Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 by Various

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"'You do me great honour, respected godfather, by your presence--but
please remember, I cannot answer for dwarf slaughter--and murderous
crushings. Only look at the quantity of spruce vermin you have done me
the favour to bring with you!'

"Stringstriker waved his hand magnanimously, and told his godson that it
was of little consequence. Then with a bold leap, the king mounted the
long table, picked his way to the middle of it, and there, with legs
astride, fast planted himself. Not one of all the guests perceived the
larger Dwarf, any more than they could see the countless little ones.
Even Annie and the clergyman were stone-blind: so that Klaus, speaking
unintelligibly at every turn, had to bear the jokes of all; for young
and old, woman and man, chimed readily in with the tone of sportive
raillery, as soon as it was once pitched.

"The company indeed persisted in laughing and rioting so loudly at the
bridegroom's expense, that the pastor of the flock at length felt
himself called upon to assume his face of office--to put a damper, as it
were, upon the unseemly proceeding. Just as he began, a new dish, soup
with crabs' noses, (hotchpotch,) engaged exclusively the regard of the
whole of the guests. A full plate was set before every visitor, but
scarcely set before him, before, with the speed of lightning, from
chair-backs, window-sills, stove-cornices, nay, from the floor itself,
innumerable dwarfs bounded on to the table, and, taking their places by
all the plates, in three seconds consumed the savoury viand. To complete
the astonishment, the confusion, the wrath, the fury of the voracious
boors, Stringstriker himself galloped up and down the whole length of
the table, breaking all the vessels, and draining all the beer and
brandy with wonderful celerity.

"Had the most precious jewels of the Holy Roman Empire been plundered by
the Turks, there could not have been a greater commotion than arose
among the wedding-guests. Every man jumped up, turned in anger and
disgust towards his neighbour, sate down again, and again began to reach
after the food, without being able, of course, to get a morsel. Then
every man swore his neighbour was making a fool of him, and, from the
coarsest words, it came, without loss of time, to dreadful menaces and
blows. So greedy were some after the liquorish cookery that they gave
themselves good smart punctures in lip and tongue; inasmuch as the
mischievous dwarfs, as soon as any in his haste forked up a piece of
meat, incontinently had it down their own throats. With such
provocation, the blows, on all sides, came down in showers; more ears
were peppered, backs thumped, ribs punched, than the prize-ring of
England had ever seen. And, as if it were not enough for the men to be
sparring, the women, seeing their husbands covered with blood and
bruises, must needs take up the cudgels, and fall to fighting too! A
hundred arms were a-kimbo in a twinkling. Caps were dragged off, and
nails shown with amazonian spirit. There was a general melee; every soul
at the table was engaged in the contest. Marriage and bridal pair were
forgotten; and Klaus roared at the droll uproar till his throat smarted
again: for, not much to his regret, he soon enough became aware that his
enemies and his calumniators were the parties who were coming off second
best.

"This mutual threshing had lasted a good quarter of an hour, when a sign
from Stringstriker directed the bride-groom to scatter the yew-leaves.
In an instant the table was covered with them; and the guests, as if
bewitched, dispersed in grotesque groups, and remained transfixed. Every
eye was on the busy dwarfs. Klaus's godfather, crossing his legs, seated
himself upon the table, and began to scrape his fiddle. The earth
mannikins then arranged themselves in order, swung their broad hats
gracefully, and, one stepping upon the shoulder of another, built up a
living pyramid above the bride. A number clambered up to the very top of
her tinsel crown, where, still two and two, they took possession of a
spangle, fixed themselves upon it, and rocking to and fro, set up a soft
and tender song. The bride danced to its tune, the pyramid of dwarfs
along with her; and it was enchanting to see how their shining silvery
girdles, and the bright clasps upon their caps, flashed and sparkled in
the varying figure. Three times the dwarfs changed in the building of
this pyramid, and three times, attended by it, must the bride dance
round the table, through the gaping groups of guests. This done,
Stringstriker played a lively march, broke through a window with his
fiddlestick, and leapt out through the opening--whilst the whole dwarf
brotherhood, waltzing, laughing, tumbling, in a countless crowd,
prepared to follow him. For a time the procession fluctuated through the
air, where the girdles yet sparkled. Soon, like a dissolving gleam, all
vanished!

"The stupified boors were now able to stir themselves again. Doubtless
there were many bumps, black and blue faces, and bloody noses: but the
sight of all could not suppress the most extravagant merriment. All that
had happened was looked upon as a prank of the fiddler, and many in
their hearts felt that they had only received a just punishment for
their coarse and unchristian calumnies.

"Klaus Stringstriker's fame lived upon every tongue. The dwarfs obtained
no mean eulogies: and when it was at last discovered that the small
mannikins had, close before the window, one and all thrown down their
broad brown capkins with the brilliant clasps, the company for joy was
almost mad. The bridegroom was importuned, in remembrance of this
marvellous festival, to bestow upon each guest one such dwarf-hatkin,
and Klaus did not need a long begging. Each one acquired a hatkin with
its agraffe: some of a greedy nature, by stealth, possessed themselves
of two. The presents given, the company returned to the board, and drank
and uproared far into the night.

"Upon the morrow, Klaus found the Dwarf-hatkins turned into so many
Kremnitz double ducats, and upon each there lay, glittering in the
sunshine, a fine diamond. As he gathered them, a delicate voice from
unseen lips whispered to him that these were his father's hairs. All the
gift-receivers had the same wonder to tell. Those, however, who had
secretly taken away the second dwarf's cap were punished for the theft--
for they got nothing from the transformation but a wet and worthless
beech-leaf.

"From that hour all haunting upon Klaus's estate ceased. Even at the
Dwarf's well nothing remarkable was seen, save once a-year--upon the
anniversary of the young boor's wedding-day--when a great gamboling
flame appeared upon the waters, in which a singing and ringing might be
heard, like the voices of the smallest beings. The fortunate Klaus built
himself a great house, repurchased the tavern, and upon the pillar where
Stringstriker, tied up by his father, had had to fiddle so long, he
carved an inscription which published the Dwarf's praise to every guest
And his father's grave he surrounded with a fair iron grating. As for
himself, his intercourse with the Dwarf had made him prudent. He ruled
his substance discreetly, helped the poor, and cautioned the
light-witted by the relation of his own history. So he became the
richest and most respected man of the whole neighbourhood; and at length
acquired the name of the _Dwarf's advocate_: because, as Klaus
maintained, and as it was generally believed, a most important service
had been rendered, by the passages of Klaus's history, to these singular
and benevolent earth-spirits themselves."

SOME REMARKS ON SCHILLER'S MAID OF ORLEANS.

Perhaps there is no play of Schiller's which is read with more general
pleasure than the _Maid of Orleans_, nor one against which so many
critical objections have been raised. Some of these we wish to examine,
in order either to remove, or with greater accuracy to re-state them. It
will be seen at once that we have no intention of entering into any
general review or estimate of this great dramatic poet. Too much has
been written, and especially in this place, on Schiller, to permit us to
be tempted into any such design. We shall not wander from the single
play we have selected for our criticism.

On recalling to mind the story of Joan d'Arc, what is the point of view
in which that singular person presents herself to us? Joan d'Arc--whom
we shall call, after her title in the play, Johanna--a village maiden,
and a fugitive from her home, turned the tide of victory in the great
war which, in her time, was raging in France. As she effected this
through the influence which a belief in her supernatural power and
celestial inspiration exerted upon the army of Charles; and as, on the
other hand, the cruel fate she herself personally encountered from her
enemies, was the consequence of an opposite belief in her witchcraft, or
possession by the devil; the unhappy maiden presents herself to us, in a
strictly historical point of view, as one of those wild visionaries whom
solitude occasionally rears, become suddenly the sport of the tumultuous
feelings of two rival hosts, elevated by the one to a saint and the
companion of angels, and by the other blackened into a witch and the
associate of demons. History has relieved her moral character from the
aspersions thrown upon it, and philosophy has quite denuded her of the
least claims to supernatural power, whether derived from above or from
below: nothing remains but the enthusiast and the visionary, and the
strange position into which circumstances conducted her. And this
position of the thought-bewildered maid is rendered the more striking,
when we consider that it was her own countrymen who judged of her in so
contradictory a manner; for the war which raged around her was rather a
civil war, in which one of the parties had formed an alliance with
England, than a national war between France and England. It was by
Frenchmen that she was extolled and reverenced, and by Frenchmen that
she was condemned and executed: it was under the auspices, and with the
blessings, of the church that she conquered; it was the church that
execrated her, and sent her as an abomination to the stake.

This point of view is not only historically true, but replete, we think,
with poetic interest. The maiden is not, indeed, invested with any
supernatural attributes; we see her here neither more nor less than the
pious and day-dreaming enthusiast; but an enthusiast for her country--an
enthusiast for a young prince whom she has been taught to honour, and
whose reverse of fortune has deeply affected her. We see this young
enthusiast--her imagination swarming with visions, her heart beating
with generous aspirations--thrown out from her village retirement upon
the tumult of war; we see her snatched up, as by a whirlwind, by the
fanaticism of the multitude, who bear her, as she bears her banner,
onwards in their career, and conquer under this new standard they have
reared. We see her arriving at a success which, notwithstanding her own
prophecies, must have astonished herself. When the king has been crowned
at Rheims, something whispers to her that she ought now to retreat into
her native village, or, what was the only fitting termination for her
course, into some religious house, and find there a harbour from the
tempest on which she is tossing. But the selfish men around her will not
let her go. She may guide them a little yet. They bear the torch while
there is an ember left. Then comes the changeful fortune of war, defeat
and imprisonment; and now we see the same poor human heart, its visions
soiled and clouded, its courage beaten down, surrounded only by enemies
and scoffers, beginning even to suspect itself of imposture and impiety.
She who had felt as a saint, hears herself exorcised as a sorcerer; and,
by and by, a crowd of men, churchmen and civilians, stand round in
triumph to see her burnt and consumed as a thing unholy and impure,
whose life had been, not, as she had deemed, a perpetual devotion, but a
perpetual blasphemy.

But although it appears to us that this, which is the true historical
point of view, is also the most replete with poetic interest, it may not
be an interest so well adapted to the drama as to other species of
poetry. The heroine is here made the prey of the two rival factions, who
appear to contend, not only for the possession of her person, but for
the domination over her mind; not enough is attributed to her individual
will and character; the action of the piece does not immediately flow
from her; and the people, with its strange faiths and monstrous
caprices, becomes the veritable hero. It was for this reason, we
presume, that Schiller rejected what, in our days, is the simple and
natural manner of considering his subject, and adopted a different point
of view. Designating his play as a _romantic_ tragedy, he resolved to
represent the maid as really inspired by Heaven--as veritably
commissioned by the Virgin--as endowed, _bona fide_, with miraculous
powers. She is thus the living centre of the action. Whatever is
effected by the appearance of the Maid of Orleans, is effected by her
individual prowess, or the aid of heaven administered through her.

This was a bold attempt, and very boldly has Schiller executed it. He
has stopped at no middle point. He has not scrupled to represent the
fabulous miracles of a superstitious age as actually taking place before
us. Johanna gives proofs of her faculty of second-sight; she sees, while
at the camp of the Dauphin, the death of Salisbury before Orleans; she
performs in our presence those miracles by which she is said to have
first established her reputation at the court--recognising the Dauphin
at once, although he had purposely resigned his post of dignity to
another, and reciting to him the secret prayer which he had, the night
before, offered up to God in the solitude of his own chamber. And not
only are the fables, which the chronicles of the times have handed down
to us, enacted as veritable facts, but the poet has added miracles and
prodigies of his own invention; and in particular, a certain spectre of
a black knight--who appears to us to have been introduced as much for
the sake of supporting the supernatural character of the piece as for
any other purpose.

This hardihood of the poet has by some critics been censured. For
ourselves, we have a lingering and obstinate regret that Schiller ever
thought it necessary to forsake the true for the fabulous; that he did
not restrict himself to representing the faith of the age in the
dialogue of his personages; that he did not content himself with marvels
related only in the imitated conversation of superstitious persons. The
most sceptical of men admit the reality and fervour of superstitious
beliefs; and in depicting _them_ in all their vitality, the poet is
still adhering rigidly to truth: it is for the reader to sympathize with
them or not at his pleasure. But Schiller having resolved to represent
as fact the superstitious faith of the times, instead of building upon
that faith as his _fact_; having determined that Johanna should be
verily inspired, and see visions, and be the champion of the Holy Virgin
for the salvation of France--we think he was quite right in casting
aside all timidity, all remaining scruples of reason, and freely giving
up his scene to prodigies and marvels. If you must lie, lie boldly--is a
good maxim for poets as well as rogues. Above all, do we dislike that
dubious and pitiful position which a narrator of supernatural events
sometimes falls into, where the reader is perpetually asking himself
whether the author seriously intends to task his credulity or not.

We must here, however, remark that, even when the poet represents the
supernatural as the faith only of others, he must still, in order to do
this effectively, awaken some degree of superstitious feeling in
ourselves. To understand the belief or delusion of another without more
or less participating in it, is a state of mind in which the philosopher
might be very well content to place us, but which by no means suits the
purposes of the poet. We must be made to partake for the moment, to some
slight degree, in the superstitious feelings of the past age which is
brought before us, or we can no longer feel that sympathetic interest
which the poet seeks to create. The spectacle presented to us becomes
one of mere curiosity. As well might we look through a microscope, and
watch the world of _animalculae_ it reveals. Very curious that little
world; but we take no part in any of its proceedings, violent as they
evidently are. And here lies the reason, we apprehend, why dramatic
representations of insanity are so generally unsuccessful. We cannot
participate in the capricious delusions of the maniac, who becomes,
therefore, a mere object of wonder or curiosity. The moment when the
lunatic affects us most deeply is, when he approaches nearest to the
ordinary current of human thought--it is the moment when he comes _back_
to reason, and its too frequent companion, the sense of pain.

We make this observation, because it probably had its weight in
determining the poet in the course he pursued. Schiller probably
reflected that, whether he _related_ his marvels in the dialogue of his
personages, or represented them as _facts_ in his drama, he must in both
cases depend, for the impression he should produce, on a successful
appeal to the superstitious feelings of his contemporaries. In whatever
era a poet may find his materials, his authority for using them must lie
in the age he writes for--in the interest they are capable of exciting
in that age. His success as a dramatic poet required that he should
kindle the love of the marvellous; and he may have thought that, in an
artistical point of view, the question resolved itself into one of
policy, of means to an end--whether it were better to assail our
credulity by open force, and so take it by storm, or to content himself
with a less advantage, gained by more insidious but surer approaches.

With all his boldness, and all his genius, has Schiller succeeded in his
treatment of the miraculous? We hesitate to reply. There is a peculiar
difficulty in deciding how far a poet has been successful in an appeal
to superstitious feelings; it is this, that in such cases every
intelligent reader feels that he must be aidant and assistant in the
subjection of his own rebellious reason, prompt at every moment to turn
with impatience and derision from the utterly incredible. This necessity
to be a party concerned in the business, leaves him in doubt how far he
has been compelled by the poet, and how far he has, or _ought to have_,
voluntarily surrendered. After all, the use of the marvellous in poetry
is not so much itself to impress us with awe and astonishment, as to
supply novel and striking situations for the display of human feelings.
When Johanna, for instance, describes the visitation by the Virgin, and
declares her sacred mission, we listen unmoved. Not so, when, having
felt the touch of human passion, she sighs to re-enter into the common
rank of mortals, and laments the dreadful honour that has been imposed
upon her. Yet this latter sentiment, so natural and so affecting, could
not be separated from the previous fable. In this lies the difference
between the poetry of a rude and a cultivated age. In the first, the
supernatural is for itself sought for and admired; in the second, it is
admitted for the sake of the singular opportunities it affords for the
display of natural and powerful emotions.

There is another point in the tragedy of _The Maid of Orleans_, on which
we feel no hesitation whatever in expressing a decisive opinion--
namely, the violent departure from history in the catastrophe. But in
order to make our remarks on this and some other points intelligible, we
must enter a little further into the plot of the drama. Our detail shall
be as brief as possible.[1]

[1] In the few extracts we shall have occasion to make, we would have
willingly had recourse at once to an English translation, if such had
been within our reach. That not being the case, the reader must accept
our own attempts at translation.

The drama opens with a scenic prologue. The scene is the village of Dom
Remi; on the left is the Druid oak--on the right, the image of the
Virgin in a small chapel. Thibaut d'Arc enters with his three daughters,
Margaret, Louison, and Johanna, together with their three suitors,
Etienne, Claude Marie, and Raimond. Thibaut deplores the state of his
fatherland. Young Henry VI. of England has just been crowned at Paris,
and Charles, the hereditary prince, is wandering a fugitive through his
own kingdom. They themselves are in danger every day of seeing the enemy
pour down into their own quiet valleys. Nevertheless, partly from this
very cause, he determines upon giving his daughters in marriage without
further delay. He bestows Margaret upon Etienne. Then, turning to the
second daughter, Louison, and to her suitor, who, it seems, can lay
little claim to worldly possessions, he says--

"Shall I, because ye proffer me no wealth,
Sunder two hearts that seem so well attuned?
Who _has_ wealth now? Home and homestead now
Are booty for the robber and the flames:
The strong heart of a brave and constant man
Is the sole roof-tree which these stormy times
Must pass unshaken."

Hitherto father Thibaut seems an amiable personage, but he turns out to
be one of the most disagreeable atrabilious parents that ever made his
appearance on the stage. He next addresses and reproaches his daughter
Johanna, who is beloved by Raimond, but who rejects the ties of earthly
affection. He has taken an exceedingly morose view of the character of
his daughter; a circumstance which becomes of great importance in the
progress of the piece; for Johanna's reverse of fortune is brought about
by the strange intervention of this dark and sinister parent. He
believes his child more prone to ally herself with evil spirits, through
a vain and sinful ambition, than, inspired by piety, to emulate the
lives of saints. Raimond combats this gloomy notion. He thinks that the
love of Johanna, like the most costly fruits, is only late in ripening.

"_Raimond._--As yet she loves to dwell upon the hills,
And trembles to descend from the free heath
To man's low roof, beset with narrow cares.
_Thibaut._--Ay, that it is displeases me. She flies
Her sisters' frolicsome companionship
For the bare hills--deserts her sleepless couch
Before the cock-crow--in that fearful hour
When man so willingly his shelter seeks,
Housed with his kind, within familiar walls,
She, like a solitary bird, hies forth
Into the gloomy, spirit-haunted, night,
Stands on the cross-way, holding with the air
Mysterious intercourse. Why will she choose
Perpetually _this_ place? Why will she drive
Her flocks for ever _here?_ I've seen her sit
Musing whole hours together underneath
This Druid oak, which all good Christians shun;
There's nothing blest beneath it; a foul spirit
Has made his refuge in it ever since
The old and sinful times of Paganism.
The old men of the village can relate
Horrible tales of this same tree: one hears
Oft, in its thick dark branches, whisperings
Of strange unearthly voices. I, myself,
As once my way led past the tree at night,
Saw sitting at its trunk a spectral woman,
Who slowly, from her wide enfolding robe,
Stretch'd a thin hand and beckon'd me."

Raimond points to the sacred image of the Virgin, which stands opposite
the oak, and replies that _it_ is the attraction which brings Johanna to
this spot. But the old man persists in his own interpretation. Because
his daughter is more beautiful than any other maiden in the valley, she
is proud, and disdains her humble condition. He has had, moreover,
ominous dreams. The entrance of Bertrand, a countryman just arrived from
the neighbouring town of Vaucouleurs, interrupts the conversation. He
carries a helmet in his hand, which has been forced upon him, in the
marketplace, by a strange woman. Johanna, who has all this while
remained quite silent, not answering a word to the rebuke of her parent,
comes suddenly forward, and claims the helmet as having been sent for
her. Through the interposition of her lover, it is granted to her.
Bertrand, being asked what news of the war he has heard at Vaucouleurs,
gives a desponding account of the king's cause, and brings the report
that Orleans, pressed by the besiegers, is on the point of surrendering.
Johanna now breaks forth:--

"Of treaty, of surrender not a word!
A saviour comes and arms her for the fight.
At Orleans wrecks the fortune of the foe!
His measure full, he is for harvest ripe,
And with her sickle shall the virgin come,
And reap the rank luxuriance of his pride.
Down from the heavens she tears that blazon'd fame
These English knights have hung about the stars.
Fly not! droop not!
Before the corn is yellow in the fields,
Before this moon has fill'd her globe of light,
There shall not drink an English horse
Of the sweet-flowing waters of the Loire.
_Bertrand._--Alas! the age of miracles is past.
_Johanna._--Not past! ye shall behold a miracle.
Lo! a white dove with eagle courage flies
Down on the vulture that still rends his prey,
Our mangled country. The traitor Burgundy,
The haughty Talbot that would storm the skies,
This Salisbury, scandal of the Temple's order,
And all these insolent proud islanders
Shall fly before her like a herd of lambs."

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