CHAPTER XI.
THE SPANISH GYPSY.
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FELIX HOLT, as we have seen, had been taken
up at a time when she was in despair of finishing a drama,
which Lewes for once did not altogether approve.
She had written three or four acts, and on reading the
old work again "found it impossible to abandon it."
The conceptions moved her deeply, and had "never
been wrought out before." Still it required entire
recasting. Some of her views at the time are given
in an interesting letter to Mr. Frederic Harrison
(15th August 1866). He had, it seems, proposed some
theme for her consideration. "That," she says, "is a
tremendously difficult problem which you have laid
before me; and I think you see its difficulties, though
they can hardly press on you as they do on me, who
have gone through again and again the severe effort of
trying to make certain ideas thoroughly incarnate, as
if they had revealed themselves to me just in the flesh,
and not in the spirit. I think aesthetic teaching is the
highest of all teaching, because it deals with life in its
highest complexity; but if it ceases to be purely
aesthetic, if it lapses anywhere from the picture to the
diagram, it becomes the most offensive of all teaching."
She proceeds to point out the "agonising labour to an
English-fed imagination to make out a sufficiently real
background for the desired picture--to get breathing
individual forms and group them in the needful relations,
so that the presentation will lay hold on the
emotions as human experience--will, as you say,
'flash' conviction on the world by means of aroused
sympathy." She recalls the "unspeakable pains"
involved in the preparation of Romola and the
acquisition of the necessary Italian "idiom." The problem
suggested by Mr. Harrison--its precise nature is not
told--would, she thinks, be one of "tenfold arduousness."
The statement shows George Eliot's perception
of the real difficulty. "Ideas" may be seen "in the
flesh" or "in the spirit": that is, I take it, as the
abstract formulae of philosophy or as the concrete
visions of poetry. The question is whether the writer
who starts from the abstract can by industrious study
so incarnate his ideas that they may be as vivid and
real as if he had started from the opposite point of
view. "Enough!" one is induced to say, as Rasselas
says to Imlac, "thou hast convinced me that no human
being" (and no philosopher) "can ever be a poet."
No deliberate absorption of imagery can ever make
up for the direct spontaneous intuition, and a task
which involves "agonising labour" is likely enough
to result in painful reading. Why undertake it?
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George Eliot, however, thought differently, and
attempted to achieve this difficult task in the Spanish
Gypsy. She is soon "swimming in Spanish history
and literature," and on 15th October 1866 begins the
recasting. Early in 1867 she visited Spain to get up
the local colouring, and after many changes the poem
was at last finished on 29th April 1868. Lewes was
in an "unprecedented state of delight," and especially
pleased with the "variety" of the work, because he
had persuaded her to put it aside "on the ground of
monotony." The book, though the sale was considerable,
roused some hostile criticism at the time, and
has not convinced even her warmest admirers that she
was in her proper place as a poet. She left a note
upon its history which is interesting, as giving her own
defence against the obvious reasons for dissatisfaction,
and as illustrating her general position. The subject,
it seems, was originally suggested by a picture of the
Annunciation, ascribed to Titian in the Scuola di san
Rocco at Venice. It embodied, she thought, a "great
dramatic motive." A maiden, "full of young hope,"
and about to share in the ordinary lot of womanhood,
is suddenly made aware that she is to fulfil a great
destiny, and to have a terribly different experience.
"Here," she thought, "is a subject grander than that
of Iphigenia, and it has never been used." She
then tried to find an appropriate embodiment, and
could think of nothing except the moment of Spanish
history when the struggle with the Moors was attaining
its climax. She could not make use of Moors
and Jews, because the "facts of their history were
too conspicuously opposed to the working out of
my catastrophe." Facts have that awkward habit.
She thought, however (though the point is surely
doubtful), that this objection did not apply to the
Gypsies. The subject, as she meditated, became
"more and more pregnant." It might be "a symbol
of the part which is played by hereditary conditions
in the largest sense, and of the fact that what we
call duty is entirely made up of such conditions."
Tragedy consists in the "terrible difficulty of adjusting
our individual needs to the dire necessity of our
lot," in which, of course, the lives of our fellow-creatures
are involved. The great Greek tragedies
often turn upon such a conflict between the inherited
Nemesis and the individual whom it crushes. Othello
becomes a "most pathetic tragedy" instead of a simple
story of jealousy, on account "of the hereditary conditions
of Othello's lot"--a point surely not much
considered by Shakespeare. We may grant, however,
that a tragedy may thus show the individual
giving way to the general. It cannot explain why
the conflict should arise, but it sets forth the pathetic
consequences. In the Spanish Gypsy the action
represents the loving and sympathetic instincts which are
converted into "piety, i.e. loving, willing submission
and heroic Promethean effort towards high possibilities."
Certain remarks upon ethical doctrines are
apparently meant to show that such instincts cannot
be governed by "rational reflection," and therefore
may at once arouse sympathy and lead to terrible
scrapes. There are, however, two "consolatory
elements" woven into the very warp of the poem:
"(1) The importance of individual deeds; (2) the
all-sufficiency of the soul's passions in determining
sympathetic action." I mention these elements, as
George Eliot attaches so much importance to them,
though I confess that they do not much console me.
One other remark is noteworthy. It might, she says,
be "a reasonable ground of objection against the
whole structure of the Spanish Gypsy if it were shown
that the action is outrageously impossible--lying outside
all that can be congruously conceived of human
actions. It is not a reasonable ground of objection
that they would have done better to act otherwise, any
more than it is a reasonable objection against the
Iphigenia that Agamemnon would have done better
not to sacrifice his daughter."
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It is plain that if the Spanish Gypsy failed to succeed,
it was not for want of careful consideration of aesthetic
principles. Moreover, without following this excursion
into theories, we may, I think, take one result for
granted. Undoubtedly, the conflict between "the
individual" and "the general," or, say, between the
duties which a human being owes to his own friends
and family, and those which he owes to his country or
his gods, may be an admirable theme for tragedy.
Fedalma, George Eliot's heroine, is distracted between
her love for her destined bridegroom and her sense of
duty to the race from which she sprang. Nobody will
deny that such a struggle presents an interesting and
worthy theme. The difficulty comes afterwards. Why
did George Eliot suppose that the only fitting historical
embodiment was at "a particular period of Spanish
history"? This seems to involve a singular leap
in the logic. It is especially noticeable in a writer
who has insisted that the highest motives may be
found under commonplace outsides; that country
parsons and farmers may have the "root of the
matter" in them; and that even the passions which
inspired the Greek tragedies may be shown at work in
the breast of an eight years' old girl. "Heredity" has
been annexed of late years by "realistic" novelists;
but, in any case, the struggle between loyalty to our
race or family instincts, and the wider forces of
evolution, might be illustrated from transactions less
obscure than the struggle in the Spain of the fifteenth
century. A hopeful young English maiden of the
nineteenth may be called upon to choose between
making a respectable marriage and devoting herself to
some impracticable ideal with tragical, if perhaps also
comic, results. Why place the heroine among conditions
so hard to imagine?
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One consequence of George Eliot's choice of this
romantic setting for her characters is obvious. In
romance we have to take leave of common sense.
That is an easy sacrifice to make on some occasions.
Children, even grown-up children, may delight in fairy
tales and the Arabian Nights, though they get into a
region where the impossible is the order of the day
and morality ceases to be binding. Poetically-minded
people can still take some pleasure, I believe, in the
old romances, and find in Spenser's Faerie Queene not
only a delightful series of pictures, but poetry informed
with a lofty spirit of chivalry. But in the Spanish
Gypsy we cannot get so far from downright historical
fact. Our ethical sentiment is to be seriously interested,
and conviction is to be "flashed" upon us by
aroused sympathy. Now, to sympathise to any purpose,
we must understand. We must be able to appreciate
the difficulty of the position and the severity of the
ordeal. Here, however, we are terribly at a loss. The
critical scene of the Spanish Gypsy is the first interview
between Fedalma and Zarca. Fedalma has been
brought up from her earliest infancy as a Catholic and
a Spaniard. She has only seen the gypsies as a band
of prisoners brought through the town in chains. She
is on the eve of marriage to a typical Spanish noble,
with whom she is passionately in love. To her enters
abruptly one of the gypsies. He explains without loss
of time that he is her father; that he is about to be the
Moses or Mahomet of a gypsy nation in Africa; and
orders her to give up her country, her religion, and
her lover to join him in this hopeful enterprise. She
is, of course, a good deal put out, and explains some
obvious objections; but after exchanging some paragraphs
of blank verse, she walks off with her parent,
leaving a short note to inform her lover that she can
have nothing more to do with him. Admit the least
touch of common sense, and the situation is surely, in
George Eliot's words, "outrageously impossible." We
know enough of the gypsies of history to perceive that
Zarca behaved like a lunatic. We may try to escape
by dropping history and regarding "Spain," like
Shakespeare's Bohemia, as a phrase belonging to
the geography of simple romance. But, then, the
whole story becomes too unreal to appeal to our
sympathies. We are able to accept the position of
Iphigenia, to which George Eliot appeals, as treated by
Euripides, or even by Racine, and for the moment
take for granted that the human sacrifice is a reasonable
mode of conduct. That assumption once made, the
position becomes clear. The father is bound to kill the
daughter, because, as we know, the gods will be
pleased. But the difficulty of the Spanish Gypsy is
that if we try, as George Eliot tried, to imagine
the actual state of things, the dilemma is absurd;
and if we substitute a world of pure fancy, everything
becomes arbitrary. We do not see why
the daughter is bound to act like a lunatic. She
informs us, of course, that she is deeply affected, but
we cannot perceive that her motives are reasonable
and intelligible. Considered from the ethical side,
the objection seems to be fatal. Dr. Congreve, an
adequate authority, said that it was a "mass of
positivism." The meaning, if an outsider may venture
a guess, seems to be that the positivist insists upon a
view of duty as corresponding to the vital instincts of
the "social organism"; the identification of the individual
with the body of which he is the product, and
the constituent and consequent readiness to sacrifice
life and happiness to the interest of the community
into which he is born. This doctrine was already
preached, though in an imperfect form, by Savonarola to
Romola, and becomes prominent in the Spanish Gypsy.
Now one may accept the principle as true and valuable,
and yet regard the stroy as a reductio ad absurdum of
some applications. Fedalma, in her first interview with
Zarca, exclaims--
"Father, my soul is not too base to ring
At touch of your great thoughts; nay, in my blood
There streams the sense unspeakable of kind,
As leopard feels at ease with leopard."
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The human being should have higher instincts than
the leopard. Fedalma, however, is gradually led to
admit the supreme force of this appeal. She will not
be "half-hearted."
"I will seek nothing but to shun base joy.
The saints were cowards who stood by to see
Christ crucified: they should have flung themselves
Upon the Roman spears, and died in vain--
The grandest death, to die in vain--for love,
Greater than sways the forces of the world!
That death shall be my bridegroom. I will wed
The curse that blights my people."
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Of course, the young lady is excited. She is in the
state of mind in which irrationality is a recommendation.
Death surely is made grand by the grandeur of
the purpose, not by the futility of the means. Surely
the death of the early Christians and their zeal was
wasted on an ideal as absurd as Fedalma's. Her
doctrine, stated in cold blood, seems to be that our
principles are to be determined by the physical fact
of ancestry. The discovery that my father was a
Saxon or a Celt might perhaps be allowed to affect
my sympathies, but surely should not change my views
of home-rule. In an interval of common sense Fedalma
suggests that she will marry and persuade her husband
to protect the gypsies. Nobody could object to that;
but to throw overboard all other ties on the simple
ground of descent, and adopt the most preposterous
schemes of the vagabonds to whom you are related,
seems to be very bad morality whatever may be its
affinity to positivism.
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The error seems to be precisely that George Eliot
was hopelessly trammelled by the conditions which
she had accepted. She could not get her abstract
principle to become "incarnate" in facts. She falls
into a hopeless entanglement. The facts become
absurd, and the principle has to be distorted. It may
still be asked whether, in spite of such views, the
Spanish Gypsy is not a great poem. Paradise
Lost is a masterpiece poetically, though its theology is
grotesque and its proposed justification of Providence an
admitted failure. Can we say anything of the kind on behalf
of the Spanish Gypsy? It may clearly be said that it
certainly shows a powerful intellect stored with noble
sentiment and impelled to utter great thoughts. It
illustrates curiously the union observed by Lewes of
great diffidence with great ambition. She aims at
the highest mark, though at any given moment she
is despondent of achievement. She adopted the title
of the poem, she says, because it recalled the old
dramatists, with whom she thought she had "more
cousinship than with recent poets." [Middleton's
Spanish Gipsie was acted about 1621.] It seems
to have been first written in the dramatic form; though,
as finished, it became a set of scenes interspersed with
digressions into epic poetry. The passages which
would be represented in the regular drama by stage
directions are expanded into descriptive writing or
into psychological disquisitions intended to introduce
us to the characters. The old dramatists, to whom
she refers, might give a precedent for introducing a
good many sententious remarks upon human life
which have no very direct relation to the story;
but, in truth, she reminds us rather of "Philip van
Artevelde" and other modern plays not intended for
the stage; and if we complain that the book tried by
dramatic tests becomes languid, it may be replied that
we have had fair notice that it belongs to a different
genus and should be judged from the author's point
of view. This, however, does not answer the ordinary
objection that, after all, it is not poetry; or does not
decisively cross the indefinable but essential line which
divides true poetry from the highest rhetoric. Here
and there is a fine phrase, as in the opening passage
about--
"Broad-breasted Spain, leaning with equal love
On the Mid Sea that moans with memories,
And on the untravelled Ocean's restless tides."
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Or a few lines later--
"What times are little? To the sentinel
That hour is regal when he mounts on guard."
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Passages often sound exactly like poetry; and yet,
even her admirers admit that they seldom, if ever, have
the genuine ring. They do not satisfy the old criterion
that nothing can be poetry, in the full sense, of which
we are disposed to say that it would be as good in
prose. The lyrics which are interspersed are palpable
if clever imitations of the genuine thing. Perhaps it
was simply that George Eliot had not one essential
gift--the exquisite sense for the value of words which
may transmute even common thought into poetry.
Even her prose, indeed, though often admirable,
sometimes becomes heavy, and gives the impression that
instead of finding the right word she is accumulating
more or less complicated approximations. Then one
might inquire whether, after all, the problem of
"incarnating" the abstract idea, if not really impracticable
from the beginning, was suited to her powers. The
dramatic form especially demands the intuitive instead
of the discursive attitude of mind, and the vivid
"presentation" of concrete men and women instead
of the thoughtful analysis of their character. Might
she not succeed by accepting the conditions frankly,
and attempting, in spite of its bad name, an avowedly
"philosophical form"? She loved Wordsworth well
enough to forgive his admitted shortcomings; and
if the Excursion is undeniably dull, it is still a work
which, in spite of all critical condemnations, has profoundly
impressed the spiritual development of many
eminent persons.
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George Eliot was in fact led to try various poetical
experiments. A volume of poems published in 1874
contained the "Legend of Jubal," begun in 1869,
"How Lisa loved the King" (from Boccaccio),
"Agatha," "Armgart," and "A College Breakfast
Party," which were written in the same period.
That they all show great literary ability is undeniable,
though it is still doubtful whether they show
more. The "College Breakfast," with its downright
plunge into metaphysics, set forth with an
abundant display of metaphor and illustration, is a
singular exhibition of (as I must think) misapplied
ingenuity; and chiefly interesting to people who
may wish to know George Eliot's judgment of Hegelianism,
aestheticism, and positivism. The most remarkable,
however, is the short poem called "O may I join
the choir invisible." It has been accepted by many
who sympathise with her religious views. The invisible
choir is formed of those "immortal dead who
live again in minds made better by their presence."
So to live, we are told, "is heaven." The generous
natures have set their example before us, and our
"rarer, better, truer self" finds in them a help to
harmonies discordant impulses, and seek a loftier
ideal.
"The better self shall live till human Time
Shall fold its eyelids, and the human sky
Be gathered like a scroll within the tomb
Unread for ever.
This is life to come
Which martyred men have made more glorious
For us who strive to follow. May I reach
That purest heaven, be to other souls
The cup of strength in some great agony,
Enkindle generous ardour, feed pure love,
Beget the smiles that have no cruelty--
Be the sweet presence of a good diffused,
And in diffusion ever more intense.
So shall I join the choir invisible
Whose music is the gladness of the world."
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To appreciate the sacred poetry of any church,
one ought to be an orthodox member; and, to many
people, of course, immortality thus understood seems
to be rather a mockery. It would be better, they
think, to admit frankly that immortality is a figment.
Even they may agree that the aspiration is lofty and
eloquently expressed. Reflections upon a similar
theme inspire two other poems. Armgart is a prima
donna, rejoicing in the overpowering success of her
first appearance, who suddenly loses her voice by a
sudden attack of throat disease; and has to reconcile
herself to the abandonment of her hopes, and to
becoming part of the choir inaudible. "Jubal"--which
seems to me to be the nearest approach to
genuine poetry--is the story of the patriarch who
invented music. He leaves his tribe for a journey
which, as he has the prediluvian longevity, is protracted
for an indefinite time, and when he returns
finds that people have got out of the habit of living
for centuries. The descendants of his contemporaries
are celebrating a feast in honour of the inventor of
music; and, when he innocently observes that he is
the person in question, he is pooh-poohed without
further inquiry. As he lies down to die his Past
appears to him, and explains that he should be
content with having bestowed the great gift upon
mankind.
"Thy limbs shall lie dark, tombless on the sod,
Because thou shinest in man's soul, a God,
Who found and gave new passion and new joy
That nought but earth's destruction can destroy."
The excellent R. H. Hutton was offended by the
doctrine of this poem, especially by the apparent
implication that death is, on the whole, a good thing,
because it induced a race, which had taken things too
easily as long as they fancied that they had an indefinite
time before them, to rouse themselves and
invent musical as well as other instruments. The
logic indeed--if really intended--does not appear to
be very cogent. The moral that, as we have got to die,
we should be content with the consciousness of having
played our part, without expecting reward or bothering
ourselves about posthumous fame, is more to the purpose.
Jubal, who happily lived in a purely legendary
region, does not come into conflict with historical
facts like Fedalma, and may be taken as a satisfactory
poetical symbol of a characteristic mood, suggested by
the old thought of mortality and oblivion. I cannot,
indeed, believe that George Eliot achieved a permanent
position in English poetry: she is a remarkable,
I suppose unique, case, of a writer taking to
poetry at the ripe age of forty-four, by which the
majority of poets have done their best work. Perhaps
that suggests that the impulse was acquired rather
than innate, and more likely to succeed in impressing
reflective and melancholy minds than in vivid presentation
of concrete images.
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