Characteristics of the Genius and Writings of L. E. L./Analysis of Francesca Carrara
Analysis of "Francesca Carrara."
"Francesca Carrara."—What a rich mine of golden thought and feeling is laid open in the volumes bearing this title! How much of intellectual power, of moral emotion, and of keen observation have here blended their influences! Setting feeling aside for a moment, mere criticism is constrained to acknowledge the capabilities of that genius—the strength of that talent—which can pass with such graceful facility from the comparative loneliness of an old Italian palazzo, and the touching history of its gentle in habitants, to the splendor and dazzling wit of the magnificent court of Louis XIV, thence transport us to the greenwood haunts, their natural beauty, and the olden associations of England's forest scenery; to the stern beings, the stirring scenes and domestic trials of the time of the Commonwealth; and again to the gay cavaliers, the mirth, the pleasure, the badinage of Charles the Second's adherents; through the whole, working out characters with truthful interest; depicting scenes and circumstances with accurate tracery, but in glowing colours; and interspersing, among all, thoughts and imaginings, whose truth will no less entitle them to the philosopher’s assent, than their beauty will ensure the poet's admiration. At the same time all these changes are most skilfully effected, wrought with a vigor of which the most masculine intellect might be proud, yet touched with a delicacy, lightened by a refinement to only womanly feeling would be competent.
Some most dramatic situations and perfect poetical pictures are here delineated. We might mention, for example, the execution of Francis Evelyn; the midnight worship of the Puritans; its attendant circumstances on the night previous to their emigration; the arrest of Robert Evelyn at the marriage altar by the father of his bride; the subsequent scene at Avonleigh Castle, in which Evelyn and Francesca receive the royal pardon; and the last awful description of the shipwreck.
But it is not the merit of the work as a literary composition, nor the detached descriptions and dramatic pictures, that constitute its principal charm. This arises from the deep under-current which bears us along in full yet mournful interest with the fateful histories of the young Italian orphans; especially with that and the character of Francesca da Carrara. A spell seems thrown around us, binding our feelings with their fate from the moment of our first introduction amid the shadows of the purple twilight in the deserted halls of the old palazzo, through every chance and change, till Guido sleeps in his English grave, and the waves of the Atlantic close over the head of Francesca.
Never for one moment can we forget that high souled girl, among all the varied scenes through which we are conducted, and characters to whom we are introduced. The whole work seems skilfully constructed for this purpose; wherever we turn, Francesca is the centre of all interest. She is one of those beings of the mind who compel assent to their reality. Never was a lovelier, more womanly creation. Dignity, gentleness, deep and mournful feelings (the only dower inherited from her native land), an unwearied readiness to think, and act, and suffer for others; high, pure principles, generosity, patient endurance, and fearless fortitude, are the elements of her character, and are admirably developed by circumstances. To Francesca Carrara may be applied the exquisite feminine portraiture by another gifted hand,—
"Nor look nor tone revealeth aught,
Save woman's quietness of thought;
And yet around her is a light,
Of inward majesty and might."
"Francesca's beauty belonged to features and to expression,—features perfect in the Greek outline. A brow, noble, as if never unworthy or ungenerous thought had crossed its white expanse; the lip somewhat scornful, but smiling, when it did smile, with the sweetness of a thousand common smiles. Large lustrous eyes, passionate, thoughtful, clear, and calm; their general character was repose,—but the lightning slept in their midnight depths,—that flash which the mind alone can give, but whose light is that of the sky whence it emanates. Usually of a clear, delicate, yet healthy paleness, any strong emotion would flood her cheek with crimson. No one would have thought of calling her merely pretty: a sure test of beauty."
You feel, and the conviction is borne out, that she cannot act unworthily and be true to herself; and, feeling this, the deeper interest of admiring esteem gathers around her history.
Poor Guido, his tale may be soon told; possessed of one attribute of genius—imagination, but which, in him, being unregulated by the sterner powers of the mind, makes him its victim, by exciting aspirations he could never fulfil,—by inspiring a love, more than half ideal, doomed never to be requited,—thus lighting in his soul a fire, but supplying no fuel; the weary heart pines away in its self-consuming, and the young idealist is soon borne to an early grave, leaving us to ask what must poor Guido have done without his sister's watchful care and soothing tenderness?
Francesca is really more unhappy, and with more cause, than Guido, but not, like him, does she yield to grief's self-indulgence, or to mere imagination's morbid dreams. She thinks, she plans, she acts, she endures for both. Neither prosperous nor afflictive circumstances, admiration nor neglect, disappointment nor hope fulfilled, ever tempt her to swerve from her noble principles, or to deviate from the right line of conduct they have prescribed. There is but one sacrifice which she as a woman can lay on the altar of duty,—her own deep feelings,—and cheerfully, constantly, is that offering yielded.
When an almost friendless orphan in Italy, a noble and generous Englishman gains her affections; not to be his beloved and prosperous bride, will she desert the poor old grandfather who has protected her childhood; and the lovers plight their vows only to seal love's bitter parting. Time passes on, and she meets Evelyn again at the gay court of France, but changed, alas! into a dissolute and reckless cavalier: her feelings change; how can she love what is unworthy? Still she considers her engagement binding, till accident reveals to her his utter worthlessness, and she overhears him expressing a wish to one of his companions that he were really free from her. "She confronts him with a perfect simplicity, a clear purity, a frankness that no art could have assumed; her face, pale as death, for her emotion was far too strong for confusion; her lip curled with unutterable scorn; her large dark eyes seemed filled with light, while her recreant lover cowered beneath their flashing disdain. 'I do forgive,' exclaimed she, 'what I despise too much to resent, but I owe some disavowal to myself.'" With womanly dignity she then briefly explains to De Joinville the sacred and acknowledged engagement which had subsisted between her and Evelyn.
Deeply did the iron enter into her soul, but Francesca now no longer reproached herself for her former change of feeling; how completely was it justified! her growing dislike had been as it were a natural warning,—the good revolting from the bad. Let us observe here, how strongly, yet how delicately, has the author delineated the almost intuitive recoil of woman's nature from what is bad in principle or wrong in conduct: "I felt (said Francesca to Evelyn) your unworthiness even before I knew it!"
There is a delicate species of the mimosa, whose leaves not only recede at the touch, but from the near approach of any extraneous object: thus sensitively does the innate propriety of woman shrink from the presence of moral evil.
Again, with equal discrimination is another general truth embodied in a trait of Francesca's character. "She felt as if life had suddenly lost its interest; yet it was not the lover that she regretted, but the love."
In such a case it is the influence that disappointment and treachery have upon the mind in destroying the ideal of truth and of love, that is to be regretted even more than the loss of the individual attachment. "The qualities most natural to youth are at once destroyed; suspicion takes the place of confidence, reserve of reliance, distrust instead of that ready belief in all that was good and beautiful; knowledge has come too soon,—knowledge of evil, unqualified by the general charities which longer experience infallibly brings: this first great emotion becomes unconsciously a criterion; and the judgment is harsh because the remembrance is bitter."
To return to Francesca's history: No flatteries could move her; not even the proffered love of Louis himself could for an instant affect her mind. By the death of her early friend, Madame de Merieur, with whom she had resided at Paris, she was again left desolate; she only awaited the arrival of Guido from an embassy, to return with him to their native Italy. In the course of events, Francesca learns that she is the daughter of a powerful English noble. Guido and herself, with the Englishman who communicates this intelligence, now embark for England, and take up their abode at a farm-house midway between her father's (Lord Avonleigh's) castle and Evelyn's paternal home. Lord Avonleigh, for political reasons, is confined by Cromwell's party in the Tower.
Many months elapse before his return. In the interim Guido dies. Never were the attendant circumstances of death so touchingly, so exquisitely depicted. How have we repeatedly lingered over those pages of truthful interest and mournful beauty!—pages which only require to be lighted up by a sunbeam from the life and immortality which have been brought to light in the Gospel, to become as important as they are interesting,—as instructive and elevating to our moral principles as they are touching and beautiful to our poetical feelings.*[1]
Soon after Guido's death, Francesca discovers that her recreant lover is affianced to Lucy Alymer, the young girl in whose house she is waiting her father's return. A deep trial ensues. Evelyn is brought in as a prisoner by Cromwell's soldiers, and condemned to die. Lucy implores Francesca to save him by taking his place. Revenge has no home in the heart of this noble-minded girl; she does not hesitate, but aids him to escape; her generous heroism, however, proves fruitless; he is re-captured, and brought back to execution. Before his death he reveals to Francesca the important fact, that a close resemblance had enabled him to pass for his brother, who was still her faithful and unchanged lover. Who can tell the relief of restored confidence,—of the revived early and true affection?
But Lord Avonleigh returns home, acknowledges the rightful claim of Francesca as his daughter; yet, discovering, to his dismay, that this acknowledgment will legally disinherit his favourite son, he proposes to his newly-recovered child to pass for the daughter of an old friend. Francesca generously renounces her claims, "though none could have felt more keenly than herself what she resigned; from her childhood the pride of ancestry, in its noblest and most imaginative feeling, had been cultivated by her grandfather's narratives of the heroic deeds of the noble house of the Carraras." Lord Avonleigh's son is suddenly killed, and his lordship, impressed with a sense of retributive justice, avows Francesca, at her brother's funeral, to be his daughter and heiress. Although honoured with the name, she is not blessed with the love of her father; his only care is to provide a suitable husband for his noble and wealthy daughter. Francesca learns the bitter truth that Lord Avonleigh is Evelyn's declared enemy; yet she shrinks not from avowing her attachment to her incensed parent, who is urging her to accept the hand of one of Charles the Second’s courtiers.
"It matters not!" exclaimed Lord Avonleigh, when he heard of her engagement, "for never shall Robert Evelyn wed daughter of mine, unless he take her pennyless and discarded. Why, your cavalier is a rebel, an exile, whose property is confiscated, and for whose neck the gibbet stands prepared!"
"And for whose sake I will bear an unchanged name, and an unaltered heart to my grave;" is the fearless and true-hearted reply of Francesca.
No sooner does Evelyn hear, from his brother’s companion, of Francesca, than he hastens to England. They meet in the New Forest; he tells her that he is no longer free, wealthy and noble; he represents all she must risk and endure if she marry an exile. But what woman ever shrunk from suffering for another's sake? The wealth of the heart's love, sympathy and confidence, is deemed a sufficient aegis against outward trial; besides, Francesca felt it now her highest duty to cling to him who had loved her as a lonely orphan. Before she knew that she had a father living, she had pledged her faith to Evelyn; this she explicitly states in her farewell letter to Lord Avonleigh: "I feel that I owe to Robert Evelyn a dearer debt than to yourself; as he would have shared his prosperity with me, so will I share his adversity with him. I believed myself to be a poor and friendless orphan when I pledged that faith which I will not retract as your rich and titled daughter. There were no truth in the world if I could depart from mine."
The next evening they kneel before the sacred altar; scarcely is the ceremony closed, when Lord Avonleigh appears with his men-at-arms, and arrests Evelyn. Francesca fell on her knees to supplicate for his pardon, but finding it useless, the blood of her high race mantled in every vein to meet the approach of danger; she calmly rose, went to Evelyn, on whose wrists the shackles were already placed, and, putting her hand through his arm, stood quietly by his side.
"'Leave him!' exclaimed Lord Avonleigh; 'foolish and obstinate girl, how dare you hold communication with an outlaw and a rebel?'
"'I am his wife,' said Francesca; while her calm dark eyes met those of her father unshrinkingly. 'I am his wife.'"
What a fine scene would this be for a painting. Events lead on to the grant of the royal pardon, obtained through the kindly intercession of Francesca's early friend, Madame de Soissons, who is on a visit with some of the French court, and with the English monarch, at Avonleigh Castle.
Evelyn has been summoned to receive forgiveness; the King commands the presence of the Lady Francesca; she enters, and Evelyn leads her to Charles, who requests Lord Avonleigh to add his pardon. "My father!" exclaimed Francesca, "I implore you not to part from me with an unkindly feeling; I intreat you to recollect that Robert Evelyn loved me as a lowly and neglected orphan, that our affection has been tried in every way, and that for my sake he has risked liberty and life."
The King offers to restore to Evelyn a part of his estates, but he disclaims all boon save that of pardon, and declares his intention of accompanying a band of Puritans into exile.
"'Let my father's house pass from me,' he said, 'even as I am about to pass away from my father's land. When yonder dearest maiden stood with me before the altar, she knew that she wedded one whose futurelot was that of an exile and a wanderer. The plan which I formed thoughtfully, I adhered to steadily. I am still bound to my brave companions; far across the ocean we will seek an altar and a home. For the faith which we profess we are ready to encounter every danger; we go in the name of God, and we believe He will guide us in safety through the wilderness. To night we sail."
"'He is mad!' said Lord Avonleigh; 'at all events you, Francesca, will not go with him?'
"She answered by placing her hand in Evelyn's, and standing in silence at his side."
—Another beautiful scene for a painting, and one which would form an exquisite companion to the scene of Francesca's marriage.
For the one there would be the shadowy churchyard, the ancient tower rising in the moonlight; a few dimly-seen figures in the dark dress of the Puritans hastily retreating from the half-closed grave of Major Johnston. Evelyn and Francesca, who have just come from the bridal altar to kneel beside the grave of Guido, suddenly disturbed by the red glare of torches blending with the silvery moonbeams; and surrounded by steel-clad soldiers, headed by the gaily-dressed Buckingham and the infuriated Lord Avonleigh; these accessories should all lend their picturesque effect to the interest of the moment when Francesca clings to the fettered arm of Evelyn, and, calmly looking upon her father, firmly says, "I am his wife."
The other picture should have for its scene the magnificent hall of an old baronial castle, the morning sun brightly shining on a group of courtiers gathered around their monarch. In the midst, Evelyn and Francesca, whose simple dress and noble bearing would form a striking contrast to the gaily-robed and light-minded assembly. The moment of interest would be when Evelyn, with undaunted mien and dignified firmness, having declared his high resolve of becoming an exile for his faith—Francesca—with
"Courage cast about her like a dress
Of solemn comeliness,
Her gathered mind, and her untroubled face
Giving her dangers grace,"
(Donne.)
—with womanly gentleness and womanly devotedness, calmly turning from that courtly throng, replies to her father's angry and expostulatory question, by placing her hand in her husband's, and standing in silence at his side.
The next night finds them on the ocean; after all their difficulties they are together; and with that thought is happiness. But a storm is rising—it increases; Francesca overhears the captain telling Evelyn that in a quarter of an hour they must in evitably strike on the rocks; with agony he exclaims, "It is for my sake she is here!"
"'Yes, Evelyn,' said Francesca, in a voice of touching sweetness, but calm, not one accent changed—'and here I am happy. Whatever be the world of which yonder dark sea is the portal, we shall seek it together. I knew that this earth was not my home,—that here hopes and affections were to be blighted and to die. Heaven has restored us to each other; it wills that our future be eternal. A deep and a sweet repose is in my heart at this moment; and I await, as at an altar, that fate which is not of this life.'
"He gazed on her large bright eyes, raised for one moment to the sky, whose light was within them: they were uplifted but for that moment, and then turned upon him; from his face they moved no more. Suddenly they were flung with violence against the side where they leant; the vessel shivered like a living thing; and planks and joints flew asunder with a sound which echoed far across the waters. One wild shriek, the cry of many voices, arose to Heaven, but in vain. Again the parting waves lifted the shattered vessel on high; again it was dashed on the hidden rock; this time it arose no more, and the last of life's agony was lost beneath the unfathomable sea."
We have given this abstract of Francesca's history, and dwelt thus particularly on her character, because we have felt in our inmost soul the touching beauty, the dignified yet softened charm, thrown around her noble and womanly spirit.
The whole work, peopled with its interesting beings of the mind, rich in its truthful sentiments, glowing with its radiant descriptions, language and imagery, leaves an impression of the softly-blended bright and mournful; of soothing and elevating influences;–-more like than aught beside, in their soul-subduing pathos and spirit-stirring power, to the effects kindled by music's spell as breathed in the haunting strains of Beethoven’s "Fidelia."*[2]
Extracts form "Francesca Carrara."
"Mutable as is our nature, it delights in the immutable, and we expect as much constancy as if all time, to say nothing of our own changeableness, had not shown that ever 'the fashion of this world passeth away.' And this alone would be to me the convincing proof of the immortality of the soul or mind, or whatever is the animating principle of life. Whether it be the shadow cast from a previous existence, or an intuition of one to come, the love of that which lasts is an inherent impulse in our nature. Hence, that constancy which is the ideal of love and friendship,—that desire of fame which has originated every great effort of genius. Hence, too, that readiness of belief in the rewards and punishments of a future state held out by religion. From the commonest flower treasured, because its perfume outlives its beauty, to our noblest achievements where the mind puts forth all its power, we are prompted by that future which absorbs the present. The more we feel that we are finite, the more do we cling to the infinite."
"We turn from an object even the most common and trivial for the last time, knowing it to be the last, with a touch of sad thoughtfulness. What then must be the feeling with which we look on this beautiful world, and know that such looks are the last? The mysteries of this wonderful universe rise more palpable upon the departing spirit so soon to mingle with its marvels. A voice is on the air, and a music on the wind, inaudible to other ears, but full of strange prophecies to the dying; he stands on the threshold of existence, and already looks beyond it; his thoughts are on things not of this life; his affections are now the only limits that bind him to this earth; but never was their power so great; all other feelings have passed away. Ambition has gone down to the dust from which it so vainly rose; wealth is known to be the vilest dross of which chains were ever formed to glitter and to fall; hope has resigned the thousand rainbows which once gave beauty and promise to the gloomiest hour; all desires, expectations and emotions are vanished, excepting love, which grows the stronger as it approaches the source whence it came, and becomes more heavenly as it draws nigh to its birth-place—heaven."
"Every feeling that looks to the future elevates human nature, for life is never so low, or so little, as when it concentrates itself on the present. The miserable wants, the small desires and the petty pleasures of daily existence, have nothing in common with those mighty dreams which, looking forward for action and action's reward, redeem the earth over which they walk with steps like those of an angel, beneath which spring up glorious and immortal flowers. The imagination is man's noblest and most spiritual faculty, and that ever dwells on the to-come."
- ↑ *If Love be thought to hold a prominent place in Miss Landon's writings, it must be acknowledged that Death has an almost equal prominence. How many dying scenes are recorded in all their own mournfulness, yet filled with the soft light of poetical beauty! Not to mention many instances in her poems, in her prose works, those of Emily Arundel and her uncle, Guido, Francesca, Evelyn, Constance Courtenaye, Sir George Kingston and Walter Maynard, are some of the most striking and touching descriptions. Is it not thus in the actual world? Love and Death, have they not sad meetings, to contend each for its victory? Oh, truthfully is Death thus frequent on pages which unfold the earthly destinies of humanity! for amid what fair and sunny spots in the landscape of Life can we wander, of which the deep still voice of Grief will not tell us, "in that garden there is a sepulchre?"
- ↑ * We subjoin, in confirmation of the high opinion above expressed, an appreciating paragraph from the "New Monthly Magazine:"
"Miss Landon became the author of 'Francesca Carrara'! A page of praise would not have greater force than this little sentence to him who has read that noble work studiously and reflectingly. Nobody who had been familiar only with the casual and careless writings of L. E. L. would have given her credit for the searching and many-winding power which is evinced in various passages of that composition. The rich painting, the poetical description, the happy portraiture of manners, the reading and the knowledge, the grace and the tenderness, were to be expected; but the insight into nature, the penetration into the mysteries of character, the revealings into the inner world, the firm-handed dissection of the philosophy of life, ever curious in the speculations struck out, though often erring in the judgment, and always setting man's worst foot foremost; these are triumphs of her pen that few could have anticipated."