Essays on Modern Novelists

by William Lyon Phelps

HENRYK SIENKIEWICZ

In a private letter to a friend, written in 1896, the late Mr. Charles Dudley Warner remarked: "I am just reading Children of the Soil, which I got in London before I sailed. It confirms me in my very high opinion of him. I said the other day that I think him at the head of living novelists, both in range, grasp of a historical situation, intuition and knowledge of human nature. Comparisons are always dangerous, but I know no historical novelist who is his superior, or who is more successful in creating characters. His canvas is very large, and in the beginning of his historical romances the reader needs patience, but the picture finally comes out vividly, and the episodes in the grand story are perfectly enthralling. Of his novels of modern life I cannot speak too highly. The subtlety of his analysis is wonderful, and the shades of character are delineated by slight but always telling strokes. There is the same reality in them that is in his romances. As to the secret of his power, who can say? It is genius (I still believe in that word) but re-enforced by very hard labour and study, by much reading, and by acute observation."

This letter may serve as an excellent summary of the opinions of many intelligent American critics concerning a writer whose name was unknown to us in 1890, and of whom the whole world was talking in 1895.[5] One reason—apart from their intrinsic excellence—for the Byronic suddenness of the fame of the Polish Trilogy, was the psychological opportuneness of its appearance. In England and in America the recent Romantic Revival was at its flood; we were all reading historical romances, and were hungry for more. Sienkiewicz satisfied us by providing exactly what we were looking for. In his own country he was idolised, for his single pen had done more than many years of tumultuous discussion, to put Poland back on the map of Europe. At the exercises commemorating the five hundredth anniversary of the University of Cracow, the late President Gilman, who had the well-deserved honour of speaking for the universities of America, said: "America thanks Poland for three great names: Copernicus, to whom all the world is indebted; Kosciuszko, who spilled his blood for American independence; and Sienkiewicz, whose name is a household word in thousands of American homes, and who has introduced Poland to the American people."[6]

Sienkiewicz was born in 1845. After student days at Warsaw, he came over in 1876-1877 to California, in a party that included Madame Modjeska. They attempted to establish a kind of socialistic community, which bears in the retrospect a certain resemblance to Brook Farm. Fortunately for the cause of art, which the world needs more than it does socialism, the enterprise was a failure. Sienkiewicz returned to Poland, and began his literary career; Madame Modjeska became one of the chief ornaments of the English stage for a quarter of a century. Her ashes now rest in the ancient Polish city where President Gilman uttered his fine tribute to the friend of her youth.

The three great Polish romances were all written in the eighties; and at about the same time the author was also engaged in the composition of purely realistic work, which displays his powers in a quite different form of art, and constitutes the most original—though not the most popular—part of his literary production. The Children of the Soil, which some of the elect in Poland consider his masterpiece, is a novel, constructed and executed in the strictest style of realism; Without Dogma is still farther removed from the Romantic manner, for it is a story of psychological analytical introspection. Sienkiewicz himself regards Children of the Soil as his favourite, although he is "not prepared to say just why." And Without Dogma he thinks to be "in many respects my strongest work." It is evident that he does not consider himself primarily a maker of stirring historical romance. But in the nineties he returned to this form of fiction, producing his Roman panorama called Quo Vadis, which, although it has made the biggest noise of all his books, is perhaps the least valuable. Like Ben Hur, it was warmed over into a tremendously successful melodrama, and received the final compliment of parody.[7] Toward the close of the century, Sienkiewicz completed another massive historical romance, The Knights of the Cross, which, in its abundant action, striking characterisation, and charming humour, recalled the Trilogy; this was followed by On the Field of Glory, and we may confidently expect more, though never too much; he simply could not be dull if he tried.

In a time like ours, when literary tabloids take the place of wholesome mental food, when many successful novels can be read at a sitting or a lying—requiring no exertion either of soul or body—the portentous size of these Polish stories is a magnificent challenge. If some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested, what shall we do with Sienkiewicz? In Mr. Curtin's admirable translation, the Trilogy covers over twenty-five hundred closely printed pages; the Knights of the Cross over seven hundred and fifty, Children of the Soil over six hundred and fifty; Without Dogma (Englished by another hand) has been silently so much abridged in translation that we do not know what its actual length may be. We do not rebel, because the next chapter is invariably not a task, but a temptation; but when we wake up with a start at the call Finis, which magic word transfers us from the seventeenth to the twentieth century, and contemplate the vast fabric of our dream, we cannot help asking if there is any law in the construction that requires so much material. Gogol, in his astonishing romance, Taras Bulba, which every lover of Sienkiewicz should read, gives us the same impression of Vastness, in a book Lilliputian in size. Nor is there any apparent reason why the Polish narratives should stop on the last page, nor indeed stop at all. Combat succeeds combat, when in the midst of the hurly-burly, the Master of the Show calls time. It is his arbitrary will, rather than any inevitable succession of events, that shuts off the scene: the men might be fighting yet. This passion for mere detail mars the first part of With Fire and Sword; one cannot see the forest for the trees.

One reason for this immensity is the author's desire to be historically accurate, the besetting sin of many recent dramas and novels. Before beginning to write, Sienkiewicz reads all the authorities and documentary evidence he can find. The result is plainly seen in the early pages of With Fire and Sword, which read far more like a history than like a work of fiction—note the striking contrast in Pan Michael! The Knights of the Cross appeared with maps. The topography of Quo Vadis was so carefully prepared that it almost serves as a guide-book to ancient Rome. Now the relation of History to Fiction has never been better stated than by Lessing: "The dramatist uses history, not because it has happened, but because it has so happened that he could scarcely find anything else better adapted to his purpose." No work of fiction has ever gained immortality by its historical accuracy.

Everyone notices that the works of Sienkiewicz are Epics rather than Novels. Even bearing Fielding clearly in mind, there is no better illustration to be found in literary history. The Trilogy bears the same relation to the wars of Poland that the Iliad bears to the struggle at Troy. The scope and flow of the narrative, the power of the scenes, the vast perspective, the portraits of individual heroes, the impassioned poetry of the style—all these qualities are of the Epic. The intense patriotism is thrilling, and makes one envy the sensations of native readers. And yet the reasons for the downfall of Poland are made perfectly clear.

Is the romanticist Sienkiewicz an original writer? In the narrow and strict sense of the word, I think not. He is eclectic rather than original. He is a skilful fuser of material, like Shakespeare. At any rate, his most conspicuous virtue is not originality. He has enormous force, a glorious imagination, astonishing facility, and a remarkable power of making pictures, both in panorama and in miniature; but his work shows constantly the inspiration not only of his historical authorities, but of previous poets and novelists. Those who are really familiar with the writings of Homer, Shakespeare, Scott, and Dumas, will not require further comment on this point. The influence of Homer is seen in the constant similes, the epithets like "incomparable bowman," and the stress laid on the deeds of individual heroes; a thing quite natural in Homeric warfare, but rather disquieting in the days of villainous saltpetre. The three swordsmen in With Fire and Sword—Pan Yan, Pan Podbienta, and Pan Michael—infallibly remind us of Dumas's three guardsmen; and the great duel scenes in the same story, and in the Knights of the Cross, are quite in the manner of the Frenchman. Would that other writers could employ their reminiscences to such advantage! In the high colouring, in the management of historical events, and in patriotic enthusiasm, we cannot help thinking of Scott. But be the debt to Dumas and to Scott as great as one pleases to estimate, I am free to acknowledge that I find the romances of the Pole more enthralling than those of either or both of his two great predecessors.

With reference to the much-discussed character of Zagloba, I confess I cannot join in the common verdict that pronounces him a "new creation in literature." Those who believe this delightful person to be something new and original have simply forgotten Falstaff. If one will begin all over again, and read the two parts of Henry IV, and then take a look at Zagloba, the author of his being is immediately apparent. Zagloba is a Polish Falstaff, an astonishingly clever imitation of the real thing. He is old, white-haired, fat, a resourceful wit and humorist, better at bottles than at battles, and yet bold when policy requires: in every essential feature of body and mind he resembles the immortal creation of Shakespeare. Sienkiewicz develops him with subtle skill and affectionate solicitude, even as Dickens developed Mr. Pickwick; the Zagloba of Pan Michael is far sweeter and more mellow than when we make his acquaintance in the first volume of the Trilogy; but the last word for this character is the word "original." The real triumph of Sienkiewicz in the portrayal of the jester is in the fact that he could imitate Falstaff without spoiling him, for no other living writer could have done it. A copy that can safely be placed alongside the original implies art of a very high class. To see Zagloba is to realise the truth of Falstaff's remark, "I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other men."