Recent Fiction, II [pp. 205-211]

Recent Fiction.
when the Count's eyes turn to them too
frequently, whose devotion finds its fitting expression only when he says, "If
being chopped in pieces would do any
good, all I'd have to say is,'Chop'!"
There is Bernhard Dietz, the musical
stone-cutter, with his philosophical
"Why not?" his manly love for Roschen, the pretty serving maid, and the
gentle strength that Count Hugo learns
to lean on. There is Mousey, the dog,
of whom we are hardly justified in speaking as a minor character, so important
and imperious is he in the Kr6nfels
household, with his wicked intelligence
and fiendish ingenuity in making people
uncomfortable. And beside these are
many more, all as carefully studied.
These characters make up altogether a
picture of life and manners that will live
and deserves to live.
Miss Howard has chosen a theme not
easy to handle, one that goes deep into
the human heart, and she has treated it
worthily. We praise her for the honesty
of her work, for preferring to write few
books and good ones. "One Summer"
was successful enough to have led many
writers into the fatal novel-a-year habit.
"Guenn," "Aulnay Tower," "Aunt Serena," all in turn achieved success, and
now it may be confidently predicted that
The Open Door will win equal favor.
Five novels in thrice as many years,
each of them important, is a good record.
Four novels by Balzac are next to be
treated, covering in time the first thirty
years of the nineteenth century, but as
has been often noted, strangely of today
in their tone, the Paris of Balzac's day
having many points in common with the
present civilization of America. This
is most strongly shown in Bureaucracy,'
1 Bureaucracy. By Honord de Balzac. Translated
by Katharine Prescott Wormeley. Boston: Roberts
Bros.: 1889. For sale in San Francisco by Samuel Carson & Co
The Magic Skin. I888. Ibid.
Louis ILambert, with Facino Cane, and Gambara.
I889. Ibid.
Seraphita, with Jesus Christ in Flanders, and The Exiles. Ibid.
a novel of civil service reform. Monsieur Rabourdin, head of a bureau in the
civil service, and next in succession by
reason of present rank and personal talent to the position of chief of division,
is a statesman rather than a politician,
and conceives a comprehensive scheme
for reform. In this scheme, the questions now uppermost in American politics, reform of the civil service, taxation
direct and indirect, customs, surplus,
pensions, are all given due consideration. Balzac touches no subject that
his genius does not illuminate. Hear
him on the civil service:
Certainly a nation does not seem threatened with
immediate dissolution because an able clerk is sent
away and a middling sort of man replaces him.
Unfortunately for the welfare of nations, individual men never seem necessary to their existence. But in the long run, when the belittling
process is fully carried out, nations will disappear.
Every one who seeks instruction on this point can
look at Venice, Madrid, Amsterdam, Stockholm,
Rome, all places which were formerly resplendent
with mighty powers, and are now destroyed by the
infiltrating littleness which gradually attained the
highest eminence. When the day of struggle came,
all was found rotten, the State succumbed to a weak
attack. To worship the fool who succeeds, and not
to grieve over the fall of an able man, is the result
of our melancholy education, of our manners and
customs, which drive men of intellect into disgust,
and genius to despair.
Rabourdin's scheme called for a large
reduction in the number of officials, with
a corresponding doubling and trebling
of salaries. To commend this to his
minister he makes a list of all the clerks
in his division, and annotates it as a
guide when the time for dismissals
comes. This list is seen, and a stolen
copy made by an underling, a cause of
disaster to Rabourdin. The chief of
division is ill with a mortal illness, and
the story of the book is made up of the
successful efforts of the teredos navalis,
boring mollusk, class of incapables to
get one of their own number appointed
over Rabourdin's head. In this they
are almost foiled by the counter strate
188 J.]
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