THE WORKS OF CHARLES READE,* MESSRS. CB ATTO AND WINDT'S
are quite right in publishing the collected edition of Mr. Charles Reade's novels, an edition singularly well printed and arranged, without numbers to the volumes, so that purchasers may pick and choose at their dis- cretion. It is quite possible to select from the series half-a- dozen novels of unusual merit, stories full of life and "go," and brightly humorous, if slightly impudent, sentences ; but Mr. Reade is of novelists, perhaps, the most unequal. He will, of course, set the opinion down to individual bad-taste ; but to this reviewer, who confesses to a cordial admiration for some of his novels, The Wandering Heir seems terribly tiresome—as most stories are which are so nearly true— The Double _Marriage, tedious as well as unnatural ; The Simpleton, good only when the scene is South Africa, that is, when Mr. Reade's power of realising distant and exciting scenes comes into play ; and The Terrible Temptation, very nearly disgusting. Mr. Reade denies, in an explanatory preface to this novel, that he ever intended to make the " temptation " a temptation to commit adultery, for the sake of securing an heir ; but in so saying, he confesses failure. Everybody who read the book thought that this was its motif, and the work of raising that suspicion in the reader's mind, and raising it by details compatible with a fraudulent accouchement, invests the book with a flavour which is not, we frankly admit to Mr. Reade, calculated to encourage vice, but which is intolerably disagreeable. The novel is like a protracted double entendre. Apart from this question, the story is dull, devoid of the naturalness and half- conscious pathos which, with the exquisite character of Mercy, redeem Griffith Gaunt ; and full of evidence of Mr. Reade's great intellectual defect,—his inability to distinguish between originality and cynicism. At heart, he is not cynical at all, but full of deep pity for human suffering and tolerance for human infirmity ; but he cannot rid himself of an impression that he is an unappreciated Rochefoucauld, and pours out bitter little sar- casms upon humanity and classes of human beings with a sense that they are witty, They are not witty at all, though they often rouse that momentary surprise which is one of the constituents of wit. There is no wit in the sentence,—" Only a man, yet faithful as a dog," though the unexpected reference to the fact that in one virtue dogs beat men creates a surprise which is, in its way, titillating and pleasant. Suppose we said of a teetotaller,—" Only a man, yet temperate as a horse," would that be witty P Mr. Reade's real power, which we acknowledge to be con- siderable, appears to us to consist in three things. He can depict the outsides of his characters admirably. He cannot or does not make them thoroughly intelligible, but he can and does make them real, so real that even when they do unexpected things, you think those persons would have done them. Christie Johnstone would seem to be the last woman on earth to marry the very weak lad who wins her, and whose redeeming ray of genius must have been imperceptible to her ; but you know Christie, and feel that, given the circumstances, that marriage was natural in her. Lucy, the " innocent fox," in Love Me Little, Love Me Long, does exactly what such a char- acter would not have done ; but the reader is sure she will do it, for all that,—surely a proof of remarkable skill. Lucy is not explained any more than Christie Johnstone, but to use Mr. Reade's own phrase, she is; and literary scuip- ture'is a great power, though it does net reveal to us either a mind or a soul. This capacity is visible in all Mr. Reade's better books, and when he is dealing with broad or simple characters, like David Dodd, or, in a much less degree, George Fielding, has something of Shakespearian effect. There is fine art in the way in which the latter man is built up, so that the reader knows him, and respects him, and feels for him, and yet is aware all the time that there is very little in him ; that he is rather a stupid young farmer, distin- guished from his fellows only by a certain peremptoriness of rectitude and dog.like fidelity. Then Mr. Reade can both invent and describe incident, stirring incident, with a force which has been given to few novelists. The movement, bustle, and " go " of some chapters in Hard Cash, The Cloister and the Hearth, Christie Johnstone, and Never Too Late to Mend (injured though the latter he by the horrible prison scenes), are simply admirable. We do not know that we could s' The Werke of Charles Reads. New Edition, London Ohatto and Windus. recall in fiction any incidents of the stirring sort superior to Captain Dodd's fight with the pirate in Hard Cash, the rescue in Christie Johnstone, the lynching in Never Toa Late to Mend, or the scuttling of the Proserpine ' in Foul Play; while the Cloister and the Hearth is crammed with them—is not this book abbreviated rather to its injury in one volume,—and would be equal to Anse of Gelerstein, but for a certain visibleness of the "properties" in its author's pictures. Mr. Reade's incidents stay in the mind and take possession of it till sometimes, as in Foul Play, the reader forgets their impossibility ; and it takes the art of Mr. Burnand, whose instinct as parodist led him to fasten on that book amidst the crowd, to awaken you thoroughly to the conviction that they could not have occurred. And finally, Mr. Reade has a command of pathos which he very rarely indeed exerts, but which is of a very genuine and rare kind. He apparently cares to use it only when describing the simple ; but no one can fail to recognise it in such scenes as the blessing of the old net-mender, in Christie Johnstone; the' parting of George and Susan, in Never Too Late to Mend—in which Mr. Rondo ventures to approach the very confines of farce, yet like Robson, the actor, in doing it only deepens the sense of tragedy—and, above all, in the death of Cooper, in Foul Play.
We will try and arrange quotations so as to give the impres- sion of this latter most powerful scene, though, of course, we
shall fail, as we cannot depict the essential features, the roughness and sailorishness of the two sailors. The hero writes:— "There are two sailors, messmates, who have formed an antique friendship ; their names are John Welch and Samuel Cooper. Welch is a very able seaman and a chatterbox, Cooper is a good sailor, but very silent, only what he does say is much to the purpose. The gabble of Welch is agreeable to the silent Cooper, and Welch admires Cooper's taciturnity. I asked Welch what made him like Cooper so much. And he said, Why, you see, sir, he is my mess- mate, for one thing, and a seaman that knows his work ; and then he has been well eddycated, and he knows when to hold his tongue, does Sam.' I asked Cooper why he was so fond of Welch. He only grunted in an uneasy way at first ; but when I pressed for a reply, he let out two words—' Capital company '—and got away from me. Their friendship, though often roughly expressed, is really a tender and touching sentiment. I think either of these sailors would bare his back and take a dozen lashes in place of his znessroate. I, too, once thought I had made such a friend. Eheu ! Both Cooper and Welch seem, by their talk, to consider the ship a living creature. Cooper chews. Welch only smokes, and often lets his pipe out, he is so voluble."
Cooper, in a fight on board the boat filled' by the shipwrecked characters, is stabbed, and makes his last will and testament thus :—
" ' I, Samuel Cooper, able seaman, am going to slip my cable, and sail into the presence of my Maker.' He waited till this was written
' And so I speak the truth, The ship " Proserpine " was destroyed wilful,'—' The men had more allowance than they signed for.'—' The mate was always plying the captain with liquor,'—' Two days before ever the ship leaked the mate got the long-boat ready.'—' When the " Proserpine " sank, we was on her port quarter, aboard the cutter, was me and my mess:nate, Toni Welch.'—' We saw two auger-holes in her stern, about two inches diameter.'—' Them two holes was made from within, for the splinters showed ontside.'—' She was a good ship, and met with no stress of weather to speak of on that voyage,' —` Joe Wylie scuttled her and destroyed her people.'—' D—n eyes l' "
And then dies thus :-
" Raving said these words with some diffiCulty, ho became lethargic,. and so remained for two hours. Indeed, he spoke but once more, and that was to Welch, though they were all about him then. ' Mess- mate,' said he, in a voice that was now faint and broken, you and I must sail together on this new voyage. I'm going out of port first,. but' (in a whisper of inconceivable tenderness and simple cunning), I'll lie-to outside the harbour till you come out, my bo."Ehen he paused a moment. Then ho added, softly, For I love you, Tom.' "
The power of building up, though not of dissecting, character, unusual command of dramatic incident, and great though little used knowledge of the springs of pathos, these are great qualities in a novelist ; yet Mr. Reade himself will probably regard the reviewer who acknowledges them as a slightly malig- nant idiot, because he sees in the writing more of metallic iridescence, than of true, self-derived flash. Well, each one has the defect of his qualities, and a modest man could not have written Charles Reade's novels at all.
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