by Frank Norris
And the weird rustling of the bats.
The arches groined are arched with mould,
The air is thick and damp and cold;
And creeping things with clammy backs
Upon the walls leave slimy tracks.
A cavernous and gruesome place
Is the deep crypt of Kaerenrais.
To that dim chapel underground
Faintly there comes the midnight sound
And while its tone in air remains,
Rise in fainter tones the strains
Of distant choirs’ even-song,
That echoed the dim aisles along.
“Heu! heu! mundi vita!
Quare me delectas ita?
Cum non possis mecum stare,
Quid me cogis te amare?
“Heu! vita fugitiva!
Omni fera plus nosciva!
Cum tenere te non queam,
Cur seducis mentem meam?
“Appropinquat tamen dies
In qua justis erit quies;
Qua cessabunt persequentes,
Et regnabunt patientes.
“Dies illa, dies vitæ,
Dies lucis inauditæ,
Qua nox omnis destruetur,
Et mors ipsa morietur!
“Heu! heu! mundi vita!
Quare me delectas ita?
Cum non possis mecum stare,
Quid me cogis te amare?
Amen.”
Now through the heavy, low-bent arch
In hushed and solemn funeral march
The chanting nuns pass through the door,
With burning censers swung before,
With many a quaintly-carven pyx
And ebon fashioned crucifix
Borne o’er their humbly-bending heads,
Their gray gowns girt with saintly beads.
With pace sedate and footstep slow,
They form a long and double row
Along the dim crypt’s chilly floor,
E’en from the altar to the door.
When ended was the chant’s last sound,
Each knee bent humbly to the ground,
And every lip was fraught with prayer
As the young novice drew anear.
She came, her brow as purely pale
As her own white and flowing veil;
Leaning on Raguenel for aid,
Who oft her trembling footsteps stayed.
Close in her weak and faltering track
There came two nuns robed all in black,
Bearing the veil, a sombre cloud,
Soon to become her living shroud.
The opening ritual is o’er,
The lady abbess stands before,
And at her feet kneels Yvernelle,
Striving her wayward thoughts to quell.
The white veil from her face is drawn,
Showing her visage pale and wan.
Yet within Yvernelle’s sweet breast
Rise thoughts that cannot be repressed;
Thoughts that she deems it foul disgrace
To harbor at such time and place.
But from her grasp her mind is slipped:
She sees no more the noisome crypt;
The solemn chant she does not hear
Rising around in accents drear.
In place of pillars gray she sees
The green and columned forest-trees;
She hears the hunting-horn’s blithe sound,
She sees the deer stretched on the ground;
She sees Sir Raguenel o’er him stand
With keen-edged hunting-spear in hand.
She hears adown the woodland’s dale
The growing sounds of clashing mail;
She sees that warrior drawing near,
She hears his summons loud and clear.
See! how the rest breath-bated stand,
Awed at his tone of stern command.
Fools! were their senses turned to stone?
At once she’d known her lover’s tone.
How vividly it all came back!
Even the hoof-beats of his track
She almost heard, — nearer they tread.
How fast he rides! how swift his speed!
Beneath the hoofs the hollow loam
Rattles like rattling of a drum.
And — Ha! how now? no fancy mere;
These are real hoof-beats she doth hear;
Back into life recalled once more,
In haste she rises from the floor.
The frightened nuns in silence all
Are gath’ring round their abbess tall;
The ceremony grave is stayed,
Sir Raguenel hath drawn his blade;
And like a universal pall
A silence settles over all.
And through that silence all can hear
The furious gallop drawing near:
Now on the road, now on the bridge,
Now speeding up the shingled ledge.
Right through the gate one fiercely drove
And halted in the court above;
And scarce a second had passed o’er
Ere Caverlaye burst through the door.
Reeling and swaying in his pace,
His matted hair flung o’er his face,
Covered with spume and dust and mud,
His hocqueton dark with half-dried blood,
His armor gone from heel to head,
Yet Caverlaye in very deed.
He looked not to the left nor right,
But sprang, and to his breast clasped tight
Fair Yvernelle, then pressed in bliss
Upon her yielding lips a kiss,
And tore the veil from off her head
And rent it to a ribboned shred.
Idle it were to further dwell
On Caverlaye and Yvernelle.
She took the veil, as she did vow,
But ’twas the marriage veil, I trow.
And those same bells whose solemn chime
Upon that well-remembered time
Tolled in Sir Caverlaye’s quick ear
That night upon the banks of Cher,
Anon from their hoarse, brazen throats
Shook out the joyous marriage-notes.
The peal that was to sound her knell
Was turned to joyous wedding-bell.
Loving and loved in wedlock both
They plighted their true lovers’ troth;
And Raguenel in happiness
Gave them his blessing and his peace.
And when an old man bent and gray
Oft, from their mimic martial play,
To him his grandchildren would call,
Within high Brittomarte’s great hall,
And to their never-wearied ears
He’d tell this tale of by-gone years, —
How that Sir Caverlaye’s fair bride
Was won by that wild midnight ride.
And shall stout Bayard be forgot?
Not while I live and write, I wot.
Long, long and honored was his day,
And through full many a bloody fray
Sir Caverlaye he bravely bore,
And brought him safely home once more.
Till, gray at length, and full of years,
Honored and praised, and mourned with tears,
He died. Ah, me! I would ‘twere given
That horses, too, might have their heaven;
And if ‘twere so, I have no fear
But you would find brave Bayard there.
And Guhaldrada? What of her?
I know not, — loath am I to stir
The memories which like fallen leaves
Hide long, — past, long, — forgotten graves.
I know not, but St. Cuthbert’s wood
And Cuthbert bridge, long as it stood,
And the turf hut of saintly fame,
Came all to have an evil name.
The peasant shuddered as he passed
Beneath the sh
ade the cabin cast.
Upon the bridge the wayfarer
Would cross himself and say a prayer.
The huntsman sunk his blithe halloo
Or e’er he came within that view;
The woodman with his fagots’ hoard
In awe sought out another ford;
The burgher ceased to count his gold
And listened while the tale was told;
And the brave errant-knight alone
Would pause upon the arched keystone,
And while the sunbeams ever glanced,
And while the streamlet ever danced,
And while the leaves among themselves
Were whispering like hidden elves,
And while the oaks their long arms flung
Above the place in benison,
Recalled, half credulous, again
The legend of that lonely glen.
For it was said were seen strange sights
About the place on moonlit nights;
The cabin’s window oft would seem
Alight with some unnatural gleam;
And from the water dark and cool
Hard by, where slept a still deep pool,
And where ’twas rumored had been found
A woman’s body newly drowned,
A wraith, they said, at times would rise,
Dark-browed, dark-haired, with sad, dark eyes,
And mourning sit, — or was it vain
And idle talk of idler brain?
I know not; I could never trace
The end of Guhaldrada’s days.
Give o’er, — the vision fades, my tale is told.
Farewell! the day is done, the twilight wears.
Farewell! O day of Romance quaint and old;
Thy sun is setting through the mist of years.
The dust of ages, which from Time’s swift feet
Is shaken o’er thee in his endless flight,
Gently would I disturb, with reverence meet,
And bring thy dimmed resplendence into light.
The knight, the ladye, minstrel, all are dead!
Their mem’ries fade, their old-time splendors pale.
My story’s done. God rest them that are sped!
“And so, ’tis ended like an old wife’s tale.”
The Non-Fiction
Phi Gamma Delta Fraternity house at University of California, Berkeley — during his time at the university, Norris was a brother in the Fraternity of Phi Gamma Delta, a social fraternity with the mission statement listing five core values for its members: friendship, knowledge, service, morality, and excellence.
THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE NOVELIST: AND OTHER LITERARY ESSAYS
In 1903, Doubleday, Page and Company posthumously published Frank Norris’ first collection of non-fiction, The Responsibilities of the Novelist. All of the essays comment on literary topics, from writing books to reading them. The title piece, first published in The Critic, served as something of a manifesto, noted by critic Harry M. East, Jr., in “A Lesson from Frank Norris,” published in The Overland Monthly in December 1912:
The best phase of Norris’ character is revealed perhaps more in his few later essays than in his short stories and novels. In the essays — especially that group in “The Responsibilities of the Novelist” — the man speaks out honestly, boldly, eloquently. Here he is Norris, the thinker, with the dreamer in him coming to the surface occasionally. Here we see what he was, what he stood for. It is from this broad viewpoint that we should judge him to-day.
‘Not failure, but low aim, is crime.’
Norris aimed high. He was ambitious to write good stories and novels. Perhaps he fondly dreamed that he would write ‘The Great American Novel.’
The Academy and Literature included a balanced review by Francis Thompson in its November 7, 1903 issue:
Here is a volume of essays on his own art by an American novelist who died ‘just as he really promised something great,’ and had in two novels (of which ‘The Octopus’ was the first) partially achieved it. An author on his art may be right or wrong, but is always supremely interesting. For he writes of the one thing which he has most deeply and lovingly studied; and even if he go astray about its general principles, he reveals incidentally how he himself envisaged his art. This and a vital earnestness are the main interests of Mr. Norris’ essays. We have encountered little in the book which has not been said, at one time or another, and well said, by English critics. But it is uttered with fiery zeal, with a gallant directness and downrightness in place of the cultivated and tempered critical suavity, and with the burning conviction of a man enunciating a new gospel. Such it may be in America; and even here it acquires a certain force of novelty by the forthright homespokenness of the author...
The original title page
Norris, c. 1900
CONTENTS
THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE NOVELIST
THE TRUE REWARD OF THE NOVELIST
THE NOVEL WITH A “PURPOSE”
STORY-TELLERS VS. NOVELISTS
THE NEED OF A LITERARY CONSCIENCE
A NEGLECTED EPIC
THE FRONTIER GONE AT LAST
THE GREAT AMERICAN NOVELIST
NEW YORK AS A LITERARY CENTRE
THE AMERICAN PUBLIC AND “POPULAR” FICTION
CHILD STORIES FOR ADULTS
NEWSPAPER CRITICISMS AND AMERICAN FICTION
NOVELISTS TO ORDER — WHILE YOU WAIT
THE “NATURE” REVIVAL IN LITERATURE
THE MECHANICS OF FICTION
FICTION WRITING AS A BUSINESS
THE “VOLUNTEER MANUSCRIPT”
RETAIL BOOKSELLER: LITERARY DICTATOR
AN AMERICAN SCHOOL OF FICTION?
NOVELISTS OF THE FUTURE
A PLEA FOR ROMANTIC FICTION
A PROBLEM IN FICTION
WHY WOMEN SHOULD WRITE THE BEST NOVELS
SIMPLICITY IN ART
SALT AND SINCERITY
An early edition
The original frontispiece
THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE NOVELIST
It is not here a question of the “unarrived,” the “unpublished”; these are the care-free irresponsibles whose hours are halcyon and whose endeavours have all the lure, all the recklessness of adventure. They are not recognized; they have made no standards for themselves, and if they play the saltimbanque and the charlatan nobody cares and nobody (except themselves) is affected.
But the writers in question are the successful ones who have made a public and to whom some ten, twenty or a hundred thousand people are pleased to listen. You may believe if you choose that the novelist, of all workers, is independent — that he can write what he pleases, and that certainly, certainly he should never “write down to his readers” — that he should never consult them at all.
On the contrary, I believe it can be proved that the successful novelist should be more than all others limited in the nature and character of his work more than all others he should be careful of what he says; more than all others he should defer to his audience; more than all others — more even than the minister and the editor — he should feel “his public” and watch his every word, testing carefully his every utterance, weighing with the most relentless precisian his every statement; in a word, possess a sense of his responsibilities.
For the novel is the great expression of modem life. Each form of art has had its turn at reflecting and expressing its contemporaneous thought. Time was when the world looked to the architects of the castles and great cathedrals to truly reflect and embody its ideals. And the architects — serious, earnest men — produced such “expressions of contemporaneous thought” as the Castle of Coucy and the Church of Notre Dame. Then with other times came other customs, and the painters had their day. The men of the Renaissance trusted Angelo and Da Vinci and Velasquez to speak for them, and trusted not in vain. Next came the age of drama. Shakespeare and Marlowe found the value of x for the life and the times in which they lived. Later on c
ontemporary life had been so modified that neither painting, architecture nor drama was the best vehicle of expression, the day of the longer poems arrived, and Pope and Dry den spoke for their fellows.
Thus the sequence. Each age speaks with its own peculiar organ, and has left the Word for us moderns to read and understand. The Castle of Coucy and the Church of Notre Dame are the spoken words of the Middle Ages. The Renaissance speaks — and intelligibly — to us through the sibyls of the Sistine chapel and the Mona Lisa. “Macbeth” and “Tamerlane” résumé the whole spirit of the Elizabethan age, while the “Rape of the Lock” is a wireless message to us straight from the period of the Restoration.
To-day is the day of the novel. In no other day and by no other vehicle is contemporaneous life so adequately expressed: and the critics of the twenty-second century, reviewing our times, striving to reconstruct our civilization, will look not to the painters, not to the architects nor dramatists, but to the novelists to find our idiosyncrasy.
I think this is true. I think if the matter could in any way be statisticized, the figures would bear out the assumption. There is no doubt the novel will in time “go out”of popular favour as irrevocably as the long poem has gone, and for the reason that it is no longer the right mode of expression.
It is interesting to speculate upon what will take its place. Certainly the coming civilization will revert to no former means of expressing its thought or its ideals. Possibly music will be the interpreter of the life of the twenty-first and twenty-second centuries. Possibly one may see a hint of this in the characterization of Wagner’s operas as the “Music of the Future.”
This, however, is parenthetical and beside the mark. Remains the fact that to-day is the day of the novel. By this one does not mean that the novel is merely popular. If the novel was not something more than a simple diversion, a means of whiling away a dull evening, a long railway journey, it would not, believe me, remain in favour another day.
If the novel, then, is popular, it is popular with a reason, a vital, inherent reason; that is to say, it is essential. Essential — to resume once more the proposition — because it expresses modern life better than architecture, better than painting, better than poetry, better than music. It is as necessary to the civilization of the twentieth century as the violin is necessary to Kubelik, as the piano is necessary to Paderewski, as the plane is necessary to the carpenter, the sledge to the blacksmith, the chisel to the mason. It is an instrument, a tool, a weapon, a vehicle. It is that thing which, in the hand of man, makes him civilized and no longer savage, because it gives him a power of durable, permanent expression. So much for the novel — the instrument.