Book: Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860

V >> Various >> Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860




He went home from the prison with Mazurier. The world had conquered.
Love had conquered,--Love, that in the conquest felt itself disgraced.
He had sold the divine, he had received the human: it was the old
pottage speculation over again. This privilege of liberty from his
dungeon had looked so fair!--but now it seemed so worthless! This
prospect of life so priceless in contemplation of its loss,--oh, the
beggar who crept past him was an enviable man, compared with young
Victor Le Roy, the heir of love and riches, the heir of liberty and
life!

Yes,--he went home with Mazurier. Where else should he go?
Congratulations attended him. He was compelled to receive them with a
countenance not too sombre, and a grace not all thankless, or--or--they
would say it was of cowardice he had saved his precious body from the
sentence of the judges, and given his precious LIFE up to the sentence
of the JUDGE.

Yes,--Martial took him home. There they might talk at leisure of those
things,--and ask a blessing on the testimony of Jesus, made and kept by
them!

Victor Le Roy was too proud to complain now. He assented to all the
preacher's sophistry. He allowed himself to be cheered. But this was
no such evening as had been spent in the room of the wool-comber, when
Leclerc's voice, strong, even through his weakness, called on God,
and blessed and praised Him, and the spirit conquered the flesh
gloriously,--the old mother of Leclerc sharing his joy, as she had also
shared his anguish. Here was no Jacqueline to say to Victor, "Thou hast
done well! 'Glory be to Jesus Christ, and His witnesses!'"

Mazurier thanked God for the deliverance of His servant! He dedicated
himself and Victor anew to the service of Truth, which they had shrunk
from defending! And his eloquence and fervor seemed to stamp the words
with sincerity. He seemed not in the least to suspect or fear himself.

With Victor Le Roy such self-deception, such sophistry, was simply
impossible.

* * * * *

Not of purpose did he meet Jacqueline that night. She had heard that Le
Roy was at liberty, and alone now she applied at the door of Martial
Mazurier for admittance, but in vain. The master had signified that his
evening was not to be interrupted. Therefore she returned, from waiting
near his door, to the street where she and Elsie lived.

Should her woman's pride have led her to her lofty lodging, and kept her
there without a sign, till Victor himself came seeking her? She knew
nothing of such pride,--but much of love; and her love took her back to
the post where she had waited many an hour since that disastrous arrest:
she would wait there till morning, if she must,--at least, till one
should enter, or come forth, who might tell her of Victor Le Roy.

The light in the preacher's study she could see from the door-step in a
court-yard where she waited. Should Mazurier come with Victor, she would
let them pass; but if Victor came alone, she had a right to speak.

It was after midnight when the student came down from the preacher's
study. She heard his voice when the door opened,--by the street-lamp
saw his face. And she recognized also the voice of Mazurier, who, till
the last moment of separation, seemed endeavoring to dissuade his friend
from leaving him that night.

He heard footsteps following him, as he passed along the
pavement,--observed that they gained on him. And could it be any other
than Jacqueline who touched his arm, and whispered, "Victor"?

His fast-beating heart told him it was she. He took her hand, and
drew it within his arm, and looked upon her face,--the face of his
Jacqueline.

"Now where?" said he. "It is late. It is after midnight. Why are you
alone in the street?"

"Waiting for you, Victor. I heard you were at liberty, and I supposed
you were with him. I was safe."

"Yes,--for you fear nothing. That is the only reason. You knew I was
with the preacher, Jacqueline. Why? Because--because I _am_ with him,
of course."

"Yes," she said. "I heard it was so, Victor."

"Strange!--strange!--is it not? A prison is a better place to learn the
truth than the pure air of liberty, it seems," said he, bitterly.

"What is that?" she asked. She seemed not to understand his meaning.

"Nothing. I am acquitted of heresy, you know. It seems, what we talked
so bravely meant--nothing. Oh, I am safe, now!"

"It was to preach none the less,--to hold the truth none the less. But
if he lost his life, there was an end of all; or if he lost his
liberty, it was as bad. But he would keep both, and serve God so," said
Jacqueline.

"Yes," cried Victor, "precisely what he said. I have said the same, you
think?"

"If you are quite clear that Leclerc and the rest of us are all wrong,
Victor."

"Jacqueline!"

"What is it, Victor?"

"'The rest of us,' you say. What would _you_ have done in my place?"

"God knows. I pretend not to know anything more."

"But 'the rest of us,' you said. You think that you at least are with
Leclerc?"

"That was the truth you taught me, Victor. But--I have not yet been
tried."

"That is safe to say. What makes you speak so prudently, Jacqueline? Why
do you not declare, 'Though all men deny Thee, yet will I never deny
Thee'? Ah, you have not been tried! You are not yet in danger of the
judgment, Jacqueline!"

"Do not speak so; you frighten me; it is not like you. How can I tell?
I do not know but in this retirement, in this thought you have been
compelled to, you have obtained more light than any one can have until
he comes to just such a place."

"Ah, Jacqueline, why not say to me what you are thinking? Have you lost
your courage? Say, 'Thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God.'"

"No,--oh, no! How could I say it, my poor Victor? How do you know?"

"Surely you cannot know, as you say. But from where you stand, that is
what you are thinking. Jacqueline, confess! If you should speak your
mind, it would be, 'Thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God, poor
coward!' Oh, Jacqueline, Mazurier may deceive himself! I speak not for
him; but what will you do with your poor Victor, my poor Jacqueline?"

She did not linger in the answer,--she did not sob or tremble,--he was
by her side.

"Love him to the end. As He, when He loved His own."

"Your own, poor girl? No, no!"

"You gave yourself to me," she answered straightway, with resolute
firmness clinging to the all she had.

"I was a man then," he answered. "But I will never give a liar and a
coward to Jacqueline Gabrie. Everything but myself, Jacqueline! Take
the old words, and the old memory. But for this outcast, him you shall
forget. My God! thou hast not brought this brave girl from Domremy, and
lighted her heart with a coal from Thine altar, that she should turn
from Thee to me! If you love a liar and a coward, Jacqueline, you cannot
help yourself,--he will make you one, too. And what I loved you for was
your truth and purity and courage. I have given you a treasure which was
greater than I could keep.--Where is it that you live now, Jacqueline? I
am not yet such a poltroon that I am afraid to conduct you. I think that
I should have the courage to protect you to-night, if you were in any
immediate danger. Come, lead the way."

"No," said Jacqueline. "I am not going home. I could not sleep; and
a roof over my head--any save God's heaven--would suffocate me, I
believe."

"Go, then, as you will. But where?"

Jacqueline did not answer, but walked quietly on; and so they passed
beyond the city-borders to the river-bank,--far away into the country,
through the fields, under the light of stars and of the waning moon.

"If I had been true!" said Victor,--"if I had not listened to him! But
him I will not blame. For why should I blame him? Am I an idiot? And his
influence could not have prevailed, had I not so chosen, when I stood
before my judges and they questioned me. No,--I acquit Mazurier. Perhaps
what I have denied never appeared to him so glorious as it did once to
me; and so he was guiltless at least of knowing what it was I did. But I
knew. And I could not have been deceived for a moment. No,--I think it
impossible that for a moment I should have been deceived. They would
have made a notable example of me, Jacqueline. I am rich,--I am a
student.--Oh, yes! Jesus Christ may die for me, and I accept the
benefit; but when it comes to suffering for His sake,--you could not
have expected that of such a poltroon, Jacqueline! We may look for it in
brave men like Leclerc, whose very living depends on their ability to
earn their bread,--to earn it by daily sweat; but men who need not
toil, who have leisure and education,--of course you would not expect
such testimony to the truth of Jesus from them! Bishop Briconnet
recants,--and Martial Mazurier; and Victor Le Roy is no braver man, no
truer man than these!"

With bitter shame and self-scorning he spoke.--Poor Jacqueline had not
a word to say. She sat beside him. She would help him bear his cross.
Heavy-laden as he, she awaited the future, saying, in the silence of her
spirit's dismal solitude, "Oh, teach us! Oh, help us!" But she called
not on any name; her prayer went out in search of a God whom in that
hour she knew not. The dark cloud and shadow of Satan that overshadowed
him was also upon her.

"Mazurier is coming in the morning to take me with him, Jacqueline,"
said Victor. "We are to make a journey."

"What is it, Victor?" she asked, quietly.

There was nothing left for her but patience,--that she clearly
saw,--nothing but patience, and quiet enduring of the will of God.

"He is afraid of me,--or of himself,--or of both, I believe. He thinks
a change of scene would be good for both of us, poor lepers that we
are."

"I must go with you, Victor Le Roy," said the resolute Jacqueline.

"Wherefore?" asked he.

"Because, when you were strong and happy, that was your desire, Victor;
and now that you are sick and sorrowing, I will not give you to another:
no! not to Mazurier, nor to any one that breathes, except myself, to
whom you belong."

"I must stay here in Meaux, then?"

"That depends upon yourself, Victor."

"We were to have been married. We were going to look after our estate,
now that the hard summer and the hard years of work are ended."

"Yes, Victor, it was so."

"But I will not wrong you. You were to be the wife of Victor Le Roy.
You are his widow, Jacqueline. For you do not think that he lives any
longer?"

"He lives, and he is free! If he has sinned, like Peter even, he weeps
bitterly."

"Like Peter? Peter denied his Lord. But he did weep, as you
say,--bitterly. Peter confessed again."

"And none served the Master with truer heart or greater courage
afterward. Victor, you remember."

"Even so,--oh, Jacqueline!"

"Victor! Victor! it was only Judas who hanged himself."

"Come, Jacqueline!"

She arose and went with him. At dawn they were married. Love did lead
and save them.

I see two youthful students studying one page. I see two loving spirits
walking through thick darkness. Along the horizon flicker the promises
of day. They say, "O Holy Ghost, hast thou forsaken thine own temples?"
Aloud they cry to God.

I see them wandering among Domremy woods and meadows,--around the castle
of Picardy,--talking of Joan. I see them resting by the graves they find
in two ancient villages. I see them walk in sunny places; they are not
called to toil; they may gather all the blossoms that delight their
eyes. Their love grows beyond childhood,--does not die before it comes
to love's best estate. Happy bride and bridegroom! But I see them as
through a cloud whose fair hues are transient.

From the meadow-lands and the vineyards and the dark forests of the
mountains, from study and from rest, I see them move with solemn faces
and calm steps. Brave lights are in their eyes, and flowers that are
immortal they carry in their hands. No distillation can exhaust the
fragrance of those blooms.

What dost thou here, Victor? What dost thou here, Jacqueline?

This is the place of prisons. Here they light again, as they have often
lighted, torch and fagot;--life must pay the cost! Angry crowds and
hooting multitudes love this dreary square. Oh, Jacqueline and Victor,
what is this I behold?

They come together from their prison, hand in hand. "The testimony
of Jesus!" Stand back, Mazurier! Retire, Briconnet! Here is not your
place,--this is not your hour! Yet here incendiaries fire the temples
of the Holy Ghost!

The judges do not now congratulate. Jacqueline waits not now at midnight
for the coming of Le Roy. Bride and bridegroom, there they stand; they
face the world to give their testimony.

And a woman's voice, almost I deem the voice of Elsie Meril, echoes the
mother's cry that followed John Leclerc when he fought the beasts at
Meaux,--

"Blessed be Jesus Christ, and His witnesses."

So of the Truth were they borne up that day in a blazing chariot to meet
their Lord in the air, to be forever with their Lord.

* * * * *


ON A MAGNOLIA-FLOWER.


Memorial of my former days,
Magnolia, as I scent thy breath,
And on thy pallid beauty gaze,
I feel not far from death!

So much hath happened! and so much
The tomb hath claimed of what was mine!
Thy fragrance moves me with a touch
As from a hand divine:

So many dead! so many wed!
Since first, by this Magnolia's tree,
I pressed a gentle hand and said,
A word no more for me!

Lady, who sendest from the South
This frail, pale token of the past,
I press the petals to my mouth,
And sigh--as 'twere my last.

Oh, love, we live, but many fell!
The world's a wreck, but we survive!--
Say, rather, still on earth we dwell,
But gray at thirty-five!




SOME NOTES ON SHAKSPEARE.


In 1849, the discovery by Mr. Payne Collier of a copy of the Works
of Shakspeare, known as the folio of 1632, with manuscript notes and
emendations of the same or nearly the same date, created a great and
general interest in the world of letters.

The marginal notes were said to be in a handwriting not much later
than the period when the volume came from the press; and Shakspearian
scholars and students of Shakspeare, and the far more numerous class,
lovers of Shakspeare, learned and unlearned, received with respectful
eagerness a version of his text claiming a date so near to the lifetime
of the master that it was impossible to resist the impression that the
alterations came to the world with only less weight of authority than if
they had been undoubtedly his own.

The general satisfaction of the literary world in the treasure-trove was
but little alloyed by the occasional cautiously expressed doubts of
some caviller at the authenticity of the newly discovered "curiosity of
literature"; the daily newspapers made room in their crowded columns for
extracts from the volume; the weekly journals put forth more elaborate
articles on its history and contents; and the monthly and quarterly
reviews bestowed their longer and more careful criticism upon the new
readings of that text, to elucidate which has been the devout industry
of some of England's ripest scholars and profoundest thinkers; while
the actors, not to be behindhand in a study especially concerning their
vocation, adopted with more enthusiasm than discrimination some of the
new readings, and showed a laudable acquaintance with the improved
version, by exchanging undoubtedly the better for the worse, upon the
authority of Mr. Collier's folio, soon after the publication of which
I had the ill-fortune to hear a popular actress destroy the effect
and meaning of one of the most powerful passages in "Macbeth" by
substituting the new for the old reading of the line,--

"What beast was it, then,
That made you break this enterprise to me?"

The cutting antithesis of "What _beast_" in retort to her husband's
assertion, "I dare do all that may become a _man_," was tamely rendered
by the lady, in obedience to Mr. Collier's folio, "What _boast_ was
it, then,"--a change that any one possessed of poetical or dramatic
perception would have submitted to upon nothing short of the positive
demonstration of the author's having so written the passage.

Opinions were, indeed, divided as to the intrinsic merit of the
emendations or alterations. Some of the new readings were undoubted
improvements, some were unimportant, and others again were beyond all
controversy inferior to the established text of the passages; and it
seemed not a little difficult to reconcile the critical acumen and
poetical insight of many of the corrections with the feebleness and
prosaic triviality of others.

Again, it was observed by those conversant with the earlier editions,
especially with the little read or valued Oxford edition, that a vast
number of the passages given as emendations in Mr. Collier's folio were
precisely the same in Hanmer's text. Indeed, it seems not a little
remarkable that neither Mr. Collier nor his opponents have thought it
worth their while to state that nearly half, and that undoubtedly the
better half, of the so-called new readings are to be found in the finely
printed, but little esteemed, text of the Oxford Shakspeare. If, indeed,
these corrections now come to us with the authority of a critic but
little removed from Shakspeare's own time, it is remarkable that Sir
Thomas Hanmer's, or rather Mr. Theobald's, ingenuity should have
forestalled the _fiat_ of Mr. Collier's folio in so many instances. On
the other hand, it may have been judged by others besides a learned
editor of Shakspeare from whom I once heard the remark, that the fact of
the so-called new readings being many of them in Rowe and Hanmer, and
therefore well known to the subsequent editors of Shakspeare, who
nevertheless did not adopt them, proved that in their opinion they were
of little value and less authority. But, says Mr. Collier, inasmuch as
they are in the folio of 1632, which I now give to the world, they are
of authority paramount to any other suggestion or correction that has
hitherto been made on the text of Shakspeare.

Thus stood the question in 1853. How stands it in 1860? After a slow,
but gradual process of growth and extension of doubt and questionings,
more or less calculated to throw discredit on the authority of the
marginal notes in the folio,--the volume being subjected to the careful
and competent examination of certain officers of the library of the
British Museum,--the result seems to threaten a considerable reduction
in the supposed value of the authority which the public was called upon
to esteem so highly.

The ink in which the annotations are made has been subjected to chemical
analysis, and betrays, under the characters traced in it, others made in
pencil, which are pronounced by some persons of a more modern date than
the letters which have been traced over them.

Here at present the matter rests. Much angry debate has ensued between
the various gentlemen interested in the controversy,--Mr. Collier not
hesitating to suggest that pencil-marks in imitation of his handwriting
had been inserted in the volume, and a fly-leaf abstracted from it,
while in the custody of Messrs. Hamilton and Madden of the British
Museum; while the replies of these gentlemen would go towards
establishing that the corrections are forgeries, and insinuating that
they are forgeries for which Mr. Collier is himself responsible.

While the question of the antiquity and authority of these marginal
notes remains thus undecided, it may not be amiss to apply to them the
mere test of common sense in order to determine upon their intrinsic
value, to the adequate estimate of which all thoughtful readers of
Shakspeare must be to a certain degree competent.

The curious point, of whose they are, may test the science of
decipherers of palimpsest manuscripts; the more weighty one, of what
they are worth, remains, as it was from the first, a matter on which
every student of Shakspeare may arrive at some conclusion for himself.
And, indeed, to this ground of judgment Mr. Collier himself appeals, in
his preface to the "Notes and Emendations," in no less emphatic terms
than the following:--"As Shakspeare was especially the poet of common
life, so he was emphatically the poet of common sense; and to the
verdict of common sense I am willing to submit all the more material
alterations recommended on the authority before me."

I take "The Tempest," the first play in Mr. Collier's volume of "Notes
and Emendations," and, while bestowing my principal attention on the
inherent worth of the several new readings, shall point out where
they tally exactly with the text of the Oxford edition, because that
circumstance has excited little attention in the midst of the other
various elements of interest in the controversy, and also because I have
it in my power to give from a copy of that edition in my possession some
passages corrected by John and Charles Kemble, who brought to the study
of the text considerable knowledge of it and no inconsiderable ability
for poetical and dramatic criticism.

In the first scene of the first act of "The Tempest" Mr. Collier gives
the line,--

"Good Boatswain, have care,"--

adding, "It may be just worth remark, that the colloquial expression is
_have a care_, and _a_ is inserted in the margin of the corrected folio,
1632, to indicate, probably, that the poet so wrote it, or, at all
events, that the actor so delivered it."

In the copy of Hanmer in my possession the _a_ is also inserted in the
margin, upon the authority of one of the eminent actors above mentioned.

SCENE II.

"The sky. it seems, would pour down stinking pitch,
But that the sea, mounting to the welkin's cheek,
Dashes the fire out."

The manuscript corrector of the folio, 1632, has substituted _heat_
for "cheek," which appears to me an alteration of no value whatever.
Shakspeare was more likely to have written _cheek_ than _heat_; for
elsewhere he uses the expression, "Heaven's face," "the welkin's face,"
and, though irregular, the expression is poetical.

At Miranda's exclamation,--

"A brave vessel,
Who had no doubt some noble creature in her,
Dash'd all to pieces,"--

Mr. Collier does Theobald the justice to observe, that he, as well as
the corrector of the folio, 1632, adds the necessary letter _s_ to the
word "creature," making the plural substantive agree with her other
exclamation of, "Poor souls, they perished!"

Where Mr. Collier, upon the authority of his folio, substitutes
_pre_vision for "provision" in the lines of Prospero,--

"The direful spectacle of the wreck . . .
I have with such provision in mine art
So safely ordered," etc.,--

I do not agree to the value of the change. It is very true that
_pre_vision means the foresight that his art gave him, but _pro_vision
implies the exercise of that foresight or _pre_vision; it is therefore
better, because more comprehensive.

Mr. Collier's folio gives as an improvement upon Malone and Steevens's
reading of the passage,--

"And thy father
Was Duke of Milan; and his only heir
A princess; no worse issued,"--

the following:--

"And thy father
Was Duke of Milan,--thou his only heir
And princess no worse issued."

Supposing the folio to be ingenious rather than authoritative, the
passage, as it stands in Hanmer, is decidedly better, because clearer:--

"And thy father
Was Duke of Milan,--thou, his only heir
A princess--no worse issued."

In the next passage, given as emended by the folio, we have what appears
to me one bad and one decidedly good alteration from the usual reading,
which, in all the editions given hitherto, has left the meaning barely
perceptible through the confusion and obscurity of the expression.

"He being thus _lorded_,
Not only with what my revenue yielded,
But what my power might else exact,--like one
Who having _unto truth_ by telling of it
Made such a sinner of his memory
To credit his own lie,--he did believe
He was indeed the Duke."

The folio says,--

"He being thus _loaded_."

And to this change I object: the meaning was obvious before; "lorded"
stands clearly enough here for made lord of or over, etc.; and though
the expression is unusual, it is less prosaic than the proposed word
_loaded_. But in the rest of the passage the critic of the folio does
immense service to the text, in reading

"Like one
Who having _to untruth_ by telling of it
Made such a sinner of his memory
To credit his own lie,--he did believe
He was indeed the Duke."

This change carries its own authority in its manifest good sense.

Of the passage,--

"Whereon,
A treacherous army levied, one midnight
Fated to the purpose, did Antonio open
The gates of Milan, and in the dead of darkness
The ministers for the purpose hurried thence
Me and thy crying self,"--

Mr. Collier says that the iteration of the word "purpose," in the fourth
line, after its employment in the second, is a blemish, which his folio
obviates by substituting the word _practice_ in the first line. I think
this a manifest improvement, though not an important one.

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