TWO IMPOSSIBLE TALES.*
BOTH these exceedingly clever stories are failures, and the failure in both is due to the same cause. They are too im- probable. As they are intended to be improbable, and as an improbability is the basis of many a most successful romance, that seems either a dull or a preposterous criticism ; but it is, in reality, neither. There are many kinds of improbabilities, and this kind is inartistic, is, in fact, so contrived as to produce the disbelief which is fatal to the enjoyment of any tale. Each writer has clearly heard of certain facts in Nature which, though little understood and very unusual, are either true, or may without effort be assumed to be so, and each has endeavoured to use them to produce striking and abnormal incidents and situations. That is usual art, and if well managed, good art ; but then, each being in search of sensa- tion, has yielded to the temptation to heighten and enlarge the facts to such a degree that the reader feels, as he does when in presence of overstrained passion or unnatural violence of speech, first impatient, then disgusted, and finally distinctly bowed. The improbabilities, as we said, are too great, (L) Master of his Fate. By J. M. Cobban. Bdinburgh and London W. Black. wood and Sons.—(2.) Allan's Wife, and other Tales. By H. Bider Haggard. London : Spencer Blackett. much greater than in stories which introduce the supernatural, or which depart from the probable, as, for example, he" does, visibly and altogether. The author of Master of his Fate, for instance, has read a good deal about what sceptics now call " Charcotism," has studied many hypnotic cases, and has com- prehended the theory that, under certain circumstances, one vitality may affect another. Instead of using that theory, however, as it stands, adhering strictly to known facts, and making his personages show us what the result of those facts, and of the influences they indicate, would be upon human nature, he proceeds to exaggerate a hypothetical or quite measurable force into an agency which, in its manifestations, is positively supernatural. Because mesmerism is with certain constitutions more or less of a reality, and because there are some cases recorded where a sickly vitality appears to have impaired a healthy one brought by circumstances into close contact with it, he imagines a being so constituted that he can at will, or even without volition, draw from another his or her vitality, absorb it, and grow through it temporarily bright and strong, the victim dispossessed meanwhile either dying, or sinking into an extreme condition of nervous exhaustion and physical powerlessness. The hero, Julius Courtenay, who lives habitually too fast for his strength, his enjoyment in all things, Nature included, being too intense for his physical powers, grows intermittently old, and renews himself from time to time by stealing the nervous life, first of animals, and afterwards of human beings. At last this exertion becomes so habitual as to be involuntary; he discovers to his horror that he is stealing the life of a girl he loves, and so he takes himself away from a world in which, as he has suddenly wakened to feel, he is working only mischief. That is a striking conception ; it is fairly, though too briefly, worked out ; and the writing is excellent ; but the reader, nevertheless, closes the book with a feeling of distaste and dissatisfaction. The draft on credulity has been so very big. Grant that the hero is in any way supernatmul, in any way not man, even a perfected animal like Hawthorne's Faun, and interest might continue to the end ; but that a man should do this, and do it by what is intended to be merely medical knowledge, which might be revealed to any doctor,—this is too much. It has an effect like that of attributing limitless fascination to the heroine, or perpetual success to the hero, and rouses, instead of acquiescence, an instinct of flat denial. No such power exists, or can exist amongst the reserves of Nature, and to assume it is to create a new world, in which there are no conditions such as we know, and nothing therefore is of any interest. If any reader, be it even ‘. Maclaren Cobban " himself, questions this, let him try day-dreaming for half-an-hour without conditions,—think himself wealthy, for example, without a fixed limit to his wealth, or powerful without a fixed limit to his authority, either of place or law or opinion, and in five minutes he will find that his day-dream is confused, and in ten too uninteresting to go on with. The human mind requires conditions, and one of them is that a human being of whom a tale is told, with the assumption that he is human, shall not wield powers visibly transcending those granted to humanity. If he does, the credulity, without which there is no pleasurable reading of novels, ends, to be replaced by a weariness with which even cleverness like Mr. Maclaren Cobban's—and of his cleverness we wish to express a high appreciation—is unable to contend. The benefactor may be the most interesting of figures ; but let it once be understood that he can produce wealth at will, and interest in him or his actions dies. St. Leon is only truly interesting when his power fails, and the Julius Courtenay of this book, when his horrible prerogative—horrible even though there is a suggested antidote, the transfusion of vitality from a willing victim into the nerves of the unwilling one—recoils upon himself.
Mr. Rider Haggard has made the same mistake in a rather different way. All through the world there runs, and always has run, a legend of some half-mystical relation between par- ticular persons and the beasts or birds of the field,—a legend possibly, though not certainly, springing from early observa- tion of the extraordinary difference in the favour of beasts for one person and another. There are human beings whom no dog will bite, and human beings in whose presence a dog seems unable to control his own hostile impulses. There are men whom parrots will caress at sight, and men at sight of whom they scream with rage ; and men, too, whom bees always sting, while others can handle them as if they were inanimate. The legend usually refers to wolves, who are believed in many countries to suckle and bring up deserted children ; but in South Africa it seems to extend to baboons. The true heroine in Allan's Wife is a servant of this kind, a woman who has been brought up by baboons, knows their language as well as Hottentots say they know it, and has caught something of their temper. That, though an uncanny idea, is one suscep- tible of artistic treatment, especially in Mr. Haggard's hands ; but he has chosen another path. Not content with making Hendrika as affectionate to one person as a baboon might be, and as insanely jealous of her affection, he actually invests her with a baboon's physical powers :—
" Suddenly the woman bounded at least three feet into the air and caught one of the spreading boughs in her large flat hands ; then came a swing that would have filled an acrobat with envy— and she was on it. Now there is an end,' I thought again, for the next bough was beyond her reach. But again I was mistaken. She stood up on the bough, gripping it with her bare feet, and once more sprang at the one above, caught it and swung herself into it. I suppose that the lady saw ray expression of astonish- ment. Do not wonder, sir,' she said, Hendrika is not like other people. She will not fall.' I made no answer, but watched the pro- gress of this extraordinary person with the most breathless interest. On she went, swinging herself from bough to bough, and running along them like a monkey. At last she reached the top and began to swarm up a thin branch towards the ripe fruit. When she was near enough she shook the branch violently. There was a crack—a crash—it broke. I shut my eyes, expecting to see her crushed on the ground before me. Don't be afraid,' said the lady again, laughing gently. Look, she is quite safe.' I looked, and so she was. She had caught a bough as she fell, clung to it, and was now calmly dropping to another. Old Indaba-zimbi had also watched this performance with interest, but it did not seem to astonish him over-much. Baboon-woman ?' he said, as though such people were common, and then turned his attention to soothing Tota, who was moaning for more water. Meanwhile Hendrika came down the tree with extraordinary rapidity, and swinging by one hand from a bough, dropped about eight feet to the ground."
One does not catch acrobatism, or fearlessness either, merely from propinquity. Then Hendrika, though for years a human being when she chooses, rejoins the monkeys, reigns as a sort of queen over them, leads them to battle, and inspires them for a time by her outcries with unnatural courage :—
"The brutes streamed on down the gloomy gulf towards me, barking, grunting, and showing their huge teeth. I waited till they were within fifteen yards. Then I fired the elephant gun, which was loaded with slugs, right into the thick of them. In that narrow place the report echoed like a cannon shot, but its sound was quickly swallowed in the volley of piercing human- sounding groans and screams that followed. The charge of heavy slugs had ploughed through the host of the baboons, of which at least a dozen lay dead or dying in the passage. For a moment they hesitated, then they came on again with a hideous clamour. Fortunately by this time Indaba-zimbi, who also had a gun, was standing by my side, otherwise I should have been torn to pieces before I could reload. He fired both barrels into them, and again checked the rush. But they came on again, and notwithstanding the appearance of two other natives with guns, which they let off with more or less success, we should have been overwhelmed by the great and ferocious apes had I not by this time succeeded in reloading the elephant gun. When they were right on to us, I fired, with even more deadly effect than before, for at that distance every slug told on their long line. The howls and screams of pain and rage were now something inconceivable. One might have thought that we were doing battle with a host of demons ; indeed in that light—for the overhanging arch of rock made it very dark —the gnashing snouts and sombre glowing eyes of the apes looked like those of devils as they are represented by monkish fancy. But the last shot was too much for them ; they withdrew, drag- ging some of their wounded with them, and thus gave us time to get our men up the cliff. In a few minutes all were there, and we advanced down the passage, which presently opened into a rocky gully with shelving sides. This gully had a water-way at the bottom of it ; it was about a hundred yards long, and the slopes on either side were topped by precipitous cliffs. I looked at these slopes ; they literally swarmed with baboons, grunting, barking, screaming, and beating their breasts with their long arms, in fury. I looked up the water-way ; along it, accompanied by a mob, or, as it were, a guard of baboons, ran Hendrika, her long hair flying, madness written on her face, and in her arms was the senseless form of little Tota. She saw us, and a foam of rage burst from her lips. She screamed aloud. To me the sound was a mere inarticulate cry, but the baboons clearly understood it, for they began to roll rocks down on to us. One boulder leaped past me and struck down a Kaffir behind; another fell from the roof of the arch on to a man's head and killed him Then the real battle began. It is difficult to say who fought the most fiercely, the natives or the baboons. The Kaffirs charged along the slopes, and as they came, encouraged by the screams of Hendrika, who rushed to and fro holding the wretched Tota before her as a shield, the apes bounded at them in fury. Scores were killed by the assegais, and many more fell beneath.our gun- shots ; but still they came on. Nor did we go seathkss. Occa- sionally a man would slip, or be pulled over in the grip of a baboon. Then the others would fling themselves upon him like dogs on a rat, and worry him to death. We lost five men in this way, and I myself received a bite through the fleshy part of the left arm, but fortunately a native near me assegaied the anima,1 before I was pulled down."
That is too much. That is a fairy-story, with the fairies forgotten ; and the reader, muttering "Too absurdly impro- bable," hardly cares how the battle ends, or thinks the ending probable. At least, that is our feeling, though we recognise to the full how wonderful that account is, and have ourselves heard from the lips of a man still living how he was attacked.
by "brigades" of dog-faced baboons ; how his Negroes gave themselves up for lost, but fought with sullen hardihood ; and how he escaped through a sudden panic in the baboon army which remained to him always unexplained and inexplicable, though he had a theory on the subject. Hendrika, and the pre- posterous exaggeration of her beast-compelling powers, spoils
it all for us. The book ceases to be for us a study of Nature and man under unusual conditions, and becomes a mere tale from The Arabian Nights, with, as we said before, the genii and the Afreets—the supernatural element, in fact, required to make it seem truthful—left out.
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