Chapter XXI: Meeting and Parting (3)

In a preface to the English edition of this book Mr. Reade grapples with the charge of plagiarism so often urged against his stories, and, justifying his habitual course by precedents, forestalls the search of the detectives in the present case by proclaiming the sources from which incidents and descriptions have been gathered. Having treated of many matters beyond the range of his personal knowledge and experience, he has necessarily had recourse to the writings of other men, and by citing his authorities he not only clears himself of the suspicion of surreptitious borrowing, but establishes the truthfulness, or at least the plausibility, of what might otherwise have been considered improbable inventions. This frankness, which, after all, sheds no new light upon his method of composition, seems to have had the happy, if undesigned, effect of throwing his critics off the true scent. The real plagiarism in _A Simpleton_ lies not in the details, but in the conception. The "situation" which leads to all the embroilments and developments is the apparently ill-assorted union of a man of science and genius, absorbed in the labors of investigation and discovery, practical in his views of life and upright in all his actions, with an ill-trained and unintellectual beauty, whose perfections of form and face, pretty coquetry, studied artlessness and sweet recognition of the value of masculine knowledge and strength as the proper stay of feminine weakness and the proper organ of the feminine will, assail the superior being just at that point where his perceptions are weakest, and lead him an easy captive. When we add that this Samson is a young medical man, marked out for the highest honors of his profession, and that his career is temporarily blighted at the outset through the extravagance, silliness and deception of his wife, we have given an outline which no reader of _Middlemarch_ will require to have paralleled. Dr. Christopher Staines is matched and contrasted with Rosa Lusignan, precisely as Lydgate is matched and contrasted with Rosamond Vincy. There is even a further resemblance in the minor pairing and natural dissonance of Phebe Dale and Reginald Falcon in the one book and of Mary Garth and Fred Vincy in its predecessor; while Lady Cicely Treherne, though her simplicity, unlike that of Dorothea, is merely assumed, is almost as unworldly as that heroine, makes a similar use of her wealth and social advantages, stands in much the same relation to the other characters, serves them in the same manner, and ends by marrying her Will Ladislaw under the designation of a "mercurial Irish gentleman" not further introduced to the reader. It will be understood that it is not the characters, in the proper sense of the word, that Mr. Reade has borrowed. In fact, George Eliot's characters are too intimately associated with their surroundings, the circumstances in which they are placed enter too largely as elements into their nature, to allow of their being transplanted without losing all identity. And on the other hand, Mr. Reade, for a reason to be mentioned hereafter, is quite incapable of borrowing characters--still using the word in its most rigid meaning: the characters in his books are always in an emphatic sense his own. The plot, too, and the action of the one book, bear as little resemblance to those of the other as an exhibition of fireworks bears to the "after-glow" of an Alpine sunset. It is, as we have said, the "situation" which Mr. Reade has taken, and this with a palpable purpose, as if, after reading _Middlemarch_, he had said: "Ha! here is a good idea; but George Eliot, with her commonplace, humdrum way of treating things, has missed the effects of which it was capable. I, Charles Reade, who see beneath the surface, besides being a master of pyrotechnics, will work up the theme in that flashing, whizzing, startling, dazzling way which shall reveal its full proportions as well as my own transcendent powers." Accordingly, while Rosamond continues to be Rosamond throughout, each fresh exhibition of her traits only showing their natural growth or furthering the reader's knowledge of them, Rosa passes through the swift transformations which a "Hey, presto!" is quite sufficient to announce. In the early part of the book she is an embodiment of silliness, levity and selfishness--in the latter part she is reason, self-devotion and passionate love personified. As for Dr. Staines, there is no need of any apotheosis in his case: as the hero of the book he must perforce be that renowned prestidigitateur whom Mr. Reade long since presented to an admiring audience as the principal performer in his troupe. It is needless, therefore, to say that he goes through the programme with the highest dexterity and éclat, displaying the marvelous knowledge, encountering the terrific dangers, achieving the prodigies which belong to his part, without the least falling off in vivacity or suppleness. When he finally hurls his treacherous friend from a cottage window and impales him on the garden railings, who can withhold the well-merited applause?

It may seem paradoxical to say of a very successful novel-writer that he has mistaken his vocation, yet such, we think, is Mr. Reade's case. For the novelist, as for the dramatist, an essential combination is that of a strong individuality with an equal endowment of the imitative faculty. This union is found, perhaps, in its perfection only in Shakespeare. Shakespeare's personages bear the double stamp of their own individuality and of their creator's. In their appropriate diversity their origin is still apparent. Their fidelity to Nature is never that of literal copies. When Lear says, "Undo this button," we are thrilled with the reality of the trait, but we do not suspect it of having been borrowed from real life. On the contrary, it glows with the heat of that imaginative power whose office it is to transfuse reality--to seize truth in its essence and idealize it in form. Descending to two writers in whom this combination is also strong, we may notice how, nevertheless, the balance inclines to one side or the other. There are many passages of Jane Austen which read like transcripts of actual conversations: one might suppose them to have been done by a skillful reporter. In George Eliot's books, on the other hand, the spontaneity of the actors is checked by the brooding, analytical spirit of the author: their verisimilitude is perfect, but their dramatic capabilities do not always have the free play necessary to their complete exhibition and appropriate effect. Turning now to Mr. Reade, we find that in him one element of this combination--the power of impersonation--is utterly lacking. His own individuality protrudes itself at every point. His characters are all identical in essence--all imbued with the confidence, the unflagging ardor, the impetuosity and extravagance of the same ideal. It is in vain that he labels them with different designations: no sooner do they begin to speak and move than every tone and gesture reveals the familiar type. The poor, mean-spirited creature intended to contrast with the hero turns out to be only his pale reflection. Distinctions of sex and age, of race and education, are merely superficial. High or low, good or bad, they are all equally knowing and equally self-willed. The women may talk of bonnets, but their lofty and fiery souls glow through the twaddle. The children have an infantile prattle, but the schoolmaster, overhearing it, would at once remark that it was only _that boy Reade_ holding one of his strange colloquies with himself.

With this incapacity to understand the diverse springs of human action, Mr. Reade is clearly no novelist in the true sense of the term. He is, however, an admirable describer and a capital story-teller. He is consequently always entertaining and secure of his reader. Yet, inasmuch as he professes to relate and describe only actual facts, we cannot but regret that he should have adopted a form which is ill suited to this object, and which makes him a mere retailer of other people's observations. In the book before us he paints the interior of Africa from somebody else's information: had he gone thither himself his picture would have had great value. So, too, he is continually instructing us about the processes used in the arts and manufactures; but his knowledge being gained at second hand and crammed for the occasion, we mistrust the teacher. If he would apply himself to such matters, and give us the results of his experience, our gain would be great. He could not, of course, as now, traverse the whole field; but what his teaching might lose in superficial extent would be more than made good by its greater accuracy and reliability. He might select, for instance, the useful art of coopering. We know his powers, we appreciate his genius. It is safe to say that a cask made in accordance with his directions, after he had served a short apprenticeship, would not only be fair to see and easy to handle, but would also hold water. This is more than we should venture to affirm of the plot of any of his novels.

The Fishing Tourist. By Charles Hallock. New York: Harper & Brothers.

I Go A-Fishing. By W. C. Prime. New York: Harper & Brothers.

Mr. Hallock tells us in his preface that his province is to write an anglers' guide without embellishment. It would have been well if he had adhered to this plan. After some pages of high-flown periods he informs us that twenty-six years ago fly-fishing was in its infancy, being scarcely known in America, and but little practiced in England. If he had asserted that fly-fishing was scarcely known among his "green hills" at that period, and but little practiced in Hampshire county, the statement need not have been impugned; but hundreds of books have been written upon this art in England since the time of Dame Juliana Berners, and in America fifty years ago there existed many such practitioners as Fay, Eckley and Bethune.

When Mr. Hallock treats of the natural history of his favorite fishes he is equally unfortunate; which is the less remarkable since he gets his science from W. H. Herbert, a writer who knew little of American ichthyology. As a specimen of the methods of that "cautious student," as our author calls him, Herbert, pretending to quote from Agassiz, who in his _Tour to Lake Superior_ described a new salmon of that lake under the name of _Salmo Siskowet_, calls it _Salmo Siskowitz_, and this mistake Hallock repeats. Again, Herbert writing of the great northern pickerel, calls it "_Esox lucioides_, Agassiz;" the fact being that Professor Agassiz describes it in his _Lake Superior_ as _Esox boreas_. This mistake of Herbert has been perpetuated by most of the popular writers, Norris, Roosevelt, etc. Mr. Hallock calls the sea-trout _Salmo trutta_, again copying Herbert, while all naturalists now give it the name bestowed upon it by Hamilton Smith, _Salmo Canadensis_, it being very distinct from _Salmo trutta_, which is a European species. Mr. Hallock writes of the "toag of Lakes Pepin, Moosehead and St. Croix." Now, Lake Pepin contains no large gray trout; in fact, with the exception of _Salmo fontinalis_, its fishes are all of the Western type. He also mentions "the common lake-trout of New York and New England, _Salmo confinis_, DeKay," which is identical with the toag, just mentioned. Dr. A. L. Adams of the British army, in a recent work on the _Natural History of New Brunswick_, calls it "the togue or toladi, _Salmo confinis_, DeKay, the gray-spotted lake-trout." Mr. Hallock asserts that _Salmo Sebago_ is a monster brook-trout, like those of the Rangely lakes. Dr. Adams states that this name, _Salmo Sebago_, was applied to the Schoodic salmon, _Salmo Gloveri_, by Girard, in 1853; the species being first observed in that lake, where it is now said to be extinct.

As a guide-book, _The Fishing Tourist_ is not without value, for a work on this plan was needed. An unfortunate spirit of exaggeration seems, however, to pervade the narrative. What remarkable good luck a man must have who kills a four-pound trout at Bartlett's! How fortunate is he who can make an average of two-pound trout in a New Hampshire river! Our experience teaches us that it is dangerous to guarantee that no trout under ten ounces will be found in the Tabasintoc, though one might say that of the Novelle, another New Brunswick river. When Mr. Hallock states that the trout in the "Big Woods" of Wisconsin are lamentably ignorant of the angler's wiles, he must be referring to a remote period: we find them now very wide awake, and meet almost as many anglers on Rush River as on the Raquette.

Mr. Prime's book is a very pleasant one. Evidently the work of a scholar, it indulges in none of those spasmodic efforts of eloquence which are the joy of the newspaper correspondent. Perhaps there is something too much of the Iskander Effendi and the Sea of Galilee to be congruous with the St. Regis and Franconia Notch, but the dialogue is natural, the fishing adventures are painted with a modest brush, the trout are not incredibly large or numerous, and the whole tone of the book is well suited to summer reading, when, on your return from a long tramp by the river-side, you wish to take your ease in the society of a sympathizing author. Mr. Prime treats of well-known resorts, the much-whipped St. Regis lakes and the depleted streams of Connecticut and New Hampshire, but even among these familiar scenes he is able to find something new, or at least they are described in a fresh and lively way. The book is worthy to rest on the same shelf with Walton, Davy, Wilson, and the other classics of the angler's library. There are some sketches of fly-fishing in European waters which will be interesting to American anglers, and there is much pleasant talk about old books.

Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market. By Walter Bagehot. New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co.

In England, as in America, notes are a legal tender, the Bank of England notes corresponding in that respect to our greenbacks. An American banker is safe if he have enough greenbacks to pay all probable demands, though the value of these changes as our government chooses to enlarge or contract the issue. The number of attainable bank-notes is not so elastic, however, in England as with us: the issue department of the Bank of England is limited, by an act of Parliament passed in 1844, to fifteen millions of pounds. For the last few years that bank, in addition to its fifteen millions in notes, has retained something like twenty millions in coin. It has not uniformly, though, been so rich: three times since 1847 its banking department has been reduced to a figure of three million pounds or under. On these occasions "Peel's Act" has been suspended to tide over the affairs of the embarrassed bank, and its business could not have survived if the law had not been broken. The bank which has thus three times practically given out in a quarter of a century is, however, so thoroughly protected by prestige, by national and international confidence, that it is the custodian of the reserves belonging to all Lombard street and to all the country banks of England, as well as those of Scotch and Irish bankers. And "since the Franco-German war," says Mr. Bagehot, "we may be said to keep the European reserve also." All great communities have at times to pay large sums in cash, and of that cash a great store must be kept somewhere. Formerly, there were two such stores in Europe: one was the Bank of France, and the other the Bank of England. But since the suspension of specie payments by the Bank of France its use as a reservoir of specie is at an end: no one can draw a cheque on it and be sure of getting gold for it. Accordingly, the whole liability for such international payments in cash is thrown on the Bank of England. The accumulations secured ultimately by this bank represent a remarkable share of the national wealth. England is the only European country where small savers commit their money to custody: France has never recovered from the timidity consequent on Law's failure, and still hoards its petty sums in stockings; Holland and Germany have never felt secure from invasion. England alone trusts its whole gain to a bank, and demands interest for it. The vast amount of idle gold distributed through the homes of France and Germany is not tangible, is not money "of the money market." The hoards of France can only be tempted from their torpor by a vast national misfortune and by a great loan in French securities. But the English money is borrowable money. The British are bold lenders, and even if they were not so, the mere fact that their money lies in a bank makes it far more obtainable. Millions in the hand of a banker are a power, whereas distributed through a nation they cannot be asked for, and are no power at all. It is thus that Lombard street stands ready to lend to all civilized or partly civilized governments at different rates, and builds railways in indigent states all over the world. For, though "English bankers are not themselves very great lenders to foreign countries, they are great lenders to those who lend." Rude and poor countries and undeveloped! colonies find in Lombard street a fund into which they may dip at a suitable premium, and thus possess a chance of material felicity which was never the privilege of any previous epoch. This vast machine, however, the legacy of unnumbered years, is not an ideally perfect custodian of the wealth entrusted to it. The reforms called for by a long experience are what the most important part of Mr. Bagehot's volume is devoted to. Some permanent and skilled authority to rule the bank is the principal novelty suggested; but the French plan will not do for England. The direct appointment of a governor by the Crown would not lessen the difficulty. The American law, saying that each national bank shall have a fixed proportion of cash to its liabilities, Mr. Bagehot considers one of many reforms which the English could not adopt if they would: "in a sensitive state of the British money-market the near approach to the legal limit of reserve would be a sure incentive to panic." The difficulties of remodeling such an institution as the Bank of England are the most curiously developed portion of Mr. Bagehot's treatise, where all is curiously and intelligently handled. The book is interesting to outsiders as well as to professionals.

Wau-Ban: The Early Day in the North-west. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co.

This is a reprint, in a condensed and convenient form, of a work written some twenty years ago by Mrs. John H. Kinzie of Chicago. It is a real contribution to the early history of the North-west, and contains enough of romantic adventure to form the basis of half a dozen novels. The story of the massacre of Chicago in 1812 is one of the most thrilling in American history, and it is here told by an eye-witness. Still, it is difficult to realize that sixty years ago a wagon-load of children were tomahawked by Indians in what is now the heart of the great City of the Lakes.

The family of Kinzie had certainly a remarkable history, beginning with the female ancestor who was captured by savages in the early history of the country, through that generation who were the founders of Chicago, down to the living representative of the family, who in 1830 entered one hundred and sixty acres of the present town at the government price, one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre, and only paid for one hundred, thinking, as he said, that that quantity of land would be all he should ever want or could find a use for. The rejected portion is now worth from two to three millions of dollars. A hundred years hence, when Chicago will perhaps contain a million or two of inhabitants, the name of this family of pioneers will be as memorable as that of Winthrop in Boston or Stuyvesant in New York.

_Books Received._

De Witt's Acting Plays: No. 142. Dollars and Cents: A Comedy. By L. J. Hollenius.--No. 145. First Love: A Comedy. From the French of Eugene Scribe. By L. J. Hollenius. New York: R. M. De Witt.

Memoirs of the Founding and Progress of the United States Naval Observatory. By Professor J. E. Nourse, U.S.N. Washington Government Printing-Office.

America Picturesque: A Visit to the Academy. By Henry Blackburn, late editor of "London Society." New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons.

Expression: Its Anatomy and Philosophy. By Sir Charles Bell, K. H. Illustrated. New York: S.R. Wells.

The Mystery of Metropolisville. By Edward Eggleston. Illustrated. New York: Orange Judd & Co.

Bits of Talk about Home Matters, By H. H., author of "Bits of Travel." Boston: Roberts Brothers.

The Lawrences: A Twenty-Years' History. By Charlotte Turnbull. New York: American News Co.

The Forty-five Guardsmen. By Alexandre Dumas. Philadelphia: T. B. Peterson & Brothers.

Lars: A Pastoral of Norway. By Bayard Taylor. Boston: James R. Osgood & Co.

The New York City "Ring." By S. J. Tilden. New York: Press of John Polhemus.

Poems of the Plains. By William Darwin Crabb. Cambridge: Riverside Press.

Woman's Wrong. By Mrs. Eiloart. Philadelphia: T. B. Peterson & Brothers.

Adventures of Kwei, the Chinese Girl. By Myra. Boston: Henry Hoyt.