Oldalképek
PDF
ePub

gid rhetoric which the author indulges in, we acknowledge the power of the situation. For many years Jean has devoted all his energies to escape the infamy of his former life, to hide from all eyes the fact that he had passed such a life, and to prepare himself, by Christian love and humility, for the life to come. In both he has succeeded. He has gained universal respect, and even veneration. He has done immense good. He has lived a noble life. Can he now consent to destroy this hardly-won reputation? And can he permit an innocent man to suffer in his place? This struggle of a conscientious man is irresistibly affecting. But here again the execrable taste of Victor Hugo wantonly mars the picture he has painted, by one of those irreverent comparisons, as silly as they are irreverent, which we cannot but hope must be offensive to the serious French mind. We will not venture on a translation; but merely reminding the reader that the man whose agony is thus wantonly compared with the "agony in the garden" is an ex-forçat of brutal type-we give the words as they stand :

"Ainsi se débattait sous l'angoisse cette malheureuse âme. Dixhuit cents ans avant cet homme infortuné, l'être mystérieux, en qui se resument toutes les saintetés et toutes les souffrances de l'humanité, avait aussi lui, pendant que les oliviers frémissaient au vent farouche de l'infini, longtemps écarté de la main l'effrayant calice qui lui apparaissait ruisselant d'ombre et débordant de ténèbres dans les profondeurs pleines d'étoiles."

In spite of this and other blots, the episode we are now considering is the most powerful in the book; indeed, for the sake of it, we almost advise the reader to wade through the two volumes. Few things finer in fiction can be named than the exhibition of the struggle in Jean's mind, and the final triumph of his better principles. With wonderful art, he is represented during the incidents of his journey to Arras, and during the trial a journey

made against time and various contending obstacles, which obstacles he hopes will prevent his arriving in time, though his conscience will not suffer him to relax his efforts. Very powerful also is the scene of the trial-especially the innocent man's defence, and Jean's avowal. After that, we sink into commonplace improbabilities. Jean escapes, goes to Paris, and there plays a part in subsequent volumes.

From our analysis the reader will probably feel the same difficulty in detecting "the moral purpose" that we felt in reading the book. The preface forbids our regarding the work simply as a novel. According to the jargon of the day, " it has a social idea." And what is that idea? Apparently this: Society is to blame for tolerating prisons where innocent but unfortunate men enter, to quit them hardened ruffians. Society is to blame for not acknowledging that wretched women take to the streets to prove their virtue. We can make out no other teaching.

Victor Hugo is an artist, and only a moralist in so far as art is indissolubly bound up with moral influences. It is as an artist, therefore, that we chiefly consider him here. We have already intimated our general appreciation of his merits and demerits, and may rapidly express the little we have to say regarding 'Les Misérables.' There is here no character, in the high dramatic sense; none of the great dramatist's ventriloquism. The figures are all figures of puppets, and constantly betray their strings. We are throughout unpleasantly aware of the clever showman's presence. The writer challenges our attention when our attention should be riveted on the work. It is true that the challenge is often answered by admiration. If we are made aware that he is aiming at an effect, we also see that he has not missed his aim. The writing is throughout elaborate, coloured, polished; the rhetoric is often brilliant; the epigrams are incisive; the turns of phrase are original and felicitous.

But the rhetoric is not eloquence; the brilliancy is mere glitter; the epigrams are seldom wise. In one word, it is not the strong, healthy, inspiring eloquence of a serious and beautiful mind, but rather the turbulent and factitious power of a strong talent loosened from all control a debauch of diction, not a draught from Helicon.

We prefer the less ambitious passages, and the quieter remarks when they happen to be just, as they are sometimes. For example, it is well said, "Vrai ou faux ce qu'on dit des hommes tient souvent autant de place dans leur vie, et surtout dans leur destinée, que ce qu'ils font." Again, "Certaines personnes sont méchantes uniquement par besoin de parler. Leur conversation, causerie dans le salon, bavardage dans l'antéchambre, est comme ces cheminées qui usent vite le bois il leur faut beaucoup de combustible, et le combustible, c'est le prochain." The following is a good specimen of his epigrammatic style, though a glaring instance of his want of dramatic ventriloquism, since no style could be more inappropriate in the mouth of a simple and saintly bishop. "L'homme a sur lui la chair qui est tout à la fois son fardeau et sa tentation. Il la traîne et lui cede. Il doit la surveiller, la contenir, la réprimer, et ne lui obéir qu'à la dernière extrémité. Dans cette obéisance là il peut encore y avoir de la faute; mais la faute, ainsi faite, est venielle. C'est une chute, mais une chute sur les genoux, qui peut s'achever en prière."

It is unnecessary to say that we have little admiration for the numerous tirades à effet so liberally scattered through these volumes. They

are obviously relied on by the author as certain of success. He knows his public, and is probably more admired for those tirades than for any other pages. De gustibus. We merely record our insensibility to such rhetoric. That it is immensely clever, that few writers could equal it, if they would, does not in the least prevent our saying that such rhetoric is very idle at the best, and very pernicious at the worst. It is essentially untrue; and when truth is sacrificed to the fireworks of rhetoric, the fancy may be dazzled, but the reason is irritated. We are prepared, of course, for very great differences of opinion on these passages; some will think them eloquent, others will think them empty verbiage. There is an entire chapter of exclamation and epigram (vol. i. p. 275), entitled, 'L'onde et l'ombre,' which certainly admits of two opinions: it is either very sublime, or the next step beyond.

Every now and then there is a touch of humour. Generally Victor Hugo's humour is somewhat lugubrious or grotesque; but a smile occasionally plays on the page-as, for instance, in the description of Fantine's lover, which finishes thus: "Il avait eu une pièce refusée au vaudeville"-[to have a piece refused is, in some circles, a sort of literary glory-the next thing to having one accepted]. "Il faisait ça et là des vers quelconques. Enfin il doutait supérieurement de toute chose; grande force aux yeux des faibles.' But there is no such comic scene as that in Nôtre Dame de Paris,' where the deaf Quasimodo is interrogated by the deaf judge.

[ocr errors]

THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN.

WHAT are the rights of woman? We have heard say that they mean nothing less than gynecocracy-a hard and mysterious word, which we are thankful to know has not passed into general use, though we believe it is still to be found in the columns of Johnson's Dictionary. The Saxon fountain of our speech does not supply us with a term exactly synonymous. "Petticoat government" is a circuitous phrase, and one which is by no means popular with many who would fain have us believe that they are not only lords of themselves, but uncontrolled and indisputable masters of their household and tutelary Penates. Numerous are the Bobadils abroad, who, at home, dwindle to the dimensions of a Jerry Sneak! Despite the magnitude of the matrimonial crinoline, there is oftentimes, and in divers places, a contest for the possession of the breeches; and women there are, otherwise most estimable-right sterling Cornelias and Roman-hearted mothers of the Gracchi-who do not hesitate, after having made conquest of the coveted garment, to display it as ostentatiously as a pacha of three tails hangs out the tremendous insignia of his office. And wherefore not? What is victory without its trophies? Was there ever a true ovation without a public exhibition of the spoil? Be sure of this, that had Penthesilea, the leader of the Amazons, been fortunate enough to drive her spear through the midriff of Achilles-who, as we are assured by the bards of old, doted on her developed charms his armour would that evening have been suspended at the door of her tent, and ten thousand tight-zoned virgin warriors would, in harmonious chorus, have celebrated the triumph of their Queen!

Far be it from us to interfere in any sort of matrimonial dispute. Of all earthly judges the one whom we

envy the least is Sir Cresswell Cresswell; for we take leave to doubt whether a more ungracious office was committed to either Rhadamanthus, Minos, or Eacus, whose jurisdiction was not, strictly speaking, territorial, but confined to another region which, for the present, we shall leave unarmed. Of course it is no fault of his; but, notwithstanding, we cannot help regarding the said Sir Cresswell as a sort of standing judicial protest against a certain doctrine to be found in the form of Solemnisation of Matrimony contained in the Book of Common Prayer. He has, in the performance of his official duties, and in strict conformity with the law which he has to administer, put asunder a good many persons who, but for an unfortunate and somewhat unaccountable propensity for shying articles of furniture and suchlike household gear at one another's heads, might have led a life of tolerable ease and tranquillitynot, perhaps, altogether undisturbed by snarling, but by no means implying violent fracture and contusion, or such an amount of personal collision as would justify an application for the unloosing of the bonds of matrimony. It is much to be desired that Sir Cresswell, who is a ripe scholar as well as a most able judge, would favour the world with his opinion as to several famous instances of matrimonial difference to which distinct allusion is made in the ancient and medieval records. We cannot think that he would have sanctioned Cæsar's divorce on the sole plea preferred by that worthy dictator, of suspicion without a semblance of a proof. Had that dissolute dog Marc Antony, who was Cæsar's consul, and who, in some respects, may be regarded as a prototype of Mr Edwin James, rested his application to Sir Cresswell on no better ground, we apprehend that he would have re

ceived a most righteous and salutary snubbing. But what would have been the decision had the case of Socrates versus Xantippe been brought to trial? The assault was a very flagrant one; not indeed fraught with danger to life or limb, but implying infinite dishonour, far worse than the loss of Trinculo's bottle. Who will venture to assert that Socrates, had he lived in our times, would have exhibited such extraordinary indifference to a most hideous aspersion, which, we devoutly trust, is no longer practised even in the closes of Auld Reekie, under the hypocritical sanction of the preliminary warning-cry of Gardy-loo! We opine that the son of Sophroniscus, had he been born in the nineteenth century of the Christian era, would unquestionably have sued for separation. It would be interesting to know the view which Sir Cresswell must have formed upon a case of such nicety-we mean, of course, legal nicety, for otherwise the term is inappropriate-and one which, in the present plenitude of porcelain and Staffordshire ware, might possibly again occur. Then, in the days when chivalry was just beginning to appear, though it had by no means reached that high point of scrupulosity to which it afterwards attained, we find the lords of the creation, who wore the belted brand, slew dragons, and encountered giants, somewhat rough, to say the least of it, in the treatment of their accomplished dames. In that fine old German epic, the 'Niebelungen Lied,' Chrimhilda, wife of the hero Siegfried, confesses to her uncle Hagen, that, as the punishment for certain indiscreet disclosures and rather petulant behaviour, that mirror of knighthood, who is represented as being quite as courteous and gentle as either Lancelot or Tristram, had corrected her with an oaken cudgel, which had raised several black and blue wheals on her otherwise "fair bodie." There is, we understand, a popular notion current to this day in England, and, it may be, in other

portions of the civilised world, that a stick, not thicker than a man's thumb, may be lawfully employed in cases of domestic contumacy. Is it impossible to persuade Sir Cresswell to favour us with his dictum as to this really important matter? If the law does actually sanction the use of such a ferrule, is it to be regarded as the common property of man and wife, or does it exclusively pertain to the former? Here we must confess that we are considerably perplexed. The law, as generally interpreted, makes no special exception of goods in communion, save that, with polite gallantry, it gives a certain amount of protection to the paraphernalia, or jewellery of the wife. It throws a shield over her garnets and brooches which it righteously refuses to extend to the frippery of the masculine Mantalini. But nowhere do we find any written mention of the rod vouchsafed to male or female. There may indeed be such a privilege derived from natural law, and fortified by consuetudinary usage; but no Ulpian has proclaimed it, no Vinnius has expounded it. Upon that head even the fluent Grotius is silent, and you will search in vain for a suggestive hint throughout the pages of the garrulous Gronovius. As over some stupendous mountains in the islands of the Far West perpetual clouds impend, so are those legal summits and jurisprudential eminences shrouded by thick wreaths of mystery which human intelligence is wholly inadequate to penetrate; and perhaps it it as well for the happiness of mankind in general that certain questions relating to domestic policy should still remain without a distinct and definite solution.

The discerning reader will at once perceive, from this our preamble, that we by no means challenge the right of any shrewish Katharine to get the upper hand, if she can so contrive it, of her absurd Petruchio. Nay, we shall even go further, and admit that a great many male beings of the human species

derive their chief felicity from being entirely subject to the control and guidance of their wives. Numerous are the ninny-hammers who would go utterly to the mischief, if some strong-minded woman did not vouchsafe to act as their directress and governante; and, so far from pitying the condition of a man who is notoriously hen-pecked, we consider him a most fortunate fellow in having found a helpmate who can think for him, speak for him, act for him, and make him appear to the world at large, not what he truly is, an absolute irredeemable donkey, but a quiet, decent, obtuse, and altogether respectable householder. Even men of acknowledged intellect and genius have benefited from domestic bondage. The patriot, who has just made the senatehouse ring with his vehement denunciations of tyranny, uses the latch-key for admission to his own domicile with the nervous tremor of an unexperienced housebreaker, and steals on tiptoe up-stairs, his heart palpitating in his bosom lest the creaking of a treacherous board should awaken from her early slumber, and unloose the tongue of that sweet saint who nightly reposes by his side. The poet, whose strains have entranced the world, dares not for the life of him dine out without permission asked and obtained; and woe be to him if, in a moment of unthinking hilarity, he has been persuaded to quaff but one cup more of spirituous nectar than is his just and reasonable allowance! Retribution cometh in the morning; and the favoured of Phoebus, in order to obtain the assuagement of an additional basin of bohea, is fain to play the penitent, and submit to a lecture in which his intemperate and disgusting behaviour is unfavourably contrasted with the habits of the beasts that perish. Even the veteran of a hundred fights, whose valiant spirit quailed not in the midst of massacre and death-who has led a forlorn hope, plunged through the ditch, and scaled the wall by the shattered and

vibrating ladder, when the hostile bastions were belching fire, and the ramparts bristling with steel-even he cowers like a helpless lamb before the wrath of his dulcet Amaryllis, and meekly implores her for that mercy and forbearance which he would disdain to ask by word or sign from the most truculent Goliath of a foeman, even were his weapon struck from his grasp, or his sword-arm disabled by a wound. John Knox, who fancied himself a very independent personage, and of whom it is traditionarily reported that he never trembled before the face of man, made, somewhat late in life, the discovery that the face of woman, after she has been put in full possession of conjugal rights, is something infinitely more terrible. The austere Reformer who fulminated his anathema against the 'Monstrous Regiment of Women,' and who showed himself, to use the mildest possible term, the reverse of polite in his demeanour towards his anointed queen, was tempted in his old age to woo a noble damsel, and conducted her to his home in the Canongate of Edinburgh with such grim rejoicings as were then deemed admissible, and not savouring of idolatry on the occasion of a Caledonian marriage. But John soon discovered that, in departing from the precepts of Saint Paul, who had little liking for matrimony, he had made a serious blunder. She of the house of Ochiltree could not forget that the renowned preacher was originally a vassal of the Hepburns; and, being a lady of extraordinary energy and no small amount of self-will, she fairly succeeded in establishing, within that queer little mansion, the bow-window whereof is still regarded as a curiosity, that very same monstrous female rule against which her spouse had, in earlier years, most vehemently protested. Yet, on the whole, though somewhat addicted to gew-gaws and fal-lals, we doubt not that she made an excellent wife to the veteran Reformer, and perhaps inproved the tone of his manners and conversa

« ElőzőTovább »