THE

Phrenological Magazine.

JULY, 1883.

MM. ERCKMANN-CHATRIAN.

HE following delineations of the characters of the famous French novel writers, MM. ErckmannChatrian, have been written by Mr. Fowler, who, knowing nothing of their lives or writings, has been guided entirely by the likenesses :-M. Erckmann has a most favourably-balanced organization for both physical and mental exercise. He has a superior form of head and face. There appears to be a favourable harmony of power throughout. He has a high degree of the vital and mental temperaments, giving him a warm, ardent, earnest, active disposition, joined to great susceptibility and uncommon clearness of mind. Few heads appear to so good an advantage in a drawing. It is specially high and very fully developed in the intellectual and moral brain. He is able to take comprehensive views of all subjects, and to give a high tone to all he says or writes. He is truly a humanitarian. The moral brain being larger than the base or animal brain, he would be in favour of saving rather than destroying life. Destructiveness is not large; severity would not be a prominent feature of his character; on the contrary, Benevolence would mellow and modify his whole nature. He has all the indications of deep emotions and great sympathy. His head being unusually high and broad on the top, indicates sentiment, imagination, lofty and liberal, as well as humane views. His mind covers much ground, and takes in the whole subject, almost at once; he can do nothing on a small scale, or by halves. As a writer, speaker, or orator, he would surely create a sensation and secure followers. Hope must be a powerful stimulus to action, and give great enterprise and buoyancy of spirits, which makes him live in the future and for it. Spirituality and Veneration are large, and elevate his mind above a mere physical and material consciousness, disposing him to live in higher ranges of thought than such as are connected with

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business transactions only. His conceptions of a creating power, and of a spirit land and life, would carry him far beyond creed and formalities. He has an extravagant love of the beautiful and the perfect, and perfection to him is far beyond and above that of ordinary artists and poets; language is too meagre for him to fully express it, and yet his power of expression, and ability to use a greater number and variety of words is superior to that of many eloquent writers. Sense of the sublime, the terrific, and awful is great, which would enable him to be dramatic, if not extravagant, in his style of presenting a subject. He has a power to portray

the forces of nature and the almightiness of Divinity superior to that of most men. His high, broad, and long forehead, joined to his vivid imagination and spiritual conceptions, gives him great inventive and creative power. In fact, his superior gift is that of an inventor and originator. He is original in everything; he does his own thinking, and conceives more ideas than he could begin to work out or apply. His sense of the witty and of the absurd is great, and he must be much amused observing the ridiculous and absurd ways of others, and their senseless opinions. He has not only the power to reason and present the principles of a subject, but

he has superior ability to plan, lay out work, devise ways and means; to organize, systematize, and to give patterns for others to work by. His ingenuity takes an artistic and literary rather than a mechanical turn. His sense of sound is most acute, and he must have great love for music of the higher order. He has youthfulness of mind, is bland, and has suavity of manner. He has great insight into character, and understands human nature to the core. His talents are more philosophical and theoretical than practical and scien

tific. If he is severe in his conduct or criticisms, it is more the result of his high sense of justice, and clear conceptions of right and truth, than because of a hard nature. He is not naturally selfish, greedy of gain, cunning, or artful, but could adapt himself to such states of mind if required. M. Erckmann's is such a head and face as the phrenologist delights to study. If he has defects in his character, they are not seen in the form of head presented in the likeness. If he has unpleasant features in his character, they are the result of early associations, habits, and wanderings. Such an organization can better resist temptation, and live a truer life than ninety-nine out of a hundred.

M. Chatrian is very different from M. Erckmann.

His

temperament is one that gives him more warmth, ardour, susceptibility, impetuosity. He is a critic, but a less discriminating one, the fire of his nature going into all he does. He is remarkable for his intuitions, for his knowledge of men, for his dramatic instincts, and for the rapidity and incisiveness of his sketches. He can depict a man or an action with a phrase. His language is not so full and overflowing as it is telling and to the point. He has more wit than humour; would deal in sarcasms more than in delicate satire. He can be remorseless in his hate, and when his indignation boils it overflows. He is a keen observer; has a good memory, is neat, fond of form, style, and beauty, and is tenderly susceptible to all that is young and tender in animal or human life. He is a man that looks at life in the concrete, and dwells upon it with the ardour and intensity of a lover and a poet. Few could rejoice a friend with a look, or transfix a foe with a word so thoroughly as he.

MM. Erckmann-Chatrian, the compound name of two French novelists, who have always written in collaboration with each other, and whose names are as indissolubly united as those of our own Beaumont and Fletcher. Emile Erckmann was born at Phalsbourg, in the Department of the Meurthe, May 20, 1822. He was the son of a bookseller, and after studying by fits and starts in the college of his native town, he proceeded to Paris to study law, but never practised that profession. He resolved to earn a living with his pen, and accordingly commenced a series of works of fiction in conjunction with M. Alexandre Chatrian, who was born in the hamlet of Soldatenthal, in the commune of Abreschwiller, in the Department of the Meurthe, Dec. 15, 1826, and who was an usher in the College at Phalsbourg when M. Erckmann made his acquaintance in 1847. From that time the two friends composed numerous tales, all signed "Erckmann-Chatrian," and characterized by such unity of composition that no one doubted they were the production of a single individual. At first they contributed feuilletons, which attracted little attention, to provincial journals, and wrote some dramatic pieces which were failures. They at length despaired of being able to gain a subsistence by their literary efforts, and accordingly M. Erckmann returned to his law books, while M. Chatrian obtained a situation in the offices of the Eastern Railway Company. It was not until 1859 that the publication of "L'Illustre Docteur Matheus" gave a certain amount of popularity to the name of Erckmann-Chatrian. Since then their reputation as writers of romances has been con

stantly and steadily increasing, in consequence of a series of works containing faithful and graphic narratives of the manners and customs of Germany, and of the glories and military reverses of the Revolution and the First Empire. The titles of these works are: "Contes Fantastiques," 1860; "Contes de la Montagne," 1860; "Maître Daniel Rock, 1861;"Contes des Bords du Rhin," 1862; "Le Fou Jégof,” 1862; "Le Joueur de Clarinette," 1863; "La Taverne du Jambon de Mayence," 1863; "Madame Thérèse, ou les Voluntaires de '92," 1863-originally published in the Fournal des Debats; "L'Ami Fritz," 1864; "Histoire d'un Conscrit de 1813," 1864; "L'Invasion-Waterloo," 1865; "Histoire d'un Homme du Peuple," 1865; "La Maison Forestière," 1866; "La Guerre," 1866; "Le Blocus," 1867; "Histoire d'un Paysan," 1868; and "Le Juif Polonais," a play brought out successfully at the Théâtre de Cluny in 1869, better known to English playgoers, as "The Bells.' Among their more recent productions are: "The Story of the Plébiscite, related by one of the 7,500,000 who voted 'Yes;'" "Brigadier Frederic: a Story of an Alsatian Exile;" "Maître Gaspard Fix; suivi de l'Education d'un Feodal;" "Histoire d'un Conservateur;" "L'Isthme de Suez;" and "Souvenirs d'un ancien Chef de Chantier; suivi de l'Exile," 1876. Their three-act comedy, "L'Ami Fritz," was brought out successfully at the Théâtre Français, December 4, 1876, notwithstanding the discredit which the Bonapartists had endeavoured to cast beforehand on the piece, accusing the authors of want of patriotism, and sympathy with Germany. Most, if not all, of these works have been translated into English, and have won a wide and deserved popularity here, and in America. L. N. F.

A CORRESPONDENT writes to inform us that a note in a published life of Beethoven states that when his body was exhumed the physicians in attendance were surprised to find that the skull indicated an absence of the organ of tune. So far as we know the note does not say who the physicians were, and whether they knew the locality of the organ. If they were like some of their brethren who have of late years written against phrenology, they probably did not. course, unless we could see the skull we could not judge about the presence or absence of the organ in it; but since the receipt of our correspondent's letter, we have examined all the available portraits and busts of the great musician, and they all, without exception, show the organ large. Moreover, a cast of face in our collection shows the organ to be exceedingly large.