III. READING THE FIRST NOVEL
BEING MOSTLY REMINISCENCES OF EARLY CRIMES AND JOYS
Once more and for all, the career of a novel reader should be enteredupon, if at all, under the age of fourteen. As much earlier as possible.The life of the intellect, as of its shadowy twin, imagination, beginsearly and develops miraculously. The inbred strains of nature lieexposed to influence as a mirror to reflections, and as open toimpression as sensitized paper, upon which pictures may be printedand from which they may also fade out. The greater the variety ofimpressions that fall upon the young mind the more certain it is thatthe greatest strength of natural tendency will be touched and revealed.Good or bad, whichever it may be, let it come out as quickly aspossible. How many men have never developed their fatal weaknesses untilsuccess was within reach and the edifice fell upon other innocent ones.Believe me, no innate scoundrel or brute will be much helped or hinderedby stories. These have no turn or leisure for dreaming. They are eagerfor the actual touch of life. What would a dull-eyed glutton, famishing,not with hunger but with the cravings of digestive ferocity, find inThackeray's "Memorials of Gormandizing" or "Barmecidal Feasts?" Suchbanquets are spread for the frugal, not one of whom would swap thatimmortal cook-book review for a dinner with Lucullus. Rascals will notread. Men of action do not read. They look upon it as the gambler doesupon the game where "no money passes." It may almost be said that thecapacity for novel-reading is the patent of just and noble minds. Younever heard of a great novel-reader who was notorious as a criminal.There have been literary criminals, I grant you--Eugene Aram Dr. Dodd,Prof. Webster, who murdered Parkmaan, and others. But they were writers,not readers And they did not write novels. Mr. Aram wrote scientific andschool books, as did Prof. Webster, and Dr. Wainwright wrote beautifulsermons. We never do sufficiently consider the evil that lies behindwriting sermons. The nearest you can come to a writer of fiction whohas been steeped in crime is in Benvenuto Cellini, whose marvelousautobiographical memoir certainly contains some fiction, though it isclassed under the suspect department of History.
How many men actually have been saved from a criminal career by themiraculous influence of novels? Let who will deny, but at the age ofsix I myself was absolutely committed to the abandoned purpose of ridingbarebacked horses in a circus. Secretly, of course, because there weresome vague speculations in the family concerning what seemed to bespecial adaptability to the work of preaching. Shortly after I gave thatup to enlist in the Continental Army, under Gen. Francis Marion, and noother soldier slew more Britons. After discharge I at once volunteeredin an Indiana regiment quartered in my native town in Kentucky, and beatthe snare drum at the head of that fine body of men for a long time. Butthe tendency was downward. For three months I was chief of a of robbersthat ravaged the backyards of the vicinity. Successively I became a spyfor Washington, an Indian fighter, a tragic actor.
With character seared, abandoned and dissolute in habit through andby the hearing and seeing and reading of history, there was but onedesperate step left So I entered upon the career of a pirate in my ninthyear. The Spanish Main, as no doubt you remember, was at that time uponan open common across the street from our house, and it was a hundredfeet long, half as wide and would average two feet in depth. I haveoften since thanked Heaven that they filled up that pathless ocean inorder to build an iron foundry upon the spot. Suppose they had excavatedfor a cellar! Why during the time that Capt. Kidd, Lafitte and Iinfested the coast thereabout, sailing three "low, black-hulledschooners with long rakish masts," I forced hundreds of merchant seamento walk the plank--even helpless women and children. Unless the sharksdevoured them, their bones are yet about three feet under the floor ofthat iron foundry. Under the lee of the Northernmost promontory, neara rock marked with peculiar crosses made by the point of the stilettowhich I constantly carried in my red silk sash, I buried tons of plate,and doubloons, pieces of eight, pistoles, Louis d'ors, and galleons bythe chest. At that time galleons somehow meant to me money pieces inuse, though since then the name has been given to a species of boat. Therich brocades, Damascus and Indian stuffs, laces, mantles, shawls andfinery were piled in riotous profusion in our cave where--let the wholetruth be told if it must--I lived with a bold, black-eyed and coquettishSpanish girl, who loved me with ungovernable jealousy that occasionallyled to bitter and terrible scenes of rage and despair. At last when Ibrought home a white and red English girl whose life I spared becauseshe had begged me her knees by the memory of my sainted mother to spareher for her old father, who was waiting her coming, Joquita passed allbounds. I killed her--with a single knife thrust I remember. She wasburied right on the spot where the Tilden and Hendricks flag poleafterwards stood in the campaign of 1876. It was with bitter melancholythat I fancied the red stripes on the flag had their color from theblood of the poor, foolish jealous girl below.
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Ah, well--
Let us all own up--we men of above forty who aspire to respectabilityand do actually live orderly lives and achieve even the odor ofsanctity--have we not been stained with murder?--aye worse! What man hasnot his Bluebeard closet, full of early crimes and villainies? A certainboy in whom I take a particular interest, who goes to Sunday-school andwhose life is outwardly proper--is he not now on week days a robber ofgreat renown? A week ago, masked and armed, he held up his own father ina secluded corner of the library and relieved the old man of swag ofa value beyond the dreams--not of avarice, but--of successful,respectable, modern speculation. He purposes to be a pirate wheneverthere is a convenient sheet of water near the house. God speed him.Better a pirate at six than at sixty.
Give them work to do and good novels to read and they will get over it.History breeds queer ideas in children. They read of military heroes,kings and statesmen who commit awful deeds and are yet monuments ofpublic honor. What a sweet hero is Raleigh, who was a farmer of piracy;what a grand Admiral was Drake; what demi-gods the fighting Americanswho murdered Indians for the crime of wanting their own! History hathcharms to move an infant breast to savagery. Good strong novels are thebest pabulum to nourish difference between virtue and vice.
Don't I know? I have felt the miracle and learned the difference so wellthat even now at an advanced age I can tell the difference and indulgein either. It was not a week after the killing of Joquita that I readthe first novel of my life. It was "Scottish Chiefs." The dead bodies often thousand novels lie between me and that first one. I have not readit since. Ten Incas of Peru with ten rooms full of solid gold couldnot tempt me to read it again. Have I not a clear cinch on a deliciousmemory, compared with which gold is only Robinson Crusoe's "drug?" Aftera lapse of all these years the content of that one tremendous, noblechapter of heroic climax is as deeply burned into my memory as if it hadbeen read yesterday.
A sister, old enough to receive "beaux" and addicted to the piano-forteaccomplishment, was at that time practicing across the hall aninstrumental composition, entitled, "La Reve." Under the title, printedin very small letters, was the English translation; but I never thoughtto look at it. An elocutionist had shortly before recited Poe's Ravenat a church entertainment, and that gloomy bird flapped its wings in myyoung emotional vicinity when the firelight threw vague "shadows onthe floor." When the piece of music was spoken as "La Reve," its sadcadences, suffering, of course, under practice, were instantly wedded inmy mind to Mr. Poe's wonderful bird and for years it meant the "Raven"to me. How curious are childish impressions. Years afterward when Isaw a copy of the music and read the translation, "The Dream" under thetitle, I felt a distinct shock of resentment as if the French languagehad been treacherous to my sacred ideas. Then there was the romanticname of "Ellerslie," which, notwithstanding considerable precocity inreading and spelling I carried off as "Elleressie" Yeas afterward whenthe actual syllables confronted me in a historical sketch of Wallace,the truth entered like a stab and I closed the book. O sacred firstillusions of childhood, you are sweeter than a thousand year of fame! Itis God's prov
idence that hardens us to endure the throwing of them downto our eyes and strengthens us to keep their memory sweet in our hearts.
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It would be an affront then, not to assume that every reputable novelreader has read "Scottish Chiefs." If there is any descendant or anypersonal friend of that admirable lady, Miss Jane Porter, who may now bein pecuniary distress, let that descendant call upon me privately withperfect confidence. There are obligations that a glacial evolutionaryperiod can not lessen. I make no conditions but the simple proof ofproper identity. I am not rich but I am grateful.
It was a Saturday evening when I became aware, as by prescience, thatthere hung over Sir William Wallice and Helen Mar some terrible shadowof fate. And the piano-forte across the hall played "La Reve." My heartfailed me and I closed the book. If you can't do that, my friend, thenyou waste your time trying to be a novel reader. You have not the truetouch of genius for it. It is the miracle of eating your cake and havingit, too. It must have been the unconscious moving of novel readinggenius in me. For I forgot, as clearly as if it were not a possibility,that the next day was Sunday. And so hurried off, before time, to bed,to be alone with the burden on my heart.
"Backward, turn backward, O Time in your flight-- Make me a child again just for tonight."
There are two or three novels I should love to take to bed as ofyore--not to read, but to suffer over and to contemplate and to seekcalmness and courage with which to face the inevitable. Could there bemen base enough to do to death the noble Wallace? Or to break the heartof Helen Mar with grief? No argument could remove the presentiment, butfacing the matter gave courage. "Let tomorrow answer," I thought, as thepiano-forte in the next room played "La Reve." Then fell asleep.
And when I awoke next morning to the full knowledge that it was Sunday,I could have murdered the calendar. For Sunday was Dies Irae. AfterSunday-school, at least. There is a certain amount of fun to be toextracted from Sunday-school. The remainder of those early Sundayswas confined to reading the Bible or storybooks from the Sunday-schoollibrary--books, by the Lord Harry, that seem to be contrived especiallyto make out of healthy children life-long enemies of the church, and tobind hypocrites to the altar with hooks of steel. There was no whistlingat all permitted; singing of hymns was encouraged; no "playing"--playingon Sunday was a distinct source of displeasure to Heaven! Are free-bornmen nine years of age to endure such tyranny with resignation? Askthe kids of today--and with one voice, as true men and free, they willanswer you, "Nit!" In the dark days of my youth liberty was in chains,and so Sunday was passed in dreadful suspense as to what was doing inScotland.
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Monday night after supper I rejoined Sir William in his captivity andsoon saw that my worst fears were to be realized. My father sat on theopposite side of the table reading politics; my mother was effecting therestoration of socks; my brother was engaged in unraveling mathematicaltangles, and in the parlor across the hall my sister sat alone withher piano patiently debating "La Reve." Under these circumstances Iencountered the first great miracle of intellectual emotion in thechapter describing the execution of William Wallace on Tower Hill. Noother incident of life has left upon me such a profound impression.It was as if I had sprung at one bound into the arena of heroism.I remember it all. How Wallace delivered himself of theological andChristian precepts to Helen Mar after which they both knelt before theofficiating priest. That she thought or said, "My life will expire withyours!" It was the keynote of death and life devotion. It was worthy tousher Wallace up the scaffold steps where he stood with his hands bound,"his noble head uncovered." There was much Christian edification, butthe presence of such a hero as he with "noble Head uncovered" wouldenable any man nine years old with a spark of honor and sympathy in himto endure agonizing amounts of edification. Then suddenly there was afrightful shudder in my heart. The hangman approached with the rope, andHelen Mar, with a shriek, threw herself upon Wallace's breast. Then thegreat moment. If I live a thousand years these lines will always bewith me: "Wallace, with a mighty strength, burst the bonds asunder thatconfined his arms and clasped her to his heart!"
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In reading some critical or pretended text books on construction sincethat time I came across this sentence used to illustrate tautology. Itwas pointed out that the bonds couldn't be "burst" without necessarilybeing asunder. The confoundedest outrages in this world are the capersthat precisionists cut upon the bodies of the noble dead. And withimpunity too. Think of a village surveyor measuring the forest of Ardento discover the exact acreage! Or a horse-doctor elevating his eye-browwith a contemptuous smile and turning away, as from an innocent, whenyou speak of the wings of that fine horse, Pegasus! Any idiot knowsthat bonds couldn't be burst without being burst asunder. But, let theimpregnable Jackass think--what would become of the noble rhythm and themajestic roll of sound? Shakespeare was an ignorant dunce also whenhe characterized the ingratitude that involves the principle of publichonor as "the unkindest cut of all." Every school child knows that it isungrammatical; but only those who have any sense learn after awhilethe esoteric secret that it sometimes requires a tragedy of language toprovide fitting sacrifice to the manes of despair. There never was yeta man of genius who wrote grammatically and under the scourge ofrhetorical rules. Anthony Trollope is a most perfect example of theexact correctness that sterilizes in its own immaculate chastity.Thackeray would knock a qualifying adverb across the street, or thrustit under your nose to make room for the vivid force of an idea. Trollopewould give the idea a decent funeral for the sake of having his adverbappear at the grave above reproach from grammatical gossip. Whenever Ihave risen from the splendid psychological perspective of old Job, thesolemn introspective howls of Ecclesiasticus and the generous livingphilosophy of Shakespeare it has always been with the desire--of courseit is undignified, but it is human--to go and get an English grammarfor the pleasure of spitting upon it. Let us be honest. I understandeverything about grammar except what it means; but if you will give methe living substance and the proper spirit any gentleman who desires thegrammatical rules may have them, and be hanged to him! And, while itmay appear presumptuous, I can conscientiously say that it will not beagreeable to me to settle down in heaven with a class of persons whodemand the rules of grammar for the intellectual reason that correspondsto the call for crutches by one-legged men.
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If the foregoing appear ill-tempered pray forget it. Remember ratherthat I have sought to leave my friend Sir William Wallace, holding HelenMar on his breast as long as possible. And yet, I also loved her! Canhuman nature go farther than that?
"Helen," he said to her, "life's cord is cut by God's own hand." Hestooped, he fell, and the fall shook the scaffold. Helen--that glorifiedheroine--raised his head to her lap. The noble Earl of Gloucesterstepped forward, took the head in his hands.
"There," he cried in a burst of grief, letting it fall again upon theinsensible bosom of Helen, "there broke the noblest heart that ever beatin the breast of man!"
That page or two of description I read with difficulty and agony throughblinding tears, and when Gloucester spoke his splendid eulogy my headfell on the table and I broke into such wild sobbing that the littlefamily sprang up in astonishment. I could not explain until my mother,having led me to my room, succeeded in soothing me into calmness andI told her the cause of it. And she saw me to bed with sympatheticcaresses and, after she left, it all broke out afresh and I cried myselfto sleep in utter desolation and wretchedness. Of course the mattergot out and my father began the book. He was sixty years old, not anindiscriminate reader, but a man of kind and boyish heart. I felt a sortof fascinated curiosity to watch him when he reached the chapter thathad broken me. And, as if it were yesterday, I can see him under thelamplight compressing his lips, or puffing like a smoker through them,taking off his spectacles, and blowing his nose with great cer
emony andcarelessly allowing the handkerchief to reach his eyes. Then anotherparagraph and he would complain of the glasses and wipe them carefully,also his eyes, and replace the spectacles. But he never looked at me,and when he suddenly banged the lids together and, turning away, satstaring into the fire with his head bent forward, making unconcealed useof the handkerchief, I felt a sudden sympathy for him and sneaked out.He would have made a great novel reader if he had had the heart. But hecouldn't stand sorrow and pain. The novel reader must have a heartfor every fate. For a week or more I read that great chapter and itsapproaches over and over, weeping less and less, until I had worn outthat first grief, and could look with dry eyes upon my dead. And neversince have I dared to return to it. Let who will speak freely in othertones of "Scottish Chiefs"--opinions are sacred liberties--but as forme I know it changed my career from one of ruthless piracy to betterpurposes, and certain boys of my private acquaintance are introduced toMiss Jane Porter as soon as they show similar bent.