It is cheering to know how great is the influence such a writer as Sue exerts, from his energy of feeling on some subjects of moral interest. It is true that he has also much talent and a various experience of life; but writers who far surpass him here, as we think Balzac does, wanting this heart of faith, have no influence, except merely on the tastes of their readers.
We observe, in a late notice of Sue, that he began to write at quite mature age, at the suggestion of a friend. We should think it was so; that he was by nature intended for a practical man, rather than a writer. He paints all his characters from the practical point of view.
As an observer, when free from exaggeration, he has as good an eye as Balzac, but he is far more rarely thus free, for, in temperament, he is unequal and sometimes muddy. But then he has the heart and faith that Balzac wants, yet is less enslaved by emotion than Sand; therefore he has made more impression on his time and place than either. We refer now to his later works; though his earlier show much talent, yet his progress, both as a writer and thinker, has been so considerable that those of the last few years entirely eclipse his earlier essays.
These latter works are the "Mysteries of Paris," "Matilda," and the "Wandering Jew," which is now in course of publication. In these, he has begun, and is continuing, a crusade against the evils of a corrupt civilization which are inflicting such woes and wrongs upon his contemporaries.
Sue, however, does not merely assail, but would build up. His anatomy is not intended to injure the corpse, or, like that of Balzac, to entertain the intellectual merely. Earnestly he hopes to learn from it the remedies for disease and the conditions of health. Sue is a Socialist. He believes he sees the means by which the heart of mankind may be made to beat with one great hope, one love; and instinct with this thought, his tales of horror are not tragedies.
This is the secret of the deep interest he has awakened in this country, that he shares a hope which is, half unconsciously to herself, stirring all her veins. It is not so warmly outspoken as in other lands, both because no such pervasive ills as yet call loudly for redress, and because private conservatism is here great, in proportion to the absence of authorized despotism. We are not disposed to quarrel with this; it is well for the value of new thoughts to be tested by a good deal of resistance. Opposition, if it does not preclude free discussion, is of use in educating men to know what they want. Only by intelligent men, exercised by thought and tried in virtue, can such measures as Sue proposes be carried out; and when such associates present themselves in sufficient numbers, we have no fear but the cause of association, in its grander forms, will have fair play in America.
As a writer, Sue shows his want of a high kind of imagination by his unshrinking portraiture of physical horrors. We do not believe any man could look upon some things he describes and live. He is very powerful in his description of the workings of animal nature; especially when he speaks of them in animals merely, they have the simplicity of the lower kind with the more full expression of human nature. His pictures of women are of rare excellence, and it is observable that the more simple and pure the character is, the more justice he does to it. This shows that, whatever his career may have been, his heart is uncontaminated. Men he does not describe so well, and fails entirely when he aims at one grand and simple enough for a great moral agent. His conceptions are strong, but in execution he is too melodramatic. Just compare his "Wandering Jew" with that of Beranger. The latter is as diamond compared with charcoal. Then, like all those writers who write in numbers that come out weekly or monthly, he abuses himself and his subject; he often must; the arrangement is false and mechanical.
The attitude of Sue is at this moment imposing, as he stands, pen in hand,—this his only weapon against an innumerable host of foes,—the champion of poverty, innocence, and humanity, against superstition, selfishness, and prejudice. When his works are forgotten,—and for all their strong points and brilliant decorations, they may ere long be forgotten,—still the writer's name shall be held in imperishable honor as the teacher of the ignorant, the guardian of the weak, a true tribune for the people of his own time.
One of the most unexceptionable and attractive writers of modern France is De Vigny. His life has been passed in the army; but many years of peace have given him time for literary culture, while his acquaintance with the traditions of the army, from the days of its dramatic achievements under Bonaparte, supply the finest materials both for narrative and reflection. His tales are written with infinite grace, refined sensibility, and a dignified view. His treatment of a subject shows that closeness of grasp and clearness of sight which are rarely attained by one who is not at home in active as well as thoughtful life. He has much penetration, too, and has touched some of the most delicate springs of human action. His works have been written in hours of leisure; this has diminished their number, but given him many advantages over the thousands of professional writers that fill the coffee-houses of Paris by day, and its garrets by night. We wish he were more read here in the original; with him would be found good French, and the manners, thoughts, and feelings of a cosmopolitan gentleman.
To sum up this imperfect account of the merits of these Novelists: I see De Vigny, a retiring figure, the gentleman, the solitary thinker, but, in his way, the efficient foe of false honor and superstitious prejudice; Balzac is the heartless surgeon, probing the wounds and describing the delirium of suffering men for the amusement of his students; Sue, a bold and glittering crusader, with endless ballads jingling in the silence of the night before the battle. They are all much right and a good deal wrong; for instance, all who would lay down their lives for the sake of truth, yet let their virtuous characters practise stratagems, falsehood, and violence; in fact, do evil for the sake of good. They still show this taint of the old régime, and no wonder! La belle France has worn rouge so long that the purest mountain air will not, at once, or soon, restore the natural hues to her complexion. But they are fine figures, and all ruled by the onward spirit of the time. Led by that spirit, I see them moving on the troubled waters; they do not sink, and I trust they will find their way to the coasts where the new era will introduce new methods, in a spirit of nobler activity, wiser patience, and holier faith, than the world has yet seen.