“AINSI A VOUS, MADAME, A MA TRÈS HAULTE ET TRÈS NOBLE DAME, A QUI J’AYME A DEVOIR ATTACHEMENT ET OBÉISSANCE, J’ENVOYE CE LIVRET.”
Few of the more astute critics who have appraised the work ofJames Branch Cabell have failed to call attention to thatextraordinary cohesion which makes his very latest novel a furtherflowering of the seed of his very earliest literary work. Especiallyamong his later books does the scheme of each seem to dovetail intothe scheme of the other and the whole of his writing take on thecharacter of an uninterrupted discourse. To this phenomenon, whichis at once a fact and an illusion of continuity, Mr. Cabell himselfhas consciously contributed, not only by a subtly elaborate use ofconjunctions, by repetition, and by reintroducing characters fromhis other books, but by actually setting his expertness in genealogyto the genial task of devising a family tree for his figures offiction.
If this were an actual continuity, more tangible than that fluidabstraction we call the life force; if it were merely a tirelessreiteration and recasting of characters, Mr. Cabell’s workwould have an unbearable monotony. But at bottom this apparentcontinuity has no more material existence than has the thread oflineal descent. To insist upon its importance is to obscure, as hasbeen obscured, the epic range of Mr. Cabell’s creative genius.It is to fail to observe that he has treated in his many books everymainspring of human action and that his themes have been thecardinal dreams and impulses which have in them heroic qualities.Each separate volume has a unity and harmony of a complete andseparate life, for the excellent reason that with the consummateskill of an artist he is concerned exclusively in each book with onedefinite heroic impulse and its frustrations.
It is true, of course, that like the fruit of the tree of life,Mr. Cabell’s artistic progeny sprang from a first conceptualgerm—“In the beginning was the Word.” Thatanimating idea is the assumption that if life may be said to have anaim it must be an aim to terminate in success and splendor. Itpostulates the high, fine importance of excess, the choice ordiscovery of an overwhelming impulse in life and a conscientiousdedication to its fullest realization. It is the quality andintensity of the dream only which raises men above the biologicalnorm; and it is fidelity to the dream which differentiates theexceptional figure, the man of heroic stature, from the muddling,aimless mediocrities about him. What the dream is, matters not atall—it may be a dream of sainthood, kingship, love, art,asceticism or sensual pleasure—so long as it is fullyexpressed with all the resources of self. It is this sort ofcompletion which Mr. Cabell has elected to depict in all his work:the complete sensualist in Demetrios, the complete phrase-maker inFelix Kennaston, the complete poet in Marlowe, the complete lover inPerion. In each he has shown that this complete self-expression isachieved at the expense of all other possible selves, and thatherein lies the tragedy of the ideal. Perfection is a costly flowerand is cultured only by an uncompr