Trilbyana: The Rise and Progress of a Popular Novel

"Mr. du Maurier, apparently in deference to the current craze for heroines that have been seduced, or are just going to be, bedaubs the first fifty pages of his otherwise clean story with telling how his pure heroine, Trilby, a blanchisseuse de fin, had been led astray, and so forth. That is to say, he unnecessarily goes behind the true door of his story to wash some dirty linen, and then he sets forth."

On this point the San Francisco Argonaut does not agree with its New York contemporary: —

"With those who think these passages immoral, we cannot agree. Mr. du Maurier has treated with candor some facts belonging to the realm of things which are usually understood instead of being talked about; but he has done this with singular manliness and delicacy, and with entire absence of mawkish or other improper sentiment. The impression of Trilby's character left upon the reader is entirely that of a noble, generous woman, whose life is not a sin, but a tragedy."

The same paper reproduces "a letter Mr. du Maurier wrote to a Paterson, N. J., man who contended that the relations of Trilby with her hypnotizer were chaste, so far as her consciousness of them went, and decided to find out if he were right by writing to the novelist": —

    "New Grove House, Hampstead Heath,
    "October 31, 1894.

"Dear Sir: In answer to your letter of September 24th, I beg to say that you are right about Trilby. When free from mesmeric influence, she lived with him as his daughter, and was quite innocent of any other relation. In haste, yours very truly,

    "G. du Maurier."

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Early in March, 1895, one of the Boston clergymen advertised Robert Grant's "Art of Living," as our Boston correspondent reported at the time, and on Sunday, March 17, another prominent minister took up "Trilby." So it is evident that, even if Boston authorship is on the decline, as so many New Yorkers enviously declare, the Boston clergy are going to keep alive the interest in literary matters by emphatic words to their congregations. "Have you read 'Trilby'?" was the theme of the Rev. George W. Bicknell's sermon, and the topic crowded the church. The Reverend Doctor declared that he had spent five hours reading the book, and had decided that it was a story of magnificent possibilities, but that its morality was "as one viewed it." He considered the tale far-fetched and over-drawn and lacking in healthful flavor, and placed it in the same class of art with the nude paintings at the World's Fair – a position to which, we presume, the author would not object. Then he launched out into an emphatic declaration that it was time for the pulpit to speak out against art of this kind.

* * *

Du Maurier's heroine has been heard of over in Brooklyn. A married woman, aged twenty-nine, got into a dispute with her husband, recently, as to the morals of the young model, and proved her point by "smashing him over the head with an earthenware jar." In the newspaper in which we read of this intemperate act, the husband's age is not given, nor the side he took in the argument, before he was shown to be wrong. The fact that he got his head broken proves little – except the folly of arguing with a woman; nor the additional fact that he refused to appear against his wife in court. But the case is one in which a good deal might be said on both sides – if earthenware jars were not introduced too early in the discussion.

* * *

Mr. du Maurier has worse offenses to atone for than the breaking of the Brooklyn man's silly head. But for his entertaining book we should have been spared the unreadable prose of "Biltry: a Parody on 'Trilby'" and the unspeakable verse of "Drilby Re-versed," the former by Mary Kyle Dallas, the latter by Leopold Jordan. In vulgarity and banality, these two precious productions run each other a close race. Of the two we think "Drilby" a trifle the less objectionable, merely because the proportion of text to white paper is somewhat smaller. Both are poorly illustrated, and printed on much better paper than they deserve.

* * *

E. C. of New Albany, Ind., thinks that "Trilby's" possibilities as a vehicle of evil to the much-considered American "young person" are emphasized by a conversation recently overheard by her between two feminine "young persons" in Indiana. "What is this 'Trilby' everybody is talking about?" asked one of these. "Oh," replied the other, "it's a book – a novel." "They say it is awfully bad," said the first young person. "Yes, I've heard so; but it isn't so at all. I read it clear through, and there wasn't anything bad in it. I didn't like it either; there is too much French in it." "French?" commented the first young woman; "well that's it, then – all the bad part is in French." "I hadn't thought of that," mused the other one; "I suppose that's just the way of it. Anyway, it isn't nearly as good as 'Dally.'"

"Trilby" has even got into American politics. This shows better than anything else how wide an audience the story most have reached. How many allusions to a book of the current year would be comprehensible to the average reader of a New York daily paper? We reproduce the accompanying cartoon from the World of Dec. 9 as a curiosity of literature and an interesting contribution to "Trilbyana." It is adapted from Mr. du Maurier's drawing entitled "Et Maintenant Dors, ma Mignonne!"

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A Broadway caterer now "molds his ice-cream in the shape of a model of Trilby's ever-famous foot." Mr. du Maurier can want no greater evidence of the popularity of his story in America. That there is not a "Trilby" shoe on the market reflects little credit upon the enterprise of our bootmakers. It is an opportunity that no soap-maker would neglect if it came his way. Possibly the fact that Trilby's foot was large (as well as shapely) has something to do with the shoemakers' backwardness. Hers were not Cinderella slippers. ("The Lounger," 30 March, 1895.)

Mr. C. W. Coleman, Librarian of William and Mary College, writes from Williamsburg, Va., to say that I am in error in supposing that the bootmakers of this wide-wake country have not yet seized the name of du Maurier's heroine for advertising purposes. In his note of correction he encloses a clipping from the catalogue of a Chicago house, containing a picture of a high-heeled ladies' shoe, flanked by an advertisement of "'The Trilby,' price $3, postage 15 cts. – 'an ornament to any foot,'" etc. And I hear that the shop-windows of Norfolk, Va., fairly bristle with shoes of this brand. Moreover, a bootmaker's advertisement in the Pittsburg Post shows (as a punning Pennsylvania correspondent writes to me) that "Trilby has obtained a foothold even in the Iron City." According to the advertisement, "this enterprising firm offer to the lady sending in the most accurate dimensions according to the diagram above, together with a drawn outline of the nude foot on paper, a handsome pair of the highest grade 'Trilby' shoe, which they will have made up especially for the winner. This stylish foot adornment for Pittsburgh's model feet will be satin or silk lined throughout, of the finest quality kid and best workmanship. Bear in mind, ladies, it need not be the smallest feet that win, but the most perfect form of a foot from a standpoint of proportionate measurements." ("The Lounger," 13 April, 1895.)

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G. A. D. writes from Philadelphia to deplore the Quaker City's vulgarization of the name and fame of Trilby; and in justification of his plaint encloses a Chestnut Street dealer's advertisement of the "Trilby Sausage"! This, it is claimed, "is something new, and fills a long-felt want"; "they melt in your mouth." They don't melt in G. A. D.'s mouth, but they rankle in his æsthetic soul. "What next?" he exclaims; "an Ophelia tooth-wash, a Duchess of Towers garbage-pail!" Our correspondent has not yet heard of the "Trilby Ham." This, if anything, is worse than the Sausage. It has been heard of in this city; whether or no it originated here, I do not care to inquire. But in an Eighth Avenue dime-museum, there are "Twenty Trilbys," and visitors vote for the handsomest! Moreover, we have now the "Trilby Hearth-brush"; and huge posters on the East Side announce a picnic of the "Trilby Coterie and Chowder Club."

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The Evening Post reprints from James Braid's "Observations of Trance" (1850, page 43) the following paragraph, which is of singular interest in connection with the novel which has made such an extraordinary sensation in this country during the past year, and has become as great a success on the stage as in book-form. Svengali's transformation of a girl with no ear for music into a singer of marvellous powers seems to have been almost paralleled in real life, half a century ago: —

"Many patients will thus repeat accurately what is spoken in any language; and they may be also able to sing correctly and simultaneously both words and music of songs in any language which they have never heard before —i. e., they catch the words as well as music so instantaneously as to accompany the other singer as if both had been previously equally familiar with both words and music. In this manner a patient of mine, who, when awake, knew not the grammar of even her own language, and who had very little knowledge of music, was enabled to follow Mlle. Jenny Lind correctly in songs in different languages, giving both words and music so correctly and so simultaneously with Jenny Lind, that two parties in the room could not for some time imagine that there were two voices, so perfectly did they accord, both in musical tone and vocal pronunciation of Swiss, German and Italian songs. She was equally successful in accompanying Mlle. Lind in one of her extemporaneous effusions, which was a long and extremely difficult elaborate chromatic exercise, which the celebrated cantatrice tried by way of taxing the powers of the somnambulist to the utmost. When awake the girl durst not even attempt to do anything of the sort; and, after all, wonderful as it was, it was only phonic imitation, for she did not understand the meaning of a single word of the foreign language which she had uttered so correctly."

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(Miss Frances Albert Doughty, in The Critic, 15 June, 1895.)

"The strength of 'Trilby' as a novel lies in the exquisitely dear realization of the good in the girl's nature, which the fine art of the author has been able to give to the reader. The divine in the Laird, in Taffy and in Little Billee responded to the divine in that undeveloped girl, and to them the angel in her was the real Trilby in spite of all her past experience. But idealism and realism in this charming story are not quite happily balanced: the reader receives a blow on the spiritual side of his being from the manifestation of an agency in the universe that is endowed with an all-conquering malevolence, something extraneous from the individual and yet able to arrest in her the growth of the budding germ of holiness and moral beauty, a power triumphant even at the moment when her spirit was about to return to the God who gave it. Without Svengali there would be no novel of Trilby; nevertheless, he is the sole blot upon it."

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(San Francisco Argonaut)

"Perhaps the most surprising circumstance connected with 'Trilby' in the eyes of American readers is the way the book has been received in England. At best it has been accorded lukewarm praise, and the tone of its reviews has run the gamut down to downright slating. Some have been spiteful enough to be exceptionally entertaining. Of these, that of The Pall Mall Gazette is the most striking, the reviewer of that journal showing himself to be (as an exchange puts it) a master of vituperative diction. To this reviewer, 'Trilby's' three Englishmen are 'British prigs cut in pasteboard,' and their biographer is denied even the poor ability to express himself in grammatical English."

* * *

To the Editors of The Critic: —

If there yet remains a word to be said in criticism of this book, it may, perhaps, be in regard to the musical part of it. Whether intentionally or not, du Maurier has certainly added an instance, which tends to prove the theory true, that music in itself is neither elevating nor refining. Svengali is drawn with inimitable skill, and with so much realism that the reader feels that he must have been known and hated by du Maurier in all his repulsiveness. And yet this loathsome creature has the power of so seizing and expressing the noblest works of the great masters of harmony as to move his hearers to tears, to sway them at his will by the tenderness and feeling he puts into the notes. It is a hard thing for a music-lover to comprehend, that a man of low and vicious life, and utterly without aspirations, can so express the penetrating beauty that lies in music more than in any other art. It shows, too, that music gives us only what it finds in us, and proves the folly of "program music," or music with a translation.

Auburn, N. Y. S. M. Cox.

(Mrs. Emma Carleton, in the Louisville Courier-Journal.)

"A great deal has been said and written about 'Ben Bolt,'" said a woman who doesn't pretend to be musical, "and the other songs of the Trilby repertoire; but I have not yet seen or heard any comment on Trilby's 'great and final performance' – the vocalization of Chopin's Impromptu, A flat. Du Maurier devotes two entire pages to most wonderful description of this wonderful musical achievement; two exquisite pages of music painted in words, in most masterly and matchless fashion. Who can forget the depiction of La Svengali's voice, 'as a light nymph catching the whirl of a double-skipping rope as she warbles that long, smooth, lilting, dancing laugh, that wondrous song without words.' This impromptu should be rechristened the 'Trilby Impromptu,' and musicians everywhere should now – while the Trilby wave is riding high – be charming their audiences by playing it."

* * *

The Oliver Ditson Co. has published a pamphlet of "Trilby" songs, etc., containing the words and music of "Ben Bolt," "Malbrouck," "Bonjour, Suzon," "Der Nussbaum" ("The Nut-tree") "Cantique de Noël" and "Au Clair de la Lune," and the music of Chopin's "Impromptu."

* * *

On March 1, 1895, a postcard was sent from the office of Life, calling the attention of "exchange editors" throughout the country to "A 'Trilby' Examination." We reprint the card in full: —

"Life's Monthly Calendar offers a series of cash prizes for the best sets of replies to the following questions on 'Trilby':

1. What does the author claim as the king of all instruments? Who does he claim was the greatest violinist of his time? What does he call the most bourgeois piece of music he knows?

2. What was Svengali's real name?

3. Where does the author state that he is a social lion? Where does he deny that he is a snob?

4. Where does he bring Little Billee in contact with Punch?

5. What did the Laird call M. le général Comte de la Tour-aux-Loups?

6. In what places does the author compare Gecko to a dog?

7. How old was Trilby when she died?

8. What was Little Billee's physical explanation of his inability to love?

9. What verbal description of one of the heroes contradicts almost every one of the author's drawings of him?