|
MEN - WOMEN - AND BOATS
MEN - WOMEN - AND BOATS STEPHEN CRANE Three of our present collection printed by arrangement appeared in the
London (1898) edition of "The Open Boat and Other Stories" published by
William Heinemann but did not occur in the American volume of that
title. They are "An Experiment in Misery" "The Duel that was not
Fought" and "The Pace of Youth."
For the rest "A Dark Brown Dog" "A Tent in Agony" and "The Scotch
Express" are here printed for the first time in a book.
For the general title of the present collection the editor alone is
responsible.
V. S.
MEN WOMEN AND BOATS
CONTENTS
STEPHEN CRANE: _An Estimate_
THE OPEN BOAT
THE RELUCTANT VOYAGERS
THE END OF THE BATTLE
THE UPTURNED FACE
AN EPISODE OF WAR
AN EXPERIMENT IN MISERY
THE DUEL THAT WAS NOT FOUGHT
A DESERTION
THE DARK-BROWN DOG
THE PACE OF YOUTH
SULLIVAN COUNTY SKETCHES
A TENT IN AGONY
FOUR MEN IN A CAVE
THE MESMERIC MOUNTAIN
THE SNAKE
LONDON IMPRESSIONS
THE SCOTCH EXPRESS
STEPHEN CRANE: _AN ESTIMATE_
It hardly profits us to conjecture what Stephen Crane might have written
about the World War had he lived. Certainly he would have been in it
in one capacity or another. No man had a greater talent for war and
personal adventure nor a finer art in describing it. Few writers of
recent times could so well describe the poetry of motion as manifested
in the surge and flow of battle or so well depict the isolated deed of
heroism in its stark simplicity and terror.
To such an undertaking as Henri Barbusse's "Under Fire" that powerful
brutal book Crane would have brought an analytical genius almost
clairvoyant. He possessed an uncanny vision; a descriptive ability
photographic in its clarity and its care for minutiae--yet
unphotographic in that the big central thing often is omitted to be
felt rather than seen in the occult suggestion of detail. Crane would
have seen and depicted the grisly horror of it all as did Barbusse but
also he would have seen the glory and the ecstasy and the wonder of it
and over that his poetry would have been spread.
While Stephen Crane was an excellent psychologist he was also a true
poet. Frequently his prose was finer poetry than his deliberate essays
in poesy. His most famous book "The Red Badge of Courage" is
essentially a psychological study a delicate clinical dissection of the
soul of a recruit but it is also a _tour de force_ of the
imagination. When he wrote the book he had never seen a battle: he had
to place himself in the situation of another. Years later when he came
out of the Greco-Turkish _fracas_ he remarked to a friend: "'The
Red Badge' is all right."
Written by a youth who had scarcely passed his majority this book has
been compared with Tolstoy's "Sebastopol" and Zola's "La Debacle" and
with some of the short stories of Ambrose Bierce. The comparison with
Bierce's work is legitimate; with the other books I think less so.
Tolstoy and Zola see none of the traditional beauty of battle; they
apply themselves to a devoted--almost obscene--study of corpses and
carnage generally; and they lack the American's instinct for the rowdy
commonplace the natural the irreverent which so materially aids his
realism. In "The Red Badge of Courage" invariably the tone is kept down
where one expects a height: the most heroic deeds are accomplished with
studied awkwardness.
Crane was an obscure free-lance when he wrote this book. The effort he
says somewhere "was born of pain--despair almost." It was a better
piece of work however for that very reason as Crane knew. It is far
from flawless. It has been remarked that it bristles with as many
grammatical errors as with bayonets; but it is a big canvas and I am
certain that many of Crane's deviations from the rules of polite
rhetoric were deliberate experiments looking to effect--effect which
frequently he gained.
Stephen Crane "arrived" with this book. There are of course many who
never have heard of him to this day but there was a time when he was
very much talked of. That was in the middle nineties following
publication of "The Red Badge of Courage" although even before that he
had occasioned a brief flurry with his weird collection of poems called
"The Black Riders and Other Lines." He was highly praised and highly
abused and laughed at; but he seemed to be "made." We have largely
forgotten since. It is a way we have.
Personally I prefer his short stories to his novels and his poems;
those for instance contained in "The Open Boat" in "Wounds in the
Rain" and in "The Monster." The title-story in that first collection is
perhaps his finest piece of work. Yet what is it? A truthful record of
an adventure of his own in the filibustering days that preceded our war
with Spain; the faithful narrative of the voyage of an open boat manned
by a handful of shipwrecked men. But Captain Bligh's account of
_his_ small boat journey after he had been sent adrift by the
mutineers of the _Bounty_ seems tame in comparison although of
the two the English sailor's voyage was the more perilous.
In "The Open Boat" Crane again gains his effects by keeping down the
tone where another writer might have attempted "fine writing" and have
been lost. In it perhaps is most strikingly evident the poetic cadences
of his prose: its rhythmic monotonous flow is the flow of the gray
water that laps at the sides of the boat that rises and recedes in
cruel waves "like little pointed rocks." It is a desolate picture and
the tale is one of our greatest short stories. In the other tales that
go to make up the volume are wild exotic glimpses of Latin-America. I
doubt whether the color and spirit of that region have been better
rendered than in Stephen Crane's curious distorted staccato sentences.
"War Stories" is the laconic sub-title of "Wounds in the Rain." It was
not war on a grand scale that Crane saw in the Spanish-American
complication in which he participated as a war correspondent; no such
war as the recent horror. But the occasions for personal heroism were no
fewer than always and the opportunities for the exercise of such powers
of trained and appreciative understanding and sympathy as Crane
possessed were abundant. For the most part these tales are episodic
reports of isolated instances--the profanely humorous experiences of
correspondents the magnificent courage of signalmen under fire the
forgotten adventure of a converted yacht--but all are instinct with the
red fever of war and are backgrounded with the choking smoke of battle.
Never again did Crane attempt the large canvas of "The Red Badge of
Courage." Before he had seen war he imagined its immensity and painted
it with the fury and fidelity of a Verestchagin; when he was its
familiar he singled out its minor crimson passages for briefer but no
less careful delineation.
In this book again his sense of the poetry of motion is vividly
evident. We see men going into action wave on wave or in scattering
charges; we hear the clink of their accoutrements and their breath
whistling through their teeth. They are not men going into action at
all but men going about their business which at the moment happens to
be the capture of a trench. They are neither heroes nor cowards. Their
faces reflect no particular emotion save perhaps a desire to get
somewhere. They are a line of men running for a train or following a
fire engine or charging a trench. It is a relentless picture ever
changing ever the same. But it contains poetry too in rich memorable
passages.
In "The Monster and Other Stories" there is a tale called "The Blue
Hotel". A Swede its central figure toward the end manages to get
himself murdered. Crane's description of it is just as casual as that.
The story fills a dozen pages of the book; but the social injustice of
the whole world is hinted in that space; the upside-downness of
creation right prostrate wrong triumphant--a mad crazy world. The
incident of the murdered Swede is just part of the backwash of it all
but it is an illuminating fragment. The Swede was slain not by the
gambler whose knife pierced his thick hide: he was the victim of a
condition for which he was no more to blame than the man who stabbed
him. Stephen Crane thus speaks through the lips of one of the
characters:--
"We are all in it! This poor gambler isn't even
a noun. He is a kind of an adverb. Every sin is
the result of a collaboration. We five of us have
collaborated in the murder of this Swede. Usually
there are from a dozen to forty women really involved
in every murder but in this case it seems
to be only five men--you I Johnnie Old Scully
and that fool of an unfortunate gambler came
merely as a culmination the apex of a human movement
and gets all the punishment."
And then this typical and arresting piece of irony:--
"The corpse of the Swede alone in the saloon
had its eyes fixed upon a dreadful legend that
dwelt atop of the cash-machine: 'This registers the
amount of your purchase.'"
In "The Monster" the ignorance prejudice and cruelty of an entire
community are sharply focussed. The realism is painful; one blushes for
mankind. But while this story really belongs in the volume called
"Whilomville Stories" it is properly left out of that series. The
Whilomville stories are pure comedy and "The Monster" is a hideous
tragedy.
Whilomville is any obscure little village one may happen to think of. To
write of it with such sympathy and understanding Crane must have done
some remarkable listening in Boyville. The truth is of course he was a
boy himself--"a wonderful boy" somebody called him--and was possessed
of the boy mind. These tales are chiefly funny because they are so true
--boy stories written for adults; a child I suppose would find them
dull. In none of his tales is his curious understanding of human moods
and emotions better shown.
A stupid critic once pointed out that Crane in his search for striking
effects had been led into "frequent neglect of the time-hallowed rights
of certain words" and that in his pursuit of color he "falls
occasionally into almost ludicrous mishap." The smug pedantry of the
quoted lines is sufficient answer to the charges but in support of
these assertions the critic quoted certain passages and phrases. He
objected to cheeks "scarred" by tears to "dauntless" statues and to
"terror-stricken" wagons. The very touches of poetic impressionism that
largely make for Crane's greatness are cited to prove him an ignoramus.
There is the finest of poetic imagery in the suggestions subtly conveyed
by Crane's tricky adjectives the use of which was as deliberate with
him as his choice of a subject. But Crane was an imagist before our
modern imagists were known.
This unconventional use of adjectives is marked in the Whilomville
tales. In one of them Crane refers to the "solemn odor of burning
turnips." It is the most nearly perfect characterization of burning
turnips conceivable: can anyone improve upon that "solemn odor"?
Stephen Crane's first venture was "Maggie: A Girl of the Streets." It
was I believe the first hint of naturalism in American letters. It was
not a best-seller; it offers no solution of life; it is an episodic bit
of slum fiction ending with the tragic finality of a Greek drama. It
is a skeleton of a novel rather than a novel but it is a powerful
outline written about a life Crane had learned to know as a newspaper
reporter in New York. It is a singularly fine piece of analysis or a
bit of extraordinarily faithful reporting as one may prefer; but not a
few French and Russian writers have failed to accomplish in two volumes
what Crane achieved in two hundred pages. In the same category is
"George's Mother" a triumph of inconsequential detail piling up with a
cumulative effect quite overwhelming.
Crane published two volumes of poetry--"The Black Riders" and "War is
Kind." Their appearance in print was jeeringly hailed; yet Crane was
only pioneering in the free verse that is today if not definitely
accepted at least more than tolerated. I like the following love poem
as well as any rhymed and conventionally metrical ballad that I know:--
"Should the wide world roll away
Leaving black terror
Limitless night
Nor God nor man nor place to stand
Would be to me essential
If thou and thy white arms were there
And the fall to doom a long way."
"If war be kind" wrote a clever reviewer when the second volume
appeared "then Crane's verse may be poetry Beardsley's black and white
creations may be art and this may be called a book";--a smart summing
up that is cherished by cataloguers to this day in describing the
volume for collectors. Beardsley needs no defenders and it is fairly
certain that the clever reviewer had not read the book for certainly
Crane had no illusions about the kindness of war. The title-poem of the
volume is an amazingly beautiful satire which answers all criticism.
"Do not weep maiden for war is kind.
Because your lover threw wild hands toward the sky
And the affrighted steed ran on alone
Do not weep.
War is kind.
"Hoarse booming drums of the regiment
Little souls who thirst for fight
These men were born to drill and die.
The unexplained glory flies above them
Great is the battle-god and his kingdom--
A field where a thousand corpses lie.
* * * * *
"Mother whose heart hung humble as a button
On the bright splendid shroud of your son
Do not weep.
War is kind."
Poor Stephen Crane! Like most geniuses he had his weaknesses and his
failings; like many if not most geniuses he was ill. He died of
tuberculosis tragically young. But what a comrade he must have been
with his extraordinary vision his keen sardonic comment his
fearlessness and his failings!
Just a glimpse of Crane's last days is afforded by a letter written from
England by Robert Barr his friend--Robert Barr who collaborated with
Crane in "The 0' Ruddy" a rollicking tale of old Ireland or rather
who completed it at Crane's death to satisfy his friend's earnest
request. The letter is dated from Hillhead Woldingham Surrey June 8
1900 and runs as follows:--
"My Dear ----
"I was delighted to hear from you and was much
interested to see the article on Stephen Crane you
sent me. It seems to me the harsh judgment of an
unappreciative commonplace person on a man of
genius. Stephen had many qualities which lent
themselves to misapprehension but at the core he
was the finest of men generous to a fault with
something of the old-time recklessness which used
to gather in the ancient literary taverns of London.
I always fancied that Edgar Allan Poe revisited the
earth as Stephen Crane trying again succeeding
again failing again and dying ten years sooner
than he did on the other occasion of his stay on
earth.
"When your letter came I had just returned from
Dover where I stayed four days to see Crane off
for the Black Forest. There was a thin thread of
hope that he might recover but to me he looked like
a man already dead. When he spoke or rather
whispered there was all the accustomed humor in
his sayings. I said to him that I would go over to
the Schwarzwald in a few weeks when he was getting
better and that we would take some convalescent
rambles together. As his wife was listening
he said faintly: 'I'll look forward to that' but he
smiled at me and winked slowly as much as to say:
'You damned humbug you know I'll take no more
rambles in this world.' Then as if the train of
thought suggested what was looked on before as the
crisis of his illness he murmured: 'Robert when
you come to the hedge--that we must all go over--
it isn't bad. You feel sleepy--and--you don't
care. Just a little dreamy curiosity--which world
you're really in--that's all.'
"To-morrow Saturday the 9th I go again to
Dover to meet his body. He will rest for a little
while in England a country that was always good
to him then to America and his journey will be
ended.
"I've got the unfinished manuscript of his last
novel here beside me a rollicking Irish tale different
from anything he ever wrote before. Stephen
thought I was the only person who could finish it
and he was too ill for me to refuse. I don't know
what to do about the matter for I never could work
up another man's ideas. Even your vivid imagination
could hardly conjecture anything more ghastly
than the dying man lying by an open window overlooking
the English channel relating in a sepulchral
whisper the comic situations of his humorous hero
so that I might take up the thread of his story.
"From the window beside which I write this I
can see down in the valley Ravensbrook House
where Crane used to live and where Harold Frederic
he and I spent many a merry night together. When
the Romans occupied Britain some of their legions
parched with thirst were wandering about these dry
hills with the chance of finding water or perishing.
They watched the ravens and so came to the stream
which rises under my place and flows past Stephen's
former home; hence the name Ravensbrook.
"It seems a strange coincidence that the greatest
modern writer on war should set himself down
where the greatest ancient warrior Caesar probably
stopped to quench his thirst.
"Stephen died at three in the morning the same
sinister hour which carried away our friend Frederic
nineteen months before. At midnight in Crane's
fourteenth-century house in Sussex we two tried
to lure back the ghost of Frederic into that house of
ghosts and to our company thinking that if reappearing
were ever possible so strenuous a man as
Harold would somehow shoulder his way past the
guards but he made no sign. I wonder if the less
insistent Stephen will suggest some ingenious method
by which the two can pass the barrier. I can imagine
Harold cursing on the other side and welcoming
the more subtle assistance of his finely fibred
friend.
"I feel like the last of the Three Musketeers the
other two gone down in their duel with Death. I
am wondering if within the next two years I also
shall get the challenge. If so I shall go to the competing
ground the more cheerfully that two such
good fellows await the outcome on the other side.
"Ever your friend
"ROBERT BARR."
The last of the Three Musketeers is gone now although he outlived his
friends by some years. Robert Barr died in 1912. Perhaps they are still
debating a joint return.
There could be perhaps no better close for a paper on Stephen Crane
than the subjoined paragraph from a letter written by him to a Rochester
editor:--
"The one thing that deeply pleases me is the
fact that men of sense invariably believe me to be
sincere. I know that my work does not amount to
a string of dried beans--I always calmly admit it--but
I also know that I do the best that is in me
...
|
Open Literature 
