While the Coreys try faithfully to compass the best that is known and thought in the world, the Laphams go to the other extreme, and touch depths of ignorance and vulgarity almost incredible for a family living in Boston with eyes to see, ears to hear, and, above all, money to spend. For a sort of superficial culture is a part of the modern inheritance, and seems to belong to the universal air. Even Penelope Lapham—the elder daughter, who is a girl of remarkable shrewdness and gifted besides with a keen satirical sense which makes her the family wit—is content to laugh at the family failings and provincialisms without any definite idea of how they might be corrected. But the Laphams are all the more interesting because they display no feeble and tentative gentilities. Mrs. Lapham's acceptance of Mrs. Corey's invitation to dinner, in which she signs herself "Yours truly, Mrs. S. Lapham," initiates some delightful scenes in the comedy. The colonel's resolution to go to the dinner in a frock-coat, white waistcoat, black cravat, and ungloved hands, and his eventual panicky substitution of correct evening dress regardless of cost, the anxieties of his wife and daughter on the question of suitable raiment, the great affair itself, when the colonel comes out in a new character,—all this part of the book shows in a high degree Mr. Howells's bright vein of humor.
But, putting aside the humor and comedy of "The Rise of Silas Lapham," the book has other points of value, and, as a study of a business-man whom success floats to the crest of the wave only to let him be overwhelmed by disaster as the surge retreats, presents a striking similitude to Balzac's "César Birotteau." In each case we find a self-made man elated by a sense of his commercial greatness, confident that the point he has already attained, instead of being the climax of his career, is the stepping-stone to yet greater wealth, besides social distinction. César Birotteau inaugurates what he believes to be his era of magnificence with a ball, while Silas Lapham tempts fortune by building a fine house on the back bay. Each hero projects his costly schemes in opposition to the wishes of a more sensible and prudent wife, and each, at the moment when fate seemed bent on crowning his ambition, falls a prey to a series of cruel and, in a way, undeserved misfortunes, and finds his well-earned commercial credit a mere house of cards which totters to its fall. Each man, broken and bankrupt, displays in his feebleness a moral strength he had not shown in his days of power: thus the name, "the rise of Silas Lapham," means his initiation into a clearer and more exalted knowledge of his obligations to himself and to his kind. The moral of César Birotteau's "grandeur et decadence" strikes a still deeper key-note. Compared with Balzac, who is never trivial, and who has the most unerring instinct for character and motive, Mr. Howells wastes his force on non-essentials and is carried away by frivolities and prettinesses when he ought to be grappling with his work in fierce earnest. Balzac, whose unappeasable longing was to see his books the breviary, so to speak, of the people, would have laughed and cried with Silas, lived with him, loved with him, and come to grief with him, and forced his readers to do likewise. Mr. Howells is not so easily carried away by his creations, and is too apt to laugh at them instead of with them. But his mature work shows, nevertheless, a boldness and facility which ought to put the best results within its compass; and we confidently look for better novels from his pen than he has so far written, full of wit, humor, and cleverness, yet expanding outside of these gracful limitations into the fullest nature and freedom.
/# "A Canterbury Pilgrimage. Ridden, Written, and Illustrated by Joseph and Elizabeth Robins Pennell." New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. #/
It may be confessed that in certain respects bicycles and tricycles answer admirably to the requirements of travellers in search of the picturesque. They are swift or slow at need, may be halted without want or waste, and have no vicious instincts to be combated by whip or spur. But they are nevertheless hideous inventions, and it is impossible for lookers-on to feel for wheelmen the cordial good will given so freely to Mr. Stevenson on his donkey, for instance. The rider on wheels is an object that exasperates the nerves of horses, dogs, and men. Mrs. Pennell in this little book describes a collision on the old Kent Road with the driver of a hansom cab, who sat watching their extrication scowling. If he had his way, he said, he would burn all them things." And, little affiliation as most human beings have with cabmen, we yet believe that he gave utterance to the sentiments of all non-wheelmen. However, the modern world is likely to belong to bicycles and tricycles, and this attractive brochure, signed with the names of one of our cleverest draughtsmen and his wife, with their silhouettes on the cover, is likely to set more wheels in motion than there were before it was printed. The two evidently enjoyed their expedition, and the lady tells the story easily and pleasantly; and if it is relieved by little incident it is yet sustained by intelligent observation and discriminating enthusiasm, while the illustrations are, like all Mr. Pennell's work, clever in the extreme. The two left London on their tricycle late in August, and had the finest weather in which to cross historic Blackheath and look up the picturesque wharves in Gravesend. Hop-pickers filled the roads and offered many a subject for the artist's pencil. "We rode on with light hearts," recounts the fair wheelwoman. "An eternity of wheeling through such perfect country and in such soft sunshine would, we thought, be the true earthly paradise. We were at peace with ourselves and with all mankind, and J—— even went so far as to tell me I had never ridden so well," And thus on to the inn at Sittingbourne, which has this quaint notice hung over the door:
Call frequently,
Drink moderately,
Pay honourably,
Be good company,
Part friendly,
Go home quietly.
Arrived at the close of the second day in Canterbury, the two "toke" their inn at the sign of the "Falstaff," where hung "Honest Jack, in buff doublet and red hose," in a wonderful piece of wrought-iron work. Whether next day, after viewing the cathedral, the tricycles pursued their journey, is not told. The pilgrimage ends, as it should, at the shrine,—that is, where the shrine had been; for the verger, after saying solemnly that they had come to the shrine of St. Thomas, solemnly added, "'Enery the Heighth, when he was in Canterbury, took the bones, which they was laid beneath, out on the green, and had them burned. With them he took the 'oly shrine, which it and bones is here no longer."
* * * * *
Fiction.
"The Lady with the Rubies." Translated from the German of E. Marlitt by
Mrs. A.L. Wister. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Company.
"Barbara Heathcote's Trial." By Rosa Nouchette Carey. Philadelphia: J.B.
Lippincott Company.