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Title: The Tale of Terror
Author: Edith Birkhead
Release Date: November 26, 2004 [eBook #14154]
Language: English
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THE TALE OF TERROR
A Study of the Gothic Romance
by
EDITH BIRKHEAD M.A.
Assistant Lecturer in English Literature in the University of Bristol
Formerly Noble Fellow in the University of Liverpool
London
Constable & Company Ltd.
1921
PREFACE
The aim of this book is to give some account of the growth of
supernatural fiction in English literature, beginning with the
vogue of the Gothic Romance and Tale of Terror towards the close
of the eighteenth century. The origin and development of the
Gothic Romance are set forth in detail from the appearance of
Walpole's _Castle of Otranto_ in 1764 to the publication of
Maturin's _Melmoth the Wanderer_ in 1820; and the survey of this
phase of the novel is continued, in the later chapters, to modern
times. One of these is devoted to the Tale of Terror in America,
where in the hands of Hawthorne and Poe its treatment became a
fine art. In the chapters dealing with the more recent forms of
the tale of terror and wonder, the scope of the subject becomes
so wide that it is impossible to attempt an exhaustive survey.
The present work is the outcome of studies begun during my tenure
of the William Noble Fellowship in the University of Liverpool,
1916-18. It is a pleasure to express here my thanks to Professor
R.H. Case and to Dr. John Sampson for valuable help and criticism
at various stages of the work. Parts of the MS. have also been
read by Professor C.H. Herford of the University of Manchester
and by Professor Oliver Elton of the University of Liverpool. To
Messrs. Constable's reader I am also indebted for several helpful
suggestions.--E.B.
THE UNIVERSITY OF BRISTOL,
December, 1920.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I - INTRODUCTORY.
The antiquity of the tale of terror; the element of fear in
myths, heroic legends, ballads and folk-tales; terror in the
romances of the middle ages, in Elizabethan times and in the
seventeenth century; the credulity of the age of reason; the
renascence of terror and wonder in poetry; the "attempt to blend
the marvellous of old story with the natural of modern novels."
Pp. 1-15.
CHAPTER II - THE BEGINNINGS OF GOTHIC ROMANCE.
Walpole's admiration for Gothic art and his interest in the
middle ages; the mediaeval revival at the close of the eighteenth
century; _The Castle of Otranto_; Walpole's bequest to later
romance-writers; Smollett's incidental anticipation of the
methods of Gothic Romance; Clara Reeve's _Old English Baron_ and
her effort to bring her story "within the utmost verge of
probability"; Mrs. Barbauld's Gothic fragment; Blake's _Fair
Elenor_; the critical theories and Gothic experiments of Dr.
Nathan Drake. Pp. 16-37.
CHAPTER III - "THE NOVEL OF SUSPENSE." MRS. RADCLIFFE.
The vogue of Mrs. Radcliffe; her tentative beginning in _The
Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne_, and her gradual advance in skill
and power; _The Sicilian Romance_ and her early experiments in
the "explained" supernatural; _The Romance of the Forest_, and
her use of suspense; heroines: _The Mysteries of Udolpho_;
illustrations of Mrs. Radcliffe's methods; _The Italian_;
villains; her historical accuracy and "unexplained" spectre in
_Gaston de Blondeville_; her reading; style; descriptions of
scenery; position in the history of the novel.
Pp. 38-62.
CHAPTER IV - THE NOVEL OF TERROR. LEWIS AND MATURIN.
Lewis's methods contrasted with those of Mrs. Radcliffe; his debt
to German terror-mongers; _The Monk_; ballads; _The Bravo of
Venice_; minor works and translations; Scott's review of
Maturin's _Montorio_; the vogue of the tale of terror between
Lewis and Maturin; Miss Sarah Wilkinson; the personality of
Charles Robert Maturin; his literary career; the complicated plot
of _The Family of Montorio_; Maturin's debt to others; his
distinguishing gifts revealed in _Montorio_; the influence of
_Melmoth the Wanderer_ on French literature; a survey of
_Melmoth_; Maturin's achievement as a novelist. Pp. 63-93.
CHAPTER V - THE ORIENTAL TALE OF TERROR. BECKFORD.
The Oriental story in France and England in the eighteenth
century; Beckford's _Vathek_; Beckford's life and character; his
literary gifts; later Oriental tales. Pp. 94-99.
CHAPTER VI - GODWIN AND THE ROSICRUCIAN NOVEL.
Godwin's mind and temper; the plan of _Caleb Williams_ as
described by Godwin; his methods; the plot of _Caleb Williams_;
its interest as a story; Godwin's limitations as a novelist; _St.
Lean_; its origin and purpose; outline of the story; the
character of Bethlem Gabor; Godwin's treatment of the Rosicrucian
legend; a parody of _St. Lean_; the supernatural in _Cloudesley_
and in _Lives of the Necromancers_; Moore's _Epicurean_; Croly's
_Salathiel_; Shelley's youthful enthusiasm for the tale of
terror; _Zastrozzi_; its lack of originality; _St. Irvyne_;
traces of Shelley's early reading in his poems. Pp. 100-127.
CHAPTER VII - SATIRES ON THE NOVEL OF TERROR.
Jane Austen's raillery in _Northanger Abbey_; Barrett's mockery
in _The Heroine_; Peacock's _Nightmare Abbey_; his praise of C.B.
Brown in _Gryll Grange_; _The Mystery of the Abbey_, and its
misleading title; Crabbe's satire in _Belinda Waters_ and _The
Preceptor Husband_; his ironical attack on the sentimental
heroine in _The Borough_; his appreciation of folktales; _Sir
Eustace Grey_. Pp.
128-144.
CHAPTER VIII - SCOTT AND THE NOVEL OF TERROR.
Scott's review of fashionable fiction in the Preface to
_Waverley_; his early attempts at Gothic story in _Thomas the
Rhymer_ and _The Lord of Ennerdale_; his enthusiasm for Bürger's
_Lenore_ and for Lewis's ballads; his interest in demonology and
witchcraft; his attitude to the supernatural; his hints to the
writers of ghost-stories; his own experiments; Wandering Willie's
Tale, a masterpiece of supernatural horror; the use of the
supernatural in the Waverley Novels; Scott, the supplanter of the
novel of terror. Pp.
145-156.
CHAPTER IX - LATER DEVELOPMENTS OF THE TALE OF TERROR.
The exaggeration of the later terror-mongers; innovations; the
stories of Mary Shelley, Byron and Polidori; _Frankenstein_; its
purpose; critical estimate; _Valperga_; _The Last Man_; Mrs.
Shelley's short tales; Polidori's _Ernestus Berchtold_, a
domestic story with supernatural agency; _The_ FACES _Vampyre_;
later vampires; De Quincey's contributions to the tale of terror;
Harrison Ainsworth's attempt to revive romance; his early Gothic
stories; _Rookwood_, an attempt to bring the Radcliffe romance up
to date; terror in Ainsworth's other novels; Marryat's _Phantom
Ship_; Bulwer Lytton's interest in the occult; _Zanoni_, and
Lytton's theory of the Intelligences; _The Haunted and the
Haunters_; _A Strange Story_ and Lytton's preoccupation with
mesmerism. Pp. 157-184.
CHAPTER X - SHORT TALES OF TERROR.
The chapbook versions of the Gothic romance; the popularity of
sensational story illustrated in Leigh Hunt's _Indicator_;
collections of short stories; various types of short story in
periodicals; stories based on oral tradition; the humourist's
turn for the terrible; natural terror in tales from _Blackwood_
and in Conrad; use of terror in Stevenson and Kipling; future
possibilities of fear as a motive in short stories. Pp. 185-196.
CHAPTER XI - AMERICAN TALES OF TERROR.
The vogue of Gothic story in America; the novels of Charles
Brockden Brown; his use of the "explained" supernatural; his
Godwinian theory; his construction and style; Washington Irving's
genial tales of terror; Hawthorne's reticence and melancholy;
suggestions for eery stories in his notebooks; _Twice-Told
Tales_; _Mosses from an Old Manse; The Scarlet Letter_;
Hawthorne's sympathetic insight into character; _The House of the
Seven Gables_, and the ancestral curse; his half-credulous
treatment of the supernatural; unfinished stories; a contrast of
Hawthorne's methods with those of Edgar Allan Poe; _A Manuscript
found in a Bottle_, the first of Poe's tales of terror; the skill
of Poe illustrated in _Ligeia, The Fall of the House of Usher,
The Masque of the Red Death_, and _The Cash of Amontillado_;
Poe's psychology; his technique in _The Pit and the Pendulum_ and
in his detective stories; his influence; the art of Poe; his
ideal in writing a short story. Pp. 197-220.
CHAPTER XII - CONCLUSION.
The persistence of the tale of terror; the position of the Gothic
romance in the history of fiction; the terrors of actual life in
the Brontë's novels; sensational stories of Wilkie Collins, Le
Fanu and later authors; the element of terror in various types of
romance; experiments of living authors; the future of the tale of
terror. Pp
221-228.
INDEX. Pp. 229-241
CHAPTER I - INTRODUCTORY.
The history of the tale of terror is as old as the history of
man. Myths were created in the early days of the race to account
for sunrise and sunset, storm-winds and thunder, the origin of
the earth and of mankind. The tales men told in the face of these
mysteries were naturally inspired by awe and fear. The universal
myth of a great flood is perhaps the earliest tale of terror.
During the excavation of Nineveh in 1872, a Babylonian version of
the story, which forms part of the Gilgamesh epic, was discovered
in the library of King Ashurbanipal (668-626 B.C.); and there are
records of a much earlier version, belonging to the year 1966
B.C. The story of the Flood, as related on the eleventh tablet of
the Gilgamesh epic, abounds in supernatural terror. To seek the
gift of immortality from his ancestor, Ut-napishtim, the hero
undertakes a weary and perilous journey. He passes the mountain
guarded by a scorpion man and woman, where the sun goes down; he
traverses a dark and dreadful road, where never man trod, and at
last crosses the waters of death. During the deluge, which is
predicted by his ancestor, the gods themselves are stricken with
fear:
"No man beheld his fellow, no more could men know each
other. In heaven the gods were afraid ... They drew
back, they climbed up into the heaven of Anu. The gods
crouched like dogs, they cowered by the walls."[1]
Another episode in the same epic, when Nergal, the god of the
dead, brings before Gilgamesh an apparition of his friend,
Eabani, recalls the impressive scene, when the witch of Endor
summons the spirit of Samuel before Saul.
When legends began to grow up round the names of traditional
heroes, fierce encounters with giants and monsters were invented
to glorify their strength and prowess. David, with a stone from
his sling, slew Goliath. The crafty Ulysses put out the eye of
Polyphemus. Grettir, according to the Icelandic saga, overcame
Glam, the malevolent, death-dealing vampire who "went riding the
roofs." Beowulf fearlessly descended into the turbid mere to
grapple with Grendel's mother. Folktales and ballads, in which
incidents similar to those in myths and heroic legends occur, are
often overshadowed by terror. Figures like the Demon Lover, who
bears off his mistress in the fatal craft and sinks her in the
sea, and the cannibal bridegroom, outwitted at last by the
artfulness of one of his brides, appear in the folk-lore of many
lands. Through every century there glide uneasy spirits, groaning
for vengeance. Andrew Lang[2] mentions the existence of a papyrus
fragment, found attached to a wooden statuette, in which an
ancient Egyptian scribe addresses a letter to the Khou, or
spirit, of his dead wife, beseeching her not to haunt him. One of
the ancestors of the savage were-wolf, who figures in Marryat's
_Phantom Ship_, may perhaps be discovered in Petronius' _Supper
of Trimalchio_. The descent of Bram Stoker's infamous vampire
Dracula may be traced back through centuries of legend.
Hobgoblins, demons, and witches mingle grotesquely with the
throng of beautiful princesses, queens in glittering raiment,
fairies and elves. Without these ugly figures, folk-tales would
soon lose their power to charm. All tale tellers know that fear
is a potent spell. The curiosity which drove Bluebeard's wife to
explore the hidden chamber lures us on to know the worst, and as
we listen to horrid stories, we snatch a fearful joy. Human
nature desires not only to be amused and entertained, but moved
to pity and fear. All can sympathise with the youth, who could
not shudder and who would fain acquire the gift.
From English literature we gain no more than brief, tantalising
glimpses of the vast treasury of folk-tales and ballads that
existed before literature became an art and that lived on side by
side with it, vitalising and enriching it continually. Yet here
and there we catch sudden gleams like the fragment in _King
Lear_:
"Childe Roland to the dark tower came.
His word was still Fie, Foh and Fum,
I smell the blood of a British man."
or Benedick's quotation from the _Robber Bridegroom_:
"It is not so, it was not so, but, indeed, God forbid that
it should be so."
which hint at the existence of a hoard as precious and
inexhaustible as that of the Nibelungs. The chord of terror is
touched in the eerie visit of the three dead sailor sons "in
earthly flesh and blood" to the wife of Usher's well, Sweet
William's Ghost, the rescue of Tarn Lin on Halloween, when
Fairyland pays a tiend to Hell, the return of clerk Saunders to
his mistress, True Thomas's ride to Fairyland, when:
"For forty days and forty nights,
He wade through red blood to the knee,
And he saw neither sun nor moon,
But heard the roaring of the sea."
The mediaeval romances of chivalry, which embody stories handed
down by oral tradition, are set in an atmosphere of supernatural
wonder and enchantment. In Malory's _Morte d'Arthur_, Sir
Lancelot goes by night into the Chapel Perilous, wherein there is
only a dim light burning, and steals from the corpse a sword and
a piece of silk to heal the wounds of a dying knight. Sir Galahad
sees a fiend leap out of a tomb amid a cloud of smoke; Gawaine's
ghost, with those of the knights and ladies for whom he has done
battle in life, appears to warn the king not to begin the fight
against Modred on a certain day. In the romance of _Sir Amadas_,
the ghost of a merchant, whose corpse the knight had duteously
redeemed from the hands of creditors, succours him at need. The
shadow of terror lurks even amid the beauty of Spenser's
fairyland. In the windings of its forests we come upon dark
caves, mysterious castles and huts, from which there start
fearsome creatures like Despair or the giant Orgoglio, hideous
hags like Occasion, wicked witches and enchanters or frightful
beings like the ghostly Maleger, who wore as his helmet a dead
man's skull and rode upon a tiger swift as the wind. The
Elizabethan dramatists were fascinated by the terrors of the
invisible world. Marlowe's Dr. Faustus, round whose name are
clustered legends centuries old concerning bargains between man
and the devil, the apparitions and witches in _Macbeth_, the dead
hand, the corpse-like images, the masque of madmen, the tombmaker
and the passing-bell in Webster's sombre tragedy, _The Duchess of
Malfi_, prove triumphantly the dramatic possibilities of terror.
As a foil to his _Masque of Queens_ (1609) Ben Jonson introduced
twelve loathly witches with Até as their leader, and embellished
his description of their profane rites, with details culled from
James I.'s treatise on Demonology and from learned ancient
authorities.
In _The Pilgrim's Progress_, Despair, who "had as many lives as a
cat," his wife Diffidence at Doubting Castle, and Maul and
Slaygood are the ogres of popular story, whose acquaintance
Bunyan had made in chapbooks during his ungodly youth.
Hobgoblins, devils and fiends, "sturdy rogues" like the three
brothers Faintheart, Mistrust and Guilt, who set upon Littlefaith
in Dead Man's Lane, lend the excitement of terror to Christian's
journey to the Celestial City. The widespread belief in witches
and spirits to which Browne and Burton and many others bear
witness in the seventeenth century, lived on in the eighteenth
century, although the attitude of the "polite" in the age of
reason was ostensibly incredulous and superior. A scene in one of
the _Spectator_ essays illustrates pleasantly the state of
popular opinion. Addison, lodging with a good-natured widow in
London, returns home one day to find a group of girls sitting by
candlelight, telling one another ghost-stories. At his entry they
are abashed, but, on the widow's assuring them that it is only
the "gentleman," they resume, while Addison, pretending to be
absorbed in his book at the far end of the table, covertly
listens to their tales of
"ghosts that, pale as ashes, had stood at the feet of
the bed or walked over a churchyard by moonlight; and
others, who had been conjured into the Red Sea for
disturbing people's rest."[3]
In another essay Addison shows that he is strongly inclined to
believe in the existence of spirits, though he repudiates the
ridiculous superstitions which prevailed in his day;[4] and Sir
Roger de Coverley frankly confesses his belief in witches. Defoe,
in the preface to his _Essay on the History and Reality of
Apparitions_ (1727) states uncompromisingly:
"I must tell you, good people, he that is not able to
see the devil, in whatever shape he is pleased to
appear in, he is not really qualified to live in this
world, no, not in the quality of a common inhabitant."
Epworth Rectory, the home of John Wesley's father, was haunted in
1716-17 by a persevering ghost called Old Jeffrey, whose exploits
are recorded with a gravity and circumstantial exactitude that
remind us of Defoe's narrative concerning the ghostly Mrs. Veal
in her "scoured" silk. John Wesley declares stoutly that he is
convinced of the literal truth of the story of one Elizabeth
Hobson, who professed to have been visited on several occasions
by supernatural beings. He upholds too the authenticity of the
notorious Drummer of Tedworth, whose escapades are described in
chapbooks and in Glanvill's _Sadducismus Triumphatus_ (1666), a
book in which he was keenly interested. In his journal (May 25th,
1768) he remarks:
"It is true that the English in general, and indeed
most of the men of learning in Europe, have given up
all accounts of witches and apparitions, as mere old
wives' fables. I am sorry for it; and I willingly take
this opportunity of entering my solemn protest against
this violent compliment which so many that believe the
Bible pay to those who do not believe it."
The Cock Lane ghost gained very general credit, and was
considered by Mrs. Nickleby a personage of some importance, when
she boasted to Miss La Creevy that her great-grandfather went to
school with him--or her grandmother with the Thirsty Woman of
Tutbury. The appearance of Lord Lyttleton's ghost in 1779 was
described by Dr. Johnson, who was also disposed to believe in the
Cock Lane ghost, as the most extraordinary thing that had
happened in his day.[5] There is abundant evidence that the
people of the eighteenth century were extremely credulous, yet,
in literature, there is a tendency to look askance at the
supernatural as at something wild and barbaric. Such ghosts as
presume to steal into poetry are amazingly tame, and even
elegant, in their speech and deportment. In Mallet's _William and
Margaret_ (1759). which was founded on a scrap of an old ballad
out of _The Knight of the Burning Pestle_, Margaret's wraith
rebukes her false lover in a long and dignified oration. But
spirits were shy of appearing in an age when they were more
likely to be received with banter than with dread. Dr. Johnson
expresses the attitude of his age when, in referring to Gray's
poem, _The Bard_, he remarks:
"To select a singular event and swell it to a giant's
bulk by fabulous appendages of spectres and predictions
has little difficulty, for he that forsakes the
probable may always find the marvellous. And it has
little use; we are affected only as we believe; we are
improved only as we find something to be imitated or
declined." (1780.)
The dictum that we are affected only as we believe is open to
grave doubt. We are often thrown into a state of trepidation
simply through the power of the imagination. We are wise after
the event, like Partridge at the play:
"No, no, sir; ghosts don't appear in such dresses as
that neither... And if it was really a ghost, it could
do one no harm at such a distance, and in so much
company; and yet, if I was frightened, I am not the
only person."[6]
The supernatural which persisted always in legends handed down
from one generation to another on the lips of living people, had
not lost its power to thrill and alarm, and gradually worked its
way back into literature. Although Gray and Collins do not
venture far beyond the bounds of the natural, they were in
sympathy with the popular feelings of superstitious terror, and
realised how effective they would be in poetry.
Collins, in his _Ode on the Superstitions of the Scottish
Highlands_, adjures Home, the author of _Douglas_, to sing:
"how, framing hideous spells,
In Sky's lone isle, the gifted wizard-seer
Lodged in the wintry cave with Fate's fell spear
Or in the depths of Uist's dark forests dwells,
How they whose sight such dreary dreams engross
With their own vision oft astonished droop
When o'er the wintry strath or quaggy moss
They see the gliding ghosts unbodied troop."
Burns, in the foreword to _Halloween_ (1785), writes in the
"enlightened" spirit of the eighteenth century, but in the poem
itself throws himself whole-heartedly into the hopes and fears
that agitate the lovers. He owed much to an old woman who lived
in his home in infancy:
"She had ... the largest collection in the country
of tales and songs concerning devils, ghosts, fairies,
brownies, witches, warlocks, spunkies, kelpies, elf-candles,
dead-lights, wraiths, apparitions, cantraips, giants, enchanted
towers, dragons and other trumpery. This
cultivated the latent seeds of poetry, but had so strong
an effect on my imagination, that to this hour, in my
nocturnal rambles, I sometimes keep a sharp look-out in
suspicious places; it often takes an effort of philosophy
to shake off these idle terrors."[7]
_Tam o' Shanter_, written for Captain Grose, was perhaps based on
a Scottish legend, learnt at the inglenook in childhood, from
this old wife, or perhaps
"By some auld houlet-haunted biggin
Or kirk deserted by its riggin,"
from Captain Grose himself, who made to quake:
"Ilk ghaist that haunts auld ha' or chamer,
Ye gipsy-gang that deal in glamor,
And you, deep-read in hell's black grammar,
Warlocks and witches."
In it Burns reveals with lively reality the terrors that assail
the reveller on his homeward way through the storm:
"Past the birks and meikle stane
Where drunken Charlie brak's neck-bane;
And through the whins, and by the cairn
Where hunters fand the murdered bairn
And near the thorn, aboon the well
Where Mungo's mither hanged hersell."
For sheer terror the wild, fantastic witch-dance, seen through a
Gothic window in the ruins of Kirk-Alloway, with the light of
humour strangely glinting through, has hardly been surpassed. The
Ballad-collections, beginning with Percy's _Reliques of Ancient
English Poetry_ (1705), brought poets back to the original
sources of terror in popular tradition, and helped to revive the
latent feelings of awe, wonder and fear. In Coleridge's _Ancient
Manner_ the skeleton-ship with its ghastly crew--the
spectre-woman and her deathmate--the sensations of the mariner,
alone on a wide, wide sea, seize on our imagination with
irresistible power. The very substance of the poem is woven of
the supernatural. The dream imagery is thrown into relief by
occasional touches of reality--the lighthouse, the church on the
cliff, the glimpses of the wedding, the quiet song of the hidden
brook in the leafy month of June. We, like the mariner, after
loneliness so awful that
"God himself
Scarce seemèd there to be,"
welcome the firm earth beneath our feet, and the homely sound of
the vesper bell. In _Christabel_ we float dreamily through scenes
as unearthly and ephemeral as the misty moonlight, and the words
in which Coleridge conjures up his vision fall into music of
magic beauty. The opening of the poem creates a sense of
foreboding, and the horror of the serpent-maiden is subtly
suggested through her effect on Christabel. Coleridge hints at
the terrible with artistic reticence. In _Kubla Khan_ the chasm
is:
"A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover."
The poetry of Keats is often mysterious and suggestive of terror.
The description of the Gothic hall in _The Eve of St. Agnes_:
"In all the house was heard no human sound;
A chain-drooped lamp was flickering by each door;
The arras, rich with horseman, hawk and hound,
Fluttered in the besieging wind's uproar;
And the long carpets rose along the gusty floor;"
the serpent-maiden, Lamia, who
"Seemed at once some penanced lady elf,
Some demon's mistress, or the demon's self;"
the grim story in _Isabella_ of Lorenzo's ghost, who
"Moaned a ghostly undersong
Like hoarse night-gusts sepulchral briers along."
all lead us over the borderland. In a rejected stanza of the _Ode
on Melancholy_, he abandons the horrible:
"Though you should build a bark of dead men's bones
And rear a phantom gibbet for a mast,
Stitch shrouds together for a sail, with groans
To fill it out, blood-stained and aghast;
Although your rudder be a dragon's tail
Long severed, yet still hard with agony,
Your cordage, large uprootings from the skull
Of bald Medusa, certes you would fail
To find the Melancholy--"
Keats's melancholy is not to be found amid images
of horror:
"She dwells with Beauty--Beauty that must die,
And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips
Bidding adieu."
In _La Belle Dame sans Merci_ he conveys with delicate touch the
memory of the vision which haunts the knight, alone and palely
loitering. We see it through his eyes:
"I saw pale kings and princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all:
They cried--'La Belle Dame sans Merci
Hath thee in thrall!'
"I saw their starv'd lips in the gloam
With horrid warning gaped wide,
And I awoke and found me here,
On the cold hill's side."
From effects so exquisitely wrought as these it seems almost
profane to turn to the crude attempts of such poets as "Monk"
Lewis or Southey to sound the note of terror. Yet they too, in
their fashion, played a part in the "Renascence of Wonder."
Coleridge, fascinated by the spirit of "gramarye" in Bürger's
_Lenore_, etherealised and refined it. Scott and Lewis gloried in
the gruesome details and spirited rhythm of the ballad, and in
their supernatural poems wish to startle and terrify, not to awe,
their readers. Those who revel in phosphorescent lights and in
the rattle of the skeleton are apt to o'erleap themselves; and
Scott's _Glenfinlas_, Lewis's _Alonzo the Brave and the Fair
Imogene_ and Southey's _Old Woman of Berkeley_ fall into the
category of the grotesque. Hogg intentionally mingles the comic
and the terrible in his poem, _The Witch of Fife_, but his
prose-stories reveal his power of creating an atmosphere of
_diablerie_, undisturbed by intrusive mockery. In the poem
_Kilmeny_, he handles an uncanny theme with dreamy beauty.
From the earliest times to the present day, writers of fiction
have realised the force of supernatural terror. In the
_Babylonica_ of Iamblichus, the lovers evade their pursuers by
passing as spectres; the scene of the romance is laid in tombs,
caverns, and robbers' dens, a setting remarkably like that of
Gothic story. Into the English novel of the first half of the
eighteenth century, however, the ghost dares not venture. The
innate desire for the marvellous was met at this period not by
the novel, but by oral tradition and by such works as Galland's
translation of _The Arabian Nights_, the Countess D'Aulnoy's
collection of fairy tales, Perrault's _Contes de ma Mère Oie_.
Chapbooks setting forth mediaeval legends of "The Wandering Jew,"
the "Demon Frigate," or "Dr. Faustus," and interspersed with
anecdotes of freaks, monsters and murderers, satisfied the
craving for excitement among humbler readers.[8] Smollett, who,
in his _Adventures of Ferdinand, Count Fathom_ (1753), seems to
have been experimenting with new devices for keeping alive the
interest of a _picaresque_ novel, anticipates the methods of Mrs.
Radcliffe. Although he sedulously avoids introducing the
supernatural, he hovers perilously on the threshold. The
publication of _The Castle of Otranto_ in 1764 was not so wild an
adventure as Walpole would have his readers believe. The age was
ripe for the reception of the marvellous.
The supernatural had, as we have seen, begun to find its way back
into poetry, in the work of Gray and Collins. In Macpherson's
_Ossian_, which was received with acclamation in 1760-3, the
mountains, heaths and lakes are haunted by shadowy, superstitious
fears. Dim-seen ghosts wail over the wastes. There is abundant
evidence that "authentic" stories of ghostly appearances were
heard with respect. Those who eagerly explored Walpole's Gothic
castle and who took pleasure in Miss Reeve's well-trained ghost,
had previously enjoyed the thrill of chimney corner legends. The
idea of the gigantic apparition was derived, no doubt, from the
old legend of the figure seen by Wallace on the field of battle.
The limbs, strewn carelessly about the staircase and the gallery
of the castle, belong to a giant, very like those who are worsted
by the heroes of popular story. Godwin, in an unusual flight of
fancy, amused himself by tracing a certain similitude between
_Caleb Williams_ and _Bluebeard_, between _Cloudesley_ and _The
Babes in the Wood_,[9] and planned a story, on the analogy of the
Sleeping Beauty, in which the hero was to have the faculty of
unexpectedly falling asleep for twenty, thirty, or a hundred
years.[10]
Mrs. Radcliffe, who, so far as we may judge, did not draw her
characters from the creatures of flesh and blood around her,
seems to have adopted some of the familiar figures of old story.
Emily's guardian, Montoni, in _The Mysteries of Udolpho_, like
the unscrupulous uncle in Godwin's _Cloudesley_, may well have
been descended from the wicked uncle of the folk tale. The cruel
stepmother is disguised as a haughty, scheming marchioness in
_The Sicilian Romance_. The ogre drops his club, assumes a veneer
of polite refinement and relies on the more gentlemanlike method
of the dagger and stiletto for gaining his ends. The banditti and
robbers who infest the countryside in Gothic fiction are time
honoured figures. Travellers in Thessaly in Apuleius' _Golden
Ass_, like the fugitives in Shelley's _Zastrozzi_ and _St.
Irvyne_, find themselves in robbers' caves. The Gothic castle,
suddenly encountered in a dark forest, is boldly transported from
fairyland and set down in Italy, Sicily or Spain. The chamber of
horrors, with its alarming array of scalps or skeletons, is
civilised beyond recognition and becomes the deserted wing of an
abbey, concealing nothing worse than one discarded wife,
emaciated and dispirited, but still alive. The ghost-story, which
Ludovico reads in the haunted chamber of Udolpho, is described by
Mrs. Radcliffe as a Provençal tale, but is in reality common to
the folklore of all countries. The restless ghost, who yearns for
the burial of his corpse, is as ubiquitous as the Wandering Jew.
In the _Iliad_ he appears as the shade of Patroclus, pleading
with Achilles for his funeral rites. According to a letter of the
younger Pliny,[11] he haunts a house in Athens, clanking his
chains. He is found in every land, in every age. His feminine
counterpart presented herself to Dickens' nurse requiring her
bones, which were under a glass-case, to be "interred with every
undertaking solemnity up to twenty-four pound ten, in another
particular place."[12] Melmoth the Wanderer, when he becomes the
wooer of Immalee, seems almost like a reincarnation of the Demon
Lover. The wandering ball of fire that illuminates the dusky
recesses of so many Gothic abbeys is but another manifestation of
the Fate-Moon, which shines, foreboding death, after Thorgunna's
funeral, in the Icelandic saga. The witchcraft and demonology
that attracted Scott and "Monk" Lewis, may be traced far beyond
Sinclair's _Satan's Invisible World Discovered_ (1685), Bovet's
_Pandemonium or the Devil's Cloyster Opened_ (1683), or Reginald
Scot's _Discovery of Witchcraft_ (1584) to Ulysses' invocation of
the spirits of the dead,[13] to the idylls of Theocritus and to
the Hebrew narrative of Saul's visit to the Cave of Endor. There
are incidents in _The Golden Ass_ as "horrid" as any of those
devised by the writers of Gothic romance. It would, indeed, be no
easy task to fashion scenes more terrifying than the mutilation
of Socrates in _The Golden Ass_, by the witch, who tears out his
heart and stops the wound with a sponge which falls out when he
stoops to drink at a river, or than the strange apparition of a
ragged, old woman who vanishes after leading the way to the room,
where the baker's corpse hangs behind the door. Though the title
assumes a special literary significance at the close of the
eighteenth century, the tale of terror appeals to deeply rooted
instincts, and belongs, therefore, to every age and clime.
CHAPTER II - THE BEGINNINGS OF GOTHIC ROMANCE.
To Horace Walpole, whose _Castle of Otranto_ was published on
Christmas Eve, 1764, must be assigned the honour of having
introduced the Gothic romance and of having made it fashionable.
Diffident as to the success of so "wild" a story in an age
devoted to good sense and reason, he sent forth his mediaeval
tale disguised as a translation from the Italian of "Onuphrio
Muralto," by William Marshall. It was only after it had been
received with enthusiasm that he confessed the authorship. As he
explained frankly in a letter to his friend Mason: "It is not
everybody that may in this country play the fool with
impunity."[14] That Walpole regarded his story merely as a
fanciful, amusing trifle is clear from the letter he wrote to
Miss Hannah More reproving her for putting so frantic a thing
into the hands of a Bristol milkwoman who wrote poetry in her
leisure hours.[15] _The Castle of Otranto_ was but another
manifestation of that admiration for the Gothic which had found
expression fourteen years earlier in his miniature castle at
Strawberry Hill, with its old armour and "lean windows fattened
with rich saints."[16] The word "Gothic" in the early eighteenth
century was used as a term of reproach. To Addison, Siena
Cathedral was but a "barbarous" building, which might have been a
miracle of architecture, had our forefathers "only been
instructed in the right way."[17] Pope in his _Preface to
Shakespeare_ admits the strength and majesty of the Gothic, but
deplores its irregularity. In _Letters on Chivalry and Romance_,
published two years before _The Castle of Otranto_, Hurd pleads
that Spenser's _Faerie Queene_ should be read and criticised as a
Gothic, not a classical, poem. He clearly recognises the right of
the Gothic to be judged by laws of its own. When the nineteenth
century is reached the epithet has lost all tinge of blame, and
has become entirely one of praise. From the time when he began to
build his castle, in 1750, Walpole's letters abound in references
to the Gothic, and he confesses once: "In the heretical corner of
my heart I adore the Gothic building."[18] At Strawberry Hill the
hall and staircase were his special delight and they probably
formed the background of that dream in which he saw a gigantic
hand in armour on the staircase of an ancient castle. When Dr.
Burney visited Walpole's home in 1786 he remarked on the striking
recollections of _The Castle of Otranto_, brought to mind by "the
deep shade in which some of his antique portraits were placed and
the lone sort of look of the unusually shaped apartments in which
they were hung."[19] We know how in idle moments Walpole loved to
brood on the picturesque past, and we can imagine his falling
asleep, after the arrival of a piece of armour for his
collection, with his head full of plans for the adornment of his
cherished castle. His story is but an expansion of this
dilettante's nightmare. His interest in things mediaeval was not
that of an antiquary, but rather that of an artist who loves
things old because of their age and beauty. In a delightfully gay
letter to his friend, George Montagu, referring flippantly to his
appointment as Deputy Ranger of Rockingham Forest, he writes,
after drawing a vivid picture of a "Robin Hood reformé":
"Visions, you know, have always been my pasture; and so
far from growing old enough to quarrel with their
emptiness, I almost think there is no wisdom comparable
to that of exchanging what is called the realities of
life for dreams. Old castles, old pictures, old
histories and the babble of old people make one live
back into centuries that cannot disappoint one. One
holds fast and surely what is past. The dead have
exhausted their power of deceiving--one can trust
Catherine of Medicis now. In short, you have opened a
new landscape to my fancy; and my lady Beaulieu will
oblige me as much as you, if she puts the long bow into
your hands. I don't know, but the idea may produce some
other _Castle of Otranto_."[20]
So Walpole came near to anticipating the greenwood scenes of
_Ivanhoe_. The decking and trappings of chivalry filled him with
boyish delight, and he found in the glitter and colour of the
middle ages a refuge from the prosaic dullness of the eighteenth
century. A visit from "a Luxembourg, a Lusignan and a Montfort"
awoke in his whimsical fancy a mental image of himself in the
guise of a mediaeval baron: "I never felt myself so much in _The
Castle of Otranto_. It sounded as if a company of noble crusaders
were come to sojourn with me before they embarked for the Holy
Land";[21] and when he heard of the marvellous adventures of a
large wolf who had caused a panic in Lower Languedoc, he was
reminded of the enchanted monster of old romance and declared
that, had he known of the creature earlier, it should have
appeared in _The Castle of Otranto_.[22] "I have taken to
astronomy," he declares on another occasion,
"now that the scale is enlarged enough to satisfy my
taste, who love gigantic ideas--do not be afraid; I am
not going to write a second part to _The Castle of
Otranto_, nor another account of the Patagonians who
inhabit the new Brobdingnag planet."[23]
These unstudied utterances reveal, perhaps more clearly than
Walpole's deliberate confessions about his book, the mood of
irresponsible, light-hearted gaiety in which he started on his
enterprise. If we may rely on Walpole's account of its
composition, _The Castle of Otranto_ was fashioned rapidly in a
white heat of excitement, but the creation of the story probably
cost him more effort than he would have us believe. The result,
at least, lacks spontaneity. We never feel for a moment that we
are living invisible amidst the characters, but we sit aloof like
Puck, thinking: "Lord, what fools these mortals be!" His
supernatural machinery is as undignified as the pantomime
properties of Jack the Giant-killer. The huge body scattered
piecemeal about the castle, the unwieldy sabre borne by a hundred
men, the helmet "tempestuously agitated," and even the "skeleton
in a hermit's cowl" are not only unalarming but mildly
ridiculous. Yet to the readers of his day the story was
captivating and entrancing. It satisfied a real craving for the
romantic and marvellous. The first edition of five hundred copies
was sold out in two months, and others followed rapidly. The
story was dramatised by Robert Jephson and produced at Covent
Garden Theatre under the title of _The Count of Narbonne_, with
an epilogue by Malone. It was staged again later in Dublin,
Kemble playing the title rôle. It was translated into French,
German and Italian. In England its success was immediate, though
several years elapsed before it was imitated. Gray, to whom the
story was first attributed, wrote of it in March, 1765: "It
engages our attention here (at Cambridge), makes some of us cry a
little, and all in general afraid to go to bed o' nights." Mason
praised it, and Walpole's letters refer repeatedly to the vogue
it enjoyed. This widespread popularity is an indication of the
eagerness with which readers of 1765 desired to escape from the
present and to revel for a time in strange, bygone centuries.
Although Walpole regarded the composition of his Gothic story as
a whim, his love of the past was shared by others of his
generation. Of this Macpherson's _Ossian_ (1760-3), Kurd's
_Letters on Chivalry and Romance_ (1762), and Percy's _Reliques_
(1765), are, each in its fashion, a sufficient proof. The
half-century from 1760 to 1810 showed remarkably definite signs
of a renewed interest in things written between 1100 and 1650,
which had been neglected for a century or more. _The Castle of
Otranto_, which was "an attempt to blend the marvellous of old
story with the natural of modern novels" is an early symptom of
this revulsion to the past; and it exercised a charm on Scott as
well as on Mrs. Radcliffe and her school. _The Castle of Otranto_
is significant, not because of its intrinsic merit, but because
of its power in shaping the destiny of the novel.
The outline of the plot is worth recording for the sake of
tracing ancestral likenesses when we reach the later romances.
The only son of Manfred--the villain of the piece--is discovered
on his wedding morning dashed to pieces beneath an enormous
helmet. Determined that his line shall not become extinct,
Manfred decides to divorce Hippolyta and marry Isabella, his
son's bride. To escape from her pursuer, Isabella takes flight
down a "subterraneous passage," where she is succoured by a
"peasant" Theodore, who bears a curious resemblance to a portrait
of the "good Alfonso" in the gallery of the castle. The servants
of the castle are alarmed at intervals by the sudden appearance
of massive pieces of armour in different parts of the building. A
clap of thunder, which shakes the castle to its foundations,
heralds the culmination of the story. A hundred men bear in a
huge sabre; and an apparition of the illustrious Alfonso--whose
portrait in the gallery once walks straight out of its
frame[24]--appears, "dilated to an immense magnitude,"[25] and
demands that Manfred shall surrender Otranto to the rightful
heir, Theodore, who has been duly identified by the mark of a
"bloody arrow." Alfonso, thus pacified, ascends into heaven,
where he is received into glory by St. Nicholas. As Matilda, who
was beloved of Theodore, has incidentally been slain by her
father, Theodore consoles himself with Isabella. Manfred and his
wife meekly retire to neighbouring convents. With this
anti-climax the story closes. To present the "dry bones" of a
romantic story is often misleading, but the method is perhaps
justifiable in the case of _The Castle of Otranto_, because
Walpole himself scorned embellishments and declared in his
grandiloquent fashion:
"If this air of the miraculous is excused, the reader
will find nothing else unworthy of his perusal. There
is no bombast, no similes, flowers, digressions or
unnecessary descriptions. Everything tends directly to
the catastrophe."[26]
But with all its faults _The Castle of Otranto_ did not fall
fruitless on the earth. The characters are mere puppets, yet we
meet the same types again and again in later Gothic romances.
Though Clara Reeve renounced such "obvious improbabilities" as a
ghost in a hermit's cowl and a walking picture, she was an
acknowledged disciple of Walpole, and, like him, made an
"interesting peasant" the hero of her story, _The Old English
Baron_. Jerome is the prototype of many a count disguised as
father confessor, Bianca the pattern of many a chattering
servant. The imprisoned wife reappears in countless romances,
including Mrs. Radcliffe's _Sicilian Romance_ (1790), and Mrs.
Roche's _Children of the Abbey_ (1798). The tyrannical father--no
new creation, however--became so inevitable a figure in fiction
that Jane Austen had to assure her readers that Mr. Morland "was
not in the least addicted to locking up his daughters," and Miss
Martha Buskbody, the mantua-maker of Gandercleugh, whom Jedediah
Cleishbotham ingeniously called to his aid in writing the
conclusion of _Old Mortality_, assured him, as the fruit of her
experience in reading through the stock of three circulating
libraries that, in a novel, young people may fall in love without
the countenance of their parents, "because it is essential to the
necessary intricacy of the story." But apart from his characters,
who are so colourless that they hardly hold our attention,
Walpole bequeathed to his successors a remarkable collection of
useful "properties." The background of his story is a Gothic
castle, singularly unenchanted it is true, but capable of being
invested by Mrs. Radcliffe with mysterious grandeur. Otranto
contains underground vaults, ill-fitting doors with rusty hinges,
easily extinguished lamps and a trap-door--objects trivial and
insignificant in Walpole's hands, but fraught with terrible
possibilities. Otranto would have fulfilled admirably the
requirements of Barrett's Cherubina, who, when looking for
lodgings demanded--to the indignation of a maidservant, who came
to the door--old pictures, tapestry, a spectre and creaking
hinges. Scott, writing in 1821, remarks:
"The apparition of the skeleton-hermit to the prince of
Vicenza was long accounted a masterpiece of the
horrible; but of late the valley of Jehosaphat could
hardly supply the dry bones necessary for the
exhibition of similar spectres."
But Cherubina, whose palate was jaded by a surfeit of the pungent
horrors of Walpole's successors, would probably have found _The
Castle of Otranto_ an insipid romance and would have lamented
that he did not make more effective use of his supernatural
machinery. His story offered hints and suggestions to those whose
greater gifts turned the materials he had marshalled to better
account, and he is to be honoured rather for what he instigated
others to perform than for what he actually accomplished himself.
_The Castle of Otranto_ was not intended as a serious
contribution to literature, but will always survive in literary
history as the ancestor of a thriving race of romances.
More than ten years before the publication of _The Castle of
Otranto_, Smollett, in his _Adventures of Ferdinand, Count
Fathom_, had chanced upon the devices employed later in the tale
of terror. The tremors of fear to which his rascally hero is
subjected lend the spice of alarm to what might have been but a
monotonous record of villainy. Smollett depicts skilfully the
imaginary terrors created by darkness and solitude. As the Count
travels through the forest:
"The darkness of the night, the silence and solitude of
the place, the indistinct images of the trees that
appeared on every side, stretching their extravagant
arms athwart the gloom, conspired, with the dejection
of spirits occasioned by his loss, to disturb his fancy
and raise strange phantoms in his imagination. Although
he was not naturally superstitious, his mind began to
be invaded with an awful horror that gradually
prevailed over all the consolations of reason and
philosophy; nor was his heart free from the terrors of
assassination. In order to dissipate these agreeable
reveries, he had recourse to the conversation of his
guide, by whom he was entertained with the history of
divers travellers who had been robbed and murdered by
ruffians, whose retreat was in the recesses of that
very wood."[27]
The sighing of the trees, thunder and sudden flashes of lightning
add to the horror of a journey, which resembles Mrs. Radcliffe's
description of Emily's approach to Udolpho. When Count Fathom
takes refuge in a robber's hut, he discovers in his room, which
has no bolt on the inside of the door, the body of a recently
murdered man, concealed beneath some bundles of straw. Effecting
his escape by placing the corpse in his own bed to deceive the
robbers, the count is mistaken for a phantom by the old woman who
waits upon him. In carrying out his designs upon Celinda, the
count aggravates her natural timidity by relating dismal stories
of omens and apparitions, and then groans piteously outside her
door and causes the mysterious music of an Æolian harp to sound
upon the midnight air. Celinda sleeps, too, like the ill-starred
heroine of the novel of terror, "at the end of a long gallery,
scarce within hearing of any other inhabited part of the
house."[28] The scene in _Count Fathom_, in which Renaldo, at
midnight, visits, as he thinks, the tomb of Monimia, is
surrounded with circumstances of gloom and mystery:
"The uncommon darkness of the night, the solemn silence
and lonely situation of the place, conspired with the
occasion of his coming and the dismal images of his
fancy, to produce a real rapture of gloomy
expectation... The clock struck twelve, the owl
screeched from the ruined battlement, the door was
opened by the sexton, who, by the light of a glimmering
taper, conducted the despairing lover to a dreary
aisle."
As he watches again on a second night:
"His ear was suddenly invaded with the sound of some
few, solemn notes, issuing from the organ which seemed
to feel the impulse of an invisible hand ... reason
shrunk before the thronging ideas of his fancy, which
represented this music as the prelude to something
strange and supernatural."[29]
The figure of a woman, arrayed in a flowing robe and veil,
approaches--and proves to be Monimia in the flesh. Although
Smollett precedes Walpole, in point of time, he is, in these
scenes, nearer in spirit to Udolpho than Otranto. His use of
terror, however, is merely incidental; he strays inadvertently
into the history of Gothic romance. The suspicions and
forebodings, with which Smollett plays occasionally upon the
nerves of his readers, become part of the ordinary routine in the
tale of terror.
Clara Reeve's Gothic story, first issued under the title of _The
Champion of Virtue_, but later as _The Old English Baron_, was
published in 1777--twelve years after Walpole's _Castle of
Otranto_, of which, as she herself asserted, it was the "literary
offspring." By eliminating all supernatural incidents save one
ghost, she sought to bring her story "within the utmost verge of
probability." Walpole, perhaps displeased by the slighting
references in the preface to some of the more extraordinary
incidents in his novel, received _The Old English Baron_ with
disdain, describing it as "totally void of imagination and
interest."[30] His strictures are unjust. There are certainly no
wild flights of fancy in Clara Reeve's story, but an even level
of interest is maintained throughout. Her style is simple and
refreshingly free from affectation. The plot is neither rapid nor
exhilarating, but it never actually stagnates. Like Walpole's
Gothic story, _The Old English Baron_ is supposed to be a
transcript from an ancient manuscript. The period, we are
assured, is that of the minority of Henry VI., but despite an
elaborately described tournament, we never really leave
eighteenth century England. Edmund Twyford, the reputed son of a
cottager, is befriended by a benevolent baron Fitzowen, but,
through his good fortune and estimable qualities, excites the
envy of Fitzowen's nephews and his eldest son. To prove the
courage of Edmund, who has been basely slandered by his enemies,
the baron asks him to spend three nights in the haunted apartment
of the castle. Up to this point, there has been nothing to
differentiate the story from an uneventful domestic novel. The
ghost is of the mechanical variety and does not inspire awe when
he actually appears, but Miss Reeve tries to prepare our minds
for the shock, before she introduces him. The rusty locks and the
sudden extinction of the lamp are a heritage from Walpole, but
the "hollow, rustling noise" and the glimmering light, naturally
explained later by the approach of a servant with a faggot,
anticipate Mrs. Radcliffe. Like Adeline later, in _The Romance of
the Forest_, Edmund is haunted by prophetic dreams. The second
night the ghost violently clashes his armour, but still remains
concealed. The third night dismal groans are heard. The ghost
does not deign to appear in person until the baron's nephews
watch, and then:
"All the doors flew open, a pale glimmering light
appeared at the door from the staircase, and a man in
complete armour entered the room: he stood with one
hand extended pointing to the outward door."
It is to vindicate the rights of this departed spirit that Sir
Ralph Harclay challenges Sir Walter Lovel to a "mediaeval"
tournament. Before the story closes, Edmund is identified as the
owner of Castle Lovel, and is married to Lady Emma, Fitzowen's
daughter. The narration of the unusual circumstances connected
with his birth takes some time, as the foster parents suffer from
what is described by writers on psychology as "total recall," and
are unable to select the salient details. The characters are
rather dim and indistinct, the shadowiest of all being Emma, who
has no personality at all, and is a mere complement to the
immaculate Edmund's happiness. The good and bad are sharply
distinguished. There are no "doubtful cases," and consequently
there is no difficulty in distributing appropriate rewards and
punishments at the close of the story--the whole "furnishing a
striking lesson to posterity of the overruling hand of providence
and the certainty of retribution." Clara Reeve was fifty-two
years of age when she published her Gothic story, and she writes
in the spirit of a maiden aunt striving to edify as well as to
entertain the younger generation. When Edmund takes Fitzowen to
view the fatal closet and the bones of his murdered father, he
considers the scene "too solemn for a lady to be present at"; and
his love-making is as frigid as the supernatural scenes. The hero
is young in years, but has no youthful ardour. The very ghost is
manipulated in a half-hearted fashion and fails to produce the
slightest thrill. The natural inclination of the authoress was
probably towards domestic fiction with a didactic intention, and
she attempted a "mediaeval" setting as a _tour de force_, in
emulation of Walpole's _Castle of Otranto_. The hero, whose birth
is enshrouded in mystery, the restless ghost groaning for the
vindication of rights, the historical background, the archaic
spelling of the challenge, are all ineffective fumblings towards
the romantic. _The Old English Baron_ is an unambitious work, but
it has a certain hold upon our attention because of its limpidity
of style. It can be read without discomfort and even with a mild
degree of interest simply as a story, while _The Castle of
Otranto_ is only tolerable as a literary curiosity. A tragedy,
_Edmond_, _Orphan of the Castle_ (1799), was founded upon the
story, which was translated into French in 1800. Miss Reeve
informs the public in a preface to a late edition of _The Old
English Baron_ that, in compliance with the suggestion of a
friend, she had composed _Castle Connor, an Irish Story_, in
which apparitions were introduced. The manuscript of this tale
was unfortunately lost. Not even a mouldering fragment has been
rescued from an ebony cabinet in the deserted chamber of an
ancient abbey, and we are left wondering whether the ghosts spoke
with a brogue.
When Walpole wrote disparagingly of Clara Reeve's imitation of
his Gothic story, he singled out for praise a fragment which he
attributes to Mrs. Barbauld. The story to which he alludes is
evidently the unfinished _Sir Bertrand_, which is contained in
one of the volumes entitled _Miscellaneous Pieces in Prose_,
published jointly by J. and A.L. Aikin in 1773, and preceded by
an essay _On the Pleasure Derived from Objects of Terror_. Leigh
Hunt, who reprinted _Sir Bertrand_, which had impressed him very
strongly in his boyhood, in his _Book for a Corner_ (1849)
ascribes the authorship of the tale to Dr. Aikin, commenting on
the fact that he was "a writer from whom this effusion was hardly
to have been looked for." It is probably safe to assume that
Walpole, who was a contemporary of the Aikins and who took a
lively interest in the literary gossip of the day, was right in
assigning _Sir Bertrand_ to Miss Aikin,[31] afterwards Mrs.
Barbauld, though the story is not included in _The Works of Anne
Letitia Barbauld_, edited by Miss Lucy Aikin in 1825. That the
minds of the Aikins were exercised about the sources of pleasure
in romance, especially when connected with horror and distress,
is clear not only from this essay and the illustrative fragment
but also from other essays and stories in the same
collection--_On Romances, an Imitation_, and _An Enquiry into
those Kinds of Distress which Excite Agreeable Sensations_. In
the preliminary essay to _Sir Bertrand_ an attempt is made to
explain why terrible scenes excite pleasurable emotions and to
distinguish between two different types of horror, as illustrated
by _The Castle of Otranto_, which unites the marvellous and the
terrible, and by a scene of mere natural horror in Smollett's
_Count Fathom_. The story _Sir Bertrand_ is an attempt to combine
the two kinds of horror in one composition. A knight, wandering
in darkness on a desolate and dreary moor, hears the tolling of a
bell, and, guided by a glimmering light, finds "an antique
mansion" with turrets at the corners. As he approaches the porch,
the light glides away. All is dark and still. The light reappears
and the bell tolls. As Sir Bertrand enters the castle, the door
closes behind him. A bluish flame leads him up a staircase till
he comes to a wide gallery and a second staircase, where the
light vanishes. He grasps a dead-cold hand which he severs from
the wrist with his sword. The blue flame now leads him to a
vault, where he sees the owner of the hand "completely armed,
thrusting forwards the bloody stump of an arm, with a terrible
frown and menacing gesture and brandishing a sword in the
remaining hand." When attacked, the figure vanishes, leaving
behind a massive, iron key which unlocks a door leading to an
apartment containing a coffin, and statues of black marble,
attired in Moorish costume, holding enormous sabres in their
right hands. As the knight enters, each of them rears an arm and
advances a leg and at the same moment the lid of the coffin opens
and the bell tolls. Sir Bertrand, guided by the flames,
approaches the coffin from which a lady in a shroud and a black
veil arises. When he kisses her, the whole building falls asunder
with a crash. Sir Bertrand is thrown into a trance and awakes in
a gorgeous room, where he sees a beautiful lady who thanks him as
her deliverer. At a banquet, nymphs place a laurel wreath on his
head, but as the lady is about to address him the fragment breaks
off.
The architecture of the castle, with its gallery, staircase and
subterranean vaults, closely resembles that of Walpole's Gothic
structure. The "enormous sabres" too are familiar to readers of
_The Castle of Otranto_. The gliding light, disquieting at the
outset of the story but before the close familiar grown, is
doomed to be the guide of many a distressed wanderer through the
Gothic labyrinths of later romances. Mrs. Barbauld chose her
properties with admirable discretion, but lacked the art to use
them cunningly. A tolling bell, heard in the silence and darkness
of a lonely moor, will quicken the beatings of the heart, but
employed as a prompter's signal to herald the advance of a group
of black statues is only absurd. After the grimly suggestive
opening, the story gradually loses in power as it proceeds and
the happy ending, which wings our thoughts back to the Sleeping
Beauty of childhood, is wholly incongruous. If the fragment had
ended abruptly at the moment when the lady arises in her shroud
from the coffin, _Sir Bertrand_ would have been a more effective
tale of terror. From the historical point of view Mrs. Barbauld's
curious patchwork is full of interest. She seems to be reaching
out wistfully towards the mysterious and the unknown. Genuinely
anxious to awaken a thrill of excitement in the breast of her
reader, she is hesitating and uncertain as to the best way of
winning her effect. She is but a pioneer in the art of freezing
the blood and it were idle to expect that she should rush boldly
into a forest of horrors. Naturally she prefers to follow the
tracks trodden by Walpole and Smollett; but with intuitive
foresight she seems to have realised the limitations of Walpole's
marvellous machinery, and to have attempted to explore the
regions of the fearful unknown. Her opening scene works on that
instinctive terror of the dark and the unseen, upon which Mrs.
Radcliffe bases many of her most moving incidents.
Among the _Poetical Sketches_ of Blake, written between 1768 and
1777, and published in 1783, there appears an extraordinary poem
written in blank verse, but divided into quatrains, and entitled
_Fair Elenor_. This juvenile production seems to indicate that
Blake was familiar with Walpole's Gothic story.[32] The heroine,
wandering disconsolately by night in the castle vaults--a place
of refuge first rendered fashionable by Isabella in _The Castle
of Otranto_--faints with horror, thinking that she beholds her
husband's ghost, but soon:
"Fancy returns, and now she thinks of bones
And grinning skulls and corruptible death
Wrapped in his shroud; and now fancies she hears
Deep sighs and sees pale, sickly ghosts gliding."
A reality more horrible than her imaginings awaits her. A
bleeding head is abruptly thrust into her arms by an assassin in
the employ of a villainous and anonymous "duke." Fair Elenor
retires to her bed and gives utterance to an outburst of similes
in praise of her dead lord. Thus encouraged, the bloody head of
her murdered husband describes its lurid past, and warns Elenor
to beware of the duke's dark designs. Elenor wisely avoids the
machinations of the villain, and brings an end to the poem, by
breathing her last. Blake's story is faintly reminiscent of the
popular legend of Anne Boleyn, who, with her bleeding head in her
lap, is said to ride down the avenue of Blickling Park once a
year in a hearse drawn by horsemen and accompanied by attendants,
all headless out of respect to their mistress.
Blake's youthful excursion into the murky gloom of Gothic vaults
resulted in a poem so crude that even "Monk" Lewis, who was no
connoisseur, would have declined it regretfully as a contribution
to his _Tales of Terror_, but _Fair Elenor_ is worthy of
remembrance as an early indication of Walpole's influence, which
was to become so potent on the history of Gothic romance.
The Gothic experiments of Dr. Nathan Drake, published in his
_Literary Hours_ (1798), are extremely instructive as indicating
the critical standpoint of the time. Drake, like Mrs. Barbauld
and her brother, was deeply interested in the sources of the
pleasure derived from tales of terror, and wrote his Gothic
stories to confirm and illustrate the theories propounded in his
essays. He discusses gravely and learnedly the kinds of
fictitious horror that excite agreeable sensations, and then
proceeds to arrange carefully calculated effects, designed to
alarm his readers, but not to outrage their sense of decorum. He
has none of the reckless daring of "Monk" Lewis, who flung
restraint to the winds and raced in mad career through an orgy of
horrors. In his enchanted castles we are disturbed by an uneasy
suspicion that the inhabitants are merely allegorical characters,
and that the spectre of a moral lurks in some dim recess ready to
spring out upon us suddenly. Dr. Drake's mind was as a house
divided against itself: he was a moralist, emulating the "sage
and serious Spenser" in his desire to exalt virtue and abase
vice, he was a critic working out, with calm detachment,
practical illustrations of the theories he had formulated, and he
was a romantic enthusiast, imbued with a vague but genuine
admiration for the wild superstitions of a bygone age. His
stories exhibit painful evidence of the conflict which waged
between the three sides of his nature. In the essay prefixed to
_Henry Fitzowen, a Gothic Tale_, he distinguishes between the two
species of Gothic superstition, the gloomy and the sportive, and
addresses an ode to the two goddesses of Superstition--one the
offspring of Fear and Midnight, the other of Hesper and the Moon.
In his story the spectres of darkness are put to flight by a
troop of aerial spirits. Dr. Drake knew the Gothic stories of
Walpole, Mrs. Barbauld, Clara Reeve and Mrs. Radcliffe; and
traces of the influence of each may be found in his work. Henry
Fitzowen loves Adeline de Montfort, but has a powerful and
diabolical rival--Walleran--whose character combines the most
dangerous qualities of Mrs. Radcliffe's villains with the magical
gifts of a wizard. Fitzowen, not long before the day fixed for
his wedding, is led astray, while hunting, by an elusive stag, a
spectral monk and a "wandering fire," and arrives home in a
thunderstorm to find his castle enveloped in total darkness and
two of his servants stretched dead at his feet. He learns from
his mother and sister, who are shut in a distant room, that
Adeline has been carried off by armed ruffians. Believing
Walleran to be responsible for this outrage, Fitzowen sets out
the next day in search of him. After weary wanderings he is
beguiled into a Gothic castle by a foul witch, who resembles one
of Spenser's loathly hags, and on his entrance hears peals of
diabolical laughter. He sees spectres, blue lights, and the
corpse of Horror herself. When he slays Walleran the enchantments
disappear. At the end of a winding passage he finds a cavern
illuminated by a globe of light, and discovers Adeline asleep on
a couch. He awakes her with a kiss. Thunder shakes the earth, a
raging whirlwind tears the castle from its foundations, and the
lovers awake from their trance in a beautiful, moonlit vale where
they hear enchanting music and see knights, nymphs and spirits. A
beauteous queen tells them that the spirits of the blest have
freed them from Horror's dread agents. The music dies away, the
spirits flee and the lovers find themselves in a country road. A
story of the same type is told by De La Motte Fouqué in _The
Field of Terror_.[33] Before the steadfast courage of the
labourer who strives to till the field, diabolical enchantments
disappear. It is an ancient legend turned into moral allegory.
In the essay on _Objects of Terror_, which precedes _Montmorenci,
a Fragment_, Drake discusses that type of terror, which is
"excited by the interference of a simple, material causation,"
and which "requires no small degree of skill and arrangement to
prevent its operating more pain than pleasure." He condemns
Walpole's _Mysterious Mother_ on the ground that the catastrophe
is only productive of horror and aversion, and regards the old
ballad, _Edward_, as intolerable to any person of sensibility,
but praises Dante and Shakespeare for keeping within the "bounds
of salutary and grateful pleasure." The scene in _The Italian_,
where Schedoni, about to plunge a dagger into Ellena's bosom,
recoils, in the belief that he has discovered her to be his own
daughter, is commended as "appalling yet delighting the reader."
In the productions of Mrs. Radcliffe, "the Shakespeare of Romance
Writers, who to the wild landscape of Salvator Rosa has added the
softer graces of a Claude," he declares,
"may be found many scenes truly terrific in their
conception, yet so softened down, and the mind so much
relieved, by the intermixture of beautiful description,
or pathetic incident, that the impression of the whole
never becomes too strong, never degenerates into
horror, but pleasurable emotion is ever the
predominating result."
The famous scene in _Ferdinand, Count Fathom_, the description of
Danger in Collins' _Ode to Fear_, the Scottish ballad of
_Hardyknute_ are mentioned as admirable examples of the fear
excited by natural causes. In the fragment called _Montmorenci_,
Drake aims at combining "picturesque description with some of
those objects of terror which are independent of supernatural
agency." As the curfew tolls sullenly, Henry de Montmorenci and
his two attendants rush from a castle into the darkness of a
stormy night. They hurry through a savage glen, in which a
swollen torrent falls over a precipice. After hearing the crash
of falling armour, they suddenly come upon a dying knight on
whose pale features every mark of horror is depicted. Led by
frightful screams of distress, Montmorenci and his men find a
maiden, who has been captured by banditti. Montmorenci slays the
leader, but is seized by the rest of the banditti and bound to a
tree overlooking a stupendous chasm into which he is to be
hurled. By almost superhuman struggles he effects his escape,
when suddenly--there at this terror-fraught moment, the fragment
wisely ends.
In _The Abbey of Clunedale_ Drake experiments feebly and
ineffectively with the "explained supernatural" in which Mrs.
Radcliffe was an adept. The ruined abbey, deemed to be haunted,
is visited at night as an act of penance by a man named Clifford
who, in a fit of unfounded jealousy, has slain his wife's
brother. Clifford, accompanied by his sister, and bearing a
light, kneels at his wife's tomb, and is mistaken for a spectral
being.
The Gothic tale entitled _Sir Egbert_ is based on an ancient
legend associated with one of the turrets of Rochester Castle.
Sir Egbert, searching for his friend, Conrad, who had disappeared
in suspicious circumstances, hears from the Knights Templars,
that the wicked Constable is believed to hold two lovers in a
profound and deathlike sleep. He resolves to make an attempt to
draw from its sheath the sword which separates them and so
restore them to life and liberty. Undismayed by the fate of those
who have fallen in the quest, Sir Egbert enters the castle, where
he is entertained at a gorgeous feast. When the festivities are
at their height, and Sir Egbert has momentarily forgotten his
enterprise, a terrible shriek is heard. The revellers vanish, and
Sir Egbert is left alone to face a spectral corpse, which beckons
him onward to a vault, where in flaming characters are inscribed
the words: "Death to him who violates the mysteries of Gundulph's
Tower." Nothing daunted, Sir Egbert amid execrations of fiends,
encounters delusive horrors and at last unsheathes the sword. The
lovers awake, and the whole apparatus of enchantment vanishes.
Conrad tells how he and Bertha, six years before, had been lured
by a wandering fire to a luxurious cavern, where they drank a
magic potion. The story closes with the marriage of Conrad and
Bertha, and of Egbert and Matilda, a sister of one of the other
victims of the same enchanter.
In Dr. Drake's stories are patiently collected all the heirlooms
necessary for the full equipment of a Gothic castle. Massive
doors, which sway ponderously on their hinges or are forcibly
burst open and which invariably close with a resounding crash,
dark, eerie galleries, broken staircases, decayed apartments,
mouldering floors, tolling bells, skeletons, corpses, howling
spectres--all are there; but the possessor, overwhelmed by the
very profusion which surrounds him, is at a loss how to make use
of them. He does not realise the true significance of a
half-stifled groan or an unearthly yell heard in the darkness.
Each new horror indeed seems but to put new life into the heart
of the redoubtable Sir Egbert, who, like Spenser's gallant
knights, advances from triumph to triumph vanquishing evil at
every step. It is impossible to become absorbed in his
personages, who have less body than his spectres, and whose
adventures take the form of a walk through an exhibition of
horrors, mechanically set in motion to prove their prowess. Dr.
Drake seems happier when the hideous beings are put to rout, and
the transformation-scene, which places fairyland before us,
suddenly descends on the stage. Yet the bungling attempts of Dr.
Drake are interesting as showing that grave and critical minds
were prepared to consider the tale of terror as a legitimate form
of literature, obeying certain definite rules of its own and
aiming at the excitement of a pleasurable fear. The seed of
Gothic story, sown at random by Horace Walpole, had by 1798 taken
firm root in the soil. Drake's enthusiasm for Gothic story was
associated with his love for older English poetry and with his
interest in Scandinavian mythology. He was a genuine admirer of
Spenser and attempted imitations, in modern diction, of old
ballads. It is for his bent towards the romantic, rather than for
his actual accomplishments, that Drake is worthy of remembrance.
CHAPTER III - "THE NOVEL OF SUSPENSE." MRS. RADCLIFFE.
The enthusiasm which greeted Walpole's enchanted castle and Miss
Reeve's carefully manipulated ghost, indicated an eager desire
for a new type of fiction in which the known and familiar were
superseded by the strange and supernatural. To meet this end Mrs.
Radcliffe suddenly came forward with her attractive store of
mysteries, and it was probably her timely appearance that saved
the Gothic tale from an early death. The vogue of the novel of
terror, though undoubtedly stimulated by German influence, was
mainly due to her popularity and success. The writers of the
first half of the nineteenth century abound in references to her
works,[34] and she thus still enjoys a shadowy, ghost-like
celebrity. Many who have never had the curiosity to explore the
labyrinths of the underground passages, with which her castles
are invariably honeycombed, or who have never shuddered with
apprehension before the "black veil," know of their existence
through _Northanger Abbey_, and have probably also read how
Thackeray at school amused himself and his friends by drawing
illustrations of Mrs. Radcliffe's novels.
Of Mrs. Radcliffe's life few facts are known, and Christina
Rossetti, one of her many admirers, was obliged, in 1883, to
relinquish the plan of writing her biography, because the
materials were so scanty.[35] From the memoir prefixed to the
posthumous volumes, published in 1826, containing _Gaston de
Blondeville_, and various poems, we learn that she was born in
1764, the very year in which Walpole issued _The Castle of
Otranto_, and that her maiden name was Ann Ward. In 1787 she
married William Radcliffe, an Oxford graduate and a student of
law, who became editor of a weekly newspaper, _The English
Chronicle_. Her life was so secluded that biographers did not
hesitate to invent what they could not discover. The legend that
she was driven frantic by the horrors that she had conjured up
was refuted after her death.
It may have been the publication of _The Recess_ by Sophia Lee in
1785 that inspired Mrs. Radcliffe to try her fortune with a
historical novel. _The Recess_ is a story of languid interest,
circling round the adventures of the twin daughters of Mary Queen
of Scots and the Duke of Norfolk. Yet as we meander gently
through its mazes we come across an abbey "of Gothic elegance and
magnificence," a swooning heroine who plays the lute,
thunderstorms, banditti and even an escape in a coffin--items
which may well have attracted the notice of Mrs. Radcliffe, whose
first novel, _The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne_,[36] appeared
in 1789. Considered historically, this immature work is full of
interest, for, with the notable exception of the supernatural, it
contains in embryo nearly all the elements of Mrs. Radcliffe's
future novels.
The scene is laid in Scotland, and the period, we are assured, is
that of the "dark ages"; but almost at the outset we are startled
rudely from our dreams of the mediaeval by the statement that
"the wrongfully imprisoned earl, when the sweet
tranquillity of evening threw an air of tender
melancholy over his mind ... composed the following
sonnet, which, having committed it to paper, he, the
next evening dropped upon the terrace."
The sonnet consists of four heroic quatrains somewhat curiously
resembling the manner of Gray. From this episode it may be
gathered that Mrs. Radcliffe did not aim at, or certainly did not
achieve, historical accuracy, but evolved most of her
descriptions, not from original sources in ancient documents, but
from her own inner consciousness. It was only in her last
novel--_Gaston de Blondeville_--that she made use of old
chronicles. Within the Scottish castle we meet a heroine with an
"expression of pensive melancholy" and a "smile softly clouded
with sorrow," a noble lord deprived of his rights by a villain
"whose life is marked with vice and whose death with the
bitterness of remorse." But these grey and ghostly shadows, who
flit faintly through our imagination, are less prophetic of
coming events than the properties with which the castle is
endowed, a secret but accidently discovered panel, a trap-door,
subterranean vaults, an unburied corpse, a suddenly extinguished
lamp and a soft-toned lute--a goodly heritage from _The Castle of
Otranto_. The situations which a villain of Baron Malcolm's type
will inevitably create are dimly shadowed forth and involve, ere
the close, the hairbreadth rescue of a distressed maiden, the
reinstatement of the lord in his rights, and the identification
of the long-lost heir by the convenient and time-honoured
"strawberry mark." These promising materials are handled in a
childish fashion. The faintly pencilled outlines, the
characterless figures, the nerveless structure, give little
presage of the boldly effective scenery, the strong delineations
and the dexterously managed plots of the later novels. The
gradual, steady advance in skill and power is one of the most
interesting features of Mrs. Radcliffe's work. Few could have
guessed from the slight sketch of Baron Malcolm, a merely slavish
copy of the traditional villain, that he was to be the ancestor
of such picturesque and romantic creatures as Montoni and
Schedoni.
This tentative beginning was quickly followed by the more
ambitious _Sicilian Romance_ (1790), in which we are transported
to the palace of Ferdinand, fifth Marquis of Mazzini, on the
north coast of Sicily. This time the date is fixed officially at
1580. The Marquis has one son and two daughters, the children of
his first wife, who has been supplanted by a beautiful but
unscrupulous successor. The first wife is reputed dead, but is,
in reality, artfully and maliciously concealed in an uninhabited
wing of the abbey. It is her presence which leads to disquieting
rumours of the supernatural. Ferdinand, the son, vainly tries to
solve the enigma of certain lights, which wander elusively about
the deserted wing, and finds himself perilously suspended, like
David Balfour in _Kidnapped_, on a decayed staircase, of which
the lower half has broken away. In this hazardous situation,
Ferdinand accidentally drops his lamp and is left in total
darkness. An hour later he is rescued by the ladies of the
castle, who, alarmed by his long absence, boldly come in search
of him with a light. During another tour of exploration he hears
a hollow groan, which, he is told, proceeds from a murdered
spirit underground, but which is eventually traced to the unhappy
marchioness. These two incidents plainly reveal that Mrs.
Radcliffe has now discovered the peculiar vein of mystery towards
which she was groping in _The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne_.
From the very first she explained away her marvels by natural
means. If we scan her romances with a coldly critical eye--an
almost criminal proceeding--obvious improbabilities start into
view. For instance, the oppressed marchioness, who has not seen
her daughter Julia since the age of two, recognises her without a
moment's hesitation at the age of seventeen, and faints in a
transport of joy. It is no small tribute to Mrs. Radcliffe's
gifts that we often accept such incidents as these without demur.
So unnerved are we by the lurking shadows, the flickering lights,
the fluttering tapestry and the unaccountable groans with which
she lowers our vitality, that we tremble and start at the wagging
of a straw, and have not the spirit, once we are absorbed into
the atmosphere of her romance, to dispute anything she would have
us believe. The interest of the _Sicilian Romance_, which is far
greater than that of her first novel, arises entirely out of the
situations. There is no gradual unfolding of character and
motive. The high-handed marquis, the jealous marchioness, the
imprisoned wife, the vapid hero, the two virtuous sisters, the
leader of the banditti, the respectable, prosy governess, are a
set of dolls fitted ingeniously into the framework of the plot.
They have more substance than the tenuous shadows that glide
through the pages of Mrs. Radcliffe's first story, but they move
only as she deftly pulls the strings that set them in motion.
In her third novel, _The Romance of the Forest_, published in
1792, Mrs. Radcliffe makes more attempt to discuss motive and to
trace the effect of circumstances on temperament. The opening
chapter is so alluring that callous indeed would be the reader
who felt no yearning to pluck out the heart of the mystery. La
Motte, a needy adventurer fleeing from justice, takes refuge on a
stormy night in a lonely, sinister-looking house. With startling
suddenness, a door bursts open, and a ruffian, putting a pistol
to La Motte's breast with one hand, and, with the other, dragging
along a beautiful girl, exclaims ferociously,
"You are wholly in our power, no assistance can reach
you; if you wish to save your life, swear that you will
convey this girl where I may never see her more... If
you return within an hour you will die."
The elucidation of this remarkable occurrence is long deferred,
for Mrs. Radcliffe appreciates fully the value of suspense in
luring on her readers, but our attention is distracted in the
meantime by a series of new events. Treasuring the unfinished
adventure in the recesses of our memory, we follow the course of
the story. When La Motte decides impulsively to reside in a
deserted abbey, "not," as he once remarks, "in all respects
strictly Gothic," but containing a trap-door and a human skeleton
in a chest, we willingly take up our abode there and wait
patiently to see what will happen. Our interest is inclined to
flag when life at the abbey seems uneventful, but we are ere long
rewarded by a visit from a stranger, whose approach flings La
Motte into so violent a state of alarm that he vanishes with
remarkable abruptness beneath a trapdoor. It proves, however,
that the intruder is merely La Motte's son, and the timid marquis
is able to emerge. Meanwhile, La Motte's wife, suspicious of her
husband's morose habits and his secret visits to a Gothic
sepulchre, becomes jealous of Adeline, the girl they have
befriended. It later transpires that La Motte has turned
highwayman and stores his booty in this secluded spot. The visits
are so closely shrouded in obscurity, and we have so exhausted
our imagination in picturing dark possibilities, that the simple
solution falls disappointingly short of our expectations. The
next thrill is produced by the arrival of two strangers, the
wicked marquis and the noble hero, without whom the tale of
characters in a novel of terror would scarcely be complete. The
emotion La Motte betrays at the sight of the marquis is due, we
are told eventually, to the fact that Montalt was the victim of
his first robbery. Adeline, meanwhile, in a dream sees a
beckoning figure in a dark cloak, a dying man imprisoned in a
darkened chamber, a coffin and a bleeding corpse, and hears a
voice from the coffin. The disjointed episodes and bewildering
incoherence of a nightmare are suggested with admirable skill,
and effectually prepare our minds for Adeline's discoveries a few
nights later. Passing through a door, concealed by the arras of
her bedroom, into a chamber like that she had seen in her sleep,
she stumbles over a rusty dagger and finds a roll of mouldering
manuscripts. This incident is robbed of its effect for readers of
_Northanger Abbey_ by insistent reminiscences of Catherine
Morland's discovery of the washing bills. But Adeline, by the
uncertain light of a candle, reads, with the utmost horror and
consternation, the harrowing life-story of her father, who has
been foully done to death by his brother, already known to us as
the unprincipled Marquis Montalt. La Motte weakly aids and abets
Montalt's designs against Adeline, and she is soon compelled to
take refuge in flight. She is captured and borne away to an
elegant villa, whence she escapes, only to be overtaken again.
Finally, Theodore arrives, as heroes will, in the nick of time,
and wounds his rival. Adeline finds a peaceful home in the
chateau of M. La Luc, who proves to be Theodore's father. Here
the reader awaits impatiently the final solution of the plot.
Once we have been inmates of a Gothic abbey, life in a Swiss
chateau, however idyllic, is apt to seem monotonous. In time Mrs.
Radcliffe administers justice. The marquis takes poison; La Motte
is banished but reforms; and Adeline, after dutifully burying her
father's skeleton in the family vault, becomes mistress of the
abbey, but prefers to reside in a _châlet_ on the banks of Lake
Geneva.
Although the _Romance of the Forest_ is considerably shorter than
the later novels, the plot, which is full of ingenious
complications, is unfolded in the most leisurely fashion. Mrs.
Radcliffe's tantalising delays quicken our curiosity as
effectively as the deliberate calm of a _raconteur_, who, with a
view to heightening his artistic effect, pauses to light a pipe
at the very climax of his story. Suspense is the key-note of the
romance. The characters are still subordinate to incident, but La
Motte and his wife claim our interest because they are exhibited
in varying moods. La Motte has his struggles and, like Macbeth,
is haunted by compunctious visitings of nature. Unlike the
thorough-paced villain, who glories in his misdeeds, he is
worried and harassed, and takes no pleasure in his crimes. Madame
La Motte is not a jealous woman from beginning to end like the
marchioness in the _Sicilian Romance_. Her character is moulded
to some extent by environment. She changes distinctly in her
attitude to Adeline after she has reason to suspect her husband.
Mrs. Radcliffe's psychology is neither subtle nor profound, but
the fact that psychology is there in the most rudimentary form is
a sign of her progress in the art of fiction. Theodore is as
insipid as the rest of Mrs. Radcliffe's heroes, who are
distinguishable from one another only by their names, and Adeline
is perhaps a shade more emotional and passionless than Emily and
Ellena in _The Mysteries of Udolpho_ and _The Italian_. The
lachrymose maiden in _The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne_, who
can assume at need "an air of offended dignity," is a preliminary
sketch of Julia, Emily and Ellena in the later novels. Mrs.
Radcliffe's heroines resemble nothing more than a composite
photograph in which all distinctive traits are merged into an
expressionless "type." They owe something no doubt to
Richardson's _Clarissa Harlowe_, but their feelings are not so
minutely analysed. Their lady-like accomplishments vary slightly.
In reflective mood one may lightly throw off a sonnet to the
sunset or to the nocturnal gale, while another may seek refuge in
her water-colours or her lute. They are all dignified and
resolute in the most distressing situations, yet they weep and
faint with wearisome frequency. Their health and spirits are as
precarious as their easily extinguished candles. Yet these
exquisitely sensitive, well-bred heroines alienate our sympathy
by their impregnable self-esteem, a disconcerting trait which
would certainly have exasperated heroes less perfect and more
human than Mrs. Radcliffe's Theodores and Valancourts. Their
sorrows never rise to tragic heights, because they are only
passive sufferers, and the sympathy they would win as pathetic
figures is obliterated by their unfailing consciousness of their
own rectitude. In describing Adeline, Mrs. Radcliffe attempts an
unusually acute analysis:
"For many hours she busied herself upon a piece of work
which she had undertaken for Madame La Motte, but this
she did without the least intention of conciliating her
favour, but because she felt there was something in
thus repaying unkindness, which was suited to her own
temper, her sentiments and her pride. Self-love may be
the centre around which human affections move, for
whatever motive conduces to self-gratification may be
resolved into self-love, yet, some of these affections
are in their nature so refined that, though we cannot
deny their origin, they almost deserve the name of
virtue: of this species was that of Adeline."
It is characteristic of Mrs. Radcliffe's tendency to overlook the
obvious in searching for the subtle, that the girl who feels
these recondite emotions expresses slight embarrassment when
unceremoniously flung on the protection of strangers. Emily, in
_The Mysteries of Udolpho_, possesses the same protective armour
as Adeline. When she is abused by Montoni, "Her heart swelled
with the consciousness of having deserved praise instead of
censure, and was proudly silent"; or again, in _The Italian_,
"Ellena was the more satisfied with herself because she
had never for an instant forgotten her dignity so far
as to degenerate into the vehemence of passion or to
falter with the weakness of fear."
Her father, M. St. Aubert, on his deathbed, bids Emily beware of
"priding herself on the gracefulness of sensibility."
Fortunately the heroine is merely a figurehead in _The Mysteries
of Udolpho_ (1794). The change of title is significant. The two
previous works have been romances, but it is now Mrs. Radcliffe's
intention to let herself go further in the direction of wonder
and suspense than she had hitherto ventured. She is like Scythrop
in _Nightmare Abbey_, of whom it was said:
"He had a strong tendency to love of mystery for its
own sake; that is to say, he would employ mystery to
serve a purpose, but would first choose his purpose by
its capability of mystery."
Yet Mrs. Radcliffe, at the opening of her story, is sparing in
her use of supernatural elements. We live by faith, and are drawn
forward by the hope of future mystifications. In the first volume
we saunter through idyllic scenes of domestic happiness in the
Chateau le Vert and wander with Emily and her dying father
through the Apennines, with only faint suggestions of excitement
to come. The second volume plunges us _in medias res_. The aunt,
to whose care Emily is entrusted, has imprudently married a
tempestuous tyrant, Montoni, who, to further his own ends,
hurries his wife and niece from the gaiety of Venice to the gloom
of Udolpho. After a journey fraught with terror, amid rugged,
lowering mountains and through dusky woods, we reach the castle
of Udolpho at nightfall. The sombre exterior and the shadow
haunted hall are so ominous that we are prepared for the worst
when we enter its portals. The anticipation is half pleasurable,
half fearful, as we shudder at the thought of what may befall us
within its walls. At every turn something uncanny shakes our
overwrought nerves; the sighing of the wind, the echo of distant
footsteps, lurking shadows, gliding forms, inexplicable groans,
mysterious music torture the sensitive imagination of Emily, who
is mercilessly doomed to sleep in a deserted apartment with a
door, which, as so often in the novel of terror, bolts only on
the outside. More nerve wracking than the unburied corpse or even
than the ineffable horror concealed behind the black veil are the
imaginary, impalpable terrors that seize on Emily's tender fancy
as she crosses the hall on her way to solve the riddle of her
aunt's disappearance:
"Emily, deceived by the long shadows of the pillars and
by the catching lights between, often stopped,
imagining that she saw some person moving in the
distant obscurity...and as she passed these pillars she
feared to turn her eyes towards them, almost expecting
to see a figure start from behind their broad shaft."
Torn from the context, this passage no longer congeals us with
terror, but in its setting it conveys in a wonderfully vivid
manner the tricks of a feverish imagination. So exhaustive--and
exhausting--are the mysteries of Udolpho that it was a mistake to
introduce another haunted castle, le Blanc, as an appendix.
Mrs. Radcliffe's long deferred explanations of what is apparently
supernatural have often been adversely criticised. Her method
varies considerably. Sometimes we are enlightened almost
immediately. When the garrulous servant, Annette, is relating to
Emily what she knows of the story of Laurentina, who had once
lived in the castle, both mistress and servant are wrought up to
a state of nervous tension:
"Emily, whom now Annette had infected with her own
terrors, listened attentively, but everything was
still, and Annette proceeded... 'There again,' cried
Annette, suddenly, 'I heard it again.' 'Hush!' said
Emily, trembling. They listened and continued to sit
quite still. Emily heard a slow knocking against the
wall. It came repeatedly. Annette then screamed loudly,
and the chamber door slowly opened--It was Caterina,
come to tell Annette that her lady wanted her."
It is seldom that the rude awakening comes thus swiftly. More
often we are left wondering uneasily and fearfully for a
prolonged stretch of time. The extreme limit of human endurance
is reached in the episode of the Black Veil. Early in the second
volume, Emily, for whom the concealed picture had a fatal
fascination, determined to gaze upon it.
"Emily passed on with faltering steps and, having
paused a moment at the door before she attempted to
open it, she then hastily entered the chamber and went
towards the picture, which appeared to be enclosed in a
frame of uncommon size, that hung in a dark part of the
room. She paused again and then, with a timid hand,
lifted the veil, but instantly let it fall--perceiving
that, what it had concealed was no picture and, before
she could leave the chamber, she dropped senseless on
the floor."
In time Emily recovers, but the horror of the Black Veil preys on
her mind until, near the close of the third volume, Mrs.
Radcliffe mercifully consents to tell us not only what Emily
thought that she beheld, but what was actually there.
"There appeared, instead of the picture she had
expected, within the recess of the wall, a human figure
of ghastly paleness, stretched at its length, and
dressed in the habiliments of the grave. What added to
the horror of the spectacle was that the face appeared
partly decayed and disfigured by worms, which were
visible on the features and hands... Had she dared to
look again, her delusion and her fears would have
vanished together, and she would have perceived that
the figure before her was not human, but formed of
wax... A member of the house of Udolpho, having
committed some offence against the prerogative of the
church, had been condemned to the penance of
contemplating, during certain hours of the day, a waxen
image made to resemble a human body in the state to
which it is reduced after death ... he had made it a
condition in his will that his descendants should
preserve the image."
Mrs. Radcliffe, realising that the secret she had so jealously
guarded is of rather an amazing character, asserts that it is
"not without example in the records of the fierce severity which
monkish superstition has sometimes inflicted on mankind." But the
explanation falls so ludicrously short of our expectations and is
so improbable a possibility, that Mrs. Radcliffe would have been
wise not to defraud Catherine Morland and other readers of the
pleasure of guessing aright. Few enjoy being baffled and thwarted
in so unexpected a fashion. The skeleton of Signora Laurentina
was the least that could be expected as a reward for suspense so
patiently endured. But long ere this disclosure, we have learnt
by bitter experience to distrust Mrs. Radcliffe's secrets and to
look for ultimate disillusionment. The uncanny voice that
ominously echoes Montoni's words is not the cry of a bodiless
visitant striving to awaken "that blushing, shamefaced spirit
that mutinies in a man's bosom," but belongs to an ordinary human
being, the prisoner Du Pont, who has discovered one of Mrs.
Radcliffe's innumerable concealed passages. The bed with the
black velvet pall in the haunted chamber contains, not the
frightful apparition that flashed upon the inward eye of Emily
and of Annette, but a stalwart pirate who shrinks from discovery.
The gliding forms which steal furtively along the ramparts and
disappear at the end of dark passages become eventually, like the
nun in Charlotte Bronte's _Villette_, sensible to feeling as to
sight. The unearthly music which is heard in the woods at
midnight proceeds, not from the inhabitants of another sphere,
but from a conscience stricken nun with a lurid past. The corpse,
which Emily believed to be that of her aunt, foully done to death
by a pitiless husband, is the body of a man killed in a bandit's
affray. Here Mrs. Radcliffe seems eager to show that she was not
afraid of a corpse, but is careful that it shall not be the
corpse which the reader anticipates. She deliberately excites
trembling apprehensions in order that she may show how absurd
they are. We are befooled that she may enjoy a quietly malicious
triumph. The result is that we become wary and cautious. The
genuine ghost story, read by Ludovico to revive his fainting
spirits when he is keeping vigil in the "haunted" chamber, is
robbed of its effect because we half expect to be disillusioned
ere the close. It is far more impressive if read as a separate
story apart from its setting. The idea of explaining away what is
apparently supernatural may have occurred to Mrs. Radcliffe after
reading Schiller's popular romance, _Der Geisterseher_ (1789), in
which the elaborately contrived marvels of the Armenian, who was
modelled on Cagliostro, are but the feats of a juggler and have a
physical cause. But more probably Mrs. Radcliffe's imagination
was held in check by a sensitive conscience, which would not
allow her to trade on the credulity of simple-minded readers.
It is noteworthy that Mrs. Radcliffe's last work--_The Italian_,
published in 1797--is more skilfully constructed, and possesses
far greater unity and concentration than _The Mysteries of
Udolpho_. The Inquisition scenes towards the end of the book are
unduly prolonged, but the story is coherent and free from
digressions. The theme is less fanciful and far fetched than
those of _The Romance of the Forest_ and _Udolpho_. It seldom
strays far beyond the bounds of the probable, nor overstrains our
capacity for belief. The motive of the story is the Marchesa di
Vivaldi's opposition to her son's marriage on account of Ellena's
obscure birth. The Marchesa's far reaching designs are forwarded
by the ambitious monk, Schedoni, who, for his own ends,
undertakes to murder Ellena. _The Italian_ abounds in dramatic,
haunting scenes. The strangely effective overture, which
describes the Confessional of the Black Penitents, the midnight
watch of Vivaldi and his lively, impulsive servant, Paulo, amid
the ruins of Paluzzi, the melodramatic interruption of the
wedding ceremony, the meeting of Ellena and Schedoni on the
lonely shore, the trial in the halls of the Inquisition, are all
remarkably vivid. The climax of the story when Schedoni, about to
slay Ellena, is arrested in the very act by her beauty and
innocence, and then by the glimpse of the portrait which leads
him to believe she is his daughter, is finely conceived and
finely executed. Afterwards, Ellena proves only to be his niece,
but we have had our thrill and nothing can rob us of it. _The
Italian_ depends for its effect on natural terror, rather than on
supernatural suggestions. The monk, who haunts the ruins of
Paluzzi, and who reappears in the prison of the Inquisition,
speaks and acts like a being from the world of spectres, but in
the fulness of time Mrs. Radcliffe ruthlessly exposes his methods
and kills him by slow poison. She never completely explains his
behaviour in the halls of the Inquisition nor accounts
satisfactorily for the ferocity of his hatred of Schedoni. We are
unintentionally led on false trails.
The character of Schedoni is undeniably Mrs. Radcliffe's
masterpiece. No one would claim that his character is subtle
study, but in his interviews with the Marchesa, Mrs. Radcliffe
reveals unexpected gifts tor probing into human motives. He is an
imposing figure, theatrical sometimes, but wrought of flesh and
blood. In fiction, as in life, the villain has always existed,
but it was Mrs. Radcliffe who first created the romantic villain,
stained with the darkest crimes, yet dignified and impressive
withal. Zeluco in Dr. John Moore's novel of that name (1789) is a
powerful conception, but he has no redeeming features to temper
our repulsion with pity. The sinister figures of Mrs. Radcliffe,
with passion-lined faces and gleaming eyes, stalk--or, if
occasion demand it, glide--through all her romances, and as she
grows more familiar with the type, her delineations show
increased power and vigour. When the villain enters, or shortly
afterwards, a descriptive catalogue is displayed, setting forth,
in a manner not unlike that of the popular _feuilleton_ of
to-day, the qualities to be expected, and with this he is let
loose into the story to play his part and act up to his
reputation. In the _Sicilian Romance_ there is the tyrannical
marquis who would force an unwelcome marriage on his daughter and
who immures his wife in a remote corner of the castle, visiting
her once a week with a scanty pittance of coarse food. In _The
Romance of the Forest_ we find a conventional but thorough
villain in Montalt and a half-hearted, poor-spirited villain in
La Motte, whose "virtue was such that it could not stand the
pressure of occasion." Montoni, the desperate leader of the
condottieri in _The Mysteries of Udolpho_, is endued with so
vigorous a vitality that we always rejoice inwardly at his return
to the forefront of the story. His abundant energy is refreshing
after a long sojourn with his garrulous wife and tearful niece.
"He delighted in the energies of the passions, the
difficulties and tempests of life which wreck the
happiness of others roused and strengthened all the
powers of his mind, and afforded him the highest
enjoyment... The fire and keenness of his eye, its
proud exaltation, its bold fierceness, its sudden
watchfulness as occasion and even slight occasion had
called forth the latent soul, she had often observed
with emotion, while from the usual expression of his
countenance she had always shrunk."
Schedoni is undoubtedly allied to this desperado, but his methods
are quieter and more subtle:
"There was something terrible in his air, something
almost superhuman. The cowl, too, as it threw a shade
over the livid paleness of his face increased its
severe character and gave an effect to his large,
melancholy eye which approached to horror ... his
physiognomy ... bore the traces of many passions which
seemed to have fixed the features they no longer
animated. An habitual gloom and severity prevailed over
the deep lines of his countenance, and his eyes were so
piercing that they seemed to penetrate at a single
glance into the hearts of men, and to read their most
secret thoughts--few persons could endure their
scrutiny or even endure to meet them twice ... he could
adapt himself to the tempers and passions of persons,
whom he wished to conciliate, with astonishing
facility."
The type undoubtedly owes something to Milton's Satan. Like
Lucifer, he is proud and ambitious, and like him he retains
traces of his original grandeur. Hints from Shakespeare helped to
fashion him. Like Cassius, seldom he smiles, and smiles in such a
sort
"As if he mock'd himself and scorn'd his spirit
That could be moved to smile at anything."
Like King John,
"The image of a wicked heinous fault
Lives in his eye: that close aspect of his
Does show the mood of a much-troubled breast."
By the enormity of his crimes he inspires horror and repulsion,
but by his loneliness he appeals, for a moment, like the
consummate villain Richard III., to our pity:
"There is no creature loves me
And if I die, no soul will pity me.
Nay, wherefore should they, since that I myself
Find in myself no pity to myself?"
Karl von Moor, the famous hero of Schiller's _Die Räuber_ (1781),
is allied to this desperado. He is thus described in the
advertisement of the 1795 edition:
"The picture of a great, misguided soul, endowed with
every gift of excellence, yet lost in spite of all its
gifts. Unbridled passions and bad companionship corrupt
his heart, urge him on from crime to crime, until at
last he stands at the head of a band of murderers,
heaps horror upon horror, and plunges from precipice to
precipice in the lowest depths of despair. Great and
majestic in misfortune, by misfortune reclaimed and led
back to the paths of virtue. Such a man shall you pity
and hate, abhor yet love in the robber Moor."
Among the direct progeny of these grandiose villains are to be
included those of Lewis and Maturin, and the heroes of Scott and
Byron. We know them by their world-weariness, as well as by their
piercing eyes and passion-marked faces, their "verra wrinkles
Gothic." In _The Giaour_ we are told:
"Dark and unearthly is the scowl
That glares beneath his dusky cowl:
"The flash of that dilating eye
Reveals too much of times gone by.
Though varying, indistinct its hue
Oft will his glance the gazer rue."
Of the Corsair, it is said:
"There breathe but few whose aspect might defy
The full encounter of his searching eye."
Lara is drawn from the same model:
"That brow in furrowed lines had fixed at last
And spoke of passions, but of passions past;
The pride but not the fire of early days,
Coldness of mien, and carelessness of praise;
A high demeanour and a glance that took
Their thoughts from others by a single look."
The feminine counterpart of these bold impersonations of evil is
the tyrannical abbess who plays a part in _The Romance of the
Forest_ and in _The Italian_, and who was adopted and exaggerated
by Lewis, but her crimes are petty and malicious, not daring and
ambitious, like the schemes of Montoni and Schedoni.
One of Mrs. Radcliffe's contemporaries is said to have suggested
that if she wished to transcend the horror of the Inquisition
scenes in _The Italian_ she would have to visit hell itself. Like
her own heroines, Mrs. Radcliffe had too elegant and refined an
imagination and too fearful a heart to undertake so desperate a
journey. She would have recoiled with horror from the impious
suggestion. In _Gaston de Blondeville_, written in 1802, but
published posthumously with a memoir by Noon Talfourd, she
ventures to make one or two startling innovations. Her hero is no
longer a pale, romantic young man of gentle birth, but a stolid,
worthy merchant. Here, at last, she indulges in a substantial
spectre, who cannot be explained away as the figment of a
disordered imagination, since he seriously alarms, not a solitary
heroine or a scared lady's-maid, but Henry III. himself and his
assembled barons. Yet apart from this daring escapade, it is
timidity rather than the spirit of valorous enterprise that is
urging Mrs. Radcliffe into new and untried paths. Her happy,
courageous disregard for historical accuracy in describing
far-off scenes and bygone ages has deserted her. She searches
painfully in ancient records, instead of in her imagination, for
mediaeval atmosphere. Her story is grievously overburdened with
elaborate descriptions of customs and ceremonies, and she adds
laborious notes, citing passages from learned authorities, such
as Leland's _Collectanea_, Pegge's dissertation on the obsolete
office of Esquire of the King's Body, Sir George Bulke's account
of the coronation of Richard III., Mador's _History of the
Exchequer_, etc. We are transported from the eighteenth century,
not actually to mediaeval England, but to a carefully arranged
pageant displaying mediaeval costumes, tournaments and banquets.
The actors speak in antique language to accord with the
picturesque background against which they stand. _Gaston de
Blondeville_, which is noteworthy as an early attempt to shadow
forth the days of chivalry, has far more colour than Leland's
_Longsword_ (1752), Miss Reeve's _Old English Baron_ (1777), or
Miss Sophia Lee's _Recess_ (1785), from which rather than from
Mrs. Radcliffe's earlier romances its descent may be traced. The
attempt to avoid glaring anachronisms and to reproduce an
accurate picture of a former age points forward to Scott.
Strutt's _Queenhoo Hall_, which Scott completed, was a revolt
against the unscrupulous inventions of romance-writers, and was
crammed full of archaeological lore. The story of _Gaston de
Blondeville_ is tedious, the characters are shadowy and unreal,
and we become, as the Ettric Shepherd remarked, in _Noctes
Ambrosianae_, "somewhat too hand and glove with his ghostship";
yet, regarded simply as a spectacular effect, it is not without
indications of skill and power. Miss Mitford based a drama on it,
but it never attained the popularity of Mrs. Radcliffe's other
novels. It was published when her reputation was on the wane.
Of the materials on which Mrs. Radcliffe drew in fashioning her
romances it is impossible to speak with any certainty. Doubtless
she had studied certain old chronicles, and she was deeply read
in Shakespeare, especially in the tragedies. Much of her leisure,
we are told, was spent in reading the literary productions of the
day, especially poetry and novels. At the head of her chapters
she often quotes Milton as well as the poets of her own
century--Mason, Gray, Collins, and once "Ossian"--choosing almost
inevitably passages which deal with the terrible or the ghostly.
She must have known _The Castle of Otranto_, and in _The Italian_
she quotes several passages from Walpole's melodrama _The
Mysterious Mother_. But often she may have been dependent on the
oral legends clustering round ancient abbeys for the background
of her stories. Ghostly legends would always appeal to her, and
she probably amassed a hoard of traditions when she visited
English castles during her tours with her husband. The background
of _Gaston de Blondeville_ is Kenilworth Castle. That ancient
ruins stirred her imagination profoundly is clear from passages
in her notes on the journeys. In Furness Abbey she sees in her
mind's eye "a midnight procession of monks," and at Brougham
Castle:
"One almost saw the surly keeper descending through
this door-case and heard him rattle the keys of the
chamber above, listening with indifference to the clank
of chains and to the echo of that groan below which
seemed to rend the heart it burst from,"
or again:
"Slender saplings of ash waved over the deserted door
cases, where at the transforming hour of twilight, the
superstitious eye might mistake them for spectres of
some early possessor of the castle, restless from
guilt, or of some sufferer persevering for vengeance."
Mrs. Radcliffe's style compares favourably with that of many of
her contemporaries, with that of Mrs. Roche, for instance, who
wrote _The Children of the Abbey_ and an array of other forgotten
romances, but she is too fond of long, imperfectly balanced
sentences, with as many awkward twists and turns as the winding
stairways of her ancient turrets. Nobody in the novels, except
the talkative, comic servant, who is meant to be vulgar and
ridiculous, ever condescends to use colloquial speech. Even in
moments of extreme peril the heroines are very choice in their
diction. Dialogue in Mrs. Radcliffe's world is as stilted and
unnatural as that of prim, old-fashioned school books. In her
earliest novel she uses very little conversation, clearly finding
the indirect form of narrative easier. Sometimes, in the more
highly wrought passages of description, she slips unawares into a
more daring phrase, _e.g._ in _Udolpho_, the track of blood
"glared" upon the stairs, where the word suggests not the actual
appearance of the bloodstain, but rather its effect on Emily's
inflamed and disordered imagination. Dickens might have chosen
the word deliberately in this connection, but he would have used
it, not once, but several times to ensure his result and to
emphasise the impression. This is not Mrs. Radcliffe's way. Her
attention to style is mainly subconscious, her chief interest
being in situation. Her descriptions of scenery have often been
praised. Crabb Robinson declared in his diary that he preferred
them to those of _Waverley_. When Byron visited Venice he found
no better words to describe its beauty than those of Mrs.
Radcliffe, who had never seen it:
"I saw from out the wave her structures rise
As from the stroke of an enchanted wand."
In 1794 Mrs. Radcliffe and her husband made a journey through
Holland and West Germany, of which she wrote an account,
including with it observations made during a tour of the English
Lakes. All her novels, except _The Italian_ and _Gaston de
Blondeville_, had been written before she went abroad, and in
describing foreign scenery she relied on her imagination, aided
perhaps by pictures and descriptions as well as by her
recollections of English mountains and lakes. The attempt to
blend into a single picture a landscape actually seen and a
landscape only known at second-hand may perhaps account for the
lack of distinctness in her pictures. Her descriptions of scenery
are elaborate, and often prolix, but it is often difficult to
form a clear image of the scene. In her novels she cares for
landscape only as an effective background, and paints with the
broad, careless sweep of the theatrical scene-painter. In the
_Journeys_, where she depicts scenery for its own sake, her
delineation is more definite and distinct. She reveals an unusual
feeling for colour and for the lights and tones of a changing sea
or sky:
"It is most interesting to watch the progress of
evening and its effect on the waters; streaks of light
scattered among the dark, western clouds after the sun
had set, and gleaming in long reflection on the sea,
while a grey obscurity was drawing over the east, as
the vapours rose gradually from the ocean. The air was
breathless, the tall sails of the vessel were without
motion, and her course upon the deep scarcely
perceptible; while above the planet burned with steady
dignity and threw a tremulous line of light upon the
sea, whose surface flowed in smooth, waveless expanse.
Then other planets appeared and countless stars
spangled the dark waters. Twilight now pervaded air and
ocean, but the west was still luminous where one solemn
gleam of dusky red edged the horizon from under heavy
vapours."[37]
Sometimes her scenes are disappointingly vague. She describes
Ingleborough as "rising from elegantly swelling ground," and
attempts to convey a stretch of country by enumerating a list of
its features in generalised terms:
"Gentle swelling slopes, rich in verdure, thick
enclosures, woods, bowery hop-grounds, sheltered
mansions announcing the wealth, and substantial farms
with neat villages, the comfort of the country."
Yet she notices tiny mosses whose hues were "pea green and
primrose," and sometimes reveals flashes of imaginative insight
into natural beauty like "the dark sides of mountains marked only
by the blue smoke of weeds driven in circles near the ground."
These personal, intimate touches of detail are very different
from the highly coloured sunrises and sunsets that awaken the
raptures of her heroines.
With all her limitations, Mrs. Radcliffe is a figure whom it is
impossible to ignore in the history of the novel. Her influence
was potent on Lewis and on Maturin as well as on a host of
forgotten writers. Scott admired her works and probably owed
something in his craftsmanship to his early study of them. She
appeals most strongly in youth. The Ettrick Shepherd, who was by
nature and education "just excessive superstitious," declares:
"Had I read _Udolpho_ and her other romances in my
boyish days my hair would have stood on end like that
o' other folk ... but afore her volumes fell into my
hauns, my soul had been frichtened by a' kinds of
traditionary terrors, and many hunder times hae I maist
swarfed wi' fear in lonesome spots in muir and woods at
midnight when no a leevin thing was movin but mysel'
and the great moon."[38]
There are dull stretches in all her works, but, as Hazlitt justly
claims, "in harrowing up the soul with imaginary horrors, and
making the flesh creep and the nerves thrill with fond hopes and
fears, she is unrivalled among her countrymen."[39]
CHAPTER IV - THE NOVEL OF TERROR. LEWIS AND MATURIN.
To pass from the work of Mrs. Radcliffe to that of Matthew
Gregory Lewis is to leave "the novel of suspense," which depends
for part of its effect on the human instinct of curiosity, for
"the novel of terror," which works almost entirely on the even
stronger and more primitive instinct of fear. Those who find Mrs.
Radcliffe's unruffled pace leisurely beyond endurance, or who
dislike her coldly reasonable methods of accounting for what is
only apparently supernatural, or who sometimes feel stifled by
the oppressive air of gentility that broods over her romantic
world, will find ample reparation in the melodramatic pages of
"Monk" Lewis. Here, indeed, may those who will and dare sup full
with horrors. Lewis, in reckless abandonment, throws to the winds
all restraint, both moral and artistic, that had bound his
predecessor. The incidents, which follow one another in
kaleidoscopic variety, are like the disjointed phases of a
delirium or nightmare, from which there is no escape. We are
conscious that his story is unreal or even ludicrous, yet Lewis
has a certain dogged power of driving us unrelentingly through
it, regardless of our own will. Literary historians have tended
to over-emphasise the connection between Mrs. Radcliffe and
Lewis. Their purposes and achievement are so different that it is
hardly accurate to speak of them as belonging to the same school.
It is true that in one of his letters Lewis asserts that he was
induced to go on with his romance, _The Monk_, by reading _The
Mysteries of Udolpho_, "one of the most interesting books that
has (sic) ever been written," and that he was struck by the
resemblance of his own character to that of Montoni;[40] but his
literary debt to Mrs. Radcliffe is comparatively insignificant.
His depredations on German literature are much more serious and
extensive. Lewis, indeed, is one of the Dick Turpins of fiction
and seizes his booty where he will in a high-handed and somewhat
unscrupulous fashion, but for many of Mrs. Radcliffe's treasures
he could find no use. Her picturesque backgrounds, her ingenious
explanations of the uncanny, her uneventful interludes and long
deferred but happy endings were outside his province. The moments
in her novels which Lewis admired and strove to emulate were
those during which the reader with quickened pulse breathlessly
awaits some startling development. Of these moments, there are,
it must be frankly owned, few in Mrs. Radcliffe's novels. Lewis's
mistake lay in trying to induce a more rapid palpitation, and to
prolong it almost uninterruptedly throughout his novel. By
attempting a physical and mental impossibility he courts
disaster. Mrs. Radcliffe's skeletons are decently concealed in
the family cupboard, Lewis's stalk abroad in shameless publicity.
In Mrs. Radcliffe's stories, the shadow fades and disappears just
when we think we are close upon the substance; for, after we have
long been groping in the twilight of fearful imaginings, she
suddenly jerks back the shutter to admit the clear light of
reason. In Lewis's wonder-world there are no elusive shadows; he
hurls us without preparation or initiation into a daylight orgy
of horrors.
Lewis was educated at Westminster and Christ Church, but a year
spent in Weimar (1792-3), where he zealously studied German, and
incidentally, met Goethe, seems to have left more obvious marks
on his literary career. To Lewis, Goethe is pre-eminently the
author of _The Sorrows of Werther_; and Schiller, he remarks
casually, "has, written several other plays besides _The
Robbers."_[41] He probably read Heinse's _Ardinghello_(1787),
Tieck's _Abdallah_ (1792-3), and _William Lovell_ (1794-6), many
of the innumerable dramas of Kotzebue, the romances of Weit
Weber, and other specimens of what Carlyle describes as "the bowl
and dagger department," where
"Black Forests and Lubberland, sensuality and horror,
the spectre nun and the charmed moonshine, shall not be
wanting. Boisterous outlaws also, with huge whiskers,
and the most cat o' mountain aspect; tear-stained
sentimentalists, the grimmest man-eaters, ghosts and
the like suspicious characters will be found in
abundance."[42]
Throughout his life he seems to have made a hobby of the
literature that arouses violent emotion and mental excitement, or
lacerates the nerves, or shocks and startles. The lifelike and
the natural are not powerful enough for his taste, though some of
his _Romantic Tales_(1808), such as _My Uncle's Garret Window_,
are uncommonly tame. Like the painter of a hoarding who must at
all costs arrest attention, he magnifies, exaggerates and
distorts. Once when rebuked for introducing black guards into a
country where they did not exist, he is said to have declared
that he would have made them sky-blue if he thought they would
produce any more effect.[43] Referring to _The Monk_, he
confesses: "Unluckily, in working it up, I thought that the
stronger my colours, the more effect would my picture
produce."[44]
One of his early attempts at fiction was a romance which he later
converted into his popular drama, _The Castle Spectre_. This play
was staged in 1798, and was reconverted by Miss Sarah Wilkinson
in 1820 into a romance. Lewis spreads his banquet with a lavish
hand, and crudities and absurdities abound, but he has a knack of
choosing situations well adapted for stage effect. The play,
aptly described by Coleridge as a "peccant thing of Noise, Froth
and Impermanence,"[45] would offer a happy hunting ground to
those who delight in the pursuit of "parallel passages." At the
age of twenty, during his residence at the Hague as _attaché_ to
the British embassy, in the summer of 1794, he composed in ten
weeks, his notorious romance, _The Monk_. On its publication in
1795 it was attacked on the grounds of profanity and indecency.
_The Monk_, despite its cleverness, is essentially immature, yet
it is not a childish work. It is much less youthful, for
instance, than Shelley's _Zastrozzi_ and _St. Irvyne_. The
inflamed imagination, the violent exaggeration of emotion and of
character, the jeering cynicism and lack of tolerance, the
incoherent formlessness, are all indications of adolescence. In
_The Monk_ there are two distinct stories, loosely related. The
story of Raymond and Agnes, into which the legends of the
bleeding nun and Wandering Jew are woven with considerable skill,
was published more than once as a detached and separate work. It
is concerned with the fate of two unhappy lovers, who are parted
by the tyranny of their parents and of the church, and who endure
manifold agonies. The physical torture of Agnes is described in
revolting detail, for Lewis has no scruple in carrying the ugly
far beyond the limits within which it is artistic. The happy
ending of their harrowing story is incredible. By making
Ambrosio, on the verge of his hideous crimes, harshly condemn
Agnes for a sin of the same nature as that which he is about to
commit, Lewis forges a link between the two stories. But the
connection is superficial, and the novel suffers through the
distraction of our interest. In the story of Ambrosio, Antonia
plays no part in her own downfall. She is as helpless as a
plaster statue demolished by an earthquake. The figure of Matilda
has more vitality, though Lewis changes his mind about her
character during the course of the book, and fails to make her
early history consistent with the ending of his story. She is
certainly not in league with the devil, when, in a passionate
soliloquy, she cries to Ambrosio, whom she believes to be asleep:
"The time will come when you will be convinced that my passion is
pure and disinterested. Then you will pity me and feel the whole
weight of my sorrows." But when the devil appears, he declares to
Ambrosio:
"I saw that you were virtuous from vanity, not
principle, and I seized the fit moment for your
seduction. I observed your blind idolatry of the
Madonna's picture. I bade a subordinate but crafty
spirit assume a similar form, and you eagerly yielded
to the blandishments of Matilda."
The discrepancy is obvious, but this blemish is immaterial, for
the whole story is unnatural. The deterioration in Ambrosio's
character--though Lewis uses all his energy in striving to make
it appear probable by discussing the effect of environment--is
too swift.
Lewis is at his best when he lets his youthful, high spirits have
full play. His boyish exaggeration makes Leonella, Antonia's
aunt, seem like a pantomime character, who has inadvertently
stepped into a melodrama, but the caricature is amusing by its
very crudity. She writes in red ink to express "the blushes of
her cheek," when she sends a message of encouragement to the
Conde d'Ossori. This and other puerile jests are more tolerable
than Lewis's attempts to depict passion or describe character.
Bold, flaunting splashes of colour, strongly marked, passionate
faces, exaggerated gestures start from every page, and his style
is as extravagant as his imagery. Sometimes he uses a short,
staccato sentence to enforce his point, but more often we are
engulfed in a swirling welter of words. He delights in the
declamatory language of the stage, and all his characters speak
as if they were behind the footlights, shouting to the gallery.
A cold-blooded reviewer, in whom the detective instinct was
strong, indicated the sources of _The Monk_ so mercilessly, that
Lewis appears in his critique[46] rather as the perpetrator of a
series of ingenious thefts than as the creator of a novel:
"The outline of the Monk Ambrosio's story was suggested
by that of the Santon Barissa [Barsisa] in the
_Guardian_:[47] the form of temptation is borrowed from
_The Devil in Love_ of Canzotte [Cazotte], and the
catastrophe is taken from _The Sorcerer_. The
adventures of Raymond and Agnes are less obviously
imitations, yet the forest scene near Strasburg brings
to mind an incident in Smollett's _Count Fathom_; the
bleeding nun is described by the author as a popular
tale of the Germans,[48] and the convent prison
resembles the inflictions of Mrs. Radcliffe."
The industrious reviewer overlooks the legend of the Wandering
Jew, which might have been added to the list of Lewis's
"borrowings." It must be admitted that Lewis transforms, or at
least remodels, what he borrows. Addison's story relates how a
sage of reputed sanctity seduces and slays a maiden brought to
him for cure, and later sells his soul. Lewis abandons the
Oriental setting, converts the santon into a monk and embroiders
the story according to his fancy. Scott alludes to a Scottish
version of what is evidently a widespread legend.[49] The
resemblance of the catastrophe--presumably the appearance of
Satan in the form of Lucifer--to the scene in Mickle's
_Sorcerer_, which was published among Lewis's _Tales of Wonder_
(1801), is vague enough to be accidental. There are blue flames
and sorcery, and an apparition in both, but that is all the two
scenes have in common. The tyrannical abbess may be a heritage
from _The Romance of the Forest_, but, if so she is exaggerated
almost beyond recognition.
In fashioning as the villain of her latest novel, _The Italian_,
a monk, whose birth is wrapt in obscurity, Mrs. Radcliffe may
have been influenced by Lewis's _Monk_ which had appeared two
years before. Both Schedoni and Ambrosio are reputed saints, both
are plunged into the blackest guilt, and both are victims of the
Inquisition. Mrs. Radcliffe, it is true, recoils from introducing
the enemy of mankind, but, before the secrets are finally
revealed, we almost suspect Schedoni of having dabbled in the
Black Arts, and his actual crime falls short of our expectations.
The "explained supernatural" plays a less prominent part in _The
Italian_ than in the previous novels, and Mrs. Radcliffe relies
for her effect rather on sheer terror. The dramatic scene where
Schedoni stealthily approaches the sleeping Ellena at midnight
recalls the more highly coloured, but less impressive scene in
Antonia's bedchamber. The fate of Bianchi, Ellena's aunt, is
strangely reminiscent of that of Elvira, Antonia's mother. The
convent scenes and the overbearing abbess had been introduced
into Mrs. Radcliffe's earlier novels; but in _The Italian_, the
anti-Roman feeling is more strongly emphasised than usual. This
may or may not have been due to the influence of Lewis. There is
no direct evidence that Mrs. Radcliffe had read _The Monk_, but
the book was so notorious that a fellow novelist would be almost
certain to explore its pages. Hoffmann's romance, _Elixir des
Teufels_ (1816), is manifestly written under its inspiration.
Coincidence could not account for the remarkable resemblances to
incidents in the story of Ambrosio.
The far-famed collection of _Tales of Terror_ appeared in 1799,
_The Tales of Wonder_ in 1801. The rest of Lewis's work consists
mainly of translations and adaptations from the German. He
revelled in the horrific school of melodrama. He delighted in the
kind of German romance parodied by Meredith in _Farina_, where
Aunt Lisbeth tells Margarita of spectres, smelling of murder and
the charnel-breath of midnight, who "uttered noises that wintered
the blood and revealed sights that stiffened hair three feet
long; ay, and kept it stiff." _The Bravo of Venice_ (1805) is a
translation of Zschokke's _Abellino, der Grosse Bandit_, but
Lewis invented a superfluous character, Monaldeschi, Rosabella's
destined bridegroom, apparently with the object that Abellino
might slay him early in the story--and added a concluding
chapter. At the outset of the story, Rosalvo, a man after Lewis's
own heart, declares:
"To astonish is my destiny: Rosalvo knows no medium: Rosalvo can
never act like common men," and thereupon proceeds to prove by
his extraordinary actions that this is no idle vaunt. He lives a
double life: in the guise of Abellino, he joins the banditti, and
by inexplicable methods rids Venice of her enemies; in the guise
of a noble Florentine, Flodoardo, he woos the Doge's daughter,
Rosabella. The climax of the story is reached when Flodoardo,
under oath to deliver up the bandit Abellino, appears before the
Doge at the appointed hour and reveals his double identity. He is
hailed as the saviour of Hungary, and wins Rosabella as his
bride. In the second edition of _The Bravo of Venice_, a romance
in four volumes by M. G. Lewis, _Legends of the Nunnery_, is
announced as in the press. There seems to be no record of it
elsewhere. _Feudal Tyrants_ (1806), a long romance from the
German, connected with the story of William Tell, consists of a
series of memoirs loosely strung together, in which the most
alarming episode is the apparition of the pale spectre of an aged
monk. In _Blanche and Osbright, or Mistrust_ (1808),[50] which is
not avowedly a translation, Lewis depicts an even more revolting
portrait than that of Abellino in his bravo's disguise. He adds
detail after detail without considering the final effect on the
eye:
"Every muscle in his gigantic form seemed convulsed by
some horrible sensation; the deepest gloom darkened
every feature; the wind from the unclosed window
agitated his raven locks, and every hair appeared to
writhe itself. His eyeballs glared, his teeth
chattered, his lips trembled; and yet a smile of
satisfied vengeance played horribly around them. His
complexion seemed suddenly to be changed to the dark
tincture of an African; the expression of his
countenance was dreadful, was diabolical. Magdalena, as
she gazed upon his face, thought that she gazed upon a
demon."
Here, to quote the Lady Hysterica Belamour, we have surely the
"horrid, horrible, horridest horror." But in _Königsmark the
Robber, or The Terror of Bohemia_ (1818), Lewis's caste includes
an enormous yellow-eyed spider, a wolf who changes into a peasant
and disappears amid a cloud of sulphur, and a ghost who sheds
three ominous drops of boiling blood. It was probably such
stories as this that Peacock had in mind when he declared,
through Mr. Flosky, that the devil had become "too base and
popular" for the surfeited appetite of readers of fiction. Yet,
as Carlyle once exclaimed of the German terror-drama, as
exemplified in Kotzebue, Grillparzer and Klingemann, whose
stock-in-trade is similar to that of Lewis: "If any man wish to
amuse himself irrationally, here is the ware for his money."[51]
Byron, who had himself attempted in _Oscar and Alva_ (_Hours of
Idleness_, 1807) a ballad in the manner of Lewis, describes with
irony the triumphs of terror:
"Oh! wonderworking Lewis! Monk or Bard,
Who fain would make Parnassus a churchyard!
Lo! wreaths of yew, not laurel, bind thy brow,
Thy muse a sprite, Apollo's sexton thou;
Whether on ancient tombs thou tak'st thy stand,
By gibbering spectres hailed, thy kindred band;
Or tracest chaste descriptions on thy page
To please the females of our modest age;
All hail, M.P., from whose infernal brain
Thin-sheeted phantoms glide, a grisly train;
At whose command 'grim women' throng in crowds
And kings of fire, of water, and of clouds
With small grey men--wild yagers and what not,
To crown with honour thee and Walter Scott;
Again, all hail! if tales like thine may please,
St. Luke alone can vanquish the disease.
Even Satan's self with thee might dread to dwell,
And in thy skull discern a deeper hell!"[52]
Scott's delightfully discursive review of _The Fatal Revenge or
The Family of Montorio_ (1810), not only forms a fitting
introduction to the romances of Maturin, but presents a lively
sketch of the fashionable reading of the day. It has been
insinuated that the _Quarterly Review_ was too heavy and serious,
that it contained, to quote Scott's own words, "none of those
light and airy articles which a young lady might read while her
hair was papering." To redeem the reputation of the journal,
Scott gallantly undertook to review some of the "flitting and
evanescent productions of the times." After a laborious
inspection of the contents of a hamper full of novels, he arrived
at the painful conclusion that "spirits and patience may be as
completely exhausted in perusing trifles as in following
algebraical calculations." He condemns the authors of the Gothic
romance, not for their extravagance, a venial offence, but for
their monotony, a deadly sin.
"We strolled through a variety of castles, each of
which was regularly called Il Castello; met with as
many captains of condottieri, heard various
ejaculations of Santa Maria and Diabolo; read by a
decaying lamp and in a tapestried chamber dozens of
legends as stupid as the main history; examined such
suites of deserted apartments as might set up a
reasonable barrack, and saw as many glimmering lights
as would make a respectable illumination." It was no
easy task to bore Sir Walter Scott, and an excursion
into the byeways of early nineteenth century fiction
proves abundantly the justice of his satire. Such
novelists as Miss Sarah Wilkinson or Mrs. Eliza
Parsons, whose works were greedily devoured by
circulating library readers a hundred years ago,
deliberately concocted an unappetising gallimaufry of
earlier stories and practised the harmless deception of
serving their insipid dishes under new and imposing
names. A writer in the _Annual Review_, so early as
1802, complains in criticising _Tales of Superstition
and Chivalry_:
"It is not one of the least objections against these
fashionable fictions that the imagery of them is
essentially monstrous. Hollow winds, clay-cold hands,
clanking chains and clicking clocks, with a few similar
etcetera are continually tormenting us."
Tales of terror were often issued in the form of sixpenny
chapbooks, enlivened by woodcuts daubed in yellow, blue, red and
green. Embellished with these aids to the imagination, they were
sold in thousands. To the readers of a century ago, a "blue book"
meant, as Medwin explains in his life of Shelley, not a pamphlet
filled with statistics, but "a sixpenny shocker."[53] The
notorious Minerva Press catered for wealthier patrons, and, it is
said, sold two thousand copies of Mrs. Bennett's _Beggar Girl and
her Benefactors_ on the day of publication, at thirty-six
shillings for the seven volumes. Samuel Rogers recalled Lane, the
head of the firm, riding in a carriage and pair with two footmen,
wearing gold cockades.[54] Scott was careful not to disclose the
names of the novelists he derided, but his hamper probably
contained a selection of Mrs. Parsons' sixty works, and perhaps
two of Miss Wilkinson's, with their alluring titles, _The Priory
of St. Clair, or The Spectre of the Murdered Nun_; _The Convent
of the Grey Penitents, or The Apostate Nun_. Perchance, he found
there Mrs. Henrietta Rouvière's romance, (published in the same
year as _Montorio_,) _A Peep at our Ancestors_ (1807), describing
the reign of King Stephen. Mrs. Rouvière, in her preface,
"flatters herself that, aided by records and documents,
she may have succeeded in a correct though faint sketch
of the times she treats, and in affording, if through a
dim yet not distorted nor discoloured glass, A Peep at
our Ancestors";
but her story is entirely devoid of the colour with which Mrs.
Radcliffe, her model, contrived to decorate the past. It is,
moreover, written in a style so opaque that it obscures her
images from view as effectually as a piece of ground glass. To
describe the approach of twilight--an hour beloved by writers of
romance--she attempts a turgid paraphrase of Gray's Elegy:
"The grey shades of an autumnal evening gradually stole
over the horizon, progressively throwing a duskier hue
on the surrounding objects till glimmering confusion
encompassing the earth shut from the accustomed eye the
well-known view, leaving conjecture to mark its
boundaries."
The adventures of Adelaide and her lover, Walter of Gloucester,
are so insufferably tedious that Scott doubtless decided to
"leave to conjecture" their interminable vicissitudes. The names
of other novels, whose pages he may impatiently have scanned, may
be garnered by those who will, from such works as _Living
Authors_ (1817), or from the four volumes of Watts' elaborate
compilation, the _Bibliotheca Britannica_ (1824). The titles are,
indeed, lighter and more entertaining reading than the books
themselves. Anyone might reasonably expect to read _Midnight
Horrors, or The Bandit's Daughter_, as Henry Tilney vows he read
_The Mysteries of Udolpho_, with "hair on end all the time"; but
the actual story, notwithstanding a wandering ball of fire, that
acts as guide through the labyrinths of a Gothic castle, is
conducive of sleep rather than shudders. The notoriety of Lewis's
monk may be estimated by the procession of monks who followed in
his train. There were, to select a few names at random, _The New
Monk_, by one R.S., Esq.; _The Monk of Madrid_, by George Moore
(1802); _The Bloody Monk of Udolpho_, by T.J. Horsley Curties;
_Manfroni, the One-handed Monk_, whose history was borrowed,
together with those of Abellino, the terrific bravo, and Rinaldo
Rinaldini,[55] by "J.J." from Miss Flinders' library;[56] and
lastly, as a counter-picture, a monk without a scowl, _The
Benevolent Monk_, by Theodore Melville (1807). The nuns,
including "Rosa Matilda's" _Nun of St. Omer's_, Miss Sophia
Francis's _Nun of Misericordia_ (1807) and Miss Wilkinson's
_Apostate Nun_, would have sufficed to people a convent. Perhaps
_The Convent of the Grey Penitents_ would have been a suitable
abode for them; but most of them were, to quote Crabbe, "girls no
nunnery can tame." Lewis's Venetian bravo was boldly transported
to other climes. We find him in Scotland in _The Mysterious
Bravo_, or _The Shrine of St. Alstice, A Caledonian Legend_, and
in Austria in _The Bravo of Bohemia or The Black Forest_. No
country is safe from the raids of banditti. _The Caledonian
Banditti_ or _The Banditti of the Forest_, or _The Bandit of
Florence_--all very much alike in their manners and morals--make
the heroine's journey a perilous enterprise. The romances of Mrs.
Radcliffe were rifled unscrupulously by the snappers-up of
unconsidered trifles, and many of the titles are variations on
hers. In emulation of _The Romance of the Forest_ we find George
Walker's _Romance of the Cavern_ (1792) and Miss Eleanor Sleath's
_Mysteries of the Forest_. Novelists appreciated the magnetic
charm of the word "mystery" on a title-page, and after _The
Mysteries of Udolpho_ we find such seductive names as _Mysterious
Warnings_ and _Mysterious Visits_, by Mrs. Parsons; _Horrid
Mysteries_, translated from the German of the Marquis von Grosse,
by R. Will (1796); _The Mystery of the Black Tower_ and _The
Mystic Sepulchre_, by John Palmer, a schoolmaster of Bath; _The
Mysterious Wanderer_ (1807), by Miss Sophia Reeve; _The
Mysterious Hand or Subterranean Horrors_ (1811), by A.J.
Randolph; and _The Mysterious Freebooter_ (1805), by Francis
Lathom. Castles and abbeys were so persistently haunted that Mrs.
Rachel Hunter, a severely moral writer, advertises one of her
stories as _Letitia: A Castle Without a Spectre_. Mystery slips,
almost unawares, into the domestic story. There are, for
instance, vague hints of it in Charlotte Smith's _Old Manor
House_ (1793). The author of _The Ghost_ and of _More Ghosts_
adopts the pleasing pseudonym of Felix Phantom. The gloom of
night broods over many of the stories, for we know:
"affairs that walk,
As they say spirits do, at midnight, have
In them a wilder nature than the business
That seeks despatch by day,"
and we are confronted with titles like _Midnight Weddings_, by
Mrs. Meeke, one of Macaulay's favourite "bad-novel writers," _The
Midnight Bell_, awakening memories of Duncan's murder, by George
Walker, or _The Nocturnal Minstrel_ (1809), by Miss Sleath. These
"dismal treatises" abound in reminiscences of Mrs. Radcliffe and
of "Monk" Lewis, and many of them hark back as far as _The Castle
of Otranto_ for some of their situations. The novels of Miss
Wilkinson may perhaps serve as well as those of any of her
contemporaries to show that Scott was not unduly harsh in his
condemnation of the romances fashionable in the first decade of
the nineteenth century, when "tales of terror jostle on the
road."[57] The sleeping potion, a boon to those who weave the
intricate pattern of a Gothic romance, is one of Miss Wilkinson's
favourite devices, and is employed in at least three of her
stories. In _The Chateau de Montville_ (1803) it is administered
to the amiable Louisa to aid Augustine in his sinister designs,
but she ultimately escapes, and is wedded by Octavius, who has
previously been borne off by a party of pirates. He "finds the
past unfortunate vicissitudes of his life amply recompensed by
her love." In _The Convent of the Grey Penitents_, Rosalthe
happily avoids the opiate, as she overhears the plans of her
unscrupulous husband, who, it seems, has "an unquenchable thirst
of avarice," and desires to win a wealthier bride. She flees to a
"cottage ornée" on Finchley Common, the home, it may be
remembered, of Thackeray's Washerwoman; and the thrills we expect
from a novel of terror are reserved for the second volume, and
arise out of the adventures of the next generation. After
Rosalthe's death, spectres, blue flames, corpses, thunderstorms
and hairbreadth escapes are set forth in generous profusion.
In _The Priory of St. Clair_ (1811), Julietta, who has been
forced into a convent against her will, like so many other
heroines, is drugged and conveyed as a corpse to the Count de
Valvé's Gothic castle. She comes to life only to be slain before
the high altar, and revenges herself after death by haunting the
count regularly every night. _The Fugitive Countess or Convent of
St. Ursula_ (1807) contains three spicy ingredients--a mock
burial, a concealed wife and a mouldering manuscript. The social
status of Miss Wilkinson's characters is invariably lofty, for no
self-respecting ghost ever troubles the middle classes; and her
manner is as ambitious as her matter. Her personages, in _Lopez
and Aranthe_, behave and talk thus:
"Heavenly powers!" exclaimed Aranthe, "it is Dorimont, or else my
eyes deceive me!" Overpowered with surprise and almost
breathless, she sunk on the carpet. Lopez stood aghast, his
countenance was of a deadly pale, a glass of wine he had in his
hand he let fall to the floor, while he articulated: "What an
alteration in that once beauteous countenance!"
Miss Wilkinson's sentences stagger and lurch uncertainly, but she
delights in similes and other ornaments of style:
"Adeline Barnett was fair as a lily, tall as the pine,
her fine dark eyes sparkling as diamonds, and she moved
with the majestic air of a goddess, but pride and
ambition appeared on the brow of this famed maiden, and
destroying the effect of her charms."
She is, in fact, more addicted to "gramarye" than to
"grammar"--the fault with which Byron, in a note to _English
Bards and Scotch Reviewers_, charged the hero and heroine of
Scott's _Lay of the Last Minstrel_. Her heroes do not merely
love, they are "enamoured to a romantic degree." Her arbours are
"composed of jasmine, white rose, and other odoriferous sweets of
Flora." She sprinkles French phrases with an airy nonchalance
worthy of the Lady Hysterica Belamour, whose memoirs are included
in Barrett's _Heroine_. Her duchesses "figure away with
_éclat_"--"a party _quarrie_ assemble at their _dejeune_." It is
noteworthy that by 1820 even Miss Wilkinson had learnt to despise
the spectres in whom she had gloried during her amazing career.
In _The Spectre of Lanmere Abbey_ (1820) the ghost is
ignominiously exposed, and proved to be "a tall figure dressed in
white, and a long, transparent veil flowing over her whole
figure," while the heroine Amelia speaks almost in the accents of
Catherine Morland:
"My governess has been affirming that there are Gothic
buildings without spectres or legends of a ghostly
nature attached to them; now, what is a castle or abbey
worth without such appendage?; do tell me candidly, are
none of the turrets of your old family mansion in
Monmouth rendered thus terrific by some unquiet,
wandering spirit?, dare the peasantry pass it after
twilight, or if they are forced into that temerity, do
not their teeth chatter, their hair stand erect and
their poor knees knock together?"
That Miss Wilkinson, who, for twenty years, had conscientiously
striven to chill her readers' blood, should be compelled at last
to turn round and gibe at her own spectres, reveals into what a
piteous plight the novel of terror had fallen. When even the
enchantress disavowed her belief in them, the ghosts must surely
have fled shrieking and affrighted and thought never more to
raise their diminished heads.
From a medley of novels, similar to those of Miss Wilkinson,
Scott singled out for commendation _The Fatal Revenge or The
Family of Montorio_, by "Jasper Denis Murphy," or the Rev.
Charles Robert Maturin. Amid the chaos of horror into which
Maturin hurls his readers, Scott shrewdly discerned the spirit
and animation which, though often misdirected, pervade his whole
work. The story is but a grotesque distortion of life, yet Scott
found himself "insensibly involved in the perusal and at times
impressed with no common degree of respect for the powers of the
author." His generous estimate of Maturin's gifts and his
prediction of future success is the more impressive, because _The
Fatal Revenge_ undeniably belongs to the very class of novels he
was ridiculing.
Maturin was an eccentric Irish clergyman, who diverted himself by
weaving romances and constructing tragedies. He loved to mingle
with the gay and frivolous; he affected foppish attire, and
prided himself on his exceptional skill in dancing. His
indulgence in literary work was probably but another expression
of his longing to escape from the strait and narrow way
prescribed for a Protestant clergyman. Wild anecdotes are told of
his idiosyncrasies.[58] He preferred to compose his stories in a
room full of people, and he found a noisy argument especially
invigorating. To prevent himself from taking part in the
conversation, he used to cover his mouth with paste composed of
flour and water. Sometimes, we are told, he would wear a red
wafer upon his brow, as a signal that he was enduring the throes
of literary composition and expected forbearance and
consideration. It is said that he once missed preferment in the
church because he absentmindedly interviewed his prospective
vicar with his head bristling with quills like a porcupine. He is
said to have insisted on his wife's using rouge though she had
naturally a high colour, and to have gone fishing in a
resplendent blue coat and silk stockings. Such was the flamboyant
personality of the man whose first novel attracted the kindly
attention of Scott. His oddities, which would have rejoiced the
heart of Dickens, are not without significance in a study of his
literary work, for his love of emphasis and exaggeration are
reflected in both the substance and style of his novels.
Maturin's writings fall into three periods. Of his three early
novels, _The Fatal Revenge or The Family of Montorio_ (1807),
_The Wild Irish Boy_ (1808) and _The Milesian Chief_ (1812), the
first only is a tale of horror. _The Wild Irish Boy_ is a
domestic story, and forms a suitable companion for Lady Morgan's
_Wild Irish Girl_. _The Milesian Chief_ is a historical novel,
and is now chiefly remembered on account of the likeness of the
opening chapters to Scott's _Bride of Lammermoor_ (1819). After
the publication of these novels, Maturin turned his attention to
the stage. His first tragedy, _Bertram_ (1816), received the
encouragement of Scott and Byron. The character of Bertram is
modelled on that of Schiller's robber-chief, Karl von Moor, who
captivated the imagination of Coleridge himself, and who is
reflected in _Osorio_ and perhaps in Mrs. Radcliffe's villains.
The action of the melodrama moves swiftly, and abounds in the
"moving situations" Maturin loved to handle. _Bertram_ was
succeeded in 1817 by _Manuel_, and in 1819 by _Fredolfo_.
Meanwhile Maturin had returned to novel-writing. _Women, or Pour
et Contre_, with its lifelike sketches of Puritanical society and
clever characterisation, appeared in 1818, and was favourably
reviewed by Scott.[59] _Melmoth the Wanderer_, Maturin's
masterpiece, was published in 1820, and was succeeded in 1824 by
his last work, _The Albigenses_, a historical romance, following
Scott's design rather than that of Mrs. Radcliffe.
In reviewing _The Family of Montorio_, Scott prudently attempted
only a brief survey of the plot, and forsook Maturin's sequence
of events. In his sketch the outline of the story is
comparatively clear. In the novel itself we wander, bewildered,
baffled and distracted through labyrinthine mazes. No Ariadne
awaits on the threshold with the magic ball of twine to guide us
through the complicated windings. We stumble along blind alleys
desperately retracing our weary steps, and, after stumbling alone
and unaided to the very end, reach the darkly concealed clue when
it has ceased to be either of use or of interest to us. Many an
adventurer must have lain down, dispirited and exhausted, without
ever reaching his distant and elusive goal. Disentangled and
simplified almost beyond recognition, the story runs thus: In
1670, Count Orazio and his younger brother are the sole
representatives of the family of Montorio. Orazio has married
Erminia di Vivaldi, whom he loves devotedly. She does not return
his love. The younger brother determines to take advantage of
this circumstance to gain the title and estates for himself, and
succeeds in arousing Orazio's jealousy against a young officer,
Verdoni, to whom Erminia had formerly been deeply attached. In a
violent passion Orazio slays Verdoni before the eyes of Erminia,
who falls dead at his feet. This part of his design accomplished,
the younger brother plots to murder Orazio himself, who, however,
discovers the innocence of his wife and the hideous perfidy of
his brother. Temporarily bereft of reason, Orazio sojourns alone
on a desert island. When his senses are restored, he resolves to
devote the rest of his life to vengeance. For fifteen years he
buries himself in occult studies, and when his diabolical schemes
have matured, returns, disguised as the monk Schemoli, to the
scene of the murder. He becomes confessor to his brother, who has
assumed the title and estates. It is his intention to compel the
Count's sons, Annibal and Ippolito, to murder their father. Death
at the hands of parricides seems to him the only appropriate
catastrophe for the Count's career of infamy. To reconcile the
two victims--Annibal and Ippolito--to their task, he "relies
mainly on the doctrine of fatalism." The most complex and
ingenious "machinery" is used to work upon their superstitious
feelings. No device is too tortuous if it aid his purpose. Even
the pressure of the Inquisition is brought to bear on one of the
brothers. Each, after protracted agony, submits to his destiny,
and the swords of the two brothers meet in the Count's body. When
the murder is safely accomplished, it is proved that Annibal and
Ippolito are the sons, not of the Count, but of Schemoli and
Erminia. By the irony of fate the knowledge comes too late for
Schemoli to save his children from the crime. At the close of a
lengthy trial the two brothers are released, but deprived of
their lands. Ultimately they die fighting in the siege of
Barcelona. Schemoli perishes, in the approved Gothic manner, by
self-administered poison. Intertwined with the main theme of
Schemoli's fatal revenge are the love-stories of the two
brothers. Rosolia, a nun, who seems to have been acquainted with
Shakespeare's comedies, disguises herself as a page, and devotes
her life to the service of Ippolito and to the composition of
sentimental verses. She only reveals her sex just before her
death, though we have guessed it from her first appearance.
Ildefonsa, who is beloved of Annibal, has been forced into a
convent against her will--a fate almost inevitable in the realm
of Gothic romance. When letters are received authorising her
release from the vows, a pitiless mother-superior reports that
she is dead. She is immured, but an earthquake sets her free, for
Maturin will move heaven and earth to effect his purposes. The
ill-fated maiden dies shortly afterwards. Ere the close it proves
that Ildefonsa was the daughter of Erminia, who had been secretly
married to Verdoni before her union with Orazio. Such is the
skeleton of Maturin's story, when its scattered members have been
patiently collected and fitted together. The impressive figure of
Schemoli, with his unholy power of fascinating his reluctant
accomplices, lends to the book the only sort of unity it
possesses. But even he fails to arouse a sense of fear strong
enough to fix our attention to so wandering a story. Like the
doomed brothers, we drift dejectedly through inexplicable
terrors, and we re-echo with fervour Annibal's dolorous cry:
"Why should I be shut up in this house of horrors to
deal with spirits and damned things and the secrets of
the infernal world while there are so many paths open
to pleasure, the varieties of human intercourse and the
enjoyment of life?"
Maturin, a disciple of Mrs. Radcliffe, feels it his duty to
explain away the apparently miraculous incidents in his story,
but he lacks the persevering ingenuity that partly compensates
for her frauds. On a single page he calmly discloses secrets
which have harassed us for four volumes, and his long-deferred
explanations are paltry and incredible. The bleeding figures that
wrought so painfully on the sensitive nerves of Ippolito are
merely waxen images that spout blood automatically.
Disappearances and reappearances, which seemed supernatural, are
simply effected by private exits and entrances. Other startling
phenomena are accounted for in the same trivial fashion.
Maturin seems to have crowded into his story nearly every
character and incident that had been employed in earlier Gothic
romances. Schemoli is a remarkably faithful portrait of Mrs.
Radcliffe's Schedoni. From beneath his cowl flash the piercing
eyes, whose very glance will daunt the bravest heart; his sallow
visage is furrowed with the traces of bygone passions; he shuns
society, and is dreaded by his associates. The oppressed maiden,
driven into a nunnery, drugged and immured, the ambitious
countess, the devoted, loquacious servant, the inhuman
abbess--all play their accustomed parts. The background shifts
from the robber's den to the ruined chapel, from the castle vault
to the dungeon of the Inquisition, each scene being admirably
suited to the situation contrived, or the emotion displayed.
Maturin had accurately inspected the passages and trap-doors of
Otranto. No item, not a rusty lock, not a creaking hinge, had
escaped his vigilant eye. He knew intimately every nook and
cranny of Mrs. Radcliffe's Gothic abbeys. He had viewed with
trepidation their blood-stained floors, their skeletons and
corpses, and had carefully calculated the psychological effect of
these properties. He had gazed with starting eye on the lurid
horrors of "Monk" Lewis, and had carried away impressions so
distinct that he, perhaps unwittingly, transferred them to the
pages of his own story. But Maturin's reading was not strictly
confined to the school of terror. He had studied Shakespeare's
tragedies, and these may have suggested to him the idea of
enhancing the interest of his story by dissecting human motive
and describing passionate feeling. In depicting the remorse of
the count and his wife Zenobia, who had committed a murder to
gratify their ambition, and who are tormented by ugly dreams,
Maturin inevitably draws from _Macbeth_. Zenobia, the stronger
character, reviles her husband for indulging in sickly fancies
and strives to embolden him:
"Like a child you run from a mask you have yourself painted."
He replies in a free paraphrase of _Hamlet_:
"It is this cursed domestic sensibility of guilt that makes
cowards
of us all."
Maturin is distinguished from the incompetent horde of
romance-writers, whom Scott condemned, by the powerful eloquence
of his style and by his ability to analyse emotion, to write as
if he himself were swayed by the feeling he describes. His insane
extravagances have at least the virtue that they come flaming hot
from an excited imagination. The passage quoted by
Scott--Orazio's attempt to depict his state of mind after he had
heard of his brother's perfidy--may serve to illustrate the force
and vigour of his language:
"Oh! that midnight darkness of the soul in which it
seeks for something whose loss has carried away every
sense but one of utter and desolate deprivation; in
which it traverses leagues in motion and worlds in
thought without consciousness of relief, yet with a
dread of pausing. I had nothing to seek, nothing to
recover; the whole world could not restore me an atom,
could not show me again a glimpse of what I had been or
lost, yet I rushed on as if the next step would reach
shelter and peace."
_Melmoth the Wanderer_ has found many admirers. It fascinated
Rossetti,[60] Thackeray[61] and Miss Mitford.[62] It was praised
by Balzac, who wrote a satirical sequel--_Melmoth Reconcilié à
L'Eglise_ (1835), and by Baudelaire, and exercised a considerable
influence on French literature.[63] It consists of a series of
tales, strung together in a complicated fashion. In each tale the
Wanderer, who has bartered his soul in return for prolonged life,
may, if he can, persuade someone to take the bargain off his
hands.[64] He visits those who are plunged in despair. His
approach is heralded by strange music, and his eyes have a
preternatural lustre that terrifies his victims. No one will
agree to his "incommunicable condition."
The bird's-eye view of an Edinburgh Reviewer who described
_Melmoth_ as "the sacrifice of Genius in the Temple of False
Taste," will give some idea of the bewildering variety of its
contents:
"His hero is a modern Faustus, who has bartered his
soul with the powers of darkness for protracted life
and unlimited worldly enjoyment; his heroine, a species
of insular goddess, a virgin Calypso of the Indian
Ocean, who, amid flowers and foliage, lives upon figs
and tamarinds, associates with peacocks and monkeys, is
worshipped by the occasional visitants of her island,
finds her way into Spain where she is married to the
aforesaid hero by the hand of a dead hermit, the ghost
of a murdered domestic being the witness of her
nuptials; and finally dies in a dungeon of the
Inquisition at Madrid. To complete this phantasmagoric
exhibition, we are presented with sybils and misers,
parricides, maniacs in abundance, monks with scourges
pursuing a naked youth streaming with blood;
subterranean Jews surrounded by the skeletons of their
wives and children; lovers blasted by lightning, Irish
hags, Spanish grandees, shipwrecks, caverns, Donna
Claras and Donna Isidoras--all exposed to each other in
violent and glaring contrast and all their adventures
narrated with the same undeviating display of turgid,
vehement, and painfully elaborated language."[65]
This breathless sentence gives some conception of the delirious
imagery of Maturin's romance, but the book is worthy of a more
respectful, unhurried survey. _Melmoth_ shows a distinct advance
on _Montorio_ in constructive power. Each separate story is
perfectly clear and easy to follow, in spite of the elaborate
interlacing. The romance opens with the death of a miser in a
desolate Irish farmstead, with harpies clustering at his bedside.
His nephew and heir, John Melmoth, is adjured to destroy a
certain manuscript and a portrait of an ancestor with eyes "such
as one feels they wish they had never seen and feels they can
never forget." Alone at midnight, John Melmoth reads the
manuscript, which is reputed to have been written by Stanton, an
English traveller in Spain, about 1676. The document relates a
startling story of a mysterious Englishman who appears at a
Spanish wedding with disastrous consequences, and reappears
before Stanton in a madhouse offering release on dreadful
conditions. After reading it, John Melmoth decides to burn the
family portrait. He is visited by a sinister form, who proves
that he is no figment of the imagination by leaving black and
blue marks on his relative's wrist. The next night a ship is
wrecked in a storm. The Wanderer appears, and mocks the victims
with fiendish mirth. The sole survivor, Don Alonzo Monçada,
unfolds his story to John Melmoth. The son of a great duke, he
has been forced to become a monk to save his mother's honour. He
dwells with the excruciating detail in which Maturin is inclined
to revel, on the horrors of Spanish monasteries. Escaping through
a subterranean passage, he is guided by a parricide, who
incidentally tells him a loathsome story of two immured lovers.
His plan of flight is foiled, and he is borne off to the dungeons
of the Inquisition. Here the Wanderer, who has a miraculous power
to enter where he will, offers, on the ineffable condition, to
procure his freedom. Monçada repudiates the temptation, effects
his own escape during a great fire, and catches sight of the
stranger on the summit of a burning building. He takes refuge
with a Jew, but, to evade the vigilance of the Inquisitors,
disappears suddenly down an underground passage, where he finds
Adonijah, another Jew, who obligingly employs him as an
amanuensis, and sets him to copy a manuscript. This gives Maturin
the opportunity, for which he has been waiting, to introduce his
"Tale of the Indian." The story of Immalee, who is visited on her
desert island by the Wanderer in the guise of a lover as well as
a tempter, forms the most memorable part of _Melmoth_. In the
other stories the stranger has been a taciturn creature, relying
on the lustre of his eyes rather than on his powers of eloquence
to win over his victims. To Immalee he pours forth floods of
rhetoric on the sins and follies of mankind. Had she not been one
of Rousseau's children of nature, and so innocent alike of a
knowledge of Shakespeare and of the fault of impatience, she
would surely have exclaimed: "If thou hast news, I prithee
deliver them like a man of this world." When Immalee is
transported to Spain and reassumes her baptismal name of Isidora,
Melmoth follows her and their conversations are continued at dead
of night through the lattice. Here they discourse on the real
nature of love. At length the gloomy lover persuades Isidora to
marry him. Their midnight nuptials take place against a weird
background. By a narrow, precipitous path they approach the
ruined chapel, and are united by a hand "as cold as that of
death." Meanwhile, Don Francisco, Isidora's father, on his way
home, spends the night at an inn, where a stranger insists on
telling him "The Tale of Guzman." In this tale the tempter visits
a father whose family is starving, but who resists the lure of
wealth. Maturin portrays with extraordinary power the
deterioration in the character of an old man Walberg, through the
effects of poverty. At the close of the narration Don Francisco
falls into a deep slumber, but is sternly awakened by a stranger
with an awful eye, who insists on becoming his fellow traveller,
and on telling, in defiance of protests, yet another story. The
prologue to the Lover's Tale is almost Chaucerian in its humour:
"It was with the utmost effort of his mixed politeness
and fear that he prepared himself to listen to the
tale, which the stranger had frequently amid their
miscellaneous conversation, alluded to, and showed an
evident anxiety to relate. These allusions were
attended with unpleasant reminiscences to the
hearer--but he saw that it was to be, and armed himself
as best he might with courage to hear. 'I would not
intrude on you, Senhor,' says the stranger, 'with a
narrative in which you can feel but little interest,
were I not conscious that its narration may operate as
a warning, the most awful, salutary and efficacious to
yourself.'"
At this veiled hint Don Francisco discharges a volley of oaths,
but he is silenced completely by the smile of the stranger--"that
spoke bitterer and darker things than the fiercest frown that
ever wrinkled the features of man." After this he cannot choose
but hear, and the stranger seizes his opportunity to begin an
uncommonly dull story, connected with a Shropshire family and
intermingled with historical events. In this tale the Wanderer
appears to a girl whose lover has lost his reason, and offers to
restore him if she will accept his conditions. Once more the
tempter is foiled. The story meanders so sluggishly that our
sympathies are with Don Francisco, and we cannot help wishing
that he had adopted more drastic measures to quieten the
insistent stranger. At the conclusion Francisco mutters
indignantly:
"It is inconceivable to me how this person forces
himself on my company, harasses me with tales that have
no more application to me than the legend of the Cid,
and may be as apocryphal as the ballad of
Roncesvalles--"
but yet the stranger has not finished. He proceeds to tell him a
tale in which he will feel a peculiar interest, that of Isidora,
his own daughter, and finally urges him to hasten to her rescue.
Don Francisco wanders by easy stages to Madrid, and, on his
arrival, marries Isidora against her will to Montilla. Melmoth,
according to promise, appears at the wedding. The bridegroom is
slain. Isidora, with Melmoth's child, ends her days in the
dungeons of the Inquisition, murmuring: "Paradise! will he be
there?" So far as one may judge from the close of the story, it
seems not.
Monçada and John Melmoth, whom we left, at the beginning of the
romance, in Ireland, are revisited by the Wanderer, whose time on
earth has at last run out. He confesses his failure: "I have
traversed the world in the search, and no one to gain that world,
would lose his own soul." His words remind us of the text of the
sermon which suggested to Maturin the idea of the romance. Like
the companions of Dr. Faustus, Melmoth and Monçada hear terrible
sounds from the room of the Wanderer in the last throes of agony.
The next morning the room is empty; but, following a track to the
sea-cliffs, they see, on a crag beneath, the kerchief the
Wanderer had worn about his neck. "Melmoth and Monçada exchanged
looks of silent and unutterable horror, and returned slowly
home."
This extraordinary romance, like _Montorio_, clearly owes much to
the novels of Mrs. Radcliffe, and "Monk" Lewis. Immalee, as her
name implies, is but a glorified Emily with a loxia on her
shoulder instead of a lute in her hand. The monastic horrors are
obviously a heritage from _The Monk_. The Rosicrucian legend, as
handled in _St. Leon_, may have offered hints to Maturin, whose
treatment is, however, far more imaginative and impressive than
that of Godwin. The resemblance to the legend of the Wandering
Jew need not be laboured. Marlowe's _Dr. Faustus_ and the first
part of Goethe's _Faust_ left their impression on the story. The
closing scenes inevitably remind us of the last act of Marlowe's
tragedy. But, when all these debts are acknowledged they do but
serve to enhance the success of Maturin, who out of these varied
strands could weave so original a romance. _Melmoth_ is not an
ingenious patchwork of previous stories. It is the outpouring of
a morbid imagination that has long brooded on the fearful and the
terrific. Imbued with the grandeur and solemnity of his theme,
Maturin endeavours to write in dignified, stately language. There
are frequent lapses into bombast, but occasionally his rhetoric
is splendidly effective:
"It was now the latter end of autumn; heavy clouds had
all day been passing laggingly and gloomily along the
atmosphere, as the hours pass over the human mind and
life. Not a drop of rain fell; the clouds went
portentously off, like ships of war reconnoitring a
strong fort, to return with added strength and fury."
He takes pleasure in coining unusual, striking phrases, such as:
"All colours disappear in the night, and despair has no diary,"
or "Minutes are hours in the _noctuary_ of terror," or "The
secret of silence is the only secret. Words are a blasphemy
against that taciturn and invisible God whose presence enshrouds
us in our last extremity."
Maturin chooses his similes with discrimination, to heighten the
effect he aims at producing:
"The locks were so bad and the keys so rusty that it was like the
cry of the dead in the house when the keys were turned," or:
"With all my care, however, the lamp declined,
quivered, flashed a pale light, like the smile of
despair, on me, and was extinguished ... I had watched
it like the last beatings of an expiring heart, like
the shiverings of a spirit about to depart for
eternity."
There are no quiet scenes or motionless figures in _Melmoth_.
Everything is intensified, exaggerated, distorted. The very
clouds fly rapidly across the sky, and the moon bursts forth with
the "sudden and appalling effulgence of lightning." A shower of
rain is perhaps "the most violent that was ever precipitated on
the earth." When Melmoth stamps his foot "the reverberation of
his steps on the hollow and loosened stones almost contended with
the thunder." Maturin's use of words like "callosity,"
"induration," "defecated," "evanition," and his fondness for
italics are other indications of his desire to force an
impression by fair means or foul.
The gift of psychological insight that distinguishes _Montorio_
reappears in a more highly developed form in _Melmoth the
Wanderer_. "Emotions," Maturin declares, "are my events," and he
excels in depicting mental as well as physical torture. The
monotony of a "timeless day" is suggested with dreary reality in
the scene where Monçada and his guide await the approach of night
to effect their escape from the monastery. The gradual surrender
of resolution before slight, reiterated assaults is cunningly
described in the analysis of Isidora's state of mind, when a
hateful marriage is forced upon her. Occasionally Maturin
astonishes us by the subtlety of his thought:
"While people think it worth while to torment us we are never
without some dignity, though painful and imaginary."
It is his faculty for describing intense, passionate feeling, his
power of painting wild pictures of horror, his gifts for
conveying his thoughts in rolling, rhythmical periods of
eloquence, that make _Melmoth_ a memory-haunting book. With all
his faults Maturin was the greatest as well as the last of the
Goths.
CHAPTER V - THE ORIENTAL TALE OF TERROR. BECKFORD.
Beckford's _History of the Caliph Vathek_, which was written in
French, was translated by the Rev. Samuel Henley, who had the
temerity to publish the English version--described as a
translation from the Arabic--in 1786, before the original had
appeared. The French version was published in Lausanne and in
Paris in 1787. An interest in Oriental literature had been
awakened early in the eighteenth century by Galland's
epoch-making versions of _The Arabian Nights_ (1704-1717), _The
Turkish Tales_ (1708) and _The Persian Tales_ (1714), which were
all translated into English during the reign of Queen Anne. Many
of the pseudo-translations of French authors, such as Gueulette,
who compiled _The Chinese Tales_, _Mogul Tales_, _Tartarian
Tales_, and _Peruvian Tales_, and Jean-Paul Bignon, who presented
_The Adventures of Abdallah_, were quickly turned into English;
and the Oriental story became so fashionable a form that didactic
writers eagerly seized upon it as a disguise for moral or
philosophical reflection. The Eastern background soon lost its
glittering splendour and colour, and became a faded, tarnished
tapestry, across which shadowy figures with outlandish names and
English manners and morals flit to and fro. Addison's _Vision of
Mirza_ (1711), Johnson's _Rasselas_ (1759), and various essays in
_The Rambler_, Dr. Hawkesworth's _Almoran and Hamet_ (1761),
Langhorne's _Solyman and Almena_ (1762), Ridley's _Tales of the
Genii_ (1764), and Mrs. Sheridan's _History of Nourjahad_ (1767)
were among the best and most popular of the Anglo-Oriental
stories that strove to inculcate moral truths. In their
oppressive air of gravity, Beckford, with his implacable hatred
of bores, could hardly have breathed. One of the most amazing
facts about his wild fantasy is that it was the creation of an
English brain. The idea of _Vathek_ was probably suggested to
Beckford by the witty Oriental tales of Count Antony Hamilton and
of Voltaire. The character of the caliph, who desired to know
everything, even the sciences which did not exist, is sketched in
the spirit of the French satirists, who turned Oriental
extravagance into delightful mockery. Awed into reverence ere the
close by the sombre grandeur of his own conception of the halls
of Eblis, Beckford cast off the flippant mood in which he had set
out and rose to an exalted solemnity.
Beckford's mind was so richly stored with the jewels of Eastern
legend that it was inevitable he should shower from his treasury
things new and old, but everything which passes through the
alembic of his imagination is transmuted almost beyond
recognition. The episode of the sinners with the flaming hearts
has been traced[66] to a scene in the _Mogul Tales_, where Aboul
Assam saw three men standing mute in postures of sorrow before a
book on which were inscribed the words: "Let no man touch this
divine treatise who is not perfectly pure." When Aboul Assam
enquired of their fate they unbuttoned their waistcoats, and
through their skin, which appeared like crystal, he saw their
hearts encompassed with fire. In Beckford's story this grotesque
scene assumes an awful and moving dignity. From _The Adventure of
Abdallah, Son of Hanif_, Beckford derived the conception of a
visit to the regions of Eblis, whom, however, by a wave of his
wand, he transforms from a revolting ogre to a stately
prince.[67]
To read _Vathek_ is like falling asleep in a huge Oriental palace
after wandering alone through great, echoing halls resplendent
with a gorgeous arras, on which are displayed the adventures of
the caliph who built the palaces of the five senses. In our dream
the caliph and his courtiers come to life, and we awake dazzled
with the memory of a myriad wonders. There throng into our mind a
crowd of unearthly forms--aged astrologers, hideous Giaours,
gibbering negresses, graceful boys and maidens, restless, pacing
figures with their hands on their hearts, and a formidable
prince--whose adventures are woven into a fantastic but distinct
and definite pattern around the three central personages, the
caliph Vathek, his exquisitely wicked mother Carathis, and the
bewitching Nouronihar. The fatal palace of Eblis, with its lofty
columns and gloomy towers of an architecture unknown in the
annals of the earth, looms darkly in our imagination. Beckford
alludes, with satisfaction, to _Vathek_ as a "story so horrid
that I tremble while relating it, and have not a nerve in my
frame but vibrates like an aspen,"[68] and in the _Episodes_
leads us with an unhallowed pleasure into other abodes of
horror--a temple adorned with pyramids of skulls festooned with
human hair, a cave inhabited by reptiles with human faces, and an
apartment whose walls were hung with carpets of a thousand kinds
and a thousand hues, which moved slowly to and fro as if stirred
by human creatures stifling beneath their weight. But Beckford
passes swiftly from one mood to another, and was only momentarily
fascinated by terror. So infinite is the variety of _Vathek_ in
scenery and in temper that it seems like its wealthy, eccentric,
author secluded in Fonthill Abbey, to dwell apart in defiant,
splendid isolation.
It is impossible to understand or appreciate _Vathek_ apart from
Beckford's life and character, which contain elements almost as
grotesque and fantastic as those of his romance. He was no
visionary dreamer, content to build his pleasure-domes in air. He
revelled in the golden glories of good Haroun-Alraschid,[69] but
he craved too for solid treasures he could touch and handle, for
precious jewels, for rare, beautiful volumes, for curious, costly
furniture. The scenes of splendour portrayed in _Vathek_ were
based on tangible reality.[70] Beckford's schemes in later
life--his purchase of Gibbon's entire library, his twice-built
tower on Lansdown Hill, were as grandiose and ambitious as those
of an Eastern caliph. The whimsical, Puckish humour, which helped
to counteract the strain of gloomy bitterness in his nature, was
early revealed in his _Biographical Memoirs of Extraordinary
Painters_ and in his burlesques of the sentimental novels of the
day, which were accepted by the compiler of _Living Authors_
(1817) as a serious contribution to fiction by one Miss Jacquetta
Agneta Mariana Jenks. Moore,[71] in his _Journal_, October 1818,
remarks:
"The two mock novels, _Azemia_ and _The Elegant
Enthusiast_, were written to ridicule the novels
written by his sister, Mrs. Harvey (I think), who read
these parodies on herself quite innocently."
Even in the gloomy regions of Eblis, Beckford will not wholly
repress his sense of the ridiculous. Carathis, unawed by the
effulgence of his infernal majesty, behaves like a buffoon,
shouting at the Dives and actually attempting to thrust a Soliman
from his throne, before she is finally whirled away with her
heart aflame. The calm politeness with which the dastardly
Barkiaroukh consents to a blood-curdling murder, the sardonic
dialogue between Vathek on the edge of the precipice and the
Giaour concealed in the abyss, the buoyantly high-spirited
description of the plump Indian kicked and pursued like "an
invulnerable football," the oppressive horror of the subterranean
recesses, the mischievous pleasantry of the Gulchenrouz idyll
reveal different facets of Beckford's ever-varying temper. In
_Vathek_, Beckford found expression not only for his devotion to
the Eastern outlook on life, but also for his own strangely
coloured, vehement personality. The interpreter walks ever at our
elbow whispering into our ear his human commentary on Vathek's
astounding adventures.
Beckford's pictures are remarkable for definite precision of
outline. There are no vague hints and suggestions, no lurking
shadows concealing untold horrors. The quaint dwarfs perched on
Vathek's shoulders, the children chasing blue butterflies,
Nouronihar and her maidens on tiptoe, with their hair floating in
the breeze, stand out in clear relief, as if painted on a fresco.
The imagery is so lucid that we are able to follow with
effortless pleasure the intricate windings of a plot which at
Beckford's whim twists and turns through scenes of wonderful
variety. Amid his wild, erratic excursions he never loses sight
of the end in view; the story, with all its vagaries, is
perfectly coherent. This we should expect from one who "loved to
bark a tough understanding."[72] It is the intellectual strength
and exuberant vitality behind Beckford's Oriental scenes that
lend them distinction and power.
_The History of the Caliph Vathek_ did not set a fashion. It is
true that the Orient sometimes formed the setting of nineteenth
century novels, as in Disraeli's _Alvoy_ (1833), where for a
brief moment, when the hero's torch is extinguished by bats on
his entry into subterranean portals, we find ourselves in the
abode of wonder and terror; but not till Meredith's _Shaving of
Shagpal_ (1856) do we meet again Beckford's kinship with the
East, and his gift for fantastic burlesque.
CHAPTER VI - GODWIN AND THE ROSICRUCIAN NOVEL.
When Miss Austen was asked to write a historical romance
"illustrative of the house of Coburg," she airily dismissed the
suggestion, pleading mirthfully:
"I could not sit down seriously to write a serious
romance under any other motive than to save my life,
and if it were indispensable for me to keep it up and
never relax into laughing at myself or at other people
I am sure I should be hung before I had finished the
first chapter."[73]
If Godwin had been confronted with the same offer, he would have
settled himself promptly to plot out a scheme, and within a few
months a historical romance on the house of Coburg, accompanied
perchance by a preface setting forth the evils of monarchy, would
have been in the hands of the publisher. Unlike Miss Austen,
Godwin had neither a sense of humour nor a fastidious artistic
conscience to save him from undertaking incongruous tasks. He
seems never even to have suspected the humour of life, and would
have perceived nothing ludicrous in the spectacle of the author
of _Political Justice_ embarking on such a piece of work. Those
disquieting flashes of self-revelation that more imaginative men
catch in the mirror of their own minds and that awaken sometimes
laughter and sometimes tears, never disturbed Godwin's serenity.
He brooded earnestly over his speculations, quietly ignoring
inconvenient facts and never shrinking from absurd conclusions.
In theory he aimed at disorganising the whole of human society,
yet in actual life he was content to live unobtrusively,
publishing harmless books for children; and though he abhorred
the principle of aristocracy, he did not scruple to accept a
sinecure from government through Lord Grey. Notwithstanding his
stolid inconsistency and his deficiency in humour, Godwin is a
figure whom it is impossible to ignore or to despise. He was not
a frothy orator who made his appeal to the masses, but the leader
of the trained thinkers of the revolutionary party, a political
rebel who, instead of fulminating wildly and impotently after the
manner of his kind, expressed his theories in clear, reasonable
and logical form. It is easy, but unprofitable, to sneer at the
futility of some of Godwin's conclusions or to complain of the
aridity of his style. His _Political Justice_ remains,
nevertheless, a lucidly written, well-ordered piece of
intellectual reasoning. Shelley spoke of Godwin's _Mandeville_ in
the same breath with Plato's _Symposium_[74] and the ideas
expressed in _Political Justice_ inspired him to write not merely
_Queen Mab_ but the _Revolt of Islam_ and _Prometheus Unbound_.
Godwin's plea for the freedom of the individual and his belief in
the perfectibility of man through reason had a far-reaching
effect that cannot be readily estimated, but, as his theories
only concern us here in so far as they affect two of his novels,
it is unnecessary to pursue the trail of his influence further.
That the readers of fiction in the last decade of the eighteenth
century eagerly desired the mysterious and the terrible, Mrs.
Radcliffe's widespread popularity proved unmistakably. To satisfy
this craving, Godwin, who was ever on the alert to discover a
subject which promised swift and adequate financial return,
turned to novel-writing, and supplied a tale of mystery, _The
Adventures of Caleb Williams_ (1794), and a supernatural,
historical romance, _St. Leon_ (1799). As he was a political
philosopher by nature and a novelist only by profession, he
artfully inveigled into his romances the theories he wished to
promote. The second title of _Caleb Williams_ is significant.
_Things As They Are_ to Godwin's mind was synonymous with "things
as they ought not to be." He frankly asserts: "_Caleb Williams_
was the offspring of that temper of mind in which the composition
of my _Political Justice_ left me"[75]--a guileless confession
that may well have deterred many readers who recoil shuddering
from political treatises decked out in the guise of fiction. But
alarm is needless; for, although _Caleb Williams_ attempts to
reveal the oppressions that a poor man may endure under existing
conditions, and the perversion of the character of an aristocrat
through the "poison of chivalry," the story may be enjoyed for
its own sake. We can read it, if we so desire, purely for the
excitement of the plot, and quietly ignore the underlying
theories, just as it is possible to enjoy Spenser's sensuous
imagery without troubling about his allegorical meaning. The
secret of Godwin's power seems to be that he himself was so
completely fascinated by the intricate structure of his story
that he succeeds in absorbing the attention of his readers. He
bestowed infinite pains on the composition of _Caleb Williams_,
and conceived the lofty hope that it "would constitute an epoch
in the mind of every reader."[76] A friend to whom he submitted
two-thirds of his manuscript advised him to throw it into the
fire and so safeguard his reputation. The result of this
criticism on a character less determined or less phlegmatic than
Godwin's would have been a violent reaction from hope to despair.
But Godwin, who seems to have been independent of external
stimulus, was not easily startled from his projects, and plodded
steadily forward until his story was complete. He would have
scorned not to execute what his mind had conceived. Godwin's
businesslike method of planning the story backwards has been
adopted by Conan Doyle and other writers of the detective story.
The deliberate, careful analysis of his mode of procedure, so
characteristic of his mind and temper, is full of interest:
"I bent myself to the conception of a series of
adventures of flight and pursuit: the fugitive in
perpetual apprehension of being overwhelmed with the
worst calamities and the pursuer by his ingenuity and
resources keeping the victim in a state of the most
fearful alarm. This was the project of my third volume.
I was next called upon to conceive a dramatic and
impressive situation adequate to account for the
impulse that the pursuer should feel incessantly to
alarm and harass his victim, with an inextinguishable
resolution never to allow him the least interval of
peace and security. This I apprehended could best be
effected by a secret murder, to the investigation of
which the innocent victim should be impelled by an
unconquerable spirit of curiosity. The murderer would
thus have a sufficient motive to persecute the unhappy
discoverer that he might deprive him of peace,
character and credit, and have him for ever in his
power. This constituted the outline of my second
volume... To account for the fearful events of the
third it was necessary that the pursuer should be
invested with every advantage of fortune, with a
resolution that nothing could defeat or baffle and with
extraordinary resources of intellect. Nor could my
purpose of giving an overpowering interest to my tale
be answered without his appearing to have been
originally endowed with a mighty store of amiable
dispositions and virtues, so that his being driven to
the first act of murder should be judged worthy of the
deepest regret, and should be seen in some measure to
have arisen out of his virtues themselves. It was
necessary to make him ... the tenant of an atmosphere
of romance, so that every reader should feel prompted
almost to worship him for his high qualities. Here were
ample materials for a first volume."[77]
Godwin hoped that an "entire unity of plot" would be the
infallible result of this ingenious method of constructing his
story, and only wrote in a high state of excitement when the
"afflatus" was upon him. So far as we may judge from his
description, he seems to have realised his story first as a
complex psychological situation, not as a series of disconnected
pictures. He thought in abstractions not in visual images, and he
had next to make his abstractions concrete by inventing figures
whose actions should be the result of the mental and moral
conflict he had conceived. Godwin's attitude to his art forms a
striking contrast to that of Mrs. Radcliffe. She has her set of
marionettes, appropriately adorned, ready to move hither and
thither across her picturesque background as soon as she has
deftly manipulated the machinery which is to set them in motion.
Godwin, on the other hand, first constructs his machinery, and
afterwards, with laborious effort, carves the figures who are to
be attached to the wires. He cares little for costume or setting,
but much for the complicated mechanism that controls the destiny
of his characters. The effect of this difference in method is
that we soon forget the details of Mrs. Radcliffe's plots, but
remember isolated pictures. After reading _Caleb Williams_ we
recollect the outline of the story in so far as it relates to the
psychology of Falkland and his secretary; but of the actual
scenes and people only vague images drift through our memory.
Godwin's point of view was not that of an artist but of a
scientist, who, after patiently investigating and analysing
mental and emotional phenomena, chose to embody his results in
the form of a novel. He spared no pains to make his narrative
arresting and convincing. The story is told by Caleb Williams
himself, who, in describing his adventures, revives the passions
and emotions that had stirred him in the past. By this device
Godwin trusted to lend energy and vitality to his story.
Caleb Williams, a raw country youth, becomes secretary to
Falkland, a benevolent country gentleman, who has come to settle
in England after spending some years in Italy. Collins, the
steward, tells Williams his patron's history. Falkland has always
been renowned for the nobility of his character. In Italy, where
he inspired the love and devotion of an Italian lady, he avoided,
by "magnanimity," a duel with her lover. On Falkland's return to
England, Tyrrel, a brutal squire who was jealous of his
popularity, conceived a violent hatred against him. When Miss
Melville, Tyrrel's ill-used ward, fell in love with Falkland, who
had rescued her from a fire, her guardian sought to marry her to
a boorish, brutal farm-labourer. Though Falkland's timely
intervention saved her in this crisis, the girl eventually died
as the result of Tyrrel's cruelty. As she was the victim of
tyranny, Falkland felt it his duty at a public assembly to
denounce Tyrrel as her murderer. The squire retaliated by making
a personal assault on his antagonist. As Falkland "had perceived
the nullity of all expostulation with Mr. Tyrrel," and as
duelling according to the Godwinian principles was "the vilest of
all egotism," he was deprived of the natural satisfaction of
meeting his assailant in physical or even mental combat. Yet "he
was too deeply pervaded with the idle and groundless romances of
chivalry ever to forget the situation"--as Godwin seems to think
a "man of reason" might have done in these circumstances. Tyrrel
was stabbed in the dark, and Falkland, on whom suspicion
naturally fell, was tried, but eventually acquitted without a
stain on his character. Two men--a father and son called
Hawkins--whom Falkland had befriended against the overbearing
Tyrrel, were condemned and executed for the crime. This is the
state of affairs when Caleb Williams enters Falkland's service
and takes up the thread of the narrative. On hearing the story of
the murder, Williams, who has been perplexed by the gloomy moods
of his master, allows his suspicions to rest on Falkland, and to
gratify his overmastering passion of curiosity determines to spy
incessantly until he has solved the problem. One day, after
having heard a groan of anguish, Williams peers through the
half-open door of a closet, and catches sight of Falkland in the
act of opening the lid of a chest. This incident fans his
smouldering curiosity into flame, and he is soon after detected
by his master in an attempt to break open the chest in the
"Bluebeard's chamber." Not without cause, Falkland is furiously
angry, but for some inexplicable reason confesses to the murder,
at the same time expressing his passionate determination at all
costs to preserve his reputation. He is tortured, not by remorse
for his crime, but by the fear of being found out, and seeks to
terrorise Williams into silence by declaring:
"To gratify a foolishly inquisitive humour you have
sold yourself. You shall continue in my service, but
can never share my affection. If ever an unguarded word
escape from your lips, if ever you excite my jealousy
or suspicion, expect to pay for it by your death or
worse."
From this moment Williams is helpless. Turn where he will, the
toils of Falkland encompass him. Forester, Falkland's
half-brother, tries to persuade Williams to enter his service.
Williams endeavours to flee from his master, who prevents his
escape by accusing him, in the presence of Forester, of stealing
some jewellery and bank-notes which have disappeared in the
confusion arising from an alarm of fire. The plunder has been
placed in Williams' boxes, and the evidence against him is
overwhelming. He is imprisoned, and the sordid horror of his life
in the cells gives Godwin an opportunity of showing "how man
becomes the destroyer of man." He escapes, and is sheltered by a
gang of thieves, whose leader, Raymond, a Godwinian theorist,
listens with eager sympathy to his tale, which he regards as
"only one fresh instance of the tyranny and perfidiousness
exercised by the powerful members of the community against those
who are less privileged than themselves." When a reward is
offered for the capture of Williams, the thieves are persuaded
that they must not deliver the lamb to the wolf. After an old
hag, whose animosity he has aroused, has made a bloodthirsty
attack on him with a hatchet, Williams feels obliged to leave
their habitation "abruptly without leave-taking." He then assumes
beggar's attire and an Irish brogue, but is soon compelled to
seek a fresh disguise. In Wales as in London, he comes across
someone who has known Falkland, and is reviled for his treachery
to so noble a master, and cast forth with ignominy. He discovers
that Falkland has hired an unscrupulous villain, Gines, to follow
him from place to place, blackening his reputation. Finally
desperation drives him to accuse Falkland openly, though, after
doing so, he praises the murderer, and loathes himself for his
betrayal:
"Mr. Falkland is of a noble nature ... a man worthy of affection
and kindness ... I am myself the basest and most odious of
mankind."
The inexorable persecutor in return cries at last:
"Williams, you have conquered! I see too late the
greatness and elevation of your mind. I confess that it
is to my fault and not yours that I owe my ruin ... I
am the most execrable of all villains... As reputation
was the blood that warmed my heart, so I feel that
death and infamy must seize me together."
Three days later Falkland dies, but instead of experiencing
relief at the death of his persecutor, Williams becomes the
victim of remorse, regarding himself as the murderer of a noble
spirit, who had been inevitably ruined by the corruption of human
society:
"Thou imbibedst the poison of chivalry with thy earliest youth,
and the base and low-minded envy that met thee on thy return to
thy native seats, operated with this poison to hurry thee into
madness."
At the conclusion of the story, Godwin has not succeeded in
making his moral very clear. The "wicked aristocrat" who figures
in the preface as "carrying into private life the execrable
principles of kings and ministers" emerges at last almost as a
saintly figure, who through a false notion of honour has
unfortunately become the victim of a brutal squire. But, if the
story does not "rouse men to a sense of the evils of slavery," or
"constitute an epoch in the mind of every reader," it has
compensating merits and may be read with unfailing interest
either as a study of morbid psychology or as a spirited detective
story. Godwin's originality in his dissection of human motive has
hardly yet been sufficiently emphasised, perhaps because he is so
scrupulous in acknowledging literary debts.[78] From Mrs.
Radcliffe, whose _Romance of the Forest_ was published the year
before _Caleb Williams_, he borrowed the mysterious chest, the
nature of whose contents is hinted at but never actually
disclosed; but Godwin was no wizard, and had neither the gift nor
the inclination to conjure with Gothic properties. In leaving
imperfectly explained the incident of the discovery of the heart
in _The Monastery_, Scott shielded himself behind Godwin's Iron
Chest, which gave its name to Colman's drama.[79] Godwin's
peculiar interest was in criminal psychology, and he concentrates
on the dramatic conflict between the murderer and the detective.
An unusual turn is given to the story by the fact that the
criminal is the pursuer instead of the pursued. Godwin intended
later in life to write a romance based on the story of Eugene
Aram, the philosophical murderer; and his careful notes on the
scheme are said to have been utilised by his friend, Bulwer
Lytton, in his novel of that name.[80] _Caleb Williams_ helped to
popularise the criminal in fiction, and _Paul Clifford_, the
story of the chivalrous highwayman, is one of its literary
descendants.
Godwin was a pioneer breaking new ground in fiction; and, as he
was a man of talent rather than of genius, it is idle to expect
perfection of workmanship. The story is full of improbabilities,
but they are described in so matter-of-fact a style that we
"soberly acquiesce." After an hour of Godwin's grave society an
effervescent sense of humour subsides. A mind open to suggestion
is soon infected by his imperturbable seriousness, which
effectually stills "obstinate questionings." Even the brigands
who live with their philanthropic leader are accepted without
demur. After all, Raymond is only Robin Hood turned political
philosopher. The ingenious resources of _Caleb Williams_ when he
strives to elude his pursuer are part of the legitimate
stock-in-trade of the hero of a novel of adventure. He is not as
other men are, and comes through perilous escapades with
miraculous success. It is at first difficult to see why Falkland
does not realise that his plan of ceaselessly harassing his
victim is likely to force Williams to accuse him publicly, but
gradually we begin to regard his mental obliquity as one of the
decrees of fate. Falkland's obtuseness is of the same nature as
that of the sleeper who undertakes a voyage to Australia to
deliver a letter which anywhere but in a dream would have been
dropped in the nearest pillar-box. The obvious solution that
would occur to a waking mind is persistently evasive. The plot of
_Caleb Williams_ hinges on an improbability, but so does that of
_King Lear_; and if it had not been for Falkland's stupidity, the
story would have ended with the first volume. Godwin excels in
the analysis of mental conditions, but fails when he attempts to
transmute passionate feeling into words. We are conscious that he
is a cold-blooded spectator _ab extra_ striving to describe what
he has never felt for himself. It is not even "emotion
recollected in tranquillity." Men of this world, who are carried
away by scorn and anger, utter their feelings simply and
directly. Godwin's characters pause to cull their words from
dictionaries. Forester's invective, when he believes that
Williams has basely robbed his master is astonishingly elegant:
"Vile calumniator! You are the abhorrence of nature, the
opprobrium of the human species and the earth can only be freed
from an insupportable burthen by your being exterminated."[81]
The diction is so elaborately dignified that the contempt which
was meant almost to annihilate Caleb Williams, lies effectually
concealed behind a blinding veil of rhetoric. When he has leisure
to adorn, he translates the simplest, most obvious reflections
into the "jargon" of political philosophy, but, driven
impetuously forward by the excitement of his theme, he throws off
jerky, spasmodic sentences containing but a single clause. His
style is a curious mixture of these two manners.
The aim of _St. Leon: A Tale of the Sixteenth Century_, is to
show that "boundless wealth, freedom from disease, weakness and
death are as nothing in the scale against domestic affection and
the charities of private life."[82] For four years Godwin had
desired to modify what he had said on the subject of private
affections in _Political Justice_, while he asserted his
conviction of the general truth of his system. Godwin had argued
that private affections resulted in partiality, and therefore
injustice.[83] If a house were on fire, reason would urge a man
to save Fénelon in preference to his valet; but if the rescuer
chanced to be the brother or father of the valet, private feeling
would intervene, unreasonably urging him to save his relative and
abandon Fénelon. Lest he should be regarded as a wrecker of
homes, Godwin wished to show that domestic happiness should not
be despised by the man of reason. Instead of expressing his views
on this subject in a succinct pamphlet, Godwin, elated by the
success of _Caleb Williams_, decided to embody them in the form
of a novel. He at first despaired of finding a theme so rich in
interest as that of his first novel, but ultimately decided that
"by mixing human feelings and passions with incredible situations
he might conciliate the patience even of the severest
judges."[84] The phrase, "mixing human feelings," betrays in a
flash Godwin's mechanical method of constructing a story. He
makes no pretence that _St. Leon_ grew naturally as a work of
art. He imposed upon himself an unsuitable task, and, though he
doggedly accomplished it, the result is dull and laboured.
The plot of _St. Leon_ was suggested by Dr. John Campbell's
_Hermippus Redivivus_,[85] and centres round the theories of the
Rosicrucians. The first volume describes the early life of the
knight St. Leon, his soldiering, his dissipations, and his happy
marriage to Marguerite, whose character is said to have been
modelled on that of Mary Wollstonecraft. In Paris he is tempted
into extravagance and into playing for high stakes, with the
result that he retires to Switzerland the "prey of poverty and
remorse." Misfortunes pursue him for some time, but he at last
enjoys six peaceful years, at the end of which he is visited by a
mysterious old man, whom he conceals in a summer-house, and whom
he refuses to betray to the Inquisitors in search of him. In
return the old man reveals to him the secret of the elixir vitæ,
and of the philosopher's stone. Marguerite becomes suspicious of
the source of her husband's wealth: "For a soldier you present me
with a projector and a chemist, a cold-blooded mortal raking in
the ashes of a crucible for a selfish and solitary advantage."
His son, Charles, unable to endure the aspersions cast upon his
father's honour during their travels together in Germany, deserts
him. St. Leon is imprisoned because he cannot account for the
death of the stranger and for his own sudden acquisition of
wealth, but contrives his escape by bribing the jailor. He
travels to Italy, but is unable to escape from misfortune.
Suspected of black magic, he becomes an object of hatred to the
inhabitants of the town where he lives. His house is burnt down,
his servant and his favourite dog are killed, and he soon hears
of the death of his unhappy wife. He is imprisoned in the
dungeons of the Inquisition, but escapes, and takes refuge with a
Jew, whom he compels to shelter him, until another dose of the
elixir restores his youthful appearance, and he sets forth again,
this time disguised as a wealthy Spanish cavalier. He visits his
own daughters, representing himself as the executor under their
father's will. He decides to devote himself to the service of
others, and is revered as the saviour of Hungary, until
disaffection, caused by a shortage of food, renders him
unpopular. He makes a friend of Bethlem Gabor, whose wife and
children have been savagely murdered by a band of marauders. St.
Leon, we are told, "found an inexhaustible and indescribable
pleasure in examining the sublime desolation of a mighty soul."
But Gabor soon conceives a bitter hatred against him, and entraps
him in a subterranean vault, where he languishes for many months,
refusing to yield up his secret. At length the castle is
besieged, and Gabor before his death gives St. Leon his liberty.
The leader of the expedition proves to be St. Leon's long-lost
son, Charles, who has assumed the name of De Damville. St. Leon,
without at first revealing his identity, cultivates the
friendship of his son, but Charles, on learning of his dealings
with the supernatural, repudiates his father. Finally the
marriage of his son to Pandora proves to St. Leon that despite
his misfortunes "there is something in this world worth living
for."
The Inquisition scenes of _St. Leon_ were undoubtedly coloured
faintly by those of Lewis's _Monk_ (1794) and Mrs. Radcliffe's
_Italian_ (1798); but it is characteristic of Godwin that instead
of trying to portray the terror of the shadowy hall, he chooses
rather to present the argumentative speeches of St. Leon and the
Inquisitor. The aged stranger, who bestows on St. Leon the
philosopher's stone and the elixir of life, has the piercing eye
so familiar to readers of the novel of terror: "You wished to
escape from its penetrating power, but you had not the strength
to move. I began to feel as if it were some mysterious and
superior being in human form;"[86] but apart from this trait he
is not an impressive figure. The only character who would have
felt perfectly at home in the realm of Mrs. Radcliffe and "Monk"
Lewis is Bethlem Gabor, who appears for the first time in the
fourth volume of _St. Leon_. He is akin to Schedoni and his
compeers in his love of solitude, his independence of
companionship, and his superhuman aspect, but he is a figure who
inspires awe and pity as well as terror. Beside this personage
the other characters pale into insignificance:
"He was more than six feet in stature ... and he was
built as if it had been a colossus, destined to sustain
the weight of the starry heavens. His voice was like
thunder ... his head and chin were clothed with a thick
and shaggy hair, in colour a dead-black. He had
suffered considerable mutilation in the services
through which he had passed ... Bethlem Gabor, though
universally respected for the honour and magnanimity of
a soldier, was not less remarkable for habits of
reserve and taciturnity... Seldom did he allow himself
to open his thoughts but when he did, Great God! what
supernatural eloquence seemed to inspire and enshroud
him... Bethlem Gabor's was a soul that soared to a
sightless distance above the sphere of pity."[87]
The superstitions of bygone ages, which had fired the imagination
of so many writers of romance, left Godwin cold. He was mildly
interested in the supernatural as affording insight into the
"credulity of the human mind," and even compiled a treatise on
_The Lives of the Necromancers_ (1834).[88] But the hints and
suggestions, the gloom, the weird lights and shades which help to
create that romantic atmosphere amid which the alchemist's dream
seems possible of realisation are entirely lacking in Godwin's
story. He displays everything in a high light. The transference
of the gifts takes place not in the darkness of a subterranean
vault, but in the calm light of a summer evening. No unearthly
groans, no phosphorescent lights enhance the horror and mystery
of the scene. Godwin is coolly indifferent to historical
accuracy, and fails to transport us back far beyond the end of
the eighteenth century. Rousseau's theories were apparently
disseminated widely in 1525. _St. Leon_ is remembered now rather
for its position in the history of the novel than for any
intrinsic charm. Godwin was the first to embody in a romance the
ideas of the Rosicrucians which inspired Bulwer Lytton's _Zicci_,
_Zanoni_ and _A Strange Story_.
_St. Leon_ was travestied, the year after it appeared, in a work
called _St. Godwin: A Tale of the 16th, 17th and 18th Century_,
by "Count Reginald de St. Leon," which gives a scathing survey of
the plot, with all its improbabilities exposed. The bombastic
style of _St. Leon_ is imitated and only slightly exaggerated,
and the author finally satirises Godwin bitterly:
"Thinking from my political writings that I was a good
hand at fiction, I turned my thoughts to novel-writing.
These I wrote in the same pompous, inflated style as I
had used in my other publications, hoping that my fine
high-sounding periods would assist to make the
unsuspecting reader swallow all the insidious
reasoning, absurdity and nonsense I could invent."[89]
The parodist takes Godwin almost as seriously as he took himself,
and his attack is needlessly savage. Godwin's political opinions
may account for the brutality of his assailant who doubtless
belonged to the other camp. When Godwin attempts the supernatural
in his other novels, he always fails to create an atmosphere of
mystery. The apparition in _Cloudesley_ appears, fades, and
reappears in a manner so undignified as to remind us of the
Cheshire Cat in _Alice in Wonderland_:
"I suddenly saw my brother's face looking out from
among the trees as I passed. I saw the features as
distinctly as if the meridian sun had beamed upon
them... It was by degrees that the features showed
themselves thus out of what had been a formless shadow.
I gazed upon it intently. Presently it faded away by as
insensible degrees as those by which it had become
agonisingly clear. After a short time it returned."
Godwin describes a ghost as deliberately and exactly as he would
describe a house, and his delineation causes not the faintest
tremor. Having little imagination himself, he leaves nothing to
the imagination of the reader. In his _Lives of the
Necromancers_, he shows that he is interested in discovering the
origin of a belief in natural magic; but the life stories of the
magicians suggest no romantic pictures to his imagination. In
dealing with the mysterious and the uncanny, Godwin was
attempting something alien to his mind and temper.
In Godwin's _St. Leon_ the elixir of life is quietly bestowed on
the hero in a summer-house in his own garden. The poet, Thomas
Moore, in his romance, _The Epicurean_ (1827), sends forth a
Greek adventurer to seek it in the secret depths of the catacombs
beneath the pyramids of Egypt. He originally intended to tell his
story in verse, but after writing a fragment, _Alciphron_,
abandoned this design and decided to begin again in prose. His
story purports to be a translation of a recently discovered
manuscript buried in the time of Diocletian. Inspired by a dream,
in which an ancient and venerable man bids him seek the Nile if
he wishes to discover the secret of eternal life, Alciphron, a
young Epicurean philosopher of the second century, journeys to
Egypt. At Memphis he falls in love with a beautiful priestess,
Alethe, whom he follows into the catacombs. Bearing a glimmering
lamp, he passes through a gallery, where the eyes of a row of
corpses, buried upright, glare upon him, into a chasm peopled by
pale, phantom-like forms. He braves the terrors of a blazing
grove and of a dark stream haunted by shrieking spectres, and
finds himself whirled round in chaos like a stone shot in a
sling. Having at length passed safely through the initiation of
Fire, Water and Air, he is welcomed into a valley of "unearthly
sadness," with a bleak, dreary lake lit by a "ghostly glimmer of
sunshine." He gazes with awe on the image of the god Osiris, who
presides over the silent kingdom of the dead. Watching within the
temple of Isis, he suddenly sees before him the priestess,
Alethe, who guides him back to the realms of day. At the close of
the story, after Alethe has been martyred for the Christian
faith, Alciphron himself becomes a Christian.
In _The Epicurean_, Moore shows a remarkable power of describing
scenes of gloomy terror, which he throws into relief by
occasional
glimpses of light and splendour. The journey of Alciphron
inevitably challenges comparison with that of _Vathek_, but the
spirit of mockery that animates Beckford's story is wholly
absent. Moore paints a theatrical panorama of effective scenes,
but his figures are mere shadows.
The miseries of an existence, prolonged far beyond the allotted
span, are depicted not only in stories of the elixir of life, but
in the legends centring round the Wandering Jew. Croly's
_Salathiel_ (1829), like Eugene Sue's lengthy romance, _Le Juif
Errant_, won fame in its own day, but is now forgotten. Some of
Croly's descriptions, such as that of the burning trireme, have a
certain dazzling magnificence, but the colouring is often crude
and startling. The figure of the deathless Jew is apt to be lost
amid the mazes of the author's rhetoric. The conception of a man
doomed to wander eternally in expiation of a curse is in itself
an arresting theme likely to attract a romantic writer, but the
record of his adventures may easily become monotonous.
The "novel of terror" has found few more ardent admirers than the
youthful Shelley, who saw in it a way of escape from the harsh
realities and dull routine of ordinary existence. From his
childhood the world of ideas seems to have been at least as real
and familiar to him as the material world. The fabulous beings of
whom he talked to his young sisters--the Great Tortoise in
Warnham Pond, the snake three hundred years old in the garden at
Field Place, the grey-bearded alchemist in his garret[90]--had
probably for him as much meaning and interest as the living
people around him. Urged by a restless desire to evade the
natural and encounter the supernatural, he wandered by night
under the "perilous moonshine," haunted graveyards in the hope of
"high talk with the departed dead," dabbled in chemical
experiments and pored over ancient books of magic. It was to be
expected that an imagination reaching out so eagerly towards the
unknown should find refuge from the uncongenial life of Sion
House School in the soul-stirring region of romance. Transported
by sixpenny "blue books" and the many volumed novels in the
Brentford circulating library, Shelley's imagination fled
joyously to that land of unlikelihood, where the earth yawns with
bandits' caverns inhabited by desperadoes with bloody daggers,
where the air continually resounds with the shrieks and groans of
melancholy spectres, and where the pale moon ever gleams on dark
and dreadful deeds. He had reached that stage of human
development when fairies, elves, witches and dragons begin to
lose their charm, when the gentle quiver of fear excited by an
ogre, who is inevitably doomed to be slain at the last, no longer
suffices. At the approach of adolescence with its surging
emotions and quickening intellectual life, there awakens a demand
for more thrilling incidents, for wilder passions and more
desperate crimes, and it is at this period that the "novel of
terror" is likely to make its strongest appeal. Youth, with its
inexperience, is seldom tempted to bring fiction to the test of
reality, or to scorn it on the ground of its improbability, and
we may be sure that Shelley and his cousin, Medwin, as they hung
spellbound over such treasures as _The Midnight Groan, The
Mysterious Freebooter_, or _Subterranean Horrors_ did not pause
to consider whether the characters and adventures were true to
life. They desired, indeed, not to criticise but to create, and
in the winter of 1809-1810 united to produce a terrific romance,
with the title _Nightmare_, in which a gigantic and hideous witch
played a prominent part. After reading Schubert's _Der Ewige
Jude_, they began a narrative poem dealing with the legend of the
Wandering Jew,[91] who lingered in Shelley's imagination in after
years, and whom he introduced into _Queen Mab, Prometheus
Unbound_, and _Hellas_. The grim and ghastly legends included in
"Monk" Lewis's _Tales of Terror_ (1799) and _Tales of Wonder_
(1801) fascinated Shelley;[92] and the suggestive titles
_Revenge_;[93] _Ghasta, or the Avenging Demon_;[94] _St. Edmund's
Eve_;[95] _The Triumph of Conscience_ from the _Poems by Victor
and Cazire_ (1810), and _The Spectral Horseman_ from _The
Posthumous Poems of Margaret Nicholson_ (1810), all prove his
preoccupation with the supernatural. That Shelley's enthusiasm
for the gruesome and uncanny was not merely morbid and
hysterical, the mad, schoolboyish letter, written while he was in
the throes of composing _St. Irvyne_, is sufficient indication.
In a mood of grotesque fantasy and wild exhilaration, Shelley
invites his friend Graham to Field Place. The postscript is in
his handwriting, but is signed by his sister Elizabeth:
"The avenue is composed of vegetable substances moulded
in the form of trees called by the multitude Elm trees.
Stalk along the road towards them and mind and keep
yourself concealed as my mother brings a blood-stained
stiletto which she purposes to make you bathe in the
lifeblood of your enemy. Never mind the Death-demons
and skeletons dripping with the putrefaction of the
grave, that occasionally may blast your straining
eyeballs. Persevere even though Hell and destruction
should yawn beneath your feet.
"Think of all this at the frightful hour of midnight,
when the Hell-demon leans over your sleeping form, and
inspires those thoughts which eventually will lead you
to the gates of destruction... The fiend of the Sussex
solitudes shrieked in the wilderness at midnight--he
thirsts for thy detestable gore, impious Fergus. But
the day of retribution will arrive. H + D=Hell
Devil."[96]
That Shelley could jest thus lightly in the mock-terrific vein
shows that his mind was fundamentally sane and well-balanced, and
that he only regarded "fiendmongering" as a pleasantly thrilling
diversion. His _Zastrozzi_ (1810) and _St. Irvyne_ (1811) were
probably written with the same zest and spirit as his harrowing
letter to "impious Fergus." They are the outcome of a boyish
ambition to practise the art of freezing the blood, and their
composition was a source of pride and delight to their author. A
letter to Peacock (Nov. 9, 1818) from Italy re-echoes the note of
child-like enjoyment in weaving romances:
"We went to see heaven knows how many more palaces--Ranuzzi,
Marriscalchi, Aldobrandi. If you want Italian names for any
purpose, here they are; I should be glad of them if I was writing
a novel."
_Zastrozzi_ was published in April, 1810, while Shelley was still
at Eton, and with the £40 paid for the romance, he is said to
have given a banquet to eight of his friends. Though the story is
little more than a _réchauffé_ of previous tales of terror, it
evidently attained some measure of popularity. It was reprinted
in _The Romancist and Novelist's Library_ in 1839. Like Godwin,
Shelley contrived to smuggle a little contraband theory into his
novels, but his stock-in-trade is mainly that of the
terrormongers. The book to which Shelley was chiefly indebted was
_Zofloya or the Moor_ (1806), by the notorious Charlotte Dacre or
"Rosa Matilda," but there are many reminiscences of Mrs.
Radcliffe and of "Monk" Lewis. The sources of _Zastrozzi_ and
_St. Irvyne_ have been investigated in the _Modern Language
Review_ (Jan. 1912), by Mr. A. M. D. Hughes, who gives a complete
analysis of the plot of _Zofloya_, and indicates many parallels
with Shelley's novels. The heroine of _Zofloya_ is clearly a
lineal descendant of Lewis's Matilda, though Victoria di
Loredani, with all her vices, never actually degenerates into a
fiend. Victoria, it need hardly be stated, is nobly born, but she
has been brought up amid frivolous society by a worthless mother,
and: "The wildest passions predominated in her bosom; to gratify
them she possessed an unshrinking, relentless soul that would not
startle at the darkest crime."
Zofloya, who spurs her on, is the Devil himself. The plot is
highly melodramatic, and contains a headlong flight, an
earthquake and several violent deaths. In _Zastrozzi_, Shelley
draws upon the characters and incidents of this story very
freely. His lack of originality is so obvious as to need no
comment. The very names he chooses are borrowed. Julia is the
name of the pensive heroine in Mrs. Radcliffe's _Sicilian
Romance_. Matilda carries with it ugly memories of the lady in
Lewis's _Monk_; Verezzi occurs in _The Mysteries of Udolpho_;
Zastrozzi is formed by prefixing an extra syllable to the name
Strozzi from _Zofloya_. The incidents are those which happen
every day in the realm of terror. The villain, the hero, the
melancholy heroine, and her artful rival, develop no new traits,
but act strictly in accordance with tradition. They never
infringe the rigid code of manners and morals laid down for them
by previous generations. The scenery is invariably appropriate as
a setting to the incidents, and even the weather may be relied on
to act in a thoroughly conventional manner. The characters are
remarkable for their violent emotions and their marvellously
expressive eyes. When Verezzi's senses are "chilled with the
frigorific torpidity of despair," his eyes "roll horribly in
their sockets." When "direst revenge swallows up every other
feeling" in the soul of Matilda, her eyes "scintillate with a
fiend-like expression." Incidents follow one another with a wild
and stupefying rapidity. Every moment is a crisis. The style is
startlingly abrupt, and the short, disconnected paragraphs are
fired off like so many pistol shots. The sequence of events is
mystifying--Zastrozzi's motive for persecuting Verezzi is darkly
concealed until the end of the story, for reasons known only to
writers of the novel of terror. Shelley's romance, in short, is
no better and perhaps even worse than that of the other disciples
of Mrs. Radcliffe and "Monk" Lewis.
_St. Irvyne: or the Rosicrucian_ (1811), though it was written by
a "Gentleman of the University of Oxford" and not by a schoolboy,
shows slight advance on _Zastrozzi_ either in matter or manner.
The plot indeed is more bewildering and baffling than that of
_Zastrozzi_. The action of the story is double and alternate, the
scene shifts from place to place, and the characters appear and
disappear in an unaccountable and disconcerting fashion. This
time Godwin's _St. Leon_ has to be added to the list of Shelley's
sources. Ginotti, whose name is stolen from a brigand in
_Zofloya_, is not the devil but one of his sworn henchmen, who
has discovered and tasted the elixir vitae. Like Zofloya, he is
surrounded by an atmosphere of mystery. So that he may himself
die, Ginotti, like the old stranger in _St. Leon_, is anxious to
impart his secret to another. He chooses as his victim,
Wolfstein, a young noble who, like Leonardo in _Zofloya_, has
allied himself with a band of brigands. The bandit, Ginotti, aids
Wolfstein to escape with a beautiful captive maiden, for whom
Shelley adopts the name Megalena from _Zofloya_. While the lovers
are in Genoa, Megalena, discovering Wolfstein with a lady named
Olympia, whose "character has been ruined by a false system of
education," makes him promise to murder her rival. In Olympia's
bedchamber Wolfstein's hand is stayed for a moment by the sight
of her beauty--a picture which recalls the powerful scene in Mrs.
Radcliffe's _Italian_, when Schedoni bends over the sleeping
Ellena. After Olympia's suicide, Megalena and Wolfstein flee
together from Genoa. In the tale of terror, as in the modern
film-play, a flight of some kind is almost indispensable.
Ginotti, whose habit of disappearing and reappearing reminds us
of the ghostly monk in the ruins of Paluzzi, tells his history to
Wolfstein, and, at the destined hour, bestows the prescription
for the elixir, and appoints a meeting in St. Irvyne's abbey,
where Wolfstein stumbles over the corpse of Megalena. Wolfstein
refuses to deny God. Both Ginotti and his victim are blasted by
lightning, amid which the "frightful prince of terror, borne on
the pinions of hell's sulphurous whirlwind," stands before them.
"On a sudden Ginotti's frame, mouldered to a gigantic
skeleton, yet two pale and ghastly flames glared in his
eyeless sockets. Blackened in terrible convulsions,
Wolfstein expired; over him had the power of hell no
influence. Yes, endless existence is thine, Ginotti--a
dateless and hopeless eternity of horror."
Interspersed with this somewhat inconsequent story are the
adventures of Eloise, who is first introduced on her return home,
disconsolate, to a ruined abbey. We are given to understand that
the story is to unfold the misfortunes which have led to her
downfall, but she is happily married ere the close. She
accompanies her dying mother on a journey, as Emily in _The
Mysteries of Udolpho_ accompanied her father, and meets a
mysterious stranger, Nempère, at a lonely house, where they take
refuge. Nempère proves to be a less estimable character than
Valancourt, who fell to Emily's lot in similar circumstances. He
sells her to an English noble, Mountfort, at whose house she
meets Fitzeustace, who, like Vivaldi in _The Italian_, overhears
her confession of love for himself. Nempère is killed in a duel
by Mountfort. At the close, Shelley states abruptly that Nempère
is Ginotti, and Eloise is Wolfstein's sister. In springing a
secret upon us suddenly on the last page, Shelley was probably
emulating Lewis's _Bravo of Venice_; but the conclusion, which is
intended to forge a connecting link between the tales, is
unsatisfying. It is not surprising that the publisher, Stockdale,
demanded some further elucidation of the mystery. Ginotti,
apparently, dies twice, and Shelley's letters fail to solve the
problem. He wrote to Stockdale: "Ginotti, as you will see, did
_not_ die by Wolfstein's hand, but by the influence of that
natural magic, which, when the secret was imparted to the latter,
destroyed him."[97] A few days later he wrote again, evidently in
reply to further questions: "On a re-examination you will
perceive that Mountfort physically did kill Ginotti, which must
appear from the latter's paleness." The truth seems to be that
Shelley was weary of his puppets, and had no desire to extricate
them from the tangle in which they were involved, though he was
impatient to see _St. Irvyne_ in print, and spoke hopefully of
its "selling mechanically to the circulating libraries."
Shelley took advantage of the privilege of writers of romance to
palm off on the public some of his earliest efforts at
versification. These poems, distributed impartially among the
various characters, are introduced with the same laborious
artlessness as the songs in a musical comedy. Megalena, though
suffering from excruciating mental agony, finds leisure to
scratch several verses on the walls of her cell. It would indeed
be a poor-spirited heroine who could not deftly turn a sonnet to
night or to the moon, however profound her woes. Superhuman
strength and courage is an endowment necessary to all who would
dwell in the realms of terror and survive the fierce struggle for
existence. Peacock, in _Nightmare Abbey_, paints the Shelley of
1812 in Scythrop, who devours tragedies and German romances, and
is troubled with a "passion for reforming the world." "He slept
with _Horrid Mysteries_ under his pillow, and dreamed of
venerable eleutherarchs and ghastly confederates holding midnight
conventions in subterranean caves... He had a certain portion of
mechanical genius which his romantic projects tended to develop.
He constructed models of cells and recesses, sliding panels and
secret passages, that would have baffled the skill of the
Parisian police." His bearing was that of a romantic villain: "He
stalked about like the grand Inquisitor, and the servants flitted
past him like familiars."
Although Shelley outgrew his youthful taste for horrors, his
early reading left traces on the imagery and diction of his
poetry. There is an unusual profusion in his vocabulary of such
words as ghosts, shades, charnel, tomb, torture, agony, etc., and
supernatural similes occur readily to his mind. In _Alastor_ he
compares himself to
"an inspired and desperate alchymist
Staking his very life on some dark hope,"
and cries:
"O that the dream
Of dark magician in his visioned cave
Raking the cinders of a crucible
For life and power, even when his feeble hand
Shakes in its last decay, were the true law
Of this so lonely world."
In the _Ode to the West Wind_ his memories of an older and finer
kind of romance suggested the fantastic comparison of the dead
leaves to
"ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,"
and in _Prometheus Unbound_ Panthea sees
"unimaginable shapes
Such as ghosts dream dwell in the lampless deeps."
The poem _Ginevra_, which describes an enforced wedding and the
death of the bride at the sight of her real lover, may well have
been inspired by reading the romances of terror, where such
events are an everyday occurrence. The gruesome descriptions in
_The Revolt of Islam_, the decay of the garden in _The Sensitive
Plant_, the tortures of Prometheus, all show how Shelley strove
to work on the instinctive emotion of fear. In _The Cenci_ he
touches the profoundest depths of human passion, and shows his
power of finding words, terrible in their simple grandeur, for a
soul in agony. In the tragedies of Shakespeare and of his
followers--Ford, Webster and Tourneur--Shelley had heard the true
language of anguish and despair. The futile, frenzied shrieking
of Matilda and her kind is forgotten in the passionate nobility
or fearful calm of the speeches of Beatrice Cenci.
CHAPTER VII - SATIRES ON THE NOVEL OF TERROR.
A conflict between "sense and sensibility" was naturally to be
expected; and, the year after Mrs. Radcliffe published _The
Italian_, Jane Austen had completed her _Northanger Abbey_,
ridiculing the "horrid" school of fiction. It is noteworthy that
for the _Mysteries of Udolpho_ Mrs. Radcliffe received £500, and
for _The Italian_ £800; while for the manuscript of _Northanger
Abbey_, the bookseller paid Jane Austen the ungenerous sum of
£10, selling it again later to Henry Austen for the same amount.
The contrast in market value is significant. The publisher, who,
it may be added, was not necessarily a literary critic, probably
realised that if the mock romance were successful, its tendency
would be to endanger the popularity of the prevailing mode in
fiction. Hence for many years it was concealed as effectively as
if it had lain in the haunted apartment of one of Mrs.
Radcliffe's Gothic abbeys. Among Jane Austen's early unpublished
writings were "burlesques ridiculing the improbable events and
exaggerated sentiments which she had met with in sundry silly
romances"; but her spirited defence of the novelist's art in
_Northanger Abbey_ is clear evidence that her raillery is
directed not against fiction in general, but rather against such
"horrid" stories as those included in the list supplied to
Isabella Thorpe by "a Miss Andrews, one of the sweetest creatures
in the world."
It has sometimes been supposed that the more fantastic titles in
this catalogue were figments of Jane Austen's imagination, but
the identity of each of the seven stories may be established
beyond question. Two of the stories--_The Necromancer of the
Black Forest_, a translation from the German, and _The Castle of
Wolfenbach_, by Mrs. Eliza Parsons (who was also responsible for
_Mysterious Warnings_)--may still be read in _The Romancist and
Novelist's Library_ (1839-1841), a treasure-hoard of forgotten
fiction. _Clermont_ (1798) was published by Mrs. Regina Maria
Roche, the authoress of _The Children of the Abbey_ (1798), a
story almost as famous in its day as _Udolpho_. The author of
_The Midnight Bell_ was one George Walker of Bath, whose record,
like that of Miss Eleanor Sleath, who wrote the moving history of
_The Orphan of the Rhine_ (1798) in four volumes, may be found in
Watts' _Bibliotheca Britannica_. _Horrid Mysteries_, perhaps the
least credible of the titles, was a translation from the German
of the Marquis von Grosse by R. Will. Jane Austen's attack has no
tinge of bitterness or malice. John Thorpe, who declared all
novels, except _Tom Jones_ and _The Monk_, "the stupidest things
in creation," admitted, when pressed by Catherine, that Mrs.
Radcliffe's were "amusing enough" and "had some fun and nature in
them"; and Henry Tilney, a better judge, owned frankly that he
had "read all her works, and most of them with great pleasure."
From this we may assume that Miss Austen herself was perhaps
conscious of their charm as well as their absurdity.
Sheridan's Lydia Languish (1775) and Colman's Polly Honeycombe
(1777) were both demoralised by the follies of sentimental
fiction, as Biddy Tipkin, in Steele's _Tender Husband_ (1705),
had been by romances. It was Miss Austen's purpose in creating
Catherine Morland to present a maiden bemused by Gothic romance:
"No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy would
have supposed her born to be a heroine." In almost every detail
she is a refreshing contrast to the traditional type. Two
long-lived conventions--the fragile mother, who dies at the
heroine's birth, and the tyrannical father--are repudiated at the
very outset; and Catherine is one of a family of seven. We cannot
conceive that Mrs. Radcliffe's heroines even at the age of ten
would "love nothing so well in the world as rolling down the
green slope at the back of the house." Her accomplishments lack
the brilliance and distinction of those of Adela and Julia, but,
"Though she could not write sonnets she brought herself
to read them; and though there seemed no chance of her
throwing a whole party into raptures by a prelude on
the pianoforte, she could listen to other people's
performances with very little fatigue. Her greatest
deficiency was in the pencil--she had no notion of
drawing, not enough even to attempt a sketch of her
lover's profile, that she might be detected in the
design. There she fell miserably short of the true
heroic height...Not one started with rapturous wonder
on beholding her...nor was she once called a divinity
by anybody."
She had no lover at the age of seventeen,
"because there was not a lord in the neighbourhood--not
even a baronet. There was not one family among their
acquaintance who had reared and supported a boy
accidentally found at their door--not one whose origin
was unknown."
Nor is Catherine aided in her career by those "improbable
events," so dear to romance, that serve to introduce a hero--a
robber's attack, a tempest, or a carriage accident. With a sly
glance at such dangerous characters as Lady Greystock in _The
Children of the Abbey_ (1798), Miss Austen creates the inert, but
good-natured Mrs. Alien as Catherine's chaperone in Bath:
"It is now expedient to give some description of Mrs.
Alien that the reader may be able to judge in what
manner her actions will hereafter tend to promote the
general distress of the work and how she will probably
contribute to reduce poor Catherine to all the
desperate wretchedness of which a last volume is
capable, whether by her imprudence, vulgarity or
jealousy--whether by intercepting her letters, ruining
her character or turning her out of doors."
Amid all the diversions of the gay and beautiful city of Bath,
Miss Austen does not lose sight entirely of her satirical aim,
though she turns aside for a time. Catherine's confusion of mind
is suggested with exquisite art in a single sentence. As she
drives with John Thorpe she "meditates by turns on broken
promises and broken arches, phaetons and false hangings, Tilneys
and trapdoors." This prepares us for the delightful scene in
which Tilney, on the way to the abbey, foretells what Catherine
may expect on her arrival. The hall dimly lighted by the expiring
embers of a wood fire, the deserted bedchamber "never used since
some cousin or kin had died in it about twenty years before," the
single lamp, the tapestry, the funereal bed, the broken lute, the
ponderous chest, the secret door, the vaulted room, the rusty
dagger, the cabinet of ebony and gold with its roll of
manuscripts, prove his intimacy with _The Romance of the Forest_,
as well as with _The Mysteries of Udolpho_. The black chest and
the cabinet are there in startling fulfilment of his prophecies,
and when, just as with beating heart Catherine is about to
decipher the roll of paper she has discovered in the cabinet
drawer, she accidentally extinguishes her candle:
"A lamp could not have expired with more awful
effect... Darkness impenetrable and immovable filled
the room. A violent gust of wind, rising with sudden
fury, added fresh horror to the moment... Human nature
could support no more ... groping her way to the bed
she jumped hastily in, and sought some suspension of
agony by creeping far beneath the clothes... The storm
still raged... Hour after hour passed away, and the
wearied Catherine had heard three proclaimed by all the
clocks in the house before the tempest subsided, and
she, unknowingly, fell fast asleep. She was awakened
the next morning at eight o'clock by the housemaid's
opening her window-shutter. She flew to the mysterious
manuscript, If the evidence of sight might be trusted
she held a washing bill in her hands ... she felt
humbled to the dust."
Even this bitter humiliation does not sweep away the cobwebs of
romance from Catherine's imaginative mind, but the dark
suspicions she harbours about General Tilney are not altogether
inexplicable. He is so much less natural and so much more stagey
than the other characters that he might reasonably be expected to
dabble in the sinister. This time Catherine is misled by memories
of the _Sicilian Romance_ into weaving a mystery around the fate
of Mrs. Tilney, whom she pictures receiving from the hands of her
husband a nightly supply of coarse food. She watches in vain for
"glimmering lights," like those in the palace of Mazzini, and
determines to search for "a fragmented journal continued to the
last gasp," like that of Adeline's father in _The Romance of the
Forest_. In this search she encounters Tilney, who has returned
unexpectedly from Woodston. He dissipates once and for all her
nervous fancies, and Catherine decides: "Among the Alps and
Pyrenees, perhaps, there were no mixed characters. There, such as
were not spotless as an angel, might have the dispositions of a
fiend. But in England it was not so."
Miss Austen's novel is something more than a mock-romance, and
Catherine is not a mere negative of the traditional heroine, but
a human and attractive girl, whose fortunes we follow with the
deepest interest. At the close, after Catherine's ignominious
journey home, we are back again in the cool world of reality. The
abbey is abandoned, after it has served its purpose in
disciplining the heroine, in favour of the unromantic country
parsonage.
In _Northanger Abbey_, Jane Austen had deftly turned the novels
of Mrs. Radcliffe to comedy; but, even if her parody had been
published in 1798, when we are assured that it was completed, her
satirical treatment was too quiet and subtle, too delicately
mischievous, to have disturbed seriously the popularity of the
novel of terror. We can imagine the Isabella Thorpes and Lydia
Bennets of the day dismissing _Northanger Abbey_ with a yawn as
"an amazing dull book," and returning with renewed zest to more
stimulating and "horrid" stories. Maria Edgeworth too had aimed
her shaft at the sentimental heroine in one of her _Moral
Tales--Angelina or L'Amie Inconnue_ (1801). Miss Sarah Green, in
_Romance Readers and Romance Writers_ (1810) had displayed the
extravagant folly of a clergyman's daughter whose head was turned
by romances. Ridicule of a more blatant and boisterous kind was
needed, and this was supplied by Eaton Stannard Barrett, who, in
1813--five years before _Northanger Abbey_ appeared--published
_The Heroine or The Adventures of Cherubina_. In this farcical
romance it is clearly Barrett's intention to make so vigorous an
onslaught that "the Selinas, Evelinas, and Malvinas who faint and
blush and weep through four half-bound octavos" shall be, like
Catherine Morland, "humbled to the dust." Sometimes, indeed, his
farce verges on brutality. To expose the follies of Cherubina it
was hardly necessary to thrust her good-humoured father into a
madhouse, and this grim incident sounds an incongruous, jarring
note in a rollicking high-spirited farce. The plights into which
Cherubina is plunged are so needlessly cruel, that, while only
intending to make her ridiculous, Barrett succeeds rather in
making her pitiable. But many of her adventures are only a shade
more absurd than those in the romances at which he tilts. Regina
Maria Roche's _Children of the Abbey_ (1798) would take the wind
from the sails of any parodist. In protracting _The Heroine_
almost to wearisome length, Barrett probably acted deliberately
in mimicry of this and a horde of other tedious romances.
Certainly the unfortunate Stuart waits no longer for the
fulfilment of his hopes than Lord Mortimer, the long-suffering
hero of _The Children of the Abbey_, who early in the first
volume demands of Amanda Fitzalan, what he calls an
"éclaircissement," but does not win it until the close of the
fourth. Barrett does not scruple to mention the titles of the
books he derides. The following catalogue will show how widely he
casts his net: _Mysteries of Udolpho, Romance of the Forest,
Children of the Abbey, Sir Charles Grandison, Pamela, Clarissa
Harlowe, Evelina, Camilla, Cecilia, La Nouvelle Heloïse,
Rasselas, The Delicate Distress, Caroline of Lichfield_,[98] _The
Knights of the Swan_,[99] _The Beggar Girl, The Romance of the
Highlands_.[100] Besides these novels, which he actually names,
Barrett alludes indirectly to several others, among them
_Tristram Shandy_ and _Amelia_. From this enumeration it is
evident that Barrett was satirising the heroine, not merely of
the "novel of terror," but of the "sentimental novel" from which
she traced her descent. He organises a masquerade, mindful that
it is always the scene of the heroine's "best adventure," with
Fielding's _Amelia_ and Miss Burney's _Cecilia_ and probably
other novels in view. The precipitate flight of Cherubina,
"dressed in a long-skirted red coat stiff with tarnished lace, a
satin petticoat, satin shoes and no stockings," and with hair
streaming like a meteor, described in Letter XX, is clearly a
cruel mockery of Cecilia's distressful plight in Miss Burney's
novel. Even Scott is not immune from Barrett's barbed arrows, and
Byron is glanced at in the bogus antique language of "Eftsoones."
Barrett, indeed, jeers at the mediaeval revival in its various
manifestations and even at "Romanticism" generally, not merely at
the new school of fiction represented by Mrs. Radcliffe, her
followers and rivals. Not content with reaching his aim, as he
does again and again in _The Heroine_, Barrett, like many another
parodist, sometimes over-reaches it, and sneers at what is not in
itself ridiculous.
Nominally Cherubina is the butt of Barrett's satire, but the
permanent interest of the book lies in the skilful stage-managing
of her lively adventures. There is hardly an attempt at
characterisation. The people are mere masqueraders, who amuse us
by their costume and mannerisms, but reveal no individuality. The
plot is a wild extravaganza, crammed with high-flown,
mock-romantic episodes. Cherry Wilkinson, as the result of a
surfeit of romances, perhaps including _The Misanthropic Parent
or The Guarded Secret_ (1807), by Miss Smith, deserts her real
father--a worthy farmer--to look for more aristocratic parents.
As he is not picturesque enough for a villain, she repudiates him
with scorn: "Have you the gaunt ferocity of famine in your
countenance? Can you darken the midnight with a scowl? Have you
the quivering lip and the Schedoniac contour? In a word, are you
a picturesque villain full of plot and horror and magnificent
wickedness? Ah! no, sir, you are only a sleek, good-humoured,
chuckle-headed, old gentleman." In the course of her search she
meets with amazing adventures, which she describes in a series of
letters to her governess. She changes her name to Cherubina de
Willoughby, and journeys to London, where, mistaking Covent
Garden Theatre for an ancient castle, she throws herself on the
protection of a third-rate actor, Grundy. He readily falls in
with her humour, assuming the name of Montmorenci, and a suit of
tin armour and a plumed helmet for her delight. Later, Cherubina
is entertained by Lady Gwyn, who, for the amusement of her
guests, heartlessly indulges her propensity for the romantic, and
poses as her aunt. She is introduced in a gruesome scene, which
recalls the fate of Agnes in Lewis's _Monk_, to her supposed
mother, Lady Hysterica Belamour, whose memoirs, under the title
_Il Castello di Grimgothico_, are inserted, after the manner of
Mrs. Radcliffe and M.G. Lewis, who love an inset tale, into the
midst of the heroine's adventures. Cherubina determines to live
in an abandoned castle, and gathers a band of vassals. These
include Jerry, the lively retainer, inherited from a long line of
comic servants, of whom Sancho Panza is a famous example, and
Higginson, a struggling poet, who in virtue of his office of
minstrel, addresses the mob, beginning his harangue with the
time-honoured apology: "Unaccustomed as I am to public speaking."
The story ends with the return of Cherubina to real life, where
she is eventually restored to her father and to Stuart. The
incidents, which follow one another in rapid succession, are
foolish and extravagant, but the reminiscences they awaken lend
them piquancy. The trappings and furniture of a dozen Gothic
castles are here accumulated in generous profusion. Mouldering
manuscripts, antique beds of decayed damask, a four-horsed
barouche, and fluttering tapestry rejoice the heart of Cherubina,
for each item in this curious medley revives moving associations
in a mind nourished on the Radcliffe school. When Cherubina
visits a shop she buys a diamond cross, which at once turns our
thoughts to _The Sicilian Romance_. In Westminster Abbey she is
disappointed to find "no cowled monks with scapulars"--a phrase
which flashes across our memory the sinister figure of Schedoni
in _The Italian_. At the masquerade she plans to wear a Tuscan
dress from _The Mysteries of Udolpho_, and, when furnishing
Monkton Castle she bids Jerry, the Irish comic servant, bring
"flags stained with the best old blood--feudal, if possible, an
old lute, lyre or harp, black hangings, curtains, and a velvet
pall." Even the banditti and condottieri, who enliven so many
novels of terror, cannot be ignored, and are represented by a
troop of Irish ruffians. Barrett lets nothing escape him.
Rousseau's theories are irreverently travestied. The thunder
rolls "in an awful and Ossianly manner"; the sun, "that
well-known gilder of eastern turrets," rises in empurpled
splendour; the hero utters tremendous imprecations, ejaculates
superlatives or frames elaborately poised, Johnsonian periods;
the heroine excels in cheap but glittering repartee, wears
"spangled muslin," and has "practised tripping, gliding,
flitting, and tottering, with great success." Shreds and patches
torn with a ruthless, masculine hand from the flimsy tapestry of
romance, fitted together in a new and amusing pattern, are
exhibited for our derision. The caricature is entertaining in
itself, and would probably be enjoyed by those who are unfamiliar
with the romances ridiculed; but the interest of identifying the
booty, which Barrett rifles unceremoniously from his victims, is
a fascinating pastime.
Miss Austen, with her swift stiletto, and Barrett, with his
brutal bludgeon--to use a metaphor of "terror"--had each
delivered an attack; and in 1818, if we may judge by Peacock's
_Nightmare Abbey_, there is a change of fashion in fiction. How
far this change is due to the satirists it is impossible to
determine. Mr. Flosky, "who has seen too many ghosts himself to
believe in their external appearance," through whose lips Peacock
reviles "that part of the reading public which shuns the solid
food of reason," probably gives the true cause for the waning
popularity of the novel of terror:
"It lived upon ghosts, goblins and skeletons till even
the devil himself ... became too base, common and
popular for its surfeited appetite. The ghosts have
therefore been laid, and the devil has been cast into
outer darkness."
The novel of terror has been destroyed not by its enemies but by
its too ardent devotees. The horrid banquet, devoured with
avidity for so many years, has become so highly seasoned that the
jaded palate at last cries out for something different, and,
according to Peacock, finds what it desires in "the vices and
blackest passions of our nature tricked out in a masquerade dress
of heroism and disappointed benevolence"--an uncomplimentary
description of the Byronic hero. Yet sensational fiction has
lingered on side by side with other forms of fiction all through
the nineteenth century, because it supplies a human and natural
craving for excitement. It may not be the dominant type, but it
will always exist, and will produce its thrill by ever-varying
devices. Those who scoff may be taken unawares, like the company
in _Nightmare Abbey_. The conversation turned on the subject of
ghosts, and Mr. Larynx related his delightfully compact ghost
story:
"I once saw a ghost myself in my study, which is the
last place any one but a ghost would look for me. I had
not been in it for three months and was going to
consult Tillotson, when, on opening the door, I saw a
venerable figure in a flannel dressing-gown, sitting in
my armchair, reading my Jeremy Taylor. It vanished in a
moment, and so did I, and what it was and what it
wanted, I have never been able to ascertain"
--a quieter, more inoffensive ghost than that described by Defoe
in his _Essay on the History and Reality of Apparitions_: "A
grave, ancient man, with a full-bottomed wig and a rich brocaded
gown, who changed into the most horrible monster that ever was
seen, with eyes like two fiery daggers red-hot." Mr. Flosky and
Mr. Hilary have hardly declared their disbelief in ghosts when:
"The door silently opened, and a ghastly figure,
shrouded in white drapery with the semblance of a
bloody turban on its head, entered and stalked slowly
up the apartment. Mr. Flosky was not prepared for this
apparition, and made the best of his way out at the
opposite door. Mr. Hilary and Marionetta followed
screaming. The honourable Mr. Listless, by two turns of
his body, first rolled off the sofa and then under it.
Rev. Mr. Larynx leaped up and fled with so much
precipitation that he overturned the table on the foot
of Mr. Glowry. Mr. Glowry roared with pain in the ears
of Mr. Toobad. Mr. Toobad's alarm so bewildered his
senses that missing the door he threw up one of the
windows, jumped out in his panic, and plunged over head
and ears in the moat. Mr. Asterias and his son, who
were on the watch for their mermaid, were attracted by
the splashing, threw a net over him, and dragged him to
land."
In Melincourt Castle a very spacious wing was left free to the
settlement of a colony of ghosts, and the Rev. Mr. Portpipe often
passed the night in one of the dreaded apartments over a blazing
fire, with the same invariable exorcising apparatus of a large
venison pasty, a little prayer-book, and three bottles of
Madeira. Yet despite this excellent mockery, Peacock in _Gryll
Grange_ devotes a chapter to tales of terror and wonder, singling
out the works of Charles Brockden Brown for praise, especially
his _Wieland_, "one of the few tales in which the final
explanation of the apparently supernatural does not destroy or
diminish the original effect."
The title _Nightmare Abbey_ in a catalogue would undoubtedly have
caught the eye of Isabella Thorp or her friend Miss Andrews,
searching eagerly for "horrid mysteries," but they would perhaps
have detected the note of mockery in the name. They would,
however, have been completely deceived by the title, _The Mystery
of the Abbey_, published in Liverpool in 1819 by T.B. Johnson,
and we can imagine their consternation and disgust on the arrival
of the book from the circulating library. The abbey is "haunted"
by the proprietors of a distillery; and the spectre, described in
horrible detail, proves to be a harmless idiot, with a red
handkerchief round her neck. Apart from these gibes, there is not
a hint of the supernatural in the whole book. It is a
_picaresque_ novel, written by a sportsman. The title is merely a
hoax.
Belinda Waters, the heroine of one of Crabbe's tales, who was "by
nature negatively good," is a portrait after Miss Austen's own
heart. Languidly reclining on her sofa with "half a shelf of
circulating books" on a table at her elbow, Belinda tosses
wearily aside a half-read volume of _Clarissa_, commended by her
maid, "who had _Clarissa_ for her heart's dear friend."
"Give me," she said, "for I would laugh or cry,
'Scenes from the Life,' and 'Sensibility,'
'Winters at Bath': I would that I had one!
'The Constant Lover,' 'The Discarded Son,'[101]
"'The Rose of Raby,'[102] 'Delmore,' or 'The Nun'[103]--
These promise something, and may please, perhaps,
Like 'Ethelinda'[104] and the dear 'Relapse.'[105]
To these her heart the gentle maid resigned
And such the food that fed the gentle mind."
But even the "delicate distress" of heroines, like Niobe, all
tears, palls at last, and Belinda, having wept her fill, craves
now for "sterner stuff."
"Yet tales of terror are her dear delight,
All in the wintry storm to read at night."
In _The Preceptor Husband_,[106] the pretty wife, whose notions
of botany are delightfully vague, and who, in English history,
light-heartedly confuses the Reformation and the Revolution, has
tastes similar to those of Belinda. Pursued by an instructive
husband, she turns at bay, and tells her priggish preceptor what
kind of books she really enjoys:
"Well, if I must, I will my studies name,
Blame if you please--I know you love to blame--
When all our childish books were set apart,
The first I read was 'Wanderings of the Heart.'[107]
It was a story where was done a deed
So dreadful that alone I feared to read.
The next was 'The Confessions of a Nun'--
'Twas quite a shame such evils should be done.
Nun of--no matter for the creature's name,
For there are girls no nunnery can tame.
Then was the story of the Haunted Hall,
When the huge picture nodded from the wall,
"When the old lord looked up with trembling dread,
And I grew pale and shuddered as I read.
Then came the tales of Winters, Summers, Springs
At Bath and Brighton--they were pretty things!
No ghosts or spectres there were heard or seen,
But all was love and flight to Gretna-green.
Perhaps your greater learning may despise
What others like--and there your wisdom lies."
To this attractive catalogue the preceptor husband, no doubt,
listened with the expression of Crabbe's _Old Bachelor_:
"that kind of cool, contemptuous smile
Of witty persons overcharged with bile,"
but she at least succeeds in interrupting his flow of information
for the time being. He retires routed. Crabbe's close
acquaintance with "the flowery pages of sublime distress," with
"vengeful monks who play unpriestly tricks," with banditti
"who, in forest wide
Or cavern vast, indignant virgins hide,"
was, as he confesses, a relic of those unregenerate days, when
"To the heroine's soul-distracting fears
I early gave my sixpences and tears."[108]
He could have groped his way through a Gothic castle without the
aid of a talkative housekeeper:
"I've watched a wintry night on castle-walls,
I've stalked by moonlight through deserted halls,
And when the weary world was sunk to rest
I've had such sights--as may not be expressed.
Lo! that chateau, the western tower decayed,
The peasants shun it--they are all afraid;
For there was done a deed--could walls reveal
Or timbers tell it, how the heart would feel!
"Most horrid was it--for, behold, the floor
Has stain of blood--and will be clean no more.
Hark to the winds! which through the wide saloon
And the long passage send a dismal tune,
Music that ghosts delight in--and now heed
Yon beauteous nymph, who must unmask the deed.
See! with majestic sweep she swims alone
Through rooms, all dreary, guided by a groan,
Though windows rattle and though tap'stries shake
And the feet falter every step they take.
Mid groans and gibing sprites she silent goes
To find a something which will soon expose
The villainies and wiles of her determined foes,
And having thus adventured, thus endured,
Fame, wealth, and lover, are for life secured."[109]
Crabbe's Ellen Orford in _The Borough_ (1810) is drawn from life,
and in grim and bitter irony is intended as a contrast to these
timorous and triumphant creatures
"borrowed and again conveyed,
From book to book, the shadows of a shade."
Ellen's adventures are sordid and gloomy, without a hint of the
picturesque, her distresses horrible actualities, not the
"air-drawn" fancies that torture the sensitive Angelinas of
Gothic fiction:
"But not like them has she been laid
In ruined castle sore dismayed,
Where naughty man and ghostly sprite
Fill'd her pure mind with awe and dread,
Stalked round the room, put out the light
And shook the curtains round the bed.
No cruel uncle kept her land,
No tyrant father forced her hand;
She had no vixen virgin aunt
Without whose aid she could not eat
And yet who poisoned all her meat
With gibe and sneer and taunt."
Though Crabbe showed scant sympathy with the delicate
sensibilities of girls who hung enraptured over the high-pitched
heroics and miraculous escapes of Clementina and her kindred, he
found pleasure in a robuster school of romance--the adventures of
mighty Hickathrift, Jack the Giant-killer, and Robin Hood, as set
forth and embellished in the chapbooks which cottagers treasured
"on the deal shelf beside the cuckoo-clock."[110] And in his
poem, _Sir Eustace Grey_, he presents with subtle art a mind
tormented by terror.
CHAPTER VIII - SCOTT AND THE NOVEL OF TERROR.
In 1775 we find Miss Lydia Languish's maid ransacking the
circulating libraries of Bath, and concealing under her cloak
novels of sensibility and of fashionable scandal. Some twenty
years later, in the self-same city, Catherine Morland is "lost
from all worldly concerns of dressing or dinner over the pages of
_Udolpho_," and Isabella Thorpe is collecting in her pocket-book
the "horrid" titles of romances from the German. In 1814,
apparently, the vogue of the sentimental, the scandalous, the
mysterious, and the horrid still persisted. Scott, in the
introductory chapter to _Waverley_, disrespectfully passes in
review the modish novels, which, as it proved, were doomed to be
supplanted by the series of romances he was then beginning:
"Had I announced in my frontispiece, 'Waverley, A Tale
of Other Days,' must not every novel reader have
anticipated a castle scarce less than that of Udolpho,
of which the eastern wing has been long uninhabited,
and the keys either lost or consigned to the care of
some aged butler or housekeeper, whose trembling steps
about the middle of the second volume were doomed to
guide the hero or heroine to the ruinous precincts?
Would not the owl have shrieked and the cricket cried
in my very title page? and could it have been possible
to me with a moderate attention to decorum to introduce
any scene more lively than might be produced by the
jocularity of a clownish but faithful valet or the
garrulous narrative of the heroine's
_fille-de-chambre_, when rehearsing the stories of
blood and horror which she had heard in the servant's
hall? Again, had my title borne 'Waverley, a Romance
from the German,' what head so obtuse as not to image
forth a profligate abbot, an oppressive duke, a secret
and mysterious association of Rosycrucians and
Illuminati, with all their properties of black cowls,
caverns, daggers, electrical machines, trap-doors and
dark lanterns? Or, if I had rather chosen to call my
work, 'A Sentimental Tale,' would it not have been a
sufficient presage of a heroine with a profusion of
auburn hair, and a harp, the soft solace of her
solitary hours, which she fortunately always finds
means of transporting from castle to cottage, though
she herself be sometimes obliged to jump out of a
two-pair-of-stairs window and is more than once
bewildered on her journey, alone and on foot, without
any guide but a blowsy peasant girl, whose jargon she
can scarcely understand? Or again, if my _Waverley_ had
been entitled 'A Tale of the Times,' wouldst thou not,
gentle reader, have demanded from me a dashing sketch
of the fashionable world, a few anecdotes of private
scandal ... a heroine from Grosvenor Square, and a hero
from the Barouche Club or the Four in Hand, with a set
of subordinate characters from the elegantes of Queen
Anne Street, East, or the dashing heroes of the Bow
Street Office?"
Yet Scott himself had once trodden in these well-worn paths of
romance. In the general preface to the collected edition of 1829,
wherein he seeks to "ravel out his weaved-up follies," he refers
to "a tale of chivalry planned thirty years earlier in the style
of _The Castle of Otranto_, with plenty of Border characters and
supernatural incident." His outline of the plot and a fragment of
the story, which was to be entitled _Thomas the Rhymer_, are
printed as an appendix to the preface. Scott intended to base his
story on an ancient legend, found in Reginald Scot's _Discovery
of Witchcraft_, concerning the horn and sword of Thomas of
Hercildoune. Cannobie Dick, a jolly horse-cowper, was led by a
mysterious stranger through an opening in a hillside into a long
range of stables. In every stall stood a coal-black horse, and by
every horse lay a knight in coal-black armour, with a drawn sword
in his hand. All were as still and silent as if hewn out of
marble. At the far end of a gloomy hall, illuminated, like the
halls of Eblis, only by torches, there lay, upon an ancient
table, a horn and a sword. A voice bade Dick try his courage,
warning him that much depended upon his first choosing either the
horn or the sword. Dick, whose stout heart quailed before the
supernatural terrors of the hall, attempted to blow the horn
before unsheathing the sword. At the first feeble blast the
warriors and their steeds started to life, the knights fiercely
brandishing their weapons and clashing their armour. Dick made a
fruitless attempt to snatch the sword. After a mysterious voice
had pronounced his doom he was hurled out of the hall by a
whirlwind of irresistible fury. He told his story to the
shepherds, who found him dying on the cold hill side.
Regarding this legend as "an unhappy foundation for a prose
story," Scott did not complete his fragment, which in style and
treatment is not unlike the Gothic experiments of Mrs. Barbauld
and Dr. Nathan Drake. Such a story as that of the magic horn and
sword might have been told in the simple words that occur
naturally to a shepherd, "warmed to courage over his third
tumbler," like the old peasant to whom Stevenson entrusts the
terrible tale of _Thrawn Janet_, or to Wandering Willie, who
declared:
"I whiles mak a tale serve the turn among the country
bodies, and I have some fearsome anes, that mak the
auld carlines shake on the settle, and bits o' bairns
skirl on their minnies out frae their beds."
The personality of the narrator, swayed by the terror of his
tale, would have cast the spell that Scott's carefully framed
sentences fail to create. Another of Scott's _disjecta membra_,
composed at the end of the eighteenth century, is the opening of
a story called _The Lord of Ennerdale_, in which the family of
Ratcliffe settle down before the fire to listen to a story
"savouring not a little of the marvellous." As Lady Ratcliffe and
her daughters
"had heard every groan and lifted every trapdoor in
company with the noted heroine of Udolpho, had
valorously mounted _en croupe_ behind the horseman of
Prague through all his seven translators, had followed
the footsteps of Moor through the forests of Bohemia,"
and were even suspected of an acquaintance with Lewis's _Monk_,
Scott was setting himself no easy task when he undertook to
thrill these seasoned adventurers. After this prologue, which
leads one to expect a banquet of horrors, only a very brief
fragment of the story is forthcoming. Though he gently derides
Lady Ratcliffe's literary tastes, Scott, too, was an admirer of
Mrs. Radcliffe's novels, and had been so entranced by Burger's
_Lenore_ that he attempted an English version.[111] It was after
hearing Taylor's translation of this ballad read aloud that he
uttered his dismal ejaculation: "I wish to heaven I could get a
skull and two crossbones"--a whim that was speedily gratified.
He, too, like Lady Ratcliffe, had read _Die Räuber_; and he
translated Goethe's _Gëtz von Berlichingen_. He delighted in
Lewis's _Tales of Wonder_ (1801) where the verse gallops through
horrors so fearful that the "lights in the chamber burn blue,"
and himself contributed to the collection. He wrote "goblin
dramas"[112] as terrific in intention, but not in performance, as
Lewis's _Castle Spectre_ and Maturin's _Bertram_. His Latin
call-thesis dealt with the kind of subject "Monk" Lewis or
Harrison Ainsworth or Poe might have chosen--the disposal of the
dead bodies of persons legally executed. Scott continually added
to his store of quaint and grisly learning both from popular
tradition and from a library of such works as Bovet's
_Pandemonium, or the Devil's Cloyster Opened_, Sinclair's
_Satan's Invisible World Discovered_, whence he borrowed the name
of the jackanapes in _Wandering Willie's Tale_, and the
horse-shoe frown for the brow of the Redgauntlets, Heywood's
_Hierarchy of the Blessed Angels_, Joseph Taylor's _History of
Apparitions_, from which he quotes in _Woodstock_. He was
familiar with all the niceties of ghostly etiquette; he could
distinguish at a glance the various ranks and orders of demons
and spirits; he was versed in charms and spells; he knew exactly
how a wizard ought to be dressed. This lore not only stood him in
good stead when he compiled his _Letters on Demonology and
Witchcraft_ (1830), but served to adorn his poems and novels.
There was nothing unhealthy in his attitude towards the spectral
world. At an inn he slept soundly in one bed of a double room,
while a dead man occupied the other. Twice in his life he
confessed to having felt "eerie"--once at Glamis Castle, which
was said to be haunted by a Presence in a Secret Chamber, and
once when he believed that he saw an apparition on his way home
in the twilight; but he usually jests cheerfully when he speaks
of the supernatural. He was interested in tracing the sources of
terror and in studying the mechanism of ghost stories.
The axioms which he lays down are sound and suggestive:
"Ghosts should not appear too often or become too
chatty. The magician shall evoke no spirits, whom he is
not capable of endowing with manners and language
corresponding to their supernatural character. Perhaps,
to be circumstantial and abundant in minute detail and
in one word ... to be somewhat prosy, is the secret
mode of securing a certain necessary degree of
credulity from the hearers of a ghost story... The
chord which vibrates and sounds at a touch remains in
silent tension under continued pressure."[113]
Scott's ghost story, _The Tapestried Chamber, or the Lady in the
Sacque_[114] which he heard from Miss Anna Seward, who had an
unexpected gift for recounting such things at country house
parties, gives the impression of being carefully planned
according to rule. As a human being the Lady in the Sacque had a
black record, but, considered dispassionately as a ghost, her
manners and deportment are irreproachable. The ghost-seer's
independence of character are so firmly insisted upon that it
seems impertinent to doubt the veracity of his story. _My Aunt
Margaret's Mirror_ was told to Scott in childhood by an ancient
spinster, whose pleasing fancy it was to read alone in her
chamber by the light of a taper fixed in a candlestick which she
had formed out of a human skull, and who was learned in
superstitious lore. She describes accurately the mood, when "the
female imagination is in due temperature to enjoy a ghost story":
"All that is indispensable for the enjoyment of the
milder feeling of supernatural awe is that you should
be susceptible of the slight shuddering which creeps
over you when you hear a tale of terror--that
well-vouched tale which the narrator, having first
expressed his general disbelief of all such legendary
lore, selects and produces, as having something in it
which he has been always obliged to give up as
inexplicable. Another symptom is a momentary hesitation
to look round you, when the interest of the narrative
is at the highest; and the third, a desire to avoid
looking into a mirror, when you are alone, in your
chamber, for the evening."[115]
In her story "Aunt Margaret" describes how, in a magic mirror
belonging to Dr. Baptista Damiotti, Lady Bothwell and her sister
Lady Forester see the wedding ceremony of Sir Philip Forester and
a young girl in a foreign city interrupted by Lady Forester's
brother, who is slain in the duel that ensues. Scott regarded
these two stories as trifles designed to while away a leisure
hour. On _Wandering Willie's Tale_--a masterpiece of supernatural
terror--he bestowed unusual care. The ill fa'urd, fearsome
couple--Sir Robert with his face "gash and ghastly as Satan's,"
and "Major Weir," the jackanape, in his red-laced coat and
wig--Steenie's eerie encounter with the "stranger" on horseback,
the ribald crew of feasters in the hall are described so
faithfully and in such vivid phrases that it is no wonder Willie
should remark at one point of the story: "I almost think I was
there mysell, though I couldna be born at the same time." The
power of the tale, which fascinates us from beginning to end and
which can be read again and again with renewed pleasure, depends
partly on Wandering Willie's gifts as a narrator, partly on the
emotions that stir him as he talks. With unconscious art, he
always uses the right word in his descriptions, and chooses those
details that help us to fix the rapidly changing imagery of his
scenes; and he reproduces exactly the natural dialogue of the
speakers. He begins in a tone of calm, unhurried narration, with
only a hint of fear in his voice, but, at the death of Sir
Robert, grows breathless with horror and excitement. The uncanny
incident of the silver whistle that sounds from the dead man's
chamber is skilfully followed by a matter-of-fact account of
Steenie's dealings with the new laird. The emotion culminates in
the terror of the hall of ghastly revellers, whose wild shrieks
"made Willie's gudesire's very nails grow blue and chilled the
marrow in his banes." So lifelike is the scene, so full of colour
and movement, that Steenie's descendants might well believe that
their gudesire, like Dante, had seen Hell.
The notes, introductions and appendices to Scott's works are
stored with material for novels of terror. The notes to
_Marmion_, for instance, contain references to a necromantic
priest whose story "much resembles that of Ambrosio in the
_Monk_," to an "Elfin" warrior and to a chest of treasure
jealously guarded for a century by the Devil in the likeness of a
huntsman. In _The Lady of the Lake_ there is a note on the
ancient legend of the Phantom Sire, in _Rokeby_ there is an
allusion to the Demon Frigate wandering under a curse from
harbour to harbour. To Scott "bogle-wark" was merely a diversion.
He did not choose to make it the mainspring either of his poems
or his romances. In _The Lay of the Last Minstrel_ he had,
indeed, intended to make the Goblin Page play a leading part, but
the imp, as Scott remarked to Miss Seward, "by the natural
baseness of his propensities contrived to slink downstairs into
the kitchen." The White Lady of Avenel, who appears in _The
Monastery_ (1830)--a boisterous creature who rides on horseback,
splashes through streams and digs a grave--was wisely withdrawn
in the sequel, _The Abbot_. In the Introduction Scott states:
"The White Lady is scarcely supposed to have possessed
either the power or the inclination to do more than
inflict terror or create embarrassment, and is always
subjected by those mortals who ... could assert
superiority over her."
The only apology Scott could offer to the critics who derided his
wraith was that the readers "ought to allow for the capriccios of
what is after all but a better sort of goblin." She was suggested
by the Undine of De La Motte Fouqué. In his next novel, _The
Fortunes of Nigel_, Scott formally renounced the mystic and the
magical: "Not a Cock Lane scratch--not one bounce on the drum of
Tedworth--not so much as the poor tick of a solitary death-watch
in the wainscot." But Scott cannot banish spectres so lightly
from his imagination. Apparitions--such as the Bodach Glas who
warns Fergus M'Ivor of his approaching death in _Waverley_, or
the wraith of a Highlander in a white cockade who is seen on the
battlefield in _The Legend of Montrose_--had appeared in his
earlier novels, and others appear again and again later. In _The
Bride of Lammermoor_--the only one of Scott's novels which might
fitly be called a "tale of terror"--the atmosphere of horror and
the sense of overhanging calamity effectually prepare our minds
for the supernatural, and the wraith of old Alice who appears to
the master of Ravenswood is strangely solemn and impressive. But
even more terrible is the description of the three hags laying
out her corpse. The appearance of Vanda with the Bloody Finger in
the haunted chamber of the Saxon manor in _The Betrothed_ is
skilfully arranged, and Eveline's terror is described with
convincing reality. In _Woodstock_, Scott adopted the method of
explaining away the apparently supernatural, although in his
_Lives of the Novelists_ he expressly disapproves of what he
calls the "precaution of Snug the joiner." Charged by Ballantyne
with imitating Mrs. Radcliffe, Scott defended himself by
asserting:
"My object is not to excite fear of supernatural things
in my reader, but to show the effect of such fear upon
the agents of the story--one a man in sense and
firmness, one a man unhinged by remorse, one a stupid,
unenquiring clown, one a learned and worthy but
superstitious divine."[116]
As Scott in his introduction quotes the passage from a treatise
entitled _The Secret History of the Good Devil of Woodstock_,
which reveals that the mysteries were performed by one Joseph
Collins with the aid of two friends, a concealed trap-door and a
pound of gunpowder, he cannot justly be accused of deceiving his
readers. There are suggestions of Mrs. Radcliffe's method in
others of his novels. In _The Antiquary_, before Lovel retires to
the Green Room at Monkbar, he is warned by Miss Griselda Oldbuck
of a "well-fa'urd auld gentleman in a queer old-fashioned dress
with whiskers turned upward on his upper lip as long as
baudrons," who is wont to appear at one's bedside. He falls into
an uneasy slumber, and in the middle of the night is startled to
see a green huntsman leave the tapestry and turn into the
"well-fa'urd auld gentleman" before his very eyes. In _Old
Mortality_, Edith Bellenden mistakes her lover for his
apparition, just as one of Mrs. Radcliffe's heroines might have
done. In _Peveril of the Peak_, Fenella's communications with the
hero in his prison, when he mistakes her voice for that of a
spirit, have an air of Gothic mystery. The awe-inspiring villain,
who appears in _Marmion_ and _Rokeby_, may be distinguished by
his scowl, his passion-lined face and gleaming eye. Rashleigh, in
_Rob Roy_, who, understanding Greek, Latin and Hebrew, "need not
care for ghaist or barghaist, devil or dobbie," and whose
sequestered apartment the servants durst not approach at
nightfall for "fear of bogles and brownies and lang-nebbit things
frae the neist world," is of the same lineage. Sir Robert
Redgauntlet, too, might have stepped out of one of Mrs.
Radcliffe's romances. His niece is not unlike one of her
heroines. She speaks in the very accents of Emily when she says:
"Now I have still so much of our family spirit as
enables me to be as composed in danger as most of my
sex, and upon two occasions in the course of our
journey--a threatened attack by banditti, and the
overturn of our carriage--I had the fortune so to
conduct myself as to convey to my uncle a very
favourable idea of my intrepidity."
Jeanie Deans, the most admirable and the most skilfully drawn of
Scott's women, is a daring contrast to the traditional heroine of
romance. The "delicate distresses" of persecuted Emilies shrink
into insignificance amid the tragedy and comedy of actual life
portrayed in The Waverley Novels. The tyrannical marquises,
vindictive stepmothers, dark-browed villains, scheming monks,
chattering domestics and fierce banditti are thrust aside by a
motley crowd of living beings--soldiers, lawyers, smugglers,
gypsies, shepherds, outlaws and beggars. The wax-work figures,
guaranteed to thrill with nervous suspense or overflow with
sensibility at the appropriate moments, are replaced by real folk
like "Old Mortality," Andrew Fairservice, Dugald Dalgetty and
Peter Peebles, whose humour and pathos are those of our own
world. The historical background, faint, misty and unreal in Mrs.
Radcliffe's novels, becomes, in those of Scott, arresting and
substantial. The grave, artificial dialogue in which Mrs.
Radcliffe's characters habitually discourse descends to some of
Scott's personages, but is often exchanged for the natural idiom
of simple people. The Gothic abbey, dropped down in an uncertain,
haphazard fashion, in some foreign land, is deserted for huts,
barns inns, cottages and castles, solidly built on Scottish soil.
We leave the mouldy air of the subterranean vault for the keen
winds of the moorland. The terrors of the invisible world only
fill the stray corners of his huge scene. He creates romance out
of the stuff of real life.
CHAPTER IX - LATER DEVELOPMENTS OF THE TALE OF TERROR.
As the novel of terror passes from the hands of Mrs. Radcliffe to
those of "Monk" Lewis, Maturin and their imitators, there is a
crashing crescendo of emotion. The villain's sardonic smile is
replaced by wild outbursts of diabolical laughter, his scowl
grows darker and darker, and as his designs become more bloody
and more dangerous, his victims no longer sigh plaintively, but
give utterance to piercing shrieks and despairing yells; tearful
Amandas are unceremoniously thrust into the background by
vindictive Matildas, whose passions rage in all their primitive
savagery; the fearful ghost "fresh courage takes," and stands
forth audaciously in the light of day; the very devil stalks
shamelessly abroad in manifold disguises. We are caught up from
first to last in the very tempest, torrent and whirlwind of
passion. When the novel of terror thus throws restraint to the
winds, outrageously o'ersteps the modesty of nature and indulges
in a farrago of frightfulness, it begins to defeat its own
purposes and to fail in its object of freezing the blood. The
limit of human endurance has been reached--and passed. Emphasis
and exaggeration have done their worst. Battle, murder, and
sudden death--even spectres and fiends--can appal no more. If the
old thrill is to be evoked again, the application of more
ingenious methods is needed.
Such novels as Maturin's _Family of Montorio_, though "full of
sound and fury," fail piteously to vibrate the chords of terror,
which had trembled beneath Mrs. Radcliffe's gentle fingers. The
instrument, smitten forcibly, repeatedly, desperately, resounds
not with the answering note expected, but with an ugly, metallic
jangle. _Melmoth the Wanderer_, Maturin's extraordinary
masterpiece, was to prove--as late as 1820--that there were
chords in the orchestra of horror as yet unsounded; but in 1816,
when Mary Shelley and her companions set themselves to compose
supernatural stories, it was wise to dispense with the shrieking
chorus of malevolent abbesses, diabolical monks, intriguing
marquises, Wandering Jews or bleeding spectres, who had been so
grievously overworked in previous performances. Dr. Polidori's
skull-headed lady, Byron's vampire-gentleman, Mrs. Shelley's
man-created monster--a grotesque and gruesome trio--had at least
the attraction of novelty. It is indeed remarkable that so young
and inexperienced a writer as Mary Shelley, who was only nineteen
when she wrote _Frankenstein_, should betray so slight a
dependence on her predecessors. It is evident from the records of
her reading that the novel of terror in all its guises was
familiar to her. She had beheld the majestic horror of the halls
of Eblis; she had threaded her way through Mrs. Radcliffe's
artfully constructed Gothic castles; she had braved the terrors
of the German Ritter-, Räuber- und Schauer-Romane; she had
assisted, fearful, at Lewis's midnight diablerie; she had
patiently unravelled the "mystery" novels of Godwin and of
Charles Brockden Brown.[117] Yet, despite this intimate knowledge
of the terrible and supernatural in fiction, Mrs. Shelley's theme
and her way of handling it are completely her own. In an "acute
mental vision," as real as the visions of Blake and of Shelley,
she beheld her monster and the "pale student of unhallowed arts"
who had created him, and then set herself to reproduce the thrill
of horror inspired by her waking dream. _Frankenstein_ has,
indeed, been compared to Godwin's _St. Leon_, but the resemblance
is so vague and superficial, and _Frankenstein_ so immeasurably
superior, that Mrs. Shelley's debt to her father is negligible.
St. Leon accepts the gift of immortality, Frankenstein creates a
new life, and in both novels the main interest lies in tracing
the effect of the experiment on the soul of the man, who has
pursued scientific inquiry beyond legitimate limits. But apart
from this, there is little resemblance. Godwin chose the
supernatural, because it chanced to be popular, and laboriously
built up a cumbrous edifice, completing it by a sheer effort of
will-power. His daughter, with an imagination naturally more
attuned to the gruesome and fantastic, writes, when once she has
wound her way into the heart of the story, in a mood of
breathless excitement that drives the reader forward with
feverish apprehension.
The name of Mrs. Shelley's _Frankenstein_ is far-famed; but the
book itself, overshadowed perhaps by its literary associations,
seems to have withdrawn into the vast library of famous works
that are more often mentioned than read. The very fact that the
name is often bestowed on the monster instead of his creator
seems to suggest that many are content to accept Mrs. Shelley's
"hideous phantom" on hearsay evidence rather than encounter for
themselves the terrors of his presence. The story deserves a
happier fate, for, if it be read in the spirit of willing
surrender that a theme so impossible demands, it has still power
momentarily "to make the reader dread to look round, to curdle
the blood and to quicken the beatings of the heart." The record
of the composition of _Frankenstein_ has been so often reiterated
that it is probably better known than the tale itself. In the
summer of 1816--when the Shelleys were the neighbours of Byron
near Lake Geneva--Byron, Shelley, Mary Shelley and Dr. Polidori,
after reading some volumes of ghost stories[118] and discussing
the supernatural and its manifestations, each agreed to write a
ghost story. It has been asserted that an interest in spectres
was stimulated by a visit from "Monk" Lewis, but we have evidence
that Mrs. Shelley was already writing her story in June,[119] and
that Lewis did not arrive at the Villa Diodati till August
14th.[120] The conversation with him about ghosts took place four
days later. Shelley's story, based on the experiences of his
early youth, was never completed. Byron's fragment formed the
basis of Dr. Polidori's _Vampyre_. Dr. Polidori states that his
supernatural novel, _Ernestus Berchtold_, was begun at this time;
but the skull-headed lady, alluded to by Mary Shelley as figuring
in Polidori's story, is disappointingly absent. It was an
argument between Byron and Shelley about Erasmus Darwin's
theories that brought before Mary Shelley's sleepless eyes the
vision of the monster miraculously infused by its creator with
the spark of life. _Frankenstein_ was begun immediately,
completed in May, 1817, and published in 1818.
Mrs. Shelley has been censured for setting her tale in a clumsy
framework, but she tells us in her preface that she began with
the words: "It was on a dreary night of November." This sentence
now stands at the opening of Chapter IV., where the plot begins
to grip our imagination; and it seems not unfair to assume that
the introductory letters and the first four chapters, which
contain a tedious and largely unnecessary account of
Frankenstein's early life, were written in deference to Shelley's
plea that the idea should be developed at greater length, and did
not form part of her original plan. The uninteresting student,
Robert Walton, to whom Frankenstein, discovered dying among
icebergs, tells his story, is obviously an afterthought. If Mrs.
Shelley had abandoned the awkward contrivance of putting the
narrative into the form of a dying man's confession, reported
verbatim in a series of letters, and had opened her story, as she
apparently intended, at the point where Frankenstein, after weary
years of research, succeeds in creating a living being, her novel
would have gained in force and intensity. From that moment it
holds us fascinated. It is true that the tension relaxes from
time to time, that the monster's strange education and the
Godwinian precepts that fall so incongruously from his lips tend
to excite our mirth, but, though we are mildly amused, we are no
longer merely bored. Even the protracted descriptions of domestic
life assume a new and deeper meaning, for the shadow of the
monster broods over them. One by one those whom Frankenstein
loves fall victims to the malice of the being he has endowed with
life. Unceasingly and unrelentingly the loathsome creature dogs
our imagination, more awful when he lurks unseen than when he
stands actually before us. With hideous malignity he slays
Frankenstein's young brother, and by a fiendish device causes
Justine, an innocent girl, to be executed for the crime. Yet ere
long our sympathy, which has hitherto been entirely with
Frankenstein, is unexpectedly diverted to the monster who, it
would seem, is wicked only because he is eternally divorced from
human society. Amid the magnificent scenery of the Valley of
Chamounix he appears before his creator, and tells the story of
his wretched life, pleading: "Everywhere I see bliss from which I
alone am irrevocably excluded. I was benevolent and good; misery
made me a fiend. Make me happy, and I shall again be virtuous."
He describes how his physical ugliness repels human beings, who
fail to realise his benevolent intentions. A father snatches from
his arms the child he has rescued from death; the virtuous
family, whom he admires and would fain serve, flee affrighted
from his presence. To educate the monster, so that his thoughts
and emotions may become articulate, and, incidentally, to
accentuate his isolation from society, Mrs. Shelley inserts a
complicated story about an Arabian girl, Sofie, whose lover
teaches her to read from Plutarch's _Lives_, Volney's _Ruins of
Empire, The Sorrows of Werther_, and _Paradise Lost_. The monster
overhears the lessons, and ponders on this unique library, but,
as he pleads his own cause the more eloquently because he knows
Satan's passionate outbursts of defiance and self-pity, who would
cavil at the method by which he is made to acquire his knowledge?
"The cold stars shone in mockery, and the bare trees waved their
branches above me; now and then the sweet voice of a bird burst
forth amidst the universal stillness. All save I were at rest or
in enjoyment. I, like the arch fiend, bore a hell within me." And
later, near the close of the book: "The fallen angel becomes a
malignant devil. Yet even that enemy of God and man had friends
and associates in his desolation; I am alone," His fate reminds
us of that of _Alastor, the Spirit of Solitude_, who:
"Over the world wanders for ever
Lone as incarnate death."
After the long and moving recital of his woes, even the obdurate
Frankenstein cannot resist the justice of his demand for a
partner like himself. Yet when the student recoils with horror
from his half-accomplished task and sees the creature maliciously
peering through the window, our hatred leaps to life once more
and burns fiercely as the monster adds to his crimes the murder
of Clerval, Frankenstein's dearest friend, and of Elizabeth on
her wedding night. We follow with shuddering anticipation the
long pursuit of the monster, expectant of a last, fearful
encounter which shall decide the fate of the demon and his maker.
Amid the region of eternal ice, Frankenstein catches sight of
him; but fails to reach him. At last, beside the body of his last
victim--Frankenstein himself--the creature is filled with remorse
at the "frightful catalogue" of his sins, and makes a final bid
for our sympathy in the farewell speech to Walton, before
climbing on an ice-raft to be "borne away by the waves and lost
in darkness and distance."
Like _Alastor_, _Frankenstein_ was a plea for human sympathy, and
was, according to Shelley's preface, intended "to exhibit the
amiableness of domestic affection and the excellence of universal
virtue." The monster has the perception and desire of goodness,
but, by the circumstances of his abnormal existence, is delivered
over to evil. It is this dual nature that prevents him from being
a mere automaton. The monster indeed is far more real than the
shadowy beings whom he pursues. Frankenstein is less an
individual than a type, and only interests us through the
emotions which his conflict with the monster arouses. Clerval,
Elizabeth and Frankenstein's relatives are passive sufferers
whose psychology does not concern us. Mrs. Shelley rightly
lavishes her skill on the central figure of the book, and
succeeds, as effectually as Frankenstein himself, in infusing
into him the spark of life. Mrs. Shelley's aim is to "awaken
thrilling horror," and, incidentally, to "exhibit the excellence
of domestic virtue," and for her purpose the demon is of
paramount importance. The involved, complex plot of a novel
seemed to pass beyond Mrs. Shelley's control. A short tale she
could handle successfully, and Shelley was unwise in inciting her
to expand _Frankenstein_ into a long narrative. So long as she is
completely carried away by her subject Mrs. Shelley writes
clearly, but when she pauses to regard the progress of her story
dispassionately, she seems to be overwhelmed by the wealth of her
resources and to have no power of selecting the relevant details.
The laborious introductory letters, the meticulous record of
Frankenstein's education, the story of Felix and Sofie, the
description of the tour through England before the creation of
the second monster is attempted, are all connected with the main
theme by very frail links and serve to distract our attention in
an irritating fashion from what really interests us. In the novel
of mystery a tantalising delay may be singularly effective. In a
novel which depends chiefly for its effect on sheer horror,
delays are merely dangerous. By resting her terrors on a
pseudo-scientific basis and by placing her story in a definite
locality, Mrs. Shelley waives her right to an entire suspension
of disbelief. If it be reduced to its lowest terms, the plot of
Frankenstein, with its bewildering confusion of the prosaic and
the fantastic, sounds as crude, disjointed and inconsequent as
that of a nightmare. Mrs. Shelley's timid hesitation between
imagination and reality, her attempt to reconcile incompatible
things and to place a creature who belongs to no earthly land in
familiar surroundings, prevents _Frankenstein_ from being a
wholly satisfactory and alarming novel of terror. She loves the
fantastic, but she also fears it. She is weighted down by
commonsense, and so flutters instead of soaring, unwilling to
trust herself far from the material world. But the fact that she
was able to vivify her grotesque skeleton of a plot with some
degree of success is no mean tribute to her gifts. The energy and
vigour of her style, her complete and serious absorption in her
subject, carry us safely over many an absurdity. It is only in
the duller stretches of the narrative, when her heart is not in
her work, that her language becomes vague, indeterminate and
blurred, and that she muffles her thoughts in words like
"ascertain," "commencement," "peruse," "diffuse," instead of
using their simpler Saxon equivalents. Stirred by the excitement
of the events she describes, she can write forcibly in simple,
direct language. She often frames short, hurried sentences such
as a man would naturally utter when breathless with terror or
with recollections of terror. The final impression that
_Frankenstein_ leaves with us is not easy to define, because the
book is so uneven in quality. It is obviously the shapeless work
of an immature writer who has had no experience in evolving a
plot. Sometimes it is genuinely moving and impressive, but it
continually falls abruptly and ludicrously short of its aim. Yet
when all its faults have been laid bare, the fact remains that
few readers would abandon the story half-way through. Mrs.
Shelley is so thoroughly engrossed in her theme that she impels
her readers onward, even though they may think but meanly of her
story as a work of art.
Mrs. Shelley's second novel, _Valperga, or the Life and
Adventures of Castruccio, Prince of Lucca_, published in 1823,
was a work on which she bestowed much care and labour, but the
result proves that she writes best when the urgency of her
imagination leaves her no leisure either to display her learning
or adorn her style. She herself calls _Valperga_ a "child of
mighty slow growth," and Shelley adds that it was "raked out of
fifty old books." Mrs. Shelley, always an industrious student,
made a conscientious survey of original sources before fashioning
her story of mediaeval Italy, and she is hampered by the
exuberance of her knowledge. The novel is not a romance of
terror; but Castruccio, though his character is sketched from
authentic documents, seems towards the end of the story to
resemble the picturesque villain who numbered among his ancestry
Milton's Satan. He has "a majestic figure and a countenance
beautiful but sad, and tarnished by the expression of pride that
animated it." Beatrice, the gifted prophetess who falls deep in
love with Castruccio, ends her days in the dungeons of the
Inquisition. Mrs. Shelley's aim, however, is not to arouse fear,
but to trace the gradual deterioration of Castruccio's character
from an open-hearted youth to a crafty tyrant. The blunt remarks
of Godwin, who revised the manuscript, are not unjust, but fall
with an ill grace from the pen of the author of _St. Leon_: "It
appears in reading, that the first rule you prescribed was: 'I
will let it be long.' It contains the quantity of four volumes of
_Waverley_. No hard blow was ever hit with a woodsaw."[121]
In _The Last Man_, which appeared in 1825, Mrs. Shelley attempted
a stupendous theme, no less then a picture of the devastation of
the human race by plague and pestilence. She casts her
imagination forward into the twenty-first century, when the last
king of England has abdicated the throne and a republic is
established. Very wisely, she narrows the interest by
concentrating on the pathetic fate of a group of friends who are
among the last survivors, and the story becomes an idealised
record of her own sufferings. The description of the loneliness
of the bereft has a personal note, and reminds us of her journal,
where she expresses the sorrow of being herself the last
survivor, and of feeling like a "cloud from which the light of
sunset has passed."[122] Raymond, who dies in an attempt to place
the standard of Greece in Stamboul, is a portrait of Byron; and
Adrian, the late king's son, who finally becomes Protector, is
clearly modelled on Shelley. Yet in spite of these personal
reminiscences, their characters lack distinctness. Idris, Clara
and Perdita are faintly etched, but Evadne, the Greek artist, who
cherishes a passion for Raymond, and dies fighting against the
Turks, has more colour and body than the other women, though she
is somewhat theatrical. Mrs. Shelley conveys emotion more
faithfully than character, and the overwrought sensibilities and
dark forebodings of the diminished party of survivors who leave
England to distract their minds by foreign travel are artfully
suggested. The leaping, gesticulating figure, whom their jaded
nerves and morbid fancy transform into a phantom, is a delirious
ballet-dancer; and the Black Spectre, mistaken for Death
Incarnate, proves only to be a plague-stricken noble, who lurks
near the party for the sake of human society. These "reasonable"
solutions of the apparently supernatural remind us of Mrs.
Radcliffe's method, and Mrs. Shelley shows keen psychological
insight in her delineation of the state of mind which readily
conjures up imaginary terrors. When Lionel Verney is left alone
in the universe, her power seems to flag, and instead of the
final crescendo of horror, which we expect at the end of the
book, we are left with an ineffective picture of the last man in
Rome in 2005 deciding to explore the countries he has not yet
viewed. As he wanders amid the ruins he recalls not only "the
buried Cæsars," but also the monk in _The Italian_, of whom he
had read in childhood--a striking proof of Mrs. Shelley's faith
in the permanence of Mrs. Radcliffe's fame.
Though the style of _The Last Man_ is often tediously prolix and
is disfigured by patches of florid rhetoric and by inappropriate
similes scattered broadcast, occasional passages of wonderful
beauty recall Shelley's imagery; and, in conveying the pathos of
loneliness, personal feeling lends nobility and eloquence to her
style. With so ambitious a subject, it was natural that she
should only partially succeed in carrying her readers with her.
Though there are oases, the story is a somewhat tedious and
dreary stretch of narrative that can only be traversed with
considerable effort.
Mrs. Shelley's later works--_Perkin Warbeck_ (1830), a historical
novel; _Lodore_ (1835), which describes the early life of Shelley
and Harriet; _Falkner_ (1837), which was influenced by _Caleb
Williams_--do not belong to the history of the novel of terror;
but some of her short tales, contributed to periodicals and
collected in 1891, have gruesome and supernatural themes. _A Tale
of the Passions, or the Death of Despina_[123] a story based on
the struggles of the Guelphs and the Ghibellines, contains a
perfect specimen of the traditional villain of the novel of
terror:
"Every feature of his countenance spoke of the struggle
of passions and the terrible egotism of one who would
sacrifice himself to the establishment of his will: his
black eyebrows were scattered, his grey eyes deep-set
and scowling, his look at once stern and haggard. A
smile seemed never to have disturbed the settled scorn
which his lips expressed; his high forehead was marked
by a thousand contradictory lines."
This terrific personage spends the last years of his life in
orthodox fashion as an austere saint in a monastery.
_The Mortal Immortal_, a variation on the theme of _St. Leon_, is
the record of a pupil of Cornelius Agrippa, who drank half of the
elixir his master had compounded in the belief that it was a
potion to destroy love. It is written on his three hundred and
twenty-third birthday. _Transformation_, like _Frankenstein_,
dwells on the pathos of ugliness and deformity, but the subject
is treated rather in the spirit of an eastern fairy tale than in
that of a novel of terror. The dwarf, in return for a chest of
treasure, borrows a beautiful body, and, thus disguised, wins the
love of Juliet, and all ends happily. Mrs. Shelley's short
stories[124] reveal a stronger sense of proportion than her
novels, and are written in a more graceful, fluent style than the
books on which she expended great labour.
The literary history of Byron's fragmentary novel and of
Polidori's short story, _The Vampyre_, is somewhat tangled, but
the solution is to be found in the diary of Dr. John William
Polidori, edited and elucidated by William Michael Rossetti. The
day after that on which Polidori states that all the competitors,
except himself, had begun their stories, he records the simple
fact: "Began my ghost-story after tea." He gives no hint as to
the subject of his tale, but Mrs. Shelley tells us that Polidori
had some idea of a "skull-headed lady, who was so punished for
looking through a key-hole, and who was finally buried in the
tomb of the Capulets." In the introduction to _Ernestus
Berchtold, or the Modern OEdipus_, he states definitely:
"The tale here presented to the public is one I began
at Coligny, when _Frankenstein_ was planned, and when a
noble author, having determined to descend from his
lofty range, gave up a few hours to a tale of terror,
and wrote the fragment published at the end of
Mazeppa."
As no skull-headed lady appears in _Ernestus Berchtold_, it is
probable that her career was only suggested to the rest of the
party as an entrancing possibility, and never actually took
shape. This theme would certainly have proved more frightful and
possibly more interesting than the one which Polidori eventually
adopted in _Ernestus Berchtold_, a rambling, leisurely account of
the adventures of a Swiss soldier, whose wife afterwards proves
to be his own sister. Their father has accepted from a malignant
spirit the gift of wealth, but each time that the gift is
bestowed some great affliction follows. This secret is not
divulged until we are quite near the close of the story, and have
waited so long that our interest has begun to wane. _Ernestus
Berchtold_ is, as a matter of fact, not a novel of terror at all.
The supernatural agency, which should have been interlaced with
the domestic story from beginning to end, is only dragged in
because it was one of the conditions of the competition, as
indeed Polidori frankly confesses in his introduction:
"Many readers will think that the same moral and the
same colouring might have been given to characters
acting under the ordinary agencies of life. I believe
it, but I agreed to write a supernatural tale, and that
does not allow of a completely everyday narrative."
The candour of this admission forestalls criticism. Strangely
enough, Polidori adds that he has thrown the "superior agency"
into the background, because "a tale that rests upon
improbabilities must generally disgust a rational mind." With so
decided a preference for the reasonable and probable, it is
remarkable that Polidori should treat the vampire legend
successfully. It has frequently been stated that Byron's story
was completed by Polidori; but this assertion is not precisely
accurate. Polidori made no use of the actual fragment, but based
his story upon the groundwork on which the fragment was to have
been continued. Byron's story describes the arrival of two
friends amid the ruins of Ephesus. One of them, Darvell, who,
like most of Byron's heroes, is enshrouded in mystery, and is a
prey to some cureless disquiet, falls ill and dies. Before his
death he demands that his companion shall on a certain day throw
a ring into the salt springs that run into the bay of Eleusis. If
we may trust Polidori's account, Byron intended that the
survivor, on his return to England, should be startled to behold
his companion moving in society, and making love to his sister.
On this foundation Polidori constructed _The Vampyre_. The story
opens with the description of a nobleman, Lord Ruthven, whose
appearance and character excite great interest in London society.
His face is remarkable for its deadly pallor, and he has a "dead,
grey eye, which, fixing upon the object's face, did not seem to
penetrate and at one glance to pierce through to the inward
workings of the heart, but fell upon the cheek with a leaden ray
that laid (_sic_) upon the skin it could not pass." A young man
named Aubrey, who arrives in London about the same time, becomes
deeply interested in the study of Ruthven's character. When he
joins him on a tour abroad he discovers that his companion takes
a fiendish delight in ruining the innocent at the gaming-table;
and, after receiving a warning of Ruthven's reputation, decides
to leave him, but to continue to watch him closely. He succeeds
in foiling his designs against a young Italian girl in Rome.
Aubrey next travels to Greece, where he falls in love with
Ianthe. One day, in spite of warnings that the place he purposes
to visit is frequented by vampires, Aubrey sets off on an
excursion. Benighted in a lonely forest, he hears the
terror-stricken cries of a woman in a hovel, and, on attempting
to rescue her, finds himself in the grasp of a being of
superhuman strength, who cries: "Again baffled!" When light
dawns, Aubrey makes the terrible discovery that Ianthe has become
the prey of a vampire. He carries away from the spot a
blood-stained dagger. In the delirious fever, which ensues on his
discovery of Ianthe's fate, Aubrey is nursed by Lord Ruthven.
While they are travelling in Greece, Ruthven is shot in the
shoulder by a robber, and, before dying, exacts from Aubrey a
solemn oath that he will not reveal for a year and a day what he
knows of his crimes or death. In accordance with a promise made
to Ruthven, his body is conveyed to a mountain to be exposed to
the rays of the moon. The corpse disappears. Among Ruthven's
possessions Aubrey finds a sheath, into which the dagger he has
found in the hovel fits exactly. On passing through Rome he
learns that the girl he had once saved from Ruthven has vanished.
When he returns to London, Aubrey is horrified to behold the
figure of Lord Ruthven almost on the very spot where he had first
seen him. He dare not break his oath, and soon becomes almost
demented. The news of his sister's marriage seems to rouse him
momentarily from his lethargy, and when he discovers that Ruthven
is to be the bridegroom he urges her to delay the marriage. His
warnings are disregarded, and the ceremony takes place. Aubrey
relates to his sister's guardians all that he knows of Ruthven,
but it is too late. Ruthven has disappeared, and she has "glutted
the thirst of a vampyre."
Polidori's manner of telling the story is curiously matter of
fact and restrained. He relates the incidents as they occur, and
leaves the reader to form his own conclusions. If Lewis had been
handling the theme he would have wallowed in gory details, and
would have expatiated on the agonies of his victims. Polidori
wisely keeps his story in a quiet key, depending for his effect
on the terror of the bare facts. He realises that he is on the
verge of the unspeakable.
Polidori's story set a fashion in vampires, who appear as
characters in fiction all through the nineteenth century. A
writer in the _Dublin University Magazine_ tells of a vampire who
plays an admirable game of whist! There is an "explained" vampire
in one of George Macdonald's stories, _Adela Cathcart_. The
prince of vampires is, however, Bram Stoker's _Dracula_, round
whom centres a story of absorbing interest.
De Quincey, who might have selected from the novel of terror many
admirable illustrations for his essay on _Murder, Considered as
one of the Fine Arts_, and who seems to have been attracted by
the German type of horrific story, shows some facility in
sensational fiction. In _Klosterheim_, a one-volumed novel
published in 1832, the interest circles round the machinations of
an elusive, ubiquitous "Masque," eventually revealed to be none
other than the son of the late Landgrave, who, like many a man
before him in the tale of terror, has been done to death by a
usurper. Disappearances through trap-doors, and escapes down
subterranean passages are effected with a dexterity suggestive of
Mrs. Radcliffe's methods; and the inexplicable murders, with the
exception of that of an aged seneschal accidentally betrayed, are
not real. In certain of his moods and habits, the Masque bears a
likeness to Lewis's "Bravo," but the setting of De Quincey's
story is very different. The adventures of the Masque and of the
Lady Pauline are cast in Germany amid the confusion of the Thirty
Years' War. In _The Household Wreck_, published in _Blackwood's
Magazine_, January 1838, De Quincey shows his power of conveying
a sense of foreboding, that anticipation of horror which is often
more harrowing than the reality. Another tale of terror, _The
Avenger_, published in the same year, describes a series of
bloodcurdling murders which baffle the skill of the police, but
which eventually prove to have been committed by a son to avenge
dishonour done to his Jewish mother. For a collection of _Popular
Tales and Romances of the Northern Nations_, published in 1823,
De Quincey translated _Der Freischütz_ from the German of J.A.
Apel, under the title of _The Fatal Marksman_. By means of
ill-gotten magic bullets the marksman wins his bride, but by one
of those little ironies in which the devil delights to indulge,
she is slain on the wedding-day by a bullet, which is aimed
straight, but goes askew. In _The Dice_, another short story from
the German, De Quincey once again exploits the old theme of a
bargain with the devil.
De Quincey's contributions to the tale of terror shrink into
unimportance beside the rest of his work, and are not in
themselves remarkable. They are of interest as showing the
widespread and long-enduring vogue of the species. It is
noteworthy how many writers, whose main business lay elsewhere,
have found time to make erratic excursions into the realms of the
supernatural.
So late as 1834--more than a decade after the appearance of
_Melmoth_--Harrison Ainsworth, whose imagination was steeped in
terror, sought once more to revive the "feeble and fluttering
pulses of old Romance." Among his earliest experiments were tales
obviously fashioned in the Gothic manner. His Imperishable One,
the hero of a tale first published in the _European Magazine_ for
1822, bemoans the burden of immortality in the listless tones of
Godwin's St. Leon, and is tempted by the fallen angel in the
self-same guise in which he appeared to Lewis's notorious monk.
In _The Test of Affection_ (_European Magazine_, 1822) a wealthy
man avails himself of Mrs. Radcliffe's supernatural trickery to
test the loyalty of his friends, whom he succeeds in alarming by
noises and a skeleton apparition. In _Arliss's Pocket Magazine_
(1822) there appeared _The Spectre Bride_; and in the _European
Magazine_ (1823) Ainsworth attempted a theme that would have
attracted Poe in _The Half Hangit_. _The Boeotian_ for 1824
contained _A Tale of Mystery_, and the _Literary Souvenir_ for
1825 _The Fortress of Saguntum_, a story in the style of Lewis.
Ainsworth's first novel, _Rookwood_ (1834), was inspired by a
visit to Cuckfield Place, an old manor house which had reminded
Shelley of "bits of Mrs. Radcliffe":
"Wishing to describe somewhat minutely the trim
gardens, the picturesque domains, the rook-haunted
groves, the gloomy chambers and gloomier galleries of
an ancient hall with which I was acquainted, I resolved
to attempt a story in the bygone style of Mrs.
Radcliffe, substituting an old English squire, an old
manorial residence and an old English highwayman for
the Italian marchise, the castle and the brigand of
that great mistress of romance... The attempt has
succeeded beyond my most sanguine expectation. Romance,
if I am not mistaken, is destined shortly to undergo an
important change. Modified by the German and French
writers--Hoffmann, Tieck, Victor Hugo, Alexander Dumas,
Balzac and Paul Lacroix--the structure commenced in our
land by Horace Walpole, 'Monk' Lewis, Mrs. Radcliffe
and Maturin, but, left imperfect and inharmonious,
requires, now that the rubbish which choked up its
approach is removed, only the hand of the skilful
architect to its entire renovation and perfection."
In _Rookwood_, Ainsworth disdains Mrs. Radcliffe's reasonable
elucidations of the supernatural, and introduces spectres whose
existence it would be impossible to deny. Once, however, a
supposed ghost becomes substantial, and proves to be none other
than a human being called Jack Palmer. The sexton, Luke Bradley,
_alias_ Alan Rookwood, has inherited two of the Wanderer's
traits--the fear-impelling eyes of intolerable lustre, and the
habit of indulging in wild, screaming laughter on the most
inauspicious occasions.
Gothic properties are scattered with indiscriminate
extravagance--skeleton hands, suddenly extinguished candles,
sliding panels, sepulchral vaults. The plot of _Rookwood_ is too
complicated and too overcrowded with incident to keep our
attention. The terrors are so unremitting that they fail to
strike home. The only part of the book which holds us enthralled
is the famous description of Dick Turpin's ride to York. Here we
forget Ainsworth's slip-shod style in the excitement of the
chase. In his later novels Ainsworth abandoned the manner of Mrs.
Radcliffe, but did not fail to make use of the motive of terror
and mystery. The scenes of horror which he strove to convey in
words were often more admirably depicted in the illustrations of
Cruikshank. The sorcerer's sabbath in _Crichton_, the historical
scenes of horror in _The Tower of London_, the masque of the
Dance of Death in _Old St. Paul's_, the appearance of Herne the
Hunter, heralded by phosphoric lights, in _Windsor Castle_, the
terrible orgies of _The Lancashire Witches_, are described with
more striking effect because of Ainsworth's early reading in the
school of terror. In _Auriol_, which was first published in
_Ainsworth's Magazine_ (1844-5) under the title _Revelations of
London_, was issued in 1845 as a gratuitous supplement to the
_New Monthly_, and greeted with derision,[125] Ainsworth handled
once again the theme that fascinated Lytton. The Prologue (1599)
describes the death of Dr. Lamb, whose elixir is seized by his
great-grandson. In 1830 London is haunted by a stranger, who
involves Auriol in wildly fantastic and frightful adventures. The
book closes in Dr. Lamb's laboratory; the intervening scenes are
but dream imagery. Phiz's sketch of the Ruined House is the most
lasting memory left by the book.
Captain Marryat, whose mind was well stored with sailors' yarns,
retells in _The Phantom Ship_ (1839) the old legend of the Flying
Dutchman. At one time the doomed vessel is an unsubstantial
vision, which can pass clean through the Utrecht; at another she
is a real craft, whose deck can be boarded by mortal men. The
one-eyed pilot, Schriften, with his malignant hatred of the hero,
Philip, is a terrifying figure. The story is embroidered by the
invention of a wife of Arab extraction, who is constantly
attempting to recall the half-forgotten magical arts which her
mother had practised. Marryat makes an opportunity in the history
of Krantz, the second mate of the _Vrou Katerina_, to introduce
the Scandinavian legend of the werewolf, which is related with
grisly detail.
The novel of terror, with all its faults, had seldom been guilty
of demanding intellectual strain or of overburdening itself with
erudition. It was the dignified task of Lord Lytton to
rationalise and elevate the novel of terror, to evolve the "man
of reason" from the "child of nature." Although time has
tarnished the brilliance of his reputation, George Edward Bulwer
was an imposing figure in the history of nineteenth century
fiction. Throughout his life, in spite of political and social
distractions and of matrimonial disaster, he continued to engage
with unwearying industry in literary work. He was not a man of
genius in whom the creative impulse found its own expression, but
a versatile and accomplished gentleman who could direct his
talents into any channel he pleased. Essays, translations,
verses, plays, novels flowed from his pen in rapid succession,
and he won his meed of applause and fame, as well as his share of
execration and derision, in his own lifetime. Quick to discern
the popular taste of the hour, and eager to gratify it, Lytton,
with the resourceful agility of a lightning impersonator, turns
in his novels from Wertherism to dandyism, from criminal
psychology to fairy folk-lore, from historical romance to
domestic romance, from pseudo-philosophic occultism to
pseudo-scientific fantasy. He ranges at will in the past, the
present or the future, consorting indifferently with impalpable
wraiths, Vrilya or mysterious Sages. It is to his credit that
this unusual gift of adaptability does not result in
incompetency. Though he attempts a variety of manners, it must in
justice be acknowledged that he does most of them well. He
constructs his plots with laborious art, and pays a deliberate,
if sometimes misguided, attention to style. When he fails, it is
less from lack of effort than from over-elaboration and excess of
zeal.
Bulwer Lytton's predilection for the supernatural was neither a
theatrical pose nor a passing folly excited by the fashionable
craze for psychical research, but a genuine and enduring
interest, inherited, it may be, from his ancestor, the learned,
eccentric savant, Dr. Bulwer, who studied the Black Art and
dabbled in astrology and palmistry. He was a member of the
society of Rosicrucians, and, to quote the words of his grandson,
"he certainly did not study magic for the sake of writing about
it, still less did he write about it, without having studied it,
merely for the sake of making his readers' flesh creep." From his
early years Lytton seems to have been keenly interested in
supernatural manifestations. He was inspired by the deserted
rooms at the end of a long gallery in Knebworth House to set down
the story of the ghost, Jenny Spinner, who was said to haunt
them; and the concealed chamber in _The Haunted and the Haunters_
may have been a revived memory of the trap-door down which Lytton
as a boy had "peeped with bristling hair into the shadowy abysses
of hellhole." In _Glenallan_,[126] an early fragment, we find
promising material for a tale of mystery--a villain with a
"strange and sinister expression," a boy who, like the youthful
Shelley, steals forth by night to graveyards, hoping to attain to
fearful secrets, and an aged servant, a living chronicle of
horrors, who relates the doings of an Irish wizard, Morshed
Tyrone, of such awful power that the spirits of the earth, air
and ocean ministered to him. In _Godolphin_ (1833) there is an
astrologer with the furrowed brow and awful eye, so common among
the people of terror, and a strangely gifted girl, Lucilla, who
turns soothsayer. But when Bulwer Lytton attempts a supernatural
romance he leaves far behind him the sphere of Gothic terrors and
soars into rarefied, exalted regions that inspire awe rather than
horror. The Dweller of the Threshold in _Zanoni_ is no
red-cloaked, demoniacal figure springing from a trap-door with a
deafening clap of thunder, but a "Colossal Shadow" brooding over
the crater of Vesuvius.
The romance, _Zanoni_ (1842), which Lytton considered the
greatest of his works and which Carlyle praised with what now
seems extravagant fervour, was based on an earlier sketch,
_Zicci_ (1838), and embodies a complicated theory which he had
conceived several years earlier after reading some mediaeval
treatises on astrology and the occult sciences. While his mind
was occupied with these studies, the character of Mejnour and the
main outlines of the story were inspired by a dream, which he
related to his son. According to Lytton's theory, the air is
peopled with Intelligences, of whom some are favourable, others
hostile to man. The earth contains certain plants, which, rightly
used, have power to arrest the decay of the human body, and to
enable man, by quickening his physical senses and mental gifts,
to perceive the aerial beings and to discover the secrets of
nature. This supernatural knowledge is in possession of a
brotherhood of whom two only, Mejnour and his pupil Zanoni, are
in existence. The initiation involves the surrender of all
violent passions and emotions, and the neophyte must be brought
into contact with the powerful and malignant being called the
Dweller of the Threshold:
"Whose form of giant mould
No mortal eye can fixed behold,"
Mejnour and Zanoni are supposed to have been initiated--the
former in old age, the latter in youth--more than five thousand
years before the story opens. Thus Mejnour remains for ever a
vigorous old man; while Zanoni, his pupil, enjoys perpetual
youth. Mejnour is purely intellectual, and spends his life in
contemplation; while Zanoni, though he must avoid love and
friendship which are unknown to the passionless Intelligences,
feels sympathy with human beings.
Zanoni, who spends his life in the pursuit of pleasure, after
fifty centuries at last falls in love with Viola, an Italian
opera-singer. Like Melmoth the Wanderer, Zanoni is reluctant to
bind the woman he loves to his own fate. He tries to renounce
Viola to an Englishman, Glyndon, who eventually chooses to
relinquish love for the sake of achieving the unearthly knowledge
of Mejnour. Glyndon, however, fails in the trial, and is
consequently haunted by the horror of the Dweller of the
Threshold. Meanwhile Zanoni is united to Viola; and because he
has succumbed to the force of love, his peculiar powers begin to
fail. He can no longer see the beautiful, aerial intelligence,
Adon-Ai. To save from death Viola and the child who is born to
them, Zanoni ere long yields to the Dweller of the Threshold his
gift of communion with the inhabitants of heaven. Later Viola,
who incidentally typifies Superstition deserting Faith, leaves
Zanoni at the call of Glyndon, and in Paris, during the Reign of
Terror, is doomed to die. Zanoni invokes the aid of the
mysterious Intelligences, and his courage at length brings
Adon-Ai again to his side. He wins a day's reprieve for Viola,
and is executed in her stead. The death of Robespierre releases
the prisoners, but Viola dies the next day.
The compact between Zanoni and the Dweller of the Threshold is a
renovation of the time-worn legend of the bargain with an evil
spirit, but Lytton transforms it almost beyond recognition.
Zanoni is no criminal. He has attained his secrets through
will-power, self-conquest, and the subordination of the flesh to
the spirit, and he surrenders his gifts willingly for the sake of
another. Both Mejnour and Zanoni disclaim miraculous powers, yet
Zanoni is ready to stake his mistress on a cast of the dice, and
can cause the death of three sanguinary marauders without
stirring from the apartment in which he ordinarily pursues his
chemical studies. From such incidents as these it would seem as
if Lytton, for the actual craftsmanship of _Zanoni_, may have
gleaned stray hints from the novel of terror; but the spirit and
intention of the book are entirely different. Though Lytton
expressly declares that his _Zanoni_ is not an allegory, he
confesses that it has symbolical meanings. Zanoni is apt to
assume the superior pose of a lecturer elucidating an abstruse
subject to an unenlightened audience. The impression of artifice
that the book makes upon us is probably due to the fact that
Lytton first conceived his theories and then created personages
to illustrate them. His characters have no power to act of their
own volition or to do unexpected things, but must move along the
lines laid down for them.
In _The Haunted and the Haunters, or The House and the Brain_,
which appeared in _Blackwood's Magazine_ in 1859, Bulwer Lytton
lays aside the sin of over-elaboration and ornamentation that so
easily besets him, and relies for his effect on the impalpable
horror of his story. The calm, business-like overture, the
accurate description of the position of the house in a street off
the north side of Oxford Street, the insistence on the
matter-of-fact attitude of the watcher, and on the cool courage
of his servant, the abject fear of the dog, who dies in agony,
all tend to create an atmosphere of grave conviction. The eerie
child's footfall, the moving of the furniture by unseen hands,
the wrinkled fingers that clutch the old letters, the faintly
outlined wraiths of the man and woman in old-world garb with
ruffles, lace, and buckles, the hideous phantom of the drowned
man, the dark figure with malignant serpent eyes, shadow forth
the story hinted at in the letters found in an old drawer.
Haunted by loathly presences, the watcher experiences a sensation
of almost intolerable horror, but saves himself at the worst by
opposing his will to that of the haunters. He rightly surmises
that the evil influences, which seem in some way to emanate from
a small empty room, really proceed from a living being. His
interpretation is skilful and subtle enough not to detract from
the simple horror of the tale. A miniature, certain volatile
essences, a compass, a lodestone and other properties are found
in a room below that which appeared to be the source of the
horrors. It proves that the man, whose face is portrayed on the
miniature has been able through the exertion of will-power to
prolong his life for two centuries, and to preserve a curse in a
magical vessel. He is actually interviewed by the watcher, to
whom he unfolds his remarkable history, and whom he mesmerises
into silence on the subject of his experiences in the haunted
house for a space of three months.
Lytton realises that it is not only what is told but what is left
unsaid that requires consideration in a ghost story. His
reticence and the entire absence of any note of mockery or doubt
secure the "willing suspension of disbelief" necessary to the
appreciation of the apparently supernatural.
In _A Strange Story_, which, at Dickens's invitation, appeared in
_All the Year Round_ (1861-2), Bulwer Lytton further elaborates
his theories of mesmerism and willpower. He explains his purpose
in the Preface:
"When the reader lays down this strange story, perhaps
he will detect, through all the haze of Romance, the
outlines of these images suggested to his reason:
Firstly, the image of sensuous, soulless Nature, such
as the Materialist had conceived it. Secondly, the
image of Intellect, obstinately separating all its
inquiries from the belief in the spiritual essence and
destiny of man, and incurring all kinds of perplexity
and resorting to all kinds of visionary speculation
before it settles at last into the simple faith which
unites the philosopher and the infant. And thirdly, the
image of the erring but pure-thoughted Visionary,
seeking overmuch on this earth to separate soul from
mind, till innocence itself is led astray by a phantom
and reason is lost in the space between earth and the
stars."
These three conceptions are embodied in Margrave, who has renewed
his life far beyond the limits allotted to man; a young doctor,
Fenwick, who represents the intellectual divorced from the
spiritual; and Lilian Ashleigh, a clairvoyante girl, who typifies
the spiritual divorced from the intellectual. The interest of the
story turns on the struggle of Fenwick to gain his bride, and to
wrest her from the influence of Margrave. The plot, intricately
tangled, is unravelled with patient skill. In spite of the
wearisome explanations of Dr. Faber, who is lucid but verbose,
there is a fascination about the book which compels us to go
forward.
In Lytton's hands the barbarity of the novel of terror has been
gracefully smoothed away. It has, indeed, become almost
unrecognisably refined and elevated, and something of its native
vigour is lost in the process. Amid all the amenities of Vrilya
and Intelligences, we miss the vulgar blatancy of an honest,
old-fashioned spectre.
CHAPTER X - SHORT TALES OF TERROR.
For the readers of their own day the Gothic romances of Walpole,
Miss Reeve and Mrs. Radcliffe possessed the charm of novelty.
Before the close of the century we may trace, in the
conversations of Isabella Thorpe and Catherine Morland in
_Northanger Abbey_, symptoms of a longing for more poignant
excitement. It was at this time that Mrs. Radcliffe, after the
publication of _The Italian_ in 1797, retired quietly from the
field. From her obscurity she viewed no doubt with some disdain
the vulgar achievements of "Monk" Lewis and a tribe of imitators,
who compounded a farrago of horrors as thick and slab as the
contents of a witch's cauldron. Until the appearance in 1820 of
Maturin's _Melmoth_, which was redeemed by its psychological
insight and its vigorous style, the Gothic romance maintained a
disreputable existence in the hands of those who looked upon
fiction as a lucrative trade, not as an art. In the meantime,
however, an easy device had been discovered for pandering to the
popular craving for excitement. Ingenious authors realised that
it was possible to compress into the five pages of a short story
as much sensation as was contained in the five volumes of a
Gothic romance. For the brevity of the tales, which were issued
in chapbooks, readers were compensated by gaudily coloured
illustrations and by double-barrelled titles. An anthology called
"Wild Roses" (published by Anne Lemoine, Coleman Street, n.d.)
included: _Twelve O'Clock or the Three Robbers, The Monks of
Cluny, or Castle Acre Monastery, The Tomb of Aurora, or The
Mysterious Summons, The Mysterious Spaniard, or The Ruins of St.
Luke's Abbey_, and lastly, as a _bonne bouche_, _Barbastal, or
The Magician of the Forest of the Bloody Ash_.[127] There are
many collections of this kind, some of them dating back to 1806,
among the chapbooks in the British Museum. It is in these brief,
blood-curdling romances that we may find the origin of the short
tale of terror, which became so popular a form of literature in
the nineteenth century. The taste for these delicious morsels has
lingered long. Dante Gabriel Rossetti delighted in _Brigand
Tales, Tales of Chivalry, Tales of Wonder, Legends of Terror_;
and it was in search of such booty, "a penny plain and twopence
coloured" that, more than fifty years later, Robert Louis
Stevenson and his companions ransacked the stores of a certain
secluded stationer's shop in Edinburgh.
It was probably the success of the chapbook that encouraged the
editors of periodicals early in the nineteenth century to enliven
their pages with sensational fiction. The literary hack, who, if
he had lived a century earlier, would have been glad to turn a
Turkish tale for half-a-crown, now cheerfully furnished a
"fireside horror" for the Christmas number. In his search after
novelty he was often driven to wild and desperate expedients.
Leigh Hunt, who showed scant sympathy with Lewis's bleeding nun
and scoffed mercilessly at his "little grey men who sit munching
hearts," was bound to admit: "A man who does not contribute his
quota of grim story, now-a-days, seems hardly to be free of the
republic of letters." Accordingly, so that he too might wear a
death's head as part of his _insignia_, he included in _The
Indicator_ (1819-21) a supernatural story, entitled _A Tale for a
Chimney Corner_. Scorning to "measure talents with a leg of veal
or a German sausage," he unfortunately dismissed from his
imagination the nightmarish hordes of
"Haunting Old Women and Knocking Ghosts, and Solitary
Lean Hands, and Empusas on one leg, and Ladies growing
Longer and Longer, and Horrid Eyes meeting us through
Keyholes; and Plaintive Heads and Shrieking Statues and
Shocking Anomalies of Shape and Things, which, when
seen, drove people mad,"
and in their place he conjured up a placid, ladylike ghost from a
legend quoted in Sandys' commentary on Ovid. Leigh Hunt's story
has the air of having been written by one who cared for none of
these things; but there were others who wrote with more gusto.
Many of the tales in such collections as _The Story-Teller_
(1833) or _The Romancist and Novelist's Library_ (1839-42) show
the persistence of Gothic story. In these periodicals the grave
and the gay are intermingled, and when we are weary of dark
intrigues and impenetrable secrets we may turn to lighter
reading. Yet it is significant of the taste of our ancestors that
we cannot venture far without encountering a spectre of some
sort, or a villain with the baleful eye, disguised, it may be, as
a Spanish gipsy, a German necromancer or a Russian count. Many of
the stories are Gothic novels, reduced in size, but with room for
all the old machinery:
"A novel now is nothing more
Than an old castle, and a creaking door,
A distant hovel,
Clanking of chains--a galley--a light--
Old armour, and a phantom all in white,
And there's a novel."
In _The Story-Teller_, a magazine which reprinted many popular
tales, we find German legends like _The Three Students of
Göttingen_, a "True Story Very Strange and Very Pitiful"; _The
Wood Demon; The Wehr-Wolf; The Sexton of Cologne, or Lucifer_, a
striking story of an Italian artist who was haunted by a terrible
figure he had painted in the church at Arezzo. Yet the first tale
in the collection, _The Story-Haunted_, which describes the sad
fate of a youth brought up in a solitary library reading romances
to his mother, was intended, like _The Spectre-Smitten_, in
_Passages from the Diary of a Late Physician_,[128] as a solemn
warning against over-indulgence in fictitious terrors. The mother
dies in an agony of horror, as her son reads aloud the account of
the Gentleman of Florence, who was pursued by a spectre of
himself, which vanished with him finally into the earth, as the
priest endeavoured to bless him. The son, left alone, enters the
world, and judges the people around him by the standard of books.
The story-haunted youth falls in love with the phantom of his own
imagination, whom he endows with all the graces of the heroines
of romance. He finds her embodied at last, but she dies before
they are united. _The Romancist and Novelist's Library_, in ten
volumes, contains a comprehensive selection of tales of terror by
the "best authors." Walpole, Miss Reeve, Mrs. Radcliffe, "Monk"
Lewis, Maturin, Mrs. Shelley, and Charles Brockden Brown are all
represented; and there are many translations of tales by French
and German authors. We may take our choice of _The Spectre
Barber_ or _The Spectre Bride_, or, if we are inclined to
incredulity, see _The Spectre Unmasked_. The entertainment
offered is of bewildering variety. Some of the stories, such as
D.F. Hayne's _Romance of the Castle_, seem like familiar,
well-tried friends, and conceal no surprises for the readers of
Gothic romance. Others, like _The Sleepless Woman_, by W. Jerdan,
are more piquant. The hero is warned by his dying uncle to beware
of women's bright eyes. In spite of this he marries a lady, whose
eyes unite the qualities of the robin and the falcon. After the
wedding he makes the awful discovery that she is of too noble a
lineage ever to sleep. Turn where he may, her eyes are always
upon him. At last, we find him pallid, haggard, and emaciated,
wandering alone in an avenue of cedar trees beside a silent lake:
"At this moment a breath of wind blew a branch aside--a
sunbeam fell upon the baron's face; he took it for the
eyes of his wife. Alas! his remedy lay temptingly
before him, the still, the profound, the shadowy lake.
De Launaye took one plunge--it was into eternity."
The writer foolishly ruins the effect of this climax by
super-imposing an allegorical interpretation.
Like the _Story-Teller, The Romancist and Novelist's Library_
should be read
"At night when doors are shut,
And the wood-worm pricks,
And the death-watch ticks,
And the bar has a flag of smut,--
And the cat's in the water-butt--
And the socket floats and flares,
And the housebeams groan,
And a foot unknown
Is surmised on the garret stairs,
And the locks slip unawares."
But "tales of terror" lose some of their power when read one
after another; they are most effective read singly in
periodicals. _Blackwood's Magazine_ was especially famous for its
tales, the best of which have been collected and published
separately. The editor of the _Dublin University Magazine_ shows
a marked preference for tales of a supernatural or sensational
cast. Le Fanu, who claimed that his stories, like those of Sir
Walter Scott, belonged to the "legitimate school of English
tragic romance," was one of the best-known contributors. _All the
Year Round_ and _Household Words_, under the editorship of
Dickens, often found room for the occult and the uncanny. Wilkie
Collins' fascinating serial, _The Moonstone_, was published in
_All the Year Round_ in 1868; _The Woman in White_ had appeared
six years earlier in _Blackwood_. The stories included in these
magazines are of various types. The old-fashioned spook gradually
declines in popularity. He is ousted in a scientific age by more
recondite forms of terror. Before 1875, with a few belated
exceptions:
"Ghosts, wandering here and there
Troop home to churchyards, damned spirits all,
That in crossways and floods have burial,
Already to their wormy beds are gone."
The "explained supernatural" is skilfully improved and developed.
Le Fanu's _Green Tea_ is a story from the diary of a German
doctor, concerning a patient who was dogged by a black monkey.
The creature, "whose green eyes glow with an expression of
unfathomable malignity," is medically explained to be an
illusion; but it is so vividly presented that it fastens on our
imagination with remarkable tenacity. Wilkie Collins' short
story, _The Yellow Mask_, included in the series called _After
Dark_, is another experiment in the same kind. A jealous woman
appears among the dancers at a ball, wearing a waxen cast of the
face of the man's dead wife. The short story, in which the author
deliberately shakes our nerves and then soothes away our fears by
accounting naturally for startling phenomena, is an amazingly
popular type. It reappears continually in different guises.
Occasionally it merges into pleasant buffoonery. _Die
Geistertodtenglocke_, for instance, a story in the _Dublin
University Magazine_ (1862), is a burlesque, in which the
mysterious tolling of a bell is explained by the discovery that a
cow strolled into the ruin to eat the hay with which the rope was
mended. But, judiciously handled, this type of story makes a
strong appeal to human beings who like to know how much of the
terrible and painful they can endure, and who yet must ultimately
be reassured.
Another group of short tales of terror consists of those which
purport to be faithful renderings of the beliefs of simple
people. To this category belong Allan Cunningham's _Traditional
Tales of the English and Scottish Peasantry_, which first
appeared, with one exception, in the _London Magazine_ (1821-23).
Cunningham has the tact to preserve the legends of elves,
fairies, ghosts and bogles, as they were passed down from one
generation to another on the lips of living beings. Later he
attempted, in a novel, _Sir Michael Scott_ (1828), a kind of
Gothic romance; but there is no trace in the _Traditional Tales_
of the influence of the terrormongers with whose works he was
familiar. Perhaps the finest story of the collection is _The
Haunted Ships_, in which are embodied the traditions associated
with two black and decayed hulls, half immersed in the quicksands
of the Solway. Lewis would have dragged us on board ship, and
would have shown us the devil in his own person. Cunningham
wisely keeps ashore, and repeats the tales that are told
concerning the fiendish mirth and revelry to be heard, when, at
certain seasons of the year, they arise in their former beauty,
with forecastle and deck, with sail and pennon and shroud. James
Hogg, the Ettrick shepherd, who was a friend of Cunningham, was
steeped in the same folk-lore. _The Mysterious Bride_, printed
among his _Tales and Sketches_, tells of a beautiful spirit-lady,
dressed in white and green, who appears three times on St.
Lawrence's Eve to the Laird of Birkendelly. On the morning, after
the night on which she had promised to wed him, he is found, a
blackened corpse, on Birky Brow. _Mary Burnet_ is the story of a
maiden who is drowned when keeping tryst with her lover. She
returns to earth, like Kilmeny, and assures her parents of her
welfare. A demon woman, whose form resembles that of Mary, haunts
her lover, and entices him to evil. Since Hogg can give to his
legends a "local habitation and a name," pointing to the very
stretch of road on which the elfin lady first appeared, it seems
ungracious to doubt his veracity. The Ettrick Shepherd's most
memorable achievement, however, is his _Confessions of a Fanatic_
(1824), a terribly impressive account of a man afflicted with
religious mania, who believes himself urged into crime by a
mysterious being. The story abounds in frightful situations and
weird scenes, one of the most striking being the reflection, seen
at daybreak on Arthur's Seat, of a human head and shoulders,
dilated to twenty times its natural size. Professor Saintsbury
has suggested that Lockhart probably had the principal hand in
this story. "Christopher North" was another member of the
_Noctes_ confraternity who came sometimes under the spell of the
unearthly.
The supernatural tales of Mrs. Gaskell, whose gift for
story-telling made Dickens call her his Scheherazade, were, like
those of Cunningham, based directly on tradition. She was always
attracted by the subject of witchcraft; and she had collected a
store of "creepy" legends of the kind which made the nervous
ladies of Cranford bid their sedan-chairmen hasten rapidly down
Darkness Lane at nights. The best of Mrs. Gaskell's short tales
is perhaps _The Nurse's Story_, which appeared in the Christmas
number of _Household Words_ in 1852. Mrs. Gaskell has a happy
gift for preserving the natural aroma of a tale of bygone days.
_The Nurse's Story_ has a hint of the old-world grace of Lamb's
_Dream Children_. The carefully disposed tableau of ghosts--the
unforgiving old man, and the vindictive sister, spurning the lady
and her child from the hall--is too definite and distinct, but
the conception of the wraith of the dead child outside the manor,
pleading piteously to be let in, and luring away the living
child, is delicately wrought. The tale is told in the rambling,
circumstantial style, suitable to the fireside and the long
leisure of a winter's evening. Dickens tells a very different
nurse's story in one of the chapters of _An Uncommercial
Traveller_. The tone of Mrs. Gaskell's nurse is kindly and
protective; that of Dickens' nurse severe, admonitory and
emphatic. She, who told the grim legend of Captain Murderer,
meant, clearly, to scare as well as to entertain her hearer. She
leads up to the climax of her story, the deadly revenge of the
dark twin's poisoned pie, with admirable art. The nurse's name
was Mercy, but, as Dickens remarks, she showed none to him.
Though Dickens shrank timorously in childhood from her frightful
stories, he himself, like the fat boy in _Pickwick_, sometimes
"wants to make our flesh creep." It seems, indeed, an odd trait
of the humorist that he can at will wholly discard his gaiety,
and, like the Pied Piper, pipe to another measure. W.W. Jacobs,
besides his humorous sailor yarns, has given us _The Monkey's
Paw_; and Barry Pain's gruesome stories, _Told in the Dark_, are
as forcible as any of his humours to be read in the daylight.
Dickens, in his excursions into the supernatural, does not,
however, always cast off his mood of jocularity. His treatment of
Marley's ghost lacks dignity and decorum. Clanking its chains in
a remote cellar of the silent, empty house, it has the power to
disturb us, but we lose our respect for the shade when we gaze
upon it eye to eye. Applied to the spirit world, there is much
truth in the old adage that familiarity breeds contempt. The
account of the thirteenth juryman, in _Dr. Marigold's
Prescriptions_, is much more alarming. The story of the
signalman, No. 1 Branch line, in _Mugby Junction_, is indefinably
horrible. The signalman's anguish of mind, his exact description
of the Appearance, his sense of overhanging calamity, are all
strangely disquieting. The coincidence of the manner of his
death, with which the story closes, is wisely left to make its
own inevitable impression.
Some of the stories in _Blackwood_ are the more striking because
they depend for their effect on natural, not supernatural,
horror. We may feel we are immune from the visits of ghosts, but
the accident in _The Man in the Bell_ (1821) is one which might
happen to anyone. The maddening clangour of sound, the frightful
images that crowd into the reeling brain of the man suspended in
the belfry, are described with an unflinching realism that
reminds us of _The Pit and the Pendulum_. To the same class
belongs the skilfully constructed _Iron Shroud_ (1830), by
William Mudford, an author who, as Scott remarks in his journal,
"loves to play at cherry-pit with Satan." The suspense is
ingeniously maintained as, one by one, the windows of the iron
dungeon disappear, until, at last, the massive walls and
ponderous roof contract into the victim's iron shroud. Wilkie
Collins' story, _A Terribly Strange Bed_, which describes the
stratagem of a gang of cardsharpers for getting rid of those who
happen to win money from them, is in the same vein. The canopy
slowly descends during the night, and smothers its victim. A
similar motive is used, with immeasurably finer effect, by Joseph
Conrad in his story of the disappearance of the sailor at the
lonely inn in the mountains of Spain. The experience of Byrne in
_The Inn of the Two Witches_[129] is a masterpiece in the
psychology of terror. The dense darkness, in which the young
naval officer "steers his course only by the feel of the wind,"
the scene when the door of the inn bursts open and reveals in the
candlelight the savage beauty of the gipsy girl with evil,
slanting eyes, and the inhuman ugliness of the old hags, are a
fitting prelude to the horrors of the chamber, where the corpse
of the missing sailor is found in the wardrobe. We pass with
Byrne through the different stages of suspicion and dread until,
completely baffled in his attempt to account for the manner in
which Tom Corbin was done to death, we feel "the hot terror that
plays upon the heart like a tongue of flame that touches and
withdraws before it turns a thing to ashes."
In the short stories of the latter half of the nineteenth
century, it is hard to escape from the terrible. We light upon it
suddenly, here, there and everywhere. We find it in Stevenson's
_New Arabian Nights_, in his _Merry Men_, and his stories of the
South Seas, as indeed we should expect, when we recall the
tapping of the blind man's stick in _Treasure Island_, the scene
with the candles in the snow after the duel between the two
brothers in _The Master of Ballantrae_, or David Balfour's
perilous adventure on the broken staircase in _Kidnapped_.
Kipling is another expert in the art of eeriness, and has a wide
range. His Indian backgrounds are peculiarly adapted for tales of
terror. The loathsome horror of _The Mark of the Beast_, with its
intangible suggestion of mystery, the quiet restraint of _The
Return of Imray_, in which so much is left unsaid, are two
admirable illustrations of his gift.
The tale of terror wins its effect by ever-varying means.
Scientific discoveries open up new vistas, and the twentieth
century will evolve many fresh devices for torturing the nerves.
The telephone set ringing by a ghostly hand, the aeroplane with a
phantom pilot, will replace the Gothic machinery of ruined abbeys
and wandering lights. The possibilities of terror are manifold,
and it is impracticable here to do more than pick up a few
threads in the tangled skein. Terror becomes inextricably
interwoven with other motives according to the bent of the
author. It is allied with psychology in James' sinister _Turn of
the Screw_, with scientific phantasy in Wells' _Invisible Man_.
It may enhance the excitement of a spy story, add zest to the
study of crime, or act as a foil to a romantic love interest.
CHAPTER XI - AMERICAN TALES OF TERROR.
In 1797 we are told that in America "the dairymaid and hired man
no longer weep over the ballad of the cruel stepmother, but amuse
themselves into an agreeable terror with the haunted houses and
hobgoblins of Mrs. Radcliffe."[130] In _The Asylum, or Alonzo and
Melissa_, published in Ploughkeepsie in 1811, the Gothic castle,
with its full equipment of "explained ghosts," has been safely
conveyed across the Atlantic and set up in South Carolina; and
_The Sicilian Pirate or the Pillar of Mystery: a Terrific
Romance_, is, if we may trust its title, a hair-raising story, in
the style of "Monk" Lewis. Charles Brockden Brown, one of the
earliest American novelists, prides himself on "calling forth the
passions and engaging the sympathy of the reader by means not
hitherto employed by preceding authors," and speaks slightingly
of "puerile superstitions and exploded manners, Gothic castles
and chimeras."[131] Brown, who, like Shelley, was an enthusiastic
admirer of Godwin, sought to embody the theories of _Political
Justice_ in romances describing American life. The works, which
are said by Peacock to have taken deepest root in Shelley's mind
and to have had the strongest influence in the formation of his
character, are Schiller's _Robbers_, Goethe's _Faust_, and four
novels--_Wieland, Ormond, Edgar Huntly_, and _Mervyn_--by C.B.
Brown.[132]
Notwithstanding his lofty scorn for "Gothic castles and
chimeras," even Brown himself condescended to take over from the
despised Mrs. Radcliffe the device of introducing apparently
supernatural occurrences which are ultimately traced to natural
causes. Like Mrs. Radcliffe he is at the mercy of a conscience
which forbids him to thrust upon his readers spectres in which he
himself does not believe. He lacks Lewis's reckless mendacity. In
_Wieland_ mysterious voices are heard at intervals by various
members of the family. To the hero, who has inherited a tendency
to religious fanaticism, they seem to be of divine origin, and
when a voice bids him sacrifice those who are dearest to him, he
obeys implicitly. He slays his wife and children, and his sister
only escapes death by accident. After this catastrophe it proves
that the voices are produced by a skilled ventriloquist, Carwin,
who has been admitted as an intimate friend of the family.
Realising that this explanation may seem somewhat incredible,
Brown seeks to make it appear more plausible by dwelling on
Wieland's abnormal state of mind, which would render him
peculiarly open to suggestion. Carwin's motive for thus
persecuting the Wieland family with his accursed gift is never
satisfactorily explained. His attitude is apparently that of an
obtuse psychologist, who does not realise how serious the
consequence of his experiments may be.
In _Ormond_ and _Arthur Mervyn_, Brown describes the ravages of
the yellow fever, of which he had personal experience in New York
and Philadelphia. The hero of _Ormond_ is a member of a society
similar to that of the Illuminati, whose ceremonies and beliefs
are set forth in _Horrid Mysteries_ (1796). The heroine,
Constantia Dudley, who was Shelley's ideal feminine character, is
the embodiment of a theory, not a human being. She "walks always
in the light of reason," and decides that "to marry in extreme
youth would be a proof of pernicious and opprobrious temerity."
The most memorable of Brown's novels is _Edgar Huntly_, which
bears an obvious resemblance to _Caleb Williams_. Like Godwin,
Brown is deeply interested in morbid psychology. He finds
pleasure in tracing the workings of the brain in times of
emotional stress. The description of a sleepwalker digging a
grave--a picture which captivated Shelley's imagination--is the
starting-point of the book. Edgar Huntly is impelled by curiosity
to track him down. The somnambulist, Clithero, has, in
self-defence, killed the twin-brother of his patron, Mrs,
Lorimer, to whom he is deeply attached. Obsessed by the idea of
the misery his deed will arouse in her mind, he attempts, in a
moment of frenzy, to slay her. Believing that Mrs. Lorimer has
died after hearing of the murder, Clithero flees to America. When
he disappears from his home, Huntly resolves to follow him, and
in his search loses himself amid wild and desolate country. He is
attacked by Indians, and after frightful adventures at length
reaches his home. Clithero, whom he believed dead, has been
rescued. Mrs. Lorimer is still alive, and is married to a former
lover. This news, however, fails to restore Clithero, who, in a
fit of insanity, flings himself overboard when he is in a ship in
charge of Huntly.
Brown's plots, which often open well, are spoilt by hasty,
careless conclusions. It was his habit to write two or three
novels simultaneously. He was beset by the problem that exercised
even Scott's brain: "The devil of a difficulty is that one
puzzles the skein in order to excite curiosity, and then cannot
disentangle it for the satisfaction of the prying fiend they have
raised."
Brown takes very little trouble over his dénouements, but his
characters leave so faint an impression on our minds that we are
not deeply concerned in their fates. He is interested rather in
conveying states of mind than in portraying character. We search
the windings of Clithero's tormented conscience without realising
him as an individual. The background of rugged scenery, though it
is described in vague, turgid language, is more definite and
distinct than the human figures. We feel that Brown is struggling
through the obscurity of his Latinised diction to depict
something he has actually seen. An air of dreadful solemnity
hangs heavily over each story. Every being is in deadly earnest.
Brown has Godwin's power of hypnotising us by his serious
persistence, and of reducing us to a mood of awestruck gravity by
the sonority of his pompous periods.
From the oppressive gloom of Brown's "novels with a purpose," it
is a relief to turn to the irresponsible gaiety of "Geoffrey
Crayon," whose tales of terror, published some twenty years
later, are usually fashioned in a jovial spirit, only faintly
tinged with awe and dread. In _The Spectre Bridegroom_, included
in _The Sketch Book_ (1820), the ghostly rider of Bürger's
far-famed ballad is set amid new surroundings and pleasantly
turned to ridicule. The "supernatural" wooer, who now and again
arouses a genuine thrill of fear, is merely playing a practical
joke on the princess by impersonating the dead bridegroom, and
all ends happily. The story of the Headless Horseman of Sleepy
Hollow is set against so picturesque a background that we are
almost inclined to quarrel with those who laughed and said that
Ichabod Crane was still alive, and that Bram Jones, the lovely
Katrina's bridegroom, knew more of the spectre than he chose to
tell. The drowsy atmosphere of Sleepy Hollow makes us see visions
and dream dreams. The group of "Strange Stories by a Nervous
Gentleman" in _Tales of a Traveller_ (1824) prove that Washington
Irving was well versed in ghostly lore. He, as well as any, can
call spirits from the vasty deep, but, when they appear in answer
to his summons, he can seldom refrain from receiving them in a
jocose, irreverent mood, ill befitting the solemn, dignified
spectre of a German legend. Even the highly qualified,
irrepressibly loquacious ghost of Lewis Carroll's
_Phantasmagoria_ would have resented his genial familiarity. The
strange stories are told at a hunting-party in a country-house, a
cheerful, comfortable background for ghost stories. A hoary,
one-eyed gentleman, "the whole side of whose head was dilapidated
and seemed like the wing of a house shut up and haunted," sets
the ball rolling with the old story of a spectre who glides into
the room, wringing her hands, and is later identified, like
Scott's Lady in the Sacque, by her resemblance to an ancestral
portrait in the gallery. The "knowing" gentleman tells of a
picture that winked in a startling and alarming fashion, and
immediately explains away this phenomenon by the presence of a
thief who has cut a spy-hole in the canvas. _The Bold Dragoon_ is
a spirited, riotous nightmare in which the furniture dances to
the music of the bellows played by an uncanny musician in a long
flannel gown and a nightcap. The _Story of the German Student_ is
in a different key. Here Irving strikes a note of real horror.
The student falls in love with an imaginary lady, woven out of
his dreams. He finds her in distress one night in the streets of
Paris, takes her home, only to find her a corpse in the morning.
A police-officer informs him that the lady was guillotined the
day before, and the student discovers the truth of this statement
when he unrolls a bandage and her head falls to the floor. The
young man loses his reason, and is tormented by the belief that
an evil spirit has reanimated a dead body to ensnare him. The
morning after the recital of this gruesome story, the host reads
aloud to his guests a manuscript entrusted to him, together with
a portrait, by a young Italian. This youth, it chances, learnt
painting with a monk, who, as a penance, drew pictures, or
modelled waxen images, representing death and corruption, a
detail which reminds us of what was concealed by the Black Veil
in _Udolpho_. He later falls in love with his model, Bianca, who,
during his absence abroad, marries his friend Filippo. In a
jealous rage the young Italian slays his rival, and is
unceasingly haunted by his phantom. Washington Irving has no
desire to endure for long the atmosphere of mystery and horror
his story has created, and quickly relieves the tension by a
return to ordinary life. The host promises to show the picture,
which is said to affect all beholders in an extraordinary
fashion, to each of his guests in turn. They all profess
themselves remarkably affected by it, until the host confesses
that he has too sincere a regard for the feelings of the young
Italian to reveal the actual picture to any of them; With this
moment of disillusionment the strange stories come to an end. The
title, _Tales of a Traveller_, under which Irving placed his
tales of terror, indicates the mood in which he fashioned them.
He regarded them much as he would regard the wonderful adventures
of Baron Munchausen. They were to be taken, like one of Dr.
Marigold's prescriptions, with a grain of salt. The idea of
blending levity with horror, suggested perhaps by German
influence, was very popular in England and France at this period.
Balzac's _L'Auberge Rouge_ and _L'Elixir de la Longue Vie_ are
written in a similar mood.
It is not always the boldest and most adventurous beings who
elect to dwell amid "calling shapes and beckoning shadows dire."
The "virtuous mind," whom supernatural horrors may "startle well
but not astound," sometimes finds a melancholy pleasure in
beguiling weaker mortals into haunted ruins to watch their firm
nerves tremble. Sometimes too, though a man be wholly innocent of
the desire to alarm, he is led astray, whether he will or not,
among the terrors of the invisible world. Grey ghosts steal into
his imagination unawares. It was so that they came to Nathaniel
Hawthorne, who speaks sorrowfully of "gaily dressed fantasies
turning to ghostly and black-clad images of themselves." He would
gladly have written a "sunshiny" book, but was capriciously fated
to live ever in the twilight, haunted by spectres and by "dark
ideas." He fashions his tales of terror delicately and
reluctantly, not riotously and shamelessly like Lewis and
Maturin.
An innate reticence and shyness of temper held Hawthorne, as if
by a spell, somewhat aloof from life, and no one realised more
clearly than he the limitations that his detachment from humanity
imposed upon his art.
Of _Twice-Told Tales_ he writes regretfully:
"They have the pale tint of flowers that blossomed in
too retired a shade... Instead of passion there is
sentiment and even in what purport to be pictures of
actual life we have allegory, not always so warmly
dressed in its habiliments of flesh and blood as to be
taken into the reader's mind without a shiver. Whether
from lack of power or an inconquerable reserve, the
author's touches have often an effect of tameness. The
book, if you would see anything in it, requires to be
read in the clear, brown twilight atmosphere in which
it was written; if opened in the sunshine, it is apt to
look exceedingly like a volume of blank pages";
and in his _Notebook_ (1840) he confesses:
"I used to think I could imagine all the passions, all
feelings and states of the heart and mind, but how
little did I know! Indeed we are but shadows, we are
not endowed with real life, and all that seems most
real about us is but the thinnest shadow of a
dream--till the heart be touched."
Whether he is threading the labyrinths of his imagination or
watching the human shadows come and go, Hawthorne lingers longer
in the shadow than in the sunshine. He was not a man of morose
and gloomy temper, disenchanted with life and driven by distress
or thwarted passion to brood in solitude. An irresistible,
inexplicable impulse drives him towards the sombre and the
gloomy. The delicacy and wistful charm of the words in which
Hawthorne criticises his own work and character reveal how
impossible it would have been for him to force his wayward
genius. His imagination hovers with curious persistence round
eerie, fantastic themes:
"An old looking-glass. Somebody finds out the secret of making
all the images reflected in it pass again across its surface"--a
hint skilfully introduced into the history of old Esther Dudley
in _The Legends of the Province House_, or:
"A dreadful secret to be communicated to several
persons of various character--grave or gay--and they
all to become insane, according to their characters, by
the influence of the secret"
--an idea modified and adapted in _The Marble Faun_. "An ice-cold
hand--which people ever afterwards remember when once they have
grasped it"--is bestowed on the Wandering Jew, the owner of the
marvellous _Virtuoso's Collection_, whose treasures include the
blood-encrusted pen with which Dr. Faustus signed away his
salvation, Peter Schlemihl's shadow, the elixir of life, and the
philosopher's stone. The form of a vampire, who apparently never
took shape on paper, flitted through the twilight of Hawthorne's
imagination:
"Stories to be told of a certain person's appearance in
public, of his having been seen in various situations,
and his making visits in private circles; but finally
on looking for this person, to come upon his old grave
and mossy tombstone."
With so many alluring suggestions floating shadowwise across his
mind, it is not wonderful that Hawthorne should have been
fascinated by the dream of a human life prolonged far beyond the
usual span--a dream, which, if realised, would have enabled him
to capture in words more of those "shapes that haunt thought's
wildernesses."
Although among the sketches collected in _Twice-Told Tales_ (vol.
i. 1837, vol. ii. 1842) some are painted in gay and lively hues,
the prevailing tone of the book is sad and mournful. The
light-hearted philosophy of the wanderers in _The Seven
Vagabonds_, the pretty, brightly coloured vignettes in _Little
Annie's Rambles_, the quiet cheerfulness of _Sunday at Home_ or
_The Rill from the Town Pump_, only serve to throw into darker
relief gloomy legends like that of _Ethan Brand_, the man who
went in search of the Unpardonable Sin, or dreary stories like
that of _Edward Fane's Rosebud_, or the ghostly _White Old Maid_.
One of the most carefully wrought sketches in _Twice-Told Tales_
is the weird story of _The Hollow of the Three Hills_. By means
of a witch's spell, a lady hears the far-away voices of her aged
parents--her mother querulous and tearful, her father calmly
despondent--and amid the fearful mirth of a madhouse
distinguishes the accents and footstep of the husband she has
wronged. At last she listens to the death-knell tolled for the
child she has left to die. The solemn rhythm of Hawthorne's
skilfully ordered sentences is singularly haunting and
impressive:
"The golden skirts of day were yet lingering upon the
hills, but deep shades obscured the hollow and the
pool, as if sombre night were rising thence to
overspread the world. Again that evil woman began to
weave her spell. Long did it proceed unanswered, till
the knolling of a bell stole in among the intervals of
her words, like a clang that had travelled far over
valley and rising ground and was just ready to die in
the air... Stronger it grew, and sadder, and deepened
into the tone of a death-bell, knolling dolefully from
some ivy-mantled tower, and bearing tidings of
mortality and woe to the cottage, to the hall and to
the solitary wayfarer that all might weep for the doom
appointed in turn to them. Then came a measured tread,
passing slowly, slowly on as of mourners with a coffin,
their garments trailing the ground so that the ear
could measure the length of their melancholy array.
Before them went the priest reading the burial-service,
while the leaves of his book were rustling in the
breeze. And though no voice but his was heard to speak
aloud, still here were revilings and anathemas
whispered, but distinct, from women and from men... The
sweeping sound of the funeral train faded away like a
thin vapour and the wind that just before had seemed to
shake the coffin-pall moaned sadly round the verge of
the hollow between three hills."
In a later collection of Hawthorne's short stories, _Mosses from
an Old Manse_, the grave and the gay, the terrific and the
sportive, are once more intermingled. Side by side with a forlorn
attempt at humorous allegory, Mrs. _Bullfrog_, we find the
serious moral allegories of _The Birthmark_ and _The
Bosom-Serpent_, the wild, mysterious forest-revels in _Goodman
Brown_, and the evil, sinister beauty of _Dr. Rappacini's
Daughter_, a modern rehandling of the ancient legend of the
poison-maiden, who was perhaps the prototype of Oliver Wendell
Holmes' heroine in _Elsie Venner_ (1861). The quiet grace and
natural ease of Hawthorne's style lend even to his least
ambitious tales a distinctive charm. If he chooses a slight and
simple theme, his touch is deft and sure. _Dr. Heidegger's
Experiment_, in which Hawthorne's delicate, whimsical fancy plays
round the idea of the elixir of life, is almost like a series of
miniature pictures, distinct and lifelike in form and colour,
seen through the medium of an old-fashioned magic-lantern. Yet
even in this fantastic trifle we can discern the feeling for
words and the sense of proportion that characterise Hawthorne's
longer works.
_The Scarlet Letter_ (1850) was originally intended to be one of
several short stories, but Hawthorne was persuaded to expand it
into a novel. He felt some misgivings as to the success of the
work:
"Keeping so close to the point as the tale does, and
diversified in no otherwise than by turning different
sides of the same dark idea to the reader's eye, it will
weary very many people and disgust some."
The plot bears a remarkable resemblance to that of Lockhart's
striking novel, _Adam Blair_. The "dark idea" that fascinates
Hawthorne is the psychological state of Hester Prynne and her
lover, Arthur Dimmesdale, in the long years that follow their
lawless passion. Their love story hardly concerns him at all. The
interest of the novel does not depend on the development of the
plot. No attempt is made to complicate the story by concealing
the identity of Hester's lover or of her husband. The action
takes place within the souls and minds of the characters, not in
their outward circumstances. The central chapter of the book is
named significantly: "The Interior of a Heart." The moral
situation described in _The Scarlet Letter_ did not present
itself to Hawthorne abstractly, but as a series of pictures. He
habitually thought in images, and he brooded so long over his
conceptions that his descriptions are almost as definite in
outline and as vivid in colour as things actually seen. His
pictures do not waver or fade elusively as the mind seeks to
realise them. The prison door, studded with pikes, before which
Hester Prynne first stands with the letter on her breast, the
pillory where Dimmesdale keeps vigil at midnight, the
forest-trees with pale, fitful gleams of sunshine glinting
through their leaves, are so distinct that we almost put out our
hands to touch them. Hawthorne's dream-imagery has the same
convincing reality. The phantasmagoric visions which float
through Hester's consciousness--the mirrored reflection of her
own face in girlhood, her husband's thin, scholar-like visage,
the grey houses of the cathedral city where she had spent her
early years--are more real to her and to us than the blurred
faces of the Puritans who throng the marketplace to gaze on her
ignominy. Although the moral tone of the book is one of almost
unrelieved gloom, the actual scenes are full of colour and light.
Pearl's scarlet frock with its fantastic embroideries, the
magnificent velvet gown and white ruff of the old dame who rides
off by night to the witch-revels in the forest, the group of Red
Indians in their deer-skin robes and wampum belts of red and
yellow ochre, the bronzed faces and gaudy attire of the Spanish
pirates, all stand out in bold relief among the sober greys and
browns of the Puritans. The tense, emotional atmosphere is
heightened by the festive brightness of the outer world.
The light of Hawthorne's imagination is directed mainly on three
characters--Hester, Arthur, and the elf-like child Pearl, the
living symbol of their union. Further in the background lurks the
malignant figure of Roger Chillingworth, contriving his fiendish
scheme of vengeance, "violating in cold blood the sanctity of a
human heart." The blaze of the Scarlet Letter compels us by a
strange magnetic power to follow Hester Prynne wherever she goes,
but her suffering is less acute and her character less intricate
than her lover's. She bears the outward badge of shame, but after
"wandering without a clue in the dark labyrinth of mind," wins a
dull respite from anguish as she glides "like a grey and sober
shadow" over the threshold of those who are visited by sorrow. At
the last, when Dimmesdale's spirit is "so shattered and subdued
that it could hardly hold itself erect," Hester has still energy
to plan and to act. His character is more twisted and tortuous
than hers, and to understand him we must visit him apart. The
sensitive nature that can endure physical pain but shrinks
piteously from moral torture, the capacity for deep and
passionate feeling, the strange blending of pride and abject
self-loathing, of cowardice and resolve, are portrayed with
extraordinary skill. The different strands of his character are
"intertwined in an inextricable knot." His is a living soul,
complicated and varying in its moods, but ever pursued by a sense
of sin. By one of Hawthorne's swift, uncanny flashes of insight,
as Dimmesdale goes home after the forest-meeting, we hear nothing
of the wild beatings of hope and dreary revulsions to despair,
but only of foul, grotesque temptations that assail him, just as
earlier--on the pillory--it is the grim humour and not the
frightful shame of the situation that strikes him, when by an odd
trick of his imagination he suddenly pictures a "whole tribe of
decorous personages starting into view with the disorder of a
nightmare in their aspects," to look upon their minister.
Hawthorne's delineation of character and motive is as
scrupulously accurate and scientific as Godwin's, but there is
none of Godwin's inhumanity in his attitude. His complete
understanding of human weakness makes pity superfluous and
undignified. He pronounces no judgment and offers no plea for
mercy. His instinct is to present the story as it appeared
through the eyes of those who enacted the drama or who witnessed
it. Stern and inexorable as one of his own witch-judging
ancestors, Hawthorne foils the lovers' plan of escape across the
sea, lets the minister die as soon as he has made the revelation
that gives him his one moment of victory, and in the conclusion
brings Hester back to take up her long-forsaken symbol of shame.
Pearl alone Hawthorne sets free, the spell which bound her human
sympathies broken by the kiss she bestows on her guilty father.
There are few passionate outbursts of feeling, save when Hester
momentarily unlocks her heart in the forest--and even here
Hawthorne's language is extraordinarily restrained:
"'What we did had a consecration of its own. We felt it
so! We said so to each other. Hast thou forgotten it?'
'Hush, Hester!' said Arthur Dimmesdale, rising from the
ground. 'No; I have not forgotten.'"
Or again, after Dimmesdale has confessed that he has neither
strength nor courage left him to venture into the world: "'Thou
shalt not go alone!' answered she, in a deep whisper. Then all
was spoken."
In _The House of the Seven Gables_ (1851), as in _The Scarlet
Letter_, Hawthorne again presents his scenes in the light of a
single, pervading idea, this time an ancestral curse, symbolised
by the portrait of Colonel Pyncheon, who condemned an innocent
man for witchcraft.
"To the thoughtful man there will be no tinge of
superstition in what we figuratively express, by
affirming that the ghost of a dead progenitor--perhaps
as a portion of his own punishment--is often doomed to
become the Evil Genius of his family."
Hawthorne wins his effect by presenting the idea to our minds
from different points of view, until we are obsessed by the curse
that broods heavily over the old house. Even the aristocratic
breed of fowls, of "queer, rusty, withered aspect," are an emblem
of the decay of the Pyncheon family. The people are apt to be
merged into the dense shadows that lurk in the gloomy passages,
but when the sun shines on them they stand out with arresting
distinctness. The heroic figure of Hepzibah Pyncheon, a little
ridiculous and a little forbidding of aspect, but cherishing
through weary years a passionate devotion to her brother, is
described with a gentle blending of humour and pathos. Clifford
Pyncheon--the sybarite made for happiness and hideously cheated
of his destiny--is delineated with curious insight and sympathy.
It is Judge Jaffery Pyncheon, with his "sultry" smile of
"elaborate benevolence"--unrelenting and crafty as his infamous
ancestor--who lends to _The House of Seven Gables_ the element of
terror. Hour after hour, Hawthorne, with grim and bitter irony,
mocks and taunts the dead body of the hypocritical judge until
the ghostly pageantry of dead Pyncheons--including at last Judge
Jaffery himself with the fatal crimson stain on his
neckcloth--fades away with the oncoming of daylight.
Hawthorne's mind was richly stored with "wild chimney-corner
legends," many of them no doubt gleaned from an old woman
mentioned in one of his _Tales and Sketches_. He takes over the
fantastic superstitions in which his ancestors had believed, and
uses them as the playthings of his fancy, picturing with
malicious mirth the grey shadows of his stern, dark-browed
forefathers sadly lamenting his lapse from grace and saying one
to the other:
"A writer of story-books! What kind of a business in
life, what manner of glorifying God, or being
serviceable to mankind in his day and generation may
that be? Why, the degenerate fellow might as well have
been a fiddler."
The story of Alice Pyncheon, the maiden under the dreadful power
of a wizard, who, to wreak his revenge, compelled her to
surrender her will to his and to do whatsoever he list, the
legends of ghosts and spectres in the _Twice-Told Tales_, the
allusions to the elixir of life in his _Notebooks_, the
introduction of witches into _The Scarlet Letter_, of mesmerism
into _The Blithedale Romance_, show how often Hawthorne was
pre-occupied with the terrors of magic and of the invisible
world. He handles the supernatural in a half-credulous,
half-sportive spirit, neither affirming nor denying his belief.
One of his artful devices is wilfully to cast doubt upon his
fancies, and so to pique us into the desire to be momentarily at
least one of the foolish and imaginative.
After writing _The Blithedale Romance_, in which he embodied his
experiences at Brook Farm, and his Italian romance,
_Transformation, or The Marble Faun_, Hawthorne, when his health
was failing, strove to find expression for the theme of
immortality, which had always exercised a strange fascination
upon him. In August, 1855, during his consulate in Liverpool, he
visited Smithell's Hall, near Bolton, and heard the legend of the
Bloody Footstep. He thought of uniting this story with that of
the elixir of life, but ultimately decided to treat the story of
the footstep in _Dr. Grimshawe's Secret_, of which only a
fragment was written, and to embody the elixir idea in a separate
work, _Septimius Felton_, of which two unfinished versions exist.
Septimius Felton, a young man living in Concord at the time of
the war of the Revolution, tries to brew the potion of eternity
by adding to a recipe, which his aunt has derived from the
Indians, the flowers which spring from the grave of a man whom he
has slain. In _Dr. Dolliver's Romance_, Hawthorne, so far as we
may judge from the fragment which remains, seems to be working
out an idea jotted down in his notebook several years earlier:
"A man arriving at the extreme point of old age grows
young again at the same pace at which he had grown old,
returning upon his path throughout the whole of life,
and thus taking the reverse view of matters. Methinks
it would give rise to some odd concatenations."
The story, which opens with a charming description of Dr.
Dolliver and his great-grandchild, Pansie, breaks off so abruptly
that it is impossible to forecast the "odd concatenations" that
had flashed through Hawthorne's mind.
Although Hawthorne is preoccupied continually with the thought of
death, his outlook is melancholy, not morbid. He recoils
fastidiously from the fleshly and loses himself in the spiritual.
He is concerned with mournful reflections, not frightful events.
It is the mystery of death, not its terror, that fascinates him.
Sensitive and susceptible himself, he never startles us with
physical horrors. He does not search with curious ingenuity for
recondite terrors. He was compelled as if by some wizard's
strange power, to linger in earth's shadowed places; but the
scenes that throng his memory are reflected in quiet, subdued
tones. His pictures are never marred by harsh lines or crude
colours.
While Hawthorne in his _Twice-Told Tales_ was toying pensively
with spectral forms and "dark ideas," Edgar Allan Poe was
penetrating intrepidly into trackless regions of terror. Where
Hawthorne would have shrunk back, repelled and disgusted, Poe,
wildly exhilarated by the anticipation of a new and excruciating
thrill, forced his way onwards. He sought untiringly for unusual
situations, inordinately gloomy or terrible, and made them the
starting point for excursions into abnormal psychology. Just as
Hawthorne harps with plaintive insistence on the word "sombre,"
Poe again and again uses the epithet "novel." His tales are
never, as Hawthorne's often are, pathetic. His instinct is always
towards the dramatic. Sometimes he rises to tragic heights,
sometimes he is merely melodramatic. He rejoices in theatrical
effects, like the death-throes of William Wilson, the return of
the lady Ligeia, or the entry, awaited with torturing suspense,
of the "lofty" and enshrouded figure of the Lady Madeline of
Usher. Like Hawthorne, Poe was fascinated by the thought of
death, "the hemlock and the cypress overshadowed him night and
day," but he describes death accompanied by its direst physical
and mental agonies. Hawthorne broods over the idea of sin, but
Poe probes curiously into the psychology of crime. The one is
detached and remote, the other inhuman and passionless. The
contrast in style between Hawthorne and Poe reflects clearly
their difference in temper. Hawthorne writes always with easy,
finished perfection, choosing the right word unerringly, Poe
experiments with language, painfully acquiring a conscious,
studied form of expression which is often remarkably effective,
but which almost invariably suggests a sense of artifice. In
reading _The Scarlet Letter_ we do not think of the style; in
reading _The Masque of the Red Death_ we are forcibly impressed
by the skilful arrangement of words, the alternation of long and
short sentences, the device of repetition and the deliberate
choice of epithets. Hawthorne uses his own natural form of
expression. Poe, with laborious art, fashions an instrument
admirably adapted to his purposes.
Poe's earliest published story, _A Manuscript Found in a
Bottle_--the prize tale for the _Baltimore Saturday Visitor_,
1833--proves that he soon recognised his peculiar vein of talent.
He straightway takes the tale of terror for his own. The
experiences of a sailor, shipwrecked in the Simoom and hurled on
the crest of a towering billow into a gigantic ship manned by a
hoary crew who glide uneasily to and fro "like the ghosts of
buried centuries," forecast the more frightful horrors of _A
Descent into the Maelstrom_ (1841). Poe's method in both stories
is to induce belief by beginning with a circumstantial narrative
of every-day events, and by proceeding to relate the most
startling phenomena in the same calm, matter-of-fact manner. The
whirling abyss of the Maelstrom in which the tiny boat is
engulfed, and the sensations of the fishermen--awe, wonder,
horror, curiosity, hope, alternating or intermingled--are
described with the same quiet precision as the trivial
preliminary adventures. The man's dreary expectation of
incredulity seals our conviction of the truth of his story. In
_The Manuscript Found in a Bottle_, too, we may trace the first
suggestion of that idea which finds its most complete and
memorable expression in _Ligeia_ (1837). The antique ship, with
its preternaturally aged crew "doomed to hover continually upon
the brink of eternity, without taking a final plunge into the
abyss," is an early foreshadowing of the fulfilment of Joseph
Glanvill's declaration so strikingly illustrated in the return of
Ligeia: "Man doth not yield himself to the angels, nor unto death
utterly, save only through the weakness of his feeble will." In
_Ligeia_, Poe concentrates on this idea with singleness of
purpose. He had striven to embody it in his earlier sketches, in
_Morella_, where the beloved is reincarnated in the form of her
own child, in the musical, artificial _Eleonora_ and in the
gruesome _Berenice_. In _Ligeia_, at last, it finds its
appropriate setting in the ebony bridal-chamber, hung with gold
tapestries grotesquely embroidered with fearful shapes and
constantly wafted to and fro, like those in one of the _Episodes
of Vathek_. In _The Fall of the House of Usher_ he adapts the
theme which he had approached in the sketch entitled _Premature
Burial_, and unites with it a subtler conception, the sentience
of the vegetable world. Like the guest of Roderick Usher, as we
enter the house we fall immediately beneath the overmastering
sway of its irredeemable, insufferable gloom. The melancholy
building, Usher's wild musical improvisations, his vague but
awful paintings, his mystical reading and his eerie verses with
the last haunting stanza:
"And travellers now within that valley
Through the red-litten windows, see
Vast forms that move fantastically
To a discordant melody;
While, like a rapid, ghastly river,
Through the pale door,
A hideous throng rush out forever
And laugh--but smile no more,"
are all in harmony with the fate that broods over the family of
Usher. Poe's gift for avoiding all impressions alien to his
effect lends to his tales extraordinary unity of tone and colour.
He leads up to his crisis with a gradual crescendo of emotion.
The climax, hideous and terrifying, relieves the intensity of our
feelings, and once it is past Poe rapidly hastens to the only
possible conclusion. The dreary house with its vacant, eye-like
windows reflected at the outset in the dark, unruffled tarn,
disappears for ever beneath its surface.
In _The Masque of the Red Death_ the imagery changes from moment
to moment, each scene standing out clear in colour and sharp in
outline; but from first to last the perspective of the whole is
kept steadily in view. No part is disproportionate or
inappropriate. The arresting overture describing the swift and
sudden approach of the Red Death, the gay, thoughtless security
of Prince Prospero and his guests within the barricaded abbey,
the voluptuous masquerade held in a suite of seven rooms of seven
hues, the disconcerting chime of the ebony clock that momentarily
stills the grotesque figures of the dancers, prepare us for the
dramatic climax, the entry of the audacious guest, the Red Death,
and his struggle with Prince Prospero. The story closes as it
began with the triumph of the Red Death. Poe achieves his
powerful effect with rigid economy of effort. He does not add an
unnecessary touch.
In _The Cask of Amontillado_--perhaps the most terrible and the
most perfectly executed of all Poe's tales--the note of grim
irony is sustained throughout. The jingling of the bells and the
devilish profanity of the last three words--_Requiescat in
pace_--add a final touch of horror to a revenge, devised and
carried out with consummate artistry.
Poe, like Hawthorne, loved to peer curiously into the dim
recesses of conscience. Hawthorne was concerned with the effect
of remorse on character. Poe often exhibits a conscience
possessed by the imp of the perverse, and displays no interest in
the character of his victim. He chooses no ordinary crimes. He
considers, without De Quincey's humour, murder as a fine art. In
_The Black Cat_ the terrors are calculated with cold-blooded
nicety. Every device is used to deepen the impression and to
intensify the agony. In _The Tell-Tale Heart_, so unremitting is
the suspense, as the murderer slowly inch by inch projects his
head round the door in the darkness, that it is well-nigh
intolerable. The close of the story, which errs on the side of
the melodramatic, is less cunningly contrived than Poe's endings
usually are. In _William Wilson_, Poe handles the subject of
conscience in an allegorical form, a theme essayed by Bulwer
Lytton in one of his sketches in _The Student, Monos and
Daimonos_. He probably influenced Stevenson's _Dr. Jekyll and Mr.
Hyde_.
In _The Pit and the Pendulum_, Poe seems to start from the very
border-line of the most hideous nightmare that the human mind can
conceive, yet there is nothing hazy or indefinite in his analysis
of the feelings of his victim. He speaks as one who has
experienced the sensations himself, not as one who is making a
wild surmise. To read is, indeed, to endure in some measure the
torture of the prisoner; but our pain is alleviated not only by
the realisation that we at least may win respite when we will,
but by our appreciation of Poe's subtle technique. He notices the
readiness of the mind, when racked unendurably, to concentrate on
frivolous trifles--the exact shape and size of the dungeon; or
the sound of the scythe cutting through cloth. Mental and
physical agonies are interchanged with careful art.
Poe's constructive power fitted him admirably to write the
detective story. In _The Mystery of M. Roget_ he adopts a dull
plot without sufficient vigour and originality to rivet our
attention, but _The Murders of the Rue Morgue_ secures our
interest from beginning to end. As in the case of Godwin's _Caleb
Williams_, the end was conceived first and the plot was carefully
woven backwards. No single thread is left loose. Dupin's methods
of ratiocination are similar to those of Conan Doyle's Sherlock
Holmes. Poe never shirks a gory detail, but the train of
reasoning not the imagery absorbs us in his detective stories. In
his treasure story--_The Gold Bug_, which may have suggested
Stevenson's _Treasure Island_--he compels our interest by the
intricacy and elaboration of his problem.
The works of Mrs. Radcliffe, Lewis, and Maturin were not unknown
to Poe, and he refers more than once to the halls of Vathek. From
Gothic romance he may perhaps vivid that they make the senses
ache. Like Maturin, he even resorts to italics to enforce his
effect. He crashes down heavily on a chord which would resound at
a touch. He is liable too to descend into vulgarity in his choice
of phrases. His tales consequently gain in style in the
translations of Baudelaire. But these aberrations occur mainly in
his inferior work. In his most highly wrought stories, such as
_Amontillado_, _The House of Usher_, or _The Masque of the Red
Death_, the execution is flawless. In these, Poe never lost sight
of the ideal, which, in his admirable review of Hawthorne's
_Twice-Told Tales_ and _Mosses from an Old Manse_, he set before
the writer of short stories:
"A skilful literary artist has constructed a tale ...
having conceived, with deliberate care, a certain
unique or single effect to be wrought out, he then
invents such incidents--he then combines such
events--as may best aid him in establishing this
preconceived effect. If his very initial sentence tend
not to the outbringing of this effect, he has failed in
the first step. In the whole composition there should
be no word written of which the tendency direct or
indirect is not to the one pre-established design."
While he was writing, Poe did not for a moment let his
imagination run riot. The outline of the story was so distinctly
conceived, its atmosphere so familiar to him, that he had leisure
to choose his words accurately, and to dispose his sentences
harmoniously, with the final effect ever steadily in view. The
impression that he swiftly flashes across our minds is deep and
enduring.
CHAPTER XII - CONCLUSION.
This book is an attempt to trace in outline the origin and
development of the Gothic romance and the tale of terror. Such a
survey is necessarily incomplete. For more than fifty years after
the publication of _The Castle of Otranto_ the Gothic Romance
remained a definitely recognised kind of fiction; but, as the
scope of the novel gradually came to include the whole range of
human expression, it lost its individuality, and was merged into
other forms. To follow every trail of its influence would lead us
far afield. The Tale of Terror, if we use the term in its wider
sense, may be said to include the magnificent story of the
Writing on the Wall at Belshazzar's Feast, the Book of Job, the
legends of the Deluge and of the Tower of Babel, and Saul's Visit
to the Witch of Endor, which Byron regarded as the best ghost
story in the world. In the Hebrew writings fear is used to endow
a hero with superhuman powers or to instil a moral truth. The sun
stands still in the heavens that Joshua may prevail over his
enemies. In modern days the tale of terror is told for its own
sake. It has become an end in itself, and is probably appreciated
most fully by those who are secure from peril. It satisfies the
human desire to experience new emotions and sensations, without
actual danger.
There is little doubt that the Gothic Romance primarily made its
appeal to women readers, though we know that Mrs. Radcliffe had
many men among her admirers, and that Cherubina of _The Heroine_
had a companion in folly, The Story-Haunted Youth. It is remotely
allied, as its name implies, to the mediaeval romances, at which
Cervantes tilts in _Don Quixote_. It was more closely akin,
however, to the heroic romances satirised in Mrs. Charlotte
Lennox's _Female Quixote_ (1752). When the voluminous works of Le
Calprenède and of Mademoiselle de Scudéry were translated into
English, they found many imitators and admirers, and their vogue
outlasted the seventeenth century. _Artamène ou le Grand Cyrus_,
out of which Mrs. Pepys told her husband long stories, "though
nothing to the purpose, nor in any good manner," is to be found,
with a pin stuck through one of the middle leaves, in the lady's
library described by Addison in the _Spectator_, Mrs. Aphra Behn,
in _Oroonoko_ and _The Fair Jilt_, had made some attempt to bring
romance nearer to real life; but it was not until the middle of
the eighteenth century, when the novel, with the rise of
Richardson, Fielding, Smollett and Sterne, took firm root on
English soil, that the popularity of Cassandra, Parthenissa and
Aretina was superseded. Then, if we may trust the evidence of
Colman's farce, _Polly Honeycombe_, first acted in 1760, Pamela,
Clarissa Harlowe and Sophia Western reigned in their stead. For
the reader who had patiently followed the eddying, circling
course of the heroic romance, with its high-flown language and
marvellous adventures, Richardson's novel of sentiment probably
held more attraction than Fielding's novel of manners. Fielding,
on his broad canvas, paints the life of his day on the highway,
in coaches, taverns, sponging-houses or at Vauxhall masquerades.
Every class of society is represented, from the vagabond to the
noble lord. Richardson, in describing the shifts and subterfuges
of Mr. B--and the elaborate intrigue of Lovelace, moves within a
narrow circle, devoting himself, not to the portrayal of
character, but to the minute analysis of a woman's heart. The
sentiment of Richardson descends to Mrs. Radcliffe. Her heroines
are fashioned in the likeness of Clarissa Harlowe; her heroes
inherit many of the traits of the immaculate Grandison. She adds
zest to her plots by wafting her heroines to distant climes and
bygone centuries, and by playing on their nerves with
superstitious fears. Since human nature often looks to fiction
for a refuge from the world, there is always room for the
illusion of romance side by side with the picture of actual life.
Fanny Burney's spirited record of Evelina's visit to her vulgar,
but human, relatives, the Branghtons, in London, is not enough.
We need too the sojourn of Emily, with her thick-coming fancies,
in the castle of Udolpho.
The Gothic Romance did not reflect real life, or reveal
character, or display humour. Its aim was different. It was full
of sentimentality, and it stirred the emotions of pity and fear.
The ethereal, sensitive heroine, suffering through no fault of
her own, could not fail to win sympathy. The hero was pale,
melancholy, and unfortunate enough to be attractive. The villain,
bold and desperate in his crimes, was secretly admired as well as
feared. Hairbreadth escapes and wicked intrigues in castles built
over beetling precipices were sufficiently outside the reader's
own experience to produce a thrill. Ghosts, and rumours of
ghosts, touched nearly the eighteenth century reader, who had
often listened, with bated breath, to winter's tales of spirits
seen on Halloween in the churchyard, or white-robed spectres
encountered in dark lanes and lonely ruins. In country houses
like those described in Miss Austen's novels, where life was
diversified only by paying calls, dining out, taking gentle
exercise or playing round games like "commerce" or "word-making
and work-taking," the Gothic Romances must have proved a welcome
source of pleasurable excitement. Mr. Woodhouse, with his
melancholy views on the effects of wedding cake and muffin, would
have condemned them, no doubt, as unwholesome; Lady Catherine de
Bourgh would have been too impatient to read them; but Lydia
Bennet, Elinor Dashwood and Isabella Thorpe must have found in
them an inestimable solace. Their fame was soon overshadowed by
that of the Waverley Novels, but they had served their turn in
providing an entertaining interlude before the arrival of Sir
Walter Scott. Even at the very height of his vogue, they probably
enjoyed a surreptitious popularity, not merely in the servants'
hall, but in the drawing room. Nineteenth century literature
abounds in references to the vogue of this school of fiction.
There were spasmodic attempts at a revival in an anonymous work
called _Forman_ (1819), dedicated to Scott, and in Ainsworth's
_Rookwood_ (1834); and terror has never ceased to be used as a
motive in fiction.
In _Villette_, Lucy Snowe, whose nerves Ginevra describes as
"real iron and bend leather," gazes steadily for the space of
five minutes at the spectral "nun." This episode indicates a
change of fashion; for the lady of Gothic romance could not have
submitted to the ordeal for five seconds without fainting. A more
robust heroine, who thinks clearly and yet feels strongly, has
come into her own. In _Jane Eyre_ many of the situations are
fraught with terror, but it is the power of human passion,
transcending the hideous scenes, that grips our imagination.
Terror is used as a means to an end, not as an end in itself. In
_Wuthering Heights_ the windswept Yorkshire moors are the
background for elemental feelings. We no longer "tremble with
delicious dread" or "snatch a fearful joy." The gloom never
lightens. We live ourselves beneath the shadow of Heathcliff's
awe-inspiring personality, and there is no escape from a terror,
which passes almost beyond the bounds of speech. The Brontës do
not trifle with emotion or use supernatural elements to increase
the tension. Theirs are the terrors of actual life.
Other novelists, contemporary with the Brontës, revel in terror
for its own sake. Wilkie Collins weaves elaborate plots of
hair-raising events. The charm of _The Moonstone_ and the _Woman
in White_ is independent of character or literary finish. It
consists in the unravelling of a skilfully woven fabric. Le Fanu,
who resented the term "sensational" which was justly applied to
his works, plays pitilessly on our nerves with both real and
fictitious horrors. He, like Wilkie Collins, made a cult of
terror. Their literary descendants may perhaps be found in such
authors as Richard Marsh or Bram Stoker, or Sax Rohmer. In Bram
Stoker's _Dracula_ the old vampire legend is brought up to date,
and we are held from beginning to end in a state of frightful
suspense. No one who has read the book will fail to remember the
picture of Dracula climbing up the front of the castle in
Transylvania, or the scene in the tomb when a stake is driven
through the heart of the vampire who has taken possession of
Lucy's form. The ineffable horror of the "Un-Dead" would repel us
by its painfulness, if it were not made endurable by the love,
hope and faith of the living characters, particularly of the old
Dutch doctor, Van Helsing. The matter-of-fact style of the
narrative, which is compiled of letters, diaries and journals,
and the mention of such familiar places as Whitby and Hampstead,
help to enhance the illusion.
The motive of terror has often been mingled with other motives in
the novel as well as in the short tale. In unwinding the
complicated thread of the modern detective story, which follows
the design originated by Godwin and perfected by Poe, we are
frequently kept to our task by the force of terror as well as of
curiosity. In _The Sign of Four_ and in _The Hound of the
Baskervilles_, to choose two entirely different stories, Conan
Doyle realises that darkness and loneliness place us at the mercy
of terror, and he works artfully on our fears of the unknown.
Phillips Oppenheim and William Le Queux, in romances which have
sometimes a background of international politics, maintain our
interest by means of mystifications, which screw up our
imagination to the utmost pitch, and then let us down gently with
a natural but not too obvious explanation. A certain amount of
terror is almost essential to heighten the interest of a novel of
costume and adventure, like _The Prisoner of Zenda_ or _Rupert of
Hentzau_, or of the fantastic, exciting romances of Jules Verne.
Rider Haggard's African romances, _She_ and _King Solomon's
Mines_, belong to a large group of supernatural tales with a
foreign setting. They combine strangeness, wonder, mystery and
horror. The ancient theme of bartering souls is given a new twist
in Robert Hichens' novel, _The Flames_. E.F. Benson, in _The
Image in the Sand_, experiments with Oriental magic. The
investigations of the Society for Psychical Research gave a new
impulse to stories of the occult and the uncanny. Algernon
Blackwood is one of the most ingenious exponents of this type of
story. By means of psychical explanations, he succeeds in
revivifying many ancient superstitions. In _Dr. John Silence_,
even the werewolf, whom we believed extinct, manifests himself in
modern days among a party of cheerful campers on a lonely island,
and brings unspeakable terror in his trail. Sometimes terror is
used nowadays, as Bulwer Lytton used it, to serve a moral
purpose. Oscar Wilde's _Picture of Dorian Gray_ is intended to
show that sin must ultimately affect the soul; and the Sorrows of
Satan, in Miss Corelli's novel, are caused by the wickedness of
the world. But apart from any ulterior motive there is still a
desire for the unusual, there is still pleasure to be found in a
thrill, and so long as this human instinct endures devices will
be found for satisfying it. Of the making of tales of terror
there is no end; and almost every novelist of note has, at one
time or another, tried his hand at the art. Early in his career
Arnold Bennett fashioned a novelette, _Hugo_, which may be read
as a modernised version of the Gothic romance. Instead of
subterranean vaults in a deserted abbey, we have the strong rooms
of an enterprising Sloane Street emporium. The coffin, containing
an image of the heroine, is buried not in a mouldering chapel,
but in a suburban cemetery. The lovely but harassed heroine has
fallen, indeed, from her high estate, for Camilla earns her
living as a milliner. There are, it is true, no sonnets and no
sunsets, but the excitement of the plot, which is partially
unfolded by means of a phonographic record, renders them
superfluous. H.G. Wells makes excursions into quasi-scientific,
fantastic realms of grotesque horror in his _First Men in the
Moon_, and in some of his sketches and short stories. Joseph
Conrad has the power of fear ever at the command of his romantic
imagination. In _The Nigger of the Narcissus_, in _Typhoon_, and,
above all, in _The Shadow-Line_, he shows his supreme mastery
over inexpressible mystery and nameless terror. The voyage of the
schooner, doomed by the evil influence of her dead captain, is
comparable only in awe and horror to that of _The Ancient
Mariner_. Conrad touches unfathomable depths of human feelings,
and in his hands the tale of terror becomes a finished work of
art.
The future of the tale of terror it is impossible to predict;
but the experiments of living authors, who continually find new
outlets with the advance of science and of psychological enquiry,
suffice to prove that its powers are not yet exhausted. Those who
make the 'moving accident' their trade will no doubt continue to
assail us with the shock of startling and sensational events.
Others with more insidious art, will set themselves to devise
stories which evoke subtler refinements of fear. The interest has
already been transferred from 'bogle-wark' to the effect of the
inexplicable, the mysterious and the uncanny on human thought and
emotion. It may well be that this track will lead us into
unexplored labyrinths of terror.
NOTES:
[1: Frazer, _Folklore of the Old Testament_, I. iv. § 2.]
[2: _Cock Lane and Common Sense_, 1894.]
[3: _Spectator_, No. 12.]
[4: _Spectator_, No. 110.]
[5: Boswell, _Life of Johnson_, June 12th, 1784.]
[6: _Tom Jones_, Bk. xvi. ch. v.]
[7: Letter to Dr. Moore, Aug. 2, 1787.]
[8: Ashton, _Chapbooks of the Eighteenth Century_, 1882.]
[9: Advertisement to _Cloudesley_, 1830.]
[10: Preface to _Mandeville_, Oct. 25, 1817.]
[11: Letters, vii. 27.]
[12: _The Uncommercial Traveller_.]
[13: _Odyssey_, xi.]
[14: April 17, 1765.]
[15: Nov. 13, 1784.]
[16: June 12, 1753.]
[17: _Remarks on Italy_.]
[18: Aug. 4, 1753.]
[19: _Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay_, vol. ii. Appendix
ii.: _A
Visit to Strawberry Hill in 1786_.]
[20: Jan. 5, 1766.]
[21: July 15, 1783.]
[22: March 26, 1765.]
[23: Nov. 5, 1782.]
[24: It has been pointed out (Scott, _Lives of the Novelists_,
note)
that in Lope de Vega's _Jerusalem_ the picture of Noradine
stalks
from its panel and addresses Saladine.]
[25: Cf. Wallace, _Blind Harry_.]
[26: _Preface_, 1764.]
[27: Ch. XX.]
[28: Ch. XXXIV.]
[29: Ch. lxii.]
[30: Jan. 27, 1780.]
[31: _Letters_, April 8, 1778, and Jan. 27, 1780.]
[32: _Poetical Works_, ed. Sampson, p. 8.]
[33: Translated _Blackwood's Magazine_, 1820 (Nov.). Cf. Scott,
_Bridal of Triermain_.]
[34: _E.g. Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay_, June 18, 1795;
Mathias, _Pursuits of Literature_, 14th ed. 1808, p. 56;
Scott,
_Lives of the Novelists_; Extracts from the _Diary of a
Lover of
Literature_ (1810); Byron, _Childe Harold_, iv. xviii.;
Thackeray, _Newcomes_, chs. xi., xxviii.; Brontë, _Shirley_,
ch.
xxvii; Trollope, _Barchester Towers_, ch. xv., etc.]
[35: Family Letters, 1908.]
[36: Reprinted, Romancist and Novelist's Library.]
[37: _Journeys of Mrs. Radcliffe_, 2nd ed., 1795, vol. ii. p.
171.]
[38: _Noctes Ambrosianae_, ed. 1855, vol. i. p. 201.]
[39: Lecture on _The English Novelists_.]
[40: _Life and Correspondence of M. G. Lewis_, 1839, i. 122.]
[41: _Life and Correspondence_, July 22nd, 1794.]
[42: Essay on _The State of German Literature_.]
[43: Southey, Preface to _Madoc_.]
[44: _Life and Correspondence_, Feb. 23, 1798.]
[45: Letter to John Murray, Aug. 23rd, 1814.]
[46: _Monthly Review_, June, 1797.]
[47: No. 148.]
[48: Cf. Musaeus: _Die Entführung_.]
[49: _Marmion_, Canto ii. Intro.]
[50: Reprinted, Romancist and Novelist's Library, vol. i. 1839.]
[51: _Essay on German Playwrights_.]
[52: _English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_ (1809).]
[53: Many of these were issued by B. Crosby, Stationers' Court.]
[54: _Recollections of the Table-Talk of Samuel Rogers_, 1856, p.
138.]
[55: Trans. from the German of Christian August Vulpius.]
[56: Cf. Thackeray, "Tunbridge Toys" (Roundabout Papers).]
[57: _English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_.]
[58: _Gentleman's Magazine_, 1825; and memoir prefixed to the
edition
of _Melmoth the Wanderer_, published in 1892.]
[59: Prose Works, 1851, vol. xviii.]
[60: _Letters and Memoir_, 1895, vol. i. p. 101.]
[61: _Life_ (Melville), 1909, vol. i. p. 79.]
[62: _Letters_, 2nd Series, 1872, vol. i. p. 101.]
[63: Gustave Planche, _Portraits Littéraires_.]
[64: Cf. Stevenson's _Bottle-Imp._]
[65: _Edinburgh Review_, July 1821.]
[66: Conant, _The Oriental Tale in England_, pp. 36-38.]
[67: Conant, _The Oriental Tale in England_, pp. 36-38.]
[68: Letter to Henley, Jan. 29, 1782.]
[69: _Life and Letters_, Melville, 1910, p. 20.]
[70: _Life and Letters_, 1910, p. 20.]
[71: _Memoirs, Journal and Correspondence of Thomas Moore_, 1853,
vol. ii. p. 197.]
[72: Nov. 24, 1777, _Life and Letters_, p. 40.]
[73: Austen Leigh, _Memoir of Jane Austen_.]
[74: Letter to William Godwin, Dec. 7, 1817.]
[75: _William Godwin: His Friends and Contemporaries_. Kegan
Paul,
1876, vol. i. p. 78.]
[76: Preface to _Fleetwood_, 1832.]
[77: Preface to _Fleetwood_, 1832.]
[78: Preface to _Fleetwood_, 1832, p. xi: "I read over a little
old
book entitled _The Adventures of Mme. De St. Phale_, I
turned
over the pages of a tremendous compilation entitled _God's
Revenge against Murder_, where the beam of the eye of
omniscience was represented as perpetually pursuing the
guilty... I was extremely conversant with _The Newgate
Calendar_ and _The Lives of the Pirates_. I rather amused
myself
with tracing a certain similitude between the story of
_Caleb
Williams_ and the tale of _Bluebeard_;" and Preface to
_Cloudesley_: "The present publication may in the same
sense be
denominated a paraphrase of the old ballad of the Children
in
the Wood."]
[79: Scott, Introduction to _The Abbot_, 1831.]
[80: _William Godwin: His Friends and Contemporaries_, 1876, vol.
ii.
p. 304.]
[81: _Caleb Williams_, ch. x.]
[82: _William Godwin: His Friends and Contemporaries_, vol. i.
pp.
330-1.]
[83: _Political Justice_, bk. ii, ch. ii.]
[84: _William Godwin: His Friends and Contemporaries_, vol. i.
pp.
330-1; Preface to 1st edition, 1799.]
[85: _Hermippus Redivivus_; or _The Sage's Triumph over Old Age
and
the Grave_ (translated from the Latin of Cohausen, with
annotations), 1743. Dr. Johnson pronounced the volume "very
entertaining as an account of the hermetic philosophy and as
furnishing a curious history of the extravagancies of the
human
mind," adding "if it were merely imaginary it would be
nothing at
all."]
[86: _St. Leon_, vol. iv. ch, xiii.]
[87: _St. Leon_, Bk. iv, ch. v.]
[88: _Lives of the Necromancers_, 1834, Preface. "The main purpose
of
this book is to exhibit a fair delineation of the credulity
of
the human mind. Such an exhibition cannot fail to be
productive
of the most salutary lessons."]
[89: _St. Godwin: A Tale of the 16th, 17th and 18th Century_, by
Count
Reginald de St. Leon, 1800, p. 234.]
[90: Dowden, _Life of Shelley_, vol. i. p. 10.]
[91: Dowden, _Life of Shelley_, vol. i. p. 44.]
[92: Hogg, _Life of Shelley_, vol. i. p. 15.]
[93: Cf. Castle of Lindenberg story in _The Monk_, and ballad of
Alonzo the Brave.]
[94: A versification of the story of the Wandering Jew, Bleeding
Nun
and Don Raymond in _The Monk_.]
[95: This poem was borrowed from Lewis's _Tales of Terror_
(without
Shelley's knowledge), where it is entitled _The Black Canon
of
Elmham, or St. Edmond's Eve_.]
[96: Letter to Edward Fergus Graham, Ap. 23, 1810 (_Letters_, ed.
Ingpen, 1909, vol. i, pp. 4-6).]
[97: Letter to John Joseph Stockdale, Nov. 14, 1810.]
[98: Mme. de Montolieu, _Caroline de Lichfield_, translated by
Thos.
Holcroft, 1786.]
[99: Mme. de Genlis, translated by Rev. Beresford, 1796.]
[100: Peter Middleton Darling, _Romance of the Highlands_, 1810.]
[101: Regina Maria Roche, _The Discarded Son, or The Haunt of the
Banditti_, 1806.]
[102: Agnes Musgrave, _Cicely, or The Rose of Raby_.]
[103: Aphra Behn, _The Nun_.]
[104: Charlotte Smith, _Ethelinde, or The Recluse of the Lake_,
1790.]
[105: _The Relapse: a novel_, 1780.]
[106: _Tales of the Hall_.]
[107: Crébillon, _Les Égarements du Coeur et de l'Esprit_.]
[108: _The Borough_, Ellen Orford, Letter xx.]
[109: _The Borough_, xx, ll. 56 _seqq._]
[110: _Parish Register_.]
[111: _William and Helen_, 1796.]
[112: _House of Aspen_, 1799 (Keepsake, 1830). _Doom of
Devorgoil_,
1817 (Keepsake, 1830).]
[113: Scott, _Lives of the Novelists_ (on Clara Reeve and Mrs.
Radcliffe and Maturin).]
[114: Keepsake, 1828.]
[115: Keepsake, 1828.]
[116: _Journal_, Feb. 23, 1826.]
[117: List of books read 1814-1816.]
[118: _Fantasmagoriana: ou Recueil d'Histoires d'Apparitions, de
Spectres, de Revenans, trad. d'Allemand par un Amateur_.
Paris,
1812.]
[119: _Diary of John William Polidori_, June 17, 1816.]
[120: Byron, _Letters and Journals_, 1899, iii. 446. Mary
Shelley,
_Life and Letters_, 1889, i. 586. Extract from Mary
Shelley's
_Diary_, Aug. 14, 1816.]
[121: Nov. 15, 1823, _Life and Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft
Shelley_
(Marshall), ii. 52.]
[122: _Life and Letters_, ii. 88. ]
[123: _Romancist and Novelist's Library_.]
[124: Reprinted in _Treasure House of Tales by Great Authors_,
ed.
Garnett, 1891.]
[125: _Punch_, vol. x. p. 31:
"Says Ainsworth to Colburn
A plan in my pate is
To give my romance, as
A supplement gratis.
Says Colburn to Ainsworth
'Twill do very nicely,
For that will be charging
Its value precisely."]
[126: _Life, Letters and Literary Remains_, 1883, vol. ii. pp. 70
_seqq_.]
[127: _Dublin University Magazine_, 1862. "Forgotten Novels."]
[128: _Blackwood's Magazine_, 1830-1837.]
[129: _Within the Tides_, 1915.]
[130: Preface to _The Algerine Captive_ (Walpole, Vermont, 1797)
quoted Loshe, _Early American Novel_, N.Y. 1907.]
[131: Preface to _Edgar Huntly_.]
[132: Peacock, _Memoirs of Shelley_.]
INDEX
_Abbey of Clunedale_, Drake's, 35.
_Abbot_, Scott's, 109 note, 153.
_Abdallah_, Tieck's, 65.
_Abellino_, Zschokke's, 70.
_Adam Blair_, Lockhart's, 207.
Addison, Joseph, 5, 17, 69, 95, 222.
_Adela Cathcart_, Macdonald's, 173.
_Adventures of Abdallah_, Bignon's, 94, 96.
_Adventures of Mme. de St. Phale_, 109 note.
_After Dark_, Wilkie Collins', 190.
Aikin, A.L. (see Barbauld, Mrs. A.L.).
Aikin, Dr. J., 28.
Aikin, Lucy, 28.
Ainsworth, Harrison, 149, 174-177.
_Alastor_, Shelley's, 127, 163.
_Albigenses_, Maturin's, 82.
_Alciphron_, Moore's, 117.
_Algerine Captive_, 197 note.
_Alice in Wonderland_, Lewis Carroll's, 116.
_All the Year Round_, 183, 190.
_Almoran and Hamet_, Hawkesworth's, 95.
_Alonzo and Melissa_, 197.
_Alonzo the Brave_, Lewis's, n, 120 note.
_Amadas, Sir_, 4.
_Amelia_, Fielding's, 134, 135.
_Ancient Mariner_, Coleridge's, 9, 227.
_Angelina_, Maria Edgeworth's, 133.
_Annual Review_, 73.
_Antiquary_, Scott's, 154.
Apel, J.A., 174.
_Apostate Nun_ (see _Convent of Grey Penitents)_.
_Apparitions, History and Reality of_, Defoe's, 5, 139.
_Apparitions, History of_, Taylor's, 149.
Apuleius, 13.
_Arabian Nights_, 12, 94.
_Ardinghello_, Heinse's, 65.
_Arliss's Pocket Magazine_, 175.
_Arlamène ou le Grand Cyrus_, Mme. de Scudéry's, 222.
_Arthur Mervyn_, C.B. Brown's, 198.
_Asylum or Alonzo and Melissa_, 197.
_Auberge Rouge_, Balzac's, 203.
_Auriol_, Ainsworth's, 176-177.
Austen, Jane, 100, 125-133, 138, 140, 223.
_Avenger_, De Quincey's, 174.
_Avenging Demon_, Shelley's, 120.
_Azemia_, Beckford's, 97.
Babel, Tower of, 221.
_Babes in the Wood_, 13, 109 note.
_Babylonica_, Iamblichus', 12.
Ballad collections, 9.
_Baltimore Saturday Visitor_, 214.
Balzac, Honoré de, 86, 203.
_Bandit of Florence_, 76.
_Banditti of the Forest_, 76.
_Barbastal, or the Magician of the Forest of the Bloody Ash_,
186.
Barbauld, Mrs. A.L., 28-31, 32, 33, 147.
_Barchester Towers_, Trollope's, 38 note.
_Bard_, Gray's, 7.
Barrett, E.S., 22, 79, 133-137, 138.
Baudelaire, Charles, 86, 220.
Beckford, William, 94-99, 118.
Beggar Girl and her Benefactors, Mrs. Bennett's, 74, 134.
Behn, Mrs. Aphra, 141 note, 222.
_Benevolent Monk_, Melville's, 75.
Bennett, Mrs. A.M., 74.
Bennett, Arnold, 227.
Benson, E.F., 226.
_Beowulf_, 2.
_Berenice_, Poe's, 215.
_Bertram_, Maturin's, 81, 149.
_Betrothed_, Scott's, 153.
_Bibliotheca Britannica_, Watt's, 75, 129.
Bignon, Jean-Paul, 94.
_Biographical Memoirs of Extraordinary Painters_, Beckford's, 97.
_Black Canon of Elmham (Tales of Terror_), 120 note.
_Black Cat_, Poe's, 217.
_Black Forest_, 76.
Blackwood, Algernon, 226.
_Blackwood's Magazine_, 34 note, 174, 182, 189, 190, 194.
Blake, William, 31-32.
_Blanche and Osbright_, Lewis's, 71.
"Blind Harry," 21 note.
_Blithedale Romance_, Hawthorne's, 212.
_Bloody Monk of Udolpho_, Horsley Curteis', 75.
_Bluebeard_, 3, 13, 109 note.
_Boeotian_, 175.
_Bold Dragoon_, Irving's, 201.
Boleyn, Anne, 31.
_Book for a Corner_, Leigh Hunt's, 28.
_Borough_, Crabbe's, 142, 143.
_Bosom-Serpent_, Hawthorne's, 206.
_Bottle-Imp_, Stevenson's, 87 note.
Bovet, 14, 149.
_Bravo of Bohemia_ or _Black Forest_, 76.
_Bravo of Venice_, Lewis's, 70, 71, 125.
_Bridal of Triermain_, Scott's, 34 note.
_Bride of Lammermoor_, Scott's, 81, 153.
_Brigand Tales_, 186.
Brontë, Charlotte, 38 note, 51, 224.
Bronté, Emily, 224-225.
Brown, Charles Brockden, 140, 188, 197-200.
Browne, Sir Thomas, 5.
Bulke, Sir George, 57.
_Bullfrog, Mrs_., Hawthorne's, 206.
Bunyan, John, 5.
Bürger, Gottfried, II, 148, 200.
Burney, Dr. Charles, 17.
Burney, Fanny, 38 note, 135, 223.
Burns, Robert, 8, 9.
Burton, Robert, 5.
Byron, Lord, 38 note, 55, 59, 72, 79, 81, 135, 158, 160, 167,
169,
171, 221.
_Caleb Williams_, Godwin's, 13, 102-111, 168, 199, 218.
_Caledonian Banditti_, 76.
_Camilla_, Fanny Burney's, 134.
Campbell, Dr. John, 112.
Carlyle, Thomas, 65, 72.
_Caroline of Lichfield_, Mme. de Montolieu's, 134.
Carroll, Lewis, 201.
_Cask of Amontillado_, Poe's, 217, 220.
_Castle Connor_, Clara Reeve's, 28.
_Castle of Otranto_, Walpole's, 12, 16-23, 25, 27, 28, 29, 30,
31, 39,
40, 58, 77, 146, 221.
_Castle of Wolfenbach_, Mrs. Parson's, 129.
_Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne_, Mrs. Radcliffe's, 39-41, 45.
_Castle Spectre_, Lewis's, 66, 149.
_Castle without a Spectre_, Mrs. Hunter's, 76.
Cazotte, Jacques, 68.
_Cecilia_, Fanny Burney's, 134, 135.
_Cenci_, Shelley's, 127.
Cervantes, 222.
_Chateau de Montville_, Sarah Wilkinson's, 77.
_Cherubina, Adventures of_ (see _Heroine_).
_Childe Harold_, Byron's, 38 note.
_Children of the Abbey_, Mrs. Roche's, 22, 59, 129, 130, 134.
_Chinese Tales_, Gueulette's, 94.
_Christabel_, Coleridge's, 9, 10.
"Christopher North" (Wilson, John), 192.
_Cicely or The Rose of Raby_, Miss Agnes Musgrave's, 141 note.
_Clarissa Harlowe_, Richardson's, 46, 134, 140.
_Clerk Saunders_, 3.
_Clermont_, Mrs. Roche's, 129.
_Cock Lane and Commonsense_, Andrew Lang's, 2 note.
"Cock Lane Ghost," 6.
Coleridge, S.T., 9, 10, 66, 81.
_Collectanea_, Leland's, 57.
Collins, Wilkie, 190, 194, 225.
Collins, William, 7, 8, 12, 35, 58.
Colman, George, the younger, 109.
Colman, George, the elder, 129, 222.
Conant, Martha, 95 note.
_Confessions of a Fanatic_, Hogg's, 192.
Conrad, Joseph, 194, 195, 227.
_Contes de ma Mère Oie_, Perrault's, 12.
_Convent of St. Ursula_, Miss Wilkinson's, 78.
_Convent of the Grey Penitents_, Miss Wilkinson's, 74, 76, 77-78.
Corelli, Marie, 226.
_Corsair_, Byron's, 56.
_Count of Narbonne_, Jephson's, 19.
"Count Reginald de St. Leon," 116.
Coverley, Sir Roger de, 5.
Crabbe, George, 76, 140-144.
Crébillon, C.P.J., 141 note.
_Crichton_, Ainsworth's, 176.
Croly, George, 118.
Cruikshank, 176.
Cunningham, Allan, 191-192.
Curteis, T.J. Horsley, 75.
Dacre, Charlotte ("Rosa Matilda"), 75, 122.
D'Arblay, Mme. (see Burney, Fanny).
Darwin, Erasmus, 160.
D'Aulnoy, Countess, 12.
David, 2.
_Death of Despina_, Mrs. Shelley's, 168.
Defoe, Daniel, 5, 6, 139.
_Delicate Distress_, 134.
"Demon Frigate," 12.
"Demon Lover," 2, 14.
_Demonology and Witchcraft, Letters on_, Scott's, 149.
_Demonology, Treatise on_, James I.'s, 4.
De Quincey, 173-174.
De Scudéry, Mme., 222.
_Descent into the Maelstrom_, Poe's, 215.
_Devil in Love_, Cazotte's, 68.
_Diary of a Lover of Literature_, Green's, 38 note.
_Dice_, De Quincey's, 174.
Dickens, Charles, 14, 59, 81, 190, 192, 193.
_Discarded Son_, Mrs. Roche's, 140 note.
_Discovery of Witchcraft_, Scot's, 14, 147.
Disraeli, Benjamin, 99.
_Distress, Kinds of, which Excite Agreeable Sensations_,
Barbauld's, 29.
_Dr. Dolliver's Romance_, Hawthorne's, 212-213.
_Dr. Grimshawe's Secret_, Hawthorne's, 212.
_Dr. Heidegger's Experiment_, Hawthorne's, 207.
_Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_, Stevenson's, 218.
_Dr. Marigold's Prescriptions_, Dickens', 194.
_Don Quixote_, Cervantes', 222.
_Doom of Devorgoil_, Scott's, 149 note.
_Douglas_, Home's, 8.
Doyle, Sir A. Conan, 103, 218, 226.
_Dracula_, Bram Stoker's, 2, 173, 225.
Drake, Dr. Nathan, 32-37, 147.
_Dream Children_, Lamb's, 193.
_Dublin University Magazine_, 173, 186 note, 190, 191.
Dumas, Alexandre, 175.
_Edgar Huntly_, C.B. Brown's, 197, 198, 199-200.
Edgeworth, Maria, 133.
_Edinburgh Review_, 87 note.
_Edmond, Orphan of the Castle_, 28.
_Edward_, 34.
_Edward Fane's Rosebud_, Hawthorne's, 205.
_Egarements du Coeur et de l'Esprit_, Crébillon's, 141 note.
_Elegant Enthusiast_, Beckford's, 97.
_Eleanora_, Poe's, 215.
_Elixir de la Longue Vie_, Balzac's, 203.
_Elixir des Teufels_, Hoffmann's, 70.
_Elsie Venner_, Holmes', 207.
Endor, Witch of, 2, 221.
_English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_, Byron's, 72 note, 79.
_English Chronicle_, 39.
_English Novelists, Lectures on_, Hazlitt's, 62.
_Entführung_, Musaeus', 68 note.
_Epicurean_, Moore's, 117, 118.
_Ernestus Berchtold_, Polidori's, 160, 170-171.
_Ethan Brand_, Hawthorne's, 205.
_Ethelinde_, Charlotte Smith's, 141.
"Ettrick Shepherd" (see Hogg, James).
_European Magazine_, 175.
_Evelina_, Fanny Burney's, 134.
_Eve of St. Agnes_, Keats', 10.
_Ewige Jude_, Schubart's, 120.
_Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar_, Poe's, 219.
_Faerie Queene_, Spenser's, 17.
_Fair Elenor_, Blake's, 31-32.
_Fair Jilt_, Mrs. Aphra Behn's, 222.
_Falkner_, Godwin's, 168.
_Fall of the House of Usher_, Poe's, 216, 220.
_Family of Montorio_, 72, 74, 80, 81, 82-86, 88, 91, 93, 158.
_Fantasmagoriana_, 160 note.
_Farina_, Meredith's, 70.
_Fatal Marksman_, De Quincey's, 174.
_Fatal Revenge_ (see _Family of Montorio_).
_Faust_, Goethe's, 92, 198.
_Faustus, Dr._, Marlowe's, 4, 12, 91, 92.
_Fear, Ode to_, Collins', 35.
"Felix Phantom," 77.
_Female Quixote_, Mrs. Lennox's, 222.
_Ferdinand, Count Fathom, Adventures of_, Smollett's, 12, 23-25,
29,
35, 68.
_Feudal Tyrants_, Lewis's, 71.
Fielding, Henry, 222.
_Field of Terror_, De La Motte Fouqué's, 34.
_First Men in the Moon_, Wells', 227.
_Flames_, Hichens', 226.
_Fleetwood_, Godwin's, 102 note, 104 note, 109 note.
Flood, Story of, 1, 221.
Ford, John, 127.
_Forman_, 224.
_Fortress of Saguntum_, Ainsworth's, 175.
_Fortunes of Nigel_, Scott's, 153.
Fouqué, De la Motte, 34, 153.
Francis, Sophia, 76.
_Frankenstein_, Mrs. Shelley's, 158-165, 169.
Frazer, 2 note.
_Fredolfo_, Maturin's, 81.
_Freischütz_, Apel's, 174.
_Fugitive Countess_, Miss Wilkinson's, 78.
Galland, Antoine, 12, 94.
Gaskell, Mrs., 192-193.
_Gaston de Blondeville_, Mrs. Radcliffe's, 39, 40, 56-58, 60.
_Geisterseher_, Schiller's, 51.
_Geistertodtenglocke_, 191.
"Geoffrey Crayon" (see Irving, Washington).
_German Literature, Essay on_, Carlyle's, 65.
_German Playwrights, Essay on_, Carlyle's, 72 note.
_German Student, Story of a_, 201.
_Ghasta_, Shelley's, 120.
_Ghost_, "Felix Phantom's," 77.
_Giaour_, Byron's, 55.
Gilgamesh epic, 1-2.
_Ginevra_, Shelley's, 127.
Glanvill, Joseph, 6, 215.
_Glenallan_, Lytton's, 179.
_Glenfinlas_, Scott's, 11.
_Godolphin_, Lytton's, 179.
_God's Revenge Against Murder_, 109 note.
Godwin, William, 13, 92, 100-117, 124, 158, 166, 175, 197, 199,
200, 209, 218, 226.
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang, 65, 92, 148, 198.
_Golden Ass_, Apuleius', 13, 14, 15.
_Goodman Brown_, Hawthorne's, 206.
_Götz van Berlichingen_, Goethe's, 148.
_Grand Cyrus_, Mme. de Scudéry's, 222.
_Grandison, Sir Charles_, Richardson's, 134.
Green, Sarah, 133.
_Green Tea_, Le Fanu's, 190.
Gray, Thomas, 7, 12, 20, 40, 58, 75.
Grillparzer, Franz, 72.
Grosse, Marquis von, 76, 129.
_Guardian_, 68.
Gueulette, 94.
Haggard, Rider, 226.
_Half Hangit_, Ainsworth's, 175.
_Halloween_, Burns', 8.
Hamilton, Count Antony, 95.
_Hamlet_, Shakespeare's, 86.
_Hardyknute_, 35.
_Haunted and the Haunters_, Lytton's, 179, 182-183.
_Haunted Ships_, Cunningham's, 191.
Hawkesworth, Dr. John, 95.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 203-213, 214, 217, 220.
Hayne, D.F., 188.
Hazlitt, William, 62.
Heinse, Wilhelm, 65.
_Hellas_, Shelley's, 120.
Henley, Rev. S., 94.
_Henry Fitzowen_, Drake's, 33.
_Hermippus Redivivus_, Campbell's, 112.
_Heroine_, Barrett's, 79, 133-137.
Heywood, Thomas, 149.
_Hierarchy of the Blessed Angels_, Heywood's, 149.
_History of Nourjahad_, Mrs. Sheridan's, 95.
_History of the Exchequer_, Mador's, 57.
Hobson, Elizabeth, 6.
Hoffmann, E.T.A., 70, 175.
Hogg, James, 11, 58, 61, 191, 192.
_Hollow of the Three Hills_, Hawthorne's, 205.
Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 207,
Home, John, 8.
_Horrid Mysteries_, Marquis von Grosse's, 76, 126, 129, 199.
_Hound of the Baskervilles_, 226.
_Hours of Idleness_, Byron's, 72.
_Household Words_, 190, 193.
_Household Wreck_, De Quincey's, 174.
_House of Aspen_, Scott, 149 note.
_House of the Seven Gables_, Hawthorne's, 210-211.
Hughes, A.M.D., 122.
_Hugo_, Bennett's, 227.
Hugo, Victor, 175.
Hunt, Leigh, 28, 186.
Hunter, Mrs. Rachel, 76.
Hurd, Bishop, 17, 20.
Iamblichus, 12.
Icelandic saga, 2, 14.
_Iliad_, 14.
_Image in the Sand_, Benson's, 226.
_Indicator_, Leigh Hunt's, 187.
_Inn of the Two Witches_, Conrad's, 195.
_Invisible Man_, Wells', 196.
_Iron Shroud_, Mudford's, 194.
Irving, Washington, 200-203.
_Isabella_, Keats', 10.
_Italian_, Mrs. Radcliffe's, 34, 45, 47, 52-56, 58, 60, 69, 70,
114, 124, 125, 128, 137, 168, 185.
_Ivanhoe_, Scott's, 18.
_Jack the Giant-Killer_, 19.
Jacobs, W.W., 193.
James I., 4.
James, Henry, 196.
_Jane Eyre_, Charlotte Brontë's, 224.
_Jekyll and Hyde_, Stevenson's, 218.
"Jenny Spinner," 179.
Jephson, Robert, 19.
Jerdan, W., 189.
_Jerusalem_, Lope de Vega's, 21 note.
_Job, Book of_, 221.
_John Silence_, Blackwood's, 226.
Johnson, Samuel, 6, 7, 95.
Johnson, T.B., 140.
Jonson, Ben, 4.
_Journal_, Moore's, 97.
_Journeys of Mrs. Radcliffe_, 60-61.
_Juif Errant_, Sue's, 118.
Keats, John, 10.
_Keepsake_, 149 note, 150 note, 151 note.
Kemble, John, 19.
_Kidnapped_, Stevenson, 41, 195.
_Kilmeny_, Hogg's, 11.
_King John_, Shakespeare's, 55.
_King Lear_, Shakespeare's, 3, 110.
_King Solomon's Mines_, Haggard's, 226.
Kipling, Rudyard, 195.
Klingemann, 72.
_Klosterheim_, De Quincey's, 173.
_Knight of the Burning Pestle_, Beaumont and Fletcher's, 7.
_Knights of the Swan_, Mme. de Genlis', 134.
_Königsmark the Robber_, Lewis's, 71.
Kotzebue, August von, 65, 72.
_Kubla Khan_, 10.
_La Belle Dame sans Merci_, Keats', 11.
Lacroix, Paul, 175.
_Lady in the Sacque_, Scott's, 150, 201.
_Lady of the Lake_, Scott's, 152.
Lamb, Charles, 193.
_Lamia_, Keats', 10.
_Lancashire Witches_, Ainsworth's, 176.
Lang, Andrew, 2.
Langhorne, John, 95.
_Lara_, Byron's, 56.
_Last Man_, Mrs. Shelley's, 166-168.
Lathom, Francis, 76.
_Lay of the Last Minstrel_, Scott's, 79, 152.
Le Calprenède, 222.
Lee, Sophia, 39, 57.
Le Fanu, Sheridan, 190, 225.
_Legend of Montrose_, Scott's, 153.
_Legends of a Nunnery_, Lewis's, 71.
_Legends of Terror_, 186.
_Legends of the Province House_, Hawthorne's, 204.
Leland, John, 57.
Lemoine, Anne, 186.
Lennox, Mrs. Charlotte, 222.
_Lenore_, Bürger's, 11, 148.
Le Queux, William, 226.
_Letitia_, Mrs. Rachel Hunter's, 76.
_Letters on Chivalry and Romance_, Hurd's, 17, 20.
Lewis, M.G. ("Monk"), 11, 14, 32, 55, 56, 61, 63-72, 76, 77, 85,
91,
114, 120, 122, 123, 125, 136, 148, 157, 158, 174, 175, 185,
186,
188, 197, 203, 218.
_Ligeia_, Poe's, 215.
_Literary Hours_, Drake's, 32.
_Literary Souvenir_, 175.
_Little Annie's Rambles_, Hawthorne's, 205.
_Lives of the Necromancers_, Godwin's, 115, 117.
_Lives of the Novelists_, Scott's, 21 note, 38 note, 150 note,
153.
_Lives of the Pirates_, 109 note.
_Lives_, Plutarch's, 162.
Lockhart, John, 192, 207.
_Lodore_, Mrs. Shelley's, 168.
_London Magazine_, 191.
_Longsword_, Leland's, 57.
Lope de Vega, 21 note.
_Lopez and Aranthe_, Miss Sarah Wilkinson's, 78.
_Lord of Ennerdale_, Scott's, 148.
Loshe, 197.
_Lucifer_, 188.
Lyttleton, Lord, 6.
Lytton, Bulwer, 109, 116, 178-184, 226.
Macaulay, Lord, 77.
_Macbeth_, Shakespeare's, 4, 85.
Macpherson, James, 12, 20.
_Madoc_, Southey's, 65 note.
Mador, 57.
_Magician of the Forest of the Bloody Ash_, 186.
_Malfi, Duchess of_, Webster's, 4.
Mallet, David, 7.
Malone, Edmund, 19.
Malory, Sir Thomas, 4.
_Manuscript Found in a Bottle_, Poe's, 214, 215.
_Mandeville_, Godwin's, 101.
_Manfroni_, 75.
_Manuel_, Maturin's, 81.
_Man in the Bell_, 194.
_Marble Faun_, Hawthorne's, 204, 212.
_Margaret Nicholson, Posthumous Poems of_, 120.
_Mark of the Beast_, Kipling's, 195.
Marlowe, Christopher, 4, 92.
_Marmion_, Scott's, 69 note.
Marryat, Captain, 2, 177.
Marsh, Richard, 225.
_Mary Burnet_, Hogg's, 192.
Mason, 16, 20, 58.
_Masque of Queens_, Ben Jonson's, 4.
_Masque of the Red Death_, Poe's, 214, 216, 217, 220.
_Master of Ballantrae_, Stevenson's, 195.
Mathias, T.J., 38 note.
Maturin, C.R., 55, 61, 72, 80-93, 150 note, 157, 158, 175, 185,
188, 203, 218, 220.
Medwin, Thomas, 74, 120.
Meeke, Mrs., 77.
_Melancholy, Ode on_, Keats', 10.
_Melmoth Reconcilié à l'Église_, Balzac's, 86.
_Melmoth the Wanderer_, Maturin's, 14, 80 note, 82, 86-93, 158,
174, 185.
Melville, Theodore, 75.
Meredith, George, 70, 99.
_Merry Men_, Stevenson's, 195.
Mickle, William Julius, 69.
_Midnight Bell_, George Walker's, 77, 129.
_Midnight Groan_, 120.
_Midnight Horrors_, 75.
_Midnight Weddings_, Mrs. Meeke's, 77.
_Milesian Chief_, Maturin's, 81.
Milton, John, 54, 58.
Minerva Press, 74.
_Misanthropic Parent_, Miss Smith's, 135.
Mitford, Miss Mary Russell, 58, 86.
_Modern Language Review_, 122.
_Modern Oedipus_, Polidori's, 160, 170-171.
_Mogul Tales_, Gueulette's, 94, 95.
_Monastery_, Scott's, 109, 152.
_Monk_, Lewis's, 64, 65, 66-70, 91, 114, 120 note, 123, 129, 136,
148, 152.
_Monk of Madrid_, George Moore's, 75.
_Monkey's Paw_, Jacobs', 193.
_Monks of Cluny or Castle Acre Monastery_, 186.
_Monos and Daimonos_, Lytton's, 217.
Montagu, George, 18.
_Monthly Review_, 68 note.
_Montmorenci_, Drake's, 34, 35.
_Moonstone_, Wilkie Collins', 190, 225.
Moore, George, 75.
Moore, Dr. John, 53.
Moore, Thomas, 97, 117, 118.
_Moral Tales_, Maria Edgeworth's, 133.
_More Ghosts_, "Felix Phantom's," 77.
More, Hannah, 16.
_Morella_, Poe's, 215.
Morgan, Lady, 81.
_Mortal Immortal_, Mrs. Shelley's, 169.
_Morte D'Arthur_, Malory's, 4.
_Mosses from an old Manse_, Hawthorne's, 206, 220.
Mudford, William, 194.
_Mugby Junction_, Dickens', 194.
_Murder, Considered as one of the Fine Arts_, De Quincey's, 173.
_Murders of the Rue Morgue_, Poe's, 218.
Musaeus, Johann, 68 note.
Musgrave, Agnes, 141 note.
_My Aunt Margaret's Mirror_, Scott's, 150.
_Mysteries of the Forest_, Miss Eleanor Sleath's, 76.
_Mysteries of Udolpho_ (see _Udolpho, Mysteries of_).
_Mysterious Bravo_, 76.
_Mysterious Bride_, James Hogg's, 191.
_Mysterious Freebooter_, Lathom's, 76, 120.
_Mysterious Hand_, Randolph's, 76, 120.
_Mysterious Mother_, Walpole's, 34, 58.
_Mysterious Spaniard_, 186.
_Mysterious Summons_, 186.
_Mysterious Visits_, Mrs. Parson's, 76.
_Mysterious Wanderer_, Miss Sophia Reeve's, 76.
_Mysterious Warnings_, Mrs. Parson's, 76, 129.
_Mystery of M. Roget_, Poe's, 218.
_Mystery of the Abbey_, T.B. Johnson's, 140.
_Mystery of the Black Tower_, Palmer's, 76.
_Mystic Sepulchre_, Palmer's, 76.
_My Uncle's Garret Window_, Lewis's, 65.
_Necromancer of the Black Forest_, 129.
_New Arabian Nights_, Stevenson's, 195.
_Newcomes_, Thackeray's, 38 note.
_Newgate Calendar_, 109 note.
_New Monk_, "R.S.'s" 75.
_New Monthly_, 177.
_Nigger of the Narcissus_, Conrad's, 227.
_Nightmare_, Shelley's, 120.
_Nightmare Abbey_, Peacock's, 47, 126, 138, 140.
_Noctes Ambrosianae_, 58, 62 note, 192.
_Nocturnal Minstrel_, Miss Sleath's, 77.
_Northanger Abbey_, Jane Austen's, 44, 128, 129-133, 185.
_Notebooks_, Hawthorne's, 204, 212, 213.
_Nouvelle Heloïse_, Rousseau's, 134.
_Nun_, Mrs. Aphra Behn's, 141.
_Nun of Misericordia_, Miss Sophia Francis's, 76.
_Nun of St. Omer's_, "Rosa Matilda's," 75.
_Nurse's Story_, Mrs. Gaskell's, 192, 193.
_Objects of Terror_, Drake's essay on, 34.
_Oblong Box_, Poe's, 219.
_Old Bachelor_, Crabbe's, 142.
_Old English Baron_, Clara Reeve's, 22, 25-28, 57.
"Old Jeffrey," 6.
_Old Manor House_, Charlotte Smith's, 77.
_Old Mortality_, Scott's, 22, 154.
_Old St. Paul's_, Ainsworth's, 176.
_Old Woman of Berkeley_, Southey's, 11.
Oppenheim, Phillips, 226.
_Oriental Tale in England_, Conant's, 95 note, 96 note.
_Ormond_, T.B. Brown's, 198.
_Oroonoko_, Mrs. Aphra Behn's, 222.
_Orphan of the Rhine_, Miss Sleath's, 129.
_Oscar and Alva_, Byron's, 72.
_Osorio_, Coleridge's, 81.
_Ossian_, Macpherson's, 12, 20, 58.
_Oval Portrait_, Poe's, 219.
Pain, Barry, 193.
Palmer, John, 76.
_Pamela_, Richardson's, 134.
_Pandemonium or the Devil's Cloyster Opened_, Bovet's, 14, 149.
_Paradise Lost_, Milton's, 162.
_Parish Register_, Crabbe's, 144 note.
Parsons, Mrs. Eliza, 73, 74, 76, 129.
_Passages from the Diary of a Late Physician_, Warren's, 188.
_Paul Clifford_, Lytton's, 109.
Peacock, T.L., 72, 126, 138-140, 197.
_Peep at our Ancestors_, Mrs. Rouvière's, 74, 75.
Pegge, Samuel, 57.
Pepys, Mrs., 222.
Percy, Bishop, 9, 20.
_Perkin Warbeck_, Mrs. Shelley's, 168.
Perrault, Charles, 12.
_Persian Tales_, Galland's, 94.
_Peruvian Tales_, Gueulette's, 94.
Petronius, 2.
_Peveril of the Peak_, Scott's, 154.
_Phantasmagoria_, Lewis Carroll's, 201.
_Phantom Ship_, Marryat's, 2, 177.
_Pickwick_, Dickens', 193.
_Picture of Dorian Gray_, Oscar Wilde's, 226.
_Pilgrim's Progress_, Bunyan's, 5.
_Pillar of Mystery_, 197.
_Pit and the Pendulum_, Poe's, 194, 218.
Planche, Gustave, 86 note.
Plato, 101.
_Pleasure derived from Objects of Terror_, Mrs. Barbauld's essay
on, 28.
Pliny, 14.
Plutarch, 162.
Poe, Edgar Allan, 149, 175, 213-220, 226.
_Poetical Sketches_, Blake's, 31.
Polidori, Dr., 158, 160, 169-173.
_Political Justice_, Godwin's, 100, 101, 102, 111, 197.
_Polly Honeycombe_, Colman's, 222.
Polyphemus, 2.
Pope, Alexander, 17.
_Popular Tales and Romances of the Northern Nations_, 174.
_Portraits Littèraires_, Planche's, 86 note.
_Pour et Contre_, Maturin's, 81.
_Preceptor Husband_, Crabbe's, 141.
_Preface to Shakespeare_, Pope's, 17.
_Premature Burial_, Poe's, 216.
_Priory of St. Clair_, Miss Wilkinson's, 74, 78.
_Prisoner of Zenda_, Hope's, 226.
_Prometheus Unbound_, Shelley's, 101, 120, 127.
_Pursuits of Literature_, Mathias', 38 note.
_Quarterly Review_, 72.
_Queenhoo Hall_, Strutt's, 57.
_Queen Mab_, 101, 120.
Radcliffe, Mrs. Anne, 12, 13, 14, 20, 22, 24, 26, 31, 33, 34, 35,
38-62, 63, 64, 68, 69, 70, 76, 77, 81, 82, 84, 85, 91, 101,
104,
105, 109, 114, 122, 123, 124, 128, 129, 130, 133, 135, 136,
137,
148, 150 note, 154, 155, 157, 158, 167, 168, 173, 175, 176,
185,
188, 197, 198, 218, 219, 222, 223.
_Rambler_, Johnson's, 94.
Randolph, A.J., 76.
_Rappacini's Daughter, Dr._, Hawthorne's, 206.
_Rasselas_, Johnson's, 94, 134.
_Räuber_, Schiller's, 55, 65, 148, 198.
_Raven_, Poe's, 219.
_Recess_, Sophia Lee's, 39, 57.
Reeve, Clara, 13, 21, 25-28, 33, 38, 57, 150 note.
Reeve, Sophia, 76.
_Relapse_, 141.
_Reliques of Ancient English Poetry_, Percy's, 9, 20.
_Return of Imray_, Kipling's, 195.
_Revelations of London_ (see _Auriol_).
_Revenge_ (Poems of Victor and Cazire), 120.
_Revolt of Islam_, Shelley's, 101, 127.
_Richard III._, Shakespeare's, 55.
Richardson, Samuel, 46, 222, 223.
Ridley, James, 95.
_Rill from the Town Pump_, Hawthorne's, 205.
_Robber Bridegroom_, 3.
_Robbers_ (see _Räuber_).
Robinson, Crabb, 59.
_Rob Roy_, Scott's, 154.
Roche, Mrs. Regina Maria, 22, 59, 129, 134, 140 note.
Rogers, Samuel, 74.
Rohmer, Sax, 225.
_Rokeby_, Scott's, 152, 154.
_Romance of the Castle_, D.F. Hayne's, 188.
_Romance of the Cavern_, George Walker's, 76.
_Romance of the Forest_, Mrs. Radcliffe's, 26, 42-46, 52, 53, 56,
69, 76, 109, 131, 132, 134.
_Romance of the Highlands_, Peter Darling's, 134.
_Romance Readers and Romance Writers_, Sarah Green's, 133.
_Romances_, an Imitation, 29.
_Romancist and Novelist's Library_, 39 note, 122, 129, 168 note,
187, 188, 189.
_Rookwood_, Ainsworth's, 175-176, 224.
"Rosa Matilda" (see Dacre).
_Rose of Raby_, Miss Agnes Musgrave's, 141.
Rossetti, Christina, 39.
Rossetti, D.G., 86, 186.
Rossetti, W.M., 169.
_Roundabout Papers_, Thackeray's, 75 note.
Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 89, 115, 137.
Rouvière, Mrs. Henrietta, 74, 75.
_Ruins of Empire_, Volney's, 162.
_Ruins of St. Luke's Abbey_, 186.
_Sadducismus Triumphatus_, Glanvill's, 6.
_St. Edmond's Eve_ (Tales of Terror), 120 note.
_St. Edmund's Eve_ (Poems by Victor and Cazire), 120.
_St. Godwin_, 116.
_St. Irvyne_, Shelley's, 13, 66, 120, 121, 122, 123-126.
_St. Leon_, Godwin's, 91, 102, 111-116, 117, 124, 166, 169.
Saintsbury, George, 192.
_Salathiel_, Croly's, 118.
_Satan's Invisible World Discovered_, Sinclair's, 14, 149.
_Scarlet Letter_, Hawthorne's, 207-210, 212.
Schiller, Friedrich, 51, 65.
Schubart, 120.
Scot, Reginald, 14, 147.
Scott, Sir Walter, 11, 14, 20, 21 note, 22, 38 note, 55, 57, 69,
72,
73, 74, 75, 77, 80, 81, 82, 86, 109, 135, 145-156, 190, 194,
200,
201, 224.
_Secret History of the Good Devil of Woodstock_, 154.
_Sensitive Plant_, Shelley's, 127.
_Septimius Felton_, Hawthorne's, 212.
_Seven Vagabonds_, Hawthorne's, 205.
Seward, Anna, 150.
_Sexton of Cologne_, 188.
_Shadow Line_, Conrad's, 227.
Shakespeare, 54, 55, 58, 85, 89, 127.
_Shaving of Shagpat_, Meredith's, 99.
_She_, Rider Haggard's, 226.
Shelley, Mary, 158-169, 188.
Shelley, P.B., 13, 66, 74, 101, 118-127, 160, 167, 168, 175, 197,
198, 199.
Sheridan, Mrs. Frances, 95.
Sheridan, R.B., 129.
_Shirley_, Charlotte Brontë's, 38 note.
_Shrine of St. Alstice_, 76.
_Sicilian Pirate_, 197.
_Sicilian Romance_, Mrs. Radcliffe's, 13, 22, 41-42, 45, 53, 123,
132,
137.
_Sign of Four_, Conan Doyle's, 226.
Sinclair, George, 14, 149.
_Sir Bertrand_, Mrs. Barbauld's, 28-31.
_Sir Egbert_, Drake's, 35.
_Sir Eustace Grey_, Crabbe's, 144.
_Sir Michael Scott_, Cunningham's, 191.
_Sketch Book_, Irving's, 200.
Sleath, Eleanor, 76, 77, 129.
_Sleepless Woman_, Jerdan's, 189.
Smith, Mrs. Charlotte, 77, 141 note.
Smollett, Tobias, 12, 23-25, 29, 31, 68, 222.
_Solyman and Almena_, Langhorne's, 95.
_Sorcerer_, Mickle's, 68, 69.
Southey, Robert, 11, 65.
_Spectator_, 5, 222.
_Spectral Horseman_, 120.
_Spectre Barber_, 188.
_Spectre Bride_, 175, 188.
_Spectre Bridegroom_, 200.
_Spectre of Lanmere Abbey_, Miss Wilkinson's, 79.
_Spectre of the Murdered Nun_, Miss Wilkinson's, 74, 78.
_Spectre-Smitten_, 188.
_Spectre Unmasked_, 188.
Spenser, Edmund, 4, 17, 32, 33, 36, 37, 102.
Steele, Richard, 129.
Sterne, Laurence, 222.
Stevenson, R.L., 87 note, 147, 186, 195, 218.
Stoker, Bram, 2, 225.
_Story-Haunted_, 188, 222.
_Story Teller_, 187, 188, 189.
_Strange Story_, Lytton's, 116, 183-184.
Strutt, Joseph, 57.
_Student_, 217.
_Subterranean Horrors_, Randolph's, 76, 120.
Sue, Eugène, 118.
_Sunday at Home_, Hawthorne's, 205.
_Superstitions of the Scottish Highlands, Ode on the_, Collins',
8.
_Sweet William's Ghost_, 3.
_Symposium_, Plato's, 101.
_Tales for a Chimney Corner_, Leigh Hunt's, 187.
_Tale of Mystery_, 175.
_Tale of the Passions_, Mrs. Shelley's, 168.
_Tales and Sketches_, Hogg's, 192.
_Tales and Sketches_, Hawthorne's, 211.
_Tales of a Traveller_, Irving's, 201-202.
_Tales of Chivalry_, 186.
_Tales of Superstition and Chivalry_, 73.
_Tales of Terror_, Lewis's, 32, 70, 120.
_Tales of the Genii_, Ridley's, 95.
_Tales of the Hall_, Crabbe's, 141.
_Tales of Wonder_, Lewis's, 69, 70, 120, 148, 186.
_Tam Lin_, 3.
_Tam o' Shanter_, Burns', 8.
_Tapestried Chamber_, Scott's, 150, 201.
_Tartarian Tales_, Gueulette's, 94.
Taylor, Joseph, 149.
Taylor, William (of Norwich), 148.
Tedworth, Drummer of, 6, 153.
_Tell-Tale Heart_, Poe's, 217.
_Tender Husband_, Steele's, 129.
_Terribly Strange Bed_, Wilkie Collins', 194.
_Test of Affection_, Ainsworth's, 175.
Thackeray, W.M., 38 note, 39, 75 note, 78, 86.
Theocritus, 14.
_Thomas the Rhymer_, 147.
Thorgunna, 14.
_Thrawn Janet_, Stevenson's, 147.
_Three Students of Göttingen_, 188.
Tieck, Ludwig, 65, 175.
_Told in the Dark_, Barry Pain's, 193.
_Tomb of Aurora_, 186.
_Tom Jones_, Fielding's, 7 note, 126 note.
Tourneur, Cyril, 127.
_Tower of London_, Ainsworth's, 176.
_Traditional Tales of the English and Scottish Peasantry_,
Cunningham's, 191.
_Transformation_, Hawthorne's (see _Marble Faun_).
_Transformation_, Mrs. Shelley's, 169.
_Treasure House of Tales by Great Authors_, Garnett's, 169 note.
_Treasure Island_, Stevenson's, 195, 218.
_Trimalchio, Supper of_, Petronius', 2.
_Tristram Shandy_, Sterne's, 134.
_Triumph of Conscience_, Shelley's, 120.
Trollope, Anthony, 38 note.
_True Thomas_, 3.
_Tunbridge Toys_, Thackeray's, 75 note.
_Turkish Tales_, Galland's, 94.
_Turn of the Screw_, James', 196.
_Twelve o'clock, or The Three Robbers_, 186.
_Twice-Told Tales_, Hawthorne's, 203, 205-206, 212, 213, 220.
_Typhoon_, Conrad's, 227.
_Udolpho, Mysteries of_, Mrs. Radcliffe's, 13, 14, 25, 45, 47-51,
52,
53. 59, 61, 64, 75, 76, 123, 125, 128, 129, 131, 134, 137, 145,
202.
Ulysses, 2, 14.
_Uncommercial Traveller_, Dickens', 193.
_Usher's Well, Wife of_, 3.
_Valperga_, Mrs. Shelley's, 165-166.
_Vampyre_, Polidori's, 169, 171-173.
_Vathek, Episodes of_, Beckford's, 96, 216.
_Vathek, History of the Caliph_, Beckford's, 94-99, 118.
_Veal, Mrs._, Defoe's, 6.
Verne, Jules, 226.
_Victor and Cazire, Poems by_, Shelley's, 120.
_Villette_, Charlotte Brontë's, 51, 224.
_Virtuoso's Collection_, Hawthorne's, 204.
_Vision of Mirza_, Addison's, 94.
Volney, Count de, 162.
Voltaire, 95.
Walker, George, 76, 77, 129.
Wallace, Sir William, 13, 21 note.
Walpole, Horace, 12, 13, 16-23, 25, 27, 28, 30, 31, 32, 33, 37,
39, 175, 185, 188.
Wandering Jew, 12, 14, 68, 92, 118, 120, 158.
_Wandering Willie's Tale_, Scott's, 147, 148, 149, 151-152.
Watt, Robert, 75, 129.
_Waverley_, Scott's, 59, 145, 146, 153, 166.
Webster, John, 4, 127.
_Wehr-Wolf_, 188.
Weit Weber, 65.
Wells, H.G., 196, 227.
_Werther, Sorrows of_, Goethe's, 65, 162.
Wesley, John, 6.
_West Wind, Ode to the_, Shelley's, 127.
_White Old Maid_, Hawthorne's,
_Wieland_, C.B. Brown's, 140, 198.
Wilde, Oscar, 226.
_Wild Irish Boy_, Maturin's, 81.
_Wild Irish Girl_, Lady Morgan's, 81.
"Wild Roses," 186.
Wilkinson, Miss Sarah, 66, 73, 74, 76, 77-80.
Will, R., 76, 129.
_William and Margaret_, Mallet's, 7.
_William Lovell_, Tieck's, 65.
_William Wilson_, Poe's, 217.
_Windsor Castle_, Ainsworth's, 176.
_Witch of Fife_, Hogg's, 11.
_Woman in White_, Wilkie Collins', 190, 225.
_Women_, Maturin's, 81.
_Wood-Demon_, 188.
_Woodstock_, Scott's, 149, 153, 154.
"Writing on the Wall," 221.
_Wuthering Heights_, Emily Brontë's, 224.
_Yellow Mask_, Wilkie Collins', 190.
_Zanoni_, Lytton's, 116, 179, 180-182.
_Zastrozzi_, Shelley's, 13, 66, 121, 122-123.
_Zeluco_, Dr. John Moore's, 53.
_Zicci_, Lytton's, 116, 180.
_Zofloya_, Miss Charlotte Dacre's, 122-123, 124.
Zschokke, Heinrich, 70.
Glasgow: Printed at the University Press by Robert MacLehose and
Co. Ltd.
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