A History of English Prose Fiction

by Bayard Tuckerman

IV.

The writers who took the chief part in originating and sustaining the romantic revival in English fiction were Horace Walpole, Clara Reeve, and Mrs. Radcliffe. As we have called upon the testimony of Walpole so often in this work, and as we are now to consider him as an author, some account of his personal appearance may be of interest. "His figure," says Miss Hawkins, "was not merely tall, but long and slender to excess; his complexion, and particularly his hands, of a most unhealthy paleness. His eyes were remarkably bright and penetrating, very dark and lively:—his voice was not strong, but his tones were extremely pleasant, and, if I may so say, highly gentlemanly. I do not remember his common gait; he always entered a room in that style of affected delicacy which fashion had then made almost natural; chapeau bras between his hands as if he wished to compress it, or under his arm; knees bent, and feet on tiptoe, as if afraid of a wet floor. His dress in visiting was most usually, in summer, when I most saw him, a lavender suit, the waistcoat embroidered with a little silver, or of white silk worked in the tambour, partridge silk stockings, and gold buckles, ruffles and frill generally lace. I remember, when a child, thinking him very much under-dressed, if at any time, except in mourning, he wore hemmed cambric. In summer, no powder, but his wig combed straight, and showing his very smooth, pale forehead, and queued behind; in winter, powder."

Posterity has cause to regret that Horace Walpole, of all men best fitted by personal knowledge and ability to draw a picture of the brilliant society of his time, should have contributed no work in the department of realistic fiction. Had the keen observation and experience of the world so conspicuous in his letters been brought to bear on a narrative of real life not less ably constructed than that of "The Castle of Otranto," an addition of no little value to the social history of the eighteenth century must have been the result. But although Walpole attempted no novel in which he might have depicted the fashionable life of which he was so faithful a chronicler, he yet tried an experiment in fiction for which he was peculiarly qualified by his antiquarian studies and his fondness for the arts and customs of feudal times.

The object of "The Castle of Otranto" was to unite the characteristic elements of the ancient romance with those of the modern novel. It was attempted to introduce into a narrative constructed with modern order and sequence, such supernatural events as controlled the incidents of romantic fiction. To accomplish this result, it was necessary that the mise en scène should be impressive and awe-inspiring, that the reader's mind should be insensibly prepared by strange surroundings for extraordinary incidents. In his selection of age and scene, Walpole was highly judicious. He chose the feudal period, when superstition accorded the most ready belief to supernatural agencies. He introduced his reader to a huge, gloomy castle, furnished with towers, donjons, subterranean passages, and trapdoors. He took for his hero, Manfred, a fierce and cruel knight, who had obtained his lands by duplicity and blood; whose chief aim in life was to continue his posterity in possession of wrongfully acquired power. He added subordinate characters of a kind to aid the effect of supernatural phenomena: a monk in a neighboring convent, who threatened Manfred with divine visitation for his crimes; superstitious servants, whose easy fears exaggerated every unusual sound or foot-fall. He gave an interest to his narrative by the love passages of Manfred's daughters which were perpetually at the mercy of the fate which hung over the castle. He introduced his supernatural effects in the form of a gigantic gauntlet seen on the stair-rail; a gigantic helmet which crushed the son and heir of the house as he was about to be married and to carry out his father's hopes; a skeleton monk who urged the rightful owner of the castle to take his own from the usurper's hands.

In attempting to make a regularly constructed narrative depend on supernatural agencies, Walpole undoubtedly succeeded as far as success was possible. But it may be said without hesitation that real success was unattainable. The very merits of "The Castle of Otranto" sustain this decision. The experiment had a fair trial. The narrative of Manfred's crimes and the punishments visited upon them, the characters and actions of subordinate personages are all managed with skill; while the supernatural agencies are introduced at the proper times and have the expected effects. But the real test of success in such an attempt must lie in the impression made on the reader's mind. And this impression may be of two kinds. Let us imagine a group of young people sitting about the dying embers of a fire on a winter's evening, listening to a ghost story. The black darkness, the sound of the wind howling without, accord with the low tones, the dim light, and the tale of horror within. The minds of the listeners insensibly cast off their ordinary trains of thought, and give themselves up to the unreal impressions of the moment. The incredible circumstances of the apparition are accepted without question or criticism; the impression of the supernatural occurrences is alone thought of and enjoyed. But now, let the same tale be read aloud after breakfast, from a newspaper, with the affidavits of the witnesses of the apparition duly attached, and only laughter can be the result.

Now let us apply the same test to romance. We open the "Morte d'Arthur"; we find ourselves at once in an unreal, almost nameless land; we meet with knights whom we only know apart by their armor, and queens ambling through pathless forests on white palfreys; we attend brilliant tournaments and witness superhuman deeds of arms. Our minds, untroubled by scepticism and thoughtless of unreality, yield themselves to the poetical illusion. Who stops to think of the incredible when Sir Bedivere hurls into the lake the dying Arthur's sword Excalibur?

Then Sir Bedivere departed, and went to the sword, and lightly took it up, and went to the water side, and there he bound the girdle about the hilts, and then he threw the sword as far into the water as he might, and there came an arm and an hand above the water, and met it, and caught it, and so shook it thrice and brandished, and then vanished away the hand with the sword in the water.

But when we are introduced to the castle of Otranto, when we know its dimensions and appearance, when we have become acquainted with its inmates, and have been made to realize that they are flesh and blood like ourselves, we cannot receive without a shock the account of the supernatural occurrences by which they are affected. It is as if we listened to a ghost story in the glare of daylight, and in the full activity of our critical faculties.

"Thou art no lawful prince," said Jerome; "thou art no prince—go, discuss thy claim with Frederic; and when that is done——" "It is done," replied Manfred; "Frederic accepts Matilda's hand, and is content to waive his claim, unless I have no male issue." As he spoke these words three drops of blood fell from the nose of Alfonso's statue.

"The Castle of Otranto" is an entertaining, well-constructed romance which may absorb the attention of young people, and indeed of all readers who delight in tales of superstitious horror. But looked upon as a work of art, it contains discordant elements. The realistic manner in which the scene and characters are made known, the exactitude with which the incidents are combined, are in constant opposition to that poetical ideality without which the supernatural cannot take possession of the mind. In reading the "Morte d'Arthur" we are insensibly penetrated by an atmosphere of the marvellous which makes a giant a natural companion, and a magic sword a necessary part of a warrior's outfit. But Manfred and his family are so essentially human, and their surroundings are so realistic, that the reader's sense of congruity is shocked by the introduction of a bleeding statue or a skeleton monk.