On virtue and vice

{Satan Falls, by Gustave Dore}

In the midst of a Rambler essay for March 31, 1750, on the then-new genre of the naturalistic novel, Samuel Johnson addresses the danger of an author allowing the charms of evil too much play in his characters:

Many writers, for the sake of following nature, so mingle good and bad qualities in their principle personages that they are both equally conspicuous; and as we accompany them through their adventures with delight, and are led by degrees to interest ourselves in their favour, we lose the abhorrance of their faults, because they do not hinder our pleasure, or perhaps, regard them with some kindness for being united with so much merit.

There have been men indeed splendidly wicked, whose endowments threw a brightness on their crimes, and whom scarce any villainy made perfectly detestable, because they never could be wholly divested of their excellencies; but such have been in all ages the great corrupters of the the world, and their resemblance ought no more to be preserved than the art of murdering without pain.

Could Johnson have been thinking of the eponymous hero of Henry Fielding's Tom Jones (1749), whose salacious romantic exploits would have been the talk of the novel-reading public just then?

My thoughts also turned immediately to Milton's seductively regal presentation of Satan in Paradise Lost (1667), which caused William Blake later to claim that Milton was "of the Devil's party without knowing it." Yet Johnson, in a 1779 preface to a collection of Milton's works--in which his dismissal of Milton's poem "Lycidas" as something that "surely no man could have fancied that he read . . . with pleasure had he not known its author" demonstrates that he is not star-struck by the master--seems untroubled by Milton's portrayal of Satan:

Milton has been censured by Clarke for the impiety which sometimes breaks from Satan's mouth. For there are thoughts, as he justly remarks, which no observation of character can justify, because no good man would willingly permit them to pass, however transiently, through his own mind. To make Satan speak as a rebel, without any such expressions as might taint the reader's imagination, was indeed one of the great difficulties in Milton's undertaking, and I cannot but think that he has extricated himself with great happiness.

Perhaps it was only with Blake and the early stirrings of Romanticism--with its glorification of individuality, adventure, and transgression--that the rebellious allure of Milton's Satan, so obvious from our vantage, began to become apparent. It's not that hard to imagine that though Johnson could understand the attraction of evil richly portrayed, he nevertheless remained so firmly rooted in Christian belief as to be incapable of even conceiving of a reader's being drawn to Satan.

All of which led me to think, with a smile, of how resolutely Johnson would have refused to accept--let alone enjoy--the gleeful joking of Thomas De Quincey in his On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts (1827). I've written a bit about this gloriously inventive and fun essay recently. I think it's likely that, had he been alive to crack De Quincey's volume, Johnson surely would have heaved it across the room in disgust after a few pages--perhaps when De Quincey, as historical background to the art of murder, offers up this assessment of Cain:

As the inventor of murder, and the father of the art, Cain must have been a first-rate genius.

Yet it's hard not to hear some lingering Johnsonian cadences in De Quincey's prose in the following paragraph, which sees his cringe-inducing joking reach its zenith with an analysis of some details that might contribute to a murder's aesthetic perfection:

A philosophic friend, well-known for his philanthropy and general benignity, suggests that the subject chosen ought also to have a family of young children wholly dependent on his exertions, by way of deepening the pathos. And, undoubtedly, this is a judicious caution. Yet I would not insist too keenly on this condition. Severe good taste unquestionably demands it; but still, where the man was otherwise unobjectionable in point of morals and health, I would not look with too curious a jealousy to a restriction which might have the effect of narrowing the artist's sphere.

It does seem unlikely that De Quincey and Johnson would have found one another congenial; a mind that can offer up such thoughts--even as satire--would, it seems, be difficult to square with one that could contend, as Johnson did, that,

Vice, for vice is necessary to be shown, should always disgust. . . . It is therefore to be steadily inculcated that virtue is the highest proof of understanding, and the only solid basis of greatness; and that vice is the natural consequence of narrow thoughts, that it begins in mistake, and ends in ignominy.

Something tells me that Dr. Johnson wouldn't have thought much of Richard Stark's Parker novels, either. I, however, am in the fortunate position of being able to enjoy the work of all three men . . . whether to the detriment of whatever eternal soul I may possess being, of course, a question for the unknown gods.

Some devils

James Hogg's odd little novel of dark, supernatural religion, The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner (1824) tells the tale of a Scottish family whose two sons are raised in starkly opposing fashion. The elder, George, is raised by the father and given no religious instruction; he becomes a relatively ordinary, carefree, slightly dissolute young carouser, neither particularly good nor particularly bad. The younger, Robert, is raised by the mother and a Minister who is her secret paramour--both strict Calvinists--and taught from a young age that he is one of the elect, destined to be saved, and that no action he takes on earth can change his status as a chosen favorite of God. The novel tells of the elder brother's death at the hands of the younger, and along the way it offers dark reflections on faith, certainty, fanaticism, and religion itself.

The brothers, always different, truly begin to part ways when Robert, the Calvinist, meets an intelligent, worldly, charming man of about his own age who becomes his closest friend and mentor. The friend, who staunchly supports the concept of predestination, tells Robert:

Religion is a sublime and glorious thing, the bond of society on earth, and the connector of humanity with the Divine nature; but there is nothing so dangerous to man as the wresting of any of its principles, or forcing them beyond their due bounds: this is of all others the readiest way to destruction.

A sensible warning--but the friend offers it in the course of urging Robert to murder the man in cold blood for preaching a heretical gospel of piety and good works. The action might seem reprehensible, he admits, but as the man is preaching lies, his death would further God's plan--and, he is quick to remind Robert, as one of the elect Robert need not fear eternal judgment for any earthly action.



The friend, as you have surely guessed, is the devil, and I've not encountered a more seductive devil since Milton ennobled Lucifer. As in the above statement, he mixes lies and truth in toxic fashion, turning meaning on its head and playing deftly on his victim's self-regard and self-confidence. As he explains soon after he first meets Robert:

My countenance changes with my studies and sensations. . . . It is a natural peculiarity in me, over which I have not full control. If I contemplate a man's features seriously, mine own gradually assume the very same appearance and character. And what is more, by contemplating a face minutely, I not only attain the same likeness, but, with the likeness, I attain the very same ideas as well as the same mode of arranging them, so that, you see, by looking at a person attentively, I by degrees assume his likeness, and by assuming his likeness I attain to the possession of his most secret thoughts. This, I say, is a peculiarity in my nature, a gift of the God that made me; but whether or not give me for a blessing, he knows himself, and so do it. At all events, I have this privilege,--I can never be mistaken of a character in whom I am interested.

That perceptiveness, supported by a seemingly straightforward--if horrifying--rationality and clarity of purpose make him a chilling figure. All he's doing, after all, is taking the hideous, self-serving doctrine in which Robert already believes (as did many Scots, which is what drove Hogg to write the book in the first place) and pushing it to its logical conclusions. There is in Hogg's devil none of the self-loathing of Milton's Lucifer--no "Which way I fly is Hell; myself am Hell" here. Instead, Hogg's devil is cold purposefulness incarnate; his urging to Robert on their path to murder could be adopted as a universal fanatics' creed:

Let us be up and doing in our vocation. For me, my resolution is taken, and I never for a moment lose sight of it.

I hope to write more about Confessions of a Justified Sinner later this month--particularly on how it relates to The Testament of Gideon Mack, another Scottish novel published, consciously in its shadow, earlier this year. For now, though, I'll switch gears and leave you, not with a seductive devil who subtly invites your complicity, but with one of his more demonstrative brethren.



I owe Larry McMurtry for this bit from an obituary for Billy the Kid from the Santa Fe Weekly Democrat, which he included in a piece on the Kid in the the October 25, 2007 New York Review of Books:

No sooner had the floor caught the descending form, which had a pistol in one hand and a knife in the other, than there was a strong odor of brimstone in the air, and a dark figure with the wings of a dragon, claws like a tiger, eyes like balls of fire, and horns like a bison, hovered over the corpse for a moment, and with a fiendish laugh said "Ha! Ha! This is my meat!" and then sailed off through the window. He did not leave his card, but he is a gentleman well known by reputation ,and there by hangs a "tail."

Hmm. I think this may be a case where the old saw is correct: the devil you know--cackling and clawed and smoking--is surely a better bet than the devil you don't--sly, sneaking, and supportive of all your mistakes and blind spots.