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is mingled with it, and transforms it. Thence spring new shades, delicate and unsuspected varieties, of passion. Observe, moreover, that each of these heroines loves even to the point of absolutely forgetting herself, and even voluntarily abasing herself before the man she loves. In contrast to the cold Astrée or the haughty Alcidiane, they yield themselves beforehand, are all humility and submission, all tenderness and modesty. "O my dear!" Henrietta cries with humility, "what a princess in everyone's eye will the declared love of such a man make me!" Like Milton's Eve they would be the last-whatever the witty Miss Howe may say to think themselves the equals of their masters. But this only renders the struggle more touching. The wonderful resolution with which they struggle against love is due to the fact that they, too, have souls of their own, for which they are accountable to God. The source of their dignity is their faith; never had the religious sentiment triumphed more brilliantly in fiction than in these love-distracted hearts, which the tortures of passion drive to madness or to death. No scenes of pathos can equal the spectacle of this inward anguish, nor does any language contain anything superior to the last volume of Clarissa Harlowe. Let us try for a moment to imagine a happy ending to the book --such as was clamoured for by Richardson's readers: the consequence would be the absolute destruction of its moral, with all that constitutes its exquisite beauty. The death of Clarissa, as a martyr to duty, is essential. It is necessary that Lovelace should love Clarissa, but it is no less so that he should be the victim of his past errors, the recollection of which interposes between her and him. It is inevitable that he should become incapable of loving her as she deserves to be loved. It is essential that it should be for ever impossible for him to become the husband of her whom he has treated as a mistress. It is essential, in the last place, that she should forgive him, as she forgives her parents, and that her obedience to conscience should entail her death. No other dénouement is possible.

It matters little that Clarissa seems prudish, bigoted, or pedantic. Gradually, as the drama approaches its end, what is absurd disappears or loses consequence. Just as when, in

real life, we stand before a death-bed, unhallowed recollections steal away, and above and beyond all paltry or trivial realities we behold the image of the departing one, purified and already less human, so, beside the bed of the dying Clarissa, the meek little zealot, the affected provincial, the prolix and fastidious correspondent of the earlier chapters is forgotten, and all that remains before us is a girl dying because, amidst the most terrible trials, she steadfastly retained command of her conscience and her soul. Slowly prepared by a host of accumulated incidents, the emotion aroused by the multiplication of painful impressions is greater even than would be occasioned by a sudden and violent shock. Our feelings are deeply rather than abruptly stirred.

"Most happy," says Clarissa upon her death-bed, "has been to me my punishment here!" In this glorification of suffering as a means of purification lies the whole moral of the work. This was something altogether new. No novel had previously been made the vehicle of such teaching; none had so deeply probed such serious questions; none had conveyed so lofty a lesson in a drama so moving. Even to-day, little as it is read, the last volume of Clarissa retains all its beauty. "I make my apologies," wrote Doudan in surprise, "to the old bookseller Richardson, the closing scene of his drama is all of it very beautiful and very touching." Every one who reads these admirable pages without prejudice will be of Doudan's opinion.

VI

This was all quite new, and, what was more, it seemed so to

the reader.

The novel had not yet been transformed into a branch of literature capable of conveying ideas. Neither Lesage, with his short-sighted philosophy and indulgent optimism, nor Prévost, with his purely romantic conception of life, nor even Marivaux, who, with all his intellectual charm, was of too amiable a disposition, had achieved more than an imperfect success. The

only work at all comparable, in point of moral significance, to English novels, was a short master-piece called the Princesse de Clèves.

Before the novel could become a branch of serious literature it required, first of all, to be re-constructed in point of form, purged of its crude dramatic interest, and shorn of its elements of romance and gallantry. Richardson attempted this, but did not altogether succeed; his work retains something of the romantic element, though but little in comparison with that of his predecessors. He at all events limited the amount of incident in fiction, and confined it to simple events. He wrote big books about little facts.

In the next place new types of character had to be chosen. Richardson selects them from the middle-class, or from the lesser nobility, as much because these strata of society were more familiar to him as because in them he had happened to find more souls that were souls in the true sense of the word -capable, that is to say, of self-communion and of living a fruitful inner life apart. They had to be exhibited as analysing their own minds, and this is why he chose the epistolary form of novel; a form which, even in his hands, did not attain perfection, but proved, nevertheless, an adequate vehicle for that study of the commonplace tragedies of the soul which it was designed to express.

It was necessary to get rid of any preoccupation of a purely literary character which might have hampered observation and detracted from the moral effect. Excellent in point of matter, the work of the carpenter's son, the pedantic and ill-educated printer, is at the same time inferior as regards form.

It was also needful to portray life in the very meanest detail, with the patience of the naturalist who is passionately interested in everything. This he attempted, and with a success which often rendered him tedious, but enabled him at the same time to present such complete and accurate pictures as make him the greatest realist of his time.

But necessary as it was to be an acute observer, it was even more so to be heart and soul a moralist, that is to say, to com

bine deep religious convictions with the taste for moral problems a condition, however, essential, but seldom realised among literary men in the eighteenth century. Richardson, like Rousseau in his own day, and like Tolstoï in ours, had the immense advantage of being a believer.

Lastly, it was also necessary that with all these gifts there should be combined the gift of emotion, intense sensibility, extreme soft-heartedness, a really feminine partiality to tears, and, above all, that talent for making his creations live, which, as Villemain said, render him "the greatest and perhaps the most unconscious imitator of Shakespeare."

The work which resulted from all these qualities, crude, pedantic, and unequal as it was, was nevertheless profoundly original, very English, though at the same time very human, and undoubtedly, when we consider the period to which it belongs, very new. Even at this distance of time its power remains unimpaired, and sufficiently explains-if it does not absolutely justify-the expression used by Johnson, when, with his rough good sense, he said to Boswell that "French novels, compared with Richardson's, might be pretty baubles, but a wren was not an eagle."

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1 Life of Johnson, ed. Napier, vol. i., p. 516.

Chapter V

JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU AND ENGLISH FICTION

I. Success of English novels in France-Richardson is read and imitated by every member of Rousseau's circle-Controversy with regard to English novels-Diderot's Éloge de Richardson-Voltaire takes the other side-Richardson's influence upon the French novel.

II. Rousseau's admiration for him-He had Richardson in mind while writing Héloïse The resemblance between Héloïse and Clarissa a commonplace of eighteenth century criticism-Reasons for this.

III. Analogy between the two works in point of design, characters, use of the epistolary form, and devotion to reality as exemplified in middle-class life. IV. Analogy between the two writers in point of religion-How Rousseau, following Richardson's example, transformed and elevated the novel.

V. Wherein he surpassed his model: feeling for nature, conception of love, melancholy-The success of Héloïse increased the fame of Clarissa Harlowe— Richardson and the romantic school.

IT has been truly said that Clarissa Harlowe is to La Nouvelle Héloïse what Rousseau's novel is to Werther: 1 the three works are inseparably connected, because the bond between them is one of heredity. But while Werther and Héloïse are still read, Clarissa is scarcely read at all, and this, beyond doubt, is the reason that, while no one thinks of disputing Goethe's indebtedness to Rousseau, it is to-day less easy to perceive the extent to which Rousseau is indebted to Richardson.

To realise how far this was so, we need to recall the unparalleled good fortune which attended Pamela, Clarissa and Grandison from the very moment of their appearance in France. The story of this controversy concerning English fiction constitutes an entire chapter, and not the least curious one, in the history of French literature. It inflamed public opinion almost to the same extent as the controversy over Shakespeare, and its 1 Marc Monnier, Rousseau et les étrangers (in Jean-Jacques Rousseau jugé par les Genevois d'aujourd'hui).

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