Complete Works of F Marion Crawford

by F. Marion Crawford

  “That is a definition from fairyland,” said Chopin with his soft sweet smile.

  “And you want one from the library of a student, I suppose,” answered Heine. “Romance is the modern epic. I forget who said so, but it is true in a limited way. The romantic languages were those Latin tongues which were not Latin, but Berlinish.”

  “In other words — slang,” suggested Augustus. “Slang — exactly. Latinus grossus qui facit tre-mare pilastros, as the Roman schoolboy calls it—”

  “Please translate!” exclaimed Lady Brenda.

  “If it means anything it means the Romantic dialect — a coarse rough Latin that would make columns shake. The words are not all in the dictionary, madam, but metaphorically they are in most people’s mouths. It afterwards became the most elegant language of its age and has given the name of romance to the school of literature it founded. The first romantic writings were in that language — the love-songs of the troubadours, and I have seen in an old library in Siena a very beautiful manuscript collection of them with the original music and words by Jehan Bretel.”

  “What were they like?” asked Gwendoline, eagerly.

  “I can remember a stanza or two:

  ‘“Mi chant sont tout plain d’ire et de douleur Pour vous dame ke je ai tant aimée Que je ne sai se je chant “se pleur Ainsi m’estant souffrir ma destinée Mais se Dieu plaist encor verrai le jour

  Kamour sera can gie en autre tour

  Si vous donra envers moi millo r pensée

  Chanson vatent garde ne remanoir

  Prie celi ki plus jaime pour ke souvent par li soiez cantée.’

  “The spelling is very curious, but the sentiment is unmistakable and the language is Provençal. There is the origin of romance in the Romansch language. Those songs preserved the customs of those times, the troubadour with his lute below the castle wall, the obdurate lady behind the lattice in her tower, the life-and-death seriousness of love in the eleventh century — it is all there, and we call it romance. The literature of love-songs continued to spread after the customs of those days had passed away, but it did not move with the times, though it increased. The knight in armour, the lute, and the lady with her scarf were preserved like curious zoological specimens in spirits, and are the foundation of all romance. Then we had Germans and Englishmen who wrote long epic romances in other languages, such as Wolfram von Eschenbach and Sir Thomas Malory, who got his Morte d’Arthur from the French. A modern poet owes much of his fame to his treatment of the same theme, which shows that the subject is not even yet worn out. But though the old songs still stir us, they are not enough for us nowadays. The frantic fighting, the melancholy tragedy, the black-and-white magic which appealed to the imagination of a Black Forest freebooting baron of the tenth century, do not appeal to ours. The French pastoral romances were an attempt to change the form of the solemn chivalric epic of earlier times into something lighter and more gay. But unlike the chivalric epic the pastoral had no foundation in real life and consequently disappeared almost without a trace. The modern romantic novel is a prose epic, generally founded on modern life.”

  “And what is the modern realistic novel?” asked Diana.

  “It is the prose without the epic,” answered the poet. “It is therefore the opposite of romance in every respect. It sets aside all invention, and takes for its standpoint the principle that a hero is not necessary to a story, and that every-day life, with such episodes as it may chance to bring forth, should be of sufficient interest to everybody, to make everybody ready to dispense for ever with imagination. The realists say that a man may learn more from being shown what he is than from being told what he should be. The romantists say that if a man will study the ideal he can to some extent imitate it. When I was a young man romance stood on a low level. The mechanically correct and spiritually feeble performances of our little poets did not please me. Goethe was a realist, and I determined to be a realist. I did not perceive that Goethe was also a romantist, and that while he was well able to paint men as they are, he had a surpassing gift for describing them as they should be. I believe that literature without realism cannot last. But I believe also that literature without romance cannot interest.”

  “Nor life, without romance, either,” said Gwendoline.

  “Oh! Do you think so?” exclaimed Lady Brenda. “I am sure I know many people who are not at all romantic but whose lives are very interesting to themselves.”

  “People who make money an object,” answered Augustus. “But they have a romance nevertheless, and a very pretty one — the story of the loves of the pound, the shilling and the penny, told in many manuscript volumes with a detail worthy of M. Zola.”

  “Yes,” said Heine with a smile, “the love of a Hamburg banker for a dollar is wonderful, passing the love of women.”

  “The sense of romance must be instinctive,” said Diana. “We distinguish at a glance between what is romantic and what is not, as we distinguish between black and white. For instance Alexander the Great is a romantic character; Julius Cæsar is not. I do not see that in those cases the explanation is true which ascribes romance to the traditions of knights-errant, troubadours and tournaments.”

  “That is true,” said Chopin. “Just as the primeval song of the Arab or the Hindoo peasant is romantic, while Chinese music is not.”

  “Judas Maccabæus was a romantic character,” put in Heine. “Moses was not, though he was a greater man. Judas Maccabæus was the Cromwell of the Jews, and it is impossible to read his history without a thrill of enthusiasm. I suppose that is why the early Church instituted the feast of the Maccabean martyrs, on the first of August, though they were Jews, put to death before the birth of Christ for the Jewish faith by Antiochus Epiphanes — a mother and her seven sons. Judas Maccabæus was undoubtedly a hero.”

  “Then our whole theory of romance falls to the ground,” said Lady Brenda.

  “I think not,” answered Augustus. “It is enough to extend it a little, and to say that all men and women who have acted nobly under the influence of strong and good passions have been romantic characters.”

  “That is not enough, either,” objected Heine. “I do not think that they need have acted nobly, nor necessarily under the influence of good passions. Alexander, burning Persepolis under the influence of Thais’s smiles and Timotheus’s song is a romantic character enough. But the action was not noble, nor the passion good.”

  “But was he romantic in that case?” asked Lady Brenda. “It was rather like Nero burning Rome, you know.”

  “Perhaps there is a doubt on the subject,” replied the poet. “It may be a question of individual taste.

  Take another instance, out of more recent times. Was Giovanna of Naples, the first — the daughter of Robert — a romantic character or not?”

  “Of course,” answered Lady Brenda.

  “Was her love for Luigi of Taranto a romantic passion?”

  “I suppose so,” admitted the lady.

  “Then the murder of her husband, Andreas of Hungary, which she planned and caused to be executed out of her love for Luigi, her cousin, was romantic. There is no doubt of it. Many murders have a strong romantic colour. Christina of Sweden causing Monaldeschi to be killed at Fontainebleau, is another instance. There was nothing noble or good about either of those cases.”

  “I yield,” said Augustus. “Then suppose we say that men and women acting under the influence of strong passions are romantic characters.”

  “There is more truth in that,” replied Heine; “but it does not include enough.”

  “It does not tell me why I feel that the Arab is romantic while the Chinaman is not,” remarked Chopin.

  “My dear friend,” said the other, “we know very little about Chinamen, and their appearance does not suggest romantic thoughts.”

  “True. But why?” insisted the composer, who felt that there was something in his question.

  “It appears,” said Augustus, “that some races are fundamentally excluded fr
om all connection with our ideas of romance. But I believe that is because we cannot get so near to them, being by nature so different from them, as to be able to understand their feelings and passions.”

  “I have heard that Chinese music has sixty-six keys,” remarked Chopin. “That would account for their music not being comprehensible to us. Then it follows that unless people and their feelings come readily within our understanding we cannot connect them with any idea of romance.”

  “Yes,” answered Heine, “and the more we know them, the more we appreciate the romantic element. No schoolboy thinks Achilles half as romantic as Rob Roy. And yet Achilles is one of the most romantic characters in all epic poetry.”

  “Then the Iliad is a romance?” inquired Gwendoline.

  “It is the big romance, with a big hero, in big times, which we call an epic,” replied the poet. “And it is written in magnificent verse. The modern romance is an infinitesimal epic of which Tom is the hero, Sarah Jane the heroine, and a little modern house with green blinds and an iron railing is the scene of the action. But Tom and Jane love each other almost as much as Achilles and Briseis and are a great deal happier; and if the little house catches fire when Tom is out, and he comes back just in time to plunge through the flames and carry off Sarah Jane, with the loss of his eyebrows and beard and at the risk of his life, he is just as much of a hero as Achilles when he put on his new armour and went to kill Hector and the Trojans. For a man cannot do more than risk his life with his eyes open for the sake of what he loves, whether he be Achilles or Tom. The essential part of the romance is something which shall call out the strongest qualities in the natures of the actors in it; because all strong actions interest us, and if they are also good they rouse our admiration. And if those strong actions are done for the sake of love, or of what we call honour, or to free a nation from slavery they strike us as romantic.”

  “Because all those things,” remarked Augustus, “are closely associated with modern romance from its beginning. The mediaeval knight was the impersonation of love, honour and patriotism.”

  “Also, because those are the feelings most deeply felt by the human heart, and in spite of all that realism can do, stories of love, honour and patriotism will always and to the end of all time, appeal to every one who has a soul. The realists, of course, say that there is no soul, and that love, honour and patriotism are conventional terms, as right and wrong are conventional conceptions. That is paltry stuff. But the actions may be bad and yet be romantic, where love is the subject, and as that is the most usual subject for romance, it follows that men have endeavoured to treat it in the greatest variety of situations. Bad or good, it always interests. Our sympathy for fair Rosamund is at least as great as that we feel for Anne Boleyn.”

  “I fancy it is not certain whether the most romantic characters excite the most sympathy,” said Lady Brenda.

  “After they are dead they generally do,” answered the poet, with a smile. “When we think of a romantic character we always fancy to ourselves that it must have been very charming to be the hero or heroine of all the thrilling scenes in which he or she took part. In fiction the romantic character has been worn out, partly because fiction is never so extraordinary as reality; the result is that in modern books we are often most drawn towards some minor character of whom we feel at the end of the book that we have not seen enough, simply because we have not been bored by him. But the romance of history does not wear out. There is the same difference between people in history and people in fiction which exists between a real king and a stage king with a tinsel crown. It is easy enough to dress an actor in royal robes, and to tell people that the crown is of real gold, eighteen carats fine; it is quite another matter to find words for the sham king to speak, and kingly actions for him to perform. For the construction of a good epic you must have both, or must find both; and that is a little hard when one has but a little acquaintance with kings. It is not everybody who can say with Voltaire: ‘I have three or four kings whom I coddle — j’ai trois ou quatre rois que je mitonne.’ But history presents us with the real king, in flesh and blood; his actions are harmonious, because they have actually been performed by the same man. Few writers of fiction nowadays have the combined imagination, accuracy and versatility necessary to invent and describe a series of actions, thoughts and words, so harmonious as to make the reader feel that one man could really have spoken, thought and acted as the author makes his hero act, speak and think. The writer then separates himself from romantism altogether and confines himself to describing things he has actually seen and of which he is positively sure. But he finds it hard to make his books interesting with such materials. Failing greatness, he sees that there is a short cut to popularity. If a writer cannot be sublime, he can at least be disgusting; and to excite disgust is, he thinks, better than to excite no notice at all.”

  “I think you are unjust to the realists,” said Gwendoline. “I do not think that realistic books are always disgusting, by any means.”

  “No,” answered Heine. “But they are more likely to be. With the genius of Goethe one may be realistic without being repulsive. But Goethe himself said that to call a thing bad which is bad does no good, whereas to call a bad thing good does immeasurable harm. Many realists call bad things good.”

  “So do many romantists,” objected Gwendoline. “And I do not see that we are any nearer to knowing what romance really is. Your beautiful woman with the starry eyes does not satisfy me. That is poetry, but it does not explain my feelings.”

  “I believe I can define romance, after listening to you all,” said Chopin, who had not spoken for some time. “My own definition only applied to music, but it can be extended. In the first place romance consists in the association of certain ideas with certain people, either in history or in fiction. The people must belong to some race of beings of whom we know enough to understand their passions and to sympathise with them. The ideas must be connected with the higher passions of love, patriotism, devotion, noble hatred, profound melancholy, divine exaltation and the like. The lower passions in romance are invariably relegated to the traditional villain, who serves as a foil for the hero. Shorten all that and say that our romantic sense is excited by associating ideas of the higher passions, good and bad, with people whom we can understand, and in such a way as to make us feel with them.”

  “I do not think we shall get any nearer than that,” said Augustus Chard. “It explains at once why we think that Alexander was a romantic character, whereas Julius Cæsar was not. Alexander was always full of great passions, good or bad. Cæsar was calm, impassive, superior to events. Alexander burnt a city to please a woman. Cæsar found in a woman’s love a pretext for conquering her kingdom and reducing the queen who loved him to the position of his vassal. Cleopatra was a romantic character, but she was unfortunate in her choice of men. Cæsar was murdered, she murdered her husband, Antony killed himself for her and she concluded the tragedy by killing herself for Antony, after her son and Cæsar’s had also been put to death. There is material for a dozen romances in her life, but if she were a character of fiction we should say her story was absurdly impossible. As it is, her history is a romance of the most tremendous proportions.”

  “I think Cæsar was romantic too,” said Diana. “He had outgrown romance when he conquered the world. He must have been very different when he was young.”

  “Very different,” said a placid voice from one of the tall windows.

  A man stood outside in the moonlight, looking in. His tall and slender figure was wrapped in a dark mantle of some rich material; the folds reflected the moonbeams with a purple sheen, circling the straight neck and then falling to the ground behind the shoulder. On his brow a dark wreath of oak and laurel leaves sat like a royal crown above his high white forehead. The aquiline nose, broadly set on at the nostrils, but very clearly cut and delicate, gave to his face an expression of supreme, refined force, well borne out in the even and beautifully chiselled mouth and the promine
nt square chin. His eyes were very black, but without lustre, of that peculiar type in which it is impossible to distinguish the pupil from the surrounding iris.

  “It is Cæsar,” said Augustus, under his breath, as he rose to greet the new-corner.

  “Yes, I am Cæsar,” answered the calm voice of the dead conqueror. He came forward and stood in the midst of the party, so that the lamplight fell upon his grand face. “You spoke of me and I was near and heard you. You are not afraid to take a dead man’s hand? No — why should you be?”

  The hand he held out was long and nervous and white, looking as though the fingers possessed the elastic strength of steel.

  “Are we in a dream?” asked Diana in low tones, turning to Heine. The poet sighed.

  “You are but a dream to us,” he said, softly. “We are the reality — the sleepless reality of death.”

  “Yes: we are very real,” said Cæsar, seating himself in a huge carved chair that might have served for an imperial throne, and looking slowly around upon the assembled party. “You were speaking of my life. You were saying that I was not a romantic character. Do not smile at my using the word. In nineteen centuries of wandering I have learned to speak of romantists and realists. I was not romantic. Could Homer himself have made an epic poem about my life? I think not. Homer had traditions to help him, and Virgil had both Homer and the traditions. The purpose of my life was to overthrow tradition and to found a new era for the world. I was a modern. I was a source of realism. There was nothing mythical about me. Romance grew out of the decay of what I founded. I do not think that the romantic sense existed in men of my day, though the popular respect for the ancients was even then immense, and Rome was full of traditions. It is only by extending the term that anything can be called romantic which happened earlier than ten centuries after my death.”

  Too much awed to speak as yet by the strange presence, the living members of the party held their breath while Cæsar was speaking, and the smooth inflexions of his calm voice filled the quiet air. A few moments of silence followed his speech and it seemed as though no one would answer him; but at last Chopin lifted his delicate face and spoke.