The moral of the book, from the poor minister’s miserable experience, is put into this sentence: “Be true, be true, be true; show freely to the world, if not your worst, yet some trait whereby the worst may be inferred.” Hester’s strength in bearing her sorrow is contrasted powerfully with the growing weakness and degeneracy of Dimmesdale, and with the transformation of Chillingworth into a devil, through constant gratification of his revenge. The strange conduct of Pearl, who, with her child’s instinct, resents the conduct of the minister who will recognize her mother and herself only in secret, adds to the effect; yet it can not be said that Pearl is in the least a natural child. She seems almost as mature when she first asks her mother who it was that sent her into the world, and denies that she has a Heavenly Father, as she does in the last pages of the book. The appearance of Mistress Hibbins, the old witch, who was afterwards executed, throws a gleam of the supernatural across the pages.
It is a weird story, the product of a luxuriant though somewhat morbid imagination; but the novelist, on the other hand, lacks that acute perception, that knowledge of trifling circumstances, such as would have appeared in the pages of Balzac or Tolstoi—those suggestive details which unconsciously set forth men’s motives, feelings, and character better than any philosophical reflections.
HENRY ESMOND
WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY
The equestrian painting by Velasquez of Prince Balthasar Charles, the original of which is in the Madrid Museum, is now well known throughout the world by means of photographs and other reproductions. It represents a very small boy on a very huge horse, which is in the act of rearing. The anatomy of the animal is impossible, and it is safe to say no boy as small as the Prince ever assumed under like circumstances the attitude attributed to him; and yet, in spite of its defects, this picture is a very remarkable and a very beautiful painting. We know in an instant that it is the work of a master. Indeed it is only the work of a master which could contain such blemishes and still be great. Similar flaws sometimes deface the greatest works of literature—for instance, the putting out of Gloucester’s eyes in “Lear,” or the Walpurgis Night’s Dream in the first part of “Faust.” And so it is with “Henry Esmond.” It is marred by one or two dreadful deformities; and yet, in spite of them, it is perhaps the most charming novel ever written.
The book opens with one of the most exquisite scenes in all literature, where young Esmond, a lad twelve years of age, who is supposed to be the illegitimate son of Thomas, Viscount Castlewood, and who has led a rather hard life as a page of the old viscountess, and been left alone in the great house after his father’s death, is now found in the yellow gallery by Lady Castlewood, the young and beautiful wife of the new viscount, when she comes with her husband to take possession of the property. The scene is thus described:
“She stretched out her hand—indeed, when was it that that hand did not stretch out to do an act of kindness, or to protect grief and ill-fortune? ‘And this is our kinsman,’ she said; ‘and what is your name, kinsman?’
“‘My name is Henry Esmond,’ said the lad, looking up at her in a sort of delight and wonder, for she had come upon him as a Dea certe, and appeared the most charming object he had ever looked on. Her golden hair was shining in the gold of the sun; her complexion was of a dazzling bloom; her lips smiling, and her eyes beaming with a kindness which made Harry Esmond’s heart beat with surprise.
“‘His name is Henry Esmond, sure enough, my lady,’ said Mrs. Worksop, the housekeeper (an old tyrant whom Henry Esmond plagued more than he hated), and the old gentlewoman looked significantly toward the late lord’s picture; as it now is, in the family, noble and severe-looking, with his hand on his sword and his order on his cloak, which he had from the Emperor during the war on the Danube against the Turk.
“Seeing the great and undeniable likeness between this portrait and the lad, the new viscountess, who had still hold of the boy’s hand as she looked at the picture, blushed and dropped the hand quickly, and walked down the gallery, followed by Mrs. Worksop.
“When the lady came back, Harry Esmond stood exactly in the same spot and with his hand as it had fallen when he dropped it on his black coat.