VI
OF LOVE, IN FICTION
I HAVE been reading “Casa Braccio,” and I must talk to you about it. Of course I do not know whether you have read it or not, so if I bore you forgive me. I was much interested in Part I., rather disappointed with Part II., and it struck me that Mr. Crawford showed signs in Part III. of weariness with the characters of his own creation. There are nine people who play important parts in the story, and the author kills six of them. The first, an abbess, dies naturally but conveniently; the second, an innkeeper’s daughter, dies suddenly, by misadventure; the third, a nun, dies, one is not told how, when, or where—but she dies. This is disappointing, because she promised to be a very interesting character. Then the fourth, daughter of No. 3, commits suicide, because, having run away from her husband, and got tired of the other man, the husband declines to have her back. The fifth, a most uninteresting and weak-kneed individual, is an artist, husband of No. 4, and he dies, apparently to make himself disagreeable; while the sixth, the original cause of all the trouble, is murdered by the innkeeper, who has been hunting him, like a good Christian, for twenty years, determined to kill him when found, under the mistaken impression that he eloped with, and disposed of, his daughter, No. 2.
No one can deny that the author has dealt out destruction with impartiality, and it is rather strange, for Mr. Crawford often likes to use his characters for two or even three books; that is why, I think, he got a little tired with these particular people, and determined to bury them. Out of this lot he has kept only three for future vivisection and ultimate extinction.
I trust that, if you have not read the book already, you will be induced, by what I have told you, to get “Casa Braccio,” for you will find many interesting human problems discussed in it, and many others suggested for the consideration of the reader. Here, for instance, is a text which may well give you pause, “The widowhood of the unsatisfied is hell, compared with the bereavement of complete possession.”
Now what do you say to that? For I am sure the somewhat bald, if not positively repellent, look and sound of the words, will not deter you from considering the truth or falseness of the statement. I do not altogether like the theory; and one may even be permitted to differ from the conclusion contained in the text. But the reason why this sentence arrested my attention is because you quote, “L’absence ni le temps ne sont rien quand on aime,” and later, you appeal to the East as a place of broader views, of deeper feeling, of longer, wider experience than the West. You appeal to the East, and this is what a Persian poet says:—
“All that is by nature twain,
Fears and suffers by the pain
Of separation—Love is only perfect,
When itself transcends itself,