Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

However, "the fading lamps waned dim and blue "; Dudu is asleep, the innocent girl; and if she has cast a glance on her glass,

"Twas like the fawn, which, in the lake display'd,
Beholds her own shy, shadowy image pass,
When first she starts, and then returns to peep,
Admiring this new native of the deep." 17

What will become now of Puritanic prudery? Can the proprieties prevent beauty from being beautiful? Will you condemn a picture of Titian for its nudity? What gives value to human life, and nobility to human nature, if not the power of attaining delicious and sublime emotions? We have just had one-one worthy of a painter; is it not worth that of an alderman? Shall we refuse to acknowledge the divine because it appears in art and enjoyment, and not only in conscience and action? There is a world beside ours, and a civilization beside ours; our rules are narrow, and our pedantry tyrannic; the human plant can be otherwise developed than in our compartments and under our snows, and the fruits it will then bear will not be less precious. We must confess it, since we relish them when they are offered to us. Who has read the love of Haidée, and has had any other thought than to envy and pity her? She is a wild child who has picked up Juan-another child cast ashore senseless by the She has preserved him, nursed him like a mother, and now she loves him: who can blame her for loving him? Who, in presence of the splendid nature which smiles on and protects them, can imagine for them anything else than the all-powerful feeling which unites them:

waves.

"It was a wild and breaker-beaten coast,

With cliffs above, and a broad sandy shore,
Guarded by shoals and rocks as by an host,
And rarely ceased the haughty billow's roar,

Save on the dead long summer days, which make

The outstretch'd ocean glitter like a lake.
And all was stillness, save the sea-bird's cry,
And dolphin's leap, and little billow crost

By some low rock or shelve, that made it fret
Against the boundary it scarcely wet.

.

[ocr errors]

17 Byron's Works, "Don Juan," c. vi. st. lx.

And thus they wandered forth, and hand in hand,
Over the shining pebbles and the shells,

Glided along the smooth and harden'd sand,

And in the worn and wild receptacles

Work'd by the storms, yet work'd as it were plann'd,

In hollow halls, with sparry roofs and cells,

They turn'd to rest; and, each clasp'd by an arm,
Yielded to the deep twilight's purple charm.

"They looked up to the sky whose floating glow
Spread like a rosy ocean, vast and bright;
They gazed upon the glittering sea below,
Whence the broad moon rose circling into sight;
They heard the wave's splash and the wind so low,
And saw each other's dark eyes darting light

Into each other—and, beholding this,

Their lips drew near, and clung into a kiss.

They were alone, but not alone as they
Who shut in chambers think it loneliness;
The silent ocean, and the starlight bay

The twilight glow, which momently grew less,
The voiceless sand, and dropping caves that lay
Around them, made them to each other press,

As if there were no life beneath the sky

Save theirs, and that their life could never die." 18

An excellent opportunity to introduce here your formularies and catechisms:

"Haidée spoke not of scruples, ask'd no vows,

Nor offer'd any

[ocr errors]

She was all which pure ignorance allows,

And flew to her young mate like a young bird.” 19

Nature suddenly expands, for she is ripe, like a bud bursting into bloom, nature in her fulness, instinct, and heart:

"Alas! they were so young, so beautiful,
So lonely, loving, helpless, and the hour
Was that in which the heart is always full,
And, having o'er itself no further power,
Prompts deeds eternity cannot annul.

"20

O admirable moralists, you stand before these two flowers like patented gardeners, holding in your hands a model of the bloom

18 Byron's Works, xv.; "Don Juan,"

c. ii. st. clxxvii.-clxxxviii.

19 Ibid. xv.; "Don Juan," c. ii. st.

cxc.

20 Ibid. c. ii. st. cxcii.

sanctioned by your society of horticulture, proving that the model has not been followed, and deciding that the two weeds must be cast into the fire, which you keep burning to consume irregular growths. You have judged well, and you know your

art.

Besides British cant, there is universal hypocrisy; besides English pedantry, Byron wars against human roguery. Here is the general aim of the poem, and to this his character and genius tended. His great and gloomy dreams of juvenile imagination have vanished; experience has come; he knows man now; and what is man once known? does the sublime abound in him? Do we think that the grand sentiments-those of Childe Harold, for instance-are the ordinary course of life? 21 The truth is, that man employs most of his time in sleeping, dining, yawning, working like a horse, amusing himself like an ape. According to Byron, he is an animal; except for a few minutes, his nerves, his blood, his instincts lead him. Routine works over it all, necessity whips him on, the animal advances. As the animal is proud, and moreover imaginative, it pretends to be marching for its own pleasure, that there is no whip, that at all events this whip rarely touches its flanks, that at least its stoic back can make-believe that it does not feel it. It thinks that it is decked with the most splendid trappings, and thus struts on with measured steps, fancying that it carries relics and treads on carpets and flowers, whilst in reality it tramples in the mud, and carries with it the stains and bad smells of every dunghill. What a pastime to touch its mangy back, to set before its eyes the sacks full of flour which it carries, and the goad which makes it go! What a pretty farce! It is the eternal farce; and not a sentiment thereof but provides him with an act: love in the first place. Certainly Donna Julia is very lovable, and Byron loves her; but she comes out of his hands, as rumpled as any other woman. She is virtuous, of course; and what is better still, she desires to be so. She plies herself, in connection with Don Juan, with the finest arguments; what a fine thing are arguments, and how suited they are to check passion! Nothing can be more solid than a firm purpose, propped up by logic, resting on the fear of

Byron says (v. October 12, 1820), Don Juan is too true, and would, suspect, live longer than Childe Harold. The women hate many things which strip off the tinsel of sentiment."

22

22" Don Juan," c. vii. st. 2. "I hope it is no crime to laugh at all things. For I wish to know what, after all, are all things-but a show?"

the world, the thought of God, the recollection of duty; nothing can prevail against it except a tête-à-tête in June, on a moonlight evening. At last the deed is done, and the poor timid lady is surprised by her outraged husband; in what a situation! Let us look again at the book. Of course she will be speechless, ashamed and full of tears, and the moral reader duly reckons on her remorse. My dear reader, you have not reckoned on impulse and nerves. To-morrow she will feel shame; the business is now to overwhelm the husband, to deafen him, to confound him, to save Juan, to save herself, to fight. The war once begun, is waged with all kinds of weapons, and chiefly with audacity and insults. The only idea is the present need, and this absorbs all others; it is in this that woman is a woman. This Julia cries lustily. It is a regular storm: hard words and recriminations, mockery and challenges, fainting and tears. In a quarter of an hour she has gained twenty years' experience. You did not know, nor she either, what an actress can emerge, all on a sudden, unforeseen, out of a simple woman. Do you know what can emerge from yourself? You think yourself rational, humane; I admit it for to-day; you have dined, and you are comfortable in a pleasant room. Your human mechanism works without getting into disorder, because the wheels are oiled and well regulated; but place it in a shipwreck, a battle, let the failing or the plethora of blood for an instant derange the chief pieces, and we shall see you howling or drivelling like a madman or an idiot. Civilization, education, reason, health, cloak us in their smooth and polished cases; let us tear them away one by one, or all together, and we laugh to see the brute, who is lying at the bottom. Here.is our friend Juan reading Julia's last letter, and swearing in a transport never to forget the beautiful eyes which he caused to weep so much. Was ever feeling more tender or sincere? But unfortunately Juan is at sea, and sickness sets in. He cries out:

66

Sooner shall earth resolve itself to sea,

Than I resign thine image, oh, my fair!

(Here the ship gave a lurch, and he grew sea-sick.)
Sooner shall heaven kiss earth-(here he fell sicker.)
Oh, Julia! what is every other woe?

(For God's sake let me have a glass of liquor;

Pedro, Battista, help me down below.)

Julia, my love!-(You rascal, Pedro, quicker)

[merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors]

That love and marriage rarely can combine,
Although they both are born in the same clime;
Marriage from love, like vinegar from wine—
A sad, sour, sober beverage.24

An honest gentleman, at his return,

May not have the good fortune of Ulysses;

The odds are that he finds a handsome urn

To his memory-and two or three young misses

Born to some friend, who holds his wife and riches-
And that his Argus bites him by-the breeches." 25

These are the words of a sceptic, even of a cynic. Sceptic and cynic, it is in this he ends. Sceptic through misanthropy, cynic through bravado, a sad and combative humor always impels him; southern voluptuousness has not conquered him; he is only an epicurean through contradiction and for a moment:

"Let us have wine and women, mirth and laughter,
Sermons and soda-water the day after.
Man, being reasonable, must get drunk;
The best of life is but intoxication." 26

We see clearly that he is always the same, going to extremes and unhappy, bent on destroying himself. His “Don Juan," also, is a debauchery; in it he diverts himself outrageously at the expense of all respectable things, as a bull in a china shop. He is always violent, and often ferocious; a sombre imagination intersperses his love stories with horrors leisurely enjoyed, the despair and famine of shipwrecked men, and the emaciation of

23 Byron's Works, xv.; "Don Juan,"

c. ii. st. xix.-xxiii.

24 Ibid. c. iii. st. v.

VOL. III.- -10

25 Ibid. c. iii. st. xxiii.

20 Ibid. c. ii. st. clxxviii., clxxix.

« AnteriorContinuar »