Chapter V: Part 5

“Her heart melted, I suppose (indeed she hath since owned as
much) at the notion that she should do anything unkind to any
mortal, great or small; for when she returned, she had sent away
the housekeeper upon an errand by the door at the further end of
the gallery; and, coming back to the lad, with a look of infinite
pity and tenderness in her eyes, she took his hand again, placing
her other fair hand on his head, and saying some words to him,
which were so kind, and said in a voice so sweet, that the boy,
who had never looked upon so much beauty before, felt as if the
touch of a superior being or angel smote him down to the ground,
and kissed the fair protecting hand, as he knelt on one knee. To
the very last hour of his life, Esmond remembered the lady as
she then spoke and looked--the rings on her fair hands, the very
scent of her robe, the beam of her eyes lighting up with surprise
and kindness, her lips blooming in a smile, the sun making a
golden halo round her hair.”

The story now digresses, returning to Esmond’s early life, the vague recollections of his childhood abroad, his coming to Castlewood, his education by Father Holt, a Jesuit priest, the plots and intrigues of the family on behalf of King James, the seizure of the great house by King William’s troops, the arrest of the viscountess in her bed, and the death of the viscount at the battle of the Boyne.

The young page was warmly welcomed by the new viscount, as well as by Lady Castlewood, and he became the instructor of their children. There are exquisite descriptions of their domestic life in the earlier pages of the book.

“There seemed, as the boy thought, in every look or gesture of
this fair creature, an angelical softness and bright pity--in
motion or repose she seemed gracious alike; the tone of her
voice, though she uttered words ever so trivial, gave him a
pleasure that amounted almost to anguish. It can not be called
love that a lad of twelve years of age, little more than menial,
felt for an exalted lady, his mistress; but it was worship. To
catch her glance, to divine her errand, and run on it before she
had spoken it; to watch, follow, adore her, became the business
of his life. Meanwhile, as is the way often, his idol had idols
of her own, and never thought of or suspected the admiration of
her little pigmy adorer.

“My lady had on her side her three idols; first and foremost,
Jove and supreme ruler, was her lord, Harry’s patron, the good
Viscount of Castlewood. All wishes of his were laws with her. If
he had a headache, she was ill. If he frowned, she trembled. If
he joked, she smiled, and was charmed. If he went a-hunting, she
was always at the window to see him ride away, her little son
crowing on her arm, or on the watch till his return. She made
dishes for his dinner; spiced his wine for him; made the toast
for his tankard at breakfast; hushed the house when he slept in
his chair, and watched for a look when he woke. If my lord was
not a little proud of his beauty, my lady adored it. She clung
to his arms as he paced the terrace, her two fair little hands
clasped round his great one; her eyes were never tired of looking
in his face and wondering at his perfection.”

But it was not long until my lord began to grow weary of the bonds in which his lady held him and at the jealousy which went hand and hand with her affection.

“Then perhaps, the pair reached that other stage, which is not
uncommon in married life, when the woman perceives that the god
of the honeymoon is a god no more; only a mortal like the rest
of us; and so she looks into her heart, and lo! _vacua sedes et
inania arcana!_”

One unhappy day Esmond brings the smallpox to Castlewood from an ale-house in the village, which he has visited, and where he has met Nancy Sievewright, the blacksmith’s pretty daughter. Lady Castlewood, on hearing this, breaks out into a strange fit of rage and jealousy; but when Esmond is taken ill she nurses him tenderly, contracting the disease herself, while the viscount with his little daughter Beatrix flees from the contagion. He returns to find his wife’s beauty marred a little for a time, whereupon his love for her grows weak and she betakes herself to the affection of her children. With a little legacy that comes into her possession, she sends Esmond to the University, whence he returns on vacation to find a skeleton in the household. His kind mistress is shedding tears in secret, while her husband drinks heavily, neglects her for an actress in a neighboring town, and brings home Lord Mohun, a notorious rake, with whom he spends his nights at play, and squanders his fortune. At last Mohun is suspected of designs against my lady, and in a drive with this unscrupulous man Esmond warns him to leave Castlewood. An accident occurs; Mohun is thrown out and injured. The viscount tells his wife that “Harry is killed” (Harry being the name both of Esmond and Mohun). She screams, and falls unconscious. A duel follows, and Lord Castlewood is slain by Mohun’s sword, but before his death confesses that he has learned from Father Holt that Esmond is the legitimate son of his predecessor, and the lawful heir to Castlewood. Esmond burns the confession and resolves not to profit by a claim which will bring sorrow upon his kind mistress and her children. He is sent to prison for participating in the duel, from which he had endeavored to dissuade his patron and afterwards to defend him. Here Lady Castlewood visits him. She brings no comfort, however, but upbraids him in her wild grief:

“‘I lost him through you--I lost him, the husband of my youth,
I say. I worshiped him--you know I worshiped him--and he was
changed to me. He was no more my Francis of old--my dear, dear
soldier! He loved me before he saw you, and I loved him! Oh, God
is my witness, how I loved him! Why did he not send you from
among us? ’Twas only his kindness, that could refuse me nothing
then. And, young as you were--yes, and weak and alone--there was
evil, I knew there was evil in keeping you. I read it in your
face and eyes. I saw that they boded harm to us--and it came, I
knew it would. Why did you not die when you had the smallpox,
and I came myself and watched you, and you didn’t know me in
your delirium--and you called out for me, though I was there at
your side. All that has happened since was a just judgment on
my wicked heart--my wicked, jealous heart. Oh, I am punished,
awfully punished! My husband lies in his blood--murdered for
defending me, my kind, kind, generous lord--and you were by, and
you let him die, Henry!’”

He is crushed by her injustice, but does not waver in his devotion. After his imprisonment is over he procures an ensign’s commission and participates in the destruction of the French fleet in Vigo Bay. On his return he hears that his mistress is about to marry the chaplain of Castlewood, and he hastens to prevent the match. The rumor is unfounded, but it furnishes the opportunity for reconciliation. They meet in Winchester Cathedral after the service:

“She gave him her hand--her little fair hand; there was only her
marriage ring on it. The quarrel was all over. The year of grief
and estrangement was passed. They never had been separated. His
mistress had never been out of his head all that time. No, not
once. No, not in the prison, nor in the camp, nor on shore before
the enemy, nor at sea under the stars of solemn midnight, nor as
he watched the glorious rising of the dawn; not even at the table
where he sat carousing with friends, or at the theater yonder,
where he tried to fancy that other eyes were brighter than hers.
Brighter eyes there might be, and faces more beautiful, but none
so dear--no voice so sweet as that of his beloved mistress, who
had been sister, mother, goddess to him during his youth--goddess
now no more, for he knew of her weaknesses, and by thought, by
suffering, and that experience it brings, was older now than she;
but more fondly cherished as woman perhaps than ever she had been
adored as divinity. What is it? Where lies it? the secret which
makes one little hand the dearest of all? Who ever can unriddle
that mystery?”

And then when Esmond gently reproaches her that she had never told him of her sorrow for her cruel words, and that the knowledge would have spared him many a bitter night:

“‘I know it, I know it,’ she answered, in a tone of such sweet
humility as made Esmond repent that he should ever have dared to
reproach her. ‘I know how wicked my heart has been; and I have
suffered too, my dear. I confessed to Mr. Atterbury--I must not
tell any more. He--I said I would not write to you or go to you;
and it was better, even, that, having parted, we should part. But
I knew you would come back--I own that. That is no one’s fault.
And to-day, Henry, in the anthem, when they sang it, “When the
Lord turned the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream,”
I thought, yes, like them that dream--them that dream. And then
it went, “They that sow in tears shall reap in joy; and he that
goeth forth and weepeth shall doubtless come home again with
rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him;” I looked up from the
book, and saw you. I was not surprised when I saw you. I knew you
would come, my dear, and saw the gold sunshine round your head.’”

* * * * *

“‘If--if ’tis so, dear lady,’ Mr. Esmond said, ‘why should I
ever leave you? If God hath given me this great boon--and near
or far from me, as I know now, the heart of my dearest mistress
follows me--let me have that blessing near me, nor ever part with
it till death separate us. Come away--leave this Europe, this
place which has so many sad recollections for you. Begin a new
life in a new world. My good lord often talked of visiting that
land in Virginia which King Charles gave us--gave his ancestor.
Frank will give that. No man there will ask if there is a blot on
my name, or inquire in the woods what my title is.’

“‘And my children--and my duty--and my good father, Henry?’ she
broke out. ‘He has none but me now; for soon my sister will leave
him, and the old man will be alone. He has conformed since the
new Queen’s reign; and there in Winchester, where they love him,
they have found a church for him. When the children leave me I
will stay with him. I cannot follow them into the great world,
where their way lies--it scares me. They will come and visit me;
and you will, sometimes, Henry--yes, sometimes, as now, in the
Holy Advent season, when I have seen and blessed you once more.’

“‘I would leave all to follow you,’ said Mr. Esmond; ‘and can you
not be as generous for me, dear Lady?’

“‘Hush, boy!’ she said, and it was with a mother’s sweet,
plaintive tone and look that she spoke. ‘The world is beginning
for you. For me, I have been so weak and sinful that I must leave
it, and pray out an expiation, dear Henry. Had we houses of
religion as there were once, and many divines of our church would
have them again, I often think I would retire to one and pass my
life in penance. But I would love you still--yes, there is no sin
in such a love as mine now; and my dear lord in heaven may see
my heart; and knows the tears that have washed my sin away--and
now--now my duty is here, by my children while they need me, and
by my poor old father, and--’

“‘And not by me?’ Henry said.

“‘Hush!’ she said again, and raised her hand to his lip. ‘I have
been your nurse. You could not see me, Henry, when you were
in the smallpox, and I came and sat by you. Ah, I prayed that
I might die, but it would have been in sin, Henry. Oh, it is
horrid to look back to that time. It is over now and past, and
it has been forgiven me. When you need me again I will come ever
so far. When your heart is wounded then come to me, my dear. Be
silent! Let me say all. You never loved me, dear Henry--no, you
do not now, and I thank Heaven for it. I used to watch you, and
knew by a thousand signs that it was so. Do you remember how
glad you were to go away to College? ’Twas I sent you. I told my
papa that, and Mr. Atterbury too, when I spoke to him in London.
And they both gave me absolution--both--and they are godly men,
having authority to bind and to loose. And they forgave me, as my
dear lord forgave me before he went to heaven.’

“‘I think the angels are not all in heaven,’ Mr. Esmond said. And
as a brother folds a sister to his heart; and as a mother cleaves
to her son’s breast--so for a few moments Esmond’s beloved
mistress came to him and blessed him.”

After this wonderful chapter there comes another of almost equal beauty, if it stood alone, but the two together make a strange discord. For when they reach Walcote, which is now the family home, Beatrix, the daughter of Lady Castlewood, comes down the stairs to greet him.

“Esmond had left a child and found a woman, grown beyond the
common height, and arrived at such a dazzling completeness of
beauty that his eyes might well show surprise and delight at
beholding her. In hers there was a brightness so lustrous and
melting that I have seen a whole assembly follow her as if by an
attraction irresistible; and that night the great Duke was at
the playhouse after Ramillies, every soul turned and looked (she
chanced to enter at the opposite side of the theater at the same
moment) at her, and not at him. She was a brown beauty--that is,
her eyes, hair, and eyebrows and eyelashes were dark; her hair
curling with rich undulations, and waving over her shoulders.
But her complexion was as dazzling white as snow in sunshine;
except her cheeks, which were a bright red, and her lips, which
were of a still deeper crimson. Her mouth and chin, they said,
were too large and full, and so they might be for a goddess in
marble, but not for a woman whose eyes were fire, whose look was
love, whose voice was the sweetest low song, whose shape was
perfect symmetry, health, decision, activity, whose foot, as it
planted itself on the ground, was firm but flexible, and whose
motion, whether rapid or slow, was always perfect grace--agile
as a nymph, lofty as a queen--now melting, now imperious,
now sarcastic--there was no single movement of hers but was
beautiful. As he thinks of her, he who writes feels young again,
and remembers a paragon.”

Esmond falls instantly in love with the dazzling beauty, and the rest of the book, down to nearly the end of the last chapter, has for its theme his fruitless devotion to this brilliant, volatile, imperious, and capricious girl, and her mother’s sympathy with him in his vain suit!

He again betakes himself to the army to win a rank and a name so as to lay them at her feet. He takes part in the great campaigns of Marlborough in Flanders--at Donauwörth, Blenheim, Ramillies, Oudenarde, Wynendael, Malplaquet. He is wounded at Blenheim, and again (near the close of the war) at Mons, and he is promoted until he reaches the rank of colonel. He returns to England from time to time, meets the brilliant girl (now maid of honor to the Queen) to whom his life is devoted, only to have his heart torn by her coldness and her caprices. Once for a moment she relents, but the mood passes and she pursues her schemes of ambition. First she is betrothed to Lord Ashburnham, then to the Duke of Hamilton, and when that nobleman falls in a duel with Lord Mohun, it is Esmond who has to bring her the news of this crushing blow to her ambition.

And now he will attempt one brilliant feat to win her. Queen Anne is near her end. Esmond will bring back to England the Pretender, the exiled King (to whose cause the family are deeply devoted) to take the vacant throne. Here follow the details of this scheme, and a description of the king’s dissolute and fickle character. He is brought to the house of Lady Castlewood, where he shows too plainly his fancy for Beatrix, who on her part is far too compliant. She is sent away to Castlewood, and becomes furious at the suspicions of her family. When the plot of the king’s friends is ripe the Pretender can not be found. A letter from Beatrix informing him that she is a prisoner is intercepted, and Esmond and her brother Frank ride all night to Castlewood, where they find the young king, and although they are in time to save her honor, yet this crowning infidelity has crushed out the last spark of Esmond’s love. On their return to London the Queen is dead and George is proclaimed King.

Let the concluding scenes of the story be told in Esmond’s own words:

“Ever after that day at Castlewood, when we rescued her, she
persisted in holding all her family as her enemies, and left us,
and escaped to France, to what a fate I disdain to tell. Nor was
her son’s house a home for my dear mistress; my poor Frank was
weak, as perhaps all our race hath been, and led by women....
’Twas after a scene of ignoble quarrel on the part of Frank’s
wife and mother (for the poor lad had been made to marry the
whole of that German family with whom he had connected himself)
that I found my mistress one day in tears, and then besought her
to confide herself to the care and devotion of one who by God’s
help would never forsake her. And then the tender matron, as
beautiful in her autumn, and as pure as virgins in their spring,
with blushes of love and eyes of meek surrender yielded to my
respectful importunity, and consented to share my home.”

If Esmond had shot himself, or turned monk, or spent his last days alone, or lived with Lady Castlewood as her son, the artistic harmony of the book would have been preserved, but to marry one who had been in the place of a mother to him all these years--Faugh! not even the genius of Thackeray can make such a match attractive. This dreadful anticlimax mars what would otherwise be beyond all question (and what may be still in spite of it) the most beautiful work of fiction ever written.

Thackeray knows better than any other novelist, except perhaps Cervantes, how to describe a gentleman. That peculiar aggregation of qualities so unmistakable, yet so elusive of definition, which go to make up this character, appear more clearly in his novels than anywhere else in English fiction. Henry Esmond, Colonel Newcome and Major Dobbin are almost as perfect examples of this as the Knight of the Sorrowful Countenance himself. And Thackeray (in another work) thus speaks to us of gentlemen:

“Perhaps these are rarer personages than some of us think for.
Which of us can point out many such in his circle, men whose aims
are generous, whose truth is constant, and not only constant
in its kind but elevated in its degree; whose want of meanness
makes them simple; who can look the world honestly in the face
with an equal manly sympathy for the great and small? We all know
a hundred whose coats are very well made, and a score who have
excellent manners, and one or two happy beings who are what they
call in the inner circles, and have shot into the very centre and
bull’s eye of the fashion; but of gentlemen how many? Let us take
a little scrap of paper and each make out his list.”

The diction of Thackeray is exquisite beyond all comparison with that of any other author. There are some repetitions, and many marks of carelessness, but Thackeray does not suffer because he is careless, he seems rather to gain by it. Henry Esmond is full of digressions; for example, the historical accounts of the campaigns in Flanders have little to do with the main purpose of the story. But where else can we find history written with such a charm? You seem to be in the midst of the events it chronicles, beholding its great scenes and listening to contemporary gossip and criticism. Where else is any such description of a hero like that of Marlborough:

“Our chief, whom England and all Europe, saving only the
Frenchmen, worshiped almost, had this of the godlike in him, that
he was impassible before victory, before danger, before defeat.
Before the greatest obstacle or the most trivial ceremony;
before a hundred thousand men drawn in battalia, or a peasant
slaughtered at the door of his burning hovel; before a carouse
of drunken German lords, or a monarch’s court, a cottage-table,
where his plans were laid, or an enemy’s battery, vomiting flame
and death, and strewing corpses round about him--he was always
cold, calm, resolute, like fate. He performed a treason or a
court-bow, he told a falsehood as black as Styx, as easily as he
paid a compliment or spoke about the weather. He took a mistress
and left her, he betrayed his benefactor and supported him, or
would have murdered him, with the same calmness always, and
having no more remorse than Clotho when she weaves the thread, or
Lachesis when she cuts it....

“His qualities were pretty well known in the army, where there
were parties of all politics, and of plenty of shrewdness and
wit; but there existed such a perfect confidence in him, as the
first captain in the world, and such a faith and admiration in
his prodigious genius and fortune, that the very men whom he
notoriously cheated of their pay, the chiefs whom he used and
injured (for he used all men, great and small, that came near
him, as his instruments alike), and took something of theirs,
either some quality or some property--the blood of a soldier it
might be, or a jeweled hat, or a hundred thousand crowns from a
king, or a portion out of a starving sentinel’s three farthings;
or (when he was young) a kiss from a woman and the gold chain
off her neck, taking all he could from woman or man, and having,
as I said, this of the godlike in him, that he could see a hero
perish or a sparrow fall with the same amount of sympathy for
either. Not that he had no tears; he could always order up this
reserve at the proper moment to battle; he could draw upon tears
or smiles alike, and whenever need was for using this cheap coin.
He would cringe to a shoe-black, as he would flatter a minister
or a monarch; be haughty, be humble, threaten, repent, weep,
grasp your hand, or stab you, whenever he saw occasion--but yet
those of the army who knew him best, and had suffered most from
him, admired him most of all; and as he rode along the lines of
battle, or galloped up in the nick of time to a battalion reeling
from before the enemy’s charge or shot, the fainting men and
officers got new courage as they saw the splendid calm of his
face and felt that his will made them irresistible.”

What a description of the destruction of the French army after Ramillies:

“At first it was a retreat orderly enough; but presently the
retreat became a rout, and a frightful slaughter of the French
ensued on this panic; so that an army of sixty thousand men was
utterly crushed and destroyed in the course of a couple of hours.
It was as if a hurricane had seized a compact numerous fleet,
flung it all to the winds, shattered, sunk, and annihilated it:
_Afflavit Deus et dissipati sunt._”

The author is not so successful in the introduction of his literary characters, one of whom, Joseph Addison, not only has no relation to the story, but adds little to the merit of the work.

A peculiarity of Thackeray is the subtle manner in which the motives and passions of his various personages sometimes reveal themselves. For instance, Lady Castlewood’s intense love for Esmond in the early part of the book is altogether a matter of inference from her strange conduct, and might very easily be overlooked or misunderstood by persons who lack insight and keen perception. Indeed, in some places the indications of the motive as drawn from the words and actions of his heroines are so delicate and shadowy, that we can not always quite tell what the author would have us infer, or perhaps we even come to the conclusion that there is no accounting for a woman. And yet, even when we are thus at fault, how entirely natural it all seems!

Thackeray never wanders into unknown territory. He writes about the people he knows and describes the things with which he is in close contact. In the development of the story there is a blending of experience and imagination, which mutually aid each other in the creation of characters that are marvelously ideal and true to nature at the same time.

Dickens’s men and women are frequently types. You can predict with great confidence what each will do under given circumstances. Thackeray’s characters are more uncertain and elusive. But is not this the way of the world? Those of us who have been mistaken in the conduct of our friends or enemies (and who has not?) must acknowledge the essential truthfulness of many a portrait which at first blush appears inconsistent.

And in this novel, in which Colonel Esmond tells his own story, the author shows his surpassing power in making us see his principal characters, especially his dear mistress and her daughter, not so much as they really were, but as they appeared to the man who loved them. Thackeray gives to our understanding very good reason to doubt whether Lady Castlewood had all the perfections he attributes to her, but he compels our hearts to join in Esmond’s worship, and to feel even toward the wayward Beatrix a share of the passion of her lover.

UNCLE TOM’S CABIN
HARRIET BEECHER STOWE

“Uncle Tom’s Cabin” is a novel which was written for a purpose. It was an attack upon the system of negro slavery and was intended to awaken the people of the North to a realization of the horrors and essential wickedness of that institution. So well did it accomplish its purpose that it became an important feature of the history of the abolition movement, which led to the organization of the Republican party and finally to the overthrow of slavery. No other American novel had such a circulation nor left so deep an impression upon its time. But it has long outlived its moral purpose, and the persistent demand both for the book and for the play which is taken from it shows that “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” has a vitality of its own, which entitles it to a high rank among works of fiction. What are the elements of its excellence?

It is not in all respects a finished production. The style is uneven and marred by occasional crudities and weaknesses. The author evidently lacks a good deal in the matter of literary education. Words are used unnecessarily which are colloquial, very rare, or perhaps not found in the dictionary at all. Thus: “The rocking chair of the good Quakeress Rachel Halliday kept up a subdued creechy-crawchy”; Rachel collects “needments” for Eliza out of her household stores; St. Clare speaks of the “cheatery” of his negroes, and other phrases are used which are equally obsolete or unconventional. Some of the sentences are awkward in the extreme, and there are involved paragraphs, with inconsistent similes and metaphors.

Besides this, there is a certain femininity pervading the book, which appears in minute descriptions of household duties and utensils, and in a certain religious flavor of the Sunday-school variety, which obtrudes itself in inappropriate places.

But although the mere literary quality of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” is not high, the work is characterized by great dramatic power, and permeated with a feeling so intense that the expression of it rises in many places into eloquence. The great feature of this somber and absorbing novel is its convincing character. The truth of the dreadful facts which it recounts are shown, not merely by contemporary records, but the events are described in such a way as to bring with them the consciousness that they must have occurred. This overpowering impression of reality and the tragic pathos of the tale itself contain the secret of its power.

The main plot of the novel flows on in a very natural manner. Uncle Tom, a faithful, conscientious negro, is the property of a Kentucky master who is compelled by necessity to tear him away from his family and sell him “down the river.” First he becomes the property of St. Clare, an excellent man, upon whose death he is purchased by one Legree, an incarnate fiend, by whom he is whipped to death for refusing to become the instrument of his master’s cruelty. Other incidents, like the escape of Eliza and her husband, who finally obtain their liberty in Canada, are subsidiary to the main design.

Many of the characters are so natural that they must have been taken from living models. The cultured, cynical, yet sensitive and kindly St. Clare, and his querulous wife Marie; Eva, their affectionate, spiritual, fairy-like child; the grotesque Topsy; the prim and precise Miss Ophelia, with strong New England instincts and prejudices; Haley the slave-trader, the “man of humanity,”--seem especially lifelike. Legree’s brutality is almost inconceivable, and its only justification is found in the fact that such men, abnormal as they were, actually existed and controlled the destinies of great numbers of human beings.

Some of the episodes are quite as effective as the main current of the narrative; for example, the stealing of Lucy’s baby by the slave trader on the way down the Ohio, followed by the suicide of the mother. We know that children were sold in just that fashion, and the simple narrative tells us exactly what it meant. There is a terrible power, too, in the whispered story about poor Prue: “She’s got drunk again and they put her down cellar, and they left her all day, and I hearn them saying that the flies had got to her, and she’s dead.” No detailed account of the actual barbarities inflicted upon the wretched creature could give a stronger impression of the hideous reality than the whispers of the other slaves who knew of it and yet were afraid to speak.

To make a fine work of art, the subject ought to be worthy and the treatment artistic. Mrs. Stowe fails a little in the latter point, but there was never a novelist with a more impressive theme. It is that theme, after all, which has given to her work the chief part of its permanent value.

CRANFORD
MRS. GASKELL

“Cranford” is a novel of somewhat the same character as “Pride and Prejudice.” There are few pictures more true to life than Mrs. Gaskell’s description of the small town and the little ladies who inhabit it. It was a town from which men were mostly absent, and where it was felt that they would be quite useless even if they were there. The little women were filled with great love for gentility and a distrust of mankind so great that they almost persuaded themselves that to be a man was to be vulgar. They practiced “elegant economies”--for money-spending was “low and ostentatious.” They never admitted their poverty, and were greatly shocked when Captain Brown came to town and openly confessed his own. They were so refined that they had to retire to the privacy of their own rooms to suck an orange, and were filled with dismay when at the house of Mr. Holbrook peas were placed upon the table to be eaten with a two-pronged fork.

We have delicious bits of rambling and inconsequent talk, delicate descriptions of the various strata of respectability in Cranford, and of the autocratic social dominion exercised by one Mrs. Jameson, who, although a great tyrant over her neighbors, lived in abject fear of her own butler. The author portrays graphically the superstitions of the ladies in this little community, their belief in a “murderous gang” which was always upon the point of committing some desperate robbery, their terror of footpads who never appeared, their various opinions upon the subject of ghosts, and the ingenious scheme of rolling a ball under the bed so as to find whether a robber was hidden there, without stooping down to look. The author describes vividly the character of the small economies in which each person is said to have some specialty of his own; while one preserves bits of paper, another saves up all the strings; with a good housekeeper it is butter or cream, while with Miss Mattie Jenkyns, the heroine of the story, if the story can be said to have a heroine, it was in the matter of candles. This Miss Mattie is a lovable character, very self-depreciating and always submissive to her older sister Deborah. Miss Mattie had had a lover in her youth, one Mr. Holbrook, an old-fashioned country farmer who was found lacking in gentility by the rest of the family, therefore her days ebbed away in single blessedness.

Realistic pictures are given of the difficulties of the little ladies with servants and their “followers,” who were always forbidden by the strict rules prevailing in Cranford, but who never could be kept out.

There are episodes filled with very real and tender pathos--the sacrifices made by Miss Jessie Brown for her invalid sister, the sad picture of the suffering of the mother whose boy, after a public flogging by his father, ran off to sea. This same boy, later in life, reappeared in Cranford, ever true to his character as a practical joker, and astonished the ladies by his accounts of the hunting of cherubim among the heights of the Himalayas, a kind of sport which seemed to them little better than sacrilege.

The whole book is a delicious epitome of the narrow life of a small town, and is an ample refutation of the curious dogma, lately announced, that women are deficient in the sense of humor!

BARFÜSSELE
BERTHOLD AUERBACH

I hardly know whether Auerbach will always be regarded as one of the great masters of fiction, but to me his simple village stories take a higher rank than many works that are far more pretentious. They are filled with infinite tenderness, and are true to the essential traits of human nature. Auerbach has an intimate knowledge of the village life in the Black Forest, of which he writes, and he is able to combine universal characteristics with local peculiarities in such a way that the picture becomes vivid and convincing.

“Barfüssele” is the story of a little orphan girl, a wise child, clear-headed and reflective, who develops under the solemn training of poverty and sorrow into a character of great sweetness, self reliance, and heroism.

In the opening chapter we see her with her younger brother walking to the house where they have always lived, knocking at the door and calling for their father and mother. The children do not understand the meaning of the funeral they have attended, nor why they have been separated and given to the care of others, and they are looking for their parents to come home again. But there is no answer to their calling, so they go off to the pond and amuse themselves by throwing stones and making them skip across the water. Here Amrei, the girl, pretends to be more awkward than she really is, in order to give Dami, her little brother, the pleasure of showing his greater skill.

Many charming incidents of childhood follow--accounts of the riddles that she gives and guesses, descriptions of her quaint childish philosophy regarding the birds, the dogs, the trees, and the deep problem of human sorrow.

After a while she begins to earn her living by tending a flock of geese, and when the Rodelbauer, her guardian, wants her to give up such work because it is a reproach to her, she answers steadfastly, “I must carry out what I have begun.”

It is a sad life she leads with the Black Marann, a widow, who through long years has been waiting for the return of an only son, from whom she hears nothing. The boy has in fact been killed in Algiers, yet no one in the village dares to tell her, though they tell Amrei, and the child has to bear the burden of this secret. But amid all this gloom, the heart of the orphan girl is strengthened by the precepts of her melancholy companion, who tells her how much better it is to be sufficient to one’s self than to depend upon another for happiness. And when at the wedding at the Rodelbauer’s no one will dance with “Little Barefoot” (for so the girl is called), she dances by herself and dances well, and says “It is better to dance alone, for then I do not need to wait for a partner.”

But the main purpose of her life is to cheer and stimulate her younger brother, a boy who is weak-spirited, complaining and unsteady, whose character is indeed a sharp contrast to her own. Into his mind she tries to instil her own spirit of independence. He finds service in a neighboring village, and she will not weep at parting with him until after he is gone, and then the world seems very empty to her. Dami is unjustly turned away from his situation and loses all his little belongings in a fire. He works for a while with a charcoal-burner, and then resolves to go to America. His sister secretly rejoices at his bold purpose, but reproves him severely when he wants to revenge himself upon the master who has discharged him. It is largely through her efforts that his passage money is raised. She gives him his father’s ax and sack, and tells him that these two things mean that he must work and gather and save the results of his labor, and that they must be the inspiration of his life.

Meanwhile she has been taken into service at the Rodelbauer’s, and her goodness and skill have made her indispensable, though she suffers much from the taunts and scolding of Rosel, the daughter of the household. Her clothing is poor, but always very neat, for, says the author, “Neatness is the ornament of poverty, costing nothing, but not to be purchased.”

On one occasion Amrei is unexpectedly asked to accompany her master’s family to a wedding party in a neighboring village, and while there, when she overhears Rosel’s remark, “It is only our serving maid,” she says to herself, “Don’t let a word spoil all your pleasure. If you begin that you will walk everywhere upon thorns.”

An unknown youth, who comes riding a gray horse, dances with her. There is a lively description of the festival, of her enthusiasm and the joy of that dance, and of her thoughts in her little room in the still night when she returns.

The scene now changes to the house of the Landfriedbauer, a wealthy peasant, whose son Johannes is sent out to seek a wife. His mother follows the boy down the road and has a long confidential talk with him, which is charming for its _naïvete_ and shrewdness. Her description of the signs by which a good wife may be told is quite elaborate. Johannes must notice how she behaves towards her servants, how she blows out the light; he must observe her if he can in anger, “when the hidden inner man leaps out”; he must notice how she laughs, whether her flowers thrive, whether she is willing to sing a second part or always wants to set the key. “A girl should never go with empty hands, and she must leap three hedges to pick up a feather.” But in her doings she must be quiet and constant, not filled with mad eagerness, “as if she would tear down a piece of the world.” He must notice whether she unties a knot or cuts it, whether she keeps her copybooks and early treasures, whether she wears her shoes inside or outside, and whether she cares for the poor. Thus furnished with much useful information, Johannes rides forth on his gray horse to seek his wife.

Now the father of Johannes has written to the Krappenzacher in Amrei’s village, to take his son to the best houses there, and the Krappenzacher, by agreement with the Rodelbauer, is to have a hundred kronenthalers if Johannes marries Rosel. The young man is ostensibly looking for another gray horse, so a horse of that color is put into the Rodelbauer’s stable and the young man is brought thither to examine him. On this occasion Rosel is to come out and milk the cows as proof of her housewifery, but as she knows nothing about milking, the experiment is made with a full pail and with a cow already milked. While the men are discussing their horse trade, Rosel’s voice is heard in song near by, and “Little Barefoot” sings the second part. Johannes asks who they are, and the Rodelbauer tells him that Amrei is an adopted child of whom his father was once the guardian, for he knows that this will sound better than to say she is a servant.

In the meantime Amrei has discovered that the visitor is the same as he who has danced with her at the wedding, and whose mother it was that gave her a necklace when she was a child; and Johannes on his part finds in Little Barefoot the qualities of which his mother has spoken. In a sudden outbreak of rage and jealousy Rosel strikes Amrei to the ground. Just at that moment Johannes appears, and naturally it is not Rosel but Little Barefoot whom he chooses for his wife.

The lovers’ talk, their riddles and their songs as they ride off together on the gray horse, are set forth in a narrative of singular beauty, and when she reaches his home it is the girl and not Johannes who has to break the news to the Landfriedbauer and his wife and seek their blessing, while the young man stays at the miller’s in much anxiety as to the outcome of her mission. Her plea is really eloquent in its simple pathos. She is accepted, and the Landfriedbauer and his wife, being anxious to avoid the reproach of having let the boy marry a penniless girl, each gives her in secret a store of coins which has been laid by, and when both stores are spread upon the table at a family reunion, each parent really begins to believe what they both say, that their new daughter-in-law has come to them with a dowry of her own.

This modern “Cinderella” is written in a style of great simplicity, and in my view, the village heroine, the counterpart of whom no doubt exists in many similar communities, is entitled to a high place in literature.

EKKEHARD
JOSEPH VON SCHEFFEL

“Ekkehard” is a novel derived very largely from mediæval records that are now little remembered. It attempts to reproduce for the modern reader the political and social conditions of the tenth century, and the story is accompanied with numerous notes and references, giving evidence of the careful researches of the author. It is to German scholarship, indeed, that one would naturally look for a work of this description, for although many novelists elsewhere use historical materials for certain parts of their works, there are few who would follow the records with such fidelity.

The scene opens at a castle on a lofty eminence near the lake of Constance. Hadwig, the young and not inconsolable widow of the old duke, resolves for diversion to go with her train to the monastery of St. Gallus on the other side of the lake. This visit, illustrating many of the details of monastic life, is graphically and attractively described. According to the rules of the order, no woman’s foot may pass over the threshold of the cloister, but as the duchess is the protectress of the convent, it is determined that she may be carried over, and the duty falls upon the young monk Ekkehard, whose flattering words win him such favor that he is commanded to go to her castle of Hohentwiel to instruct her in Latin and read Virgil to her. The development of a very natural romance follows. Ekkehard is as innocent as a child, and for a long time his mistress vainly tries to awaken in him the passion that rises in her own heart. When a horde of barbarous Huns attacks her possessions, and the monks of Reichenau and St. Gallus betake themselves to the castle for defense, she gives him the sword of her late husband and bids him distinguish himself in the combat. The Huns are defeated, but Ekkehard has not signalized himself by any remarkable exploit. In a contest of story-telling, too, he fails to meet the expectations of his mistress, and when at last his own passion is fully aroused, it is too late. He seizes an inopportune moment to declare it. He is detected in the chapel in most unmonastic behavior, and Hadwig is inexorable. He is imprisoned, he escapes and flees to the regions of the higher Alps, where he dwells in a cave, and for his own consolation composes the “Waltharïlied,” a short epic, full of much slaughter, in which heads and hands and feet are hacked off, eyes put out, and other unappetizing feats of arms performed amid the lusty merriment even of those who suffer from these mutilations. This work is an actual reproduction of a poem of the time, but many will consider it a blemish in a romance with which it has little connection.

When the winter comes and the flocks on the mountains descend to the valleys, Ekkehard leaves his hermitage, and passing, on his way to distant parts, the castle which had witnessed his discomfiture, he fastens his parchment to an arrow which he sends as a farewell greeting to his former mistress, whose resentment has softened and who receives it with tears.

There are many striking episodes in the book. The stern fury of the hermit Wiborad, immured in a living tomb near the monastery of St. Gallus; the encounter between the coarse cellarer, Rudiman, and Kerhildis, the chief serving-maid of the monastery of Reichenau; the delightful pastoral scenes between the two children Audifax and Hadumoth, bond-servants of the castle; the elaborate and learned lampoon written against Ekkehard by the monk Gunzo in revenge for catching him in a grammatical error; the realistic accounts of certain ridiculous superstitions; the lifelike description of the preparations for a German Christmas--these things give the book a deservedly high rank as a faithful reproduction of the customs of the time. Von Scheffel has invested mediæval monasticism with a fine poetic grace and charm. But it is seldom that a story which is used largely as a means of conveying historical information concerning a remote period is as vivid in the delineation of character as one where the scene is laid amid the immediate surroundings of the writer, and it can not be said that the two chief figures of the novel, Hadwig and Ekkehard, are at all impressive as portraits of actual life.

THE ROMANCE OF A POOR YOUNG MAN
OCTAVE FEUILLET

“The Romance of a Poor Young Man” is a charming tale, and quite free from the cynicism which pervades much of modern French fiction. The hero (who tells his own story in his diary) is the young Marquis d’Hauterive, who, reduced to extreme poverty by the extravagance of his father, assumes the name of M. Odiot, becomes the manager of the estate of M. Laroque, and falls in love with Marguerite, the beautiful heiress of the house. She secretly returns his passion, but treats him oftentimes with great cruelty from the suspicion that he, like others, is seeking her hand in order to advance his fortunes. The noble character of both the chief personages of the novel appears naturally and simply from the recital of the things they say and do, and the narrative of the expeditions to some of the Celtic ruins in Brittany upon which he attends her has all the charm of a pastoral. The ridiculous M. Bevallan, his rival, who reveals most opportunely his commonplace character and sordid motives; the romantic Mme. Laroque, the mother of Marguerite; the ancient spinster, Mlle. de Porhoet, who bears with dignity her triple burden of high lineage, age, and poverty--indeed all the characters are skillfully drawn, and their doings form an excellent background for the action of the two chief personages of the story.

“The Romance of a Poor Young Man” is emphatically a work of exquisite finish and high creative art. Yet it does not wholly lack the extravagances which seem inevitable in modern French fiction. When the hero has been unjustly reproached by the proud beauty, who suspects his mercenary designs, he vows in his rage and despair that he will never wed her, even if she were to implore him upon her knees, unless his fortune should be equal to her own; and after every other obstacle is cleared away, he persists in adhering to this unreasonable vow. Then he learns that Marguerite and her mother propose to give their fortune to charitable uses, so as to remove the last hindrance to their union. But this, too, he will not permit, and it requires a _tour de force_ to straighten out these complications.

Mlle. de Porhoet has been conducting a long litigation to recover a certain inheritance in Spain. At the moment of her death the property becomes hers, and although she had designed it for the erection of a magnificent cathedral (the dream of her life), she now bequeaths it to the young marquis, and thus the novel has an appropriate and happy termination. But it is hard to resist the conclusion that the outcome would have been more natural if no such extraordinary event had been necessary to bring it about, but only a little more common sense on the part of the hero!

MADAME BOVARY
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT

“Madame Bovary” is a type of a novel very common in modern literature. It depicts the gradual steps that lead to degradation and ruin, and the fatal influence of a single vicious character upon everything around it.