Chapter VII: Front Matter (7)

It will be worth while to illustrate our meaning by an instance or two, to show that, far from being hypercritical, our canon of criticism is extremely indulgent, and that we never take the bluff and surly objection--it cannot be!--until the improbability has reached the core of the matter. In the first story, "The Birth Mark," we raise no objection to the author, because he invents a chemistry of his own, and supposes his hero in possession of marvellous secrets which enable him to diffuse into the air an ether or perfume, the inhaling of which shall displace a red mark from the cheek which a beautiful lady was born with; it were hard times indeed, if a novelist might not do what he pleased in a chemist's laboratory, and produce what drugs, what perfumes, what potable gold or charmed elixir, he may have need of. But we do object to the preposterous motive which prompts the amateur of science to an operation of the most hazardous kind, on a being he is represented as dearly loving. We are to believe that a good _husband_ is afflicted, and grievously and incessantly tormented by a slight red mark on the cheek of a beautiful woman, which, as a _lover_, never gave him a moment's uneasiness, and which neither to him nor to any one else abated one iota from her attractions. We are to suppose that he braves the risk of the experiment--it succeeds for a moment, then proves fatal, and destroys her--for what? Merely that she who was so very beautiful should attain to an ideal perfection. "Had she been less beautiful," we are told, "it might have heightened his affection. But, seeing her otherwise so perfect, he found this one defect grow more and more intolerable, with every moment of their united lives." And then, we have some further bewildering explanation about "his honourable love, so pure and lofty that it would accept nothing less than perfection, nor miserably make itself contented with an earthlier nature than he had dreamed of." Call you this "pure and lofty love," when a woman is admired much as a connoisseur admires a picture, who might indeed be supposed to fume and fret if there was one little blot or blemish in it. Yet, even a connoisseur, who had an exquisite picture by all old master, with only one trifling blemish on it, would hardly trust himself or another to repair and retouch, in order to render it perfect. Can any one recognise in this elaborate nonsense about ideal perfection, any approximation to the feeling which a man has for the wife he loves? If the novelist wished to describe this egregious connoisseurship in female charms, he should have put the folly into the head of some insane mortal, who, reversing the enthusiasm by which some men have loved a picture or a statue as if it were a real woman, had learned to love his beautiful wife as if she were nothing else than a picture or a statue.

Again, in the "Story of the Artist of the Beautiful," we breathe not a word about the impossibility of framing out of springs and wheels so marvellous a butterfly, that the seeming creature shall not only fly and move its antennæ, and fold and display its wings like the living insect, but shall even surpass the living insect by showing a fine sense of human character, and refusing to perch on the hand of those who had not a genuine sentiment of beauty. The novelist shall put what springs and wheels he pleases into his mechanism, but the springs and wheels he places in the mechanist himself, must be those of genuine humanity, or the whole fiction falls to the ground. Now the mechanist, the hero of the story, the "Artist of the Beautiful," is described throughout as animated with the feelings proper to the artist, not to the mechanician. He is a young watchmaker, who, instead of plodding at the usual and lucrative routine of his trade, devotes his time to the structure of a most delicate and ingenious toy. We all know that a case like this is very possible. Few men, we should imagine, are more open to the impulse of emulation, the desire to do that which had never been done before, than the ingenious mechanist; and few men more completely under the dominion of their leading passion or project, because every day brings some new contrivance, some new resource, and the hope that died at night is revived in the morning. But Mr Hawthorne is not contented with the natural and very strong impulse of the mechanician; he speaks throughout of his enthusiastic artisan as of some young Raphael intent upon "creating the beautiful." Springs, and wheels, and chains, however fine and complicate, are not "the beautiful." He might as well suppose the diligent anatomist, groping amongst nerves and tissues, to be stimulated to _his_ task by an especial passion for the beautiful.

The passion of the ingenious mechanist we all understand; the passion of the artist, sculptor, or painter, is equally intelligible; but the confusion of the two in which Mr Hawthorne would vainly interest us, is beyond all power of comprehension. These are the improbabilities against which we contend. Moreover, when this wonderful butterfly is made--which he says truly was "a gem of art that a monarch would have purchased with honours and abundant wealth, and have treasured among the jewels of his kingdom, as the most unique and wondrous of them all,"--the artist sees it crushed in the hands of a child and looks "placidly" on. So never did any human mechanist who at length had succeeded in the dream and toil of his life. And at the conclusion of the story we are told, in not very intelligible language,--"When the artist rose high enough to achieve the Beautiful, the symbol by which he made it perceptible to mortal senses became of little value to his eyes, while his spirit possessed itself in the enjoyment of the reality."

It is not, perhaps, to the _stories_ we should be disposed to refer for the happier specimens of Mr Hawthorne's writing, but rather to those papers which we cannot better describe than as so many American _Spectators_ of the year 1846--so much do they call to mind the style of essay in the days of Steele and Addison.

We may observe here, that American writers frequently remind us of models of composition somewhat antiquated with ourselves. While, on the one hand, there is a wild tendency to snatch at originality at any cost--to coin new phrases--new _probabilities_--to "_intensify_" our language with strange "_impulsive_" energy--to break loose, in short, from all those restraints which have been thought to render style both perspicuous and agreeable; there is, on the other hand--produced partly by a very intelligible reaction--an effort somewhat too apparent to be classical and correct. It is a very laudable effort, and we should be justly accused of fastidiousness did we mention it as in the least blameworthy. We would merely observe that an effect is sometimes produced upon an English ear as if the writer belonged to a previous era of our literature, to an epoch when to produce smooth and well modulated sentences was something rarer and more valued than it is now. It will be a proof how little of censure we attach to the characteristic we are noticing, when we point to the writings of Dr Channing for an illustration of our meaning. They have to us an air of formality, a slight dash of pedantry. We seem to hear the echo, though it has grown faint, of the Johnsonian rhythm. They are often not ineloquent, but the eloquence seems to have passed under the hands of the composition-master. The clever classical romance, called "The Letters from Palmyra," has the same studied air. It is here, indeed, more suited to the subject, for every writer, when treating of a classical era, appears by a sort of intuitive propriety to recognise the necessity of purifying to the utmost his own style.

In some of Mr Hawthorne's papers we are reminded, and by no means disagreeably, of the manner of Steele and Addison. "The Intelligence Office" presents, in some parts, a very pleasing imitation of this style. This central intelligence office is one open to all mankind to make and record their various applications. The first person who enters inquires for "a place," and when questioned what sort of place he is seeking, very naïvely answers, "I want my place!--my own place!--my true place in the world!--my thing to do!" The application is entered, but very slender hope is given that he who is running about the world in search of his place, will ever find it.

"The next that entered was a man beyond the middle age, bearing
the look of one who knew the world and his own course in it. He
had just alighted from a handsome private carriage, which had
orders to wait in the street while its owner transacted his
business. This person came up to the desk with a quick determined
step, and looked the Intelligencer in the face with a resolute
eye, though at the same time some secret trouble gleamed from it.

"'I have an estate to dispose of,' said he with a brevity that
seemed characteristic.

"'Describe it,' said the Intelligencer.

"The applicant proceeded to give the boundaries of his property,
its nature, comprising tillage, pasture, woodland, and pleasure
ground, in ample circuit; together with a mansion-house replete
with gorgeous furniture and all the luxurious artifices that
combined to render it a residence where life might flow onward in
a stream of golden days.

"'I am a man of strong will,' said he in conclusion, 'and at my
first setting out in life as a poor unfriended youth, I resolved
to make myself the possessor of such a mansion and estate as this,
together with the revenue necessary to uphold it. I have succeeded
to the extent of my utmost wish. And this is the estate which I
have now concluded to dispose of.'

"'And your terms?' asked the Intelligencer, after taking down the
particulars with which the stranger had supplied him.

"'Easy--abundantly easy!' answered the successful man, smiling,
but with a stern and almost frightful contraction of the brow, as
if to quell an inward pang. 'I have been engaged in various sorts
of business--a distiller, a trader to Africa, an East India
merchant, a speculator in the stocks--and in the course of these
affairs have contracted an encumbrance of a certain nature. The
purchaser of the estate shall merely be required to assume this
burden to himself.

"'I understand you,' said the man of intelligence, putting his pen
behind his ear. 'I fear that no bargain can be negociated on these
conditions. Very probably, the next possessor may acquire the
estate with a similar encumbrance, but it will be of his own
contracting, and will not lighten your burden in the least.'"

Mr Hawthorne is by no means an equal writer. He is perpetually giving his reader, who, being pleased by parts, would willingly think well of the whole, some little awkward specimen of dubious taste. We confess, even in the above short extract, to having passed over a sentence or two, whose absence we have not thought it worth while to mark with asterisks, and which would hardly bear out our Addisonian compliment.

"But again the door is opened. A grandfatherly personage tottered
hastily into the office, with such an earnestness in his infirm
alacrity that his white hair floated backward, as he hurried up to
the desk. This venerable figure explained that he was in search of
To-morrow.

"'I have spent all my life in pursuit of it,' added the sage old
gentleman, 'being assured that To-morrow has some vast benefit or
other in store for me. But I am now getting a little in years, and
must make haste; for unless I overtake To-morrow soon, I begin to
be afraid it will finally escape me.'

"'This fugitive To-morrow, my venerable friend,' said the man of
intelligence, 'is a stray child of Time, and is flying from his
father into the region of the infinite. Continue your pursuit and
you will doubtless come up with him; but as to the earthly gifts
you expect, he has scattered them all among a throng of
Yesterdays.'"

There is a nice bit of painting, as an artist might say, under the title of "The Old Apple-dealer." We have seen the very man in England. We had marked it for quotation, but it is too long, and we do not wish to mar its effect by mutilation.

In the "Celestial Railroad," we have a new Pilgrim's Progress performed by _rail_. Instead of the slow, solitary, pensive pilgrimage which John Bunyan describes, we travel in fashionable company, and in the most agreeable manner. A certain Mr Smooth-it-away has eclipsed the triumphs of Brunel. He has thrown a viaduct over the Slough of Despond; he has tunnelled the hill Difficulty, and raised an admirable causeway across the valley of Humiliation. The wicket gate, so inconveniently narrow, has been converted into a commodious station-house; and whereas it will be remembered there was a long standing feud in the time of Christian between one Prince Beelzebub and his adherents (famous for shooting deadly arrows) and the keeper of the wicket gate, this dispute, much to the credit of the worthy and enlightened directors, has been pacifically arranged on the principle of mutual compromise. The Prince's subjects are pretty numerously employed about the station-house. As to the fiery Apollyon, he was, as Mr Smooth-it-away observed, "The very man to manage the engine," and he has been made chief stoker.

"One great convenience of the new method of going on pilgrimage we must not forget to mention. Our enormous burdens, instead of being carried on our shoulders, as had been the custom of old, are all snugly deposited in the luggage-van." The company, too, is most distinguished and fashionable; the conversation liberal and polite, turning "upon the news of the day, topics of business, politics, or the lighter matters of amusement; while religion, though indubitably the main thing at heart, is thrown tastefully into the background." The train stops for refreshment at Vanity Fair. Indeed, the whole arrangements are admirable--up to a certain point. But it seems there are difficulties _at the other terminus_ which the directors have not hitherto been able to overcome. On the whole, we are left with the persuasion that it is safer to go the old road, and in the old fashion, each one with his own burden upon his shoulders.

The story of "Roger Malvin's burial" is well told, and is the best of his narrative pieces. "The New Adam and Eve," and several others, might be mentioned for an agreeable vein of thought and play of fancy. In one of his papers the author has attempted a more common species of humour, and with some success. For variety's sake, we shall close our notice of him, and for the present, of "The American Library," with an extract from "Mrs Bullfrog."

Mr Bullfrog is an elegant and fastidious linen-draper, of feminine sensibility, and only too exquisite refinement. Such perfection of beauty and of delicacy did he require in the woman he should honour with the name of wife, that there was an awful chance of his obtaining no wife at all; when he happily fell in with the amiable and refined person, who in a very short time became Mrs Bullfrog.

An unlucky accident, an upset of the carriage on their wedding trip, giving rise to a strange display of masculine energy on the part of Mrs B. and disarranging her glossy black ringlets and pearly teeth, so as to occasion their disappearance and reappearance in a most miraculous manner, has excited a strange disquietude in the else happy bridegroom.

"'To divert my mind,' says Mr Bullfrog, who tells his own story,
'I took up the newspaper which had covered the little basket of
refreshments, and which now lay at the bottom of the coach,
blushing with a deep red stain, and emitting a potent spirituous
fume, from the contents of the broken bottle of _kalydor_. The
paper was two or three years old, but contained an article of
several columns, in which I soon grew wonderfully interested. It
was the report of a trial for breach of promise of marriage,
giving the testimony in full, with fervid extracts from both the
gentleman's and lady's amatory correspondence. The deserted damsel
had personally appeared in court, and had borne energetic evidence
to her lover's perfidy, and the strength of her blighted
affections. On the defendant's part, there had been an attempt,
though insufficiently sustained, to blast the plaintiff's
character, and a plea, in mitigation of damages, on account of her
unamiable temper. A horrible idea was suggested by the lady's
name.

"'Madam,' said I, holding the newspaper before Mrs Bullfrog's
eyes--and though a small, delicate, and thin visaged man, I feel
assured that I looked very terrific--'Madam,' repeated I, through
my shut teeth, 'were you the plaintiff in this cause?'

"'Oh my dear Mr Bullfrog,' replied my wife sweetly, 'I thought all
the world knew that!'

"'Horror! horror!' exclaimed I, sinking back on the seat.

"Covering my face with both hands, I emitted a deep groan, as if
my tormented soul were rending me asunder. I, the most exquisitely
fastidious of men, and whose wife was to be the most delicate and
refined of women, with all the fresh dew-drops glittering on her
virgin rosebud of a heart! I thought of the glossy ringlets and
pearly teeth--I thought of the kalydor--I thought of the
coachman's bruised ear and bloody nose--I thought of the tender
love-secrets, which she had whispered to the judge and jury, and a
thousand tittering auditors--and gave another groan!

"'Mr Bullfrog,' said my wife.

"As I made no reply, she gently took my hands within her own,
removed them from my face, and fixed her eyes steadfastly on mine.

"'Mr Bullfrog,' said she, not unkindly, yet with all the decision
of her strong character, 'let me advise you to overcome this
foolish weakness, and prove yourself, to the best of your ability,
as good a husband as I will be a wife. You have discovered,
perhaps, some little imperfections in your bride. Well, what did
you expect? Women are not angels.'

"'But why conceal these imperfections?' interposed I, tremulously.

"'Now, my love, are you not a most unreasonable little man?' said
Mrs Bullfrog, patting me on the cheek. 'Ought a woman to expose
her frailties earlier than on the wedding day? Well, what a
strange man you are! Pooh! you are joking.'

"'But the suit for breach of promise!' groaned I.

"'Ah! and is that the rub?' exclaimed my wife. 'Is it possible
that you view that affair in an objectionable light? Mr Bullfrog,
I never could have dreamt it! Is it an objection, that I have
triumphantly defended myself against slander, and vindicated my
purity in a court of justice? Or do you complain, because your
wife has shown the proper spirit of a woman, and punished the
villain who trifled with her affections?'

"'But,' persisted I, shrinking into a corner of the coach,
however; for I did not know precisely how much contradiction the
proper spirit of a woman would endure; 'but, my love, would it not
have been more dignified to treat the villain with the silent
contempt he merited?'

"'That is all very well, Mr Bullfrog,' said my wife, slily; 'but
in that case where would have been the five thousand dollars which
are to stock your drygoods' store?'

"'Mrs Bullfrog, upon your honour,' demanded I, as if my life hung
upon her words, 'is there no mistake about these five thousand
dollars?'

"'Upon my word and honour there is none,' replied she. 'The jury
gave me every cent the rascal had; and I have kept it all for my
dear Bullfrog?'

"'Then, thou dear woman,' cried I, with an overwhelming gush of
tenderness, 'let me fold thee to my heart! The basis of
matrimonial bliss is secure, and all thy little defects and
frailties are forgiven. Nay, since the result has been so
fortunate, I rejoice at the wrongs which drove thee to this
blessed lawsuit--happy Bullfrog that I am!'"

FOOTNOTES:

[12] _Views and Reviews of American Literature._ By the author of
_The Yemassee, &c. &c._
_The Wigwam, and The Cabin_. By the same.
_Papers on Literature and Art_. By S. MARGARET FULLER.
_Tales_. By EDGAR A. POE.
_Mosses from an old Manse_. By NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.

[13] For that strong nationality which ballads and other rude productions written in a rude age exhibit, America comes, of course, too late. But we doubt not that an attentive examination would already detect in the productions of the American mind as striking traits of national character as are usually seen in the works of civilized epochs. A new species of wit is one of the last things which a student of Joe Miller would have thought it possible to invent. Yet this the Americans have achieved. Whatever may be the value attached to it, many a laugh has been created by that monstrous exaggeration, so worded as to give a momentary and bewildering sense of possibility to something most egregiously absurd, which as decidedly belongs to America as the bull does to Ireland. "A man is so tall that he has to climb a ladder to shave himself." Not only is the feat impossible, but no conception can be formed of its manner of execution, yet the turn of the expression for an instant disguises, before it reveals, its most flagrant nonsense. There is also a certain grave hoax, where some fabulous matter is most veraciously reported, in which the Americans have shown great success and something of a national predilection. Some time ago we were all mystified by what seemed a most authentic account of the sudden subsidence of the falls of Niagara. The wall of rock over which the waters rush had been worn away, and, contrary to the expectations of geologists, the bed of the river, immediately behind it, had proved to be of a soft soil that could not resist the torrent. The river had therefore formed for itself an inclined plane, and the great fall had been converted into a _rapid_ of equally astonishing character. If we do not mistake, the true and particular account of certain animals which Herschel discovered in the moon at the time he moved his great telescope, we believe, to the Cape of Good Hope, came to us from the same quarter. It is a pity that _Gulliver's Travels_ are already in existence. It is a book the Americans should have written; they have been unjustly forestalled and defrauded by that work. No doubt, other peculiar and national traits, and of a higher order, would suggest themselves to any one who made it a subject of examination.

[14] The following summing-up by a judge on a trial for murder gives us a singular specimen (if it can be depended on) of the dignity of the ermine as sustained in South Carolina some half century ago. A murder had been committed on one Major Spencer; the details, natural and supernatural, we have no space for; suffice it to say, that the evidence against the accused left no doubt of his guilt. The judge (an Irishman by birth,) "who it must be understood was a real existence, and who had no small reputation in his day in the south," thus charged the jury. "'Fore God," said the judge, "the prisoner may be a very innocent man, after all, as, by my faith, I do think there have been many murderers before him; but he ought nevertheless to be hung as an example to all other persons who suffer such strong proofs of guilt to follow their innocent misdoings. Gentlemen of the jury, if this person Macleod, or Macnab, didn't murder Major Spencer, either you or I did; and you must now decide which of us it is! I say, gentlemen of the jury, either you, or I, or the prisoner at the bar, murdered this man; and if you have any doubts which of us it was, it is but justice and mercy that you should give the prisoner the benefit of your doubts; and so find your verdict. But, before God, should you find him not guilty, Mr Attorney there can scarcely do any thing wiser than to put us all upon trial for the deed." (P. 31.)

UNITS: TENS: HUNDREDS: THOUSANDS.