1856.] About-Les Mariages de Paris. love was there to interpose, and his defeat and the lovers' union make a very pleasant story. A finer tale is that of Les Jumeaux de l'Hôtel Corneille. The twin brothers Debay happen to be totally unlike in look and character. Both are students residing in the Pays Latin, where, close to the Sorbonne and Panthéon, the schools of Medicine and Law, and the splendid palace of the Luxembourg, are the most squalid and wretched parts of Paris. The deformed Mathieu loves to seek out misery and relieve it, that is, when he is not poring over descriptions of country life under green trees, and listening to the nightingale; while Leonie dreams of fashionable life. Mathieu has made out a poor old fellow, called Petit Gras, who would rather work than take alms. But as his wife tells him he is too ambitious,-nothing less will satisfy him than a place under Government-the place of street-scavenger at the disposal of the Ville de Paris. He obtains the object of his aspirations, and as he is a bit of an intriguer, he contrives to have his wife also made an employée of the Government. A man of this great stamp has a heart for others, and our Petit Gras contrives to interest Mathieu for a mother and daughter, who are of that class which the very poor can sympathise with, as not being used to misery, and who out of shame suffer greater privations than themselves. Ma thieu, one cold winter's day, pledges his top-coat, and sends the money anonymously to Madame and Mademoiselle Bourgade, and they, when they meet the delicate youth, whom they take to be poor like themselves, put on a cheerful face, declare they have more money than they know what to do with, and offer to him the very money he had himself surreptitiously conveyed, that he may get a coat. The brothers come in for an uncle's property. Mathieu takes for his share the house in the country, and Leonie the ready money. Mathieu loves the kind, poor Mademoiselle Bourgade, and they are married, and live most happily in that country house which the wise Mathieu preferred to ready money. Leonie leads the life of a man of pleasure, and when he has 719 nearly spent his money, aims at a great fortune, is accepted by a German Baron, who is a gambler and adventurer, and the foolish fellow and his wife are only too glad to give up the dissipations of the capital for a seat by the chimney corner in the country, to which they are affectionately invited by Mathieu and his wife, the happiest couple in the world. How M. de Bourgade returned from California, and how he added to their wealth, and, if possible, to their happiness, will be found in the excellent story itself. L'Oncle et le Neveu affords a striking illustration how a sane man may be as it were persuaded into madness. The uncle, Moilot, is a sober, industrious cabinet-maker, unlearned, as we are told, in the art of constructing antique furniture, which to his plain notions of honesty would be unworthy of his eminently conscientious character. His nephew becomes deranged, and, despite of his rigid virtue, the prospect of having the guardianship and administration of his property, which is considerable, he feels to be more agreeable than he is willing to acknowledge. He takes his nephew to a maison de santé, and while waiting the appearance of the doctor the old man falls asleep. The nephew contrives to free his arms from the cords by which they were bound, and to slip them round the uncle, so that when the physician makes his appearance it is the nephew who has kindly taken charge of his venerable but deranged relative. How madmen can cunningly assume deceptive appearances, and how the indignation of a man in possession of his senses may, under certain supposed circumstances, be taken as evidence of plausible accusations, is matter of familiar experience. Of course there is an ingenious love story to account for the nephew's temporary loss of mind, and his cure is effected, not by the doctor, but his daughter. The uncle becomes stricken with the mental disease, and the form it takes affords proof of the writer's skill. The conscientiousness against which he had sinned by his almost involuntary indulgence of the prospects of administering the nephew's fortune, becomes his torment. He will not go into bed until he has shaken up the sheets to satisfy himself that they do not contain thirty thousand francs de rente. Before putting on his clothes he leisurely examines them, lest they should conceal his nephew's money. His very slippers he will not put on before he has turned them upside down, and he scratches upon the walls 'Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's goods.' Such a story is full of suggestive meaning. Georgeon admits us behind the scenes, and exhibits the chequered incidents of the actor's life. Poor Georgeon loves and marries a fellowactress, and makes himself miserable with jealousy at the attentions to which a very pretty woman is, in her situation, exposed, and which lead to a painful catastrophe. The last of the series, at least so far as they have gone, is the amusing story of Le Buste, of which the hero is a sculptor. Daniel is, for an artist, according to the fanciful supposition of what an embodier of the ideal should be, the least sentimental and susceptible of beings; and the merriment of the story arises from his being unconsciously the centre of plots and intrigues which his positive and matter-of-fact mind prevents his perceiving. He is invited to a château in the neighbourhood of Paris, by Madame Michaud, a sort of Mrs. Malaprop, to take her buste, and on arriving and not finding the bell answered, leaps over a fence, and startles a sentimental young lady, who is quite sure the fine handsome young fellow is a prince in disguise, and of course in love with herself. Poor Daniel thinks of nothing but the sum he is to get for his work, and which is wanted to meet a pressing engagement. Two rivals for the lady's hand mark him out for vengeance. One, to expose his slender purse, tempts him to play, wins his money, and so obliges poor Daniel to steal away in the night and pledge his watch. The other fixes a quarrel upon him, and he has to steal off in the like manner, to seek at home the sword and the pistols which make part of that half museum, the artist's atélier. If he strolls out at night to smoke his cigar and hum a song, the heroine's heart beats to the complement of a serenade. Daniel is humming only one of those extravagant burlesques whose hyperbolical absurdities relax the leisure hours of those of his class. Daniel wants Time presses. money, and he labours so earnestly at the bust as to favour a surmise of a somewhat self-complimentary character on the part of the old lady; she asks Daniel if it be not true that artists have sometimes wrought wonders under the influence of love. Whereupon Daniel, in the most prosy manner, relates a commonplace atélier story about an artist and his model, which shows his own standard of the romantic to be low indeed. The duel takes place, and our hero's adversary is wounded. The plot advances; the secret of Victorine is discovered. Her father is a sound, sensible man, and the aunt has taken a liking to the happy executor of her bust. She undertakes to sound him, asks graciously if she cannot forward his wishes, and he, seizing the opportunity, requests a part of the price on account to meet a pressing demand. 'Do you not love my niece?' exclaims the aunt. No,' simply replies Daniel. Is she not beautiful?' Is she not this and that? volleys the surprised old lady. To all which the artist yields a full assent, and to his astonishment he opens his eyes to the mystery of the duel and his own heroship. Without gaining in sentimentality, he is married, with every prospect of happiness before him. Here, then, is a young rising author, of genuine talent, purely exercised. Whether he will prove powerful enough to rule the taste of his countrymen, must greatly depend upon his remaining true to himself. The time is favourable for originating or restoring a simpler portraiture of manners in harmony with a more natural current of events. France has had enough of monstrosities. The public are tired of startling contrasts, of mock mystical ravings compounded of sensuality and affected philosophy, and of men and women who make greatness to consist in the defiance of all law, human and divine. A collapse has happily taken place in the unwieldy mass of inflated folly, and the 1856.] De Wailly-Montalembert. ground is swept clean for the coming man, who will bring with him 'airs from Heaven,' not 'blasts from hell.' We cannot but rejoice, for our parts, to find our noble race of contemporary British novelists held up as examples worthy of being followed. We have an instance, too, in the case of Leon de Wailly's charming novel of Stella and Vanessa, of the appreciation by the French of English taste. That story lay entombed in the feuilleton of the defunct Courrier Français, till Lady Duff Gordon presented it to the British public. It now forms one of that most popular series, le Bibliothèque des Chemins de Fer. We must, as lovers of fair play, notice an exceptional protest, the more so as it is pronounced by a man of the importance of Count de Montalembert. This eloquent gentleman, in his late work on England, signalises a danger to our institutions, which excite his admiration, in the destructive spirit of envy which marks the democracy; and he is pleased to draw one of the proofs of his assertion from the novels of Charles Dickens, whose heroines, unlike those of Sir Walter Scott, are taken from the middle and lower classes.' So dry and abstract a view only shows that M. de Montalembert, 721 theologian and politician, has failed to recognise the large-hearted sympathies and spirit of love which pervade the writings of Mr. Dickens, and which, valuable every way, are chiefly praiseworthy for the universal affectionateness they tend to inspire, and which is so antagonistic of envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness, as to purge the heart therefrom. Has M. de Montalembert read Alton Locke, a work which boldly grapples with the ignorant conceits of the working classes regarding the titled and the rich, and which we need not remind any one in this country is of standard popularity and of every. day widening influence? Perhaps the great hero of the Church may feel disposed to treat the Rev. Č. Kingsley as the Univers treats Miss Nightingale, denying the possibility of any good coming out of Nazareth. With the subtraction of this error, we have still a large balance of acknowledgment of English good qualities to be added to the common stock. So here we pause, wishing that the alliance of the two countries may reach beyond temporal interests, and prove beneficial to the fruits of the intellect, to the amendment of manners and purifying of taste. THE ART OF STORY-TELLING. THERE is an art in making or doing anything well, although we cannot always lay down its exact laws, or any laws that will be equally applicable to it under all circumstances. Poetry has been considered an art from time immemorial; but where are we to look for its laws? Aristotle tells us that it is one of the arts of imitation, distinguished from the other imitative arts by its means and modes, and governed by certain rules, which he strictly expounds. But this does not satisfy the whole inquiry, and much has been done in opening and lighting up the subject since the days of the Stagyrite, and a great deal discovered that was not dreamt of in his philosophy. Setting aside the laws, where are we to find even a definition of poetry so true, obvious, and comprehensive, as to command general assent ? It is curious enough to observe how the critics have differed in their definitions of poetry, upon the essence of which all mankind, including the critics themselves, are, and ever have been, agreed. Sir Philip Sidney, in one of the earliest treatises in our language on the subject, adopts, as he was bound to do, Aristotle's general definition, and then goes on to say that it is not apparelled verse that constitutes poetry, 'since there have been many most excellent poets that never versified, and many versifiers that need never answer to the name of poets; and that it is not rhyming and versing that maketh a poet, no more than a long gown maketh an advocate, who, though he pleaded in armour, should be an advocate and no soldier; but it is that feigning notable images of virtues, vices, or what else, with that delightful teaching, which must be the right describing note to know a poet by." Puttenham rejects imitation altogether, and describes the poet as a creator or inventor. A poet,' he declares, is as much to say as a maker;' and he adds, that as God, 'without any travel to his divine imagination, made all the world of * The Defence of Poesy. nought, nor also by any pattern or mould, as the Platonics with their ideas do fantastically suppose, even so the poet makes and contrives out of his own brain both the verse and matter of his poem, and not by any foreign copy or example.'t Selden, notwithstanding his notes upon Drayton, and his regard for Browne and Ben Jonson, appears to have considered poetry as being altogether an absurd and irrational pursuit, and to have had a special contempt for its ordinary vehicle verse. 'Tis a fine thing (he says) for children to learn to make verse, but when they come to be men, they must speak like other men, or else they will be laughed at. 'Tis ridiculous to speak, or write, or preach in verse. As 'tis good to learn to dance, a man may learn his leg, learn to go handsomely [that is, teach it to go handsomely]; but 'tis ridiculous for him to dance, when he should go. He thought it particularly ridiculous for a lord to print verses. It was well enough, he thought, for a man to twirl his band-strings, or play with a rush to please himself, in his private chamber; but if he went into Fleet-street and sat upon a stall, twirling his band-strings, or playing with a rush, all the little boys would laugh at him. 'Verse,' he adds, clenching the argument, proves nothing but the quantity of syllables; they are not meant for logic. Phillips, evading the diffi culties of a definition, ignores both imitation and invention, and refers the whole matter to inspiration. 'Poetry,' he says, 'is a science, certainly of all others the most noble and exalted, and not unworthily termed divine, since the height of poetical rapture hath ever been accounted little less than divine inspiration.'§ Channing regards poetry as an aspiration after a higher state of existence. He says it is the breathing or expression of that principle or sentiment which is deepest or sublimest in human nature; we mean of that thirst or aspiration, to which no mind is wholly a stranger, for something purer or lovelier, + The Arte of English Poesie. § Theatrum Poetarum Anglicanorum. something more powerful, lofty, and thrilling, than ordinary and real life affords. Poetry,' says Coleridge, 'is not the proper antithesis to prose, but to science. Poetry is opposed to science, and prose to metre. The proper and immediate object of science is the acquirement or communication of truth; the proper and immediate object of poetry is the communication of immediate pleasure.'t But as there are other works which also communicate immediate pleasure, and which cannot be called poems, he adds the distinguishing characteristic by which poetry is to be identified, a pleasurable emotion, or peculiar excitement in the poet, which imparts to his production a more vivid reflection of the truths of nature and of the human heart, united with a constant activity, modifying and correcting these truths. Leigh Hunt enforces a similar theory. His definition is less lengthy, and may therefore be cited in full. Poetry is the utterance of a passion for truth, beauty, and power, embodying and illustrating its conceptions by imagination and fancy, and modulating its language on the principle of variety in uniformity. Its means are whatever the universe contains; and its ends, pleasure and exaltation. Poetry stands between nature and convention, keeping alive among us the enjoyment of the external and spiritual world: it has constituted the most enduring fame of nations; and next to Love and Beauty, which are its parents, is the greatest proof to man of the pleasure to be found in all things, and of the probable riches of infinitude. + Whether the accomplished reader, with all these definitions before him, sees more clearly into the matter than he did before, must depend upon the special gifts of his understanding; but we apprehend that a person who had his attention directed to the subject for the first time by such a conflict of guides, would be terribly perplexed in his attempts to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion. Keeping clear, however, of scholastic refinements, every human being knows perfectly well what poetry is, by an instinct at once * Character and Writings of Milton. VOL. LIII. NO. CCCXVIII. 723 inscrutable and infallible; and to that instinct, let us distil our criticisms as we may, all poetry, and art, and fiction of every kind, must ultimately and finally appeal. Does anybody want an æsthetical development of the art of telling a story? We sincerely wish he may get it. Does anybody want to be instructed upon the difference between a story that makes his pulses thrill, and a story that makes him yawn? Does anybody require a learned Theban at his side to prescribe the legitimate forms of storytelling, with which alone he is permitted to be pleased under the sanctions of authority? If there be any such people, they constitute a special class in themselves, and should live apart in a particular world of their own. They have no right to trespass on the green fields of fiction, where people should take their pleasure at their ease, without stopping to ask questions as to whether they should be pleased or not. That a story must be constructed upon a plan of some kind is plain without any help from the critics, who very often spoil more enjoyment than they promote, by setting up regulations where there is no need for them. It is obvious enough, for example, that a story should begin at the beginning, unless there is some peculiar_reason for beginning at the end. In this respect it resembles a house, which is usually built up from the foundations, architects generally finding it inconvenient to build down from the roof. It should not be very long, because the essential attribute which distinguishes a story from other modes of fiction is its brevity. It should not aim at grand effects, because grand effects must inevitably become ridiculous on a small scale. It should have nothing superfluous, for the best of all possible reasons, that it cannot afford space for superfluities. It should not make a severe strain upon the mental faculties, because people are not supposed to take it up for study, but for recreation. It should not put forward any show of pedantry, or make excursions into far-off regions + Lectures on Shakspeare. Imagination and Fancy. 3 A |