THE AUTHOR AND HIS WORKS.
Hector France alighted upon this planet some fifty years ago and chose his home in the midst of a family renowned for generations as fighters. From this preliminary statement we may deduce two facts: firstly, that baby Hector was not destined by his stern-visaged, paternal sire for any other than the martial profession, and secondly, that the squealing youngster of those days is now a man in the prime of life.
Strongly-built, upright and vigorous, Hector France looks every inch just what he really is—a Soldier and a Gentleman, as ready to handle the Sword as to smite smooth-faced Lie and Hypocrisy with the Pen.
The qualities of his mind are faithfully delineated in his features. He has the same leonine look that distinguished the famous English iconoclast, Charles Bradlaugh. The massive brow, the firm, determined jaw, the large, luminous eyes, the wavy hair and big shoulders would anywhere mark him out at once, though unknown, as a Philosopher, Fighter, Orator and Leader of men. The career of the two men also offers points in common.
If Charles Bradlaugh was a soldier so was Hector France, with the difference that the latter really did face sabre-flash and cannon-smoke whereas his English prototype early bought himself out of the Service. Both men, too, mixed in the game of Politics, only Bradlaugh's luck landed him at last in Parliament while France led a forlorn hope that ended, after many a narrow escape for life, in twenty years of weary exile from his beloved country. Finally both men hold nearly identical opinions with regard to Religious Questions, only Bradlaugh imagined he had a special mission to assail the world's historic faiths, and Hector France, like Ernest Renan, smiles in a curious Oriental way, when these things are broached, quite content for you to believe anything you please so that you do not bother him overmuch with your reasons.
Hector France must not be confounded, as is often done by ignorant persons, with the gentleman who has elected to call himself "Anatole France", and who writes under that name. The real patronym of M. "Anatole France" is, I am informed, Monsieur Chaussepied, which interpreted into English means "Mr. Shoe-horn". It is unnecessary to state that Hector France is content with his own name, and would not have changed it even had it been less noble than it really is, believing with us that a man's work are sufficient title to nobility, however odd may be the cognomen bequeathed him from bygone sires.
The appearance of this book in English will prove a godsend to Protestants who may see in it only an attack on Catholicism. Let them hug no such flattering unction to their souls. M. Hector France is no savage iconoclast gone mad with sectarian hatred. He recognizes the good in all religions as answering a temporary need in the evolution of Humanity, and for none has he a more profound respect than the Catholic Church. Indeed the pomp and magnificence, the architectural grandeur, the vast learning, wealth and influence of this institution appeal to the imagination of both ignorant and cultured alike. The aim of the distinguished writer of the "Grip of Desire" is far removed from that of vulgar and gratuitous image-breaking. He seeks to show the danger to human character that comes through meddling with one of the most imperious of natural instincts. If in the "Chastisement of Mansour" he bodies forth the consequences of unbridled Libertinism, in the "Grip of Desire" he demonstrates the evils attendant on a life of forced Celibacy. In the first we have the autocratic Reign of the Flesh, in the second the Subjection of legitimate Carnal Desire.
The union of the female to the male is a law of Nature, as solid as the granite bases of the world. No normally constituted man can disregard that law without doing violence to himself and to his kind.
Kant says: "Man and woman constitute, when united, the whole and entire being, one sex completes the other."
Schopenhauer asserts: "The sexual impulse is the most complete expression of the will to live, in other words, it is the concentration of all volition." And in another passage: "The affirmation of the will to live concentrates itself in the act of procreation, which is its most positive expression." Mainländer gives utterance to the opinion when he says: "The sexual impulse is the centre of gravity for human existence. It alone secures to the individual the life which he above all desires … man devotes himself more seriously to the business of procreation than to any other; in the achievement of nothing else does he condense and concentrate the intensity of his will in so remarkable a manner as in the act of generation." And before all those, Buddha wrote: "Sexual desire is sharper than the hook with which wild elephants are tamed; hotter than flame; it is like an arrow that is shot into the heart of man."
The present work, if it teach anything at all, teaches that Celibacy is a crime, and the Mother of crime, just as a venomous plant is a producer of poison. The needs of his organization torment the single man until he robs from others that which he lacks. Hence Seduction, Rape, Adultery, the Invasion of trouble into families, and furious Jealousies with all their prolific brood of Wrong-doing and Woe.
This is not the place to praise or to blame the book before us. Each man will judge it according to his individual tastes, temperament and character. The embryonic, thin-lipped man may consider it bold, far too outspoken. The full-blooded reader more conversant with the realities of life, will be inclined to look upon it with larger charity, having regard to what the Author has refrained from saying, rather than to what he has said.
"At the outset," says Camille Lemonnier, himself a well-known writer, "these pages are conspicuously chaste; Temptation takes the form of Mystical Sensuality, at first beaten back and then surging forwards victorious; then, as the fire of passion grows more intense, the lamp of the tabernacle dies gradually out; and Humanity, with the unchaining of instinct, breaks forth, cries and howls like a mad gorilla from his cage." Here again we witness the triumph of Eve; entangled in her long, flaxen tresses she sweeps away the sinner's conscience, and while the Church closes the door against them both, Nature opens out wide her own with a kindly,
"Come in, my Children."
CHARLES CARRINGTON.
PARIS, 1st JUNE, 1898.
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