Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 14.djvu/493

 L E SAGE 473 plays Crispin and Turcaret, the third his prose fictions. In the first two he swims within the general literary current in France ; he can be and must be compared with others of his own nation. But in the third he emerges altogether from merely national comparison. It is not with French men that he is to be measured. He formed no school in France; he followed iu French models. His work, admir able as it is from the mere point of view of style and form, is a parenthesis in the general development of the French novel. That product works its way from Madame de la Fayette through Marivaux and Provost, not through Le Sage. His literary ancestors are Spaniards, his literary contemporaries and successors are Englishmen. The position is almost unique; it is certainly interesting and remarkable in the highest degree. Of Le Sage s miscellaneous work, including his numerous farce-operettas, there is not much to be said except that they are the very best kind of literary hack work. The pure and original style of the author, his abundant wit, his cool huiuoristic attitude towards human life, which wanted only greater earnestness and a wider conception of that life to turn it into true humour, are discernible throughout. But this portion of his work is practically forgotten, and 110 sensible critic who has taken the trouble to examine it will say that for the world at large there is any reason why it should be resuscitated. Of such work every generation produces its own quota, which is sufficient for the day. Crispin and Turcarel show a stronger and more deeply marked genius, which but for the ill-will of the actors might have gone far in this direction. But Le Sage s peculiar unwillingness to attempt anything absolutely new discovered itself here. Even when he had devoted himself to the Foire theatre, it seems that he was unwilling to attempt when occasion called for it the absolute innovation of a pie:3 with only 0113 actor, a crux which Piron, a lesser but a bolder genius, accepted and carried through. Crispin and Turcaret are unquestionably Molieresque, though they are perhaps more original in their following of Moliere than any other plays that can be named. For this also was part of Le Sage s idiosyncrasy that, while he was apparently unable or unwilling to strike out an entirely novel line for himself, he had no sooner entered upon the beaten path than he left it to follow his own devices. Crispin Rival de so:i Ma itre is a farce in one act and many scenes, after the earlier manner of motion. Its plot is somewhat extra vagant, inasmuch as it lies in the effort of a knavish valet, not as usual to further his master s interests, but to supplant that master. But the charm of the piece consists first in the lively bustling action of the short scenes which take each other up so promptly and smartly that the spectator lias not time to cavil at the improbability of the action, and secondly in the abundant wit of the dialogue. Turcaret is a far more important piece of work. The only thing which prevents it from holding the very highest place is a certain want of unity in the plot. This unity, however, which was too often attained by Moliere through the exaggeration of the ruling-passion theory, as in Turtu/e and the Mis-inthrope, is compensated in Turcarel by the most masterly profusion of character-drawing in the sepa rate parts. Turciret, the ruthless, dishonest, and dissolute financier, his vulgar wife as dissolute as himself, the hare brained marquis, the knavish chevalier, the baroness (a coquette with the finer edge taken off her fine-ladyhood, yet by no means unlovable), are each and all finished portraits of tho best comic type, while almost as much may be said of the minor characters. The style and dialogue are al.su worthy of the highest praise ; the wit never degenerates into mere &quot; wit-combats.&quot; It is, however, as a novelist that the world has agreed to remember Le Sage, and the world as usual is right. A great deal of unnecessary labour has been spent on the discussion of his claims to originality. What has been already said will give a sufficient clue through this thorny ground. In mere form Le Sage is not original. He does little more than adopt that of the Spanish picaroon romance of the 16th and 17th century. Often, too, he prefers merely to rearrange and adapt existing work, and still oftener to give himself a kind of start by adopting the work of a preceding writer as a basis. But it may be laid down as a positive truth that he never in any work that pretends to originality at all is guilty of anything that can fairly be called plagiarism. Indeed we may go further, and say that he is very fond of asserting or suggesting his indebtedness when he is really dealing with his own funds. Thus the Diable Boiteux borrows the title, and for a chapter too the plan and almost the words, of the Diablo Cojuelo of Luis Velez de Guevara. But after a few pages Le Sage leaves his predecessor alone. Even the plan of the Spanish original is entirely discarded, and the incidents, the episodes, the style, are as independent as if such a book as the Diablo Cojuelo had never existed. The case of Gil Bias is still more remarkable. It was at first alleged that Le Sage had borrowed it from the Marcos de Obref/on of Vincent Espinel, a curiously rash assertion, inasmuch as that work exists and is easily accessible, and as the slightest consultation of it proves that, though it furnished Le Sage with separate incidents and hints for more than one of his books, Gil Bias as a whole is not in the least indebted to it. After wards Father Isla asserted that Gil Bias was a mere trans lation from an actual Spanish book an assertion at once incapable of proof and disproof, inasmuch as there is no trace whatever of any such book. A third hypothesis is that there was some manuscript original which Le Sage may have worked up in his usual way, in the same way, for instance, as he professes himself to have worked up the Bachelor of Salamanca. This also is in the nature of it incapable of refutation, though the argument from the Bachelor is strong against it, for there could be no reason why Le Sage should be more reticent of his obligations in the one case than in the other. Except, however, for historical reasons, the controversy is one which may be safely neglected. There is as little doubt (with the limitations already laid down) of the originality of Le Sage as of that of any great writer in the world. Gil Bias then remains his property, and it is admittedly the capital example of its own style. Fielding has been called the prose Homer of human nature, but in the sense in which the expression was used it is doubtful whether his master (as Le Sage certainly was) is not better entitled to the term. For Le Sage has not only the characteristic which Homer and Shakespeare have of absolute truth to human nature as distinguished from truth to this or that national character, but he lias what has been called the quality of detachment, which they also have. He never takes sides with his characters as Fielding does. Asmodeus and Don Cleofas, Gil Bias and the Archbishop and Doctor Sangrado, are produced by him with exactly the same impartiality of attitude. Except that he brought into novel writing this highest quality of artistic truth, it perhaps cannot be said that he did much to advance prose fiction in itself. He invented, as had been said, no evf genre ; he did not, as Marivaux and Provost did, help on the novel as distin guished from the romance. In form his books are undis- tinguishable, not merely from the Spanish romances which are, as have been said, their direct originals, but from the mediaeval romans cTaventures and the Greek prose romances. But in individual excellence they have few rival-*. Nor should it be forgotten, as it sometimes is, tlutt Le Sage was a great master of French style, the greatest unques tionably between the classics of the 17th centurv and the XIV. 60