The Truce of God. George Henry Miles
proclaim the same duty. In writing his story, George Henry Miles was not only painting for us a picture aglow with the life of olden times, but pointing out in a masterly way, the historic rôle of the Church in molding the manners of an entire generation.
The reader of "The Truce of God," in spite of the fact that the romance seems to be sketched only in its broadest outlines, gets a distinct knowledge of its chief actors. They live before his eyes. De Hers and Stramen are not mere abstractions. They have the rugged, clear-cut character, the sudden passions, the quick and at times dangerous and savage impulses of the men of the eleventh century. In them the barbarian has not yet been completely tamed. But neither has he been given full rein. Somewhere in these hearts, there lurks a sentiment of honor, of knighthood, which the Church of Christ has ennobled, and to which the helpless and the innocent do not appeal in vain.
The American has caught this sentiment and plays upon it skillfully. His setting is in keeping with his story. The wandering minstrel, the turreted castle, the festive board, the high-vaulted hall with its oaken rafters, the chase, the wide reaches of the forests of Franconia, the beetling ramparts of old feudal castles by the Rhine or the lovely shores of the Lake of Constance, the vineyards on the slopes of sunny hills, the bannered squadrons, the din of battle, the crash of helm and spear, are brought before us with dramatic power. Historic figures appear on the scene. Close to the principal actors in the story, we see the gallant Rodolph of Arles, Godefroi de Bouillon, Berchtold of Carinthia, Hohenstaufen and Welf, acting their life drama at the council board or on the field of battle. We see a woman and an old man, Mathilda of Tuscany and Pope St. Gregory VII, slowly but surely building on the foundations of a half-molded civilization the ramparts of the City of God. "The Truce of God" is true to the requirements of the historical romance. It summons before us a forgotten past, and makes it live. We forget in the vitality and artistic grouping of the picture, in the nobility of the author's purpose and the lasting moral effect of the story, the occasional stiffness of the style. It is the style of the refined scholar, perhaps also of the bookman and the too conscious critic. Occasionally it lacks spontaneity, directness and naturalness. It might unbend more and forget ceremony. But it is picturesque, forcible, clear, and bears us along with its swing and dramatic movement.
American Catholics must not forget the excellent work done by George Henry Miles for the cause of Catholic literature, the more so as his name is not infrequently omitted from many popular histories of American literature. Yet the author of "The Truce of God" had mastered the story teller's and the dramatist's art. "If there was ever a born littérateur," writes Eugene L. Didier, in The Catholic World for May, 1881, "that man was George Henry Miles. His taste was pure, exquisite and refined, his imagination was rich, vivid, and almost oriental in its warmth." Moreover, he consecrated his life and his talents to the cause of Catholic education, identifying himself for many years with Mount St. Mary's College, Emmitsburg, Maryland, with whose annals so much of the early history of the Catholic Church in the United States, is closely linked.
The author of "The Truce of God" was born in Baltimore, July 31, 1824; he died at Emmitsburg, July 23, 1872. In his twelfth year the lad entered Mount St. Mary's College. Here he became a Catholic and had afterwards the happiness of seeing his family follow him into the Church. The studies at the "Mountain" in those days were still under the magic and salutary spell of the venerable founder, Bishop Dubois, and his followers. They were old fashioned, but they were solid, with the classics of Greece and Rome, mathematics, philosophy and religion as their foundation. They were eminently calculated to mold thinkers, scholars and cultured Catholic gentlemen. They left a deep impression on the young Marylander. After his graduation at the end of the scholastic year, 1843, the law for a short while lured him away, to its digests, its quiddits and quillets, abstracts and briefs. But it was putting Pegasus in pound. Miles at a lawyer's task was as much out of place as Edgar Allan Poe was when mounting guard as a cadet at West Point, or Charles Lamb with a quill behind his ear balancing his ledger in India House. The Mountain and the Muses lured him back to Emmitsburg, where a short distance from the college gate, in the quiet retreat of Thornbrook, he settled to his books and a professor's tasks at the Mount. Close by were the lovely haunts of La Salette, Hillside, Loretto, Tanglewood, Andorra, Mt. Carmel, every little cottage and garden, eloquent, it has been said, of the faith and piety of the builders of the Mount, who breathed the spirit that thus baptized them ("The Story of the Mountain. Mount St. Mary's College and Seminary, Emmitsburg, Maryland." By the Rev. E. McSweeny. Vol. II, p. 102). For its historic associations, its panorama of hills, wooded slopes and fields, the spot could scarcely be matched within the wide amphitheater of the hills of Maryland.
To Emmitsburg, to his "boys", the young professor of English literature gave his enthusiasm, his idealism, his love of all that was fair in art and the world of books. His enthusiasm inspired them with a love of artistic excellence, which, neither in his own work, nor in that of his pupils would tolerate anything commonplace. Before coming to Thornbrook, he had written "The Truce of God," first published as a serial in the United States Catholic Magazine, established by John Murphy of Baltimore, and which under the editorship of Bishop Martin John Spalding and the Rev. Charles I. White achieved a national reputation. Two other tales, "Loretto," and the "Governess," had also been published and were extremely popular. Like "The Truce of God," they were of the purest moral tone, elegant in diction, the work of a thorough literary craftsman. In 1850, the American actor, Edwin Forrest, offered a prize of $1,000.00 for the best drama written by an American. Miles easily carried off the reward with his play "Mohammed." Rich with all the colors of the East, glowing with the warmth and poetry of Arabian romance and story, "Mohammed" was rather the work of a thinker and a poet than of a master dramatist. It was never acted, Forrest himself judging that it had not that ebb and flow of passion, nor that strong presentation of character which of all things are so necessary for the stage. Yet in other plays, notably in "Señor Valiente" and especially in "De Soto," and "Mary's Birthday," Miles showed that in him the dramatic note was not lacking, and in both he scored remarkable successes.
From Baltimore, after he had left the pursuit of the law, and from Thornbrook, close to the academic halls in which from 1859 he passed his entire life, Miles seldom emerged into public notice. Twice he visited Europe, his impressions of the second journey (1864) being recorded in "Glimpses of Tuscany." In 1851 President Fillmore sent him on a confidential mission to Madrid. That same year, John Howard Payne, the loved singer of "Home, Sweet Home," was reinstated in his consulship of Tunis. Like Miles, that wandering bard was a convert to the Catholic Faith. But unlike Miles, he did not enter the Church until the very end of his life, practically on his death bed. Catholics will be glad to know that the song, "Home, Sweet Home," whose underlying melody Payne caught from the lips of an Italian peasant girl, was written by one who, after many strange wanderings, found "Home" at last in that Church which is the mistress and inspirer of art. Like Payne, Miles captured the fancy of his countrymen with one song, "Said the Rose," which at one time was the most popular song in the United States. It has not the depth and the melting tenderness of "Home, Sweet Home," but its quaint fancy and melodious verse struck a responsive chord. In his "Inkerman," a stirring ballad, which every American boy of a former age knew by heart, there was an echo of the "Lays of Ancient Rome," of the "Lays" of Scott and Aytoun, while in the more ambitious "Christine" (1866), there was the accent of the genuine poet, something that recalled the "Christabel" of Coleridge. Miles had projected a series of studies on the characters and plays of Shakespeare. Judging from two remaining fragments, "Hamlet" and "Macbeth," the latter a mere outline, we regret that the writer was not able to finish the task. To beauty of language his study of "Hamlet" adds keen analytical powers and original views. ("An American Catholic Poet," The Catholic World. Vol. XXXIII, p. 145 ff.)
In the quiet churchyard on the slope of his beloved Mountain, in a simple grave, over which the green hills of Maryland keep guard, not far from the class-rooms and the chapel he loved, rest the mortal remains of the author of "The Truce of God." It is not necessary to describe him. Those who read this simple but romantic and stirring tale of the eleventh century which he wrote three-quarters of a century ago, cannot fail to catch the main features of the man. They will conclude that in George Henry Miles, religion and art, the purest ideals of the Catholic faith and the highest standards of culture and letters, are blended in rare proportion.
JOHN C. REVILLE, S.J., Editor-in-chief.