BRET HARTE'S LAST BURLESQUES.*
IT is difficult for a middle-aged reader to approach this collec- tion in the attitude of detachment needed for their thorough enjoyment. He inevitably applies the comparative method, and finds it hard to admit that in mimicry, as in creation, the art of the later was equal to that of the earlier Bret Harte. It is probable, again, that the capacity of appreciating parody declines as one grows older. But making all deductions for these drawbacks, one can fairly argue that the task of "taking off" contemporary authors is harder than that of burlesquing the leading representatives of early or mid Victorian fiction. One has only to recall the list of novelists treated in the earlier volume—Dickens, Lytton, Disraeli, Lever, Charlotte Brontë, Victor Hugo—and to set alongside of them the names of the originals in the later—Anthony Hope, Conan Doyle, Hall Caine, Rudyard Kipling, the author of David Harum, and Miss Marie Corelli—to realise how the opportunities of the parodist have been circumscribed and limited where they have not been forestalled by the models themselves. The older writers worked on a larger canvas, their qualities were more pronounced, they lent themselves to a broader and simpler treatment. The exuberance of Lever, the affectations of Disraeli, the sentiment of Dickens, the revolt of Charlotte Brontë, the grandiosity of Huge,—had each and all of them that pioneer quality of freshness and amplitude which is lacking in all save one of the new models. As an inevitable result of this defect (from the parodist's point of view) in the originals, the new parodies compare unfavourably in respect of con- densation and conciseness with the old. Then there are • Condensed Novels: NOW Burlesques. By Bret Berta London Chatto and Winans. [Si, Ikl.] several regrettable omissions. We should have greatly liked to see Bret Harts tackle the Kailyard school—" Ian Mae_ laren," Mr. Barrie, and Mr. Crockett—or Maxim Gorky or Mr. Henry James. Still, in spite of the drawbacks inherent in the task, and the gaps which unhappily cannot now be made good, the book is so entertaining that we glaaiy abandon the invidious rOle.of criticising a posthumous work in order to give some notion of the quality of its contents.
Mr. Anthony Hope in his Ruritanian manner is Bret Harte's first victim, and the familiar blend of romance and modernity is admirably hit off in "Rupert the Resembler." The King's castle was a "fine old medireval structure,,, lit by electricity, had fire-escapes on each of the turrets, four lifts, and was fitted up by one of the best West End establish- ments. The sanitary arrangements were excellent, and the drainage of the most perfect order, as I had reason to know personally later." With this preface we pass to the narrative of the rescue of the King :— " I had noticed the day before that a large outside drain pipe decreed by the Bock County Council, ran from the moat to the third floor of the donjon keep. I surmised that the King was im- prisoned on that floor. Examining the pipe closely I saw that it was really a pneumatic despatch tube, for secretly conveying letters and despatches from the castle through the moat beyond the castle walls. Its extraordinary size, however, gave use the horrible conviction that it was to be used to convey the dead body of the King to the moat. I grew cold with horror—but I was determined. I crept up the pipe. As I expected, it opened funnel-wise into a room where the poor King was playing poker with Black Michael. It took me but a moment to dash through the window into the room, push the King aside, gag and bind Black Michael, and lower him by a stout rope into the pipe he had destined for another. Having him in my power I lowered him until I heard his body splash in the water in the lower part of the pipe. Then I proceeded to draw him up again, intending to ques- tion him in regard to Rupert of Glasgow. But this was difficult, as his saturated clothing made him fit the smooth pipe closely. At last I had him partly up, when I was amazed at a rush of water from the pipe which flooded the room. I dropped him and pulled him up again with the same result. Then in a flash I saw it all. His body, acting like a piston in the pipe, had converted it into a powerful pump. Mad with joy, I rapidly lowered and pulled him up again and again, until the castle was flooded—and the moat completely drained ! I had created the diversion I wished; the tenants of the castle were disorganised and bewildered in trying to escape from the deluge, and the moat was accessible to my friends."
The best point in the travesty of Sherlock Holmes is the exaggeration of the servility of the obsequious familiar—"I only ask ten minutes twice a day to eat a crust at my office, and four hours' sleep at night—and the rest of my time is devoted to you always—as you know "—but for high-spirited fooling there is nothing better than "Golly and the Christian." The picture of the heroine as a hospital nurse is a perfectly
legitimate satire on the original :—
" Glorious as were Goll3r's spirits, exquisitely simple her worldly ignorance, and irresistible her powers of mimicry, strangely enough they were considered out of place in St. Barabbas' Hospital. A light-hearted disposition to mistake a blister for a poultice ; that rare Manx conscientiousness which made her give double doses to the patients as a compensation when she had omitted to give them a single one, and the faculty of bursting into song at the bedside of a dying patient, produced some liveliness not unmixed with perplexity among the hospital staff."
Finally, in the concluding scene hero and heroine rebel against the intentions of the author, and work out a deny/meat which
elicits the following "Publisher's Note" :—
" In that supreme work of my life, "The Christian," ' said the gifted novelist to a reporter in speaking of his methods, 'I had en- dowed the characters of Golly and John Gale with such superhuman vitality and absolute reality that—as is well known in the expen- enc,e of great writers—tlufy became thinking beings, and actually criticised my work, and even interfered and rebelled to the point of altering my climax and the end ! ' The present edition gives that ending, which of course is the only real one." "The Adventures of John Longbowe, Yeoman," is a cour posite parody on the Wardour Street historical romance, and should prove an excellent deterrent to aspirants who confo.und bad spelling with the archaic spirit. "Dan'l Borem " strikes us as not sufficiently condensed, and the Kipling travesties al", rather disappointing. But the conclusion of "Jungle Folk is ingenious. " Mulledwiney " has been relating a singular', gory adventure, and Pi Bol,' the horse, suddenly interve,nes "Excuse me, my lord,' interrupted the gasping voice of Pi BM.. as he began to back from the pool, 'I am but a horse, I know, and being built in that way—naturally have the stomach of one—Ye, really, my lord, this—er—' And his voice was gone. The 114:11' moment he had disappeared. Mulledwiney looked areund with affected concern. Save us! But we've cleaned out the Jungle ! Sure, there's not a baste left but ourselves !' It was true. The watering-place was empty. Moo Kow, Miaow and the Gee Gees had disappeared. Presently there was a booming crash and a long, deep rambling among the distant hills. Then they knew they were near the old Moulmein Pagoda and the dawn had come up like thunder out of China 'cross the bay. It always came up that way there. The strain was too great, and day was actually breaking."
Lastly comes the turn of the author who has been described as being "violently and voluptuously on the side of the angels." Manner and matter are alike brilliantly burlesqued in " Zut-ski," as witness the following passage :—
"It was the full season at Cairo. The wealth and fashion of Bayswater, South Kensington, and even the bosky Wood of the Evangelist had sent their latest luxury and style to flout the tombs of the past with the ghastly flippancy of to-day. The cheap tripper was there—the latest example of the Darwinian theory—ape-like, flea and curio hunting! Shamelessly inquisitive and always hungry, what did he know of the Sphinx or the pyramids or the voice—and, for the matter of that, what did they know of him? And yet he was not half bad in comparison with the swagger people'—these people who pretend to have lungs and what not, and instead of galloping on merry hunters through the frost and snow of Piccadilly and Park, instead of enjoying the roaring fires of piled logs in the evening, at the first approach of winter steal away to the Land of the Sun, and decline to die, like honest Britons, on British soil. And then they know nothing of the Egyptians and are horrified at bakshish,' which they really ought to pay for the privilege of shocking the straight-limbed, naked-footed Arab in his single rough garment with their baggy elephant-legged trousers! And they know nothing of the mystic land of the old gods, filled with profound enigmas of the super- natural, dark secrets yet unexplored except in this book. Well might the great Memnon murmur after this lapse of these thousand years, They're making me tired !'" There is also a fine extravagance in the account of the Princess's ball, in which we read that "Lady Fitz-Fulke was there in virgin white, looking more youthful than ever, in spite of her sixty-five years and the card labelled Fresh paint' which somebody had playfully placed upon her enamelled shoulder."
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