The Contributors' Club

MR. JAMES, in his entertaining paper on Anthony Trollope, says that if Trollope “ had taken sides on the rather superficial opposition between novels of character and novels of plot, I can imagine him to have said (except that he never expressed himself in epigram) that he preferred the former class, inasmuch as character in itself is plot, while plot is by no means character.” So neat an antithesis would certainly never have found itself between Mr. Trollope’s lips if Mr. James had not cunningly lent it to him. Whatever theory of novel-writing Mr. Trollope may have preached, his almost invariable practice was to have a plot. He always had a story to tell, and a story involves beginning, middle, and end, — in short, a framework of some sort. Of course if one had to choose between the frame and the portrait, one would naturally not prefer the frame. It would depend a good deal on the portrait, though. There have been delightful books filled wholly with character-drawing ; but they have not been great novels. The great novel deals with human action as well as with mental portraiture. That “ character in itself is plot ” is true only in a vague sense. A plan, a motif with a logical conclusion, is as necessary to a novel or a romance as it is to a drama. A group of skillfully made-up men and women lounging in the green-room or at the wings is not the play. It is not enough to say that this is Hamlet and that Ophelia. It is not enough to inform us that certain passions are supposed to be embodied in such and such persons : these persons should be placed in situations developing those passions. A series of unconnected situations leading to nothing is inadequate. There must be a natural end to it all, else your novel resembles a conundrum without an answer, or a jest without the point.

Mr. James’s charming epigram seems to me vulnerable at both ends — unlike Achilles. “ Plot is by no means character.” Strictly speaking, it is not. It strikes me, however, that plot comes nearer to being character than character does to being plot. Plot necessitates action, and it is impossible to describe a man’s action, under whatever conditions, without revealing something of his character, his way of looking at things, his moral and mental pose. What a hero of fiction does paints him better than what he says, and vastly better than what his creator says of him. Mr. James asserts that “ we care what happens to people only in proportion as we know what people are.” I think we don’t care a snap what people are (in fiction) when we don’t know what happens to them.

— The national characteristic of the modern Anglo-American is not self-assertion, nor money-worship, nor “ constructiveness,” but tolerance. Our British cousins perhaps surpass us in love of personal independence, and the French democrats in their hatred of red-tape pedantries ; but their national life lacks the opportunities that have developed the cosmopolitan forbearance and plasticity of our representative men. Tolerance of the North American variety implies a sort of amiable inconsistency, and he who feels disposed to omit the adjective would be apt to deny his nationality in a border country like Texas, where the national virtue or foible contrasts rather strongly with the conservatism of other races.

A few years ago a party of prospecting Mormons encamped at Casa Blanca, the western terminus of the Brazos, Santiago, and Brownsville railroad. The purpose of their expedition was pretty well known, and the French and Spanish settlers of the county, as well as the native Mexicans, eyed them with a hostile horror, and the Celtic proprietor of their camping-ground made himself as disagreeable as possible. Not so the Yankee depot-master. When the Saints convoked a prayer-meeting on the platform of an old gravel-train, he sent the depot-engine to bring up a train-section from an out-of-the-way switch, in order to leave the synod undisturbed ; and in the afternoon, when the strangers put up a target at the river-shore, the railroaders not only crowded around their camp, but, at the invitation of the marksmen, fetched out their own rifles, and joined them in a shooting-match.

A few mouths later I visited a colleague who superintended the grading of the N. & H... ville narrow-gauge. The contractor had hired a gang of convicts, — “ short-termers,” mostly, — who could be trusted with certain privileges, and seemed to be on quite familiar terms with their guards. They spiced their meals with political controversies, without sparing the short-comings of the administration, and without disguising their mistrust in the motives of certain time-serving party leaders. Here, as in the mixed army corps, the Caucasians and Ethiopians had separate camps, and four or five of the white division had been assigned to the mess of the overseer, who now and then permitted them to act as “ deputy blackguards,” and managed to keep them both at work and in good humor. As soon as the track-layers had reached the next larger settlement, a “ dummy,” with a home-made caboose, had been put on the road ; but one morning the departure of the train was delayed a full hour, in order to decide a wrestlingmatch between a Scotch convict and a mulatto athlete of local renown. One second of the Gaelic champion acknowledged his defeat, but ascribed it to the tightness of his striped trousers, and obtained a verdict admitting the superior “science” of his client. But after all that, I was somewhat surprised when, at the residence of Colonel F. (the managing contractor), I was formally introduced to another contemporary in striped jeans, a short-termer of marked conversational abilities, whose geometrical talents had procured him an appointment on the staff of the chief surveyor.

A Galveston newspaper describes an admiralty council on board of a Rio Grande river steamer, where a heavyarmed stranger had refused to unbuckle his “ battery ” before entering the dining-saloon. The committee offered to waive their objections to his horse-pistol, if he would consent to leave his cartridge-belt in charge of the purser ; but when he rejected that basis of compromise, they finally agreed to let him keep his pistol and one extra cartridge.

Another armed stranger, the highway robber Cortina, who had crossed the Rio Grande during the Maximilian imbroglio, was permitted, not only to drill his cut-throats in the suburbs of Brownsville, but to enlist discharged United States soldiers, and issue proclamations which the Sultan of Fez and Morocco would have been too modest to sign.

But the most characteristic instance of Texas tolerance occurred in San . . . County, sixty miles west of Austin. During the confusion of a railroad accident an enterprising frontiersman had managed to possess himself of a choice library, packed in convenient boxes, and awaiting shipment on the platform of the freight depot. The loss either was not discovered, or was ascribed to other causes, and the pirate removed his plunder in a " prairie schooner.” He took the Houston pike-road, and had already traversed five counties, when his attempt to dispose of a part of his booty aroused the suspicions of the . . . ton citizens. A deputation of representative burghers overhauled his cargo, and the suspect was requested to give an account of himself. This he positively declined to do, but (apropos of a boxful of Methodist text-books) mentioned that he was a follower of John Wesley, and advised his inquisitors not to dishonor their faith by harassing a peaceful fellow-Christian. He was then put under guard, while a committee of selectmen retired for a private consultation. That his freight was valuable and of illegal acquisition seemed equally certain; but after a brief debate it was decided to let the erring brother depart in peace, on condition that he would consent to donate a portion of his cargo to the library of the district school.

— I do not know why it should have struck me as a pathetic case, — the figure of the overgrown boy of a dozen years, resting his arms on the fence, and watching with great interest the drill of a juvenile militia. It was plainly to be read in his face that paper caps, wooden swords, and toy drums still dwelt in his desires, and that nothing but his unwarrantable haste in growing tall interfered with his assuming command of the little troop, and marching off in triumph at its head. I was touched with compassion for him, but reflected that he had plenty of company, and good company, in his disconsolation. At all the loopholes of human history appears the wistful face of the overgrown boy. One does not need to reach a very advanced age to discover in the countenances of old comrades and friends something that reminds him, “ Ah well, we were both Arcadians ! ” Our friends have lost the route to the green country of their fond reminiscences, and who shall help them to find it ? One sees that they are studying some futile plan by which they may eat their cake, and have it too ! They are well enough satisfied at coming into full possession of discretionary power, at confirming themselves in the wisdom and policies of the world, but at the same time they want to retain the freshness and flavor of their early feeling. They do often congratulate themselves upon their youthfulness of heart, — the earnestness of their asseveration arguing their fear of the contrary; but they can produce no charter that shall convince secular destiny of their right to enjoy the delightful irresponsibility of youth. Noblesse oblige ; but our loyalty in duress cries out,—

Is it not strange that, masters of our own choice (for so we account ourselves), we do not so much hold the position we have elected as the position holds ns, inexorably dictating our walk and conversation, our habits, methods, and almost the thoughts we shall entertain ! May we not unbend, may we not amuse ourselves ? The genius of fitness and congruity keeps an eye upon us. Nowhere, outside of China, or some Celestial Empire, are there happy old men flying kites. Had Jaques, there in the idle Forest of Arden, undertaken to sample the varieties of dignity as he did those of melancholy, he would have found food enough for meditation and moralizing to last the longest summer day. I fancy him parceling out the various grades : one dignity of the legal profession, another of the clergy, another of the schoolmaster ; one dignity of the merchant prince, and another of the honest, reputable beggar, — dignity differing widely in kind, but equally strenuous, equally binding, with all.

Rank imposes obligation, we have heard. There are those who obtain the patent of nobility by undertaking obligation. Such are not likely to be heard complaining because they sit alone,

They have expected nothing otherwise, having beforehand been advised: “In what concerns you much, do not think you have companions ; know that you are alone in the world,”

— England need not be seriously alarmed by the inroads of American fiction while she has a novelist who can write such charming stories as The Ladies Lindores. Mrs. Oliphant has given us an admirable novel, with character, dramatic action, and plot. Without the last, indeed, the second is impossible. Mrs. Oliphant has also a neat wit of her own, which here and there lights up the page, as when, for example, she makes Lord Millefleurs say that Americans “ are more piquant than any other foreigners.” “French,” he observes, “ has become absurd and Italian pedantic; but it is amusing to talk a foreign language which is in English words, don’t you know.” Millefleurs, by the way, is a poor and inadequate name for an Englishman, and illustrates the author’s fondness for French words. Every chapter is spotted with them. On two or three occasions we are told that Mr. Torrance has “ eyes à fleur de tête,” when an English equivalent would have been three times as easy and twice as sensible. In an English novel such words and phrases as planté là, flétri, dessous des cartes, faire valoir, épanchements, etc., are ludicrous to the reader who understands French, and perplexing to the reader who does not. They moreover give one a vague suspicion that the writer is under the glamour of a slight or a recent acquaintance with the alien language drawn upon. It is needless to say that Mrs. Oliphant’s French is very good, and so is her English. Her English is so excellent, indeed, that when she writes who for whom, or falls into so barbarous a tautology as “from whence,” the reader pays her the handsome compliment of being astonished.

— I desire to correct a statement which is made in a recent number of the Club, — in the June number, I think. It is there said that the name Saint Petersburg is a misnomer, and that the capital city is named Petersburg after Peter the Great, and not St. Petersburg after the celestial gate-keeper.

I have, as I write, official documents, business cards, and letters stamped with the postmark of that city. In every instance the name is St. Petersburg. During a residence extending over some four years I never heard it or saw it otherwise. The name Peterbourg is applied only to a suburb of the Russian capital situate to the northeast of the great fortress.

Your article on the misspelling of geographical names is very timely, however. The French have misled us more than once in the matter of Russian names. They continually inject a w into Russian or Polish proper names, whether geographical or personal, and we blindly follow their lead. This is the more comical because the w is neither in the Russian nor French alphabet. Thus Warsaw should be Varshoff, and Moscow should be Moskoff. We discard the French spelling in Gortschakoff, which they spell Gortschakow. Another blunder is in the word czar, which is now almost obsolete in Russia, and which we perversely continue, not only to use, but to misspell. It should be tsar.