Niilo Idman

“ And yet, where is the lover of imaginative excitement, that ever laid down one of his books unfinished—or the man of candour and discrimination, who ever denied, after reading through any of them, that Maturin is gifted with a genius as fervently powerful as it is distinctly original—that there is ever and anon a truth of true poetry diffused over the thickest chaos of his absurdities—and that he walks almost without a rival, dead or living, in many of the darkest, but, at the same time, the most majestic circles of romance? ”

“ Wandesford is dragged away, but Connal, who is under the impression that Armida is already married to him, once more saves his life, enabling him to proceed alone to the nearest town. Connal then undertakes to conduct Armida back to Castle Montclare; before long he understands that she is not the wife of Wandesford, and she, on her part, learns the truth about Gabriella. After scenes of great passion their final resolution is impressively told in a few words, sounding, as it were, like the bang of a heavy gate:
The distracted Connal, kneeling before her, implored for a word, a look of life. ”

“ She fixes her thoughts on religion alone, and, decidedly refusing to see her lover or answer his letters, declares her only wish to be to die in peace:—‘au moment de mourir Dieu m’a fait la grâce de retrouver du calme, et je sens que la vue d’Oswald remplirait mon âme de sentiments qui ne s’accordent point avec les angoisses de la mort. La religion seule a des secrets pour ce terrible passage.’ Maturin, on the other hand, does not shrink from drawing the extreme conclusions from his definition, and shows with a merciless consistency that she who was born a Zaira can never become an Eva. ”

“ In the “House (sic) of Montorio” there is a vast exuberance of all the impulses of humanity,—the young passions, fantasies and aspirations, dancing and eddying like the waters of a gushing fountain, and sparkling in the coloured light of romance. Plot, sentiment, character, and description, in an abundance that seems to mock the anxious effort of ordinary genius, and to perplex the youthful author with his own riches, mark the entire of this extraordinary production. ”

“ Yet De Courcy, although the ‘hero’ of an extensive novel, is meant to be neither admired nor hated, only understood, and the characterization is executed with a realism which the time was not quite able to appreciate.—As for Zaira, she knows nothing of the art of keeping the interest of a lover alive by occasionally exercising some reserve towards him; it is impossible for her not to show clearly that he is all she lives for, and this deep and serious view of their relation would, even in itself, inspire a kind of awe in the fickle-minded De Courcy. ”

“ After a march through a country devastated by the ravages of famine and rape, enduring intolerable hardships and continual attacks from the troops of the government, they finally reach the isles, where a solitary hut with a bed of rushes becomes the dwelling of Armida for a long time to come. Ireland has taken her revenge; the proud and brilliant being at whose feet Europe has lain prostrate, is changed into a silent and self-sacrificing woman, deprived of all qualifications ever to re-assume her place in society. ”

“ I tried, but I cannot love you as a man: I know what it is to love a brother well; for Connal I would die, but for you, Endymion, I would live: live, in you, for you, in your sight: dream life away in voluptuous and frantic melancholy: the feelings that oppress, that soften, that sicken me, even now while I speak to you I cannot describe them ”

“ Her character is naturally noble, and she is free from all haughtiness and caprice. Under the bitter sorrow she has sustained, her heart has remained pure and tender, yearning ever for love which she has never met with. In the isolation she has suffered during the greater part of her existence, her mind has been cultivated and her abilities developed at the expense of her experience in practical affairs; she has become curiously unfamiliar with real life and displays, on several occasions, a naiveté almost equal to that of Eva herself. ”

“ When Montgomery appears with the news that Eva is dying, Charles is broken down by a fit of repentance and returns to Ireland as soon as he is able. Notwithstanding his despair he is not allowed to see Eva, who is fading away like a flower, in spite of most careful medical attendance. As for Zaira, the departure of Charles leaves her in the greatest agony of mind, cutting off the only tie that binds her to life. She finds no longer any happiness in the exercise of her talents; philosophy affords her no consolation, religion has not power to heal her aching heart. ”

“ No one has ever exchanged destinies with Melmoth the Wanderer. I have traversed the world in the search, and no one, to gain that world, would lose his own soul! Not Stanton in his cell—nor you, Monçada, in the prison of the Inquisition—nor Walberg, who saw his children perishing with want—nor—another—
After this confession the Wanderer asks for a moment’s repose, to sleep for the last time in his human existence. ”

“ He only expresses a wish that there might be another human being in the same condition as himself—and Schemoli has no reason to conceal that there is one: his brother Ippolito. Annibal follows Schemoli to Muralto, where he unexpectedly finds Ildefonsa lying on her death-bed. He has no opportunity, however, to inquire into her fate, for the fatal night draws on apace. That same night the count Montorio is, more than ever, beset by pangs of conscience. He dare not be left alone for a moment, although his wife is quite unable to soothe him. ”

“ There is darkness beneath for the unhappy to muse—there is light above for the happy to gaze on—and the trembling gleams between the branches give a strong image of life, chequered indeed with fitful and precarious lustre, but of which the predominant image is gloom—diversified, but essential.
Zaira wandered on; the beauty of the night, the mildness of the climate, precluded all apprehension from her wandering at this late hour. ”

“ Alonzo remembers old superstitious tales of demons who seduce monks into the vaults of the convent, and almost fancies he can hear the choir of their infernal [Pg 222] sabbath; he grows giddy and stupefied, his knees and hands are stript of skin, and an intolerable thirst is produced by the unnatural atmosphere. At last human nature can endure no more; they lay down ‘like two panting dogs’ in the darkness. When day draws nigh, a faint stream of light makes itself observable above their heads: they have arrived just at the trap-door they have been searching for. ”

“ I say must, because this species of writing, not exacting a sacrifice of principles, but of taste, the public have reasonably a right to dictate in. He who would prostitute his morals, is a monster, he who sacrifices his inclinations and habits of writing, is—an author.
At the same time, it is desirable to look forward to the time, when independence, acquired without any sacrifice of integrity, will enable a man to consult only himself in the choice and mode of his subject. He who is capable of writing a good novel, ought to feel that he was born for a higher purpose than writing novels. ”

“ A warrior’s weapon freed a warrior’s soul—
It will be remembered that in Montorio the last words of the hero were an expression of joy at the fact that he did not perish on the scaffold. Here the sentiment is repeated, but it is clearly not fortunate to put it in the mouth of the hero himself; if there is any relief brought about by his nobler mode of dying, the spectator ought to feel it spontaneously.—
It has already been seen, more than once, that the merits of Maturin’s works are not in their composition. ”

“ The relation of Melmoth to mankind is marked by that intense sense of loneliness, that sense of being ‘among them, but not of them,’ or, as Maturin says, ‘mingling with, yet distinct from all his species’—which goes through the romantic literature of the period and which indeed is genuinely romantic in its implication of something exceptional, something outside the common rules of life. The anguish of loneliness is shared alike by good and bad, by all whom adverse circumstances or else their own bodily or mental deformities have placed in a solitary position in the world. ”

“ From behind the various and manifold scenes of this amazing labyrinth, there arises the pale figure of the Wanderer, terrible and diabolical, yet suffering and despairing, to bear witness to his own defeat and the victory of human nature, so weak and yet so invincible, the object of at once his hatred and his adoration; and is it not, when we stand face to face with this wonderful creation of a great genius, indifferent where and when and by whom the separate tales are related? ”

“ The worst of it all is that the hero is so uninteresting, and does not in the least fulfil the expectations roused by the effusions of Elmaide St. Clair. A very self-exulting tone is generally not in keeping with an autobiographical form, yet Ormsby Bethel does nothing to suppress the eulogies lavishly bestowed on him by well-meaning people, eulogies which he certainly does not deserve. He calls himself wild, but wildness is merely an embellishing name for weakness; there is nothing in him of real, refreshing wildness, or youthful recklessness ”

“ Of the merits of the novel of terror Maturin afterwards made the following recognition: [10]
As a medium of excitement or impression, it (terror) was certainly the most powerful that could be used by one human being on another, from the clown who dresses up a figure to frighten his fellow into idiotism or madness, to the romance-writer who rings bells by viewless hands, encrusts daggers with long-shed blood, conceals treacherous doors behind still more treacherous tapestry, or sends mad nuns or their apparitions to wander about the gardens of their convents. ”

“ Yet after some time it again has obtained the reputation of being the seat of a goddess, of an unknown and gentler character. Rumours of a vision seen there, lovely beyond description, spread among the natives, and young people get into the habit of offering fruits and flowers to the new goddess, who is supposed to be particularly well-disposed towards lovers. And inhabited the island really is. A small child, a girl, the sole survivor of the wreck of a Spanish vessel, has found refuge there and grows up a wild daughter of nature, as innocent as she is beautiful, as good as she is lovely. ”

“ Endymion’s horror does not arise from any immediate realization of what she has heard; though she has attained a standpoint at which a continuation of the imposture would destroy her reason, the vital truth regarding herself becomes clear to her but by degrees. But she recollects having heard her mother say to Morosini: ‘should she ever learn she is a woman, she must live no longer,’ and this she at once applies to herself. The next day she rushes to Desmond and wildly implores him to save her, as she is to be sent away under the protection of the monk. ”

“ Under circumstances like these the most passionate contentions are excited by the slightest causes, and the minutest deviations from regularity are regarded as adventures of the most important gravity. Yet the liveliness thus aroused naturally becomes morbid and distorted, and degenerates into ‘spleen, malignity, curiosity.’ The soul is stunted for ever, and the mind grows impervious to every great or generous feeling; barbarous punishments are inflicted for the slightest offences. Alonzo is, from his very entrance there, the black sheep of this community. ”

“ It is a fine and touching piece of juvenile psychology Maturin gives in the short sketch of Juan. A mind naturally generous, if ever so spoiled and distorted by improper education, always wishes its enemy to be in a fighting condition; and when Juan thinks of Alonzo as a monk, an object unfit for hate and unable to defend himself, his feelings of hostility are replaced by a passion exactly opposite, only stronger, as being conformable to his natural instincts. ”

“ He stamps with it, and their blood, their treasures, and their vassals are poured on Asia, making the eastern world tremble to its centre: for ours is the power that not only binds the spirit but makes it clasp its chain; ours are the powers of the world to come; all that is potent in life, all that is mysterious in futurity, the fears, the hopes, the hearts of mankind, all are ours; and shall we not wield the weapon their credulity has put into our hands for our own behoof? ”

“ The tone might easily get a tinge of the ridiculous, or even of the coarse, yet here it does neither; Maturin’s singular skill and delicacy in depicting those young, pale and ethereal beings that unite precocity and purity, timidity and passion, by no means denies itself in the creation of Endymion.—Desmond, as a character, is more successful than Connal, if only as being less faultless. He is brave and high-minded like his brother, but at the same time light-headed and choleric; he is said to have been ‘famous for rural gallantry,’ and is not insensible to refined gallantry either. ”

“ We must pass life in each watching every breath the other draws, every glance the other gives,—in dreading sleep as an involuntary betrayer, and watching the broken murmurs of each other’s restless dreams. We may hate each other, (for hatred itself would be a relief, compared to the tedium of our inseparability) , but separate we must never.”
With these bright prospects the pair commence their nocturnal wandering in the subterranean vaults, one, no doubt, of the most frightful wanderings ever described in literature. ”

“ The world points the finger of scorn at the intellectual intemperate man—not reflecting—not caring to reflect—that it is his very superiority to the world that drives him to habits of intemperance. His nature is “averse from life” —he has an impatience of existence. Charles Lamb rushed forward, and forced the Gates of Death; and, actuated by a similar feeling, Maturin trod in his footsteps, though only trippingly. Lamb found his Lethe in the quart—Maturin sought his in the quadrille. ”

“ As for the heroines of Scott, many of them, no doubt, display activity and courage and accomplish wonders for others, yet none would, in all likelihood, take the step Armida does, were they in her position; none have the independence of mind and superiority of intellect which render her perfectly regardless of the opinion of the world. The pride and the accomplishments, the grandezza and the accustomedness to obedience and admiration with which she is invested, usually distinguish females of a maturer age, like Lady Ashton in The Bride of Lammermoor and Lady Montrevor in The Wild Irish Boy. ”

“ It is the great fault of Bertram as a dramatic character, that he so poorly upholds the high attitude assigned to him by others, and that his imposing qualities chiefly rest on declamatory effects. As a poetical figure he occasionally becomes, thanks to life antecedents, surrounded with a gloomy splendour exciting the kind of admiration so keenly resented by critics who felt themselves called upon to extend their verdict to the moral side of the question. ”

“ The cry of nature hushed every other cry,—she was the only patient in the house who was not mad from politics, religion, inebriety, or some perverted passion; and terrifying as the out-break of her frenzy always was, Stanton used to await it as a kind of relief from the dissonant, melancholy, and ludicrous ravings of the others. ”

“ Did my profession furnish me with the means of subsistence, I should hold myself culpable indeed in having recourse to any other, but—am I allowed the choice?
The preface, as will be seen, really does not give more than a ‘hint,’ either of the story or of its hero. It is not the enemy himself who is made to traverse mankind with the gloomy offer; Melmoth the Wanderer is a poor mortal who has, driven by an insatiable thirst for forbidden knowledge, bartered the hope of his own salvation for certain privileges not allotted to common man. ”

“ So passionately attached was he to dancing, that he organized morning quadrille parties, which met alternately two or three days in the week at the houses of the favourite members of his coterie. He was proud of the gracefulness and elegance of his dancing; his light figure, and the melancholy and interesting air that, whether natural or fictitious, he threw into his movements, gave a peculiar character to his style. He was a perfect bigot in his attachment to female society; and generally restless and dissatisfied in the exclusive company of men. ”

“ The count, in a fury which betrays him to be conscious of a crime, has Annibal imprisoned in a lonely chamber in the castle, where, for some time to come, he beholds no face but that of the monk. At this stage Schemoli deems it fit to commence his work. He never speaks to the prisoner, or heeds his queries, by day; but every night at twelve he emerges from his castle of silence and sallies forth to Annibal’s room, where he serves up a fantastical story which he pretends to be allowed to relate at that hour only. ”

“ A gate, at the extremity of it, opened into a wood; she hurried into the wood, its darkness was as light unto her, it seemed as a shelter from her own thoughts, and she fled to it with avidity. Nature, in all its rich and exhaustless luxuriance, has nothing to the eye or to the soul so delicious as the mild splendour of moonlight, shed over the darkness of a forest. ”

“ In the predilection of Irish novelists for an intrigue of this description there is something more than a natural partiality to a theme which aptly lends itself to literary aims; it is the revenge of a subdued and oppressed country upon her masters. In the field of fiction the conquered becomes [Pg 71] the conqueror, and the first come in as the last. Connal O’Morven, unreal and idealized though he be, is the embodiment of all that is great and proud in the Milesian spirit, which spirit here subjugates the most brilliant representative of the happier race. ”