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Letters to Dead Authors-Part9_ANDREW LANG(1844-1912)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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overflowed with wit, you could not be "serious;" because you created



with a word, you were said to scamp your work; because you were

never dull, never pedantic, incapable of greed, you were to be



censured as desultory, inaccurate, and prodigal.

A generationsuffering from mental and physical anaemia--a



generationdevoted to the "chiselled phrase," to accumulated

"documents," to microscopic porings over human baseness, to minute



and disgustful records of what in humanity is least human--may

readily bring these unregarded and railing accusations. Like one of



the great and good-humoured Giants of Rabelais, you may hear the

murmurs from afar, and smile with disdain. To you, who can amuse



the world--to you who offer it the fresh air of the highway, the

battlefield, and the sea--the world must always return: escaping



gladly from the boudoirs and the bouges, from the surgeries and

hospitals, and dead rooms, of M. Daudet and M. Zola and of the



wearisome De Goncourt.

With all your frankness, and with that queer morality of the Camp



which, if it swallows a camel now and again, never strains at a

gnat, how healthy and wholesome, and even pure, are your romances!



You never gloat over sin, nor dabble with an ugly curiosity in the

corruptions of sense. The passions in your tales are honourable and



brave, the motives are clearly human. Honour, Love, Friendship make

the threefold cord, the clue your knights and dames follow through



how delightful a labyrinth of adventures! Your greatest books, I

take the liberty to maintain, are the Cycle of the Valois ("La Reine



Margot," "La Dame de Montsoreau," "Les Quarante-cinq"), and the

Cycle of Louis Treize and Louis Quatorze ("Les Trois Mousquetaires,"



"Vingt Ans Apres," "Le Vicomte de Bragelonne"); and, beside these

two trilogies--a lonelymonument, like the sphinx hard by the three



pyramids--"Monte Cristo."

In these romances how easy it would have been for you to burn



incense to that great goddess, Lubricity, whom our critic says your

people worship. You had Brantome, you had Tallemant, you had Retif,



and a dozen others, to furnish materials for scenes of

voluptuousness and of blood that would have outdone even the present



naturalistes. From these alcoves of "Les Dames Galantes," and from

the torture chambers (M. Zola would not have spared us one starting



sinew of brave La Mole on the rack) you turned, as Scott would have

turned, without a thought of their profitableliterary uses. You



had other metal to work on: you gave us that superstitious and

tragical true love of La Mole's, that devotion--how tender and how



pure!--of Bussy for the Dame de Montsoreau. You gave us the valour

of D'Artagnan, the strength of Porthos, the melancholynobility of



Athos: Honour, Chivalry, and Friendship. I declare your characters

are real people to me and old friends. I cannot bear to read the



end of "Bragelonne," and to part with them for ever. "Suppose

Porthos, Athos, and Aramis should enter with a noiseless swagger,



curling their moustaches." How we would welcome them, forgiving

D'Artagnan even his hateful fourberie in the case of Milady. The



brilliance of your dialogue has never been approached: there is wit

everywhere; repartees glitter and ring like the flash and clink of



small-swords. Then what duels are yours! and what inimitable

battle-pieces! I know four good fights of one against a multitude,



in literature. These are the Death of Gretir the Strong, the Death

of Gunnar of Lithend, the Death of Hereward the Wake, the Death of



Bussy d'Amboise. We can compare the strokes of the heroic fighting-

times with those described in later days; and, upon my word, I do



not know that the short sword of Gretir, or the bill of Skarphedin,

or the bow of Gunnar was better wielded than the rapier of your



Bussy or the sword and shield of Kingsley's Hereward.

They say your fencing is unhistorical; no doubt it is so, and you



knew it. La Mole could not have lunged on Coconnas "after deceiving

circle;" for the parry was not invented except by your immortal



Chicot, a genius in advance of his time. Even so Hamlet and Laertes

would have fought with shields and axes, not with small swords. But



what matters this pedantry? In your works we hear the Homeric Muse

again, rejoicing in the clash of steel; and even, at times, your



very phrases are unconsciously Homeric.

Look at these men of murder, on the Eve of St. Bartholomew, who flee






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