"Two Years in the Jungle. The Experiences of a Hunter and Naturalist in India, Ceylon, the Malay Peninsula, and Borneo." By William T. Hornaday. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.
"Two Years in the Jungle. The Experiences of a Hunter and Naturalist in India, Ceylon, the Malay Peninsula, and Borneo." By William T. Hornaday. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.
The author of this book, who is now chief taxidermist of the National Museum, was sent out in 1876 to the countries enumerated on the title-page as collector for Professor Ward's "Natural Science Establishment" at Rochester. His skill and deftness in preparing skins and skeletons for mounting were, as we are led to suppose, what specially qualified him for this mission; but if he had not possessed, in addition, many characteristics less common, perhaps, but more generally attractive, he could hardly have executed it with the same facility and completeness, still less have found in it matter for this thoroughly entertaining narrative. His ardor as a sportsman and a naturalist seems to have sprung from a stronger, independent love of "wild life," an instinctive preference for the haunts and habits of uncivilized races, apart from the pursuits for which they give scope. This may be thought to argue ignoble tastes; but the reverse conclusion would be more correct. Mr. Hornaday is a believer in the "gentle savage." The Dyak seems to him "the model man," not on account of his defects, which are few, but of his virtues, which are many. He is manly, truthful, honest, chaste, and even when drunk—which happens only on rare festive occasions and is a result of his intercourse with "the rascally Chinaman"—is perfectly decorous, and, as our author was assured, would never "dream of violating the laws of decency and good temper." For the Hindu, on the other hand, as an entirely conventional and artificial creature, obsequious, hypocritical, inhospitable, disdainful of the race on whom he fawns and before whom he trembles as "unclean," Mr. Hornaday has no other feeling than aversion and contempt. He gives an amusing account of his indignation on finding that a vessel from which he had drunk was regarded by a "ghee-seller" as "defiled." "I was strongly tempted," he writes, "to knock his ghee-pots about his ears, take thirty rupees' worth of satisfaction out of his royal highness, and then go up to court and pay my fine." It will be seen that Mr. Hornaday is a true-born American, and not disposed to stand any nonsense that conflicts with the great law of human equality. But though this trait makes him appear somewhat uncharitable toward prejudices that have survived the Declaration of Independence, it shows itself in its most amiable lightin his own free and sociable disposition, his readiness to be on terms of good-fellowship with men of all sorts and conditions, and his heartiness in responding to any show of friendship in act or demeanor. Hence, on one occasion, even a Hindu, a fellow-traveller in a railway-carriage, roused his kindliest sentiments by offering him a handful of cooked "dal" after plastering it over a little pile of "chapatties." "I was completely taken aback for an instant, for the old gentleman's hands were as grimy as my own; but I accepted the food with my politest bow and ate it down with every appearance of gratitude. I would have eaten it had it been ten times as dirty as it undoubtedly was. It was an act as friendly as any man could perform, and I was pleased to find such a feeling of pure charity and benevolence in a native." Nor does his nationality prevent him from doing justice to the English character as it came under his observation in the East. He recognizes the benevolence of the English rule in India, and considers Sarawak under Rajah Brooke "the model of a good government." With individual Englishmen—who, he considers, are seen to the best advantage out of their own country—he found no difficulty in forming the most cordial relations. We have no doubt that his own qualities, his good humor, frankness, intelligence, and vivacity, coupled with his enthusiasm for pursuits in which almost all Englishmen take a strong interest, rendered him a very attractive and agreeable companion, and caused the "Britishers" with whom he came in contact to set him down at once for what he evidently is, an uncommonly good specimen of the Yankee.
Mr. Hornaday has the good sense to spare us the tedium of reading any fresh descriptions of regions and places sufficiently well known or only casually visited in the course of his travels. The few and slight exceptions prove, indeed, that he would hardly be a safe guide when off his own ground. His criticism of the Taj Mahal, than which "no other structure in the world has been so greatly overpraised," may be accepted as an instance of an independent impression and an offset to the extravagance of some of its admirers, but will scarcely testify to his competency to pass judgment on works of art in the tone of a recognized authority. Nor does his notion that Cairo was the capital of ancient Egypt, that "we may take pleasure in thinking that the city is to-day very like what it was when the Pyramids were new," (!) and "believe that these are the same cramped and crooked streets, the same latticed windows and overhanging upper stories, the same bazaars and workshops and wells, that were here when the brethren of Joseph came down, as envoys extraordinary, to practise the arts of diplomacy in the court of Pharaoh," suggest any profound acquaintance with the history of the country and the mutations it has undergone. But it would be very unfair to dwell on such points as these. In general, as has been intimated, Mr. Hornaday sticks to his last with a rare and commendable closeness. The sights which he finds most attractive in famous seaports are the fish-markets and the natural-history museums. The themes on which he loves to dilate are the habits of the crocodile, the elephant, and the orang-utan, the modes of hunting and killing them, and, above all, the process of skinning and dissecting them. But he does not delight in slaughter for the sake of sport, nor regard the forest or the river as simply the habitat of uncouth monsters, nor make the account of his journeys the record of a mere business enterprise. He has a keen love of adventure, a strong sense of the humorous aspect of his experiences, and an inexhaustible flow of spirits. He writes in an animated but unpretentious style, and without any attempt at elaborate description contrives to leave clear impressions of his achievements and surroundings. His ardor and good spirits are infectious, and the reader is as little wearied as he himself appears to have been by his long and devious tramps over the hills, through the swamps, and amid the tangled undergrowth of the jungle.
"Life and Reminiscences of Gustave Doré". Compiled from Material supplied by Doré's Relations and Friends and from Personal Recollection. With many Original Unpublished Sketches and Selections from Doré's best Published Illustrations. By Blanche Roosevelt. New York: Cassell & Co."Eugène Delacroix, par lui-même." Paris: J. Ronam."J. F. Millet." Par Charles Yriarte. "Hans Holbein." Par Jean Rousseau. (Bibliothèque d'Art Moderne.) Paris: Jules Ronam.
"Life and Reminiscences of Gustave Doré". Compiled from Material supplied by Doré's Relations and Friends and from Personal Recollection. With many Original Unpublished Sketches and Selections from Doré's best Published Illustrations. By Blanche Roosevelt. New York: Cassell & Co.
"Eugène Delacroix, par lui-même." Paris: J. Ronam.
"J. F. Millet." Par Charles Yriarte. "Hans Holbein." Par Jean Rousseau. (Bibliothèque d'Art Moderne.) Paris: Jules Ronam.
Mrs. Roosevelt's volume is an engaging jumble of fact and fancy, a medley of impressions, hasty generalizations,souvenirs, reminiscences, all jotted down apparently in such breathless haste that we can only wonder that the result is a coherent and tolerably serious study of Gustave Doré, his life and his works. The author's methods are, indeed, those of the great designer himself, who obtained brilliant results regardless of careful processes. A genuine biography of Doré is yet to be written; but here we have a rather fascinating book of five hundred pages, full of personal and intimate narrations by the artist's family and friends, profuse,naïf, tender, overflowing with French sentiment and an intense sympathy andcamaraderie. Interspersed with this biographical matter are innumerable pen-and-ink sketches, caricatures, designs, and finished pictures, illustrating the natural evolution of Doré's marvellous talent, the first instances of which show what he could do at the age of five. In fact, long before he could read the child showed clear signs of possessing a distinctively artistic organization. His practice with pen and pencil was pursued, however, without any sympathy or encouragement from his family, and his father, at least, was strongly averse to his taking up the career of an artist. In 1847, when Gustave was in his fifteenth year, his parents, who resided at Strasbourg, took him for a fortnight to Paris. The delights of the capital made a strong impression on the mind of the stripling, and he ardently wished to remain there. The thought occurred to him of offering some of his work to publishers, and, dashing off a few caricatures, he took advantage of the momentary absence of his parents to show them to Philipon, who had just founded his "Journal pour Rire." The result was that the publisher instantly engaged Gustave as one of the regular artists for his paper, and the boy remained in Paris, supporting himself and paying for his tuition at the Lycée Charlemagne, where he had Taine and About for fellow-collegians. This early success, combined with the most untiring industry and steady, almost passionate, devotion to his work, is one of the most remarkable biographical facts on record. A year later the elder Doré died, and his widow came to Paris to reside with her two sons, the chief expenses of theménagebeing supported by Gustave, then little more than sixteen years of age. Between the years 1850 and 1870 he is said to have made by his pencil seven millions of francs,—almost a million and a half of dollars. Besides this enormous activity, a supreme and jealous ambition induced him to undertake not only every piece of work offered, from Bible-illustrations to a comic almanac, but whatever his brain or his fancy could conceive as possible for artist to achieve. Inspiration seized him at each new idea, bold and striking images, fantastic fancies, all the splendors of a magnificent or grotesque ideal. His work was a delirium; in a single morning he has been known to throw off twenty blocks which brought him ten thousand francs. He was, however, perpetually discontented, disgusted with his vocation, and envious of successful painters. He had almost a convulsion one day on hearing that Meissonier had received two hundred thousand francs for a single painting. "What!" he exclaimed; "a thing like that? Now, look at me. I can paint; I know I could paint better than Meissonier, at any rate. Have I ever been paid two hundred thousand francs for anything? No; and I never shall be. The fact is that no one understands me. I shall live and die misunderstood, or never comprehended at all,—which is worse." Fired by emulation, he shut himself up to create masterpieces which should surpass Meissonier and paralyze the world; and in a short time he showed his friend Lacroix twelve colossal canvases on which he had painted revolting realistic pictures which he called the "Abominations of Paris." "What do you think of Meissonier now?" he asked.
He longed ardently to be a painter, and was never at peace with critical Paris while it refused him the name of painter and called him only a designer. London was dearer to his heart from the fact that there were enshrined in the Doré Gallery and made one of the sights of the town his stupendous canvases imaging forth his conceptions of Scripture subjects. What he might have done as a painter had he studied at any early age under good masters must be left to conjecture, although his paintings carry with them a clear confession that naturally he did not possess a good eye for color. He was always impatient of criticism which made him feel that there was any lack oftechniquein his works. "He has it all in him, but lacks 'school,'" was the verdict of the critics. Undoubtedly, wishing to do all that man has done, Doré would have liked to focus his powers on marvels of refinement and exactness, like Meissonier's; but he was proud ofhis distinctive characteristics, and wanted the least block he touched to show something Doréish.
"Now you will give us some Velasquezes," a lady said to him during his journey in Spain.
"No, madame," he replied; "I shall give you some more 'Dorés.'"
What he enjoyed was an audacious and gigantic experiment, a subject which allowed him free and bold handling and a mystic, half-grotesque attitude toward what he found in it of poetry or strength. The feverish and hurried character of his work is sadly evident in many of his most ambitious designs. His illustrations of Milton, Dante, and the Wandering Jew may be said to show his powers at their best,—and perhaps we ought to include his Bible-pictures. Too often he uses without apparent motive feeble allegory and fantasy; and many of his later works must be considered by his most charitable critics not only obscure, but almost insane.
To turn from Doré to Delacroix is to take up the very different career of one of those "immortals" among whose works the great designer was eager to see his own unlucky paintings enrolled. Opposite as these two artists were, they had nevertheless certain things in common: their work was their life,—all personal gratification was subordinated to art,—each denied himself marriage, and yet enjoyed the untiring devotion of some sort of womankind. Doré had both his mother and his nurse to humor and spoil him. Delacroix endured the affectionate tyranny of his housekeeper, who watched over him as a lioness over her young. Delacroix, who was frail, sensitive, feverishly carried away by his work, needed just the careful intervention which this woman imposed to save him from the depressing influences of every-day life. She kept all uncongenial visitors from him. He was fastidious to a degree,—could not use a spoiled palette, and Jenny learned to prepare his palette, colors, and brushes with the nicest care. Delacroix began with a masterpiece. He was only twenty-three when he produced his "Dante and Virgil," which put him at the head of the so-called "romantic school." His clear intellect, his strength as a draughtsman, his abundance of invention, his wonderful color, made themselves felt at once. He had a long career in which to develop, and he was tireless in reinforcing his own great powers by profound and careful study of great authors, besides working perpetually to discover the secrets of the splendid paintings of Raphael, Velasquez, Veronese, and, above all, Rubens. It was his habit to spend whole days at the Jardin des Plantes, watching the animals, observing their postures and movements, aiming to pluck the heart out of the mystery of each organization. In 1828 he went to England, and, although he disliked the country, its architecture, the ill-made shoes and soiled stockings of the women, he carried back with him powerful impressions from Constable and from Kean's impersonations of Shakespeare which animated all his later work. His picture of "Hamlet," although it was not completed until 1843, owes its conception to this period. His lithographs of "Faust" elicited from Goethe the remark, "He has surpassed the pictures I had made for myself of the scenes written by myself."
The carefully-prepared monographs on Millet and Holbein, accompanied by excellent designs after their works, are full of suggestive criticism, and show how well the modern practice of popularizing art is carried on in Paris. Millet was born some sixteen years after Delacroix, and came to Paris in 1837, when that great master had produced some of his best pictures, which of all contemporary art were what aroused Millet's admiration and homage. "Grands par les gestes," he called them, "grands par l'invention et la richesse du coloris." Millet himself, however, was to found a separate school from that of the brilliant Delacroix. The fac-similes in this brochure from his original designs in crayon or pastel give much of the sentiment and meaning of his work. As the author says, they might well be the illustrations of a mighty poem called "The Earth." Night and morning, sunrise, noon, and sunset, the succession of seasons, the patient industries of the workers who toil like nature's own forces, simply, sternly, and with silent strength, all tell their story here. Millet had passed his youth in the fields, and, the son of a peasant, he must himself have been the central figure in many such scenes as those with which he has charmed the world. His picture of "The Haricot-Gatherer" represents the paternal cottage, and the figure of the woman in the garden is that of his mother herself. When he enshrined personal memories like these, no wonder we find in Millet's work the interpretation of so much that is deepest and most intimate in the history of man.
The gallery of the portraits of Hans Holbein the younger is well chosen, and gives some excellent instances of the artist's unsurpassed manner. There is inevitably something in any picture of Holbein's which holds the attention by its absolute reality: it is not only natural, but true, the reflection of an actual personality. An interest attaches to the portrait of Anne of Cleves, although one hardly finds in it the beauty which misled Henry VIII. and altered the history of England a little.
"A Wheel of Fire." By Arlo Bates. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons."As it was Written: A Jewish Musician's Story." By Sidney Luska. New York: Cassell & Co."Love—or a Name." By Julian Hawthorne. Boston: Ticknor & Co."A Social Experiment." By E. A. P. Searing. New York and London: G. P. Putnam's Sons."For Lilias." By Rosa Nouchette Carey. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company.
"A Wheel of Fire." By Arlo Bates. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.
"As it was Written: A Jewish Musician's Story." By Sidney Luska. New York: Cassell & Co.
"Love—or a Name." By Julian Hawthorne. Boston: Ticknor & Co.
"A Social Experiment." By E. A. P. Searing. New York and London: G. P. Putnam's Sons.
"For Lilias." By Rosa Nouchette Carey. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company.
Mr. Arlo Bates's novel "A Wheel of Fire" shows such skilful construction, is so nicely balanced in its parts, while its literary execution is so far above the common, that we can only wish the author had expended such faithful and conscientious work upon a plot less hopelessly dreary than one must be which hinges upon the problem of hereditary insanity. Every other human infirmity may be rounded off, merged into a lofty ideal of acceptance, renunciation, and expiation. But under no imaginable conditions can madness be regarded as something from which the heart and soul of man does not shudderingly recoil. Accordingly, a heroine who is haunted, beset, and finally driven crazy by the dread of the fatal inheritance being in her blood seems set apart from the fluctuations and hesitations of maidenly passion. There is something unhealthy, eerie, in the story Mr. Bates has made and in the situation he has chosen.
Damaris Wainwright's mother has died insane, her brother is a hopeless lunatic,—in fact, he commits suicide in the early part of the story,—and she has accepted the conditions fate seems to have imposed, and has renounced all idea of marriage, when the nephew of her family lawyer falls in love with her and shows an indomitable resolution to win her for his wife. The old story of "femme qui écoute" follows. Damaris is swayed partly by his influence, partly by her own impulses, and in great measure by the freely-expressed opinion of the specialist who has had charge of her insane brother, that she is in no danger of inheriting her mother's malady. Unluckily for her, she half consents to engage herself to the lawyer. Had she wholly consented or wholly refused, her doom might perhaps have been averted. We frankly consider her lover quite unequal to the situation. He imposed upon her long and lonely musings, sleepless nights and melancholy days, when he should have given her the support of the strong will and powerful intellect which the author lays claim to for his hero. Agonizing over painful doubts is not good for people whose intellects hover on the border-lands of nervous fantasy. Lincoln, if resolved to marry the unfortunate girl, should have shown more Lochinvar-like haste. Instead, during the long interval of waiting, Damaris is allowed to run the whole gamut of painful experiences, and, naturally, at the climax of the story, her "fate cries out." Of course this is the author's intention; but we cannot help feeling that Miss Wainwright had hardly a fair chance. As an offset to the gloom and melancholy of their tragedy, there is a lively love-affair between two young people who snatch a fearful joy in the midst of as dreary an environment as can easily be imagined. Both Miss Dimmont and Dr. Chauncey Wilson are life-like, although not engaging, characters, and the doctor, in particular, although we do not think highly of his science, is a vigorous and consistent creation.
Although the plot of "As it was Written" turns on the murder of the heroine, the book is yet a considerably livelier one than Mr. Bates's, and imposes no such burden of hopeless misery on the reader. A startling and mysterious crime is dear to the human imagination, and here we are confronted with one hideous in its cruelty and inexplicable in its circumstances. The story is told by the passionate lover of the murdered Veronika, and there is much youthful eloquence and pathos in the description of his meeting with the lovely young Jewess, their sympathy in art,—for both are musicians,—their ardent hopes and beliefs for each other. They are to be married in a fortnight, when the frightful act is interposed which transforms the whole aspect of the world for theyoung man. The reader must discover for himself the key to the tragedy. The book is one of those which the phenomenal success of "Called Back" summoned into existence. That clearly proved that the public loved a mystery and a sensationaldénouement, and ever since the annals of crime have been rummaged for horrors. But "As it was Written" has an advantage over other works of its class in a certain charm and freshness, not only from its Jewish setting, but from the fervid youthful feeling which gives a pleasing and natural touch to the narrative.
Warren Bell, the hero of Mr. Julian Hawthorne's "Love—or a Name," finds himself, at first presentation, on his way to offer marriage to Miss Nell Anthony, who has just been left motherless, and to whom he feels that he owes this manly tribute. He acquits his conscience of this duty, but performs it nevertheless in such a jerky, unlover-like fashion that few young women, certainly not one of Miss Anthony's force of character, could have been imposed upon. "I thought you l-loved me," said he. Which surely is not the way to win a fair lady. Much to his comfort, as well as to his ingenuous surprise, he is refused, and goes back to New York, having renounced "Love" and decided to care only for a "Name." Mr. Hawthorne seems to have made an effort to work into the story of his hero a faithful account of New York "ring"-management and official corruption. Warren Bell finds a patron in Mr. Drayton, who has all sorts of ambitious schemes to further, and offers his committees and his confederates a "big game" in the way of "water-works" stocks, and the like. These pictures of corrupt judges and dishonest corporations have some probability: they show us many clearly-developed sensual and mercenary scoundrels; they are all, very possibly, portraits from life; but they are all excessively crude in their likenesses and inexpressibly wearisome. It is a distasteful and unsavory world to which the author introduces us: if he wishes to show us consummate rascals we insist that he should wrap them in some veil of decency, if not of art, and not fill his pages with incidents and talk which properly belong to the police-court. Mr. Hawthorne finally rescues his hero from the ignoble set from whom he has luckily escaped winning a very bad name, and makes him seek his happiness instead in love, which Miss Anthony obligingly consents to give him. The other characters mostly expiate their crimes and misdemeanors in a succession of tragic and unpleasant incidents, and one closes the book with annoyance that so raw, tentative, and unpleasant a story should have been forced upon one's attention by its bearing the signature of a writer who can do so much better.
"A Social Experiment" treats of the experiences of a pretty mill-girl, the daughter of a washerwoman, who becomes theprotégéeof a wealthy and capricious woman of the world, who educates her, introduces her to society, then finally drops her and permits her to seek her native obscurity, where she withers and dies of a broken heart. The story is very well told, but with a good deal of needless discussion as to the right or wrong of the experiment. The heroine has complicated matters by a secret marriage to a man in her own rank of life, which later becomes distasteful to her, and the duties of which she refuses to fulfil. Like the three preceding novels in our list, "A Social Experiment" is rather doleful, and seems to have been written for any other purpose rather than to cheer and stimulate the average reader who longs for pictures of life which rouse pleasant fancies and kindle tender sentiments. None of these books are in the least degree commonplace, but, by excluding what is chiefly dear and precious to the heart and mind of common humanity, they exclude many of the qualities which achieve success for a novel.
In "For Lilias," on the other hand, the author avails herself of all the agreeable traditions of English fiction: there are warm and well-lighted rooms, well-to-do people, regular meals, afternoon tea, plenty of bread-and-butter, and a gentle ripple of friendly, soft-voiced conversation. This may not be original or exciting, but, after a good deal of crude sensation through some thousand and odd pages, "ways of pleasantness and paths of peace" are refreshing to the critic, who believes that although the novelist should not sacrifice his meaning to the requisitions of mere agreeableness, out of regard for art and the taste of his readers, he should still have beauty in some degree or other as his chief end in view.
FOOTNOTES:[1]So I had written, led to agree with the anthropologists who hold this view, by my own observations among the Indians of every State and Territory in our West: the more I have seen and read of the widely-spread native races belonging to various linguistic stocks, the more their similitude has been pressed upon my attention. Nevertheless, there is another opinion, as appears in a recent letter from Professor Putnam, to whom I had quoted the sentence above. "All had certain features in common," he says; "they were red-skinned Americans in the general sense of the term, although some were more olive than red, and others were darker-skinned than red. Mr. Carr, no doubt, would accept your statement that they were all 'tarred with one stick,' but he judges fromhistory. For my part, I feel confident that there were several stocks of the great Mongolian race in America; and there is also some evidence (facts are accumulating) of a migration across the Atlantic. I should have to write a dozen pages to give you all my reasons for wishing you to modify your paragraph."
[1]So I had written, led to agree with the anthropologists who hold this view, by my own observations among the Indians of every State and Territory in our West: the more I have seen and read of the widely-spread native races belonging to various linguistic stocks, the more their similitude has been pressed upon my attention. Nevertheless, there is another opinion, as appears in a recent letter from Professor Putnam, to whom I had quoted the sentence above. "All had certain features in common," he says; "they were red-skinned Americans in the general sense of the term, although some were more olive than red, and others were darker-skinned than red. Mr. Carr, no doubt, would accept your statement that they were all 'tarred with one stick,' but he judges fromhistory. For my part, I feel confident that there were several stocks of the great Mongolian race in America; and there is also some evidence (facts are accumulating) of a migration across the Atlantic. I should have to write a dozen pages to give you all my reasons for wishing you to modify your paragraph."
[1]So I had written, led to agree with the anthropologists who hold this view, by my own observations among the Indians of every State and Territory in our West: the more I have seen and read of the widely-spread native races belonging to various linguistic stocks, the more their similitude has been pressed upon my attention. Nevertheless, there is another opinion, as appears in a recent letter from Professor Putnam, to whom I had quoted the sentence above. "All had certain features in common," he says; "they were red-skinned Americans in the general sense of the term, although some were more olive than red, and others were darker-skinned than red. Mr. Carr, no doubt, would accept your statement that they were all 'tarred with one stick,' but he judges fromhistory. For my part, I feel confident that there were several stocks of the great Mongolian race in America; and there is also some evidence (facts are accumulating) of a migration across the Atlantic. I should have to write a dozen pages to give you all my reasons for wishing you to modify your paragraph."