Le Petit Chose Part 43

We had n.o.ble games out of hours, and plenty of liberty; but even then, as I remember, we were well spoken of in the town, and rarely did any disgrace, by our appearance or manner, to the reputation of Doctor Strong and Doctor Strong's boys. The Doctor himself was the idol of the whole school; and it must have been a badly composed school if he had been anything else, for he was the kindest of men; with a simple faith in him that might have touched the stone hearts of the very urns upon the wall.

-From d.i.c.kENS'S _David Copperfield_.

IV

His style, created from moment to moment, subordinates the form of the language to the need of expressing the immediate sensation in its original vividness. He multiplies ellipses, anastrophes, words unexpectedly connected; he takes from every vocabulary its most expressive terms; he models himself upon the very appearance of things as they are; he knows no other rhythm than that of successive impressions. He is perpetually on the move. His agility occasionally seems a little feverish. We feel some anxiety; we are afraid that the sentence may not find its balance.

A few lines from his works can be recognized at a glance, for he has only had clumsy imitators, his style being, moreover, in the language of Montaigne, of one substance with the author, being the author himself.

And yet one could hardly say that this style breaks with tradition.

He stops short just at the point at which his idiosyncrasies would degenerate into faults.-From PEt.i.t DE JULLEVILLE, _Histoire de la litterature francaise_, vol. viii.

V

But the pupils - the young n.o.blemen! Pale and haggard faces, lank and bony figures, children with countenances of old men, deformities with irons upon their limbs, boys of stunted growth, and others whose long meagre legs would hardly bear the stooping bodies, all crowded on the view together.

There was every ugliness or distortion that told of unnatural aversion conceived by parents for their offspring, or of young lives which, from the earliest dawn of infancy, had been one horrible endurance of cruelty and neglect. There were little faces which should have been handsome, darkened with the scowl of sullen, dogged suffering. There was childhood with the light of its eye quenched, its beauty gone, and its helplessness alone remaining; there were vicious-faced boys, brooding, with leaden eyes, like malefactors in jail; and there were young creatures on whom the sins of their frail parents had descended, weeping even for the mercenary nurses they had known, and lonesome even in their loneliness. With every kindly sympathy and affection blasted in its birth, with every young and healthy feeling flogged and starved down, with every revengeful pa.s.sion that can fester in swollen hearts, eating its evil way to their core in silence, what an incipient h.e.l.l was breeding here!-From d.i.c.kENS'S _Nicholas Nickleby_.

VI

It is not only his nerves which are sensitive, it is also his heart, and the keenness of his sensations is equalled by that of his sympathies.

He is interested in his characters, and it is by loving them that he makes us love them. If the figures he paints give us a life-like impression, it is because they lived not only in his imagination but also in his heart.... Daudet can feel in his heart that love which d.i.c.kens felt towards those who are ill-favoured or poor. His favourite heroes are especially those who are sensitive, and who are made wretched by their sensitiveness. In order to create _Jack_ he left the _Nabab_, which he had already begun, and wrote in less than a year that book which is at the same time tender and cruel, but in which cruelty is only another form of tenderness, and which so oppressed the heart of George Sand that after reading it she, the indefatigable worker, remained for three whole days without being able to produce anything at all.-From PELLISSIER, _Le Mouvement litteraire au XIXe siecle_.

VII

It was not very large certainly, being about six feet long by four broad.

It could not be called light, as there were bars and a grating to the window. But it was uncommonly comfortable to look at. The s.p.a.ce under the window at the farther end was occupied by a square table covered with a reasonably clean and whole red and blue tablecloth; a hard-seated sofa covered with red stuff occupied one side; and a good stout wooden chair afforded a seat for another boy, so that three could sit and work together. Over the door were a row of hat-pegs, and on each side book-cases with cupboards at the bottom; shelves and cupboards being filled indiscriminately with school-books, a cup or two, a mouse-trap and bra.s.s candlesticks, leather straps, and some curious-looking articles which puzzled Tom not a little, until his friend explained that they were climbing-irons, and showed their use. A cricket-bat and small fis.h.i.+ng-rod stood up in one corner.-From HUGHES'S _Tom Brown's School-days_.

VIII

Daudet's imagination does not consist in the invention of facts or characters: he pictures to himself with extraordinary vividness what has pa.s.sed before his eyes. Though they are marvellously real, his scenes have not that precise and strict perfection which Flaubert used to give to his. He catches in mid-flight the faintest details and holds fast their very movement. The vibration is still there, and one can feel the tremor in the air and the play of the light.

As to his human figures, I question whether Daudet has ever had his equal in the picturesque truthfulness of his portraits, in the capacity of reproducing the expression of a face, an att.i.tude or dress.

And it does not follow that, as certain "psychological" writers have hinted, Daudet was deficient in "psychology." We cannot find in him that cold, pedantic psychology which consists of the authors's own reflections; and if, to be a "psychologist," it is necessary to explain minutely every step and every gesture, or to put wearisome commentaries in the place of action, Daudet does not deserve the name. But perhaps there is a distinction to be made between a novel and an anatomical treatise.

-From PEt.i.t DE JULLEVILLE, _Hist. de la litt. fr_. vol. viii.

IX

The founders and arbiters of the public-school system who ordained that life in these inst.i.tutions should be one incessant round of activity from the beginning of term to its end have perhaps proved to be the children of wisdom. To a healthy boy who can manage to keep his place in the crowd without undue straining, there is a tonic effect in the absence of leisure; and the sense of being a lively part in a great and ever-moving body is an admirable enemy to stagnation of mind. It is only the special case, the variant from the type, who suffers when he is included in ma.s.ses that move by rule; and if we are inclined to admit the dangerous premise that any suffering can be good for a young soul, we may cheerfully conclude that the rough process is justified if it turns the variant into a solid, ordinary person; or, if he is a hopeless rebel, at least teaches him that the thorns of life are not tender to him who kicks.

-From _The First Round_, by ST. JOHN LUCAS.

X

Much of the influence he gained over his scholars was attributable to his knowledge of the individual characteristics of boys. He is said to have known every boy in the school, his appearance, his habits, and his companions. It cannot be said that he was always genial in manner; the youngest boys especially regarded him with awe, and his own sense of the intense seriousness of life and duty gave a sternness and austerity to his aspect which made many of his pupils afraid of him. His conception of a school was that it should be first of all a place for the formation of character, and next a place for learning and study, as a means for the attainment of this higher end. Discipline and guidance were in his view still more prominently the business of a schoolmaster than the impartation of knowledge. His influence was stimulative rather than formative, the secret of his power consisting not so much in the novelty of his ideas or methods as in his commanding and magnetic personality.

-From _Thomas Arnold_, by SIR JOSHUA FITCH.

XI

He was contented, in a dull kind of way, with the even monotony of his days. Life at school, he felt, would be always the same; he would attain no distinctions, but at least he would suffer no violent agonies.

If you could not be brilliant and wonderful it was as well to be completely insignificant. Defiant eccentricity led to much discomfort, unless you possessed invincible contempt for ordinary popularity; and the way of the harmless imbecile was hard at a public school.

When you were at school all the old standards did seem to alter most strangely. After all, why bother about standards? Why think at all?

School was really pleasanter when you did not think but just drifted.

Yet, could a place where it was better not to think except about everyday events be really right? All boys were either beasts or worms or geese.

The geese were most numerous, and usually followed and applauded the beasts. Oh monstrous, stale, unprofitable world!-From _The First Round_, by ST. JOHN LUCAS.

XII

At present those who pursue philosophy at all are mere striplings just emerged from boyhood, who take it up in the intervals of business; and, after just dipping into the most abstruse part of the study, abandon the pursuit altogether.

And pray what is the right plan?

Just the opposite. In youth and boyhood they ought to be put through a course of instruction carefully suited to their years; and while their bodies are growing up to manhood, especial attention should be paid to them, as a serviceable acquisition in the cause of philosophy.

At the approach of that period during which the mind begins to attain its maturity, the mental exercises ought to be rendered more severe.

Finally, when their bodily powers begin to fail, and they are released from public duties and military service, from that time forward they ought to consecrate themselves altogether to the study of philosophy, if they are to live happily on earth, and after death to crown the life they have led with a corresponding destiny in another world.

-From PLATO'S _Republic_, bk. vi.