Nodier's "Trilby, le Lutin d'Argail"
It was not long after the appearance of "Trilby" that our readers detected the French origin of the name of Mr. du Maurier's heroine. The story of the unearthing of this delightful French fairy-tale may be followed in this series of communications to The Critic:
———
On looking over Roche's "Prosateurs Français," I find that one of the "plus jolis" contes of Charles Nodier (1788-1844) is entitled "Trilby"; therefore the title of du Maurier's much-bought novel is not original with him. I should be pleased if any reader of The Critic would inform me as to the plot of Nodier's story.
St. Francis of Assisi Rectory, Wm. J. McClure,
Mt. Kisco, N. Y., 29th Oct., 1894.
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The following lines occur in the "Réponse à M. Charles Nodier" of Alfred de Musset:—
| "Non pas cette belle insomnie |
| Du génie |
| Où Trilby vient, prêt à chanter, |
| T'écouter." |
This would seem to offer some clue to the origin of the name chosen by Mr. du Maurier for his heroine. Can you enlighten me as to the identity of the "Trilby" referred to by Musset?
Ridgefield, Conn., 19 Nov., 1894. Roswell Bacon.
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In answer to the request of your correspondent in The Critic of Nov. 17, I find the tale of "Trilby" in my copy of the "Contes de Charles Nodier, illustrés par Tony Johannot." "Trilby" is the story of a household fairy of Scotland (a "Lutin familier de la Chaumière"). It is fantastic and touching, but it has nothing in common with du Maurier's "Trilby."
Leesburgh, Virginia, 20 Nov., 1894. I. L. P.
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From the recent contributions to "Trilbyana" in your columns, it would appear as if the name of Trilby (originally Scotch or Irish?) were not uncommon in the writings of French authors. Charles Nodier, in his conte, says that M. de Latouche—a contemporary—wrote on the same subject, "où cette charmante tradition était racontée en vers enchanteurs"—which gives one to suppose that "Trilby" was the name of his enchantress; though, perhaps, he refers to the old story of "Le Diable Amoureux." I find, moreover, that Balzac takes the name for a type in his "Histoire des Treize: Ferragus: Vol. I. Scènes de la Vie Parisienne" (page 48 of edition of 1843):—"Pour développer cette histoire dans toute la vérité de ses détails, pour en suivre le cours dans toutes ses sinuosités, il faut ici divulguer quelques secrets de l'amour, se glisser sous les lambris d'une chambre à coucher, non pas effrontément, mais à la manière de Trilby [the opposite to du Maurier's Trilby], n'effaroucher ni Dougal, ni Jeannie, n'effaroucher personne," etc.
Tuxedo Park, 26 Nov., 1894. E. L. B.
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(Boston Evening Transcript, 1 Dec. 1894.)
"The Listener was asked the other day where du Maurier got the name of Trilby—a sweet and pleasant word, neither English nor French, which seemed to suit so perfectly the adorable young person of his creation. He was able to answer, more by accident certainly than as the result of erudition, that the name was not invented by du Maurier but belongs to the French classics—possibly to Scottish folk-lore. In the year 1822 there was first published in Paris a nouvelle, by Charles Nodier, afterward a member of the French Academy, entitled, "Trilby, or the Fay of Argyle"; it was a sort of fairy-story, in which a fay is in love with a mortal woman, and the woman is very far from being indifferent to his sentiment. This 'Trilby' attained a considerable degree of popularity; it became, indeed, a French classic; Sainte-Beuve has particularly praised the charm of its style. * * * In his preface to the story, Nodier says: 'The subject of this story is derived from a preface or a note to one of the romances of Sir Walter Scott, I do not know which one.' This is a very indefinite acknowledgment While Nodier may have got his subject from Scott, the Listener doubts if he got the name 'Trilby' from him. It is just the sort of name that a French writer would give to a Scotch fay. Nevertheless, Trilby may be a real Scotch elfin. The Listener would hardly claim personal acquaintance with them all.
"Du Maurier's 'Trilby' is curiously prefigured, in part at least, in Nodier's; and yet there is not the smallest thing that the most jealous critic could call a plagiarism; it is a legitimate parentage. As you go on with Nodier's story, you love his Trilby more and more, as you do du Maurier's, until you think that there was never so bewitching a fairy; and your love for Trilby is interwoven with your love for Jeannie, his mortal sweetheart, just as your love for du Manner's Trilby is forever mixed up with your tender sentiment for Little Billee. You feel a sort of enchantment over you like the hypnotism that you are under in du Maurier's strange book. And both stories, while abounding in wit and pretty things, are deeply tragical. It has been said of Nodier's 'Trilby' that it belongs to the realm of the supra-sensible, and so, in large measure, certainly does du Maurier's. Du Maurier has confessed his obligation flatly in giving his story the very name that Nodier's bore. It is conceivable that the image of the Frenchman's haunting fairy dwelt with him until he resolved to reincarnate the adorable elf in the body of a girl as adorable. He gave his Trilby a Scotch ancestry to connect her the more naturally with the lutin d'Argail; and her fairy ancestry will easily account not only for her early prankishness, but for her later unreality. But it is a prefiguring merely, and not a direct suggestion. Whatever du Maurier's 'Trilby' lacks, it isn't originality!"
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(From Mr. C. E. L. Wingate's Boston Letter in The Critic of 20 April, 1893.)
It appears that the first mention of the French book appeared in The Critic, last November. It was in the same month that Mr. Bradford Torrey * * * happened to find a copy of Nodier's "Trilby" in the Boston Athenæum. He took the book to his friend, Mr. J. E. Chamberlin of The Youth's Companion, who began its translation at once. A few days later appeared a note in The Critic from a correspondent in Virginia. Thinking that secrecy was no longer worth while, Mr. Chamberlin wrote his paragraphs for the Transcript "Listener" column, incorporating a bit of translation. This was printed on Dec. 1. Miss Minna C. Smith went to Roberts Bros. at once, to ask them if they would consider the publication of a translation of the romance by her Transcript confrère, and Mr. F. Alcott Pratt replied that they would like very much to see that gentleman's work. Circumstances made Mr. Chamberlin decide not to finish the translation, and he gave Miss Smith his idea and a few pages of the manuscript for a Christmas present. During several weeks following she was engaged upon her careful translation. The Scotch words and names of localities in her manuscript were corrected by Mr. J. Murray Kay of Houghton, Mifflin & Co., an accomplished Scot, who walked through Argyle with his daughters last summer. On March 19, an article on Charles Nodier's story, foreshadowing Miss Smith's translation, appeared in the Transcript. On the morning of March 20, Mr. Dana Estes sent for Mr. Nathan Haskell Dole and asked him to make a translation, which was done with remarkable rapidity, and put out on March 29. Learning of this, Lamson, Wolffe & Co. hurried on Miss Smith's book, which had been in the hands of their printer at the Collins press for days, advertised it on Thursday and brought it out on Saturday, in Scotch plaid covers.
This firm of Lamson, Wolffe & Co., by the way, has just been dissolved for a novel reason. Mr. Wolffe is a member of the class of '95 at Harvard. The publication of "Trilby, the Fairy of Argyle" called the attention of the faculty to his publishing business, and he was asked to give it up, or else forfeit his degree. He chose the former alternative, and although the firm name will remain Lamson, Wolffe & Co., a new and, for the present, silent member of the firm has added capital and scholarship to the house.
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"Trilby, the Fairy of Argyle"
By Charles Noder. 1. Translated from the French, with introduction, by Nathan Haskell Dole. Estes & Lauriat. 2. From the French by Minna Caroline Smith. Boston: Lamson, Wolffe & Co.
Nodier's "Trilby," who now revisits the book-stores owing to Mr. du Maurier's having taken his name for his heroine's, is one of the few latter-day fairies that have fairy blood (or ichor) in their veins. He belongs on the same shelf with Fouqué's "Undine," but, though he was only joking when he personated a father who "had not seen him since the days of King Fergus," he is certainly of the breed of Una and Maer, Caoilte and Mananan. That he made a sensation on his first appearance in the world of letters is shown by Victor Hugo's ode, warning the Fairy of Argyle to beware of ink-slinging penny-a-liners:—
| "Car on en veut aux Trilbys |
| * * * * * * * * |
| Ils souilleraient d'encre noire, |
| Hélas! ton manteau de moire, |
| Ton aigrette de rubis"— |
advice which might be repeated apropos of Mr. du Maurier's creation.
Mr. Dole, who has made a translation (1) of Nodier's "Trilby," has looked through all of Scott's novels, he says, to discover, if possible, the "preface or note" from which the French author claimed to have drawn his story, and has the deft art of "Pendennis" and "The Newcomes." And the "Cave of Harmony," with its songs and its bumpers and long whiffs, the gay nights and rollicking days of F. B. and Clive and Pendennis—the glamor of all which has enticed full many a youngster towards the easy descent, or the shining slopes (as the case may be) of art and letters—all these scenes have doubtless served as the studies of the pictures, almost as delightful and masterly as their prototypes, that du Maurier gives us of the joyous Bohemian life of the three jolly Musketeers of the Brush in the Quartier Latin in "Trilby."
Auburn, Ala., 26 Dec., 1894. Charles C. Thach.
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As a small contribution to "Trilbyana," I would call attention to the fact, unnoted so far, that Trilby was the name of Eugénie de Guérin's pet dog, mentioned several times in the journal she kept for her brother Maurice. Was the dog, perhaps, named for the fairy?
Louisville, Ky. A. C. B.
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As there seems to be a mania for hunting up the sources of the inspiration of certain authors, I will engage in the game also. In Saintine's "Picciola," Book I., Chap XII., after the first paragraph, you will find the germ of "Peter Ibbetson."
Grand Rapids, Mich. C. C.
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