Dreams that would split the brain of Caesar

Curating an anthology is a skill that fascinates me (as I've written before). While I enjoy collections of poems or short stories written by a single person, I love the element of surprise that a good anthology provides. In older anthologies editorial intervention is often delightfully discreet --while there may be short foreword explaining what materials have been selected and why, there are no explanatory notes or biographies of authors. The stories are left to speak for themselves.

Which is to say--if you run across a copy of the anthology 50 Great Short Stories, edited by an American professor of English, Milton Crane (1917-1985), pick it up and read it. Crane's tastes are old-fashioned: most of the stories he selected were written before the Second World War; and the majority of them are by British or American men. Nine of the fifty stories are by women, which seems like a pretty good proportion for a collection originally published in the 1950s.

The fact that the stories in this anthology are the sorts of stories that were popular in a bygone age makes 50 Great American Short Stories a wonderful book for encountering the work of writers whose work has fallen out of fashion in the twenty-first century. Stephen Vincent Benét (1898-1943) seems to be one such; in his own day he was a best-selling and prizewinning poet. I have a vague memory of encountering his most famous short story, "The Devil and Daniel Webster," in one of my many happy hours browsing the Norton Anthology of Literature during my high school English classes, but the author's name hadn't stuck in my memory.

Benét's short story "The Curfew Tolls," was one of my favourite finds in this collection. The frame of the story is a series of letters by a retired British general, Estcourt, sent to the coastal watering place of St. Philippe-des-Bains to recover his health in 1788. (Why the dates of the letters matter is revealed over the course of the story.)

The 1983 edition of 50 Great Short Stories (originally published in 1959).

The story's epistolary frame is the perfect vehicle for long, chatty descriptions of people, places, and conversations. As narrator, Estcourt is determined to amuse himself, and his sister Harriet, with whom he is corresponding, by finding and befriending characters among the locals. The chief among these is an officer, retired from the French army, whose contradictions puzzle and fascinate him. Witness one of their conversations:

"And what is treason?" he said lightly. "If we call it unsuccessful ambition we shall be nearer the truth. He looked at me, keenly. "You are shocked, General Estcourt," he said. "I am sorry for that. But have you never known the curse"--and here his voice vibrated--"the curse of not being employed when you should be employed? The curse of being a hammer with no nail to drive? The curse--the curse of sitting in a dusty garrison town with dreams that would split the brain of Caesar and no room on earth for those dreams?"

"Yes," I said, unwillingly, for there was something in him that demanded the truth. "I have known that."

- Stephen Vincent Benét, 'The Curfew Tolls", in 50 Great Short Stories, ed. Milton Crane, p. 306

Their frustrated ambitions and shared passion for military strategy provide the foundations for an odd sort of friendship, which deepens when Estcourt meets the officer's large and disreputable family. I particularly love Benét's description of the redoubtable family matriarch:

Only the old lady remained aloof, saying little and sipping her camomile tea as though it contained the blood of her enemies. - Stephen Vincent Benét, 'The Curfew Tolls", in 50 Great Short Stories, ed. Milton Crane, p. 309.

The officer's name is not revealed until the very end of the story, but clues to his identity are given throughout, including in his dramatic deathbed speech:

"Risen?" he said, and his eyes flashed. "Risen? Oh, God, that I should die alone with my one companion an Englishman with a soul of suet! Fool, if I had had Alexander's chance, I would have bettered Alexander! And it will come, too, that is the worst of it. Already Europe is shaking with a new birth. If I had been born under the Sun-King, I would be a Marshall of France; if I had been born twenty years ago, I would mold a new Europe with my fists in the next half-dozen years. Why did they put my soul in my body at this infernal time. Do you not understand, imbecile? Is there no one who understands?" - Stephen Vincent Benét, 'The Curfew Tolls", in 50 Great Short Stories, ed. Milton Crane p. 312.

It wasn't until the final paragraphs that I realized why the lack of a name mattered, and this twist made for a reading experience I would recommend. 

"The Curfew Tolls" can be read online here.