The Overland Monthly/Volume 1/Issue 1/Current Literature
CURRENT LITERATURE.
Going to Jericho; or Sketches of Travel in Spain and the East. By John Franklin Swift. San Francisco: A Roman & Co.
The days of sentimental journeying are over. The dear, old book of travel, with its conscientious desire to instruct, its guidebook directness, its dreadful distances, and more dreadful dates; its feeble moralizing, its poetical quotations from Moore, Byron and Rogers; its one or two thrilling personal adventures, and its reminiscence of at least one noted foreign public character, is a thing of the past. Sentimental musings on foreign scenes are just now restricted to the private diaries of young and impressible ladies, and clergymen with affections of the bronchial tubes, whose hearts and mucous membranes are equally susceptible. No one dares quote John Murray except ironically; no one draws upon Childe Harold's Pilgrimage except apologetically; no one has any adventure except of a humorous or whimsical quality. They are plundered only by guides; theye "stand and deliver "only bucksheesh; they are devoured only by fleas. Nor is this lack of the heroic quality as remarkable as the want of reverence. A race of good-humored, engaging iconoclasts seem to have precipitated themselves upon the old altars of mankind, and like their predecessors of the eighth century, have paid particular attention to the holy church. Mr. Howells has slashed one or two sacred pictorial canvasses with his polished rapier; Mr. Swift has made one or two neat long shots with a rifled Parrott, and Mr. Mark Twain has used brickbats on stained glass windows with damaging effect. And those gentlemen have certainly brought down a heap of rubbish. It has been said they have given nothing in return. But if they have left the indestructible; if they cleared away the extrinsic and useless, and if they opened to us a clearer view of the real edifice of christianity, we need not to sit in judgment on their motives. Beside these exuberant image-breakers—whose perfect unconsciousness of the terror they have excited in the well regulated mind is
not their least charm—even Kinglake Eothen's rhetoric seems occasionaly tawdry, Curtis' sensuous elegance affected and dressy; the spectacle of good Mr. Prime with a revolver in one hand and a bible in the other is somewhat ludicrous, and too susceptible Lamartine's tears mere brine, and pickle. It is true, we have lost something. We have lost that which made Irving's Taleg of a Traveler possible; which lent a nameless charm to some of Lever's earlier novels—the romance of foreign travel. We can offset Lamartine's persistent lachrymoseness by Ross Browne's persistent jocularity; Prime's bibles and revolvers, by Mark Twain's lawless humor and lyric fire; Curtisdilettanteism by Swift's satirical and half playful materialism; and be the gainer. But we cannot afford to lose even such a book as Mackenzie's "Year in Spain "'—though inferior in literary ability to any we have named.:
Mr. John Franklin Swift's "Going to Jericho "is in legitimate literary succession to Howell's Venetian Life, Ross Browne's multifarious voyages, and Mark Twain's Holy Land letters. It is somewhat notable that three of these writers are Californians, and all from the west. With the exception of the first, who has an intrinsic literary merit which lifts him above comparison with any other writer of travel, Mr. Swift in some respects is superior. He is more self-restrained, and often impresses the reader with a reserved power even better than his performance. He uses his satire sparingly, not from lack of material but apparently from conscientiousness of purpose. He is rarely funny for fun's sake alone; but uses his wit only to illuminate some phase of his story, or to pointa moral. He has but one wholly funny chapter in his book— and it is difficult to tell whether the exaggerations which make that humorous are intentional. They certainly are not strained— a quality which cannot be charged upon anything Mr. Swift does, and which is unfortunately a too common fault of your humorous traveler. His best things are said in a
sentence perhaps at the close of a serious paragraph—or introduced not impertinently with other matter, as an after-thought. Clever as is the chapter which describes his unavailing attempts to pass the counterfeit coins he gathered in Spain, it is not equal to the satirical audacity of his comparison of the two orders of church architecture— the Grecian and Gothic—and his suggestion that the Gothic "seemed to be designed by both art and nature to facilitate the passing of brass pistareens upon an over credulous sacerdotal order."
¢ Mr. Swift does not impress us with much instruction, for which we are not sorry; nor much that is novel, for which perhaps the reader's familiar knowledge of the lands he visited is alone responsible. He describes a bull fight graphically—but it is not as interesting as his original suggestion that "Spanish revolutions are worked by telegraph," and that the fighting is done around the telegraph office in the Puerta del Sol, at Madrid. He has given us one pretty picture of a Spanish interior, and a street scene by night. But in going from Spain to Syria at the present day, one can touch upon little that shall be novel except in the manner of narration. Indeed, Mr. Swift seems to have been reticent where he might have expatiated; to have been merciful where we did not expect mercy; he takes us into the sherry cellars of M'Kenzie & Co., and permits us to depart without a dissertation on the vintage; he gives an humorous description of his purchases of Ottar of Rose without an account of its manufacture. He is sparing of Scriptural quotations in Jerusalem; and equally sparing of enthusiasm. People seem to have interested him more than places; incidents than scenery; and the little we gain from him about localities is contained in a few graphic touches of character. We fear that his book would hardly answer to illustrate Holy Land lectures for Sabbath Schools, or that his reminiscences of the Holy Sepulchre would inspire a new crusade. Yet he is never apparently skeptical, and if not demonstratively reverent of the Holy places, is at heart too reverent of the opinions of others, oi too listless, for heresy. He humorously confesses to a desire to adopt Mohammedism as a temporary religion, out of respect to the
citizens. He brings into a region of precedents and arbitrary belief, a good deal of originality and independence, and has a kind word of apology—half in fun half in earnest—for even the poor Arabs that swarm about him at the Pyramids and demand bucksheesh under the shadow of the Sphynx. Where Mark Twain works himself into a grotesque and exaggerated passion, Mr. Swift becomes as satirically sympathetic. He does not know of "over three men in America who if they were in the places of these poor fellows would act differently." He is willing to admit that if he were an Arab "no white man should get back to Cairo with a rag on his back." At Damascus, "had a massacre of the Christians taken place, it is doubtful how he would have thrown his influence." Although statements like these are calculated to erect the hair of dogmatic believers, they are the natural effect of any aggressive religious system upon the American mind, trained to the greatest religious liberty.
There is but one fault that we have to find with this pleasant volume. Mr. Swift, like all Californians, desires to be thought inr2pendent and cosmopolitan; yet like all 'Californians, he carries too much of California with him to be entirely free from the provincial taint. He has never altogether severed his connection with San Francisco, and "drags at each remove a lengthening chain." It may be well to note the resemblance between California and Spain; the similarity of the straits of Gibraltar and the Golden Gate; and the treeless hills that remind him so pleasantly of his own local scenery at classic Lime Point and San Pablo; for have not Californians noted the same resemblances in Syria, and indeed wherever they have carried California reminiscences? The rustic habit of detecting likenesses to " brother Dick "or "cousin Jim" in a new acquaintance, is only a more objectionable form of the same instinct. But when Mr. Swift refers jocularly to the Pacific club of San Francisco, with purely local witticisms, we are forced to believe that he is writing more for a very inconsiderable portion of humanity than becomes a cosmopolitan. It may be urged that his work is made of letters written to a local journal; but even if this were an excuse for the original offence, which we cannot admit, he has had ample opportunity for excision. It is to be regretted the more, since the greater part of his volume is catholic enough for the interest and appetite of all readers. The severest criticism we can make is, that his talent is worthy of a larger audience than his taste has selected.
An octavo volume of seven hundred pages devoted to the resources of California, and issued just when thousands at home and abroad are eager to obtain new facts and to read old ones, could not fail of attracting attention. Typographically the book is well done—so well that no injustice would be done if it were placed first on the list of books which have been produced on this coast.
It was impossible to write a book of this kind without drawing largely on the labors of others. Facts were wanted, and they must be taken wherever found. Sometimes they are taken without any acknowledgment, or indication of the sources from which they have been derived. Something would have been gained by citing authorities for statements made, and by a reference to authors, who, as pioneers, have done honorable service in collecting and publishing facts bearing on the material wealth of the State.
In a work which covers so much ground and includes so great a variety of topics, absolute freedom from errors was hardly to be expected. No single writer had at his command, or within reach, all the information sought. Important discoveries are made from week to week, and new facts are daily brought to light. Remote and almost inaccessible parts of the State suddenly become centres of great interest, requiring personal visits and a careful discrimination of what is mere rumor and what is sober fact.
Some of the topics, as the flora and fauna, were evidently committed to scientific writers, and in these departments there is a conciseness and accuracy of statement which meets the test of all just criticism. In other chapters there is a redundancy of statement or a recitation of unimportant facts, which serve to swell the volume without adding to its value. And yet we apprehend that this book is by far the most complete summary of facts ever given to the public concerning the resources of this State. It is the aggregating of all the local knowledge which was within reach. We are not disposed to find fault with here and there a little rubbish, when so many treasures are laid at our feet. We cannot say that in some instances a faultless taste is evinced by unduly "writing up" certain enterprises, with a preponderance of names and small facts; though it is possible that personal vanity may have been gratified thereby. All discriminating authorship must have a limit which does not so much as suggest that the pocket is of more consequence than literary reputation.
On the whole, our local pride is gratified. The book is a monument of patient industry. We are not disappointed at meeting here and there a minor imperfection; but are rather surprised that so much has been done and done so well. What a suggestive record is this of the undeveloped wealth of the State! The germ of the great Commonwealth is outlined, and an inventory is taken of its marvelous resources. We quote a paragraph from the introductory chapter:
"Yet for a community never exceeding from 400,0co to 500,000, all told, scattered over an area large enough to support 30,000,000, and beginning twenty years ago with but a handful of Caucasians, California has accomplished a great deal. If its gold product has fallen from $65,000,000 per annum to $25,000,000, its agricultural products have increased to an amount equal to half the largest gold yield ever known. The wheat crop alone for 1867 was worth nearly as much as the gold, and the surplus of this staple freighted two hundred and twenty-three ships, and reached a value of $13,000,000; while the total exports of home products, including about fifty different articles for which the State was formerly dependent on other lands, was about $17,000,000. The vintage of 1867 exceeded 3,500,000 gallons of wine and 400,000 gallons of brandy; the number of vines now growing in the State being about 25,000,000. The wool clip was 9,500,000 pounds, showing a gain of more than thirty per cent. over 1866. Silk, tobacco, hops, flax and cotton may now be ranked among the minor products that promise to be sources of profit. A silk factory and a sugar beet factory are two of the new industries being established. The manufactures of the State are already estimated at $30,000,000 per annum. The best mining machinery in the Union is made here. The assessed value of real and personal property increased in 1867 about $21,000,000, runling up the total taxable values of the State to some $221,000,000, and showing a gain of twenty per cent. in two years, the most prosperous years ever experienced in the State.
Seven hundred pages imperial octavo are devoted to facts like these. But only two pages are devoted to the libraries and literature of the State!—not perhaps an erroneous indication of the relation which one interest has heretofore been deemed to sustain to the other. Let us hope that since so good an account has been given of our natural wealth, something may yet worthily be written of the intellectual wealth and culture of the State. The book will go into public and private libraries as the best authority extant concerning most of the topics of which it professes to treat.
The admirers of this wonderful man—Mr. George Lawrence—need not look beyond the titles of the chapters of this novel, or indeed of the novel itself, to know that it is worthy of his steel. Given, a gentleman of the "thirteenth hundredth year of Grace," with the name of "Brakespeare," and we can imagine what follows, The author is sufficiently far removed into the region of pure romance to indulge now his wildest dream of muscular activity. The feats of Guy Livingstone, which, to say the least, were scarcely probable in the nineteenth century, are perfectly consistent with the thirteenth. We hear the old "dull, ominous crash;" we see "the face set as a flint stone, dark and pitiless;" we hear "the low moan of intense, half-conscious agony," and we never think of calling for the Police. For this is the fourteenth century—or as Mr. Lawrence would say—"God wot, these be parlous times." He revels not only in "gages," "corselets," "vamplates" and "habergeons," but, in the language of the period, intermixed with scraps of monkish Latin and Norman French. That he feels an intense satisfaction in speaking of a man as "a leal knight and stalwart," of saying "pardie," "De par Dieu," "Messire" and "Beau Sire," and "mine" for "my," no one acquainted with that gentleman's chivalric weakness will for a moment doubt. When we state that "Ralph Brakespeare" at the very outset of his thrilling career embraces his favorite bloodhound, feels for her heart and drives his dagger home; and when we add that he does this with his eye glistening with the tear of muscular sensibility, because he fears the dog may be lonely in his absence, we give the reader a touching idea of the moral perfections of Mr. Lawrence's hero.