ROBERT WILLIAMS BUCHANAN (1841 - 1901)
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ROBERT WILLIAMS BUCHANAN (1841 - 1901) |
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ON ST. ABE AND HIS SEVEN WIVES
St. Abe and his Seven Wives was written in 1870, at a time when all the Cockney bastions of criticism were swarming with sharpshooters on the look-out for “the d——d Scotchman” who had dared to denounce Logrolling. It was published anonymously, and simultaneously The Drama of Kings appeared with the author’s name. The Drama was torn to shreds in every newspaper; the Satire, because no one suspected who had written it, was at once hailed as a masterpiece. Even the Athenæum cried “all hail” to the illustrious Unknown. The Pall Mall Gazette avowed in one breath that Robert Buchanan was utterly devoid of dramatic power, while the author of St. Abe was a man of dramatic genius. The secret was well kept, and the bewildered Cocknies did not cease braying their hosannahs even when another anonymous work, White Rose and Red, was issued by the same publisher. St. Abe went through numerous editions in a very short space of time.
1 ORIGINALLY PREFACED TO ST. ABE AND HIS SEVEN WIVES TESTIMONIES OF DISTINGUISHED PERSONS.
I. FROM P———T G——T, U. S. Smart. Polygamy is Greek for Secesh. Guess Brigham will have to make tracks.
II. FROM R. W. E——N, BOSTON, U. S. Adequate expression is rare. I had fancied the oracles were dumb, and had returned with a sigh to the enervating society of my friends in Boston, when your book reached me. To think of it! In this very epoch, at this very day, poetry has been secreting itself silently and surely, and suddenly the whole ocean of human thought is illumined by the accumulated phosphoresence of a subtle and startling poetic life. . . . Your work is the story of Polygamy written in colossal cipher the study of all forthcoming ages. Triflers will call you a caricaturist, empty solemnities will deem you a jester. Fools! who miss the pathetic symbolism of Falstaff, and deem the Rabelaisan epos fit food for mirth. . . . I read it from first page to last with solemn thoughts too deep for tears. I class you already with the creators, with Shakespere, Dante, Whitman, Ellery Channing, and myself.
III. FROM W——T W———N, WASHINGTON, U.S. 1 Our own feuillage; 2 The Salon contents me not; 2 3 But the Prairies content me; 4 Utah contents me; 5 Great is Brigham; 6 O I am wonderful;
IV. FROM ELDER F——K E——S, OF MT. L——N, U.S. An amusing attempt to show that polygamy is a social failure. None can peruse it without perceiving at once that the author secretly inclines to the ascetic tenets of Shakerism.
V. FROM BROTHER T. H. N——S, O——A C——K. After perusing this subtle study, who can doubt that Free Love is the natural human condition? The utter selfishness of the 3 wretched monogamist-hero repels and sickens us; nor can we look with anything but disgust on the obtusity of the heroine, in whom the author vainly tries to awaken interest. It is quite clear that the reconstruction of Utah on O——a C——k principles would yet save the State from the crash which is impending.
VI. FROM E——A F——NH——M, OF S——N ISLAND. If Polygamy is to continue, then, I say, let Polyandry flourish! Woman is the sublimer Being, the subtler Type, the more delicate Mechanism, and, strictly speaking, needs many pendants of the inferior or masculine Type to fulfil her mission in perfect comfort. Shall Brigham Young, a mere Man, have sixteen wives; and shall one wretched piece of humanity content me, that supreme Fact, a perfect Woman, highest and truest of beings under GOD? No; if these things be tolerated, I claim for each Woman, in the name of Light and Law, twenty ministering attendants of the lower race; and the day is near when, if this boon, or any other boon we like to ask, be denied us, it will be taken with a strong hand!
VII. FROM T——S C——E, ESQ., CHELSEA, ENGLAND. The titanic humour of the Conception does not blind me to the radical falseness of the Teaching, wherein, as I shall show you presently, you somewhat resemble the miserable Homunculi of our own literary Wagners; for, if I rightly conceive, you would tacitly and by inference urge that it is expressly part of the Divine Thought that the Ewigweibliche, or Woman-Soul, should be happy. Now Woman’s mundane unhappiness, as I construe, comes of her inadequacy; it is the stirring within her of the Infinite against the Finite, a struggle of the spark upward, of the lower to the higher Symbol. Will Woman’s Rights Agitators, and Monogamy, and Political Tomfoolery, do what Millinery has failed to do, and waken one Female to the sense of divine Function? It is not happiness I solicit for the Woman-Soul, but Identity; and the prerogative of Identity is great work. Adequacy, pre-eminent fulfilment of the Function; woman, in this country of rags and shams, being buried quick under masses of Sophistication and Upholstery, oblivious of her divine duty to increase the population and train the young masculine Idea starward. I do not care if the wives of Deseret are pale, or faint, or uncultured, or unhappy; it is enough for me to know that they have a numerous progeny, and believe in Deity or the Divine Essence; and I will not conclude this letter without recording my conviction that yonder man, Brigham Young by name, is perhaps the clearest Intellect now brooding on this planet; that Friedrich was royaller but not greater, and that Bismarck is no more than his equal; and that he, this American, few in words, mark you, but great in deeds, has decided a more stupendous 4 Question than ever puzzled the strength of either of those others,—the Question of the Sphere and Function in modern life of the ever-agitating FEMININE PRINCIPLE. If, furthermore, as I have ever held, the test of clearness of intellect and greatness of soul be Success, at any price and under any circumstances, none but a transcendental Windbag or a pedantic Baccalaureus will doubt my assertion that Young is a stupendous intellectual, ethical, and political Force—a Master-Spirit—a Colossal Being, a moral Architect of sublime cunning—as such to be reverenced by every right-thinking Man under the Sun.
VIII. FROM J——N R——N, ESQ., LONDON. I am not generally appreciated in my own country, because I frequently change my views about religion, art, architecture, poetry, and things in general. Most of my early writings are twaddle, but my present opinions are all valuable. I think this poem, with its nervous Saxon Diction, its subtle humour, its tender pathos and piteousness, the noblest specimen of narrative verse of modern times; and, indeed, I know not where to look, out of the pages of Chaucer, for an equally successful blending of human laughter and ethereal mystery. At the same time, the writer scarcely does justice to the subject on the æsthetic side. A City where the streets are broad and clean and well-watered, the houses surrounded by gardens full of fruit and flowers; where the children, with shining, clean-washed faces, curtsey to the Philosophers in the public places; where there are no brothels and no hells; where life runs fresh, free, and unpolluted, —such a City, I say, can hardly be the symbol of feminine degradation. More than once, tired of publishing my prophetic warnings in the Daily Telegraph, I have thought of bending my weary footsteps to the new Jerusalem; and I might have carried out my intention long ago, if I had had a less profound sense of my own unfitness for the duties of a Saint.
IX. FROM M——W A——D, ESQ., ENGLAND. Your poem possesses a certain rough primitive humour, though it appears to me deficient in the higher graces of sweetness and light. St. Paul would have entirely objected to the monogamical inference drawn in your epilogue; and the fact that you draw any such inference at all is to me a distressing proof that your tendency is to the Philistinism of those authors who write for the British Matron. I fear you have not read “Merope.”
5 A Tale of Salt Lake City. SOME NOTICES OF THE FIRST EDITION.
From the “GRAPHIC.” “Such vigorous, racy, determined satire has not been met with for many a long day. It is at once fresh and salt as the sea. . . . The humour is exquisite, and as regards literary execution, the work is masterly.”
From the “PALL MALL GAZETTE.” “Although in a striking address to Chaucer the author intimates an expectation that Prudery may turn from his pages, and though his theme is certainly a delicate one, there is nothing in the book that a modest man may not read without blinking, and therefore, we suppose, no modest woman. On the other hand, the whole poem is marked with so much natural strength, so much of the inborn faculties of literature—(though they are wielded in a light, easy, trifling way)—that they take possession of our admiration as of right. The chief characteristics of the book are mastery of verse, strong and simple diction, delicate, accurate description of scenery, and that quick and forcible discrimination of character which belongs to men of dramatic genius. This has the look of exaggerated praise. We propose, therefore, to give one or two large samples of the author’s quality, leaving our readers to judge from them whether we are not probably right. If they turn to the book and read it through, we do not doubt that they will agree with us.”
From the “ILLUSTRATED REVIEW.” “The tale, however, is not to be read from reviews. . . . The variety of interest, the versatility of fancy, the richness of description with which the different lays and cantos are replete, will preclude the possibility of tediousness. To open the book is to read it to the end. It is like some Greek comedy in its shifting scenes, its vivid pictures, its rapidly passing ‘dramatis personæ’ and supernumeraries. . . . The author of ‘St. Abe,’ who can write like this, may do more if he will, and even found a new school of realistic and satirical poetry.” 6 From the “DAILY NEWS.” “If the author of a ‘Tale of Salt Lake City’ be not a new poet, he is certainly a writer of exceedingly clever and effective verses. They have the ring of originality, and they indicate ability to produce something still more remarkable than this very remarkable little piece. It merits a place among works which every one reads with genuine satisfaction. It is a piece which subserves one of the chief ends of poetry, that of telling a tale in an unusually forcible and pleasant way. . . If it be the author’s purpose to furnish a new argument against polygamous Mormons, by showing the ridiculous side of their system, he has perfectly succeeded. The extracts we have given show the varied, fluent, and forcible character of his verse. None who read about Saint Abe and his Seven Wives can fail to be amused and to be gratified alike by the manner of the verse and the matter of the tale.”
From the “SCOTSMAN.” “This book does not need much commendation, but it deserves a great deal. The author of ‘The Biglow Papers’ might have written it, but there are passages which are not unlike Bret Harte; and him we suspect. The authorship, however, may be left out of notice. Men inquire who has written a good book, that they may honour him; but if his name never be heard, the book is none the less prized. In design and construction this work has high merit. It is a good story and it is good poetry. The author is a humourist and a satirist, and he has here displayed all his qualities lavishly.”
From the “NONCONFORMIST.” “Amazingly clever. . . . Besides its pure tone deserves warm recognition. The humour is never coarse. There is a high delicacy, which is sufficient to colour and sweeten the whole, as the open spring breeze holds everything in good savour.”
From the “SPECTATOR.” “We believe that the new book which has just appeared, ‘St. Abe and His Seven Wives,’ will paralyze Mormon resistance far more than any amount of speeches in Congress or messages from President Grant, by bringing home to the minds of the millions the ridiculous-diabolic side of the peculiar institution. The canto called ‘The Last Epistle of St. Abe to the Polygamists,’ with its humorous narrative of the way in which the Saint, sealed to seven wives, fell in love with one, and thenceforward could not abide the jealousy felt by the other six, will do more to weaken the last defence of Mormonism—that after all, the women like it—than a whole ream of narratives about the discontent in Utah. Thousands on whom narrative and argument would make little or no impression, will feel how it must be when many wives with burning 7 hearts watch the husband’s growing love for one, when the favourite is sick unto death, and how ‘they set their lips and sneered at me and watched the situation,’ and will understand that the first price paid for polygamy is the suppression of love, and the second, the slavery of women. The letter in which the first point is proved is too long for quotation, and would be spoiled by extracts; but the second could hardly be better proved than in these humorous lines. . . . The descriptions of Saint Abe and his Seven Wives will be relished by roughs in California as much as by the self- indulgent philosophers of Boston. . . . Pope would have been proud, we fancy, of these terrible lines, uttered by a driver whose fiancée has just been beguiled away by a Mormon saint.”
From the “ATHENÆUM.” “ ‘Saint Abe and his Seven Wives’ has a freshness and an originality, altogether wanting in Mr. Longfellow’s new work, ‘The Divine Tragedy.’ In quaint and forcible language—language admirably suited to the theme—the author takes us to the wondrous city of the saints, and describes its inhabitants in a series of graphic sketches. The hero of the story is Saint Abe, or Abraham Clewson, and in giving us his history the author has really given us the inner life of the Mormon settlement. In his pages we see the origin of the movement, the reasons why it has increased, the internal weakness of the system, and the effect it produces on its adherents. We are introduced to the saints, whom we see among their pastures, in their homes, in their promenades, and in their synagogue.”
From the “FREEMAN.” “A remarkable poem. . . . The production is anonymous, but whoever the author may be there can be no question that he is a poet, and one of vast and varied powers. The inner life of Mormondom is portrayed with a caustic humour equal to anything in ‘The Biglow Papers’; and were it not for the exquisite elegance of the verse we should think that some parts of the poem were written by Robert Browning. The hero of the poem is a Mormon, who fares so badly as a polygamist that he elopes with one of his seven wives—the one whom he really loves; and the story is a most effective exposure of the evils which necessarily attach to polygamy.”
From the “WEEKLY REVIEW.” “There can be no doubt that it is worthy of the author of ‘The Biglow Papers.’ Since that work was published, we have received many humorous volumes from across the Atlantic, but nothing equal to ‘St. Abe.’ As to its form, it shows that Mr. Lowell has been making advances in the poetic art; and the substance of it is as strong as anything in the entire range of English satirical literature.” 8 From the “BRITISH QUARTERLY REVIEW.” “The writer has an easy mastery over various kinds of metre, and a felicity of easy rhyming which is not unworthy of our best writers of satire. . . . The prevailing impression of the whole is of that easy strength which does what it likes with language and rhythm. . . . The style is light and playful, with admirable touches of fine discrimination and rich humour; but the purpose is earnest. . . . The book is a very clever and a very wholesome one. It is one of those strong, crushing, dramatic satires, which do more execution than a thousand arguments.”
From “TEMPLE BAR.” “It is said to be by Lowell. Truly, if America has more than one writer who can write in such a rich vein of satire, humour, pathos, and wit, as we have here, England must look to her laurels. . . . This is poetry of a high order. Would that in England we had humourists who could write as well. But with Thackeray our last writer of humour left us.”
From the “WESTMINSTER REVIEW.” “ ‘Saint Abe and his Seven Wives’ may lay claim to many rare qualities. The author possesses simplicity and directness. To this he adds genuine humour and intense dramatic power. Lastly, he has contrived to give a local flavour, something of the salt of the Salt Lake to his characters, which enables us to thoroughly realise them. . . . We will not spoil the admirable canto ‘Within the Synagogue’ by any quotation, which, however long, cannot possibly do it justice. We will merely say that this one bit is worth the price of the whole book. In the author we recognise a true poet, with an entirely original vein of humour.”
From the “MANCHESTER GUARDIAN.” “It is thoroughly American, now rising into a true imaginative intensity, but oftener falling into a satirical vein, dealing plainly enough with the plague-spots of Salt Lake society and its wily, false prophets. . . . Like most men capable of humour, the author has command of a sweeter and more harmonious manner. Indeed, the beautiful descriptive and lyrical fragments stand in vivid and refreshing relief to the homely staple of the poem.”
From the “TORONTO GLOBE.” “It is impossible to deny that the praises bestowed on ‘St. Abe and his Seven Wives’ as a work of literary power are deserved.” _____
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