MAURICE DERING.*
THE Quadrilateral,—the second title which the author gives to Maurice Dering, is neither the famous Austrian fortress in Venetia, nor the geometrical figure one of the properties of which, when inscribed in a circle, we used to learn in our Euclids at school, but a moral and metaphorical structure of which the quadruple sides or angles consist of men after Guy Livingstone's own heart. The Quadrilateral, however, is by no means a square, nor even an oblong. It is an irregular foursided figure, of which much the largest side is Maurice Daring, a hero who combines the great qualities of soldier, horse-tamer, and woman-tamer, with the ethical grandeur of perfect purity and disinterestedness, and the romantic gloom of a fierce, vindictive grief, which at the end of the story is left clingiug fast, like atra cura, behind this great captain of horse. We have had before from the author of' Guy Livingstone," and we may fairly expect to have again, heroes who are competent to inflict what he calls the "chastisement proper or judicial on insolent grooms,—heroes in whose hands the victim has "no more chance of getting loose than if lie had been lashed to the triangles,' who, "through prayer, and curse, and shriek,' can smite on," neither moved at all to relenting, nor yet stirred to greater severity," and who after the exertion can still speak "without quickened breath." Such a hero is Maurice Dering, but he is this only in common with all our author's favourite heroes, and though we should miss it if we were denied it, though it is the sort of thing we feel we have a right to claim from the author, yet on that very account it is like that "glory in the grass " which after childhood is passed we so often fail to see, a part, in fact, of those qualities which to the true students of Guy Livingstonianism are almost obscured to us by custom, and have passed into the "light of common day." In like manner, too, it would be a breach of all customary rights if when the hero is deeply moved by his passion you could not have "seen the veins and sinews starting out, one by one," and also if, when on the same occasion "lie gnashes his teeth," "his moustache had not grown white and wet with foam." These are all of them as much incidents to the old heroic type we expect from our author as is the incidental horsefleshy intelligence concerning the weak hocks of the vicious mare, and the magnificent points of "the Moor." But Maurice Dering is not only great in all these traditional attributes of the Guy Livingstonian heroes ; he is also ethically muscular, and wrestles with great success with all temptresses and tempters except revenge, which is consuming his great heart at the time we part with him. The occasion on which he gnashed his teeth, foamed at the mouth, and showed his sinews and veins-as above described, is when he is vowing the most deadly vengeance on the Sepoy mutineers for the murder and possible dis- honour of his affianced bride in India. It is when his friend Luttrell, the spiritual side (or angle) of the quadrilateral, entreats him to bear himself "like a Christian man who had lost all be held dearest, not like a wild beast who had lost its young," that these physical phenomena of passion are observed; and we are left to suppose that though every other temptation went down before the moral sinew of the hero, lie at last succumbed to this savage
thirst for an inexhaustible revenge. This gives a sullen weight of thundercloud to the whole picture, and we may say
• Maurice Dering; or, the Quadrilateral. By the author of "Guy Livingstone." Two vole. London: Tinsley Brothers. that in Maurice Dering our author has made a literary study after Salvator Rosa,—a terrible gloom and fury settling down over the narrative, as the last big black strokes are put in with a firm but, as our author would himself say, "withal "tender hand, and as the moustache and beard we have loved so well throughout is left flecked in our imagination with the white foam " we wot of."
There is certainly an opening for Guy Livingstonianisin in the ethico-inuscular direction, and no doubt in seine parts of this book the author avails himself of it with great effect: When, after saving the young lady on the vicious mare, to the great peril of hiS own life, she all but faints in his arms and, though engaged to be immediately married to his friend, is quite inclined to desert to him if he will have her, he comes out very strong. "Maurice knew all this, and yet—was strong to forbear ; strong enough to crush the passion crying out fiercely within him, as one might strangle a snake in an iron gauntlet." That is a .fine specimen of the mixed physical and ethical grandeur, and though it would scarcely tell without the actual thrashing of a living groom the next day, —yet taken in connection with that event it is a hit. If he " punished " his own passion, without punishing the groom, we should scarcely recognize our author ; but we cannot deny that the moral grandeur adds a certain pale but picturesque gleam to the physical feat, which is well imagined. And there is ingenuity, too, in the choice of the final cloud of vindictiveness which lowers down over Maurice Dering's cha- racter. To have had a genuinely borsefleshy hero who was also a true saint would have been too bold a conception fer Guy Livingstone, though we do not now feel sure that in some future book he may not attempt it. There is certainly nothing in the least degree intrinsically inconsistent between profound knowledge of horseflesh, or even the slang to which that knowledge gives rise, and a saintly nature. But the author of "Guy Livingstone" is devoted to the conventionalisms of art. He treads on tiptoe in his reader's presence, and likes to beautify his style in the play- ful antique lingo of "I wist," and "1 wet," and " ehrissorn," and "1 trow," and "Ah me !" and "Reader of mine," and "grarnerye," and, in short, what we may call the chivalric language that a man puts on" daintily" as lie does a white kid glove. And hence, though we can see he is meditating a bold stroke at a horsy saint in some future novel, he is evidently only breaking the idea to us in this book. For the present he just interposes the one soldierly and manly sin of vindictiveness between his racing hero and true saintliness. It softens the startling character of the picture, and is yet a feeler in the direction in which he is moving. We scarcely like to encourage him. We do not think, indeed, the public will feel any disapprobation of a Christian hero simply for possessing the knowledge that "looseness of a mare's
joints, narrowness of chest, and lightness of barrel must be fatal to stoutness or endurance ;" or that when there is far "too much length below the knee, and decided weakness about the slender pasterns," she is sure to have a flashy turn of speed, but "it is simply impossible that she can stay." We won't say how far it would be safe to let him race his own horse,— thought we think it might be done ;—INut we believe that there would be no danger in the author's representing as horsy a man as Maurice Dering as a true Christiau, and even picturing him as able to forgive his enemies. Yet as the way was to be felt first, we think the vindictiveness attributed to him is rather ingeni- ous. It is a vice to suit a cavalry officer, and reminds one of Claverhouse.
But there are other points on which, if our author is really going to attempt the forging of a new suit of heroic armour, partly com- posed of physical and equestrian, partly of ethical and religious elements, we should like to offer him a few hints. First, it will not do to profess, as he openly does (Vol. II., p. 223), that that sorrow is "more awful" which is felt for the death of an innocent girl, even by violence, and With the suspicion of what is worse than murder, than that which is felt for the sudden loss of a wife passionately loved but steeped in the worst crime. The public for which Guy Livingstonianism has hitherto been written may feel this,—but not the public for which in this book he appears to wish to write. Indeed, there can be no compari- son between the " awfulness " of Geoffrey Luttrell's loss and that of Maurice Dering. And next, though the scene in which Maurice Dering and his friend Paul Chetwynde decided on the- duty of murder is very impressive in our author's old style, there is something rather ludicrous in it when the hero becomes. even an approximation towards an ethical hero. Their victim is attempting the seduction of their friend's wife, it is true, with much chance of success,—but we fear it is too evident that in this scene our author is sacrificing his hero's ethical perfeCtions to gener9,1--
magnificence of effect. The solemn character of this tragic seene would have lost much without the grand " sentence,"— but we fear this is not quite such a moral struggle with the tempter, such a crushing of the serpent with the iron glove, as that just now recorded :—
"' What is to be done?' he [Bering] said, rather vaguely and dreamily, as if he were speaking to himself. The answer came, instantly, brief and stern: —' Gerald Atmesleigh must die.' Dering never shrank or started ; he only listened earnestly while Paul went on. Yes, half-measures are worse than useless here. If one were to carry off that poor pretty fool to the end of the earth, she would never be safe from him. It would only be putting off the evil day a little longer. Don't I know that devil well; how he will override every law of God and man, if it stands between him and his desire ? You could no more check him now than you could stop a hound running at view. There's no chance for her while he is above ground. It can be no heavy crime to rid society of such an enemy ; if it be, we must risk it. I wish I could take more than my share of the You are right,' Maurice said. 'It's a case where one must act rather by the light of nature than by any written laws. It's no use shutting our eyes to it, Paul, the divines would he all against us here. But I, too, say—we must risk it, and trust to Heaven's mercy for the rest. There will be no need to draw lots about who is to strike the blow. It must be me of course.'—He spoke very gravely and steadily; and his brow was clouded rather with sadness than with anger.—' I fear so,' Chetwynde answered, with-something like a smothered groan, • I 'm no use with the pistols ; and your practice is perfect, unless your hand has lost its cunning in India.'—' Lost !' Maurice said, with a short, hard laugh, you would be surprised to see how much it has gained. When I was getting better, I used to sit under Drummond's verandah for hours, shooting at all sorts of marks. I got to real feats at last. We shall fight a la harriere, I suppose. If Annesleigh does not shoot first—and straight—I tell you his chance is no better now than if he were lying in Newgate under sentence of death.' A moody satisfaction gleamed through the discontent of Paul Chetwynde's face."
This is much grander of course than communicating with the young lady's husband (an invalid whose health they fear to shatter at once), and getting her quietly out of temptation ; but ethically we fear it is quite indefensible and sheer murder, though no doubt murder with extenuating circumstances.
The truth is that though it is by no means impossible to connect a scientific knowledge of horseflesh with a high ethical and Christian feeling, we are a little afraid that the author of" Guy Livingstone" will break down from the intrinsi- cally showy tendencies of his art. If you are to have at onee showy ethics and showy horse-feats, there will always be a tendency to exceed on the side of bravado, and Christian ethics admit of nothing less than of bravado. Now, ostentation is part of the essence of the style of our author ; and were there not something of grandeur attaching to horsemanship and its techni- calities, we fear it would have little interest for him. When Maurice Dering on the morrow of his great equestrian feat is anxious to know whether the Moor was not "stale after his strong gallop," we are conscious of a deeper abasement before the hero, and before the author also, for that technicality of professional dialect which helps to persuade us that the great feat of the previous day was within the probabilities of equestrian achievement. But unless the technical groom-dialect led up to some such distinguished actions, we fear it might pall a little upon the reader. A Christian groom bearing meekly his master's small tyrannies and subordinating his veterinary science to small daily duties would scarcely be a work of art much in our author's way,— yet perhaps that would be the most hopeful direction in which to unite the perfection of science in horseflesh with the perfection of Christian ethics. We fear the ethics will always break down with our author through the natural showiness of his imaginative tastes. His novels are stirring, and will not sell the less for that reason,—perhaps even the better. But it is a kindness to warn him of' the danger of attempting to combine the two schools of thought at all more closely. In Maurice Dering—which is clever enough in its own way—the flashiness overpowers the ethics, and we fear this tendency is in our author too deep-rooted for remedy.
Previous page
