Chapter I: Front Matter

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Waverley Novels Forty-Eight Volumes Volume XLIII.

Border Edition

The Introductory Essays and Notes by Andrew Lang to this Edition of the Waverley Novels are Copyright

ANNE OF GEIERSTEIN

by

SIR WALTER SCOTT, BART.

With Introductory Essay and Notes by Andrew Lang

Ten Etchings

VOLUME I.

London John C. Nimmo 14, King William Street, Strand MDCCCXCIV

Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson & Co. At the Ballantyne Press, Edinburgh

THIS EDITION OF THE WAVERLEY NOVELS,
THE BORDER EDITION,
IS DEDICATED BY THE PUBLISHER
TO
THE HON. MRS. MAXWELL SCOTT OF ABBOTSFORD
AND HER CHILDREN,
WALTER, MARY, MICHAEL, ALICE, MALCOLM,
MARGARET, AND HERBERT,
GREAT-GRANDDAUGHTER AND GREAT-GREAT-GRANDCHILDREN
OF THE AUTHOR.

TO
The King's Most Gracious Majesty.

SIRE,

The Author of this Collection of Works of Fiction would not have presumed to solicit for them your Majesty's august patronage, were it not that the perusal has been supposed in some instances to have succeeded in amusing hours of relaxation, or relieving those of languor, pain, or anxiety, and therefore must have so far aided the warmest wish of your Majesty's heart, by contributing in however small a degree to the happiness of your people.

They are therefore humbly dedicated to your Majesty, agreeably to your gracious permission, by

Your Majesty's Dutiful Subject,
WALTER SCOTT.

ABBOTSFORD,
1st January, 1829.

LIST OF ETCHINGS.

PRINTED BY F. GOULDING, LONDON.

VOLUME THE FIRST.

THE DUEL. Drawn and Etched by R. de Los Rios
(p. 99) Frontispiece

GEIERSTEIN. Drawn and Etched by R. de Los
Rios To face page 48

IN THE STABLE. Drawn and Etched by R. de Los
Rios 192

THE EXAMINATION. Drawn and Etched by R. de
Los Rios 256

THE EXECUTION. Drawn and Etched by R. de Los
Rios 304

ANNE OF GEIERSTEIN;
OR,
THE MAIDEN OF THE MIST.

What! will the aspiring blood of Lancaster
Sink in the ground?

SHAKSPEARE.

EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION

TO

ANNE OF GEIERSTEIN.

With "The Fair Maid of Perth" we take farewell of Scott at his best, though "even from the stubble one may tell what the grain has been." "Anne of Geierstein" was no favourite of the author's, and, as Mr. Matthew Arnold says, the world does not contemplate with pleasure what the poet creates without joy. The novel was begun in the late summer or autumn of 1828, but for part of the time Scott neglected his Diary. He was become (June 19) "a writing automaton," and suffered much pain from rheumatism and rheumatic headaches. He feared that this affected "the quality of the stuff," but he was not one who "waited for the spark from heaven to fall." He plodded on, in these late years, _invita Minerva_. Of old the goddess had generally been willing; but now his task took the likeness of journalism, the round had to be trodden, be he well or be he ill. Masterpieces are not written thus: it is the moral effort that we admire, and the contempt for fame, even for art, compared with the respect for duty. Scott believed in his duty and in his power of will, but imagination will not obey a moral dictate. We find Ballantyne "complaining of his manuscript": the wearied hand no longer wrote legibly, despite the mechanical supports which he used. "I cannot trace my _pieds de mouche_ but with great labour and trouble" (June 22). He "wrought and endured," afflicted by a hypochondriacal melancholy: "it may be chased away by study or by exercise." He is nobly master of his fate, in every event. In July we find him "beginning Simond's 'Switzerland,'" in search of local colour, for he did not know Switzerland, nor even the Rhine. His description of a storm in the mountains is, in the circumstances, wonderfully accurate. He simply drew the hills above Loch Skene on a grander scale. Morritt and Sir James Stuart of Allanbank, who were well acquainted with the scenes, were "surprised at the felicity with which he divined its character, and outdid, by the force of imagination, all the efforts of a thousand actual tourists." Their praise much encouraged Sir Walter (Lockhart, ix. 279). Ballantyne "bored and bothered me with his criticisms," he said, for he did not pretend to be a geologist, and to describe the formation of the rocks. In January he "muzzed on"--I can call it little better--with "Anne of Geierstein." The "materials are excellent, but the power of using them is failing." In February (1829) he was better "pleased with his work." The reason why he was better pleased may perhaps be gathered from his Journal (Feb. 17): "I called on Skene, and borrowed a volume of his journal to get some information about Burgundy and Provence. Something may be made out of King René, but I wish I had thought of him sooner." This is elucidated by a note of Mr. Skene's: "Sir Walter wished to see a paper which I had some time before contributed to the Memoirs of the Society of Antiquaries on the subject of the secret tribunals of Germany, and upon which, accordingly, he grounded his scene in the novel." Mr. Skene now suggested the introduction of King René of Provence, as he himself could give topographical details. "He liked the idea much ... and the whole dénouement of the story was changed, and the Provence part woven into it, in the form in which it ultimately came forth" (Journal, ii. 235, note). On March 8 "Cadell totally condemns 'Anne of Geierstein' ... great dishonour in this, as Trinculo says, besides an infinite loss. Yet worse has succeeded, but it was while the fashion of the thing was fresh. I retrenched a good deal about the Troubadours, which was really _hors de place_" (April 14). After some weeks of work and reflection, he came to the conclusion that more pains would not serve his turn. Inspiration came at once, if it came at all, and now his "braes and burn-sides" were ceasing to inspire him. "I don't know why or wherefore, but I hate 'Anne'" (April 27). "The story will end, and shall end, because it must end, and so here goes." He finished "Anne of Geierstein" on April 29, and began an historical work for Dr. Lardner on the same day. He had been writing reviews and other trifles all the time. "Were necessity out of the question, I would take the same literary labour from choice--something more leisurely, though."

The book was published in the middle of May, and was very popular in Switzerland. Lockhart praises "occasional outbursts of the old poetic spirit," as in the Alpine storm, the wild climb of Arthur, the duel, the noble picture of the battle of Granson. No one else then writing in England could have matched these passages. Lockhart especially admired the sympathy with which an old and weary man "depicts the feelings of youth with all their original glow and purity." "He was always living over again in his children, young at heart whenever he looked on them, and the world that was opening on them and their friends. But, above all, he had a firm belief in the future reunion of those whom death had parted."

The novel is unlucky, perhaps, in the period chosen, which is not sufficiently familiar to most readers. The forlorn cause of the House of Lancaster now affects us very little, and the passion of Margaret of Anjou is remote--it cannot stir us like the last view of the King, in "Redgauntlet." The mechanism of the volume does suggest the favourite topics of Mrs. Radcliffe, and the mysterious appearances and disappearances of the heroine need a more plausible explanation than they receive. The prophecy turning on the drawing of the bow is rather dropped out of sight, and the magic scenes connected with the opal and the mysterious bride suffer from being explained away. The miracle is more easy of belief than the explanation. Though Charles the Bold is painted with power in his pride and in his fall, he does not interest us like Louis XI. or James VI., either in this novel or in "Quentin Durward." It is probable enough that Scott, in his intended continuation of "Quentin Durward," had this very period in his eye: perhaps we need not regret that, with failing powers, he left Quentin out of the tale. His place is filled by the good dull Sigismund, who always warms up into a kind of brilliance when action is to be taken or described. The hero and heroine do not differ much from Scott's usual characters, in similar romantic circumstances, but Anne has less of originality and charm, of course, than the women of his earlier novels. The story, even on the least favourable estimate, is a rapid novel of adventure: incident follows incident, and, as a modern critic says, "the novel of character is one we often take up, the novel of incident is one we cannot lay down;" if it be written with the spirit of Scott, or of Dumas. That friendly master of romance was just about to take up the pen which fell from the fingers of Sir Walter--

Uno avulso non deficit alter.

Scott's imitators, in his lifetime, produced little or nothing of merit: he was, however, to leave successors, the author of "Vingt Ans Après" first and greatest; the author of "Esmond"; the author, we may surely add, of "The Master of Ballantrae." Much as these differ from Scott, both in quantity and quality of genius, in method, in style, they are all "sealed of his tribe," like the spiritual children of Ben Jonson. Scott is he

Without whose life they had not been,

and thus his example has borne, and still bears, new fruit in the most innocent of intellectual pleasures. For a later generation Scott has done what the romances and the epics did for chivalry, and fairy-tales for all the world. In an unexpected place, the Memoirs of Dr. Adam Clarke, we find a tribute to old romance and fairy-tale. Had he not read these in boyhood, the learned and excellent Doctor declares, his religion would have lacked imagination, and his character the courage which he displayed in face of many dangers. Examples of lofty fancy, of chivalrous courage, all that can attract and inspire youth, all that makes against moody despair, and stolid commonplace, and creeping prose, Scott gives, even in this late work, and he enlightens all with humour, as in his admirable description of the despotic German innkeeper, before whom the Earl of Oxford has to lower his bonnet. While youth is youth, and men have yet a smack of it, we can be happy with Arthur Philipson in his duel, with Sigismund in the fight, with the cheery maid of Anne of Geierstein, and her honest ideas of love on first principles, with that royal philosopher King René, with the sagacious loyalty of Oxford, and the manly patriotism of the peasant noble. That the conclusion is entangled, and the knots rather broken than disengaged, is no unusual fault in Scott: it haunted his works from the beginning. Considering his health, his absence, in this tale, from scenes familiar to him, and times familiar to his readers, the novel is remarkable for its interest. What success and merit it possesses are mainly due, however, to a determined effort of the will, not to a delighted and conscious inspiration. In his last essays, though the will was indomitable, the material machinery of the brain was shattered, and we can only criticise them as psychological examples of unconquered courage. He had to see James Ballantyne, broken by his wife's death, and "squandering his thoughts and senses upon dowdy metaphysics, and abstruse theology." It was better for Scott to work on, and die at his task, at the labour of a life which would not be complete, would not offer the same invigorating spectacle, had he thrown his pen away and confessed himself defeated.

The historical sources of "Anne of Geierstein" are explained in Scott's own Introduction and Notes. All the later part of the novel follows the narrative of Commines closely, save for certain dramatic liberties, as we shall point out in our additional annotations.

ANDREW LANG.

_May 1894._