We do not think that Mr. James Branch Cabell of Dumbarton Grange, Dumbarton, Virginia, needs any introduction to the country at large, despite the belated and crotchety presentation of a Mr. Gunther in the November Bookman, but we do think that our friends hereabout are as yet unaware of his topping presence in the field of American letters.
Mr. Cabell's art is, at once, so individual and various that we, for our part, should be diffident about either appreciating or criticising it. The afore-mentioned Mr. Gunther however, after saying that "he (Cabell) manifestly has limitations, his style being frequently annoying, often verbose, his vocabulary impossible," concludes by stating that "Cabell is a stylist of distinction, a painter of beautiful images, a suave, a subtle ironist. We have a juggler of ideas, a nimble wit, a skeptical and tolerant philosopher. We have a queer, tricksy, and deft craftsman who tells his story well." And he winds up by calling him "the most interesting figure in American letters."
Mr. Walpole in the Yale Review, Messrs. Rascoe, Hergesheimer, Benjamin de Casseres and H. L. Mencken, have all, with more or less excellent discrimination appraised Mr. Cabell's craftsmanship. Nevertheless, we believe that no present appraisal can be made of a man who is not writing either for or about the present. His material is from all time and his art for all time. Fifty years hence some long-headed, spectacled gentleman may be positioned for a fitting estimate of the Cabell phenomenon in the early twentieth century. In the meanwhile let us make ourselves merry with the enjoyment of his books.
As this is scrivened merely for the purpose of stimulating a keener interest in the Cabellian product we shall begin by suggesting that you first read "The Cream of the Jest" partly because it contains some of the author's finest writing, verve, feeling, and the seed of his latter style; and partly because it is more easily obtained at present having been reissued recently. Next we would commend the perusal of "Gallantry" (Harper's 1907). Mr. Cabell, we understand, is revising the book. The romance and delicate irony of "Gallantry" to one reader at least is exquisite. Then, perhaps, "The Certain Hour," a series of striking episodes in the lives of divers poets. Either "The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck" or "The Soul of Melicent" (revised under the title "Domnei") might follow. And, then, "Beyond Life!" And then "Jurgen!!"
If you can wade through the sands and shallows of the very early books, such as "The Eagle's Shadow" and "The Line of Love" out into the white-capped ocean of "Beyond Life" and "Jurgen" and manage, somehow, to swim, float, or fly with the author, your efforts will not be entirely unrewarded.
The ocean of life and beyond life — romance, legend, illusion, irony — the medley of gust and love and laughter and tears, all, with a fine courage back of it all facing inevitable defeat at the last — a sad yet buoyant hopefulness whistling a droll second to the obligato of the Gods!
We quote from "Beyond Life" — "For thus to spin romances is to bring about, in every sense, man's recreation, since man alone of animals can, actually, acquire a trait by assuming, in defiance of reason, that he already possesses it. To spin romances is, indeed, man's proper and peculiar function in a world wherein he only of created beings can make no profitable use of the truth about himself. For man alone of animals plays the ape to his dreams. So he fares onward chivalrously, led by ignes fatui no doubt, yet moving onward. And that the goal remains ambiguous seems but a trivial circumstance to any living creature who knows, he knows not how, that to stay still can be esteemed only a virtue in the dead."
Continuing we read: "Indeed, when I consider the race to which I have the honor to belong, I am filled with respectful wonder. All about us flows and gyrates unceasingly the material universe, — an endless inconceivable jumble of rotatory blazing gas and frozen spheres and detonating comets, wherethrough spins Earth like a frail midge. And to this blown molecule adhere what millions and millions and millions of parasites just such as I am, begetting and dreaming and slaying and abnegating and toiling and making mirth, just as did aforetime those countless generations of our forebears, every one of whom was likewise a creature just such as I am!"
"Nor is this everything. For my reason, such as it is, perceives this race in its entirety, in the whole outcome of its achievement, to be beyond all wording petty and ineffectual! and no more than thought can estimate the relative proportion to the material universe of our poor Earth, can thought conceive with what quintillionths to express that fractional part which I, as an individual parasite, add to Earth's negligible fretting by ephemerae."
"And still — behold the miracle! — still I believe life to be a personal transaction between myself and Omnipotence; I believe that what I do is somehow of importance; and I believe that I am on a journey toward some very public triumph not unlike that of the third prince in the fairytale."
Here are but two passages, perhaps ill-chosen ones, from a book abounding in quotable matter. In "Jurgen" the wealth of wit and well-turned phrasing make it a difficult task to select an apt paragraph. Space is limited, and one must take the pains and the accompanying pleasure to read an author of the Cabell stamp, however in concluding we glean you a bit from this remarkable book. Here is Jurgen confronted by the brown man with the queer feet, the symbol of All, who states indifferently that he may choose to annihilate him. Says Jurgen:
"None the less, I think there is something in me which will endure. I am fettered by cowardice, I am enfeebled by disastrous memories; and I am maimed by old follies. Still, I seem to detect in myself something which is permanent and rather fine. Underneath everything, and in spite of everything, I really do seem to detect that something. What role that something is to enact after the death of my body, and upon what stage, I cannot guess. When fortune knocks I shall open the door. Meanwhile, I tell you candidly, you brown man, there is something in Jurgen far too admirable for any intelligent arbiter ever to fling into the dustheap. I am, if nothing else, a monstrous clever fellow; and I think I shall endure somehow. Yes, cap in hand goes through the land, as the saying is: and I believe I can contrive some trick to cheat oblivion when the need rises," says Jurgen, trembling, and gulping, and with his eyes shut tight, "but even so, with his mind quite made up about it. Of course you may be right; and certainly I cannot go so far as to say you are wrong: but still at the same time—"
"Now but before a fool's opinion of himself, the brown man cried the Gods are powerless. Oh, yes, and envious, too!"
'Tis gallant sparkling Greek wine, now for God's sake, sweetheart, do but teach me how the devil you make it. — Rabelais.