One Hundred Best Books Part 3

His philosophy, though lacking in the deep and tragic imagination of Nietzsche, has something of the Nietzschean intellectual fury. He teaches a shameless and antinomian hedonism, narrower, less humane, but more fervid and emotional, than that taught by Remy de Gourmont.

In "The Triumph of Death" we find a fierce smoldering voluptuousness, expressed with a hard and brutal realism which recalls the frescoes on the walls of ancient Pompeii. In "The Flame of Life" we have in superb rhetoric the most colored and ardent description of Venice to be found in all literature. Perhaps the finest pa.s.sage he ever wrote is that account of the speech of the Master of Life in the Doge's Palace with its incomparable eulogy upon Veronese and its allusion to Pisanello's head of Sigismondo Malatesta.

42. DOSTOIEVSKY. CRIME AND PUNISHMENT. THE IDIOT. THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV. THE INSULTED AND INJURED. THE POSSESSED. _Translated by Constance Garnett and published by Macmillan. Other translations in Everyman's Library_.

Dostoievsky is the greatest and most racial of all Russian writers. He is the subtlest psychologist in fiction. As an artist he has a dark and sombre intensity and an imaginative vehemence only surpa.s.sed by Shakespeare. As a philosopher he antic.i.p.ates Nietzsche in the direction of his insight, though in his conclusions he is diametrically opposite. He teaches that out of weakness, abnormality, perversity, foolishness, desperation, abandonment, and a morbid pleasure in humiliation, it is possible to arrive at high and unutterable levels of spiritual ecstasy. His ideal is sanct.i.ty--not morality--and his revelations of the impa.s.sioned and insane motives of human nature--its instinct towards self-destruction for instance--will never be surpa.s.sed for their terrible and convincing truth.

The strange Slavophil dream of the regeneration of the world by the power of the Russian soul and the magic of the "White Christ who comes out of Russia" could not be more arrestingly expressed than in these pa.s.sionate and extraordinary works of art.

47. TURGENIEV. VIRGIN SOIL. A SPORTSMAN'S SKETCHES. _Translated by Constance Garnett. And "Lisa" in Everyman's Library_.

Turgeniev is by far the most "artistic" as he is the most disillusioned and ironical of Russian writers. With a tender poetical delicacy, almost worthy of Shakespeare, he sketches his appealing portraits of young girls. His style is clear--objective--winnowed and fastidious. He has certain charming old-fashioned weaknesses--as for instance his trick of over-emphasizing the differences between his bad and good characters; but there is a clear-cut distinction, and a lucid charm about his work that reminds one of certain old crayon drawings or certain delicate water-color sketches. His allusions to natural scenery are always introduced with peculiar appropriateness and are never permitted to dominate the dramatic element of the story as happens so often in other writers.

There is a sad and tender vein of un.o.btrusive moralizing running through his work but one is conscious that at bottom he is profoundly pessimistic and disenchanted. The gaiety of Turgeniev is winning and unforced; his sentiment natural and never "staled or rung upon." The pensive detachment of a sensitive and yet not altogether unworldly spirit seems to be the final impression evoked by his books.

50. GORKI--FOMA GORDYEFF. _Translation published by Scribners_.

Maxim Gorki is one of the most interesting of Russian writers. His books have that flavour of the soil and that courageous spirit of vagabondage and social independence which is so rare and valuable a quality in literature.

"Foma Gordyeff" is, after Dostoievsky's masterpieces, the most suggestive and arresting of Russian stories. That paralysis of the will which descends like an evil cloud upon Foma and at the same time seems to cause the ground to open under his feet and precipitate him into mysterious depths of nothingness, is at once tragically significant of certain aspects of the Russian soul and full of mysterious warnings to all those modern spirits in whom the power of action is "sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought."

For those who have been "fooled to the top of their bent" by the stupidities and brutalities of the crowd there is a savage satisfaction in reading of Foma's insane outbursts of misanthropy.

51. TCHEKOFF--SEAGULL. _Tchekoff's plays and short stories are published by Scribners in admirable translations_.

Tchekoff is one of the gentlest and sweetest tempered of Russian writers. There is in him a genuine graciousness, a politeness of soul, an innate delicacy, which is not touched--as such qualities often are in the work of Turgeniev--with any kind of self-conscious Olympianism.

A doctor, a consumptive, and a pa.s.sionate lover of children, there is a whimsical humanity about all that Tchekoff writes which has a singular and quite special appeal.

The "Seagull" is a play full of delicate subtleties and dreamy glimpses of shy humane wisdom. The manner in which outward things--the mere background and scenery of the play--are used to deepen and enhance the dramatic interest is a thing peculiarly characteristic of this author. Tchekoff has that kind of imaginative sensibility which makes every material object one encounters significant with spiritual intimations.

The mere business of plot--whether in his plays or stories--is not the important matter. The important matter is a certain sudden and pathetic illumination thrown upon the essential truth by some casual grouping of persons or of things--some emphatic or symbolic gesture--some significant movement among the silent "listeners."

52. ARTZIBASHEFF. SANINE, _translation published by Huebsch_.

Artzibasheff is an extremist. The suicidal "motif" in the "Breaking-point" is worked out with an appalling and devastating thoroughness.

Pessimism, in a superficial sense, could hardly go further; though compared with Dostoievsky's insight into the "infinite" in character, one is conscious of a certain closing of doors and narrowing of issues. "Sanine" himself is a sort of idealization of the sublimated common sense which seems to be this writer's selected virtue.

Artzibasheff appears to advocate, as the wisest and sanest way of dealing with life, a certain robust and contemptuous self-a.s.sertion, kindly, genial, without baseness or malice; but free from any scruple and quite untroubled by remorse.

If regarded seriously--as he appears to be intended to be--as an approximate human ideal, one cannot help feeling that in spite of his humorous anarchism and subjective zest for life, Sanine has in him something sententious and tiresome. He is, so to speak, an immoral prig; nor do his vivacious spirits compensate us for the lack of delicacy and irony in him. On the other hand there is something direct, downright and "honest" about his clear-thinking, and his shameless eroticism which wins our liking and affection, if not our admiration. Artzibasheff is indeed one of the few writers who dare excite our sympathy not only for the seduced in this world but for the seducer.

53. STERNE--TRISTRAM SHANDY.

Sterne is a writer who less than any one else in the present list reveals the secrets of his manner and mind to the casual and hasty reader. "Tristram Shandy" and "The Sentimental Journey" are books to be enjoyed slowly and lingeringly, with many humorous after-thoughts and a certain Rabelaisian unction. A shrewd and ironical wisdom, gentle and light-fingered and redolent of evasive sentiment, is evoked from these digressive and wanton pages.

At his best Sterne is capable of an imaginative interpretation of character which for delicacy and subtlety has never been surpa.s.sed.

For the Epicurean in literature, his unfailing charm will be found in his style--a style so baffling in the furtive beauty of its disarming simplicity that even the greatest of literary critics have been unable to a.n.a.lyze its peculiar flavour. There is a winnowed purity about it, and a kind of elfish grace; and with both these things there mixes, strangely enough, a certain homely, almost Dutch domesticity, quaint and mellow and a little wanton--like a picture by Jan Steen.

54. JONATHAN SWIFT. TALE OF A TUB.

Swift's mysterious and saturnine character, his outbursts of terrible rage; his exquisite moments of tenderness; his sledge-hammer blows; his diabolical irony; form a dramatic and tragic spectacle which no psychologist can afford to miss.

With the "saeva indignatio" alluded to in his own epitaph, he puts his back, as it were, to the "flamantia moenia mundi" and hits out, insanely and blindly, at the human crowd he loathes. His secretive and desperate pa.s.sion for Stella, his little girl pupil; his barbarous treatment of Vanessa--his savage championship of the Irish people against the Government--make up the dominant "notes" of a character so formidable that the terror of his personality strikes us with the force of an engine of destruction.

His misanthropy is like the misanthropy of Shakespeare's Timon--his crushing sarcasms strike blow after blow at the poor flesh and blood he despises. The hatefulness of average humanity drives him to distraction and in his madness, like a wounded t.i.tan, he spares nothing. To the whole human race he seems to utter the terrible words he puts into the mouth of G.o.d:

"I to such blockheads set my wit, And d.a.m.n you all--Go, go, you're bit!"

55. CHARLES LAMB. THE ESSAYS OF ELIA.

Charles Lamb remains, of all English prose-writers, the one whose manner is the most beautiful. So rich, so delicate, so imaginative, so full of surprises, is the style of this seductive writer, that, for sheer magic and inspiration, his equals can only be found among the very greatest poets.

It is impossible to over-estimate the value of Charles Lamb's philosophy. He indicates in his delicate evasive way--not directly, but as it were, in little fragments and morsels and broken s.n.a.t.c.hes--a deep and subtle reconciliation between the wisdom of Epicurus and the wisdom of Christ. And through and beyond all this, there may be felt, as with the great poets, an indescribable sense of something withdrawn, withheld, reserved, inscrutable--a sense of a secret, rather to be intimated to the initiated, than revealed to the vulgar--a sense of a clue to a sort of Pantagruelian serenity; a serenity produced by no crude optimism but by some happy inward knowledge of a neglected hope. The great Rabelaisian motto, "bon espoir y gist au fond!" seems to emanate from the most wistful and poignant of his pages. He pities the unpitied, he redeems the commonplace, he makes the ordinary as if it were not ordinary, and by the sheer genius of his imagination he throws an indescribable glamour over the "little things" of the darkest of our days.

Moving among old books, old houses, old streets, old acquaintances, old wines, old pictures, old memories, he is yet possessed of so original and personal a touch that his own wit seems as though it were the very soul and body of the qualities he so caressingly interprets.

56. SIR WALTER SCOTT. GUY MANNERING. BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN.

The large, easy, leisurely manner of Scott's writing, its digressiveness, its nonchalant carelessness, its indifference to artistic quality, has in some sort of way numbed and atrophied the interest in his work of those who have been caught up and waylaid by the modern spirit. And yet Scott's novels have ample and admirable excellencies. In his expansive and digressive fashion he can give his characters--especially the older and the more idiosyncratic among them--a surprising and convincing verisimilitude.

He can create a plot which, though not dramatically flawless, has movement and energy and stir. The sweetness and modesty of his disposition lends itself to his portrayal of the more gracious aspects of human life, especially as seen in the humours and oddities of very simple and nave persons.

Under the stress of occasional emotion he can rise to quite n.o.ble heights of feeling and he is able to throw a startling glamour of romance over certain familiar and recurrent human situations. At his best there is a grandeur and simplicity of utterance about what his characters say and an ease and largeness of sympathy about his own commentaries upon them, which must win admiration even from those most avid of modern pathology. Without the pa.s.sion of Balzac, or the insight of Dostoievsky, or the art of Turgeniev, there is yet, in the sweetness of Scott's own personality, and in the biblical grandeur of certain of the scenes he evokes, a quality and a charm which it would be at once foolish and arbitrary to neglect.

59. THACKERAY. THE HISTORY OF HENRY ESMOND.

Thackeray is a writer who occupies a curious and very interesting position. Devoid of the n.o.ble and romantic sympathies of Scott, and corrupted to the basic fibres of his being by Early Victorian sn.o.bbishness, he is yet--none can deny it--a powerful creator of living people and an accomplished and graceful stylist.

Without philosophy, without faith, without moral courage, the uneasy slave of conventional morality, and with a hopeless vein of sheer worldly philistinism in his book, Thackeray is yet able, by a certain unconquerable insight into the motives and impulses of mediocre people, and by a certain weight and ma.s.s of creative force, to give a convincing reality to his pictures of life, which is almost devastating in its sneering and sentimental accuracy.