THE DREAM AND THE BUSINESS
(Hobbes)
The year 1906 was pre-eminently a year of the so-called fiction of psychology. This is hardly a passing fad. The more enlightened and cultured a people, the more are they interested in character study. Men and women and motives are more entertaining than mere beauty of description, or complicated plot. And the really successful novels of the year are written by women, and seem to be concerned with the intricate workings of the feminine mind.
Not since the appearance of “Lily Bart” in “The House of Mirth” have we had such a striking character as “Sophy Firmalden” in “The Dream and The Business,” by John Oliver Hobbes.
This, Mrs. Craigie’s last work, is certainly one of the cleverest productions of the year.
A very unusual feature of this book is a letter from the Hon. Joseph H. Choate to the publishers expressing his appreciation of Mrs. Craigie as woman and author.
The refined atmosphere that permeates all her works—the delicate touch peculiarly Mrs. Craigie’s own—are compelling features of this brilliant book.
Clever dialogue there is in abundance.
Conservatism exists in America “only in Webster, side by side with the word pre-historic.”
That radical nature inherent in all Americans seems to have been toned down by Mrs. Craigie’s English education and environment. The conservative English spirit, just blended with a certain amount of American radicalism to add flavor, presents some most attractive views of life and living.
It was pathetic, as well as a sad blow to the literary world, that Mrs. Craigie should die just as this book went to press.
James Firmalden was full of illusion, impetuous and enthusiastic. He started out in life with the mistaken idea that the “most important acts in a man’s life—the choosing of a career and of a wife—are accidents.” There is always a youthful affair. James Firmalden’s was with Nannie Cloots. As Lord Marlesford said, “This is always the way with women, sooner or later they make you play the fool exceedingly.” “The Cloots family were already on his shoulders.” He developed with age; broke their engagement and had the manhood to tell the “loyal lie.” Ever afterwards he led a single, uncompleted life.
Dr. Firmalden, the Oxford minister, was one of the many who tried to believe he had gained wisdom with age, but, like numerous elderly persons, he had only lost the power of wondering.
His sermons usually contained many “shiny, well-worn platitudes which are always tedious.”
Sophy Firmalden, one of the leading characters, endowed with good looks and native wit, was never very happy. One is never wholly satisfied. “The child wears the mother’s skirts enviously while the mother mourns her youth.”
“There was that fastidious and elusive instinct in Sophy which always makes for suffering.”
Inclined to fanaticism and moody, an over developed conscience kept her from marrying the one man she loved because he was irreligious. They were never at ease together for their relation could never degenerate into common comradeship.
Sent abroad to forget Lessard, she thought she had done so, and married another. “What a charred trail she left in her path!” Becoming cynical, she said “she would never again allow herself to care much for anybody—it was always so disappointing.” She declared there were two kinds of men, “Those who were born to protect us, and those who were born to understand us”—her husband belonged to the former.
She knew little of the world—had not even seen “Fedora.” One of her friends said it could not harm her—she could not possibly understand it.
She had a passion for good clothes. “A girl who is satisfied with her wardrobe can bear many privations.” “Sophy’s silk dresses were the source of much fortitude in her domestic philosophy.”
James Firmalden’s first love, Nannie Cloots, was of obscure origin—her mother having once been an ornament of the ballet. Reared with a fanatical regard for appearances, she was “picturesque, artless and fresh in her absurd ideas.”
“She was a chaser after celebrities—and wore claret-colored silk at ten o’clock in the morning. Her chief delight was to associate with frumpish Philistines.” “She saw the world; and found it stuffed with sawdust.”
Henry Firmalden was ruled by his wife. “In the city, he was a man who could show great decision and force of will—but at home he was docile, silent and often hungry.”
Lady Burghwallas, one of the minor characters, belonged to the class “who must have their social illusions nourished by the newspapers.”
Lessard belonged to the Bohemian set. Of Huguenot extraction, he was of a defiant mood, accompanied with melancholy characteristic of the sect from which he sprang.
An “aristocratic vagabond,” he was a man of the world with a wayward heart. Spontaneous and unconventional, he was disposed to quarrel with the established order of things.
He was a singer and also a mediocre dramatist, who was admired by certain “long-haired men who should have been born women, and by short-haired women who should have not been born at all.”
Gloriana Twomley is an overdressed woman, but clever after a fashion. She had tact to manage her husband in such a way as to keep him happy, and at the same time make him entirely satisfied with her work. He never realized it, “for the less wit a man has, the less he knows that he wants it.” Her relationship was large. There were many “in-laws” and she was kept busy trying to regulate their affairs.
The most entertaining character in the whole book is Lady Marlesford. Vivacious, tactful and pretty, her highly disciplined mind could bear agitation, pain or anything better than being bored. She and her husband were of a violently different temperament. He, selfish, exacting and unresponsive, could not appreciate her brilliant mind. Her keen sense of humor made him nervous. Whenever he said anything but the obvious, she invariably asked, “Who said that?” In conversation, she always kept him “mentally out of breath.” “The pair having exhausted their dislike, were almost attached to each other by a common bond of suffering.”
It is impossible to read “The Dream and The Business” understandingly and fail to be entertained.
Mark Harwell Pettway.
