The Tale of Terror written by Edith Birkhead

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Beckford's mind was so richly stored with the jewels of Eastern
legend that it was inevitable he should shower from his treasury
things new and old, but everything which passes through the
alembic of his imagination is transmuted almost beyond
recognition. The episode of the sinners with the flaming hearts
has been traced[66] to a scene in the _Mogul Tales_, where Aboul
Assam saw three men standing mute in postures of sorrow before a
book on which were inscribed the words: "Let no man touch this
divine treatise who is not perfectly pure." When Aboul Assam
enquired of their fate they unbuttoned their waistcoats, and
through their skin, which appeared like crystal, he saw their
hearts encompassed with fire. In Beckford's story this grotesque
scene assumes an awful and moving dignity. From _The Adventure of
Abdallah, Son of Hanif_, Beckford derived the conception of a
visit to the regions of Eblis, whom, however, by a wave of his
wand, he transforms from a revolting ogre to a stately
prince.[67]

To read _Vathek_ is like falling asleep in a huge Oriental palace
after wandering alone through great, echoing halls resplendent
with a gorgeous arras, on which are displayed the adventures of
the caliph who built the palaces of the five senses. In our dream
the caliph and his courtiers come to life, and we awake dazzled
with the memory of a myriad wonders. There throng into our mind a
crowd of unearthly forms--aged astrologers, hideous Giaours,
gibbering negresses, graceful boys and maidens, restless, pacing
figures with their hands on their hearts, and a formidable
prince--whose adventures are woven into a fantastic but distinct
and definite pattern around the three central personages, the
caliph Vathek, his exquisitely wicked mother Carathis, and the
bewitching Nouronihar. The fatal palace of Eblis, with its lofty
columns and gloomy towers of an architecture unknown in the
annals of the earth, looms darkly in our imagination. Beckford
alludes, with satisfaction, to _Vathek_ as a "story so horrid
that I tremble while relating it, and have not a nerve in my
frame but vibrates like an aspen,"[68] and in the _Episodes_
leads us with an unhallowed pleasure into other abodes of
horror--a temple adorned with pyramids of skulls festooned with
human hair, a cave inhabited by reptiles with human faces, and an
apartment whose walls were hung with carpets of a thousand kinds
and a thousand hues, which moved slowly to and fro as if stirred
by human creatures stifling beneath their weight. But Beckford
passes swiftly from one mood to another, and was only momentarily
fascinated by terror. So infinite is the variety of _Vathek_ in
scenery and in temper that it seems like its wealthy, eccentric,
author secluded in Fonthill Abbey, to dwell apart in defiant,
splendid isolation.

It is impossible to understand or appreciate _Vathek_ apart from
Beckford's life and character, which contain elements almost as
grotesque and fantastic as those of his romance. He was no
visionary dreamer, content to build his pleasure-domes in air. He
revelled in the golden glories of good Haroun-Alraschid,[69] but
he craved too for solid treasures he could touch and handle, for
precious jewels, for rare, beautiful volumes, for curious, costly
furniture. The scenes of splendour portrayed in _Vathek_ were
based on tangible reality.[70] Beckford's schemes in later
life--his purchase of Gibbon's entire library, his twice-built
tower on Lansdown Hill, were as grandiose and ambitious as those
of an Eastern caliph. The whimsical, Puckish humour, which helped
to counteract the strain of gloomy bitterness in his nature, was
early revealed in his _Biographical Memoirs of Extraordinary
Painters_ and in his burlesques of the sentimental novels of the
day, which were accepted by the compiler of _Living Authors_
(1817) as a serious contribution to fiction by one Miss Jacquetta
Agneta Mariana Jenks. Moore,[71] in his _Journal_, October 1818,
remarks:

"The two mock novels, _Azemia_ and _The Elegant
Enthusiast_, were written to ridicule the novels
written by his sister, Mrs. Harvey (I think), who read
these parodies on herself quite innocently."

Even in the gloomy regions of Eblis, Beckford will not wholly
repress his sense of the ridiculous. Carathis, unawed by the
effulgence of his infernal majesty, behaves like a buffoon,
shouting at the Dives and actually attempting to thrust a Soliman
from his throne, before she is finally whirled away with her
heart aflame. The calm politeness with which the dastardly
Barkiaroukh consents to a blood-curdling murder, the sardonic
dialogue between Vathek on the edge of the precipice and the
Giaour concealed in the abyss, the buoyantly high-spirited
description of the plump Indian kicked and pursued like "an
invulnerable football," the oppressive horror of the subterranean
recesses, the mischievous pleasantry of the Gulchenrouz idyll
reveal different facets of Beckford's ever-varying temper. In
_Vathek_, Beckford found expression not only for his devotion to
the Eastern outlook on life, but also for his own strangely
coloured, vehement personality. The interpreter walks ever at our
elbow whispering into our ear his human commentary on Vathek's
astounding adventures.

Beckford's pictures are remarkable for definite precision of
outline. There are no vague hints and suggestions, no lurking
shadows concealing untold horrors. The quaint dwarfs perched on
Vathek's shoulders, the children chasing blue butterflies,
Nouronihar and her maidens on tiptoe, with their hair floating in
the breeze, stand out in clear relief, as if painted on a fresco.
The imagery is so lucid that we are able to follow with
effortless pleasure the intricate windings of a plot which at
Beckford's whim twists and turns through scenes of wonderful
variety. Amid his wild, erratic excursions he never loses sight
of the end in view; the story, with all its vagaries, is
perfectly coherent. This we should expect from one who "loved to
bark a tough understanding."[72] It is the intellectual strength
and exuberant vitality behind Beckford's Oriental scenes that
lend them distinction and power.

_The History of the Caliph Vathek_ did not set a fashion. It is
true that the Orient sometimes formed the setting of nineteenth
century novels, as in Disraeli's _Alvoy_ (1833), where for a
brief moment, when the hero's torch is extinguished by bats on
his entry into subterranean portals, we find ourselves in the
abode of wonder and terror; but not till Meredith's _Shaving of
Shagpal_ (1856) do we meet again Beckford's kinship with the
East, and his gift for fantastic burlesque.

CHAPTER VI - GODWIN AND THE ROSICRUCIAN NOVEL.

When Miss Austen was asked to write a historical romance
"illustrative of the house of Coburg," she airily dismissed the
suggestion, pleading mirthfully:

"I could not sit down seriously to write a serious
romance under any other motive than to save my life,
and if it were indispensable for me to keep it up and
never relax into laughing at myself or at other people
I am sure I should be hung before I had finished the
first chapter."[73]

If Godwin had been confronted with the same offer, he would have
settled himself promptly to plot out a scheme, and within a few
months a historical romance on the house of Coburg, accompanied
perchance by a preface setting forth the evils of monarchy, would
have been in the hands of the publisher. Unlike Miss Austen,
Godwin had neither a sense of humour nor a fastidious artistic
conscience to save him from undertaking incongruous tasks. He
seems never even to have suspected the humour of life, and would
have perceived nothing ludicrous in the spectacle of the author
of _Political Justice_ embarking on such a piece of work. Those
disquieting flashes of self-revelation that more imaginative men
catch in the mirror of their own minds and that awaken sometimes
laughter and sometimes tears, never disturbed Godwin's serenity.
He brooded earnestly over his speculations, quietly ignoring
inconvenient facts and never shrinking from absurd conclusions.
In theory he aimed at disorganising the whole of human society,
yet in actual life he was content to live unobtrusively,
publishing harmless books for children; and though he abhorred
the principle of aristocracy, he did not scruple to accept a
sinecure from government through Lord Grey. Notwithstanding his
stolid inconsistency and his deficiency in humour, Godwin is a
figure whom it is impossible to ignore or to despise. He was not
a frothy orator who made his appeal to the masses, but the leader
of the trained thinkers of the revolutionary party, a political
rebel who, instead of fulminating wildly and impotently after the
manner of his kind, expressed his theories in clear, reasonable
and logical form. It is easy, but unprofitable, to sneer at the
futility of some of Godwin's conclusions or to complain of the
aridity of his style. His _Political Justice_ remains,
nevertheless, a lucidly written, well-ordered piece of
intellectual reasoning. Shelley spoke of Godwin's _Mandeville_ in
the same breath with Plato's _Symposium_[74] and the ideas
expressed in _Political Justice_ inspired him to write not merely
_Queen Mab_ but the _Revolt of Islam_ and _Prometheus Unbound_.
Godwin's plea for the freedom of the individual and his belief in
the perfectibility of man through reason had a far-reaching
effect that cannot be readily estimated, but, as his theories
only concern us here in so far as they affect two of his novels,
it is unnecessary to pursue the trail of his influence further.

That the readers of fiction in the last decade of the eighteenth
century eagerly desired the mysterious and the terrible, Mrs.
Radcliffe's widespread popularity proved unmistakably. To satisfy
this craving, Godwin, who was ever on the alert to discover a
subject which promised swift and adequate financial return,
turned to novel-writing, and supplied a tale of mystery, _The
Adventures of Caleb Williams_ (1794), and a supernatural,
historical romance, _St. Leon_ (1799). As he was a political
philosopher by nature and a novelist only by profession, he
artfully inveigled into his romances the theories he wished to
promote. The second title of _Caleb Williams_ is significant.
_Things As They Are_ to Godwin's mind was synonymous with "things
as they ought not to be." He frankly asserts: "_Caleb Williams_
was the offspring of that temper of mind in which the composition
of my _Political Justice_ left me"[75]--a guileless confession
that may well have deterred many readers who recoil shuddering
from political treatises decked out in the guise of fiction. But
alarm is needless; for, although _Caleb Williams_ attempts to
reveal the oppressions that a poor man may endure under existing
conditions, and the perversion of the character of an aristocrat
through the "poison of chivalry," the story may be enjoyed for
its own sake. We can read it, if we so desire, purely for the
excitement of the plot, and quietly ignore the underlying
theories, just as it is possible to enjoy Spenser's sensuous
imagery without troubling about his allegorical meaning. The
secret of Godwin's power seems to be that he himself was so
completely fascinated by the intricate structure of his story
that he succeeds in absorbing the attention of his readers. He
bestowed infinite pains on the composition of _Caleb Williams_,
and conceived the lofty hope that it "would constitute an epoch
in the mind of every reader."[76] A friend to whom he submitted
two-thirds of his manuscript advised him to throw it into the
fire and so safeguard his reputation. The result of this
criticism on a character less determined or less phlegmatic than
Godwin's would have been a violent reaction from hope to despair.
But Godwin, who seems to have been independent of external
stimulus, was not easily startled from his projects, and plodded
steadily forward until his story was complete. He would have
scorned not to execute what his mind had conceived. Godwin's
businesslike method of planning the story backwards has been
adopted by Conan Doyle and other writers of the detective story.
The deliberate, careful analysis of his mode of procedure, so
characteristic of his mind and temper, is full of interest:

"I bent myself to the conception of a series of
adventures of flight and pursuit: the fugitive in
perpetual apprehension of being overwhelmed with the
worst calamities and the pursuer by his ingenuity and
resources keeping the victim in a state of the most
fearful alarm. This was the project of my third volume.
I was next called upon to conceive a dramatic and
impressive situation adequate to account for the
impulse that the pursuer should feel incessantly to
alarm and harass his victim, with an inextinguishable
resolution never to allow him the least interval of
peace and security. This I apprehended could best be
effected by a secret murder, to the investigation of
which the innocent victim should be impelled by an
unconquerable spirit of curiosity. The murderer would
thus have a sufficient motive to persecute the unhappy
discoverer that he might deprive him of peace,
character and credit, and have him for ever in his
power. This constituted the outline of my second
volume... To account for the fearful events of the
third it was necessary that the pursuer should be
invested with every advantage of fortune, with a
resolution that nothing could defeat or baffle and with
extraordinary resources of intellect. Nor could my
purpose of giving an overpowering interest to my tale
be answered without his appearing to have been
originally endowed with a mighty store of amiable
dispositions and virtues, so that his being driven to
the first act of murder should be judged worthy of the
deepest regret, and should be seen in some measure to
have arisen out of his virtues themselves. It was
necessary to make him ... the tenant of an atmosphere
of romance, so that every reader should feel prompted
almost to worship him for his high qualities. Here were
ample materials for a first volume."[77]

Godwin hoped that an "entire unity of plot" would be the
infallible result of this ingenious method of constructing his
story, and only wrote in a high state of excitement when the
"afflatus" was upon him. So far as we may judge from his
description, he seems to have realised his story first as a
complex psychological situation, not as a series of disconnected
pictures. He thought in abstractions not in visual images, and he
had next to make his abstractions concrete by inventing figures
whose actions should be the result of the mental and moral
conflict he had conceived. Godwin's attitude to his art forms a
striking contrast to that of Mrs. Radcliffe. She has her set of
marionettes, appropriately adorned, ready to move hither and
thither across her picturesque background as soon as she has
deftly manipulated the machinery which is to set them in motion.
Godwin, on the other hand, first constructs his machinery, and
afterwards, with laborious effort, carves the figures who are to
be attached to the wires. He cares little for costume or setting,
but much for the complicated mechanism that controls the destiny
of his characters. The effect of this difference in method is
that we soon forget the details of Mrs. Radcliffe's plots, but
remember isolated pictures. After reading _Caleb Williams_ we
recollect the outline of the story in so far as it relates to the
psychology of Falkland and his secretary; but of the actual
scenes and people only vague images drift through our memory.
Godwin's point of view was not that of an artist but of a
scientist, who, after patiently investigating and analysing
mental and emotional phenomena, chose to embody his results in
the form of a novel. He spared no pains to make his narrative
arresting and convincing. The story is told by Caleb Williams
himself, who, in describing his adventures, revives the passions
and emotions that had stirred him in the past. By this device
Godwin trusted to lend energy and vitality to his story.

Caleb Williams, a raw country youth, becomes secretary to
Falkland, a benevolent country gentleman, who has come to settle
in England after spending some years in Italy. Collins, the
steward, tells Williams his patron's history. Falkland has always
been renowned for the nobility of his character. In Italy, where
he inspired the love and devotion of an Italian lady, he avoided,
by "magnanimity," a duel with her lover. On Falkland's return to
England, Tyrrel, a brutal squire who was jealous of his
popularity, conceived a violent hatred against him. When Miss
Melville, Tyrrel's ill-used ward, fell in love with Falkland, who
had rescued her from a fire, her guardian sought to marry her to
a boorish, brutal farm-labourer. Though Falkland's timely
intervention saved her in this crisis, the girl eventually died
as the result of Tyrrel's cruelty. As she was the victim of
tyranny, Falkland felt it his duty at a public assembly to
denounce Tyrrel as her murderer. The squire retaliated by making
a personal assault on his antagonist. As Falkland "had perceived
the nullity of all expostulation with Mr. Tyrrel," and as
duelling according to the Godwinian principles was "the vilest of
all egotism," he was deprived of the natural satisfaction of
meeting his assailant in physical or even mental combat. Yet "he
was too deeply pervaded with the idle and groundless romances of
chivalry ever to forget the situation"--as Godwin seems to think
a "man of reason" might have done in these circumstances. Tyrrel
was stabbed in the dark, and Falkland, on whom suspicion
naturally fell, was tried, but eventually acquitted without a
stain on his character. Two men--a father and son called
Hawkins--whom Falkland had befriended against the overbearing
Tyrrel, were condemned and executed for the crime. This is the
state of affairs when Caleb Williams enters Falkland's service
and takes up the thread of the narrative. On hearing the story of
the murder, Williams, who has been perplexed by the gloomy moods
of his master, allows his suspicions to rest on Falkland, and to
gratify his overmastering passion of curiosity determines to spy
incessantly until he has solved the problem. One day, after
having heard a groan of anguish, Williams peers through the
half-open door of a closet, and catches sight of Falkland in the
act of opening the lid of a chest. This incident fans his
smouldering curiosity into flame, and he is soon after detected
by his master in an attempt to break open the chest in the
"Bluebeard's chamber." Not without cause, Falkland is furiously
angry, but for some inexplicable reason confesses to the murder,
at the same time expressing his passionate determination at all
costs to preserve his reputation. He is tortured, not by remorse
for his crime, but by the fear of being found out, and seeks to
terrorise Williams into silence by declaring:

"To gratify a foolishly inquisitive humour you have
sold yourself. You shall continue in my service, but
can never share my affection. If ever an unguarded word
escape from your lips, if ever you excite my jealousy
or suspicion, expect to pay for it by your death or
worse."

From this moment Williams is helpless. Turn where he will, the
toils of Falkland encompass him. Forester, Falkland's
half-brother, tries to persuade Williams to enter his service.
Williams endeavours to flee from his master, who prevents his
escape by accusing him, in the presence of Forester, of stealing
some jewellery and bank-notes which have disappeared in the
confusion arising from an alarm of fire. The plunder has been
placed in Williams' boxes, and the evidence against him is
overwhelming. He is imprisoned, and the sordid horror of his life
in the cells gives Godwin an opportunity of showing "how man
becomes the destroyer of man." He escapes, and is sheltered by a
gang of thieves, whose leader, Raymond, a Godwinian theorist,
listens with eager sympathy to his tale, which he regards as
"only one fresh instance of the tyranny and perfidiousness
exercised by the powerful members of the community against those
who are less privileged than themselves." When a reward is
offered for the capture of Williams, the thieves are persuaded
that they must not deliver the lamb to the wolf. After an old
hag, whose animosity he has aroused, has made a bloodthirsty
attack on him with a hatchet, Williams feels obliged to leave
their habitation "abruptly without leave-taking." He then assumes
beggar's attire and an Irish brogue, but is soon compelled to
seek a fresh disguise. In Wales as in London, he comes across
someone who has known Falkland, and is reviled for his treachery
to so noble a master, and cast forth with ignominy. He discovers
that Falkland has hired an unscrupulous villain, Gines, to follow
him from place to place, blackening his reputation. Finally
desperation drives him to accuse Falkland openly, though, after
doing so, he praises the murderer, and loathes himself for his
betrayal:

"Mr. Falkland is of a noble nature ... a man worthy of affection
and kindness ... I am myself the basest and most odious of
mankind."

The inexorable persecutor in return cries at last:

"Williams, you have conquered! I see too late the
greatness and elevation of your mind. I confess that it
is to my fault and not yours that I owe my ruin ... I
am the most execrable of all villains... As reputation
was the blood that warmed my heart, so I feel that
death and infamy must seize me together."

Three days later Falkland dies, but instead of experiencing
relief at the death of his persecutor, Williams becomes the
victim of remorse, regarding himself as the murderer of a noble
spirit, who had been inevitably ruined by the corruption of human
society:

"Thou imbibedst the poison of chivalry with thy earliest youth,
and the base and low-minded envy that met thee on thy return to
thy native seats, operated with this poison to hurry thee into
madness."

At the conclusion of the story, Godwin has not succeeded in
making his moral very clear. The "wicked aristocrat" who figures
in the preface as "carrying into private life the execrable
principles of kings and ministers" emerges at last almost as a
saintly figure, who through a false notion of honour has
unfortunately become the victim of a brutal squire. But, if the
story does not "rouse men to a sense of the evils of slavery," or
"constitute an epoch in the mind of every reader," it has
compensating merits and may be read with unfailing interest
either as a study of morbid psychology or as a spirited detective
story. Godwin's originality in his dissection of human motive has
hardly yet been sufficiently emphasised, perhaps because he is so
scrupulous in acknowledging literary debts.[78] From Mrs.
Radcliffe, whose _Romance of the Forest_ was published the year
before _Caleb Williams_, he borrowed the mysterious chest, the
nature of whose contents is hinted at but never actually
disclosed; but Godwin was no wizard, and had neither the gift nor
the inclination to conjure with Gothic properties. In leaving
imperfectly explained the incident of the discovery of the heart
in _The Monastery_, Scott shielded himself behind Godwin's Iron
Chest, which gave its name to Colman's drama.[79] Godwin's
peculiar interest was in criminal psychology, and he concentrates
on the dramatic conflict between the murderer and the detective.
An unusual turn is given to the story by the fact that the
criminal is the pursuer instead of the pursued. Godwin intended
later in life to write a romance based on the story of Eugene
Aram, the philosophical murderer; and his careful notes on the
scheme are said to have been utilised by his friend, Bulwer
Lytton, in his novel of that name.[80] _Caleb Williams_ helped to
popularise the criminal in fiction, and _Paul Clifford_, the
story of the chivalrous highwayman, is one of its literary
descendants.

Godwin was a pioneer breaking new ground in fiction; and, as he
was a man of talent rather than of genius, it is idle to expect
perfection of workmanship. The story is full of improbabilities,
but they are described in so matter-of-fact a style that we
"soberly acquiesce." After an hour of Godwin's grave society an
effervescent sense of humour subsides. A mind open to suggestion
is soon infected by his imperturbable seriousness, which
effectually stills "obstinate questionings." Even the brigands
who live with their philanthropic leader are accepted without
demur. After all, Raymond is only Robin Hood turned political
philosopher. The ingenious resources of _Caleb Williams_ when he
strives to elude his pursuer are part of the legitimate
stock-in-trade of the hero of a novel of adventure. He is not as
other men are, and comes through perilous escapades with
miraculous success. It is at first difficult to see why Falkland
does not realise that his plan of ceaselessly harassing his
victim is likely to force Williams to accuse him publicly, but
gradually we begin to regard his mental obliquity as one of the
decrees of fate. Falkland's obtuseness is of the same nature as
that of the sleeper who undertakes a voyage to Australia to
deliver a letter which anywhere but in a dream would have been
dropped in the nearest pillar-box. The obvious solution that
would occur to a waking mind is persistently evasive. The plot of
_Caleb Williams_ hinges on an improbability, but so does that of
_King Lear_; and if it had not been for Falkland's stupidity, the
story would have ended with the first volume. Godwin excels in
the analysis of mental conditions, but fails when he attempts to
transmute passionate feeling into words. We are conscious that he
is a cold-blooded spectator _ab extra_ striving to describe what
he has never felt for himself. It is not even "emotion
recollected in tranquillity." Men of this world, who are carried
away by scorn and anger, utter their feelings simply and
directly. Godwin's characters pause to cull their words from
dictionaries. Forester's invective, when he believes that
Williams has basely robbed his master is astonishingly elegant:
"Vile calumniator! You are the abhorrence of nature, the
opprobrium of the human species and the earth can only be freed
from an insupportable burthen by your being exterminated."[81]
The diction is so elaborately dignified that the contempt which
was meant almost to annihilate Caleb Williams, lies effectually
concealed behind a blinding veil of rhetoric. When he has leisure
to adorn, he translates the simplest, most obvious reflections
into the "jargon" of political philosophy, but, driven
impetuously forward by the excitement of his theme, he throws off
jerky, spasmodic sentences containing but a single clause. His
style is a curious mixture of these two manners.

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