Pagina-afbeeldingen
PDF
ePub

64

publication in the Peking Gazette were obtained with difficulty* does not detract from its intrinsic value as an utterance in favor of Christian religion and of foreign intercourse. What the Imperial Government seems unwilling to realize is that Europe requires something more than words as an earnest of its goodwill in the present crisis. Sir Halliday Macartney has told the Foreign Office, under instruction, of course, from Peking, that the Government feel really perplexed and somewhat disturbed by the pressure which continues to be put on them." Two men have (they plead) been executed at Wuhu, and others subjected to minor punishments. Two more have since been condemned to death at Wusüeh for participation in the riots there, and several mandarins have been degraded. They felt, therefore, that there had been no laxity or evasion in the measures taken, and they apprehended that further executions would tend to increase rather than allay the popular excitement."

[ocr errors]

The contention is plausible, from the Chinese point of view, if it were simply a matter of counting heads and so balancing an account; but it ignores altogether the ulterior considerations which have forced themselves on the attention of European statesmen. The outbreaks have indeed been so serious and widespread, and the authorities have shown such evident in capacity to grapple with the movement, that it has ceased to be a question merely of special reparation. It is no longer a question of this or that riot only, but of a whole series of outrages, which the Imperial Government may plead difficulty in preventing, outrages which Englishmen in China, even those who do not sympa thize with missionary enterprise, are persuaded the local authorities rarely use diligence to prevent. There is a conviction, as Mr. Gardner told the Taotai of Hankow, that these riots are largely due to "the remissness of the Chinese authorities in suppressing the dissemination of the abominable anti-Christian pamphlets and placards;" and, as Sir T. Sanderson told Sir H. Macartney, there is felt to be "a growing tendency among the Chinese population to think that the simplest way

*Sir J. Walsham to Lord Salisbury, June 21.

Lord Salisbury to Sir J. Walsham, July 22, 1891.

of stopping any foreign movement or institution which they dislike is a resort to popular outbreak and violence, which they believe will have no unpleasant result to themselves, and will merely entail money payment of a certain pecuniary indemnity by their Government." Our relations with China betray, in fact, a painful tendency to revolve continually in the same circle. Replying to the Chinese letter from which I have quoted on a previous page, Dr. Griffith John, a missionary of long experience in the country, says that "the hatred of foreigners among the literary and official classes is not a thing of yesterday. It existed long before the first Protestant missionary set his foot on the soil of the Celestial land, and if I may judge from this [letter] it is likely to exist for ages to come. Our first war with China is generally regarded as springing out of the opium trade, and waged in order to obtain an indemnity for the losses sustained by the surrender of the opium.' But it may be regarded in another light, namely, in its relation to the immoderate assumptions of the Peking Court, and the haughty, contemptuous and insulting bearing of the Chinese officials in their intercourse with foreigners from the beginning. . . . No great Power could possibly submit long to such insults. . . . The old pride and hatred still reign in the hearts of the officials and the literati. the literati. There may be exceptions; but they are few and far between. I know something of the temper of the people; and I venture to predict that, should a missionary war' ever come to pass, it will not be a war against the people of China, but, as heretofore, a war against the Chinese Government; and that it will be induced, not by the doings of the missionary, but by the pride and folly of the governing classes." Dr. John writes, of course, from the Foreign, the Missionary, and the Protestant point of view. It would be unfair to suppose that the Chinese could say nothing in answer to his contention. Indeed, very shortly after the Tientsin massacre, they took occasion to set out their case, with a view to asking that certain restrictions might be placed upon the action of missionaries, in matters which they alleged caused irritation and danger. They began by saying that as regards trade there is no probability of Chinese and foreigners quarrel

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

ling, but as regards missions there is a great deal of ill-feeling ;" and it may be not amiss to note one or two of the causes they allege. One point is that of extraterritorial privilege. Either prevent missionaries residing in the interior or let them do so subject to Chinese law! They are now allowed privileges from which merchants are debarred. Another charge is that converts take advantage of the influence of the missionaries to injure and oppress the common people ;" and that when litigation arises "the missionaries support the latter, thus obstructing the authorities, which the people strongly object to." The case may be strongly put; but, how much truth or exaggeration soever it may contain, it states without doubt a cause of serious irritation. Roman bishops have been accused of imitating the port and trappings of Provincial Governors. An instance is given of a Roman bishop having a seal manufactured with which to stamp his proclamations. But these are minor matters compared with the alleged tendency to look on converts, if not as Laturalized Frenchmen, as entitled at any rate to a quasi-consular protection. It is easy to understand that if a convert appeals to his priest the priest's sympathies should be enlisted; but it is equally easy to comprehend the irritation that would be caused by any attempt to express those sympathies in official ears.

Another impression, which is not mentioned in this despatch but is voiced by the Chinese exponent of the literate cause, is that missionaries constitute by their organization not only an imperium in imperio, but a hostile imperium in the sense that they are prepared to place influence and valuable information at the disposal of a foreign invader. "Tous les renseignements qui parvenaient au général

tant sur les ressources des provinces que nous allions traverser que sur les effectifs des troupes que nous allions rencontrer lui etaient procurés par l'intermédiaire des jésuites qui les faisaient relever par des Chinois à leur devotion." The language is used by a writer who held an official position in the French army during the war that ended with the treaty of Tientsin; and similar testimony has been given to the help yielded the French by missionaries and their converts during the invasion of Tongking.

Nearly all these causes of complaint, as

well as the practices which have been referred to as probably causes of misunderstanding, have reference unquestionably to the Roman system. Protestant missionaries also have their disputes; but they are less serious and less frequent, and are connected more often with the purchase of land or buildings in regions where the local gentry oppose their presence. There can be no doubt that the Roman Catholics, and especially the French, are objects of much greater dislike. But the two systems appear inextricably entangled so far as diplomacy is concerned. Neither France nor England would permit the imposition, on either, of restrictions that were not common to both. The very need, indeed, for such precautions would not improbably be denied; but their enactment, in that case, could harm none, and Chinese Statesmen may perhaps manage to gain a hearing for their propositions when satisfaction for the recent outrages has been given.

[ocr errors]

But

It is possibly difficult for high Chinese officials to appreciate the feeling in favor of missionary enterprise which prevails among a large section of the English people, and more difficult still for them to reconcile the attitude of France toward clerical institutions at home with its willingness to support them in the East. Sir Thomas Sanderson was undoubtedly right in impressing on the Chinese Minister that, if public opinion once became alarmed and indignant in France and England, a cry for intervention might arise that might have very serious consequences. It would be useless for the Chinese to retort" that our people object to the propaganda as much as your people desire it," because religious enthusiasm declines to admit argument. We shrink in horror from the doctrine of the Koran or the sword. Europe would not tolerate, now, a campaign against the Albigenses: even the most enthusiastic would recoil from a naked proposal to impose Christianity on any heathen nation by force of arins. But a volume of public opinion which has to be reckoned with does approve of compelling China to admit and protect missionaries, how distasteful soever their presence may be to certain classes of the population. right will be upheld; and the mistake will not, it is hoped, be made of accepting money and a few heads as adequate repa

The treaty

ration for the organized outbreaks that have been described. The conspirators who inspire the riots must be produced, the officials who fail to hinder them degraded, and pledges given of the existence of both will and power to exert a more efficacious protection over missionaries in future. The inflammatory literature must be restrained, and Mr. Gardner's suggestion that, "failing fear of war, our best means of insuring the safety of our countrymen in any Consular district is causing it to be more disagreeable for the officials to neglect than to perform the duty of protecting British subjects," may well be borne in mind. The officials' remissness need not be always and altogether ascribed to ill-will. Having attained office after a long period of waiting, and having borrowed freely to pay the fees incidental to its attainment, they are naturally anxious to retain it in order to recoup their outlay. And their best chance of retaining it is to keep order in their district. But there may be considerations more urgent than even the dissatisfaction of their superiors. If they run counter to the wishes of the literati and the gentry, these will certainly find means to subvert them; and the fear of such an event may occasionally terrify them into acquiescence in plots which they really disapprove. All that, however, does not concern us. The Imperial Government must manage its own people. It must support its officials in

doing their duty, and it must punish those who are primarily responsible for the flow of placards which are the cause of mischief. There is said to be a project to strike at the heart of the octopus, by insisting on the opening of Hunan. The idea is good, and might be accomplished, perhaps, by the opening of the Tungting Lake to foreign commerce. But we must be prepared, in that case, to make good our own entry. If the Government stands so far in awe of the Hunanese soldiers in the valley of the Yangtze that it dares not employ force for their repression, if it has witnessed the expulsion of its own emissaries from Hunan when the question was only about setting up a telegraph, it would probably not dare-at least at the present moment-to insist on the right of foreigners to travel and reside in the province. The appearance of a few foreign gunboats on that lake, however, which is embayed in the obnoxious province, might prove an efficacious means of bringing various people to their senses. Whether Peking Statesmen would object, in their secret hearts, to our accepting the work of coercion is a question that few would care to answer. They might resent the shock to their prestige, yet not be altogether unwilling that the Hunanese should receive a practical lesson, the odiem of teaching which they themselves had not to incur. -National Review.

MR. HENRY JAMES.

No more considerable interest has lately attended the appearance of any play than that excited by the production in a London theatre of Mr. Henry James's dramatic version of his own novel, "The American." The reason of that interest is not far to seek. Whatever the merit and the success of our English writers of plays in general, it will not be disputed, we believe, that English literature, in the strict sense of the word, is not, as a rule, greatly enriched by their efforts; when, therefore, it was known that an eminent man of letters, a novelist of the first distinction, had turned his attention to the stage, the event, it was felt, was of an importance to arouse the most legitimate curiosity. It is not our purpose to comment here in any

way on Mr. James's work as a dramatist, which, indeed, lies chiefly in the future; but the admirable and lucid style, the command of witty and epigrammatic dialogue with which his readers are already familiar, probably justify the highest hopes of those who care greatly for the renascence of literary excellence in the English drama. It can be no secret to any one who has studied Mr. James's writings, that he has an almost passionate appreciation of fine plays and fine acting a hundred passages in his critical work give evidence of his close and careful study of the stage and its requirements, while the point, always to be largely insisted on in any consideration of his work as a novelist, that he is a consummate artist, should

have no less significance, it may be supposed, in the dramatic world than in that of fiction, as the term is usually understood.

In speaking of the work of Mr. Henry James, the first, the imperative thing to be said about it is that it is the work of an artist, and of one with a complete and exhaustive knowledge of his art and its resources. While no writer is more vividly modern, Mr. James is, in a sense, an artist as an ancient Greek was an artist; he represses systematically, that is to say, his own personality in view of the work on which he is engaged. By the public, and shall we say by the English public in particular, this supreme quality of workmanship is one of the qualities least esteemed and least appreciated. The generous public hates the Augur's mask; it likes to peep and see the human countenance behind, to shake hands, so to speak, with the wearer, and congratulate him on having a soul like its own. Mr. James never, or by inference only, allows us the smallest peep; his reserve is impenetrable; he invariably treats his characters and his plots with the impartiality of the workman who apprehends that the truth of a thing, and not his own coloring of it, is what, before all, is needed.

We so far share the feeling, while absolutely disclaiming any share in the opinion of the public, on this point, as to find a particular pleasure in those impressions de voyage, those little sketches of travel collected under the various titles-"A Little Tour in France," "Portraits of Places," "Foreign Parts"-in which the writer, in the easiest, simplest, most genial manner imaginable, lets us into the secret of his personal impressions, his fine artistic discriminations, his good inns and his bad inns, his chance comrades, his satisfactions and disillusions. It is the charm of individuality that pervades these charming pages, and which, by the happiest instinct, the author has known how to convey without a touch of obtrusive egotism or fatiguing iteration of detail. It needs indeed but a glance over a hundred dreary and futile impressions de voyage, to borrow again that convenient term, to understand the rare and consummate skill that goes to the composition of these little articles in which, without any uneasy selfconsciousness or self-assertion, the writer

[merged small][ocr errors]

In putting forward these little volumes first, however, we are not doing Mr. James's work, and what we may imagine to be his own estimate of it, the injustice to rank them among his foremost productions. The field of literature that he has traversed is wide; both as critic and essayist he has gained particular distinction, no less than by the charming papers just mentioned. But it is as a novelist that he has found a foremost place among modern writers; it is his unique and delightful gift of fiction that, above all, claims consideration in treating of his work.

I.

Every writer of original excellence has one or more distinct lines along which his genius develops itself, and with which he becomes, as it were, identified. Mr. James, as we shall endeavor to show, has that larger outlook on the vast human comedy that distinguishes the great masters of fiction; but his earliest stories have a certain character in common that intimately connects them with what for convenience has been termed, the International novel. Mr. James, in fact, might not unreasonably claim to be the inventor of that particular form of romance; and though it would be manifestly unjust to consider him exclusively or even principally in relation to it, since much of his most masterly as well as his most delicate work does not touch on the International question-that is to say, the interfusing influences of America and Europe-at all; yet there is no doubt that it was his earlier productions, "The American," "The Europeans," "Daisy Miller," "An International Episode," and half a dozen other tales on the same line, that won for him in the first instance much of the wide reputation he enjoys. Mr. James must at some time have studied his countrymen and country women with extraordinary minuteness and detachment of vision. To him might be applied what Sainte Beuve somewhere says of La Bruyère: "En jugeant de si près les hommes et les choses de son pays, il paraît désinté

ressé comme le serait un étranger, et déjà un homme de l'avenir." This disinterested view has, we believe, brought Mr. James into some discredit with a certain section of his compatriots; the fresh perception and keen insight he has brought to the contemplation of his country and theirs has not always pleased them. They are probably unaware of the debt of gratitude they owe him. It is more apparent to the English mind, which, contrasting its knowledge of America now with what it was some twenty or thirty years ago, perceives how largely, among other causes, Mr. James has contributed to that knowledge; how clear a light, and how favorable a light, has been thrown upon the subject by his interpretations. This is the more valuable that there can be no suspicion of the author's impartiality; that if, as is the fact, there is in the course of his stories hardly a contest between an American and a European in which the American does not show the finer of the two, it is, we are persuaded, because, given the characters and the circumstances, the American must of necessity show the finer of the two. Nothing, indeed, could be more impossible than to treat Mr. James as even remotely a partisan; nothing could be further removed from his method, from the large and even glance he turns on one character and another. When he convinces us, it is through his presentment of the truth of things, never through the expression of his personal bias. He himself tells us somewhere that it is his constant habit to tip the balance; and, if he had not told us, we might have divined it from his work. It is probably a natural quality that he has cultivated to a degree that makes it impossible for him in contemplating a subject seriously to look at it from one point only; he turns it in his hands, so to speak, as one turns a globe, considering it from every side. This habit of mind is, of course, one of the finest and most essential that a writer can bring to his work; and if it occasionally exhibits the defect of its quality in carrying disinterestedness to the verge of coldness, it has the supreme merit of leaving the reader's judgment free, of never affronting him by undue insistence on one point to the hindrance of another.

It results naturally from the perfection to which Mr. James has brought this particular method of observation, that the

men and women of his tales should have, both physically and mentally, an air of solidity and reality only occasionally attained to in the same degree; he sees them impartially, he depicts them unerringly, with an extreme delicacy and distinction; they are set in clear and open daylight, in a perspective as wide, in an atmosphere as free as those of the two continents of which he treats. His characters are types and yet individual; they belong at once to the universe and to their own epoch; they have, in short, that combination of the general and the particular that is indispensable to the complete vitality of a creature of the imagination; and they stand out in a relief that is the bolder, perhaps, that they are, as a rule, provided with little more scenery for their surrounding than is requisite to indicate the local coloring of the story. To Mr. James, we gather from his novels as a whole, life presents itself not pictorially, as a number of pictures, that is, in which human action displays itself against the vast scenic background of the world, not dramatically, as a succession of scenes culminating in a logical catastrophe (though both these points of view are necessarily included in his scheme of work), but primarily as a series of problems, moral, social, or psychological, to be worked out and solved. An involved situation, a moral dilcınma, the giant and complex grasp of society in its widest sense, upon the individual-these and such as these are the problems to the tracing out and solution of which he brings an extremne fineness and subtlety, subtle and fine as the workings of the human mind hardly conscious of its own movement from point to point. It may be said at once, that in exercising his admirable gift of psychological insight and imagination, Mr. James frequently presupposes great attention on the part of his readers, and an intelligence of reception hardly less than his own intelligence of representation. He is one of the finest of analysts; but nevertheless he not seldom reaches a point where he ceases to analyze and simply suggests with a delicacy conveying the flattering assumption that the reader has keenness and imagination enough of his own to follow up the writer's suggestion with as much certainty. as when, a hand being seen at a window, it may be inferred that a human being stands behind it. As a fact, we believe

« VorigeDoorgaan »