LITERATURE OF THE DAY
A Simpleton: A Story of the Day. By Charles Reade. New York: Harper & Brothers.
In a preface to the English edition of this book Mr. Reade grapples with the charge of plagiarism so often urged against his stories, and, justifying his habitual course by precedents, forestalls the search of the detectives in the present case by proclaiming the sources from which incidents and descriptions have been gathered. Having treated of many matters beyond the range of his personal knowledge and experience, he has necessarily had recourse to the writings of other men, and by citing his authorities he not only clears himself of the suspicion of surreptitious borrowing, but establishes the truthfulness, or at least the plausibility, of what might otherwise have been considered improbable inventions. This frankness, which, after all, sheds no new light upon his method of composition, seems to have had the happy, if undesigned, effect of throwing his critics off the true scent. The real plagiarism in A Simpleton lies not in the details, but in the conception. The "situation" which leads to all the embroilments and developments is the apparently ill-assorted union of a man of science and genius, absorbed in the labors of investigation and discovery, practical in his views of life and upright in all his actions, with an ill-trained and unintellectual beauty, whose perfections of form and face, pretty coquetry, studied artlessness and sweet recognition of the value of masculine knowledge and strength as the proper stay of feminine weakness and the proper organ of the feminine will, assail the superior being just at that point where his perceptions are weakest, and lead him an easy captive. When we add that this Samson is a young medical man, marked out for the highest honors of his profession, and that his career is temporarily blighted at the outset through the extravagance, silliness and deception of his wife, we have given an outline which no reader of Middlemarch will require to have paralleled. Dr. Christopher Staines is matched and contrasted with Rosa Lusignan, precisely as Lydgate is matched and contrasted with Rosamond Vincy. There is even a further resemblance in the minor pairing and natural dissonance of Phebe Dale and Reginald Falcon in the one book and of Mary Garth and Fred Vincy in its predecessor; while Lady Cicely Treherne, though her simplicity, unlike that of Dorothea, is merely assumed, is almost as unworldly as that heroine, makes a similar use of her wealth and social advantages, stands in much the same relation to the other characters, serves them in the same manner, and ends by marrying her Will Ladislaw under the designation of a "mercurial Irish gentleman" not further introduced to the reader. It will be understood that it is not the characters, in the proper sense of the word, that Mr. Reade has borrowed. In fact, George Eliot's characters are too intimately associated with their surroundings, the circumstances in which they are placed enter too largely as elements into their nature, to allow of their being transplanted without losing all identity. And on the other hand, Mr. Reade, for a reason to be mentioned hereafter, is quite incapable of borrowing characters—still using the word in its most rigid meaning: the characters in his books are always in an emphatic sense his own. The plot, too, and the action of the one book, bear as little resemblance to those of the other as an exhibition of fireworks bears to the "after-glow" of an Alpine sunset. It is, as we have said, the "situation" which Mr. Reade has taken, and this with a palpable purpose, as if, after reading Middlemarch, he had said: "Ha! here is a good idea; but George Eliot, with her commonplace, humdrum way of treating things, has missed the effects of which it was capable. I, Charles Reade, who see beneath the surface, besides being a master of pyrotechnics, will work up the theme in that flashing, whizzing, startling, dazzling way which shall reveal its full proportions as well as my own transcendent powers." Accordingly, while Rosamond continues to be Rosamond throughout, each fresh exhibition of her traits only showing their natural growth or furthering the reader's knowledge of them, Rosa passes through the swift transformations which a "Hey, presto!" is quite sufficient to announce. In the early part of the book she is an embodiment of silliness, levity and selfishness—in the latter part she is reason, self-devotion and passionate love personified. As for Dr. Staines, there is no need of any apotheosis in his case: as the hero of the book he must perforce be that renowned prestidigitateur whom Mr. Reade long since presented to an admiring audience as the principal performer in his troupe. It is needless, therefore, to say that he goes through the programme with the highest dexterity and éclat, displaying the marvelous knowledge, encountering the terrific dangers, achieving the prodigies which belong to his part, without the least falling off in vivacity or suppleness. When he finally hurls his treacherous friend from a cottage window and impales him on the garden railings, who can withhold the well-merited applause?
It may seem paradoxical to say of a very successful novel-writer that he has mistaken his vocation, yet such, we think, is Mr. Reade's case. For the novelist, as for the dramatist, an essential combination is that of a strong individuality with an equal endowment of the imitative faculty. This union is found, perhaps, in its perfection only in Shakespeare. Shakespeare's personages bear the double stamp of their own individuality and of their creator's. In their appropriate diversity their origin is still apparent. Their fidelity to Nature is never that of literal copies. When Lear says, "Undo this button," we are thrilled with the reality of the trait, but we do not suspect it of having been borrowed from real life. On the contrary, it glows with the heat of that imaginative power whose office it is to transfuse reality—to seize truth in its essence and idealize it in form. Descending to two writers in whom this combination is also strong, we may notice how, nevertheless, the balance inclines to one side or the other. There are many passages of Jane Austen which read like transcripts of actual conversations: one might suppose them to have been done by a skillful reporter. In George Eliot's books, on the other hand, the spontaneity of the actors is checked by the brooding, analytical spirit of the author: their verisimilitude is perfect, but their dramatic capabilities do not always have the free play necessary to their complete exhibition and appropriate effect. Turning now to Mr. Reade, we find that in him one element of this combination—the power of impersonation—is utterly lacking. His own individuality protrudes itself at every point. His characters are all identical in essence—all imbued with the confidence, the unflagging ardor, the impetuosity and extravagance of the same ideal. It is in vain that he labels them with different designations: no sooner do they begin to speak and move than every tone and gesture reveals the familiar type. The poor, mean-spirited creature intended to contrast with the hero turns out to be only his pale reflection. Distinctions of sex and age, of race and education, are merely superficial. High or low, good or bad, they are all equally knowing and equally self-willed. The women may talk of bonnets, but their lofty and fiery souls glow through the twaddle. The children have an infantile prattle, but the schoolmaster, overhearing it, would at once remark that it was only that boy Reade holding one of his strange colloquies with himself.
With this incapacity to understand the diverse springs of human action, Mr. Reade is clearly no novelist in the true sense of the term. He is, however, an admirable describer and a capital story-teller. He is consequently always entertaining and secure of his reader. Yet, inasmuch as he professes to relate and describe only actual facts, we cannot but regret that he should have adopted a form which is ill suited to this object, and which makes him a mere retailer of other people's observations. In the book before us he paints the interior of Africa from somebody else's information: had he gone thither himself his picture would have had great value. So, too, he is continually instructing us about the processes used in the arts and manufactures; but his knowledge being gained at second hand and crammed for the occasion, we mistrust the teacher. If he would apply himself to such matters, and give us the results of his experience, our gain would be great. He could not, of course, as now, traverse the whole field; but what his teaching might lose in superficial extent would be more than made good by its greater accuracy and reliability. He might select, for instance, the useful art of coopering. We know his powers, we appreciate his genius. It is safe to say that a cask made in accordance with his directions, after he had served a short apprenticeship, would not only be fair to see and easy to handle, but would also hold water. This is more than we should venture to affirm of the plot of any of his novels.
The Fishing Tourist. By Charles Hallock. New York: Harper & Brothers.
I Go A-Fishing. By W. C. Prime. New York: Harper & Brothers.
Mr. Hallock tells us in his preface that his province is to write an anglers' guide without embellishment. It would have been well if he had adhered to this plan. After some pages of high-flown periods he informs us that twenty-six years ago fly-fishing was in its infancy, being scarcely known in America, and but little practiced in England. If he had asserted that fly-fishing was scarcely known among his "green hills" at that period, and but little practiced in Hampshire county, the statement need not have been impugned; but hundreds of books have been written upon this art in England since the time of Dame Juliana Berners, and in America fifty years ago there existed many such practitioners as Fay, Eckley and Bethune.
When Mr. Hallock treats of the natural history of his favorite fishes he is equally unfortunate; which is the less remarkable since he gets his science from W. H. Herbert, a writer who knew little of American ichthyology. As a specimen of the methods of that "cautious student," as our author calls him, Herbert, pretending to quote from Agassiz, who in his Tour to Lake Superior described a new salmon of that lake under the name of Salmo Siskowet, calls it Salmo Siskowitz, and this mistake Hallock repeats. Again, Herbert writing of the great northern pickerel, calls it "Esox lucioides, Agassiz;" the fact being that Professor Agassiz describes it in his Lake Superior as Esox boreas. This mistake of Herbert has been perpetuated by most of the popular writers, Norris, Roosevelt, etc. Mr. Hallock calls the sea-trout Salmo trutta, again copying Herbert, while all naturalists now give it the name bestowed upon it by Hamilton Smith, Salmo Canadensis, it being very distinct from Salmo trutta, which is a European species. Mr. Hallock writes of the "toag of Lakes Pepin, Moosehead and St. Croix." Now, Lake Pepin contains no large gray trout; in fact, with the exception of Salmo fontinalis, its fishes are all of the Western type. He also mentions "the common lake-trout of New York and New England, Salmo confinis, DeKay," which is identical with the toag, just mentioned. Dr. A. L. Adams of the British army, in a recent work on the Natural History of New Brunswick, calls it "the togue or toladi, Salmo confinis, DeKay, the gray-spotted lake-trout." Mr. Hallock asserts that Salmo Sebago is a monster brook-trout, like those of the Rangely lakes. Dr. Adams states that this name, Salmo Sebago, was applied to the Schoodic salmon, Salmo Gloveri, by Girard, in 1853; the species being first observed in that lake, where it is now said to be extinct.