A Novelist on Novels

by Walter Lionel George

A judgment such as this one is characteristic of Johnson; it is elaborate, somewhat prejudiced, and very narrow. Johnson evidently saw Falstaff as a mere man, perhaps as one whose ghost he would willingly have taught to smoke a churchwarden at the 'Cheshire Cheese.' He saw in him neither heroic nor national qualities and would have scoffed at the possibility of their existence, basing himself on his own remark to Boswell: 'I despise those who do not see that I am right....'

But smaller men than Johnson have judged Falstaff in a small way. They have concentrated on his comic traits, and considered very little whether he might be dubbed either giant or Englishman: if Falstaff is a diamond they have cut but one or two facets. Now the comic side of Falstaff must not be ignored; if he were incapable of creating laughter, if he could draw from us no more than a smile, as do the heroes of Anatole France, of Sterne, or Swift, his gigantic capacity would be affected. It is essential that he should be absurd; it is almost essential that he should be fat, for it is an established fact that humanity laughs gladly at bulk, at men such as Sancho Panza and Mr Pickwick. It is likely that Shakespeare was aware of our instinct when he caused Hal to call Falstaff 'this bed-presser, this horseback-breaker, this huge hill of flesh.' In the mathematics of the stage fat = comedy, lean = tragedy; I do not believe that Hamlet was flesh-burdened, even though 'scant of breath.'

Fat was, however, but Falstaff's prelude to comedy. He needed to be what he otherwise was, coarse, salaciously-minded, superstitious, blustering, cowardly, and lying; he needed to be a joker, oft-times a wit, and withal a sleepy drunkard, a butt for pranks. His coarseness is comic, but not revolting, for it centres rather on the human body than on the human emotion; he does not habitually scoff at justice, generosity or faithfulness, even though he be neither just, nor generous, nor faithful: his brutality is a brutality of word rather than thought, one akin to that of our poorer classes. Had Falstaff not had an air of the world and a custom of courts he would have typified the lowest classes of our day and perhaps stood below those of his own time. His is the coarseness of the drunkard, a jovial and not a maudlin drunkard; when sober he reacts against his own brutality, vows to '... purge and leave sack, and live cleanly, as a nobleman should do.'

Falstaff led his life by a double thread. Filled with the joy of living, as he understood it, limited by his desires for sack and such as Doll Tearsheet, he was bound too by his stupidity. He was stupid, though crafty, as is a cat, an instinctive animal; none but a stupid man could have taken seriously the mockery of the fairies in Windsor Park; himself it is acknowledges that he is 'made an ass.' We laugh, and again we laugh when, in silly terror and credulity, he allows the Merry Wives to pack him in the foul linen basket; where Falstaff is, there is also rubicund pleasantry.

In the same spirit we make merry over his cowardice; the cowardice itself is not comic, indeed it would be painful to see him stand and deliver to Gadshill, if the surrender were not prefaced by the deep grumbles of a man who suspects that Hal and Poins have captured his affections with drugs, who acknowledge that 'eight yards of uneven ground is threescore and ten miles afoot' with him. The burlesque conceals the despicable, and we fail to sneer because we laugh; we forgive his acceptance of insult at the hands of the Chief Justice's servant: it is not well that a knight should allow a servant to tell him that he lies in his throat, but if leave to do so can be given in jest the insult loses its sting. Falstaff is more than a coward, he is the coward-type, for he is (like Pistol) the blustering coward. The mean, cringing coward is unskilled at his trade: the true coward is the fat knight who, no sooner convicted of embellishing his fight with highwaymen, of having forgone his booty rather than defend it, can roar that he fears and will obey no man, and solemnly say: ''Zounds! an' I were at the strappado, or all the racks in the world, I would not tell you upon compulsion.' The attitude is so simple, so impudent, that we laugh, forgive. And we forgive because such an attitude could not be struck with confidence save by a giant.

A giant he is, this comic and transparent man. There is nothing unobtrusive in Falstaff's being; his feelings and his motives are large and unmistakable. His jolly brutality and mummery of pride are in themselves almost enough to ensure him the crown of Goliath, but add to these the poetry wrapped in his lewdness, the idealistic gallantry which follows hard upon his crudity, add that he is lawless because he is adventurous, add simplicity, bewilderment, and cast over this temperament a web of wistful philosophy: then Falstaff stands forth enormous and alone.

Falstaff is full of gross, but artistic glee; for him life is epic and splendid, and his poetic temperament enables him to discover the beauty that is everywhere. It may be that Henry IV. rightly says: 'riot and dishonour stain the brow of my young Harry,' but it may be also that the young prince is not unfortunate in a companion who can find grace in highwaymen: '... let us not that are squires of the night's body be called thieves of the day's beauty: let us be Diana's foresters, gentlemen of the shade, minions of the moon; and let men say, we be men of good government, being governed as the sea is, by our noble and chaste mistress the moon, under whose countenance we steal.' Falstaff is big with the love of life and ever giving birth to it; he is the spirit of the earth, a djinn released whom none may bottle. Because of this he is lawless; he cannot respect the law, for he can respect no limits; he bursts out from the small restrictions of man as does his mighty paunch from his leather belt. It is hopeless to try to abash him; force even, as embodied in the Chief Justice, does not awe him overmuch, so well does he know that threats will not avail to impair his pleasure. Falstaff in jail would make merry with the jailers, divert them with quips, throw dice and drink endlessly the sack they would offer him for love. He cannot be daunted, feeling too deeply that he holds the ball of the world between his short arms; once only does Falstaff's big, gentle heart contract, when young Hal takes ill his kindly cry: 'God save thee, my sweet boy!' He is assured that he will be sent for in private, and it is in genuine pain rather than fear he cries out: 'My lord, my lord!' when committed to the Fleet.

In this simple faith lies much of Falstaff's gigantic quality. To believe everything, to be gullible, in brief to be as nearly as may be an instinctive animal, that is to be great. I would not have Falstaff sceptical; he must be credulous, faithfully become the ambassador of Ford to Ford's wife, and be deceived, and again deceived; he must believe himself loved of all women, of Mistress Ford, or Mistress Page, or Doll Tearsheet; he must readily be fooled, pinched, pricked, singed, ridiculously arrayed in the clothes of Mother Prat. One moment of doubt, a single inquiry, and the colossus would fall from his pedestal, become as mortal and suspicious men. But there is no downfall; he believes and, breasting through the sea of ridicule, he holds Mistress Ford in his arms for one happy moment, the great moment which even a rain of potatoes from the sky could not spoil. It could not, for there echoes in Falstaff's mind the sweet tune of 'Green Sleeves':

'Greensleeves was all my joy,
Greensleeves was my delight,
Greensleeves was my heart of gold,
And who but Lady Greensleeves?'

It is natural that such a temperament should, in the ordinary sense, breed lies. Falstaff does and does not lie; like Tartarin he probably suffers from mirage and, when attacked by highwaymen, truly sees them as a hundred when, in fact, they are but two. But he is not certain, he is too careless of detail, he readily responds when it is suggested he lies and makes the hundred into a mere sixteen. Falstaff the artist is either unconscious of exaggeration, therefore truthful, or takes a childish pleasure in exaggerating; he is a giant, therefore may exaggerate, for all things are small relatively to him. If the ocean could speak none would reproach it if it said that fifty inches of rain had fallen into its bosom within a single hour, for what would it matter? one inch or fifty, what difference would that make to the ocean? Falstaff is as the ocean; he can stand upon a higher pedestal of lies than can the mortal, for it does not make him singular. Indeed it is this high pedestal of grossness, lying, and falsity makes him great; no small man would dare to erect it; Falstaff dares, for he is unashamed.