would not rather noise abroad
My shame for penitence than let friends dwell
Deluded by an image of one vowed
To superhuman, who the common mock
Of things too human has at heart become.
ARDEN: You would declare your love?
ASTRAEA: I said, my shame.
The woman that’s the widow is ensnared,
Caught in the toils! away with widows!--Oh!
I hear men shouting it.
ARDEN: But shame there’s none
For me in loving: therefore I may take
Your friends to witness? tell them that my pride
Is in the love of you?
ASTRAEA: ‘Twill soon bring
The silence that should be between us two,
And sooner give me peace.
ARDEN: And you consent?
ASTRAEA: For the sake of peace and silence I consent,
You should be warned that you will cruelly
Disturb them. But ‘tis best. You should be warned
Your pleading will be hopeless. But ‘tis best.
You have my full consent. Weigh well your acts,
You cannot rest where you have cast this bolt
Lay that to heart, and you are cherished, prized,
Among them: they are estimable ladies,
Warmest of friends; though you may think they soar
Too loftily for your measure of strict sense
(And as my uncle Homeware’s pupil, sir,
In worldliness, you do), just minds they have:
Once know them, and your banishment will fret.
I would not run such risks. You will offend,
Go near to outrage them; and perturbate
As they have not deserved of you. But I,
Considering I am nothing in the scales
You balance, quite and of necessity
Consent. When you have weighed it, let me hear.
My uncle Homeware steps this way in haste.
We have been talking long, and in full view!
SCENE VII
ASTRAEA, ARDEN, HOMEWARE
HOMEWARE: Astraea, child! You, Arden, stand aside.
Ay, if she were a maid you might speak first,
But being a widow she must find her tongue.
Astraea, they await you. State the fact
As soon as you are questioned, fearlessly.
Open the battle with artillery.
ASTRAEA: What is the matter, uncle Homeware?
HOMEWARE (playing fox): What?
Why, we have watched your nice preliminaries
From the windows half the evening. Now run in.
Their patience has run out, and, as I said,
Unlimber and deliver fire at once.
Your aunts Virginia and Winifred,
With Lady Oldlace, are the senators,
The Dame for Dogs. They wear terrific brows,
But be not you affrighted, my sweet chick,
And tell them uncle Homeware backs your choice,
By lawyer and by priests! by altar, fount,
And testament!
ASTRAEA: My choice! what have I chosen?
HOMEWARE: She asks? You hear her, Arden?--what and whom!
ARDEN: Surely, sir!... heavens! have you...
HOMEWARE: Surely the old fox,
In all I have read, is wiser than the young:
And if there is a game for fox to play,
Old fox plays cunningest.
ASTRAEA: Why fox? Oh! uncle,
You make my heart beat with your mystery;
I never did love riddles. Why sit they
Awaiting me, and looking terrible?
HOMEWARE: It is reported of an ancient folk
Which worshipped idols, that upon a day
Their idol pitched before them on the floor
ASTRAEA: Was ever so ridiculous a tale!
HOMEWARE To call the attendant fires to account
Their elders forthwith sat...
ASTRAEA: Is there no prayer
Will move you, uncle Homeware?
HOMEWARE: God-daughter,
This gentleman for you I have proposed
As husband.
ASTRAEA: Arden! we are lost.
ARDEN: Astraea!
Support him! Though I knew not his design,
It plants me in mid-heaven. Would it were
Not you, but I to bear the shock. My love!
We lost, you cry; you join me with you lost!
The truth leaps from your heart: and let it shine
To light us on our brilliant battle day
And victory
ASTRAEA: Who betrayed me!
HOMEWARE: Who betrayed?
Your voice, your eyes, your veil, your knife and fork;
Your tenfold worship of your widowhood;
As he who sees he must yield up the flag,
Hugs it oath-swearingly! straw-drowningly.
To be reasonable: you sent this gentleman
Referring him to me....
ASTRAEA: And that is false.
All’s false. You have conspired. I am disgraced.
But you will learn you have judged erroneously.
I am not the frail creature you conceive.
Between your vision of life’s aim, and theirs
Who presently will question me, I cling
To theirs as light: and yours I deem a den
Where souls can have no growth.
HOMEWARE: But when we touched
The point of hand-pressings, ‘twas rightly time
To think of wedding ties?
ASTRAEA: Arden, adieu!
(She rushes into house.)
SCENE VIII
ARDEN, HOMEWARE
ARDEN: Adieu! she said. With her that word is final.
HOMEWARE: Strange! how young people blowing words like clouds
On winds, now fair, now foul, and as they please
Should still attach the Fates to them.
ARDEN: She’s wounded
Wounded to the quick!
HOMEWARE: The quicker our success: for short
Of that, these dames, who feel for everything,
Feel nothing.
ARDEN: Your intention has been kind,
Dear sir, but you have ruined me.
HOMEWARE: Good-night. (Going.)
ARDEN: Yet she said, we are lost, in her surprise.
HOMEWARE: Good morning. (Returning.)
ARDEN: I suppose that I am bound
(If I could see for what I should be glad!)
To thank you, sir.
HOMEWARE: Look hard but give no thanks.
I found my girl descending on the road
Of breakneck coquetry, and barred her way.
Either she leaps the bar, or she must back.
That means she marries you, or says good-bye.
(Going again.)
ARDEN: Now she’s among them. (Looking at window.)
HOMEWARE: Now she sees her mind.
ARDEN: It is my destiny she now decides!
HOMEWARE: There’s now suspense on earth and round the spheres.
ARDEN: She’s mine now: mine! or I am doomed to go.
HOMEWARE: The marriage ring, or the portmanteau now!
ARDEN: Laugh as you like, air! I am not ashamed
To love and own it.
HOMEWARE: So the symptoms show.
Rightly, young man, and proving a good breed.
To further it’s a duty to mankind
And I have lent my push, But recollect:
Old Ilion was not conquered in a day.
(He enters house.)
ARDEN: Ten years! If I may win her at the end!
CURTAIN
ETEXT EDITOR’S BOOKMARKS:
A great oration may be a sedative
A male devotee is within an inch of a miracle
Above Nature, I tell him, or, we shall be very much below
As in all great oratory! The key of it is the pathos
Back from the altar to discover that she has chained herself
Cupid clipped of wing is a destructive parasite
Excess of a merit is a capital offence in morality
His idea of marriage is, the taking of the woman into custody
I am a discordant instrument I do not readily vibrate
I like him, I like him, of course, but I want to breathe
I who respect the state of marriage by refusing
Love and war have been compared--Both require strategy
Peace, I do pray, for the husband-haunted wife
Period of his life a man becomes too voraciously constant
Pitiful conceit in men
Rejoicing they have in their common agreement
Self-worship, which is often self-distrust
Suspects all young men and most young women
Their idol pitched before them on the floor
Were I chained, For liberty I would sell liberty
Woman descending from her ideal to the gross reality of man
Your devotion craves an enormous exchange
MISCELLANEOUS PROSE
CONTENTS:
INTRODUCTION TO W. M. THACKERAY’S “THE FOUR GEORGES”
A PAUSE IN THE STRIFE.
CONCESSION TO THE CELT.
LESLIE STEPHEN.
CORRESPONDENCE FROM THE SEAT OF WAR IN ITALY LETTERS WRITTEN TO THE
‘MORNING POST’ FROM THE SEAT OF WAR IN ITALY.
INTRODUCTION TO W. M. THACKERAY’S “THE FOUR GEORGES”
WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY was born at Calcutta, July 18, 1811, the
only child of Richmond and Anne Thackeray. He received the main part of
his education at the Charterhouse, as we know to our profit. Thence he
passed to Cambridge, remaining there from February 1829 to sometime
in 1830. To judge by quotations and allusions, his favourite of the
classics was Horace, the chosen of the eighteenth century, and generally
the voice of its philosophy in a prosperous country. His voyage from
India gave him sight of Napoleon on the rocky island. In his young
manhood he made his bow reverentially to Goethe of Weimar; which did not
check his hand from setting its mark on the sickliness of Werther.
He was built of an extremely impressionable nature and a commanding
good sense. He was in addition a calm observer, having ‘the harvest of a
quiet eye.’ Of this combination with the flood of subjects brought up
to judgement in his mind, came the prevalent humour, the enforced
disposition to satire, the singular critical drollery, notable in his
works. His parodies, even those pushed to burlesque, are an expression
of criticism and are more effective than the serious method, while they
rarely overstep the line of justness. The Novels by Eminent Hands do not
pervert the originals they exaggerate. ‘Sieyes an abbe, now a ferocious
lifeguardsman,’ stretches the face of the rollicking Irish novelist
without disfeaturing him; and the mysterious visitor to the palatial
mansion in Holywell Street indicates possibilities in the Oriental
imagination of the eminent statesman who stooped to conquer fact
through fiction. Thackeray’s attitude in his great novels is that of the
composedly urbane lecturer, on a level with a select audience, assured
of interesting, above requirements to excite. The slow movement of the
narrative has a grace of style to charm like the dance of the Minuet de
la Cour: it is the limpidity of Addison flavoured with salt of a racy
vernacular; and such is the veri-similitude and the dialogue that they
might seem to be heard from the mouths of living speakers. When in this
way the characters of Vanity Fair had come to growth, their author was
rightly appreciated as one of the creators in our literature, he took at
once the place he will retain. With this great book and with Esmond and
The Newcomes, he gave a name eminent, singular, and beloved to English
fiction.
Charges of cynicism are common against all satirists, Thackeray had to
bear with them. The social world he looked at did not show him heroes,
only here and there a plain good soul to whom he was affectionate in
the unhysterical way of an English father patting a son on the head.
He described his world as an accurate observer saw it, he could not be
dishonest. Not a page of his books reveals malevolence or a sneer at
humanity. He was driven to the satirical task by the scenes about him.
There must be the moralist in the satirist if satire is to strike. The
stroke is weakened and art violated when he comes to the front. But he
will always be pressing forward, and Thackeray restrained him as much as
could be done, in the manner of a good-humoured constable. Thackeray may
have appeared cynical to the devout by keeping him from a station in
the pulpit among congregations of the many convicted sinners. That the
moralist would have occupied it and thundered had he presented us with
the Fourth of the Georges we see when we read of his rejecting the
solicitations of so seductive a personage for the satiric rod.
Himself one of the manliest, the kindliest of human creatures, it was
the love of his art that exposed him to misinterpretation. He did stout
service in his day. If the bad manners he scourged are now lessened to
some degree we pay a debt in remembering that we owe much to him, and if
what appears incurable remains with us, a continued reading of his works
will at least help to combat it.
A PAUSE IN THE STRIFE--1886
Our ‘Eriniad,’ or ballad epic of the enfranchisement of the sister
island is closing its first fytte for the singer, and with such result
as those Englishmen who have some knowledge of their fellows foresaw.
There are sufficient reasons why the Tories should always be able
to keep together, but let them have the credit of cohesiveness and
subordination to control. Though working for their own ends, they won
the esteem of their allies, which will count for them in the struggles
to follow. Their leaders appear to have seen what has not been
distinctly perceptible to the opposite party--that the break up of the
Liberals means the defection of the old Whigs in permanence, heralding
the establishment of a powerful force against Radicalism, with a capital
cry to the country. They have tactical astuteness. If they seem rather
too proud of their victory, it is merely because, as becomes them, they
do not look ahead. To rejoice in the gaining of a day, without having
clear views of the morrow, is puerile enough. Any Tory victory, it may
be said, is little more than a pause in the strife, unless when the
Radical game is played ‘to dish the Whigs,’ and the Tories are now fast
bound down by their incorporation of the latter to abstain from the
violent springs and right-about-facings of the Derby-Disraeli period.
They are so heavily weighted by the new combination that their
Jack-in-the-box, Lord Randolph, will have to stand like an ordinary
sentinel on duty, and take the measurement of his natural size. They
must, on the supposition of their entry into office, even to satisfy
their own constituents, produce a scheme. Their majority in the House
will command it.
To this extent, then, Mr. Gladstone has not been defeated. The question
set on fire by him will never be extinguished until the combustible
matter has gone to ashes. But personally he meets a sharp rebuff. The
Tories may well raise hurrahs over that. Radicals have to admit it,
and point to the grounds of it. Between a man’s enemies and his friends
there comes out a rough painting of his character, not without a
resemblance to the final summary, albeit wanting in the justly delicate
historical touch to particular features. On the one side he is abused as
‘the one-man power’; lauded on the other for his marvellous intuition
of the popular will. One can believe that he scarcely wishes to march
dictatorially, and full surely his Egyptian policy was from step to step
a misreading of the will of the English people. He went forth on this
campaign, with the finger of Egypt not ineffectively levelled against
him a second time. Nevertheless he does read his English; he has, too,
the fatal tendency to the bringing forth of Bills in the manner of
Jove big with Minerva. He perceived the necessity, and the issue of the
necessity; clearly defined what must come, and, with a higher motive
than the vanity with which his enemies charge him, though not with such
high counsel as Wisdom at his ear, fell to work on it alone, produced
the whole Bill alone, and then handed it to his Cabinet to digest, too
much in love with the thing he had laid and incubated to permit of any
serious dismemberment of its frame. Hence the disruption. He worked
for the future, produced a Bill for the future, and is wrecked in the
present. Probably he can work in no other way than from the impulse of
his enthusiasm, solitarily. It is a way of making men overweeningly in
love with their creations. The consequence is likely to be that Ireland
will get her full measure of justice to appease her cravings earlier
than she would have had as much from the United Liberal Cabinet, but at
a cost both to her and to England. Meanwhile we are to have a House of
Commons incapable of conducting public business; the tradesmen to whom
the Times addressed pathetic condolences on the loss of their season
will lose more than one; and we shall be made sensible that we have an
enemy in our midst, until a people, slow to think, have taken counsel of
their native generosity to put trust in the most generous race on earth.
CONCESSION TO THE CELT--1886
Things are quiet outside an ant-hill until the stick has been thrust
into it. Mr. Gladstone’s Bill for helping to the wiser government
of Ireland has brought forth our busy citizens on the top-rubble in
traversing counterswarms, and whatever may be said against a Bill that
deals roughly with many sensitive interests, one asks whether anything
less violently impressive would have roused industrious England to take
this question at last into the mind, as a matter for settlement.
The Liberal leader has driven it home; and wantonly, in the way of a
pedestrian demagogue, some think; certainly to the discomposure of the
comfortable and the myopely busy, who prefer to live on with a disease
in the frame rather than at all be stirred. They can, we see, pronounce
a positive electoral negative; yet even they, after the eighty and odd
years of our domestic perplexity, in the presence of the eighty and
odd members pledged for Home Rule, have been moved to excited inquiries
regarding measures--short of the obnoxious Bill. How much we suffer
from sniffing the vain incense of that word practical, is contempt of
prevision! Many of the measures now being proposed responsively to the
fretful cry for them, as a better alternative to correction by force
of arms, are sound and just. Ten years back, or at a more recent period
before Mr. Parnell’s triumph in the number of his followers, they
would have formed a basis for the appeasement of the troubled land.
The institution of county boards, the abolition of the detested Castle,
something like the establishment of a Royal residence in Dublin, would
have begun the work well. Materially and sentimentally, they were the
right steps to take. They are now proposed too late. They are regarded
as petty concessions, insufficient and vexatious. The lower and the
higher elements in the population are fused by the enthusiasm of men who
find themselves marching in full body on a road, under a flag, at the
heels of a trusted leader; and they will no longer be fed with sops.
Petty concessions are signs of weakness to the unsatisfied; they prick
an appetite, they do not close breaches. If our object is, as we hear
it said, to appease the Irish, we shall have to give them the Parliament
their leader demands. It might once have been much less; it may be
worried into a raving, perhaps a desperate wrestling, for still more.
Nations pay Sibylline prices for want of forethought. Mr. Parnell’s
terms are embodied in Mr. Gladstone’s Bill, to which he and his band
have subscribed. The one point for him is the statutory Parliament, so
that Ireland may civilly govern herself; and standing before the world
as representative of his country, he addresses an applausive audience
when he cites the total failure of England to do that business of
government, as at least a logical reason for the claim. England has
confessedly failed; the world says it, the country admits it. We
have failed, and not because the so-called Saxon is incapable of
understanding the Celt, but owing to our system, suitable enough to us,
of rule by Party, which puts perpetually a shifting hand upon the reins,
and invites the clamour it has to allay. The Irish--the English too in
some degree--have been taught that roaring; in its various forms, is the
trick to open the ears of Ministers. We have encouraged by irritating
them to practise it, until it has become a habit, an hereditary
profession with them. Ministers in turn have defensively adopted the
arts of beguilement, varied by an exercise of the police. We grew
accustomed to periods of Irish fever. The exhaustion ensuing we named
tranquillity, and hoped that it would bear fruit. But we did not plant.
The Party in office directed its attention to what was uppermost and
urgent--to that which kicked them. Although we were living, by common
consent; with a disease in the frame, eruptive at intervals, a national
disfigurement always a danger, the Ministerial idea of arresting it
for the purpose of healing was confined, before the passing of Mr.
Gladstone’s well-meant Land Bill, to the occasional despatch of
commissions; and, in fine, we behold through History the Irish malady
treated as a form of British constitutional gout. Parliament touched
on the Irish only when the Irish were active as a virus. Our later
alternations of cajolery and repression bear painful resemblance to the
nervous fit of rickety riders compounding with their destinations that
they may keep their seats. The cajolery was foolish, if an end was in
view; the repression inefficient. To repress efficiently we have to
stifle a conscience accusing us of old injustice, and forget that we are
sworn to freedom. The cries that we have been hearing for Cromwell or
for Bismarck prove the existence of an impatient faction in our midst
fitter to wear the collars of those masters whom they invoke than to
drop a vote into the ballot-box. As for the prominent politicians
who have displaced their rivals partly on the strength of an implied
approbation of those cries, we shall see how they illumine the councils
of a governing people. They are wiser than the barking dogs. Cromwell
and Bismarck are great names; but the harrying of Ireland did not settle
it, and to Germanize a Posen and call it peace will find echo only in
the German tongue. Posen is the error of a master-mind too much given to
hammer at obstacles. He has, however, the hammer. Can it be imagined
in English hands? The braver exemplar for grappling with monstrous
political tasks is Cavour, and he would not have hinted at the iron
method or the bayonet for a pacification. Cavour challenged debate; he
had faith in the active intellect, and that is the thing to be prayed
for by statesmen who would register permanent successes. The Irish,
it is true, do not conduct an argument coolly. Mr. Parnell and his
eighty-five have not met the Conservative leader and his following in
the Commons with the gravity of platonic disputants. But they have
a logical position, equivalent to the best of arguments. They are
representatives, they would say, of a country admittedly ill-governed by
us; and they have accepted the Bill of the defeated Minister as final.
Its provisions are their terms of peace. They offer in return for that
boon to take the burden we have groaned under off our hands. If we
answer that we think them insincere, we accuse these thrice accredited
representatives of the Irish people of being hypocrites and crafty
conspirators; and numbers in England, affected by the weapons they have
used to get to their present strength, do think it; forgetful that
our obtuseness to their constant appeals forced them into the extremer
shifts of agitation. Yet it will hardly be denied that these men love
Ireland; and they have not shown themselves by their acts to be insane.
To suppose them conspiring for separation indicates a suspicion that
they have neither hearts nor heads. For Ireland, separation is immediate
ruin. It would prove a very short sail for these conspirators before the
ship went down. The vital necessity of the Union for both, countries,
obviously for the weaker of the two, is known to them; and unless we
resume our exasperation of the wild fellow the Celt can be made by such
a process, we have not rational grounds for treating him, or treating
with him, as a Bedlamite. He has besides his passions shrewd sense; and
his passions may be rightly directed by benevolent attraction. This is
language derided by the victorious enemy; it speaks nevertheless what
the world, and even troubled America, thinks of the Irish Celt. More of
it now on our side of the Channel would be serviceable. The notion that
he hates the English comes of his fevered chafing against the harness of
England, and when subject to his fevers, he is unrestrained in his cries
and deeds. That pertains to the nature of him. Of course, if we have no
belief in the virtues of friendliness and confidence--none in regard to
the Irishman--we show him his footing, and we challenge the issue.
For the sole alternative is distinct antagonism, a form of war. Mr.
Gladstone’s Bill has brought us to that definite line. Ireland having
given her adhesion to it, swearing that she does so in good faith,
and will not accept a smaller quantity, peace is only to be had by our
placing trust in the Irish; we trust them or we crush them. Intermediate
ways are but the prosecution of our ugly flounderings in Bogland; and
dubious as we see the choice on either side, a decisive step to right or
left will not show us to the world so bemired, to ourselves so miserably
inefficient, as we appear in this session of a new Parliament. With his
eighty-five, apart from external operations lawful or not, Mr. Parnell
can act as a sort of lumbricus in the House. Let journalists watch and
chronicle events: if Mr. Gladstone has humour, they will yet note a
peculiar smile on his closed mouth from time to time when the alien body
within the House, from which, for the sake of its dignity and ability to
conduct its affairs, he would have relieved it till the day of a
warmer intelligence between Irish and English, paralyzes our machinery
business. An ably-handled coherent body in the midst of the liquid
groups will make it felt that Ireland is a nation, naturally dependent
though she must be. We have to do with forces in politics, and the great
majority of the Irish Nationalists in Ireland has made them a force.
No doubt Mr. Matthew Arnold is correct in his apprehensions of the
dangers we may fear from a Dublin House of Commons. The declarations
and novel or ultra theories might almost be written down beforehand.
I should, for my part, anticipate a greater danger in the familiar
attitude of the English metropolitan Press and public toward an
experiment they dislike and incline to dread:--the cynical comments, the
quotations between inverted commas, the commiserating shrug, cold irony,
raw banter, growl of menace, sharp snap, rounds of laughter. Frenchmen
of the Young Republic, not presently appreciated as offensive, have had
some of these careless trifles translated for them, and have been stung.
We favoured Germany with them now and then, before Germany became the
first power in Europe. Before America had displayed herself as greatest
among the giants that do not go to pieces, she had, as Americans
forgivingly remember, without mentioning, a series of flicks of the
whip. It is well to learn manners without having them imposed on us.
There are various ways for tripping the experiment. Nevertheless, when
the experiment is tried, considering that our welfare is involved in its
not failing, as we have failed, we should prepare to start it cordially,
cordially assist it. Thoughtful political minds regard the measure as a
backward step; yet conceiving but a prospect that a measure accepted by
Home Rulers will possibly enable the Irish and English to step
together, it seems better worth the venture than to pursue a course of
prospectless discord! Whatever we do or abstain from doing has now its
evident dangers, and this being imminent may appear the larger of
them; but if a weighing of the conditions dictates it, and conscience
approves, the wiser proceeding is to make trial of the untried. Our
outlook was preternaturally black, with enormous increase of dangers
when the originator of our species venturesomely arose from the posture
of the ‘quatre pattes’. We consider that we have not lost by his
temerity. In states of dubitation under impelling elements, the instinct
pointing to courageous action is, besides the manlier, conjecturably the
right one.
LESLIE STEPHEN--1904
When that noble body of scholarly and cheerful pedestrians, the Sunday
Tramps, were on the march, with Leslie Stephen to lead them, there was
conversation which would have made the presence of a shorthand writer a
benefaction to the country. A pause to it came at the examination of
the leader’s watch and Ordnance map under the western sun, and void
was given for the strike across country to catch the tail of a train
offering dinner in London, at the cost of a run through hedges, over
ditches and fellows, past proclamation against trespassers, under
suspicion of being taken for more serious depredators in flight. The
chief of the Tramps had a wonderful calculating eye in the observation
of distances and the nature of the land, as he proved by his discovery
of untried passes in the higher Alps, and he had no mercy for pursy
followers. I have often said of this life-long student and philosophical
head that he had in him the making of a great military captain. He would
not have been opposed to the profession of arms if he had been captured
early for the service, notwithstanding his abomination of bloodshed.
He had a high, calm courage, was unperturbed in a dubious position, and
would confidently take the way out of it which he conceived to be the
better. We have not to deplore that he was diverted from the ways of
a soldier, though England, as the country has been learning of late,
cannot boast of many in uniform who have capacity for leadership. His
work in literature will be reviewed by his lieutenant of Tramps, one
of the ablest of writers!--[Frederic W. Maitland.]--The memory of it
remains with us, as being the profoundest and the most sober criticism
we have had in our time. The only sting in it was an inoffensive
humorous irony that now and then stole out for a roll over, like a furry
cub, or the occasional ripple on a lake in grey weather. We have nothing
left that is like it.
One might easily fall into the pit of panegyric by an enumeration of his
qualities, personal and literary. It would not be out of harmony with
the temper and characteristics of a mind so equable. He, the equable,
whether in condemnation or eulogy. Our loss of such a man is great, for
work was in his brain, and the hand was active till close upon the time
when his breathing ceased. The loss to his friends can be replaced only
by an imagination that conjures him up beside them. That will be no task
to those who have known him well enough to see his view of things
as they are, and revive his expression of it. With them he will live
despite the word farewell.
CORRESPONDENCE FROM THE SEAT OF WAR IN ITALY
LETTERS WRITTEN TO THE MORNING POST FROM THE SEAT OF WAR IN ITALY FROM
OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT
FERRARA, June 22, 1866.
Before this letter reaches London the guns will have awakened both the
echo of the old river Po and the classical Mincio. The whole of the
troops, about 110,000 men, with which Cialdini intends to force the
passage of the first-named river are already massed along the right
bank of the Po, anxiously waiting that the last hour of to-morrow should
strike, and that the order for action should be given. The telegraph
will have already informed your readers that, according to the
intimation sent by General Lamarmora on Tuesday evening to the Austrian
headquarters, the three days fixed by the general’s message before
beginning hostilities will expire at twelve p.m. of the 23rd of June.
Cialdini’s headquarters have been established in this city since
Wednesday morning, and the famous general, in whom the fourth corps
he commands, and the whole of the nation, has so much confidence, has
concentrated the whole of his forces within a comparatively narrow
compass, and is ready for action. I believe therefore that by to-morrow
the right bank of the Po will be connected with the mainland of the
Polesine by several pontoon bridges, which will enable Cialdini’s corps
d’armee to cross the river, and, as everybody here hopes, to cross it in
spite of any defence the Austrians may make.
On my way to this ancient city last evening I met General Cadogan and
two superior Prussian officers, who by this time must have joined Victor
Emmanuel’s headquarters at Cremona; if not, they have been by this
time transferred elsewhere, more on the front, towards the line of the
Mincio, on which, according to appearance, the first, second, and third
Italian corps d’armee seem destined to operate. The English general
and the two Prussian officers above mentioned are to follow the king’s
staff, the first as English commissioner, the superior in rank of the
two others in the same capacity.
I have been told here that, before leaving Bologna, Cialdini held a
general council of the commanders of the seven divisions of which his
powerful corps d’armee is formed, and that he told them that, in spite
of the forces the enemy has massed on the left bank of the Po, between
the point which faces Stellata and Rovigo, the river must be crossed
by his troops, whatever might be the sacrifice this important operation
requires. Cialdini is a man who knows how to keep his word, and, for
this reason, I have no doubt he will do what he has already made up his
mind to accomplish. I am therefore confident that before two or three
days have elapsed, these 110,000 Italian troops, or a great part of
them, will have trod, for the Italians, the sacred land of Venetia.
Once the river Po crossed by Cialdini’s corps d’armee, he will boldly
enter the Polesine and make himself master of the road which leads
by Rovigo towards Este and Padua. A glance at the map will show your
readers how, at about twenty or thirty miles from the first-mentioned
town, a chain of hills, called the Colli Euganei, stretches itself from
the last spur of the Julian Alps, in the vicinity of Vicenza, gently
sloping down towards the sea. As this line affords good positions for
contesting the advance of an army crossing the Po at Lago Scuro, or at
any other point not far from it, it is to be supposed that the Austrians
will make a stand there, and I should not be surprised at all that
Cialdini’s first battle, if accepted by the enemy, should take place
within that comparatively narrow ground which is within Montagnana,
Este, Terradura, Abano, and Padua. It is impossible to suppose that
Cialdini’s corps d’armee, being so large, is destined to cross the Po
only at one point of the river below its course: it is extremely likely
that part of it should cross it at some point above, between Revere and
Stellata, where the river is in two or three instances only 450 metres
wide. Were the Italian general to be successful--protected as he will
be by the tremendous fire of the powerful artillery he disposes of--in
these twofold operations, the Austrians defending the line of the Colli
Euganei could be easily outflanked by the Italian troops, who would
have crossed the river below Lago Scuro. Of course these are mere
suppositions, for nobody, as you may imagine, except the king, Cialdini
himself, Lamarmora, Pettiti, and Menabrea, is acquainted with the
plan of the forthcoming campaign. There was a rumour at Cialdini’s
headquarters to-day that the Austrians had gathered in great numbers
in the Polesine, and especially at Rovigo, a small town which they
have strongly fortified of late, with an apparent design to oppose the
crossing of the Po, were Cialdini to attempt it at or near Lago Scuro.
There are about Rovigo large tracts of marshes and fields cut by ditches
and brooks, which, though owing to the dryness of the season [they]
cannot be, as it was generally believed two weeks ago, easily inundated,
yet might well aid the operations the Austrians may undertake in order
to check the advance of the Italian fourth corps d’armee. The resistance
to the undertaking of Cialdini may be, on the part of the Austrians,
very stout, but I am almost certain that it will be overcome by the
ardour of Italian troops, and by the skill of their illustrious leader.
As I told you above, the declaration of war was handed over to an
Austrian major for transmission to Count Stancowick, the Austrian
governor of Mantua, on the evening of the 19th, by Colonel Bariola,
sous-chef of the general staff, who was accompanied by the Duke Luigi
of Sant’ Arpino, the husband of the amiable widow of Lord Burghersh.
The duke is the eldest son of Prince San Teodoro, one of the wealthiest
noblemen of Naples. In spite of his high position and of his family
ties, the Duke of Sant’ Arpino, who is well known in London fashionable
society, entered as a volunteer in the Italian army, and was appointed
orderly officer to General Lamarmora. The choice of such a gentleman
for the mission I am speaking of was apparently made with intention,
in order to show the Austrians, that the Neapolitan nobility is as much
interested in the national movement as the middle and lower classes of
the Kingdom, once so fearfully misruled by the Bourbons. The Duke of
Sant’ Arpino is not the only Neapolitan nobleman who has enlisted in the
Italian army since the war with Austria broke out. In order to show
you the importance which must be given to this pronunciamiento of the
Neapolitan noblemen, allow me to give you here a short list of the names
of those of them who have enlisted as private soldiers in the cavalry
regiments of the regular army: The Duke of Policastro; the Count of
Savignano Guevara, the eldest son of the Duke of Bovino; the Duke d’Ozia
d’Angri, who had emigrated in 1860, and returned to Naples six months
ago; Marquis Rivadebro Serra; Marquis Pisicelli, whose family had left
Naples in 1860 out of devotion to Francis II.; two Carraciolos, of the
historical family from which sprung the unfortunate Neapolitan admiral
of this name, whose head Lord Nelson would have done better not to
have sacrificed to the cruelty of Queen Caroline; Prince Carini, the
representative of an illustrious family of Sicily, a nephew of the
Marquis del Vasto; and Pescara, a descendant of that great general
of Charles V., to whom the proud Francis I. of France was obliged to
surrender and give up his sword at the battle of Pavia. Besides these
Neapolitan noblemen who have enlisted of late as privates, the Italian
army now encamped on the banks of the Po and of the Mincio may boast of
two Colonnas, a prince of Somma, two Barons Renzi, an Acquaviva, of the
Duke of Atri, two Capece, two Princes Buttera, etc. To return to the
mission of Colonel Bariola and the Duke of Sant’ Arpino, I will add some
details which were told me this morning by a gentleman who left
Cremona yesterday evening, and who had them from a reliable source. The
messenger of General Lamarmora had been directed to proceed from Cremona
to the small village of Le Grazie, which, on the line of the Mincio,
marks the Austrian and Italian frontier.
On the right bank of the Lake of Mantua, in the year 1340, stood a small
chapel containing a miraculous painting of the Madonna, called by the
people of the locality ‘Santa Maria delle Grazie.’ The boatmen and
fishermen of the Mincio, who had been, as they said, often saved from
certain death by the Madonna--as famous in those days as the modern
Lady of Rimini, celebrated for the startling feat of winking her
eyes--determined to erect for her a more worthy abode.
Hence arose the Santuario delle Grazie. Here, as at Loretto and other
holy localities of Italy, a fair is held, in which, amongst a great
number of worldly things, rosaries, holy images, and other miraculous
objects are sold, and astounding boons are said to be secured at the
most trifling expense. The Santuario della Madonna delle Grazie enjoying
a far-spread reputation, the dumb, deaf, blind, and halt-in short,
people afflicted with all sorts of infirmities--flock thither during the
fair, and are not wanting even on the other days of the year. The church
of Le Grazie is one of the most curious of Italy. Not that there is
anything remarkable in its architecture, for it is an Italian Gothic
structure of the simplest style. But the ornamental part of the interior
is most peculiar. The walls of the building are covered with a double
row of wax statues, of life size, representing a host of warriors,
cardinals, bishops, kings, and popes, who--as the story runs--pretended
to have received some wonderful grace during their earthly existence.
Amongst the grand array of illustrious personages, there are not a few
humbler individuals whose history is faithfully told (if you choose to
credit it) by the painted inscriptions below. There is even a convict,
who, at the moment of being hanged, implored succour of the all-powerful
Madonna, whereupon the beam of the gibbet instantly broke, and the
worthy individual was restored to society--a very doubtful benefit after
all. On Colonel Bariola and the Duke of Sant’ Arpino arriving at this
place, which is only five miles distant from Mantua, their carriage was
naturally stopped by the commissaire of the Austrian police, whose duty
was to watch the frontier. Having told him that they had a despatch to
deliver either to the military governor of Mantua or to some officer
sent by him to receive it, the commissaire at once despatched a mounted
gendarme to Mantua. Two hours had scarcely elapsed when a carriage drove
into the village of Le Grazie, from which an Austrian major of infantry
alighted and hastened to a wooden hut where the two Italian officers
were waiting. Colonel Bariola, who was trained in the Austrian military
school of Viller Nashstad, and regularly left the Austrian service in
1848, acquainted the newly-arrived major with his mission, which was
that of delivering the sealed despatch to the general in command
of Mantua and receiving for it a regular receipt. The despatch was
addressed to the Archduke Albert, commander-in-chief of the Austrian
army of the South, care of the governor of Mantua. After the major had
delivered the receipt, the three messengers entered into a courteous
conversation, during which Colonel Bariola seized an opportunity
of presenting the duke, purposely laying stress on the fact of his
belonging to one of the most illustrious families of Naples. It happened
that the Austrian major had also been trained in the same school where
Colonel Bariola was brought up--a circumstance of which he was reminded
by the Austrian officer himself. Three hours had scarcely elapsed from
the arrival of the two Italian messengers of war at Le Grazie, on the
Austrian frontier, when they were already on their way back to the
headquarters of Cremona, where during the night the rumour was current
that a telegram had been received by Lamarmora from Verona, in which
Archduke Albert accepted the challenge. Victor Emmanuel, whom I saw at
Bologna yesterday, arrived at Cremona in the morning at two o’clock, but
by this time his Majesty’s headquarters must have removed more towards
the front, in the direction of the Oglio. I should not be at all
surprised were the Italian headquarters to be established by to-morrow
either at Piubega or Gazzoldo, if not actually at Goito, a village, as
you know, which marks the Italian-Austrian frontier on the Mincio. The
whole of the first, second, and third Italian corps d’armee are by this
time concentrated within that comparatively narrow space which lies
between the position of Castiglione, Delle Stiviere, Lorrato, and
Desenzano, on the Lake of Garda, and Solferino on one side; Piubega,
Gazzoldo, Sacca, Goito, and Castellucchio on the other. Are these three
corps d’armee to attack when they hear the roar of Cialdini’s artillery
on the right bank of the Po? Are they destined to force the passage
of the Mincio either at Goito or at Borghetto? or are they destined to
invest Verona, storm Peschiera, and lay siege to Mantua? This is more
than I can tell you, for, I repeat it, the intentions of the
Italian leaders are enveloped in a veil which nobody--the Austrians
included--has as yet been able to penetrate. One thing, however, is
certain, and it is this, that as the clock of Victor Emmanuel marks
the last minute of the seventy-second hour fixed by the declaration
delivered at Le Grazie on Wednesday by Colonel Bariola to the Austrian
major, the fair land where Virgil was born and Tasso was imprisoned will
be enveloped by a thick cloud of the smoke of hundreds and hundreds of
cannon. Let us hope that God will be in favour of right and justice,
which, in this imminent and fierce struggle, is undoubtedly on the
Italian side.
CREMONA, June 30, 1866.
The telegraph will have already informed you of the concentration of the
Italian army, whose headquarters have since Tuesday been removed from
Redondesco to Piadena, the king having chosen the adjacent villa of
Cigognolo for his residence. The concentrating movements of the royal
army began on the morning of the 27th, i.e., three days after the bloody
fait d’armes of the 24th, which, narrated and commented on in different
manners according to the interests and passions of the narrators, still
remains for many people a mystery. At the end of this letter you will
see that I quote a short phrase with which an Austrian major, now
prisoner of war, portrayed the results of the fierce struggle fought
beyond the Mincio. This officer is one of the few survivors of a
regiment of Austrian volunteers, uhlans, two squadrons of which he
himself commanded. The declaration made by this officer was thoroughly
explicit, and conveys the exact idea of the valour displayed by the
Italians in that terrible fight. Those who incline to overrate the
advantages obtained by the Austrians on Sunday last must not forget that
if Lamarmora had thought proper to persist in holding the positions of
Valeggio, Volta, and Goito, the Austrians could not have prevented him.
It seems the Austrian general-in-chief shared this opinion, for, after
his army had carried with terrible sacrifices the positions of Monte
Vento and Custozza, it did not appear, nor indeed did the Austrians
then give any signs, that they intended to adopt a more active system of
warfare. It is the business of a commander to see that after a victory
the fruit of it should not be lost, and for this reason the enemy is
pursued and molested, and time is not left him for reorganization.
Nothing of this happened after the 24th--nothing has been done by the
Austrians to secure such results. The frontier which separates the two
dominions is now the same as it was on the eve of the declaration of
war. At Goito, at Monzambano, and in the other villages of the extreme
frontier, the Italian authorities are still discharging their duties.
Nothing is changed in those places, were we to except that now and then
an Austrian cavalry party suddenly makes its appearance, with the only
object of watching the movements of the Italian army. One of these
parties, formed by four squadrons of the Wurtemberg hussar regiment,
having advanced at six o’clock this morning on the right bank of the
Mincio, met the fourth squadron of the Italian lancers of Foggia and
were beaten back, and compelled to retire in disorder towards Goito and
Rivolta. In this unequal encounter the Italian lancers distinguished
themselves very much, made some Austrian hussars prisoners, and killed a
few more, amongst whom was an officer. The same state of thing, prevails
at Rivottella, a small village on the shores of the Lake of Garda, about
four miles distant from the most advanced fortifications of Peschiera.
There, as elsewhere, some Austrian parties advanced with the object of
watching the movements of the Garibaldians, who occupy the hilly ground,
which from Castiglione, Eseuta, and Cartel Venzago stretches to Lonato,
Salo, and Desenzano, and to the mountain passes of Caffaro. In the
last-named place the Garibaldians came to blows with the Austrians on
the morning of the 28th, and the former got the best of the fray. Had
the fait d’armes of the 24th, or the battle of Custozza, as Archduke
Albrecht calls it, been a great victory for the Austrians, why should
the imperial army remain in such inaction? The only conclusion we must
come to is simply this, that the Austrian losses have been such as
to induce the commander-in-chief of the army to act prudently on the
defensive. We are now informed that the charges of cavalry which
the Austrian lancers and the Hungarian hussars had to sustain near
Villafranca on the 24th with the Italian horsemen of the Aorta and
Alessandria regiments have been so fatal to the former that a whole
division of the Kaiser cavalry must be reorganised before it can be
brought into the field main.
The regiment of Haller hussars and two of volunteer uhlans were almost
destroyed in that terrible charge. To give you an idea of this cavalry
encounter, it is sufficient to say that Colonel Vandoni, at the head of
the Aorta regiment he commands, charged fourteen times during the short
period of four hours. The volunteer uhlans of the Kaiser regiment had
already given up the idea of breaking through the square formed by the
battalion, in the centre of which stood Prince Humbert of Savoy,
when they were suddenly charged and literally cut to pieces by the
Alessandria light cavalry, in spite of the long lances they carried.
This weapon and the loose uniform they wear makes them resemble the
Cossacks of the Don. There is one circumstance, which, if I am not
mistaken, has not as yet been published by the newspapers, and it
is this. There was a fight on the 25th on a place at the north of
Roverbella, between the Italian regiment of Novara cavalry and a
regiment of Hungarian hussars, whose name is not known. This regiment
was so thoroughly routed by the Italians that it was pursued as far as
Villafranca, and had two squadrons put hors de combat, whilst the Novara
regiment only lost twenty-four mounted men. I think it right to mention
this, for it proves that, the day after the bloody affair of the
24th, the Italian army had still a regiment of cavalry operating at
Villafranca, a village which lay at a distance of fifteen kilometres
from the Italian frontier. A report, which is much accredited here,
explains how the Italian army did not derive the advantages it might
have derived from the action of the 24th. It appears that the orders
issued from the Italian headquarters during the previous night, and
especially the verbal instructions given by Lamarmora and Pettiti to
the staff officers of the different army corps, were either forgotten or
misunderstood by those officers. Those sent to Durando, the commander
of the first corps, seem to have been as follows: That he should have
marched in the direction of Castelnuovo, without, however, taking part
in the action. Durando, it is generally stated, had strictly adhered to
the orders sent from the headquarters, but it seems that General
Cerale understood them too literally. Having been ordered to march on
Castelnuovo, and finding the village strongly held by the Austrians, who
received his division with a tremendous fire, he at once engaged in the
action instead of falling back on the reserve of the first corps and
waiting new instructions. If such was really the case, it is evident
that Cerale thought that the order to march which he had received
implied that he was to attack and get possession of Castelnuovo, had
this village, as it really was, already been occupied by the enemy. In
mentioning this fact I feel bound to observe that I write it under the
most complete reserve, for I should be sorry indeed to charge General
Cerale with having misunderstood such an important order.
I see that one of your leading contemporaries believes that it would be
impossible for the king or Lamarmora to say what result they expected
from their ill-conceived and worse-executed attempt. The result they
expected is, I think, clear enough; they wanted to break through the
quadrilateral and make their junction with Cialdini, who was ready
to cross the Po during the night of the 24th. That the attempt was
ill-conceived and worse-executed, neither your contemporary nor the
public at large has, for the present, the right to conclude, for no one
knows as yet but imperfectly the details of the terrible fight. What is
certain, however, is that General Durando, perceiving that the Cerale
division was lost, did all that he could to help it. Failing in this he
turned to his two aides-de-camp and coolly said to them:
‘Now, gentlemen, it is time for you to retire, for I have a duty to
perform which is a strictly personal one--the duty of dying.’ On saying
these words he galloped to the front and placed himself at about twenty
paces from a battalion of Austrian sharp-shooters which were ascending
the hill. In less than five minutes his horse was killed under him,
and he was wounded in the right hand. I scarcely need add that his
aides-de-camp did not flinch from sharing Durando’s fate. They bravely
followed their general, and one, the Marquis Corbetta, was wounded in
the leg; the other, Count Esengrini, had his horse shot under him. I
called on Durando, who is now at Milan, the day before yesterday. Though
a stranger to him, he received me at once, and, speaking of the action
of the 24th, he only said: ‘I have the satisfaction of having done my
duty. I wait tranquilly the judgement of history.’
Assuming, for argument’s sake, that General Cerale misunderstood the
orders he had received, and that, by precipitating his movement, he
dragged into the same mistake the whole of Durando’s corps--assuming, I
say, this to be the right version, you can easily explain the fact that
neither of the two contending parties are as yet in a position clearly
to describe the action of the 24th. Why did neither the one nor the
other display and bring into action the whole forces they could have had
at their disposal? Why so many partial engagements at a great distance
one from the other? In a word, why that want of unity, which, in
my opinion, constituted the paramount characteristic of that bloody
struggle? I may be greatly mistaken, but I am of opinion that neither
the Italian general-in-chief nor the Austrian Archduke entertained
on the night of the 23rd the idea of delivering a battle on the 24th.
There, and only there, lies the whole mystery of the affair. The total
want of unity of action on the part of the Italians assured to the
Austrians, not the victory, but the chance of rendering impossible
Lamarmora’s attempt to break through the quadrilateral. This no one can
deny; but, on the other hand, if the Italian army failed in attaining
its object, the failure-owing to the bravery displayed both by the
soldiers and by the generals-was far from being a disastrous or
irreparable one. The Italians fought from three o’clock in the morning
until nine in the evening like lions, showing to their enemies and to
Europe that they know how to defend their country, and that they are
worthy of the noble enterprise they have undertaken.
But let me now register one of the striking episodes of that memorable
day. It was five o’clock p.m. when General Bixio, whose division held an
elevated position not far from Villafranca, was attacked by three strong
Austrian brigades, which had debouched at the same time from three
different roads, supported with numerous artillery. An officer of the
Austrian staff, waving a white handkerchief, was seen galloping towards
the front of Bixio’s position, and, once in the presence of this
general, bade him surrender. Those who are not personally acquainted
with Bixio cannot form an idea of the impression this bold demand
must have made on him. I have been told that, on hearing the word
‘surrender,’ his face turned suddenly pale, then flushed like purple,
and darting at the Austrian messenger, said, ‘Major, if you dare to
pronounce once more the word surrender in my presence, I tell you--and
Bixio always keeps his word--that I will have you shot at once.’ The
Austrian officer had scarcely reached the general who had sent him, than
Bixio, rapidly moving his division, fell with such impetuosity on the
Austrian column, which were ascending the hill, that they were thrown
pellmell in the valley, causing the greatest confusion amongst their
reserve. Bixio himself led his men, and with his aides-de-camp,
Cavaliere Filippo Fermi, Count Martini, and Colonel Malenchini, all
Tuscans, actually charged the enemy. I have been told that, on hearing
this episode, Garibaldi said, ‘I am not at all surprised, for Bixio is
the best general I have made.’ Once the enemy was repulsed, Bixio was
ordered to manoeuvre so as to cover the backward movement of the army,
which was orderly and slowly retiring on the Mincio. Assisted by the
co-operation of the heavy cavalry, commanded by General Count de Sonnaz,
Bixio covered the retreat, and during the night occupied Goito, a
position which he held till the evening of the 27th.
In consequence of the concentrating movement of the Italian army which
I have mentioned at the beginning of this letter, the fourth army corps
(Cialdini’s) still holds the line of the Po. If I am rightly informed,
the decree for the formation of the fourth army corps was signed by the
king yesterday. This corps is that of Garibaldi, and is about 40,000
strong. An officer who has just returned from Milan told me this morning
that he had had an opportunity of speaking with the Austrian prisoners
sent from Milan to the fortress of Finestrelle in Piedmont. Amongst
them was an officer of a uhlan regiment, who had all the appearance of
belonging to some aristocratic family of Austrian Poland. Having been
asked if he thought Austria had really gained the battle on the 24th, he
answered: ‘I do not know if the illusions of the Austrian army go so far
as to induce it to believe it has obtained a victory--I do not believe
it. He who loves Austria cannot, however, wish she should obtain such
victories, for they are the victories of Pyrrhus!
There is at Verona some element in the Austrian councils of war which
we don’t understand, but which gives to their operations in this present
phase of the campaign just as uncertain and as vacillating a character
as it possessed during the campaign of 1859. On Friday they are still
beyond the Mincio, and on Saturday their small fleet on the Lake of
Garda steams up to Desenzano, and opens fire against this defenceless
city and her railway station, whilst two battalions of Tyrolese
sharp-shooters occupy the building. On Sunday they retire, but early
yesterday they cross the Mincio, at Goito and Monzambano, and begin to
throw two bridges over the same river, between the last-named place
and the mills of Volta. At the same time they erect batteries at Goito,
Torrione, and Valeggio, pushing their reconnoitring parties of hussars
as far as Medole, Castiglione delle Stiviere, and Montechiara, this
last-named place being only at a distance of twenty miles from Brescia.
Before this news reached me here this morning I was rather inclined to
believe that they were playing at hide-and-seek, in the hope that the
leaders of the Italian army should be tempted by the game and repeat,
for the second time, the too hasty attack on the quadrilateral. This
news, which I have from a reliable source, has, however, changed my
former opinion, and I begin to believe that the Austrian Archduke
has really made up his mind to come out from the strongholds of
the quadrilateral, and intends actually to begin war on the very
battlefields where his imperial cousin was beaten on the 24th June 1859.
It may be that the partial disasters sustained by Benedek in Germany
have determined the Austrian Government to order a more active system
of war against Italy, or, as is generally believed here, that the
organisation of the commissariat was not perfect enough with the army
Archduke Albert commands to afford a more active and offensive action.
Be that as it may, the fact is that the news received here from several
parts of Upper Lombardy seems to indicate, on the part of the Austrians,
the intention of attacking their adversaries.
Yesterday whilst the peaceable village of Gazzoldo--five Italian miles
from Goito--was still buried in the silence of night it was occupied by
400 hussars, to the great consternation of the people who were roused
from their sleep by the galloping of their unexpected visitors. The
sindaco, or mayor of the village, who is the chemist of the place,
was, I hear, forcibly taken from his house and compelled to escort the
Austrians on the road leading to Piubega and Redondesco. This worthy
magistrate, who was not apparently endowed with sufficient courage to
make at least half a hero, was so much frightened that he was taken
ill, and still is in a very precarious condition. These inroads are
not always accomplished with impunity, for last night, not far from
Guidizzuolo, two squadrons of Italian light cavalry--Cavalleggieri di
Lucca, if I am rightly informed--at a sudden turn of the road leading
from the last-named village to Cerlongo, found themselves almost face
to face with four squadrons of uhlans. The Italians, without numbering
their foes, set spurs to their horses and fell like thunder on the
Austrians, who, after a fight which lasted more than half an hour, were
put to flight, leaving on the ground fifteen men hors de combat, besides
twelve prisoners.
Whilst skirmishing of this kind is going on in the flat ground of
Lombardy which lies between the Mincio and the Chiese, a more decisive
action has been adopted by the Austrian corps which is quartered in the
Italian Tyrol and Valtellina. A few days ago it was generally believed
that the mission of this corps was only to oppose Garibaldi should he
try to force those Alpine passes. But now we suddenly hear that the
Austrians are already masters of Caffaro, Bagolino, Riccomassino, and
Turano, which points they are fortifying. This fact explains the last
movements made by Garibaldi towards that direction. But whilst the
Austrians are massing their troops on the Tyrolese Alps the revolution
is spreading fast in the more southern mountains of the Friuli and
Cadorre, thus threatening the flank and rear of their army in
Venetia. This revolutionary movement may not have as yet assumed great
proportions, but as it is the effect of a plan proposed beforehand it
might become really imposing, more so as the ranks of those Italian
patriots are daily swollen by numerous deserters and refractory men of
the Venetian regiments of the Austrian army.
Although the main body of the Austrians seems to be still concentrated
between Peschiera and Verona, I should not wonder if they crossed the
Mincio either to-day or to-morrow, with the object of occupying the
heights of Volta, Cavriana, and Solferino, which, both by their position
and by the nature of the ground, are in themselves so many fortresses.
Supposing that the Italian army should decide for action--and there is
every reason to believe that such will be the case--it is not unlikely
that, as we had already a second battle at Custozza, we may have a
second one at Solferino.
That at the Italian headquarters something has been decided upon which
may hasten the forward movement of the army, I infer from the fact that
the foreign military commissioners at the Italian headquarters, who,
after the 24th June had gone to pass the leisure of their camp life
at Cremona, have suddenly made their appearance at Torre Malamberti,
a villa belonging to the Marquis Araldi, where Lamarmora’s staff
is quartered. A still more important event is the presence of Baron
Ricasoli, whom I met yesterday evening on coming here. The President of
the Council was coming from Florence, and, after stopping a few hours
at the villa of Cicognolo, where Victor Emmanuel and the royal household
are staying, he drove to Torre Malamberti to confer with General
Lamarmora and Count Pettiti. The presence of the baron at headquarters
is too important an incident to be overlooked by people whose business
is that of watching the course of events in this country. And it should
be borne in mind that on his way to headquarters Baron Ricasoli stopped
a few hours at Bologna, where he had a long interview with Cialdini.
Nor is this all; for the most important fact I have to report to-day is,
that whilst I am writing (five o’clock a.m.) three corps of the Italian
army are crossing the Oglio at different points--all three acting
together and ready for any occurrence. This reconnaissance en force may,
as you see, be turned into a regular battle should the Austrians have
crossed the Mincio with the main body of their army during the course
of last night. You see that the air around me smells enough of powder to
justify the expectation of events which are likely to exercise a great
influence over the cause of right and justice--the cause of Italy.
MARCARIA, July 3, Evening.
Murray’s guide will save me the trouble of telling you what this little
and dirty hole of Marcaria is like. The river Oglio runs due south,
not far from the village, and cuts the road which from Bozzolo leads to
Mantua. It is about seven miles from Castellucchio, a town which, since
the peace of Villafranca, marked the Italian frontier in Lower Lombardy.
Towards this last-named place marched this morning the eleventh division
of the Italians under the command of General Angioletti, only a month
ago Minister of the Marine in Lamarmora’s Cabinet. Angioletti’s division
of the second corps was, in the case of an attack, to be supported by
the fourth and eighth, which had crossed the Oglio at Gazzuolo four
hours before the eleventh had started from the place from which I am
now writing. Two other divisions also moved in an oblique line from
the upper course of the above-mentioned river, crossed it on a pontoon
bridge, and were directed to maintain their communications with
Angioletti’s on the left, whilst the eighth and fourth would have formed
its right. These five divisions were the avant garde of the main body of
the Italian army. I am not in a position to tell you the exact line the
army thus advancing from the Oglio has followed, but I have been told
that, in order to avoid the possibility of repeating the errors which
occurred in the action of the 24th, the three corps d’armee have been
directed to march in such a manner as to enable them to present a
compact mass should they meet the enemy. Contrary to all expectations,
Angioletti’s division was allowed to enter and occupy Castellucchio
without firing a shot. As its vanguard reached the hamlet of Ospedaletto
it was informed that the Austrians had left Castellucchio during the
night, leaving a few hussars, who, in their turn, retired on Mantua as
soon as they saw the cavalry Angioletti had sent to reconnoitre both the
country and the borough of Castellucchio.
News has just arrived here that General Angioletti has been able to push
his outposts as far as Rivolta on his left, and still farther forward on
his front towards Curtalone. Although the distance from Rivolta to Goito
is only five miles, Angioletti, I have been told, could not ascertain
whether the Austrians had crossed the Mincio in force.
What part both Cialdini and Garibaldi will play in the great struggle
nobody can tell. It is certain, however, that these two popular
leaders will not be idle, and that a battle, if fought, will assume the
proportions of an almost unheard of slaughter.
GENERAL HEADQUARTERS OF THE ITALIAN ARMY, TORRE MALIMBERTI, July 7,
1866.
Whilst the Austrian emperor throws himself at the feet of the ruler of
France--I was almost going to write the arbiter of Europe--Italy and its
brave army seem to reject disdainfully the idea of getting Venetia as a
gift of a neutral power. There cannot be any doubt as to the feeling
in existence since the announcement of the Austrian proposal by the
Moniteur being one of astonishment, and even indignation so far as Italy
herself is concerned. One hears nothing but expressions of this kind
in whatever Italian town he may be, and the Italian army is naturally
anxious that she should not be said to relinquish her task when
Austrians speak of having beaten her, without proving that she can beat
them too. There are high considerations of honour which no soldier or
general would ever think of putting aside for humanitarian or political
reasons, and with these considerations the Italian army is fully in
accord since the 24th June. The way, too, in which the Kaiser chose
to give up the long-contested point, by ignoring Italy and recognising
France as a party to the Venetian question, created great indignation
amongst the Italians, whose papers declare, one and all, that a fresh
insult has been offered to the country. This is the state of public
opinion here, and unless the greatest advantages are obtained by a
premature armistice and a hurried treaty of peace, it is likely to
continue the same, not to the entire security of public order in Italy.
As a matter of course, all eyes are turned towards Villa Pallavicini,
two miles from here, where the king is to decide upon either accepting
or rejecting the French emperor’s advice, both of which decisions are
fraught with considerable difficulties and no little danger. The king
will have sought the advice of his ministers, besides which that of
Prussia will have been asked and probably given. The matter may be
decided one way or the other in a very short time, or may linger on for
days to give time for public anxiety and fears to be allayed and to calm
down. In the meantime, it looks as if the king and his generals had
made up their mind not to accept the gift. An attack on the Borgoforte
tete-de-pont on the right side of the Po, began on 5th at half-past
three in the morning, under the immediate direction of General Cialdini.
The attacking corps was the Duke of Mignano’s. All the day yesterday the
gun was heard at Torre Malamberti, as it was also this morning between
ten and eleven o’clock. Borgoforte is a fortress on the left side of
the Po, throwing a bridge across this river, the right end of which is
headed by a strong tete-de-pont, the object of the present attack.
This work may be said to belong to the quadrilateral, as it is only an
advanced part of the fortress of Mantua, which, resting upon its rear,
is connected to Borgoforte by a military road supported on the Mantua
side by the Pietolo fortress. The distance between Mantua and Borgoforte
is only eleven kilometres. The fete-de-poet is thrown upon the Po; its
structure is of recent date, and it consists of a central part and of
two wings, called Rocchetta and Bocca di Ganda respectively. The lock
here existing is enclosed in the Rocchetta work.
Since I wrote you my last letter Garibaldi has been obliged to desist
from the idea of getting possession of Bagolino, Sant’ Antonio, and
Monte Suello, after a fight which lasted four hours, seeing that he
had to deal with an entire Austrian brigade, supported by uhlans,
sharp-shooters (almost a battalion) and twelve pieces of artillery.
These positions were subsequently abandoned by the enemy, and occupied
by Garibaldi’s volunteers. In this affair the general received a
slight wound in his left leg, the nature of which, however, is so very
trifling, that a few days will be enough to enable him to resume active
duties. It seems that the arms of the Austrians proved to be much
superior to those of the Garibaldians, whose guns did very bad service.
The loss of the latter amounted to about 100 killed and 200 wounded,
figures in which the officers appear in great proportion, owing to their
having been always at the head of their men, fighting, charging, and
encouraging their comrades throughout. Captain Adjutant-Major Battino,
formerly of the regular army, died, struck by three bullets, while
rushing on the Austrians with the first regiment. On abandoning the
Caffaro line, which they had reoccupied after the Lodrone encounter--in
consequence of which the Garibaldians had to fall back because of the
concentration following the battle of Custozza--the Austrians have
retired to the Lardara fortress, between the Stabolfes and Tenara
mountains, covering the route to Tione and Trento, in the Italian
Tyrol. The third regiment of volunteers suffered most, as two of their
companies had to bear the brunt of the terrible Austrian fire kept up
from formidable positions. Another fight was taking place almost at the
same time in the Val Camonico, i.e., north of the Caffaro, and of Rocca
d’Anfo, Garibaldi’s point d’appui. This encounter was sustained in the
same proportions, the Italians losing one of their bravest and best
officers in the person of Major Castellini, a Milanese, commander of
the second battalion of Lombardian bersaglieri. Although these and Major
Caldesi’s battalion had to fall back from Vezza, a strong position was
taken near Edalo, while in the rear a regiment kept Breno safe.
Although still at headquarters only two days ago, Baron Ricasoli has
been suddenly summoned by telegram from Florence, and, as I hear,
has just arrived. This is undoubtedly brought about by the new
complications, especially as, at a council of ministers presided over by
the baron, a vote, the nature of which is as yet unknown, was taken on
the present state of affairs. As you know very well in England, Italy
has great confidence in Ricasoli, whose conduct, always far from
obsequious to the French emperor, has pleased the nation. He is thought
to be at this moment the right man in the right place, and with the
great acquaintance he possesses of Italy and the Italians, and with the
co-operation of such an honest man as General Lamarmora, Italy may be
pronounced safe, both against friends and enemies.
From what I saw this morning, coming back from the front, I presume that
something, and that something new perhaps, will be attempted to-morrow.
So far, the proposed armistice has had no effect upon the dispositions
at general headquarters, and did not stay the cannon’s voice. In the
middle of rumours, of hopes and fears, Italy’s wish to push on with the
war has as yet been adhered to by her trusted leaders.
HEADQUARTERS OF THE FIRST ARMY CORPS,
PIADENA, July 8, 1866.
As I begin writing you, no doubt can be entertained that some movement
is not only in contemplation at headquarters, but is actually provided
to take place to-day, and that it will probably prove to be against the
Austrian positions at Borgoforte, on the left bank of the Po. Up to
this time the tete-de-pout on the right side of the river had only been
attacked by General the Duke of Mignano’s guns. It would now, on the
contrary, be a matter of cutting the communications between Borgoforte
and Mantua, by occupying the lower part of the country around the latter
fortress, advancing upon the Valli Veronesi, and getting round the
quadrilateral into Venetia. While, then, waiting for further news to
tell us whether this plan has been carried into execution, and whether
it will be pursued, mindless of the existence of Mantua and Borgoforte
on its flanks, one great fact is already ascertained, that the armistice
proposed by the Emperor Napoleon has not been accepted, and that the
war is to be continued. The Austrians may shut themselves up in their
strongholds, or may even be so obliging as to leave the king the
uncontested possession of them by retreating in the same line as their
opponents advance; the pursuit, if not the struggle, the war, if not the
battle, will be carried on by the Italians. At Torre Malamberti, where
the general headquarters are, no end of general officers were to be seen
yesterday hurrying in all directions. I met the king, Generals Brignone,
Gavone, Valfre, and Menabrea within a few minutes of one another, and
Prince Amadeus, who has entirely recovered from his wound, had
been telegraphed for, and will arrive in Cremona to-day. No precise
information is to be obtained respecting the intentions of the
Austrians, but it is to be hoped for the Italian army, and for the
credit of its generals, that more will be known about them now than was
known on the eve of the famous 24th of June, and on its very morning.
The heroism of the Italians on that memorable day surpasses any possible
idea that can be formed, as it did also surpass all expectations of the
country. Let me relate you a few out of many heroic facts which only
come to light when an occasion is had of speaking with those who
have been eyewitnesses of them, as they are no object of magnified
regimental--orders or, as yet, of well-deserved honours. Italian
soldiers seem to think that the army only did its duty, and that,
wherever Italians may fight, they will always show equal valour and
firmness. Captain Biraghi, of Milan, belonging to the general staff,
having in the midst of the battle received an order from General
Lamarmora for General Durando, was proceeding with all possible speed
towards the first army corps, which was slowly retreating before the
superior forces of the enemy and before the greatly superior number of
his guns, when, while under a perfect shower of grape and canister, he
was all of a sudden confronted by, an Austrian officer of cavalry who
had been lying in wait for the Italian orderly. The Austrian fires his
revolver at Biraghi; and wounds him in the arm. Nothing daunted,
Biraghi assails him and makes him turn tail; then, following in pursuit,
unsaddles him, but has his own horse shot down under him. Biraghi
disentangles himself, kills his antagonist, and jumps upon the latter’s
horse. This, however, is thrown down also in a moment by a cannon ball,
so that the gallant captain has to go back on foot, bleeding, and
almost unable to walk. Talking of heroism, of inimitable endurance, and
strength of soul, what do you think of a man who has his arm entirely
carried away by a grenade, and yet keeps on his horse, firm as a
rock, and still directs his battery until hemorrhage--and hemorrhage
alone--strikes him down at last, dead! Such was the case with a
Neapolitan--Major Abate, of the artillery--and his name is worth the
glory of a whole army, of a whole war; and may only find a fit companion
in that of an officer of the eighteenth battalion of bersaglieri, who,
dashing at an Austrian flag-bearer, wrenches the standard out of his
hands with his left one, has it clean cut away by an Austrian officer
standing near, and immediately grapples it with his right, until his own
soldiers carry him away with his trophy! Does not this sound like Greek
history repeated--does it not look as if the brave men of old had
been born again, and the old facts renewed to tell of Italian heroism?
Another bersagliere--a Tuscan, by name Orlandi Matteo, belonging to that
heroic fifth battalion which fought against entire brigades, regiments,
and battalions, losing 11 out of its 16 officers, and about 300 out of
its 600 men--Orlandi, was wounded already, when, perceiving an Austrian
flag, he makes a great effort, dashes at the officer, kills him, takes
the flag, and, almost dying, gives it over to his lieutenant. He is
now in a ward of the San Domenico Hospital in Brescia, and all who have
learnt of his bravery will earnestly hope that he may survive to be
pointed out as one of the many who covered themselves with fame on that
day. If it is sad to read of death encountered in the field by so many a
patriotic and brave soldiers, it is sadder still to learn that not a few
of them were barbarously killed by the enemy, and killed, too, when they
were harmless, for they lay wounded on the ground. The Sicilian colonel,
Stalella, a son-in-law of Senator Castagnetto, and a courageous man
amongst the most courageous of men; was struck in the leg by a bullet,
and thrown down from his horse while exciting his men to repulse the
Austrians, which in great masses were pressing on his thinned column.
Although retreating, the regiment sent some of his men to take him away,
but as soon as he had been put on a stretcher [he] had to be put down,
as ten or twelve uhlans were galloping down, obliging the men to hide
themselves in a bush. When the uhlans got near the colonel, and when
they had seen him lying down in agony, they all planted their lances in
his body.
Is not this wanton cruelty--cruelty even unheard of cruelty that no
savage possesses? Still these are facts, and no one will ever dare to
deny them from Verona and Vienna, for they are known as much as it was
known and seen that the uhlans and many of the Austrian soldiers were
drunk when they began fighting, and that alighting from the trains they
were provided with their rations and with rum, and that they fought
without their haversacks. This is the truth, and nothing beyond it has
to the honour of the Italians been asserted, whether to the disgrace
or credit of their enemies; so that while denying that they ill-treat
Austrian prisoners, they are ready to state that theirs are well treated
in Verona, without thinking of slandering and calumniating as the Vienna
papers have done.
This morning Prince Amadeus arrived in Cremona, where a most spontaneous
and hearty reception was given him by the population and the National
Guard. He proceeded at once by the shortest way to the headquarters, so
that his wish to be again at the front when something should be done has
been accomplished. This brave young man, and his worthy brother, Prince
Humbert, have won the applause of all Italy, which is justly proud of
counting her king and her princes amongst the foremost in the field.
I have just learned from a most reliable source that the Austrians have
mined the bridge of Borghetto on the Mincio, so that, should it be blown
up, the only two, those of Goito and Borghetto, would be destroyed, and
the Italians obliged to make provisional ones instead. I also hear that
the Venetian towns are without any garrison, and that most probably all
the forces are massed on two lines, one from Peschiera to Custozza and
the other behind the Adige.
You will probably know by this time that the garrison of Vienna had on
the 3rd been directed to Prague. The news we receive from Prussia is on
the whole encouraging, inasmuch as the greatly feared armistice has been
repulsed by King William. Some people here think that France will not
be too hard upon Italy for keeping her word with her ally, and that the
brunt of French anger or disapproval will have to be borne by Prussia.
This is the least she can expect, as you know!
It is probable that by to-morrow I shall be able to write you more about
the Italo-Austrian war of 1866.
GONZAGA, July 9, 1866.
I write you from a villa, only a mile distant from Gonzaga, belonging
to the family of the Counts Arrivabene of Mantua. The owners have never
reentered it since 1848, and it is only the fortune of war which has
brought them to see their beautiful seat of the Aldegatta, never, it is
to be hoped for them, to be abandoned again. It is, as you see, ‘Mutatum
ab illo.’ Onward have gone, then, the exiled patriots! onward will go
the nation that owns them! The wish of every one who is compelled to
remain behind is that the army, that the volunteers, that the fleet,
should all cooperate, and that they should, one and all, land on
Venetian ground, to seek for a great battle, to give the army back the
fame it deserves, and to the country the honour it possesses. The king
is called upon to maintain the word nobly given to avenge Novara, and
with it the new Austrian insulting proposal. All, it is said, is ready.
The army has been said to be numerous; if to be numerous and brave,
means to deserve victory, let the Italian generals prove what Italian
soldiers are worthy of. If they will fight, the country will support
them with the boldest of resolutions--the country will accept a
discussion whenever the Government, having dispersed all fears, will
proclaim that the war is to be continued till victory is inscribed on
Italy’s shield.
As I am not far from Borgoforte, I am able to learn more than the mere
cannon’s voice can tell me, and so will give you some details of the
action against the tete-de-pont, which began, as I told you in one of
my former letters, on the 4th. In Gorgoforte there were about 1500
Austrians, and, on the night from the 5th to the 6th, they kept up
from their four fortified works a sufficiently well-sustained fire, the
object of which was to prevent the enemy from posting his guns. This
fire, however, did not cause any damage, and the Italians were able to
plant their batteries. Early on the 6th, the firing began all along the
line, the Italian 16-pounders having been the first to open fire. The
Italian right was commanded by Colonel Mattei, the left by Colonel
Bangoni, who did excellent work, while the other wing was not so
successful. The heaviest guns had not yet arrived owing to one of
those incidents always sure to happen when least expected, so that the
40-pounders could not be brought to bear against the forts until later
in the day. The damage done to the works was not great for the moment,
but still the advantage had been gained of feeling the strength of
the enemy’s positions and finding the right way to attack them. The
artillerymen worked with great vigour, and were only obliged to desist
by an unexpected order which arrived about two p.m. from General
Cialdini. The attack was, however, resumed on the following day, and
the condition of the Monteggiana and Rochetta forts may be pronounced
precarious. As a sign of the times, and more especially of the just
impatience which prevails in Italy about the general direction of the
army movements, it may not be without importance to notice that the
Italian press has begun to cry out against the darkness in which
everything is enveloped, while the time already passed since the 24th
June tells plainly of inaction. It is remarked that the bitter gift
made by Austria of the Venetian provinces, and the suspicious offer
of mediation by France, ought to have found Italy in greatly different
condition, both as regards her political and military position. Italy
is, on the contrary, in exactly the same state as when the Archduke
Albert telegraphed to Vienna that a great success had been obtained over
the Italian army. These are facts, and, however strong and worthy of
respect may be the reasons, there is no doubt that an extraordinary
delay in the resumption of hostilities has occurred, and that at the
present moment operations projected are perfectly mysterious. Something
is let out from time to time which only serves to make the subsequent
absence of news more and more puzzling. For the present the first
official relation of the unhappy fight of the 24th June is published,
and is accordingly anxiously scanned and closely studied. It is a
matter of general remark that no great military knowledge is required to
perceive that too great a reliance was placed upon supposed facts, and
that the indulgence of speculations and ideas caused the waste of so
much precious blood. The prudence characterising the subsequent moves
of the Austrians may have been caused by the effects of their opponents’
arrangements, but the Italian commanders ought to have avoided the
responsibility of giving the enemy the option to move.
It is clear that to mend things the utterance of generous and patriotic
cries is not sufficient, and that it must be shown that the vigour of
the body is not at all surpassed by the vigour of the mind. It is also
clear that many lives might have been spared if there had been greater
proofs of intelligence on the part of those who directed the movement.
The situation is still very serious. Such an armistice as General von
Gablenz could humiliate himself enough to ask from the Prussians has
been refused, but another which the Emperor of the French has advised
them to accept might ultimately become a fact. For Italy, the purely
Venetian question could then also be settled, while the Italian, the
national question, the question of right and honour which the army
prizes so much, would still remain to be solved.
GONZAGA, July 12, 1866.
Travelling is generally said to be troublesome, but travelling with and
through brigades, divisions, and army corps, I can certify to be more
so than is usually agreeable. It is not that Italian officers or Italian
soldiers are in any way disposed to throw obstacles in your way; but
they, unhappily for you, have with them the inevitable cars with the
inevitable carmen, both of which are enough to make your blood freeze,
though the barometer stands very high. What with their indolence, what
with their number and the dust they made, I really thought they would
drive me mad before I should reach Casalmaggiore on my way from
Torre Malamberti. I started from the former place at three a.m., with
beautiful weather, which, true to tradition, accompanied me all
through my journey. Passing through San Giovanni in Croce, to which the
headquarters of General Pianell had been transferred, I turned to the
right in the direction of the Po, and began to have an idea of
the wearisome sort of journey which I would have to make up to
Casalmaggiore. On both sides of the way some regiments belonging to the
rear division were still camped, and as I passed it was most interesting
to see how busy they were cooking their ‘rancio,’ polishing their arms,
and making the best of their time. The officers stood leisurely about
gazing and staring at me, supposing, as I thought, that I was travelling
with some part in the destiny of their country. Here and there some
soldiers who had just left the hospitals of Brescia and Milan made their
way to their corps and shook hands with their comrades, from whom only
illness or the fortune of war had made them part. They seemed glad to
see their old tent, their old drum, their old colour-sergeant, and also
the flag they had carried to the battle and had not at any price allowed
to be taken. I may state here, en passant, that as many as six flags
were taken from the enemy in the first part of the day of Custozza, and
were subsequently abandoned in the retreat, while of the Italians
only one was lost to a regiment for a few minutes, when it was quickly
retaken. This fact ought to be sufficient by itself to establish the
bravery with which the soldiers fought on the 24th, and the bravery with
which they will fight if, as they ardently wish; a new occasion is given
to them.
As long as I had only met troops, either marching or camping on the
road, all went well, but I soon found myself mixed with an interminable
line of cars and the like, forming the military and the civil train of
the moving army. Then it was that it needed as much patience to keep
from jumping out of one’s carriage and from chastising the carrettieri,
as they would persist in not making room for one, and being as dumb to
one’s entreaties as a stone. When you had finished with one you had to
deal with another, and you find them all as obstinate and as egotistical
as they are from one end of the world to the other, whether it be on the
Casalmaggiore road or in High Holborn. From time to time things seemed
to proceed all right, and you thought yourself free from further
trouble, but you soon found out your mistake, as an enormous ammunition
car went smack into your path, as one wheel got entangled with another,
and as imperturbable Signor Carrettiere evidently took delight at a
fresh opportunity for stoppage, inaction, indolence, and sleep. I soon
came to the conclusion that Italy would not be free when the Austrians
had been driven away, for that another and a more formidable foe--an
enemy to society and comfort, to men and horses, to mankind in general
would have still to be beaten, expelled, annihilated, in the shape of
the carrettiere. If you employ him, he robs you fifty times over; if you
want him to drive quickly, he is sure to keep the animal from going
at all; if, worse than all, you never think of him, or have just been
plundered by him, he will not move an inch to oblige you. Surely the
cholera is not the only pestilence a country may be visited with; and,
should Cialdini ever go to Vienna, he might revenge Novara and the
Spielberg by taking with him the carrettieri of the whole army.
At last Casalmaggiore hove in sight, and, when good fortune and the
carmen permitted, I reached it. It was time! No iron-plated Jacob
could ever have resisted another two miles’ journey in such company. At
Casalmaggiore I branched off. There were, happily, two roads, and not
the slightest reason or smallest argument were needed to make me choose
that which my cauchemar had not chosen. They were passing the river at
Casalmaggiore. I went, of course, for the same purpose, somewhere else.
Any place was good enough--so I thought, at least, then. New adventures,
new miseries awaited me--some carrettiere, or other, guessing that I was
no friend of his, nor of the whole set of them, had thrown the jattatura
on me.
I alighted at the Colombina, after four hours’ ride, to give the
horses time to rest a little. The Albergo della Colombina was a great
disappointment, for there was nothing there that could be eaten. I
decided upon waiting most patiently, but most unlike a few cavalry
officers, who, all covered with dust, and evidently as hungry and as
thirsty as they could be, began to swear to their hearts’ content. In an
hour some eggs and some salame, a kind of sausage, were brought up,
and quickly disposed of. A young lieutenant of the thirtieth infantry
regiment of the Pisa brigade took his place opposite, and we were soon
engaged in conversation. He had been in the midst and worst part of the
battle of Custozza, and had escaped being taken prisoner by what seemed
a miracle. He told me how, when his regiment advanced on the Monte Croce
position, which he practically described to me as having the form of an
English pudding, they were fired upon by batteries both on their flanks
and front. The lieutenant added, however, rather contemptuously, that
they did not even bow before them, as the custom appears to be--that
is, to lie down, as the Austrians were firing very badly. The cross-fire
got, however, so tremendous that an order had to be given to keep down
by the road to avoid being annihilated. The assault was given, the
whole range of positions was taken, and kept too for hours, until
the infallible rule of three to one, backed by batteries, grape, and
canister, compelled them to retreat, which they did slowly and in order.
It was then that their brigade commander, Major General Rey de Villarey,
who, though a native of Mentone, had preferred remaining with his king
from going over to the French after the cession, turning to his son, who
was also his aide-de-camp, said in his dialect, ‘Now, my son, we must
die both of us,’ and with a touch of the spurs was soon in front of
the line and on the hill, where three bullets struck him almost at once
dead. The horse of his son falling while following, his life was spared.
My lieutenant at this moment was so overcome with hunger and fatigue
that he fell down, and was thought to be dead. He was not so, however,
and had enough life to hear, after the fight was over, the Austrian
Jagers pass by, and again retire to their original positions, where
their infantry was lying down, not dreaming for one moment of pursuing
the Italians. Four of his soldiers--all Neapolitans he heard coming in
search of him, while the bullets still hissed all round; and, as soon as
he made a sign to them, they approached, and took him on their shoulders
back to where was what remained of the regiment. It is highly creditable
to Italian unity to hear an old Piedmontese officer praise the levies
of the new provinces, and the lieutenant took delight in relating that
another Neapolitan was in the fight standing by him, and firing as fast
as he could, when a shell having burst near him, he disdainfully gave it
a look, and did not even seek to save himself from the jattatura.
The gallant lieutenant had unfortunately to leave at last, and I was
deprived of many an interesting tale and of a brave man’s company. I
started, therefore, for Viadana, where I purposed passing the Po, the
left bank of which the road was now following parallel with the stream.
At Viadana, however, I found no bridge, as the military had demolished
what existed only the day before, and so had to look out for in
formation. As I was going about under the porticoes which one meets in
almost all the villages in this neighbourhood, I was struck by the sight
of an ancient and beautiful piece of art--for so it was--a Venetian
mirror of Murano. It hung on the wall inside the village draper’s shop,
and was readily shown me by the owner, who did not conceal the pride he
had in possessing it. It was one of those mirrors one rarely meets
with now, which were once so abundant in the old princes’ castles and
palaces. It looked so deep and true, and the gilt frame was so light,
and of such a purity and elegance, that it needed all my resolution to
keep from buying it, though a bargain would not have been effected very
easily. The mirror, however, had to be abandoned, as Dosalo, the nearest
point for crossing the Po, was still seven miles distant. By this
time the sun was out in all its force, and the heat was by no means
agreeable. Then there was dust, too, as if the carrettieri had been
passing in hundreds, so that the heat was almost unbearable. At last the
Dosalo ferry was reached, the road leading to it was entered, and the
carriage was, I thought, to be at once embarked, when a drove of oxen
were discovered to have the precedence; and so I had to wait. This under
such a sun, on a shadeless beach, and with the prospect of having to
stay there for two hours at least, was by no means pleasant. It took
three-quarters of an hour to put the oxen in the boat, it took half an
hour to get them on the other shore, and another hour to have the ferry
boat back. The panorama from the beach was splendid, the Po appeared in
all the mighty power of his waters, and as you looked with the glass at
oxen and trees on the other shore, they appeared to be clothed in
all the colours of the rainbow, and as if belonging to another world.
Several peasants were waiting for the boat near me, talking about the
war and the Austrians, and swearing they would, if possible, annihilate
some of the latter. I gave them the glass to look with, and I imagined
that they had never seen one before, for they thought it highly
wonderful to make out what the time was at the Luzzara Tower, three
miles in a straight line on the other side. The revolver, too, was a
subject of great admiration, and they kept turning, feeling, and staring
at it, as if they could not make out which way the cartridges were put
in. One of these peasants, however, was doing the grand with the others,
and once on the subject of history related to all who would hear how he
had been to St. Helena, which was right in the middle of Moscow, where
it was so very cold that his nose had got to be as large as his head.
The poor man was evidently mixing one night’s tale with that of the next
one, a tale probably heard from the old Sindaco, who is at the same time
the schoolmaster, the notary, and the highest municipal authority in the
place.
I started in the ferry boat with them at last. While crossing they got
to speak of the priests, and were all agreed, to put it in the mildest
way, in thinking extremely little of them, and only differed as to what
punishment they should like them to suffer.
On the side where we landed lay heaps of ammunition casks for the corps
besieging Borgoforte. Others were conveyed upon cars by my friends the
carrettieri, of whom it was decreed I should not be quit for some time
to come. Entering Guastalla I found only a few artillery officers,
evidently in charge of what we had seen carried along the route.
Guastalla is a neat little town very proud of its statue of Duke
Ferrante Gonzaga, and the Croce Rossa is a neat little inn, which may be
proud of a smart young waiter, who actually discovered that, as I wanted
to proceed to Luzzara, a few miles on, I had better stop till next
morning, I did not take his advice, and was soon under the gate of
Luzzara, a very neat little place, once one of the many possessions
where the Gonzagas had a court, a palace, and a castle. The arms over
the archway may still be seen, and would not be worth any notice but for
a remarkable work of terracotta representing a crown of pines and
pine leaves in a wonderful state of preservation. The whole is so
artistically arranged and so natural, that one might believe it to be
one of Luca della Robbia’s works. Luzzara has also a great tower, which
I had seen in the distance from Dosalo, and the only albergo in the
place gives you an excellent Italian dinner. The wine might please one
of the greatest admirers of sherry, and if you are not given feather
beds, the beds are at least clean like the rooms themselves. Here, as it
was getting too dark, I decided upon stopping, a decision which gave me
occasion to see one of the finest sunsets I ever saw. As I looked from
the albergo I could see a gradation of colours, from the purple red to
the deepest of sea blue, rising like an immense tent from the dark green
of the trees and the fields, here and there dotted with little white
houses, with their red roofs, while in front the Luzzara Tower rose
majestically in the twilight. As the hour got later the colours
deepened, and the lower end of the immense curtain gradually
disappeared, while the stars and the planets began shining high above.
A peasant was singing in a field near by, and the bells of a church were
chiming in the distance. Both seemed to harmonise wonderfully. It was a
scene of great loveliness.
At four a.m. I was up, and soon after on the road to Reggiolo, and then
to Gonzaga. Here the vegetation gets to be more luxuriant, and every
inch of ground contributes to the immense vastness of the whole. Nature
is here in full perfection, and as even the telegraphic wire hangs
leisurely down from tree to tree, instead of being stuck upon poles,
you feel that the romantic aspect of the place is too beautiful to be
encroached upon. All is peace, beauty, and happiness, all reveals to you
that you are in Italy.
In Gonzaga, which only a few days ago belonged to the Austrians, the
Italian tricolour is out of every window. As the former masters retired
the new advanced; and when a detachment of Monferrato lancers entered
the old castle town the joy of the inhabitants seemed to be almost
bordering on delirium. The lancers soon left, however. The flag only
remains.
July 11.
Cialdini began passing the Po on the 8th, and crossed at three points,
i.e., Carbonara, Carbonarola, and Follonica. Beginning at three o’clock
in the morning, he had finished crossing upon the two first pontoon
bridges towards midnight on the 9th. The bridge thrown up at Follonica
was still intact up to seven in the morning on the 10th, but the troops
and the military and the civil train that remained followed the Po
without crossing to Stellata, in the supposed direction of Ponte
Lagoscura.
Yesterday guns were heard here at seven o’clock in the morning, and up
to eleven o’clock, in the direction of Legnano, towards, I think,
the Adige. The firing was lively, and of such a nature as to make one
surmise that battle had been given. Perhaps the Austrians have awaited
Cialdini under Legnano, or they have disputed the crossing of the Adige.
Rovigo was abandoned by the Austrians in the night of the 9th and 10th.
They have blown up the Rovigo and Boara fortresses, have destroyed the
tete-de-pont on the Adige, and burnt all bridges. They may now seek to
keep by the left side of this river up to Legnano, so as to get under
the protection of the quadrilateral, in which case, if Cialdini can
cross the river in time, the shock would be almost inevitable, and would
be a reason for yesterday’s firing. They may also go by rail to Padua,
when they would have Cialdini between them and the quadrilateral. In any
case, if this general is quick, or if they are not too quick for him,
according to possible instructions, a collision is difficult to be
avoided.
Baron Ricasoli has left Florence for the camp, and all sorts of rumours
are afloat as to the present state of negotiations as they appear
unmistakably to exist. The opinions are, I think, divided in the high
councils of the Crown, and the country is still anxious to know the
result of this state of affairs. A splendid victory by Cialdini might
at this moment solve many a difficulty. As it is, the war is prosecuted
everywhere except by sea, for Garibaldi’s forces are slowly advancing in
the Italian Tyrol, while the Austrians wait for them behind the walls of
Landaro and Ampola. The Garibaldians’ advanced posts were, by the latest
news, near Darso.
The news from Prussia is still contradictory; while the Italian press is
unanimous in asking with the country that Cialdini should advance,
meet the enemy, fight him, and rout him if possible. Italy’s wishes are
entirely with him.
NOALE, NEAR TREVISO, July 17, 1866.
From Lusia I followed General Medici’s division to Motta, where I left
it, not without regret, however, as better companions could not easily
be found, so kind were the officers and jovial the men. They are now
encamped around Padua, and will to-morrow march on Treviso, where the
Italian Light Horse have already arrived, if I judge so from their
having left Noale on the 15th. From the right I hear that the advanced
posts have proceeded as far as Mira on the Brenta, twenty kilometres
from Venice itself, and that the first army corps is to concentrate
opposite Chioggia. This corps has marched from Ferrara straight on to
Rovigo, which the forward movement of the fourth, or Cialdini’s corps
d’armee, had left empty of soldiers. General Pianell has still charge
of it, and Major-General Cadalini, formerly at the head of the Siena
brigade, replaces him in the command of his former division. General
Pianell has under him the gallant Prince Amadeus, who has entirely
recovered from his chest wound, and of whom the brigade of Lombardian
grenadiers is as proud as ever. They could not wish for a more skilled
commander, a better superior officer, and a more valiant soldier. Thus
the troops who fought on the 24th June are kept in the second line,
while the still fresh divisions under Cialdini march first, as fast as
they can. This, however, is of no avail. The Italian outposts on the
Piave have not yet crossed it, for the reason that they must keep
distances with their regiments, but will do so as soon as these get
nearer to the river. If it was not that this is always done in regular
warfare, they could beat the country beyond the Piave for a good many
miles without even seeing the shadow of an Austrian. To the simple
private, who does not know of diplomatic imbroglios and of political
considerations, this sudden retreat means an almost as sudden retracing
of steps, because he remembers that this manoeuvre preceded both the
attacks on Solferino and on Custozza by the Austrians. To the officer,
however, it means nothing else than a fixed desire not to face the
Italian army any more, and so it is to him a source of disappointment
and despondency. He cannot bear to think that another battle is
improbable, and may be excused if he is not in the best of humour when
on this subject. This is the case not only with the officers but with
the volunteers, who have left their homes and the comfort of their
domestic life, not to be paraded at reviews, but to be sent against the
enemy. There are hundreds of these in the regular army-in the cavalry
especially, and the Aosta Lancers and the regiment of Guides are half
composed of them. If you listen to them, there ought not to be the
slightest doubt or hesitation as to crossing the Isongo and marching
upon Vienna. May Heaven see their wishes accomplished, for, unless
crushed by sheer force, Italy is quite decided to carry war into the
enemy’s country.
The decisions of the French government are looked for here with great
anxiety, and not a few men are found who predict them to be unfavourable
to Italy. Still, it is hard for every one to believe that the French
emperor will carry things to extremities, and increase the many
difficulties Europe has already to contend with.
To-day there was a rumour at the mess table that the Austrians had
abandoned Legnano, one of the four fortresses of the quadrilateral. I do
not put much faith in it at present, but it is not improbable, as we
may expect many strange things from the Vienna government. It would have
been much better for them, since Archduke Albert spoke in eulogistic
terms of the king, of his sons, and of his soldiers, while relating the
action of the 24th, to have treated with Italy direct, thus securing
peace, and perhaps friendship, from her. But the men who have ruled so
despotically for years over Italian subjects cannot reconcile themselves
to the idea that Italy has at last risen to be a nation, and they even
take slyly an opportunity to throw new insult into her face. You can
easily see that the old spirit is still struggling for empire; that the
old contempt is still trying to make light of Italians; and that the
old Metternich ideas are still fondly clung to. Does not this deserve
another lesson? Does not this need another Sadowa to quiet down
for ever? Yes; and it devolves upon Italy to do it. If so, let only
Cialdini’s army alone, and the day may be nigh at hand when the king may
tell the country that the task has been accomplished.
A talk on the present state of political affairs, and on the peculiar
position of Italy, is the only subject worth notice in a letter from the
camp. Everything else is at a standstill, and the movements of the fine
army Cialdini now disposes of, about 150,000 men, are no longer full of
interest. They may, perhaps, have some as regards an attack on Venice,
because Austrian soldiers are still garrisoning it, and will be obliged
to fight if they are assailed. It is hoped, if such is the case,
that the beautiful queen of the Adriatic will be spared a scene of
devastation, and that no new Haynau will be found to renew the deeds of
Brescia and Vicenza.
The king has not yet arrived, and it seems probable he will not come for
some time, until indeed the day comes for Italian troops to make their
triumphal entry into the city of the Doges.
The heat continues intense, and this explains the slowness in advancing.
As yet no sickness has appeared, and it must be hoped that the
troops will be healthy, as sickness tries the morale much more than
half-a-dozen Custozzas.
P.S.--I had finished writing when an officer came rushing into the inn
where I am staying and told me that he had just heard that an Italian
patrol had met an Austrian one on the road out of the village, and
routed it. This may or may not be true, but it was must curious to see
how delighted every one was at the idea that they had found ‘them’ at
last. They did not care much about the result of the engagement, which,
as I said, was reported to have been favourable. All that they cared
about was that they were close to the enemy. One cannot despair of an
army which is animated with such spirits. You would think, from the
joy which brightens the face of the soldiers you meet now about, that a
victory had been announced for the Italian arms.
DOLO, NEAR VENICE, July 20, 1866.
I returned from Noale to Padua last evening, and late in the night I
received the intimation at my quarters that cannon was heard in the
direction of Venice. It was then black as in Dante’s hell, and raining
and blowing with violence--one of those Italian storms which seem to
awake all the earthly and heavenly elements of creation. There was no
choice for it but to take to the saddle, and try to make for the front.
No one who has not tried it can fancy what work it is to find one’s way
along a road on which a whole corps d’amee is marching with an enormous
materiel of war in a pitch dark night. This, however, is what your
special correspondent was obliged to do. Fortunately enough, I had
scarcely proceeded as far as Ponte di Brenta when I fell in with an
officer of Cialdini’s staff, who was bound to the same destination,
namely, Dolo. As we proceeded along the road under a continuous shower
of rain, our eyes now and then dazzled by the bright serpent-like
flashes of the lightning, we fell in with some battalion or squadron,
which advanced carefully, as it was impossible for them as well as for
us to discriminate between the road and the ditches which flank it, for
all the landmarks, so familiar to our guides in the daytime, were in one
dead level of blackness. So it was that my companion and myself, after
stumbling into ditches and out of them, after knocking our horses’ heads
against an ammunition car, or a party of soldiers sheltered under some
big tree, found ourselves, after three hours’ ride, in this village of
Dolo. By this time the storm had greatly abated in its violence, and
the thunder was but faintly heard now and then at such a distance as
to enable us distinctly to hear the roar of the guns. Our horses
could scarcely get through the sticky black mud, into which the white
suffocating dust of the previous days had been turned by one night’s
rain. We, however, made our way to the parsonage of the village, for we
had already made up our minds to ascend the steeple of the church to get
a view of the surrounding country and a better hearing of the guns
if possible. After a few words exchanged with the sexton--a staunch
Italian, as he told us he was--we went up the ladder of the church
spire. Once on the wooden platform, we could hear more distinctly the
boom of the guns, which sounded like the broadsides of a big vessel.
Were they the guns of Persano’s long inactive fleet attacking some of
Brondolo’s or Chioggia’s advanced forts? Were the guns those of some
Austrian man-of-war which had engaged an Italian ironclad; or were they
the ‘Affondatore,’ which left the Thames only a month ago, pitching into
Trieste? To tell the truth, although we patiently waited two long hours
on Dolo church spire, when both I and my companion descended we were not
in a position to solve either of these problems. We, however, thought
then, and still think, they were the guns of the Italian fleet which had
attacked an Austrian fort.
CIVITA VECCHIA, July 22, 1866.
Since the departure from this port of the old hospital ship ‘Gregeois’
about a year ago, no French ship of war had been stationed at Civita
Vecchia; but on Wednesday morning the steam-sloop ‘Catinat,’ 180
men, cast anchor in the harbour, and the commandant immediately on
disembarking took the train for Rome and placed himself in communication
with the French ambassador. I am not aware whether the Pontifical
government had applied for this vessel, or whether the sending it was
a spontaneous attention on the part of the French emperor, but, at any
rate, its arrival has proved a source of pleasure to His Holiness, as
there is no knowing what may happen In troublous times like the present,
and it is always good to have a retreat insured.
Yesterday it was notified in this port, as well as at Naples, that
arrivals from Marseilles would be, until further notice, subjected to
a quarantine of fifteen days in consequence of cholera having made its
appearance at the latter place. A sailing vessel which arrived from
Marseilles in the course of the day had to disembark the merchandise
it brought for Civita Vecchia into barges off the lazaretto, where the
yellow flag was hoisted over them. This vessel left Marseilles five days
before the announcement of the quarantine, while the ‘Prince Napoleon’
of Valery’s Company, passenger and merchandise steamer, which left
Marseilles only one day before its announcement, was admitted this
morning to free pratique. Few travellers will come here by sea now.
MARSEILLES, July 24.
Accustomed as we have been of late in Italy to almost hourly bulletins
of the progress of hostilities, it is a trying condition to be suddenly
debarred of all intelligence by finding oneself on board a steamer for
thirty-six hours without touching at any port, as was my case in coming
here from Civita Vecchia on board the ‘Prince Napoleon.’ But, although
telegrams were wanting, discussions on the course of events were rife
on board among the passengers who had embarked at Naples and Civita
Vecchia, comprising a strong batch of French and Belgian priests
returning from a pilgrimage to Rome, well supplied with rosaries and
chaplets blessed by the Pope and facsimiles of the chains of St. Peter.
Not much sympathy for the Italian cause was shown by these gentlemen
or the few French and German travellers who, with three or four
Neapolitans, formed the quarterdeck society; and our Corsican captain
took no pains to hide his contempt at the dilatory proceedings of
the Italian fleet at Ancona. We know that the Prussian minister, M.
d’Usedom, has been recently making strenuous remonstrances at Ferrara
against the slowness with which the Italian naval and military forces
were proceeding, while their allies, the Prussians, were already near
the gates of Vienna; and the conversation of a Prussian gentleman
on board our steamer, who was connected with that embassy, plainly
indicated the disappointment felt at Berlin at the rather inefficacious
nature of the diversion made in Venetia, and on the coast of Istria by
the army and navy of Victor Emmanuel. He even attributed to his minister
an expression not very flattering either to the future prospects of
Italy as resulting from her alliance with Prussia, or to the fidelity of
the latter in carrying out the terms of it. I do not know whether this
gentleman intended his anecdote to be taken cum grano salis, but I
certainly understood him to say that he had deplored to the minister the
want of vigour and the absence of success accompanying the operations of
the Italian allies of Prussia, when His Excellency replied: ‘C’est bien
vrai. Ils nous ont tromps; mais que voulez-vous y faire maintenant? Nous
aurons le temps de les faire egorger apres.’
It is difficult to suppose that there should exist a preconceived
intention on the part of Prussia to repay the sacrifices hitherto made,
although without a very brilliant accompaniment of success, by the
Italian government in support of the alliance, by making her own
separate terms with Austria and leaving Italy subsequently exposed to
the vengeance of the latter, but such would certainly be the inference
to be drawn from the conversation just quoted.
It was only on arriving in the port of Marseilles, however, that the
full enmity of most of my travelling companions towards Italy and the
Italians was manifested. A sailor, the first man who came on board
before we disembarked, was immediately pounced upon for news, and
he gave it as indeed nothing less than the destruction, more or less
complete, of the Italian fleet by that of the Austrians. At this
astounding intelligence the Prussian burst into a yell of indignation.
‘Fools! blockheads! miserables! Beaten at sea by an inferior force! Is
that the way they mean to reconquer Venice by dint of arms? If ever they
do regain Venetia it will be through the blood of our Brandenburghers
and Pomeranians, and not their own.’ During this tirade a little old
Belgian in black, with the chain of St. Peter at his buttonhole by way
of watchguard, capered off to communicate the grateful news to a group
of his ecclesiastical fellow-travellers, shrieking out in ecstasy:
‘Rosses, Messieurs! Ces blagueurs d’Italiens ont ete rosses par
mer, comme ils avaient ete rosses par terre.’ Whereupon the reverend
gentlemen congratulated each other with nods, and winks, and smiles,
and sundry fervent squeezes of the hand. The same demonstrations would
doubtless have been made by the Neapolitan passengers had they belonged
to the Bourbonic faction, but they happened to be honest traders with
cases of coral and lava for the Paris market, and therefore they merely
stood silent and aghast at the fatal news, with their eyes and mouths as
wide open as possible. I had no sooner got to my hotel than I inquired
for the latest Paris journal, when the France was handed me, and I
obtained confirmation in a certain degree of the disaster to the Italian
fleet narrated by the sailor, although not quite in the same formidable
proportions.
Before quitting the subject of my fellow-passengers on board the ‘Prince
Napoleon’ I must mention an anecdote related to me, respecting the state
of brigandage, by a Russian or German gentleman, who told me he
was established at Naples. He was complaining of the dangers he had
occasionally encountered in crossing in a diligence from Naples to
Foggia on business; and then, speaking of the audacity of brigands in
general, he told me that last year he saw with his own eyes; in broad
daylight, two brigands walking about the streets of Naples with messages
from captured individuals to their relations, mentioning the sums which
had been demanded for their ransoms. They were unarmed, and in the
common peasants’ dresses, and whenever they arrived at one of the houses
to which they were addressed for this purpose, they stopped and opened a
handkerchief which one of them carried in his hand, and took out an ear,
examining whether the ticket on it corresponded with the address of the
house or the name of the resident. There were six ears, all ticketed
with the names of the original owners in the handkerchief, which were
gradually dispensed to their families in Naples to stimulate: prompt
payment of the required ransoms. On my inquiring how it was that the
police took no notice of such barefaced operations, my informant told me
that, previous to the arrival of these brigand emissaries in town,
the chief always wrote to the police authorities warning them against
interfering with them, as the messengers were always followed by spies
in plain clothes belonging to the band who would immediately report
any molestation they might encounter in the discharge of their delicate
mission, and the infallible result of such molestation would be first
the putting to death of all the hostages held for ransom; and next,
the summary execution of several members of gendarmery and police force
captured in various skirmishes by the brigands, and held as prisoners of
war.
Such audacity would seem incredible if we had not heard and read of so
many similar instances of late.
ETEXT EDITOR’S BOOKMARKS:
A very doubtful benefit
Americans forgivingly remember, without mentioning
As becomes them, they do not look ahead
Charges of cynicism are common against all satirists
Fourth of the Georges
Here and there a plain good soul to whom he was affectionate
Holy images, and other miraculous objects are sold
It is well to learn manners without having them imposed on us
Men overweeningly in love with their creations
Must be the moralist in the satirist if satire is to strike
Not a page of his books reveals malevolence or a sneer
Petty concessions are signs of weakness to the unsatisfied
Statesman who stooped to conquer fact through fiction
The social world he looked at did not show him heroes
The exhaustion ensuing we named tranquillity
Utterance of generous and patriotic cries is not sufficient
We trust them or we crush them
We grew accustomed to periods of Irish fever
ON THE IDEA OF COMEDY AND OF THE USES OF THE COMIC SPIRIT {1}
[This etext was prepared from the 1897 Archibald Constable and Company
edition by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk]
Good Comedies are such rare productions, that notwithstanding the wealth
of our literature in the Comic element, it would not occupy us long
to run over the English list. If they are brought to the test I shall
propose, very reputable Comedies will be found unworthy of their
station, like the ladies of Arthur’s Court when they were reduced to the
ordeal of the mantle.
There are plain reasons why the Comic poet is not a frequent apparition;
and why the great Comic poet remains without a fellow. A society of
cultivated men and women is required, wherein ideas are current and the
perceptions quick, that he may be supplied with matter and an audience.
The semi-barbarism of merely giddy communities, and feverish emotional
periods, repel him; and also a state of marked social inequality of the
sexes; nor can he whose business is to address the mind be understood
where there is not a moderate degree of intellectual activity.
Moreover, to touch and kindle the mind through laughter, demands more
than sprightliness, a most subtle delicacy. That must be a natal gift
in the Comic poet. The substance he deals with will show him a startling
exhibition of the dyer’s hand, if he is without it. People are ready to
surrender themselves to witty thumps on the back, breast, and sides;
all except the head: and it is there that he aims. He must be subtle
to penetrate. A corresponding acuteness must exist to welcome him. The
necessity for the two conditions will explain how it is that we count
him during centuries in the singular number.
‘C’est une etrange entreprise que celle de faire rire les honnetes
gens,’ Moliere says; and the difficulty of the undertaking cannot be
over-estimated.
Then again, he is beset with foes to right and left, of a character
unknown to the tragic and the lyric poet, or even to philosophers.
We have in this world men whom Rabelais would call agelasts; that is to
say, non-laughers; men who are in that respect as dead bodies, which
if you prick them do not bleed. The old grey boulder-stone that has
finished its peregrination from the rock to the valley, is as easily
to be set rolling up again as these men laughing. No collision of
circumstances in our mortal career strikes a light for them. It is but
one step from being agelastic to misogelastic, and the [Greek text which
cannot be reproduced], the laughter-hating, soon learns to dignify his
dislike as an objection in morality.
We have another class of men, who are pleased to consider themselves
antagonists of the foregoing, and whom we may term hypergelasts; the
excessive laughers, ever-laughing, who are as clappers of a bell, that
may be rung by a breeze, a grimace; who are so loosely put together that
a wink will shake them.
‘... C’est n’estimer rien qu’estioner tout le monde,’
and to laugh at everything is to have no appreciation of the Comic of
Comedy.
Neither of these distinct divisions of non-laughers and over-laughers
would be entertained by reading The Rape of the Lock, or seeing a
performance of Le Tartuffe. In relation to the stage, they have taken in
our land the form and title of Puritan and Bacchanalian. For though the
stage is no longer a public offender, and Shakespeare has been revived
on it, to give it nobility, we have not yet entirely raised it above
the contention of these two parties. Our speaking on the theme of Comedy
will appear almost a libertine proceeding to one, while the other will
think that the speaking of it seriously brings us into violent contrast
with the subject.
Comedy, we have to admit, was never one of the most honoured of the
Muses. She was in her origin, short of slaughter, the loudest expression
of the little civilization of men. The light of Athene over the head of
Achilles illuminates the birth of Greek Tragedy. But Comedy rolled in
shouting under the divine protection of the Son of the Wine-jar, as
Dionysus is made to proclaim himself by Aristophanes. Our second Charles
was the patron, of like benignity, of our Comedy of Manners, which began
similarly as a combative performance, under a licence to deride and
outrage the Puritan, and was here and there Bacchanalian beyond the
Aristophanic example: worse, inasmuch as a cynical licentiousness is
more abominable than frank filth. An eminent Frenchman judges from the
quality of some of the stuff dredged up for the laughter of men and
women who sat through an Athenian Comic play, that they could have had
small delicacy in other affairs when they had so little in their choice
of entertainment. Perhaps he does not make sufficient allowance for the
regulated licence of plain speaking proper to the festival of the god,
and claimed by the Comic poet as his inalienable right, or for the fact
that it was a festival in a season of licence, in a city accustomed to
give ear to the boldest utterance of both sides of a case. However that
may be, there can be no question that the men and women who sat through
the acting of Wycherley’s Country Wife were past blushing. Our tenacity
of national impressions has caused the word theatre since then to prod
the Puritan nervous system like a satanic instrument; just as one has
known Anti-Papists, for whom Smithfield was redolent of a sinister
smoke, as though they had a later recollection of the place than the
lowing herds. Hereditary Puritanism, regarding the stage, is met, to
this day, in many families quite undistinguished by arrogant piety. It
has subsided altogether as a power in the profession of morality; but it
is an error to suppose it extinct, and unjust also to forget that it had
once good reason to hate, shun, and rebuke our public shows.
We shall find ourselves about where the Comic spirit would place us,
if we stand at middle distance between the inveterate opponents and the
drum-and-fife supporters of Comedy: ‘Comme un point fixe fait remarquer
l’emportement des autres,’ as Pascal says. And were there more in this
position, Comic genius would flourish.
Our English idea of a Comedy of Manners might be imaged in the person of
a blowsy country girl--say Hoyden, the daughter of Sir Tunbelly Clumsy,
who, when at home, ‘never disobeyed her father except in the eating of
green gooseberries’--transforming to a varnished City madam; with a loud
laugh and a mincing step; the crazy ancestress of an accountably fallen
descendant. She bustles prodigiously and is punctually smart in her
speech, always in a fluster to escape from Dulness, as they say the dogs
on the Nile-banks drink at the river running to avoid the crocodile. If
the monster catches her, as at times he does, she whips him to a froth,
so that those who know Dulness only as a thing of ponderousness, shall
fail to recognise him in that light and airy shape.
When she has frolicked through her five Acts to surprise you with the
information that Mr. Aimwell is converted by a sudden death in the world
outside the scenes into Lord Aimwell, and can marry the lady in the
light of day, it is to the credit of her vivacious nature that she does
not anticipate your calling her Farce. Five is dignity with a trailing
robe; whereas one, two, or three Acts would be short skirts, and
degrading. Advice has been given to householders, that they should
follow up the shot at a burglar in the dark by hurling the pistol after
it, so that if the bullet misses, the weapon may strike and assure the
rascal he has it. The point of her wit is in this fashion supplemented
by the rattle of her tongue, and effectively, according to the testimony
of her admirers. Her wit is at once, like steam in an engine, the motive
force and the warning whistle of her headlong course; and it vanishes
like the track of steam when she has reached her terminus, never
troubling the brains afterwards; a merit that it shares with good wine,
to the joy of the Bacchanalians. As to this wit, it is warlike. In the
neatest hands it is like the sword of the cavalier in the Mall, quick to
flash out upon slight provocation, and for a similar office--to wound.
Commonly its attitude is entirely pugilistic; two blunt fists rallying
and countering. When harmless, as when the word ‘fool’ occurs, or
allusions to the state of husband, it has the sound of the smack of
harlequin’s wand upon clown, and is to the same extent exhilarating.
Believe that idle empty laughter is the most desirable of recreations,
and significant Comedy will seem pale and shallow in comparison. Our
popular idea would be hit by the sculptured group of Laughter holding
both his sides, while Comedy pummels, by way of tickling him. As to a
meaning, she holds that it does not conduce to making merry: you might
as well carry cannon on a racing-yacht. Morality is a duenna to be
circumvented. This was the view of English Comedy of a sagacious
essayist, who said that the end of a Comedy would often be the
commencement of a Tragedy, were the curtain to rise again on the
performers. In those old days female modesty was protected by a fan,
behind which, and it was of a convenient semicircular breadth, the
ladies present in the theatre retired at a signal of decorum, to peep,
covertly askant, or with the option of so peeping, through a prettily
fringed eyelet-hole in the eclipsing arch.
‘Ego limis specto sic per flabellum clanculum.’-TERENCE.
That fan is the flag and symbol of the society giving us our so-called
Comedy of Manners, or Comedy of the manners of South-sea Islanders under
city veneer; and as to Comic idea, vacuous as the mask without the face
behind it.
Elia, whose humour delighted in floating a galleon paradox and wafting
it as far as it would go, bewails the extinction of our artificial
Comedy, like a poet sighing over the vanished splendour of Cleopatra’s
Nile-barge; and the sedateness of his plea for a cause condemned even in
his time to the penitentiary, is a novel effect of the ludicrous. When
the realism of those ‘fictitious half-believed personages,’ as he
calls them, had ceased to strike, they were objectionable company,
uncaressable as puppets. Their artifices are staringly naked, and have
now the effect of a painted face viewed, after warm hours of dancing,
in the morning light. How could the Lurewells and the Plyants ever have
been praised for ingenuity in wickedness? Critics, apparently sober,
and of high reputation, held up their shallow knaveries for the world
to admire. These Lurewells, Plyants, Pinchwifes, Fondlewifes, Miss Prue,
Peggy, Hoyden, all of them save charming Milamant, are dead as last
year’s clothes in a fashionable fine lady’s wardrobe, and it must be an
exceptionably abandoned Abigail of our period that would look on them
with the wish to appear in their likeness. Whether the puppet show of
Punch and Judy inspires our street-urchins to have instant recourse to
their fists in a dispute, after the fashion of every one of the actors
in that public entertainment who gets possession of the cudgel, is open
to question: it has been hinted; and angry moralists have traced
the national taste for tales of crime to the smell of blood in our
nursery-songs. It will at any rate hardly be questioned that it is
unwholesome for men and women to see themselves as they are, if they
are no better than they should be: and they will not, when they have
improved in manners, care much to see themselves as they once were. That
comes of realism in the Comic art; and it is not public caprice, but the
consequence of a bettering state. {2} The same of an immoral may be said
of realistic exhibitions of a vulgar society.
The French make a critical distinction in ce qui remue from ce qui
emeut--that which agitates from that which touches with emotion. In the
realistic comedy it is an incessant remuage--no calm, merely bustling
figures, and no thought. Excepting Congreve’s Way of the World, which
failed on the stage, there was nothing to keep our comedy alive on
its merits; neither, with all its realism, true portraiture, nor much
quotable fun, nor idea; neither salt nor soul.
The French have a school of stately comedy to which they can fly for
renovation whenever they have fallen away from it; and their having such
a school is mainly the reason why, as John Stuart Mill pointed out,
they know men and women more accurately than we do. Moliere followed
the Horatian precept, to observe the manners of his age and give his
characters the colour befitting them at the time. He did not paint in
raw realism. He seized his characters firmly for the central purpose
of the play, stamped them in the idea, and by slightly raising and
softening the object of study (as in the case of the ex-Huguenot, Duke
de Montausier, {3} for the study of the Misanthrope, and, according to
St. Simon, the Abbe Roquette for Tartuffe), generalized upon it so as
to make it permanently human. Concede that it is natural for human
creatures to live in society, and Alceste is an imperishable mark of
one, though he is drawn in light outline, without any forcible human
colouring. Our English school has not clearly imagined society; and
of the mind hovering above congregated men and women, it has imagined
nothing. The critics who praise it for its downrightness, and for
bringing the situations home to us, as they admiringly say, cannot but
disapprove of Moliere’s comedy, which appeals to the individual mind to
perceive and participate in the social. We have splendid tragedies, we
have the most beautiful of poetic plays, and we have literary comedies
passingly pleasant to read, and occasionally to see acted. By literary
comedies, I mean comedies of classic inspiration, drawn chiefly from
Menander and the Greek New Comedy through Terence; or else comedies of
the poet’s personal conception, that have had no model in life, and are
humorous exaggerations, happy or otherwise. These are the comedies of
Ben Jonson, Massinger, and Fletcher. Massinger’s Justice Greedy we can
all of us refer to a type, ‘with fat capon lined’ that has been and
will be; and he would be comic, as Panurge is comic, but only a Rabelais
could set him moving with real animation. Probably Justice Greedy would
be comic to the audience of a country booth and to some of our friends.
If we have lost our youthful relish for the presentation of characters
put together to fit a type, we find it hard to put together the
mechanism of a civil smile at his enumeration of his dishes. Something
of the same is to be said of Bobadil, swearing ‘by the foot of Pharaoh’;
with a reservation, for he is made to move faster, and to act. The comic
of Jonson is a scholar’s excogitation of the comic; that of Massinger a
moralist’s.
Shakespeare is a well-spring of characters which are saturated with the
comic spirit; with more of what we will call blood-life than is to be
found anywhere out of Shakespeare; and they are of this world, but they
are of the world enlarged to our embrace by imagination, and by great
poetic imagination. They are, as it were--I put it to suit my present
comparison--creatures of the woods and wilds, not in walled towns, not
grouped and toned to pursue a comic exhibition of the narrower world of
society. Jaques, Falstaff and his regiment, the varied troop of Clowns,
Malvolio, Sir Hugh Evans and Fluellen--marvellous Welshmen!--Benedict
and Beatrice, Dogberry, and the rest, are subjects of a special study in
the poetically comic.
His Comedy of incredible imbroglio belongs to the literary section.
One may conceive that there was a natural resemblance between him
and Menander, both in the scheme and style of his lighter plays. Had
Shakespeare lived in a later and less emotional, less heroical period of
our history, he might have turned to the painting of manners as well as
humanity. Euripides would probably, in the time of Menander, when Athens
was enslaved but prosperous, have lent his hand to the composition of
romantic comedy. He certainly inspired that fine genius.
Politically it is accounted a misfortune for France that her nobles
thronged to the Court of Louis Quatorze. It was a boon to the comic
poet. He had that lively quicksilver world of the animalcule passions,
the huge pretensions, the placid absurdities, under his eyes in full
activity; vociferous quacks and snapping dupes, hypocrites, posturers,
extravagants, pedants, rose-pink ladies and mad grammarians,
sonneteering marquises, high-flying mistresses, plain-minded maids,
inter-threading as in a loom, noisy as at a fair. A simply bourgeois
circle will not furnish it, for the middle class must have the
brilliant, flippant, independent upper for a spur and a pattern;
otherwise it is likely to be inwardly dull as well as outwardly correct.
Yet, though the King was benevolent toward Moliere, it is not to the
French Court that we are indebted for his unrivalled studies of mankind
in society. For the amusement of the Court the ballets and farces were
written, which are dearer to the rabble upper, as to the rabble lower,
class than intellectual comedy. The French bourgeoisie of Paris were
sufficiently quick-witted and enlightened by education to welcome great
works like Le Tartuffe, Les Femmes Savantes, and Le Misanthrope, works
that were perilous ventures on the popular intelligence, big vessels to
launch on streams running to shallows. The Tartuffe hove into view as an
enemy’s vessel; it offended, not Dieu mais les devots, as the Prince de
Conde explained the cabal raised against it to the King.
The Femmes Savantes is a capital instance of the uses of comedy
in teaching the world to understand what ails it. The farce of the
Precieuses ridiculed and put a stop to the monstrous romantic jargon
made popular by certain famous novels. The comedy of the Femmes Savantes
exposed the later and less apparent but more finely comic absurdity
of an excessive purism in grammar and diction, and the tendency to
be idiotic in precision. The French had felt the burden of this new
nonsense; but they had to see the comedy several times before they were
consoled in their suffering by seeing the cause of it exposed.
The Misanthrope was yet more frigidly received. Moliere thought it dead.
‘I cannot improve on it, and assuredly never shall,’ he said. It is one
of the French titles to honour that this quintessential comedy of
the opposition of Alceste and Celimene was ultimately understood and
applauded. In all countries the middle class presents the public which,
fighting the world, and with a good footing in the fight, knows the
world best. It may be the most selfish, but that is a question leading
us into sophistries. Cultivated men and women, who do not skim the cream
of life, and are attached to the duties, yet escape the harsher blows,
make acute and balanced observers. Moliere is their poet.
Of this class in England, a large body, neither Puritan nor
Bacchanalian, have a sentimental objection to face the study of the
actual world. They take up disdain of it, when its truths appear
humiliating: when the facts are not immediately forced on them, they
take up the pride of incredulity. They live in a hazy atmosphere that
they suppose an ideal one. Humorous writing they will endure, perhaps
approve, if it mingles with pathos to shake and elevate the feelings.
They approve of Satire, because, like the beak of the vulture, it smells
of carrion, which they are not. But of Comedy they have a shivering
dread, for Comedy enfolds them with the wretched host of the world,
huddles them with us all in an ignoble assimilation, and cannot be used
by any exalted variety as a scourge and a broom. Nay, to be an exalted
variety is to come under the calm curious eye of the Comic spirit,
and be probed for what you are. Men are seen among them, and very
many cultivated women. You may distinguish them by a favourite phrase:
‘Surely we are not so bad!’ and the remark: ‘If that is human nature,
save us from it!’ as if it could be done: but in the peculiar Paradise
of the wilful people who will not see, the exclamation assumes the
saving grace.
Yet should you ask them whether they dislike sound sense, they vow they
do not. And question cultivated women whether it pleases them to be
shown moving on an intellectual level with men, they will answer that it
does; numbers of them claim the situation. Now, Comedy is the fountain
of sound sense; not the less perfectly sound on account of the sparkle:
and Comedy lifts women to a station offering them free play for their
wit, as they usually show it, when they have it, on the side of sound
sense. The higher the Comedy, the more prominent the part they enjoy in
it. Dorine in the Tartuffe is common-sense incarnate, though palpably a
waiting-maid. Celimene is undisputed mistress of the same attribute in
the Misanthrope; wiser as a woman than Alceste as man. In Congreve’s
Way of the World, Millamant overshadows Mirabel, the sprightliest male
figure of English comedy.
But those two ravishing women, so copious and so choice of speech, who
fence with men and pass their guard, are heartless! Is it not preferable
to be the pretty idiot, the passive beauty, the adorable bundle of
caprices, very feminine, very sympathetic, of romantic and sentimental
fiction? Our women are taught to think so. The Agnes of the Ecole des
Femmes should be a lesson for men. The heroines of Comedy are like women
of the world, not necessarily heartless from being clear-sighted: they
seem so to the sentimentally-reared only for the reason that they use
their wits, and are not wandering vessels crying for a captain or a
pilot. Comedy is an exhibition of their battle with men, and that of men
with them: and as the two, however divergent, both look on one object,
namely, Life, the gradual similarity of their impressions must bring
them to some resemblance. The Comic poet dares to show us men and women
coming to this mutual likeness; he is for saying that when they draw
together in social life their minds grow liker; just as the philosopher
discerns the similarity of boy and girl, until the girl is marched away
to the nursery. Philosopher and Comic poet are of a cousinship in the
eye they cast on life: and they are equally unpopular with our wilful
English of the hazy region and the ideal that is not to be disturbed.
Thus, for want of instruction in the Comic idea, we lose a large
audience among our cultivated middle class that we should expect to
support Comedy. The sentimentalist is as averse as the Puritan and as
the Bacchanalian.
Our traditions are unfortunate. The public taste is with the idle
laughers, and still inclines to follow them. It may be shown by an
analysis of Wycherley’s Plain Dealer, a coarse prose adaption of the
Misanthrope, stuffed with lumps of realism in a vulgarized theme to
hit the mark of English appetite, that we have in it the keynote of the
Comedy of our stage. It is Moliere travestied, with the hoof to his
foot and hair on the pointed tip of his ear. And how difficult it is for
writers to disentangle themselves from bad traditions is noticeable
when we find Goldsmith, who had grave command of the Comic in narrative,
producing an elegant farce for a Comedy; and Fielding, who was a master
of the Comic both in narrative and in dialogue, not even approaching to
the presentable in farce.
These bad traditions of Comedy affect us not only on the stage, but in
our literature, and may be tracked into our social life. They are the
ground of the heavy moralizings by which we are outwearied, about Life
as a Comedy, and Comedy as a jade, {4} when popular writers, conscious
of fatigue in creativeness, desire to be cogent in a modish cynicism:
perversions of the idea of life, and of the proper esteem for the
society we have wrested from brutishness, and would carry higher. Stock
images of this description are accepted by the timid and the sensitive,
as well as by the saturnine, quite seriously; for not many look
abroad with their own eyes, fewer still have the habit of thinking
for themselves. Life, we know too well, is not a Comedy, but something
strangely mixed; nor is Comedy a vile mask. The corrupted importation
from France was noxious; a noble entertainment spoilt to suit the
wretched taste of a villanous age; and the later imitations of it,
partly drained of its poison and made decorous, became tiresome,
notwithstanding their fun, in the perpetual recurring of the same
situations, owing to the absence of original study and vigour of
conception. Scene v. Act 2 of the Misanthrope, owing, no doubt, to the
fact of our not producing matter for original study, is repeated in
succession by Wycherley, Congreve, and Sheridan, and as it is at second
hand, we have it done cynically--or such is the tone; in the manner of
‘below stairs.’ Comedy thus treated may be accepted as a version of the
ordinary worldly understanding of our social life; at least, in accord
with the current dicta concerning it. The epigrams can be made; but
it is uninstructive, rather tending to do disservice. Comedy justly
treated, as you find it in Moliere, whom we so clownishly mishandled,
the Comedy of Moliere throws no infamous reflection upon life. It is
deeply conceived, in the first place, and therefore it cannot be impure.
Meditate on that statement. Never did man wield so shrieking a
scourge upon vice, but his consummate self-mastery is not shaken while
administering it. Tartuffe and Harpagon, in fact, are made each to whip
himself and his class, the false pietists, and the insanely covetous.
Moliere has only set them in motion. He strips Folly to the skin,
displays the imposture of the creature, and is content to offer her
better clothing, with the lesson Chrysale reads to Philaminte and
Belise. He conceives purely, and he writes purely, in the simplest
language, the simplest of French verse. The source of his wit is clear
reason: it is a fountain of that soil; and it springs to vindicate
reason, common-sense, rightness and justice; for no vain purpose ever.
The wit is of such pervading spirit that it inspires a pun with meaning
and interest. {5} His moral does not hang like a tail, or preach from
one character incessantly cocking an eye at the audience, as in recent
realistic French Plays: but is in the heart of his work, throbbing
with every pulsation of an organic structure. If Life is likened to the
comedy of Moliere, there is no scandal in the comparison.
Congreve’s Way of the World is an exception to our other comedies, his
own among them, by virtue of the remarkable brilliancy of the writing,
and the figure of Millamant. The comedy has no idea in it, beyond the
stale one, that so the world goes; and it concludes with the jaded
discovery of a document at a convenient season for the descent of the
curtain. A plot was an afterthought with Congreve. By the help of a
wooden villain (Maskwell) marked Gallows to the flattest eye, he gets
a sort of plot in The Double Dealer. {6} His Way of the World might
be called The Conquest of a Town Coquette, and Millamant is a perfect
portrait of a coquette, both in her resistance to Mirabel and the manner
of her surrender, and also in her tongue. The wit here is not so salient
as in certain passages of Love for Love, where Valentine feigns madness
or retorts on his father, or Mrs. Frail rejoices in the harmlessness of
wounds to a woman’s virtue, if she ‘keeps them from air.’ In The Way
of the World, it appears less prepared in the smartness, and is more
diffused in the more characteristic style of the speakers. Here,
however, as elsewhere, his famous wit is like a bully-fencer, not
ashamed to lay traps for its exhibition, transparently petulant for
the train between certain ordinary words and the powder-magazine of the
improprieties to be fired. Contrast the wit of Congreve with Moliere’s.
That of the first is a Toledo blade, sharp, and wonderfully supple for
steel; cast for duelling, restless in the scabbard, being so pretty when
out of it. To shine, it must have an adversary. Moliere’s wit is like a
running brook, with innumerable fresh lights on it at every turn of the
wood through which its business is to find a way. It does not run in
search of obstructions, to be noisy over them; but when dead leaves
and viler substances are heaped along the course, its natural song is
heightened. Without effort, and with no dazzling flashes of achievement,
it is full of healing, the wit of good breeding, the wit of wisdom.
‘Genuine humour and true wit,’ says Landor, {7} ‘require a sound and
capacious mind, which is always a grave one. Rabelais and La Fontaine
are recorded by their countrymen to have been reveurs. Few men have been
graver than Pascal. Few men have been wittier.’
To apply the citation of so great a brain as Pascal’s to our countryman
would be unfair. Congreve had a certain soundness of mind; of capacity,
in the sense intended by Landor, he had little. Judging him by his wit,
he performed some happy thrusts, and taking it for genuine, it is a
surface wit, neither rising from a depth nor flowing from a spring.
‘On voit qu’il se travaille e dire de bons mots.’
He drives the poor hack word, ‘fool,’ as cruelly to the market for wit
as any of his competitors. Here is an example, that has been held up for
eulogy:
WITWOUD: He has brought me a letter from the fool my brother, etc. etc.
MIRABEL: A fool, and your brother, Witwoud?
WITWOUD: Ay, ay, my half-brother. My half-brother he is; no nearer, upon
my honour.
MIRABEL: Then ‘tis possible he may be but half a fool.
By evident preparation. This is a sort of wit one remembers to have
heard at school, of a brilliant outsider; perhaps to have been guilty
of oneself, a trifle later. It was, no doubt, a blaze of intellectual
fireworks to the bumpkin squire, who came to London to go to the theatre
and learn manners.
Where Congreve excels all his English rivals is in his literary force,
and a succinctness of style peculiar to him. He had correct judgement,
a correct ear, readiness of illustration within a narrow range, in
snapshots of the obvious at the obvious, and copious language. He
hits the mean of a fine style and a natural in dialogue. He is at
once precise and voluble. If you have ever thought upon style you will
acknowledge it to be a signal accomplishment. In this he is a classic,
and is worthy of treading a measure with Moliere. The Way of the World
may be read out currently at a first glance, so sure are the accents of
the emphatic meaning to strike the eye, perforce of the crispness and
cunning polish of the sentences. You have not to look over them before
you confide yourself to him; he will carry you safe. Sheridan imitated,
but was far from surpassing him. The flow of boudoir Billingsgate in
Lady Wishfort is unmatched for the vigour and pointedness of the tongue.
It spins along with a final ring, like the voice of Nature in a fury,
and is, indeed, racy eloquence of the elevated fishwife.
Millamant is an admirable, almost a lovable heroine. It is a piece of
genius in a writer to make a woman’s manner of speech portray her.
You feel sensible of her presence in every line of her speaking.
The stipulations with her lover in view of marriage, her fine lady’s
delicacy, and fine lady’s easy evasions of indelicacy, coquettish
airs, and playing with irresolution, which in a common maid would be
bashfulness, until she submits to ‘dwindle into a wife,’ as she says,
form a picture that lives in the frame, and is in harmony with Mirabel’s
description of her:
‘Here she comes, i’ faith, full sail, with her fan spread, and her
streamers out, and a shoal of fools for tenders.’
And, after an interview:
‘Think of you! To think of a whirlwind, though ‘twere in a whirlwind,
were a case of more steady contemplation, a very tranquillity of mind
and mansion.’
There is a picturesqueness, as of Millamant and no other, in her voice,
when she is encouraged to take Mirabel by Mrs. Fainall, who is ‘sure she
has a mind to him’:
MILLAMANT: Are you? I think I have--and the horrid man looks as if he
thought so too, etc. etc.
One hears the tones, and sees the sketch and colour of the whole scene
in reading it.
Celimene is behind Millamant in vividness. An air of bewitching
whimsicality hovers over the graces of this Comic heroine, like the
lively conversational play of a beautiful mouth.
But in wit she is no rival of Celimene. What she utters adds to her
personal witchery, and is not further memorable. She is a flashing
portrait, and a type of the superior ladies who do not think, not of
those who do. In representing a class, therefore, it is a lower class,
in the proportion that one of Gainsborough’s full-length aristocratic
women is below the permanent impressiveness of a fair Venetian head.
Millamant side by side with Celimene is an example of how far the
realistic painting of a character can be carried to win our favour; and
of where it falls short. Celimene is a woman’s mind in movement, armed
with an ungovernable wit; with perspicacious clear eyes for the world,
and a very distinct knowledge that she belongs to the world, and is
most at home in it. She is attracted to Alceste by her esteem for his
honesty; she cannot avoid seeing where the good sense of the man is
diseased.
Rousseau, in his letter to D’Alembert on the subject of the Misanthrope,
discusses the character of Alceste, as though Moliere had put him
forth for an absolute example of misanthropy; whereas Alceste is only a
misanthrope of the circle he finds himself placed in: he has a touching
faith in the virtue residing in the country, and a critical love of
sweet simpleness. Nor is he the principal person of the comedy to which
he gives a name. He is only passively comic. Celimene is the active
spirit. While he is denouncing and railing, the trial is imposed upon
her to make the best of him, and control herself, as much as a witty
woman, eagerly courted, can do. By appreciating him she practically
confesses her faultiness, and she is better disposed to meet him
half.way than he is to bend an inch: only she is une ame de vingt ans,
the world is pleasant, and if the gilded flies of the Court are silly,
uncompromising fanatics have their ridiculous features as well. Can she
abandon the life they make agreeable to her, for a man who will not be
guided by the common sense of his class; and who insists on plunging
into one extreme--equal to suicide in her eyes--to avoid another? That
is the comic question of the Misanthrope. Why will he not continue to
mix with the world smoothly, appeased by the flattery of her secret and
really sincere preference of him, and taking his revenge in satire of
it, as she does from her own not very lofty standard, and will by and by
do from his more exalted one?
Celimene is worldliness: Alceste is unworldliness. It does not quite
imply unselfishness; and that is perceived by her shrewd head. Still he
is a very uncommon figure in her circle, and she esteems him, l’homme
aux rubans verts, ‘who sometimes diverts but more often horribly vexes
her,’ as she can say of him when her satirical tongue is on the run.
Unhappily the soul of truth in him, which wins her esteem, refuses to
be tamed, or silent, or unsuspicious, and is the perpetual obstacle to
their good accord. He is that melancholy person, the critic of everybody
save himself; intensely sensitive to the faults of others, wounded by
them; in love with his own indubitable honesty, and with his ideal of
the simpler form of life befitting it: qualities which constitute the
satirist. He is a Jean Jacques of the Court. His proposal to Celimene
when he pardons her, that she should follow him in flying humankind, and
his frenzy of detestation of her at her refusal, are thoroughly in the
mood of Jean Jacques. He is an impracticable creature of a priceless
virtue; but Celimene may feel that to fly with him to the desert: that
is from the Court to the country
‘Ou d’etre homme d’honneur on ait la liberte,’
she is likely to find herself the companion of a starving satirist, like
that poor princess who ran away with the waiting-man, and when both were
hungry in the forest, was ordered to give him flesh. She is a fieffee
coquette, rejoicing in her wit and her attractions, and distinguished by
her inclination for Alceste in the midst of her many other lovers;
only she finds it hard to cut them off--what woman with a train does
not?--and when the exposure of her naughty wit has laid her under
their rebuke, she will do the utmost she can: she will give her hand to
honesty, but she cannot quite abandon worldliness. She would be unwise
if she did.
The fable is thin. Our pungent contrivers of plots would see no
indication of life in the outlines. The life of the comedy is in the
idea. As with the singing of the sky-lark out of sight, you must love
the bird to be attentive to the song, so in this highest flight of
the Comic Muse, you must love pure Comedy warmly to understand the
Misanthrope: you must be receptive of the idea of Comedy. And to love
Comedy you must know the real world, and know men and women well enough
not to expect too much of them, though you may still hope for good.
Menander wrote a comedy called Misogynes, said to have been the most
celebrated of his works. This misogynist is a married man, according to
the fragment surviving, and is a hater of women through hatred of his
wife. He generalizes upon them from the example of this lamentable
adjunct of his fortunes, and seems to have got the worst of it in the
contest with her, which is like the issue in reality, in the polite
world. He seems also to have deserved it, which may be as true to the
copy. But we are unable to say whether the wife was a good voice of her
sex: or how far Menander in this instance raised the idea of woman
from the mire it was plunged into by the comic poets, or rather satiric
dramatists, of the middle period of Greek Comedy preceding him and
the New Comedy, who devoted their wit chiefly to the abuse, and for
a diversity, to the eulogy of extra-mural ladies of conspicuous fame.
Menander idealized them without purposely elevating. He satirized a
certain Thais, and his Thais of the Eunuchus of Terence is neither
professionally attractive nor repulsive; his picture of the two
Andrians, Chrysis and her sister, is nowhere to be matched for
tenderness. But the condition of honest women in his day did not permit
of the freedom of action and fencing dialectic of a Celimene, and
consequently it is below our mark of pure Comedy.
Sainte-Beuve conjures up the ghost of Menander, saying: For the love of
me love Terence. It is through love of Terence that moderns are able to
love Menander; and what is preserved of Terence has not apparently
given us the best of the friend of Epicurus. [Greek text which cannot be
reproduced] the lover taken in horror, and [Greek text] the damsel shorn
of her locks, have a promising sound for scenes of jealousy and a too
masterful display of lordly authority, leading to regrets, of the
kind known to intemperate men who imagined they were fighting with the
weaker, as the fragments indicate.
Of the six comedies of Terence, four are derived from Menander; two,
the Hecyra and the Phormio, from Apollodorus. These two are inferior in
comic action and the peculiar sweetness of Menander to the Andria, the
Adelphi, the Heautontimorumenus, and the Eunuchus: but Phormio is a more
dashing and amusing convivial parasite than the Gnatho of the
last-named comedy. There were numerous rivals of whom we know next to
nothing--except by the quotations of Athenaeus and Plutarch, and the
Greek grammarians who cited them to support a dictum--in this as in the
preceding periods of comedy in Athens, for Menander’s plays are counted
by many scores, and they were crowned by the prize only eight times. The
favourite poet with critics, in Greece as in Rome, was Menander; and
if some of his rivals here and there surpassed him in comic force, and
out-stripped him in competition by an appositeness to the occasion that
had previously in the same way deprived the genius of Aristophanes of
its due reward in Clouds and Birds, his position as chief of the comic
poets of his age was unchallenged. Plutarch very unnecessarily drags
Aristophanes into a comparison with him, to the confusion of the older
poet. Their aims, the matter they dealt in, and the times, were quite
dissimilar. But it is no wonder that Plutarch, writing when Athenian
beauty of style was the delight of his patrons, should rank Menander
at the highest. In what degree of faithfulness Terence copied Menander,
whether, as he states of the passage in the Adelphi taken from Diphilus,
verbum de verbo in the lovelier scenes--the description of the last
words of the dying Andrian, and of her funeral, for instance--remains
conjectural. For us Terence shares with his master the praise of an
amenity that is like Elysian speech, equable and ever gracious; like the
face of the Andrian’s young sister:
‘Adeo modesto, adeo venusto, ut nihil supra.’
The celebrated ‘flens quam familiariter,’ of which the closest
rendering grounds hopelessly on harsh prose, to express the sorrowful
confidingness of a young girl who has lost her sister and dearest
friend, and has but her lover left to her; ‘she turned and flung herself
on his bosom, weeping as though at home there’: this our instinct
tells us must be Greek, though hardly finer in Greek. Certain lines of
Terence, compared with the original fragments, show that he embellished
them; but his taste was too exquisite for him to do other than devote
his genius to the honest translation of such pieces as the above.
Menander, then; with him, through the affinity of sympathy, Terence; and
Shakespeare and Moliere have this beautiful translucency of language:
and the study of the comic poets might be recommended, if for that only.
A singular ill fate befell the writings of Menander. What we have of him
in Terence was chosen probably to please the cultivated Romans; {8} and
is a romantic play with a comic intrigue, obtained in two instances, the
Andria and the Eunuchus, by rolling a couple of his originals into one.
The titles of certain of the lost plays indicate the comic illumining
character; a Self-pitier, a Self-chastiser, an Ill-tempered man, a
Superstitious, an Incredulous, etc., point to suggestive domestic
themes.
Terence forwarded manuscript translations from Greece, that suffered
shipwreck; he, who could have restored the treasure, died on the way
home. The zealots of Byzantium completed the work of destruction. So we
have the four comedies of Terence, numbering six of Menander, with a few
sketches of plots--one of them, the Thesaurus, introduces a miser, whom
we should have liked to contrast with Harpagon--and a multitude of small
fragments of a sententious cast, fitted for quotation. Enough remains to
make his greatness felt.
Without undervaluing other writers of Comedy, I think it may be said
that Menander and Moliere stand alone specially as comic poets of the
feelings and the idea. In each of them there is a conception of
the Comic that refines even to pain, as in the Menedemus of the
Heautontimorumenus, and in the Misanthrope. Menander and Moliere have
given the principal types to Comedy hitherto. The Micio and Demea of the
Adelphi, with their opposing views of the proper management of youth,
are still alive; the Sganarelles and Arnolphes of the Ecole des Maris
and the Ecole des Femmes, are not all buried. Tartuffe is the father of
the hypocrites; Orgon of the dupes; Thraso, of the braggadocios; Alceste
of the ‘Manlys’; Davus and Syrus of the intriguing valets, the Scapins
and Figaros. Ladies that soar in the realms of Rose-Pink, whose language
wears the nodding plumes of intellectual conceit, are traceable to
Philaminte and Belise of the Femmes Savantes: and the mordant witty
women have the tongue of Celimene. The reason is, that these two poets
idealized upon life: the foundation of their types is real and in the
quick, but they painted with spiritual strength, which is the solid in
Art.
The idealistic conceptions of Comedy gives breadth and opportunities of
daring to Comic genius, and helps to solve the difficulties it creates.
How, for example, shall an audience be assured that an evident and
monstrous dupe is actually deceived without being an absolute fool? In
Le Tartuffe the note of high Comedy strikes when Orgon on his return
home hears of his idol’s excellent appetite. ‘Le pauvre homme!’ he
exclaims. He is told that the wife of his bosom has been unwell. ‘Et
Tartuffe?’ he asks, impatient to hear him spoken of, his mind suffused
with the thought of Tartuffe, crazy with tenderness, and again he
croons, ‘Le pauvre homme!’ It is the mother’s cry of pitying delight at
a nurse’s recital of the feats in young animal gluttony of her cherished
infant. After this masterstroke of the Comic, you not only put faith in
Orgon’s roseate prepossession, you share it with him by comic sympathy,
and can listen with no more than a tremble of the laughing muscles to
the instance he gives of the sublime humanity of Tartuffe:
‘Un rien presque suffit pour le scandaliser, Jusque-le, qu’il se vint
l’autre jour accuser D’avoir pris une puce en faisant sa priere, Et de
l’avoir tuee avec trop de colere.’
And to have killed it too wrathfully! Translating Moliere is like
humming an air one has heard performed by an accomplished violinist of
the pure tones without flourish.
Orgon, awakening to find another dupe in Madame Pernelle, incredulous
of the revelations which have at last opened his own besotted eyes, is a
scene of the double Comic, vivified by the spell previously cast on the
mind. There we feel the power of the poet’s creation; and in the sharp
light of that sudden turn the humanity is livelier than any realistic
work can make it.
Italian Comedy gives many hints for a Tartuffe; but they may be found in
Boccaccio, as well as in Machiavelli’s Mandragola. The Frate Timoteo of
this piece is only a very oily friar, compliantly assisting an intrigue
with ecclesiastical sophisms (to use the mildest word) for payment.
Frate Timoteo has a fine Italian priestly pose.
DONNA: Credete voi, che’l Turco passi questo anno in Italia?
F. TIM.: Se voi non fate orazione, si.
Priestly arrogance and unctuousness, and trickeries and casuistries,
cannot be painted without our discovering a likeness in the long Italian
gallery. Goldoni sketched the Venetian manners of the decadence of the
Republic with a French pencil, and was an Italian Scribe in style.
The Spanish stage is richer in such Comedies as that which furnished the
idea of the Menteur to Corneille. But you must force yourself to believe
that this liar is not forcing his vein when he piles lie upon lie. There
is no preceding touch to win the mind to credulity. Spanish Comedy is
generally in sharp outline, as of skeletons; in quick movement, as of
marionnettes. The Comedy might be performed by a troop of the corps
de ballet; and in the recollection of the reading it resolves to an
animated shuffle of feet. It is, in fact, something other than the true
idea of Comedy. Where the sexes are separated, men and women grow, as
the Portuguese call it, affaimados of one another, famine-stricken; and
all the tragic elements are on the stage. Don Juan is a comic character
that sends souls flying: nor does the humour of the breaking of a dozen
women’s hearts conciliate the Comic Muse with the drawing of blood.
German attempts at Comedy remind one vividly of Heine’s image of his
country in the dancing of Atta Troll. Lessing tried his hand at it, with
a sobering effect upon readers. The intention to produce the reverse
effect is just visible, and therein, like the portly graces of the poor
old Pyrenean Bear poising and twirling on his right hind-leg and his
left, consists the fun. Jean Paul Richter gives the best edition of the
German Comic in the contrast of Siebenkas with his Lenette. A light of
the Comic is in Goethe; enough to complete the splendid figure of the
man, but no more.
The German literary laugh, like the timed awakenings of their
Barbarossa in the hollows of the Untersberg, is infrequent, and rather
monstrous--never a laugh of men and women in concert. It comes of
unrefined abstract fancy, grotesque or grim, or gross, like the peculiar
humours of their little earthmen. Spiritual laughter they have not yet
attained to: sentimentalism waylays them in the flight. Here and there
a Volkslied or Marchen shows a national aptitude for stout animal
laughter; and we see that the literature is built on it, which is
hopeful so far; but to enjoy it, to enter into the philosophy of the
Broad Grin, that seems to hesitate between the skull and the embryo, and
reaches its perfection in breadth from the pulling of two square fingers
at the corners of the mouth, one must have aid of ‘the good Rhine wine,’
and be of German blood unmixed besides. This treble-Dutch lumbersomeness
of the Comic spirit is of itself exclusive of the idea of Comedy, and
the poor voice allowed to women in German domestic life will account
for the absence of comic dialogues reflecting upon life in that land. I
shall speak of it again in the second section of this lecture.
Eastward you have total silence of Comedy among a people intensely
susceptible to laughter, as the Arabian Nights will testify. Where the
veil is over women’s-faces, you cannot have society, without which the
senses are barbarous and the Comic spirit is driven to the gutters of
grossness to slake its thirst. Arabs in this respect are worse than
Italians--much worse than Germans; just in the degree that their system
of treating women is worse.
M. Saint-Marc Girardin, the excellent French essayist and master
of critical style, tells of a conversation he had once with an Arab
gentleman on the topic of the different management of these difficult
creatures in Orient and in Occident: and the Arab spoke in praise of
many good results of the greater freedom enjoyed by Western ladies, and
the charm of conversing with them. He was questioned why his countrymen
took no measures to grant them something of that kind of liberty. He
jumped out of his individuality in a twinkling, and entered into the
sentiments of his race, replying, from the pinnacle of a splendid
conceit, with affected humility of manner: ‘YOU can look on them without
perturbation--but WE!’... And after this profoundly comic interjection,
he added, in deep tones, ‘The very face of a woman!’ Our representative
of temperate notions demurely consented that the Arab’s pride of
inflammability should insist on the prudery of the veil as the
civilizing medium of his race.
There has been fun in Bagdad. But there never will be civilization where
Comedy is not possible; and that comes of some degree of social equality
of the sexes. I am not quoting the Arab to exhort and disturb the
somnolent East; rather for cultivated women to recognize that the Comic
Muse is one of their best friends. They are blind to their interests
in swelling the ranks of the sentimentalists. Let them look with their
clearest vision abroad and at home. They will see that where they have
no social freedom, Comedy is absent: where they are household drudges,
the form of Comedy is primitive: where they are tolerably independent,
but uncultivated, exciting melodrama takes its place and a sentimental
version of them. Yet the Comic will out, as they would know if they
listened to some of the private conversations of men whose minds
are undirected by the Comic Muse: as the sentimental man, to his
astonishment, would know likewise, if he in similar fashion could
receive a lesson. But where women are on the road to an equal footing
with men, in attainments and in liberty--in what they have won
for themselves, and what has been granted them by a fair
civilization--there, and only waiting to be transplanted from life to
the stage, or the novel, or the poem, pure Comedy flourishes, and is,
as it would help them to be, the sweetest of diversions, the wisest of
delightful companions.
Now, to look about us in the present time, I think it will be
acknowledged that in neglecting the cultivation of the Comic idea, we
are losing the aid of a powerful auxiliar. You see Folly perpetually
sliding into new shapes in a society possessed of wealth and leisure,
with many whims, many strange ailments and strange doctors. Plenty of
common-sense is in the world to thrust her back when she pretends to
empire. But the first-born of common-sense, the vigilant Comic, which is
the genius of thoughtful laughter, which would readily extinguish her at
the outset, is not serving as a public advocate.
You will have noticed the disposition of common-sense, under pressure
of some pertinacious piece of light-headedness, to grow impatient and
angry. That is a sign of the absence, or at least of the dormancy, of
the Comic idea. For Folly is the natural prey of the Comic, known to
it in all her transformations, in every disguise; and it is with the
springing delight of hawk over heron, hound after fox, that it gives her
chase, never fretting, never tiring, sure of having her, allowing her no
rest.
Contempt is a sentiment that cannot be entertained by comic
intelligence. What is it but an excuse to be idly minded, or personally
lofty, or comfortably narrow, not perfectly humane? If we do not
feign when we say that we despise Folly, we shut the brain. There is
a disdainful attitude in the presence of Folly, partaking of the
foolishness to Comic perception: and anger is not much less foolish than
disdain. The struggle we have to conduct is essence against essence. Let
no one doubt of the sequel when this emanation of what is firmest in us
is launched to strike down the daughter of Unreason and Sentimentalism:
such being Folly’s parentage, when it is respectable.
Our modern system of combating her is too long defensive, and carried on
too ploddingly with concrete engines of war in the attack. She has time
to get behind entrenchments. She is ready to stand a siege, before the
heavily armed man of science and the writer of the leading article or
elaborate essay have primed their big guns. It should be remembered that
she has charms for the multitude; and an English multitude seeing her
make a gallant fight of it will be half in love with her, certainly
willing to lend her a cheer. Benevolent subscriptions assist her to hire
her own man of science, her own organ in the Press. If ultimately she is
cast out and overthrown, she can stretch a finger at gaps in our ranks.
She can say that she commanded an army and seduced men, whom we thought
sober men and safe, to act as her lieutenants. We learn rather gloomily,
after she has flashed her lantern, that we have in our midst able
men and men with minds for whom there is no pole-star in intellectual
navigation. Comedy, or the Comic element, is the specific for the
poison of delusion while Folly is passing from the state of vapour to
substantial form.
O for a breath of Aristophanes, Rabelais, Voltaire, Cervantes, Fielding,
Moliere! These are spirits that, if you know them well, will come when
you do call. You will find the very invocation of them act on you like a
renovating air--the South-west coming off the sea, or a cry in the Alps.
No one would presume to say that we are deficient in jokers. They
abound, and the organisation directing their machinery to shoot them in
the wake of the leading article and the popular sentiment is good.
But the Comic differs from them in addressing the wits for laughter; and
the sluggish wits want some training to respond to it, whether in public
life or private, and particularly when the feelings are excited.
The sense of the Comic is much blunted by habits of punning and of using
humouristic phrase: the trick of employing Johnsonian polysyllables
to treat of the infinitely little. And it really may be humorous, of a
kind, yet it will miss the point by going too much round about it.
A certain French Duke Pasquier died, some years back, at a very advanced
age. He had been the venerable Duke Pasquier in his later years up to
the period of his death. There was a report of Duke Pasquier that he
was a man of profound egoism. Hence an argument arose, and was warmly
sustained, upon the excessive selfishness of those who, in a world of
troubles, and calls to action, and innumerable duties, husband their
strength for the sake of living on. Can it be possible, the argument
ran, for a truly generous heart to continue beating up to the age of a
hundred? Duke Pasquier was not without his defenders, who likened him to
the oak of the forest--a venerable comparison.
The argument was conducted on both sides with spirit and earnestness,
lightened here and there by frisky touches of the polysyllabic playful,
reminding one of the serious pursuit of their fun by truant boys, that
are assured they are out of the eye of their master, and now and then
indulge in an imitation of him. And well might it be supposed that the
Comic idea was asleep, not overlooking them! It resolved at last
to this, that either Duke Pasquier was a scandal on our humanity
in clinging to life so long, or that he honoured it by so sturdy a
resistance to the enemy. As one who has entangled himself in a labyrinth
is glad to get out again at the entrance, the argument ran about to
conclude with its commencement.
Now, imagine a master of the Comic treating this theme, and particularly
the argument on it. Imagine an Aristophanic comedy of THE CENTENARIAN,
with choric praises of heroical early death, and the same of a stubborn
vitality, and the poet laughing at the chorus; and the grand question
for contention in dialogue, as to the exact age when a man should
die, to the identical minute, that he may preserve the respect of
his fellows, followed by a systematic attempt to make an accurate
measurement in parallel lines, with a tough rope-yarn by one party, and
a string of yawns by the other, of the veteran’s power of enduring
life, and our capacity for enduring HIM, with tremendous pulling on both
sides.
Would not the Comic view of the discussion illumine it and the
disputants like very lightning? There are questions, as well as persons,
that only the Comic can fitly touch.
Aristophanes would probably have crowned the ancient tree, with the
consolatory observation to the haggard line of long-expectant heirs of
the Centenarian, that they live to see the blessedness of coming of a
strong stock. The shafts of his ridicule would mainly have been aimed
at the disputants. For the sole ground of the argument was the old man’s
character, and sophists are not needed to demonstrate that we can very
soon have too much of a bad thing. A Centenarian does not necessarily
provoke the Comic idea, nor does the corpse of a duke. It is not
provoked in the order of nature, until we draw its penetrating
attentiveness to some circumstance with which we have been mixing our
private interests, or our speculative obfuscation. Dulness, insensible
to the Comic, has the privilege of arousing it; and the laying of a dull
finger on matters of human life is the surest method of establishing
electrical communications with a battery of laughter--where the Comic
idea is prevalent.
But if the Comic idea prevailed with us, and we had an Aristophanes
to barb and wing it, we should be breathing air of Athens. Prosers now
pouring forth on us like public fountains would be cut short in the
street and left blinking, dumb as pillar-posts, with letters thrust into
their mouths. We should throw off incubus, our dreadful familiar--by
some called boredom--whom it is our present humiliation to be just alive
enough to loathe, never quick enough to foil. There would be a bright
and positive, clear Hellenic perception of facts. The vapours of
Unreason and Sentimentalism would be blown away before they were
productive. Where would Pessimist and Optimist be? They would in any
case have a diminished audience. Yet possibly the change of despots,
from good-natured old obtuseness to keen-edged intelligence, which is by
nature merciless, would be more than we could bear. The rupture of the
link between dull people, consisting in the fraternal agreement that
something is too clever for them, and a shot beyond them, is not to
be thought of lightly; for, slender though the link may seem, it is
equivalent to a cement forming a concrete of dense cohesion, very
desirable in the estimation of the statesman.
A political Aristophanes, taking advantage of his lyrical Bacchic
licence, was found too much for political Athens. I would not ask to
have him revived, but that the sharp light of such a spirit as his might
be with us to strike now and then on public affairs, public themes, to
make them spin along more briskly.
He hated with the politician’s fervour the sophist who corrupted
simplicity of thought, the poet who destroyed purity of style, the
demagogue, ‘the saw-toothed monster,’ who, as he conceived, chicaned
the mob, and he held his own against them by strength of laughter, until
fines, the curtailing of his Comic licence in the chorus, and ultimately
the ruin of Athens, which could no longer support the expense of the
chorus, threw him altogether on dialogue, and brought him under the law.
After the catastrophe, the poet, who had ever been gazing back at the
men of Marathon and Salamis, must have felt that he had foreseen it;
and that he was wise when he pleaded for peace, and derided military
coxcombry, and the captious old creature Demus, we can admit. He had
the Comic poet’s gift of common-sense--which does not always include
political intelligence; yet his political tendency raised him above the
Old Comedy turn for uproarious farce. He abused Socrates, but Xenophon,
the disciple of Socrates, by his trained rhetoric saved the Ten
Thousand. Aristophanes might say that if his warnings had been followed
there would have been no such thing as a mercenary Greek expedition
under Cyrus. Athens, however, was on a landslip, falling; none could
arrest it. To gaze back, to uphold the old times, was a most natural
conservatism, and fruitless. The aloe had bloomed. Whether right or
wrong in his politics and his criticisms, and bearing in mind the
instruments he played on and the audience he had to win, there is an
idea in his comedies: it is the Idea of Good Citizenship.
He is not likely to be revived. He stands, like Shakespeare, an
unapproachable. Swift says of him, with a loving chuckle:
‘But as for Comic Aristophanes, The dog too witty and too profane is.’
Aristophanes was ‘profane,’ under satiric direction, unlike his rivals
Cratinus, Phrynichus, Ameipsias, Eupolis, and others, if we are to
believe him, who in their extraordinary Donnybrook Fair of the day of
Comedy, thumped one another and everybody else with absolute heartiness,
as he did, but aimed at small game, and dragged forth particular women,
which he did not. He is an aggregate of many men, all of a certain
greatness. We may build up a conception of his powers if we mount
Rabelais upon Hudibras, lift him with the songfulness of Shelley, give
him a vein of Heinrich Heine, and cover him with the mantle of the
Anti-Jacobin, adding (that there may be some Irish in him) a dash of
Grattan, before he is in motion.
But such efforts at conceiving one great one by incorporation of minors
are vain, and cry for excuse. Supposing Wilkes for leading man in a
country constantly plunging into war under some plumed Lamachus, with
enemies periodically firing the land up to the gates of London, and a
Samuel Foote, of prodigious genius, attacking him with ridicule, I
think it gives a notion of the conflict engaged in by Aristophanes.
This laughing bald-pate, as he calls himself, was a Titanic pamphleteer,
using laughter for his political weapon; a laughter without scruple,
the laughter of Hercules. He was primed with wit, as with the garlic he
speaks of giving to the game-cocks, to make them fight the better. And
he was a lyric poet of aerial delicacy, with the homely song of a jolly
national poet, and a poet of such feeling that the comic mask is at
times no broader than a cloth on a face to show the serious features
of our common likeness. He is not to be revived; but if his method
were studied, some of the fire in him would come to us, and we might be
revived.
Taking them generally, the English public are most in sympathy with
this primitive Aristophanic comedy, wherein the comic is capped by the
grotesque, irony tips the wit, and satire is a naked sword. They
have the basis of the Comic in them: an esteem for common-sense. They
cordially dislike the reverse of it. They have a rich laugh, though
it is not the gros rire of the Gaul tossing gros sel, nor the polished
Frenchman’s mentally digestive laugh. And if they have now, like a
monarch with a troop of dwarfs, too many jesters kicking the dictionary
about, to let them reflect that they are dull, occasionally, like the
pensive monarch surprising himself with an idea of an idea of his own,
they look so. And they are given to looking in the glass. They must see
that something ails them. How much even the better order of them will
endure, without a thought of the defensive, when the person afflicting
them is protected from satire, we read in Memoirs of a Preceding Age,
where the vulgarly tyrannous hostess of a great house of reception
shuffled the guests and played them like a pack of cards, with her exact
estimate of the strength of each one printed on them: and still this
house continued to be the most popular in England; nor did the lady ever
appear in print or on the boards as the comic type that she was.
It has been suggested that they have not yet spiritually comprehended
the signification of living in society; for who are cheerfuller, brisker
of wit, in the fields, and as explorers, colonisers, backwoodsmen?
They are happy in rough exercise, and also in complete repose. The
intermediate condition, when they are called upon to talk to one
another, upon other than affairs of business or their hobbies, reveals
them wearing a curious look of vacancy, as it were the socket of an eye
wanting. The Comic is perpetually springing up in social life, and, it
oppresses them from not being perceived.
Thus, at a dinner-party, one of the guests, who happens to have enrolled
himself in a Burial Company, politely entreats the others to inscribe
their names as shareholders, expatiating on the advantages accruing to
them in the event of their very possible speedy death, the salubrity
of the site, the aptitude of the soil for a quick consumption of their
remains, etc.; and they drink sadness from the incongruous man, and
conceive indigestion, not seeing him in a sharply defined light, that
would bid them taste the comic of him. Or it is mentioned that a newly
elected member of our Parliament celebrates his arrival at eminence by
the publication of a book on cab-fares, dedicated to a beloved female
relative deceased, and the comment on it is the word ‘Indeed.’ But,
merely for a contrast, turn to a not uncommon scene of yesterday in
the hunting-field, where a brilliant young rider, having broken his
collar-bone, trots away very soon after, against medical interdict,
half put together in splinters, to the most distant meet of his
neighbourhood, sure of escaping his doctor, who is the first person he
encounters. ‘I came here purposely to avoid you,’ says the patient. ‘I
came here purposely to take care of you,’ says the doctor. Off they
go, and come to a swollen brook. The patient clears it handsomely: the
doctor tumbles in. All the field are alive with the heartiest relish of
every incident and every cross-light on it; and dull would the man have
been thought who had not his word to say about it when riding home.
In our prose literature we have had delightful Comic writers. Besides
Fielding and Goldsmith, there is Miss Austen, whose Emma and Mr. Elton
might walk straight into a comedy, were the plot arranged for them.
Galt’s neglected novels have some characters and strokes of shrewd
comedy. In our poetic literature the comic is delicate and graceful
above the touch of Italian and French. Generally, however, the English
elect excel in satire, and they are noble humourists. The national
disposition is for hard-hitting, with a moral purpose to sanction it; or
for a rosy, sometimes a larmoyant, geniality, not unmanly in its verging
upon tenderness, and with a singular attraction for thick-headedness, to
decorate it with asses’ ears and the most beautiful sylvan haloes. But
the Comic is a different spirit.
You may estimate your capacity for Comic perception by being able to
detect the ridicule of them you love, without loving them less: and
more by being able to see yourself somewhat ridiculous in dear eyes, and
accepting the correction their image of you proposes.
Each one of an affectionate couple may be willing, as we say, to die
for the other, yet unwilling to utter the agreeable word at the right
moment; but if the wits were sufficiently quick for them to perceive
that they are in a comic situation, as affectionate couples must be
when they quarrel, they would not wait for the moon or the almanac, or
a Dorine, to bring back the flood-tide of tender feelings, that they
should join hands and lips.
If you detect the ridicule, and your kindliness is chilled by it, you
are slipping into the grasp of Satire.
If instead of falling foul of the ridiculous person with a satiric rod,
to make him writhe and shriek aloud, you prefer to sting him under
a semi-caress, by which he shall in his anguish be rendered dubious
whether indeed anything has hurt him, you are an engine of Irony.
If you laugh all round him, tumble him, roll him about, deal him a
smack, and drop a tear on him, own his likeness to you and yours to
your neighbour, spare him as little as you shun, pity him as much as you
expose, it is a spirit of Humour that is moving you.
The Comic, which is the perceptive, is the governing spirit, awakening
and giving aim to these powers of laughter, but it is not to be
confounded with them: it enfolds a thinner form of them, differing from
satire, in not sharply driving into the quivering sensibilities, and
from humour, in not comforting them and tucking them up, or indicating a
broader than the range of this bustling world to them.
Fielding’s Jonathan Wild presents a case of this peculiar distinction,
when that man of eminent greatness remarks upon the unfairness of a
trial in which the condemnation has been brought about by twelve men of
the opposite party; for it is not satiric, it is not humorous; yet it is
immensely comic to hear a guilty villain protesting that his own ‘party’
should have a voice in the Law. It opens an avenue into villains’
ratiocination. {9} And the Comic is not cancelled though we should
suppose Jonathan to be giving play to his humour. I may have dreamed
this or had it suggested to me, for on referring to Jonathan Wild, I do
not find it.
Apply the case to the man of deep wit, who is ever certain of his
condemnation by the opposite party, and then it ceases to be comic, and
will be satiric.
The look of Fielding upon Richardson is essentially comic. His method
of correcting the sentimental writer is a mixture of the comic and the
humorous. Parson Adams is a creation of humour. But both the conception
and the presentation of Alceste and of Tartuffe, of Celimene and
Philaminte, are purely comic, addressed to the intellect: there is no
humour in them, and they refresh the intellect they quicken to detect
their comedy, by force of the contrast they offer between themselves and
the wiser world about them; that is to say, society, or that assemblage
of minds whereof the Comic spirit has its origin.
Byron had splendid powers of humour, and the most poetic satire that we
have example of, fusing at times to hard irony. He had no strong comic
sense, or he would not have taken an anti-social position, which
is directly opposed to the Comic; and in his philosophy, judged by
philosophers, he is a comic figure, by reason of this deficiency. ‘So
bald er philosophirt ist er ein Kind,’ Goethe says of him. Carlyle sees
him in this comic light, treats him in the humorous manner.
The Satirist is a moral agent, often a social scavenger, working on a
storage of bile.
The Ironeist is one thing or another, according to his caprice. Irony is
the humour of satire; it may be savage as in Swift, with a moral object,
or sedate, as in Gibbon, with a malicious. The foppish irony fretting
to be seen, and the irony which leers, that you shall not mistake its
intention, are failures in satiric effort pretending to the treasures of
ambiguity.
The Humourist of mean order is a refreshing laugher, giving tone to the
feelings and sometimes allowing the feelings to be too much for him. But
the humourist of high has an embrace of contrasts beyond the scope of
the Comic poet.
Heart and mind laugh out at Don Quixote, and still you brood on him.
The juxtaposition of the knight and squire is a Comic conception, the
opposition of their natures most humorous. They are as different as the
two hemispheres in the time of Columbus, yet they touch and are bound
in one by laughter. The knight’s great aims and constant mishaps, his
chivalrous valiancy exercised on absurd objects, his good sense along
the highroad of the craziest of expeditions; the compassion he plucks
out of derision, and the admirable figure he preserves while stalking
through the frantically grotesque and burlesque assailing him, are in
the loftiest moods of humour, fusing the Tragic sentiment with the Comic
narrative.
The stroke of the great humourist is world-wide, with lights of Tragedy
in his laughter.
Taking a living great, though not creative, humourist to guide our
description: the skull of Yorick is in his hands in our seasons of
festival; he sees visions of primitive man capering preposterously under
the gorgeous robes of ceremonial. Our souls must be on fire when we wear
solemnity, if we would not press upon his shrewdest nerve. Finite and
infinite flash from one to the other with him, lending him a two-edged
thought that peeps out of his peacefullest lines by fits, like the
lantern of the fire-watcher at windows, going the rounds at night. The
comportment and performances of men in society are to him, by the vivid
comparison with their mortality, more grotesque than respectable. But
ask yourself, Is he always to be relied on for justness? He will fly
straight as the emissary eagle back to Jove at the true Hero. He will
also make as determined a swift descent upon the man of his wilful
choice, whom we cannot distinguish as a true one. This vast power of
his, built up of the feelings and the intellect in union, is often
wanting in proportion and in discretion. Humourists touching upon
History or Society are given to be capricious. They are, as in the
case of Sterne, given to be sentimental; for with them the feelings
are primary, as with singers. Comedy, on the other hand, is an
interpretation of the general mind, and is for that reason of necessity
kept in restraint. The French lay marked stress on mesure et gout,
and they own how much they owe to Moliere for leading them in simple
justness and taste. We can teach them many things; they can teach us in
this.
The Comic poet is in the narrow field, or enclosed square, of the
society he depicts; and he addresses the still narrower enclosure of
men’s intellects, with reference to the operation of the social world
upon their characters. He is not concerned with beginnings or endings or
surroundings, but with what you are now weaving. To understand his work
and value it, you must have a sober liking of your kind and a sober
estimate of our civilized qualities. The aim and business of the Comic
poet are misunderstood, his meaning is not seized nor his point of view
taken, when he is accused of dishonouring our nature and being hostile
to sentiment, tending to spitefulness and making an unfair use of
laughter. Those who detect irony in Comedy do so because they choose to
see it in life. Poverty, says the satirist, has nothing harder in itself
than that it makes men ridiculous. But poverty is never ridiculous to
Comic perception until it attempts to make its rags conceal its bareness
in a forlorn attempt at decency, or foolishly to rival ostentation.
Caleb Balderstone, in his endeavour to keep up the honour of a noble
household in a state of beggary, is an exquisitely comic character. In
the case of ‘poor relatives,’ on the other hand, it is the rich, whom
they perplex, that are really comic; and to laugh at the former,
not seeing the comedy of the latter, is to betray dulness of vision.
Humourist and Satirist frequently hunt together as Ironeists in pursuit
of the grotesque, to the exclusion of the Comic. That was an affecting
moment in the history of the Prince Regent, when the First Gentleman of
Europe burst into tears at a sarcastic remark of Beau Brummell’s on the
cut of his coat. Humour, Satire, Irony, pounce on it altogether as
their common prey. The Comic spirit eyes but does not touch it. Put into
action, it would be farcical. It is too gross for Comedy.
Incidents of a kind casting ridicule on our unfortunate nature instead
of our conventional life, provoke derisive laughter, which thwarts the
Comic idea. But derision is foiled by the play of the intellect. Most
of doubtful causes in contest are open to Comic interpretation, and any
intellectual pleading of a doubtful cause contains germs of an Idea of
Comedy.
The laughter of satire is a blow in the back or the face. The laughter
of Comedy is impersonal and of unrivalled politeness, nearer a smile;
often no more than a smile. It laughs through the mind, for the mind
directs it; and it might be called the humour of the mind.
One excellent test of the civilization of a country, as I have said, I
take to be the flourishing of the Comic idea and Comedy; and the test of
true Comedy is that it shall awaken thoughtful laughter.
If you believe that our civilization is founded in common-sense (and
it is the first condition of sanity to believe it), you will, when
contemplating men, discern a Spirit overhead; not more heavenly than the
light flashed upward from glassy surfaces, but luminous and watchful;
never shooting beyond them, nor lagging in the rear; so closely attached
to them that it may be taken for a slavish reflex, until its features
are studied. It has the sage’s brows, and the sunny malice of a faun
lurks at the corners of the half-closed lips drawn in an idle wariness
of half tension. That slim feasting smile, shaped like the long-bow, was
once a big round satyr’s laugh, that flung up the brows like a fortress
lifted by gunpowder. The laugh will come again, but it will be of the
order of the smile, finely tempered, showing sunlight of the mind,
mental richness rather than noisy enormity. Its common aspect is one
of unsolicitous observation, as if surveying a full field and having
leisure to dart on its chosen morsels, without any fluttering eagerness.
Men’s future upon earth does not attract it; their honesty and
shapeliness in the present does; and whenever they wax out of
proportion, overblown, affected, pretentious, bombastical, hypocritical,
pedantic, fantastically delicate; whenever it sees them self-deceived
or hoodwinked, given to run riot in idolatries, drifting into vanities,
congregating in absurdities, planning short-sightedly, plotting
dementedly; whenever they are at variance with their professions, and
violate the unwritten but perceptible laws binding them in consideration
one to another; whenever they offend sound reason, fair justice;
are false in humility or mined with conceit, individually, or in the
bulk--the Spirit overhead will look humanely malign and cast an oblique
light on them, followed by volleys of silvery laughter. That is the
Comic Spirit.
Not to distinguish it is to be bull-blind to the spiritual, and to
deny the existence of a mind of man where minds of men are in working
conjunction.
You must, as I have said, believe that our state of society is founded
in common-sense, otherwise you will not be struck by the contrasts the
Comic Spirit perceives, or have it to look to for your consolation.
You will, in fact, be standing in that peculiar oblique beam of light,
yourself illuminated to the general eye as the very object of chase and
doomed quarry of the thing obscure to you. But to feel its presence and
to see it is your assurance that many sane and solid minds are with you
in what you are experiencing: and this of itself spares you the pain of
satirical heat, and the bitter craving to strike heavy blows. You share
the sublime of wrath, that would not have hurt the foolish, but merely
demonstrate their foolishness. Moliere was contented to revenge himself
on the critics of the Ecole des Femmes, by writing the Critique de
l’Ecole des Femmes, one of the wisest as well as the playfullest of
studies in criticism. A perception of the comic spirit gives high
fellowship. You become a citizen of the selecter world, the highest we
know of in connection with our old world, which is not supermundane.
Look there for your unchallengeable upper class! You feel that you are
one of this our civilized community, that you cannot escape from it,
and would not if you could. Good hope sustains you; weariness does not
overwhelm you; in isolation you see no charms for vanity; personal pride
is greatly moderated. Nor shall your title of citizenship exclude you
from worlds of imagination or of devotion. The Comic spirit is not
hostile to the sweetest songfully poetic. Chaucer bubbles with it:
Shakespeare overflows: there is a mild moon’s ray of it (pale with
super-refinement through distance from our flesh and blood planet)
in Comus. Pope has it, and it is the daylight side of the night half
obscuring Cowper. It is only hostile to the priestly element, when that,
by baleful swelling, transcends and overlaps the bounds of its office:
and then, in extreme cases, it is too true to itself to speak, and veils
the lamp: as, for example, the spectacle of Bossuet over the dead body
of Moliere: at which the dark angels may, but men do not laugh.
We have had comic pulpits, for a sign that the laughter-moving and the
worshipful may be in alliance: I know not how far comic, or how much
assisted in seeming so by the unexpectedness and the relief of its
appearance: at least they are popular, they are said to win the ear.
Laughter is open to perversion, like other good things; the scornful and
the brutal sorts are not unknown to us; but the laughter directed by
the Comic spirit is a harmless wine, conducing to sobriety in the degree
that it enlivens. It enters you like fresh air into a study; as when
one of the sudden contrasts of the comic idea floods the brain like
reassuring daylight. You are cognizant of the true kind by feeling that
you take it in, savour it, and have what flowers live on, natural air
for food. That which you give out--the joyful roar--is not the better
part; let that go to good fellowship and the benefit of the lungs.
Aristophanes promises his auditors that if they will retain the ideas
of the comic poet carefully, as they keep dried fruits in boxes, their
garments shall smell odoriferous of wisdom throughout the year. The
boast will not be thought an empty one by those who have choice
friends that have stocked themselves according to his directions. Such
treasuries of sparkling laughter are wells in our desert. Sensitiveness
to the comic laugh is a step in civilization. To shrink from being an
object of it is a step in cultivation. We know the degree of refinement
in men by the matter they will laugh at, and the ring of the laugh; but
we know likewise that the larger natures are distinguished by the great
breadth of their power of laughter, and no one really loving Moliere is
refined by that love to despise or be dense to Aristophanes, though it
may be that the lover of Aristophanes will not have risen to the height
of Moliere. Embrace them both, and you have the whole scale of laughter
in your breast. Nothing in the world surpasses in stormy fun the scene
in The Frogs, when Bacchus and Xanthias receive their thrashings from
the hands of businesslike OEacus, to discover which is the divinity
of the two, by his imperviousness to the mortal condition of pain, and
each, under the obligation of not crying out, makes believe that his
horrible bellow--the god’s iou--iou being the lustier--means only
the stopping of a sneeze, or horseman sighted, or the prelude to an
invocation to some deity: and the slave contrives that the god shall
get the bigger lot of blows. Passages of Rabelais, one or two in Don
Quixote, and the Supper in the Manner of the Ancients, in Peregrine
Pickle, are of a similar cataract of laughter. But it is not
illuminating; it is not the laughter of the mind. Moliere’s laughter, in
his purest comedies, is ethereal, as light to our nature, as colour to
our thoughts. The Misanthrope and the Tartuffe have no audible laughter;
but the characters are steeped in the comic spirit. They quicken the
mind through laughter, from coming out of the mind; and the mind accepts
them because they are clear interpretations of certain chapters of the