"The Anatomy of Negation"[9] is Saltus's best book in his earlier manner, which is as free from flamboyancy as early Gothic, and one of his most important contributions to our literature. The work is a history of antitheism from Kapila to Leconte de Lisle and, while the writer in a brief prefatory notice disavows all responsibility for the opinions of others, it can readily be felt that the book is a labour of love and that his sympathy lies with the iconoclasts through the centuries. The chapter entitled, "The Convulsions of the Church," a brief history of Christianity, is one of the most brilliant passages to be found in any of the works of this very brilliant writer. Indeed, if you are searching for the soul of Saltus you could not do better than turn to this chapter. Of Jesus he says, "He was the most entrancing of nihilists but no innovator." Here is another excerpt: "Paganism was not dead; it had merely fallen asleep. Isis gave way to Mary; apotheosis was replaced by canonization; the divinities were succeeded by saints; and, Africa aiding, the Church surged from mythology with the Trinity for tiara." Again: "Satan was Jew from horn to hoof. The registry of his birth is contained in the evolution of Hebraic thought." Never was any book so full of erudition and ideas so easy to read, a fascinating opus, written by a true sceptic. Following the Baedeker system, adopted so amusingly by Henry T. Finck in his "Songs and Song Writers," this book should be triple-starred.
"Tales before Supper, from Théophile Gautier and Prosper Mérimée, told in English by Myndart Verelst and delayed with a proem by Edgar Saltus."[10] Translation again. The stories are "Avatar" and "The Venus of Ille." The essay at the beginning is a very charming performance. This book is dedicated to E. C. R.
"Mr. Incoul's Misadventure,"[11] Saltus's first novel, is also the best of his numerous fictions. It, too, should be triple-starred in any guide book through this opus-land. In it will be found, super-distilled, the very essence of all the best qualities of this writer. It is written with fine reserve; the story holds; the characters are unusually well observed, felt, and expressed. Irony shines through the pages and the final cadence includes a murder and a suicide. For the former, bromide of potassium and gas are utilized in combination; for the latter laudanum, taken hypodermically, suffices. There are scenes in Biarritz and Northern Spain which include a thrilling picture of a bull-fight. There is an interesting glimpse of the Paris Opéra. There is a description of an epithumetic library which embraces many forbidden titles, (How that "baron of moral endeavour ... the professional hound of heaven," Anthony Comstock, would have gloated over these shelves!), a vibrant page about Goya, and another about a Thibetian cat. Many passages could be brought forward as evidence that Mr. Saltus loves the fire-side sphynx. The Mr. Incoul of the title gives one a very excellent idea of how inhuman a just man can be. There is not a single slip in the skilful delineation of this monster. The beautiful heroine vaguely shambles into a tapestried background. She is moyen age in her appealing weakness. The jeune premier, Lenox Leigh, is well drawn and lighted. Time after time the author strikes subtle harmonies which must have delighted Henry James. Why is this book not dedicated to author of "The Turn of the Screw" rather than to "E. A. S."? The pages are permeated with suspense, horror, information, irony, and charm, about evenly distributed, all of which qualities are expressed in the astounding title (astounding after you have read the book). There is a white marriage in this tale, stipulated in the hymeneal bond. In 1877 Tschaikovsky made a similar agreement with the woman he married.
"The Truth About Tristrem Varick"[12] is written with the same restraint which characterizes the style of "Mr. Incoul's Misadventure," a restraint seldom to be encountered in Saltus's later fictions. One of the angles of the plot in which an irate father attempts to suppress a marriage by suggesting incest, bobs up twice again in his stories, for the last time nearly thirty years later in "The Monster." Irony is the keynote of the work, a keynote sounded in the dedication, "To my master, the philosopher of the unconscious, Eduard von Hartmann, this attempt in ornamental disenchantment is dutifully inscribed." The heroine, as frequently happens with Saltus heroines, is veiled with the mysteries of Isis; we do not see the workings of her mind and so we can sympathize with Varick, who pursues her with persistent misunderstanding and arduous devotion through 240 pages. He attributes her aloofness to his father's unfounded charge against his mother and her father. When he learns that she has borne a child he suspects rape and, with a needle-like dagger that leaves no sign, he kills the man he believes to have seduced her. Then he goes to the lady to receive her thanks, only to learn that she loved the man he has killed. Varick gives himself into the hands of the police, confesses, and is delivered to justice, the lady gloating. A strikingly pessimistic tale, only less good than "Mr. Incoul." There is superb writing in these pages, many delightful passages. La Cenerentola and Lucrezia Borgia are mentioned in passing. Saltus has (or had) an exuberant fondness for Donizetti and Rossini. Here is a telling bit of art criticism (attributed to a character) descriptive of the Paris Salon: "There was a Manet or two, a Moreau and a dozen excellent landscapes, but the rest represented the apotheosis of mediocrity. The pictures which Gerome, Cabanel, Bouguereau, and the acolytes of these pastry-cooks exposed were stupid and sterile as church doors." This required courage in 1888. One wonders where Kenyon Cox was at the time! Give this book at least two stars.
"Eden"[13] is the third of Saltus's fictions and possibly the poorest of the three. Eden is the name of the heroine whose further name is Menemon. Stuyvesant Square is her original habitat but she migrates to Fifth Avenue. The tide is flowing South again nowadays. Her husband is almost too good, but nevertheless appearances seem against him until he explains that the lady with whom he has been seen in a cab is his daughter by a former marriage, and the young man who seems to have been making love to Eden is his son. Characteristic of Saltus is the use of the Spanish word for nightingale. There are no deaths, no suicides, no murders in these pages: a very eunuch of a book! A motto from Tasso, "Perdute e tutto il tempo che in amor non si spende" adorns the title page and the work is dedicated to "E——H Amicissima."
With "The Pace that Kills"[14] Saltus doffs his old coat and dons a new and gaudier garment. Possibly he owed this change in style to the influence of the London movement so interestingly described in Holbrook Jackson's "The Eighteen-Nineties." The book begins with abortion and ends with a drop over a ferry-boat into the icy East River. There is an averted strangulation of a baby and for the second time in a Saltus opus a dying millionaire leaves his fortune to the St. Nicholas Hospital. Was Saltus ballyhooing for this institution? The hero is a modern Don Juan. Alphabet Jones appears occasionally, as he does in many of the other novels. This Balzacian trick obsessed the author for a time. The book is dedicated to John S. Rutherford and bears as a motto on its title page this quotation from Rabusson: "Pourquoi la mort? Dites, plutôt, pourquoi la vie?"
In "A Transaction in Hearts"[15] the Reverend Christopher Gonfallon falls in love with his wife's sister, Claire. A New England countess, a subsidiary figure, suggests d'Aurevilly. This story originally appeared in "Lippincott's Magazine" and the editor who accepted it was dismissed. A year or so later a new editor published "The Picture of Dorian Gray." Still later Saltus tells me he met Oscar Wilde in London and the Irish poet asked him for news of the new editor. "He's quite well," answered Saltus. Wilde did not seem to be pleased: "When your story appeared the editor was removed; when mine appeared I supposed he would be hanged. Now you tell me he is quite well. It is most disheartening." Saltus then asked Wilde why Dorian Gray was cut by his friends. Wilde turned it over. "I fancy they saw him eating fish with his knife."
"A Transient Guest and other Episodes"[16] contains three short tales besides the title story: "The Grand Duke's Riches," an account of an ingenious robbery at the Brevoort, "A Maid of Athens," and "Fausta," a story of love, revenge, and death in Cuba. If the final cadence of the book is a dagger thrust the prelude is a subtle poison, rafflesia, a Sumatran plant, intended for the hero, Tancred Ennever, but consumed with fatal results by his faithful fox terrier, Zut Alors. The story is arresting and, as frequently happens in Saltus romances, a man finds himself no match for a woman. "A Transient Guest" is dedicated to K. J. M.
The slender volume entitled "Love and Lore"[17] contains a short series of slight essays, interrupted by slighter sonnets, on subjects which, for the most part, Saltus has treated at greater length and with greater effect elsewhere. He makes a whimsical plea for a modern revival of the Court of Love and in "Morality in Fiction" he derides that Puritanism in American letters whose dark scourge H. L. Mencken still pursues with a cat-o'-nine-tails and a hand grenade. He gives us a fanciful set of rules for a novelist which, happily, he has ignored in his own fictions. The most interesting, personal, and charming chapter, although palpably derived from "The Philosophy of Disenchantment," is that entitled "What Pessimism Is Not"; here again we are in the heart of the author's philosophy. Those who like to read books about the Iberian Peninsula can scarcely afford to miss "Fabulous Andalucia," in which an able brief for the race of Othello is presented: "Under the Moors, Cordova surpassed Baghdad. They wrote more poetry than all the other nations put together. It was they who invented rhyme; they wrote everything in it, contracts, challenges, treaties, treatises, diplomatic notes and messages of love. From the earliest khalyf down to Boabdil, the courts of Granada, of Cordova and of Seville were peopled with poets, or, as they were termed, with makers of Ghazels. It was they who gave us the dulcimer, the hautbois and the guitar; it was they who invented the serenade. We are indebted to them for algebra and for the canons of chivalry as well.... It was from them that came the first threads of light which preceded the Renaissance. Throughout mediaeval Europe they were the only people that thought." The book is dedicated to Edgar Fawcett, "perfect poet—perfect friend" and is embellished with a portrait of its author.
"The Story Without a Name"[18] is a translation of "Une Histoire Sans Nom" of Barbey d'Aurevilly, and is preceded by one of Saltus's charming and atmospheric literary essays, the best on d'Aurevilly to be found in English. When this book first appeared, Mr. Saltus informs me, a reviewer, "who contrived to be both amusing and complimentary," said that Barbey d'Aurevilly was a fictitious person and that this vile story was Saltus's own vile work!