Chapter V (5)

We were scarcely within the hedge that surrounded the domain, when a brace of bull-dogs rushed upon us with open jaws. We were keeping off the furious brutes with some difficulty, when a man came out of the barn, and, upon seeing us, again entered it. After a few moments, he appeared for a second time, in company with two negroes, who were leading by the horns the very same cow which we had so unceremoniously compelled to become our guide. We greeted the man with a "good-morning;" but he made no answer, merely gazing hard at us with a cold sullen look. He was a tall, broad-shouldered, powerful man, with an expressive but extraordinarily sad, gloomy, and almost repulsive countenance. There was a restless excitement of manner about him, which struck us at the very first glance.

"A fine morning," said I, approaching the stranger.

No answer. The man was holding the cow by one horn, and staring at the tail, from which a drop or two of blood was falling.

"How far is it from here to Hopefield?" asked I.

"Far enough for you never to get there, if it's you who've been drivin' my cow," was the threatening reply.

"And if we had driven your cow," said I, "you would surely not take it amiss? It was a mere accident."

"Such accidents don't often happen. People don't shoot cows, if they haven't a mind to eat other folk's beef."

"You do not suppose," said the Ohioman, "that we should wish to hurt your cow--we, who have no other intention but to shoot a few turkeys for the voyage. We are passengers by the Feliciana--one of our paddles is broken; and that is the reason that our boat is at anchor in front of Hopefield, and that we are here."

This circumstantial explanation seemed to produce little effect on the backwoodsman. He made no reply. We walked towards the house, and, on stepping in, found a woman there, who scarcely looked at us, or seemed aware of our entrance. There was the same appearance of fixed grief upon her countenance that we had remarked in the man; only with the difference, that the expression was less morose and fierce, but on the other hand more mournful.

"Can we have something to eat?" said I to the woman.

"We don't keep a tavern," was the answer.

"The other party cannot be far off," said one of my companions. "We will give them a sign of our whereabout." And so saying, he passed out at the door and walked a few paces in the direction of a cotton field.

"Stop!" cried the backwoodsman, suddenly placing himself before him. "Not a step further shall you go, till you satisfy me who you are, and where from."

"Who and where from?" replied our comrade, a young doctor of medicine from Tennessee. "That is what neither you nor any other man shall know who asks after such a fashion. If I'm not mistaken we are in a free country." And as he spoke he fired off his rifle.

The report of the piece was echoed so magnificently from the deep forests which surrounded the plantation, that my other companions raised their guns to their shoulders with the intention of firing also. I made them a sign in time to prevent it. Although there could hardly be any real danger to be apprehended, it appeared to me advisable to hold ourselves prepared for whatever might happen. The next moment a shot was heard--the answer to our signal.

"Keep yourself quiet," said I to the backwoodsman; "our companions and their guide will soon be here. As to your cow, you can hardly have so little common sense as to suppose that five travellers would shoot a beast that must be perfectly useless to them."

As I left off speaking, there emerged from the forest our other detachment and the guide, the latter carrying two fat turkeys. He greeted the backwoodsman as an old acquaintance, but with a degree of sympathy and compassion in the tone of his salutation which contrasted strangely with his usual rough dry manner.

"Well, Mr Clarke," said he, "heard nothing yet? I'm sorry for it--very sorry."

The backwoodsman made no reply, but his rigid sturdy mien softened, and his eyes, as I thought, glistened with moisture.

"Mistress Clarke," said our guide to the woman, who was standing at the house-door, "these gentlemen here wish for a snack. They've plenty of every thing, if you'll be so good as to cook it."

The woman stood without making any reply: the man was equally silent. There was a sort of stubborn surly manner about them, which I had never before witnessed in backwoodspeople.

"Well," said the doctor, "we need expect nothing here. We are only losing time. Let us sit down on a tree-trunk, and eat our ham, and biscuits."

The guide made us a significant sign, and then stepping up to the woman, spoke to her in a low and urgent tone. She did not, however, utter a word.

"Mistress," said the doctor, "something must have happened to you or your family, to put you so out of sorts. We are strangers, but we are not without feeling. Tell us what is wrong. There may be means of helping you."

The man looked up; the woman shook her head.

"What is it that troubles you?" said I, approaching her. "Speak out. Help often comes when least expected."

The woman made me no answer, but stepped up to our guide, took a turkey and the ham from him, and went into the house. We followed, sat down at the table, and produced our bottles. The backwoodsman placed glasses before us. We pressed him to join us, but he obstinately declined our invitation, and we at last became weary of wasting good words on him. Our party consisted, as before mentioned, of ten persons: two bottles were soon emptied and we were beginning to get somewhat merry whilst talking over our morning's ramble, when our host suddenly got up from his seat in the chimney-corner, and approached the table.

"Gemmen," said he, "you mus'n't think me uncivil if I tell ye plainly, that I can have no noise made in my house. It aint a house to larf in-- that it aint, by G--!" And having so spoken he resumed his seat, leant his head upon both hands, and relapsed into his previous state of gloomy reverie.

"We ask pardon," said we; "but really we had no idea that our cheerfulness could annoy you."

The man made no reply, and half an hour passed away in whisperings and conjectures. At the end of that time, a negro girl came in to spread the table for our meal.

After much entreaty, our host and hostess were prevailed on to sit down with us. The former took a glass of brandy, and emptied it at a draught. We filled it again, he drank it off, and it was again replenished. After the third glass, a deep sigh escaped him. The cordial had evidently revived him.

"Gemmen," said he, "you will have thought me rough and stubborn enough, when I met you as you had been huntin' my cow; but I see now who I have to do with. But may I be shot myself, if, whenever I find _him_, I don't send a bullet through his body; and I'll be warrant it shall hinder his stealin' any more children."

"Steal children!" repeated I. "Has one of your negroes been stolen?"

"One of my niggers, man! My son, my only son! Her child!" continued he pointing to his wife. "Our boy, the only one remaining to us out of five, whom the fever carried off before our eyes. As bold and smart a boy as any in the back woods! Here we set ourselves down in the wilderness, worked day and night, went through toil and danger, hunger and thirst, heat and cold. And for what? Here we are alone, deserted, childless; with nothin' left for us but to pray and cry, to curse and groan. No help; all in vain. I shall go out of my mind, I expect. If he were dead!--if he were lyin' under the hillock yonder beside his brothers, I would say nothing. _He_ gave, and He has a right to take away! But, Almighty God!"---And the man uttered a cry so frightful, so heartrending, that the knives and forks fell from our hands, and a number of negro women and children came rushing in to see what was the matter. We gazed at him in silence.

"God only knows," continued he, and his head sank upon his breast; then suddenly starting up, he drank off glass after glass of brandy, as fast as he could pour it out.

"And how and when did this horrible theft occur?" asked we.

"The woman can tell you about it," was the answer.

The woman had left the table, and now sat sobbing and weeping upon the bed. It was really a heartbreaking scene. The doctor got up, and led her to the table. We waited till she became more composed, anxiously expecting her account of this horrible calamity.

"It was four weeks yesterday," she began; "Mister Clarke was in the forest; I was in the fields, looking after the people, who were gathering in the maize. I had been there some time, and by the sun it was already pretty near eleven; but it was as fine a morning as ever was seen on the Mississippi, and the niggers don't work well if there's not somebody to look after them--so I remained. At last it was time to get the people's dinner ready, and I left the field. I don't know what it was, but I had scarcely turned towards the house, when it seemed as if somebody called to me to run as fast as I could; a sort of fear and uneasiness came over me, and I ran all the way to the house. When I got there I saw little Cesy, our black boy, sitting on the threshold, and playing all alone. I thought nothing of this, but went into the kitchen, without suspecting any thing wrong. As I was turning about amongst the pots and kettles, I thought suddenly of my Dougal. I threw down what I had in my hand, and ran to the door. Cesy came to meet me:" "Missi," said he, "Dougal is gone!"

"Dougal is gone!" cried I. "Where is he gone to, Cesy?"

"Don't know," said Cesy; "gone away with a man on horseback."

"With a man on horseback?" said I. "In God's name, where can he be gone to? What does all this mean, Cesy?"

"Don't know," said Cesy.

"And who was the man? Did he go willingly?"

"No! he didn't go willingly!" said Cesy: "but the man got off his horse, put Dougal upon it, and then jumped up behind him, and rode away."

"And you don't know the man?"

"No, missi!"

"Think again, Cesy," cried I; "for God's sake, remember. Don't you know the man?"

"No," said the child, "I don't know him."

"Didn't you see what he looked like? Was he black or white?"

"I don't know," said Cesy, crying; "he had a red flannel shirt over his face!"

"Was it neighbour Syms, or Banks, or Medling, or Barnes?"

"No!" whined Cesy.

"Gracious God!" cried I. "What is this? What is become of my poor child?" I ran backwards and forwards into the forest, through the fields. I called out. I looked every where. At last I ran to where the people were at work, and fetched Cesy's mother. I thought she would be able to make him tell something more about my child. She ran to the house with me, promised him cakes, new clothes, every thing in the world; but he could tell nothing more than he had already told me. At last Mister Clarke came.

Here the woman paused, and looked at her husband.

"When I came home," continued the latter, "the woman was nearly distracted; and I saw directly that some great misfortune had happened. But I should never have guessed what it really was. When she told me, I said, to comfort her, that one of the neighbours must have taken the child away, though I didn't think it myself; for none of the neighbours would have allowed themselves such a freedom with my only child. I shouldn't have thanked 'em for it, I can tell you. I called Cesy, and asked him again what the man was like; if he had a blue or a black coat? He said it was blue. 'What sort of horse?' 'A brown one.' 'What road he had taken?' 'That road!' answered the boy, pointing to the swamp. I sent all my niggers, men, women, and children, round to the neighbours, to seek for the child, and tell them what had happened. I myself followed the path that the robber had taken, and found hoof-prints upon it. I tracked them to the creek, but there I lost the trail. The man must have got into a boat, with his horse and the child, had perhaps crossed the Mississippi, or perhaps gone down the stream. Who could tell where he would land! It might be ten, twenty, fifty, or a hundred miles lower down. I was terribly frightened, and I rode on the Hopefield. There nothing had been seen or heard of my child; but all the men got on their horses to help me to find him. The neighbours came also, and we sought about for a whole day and night. No trace or track was to be found. Nobody had seen either the child or the man who had carried him off. We beat the woods for thirty miles round my house, crossed the Mississippi, went up as far as Memphis, and down to Helena and the Yazoo river; nothing was to be seen or heard. We came back as we went out, empty-handed and discouraged. When I got home, I found the whole county assembled at my house. Again we set out; again we searched the forest through; every hollow tree, every bush and thicket, was looked into. Of bears, stags, and panthers there were plenty, but no signs of my boy. On the sixth day I came home again; but my home was become hateful to me-- every thing vexed and disgusted me. My clothes and skin were torn off by the thorns and briers, my very bones ached; but I didn't feel it. It was nothing to what I suffered in my mind."

On the second day after my return, I was lying heart and body sick in bed, when one of the neighbours came in, and told me that he had just seen, at Hopefield, a man from Muller county, who told him that a stranger had been seen on the road to New Madrid, whose description answered to that which Cesy had given of the child-stealer. It was a man with a blue coat and a brown horse, and a child upon his saddle. I forgot my sickness and my sore bones, bought a new horse--for I had ridden mine nearly to death--and set out directly, rode day and night, three hundred miles, to New Madrid, and when I arrived there, sure enough I found the man who had been described to me, and a child with him. But it was not my child! The man belonged to New Madrid, and had been on a journey with his son into Muller county.

I don't know how I got home again. Some people found me near Hopefield, and brought me to my house. I had fever, and was raving for ten days; and during that time the neighbours advertised the thing in all the papers in Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana. We had ridden altogether thousands of miles, but it was no use. "No!" continued he, with a deep groan; "if my child had died of the fever, if he had fallen in with a bear or panther, and been killed, it would be bitter, bitter sorrow--he was my last child. But, merciful God--stolen! My son, my poor child, stolen!"

And the man cried aloud, sprang from his seat, and wrung his hands and wept like an infant. Even his wife had not shown such utter agony of grief.

"When I go to work," continued he after a pause, "my little Dougal seems to stand before me, and my hands fall by my sides, as stiff and heavy as though they were lead. I look round, but no Dougal is there. When I go to bed, I put his bed beside mine, and call him, but no one answers. Sleeping or waking, my poor boy is always before me. Would to God I were dead! I have cursed and sworn, prayed and supplicated, wept and groaned, but all--all in vain!"

I have seen many persons suffering from distress of mind, but never did I meet with one whose sorrow was so violent and overpowering as that of this backwoodsman. We did our utmost to console him, and to inspire him with new hope, but he was inconsolable; his eyes were fixed, he had fallen into a sort of apathy, and I doubt if he even heard what was said to him. We ourselves were so affected that our words seemed almost to choke us. Time pressed, however; it was impossible for us to remain any longer, nor could we have done any good by so doing. We shook the unfortunate couple by the hand, promised to do all in our power to learn something of their child's fate, and took our departure.

It was six weeks after the time above referred to, that I found myself compelled by business to make a journey to Natchez. I had often thought of poor Clarke's misfortune, and, in conjunction with my friends, had done all in my power to discover the villain who had robbed him of his child. Hitherto all our endeavours had been fruitless. The facts were circulated in every newspaper, were matter of conversation at every teatable in the country; rewards were offered, researches made, but not the smallest trace of the boy or his stealer was to be found.

It was a bright January afternoon when I landed at Natchez. In company with some acquaintances, I was ascending the little hill between the lower and upper town, when we heard an unusual noise and bustle; and on reaching the summit, we saw a crowd assembled before the door of Justice Bonner's house. Upon going to see what was the matter, we found that the mob consisted of the better class of people in Natchez, both women and men, but especially the former. Every face wore an expression of interest and anxiety; and upon making enquiry, we learned that the child-stealer had been at length discovered--or rather, that a man had been taken up on strong suspicion of his having stolen Mr Clarke's son, of Hampstead county. I was heartily rejoiced at the news and endeavoured to press forward through the throng, in hopes of hearing some particulars; but the crowd was so dense that it was impossible to get through. I stood there for nearly two hours, the concourse all the while increasing, none stirring from the places they occupied, while every adjacent window was filled with eager, anxious faces.

At last the door opened, and the prisoner, guarded by two constables, and followed by the sheriff, came out of the house, and took the direction of the town prison. "That is he!" whispered the women to one another, with pale faces and trembling voices, clasping their children tighter, as though fearful they would be snatched from them. The countenance of the culprit was the most repulsive I had ever seen--a mixture of brutal obstinacy and low cunning, with a sort of sneering, grinning, expression. His small green-grey eyes were fixed upon the ground; but as he passed through the lane opened by the crowd, he from time to time partially raised them, and threw sidelong and malicious glances at the bystanders. He was rather above the middle height, his complexion of a dirty greyish colour, his cheeks hollow, his lips remarkably thick and coarse, his whole appearance in the highest degree wild and disgusting. His dress consisted of an old worn-out blue frock, trousers of the same colour, a high-crowned shabby hat, and tattered shoes. The impression which his appearance made might be read in the pale faces of the spectators. They gazed after him with a sort of hopeless look as he walked away. "If that is the man who stole the child," murmured several, "there is no hope. The boy is lost!" I extricated myself from the throng, and hastened to Justice Bonner, with whom I was acquainted, and who gave me the following particulars.

About four weeks after our excursion in the neighbourhood of Hopefield, Clarke had received a letter, signed Thomas Tully, and stamped with the Natchez postmark. The contents were to the effect that his child was still living, that the writer of the letter knew where he was, and that, if Mr Clarke would enclose a fifty-dollar bank-note in his answer, he should receive further information. On receipt of the said sum, the writer said he would indicate a place to which Mrs Clarke might repair, unaccompanied, and there, upon payment of two hundred dollars more, the child should be delivered up.

Upon receiving this letter, the unfortunate father consulted with his friends and neighbours; and, by their advice, he wrote immediately to the postmaster at Natchez, informing him of the circumstances, and requesting that the person who applied for his answer might be detained. Four days afterwards, a man came to the window of the post-office, and enquired if there was any letter to the address of Thomas Tully. The postmaster pretended to be searching for the letter amongst a pile of others, and meanwhile a constable, who was in attendance, went round and captured the applicant. Upon the examination of the letter, it appeared that he was an Irishman, who had some time previously been hanging about Natchez, and had endeavoured to establish a school there. As he, however, had been unable to give any satisfactory account of himself, of where he came from, or what he had been doing up to that time, and as his manner and appearance were moreover in the highest degree suspicious and repulsive, he had not succeeded in his plan, and the few parents who sent their children to him had speedily withdrawn them. He was known at Natchez by the name of Thomas Tully, nor did he now deny that that was his name, or that he had sent the letter, which was written in a practised schoolmasterlike hand. It was further elicited that he was perfectly acquainted with the paths and roads between Natchez and Hopefield, and in the neighbourhood of those two places, as well as with the swamps, creeks, and rivers there adjacent. He was fully committed, till such time as the father of the stolen child should be made acquainted with the result of the examination.

In five days Clarke arrived with the negro boy Caesar. The whole town showed the greatest sympathy with the poor man's misfortune, the lawyers offered him their services free of charge, and a second examination of the prisoner took place. Every thing possible was done to induce the latter to confess what had become of the child; but to all questions he opposed an obstinate silence. The negro boy did not recognize him. At last he declared that he knew nothing of the stolen child, and that he had only written the letter in the hope of extorting money from the father. Hardly, however, had this been written down, when he turned to Clarke, with an infernal grin upon his countenance, and said, "You have persecuted and hunted me like a wild beast, but I will make you yet more wretched than you are able to make me." He then proceeded to inform him of a certain place where he would find his child's clothes.

Clarke immediately set out with a constable to the indicated spot, found the clothes, as he had been told he would do, and returned to Natchez. The accused was again put at the bar, and said, after frequently contradicting himself, that the child was still alive, but that, if they kept him longer in prison, it would inevitably die of hunger. Nothing could persuade him to say where the boy was, or to give one syllable of further explanation.

Meantime the quarter-sessions commenced, and the prisoner was brought up for trial. An immense concourse of persons had assembled to witness the proceedings in this remarkable case. Every thing was done to induce the accused to confess, but all in vain. Promises of free pardon, and even of reward, were made to him, if he told where the child was; but the man maintained an obstinate silence. He at last again changed his story, retracted his previous declaration as to his knowledge of where the boy was, said he had found the clothes, which he had recognised by the descriptions that had been every where advertised, and that it was that which had put it into his head to write to the father, in hopes of making his profit by so doing. In the absence of witnesses, although there was strong suspicion, there could be no proof of his having committed the crime in question. In America, circumstantial evidence is always received with extreme caution and reluctance; and even the fact of the child's clothes having been found in the place the prisoner had pointed out, was insufficient to induce the jury to find the latter guilty of the capital charge brought against him. Many of the lawyers, indeed, were of opinion, that the man's last story was true, that he had found the clothes, and, being a desperate character and in needy circumstances, had written the letter for purposes of extortion. Of this offence only was he found guilty, and condemned, as a vagrant and impostor, to a few months' imprisonment. By the American laws no severer punishment could be awarded. The one, however, was far from satisfying the public. There was something so infernal in the malignant sneer of the culprit, in the joy with which he contemplated the sufferings of the bereaved father, and the anxiety of the numerous friends of the latter, that a shudder of horror and disgust had frequently run through the court during the trial. Even the coolest and most practised lawyers had not been free from this emotion, and they declared that they had never witnessed such obduracy.

The inhabitants of Natchez, especially of the upper town, are, generally speaking, a highly intelligent and respectable class of people; but upon this occasion they lost all patience and self-control, and proceeded to an extreme measure, which only the peculiar circumstances of the case could in any degree justify. Without previous notice, they assembled in large numbers upon the night of the 31st of January, with a firm determination to correct for once the mildness of the laws, and to take the punishment o the criminal into their own hands. They opened the prison, brought out the culprit, and after tying him up, a number of stout negroes proceeded to flog him severely with whips of bullock's hide.

For a long time the man bore his punishment with extraordinary fortitude, and remained obstinately silent when questions were put to him concerning the stolen child. At last, however, he could bear the pain no longer, and promised a full confession. He named a house on the banks of the Mississippi, some fifty miles from Natchez, the owner of which, he said, knew where the child was to be found.

The sheriff had, of course, not been present at these Lynch-law proceedings, of which he was not aware till they were over, but of which he probably in secret did not entirely disapprove. No sooner, however, was he told of the confession that had been extorted from the prisoner, than he set off at once in the middle of the night, accompanied by Clarke, for the house that had been pointed out. They arrived there at noon on the following day, and found it inhabited by a respectable family, who had heard of the child having been stolen, but, beyond that, knew nothing of the matter. The mere suspicion of participation in such a crime, seemed in the highest degree painful and offensive to them. It was soon made evident that the prisoner had invented the story, in order to procure a cessation of his punishment of the previous night.

The fatigues and constant disappointments that poor Clarke had endured, had worn him out, and at last again stretched him on a bed of sickness. His life was for a long time despaired of, but he finally recovered, and shortly afterwards the term of imprisonment to which the child-stealer (for such the public persisted in considering Tully) had been condemned, expired. There was no pretext for detaining him, and he was set at liberty. Clarke was advised to endeavour to obtain from him, by money and good treatment, some information concerning the child. Both father and mother threw themselves at the man's feet, implored him to name his own reward, but to tell them what had become of their son.

"You have flogged and imprisoned me," replied the man, with one of his malicious grins; "you would have hung me if you could; you have done all in your power to make me miserable. It is now my turn."

And he obstinately refused to say a word on the subject of the lost child. He left town, accompanied by Clarke, who clung to him like his shadow, in the constant hope that he would at last make a revelation They crossed the Mississippi together, and on arriving behind Concordia, the bereaved father once more besought Tully to tell him what had become of his son, swearing that, if he did not do so, he would dog him day and night, but that he should never escape alive out of his hands. The man asked how long he would give him. "Six-and-thirty hours" was the reply Tully walked on for some time beside Clarke and his wife, apparently deep in thought. On a sudden he sprang upon the backwoodsman, snatched a pistol from his belt, and fired it at his head. The weapon missed fire. Tully saw that his murderous attempt had failed, and apprehensive doubtless of the punishment that it would entail, he leaped, without an instant's hesitation, into the deepest part of a creek by which they were walking. He sank immediately, the water closed over his head, and he did not once reappear. His body was found a couple of hours afterwards, but no trace was ever discovered of the Stolen Child.[1]

[1] Various particulars of the above incident may be found in the Mississippi newspapers, of the years 1825-6.

M. GIRARDIN.

A word, before we speak of the lectures of M. Saint-Marc Girardin, on a topic which stands at the threshold of dramatic criticism. What is the nature of that _imitation_ of life at which the drama aims, and of that _illusion_ which it creates?

Before the time of Dr Johnson, the learned world were accustomed to insist upon the observance of the _unities_, on the ground that they were necessary to uphold the illusion of the theatre. The doctor, in his preface to Shakspeare, demolished this argument, by showing that the illusion they were declared so necessary to support, does not, in fact, exist. No man really believes that the stage before him is Rome, or that he is a contemporary of the Caesars. To insist, therefore, upon the unities of time and place, is to sacrifice to a grave _make-belief_ the nobler ends of the drama--the development of character and passion. "The objection," says Dr Johnson, "arising from the impossibility of passing the first hour at Alexandria, and the next at Rome, supposes that, when the play opens, the spectator really imagines himself at Alexandria, and believes that his walk to the theatre has been a voyage to Egypt, and that he lives in the days of Antony and Cleopatra. _Surely he that imagines this may imagine more._ He that can take the stage at one time for the palace of the Ptolemies, may take it in half an hour for the promontory of Actium."

If the delusion of the theatre, we will add, should, at certain moments, reach such a point that we may be said to believe ourselves transported to the place represented on the stage, this, not being a _continuous_ delusion, cannot be disturbed by the mere changing of the scene; it will not the less take place at the promontory of Actium, because we had felt it, five minutes before, in the city of Alexandria.

Since the appearance of the celebrated preface to Shakspeare, it has been the habit of critics to speak, not of a delusion, but of an imitation, which is _felt to be_ an imitation, and which pleases us in great part by this perceived resemblance to an original. "It will be asked," continues Dr Johnson, "how the drama moves, if it is not credited? It is credited with all the credit due to a drama. It is credited wherever it moves, _as a just picture of a real original_--as representing to the auditor what he would himself feel if he were to do or suffer what is there feigned to be suffered or to be done. The reflection that strikes the heart is not that the evils before us are real evils, but that they are evils to which we ourselves may be exposed."[1] * * * _The delight of tragedy proceeds from our consciousness of fiction_; if we thought murders and treasons real, they would please no more. Imitations produce pain or pleasure, not because they are mistaken for realities, but because they bring realities to mind.

[1] _Cours de Littérature Dramatique; ou de l'Usage des Passions dans le Drame_. Par M. SAINT-MARC GIRARDIN, Professeur à la Faculté des Lettres de Paris, &c. &c.

This appears to us a very indifferent account of the matter. In the far greater number of instances, we can never have formed any conception of an _original_ of which the actor and the scene are supposed to present us a _picture_. Who that witnesses the play of _Venice Preserved_, has formed any other image of Jaffier or Pierre than what the actors are presenting to him, or may already, on some previous occasion, have presented to him? Even when the characters are strictly historical, the imagination is little better provided. The spectator does not refer to any faint conception in his own mind of a Brutus, or a Mark Antony, and then derive his pleasure from watching how closely the mimic representation imitates the original. Very often the scene must present something entirely new to the imagination, and yet the pleasure is not diminished on this account. A simple man, who has never seen the interior of a palace, never looked on royalty, never beheld even a veritable courtier, feels no embarrassment when he is suddenly called to witness the pomps and miseries of "imperial tragedy."

The imitation of the drama is not that of any specific original; it is a mimic scene, having human nature for its type. It has a life of its own, constructed from the materials which the records and observations of real life have supplied. In order to move us, it needs no reference to any recognised original. It is there in virtue of the vesture of humanity in which it is clothed, and makes its appeal at once and directly.

It is usual to speak of all the fine arts as _imitative arts_. The term is not always applicable, and, when most applicable, requires explanation. What does the poetry of sentiment imitate? What does a song imitate? How can the term be applied to all that class of poetry where the writer pours out his own reflections and feelings? The poetry of Wordsworth or of Burns can no more be said to be imitative, than the conversation of the same men, when, in their hours of intimate intercourse, the one may have given expression to his philanthropy, and the other to his friendship. But where the term is most applicable, it requires to be used guardedly. Even in painting and sculpture, the artist does not imitate the object in its totality--does not strive to make an approximation to a _fac-simile_--but he selects certain _qualities_ of the object for his imitation. The painter confines himself to colour and outline; the sculptor abstracts the form, and give it us in the marble.

Accordingly, when we stand before a statue, we do not think of a man, and then of the statue as the imitation of this original; but the statue is itself clothed with some of the qualities of the human being, which give to the cold marble that _half-life_ which we feel the moment we look upon it. In the same manner, when the dramatist puts his characters on the stage, they are not imitations of any definite originals, but they are invested with certain accidents and attributes of humanity, which give them at once the interest we feel in them, and set them living and moving in their own mimic world.

And this mimic world is capable of creating an illusion--not such as Dr Johnson combated--but of a kind he does not appear to have taken into account. The doctor is triumphant when he denies the existence of that theatrical delusion presupposed as a ground for the unities. We do not, as soon as the curtain rises, believe ourselves transported to Rome, nor do we take the actor upon his word, and believe him to be Caesar the moment he proclaims his imperial dignity. The illusion of the theatre springs directly from the _passion_ with which we are infected, not from the outward pomp and circumstance of the stage. These, even on the most ignorant of spectators, produce barely the sentiment of wonder and surprise, never a belief in their reality. The real illusion of the drama begins, so to speak, not at the beginning, but at the end; it is the last result, the result of the last vivid word which sprung from the lips of the actor; and it diffuses a momentary reality over all that stage apparatus, animate and inanimate, which was there only as a preparation for that vivid word of the poet.

When the curtain rises, we see very plainly--quite unmistakeably--the boarded stage before us. It may fill with men and women most gorgeously attired, and these may proceed to declare their rank and condition, and the peculiar dangers which environ them, and still there is nothing better before us than the boarded stage and the talking actor. But, by and by, the word of passion is uttered, and the heart beats, and the wooden stage is seen no more, and the actor is forgotten in his griefs or his anger, and the fictitious position is a real life, and the pomp and circumstance of the scene, if not believed in, are no longer questioned. We are not perhaps at Rome, nor is that Mark Antony--for we never knew Mark Antony to recognise him--but this mimic world has assumed an independent life and reality of its own. When, indeed, the passion subsides, and the eloquence of the poet is mute, things revert to their matter-of-fact condition, the actor is again there, and the boards of the stage again become visible.

To the passage we last quoted from Dr Johnson, some other objections suggest themselves; but, as we have not quoted it in a polemical spirit, but merely to illustrate our own position, we have no wish to enter upon them. One remark only we will make, and that because it admits of a general application. Dr Johnson describes the sympathy we feel at the theatre, as the result of a reference to what our own _personal_ feelings would be in the situation we see represented on the stage. The auditor represents to himself "what he would himself feel, if he were to do or suffer what is there feigned to be suffered or to be done. The reflection that strikes the heart is not, that the evils before us are real evils, but that they are evils to which we ourselves may be exposed." We do not think that, in order to sympathize with what takes place on the stage, or in real life, there is any necessity for this circuitous proceeding. We do not detect in ourselves this constant reference to our own personality, and, least of all, in those moments when we are most moved. It is enough that there be a vivid conception of any passion, for this passion to become for a moment our own. If this reference to our probable feelings, in such or such a position, were necessary, how is it that we men sympathize so promptly and so keenly in the distresses of the heroine? We certainly do not, for instance, set to work to imagine ourselves women and mothers--which would be a difficult exercise of the imagination--before we feel the grief of Constance for the loss of her child. In short, we at once assume to ourselves the passions of another; we do not wait, as it were, to try them on; to make experiment how we, with all our dispositions, natural and acquired, should feel in the supposed predicament.

It is far from our intention to give a full and methodical account of the lectures of M. Saint-Marc Girardin, the perusal of which led us to a reconsideration of some of our critical principles. They are far above mediocrity, distinguished by strong sense and vivid expression. Their principal feature is the just and animated protest they contain against the literary taste of the present day in France; a taste for the perverted, the horrible, the monstrous; a taste that welcomes Victor Hugo with outstretched arms, and retains but a frigid recollection of Racine. With this literary taste is intimately connected an unhealthy and feverish condition of the moral sentiments, against which the lecturer directs his most eloquent attacks; so that his book may be commended for its sound ethical as well as critical instruction. The circumstance that the lectures were delivered before the University of Paris, renders this strain of remark still more appropriate and useful.

Such a strain of remark, based as it is upon general principles, cannot be useless in our own country; although we do not suspect that the same perverted taste which meets its reproof in these lectures is common amongst us. Were we called upon to describe the malady under which our countrymen labour in respect to literary taste, we should describe it as a state of torpor and lethargy, rather than of virulent disease. It is indifference, more than any morbid taste, which an imaginative work would have to struggle against in this country. There is little necessity here to guard the public against any species of literary enthusiasm; certain writers of very dubious merit may be extensively read, but they are not esteemed. It is only necessary to listen to the conversation that goes on around us, to be convinced that the extensive circulation of a book has ceased to be a decisive proof even of its _popularity_. We seem too idle, or too busy, to give attention to a thoughtful literature which is not at the same time _professional_--and we have too much good sense amongst us to admire the sort of clever trash we are contented to read and to talk about. For something in leisure hours must be read. A book must be had, if only as a companion for the sofa, if only to place in the hand, as we place the ottoman under our feet, to steady and complete our repose.

We will at once introduce a striking quotation from the author before us, which has immediate reference to the _Lucrèce Borgia_ of Victor Hugo. To those who have not read the play it is only necessary to observe, in order to understand what follows, that Victor Hugo, with that violent effort after a moral novelty which distinguishes him, has chosen to represent the infamous Lucretia Borgia as under the influence of maternal love, while in all other respects she fully sustains her odious and infernal reputation.

The author wished, he tells us in his preface, to retrieve
the moral deformity of Lucretia Borgia by the beauty of the
maternal sentiment; he wished, according to his own
energetic expression, 'to place the mother in the monster.'
Here let us make a distinction. I admire the tenderness
which the most ferocious animals have for their offspring,
and when the dying lioness covers her young with her wounded
and bleeding body, I admire and am moved. But a woman who is
a mother ought, in her tenderness to her children, to have
more intelligence, more of elevation of thought, than the
lioness. Instinct is not enough; there must be a sentiment,
a sentiment which does not exclude, but perfects and
purifies the instinct. Thus, when in Florence, a mother cast
herself in desperation before the lion who had taken her
child, and the lion, astonished at her despair, or perhaps
comprehending it, replaced the infant at her feet, it was
instinct which impelled the mother, and it was probably
instinct in the lion which responded to her. But good
instincts, whatever admirable actions they may occasionally
produce, are but the germ and commencement of human virtues;
they are indeed radically distinguished from human virtue by
this, that, of themselves, however strong, they are sterile:
a good instinct dwells by the side of a bad without effort
to reform or to purify it, and equally without danger of
being itself perverted. One virtue only in a vicious
character might convert it entirely to virtue, as one vice
only in a virtuous might lead it to utter depravation. But
an instinct, however good, supports without disquietude the
neighbourhood of evil, and it is thus that, in Lucretia
Borgia, the mother and the monster are placed side by side,
without affecting, without combating each other. Now there
is nothing less natural, and nothing less dramatic than this
mutual toleration. Characters wherein good and evil are
mixed together, are dramatic, only because the conflict of
opposite sentiments which takes place in the mind, is
brought before the view of the spectator. But where, in
Lucretia, is the struggle between good and evil? At what
moment does the maternal virtue enlighten and purify this
soul lost in darkness? When does this transfiguration take
place, so marvellous and yet so natural? * * *

It is singular, and marks the change which has taken place
in our moral notions. Formerly poets gave to their
personages one only vice or passion, taking care in other
respects to render them virtuous, in order that they should
be worthy of interest; at the present day, our poets give
their personages I know not how many passions and vices,
with one only virtue as a counterpoise. And this virtue,
weak and solitary, is by no means charged with the task of
purifying the corrupted mind in which it has by chance been
preserved. It carefully respects the independence of those
vices which permit it to dwell with them. Neither is it
commissioned to inspire an interest in the spectator;
because it is vice which now inspires all our interest,
thanks to a certain noble and proud bearing which has been
assigned to it, and which has been imitated from the heroes
of Lord Byron.

M. Girardin, it will have been remarked from the above extract, is disposed to reproach our Lord Byron as the source from which some of his countrymen have drawn their dark inspiration. This may be true. But without defending our Byron from charges to which he is manifestly exposed, let us say thus much for him, that in his poetry he was still too much a classic not to be a worshipper of the beautiful; that he did not court for itself the monstrous, the ugly; his mind did not willingly associate with what was revolting in outward form or human passion. If there was any thing Satanic, as some were pleased to express it, in his poetry, he was not, at all events, of the hobgoblin or demoniac school. It was the Satan of Milton, with its ruined beauty and clouded dignity, that had taken possession of his imagination. He delighted to depict the pride, the love, the generosity, of hearts at war with man, and not on too good terms with heaven; but still it was their pride, their love, their generosity, that occupied his imagination. They are bad men; he takes care to tell us so himself; but he has not the heart to make them act otherwise than as noble fellows while they are under his guidance. The Corsair, from his very name and profession, is a declared criminal; but this once said, the poet occupies himself and his reader with nothing but what is generous and heroic in Conrad. Byron had no disposition, had a certain antipathy, to paint the virtuous man; but it was a virtue, nevertheless, that attracted his pencil. He felt it necessary, as a preliminary condition, to remove his hero from the category of good men; but this being fairly done, he resigned himself to the natural bent for what is good and great. A Borgia, whether male or female, in all its native deformity, was not the subject to allure him.

Nowhere is the rebuke of M. Girardin of certain of his contemporaries, more dignified, or more justly merited, than where, discoursing on the manner in which the moderns have delineated paternal love, he reproves that exaggeration and falsification which has represented the father describing the affection he bears to his daughter in a style of language devoted to another species of love. Nothing can be more odious and offensive than to transgress, even in language, the bounds between the two affections, and to put into the mouth of a parent, as Victor Hugo and Balzac have done, a style appropriate to the lover speaking of his mistress. But we will not quote these passages from M. Girardin, because they will require long quotations in order to justify the censure contained in them. At the close of the lecture upon paternal love, we find the following general remarks on the composition of a modern French drama; and the slightest acquaintance with this drama will enable the reader to appreciate their justice and analytic accuracy:--

Formerly a dramatic character was an assemblage of
qualities good and bad, which, on the one hand, were in
conflict amongst themselves, and, on the other, were
subjected to some superior law of religion, of honour, or of
patriotism. This twofold struggle constituted the interest
of the person brought upon the scene, and this superior law,
which he strove to accomplish, constituted the morality of
his character. According to the incidents of the piece, each
passion might take the ascendant, none being represented as
irresistible; and the moral law which predominated over the
drama, did not prevent this play of the passions--it being
visibly suspended during the whole piece over the heads of
the personages, and receiving its fulfilment only at the
close. In the present day dramatic characters are composed
differently. Instead of representing the whole of the
character, and the struggle between its good and evil
passions, one only passion is selected, which is made
violent, irresistible, fatal, the absolute mistress of all
the others; that is to say, a part is taken instead of the
whole. At the same time the moral law which, in the ancient
drama, (_i.e._ the drama of Racine and Corneille,) sustained
also a struggle against the passions--this law which those
even avowed who transgressed it, which had always its place
in the piece, whether through virtue or remorse--this law
also disappears before the ascendency of the sovereign
passion. No counterpoise of any kind, whether on the side of
rival passions or on the side of duty. What remains, then,
to struggle against this arbitrary passion? Nothing but
chance--circumstance--the hazard of events. And thus it is
that, in the modern drama, the interest resides rather in
the strange complication of events than in the shock of
opposite passions. The poet has only the power of chance, a
power sovereignly capricious, to contend against the passion
he has chosen to represent. And thus it is that the modern
drama has something also of arbitrary and fantastic.
Incidents and theatrical effects are accumulated, but the
incidents do not spring from the natural movement of the
passions brought upon the stage; they have no longer their
cause in the characters of the drama; they issue from the
fancy of the poet, who, feeling the necessity of arousing
his spectators from time to time, complicates the action
after a strange fashion, and aims always at surprise.