Violets and Other Tales

								

conceals his identity, so that we are troubled with none of that Byronic
vice of 'dipping one's pen into one's self.'
Still, for all the historian's impartiality, he is just a trifle
incorrect, here and there--the ancients mention no aqueduct in or near
Carthage. Hann was not crucified outside of Tunis. The incident of the
Carthaginian women cutting off their tresses to furnish strings for bows
and catapults is generally conceded to have occurred during the latter
portion of the third Punic War. And still another difficulty presents
itself--Salammbo was supposed to have been the only daughter of
Hamilcar; according to Flanbert she dies unmarried, or rather on her
wedding day, and yet historians tell us that after the death of the
elder Barca, Hannibal was brought up and watched over by Hamilcar's
son-in-law, Hasdrubal. Can it be possible that the crafty Numidian King,
Nari Havas, is the intrepid, fearless and whole-souled Hasdrubal? Or is
it only another deviation from the beaten track of history? In a
historical novel, however, and one so evidently arranged for dramatic
effects, such lapses from the truth only heighten the interest and
kindle the imagination to a brighter flame.
The school of realism of which Zola, Tolstoi, De Maupassant, and others
of that ilk are followers, claims its descent from the author of
Salammbo. Perhaps their claim is well-founded, perhaps not; we are
inclined to believe that it is, for every page in this novel is crowded
with details, often disgusting, which are generally left out in ordinary
works. The hideous deformity, the rottenness and repulsiveness of the
leper Hann is brought out in such vivid detail that we sicken and fain
would turn aside in disgust. But go where one will, the ghastly,
quivering, wretched picture is always before us in all its filth and
splendid misery. The reeking horrors of the battle-fields, the
disgusting details of the army imprisoned in the defile of the
battle-axe, the grimness of the sacrifices to the blood-thirsty god,
Moloch, the wretchedness of Hamilcar's slaves are presented with every
ghastly detail, with every degrading trick of expression. Picture after
picture of misery and foulness arises and pursues us as the grim witches
pursued the hapless Tam O'Shanter, clutching us in ghastly arms,
clinging to us with grim and ghoulish tenacity.
Viewing the character through the genteel crystal of nineteenth century
civilization, they are all barbarous, unnatural, intensified; but
considering the age in which they lived--the tendencies of that age, the
gods they worshipped, the practices in which they indulged,--they are
all true to life, perfect in the depiction of their natures. Spendius is
a true Greek, crafty, lying, deceitful, ungrateful. Hamilcar needs no
novelist to crystallize his character in words, he always remains the
same Hamilcar of history, so it is with Hann; but to Flanbert alone are