For the Blood Is the Life. Francis Marion Crawford

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СКАЧАТЬ appears," said Augustus, " that some races are fundamentally excluded from 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 mediseval 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 doss 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 Caesar was not. Alexander was always full of great passions, good or bad. Csesar was calm, impassive, superior to events. Alexander burnt a city to please a woman. Caesar 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. Csesar 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 Cassar'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 Caesar 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 prominent 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.

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