Archibald Malmaison: Introduction

Introduction

When I was a child, I used to hope my fairy-stories were true. Since
reaching years of discretion, I have preferred acknowledged fiction. This
inconsistency, however, is probably rather apparent than real. Experience
has taught me that the greater the fairy-story the less the truth; and
contrariwise, that the greater the truth the less the fairy-story. In
other words, the artistic graces of romance are irreconcilable with the
crude straightforwardness of fact. The idealism of childhood, believing
that all that is most beautiful must on that very account be most true,
clamors accordingly for truth. The knowledge of maturity, which has
discovered that nothing that is true (in the sense of being existent) can
be beautiful, deprecates truth beyond everything. What happens, we find,
is never what ought to happen; nor does it happen in the right way or
season. In palliation of this hardship, the sublime irony of fate grants
us our imagination, wherewith we create little pet worlds of poetry and
romance, in which everything is arranged in neat harmonies and surprises,
to gratify the scope of our little vision. The actual world, the real
universe, may, indeed, be picturesque and perfect beyond the grandest of
our imaginative miniatures; but since the former can be revealed to us
only in comparatively infinitesimal portions, the miniatures still have
the best of it.

To preface a story with the information that it is true, is not, therefore,
the way to recommend it. Your hearer's life, and those of his friends, are
enough true stories for him; what he wants of you is merciful fiction.
Destiny, to his apprehension, is always either vapid, or clumsy, or
brutal; and he feels certain that, do your worst, you can never rival the
brutality, the clumsiness, or the vapidity of destiny. If you are silly,
he can at least laugh at you; if you are clumsy or brutal, he has his
remedy; and meanwhile there is always the chance that you may turn out to
be graceful and entertaining. But to bully him with facts is like asking
him to live his life over again; and the civilized human being has yet to
be found who would not rather die than do that.

No; we are all spontaneously sure that no story-teller, though he were a
Timon of Athens double distilled, can ever be so unsympathetic and
unnatural as destiny, who tells the only story that never winds up. We
cannot understand destiny; we never know to what lengths she may go: but
the story-teller we know inside and out; he is only a possible ourself,
and we defy him to do us any serious harm. I trust I am rendering my
meaning clear, and that no one will suppose that in making this onslaught
upon truth, I have anything else in view than truth as applied to what are
called stories. With truth scientific, moral, religious, I am at present
in nowise concerned. Only, I have no respect for the weakness that will
outrage a promising bit of narrative for the sake of keeping to the facts.
Imbecile! the facts are given you, like the block of marble or the
elements of a landscape, as material for the construction of a work of
art. Which would you rather be, a photographer or Michael Angelo? "_Non
vero ma ben trovato_" should be your motto; and if you refuse to kill
your heroine on the Saturday night because, forsooth, she really did,
despite all dramatic propriety, survive till Monday morning--why, please
yourself; but do not bring your inanities to me!

I have now to reconcile this profession of faith with the incongruous fact
that the following story is a true one. True it is, in whole and in part;
furthermore, the events took place in the present century, and within a
hundred miles of London. But let me observe, in the first place, that,
although a true tale, it is nevertheless strange and interesting to an
unusual degree; and, secondly, that this interest and strangeness mainly
depend, not upon the succession of incidents, but upon the subjective
condition--character it cannot be termed--of Archibald Malmaison himself.
This being the case, it follows that the greater part of the objections
above insisted upon fall to the ground. What goes on inside a man must
needs be accepted as it is revealed to us: to invent psychological
attributes does not lie within the province of a romancer. His skill and
power are confined to so selecting and arranging the incidents as to
provide his psychological data with the freest possible development. In
the present case I might easily have devised a stage and a series of
events for Malmaison, which would have brought his mysterious affection
into somewhat more prominent and picturesque relief. But that affection is
itself so absorbing a problem, that the fashion of its statement becomes
of comparatively small import; and I may add that the setting furnished by
nature happens on this occasion to answer all practical purposes tolerably
well. Moreover, I am not altogether a free agent in the matter. The friend
by whose permission I tell the tale is of opinion that no liberties ought
to be taken with its form, any more than with what he is pleased to call
its "physiological characteristics." The main significance of the
narrative being, according to him, of a scientific or pathological kind,
it would be hostile to scientific interests to depart from historical
accuracy in its presentation. From the professional dictum of a man like
Dr. Forbes Rollinson there can, of course, be no appeal, and if I am to
write the account at all, it is but fair that in so doing I should respect
the wishes of him who is the lawful proprietor of it. I have thought it
but fair to myself, however, to begin by offering this explanation. I feel
more or less hampered by the conditions enjoined upon me, and, besides, I
do not agree with Dr. Rollinson's theory of the phenomena. In the present
state of our knowledge, no theory on such subjects can pretend to be more
than hypothetically correct; and my prejudices are opposed to what is
known as the materialistic explanation of the universe. With, all respect
for the validity of science within its proper sphere, I do not conceive
that its judgments are entitled to paramount consideration when they
attempt to settle the problems of psychology. There are mysteries which no
process of inductive reasoning can reach.--The reader, however, will not
be decoyed blindfold into accepting as final either the Doctor's view or
mine; but, after possessing himself of the facts, will be left free to
draw what conclusions he may please.

As regards the matter of names, dates, and localities, Dr. Rollinson holds
that they had better be given at full length; and here I am not disposed
to differ from him. The system of blanks and initial letters was always
distasteful to me; and to use fictitious names in a true story seems like
taking away with one hand what you give with another. Besides, every one
of the actors in the drama is now dead: Dr. Rollinson [1] himself being
the only living person who is cognizant, directly, of all the
circumstances, from beginning to end. In his capacity of physician, he was
the intimate and trusted friend of the ill-fated Malmaison household
during upward of twenty years, and he inherited this confidential position
from his father. He has kindly placed at my disposal a number of his
professional note-books and journals, and in various places I have
incorporated with the narrative some of the information which they
contain. At other times I have inserted minor details of conversation and
incident, and have endeavored to throw over the whole as "fictitious" an
air as was consistent with the conscientious observance of my compact with
the Doctor. And now, without further preface, I will proceed to business.

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