tunely or inopportunely occurs, Atala has already taken
poison, with the object, it would appear, not so much of preventing as
of avenging, of her own free will, a breach of the vow. The rest of the
story is supplied by the vain attempts of the good father to save her,
his evangelising efforts towards the pair, and the sorrows of Chactas
after his beloved's death. The piece, of course, shows that exaggerated
and somewhat morbid pathos of circumstance which is the common form of
the early romantic efforts, whether in England, Germany, or France. But
the pathos _is_ pathos; the unfamiliar scenery, unlike that of Bernardin
de Saint-Pierre (to whom, of course, Chateaubriand is much indebted,
though he had actually seen what he describes), is not overdone, and
suits the action and characters very well indeed. Chactas here is the
best of all the "noble savages," and (what hardly any other of them is)
positively good. Atala is really tragic and really gracious. The
missionary stands to other fictitious, and perhaps some real,
missionaries very much as Chactas does to other savages of story, if not
of life. The proportion of the whole is good, and in the humble opinion
of the present critic it is by far Chateaubriand's best thing in all
perhaps but mere writing.

And even in this it is bad to beat, in him or out of him. The small
space forbids mere surplusage of description, and the plot--as all plots
should do, but, alas! as few succeed in doing--acts as a bellows to
kindle the flame and intensify the heat of something far better than
description itself--passionate character. There are many fine
things--mixed, no doubt, with others not so fine--in the tempestuous
scene of the death of Atala, which should have been the conclusion of
the story. But this, in its own way, seems to me little short of
magnificent:

"I implored you to fly; and yet I knew I should die if you
were not with me. I longed for the shadow of the forest; and
yet I feared to be with you in a desert place. Ah! if the
cost had only been that of quitting parents, friends,
country! if--terrible as it is to say it--there had been
nothing at stake but the loss of my own soul.[23] But, O my
mother! thy shade was always there--thy shade reproaching me
with the torments it would suffer. I heard thy complaints; I
saw the flames of Hell ready to consume thee. My nights were
dry places full of ghosts; my days were desol