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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/12736-0.txt b/12736-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d022257 --- /dev/null +++ b/12736-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8312 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12736 *** + +MASTERS OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL: + +A STUDY OF PRINCIPLES AND PERSONALITIES + +BY RICHARD BURTON + + + + +PREFACE + +The principle of inclusion in this book is the traditional one +which assumes that criticism is only safe when it deals with +authors who are dead. In proportion as we approach the living +or, worse, speak of those still on earth, the proper perspective +is lost and the dangers of contemporary judgment incurred. The +light-minded might add, that the dead cannot strike back; to +pass judgment upon them is not only more critical but safer. + +Sometimes, however, the distinction between the living and the +dead is an invidious one. Three authors hereinafter studied are +examples: Meredith, Hardy and Stevenson. Hardy alone is now in +the land of the living, Meredith having but just passed away. +Yet to omit the former, while including the other two, is +obviously arbitrary, since his work in fiction is as truly done +as if he, like them, rested from his literary labors and the +gravestone chronicled his day of death. For reasons best known +to himself, Mr. Hardy seems to have chosen verse for the final +expression of his personality. It is more than a decade since he +published a novel. So far as age goes, he is the senior of +Stevenson: "Desperate Remedies" appeared when the latter was a +stripling at the University of Edinburgh. Hardy is therefore +included in the survey. I am fully aware that to strive to +measure the accomplishment of those practically contemporary, +whether it be Meredith and Hardy or James and Howells, is but +more or less intelligent guess-work. Nevertheless, it is +pleasant employ, the more interesting, perhaps, to the critic +and his readers because an element of uncertainty creeps into +what is said. If the critic runs the risk of Je suis, J'y reste, +he gets his reward in the thrill of prophecy; and should he turn +out a false prophet, he is consoled by the reflection that it +will place him in a large and enjoyable company. + +Throughout the discussion it has been the intention to keep +steadily before the reader the two main ways of looking at life +in fiction, which have led to the so-called realistic and +romantic movements. No fear of repetition in the study of the +respective novelists has kept me from illustrating from many +points of view and taking advantage of the opportunity offered +by each author, the distinction thus set up. For back of all +stale jugglery of terms, lies a very real and permanent +difference. The words denote different types of mind as well as +of art: and express also a changed interpretation of the world +of men, resulting from the social and intellectual revolution +since 1750. + +No apology would appear to be necessary for Chapter Seven, which +devotes sufficient space to the French influence to show how it +affected the realistic tendency of all modern novel-making. +The Scandinavian lands, Germany, Italy, England and Spain, +all have felt the leadership of France in this regard and hence +any attempt to sketch the history of the Novel on English soil, +would ignore causes, that did not acknowledge the Gallic debt. + +It may also be remarked that the method employed in the +following pages necessarily excludes many figures of no slight +importance in the evolution of English fiction. There are books +a-plenty dealing with these secondary personalities, often +significant as links in the chain and worthy of study were the +purpose to present the complete history of the Novel. By +centering upon indubitable masters, the principles illustrated +both by the lesser and larger writers will, it is hoped, be +brought home with equal if not greater force. + + + + +CONTENTS + + I. FICTION AND THE NOVEL + II. EIGHTEENTH CENTURY BEGINNINGS: RICHARDSON + III. EIGHTEENTH CENTURY BEGINNINGS: FIELDING + IV. DEVELOPMENTS: SMOLLETT, STERNE AND OTHERS + V. REALISM: JANE AUSTEN + VI. MODERN ROMANTICISM: SCOTT + VII. FRENCH INFLUENCE +VIII. DICKENS + IX. THACKERAY + X. GEORGE ELIOT + XI. TROLLOPE AND OTHERS + XII. HARDY AND MEREDITH +XIII. STEVENSON + XIV. THE AMERICAN CONTRIBUTION + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +FICTION AND THE NOVEL + +All the world loves a story as it does a lover. It is small +wonder then that stories have been told since man walked erect +and long before transmitted records. Fiction, a conveniently +broad term to cover all manner of story-telling, is a hoary +thing and within historical limits we can but get a glimpse of +its activity. Because it is so diverse a thing, it may be +regarded in various ways: as a literary form, a social +manifestation, a comment upon life. Main emphasis in this book +is placed upon its recent development on English soil under the +more restrictive name of Novel; and it is the intention, in +tracing the work of representative novel writers, to show how +the Novel has become in some sort a special modern mode of +expression and of opinion, truly reflective of the Zeitgeist. + +The social and human element in a literary phenomenon is what +gives general interest and includes it as part of the +culturgeschichte of a people. This interest is as far removed +from that of the literary specialist taken up with questions of +morphology and method, as it is from the unthinking rapture of +the boarding-school Miss who finds a current book "perfectly +lovely," and skips intrepidly to the last page to see how it is +coming out. Thoughtful people are coming to feel that fiction is +only frivolous when the reader brings a frivolous mind or makes +a frivolous choice. While it will always be legitimate to turn +to fiction for innocent amusement, since the peculiar property +of all art is to give pleasure, the day has been reached when it +is recognized as part of our culture to read good fiction, to +realize the value and importance of the Novel in modern +education; and conversely, to reprimand the older, narrow notion +that the habit means self-indulgence and a waste of time. Nor +can we close our eyes to the tyrannous domination of fiction +to-day, for good or bad. It has worn seven-league boots of progress +the past generation. So early as 1862, Sainte-Beuve declared in +conversation: "Everything is being gradually merged into the +novel. There is such a vast scope and the form lends itself to +everything." Prophetic words, more than fulfilled since they +were spoken. + +Of the three main ways of story-telling, by the epic poem, the +drama and prose fiction, the epic seems to be the oldest; +poetry, indeed, being the natural form of expression among +primitive peoples. + +The comparative study of literature shows that so far as written +records go, we may not surely ascribe precedence in time either +to fiction or the drama. The testimony varies in different +nations. But if the name fiction be allowed for a Biblical +narrative like the Book of Ruth, which in the sense of +imaginative and literary handling of historical material it +certainly is, the great antiquity of the form may be conceded. +Long before the written or printed word, we may safely say, +stories were recited in Oriental deserts, yarns were spun as +ships heaved over the seas, and sagas spoken beside hearth fires +far in the frozen north. Prose narratives, epic in theme or of +more local import, were handed down from father to son, +transmitted from family to family, through the exercise of a +faculty of memory that now, in a day when labor-saving devices +have almost atrophied its use, seems well nigh miraculous. Prose +story-telling, which allows of ample description, elbow room for +digression, indefinite extension and variation from the original +kernel of plot, lends itself admirably to the imaginative needs +of humanity early or late. + +With the English race, fiction began to take con-structural +shape and definiteness of purpose in Elizabethan days. Up to the +sixteenth century the tales were either told in verse, in the +epic form of Beowulf or in the shrunken epic of a thirteenth +century ballad like "King Horn"; in the verse narratives of +Chaucer or the poetic musings of Spenser. Or else they were a +portion of that prose romance of chivalry which was vastly +cultivated in the middle ages, especially in France and Spain, +and of which we have a doughty exemplar in the Morte D'Arthur, +which dates nearly a century before Shakspere's day. Loose +construction and no attempt to deal with the close eye of +observation, characterize these earlier romances, which were in +the main conglomerates of story using the double appeal of love +and war. + +But at a time when the drama was paramount in popularity, when +the young Shakspere was writing his early comedies, fiction, +which was in the fulness of time to conquer the play form as a +popular vehicle of story-telling, began to rear its head. The +loosely constructed, rambling prose romances of Lyly of +euphuistic fame, the prose pastorals of Lodge from which model +Shakspere made his forest drama, "As You Like It," the +picaresque, harum-scarum story of adventure, "Jack Wilton," the +prototype of later books like "Gil Blas" and "Robinson Crusoe,"--these +were the early attempts to give prose narration a closer knitting, +a more organic form. + +But all such tentative striving was only preparation; fiction in +the sense of more or less formless prose narration, was written +for about two centuries without the production of what may be +called the + +Novel in the modern meaning of the word. The broader name +fiction may properly be applied, since, as we shall see, all +novels are fiction, but all fiction is by no means Novels. The +whole development of the Novel, indeed, is embraced within +little more than a century and a half; from the middle of the +eighteenth century to the present time. The term Novel is more +definite, more specific than the fiction out of which it +evolved; therefore, we must ask ourselves wherein lies the +essential difference. Light is thrown by the early use of the +word in critical reference in English. In reading the following +from Steele's "Tender Husband," we are made to realize that the +stark meaning of the term implies something new: social +interest, a sense of social solidarity: "Our amours can't +furnish out a Romance; they'll make a very pretty Novel." + +This clearly marks a distinction: it gives a hint as to the +departure made by Richardson in 1742, when he published +"Pamela." It is not strictly the earliest discrimination between +the Novel and the older romance; for the dramatist Congreve at +the close of the seventeenth century shows his knowledge of the +distinction. And, indeed, there are hints of it in Elizabethan +criticism of such early attempts as those of Lyly, Nast, Lodge +and others. Moreover, the student of criticism as it deals with +the Novel must also expect to meet with a later confusion of +nomenclature; the word being loosely applied to any type of +prose fiction in contrast with the short story or tale. But +here, at an early date, the severance is plainly indicated +between the study of contemporary society and the elder romance +of heroism, supernaturalism, and improbability. It is a +difference not so much of theme as of view-point, method and +intention. + +For underlying this attempt to come closer to humanity through +the medium of a form of fiction, is to be detected an added +interest in personality for its own sake. During the eighteenth +century, commonly described as the Teacup Times, an age of +powder and patches, of etiquette, epigram and surface polish, +there developed a keener sense of the value of the individual, +of the sanctity of the ego, a faint prelude to the note that was +to become so resonant in the nineteenth century, sounding +through all the activities of man. Various manifestations in the +civilization of Queen Anne and the first Georges illustrate the +new tendency. + +One such is the coffee house, prototype of the bewildering club +life of our own day. The eighteenth century coffee house, where +the men of fashion and affairs foregathered to exchange social +news over their glasses, was an organization naturally fostering +altruism; at least, it tended to cultivate a feeling for social +relations. + +Again, the birth of the newspaper with the Spectator Papers in +the early years of the century, is another such sign of the +times: the newspaper being one of the great social bonds of +humanity, for good or bad, linking man to man, race to race in +the common, well-nigh instantaneous nexus of sympathy. The +influence of the press at the time of a San Francisco or Messina +horror is apparent to all; but its effect in furnishing the +psychology of a business panic is perhaps no less potent though +not so obvious. When Addison and Steele began their genial +conversations thrice a week with their fellow citizens, they +little dreamed of the power they set a-going in the world; for +here was the genesis of modern journalism. And whatever its +abuses and degradations, the fourth estate is certainly one of +the very few widely operative educational forces to-day, and has +played an important part in spreading the idea of the +brotherhood of man. + +That the essay and its branch form, the character sketch, both +found in the Spectator Papers, were contributory to the Novel's +development, is sure. The essay set a new model for easy, +colloquial speech: just the manner for fiction which was to +report the accent of contemporary society in its average of +utterance. And the sketch, seen in its delightful efflorescence +in the Sir Roger De Coverly papers series by Addison, is fiction +in a sense: differing therefrom in its slighter framework, and +the aim of the writer, which first of all is the delicate +delineation of personality, not plot and the study of the social +complex. There is the absence of plot which is the natural +outcome of such lack of story interest. A wide survey of the +English essay from its inception with Bacon in the early +seventeenth century will impress the inquirer with its fluid +nature and natural outflow into full-fledged fiction. The essay +has a way, as Taine says, of turning "spontaneously to fiction +and portraiture." And as it is difficult, in the light of +evolution, to put the finger on the line separating man from the +lower order of animal life, so is it difficult sometimes to say +just where the essay stops and the Novel begins. There is +perhaps no hard-and-fast line. + +Consider Dr. Holmes' "Autocrat of the Breakfast Table," for +example; is it essay or fiction? There is a definite though +slender story interest and idea, yet since the framework of +story is really for the purpose of hanging thereon the genial +essayist's dissertations on life, we may decide that the book is +primarily essay, the most charmingly personal, egoistic of +literary forms. The essay "slightly dramatized," Mr. Howells +happily characterizes it. This form then must be reckoned with +in the eighteenth century and borne in mind as contributory all +along in the subsequent development, as we try to get a clear +idea of the qualities which demark and limit the Novel. + +Again, the theater was an institution doing its share to knit +social feeling; as indeed it had been in Elizabethan days: +offering a place where many might be moved by the one thought, +the one emotion, personal variations being merged in what is now +called mob psychology, a function for centuries also exercised +by the Church. Nor should the function of the playhouse as a +visiting-place be overlooked. + +So too the Novel came to express most inclusively among the +literary forms this more vivid realization of meum and tuum; the +worth of me and my intricate and inevitable relations to you, +both of us caught in the coils of that organism dubbed society, +and willingly, with no Rousseau-like desire to escape and set up +for individualists. The Novel in its treatment of personality +began to teach that the stone thrown into the water makes +circles to the uttermost bounds of the lake; that the little +rift within the lute makes the whole music mute; that we are all +members of the one body. This germinal principle was at root a +profoundly true and noble one; it serves to distinguish modern +fiction philosophically from all that is earlier, and it led the +late Sidney Lanier, in the well-known book on this subject, to +base the entire development upon the working out of the idea of +personality. The Novel seems to have been the special literary +instrument in the eighteenth century for the propagation of +altruism; here lies its deepest significance. It was a baptism +which promised great things for the lusty young form. + +We are now ready for a fair working definition of the modern +Novel. It means a study of contemporary society with an implied +sympathetic interest, and, it may be added, with special +reference to love as a motor force, simply because love it is +which binds together human beings in their social relations. + +This aim sets off the Novel in contrast with past fiction which +exhibits a free admixture of myth and marvel, of creatures +human, demi-human and supernatural, with all time or no time for +the enactment of its events. The modern story puts its note of +emphasis upon character that is contemporary and average; and +thus makes a democratic appeal against that older appeal which, +dealing with exceptional personages--kings, leaders, allegorical +abstractions--is naturally aristocratic. + +There was something, it would appear, in the English genius +which favored a form of literature--or modification of an +existing form--allowing for a more truthful representation of +society, a criticism (in the Arnoldian sense) of the passing +show. The elder romance finds its romantic effect, as a rule, in +the unusual, the strange and abnormal aspects of life, not so +much seen of the eye as imagined of the mind or fancy. Hence, +romance is historically contrasted with reality, with many +unfortunate results when we come to its modern applications. The +issue has been a Babel-like mixture of terms. + +Or when the bizarre or supernatural was not the basis of appeal, +it was found in the sickly and absurd treatment of the amatory +passion, quite as far removed from the every-day experience of +normal human nature. It was this kind of literature, with the +French La Calprenede as its high priest, which my Lord +Chesterfield had in mind when he wrote to his son under date of +1752, Old Style: "It is most astonishing that there ever could +have been a people idle enough to write such endless heaps of +the same stuff. It was, however, the occupation of thousands in +the last century; and is still the private though disavowed +amusement of young girls and sentimental ladies." The chief +trait of these earlier fictions, besides their mawkishness, is +their almost incredible long-windedness; they have the long +breath, as the French say; and it may be confessed that the +great, pioneer eighteenth century novels, foremost those of +Richardson, possess a leisureliness of movement which is an +inheritance of the romantic past when men, both fiction writers +and readers, seem to have Time; they look back to Lyly, and +forward (since history repeats itself here), to Henry James. The +condensed, breathless fiction of a Kipling is the more logical +evolution. + +Certainly, the English were innovators in this field, exercising +a direct and potent influence upon foreign fiction, especially +that of France and Germany; it is not too much to say, that the +novels of Richardson and Fielding, pioneers, founders of the +English Novel, offered Europe a type. If one reads the French +fictionists before Richardson--Madame de La Fayette, Le Sage, +Prevost and Rousseau--one speedily discovers that they did not +write novels in the modern sense; the last named took a cue from +Richardson, to be sure, in his handling of sentiment, but +remained an essayist, nevertheless. And the greater Goethe also +felt and acknowledged the Englishman's example. Testimonies from +the story-makers of other lands are frequent to the effect upon +them of these English pioneers of fiction. It will be seen from +this brief statement of the kind of fiction essayed by the +founders of the Novel, that their tendency was towards what has +come to be called "realism" in modern fiction literature. One +uses this sadly overworked term with a certain sinking of the +heart, yet it seems unavoidable. The very fact that the words +"realism" and "romance" have become so hackneyed in critical +parlance, makes it sure that they indicate a genuine +distinction. As the Novel has developed, ramified and taken on a +hundred guises of manifestation, and as criticism has striven to +keep pace with such a growth, it is not strange that a confusion +of nomenclature should have arisen. But underneath whatever +misunderstandings, the original distinction is clear enough and +useful to make: the modern Novel in its beginning did introduce +a more truthful representation of human life than had obtained +in the romantic fiction deriving from the medieval stories. The +term "realism" as first applied was suitably descriptive; it is +only with the subsequent evolution that so simple a word has +taken on subtler shades and esoteric implications. + +It may be roundly asserted that from the first the English Novel +has stood for truth; that it has grown on the whole more +truthful with each generation, as our conception of truth in +literature has been widened and become a nobler one. The +obligation of literature to report life has been felt with +increasing sensitiveness. In the particulars of appearance, +speech, setting and action the characters of English fiction to-day +produce a semblance of life which adds tenfold to its power. +To compare the dialogue of modern masters like Hardy, Stevenson, +Kipling and Howells with the best of the earlier writers serves +to bring the assertion home; the difference is immense; it is +the difference between the idiom of life and the false-literary +tone of imitations of life which, with all their merits, are +still self-conscious and inapt And as the earlier idiom was +imperfect, so was the psychology; the study of motives in +relation to action has grown steadily broader, more penetrating; +the rich complexity of human beings has been recognized more and +more, where of old the simple assumption that all mankind falls +into the two great contrasted groups of the good and the bad, +was quite sufficient. And, as a natural outcome of such an easy-going +philosophy, the study of life was rudimentary and partial; you +could always tell how the villain would jump and were +comfortable in the assurance that the curtain should ring down +upon "and so they were married and lived happily ever +afterwards." + +In contrast, to-day human nature is depicted in the Novel as a +curious compound of contradictory impulses and passions, and +instead of the clear-cut separation of the sheep and the goats, +we look forth upon a vast, indiscriminate horde of humanity +whose color, broadly surveyed, seems a very neutral +gray,--neither deep black nor shining white. The white-robed saint +is banished along with the devil incarnate; those who respect their +art would relegate such crudities to Bowery melodrama. And while +we may allow an excess of zeal in this matter, even a confusion +of values, there can be no question that an added dignity has +come to the Novel in these latter days, because it has striven +with so much seriousness of purpose to depict life in a more +interpretative way. It has seized for a motto the Veritas nos +liberavit of the ancient philosopher. The elementary psychology +of the past has been transferred to the stage drama, justifying +Mr. Shaw's description of it as "the last sanctuary of +unreality." And even in the theater, the truth demanded in +fiction for more than a century, is fast finding a place, and +play-making, sensitive to the new desire, is changing in this +respect before our eyes. + +However, with the good has come evil too. In the modern seeking +for so-called truth, the nuda veritas has in some hands become +shameless as well,--a fact amply illustrated in the following +treatment of principles and personalities. + +The Novel in the hands of these eighteenth century writers also +struck a note of the democratic,--a note that has sounded ever +louder until the present day, when fiction is by far the most +democratic of the literary forms (unless we now must include the +drama in such a designation). The democratic ideal has become at +once an instinct, a principle and a fashion. Richardson in his +"Pamela" did a revolutionary thing in making a kitchen wench his +heroine; English fiction had previously assumed that for its +polite audience only the fortunes of Algernon and Angelina could +be followed decorously and give fit pleasure. His innovation, +symptomatic of the time, by no means pleased an aristocratic +on-looker like Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, who wrote to a friend: +"The confounding of all ranks and making a jest of order has +long been growing in England; and I perceive by the books you +sent me, has made a very considerable progress. The heroes and +heroines of the age are cobblers and kitchen wenches. Perhaps +you will say, I should not take my ideas of the manners of the +times from such trifling authors; but it is more truly to be +found among them, than from any historian; as they write merely +to get money, they always fall into the notions that are most +acceptable to the present taste. It has long been the endeavor +of our English writers to represent people of quality as the +vilest and silliest part of the nation, being (generally) very +low-born themselves"--a quotation deliciously commingled of +prejudice and worldly wisdom. + +But Richardson, who began his career by writing amatory epistles +for serving maids, realized (and showed his genius thereby), +that if the hard fortunes and eventful triumph of the humble +Pamela could but be sympathetically portrayed, the interest on +the part of his aristocratic audience was certain to follow,--as +the sequel proved. + +He knew that because Pamela was a human being she might +therefore be made interesting; he adopted, albeit unconsciously, +the Terentian motto that nothing human should be alien from the +interests of his readers. And as the Novel developed, this +interest not only increased in intensity, but ever spread until +it depicted with truth and sympathy all sorts and conditions of +men. The typical novelist to-day prefers to leave the beaten +highway and go into the by-ways for his characters; his interest +is with the humble of the earth, the outcast and alien, the +under dog in the social struggle. It has become well-nigh a +fashion, a fad, to deal with these picturesque and once +unexploited elements of the human passion-play. + +This interest does not stop even at man; influenced by modern +conceptions of life, it overleaps the line of old supposed to be +impassable, and now includes the lower order of living things: +animals have come into their own and a Kipling or a London gives +us the psychology of brutekind as it has never been drawn +before--from the view-point of the animal himself. Our little +brothers of the air, the forest and the field are depicted in +such wise that the world returns to a feeling which swelled the +heart of St. Francis centuries ago, as he looked upon the birds +he loved and thus addressed them: + +"And he entered the field and began to preach to the birds which +were on the ground; and suddenly those which were in the trees +came to him and as many as there were they all stood quietly +until Saint Francis had done preaching; and even then they did +not depart until such time as he had given them his blessing; +and St. Francis, moving among them, touched them with his cape, +but not one moved." + +It is because this modern form of fiction upon which we fix the +name Novel to indicate its new features has seized the idea of +personality, has stood for truth and grown ever more democratic, +that it has attained to the immense power which marks it at the +present time. It is justified by historical facts; it has become +that literary form most closely revealing the contours of life, +most expressive of its average experience, most sympathetic to +its heart-throb. The thought should prevent us from regarding it +as merely the syllabub of the literary feast, a kind of after-dinner +condiment. It is not necessary to assume the total +depravity of current taste, in order to account for the tyranny +of this latest-born child of fiction. In the study of individual +writers and developing schools and tendencies, it will be well +to keep in mind these underlying principles of growth: +personality, truth and democracy; a conception sure to provide +the story-maker with a new function, a new ideal. The +distinguished French critic Brunetiere has said: "The novelist +in reality is nothing more than a witness whose evidence should +rival that of the historian in precision and trustworthiness. We +look to him to teach us literally to see. We read his novels +merely with a view to finding out in them those aspects of +existence which escape us, owing to the very hurry and stir of +life, an attitude we express by saying that for a novel to be +recognized as such, it must offer an historical or documentary +value, a value precise and determined, particular and local, and +as well, a general and lasting psychologic value or +significance." + +It may be added, that while in the middle eighteenth century the +novel-writing was tentative and hardly more than an avocation, +at the end of the nineteenth, it had become a fine art and a +profession. It did not occur to Richardson, serious-minded man +that he was, that he was formulating a new art canon for +fiction. Indeed, the English author takes himself less and less +seriously as we go back in time. It was bad form to be literary +when Voltaire visited Congreve and found a fine gentleman where +he sought a writer of genius: complaining therefore that fine +gentlemen came cheap in Paris; what he wished to see was the +creator of the great comedies. In the same fashion, we find +Horace Walpole, who dabbled in letters all his days and made it +really his chief interest, systematically underrating the +professional writers of his day, to laud a brilliant amateur who +like himself desired the plaudits of the game without obeying +its exact rules. He looked askance at the fiction-makers +Richardson and Fielding, because they did not move in the polite +circles frequented by himself. + +The same key is struck by lively Fanny Burney in reporting a +meeting with a languishing lady of fashion who had perpetrated a +piece of fiction with the alarming title of "The Mausoleum of +Julia": "My sister intends, said Lady Say and Sele, to print her +Mausoleum, just for her own friends and acquaintances." + +"Yes? said Lady Hawke, I have never printed yet." + +And a little later, the same spirit is exhibited by Jane Austen +when Madame de Sevigne sought her: Miss Austen suppressed the +story-maker, wishing to be taken first of all for what she was: +a country gentlewoman of unexceptionable connections. Even +Walter Scott and Byron plainly exhibit this dislike to be +reckoned as paid writers, men whose support came by the pen. In +short, literary professionalism reflected on gentility. We have +changed all that with a vengeance and can hardly understand the +earlier sentiment; but this change of attitude has carried with +it inevitably the artistic advancement of modern fiction. For if +anything is certain it is that only professional skill can be +relied upon to perfect an art form. The amateur may possess +gift, even genius; but we must look to the professional for +technique. + +One other influence, hardly less effective in molding the Novel +than those already touched upon, is found in the increasing +importance of woman as a central) factor in society; indeed, +holding the key to the social situation. The drama of our time, +in so frequently making woman the protagonist of the piece, +testifies, as does fiction, to this significant fact: woman, in +the social and economic readjustment that has come to her, or +better, which she is still undergoing, has become so much more +dominant in her social relations, that any form of literature +truthfully mirroring the society of the modern world must regard +her as of potent efficiency. And this is so quite apart from the +consideration that women make up to-day the novelist's largest +audience, and that, moreover, the woman writer of fiction is in +numbers and popularity a rival of men. + +It would scarcely be too much to see a unifying principle in the +evolution of the modern Novel, in the fact that the first +example in the literature was Pamela, the study of a woman, +while in representative latter-day studies like "Tess of the +D'Urbervilles," "The House of Mirth," "Trilby" and "The Testing +of Diana Mallory" we again have studies of women; the purpose +alike in time past or present being to fix the attention upon a +human being whose fate is sensitively, subtly operative for good +or ill upon a society at large. It is no accident then, that +woman is so often the central figure of fiction: it means more +than that, love being the solar passion of the race, she +naturally is involved. Rather does it mean fiction's recognition +of her as the creature of the social biologist, exercising her +ancient function amidst all the changes and shifting ideas of +successive generations. Whatever her superficial changes under +the urge of the time-spirit, Woman, to a thoughtful eye, sits +like the Sphinx above the drifting sands, silent, secret, +powerful and obscure, bent only on her great purposive errand +whose end is the bringing forth of that Overman who shall rule +the world. With her immense biologic mission, seemingly at war +with her individual career, and destructive apparently of that +emancipation which is the present dream of her champions, what a +type, what a motive this for fiction, and in what a manifold and +stimulating way is the Novel awakening to its high privilege to +deal with such material. In this view, having these wider +implications in mind, the role of woman in fiction, so far from +waning, is but just begun. + +This survey of historical facts and marshaling of a few +important principles has prepared us, it may be hoped, for a +clearer comprehension of the developmental details that follow. +It is a complex growth, but one vastly interesting and, after +all, explained by a few, great substructural principles: the +belief in personality, democratic feeling, a love for truth in +art, and a realization of the power of modern Woman. The Novel is +thus an expression and epitome of the society which gave it +birth. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +EIGHTEENTH CENTURY BEGINNINGS: RICHARDSON + +There is some significance in the fact that Samuel Richardson, +founder of the modern novel, was so squarely a middle-class +citizen of London town. Since the form, he founded was, as we +have seen, democratic in its original motive and subsequent +development, it was fitting that the first shaper of the form +should have sympathies not too exclusively aristocratic: should +have been willing to draw upon the backstairs history of the +servants' hall for his first heroine. + +To be sure, Mr. Richardson had the not uncommon failing of the +humble-born: he desired above all, and attempted too much, to +depict the manners of the great; he had naive aristocratical +leanings which account for his uncertain tread when he would +move with ease among the boudoirs of Mayfair. Nevertheless, in +the honest heart of him, as his earliest novel forever proves, +he felt for the woes of those social underlings who, as we have +long since learned, have their microcosm faithfully reflecting +the greater world they serve, and he did his best work in that +intimate portrayal of the feminine heart, which is not of a +class but typically human; he knew Clarissa Harlowe quite as +well as he did Pamela; both were of interest because they were +women. That acute contemporary, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, +severely reprimands Richardson for his vulgar lapses in painting +polite society and the high life he so imperfectly knew; yet in +the very breath that she condemns "Clarissa Harlowe" as "most +miserable stuff," confesses that "she was such an old fool as to +weep over" it "like any milkmaid of sixteen over the ballad of +the Lady's Fall"--the handsomest kind of a compliment under the +circumstances. And with the same charming inconsistency, she +declares on the appearance of "Sir Charles Grandison" that she +heartily despises Richardson, yet eagerly reads him--"nay, sobs +over his works in the most scandalous manner." + +Richardson was the son of a carpenter and himself a respected +printer, who by cannily marrying the daughter of the man to whom +he was apprenticed, and by diligence in his vocation, rose to +prosperity, so that by 1754 he became Master of The Stationers' +Company and King's Printer, doing besides an excellent printing +business. + +As a boy he had relieved the dumb anguish of serving maids by +the penning of their love letters; he seemed to have a knack at +this vicarious manner of love-making and when in the full +maturity of fifty years, certain London publishers requested him +to write for them a narrative which might stand as a model +letter writer from which country readers should know the right +tone, his early practice stood him in good stead. Using the +epistolary form into which he was to throw all his fiction, he +produced "Pamela," the first novel of analysis, in contrast with +the tale of adventure, of the English tongue. It is worth +remarking that Richardson wrote this story at an age when many +novelists have well-nigh completed their work; even as Defoe +published his masterpiece, "Robinson Crusoe," at fifty-eight. +But such forms as drama and fiction are the very ones where ripe +maturity, a long and varied experience with the world and a +trained hand in the technique of the craft, go for their full +value. A study of the chronology of novel-making will show that +more acknowledged masterpieces were written after forty than +before. Beside the eighteenth century examples one places George +Eliot, who wrote no fiction until she had nearly reached the +alleged dead-line of mental activity: Browning with his greatest +poem, "The Ring and the Book," published in his forty-eighth +year; Du Maurier turning to fiction at sixty, and De Morgan +still later. Fame came to Richardson then late in life, and +never man enjoyed it more. Ladies with literary leanings (and +the kind is independent of periods) used to drop into his place +beyond Temple Bar--for he was a bookseller as well as printer, +and printed and sold his own wares--to finger his volumes and +have a chat about poor Pamela or the naughty Lovelace or +impeccable Grandison. For how, in sooth, could they keep away or +avoid talking shop when they were bursting with the books just +read? + +And much, too, did Richardson enjoy the prosperity his stories, +as well as other ventures, brought him, so that he might move +out Hammersmith way where William Mortis and Cobden Sanderson +have lived in our day, and have a fine house wherein to receive +those same lady callers, who came in increasing flocks to his +impromptu court where sat the prim, cherub-faced, elderly little +printer. It is all very quaint, like a Watteau painting or a bit +of Dresden china, as we look back upon it through the time-mists +of a century and a half. + +In spite of its slow movement, the monotony of the letter form +and the terribly utilitarian nature of its morals, "Pamela" has +the essentials of interesting fiction; its heroine is placed in +a plausible situation, she is herself life-like and her +struggles are narrated with a sympathetic insight into the human +heart--or better, the female heart. The gist of a plot so simple +can be stated in few words: Mr. B., the son of a lady who has +benefited Pamela Andrews, a serving maid, tries to conquer her +virtue while she resists all his attempts--including an +abduction, Richardson's favorite device--and as a reward of her +chastity, he condescends to marry her, to her very great +gratitude and delight. The English Novel started out with a +flourish of trumpets as to its moral purpose; latter-day +criticism may take sides for or against the novel-with-a-purpose, +but that Richardson justified his fiction writing upon +moral grounds and upon those alone is shown in the descriptive +title-page of the tale, too prolix to be often recalled and a +good sample in its long-windedness of the past compared with the +terse brevity of the present in this matter: "Published in order +to cultivate the principles of virtue and religion in the mind +of youth of both sexes"; the author of "Sanford and Merton" has +here his literary progenitor. The sub-title, "or Virtue +Rewarded," also indicates the homiletic nature of the book. And +since the one valid criticism against all didactic aims in +story-telling is that it is dull, Richardson, it will be +appreciated, ran a mighty risk. But this he was able to escape +because of the genuine human interest of his tales and the skill +he displayed with psychologic analysis rather than the march of +events. The close-knit, organic development of the best of our +modern fiction is lacking; leisurely and lax seems the movement. +Modern editions of "Pamela" and "Clarissa Harlowe" are in the +way of vigorous cutting for purposes of condensation. Scott +seems swift and brief when set beside Richardson Yet the slow +convolutions and involutions serve to acquaint us intimately +with the characters; dwelling with them longer, we come to know +them better. + +It is a fault in the construction of the story that instead of +making Pamela's successful marriage the natural climax and close +of the work, the author effects it long before the novel is +finished and then tries to hold the interest by telling of the +honeymoon trip in Italy, her cool reception by her husband's +family, involving various subterfuges and difficulties, and the +gradual moral reform she was able to bring about in her spouse. +It must be conceded to him that some capital scenes are the +result of this post-hymeneal treatment; that, to illustrate, +where the haughty sister of Pamela's husband calls on the woman +she believes to be her husband's mistress. Yet there is an +effect of anti-climax; the main excitement--getting Pamela +honestly wedded--is over. But we must not forget the moral +purpose: Mr. B.'s spiritual regeneration has to be portrayed +before our very eyes, he must be changed from a rake into a +model husband; and with Richardson, that means plenty of elbow-room. +There is, too, something prophetic in this giving of ample +space to post-marital life; it paves the way for much latter-day +probing of the marriage misery. + +The picture of Mr. B. and Pamela's attitude towards him is full +of irony for the modern reader; here is a man who does all in +his power to ruin her and, finding her adamant, at last decides +to do the next best thing--secure her by marriage. And instead +of valuing him accordingly, Pamela, with a kind of spaniel-like +fawning, accepts his august hand. It must be confessed that with +Pamela (that is, with Richardson), virtue is a market commodity +for sale to the highest bidder, and this scene of barter and +sale is an all-unconscious revelation of the low standard of sex +ethics which obtained at the time. The suggestion by Sidney +Lanier that the sub-title should be: "or Vice Rewarded," "since +the rascal Mr. B. it is who gets the prize rather than Pamela," +has its pertinency from our later and more enlightened view. But +such was the eighteenth century. The exposure of an earlier time +is one of the benefits of literature, always a sort of ethical +barometer of an age--all the more trustworthy in reporting +spiritual ideals because it has no intention of doing so. + +That Richardson succeeds in making Mr. B. tolerable, not to say +likable, is a proof of his power; that the reader really grows +fond of his heroine--especially perhaps in her daughterly +devotion to her humble family--speaks volumes for his grasp of +human nature and helps us to understand the effect of the story +upon contemporaneous readers. That effect was indeed remarkable. +Lady Mary, to quote her again, testifies that the book "met with +very extraordinary (and I think undeserved) success. It has been +translated into French and Italian; it was all the fashion at +Paris and Versailles and is still the joy of the chambermaids of +all nations." Again she writes, "it has been translated into +more languages than any modern performances I ever heard of." A +French dramatic version of it under the same title appeared +three years after the publication of the novel and a little +later Voltaire in his "Nanine" used the same motif. Lady Mary's +reference to chambermaids is significant; it points to the new +sympathy on the part of the novelist and the consequent new +audience which the modern Novel was to command; literally, all +classes and conditions of mankind were to become its patrons; +and as one result, the author, gaining his hundreds of thousands +of readers, was to free himself forever of the aristocratic +Patron, at whose door once on a time, he very humbly and +hungrily knelt for favor. To-day, the Patron is hydra-headed; +demos rules in literature as in life. + +The sentimentality of this pioneer novel which now seems +old-fashioned and even absurd, expressed Queen Anne's day. +"Sensibility," as it was called, was a favorite idea in letters, +much affected, and later a kind of cult. A generation after +Pamela, in Mackenzie's "Man of Feeling," weeping is unrestrained +in English fiction; the hero of that lachrymose tale incurred +all the dangers of influenza because of his inveterate tendency +toward damp emotional effects; he was perpetually dissolving in +"showers of tears." In fact, our novelists down to the memory of +living man gave way to their feelings with far more abandon than +is true of the present repressive period. One who reads Dickens' +"Nicholas Nickleby" with this in mind, will perhaps be surprised +to find how often the hero frankly indulges his grief; he cries +with a freedom that suggests a trait inherited from his mother +of moist memory. No doubt, there was abuse of this "sensibility" +in earlier fiction: but Richardson was comparatively innocuous +in his practice, and Coleridge, having the whole sentimental +tendency in view, seems rather too severe when he declared that +"all the evil achieved by Hobbes and the whole school of +materialists will appear inconsiderable if it be compared with +the mischief effected and occasioned by the sentimental +philosophy of Sterne and his numerous imitators." The same +tendency had its vogue on both the English and French stage--the +Comedie larmoyante of the latter being vastly affected in London +and receiving in the next generation the good-natured satiric +shafts of Goldsmith. It may be possible that at the present +time, when the stoicism of the Red Indian in inhibiting +expression seems to be an Anglo-Saxon ideal, we have reacted too +far from the gush and the fervor of our forefathers. In any +case, to Richardson belongs whatever of merit there may be in +first sounding the new sentimental note. + +Pope declared that "Pamela," was as good as twenty sermons--an +innocently malignant remark, to be sure, which cuts both ways! +And plump, placid Mr. Richardson established warm epistolary +relations with many excellent if too emotional ladies, who +opened a correspondence with him concerning the conductment of +this and the following novels and strove to deflect the course +thereof to soothe their lacerated feelings. What novelist to-day +would not appreciate an audience that would take him _au grand +serieux_ in this fashion! What higher compliment than for your +correspondent--and a lady at that--to state that in the way of +ministering to her personal comfort, Pamela must marry and +Clarissa must not die! Richardson carried on a voluminous +letter-writing in life even as in literature, and the curled +darlings of latter-day letters may well look to their laurels in +recalling him, A certain Mme. Belfair, for example, desires to +look upon the author of those wonderful tales, yet modestly +shrinks from being seen herself. She therefore implores that he +will walk at an hour named in St. James Park--and this is the +novelist's reply: + + I go through the Park once or twice a week to my little + retirement; but I will for a week together be in it, every day + three or four hours, till you tell me you have seen a person who + answers to this description, namely, short--rather plump--fair + wig, lightish cloth coat, all black besides; one hand generally + in his bosom, the other a cane in it, which he leans upon under + the skirts of his coat; ... looking directly fore-right as + passers-by would imagine, but observing all that stirs on either + hand of him; hardly ever turning back; of a light brown + complexion, smoothish faced and ruddy cheeked, looking about + sixty-five; a regular, even pace, a gray eye, sometimes lively--very + lively if he have hope of seeing a lady whom he loves and + honors! + + +Such innocent philandering is delicious; there is a flavor to it +that presages the "Personals" in a New York newspaper. "Was ever +lady in such humor wooed?" or shall we say it is the novelist, +not the lady, who is besieged! + +"Pamela" ran through five editions within a year of its +appearance, which was a conspicuous success in the days of an +audience so limited when compared with the vast reading public +of later times. The smug little bookseller must have been +greatly pleased by the good fortune attending his first venture +into a new field, especially since he essayed it so late in life +and almost by accident. His motive had been in a sense +practical; for his publishers had requested him to write a book +"on the useful concerns of life"--and that he had done so, he +might have learned any Sunday in church, for divines did not +hesitate to say a kind word from the pulpit about so +unexceptionable a work. + +One of the things Richardson had triumphantly demonstrated by +his first story was that a very slight texture of plot can +suffice for a long, not to say too long, piece of fiction, if +only a free hand be given the story-teller in the way of +depicting the intuitions and emotions of human beings; dealing +with their mind states rather than, or quite as much as, their +actions. This was the modern note, and very speedily was the +lesson learned; the time was apt for it. From 1742, the date of +"Pamela," to 1765 is but a quarter century; yet within those +narrow time-limits the English Novel, through the labors of +Richardson and Fielding, Smollett, Sterne and Goldsmith, can be +said to have had its birth and growth to a lusty manhood and to +have defined once and for all the mold of this new and potent +form of prose art. By 1773 a critic speaks of the "novel-writing +age"; and a dozen years later, in 1785, novels are so common +that we hear of the press "groaning beneath their weight,"--which +sounds like the twentieth century. And it was all started +by the little printer; to him the praise. He received it in full +measure; here and there, of course, a dissident voice was heard, +one, that of Fielding, to be very vocal later; but mostly they +were drowned in the chorus of adulation. Richardson had done a +new thing and reaped an immediate reward; and--as seldom +happens, with quick recognition--it was to be a permanent reward +as well, for he changed the history of English literature. + +One would have expected him to produce another novel post-haste, +following up his maiden victory before it could be forgotten, +after the modern manner. But those were leisured days and it was +half a dozen years before "Clarissa Harlowe" was given to the +public. Richardson had begun by taking a heroine out of low +life; he now drew one from genteel middle class life; as he was +in "Sir Charles Grandison," the third and last of his fictions, +to depict a hero in the upper class life of England. In Clarissa +again, plot was secondary, analysis, sentiment, the exhibition +of the female heart under stress of sorrow, this was everything. +Clarissa's hand is sought by an unattractive suitor; she rebels--a +social crime in the eighteenth century; whereat, her whole +family turn against her--father, mother, sister, brothers, +uncles and aunts--and, wooed by Lovelace, a dashing rake who is +in love with her according to his lights, but by no means +intends honorable matrimony, she flies with him in a chariot and +four, to find herself in a most anomalous position, and so dies +broken-hearted; to be followed in her fate by Lovelace, who is +represented as a man whose loose principles are in conflict with +a nature which is far from being utterly bad. The narrative is +mainly developed through letters exchanged between Clarissa and +her friend, Miss Howe. There can hardly be a more striking +testimony to the leisure enjoyed by the eighteenth-century than +that society was not bored by a story the length of which seems +almost interminable to the reader to-day. The slow movement is +sufficient to preclude its present prosperity. It is safe to say +that Richardson is but little read now; read much less than his +great contemporary, Fielding. And apparently it is his bulk +rather than his want of human interest or his antiquated manner +that explains the fact. The instinct to-day is against fiction +that is slow and tortuous in its onward course; at least so it +seemed until Mr. De Morgan returned in his delightful volumes to +the method of the past. Those are pertinent words of the +distinguished Spanish novelist, Valdes: "An author who wishes to +be read not only in his life, but after his death (and the +author who does not wish this should lay aside his pen), cannot +shut his eyes, when unblinded by vanity, to the fact that not +only is it necessary to be interesting to save himself from +oblivion, but the story must not be a very long one. The world +contains so many great and beautiful works that it requires a +long life to read them all. To ask the public, always anxious +for novelty, to read a production of inordinate length, when so +many others are demanding attention, seems to me useless and +ridiculous, ... The most noteworthy instance of what I say is +seen in the celebrated English novelist, Richardson, who, in +spite of his admirable genius and exquisite sensibility and +perspicuity, added to the fact of his being the father of the +modern Novel, is scarcely read nowadays, at least in Latin +countries. Given the indisputable beauties of his works, this +can only be due to their extreme length. And the proof of this, +that in France and Spain, to encourage the taste for them, the +most interesting parts have been extracted and published in +editions and compendiums." + +This is suggestive, coming from one who speaks by the book. Who, +in truth, reads epics now--save in the enforced study of school +and college? Will not Browning's larger works--like "The Ring +and the Book"--suffer disastrously with the passing of time +because of a lack of continence, of a failure to realize that +since life is short, art should not be too long? It may be, too, +that Richardson, newly handling the sentiment which during the +following generation was to become such a marked trait of +imaginative letters, revelled in it to an extent unpalatable to +our taste; "rubbing our noses," as Leslie Stephen puts it, "in +all her (Clarissa's) agony,"--the tendency to overdo a new +thing, not to be resisted in his case. But with all concessions +to length and sentimentality, criticism from that day to this +has been at one in agreeing that here is not only Richardson's +best book but a truly great Novel. Certainly one who patiently +submits to a ruminant reading of the story, will find that when +at last the long-deferred climax is reached and the awed and +penitent Lovelace describes the death-bed moments of the girl he +has ruined, the scene has a great moving power. Allowing for +differences of taste and time, the vogue of the Novel in +Richardson's day can easily be understood, and through all the +stiffness, the stilted effect of manner and speech, and the +stifling conventions of the entourage, a sweet and charming +young woman in very piteous distress emerges to live in +affectionate memory. After all, no poor ideal of womanhood is +pictured in Clarissa. She is one of the heroines who are +unforgettable, dear. Mr. Howells, with his stern insistence on +truth in characterization, declares that she is "as freshly +modern as any girl of yesterday or to-morrow. 'Clarissa +Harlowe,' in spite of her eighteenth century costume and +keeping, remains a masterpiece in the portraiture of that +ever-womanly which is of all times and places." + +Lovelace, too, whose name has become a synonym for the fine +gentleman betrayer, is drawn in a way to make him sympathetic +and creditable; he is far from being a stock figure of villainy. +And the minor figures are often enjoyable; the friendship of +Clarissa with Miss Howe, a young woman of excellent good sense +and seemingly quite devoid of the ultra-sentiment of her time, +preludes that between Diana and her "Tony" in Meredith's great +novel. As a general picture of the society of the period, the +book is full of illuminations and sidelights; of course, the +whole action is set on a stage that bespeaks Richardson's +narrow, middle class morality, his worship of rank, his belief +that worldly goods are the reward of well-doing. + +As for the contemporaneous public, it wept and praised and went +with fevered blood because of this fiction. We have heard how +women of sentiment in London town welcomed the book and the +opportunity it offered for unrestrained tears. But it was the +same abroad; as Ike Marvel has it, Rousseau and Diderot over in +France, philosophers as they professed to be, "blubbered their +admiring thanks for 'Clarissa Harlowe."' Similarly, at a later +day we find caustic critics like Jeffrey and Macaulay writing to +Dickens to tell how they had cried over the death of Little +Nell--a scene the critical to-day are likely to stigmatize as +one of the few examples of pathos overdone to be found in the +works of that master. It is scarcely too much to say that the +outcome of no novel in the English tongue was watched with such +bated breath as was that of "Clarissa Harlowe" while the eight +successive books were being issued. + +Richardson chose to bask for another half dozen years in the +fame of his second novel, before turning in 1754 to his final +attempt, "Sir Charles Grandison," wherein it was his purpose to +depict the perfect pattern of a gentleman, "armed at all points" +of social and moral behavior. We must bear in mind that when +"Clarissa" was published he was sixty years of age and to be +pardoned if he did not emulate so many novel-makers of these +brisker mercantile times and turn off a story or so a year. + +By common confession, this is the poorest of his three fictions. +In the first place, we are asked to move more steadily in the +aristocratic atmosphere where the novelist did not breathe to +best advantage. Again, Richardson was an adept in drawing women +rather than men and hence was self-doomed in electing a +masculine protagonist. He is also off his proper ground in +laying part of the action in Italy. + +His beau ideal, Grandison, turns out the most impossible prig in +English literature. He is as insufferable as that later prig, +Meredith's Sir Willoughby in "The Egotist," with the difference +that the author does not know it, and that you do not believe in +him for a moment; whereas Meredith's creation is appallingly +true, a sort of simulacrum of us all. The best of the story is +in its portrayal of womankind; in particular, Sir Charles' two +loves, the English Harriet Byron and the Italian Clementina, the +last of whom is enamored of him, but separated by religious +differences. Both are alive and though suffering in the reader's +estimation because of their devotion to such a stick as +Grandison, nevertheless touch our interest to the quick. The +scene in which Grandison returns to Italy to see Clementina, +whose reason, it is feared, is threatened because of her grief +over his loss, is genuinely effective and affecting. + +The mellifluous sentimentality, too, of the novelist seems to +come to a climax in this book; justifying Taine's satiric remark +that "these phrases should be accompanied by a mandolin." The +moral tag is infallibly supplied, as in all Richardson's tales--though +perhaps here with an effect of crescendo. We are still +long years from that conception of art which holds that a +beautiful thing may be allowed to speak for itself and need not +be moraled down our throats like a physician's prescription. Yet +Fielding had already, as we shall see, struck a wholesome note +of satiric fun. The plot is slight and centers in an abduction +which, by the time it is used in the third novel, begins to pall +as a device and to suggest paucity of invention. The novel has +the prime merit of brevity; it is much shorter than "Clarissa +Harlowe," but long enough, in all conscience, Harriet being +blessed with the gift of gab, like all Richardson's heroines. +"She follows the maxim of Clarissa," says Lady Mary with telling +humor, "of declaring all she thinks to all the people she sees +without reflecting that in this mortal state of imperfection, +fig-leaves are as necessary for our minds as our bodies." It is +significant that this brilliant contemporary is very hard on +Richardson's characterization of women in this volume (which she +says "sinks horribly"), whereas never a word has she to say in +condemnation of the hero, who to the present critical eye seems +the biggest blot on the performance. How can we join the chorus +of praise led by Harriet, now her ladyship and his loving +spouse, when it chants: "But could he be otherwise than the best +of husbands who was the most dutiful of sons, who is the most +affectionate of brothers, the most faithful of friends, who is +good upon principle in every relation in life?" Lady Mary is +also extremely severe on the novelist's attempt to paint Italy; +when he talks of it, says she, "it is plain he is no better +acquainted with it than he is with the Kingdom of Mancomingo." +It is probable tat Richardson could not say more for his Italian +knowledge than did old Roger Ascham of Archery fame, when he +declared: "I was once in Italy, but I thank God my stay there +was only nine days." "Sir Charles Grandison" has also the +substantial advantage of ending well: that is, if to marry Sir +Charles can be so regarded, and certainly Harriet deemed it +desirable. + +It is pleasant to think of Richardson, now well into the +sixties, amiable, plump and prosperous, surrounded for the +remainder of his days--he was to die seven years later at the +ripe age of seventy-five--by a bevy of admiring women, who, +whether literary or merely human, gave this particular author +that warm and convincing proof of popularity which, to most, is +worth a good deal of chilly posthumous fame which a man is not +there to enjoy. Looking at his work retrospectively, one sees +that it must always have authority, even if it fall deadly dull +upon our ears to-day; for nothing can take away from him the +distinction of originating that kind of fiction which, now well +along towards its second century of existence, is still popular +and powerful. Richardson had no model; he shaped a form for +himself. Fielding, a greater genius, threw his fiction into a +mold cast by earlier writers; moreover, he received his direct +impulse away from the drama and towards the novel from +Richardson himself. + +The author of "Pamela" demonstrated once and for all the +interest that lies in a sympathetic and truthful representation +of character in contrast with that interest in incident for its +own sake which means the subordination of character, so that the +persons become mere subsidiary counters in the game. And he +exhibited such a knowledge of the subtler phases of the nooks +and crannies of woman's heart, as to be hailed as past-master +down to the present day by a whole school of analysts and +psychologues; for may it not be said that it is the popular +distinction of the nineteenth century fiction to place woman in +the pivotal position in that social complex which it is the +business of the Novel to represent? Do not our fiction and drama +to-day--the drama a belated ally of the Novel in this and other +regards--find in the delineation of the eternal feminine under +new conditions of our time, its chief, its most significant +motif? If so, a special gratitude is due the placid little Mr. +Richardson with his Pamelas, Clarissas and Harriets. He found +fiction unwritten so far as the chronicles of contemporary +society were concerned, and left it in such shape that it was +recognized as the natural quarry of all who would paint manners; +a field to be worked by Jane Austen, Dickens and Thackeray, +Trollope and George Eliot, and a modern army of latter and +lesser students of life. His faults were in part merely a +reflection of his time; its low-pitched morality, its etiquette +which often seems so absurd. Partly it was his own, too; for he +utterly lacked humor (save where unconscious) and never grasped +the great truth, that in literary art the half is often more +than the whole; The Terentian ne quid nimis had evidently not +been taken to heart by Samuel Richardson, Esquire, of +Hammersmith, author of "Clarissa Harlowe" in eight volumes, and +Printer to the Queen. Again and again one of Clarissa's bursts +of emotion under the tantalizing treatment of her seducer loses +its effect because another burst succeeds before we (and she) +have recovered from the first one. He strives to give us the +broken rhythm of life (therein showing his affinity with the +latter day realists) instead of that higher and harder thing--the +more perfect rhythm of art; not so much the truth (which +cannot be literally given) as that seeming-true which is the aim +and object of the artistic representation. Hence the necessity +of what Brunetiere calls in an admirable phrase, the true +function of the novel--"to be an abridged representation of +life." Construction in the modern sense Richardson had not +studied, naturally enough, and was innocent of the fineness of +method and the sure-handed touches of later technique. And there +is a kind of drawing-room atmosphere in his books, a lack of +ozone which makes Fielding with all his open-air coarseness a +relief. But judged in the setting of his time, this writer did a +wonderful thing not only as the Father of the Modern Novel but +one of the few authors in the whole range of fiction who holds +his conspicuous place amid shifting literary modes and fashions, +because he built upon the surest of all foundations--the social +instinct, and the human heart. + +If the use of the realistic method alone denoted the Novel, +Defoe, not Richardson, might be called its begetter. "Robinson +Crusoe," more than twenty years before "Pamela," would occupy +the primate position, to say nothing of Swift's "Gulliver's +Travels," antedating Richardson's first story by some fifteen +years. Certainly the observational method, the love of detail, +the grave narrative of imagined fact (if the bull be permitted) +are in this earlier book in full force. But "Robinson Crusoe" is +not a rival because it does not study man-in-society; never was +a story that depended less upon this kind of interest. The +position of Crusoe on his desert isle is so eminently unsocial +that he welcomes the black man Friday and quivers at the human +quality in the famed footprints in the sand. As for Swift's chef +d'oeuvre, it is a fairy-tale with a grimly realistic manner and +a savage satiric intention. To speak of either of these fictions +as novels is an example of the prevalent careless nomenclature. +Between them and "Pamela" there yawns a chasm. Moreover, +"Crusoe" is a frankly picaresque tale belonging to the elder +line of romantic fiction, where incident and action and all the +thrilling haps of Adventure-land furnish the basis of appeal +rather than character analysis or a study of social relations. +The personality of Crusoe is not advanced a whit by his +wonderful experiences; he is done entirely from the outside. + +Richardson, therefore, marks the beginning of the modern form. +But that the objection to Defoe as the true and only begetter of +the Novel lies in his failure, in his greatest story, to center +the interest in man as part of the social order and as human +soul, is shown by the fact that his less known, but remarkable, +story "Moll Flanders," picaresque as it is and depicting the +life of a female criminal, has yet considerable character study +and gets no small part of its appeal for a present-day reader +from the minute description of the fall and final reform of the +degenerate woman. It is comparatively crude in characterization, +but psychological value is not entirely lacking. However, with +Richardson it is almost all. It was of the nature of his genius +to make psychology paramount: just there is found his modernity. +Defoe and Swift may be said to have added some slight interest +in analysis pointing towards the psychologic method, which was +to find full expression in Samuel Richardson. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +EIGHTEENTH CENTURY BEGINNINGS: FIELDING + +It is interesting to ask if Henry Fielding, barrister, +journalist, tinker of plays and man-about-town, would ever have +turned novelist, had it not been for Richardson, his +predecessor. So slight, so seemingly accidental, are the +incidents which make or mar careers and change the course of +literary history. Certain it is that the immediate cause of +Fielding's first story was the effect upon him of the fortunes +of the virtuous Pamela. A satirist and humorist where Richardson +was a somewhat solemn sentimentalist, Fielding was quick to see +the weakness, and--more important,--the opportunity for +caricature, in such a tale, whose folk harangued about morality +and whose avowed motive was a kind of hard-surfaced, carefully +calculated honor, for sale to the highest bidder. It was easy to +recognize that Pamela was not only good but goody-goody. So +Fielding, being thirty-five years of age and of uncertain +income--he had before he was thirty squandered his mother's +estate,--turned himself, two years after "Pamela" had appeared, +to a new field and concocted the story known to the world of +letters as: "The Adventures of Joseph Andrews and His Friend +Abraham Adams." + +This Joseph purports to be the brother of Pamela (though the +denouement reveals him as more gently born) and is as virtuous +in his character of serving-man as the sister herself; indeed, +he outvirtues her. Fielding waggishly exhibits him in the full +exercise of a highly-starched decorum rebuffing the amatory +attempts of sundry ladies whose assault upon the citadel of his +honor is analogous to that of Mr. B.,--who naturally becomes +Squire Booby in Fielding's hands--upon the long suffering +Pamela. Thus, Lady Booby, in whose employ Joseph is footman, +after an invitation to him to kiss her which has been gently but +firmly refused, bursts out with: "Can a boy, a stripling, have +the confidence to talk of his virtue?" + +"Madam," says Joseph, "that boy is the brother of Pamela and +would be ashamed that the chastity of his family, which is +preserved in her, should be stained in him." + +The chance for fun is palpable here. But something unexpected +happened: what was begun as burlesque, almost horse-play, began +to pass from the key of shallow, lively satire, broadening and +deepening into a finer tone of truth. In a few chapters, by the +time the writer had got such an inimitable personage as Parson +Adams before the reader, it was seen that the book was to be +more than a jeu d'esprit: rather, the work of a master of +characterization. In short, Joseph Andrews started out +ostensibly to poke good-natured ridicule at sentimental Mr. +Richardson: it ended by furnishing contemporary London and all +subsequent readers with a notable example of the novel of +mingled character and incident, entertaining alike for its +lively episodes and its broadly genial delineation of types of +the time. And so he soon had the town laughing with him at his +broad comedy. + +In every respect Fielding made a sharp contrast with Richardson. +He was gentle-born, distinguished and fashionable in his +connections: the son of younger sons, impecunious, generous, of +strong often unregulated passions,--what the world calls a good +fellow, a man's man--albeit his affairs with the fair sex were +numerous. He knew high society when he choose to depict it: his +education compared with Richardson's was liberal and he based +his style of fiction upon models which the past supplied, +whereas Richardson had no models, blazed his own trail. +Fielding's literary ancestry looks back to "Gil Blas" and "Don +Quixote," and in English to "Robinson Crusoe." In other words, +his type, however much he departs from it, is the picturesque +story of adventure. He announced, in fact, on his title-page +that he wrote "in imitation of the manner of Cervantes." + +Again, his was a genius for comedy, where Richardson, as we have +seen, was a psychologist. The cleansing effect of wholesome +laughter and an outdoor gust of hale west wind is offered by +him, and with it go the rude, coarse things to be found in +Nature who is nevertheless in her influence so salutary, so +necessary, in truth, to our intellectual and moral health. Here +then was a sort of fiction at many removes from the slow, +analytic studies of Richardson: buoyant, objective, giving far +more play to action and incident, uniting in most agreeable +proportions the twin interests of character and event. The very +title of this first book is significant. We are invited to be +present at a delineation of two men,--but these men are +displayed in a series of adventures. Unquestionably, the +psychology is simpler, cruder, more elementary than that of +Richardson. Dr. Johnson, who much preferred the author of +"Pamela" to the author of "Tom Jones" and said so in the +hammer-and-tongs style for which he is famous, declared to Bozzy +that "there is all the difference in the world between characters +of nature and characters of manners: and there is the difference +between the characters of Fielding and those of Richardson. +Characters of manners are very entertaining; but they are to be +understood by a more superficial observer than characters of +nature, where a man must dive into the recesses of the human +heart." + +And although we may share Boswell's feeling that Johnson +estimated the compositions of Richardson too highly and that he +had an unreasonable prejudice against Fielding--since he was a +man of magnificent biases--yet we may grant that the critic-god +made a sound distinction here, that Fielding's method is +inevitably more external and shallow than that of an analyst +proper like Richardson; no doubt to the great joy of many weary +folk who go to novels for the rest and refreshment they give, +rather than for their thought-evoking value. + +The contrast between these novelists is maintained, too, in the +matter of style: Fielding walks with the easy undress of a +gentleman: Richardson sits somewhat stiff and pragmatical, +carefully arrayed in full-bottomed wig, and knee breeches, +delivering a lecture from his garden chair. Fielding is a master +of that colloquial manner afterwards handled with such success +by Thackeray: a manner "good alike for grave or gay," and making +this early fiction-maker enjoyable. Quite apart from our relish +of his vivid portrayals of life, we like his wayside chatting. +For another difference: there is no moral motto or announcement: +the lesson takes care of itself. What unity there is of +construction, is found in the fact that certain characters, more +or less related, are seen to walk centrally through the +narrative: there is little or no plot development in the modern +sense and the method (the method of the type) is frankly +episodic. + +In view of what the Novel was to become in the nineteenth +century, Richardson's way was more modern, and did more to set a +seal upon fiction than Fielding's: the Novel to-day is first of +all psychologic and serious. And the assertion is safe that all +the later development derives from these two kinds written by +the two greatest of the eighteenth century pioneers, Richardson +and Fielding: on the one hand, character study as a motive, on +the other the portrayal of personality surrounded by the +external factors of life. The wise combination of the two, gives +us that tangle of motive, act and circumstance which makes up +human existence. + +With regard to the morals of the story, a word may here be said, +having all Fielding's fiction in mind. Of the suggestive +prurience of much modern novelism, whether French or French-derived, +he, Fielding, is quite free: he deals with the sensual +relations with a frank acknowledgment of their physical basis. +The truth is, the eighteenth century, whether in England or +elsewhere, was on a lower plane in this respect than our own +time. Fielding, therefore, while he does no affront to essential +decency, does offend our taste, our refinement, in dealing with +this aspect of life. We have in a true sense become more +civilized since 1750: the ape and tiger of Tennyson's poem have +receded somewhat in human nature during the last century and a +half. The plea that since Fielding was a realist depicting +society as it was in his day, his license is legitimate, whereas +Richardson was giving a sort of sentimentalized stained-glass +picture of it not as it was but, in his opinion, should be,--is +a specious one; it is well that in literature, faithful +reflector of the ideals of the race, the beast should be allowed +to die (as Mr. Howells, himself a staunch realist, has said), +simply because it is slowly dying in life itself. Fielding's +novels in unexpurgated form are not for household reading to-day: +the fact may not be a reflection upon him, but it is surely +one to congratulate ourselves upon, since it testifies to social +evolution. However, for those whose experience of life is +sufficiently broad and tolerant, these novels hold no harm: +there is a tonic quality to them.--Even bowdlerization is not to +be despised with such an author, when it makes him suitable for +the hands of those who otherwise might receive injury from the +contact. The critic-sneer at such an idea forgets that good art +comes out of sound morality as well as out of sound esthetics. +It is pleasant to hear a critic of such standing as Brunetiere +in his "L'Art et Morale" speak with spiritual clarity upon this +subject, so often turned aside with the shrug of impatient +scorn. + +The episodic character of the story was to be the manner of +Fielding in all his fiction. There are detached bits of +narrative, stories within stories--witness that dealing with the +high comedy figures of Leonora and Bellamine--and the novelist +does not bother his head if only he can get his main characters +in motion,--on the road, in a tavern or kitchen brawl, astride a +horse for a cross-country dash after the hounds. Charles +Dickens, whose models were of the eighteenth century, made +similar use of the episode in his early work, as readers of +"Pickwick" may see for themselves. + +The first novel was received with acclaim and stirred up a +pretty literary quarrel, for Richardson and his admiring clique +would have been more than human had they not taken umbrage at so +obvious a satire. Recriminations were hot and many. + +Mr. Andrew Lang should give us in a dialogue between dead +authors, a meeting in Hades between the two; it would be worth +any climatic risk to be present and hear what was said; Lady +Mary, who may once more be put on the witness-stand, tells how, +being in residence in Italy, and a box of light literature from +England having arrived at ten o'clock of the night, she could +not but open it and "falling upon Fielding's works, was fool +enough to sit up all night reading. I think "Joseph Andrews" +better than his Foundling"--the reference being, of course, to +"Tom Jones"; a judgment not jumping with that of posterity, +which has declared the other to be his masterpiece; yet not an +opinion to be despised, coming from one of the keenest +intellects of the time. Lady Mary, whose cousin Fielding was, +had a clear eye alike for his literary merits and personal +foibles and faults, but heartily liked him and acted as his +literary mentor in his earlier days; his maiden play was +dedicated to her and her interest in him was more than passing. + +The Bohemian barrister and literary hack who had made a love-match +half a dozen years before and now had a wife and several +children to care for, must have been vastly encouraged by the +favorable reception of his first essay into fiction; at last, he +had found the kind of literature congenial to his talents and +likely to secure suitable renown: his metier as an artist of +letters was discovered, as we might now choose to express it; he +would hardly have taken himself so seriously. It was natural +that he should publish the next year a three volume collection +of his miscellany, which contained his second novel, "Mr. +Jonathan Wild The Great," distinctly the least liked of his four +stories, because of its bitter irony, its almost savage tone, +the gloom which surrounds the theme, a powerful, full-length +portrayal of a famous thief-taker of the period, from his birth +to his bad end on a Newgate gallows. Mr. Wild is a sort of +foreglimpse of the Sherlock Holmes-Raffles of our own day. + +Fielding's wife died this year and it may be that sorrow for her +fatal illness was the subjective cause of the tone of this +gruesomely attractive piece of fiction; but there is some reason +for believing it to be an earlier work than "Joseph Andrews"; it +belongs to a more primitive type of story-making, because of its +sensational features: its dependence for interest upon the seamy +side of aspects of life exhibited like magic lantern slides with +little connection, but spectacular effects. The satire of the +book is directed at that immoral confusion between greatness and +goodness, the rascally Jonathan being pictured in grave mock-heroics +as in every way worthy--and the sardonic force at times +almost suggests the pen of Dean Swift. + +But such work was but a prelude to what was to follow. When the +world thinks of Henry Fielding it thinks of "Tom Jones," it is +almost as if he had written naught else. "The History of Tom +Jones, A Foundling" appeared six years after "Jonathan Wild," +the intermediate time (aside from the novel itself) being +consumed in editing journals and officiating as a Justice of +the Peace: the last a role it is a little difficult, in the +theater phrase, to see him in. He was two and forty when the +book was published: but as he had been at work upon it for a +long while (he speaks of the thousands of hours he had been +toiling over it), it may be ascribed to that period of a man's +growth when he is passing intellectually from youth to early +maturity; everything considered, perhaps the best productive +period. His health had already begun to break: and he was by no +means free of the harassments of debt. Although successful in +his former attempt at fiction, novel writing was but an aside +with him, after all; he had not during the previous six years +given regular time and attention to literary composition, as a +modern story-maker would have done under the stimulus of like +encouragement. The eighteenth century audience, it must be borne +in mind, was not large enough nor sufficiently eager for an +attractive new form of literature, to justify a man of many +trades like Fielding in devoting his days steadily to the +writing of fiction. There is to the last an effect of the gifted +amateur about him; Taine tells the anecdote of his refusal to +trouble himself to change a scene in one of his plays, which +Garrick begged him to do: "Let them find it out," he said, +referring to the audience. And when the scene was hissed, he +said to the disconsolate player: "I did not: give them credit +for it: they have found it out, have they?" In other words, he +was knowing to his own poor art, content if only it escaped the +public eye. This is some removes from the agonizing over a +phrase of a Flaubert. + +Like the preceding story, "Tom Jones" has its center of plot in +a life history of the foundling who grows into a young manhood +that is full of high spirits and escapades: likable always, even +if, judged by the straight-laced standards of Richardson, one +may not approve. Jones loves Sophia Western, daughter of a +typical three-bottle, hunting squire: of course he prefers the +little cad Blifil, with his money and position, where poor Tom +has neither: equally of course Sophia (whom the reader heartily +likes, in spite of her name) prefers the handsome Jones with his +blooming complexion and many amatory adventures. And, since we +are in the simple-minded days of fiction when it was the +business of the sensible novelist to make us happy at the close, +the low-born lover, assisted by Squire Allworthy, who is a deus +ex machina a trifle too good for human nature's daily food, gets +his girl (in imitation of Joseph Andrews) and is shown to be +close kin to Allworthy--tra-la-la, tra-la-lee, it is all +charmingly simple and easy! The beginners of the English novel +had only a few little tricks in their box in the way of incident +and are for the most part innocent of plot in the Wilkie Collins +sense of the word. The opinion of Coleridge that the "Oedipus +Tyrannus," "The Alchemist" and "Tom Jones" are "the three most +perfect plots ever planned" is a curious comment upon his +conception of fiction, since few stories have been more plotless +than Fielding's best book. The fact is, biographical fiction +like this is to be judged by itself, it has its own laws of +technique. + +The glory of "Tom Jones" is in its episodes, its crowded canvas, +the unfailing verve and variety of its action: in the fine open-air +atmosphere of the scenes, the sense of the stir of life they +convey: most of all, in an indescribable manliness or humanness +which bespeaks the true comic force--something of that same +comic view that one detects in Shakspere and Moliere and +Cervantes. It means an open-eyed acceptance of life, a +realization of its seriousness yet with the will to take it with +a smile: a large tolerancy which forbids the view conventional +or parochial or aristocratic--in brief, the view limited. There +is this in the book, along with much psychology so superficial +as to seem childish, and much interpretation that makes us feel +that the higher possibilities of men and women are not as yet +even dreamed of. In this novel, Fielding makes fuller use than +he had before of the essay link: the chapters introductory to +the successive books,--and in them, a born essayist, as your +master of style is pretty sure to be, he discourses in the +wisest and wittiest way on topics literary, philosophical or +social, having naught to do with the story in hand, it may be, +but highly welcome for its own sake. This manner of pausing by +the way for general talk about the world in terms of Me has been +used since by Thackeray, with delightful results: but has now +become old-fashioned, because we conceive it to be the +novelist's business to stick close to his story and not obtrude +his personality at all. Thackeray displeases a critic like Mr. +James by his postscript harangues about himself as Showman, +putting his puppets into the box and shutting up his booth: +fiction is too serious a matter to be treated so lightly by its +makers--to say nothing of the audience: it is more, much more +than mere fooling and show-business. But to go back to the +eighteenth century is to realize that the novel is being newly +shaped, that neither novelist nor novel-reader is yet awake to +the higher conception of the genre. So we wax lenient and are +glad enough to get these resting-places of chat and charm from +Fielding: it may not be war, but it is nevertheless magnificent. + +Fielding in this fiction is remarkable for his keen observation +of every-day life and character, the average existence in town +and country of mankind high and low: he is a truthful reporter, +the verisimilitude of the picture is part of its attraction. It +is not too much to say that, pictorially, he is the first great +English realist of the Novel. For broad comedy presentation he +is unsurpassed: as well as for satiric gravity of comment and +illustration. It may be questioned, however, whether when he +strives to depict the deeper phases of human relations he is so +much at home or anything like so happy. There is no more +critical test of a novelist than his handling of the love +passion. Fielding essays in "Tom Jones" to show the love between +two very likable flesh-and-blood young folk: the many mishaps of +the twain being but an embroidery upon the accepted fact that +the course of true love never did run smooth. There is a certain +scene which gives us an interview between Jones and Sophia, +following on a stormy one between father and daughter, during +which the Squire has struck his child to the ground and left her +there with blood and tears streaming down her face. Her +disobedience in not accepting the addresses of the unspeakable +Blifil is the cause of the somewhat drastic parental treatment. +Jones has assured the Squire that he can make Sophia see the +error of her ways and has thus secured a moment with her. He +finds her just risen from the ground, in the sorry plight +already described. Then follows this dialogue: + + 'O, my Sophia, what means this dreadful sight?' + + She looked softly at him for a moment before she spoke, and + then said: + + 'Mr. Jones, for Heaven's sake, how came you here? Leave me, + I beseech you, this moment.' + + 'Do not,' says he, 'impose so harsh a command upon me. My + heart bleeds faster than those lips. O Sophia, how easily + could I drain my veins to preserve one drop of that dear + blood.' + + 'I have too many obligations to you already,' answered she, + 'for sure you meant them such.' + + Here she looked at him tenderly almost a minute, and then + bursting into an agony, cried: + + 'Oh, Mr. Jones, why did you save my life? My death would + have been happier for us both.' + + 'Happy for us both!' cried he. 'Could racks or wheels kill + me so painfully as Sophia's--I cannot bear the dreadful + sound. Do I live but for her?' + + Both his voice and look were full of irrepressible + tenderness when he spoke these words; and at the same time + he laid gently hold on her hand, which she did not withdraw + from him; to say the truth, she hardly knew what she did or + suffered. A few moments now passed in silence between these + lovers, while his eyes were eagerly fixed on Sophia, and + hers declining toward the ground; at last she recovered + strength enough to desire him again to leave her, for that + her certain ruin would be the consequence of their being + found together; adding: + + 'Oh, Mr. Jones, you know not, you know not what hath passed + this cruel afternoon.' + + 'I know all, my Sophia,' answered he; 'your cruel father + hath told me all, and he himself hath sent me hither to + you.' + + 'My father sent you to me!' replied she: 'sure you dream!' + + 'Would to Heaven,' cried he, 'it was but a dream. Oh! + Sophia, your father hath sent me to you, to be an advocate + for my odious rival, to solicit you in his favor. I took + any means to get access to you. O, speak to me, Sophia! + Comfort my bleeding heart. Sure no one ever loved, ever + doted, like me. Do not unkindly withhold this dear, this + soft, this gentle hand--one moment perhaps tears you + forever from me. Nothing less than this cruel occasion + could, I believe, have ever conquered the respect and love + with which you have inspired me.' + + She stood a moment silent, and covered with confusion; + then, lifting up her eyes gently towards him, she cried: + + 'What would Mr. Jones have me say?' + + +We would seem to have here a writer not quite in his native +element. He intends to interest us in a serious situation. +Sophia is on the whole natural and winning, although one may +stop to imagine what kind of an agony is that which allows of so +mathematical a division of time as is implied in the statement +that she looked at her lover--tenderly, too, forsooth!--"almost +a minute." The mood of mathematics and the mood of emotion, each +excellent in itself, do not go together in life as they do in +eighteenth century fiction. But in the general impression she +makes, Sophia, let us concede, is sweet and realizable. But +Jones, whom we have long before this scene come to know and be +fond of--Jones is here a prig, a bore, a dummy. Sir Charles +Grandison in all his woodenness is not arrayed like one of +these. Consider the situation further: Sophia is in grief; she +has blood and tears on her face--what would any lover,--nay, any +respectable young man do in the premises? Surely, stanch her +wounds, dry her eyes, comfort her with a homely necessary +handkerchief. But not so Jones: he is not a real man but a +melodramatic lay-figure, playing to the gallery as he spouts +speeches about the purely metaphoric bleeding of his heart, +oblivious of the disfigurement of his sweetheart's visage from +real blood. He insults her by addressing her in the third +person, mouths sentiments about his "odious rival" (a phrase +with a superb Bowery smack to it!) and in general so disports +himself as to make an effect upon the reader of complete +unreality. This was no real scene to Fielding himself: why then +should it be true: it has neither the accent nor the motion of +life. The novelist is being "literary," is not warm to his work +at all. When we turn from this attempt to the best love scenes +in modern hands, the difference is world-wide. And this +unreality--which violates the splendid credibility of the hero +in dozens of other scenes in the book,--is all the worse coming +from a writer who expressly announces his intention to destroy +the prevalent conventional hero of fiction and set up something +better in his place. Whereas Tom in the quoted scene is nothing +if not conventional and drawn in the stock tradition of mawkish +heroics. The plain truth is that with Fielding love is an +appetite rather than a sentiment and he is only completely at +ease when painting its rollicking, coarse and passional aspects. + +In its unanalytic method and loose construction this Novel, +compared with Richardson, is a throw-back to a more primitive +pattern, as we saw was the case with Fielding's first fiction. +But in another important characteristic of the modern Novel it +surpasses anything that had earlier appeared: I refer to the way +it puts before the reader a great variety of human beings, so +that a sense of teeming existence is given, a genuine imitation +of the spatial complexity of life, if not of its depths. It is +this effect, afterwards conveyed in fuller measure by Balzac, by +Dickens, by Victor Hugo and by Tolstoy, that gives us the +feeling that we are in the presence of a master of men, whatever +his limitations of period or personality. + +How delightful are the subsidiary characters in the book! One +such is Partridge, the unsophisticated schoolmaster who, when he +attends the theater with Tom and hears Garrick play "Hamlet," +thinks but poorly of the player because he only does what +anybody would do under the circumstances! All-worthy and Blifil +one may object to, each in his kind, for being conventionally +good and bad, but in numerous male characters in less important +roles there is compensation: the gypsy episode, for example, is +full of raciness and relish. And what a gallery of women we get +in the story: Mrs. Honour the maid, and Miss Western (who in +some sort suggests Mrs. Nickleby), Mrs. Miller, Lady Bellaston, +Mrs. Waters and other light-of-loves and dames of folly, whose +dubious doings are carried off with such high good humor that we +are inclined to overlook their misdeeds. There is a Chaucerian +freshness about it all: at times comes the wish that such talent +were used in a better cause. A suitable sub-title for the story, +would be: Or Life in The Tavern, so large a share do Inns have +in its unfolding. Fielding would have yielded hearty assent to +Dr. Johnson's dictum that a good inn stood for man's highest +felicity here below: he relished the wayside comforts of cup and +bed and company which they afford. + +"Tom Jones" quickly crossed the seas, was admired in foreign +lands. I possess a manuscript letter of Heine's dated from Mainz +in 1830, requesting a friend to send him this novel: the German +poet represents, in the request, the literary class which has +always lauded Fielding's finest effort, while the wayfaring man +who picks it up, also finds it to his liking. Thus it secures +and is safe in a double audience. Yet we must return to the +thought that such a work is strictly less significant in the +evolution of the modern Novel, because of its form, its +reversion to type, than the model established by a man like +Richardson, who is so much more restricted in gift. + +Fielding's fourth and final story, "Amelia," was given to the +world two years later, and but three years before his premature +death at Lisbon at the age of forty-nine--worn out by irregular +living and the vicissitudes of a career which had been checkered +indeed. He did strenuous work as a Justice these last years and +carried on an efficacious campaign against criminals: but the +lights were dimming, the play was nearly over. The pure gust of +life which runs rampant and riotous in the pages of "Tom Jones" +is tempered in "Amelia" by a quieter, sadder tone and a more +philosophic vision. It is in this way a less characteristic +work, for it was of Fielding's nature to be instantly responsive +to good cheer and the creature comforts of life. When she got +the news of his death, Lady Mary wrote of him: "His happy +constitution (even when he had, with great pains, half +demolished it) made him forget everything when he was before a +venison pastry or over a flask of champagne; and I am persuaded +he has known more happy moments than any prince upon earth. His +natural spirits gave him rapture with his cook-maid and +cheerfulness in a garret." Here is a kit-kat showing the man +indeed: all his fiction may be read in the light of it. The main +interest in "Amelia" is found in its autobiographical flavor, +for the story, in describing the fortunes--or rather +misfortunes--of Captain Booth and his wife, drew, it is pretty +certain, upon Fielding's own traits and to some extent upon the +incidents of his earlier life. The scenes where the Captain sets +up for a country gentleman with his horses and hounds and +speedily runs through his patrimony, is a transcript of his own +experience: and Amelia herself is a sort of memorial to his +well-beloved first wife (he had married for a second his honest, +good-hearted kitchen-maid), who out of affection must have +endured so much in daily contact with such a character as that +of her charming husband. In the novel, Mrs. Booth always +forgives, even as the Captain ever goes wrong. There would be +something sad in such a clear-eyed comprehension of one's own +weakness, if we felt compelled to accept the theory that he was +here drawing his own likeness; which must not be pushed too far, +for the Captain is one thing Fielding never was--to wit, stupid. +There is in the book much realism of scene and incident; but its +lack of animal spirits has always militated against the +popularity of "Amelia"; in fact, it is accurate to say that +Fielding's contemporary public, and the reading world ever +since, has confined its interest in his work to "Joseph Andrews" +and "Tom Jones." + +The pathos of his ending, dying in Portugal whither he had gone +on a vain quest for health, and his companionable qualities +whether as man or author, can but make him a more winsome figure +to us than proper little Mr. Richardson; and possibly this +feeling has affected the comparative estimates of the two +writers. One responds readily to the sentiment of Austin +Dobson's fine poem on Fielding: + +"Beneath the green Estrella trees, +No artist merely, but a man +Wrought on our noblest island-plan, +Sleeps with the alien Portuguese." + +And in the same way we are sympathetic with Thackeray in the +lecture on the English humorists: "Such a brave and gentle +heart, such an intrepid and courageous spirit, I love to +recognize in the manly, the English Harry Fielding." Imagine any +later critic calling Richardson "Sam!" It is inconceivable. + + * * * * * + +Such then were the two men who founded the English Novel, and +such their work. Unlike in many respects, both as personalities +and literary makers, they were, after all, alike in this: they +showed the feasibility of making the life of contemporary +society interesting in prose fiction. That was their great +common triumph and it remains the keynote of all the subsequent +development in fiction. They accomplished this, each in his own +way: Richardson by sensibility often degenerating into +sentimentality, and by analysis--the subjective method; Fielding +by satire and humor (often coarse, sometimes bitter) and the +wide envisagement of action and scene--the method objective. +Richardson exhibits a somewhat straitened propriety and a narrow +didactic tradesman's morality, with which we are now out of +sympathy. Fielding, on the contrary, with the abuse of his good +gift for tolerant painting of seamy human nature, gives way +often to an indulgence of the lower instincts of mankind which, +though faithfully reflecting his age, are none the less +unpleasant to modern taste. Both are men of genius, Fielding's +being the larger and more universal: nothing but genius could +have done such original things as were achieved by the two. +Nevertheless, set beside the great masters of fiction who were +to come, and who will be reviewed in these pages, they are seen +to have been excelled in art and at least equaled in gift and +power. So much we may properly claim for the marvelous growth +and ultimate degree of perfection attained by the best novel-makers +of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It remains now +to show what part was played in the eighteenth century +development by certain other novelists, who, while not of the +supreme importance of these two leaders, yet each and all +contributed to the shaping of the new fiction and did their +share in leaving it at the century's end a perfected instrument, +to be handled by a finished artist like Jane Austen. We must +take some cognizance, in special, of writers like Smollett and +Sterne and Goldsmith--potent names, evoking some of the +pleasantest memories open to one who browses in the rich meadow +lands of English literature. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +DEVELOPMENTS; SMOLLETT, STERNE AND OTHERS + +The popularity of Richardson and Fielding showed itself in a +hearty public welcome: and also in that sincerest form of +flattery, imitation. Many authors began to write the new +fiction. Where once a definite demand is recognized in +literature, the supply, more or less machine-made, is sure to +follow. + +In the short quarter of a century between "Pamela" and "The +Vicar of Wakefield," the Novel got its growth, passed out of +leading strings into what may fairly be called independence and +maturity: and by the time Goldsmith's charming little classic +was written, the shelves were comfortably filled with novels +recent or current, giving contemporary literature quite the air +so familiar to-day. Only a little later, we find the Gentleman's +Magazine, a trustworthy reporter of such matters, speaking of +"this novel-writing age." The words were written in 1773, a +generation after Richardson had begun the form. Still more +striking testimony, so far back as 1755, when Richardson's +maiden story was but a dozen years old, a writer in "The +Connoisseur" is facetiously proposing to establish a factory for +the fashioning of novels, with one, a master workman, to furnish +plots and subordinates to fill in the details--an anticipation +of the famous literary menage of Dumas pere. + +Although there was, under these conditions, inevitable imitation +of the new model, there was a deeper reason for the rapid +development. The time was ripe for this kind of fiction: it was +in the air, as we have already tried to suggest. Hence, other +fiction-makers began to experiment with the form, this being +especially true of Smollett. Out of many novelists, feeble or +truly called, a few of the most important must be mentioned. + + +I + +The Scotch-born Tobias Smollett published his first fiction, +"Roderick Random," eight years after "Pamela" had appeared, and +the year before "Tom Jones"; it was exactly contemporaneous with +"Clarissa Harlowe," A strict contemporary, then, with Richardson +and Fielding, he was also the ablest novelist aside from them, a +man whose work was most influential in the later development. It +is not unusual to dismiss him in a sentence as a coarser +Fielding. The characterization hits nearer the bull's eye than +is the rule with such sayings, and more vulgar than the greater +writer he certainly is, brutal where Fielding is vigorous: and +he exhibits and exaggerates the latter's tendencies to the +picaresque, the burlesque and the episodic. His fiction is of +the elder school in its loose fiber, its external method of +dealing with incident and character. There is little or nothing +in Smollett of the firm-knit texture and subjective analysis of +the moderns. Thus the resemblances are superficial, the +differences deeper-going and palpable. Smollett is often +violent, Fielding never: there is an impression of +cosmopolitanism in the former--a wider survey of life, if only +on the surface, is given in his books. By birth, Smollett was of +the gentry; but by the time he was twenty he had seen service as +Surgeon's Mate in the British navy, and his after career as Tory +Editor, at times in prison, literary man and traveler who +visited many lands and finally, like Fielding, died abroad in +Italy, was checkered enough to give him material and to spare +for the changeful bustle, so rife with action and excitement, of +his four principal stories. Like the American Cooper, he drew +upon his own experiences for his picture of the navy; and like a +later American, Dr. Holmes, was a physician who could speak by +the card of that side of life. + +Far more closely than Fielding he followed the "Gil Blas" model, +depending for interest primarily upon adventures by the way, +moving accidents by flood and field. He declares, in fact, his +intention to use Le Sage as a literary father and he translated +"Gil Blas." In striking contrast, too, with Fielding is the +interpretation of life one gets from his books; with the author +of "Tom Jones" we feel, what we do in greater degree with +Shakespeare and Balzac, that the personality of the fiction-maker +is healthily merged in his characters, in the picture of +life. But in the case of Dr. Smollett, there is a strongly +individual satiric bias: less of that largeness which sees the +world from an unimplicated coign of vantage, whence the open-eyed, +wise-minded spectator finds it a comedy breeding laughter +under thoughtful brows. We seem to be getting not so much scenes +of life as an author's setting of the scene for his own private +reasons. Such is at least the occasional effect of Smollett. +Also is there more of bitterness, of savagery in him: and where +Fielding was broad and racily frank in his handling of delicate +themes, this fellow is indecent with a kind of hardness and +brazenness which are amazing. The difference between plain-speaking +and unclean speaking could hardly be better +illustrated. It should be added, in justice, that even Smollett +is rarely impure with the alluring saliency of certain modern +fiction. + +In the first story, "The Adventures of Roderick Random" (the +cumbrous full titles of earlier fiction are for apparent reasons +frequently curtailed in the present treatment), published when +the author was twenty-seven, he avails himself of a residence of +some years in Jamaica to depict life in that quarter of the +world at a time when the local color had the charm of novelty. +The story is often credited with being autobiographic, as a +novelist's first book is likely to be; since, by popular belief, +there is one story in all of us, namely, our own. Its +description of the hero's hard knocks does, indeed, suggest the +fate of a man so stormily quarrelsome throughout his days: for +this red-headed Scot, this "hack of genius," as Henley +picturesquely calls him, was naturally a fighting man and, +whether as man or author, attacks or repels sharply: there is +nothing uncertain in the effect he makes. His loud vigor is as +pronounced as that of a later Scot like Carlyle; yet he stated +long afterward that the likeness between himself and Roderick +was slight and superficial. The fact that the tale is written in +the first person also helps the autobiographic theory: that +method of story-making always lends a certain credence to the +narrative. The scenes shift from western Scotland to the streets +of London, thence to the West Indies: and the interest (the +remark applies to all Smollett's work) lies in just three +things--adventure, diversity of character, and the realistic +picture of contemporary life--especially that of the navy on a +day when, if Smollett is within hailing distance of the facts, +it was terribly corrupt. Too much credit can hardly be given him +for first using, so effectively too, the professional sea-life +of his country: a motive so richly productive since through +Marryat down to Dana, Herman Melville, Clark Russell and many +other favorite writers, both British and American. In Smollett's +hands, it is a strange muddle of religion, farce and smut, but +set forth with a vivid particularity and a gusto f high spirits +which carry the reader along, willy-nilly. Such a book might be +described by the advertisement of an old inn: "Here is +entertainment for man and beast." As to characterization, if a +genius for it means the creation of figures which linger in the +familiar memory of mankind, Smollett must perforce be granted +the faculty; here in his first book are Tom Bowling and Strap--to +name two--the one (like Richardson's Lovelace) naming a type: +the other standing for the country innocent, the meek fidus +Achates, both as good as anything of the same class in Fielding. +The Welsh mate, Mr. Morgan, for another of the sailor sort, is +also excellent. The judgment may be eccentric, but for myself +the character parts in Smollett's dramas seem for variety and +vividness often superior to those of Fielding. The humor at its +best is very telling. The portraits, or caricatures, of living +folk added to the story's immediate vogue, but injure it as a +permanent contribution to fiction. + +A fair idea of the nature of the attractions offered (and at the +same time a clear indication of the sort of fiction manufactured +by the doughty doctor) may be gleaned from the following +precis--Smollett's own--of Chapter XXXVIII: "I get up and crawl +into a barn where I am in danger of perishing through the fear of +the country people. Their inhumanity. I am succored by a reputed +witch. Her story. Her advice. She recommends me as a valet to a +single lady whose character she explains." This promises pretty +fair reading: of course, we wish to read on and to learn more of +that single lady and the hero's relation to her. Such a motive, +which might be called, "The Mistakes of a Night," with details +too crude and physical to allow of discussion, is often +overworked by Smollett (as, in truth, it is by Fielding, to +modern taste): the eighteenth century had not yet given up the +call of the Beast in its fiction--an element of bawdry was still +welcome in the print offered reputable folk. + +The style of Smollett in his first fiction, and in general, has +marked dramatic flavor: his is a gift of forthright phrase, a +plain, vernacular smack characterizes his diction. To go back to +him now is to be surprised perhaps at the racy vigor of so +faulty a writer and novelist. A page or so of Smollett, after a +course in present-day popular fiction, reads very much like a +piece of literature. In this respect, he seems full of flavor, +distinctly of the major breed: there is an effect of passing +from attenuated parlor tricks into the open, when you take him +up. Here, you can but feel, is a masculine man of letters, even +if it is his fate to play second fiddle to Fielding. + +Smollett's initial story was a pronounced success with the +public--and he aired an arrogant joy and pooh-poohed +insignificant rivals like Fielding. His hand was against every +man's when it came to the question of literary prowess; and like +many authors before and since, one of his first acts upon the +kind reception of "Roderick Random," was to get published his +worthless blank-verse tragedy, "The Regicide," which, refused by +Garrick, had till then languished in manuscript and was an ugly +duckling beloved of its maker. Then came Novel number two, "The +Adventures of Peregrine Pickle," three years after the first: an +unequal book, best at its beginning and end, full of violence, +not on the whole such good art-work as the earlier fiction, yet +very fine in spots and containing such additional sea-dogs as +Commodore Trunnion and Lieutenant Hatchway, whose presence makes +one forgive much. The original preface contained a scurrilous +reference to Fielding, against whom he printed a diatribe in a +pamphlet dated the next year. The hero of the story, a handsome +ne'er-do-well who has money and position to start the world +with, encounters plenty of adventure in England and out of it, +by land and sea. There is an episodic book, "Memoirs, supposed +to be written by a lady of quality," and really giving the +checkered career of Lady Vane, a fast gentlewoman of the time, +done for pay at her request, which is illustrative of the loose +state of fictional art in its unrelated, lugged-in character: +and as well of eighteenth century morals in its drastic details. +We have seen that Fielding was frankly episodic in handling a +story; Smollett goes him one better: as may most notoriously be +seen also in the unmentionable Miss Williams' story in "Roderick +Random"--in fact, throughout his novels. Pickle, to put it +mildly, is not an admirable young man. An author's conception of +his hero is always in some sort a give-away: it expresses his +ideals; that Smollett's are sufficiently low-pitched, may be +seen here. Plainly, to, he likes Peregrine, and not so much +excuses his failings as overlooks them entirely. + +After a two years' interval came "The Adventures of Ferdinand, +Count Fathom," which was not liked by his contemporaries and is +now seen to be definitely the poorest of the quartette. It is +enough to say of it that Fathom is an unmitigable scoundrel and +the story, mixed romance and melodrama, offers the reader dust +and ashes instead of good red blood. It lacks the comic verve of +Smollett's typical fiction and manipulates virtue and vice in +the cut-and-dried style of the penny-dreadful. Even its attempts +at the sensational leave the modern reader, bred on such +heavenly fare as is proffered by Stevenson and others, +indifferent-cold. + +It is a pleasure to turn from it to what is generally conceded +to be the best novel he wrote, as it is his last: "The +Expedition of Humphrey Clinker," which appeared nearly twenty +years later, when the author was fifty years old. "The +Adventures of Sir Launcelot Graves," written in prison a decade +earlier, and a poor satire in the vein of Cervantes, can be +ignored, it falls so much below Smollett's main fiction. He had +gone for his health's sake to Italy and wrote "Humphrey Clinker" +at Leghorn, completing it only within a few weeks of his death. +For years he had been degenerating as a writer, his physical +condition was of the worst: it looked as if his life was quite +over. Yet, by a sort of leaping-up of the creative flame out of +the dying embers of the hearth, he wrought his masterpiece. + +It was thrown into letter form, Richardson's framework, and has +all of Smollett's earlier power of characterization and brusque +wit, together with a more genial, mellower tone, that of an +older man not soured but ripened by the years. Some of its main +scenes are enacted in his native Scotland and possibly this +meant strength for another Scot, as it did for Sir Walter and +Stevenson. The kinder interpretation of humanity in itself makes +the novel better reading to later taste; so much can not +honestly be said for its plain speaking, for as Henley says in +language which sounds as if it were borrowed from the writer he +is describing, "the stinks and nastinesses are done with +peculiar gusto." The idea of the story, as usual a pivot around +which to revolve a series of adventures, is to narrate how a +certain bachelor, country gentleman, Matthew Bramble, a malade +imaginaire, yet good-hearted and capable of big laughter--"the +most risible misanthrope ever met with," as he is limned by one +of the persons of the story--travels in England, Wales and +Scotland in pursuit of health, taking with him his family, of +whom the main members include his sister, Tabitha (and her maid, +Jenkins), and his nephew, not overlooking the dog, Chowder. +Clinker, who names the book, is a subsidiary character, merely a +servant in Bramble's establishment. The crotchety Bramble and +his acidulous sister, who is a forerunner of Mrs. Malaprop in +the unreliability of her spelling, and Lieutenant Lishmahago, +who has been complimented as the first successful Scotchman in +fiction--all these are sketched with a verity and in a vein of +genuine comic invention which have made them remembered. +Violence, rage, filth--Smollett's besetting sins--are forgotten +or forgiven in a book which has so much of the flavor and +movement of life, The author's medical lore is made good use of +in the humorous descriptions of poor Bramble's ailments. +Incidentally, the story defends the Scotch against the English +in such a pronounced way that Walpole calls it a "part novel"; +and there is, moreover, a pleasant love story interwoven with +the comedy and burlesque. One feels in leaving this fiction that +with all allowance for his defects, there is more danger of +undervaluing the author's powers and place in the modern Novel +than the reverse. + +Fielding and Smollett together set the pace for the Novel of +blended incident and character: both were, as sturdy realists, +reactionary from the sentimental analysis of Richardson and +express an instinct contrary to the self-conscious pathos of a +Sterne or the idyllic romanticism of a Goldsmith. Both were +directly of influence upon the Novel's growth in the nineteenth +century: Fielding especially upon Thackeray, Smollett upon +Dickens. If Smollett had served the cause in no other way than +in his strong effect upon the author of "The Pickwick Papers," +he would deserve well of all critics: how the little Copperfield +delighted in that scant collection of books on his father's +bookshelf, where were "Roderick Random," "Peregrine Pickle" and +"Humphrey Clinker," along with "Tom Jones," "The Vicar of +Wakefield," "Gil Blas" and "Robinson Crusoe"--"a glorious host," +says he, "to keep me company. They kept alive my fancy and my +hope of something beyond that time and place." And of Smollett's +characters, who seem to have charmed him more than Fielding's, +he declares: "I have seen Tom Pipes go clambering up the +church-steeple: I have watched Strap with the knapsack on his back +stopping to rest himself upon the wicket gate: and I know that +Commodore Trunnion held that Club with Mr. Pickle in the parlor +of our little village ale house." Children are shrewd critics, +in their way, and what an embryo Charles Dickens likes in +fiction is not to be slighted. But as we have seen, Smollett can +base his claims to our sufferance not by indirection through +Dickens, but upon his worth; many besides the later and greater +novelist have a liking for this racy writer of adventure, and +creator of English types, who was recognized by Walter Scott as +of kin to the great in fiction. + + +II + +In the fast-developing fiction of the late eighteenth century, +the possible ramifications of the Novel from the parent tree of +Richardson enriched it with the work of Sterne, Swift and +Goldsmith. They added imaginative narratives of one sort or +another, which increased the content of the form by famous +things and exercised some influence in shaping it. The remark +has in mind "Tristram Shandy," "Gulliver's Travels" and "The +Vicar of Wakefield." And yet, no one of the three was a Novel in +the sense in which the evolution of the word has been traced, +nor yet are the authors strictly novelists. + +Laurence Sterne, at once man of the world and clergyman, with +Rabelais as a model, and himself a master of prose, possessing +command of humor and pathos, skilled in character sketch and +essay-philosophy, is not a novelist at all. His aim Is not to +depict the traits or events of contemporary society, but to put +forth the views of the Reverend Laurence Sterne, Yorkshire +parson, with many a quaint turn and whimsical situation under a +thin disguise of story-form. Of his two books, "Tristram Shandy" +and "The Sentimental Journey," unquestionable classics, both, in +their field, there is no thought of plot or growth or objective +realization: the former is a delightful tour de force in which a +born essayist deals with the imaginary fortunes of a person he +makes as interesting before his birth as after it, and in +passing, sketches some characters dear to posterity: first and +foremost, Uncle Toby and Corporal Trim. It is all pure play of +wit, fancy and wisdom, beneath the comic mask--a very frolic of +the mind. In the second book the framework is that of the +travel-sketch and the treatment more objective: a fact which, +along with its dubious propriety, may account for its greater +popularity. But much of the charm comes, as before, from the +writer's touch, his gift of style and ability to unloose in the +essay manner a unique individuality. + +In his life Sterne, like Swift, exhibited most un-clerical +traits of worldliness and in his work there is the refined, +suggestive indelicacy, not to say indecency, which we are in the +habit nowadays of charging against the French, and which is so +much worse than the bluff, outspoken coarseness of a Fielding or +a Smollett. At times the line between Sterne and Charles Lamb is +not so easy to draw in that, from first to last, the elder is an +essayist and humorist, while the younger has so much of the +eighteenth century in his feeling and manner. In these modern +times, when so many essayists appear in the guise of fiction-makers, +we can see that Sterne is really the leader of the +tribe: and it is not hard to show how neither he nor they are +novelists divinely called. They (and he) may be great, but it is +another greatness. The point is strikingly illustrated by the +statement that Sterne was eight years publishing the various +parts of "Tristram Shandy," and a man of forty-six when he began +to do so. Bona fide novels are not thus written. Constructively, +the work is a mad farrago; but the end quite justifies the +means. Thus, while his place in letters is assured, and the +touch of the cad in him (Goldsmith called him "the blackguard +parson") should never blind us to his prime merits, his +significance for our particular study--the study of the modern +Novel in its development--is comparatively slight. Like all +essayists of rank he left memorable passages: the world never +tires of "God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb," and pays it +the high compliment of ascribing it to holy writ: nor will the +scene where the recording angel blots out Uncle Toby's generous +oath with a tear, fade from the mind; nor that of the same +kindly gentleman letting go the big fly which has, to his +discomfiture, been buzzing about his nose at dinner: "'Go,' says +he, lifting up the latch and opening his hand as he spoke to let +it escape. 'Go, poor devil, get thee gone, why should I hurt +thee? The world surely is wide enough to hold both thee and +me'"--a touch so modern as to make Sterne seem a century later +than Fielding. These are among the precious places of +literature. This eighteenth century divine has in advance of his +day the subtler sensibility which was to grow so strong in later +fiction: and if he be sentimental too, he gives us a +sentimentality unlike the solemn article of Richardson, because +of its French grace and its relief of delicious humor. + + +III + +Swift chronologically precedes Sterne, for in 1726, shortly +after "Robinson Crusoe" and a good fifteen years before +"Pamela," he gave the world that unique lucubration, "Gulliver's +Travels," allegory, satire and fairy story all in one. It is +certainly anything but a novel. One of the giants of English +letters, doing many things and exhibiting a sardonic personality +that seems to peer through all his work, Swift's contribution to +the coming Novel was above all the use of a certain grave, +realistic manner of treating the impossible: a service, however, +shared with Defoe. He gives us in a matter-of-fact chronicle +style the marvelous happenings of Gulliver in Lilliputian land +or in that of the Brobdingnagians. He and Defoe are to be +regarded as pioneers who suggested to the literary world, just +before the Novel's advent, that the attraction of a new form and +a new method, the exploitation of the truth that, "The proper +study of mankind is man," could not (and should not) kill the +love of romance, for the good and sufficient reason that romance +meant imagination, illusion, charm, poetry. And in due season, +after the long innings enjoyed by realism with its triumphs of +analysis and superfaithful transcriptions of the average life of +man, we shall behold the change of mood which welcomes back the +older appeal of fiction. + + +IV + +It was the enlargement of this sense of romance which Oliver +Goldsmith gave his time in that masterpiece in small, "The Vicar +of Wakefield": his special contribution to the plastic +variations connected with the growing pains of the Novel. +Whether regarded as poet, essayist, dramatist or story-maker, +Dr. Goldsmith is one of the best-loved figures of English +letters, as Swift is one of the most terrible. And these lovable +qualities are nowhere more conspicuous than in the idyllic +sketch of the country clergyman and his family. Romance it +deserves to be called, because of the delicate idealization in +the setting and in the portrayal of the Vicar himself--a man who +not only preached God's love, "but first he followed it +himself." And yet the book--which, by the bye, was published in +1766 just as the last parts of "Tristram Shandy" were appearing +in print--offers a good example of the way in which the more +romantic depiction of life, in the hands of a master, inevitably +blends with realistic details, even with a winning truthfulness +of effect. Some of the romantic charm of "The Vicar of +Wakefield," we must remember, inheres in its sympathetic +reproduction of vanished manners, etiquette and social grace; a +sweet old-time grace, a fragrance out of the past, emanates from +the memory of it if read half a lifetime ago. An elder age is +rehabilitated for us by its pages, even as it is by the canvases +of Romney and Sir Joshua. And with this more obvious romanticism +goes the deeper romanticism that comes from the interpretation +of humanity, which assumes it to be kindly and gentle and noble +in the main. Life, made up of good and evil as it is, is, +nevertheless, seen through this affectionate time-haze, worth +the living. Whatever their individual traits, an air of country +peace and innocence hovers over the Primrose household: the +father and mother, the girls, Olivia and Sophia, and the two +sons, George and Moses, they all seem equally generous, +credulous and good. We feel that the author is living up to a +announcement in the opening chapter which of itself is a sort of +promise of the idealized treatment of poor human nature. But +into this pretty and perfect scene of domestic felicity come +trouble and disgrace: the serpent creeps into the unsullied +nest, the villain, Thorn-hill, ruins Olivia, their house burns, +and the softhearted, honorable father is haled to prison. There +is no blinking the darker side of mortal experience. And the +prison scenes, with their noble teaching with regard to penal +punishment, showing Goldsmith far in advance of his age, add +still further to the shadows. Yet the idealization is there, +like an atmosphere, and through it all, shining and serene, is +Dr. Primrose to draw the eye to the eternal good. We smile +mayhap at his simplicity but note at the same time that his +psychology is sound: the influence of his sermonizing upon the +jailbirds is true to experience often since tested. Nor are +satiric side-strokes in the realistic vein wanting--as in the +drawing of such a high lady of quality as Miss Carolina +Wilhelmina Amelia Skeggs--the very name sending our thoughts +forward to Thackeray. In the final analysis it will be found +that what makes the work a romance is its power to quicken the +sense of the attraction, the beauty of simple goodness through +the portrait of a noble man whose environment is such as best to +bring out his qualities. Dr. Primrose is humanity, if not +actual, potential: he can be, if he never was. A helpful +comparison might be instituted between Goldsmith's country +clergyman and Balzac's country doctor in the novel of that name; +another notable attempt at the idealization of a typical man of +one of the professions. It would bring out the difference +between the late eighteenth and the middle nineteenth centuries, +as well as that between a great novelist, Balzac, and a great +English writer, Goldsmith, who yet is not a novelist at all. It +should detract no whit from one's delight in such a work as "The +Vicar of Wakefield" to acknowledge that its aim is not to depict +society as it then existed, but to give a pleasurable abstract +of human nature for the purpose of reconciling us through art +with life, when lived so sanely, simply and sweetly as by +Primrose of gentle memory. Seldom has the divine quality of the +forgiveness of sins been portrayed with more salutary effect +than in the scene where the erring and errant Olivia is taken +back to the heart of her father--just as the hard-headed +landlady would drive her forth with the words: + + "'Out I say! Pack out this moment! tramp, thou impudent + strumpet, or I'll give thee a mark that won't be better for + this three months. What! you trumpery, to come and take up + an honest house without cross or coin to bless yourself + with! Come along, I say.' + + "I flew to her rescue while the woman was dragging her along + by her hair, and I caught the dear forlorn wretch in my + arms. 'Welcome, anyway welcome, my dearest lost one, my + treasure, to your poor old father's bosom. Though the + vicious forsake thee, there is yet one in the world who + will never forsake thee; though thou hadst ten thousand + crimes to answer for, he will forget them all!'" + + +Set beside this father the fathers of Clarissa and Sophia +Western, and you have the difference between the romance and +realism that express opposite moods; the mood that shows the +average and the mood that shows the best. For portraiture, then, +rather than plot, for felicity of manner and sweetness of +interpretation we praise such a work;--qualities no less +precious though not so distinctively appertaining to the Novel. + +It may be added, for a minor point, that the Novel type as +already developed had assumed a conventional length which would +preclude "The Vicar of Wakefield" from its category, making it a +sketch or novelette. The fiction-makers rapidly came to realize +that for their particular purpose--to portray a complicated +piece of contemporary life--more leisurely movement and hence +greater space are necessary to the best result. To-day any +fiction under fifty thousand words would hardly be called a +novel in the proper sense,--except in publishers' +advertisements. Goldsmith's story does not exceed such limits. + +Therefore, although we may like it all the more because it is a +romantic sketch rather than a novel proper, we must grant that +its share in the eighteenth century shaping of the form is but +ancillary. The fact that the book upon its appearance awakened +no such interest as waited upon the fiction of Richardson or +Fielding a few years before, may be taken to mean that the taste +was still towards the more photographic portrayals of average +contemporary humanity. Several editions, to be sure, were issued +the year of its publication, but without much financial success, +and contemporary criticism found little remarkable in this +permanent contribution to English literature. Later, it was +beloved both of the elect and the general. Goethe's testimony to +the strong and wholesome effect of the book upon him in his +formative period, is remembered. Dear old Dr. Johnson too +believed in the story, for, summoned to Goldsmith's lodging by +his friend's piteous appeal for help, he sends a guinea in +advance and on arrival there, finds his colleague in high choler +because, forsooth, his landlady has arrested him for his rent: +whereupon Goldsmith (who had already expended part of the guinea +in a bottle of Madeira) displays a manuscript,--"a novel ready +for the press," as we read in Boswell; and Johnson--"I looked +into it and saw its merit," says he--goes out and sells it for +sixty pounds, whereupon Goldsmith paid off his obligation, and +with his mercurial Irish nature had a happy evening, no doubt, +with his chosen cronies! It is a sordid, humorous-tragic Grub +Street beginning for one of the little immortals of letters--so +many of which, alack! have a similar birth. + +Certain other authors less distinguished than these, produced +fiction of various kinds which also had some influence in the +development, and further illustrate the tendency of the Novel to +become a pliable medium for literary expression; a sort of net +wherein divers fish might be caught. Dr. Johnson, essayist, +critic, coffee-house dictator, published the same year that +Sterne's "Tristram Shandy" began to appear, his "Rasselas, +Prince of Abyssinia"; a stately elegiac on the vanity of human +pleasures, in which the Prince leaves his idyllic home and goes +into the world to test its shams, only to return to his kingdom +with the sad knowledge that it is the better part of wisdom in +this vale of tears to prepare for heaven. Of course this is +fiction only in seeming and by courtesy, almost as far removed +from the Novel as the same author's mammoth dictionary or Lives +of the Poets. It has Richardson's method of moralizing, while +lacking that writer's power of studying humanity in its social +relations. The sturdy genius of Dr. Johnson lay in quite other +directions. + +Richardson's sentimentality, too, was carried on by MacKenzie in +his "Man of Feeling" already mentioned as the favorite +tear-begetter of its time, the novel which made the most prolonged +attack upon the lachrymosal gland. But it is only fair to this +author to add that there was a welcome note of philanthropy in +his story--in spite of its mawkishness; his appeal for the under +dog in great cities is a forecast of the humanitarianism to +become rampant in later fiction. + +Again, the seriousness which has always, in one guise or the +other, underlain English fiction, soon crystalized in the +contemporary eighteenth century novelists into an attempt to +preach this or that by propaganda in story-form. William Godwin, +whose relations as father-in-law to Shelley gives him a not +altogether agreeable place in our memory, was a leader in this +tendency with several fictions, the best known and most readable +being "Caleb Williams": radical ideas, social, political and +religious, were mooted by half a dozen earnest-souled authors +whose works are now regarded as links in the chain of +development--missing links for most readers of fiction, since +their literary quality is small. In later days, this kind of +production was to be called purpose fiction and condemned or +applauded according to individual taste and the esthetic and +vital value of the book. When the moralizing overpowered all +else, we get a book like that friend of childhood, "Sanford and +Merton," which Thomas Day perpetrated in the year of grace 1783. +Few properly reared boys of a generation ago escaped this +literary indiscretion: its Sunday School solemnity, its +distribution of life's prizes according to the strictest moral +tests, had a sort of bogey fascination; it was much in vogue +long after Day's time, indeed down to within our own memories. +Perhaps it is still read and relished in innocent corners of the +earth.. In any case it is one of the outcomes of the movement +just touched upon. + +At present, being more ennuye in our tastes for fiction than +were our forefathers, and the pretence of piety being less a +convention, we incline to insist more firmly that the pill at +least be sugar-coated,--if indeed we submit to physic at all. + +There was also a tendency during the second half of the +eighteenth century--very likely only half serious and hardly +more than a literary fad--toward the romance of mystery and +horror. Horace Walpole, the last man on earth from whom one +would expect the romantic and sentimental, produced in his +"Castle of Otranto" such a book; and Mrs. Radcliffe's "The +Mystery of Udolpho" (standing for numerous others) manipulated +the stage machinery of this pseudo-romantic revival and +reaction; moonlit castles, medieval accessories, weird sounds +and lights at the dread midnight hour,--an attack upon the +reader's nerves rather than his sensibilities, much the sort of +paraphernalia employed with a more spiritual purpose and effect +in our own day by the dramatist, Maeterlinck. Beckford's +"Vathek" and Lewis' "The Monk" are variations upon this theme, +which for a while was very popular and is decidedly to be seen +in the work of the first novelist upon American soil, Charles +Brockden Brown, whose somber "Wieland," read with the Radcliffe +school in mind, will reveal its probable parentage. We have seen +how the movement was happily satirized by its natural enemy, +Jane Austen. Few more enjoyable things can be quoted than this +conversation from "Northanger Abbey" between two typical young +ladies of the time:-- + + 'But, my dearest Catherine, what have you been doing with + yourself all this morning? Have you gone on with Udolpho?' + + 'Yes, I have been reading it ever since I woke; and I am + got to the black veil.' + + 'Are you, indeed? How delightful! Oh! I would not tell you + what is behind the black veil for the world! Are you not + wild to know?' + + 'Oh! yes, quite; what can it be? But do not tell me; I + would not be told upon any account. I know it must be a + skeleton; I am sure it is Laurentina's skeleton. Oh! I am + delighted with the book! I should like to spend my whole + life in reading it, I assure you; if it had not been to + meet you, I would not have come away from it for all the + world.' + + 'Dear creature! how much I am obliged to you; and when you + have finished Udolpho, we will read the Italian together; + and I have made out a list of ten or twelve more of the + same kind for you.' + + 'Have you, indeed! How glad I am! What are they all?' + + 'I will read you their names directly; here they are in my + pocket-book. "Castle of Wolfenbach," "Clermont," + "Mysterious Warnings," "Necromancer of the Black Forest," + "Midnight Bell," "Orphan of the Rhine," and "Horrid Mysteries." + Those will last us some time.' + + 'Yes; pretty well; but are they all horrid? Are you sure + they are all horrid?' + + 'Yes, quite sure; for a particular friend of mine, a Miss + Andrews, a sweet girl, one of the sweetest creatures in the + world, has read every one of them.' + + +After all, human nature is constant, independent of time; and +fashions social, mental, literary, return like fashions in +feminine headgear! Two club women were coming from a city play +house after hearing a particularly lugubrious drama of Ibsen's, +and one was overheard exclaiming to the other: "O isn't Ibsen +just lovely! He does so take the hope out of life!" + +Yet the tendency of eighteenth century fiction, with its +handling of the bizarre and sensational, its use of occult +effects of the Past and Present, was but an eddy in a current +which was setting strong and steadily toward the realistic +portrayal of contemporary society. + +One other tendency, expressive of a lighter mood, an attempt to +represent society a la mode, is also to be noted during this +half century so crowded with interesting manifestations of a new +spirit; and they who wrote it were mostly women. It is a +remarkable fact that for the fifty years between Sterne and +Scott, the leading novelists were of that sex, four of whom at +least, Burney, Radcliffe, Edgeworth and Austen, were of +importance. Of this group the lively Fanny Burney is the +prophet; she is the first woman novelist of rank. Her "Evelina," +with its somewhat starched gentility and simpering sensibility, +was once a book to conjure with; it fluttered the literary +dovecotes in a way not so easy to comprehend to-day. Yet Dr. +Johnson loved his "little Burney" and greatly admired her work, +and there are entertaining and without question accurate +pictures of the fashionable London at the time of the American +Revolution drawn by an observer of the inner circle, in her +"Evelina" and "Cecilia"; one treasures them for their fresh +spirit and lively humor, nor looks in them for the more serious +elements of good fiction. She contributes, modestly, to that +fiction to which we go for human documents. No one who has been +admitted to the privileges of Miss Burney's Diary can fail to +feel that a woman who commands such idiom is easily an adept in +the realistic dialogue of the novel. Here, even more than in her +own novels or those of Richardson and Fielding, we hear the +exact syllable and intonation of contemporary speech. "Mr. +Cholmondeley is a clergyman," she writes, "nothing shining +either in person or manners but rather somewhat grim in the +first and glum in the last." And again: "Our confab was +interrupted by the entrance of Mr. King," or yet again: "The +joke is, the people speak as if they were afraid of me, instead +of my being afraid of them.... Next morning, Mrs. Thrale asked +me if I did not want to see Mrs. Montagu? I truly said I should +be the most insensible of animals not to like to see our sex's +glory." It is hard to realize that this was penned in the +neighborhood of one hundred and fifty years ago, so modern is +its sound. + +A great writer, with a wider scope and a more incisive satire, +is Maria Edgeworth, whose books take us over into the nineteenth +century. The lighter, more frivolous aspects of English high +society are admirably portrayed in her "Belinda" and eight or +ten other tales: and she makes a still stronger claim to +permanent remembrance in such studies of Irish types, whether in +England or on the native soil, as "The Absentee" and "Castle +Rackrent." I venture the statement that even the jaded novel +reader of to-day will find on a perusal of either of these +capital stories that Miss Edgeworth makes literature, and that a +pleasure not a penance is in store. She first in English fiction +exploited the better-class Irishman at home and her scenes have +historic value. Some years later, Susan Ferrier, who enjoyed the +friendship of Scott, wrote under the stimulus of Maria +Edgeworth's example a series of clever studies of Scotch life, +dashed with decided humor and done with true observation. + +These women, with their quick eye and facile ability to report +what they saw, and also their ease of manner which of itself +seems like a social gift, were but the prelude to the work so +varied, gifted and vastly influential, which the sex was to do +in the modern Novel; so that, at present, in an open field and +no favors given, they are honorable rivals of men, securing +their full share of public favor. And the English Novel, written +by so many tentatively during these fifty years when the form +was a-shaping, culminates at the turn of the century in two +contrasted authors compared with whom all that went before seems +but preparatory; one a man, the other a woman, who together +express and illustrate most conveniently for this study the main +movements of modern fiction,--romance and realism,--the instinct +for truth and the instinct for beauty; not necessarily an +antagonism, as we shall have ample occasion to see, since truth, +rightly defined, is only "beauty seen from another side." It +hardly needs to add that these two novelists are Jane Austen and +Walter Scott. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +REALISM: JANE AUSTEN + +It has been said that Miss Austen came nearer to showing life as +it is,--the life she knew and chose to depict,--than any other +novelist of English race. In other words, she is a princess +among the truth-tellers. Whether or not this claim can be +substantiated, it is sure that, writing practically half a +century after Richardson and Fielding, she far surpassed those +pioneers in the exquisite and easy verisimilitude of her art. +Nay, we can go further and say that nobody has reproduced life +with a more faithful accuracy, that yet was not photography +because it gave the pleasure proper to art, than this same Jane +Austen, spinster, well-born and well-bred: in her own phrase, an +"elegant female" of the English past. Scott's famous remark can +not be too often quoted: "That young lady had a talent for +describing the movements and feelings of characters of ordinary +life, which is to me the most wonderful I ever met with." + +If you look on the map at the small Southern county of +Hampshire, you will see that the town of Steventon lies hard by +Selborne, another name which the naturalist White has made +pleasant to the ear. Throughout her forty-two years of life--she +was born the year of American revolution and died shortly after +Scott had begun his Waverley series--she was a country-woman in +the best sense: a clergyman's daughter identified with her +neighborhood, dignified and private in her manner of existence, +her one sensational outing being a four years' residence in the +fashionable watering-place of Bath, where Beau Nash once reigned +supreme and in our day, Beaucaire has been made to rebuke Lady +Mary Carlisle for her cold patrician pride. Quiet she lived and +died, nor was she reckoned great in letters by her +contemporaries. She wrote on her lap with others in the room, +refused to take herself seriously and in no respect was like the +authoress who is kodaked at the writing-desk and chronicled in +her movements by land and sea. She was not the least bit +"literary." Fanny Burney, who had talent to Jane Austen's +genius, was in a blaze of social recognition, a petted darling +of the town, where the other walked in rural ways and unnoted of +the world, wrote novels that were to make literary history. Such +are the revenges of the whirligig, Time. + +Austen's indestructible reputation is founded on half a dozen +pieces of fiction: the best, and best known, "Sense and +Sensibility" and "Pride and Prejudice," although "Mansfield +Park," "Emma," "Northanger Abbey" and "Persuasion" (in order of +publication but not of actual composition) are all of importance +to the understanding and enjoyment of her, and her evenness of +performance, on the whole, is remarkable. The earlier three of +these books were written by Miss Austen when a young woman In +the twenties, but published much later, and were anonymous--an +indication of her tendency to take her authorship as an aside. +Two of them appeared posthumously. Curiously, "Northanger +Abbey," that capital hit at the Radcliffe romanticism, and first +written of her stories, was disposed of to a publisher when the +writer was but three and twenty, yet was not printed until she +had passed away nearly twenty years later,--a sufficient proof +of her unpopularity from the mercantile point of view. + +Here is one of the paradoxes of literature: this gentlewoman +dabbling in a seemingly amateur fashion in letters, turns out to +be the ablest novelist of her sex and race, one of the very few +great craftsmen, one may say, since art is no respector of sex. +Jane Austen is the best example in the whole range of English +literature of the wisdom of knowing your limitations and +cultivating your own special plot of ground. She offers a +permanent rebuke to those who (because of youth or a failure to +grasp the meaning of life) fancy that the only thing worth while +lies on the other side of the Pyrenees; when all the while at +one's own back-door blooms the miracle. She had a clear-eyed +comprehension of her own restrictions; and possessed that power +of self-criticism which some truly great authors lack. She has +herself given us the aptest comment ever made on her books: +speaking of the "little bit of ivory two inches wide on which +she worked with a brush so fine as to produce little effect +after much labor";--a judgment hardly fair as to the interest +she arouses, but nevertheless absolutely descriptive of the plus +and minus of her gift. + +Miss Austen knew the genteel life of the upper middle class +Hampshire folk, "the Squirearchy and the upper professional +class," as Professor Saintsbury expresses it, down to the +ground--knew it as a sympathetic onlooker slightly detached (she +never married), yet not coldly aloof but a part of it as devoted +sister and maiden aunt, and friend-in-general to the community. +She could do two things which John Ruskin so often lauded as +both rare and difficult: see straight and then report +accurately; a literary Pre-Raphaelite, be it noted, before the +term was coined. It not only came natural to her to tell the +truth about average humanity as she saw it; she could not be +deflected from her calling. Winning no general recognition +during her life-time, she was not subjected to the temptations +of the popular novelist; but she had her chance to go wrong, for +it is recorded how that the Librarian to King George the Third, +an absurd creature yclept Clark, informed the authoress that his +Highness admired her works, and suggested that in view of the +fact that Prince Leonard was to marry the Princess Charlotte, +Miss Austen should indite "An historical romance illustrative of +the august house of Coburg." To which, Miss Jane, with a humor +and good-sense quite in character (and, it may be feared, not +appreciated by the recipient): "I could not sit down to write a +serious romance under any other motive than amusement to save my +life; and if it were indispensable for me to keep it up, and +never relax into laughter at myself and other people, I am sure +I should be hung before I had finished the first chapter. No, I +must keep to my own style and go on in my own way." + +There is scarce a clearer proof of genius than this ability to +strike out a path and keep to it: in striking contrast with the +weak wobbling so often shown in the desire to follow literary +fashion or be complaisant before the suggestion of the merchants +of letters. + +All her novels are prophetic of what was long to rule, in their +slight framework of fable; the handling of the scenes by the +way, the characterization, the natural dialogue, the +vraisemblance of setting, the witty irony of observation, these +are the elements of interest. Jane Austen's plots are mere +tempests in tea-pots; yet she does not go to the extreme of the +plotless fiction of the present. She has a story to tell, as +Trollope would say, and knows how to tell it in such a way as to +subtract from it every ounce of value. There is a clear kernel +of idea in each and every one of her tales. Thus, in "Sense and +Sensibility," we meet two sisters who stand for the +characteristics contrasted in the title, and in the fortunes of +Mariane, whose flighty romanticism is cured so that she makes a +sensible marriage after learning the villainy of her earlier +lover and finding that foolish sentimentalism may well give way +to the informing experiences of life,--the thesis, satirically +conveyed though with more subtlety than in the earlier +"Northanger Abbey," proclaims the folly of young-girl +sentimentality and hysteria. In "Pride and Prejudice," ranked by +many as her masterpiece, Darcy, with his foolish hauteur, his +self-consciousness of superior birth, is temporarily blind to +the worth of Elizabeth, who, on her part, does not see the good +in him through her sensitiveness to his patronizing attitude; as +the course of development brings them together in a happy union, +the lesson of toleration, of mutual comprehension, sinks into +the mind. The reader realizes the pettiness of the worldly +wisdom which blocks the way of joy. As we have said, "Northanger +Abbey" speaks a wise word against the abuse of emotionalism; it +tells of the experiences of a flighty Miss, bred on the +"Mysteries of Udolpho" style of literature, during a visit to a +country house where she imagined all the medieval romanticism +incident to that school of fiction,--aided and abetted by such +innocuous helps as a storm without and a lonesome chamber within +doors. Of the later stories, "Mansfield Park" asks us to +remember what it is to be poor and reared among rich relations; +"Emma" displays a reverse misery: the rich young woman whose +character is exposed to the adulations and shams incident upon +her position; while in "Persuasion," there is yet another idea +expressed by and through another type of girl; she who has +fallen into the habit of allowing herself to be over-ridden and +used by friends and family.--There is something all but +Shaksperian in that story's illustration of "the uncertainty of +all human events and calculations," as she herself expresses it: +Anne Eliot's radical victory is a moral triumph yet a warning +withal. And in each book, the lesson has been conveyed with the +unobtrusive indirection of fine art; the story is ever first, we +are getting fiction not lectures. These novels adorn truth; they +show what literature can effect by the method of much-in-little. + +There is nothing sensational in incident or complication: as +with Richardson, an elopement is the highest stretch of external +excitement Miss Austen vouchsafes. Yet all is drawn so +beautifully to scale, as in such a scene as that of the quarrel +and estrangement of Elizabeth and Darcy in "Pride and +Prejudice," that the effect is greater than in the case of many +a misused opportunity where the events are earth-shaking in +import. The situation means so much to the participants, that +the reader becomes sympathetically involved. After all, +importance in fiction is exactly like importance in life; +important to whom? the philosopher asks. The relativity of +things human is a wholesome theory for the artist to bear in +mind. Even as the most terrific cataclysm on this third planet +from the sun in a minor system, makes not a ripple upon Mars, so +the most infinitesimal occurrence in eighteenth century +Hampshire may seem of account,--if only a master draws the +picture. + +Not alone by making her characters thoroughly alive and +interesting does Miss Austen effect this result: but by her way +of telling the tale as well; by a preponderance of dialogue +along with clear portraiture she actually gets an effect that is +dramatic. Scenes from her books are staged even to the present +day. She found this manner of dialogue with comparative +parsimony of description and narration, to be her true method as +she grew as a fiction-maker: the early unpublished story +"Susan," and the first draught of "Sense and Sensibility," had +the epistolary form of Richardson, the more undramatic nature of +which is self-evident. As for characterization itself, she is +with the few: she has added famous specimens--men and women +both--to the natural history of fiction. To think of but one +book, "Pride and Prejudice," what an inimitable study of a +foolish woman is Mrs. Bennett! Who has drawn the insufferable +patroness more vividly than in a Lady Catherine de Bourgh! And +is not the sycophant clergyman hit off to the life in Mr. +Collins! Looking to the stories as a group, are not her +heroines, with Anne Eliot perhaps at their head, wonderful for +quiet attraction and truth, for distinctness, charm and variety? +Her personages are all observed; she had the admirable good +sense not to go beyond her last. She had every opportunity to +see the county squire, the baronet puffed up with a sense of his +own importance, the rattle and rake of her day, the tuft hunter, +the gentleman scholar, and the retired admiral (her two brothers +had that rank)--and she wisely decided to exhibit these and +other types familiar to her locality and class, instead of +drawing on her imagination or trying to extend by guess-work her +social purview. Her women in general, whether satiric and +unpleasant like Mrs. Norris in "Mansfield Park" or full of +winning qualities like Catherine Moreland and Anne Eliot, are +drawn with a sureness of hand, an insight, a complete +comprehension that cannot be over-praised. Jane Austen's +heroines are not only superior to her heroes (some of whom do +not get off scot-free from the charge of priggishness) but they +excel the female characterization of all English novelists save +only two or three,--one of them being Hardy. Her characters were +so real to herself, that she made statements about them to her +family as if they were actual,--a habit which reminds of Balzac. + +The particular angle from which she looked on life was the +satirical: therefore, her danger is exaggeration, caricature. +Yet she yielded surprisingly little, and her reputation for +faithful transcripts from reality, can not now be assailed. Her +detached, whimsical attitude of scrutinizing the little cross-section +of life she has in hand, is of the very essence of her +charm: hers is that wit which is the humor of the mind: +something for inward smiling, though the features may not +change. Her comedy has in this way the unerring thrust and the +amused tolerance of a Moliere whom her admirer Macaulay should +have named rather than Shakspere when wishing to compliment her +by a comparison; with her manner of representation and her view +of life in mind, one reverts to Meredith's acute description of +the spirit that inheres in true comedy. "That slim, feasting +smile, shaped like the longbow, was once a big round satyr's +laugh, that flung up the brows like a fortress lifted by +gunpowder. The laugh will come again, but it will be of the +order of the smile, finely tempered, showing sunlight of the +mind, mental richness rather than noisy enormity. Its common +aspect is one of unsolicitous observation, as if surveying a +full field and having leisure to dart on its chosen morsels, +without any flattering eagerness. Men's future upon earth does +not attract it; their honesty and shapeliness in the present +does; and whenever they were out of proportion, overthrown, +affected, pretentious, bombastical, hypocritical, pedantic, +fantastically delicate; whenever it sees them self-deceived or +hoodwinked, given to run riot in idolatries, drifting into +vanities, congregating in absurdities, planning shortsightedly, +plotting dementedly; whenever they are at variance with their +professions, and violate the unwritten but perceptible laws +binding them in consideration one to another; whenever they +offend sound reason, fair justice; are false in humility or +mined with conceit, individually or in the bulk--the Spirit +overhead will look humanly malign and cast an oblique light on +them, followed by volleys of silvery laughter. That is the Comic +Spirit." + +If the "silvery laughter" betimes sounds a bit sharp and thinly +feminine, what would you have? Even genius must be subject to +the defect of its quality. Still, it must be confessed that this +attitude of the artist observer is broken in upon a little in +the later novels, beginning with "Mansfield Park," by a growing +tendency to moral on the time, a tendency that points ominously +to didacticism. There is something of the difference in Jane +Austen between early and late, that we shall afterwards meet in +that other great woman novelist, George Eliot. One might push +the point too far, but it is fair to make it. + +We may also inquire--trying to see the thing freshly, with +independence, and to get away from the mere handing-on of a +traditional opinion--if Jane Austen's character-drawing, so far-famed +for its truth, does not at times o'erstep the modesty of +Nature. Goldwin Smith, in his biography of her, is quite right +in pointing out that she unquestionably overdraws her types: Mr. +Collins is at moments almost a reminder of Uriah Heap for oily +submissiveness: Sir Walter Eliot's conceit goes so far he seems +a theory more than a man, a "humor" in the Ben Jonson sense. So, +too, the valetudinarianism of Mr. Wood-house, like that of +Smollett's Bramble, is something strained; so is Lady de +Bourgh's pride and General Tilney's tyranny. Critics are fond of +violent contrasts and to set over against one another authors so +unlike, for example, as Miss Austen and Dickens is a favorite +occupation. Also is it convenient to put a tag on every author: +a mask reading realist, romanticist, psychologue, sensation-monger, +or some such designation, and then hold him to the name. +Thus, in the case of Austen it is a temptation to call her the +greatest truth-teller among novelists, and so leave her. But, as +a matter of fact, great as realist and artist as she was, she +does not hesitate at that heightening of effect which insures +clearer seeing, longer remembering and a keener pleasure. +Perhaps she is in the broad view all the better artist because +of this: a thought sadly forgotten by the extreme veritists of +our day. It is the business of art to improve upon Nature. + +Again the reader of Jane Austen must expect to find her with the +limitation of her time and place: it is, frankly, a dreadfully +contracted view of the world she represents, just for the reason +that it is the view of her Hampshire gentry in the day of the +third George. The ideals seem low, narrow; they lack air and +light. Woman's only role is marriage; female propriety chokes +originality; money talks, family places individuals, and the +estimate of sex-relations is intricately involved with these +eidola. There is little sense of the higher and broader issues: +the spiritual restrictions are as definite as the social and +geographical: the insularity is magnificent. It all makes you +think of Tennyson's lines: + +"They take the rustic cackle of their burg +For the great wave that echoes round the world!" + + +Hence, one of the bye-products of Miss Austen's books is their +revelation of hide-bound class-distinction, the not seldom ugly +parochialism--the utilitarian aims of a circle of highly +respectable English country folk during the closing years of the +eighteenth century. The opening sentence of her masterpiece +reads: "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man +in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife." +Needless to say that "universally" here is applicable to a tiny +area of earth observed by a most charming spinster, at a certain +period of society now fast fading into a dim past. But the +sentence might serve fairly well as a motto for all her work: +every plot she conceived is firm-based upon this as a major +premise, and the particular feminine deduction from those words +may be found in the following taken from another work, +"Mansfield Park": "Being now in her twenty-first year, Maria +Bertram was beginning to think marriage a duty; and as a +marriage with Mr. Rushford would give her the enjoyment of a +larger income than her father's, as well as insure her the house +in town, which was now a prime object, it became by the same +rule of moral obligation, her evident duty to marry Mr. Rushford +if she could." The egocentric worldliness of this is superb. The +author, it may be granted, has a certain playful satire in her +manner here and elsewhere, when setting forth such views: yet it +seems to be fair to her to say that, taking her fiction as a +whole, she contentedly accepts this order of things and builds +upon it. She and her world exhibit not only worldliness but that +"other-worldliness" which is equally self-centered and +materialistic. Jane Austen is a highly enjoyable mondaine. To +compare her gamut with that of George Eliot or George Meredith +is to appreciate how much has happened since in social and +individual evolution. The wide social sympathy that throbs in +modern fiction is hardly born. + +In spite, too, of the thorough good breeding of this woman +writer, the primness even of her outlook upon the world, there +is plain speaking in her books, even touches of coarseness that +are but the echo of the rankness which abounds in the +Fielding-Smollett school. Happily, it is a faint one. + +Granting the slightness of her plots and their family likeness, +warm praise is due for the skill with which they are conducted; +they are neatly articulated, the climactic effect is, as a rule, +beautifully graduated and sure in its final force: the multitude +of littles which go to make up the story are, upon examination, +seen to be not irrelevant but members of the one body, working +together towards a common end. It is a puzzling question how +this firm art was secured: since technique does not mean so much +a gift from heaven as the taking of forethought, the self-conscious +skill of a practitioner. Miss Austen, setting down her +thoughts of an evening in a copybook in her lap, interrupted by +conversations and at the beck and call of household duties, does +not seem as one who was acquiring the mastery of a difficult +art-form. But the wind bloweth where it listeth--and the +evidences of skill are there; we can but chronicle the fact, and +welcome the result. + +She was old-fashioned in her adherence to the "pleasant ending"; +realist though she was, she could not go to the lengths either +of theme or interpretation in the portrayal of life which later +novelists have so sturdily ventured. It is easy to understand +that with her avowed dislike of tragedy, living in a time when +it was regarded as the business of fiction to be amusing--when, +in short, it was not fashionable to be disagreeable, as it has +since become--Jane Austen should have preferred to round out her +stories with a "curtain" that sends the audience home content. +She treats this desire in herself with a gentle cynicism which, +read to-day, detracts somewhat perhaps from the verity of her +pictures. She steps out from the picture at the close of her +book to say a word in proper person. Thus, in "Mansfield Park," +in bringing Fanny Price into the arms of her early lover, +Edmund, she says: "I purposely abstain from dates on this +occasion, that every one may be at liberty to fix their own, +aware that the cure of unconquerable passions and the transfer +of unchanging attachments must vary much as to time in different +people. I only entreat everybody to believe that exactly at the +time when it was quite natural that it should be so, and not a +week earlier, Edmund did cease to care about Miss Crawford and +became as anxious to marry Fanny as Fanny herself could desire." + +But it cannot be urged against her that it was her habit to +effect these agreeable conclusions to her social histories by +tampering with probability or violently wresting events from +their proper sequence. Life is neither comedy nor tragedy--it is +tragi-comedy, or, if you prefer the graver emphasis, comi-tragedy. +Miss Austen, truth-lover, has as good a right to leave +her lovers at the juncture when we see them happily mated, as at +those more grievous junctures so much affected by later fiction. +Both representations may be true or false in effect, according +as the fictionist throws emphasis and manages light-and-shade. A +final page whereon all is couleur de rose has, no doubt, an +artificial look to us now: a writer of Miss Austen's school or +her kind of genius for reporting fact, could not have finished +her fictions in just the same way. There is no blame properly, +since the phenomenon has to do with the growth of human thought, +the change of ideals reflected in literature. + +For one more point: Miss Austen only knew, or anyhow, only cared +to write, one sort of Novel--the love story. With her, a young +man and woman (or two couples having similar relations) are +interested in each other and after various complications arising +from their personal characteristics, from family interference or +other criss-cross of events, misplacement of affection being a +trump card, are united in the end. The formula is of primitive +simplicity. The wonder is that so much of involvement and +genuine human interest can be got out of such scant use of the +possible permutations of plot. It is all in the way it is done. + +Love stories are still written in profusion, and we imagine that +so compelling a motive for fiction will still be vital (in some +one of its innumerable phases) in the twenty-fifth century. Yet +it is true that novelists now point with pride to the work of +the last generation of their art, in that it has so often made +sex love subsidiary to other appeals, or even eliminated it +altogether from their books. Some even boast of the fact that +not a woman is to be found in the pages of their latest +creation. Nearly one hundred years ago, Defoe showed the +possibility (if you happen to have genius) of making a powerful +story without the introduction of the eternal feminine: Crusoe +could not declare with Cyrano de Bergerac: + +"Je vous dois d'avoir eu tout au moins, une amie; +Grace a vous, une robe a passe dans ma vie." + + +It is but natural that, immensely powerful as it is, such a +motive should have been over-worked: the gamut of variations has +been run from love licit to love illicit, and love degenerate +and abnormal to no-love-at-all. But any publisher will assure +you that still "love conquers all"; and in the early nineteenth +century any novelist who did not write tales of amatory interest +was a fool: the time was not ripe to consider an extension of +the theme nor a shifted point of view. For the earlier +story-tellers, in the language of Browning's lyric, + +"Love is best." + + +Jane Austen's diction--or better, her style, which is more than +diction--in writing her series of social studies, affords a fine +example of the adaptation of means to end. Given the work to be +accomplished, the tools are perfect instruments for the purpose. +The student of English style in its evolution must marvel at the +idiom of Austen, so strangely modern is it, so little has time +been able to make it passe. From her first book, her manner +seems to be easy, adequate, unforced, with nothing about it +self-conscious or gauche. In the development of some great +writers the change from unsureness and vulgarity to the mastery +of mature years can be traced: Dickens is one such. But nothing +of the sort can be found in Austen. She has in "Northanger +Abbey" and "Pride and Prejudice"--early works--a power in +idiomatic English which enables her reader to see her thought +through its limpid medium of language, giving, it may be, as +little attention to the form of expression as a man uninstructed +in the niceties of a woman's dress gives to those details which +none the less in their totality produce on him a most formidable +effect. Miss Austen's is not the style of startling tricks: nor +has she the flashing felicities of a Stevenson which lead one to +return to a passage for re-gustation. Her manner rarely if ever +takes the attention from her matter. But her words and their +marshaling (always bearing in her mind her unambitious purpose) +make as fit a garment for her thought as was ever devised upon +English looms. If this is style, then Jane Austen possesses it, +as have very few of the race. There is just a touch of the +archaic in it, enough to give a quaintness that has charm +without being precious in the French sense; hers are breeding +and dignity without distance or stiffness. Now and again the +life-likeness is accentuated by a sort of undress which goes to +the verge of the slip-shod--as if a gentlewoman should not be +too particular, lest she seem professional; the sort of liberty +with the starched proprieties of English which Thackeray later +took with such delightful results. Of her style as a whole, +then, we may say that it is good literature for the very reason +that it is not literary; neither mannered nor mincing nor +affectedly plain. The style is the woman--and the woman wrote as +a lady should who is portraying genteel society; very much as +she would talk--with the difference the artist will always make +between life and its expression in letters. + +Miss Austen's place was won slowly but surely, unlike those +authors whose works spring into instantaneous popularity, to be +forgotten with equal promptness, or others who like Mrs. Stowe +write a book which, for historical reasons, gains immediate +vogue and yet retains a certain reputation. The author of "Pride +and Prejudice" gains in position with the passing of the years. +She is one of the select company of English writers who after a +century are really read, really of more than historical +significance. New and attractive editions of her books are +frequent: she not only holds critical regard (and to criticism +her importance is permanent) but is read by an appreciable +number of the lovers of sound literature; read far more +generally, we feel sure, than Disraeli or Bulwer or Charles +Kingsley, who are so much nearer our own day and who filled so +large a place in their respective times. Compared with them, +Jane Austen appears a serene classic. When all is said, the +test, the supreme test, is to be read: that means that an author +is vitally alive, not dead on the shelves of a library where he +has been placed out of deference to the literary Mrs. Grundy. +Lessing felt this when he wrote his brilliant quatrain: + +Wer wird nicht einen Klopstock loben, +Doch wird ihn jeder lesen? Nein! +Wir wollen weniger erhoben +Und fleissiger gelesen sein, + + +So was the century which was to be conspicuous for its +development of fiction that should portray the social relations +of contemporary life with fine and ever-increasing truth, most +happily inaugurated by a woman who founded its traditions and +was a wonderful example of its method. She is the literary +godmother of Trollope and Howells, and of all other novelists +since who prefer to the most spectacular uses of the imagination +the unsensational chronicling of life. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +MODERN ROMANTICISM: SCOTT + +The year after the appearance of "Pride and Prejudice" there +began to be published in England a series of anonymous +historical stories to which the name of Waverley Novels came to +be affixed, the title of the first volume. It was not until the +writer had produced for more than a decade a splendid list of +fictions familiar to all lovers of literature, that his name--by +that time guessed by many and admitted to some--was publicly +announced as that of Walter Scott--a man who, before he had +printed a single romance, had won more than national importance +by a succession of narrative poems beginning with "The Lay of +the Last Minstrel." + +Few careers, personal and professional, in letters, are more +stimulating and attractive than that of Scott. His life was +winsome, his work of that large and noble order that implies a +worthy personality behind it. Scott, the man, as he is portrayed +in Lockhart's Life and the ever-delightful Letters, is as +suitable an object of admiration as Scott the author of "Guy +Mannering" and "Old Mortality." And when we reflect that by the +might of his genius he set his seal on the historical romance, +that the modern romance derives from Scott, and that, moreover, +in spite of the remarkable achievements in this order of fiction +during almost a century, he remains not only its founder but its +chief ornament, his contribution to modern fiction begins to be +appreciated. + +The characteristics of the Novel proper as a specific kind of +fiction have been already indicated and illustrated in this +study: we have seen that it is a picture of real life in a +setting of to-day: the romance, which is Scott's business, is +distinguished from this in its use of past time and historic +personages, its heightening of effect by the introducing of the +exceptional in scene and character, its general higher color in +the conductment of the narrative: and above all, its emphasis +upon the larger, nobler, more inspiring aspects of humanity. +This, be it understood, is the romance of modern times, not the +elder romance which was irresponsible in its picture of life, +falsely idealistic. When Sir Walter began his fiction, the trend +of the English Novel inheriting the method and purpose of +Richardson, was away from the romantic in this sense. The +analysis given has, it may be hoped, made this plain. It was by +the sheer force of his creative gift, therefore, that Scott set +the fashion for the romance in fiction: aided though he +doubtless was by the general romanticism introduced by the +greater English poets and expressive of the movement in +literature towards freedom, which followed the French +Revolution. That Scott at this time gave the fiction an impulse +not in the central flow of development is shown in the fact of +its rapid decadence after he passed away. While the romance is +thus a different thing from the Novel, modern fiction is close +woven of the two strands of realism and romance, and a +comprehensive study must have both in mind. Even authors like +Dickens, Thackeray and Eliot, who are to be regarded as stalwart +realists, could not avoid a single sally each into romance, with +"A Tale of Two Cities," "Henry Osmond" and "Romola"; and on the +other hand, romanticists like Hawthorne and Stevenson have used +the methods and manner of the realist, giving their loftiest +flights the most solid groundwork of psychologic reality. It +must always be borne in mind that there is a romantic way of +dealing with fact: that a novel of contemporary society which +implies its more exceptional possibilities and gives due regard +to the symbol behind every so-called fact, can be, in a good +sense, romantic. Surely, that is a more acceptable use of the +realistic formula which, by the exercise of an imaginative grasp +of history, makes alive and veritable for us some hitherto +unrealized person or by-gone epoch. Scott is thus a romanticist +because he gave the romantic implications of reality: and is a +novelist in that broader, better definition of the word which +admits it to be the novelist's business to portray social +humanity, past or present, by means of a unified, progressive +prose narrative. Scott, although he takes advantage of the +romancer's privilege of a free use of the historic past, the +presentation of its heroic episodes and spectacular events, is a +novelist, after all, because he deals with the recognizably +human, not with the grotesque, supernatural, impossible. He +imparts a vivid sense of the social interrelations, for the most +part in a medieval environment, but in any case in an +environment which one recognizes as controlled by human laws; +not the brain-freak of a pseudo-idealist. Scott's Novels, judged +broadly, make an impression of unity, movement and climax. To +put it tersely: he painted manners, interpreted character in an +historic setting and furnished story for story's sake. Nor was +his genius helpless without the historic prop. Certain of his +major successes are hardly historical narratives at all; the +scene of "Guy Mannering," for example, and of "The Antiquary," +is laid in a time but little before that which was known +personally to the romancer in his young manhood. + +It will be seen in this theory of realism and romance that so +far from antagonists are the story of truth and the story of +poetry, they merely stand for diverging preferences in handling +material. Nobody has stated this distinction better than +America's greatest romancer, Nathaniel Hawthorne. Having "The +House of the Seven Gables" in mind, he says: + + When a writer calls his work a romance, it need hardly be + observed that he wishes to claim a certain latitude both as + to its fashion and material, which he would not have felt + himself entitled to assume, had he professed to be writing + a novel. The latter form of composition is presumed to aim + at a very minute fidelity, not only to the possible, but to + the probable and ordinary course of man's experience. The + former, while as a work of art it must rigidly subject + itself to laws and while it sins unpardonably so far as it + may swerve aside from the truth of the human heart, has + fairly a right to present that truth under circumstances to + a great extent of the author's own choosing or creation. If + he think fit, also, he may so manage his atmospherical + medium as to bring out or mellow the lights and deepen and + enrich the shadows of the picture. He will be wise, no + doubt, to make a very moderate use of the privileges here + stated, and, especially, to mingle the marvelous rather as + a slight, delicate and evanescent flavor than as any + portion of the actual substance of the dish offered to the + public. The point of view in which this tale comes under + the romantic definition lies in the attempt to connect a + by-gone time with the very present that is flitting away + from us. It is a legend, prolonging itself from an epoch + now gray in the distance, down into our own broad daylight, + and bringing along with it some of its legendary mist, + which the reader may either disregard or allow it to float + almost imperceptibly about the characters and events for + the sake of a picturesque effect. The narrative, it may be, + is woven of so humble a texture, as to require this + advantage and at the same time to render it the more + difficult of attainment. + + +These words may be taken as the modern announcement of Romance, +as distinguished from that of elder times. + +The many romantic Novels written by Scott can be separated into +two groups, marked by a cleavage of time: the year being 1819, +the date of the publication of "Ivanhoe." In the earlier group, +containing the fiction which appeared during the five years from +1814 to 1819, we find world-welcomed masterpieces which are an +expression of the unforced first fruits of his genius: the three +series of "Tales of My Landlord," "Guy Mannering," "Rob Roy," +"The Heart of Midlothian" and "Old Mortality," to mention the +most conspicuous. To the second division belong stories equally +well known, many of them impressive: "The Monastery," +"Kenilworth," "Quentin Durward," and "Red Gauntlet" among them, +but as a whole marking a falling off of power as increasing +years and killing cares made what was at first hardly more than +a sportive effort, a burden under which a man, at last broken, +staggered toward the desired goal. There is no manlier, more +gallant spectacle offered in the annals of literature than this +of Walter Scott, silent partner in a publishing house and ruined +by its failure after he has set up country gentleman and +gratified his expensive taste for baronial life, as he buckles +to, and for weary years strives to pay off by the product of his +pen the obligations incurred; his executors were able to clear +his estate of debt. It was an immense drudgery (with all +allowance for its moments of creative joy) accomplished with +high spirits and a kind of French gayety. Nor, though the best +quality of the work was injured towards the end of the long +task, and Scott died too soon at sixty-one, was the born +raconteur in him choked by this grim necessity of grind. There +have been in modern fiction a few masters, and but a few, who +were natural improvisatori: conspicuous among them are Dumas the +elder and Walter Scott. Such writers pour forth from a very +spring of effortless power invention after invention, born of +the impulse of a rich imagination, a mind stored with bountiful +material for such shaping, and a nature soaked with the +humanities. They are great lovers of life, great personalities, +gifted, resourceful, unstinted in their giving, ever with +something of the boy in them, the careless prodigals of +literature. Often it seems as if they toiled not to acquire the +craft of the writer, nor do they lose time over the labor of the +file. To the end, they seem in a way like glorious amateurs. +They are at the antipodes of those careful craftsmen with whom +all is forethought, plan and revision. Scott, fired by a period, +a character or scene, commonly sat down without seeing his way +through and wrote currente calamo, letting creation take care of +its own. The description of him by a contemporary is familiar +where he was observed at a window, reeling off the manuscript +sheets of his first romance. + + Since we sat down I have been watching that confounded + hand--it fascinates my eye. It never stops--page after page + is finished and thrown on the heap of manuscript, and still + it goes on unwearied--and so it will be until candles are + brought in, and God knows how long after that. It is the + same every night. + + +The great merits of such a nature and the method that is its +outcome should not blind us to its dangers, some of which Scott +did not escape. Schoolboys to-day are able to point out defects +in his style, glibly talking of loosely-built sentences, +redundancies, diffuseness, or what not. He seems long-winded to +the rising generation, and it may be said in their defense that +there are Novels of Scott which if cut down one-third would be +improved. Critics, too, speak of his anachronisms, his huddled +endings, the stiffness of his young gentleman heroes, his +apparent indifference to the laws of good construction; as well +as of his Tory limitations, the ponderosity of his manner and +the unmodernness of his outlook on the world along with the +simple superficiality of his psychology. All this may cheerfully +be granted, and yet the Scott lover will stoutly maintain that +the spirit and the truth are here, that the Waverley books +possess the great elements of fiction-making: not without reason +did they charm Europe as well as the English-speaking lands for +twenty years. The Scott romances will always be mentioned, with +the work of Burns, Carlyle and Stevenson, when Scotland's +contribution to English letters is under discussion; his +position is fortified as he recedes into the past, which so soon +engulfs lesser men. And it is because he was one of the world's +natural storytellers: his career is an impressive object-lesson +for those who would elevate technique above all else. + +He produced romances which dealt with English history centuries +before his own day, or with periods near his time: Scotch +romances of like kind which had to do with the historic past of +his native land: romances of humbler life and less stately +entourage, the scenes of which were laid nearer, sometimes +almost within his own day. He was, in instances, notably +successful in all these kinds, but perhaps most of all in the +stories falling in the two categories last-named: which, like +"Old Mortality," have the full flavor of Scotch soil. + +The nature of the Novels he was to produce became evident with +the first of them all, "Waverley." Here is a border tale which +narrates the adventures of a scion of that house among the loyal +Highlanders temporarily a rebel to the reigning English +sovereign and a recruit in the interests of the young pretender: +his fortunes, in love and war, and his eventual reinstatement in +the King's service and happiness with the woman of his choice. +While it might be too sweeping to say that there was in this +first romance (which has never ranked with his best) the whole +secret of the Scott historical story, it is true that the book +is typical, that here as in the long line of brilliantly +envisaged chronicle histories that followed, some of them far +superior to this initial attempt, are to be found the +characteristic method and charm of Sir Walter. Here, as +elsewhere, the reader is offered picturesque color, ever varied +scenes, striking situations, salient characters and a certain +nobility both of theme and manner that comes from the accustomed +representation of life in which large issues of family and state +are involved--the whole merged in a mood of fealty and love. You +constantly feel in Scott that life "means intensely and means +good." A certain amount of lovable partisanship and prejudice +goes with the view, not un-welcomely; there is also some +carelessness as to the minute details of fact. But the effect of +truth, both in character and setting, is overwhelming. Scott has +vivified English and Scotch history more than all the history +books: he saw it himself--so we see it. One of the reasons his +work rings true--whereas Mrs. Radcliffe's adventure tales seem +fictitious as well as feeble--is because it is the natural +outcome of his life: all his interest, his liking, his belief +went into the Novels. When he sat down at the mature age of +forty-three to make fiction, there was behind him the large part +of a lifetime of unconscious preparation for what he had to do: +for years he had been steeped in the folk-lore and legend of his +native country; its local history had been his hobby; he had not +only read its humbler literature but wandered widely among its +people, absorbed its language and its life, felt "the very pulse +of the machine." Hence he differed toto caelo from an +archeologist turned romancer like the German Ebers: being rather +a genial traveler who, after telling tales of his experiences by +word of mouth at the tavern hearth, sets them down upon paper +for better preservation. He had been no less student than +pedestrian in the field; lame as he was, he had footed his way +to many a tall memorial of a hoary past, and when still hardly +more than a boy, burrowed among the manuscripts of the +Advocates' Library in Edinburgh, making himself an able +antiquary at a time when most youth are idling or philandering. +Moreover, he was himself the son of a border chief and knew +minstrelsy almost at his nurse's knee: and the lilt of a ballad +was always like wine to his heart. It makes you think of Sir +Philip Sidney's splendid testimony to such an influence: "I +never heard the old song of Percy and Douglas that I found not +my heart moved more than with a trumpet." + +All this could not but tell; the incidents in a book like +"Waverley" are unforced: the advance of the story closely +imitates Life in its ever-shifting succession of events: the +reader soon learns to trust the author's faculty of invention. +Plot, story-interest, is it not the backbone of romantic +fiction? And Scott, though perchance he may not conduct it so +swiftly as pleases the modern taste, may be relied on to furnish +it. + +In the earlier period up to "Ivanhoe," that famous sortie into +English history, belong such masterpieces as "Guy Mannering," +"Old Mortality," "Heart of Midlothian," "The Bride of +Lammermoor," and "Rob Roy"; a list which, had he produced +nothing else would have sufficed to place him high among the +makers of romance. It is not the intention to analyze these +great books one by one--a task more fit for a volume than a +chapter; but to bring out those qualities of his work which are +responsible for his place in fiction and influence in the Novel +of the nineteenth century. + +No story of this group--nor of his career as a writer--has won +more plaudits than "The Heart of Midlothian." Indeed, were the +reader forced to the unpleasant necessity of choosing out of the +thirty stories which Scott left the world the one most deserving +of the prize, possibly the choice would fall on that superb +portrayal of Scotch life--although other fine Novels of the +quintet named would have their loyal friends. To study the +peerlessly pathetic tale of Effie and Jeanie Deans is to see +Scott at his representative best and note the headmarks of his +genius: it is safe to say that he who finds nothing in it can +never care for its author. + +The first thing to notice in this novel of the ancient Edinburgh +Tolbooth, this romance of faithful sisterhood, is its essential +Scotch fiber. The fact affects the whole work. It becomes +thereby simpler, homelier, more vernacular: it is a story that +is a native emanation. The groundwork of plot too is simple, +vital: and moreover, founded on a true incident. Effie, the +younger of two sisters, is betrayed; concerning her betrayer +there is mystery: she is supposed to commit child-murder to hide +her shame: a crime then punishable by death. The story deals +with her trial, condemnation and final pardon and happy marriage +with her lover through the noble mediation of Jeanie, her elder +sister. + +In the presentation of an earlier period in Scotland, the +opening of the eighteenth century, when all punitive measures +were primitive and the lawless social elements seethed with +restless discontent, Scott had a fine chance: and at the very +opening, in describing the violent putting to death of Captain +Porteous, he skilfully prepares the way for the general picture +to be given. Then, as the story progresses, to the supreme +sacrificial effort of Jeanie in behalf of her erring sister's +life, gradually, stroke upon stroke, the period with its +religious schisms, its political passions and strong family +ties, is so illuminated that while the interest is centered upon +the Deans and their homely yet tragic history, Scotch life in an +earlier century is envisaged broadly, truthfully, in a way never +to grow pale in memory. Cameraman or King's man, God-fearing +peasant, lawless ruffian or Tory gentleman, the characters are +so marshaled that without sides being taken by the writer, one +feels the complexity of the period: and its uncivil wildness is +dramatically conveyed as a central fact in the Tolbooth with its +grim concomitants of gallows and gaping crowd of sightseers and +malcontents. + +Scott's feeling for dramatic situation is illustrated in several +scenes that stand out in high relief after a hundred details +have been forgotten: one such is the trial scene in which Effie +implores her sister to save her by a lie, and Jeanie in agony +refuses; the whole management of it is impressively pictorial. +Another is that where Jeanie, on the road to London, is detained +by the little band of gypsy-thieves and passes the night with +Madge Wildfire in the barn: it is a scene Scott much relishes +and makes his reader enjoy. And yet another, and greater, is +that meeting with Queen Caroline and Lady Suffolk when the +humble Scotch girl is conducted by the Duke of Argyll to the +country house and in the garden beseeches pardon for her sister +Effie. It is intensely picturesque, real with many homely +touches which add to the truth without cheapening the effect of +royalty. The gradual working out of the excellent plot of this +romance to a conclusion pleasing to the reader is a favorable +specimen of this romancer's method in story-telling. There is +disproportion in the movement: it is slow in the first part, +drawing together in texture and gaining in speed during its +closing portion. Scott does not hesitate here, as so often, to +interrupt the story in order to interpolate historical +information, instead of interweaving it atmospherically with the +tale itself. When Jeanie is to have her interview with the Duke +of Argyll, certain preliminary pages must be devoted to a sketch +of his career. A master of plot and construction to-day would +have made the same story, so telling in motive, so vibrant with +human interest, more effective, so far as its conductment is +concerned. Scott in his fiction felt it as part of his duty to +furnish chronicle-history, very much as Shakspere seems to have +done in his so-called chronicle-history plays; whereas at +present the skilled artist feels no such responsibility. It may +be questioned if the book's famous scenes--the attempted +breaking into the Tolbooth, or the visit of Jeanie to the Queen--would +not have gained greatly from a dramatic point of view had +they been more condensed; they are badly languaged, looking to +this result, not swift enough for the best effects of drama, +whereas conception and framework are highly dramatic. In a word, +if more carefully written, fuller justice would have been done +the superb theme. + +The characters that crowd the novel (as, in truth, they teem +throughout the great romances) testify to his range and grasp: +the Dean family, naturally, in the center. The pious, sturdy +Cameronian father and the two clearly contrasted sisters: +Butler, the clergyman lover; the saddle-maker, Saddletree, for +an amusing, long-winded bore; the quaint Laird Dumbledikes; the +soldiers of fortune, George Wilson and his mate; that other +soldier, Porteous; the gang of evildoers with Madge in the van--a +wonderful creation, she, only surpassed by the better known +Meg--the high personages clustered about the Queen: loquacious +Mrs. Glass, the Dean's kinswoman--one has to go back to Chaucer +or Shakspere for a companion picture so firmly painted in and +composed on such a generous scale. + +Contention arises in a discussion of a mortal so good as Jeanie: +it would hardly be in the artistic temper of our time to draw a +peasant girl so well-nigh superhuman in her traits; Balzac's +"Eugenie Grandet" (the book appeared only fifteen years later), +is much nearer our time in its conception of the possibilities +of human nature: Eugenie does not strain credence, while +Jeanie's pious tone at times seems out of character, if not out +of humanity. The striking contrast with Effie is in a way to her +advantage: the weaker damsel appears more natural, more like +flesh and blood. But the final scene when, after fleeing with +her high-born lover, she returns to her simple sister as a wife +in a higher grade of society and the sister agrees that their +ways henceforth must be apart--that scene for truth and power is +one of the master-strokes. The reader finds that Jeanie Deans +somehow grows steadily in his belief and affection: quietly but +surely, a sense of her comeliness, her truthful love, her quaint +touch of Scotch canniness, her daughterly duteousness and her +stanch principle intensifies until it is a pang to bid her +farewell, and the mind harks back to her with a fond +recollection. Take her for all in all, Jeanie Deans ranks high +in Scott's female portraiture: with Meg Merillies in her own +station, and with Lucy Ashton and Di Vernon among those of +higher social place. In her class she is perhaps unparalleled in +all his fiction. The whole treatment of Effie's irregular love +is a fine example of Scott's kindly tolerance (tempered to a +certain extent by the social convention of his time) in dealing +with the sins of human beings. He is plainly glad to leave Effie +an honestly married woman with the right to look forward to +happy, useful years. The story breeds generous thoughts on the +theme of young womanhood: it handled the problem neither from +the superior altitude of the conventional moralist nor the cold +aloofness of the latter-day realist--Flaubert's attitude in +"Madame Bovary." + +"A big, imperfect, noble Novel," the thoughtful reader concludes +as he closes it, and thinking back to an earlier impression, +finds that time has not loosened its hold. + +And to repeat the previous statement: what is true of this is +true of all Scott's romances. The theme varies, the setting with +its wealth of local color may change, the period or party differ +with the demands of fact. Scotch and English history are widely +invoked: now it is the time of the Georges, now of the Stuarts, +now Elizabethan, again back to the Crusades. Scott, in fact, +ranges from Rufus the Red to the year 1800, and many are the +complications he considers within that ample sweep. It would be +untrue to say that his plots imitate each other or lack in +invention: we have seen that invention is one of his virtues. +Nevertheless, the motives are few when disencumbered of their +stately historical trappings: hunger, ambition, love, hate, +patriotism, religion, the primary passions and bosom interests +of mankind are those he depicts, because they are universal. It +is his gift for giving them a particular dress in romance after +romance which makes the result so often satisfactory, even +splendid. Yet, despite the range of time and grasp of Life's +essentials, there is in Scott's interpretation of humanity a +certain lack which one feels in comparing him with the finest +modern masters: with a Meredith, a Turgeneff or a Balzac. It is +a difference not only of viewpoint but of synthetic +comprehension and philosophic penetration. It means that he +mirrored a day less complex, less subtle and thoughtful. This +may be dwelt upon and illustrated a little in some further +considerations on his main qualities. + +Scott, like the earlier novelists in general, was content to +depict character from without rather than from within: to +display it through act and scene instead of by the probing +analysis so characteristically modern. This meant inevitable +limitations in dealing with an historical character or time. A +high-church Tory himself, a frank Jacobite in his leanings--Taine +declared he had a feudal mind--he naturally so composed a +picture as to reflect this predilection, making effects of +picturesqueness accordingly. The idea given of Mary Queen of +Scots from "The Abbot" is one example of what is meant; that of +Prince Charley in "Waverley" is another. In a sense, however, +the stories are all the better for this obvious bias. Where a +masculine imagination moved by warm affection seizes on an +historic figure the result is sure to be vivid, at least; and +let it be repeated that Scott has in this way re-created history +for the many. He shows a sound artistic instinct in his handling +of historic personages relative to those imaginary: rarely +letting them occupy the center of interest, but giving that +place to the creatures of his fancy, thereby avoiding the +hampering restriction of a too close following of fact. The +manipulation of Richard Coeur de Lion in "Ivanhoe" is +instructive with this in mind. + +While the lights and shadows of human life are duly blended in +his romances, Scott had a preference for the delineation of the +gentle, the grand (or grandiose), the noble and the beautiful: +loving the medieval, desiring to reproduce the age of chivalry, +he was naturally aristocratic in taste, as in intellect, though +democratic by the dictates of a thoroughly good heart. He liked +a pleasant ending--or, at least, believed in mitigating tragedy +by a checker of sunlight at the close. He had little use for the +degenerate types of mankind: certainly none for degeneracy for +its own sake, or because of a kind of scientific interest in its +workings. Nor did he conceive of the mission of fiction as being +primarily instructional: nor set too high a value on a novel as +a lesson in life--although at times (read the moral tag to "The +Heart of Midlothian") he speaks in quite the preacher's tone of +the improvement to be got from the teaching of the tale. Critics +to-day are, I think, inclined to place undue emphasis upon what +they regard as Scott's failure to take the moral obligations of +fiction seriously: they confuse his preaching and his practice. +Whatever he declared in his letters or Journal, the novels +themselves, read in the light of current methods, certainly +leave an old-fashioned taste on the palate, because of their +moralizings and avowments of didactic purpose. The advantages +and disadvantages of this general attitude can be easily +understood: the loss in philosophic grasp is made up in +healthiness of tone and pleasantness of appeal. One recognizes +such an author as, above all, human and hearty. The reserves and +delicacies of Anglo-Saxon fiction are here, of course, in full +force: and a doctored view of the Middle Ages is the result, as +it is in Tennyson's "Idylls of the King." A sufficient answer is +that it is not Scott's business to set us right as to +medievalism, but rather to use it for the imaginative purposes +of pleasure. The frank intrusion of the author himself into the +body of the page o in the way of footnotes is also disturbing, +judged by our later standards: but was carried on with much +charm by Thackeray in the mid-century, to reappear at its end in +the pages of Du Maurier. + +In the more technical qualifications of the story-maker's art, +Scott compensated in the more masculine virtues for what he +lacked in the feminine. Possessing less of finesse, subtlety and +painstaking than some who were to come, he excelled in sweep, +movement and variety, as well as in a kind of largeness of +effect: "the big bow-wow business," to use his own humorously +descriptive phrase when he was comparing himself with Jane +Austen, to his own disadvantage. And it is these very qualities +that endear him to the general and keep his memories green; +making "Ivanhoe" and "Kenilworth" still useful for school +texts--unhappy fate! Still, this means that he always had a story to +tell and told it with the flow and fervor and the instinctive +coherence of the story-teller born, not made. + +When the fortunes of his fictive folk were settled, this +novelist, always more interested in characters than in the plot +which must conduct them, often loses interest and his books end +more or less lamely, or with obvious conventionality. Anything +to close it up, you feel. But of action and incident, scenes +that live and situations with stage value, one of Scott's +typical fictions has enough to furnish the stock in trade for +life of many later-day romanticists who feebly follow in his +wake. He has a special skill in connecting the comparatively +small private involvement, which is the kernel of a story, with +important public matters, so that they seem part of the larger +movements or historic occurrences of the world. Dignity and body +are gained for the tale thereby. + +In the all-important matter of characterization, Scott yields +the palm to very few modern masters. Merely to think of the +range, variety and actuality of his creations is to feel the +blood move quicker. From figures of historic and regal +importance--Richard, Elizabeth, Mary--to the pure coinage of +imagination--Dandy Dinmont, Dugald Dalgetty, Dominie Sampson, +Rebecca, Lucy, Di Vernon and Jeanie--how the names begin to +throng and what a motley yet welcome company is assembled in the +assizes where this romancer sits to mete out fate to those +within the wide bailiwick of his imagination! This central gift +he possessed with the princes of story-making. It is also +probable that of the imaginative writers of English speech, +nobody but Shakspere and Dickens--and Dickens alone among fellow +fiction-makers--has enriched the workaday world with so many +people, men and women, whose speech, doings and fates are +familiar and matter for common reference. And this is the gift +of gifts. It is sometimes said that Scott's heroes and heroines +(especially, perhaps, the former) are lay figures, not +convincing, vital creations. There is a touch of truth in it. +His striking and successful figures are not walking gentlemen +and leading ladies. When, for example, you recall "Guy +Mannering," you do not think of the young gentleman of that +name, but of Meg Merillies as she stands in the night in high +relief on a bank, weather-beaten of face and wild of dress, +hurling her anathema: "Ride your ways, Ellangowan!" In +characters rather of humble pathos like Jeanie Deans or of +eccentric humor like Dominie Sampson, Scott is at his best. He +confessed to mis-liking his heroes and only warming up to full +creative activity over his more unconventional types: border +chiefs, buccaneers, freebooters and smugglers. "My rogue always, +in spite of me, turns out my hero," is his whimsical complaint. + +But this does not apply in full force to his women. Di Vernon--who +does not recall that scene where from horseback in the +moonlight she bends to her lover, parting from him with the +words: "Farewell, Frank, forever! There is a gulf between us--a +gulf of absolute perdition. Where we go, you must not follow; +what we do, you must not share in--farewell, be happy!" That is +the very accent of Romance, in its true and proper setting: not +to be staled by time nor custom. + +Nor will it do to claim that he succeeds with his Deans and +fails with women of regal type: his Marys and Elizabeth Tudors. +In such portrayals it seems to me he is pre-eminently fine: one +cannot understand the critics who see in such creations mere +stock figures supplied by history not breathed upon with the +breath of life. Scott had a definite talent for the stage-setting +of royalty: that is one of the reasons for the +popularity of "Kenilworth." It is, however, a true +discrimination which finds more of life and variety in Scott's +principal women than in his men of like position. But his Rob +Roys, Hatteraicks and Dalgettys justify all praise and help to +explain that title of Wizard of the North which he won and wore. + +In nothing is Scott stronger than in his environments, his +devices for atmosphere. This he largely secures by means of +description and with his wealth of material, does not hesitate +to take his time in building up his effects. Perhaps the most +common criticism of him heard to-day refers to his slow +movement. Superabundance of matter is accompanied by prolixity +of style, with a result of breeding impatience in the reader, +particularly the young. Boys and girls at present do not offer +Scott the unreserved affection once his own, because he now +seems an author upon whom to exercise the gentle art of +skipping. Enough has been said as to Scott's lack of modern +economy of means. It is not necessary to declare that this +juvenile reluctance to his leisurely manner stands for total +depravity. The young reader of the present time (to say nothing +of the reader more mature) is trained to swifter methods, and +demands them. At the same time, it needs to be asserted that +much of the impressiveness of Scott would be lost were his +method and manner other than they are: nor will it do harm to +remind ourselves that we all are in danger of losing our power +of sustained and consecutive attention in relation to +literature, because of the scrap-book tendency of so much modern +reading. On the center-table, cheap magazines; on the stage, +vaudeville--these are habits that sap the ability for slow, +ruminative pleasure in the arts. Luckily, they are not the only +modern manifestation, else were we in a parlous state, indeed! +The trouble with Scott, then, may be resolved in part into a +trouble with the modern folk who read him. + +When one undertakes the thankless task of analyzing coldly and +critically the style of Scott, the faults are plain enough. He +constantly uses two adjectives or three in parallel construction +where one would do the work better. The construction of his +sentences loses largely the pleasing variation of a richly +articulated system by careless punctuation and a tendency to +make parallel clauses where subordinate relations should be +expressed. The unnecessary copula stars his pages. Although his +manner in narration rises with his subject and he may be justly +called a picturesque and forceful writer, he is seldom a +distinguished one. One does not turn to him for the inevitable +word or phrase, or for those that startle by reason of felicity +and fitness. These strictures apply to his descriptive and +narrative parts, not to the dialogue: for there, albeit sins of +diffuseness and verbosity are to be noted--and these are +modified by the genial humanity they embody--he is one of the +great masters. His use of the Scotch dialect adds indefinitely +to his attraction and native smack: racy humor, sly wit, canny +logic, heartful sympathy--all are conveyed by the folk medium. +All subsequent users of the people-speech pay toll to Walter +Scott. Small courtesy should be extended to those who complain +that these idioms make hard reading. Never does Scott give us +dialect for its own sake, but always for the sake of a closer +revelation of the human heart--dialect's one justification. + +At its worst, Scott's style may fairly be called ponderous, +loose, monotonous: at its finest, the adequate instrument of a +natural story-teller who is most at home when, emerging from his +longueur, he writes of grand things in the grand manner. + +Thus, Sir Walter Scott defined the Romance for modern fiction, +gave it the authority of his genius and extended the gamut of +the Novel by showing that the method of the realist, the +awakening of interest in the actualities of familiar character +and life, could be more broadly applied. He opposed the realist +in no true sense: but indicated how, without a lapse of art or +return to outworn machinery, justice might yet be done to the +more stirring, large, heroic aspects of the world of men: a +world which exists and clamors to be expressed: a world which +readers of healthy taste are perennially interested in, nay, +sooner or later, demand to be shown. His fiction, whether we +award it the somewhat grudging recognition of Carlyle or with +Ruskin regard its maker as the one great novelist of English +race, must be deemed a precious legacy, one of literature's most +honorable ornaments--especially desirable in a day so apparently +plain and utilitarian as our own, eschewing ornament and +perchance for that reason needing it all the more. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +FRENCH INFLUENCE + +In the first third of the nineteenth century English fiction +stood at the parting of the ways. Should it follow Scott and the +romance, or Jane Austen and the Novel of everyday life? Should +it adopt that form of story-making which puts stress on action +and plot and is objective in its method, roaming all lands and +times for its material; or, dealing with the familiar average of +contemporary society, should it emphasize character analysis and +choose the subjective realm of psychology for its peculiar +domain? The pen dropped from the stricken hand of Scott in 1832; +in that year a young parliamentary reporter in London was +already writing certain lively, closely observed sketches of the +town, and four years later they were to be collected and +published under the title of "Sketches by Boz," while the next +year that incomparable extravaganza, "The Pickwick Papers," was +to go to an eager public. English fiction had decided: the Novel +was to conquer the romance for nearly a century. It was a +victory which to the present day has been a dominant influence +in story-making; establishing a tendency which, until Stevenson +a few years since, with the gaiety of the inveterate boy, cried +up Romance once more, bade fair to sweep all before it. + +Before tracing this vigorous development of the Novel of Reality +with Dickens, Thackeray and Eliot (to name three great leaders), +it is important to get an idea of the growth on French soil +which was so deeply influential upon English as well as upon +other modern fiction. Nothing is more certain in literary +evolution than the fact that the French Novel in the nineteenth +century has molded and defined modern fiction, thus repaying an +earlier debt owed the English pioneers, Richardson and Fielding. +English fiction of our own generation may be described as a +native variation on a French model: in fact, the fictionists of +Europe and the English-speaking lands, with whatever +divergencies personal or national, have derived in large measure +from the Gaul the technique, the point of view and the choice of +theme which characterizes the French Novel from Stendhal to +Balzac, from Zola to Guy de Maupassant. + + +I + +The name of Henri Beyle, known to literature under the sobriquet +of Stendhal, has a meaning in the development of the modern type +of fiction out of proportion to the intrinsic value of his +stories. + +He was, of course, far surpassed by mightier followers like +Balzac, Flaubert and Zola; yet his significance lies in the very +fact that they were followers. His is all the merit pertaining +to the feat of introducing the Novel of psychic analysis: of +that persistent and increasingly unpleasant bearing-down upon +the darker facts of personality. Hence his "Rouge et Noir," +dated 1830 and typical of his aim and method, is in a sense an +epoch-making book. + +Balzac was at the same time producing the earlier studies to +culminate in that Human Comedy which was to stand as the chief +accomplishment of his nation in the literature of fiction. But +Stendhal, sixteen years older, began to print first and to him +falls the glory of innovation. Balzac gives full praise to his +predecessor in his essay on Beyle, and his letters contain +frequent references to the debt he owed that curious bundle of +fatuities, inconsistencies and brilliancies, the author of "The +Chartreuse de Parme." Later, Zola calls him "the father of us +all," meaning of the naturalistic school of which Zola himself +was High Priest. Beyle's business was the analysis of soul +states: an occupation familiar enough in these times of Hardy, +Meredith and Henry James. He held several posts of importance +under Napoleon, worshiped that leader, loved Italy as his +birthplace, loved England too, and tried to show in his novels +the result of the inactive Restoration upon a generation trained +by Napoleon to action, violence, ambition and passion. + +Read to-day, "Le Rouge et Noir," which it is sufficient to +consider for our purposes, seems somewhat slow in movement, +struggling in construction, meticulous in manner. At times, its +interminability recalls "Clarissa Harlowe," but it possesses the +traits' which were to mark the coming school of novel-writing in +France and hence in the modern world: to wit, freedom in dealing +with love in its irregular relation, the tendency towards +tragedy, and that subtlety of handling which makes the main +interest to depend upon motive and thought rather than upon the +external action itself. "Thus conscience doth make cowards of us +all,"--that might be the motto. The young quasi-hero is Julian, +an ambitious worldling of no family, and his use of the Church +as a means of promotion, his amours with several women and his +death because of his love for one of them, are traced with a +kind of tortuous revelation of the inner workings of the human +heart which in its way declares genius in the writer: and which +certainly makes a work disillusioning of human nature. Its more +external aspect of a study of the politic Church and State, of +the rivalry between the reds and the blacks of the state +religion, is entirely secondary to this greater purpose and +result: here, for the first time at full length, a writer shows +the possibility of that realistic portrayal sternly carried +through, no matter how destructive of romantic preconceptions of +men and women. It is the method of Richardson flowering in a +time of greater freedom and more cynical questioning of the +gods. + + +II + +But giving Stendhal his full mint and cummin of praise, he yet +was but the forerunner of a mightier man. Undoubtedly, he +prepared the soil and was a necessary link in the chain of +development wherewith fiction was to forge itself an unbreakable +sequence of strength. Balzac was to put out his lesser light, as +indeed the refulgence of his genius was to overshine all French +fiction, before and since. It would be an exaggeration to say +that the major English novelists of the middle nineteenth +century were consciously disciples of Balzac--for something +greater even than he moved them; the spirit of the Time. But it +is quite within bounds to say that of all modern fiction he is +the leader and shaper. Without him, his greatest native +follower, Zola, is inconceivable. He gathers up into himself and +expresses at its fullest all that was latent in the striking +modern growth whose banner-cry was Truth, and whose method was +that of the social scientist. Here was a man who, early in his +career, for the first time in the history of the Novel, +deliberately planned to constitute himself the social historian +of his epoch and race: and who, in upwards of a hundred +remarkable pieces of fiction in Novel form executed that plan in +such fulness that his completed work stands not only as a +monument of industry, but as perhaps the most inspiring example +of literary synthesis in the history of letters. In bigness of +conception and of construction--let alone the way in which the +work was performed--the Human Comedy is awe-begetting; it drives +one to Shakspere for like largeness of scale. Such a +performance, ordered and directed to a foreseen end, is unique +in literature. + +As Balzac thus gave birth, with a fiery fecundity of invention, +to book after book of the long list of Novels that make up his +story of life, there took shape in his mind a definite +intention: to become the Secretary of an Age of which he +declared society to be the historian. He wished to exhibit man +in his species as he was to be seen in the France of the +novelist's era, just as a naturalist aims to study beast-kind, +segregating them into classes for zoological investigation. +Later, Balzac's great successor (as we shall see) applied this +analogy with more rigid insistence upon the scientific method +which should obtain in all literary study. The survey proposed +covered a period of about half a century and included the +Republic, the Empire and the Restoration: it ranged through all +classes and conditions of men with no appearance of prejudice, +preference or parti-pris (this is one of the marvels of Balzac), +thus gaining the immense advantage of an apparently complete and +catholic comprehension of the human show. Of all modern +novelists, Balzac is the one whose work seems like life instead +of an opinion of life; he has the objectivity of Shakspere. Even +a Tolstoy set beside him seems limited. + +This idea of a plan was not crystallized into the famous title +given to his collective works--La Comedie Humaine--until 1842, +when but eight years of life remained to him. But four years +earlier it had been mentioned in a letter, and when Balzac was +only a little over thirty, at a time when his better-known books +were just beginning to appear, he had signified his sense of an +inclusive scheme by giving such a running title to a group of +his stories as the familiar "Scenes from Private Life"--to +which, in due course, were added other designations for the +various parts of the great plan. The encyclopedic survey was +never fully completed, but enough was done to justify all the +laudation that belongs to a Herculean task and the exploitation +of an almost incredible amount of human data. As for finishing +the work, the failure hardly detracts from its value or affects +its place in literature. Neither Spenser's "Faery Queen" nor +Wordsworth's "The Excursion" was completed, and, per contra, it +were as well for Browning if "The Ring and the Book" had not +been. In all such cases of so-called incompletion, one +recognizes Hercules from the feet. Had this mighty story-teller +and student of humanity carried out his full intention there +would have been nearly 150 pieces of fiction; of the plan-on-paper +he actually completed ninety-seven, two-thirds of the +whole, and enough to illustrate the conception. And it must be +remembered that Balzac died at fifty. One result of the +incompletion, as Brunetiere has pointed out, is to give +disproportionate treatment to certain phases of life, to the +military, for instance, for which Balzac has twenty-four stories +on his list, whereas only two, "The Chouans" and "A Passion in +the Desert," were executed. But surely, sufficient was done, +looking to the comedy as a whole, to force us to describe the +execution as well as the conception as gigantic. Had the work +been more mechanically pushed to its end for the exact plan's +sake, the perfection of scheme might have been attained at the +expense of vitality and inspiration. Ninety-seven pieces of +fiction, the majority of them elaborate novels, the whole +involving several thousand characters, would be impressive in +any case, but when they come from an author who marvelously +reproduces his time and country, creating his scenes in a way to +afford us a sense of the complexity of life--its depth and +height, its beauty, terror and mystery--we can but hail him as +Master. + +And in spite of the range and variety in Balzac's unique +product, it has an effect of unity based upon a sense of social +solidarity. He conceives it his duty to present the unity of +society in his day, whatever its apparent class and other +divergencies. He would show that men and women are members of +the one body social, interacting upon each other in manifold +relations and so producing the dramas of earth; each story plays +its part in this general aim, illustrating the social laws and +reactions, even as the human beings themselves play their parts +in the world. In this way Balzac's Human Comedy is an organism, +however much it may fall short of symmetry and completion. + +In the outline of the plan we find him separating his studies +into three groups or classes: The Studies of Manners, the +Philosophical Studies, and the Analytic Studies. In the first +division were placed the related groups of scenes of Private +life, Provincial life, Parisian life, Political life, Military +life and Country life. It was his desire, as he says in a letter +to Madame Hanska, to have the group of studies of Manners +"represent all social effects"; in the philosophic studies the +causes of those effects: the one exhibits individualities +typified, the other, types individualized: and in the Analytic +Studies he searches for the principles. "Manners are the +performance; the causes are the wings and the machinery. The +principles--they are the author.... Thus man, society and +humanity will be described, judged, analyzed without repetition +and in a work which will be, as it were, 'The Thousand and One +Nights' of the west." + +The scheme thus categorically laid down sounds rather dry and +formal, nor is it too easy to understand. But all trouble +vanishes when once the Human Comedy itself, in any example of +it, is taken up; you launch upon the great swollen tide of life +and are carried irresistibly along. + +It is plain that with an author of Balzac's productive powers, +any attempt to convey an idea of his quality must perforce +confine itself to a few representative specimens. A few of them, +rightly chosen, give a fair notion of his general +interpretation. What then are some illustrative creations? + +In the case of most novelists, although of first rank, it is not +as a rule difficult to define their class and name their +tendency: their temperaments and beliefs are so-and-so, and they +readily fall under the designation of realist or romanticist, +pessimist, or optimist, student of character or maker of plots. +This is, in a sense, impossible with Balzac. The more he be +read, the harder to detect his bias: he seems, one is almost +tempted to say, more like a natural force than a human mind. +Persons read two or three--perhaps half a dozen of his books--and +then prate glibly of his dark view, his predilection for the +base in mankind; when fifty fictions have been assimilated, it +will be realized that but a phase of Balzac had been seen. + +When the passion of creation, the birth-throes of a novel were +on him, he became so immersed in the aspect of life he was +depicting that he saw, felt, knew naught else: externally this +obsession was expressed by his way of life and work while the +story was growing under his hand: his recluse habits, his +monkish abstention from worldly indulgences, the abnormal night +hours of activity, the loss of flesh, so that the robust man who +went into the guarded chamber came out at the end of six weeks +the shadow of himself. + +As a consequence of the consecration to the particular task (as +if it embraced the one view of existence), the reader perhaps +experiences a shock of surprise in passing from "The Country +Doctor" to "Pere Goriot." But the former is just as truly part +of his interpretation as the latter. A dozen fictions can be +drawn from the body of his production which portray humanity in +its more beautiful, idealistic manifestations. Books like "The +Country Doctor" and "Eugenic Grandet" are not alone in the list. +And how beautiful both are! "The Country Doctor" has all the +idyllic charm of setting which a poetic interpretation of life +in a rural community can give. Not alone Nature, but human +nature is hymned. The kindly old physician, whose model is the +great Physician himself, is like Chaucer's good parson, an +unforgettable vision of the higher potentialities of the race. +Such a novel deserves to be called quite as truly romance and +prose poem, save that Balzac's vraisemblance, his gift for +photographic detail and the contemporaneousness of the setting, +make it modern. And thus with "Eugenie Grandet" the same method +applied in "The Country Doctor" to the study of a noble +profession in a rural atmosphere, is here used for the portrait +of a good woman whose entourage is again that of simple, natural +conditions. There is more of light and shade in the revelation +of character because Eugenie's father, the miser--a masterly +sketch--furnishes a dark background for her radiant personality. +But the same effect is produced, that of throwing into bold +relief the sweet, noble, high and pure in our common humanity. +And in this case it is a girl of humble station far removed from +the shams and shameful passions of the town. The conventional +contrast would be to present in another novel some woman of the +city as foul as this daughter of Grandet is fair. Not so Balzac. +He is too broad an observer of humanity, and as artist too much +the master for such cheap effects of chiaroscuro. In "The +Duchess De Langeais" e sets his central character amidst the +frivolities of fashion and behold, yet another beautiful type of +the sex! As Richardson drew his Pamela and Clarissa, so Balzac +his Eugenie and the Duchess: and let us not refrain from +carrying out the comparison, and add, how feeble seems the +Englishman in creation when one thinks of the half a hundred +other female figures, good and bad, high and low, distinctly +etched upon the memory by the mordant pen of the Frenchman! + +Then if we turn to that great tragedy of family, "Pere Goriot," +the change is complete. Now are we plunged into an atmosphere of +greed, jealousy, uncleanliness and hate, all steeped in the +bourgeois street air of Paris. In this tale of thankless +daughters and their piteous old father, all the hideousness +possible to the ties of kin is uncovered to our frightened yet +fascinated eye. The plot holds us in a vise; to recall Madame +Vautrin's boarding house is to shudder at the sights and smells! +Compare it with Dickens' Mrs. Todgers, and once and for all you +have the difference between the Anglo-Saxon and Celtic genius. + +Suppose, now, the purpose be to reveal not a group or community, +but one human soul, a woman's this time: read "A Woman of +Thirty" and see how the novelist,--for the first time--and one +is inclined to add, for all time,--has pierced through the +integuments and reached the very quick of psychologic exposure. +It is often said that he has created the type of young-old, or +old-young woman: meaning that before him, novelists overlooked +the fact that a woman of this age, maturer in experience and +still ripe in physical charms, is really of intense social +attraction, richly worth study. But this is because Balzac knows +that all souls are interesting, if only we go beneath the +surface. The only work of modern fiction which seems to me so +nakedly to lay open the recesses of the human spirit as does "A +Woman of Thirty" is Meredith's "The Egoist"; and, of course, +master against master, Balzac is easily the superior, since the +English author's wonderful book is so mannered and grotesque. +Utter sympathy is shown in these studies of femininity, whether +the subject be a harlot, a saint or a patrician of the Grande +Monde. + +If the quest be for the handling of mankind en masse, with big +effects of dark and light: broad brush-work on a canvas suited +to heroical, even epic, themes,--a sort of fiction the later +Zola was to excel in--Balzac will not fail us. His work here is +as noteworthy as it is in the fine detailed manner of his most +realistical modern studies--or in the searching analysis of the +human spirit. "The Chouans" may stand for this class: it has all +the fire, the color, the elan that emanate from the army and the +call of country. We have flashed before us one of those +reactionary movements, after the French Revolution, which take +on a magic romanticism because they culminate in the name of +Napoleon. While one reads, one thinks war, breathes war--it is +the only life for the moment. Just ahead a step, one feels, is +the "imminent deadly breach"; the social or business or Bohemian +doings of later Paris are as if they did not exist. And this +particular novel will achieve such a result with the reader, +even although it is not by any means one of Balzac's supreme +achievements, being in truth, a little aside from his metier, +since it is historical and suggests in spots the manner of +Scott. But this power of envisaging war (which will be farther +realized if such slighter works as "A Dark Affair" and "An +Episode Under the Terror" be also perused), is only a single +manifestation of a general gift. Suppose there is desired a +picture very common in our present civilization--most common it +may be in America,--that of the country boy going up to the city +to become--what? Perhaps a captain of commerce, or a leader of +fashion: perhaps a great writer or artist; or a politician who +shall rule the capitol. It is a venture packed full of realistic +experience but equally full of romance, drama, poetry--of an +epic suggestiveness. In two such volumes as "A Great Provincial +Man in Paris" and "Lost Illusions," all this, with its dire +chances of evil as well as its roseate promise of success, has +been wonderfully expressed. So cogently modern a motive had +never been so used before. + +Sometimes in a brace of books Balzac shows us the front and +back-side of some certain section of life: as in "Cousin Pons" +and "Cousine Bette."--The corner of Paris where artists, +courtesans and poor students most do congregate, where Art +capitalized is a sacred word, and the odd estrays of humanity, +picturesque, humorous, and tragic, display all the chances of +mankind,--this he paints so that we do not so much look on as +move amidst the throng. In the first-named novel, assuredly a +very great book, the figure of the quaint old connoisseur is one +of fiction's superlative successes: to know him is to love him +in all his weakness. In the second book, Bette is a female +vampire and the story around her as terrible as the other is +heart-warming and sweet. And you know that both are true, true +as they would not have been apart: "helpless each without the +other." + +Again, how much of the gambling activities of modern business +are emblazoned in another of the acknowledged masterpieces, +"Caesar Birotteau." We can see in it the prototype of much that +comes later in French fiction: Daudet's "Risler Aine et Froment +Jeune" and Zola's "L'Argent," to name but two. Such a story sums +up the practical, material side of a reign or an epoch. + +Nor should it be forgotten that this close student of human +nature, whose work appears so often severely mundane, and most +strong when its roots go down into the earth, sometimes seeming +to prefer the rankness and slime of human growths,--can on +occasion soar into the empyrean, into the mystic region of +dreams and ideals and all manner of subtle imaginings. Witness +such fiction as "The Magic Skin," "Seraphita," and "The Quest of +the Absolute." It is hard to believe that the author of such +creations is he of "Pere Goriot" or "Cousine Bette." But it is +Balzac's wisdom to see that such pictures are quite as truly +part of the Human Comedy: because they represent man giving play +to his soul--exercising his highest faculties. Nor does the +realistic novelist in such efforts have the air of one who has +left his true business in order to disport himself for once in +an alien element. On the contrary, he seems absolutely at home: +for the time, this is his only affair, his natural interest. + +And so with illustrations practically inexhaustible, which the +long list prodigally offers. But the scope and variety have been +already suggested; the best rule with Balzac is, each one to his +taste, always remembering that in a writer so catholic, there is +a peculiar advantage in an extended study. Nor can from twenty +to twenty-five of his best books be read without a growing +conviction that here is a man of genius who has done a unique +thing. + +It is usual to refer to Balzac as the first great realist of the +French, indeed, of modern fiction. Strictly, he is not the first +in France, as we have seen, since Beyle preceded him; nor in +modern fiction, for Jane Austen, so admirably an artist of +verity, came a generation before. But, as always when a +compelling literary force appears, Balzac without any question +dominates in the first half of the nineteenth century: more than +this, he sets the mold of the type which marks the second half. +In fact, the modern Novel means Balzac's recipe. English +fiction, along with that of Europe, shares this influence. We +shall see in dealing with Dickens how definitely the English +writer adopted the Balzac method as suited to the era and +sympathetic to Dickens' own nature. + +As to the accuracy with which he gave a representation of +contemporary life--thus deserving the name realist--considerable +may be said in the way of qualification. Much of it applies with +similar force to Zola, later to be hailed as a king among modern +realists in the naturalistic extreme to which he pushed the +movement. Balzac, through his remarkable instinct for detail and +particularity, did introduce into nineteenth century fiction an +effect of greater truth in the depiction of life. Nobody perhaps +had--nobody has since--presented mis-en-scene as did he. He +builds up an impression by hundreds of strokes, each seemingly +insignificant, but adding to a totality that becomes impressive. +Moreover, again and again in his psychologic analysis there are +home-thrusts which bring the blood to the face of any honest +person. His detail is thus quite as much subjective as external. +It were a great mistake to regard Balzac as merely a writer who +photographed things outside in the world; he is intensely +interested in the things within--and if objectivity meant +realism exclusively, he would be no realist at all. + +But farther than this; with all his care for minute touches and +his broad and painstaking observation, it is not so much life, +after all, as a vision of life which he gives. This contradicts +what was said early in the present chapter: but the two +statements stand for the change likely to come to any student of +Balzac: his objective personality at last resolves itself into a +vividly personal interpretation. His breadth blinds one for a +while, that is all. Hence Balzac may be called an incurable +romantic, an impressionist, as much as realist. Like all first-class +art, his gives us the seeming-true for our better +instruction. He said in the Preface to "Pere Goriot" that the +novelist should not only depict the world as it is, but "a +possibly better world." He has done so. The most untrue thing in +a novel may be the fact lifted over unchanged from life? Truth +is not only stranger than fiction, but great fiction is truer +than truth. Balzac understood this, remembered it in his heart. +He is too big as man and artist to be confined within the narrow +realistic formula. While, as we have seen, he does not take +sides on moral issues, nor allow himself to be a special pleader +for this or that view, his work strikes a moral balance in that +it shows universal humanity--not humanity tranced in +metaphysics, or pathologic in analysis, or enmeshed in +sensualism. In this sense, Balzac is a great realist. There is +no danger of any novelist--any painter of life--doing harm, if +he but gives us the whole. It is the story-teller who rolls some +prurient morsel under his tongue who has the taint in him: he +who, to sell his books, panders to the degraded instincts of his +audience. Had Balzac been asked point-blank what he deemed the +moral duty of the novelist, he would probably have disclaimed +any other responsibility than that of doing good work, of +representing things as they are. But this matters not, if only a +writer's nature be large and vigorous enough to report of +humanity in a trustworthy way. Balzac was much too well endowed +in mind and soul and had touched life far too widely, not to +look forth upon it with full comprehension of its spiritual +meaning. + +In spite, too, of his alleged realism, he believed that the duty +of the social historian was more than to give a statement of +present conditions--the social documents of the moment,--variable +as they might be for purposes of deduction. He insisted +that the coming,--perhaps seemingly impossible things, should be +prophesied;--those future ameliorations, whether individual or +collective, which keep hope alive in the human breast. Let me +again quote those words, extraordinary as coming from the man +who is called arch-realist of his day: "The novelist should +depict the world not alone as it is, but a possibly better +world." In the very novel where he said it ("Pere Goriot") he +may seem to have violated the principle: but taking his fiction +in its whole extent, he has acted upon it, the pronunciamento +exemplifies his practice. + +Balzac's work has a Shaksperian universality, because it is so +distinctly French,--a familiar paradox in literature. He was +French in his feeling for the social unit, in his keen +receptivity to ideas, in his belief in Church and State as the +social organisms through which man could best work out his +salvation. We find him teaching that humanity, in terms of +Gallic temperament, and in time limits between the Revolution +and the Second Republic, is on the whole best served by living +under a constitutional monarchy and in vital touch with Mother +Church,--that form of religion which is a racial inheritance +from the Past. In a sense, then, he was a man with the +limitations of his place and time, as, in truth, was Shakspere. +But the study of literature instructs us that it is exactly +those who most vitally grasp and voice their own land and +period, who are apt to give a comprehensive view of humanity at +large; to present man sub specie aeternitatis. This is so +because, thoroughly to present any particular part of mankind, +is to portray all mankind. It is all tarred by the same stick, +after all. It is only in the superficials that unlikenesses lie. + +Balzac was intensely modern. Had he lived today, he might have +been foremost in championing the separation of Church and State +and looked on serenely at the sequestration of the religious +houses. But writing his main fiction from 1830 to 1850, his +attitude was an enlightened one, that of a thoughtful patriot. + +His influence upon nineteenth century English fiction was both +direct and indirect. It was direct in its effect upon several of +the major novelists, as will be noted in studying them; the +indirect influence is perhaps still more important, because it +was so all-pervasive, like an emanation that expressed the Time. +It became impossible, after Balzac had lived and wrought, for +any artist who took his art seriously to write fiction as if the +great Frenchman had not come first. He set his seal upon that +form of literature, as Ibsen, a generation later, was to set his +seal upon the drama, revolutionizing its technique. To the +student therefore he is a factor of potent power in explaining +the modern fictional development. Nor should he be a negligible +quantity to the cultivated reader seeking to come genially into +acquaintance with the best that European letters has +accomplished. While upon the lover of the Novel as a form of +literature--which means the mass of all readers to-day--Balzac +cannot fail to exercise a personal fascination.--Life widens +before us at his touch, and that glamour which is the +imperishable gift of great art, returns again as one turns the +pages of the little library of yellow books which contain the +Human Comedy. + +Balzac died in 1850, when in the prime of his powers. Seven +years later was published the "Madame Bovary" of Flaubert, one +of the most remarkable novels of the nineteenth century and the +most unrelenting depiction of the devolution of a woman's soul +in all fiction: certainly it deserved that description up to the +hour of its appearance, if not now, when so much has been done +in the realm of female pathology. Flaubert is the most +noteworthy intermediate figure between Balzac and Zola. He seems +personally of our own day, for, living to be an old man, he was +friend and fellow-worker with the brothers Goncourt (whom we +associate with Zola) and extended a fatherly hand to the young +Maupassant at the beginning of the latter's career,--so +brilliant, brief, tragic. The influence of this one novel +(overlooking that of "Salambo," in its way also of influence in +the modern growth) has been especially great upon a kind of +fiction most characteristic of the present generation: in which, +in fact, it has assumed a "bad preeminence." I mean the Novel of +sexual relations in their irregular aspects. The stormy artist +of the Goncourt dinners has much to answer for, if we regard him +only as the creator of such a creature as Madame Bovary. Many +later books were to surpass this in license, in coarseness, or +in the effect of evoking a libidinous taste; but none in its +unrelenting gloom, the cold detachment of the artist-scientist +obsessed with the idea of truthfully reflecting certain sinister +facets of the many-faced gem called life! It is hardly too much +to say, in the light of the facts, that "Madame Bovary" was +epochal. It paved the way for Zola. It justified a new aim for +the modern fiction of so-called unflinching realism. The saddest +thing about the book is its lack of pity, of love. Emma Bovary +is a weak woman, not a bad woman; she goes downhill through the +force of circumstances coupled with a want of backbone. And she +is not responsible for her flabby moral muscles. Behind the +story is an absolutely fatalistic philosophy; given a certain +environment, any woman (especially if assisted a bit by her +ancestors) will go to hell,--such seems the lesson. Now there is +nothing just like this in Balzac, We hear in it a new note, the +latter-day note of quiescence, and despair. And if we compare +Flaubert's indifference to his heroine's fate with the +tenderness of Dumas fils, or of Daudet, or the English Reade and +Dickens--we shall realize that we have here a mixture of a +personal and a coming general interpretation: Flaubert having by +nature a kind of aloof determinism, yet feeling, like the first +puffs of a cold chilling wind, the oncoming of an age of Doubt. + + +III. + +These three French writers then, Stendhal, Balzac and Flaubert, +molded the Novel before 1860 into such a shape as to make it +plastic to the hand of Zola a decade later. Zola's influence +upon our present generation of English fiction has been great, +as it has upon all novel-making since 1870. Before explaining +this further, it will be best to return to the study of the +mid-century English novelists who were too early to be affected +by him to any perceptible degree. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +DICKENS + +By the year 1850, in England, the so-called Novel of realism had +conquered. Scott in an earlier generation had by his wonderful +gift made the romance fashionable. But, as we said, it was the +romance with a difference: the romance with its feet firmly +planted on mother-earth, not ballooning in cloudland; the +romance depicting men and women of the past but yet men and +women, not creatures existing only in the fancy of the romance-maker. +In short, Scott, romancer though he was, helped modern +realism along, because he handled his material more truthfully +than it had been handled before. And his great contemporary, +Jane Austen, with her strict adherence to the present and to her +own locale, threw all her influence in the same direction, +justifying Mr. Howell's assertion that she leads all English +novelists in that same truthful handling. + +Moreover, that occult but imperative thing, the spirit of the +Time, was on the side of Realism: and all bend to its dictation. +Then, in the mid-century, Dickens and Thackeray, with George +Eliot a little later on their heels, and Trollope too, came to +give a deeper set to the current which was to flow in similar +channels for the remainder of the period. In brief, this is the +story, whatever modifications of the main current are to be +noted: the work of Bulwer and Disraeli, of Reade, Kingsley and +Collins. + +A decade before Thackeray got a general hearing Dickens had fame +and mighty influence. It was in the eighteen thirties that the +self-made son of an impecunious navy clerk, who did not live in +vain since he sat for a portrait of Micawber and the father of +the Marshalsea, turned from journalism to that higher reporting +which means the fiction of manners and humors. All the gods had +prepared him for his destiny. Sympathy he had for the poor, the +oppressed, the physically and morally unfit, for he had suffered +in his own person, or in his imagination, for them all. His gift +of observation had been sharpened in the grim school of +necessity: he had learned to write by writing under the pressure +of newspaper needs. And he had in his blood, while still hardly +more than a lad, a feeling for idiomatic English which, so far +as it was not a boon straight from heaven, had been fostered +when the very young Charles had battened, as we saw, upon the +eighteenth century worthies. + +It is now generally acknowledged that Dickens is not a temporary +phenomenon in Victorian letters, but a very solid major fact in +the native literature, too large a creative force to be +circumscribed by a generation. Looked back upon across the gap +of time, he looms up all the more impressively because the years +have removed the clutter about the base of the statue. The +temporary loss of critical regard (a loss affecting his hold on +the general reading public little, if any) has given way to an +almost violent critical reaction in his favor. We are widening +the esthetic canvas to admit of the test of life, and are coming +to realize that, obsessed for a time by the attraction of that +lower truth which makes so much of external realities, realism +lost sight of the larger demands of art which include selection, +adaptation, and that enlargement of effect marking the +distinction between art and so-called reality. No critic is now +timid about saying a good word for the author of "Pickwick" and +"Copperfield." A few years ago it was otherwise. Present-day +critics such as Henley, Lang, and Chesterton have assured the +luke-warm that there is room in English literature for both +Thackeray and Dickens. + +That Dickens began to write fiction as a very young journalist +was in some ways in his favor; in other ways, to the detriment +of his work. It meant an early start on a career of over thirty +years. It meant writing under pressure with the spontaneity and +reality which usually result. It also meant the bold grappling +with the technique of a great art, learning to make novels by +making them. Again, one truly inspired to fiction is lucky to +have a novitiate in youth. So far the advantages. + +On the other hand, the faults due to inexperience, lack of +education, uncertainty of aim, haste and carelessness and other +foes of perfection, will probably be in evidence when a writer +who has scarcely attained to man's estate essays fiction. +Dickens' early work has thus the merits and demerits of his +personal history. A popular and able parliamentary reporter, +with sympathetic knowledge of London and the smaller towns where +his duties took him, possessed of a marvelous memory which +photographed for him the boyish impressions of places like +Chatham and Rochester, he began with sketches of that life +interspersed with more fanciful tales which drew upon his +imagination and at times passed the melodramatic border-line. +When these collected pieces were published under the familiar +title "Sketches by Boz," it is not too much to say that the +Dickens of the "Pickwick Papers" (which was to appear next year) +was revealed. Certainly, the main qualities of a great master of +the Comic were in these pages; so, in truth, was the master of +both tears and smiles. But not at full-length: the writer had +not yet found his occasion;--the man needs the occasion, even as +it awaits the man. And so, hard upon the Boz book, followed, as +it were by an accident, the world-famous "Adventures of Mr. +Pickwick." By accident, I say, because the promising young +author was asked to furnish the letter-press for a series of +comic sporting pictures by the noted artist, Seymour; +whereupon--doubtless to the astonishment of all concerned, the +pictures became quite secondary to the reading matter and the Wellers +soon set all England talking and laughing over their inimitable +sayings. Here in a loosely connected series of sketches the main +unity of which was the personality of Mr. Pickwick and his club, +its method that of the episodic adventure story of "Gil Blas" +lineage, its purpose frankly to amuse at all costs, a new +creative power in English literature gave the world over three +hundred characters in some sixty odd scenes: intensely English, +intensely human, and still, after the lapse of three quarters of +a century, keenly enjoyable. + +In a sense, all Dickens' qualities are to be found in "The +Pickwick Papers," as they have come to be called for brevity's +sake. But the assertion is misleading, if it be taken to mean +that in the fifteen books of fiction which Dickens was to +produce, he added nothing, failed to grow in his art or to widen +and deepen in his hold upon life. So far is this from the truth, +that one who only knows Charles Dickens in this first great book +of fun, knows a phase of him, not the whole man: more, hardly +knows the novelist at all. He was to become, and to remain, not +only a great humorist, but a great novelist as well: and +"Pickwick" is not, by definition, a Novel at all. Hence, the +next book the following year, "Oliver Twist," was important as +answering the question: Was the brilliant new writer to turn out +very novelist, able to invent, handle and lead to due end a +tangled representation of social life? + +Before replying, one rather important matter may be adverted to, +concerning the Dickens introduced to the world by "Pickwick": +his astonishing power in the evocation of human beings, whom we +affectionately remember, whose words are treasured, whose fates +are followed with a sort of sense of personal responsibility. If +the creation of differentiated types of humanity who persist in +living in the imagination be the cardinal gift of the fiction +writer, then this one is easily the leading novelist of the +race. Putting aside for the moment the question of his +caricaturing tendency, one fact confronts us, hardly to be +explained away: we can close our eyes and see Micawber, Mrs. +Gamp, Pegotty, Dick Swiveller, the Artful Dodger, Joe Gargery, +Tootles, Captain Cutter, and a hundred more, and their sayings, +quaint and dear, are like household companions. And this is true +in equal measure of no other story-maker who has used English +speech--it may be doubted if it is true to like degree of +Shakspere himself. + +In the quick-following stories, "Oliver Twist" and "Nicholas +Nickleby," the author passed from episode and comic +characterization to what were in some sort Novels: the fiction +of organism, growth and climax. + +His wealth of character creation was continued and even +broadened. But there was more here: an attempt to play the game +of Novel-making. It may be granted that when Dickens wrote these +early books (as a young man in the twenties), he had not yet +mastered many of the difficulties of the art of fiction. There +is loose construction in both: the melodrama of "Oliver Twist" +blends but imperfectly with the serious and sentimental part of +the narrative, which is less attractive. So, too, in "Nickleby," +there is an effect at times of thin ice where the plot is +secondary to the episodic scenes and characters by the way. Yet +in both Novels there is a story and a good one: we get the +spectacle of genius learning its lesson,--experimenting in a +form. And as those other early books, differing totally from +each other too, "Old Curiosity Shop," and "Barnaby Rudge," were +produced, and in turn were succeeded by a series of great novels +representing the writer's young prime,--I mean "Martin +Chuzzlewit," "Dombey and Son" and "David Copperfield,"--it was +plain that the hand of Dickens was becoming subdued to the +element it worked in. Not only was there a good fable, as +before, but it was managed with increasing mastery, while the +general adumbration of life gained in solidity, truth and rich +human quality. In brief, by the time "Copperfield," the story +most often referred to as his best work, was reached, Dickens +was an artist. He wrought in that fiction in such a fashion as +to make the most of the particular class of Novel it +represented: to wit, the first-person autobiographic picture of +life. Given its purpose, it could hardly have been better done. +It surely bears favorable comparison, for architecture, with +Thackeray's "Vanity Fair," a work in the same genre, though +lacking the autobiographic method. This is quite aside from its +remarkable range of character-portrayal, its humor, pathos and +vraisemblance, its feeling for situation, its sonorous eloquence +in massed effects. + +By the time he had reached mid-career, then, Charles Dickens had +made himself a skilled, resourceful story-teller, while his +unique qualities of visualization and interpretation had +strengthened. This point is worth emphasis, since there are +those who contend that "The Pickwick Papers" is his most +characteristic performance. Such a judgment is absurd, It +overlooks the grave beauty of the picture of Chesney Wold in +Bleak House; the splendid harmony of the Yarmouth storm in +"Copperfield"; the fine melodrama of the chapter in "Chuzzlewit" +where the guilty Jonas takes his haggard life; the magnificent +portraiture of the Father of the Marshalsea in "Little Dorrit": +the spiritual exaltation in vivid stage terms of Carton's death; +the exquisite April-day blend of tenderness and fun in limning +the young life of a Marchioness, a little Dombey and a tiny Tim. +To call Dickens a comic writer and stop there, is to try to pour +a river into a pint pot; for a sort of ebullient boy-like spirit +of fun, the high jinks of literature, we go to "Pickwick"; for +the light and shade of life to "Copperfield"; for the structural +excellencies of fiction to later masterpieces like "The Tale of +Two Cities" and "Great Expectations." + +Just here a serious objection often brought against Dickens may +be considered: his alleged tendency to caricature. Does Dickens +make his characters other than what life itself shows, and if +so, is he wrong in so doing? + +His severest critics assume the second if the first be but +granted. Life--meaning the exact reproduction of reality--is +their fetish. Now, it must be granted that Dickens does make his +creatures talk as their prototypes do not in life. Nobody would +for a moment assert that Mrs. Gamp, Pecksniff and Micawber could +be literally duplicated from the actual world. But is not +Dickens within his rights as artist in so changing the features +of life as to increase our pleasure? That is the nub of the +whole matter. The artist of fiction should not aim at exact +photography, for it is impossible; no fiction-maker since time +began has placed on the printed pages half the irrelevance and +foolishness or one-fifth the filth which are in life itself. +Reasons of art and ethics forbid. The aim, therefore, should +rather be at an effect of life through selection and re-shaping. +And I believe Dickens is true to this requirement. We hear less +now than formerly of his crazy exaggerations: we are beginning +to realize that perhaps he saw types that were there, which we +would overlook if they were under our very eyes: we feel the +wisdom of Chesterton's remarks that Dickens' characters will +live forever because they never lived at all! We suffered from +the myopia of realism. Zola desired above all things to tell the +truth by representing humanity as porcine, since he saw it that +way: he failed in his own purpose, because decency checked him: +his art is not photographic (according to his proud boast) but +has an almost Japanese convention of restraint in its +suppression of facts. Had Sarah Gamp been allowed by Dickens to +speak as she would speak in life, she would have been +unspeakably repugnant, never cherished as a permanently +laughable, even lovable figure of fiction. Dickens was a master +of omissions as well as of those enlargments which made him +carry over the foot lights. Mrs. Gamp is a monumental study of +the coarse woman rogue: her creator makes us hate the sin and +tolerate the sinner. Nor is that other masterly portrait of the +woman rascal--Thackeray's Becky Sharp--an example of strict +photography; she is great in seeming true, but she is not life. + +So much, then, for the charge of caricature: it is all a matter +of degree. It all depends upon the definition of art, and upon +the effect made upon the world by the characters themselves. If +they live in loving memory, they must, in the large sense, be +true. Thus we come back to the previous statement: Dickens' +people live--are known by their words and in their ways all over +the civilized world. No collection of mere grotesques could ever +bring this to pass. Prick any typical creation of Dickens and it +runs blood, not sawdust. And just in proportion as we travel, +observe broadly and form the habit of a more penetrating and +sympathetic study of mankind, shall we believe in these +emanations of genius. Occasionally, under the urge and +surplusage of his comic force, he went too far and made a Quilp: +but the vast majority even of his drolls are as credible as they +are dear. + +That he showed inequality as he wrought at the many books which +filled the years between "Pickwick" and the unfinished "Mystery +of Edwin Drood," may also be granted. Also may it be confessed +that within the bounds of one book there are the extremes of +good and bad. It is peculiar to Dickens that often in the very +novel we perchance feel called upon to condemn most, occurs a +scene or character as memorably great as anything he left the +world. Thus, we may regard "Old Curiosity Shop," once so +beloved, as a failure when viewed as a whole; and yet find Dick +Swiveller and the Marchioness at their immortal game as +unforgettable as Mrs. Battle engaged in the same pleasant +employment. Nor because other parts of "Little Dorrit" seem thin +and artificial, would we forego the description of the debtor's +prison. And our belief that the presentation of the labor-capital +problem in "Hard Times" is hasty and shallow, does not +prevent a recognition of the opening sketch of the circus troop +as displaying its author at his happiest of humorous +observation. There are thus always redeeming things in the +stories of this most unequal man of genius. Seven books there +are, novels in form, which are indubitable masterpieces: "Martin +Chuzzlewit," "Dombey and Son," "David Copperfield," "Bleak +House," "A Tale of Two Cities," "Great Expectations" and "Our +Mutual Friend." These, were all the others withdrawn, would give +ample evidence of creative power: they have the largeness, +variety and inventive verve which only are to be found in the +major novelists. Has indeed the same number of equal weight and +quality been given forth by any other English writer? + +Another proof that the power of Dickens was not dependent +exclusively upon the comic, is his production of "A Tale of Two +Cities." It is sometimes referred to as uncharacteristic because +it lacks almost entirely his usual gallery of comics: but it is +triumphantly a success in a different field. The author says he +wished for the nonce to make a straight adventure tale with +characters secondary. He did it in a manner which has always +made the romance a favorite, and compels us to include this +dramatic study of the French Revolution among the choicest of +his creations. Its period and scene have never--save by Carlyle--been +so brilliantly illuminated. Dickens was brooding on this +story at a time when, wretchedly unhappy, he was approaching the +crisis of a separation from his wife: the fact may help to +explain its failure to draw on that seemingly inexhaustible +fountain of bubbling fun so familiar in his work. But even +subtract humor and Dickens exhibits the master-hand in a fiction +markedly of another than his wonted kind. This Novel--or +romance, as it should properly be called--reminds us of a +quality in Dickens which has been spoken of in the way of +derogation: his theatrical tendency. When one declares an author +to be dramatic, a compliment is intended. But when he is called +theatric, censure is implied. Dickens, always possessed of a +strong sense of the dramatic and using it to immense advantage, +now and again goes further and becomes theatric: that is, he +suggests the manipulating of effects with artifice and the +intention of providing sensational and scenic results at the +expense of proportion and truth. A word on this is advisable. + +Those familiar with the man and his works are aware how close he +always stood to the playhouse and its product. He loved it from +early youth, all but went on the stage professionally, knew its +people as have few of the writing craft, was a fine amateur +actor himself, wrote for the stage, helped to dramatize his +novels and gave delightful studies of theatrical life in his +books. Shall we ever forget Mr. Crummles and his family? He had +an instinctive feeling for what was scenic and effective in the +stage sense. When he appeared as a reader of his own works, he +was an impersonator; and noticeably careful to have the stage +accessories exactly right. And when all this, natural and +acquired, was applied to fiction, it could not but be of +influence. As a result, Dickens sometimes forced the note, +favored the lurid, exaggerated his comic effects. To put it in +another way, this theater manner of his now and then injured the +literature he made. But that is only one side of the matter: it +also helped him greatly and where he went too far, he was simply +abusing a precious gift. To speak of Dickens' violent +theatricality as if it expressed his whole being, is like +describing the wart on Cromwell's face as if it were his set of +features. Remove from Dickens his dramatic power, and the +memorable master would be no more: he would vanish into dim air. +We may be thankful--in view of what it produced--that he +possessed even in excess this sense of the scenic value of +character and situation: it is not a disqualification but a +virtue, and not Dickens alone but Dumas, Hugo and Scott were +great largely because of it. + +In the praise naturally enough bestowed upon a great +autobiographical Novel like "David Copperfield," the fine art of +a late work like "Great Expectations" has been overlooked or at +least minimized. If we are to consider skilful construction +along with the other desirable qualities of the novelist, this +noble work has hardly had justice done it: moreover, everything +considered,--story value, construction, characters, atmosphere, +adequacy of style, climactic interest, and impressive lesson, I +should name "Great Expectations," published when the author was +fifty, as his most perfect book, if not the greatest of Charles +Dickens' novels. The opinion is unconventional: but as Dickens +is studied more as artist progressively skilful in his craft, I +cannot but believe this particular story will receive increasing +recognition. In the matter of sheer manipulation of material, it +is much superior to the book that followed it two years later, +the last complete novel: "Our Mutual Friend." It is rather +curious that this story, which was in his day and has steadily +remained a favorite with readers, has with equal persistency +been severely handled by the critics. What has insured its +popularity? Probably its vigor and variety of characterization, +its melodramatic tinge, the teeming world of dramatic contrasts +it opens, its bait to our sense of mystery. It has a power very +typical of the author and one of the reasons for Dickens' hold +upon his audience. It is a power also exhibited markedly in such +other fictions as "Dombey and Son," "Martin Chuzzlewit" and +"Bleak House." I refer to the impression conveyed by such +stories that life is a vast, tumultuous, vari-colored play of +counter-motives and counter-characters, full of chance, +surprise, change and bitter sweet: a thing of mystery, terror, +pity and joy. It has its masks of respectability, its frauds of +place, its beauty blossoming in the mud, its high and low of +luck, its infinite possibilities betwixt heaven and hell. The +effect of this upon the sensitive reader is to enlarge his +sympathetic feeling for humanity: life becomes a big, awful, +dear phantasmagoria in such hands. It seems not like a flat +surface, but a thing of length, breadth, height and depth, which +it has been a privilege to enter. Dickens' fine gift--aside from +that of character creation--is found in this ability to convey +an impression of puissant life. He himself had this feeling and +he got it into his books: he had, in a happier sense, the joy of +life of Ibsen, the life force of Nietzsche. From only a few of +the world's great writers does one receive this sense of life, +the many-sided spectacle; Cervantes, Hugo, Tolstoy, Sienkiewicz, +it is men like they that do this for us. + +Another side of Dickens' literary activity is shown in his +Christmas stories, which it may be truly said are as well +beloved as anything he gave the world in the Novel form. This is +assuredly so of the "Christmas Carol," "The Chimes" and "The +Cricket on the Hearth." This last is on a par with the other two +in view of its double life in a book and on the boards of the +theater. The fragrance of Home, of the homely kindness and +tenderness of the human heart, is in them, especially in the +Carol, which is the best tale of its kind in the tongue and +likely to remain so. It permanently altered the feeling of the +race for Christmas. Irving preceded him in the use of the +Christmas motive, but Dickens made it forever his own. By a +master's magic evocation, the great festival shines brighter, +beckons more lovingly than it did of old. Thackeray felt this +when he declared that such a story was "a public benefit." Such +literature lies aside from our main pursuit, that of the Novel, +but is mentioned because it is the best example possible, the +most direct, simple expression of that essential kindness, that +practical Christianity which is at the bottom of Dickens' +influence. It is bonhomie and something more. It is not Dickens +the reformer, as we get him when he satirizes Dotheboys hall, or +the Circumlocution Office or the Chancery Court: but Dickens as +Mr. Greatheart, one with all that is good, tender, sweet and +true. Tiny Tim's thousand-times quoted saying is the +quintessence, the motto for it all and the writer speaks in and +through the lad when he says: "God bless us, every one." When an +author gets that honest unction into his work, and also has the +gift of observation and can report what he sees, he is likely to +contribute to the literature of his land. With a sneer of the +cultivated intellect, we may call it elementary: but to the +heart, such a view of life is royally right. + +This thought of Dickens' moral obligation in his work and his +instinctive attitude towards his audience, leads to one more +point: a main reason for this Victorian novelist's strong hold +on the affections of mankind is to be found in the warm personal +relation he establishes with the reader. The relationship +implies obligation on the part of the author, a vital bond +between the two, a recognition of a steady, not a chance, +association. There goes with it, too, an assumption that the +author believes in and cares much for his characters, and asks +the reader for the same faith. This personal relation of author +to reader and of both to the imagined characters, has gone out +of fashion in fiction-making: in this respect, Dickens (and most +of his contemporaries) seem now old-fashioned. The present +realist creed would keep the novelist away and out of sight both +of his fictive creations and his audience; it being his business +to pull the strings to make his puppets dance--up to heaven or +down to hell, whatever does it matter to the scientist-novelist? +Tolstoy's novel "Resurrection" is as a subject much more +disagreeable than Flaubert's "Madame Bovary"; but it is +beautiful where the other is horrible, because it palpitates +with a Christ-like sympathy for an erring woman, while the +French author cares not a button whether his character is lost +or not. The healthy-minded public (which can be trusted in +heart, if not in head) will instinctively choose that treatment +of life in a piece of fiction which shows the author kindly +cooperative with fate and brotherly in his position towards his +host of readers. That is the reason Dickens holds his own and is +extremely likely to gain in the future, while spectacular +reputations based on all the virtues save love, continue to die +the death. What M. Anatole France once said of Zola, applies to +the whole school of the aloof and unloving: "There is in man an +infinite need of loving which renders him divine. M. Zola does +not know it.... The holiness of tears is at the bottom of all +religions. Misfortune would suffice to render man august to man. +M. Zola does not know it." + +Charles Dickens does know these truths and they get into his +work and that work, therefore, gets not so much into the minds +as into the souls of his fellow-man. When we recite the sayings +which identify his classic creations: when we express ourselves +in a Pickwickian sense, wait for something to turn up with Mr. +Micawber, drop into poetry with Silas Wegg, move on with little +Joe, feel 'umble after the manner of Uriah Heap, are willin' +with Barkis, make a note of, in company with Captain Cuttle, or +conclude with Mr. Weller, Senior, that it is the part of wisdom +to beware of "widders," we may observe that what binds us to +this motley crowd of creatures is not their grotesquerie but +their common humanity, their likeness to ourselves, the mighty +flood-tide of tolerant human sympathy on which they are floated +into the safe haven of our hearts. With delightful +understanding, Charles Dudley Warner writes: "After all, there +is something about a boy I like." Dickens, using the phrasing +for a wider application, might have said: "After all, there is +something about men and women I like!" It was thus no accident +that he elected to write of the lower middle classes; choosing +to depict the misery of the poor, their unfair treatment in +institutions; to depict also the unease of criminals, the +crushed state of all underlings--whether the child in education +or that grown-up evil child, the malefactor in prison. He was a +spokesman of the people, a democratic pleader for justice and +sympathy. He drew the proletariat preferably, not because he was +a proletariat but because he was a brother-man and the fact had +been overlooked. He drew thousands of these suppressed humans, +and they were of varied types and fortunes: but he loved them as +though they were one, and made the world love them too: and love +their maker. The deep significance of Dickens, perhaps his +deepest, is in the social note that swells loud and insistent +through his fiction. He was a pioneer in the democratic sympathy +which was to become so marked feature in the Novel in the late +nineteenth century: and which, as we have already seen, is from +the first a distinctive trait of the modern fiction, one of the +explanations of its existence. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +THACKERAY + +The habit of those who appraise the relative worth of Dickens +and Thackeray to fall into hostile camps, swearing by one, and +at the other, has its amusing side but is to be deprecated as +irrational. Why should it be necessary to miss appreciation of +the creator of "Vanity Fair" because one happens to like "David +Copperfield"? Surely, our literary tastes or standards should be +broad enough to admit into pleasurable companionship both those +great early Victorian novelists. + +Yet, on second thought, there would appear to be some reason for +the fact that ardent lovers of Thackeray are rarely devotees of +the mighty Charles--or vice versa. There is something mutually +exclusive in the attitude of the two, their different +interpretation of life. Unlike in birth, environment, education +and all that is summed up in the magic word personality, their +reaction to life, as a scientist would say, was so opposite that +a reader naturally drawn to one, is quite apt to be repelled by +(or at least, cold to) the other. If you make a wide canvass +among booklovers, it will be found that this is just what +happens. Rarely does a stanch supporter of Dickens show a more +than Laodicean temper towards Thackeray; and for rabid +Thackerians, Dickens too often spells disgust. It is a rare and +enjoyable experience to meet with a mind so catholic as to +welcome both. The backbone of the trouble is personal, in the +natures of the two authors. But I think it is worth while to say +that part of the explanation may be found in the fact that +Thackeray began fiction ten years later than his rival and was +in a deeper sense than was Dickens a voice of the later century. +This means much, because with each decade between 1830 and 1860, +English thought was moving fast toward that scientific faith, +that disillusionment and that spirit of grim truth which +culminated in the work of the final quarter of the century. +Thackeray was impelled more than was Dickens by the spirit of +the times to speak the truth in his delineations of contemporary +mankind: and this operated to make him a satirist, at times a +savage one. The modern thing in Dickens--and he had it--was the +humanitarian sympathy for the submerged tenth; the modern thing +in Thackeray, however, was his fearlessness in uncovering the +conventional shams of polite society. The idols that Dickens +smashed (and never was a bolder iconoclast) were to be seen of +all men: but Thackeray's were less tangible, more subtle, part +and parcel of his own class. In this sense, and I believe +because he began his major novel-writing about 1850, whereas the +other began fifteen years before, Thackeray is more modern, more +of our own time, than his great co-mate in fiction. When we +consider the question of their respective interpretations of +Life it is but fair to bear in mind this historical +consideration, although it would be an error to make too much of +it. Of course, in judging Thackeray and trying to give him a +place in English fiction, he must stand or fall, like any other +writer, by two things: his art, and his message. Was the first +fine, the other sane and valuable--those are the twin tests. + +A somewhat significant fact of their literary history may be +mentioned, before an attempt is made to appreciate Thackeray's +novels. For some years after Dickens' death, which, it will be +remembered, occurred six years after Thackeray's, the latter +gained in critical recognition while Dickens slowly lost. There +can be little question of this. Lionized and lauded as was the +man of Gadshill, promptly admitted to Westminster Abbey, it came +to pass in time that, in a course on modern English literature +offered at an old and famous New England college, his name was +not deemed worthy of even a reference. Some critics of repute +have scarce been able to take Dickens seriously: for those who +have steadily had the temerity to care for him, their patronage +has been vocal. This marks an astonishing shift of opinion from +that current in 1870. Thackeray, gaining in proportion, has been +hailed as an exquisite artist, one of the few truly great and +permanent English figures not only of fiction but of letters. +But in the most recent years, again a change has come: the +pendulum has swung back, as it always does when an excessive +movement carries it too far beyond the plumb line. Dickens has +found valiant, critical defenders; he has risen fast in +thoughtful so well as popular estimation (although with the +public he has scarcely fluctuated in favor) until he now enjoys +a sort of resurrection of popularity. What is the cause of this +to-and-fro of judgment? The main explanation is to be found in +the changing literary ideals from 1850 to 1900. When Dickens was +active, literature, broadly speaking, was estimated not +exclusively as art, but as human product, an influence in the +world. With the coming of the new canon, which it is convenient +to dub by the catch-phrase, Art for Art's Sake, a man's +production began to be tested more definitely by the technique +he possessed, the skilled way in which he performed his task. +Did he play the game well? That was the first question. Often it +was the first and last. If he did, his subject-matter, and his +particular vision of Life, were pretty much his own affair. And +this modern touchstone, applied to the writings of our two +authors, favored Thackeray. Simple, old-fashioned readers +inclined to give Dickens the preference over him because the +former's interpretation of humanity was, they averred, kindlier +and more wholesome. Thackeray was cynical, said they; Dickens +humanitarian; but the later critical mood rebounded from +Dickens, since he preached, was frankly didactic, insisted on +his mission of doing good--and so failed in his art. Now, +however, that the l'art pour art shibboleth has been sadly +overworked and is felt to be passing or obsolete, the world +critical is reverting to that broader view which demands that +the maker of literature shall be both man and artist: as a +result, Dickens gains in proportion. This explanation makes it +likely that, looking to the future, while Thackeray may not +lose, Dickens is sure to be more and more appreciated. A return +to a saner and truer criterion will be general and the confines +of a too narrow estheticism be understood: or, better yet, the +esthetic will be so defined as to admit of wider application. +The Gissings and Chestertons of the time to come will insist +even more strenuously than those of ours that while we may have +improved upon Dickens' technique--and every schoolboy can tinker +his faults--we shall do exceedingly well if we duplicate his +genius once in a generation. And they will add that Thackeray, +another man of genius, had also his malaises of art, was +likewise a man with the mortal failings implied in the word. For +it cannot now be denied that just as Dickens' faults have been +exaggerated, Thackeray's have been overlooked. + +Thackeray might lose sadly in the years to come could it be +demonstrated that, as some would have it, he deserved the title +of cynic. Here is the most mooted point in Thackeray +appreciation: it interests thousands where the nice questions +concerning the novelist's art claim the attention of students +alone. What can be said with regard to it? It will help just +here to think of the man behind the work. No sensible human +being, it would appear, can become aware of the life and +personality of Thackeray without concluding that he was an +essentially kind-hearted, even soft-hearted man. He was keenly +sensitive to praise and blame, most affectionate and constant +with his friends, generous and impulsive in his instincts, +loving in his family, simple and humble in his spiritual nature, +however questioning in his intellect. That is a fair summary of +Thackeray as revealed in his daily walk--in his letters, acts +and thoughts. Nothing could be sweeter and more kindly than the +mass of his writings in this regard, pace "The Book of Snobs"--even +in such a mood the satire is for the most part unbitter. +The reminiscential essays continually strike a tender note that +vibrates with human feeling and such memorials as the paper he +wrote on the deaths of Irving and Macaulay represent a frequent +vein. Thackeray's friends are almost a unit in this testimony: +Edward Fitzgerald, indeed--"dear old Fitz," as Tennyson loved to +call him--declares in a letter to somebody that he hears +Thackeray is spoiled: meaning that his social success was too +much for him. It is true that after the fame of "Vanity Fair," +its author was a habitue of the best drawing-rooms, much sought +after, and enjoying it hugely. But to read his letter to Mrs. +Brookfield after the return home from such frivolities is to +feel that the real man is untouched. Why Thackeray, with such a +nature, developed a satirical bent and became a critic of the +foibles of fashion and later of the social faults of humanity, +is not so easy perhaps to say--unless we beg the question by +declaring it to be his nature. When he began his major fiction +at the age of thirty-seven he had seen much more of the seamy +side of existence than had Dickens when he set up for author. +Thackeray had lost a fortune, traveled, played Bohemian, tried +various employments, failed in a business venture--in short, was +an experienced man of the world with eyes wide open to what is +light, mean, shifty and vague in the sublunary show. "The Book +of Snobs" is the typical early document expressing the +subacidulous tendency of his power: "Vanity Fair" is the full-length +statement of it in maturity. Yet judging his life by and +large (in contrast with his work) up to the day of his sudden +death, putting in evidence all the testimony from many sources, +it may be asserted with considerable confidence that William +Makepeace Thackeray, whatever we find him to be in his works, +gave the general impression personally of being a genial, kind +and thoroughly sound-hearted man. We may, therefore, look at the +work itself, to extract from it such evidence as it offers, +remembering that, when all is said, the deepest part of a man, +his true quality, is always to be discovered in his writings. + +First a word on the books secondary to the four great novels. It +is necessary at the start in studying him to realize that +Thackeray for years before he wrote novels was an essayist, who, +when he came to make fiction introduced into it the essay touch +and point of view. The essay manner makes his larger fiction +delightful, is one of its chief charms and characteristics. And +contrariwise, the looseness of construction, the lack of careful +architecture in Thackeray's stories, look to the same fact. + +It can not justly be said of these earlier and minor writings +that, taken as a whole, they reveal a cynic. They contain many +thrusts at the foolishness and knavery of society, especially +that genteel portion of it with which the writer, by birth, +education and experience, was familiar. When Thackeray, in the +thirties, turned to newspaper writing, he did so for practical +reasons: he needed money, and he used such talents as were his +as a writer, knowing that the chances were better than in art, +which he had before pursued. It was natural that he should have +turned to account his social experiences, which gave him a power +not possessed by the run of literary hacks, and which had been +to some extent disillusioning, but had by no means soured him. +Broadly viewed, the tone of these first writings was genial, the +light and shade of human nature--in its average, as it is seen +in the world--was properly represented. In fact, often, as in +"The Great Hoggarty Diamond," the style is almost that of +burlesque, at moments, of horse-play: and there are too touches +of beautiful young-man pathos. Such a work is anything rather +than tart or worldly. There are scenes in that enjoyable story +that read more like Dickens than the Thackeray of "Vanity Fair." +The same remark applies, though in a different way, to the +"Yellowplush Papers." An early work like "Barry Lyndon," unique +among the productions of the young writer, expresses the deeper +aspect of his tendency to depict the unpleasant with satiric +force, to make clear-cut pictures of rascals, male and female. +Yet in this historical study, the eighteenth century setting +relieves the effect and one does not feel that the author is +speaking with that direct earnestness one encounters in +"Pendennis" and "The Newcomes." The many essays, of which the +"Roundabout Papers" are a type, exhibit almost exclusively the +sunnier and more attractive side of Thackeray's genius. Here and +there, in the minor fiction of this experimental period, there +are premonitions of he more drastic treatment of later years: +but the dominant mood is quite other. One who read the essays +alone, with no knowledge of the fiction, would be astonished at +a charge of cynicism brought against the author. + +And so we come to the major fiction: "Vanity Fair," "Pendennis," +"The Newcomes," and "Esmond." Of "The Adventures of Philip" a +later word may be said. "The Virginians" is a comparatively +unimportant pendant to that great historical picture, "Henry +Esmond." The quartet practically composes the fundamental +contribution of Thackeray to the world of fiction, containing as +it does all his characteristic traits. Some of them have been +pointed out, time out of mind: others, often claimed, are either +wanting or their virtue has been much exaggerated. + +Of the merits incontestable, first and foremost may be mentioned +the color and motion of Life which spread like an atmosphere +over this fiction. By his inimitable idiom, his knowledge of the +polite world, and his equal knowledge of the average human being +irrespective of class or condition, Thackeray was able to make +his chronicle appear the very truth. Moreover, for a second +great merit, he was able, quite without meretricious appeals, to +make that truth interesting. You follow the fortunes of the folk +in a typical Thackeray novel as you would follow a similar group +in actual life. They interest because they are real--or seem to +be, which, for the purposes of art, is the same thing. To read +is not so much to look from an outside place at a fictive +representation of existence as to be participant in such a piece +of life--to feel as if you were living the story. Only masters +accomplish this, and it is, it may be added, the specialty of +modern masters. + +For another shining merit: much of wisdom assimilated by the +author in the course of his days is given forth with pungent +power and in piquant garb in the pages of these books: the +reader relishes the happy statements of an experience profounder +than his own, yet tallying in essentials: Thackeray's remarks +seem to gather up into final shape the scattered oracles of the +years. Gratitude goes out to an author who can thus condense and +refine one's own inarticulate conclusions. The mental palate is +tickled by this, while the taste is titillated by the grace and +fitness of the style. + +Yet in connection with this quality is a habit which already +makes Thackeray seem of an older time--a trifle archaic in +technique. I refer to the intrusion of the author into the story +in first-personal comment and criticism. This is tabooed by the +present-day realist canons. It weakens the illusion, say the +artists of our own day, this entrance of an actual personality +upon the stage of the imagined scene. Thackeray is guilty of +this lovable sin to a greater degree than is Dickens, and it may +be added here that, while the latter has so often been called +preacher in contrast with Thackeray the artist, as a matter of +fact, Thackeray moralizes in the fashion described fully as +much: the difference being that he does it with lighter touch +and with less strenuosity and obvious seriousness: is more +consistently amusing in the act of instruction. + +Thackeray again has less story to tell than his greatest +contemporary and never gained a sure hand in construction, with +the possible exception of his one success in plot, "Henry +Esmond." Nothing is more apparent than the loose texture of +"Vanity Fair," where two stories centering in the antithetic +women, Becky and Amelia, are held together chronicle fashion, +not in the nexus of an organism of close weave. But this very +looseness, where there is such superlative power of +characterization with plenty of invention in incident, adds to +the verisimilitude and attraction of the book. The impression of +life is all the more vivid, because of the lack of proportioned +progress to a climax. The story conducts itself and ends much as +does life: people come in and out and when Finis is written, we +feel we may see them again--as indeed often happens, for +Thackeray used the pleasant device of re-introducing favorite +characters such as Pendennis, Warrington and the descendants +thereof, and it adds distinctly to the reality of the ensemble. + +"Vanity Fair" has most often been given precedence over the +other novels of contemporary life: but for individual scenes and +strength of character drawing both "Pendennis" and "The +Newcomes" set up vigorous claims. If there be no single triumph +in female portraiture like Becky Sharp, Ethel New-come (on the +side of virtue) is a far finer woman than the somewhat insipid +Amelia: and no personage in the Mayfair book is more successful +and beloved than Major Pendennis or Colonel Newcome. Also, the +atmosphere of these two pictures seems mellower, less sharp, +while as organic structures they are both superior to "Vanity +Fair." Perhaps the supremacy of the last-named is due most of +all to the fact that a wonderfully drawn evil character has more +fascination than a noble one of workmanship as fine. Or is it +that such a type calls forth the novelist's powers to the full? +If so, it were, in a manner, a reproach. But it is more +important to say that all three books are delightfully authentic +studies of upper-class society in England as Thackeray knew it: +the social range is comparatively restricted, for even the +rascals are shabby-genteel. But the exposure of human nature +(which depends upon keen observation within a prescribed +boundary) is wide and deep: a story-teller can penetrate just as +far into the arcana of the human spirit if he confine himself to +a class as if he surveyed all mankind. But mental limitations +result: the point of view is that of the gentleman-class: the +ideas of the personal relation to one's self, one's fellow men +and one's Maker are those natural to a person of that station. +The charming poem which the author set as Finis to "Dr. Birch +and His Young Friends," with its concluding lines, is an +unconscious expression of the form in which he conceived human +duty. The "And so, please God, a gentleman," was the cardinal +clause in his creed and all his work proves it. It is wiser to +be thankful that a man of genius was at hand to voice the view, +than to cavil at its narrow outook. In literature, in-look is +quite as important. Thackeray drew what he felt and saw, and +like Jane Austen, is to be understood within his limitations. +Nor did he ever forget that, because pleasure-giving was the +object of his art, it was his duty so to present life as to make +it somehow attractive, worth while. The point is worth urging, +for not a little nonsense has been written concerning the +absolute veracity of Thackeray's pictures: as if he sacrificed +all pleasurableness to the modern Moloch, truth. Neither he nor +any other great novelist reproduces Life verbatim et literatim. +Trollope, in his somewhat unsatisfactory biography of his fellow +fictionist, very rightly puts his finger on a certain scene in +"Vanity Fair" in which Sir Pitt Crawley figures, which departs +widely from reality. The traditional comparison between the two +novelists, which represents Dickens as ever caricaturing, +Thackeray as the photographer, is coming to be recognized as +foolish. + +It is all merely a question of degree, as has been said. It +being the artist's business to show a few of the symbols of life +out of the vast amount of raw material offered, he differs in +the main from his brother artist in the symbols he selects. No +one of them presents everything--if he did, he were no artist. +Thackeray approaches nearer than Dickens, it is true, to the +average appearances of life; but is no more a literal copyist +than the creator of Mrs. Gamp. He was rather one of art's most +capable exemplars in the arduous employment of seeming-true. + +It must be added that his technique was more careless than an +artist of anything like his caliber would have permitted himself +to-day. The audience was less critical: not only has the art of +fiction been evolved into a finer finish, but gradually the +court of judgment made up of a select reading public, has come +to decide with much more of professional knowledge. Thus, +technique in fiction is expected and given. So much of gain +there has been, in spite of all the vulgarization of taste which +has followed in the wake of cheap magazines and newspapers. In +"Vanity Fair," for example, there are blemishes which a careful +revision would never have suffered to remain: the same is true +of most of Thackeray's books. Like Dickens, Thackeray was +exposed to all the danger of the Twenty Parts method of +publication. He began his stories without seeing the end; in one +of them he is humorously plaintive over the trouble of making +this manner of fiction. While "Vanity Fair" is, of course, +written in the impersonal third person, at least one passage is +put into the mouth of a character in the book: an extraordinary +slip for such a novelist. + +But peccadilloes such as these, which it is well to realize in +view of the absurd claims to artistic impeccability for +Thackeray made by rash admirers, melt away into nothing when one +recalls Rawdon Crawley's horsewhipping of the Marquis; George +Osborn's departure for battle, Colonel Newcome's death, or the +incomparable scene where Lady Castlewood welcomes home the +wandering Esmond; that "rapture of reconciliation"! It is by +such things that great novelists live, and it may be doubted if +their errors are ever counted against them, if only they can +create in this fashion. + +In speaking of Thackeray's unskilful construction the reference +is to architectonics; in the power of particular scenes it is +hard to name his superior. He has both the pictorial and the +dramatic sense. The care with which "Esmond" was planned and +executed suggests too that, had he taken his art more seriously +and given needed time to each of the great books, he might have +become one of the masters in that prime excellence of the craft, +the excellence of proportion, progress and climax. He never +quite brought himself to adopt the regular modern method of +scenario. "Philip," his last full length fiction, may be cited +as proof. + +Yet it may be that he would have given increased attention to +construction had he lived a long life. It is worth noting that +when the unfinished "Denis Duval" dropt from a hand made inert +by death, the general plan, wherefrom an idea of its +architecture could be got, was among his effects. + +To say a word now of Thackeray's style. There is practical +unanimity of opinion as to this. Thackeray had the effect of +writing like a cultivated gentleman not self-consciously making +literature. He was tolerant of colloquial concessions that never +lapsed into vulgarity; even his slips and slovenlinesses are +those of the well-bred. To pass from him back to Richardson is +to realize how stiffly correct is the latter. Thackeray has +flexibility, music, vernacular felicity and a deceptive ease. He +had, too, the flashing strokes, the inspirational sallies which +characterize the style of writers like Lamb, Stevenson and +Meredith. Fitness, balance, breeding and harmony are his chief +qualities. To say that he never sinned or nodded would be to +deny that he was human. He cut his cloth to fit the desired +garment and is a modern English master of prose designed to +reproduce the habit and accent of the polite society of his age. +In his hortatory asides and didactic moralizings with their +thees and thous and yeas, he is still the fine essayist, like +Fielding in his eighteenth century prefatory exordiums. And here +is undoubtedly one of his strongest appeals to the world of +readers, whether or no it makes him less perfect a fictionist. +The diction of a Thackeray is one of the honorable national +assets of his race. + +Thackeray's men and women talk as they might be expected to talk +in life; each in his own idiom, class and idiosyncrasy. And in +the descriptions which furnish atmosphere, in which his +creatures may live and breathe and have their being, the hand of +the artist of words is equally revealed. Both for dialogue and +narration the gift is valid, at times superb. It would be going +too far to say that if Thackeray had exercised the care in +revision bestowed by later reputable authors, his style might +not have been improved: beyond question it would have been, in +the narrow sense. But the correction of trifling mistakes is one +thing, a change in pattern another. The retouching, although +satisfying grammar here and there, might have dimmed the +vernacular value of his speech. + +But what of Thackeray's view, his vision of things? Does he bear +down unduly upon poor imperfect humanity? and what was his +purpose in satire? If he is unfair in the representation his +place among the great should suffer; since the truly great +observer of life does general justice to humankind in his +harmonious portrayal. + +We have already spoken of Thackeray's sensitive nature as +revealed through all available means: he conveys the impression +of a suppressed sentimentalist, even in his satire. And this +establishes a presumption that the same man is to be discovered +in the novels, the work being an unconscious revelation of the +worker. The characteristic books are of satirical bent, that +must be granted: Thackeray's purpose, avowed and implicit in the +stories, is that of a Juvenal castigating with a smiling mouth +the evils of society. With keen eye he sees the weaknesses +incident to place and power, to the affectations of fashion or +the corruptions of the world, the flesh and the devil. Nobody of +commonsense will deny that here is a welcome service if +performed with skill and fair-mindedness in the interests of +truth. The only query would be: Is the picture undistorted? If +Thackeray's studies leave a bad taste in the mouth, if their +effect is depressing, if one feels as a result that there is +neither virtue nor magnanimity in woman, and that man is +incapable of honor, bravery, justice and tenderness--then the +novelist may be called cynic. He is not a wholesome writer, +however acceptable for art or admirable for genius. Nor will the +mass of mankind believe in and love him. + +Naturally we are here on ground where the personal equation +influences judgment. There can never be complete agreement. Some +readers, and excellent people they are, will always be offended +by what they never tire of calling the worldly tone of +Thackeray; to others, he will be as lovable in his view of life +as he is amusing. Speaking, then, merely for myself, it seems to +me that for mature folk who have had some experience with +humanity, Thackeray is a charming companion whose heart is as +sound as his pen is incisive. The very young as a rule are not +ready for him and (so far as my observation goes) do not much +care for him. That his intention was to help the cause of +kindness, truth and justice in the world is apparent. It is late +in the day to defend his way of crying up the good by a frank +exhibition of the evil. Good and bad are never confused by him, +and Taine was right in calling him above all a moralist. But +being by instinct a realist too, he gave vent to his passion for +truth-telling so far as he dared, in a day when it was far less +fashionable to do this than it now is. A remark in the preface +to "Pendennis" is full of suggestion: "Since the author of 'Tom +Jones' was buried, no writer of fiction among us has been +permitted to depict to his utmost power a Man. We must drape him +and give him a certain conventional simper. Society will not +tolerate the Natural in our Art." + +It will not do to say (as is often said) that Thackeray could +not draw an admirable or perfect woman. If he did not leave us a +perfect one, it was perhaps for the reason alleged to have been +given by Mr. Howells when he was charged with the same +misdemeanor: he was waiting for the Lord to do it first! But +Thackeray does no injustice to the sex: if Amelia be stupid +(which is matter of debate), Helen Warrington is not, but rather +a very noble creature built on a large plan: whatever the small +blemishes of Lady Castlewood she is indelible in memory for +character and charm. And so with others not a few. Becky and +Beatrix are merely the reverse of the picture. And there is a +similar balance in the delineation of men: Colonel Newcome over +against Captain Costigan, and many a couple more. Thackeray does +not fall into the mistake of making his spotted characters all-black. +Who does not find something likable in the Fotheringay +and in the Campaigner? Even a Barry Lyndon has the redeeming +quality of courage. And surely we adore Beatrix, with all her +faults. Major Pendennis is a thoroughgoing old worldling, but it +is impossible not to feel a species of fondness for him. Jos. +Sedley is very much an ass, but one's smile at him is full of +tolerance. Yes, the worst of them all, the immortal Becky (who +was so plainly liked by her maker) awakens sympathy in the +reader when routed in her fortunes, black-leg though she be. She +cared for her husband, after her fashion, and she plays the game +of Bad Luck in a way far from despicable. Nor is that easy-going, +commonplace scoundrel, Rawdon, with his dog-like devotion +to the same Becky, denied his touch of higher humanity. Behind +all these is a large tolerance, an intellectual breadth, a +spiritual comprehension that is merciful to the sinner, while +never condoning the sin. Thackeray is therefore more than story-teller +or fine writer: a sane observer of the Human Comedy; a +satirist in the broad sense, devoting himself to revealing +society to itself and for its instruction. It is easy to use +negations: to say he did not know nor sympathize with the middle +class nor the lower and outcast classes as did Dickens; that his +interest was in peccadilloes and sins, not in courageous +virtues: and that he judged the world from a club window. But +this gets us nowhere and is aside from the critic's chief +business: which is that of an appreciative explanation of his +abiding power and charm. This has now been essayed. Thackeray +was too great as man and artist not to know that it was his +function to present life in such wise that while a pleasure of +recognition should follow the delineation, another and higher +pleasure should also result: the surprising pleasure of beauty. +"Fiction," he declared, "has no business to exist, unless it be +more beautiful than reality," And again: "The first quality of +an artist is to have a large heart." With which revelatory +utterances may be placed part of the noble sentence closing "The +Book of Snobs": "If fun is good, truth is better still, and love +best of all." To read him with open mind is to feel assured that +his works, taken in their entirety, reflect these humane +sentiments. It is a pity, therefore, for any reader of the best +fiction, through intense appreciation of Dickens or for any +other reason, to cut himself off from such an enlightening +student of humanity and master of imaginative literature. + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +GEORGE ELIOT + +George Eliot began fiction a decade later than Thackeray, but +seems more than a decade nearer to us. With her the full pulse +of modern realism is felt a-throbbing. There is no more of the +ye's and thous with which, when he would make an exordium, +Thackeray addressed the world--a fashion long since laid aside. +Eliot drew much nearer to the truth, the quiet, homely verity of +her scenes is a closer approximation to life, realizes life more +vitally than the most veracious page of "Vanity Fair." Not that +the great woman novelist made the mistake of a slavish imitation +of the actual: that capital, lively scene in the early part of +"The Mill on the Floss," where Mrs. Tulliver's connections make +known to us their delightsome personalities, is not a mere +transcript from life; and all the better for that. Nevertheless, +the critic can easily discover a difference between Thackeray +and Eliot in this regard, and the ten years between them (as we +saw in the case of Dickens and Thackeray) are partly +responsible: technique and ideal in literary art were changing +fast. George Eliot was a truer realist. She took more seriously +her aim of interpreting life, and had a higher conception of her +artistic mission. Dickens in his beautiful tribute to Thackeray +on the latter's death, speaks of the failure of the author of +"Pendennis" to take his mission, his genius, seriously: there +was justice in the remark. Yet we heard from the preface to +"Pendennis" that Thackeray had the desire to depict a typical +man of society with the faithful frankness of a Fielding, and +since him, Thackeray states, never again used. But the +novelist's hearers were not prepared, the time was not yet ripe, +and the novelist himself lacked the courage, though he had the +clear vision. With Eliot, we reach the psychologic moment: that +deepest truth, the truth of character, exhibited in its +mainsprings of impulse and thought, came with her into English +fiction as it had never before appeared. It would hardly be +overstatement to say that modern psychology in the complete +sense as method and interest begins in the Novel with Eliot. For +there is a radical difference, not only between the Novel which +exploits plot and that which exploits character: but also +between that which sees character in terms of life and that +which sees it in terms of soul. Eliot's fiction does the latter: +life to her means character building, and has its meaning only +as an arena for spiritual struggle. Success or failure means but +this: have I grown in my higher nature, has my existence shown +on the whole an upward tendency? + +If so, well and good. If not, whatever of place or power may be +mine, I am among the world's failures, having missed the goal. +This view, steadily to be encountered in all her fiction, gives +it the grave quality, the deep undertone and, be it confessed, +at times the almost Methodistic manner, which mark this woman's +worth in its weakness and its notable strength. In her early +days, long before she made fiction, she was morbidly religious; +she became in the fulness of time one of the intellectually +emancipated. Yet, emotionally, spiritually, she remained to the +end an intensely religious person. Conduct, aspiration, +communion of souls, these were to her always the realities. If +Thackeray's motto was Be good, and Dickens', Do good, Eliot's +might be expressed as: Make me good! Consider for a moment and +you will see that these phrases stand successively for a +convention, an action and an aspiration. + +The life of Mary Ann Evans falls for critical purposes into +three well-defined divisions: the early days of country life +with home and family and school; her career as a savant; and the +later years, when she performed her service as story-teller. +Unquestionably, the first period was most important in +influencing her genius. It was in the home days at Griff, the +school days at Nuneaton nearby, that those deepest, most +permanent impressions were absorbed which are given out in the +finest of her fictions. Hence came the primal inspiration which +produced her best. And it is because she drew most generously +upon her younger life in her earlier works that it is they which +are most likely to survive the shocks of Time. + +The experiences of Eliot's childhood, youth and young womanhood +were those which taught her the bottom facts about middle-class +country life in the mid-century, and in a mid-county of England; +Shakspere's county of Warwick. Those experiences gave her such +sympathetic comprehension of the human case in that environment +that she became its chronicler, as Dickens had become the +chronicler of the lower middle-class of the cities. Unerringly, +she generalized from the microcosm of Warwickshire to the life +of the world and guessed the universal human heart. With utmost +sympathy, joined with a nice power of scrutiny, she saw and +understood the character-types of the village, when there was a +village life which has since passed away: the yeoman, the small +farmer, the operative in the mill, the peasant, the squire and +the parson, the petty tradesman, the man of the professions: the +worker with his hands at many crafts. + +She matured through travel, books and social contact, her +knowledge was greatly extended: she came to be, in a sense, a +cultured woman of the world, a learned person. Her later books +reflected this; they depict the so-called higher strata of +English society as in "Middlemarch," or, as in "Romola," give an +historical picture of another time in a foreign land. The woman +who was gracious hostess at those famous Sunday afternoons at +the Priory seems to have little likeness to the frail, shy, +country girl in Griff--seems, too, far more important; yet it +may be doubted whether all this later work reveals such mastery +of the human heart or comes from such an imperative source of +expression as do the earlier novels, "Adam Bede" and "The Mill +on the Floss." For human nature is one and the same in Griff or +London or Florence, as all the amplitude of the sky is mirrored +in the dewdrop. And although Eliot became in later life a more +accurate reporter of the intellectual unrest of her day, and had +probed deeper into the mystery and the burden of this +unintelligible world, great novels are not necessarily made in +that way and the majority of those who love her cleave to the +less burdened, more unforced expression of her power. + +In those early days, moreover, her attitude towards life was +established: it meant a wish to improve the "complaining +millions of men." Love went hand in hand with understanding. It +may well be that the somberly grave view of humanity and of the +universe at large which came to be hers, although strengthened +by the positivistic trend of her mature studies, was generated +in her sickly youth and a reaction from the narrow theologic +thought with which she was then surrounded. Always frail--subject +through life to distressing illness--it would not be +fair to ask of this woman an optimism of the Mark Tapley stripe. +In part, the grave outlook was physical, temperamental: but also +it was an expression of a swiftly approaching mood of the late +nineteenth century. And the beginning can be traced back to the +autumn evenings in the big farmhouse at Griff when, as a mere +child, she wrestled or prayed with what she called her sick +soul. That stern, upright farmer father of hers seems the +dominant factor in her make-up, although the iron of her blood +was tempered by the livelier, more mundane qualities of her +sprightly mother, towards whom we look for the source of the +daughter's superb gift of humor. Whatever the component parts of +father and mother in her, and however large that personal +variation which is genius, of this we may be comfortably sure: +the deepest in the books, whether regarded as presentation of +life or as interpretation, came from the early Warwickshire +years. + +Gradually came that mental eclaircissement which produced the +editor, the magazinist, the translator of Strauss. The +friendship with the Brays more than any one thing marks the +external cause of this awakening: but it was latent, this +response to the world of thought and of scholarship, and certain +to be called out sooner or later. Our chief interest in it is +due to the query how much it ministered to her coming career as +creative author of fiction. + +George Eliot at this period looked perilously like a Blue +Stocking. The range and variety of her reading and the severely +intellectual nature of her pursuits justify the assertion. Was +this well for the novelist? + +The reply might be a paradox: yes and no. This learning imparted +to Eliot's works a breadth of vision that is tonic and wins the +respect of the judicious. It helps her to escape from that bane +of the woman novelist--excessive sentiment without intellectual +orientation. But, on the other hand, there are times when she +appears to be writing a polemic, not a novel: when the tone +becomes didactic, the movement heavy--when the work seems +self-conscious and over-intellectualized. Nor can it be denied +that this tendency grew on Eliot, to the injury of her latest work. +There is a simple kind of exhortation in the "Clerical Scenes," +but it disappears in the earliest novels, only to reappear in +stories like "Daniel Deronda." Any and all culture that comes to +a large, original nature (and such was Eliot's) should be for +the good of the literary product: learning in the narrower, more +technical sense, is perhaps likely to do harm. Here and there +there is a reminder of the critic-reviewer in her fiction. + +George Eliot's intellectual development during her last years +widened her work and strengthened her comprehensive grasp of +life. She gained in interpretation thereby. There will, however, +always be those who hold that it would have been better for her +reputation had she written nothing after "Middlemarch," or even +after "Felix Holt." Those who object on principle to her +agnosticism, would also add that the negative nature of her +philosophy, her lack of what is called definite religious +convictions, had its share in injuring materially her maturest +fiction. The vitality or charm of a novel, however, is not +necessarily impaired because the author holds such views. It is +more pertinent to take the books as they are, in chronologic +order, to point out so far as possible their particular merits. + +And first, the "Scenes from Clerical Life." It is interesting to +the student of this novelist that her writing of fiction was +suggested to her by Lewes, and that she tried her hand at a tale +when she was not far from forty years old. The question will +intrude: would a genuine fiction-maker need to be thus prodded +by a friend, and refrain from any independent attempt up to a +period so late? Yet it will not do to answer glibly in the +negative. Too many examples of late beginning and fine fiction +as a consequence are furnished by English literature to make +denial safe. We have seen Defoe and Richardson and a number of +later novelists breaking the rules--if any such exist. No one +can now read the "Clerical Scenes" without discovering in them +qualities of head and heart which, when allowed an enlarged +canvas and backed by a sure technique, could be counted on to +make worthy fiction. The quiet village life glows softly under +the sympathetic touch of a true painter. + +A recent reading of this first book showed more clearly than +ever the unequalness of merit in the three stories, their strong +didactic bent, and the charmingly faithful observation which for +the present-day reader is their greatest attraction. The first +and simplest, "The Sad Fortunes of the Rev. Amos Barton," is by +far the best. The poorest is the second, "Mr. Gilfil's Love +Story," which has touches of conventional melodrama in a +framework reminiscent of earlier fictionists like Disraeli. +"Janet's Repentance," with its fine central character of the +unhappy wedded wife, is strong, sincere, appealing; and much of +the local color admirable. But--perhaps because there is more +attempt at story-telling, more plot--the narrative falls below +the beautiful, quiet chronicle of the days of Amos: an exquisite +portrayal of an average man who yet stands for humanity's best. +The tale is significant as a prelude to Eliot's coming work, +containing, in the seed, those qualities which were to make her +noteworthy. Perusing the volume to-day, we can hardly say that +it appears an epoch-making production in fiction, the +declaration of a new talent in modern literature. But much has +happened in fiction during the half century since 1857, and we +are not in a position to judge the feeling of those who then +began to follow the fortunes of the Reverend Amos. + +But it is not difficult for the twentieth century reader, even +if blase, to understand that "Adam Bede," published when its +author was forty, aroused a furore of admiration: it still holds +general attention, and many whose opinion is worth having, +regard it with respect, affection, even enthusiasm. + +The broader canvas was exactly what the novelist needed to show +her power of characterization, her ability to build up her +picture by countless little touches guided by the most +unflinching faith in detail and given vibrancy by the sympathy +which in all George Eliot's fiction is like the air you breathe. +Then, too, as an appeal to the general, there is more of story +interest, although neither here nor in any story to follow, does +plot come first with a writer whose chief interest is always +character, and its development. The autobiographic note deepens +and gives at once verity and intensity to the novel; here, as in +"The Mill on the Floss" which was to follow the next year, Eliot +first gave free play to that emotional seizure of her own past +to which reference has been made. The homely material of the +first novel was but part of its strength. Readers who had been +offered the flash-romantic fiction of Disraeli and Bulwer, +turned with refreshment to the placid annals of a village where, +none the less, the human heart in its follies and frailties and +nobilities, is laid bare. The skill with which the leisurely +moving story rises to its vivid moments of climactic interest--the +duel in the wood, Hetty's flight, the death of Adam's +father--is marked and points plainly to the advance, through +study and practice, of the novelist since the "Clerical Scenes"; +constructive excellencies do not come by instinct. "Adam Bede" +is preeminently a book of belief, written not so much in ink as +in red blood, and in that psychic fluid that means the author's +spiritual nature. She herself declared, "I love it very much," +and it reveals the fact on every page. Aside from its +indubitable worth as a picture of English middle-class country +life in an earlier nineteenth century than we know--the easy-going +days before electricity--it has its highest claim to our +regard as a reading in life, not conveyed by word of mouth +didactically, but carried in scene and character. The author's +tenderness over Hetty, without even sentimentalizing her as, for +example, Dumas sentimentalizes his Camille, suggests the mood of +the whole narrative: a large-minded, large-hearted comprehension +of humankind, an insistence on spiritual tests, yet with the +will to tell the truth and present impartially the darkest +shadows. It is because George Eliot's people are compounded with +beautiful naturalness of good and bad--not hopelessly bad with +Hetty, nor hopelessly good with Adam--that we understand them +and love them. Here is an element of her effectiveness. Even her +Dinah walks with her feet firmly planted upon the earth, though +her mystic vision may be skyward. + +With "Adam Bede" she came into her own. The "Clerical Scenes" +had won critical plaudits: Dickens, in 1857 long settled in his +seat of public idolatry, wrote the unknown author a letter of +appreciation, so warm-hearted, so generous, that it is hard to +resist the pleasure of quoting it: it is interesting to remark +that in despite the masculine pen-name, he attributed the work +to a woman. But the public had not responded. With "Adam Bede" +this was changed; the book gained speedy popularity, the author +even meeting with that mixed compliment, a bogus claimant to its +authorship. And so, greatly encouraged, and stimulated to do her +best, she produced "The Mill on the Floss," a novel, which, if +not her finest, will always be placed high on her list of +representative fiction. + +This time the story as such was stronger, there was more +substance and variety because of the greater number of +characters and their freer interplay upon each other. Most +important of all, when we look beyond the immediate reception by +the public to its more permanent position, the work is decidedly +more thoroughgoing in its psychology: it goes to the very core +of personality, where the earlier book was in some instances +satisfied with sketch-work. In "Adam Bede" the freshness comes +from the treatment rather than the theme. The framework, a +seduction story, is old enough--old as human nature and +pre-literary story-telling. But in "The Mill on the Floss" we +have the history of two intertwined lives, contrasted types from +within the confines of family life, bound by kin-love yet +separated by temperament. It is the deepest, truest of tragedy +and we see that just this particular study of humanity had not +been accomplished so exhaustively before in all the annals of +fiction. As it happened, everything conspired to make the author +at her best when she was writing this novel: as her letters +show, her health was, for her, good: we have noted the stimulus +derived from the reception of "Adam Bede"--which was as wine to +her soul. Then--a fact which should never be forgotten--the tale +is carried through logically and expresses, with neither +paltering nor evasion, George Eliot's sense of life's tragedy. +In the other book, on the contrary, a touch of the fictitious +was introduced by Lewes; Dinah and Adam were united to make at +the end a mitigation of the painfulness of Hetty's downfall. +Lewes may have been right in looking to the contemporary +audience, but never again did Eliot yield to that form of the +literary lie, the pleasant ending. She certainly did not in "The +Mill on the Floss": an element of its strength is its truth. The +book, broadly considered, moves slow, with dramatic accelerando +at cumulative moments; it is the kind of narrative where this +method is allowable without artistic sin. Another great +excellence is the superb insight into the nature of childhood, +boy and girl; if Maggie is drawn with the more penetrating +sympathy, Tom is finely observed: if the author never rebukes +his limitations, she states them and, as it were, lifts hands to +heaven to cry like a Greek chorus: "See these mortals love yet +clash! Behold, how havoc comes! Eheu! this mortal case!" + +With humanity still pulling at her heart-strings, and conceiving +fiction which offered more value of plot than before, George +Eliot wrote the charming romance "Silas Marner," novelette in +form, modern romance in its just mingling of truth and +idealization: a work published the next year. She interrupted +"Romola" to do it, which is suggestive as indicating absorption +by the theme. This story offers a delightful blend of homely +realism with poetic symbolism. The miser is wooed from his +sordid love of gold by the golden glint of a little girl's hair: +as love creeps into his starved heart, heartless greed goes out +forever: before a soulless machine, he becomes a man. It is the +world-old, still potent thought that the good can drive out the +bad: a spiritual allegory in a series of vivid pictures carrying +the wholesomest and highest of lessons. The artistic and +didactic are here in happy union. And as nowhere else in her +work (unless exception be made in the case of "Romola") she sees +a truth in terms of drama. To read the story is to feel its +stage value: it is no surprise to know that several +dramatizations of the book have been made. Aside from its +central motive, the studies of homely village life, as well as +of polite society, are in Eliot's best manner: the humor of +Dolly Winthrop is of as excellent vintage as the humor of Mrs. +Poyser in "Adam Bede," yet with the necessary differentiation. +The typical deep sympathy for common humanity--just average +folks--permeates the handling. Moreover, while the romance has a +happy issue, as a romance should according to Stevenson, if it +possibly can, it does not differ in its view of life from so +fatalistic a book as "The Mill on the Floss"; for circumstances +change Silas; if the child Eppie had not come he might have +remained a miser. It was not his will alone that revolutionized +his life; what some would call luck was at work there. In "Silas +Marner" the teaching is of a piece with that of all her +representative work. + +But when we reach "Romola" there is a change, debatable ground +is entered upon at once. Hitherto, the story-teller has mastered +the preacher, although an ever more earnest soul has been +expressing itself about Life. Now we enter the region of more +self-conscious literary art, of planned work and study, and +confront the possibility of flagging invention. Also, we leave +the solid ground of contemporary themes and find the realist +with her hang for truth, essaying an historical setting, an +entirely new and foreign motive. Eliot had already proved her +right to depict certain aspects of her own English life. To +strive to exercise the same powers on a theme like "Romola" was +a venturesome step. We have seen how Dickens and Thackeray +essayed romance at least once with ringing success; now the +third major mid-century novelist was to try the same thing. + +It may be conceded at the start that in one important respect +this Florentine story of Savonarola and his day is entirely +typical: it puts clearly before us in a medieval romantic mis-en +scene, the problem of a soul: the slow, subtle, awful +degeneration of the man Tito, with its foil in the noble figure +of the girl Romola. The central personality psychologically is +that of the wily Greek-Italian, and Eliot never probed deeper +into the labyrinths of the perturbed human spirit than in this +remarkable analysis. The reader, too, remembers gratefully, with +a catch of the breath, the great scenes, two of which are the +execution of Savonarola, and the final confrontation of Tito by +his adoptive father, with its Greek-like sense of tragic doom. +The same reader stands aghast before the labor which must lie +behind such a work and often comes to him a sudden, vital sense +of fifteenth century Florence, then, as never since, the Lily of +the Arno: so cunningly and with such felicity are innumerable +details individualized, massed and blended. And yet, somehow it +all seems a splendid experiment, a worthy performance rather +than a spontaneous and successful creative endeavor: this, in +comparison with the fiction that came before. The author seems a +little over-burdened by the tremendousness of her material. +Whether it is because the Savonarola episode is not thoroughly +synthetized with the Tito-Romola part: or that the central theme +is of itself fundamentally unpleasant--or again, that from the +nature of the romance, head-work had largely to supplant that +genial draught upon the springs of childhood which gave us "Adam +Bede" and "The Mill on the Floss";--or once more, whether the +crowded canvas injures the unity of the design, be these as they +may, "Romola" strikes one as great in spots and as conveying a +noble though somber truth, but does not carry us off our feet. +That is the blunt truth about it, major work as it is, with only +half a dozen of its kind to equal it in all English literature. +It falls distinctly behind both "A Tale of Two Cities" and +"Esmond." It is a book to admire, to praise in many particulars, +to be impressed by: but not quite to treasure as one treasures +the story of the Tullivers. It was written by George Eliot, +famous novelist, who with that anxious, morbid conscience of +hers, had to live up to her reputation, and who received $50,000 +for the work, even to-day a large sum for a piece of fiction. It +was not written by a woman irresistibly impelled to self-expression, +seized with the passionate desire to paint Life. It +is, in a sense, her first professional feat and performance. + +Meanwhile, she was getting on in life: we saw that she was seven +and thirty when she wrote the "Clerical Scenes": it was almost a +decade later when "Felix Holt, Radical" appeared, and she was +nearing fifty. I believe it to be helpful to draw a line between +all her fiction before and after "Felix Holt," placing that book +somewhat uncertainly on the dividing line. The four earlier +novels stand for a period when there is a strong, or at least +sufficient story interest, the proper amount of objectification: +to the second division belong "Middlemarch" and "Daniel +Deronda," where we feel that problem comes first and story +second. In the intermediate novel, "Felix Holt," its excellent +story places it with the first books, but its increased didactic +tendency with the latest stories. Why has "Felix Holt" been +treated by the critics, as a rule, as of comparatively minor +value? It is very interesting, contains true characterization, +much of picturesque and dramatic worth; it abounds in enjoyable +first-hand observation of a period by-gone yet near enough to +have been cognizant to the writer. Her favorite types, too, are +in it. Holt, a study of the advanced workman of his day, is +another Bede, mutatis mutandis, and quite as truly realized. +Both Mr. Lyon and his daughter are capitally drawn and the +motive of the novel--to teach Felix that he can be quite as true +to his cause if he be less rough and eccentric in dress and +deportment, is a good one handled with success. To which may be +added that the encircling theme of Mrs. Transome's mystery, +grips the attention from the start and there is pleasure when it +is seen to involve Esther, leading her to make a choice which +reveals that she has awakened to a truer valuation of life--and +of Felix. With all these things in its favor, why has +appreciation been so scant? + +Is it not that continually in the narrative you lose its broader +human interest because of the narrower political and social +questions that are raised? They are vital questions, but still, +more specific, technical, of the time. Nor is their weaving into +the more permanent theme altogether skilful: you feel like +exclaiming to the novelist: "O, let Kingsley handle chartism, +but do you stick to your last--love and its criss-cross, family +sin and its outcome, character changed as life comes to be more +vitally realized." George Eliot in this fine story falls into +this mistake, as does Mrs. Humphry Ward in her well-remembered +"Robert Elsmere," and as she has again in the novel which +happens to be her latest as these words are written, "Marriage a +la Mode." The thesis has a way of sticking out obtrusively in +such efforts. + +Many readers may not feel this in "Felix Holt," which, whatever +its shortcomings, remains an extremely able and interesting +novel, often underestimated. Still, I imagine a genuine +distinction has been made with regard to it. + +The difference is more definitely felt in "Middlemarch," not +infrequently called Eliot's masterpiece. It appeared five years +later and the author was over fifty when the book was published +serially during 1871 and 1872. Nearly four years were spent in +the work of composition: for it the sum of $60,000 was paid. + +"Middlemarch," which resembles Thackeray's "Vanity Fair" in +telling two stories not closely related, seems less a Novel than +a chronicle-history of two families. It is important to remember +that its two parts were conceived as independent; their welding, +to call it such, was an afterthought. The tempo again, suiting +the style of fiction, is leisurely: character study, character +contrast, is the principal aim. More definitely, the marriage +problem, illustrated by Dorothea's experience with Casaubon, and +that of Lydgate with Rosamond, is what the writer places before +us. Marriage is chosen simply because it is the modern spiritual +battleground, a condition for the trying-out of souls. The +greatness of the work lies in its breadth (subjective more than +objective), its panoramic view of English country life of the +refined type, its rich garner of wisdom concerning human motive +and action. We have seen in earlier studies that its type, the +chronicle of events as they affect character, is a legitimate +one: a successful genus in English-speaking fiction in hands +like those of Thackeray, Eliot and Howells. It is one accepted +kind, a distinct, often able, sympathetic kind of fiction of our +race: its worth as a social document (to use the convenient term +once more) is likely to be high. It lacks the close-knit plot, +the feeling for stage effect, the swift progression and the +sense of completed action which another and more favored sort of +Novel exhibits. Yet it may have as much chance of permanence in +the hands of a master. The proper question, then, seems to be +whether it most fitly expresses the genius of an author. + +Perhaps there will never be general agreement as to this in the +case of "Middlemarch." The book is drawn from wells of +experience not so deep in Eliot's nature as those which went to +the making of "Adam Bede" and "The Mill on the Floss," It is +life with which the author became familiar in London and about +the world during her later literary days. She knows it well, and +paints it with her usual noble insistence upon truth. But she +knows it with her brain; whereas, she knows "The Mill on the +Floss" with her blood. There is surely that difference. Hence, +the latter work has, it would seem, a better chance for long +life; for, without losing the author's characteristic +interpretation, it has more story-value, is richer in humor +(that alleviating ingredient of all fiction) and is a better +work of art. It shows George Eliot absorbed in story-telling: +"Middlemarch" is George Eliot using a slight framework of story +for the sake of talking about life and illustrating by +character. Those who call it her masterpiece are not judging it +primarily as art-work: any more than those who call Whitman the +greatest American poet are judging him as artist. While it seems +necessary to make this distinction, it is quite as necessary to +bear down on the attraction of the character-drawing. That is a +truly wonderful portrait of the unconsciously selfish scholar in +Casaubon. Dorothea's noble naturalness, Will Ladislaw's fiery +truth, the verity of Rosamond's bovine mediocrity, the fine +reality of Lydgate's situation, so portentous in its demand upon +the moral nature--all this, and more than this, is admirable and +authoritative. The predominant thought in closing such a study +is that of the tremendous complexity of human fate, influenced +as it is by heredity, environment and the personal equation, and +not without melioristic hope, if we but live up to our best. The +tone is grave, but not hopeless. The quiet, hesitant movement +helps the sense of this slow sureness in the working of the +social law: + +"Though the mills of God grind slowly, +Yet they grind exceeding small." + + +In her final novel, "Daniel Deronda," between which and +"Middlemarch" there were six years, so that it was published +when the author was nearly sixty years old, we have another +large canvas upon which, in great detail and with admirable +variety, is displayed a composition that does not aim at +complete unity--or at any rate, does not accomplish it, for the +motive is double: to present the Jew so that Judenhetze may be +diminished: and to exhibit the spiritual evolution through a +succession of emotional experiences of the girl Gwendolen. This +phase of the story offers an instructive parallel with +Meredith's "Diana of the Crossways." If the Jew theme had been +made secondary artistically to the Gwendolen study, the novel +would have secured a greater degree of constructive success; but +there's the rub. Now it seems the main issue; again, Gwendolen +holds the center of the stage. The result is a suspicion of +patchwork; nor is this changed by the fact that both parts are +brilliantly done--to which consideration may be added the well-known +antipathy of many Gentile readers to any treatment of the +Jew in fiction, if an explanation be sought of the relative +slighting of a very noble book. + +For it has virtues, many and large. Its spirit is broad, +tolerant, wide and loving. In no previous Eliot fiction are +there finer single effects: no one is likely to forget the scene +in which Gwendolen and Harcourt come to a rupture; or the scene +of Deronda's dismissal. And in the way of character portrayal, +nothing is keener and truer than the heroine of this book, whose +unawakened, seemingly light, nature is chastened and deepened as +she slowly learns the meaning of life. The lesson is sound and +salutary: it is set forth so vividly as to be immensely +impressive. Mordecai, against the background necessary to show +him, is sketched with splendid power. And the percentage of +quotable sayings, sword-thrusts, many of them, into the vitals +of life, is as high perhaps as in any other of the Novels, +unless it be "Middlemarch." Nevertheless those who point to +"Deronda" as illustrating the novelist's decadence--although +they use too harsh a word--have some right on their side. For, +viewed as story, it is not so successful as the books of the +first half of George Eliot's career. It all depends whether a +vital problem Novel is given preference over a Novel which does +not obtrude message, if it have any at all. And if fiction be a +fine art, it must be confessed that this latter sort is +superior. But we have perfect liberty to admire the elevation, +earnestness and skill en detail that denote such a work. Nay, we +may go further and say that the woman who wrote it is greater +than she who wrote "The Mill on the Floss." + +With a backward glance now at the list, it may be said in +summary that the earlier fiction constitutes George Eliot's most +authoritative contribution to English novel-making, since the +thinking about life so characteristic of her is kept within the +bounds of good story-telling. And the compensation for this +artistic loss in her later fiction is found in its wider +intellectual outlook, its deeper sympathy, the more profound +humanity of the message. + +But what of her philosophy? She was not a pessimist, since the +pessimist is one who despairs of human virtue and regards the +world as paralyzing the will nobly to achieve. She was, rather, +a meliorist who hoped for better things, though tardy to come; +who believed, in her own pungent phrase, "in the slow contagion +of good." Of human happiness she did in one of her latest moods +despair: going so far in a dark moment as to declare that the +only ideal left her was duty. In a way, she grew sadder as she +grew older. By intellect she was a positivist who has given up +any definite hope of personal immortality--save that which by a +metaphor is applied to one's influence upon the life of the +world here upon earth. And in her own career, by her +unconventional union with Lewes, she made a questionable choice +of action, though from the highest motives; a choice which I +believe rasped her sensitive soul because of the way it was +regarded by many whom she respected and whose good opinion she +coveted. But she remained splendidly wholesome and inspiring in +her fiction, because she clung to her faith in spiritual +self-development, tested all life by the test of duty, felt the +pathos and the preciousness of inconspicuous lives, and devoted +herself through a most exceptional career to loving service for +others. She was therefore not only a novelist of genius, but a +profoundly good woman. She had an ample practical credo for +living and will always be, for those who read with their mind +and soul as well as their eyes, anything but a depressing +writer. For them, on the contrary, she will be a tonic force, a +seer using fiction as a means to an end--and that end the +betterment of mankind. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +TROLLOPE AND OTHERS + +Five or six writers of fiction, none of whom has attained a +position like that of the three great Victorians already +considered, yet all of whom loomed large in their day, have met +with unequal treatment at the hands of time: Bulwer Lytton, +Disraeli, Reade, Trollope, Kingsley. And the Brontes might well +be added to the list. The men are mentioned in the order of +their birth; yet it seems more natural to place Trollope last, +not at all because he lived to 1882, while Kingsley died seven +years earlier. Reade lived two years after Trollope, but seems +chronologically far before him as a novelist. In the same way, +Disraeli and Bulwer Lytton, as we now look back upon them, +appear to be figures of another age; though the former lived to +within a few years of Trollope, and the latter died but two +years before Kingsley. Of course, the reason that Disraeli +impresses us as antiquated where Trollope looks thoroughly +modern, is because the latter is nearest our own day in method, +temper and aim. And this is the main reason why he has best +survived the shocks of time and is seen to be the most +significant figure of an able and interesting group. Before he +is examined, something may be said of the others. + +In a measure, the great reputation enjoyed by the remaining +writers was secured in divisions of literature other than +fiction; or derived from activities not literary at all. Thus +Beaconsfield was Premier, Bulwer was noted as poet and +dramatist, and eminent in diplomacy; Kingsley a leader in Church +and State. They were men with many irons in the fire: naturally, +it took some years to separate their literary importance pure +and simple from the other accomplishments that swelled their +fame. Reade stood somewhat more definitely for literature; and +Trollope, although his living was gained for years as a public +servant, set his all of reputation on the single throw of +letters. He is Anthony Trollope, Novelist, or he is nothing. + + +I + +Thinking of Disraeli as a maker of stories, one reads of his +immense vogue about the middle of the last century and reflects +sagely upon the change of literary fashions. The magic is gone +for the reader now. Such claim as he can still make is most +favorably estimated by "Coningsby," "Sybil" and "Tancred," all +published within four years, and constituting a trilogy of books +in which the follies of polite society and the intimacies of +politics are portrayed with fertility and facility. The earlier +"Henrietta Temple" and "Venetia," however fervid in feeling and +valuable for the delineation of contemporary character, are not +so characteristic. Nor are the novels of his last years, +"Lothair" and "Endymion," in any way better than those of his +younger days. That the political trilogy have still a certain +value as studies of the time is beyond argument. Also, they have +wit, invention and a richly pictorial sense for setting, +together with flamboyant attraction of style and a solid +substratum of thought. One recognizes often that an athletic +mind is at play in them. But they do not now take hold, whatever +they once did; an air of the false-literary is over them, it is +not easy to read them as true transcripts from life. To get a +full sense of this, turn to literally contemporaneous books like +Dickens' "David Copperfield" and "Hard Times"; compared with +such, Disraeli and all his world seem clever pastiche. Personal +taste may modify this statement: it can hardly reverse it. It +would be futile to explain the difference by saying that +Disraeli was some eight years before Dickens or that he dealt +with another and higher class of society. The difference goes +deeper: it is due to the fact that one writer was writing in the +spirit of the age with his face to the future and so giving a +creative representation of its life; whereas the other was +painting its manners and only half in earnest: playing with +literature, in sooth. A man like Dickens is married to his art; +Disraeli indulges in a temporary liaison with letters. There is, +too, in the Lothair-Endymion kind of literature a fatal +resemblance to the older sentimental and grandiose fiction of +the eighteenth century: an effect of plush and padding, an +atmosphere of patchouli and sachet powder. It has the limitation +that fashion ever sets; it is boudoir novel-writing: cabinet +literature in both the social and political sense. As Agnes +Repplier has it: "Lothair is beloved by the female aristocracy +of Great Britain; and mysterious ladies, whose lofty souls stoop +to no conventionalities, die happy with his kisses on their +lips." It would be going too far perhaps to say that this type +never existed in life, for Richardson seems to have had a model +in mind in drawing Grandison; but it hardly survives in letters, +unless we include "St. Elmo" and "Under Two Flags" in that +denomination. + +To sum it all up: For most of us Disraeli has become hard +reading. This is not to say that he cannot still be read with +profit as one who gives us insight concerning his day; but his +gorgeous pictures and personages have faded woefully, where +Trollope's are as bright as ever; and the latter is right when +he said that Lord Beaconsfield's creatures "have a flavor of +paint and unreality." + + +II + +Bulwer Lytton has likewise lost ground greatly: but read to-day +he has much more to offer. In him, too, may be seen an +imperfectly blent mixture of by-gone sentimentality and modern +truth: yet whether in the romance of historic setting, "The Last +Days of Pompeii," or in the satiric study of realism, like "My +Novel," Bulwer is much nearer to us, and holds out vital +literature for our appreciation. It is easy to name faults both +in romance and realism of his making: but the important thing to +acknowledge is that he still appeals, can be read with a certain +pleasure. His most mature work, moreover, bears testimony to the +coming creed of fiction, as Disraeli's never does. There are +moments with Bulwer when he almost seems a fellow of Meredith's. +I recall with amusement the classroom remark of a college +professor to the effect that "My Novel" was the greatest fiction +in English literature. While the freshmen to whom this was +addressed did not appreciate the generous erraticism of the +judgment, even now one of them sees that, coming as it did from +a clergyman of genial culture, a true lover of literature and +one to inspire that love in others--even in freshmen!--it could +hardly have been spoken concerning a mere man-milliner of +letters. Bulwer produced too much and in too many kinds to do +his best in all--or in any one. But most of us sooner or later +have been in thrall to "Kenelm Chillingly" or thrilled to that +masterly horror story, "The House and the Brain." There is +pinchbeck with the gold, but the shining true metal is there. + + +III + +To pass to Kingsley, is like turning from the world to the +kingdom of God: all is religious fervor, humanitarian purpose. +Here again the activity is multiple but the dominant spirit is +that of militant Christianity. Outside of the Novel, Kingsley +has left in "Water Babies" a book deserving the name of modern +classic, unless the phrase be a contradiction in terms. "Alton +Locke," read to-day, is felt to be too much the tract to bear +favorable comparison with Eliot's "Felix Holt"; but it has +literary power and noble sincerity. Kingsley is one of the first +to feel the ground-swell of social democracy which was to sweep +later fiction on its mighty tide. "Westward Ho!" is a sterling +historical romance, one of the more successful books in a select +list which embraces "The Cloister and the Hearth," "Lorna +Doone," and "John Inglesant." "Hypatia," examined +dispassionately, may be described as an historical romance with +elements of greatness rather than a great historical romance. +But it shed its glamour over our youth and there is affectionate +dread in the thought of a more critical re-reading. + +In truth, Kingsley, viewed in all his literary work, stands out +as an athlete of the intellect and the emotions, doing much and +doing it remarkably well--a power for righteousness in his day +and generation, but for this very reason less a professional +novelist of assured standing. His gifted, erratic brother Henry, +in the striking series of stories dealing prevailingly with the +Australian life he so well knew, makes a stronger impression of +singleness of power and may last longer, one suspects, than the +better-known, more successful Charles, whose significance for +the later generation is, as we have hinted, in his sensitiveness +to the new spirit of social revolt,--an isolated voice where +there is now full chorus. + + +IV + +An even more virile figure and one to whom the attribution of +genius need not be grudged, is the strong, pugnacious, eminently +picturesque Charles Reade. It is a temptation to say that but +for his use of a method and a technique hopelessly old-fashioned, +he might claim close fellowship for gift and influence with +Dickens. But he lacked art as it is now understood: balance, +restraint, the impersonal view were not his. He is a glorious +but imperfect phenomenon, back there in the middle century. +He worked in a way deserving of the descriptive phrase once +applied to Macaulay--"a steam engine in breeches;" he put +enough belief and heart into his fiction to float any literary +vessel upon the treacherous waters of fame. He had, of the more +specific qualities of a novelist, racy idiom, power in creating +character and a remarkable gift for plot and dramatic scene. +His frankly melodramatic novels like "A Terrible Temptation" +are among the best of their kind, and in "The Cloister and +the Hearth" he performed the major literary feat of +reconstructing, with the large imagination and humanity +which obliterate any effect of archeology and worked-up +background, a period long past. And what reader of English +fiction does not harbor more than kindly sentiments for those +very different yet equally lovable women, Christie Johnstone and +Peg Woffington? To run over his contributions thus is to feel +the heart grow warm towards the sturdy story-teller. Reade also +played a part, as did Kingsley, in the movement for recognition +of the socially unfit and those unfairly treated. "Put Yourself +in His Place," with its early word on the readjustment of labor +troubles, is typical of much that he strove to do. Superb +partisan that he was, it is probable that had he cared less for +polemics and more for his art, he would have secured a safer +position in the annals of fiction. He can always be taken up and +enjoyed for his earnest conviction or his story for the story's +sake, even if on more critical evaluations he comes out not so +well as men of lesser caliber. + + +V + +The writer of the group who has consistently gained ground and +has come to be generally recognized as a great artist, a force +in English fiction both for influence and pleasure-giving power, +is Anthony Trollope. He is vital to-day and strengthening his +hold upon the readers of fiction. The quiet, cultivated folk in +whose good opinion lies the destiny of really worthy literature, +are, as a rule, friendly to Trollope; not seldom they are +devoted to him. Such people peruse him in an enjoyably +ruminative way at their meals, or read him in the neglige of +retirement. He is that cosy, enviable thing, a bedside author. +He is above all a story-teller for the middle-aged and it is his +good fortune to be able to sit and wait for us at that half-way +house,--since we all arrive. Of course, to say this is to +acknowledge his limitations. He does not appeal strongly to the +young, though he never forgets to tell a love story; but he is +too placid, matter-of-fact, unromantic for them. But if he do +not shake us with lyric passion, he is always interesting and he +wears uncommonly well. That his popularity is extending is +testified to by new editions and publishers' hullabaloo over his +work. + +Such a fate is deserved by him, for Trollope is one of the most +consummate masters of that commonplace which has become the +modern fashion--and fascination. He has a wonderful power in the +realism which means getting close to the fact and the average +without making them uninteresting. So, naturally, as realism has +gained he has gained. No one except Jane Austen has surpassed +him in this power of truthful portrayal, and he has the +advantage of being practically of our own day. He insisted that +fiction should be objective, and refused to intrude himself into +the story, showing himself in this respect a better artist than +Thackeray, whom he much admired but frankly criticized. He was +unwilling to pause and harangue his audience in rotund voice +after the manner of Dickens, First among modern novelists, +Trollope stands invisible behind his characters, and this, as we +have seen, was to become one of the articles of the modern creed +of fiction. He affords us that peculiar pleasure which is +derived from seeing in a book what we instantly recognize as +familiar to us in life. Just why the pleasure, may be left to +the psychologists; but it is of indisputable charm, and Trollope +possesses it. We may talk wisely and at length of his +commonplaceness, lack of spice, philistinism; he can be counted +on to amuse us. He lived valiantly up to his own injunction: "Of +all the needs a book has, the chief need is that it is +readable." A simple test, this, but a terrible one that has +slain its thousands. No nineteenth century maker of stories is +safer in the matter of keeping the attention. If the book can be +easily laid down, it is always agreeable to take it up again. + +Trollope set out in the most systematic way to produce a series +of novels illustrating certain sections of England, certain +types of English society; steadily, for a life-time, with the +artisan's skilful hand, he labored at the craft. He is the very +antithesis of the erraticisms and irregularities of genius. He +went to his daily stint of work, by night and day, on sea or +land, exactly as the merchant goes to his office, the mechanic +to his shop. He wrote with a watch before him, two hundred and +fifty words to fifteen minutes. But he had the most unusual +faculty of direct, unprejudiced, clear observation; he trained +himself to set down what he saw and to remember it. And he also +had the constructive ability to shape and carry on his story so +as to create the effect of growth, along with an equally +valuable power of sympathetic characterization, so that you know +and understand his folk. Add to this a style perfectly accordant +with the unobtrusive harmony of the picture, and the main +elements of Trollope's appeal have been enumerated. Yet has he +not been entirely explained. His art--meaning the skilled +handling of his material--can hardly be praised too much; it is +so easy to underestimate because it is so unshowy. Few had a +nicer sense of scale and tone; he gets his effects often because +of this harmony of adjustment. For one example, "The Warden" is +a relatively short piece of fiction which opens the famous +Chronicles of Barset series. Its interest culminates in the +going of the Reverend Septimus Harding to London from his quiet +country home, in order to prevent a young couple from marrying. +The whole situation is tiny, a mere corner flurry. But so +admirably has the climax been prepared, so organic is it to all +that went before in the way of preparation, that the result is +positively thrilling: a wonderful example of the principle of +key and relation. + +Or again, in that scene which is a favorite with all Trollope's +readers, where the arrogant Mrs. Proudie is rebuked by the gaunt +Mr. Crawley, the effect of his famous "Peace, woman!" is +tremendous only because it is a dash of vivid red in a +composition where the general color scheme is low and subdued. + +In view of this faculty, it will not do to regard Trollope as a +kind of mechanic who began one novel the day he finished another +and often carried on two or three at the same time, like a +juggler with his balls, with no conception of them as artistic +wholes. He says himself that he began a piece of fiction with no +full plan. But, with his very obvious skill prodigally proved +from his work, we may beg leave to take all such statements in a +qualified sense: for the kind of fiction he aimed at he surely +developed a technique not only adequate but of very unusual +excellence. + +Trollope was a voluminous writer: he gives in his delightful +autobiography the list of his own works and it numbers upwards +of sixty titles, of which over forty are fiction. His capacity +for writing, judged by mere bulk, appears to have been +inherited; for his mother, turning authoress at fifty years of +age, produced no less than one hundred and fourteen volumes! +There is inferior work, and plenty of it, among the sum-total of +his activity, but two series, amounting to about twenty books, +include the fiction upon which his fame so solidly rests: the +Cathedral series and the Parliamentary series. In the former, +choosing the southern-western counties of Wiltshire and Hants as +Hardy chose Wessex for his peculiar venue, he described the +clerical life of his land as it had never been described before, +showing the type as made up of men like unto other men, +unromantic, often this-worldly and smug, yet varying the type, +making room for such an idealist as Crawley as well as for sleek +bishops and ecclesiastical wire-pullers. Neither his young women +nor his holy men are overdrawn a jot: they have the continence +of Nature. But they are not cynically presented. You like them +and take pleasure in their society; they are so beautifully +true! The inspiration of these studies came to him as he walked +under the shadow of Salisbury Cathedral; and one is never far +away from the influence of the cathedral class. The life is the +worldy-godly life of that microcosm, a small, genteel, +conventional urban society; in sharp contrast with the life +depicted by Hardy in the same part of the land,--but like +another world, because his portraiture finds its subjects among +peasant-folk and yeoman--the true primitive types whose speech +is slow and their roots deep down in the soil. + +The realism of Trollope was not confined to the mere +reproduction of externals; he gave the illusion of character, +without departing from what can be verified by what men know. +His photographs were largely imaginary, as all artistic work +must be; he constructed his stories out of his own mind. But all +is based on what may be called a splendidly reasoned and +reasonable experience with Life. His especial service was thus +to instruct us about English society, without tedium, within a +domain which was voluntarily selected for his own. In this he +was also a pioneer in that local fiction which is a geographical +effect of realism. And to help him in this setting down of what +he believed to be true of humanity, was a style so lucid and +simple as perfectly to serve his purpose. For unobtrusive ease, +idiomatic naturalness and that familiarity which escapes +vulgarity and retains a quiet distinction, no one has excelled +him. It is one reason why we feel an intimate knowledge of his +characters. Mr. Howells declares it is Trollope who is most like +Austen "in simple honesty and instinctive truth, as +unphilosophized as the light of common day"--though he goes on +to deplore that he too often preferred to be "like the +caricaturist Thackeray"--a somewhat hard saying. It is a +particular comfort to read such a writer when intensely personal +psychology is the order of the day and neither style nor +interpretation in fiction is simple. + +If Trollope can be said to be derivative at all, it is Thackeray +who most influenced him. He avows his admiration, wrote the +other's life, and deemed him one who advanced truth-telling in +the Novel. Yet, as was stated, he did not altogether approve of +the Master, thinking his satire too steady a view instead of an +occasional weapon. Indeed his strictures in the biography have +at times a cool, almost hostile sound. He may or may not have +taken a hint from Thackeray on the re-introduction of characters +in other books--a pleasant device long antedating the nineteenth +century, since one finds it in Lyly's "Euphues." Trollope also +disliked Dickens' habit of exaggeration (as he thought it) even +when it was used in the interests of reform, and satirized the +tendency in the person of Mr. Popular Sentiment in "The Warden." + +The more one studies Trollope and the farther he recedes into +the past, the firmer grows the conviction that he is a very +distinctive figure of Victorian fiction, a pioneer who led the +way and was to be followed by a horde of secondary realistic +novelists who could imitate his methods but not reproduce his +pleasant effect. + + +VI + +The Brontes, coming when they did, before 1850, are a curious +study. Realism was growing daily and destined to be the fashion +of the literary to-morrow. But "Jane Eyre" is the product of +Charlotte Bronte's isolation, her morbidly introspective nature, +her painful sense of personal duty, the inextinguishable romance +that was hers as the leal descendant of a race of Irish story-tellers. +She looked up to and worshipped Thackeray, but produced +fiction that was like something from another world. She and her +sisters, especially Emily, whose vivid "Wuthering Heights" has +all the effect of a visitant from a remote planet, are strangely +unrelated to the general course of the nineteenth century. They +seem born out of time; they would have left a more lasting +impress upon English fiction had they come before--or after. +There are unquestionable qualities of realism in "Jane Eyre," +but it is romantic to the core, sentimental, melodramatic. +Rochester is an elder St. Elmo--hardly truer as a human being; +Jane's sacrificial worship goes back to the eighteenth century; +and that famous mad-woman's shriek in the night is a moment to +be boasted of on the Bowery. And this was her most typical book, +that which gave her fame. The others, "Villette" and the rest, +are more truly representative of the realistic trend of the day, +but withal though interesting, less characteristic, less liked. +In proportion as she is romantic is she remembered. The streak +of genius in these gifted women must not blind us to the +isolation, the unrelated nature of their work to the main course +of the Novel. They are exceptions to the rule. + + +VII + +This group then of novelists, sinking all individual +differences, marks the progress of the method of realism over +the romance. Scarcely one is conspicuous for achievement in the +latter, while almost all of them did yeoman service in the +former. In some cases--those of Disraeli and Bulwer--the +transition is seen where their earlier and later work is +contrasted; with a writer like Trollope, the newer method +completely triumphs. Even in so confirmed a romance-maker as +Wilkie Collins, to whom plot was everything and whose cunning of +hand in this is notorious, there is a concession to the new +ideal of Truth. He was touched by his time in the matter of +naturalness of dialogue, though not of event. Wildly improbable +and wooden as his themes may now seem, their manner is +realistic, realism of speech, in fact, being an element in his +effectivism. Even the author of "The Moonstone" is scotched by +the spirit of the age, and in the preface to "Armsdale" declares +for a greater freedom of theme--one of the first announcements +of that desire for an extension of the subject-matter which was +in the next generation to bring such a change. + +It seems just to represent all these secondary novelists as +subsidiary to Dickens, Thackeray and Eliot. Fascinating isolated +figures like Borrow, who will always be cherished by the few, +are perforce passed by. We are trying to keep both quality and +influence in mind, with the desire to show the writers not by +themselves alone but as part of a stream of tendency which has +made the English Novel the distinct form it is to-day. Even a +resounding genius, in this view, may have less meaning than an +apparent plodder like Trollope, who, as time goes by, is seen +more clearly to be one of the shaping forces in the development +of a literary form. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +HARDY AND MEREDITH + +We have seen in chapter seventh, how the influence of Balzac +introduced to modern fiction that extension of subject and that +preference for the external fact widely productive of change in +the novel-making of the continent and of English-speaking lands. +As the year 1830 was given significance by him, so, a generation +later, the year 1870 was given significance by Zola. England, +like other lands cultivating the Novel, felt the influence. +Balzac brought to fiction a greater franchise of theme: Zola +taught it to regard a human being--individual or collectively +social--as primarily animal: that is, he explains action on this +hypothesis. And as an inevitable consequence, realism passed to +the so-called naturalism. Zola believed in this view as a theory +and his practice, not always consistent with it, was +sufficiently so in the famous Rougon-Macquart series of novels +begun the year of the Franco-Prussian war, to establish it as a +method, and a school of fiction. Naturalism, linking hands with +l'art pour art--"a fine phrase is a moral action--there is no +other morality in literature," cried Zola--became a banner-cry, +with "the flesh is all" its chief article of belief. No study of +the growth of English fiction can ignore this typical modern +movement, however unpleasant it may be to follow it. The baser +and more brutal phases of the Novel continental and insular look +to this derivation. Zola's remarkable pronunciamento "The +Experimental Novel," proves how honestly he espoused the +doctrine of the realist, how blind he is to its partial view. +His attempt to subject the art of fiction to the exact laws of +science, is an illustration of the influence of scientific +thought upon a mind not broadly cultured, though of unusual +native quality. Realism of the modern kind--the kind for which +Zola stands--is the result in a form of literature of the +necessary intellectual unrest following on the abandonment of +older religious ideals. Science had forced men to give up +certain theological conceptions; death, immorality, God, Man,--these +were all differently understood, and a period of +readjustment, doubt and negation, of misery and despair, was the +natural issue. Man, being naturally religious, was sure sooner +or later to secure a new and more hopeful faith: it was a matter +of spiritual self-preservation. But realism in letters, for the +moment, before a new theory had been formulated, was a kind of +pis aller by which literature could be produced and attention +given to the tangible things of this earth, many of them not +before thoroughly exploited; the things of the mind, of the +Spirit, were certain to be exploited later, when a broader creed +should come. The new romanticism and idealism of our day marks +this return. Zola's theory is now seen to be wrong, and there +has followed a violent reaction from the realistic tenets, even +in Paris, its citadel. But for some years, it held tyrannous +sway and its leader was a man of genius, his work distinctive, +remarkable; at its best, great,--in spite of, rather than +because of, his principles. It was in the later Trilogy of the +cities that, using a broader formula, he came into full +expression of what was in him; during the last years of his life +he was moving, both as man and artist, in the right direction. +Yet naturally it was novels like "Nana" and "L'Assomoir" that +gave him his vogue; and their obsession with the fleshly gave +them for the moment a strange distinction: for years their +author was regarded as the founder of a school and its most +formidable exponent. He wielded an influence that rarely falls +to a maker of stories. And although realism in its extreme +manifestations no longer holds exclusive sway, Zola's impulse is +still at work in the modern Novel. Historically, his name will +always be of interest. + + +I + +Thomas Hardy is a realist in a sense true of no English novelist +of anything like equal rank preceding him: his literary +genealogy is French, for his "Jude The Obscure" has no English +prototype, except the earlier work of George Moore, whose +inspiration is even more definitely Paris. To study Hardy's +development for a period of about twenty-five years from "Under +the Greenwood Tree" to "Jude," is to review, as they are +expressed in the work of one great English novelist, the +literary ideals before and after Zola. Few will cavil at the +inclusion in our study of a living author like Hardy. His work +ranks with the most influential of our time; so much may be seen +already. His writing of fiction, moreover, or at least of +Novels, seems to be finished. And like Meredith, he is a man of +genius and, strictly speaking, a finer artist than the elder +author. For quality, then, and significance of accomplishment, +Hardy may well be examined with the masters whose record is +rounded out by death. He offers a fine example of the logic of +modern realism, as it has been applied by a first-class mind to +the art of fiction. In Meredith, on the contrary, is shown a +sort of synthesis of the realistic and poetic-philosophic +interpretation. Hardy is for this reason easier to understand +and explain; Meredith refuses classification. + +The elements of strength in Thomas Hardy can be made out +clearly; they are not elusive. Wisely, he has chosen to do a +very definite thing and, with rare perseverance and skill, he +has done it. He selected as setting the south-western part of +England--Wessex, is the ancient name he gave it--that embraces +Somersetshire and contiguous counties, because he felt that the +types of humanity and the view of life he wished to show could +best be thrown out against the primitive background. Certain +elemental truths about men and women, he believed, lost sight of +in the kaleidoscopic attritions of the town, might there be +clearly seen. The choice of locale was thus part of an attitude +toward life. That attitude or view may be described fairly well +as one of philosophic fatalism. + +It has not the cold removedness of the stoic: it has pity in it, +even love. But it is deeply sad, sometimes bitter. In Hardy's +presentation of Nature (a remark applying to some extent to a +younger novelist who shows his influence, Phillpotts), she is +displayed as an ironic expression, with even malignant moods, of +a supreme cosmic indifference to the petty fate of that +animalcule, man. And this, in spite of a curious power she +possesses of consoling him and of charming him by blandishments +that cheat the loneliness of his soul. There is no purer example +of tragedy in modern literature than Mr. Hardy's strongest, most +mature stories. A mind deeply serious and honest, interprets the +human case in this wise and conceives that the underlying +pitilessness can most graphically be conveyed in a setting like +that of Egdon Heath, where the great silent forces of Nature +somberly interblend with the forces set in motion by the human +will, both futile to produce happiness. Even the attempt to be +virtuous fails in "Jude": as the attempt to be happy does in +"Tess." That sardonic, final thought in the last-named book will +not out of our ears: Fate had played its last little jest with +poor Tess. + +But there are mitigations, many and welcome. Hardy has the most +delightful humor. His peasants and simple middle-class folk are +as distinctive and enjoyable as anything since Shakspere. He +also has a more sophisticated, cutting humor--tipped with irony +and tart to the taste--which he uses in those stories or scenes +where urbanites mingle with his country folk. But his humorous +triumphs are bucolic. And for another source of keenest +pleasure, there is his style, ennobling all his work. Whether +for the plastic manipulation of dialogue or the eloquencies and +exactitudes of description, he is emphatically a master. His +mind, pagan in its bent, is splendidly broad in its +comprehension of the arcana of Nature and that of a poet +sensitive to all the witchery of a world which at core is +inscrutably dark and mysterious. He knows, none better, of the +comfort to be got even from the sad when its beauty is made +palpitating. No one before him, not Meredith himself, has so +interfused Nature with man as to bring out the thought of man's +ancient origin in the earth, his birth-ties, and her claims on +his allegiance. This gives a rare savor to his handling of what +with most novelists is often mere background. Egdon Heath was +mentioned; the setting in "The Return of the Native" is not +background in the usual sense; that mighty stretch of moorland +is almost like the central actor of the drama, so potent is its +influence upon the fate of the other characters. So with "The +Woodlanders" and still other stories. Take away this subtle and +vital relation of man to Nature, and the whole organism +collapses. Environment with Hardy is atmosphere, influence, +often fate itself. Being a scientist in the cast of his +intellect, although by temperament a poet, he believes in +environment as the shaping power conceived of by Taine and Zola. +It is this use of Nature as a power upon people of deep, strong, +simple character, showing the sweep of forces far more potent +than the conventions of the polite world, which distinguishes +Hardy's fiction. Fate with him being so largely that impersonal +thing, environment; allied with temperament (for which he is not +responsible), and with opportunity--another element of luck--it +follows logically that man is the sport of the gods. Hardy is +unable, like other determinists, to escape the dilemma of free-will +versus predestination, and that other crux, the imputation +of personality to the workings of so-called natural laws. Indeed +curiously, in his gigantic poem-cycle, "the Dynasts," the +culmination of his life-work, he seems to hint at a plan of the +universe which may be beneficial. + +To name another quality that gives distinction to Hardy's work: +his fiction is notably well-built, and he is a resourceful +technician. Often, the way he seizes a plot and gives it +proportionate progress to an end that is inevitable, exhibits a +well-nigh perfect art. Hardy's novels, for architectural +excellence, are really wonderful and will richly repay careful +study in this respect. It has been suggested that because his +original profession was that of an architect, his constructive +ability may have been carried over to another craft. This may be +fantastic; but the fact remains that for the handling of +material in such a manner as to eliminate the unnecessary, and +move steadily toward the climax, while ever imitating though not +reproducing, the unartificial gait of life, Hardy has no +superior in English fiction and very few beyond it. These +ameliorations of humor and pity, these virtues of style and +architectural handling make the reading of Thomas Hardy a +literary experience, and very far from an undiluted course in +Pessimism. A sane, vigorous, masculine mind is at work in all +his fiction up to its very latest. Yet it were idle to deny the +main trend of his teaching. It will be well to trace with some +care the change which has crept gradually over his view of the +world. As his development of thought is studied in the +successive novels he produced between 1871 and 1898, it may +appear that there is little fundamental change in outlook: the +tragic note, and the dark theory of existence, explicit in +"Tess" and "Jude," is more or less implicit in "Desperate +Remedies." But change there is, to be found in the deepening of +the feeling, the pushing of a theory to its logical extreme. +This opening tale, read in the light of what he was to do, +strikes one as un-Hardy-like in its rather complex plot, with +its melodramatic tinge of incident. + +The second book, "Under the Greenwood Tree," is a blithe, bright +woodland comedy and it would have been convenient for a cut-and-dried +theory of Hardy's growth from lightness to gravity, had it +come first. It is, rather, a happy interlude, hardly +representative of his main interest, save for its clear-cut +characterizations of country life and its idyllic flavor. The +novel that trod on its heels, "A Pair of Blue Eyes," maugre its +innocently Delia Cruscan title,--it sounds like a typical effort +of "The Duchess,"--has the tragic end which light-minded readers +have come to dread in this author. He showed his hand thus +comparatively early and henceforth was to have the courage of +his convictions in depicting human fate as he saw it--not as the +reader wished it. + +In considering the books that subsequently appeared, to +strengthen Hardy's place with those who know fine fiction, they +are seen to have his genuine hall-mark, just in proportion as +they are Wessex through and through: in the interplay of +character and environment there, we get his deepest expression +as artist and interpreter. The really great novels are "Far From +the Madding Crowd," "The Return of the Native," "The Mayor of +Casterbridge" and "Tess of the D'Urbervilles": when he shifts +the scene to London, as in "The Hand of Ethelberta" or +introduces sophisticated types as in the dull "Laodicean," it +means comparative failure. Mother soil (he is by birth a +Dorchester man and lives there still) gives him idiosyncrasy, +flavor, strength. That the best, most representative work of +Hardy is to be seen in two novels of his middle career, "Far +From the Madding Crowd" and "The Return of the Native" rather +than in the later stories, "Tess" and "Jude," can be +established, I think, purely on the ground of art, without +dragging cheap charges of immorality into the discussion. In the +last analysis, questions of art always become a question of +ethics: the separation is arbitrary and unnatural. That "Tess" +is the book into which the author has most intensely put his +mature belief, may be true: it is quiveringly alive, vital as +only that is which comes from the deeps of a man's being. But +Hardy is so much a special pleader for Tess, that the argument +suffers and a grave fault is apparent when the story's climax is +studied. There is an intrusion of what seems like factitious +melodrama instead of that tissue of events which one expects +from a stern necessitarian. Tess need not be a murderess; +therefore, the work should not so conclude, for this is an +author whose merit is that his effects of character are causal. +He is fatalistic, yes; but in general he royally disdains the +cheap tricks of plot whereby excitement is furnished at the +expense of credulity and verisimilitude. In Tess's end, there s +a suspicion of sensation for its own sake--a suggestion of +savage joy in shocking sensibilities. Of course, the result is +most powerful; but the superior power of the novel is not here +so much as in its splendid sympathy and truth. He has made this +woman's life-history deeply affecting and is right in claiming +that she is a pure soul, judged by intention. + +The heart feels that she is sinned against rather than sinning +and in the spectacle of her fall finds food for thought "too +deep for tears." At the same time, it should not be forgotten +that Tess's piteous plight,--the fact that fate has proved too +strong for a soul so high in its capacity for unselfish and +noble love,--is based upon Hardy's assumption that she could not +help it. Here, as elsewhere in his philosophy, you must accept +his premise, or call Tess (whom you may still love) morally +weak. It is this reservation which will lead many to place the +book, as a work of art, and notwithstanding its noble +proportions and compelling power, below such a masterpiece as +"The Return of the Native." That it is on the whole a sane and +wholesome work, however, may be affirmed by one who finds +Hardy's last novel "Jude the Obscure" neither. For there is a +profound difference between two such creations. In the former, +there is a piquant sense of the pathos and the awesomeness of +life, but not of its unrelieved ugliness and disgust; an +impression which is received from the latter. Not only is "Jude" +"a tragedy of unfulfilled aim" as the author calls it; so is +"Tess"; but it fills the reader with a kind of sullen rage to be +an eye-witness of the foul and brutal: he is asked to see a +drama develop beside a pig-sty. It is therefore, intensely +unesthetic which, if true, is a word of condemnation for any +work of art. It is deficient in poetry, in the broad sense; +that, rather than frankness of treatment, is the trouble with +it. + +And intellectually, it would seem to be the result of a bad +quarter of an hour of the author: a megrim of the soul. Elements +of greatness it has; a fine motive, too; to display the +impossibilities for evolution on the part of an aspiring soul +hampered by circumstances and weak where most humanity is Weak, +in the exercise of sex-passion. A not dissimilar theme as it is +worked out by Daudet in "Le Petite Chose" is beautiful in its +pathos; in "Jude" there is something shuddering about the +arbitrary piling-up of horror; the modesty of nature is +overstept; it is not a truly proportioned view of life, one +feels; if life were really so bad as that, no one would be +willing to live it, much less exhibit the cheerfulness which is +characteristic of the majority of human beings. It is a fair +guess that in the end it will be called the artistic mistake of +a novelist of genius. Its harsh reception by critics in England +and America was referred to by the author privately as an +example of the "crass Philistinism" of criticism in those lands: +Mr. Hardy felt that on the continent alone was the book +understood, appreciated. I imagine, however, that whatever the +limitations of the Anglo-Saxon view, it comes close to the +ultimate decision to be passed upon this work. + +One of the striking things about these Novels is the sense that +they convey of the largeness of life. The action moves on a +narrow stage set with the austere simplicity of the +Elizabethans; the personages are extremely commonplace, the +incidents in the main small and unexciting. Yet the +tremendousness of human fate is constantly implied and brought +home in the most impressive way. This is because all have +spiritual value; if the survey be not wide, it sinks deep to the +psychic center; and what matters vision that circles the globe, +if it lacks grasp, penetration, uplift? These, Hardy has. When +one calls his peasants Shaksperian, one is trying to express the +strength and savor, the rich earthy quality like fresh loam that +pertains to these quaint figures, so evidently observed on the +ground, and lovingly lifted over into literature. Their speech +bewrays them and is an index of their slow, shrewd minds. + +Nor is his serious characterization less fine and representative +than his humorous; especially his women. It is puzzling to say +whether Hardy's comic men, or his subtly drawn, sympathetically +visualized women are to be named first in his praise: for power +in both, and for the handling of nature, he will be long +remembered. Bathsheba, Eustacia, Tess and the rest, they take +hold on the very heart-strings and are known as we know our very +own. It is not that they are good or bad,--generally they are +both; it is that they are beautifully, terribly human. They +mostly lack the pettiness that so often fatally limits their sex +and quite as much, they lack the veneer that obscures the broad +lines of character. And it is natural to add, while thinking of +Hardy's women, that, unlike almost all the Victorian novelists, +he has insisted frankly, but in the main without offense, on +woman's involvement with sex-passion; he finds that love, in a +Wessex setting, has wider range than has been awarded it in +previous study of sex relations. And he has not hesitated to +depict its rootage in the flesh; not overlooking its rise in the +spirit to noblest heights. And it is this un-Anglo-Saxon-like +comprehension of feminine humanity that makes him so fair to the +sinning woman who trusts to her ruin or proves what is called +weak because of the generous movement of her blood. No one can +despise faithful-hearted Fannie Robin, dragging herself to the +poorhouse along Casterbridge highway; that scene, which bites +itself upon the memory, is fairly bathed in an immense, +understanding pity. Although Hardy has thus used the freedom of +France in treatment, he has, unlike so much of the Gallic +realism, remained an idealist in never denying the soul of love +while speaking more truthfully concerning its body than the +fiction-makers before him. There is no finer handling of sex-love +with due regard to its dual nature,--love that grows in +earth yet flowers until it looks into heaven--than Marty's oft-quoted +beautiful speech at her lover's grave; and Hardy's belief +rings again in the defense of that good fellowship--that +camaraderie--which can grow into "the only love which is as +strong as death--beside which the passion usually so-called by +the name is evanescent as steam." A glimpse like that of Hardy's +mind separates him at once from Maupassant's view of the world. +The traditions of English fiction, which he has insisted on +disturbing, have, after all, been strong to direct his work, as +they have that of all the writers born into the speech and +nourished on its racial ideals. + +Another reason for giving the stories of the middle period, such +as "The Return of the Native," preference over those that are +later, lies in the fact that the former have no definite, +aggressive theme; whereas "Tess" announces an intention on the +title page, "Jude," in a foreword. Whatever view of life may be +expressed in "The Mayor of Casterbridge," for example, is +imbedded, as it should be, in the course of the story. This +tendency towards didacticism is a common thing in the cases of +modern writers of fiction; it spoiled a great novelist in the +case of Tolstoy, with compensatory gains in another direction; +of those of English stock, one thinks of Eliot, Howells, Mrs. +Ward and many another. But however natural this may be in an age +like ours, the art of the literary product is, as a rule, +injured by the habit of using fiction as a jumping-board for +theory. In some instances, dullness has resulted. Eliot has not +escaped scot-free. With Hardy, he is, to my taste, never dull. +Repellent as "Jude" may be, it is never that. But a hardness of +manner and an unpleasant bias are more than likely to follow +this aim, to the fiction's detriment. + +It is a great temptation to deflect from the purpose of this +work in order to discuss Hardy's short stories, for a master in +this kind he is. A sketch like "The Three Strangers" is as truly +a masterpiece as Stevenson's "A Lodging for The Night." It must +suffice to say of his work in the tale that it enables the +author to give further assurance of his power of atmospheric +handling, his stippling in of a character by a few strokes, his +skill in dramatic scene, his knowledge of Wessex types, and +especially, his subdued but permeating pessimism. There is +nothing in his writings more quietly, deeply hopeless than most +of the tales in the collection "Life's Little Ironies." One +shrinks away from the truth and terror of them while lured by +their charm. The short stories increase one's admiration for the +artist, but the full, more virile message conies from the +Novels. It is matter for regret that "Jude the Obscure," unless +the signs fail, is to be his last testament in fiction. For such +a man to cease from fiction at scarce sixty can but be deplored. +The remark takes on added pertinency because the novelist has +essayed in lieu of fiction the poetic drama, a form in which he +has less ease and authority. + +Coming when he did and feeling in its full measure the tidal +wave from France, Hardy was compelled both by inward and outward +pressure to see life un-romantically, so far as the human fate +is concerned: but always a poet at heart (he began with verse), +he found a vent for that side of his being in Nature, in great +cosmic realities, in the stormy, passionate heart of humanity, +so infinite in its aspirations, so doughty in its heroisms, so +pathetic in its doom. There is something noble always in the +tragic largeness of Hardy's best fiction. His grim determinism +is softened by lyric airs; and even when man is most lonesome, +he is consoled by contact with "the pure, eternal course of +things"; whose august flow comforts Arnold. Because of his art, +the representative character of his thought, reflecting in +prose, as does Matthew Arnold in verse, the deeper +thought-currents of the time; and because too of the personal +quality which for lack of a better word one still must call genius, +Thomas Hardy is sure to hold his place in the English fiction of +the closing years of the nineteenth century and is to-day the +most distinguished living novelist using that speech and one of +the few to be recognized and honored abroad. No writer of +fiction between 1875 and 1900 has more definitely had a strong +influence upon the English Novel as to content, scope and choice +of subject. If his convictions have led him to excess, they will +be forgiven and forgotten in the light of the serene mastery +shed by the half dozen great works he has contributed to English +literature. + + +II + +Once in a while--a century or so, maybe,--comes an artist who +refuses to be classified. Rules fail to explain him: he makes +new rules in the end. He seems too big for any formula. He +impresses by the might of his personality, teaching the world +what it should have known before, that the personal is the life-blood +of all and any art. Some such effect is made upon the +critic by George Meredith, who so recently has closed his eyes +to the shows of earth. One can find in him almost all the +tendencies of English fiction. He is realist and romanticist, +frank lover of the flesh, lofty idealist, impressionist and +judge, philosopher, dramatist, essayist, master of the comic and +above all, Poet. Eloquence, finesse, strength and sweetness, the +limpid and the cryptic, are his in turn: he puts on when he +will, like a defensive armor, a style to frighten all but the +elect. And they who persist and discover the secret, swear that +it is more than worth the pains. Perhaps the lesson of it all is +that a first-class writer, creative and distinctive, is a +phenomenon transcending school, movement or period. George +Meredith is not, if we weigh words, the greatest English +novelist to-day--for both Hardy and Stevenson are his superiors +as artists; but he is the greatest man who has written fiction. + +Although he was alive but yesterday, the novel frequently +awarded first position among his works, "The Ordeal of Richard +Feverel," was published a good half century ago. Go back to it, +get its meaning, then read the latest fiction he wrote--(he +ceased to produce fiction more than a decade before his death) +and you appear to be in contact with the same personality in the +substantials of story-making and of life-view. The only notable +change is to be found in the final group of three stories, "One +of Our Conquerors," "Lord Ormont and His Aminta" and "The +Amazing Marriage." The note of social protest is louder here, +the revolt against conventions more pronounced. Otherwise, the +author of "Feverel" is the author of "The Amazing Marriage." +Much has occurred in the Novel during the forty years between +the two works: realism has traveled to an extreme, neo-idealism +come by way of reaction, romanticism bloomed again, the Novel of +ingenious construction, the Novel of humanitarian meaning, the +Novel of thesis and problem and the Novel that foretells the +future like an astrologer, all these types and yet others have +been practised; but Meredith has kept tranquilly on the tenor of +his large way, uninfluenced, except as he has expressed all +these complexities in his own work. He is in literary evolution, +a sport. Critics who have tried to show how his predecessors and +contemporaries have influenced him, have come out lamely from +the attempt. He has been sensitive not to individual writers, +but to that imponderable yet potent thing, the time-tendency in +literature. He throws back to much in the past, while in the van +of modern thought. What, to illustrate, could be more of the +present intellectually than his remarkable sonnet-sequence, +"Modern Love"? And are not his women, as a type, the noblest +example of the New Woman of our day--socially, economically, +intellectually emancipated, without losing their distinctive +feminine quality? And yet, in "The Shaving of Shagpat," an early +work, we go back t the Arabian Nights for a model. The satiric +romance, "Harry Richmond," often reminds of the leisured episode +method of the eighteenth century; and while reading the unique +"Evan Harrington" we think at times of Aristophanes. + +Nor is much light thrown on Meredith's path in turning to his +personal history. Little is known of this author's ancestry and +education; his environment has been so simple, his life in its +exteriors so uneventful, that we return to the work itself with +the feeling that the key to the secret room must be here if +anywhere. It is known that he was educated in youth in Germany, +which is interesting in reference to the problem of his style. +And there is more to be said concerning his parentage than the +smug propriety of print has revealed while he lived. We know, +too, that his marriage with the daughter of Thomas Love Peacock +proved unhappy, and that for many years he has resided, almost a +recluse, with his daughter, in the idyllic retirement of Surrey. +The privacy of Boxhill has been respected; next to never has +Meredith spoken in any public way and seldom visited London. +When he was, at Tennyson's death, made the President of the +British Society of Authors, the honor sought the man. The rest +is silence; what has appeared since his death has been of too +conflicting a nature for credence. We await a trustworthy +biography. + +The appeal then must be to the books themselves. Exclusive of +short story, sketch and tale, they include a dozen novels of +generous girth--for Meredith is old-fashioned in his demand for +elbow-room. They are preeminently novels of character and more +than any novelist of the day the view of the world embodied in +them is that of the intellect. This does not mean that they are +wanting in emotional force or interest: merely, that in George +Meredith's fiction men and women live the life of thought as it +is acted upon by practical issues. Character seen in action is +always his prepossession; plot is naught save as it exhibits +this. The souls of men and women are his quarry, and the test of +a civilization the degree in which it has developed the mind for +an enlightened control over the emotions and the bodily +appetites. Neither does this mean, as with Henry James, the +disappearance of plot: a healthy objectivity of narrative +framework is preserved; if anything the earlier +books--"Feverel," "Evan Harrington," "Rhoda Fleming" and the duo +"Sandra Belloni" and "Vittoria"--have more of story interest +than the later novels. Meredith has never feared the use of the +episode, in this suggesting the older methods of Fielding and +Smollett. Yet the episodic in his hands has ever its use for +psychologic envisagement. Love, too, plays a large role in his +fiction; indeed, in the wider platonic sense, it is constantly +present, although he is the last man to be called a writer of +love-stories. And no man has permitted himself greater freedom +in stepping outside the story in order to explain his meaning, +comment upon character and scene, rhapsodize upon Life, or +directly harangue the reader. And this broad marginal +reservation of space, however much it is deplored in viewing his +work as novel-making, adds a peculiar tonic and is a +characteristic we could ill spare. It brings us back to the +feeling that he is a great man using the fiction form for +purposes broader than that of telling a story. + +Because of this ample personal testimony in his books it should +be easy to state his Lebensanschauung, unless the opacity of his +manner blocks the way or he indulges in self-contradiction in +the manner of a Nietzsche. Such is not the case. What is the +philosophy unfolded in his representative books? + +It will be convenient to choose a few of those typical for +illustration. The essence of Meredith is to be discovered in +such works as "The Ordeal of Richard Feverel," "Evan +Harrington," "Harry Richmond," "The Egoist," "Diana of the +Crossways." If you know these, you understand him. "Lord Ormont +and his Aminta" might well be added because of its teaching; but +the others will serve, with the understanding that so many-sided +a writer has in other works given further noble proof of his +powers. If I allowed personal preference to be my sole guide, +"Rhoda Fleming" would be prominent in the list; and many place +"Beauchamp's Career" high, if not first among his works;--a +novel teeming with his views, particularly valuable for its +treatment of English politics and certainly containing some of +his most striking characterization, in particular, one of his +noblest women. Still, those named will fairly reflect the +novelist and speak for all. + +"Richard Feverel," which had been preceded by a book of poems, +the fantasia "The Shaving of Shagpat" and an historical +novelette "Farina," was the first book that announced the +arrival of a great novelist. It is at once a romance of the +modern type, a love-story and a problem book; the tri-statement +makes it Meredithian. It deals with the tragic union of Richard +and Lucy, in a setting that shifts from sheer idyllic, through +worldly and realistic to a culmination of dramatic grief. It +contains, in measure heaped up and running over, the poetry, the +comedy and the philosophy, the sense of Life's riddle, for which +the author is renowned. But its intellectual appeal of theme--aside +from the incidental wisdom that stars its pages--is found +in the study of the problem of education. Richard's father would +shape his career according to a preconceived idea based on +parental love and guided by an anxious, fussy consulting of the +oracles. The attempt to stretch the son upon a pedagogic +procustean bed fails disastrously, wrecking his own happiness, +and that of his sweet girl-wife. Love is stronger than aught +else and we are offered the spectacle of ruined lives hovered +over by the best intentions. The hovel is an illustration of the +author's general teaching that a human being must have +reasonable liberty of action for self-development. The heart +must be allowed fair-play, though its guidance by the intellect +is desirable. + +It has been objected that this moving romance ends in +unnecessary tragedy; that the catastrophe is not inevitable. But +it may be doubted if the mistake of Sir Austin Feverel could be +so clearly indicated had not the chance bullet of the duel +killed the young wife when reconciliation with her husband +appeared probable. But a book so vital in spirit, with such +lyric interludes, lofty heights of wisdom, homeric humor, +dramatic moments and profound emotions, can well afford lapses +from perfect form, awkwardnesses of art. There are places where +philosophy checks movement or manner obscures thought; but one +overlooks all such, remembering Richard and Lucy meeting by the +river; Richard's lonesome night walk when he learns he is a +father; the marvelous parting from Bella Mount; father and son +confronted with Richard's separation from the girl-wife; the +final piteous passing of Lucy. These are among the great moments +of English fiction. + +One gets a sense of Meredith's resources of breadth and variety +next in taking up "Evan Harrington." Here is a satiric character +sketch where before was romance; for broad comedy in the older +and larger sense it has no peer among modern novels. The purpose +is plain: to show the evolution of a young middle-class +Englishman, a tailor's son, through worldly experience with +polite society into true democracy. After the disillusionment of +"high life," after much yeasty juvenile foolishness and false +ideals, Evan comes back to his father's shop with his lesson +learned: it is possible (in modern England) to be both tailor +and gentleman. + +In placing this picture before the spectator, an incomparable +view of genteel society with contrasted touches of low life is +offered. For pure comedy that is of the midriff as well as of +the brain, the inn scene with the astonishing Raikes as central +figure is unsurpassed in all Meredith, and only Dickens has done +the like. And to correspond in the fashionable world, there is +Harrington's sister, the Countess de Saldar, who is only second +to Becky Sharp for saliency and delight. Some find these comic +figures overdrawn, even impossible; but they stand the test +applied to Dickens: they abide in affectionate memory, vivid +evocations made for our lasting joy. As with "Feverel," the book +is a piece of life first, a lesson second; but the underlying +thesis is present, not to the injury of one who reads for +story's sake. + +An extraordinary further example of resourcefulness, with a +complete change of key, is "The Adventures of Harry Richmond." +The ostensible business of the book is to depict the growth from +boyhood to manhood and through sundry experiences of love, with +the resulting effect upon his character, of the young man whose +name gives it title. It may be noted that a favorite task with +Meredith is this, to trace the development of a personality from +immaturity to a maturity gained by the hard knocks of the +master-educator, Love. But the figure really dominant is not +Harry nor any one of his sweethearts, but that of his father, +Roy Richmond. I must believe that English fiction offers nothing +more original than he. He is an indescribable compound of +brilliant swashbuckler, splendid gentleman and winning +Goodheart. Barry Lyndon, Tarascon, Don Quixote and Septimus go +into his making--and yet he is not explained;--an absolute +original. The scene where, in a German park on an occasion of +great pomp, he impersonates the statue of a Prince, is one of +the author's triumphs--never less delightful at a re-reading. + +But has this amazing creation a meaning, or is Roy merely one of +the results of the sportive play of a man of genius? He is +something more, we feel, when, at the end of the romance, he +gives his life for the woman who has so faithfully loved him and +believed in his royal pretensions. He perishes in a fire, +because in saving her he would not save himself. It is as if the +author said: "Behold, a man by nature histrionic and Bohemian, +and do not make the mistake to think him incapable of nobility. +Romantic in his faults, so too he is romantic in his virtues." +"And back of this kindly treatment of the lovable rascal (who +was so ideal a father to the little Richmond!) does there not +lurk the thought that the pseudo-romantic attitude toward Life +is full of danger--in truth, out of the question in modern +society?" + +"The Egoist" has long been a test volume with Meredithians. If +you like it you are of the cult; if not, merely an amateur. It +is inevitable to quote Stevenson who, when he had read it +several times, declared that at the sixth reading he would begin +to realize its greatness. Stevenson was a doughty admirer of +Meredith, finding the elder "the only man of genius of my +acquaintance," and regarding "Rhoda Fleming" as a book to send +one back to Shakspere. + +That "The Egoist" is typical--in a sense, most typical of the +fictions,--is very true. That, on the other hand, it is +Meredith's best novel may be boldly denied, since it is hardly a +novel at all. It is a wonderful analytic study of the core of +self that is in humanity, Willoughby, incarnation of a +self-centeredness glossed over to others and to himself by fine +gentleman manners and instincts, is revealed stroke after stroke +until, in the supreme test of his alliance with Clara Middleton, +he is flayed alive for the reader's benefit. In this power of +exposure, by the subtlest, most unrelenting analysis, of the +very penetralia of the human soul it has no counterpart; beside +it, most of the psychology of fiction seems child's play. And +the truth of it is overwhelming. No wonder Stevenson speaks of +its "serviceable exposure of myself." Every honest man who reads +it, winces at its infallible touching of a moral sore-spot. The +inescapable ego in us all was never before portrayed by such a +master. + +But because it is a study that lacks the breadth, variety, +movement and objectivity of the Novel proper, "The Egoist" is +for the confirmed Meredith lover, not for the beginner: to take +it first is perchance to go no further. Readers have been lost +to him by this course. The immense gain in depth and delicacy +acquired by English fiction since Richardson is well illustrated +by a comparison of the latter's "Sir Charles Grandison" with +Meredith's "The Egoist." One is a portrait for the time, the +other for all time. Both, superficially viewed, are the same +type: a male paragon before whom a bevy of women burn incense. +But O the difference! Grandison is serious to his author, while +Meredith, in skinning Willoughby alive like another Marsyas, is +once and for all making the worship of the ego hateful. + +It is interesting that "Diana of the Crossways" was the book +first to attract American readers. It has some of the author's +eccentricities at their worst. But it was in one respect an +excellent choice: the heroine is thoroughly representative of +the author and of the age; possibly this country is sympathetic +to her for the reason that she seems indigenous. Diana furnishes +a text for a dissertation on Meredith's limning of the sex, and +of his conception of the mental relation of the sexes. She is a +modern woman, not so much that she is superior in goodness to +the ideal of woman established in the mid-Victorian period by +Thackeray and Dickens, as that she is bigger and broader. She is +the result of the process of social readjustment. Her story is +that of a woman soul experiencing a succession of unions and +through them learning the higher love. First, the marriage de +convenance of an unawakened girl; then, a marriage wherein +admiration, ambition and flattered pride play their parts; +finally, the marriage with Redbourne, a union based on tried +friendship, comradeship, respect, warming into passion that, +like the sudden up-leap of flame on the altar, lifts the spirit +onto ideal heights. Diana is an imperfect, sinning, aspiring, +splendid creature. And in the narrative that surrounds her, we +get Meredith's theory of the place of intellect in woman, and in +the development of society. He has an intense conviction that +the human mind should be so trained that woman can never fall +back upon so-called instinct; he ruthlessly attacks her +"intuition," so often lauded and made to cover a multitude of +sins. When he remarks that she will be the last thing to be +civilized by man, the satire is directed against man rather than +against woman herself, since it is man who desires to keep her a +creature of the so-called intuitions. A mighty champion of the +sex, he never tires telling it that intellectual training is the +sure way to all the equalities. This conviction makes him a +stalwart enemy of sentimentalism, which is so fiercely satirized +in "Sandra Belloni" in the persons of the Pole family. His works +abound in passages in which this view is displayed, flashed +before the reader in diamond-like epigram and aphorism. Not that +he despises the emotions: those who know him thoroughly will +recognize the absurdity of such a charge. Only he insists that +they be regulated and used aright by the master, brain. The +mishaps of his women come usually from the haphazard abeyance of +feeling or from an unthinking bowing down to the arbitrary +dictations of society. This insistence upon the application of +reason (the reasoning process dictated by an age of science) to +social situations, has led this writer to advise the setting +aside of the marriage bond in certain circumstances. In both +"Lord Ormont and his Aminta" and "One of our Conquerors" he +advocates a greater freedom in this relation, to anticipate what +time may bring to pass. It is enough here to say that this +extreme view does not represent Meredith's best fiction nor his +most fruitful period of production. + +Perhaps the most original thing about Meredith as a novelist is +the daring way in which he has made an alliance between romance +and the intellect which was supposed, in an older conception, to +be its archenemy. He gives to Romance, that creature of the +emotions, the corrective and tonic of the intellect "To preserve +Romance," he declares, "we must be inside the heads of our +people as well as the hearts ... in days of a growing activity +of the head." Let us say once again that Romance means a certain +use of material as the result of an attitude toward Life; this +attitude may be temporary, a mood; or steady, a conviction. It +is the latter with George Meredith; and be it understood, his +material is always realistic, it is his interpretation that is +superbly idealistic. The occasional crabbedness of his manner +and his fiery admiration for Italy are not the only points in +which he reminds one of Browning. He is one with him in his +belief in soul, his conception of life is an arena for its +trying-out; one with him also in the robust acceptance of earth +and earth's worth, evil and all, for enjoyment and as salutary +experience. This is no fanciful parallel between Meredith and a +man who has been called (with their peculiarities of style in +mind) the Meredith of Poetry, as Meredith has been called the +Browning of Prose. + +Thus, back of whatever may be the external story--the Italian +struggle for unity in "Vittoria," English radicalism in +"Beauchamp's Career," a seduction melodrama in "Rhoda Fleming"--there +is always with Meredith a steady interpretation of life, a +principle of belief. It is his crowning distinction that he can +make an intellectual appeal quite aside from the particular +story he is telling;--and it is also apparent that this is his +most vulnerable point as novelist. We get more from him just +because he shoots beyond the fiction target. He is that rare +thing in English novel-making, a notable thinker. Of all +nineteenth century novelists he leads for intellectual +stimulation. With fifty faults of manner and matter, irritating, +even outrageous in his eccentricities, he can at his best +startle with a brilliance that is alone of its kind. It is +because we hail him as philosopher, wit and poet that he fails +comparatively as artist. He shows throughout his work a sublime +carelessness of workmanship on the structural side of his craft; +but in those essentials, dialogue, character and scene, he rises +to the peaks of his profession. + +Probably more readers are offended by his mannerisms of style +than by any other defect; and they are undeniable. The opening +chapter of "Diana" is a hard thing to get by; the same may be +said of the similar chapter in "Beauchamp's Career." In "One of +our Conquerors," early and late, the manner is such as to lose +for him even tried adherents. Is the trouble one of thought or +expression? And is it honest or an affectation? Meredith in some +books--and in all books more or less--adopts a strangely +indirect, over-elaborated, far-fetched and fantastic style, +which those who love him are fain to deplore. The author's +learning gets in his way and leads him into recondite allusions; +besides this, he has that quality of mind which is stimulated +into finding analogies on every side, so that image is piled on +image and side-paths of thought open up in the heat of this +mental activity. Part of the difficulty arises from surplusage +of imagination. Sometimes it is used in the service of comment +(often satirical); again in a kind of Greek chorus to the drama, +greatly to its injury; or in pure description, where it is +hardly less offensive. Thus in "The Egoist" we read: "Willoughby +shadowed a deep droop on the bend of his neck before Clara," and +reflection shows that all this absurdly acrobatic phrase means +is that the hero bowed to the lady. An utterly simple occurrence +and thus described! It is all the more strange and aggravating +in that it comes from a man who on hundreds of occasions writes +English as pungent, sonorous and sweet as any writer in the +history of the native literature. This is true both of dialogue +and narrative. He is the most quotable of authors; his Pilgrim's +Scrip is stuffed full of precious sayings, expressing many moods +of emotion and interpreting the world under its varied aspects +of romance, beauty, wit and drama. "Strength is the brute form +of truth." There is a French conciseness in such a sentence and +immense mental suggestiveness. Both his scenic and character +phrasing are memorable, as where the dyspeptic philosopher in +"Feverel" is described after dinner as "languidly twinkling +stomachic contentment." And what a scene is that where Master +Gammon replies to Mrs. Sumfit's anxious query concerning his +lingering at table with appetite apparently unappeasable: + + "'When do you think you will have done, Master Gammon?' + + "'When I feels my buttons, Ma'am.'" + + +Or hear John Thrasher in "Harry Richmond" dilate on Language: + + 'There's cockney, and there's country, and there's school. + Mix the three, strain and throw away the sediment. Now + yon's my view.' + + +Has any philologist said all that could be said, so succinctly? +His lyric outbursts in the face of Nature or better yet, where +as in the moonlight meeting of the lovers at Wllming Weir in +"Sandra Belloni," nature is interspersed with human passion in a +glorious union of music, picture and impassioned sentiment,--these +await the pleasure of the enthralled seeker in every book. +To encounter such passages (perhaps in a mood of protest over +some almost insufferable defect) is to find the reward rich +indeed. Let the cause of obscurity be what it may, we need not +doubt that with Meredith style is the man, a perfectly honest +way of expressing his personality. It is not impossible that his +unconventional education and the early influence of German upon +him, may come into the consideration. But in the main his +peculiarity is congenital. + +Meredith lacked self-criticism as a writer. But it is quite +inaccurate to speak of obscure thought: it is language, the +medium, which makes the trouble when there is any. His thought, +allowing for the fantasticality of his humor in certain moods, +is never muddled or unorganized: it is sane, consistent and +worthy of attention. To say this, is still to regret the +stylistic vagaries. + +One other defect must be mentioned: the characters talk like +Meredith, instead of in their own persons. This is not true +uniformly, of course, but it does mar the truth of his +presentation. Young girls show wit and wisdom quite out of +keeping; those in humble life--a bargeman, perhaps, or a +prize-fighter--speak as they would not in reality. Illusion is by +so much disturbed. It would appear in such cases that the thinker +temporarily dominated the creative artist. + +When all is said, pro and con, there remains a towering +personality; a writer of unique quality; a man so stimulating +and surprising as he is, that we almost prefer him to the +perfect artist he never could be. No English maker of novels can +give us a fuller sense of life, a keener realization of the +dignity of man. It is natural to wish for more than we have--to +desire that Meredith had possessed the power of complete control +of his material and himself, had revised his work to better +advantage. But perhaps it is more commonsensible to be thankful +for him as he is. + +As to influence, it would seem modest to assert that Meredith is +as bracingly wholesome morally as he is intellectually +stimulating. In a private letter to a friend who was praising +his finest book, he whimsically mourns the fact that he must +write for a living and hence feel like disowning so many of his +children when in cold blood he scrutinizes his offspring. The +letter in its entirety (it is unpublished) is proof, were any +needed, that he had a high artistic ideal which kept him nobly +dissatisfied with his endeavor. There is in him neither pose nor +complacent self-satisfaction. To an American, whom he was +bidding good-by at his own gate, he said: "If I had my books to +do over again, I should try harder to make sure their influence +was good." His aims, ethical and artistic, throughout his work, +can be relied upon as high and noble. His faults are as honest +as he himself, the inherent defects of his genius. No writer of +our day stands more sturdily for the idea that, whereas art is +precious, personality is more precious still; without which art +is a tinkling cymbal and with which even a defective art can +conquer Time, like a garment not all-seemly, that yet cannot +hide an heroic figure. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +STEVENSON + +It is too early yet to be sure that Robert Louis Stevenson will +make a more cogent appeal for a place in English letters as a +writer of fiction than as an essayist. But had he never written +essays likely to rank him with the few masters of that +delightful fireside form, he would still have an indisputable +claim as novelist. The claim in fact is a double one; it is +founded, first, on his art and power as a maker of romance, but +also upon his historical service to English fiction, as the man +most instrumental in purifying the muddy current of realism in +the late nineteenth century by a wholesome infusion,--the +romantic view of life. It is already easier to estimate his +importance and get the significance of his work than it was when +he died in 1894--stricken down on the piazza of his house at +Vailima, a Scotchman doomed to fall in a far-away, alien place. + +We are better able now to separate that personal charm felt from +direct contact with the man, which almost hypnotized those who +knew him, from the more abiding charm which is in his writings: +the revelation of a character the most attractive of his +generation. Rarely, if ever before, have the qualities of +artistry and fraternal fellowship been united in a man of +letters to such a degree; most often they are found apart, the +gods choosing to award their favors less lavishly. + +Because of this union of art and life, Stevenson's romances +killed two birds with one stone; boys loved his +adventuresomeness, the wholesome sensationalism of his stories +with something doing on every page, while amateurs of art +responded to his felicity of phrase, his finished technique, the +exhibition of craftsmanship conquering difficulty and danger. +Artist, lover of life, insistent truth-teller, Calvinist, +Bohemian, believer in joy, all these cohabit in his hooks. In +early masterpieces like "Treasure Island" and "The Wrecker" it +is the lover of life who conducts us, telling the story for +story's sake: + +"My mistress still the open road +And the bright eyes of danger." + + +Such is the goddess that beckons on. The creed implicit in such +work deems that life is stirring and worth while, and that it is +a weakness to repine and waste time, to be too subjective when +so much on earth is objectively alluring. This is only a part of +Stevenson, of course, but it was that phase of him vastly liked +of the public and doubtless doing most to give him vogue. + +But in later work like "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" we get quite +another thing: the skilled story-maker is still giving us +thrilling fiction, to be sure, but here it is the Scotchman of +acute conscience, writing a spiritual allegory with the healthy +instinct which insists that the lesson shall be dramatized. So, +too, in a late fiction like "Ebb Tide," apparently as picaresque +and harum-scarum as "Treasure Island," it is nevertheless the +moralist who is at work beneath the brilliantly picturesque +surface of the narrative, contrasting types subtly, showing the +gradings in moral disintegration. In the past-mastership of the +finest Scotch novels, "Kidnapped" and its sequel "David +Balfour," "The Master of Ballantrae" and the beautiful torso, +"Weir of Hermiston," we get the psychologic romance, which means +a shift of interest;--character comes first, story is secondary +to it. Here is the maturest Stevenson, the fiction most +expressive of his genius, and naturally the inspiration is +native, he looks back, as he so often did in his poetry, to the +distant gray little island which was Motherland to him, home of +his youth and of his kindred, the earth where he was fain to lie +when his time came. Stevenson, to the end, could always return +to sheer story, as in "St. Ives," but in doing so, is a little +below his best: that kind did not call on his complete powers: +in such fiction deep did not answer unto deep. + +In 1883, when "Treasure Island" appeared, the public was gasping +for the oxygen that a story with outdoor movement and action +could supply: there was enough and to spare of invertebrate +subtleties, strained metaphysics and coarse naturalistic +studies. A sublimated dime novel like "Treasure Island" came at +the psychologic moment; the year before "The New Arabian Nights" +had offered the same sort of pabulum, but had been practically +overlooked. Readers were only too glad to turn from people with +a past to people of the past, or to people of the present whose +ways were ways of pleasantness. Stevenson substituted a lively, +normal interest in life for plotlessness and a surfeit of the +flesh. The public rose to the bait as the trout to a +particularly inviting fly. Once more reverting to the good old +appeal of Scott--incident, action and derring-do--he added the +attraction of his personal touch, and what was so gallantly +preferred was greedily grasped. + +Although, as has been said, Stevenson passed from the primitive +romance of the Shilling Shocker to the romance of character, his +interest in character study was keen from the first: the most +plot-cunning and external of his yarns have that illuminative +exposure of human beings--in flashes at least--which mark him +off from the bluff, robust manner of a Dumas and lend an +attraction far greater than that of mere tangle of events. This +gets fullest expression in the Scotch romances. + +"The Master of Ballantrae," for one illustration; the interplay +of motive and act as it affects a group of human beings is so +conducted that plot becomes a mere framework, within which we +are permitted to see a typical tragedy of kinship. This receives +curious corroboration in the fact that when, towards the close +of the story, the scene shifts to America and the main motive--the +unfolding of the fraternal fortunes of the tragic brothers, +is made minor to a series of gruesome adventures (however +entertaining and well done) the reader, even if uncritical, has +an uneasy sense of disharmony: and rightly, since the strict +character romance has changed to the romance of action. + +It has been stated that the finer qualities of Stevenson are +called out by the psychological romance on native soil. He did +some brilliant and engaging work of foreign setting and motive. +"The Island Nights' Entertainments" is as good in its way as the +earlier "New Arabian Nights"--far superior to it, indeed, for +finesse and the deft command of exotic material. Judged as art, +"The Bottle Imp" and "The Beach of Falesa" are among the +triumphs of ethnic interpretation, let alone their more external +charms of story. And another masterpiece of foreign setting, "A +Lodging for The Night," is further proof of Stevenson's ability +to use other than Scotch motives for the materials of his art. +"Ebb-Tide," again, grim as it is, must always be singled out as +a marvel of tone and proportion, yet seems born out of an +existence utterly removed as to conditions and incentives from +the land of his birth. But when, in his own words: + +"The tropics vanish, and meseems that I, +From Halkerside, from topmost Allermuir, +Or steep Caerketton, dreaming gaze again." + +then, as if vitalized by mother-earth, Stevenson shows a +breadth, a vigor, a racy idiosyncrasy, that best justify a +comparison with Scott. It means a quality that is easier felt +than expressed; of the very warp and woof of his work. If the +elder novelist seems greater in scope, spontaneity and +substance, the younger surpasses him in the elegancies and +niceties of his art. And it is only a just recognition of the +difference of Time as well as of personality to say that the +psychology of Stevenson is far more profound and searching. Nor +may it be denied that Sir Walter nods, that there are flat, +uninteresting stretches in his heroic panorama, while of +Stevenson at the worst, we may confidently assert that he is +never tedious. He fails in the comparison if anywhere in +largeness of personality, not in the perfectness of the art of +his fiction. In the technical demands of his profession he is +never wanting. He always has a story to tell, tells it with the +skill which means constructive development and a sense of +situation; he creates characters who live, interest and do not +easily fade from memory: he has exceptional power in so filling +in backgrounds as to produce the illusion of atmosphere; and +finally, he has, whether in dialogue or description, a +wonderfully supple instrument of expression. If the style of his +essays is at times mannered, the charge can not be made against +his representative fiction: "Prince Otto" stands alone in this +respect, and that captivating, comparatively early romance, +confessedly written under the influence of Meredith, is a +delicious literary experiment rather than a deeply-felt piece of +life. Perhaps the central gift of all is that for character--is +it, in truth, not the central gift for any weaver of fiction? So +we thought in studying Dickens. Stevenson's creations wear the +habit of life, yet with more than life's grace of carriage; they +are seen picturesquely without, but also psychologically within. +In a marvelous portrayal like that of John Silver in "Treasure +Island" the result is a composite of what we see and what we +shudderingly guess: eye and mind are satisfied alike. Even in a +mere sketch, such as that of the blind beggar at the opening of +the same romance, with the tap-tap of his stick to announce his +coming, we get a remarkable example of effect secured by an +economy of details; that tap-tapping gets on your nerves, you +never forget it. It seems like the memory of a childhood terror +on the novelist's part. Throughout his fiction this chemic union +of fact and the higher fact that is of the imagination marks his +work. The smell of the heather is in our nostrils as we watch +Allan's flight, and looking on at the fight in the round-house, +there is a physical impression of the stuffiness of the place; +you smell as well as see it. Or for quite another key, take the +night duel in "The Master of Ballantrae." You cannot think of it +without feeling the bite of the bleak air; once more the twinkle +of the candles makes the scene flicker before you ere it vanish +into memory-land. Again, how you know that sea-coast site in the +opening of "The Pavilion on the Links"--shiver at the "sly +innuendoes of the place"! Think how much the map in "Treasure +Island" adds to the credibility of the thing. It is the +believableness of Stevenson's atmospheres that prepare the +reader for any marvels enacted in them. Gross, present-day, +matter-of-fact London makes Dr. Jekyll and his worser half of +flesh-and-blood credence. Few novelists of any race have beaten +this wandering Scot in the power of representing character and +envisaging it: and there can hardly be successful +characterization without this allied power of creating +atmosphere. + +Nothing is falser than to find him imitative in his +representative work. There may be a suspicion of made-to-order +journalism in "The Black Arrow," and the exception of "Prince +Otto," which none the less we love for its gallant spirit and +smiling grace, has been noted. But of the Scotch romances +nothing farther from the truth could be said. They stand or fall +by themselves: they have no model--save that of sound art and a +normal conception of human life. Rarely does this man fall below +his own high level or fail to set his private remarque upon his +labor. It is in a way unfortunate that Stevenson, early in his +career, so frankly confessed to practising for his craft by the +use of the best models: it has led to the silly +misinterpretation which sees in all his literary effort nothing +but the skilful echo. Such judgments remind us that criticism, +which is intended to be a picture of another, is in reality a +picture of oneself. In his lehrjahre Stevenson "slogged at his +trade," beyond peradventure; but no man came to be more +individually and independently himself. + +It has been spoken against him, too, that he could not draw +women: here again he is quoted in his own despite and we see the +possible disadvantage of a great writer's correspondence being +given to the world--though not for more worlds than one would we +miss the Letters. It is quite true that he is chary of +petticoats in his earlier work: but when he reached "David +Balfour" he drew an entrancing heroine; and the contrasted types +of young girl and middle-aged woman in "Weir of Hermiston" offer +eloquent testimonial to his increasing power in depicting the +Eternal Feminine. At the same time, it may be acknowledged that +the gallery of female portraits is not like Scott's for number +and variety, nor like Thackeray's for distinction and +charm--thick-hung with a delightful company whose eyes laugh level +with our own, or, above us on the wall, look down with a starry +challenge to our souls. But those whom Stevenson has hung there +are not to be coldly recalled. + +Stevenson's work offers itself remarkably as a test for the +thought that all worthily modern romanticism must not lack in +reality, in true observation, for success in its most daring +flights. Gone forever is that abuse of the romantic which +substitutes effective lying for the vision which sees broadly +enough to find beauty. The latter-day realist will be found in +the end to have permanently contributed this, a welcome legacy +to our time, after its excesses and absurdities are forgotten. +Realism has taught romanticism to tell the truth, if it would +succeed. Stevenson is splendidly real, he loves to visualize +fact, to be true both to the appearances of things and the +thoughts of the mind. He is aware that life is more than food--that +it is a subjective state quite as much as an objective +reality. He refers to himself more than once, half humorously, +as a fellow whose forte lay in transcribing what was before him, +to be seen and felt, tasted and heard. This extremely modern +denotement was a marked feature of his genius, often overlooked. +He had a desire to know all manner of men; he had the noble +curiosity of Montaigne; this it was, along with his human +sympathy, that led him to rough it in emigrant voyages and +railroad trips across the plains. It was this characteristic, +unless I err, the lack of which in "Prince Otto" gives it a +certain rococo air: he was consciously fooling in it, and felt +the need of a solidly mundane footing. Truth to human nature in +general, and that lesser truth which means accurate photography--his +books give us both; the modern novelist, even a romancer +like Stevenson, is not permitted to slight a landscape, an idiom +nor a point of psychology: this one is never untrue to the +trust. There is in the very nature of his language a proof of +his strong hunger for the actual, the verifiable. No man of his +generation has quite such a grip on the vernacular: his speech +rejoices to disport itself in root flavors; the only younger +writer who equals him in this relish for reality of expression +is Kipling. Further back it reminds of Defoe or Swift, at their +best, Stevenson cannot abide the stock phrases with which most +of us make shift to express our thoughts instead of using first-hand +effects. There is, with all its music and suavity, +something of the masculinity of the Old English in the following +brief descriptive passage from "Ebb-Tide": + + There was little or no morning bank. A brightening came in + the East; then a wash of some ineffable, faint, nameless + hue between crimson and silver; and then coals of fire. + These glimmered awhile on the sea line, and seemed to + brighten and darken and spread out; and still the night and + the stars reigned undisturbed. It was as though a spark + should catch and glow and creep along the foot of some + heavy and almost incombustible wall-hanging, and the room + itself be scarce menaced. Yet a little after, and the whole + East glowed with gold and scarlet, and the hollow of heaven + was filled with the daylight. The isle--the undiscovered, + the scarce believed in--now lay before them and close + aboard; and Herrick thought that never in his dreams had he + beheld anything more strange and delicate. + + +Stevenson's similes, instead of illustrating concrete things by +others less concrete, often reverse the process, as in the +following: "The isle at this hour, with its smooth floor of +sand, the pillared roof overhead and the pendant illumination of +the lamps, wore an air of unreality, like a deserted theater or +a public garden at midnight." Every image gets its foothold in +some tap-root of reality. + +The place of Robert Louis Stevenson is not explained by +emphasizing the perfection of his technique. Artist he is, but +more: a vigorous modern mind with a definite and enheartening +view of things, a philosophy at once broad and convincing. He is +a psychologist intensely interested in the great questions--which, +of course, means the moral questions. Read the quaint +Fable in which two of the characters in "Treasure Island" hold +converse upon themselves, the story in which they participate +and the author who made them. It is as if Stevenson stood aside +a moment from the proper objectivity of the fictionist, to tell +us in his own person that all his story-making was but an +allegory of life, its joy, its mystery, its duty, its triumph +and its doom. Although he is too much the artist to intrude +philosophic comments upon human fate into his fiction, after the +fashion of Thackeray or Meredith, the comment is there, implicit +in his fiction, even as it is explicit in his essays, which are +for this reason a sort of complement of his fiction: a sort of +philosophical marginal note upon the stories. Stevenson was that +type of modern mind which, no longer finding it possible to hold +fast by the older, complacent cock-sureness with regard to the +theologian's heaven, is still unshaken in its conviction that +life is beneficent, the obligation of duty imperative, the +meaning of existence spiritual. Puzzlingly protean in his +expressional moods (his conversations in especial), he was +constant in this intellectual, or temperamental, attitude: +"Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him," represents his +feeling, and the strongest poem he ever wrote, "If This Were +Faith," voices his deepest conviction. Meanwhile, the +superficies of life offered a hundred consolations, a hundred +pleasures, and Stevenson would have his fellowmen enjoy them in +innocence, in kindness and good cheer. In fine, as a thinker he +was a modernized Calvinist; as an artist he saw life in terms of +action and pleasure, and by perfecting himself in the art of +communicating his view of life, he was able, in a term of years +all too short, to leave a series of books which, as we settle +down to them in the twentieth century, and try to judge them as +literature, have all the semblance of fine art. In any case, +they will have been influential in the shaping of English +fiction and will be referred to with respect by future +historians of literature. It is hard to believe that the +desiccation of Time will so dry them that they will not always +exhale a rich fragrance of personality, and tremble with a +convincing movement of life. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +THE AMERICAN CONTRIBUTION + + +I + +To exclude the living, as we must, in an estimate of the +American contribution to the development we have been tracing, +is especially unjust. Yet the principle must be applied. The +injustice lies in the fact that an important part of the +contribution falls on the hither side of 1870 and has to do with +authors still active. The modern realistic movement in English +fiction has been affected to some degree by the work, has +responded to the influence of the two Americans, Howells and +James. What has been accomplished during the last forty years +has been largely under their leadership. Mr. Howells, true to +his own definition, has practised the more truthful handling of +material in depicting chosen aspects of the native life. Mr. +James, becoming more interested in British types, has, after a +great deal of analysis of his own countrymen, passed by the +bridge of the international Novel to a complete absorption in +transatlantic studies, making his peculiar application of the +realistic formula to the inner life of the spirit: a curious +compound, a cosmopolitan Puritan, an urbane student of souls. +His share in the British product is perhaps appreciable; but +from the native point of view, at least, it would seem as if his +earlier work were, and would remain, most representative both +because of its motives and methods. Early or late, he has beyond +question pointed out the way to many followers in the +psychologic path: his influence, perhaps less obvious than +Howells', is none the less undisputable. The development in the +hands of writers younger than these veterans has been rich, +varied, often noteworthy in quality. But of all this it is too +soon to speak. + +With regard to the fictional evolution on American soil, it is +clear that four great writers, excluding the living, separate +themselves from the crowd: Irving, Cooper, Poe and Hawthorne. +Moreover, two of these, Irving and Poe, are not novelists at +all, but masters of the sketch or short story. It will be best, +however, for our purpose to give them all some attention, for +whatever the form of fiction they used, they are all influential +in the development of the Novel. + +Other authors of single great books may occur to the student, +perhaps clamoring for admission to a company so select. Yet he +is likely always to come back and draw a dividing line here. +Bret Harte, for instance, is dead, and in the short story of +western flavor he was a pioneer of mark, the founder of a genre: +probably no other writer is so significant in his field. But +here again, although he essayed full-length fiction, it was not +his forte. So, too, were it not that Mark Twain still cheers the +land of the living with his wise fun, there would be for the +critic the question, is he a novelist, humorist or essayist. Is +"Roughing It" more typical of his genius than "Tom Sawyer" or +"Huckleberry Finn"? How shall we characterize "Puddin' Head +Wilson"? Under what category shall we place "A Yankee at the +Court of King Arthur" and "Joan of Arc"? The query reminds us +once more that literature means personality as well as literary +forms and that personality is more important than are they. And +again we turn away regretfully (remembering that this is an +attempt to study not fiction in all its manifestations, but the +Novel) from the charming short stories--little classics in their +kind--bequeathed by Aldrich, and are almost sorry that our +judgment demands that we place him first as a poet. We think, +too, of that book so unique in influence, "Uncle Tom's Cabin," +nor forget that, besides producing it, Mrs. Stowe, in such a +work as "Old Town Folks," started the long line of studies of +New England rustic life which, not confined to that section, +have become so welcome a phase of later American art in fiction. +Among younger authors called untimely from their labors, it is +hard to resist the temptation to linger over such a figure as +that of Frank Norris, whose vital way of handling realistic +material with epic breath in his unfinished trilogy, gave so +great promise for his future. + +It may be conceded that nothing is more worth mention in +American fiction of the past generation than the extraordinary +cultivation of the short-story, which Mr. Brander Matthews +dignifies and unifies by a hyphen, in order to express his +conviction that it is an essentially new art form, to study +which is a fascinating quest, but aside from our main intention. + + +II + +Having due regard then for perspective, and trying not to +confuse historical importance with the more vital interest which +implies permanent claims, it seems pretty safe to come back to +Irving and Poe, to Cooper and Hawthorne. Even as in the sketch +and tale Irving stands alone with such a masterpiece as "The +Legend of Sleepy Hollow"; and Poe equally by himself with his +tales of psychological horror and mystery, so in longer fiction, +Cooper and Hawthorne have made as distinct contributions in the +domain of Romance. Their service is as definite for the day of +the Romantic spirit, as is that of Howells and James for the +modern day of realism so-called. It is not hard to see that +Irving even in his fiction is essentially an essayist; that with +him story was not the main thing, but that atmosphere, character +and style were,--the personal comment upon life. One reads a +sketch like "The Stout Gentleman," in every way a typical work, +for anything but incident or plot. The Hudson River idyls, it +may be granted, have somewhat more of story interest, but Irving +seized them, ready-made for his use, because of their value for +the picturesque evocation of the Past. He always showed a keen +sense of the pictorial and dramatic in legend and history, as +the "Alhambra" witnesses quite as truly as the sketches. +"Bracebridge Hall" and "The Sketch Book," whatever of the +fictional they may contain, are the work of the essayist +primarily, and Washington Irving will always, in a critical +view, be described as a master of the English essay. No other +maker of American literature affords so good an example of the +inter-colation of essay and fiction: he recalls the organic +relation between the Sir Roger de Coverley Papers and the +eighteenth century Novel proper of a generation later. + +His service to all later writers of fiction was large in that he +taught them the use of promising native material that awaited +the story-maker. His own use of it, the Hudson, the environs of +Manhattan, was of course romantic, in the main. When in an +occasional story he is unpleasant in detail or tragic in trend +he seems less characteristic--so definitely was he a +romanticist, seeking beauty and wishing to throw over life the +kindly glamour of imaginative art. It is worth noting, however, +that he looked forward rather than back, towards the coming +realism, not to the incurable pseudo-romanticism of the late +eighteenth century, in his instinct to base his happenings upon +the bedrock of truth--the external truth of scene and character +and the inner truth of human psychology. + +Admirably a modern artist in this respect, his +old-fashionedness, so often dilated upon, can easily be overstated. +He not only left charming work in the tale, but helped others +who came after to use their tools, furthering their art by the +study of a good model. + +Nothing was more inevitable then that Cooper when he began +fiction in mid-manhood should have written the romance: it was +the dominant form in England because of Scott. But that he +should have realized the unused resources of America and +produced a long series of adventure stories, taking a pioneer as +his hero and illustrating the western life of settlement in his +career, the settlement that was to reclaim a wilderness for a +mighty civilization--that was a thing less to be expected, a +truly epic achievement. The Leather Stocking Series was in the +strictest sense an original performance--the significance of +Fenimore Cooper is not likely to be exaggerated; it is quite +independent of the question of his present hold upon mature +readers, his faults of technique and the truth of his pictures. +To have grasped such an opportunity and so to have used it as to +become a great man-of-letters at a time when literature was more +a private employ than the interest of the general--surely it +indicates genuine personality, and has the mark of creative +power. To which we may add, that Cooper is still vital in his +appeal, as the statistics of our public libraries show. + +Moreover, incorrigible romancer that he was, he is a man of the +nineteenth century, as was Irving, in the way he instinctively +chose near-at-hand native material: he knew the Mohawk Valley by +long residence; he knew the Indian and the trapper there; and he +depicted these types in a setting that was to him the most +familiar thing in the world. In fact, we have in him an +illustration of the modern writer who knows he must found his +message firmly upon reality. For both Leather-stocking and +Chingachgook are true in the broad sense, albeit the white +trapper's dialect may be uncertain and the red man exhibit a +dignity that seems Roman rather than aboriginal. The Daniel +Boone of history must have had, we feel, the nobler qualities of +Bumpo; how otherwise did he do what it was his destiny to do? In +the same way, the Indian of Cooper is the red man in his +pristine home before the day of fire-water and Agency methods. +It may be that what to us to-day seems a too glorified picture +is nearer the fact than we are in a position easily to realize. +Cooper worked in the older method of primary colors, of vivid, +even violent contrasts: his was not the school of subtleties. +His women, for example, strike us as somewhat mechanical; there +is a sameness about them that means the failure to +differentiate: the Ibsenian psychology of the sex was still to +come. But this does not alter the obvious excellencies of the +work. Cooper carried his romanticism in presenting the heroic +aspects of the life he knew best into other fields where he +walked with hardly less success: the revolutionary story +illustrated by "The Spy," and the sea-tale of which a fine +example is "The Pilot." He had a sure instinct for those +elements of fiction which make for romance, and the change of +time and place affects him only in so far as it affects his +familiarity with his materials. His experience in the United +States Navy gave him a sure hand in the sea novels: and in a +book like "The Spy" he was near enough to the scenes and +characters to be studies practically contemporary. He had the +born romanticist's natural affection for the appeal of the past +and the stock elements can be counted upon in all his best +fiction: salient personalities, the march of events, exciting +situations, and ever that arch-romantic lure, the one trick up +the sleeve to pique anticipation. Hence, in spite of +descriptions that seem over-long, a heavy-footed manner that +lacks suppleness and variety, and undeniable carelessness of +construction, he is still loved of the young and seen to be a +natural raconteur, an improviser of the Dumas-Scott lineage and, +even tested by the later tests, a noble writer of romance, a man +whom Balzac and Goethe read with admiration: unquestionably +influential outside his own land in that romantic mood of +expression which, during the first half of the nineteenth +century, was so widespread and fruitful. + + +III + +It is the plainer with every year that Poe's contribution to +American fiction, and indeed to that of the nineteenth century, +ignoring national boundaries, stands by itself. Whatever his +sources--and no writer appears to derive less from the past--he +practically created on native soil the tale of fantasy, +sensational plot, and morbid impressionism. His cold aloofness, +his lack of spiritual import, unfitted him perhaps for the +broader work of the novelist who would present humanity in its +three dimensions with the light and shade belonging to Life +itself. Confining himself to the tale which he believed could be +more artistic because it was briefer and so the natural mold for +a mono-mood, he had the genius so to handle color, music and +suggestion in an atmosphere intense in its subjectivity, that +confessed masterpieces were the issue. Whether in the objective +detail of "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," with its subtle +illusion of realism, or in the nuances and delicatest tonality +of "Ligeia," he has left specimens of the different degrees of +romance which have not been surpassed, conquering in all but +that highest style of romantic writing where the romance lies in +an emphasis upon the noblest traits of mankind. He is, it is not +too much to say, well-nigh as important to the growth of modern +fiction outside the Novel form as he is to that of poetry, +though possibly less unique on his prose side. His fascination +is that of art and intellect: his material and the mastery +wherewith he handles it conjoin to make his particular brand of +magic. While some one story of Hoffman or Bulwer Lytton or +Stevenson may be preferred, no one author of our time has +produced an equal number of successes in the same key. It is +instructive to compare him with Hawthorne because of a +superficial resemblance with an underlying fundamental +distinction. One phase of the Concord romancer's art results in +stories which seem perhaps as somber, strange and morbid as +those of Poe: "Dr. Heidegger's Experiment," "Rapacinni's +Daughter," "The Birth Mark." They stand, of course, for but one +side of his power, of which "The Great Stone Face" and "The Snow +Image" are the brighter and sweeter. Thus Hawthorne's is a +broader and more diversified accomplishment in the form of the +tale. But the likeness has to do with subject-matter, not with +the spirit of the work. The gloomiest of Hawthorne's short +stories are spiritually sound and sweet: Poe's, on the contrary, +might be described as unmoral; they seem written by one +disdaining all the touchstones of life, living in a land of +eyrie where there is no moral law. He would no more than Lamb +indict his very dreams. In the case of Hawthorne there is +allegorical meaning, the lesson is never far to seek: a basis of +common spiritual responsibility is always below one's feet. And +this is quite as true of the long romances as of the tales. The +result is that there is spiritual tonic in Hawthorne's fiction, +while something almost miasmatic rises from Poe, dropping a kind +of veil between us and the salutary realities of existence. If +Poe be fully as gifted, he is, for this reason, less sanely +endowed. It may be conceded that he is not always as +shudderingly sardonic and removed from human sympathy as in "The +Cask of Amontillado" or "The Black Cat"; yet it is no +exaggeration to affirm that he is nowhere more typical, more +himself. On the contrary, in a tale like "The Birth Mark," what +were otherwise the horror and ultra-realism of it, is tempered +by and merged in the suggestion that no man shall with impunity +tamper with Nature nor set the delight of the eyes above the +treasures of the soul. The poor wife dies, because her husband +cares more to remove a slight physical defect than he does for +her health and life. So it cannot be said of the somber work in +the tale of these two sons of genius that, + +"A common grayness silvers everything," + +since the gifts are so differently exercised and the artistic +product of totally dissimilar texture. Moreover, Poe is quite +incapable of the lovely naivete of "The Snow Image," or the +sun-kissed atmosphere of the wonder-book. Humor, except in the +satiric vein, is hardly more germane to the genius of Hawthorne +than to that of Poe; its occasional exercise is seldom if ever +happy. + +Although most literary comparisons are futile because of the +disparateness of the things compared, the present one seems +legitimate in the cases of Poe and Hawthorne, superficially so +alike in their short-story work. + + +IV + +In the romances in which he is, by common consent, our greatest +practitioner, to be placed first indeed of all who have written +fiction of whatever kind on American soil, Hawthorne never +forsakes--subtle, spiritual, elusive, even intangible as he may +seem--the firm underfooting of mother earth. His themes are +richly human, his psychologic truth (the most modern note of +realism) unerring in its accuracy and insight. As part of his +romantic endowment, he prefers to place plot and personages in +the dim backward of Time, gaining thus in perspective and +ampleness of atmosphere. He has told us as much in the preface +to "The House of The Seven Gables," that wonderful study in +subdued tone-colors. That pronunciamento of a great artist (from +which in an earlier chapter quotation has been made) should not +be overlooked by one who essays to get a hint of his secret. He +is always exclusively engaged with questions of conscience and +character; like George Meredith, his only interest is in soul-growth. +This is as true in the "Marble Faun" with its thought of +the value of sin in the spiritual life, or in "The Blithedale +Romance," wherein poor Zenobia learns how infinitely hard it is +for a woman to oppose the laws of society, as it is in the more +obvious lesson of "The Scarlet Letter." In this respect the four +romances are all of a piece: they testify to their spiritual +parentage. "The Scarlet Letter," if the greatest, is only so for +the reason that the theme is deepest, most fundamental, and the +by-gone New England setting most sympathetic to the author's +loving interest. Plainly an allegory, it yet escapes the danger +of becoming therefore poor fiction, by being first of all a +study of veritable men and women, not lay-figures to carry out +an argument. The eyes of the imagination can always see Esther +Prynne and Dimmesdale, honest but weak man of God, the evil +Chillingworth and little Pearl who is all child, unearthly +though she be, a symbol at once of lost innocence and a hope of +renewed purity. No pale abstractions these; no folk in fiction +are more believed in: they are of our own kindred with whom we +suffer or fondly rejoice. In a story so metaphysical as "The +House of The Seven Gables," full justice to which has hardly +been done (it was Hawthorne's favorite), while the background +offered by the historic old mansion is of intention low-toned +and dim, there is no obscurity, though plenty of innuendo and +suggestion. The romance is a noble specimen of that use of the +vague which never falls into the confusion of indeterminate +ideas. The theme is startlingly clear: a sin is shown working +through generations and only to find expiation in the fresh +health of the younger descendants: life built on a lie must +totter to its fall. And the shell of all this spiritual +seething--the gabled Salem house--may at last be purified and +renovated for a posterity which, because it is not paralyzed by +the dark past, can also start anew with hope and health, while +every room of the old home is swept through and cleansed by the +wholesome winds of heaven. + +Forgetting for a moment the immense spiritual meaning of this +noble quartet of romances, and regarding them as works of art in +the straiter sense, they are felt to be practically blameless +examples of the principle of adapting means to a desired end. As +befits the nature of the themes, the movement in each case is +slow, pregnant with significance, cumulative in effect, the +tempo of each in exquisite accord with the particular motive: +compared with "The Scarlet Letter," "The House of The Seven +Gables" moves somewhat more quickly, a slight increase to suit +the action: it is swiftest of all in "The Blithedale Romance," +with its greater objectivity of action and interest, its more +mundane air: while there is a cunning unevenness in the two +parts of "The Marble Faun," as is right for a romance which +first presents a tragic situation (as external climax) and then +shows in retarded progress that inward drama of the soul more +momentous than any outer scene or situation can possibly be. +After Donatello's deed of death, because what follows is +psychologically the most important part of the book, the speed +slackens accordingly. Quiet, too, and unsensational as Hawthorne +seems, he possessed a marked dramatic power. His denouements are +overwhelming in grip and scenic value: the stage effect of the +scaffold scene in "The Scarlet Letter," the murder scene in the +"Marble Faun," the tragic close of Zenobia's career in "The +Blithedale Romance," such scenes are never arbitrary and +detached; they are tonal, led up to by all that goes before. The +remark applies equally to that awful picture in "The House of +The Seven Gables," where the Judge sits dead in his chair and +the minutes are ticked off by a seemingly sentient clock. An +element in this tonality is naturally Hawthorne's style: it is +the best illustration American literature affords of excellence +of pattern in contrast with the "purple patch" manner of writing +so popular in modern diction. + +Congruity, the subjection of the parts to the whole, and to the +end in view--the doctrine of key--Hawthorne illustrates all +this. If we do not mark passages and delectate over phrases, we +receive an exquisite sense of harmony--and harmony is the last +word of style. It is this power which helps to make him a great +man-of-letters, as well as a master of romance. One can imagine +him neither making haste to furnish "copy" nor pausing by the +way for ornament's sake. He knew that the only proper decoration +was an integral efflorescence of structure. He looked beyond to +the fabric's design: a man decently poor in this world's gear, +he was more concerned with good work than with gain. Of such are +art's kingdom of heaven. + +Are there flaws in the weaving? They are small indeed. His +didacticism is more in evidence in the tales than in the +romances, where the fuller body allows the writer to be more +objective: still, judged by present-day standards, there are +times when he is too obviously the preacher to please modern +taste. In "The Great Stone Face," for instance, it were better, +one feels, if the moral had been more veiled, more subtly +implied. As to this, it is well to remember that criticism +changes its canons with the years and that Hawthorne simply +adapted himself (unconsciously, as a spokesman of his day) to +contemporaneous standards. His audience was less averse from the +principle that the artist should on no account usurp the +pulpit's function. If the artist-preacher had a golden mouth, it +was enough. This has perhaps always been the attitude of the +mass of mankind. + +A defect less easy to condone is this author's attempts at +humor. They are for the most part lumbering and forced: you feel +the effort. Hawthorne lacked the easy manipulation of this gift +and his instinct served him aright when he avoided it, as most +often he did. A few of the short stories are conceived in the +vein of burlesque, and such it is a kindness not to name. They +give pain to any who love and revere so mighty a spirit. In the +occasional use of humor in the romances, too, he does not always +escape just condemnation: as where Judge Pincheon is described +taking a walk on a snowy morning down the village street, his +visage wreathed in such spacious smiles that the snow on either +side of his progress melts before the rays. + +For some the style of Hawthorne may now be felt to possess a +certain artificiality: the price paid for that effect of +stateliness demanded by the theme and suggestive also of the +fact that the words were written over half a century ago. In +these days of photographic realism of word and idiom, our +conception of what is fit in diction has suffered a sea-change. +Our ear is adjusted to another tune. Admirable as have been the +gains in broadening the native resources of speech by the +introduction of old English elements, the eighteenth century and +the early years of the nineteenth can still teach us, and it is +not beyond credence that the eventual modern ideal of speech may +react to an equilibrium of mingled native and foreign-fetched +words. In such an event a writer like Hawthorne will be +confirmed in his mastery. + +Remarkable, indeed, and latest in time has been the romantic +reaction from the extremes of realistic presentation: it has +given the United States, even as it has England, some sterling +fiction. This we can see, though it is a phenomenon too recent +to offer clear deductions as yet. What appears to be the main +difference between it and the romantic inheritance from Scott +and Hawthorne? One, if not the chief divergence, would seem to +be the inevitable degeneration which comes from haste, +mercantile pressure, imitation and lack of commanding authority. +There is plenty of technique, comparatively little personality. +Yet it may be unfair to the present to make the comparison, for +the incompetents buzz in our ears, while time has mercifully +stilled the bogus romances of G.P.R. James, et id omne genus. + +But allowing for all distortion of time, a creative figure like +that of Hawthorne still towers, serene and alone, above the +little troublings of later days, and like his own Stone Face, +reflects the sun and the storm, bespeaking the greater things of +the human spirit. + + +THE END + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Masters of the English Novel, by Richard Burton + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12736 *** diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ce4c525 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #12736 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12736) diff --git a/old/12736.txt b/old/12736.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5c3e775 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/12736.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8693 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Masters of the English Novel, by Richard Burton + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Masters of the English Novel + A Study Of Principles And Personalities + +Author: Richard Burton + +Release Date: June 25, 2004 [EBook #12736] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MASTERS OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL *** + + + + + +MASTERS OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL: + +A STUDY OF PRINCIPLES AND PERSONALITIES + +BY RICHARD BURTON + + + + +PREFACE + +The principle of inclusion in this book is the traditional one +which assumes that criticism is only safe when it deals with +authors who are dead. In proportion as we approach the living +or, worse, speak of those still on earth, the proper perspective +is lost and the dangers of contemporary judgment incurred. The +light-minded might add, that the dead cannot strike back; to +pass judgment upon them is not only more critical but safer. + +Sometimes, however, the distinction between the living and the +dead is an invidious one. Three authors hereinafter studied are +examples: Meredith, Hardy and Stevenson. Hardy alone is now in +the land of the living, Meredith having but just passed away. +Yet to omit the former, while including the other two, is +obviously arbitrary, since his work in fiction is as truly done +as if he, like them, rested from his literary labors and the +gravestone chronicled his day of death. For reasons best known +to himself, Mr. Hardy seems to have chosen verse for the final +expression of his personality. It is more than a decade since he +published a novel. So far as age goes, he is the senior of +Stevenson: "Desperate Remedies" appeared when the latter was a +stripling at the University of Edinburgh. Hardy is therefore +included in the survey. I am fully aware that to strive to +measure the accomplishment of those practically contemporary, +whether it be Meredith and Hardy or James and Howells, is but +more or less intelligent guess-work. Nevertheless, it is +pleasant employ, the more interesting, perhaps, to the critic +and his readers because an element of uncertainty creeps into +what is said. If the critic runs the risk of Je suis, J'y reste, +he gets his reward in the thrill of prophecy; and should he turn +out a false prophet, he is consoled by the reflection that it +will place him in a large and enjoyable company. + +Throughout the discussion it has been the intention to keep +steadily before the reader the two main ways of looking at life +in fiction, which have led to the so-called realistic and +romantic movements. No fear of repetition in the study of the +respective novelists has kept me from illustrating from many +points of view and taking advantage of the opportunity offered +by each author, the distinction thus set up. For back of all +stale jugglery of terms, lies a very real and permanent +difference. The words denote different types of mind as well as +of art: and express also a changed interpretation of the world +of men, resulting from the social and intellectual revolution +since 1750. + +No apology would appear to be necessary for Chapter Seven, which +devotes sufficient space to the French influence to show how it +affected the realistic tendency of all modern novel-making. +The Scandinavian lands, Germany, Italy, England and Spain, +all have felt the leadership of France in this regard and hence +any attempt to sketch the history of the Novel on English soil, +would ignore causes, that did not acknowledge the Gallic debt. + +It may also be remarked that the method employed in the +following pages necessarily excludes many figures of no slight +importance in the evolution of English fiction. There are books +a-plenty dealing with these secondary personalities, often +significant as links in the chain and worthy of study were the +purpose to present the complete history of the Novel. By +centering upon indubitable masters, the principles illustrated +both by the lesser and larger writers will, it is hoped, be +brought home with equal if not greater force. + + + + +CONTENTS + + I. FICTION AND THE NOVEL + II. EIGHTEENTH CENTURY BEGINNINGS: RICHARDSON + III. EIGHTEENTH CENTURY BEGINNINGS: FIELDING + IV. DEVELOPMENTS: SMOLLETT, STERNE AND OTHERS + V. REALISM: JANE AUSTEN + VI. MODERN ROMANTICISM: SCOTT + VII. FRENCH INFLUENCE +VIII. DICKENS + IX. THACKERAY + X. GEORGE ELIOT + XI. TROLLOPE AND OTHERS + XII. HARDY AND MEREDITH +XIII. STEVENSON + XIV. THE AMERICAN CONTRIBUTION + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +FICTION AND THE NOVEL + +All the world loves a story as it does a lover. It is small +wonder then that stories have been told since man walked erect +and long before transmitted records. Fiction, a conveniently +broad term to cover all manner of story-telling, is a hoary +thing and within historical limits we can but get a glimpse of +its activity. Because it is so diverse a thing, it may be +regarded in various ways: as a literary form, a social +manifestation, a comment upon life. Main emphasis in this book +is placed upon its recent development on English soil under the +more restrictive name of Novel; and it is the intention, in +tracing the work of representative novel writers, to show how +the Novel has become in some sort a special modern mode of +expression and of opinion, truly reflective of the Zeitgeist. + +The social and human element in a literary phenomenon is what +gives general interest and includes it as part of the +culturgeschichte of a people. This interest is as far removed +from that of the literary specialist taken up with questions of +morphology and method, as it is from the unthinking rapture of +the boarding-school Miss who finds a current book "perfectly +lovely," and skips intrepidly to the last page to see how it is +coming out. Thoughtful people are coming to feel that fiction is +only frivolous when the reader brings a frivolous mind or makes +a frivolous choice. While it will always be legitimate to turn +to fiction for innocent amusement, since the peculiar property +of all art is to give pleasure, the day has been reached when it +is recognized as part of our culture to read good fiction, to +realize the value and importance of the Novel in modern +education; and conversely, to reprimand the older, narrow notion +that the habit means self-indulgence and a waste of time. Nor +can we close our eyes to the tyrannous domination of fiction +to-day, for good or bad. It has worn seven-league boots of progress +the past generation. So early as 1862, Sainte-Beuve declared in +conversation: "Everything is being gradually merged into the +novel. There is such a vast scope and the form lends itself to +everything." Prophetic words, more than fulfilled since they +were spoken. + +Of the three main ways of story-telling, by the epic poem, the +drama and prose fiction, the epic seems to be the oldest; +poetry, indeed, being the natural form of expression among +primitive peoples. + +The comparative study of literature shows that so far as written +records go, we may not surely ascribe precedence in time either +to fiction or the drama. The testimony varies in different +nations. But if the name fiction be allowed for a Biblical +narrative like the Book of Ruth, which in the sense of +imaginative and literary handling of historical material it +certainly is, the great antiquity of the form may be conceded. +Long before the written or printed word, we may safely say, +stories were recited in Oriental deserts, yarns were spun as +ships heaved over the seas, and sagas spoken beside hearth fires +far in the frozen north. Prose narratives, epic in theme or of +more local import, were handed down from father to son, +transmitted from family to family, through the exercise of a +faculty of memory that now, in a day when labor-saving devices +have almost atrophied its use, seems well nigh miraculous. Prose +story-telling, which allows of ample description, elbow room for +digression, indefinite extension and variation from the original +kernel of plot, lends itself admirably to the imaginative needs +of humanity early or late. + +With the English race, fiction began to take con-structural +shape and definiteness of purpose in Elizabethan days. Up to the +sixteenth century the tales were either told in verse, in the +epic form of Beowulf or in the shrunken epic of a thirteenth +century ballad like "King Horn"; in the verse narratives of +Chaucer or the poetic musings of Spenser. Or else they were a +portion of that prose romance of chivalry which was vastly +cultivated in the middle ages, especially in France and Spain, +and of which we have a doughty exemplar in the Morte D'Arthur, +which dates nearly a century before Shakspere's day. Loose +construction and no attempt to deal with the close eye of +observation, characterize these earlier romances, which were in +the main conglomerates of story using the double appeal of love +and war. + +But at a time when the drama was paramount in popularity, when +the young Shakspere was writing his early comedies, fiction, +which was in the fulness of time to conquer the play form as a +popular vehicle of story-telling, began to rear its head. The +loosely constructed, rambling prose romances of Lyly of +euphuistic fame, the prose pastorals of Lodge from which model +Shakspere made his forest drama, "As You Like It," the +picaresque, harum-scarum story of adventure, "Jack Wilton," the +prototype of later books like "Gil Blas" and "Robinson Crusoe,"--these +were the early attempts to give prose narration a closer knitting, +a more organic form. + +But all such tentative striving was only preparation; fiction in +the sense of more or less formless prose narration, was written +for about two centuries without the production of what may be +called the + +Novel in the modern meaning of the word. The broader name +fiction may properly be applied, since, as we shall see, all +novels are fiction, but all fiction is by no means Novels. The +whole development of the Novel, indeed, is embraced within +little more than a century and a half; from the middle of the +eighteenth century to the present time. The term Novel is more +definite, more specific than the fiction out of which it +evolved; therefore, we must ask ourselves wherein lies the +essential difference. Light is thrown by the early use of the +word in critical reference in English. In reading the following +from Steele's "Tender Husband," we are made to realize that the +stark meaning of the term implies something new: social +interest, a sense of social solidarity: "Our amours can't +furnish out a Romance; they'll make a very pretty Novel." + +This clearly marks a distinction: it gives a hint as to the +departure made by Richardson in 1742, when he published +"Pamela." It is not strictly the earliest discrimination between +the Novel and the older romance; for the dramatist Congreve at +the close of the seventeenth century shows his knowledge of the +distinction. And, indeed, there are hints of it in Elizabethan +criticism of such early attempts as those of Lyly, Nast, Lodge +and others. Moreover, the student of criticism as it deals with +the Novel must also expect to meet with a later confusion of +nomenclature; the word being loosely applied to any type of +prose fiction in contrast with the short story or tale. But +here, at an early date, the severance is plainly indicated +between the study of contemporary society and the elder romance +of heroism, supernaturalism, and improbability. It is a +difference not so much of theme as of view-point, method and +intention. + +For underlying this attempt to come closer to humanity through +the medium of a form of fiction, is to be detected an added +interest in personality for its own sake. During the eighteenth +century, commonly described as the Teacup Times, an age of +powder and patches, of etiquette, epigram and surface polish, +there developed a keener sense of the value of the individual, +of the sanctity of the ego, a faint prelude to the note that was +to become so resonant in the nineteenth century, sounding +through all the activities of man. Various manifestations in the +civilization of Queen Anne and the first Georges illustrate the +new tendency. + +One such is the coffee house, prototype of the bewildering club +life of our own day. The eighteenth century coffee house, where +the men of fashion and affairs foregathered to exchange social +news over their glasses, was an organization naturally fostering +altruism; at least, it tended to cultivate a feeling for social +relations. + +Again, the birth of the newspaper with the Spectator Papers in +the early years of the century, is another such sign of the +times: the newspaper being one of the great social bonds of +humanity, for good or bad, linking man to man, race to race in +the common, well-nigh instantaneous nexus of sympathy. The +influence of the press at the time of a San Francisco or Messina +horror is apparent to all; but its effect in furnishing the +psychology of a business panic is perhaps no less potent though +not so obvious. When Addison and Steele began their genial +conversations thrice a week with their fellow citizens, they +little dreamed of the power they set a-going in the world; for +here was the genesis of modern journalism. And whatever its +abuses and degradations, the fourth estate is certainly one of +the very few widely operative educational forces to-day, and has +played an important part in spreading the idea of the +brotherhood of man. + +That the essay and its branch form, the character sketch, both +found in the Spectator Papers, were contributory to the Novel's +development, is sure. The essay set a new model for easy, +colloquial speech: just the manner for fiction which was to +report the accent of contemporary society in its average of +utterance. And the sketch, seen in its delightful efflorescence +in the Sir Roger De Coverly papers series by Addison, is fiction +in a sense: differing therefrom in its slighter framework, and +the aim of the writer, which first of all is the delicate +delineation of personality, not plot and the study of the social +complex. There is the absence of plot which is the natural +outcome of such lack of story interest. A wide survey of the +English essay from its inception with Bacon in the early +seventeenth century will impress the inquirer with its fluid +nature and natural outflow into full-fledged fiction. The essay +has a way, as Taine says, of turning "spontaneously to fiction +and portraiture." And as it is difficult, in the light of +evolution, to put the finger on the line separating man from the +lower order of animal life, so is it difficult sometimes to say +just where the essay stops and the Novel begins. There is +perhaps no hard-and-fast line. + +Consider Dr. Holmes' "Autocrat of the Breakfast Table," for +example; is it essay or fiction? There is a definite though +slender story interest and idea, yet since the framework of +story is really for the purpose of hanging thereon the genial +essayist's dissertations on life, we may decide that the book is +primarily essay, the most charmingly personal, egoistic of +literary forms. The essay "slightly dramatized," Mr. Howells +happily characterizes it. This form then must be reckoned with +in the eighteenth century and borne in mind as contributory all +along in the subsequent development, as we try to get a clear +idea of the qualities which demark and limit the Novel. + +Again, the theater was an institution doing its share to knit +social feeling; as indeed it had been in Elizabethan days: +offering a place where many might be moved by the one thought, +the one emotion, personal variations being merged in what is now +called mob psychology, a function for centuries also exercised +by the Church. Nor should the function of the playhouse as a +visiting-place be overlooked. + +So too the Novel came to express most inclusively among the +literary forms this more vivid realization of meum and tuum; the +worth of me and my intricate and inevitable relations to you, +both of us caught in the coils of that organism dubbed society, +and willingly, with no Rousseau-like desire to escape and set up +for individualists. The Novel in its treatment of personality +began to teach that the stone thrown into the water makes +circles to the uttermost bounds of the lake; that the little +rift within the lute makes the whole music mute; that we are all +members of the one body. This germinal principle was at root a +profoundly true and noble one; it serves to distinguish modern +fiction philosophically from all that is earlier, and it led the +late Sidney Lanier, in the well-known book on this subject, to +base the entire development upon the working out of the idea of +personality. The Novel seems to have been the special literary +instrument in the eighteenth century for the propagation of +altruism; here lies its deepest significance. It was a baptism +which promised great things for the lusty young form. + +We are now ready for a fair working definition of the modern +Novel. It means a study of contemporary society with an implied +sympathetic interest, and, it may be added, with special +reference to love as a motor force, simply because love it is +which binds together human beings in their social relations. + +This aim sets off the Novel in contrast with past fiction which +exhibits a free admixture of myth and marvel, of creatures +human, demi-human and supernatural, with all time or no time for +the enactment of its events. The modern story puts its note of +emphasis upon character that is contemporary and average; and +thus makes a democratic appeal against that older appeal which, +dealing with exceptional personages--kings, leaders, allegorical +abstractions--is naturally aristocratic. + +There was something, it would appear, in the English genius +which favored a form of literature--or modification of an +existing form--allowing for a more truthful representation of +society, a criticism (in the Arnoldian sense) of the passing +show. The elder romance finds its romantic effect, as a rule, in +the unusual, the strange and abnormal aspects of life, not so +much seen of the eye as imagined of the mind or fancy. Hence, +romance is historically contrasted with reality, with many +unfortunate results when we come to its modern applications. The +issue has been a Babel-like mixture of terms. + +Or when the bizarre or supernatural was not the basis of appeal, +it was found in the sickly and absurd treatment of the amatory +passion, quite as far removed from the every-day experience of +normal human nature. It was this kind of literature, with the +French La Calprenede as its high priest, which my Lord +Chesterfield had in mind when he wrote to his son under date of +1752, Old Style: "It is most astonishing that there ever could +have been a people idle enough to write such endless heaps of +the same stuff. It was, however, the occupation of thousands in +the last century; and is still the private though disavowed +amusement of young girls and sentimental ladies." The chief +trait of these earlier fictions, besides their mawkishness, is +their almost incredible long-windedness; they have the long +breath, as the French say; and it may be confessed that the +great, pioneer eighteenth century novels, foremost those of +Richardson, possess a leisureliness of movement which is an +inheritance of the romantic past when men, both fiction writers +and readers, seem to have Time; they look back to Lyly, and +forward (since history repeats itself here), to Henry James. The +condensed, breathless fiction of a Kipling is the more logical +evolution. + +Certainly, the English were innovators in this field, exercising +a direct and potent influence upon foreign fiction, especially +that of France and Germany; it is not too much to say, that the +novels of Richardson and Fielding, pioneers, founders of the +English Novel, offered Europe a type. If one reads the French +fictionists before Richardson--Madame de La Fayette, Le Sage, +Prevost and Rousseau--one speedily discovers that they did not +write novels in the modern sense; the last named took a cue from +Richardson, to be sure, in his handling of sentiment, but +remained an essayist, nevertheless. And the greater Goethe also +felt and acknowledged the Englishman's example. Testimonies from +the story-makers of other lands are frequent to the effect upon +them of these English pioneers of fiction. It will be seen from +this brief statement of the kind of fiction essayed by the +founders of the Novel, that their tendency was towards what has +come to be called "realism" in modern fiction literature. One +uses this sadly overworked term with a certain sinking of the +heart, yet it seems unavoidable. The very fact that the words +"realism" and "romance" have become so hackneyed in critical +parlance, makes it sure that they indicate a genuine +distinction. As the Novel has developed, ramified and taken on a +hundred guises of manifestation, and as criticism has striven to +keep pace with such a growth, it is not strange that a confusion +of nomenclature should have arisen. But underneath whatever +misunderstandings, the original distinction is clear enough and +useful to make: the modern Novel in its beginning did introduce +a more truthful representation of human life than had obtained +in the romantic fiction deriving from the medieval stories. The +term "realism" as first applied was suitably descriptive; it is +only with the subsequent evolution that so simple a word has +taken on subtler shades and esoteric implications. + +It may be roundly asserted that from the first the English Novel +has stood for truth; that it has grown on the whole more +truthful with each generation, as our conception of truth in +literature has been widened and become a nobler one. The +obligation of literature to report life has been felt with +increasing sensitiveness. In the particulars of appearance, +speech, setting and action the characters of English fiction to-day +produce a semblance of life which adds tenfold to its power. +To compare the dialogue of modern masters like Hardy, Stevenson, +Kipling and Howells with the best of the earlier writers serves +to bring the assertion home; the difference is immense; it is +the difference between the idiom of life and the false-literary +tone of imitations of life which, with all their merits, are +still self-conscious and inapt And as the earlier idiom was +imperfect, so was the psychology; the study of motives in +relation to action has grown steadily broader, more penetrating; +the rich complexity of human beings has been recognized more and +more, where of old the simple assumption that all mankind falls +into the two great contrasted groups of the good and the bad, +was quite sufficient. And, as a natural outcome of such an easy-going +philosophy, the study of life was rudimentary and partial; you +could always tell how the villain would jump and were +comfortable in the assurance that the curtain should ring down +upon "and so they were married and lived happily ever +afterwards." + +In contrast, to-day human nature is depicted in the Novel as a +curious compound of contradictory impulses and passions, and +instead of the clear-cut separation of the sheep and the goats, +we look forth upon a vast, indiscriminate horde of humanity +whose color, broadly surveyed, seems a very neutral +gray,--neither deep black nor shining white. The white-robed saint +is banished along with the devil incarnate; those who respect their +art would relegate such crudities to Bowery melodrama. And while +we may allow an excess of zeal in this matter, even a confusion +of values, there can be no question that an added dignity has +come to the Novel in these latter days, because it has striven +with so much seriousness of purpose to depict life in a more +interpretative way. It has seized for a motto the Veritas nos +liberavit of the ancient philosopher. The elementary psychology +of the past has been transferred to the stage drama, justifying +Mr. Shaw's description of it as "the last sanctuary of +unreality." And even in the theater, the truth demanded in +fiction for more than a century, is fast finding a place, and +play-making, sensitive to the new desire, is changing in this +respect before our eyes. + +However, with the good has come evil too. In the modern seeking +for so-called truth, the nuda veritas has in some hands become +shameless as well,--a fact amply illustrated in the following +treatment of principles and personalities. + +The Novel in the hands of these eighteenth century writers also +struck a note of the democratic,--a note that has sounded ever +louder until the present day, when fiction is by far the most +democratic of the literary forms (unless we now must include the +drama in such a designation). The democratic ideal has become at +once an instinct, a principle and a fashion. Richardson in his +"Pamela" did a revolutionary thing in making a kitchen wench his +heroine; English fiction had previously assumed that for its +polite audience only the fortunes of Algernon and Angelina could +be followed decorously and give fit pleasure. His innovation, +symptomatic of the time, by no means pleased an aristocratic +on-looker like Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, who wrote to a friend: +"The confounding of all ranks and making a jest of order has +long been growing in England; and I perceive by the books you +sent me, has made a very considerable progress. The heroes and +heroines of the age are cobblers and kitchen wenches. Perhaps +you will say, I should not take my ideas of the manners of the +times from such trifling authors; but it is more truly to be +found among them, than from any historian; as they write merely +to get money, they always fall into the notions that are most +acceptable to the present taste. It has long been the endeavor +of our English writers to represent people of quality as the +vilest and silliest part of the nation, being (generally) very +low-born themselves"--a quotation deliciously commingled of +prejudice and worldly wisdom. + +But Richardson, who began his career by writing amatory epistles +for serving maids, realized (and showed his genius thereby), +that if the hard fortunes and eventful triumph of the humble +Pamela could but be sympathetically portrayed, the interest on +the part of his aristocratic audience was certain to follow,--as +the sequel proved. + +He knew that because Pamela was a human being she might +therefore be made interesting; he adopted, albeit unconsciously, +the Terentian motto that nothing human should be alien from the +interests of his readers. And as the Novel developed, this +interest not only increased in intensity, but ever spread until +it depicted with truth and sympathy all sorts and conditions of +men. The typical novelist to-day prefers to leave the beaten +highway and go into the by-ways for his characters; his interest +is with the humble of the earth, the outcast and alien, the +under dog in the social struggle. It has become well-nigh a +fashion, a fad, to deal with these picturesque and once +unexploited elements of the human passion-play. + +This interest does not stop even at man; influenced by modern +conceptions of life, it overleaps the line of old supposed to be +impassable, and now includes the lower order of living things: +animals have come into their own and a Kipling or a London gives +us the psychology of brutekind as it has never been drawn +before--from the view-point of the animal himself. Our little +brothers of the air, the forest and the field are depicted in +such wise that the world returns to a feeling which swelled the +heart of St. Francis centuries ago, as he looked upon the birds +he loved and thus addressed them: + +"And he entered the field and began to preach to the birds which +were on the ground; and suddenly those which were in the trees +came to him and as many as there were they all stood quietly +until Saint Francis had done preaching; and even then they did +not depart until such time as he had given them his blessing; +and St. Francis, moving among them, touched them with his cape, +but not one moved." + +It is because this modern form of fiction upon which we fix the +name Novel to indicate its new features has seized the idea of +personality, has stood for truth and grown ever more democratic, +that it has attained to the immense power which marks it at the +present time. It is justified by historical facts; it has become +that literary form most closely revealing the contours of life, +most expressive of its average experience, most sympathetic to +its heart-throb. The thought should prevent us from regarding it +as merely the syllabub of the literary feast, a kind of after-dinner +condiment. It is not necessary to assume the total +depravity of current taste, in order to account for the tyranny +of this latest-born child of fiction. In the study of individual +writers and developing schools and tendencies, it will be well +to keep in mind these underlying principles of growth: +personality, truth and democracy; a conception sure to provide +the story-maker with a new function, a new ideal. The +distinguished French critic Brunetiere has said: "The novelist +in reality is nothing more than a witness whose evidence should +rival that of the historian in precision and trustworthiness. We +look to him to teach us literally to see. We read his novels +merely with a view to finding out in them those aspects of +existence which escape us, owing to the very hurry and stir of +life, an attitude we express by saying that for a novel to be +recognized as such, it must offer an historical or documentary +value, a value precise and determined, particular and local, and +as well, a general and lasting psychologic value or +significance." + +It may be added, that while in the middle eighteenth century the +novel-writing was tentative and hardly more than an avocation, +at the end of the nineteenth, it had become a fine art and a +profession. It did not occur to Richardson, serious-minded man +that he was, that he was formulating a new art canon for +fiction. Indeed, the English author takes himself less and less +seriously as we go back in time. It was bad form to be literary +when Voltaire visited Congreve and found a fine gentleman where +he sought a writer of genius: complaining therefore that fine +gentlemen came cheap in Paris; what he wished to see was the +creator of the great comedies. In the same fashion, we find +Horace Walpole, who dabbled in letters all his days and made it +really his chief interest, systematically underrating the +professional writers of his day, to laud a brilliant amateur who +like himself desired the plaudits of the game without obeying +its exact rules. He looked askance at the fiction-makers +Richardson and Fielding, because they did not move in the polite +circles frequented by himself. + +The same key is struck by lively Fanny Burney in reporting a +meeting with a languishing lady of fashion who had perpetrated a +piece of fiction with the alarming title of "The Mausoleum of +Julia": "My sister intends, said Lady Say and Sele, to print her +Mausoleum, just for her own friends and acquaintances." + +"Yes? said Lady Hawke, I have never printed yet." + +And a little later, the same spirit is exhibited by Jane Austen +when Madame de Sevigne sought her: Miss Austen suppressed the +story-maker, wishing to be taken first of all for what she was: +a country gentlewoman of unexceptionable connections. Even +Walter Scott and Byron plainly exhibit this dislike to be +reckoned as paid writers, men whose support came by the pen. In +short, literary professionalism reflected on gentility. We have +changed all that with a vengeance and can hardly understand the +earlier sentiment; but this change of attitude has carried with +it inevitably the artistic advancement of modern fiction. For if +anything is certain it is that only professional skill can be +relied upon to perfect an art form. The amateur may possess +gift, even genius; but we must look to the professional for +technique. + +One other influence, hardly less effective in molding the Novel +than those already touched upon, is found in the increasing +importance of woman as a central) factor in society; indeed, +holding the key to the social situation. The drama of our time, +in so frequently making woman the protagonist of the piece, +testifies, as does fiction, to this significant fact: woman, in +the social and economic readjustment that has come to her, or +better, which she is still undergoing, has become so much more +dominant in her social relations, that any form of literature +truthfully mirroring the society of the modern world must regard +her as of potent efficiency. And this is so quite apart from the +consideration that women make up to-day the novelist's largest +audience, and that, moreover, the woman writer of fiction is in +numbers and popularity a rival of men. + +It would scarcely be too much to see a unifying principle in the +evolution of the modern Novel, in the fact that the first +example in the literature was Pamela, the study of a woman, +while in representative latter-day studies like "Tess of the +D'Urbervilles," "The House of Mirth," "Trilby" and "The Testing +of Diana Mallory" we again have studies of women; the purpose +alike in time past or present being to fix the attention upon a +human being whose fate is sensitively, subtly operative for good +or ill upon a society at large. It is no accident then, that +woman is so often the central figure of fiction: it means more +than that, love being the solar passion of the race, she +naturally is involved. Rather does it mean fiction's recognition +of her as the creature of the social biologist, exercising her +ancient function amidst all the changes and shifting ideas of +successive generations. Whatever her superficial changes under +the urge of the time-spirit, Woman, to a thoughtful eye, sits +like the Sphinx above the drifting sands, silent, secret, +powerful and obscure, bent only on her great purposive errand +whose end is the bringing forth of that Overman who shall rule +the world. With her immense biologic mission, seemingly at war +with her individual career, and destructive apparently of that +emancipation which is the present dream of her champions, what a +type, what a motive this for fiction, and in what a manifold and +stimulating way is the Novel awakening to its high privilege to +deal with such material. In this view, having these wider +implications in mind, the role of woman in fiction, so far from +waning, is but just begun. + +This survey of historical facts and marshaling of a few +important principles has prepared us, it may be hoped, for a +clearer comprehension of the developmental details that follow. +It is a complex growth, but one vastly interesting and, after +all, explained by a few, great substructural principles: the +belief in personality, democratic feeling, a love for truth in +art, and a realization of the power of modern Woman. The Novel is +thus an expression and epitome of the society which gave it +birth. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +EIGHTEENTH CENTURY BEGINNINGS: RICHARDSON + +There is some significance in the fact that Samuel Richardson, +founder of the modern novel, was so squarely a middle-class +citizen of London town. Since the form, he founded was, as we +have seen, democratic in its original motive and subsequent +development, it was fitting that the first shaper of the form +should have sympathies not too exclusively aristocratic: should +have been willing to draw upon the backstairs history of the +servants' hall for his first heroine. + +To be sure, Mr. Richardson had the not uncommon failing of the +humble-born: he desired above all, and attempted too much, to +depict the manners of the great; he had naive aristocratical +leanings which account for his uncertain tread when he would +move with ease among the boudoirs of Mayfair. Nevertheless, in +the honest heart of him, as his earliest novel forever proves, +he felt for the woes of those social underlings who, as we have +long since learned, have their microcosm faithfully reflecting +the greater world they serve, and he did his best work in that +intimate portrayal of the feminine heart, which is not of a +class but typically human; he knew Clarissa Harlowe quite as +well as he did Pamela; both were of interest because they were +women. That acute contemporary, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, +severely reprimands Richardson for his vulgar lapses in painting +polite society and the high life he so imperfectly knew; yet in +the very breath that she condemns "Clarissa Harlowe" as "most +miserable stuff," confesses that "she was such an old fool as to +weep over" it "like any milkmaid of sixteen over the ballad of +the Lady's Fall"--the handsomest kind of a compliment under the +circumstances. And with the same charming inconsistency, she +declares on the appearance of "Sir Charles Grandison" that she +heartily despises Richardson, yet eagerly reads him--"nay, sobs +over his works in the most scandalous manner." + +Richardson was the son of a carpenter and himself a respected +printer, who by cannily marrying the daughter of the man to whom +he was apprenticed, and by diligence in his vocation, rose to +prosperity, so that by 1754 he became Master of The Stationers' +Company and King's Printer, doing besides an excellent printing +business. + +As a boy he had relieved the dumb anguish of serving maids by +the penning of their love letters; he seemed to have a knack at +this vicarious manner of love-making and when in the full +maturity of fifty years, certain London publishers requested him +to write for them a narrative which might stand as a model +letter writer from which country readers should know the right +tone, his early practice stood him in good stead. Using the +epistolary form into which he was to throw all his fiction, he +produced "Pamela," the first novel of analysis, in contrast with +the tale of adventure, of the English tongue. It is worth +remarking that Richardson wrote this story at an age when many +novelists have well-nigh completed their work; even as Defoe +published his masterpiece, "Robinson Crusoe," at fifty-eight. +But such forms as drama and fiction are the very ones where ripe +maturity, a long and varied experience with the world and a +trained hand in the technique of the craft, go for their full +value. A study of the chronology of novel-making will show that +more acknowledged masterpieces were written after forty than +before. Beside the eighteenth century examples one places George +Eliot, who wrote no fiction until she had nearly reached the +alleged dead-line of mental activity: Browning with his greatest +poem, "The Ring and the Book," published in his forty-eighth +year; Du Maurier turning to fiction at sixty, and De Morgan +still later. Fame came to Richardson then late in life, and +never man enjoyed it more. Ladies with literary leanings (and +the kind is independent of periods) used to drop into his place +beyond Temple Bar--for he was a bookseller as well as printer, +and printed and sold his own wares--to finger his volumes and +have a chat about poor Pamela or the naughty Lovelace or +impeccable Grandison. For how, in sooth, could they keep away or +avoid talking shop when they were bursting with the books just +read? + +And much, too, did Richardson enjoy the prosperity his stories, +as well as other ventures, brought him, so that he might move +out Hammersmith way where William Mortis and Cobden Sanderson +have lived in our day, and have a fine house wherein to receive +those same lady callers, who came in increasing flocks to his +impromptu court where sat the prim, cherub-faced, elderly little +printer. It is all very quaint, like a Watteau painting or a bit +of Dresden china, as we look back upon it through the time-mists +of a century and a half. + +In spite of its slow movement, the monotony of the letter form +and the terribly utilitarian nature of its morals, "Pamela" has +the essentials of interesting fiction; its heroine is placed in +a plausible situation, she is herself life-like and her +struggles are narrated with a sympathetic insight into the human +heart--or better, the female heart. The gist of a plot so simple +can be stated in few words: Mr. B., the son of a lady who has +benefited Pamela Andrews, a serving maid, tries to conquer her +virtue while she resists all his attempts--including an +abduction, Richardson's favorite device--and as a reward of her +chastity, he condescends to marry her, to her very great +gratitude and delight. The English Novel started out with a +flourish of trumpets as to its moral purpose; latter-day +criticism may take sides for or against the novel-with-a-purpose, +but that Richardson justified his fiction writing upon +moral grounds and upon those alone is shown in the descriptive +title-page of the tale, too prolix to be often recalled and a +good sample in its long-windedness of the past compared with the +terse brevity of the present in this matter: "Published in order +to cultivate the principles of virtue and religion in the mind +of youth of both sexes"; the author of "Sanford and Merton" has +here his literary progenitor. The sub-title, "or Virtue +Rewarded," also indicates the homiletic nature of the book. And +since the one valid criticism against all didactic aims in +story-telling is that it is dull, Richardson, it will be +appreciated, ran a mighty risk. But this he was able to escape +because of the genuine human interest of his tales and the skill +he displayed with psychologic analysis rather than the march of +events. The close-knit, organic development of the best of our +modern fiction is lacking; leisurely and lax seems the movement. +Modern editions of "Pamela" and "Clarissa Harlowe" are in the +way of vigorous cutting for purposes of condensation. Scott +seems swift and brief when set beside Richardson Yet the slow +convolutions and involutions serve to acquaint us intimately +with the characters; dwelling with them longer, we come to know +them better. + +It is a fault in the construction of the story that instead of +making Pamela's successful marriage the natural climax and close +of the work, the author effects it long before the novel is +finished and then tries to hold the interest by telling of the +honeymoon trip in Italy, her cool reception by her husband's +family, involving various subterfuges and difficulties, and the +gradual moral reform she was able to bring about in her spouse. +It must be conceded to him that some capital scenes are the +result of this post-hymeneal treatment; that, to illustrate, +where the haughty sister of Pamela's husband calls on the woman +she believes to be her husband's mistress. Yet there is an +effect of anti-climax; the main excitement--getting Pamela +honestly wedded--is over. But we must not forget the moral +purpose: Mr. B.'s spiritual regeneration has to be portrayed +before our very eyes, he must be changed from a rake into a +model husband; and with Richardson, that means plenty of elbow-room. +There is, too, something prophetic in this giving of ample +space to post-marital life; it paves the way for much latter-day +probing of the marriage misery. + +The picture of Mr. B. and Pamela's attitude towards him is full +of irony for the modern reader; here is a man who does all in +his power to ruin her and, finding her adamant, at last decides +to do the next best thing--secure her by marriage. And instead +of valuing him accordingly, Pamela, with a kind of spaniel-like +fawning, accepts his august hand. It must be confessed that with +Pamela (that is, with Richardson), virtue is a market commodity +for sale to the highest bidder, and this scene of barter and +sale is an all-unconscious revelation of the low standard of sex +ethics which obtained at the time. The suggestion by Sidney +Lanier that the sub-title should be: "or Vice Rewarded," "since +the rascal Mr. B. it is who gets the prize rather than Pamela," +has its pertinency from our later and more enlightened view. But +such was the eighteenth century. The exposure of an earlier time +is one of the benefits of literature, always a sort of ethical +barometer of an age--all the more trustworthy in reporting +spiritual ideals because it has no intention of doing so. + +That Richardson succeeds in making Mr. B. tolerable, not to say +likable, is a proof of his power; that the reader really grows +fond of his heroine--especially perhaps in her daughterly +devotion to her humble family--speaks volumes for his grasp of +human nature and helps us to understand the effect of the story +upon contemporaneous readers. That effect was indeed remarkable. +Lady Mary, to quote her again, testifies that the book "met with +very extraordinary (and I think undeserved) success. It has been +translated into French and Italian; it was all the fashion at +Paris and Versailles and is still the joy of the chambermaids of +all nations." Again she writes, "it has been translated into +more languages than any modern performances I ever heard of." A +French dramatic version of it under the same title appeared +three years after the publication of the novel and a little +later Voltaire in his "Nanine" used the same motif. Lady Mary's +reference to chambermaids is significant; it points to the new +sympathy on the part of the novelist and the consequent new +audience which the modern Novel was to command; literally, all +classes and conditions of mankind were to become its patrons; +and as one result, the author, gaining his hundreds of thousands +of readers, was to free himself forever of the aristocratic +Patron, at whose door once on a time, he very humbly and +hungrily knelt for favor. To-day, the Patron is hydra-headed; +demos rules in literature as in life. + +The sentimentality of this pioneer novel which now seems +old-fashioned and even absurd, expressed Queen Anne's day. +"Sensibility," as it was called, was a favorite idea in letters, +much affected, and later a kind of cult. A generation after +Pamela, in Mackenzie's "Man of Feeling," weeping is unrestrained +in English fiction; the hero of that lachrymose tale incurred +all the dangers of influenza because of his inveterate tendency +toward damp emotional effects; he was perpetually dissolving in +"showers of tears." In fact, our novelists down to the memory of +living man gave way to their feelings with far more abandon than +is true of the present repressive period. One who reads Dickens' +"Nicholas Nickleby" with this in mind, will perhaps be surprised +to find how often the hero frankly indulges his grief; he cries +with a freedom that suggests a trait inherited from his mother +of moist memory. No doubt, there was abuse of this "sensibility" +in earlier fiction: but Richardson was comparatively innocuous +in his practice, and Coleridge, having the whole sentimental +tendency in view, seems rather too severe when he declared that +"all the evil achieved by Hobbes and the whole school of +materialists will appear inconsiderable if it be compared with +the mischief effected and occasioned by the sentimental +philosophy of Sterne and his numerous imitators." The same +tendency had its vogue on both the English and French stage--the +Comedie larmoyante of the latter being vastly affected in London +and receiving in the next generation the good-natured satiric +shafts of Goldsmith. It may be possible that at the present +time, when the stoicism of the Red Indian in inhibiting +expression seems to be an Anglo-Saxon ideal, we have reacted too +far from the gush and the fervor of our forefathers. In any +case, to Richardson belongs whatever of merit there may be in +first sounding the new sentimental note. + +Pope declared that "Pamela," was as good as twenty sermons--an +innocently malignant remark, to be sure, which cuts both ways! +And plump, placid Mr. Richardson established warm epistolary +relations with many excellent if too emotional ladies, who +opened a correspondence with him concerning the conductment of +this and the following novels and strove to deflect the course +thereof to soothe their lacerated feelings. What novelist to-day +would not appreciate an audience that would take him _au grand +serieux_ in this fashion! What higher compliment than for your +correspondent--and a lady at that--to state that in the way of +ministering to her personal comfort, Pamela must marry and +Clarissa must not die! Richardson carried on a voluminous +letter-writing in life even as in literature, and the curled +darlings of latter-day letters may well look to their laurels in +recalling him, A certain Mme. Belfair, for example, desires to +look upon the author of those wonderful tales, yet modestly +shrinks from being seen herself. She therefore implores that he +will walk at an hour named in St. James Park--and this is the +novelist's reply: + + I go through the Park once or twice a week to my little + retirement; but I will for a week together be in it, every day + three or four hours, till you tell me you have seen a person who + answers to this description, namely, short--rather plump--fair + wig, lightish cloth coat, all black besides; one hand generally + in his bosom, the other a cane in it, which he leans upon under + the skirts of his coat; ... looking directly fore-right as + passers-by would imagine, but observing all that stirs on either + hand of him; hardly ever turning back; of a light brown + complexion, smoothish faced and ruddy cheeked, looking about + sixty-five; a regular, even pace, a gray eye, sometimes lively--very + lively if he have hope of seeing a lady whom he loves and + honors! + + +Such innocent philandering is delicious; there is a flavor to it +that presages the "Personals" in a New York newspaper. "Was ever +lady in such humor wooed?" or shall we say it is the novelist, +not the lady, who is besieged! + +"Pamela" ran through five editions within a year of its +appearance, which was a conspicuous success in the days of an +audience so limited when compared with the vast reading public +of later times. The smug little bookseller must have been +greatly pleased by the good fortune attending his first venture +into a new field, especially since he essayed it so late in life +and almost by accident. His motive had been in a sense +practical; for his publishers had requested him to write a book +"on the useful concerns of life"--and that he had done so, he +might have learned any Sunday in church, for divines did not +hesitate to say a kind word from the pulpit about so +unexceptionable a work. + +One of the things Richardson had triumphantly demonstrated by +his first story was that a very slight texture of plot can +suffice for a long, not to say too long, piece of fiction, if +only a free hand be given the story-teller in the way of +depicting the intuitions and emotions of human beings; dealing +with their mind states rather than, or quite as much as, their +actions. This was the modern note, and very speedily was the +lesson learned; the time was apt for it. From 1742, the date of +"Pamela," to 1765 is but a quarter century; yet within those +narrow time-limits the English Novel, through the labors of +Richardson and Fielding, Smollett, Sterne and Goldsmith, can be +said to have had its birth and growth to a lusty manhood and to +have defined once and for all the mold of this new and potent +form of prose art. By 1773 a critic speaks of the "novel-writing +age"; and a dozen years later, in 1785, novels are so common +that we hear of the press "groaning beneath their weight,"--which +sounds like the twentieth century. And it was all started +by the little printer; to him the praise. He received it in full +measure; here and there, of course, a dissident voice was heard, +one, that of Fielding, to be very vocal later; but mostly they +were drowned in the chorus of adulation. Richardson had done a +new thing and reaped an immediate reward; and--as seldom +happens, with quick recognition--it was to be a permanent reward +as well, for he changed the history of English literature. + +One would have expected him to produce another novel post-haste, +following up his maiden victory before it could be forgotten, +after the modern manner. But those were leisured days and it was +half a dozen years before "Clarissa Harlowe" was given to the +public. Richardson had begun by taking a heroine out of low +life; he now drew one from genteel middle class life; as he was +in "Sir Charles Grandison," the third and last of his fictions, +to depict a hero in the upper class life of England. In Clarissa +again, plot was secondary, analysis, sentiment, the exhibition +of the female heart under stress of sorrow, this was everything. +Clarissa's hand is sought by an unattractive suitor; she rebels--a +social crime in the eighteenth century; whereat, her whole +family turn against her--father, mother, sister, brothers, +uncles and aunts--and, wooed by Lovelace, a dashing rake who is +in love with her according to his lights, but by no means +intends honorable matrimony, she flies with him in a chariot and +four, to find herself in a most anomalous position, and so dies +broken-hearted; to be followed in her fate by Lovelace, who is +represented as a man whose loose principles are in conflict with +a nature which is far from being utterly bad. The narrative is +mainly developed through letters exchanged between Clarissa and +her friend, Miss Howe. There can hardly be a more striking +testimony to the leisure enjoyed by the eighteenth-century than +that society was not bored by a story the length of which seems +almost interminable to the reader to-day. The slow movement is +sufficient to preclude its present prosperity. It is safe to say +that Richardson is but little read now; read much less than his +great contemporary, Fielding. And apparently it is his bulk +rather than his want of human interest or his antiquated manner +that explains the fact. The instinct to-day is against fiction +that is slow and tortuous in its onward course; at least so it +seemed until Mr. De Morgan returned in his delightful volumes to +the method of the past. Those are pertinent words of the +distinguished Spanish novelist, Valdes: "An author who wishes to +be read not only in his life, but after his death (and the +author who does not wish this should lay aside his pen), cannot +shut his eyes, when unblinded by vanity, to the fact that not +only is it necessary to be interesting to save himself from +oblivion, but the story must not be a very long one. The world +contains so many great and beautiful works that it requires a +long life to read them all. To ask the public, always anxious +for novelty, to read a production of inordinate length, when so +many others are demanding attention, seems to me useless and +ridiculous, ... The most noteworthy instance of what I say is +seen in the celebrated English novelist, Richardson, who, in +spite of his admirable genius and exquisite sensibility and +perspicuity, added to the fact of his being the father of the +modern Novel, is scarcely read nowadays, at least in Latin +countries. Given the indisputable beauties of his works, this +can only be due to their extreme length. And the proof of this, +that in France and Spain, to encourage the taste for them, the +most interesting parts have been extracted and published in +editions and compendiums." + +This is suggestive, coming from one who speaks by the book. Who, +in truth, reads epics now--save in the enforced study of school +and college? Will not Browning's larger works--like "The Ring +and the Book"--suffer disastrously with the passing of time +because of a lack of continence, of a failure to realize that +since life is short, art should not be too long? It may be, too, +that Richardson, newly handling the sentiment which during the +following generation was to become such a marked trait of +imaginative letters, revelled in it to an extent unpalatable to +our taste; "rubbing our noses," as Leslie Stephen puts it, "in +all her (Clarissa's) agony,"--the tendency to overdo a new +thing, not to be resisted in his case. But with all concessions +to length and sentimentality, criticism from that day to this +has been at one in agreeing that here is not only Richardson's +best book but a truly great Novel. Certainly one who patiently +submits to a ruminant reading of the story, will find that when +at last the long-deferred climax is reached and the awed and +penitent Lovelace describes the death-bed moments of the girl he +has ruined, the scene has a great moving power. Allowing for +differences of taste and time, the vogue of the Novel in +Richardson's day can easily be understood, and through all the +stiffness, the stilted effect of manner and speech, and the +stifling conventions of the entourage, a sweet and charming +young woman in very piteous distress emerges to live in +affectionate memory. After all, no poor ideal of womanhood is +pictured in Clarissa. She is one of the heroines who are +unforgettable, dear. Mr. Howells, with his stern insistence on +truth in characterization, declares that she is "as freshly +modern as any girl of yesterday or to-morrow. 'Clarissa +Harlowe,' in spite of her eighteenth century costume and +keeping, remains a masterpiece in the portraiture of that +ever-womanly which is of all times and places." + +Lovelace, too, whose name has become a synonym for the fine +gentleman betrayer, is drawn in a way to make him sympathetic +and creditable; he is far from being a stock figure of villainy. +And the minor figures are often enjoyable; the friendship of +Clarissa with Miss Howe, a young woman of excellent good sense +and seemingly quite devoid of the ultra-sentiment of her time, +preludes that between Diana and her "Tony" in Meredith's great +novel. As a general picture of the society of the period, the +book is full of illuminations and sidelights; of course, the +whole action is set on a stage that bespeaks Richardson's +narrow, middle class morality, his worship of rank, his belief +that worldly goods are the reward of well-doing. + +As for the contemporaneous public, it wept and praised and went +with fevered blood because of this fiction. We have heard how +women of sentiment in London town welcomed the book and the +opportunity it offered for unrestrained tears. But it was the +same abroad; as Ike Marvel has it, Rousseau and Diderot over in +France, philosophers as they professed to be, "blubbered their +admiring thanks for 'Clarissa Harlowe."' Similarly, at a later +day we find caustic critics like Jeffrey and Macaulay writing to +Dickens to tell how they had cried over the death of Little +Nell--a scene the critical to-day are likely to stigmatize as +one of the few examples of pathos overdone to be found in the +works of that master. It is scarcely too much to say that the +outcome of no novel in the English tongue was watched with such +bated breath as was that of "Clarissa Harlowe" while the eight +successive books were being issued. + +Richardson chose to bask for another half dozen years in the +fame of his second novel, before turning in 1754 to his final +attempt, "Sir Charles Grandison," wherein it was his purpose to +depict the perfect pattern of a gentleman, "armed at all points" +of social and moral behavior. We must bear in mind that when +"Clarissa" was published he was sixty years of age and to be +pardoned if he did not emulate so many novel-makers of these +brisker mercantile times and turn off a story or so a year. + +By common confession, this is the poorest of his three fictions. +In the first place, we are asked to move more steadily in the +aristocratic atmosphere where the novelist did not breathe to +best advantage. Again, Richardson was an adept in drawing women +rather than men and hence was self-doomed in electing a +masculine protagonist. He is also off his proper ground in +laying part of the action in Italy. + +His beau ideal, Grandison, turns out the most impossible prig in +English literature. He is as insufferable as that later prig, +Meredith's Sir Willoughby in "The Egotist," with the difference +that the author does not know it, and that you do not believe in +him for a moment; whereas Meredith's creation is appallingly +true, a sort of simulacrum of us all. The best of the story is +in its portrayal of womankind; in particular, Sir Charles' two +loves, the English Harriet Byron and the Italian Clementina, the +last of whom is enamored of him, but separated by religious +differences. Both are alive and though suffering in the reader's +estimation because of their devotion to such a stick as +Grandison, nevertheless touch our interest to the quick. The +scene in which Grandison returns to Italy to see Clementina, +whose reason, it is feared, is threatened because of her grief +over his loss, is genuinely effective and affecting. + +The mellifluous sentimentality, too, of the novelist seems to +come to a climax in this book; justifying Taine's satiric remark +that "these phrases should be accompanied by a mandolin." The +moral tag is infallibly supplied, as in all Richardson's tales--though +perhaps here with an effect of crescendo. We are still +long years from that conception of art which holds that a +beautiful thing may be allowed to speak for itself and need not +be moraled down our throats like a physician's prescription. Yet +Fielding had already, as we shall see, struck a wholesome note +of satiric fun. The plot is slight and centers in an abduction +which, by the time it is used in the third novel, begins to pall +as a device and to suggest paucity of invention. The novel has +the prime merit of brevity; it is much shorter than "Clarissa +Harlowe," but long enough, in all conscience, Harriet being +blessed with the gift of gab, like all Richardson's heroines. +"She follows the maxim of Clarissa," says Lady Mary with telling +humor, "of declaring all she thinks to all the people she sees +without reflecting that in this mortal state of imperfection, +fig-leaves are as necessary for our minds as our bodies." It is +significant that this brilliant contemporary is very hard on +Richardson's characterization of women in this volume (which she +says "sinks horribly"), whereas never a word has she to say in +condemnation of the hero, who to the present critical eye seems +the biggest blot on the performance. How can we join the chorus +of praise led by Harriet, now her ladyship and his loving +spouse, when it chants: "But could he be otherwise than the best +of husbands who was the most dutiful of sons, who is the most +affectionate of brothers, the most faithful of friends, who is +good upon principle in every relation in life?" Lady Mary is +also extremely severe on the novelist's attempt to paint Italy; +when he talks of it, says she, "it is plain he is no better +acquainted with it than he is with the Kingdom of Mancomingo." +It is probable tat Richardson could not say more for his Italian +knowledge than did old Roger Ascham of Archery fame, when he +declared: "I was once in Italy, but I thank God my stay there +was only nine days." "Sir Charles Grandison" has also the +substantial advantage of ending well: that is, if to marry Sir +Charles can be so regarded, and certainly Harriet deemed it +desirable. + +It is pleasant to think of Richardson, now well into the +sixties, amiable, plump and prosperous, surrounded for the +remainder of his days--he was to die seven years later at the +ripe age of seventy-five--by a bevy of admiring women, who, +whether literary or merely human, gave this particular author +that warm and convincing proof of popularity which, to most, is +worth a good deal of chilly posthumous fame which a man is not +there to enjoy. Looking at his work retrospectively, one sees +that it must always have authority, even if it fall deadly dull +upon our ears to-day; for nothing can take away from him the +distinction of originating that kind of fiction which, now well +along towards its second century of existence, is still popular +and powerful. Richardson had no model; he shaped a form for +himself. Fielding, a greater genius, threw his fiction into a +mold cast by earlier writers; moreover, he received his direct +impulse away from the drama and towards the novel from +Richardson himself. + +The author of "Pamela" demonstrated once and for all the +interest that lies in a sympathetic and truthful representation +of character in contrast with that interest in incident for its +own sake which means the subordination of character, so that the +persons become mere subsidiary counters in the game. And he +exhibited such a knowledge of the subtler phases of the nooks +and crannies of woman's heart, as to be hailed as past-master +down to the present day by a whole school of analysts and +psychologues; for may it not be said that it is the popular +distinction of the nineteenth century fiction to place woman in +the pivotal position in that social complex which it is the +business of the Novel to represent? Do not our fiction and drama +to-day--the drama a belated ally of the Novel in this and other +regards--find in the delineation of the eternal feminine under +new conditions of our time, its chief, its most significant +motif? If so, a special gratitude is due the placid little Mr. +Richardson with his Pamelas, Clarissas and Harriets. He found +fiction unwritten so far as the chronicles of contemporary +society were concerned, and left it in such shape that it was +recognized as the natural quarry of all who would paint manners; +a field to be worked by Jane Austen, Dickens and Thackeray, +Trollope and George Eliot, and a modern army of latter and +lesser students of life. His faults were in part merely a +reflection of his time; its low-pitched morality, its etiquette +which often seems so absurd. Partly it was his own, too; for he +utterly lacked humor (save where unconscious) and never grasped +the great truth, that in literary art the half is often more +than the whole; The Terentian ne quid nimis had evidently not +been taken to heart by Samuel Richardson, Esquire, of +Hammersmith, author of "Clarissa Harlowe" in eight volumes, and +Printer to the Queen. Again and again one of Clarissa's bursts +of emotion under the tantalizing treatment of her seducer loses +its effect because another burst succeeds before we (and she) +have recovered from the first one. He strives to give us the +broken rhythm of life (therein showing his affinity with the +latter day realists) instead of that higher and harder thing--the +more perfect rhythm of art; not so much the truth (which +cannot be literally given) as that seeming-true which is the aim +and object of the artistic representation. Hence the necessity +of what Brunetiere calls in an admirable phrase, the true +function of the novel--"to be an abridged representation of +life." Construction in the modern sense Richardson had not +studied, naturally enough, and was innocent of the fineness of +method and the sure-handed touches of later technique. And there +is a kind of drawing-room atmosphere in his books, a lack of +ozone which makes Fielding with all his open-air coarseness a +relief. But judged in the setting of his time, this writer did a +wonderful thing not only as the Father of the Modern Novel but +one of the few authors in the whole range of fiction who holds +his conspicuous place amid shifting literary modes and fashions, +because he built upon the surest of all foundations--the social +instinct, and the human heart. + +If the use of the realistic method alone denoted the Novel, +Defoe, not Richardson, might be called its begetter. "Robinson +Crusoe," more than twenty years before "Pamela," would occupy +the primate position, to say nothing of Swift's "Gulliver's +Travels," antedating Richardson's first story by some fifteen +years. Certainly the observational method, the love of detail, +the grave narrative of imagined fact (if the bull be permitted) +are in this earlier book in full force. But "Robinson Crusoe" is +not a rival because it does not study man-in-society; never was +a story that depended less upon this kind of interest. The +position of Crusoe on his desert isle is so eminently unsocial +that he welcomes the black man Friday and quivers at the human +quality in the famed footprints in the sand. As for Swift's chef +d'oeuvre, it is a fairy-tale with a grimly realistic manner and +a savage satiric intention. To speak of either of these fictions +as novels is an example of the prevalent careless nomenclature. +Between them and "Pamela" there yawns a chasm. Moreover, +"Crusoe" is a frankly picaresque tale belonging to the elder +line of romantic fiction, where incident and action and all the +thrilling haps of Adventure-land furnish the basis of appeal +rather than character analysis or a study of social relations. +The personality of Crusoe is not advanced a whit by his +wonderful experiences; he is done entirely from the outside. + +Richardson, therefore, marks the beginning of the modern form. +But that the objection to Defoe as the true and only begetter of +the Novel lies in his failure, in his greatest story, to center +the interest in man as part of the social order and as human +soul, is shown by the fact that his less known, but remarkable, +story "Moll Flanders," picaresque as it is and depicting the +life of a female criminal, has yet considerable character study +and gets no small part of its appeal for a present-day reader +from the minute description of the fall and final reform of the +degenerate woman. It is comparatively crude in characterization, +but psychological value is not entirely lacking. However, with +Richardson it is almost all. It was of the nature of his genius +to make psychology paramount: just there is found his modernity. +Defoe and Swift may be said to have added some slight interest +in analysis pointing towards the psychologic method, which was +to find full expression in Samuel Richardson. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +EIGHTEENTH CENTURY BEGINNINGS: FIELDING + +It is interesting to ask if Henry Fielding, barrister, +journalist, tinker of plays and man-about-town, would ever have +turned novelist, had it not been for Richardson, his +predecessor. So slight, so seemingly accidental, are the +incidents which make or mar careers and change the course of +literary history. Certain it is that the immediate cause of +Fielding's first story was the effect upon him of the fortunes +of the virtuous Pamela. A satirist and humorist where Richardson +was a somewhat solemn sentimentalist, Fielding was quick to see +the weakness, and--more important,--the opportunity for +caricature, in such a tale, whose folk harangued about morality +and whose avowed motive was a kind of hard-surfaced, carefully +calculated honor, for sale to the highest bidder. It was easy to +recognize that Pamela was not only good but goody-goody. So +Fielding, being thirty-five years of age and of uncertain +income--he had before he was thirty squandered his mother's +estate,--turned himself, two years after "Pamela" had appeared, +to a new field and concocted the story known to the world of +letters as: "The Adventures of Joseph Andrews and His Friend +Abraham Adams." + +This Joseph purports to be the brother of Pamela (though the +denouement reveals him as more gently born) and is as virtuous +in his character of serving-man as the sister herself; indeed, +he outvirtues her. Fielding waggishly exhibits him in the full +exercise of a highly-starched decorum rebuffing the amatory +attempts of sundry ladies whose assault upon the citadel of his +honor is analogous to that of Mr. B.,--who naturally becomes +Squire Booby in Fielding's hands--upon the long suffering +Pamela. Thus, Lady Booby, in whose employ Joseph is footman, +after an invitation to him to kiss her which has been gently but +firmly refused, bursts out with: "Can a boy, a stripling, have +the confidence to talk of his virtue?" + +"Madam," says Joseph, "that boy is the brother of Pamela and +would be ashamed that the chastity of his family, which is +preserved in her, should be stained in him." + +The chance for fun is palpable here. But something unexpected +happened: what was begun as burlesque, almost horse-play, began +to pass from the key of shallow, lively satire, broadening and +deepening into a finer tone of truth. In a few chapters, by the +time the writer had got such an inimitable personage as Parson +Adams before the reader, it was seen that the book was to be +more than a jeu d'esprit: rather, the work of a master of +characterization. In short, Joseph Andrews started out +ostensibly to poke good-natured ridicule at sentimental Mr. +Richardson: it ended by furnishing contemporary London and all +subsequent readers with a notable example of the novel of +mingled character and incident, entertaining alike for its +lively episodes and its broadly genial delineation of types of +the time. And so he soon had the town laughing with him at his +broad comedy. + +In every respect Fielding made a sharp contrast with Richardson. +He was gentle-born, distinguished and fashionable in his +connections: the son of younger sons, impecunious, generous, of +strong often unregulated passions,--what the world calls a good +fellow, a man's man--albeit his affairs with the fair sex were +numerous. He knew high society when he choose to depict it: his +education compared with Richardson's was liberal and he based +his style of fiction upon models which the past supplied, +whereas Richardson had no models, blazed his own trail. +Fielding's literary ancestry looks back to "Gil Blas" and "Don +Quixote," and in English to "Robinson Crusoe." In other words, +his type, however much he departs from it, is the picturesque +story of adventure. He announced, in fact, on his title-page +that he wrote "in imitation of the manner of Cervantes." + +Again, his was a genius for comedy, where Richardson, as we have +seen, was a psychologist. The cleansing effect of wholesome +laughter and an outdoor gust of hale west wind is offered by +him, and with it go the rude, coarse things to be found in +Nature who is nevertheless in her influence so salutary, so +necessary, in truth, to our intellectual and moral health. Here +then was a sort of fiction at many removes from the slow, +analytic studies of Richardson: buoyant, objective, giving far +more play to action and incident, uniting in most agreeable +proportions the twin interests of character and event. The very +title of this first book is significant. We are invited to be +present at a delineation of two men,--but these men are +displayed in a series of adventures. Unquestionably, the +psychology is simpler, cruder, more elementary than that of +Richardson. Dr. Johnson, who much preferred the author of +"Pamela" to the author of "Tom Jones" and said so in the +hammer-and-tongs style for which he is famous, declared to Bozzy +that "there is all the difference in the world between characters +of nature and characters of manners: and there is the difference +between the characters of Fielding and those of Richardson. +Characters of manners are very entertaining; but they are to be +understood by a more superficial observer than characters of +nature, where a man must dive into the recesses of the human +heart." + +And although we may share Boswell's feeling that Johnson +estimated the compositions of Richardson too highly and that he +had an unreasonable prejudice against Fielding--since he was a +man of magnificent biases--yet we may grant that the critic-god +made a sound distinction here, that Fielding's method is +inevitably more external and shallow than that of an analyst +proper like Richardson; no doubt to the great joy of many weary +folk who go to novels for the rest and refreshment they give, +rather than for their thought-evoking value. + +The contrast between these novelists is maintained, too, in the +matter of style: Fielding walks with the easy undress of a +gentleman: Richardson sits somewhat stiff and pragmatical, +carefully arrayed in full-bottomed wig, and knee breeches, +delivering a lecture from his garden chair. Fielding is a master +of that colloquial manner afterwards handled with such success +by Thackeray: a manner "good alike for grave or gay," and making +this early fiction-maker enjoyable. Quite apart from our relish +of his vivid portrayals of life, we like his wayside chatting. +For another difference: there is no moral motto or announcement: +the lesson takes care of itself. What unity there is of +construction, is found in the fact that certain characters, more +or less related, are seen to walk centrally through the +narrative: there is little or no plot development in the modern +sense and the method (the method of the type) is frankly +episodic. + +In view of what the Novel was to become in the nineteenth +century, Richardson's way was more modern, and did more to set a +seal upon fiction than Fielding's: the Novel to-day is first of +all psychologic and serious. And the assertion is safe that all +the later development derives from these two kinds written by +the two greatest of the eighteenth century pioneers, Richardson +and Fielding: on the one hand, character study as a motive, on +the other the portrayal of personality surrounded by the +external factors of life. The wise combination of the two, gives +us that tangle of motive, act and circumstance which makes up +human existence. + +With regard to the morals of the story, a word may here be said, +having all Fielding's fiction in mind. Of the suggestive +prurience of much modern novelism, whether French or French-derived, +he, Fielding, is quite free: he deals with the sensual +relations with a frank acknowledgment of their physical basis. +The truth is, the eighteenth century, whether in England or +elsewhere, was on a lower plane in this respect than our own +time. Fielding, therefore, while he does no affront to essential +decency, does offend our taste, our refinement, in dealing with +this aspect of life. We have in a true sense become more +civilized since 1750: the ape and tiger of Tennyson's poem have +receded somewhat in human nature during the last century and a +half. The plea that since Fielding was a realist depicting +society as it was in his day, his license is legitimate, whereas +Richardson was giving a sort of sentimentalized stained-glass +picture of it not as it was but, in his opinion, should be,--is +a specious one; it is well that in literature, faithful +reflector of the ideals of the race, the beast should be allowed +to die (as Mr. Howells, himself a staunch realist, has said), +simply because it is slowly dying in life itself. Fielding's +novels in unexpurgated form are not for household reading to-day: +the fact may not be a reflection upon him, but it is surely +one to congratulate ourselves upon, since it testifies to social +evolution. However, for those whose experience of life is +sufficiently broad and tolerant, these novels hold no harm: +there is a tonic quality to them.--Even bowdlerization is not to +be despised with such an author, when it makes him suitable for +the hands of those who otherwise might receive injury from the +contact. The critic-sneer at such an idea forgets that good art +comes out of sound morality as well as out of sound esthetics. +It is pleasant to hear a critic of such standing as Brunetiere +in his "L'Art et Morale" speak with spiritual clarity upon this +subject, so often turned aside with the shrug of impatient +scorn. + +The episodic character of the story was to be the manner of +Fielding in all his fiction. There are detached bits of +narrative, stories within stories--witness that dealing with the +high comedy figures of Leonora and Bellamine--and the novelist +does not bother his head if only he can get his main characters +in motion,--on the road, in a tavern or kitchen brawl, astride a +horse for a cross-country dash after the hounds. Charles +Dickens, whose models were of the eighteenth century, made +similar use of the episode in his early work, as readers of +"Pickwick" may see for themselves. + +The first novel was received with acclaim and stirred up a +pretty literary quarrel, for Richardson and his admiring clique +would have been more than human had they not taken umbrage at so +obvious a satire. Recriminations were hot and many. + +Mr. Andrew Lang should give us in a dialogue between dead +authors, a meeting in Hades between the two; it would be worth +any climatic risk to be present and hear what was said; Lady +Mary, who may once more be put on the witness-stand, tells how, +being in residence in Italy, and a box of light literature from +England having arrived at ten o'clock of the night, she could +not but open it and "falling upon Fielding's works, was fool +enough to sit up all night reading. I think "Joseph Andrews" +better than his Foundling"--the reference being, of course, to +"Tom Jones"; a judgment not jumping with that of posterity, +which has declared the other to be his masterpiece; yet not an +opinion to be despised, coming from one of the keenest +intellects of the time. Lady Mary, whose cousin Fielding was, +had a clear eye alike for his literary merits and personal +foibles and faults, but heartily liked him and acted as his +literary mentor in his earlier days; his maiden play was +dedicated to her and her interest in him was more than passing. + +The Bohemian barrister and literary hack who had made a love-match +half a dozen years before and now had a wife and several +children to care for, must have been vastly encouraged by the +favorable reception of his first essay into fiction; at last, he +had found the kind of literature congenial to his talents and +likely to secure suitable renown: his metier as an artist of +letters was discovered, as we might now choose to express it; he +would hardly have taken himself so seriously. It was natural +that he should publish the next year a three volume collection +of his miscellany, which contained his second novel, "Mr. +Jonathan Wild The Great," distinctly the least liked of his four +stories, because of its bitter irony, its almost savage tone, +the gloom which surrounds the theme, a powerful, full-length +portrayal of a famous thief-taker of the period, from his birth +to his bad end on a Newgate gallows. Mr. Wild is a sort of +foreglimpse of the Sherlock Holmes-Raffles of our own day. + +Fielding's wife died this year and it may be that sorrow for her +fatal illness was the subjective cause of the tone of this +gruesomely attractive piece of fiction; but there is some reason +for believing it to be an earlier work than "Joseph Andrews"; it +belongs to a more primitive type of story-making, because of its +sensational features: its dependence for interest upon the seamy +side of aspects of life exhibited like magic lantern slides with +little connection, but spectacular effects. The satire of the +book is directed at that immoral confusion between greatness and +goodness, the rascally Jonathan being pictured in grave mock-heroics +as in every way worthy--and the sardonic force at times +almost suggests the pen of Dean Swift. + +But such work was but a prelude to what was to follow. When the +world thinks of Henry Fielding it thinks of "Tom Jones," it is +almost as if he had written naught else. "The History of Tom +Jones, A Foundling" appeared six years after "Jonathan Wild," +the intermediate time (aside from the novel itself) being +consumed in editing journals and officiating as a Justice of +the Peace: the last a role it is a little difficult, in the +theater phrase, to see him in. He was two and forty when the +book was published: but as he had been at work upon it for a +long while (he speaks of the thousands of hours he had been +toiling over it), it may be ascribed to that period of a man's +growth when he is passing intellectually from youth to early +maturity; everything considered, perhaps the best productive +period. His health had already begun to break: and he was by no +means free of the harassments of debt. Although successful in +his former attempt at fiction, novel writing was but an aside +with him, after all; he had not during the previous six years +given regular time and attention to literary composition, as a +modern story-maker would have done under the stimulus of like +encouragement. The eighteenth century audience, it must be borne +in mind, was not large enough nor sufficiently eager for an +attractive new form of literature, to justify a man of many +trades like Fielding in devoting his days steadily to the +writing of fiction. There is to the last an effect of the gifted +amateur about him; Taine tells the anecdote of his refusal to +trouble himself to change a scene in one of his plays, which +Garrick begged him to do: "Let them find it out," he said, +referring to the audience. And when the scene was hissed, he +said to the disconsolate player: "I did not: give them credit +for it: they have found it out, have they?" In other words, he +was knowing to his own poor art, content if only it escaped the +public eye. This is some removes from the agonizing over a +phrase of a Flaubert. + +Like the preceding story, "Tom Jones" has its center of plot in +a life history of the foundling who grows into a young manhood +that is full of high spirits and escapades: likable always, even +if, judged by the straight-laced standards of Richardson, one +may not approve. Jones loves Sophia Western, daughter of a +typical three-bottle, hunting squire: of course he prefers the +little cad Blifil, with his money and position, where poor Tom +has neither: equally of course Sophia (whom the reader heartily +likes, in spite of her name) prefers the handsome Jones with his +blooming complexion and many amatory adventures. And, since we +are in the simple-minded days of fiction when it was the +business of the sensible novelist to make us happy at the close, +the low-born lover, assisted by Squire Allworthy, who is a deus +ex machina a trifle too good for human nature's daily food, gets +his girl (in imitation of Joseph Andrews) and is shown to be +close kin to Allworthy--tra-la-la, tra-la-lee, it is all +charmingly simple and easy! The beginners of the English novel +had only a few little tricks in their box in the way of incident +and are for the most part innocent of plot in the Wilkie Collins +sense of the word. The opinion of Coleridge that the "Oedipus +Tyrannus," "The Alchemist" and "Tom Jones" are "the three most +perfect plots ever planned" is a curious comment upon his +conception of fiction, since few stories have been more plotless +than Fielding's best book. The fact is, biographical fiction +like this is to be judged by itself, it has its own laws of +technique. + +The glory of "Tom Jones" is in its episodes, its crowded canvas, +the unfailing verve and variety of its action: in the fine open-air +atmosphere of the scenes, the sense of the stir of life they +convey: most of all, in an indescribable manliness or humanness +which bespeaks the true comic force--something of that same +comic view that one detects in Shakspere and Moliere and +Cervantes. It means an open-eyed acceptance of life, a +realization of its seriousness yet with the will to take it with +a smile: a large tolerancy which forbids the view conventional +or parochial or aristocratic--in brief, the view limited. There +is this in the book, along with much psychology so superficial +as to seem childish, and much interpretation that makes us feel +that the higher possibilities of men and women are not as yet +even dreamed of. In this novel, Fielding makes fuller use than +he had before of the essay link: the chapters introductory to +the successive books,--and in them, a born essayist, as your +master of style is pretty sure to be, he discourses in the +wisest and wittiest way on topics literary, philosophical or +social, having naught to do with the story in hand, it may be, +but highly welcome for its own sake. This manner of pausing by +the way for general talk about the world in terms of Me has been +used since by Thackeray, with delightful results: but has now +become old-fashioned, because we conceive it to be the +novelist's business to stick close to his story and not obtrude +his personality at all. Thackeray displeases a critic like Mr. +James by his postscript harangues about himself as Showman, +putting his puppets into the box and shutting up his booth: +fiction is too serious a matter to be treated so lightly by its +makers--to say nothing of the audience: it is more, much more +than mere fooling and show-business. But to go back to the +eighteenth century is to realize that the novel is being newly +shaped, that neither novelist nor novel-reader is yet awake to +the higher conception of the genre. So we wax lenient and are +glad enough to get these resting-places of chat and charm from +Fielding: it may not be war, but it is nevertheless magnificent. + +Fielding in this fiction is remarkable for his keen observation +of every-day life and character, the average existence in town +and country of mankind high and low: he is a truthful reporter, +the verisimilitude of the picture is part of its attraction. It +is not too much to say that, pictorially, he is the first great +English realist of the Novel. For broad comedy presentation he +is unsurpassed: as well as for satiric gravity of comment and +illustration. It may be questioned, however, whether when he +strives to depict the deeper phases of human relations he is so +much at home or anything like so happy. There is no more +critical test of a novelist than his handling of the love +passion. Fielding essays in "Tom Jones" to show the love between +two very likable flesh-and-blood young folk: the many mishaps of +the twain being but an embroidery upon the accepted fact that +the course of true love never did run smooth. There is a certain +scene which gives us an interview between Jones and Sophia, +following on a stormy one between father and daughter, during +which the Squire has struck his child to the ground and left her +there with blood and tears streaming down her face. Her +disobedience in not accepting the addresses of the unspeakable +Blifil is the cause of the somewhat drastic parental treatment. +Jones has assured the Squire that he can make Sophia see the +error of her ways and has thus secured a moment with her. He +finds her just risen from the ground, in the sorry plight +already described. Then follows this dialogue: + + 'O, my Sophia, what means this dreadful sight?' + + She looked softly at him for a moment before she spoke, and + then said: + + 'Mr. Jones, for Heaven's sake, how came you here? Leave me, + I beseech you, this moment.' + + 'Do not,' says he, 'impose so harsh a command upon me. My + heart bleeds faster than those lips. O Sophia, how easily + could I drain my veins to preserve one drop of that dear + blood.' + + 'I have too many obligations to you already,' answered she, + 'for sure you meant them such.' + + Here she looked at him tenderly almost a minute, and then + bursting into an agony, cried: + + 'Oh, Mr. Jones, why did you save my life? My death would + have been happier for us both.' + + 'Happy for us both!' cried he. 'Could racks or wheels kill + me so painfully as Sophia's--I cannot bear the dreadful + sound. Do I live but for her?' + + Both his voice and look were full of irrepressible + tenderness when he spoke these words; and at the same time + he laid gently hold on her hand, which she did not withdraw + from him; to say the truth, she hardly knew what she did or + suffered. A few moments now passed in silence between these + lovers, while his eyes were eagerly fixed on Sophia, and + hers declining toward the ground; at last she recovered + strength enough to desire him again to leave her, for that + her certain ruin would be the consequence of their being + found together; adding: + + 'Oh, Mr. Jones, you know not, you know not what hath passed + this cruel afternoon.' + + 'I know all, my Sophia,' answered he; 'your cruel father + hath told me all, and he himself hath sent me hither to + you.' + + 'My father sent you to me!' replied she: 'sure you dream!' + + 'Would to Heaven,' cried he, 'it was but a dream. Oh! + Sophia, your father hath sent me to you, to be an advocate + for my odious rival, to solicit you in his favor. I took + any means to get access to you. O, speak to me, Sophia! + Comfort my bleeding heart. Sure no one ever loved, ever + doted, like me. Do not unkindly withhold this dear, this + soft, this gentle hand--one moment perhaps tears you + forever from me. Nothing less than this cruel occasion + could, I believe, have ever conquered the respect and love + with which you have inspired me.' + + She stood a moment silent, and covered with confusion; + then, lifting up her eyes gently towards him, she cried: + + 'What would Mr. Jones have me say?' + + +We would seem to have here a writer not quite in his native +element. He intends to interest us in a serious situation. +Sophia is on the whole natural and winning, although one may +stop to imagine what kind of an agony is that which allows of so +mathematical a division of time as is implied in the statement +that she looked at her lover--tenderly, too, forsooth!--"almost +a minute." The mood of mathematics and the mood of emotion, each +excellent in itself, do not go together in life as they do in +eighteenth century fiction. But in the general impression she +makes, Sophia, let us concede, is sweet and realizable. But +Jones, whom we have long before this scene come to know and be +fond of--Jones is here a prig, a bore, a dummy. Sir Charles +Grandison in all his woodenness is not arrayed like one of +these. Consider the situation further: Sophia is in grief; she +has blood and tears on her face--what would any lover,--nay, any +respectable young man do in the premises? Surely, stanch her +wounds, dry her eyes, comfort her with a homely necessary +handkerchief. But not so Jones: he is not a real man but a +melodramatic lay-figure, playing to the gallery as he spouts +speeches about the purely metaphoric bleeding of his heart, +oblivious of the disfigurement of his sweetheart's visage from +real blood. He insults her by addressing her in the third +person, mouths sentiments about his "odious rival" (a phrase +with a superb Bowery smack to it!) and in general so disports +himself as to make an effect upon the reader of complete +unreality. This was no real scene to Fielding himself: why then +should it be true: it has neither the accent nor the motion of +life. The novelist is being "literary," is not warm to his work +at all. When we turn from this attempt to the best love scenes +in modern hands, the difference is world-wide. And this +unreality--which violates the splendid credibility of the hero +in dozens of other scenes in the book,--is all the worse coming +from a writer who expressly announces his intention to destroy +the prevalent conventional hero of fiction and set up something +better in his place. Whereas Tom in the quoted scene is nothing +if not conventional and drawn in the stock tradition of mawkish +heroics. The plain truth is that with Fielding love is an +appetite rather than a sentiment and he is only completely at +ease when painting its rollicking, coarse and passional aspects. + +In its unanalytic method and loose construction this Novel, +compared with Richardson, is a throw-back to a more primitive +pattern, as we saw was the case with Fielding's first fiction. +But in another important characteristic of the modern Novel it +surpasses anything that had earlier appeared: I refer to the way +it puts before the reader a great variety of human beings, so +that a sense of teeming existence is given, a genuine imitation +of the spatial complexity of life, if not of its depths. It is +this effect, afterwards conveyed in fuller measure by Balzac, by +Dickens, by Victor Hugo and by Tolstoy, that gives us the +feeling that we are in the presence of a master of men, whatever +his limitations of period or personality. + +How delightful are the subsidiary characters in the book! One +such is Partridge, the unsophisticated schoolmaster who, when he +attends the theater with Tom and hears Garrick play "Hamlet," +thinks but poorly of the player because he only does what +anybody would do under the circumstances! All-worthy and Blifil +one may object to, each in his kind, for being conventionally +good and bad, but in numerous male characters in less important +roles there is compensation: the gypsy episode, for example, is +full of raciness and relish. And what a gallery of women we get +in the story: Mrs. Honour the maid, and Miss Western (who in +some sort suggests Mrs. Nickleby), Mrs. Miller, Lady Bellaston, +Mrs. Waters and other light-of-loves and dames of folly, whose +dubious doings are carried off with such high good humor that we +are inclined to overlook their misdeeds. There is a Chaucerian +freshness about it all: at times comes the wish that such talent +were used in a better cause. A suitable sub-title for the story, +would be: Or Life in The Tavern, so large a share do Inns have +in its unfolding. Fielding would have yielded hearty assent to +Dr. Johnson's dictum that a good inn stood for man's highest +felicity here below: he relished the wayside comforts of cup and +bed and company which they afford. + +"Tom Jones" quickly crossed the seas, was admired in foreign +lands. I possess a manuscript letter of Heine's dated from Mainz +in 1830, requesting a friend to send him this novel: the German +poet represents, in the request, the literary class which has +always lauded Fielding's finest effort, while the wayfaring man +who picks it up, also finds it to his liking. Thus it secures +and is safe in a double audience. Yet we must return to the +thought that such a work is strictly less significant in the +evolution of the modern Novel, because of its form, its +reversion to type, than the model established by a man like +Richardson, who is so much more restricted in gift. + +Fielding's fourth and final story, "Amelia," was given to the +world two years later, and but three years before his premature +death at Lisbon at the age of forty-nine--worn out by irregular +living and the vicissitudes of a career which had been checkered +indeed. He did strenuous work as a Justice these last years and +carried on an efficacious campaign against criminals: but the +lights were dimming, the play was nearly over. The pure gust of +life which runs rampant and riotous in the pages of "Tom Jones" +is tempered in "Amelia" by a quieter, sadder tone and a more +philosophic vision. It is in this way a less characteristic +work, for it was of Fielding's nature to be instantly responsive +to good cheer and the creature comforts of life. When she got +the news of his death, Lady Mary wrote of him: "His happy +constitution (even when he had, with great pains, half +demolished it) made him forget everything when he was before a +venison pastry or over a flask of champagne; and I am persuaded +he has known more happy moments than any prince upon earth. His +natural spirits gave him rapture with his cook-maid and +cheerfulness in a garret." Here is a kit-kat showing the man +indeed: all his fiction may be read in the light of it. The main +interest in "Amelia" is found in its autobiographical flavor, +for the story, in describing the fortunes--or rather +misfortunes--of Captain Booth and his wife, drew, it is pretty +certain, upon Fielding's own traits and to some extent upon the +incidents of his earlier life. The scenes where the Captain sets +up for a country gentleman with his horses and hounds and +speedily runs through his patrimony, is a transcript of his own +experience: and Amelia herself is a sort of memorial to his +well-beloved first wife (he had married for a second his honest, +good-hearted kitchen-maid), who out of affection must have +endured so much in daily contact with such a character as that +of her charming husband. In the novel, Mrs. Booth always +forgives, even as the Captain ever goes wrong. There would be +something sad in such a clear-eyed comprehension of one's own +weakness, if we felt compelled to accept the theory that he was +here drawing his own likeness; which must not be pushed too far, +for the Captain is one thing Fielding never was--to wit, stupid. +There is in the book much realism of scene and incident; but its +lack of animal spirits has always militated against the +popularity of "Amelia"; in fact, it is accurate to say that +Fielding's contemporary public, and the reading world ever +since, has confined its interest in his work to "Joseph Andrews" +and "Tom Jones." + +The pathos of his ending, dying in Portugal whither he had gone +on a vain quest for health, and his companionable qualities +whether as man or author, can but make him a more winsome figure +to us than proper little Mr. Richardson; and possibly this +feeling has affected the comparative estimates of the two +writers. One responds readily to the sentiment of Austin +Dobson's fine poem on Fielding: + +"Beneath the green Estrella trees, +No artist merely, but a man +Wrought on our noblest island-plan, +Sleeps with the alien Portuguese." + +And in the same way we are sympathetic with Thackeray in the +lecture on the English humorists: "Such a brave and gentle +heart, such an intrepid and courageous spirit, I love to +recognize in the manly, the English Harry Fielding." Imagine any +later critic calling Richardson "Sam!" It is inconceivable. + + * * * * * + +Such then were the two men who founded the English Novel, and +such their work. Unlike in many respects, both as personalities +and literary makers, they were, after all, alike in this: they +showed the feasibility of making the life of contemporary +society interesting in prose fiction. That was their great +common triumph and it remains the keynote of all the subsequent +development in fiction. They accomplished this, each in his own +way: Richardson by sensibility often degenerating into +sentimentality, and by analysis--the subjective method; Fielding +by satire and humor (often coarse, sometimes bitter) and the +wide envisagement of action and scene--the method objective. +Richardson exhibits a somewhat straitened propriety and a narrow +didactic tradesman's morality, with which we are now out of +sympathy. Fielding, on the contrary, with the abuse of his good +gift for tolerant painting of seamy human nature, gives way +often to an indulgence of the lower instincts of mankind which, +though faithfully reflecting his age, are none the less +unpleasant to modern taste. Both are men of genius, Fielding's +being the larger and more universal: nothing but genius could +have done such original things as were achieved by the two. +Nevertheless, set beside the great masters of fiction who were +to come, and who will be reviewed in these pages, they are seen +to have been excelled in art and at least equaled in gift and +power. So much we may properly claim for the marvelous growth +and ultimate degree of perfection attained by the best novel-makers +of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It remains now +to show what part was played in the eighteenth century +development by certain other novelists, who, while not of the +supreme importance of these two leaders, yet each and all +contributed to the shaping of the new fiction and did their +share in leaving it at the century's end a perfected instrument, +to be handled by a finished artist like Jane Austen. We must +take some cognizance, in special, of writers like Smollett and +Sterne and Goldsmith--potent names, evoking some of the +pleasantest memories open to one who browses in the rich meadow +lands of English literature. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +DEVELOPMENTS; SMOLLETT, STERNE AND OTHERS + +The popularity of Richardson and Fielding showed itself in a +hearty public welcome: and also in that sincerest form of +flattery, imitation. Many authors began to write the new +fiction. Where once a definite demand is recognized in +literature, the supply, more or less machine-made, is sure to +follow. + +In the short quarter of a century between "Pamela" and "The +Vicar of Wakefield," the Novel got its growth, passed out of +leading strings into what may fairly be called independence and +maturity: and by the time Goldsmith's charming little classic +was written, the shelves were comfortably filled with novels +recent or current, giving contemporary literature quite the air +so familiar to-day. Only a little later, we find the Gentleman's +Magazine, a trustworthy reporter of such matters, speaking of +"this novel-writing age." The words were written in 1773, a +generation after Richardson had begun the form. Still more +striking testimony, so far back as 1755, when Richardson's +maiden story was but a dozen years old, a writer in "The +Connoisseur" is facetiously proposing to establish a factory for +the fashioning of novels, with one, a master workman, to furnish +plots and subordinates to fill in the details--an anticipation +of the famous literary menage of Dumas pere. + +Although there was, under these conditions, inevitable imitation +of the new model, there was a deeper reason for the rapid +development. The time was ripe for this kind of fiction: it was +in the air, as we have already tried to suggest. Hence, other +fiction-makers began to experiment with the form, this being +especially true of Smollett. Out of many novelists, feeble or +truly called, a few of the most important must be mentioned. + + +I + +The Scotch-born Tobias Smollett published his first fiction, +"Roderick Random," eight years after "Pamela" had appeared, and +the year before "Tom Jones"; it was exactly contemporaneous with +"Clarissa Harlowe," A strict contemporary, then, with Richardson +and Fielding, he was also the ablest novelist aside from them, a +man whose work was most influential in the later development. It +is not unusual to dismiss him in a sentence as a coarser +Fielding. The characterization hits nearer the bull's eye than +is the rule with such sayings, and more vulgar than the greater +writer he certainly is, brutal where Fielding is vigorous: and +he exhibits and exaggerates the latter's tendencies to the +picaresque, the burlesque and the episodic. His fiction is of +the elder school in its loose fiber, its external method of +dealing with incident and character. There is little or nothing +in Smollett of the firm-knit texture and subjective analysis of +the moderns. Thus the resemblances are superficial, the +differences deeper-going and palpable. Smollett is often +violent, Fielding never: there is an impression of +cosmopolitanism in the former--a wider survey of life, if only +on the surface, is given in his books. By birth, Smollett was of +the gentry; but by the time he was twenty he had seen service as +Surgeon's Mate in the British navy, and his after career as Tory +Editor, at times in prison, literary man and traveler who +visited many lands and finally, like Fielding, died abroad in +Italy, was checkered enough to give him material and to spare +for the changeful bustle, so rife with action and excitement, of +his four principal stories. Like the American Cooper, he drew +upon his own experiences for his picture of the navy; and like a +later American, Dr. Holmes, was a physician who could speak by +the card of that side of life. + +Far more closely than Fielding he followed the "Gil Blas" model, +depending for interest primarily upon adventures by the way, +moving accidents by flood and field. He declares, in fact, his +intention to use Le Sage as a literary father and he translated +"Gil Blas." In striking contrast, too, with Fielding is the +interpretation of life one gets from his books; with the author +of "Tom Jones" we feel, what we do in greater degree with +Shakespeare and Balzac, that the personality of the fiction-maker +is healthily merged in his characters, in the picture of +life. But in the case of Dr. Smollett, there is a strongly +individual satiric bias: less of that largeness which sees the +world from an unimplicated coign of vantage, whence the open-eyed, +wise-minded spectator finds it a comedy breeding laughter +under thoughtful brows. We seem to be getting not so much scenes +of life as an author's setting of the scene for his own private +reasons. Such is at least the occasional effect of Smollett. +Also is there more of bitterness, of savagery in him: and where +Fielding was broad and racily frank in his handling of delicate +themes, this fellow is indecent with a kind of hardness and +brazenness which are amazing. The difference between plain-speaking +and unclean speaking could hardly be better +illustrated. It should be added, in justice, that even Smollett +is rarely impure with the alluring saliency of certain modern +fiction. + +In the first story, "The Adventures of Roderick Random" (the +cumbrous full titles of earlier fiction are for apparent reasons +frequently curtailed in the present treatment), published when +the author was twenty-seven, he avails himself of a residence of +some years in Jamaica to depict life in that quarter of the +world at a time when the local color had the charm of novelty. +The story is often credited with being autobiographic, as a +novelist's first book is likely to be; since, by popular belief, +there is one story in all of us, namely, our own. Its +description of the hero's hard knocks does, indeed, suggest the +fate of a man so stormily quarrelsome throughout his days: for +this red-headed Scot, this "hack of genius," as Henley +picturesquely calls him, was naturally a fighting man and, +whether as man or author, attacks or repels sharply: there is +nothing uncertain in the effect he makes. His loud vigor is as +pronounced as that of a later Scot like Carlyle; yet he stated +long afterward that the likeness between himself and Roderick +was slight and superficial. The fact that the tale is written in +the first person also helps the autobiographic theory: that +method of story-making always lends a certain credence to the +narrative. The scenes shift from western Scotland to the streets +of London, thence to the West Indies: and the interest (the +remark applies to all Smollett's work) lies in just three +things--adventure, diversity of character, and the realistic +picture of contemporary life--especially that of the navy on a +day when, if Smollett is within hailing distance of the facts, +it was terribly corrupt. Too much credit can hardly be given him +for first using, so effectively too, the professional sea-life +of his country: a motive so richly productive since through +Marryat down to Dana, Herman Melville, Clark Russell and many +other favorite writers, both British and American. In Smollett's +hands, it is a strange muddle of religion, farce and smut, but +set forth with a vivid particularity and a gusto f high spirits +which carry the reader along, willy-nilly. Such a book might be +described by the advertisement of an old inn: "Here is +entertainment for man and beast." As to characterization, if a +genius for it means the creation of figures which linger in the +familiar memory of mankind, Smollett must perforce be granted +the faculty; here in his first book are Tom Bowling and Strap--to +name two--the one (like Richardson's Lovelace) naming a type: +the other standing for the country innocent, the meek fidus +Achates, both as good as anything of the same class in Fielding. +The Welsh mate, Mr. Morgan, for another of the sailor sort, is +also excellent. The judgment may be eccentric, but for myself +the character parts in Smollett's dramas seem for variety and +vividness often superior to those of Fielding. The humor at its +best is very telling. The portraits, or caricatures, of living +folk added to the story's immediate vogue, but injure it as a +permanent contribution to fiction. + +A fair idea of the nature of the attractions offered (and at the +same time a clear indication of the sort of fiction manufactured +by the doughty doctor) may be gleaned from the following +precis--Smollett's own--of Chapter XXXVIII: "I get up and crawl +into a barn where I am in danger of perishing through the fear of +the country people. Their inhumanity. I am succored by a reputed +witch. Her story. Her advice. She recommends me as a valet to a +single lady whose character she explains." This promises pretty +fair reading: of course, we wish to read on and to learn more of +that single lady and the hero's relation to her. Such a motive, +which might be called, "The Mistakes of a Night," with details +too crude and physical to allow of discussion, is often +overworked by Smollett (as, in truth, it is by Fielding, to +modern taste): the eighteenth century had not yet given up the +call of the Beast in its fiction--an element of bawdry was still +welcome in the print offered reputable folk. + +The style of Smollett in his first fiction, and in general, has +marked dramatic flavor: his is a gift of forthright phrase, a +plain, vernacular smack characterizes his diction. To go back to +him now is to be surprised perhaps at the racy vigor of so +faulty a writer and novelist. A page or so of Smollett, after a +course in present-day popular fiction, reads very much like a +piece of literature. In this respect, he seems full of flavor, +distinctly of the major breed: there is an effect of passing +from attenuated parlor tricks into the open, when you take him +up. Here, you can but feel, is a masculine man of letters, even +if it is his fate to play second fiddle to Fielding. + +Smollett's initial story was a pronounced success with the +public--and he aired an arrogant joy and pooh-poohed +insignificant rivals like Fielding. His hand was against every +man's when it came to the question of literary prowess; and like +many authors before and since, one of his first acts upon the +kind reception of "Roderick Random," was to get published his +worthless blank-verse tragedy, "The Regicide," which, refused by +Garrick, had till then languished in manuscript and was an ugly +duckling beloved of its maker. Then came Novel number two, "The +Adventures of Peregrine Pickle," three years after the first: an +unequal book, best at its beginning and end, full of violence, +not on the whole such good art-work as the earlier fiction, yet +very fine in spots and containing such additional sea-dogs as +Commodore Trunnion and Lieutenant Hatchway, whose presence makes +one forgive much. The original preface contained a scurrilous +reference to Fielding, against whom he printed a diatribe in a +pamphlet dated the next year. The hero of the story, a handsome +ne'er-do-well who has money and position to start the world +with, encounters plenty of adventure in England and out of it, +by land and sea. There is an episodic book, "Memoirs, supposed +to be written by a lady of quality," and really giving the +checkered career of Lady Vane, a fast gentlewoman of the time, +done for pay at her request, which is illustrative of the loose +state of fictional art in its unrelated, lugged-in character: +and as well of eighteenth century morals in its drastic details. +We have seen that Fielding was frankly episodic in handling a +story; Smollett goes him one better: as may most notoriously be +seen also in the unmentionable Miss Williams' story in "Roderick +Random"--in fact, throughout his novels. Pickle, to put it +mildly, is not an admirable young man. An author's conception of +his hero is always in some sort a give-away: it expresses his +ideals; that Smollett's are sufficiently low-pitched, may be +seen here. Plainly, to, he likes Peregrine, and not so much +excuses his failings as overlooks them entirely. + +After a two years' interval came "The Adventures of Ferdinand, +Count Fathom," which was not liked by his contemporaries and is +now seen to be definitely the poorest of the quartette. It is +enough to say of it that Fathom is an unmitigable scoundrel and +the story, mixed romance and melodrama, offers the reader dust +and ashes instead of good red blood. It lacks the comic verve of +Smollett's typical fiction and manipulates virtue and vice in +the cut-and-dried style of the penny-dreadful. Even its attempts +at the sensational leave the modern reader, bred on such +heavenly fare as is proffered by Stevenson and others, +indifferent-cold. + +It is a pleasure to turn from it to what is generally conceded +to be the best novel he wrote, as it is his last: "The +Expedition of Humphrey Clinker," which appeared nearly twenty +years later, when the author was fifty years old. "The +Adventures of Sir Launcelot Graves," written in prison a decade +earlier, and a poor satire in the vein of Cervantes, can be +ignored, it falls so much below Smollett's main fiction. He had +gone for his health's sake to Italy and wrote "Humphrey Clinker" +at Leghorn, completing it only within a few weeks of his death. +For years he had been degenerating as a writer, his physical +condition was of the worst: it looked as if his life was quite +over. Yet, by a sort of leaping-up of the creative flame out of +the dying embers of the hearth, he wrought his masterpiece. + +It was thrown into letter form, Richardson's framework, and has +all of Smollett's earlier power of characterization and brusque +wit, together with a more genial, mellower tone, that of an +older man not soured but ripened by the years. Some of its main +scenes are enacted in his native Scotland and possibly this +meant strength for another Scot, as it did for Sir Walter and +Stevenson. The kinder interpretation of humanity in itself makes +the novel better reading to later taste; so much can not +honestly be said for its plain speaking, for as Henley says in +language which sounds as if it were borrowed from the writer he +is describing, "the stinks and nastinesses are done with +peculiar gusto." The idea of the story, as usual a pivot around +which to revolve a series of adventures, is to narrate how a +certain bachelor, country gentleman, Matthew Bramble, a malade +imaginaire, yet good-hearted and capable of big laughter--"the +most risible misanthrope ever met with," as he is limned by one +of the persons of the story--travels in England, Wales and +Scotland in pursuit of health, taking with him his family, of +whom the main members include his sister, Tabitha (and her maid, +Jenkins), and his nephew, not overlooking the dog, Chowder. +Clinker, who names the book, is a subsidiary character, merely a +servant in Bramble's establishment. The crotchety Bramble and +his acidulous sister, who is a forerunner of Mrs. Malaprop in +the unreliability of her spelling, and Lieutenant Lishmahago, +who has been complimented as the first successful Scotchman in +fiction--all these are sketched with a verity and in a vein of +genuine comic invention which have made them remembered. +Violence, rage, filth--Smollett's besetting sins--are forgotten +or forgiven in a book which has so much of the flavor and +movement of life, The author's medical lore is made good use of +in the humorous descriptions of poor Bramble's ailments. +Incidentally, the story defends the Scotch against the English +in such a pronounced way that Walpole calls it a "part novel"; +and there is, moreover, a pleasant love story interwoven with +the comedy and burlesque. One feels in leaving this fiction that +with all allowance for his defects, there is more danger of +undervaluing the author's powers and place in the modern Novel +than the reverse. + +Fielding and Smollett together set the pace for the Novel of +blended incident and character: both were, as sturdy realists, +reactionary from the sentimental analysis of Richardson and +express an instinct contrary to the self-conscious pathos of a +Sterne or the idyllic romanticism of a Goldsmith. Both were +directly of influence upon the Novel's growth in the nineteenth +century: Fielding especially upon Thackeray, Smollett upon +Dickens. If Smollett had served the cause in no other way than +in his strong effect upon the author of "The Pickwick Papers," +he would deserve well of all critics: how the little Copperfield +delighted in that scant collection of books on his father's +bookshelf, where were "Roderick Random," "Peregrine Pickle" and +"Humphrey Clinker," along with "Tom Jones," "The Vicar of +Wakefield," "Gil Blas" and "Robinson Crusoe"--"a glorious host," +says he, "to keep me company. They kept alive my fancy and my +hope of something beyond that time and place." And of Smollett's +characters, who seem to have charmed him more than Fielding's, +he declares: "I have seen Tom Pipes go clambering up the +church-steeple: I have watched Strap with the knapsack on his back +stopping to rest himself upon the wicket gate: and I know that +Commodore Trunnion held that Club with Mr. Pickle in the parlor +of our little village ale house." Children are shrewd critics, +in their way, and what an embryo Charles Dickens likes in +fiction is not to be slighted. But as we have seen, Smollett can +base his claims to our sufferance not by indirection through +Dickens, but upon his worth; many besides the later and greater +novelist have a liking for this racy writer of adventure, and +creator of English types, who was recognized by Walter Scott as +of kin to the great in fiction. + + +II + +In the fast-developing fiction of the late eighteenth century, +the possible ramifications of the Novel from the parent tree of +Richardson enriched it with the work of Sterne, Swift and +Goldsmith. They added imaginative narratives of one sort or +another, which increased the content of the form by famous +things and exercised some influence in shaping it. The remark +has in mind "Tristram Shandy," "Gulliver's Travels" and "The +Vicar of Wakefield." And yet, no one of the three was a Novel in +the sense in which the evolution of the word has been traced, +nor yet are the authors strictly novelists. + +Laurence Sterne, at once man of the world and clergyman, with +Rabelais as a model, and himself a master of prose, possessing +command of humor and pathos, skilled in character sketch and +essay-philosophy, is not a novelist at all. His aim Is not to +depict the traits or events of contemporary society, but to put +forth the views of the Reverend Laurence Sterne, Yorkshire +parson, with many a quaint turn and whimsical situation under a +thin disguise of story-form. Of his two books, "Tristram Shandy" +and "The Sentimental Journey," unquestionable classics, both, in +their field, there is no thought of plot or growth or objective +realization: the former is a delightful tour de force in which a +born essayist deals with the imaginary fortunes of a person he +makes as interesting before his birth as after it, and in +passing, sketches some characters dear to posterity: first and +foremost, Uncle Toby and Corporal Trim. It is all pure play of +wit, fancy and wisdom, beneath the comic mask--a very frolic of +the mind. In the second book the framework is that of the +travel-sketch and the treatment more objective: a fact which, +along with its dubious propriety, may account for its greater +popularity. But much of the charm comes, as before, from the +writer's touch, his gift of style and ability to unloose in the +essay manner a unique individuality. + +In his life Sterne, like Swift, exhibited most un-clerical +traits of worldliness and in his work there is the refined, +suggestive indelicacy, not to say indecency, which we are in the +habit nowadays of charging against the French, and which is so +much worse than the bluff, outspoken coarseness of a Fielding or +a Smollett. At times the line between Sterne and Charles Lamb is +not so easy to draw in that, from first to last, the elder is an +essayist and humorist, while the younger has so much of the +eighteenth century in his feeling and manner. In these modern +times, when so many essayists appear in the guise of fiction-makers, +we can see that Sterne is really the leader of the +tribe: and it is not hard to show how neither he nor they are +novelists divinely called. They (and he) may be great, but it is +another greatness. The point is strikingly illustrated by the +statement that Sterne was eight years publishing the various +parts of "Tristram Shandy," and a man of forty-six when he began +to do so. Bona fide novels are not thus written. Constructively, +the work is a mad farrago; but the end quite justifies the +means. Thus, while his place in letters is assured, and the +touch of the cad in him (Goldsmith called him "the blackguard +parson") should never blind us to his prime merits, his +significance for our particular study--the study of the modern +Novel in its development--is comparatively slight. Like all +essayists of rank he left memorable passages: the world never +tires of "God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb," and pays it +the high compliment of ascribing it to holy writ: nor will the +scene where the recording angel blots out Uncle Toby's generous +oath with a tear, fade from the mind; nor that of the same +kindly gentleman letting go the big fly which has, to his +discomfiture, been buzzing about his nose at dinner: "'Go,' says +he, lifting up the latch and opening his hand as he spoke to let +it escape. 'Go, poor devil, get thee gone, why should I hurt +thee? The world surely is wide enough to hold both thee and +me'"--a touch so modern as to make Sterne seem a century later +than Fielding. These are among the precious places of +literature. This eighteenth century divine has in advance of his +day the subtler sensibility which was to grow so strong in later +fiction: and if he be sentimental too, he gives us a +sentimentality unlike the solemn article of Richardson, because +of its French grace and its relief of delicious humor. + + +III + +Swift chronologically precedes Sterne, for in 1726, shortly +after "Robinson Crusoe" and a good fifteen years before +"Pamela," he gave the world that unique lucubration, "Gulliver's +Travels," allegory, satire and fairy story all in one. It is +certainly anything but a novel. One of the giants of English +letters, doing many things and exhibiting a sardonic personality +that seems to peer through all his work, Swift's contribution to +the coming Novel was above all the use of a certain grave, +realistic manner of treating the impossible: a service, however, +shared with Defoe. He gives us in a matter-of-fact chronicle +style the marvelous happenings of Gulliver in Lilliputian land +or in that of the Brobdingnagians. He and Defoe are to be +regarded as pioneers who suggested to the literary world, just +before the Novel's advent, that the attraction of a new form and +a new method, the exploitation of the truth that, "The proper +study of mankind is man," could not (and should not) kill the +love of romance, for the good and sufficient reason that romance +meant imagination, illusion, charm, poetry. And in due season, +after the long innings enjoyed by realism with its triumphs of +analysis and superfaithful transcriptions of the average life of +man, we shall behold the change of mood which welcomes back the +older appeal of fiction. + + +IV + +It was the enlargement of this sense of romance which Oliver +Goldsmith gave his time in that masterpiece in small, "The Vicar +of Wakefield": his special contribution to the plastic +variations connected with the growing pains of the Novel. +Whether regarded as poet, essayist, dramatist or story-maker, +Dr. Goldsmith is one of the best-loved figures of English +letters, as Swift is one of the most terrible. And these lovable +qualities are nowhere more conspicuous than in the idyllic +sketch of the country clergyman and his family. Romance it +deserves to be called, because of the delicate idealization in +the setting and in the portrayal of the Vicar himself--a man who +not only preached God's love, "but first he followed it +himself." And yet the book--which, by the bye, was published in +1766 just as the last parts of "Tristram Shandy" were appearing +in print--offers a good example of the way in which the more +romantic depiction of life, in the hands of a master, inevitably +blends with realistic details, even with a winning truthfulness +of effect. Some of the romantic charm of "The Vicar of +Wakefield," we must remember, inheres in its sympathetic +reproduction of vanished manners, etiquette and social grace; a +sweet old-time grace, a fragrance out of the past, emanates from +the memory of it if read half a lifetime ago. An elder age is +rehabilitated for us by its pages, even as it is by the canvases +of Romney and Sir Joshua. And with this more obvious romanticism +goes the deeper romanticism that comes from the interpretation +of humanity, which assumes it to be kindly and gentle and noble +in the main. Life, made up of good and evil as it is, is, +nevertheless, seen through this affectionate time-haze, worth +the living. Whatever their individual traits, an air of country +peace and innocence hovers over the Primrose household: the +father and mother, the girls, Olivia and Sophia, and the two +sons, George and Moses, they all seem equally generous, +credulous and good. We feel that the author is living up to a +announcement in the opening chapter which of itself is a sort of +promise of the idealized treatment of poor human nature. But +into this pretty and perfect scene of domestic felicity come +trouble and disgrace: the serpent creeps into the unsullied +nest, the villain, Thorn-hill, ruins Olivia, their house burns, +and the softhearted, honorable father is haled to prison. There +is no blinking the darker side of mortal experience. And the +prison scenes, with their noble teaching with regard to penal +punishment, showing Goldsmith far in advance of his age, add +still further to the shadows. Yet the idealization is there, +like an atmosphere, and through it all, shining and serene, is +Dr. Primrose to draw the eye to the eternal good. We smile +mayhap at his simplicity but note at the same time that his +psychology is sound: the influence of his sermonizing upon the +jailbirds is true to experience often since tested. Nor are +satiric side-strokes in the realistic vein wanting--as in the +drawing of such a high lady of quality as Miss Carolina +Wilhelmina Amelia Skeggs--the very name sending our thoughts +forward to Thackeray. In the final analysis it will be found +that what makes the work a romance is its power to quicken the +sense of the attraction, the beauty of simple goodness through +the portrait of a noble man whose environment is such as best to +bring out his qualities. Dr. Primrose is humanity, if not +actual, potential: he can be, if he never was. A helpful +comparison might be instituted between Goldsmith's country +clergyman and Balzac's country doctor in the novel of that name; +another notable attempt at the idealization of a typical man of +one of the professions. It would bring out the difference +between the late eighteenth and the middle nineteenth centuries, +as well as that between a great novelist, Balzac, and a great +English writer, Goldsmith, who yet is not a novelist at all. It +should detract no whit from one's delight in such a work as "The +Vicar of Wakefield" to acknowledge that its aim is not to depict +society as it then existed, but to give a pleasurable abstract +of human nature for the purpose of reconciling us through art +with life, when lived so sanely, simply and sweetly as by +Primrose of gentle memory. Seldom has the divine quality of the +forgiveness of sins been portrayed with more salutary effect +than in the scene where the erring and errant Olivia is taken +back to the heart of her father--just as the hard-headed +landlady would drive her forth with the words: + + "'Out I say! Pack out this moment! tramp, thou impudent + strumpet, or I'll give thee a mark that won't be better for + this three months. What! you trumpery, to come and take up + an honest house without cross or coin to bless yourself + with! Come along, I say.' + + "I flew to her rescue while the woman was dragging her along + by her hair, and I caught the dear forlorn wretch in my + arms. 'Welcome, anyway welcome, my dearest lost one, my + treasure, to your poor old father's bosom. Though the + vicious forsake thee, there is yet one in the world who + will never forsake thee; though thou hadst ten thousand + crimes to answer for, he will forget them all!'" + + +Set beside this father the fathers of Clarissa and Sophia +Western, and you have the difference between the romance and +realism that express opposite moods; the mood that shows the +average and the mood that shows the best. For portraiture, then, +rather than plot, for felicity of manner and sweetness of +interpretation we praise such a work;--qualities no less +precious though not so distinctively appertaining to the Novel. + +It may be added, for a minor point, that the Novel type as +already developed had assumed a conventional length which would +preclude "The Vicar of Wakefield" from its category, making it a +sketch or novelette. The fiction-makers rapidly came to realize +that for their particular purpose--to portray a complicated +piece of contemporary life--more leisurely movement and hence +greater space are necessary to the best result. To-day any +fiction under fifty thousand words would hardly be called a +novel in the proper sense,--except in publishers' +advertisements. Goldsmith's story does not exceed such limits. + +Therefore, although we may like it all the more because it is a +romantic sketch rather than a novel proper, we must grant that +its share in the eighteenth century shaping of the form is but +ancillary. The fact that the book upon its appearance awakened +no such interest as waited upon the fiction of Richardson or +Fielding a few years before, may be taken to mean that the taste +was still towards the more photographic portrayals of average +contemporary humanity. Several editions, to be sure, were issued +the year of its publication, but without much financial success, +and contemporary criticism found little remarkable in this +permanent contribution to English literature. Later, it was +beloved both of the elect and the general. Goethe's testimony to +the strong and wholesome effect of the book upon him in his +formative period, is remembered. Dear old Dr. Johnson too +believed in the story, for, summoned to Goldsmith's lodging by +his friend's piteous appeal for help, he sends a guinea in +advance and on arrival there, finds his colleague in high choler +because, forsooth, his landlady has arrested him for his rent: +whereupon Goldsmith (who had already expended part of the guinea +in a bottle of Madeira) displays a manuscript,--"a novel ready +for the press," as we read in Boswell; and Johnson--"I looked +into it and saw its merit," says he--goes out and sells it for +sixty pounds, whereupon Goldsmith paid off his obligation, and +with his mercurial Irish nature had a happy evening, no doubt, +with his chosen cronies! It is a sordid, humorous-tragic Grub +Street beginning for one of the little immortals of letters--so +many of which, alack! have a similar birth. + +Certain other authors less distinguished than these, produced +fiction of various kinds which also had some influence in the +development, and further illustrate the tendency of the Novel to +become a pliable medium for literary expression; a sort of net +wherein divers fish might be caught. Dr. Johnson, essayist, +critic, coffee-house dictator, published the same year that +Sterne's "Tristram Shandy" began to appear, his "Rasselas, +Prince of Abyssinia"; a stately elegiac on the vanity of human +pleasures, in which the Prince leaves his idyllic home and goes +into the world to test its shams, only to return to his kingdom +with the sad knowledge that it is the better part of wisdom in +this vale of tears to prepare for heaven. Of course this is +fiction only in seeming and by courtesy, almost as far removed +from the Novel as the same author's mammoth dictionary or Lives +of the Poets. It has Richardson's method of moralizing, while +lacking that writer's power of studying humanity in its social +relations. The sturdy genius of Dr. Johnson lay in quite other +directions. + +Richardson's sentimentality, too, was carried on by MacKenzie in +his "Man of Feeling" already mentioned as the favorite +tear-begetter of its time, the novel which made the most prolonged +attack upon the lachrymosal gland. But it is only fair to this +author to add that there was a welcome note of philanthropy in +his story--in spite of its mawkishness; his appeal for the under +dog in great cities is a forecast of the humanitarianism to +become rampant in later fiction. + +Again, the seriousness which has always, in one guise or the +other, underlain English fiction, soon crystalized in the +contemporary eighteenth century novelists into an attempt to +preach this or that by propaganda in story-form. William Godwin, +whose relations as father-in-law to Shelley gives him a not +altogether agreeable place in our memory, was a leader in this +tendency with several fictions, the best known and most readable +being "Caleb Williams": radical ideas, social, political and +religious, were mooted by half a dozen earnest-souled authors +whose works are now regarded as links in the chain of +development--missing links for most readers of fiction, since +their literary quality is small. In later days, this kind of +production was to be called purpose fiction and condemned or +applauded according to individual taste and the esthetic and +vital value of the book. When the moralizing overpowered all +else, we get a book like that friend of childhood, "Sanford and +Merton," which Thomas Day perpetrated in the year of grace 1783. +Few properly reared boys of a generation ago escaped this +literary indiscretion: its Sunday School solemnity, its +distribution of life's prizes according to the strictest moral +tests, had a sort of bogey fascination; it was much in vogue +long after Day's time, indeed down to within our own memories. +Perhaps it is still read and relished in innocent corners of the +earth.. In any case it is one of the outcomes of the movement +just touched upon. + +At present, being more ennuye in our tastes for fiction than +were our forefathers, and the pretence of piety being less a +convention, we incline to insist more firmly that the pill at +least be sugar-coated,--if indeed we submit to physic at all. + +There was also a tendency during the second half of the +eighteenth century--very likely only half serious and hardly +more than a literary fad--toward the romance of mystery and +horror. Horace Walpole, the last man on earth from whom one +would expect the romantic and sentimental, produced in his +"Castle of Otranto" such a book; and Mrs. Radcliffe's "The +Mystery of Udolpho" (standing for numerous others) manipulated +the stage machinery of this pseudo-romantic revival and +reaction; moonlit castles, medieval accessories, weird sounds +and lights at the dread midnight hour,--an attack upon the +reader's nerves rather than his sensibilities, much the sort of +paraphernalia employed with a more spiritual purpose and effect +in our own day by the dramatist, Maeterlinck. Beckford's +"Vathek" and Lewis' "The Monk" are variations upon this theme, +which for a while was very popular and is decidedly to be seen +in the work of the first novelist upon American soil, Charles +Brockden Brown, whose somber "Wieland," read with the Radcliffe +school in mind, will reveal its probable parentage. We have seen +how the movement was happily satirized by its natural enemy, +Jane Austen. Few more enjoyable things can be quoted than this +conversation from "Northanger Abbey" between two typical young +ladies of the time:-- + + 'But, my dearest Catherine, what have you been doing with + yourself all this morning? Have you gone on with Udolpho?' + + 'Yes, I have been reading it ever since I woke; and I am + got to the black veil.' + + 'Are you, indeed? How delightful! Oh! I would not tell you + what is behind the black veil for the world! Are you not + wild to know?' + + 'Oh! yes, quite; what can it be? But do not tell me; I + would not be told upon any account. I know it must be a + skeleton; I am sure it is Laurentina's skeleton. Oh! I am + delighted with the book! I should like to spend my whole + life in reading it, I assure you; if it had not been to + meet you, I would not have come away from it for all the + world.' + + 'Dear creature! how much I am obliged to you; and when you + have finished Udolpho, we will read the Italian together; + and I have made out a list of ten or twelve more of the + same kind for you.' + + 'Have you, indeed! How glad I am! What are they all?' + + 'I will read you their names directly; here they are in my + pocket-book. "Castle of Wolfenbach," "Clermont," + "Mysterious Warnings," "Necromancer of the Black Forest," + "Midnight Bell," "Orphan of the Rhine," and "Horrid Mysteries." + Those will last us some time.' + + 'Yes; pretty well; but are they all horrid? Are you sure + they are all horrid?' + + 'Yes, quite sure; for a particular friend of mine, a Miss + Andrews, a sweet girl, one of the sweetest creatures in the + world, has read every one of them.' + + +After all, human nature is constant, independent of time; and +fashions social, mental, literary, return like fashions in +feminine headgear! Two club women were coming from a city play +house after hearing a particularly lugubrious drama of Ibsen's, +and one was overheard exclaiming to the other: "O isn't Ibsen +just lovely! He does so take the hope out of life!" + +Yet the tendency of eighteenth century fiction, with its +handling of the bizarre and sensational, its use of occult +effects of the Past and Present, was but an eddy in a current +which was setting strong and steadily toward the realistic +portrayal of contemporary society. + +One other tendency, expressive of a lighter mood, an attempt to +represent society a la mode, is also to be noted during this +half century so crowded with interesting manifestations of a new +spirit; and they who wrote it were mostly women. It is a +remarkable fact that for the fifty years between Sterne and +Scott, the leading novelists were of that sex, four of whom at +least, Burney, Radcliffe, Edgeworth and Austen, were of +importance. Of this group the lively Fanny Burney is the +prophet; she is the first woman novelist of rank. Her "Evelina," +with its somewhat starched gentility and simpering sensibility, +was once a book to conjure with; it fluttered the literary +dovecotes in a way not so easy to comprehend to-day. Yet Dr. +Johnson loved his "little Burney" and greatly admired her work, +and there are entertaining and without question accurate +pictures of the fashionable London at the time of the American +Revolution drawn by an observer of the inner circle, in her +"Evelina" and "Cecilia"; one treasures them for their fresh +spirit and lively humor, nor looks in them for the more serious +elements of good fiction. She contributes, modestly, to that +fiction to which we go for human documents. No one who has been +admitted to the privileges of Miss Burney's Diary can fail to +feel that a woman who commands such idiom is easily an adept in +the realistic dialogue of the novel. Here, even more than in her +own novels or those of Richardson and Fielding, we hear the +exact syllable and intonation of contemporary speech. "Mr. +Cholmondeley is a clergyman," she writes, "nothing shining +either in person or manners but rather somewhat grim in the +first and glum in the last." And again: "Our confab was +interrupted by the entrance of Mr. King," or yet again: "The +joke is, the people speak as if they were afraid of me, instead +of my being afraid of them.... Next morning, Mrs. Thrale asked +me if I did not want to see Mrs. Montagu? I truly said I should +be the most insensible of animals not to like to see our sex's +glory." It is hard to realize that this was penned in the +neighborhood of one hundred and fifty years ago, so modern is +its sound. + +A great writer, with a wider scope and a more incisive satire, +is Maria Edgeworth, whose books take us over into the nineteenth +century. The lighter, more frivolous aspects of English high +society are admirably portrayed in her "Belinda" and eight or +ten other tales: and she makes a still stronger claim to +permanent remembrance in such studies of Irish types, whether in +England or on the native soil, as "The Absentee" and "Castle +Rackrent." I venture the statement that even the jaded novel +reader of to-day will find on a perusal of either of these +capital stories that Miss Edgeworth makes literature, and that a +pleasure not a penance is in store. She first in English fiction +exploited the better-class Irishman at home and her scenes have +historic value. Some years later, Susan Ferrier, who enjoyed the +friendship of Scott, wrote under the stimulus of Maria +Edgeworth's example a series of clever studies of Scotch life, +dashed with decided humor and done with true observation. + +These women, with their quick eye and facile ability to report +what they saw, and also their ease of manner which of itself +seems like a social gift, were but the prelude to the work so +varied, gifted and vastly influential, which the sex was to do +in the modern Novel; so that, at present, in an open field and +no favors given, they are honorable rivals of men, securing +their full share of public favor. And the English Novel, written +by so many tentatively during these fifty years when the form +was a-shaping, culminates at the turn of the century in two +contrasted authors compared with whom all that went before seems +but preparatory; one a man, the other a woman, who together +express and illustrate most conveniently for this study the main +movements of modern fiction,--romance and realism,--the instinct +for truth and the instinct for beauty; not necessarily an +antagonism, as we shall have ample occasion to see, since truth, +rightly defined, is only "beauty seen from another side." It +hardly needs to add that these two novelists are Jane Austen and +Walter Scott. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +REALISM: JANE AUSTEN + +It has been said that Miss Austen came nearer to showing life as +it is,--the life she knew and chose to depict,--than any other +novelist of English race. In other words, she is a princess +among the truth-tellers. Whether or not this claim can be +substantiated, it is sure that, writing practically half a +century after Richardson and Fielding, she far surpassed those +pioneers in the exquisite and easy verisimilitude of her art. +Nay, we can go further and say that nobody has reproduced life +with a more faithful accuracy, that yet was not photography +because it gave the pleasure proper to art, than this same Jane +Austen, spinster, well-born and well-bred: in her own phrase, an +"elegant female" of the English past. Scott's famous remark can +not be too often quoted: "That young lady had a talent for +describing the movements and feelings of characters of ordinary +life, which is to me the most wonderful I ever met with." + +If you look on the map at the small Southern county of +Hampshire, you will see that the town of Steventon lies hard by +Selborne, another name which the naturalist White has made +pleasant to the ear. Throughout her forty-two years of life--she +was born the year of American revolution and died shortly after +Scott had begun his Waverley series--she was a country-woman in +the best sense: a clergyman's daughter identified with her +neighborhood, dignified and private in her manner of existence, +her one sensational outing being a four years' residence in the +fashionable watering-place of Bath, where Beau Nash once reigned +supreme and in our day, Beaucaire has been made to rebuke Lady +Mary Carlisle for her cold patrician pride. Quiet she lived and +died, nor was she reckoned great in letters by her +contemporaries. She wrote on her lap with others in the room, +refused to take herself seriously and in no respect was like the +authoress who is kodaked at the writing-desk and chronicled in +her movements by land and sea. She was not the least bit +"literary." Fanny Burney, who had talent to Jane Austen's +genius, was in a blaze of social recognition, a petted darling +of the town, where the other walked in rural ways and unnoted of +the world, wrote novels that were to make literary history. Such +are the revenges of the whirligig, Time. + +Austen's indestructible reputation is founded on half a dozen +pieces of fiction: the best, and best known, "Sense and +Sensibility" and "Pride and Prejudice," although "Mansfield +Park," "Emma," "Northanger Abbey" and "Persuasion" (in order of +publication but not of actual composition) are all of importance +to the understanding and enjoyment of her, and her evenness of +performance, on the whole, is remarkable. The earlier three of +these books were written by Miss Austen when a young woman In +the twenties, but published much later, and were anonymous--an +indication of her tendency to take her authorship as an aside. +Two of them appeared posthumously. Curiously, "Northanger +Abbey," that capital hit at the Radcliffe romanticism, and first +written of her stories, was disposed of to a publisher when the +writer was but three and twenty, yet was not printed until she +had passed away nearly twenty years later,--a sufficient proof +of her unpopularity from the mercantile point of view. + +Here is one of the paradoxes of literature: this gentlewoman +dabbling in a seemingly amateur fashion in letters, turns out to +be the ablest novelist of her sex and race, one of the very few +great craftsmen, one may say, since art is no respector of sex. +Jane Austen is the best example in the whole range of English +literature of the wisdom of knowing your limitations and +cultivating your own special plot of ground. She offers a +permanent rebuke to those who (because of youth or a failure to +grasp the meaning of life) fancy that the only thing worth while +lies on the other side of the Pyrenees; when all the while at +one's own back-door blooms the miracle. She had a clear-eyed +comprehension of her own restrictions; and possessed that power +of self-criticism which some truly great authors lack. She has +herself given us the aptest comment ever made on her books: +speaking of the "little bit of ivory two inches wide on which +she worked with a brush so fine as to produce little effect +after much labor";--a judgment hardly fair as to the interest +she arouses, but nevertheless absolutely descriptive of the plus +and minus of her gift. + +Miss Austen knew the genteel life of the upper middle class +Hampshire folk, "the Squirearchy and the upper professional +class," as Professor Saintsbury expresses it, down to the +ground--knew it as a sympathetic onlooker slightly detached (she +never married), yet not coldly aloof but a part of it as devoted +sister and maiden aunt, and friend-in-general to the community. +She could do two things which John Ruskin so often lauded as +both rare and difficult: see straight and then report +accurately; a literary Pre-Raphaelite, be it noted, before the +term was coined. It not only came natural to her to tell the +truth about average humanity as she saw it; she could not be +deflected from her calling. Winning no general recognition +during her life-time, she was not subjected to the temptations +of the popular novelist; but she had her chance to go wrong, for +it is recorded how that the Librarian to King George the Third, +an absurd creature yclept Clark, informed the authoress that his +Highness admired her works, and suggested that in view of the +fact that Prince Leonard was to marry the Princess Charlotte, +Miss Austen should indite "An historical romance illustrative of +the august house of Coburg." To which, Miss Jane, with a humor +and good-sense quite in character (and, it may be feared, not +appreciated by the recipient): "I could not sit down to write a +serious romance under any other motive than amusement to save my +life; and if it were indispensable for me to keep it up, and +never relax into laughter at myself and other people, I am sure +I should be hung before I had finished the first chapter. No, I +must keep to my own style and go on in my own way." + +There is scarce a clearer proof of genius than this ability to +strike out a path and keep to it: in striking contrast with the +weak wobbling so often shown in the desire to follow literary +fashion or be complaisant before the suggestion of the merchants +of letters. + +All her novels are prophetic of what was long to rule, in their +slight framework of fable; the handling of the scenes by the +way, the characterization, the natural dialogue, the +vraisemblance of setting, the witty irony of observation, these +are the elements of interest. Jane Austen's plots are mere +tempests in tea-pots; yet she does not go to the extreme of the +plotless fiction of the present. She has a story to tell, as +Trollope would say, and knows how to tell it in such a way as to +subtract from it every ounce of value. There is a clear kernel +of idea in each and every one of her tales. Thus, in "Sense and +Sensibility," we meet two sisters who stand for the +characteristics contrasted in the title, and in the fortunes of +Mariane, whose flighty romanticism is cured so that she makes a +sensible marriage after learning the villainy of her earlier +lover and finding that foolish sentimentalism may well give way +to the informing experiences of life,--the thesis, satirically +conveyed though with more subtlety than in the earlier +"Northanger Abbey," proclaims the folly of young-girl +sentimentality and hysteria. In "Pride and Prejudice," ranked by +many as her masterpiece, Darcy, with his foolish hauteur, his +self-consciousness of superior birth, is temporarily blind to +the worth of Elizabeth, who, on her part, does not see the good +in him through her sensitiveness to his patronizing attitude; as +the course of development brings them together in a happy union, +the lesson of toleration, of mutual comprehension, sinks into +the mind. The reader realizes the pettiness of the worldly +wisdom which blocks the way of joy. As we have said, "Northanger +Abbey" speaks a wise word against the abuse of emotionalism; it +tells of the experiences of a flighty Miss, bred on the +"Mysteries of Udolpho" style of literature, during a visit to a +country house where she imagined all the medieval romanticism +incident to that school of fiction,--aided and abetted by such +innocuous helps as a storm without and a lonesome chamber within +doors. Of the later stories, "Mansfield Park" asks us to +remember what it is to be poor and reared among rich relations; +"Emma" displays a reverse misery: the rich young woman whose +character is exposed to the adulations and shams incident upon +her position; while in "Persuasion," there is yet another idea +expressed by and through another type of girl; she who has +fallen into the habit of allowing herself to be over-ridden and +used by friends and family.--There is something all but +Shaksperian in that story's illustration of "the uncertainty of +all human events and calculations," as she herself expresses it: +Anne Eliot's radical victory is a moral triumph yet a warning +withal. And in each book, the lesson has been conveyed with the +unobtrusive indirection of fine art; the story is ever first, we +are getting fiction not lectures. These novels adorn truth; they +show what literature can effect by the method of much-in-little. + +There is nothing sensational in incident or complication: as +with Richardson, an elopement is the highest stretch of external +excitement Miss Austen vouchsafes. Yet all is drawn so +beautifully to scale, as in such a scene as that of the quarrel +and estrangement of Elizabeth and Darcy in "Pride and +Prejudice," that the effect is greater than in the case of many +a misused opportunity where the events are earth-shaking in +import. The situation means so much to the participants, that +the reader becomes sympathetically involved. After all, +importance in fiction is exactly like importance in life; +important to whom? the philosopher asks. The relativity of +things human is a wholesome theory for the artist to bear in +mind. Even as the most terrific cataclysm on this third planet +from the sun in a minor system, makes not a ripple upon Mars, so +the most infinitesimal occurrence in eighteenth century +Hampshire may seem of account,--if only a master draws the +picture. + +Not alone by making her characters thoroughly alive and +interesting does Miss Austen effect this result: but by her way +of telling the tale as well; by a preponderance of dialogue +along with clear portraiture she actually gets an effect that is +dramatic. Scenes from her books are staged even to the present +day. She found this manner of dialogue with comparative +parsimony of description and narration, to be her true method as +she grew as a fiction-maker: the early unpublished story +"Susan," and the first draught of "Sense and Sensibility," had +the epistolary form of Richardson, the more undramatic nature of +which is self-evident. As for characterization itself, she is +with the few: she has added famous specimens--men and women +both--to the natural history of fiction. To think of but one +book, "Pride and Prejudice," what an inimitable study of a +foolish woman is Mrs. Bennett! Who has drawn the insufferable +patroness more vividly than in a Lady Catherine de Bourgh! And +is not the sycophant clergyman hit off to the life in Mr. +Collins! Looking to the stories as a group, are not her +heroines, with Anne Eliot perhaps at their head, wonderful for +quiet attraction and truth, for distinctness, charm and variety? +Her personages are all observed; she had the admirable good +sense not to go beyond her last. She had every opportunity to +see the county squire, the baronet puffed up with a sense of his +own importance, the rattle and rake of her day, the tuft hunter, +the gentleman scholar, and the retired admiral (her two brothers +had that rank)--and she wisely decided to exhibit these and +other types familiar to her locality and class, instead of +drawing on her imagination or trying to extend by guess-work her +social purview. Her women in general, whether satiric and +unpleasant like Mrs. Norris in "Mansfield Park" or full of +winning qualities like Catherine Moreland and Anne Eliot, are +drawn with a sureness of hand, an insight, a complete +comprehension that cannot be over-praised. Jane Austen's +heroines are not only superior to her heroes (some of whom do +not get off scot-free from the charge of priggishness) but they +excel the female characterization of all English novelists save +only two or three,--one of them being Hardy. Her characters were +so real to herself, that she made statements about them to her +family as if they were actual,--a habit which reminds of Balzac. + +The particular angle from which she looked on life was the +satirical: therefore, her danger is exaggeration, caricature. +Yet she yielded surprisingly little, and her reputation for +faithful transcripts from reality, can not now be assailed. Her +detached, whimsical attitude of scrutinizing the little cross-section +of life she has in hand, is of the very essence of her +charm: hers is that wit which is the humor of the mind: +something for inward smiling, though the features may not +change. Her comedy has in this way the unerring thrust and the +amused tolerance of a Moliere whom her admirer Macaulay should +have named rather than Shakspere when wishing to compliment her +by a comparison; with her manner of representation and her view +of life in mind, one reverts to Meredith's acute description of +the spirit that inheres in true comedy. "That slim, feasting +smile, shaped like the longbow, was once a big round satyr's +laugh, that flung up the brows like a fortress lifted by +gunpowder. The laugh will come again, but it will be of the +order of the smile, finely tempered, showing sunlight of the +mind, mental richness rather than noisy enormity. Its common +aspect is one of unsolicitous observation, as if surveying a +full field and having leisure to dart on its chosen morsels, +without any flattering eagerness. Men's future upon earth does +not attract it; their honesty and shapeliness in the present +does; and whenever they were out of proportion, overthrown, +affected, pretentious, bombastical, hypocritical, pedantic, +fantastically delicate; whenever it sees them self-deceived or +hoodwinked, given to run riot in idolatries, drifting into +vanities, congregating in absurdities, planning shortsightedly, +plotting dementedly; whenever they are at variance with their +professions, and violate the unwritten but perceptible laws +binding them in consideration one to another; whenever they +offend sound reason, fair justice; are false in humility or +mined with conceit, individually or in the bulk--the Spirit +overhead will look humanly malign and cast an oblique light on +them, followed by volleys of silvery laughter. That is the Comic +Spirit." + +If the "silvery laughter" betimes sounds a bit sharp and thinly +feminine, what would you have? Even genius must be subject to +the defect of its quality. Still, it must be confessed that this +attitude of the artist observer is broken in upon a little in +the later novels, beginning with "Mansfield Park," by a growing +tendency to moral on the time, a tendency that points ominously +to didacticism. There is something of the difference in Jane +Austen between early and late, that we shall afterwards meet in +that other great woman novelist, George Eliot. One might push +the point too far, but it is fair to make it. + +We may also inquire--trying to see the thing freshly, with +independence, and to get away from the mere handing-on of a +traditional opinion--if Jane Austen's character-drawing, so far-famed +for its truth, does not at times o'erstep the modesty of +Nature. Goldwin Smith, in his biography of her, is quite right +in pointing out that she unquestionably overdraws her types: Mr. +Collins is at moments almost a reminder of Uriah Heap for oily +submissiveness: Sir Walter Eliot's conceit goes so far he seems +a theory more than a man, a "humor" in the Ben Jonson sense. So, +too, the valetudinarianism of Mr. Wood-house, like that of +Smollett's Bramble, is something strained; so is Lady de +Bourgh's pride and General Tilney's tyranny. Critics are fond of +violent contrasts and to set over against one another authors so +unlike, for example, as Miss Austen and Dickens is a favorite +occupation. Also is it convenient to put a tag on every author: +a mask reading realist, romanticist, psychologue, sensation-monger, +or some such designation, and then hold him to the name. +Thus, in the case of Austen it is a temptation to call her the +greatest truth-teller among novelists, and so leave her. But, as +a matter of fact, great as realist and artist as she was, she +does not hesitate at that heightening of effect which insures +clearer seeing, longer remembering and a keener pleasure. +Perhaps she is in the broad view all the better artist because +of this: a thought sadly forgotten by the extreme veritists of +our day. It is the business of art to improve upon Nature. + +Again the reader of Jane Austen must expect to find her with the +limitation of her time and place: it is, frankly, a dreadfully +contracted view of the world she represents, just for the reason +that it is the view of her Hampshire gentry in the day of the +third George. The ideals seem low, narrow; they lack air and +light. Woman's only role is marriage; female propriety chokes +originality; money talks, family places individuals, and the +estimate of sex-relations is intricately involved with these +eidola. There is little sense of the higher and broader issues: +the spiritual restrictions are as definite as the social and +geographical: the insularity is magnificent. It all makes you +think of Tennyson's lines: + +"They take the rustic cackle of their burg +For the great wave that echoes round the world!" + + +Hence, one of the bye-products of Miss Austen's books is their +revelation of hide-bound class-distinction, the not seldom ugly +parochialism--the utilitarian aims of a circle of highly +respectable English country folk during the closing years of the +eighteenth century. The opening sentence of her masterpiece +reads: "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man +in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife." +Needless to say that "universally" here is applicable to a tiny +area of earth observed by a most charming spinster, at a certain +period of society now fast fading into a dim past. But the +sentence might serve fairly well as a motto for all her work: +every plot she conceived is firm-based upon this as a major +premise, and the particular feminine deduction from those words +may be found in the following taken from another work, +"Mansfield Park": "Being now in her twenty-first year, Maria +Bertram was beginning to think marriage a duty; and as a +marriage with Mr. Rushford would give her the enjoyment of a +larger income than her father's, as well as insure her the house +in town, which was now a prime object, it became by the same +rule of moral obligation, her evident duty to marry Mr. Rushford +if she could." The egocentric worldliness of this is superb. The +author, it may be granted, has a certain playful satire in her +manner here and elsewhere, when setting forth such views: yet it +seems to be fair to her to say that, taking her fiction as a +whole, she contentedly accepts this order of things and builds +upon it. She and her world exhibit not only worldliness but that +"other-worldliness" which is equally self-centered and +materialistic. Jane Austen is a highly enjoyable mondaine. To +compare her gamut with that of George Eliot or George Meredith +is to appreciate how much has happened since in social and +individual evolution. The wide social sympathy that throbs in +modern fiction is hardly born. + +In spite, too, of the thorough good breeding of this woman +writer, the primness even of her outlook upon the world, there +is plain speaking in her books, even touches of coarseness that +are but the echo of the rankness which abounds in the +Fielding-Smollett school. Happily, it is a faint one. + +Granting the slightness of her plots and their family likeness, +warm praise is due for the skill with which they are conducted; +they are neatly articulated, the climactic effect is, as a rule, +beautifully graduated and sure in its final force: the multitude +of littles which go to make up the story are, upon examination, +seen to be not irrelevant but members of the one body, working +together towards a common end. It is a puzzling question how +this firm art was secured: since technique does not mean so much +a gift from heaven as the taking of forethought, the self-conscious +skill of a practitioner. Miss Austen, setting down her +thoughts of an evening in a copybook in her lap, interrupted by +conversations and at the beck and call of household duties, does +not seem as one who was acquiring the mastery of a difficult +art-form. But the wind bloweth where it listeth--and the +evidences of skill are there; we can but chronicle the fact, and +welcome the result. + +She was old-fashioned in her adherence to the "pleasant ending"; +realist though she was, she could not go to the lengths either +of theme or interpretation in the portrayal of life which later +novelists have so sturdily ventured. It is easy to understand +that with her avowed dislike of tragedy, living in a time when +it was regarded as the business of fiction to be amusing--when, +in short, it was not fashionable to be disagreeable, as it has +since become--Jane Austen should have preferred to round out her +stories with a "curtain" that sends the audience home content. +She treats this desire in herself with a gentle cynicism which, +read to-day, detracts somewhat perhaps from the verity of her +pictures. She steps out from the picture at the close of her +book to say a word in proper person. Thus, in "Mansfield Park," +in bringing Fanny Price into the arms of her early lover, +Edmund, she says: "I purposely abstain from dates on this +occasion, that every one may be at liberty to fix their own, +aware that the cure of unconquerable passions and the transfer +of unchanging attachments must vary much as to time in different +people. I only entreat everybody to believe that exactly at the +time when it was quite natural that it should be so, and not a +week earlier, Edmund did cease to care about Miss Crawford and +became as anxious to marry Fanny as Fanny herself could desire." + +But it cannot be urged against her that it was her habit to +effect these agreeable conclusions to her social histories by +tampering with probability or violently wresting events from +their proper sequence. Life is neither comedy nor tragedy--it is +tragi-comedy, or, if you prefer the graver emphasis, comi-tragedy. +Miss Austen, truth-lover, has as good a right to leave +her lovers at the juncture when we see them happily mated, as at +those more grievous junctures so much affected by later fiction. +Both representations may be true or false in effect, according +as the fictionist throws emphasis and manages light-and-shade. A +final page whereon all is couleur de rose has, no doubt, an +artificial look to us now: a writer of Miss Austen's school or +her kind of genius for reporting fact, could not have finished +her fictions in just the same way. There is no blame properly, +since the phenomenon has to do with the growth of human thought, +the change of ideals reflected in literature. + +For one more point: Miss Austen only knew, or anyhow, only cared +to write, one sort of Novel--the love story. With her, a young +man and woman (or two couples having similar relations) are +interested in each other and after various complications arising +from their personal characteristics, from family interference or +other criss-cross of events, misplacement of affection being a +trump card, are united in the end. The formula is of primitive +simplicity. The wonder is that so much of involvement and +genuine human interest can be got out of such scant use of the +possible permutations of plot. It is all in the way it is done. + +Love stories are still written in profusion, and we imagine that +so compelling a motive for fiction will still be vital (in some +one of its innumerable phases) in the twenty-fifth century. Yet +it is true that novelists now point with pride to the work of +the last generation of their art, in that it has so often made +sex love subsidiary to other appeals, or even eliminated it +altogether from their books. Some even boast of the fact that +not a woman is to be found in the pages of their latest +creation. Nearly one hundred years ago, Defoe showed the +possibility (if you happen to have genius) of making a powerful +story without the introduction of the eternal feminine: Crusoe +could not declare with Cyrano de Bergerac: + +"Je vous dois d'avoir eu tout au moins, une amie; +Grace a vous, une robe a passe dans ma vie." + + +It is but natural that, immensely powerful as it is, such a +motive should have been over-worked: the gamut of variations has +been run from love licit to love illicit, and love degenerate +and abnormal to no-love-at-all. But any publisher will assure +you that still "love conquers all"; and in the early nineteenth +century any novelist who did not write tales of amatory interest +was a fool: the time was not ripe to consider an extension of +the theme nor a shifted point of view. For the earlier +story-tellers, in the language of Browning's lyric, + +"Love is best." + + +Jane Austen's diction--or better, her style, which is more than +diction--in writing her series of social studies, affords a fine +example of the adaptation of means to end. Given the work to be +accomplished, the tools are perfect instruments for the purpose. +The student of English style in its evolution must marvel at the +idiom of Austen, so strangely modern is it, so little has time +been able to make it passe. From her first book, her manner +seems to be easy, adequate, unforced, with nothing about it +self-conscious or gauche. In the development of some great +writers the change from unsureness and vulgarity to the mastery +of mature years can be traced: Dickens is one such. But nothing +of the sort can be found in Austen. She has in "Northanger +Abbey" and "Pride and Prejudice"--early works--a power in +idiomatic English which enables her reader to see her thought +through its limpid medium of language, giving, it may be, as +little attention to the form of expression as a man uninstructed +in the niceties of a woman's dress gives to those details which +none the less in their totality produce on him a most formidable +effect. Miss Austen's is not the style of startling tricks: nor +has she the flashing felicities of a Stevenson which lead one to +return to a passage for re-gustation. Her manner rarely if ever +takes the attention from her matter. But her words and their +marshaling (always bearing in her mind her unambitious purpose) +make as fit a garment for her thought as was ever devised upon +English looms. If this is style, then Jane Austen possesses it, +as have very few of the race. There is just a touch of the +archaic in it, enough to give a quaintness that has charm +without being precious in the French sense; hers are breeding +and dignity without distance or stiffness. Now and again the +life-likeness is accentuated by a sort of undress which goes to +the verge of the slip-shod--as if a gentlewoman should not be +too particular, lest she seem professional; the sort of liberty +with the starched proprieties of English which Thackeray later +took with such delightful results. Of her style as a whole, +then, we may say that it is good literature for the very reason +that it is not literary; neither mannered nor mincing nor +affectedly plain. The style is the woman--and the woman wrote as +a lady should who is portraying genteel society; very much as +she would talk--with the difference the artist will always make +between life and its expression in letters. + +Miss Austen's place was won slowly but surely, unlike those +authors whose works spring into instantaneous popularity, to be +forgotten with equal promptness, or others who like Mrs. Stowe +write a book which, for historical reasons, gains immediate +vogue and yet retains a certain reputation. The author of "Pride +and Prejudice" gains in position with the passing of the years. +She is one of the select company of English writers who after a +century are really read, really of more than historical +significance. New and attractive editions of her books are +frequent: she not only holds critical regard (and to criticism +her importance is permanent) but is read by an appreciable +number of the lovers of sound literature; read far more +generally, we feel sure, than Disraeli or Bulwer or Charles +Kingsley, who are so much nearer our own day and who filled so +large a place in their respective times. Compared with them, +Jane Austen appears a serene classic. When all is said, the +test, the supreme test, is to be read: that means that an author +is vitally alive, not dead on the shelves of a library where he +has been placed out of deference to the literary Mrs. Grundy. +Lessing felt this when he wrote his brilliant quatrain: + +Wer wird nicht einen Klopstock loben, +Doch wird ihn jeder lesen? Nein! +Wir wollen weniger erhoben +Und fleissiger gelesen sein, + + +So was the century which was to be conspicuous for its +development of fiction that should portray the social relations +of contemporary life with fine and ever-increasing truth, most +happily inaugurated by a woman who founded its traditions and +was a wonderful example of its method. She is the literary +godmother of Trollope and Howells, and of all other novelists +since who prefer to the most spectacular uses of the imagination +the unsensational chronicling of life. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +MODERN ROMANTICISM: SCOTT + +The year after the appearance of "Pride and Prejudice" there +began to be published in England a series of anonymous +historical stories to which the name of Waverley Novels came to +be affixed, the title of the first volume. It was not until the +writer had produced for more than a decade a splendid list of +fictions familiar to all lovers of literature, that his name--by +that time guessed by many and admitted to some--was publicly +announced as that of Walter Scott--a man who, before he had +printed a single romance, had won more than national importance +by a succession of narrative poems beginning with "The Lay of +the Last Minstrel." + +Few careers, personal and professional, in letters, are more +stimulating and attractive than that of Scott. His life was +winsome, his work of that large and noble order that implies a +worthy personality behind it. Scott, the man, as he is portrayed +in Lockhart's Life and the ever-delightful Letters, is as +suitable an object of admiration as Scott the author of "Guy +Mannering" and "Old Mortality." And when we reflect that by the +might of his genius he set his seal on the historical romance, +that the modern romance derives from Scott, and that, moreover, +in spite of the remarkable achievements in this order of fiction +during almost a century, he remains not only its founder but its +chief ornament, his contribution to modern fiction begins to be +appreciated. + +The characteristics of the Novel proper as a specific kind of +fiction have been already indicated and illustrated in this +study: we have seen that it is a picture of real life in a +setting of to-day: the romance, which is Scott's business, is +distinguished from this in its use of past time and historic +personages, its heightening of effect by the introducing of the +exceptional in scene and character, its general higher color in +the conductment of the narrative: and above all, its emphasis +upon the larger, nobler, more inspiring aspects of humanity. +This, be it understood, is the romance of modern times, not the +elder romance which was irresponsible in its picture of life, +falsely idealistic. When Sir Walter began his fiction, the trend +of the English Novel inheriting the method and purpose of +Richardson, was away from the romantic in this sense. The +analysis given has, it may be hoped, made this plain. It was by +the sheer force of his creative gift, therefore, that Scott set +the fashion for the romance in fiction: aided though he +doubtless was by the general romanticism introduced by the +greater English poets and expressive of the movement in +literature towards freedom, which followed the French +Revolution. That Scott at this time gave the fiction an impulse +not in the central flow of development is shown in the fact of +its rapid decadence after he passed away. While the romance is +thus a different thing from the Novel, modern fiction is close +woven of the two strands of realism and romance, and a +comprehensive study must have both in mind. Even authors like +Dickens, Thackeray and Eliot, who are to be regarded as stalwart +realists, could not avoid a single sally each into romance, with +"A Tale of Two Cities," "Henry Osmond" and "Romola"; and on the +other hand, romanticists like Hawthorne and Stevenson have used +the methods and manner of the realist, giving their loftiest +flights the most solid groundwork of psychologic reality. It +must always be borne in mind that there is a romantic way of +dealing with fact: that a novel of contemporary society which +implies its more exceptional possibilities and gives due regard +to the symbol behind every so-called fact, can be, in a good +sense, romantic. Surely, that is a more acceptable use of the +realistic formula which, by the exercise of an imaginative grasp +of history, makes alive and veritable for us some hitherto +unrealized person or by-gone epoch. Scott is thus a romanticist +because he gave the romantic implications of reality: and is a +novelist in that broader, better definition of the word which +admits it to be the novelist's business to portray social +humanity, past or present, by means of a unified, progressive +prose narrative. Scott, although he takes advantage of the +romancer's privilege of a free use of the historic past, the +presentation of its heroic episodes and spectacular events, is a +novelist, after all, because he deals with the recognizably +human, not with the grotesque, supernatural, impossible. He +imparts a vivid sense of the social interrelations, for the most +part in a medieval environment, but in any case in an +environment which one recognizes as controlled by human laws; +not the brain-freak of a pseudo-idealist. Scott's Novels, judged +broadly, make an impression of unity, movement and climax. To +put it tersely: he painted manners, interpreted character in an +historic setting and furnished story for story's sake. Nor was +his genius helpless without the historic prop. Certain of his +major successes are hardly historical narratives at all; the +scene of "Guy Mannering," for example, and of "The Antiquary," +is laid in a time but little before that which was known +personally to the romancer in his young manhood. + +It will be seen in this theory of realism and romance that so +far from antagonists are the story of truth and the story of +poetry, they merely stand for diverging preferences in handling +material. Nobody has stated this distinction better than +America's greatest romancer, Nathaniel Hawthorne. Having "The +House of the Seven Gables" in mind, he says: + + When a writer calls his work a romance, it need hardly be + observed that he wishes to claim a certain latitude both as + to its fashion and material, which he would not have felt + himself entitled to assume, had he professed to be writing + a novel. The latter form of composition is presumed to aim + at a very minute fidelity, not only to the possible, but to + the probable and ordinary course of man's experience. The + former, while as a work of art it must rigidly subject + itself to laws and while it sins unpardonably so far as it + may swerve aside from the truth of the human heart, has + fairly a right to present that truth under circumstances to + a great extent of the author's own choosing or creation. If + he think fit, also, he may so manage his atmospherical + medium as to bring out or mellow the lights and deepen and + enrich the shadows of the picture. He will be wise, no + doubt, to make a very moderate use of the privileges here + stated, and, especially, to mingle the marvelous rather as + a slight, delicate and evanescent flavor than as any + portion of the actual substance of the dish offered to the + public. The point of view in which this tale comes under + the romantic definition lies in the attempt to connect a + by-gone time with the very present that is flitting away + from us. It is a legend, prolonging itself from an epoch + now gray in the distance, down into our own broad daylight, + and bringing along with it some of its legendary mist, + which the reader may either disregard or allow it to float + almost imperceptibly about the characters and events for + the sake of a picturesque effect. The narrative, it may be, + is woven of so humble a texture, as to require this + advantage and at the same time to render it the more + difficult of attainment. + + +These words may be taken as the modern announcement of Romance, +as distinguished from that of elder times. + +The many romantic Novels written by Scott can be separated into +two groups, marked by a cleavage of time: the year being 1819, +the date of the publication of "Ivanhoe." In the earlier group, +containing the fiction which appeared during the five years from +1814 to 1819, we find world-welcomed masterpieces which are an +expression of the unforced first fruits of his genius: the three +series of "Tales of My Landlord," "Guy Mannering," "Rob Roy," +"The Heart of Midlothian" and "Old Mortality," to mention the +most conspicuous. To the second division belong stories equally +well known, many of them impressive: "The Monastery," +"Kenilworth," "Quentin Durward," and "Red Gauntlet" among them, +but as a whole marking a falling off of power as increasing +years and killing cares made what was at first hardly more than +a sportive effort, a burden under which a man, at last broken, +staggered toward the desired goal. There is no manlier, more +gallant spectacle offered in the annals of literature than this +of Walter Scott, silent partner in a publishing house and ruined +by its failure after he has set up country gentleman and +gratified his expensive taste for baronial life, as he buckles +to, and for weary years strives to pay off by the product of his +pen the obligations incurred; his executors were able to clear +his estate of debt. It was an immense drudgery (with all +allowance for its moments of creative joy) accomplished with +high spirits and a kind of French gayety. Nor, though the best +quality of the work was injured towards the end of the long +task, and Scott died too soon at sixty-one, was the born +raconteur in him choked by this grim necessity of grind. There +have been in modern fiction a few masters, and but a few, who +were natural improvisatori: conspicuous among them are Dumas the +elder and Walter Scott. Such writers pour forth from a very +spring of effortless power invention after invention, born of +the impulse of a rich imagination, a mind stored with bountiful +material for such shaping, and a nature soaked with the +humanities. They are great lovers of life, great personalities, +gifted, resourceful, unstinted in their giving, ever with +something of the boy in them, the careless prodigals of +literature. Often it seems as if they toiled not to acquire the +craft of the writer, nor do they lose time over the labor of the +file. To the end, they seem in a way like glorious amateurs. +They are at the antipodes of those careful craftsmen with whom +all is forethought, plan and revision. Scott, fired by a period, +a character or scene, commonly sat down without seeing his way +through and wrote currente calamo, letting creation take care of +its own. The description of him by a contemporary is familiar +where he was observed at a window, reeling off the manuscript +sheets of his first romance. + + Since we sat down I have been watching that confounded + hand--it fascinates my eye. It never stops--page after page + is finished and thrown on the heap of manuscript, and still + it goes on unwearied--and so it will be until candles are + brought in, and God knows how long after that. It is the + same every night. + + +The great merits of such a nature and the method that is its +outcome should not blind us to its dangers, some of which Scott +did not escape. Schoolboys to-day are able to point out defects +in his style, glibly talking of loosely-built sentences, +redundancies, diffuseness, or what not. He seems long-winded to +the rising generation, and it may be said in their defense that +there are Novels of Scott which if cut down one-third would be +improved. Critics, too, speak of his anachronisms, his huddled +endings, the stiffness of his young gentleman heroes, his +apparent indifference to the laws of good construction; as well +as of his Tory limitations, the ponderosity of his manner and +the unmodernness of his outlook on the world along with the +simple superficiality of his psychology. All this may cheerfully +be granted, and yet the Scott lover will stoutly maintain that +the spirit and the truth are here, that the Waverley books +possess the great elements of fiction-making: not without reason +did they charm Europe as well as the English-speaking lands for +twenty years. The Scott romances will always be mentioned, with +the work of Burns, Carlyle and Stevenson, when Scotland's +contribution to English letters is under discussion; his +position is fortified as he recedes into the past, which so soon +engulfs lesser men. And it is because he was one of the world's +natural storytellers: his career is an impressive object-lesson +for those who would elevate technique above all else. + +He produced romances which dealt with English history centuries +before his own day, or with periods near his time: Scotch +romances of like kind which had to do with the historic past of +his native land: romances of humbler life and less stately +entourage, the scenes of which were laid nearer, sometimes +almost within his own day. He was, in instances, notably +successful in all these kinds, but perhaps most of all in the +stories falling in the two categories last-named: which, like +"Old Mortality," have the full flavor of Scotch soil. + +The nature of the Novels he was to produce became evident with +the first of them all, "Waverley." Here is a border tale which +narrates the adventures of a scion of that house among the loyal +Highlanders temporarily a rebel to the reigning English +sovereign and a recruit in the interests of the young pretender: +his fortunes, in love and war, and his eventual reinstatement in +the King's service and happiness with the woman of his choice. +While it might be too sweeping to say that there was in this +first romance (which has never ranked with his best) the whole +secret of the Scott historical story, it is true that the book +is typical, that here as in the long line of brilliantly +envisaged chronicle histories that followed, some of them far +superior to this initial attempt, are to be found the +characteristic method and charm of Sir Walter. Here, as +elsewhere, the reader is offered picturesque color, ever varied +scenes, striking situations, salient characters and a certain +nobility both of theme and manner that comes from the accustomed +representation of life in which large issues of family and state +are involved--the whole merged in a mood of fealty and love. You +constantly feel in Scott that life "means intensely and means +good." A certain amount of lovable partisanship and prejudice +goes with the view, not un-welcomely; there is also some +carelessness as to the minute details of fact. But the effect of +truth, both in character and setting, is overwhelming. Scott has +vivified English and Scotch history more than all the history +books: he saw it himself--so we see it. One of the reasons his +work rings true--whereas Mrs. Radcliffe's adventure tales seem +fictitious as well as feeble--is because it is the natural +outcome of his life: all his interest, his liking, his belief +went into the Novels. When he sat down at the mature age of +forty-three to make fiction, there was behind him the large part +of a lifetime of unconscious preparation for what he had to do: +for years he had been steeped in the folk-lore and legend of his +native country; its local history had been his hobby; he had not +only read its humbler literature but wandered widely among its +people, absorbed its language and its life, felt "the very pulse +of the machine." Hence he differed toto caelo from an +archeologist turned romancer like the German Ebers: being rather +a genial traveler who, after telling tales of his experiences by +word of mouth at the tavern hearth, sets them down upon paper +for better preservation. He had been no less student than +pedestrian in the field; lame as he was, he had footed his way +to many a tall memorial of a hoary past, and when still hardly +more than a boy, burrowed among the manuscripts of the +Advocates' Library in Edinburgh, making himself an able +antiquary at a time when most youth are idling or philandering. +Moreover, he was himself the son of a border chief and knew +minstrelsy almost at his nurse's knee: and the lilt of a ballad +was always like wine to his heart. It makes you think of Sir +Philip Sidney's splendid testimony to such an influence: "I +never heard the old song of Percy and Douglas that I found not +my heart moved more than with a trumpet." + +All this could not but tell; the incidents in a book like +"Waverley" are unforced: the advance of the story closely +imitates Life in its ever-shifting succession of events: the +reader soon learns to trust the author's faculty of invention. +Plot, story-interest, is it not the backbone of romantic +fiction? And Scott, though perchance he may not conduct it so +swiftly as pleases the modern taste, may be relied on to furnish +it. + +In the earlier period up to "Ivanhoe," that famous sortie into +English history, belong such masterpieces as "Guy Mannering," +"Old Mortality," "Heart of Midlothian," "The Bride of +Lammermoor," and "Rob Roy"; a list which, had he produced +nothing else would have sufficed to place him high among the +makers of romance. It is not the intention to analyze these +great books one by one--a task more fit for a volume than a +chapter; but to bring out those qualities of his work which are +responsible for his place in fiction and influence in the Novel +of the nineteenth century. + +No story of this group--nor of his career as a writer--has won +more plaudits than "The Heart of Midlothian." Indeed, were the +reader forced to the unpleasant necessity of choosing out of the +thirty stories which Scott left the world the one most deserving +of the prize, possibly the choice would fall on that superb +portrayal of Scotch life--although other fine Novels of the +quintet named would have their loyal friends. To study the +peerlessly pathetic tale of Effie and Jeanie Deans is to see +Scott at his representative best and note the headmarks of his +genius: it is safe to say that he who finds nothing in it can +never care for its author. + +The first thing to notice in this novel of the ancient Edinburgh +Tolbooth, this romance of faithful sisterhood, is its essential +Scotch fiber. The fact affects the whole work. It becomes +thereby simpler, homelier, more vernacular: it is a story that +is a native emanation. The groundwork of plot too is simple, +vital: and moreover, founded on a true incident. Effie, the +younger of two sisters, is betrayed; concerning her betrayer +there is mystery: she is supposed to commit child-murder to hide +her shame: a crime then punishable by death. The story deals +with her trial, condemnation and final pardon and happy marriage +with her lover through the noble mediation of Jeanie, her elder +sister. + +In the presentation of an earlier period in Scotland, the +opening of the eighteenth century, when all punitive measures +were primitive and the lawless social elements seethed with +restless discontent, Scott had a fine chance: and at the very +opening, in describing the violent putting to death of Captain +Porteous, he skilfully prepares the way for the general picture +to be given. Then, as the story progresses, to the supreme +sacrificial effort of Jeanie in behalf of her erring sister's +life, gradually, stroke upon stroke, the period with its +religious schisms, its political passions and strong family +ties, is so illuminated that while the interest is centered upon +the Deans and their homely yet tragic history, Scotch life in an +earlier century is envisaged broadly, truthfully, in a way never +to grow pale in memory. Cameraman or King's man, God-fearing +peasant, lawless ruffian or Tory gentleman, the characters are +so marshaled that without sides being taken by the writer, one +feels the complexity of the period: and its uncivil wildness is +dramatically conveyed as a central fact in the Tolbooth with its +grim concomitants of gallows and gaping crowd of sightseers and +malcontents. + +Scott's feeling for dramatic situation is illustrated in several +scenes that stand out in high relief after a hundred details +have been forgotten: one such is the trial scene in which Effie +implores her sister to save her by a lie, and Jeanie in agony +refuses; the whole management of it is impressively pictorial. +Another is that where Jeanie, on the road to London, is detained +by the little band of gypsy-thieves and passes the night with +Madge Wildfire in the barn: it is a scene Scott much relishes +and makes his reader enjoy. And yet another, and greater, is +that meeting with Queen Caroline and Lady Suffolk when the +humble Scotch girl is conducted by the Duke of Argyll to the +country house and in the garden beseeches pardon for her sister +Effie. It is intensely picturesque, real with many homely +touches which add to the truth without cheapening the effect of +royalty. The gradual working out of the excellent plot of this +romance to a conclusion pleasing to the reader is a favorable +specimen of this romancer's method in story-telling. There is +disproportion in the movement: it is slow in the first part, +drawing together in texture and gaining in speed during its +closing portion. Scott does not hesitate here, as so often, to +interrupt the story in order to interpolate historical +information, instead of interweaving it atmospherically with the +tale itself. When Jeanie is to have her interview with the Duke +of Argyll, certain preliminary pages must be devoted to a sketch +of his career. A master of plot and construction to-day would +have made the same story, so telling in motive, so vibrant with +human interest, more effective, so far as its conductment is +concerned. Scott in his fiction felt it as part of his duty to +furnish chronicle-history, very much as Shakspere seems to have +done in his so-called chronicle-history plays; whereas at +present the skilled artist feels no such responsibility. It may +be questioned if the book's famous scenes--the attempted +breaking into the Tolbooth, or the visit of Jeanie to the Queen--would +not have gained greatly from a dramatic point of view had +they been more condensed; they are badly languaged, looking to +this result, not swift enough for the best effects of drama, +whereas conception and framework are highly dramatic. In a word, +if more carefully written, fuller justice would have been done +the superb theme. + +The characters that crowd the novel (as, in truth, they teem +throughout the great romances) testify to his range and grasp: +the Dean family, naturally, in the center. The pious, sturdy +Cameronian father and the two clearly contrasted sisters: +Butler, the clergyman lover; the saddle-maker, Saddletree, for +an amusing, long-winded bore; the quaint Laird Dumbledikes; the +soldiers of fortune, George Wilson and his mate; that other +soldier, Porteous; the gang of evildoers with Madge in the van--a +wonderful creation, she, only surpassed by the better known +Meg--the high personages clustered about the Queen: loquacious +Mrs. Glass, the Dean's kinswoman--one has to go back to Chaucer +or Shakspere for a companion picture so firmly painted in and +composed on such a generous scale. + +Contention arises in a discussion of a mortal so good as Jeanie: +it would hardly be in the artistic temper of our time to draw a +peasant girl so well-nigh superhuman in her traits; Balzac's +"Eugenie Grandet" (the book appeared only fifteen years later), +is much nearer our time in its conception of the possibilities +of human nature: Eugenie does not strain credence, while +Jeanie's pious tone at times seems out of character, if not out +of humanity. The striking contrast with Effie is in a way to her +advantage: the weaker damsel appears more natural, more like +flesh and blood. But the final scene when, after fleeing with +her high-born lover, she returns to her simple sister as a wife +in a higher grade of society and the sister agrees that their +ways henceforth must be apart--that scene for truth and power is +one of the master-strokes. The reader finds that Jeanie Deans +somehow grows steadily in his belief and affection: quietly but +surely, a sense of her comeliness, her truthful love, her quaint +touch of Scotch canniness, her daughterly duteousness and her +stanch principle intensifies until it is a pang to bid her +farewell, and the mind harks back to her with a fond +recollection. Take her for all in all, Jeanie Deans ranks high +in Scott's female portraiture: with Meg Merillies in her own +station, and with Lucy Ashton and Di Vernon among those of +higher social place. In her class she is perhaps unparalleled in +all his fiction. The whole treatment of Effie's irregular love +is a fine example of Scott's kindly tolerance (tempered to a +certain extent by the social convention of his time) in dealing +with the sins of human beings. He is plainly glad to leave Effie +an honestly married woman with the right to look forward to +happy, useful years. The story breeds generous thoughts on the +theme of young womanhood: it handled the problem neither from +the superior altitude of the conventional moralist nor the cold +aloofness of the latter-day realist--Flaubert's attitude in +"Madame Bovary." + +"A big, imperfect, noble Novel," the thoughtful reader concludes +as he closes it, and thinking back to an earlier impression, +finds that time has not loosened its hold. + +And to repeat the previous statement: what is true of this is +true of all Scott's romances. The theme varies, the setting with +its wealth of local color may change, the period or party differ +with the demands of fact. Scotch and English history are widely +invoked: now it is the time of the Georges, now of the Stuarts, +now Elizabethan, again back to the Crusades. Scott, in fact, +ranges from Rufus the Red to the year 1800, and many are the +complications he considers within that ample sweep. It would be +untrue to say that his plots imitate each other or lack in +invention: we have seen that invention is one of his virtues. +Nevertheless, the motives are few when disencumbered of their +stately historical trappings: hunger, ambition, love, hate, +patriotism, religion, the primary passions and bosom interests +of mankind are those he depicts, because they are universal. It +is his gift for giving them a particular dress in romance after +romance which makes the result so often satisfactory, even +splendid. Yet, despite the range of time and grasp of Life's +essentials, there is in Scott's interpretation of humanity a +certain lack which one feels in comparing him with the finest +modern masters: with a Meredith, a Turgeneff or a Balzac. It is +a difference not only of viewpoint but of synthetic +comprehension and philosophic penetration. It means that he +mirrored a day less complex, less subtle and thoughtful. This +may be dwelt upon and illustrated a little in some further +considerations on his main qualities. + +Scott, like the earlier novelists in general, was content to +depict character from without rather than from within: to +display it through act and scene instead of by the probing +analysis so characteristically modern. This meant inevitable +limitations in dealing with an historical character or time. A +high-church Tory himself, a frank Jacobite in his leanings--Taine +declared he had a feudal mind--he naturally so composed a +picture as to reflect this predilection, making effects of +picturesqueness accordingly. The idea given of Mary Queen of +Scots from "The Abbot" is one example of what is meant; that of +Prince Charley in "Waverley" is another. In a sense, however, +the stories are all the better for this obvious bias. Where a +masculine imagination moved by warm affection seizes on an +historic figure the result is sure to be vivid, at least; and +let it be repeated that Scott has in this way re-created history +for the many. He shows a sound artistic instinct in his handling +of historic personages relative to those imaginary: rarely +letting them occupy the center of interest, but giving that +place to the creatures of his fancy, thereby avoiding the +hampering restriction of a too close following of fact. The +manipulation of Richard Coeur de Lion in "Ivanhoe" is +instructive with this in mind. + +While the lights and shadows of human life are duly blended in +his romances, Scott had a preference for the delineation of the +gentle, the grand (or grandiose), the noble and the beautiful: +loving the medieval, desiring to reproduce the age of chivalry, +he was naturally aristocratic in taste, as in intellect, though +democratic by the dictates of a thoroughly good heart. He liked +a pleasant ending--or, at least, believed in mitigating tragedy +by a checker of sunlight at the close. He had little use for the +degenerate types of mankind: certainly none for degeneracy for +its own sake, or because of a kind of scientific interest in its +workings. Nor did he conceive of the mission of fiction as being +primarily instructional: nor set too high a value on a novel as +a lesson in life--although at times (read the moral tag to "The +Heart of Midlothian") he speaks in quite the preacher's tone of +the improvement to be got from the teaching of the tale. Critics +to-day are, I think, inclined to place undue emphasis upon what +they regard as Scott's failure to take the moral obligations of +fiction seriously: they confuse his preaching and his practice. +Whatever he declared in his letters or Journal, the novels +themselves, read in the light of current methods, certainly +leave an old-fashioned taste on the palate, because of their +moralizings and avowments of didactic purpose. The advantages +and disadvantages of this general attitude can be easily +understood: the loss in philosophic grasp is made up in +healthiness of tone and pleasantness of appeal. One recognizes +such an author as, above all, human and hearty. The reserves and +delicacies of Anglo-Saxon fiction are here, of course, in full +force: and a doctored view of the Middle Ages is the result, as +it is in Tennyson's "Idylls of the King." A sufficient answer is +that it is not Scott's business to set us right as to +medievalism, but rather to use it for the imaginative purposes +of pleasure. The frank intrusion of the author himself into the +body of the page o in the way of footnotes is also disturbing, +judged by our later standards: but was carried on with much +charm by Thackeray in the mid-century, to reappear at its end in +the pages of Du Maurier. + +In the more technical qualifications of the story-maker's art, +Scott compensated in the more masculine virtues for what he +lacked in the feminine. Possessing less of finesse, subtlety and +painstaking than some who were to come, he excelled in sweep, +movement and variety, as well as in a kind of largeness of +effect: "the big bow-wow business," to use his own humorously +descriptive phrase when he was comparing himself with Jane +Austen, to his own disadvantage. And it is these very qualities +that endear him to the general and keep his memories green; +making "Ivanhoe" and "Kenilworth" still useful for school +texts--unhappy fate! Still, this means that he always had a story to +tell and told it with the flow and fervor and the instinctive +coherence of the story-teller born, not made. + +When the fortunes of his fictive folk were settled, this +novelist, always more interested in characters than in the plot +which must conduct them, often loses interest and his books end +more or less lamely, or with obvious conventionality. Anything +to close it up, you feel. But of action and incident, scenes +that live and situations with stage value, one of Scott's +typical fictions has enough to furnish the stock in trade for +life of many later-day romanticists who feebly follow in his +wake. He has a special skill in connecting the comparatively +small private involvement, which is the kernel of a story, with +important public matters, so that they seem part of the larger +movements or historic occurrences of the world. Dignity and body +are gained for the tale thereby. + +In the all-important matter of characterization, Scott yields +the palm to very few modern masters. Merely to think of the +range, variety and actuality of his creations is to feel the +blood move quicker. From figures of historic and regal +importance--Richard, Elizabeth, Mary--to the pure coinage of +imagination--Dandy Dinmont, Dugald Dalgetty, Dominie Sampson, +Rebecca, Lucy, Di Vernon and Jeanie--how the names begin to +throng and what a motley yet welcome company is assembled in the +assizes where this romancer sits to mete out fate to those +within the wide bailiwick of his imagination! This central gift +he possessed with the princes of story-making. It is also +probable that of the imaginative writers of English speech, +nobody but Shakspere and Dickens--and Dickens alone among fellow +fiction-makers--has enriched the workaday world with so many +people, men and women, whose speech, doings and fates are +familiar and matter for common reference. And this is the gift +of gifts. It is sometimes said that Scott's heroes and heroines +(especially, perhaps, the former) are lay figures, not +convincing, vital creations. There is a touch of truth in it. +His striking and successful figures are not walking gentlemen +and leading ladies. When, for example, you recall "Guy +Mannering," you do not think of the young gentleman of that +name, but of Meg Merillies as she stands in the night in high +relief on a bank, weather-beaten of face and wild of dress, +hurling her anathema: "Ride your ways, Ellangowan!" In +characters rather of humble pathos like Jeanie Deans or of +eccentric humor like Dominie Sampson, Scott is at his best. He +confessed to mis-liking his heroes and only warming up to full +creative activity over his more unconventional types: border +chiefs, buccaneers, freebooters and smugglers. "My rogue always, +in spite of me, turns out my hero," is his whimsical complaint. + +But this does not apply in full force to his women. Di Vernon--who +does not recall that scene where from horseback in the +moonlight she bends to her lover, parting from him with the +words: "Farewell, Frank, forever! There is a gulf between us--a +gulf of absolute perdition. Where we go, you must not follow; +what we do, you must not share in--farewell, be happy!" That is +the very accent of Romance, in its true and proper setting: not +to be staled by time nor custom. + +Nor will it do to claim that he succeeds with his Deans and +fails with women of regal type: his Marys and Elizabeth Tudors. +In such portrayals it seems to me he is pre-eminently fine: one +cannot understand the critics who see in such creations mere +stock figures supplied by history not breathed upon with the +breath of life. Scott had a definite talent for the stage-setting +of royalty: that is one of the reasons for the +popularity of "Kenilworth." It is, however, a true +discrimination which finds more of life and variety in Scott's +principal women than in his men of like position. But his Rob +Roys, Hatteraicks and Dalgettys justify all praise and help to +explain that title of Wizard of the North which he won and wore. + +In nothing is Scott stronger than in his environments, his +devices for atmosphere. This he largely secures by means of +description and with his wealth of material, does not hesitate +to take his time in building up his effects. Perhaps the most +common criticism of him heard to-day refers to his slow +movement. Superabundance of matter is accompanied by prolixity +of style, with a result of breeding impatience in the reader, +particularly the young. Boys and girls at present do not offer +Scott the unreserved affection once his own, because he now +seems an author upon whom to exercise the gentle art of +skipping. Enough has been said as to Scott's lack of modern +economy of means. It is not necessary to declare that this +juvenile reluctance to his leisurely manner stands for total +depravity. The young reader of the present time (to say nothing +of the reader more mature) is trained to swifter methods, and +demands them. At the same time, it needs to be asserted that +much of the impressiveness of Scott would be lost were his +method and manner other than they are: nor will it do harm to +remind ourselves that we all are in danger of losing our power +of sustained and consecutive attention in relation to +literature, because of the scrap-book tendency of so much modern +reading. On the center-table, cheap magazines; on the stage, +vaudeville--these are habits that sap the ability for slow, +ruminative pleasure in the arts. Luckily, they are not the only +modern manifestation, else were we in a parlous state, indeed! +The trouble with Scott, then, may be resolved in part into a +trouble with the modern folk who read him. + +When one undertakes the thankless task of analyzing coldly and +critically the style of Scott, the faults are plain enough. He +constantly uses two adjectives or three in parallel construction +where one would do the work better. The construction of his +sentences loses largely the pleasing variation of a richly +articulated system by careless punctuation and a tendency to +make parallel clauses where subordinate relations should be +expressed. The unnecessary copula stars his pages. Although his +manner in narration rises with his subject and he may be justly +called a picturesque and forceful writer, he is seldom a +distinguished one. One does not turn to him for the inevitable +word or phrase, or for those that startle by reason of felicity +and fitness. These strictures apply to his descriptive and +narrative parts, not to the dialogue: for there, albeit sins of +diffuseness and verbosity are to be noted--and these are +modified by the genial humanity they embody--he is one of the +great masters. His use of the Scotch dialect adds indefinitely +to his attraction and native smack: racy humor, sly wit, canny +logic, heartful sympathy--all are conveyed by the folk medium. +All subsequent users of the people-speech pay toll to Walter +Scott. Small courtesy should be extended to those who complain +that these idioms make hard reading. Never does Scott give us +dialect for its own sake, but always for the sake of a closer +revelation of the human heart--dialect's one justification. + +At its worst, Scott's style may fairly be called ponderous, +loose, monotonous: at its finest, the adequate instrument of a +natural story-teller who is most at home when, emerging from his +longueur, he writes of grand things in the grand manner. + +Thus, Sir Walter Scott defined the Romance for modern fiction, +gave it the authority of his genius and extended the gamut of +the Novel by showing that the method of the realist, the +awakening of interest in the actualities of familiar character +and life, could be more broadly applied. He opposed the realist +in no true sense: but indicated how, without a lapse of art or +return to outworn machinery, justice might yet be done to the +more stirring, large, heroic aspects of the world of men: a +world which exists and clamors to be expressed: a world which +readers of healthy taste are perennially interested in, nay, +sooner or later, demand to be shown. His fiction, whether we +award it the somewhat grudging recognition of Carlyle or with +Ruskin regard its maker as the one great novelist of English +race, must be deemed a precious legacy, one of literature's most +honorable ornaments--especially desirable in a day so apparently +plain and utilitarian as our own, eschewing ornament and +perchance for that reason needing it all the more. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +FRENCH INFLUENCE + +In the first third of the nineteenth century English fiction +stood at the parting of the ways. Should it follow Scott and the +romance, or Jane Austen and the Novel of everyday life? Should +it adopt that form of story-making which puts stress on action +and plot and is objective in its method, roaming all lands and +times for its material; or, dealing with the familiar average of +contemporary society, should it emphasize character analysis and +choose the subjective realm of psychology for its peculiar +domain? The pen dropped from the stricken hand of Scott in 1832; +in that year a young parliamentary reporter in London was +already writing certain lively, closely observed sketches of the +town, and four years later they were to be collected and +published under the title of "Sketches by Boz," while the next +year that incomparable extravaganza, "The Pickwick Papers," was +to go to an eager public. English fiction had decided: the Novel +was to conquer the romance for nearly a century. It was a +victory which to the present day has been a dominant influence +in story-making; establishing a tendency which, until Stevenson +a few years since, with the gaiety of the inveterate boy, cried +up Romance once more, bade fair to sweep all before it. + +Before tracing this vigorous development of the Novel of Reality +with Dickens, Thackeray and Eliot (to name three great leaders), +it is important to get an idea of the growth on French soil +which was so deeply influential upon English as well as upon +other modern fiction. Nothing is more certain in literary +evolution than the fact that the French Novel in the nineteenth +century has molded and defined modern fiction, thus repaying an +earlier debt owed the English pioneers, Richardson and Fielding. +English fiction of our own generation may be described as a +native variation on a French model: in fact, the fictionists of +Europe and the English-speaking lands, with whatever +divergencies personal or national, have derived in large measure +from the Gaul the technique, the point of view and the choice of +theme which characterizes the French Novel from Stendhal to +Balzac, from Zola to Guy de Maupassant. + + +I + +The name of Henri Beyle, known to literature under the sobriquet +of Stendhal, has a meaning in the development of the modern type +of fiction out of proportion to the intrinsic value of his +stories. + +He was, of course, far surpassed by mightier followers like +Balzac, Flaubert and Zola; yet his significance lies in the very +fact that they were followers. His is all the merit pertaining +to the feat of introducing the Novel of psychic analysis: of +that persistent and increasingly unpleasant bearing-down upon +the darker facts of personality. Hence his "Rouge et Noir," +dated 1830 and typical of his aim and method, is in a sense an +epoch-making book. + +Balzac was at the same time producing the earlier studies to +culminate in that Human Comedy which was to stand as the chief +accomplishment of his nation in the literature of fiction. But +Stendhal, sixteen years older, began to print first and to him +falls the glory of innovation. Balzac gives full praise to his +predecessor in his essay on Beyle, and his letters contain +frequent references to the debt he owed that curious bundle of +fatuities, inconsistencies and brilliancies, the author of "The +Chartreuse de Parme." Later, Zola calls him "the father of us +all," meaning of the naturalistic school of which Zola himself +was High Priest. Beyle's business was the analysis of soul +states: an occupation familiar enough in these times of Hardy, +Meredith and Henry James. He held several posts of importance +under Napoleon, worshiped that leader, loved Italy as his +birthplace, loved England too, and tried to show in his novels +the result of the inactive Restoration upon a generation trained +by Napoleon to action, violence, ambition and passion. + +Read to-day, "Le Rouge et Noir," which it is sufficient to +consider for our purposes, seems somewhat slow in movement, +struggling in construction, meticulous in manner. At times, its +interminability recalls "Clarissa Harlowe," but it possesses the +traits' which were to mark the coming school of novel-writing in +France and hence in the modern world: to wit, freedom in dealing +with love in its irregular relation, the tendency towards +tragedy, and that subtlety of handling which makes the main +interest to depend upon motive and thought rather than upon the +external action itself. "Thus conscience doth make cowards of us +all,"--that might be the motto. The young quasi-hero is Julian, +an ambitious worldling of no family, and his use of the Church +as a means of promotion, his amours with several women and his +death because of his love for one of them, are traced with a +kind of tortuous revelation of the inner workings of the human +heart which in its way declares genius in the writer: and which +certainly makes a work disillusioning of human nature. Its more +external aspect of a study of the politic Church and State, of +the rivalry between the reds and the blacks of the state +religion, is entirely secondary to this greater purpose and +result: here, for the first time at full length, a writer shows +the possibility of that realistic portrayal sternly carried +through, no matter how destructive of romantic preconceptions of +men and women. It is the method of Richardson flowering in a +time of greater freedom and more cynical questioning of the +gods. + + +II + +But giving Stendhal his full mint and cummin of praise, he yet +was but the forerunner of a mightier man. Undoubtedly, he +prepared the soil and was a necessary link in the chain of +development wherewith fiction was to forge itself an unbreakable +sequence of strength. Balzac was to put out his lesser light, as +indeed the refulgence of his genius was to overshine all French +fiction, before and since. It would be an exaggeration to say +that the major English novelists of the middle nineteenth +century were consciously disciples of Balzac--for something +greater even than he moved them; the spirit of the Time. But it +is quite within bounds to say that of all modern fiction he is +the leader and shaper. Without him, his greatest native +follower, Zola, is inconceivable. He gathers up into himself and +expresses at its fullest all that was latent in the striking +modern growth whose banner-cry was Truth, and whose method was +that of the social scientist. Here was a man who, early in his +career, for the first time in the history of the Novel, +deliberately planned to constitute himself the social historian +of his epoch and race: and who, in upwards of a hundred +remarkable pieces of fiction in Novel form executed that plan in +such fulness that his completed work stands not only as a +monument of industry, but as perhaps the most inspiring example +of literary synthesis in the history of letters. In bigness of +conception and of construction--let alone the way in which the +work was performed--the Human Comedy is awe-begetting; it drives +one to Shakspere for like largeness of scale. Such a +performance, ordered and directed to a foreseen end, is unique +in literature. + +As Balzac thus gave birth, with a fiery fecundity of invention, +to book after book of the long list of Novels that make up his +story of life, there took shape in his mind a definite +intention: to become the Secretary of an Age of which he +declared society to be the historian. He wished to exhibit man +in his species as he was to be seen in the France of the +novelist's era, just as a naturalist aims to study beast-kind, +segregating them into classes for zoological investigation. +Later, Balzac's great successor (as we shall see) applied this +analogy with more rigid insistence upon the scientific method +which should obtain in all literary study. The survey proposed +covered a period of about half a century and included the +Republic, the Empire and the Restoration: it ranged through all +classes and conditions of men with no appearance of prejudice, +preference or parti-pris (this is one of the marvels of Balzac), +thus gaining the immense advantage of an apparently complete and +catholic comprehension of the human show. Of all modern +novelists, Balzac is the one whose work seems like life instead +of an opinion of life; he has the objectivity of Shakspere. Even +a Tolstoy set beside him seems limited. + +This idea of a plan was not crystallized into the famous title +given to his collective works--La Comedie Humaine--until 1842, +when but eight years of life remained to him. But four years +earlier it had been mentioned in a letter, and when Balzac was +only a little over thirty, at a time when his better-known books +were just beginning to appear, he had signified his sense of an +inclusive scheme by giving such a running title to a group of +his stories as the familiar "Scenes from Private Life"--to +which, in due course, were added other designations for the +various parts of the great plan. The encyclopedic survey was +never fully completed, but enough was done to justify all the +laudation that belongs to a Herculean task and the exploitation +of an almost incredible amount of human data. As for finishing +the work, the failure hardly detracts from its value or affects +its place in literature. Neither Spenser's "Faery Queen" nor +Wordsworth's "The Excursion" was completed, and, per contra, it +were as well for Browning if "The Ring and the Book" had not +been. In all such cases of so-called incompletion, one +recognizes Hercules from the feet. Had this mighty story-teller +and student of humanity carried out his full intention there +would have been nearly 150 pieces of fiction; of the plan-on-paper +he actually completed ninety-seven, two-thirds of the +whole, and enough to illustrate the conception. And it must be +remembered that Balzac died at fifty. One result of the +incompletion, as Brunetiere has pointed out, is to give +disproportionate treatment to certain phases of life, to the +military, for instance, for which Balzac has twenty-four stories +on his list, whereas only two, "The Chouans" and "A Passion in +the Desert," were executed. But surely, sufficient was done, +looking to the comedy as a whole, to force us to describe the +execution as well as the conception as gigantic. Had the work +been more mechanically pushed to its end for the exact plan's +sake, the perfection of scheme might have been attained at the +expense of vitality and inspiration. Ninety-seven pieces of +fiction, the majority of them elaborate novels, the whole +involving several thousand characters, would be impressive in +any case, but when they come from an author who marvelously +reproduces his time and country, creating his scenes in a way to +afford us a sense of the complexity of life--its depth and +height, its beauty, terror and mystery--we can but hail him as +Master. + +And in spite of the range and variety in Balzac's unique +product, it has an effect of unity based upon a sense of social +solidarity. He conceives it his duty to present the unity of +society in his day, whatever its apparent class and other +divergencies. He would show that men and women are members of +the one body social, interacting upon each other in manifold +relations and so producing the dramas of earth; each story plays +its part in this general aim, illustrating the social laws and +reactions, even as the human beings themselves play their parts +in the world. In this way Balzac's Human Comedy is an organism, +however much it may fall short of symmetry and completion. + +In the outline of the plan we find him separating his studies +into three groups or classes: The Studies of Manners, the +Philosophical Studies, and the Analytic Studies. In the first +division were placed the related groups of scenes of Private +life, Provincial life, Parisian life, Political life, Military +life and Country life. It was his desire, as he says in a letter +to Madame Hanska, to have the group of studies of Manners +"represent all social effects"; in the philosophic studies the +causes of those effects: the one exhibits individualities +typified, the other, types individualized: and in the Analytic +Studies he searches for the principles. "Manners are the +performance; the causes are the wings and the machinery. The +principles--they are the author.... Thus man, society and +humanity will be described, judged, analyzed without repetition +and in a work which will be, as it were, 'The Thousand and One +Nights' of the west." + +The scheme thus categorically laid down sounds rather dry and +formal, nor is it too easy to understand. But all trouble +vanishes when once the Human Comedy itself, in any example of +it, is taken up; you launch upon the great swollen tide of life +and are carried irresistibly along. + +It is plain that with an author of Balzac's productive powers, +any attempt to convey an idea of his quality must perforce +confine itself to a few representative specimens. A few of them, +rightly chosen, give a fair notion of his general +interpretation. What then are some illustrative creations? + +In the case of most novelists, although of first rank, it is not +as a rule difficult to define their class and name their +tendency: their temperaments and beliefs are so-and-so, and they +readily fall under the designation of realist or romanticist, +pessimist, or optimist, student of character or maker of plots. +This is, in a sense, impossible with Balzac. The more he be +read, the harder to detect his bias: he seems, one is almost +tempted to say, more like a natural force than a human mind. +Persons read two or three--perhaps half a dozen of his books--and +then prate glibly of his dark view, his predilection for the +base in mankind; when fifty fictions have been assimilated, it +will be realized that but a phase of Balzac had been seen. + +When the passion of creation, the birth-throes of a novel were +on him, he became so immersed in the aspect of life he was +depicting that he saw, felt, knew naught else: externally this +obsession was expressed by his way of life and work while the +story was growing under his hand: his recluse habits, his +monkish abstention from worldly indulgences, the abnormal night +hours of activity, the loss of flesh, so that the robust man who +went into the guarded chamber came out at the end of six weeks +the shadow of himself. + +As a consequence of the consecration to the particular task (as +if it embraced the one view of existence), the reader perhaps +experiences a shock of surprise in passing from "The Country +Doctor" to "Pere Goriot." But the former is just as truly part +of his interpretation as the latter. A dozen fictions can be +drawn from the body of his production which portray humanity in +its more beautiful, idealistic manifestations. Books like "The +Country Doctor" and "Eugenic Grandet" are not alone in the list. +And how beautiful both are! "The Country Doctor" has all the +idyllic charm of setting which a poetic interpretation of life +in a rural community can give. Not alone Nature, but human +nature is hymned. The kindly old physician, whose model is the +great Physician himself, is like Chaucer's good parson, an +unforgettable vision of the higher potentialities of the race. +Such a novel deserves to be called quite as truly romance and +prose poem, save that Balzac's vraisemblance, his gift for +photographic detail and the contemporaneousness of the setting, +make it modern. And thus with "Eugenie Grandet" the same method +applied in "The Country Doctor" to the study of a noble +profession in a rural atmosphere, is here used for the portrait +of a good woman whose entourage is again that of simple, natural +conditions. There is more of light and shade in the revelation +of character because Eugenie's father, the miser--a masterly +sketch--furnishes a dark background for her radiant personality. +But the same effect is produced, that of throwing into bold +relief the sweet, noble, high and pure in our common humanity. +And in this case it is a girl of humble station far removed from +the shams and shameful passions of the town. The conventional +contrast would be to present in another novel some woman of the +city as foul as this daughter of Grandet is fair. Not so Balzac. +He is too broad an observer of humanity, and as artist too much +the master for such cheap effects of chiaroscuro. In "The +Duchess De Langeais" e sets his central character amidst the +frivolities of fashion and behold, yet another beautiful type of +the sex! As Richardson drew his Pamela and Clarissa, so Balzac +his Eugenie and the Duchess: and let us not refrain from +carrying out the comparison, and add, how feeble seems the +Englishman in creation when one thinks of the half a hundred +other female figures, good and bad, high and low, distinctly +etched upon the memory by the mordant pen of the Frenchman! + +Then if we turn to that great tragedy of family, "Pere Goriot," +the change is complete. Now are we plunged into an atmosphere of +greed, jealousy, uncleanliness and hate, all steeped in the +bourgeois street air of Paris. In this tale of thankless +daughters and their piteous old father, all the hideousness +possible to the ties of kin is uncovered to our frightened yet +fascinated eye. The plot holds us in a vise; to recall Madame +Vautrin's boarding house is to shudder at the sights and smells! +Compare it with Dickens' Mrs. Todgers, and once and for all you +have the difference between the Anglo-Saxon and Celtic genius. + +Suppose, now, the purpose be to reveal not a group or community, +but one human soul, a woman's this time: read "A Woman of +Thirty" and see how the novelist,--for the first time--and one +is inclined to add, for all time,--has pierced through the +integuments and reached the very quick of psychologic exposure. +It is often said that he has created the type of young-old, or +old-young woman: meaning that before him, novelists overlooked +the fact that a woman of this age, maturer in experience and +still ripe in physical charms, is really of intense social +attraction, richly worth study. But this is because Balzac knows +that all souls are interesting, if only we go beneath the +surface. The only work of modern fiction which seems to me so +nakedly to lay open the recesses of the human spirit as does "A +Woman of Thirty" is Meredith's "The Egoist"; and, of course, +master against master, Balzac is easily the superior, since the +English author's wonderful book is so mannered and grotesque. +Utter sympathy is shown in these studies of femininity, whether +the subject be a harlot, a saint or a patrician of the Grande +Monde. + +If the quest be for the handling of mankind en masse, with big +effects of dark and light: broad brush-work on a canvas suited +to heroical, even epic, themes,--a sort of fiction the later +Zola was to excel in--Balzac will not fail us. His work here is +as noteworthy as it is in the fine detailed manner of his most +realistical modern studies--or in the searching analysis of the +human spirit. "The Chouans" may stand for this class: it has all +the fire, the color, the elan that emanate from the army and the +call of country. We have flashed before us one of those +reactionary movements, after the French Revolution, which take +on a magic romanticism because they culminate in the name of +Napoleon. While one reads, one thinks war, breathes war--it is +the only life for the moment. Just ahead a step, one feels, is +the "imminent deadly breach"; the social or business or Bohemian +doings of later Paris are as if they did not exist. And this +particular novel will achieve such a result with the reader, +even although it is not by any means one of Balzac's supreme +achievements, being in truth, a little aside from his metier, +since it is historical and suggests in spots the manner of +Scott. But this power of envisaging war (which will be farther +realized if such slighter works as "A Dark Affair" and "An +Episode Under the Terror" be also perused), is only a single +manifestation of a general gift. Suppose there is desired a +picture very common in our present civilization--most common it +may be in America,--that of the country boy going up to the city +to become--what? Perhaps a captain of commerce, or a leader of +fashion: perhaps a great writer or artist; or a politician who +shall rule the capitol. It is a venture packed full of realistic +experience but equally full of romance, drama, poetry--of an +epic suggestiveness. In two such volumes as "A Great Provincial +Man in Paris" and "Lost Illusions," all this, with its dire +chances of evil as well as its roseate promise of success, has +been wonderfully expressed. So cogently modern a motive had +never been so used before. + +Sometimes in a brace of books Balzac shows us the front and +back-side of some certain section of life: as in "Cousin Pons" +and "Cousine Bette."--The corner of Paris where artists, +courtesans and poor students most do congregate, where Art +capitalized is a sacred word, and the odd estrays of humanity, +picturesque, humorous, and tragic, display all the chances of +mankind,--this he paints so that we do not so much look on as +move amidst the throng. In the first-named novel, assuredly a +very great book, the figure of the quaint old connoisseur is one +of fiction's superlative successes: to know him is to love him +in all his weakness. In the second book, Bette is a female +vampire and the story around her as terrible as the other is +heart-warming and sweet. And you know that both are true, true +as they would not have been apart: "helpless each without the +other." + +Again, how much of the gambling activities of modern business +are emblazoned in another of the acknowledged masterpieces, +"Caesar Birotteau." We can see in it the prototype of much that +comes later in French fiction: Daudet's "Risler Aine et Froment +Jeune" and Zola's "L'Argent," to name but two. Such a story sums +up the practical, material side of a reign or an epoch. + +Nor should it be forgotten that this close student of human +nature, whose work appears so often severely mundane, and most +strong when its roots go down into the earth, sometimes seeming +to prefer the rankness and slime of human growths,--can on +occasion soar into the empyrean, into the mystic region of +dreams and ideals and all manner of subtle imaginings. Witness +such fiction as "The Magic Skin," "Seraphita," and "The Quest of +the Absolute." It is hard to believe that the author of such +creations is he of "Pere Goriot" or "Cousine Bette." But it is +Balzac's wisdom to see that such pictures are quite as truly +part of the Human Comedy: because they represent man giving play +to his soul--exercising his highest faculties. Nor does the +realistic novelist in such efforts have the air of one who has +left his true business in order to disport himself for once in +an alien element. On the contrary, he seems absolutely at home: +for the time, this is his only affair, his natural interest. + +And so with illustrations practically inexhaustible, which the +long list prodigally offers. But the scope and variety have been +already suggested; the best rule with Balzac is, each one to his +taste, always remembering that in a writer so catholic, there is +a peculiar advantage in an extended study. Nor can from twenty +to twenty-five of his best books be read without a growing +conviction that here is a man of genius who has done a unique +thing. + +It is usual to refer to Balzac as the first great realist of the +French, indeed, of modern fiction. Strictly, he is not the first +in France, as we have seen, since Beyle preceded him; nor in +modern fiction, for Jane Austen, so admirably an artist of +verity, came a generation before. But, as always when a +compelling literary force appears, Balzac without any question +dominates in the first half of the nineteenth century: more than +this, he sets the mold of the type which marks the second half. +In fact, the modern Novel means Balzac's recipe. English +fiction, along with that of Europe, shares this influence. We +shall see in dealing with Dickens how definitely the English +writer adopted the Balzac method as suited to the era and +sympathetic to Dickens' own nature. + +As to the accuracy with which he gave a representation of +contemporary life--thus deserving the name realist--considerable +may be said in the way of qualification. Much of it applies with +similar force to Zola, later to be hailed as a king among modern +realists in the naturalistic extreme to which he pushed the +movement. Balzac, through his remarkable instinct for detail and +particularity, did introduce into nineteenth century fiction an +effect of greater truth in the depiction of life. Nobody perhaps +had--nobody has since--presented mis-en-scene as did he. He +builds up an impression by hundreds of strokes, each seemingly +insignificant, but adding to a totality that becomes impressive. +Moreover, again and again in his psychologic analysis there are +home-thrusts which bring the blood to the face of any honest +person. His detail is thus quite as much subjective as external. +It were a great mistake to regard Balzac as merely a writer who +photographed things outside in the world; he is intensely +interested in the things within--and if objectivity meant +realism exclusively, he would be no realist at all. + +But farther than this; with all his care for minute touches and +his broad and painstaking observation, it is not so much life, +after all, as a vision of life which he gives. This contradicts +what was said early in the present chapter: but the two +statements stand for the change likely to come to any student of +Balzac: his objective personality at last resolves itself into a +vividly personal interpretation. His breadth blinds one for a +while, that is all. Hence Balzac may be called an incurable +romantic, an impressionist, as much as realist. Like all first-class +art, his gives us the seeming-true for our better +instruction. He said in the Preface to "Pere Goriot" that the +novelist should not only depict the world as it is, but "a +possibly better world." He has done so. The most untrue thing in +a novel may be the fact lifted over unchanged from life? Truth +is not only stranger than fiction, but great fiction is truer +than truth. Balzac understood this, remembered it in his heart. +He is too big as man and artist to be confined within the narrow +realistic formula. While, as we have seen, he does not take +sides on moral issues, nor allow himself to be a special pleader +for this or that view, his work strikes a moral balance in that +it shows universal humanity--not humanity tranced in +metaphysics, or pathologic in analysis, or enmeshed in +sensualism. In this sense, Balzac is a great realist. There is +no danger of any novelist--any painter of life--doing harm, if +he but gives us the whole. It is the story-teller who rolls some +prurient morsel under his tongue who has the taint in him: he +who, to sell his books, panders to the degraded instincts of his +audience. Had Balzac been asked point-blank what he deemed the +moral duty of the novelist, he would probably have disclaimed +any other responsibility than that of doing good work, of +representing things as they are. But this matters not, if only a +writer's nature be large and vigorous enough to report of +humanity in a trustworthy way. Balzac was much too well endowed +in mind and soul and had touched life far too widely, not to +look forth upon it with full comprehension of its spiritual +meaning. + +In spite, too, of his alleged realism, he believed that the duty +of the social historian was more than to give a statement of +present conditions--the social documents of the moment,--variable +as they might be for purposes of deduction. He insisted +that the coming,--perhaps seemingly impossible things, should be +prophesied;--those future ameliorations, whether individual or +collective, which keep hope alive in the human breast. Let me +again quote those words, extraordinary as coming from the man +who is called arch-realist of his day: "The novelist should +depict the world not alone as it is, but a possibly better +world." In the very novel where he said it ("Pere Goriot") he +may seem to have violated the principle: but taking his fiction +in its whole extent, he has acted upon it, the pronunciamento +exemplifies his practice. + +Balzac's work has a Shaksperian universality, because it is so +distinctly French,--a familiar paradox in literature. He was +French in his feeling for the social unit, in his keen +receptivity to ideas, in his belief in Church and State as the +social organisms through which man could best work out his +salvation. We find him teaching that humanity, in terms of +Gallic temperament, and in time limits between the Revolution +and the Second Republic, is on the whole best served by living +under a constitutional monarchy and in vital touch with Mother +Church,--that form of religion which is a racial inheritance +from the Past. In a sense, then, he was a man with the +limitations of his place and time, as, in truth, was Shakspere. +But the study of literature instructs us that it is exactly +those who most vitally grasp and voice their own land and +period, who are apt to give a comprehensive view of humanity at +large; to present man sub specie aeternitatis. This is so +because, thoroughly to present any particular part of mankind, +is to portray all mankind. It is all tarred by the same stick, +after all. It is only in the superficials that unlikenesses lie. + +Balzac was intensely modern. Had he lived today, he might have +been foremost in championing the separation of Church and State +and looked on serenely at the sequestration of the religious +houses. But writing his main fiction from 1830 to 1850, his +attitude was an enlightened one, that of a thoughtful patriot. + +His influence upon nineteenth century English fiction was both +direct and indirect. It was direct in its effect upon several of +the major novelists, as will be noted in studying them; the +indirect influence is perhaps still more important, because it +was so all-pervasive, like an emanation that expressed the Time. +It became impossible, after Balzac had lived and wrought, for +any artist who took his art seriously to write fiction as if the +great Frenchman had not come first. He set his seal upon that +form of literature, as Ibsen, a generation later, was to set his +seal upon the drama, revolutionizing its technique. To the +student therefore he is a factor of potent power in explaining +the modern fictional development. Nor should he be a negligible +quantity to the cultivated reader seeking to come genially into +acquaintance with the best that European letters has +accomplished. While upon the lover of the Novel as a form of +literature--which means the mass of all readers to-day--Balzac +cannot fail to exercise a personal fascination.--Life widens +before us at his touch, and that glamour which is the +imperishable gift of great art, returns again as one turns the +pages of the little library of yellow books which contain the +Human Comedy. + +Balzac died in 1850, when in the prime of his powers. Seven +years later was published the "Madame Bovary" of Flaubert, one +of the most remarkable novels of the nineteenth century and the +most unrelenting depiction of the devolution of a woman's soul +in all fiction: certainly it deserved that description up to the +hour of its appearance, if not now, when so much has been done +in the realm of female pathology. Flaubert is the most +noteworthy intermediate figure between Balzac and Zola. He seems +personally of our own day, for, living to be an old man, he was +friend and fellow-worker with the brothers Goncourt (whom we +associate with Zola) and extended a fatherly hand to the young +Maupassant at the beginning of the latter's career,--so +brilliant, brief, tragic. The influence of this one novel +(overlooking that of "Salambo," in its way also of influence in +the modern growth) has been especially great upon a kind of +fiction most characteristic of the present generation: in which, +in fact, it has assumed a "bad preeminence." I mean the Novel of +sexual relations in their irregular aspects. The stormy artist +of the Goncourt dinners has much to answer for, if we regard him +only as the creator of such a creature as Madame Bovary. Many +later books were to surpass this in license, in coarseness, or +in the effect of evoking a libidinous taste; but none in its +unrelenting gloom, the cold detachment of the artist-scientist +obsessed with the idea of truthfully reflecting certain sinister +facets of the many-faced gem called life! It is hardly too much +to say, in the light of the facts, that "Madame Bovary" was +epochal. It paved the way for Zola. It justified a new aim for +the modern fiction of so-called unflinching realism. The saddest +thing about the book is its lack of pity, of love. Emma Bovary +is a weak woman, not a bad woman; she goes downhill through the +force of circumstances coupled with a want of backbone. And she +is not responsible for her flabby moral muscles. Behind the +story is an absolutely fatalistic philosophy; given a certain +environment, any woman (especially if assisted a bit by her +ancestors) will go to hell,--such seems the lesson. Now there is +nothing just like this in Balzac, We hear in it a new note, the +latter-day note of quiescence, and despair. And if we compare +Flaubert's indifference to his heroine's fate with the +tenderness of Dumas fils, or of Daudet, or the English Reade and +Dickens--we shall realize that we have here a mixture of a +personal and a coming general interpretation: Flaubert having by +nature a kind of aloof determinism, yet feeling, like the first +puffs of a cold chilling wind, the oncoming of an age of Doubt. + + +III. + +These three French writers then, Stendhal, Balzac and Flaubert, +molded the Novel before 1860 into such a shape as to make it +plastic to the hand of Zola a decade later. Zola's influence +upon our present generation of English fiction has been great, +as it has upon all novel-making since 1870. Before explaining +this further, it will be best to return to the study of the +mid-century English novelists who were too early to be affected +by him to any perceptible degree. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +DICKENS + +By the year 1850, in England, the so-called Novel of realism had +conquered. Scott in an earlier generation had by his wonderful +gift made the romance fashionable. But, as we said, it was the +romance with a difference: the romance with its feet firmly +planted on mother-earth, not ballooning in cloudland; the +romance depicting men and women of the past but yet men and +women, not creatures existing only in the fancy of the romance-maker. +In short, Scott, romancer though he was, helped modern +realism along, because he handled his material more truthfully +than it had been handled before. And his great contemporary, +Jane Austen, with her strict adherence to the present and to her +own locale, threw all her influence in the same direction, +justifying Mr. Howell's assertion that she leads all English +novelists in that same truthful handling. + +Moreover, that occult but imperative thing, the spirit of the +Time, was on the side of Realism: and all bend to its dictation. +Then, in the mid-century, Dickens and Thackeray, with George +Eliot a little later on their heels, and Trollope too, came to +give a deeper set to the current which was to flow in similar +channels for the remainder of the period. In brief, this is the +story, whatever modifications of the main current are to be +noted: the work of Bulwer and Disraeli, of Reade, Kingsley and +Collins. + +A decade before Thackeray got a general hearing Dickens had fame +and mighty influence. It was in the eighteen thirties that the +self-made son of an impecunious navy clerk, who did not live in +vain since he sat for a portrait of Micawber and the father of +the Marshalsea, turned from journalism to that higher reporting +which means the fiction of manners and humors. All the gods had +prepared him for his destiny. Sympathy he had for the poor, the +oppressed, the physically and morally unfit, for he had suffered +in his own person, or in his imagination, for them all. His gift +of observation had been sharpened in the grim school of +necessity: he had learned to write by writing under the pressure +of newspaper needs. And he had in his blood, while still hardly +more than a lad, a feeling for idiomatic English which, so far +as it was not a boon straight from heaven, had been fostered +when the very young Charles had battened, as we saw, upon the +eighteenth century worthies. + +It is now generally acknowledged that Dickens is not a temporary +phenomenon in Victorian letters, but a very solid major fact in +the native literature, too large a creative force to be +circumscribed by a generation. Looked back upon across the gap +of time, he looms up all the more impressively because the years +have removed the clutter about the base of the statue. The +temporary loss of critical regard (a loss affecting his hold on +the general reading public little, if any) has given way to an +almost violent critical reaction in his favor. We are widening +the esthetic canvas to admit of the test of life, and are coming +to realize that, obsessed for a time by the attraction of that +lower truth which makes so much of external realities, realism +lost sight of the larger demands of art which include selection, +adaptation, and that enlargement of effect marking the +distinction between art and so-called reality. No critic is now +timid about saying a good word for the author of "Pickwick" and +"Copperfield." A few years ago it was otherwise. Present-day +critics such as Henley, Lang, and Chesterton have assured the +luke-warm that there is room in English literature for both +Thackeray and Dickens. + +That Dickens began to write fiction as a very young journalist +was in some ways in his favor; in other ways, to the detriment +of his work. It meant an early start on a career of over thirty +years. It meant writing under pressure with the spontaneity and +reality which usually result. It also meant the bold grappling +with the technique of a great art, learning to make novels by +making them. Again, one truly inspired to fiction is lucky to +have a novitiate in youth. So far the advantages. + +On the other hand, the faults due to inexperience, lack of +education, uncertainty of aim, haste and carelessness and other +foes of perfection, will probably be in evidence when a writer +who has scarcely attained to man's estate essays fiction. +Dickens' early work has thus the merits and demerits of his +personal history. A popular and able parliamentary reporter, +with sympathetic knowledge of London and the smaller towns where +his duties took him, possessed of a marvelous memory which +photographed for him the boyish impressions of places like +Chatham and Rochester, he began with sketches of that life +interspersed with more fanciful tales which drew upon his +imagination and at times passed the melodramatic border-line. +When these collected pieces were published under the familiar +title "Sketches by Boz," it is not too much to say that the +Dickens of the "Pickwick Papers" (which was to appear next year) +was revealed. Certainly, the main qualities of a great master of +the Comic were in these pages; so, in truth, was the master of +both tears and smiles. But not at full-length: the writer had +not yet found his occasion;--the man needs the occasion, even as +it awaits the man. And so, hard upon the Boz book, followed, as +it were by an accident, the world-famous "Adventures of Mr. +Pickwick." By accident, I say, because the promising young +author was asked to furnish the letter-press for a series of +comic sporting pictures by the noted artist, Seymour; +whereupon--doubtless to the astonishment of all concerned, the +pictures became quite secondary to the reading matter and the Wellers +soon set all England talking and laughing over their inimitable +sayings. Here in a loosely connected series of sketches the main +unity of which was the personality of Mr. Pickwick and his club, +its method that of the episodic adventure story of "Gil Blas" +lineage, its purpose frankly to amuse at all costs, a new +creative power in English literature gave the world over three +hundred characters in some sixty odd scenes: intensely English, +intensely human, and still, after the lapse of three quarters of +a century, keenly enjoyable. + +In a sense, all Dickens' qualities are to be found in "The +Pickwick Papers," as they have come to be called for brevity's +sake. But the assertion is misleading, if it be taken to mean +that in the fifteen books of fiction which Dickens was to +produce, he added nothing, failed to grow in his art or to widen +and deepen in his hold upon life. So far is this from the truth, +that one who only knows Charles Dickens in this first great book +of fun, knows a phase of him, not the whole man: more, hardly +knows the novelist at all. He was to become, and to remain, not +only a great humorist, but a great novelist as well: and +"Pickwick" is not, by definition, a Novel at all. Hence, the +next book the following year, "Oliver Twist," was important as +answering the question: Was the brilliant new writer to turn out +very novelist, able to invent, handle and lead to due end a +tangled representation of social life? + +Before replying, one rather important matter may be adverted to, +concerning the Dickens introduced to the world by "Pickwick": +his astonishing power in the evocation of human beings, whom we +affectionately remember, whose words are treasured, whose fates +are followed with a sort of sense of personal responsibility. If +the creation of differentiated types of humanity who persist in +living in the imagination be the cardinal gift of the fiction +writer, then this one is easily the leading novelist of the +race. Putting aside for the moment the question of his +caricaturing tendency, one fact confronts us, hardly to be +explained away: we can close our eyes and see Micawber, Mrs. +Gamp, Pegotty, Dick Swiveller, the Artful Dodger, Joe Gargery, +Tootles, Captain Cutter, and a hundred more, and their sayings, +quaint and dear, are like household companions. And this is true +in equal measure of no other story-maker who has used English +speech--it may be doubted if it is true to like degree of +Shakspere himself. + +In the quick-following stories, "Oliver Twist" and "Nicholas +Nickleby," the author passed from episode and comic +characterization to what were in some sort Novels: the fiction +of organism, growth and climax. + +His wealth of character creation was continued and even +broadened. But there was more here: an attempt to play the game +of Novel-making. It may be granted that when Dickens wrote these +early books (as a young man in the twenties), he had not yet +mastered many of the difficulties of the art of fiction. There +is loose construction in both: the melodrama of "Oliver Twist" +blends but imperfectly with the serious and sentimental part of +the narrative, which is less attractive. So, too, in "Nickleby," +there is an effect at times of thin ice where the plot is +secondary to the episodic scenes and characters by the way. Yet +in both Novels there is a story and a good one: we get the +spectacle of genius learning its lesson,--experimenting in a +form. And as those other early books, differing totally from +each other too, "Old Curiosity Shop," and "Barnaby Rudge," were +produced, and in turn were succeeded by a series of great novels +representing the writer's young prime,--I mean "Martin +Chuzzlewit," "Dombey and Son" and "David Copperfield,"--it was +plain that the hand of Dickens was becoming subdued to the +element it worked in. Not only was there a good fable, as +before, but it was managed with increasing mastery, while the +general adumbration of life gained in solidity, truth and rich +human quality. In brief, by the time "Copperfield," the story +most often referred to as his best work, was reached, Dickens +was an artist. He wrought in that fiction in such a fashion as +to make the most of the particular class of Novel it +represented: to wit, the first-person autobiographic picture of +life. Given its purpose, it could hardly have been better done. +It surely bears favorable comparison, for architecture, with +Thackeray's "Vanity Fair," a work in the same genre, though +lacking the autobiographic method. This is quite aside from its +remarkable range of character-portrayal, its humor, pathos and +vraisemblance, its feeling for situation, its sonorous eloquence +in massed effects. + +By the time he had reached mid-career, then, Charles Dickens had +made himself a skilled, resourceful story-teller, while his +unique qualities of visualization and interpretation had +strengthened. This point is worth emphasis, since there are +those who contend that "The Pickwick Papers" is his most +characteristic performance. Such a judgment is absurd, It +overlooks the grave beauty of the picture of Chesney Wold in +Bleak House; the splendid harmony of the Yarmouth storm in +"Copperfield"; the fine melodrama of the chapter in "Chuzzlewit" +where the guilty Jonas takes his haggard life; the magnificent +portraiture of the Father of the Marshalsea in "Little Dorrit": +the spiritual exaltation in vivid stage terms of Carton's death; +the exquisite April-day blend of tenderness and fun in limning +the young life of a Marchioness, a little Dombey and a tiny Tim. +To call Dickens a comic writer and stop there, is to try to pour +a river into a pint pot; for a sort of ebullient boy-like spirit +of fun, the high jinks of literature, we go to "Pickwick"; for +the light and shade of life to "Copperfield"; for the structural +excellencies of fiction to later masterpieces like "The Tale of +Two Cities" and "Great Expectations." + +Just here a serious objection often brought against Dickens may +be considered: his alleged tendency to caricature. Does Dickens +make his characters other than what life itself shows, and if +so, is he wrong in so doing? + +His severest critics assume the second if the first be but +granted. Life--meaning the exact reproduction of reality--is +their fetish. Now, it must be granted that Dickens does make his +creatures talk as their prototypes do not in life. Nobody would +for a moment assert that Mrs. Gamp, Pecksniff and Micawber could +be literally duplicated from the actual world. But is not +Dickens within his rights as artist in so changing the features +of life as to increase our pleasure? That is the nub of the +whole matter. The artist of fiction should not aim at exact +photography, for it is impossible; no fiction-maker since time +began has placed on the printed pages half the irrelevance and +foolishness or one-fifth the filth which are in life itself. +Reasons of art and ethics forbid. The aim, therefore, should +rather be at an effect of life through selection and re-shaping. +And I believe Dickens is true to this requirement. We hear less +now than formerly of his crazy exaggerations: we are beginning +to realize that perhaps he saw types that were there, which we +would overlook if they were under our very eyes: we feel the +wisdom of Chesterton's remarks that Dickens' characters will +live forever because they never lived at all! We suffered from +the myopia of realism. Zola desired above all things to tell the +truth by representing humanity as porcine, since he saw it that +way: he failed in his own purpose, because decency checked him: +his art is not photographic (according to his proud boast) but +has an almost Japanese convention of restraint in its +suppression of facts. Had Sarah Gamp been allowed by Dickens to +speak as she would speak in life, she would have been +unspeakably repugnant, never cherished as a permanently +laughable, even lovable figure of fiction. Dickens was a master +of omissions as well as of those enlargments which made him +carry over the foot lights. Mrs. Gamp is a monumental study of +the coarse woman rogue: her creator makes us hate the sin and +tolerate the sinner. Nor is that other masterly portrait of the +woman rascal--Thackeray's Becky Sharp--an example of strict +photography; she is great in seeming true, but she is not life. + +So much, then, for the charge of caricature: it is all a matter +of degree. It all depends upon the definition of art, and upon +the effect made upon the world by the characters themselves. If +they live in loving memory, they must, in the large sense, be +true. Thus we come back to the previous statement: Dickens' +people live--are known by their words and in their ways all over +the civilized world. No collection of mere grotesques could ever +bring this to pass. Prick any typical creation of Dickens and it +runs blood, not sawdust. And just in proportion as we travel, +observe broadly and form the habit of a more penetrating and +sympathetic study of mankind, shall we believe in these +emanations of genius. Occasionally, under the urge and +surplusage of his comic force, he went too far and made a Quilp: +but the vast majority even of his drolls are as credible as they +are dear. + +That he showed inequality as he wrought at the many books which +filled the years between "Pickwick" and the unfinished "Mystery +of Edwin Drood," may also be granted. Also may it be confessed +that within the bounds of one book there are the extremes of +good and bad. It is peculiar to Dickens that often in the very +novel we perchance feel called upon to condemn most, occurs a +scene or character as memorably great as anything he left the +world. Thus, we may regard "Old Curiosity Shop," once so +beloved, as a failure when viewed as a whole; and yet find Dick +Swiveller and the Marchioness at their immortal game as +unforgettable as Mrs. Battle engaged in the same pleasant +employment. Nor because other parts of "Little Dorrit" seem thin +and artificial, would we forego the description of the debtor's +prison. And our belief that the presentation of the labor-capital +problem in "Hard Times" is hasty and shallow, does not +prevent a recognition of the opening sketch of the circus troop +as displaying its author at his happiest of humorous +observation. There are thus always redeeming things in the +stories of this most unequal man of genius. Seven books there +are, novels in form, which are indubitable masterpieces: "Martin +Chuzzlewit," "Dombey and Son," "David Copperfield," "Bleak +House," "A Tale of Two Cities," "Great Expectations" and "Our +Mutual Friend." These, were all the others withdrawn, would give +ample evidence of creative power: they have the largeness, +variety and inventive verve which only are to be found in the +major novelists. Has indeed the same number of equal weight and +quality been given forth by any other English writer? + +Another proof that the power of Dickens was not dependent +exclusively upon the comic, is his production of "A Tale of Two +Cities." It is sometimes referred to as uncharacteristic because +it lacks almost entirely his usual gallery of comics: but it is +triumphantly a success in a different field. The author says he +wished for the nonce to make a straight adventure tale with +characters secondary. He did it in a manner which has always +made the romance a favorite, and compels us to include this +dramatic study of the French Revolution among the choicest of +his creations. Its period and scene have never--save by Carlyle--been +so brilliantly illuminated. Dickens was brooding on this +story at a time when, wretchedly unhappy, he was approaching the +crisis of a separation from his wife: the fact may help to +explain its failure to draw on that seemingly inexhaustible +fountain of bubbling fun so familiar in his work. But even +subtract humor and Dickens exhibits the master-hand in a fiction +markedly of another than his wonted kind. This Novel--or +romance, as it should properly be called--reminds us of a +quality in Dickens which has been spoken of in the way of +derogation: his theatrical tendency. When one declares an author +to be dramatic, a compliment is intended. But when he is called +theatric, censure is implied. Dickens, always possessed of a +strong sense of the dramatic and using it to immense advantage, +now and again goes further and becomes theatric: that is, he +suggests the manipulating of effects with artifice and the +intention of providing sensational and scenic results at the +expense of proportion and truth. A word on this is advisable. + +Those familiar with the man and his works are aware how close he +always stood to the playhouse and its product. He loved it from +early youth, all but went on the stage professionally, knew its +people as have few of the writing craft, was a fine amateur +actor himself, wrote for the stage, helped to dramatize his +novels and gave delightful studies of theatrical life in his +books. Shall we ever forget Mr. Crummles and his family? He had +an instinctive feeling for what was scenic and effective in the +stage sense. When he appeared as a reader of his own works, he +was an impersonator; and noticeably careful to have the stage +accessories exactly right. And when all this, natural and +acquired, was applied to fiction, it could not but be of +influence. As a result, Dickens sometimes forced the note, +favored the lurid, exaggerated his comic effects. To put it in +another way, this theater manner of his now and then injured the +literature he made. But that is only one side of the matter: it +also helped him greatly and where he went too far, he was simply +abusing a precious gift. To speak of Dickens' violent +theatricality as if it expressed his whole being, is like +describing the wart on Cromwell's face as if it were his set of +features. Remove from Dickens his dramatic power, and the +memorable master would be no more: he would vanish into dim air. +We may be thankful--in view of what it produced--that he +possessed even in excess this sense of the scenic value of +character and situation: it is not a disqualification but a +virtue, and not Dickens alone but Dumas, Hugo and Scott were +great largely because of it. + +In the praise naturally enough bestowed upon a great +autobiographical Novel like "David Copperfield," the fine art of +a late work like "Great Expectations" has been overlooked or at +least minimized. If we are to consider skilful construction +along with the other desirable qualities of the novelist, this +noble work has hardly had justice done it: moreover, everything +considered,--story value, construction, characters, atmosphere, +adequacy of style, climactic interest, and impressive lesson, I +should name "Great Expectations," published when the author was +fifty, as his most perfect book, if not the greatest of Charles +Dickens' novels. The opinion is unconventional: but as Dickens +is studied more as artist progressively skilful in his craft, I +cannot but believe this particular story will receive increasing +recognition. In the matter of sheer manipulation of material, it +is much superior to the book that followed it two years later, +the last complete novel: "Our Mutual Friend." It is rather +curious that this story, which was in his day and has steadily +remained a favorite with readers, has with equal persistency +been severely handled by the critics. What has insured its +popularity? Probably its vigor and variety of characterization, +its melodramatic tinge, the teeming world of dramatic contrasts +it opens, its bait to our sense of mystery. It has a power very +typical of the author and one of the reasons for Dickens' hold +upon his audience. It is a power also exhibited markedly in such +other fictions as "Dombey and Son," "Martin Chuzzlewit" and +"Bleak House." I refer to the impression conveyed by such +stories that life is a vast, tumultuous, vari-colored play of +counter-motives and counter-characters, full of chance, +surprise, change and bitter sweet: a thing of mystery, terror, +pity and joy. It has its masks of respectability, its frauds of +place, its beauty blossoming in the mud, its high and low of +luck, its infinite possibilities betwixt heaven and hell. The +effect of this upon the sensitive reader is to enlarge his +sympathetic feeling for humanity: life becomes a big, awful, +dear phantasmagoria in such hands. It seems not like a flat +surface, but a thing of length, breadth, height and depth, which +it has been a privilege to enter. Dickens' fine gift--aside from +that of character creation--is found in this ability to convey +an impression of puissant life. He himself had this feeling and +he got it into his books: he had, in a happier sense, the joy of +life of Ibsen, the life force of Nietzsche. From only a few of +the world's great writers does one receive this sense of life, +the many-sided spectacle; Cervantes, Hugo, Tolstoy, Sienkiewicz, +it is men like they that do this for us. + +Another side of Dickens' literary activity is shown in his +Christmas stories, which it may be truly said are as well +beloved as anything he gave the world in the Novel form. This is +assuredly so of the "Christmas Carol," "The Chimes" and "The +Cricket on the Hearth." This last is on a par with the other two +in view of its double life in a book and on the boards of the +theater. The fragrance of Home, of the homely kindness and +tenderness of the human heart, is in them, especially in the +Carol, which is the best tale of its kind in the tongue and +likely to remain so. It permanently altered the feeling of the +race for Christmas. Irving preceded him in the use of the +Christmas motive, but Dickens made it forever his own. By a +master's magic evocation, the great festival shines brighter, +beckons more lovingly than it did of old. Thackeray felt this +when he declared that such a story was "a public benefit." Such +literature lies aside from our main pursuit, that of the Novel, +but is mentioned because it is the best example possible, the +most direct, simple expression of that essential kindness, that +practical Christianity which is at the bottom of Dickens' +influence. It is bonhomie and something more. It is not Dickens +the reformer, as we get him when he satirizes Dotheboys hall, or +the Circumlocution Office or the Chancery Court: but Dickens as +Mr. Greatheart, one with all that is good, tender, sweet and +true. Tiny Tim's thousand-times quoted saying is the +quintessence, the motto for it all and the writer speaks in and +through the lad when he says: "God bless us, every one." When an +author gets that honest unction into his work, and also has the +gift of observation and can report what he sees, he is likely to +contribute to the literature of his land. With a sneer of the +cultivated intellect, we may call it elementary: but to the +heart, such a view of life is royally right. + +This thought of Dickens' moral obligation in his work and his +instinctive attitude towards his audience, leads to one more +point: a main reason for this Victorian novelist's strong hold +on the affections of mankind is to be found in the warm personal +relation he establishes with the reader. The relationship +implies obligation on the part of the author, a vital bond +between the two, a recognition of a steady, not a chance, +association. There goes with it, too, an assumption that the +author believes in and cares much for his characters, and asks +the reader for the same faith. This personal relation of author +to reader and of both to the imagined characters, has gone out +of fashion in fiction-making: in this respect, Dickens (and most +of his contemporaries) seem now old-fashioned. The present +realist creed would keep the novelist away and out of sight both +of his fictive creations and his audience; it being his business +to pull the strings to make his puppets dance--up to heaven or +down to hell, whatever does it matter to the scientist-novelist? +Tolstoy's novel "Resurrection" is as a subject much more +disagreeable than Flaubert's "Madame Bovary"; but it is +beautiful where the other is horrible, because it palpitates +with a Christ-like sympathy for an erring woman, while the +French author cares not a button whether his character is lost +or not. The healthy-minded public (which can be trusted in +heart, if not in head) will instinctively choose that treatment +of life in a piece of fiction which shows the author kindly +cooperative with fate and brotherly in his position towards his +host of readers. That is the reason Dickens holds his own and is +extremely likely to gain in the future, while spectacular +reputations based on all the virtues save love, continue to die +the death. What M. Anatole France once said of Zola, applies to +the whole school of the aloof and unloving: "There is in man an +infinite need of loving which renders him divine. M. Zola does +not know it.... The holiness of tears is at the bottom of all +religions. Misfortune would suffice to render man august to man. +M. Zola does not know it." + +Charles Dickens does know these truths and they get into his +work and that work, therefore, gets not so much into the minds +as into the souls of his fellow-man. When we recite the sayings +which identify his classic creations: when we express ourselves +in a Pickwickian sense, wait for something to turn up with Mr. +Micawber, drop into poetry with Silas Wegg, move on with little +Joe, feel 'umble after the manner of Uriah Heap, are willin' +with Barkis, make a note of, in company with Captain Cuttle, or +conclude with Mr. Weller, Senior, that it is the part of wisdom +to beware of "widders," we may observe that what binds us to +this motley crowd of creatures is not their grotesquerie but +their common humanity, their likeness to ourselves, the mighty +flood-tide of tolerant human sympathy on which they are floated +into the safe haven of our hearts. With delightful +understanding, Charles Dudley Warner writes: "After all, there +is something about a boy I like." Dickens, using the phrasing +for a wider application, might have said: "After all, there is +something about men and women I like!" It was thus no accident +that he elected to write of the lower middle classes; choosing +to depict the misery of the poor, their unfair treatment in +institutions; to depict also the unease of criminals, the +crushed state of all underlings--whether the child in education +or that grown-up evil child, the malefactor in prison. He was a +spokesman of the people, a democratic pleader for justice and +sympathy. He drew the proletariat preferably, not because he was +a proletariat but because he was a brother-man and the fact had +been overlooked. He drew thousands of these suppressed humans, +and they were of varied types and fortunes: but he loved them as +though they were one, and made the world love them too: and love +their maker. The deep significance of Dickens, perhaps his +deepest, is in the social note that swells loud and insistent +through his fiction. He was a pioneer in the democratic sympathy +which was to become so marked feature in the Novel in the late +nineteenth century: and which, as we have already seen, is from +the first a distinctive trait of the modern fiction, one of the +explanations of its existence. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +THACKERAY + +The habit of those who appraise the relative worth of Dickens +and Thackeray to fall into hostile camps, swearing by one, and +at the other, has its amusing side but is to be deprecated as +irrational. Why should it be necessary to miss appreciation of +the creator of "Vanity Fair" because one happens to like "David +Copperfield"? Surely, our literary tastes or standards should be +broad enough to admit into pleasurable companionship both those +great early Victorian novelists. + +Yet, on second thought, there would appear to be some reason for +the fact that ardent lovers of Thackeray are rarely devotees of +the mighty Charles--or vice versa. There is something mutually +exclusive in the attitude of the two, their different +interpretation of life. Unlike in birth, environment, education +and all that is summed up in the magic word personality, their +reaction to life, as a scientist would say, was so opposite that +a reader naturally drawn to one, is quite apt to be repelled by +(or at least, cold to) the other. If you make a wide canvass +among booklovers, it will be found that this is just what +happens. Rarely does a stanch supporter of Dickens show a more +than Laodicean temper towards Thackeray; and for rabid +Thackerians, Dickens too often spells disgust. It is a rare and +enjoyable experience to meet with a mind so catholic as to +welcome both. The backbone of the trouble is personal, in the +natures of the two authors. But I think it is worth while to say +that part of the explanation may be found in the fact that +Thackeray began fiction ten years later than his rival and was +in a deeper sense than was Dickens a voice of the later century. +This means much, because with each decade between 1830 and 1860, +English thought was moving fast toward that scientific faith, +that disillusionment and that spirit of grim truth which +culminated in the work of the final quarter of the century. +Thackeray was impelled more than was Dickens by the spirit of +the times to speak the truth in his delineations of contemporary +mankind: and this operated to make him a satirist, at times a +savage one. The modern thing in Dickens--and he had it--was the +humanitarian sympathy for the submerged tenth; the modern thing +in Thackeray, however, was his fearlessness in uncovering the +conventional shams of polite society. The idols that Dickens +smashed (and never was a bolder iconoclast) were to be seen of +all men: but Thackeray's were less tangible, more subtle, part +and parcel of his own class. In this sense, and I believe +because he began his major novel-writing about 1850, whereas the +other began fifteen years before, Thackeray is more modern, more +of our own time, than his great co-mate in fiction. When we +consider the question of their respective interpretations of +Life it is but fair to bear in mind this historical +consideration, although it would be an error to make too much of +it. Of course, in judging Thackeray and trying to give him a +place in English fiction, he must stand or fall, like any other +writer, by two things: his art, and his message. Was the first +fine, the other sane and valuable--those are the twin tests. + +A somewhat significant fact of their literary history may be +mentioned, before an attempt is made to appreciate Thackeray's +novels. For some years after Dickens' death, which, it will be +remembered, occurred six years after Thackeray's, the latter +gained in critical recognition while Dickens slowly lost. There +can be little question of this. Lionized and lauded as was the +man of Gadshill, promptly admitted to Westminster Abbey, it came +to pass in time that, in a course on modern English literature +offered at an old and famous New England college, his name was +not deemed worthy of even a reference. Some critics of repute +have scarce been able to take Dickens seriously: for those who +have steadily had the temerity to care for him, their patronage +has been vocal. This marks an astonishing shift of opinion from +that current in 1870. Thackeray, gaining in proportion, has been +hailed as an exquisite artist, one of the few truly great and +permanent English figures not only of fiction but of letters. +But in the most recent years, again a change has come: the +pendulum has swung back, as it always does when an excessive +movement carries it too far beyond the plumb line. Dickens has +found valiant, critical defenders; he has risen fast in +thoughtful so well as popular estimation (although with the +public he has scarcely fluctuated in favor) until he now enjoys +a sort of resurrection of popularity. What is the cause of this +to-and-fro of judgment? The main explanation is to be found in +the changing literary ideals from 1850 to 1900. When Dickens was +active, literature, broadly speaking, was estimated not +exclusively as art, but as human product, an influence in the +world. With the coming of the new canon, which it is convenient +to dub by the catch-phrase, Art for Art's Sake, a man's +production began to be tested more definitely by the technique +he possessed, the skilled way in which he performed his task. +Did he play the game well? That was the first question. Often it +was the first and last. If he did, his subject-matter, and his +particular vision of Life, were pretty much his own affair. And +this modern touchstone, applied to the writings of our two +authors, favored Thackeray. Simple, old-fashioned readers +inclined to give Dickens the preference over him because the +former's interpretation of humanity was, they averred, kindlier +and more wholesome. Thackeray was cynical, said they; Dickens +humanitarian; but the later critical mood rebounded from +Dickens, since he preached, was frankly didactic, insisted on +his mission of doing good--and so failed in his art. Now, +however, that the l'art pour art shibboleth has been sadly +overworked and is felt to be passing or obsolete, the world +critical is reverting to that broader view which demands that +the maker of literature shall be both man and artist: as a +result, Dickens gains in proportion. This explanation makes it +likely that, looking to the future, while Thackeray may not +lose, Dickens is sure to be more and more appreciated. A return +to a saner and truer criterion will be general and the confines +of a too narrow estheticism be understood: or, better yet, the +esthetic will be so defined as to admit of wider application. +The Gissings and Chestertons of the time to come will insist +even more strenuously than those of ours that while we may have +improved upon Dickens' technique--and every schoolboy can tinker +his faults--we shall do exceedingly well if we duplicate his +genius once in a generation. And they will add that Thackeray, +another man of genius, had also his malaises of art, was +likewise a man with the mortal failings implied in the word. For +it cannot now be denied that just as Dickens' faults have been +exaggerated, Thackeray's have been overlooked. + +Thackeray might lose sadly in the years to come could it be +demonstrated that, as some would have it, he deserved the title +of cynic. Here is the most mooted point in Thackeray +appreciation: it interests thousands where the nice questions +concerning the novelist's art claim the attention of students +alone. What can be said with regard to it? It will help just +here to think of the man behind the work. No sensible human +being, it would appear, can become aware of the life and +personality of Thackeray without concluding that he was an +essentially kind-hearted, even soft-hearted man. He was keenly +sensitive to praise and blame, most affectionate and constant +with his friends, generous and impulsive in his instincts, +loving in his family, simple and humble in his spiritual nature, +however questioning in his intellect. That is a fair summary of +Thackeray as revealed in his daily walk--in his letters, acts +and thoughts. Nothing could be sweeter and more kindly than the +mass of his writings in this regard, pace "The Book of Snobs"--even +in such a mood the satire is for the most part unbitter. +The reminiscential essays continually strike a tender note that +vibrates with human feeling and such memorials as the paper he +wrote on the deaths of Irving and Macaulay represent a frequent +vein. Thackeray's friends are almost a unit in this testimony: +Edward Fitzgerald, indeed--"dear old Fitz," as Tennyson loved to +call him--declares in a letter to somebody that he hears +Thackeray is spoiled: meaning that his social success was too +much for him. It is true that after the fame of "Vanity Fair," +its author was a habitue of the best drawing-rooms, much sought +after, and enjoying it hugely. But to read his letter to Mrs. +Brookfield after the return home from such frivolities is to +feel that the real man is untouched. Why Thackeray, with such a +nature, developed a satirical bent and became a critic of the +foibles of fashion and later of the social faults of humanity, +is not so easy perhaps to say--unless we beg the question by +declaring it to be his nature. When he began his major fiction +at the age of thirty-seven he had seen much more of the seamy +side of existence than had Dickens when he set up for author. +Thackeray had lost a fortune, traveled, played Bohemian, tried +various employments, failed in a business venture--in short, was +an experienced man of the world with eyes wide open to what is +light, mean, shifty and vague in the sublunary show. "The Book +of Snobs" is the typical early document expressing the +subacidulous tendency of his power: "Vanity Fair" is the full-length +statement of it in maturity. Yet judging his life by and +large (in contrast with his work) up to the day of his sudden +death, putting in evidence all the testimony from many sources, +it may be asserted with considerable confidence that William +Makepeace Thackeray, whatever we find him to be in his works, +gave the general impression personally of being a genial, kind +and thoroughly sound-hearted man. We may, therefore, look at the +work itself, to extract from it such evidence as it offers, +remembering that, when all is said, the deepest part of a man, +his true quality, is always to be discovered in his writings. + +First a word on the books secondary to the four great novels. It +is necessary at the start in studying him to realize that +Thackeray for years before he wrote novels was an essayist, who, +when he came to make fiction introduced into it the essay touch +and point of view. The essay manner makes his larger fiction +delightful, is one of its chief charms and characteristics. And +contrariwise, the looseness of construction, the lack of careful +architecture in Thackeray's stories, look to the same fact. + +It can not justly be said of these earlier and minor writings +that, taken as a whole, they reveal a cynic. They contain many +thrusts at the foolishness and knavery of society, especially +that genteel portion of it with which the writer, by birth, +education and experience, was familiar. When Thackeray, in the +thirties, turned to newspaper writing, he did so for practical +reasons: he needed money, and he used such talents as were his +as a writer, knowing that the chances were better than in art, +which he had before pursued. It was natural that he should have +turned to account his social experiences, which gave him a power +not possessed by the run of literary hacks, and which had been +to some extent disillusioning, but had by no means soured him. +Broadly viewed, the tone of these first writings was genial, the +light and shade of human nature--in its average, as it is seen +in the world--was properly represented. In fact, often, as in +"The Great Hoggarty Diamond," the style is almost that of +burlesque, at moments, of horse-play: and there are too touches +of beautiful young-man pathos. Such a work is anything rather +than tart or worldly. There are scenes in that enjoyable story +that read more like Dickens than the Thackeray of "Vanity Fair." +The same remark applies, though in a different way, to the +"Yellowplush Papers." An early work like "Barry Lyndon," unique +among the productions of the young writer, expresses the deeper +aspect of his tendency to depict the unpleasant with satiric +force, to make clear-cut pictures of rascals, male and female. +Yet in this historical study, the eighteenth century setting +relieves the effect and one does not feel that the author is +speaking with that direct earnestness one encounters in +"Pendennis" and "The Newcomes." The many essays, of which the +"Roundabout Papers" are a type, exhibit almost exclusively the +sunnier and more attractive side of Thackeray's genius. Here and +there, in the minor fiction of this experimental period, there +are premonitions of he more drastic treatment of later years: +but the dominant mood is quite other. One who read the essays +alone, with no knowledge of the fiction, would be astonished at +a charge of cynicism brought against the author. + +And so we come to the major fiction: "Vanity Fair," "Pendennis," +"The Newcomes," and "Esmond." Of "The Adventures of Philip" a +later word may be said. "The Virginians" is a comparatively +unimportant pendant to that great historical picture, "Henry +Esmond." The quartet practically composes the fundamental +contribution of Thackeray to the world of fiction, containing as +it does all his characteristic traits. Some of them have been +pointed out, time out of mind: others, often claimed, are either +wanting or their virtue has been much exaggerated. + +Of the merits incontestable, first and foremost may be mentioned +the color and motion of Life which spread like an atmosphere +over this fiction. By his inimitable idiom, his knowledge of the +polite world, and his equal knowledge of the average human being +irrespective of class or condition, Thackeray was able to make +his chronicle appear the very truth. Moreover, for a second +great merit, he was able, quite without meretricious appeals, to +make that truth interesting. You follow the fortunes of the folk +in a typical Thackeray novel as you would follow a similar group +in actual life. They interest because they are real--or seem to +be, which, for the purposes of art, is the same thing. To read +is not so much to look from an outside place at a fictive +representation of existence as to be participant in such a piece +of life--to feel as if you were living the story. Only masters +accomplish this, and it is, it may be added, the specialty of +modern masters. + +For another shining merit: much of wisdom assimilated by the +author in the course of his days is given forth with pungent +power and in piquant garb in the pages of these books: the +reader relishes the happy statements of an experience profounder +than his own, yet tallying in essentials: Thackeray's remarks +seem to gather up into final shape the scattered oracles of the +years. Gratitude goes out to an author who can thus condense and +refine one's own inarticulate conclusions. The mental palate is +tickled by this, while the taste is titillated by the grace and +fitness of the style. + +Yet in connection with this quality is a habit which already +makes Thackeray seem of an older time--a trifle archaic in +technique. I refer to the intrusion of the author into the story +in first-personal comment and criticism. This is tabooed by the +present-day realist canons. It weakens the illusion, say the +artists of our own day, this entrance of an actual personality +upon the stage of the imagined scene. Thackeray is guilty of +this lovable sin to a greater degree than is Dickens, and it may +be added here that, while the latter has so often been called +preacher in contrast with Thackeray the artist, as a matter of +fact, Thackeray moralizes in the fashion described fully as +much: the difference being that he does it with lighter touch +and with less strenuosity and obvious seriousness: is more +consistently amusing in the act of instruction. + +Thackeray again has less story to tell than his greatest +contemporary and never gained a sure hand in construction, with +the possible exception of his one success in plot, "Henry +Esmond." Nothing is more apparent than the loose texture of +"Vanity Fair," where two stories centering in the antithetic +women, Becky and Amelia, are held together chronicle fashion, +not in the nexus of an organism of close weave. But this very +looseness, where there is such superlative power of +characterization with plenty of invention in incident, adds to +the verisimilitude and attraction of the book. The impression of +life is all the more vivid, because of the lack of proportioned +progress to a climax. The story conducts itself and ends much as +does life: people come in and out and when Finis is written, we +feel we may see them again--as indeed often happens, for +Thackeray used the pleasant device of re-introducing favorite +characters such as Pendennis, Warrington and the descendants +thereof, and it adds distinctly to the reality of the ensemble. + +"Vanity Fair" has most often been given precedence over the +other novels of contemporary life: but for individual scenes and +strength of character drawing both "Pendennis" and "The +Newcomes" set up vigorous claims. If there be no single triumph +in female portraiture like Becky Sharp, Ethel New-come (on the +side of virtue) is a far finer woman than the somewhat insipid +Amelia: and no personage in the Mayfair book is more successful +and beloved than Major Pendennis or Colonel Newcome. Also, the +atmosphere of these two pictures seems mellower, less sharp, +while as organic structures they are both superior to "Vanity +Fair." Perhaps the supremacy of the last-named is due most of +all to the fact that a wonderfully drawn evil character has more +fascination than a noble one of workmanship as fine. Or is it +that such a type calls forth the novelist's powers to the full? +If so, it were, in a manner, a reproach. But it is more +important to say that all three books are delightfully authentic +studies of upper-class society in England as Thackeray knew it: +the social range is comparatively restricted, for even the +rascals are shabby-genteel. But the exposure of human nature +(which depends upon keen observation within a prescribed +boundary) is wide and deep: a story-teller can penetrate just as +far into the arcana of the human spirit if he confine himself to +a class as if he surveyed all mankind. But mental limitations +result: the point of view is that of the gentleman-class: the +ideas of the personal relation to one's self, one's fellow men +and one's Maker are those natural to a person of that station. +The charming poem which the author set as Finis to "Dr. Birch +and His Young Friends," with its concluding lines, is an +unconscious expression of the form in which he conceived human +duty. The "And so, please God, a gentleman," was the cardinal +clause in his creed and all his work proves it. It is wiser to +be thankful that a man of genius was at hand to voice the view, +than to cavil at its narrow outook. In literature, in-look is +quite as important. Thackeray drew what he felt and saw, and +like Jane Austen, is to be understood within his limitations. +Nor did he ever forget that, because pleasure-giving was the +object of his art, it was his duty so to present life as to make +it somehow attractive, worth while. The point is worth urging, +for not a little nonsense has been written concerning the +absolute veracity of Thackeray's pictures: as if he sacrificed +all pleasurableness to the modern Moloch, truth. Neither he nor +any other great novelist reproduces Life verbatim et literatim. +Trollope, in his somewhat unsatisfactory biography of his fellow +fictionist, very rightly puts his finger on a certain scene in +"Vanity Fair" in which Sir Pitt Crawley figures, which departs +widely from reality. The traditional comparison between the two +novelists, which represents Dickens as ever caricaturing, +Thackeray as the photographer, is coming to be recognized as +foolish. + +It is all merely a question of degree, as has been said. It +being the artist's business to show a few of the symbols of life +out of the vast amount of raw material offered, he differs in +the main from his brother artist in the symbols he selects. No +one of them presents everything--if he did, he were no artist. +Thackeray approaches nearer than Dickens, it is true, to the +average appearances of life; but is no more a literal copyist +than the creator of Mrs. Gamp. He was rather one of art's most +capable exemplars in the arduous employment of seeming-true. + +It must be added that his technique was more careless than an +artist of anything like his caliber would have permitted himself +to-day. The audience was less critical: not only has the art of +fiction been evolved into a finer finish, but gradually the +court of judgment made up of a select reading public, has come +to decide with much more of professional knowledge. Thus, +technique in fiction is expected and given. So much of gain +there has been, in spite of all the vulgarization of taste which +has followed in the wake of cheap magazines and newspapers. In +"Vanity Fair," for example, there are blemishes which a careful +revision would never have suffered to remain: the same is true +of most of Thackeray's books. Like Dickens, Thackeray was +exposed to all the danger of the Twenty Parts method of +publication. He began his stories without seeing the end; in one +of them he is humorously plaintive over the trouble of making +this manner of fiction. While "Vanity Fair" is, of course, +written in the impersonal third person, at least one passage is +put into the mouth of a character in the book: an extraordinary +slip for such a novelist. + +But peccadilloes such as these, which it is well to realize in +view of the absurd claims to artistic impeccability for +Thackeray made by rash admirers, melt away into nothing when one +recalls Rawdon Crawley's horsewhipping of the Marquis; George +Osborn's departure for battle, Colonel Newcome's death, or the +incomparable scene where Lady Castlewood welcomes home the +wandering Esmond; that "rapture of reconciliation"! It is by +such things that great novelists live, and it may be doubted if +their errors are ever counted against them, if only they can +create in this fashion. + +In speaking of Thackeray's unskilful construction the reference +is to architectonics; in the power of particular scenes it is +hard to name his superior. He has both the pictorial and the +dramatic sense. The care with which "Esmond" was planned and +executed suggests too that, had he taken his art more seriously +and given needed time to each of the great books, he might have +become one of the masters in that prime excellence of the craft, +the excellence of proportion, progress and climax. He never +quite brought himself to adopt the regular modern method of +scenario. "Philip," his last full length fiction, may be cited +as proof. + +Yet it may be that he would have given increased attention to +construction had he lived a long life. It is worth noting that +when the unfinished "Denis Duval" dropt from a hand made inert +by death, the general plan, wherefrom an idea of its +architecture could be got, was among his effects. + +To say a word now of Thackeray's style. There is practical +unanimity of opinion as to this. Thackeray had the effect of +writing like a cultivated gentleman not self-consciously making +literature. He was tolerant of colloquial concessions that never +lapsed into vulgarity; even his slips and slovenlinesses are +those of the well-bred. To pass from him back to Richardson is +to realize how stiffly correct is the latter. Thackeray has +flexibility, music, vernacular felicity and a deceptive ease. He +had, too, the flashing strokes, the inspirational sallies which +characterize the style of writers like Lamb, Stevenson and +Meredith. Fitness, balance, breeding and harmony are his chief +qualities. To say that he never sinned or nodded would be to +deny that he was human. He cut his cloth to fit the desired +garment and is a modern English master of prose designed to +reproduce the habit and accent of the polite society of his age. +In his hortatory asides and didactic moralizings with their +thees and thous and yeas, he is still the fine essayist, like +Fielding in his eighteenth century prefatory exordiums. And here +is undoubtedly one of his strongest appeals to the world of +readers, whether or no it makes him less perfect a fictionist. +The diction of a Thackeray is one of the honorable national +assets of his race. + +Thackeray's men and women talk as they might be expected to talk +in life; each in his own idiom, class and idiosyncrasy. And in +the descriptions which furnish atmosphere, in which his +creatures may live and breathe and have their being, the hand of +the artist of words is equally revealed. Both for dialogue and +narration the gift is valid, at times superb. It would be going +too far to say that if Thackeray had exercised the care in +revision bestowed by later reputable authors, his style might +not have been improved: beyond question it would have been, in +the narrow sense. But the correction of trifling mistakes is one +thing, a change in pattern another. The retouching, although +satisfying grammar here and there, might have dimmed the +vernacular value of his speech. + +But what of Thackeray's view, his vision of things? Does he bear +down unduly upon poor imperfect humanity? and what was his +purpose in satire? If he is unfair in the representation his +place among the great should suffer; since the truly great +observer of life does general justice to humankind in his +harmonious portrayal. + +We have already spoken of Thackeray's sensitive nature as +revealed through all available means: he conveys the impression +of a suppressed sentimentalist, even in his satire. And this +establishes a presumption that the same man is to be discovered +in the novels, the work being an unconscious revelation of the +worker. The characteristic books are of satirical bent, that +must be granted: Thackeray's purpose, avowed and implicit in the +stories, is that of a Juvenal castigating with a smiling mouth +the evils of society. With keen eye he sees the weaknesses +incident to place and power, to the affectations of fashion or +the corruptions of the world, the flesh and the devil. Nobody of +commonsense will deny that here is a welcome service if +performed with skill and fair-mindedness in the interests of +truth. The only query would be: Is the picture undistorted? If +Thackeray's studies leave a bad taste in the mouth, if their +effect is depressing, if one feels as a result that there is +neither virtue nor magnanimity in woman, and that man is +incapable of honor, bravery, justice and tenderness--then the +novelist may be called cynic. He is not a wholesome writer, +however acceptable for art or admirable for genius. Nor will the +mass of mankind believe in and love him. + +Naturally we are here on ground where the personal equation +influences judgment. There can never be complete agreement. Some +readers, and excellent people they are, will always be offended +by what they never tire of calling the worldly tone of +Thackeray; to others, he will be as lovable in his view of life +as he is amusing. Speaking, then, merely for myself, it seems to +me that for mature folk who have had some experience with +humanity, Thackeray is a charming companion whose heart is as +sound as his pen is incisive. The very young as a rule are not +ready for him and (so far as my observation goes) do not much +care for him. That his intention was to help the cause of +kindness, truth and justice in the world is apparent. It is late +in the day to defend his way of crying up the good by a frank +exhibition of the evil. Good and bad are never confused by him, +and Taine was right in calling him above all a moralist. But +being by instinct a realist too, he gave vent to his passion for +truth-telling so far as he dared, in a day when it was far less +fashionable to do this than it now is. A remark in the preface +to "Pendennis" is full of suggestion: "Since the author of 'Tom +Jones' was buried, no writer of fiction among us has been +permitted to depict to his utmost power a Man. We must drape him +and give him a certain conventional simper. Society will not +tolerate the Natural in our Art." + +It will not do to say (as is often said) that Thackeray could +not draw an admirable or perfect woman. If he did not leave us a +perfect one, it was perhaps for the reason alleged to have been +given by Mr. Howells when he was charged with the same +misdemeanor: he was waiting for the Lord to do it first! But +Thackeray does no injustice to the sex: if Amelia be stupid +(which is matter of debate), Helen Warrington is not, but rather +a very noble creature built on a large plan: whatever the small +blemishes of Lady Castlewood she is indelible in memory for +character and charm. And so with others not a few. Becky and +Beatrix are merely the reverse of the picture. And there is a +similar balance in the delineation of men: Colonel Newcome over +against Captain Costigan, and many a couple more. Thackeray does +not fall into the mistake of making his spotted characters all-black. +Who does not find something likable in the Fotheringay +and in the Campaigner? Even a Barry Lyndon has the redeeming +quality of courage. And surely we adore Beatrix, with all her +faults. Major Pendennis is a thoroughgoing old worldling, but it +is impossible not to feel a species of fondness for him. Jos. +Sedley is very much an ass, but one's smile at him is full of +tolerance. Yes, the worst of them all, the immortal Becky (who +was so plainly liked by her maker) awakens sympathy in the +reader when routed in her fortunes, black-leg though she be. She +cared for her husband, after her fashion, and she plays the game +of Bad Luck in a way far from despicable. Nor is that easy-going, +commonplace scoundrel, Rawdon, with his dog-like devotion +to the same Becky, denied his touch of higher humanity. Behind +all these is a large tolerance, an intellectual breadth, a +spiritual comprehension that is merciful to the sinner, while +never condoning the sin. Thackeray is therefore more than story-teller +or fine writer: a sane observer of the Human Comedy; a +satirist in the broad sense, devoting himself to revealing +society to itself and for its instruction. It is easy to use +negations: to say he did not know nor sympathize with the middle +class nor the lower and outcast classes as did Dickens; that his +interest was in peccadilloes and sins, not in courageous +virtues: and that he judged the world from a club window. But +this gets us nowhere and is aside from the critic's chief +business: which is that of an appreciative explanation of his +abiding power and charm. This has now been essayed. Thackeray +was too great as man and artist not to know that it was his +function to present life in such wise that while a pleasure of +recognition should follow the delineation, another and higher +pleasure should also result: the surprising pleasure of beauty. +"Fiction," he declared, "has no business to exist, unless it be +more beautiful than reality," And again: "The first quality of +an artist is to have a large heart." With which revelatory +utterances may be placed part of the noble sentence closing "The +Book of Snobs": "If fun is good, truth is better still, and love +best of all." To read him with open mind is to feel assured that +his works, taken in their entirety, reflect these humane +sentiments. It is a pity, therefore, for any reader of the best +fiction, through intense appreciation of Dickens or for any +other reason, to cut himself off from such an enlightening +student of humanity and master of imaginative literature. + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +GEORGE ELIOT + +George Eliot began fiction a decade later than Thackeray, but +seems more than a decade nearer to us. With her the full pulse +of modern realism is felt a-throbbing. There is no more of the +ye's and thous with which, when he would make an exordium, +Thackeray addressed the world--a fashion long since laid aside. +Eliot drew much nearer to the truth, the quiet, homely verity of +her scenes is a closer approximation to life, realizes life more +vitally than the most veracious page of "Vanity Fair." Not that +the great woman novelist made the mistake of a slavish imitation +of the actual: that capital, lively scene in the early part of +"The Mill on the Floss," where Mrs. Tulliver's connections make +known to us their delightsome personalities, is not a mere +transcript from life; and all the better for that. Nevertheless, +the critic can easily discover a difference between Thackeray +and Eliot in this regard, and the ten years between them (as we +saw in the case of Dickens and Thackeray) are partly +responsible: technique and ideal in literary art were changing +fast. George Eliot was a truer realist. She took more seriously +her aim of interpreting life, and had a higher conception of her +artistic mission. Dickens in his beautiful tribute to Thackeray +on the latter's death, speaks of the failure of the author of +"Pendennis" to take his mission, his genius, seriously: there +was justice in the remark. Yet we heard from the preface to +"Pendennis" that Thackeray had the desire to depict a typical +man of society with the faithful frankness of a Fielding, and +since him, Thackeray states, never again used. But the +novelist's hearers were not prepared, the time was not yet ripe, +and the novelist himself lacked the courage, though he had the +clear vision. With Eliot, we reach the psychologic moment: that +deepest truth, the truth of character, exhibited in its +mainsprings of impulse and thought, came with her into English +fiction as it had never before appeared. It would hardly be +overstatement to say that modern psychology in the complete +sense as method and interest begins in the Novel with Eliot. For +there is a radical difference, not only between the Novel which +exploits plot and that which exploits character: but also +between that which sees character in terms of life and that +which sees it in terms of soul. Eliot's fiction does the latter: +life to her means character building, and has its meaning only +as an arena for spiritual struggle. Success or failure means but +this: have I grown in my higher nature, has my existence shown +on the whole an upward tendency? + +If so, well and good. If not, whatever of place or power may be +mine, I am among the world's failures, having missed the goal. +This view, steadily to be encountered in all her fiction, gives +it the grave quality, the deep undertone and, be it confessed, +at times the almost Methodistic manner, which mark this woman's +worth in its weakness and its notable strength. In her early +days, long before she made fiction, she was morbidly religious; +she became in the fulness of time one of the intellectually +emancipated. Yet, emotionally, spiritually, she remained to the +end an intensely religious person. Conduct, aspiration, +communion of souls, these were to her always the realities. If +Thackeray's motto was Be good, and Dickens', Do good, Eliot's +might be expressed as: Make me good! Consider for a moment and +you will see that these phrases stand successively for a +convention, an action and an aspiration. + +The life of Mary Ann Evans falls for critical purposes into +three well-defined divisions: the early days of country life +with home and family and school; her career as a savant; and the +later years, when she performed her service as story-teller. +Unquestionably, the first period was most important in +influencing her genius. It was in the home days at Griff, the +school days at Nuneaton nearby, that those deepest, most +permanent impressions were absorbed which are given out in the +finest of her fictions. Hence came the primal inspiration which +produced her best. And it is because she drew most generously +upon her younger life in her earlier works that it is they which +are most likely to survive the shocks of Time. + +The experiences of Eliot's childhood, youth and young womanhood +were those which taught her the bottom facts about middle-class +country life in the mid-century, and in a mid-county of England; +Shakspere's county of Warwick. Those experiences gave her such +sympathetic comprehension of the human case in that environment +that she became its chronicler, as Dickens had become the +chronicler of the lower middle-class of the cities. Unerringly, +she generalized from the microcosm of Warwickshire to the life +of the world and guessed the universal human heart. With utmost +sympathy, joined with a nice power of scrutiny, she saw and +understood the character-types of the village, when there was a +village life which has since passed away: the yeoman, the small +farmer, the operative in the mill, the peasant, the squire and +the parson, the petty tradesman, the man of the professions: the +worker with his hands at many crafts. + +She matured through travel, books and social contact, her +knowledge was greatly extended: she came to be, in a sense, a +cultured woman of the world, a learned person. Her later books +reflected this; they depict the so-called higher strata of +English society as in "Middlemarch," or, as in "Romola," give an +historical picture of another time in a foreign land. The woman +who was gracious hostess at those famous Sunday afternoons at +the Priory seems to have little likeness to the frail, shy, +country girl in Griff--seems, too, far more important; yet it +may be doubted whether all this later work reveals such mastery +of the human heart or comes from such an imperative source of +expression as do the earlier novels, "Adam Bede" and "The Mill +on the Floss." For human nature is one and the same in Griff or +London or Florence, as all the amplitude of the sky is mirrored +in the dewdrop. And although Eliot became in later life a more +accurate reporter of the intellectual unrest of her day, and had +probed deeper into the mystery and the burden of this +unintelligible world, great novels are not necessarily made in +that way and the majority of those who love her cleave to the +less burdened, more unforced expression of her power. + +In those early days, moreover, her attitude towards life was +established: it meant a wish to improve the "complaining +millions of men." Love went hand in hand with understanding. It +may well be that the somberly grave view of humanity and of the +universe at large which came to be hers, although strengthened +by the positivistic trend of her mature studies, was generated +in her sickly youth and a reaction from the narrow theologic +thought with which she was then surrounded. Always frail--subject +through life to distressing illness--it would not be +fair to ask of this woman an optimism of the Mark Tapley stripe. +In part, the grave outlook was physical, temperamental: but also +it was an expression of a swiftly approaching mood of the late +nineteenth century. And the beginning can be traced back to the +autumn evenings in the big farmhouse at Griff when, as a mere +child, she wrestled or prayed with what she called her sick +soul. That stern, upright farmer father of hers seems the +dominant factor in her make-up, although the iron of her blood +was tempered by the livelier, more mundane qualities of her +sprightly mother, towards whom we look for the source of the +daughter's superb gift of humor. Whatever the component parts of +father and mother in her, and however large that personal +variation which is genius, of this we may be comfortably sure: +the deepest in the books, whether regarded as presentation of +life or as interpretation, came from the early Warwickshire +years. + +Gradually came that mental eclaircissement which produced the +editor, the magazinist, the translator of Strauss. The +friendship with the Brays more than any one thing marks the +external cause of this awakening: but it was latent, this +response to the world of thought and of scholarship, and certain +to be called out sooner or later. Our chief interest in it is +due to the query how much it ministered to her coming career as +creative author of fiction. + +George Eliot at this period looked perilously like a Blue +Stocking. The range and variety of her reading and the severely +intellectual nature of her pursuits justify the assertion. Was +this well for the novelist? + +The reply might be a paradox: yes and no. This learning imparted +to Eliot's works a breadth of vision that is tonic and wins the +respect of the judicious. It helps her to escape from that bane +of the woman novelist--excessive sentiment without intellectual +orientation. But, on the other hand, there are times when she +appears to be writing a polemic, not a novel: when the tone +becomes didactic, the movement heavy--when the work seems +self-conscious and over-intellectualized. Nor can it be denied +that this tendency grew on Eliot, to the injury of her latest work. +There is a simple kind of exhortation in the "Clerical Scenes," +but it disappears in the earliest novels, only to reappear in +stories like "Daniel Deronda." Any and all culture that comes to +a large, original nature (and such was Eliot's) should be for +the good of the literary product: learning in the narrower, more +technical sense, is perhaps likely to do harm. Here and there +there is a reminder of the critic-reviewer in her fiction. + +George Eliot's intellectual development during her last years +widened her work and strengthened her comprehensive grasp of +life. She gained in interpretation thereby. There will, however, +always be those who hold that it would have been better for her +reputation had she written nothing after "Middlemarch," or even +after "Felix Holt." Those who object on principle to her +agnosticism, would also add that the negative nature of her +philosophy, her lack of what is called definite religious +convictions, had its share in injuring materially her maturest +fiction. The vitality or charm of a novel, however, is not +necessarily impaired because the author holds such views. It is +more pertinent to take the books as they are, in chronologic +order, to point out so far as possible their particular merits. + +And first, the "Scenes from Clerical Life." It is interesting to +the student of this novelist that her writing of fiction was +suggested to her by Lewes, and that she tried her hand at a tale +when she was not far from forty years old. The question will +intrude: would a genuine fiction-maker need to be thus prodded +by a friend, and refrain from any independent attempt up to a +period so late? Yet it will not do to answer glibly in the +negative. Too many examples of late beginning and fine fiction +as a consequence are furnished by English literature to make +denial safe. We have seen Defoe and Richardson and a number of +later novelists breaking the rules--if any such exist. No one +can now read the "Clerical Scenes" without discovering in them +qualities of head and heart which, when allowed an enlarged +canvas and backed by a sure technique, could be counted on to +make worthy fiction. The quiet village life glows softly under +the sympathetic touch of a true painter. + +A recent reading of this first book showed more clearly than +ever the unequalness of merit in the three stories, their strong +didactic bent, and the charmingly faithful observation which for +the present-day reader is their greatest attraction. The first +and simplest, "The Sad Fortunes of the Rev. Amos Barton," is by +far the best. The poorest is the second, "Mr. Gilfil's Love +Story," which has touches of conventional melodrama in a +framework reminiscent of earlier fictionists like Disraeli. +"Janet's Repentance," with its fine central character of the +unhappy wedded wife, is strong, sincere, appealing; and much of +the local color admirable. But--perhaps because there is more +attempt at story-telling, more plot--the narrative falls below +the beautiful, quiet chronicle of the days of Amos: an exquisite +portrayal of an average man who yet stands for humanity's best. +The tale is significant as a prelude to Eliot's coming work, +containing, in the seed, those qualities which were to make her +noteworthy. Perusing the volume to-day, we can hardly say that +it appears an epoch-making production in fiction, the +declaration of a new talent in modern literature. But much has +happened in fiction during the half century since 1857, and we +are not in a position to judge the feeling of those who then +began to follow the fortunes of the Reverend Amos. + +But it is not difficult for the twentieth century reader, even +if blase, to understand that "Adam Bede," published when its +author was forty, aroused a furore of admiration: it still holds +general attention, and many whose opinion is worth having, +regard it with respect, affection, even enthusiasm. + +The broader canvas was exactly what the novelist needed to show +her power of characterization, her ability to build up her +picture by countless little touches guided by the most +unflinching faith in detail and given vibrancy by the sympathy +which in all George Eliot's fiction is like the air you breathe. +Then, too, as an appeal to the general, there is more of story +interest, although neither here nor in any story to follow, does +plot come first with a writer whose chief interest is always +character, and its development. The autobiographic note deepens +and gives at once verity and intensity to the novel; here, as in +"The Mill on the Floss" which was to follow the next year, Eliot +first gave free play to that emotional seizure of her own past +to which reference has been made. The homely material of the +first novel was but part of its strength. Readers who had been +offered the flash-romantic fiction of Disraeli and Bulwer, +turned with refreshment to the placid annals of a village where, +none the less, the human heart in its follies and frailties and +nobilities, is laid bare. The skill with which the leisurely +moving story rises to its vivid moments of climactic interest--the +duel in the wood, Hetty's flight, the death of Adam's +father--is marked and points plainly to the advance, through +study and practice, of the novelist since the "Clerical Scenes"; +constructive excellencies do not come by instinct. "Adam Bede" +is preeminently a book of belief, written not so much in ink as +in red blood, and in that psychic fluid that means the author's +spiritual nature. She herself declared, "I love it very much," +and it reveals the fact on every page. Aside from its +indubitable worth as a picture of English middle-class country +life in an earlier nineteenth century than we know--the easy-going +days before electricity--it has its highest claim to our +regard as a reading in life, not conveyed by word of mouth +didactically, but carried in scene and character. The author's +tenderness over Hetty, without even sentimentalizing her as, for +example, Dumas sentimentalizes his Camille, suggests the mood of +the whole narrative: a large-minded, large-hearted comprehension +of humankind, an insistence on spiritual tests, yet with the +will to tell the truth and present impartially the darkest +shadows. It is because George Eliot's people are compounded with +beautiful naturalness of good and bad--not hopelessly bad with +Hetty, nor hopelessly good with Adam--that we understand them +and love them. Here is an element of her effectiveness. Even her +Dinah walks with her feet firmly planted upon the earth, though +her mystic vision may be skyward. + +With "Adam Bede" she came into her own. The "Clerical Scenes" +had won critical plaudits: Dickens, in 1857 long settled in his +seat of public idolatry, wrote the unknown author a letter of +appreciation, so warm-hearted, so generous, that it is hard to +resist the pleasure of quoting it: it is interesting to remark +that in despite the masculine pen-name, he attributed the work +to a woman. But the public had not responded. With "Adam Bede" +this was changed; the book gained speedy popularity, the author +even meeting with that mixed compliment, a bogus claimant to its +authorship. And so, greatly encouraged, and stimulated to do her +best, she produced "The Mill on the Floss," a novel, which, if +not her finest, will always be placed high on her list of +representative fiction. + +This time the story as such was stronger, there was more +substance and variety because of the greater number of +characters and their freer interplay upon each other. Most +important of all, when we look beyond the immediate reception by +the public to its more permanent position, the work is decidedly +more thoroughgoing in its psychology: it goes to the very core +of personality, where the earlier book was in some instances +satisfied with sketch-work. In "Adam Bede" the freshness comes +from the treatment rather than the theme. The framework, a +seduction story, is old enough--old as human nature and +pre-literary story-telling. But in "The Mill on the Floss" we +have the history of two intertwined lives, contrasted types from +within the confines of family life, bound by kin-love yet +separated by temperament. It is the deepest, truest of tragedy +and we see that just this particular study of humanity had not +been accomplished so exhaustively before in all the annals of +fiction. As it happened, everything conspired to make the author +at her best when she was writing this novel: as her letters +show, her health was, for her, good: we have noted the stimulus +derived from the reception of "Adam Bede"--which was as wine to +her soul. Then--a fact which should never be forgotten--the tale +is carried through logically and expresses, with neither +paltering nor evasion, George Eliot's sense of life's tragedy. +In the other book, on the contrary, a touch of the fictitious +was introduced by Lewes; Dinah and Adam were united to make at +the end a mitigation of the painfulness of Hetty's downfall. +Lewes may have been right in looking to the contemporary +audience, but never again did Eliot yield to that form of the +literary lie, the pleasant ending. She certainly did not in "The +Mill on the Floss": an element of its strength is its truth. The +book, broadly considered, moves slow, with dramatic accelerando +at cumulative moments; it is the kind of narrative where this +method is allowable without artistic sin. Another great +excellence is the superb insight into the nature of childhood, +boy and girl; if Maggie is drawn with the more penetrating +sympathy, Tom is finely observed: if the author never rebukes +his limitations, she states them and, as it were, lifts hands to +heaven to cry like a Greek chorus: "See these mortals love yet +clash! Behold, how havoc comes! Eheu! this mortal case!" + +With humanity still pulling at her heart-strings, and conceiving +fiction which offered more value of plot than before, George +Eliot wrote the charming romance "Silas Marner," novelette in +form, modern romance in its just mingling of truth and +idealization: a work published the next year. She interrupted +"Romola" to do it, which is suggestive as indicating absorption +by the theme. This story offers a delightful blend of homely +realism with poetic symbolism. The miser is wooed from his +sordid love of gold by the golden glint of a little girl's hair: +as love creeps into his starved heart, heartless greed goes out +forever: before a soulless machine, he becomes a man. It is the +world-old, still potent thought that the good can drive out the +bad: a spiritual allegory in a series of vivid pictures carrying +the wholesomest and highest of lessons. The artistic and +didactic are here in happy union. And as nowhere else in her +work (unless exception be made in the case of "Romola") she sees +a truth in terms of drama. To read the story is to feel its +stage value: it is no surprise to know that several +dramatizations of the book have been made. Aside from its +central motive, the studies of homely village life, as well as +of polite society, are in Eliot's best manner: the humor of +Dolly Winthrop is of as excellent vintage as the humor of Mrs. +Poyser in "Adam Bede," yet with the necessary differentiation. +The typical deep sympathy for common humanity--just average +folks--permeates the handling. Moreover, while the romance has a +happy issue, as a romance should according to Stevenson, if it +possibly can, it does not differ in its view of life from so +fatalistic a book as "The Mill on the Floss"; for circumstances +change Silas; if the child Eppie had not come he might have +remained a miser. It was not his will alone that revolutionized +his life; what some would call luck was at work there. In "Silas +Marner" the teaching is of a piece with that of all her +representative work. + +But when we reach "Romola" there is a change, debatable ground +is entered upon at once. Hitherto, the story-teller has mastered +the preacher, although an ever more earnest soul has been +expressing itself about Life. Now we enter the region of more +self-conscious literary art, of planned work and study, and +confront the possibility of flagging invention. Also, we leave +the solid ground of contemporary themes and find the realist +with her hang for truth, essaying an historical setting, an +entirely new and foreign motive. Eliot had already proved her +right to depict certain aspects of her own English life. To +strive to exercise the same powers on a theme like "Romola" was +a venturesome step. We have seen how Dickens and Thackeray +essayed romance at least once with ringing success; now the +third major mid-century novelist was to try the same thing. + +It may be conceded at the start that in one important respect +this Florentine story of Savonarola and his day is entirely +typical: it puts clearly before us in a medieval romantic mis-en +scene, the problem of a soul: the slow, subtle, awful +degeneration of the man Tito, with its foil in the noble figure +of the girl Romola. The central personality psychologically is +that of the wily Greek-Italian, and Eliot never probed deeper +into the labyrinths of the perturbed human spirit than in this +remarkable analysis. The reader, too, remembers gratefully, with +a catch of the breath, the great scenes, two of which are the +execution of Savonarola, and the final confrontation of Tito by +his adoptive father, with its Greek-like sense of tragic doom. +The same reader stands aghast before the labor which must lie +behind such a work and often comes to him a sudden, vital sense +of fifteenth century Florence, then, as never since, the Lily of +the Arno: so cunningly and with such felicity are innumerable +details individualized, massed and blended. And yet, somehow it +all seems a splendid experiment, a worthy performance rather +than a spontaneous and successful creative endeavor: this, in +comparison with the fiction that came before. The author seems a +little over-burdened by the tremendousness of her material. +Whether it is because the Savonarola episode is not thoroughly +synthetized with the Tito-Romola part: or that the central theme +is of itself fundamentally unpleasant--or again, that from the +nature of the romance, head-work had largely to supplant that +genial draught upon the springs of childhood which gave us "Adam +Bede" and "The Mill on the Floss";--or once more, whether the +crowded canvas injures the unity of the design, be these as they +may, "Romola" strikes one as great in spots and as conveying a +noble though somber truth, but does not carry us off our feet. +That is the blunt truth about it, major work as it is, with only +half a dozen of its kind to equal it in all English literature. +It falls distinctly behind both "A Tale of Two Cities" and +"Esmond." It is a book to admire, to praise in many particulars, +to be impressed by: but not quite to treasure as one treasures +the story of the Tullivers. It was written by George Eliot, +famous novelist, who with that anxious, morbid conscience of +hers, had to live up to her reputation, and who received $50,000 +for the work, even to-day a large sum for a piece of fiction. It +was not written by a woman irresistibly impelled to self-expression, +seized with the passionate desire to paint Life. It +is, in a sense, her first professional feat and performance. + +Meanwhile, she was getting on in life: we saw that she was seven +and thirty when she wrote the "Clerical Scenes": it was almost a +decade later when "Felix Holt, Radical" appeared, and she was +nearing fifty. I believe it to be helpful to draw a line between +all her fiction before and after "Felix Holt," placing that book +somewhat uncertainly on the dividing line. The four earlier +novels stand for a period when there is a strong, or at least +sufficient story interest, the proper amount of objectification: +to the second division belong "Middlemarch" and "Daniel +Deronda," where we feel that problem comes first and story +second. In the intermediate novel, "Felix Holt," its excellent +story places it with the first books, but its increased didactic +tendency with the latest stories. Why has "Felix Holt" been +treated by the critics, as a rule, as of comparatively minor +value? It is very interesting, contains true characterization, +much of picturesque and dramatic worth; it abounds in enjoyable +first-hand observation of a period by-gone yet near enough to +have been cognizant to the writer. Her favorite types, too, are +in it. Holt, a study of the advanced workman of his day, is +another Bede, mutatis mutandis, and quite as truly realized. +Both Mr. Lyon and his daughter are capitally drawn and the +motive of the novel--to teach Felix that he can be quite as true +to his cause if he be less rough and eccentric in dress and +deportment, is a good one handled with success. To which may be +added that the encircling theme of Mrs. Transome's mystery, +grips the attention from the start and there is pleasure when it +is seen to involve Esther, leading her to make a choice which +reveals that she has awakened to a truer valuation of life--and +of Felix. With all these things in its favor, why has +appreciation been so scant? + +Is it not that continually in the narrative you lose its broader +human interest because of the narrower political and social +questions that are raised? They are vital questions, but still, +more specific, technical, of the time. Nor is their weaving into +the more permanent theme altogether skilful: you feel like +exclaiming to the novelist: "O, let Kingsley handle chartism, +but do you stick to your last--love and its criss-cross, family +sin and its outcome, character changed as life comes to be more +vitally realized." George Eliot in this fine story falls into +this mistake, as does Mrs. Humphry Ward in her well-remembered +"Robert Elsmere," and as she has again in the novel which +happens to be her latest as these words are written, "Marriage a +la Mode." The thesis has a way of sticking out obtrusively in +such efforts. + +Many readers may not feel this in "Felix Holt," which, whatever +its shortcomings, remains an extremely able and interesting +novel, often underestimated. Still, I imagine a genuine +distinction has been made with regard to it. + +The difference is more definitely felt in "Middlemarch," not +infrequently called Eliot's masterpiece. It appeared five years +later and the author was over fifty when the book was published +serially during 1871 and 1872. Nearly four years were spent in +the work of composition: for it the sum of $60,000 was paid. + +"Middlemarch," which resembles Thackeray's "Vanity Fair" in +telling two stories not closely related, seems less a Novel than +a chronicle-history of two families. It is important to remember +that its two parts were conceived as independent; their welding, +to call it such, was an afterthought. The tempo again, suiting +the style of fiction, is leisurely: character study, character +contrast, is the principal aim. More definitely, the marriage +problem, illustrated by Dorothea's experience with Casaubon, and +that of Lydgate with Rosamond, is what the writer places before +us. Marriage is chosen simply because it is the modern spiritual +battleground, a condition for the trying-out of souls. The +greatness of the work lies in its breadth (subjective more than +objective), its panoramic view of English country life of the +refined type, its rich garner of wisdom concerning human motive +and action. We have seen in earlier studies that its type, the +chronicle of events as they affect character, is a legitimate +one: a successful genus in English-speaking fiction in hands +like those of Thackeray, Eliot and Howells. It is one accepted +kind, a distinct, often able, sympathetic kind of fiction of our +race: its worth as a social document (to use the convenient term +once more) is likely to be high. It lacks the close-knit plot, +the feeling for stage effect, the swift progression and the +sense of completed action which another and more favored sort of +Novel exhibits. Yet it may have as much chance of permanence in +the hands of a master. The proper question, then, seems to be +whether it most fitly expresses the genius of an author. + +Perhaps there will never be general agreement as to this in the +case of "Middlemarch." The book is drawn from wells of +experience not so deep in Eliot's nature as those which went to +the making of "Adam Bede" and "The Mill on the Floss," It is +life with which the author became familiar in London and about +the world during her later literary days. She knows it well, and +paints it with her usual noble insistence upon truth. But she +knows it with her brain; whereas, she knows "The Mill on the +Floss" with her blood. There is surely that difference. Hence, +the latter work has, it would seem, a better chance for long +life; for, without losing the author's characteristic +interpretation, it has more story-value, is richer in humor +(that alleviating ingredient of all fiction) and is a better +work of art. It shows George Eliot absorbed in story-telling: +"Middlemarch" is George Eliot using a slight framework of story +for the sake of talking about life and illustrating by +character. Those who call it her masterpiece are not judging it +primarily as art-work: any more than those who call Whitman the +greatest American poet are judging him as artist. While it seems +necessary to make this distinction, it is quite as necessary to +bear down on the attraction of the character-drawing. That is a +truly wonderful portrait of the unconsciously selfish scholar in +Casaubon. Dorothea's noble naturalness, Will Ladislaw's fiery +truth, the verity of Rosamond's bovine mediocrity, the fine +reality of Lydgate's situation, so portentous in its demand upon +the moral nature--all this, and more than this, is admirable and +authoritative. The predominant thought in closing such a study +is that of the tremendous complexity of human fate, influenced +as it is by heredity, environment and the personal equation, and +not without melioristic hope, if we but live up to our best. The +tone is grave, but not hopeless. The quiet, hesitant movement +helps the sense of this slow sureness in the working of the +social law: + +"Though the mills of God grind slowly, +Yet they grind exceeding small." + + +In her final novel, "Daniel Deronda," between which and +"Middlemarch" there were six years, so that it was published +when the author was nearly sixty years old, we have another +large canvas upon which, in great detail and with admirable +variety, is displayed a composition that does not aim at +complete unity--or at any rate, does not accomplish it, for the +motive is double: to present the Jew so that Judenhetze may be +diminished: and to exhibit the spiritual evolution through a +succession of emotional experiences of the girl Gwendolen. This +phase of the story offers an instructive parallel with +Meredith's "Diana of the Crossways." If the Jew theme had been +made secondary artistically to the Gwendolen study, the novel +would have secured a greater degree of constructive success; but +there's the rub. Now it seems the main issue; again, Gwendolen +holds the center of the stage. The result is a suspicion of +patchwork; nor is this changed by the fact that both parts are +brilliantly done--to which consideration may be added the well-known +antipathy of many Gentile readers to any treatment of the +Jew in fiction, if an explanation be sought of the relative +slighting of a very noble book. + +For it has virtues, many and large. Its spirit is broad, +tolerant, wide and loving. In no previous Eliot fiction are +there finer single effects: no one is likely to forget the scene +in which Gwendolen and Harcourt come to a rupture; or the scene +of Deronda's dismissal. And in the way of character portrayal, +nothing is keener and truer than the heroine of this book, whose +unawakened, seemingly light, nature is chastened and deepened as +she slowly learns the meaning of life. The lesson is sound and +salutary: it is set forth so vividly as to be immensely +impressive. Mordecai, against the background necessary to show +him, is sketched with splendid power. And the percentage of +quotable sayings, sword-thrusts, many of them, into the vitals +of life, is as high perhaps as in any other of the Novels, +unless it be "Middlemarch." Nevertheless those who point to +"Deronda" as illustrating the novelist's decadence--although +they use too harsh a word--have some right on their side. For, +viewed as story, it is not so successful as the books of the +first half of George Eliot's career. It all depends whether a +vital problem Novel is given preference over a Novel which does +not obtrude message, if it have any at all. And if fiction be a +fine art, it must be confessed that this latter sort is +superior. But we have perfect liberty to admire the elevation, +earnestness and skill en detail that denote such a work. Nay, we +may go further and say that the woman who wrote it is greater +than she who wrote "The Mill on the Floss." + +With a backward glance now at the list, it may be said in +summary that the earlier fiction constitutes George Eliot's most +authoritative contribution to English novel-making, since the +thinking about life so characteristic of her is kept within the +bounds of good story-telling. And the compensation for this +artistic loss in her later fiction is found in its wider +intellectual outlook, its deeper sympathy, the more profound +humanity of the message. + +But what of her philosophy? She was not a pessimist, since the +pessimist is one who despairs of human virtue and regards the +world as paralyzing the will nobly to achieve. She was, rather, +a meliorist who hoped for better things, though tardy to come; +who believed, in her own pungent phrase, "in the slow contagion +of good." Of human happiness she did in one of her latest moods +despair: going so far in a dark moment as to declare that the +only ideal left her was duty. In a way, she grew sadder as she +grew older. By intellect she was a positivist who has given up +any definite hope of personal immortality--save that which by a +metaphor is applied to one's influence upon the life of the +world here upon earth. And in her own career, by her +unconventional union with Lewes, she made a questionable choice +of action, though from the highest motives; a choice which I +believe rasped her sensitive soul because of the way it was +regarded by many whom she respected and whose good opinion she +coveted. But she remained splendidly wholesome and inspiring in +her fiction, because she clung to her faith in spiritual +self-development, tested all life by the test of duty, felt the +pathos and the preciousness of inconspicuous lives, and devoted +herself through a most exceptional career to loving service for +others. She was therefore not only a novelist of genius, but a +profoundly good woman. She had an ample practical credo for +living and will always be, for those who read with their mind +and soul as well as their eyes, anything but a depressing +writer. For them, on the contrary, she will be a tonic force, a +seer using fiction as a means to an end--and that end the +betterment of mankind. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +TROLLOPE AND OTHERS + +Five or six writers of fiction, none of whom has attained a +position like that of the three great Victorians already +considered, yet all of whom loomed large in their day, have met +with unequal treatment at the hands of time: Bulwer Lytton, +Disraeli, Reade, Trollope, Kingsley. And the Brontes might well +be added to the list. The men are mentioned in the order of +their birth; yet it seems more natural to place Trollope last, +not at all because he lived to 1882, while Kingsley died seven +years earlier. Reade lived two years after Trollope, but seems +chronologically far before him as a novelist. In the same way, +Disraeli and Bulwer Lytton, as we now look back upon them, +appear to be figures of another age; though the former lived to +within a few years of Trollope, and the latter died but two +years before Kingsley. Of course, the reason that Disraeli +impresses us as antiquated where Trollope looks thoroughly +modern, is because the latter is nearest our own day in method, +temper and aim. And this is the main reason why he has best +survived the shocks of time and is seen to be the most +significant figure of an able and interesting group. Before he +is examined, something may be said of the others. + +In a measure, the great reputation enjoyed by the remaining +writers was secured in divisions of literature other than +fiction; or derived from activities not literary at all. Thus +Beaconsfield was Premier, Bulwer was noted as poet and +dramatist, and eminent in diplomacy; Kingsley a leader in Church +and State. They were men with many irons in the fire: naturally, +it took some years to separate their literary importance pure +and simple from the other accomplishments that swelled their +fame. Reade stood somewhat more definitely for literature; and +Trollope, although his living was gained for years as a public +servant, set his all of reputation on the single throw of +letters. He is Anthony Trollope, Novelist, or he is nothing. + + +I + +Thinking of Disraeli as a maker of stories, one reads of his +immense vogue about the middle of the last century and reflects +sagely upon the change of literary fashions. The magic is gone +for the reader now. Such claim as he can still make is most +favorably estimated by "Coningsby," "Sybil" and "Tancred," all +published within four years, and constituting a trilogy of books +in which the follies of polite society and the intimacies of +politics are portrayed with fertility and facility. The earlier +"Henrietta Temple" and "Venetia," however fervid in feeling and +valuable for the delineation of contemporary character, are not +so characteristic. Nor are the novels of his last years, +"Lothair" and "Endymion," in any way better than those of his +younger days. That the political trilogy have still a certain +value as studies of the time is beyond argument. Also, they have +wit, invention and a richly pictorial sense for setting, +together with flamboyant attraction of style and a solid +substratum of thought. One recognizes often that an athletic +mind is at play in them. But they do not now take hold, whatever +they once did; an air of the false-literary is over them, it is +not easy to read them as true transcripts from life. To get a +full sense of this, turn to literally contemporaneous books like +Dickens' "David Copperfield" and "Hard Times"; compared with +such, Disraeli and all his world seem clever pastiche. Personal +taste may modify this statement: it can hardly reverse it. It +would be futile to explain the difference by saying that +Disraeli was some eight years before Dickens or that he dealt +with another and higher class of society. The difference goes +deeper: it is due to the fact that one writer was writing in the +spirit of the age with his face to the future and so giving a +creative representation of its life; whereas the other was +painting its manners and only half in earnest: playing with +literature, in sooth. A man like Dickens is married to his art; +Disraeli indulges in a temporary liaison with letters. There is, +too, in the Lothair-Endymion kind of literature a fatal +resemblance to the older sentimental and grandiose fiction of +the eighteenth century: an effect of plush and padding, an +atmosphere of patchouli and sachet powder. It has the limitation +that fashion ever sets; it is boudoir novel-writing: cabinet +literature in both the social and political sense. As Agnes +Repplier has it: "Lothair is beloved by the female aristocracy +of Great Britain; and mysterious ladies, whose lofty souls stoop +to no conventionalities, die happy with his kisses on their +lips." It would be going too far perhaps to say that this type +never existed in life, for Richardson seems to have had a model +in mind in drawing Grandison; but it hardly survives in letters, +unless we include "St. Elmo" and "Under Two Flags" in that +denomination. + +To sum it all up: For most of us Disraeli has become hard +reading. This is not to say that he cannot still be read with +profit as one who gives us insight concerning his day; but his +gorgeous pictures and personages have faded woefully, where +Trollope's are as bright as ever; and the latter is right when +he said that Lord Beaconsfield's creatures "have a flavor of +paint and unreality." + + +II + +Bulwer Lytton has likewise lost ground greatly: but read to-day +he has much more to offer. In him, too, may be seen an +imperfectly blent mixture of by-gone sentimentality and modern +truth: yet whether in the romance of historic setting, "The Last +Days of Pompeii," or in the satiric study of realism, like "My +Novel," Bulwer is much nearer to us, and holds out vital +literature for our appreciation. It is easy to name faults both +in romance and realism of his making: but the important thing to +acknowledge is that he still appeals, can be read with a certain +pleasure. His most mature work, moreover, bears testimony to the +coming creed of fiction, as Disraeli's never does. There are +moments with Bulwer when he almost seems a fellow of Meredith's. +I recall with amusement the classroom remark of a college +professor to the effect that "My Novel" was the greatest fiction +in English literature. While the freshmen to whom this was +addressed did not appreciate the generous erraticism of the +judgment, even now one of them sees that, coming as it did from +a clergyman of genial culture, a true lover of literature and +one to inspire that love in others--even in freshmen!--it could +hardly have been spoken concerning a mere man-milliner of +letters. Bulwer produced too much and in too many kinds to do +his best in all--or in any one. But most of us sooner or later +have been in thrall to "Kenelm Chillingly" or thrilled to that +masterly horror story, "The House and the Brain." There is +pinchbeck with the gold, but the shining true metal is there. + + +III + +To pass to Kingsley, is like turning from the world to the +kingdom of God: all is religious fervor, humanitarian purpose. +Here again the activity is multiple but the dominant spirit is +that of militant Christianity. Outside of the Novel, Kingsley +has left in "Water Babies" a book deserving the name of modern +classic, unless the phrase be a contradiction in terms. "Alton +Locke," read to-day, is felt to be too much the tract to bear +favorable comparison with Eliot's "Felix Holt"; but it has +literary power and noble sincerity. Kingsley is one of the first +to feel the ground-swell of social democracy which was to sweep +later fiction on its mighty tide. "Westward Ho!" is a sterling +historical romance, one of the more successful books in a select +list which embraces "The Cloister and the Hearth," "Lorna +Doone," and "John Inglesant." "Hypatia," examined +dispassionately, may be described as an historical romance with +elements of greatness rather than a great historical romance. +But it shed its glamour over our youth and there is affectionate +dread in the thought of a more critical re-reading. + +In truth, Kingsley, viewed in all his literary work, stands out +as an athlete of the intellect and the emotions, doing much and +doing it remarkably well--a power for righteousness in his day +and generation, but for this very reason less a professional +novelist of assured standing. His gifted, erratic brother Henry, +in the striking series of stories dealing prevailingly with the +Australian life he so well knew, makes a stronger impression of +singleness of power and may last longer, one suspects, than the +better-known, more successful Charles, whose significance for +the later generation is, as we have hinted, in his sensitiveness +to the new spirit of social revolt,--an isolated voice where +there is now full chorus. + + +IV + +An even more virile figure and one to whom the attribution of +genius need not be grudged, is the strong, pugnacious, eminently +picturesque Charles Reade. It is a temptation to say that but +for his use of a method and a technique hopelessly old-fashioned, +he might claim close fellowship for gift and influence with +Dickens. But he lacked art as it is now understood: balance, +restraint, the impersonal view were not his. He is a glorious +but imperfect phenomenon, back there in the middle century. +He worked in a way deserving of the descriptive phrase once +applied to Macaulay--"a steam engine in breeches;" he put +enough belief and heart into his fiction to float any literary +vessel upon the treacherous waters of fame. He had, of the more +specific qualities of a novelist, racy idiom, power in creating +character and a remarkable gift for plot and dramatic scene. +His frankly melodramatic novels like "A Terrible Temptation" +are among the best of their kind, and in "The Cloister and +the Hearth" he performed the major literary feat of +reconstructing, with the large imagination and humanity +which obliterate any effect of archeology and worked-up +background, a period long past. And what reader of English +fiction does not harbor more than kindly sentiments for those +very different yet equally lovable women, Christie Johnstone and +Peg Woffington? To run over his contributions thus is to feel +the heart grow warm towards the sturdy story-teller. Reade also +played a part, as did Kingsley, in the movement for recognition +of the socially unfit and those unfairly treated. "Put Yourself +in His Place," with its early word on the readjustment of labor +troubles, is typical of much that he strove to do. Superb +partisan that he was, it is probable that had he cared less for +polemics and more for his art, he would have secured a safer +position in the annals of fiction. He can always be taken up and +enjoyed for his earnest conviction or his story for the story's +sake, even if on more critical evaluations he comes out not so +well as men of lesser caliber. + + +V + +The writer of the group who has consistently gained ground and +has come to be generally recognized as a great artist, a force +in English fiction both for influence and pleasure-giving power, +is Anthony Trollope. He is vital to-day and strengthening his +hold upon the readers of fiction. The quiet, cultivated folk in +whose good opinion lies the destiny of really worthy literature, +are, as a rule, friendly to Trollope; not seldom they are +devoted to him. Such people peruse him in an enjoyably +ruminative way at their meals, or read him in the neglige of +retirement. He is that cosy, enviable thing, a bedside author. +He is above all a story-teller for the middle-aged and it is his +good fortune to be able to sit and wait for us at that half-way +house,--since we all arrive. Of course, to say this is to +acknowledge his limitations. He does not appeal strongly to the +young, though he never forgets to tell a love story; but he is +too placid, matter-of-fact, unromantic for them. But if he do +not shake us with lyric passion, he is always interesting and he +wears uncommonly well. That his popularity is extending is +testified to by new editions and publishers' hullabaloo over his +work. + +Such a fate is deserved by him, for Trollope is one of the most +consummate masters of that commonplace which has become the +modern fashion--and fascination. He has a wonderful power in the +realism which means getting close to the fact and the average +without making them uninteresting. So, naturally, as realism has +gained he has gained. No one except Jane Austen has surpassed +him in this power of truthful portrayal, and he has the +advantage of being practically of our own day. He insisted that +fiction should be objective, and refused to intrude himself into +the story, showing himself in this respect a better artist than +Thackeray, whom he much admired but frankly criticized. He was +unwilling to pause and harangue his audience in rotund voice +after the manner of Dickens, First among modern novelists, +Trollope stands invisible behind his characters, and this, as we +have seen, was to become one of the articles of the modern creed +of fiction. He affords us that peculiar pleasure which is +derived from seeing in a book what we instantly recognize as +familiar to us in life. Just why the pleasure, may be left to +the psychologists; but it is of indisputable charm, and Trollope +possesses it. We may talk wisely and at length of his +commonplaceness, lack of spice, philistinism; he can be counted +on to amuse us. He lived valiantly up to his own injunction: "Of +all the needs a book has, the chief need is that it is +readable." A simple test, this, but a terrible one that has +slain its thousands. No nineteenth century maker of stories is +safer in the matter of keeping the attention. If the book can be +easily laid down, it is always agreeable to take it up again. + +Trollope set out in the most systematic way to produce a series +of novels illustrating certain sections of England, certain +types of English society; steadily, for a life-time, with the +artisan's skilful hand, he labored at the craft. He is the very +antithesis of the erraticisms and irregularities of genius. He +went to his daily stint of work, by night and day, on sea or +land, exactly as the merchant goes to his office, the mechanic +to his shop. He wrote with a watch before him, two hundred and +fifty words to fifteen minutes. But he had the most unusual +faculty of direct, unprejudiced, clear observation; he trained +himself to set down what he saw and to remember it. And he also +had the constructive ability to shape and carry on his story so +as to create the effect of growth, along with an equally +valuable power of sympathetic characterization, so that you know +and understand his folk. Add to this a style perfectly accordant +with the unobtrusive harmony of the picture, and the main +elements of Trollope's appeal have been enumerated. Yet has he +not been entirely explained. His art--meaning the skilled +handling of his material--can hardly be praised too much; it is +so easy to underestimate because it is so unshowy. Few had a +nicer sense of scale and tone; he gets his effects often because +of this harmony of adjustment. For one example, "The Warden" is +a relatively short piece of fiction which opens the famous +Chronicles of Barset series. Its interest culminates in the +going of the Reverend Septimus Harding to London from his quiet +country home, in order to prevent a young couple from marrying. +The whole situation is tiny, a mere corner flurry. But so +admirably has the climax been prepared, so organic is it to all +that went before in the way of preparation, that the result is +positively thrilling: a wonderful example of the principle of +key and relation. + +Or again, in that scene which is a favorite with all Trollope's +readers, where the arrogant Mrs. Proudie is rebuked by the gaunt +Mr. Crawley, the effect of his famous "Peace, woman!" is +tremendous only because it is a dash of vivid red in a +composition where the general color scheme is low and subdued. + +In view of this faculty, it will not do to regard Trollope as a +kind of mechanic who began one novel the day he finished another +and often carried on two or three at the same time, like a +juggler with his balls, with no conception of them as artistic +wholes. He says himself that he began a piece of fiction with no +full plan. But, with his very obvious skill prodigally proved +from his work, we may beg leave to take all such statements in a +qualified sense: for the kind of fiction he aimed at he surely +developed a technique not only adequate but of very unusual +excellence. + +Trollope was a voluminous writer: he gives in his delightful +autobiography the list of his own works and it numbers upwards +of sixty titles, of which over forty are fiction. His capacity +for writing, judged by mere bulk, appears to have been +inherited; for his mother, turning authoress at fifty years of +age, produced no less than one hundred and fourteen volumes! +There is inferior work, and plenty of it, among the sum-total of +his activity, but two series, amounting to about twenty books, +include the fiction upon which his fame so solidly rests: the +Cathedral series and the Parliamentary series. In the former, +choosing the southern-western counties of Wiltshire and Hants as +Hardy chose Wessex for his peculiar venue, he described the +clerical life of his land as it had never been described before, +showing the type as made up of men like unto other men, +unromantic, often this-worldly and smug, yet varying the type, +making room for such an idealist as Crawley as well as for sleek +bishops and ecclesiastical wire-pullers. Neither his young women +nor his holy men are overdrawn a jot: they have the continence +of Nature. But they are not cynically presented. You like them +and take pleasure in their society; they are so beautifully +true! The inspiration of these studies came to him as he walked +under the shadow of Salisbury Cathedral; and one is never far +away from the influence of the cathedral class. The life is the +worldy-godly life of that microcosm, a small, genteel, +conventional urban society; in sharp contrast with the life +depicted by Hardy in the same part of the land,--but like +another world, because his portraiture finds its subjects among +peasant-folk and yeoman--the true primitive types whose speech +is slow and their roots deep down in the soil. + +The realism of Trollope was not confined to the mere +reproduction of externals; he gave the illusion of character, +without departing from what can be verified by what men know. +His photographs were largely imaginary, as all artistic work +must be; he constructed his stories out of his own mind. But all +is based on what may be called a splendidly reasoned and +reasonable experience with Life. His especial service was thus +to instruct us about English society, without tedium, within a +domain which was voluntarily selected for his own. In this he +was also a pioneer in that local fiction which is a geographical +effect of realism. And to help him in this setting down of what +he believed to be true of humanity, was a style so lucid and +simple as perfectly to serve his purpose. For unobtrusive ease, +idiomatic naturalness and that familiarity which escapes +vulgarity and retains a quiet distinction, no one has excelled +him. It is one reason why we feel an intimate knowledge of his +characters. Mr. Howells declares it is Trollope who is most like +Austen "in simple honesty and instinctive truth, as +unphilosophized as the light of common day"--though he goes on +to deplore that he too often preferred to be "like the +caricaturist Thackeray"--a somewhat hard saying. It is a +particular comfort to read such a writer when intensely personal +psychology is the order of the day and neither style nor +interpretation in fiction is simple. + +If Trollope can be said to be derivative at all, it is Thackeray +who most influenced him. He avows his admiration, wrote the +other's life, and deemed him one who advanced truth-telling in +the Novel. Yet, as was stated, he did not altogether approve of +the Master, thinking his satire too steady a view instead of an +occasional weapon. Indeed his strictures in the biography have +at times a cool, almost hostile sound. He may or may not have +taken a hint from Thackeray on the re-introduction of characters +in other books--a pleasant device long antedating the nineteenth +century, since one finds it in Lyly's "Euphues." Trollope also +disliked Dickens' habit of exaggeration (as he thought it) even +when it was used in the interests of reform, and satirized the +tendency in the person of Mr. Popular Sentiment in "The Warden." + +The more one studies Trollope and the farther he recedes into +the past, the firmer grows the conviction that he is a very +distinctive figure of Victorian fiction, a pioneer who led the +way and was to be followed by a horde of secondary realistic +novelists who could imitate his methods but not reproduce his +pleasant effect. + + +VI + +The Brontes, coming when they did, before 1850, are a curious +study. Realism was growing daily and destined to be the fashion +of the literary to-morrow. But "Jane Eyre" is the product of +Charlotte Bronte's isolation, her morbidly introspective nature, +her painful sense of personal duty, the inextinguishable romance +that was hers as the leal descendant of a race of Irish story-tellers. +She looked up to and worshipped Thackeray, but produced +fiction that was like something from another world. She and her +sisters, especially Emily, whose vivid "Wuthering Heights" has +all the effect of a visitant from a remote planet, are strangely +unrelated to the general course of the nineteenth century. They +seem born out of time; they would have left a more lasting +impress upon English fiction had they come before--or after. +There are unquestionable qualities of realism in "Jane Eyre," +but it is romantic to the core, sentimental, melodramatic. +Rochester is an elder St. Elmo--hardly truer as a human being; +Jane's sacrificial worship goes back to the eighteenth century; +and that famous mad-woman's shriek in the night is a moment to +be boasted of on the Bowery. And this was her most typical book, +that which gave her fame. The others, "Villette" and the rest, +are more truly representative of the realistic trend of the day, +but withal though interesting, less characteristic, less liked. +In proportion as she is romantic is she remembered. The streak +of genius in these gifted women must not blind us to the +isolation, the unrelated nature of their work to the main course +of the Novel. They are exceptions to the rule. + + +VII + +This group then of novelists, sinking all individual +differences, marks the progress of the method of realism over +the romance. Scarcely one is conspicuous for achievement in the +latter, while almost all of them did yeoman service in the +former. In some cases--those of Disraeli and Bulwer--the +transition is seen where their earlier and later work is +contrasted; with a writer like Trollope, the newer method +completely triumphs. Even in so confirmed a romance-maker as +Wilkie Collins, to whom plot was everything and whose cunning of +hand in this is notorious, there is a concession to the new +ideal of Truth. He was touched by his time in the matter of +naturalness of dialogue, though not of event. Wildly improbable +and wooden as his themes may now seem, their manner is +realistic, realism of speech, in fact, being an element in his +effectivism. Even the author of "The Moonstone" is scotched by +the spirit of the age, and in the preface to "Armsdale" declares +for a greater freedom of theme--one of the first announcements +of that desire for an extension of the subject-matter which was +in the next generation to bring such a change. + +It seems just to represent all these secondary novelists as +subsidiary to Dickens, Thackeray and Eliot. Fascinating isolated +figures like Borrow, who will always be cherished by the few, +are perforce passed by. We are trying to keep both quality and +influence in mind, with the desire to show the writers not by +themselves alone but as part of a stream of tendency which has +made the English Novel the distinct form it is to-day. Even a +resounding genius, in this view, may have less meaning than an +apparent plodder like Trollope, who, as time goes by, is seen +more clearly to be one of the shaping forces in the development +of a literary form. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +HARDY AND MEREDITH + +We have seen in chapter seventh, how the influence of Balzac +introduced to modern fiction that extension of subject and that +preference for the external fact widely productive of change in +the novel-making of the continent and of English-speaking lands. +As the year 1830 was given significance by him, so, a generation +later, the year 1870 was given significance by Zola. England, +like other lands cultivating the Novel, felt the influence. +Balzac brought to fiction a greater franchise of theme: Zola +taught it to regard a human being--individual or collectively +social--as primarily animal: that is, he explains action on this +hypothesis. And as an inevitable consequence, realism passed to +the so-called naturalism. Zola believed in this view as a theory +and his practice, not always consistent with it, was +sufficiently so in the famous Rougon-Macquart series of novels +begun the year of the Franco-Prussian war, to establish it as a +method, and a school of fiction. Naturalism, linking hands with +l'art pour art--"a fine phrase is a moral action--there is no +other morality in literature," cried Zola--became a banner-cry, +with "the flesh is all" its chief article of belief. No study of +the growth of English fiction can ignore this typical modern +movement, however unpleasant it may be to follow it. The baser +and more brutal phases of the Novel continental and insular look +to this derivation. Zola's remarkable pronunciamento "The +Experimental Novel," proves how honestly he espoused the +doctrine of the realist, how blind he is to its partial view. +His attempt to subject the art of fiction to the exact laws of +science, is an illustration of the influence of scientific +thought upon a mind not broadly cultured, though of unusual +native quality. Realism of the modern kind--the kind for which +Zola stands--is the result in a form of literature of the +necessary intellectual unrest following on the abandonment of +older religious ideals. Science had forced men to give up +certain theological conceptions; death, immorality, God, Man,--these +were all differently understood, and a period of +readjustment, doubt and negation, of misery and despair, was the +natural issue. Man, being naturally religious, was sure sooner +or later to secure a new and more hopeful faith: it was a matter +of spiritual self-preservation. But realism in letters, for the +moment, before a new theory had been formulated, was a kind of +pis aller by which literature could be produced and attention +given to the tangible things of this earth, many of them not +before thoroughly exploited; the things of the mind, of the +Spirit, were certain to be exploited later, when a broader creed +should come. The new romanticism and idealism of our day marks +this return. Zola's theory is now seen to be wrong, and there +has followed a violent reaction from the realistic tenets, even +in Paris, its citadel. But for some years, it held tyrannous +sway and its leader was a man of genius, his work distinctive, +remarkable; at its best, great,--in spite of, rather than +because of, his principles. It was in the later Trilogy of the +cities that, using a broader formula, he came into full +expression of what was in him; during the last years of his life +he was moving, both as man and artist, in the right direction. +Yet naturally it was novels like "Nana" and "L'Assomoir" that +gave him his vogue; and their obsession with the fleshly gave +them for the moment a strange distinction: for years their +author was regarded as the founder of a school and its most +formidable exponent. He wielded an influence that rarely falls +to a maker of stories. And although realism in its extreme +manifestations no longer holds exclusive sway, Zola's impulse is +still at work in the modern Novel. Historically, his name will +always be of interest. + + +I + +Thomas Hardy is a realist in a sense true of no English novelist +of anything like equal rank preceding him: his literary +genealogy is French, for his "Jude The Obscure" has no English +prototype, except the earlier work of George Moore, whose +inspiration is even more definitely Paris. To study Hardy's +development for a period of about twenty-five years from "Under +the Greenwood Tree" to "Jude," is to review, as they are +expressed in the work of one great English novelist, the +literary ideals before and after Zola. Few will cavil at the +inclusion in our study of a living author like Hardy. His work +ranks with the most influential of our time; so much may be seen +already. His writing of fiction, moreover, or at least of +Novels, seems to be finished. And like Meredith, he is a man of +genius and, strictly speaking, a finer artist than the elder +author. For quality, then, and significance of accomplishment, +Hardy may well be examined with the masters whose record is +rounded out by death. He offers a fine example of the logic of +modern realism, as it has been applied by a first-class mind to +the art of fiction. In Meredith, on the contrary, is shown a +sort of synthesis of the realistic and poetic-philosophic +interpretation. Hardy is for this reason easier to understand +and explain; Meredith refuses classification. + +The elements of strength in Thomas Hardy can be made out +clearly; they are not elusive. Wisely, he has chosen to do a +very definite thing and, with rare perseverance and skill, he +has done it. He selected as setting the south-western part of +England--Wessex, is the ancient name he gave it--that embraces +Somersetshire and contiguous counties, because he felt that the +types of humanity and the view of life he wished to show could +best be thrown out against the primitive background. Certain +elemental truths about men and women, he believed, lost sight of +in the kaleidoscopic attritions of the town, might there be +clearly seen. The choice of locale was thus part of an attitude +toward life. That attitude or view may be described fairly well +as one of philosophic fatalism. + +It has not the cold removedness of the stoic: it has pity in it, +even love. But it is deeply sad, sometimes bitter. In Hardy's +presentation of Nature (a remark applying to some extent to a +younger novelist who shows his influence, Phillpotts), she is +displayed as an ironic expression, with even malignant moods, of +a supreme cosmic indifference to the petty fate of that +animalcule, man. And this, in spite of a curious power she +possesses of consoling him and of charming him by blandishments +that cheat the loneliness of his soul. There is no purer example +of tragedy in modern literature than Mr. Hardy's strongest, most +mature stories. A mind deeply serious and honest, interprets the +human case in this wise and conceives that the underlying +pitilessness can most graphically be conveyed in a setting like +that of Egdon Heath, where the great silent forces of Nature +somberly interblend with the forces set in motion by the human +will, both futile to produce happiness. Even the attempt to be +virtuous fails in "Jude": as the attempt to be happy does in +"Tess." That sardonic, final thought in the last-named book will +not out of our ears: Fate had played its last little jest with +poor Tess. + +But there are mitigations, many and welcome. Hardy has the most +delightful humor. His peasants and simple middle-class folk are +as distinctive and enjoyable as anything since Shakspere. He +also has a more sophisticated, cutting humor--tipped with irony +and tart to the taste--which he uses in those stories or scenes +where urbanites mingle with his country folk. But his humorous +triumphs are bucolic. And for another source of keenest +pleasure, there is his style, ennobling all his work. Whether +for the plastic manipulation of dialogue or the eloquencies and +exactitudes of description, he is emphatically a master. His +mind, pagan in its bent, is splendidly broad in its +comprehension of the arcana of Nature and that of a poet +sensitive to all the witchery of a world which at core is +inscrutably dark and mysterious. He knows, none better, of the +comfort to be got even from the sad when its beauty is made +palpitating. No one before him, not Meredith himself, has so +interfused Nature with man as to bring out the thought of man's +ancient origin in the earth, his birth-ties, and her claims on +his allegiance. This gives a rare savor to his handling of what +with most novelists is often mere background. Egdon Heath was +mentioned; the setting in "The Return of the Native" is not +background in the usual sense; that mighty stretch of moorland +is almost like the central actor of the drama, so potent is its +influence upon the fate of the other characters. So with "The +Woodlanders" and still other stories. Take away this subtle and +vital relation of man to Nature, and the whole organism +collapses. Environment with Hardy is atmosphere, influence, +often fate itself. Being a scientist in the cast of his +intellect, although by temperament a poet, he believes in +environment as the shaping power conceived of by Taine and Zola. +It is this use of Nature as a power upon people of deep, strong, +simple character, showing the sweep of forces far more potent +than the conventions of the polite world, which distinguishes +Hardy's fiction. Fate with him being so largely that impersonal +thing, environment; allied with temperament (for which he is not +responsible), and with opportunity--another element of luck--it +follows logically that man is the sport of the gods. Hardy is +unable, like other determinists, to escape the dilemma of free-will +versus predestination, and that other crux, the imputation +of personality to the workings of so-called natural laws. Indeed +curiously, in his gigantic poem-cycle, "the Dynasts," the +culmination of his life-work, he seems to hint at a plan of the +universe which may be beneficial. + +To name another quality that gives distinction to Hardy's work: +his fiction is notably well-built, and he is a resourceful +technician. Often, the way he seizes a plot and gives it +proportionate progress to an end that is inevitable, exhibits a +well-nigh perfect art. Hardy's novels, for architectural +excellence, are really wonderful and will richly repay careful +study in this respect. It has been suggested that because his +original profession was that of an architect, his constructive +ability may have been carried over to another craft. This may be +fantastic; but the fact remains that for the handling of +material in such a manner as to eliminate the unnecessary, and +move steadily toward the climax, while ever imitating though not +reproducing, the unartificial gait of life, Hardy has no +superior in English fiction and very few beyond it. These +ameliorations of humor and pity, these virtues of style and +architectural handling make the reading of Thomas Hardy a +literary experience, and very far from an undiluted course in +Pessimism. A sane, vigorous, masculine mind is at work in all +his fiction up to its very latest. Yet it were idle to deny the +main trend of his teaching. It will be well to trace with some +care the change which has crept gradually over his view of the +world. As his development of thought is studied in the +successive novels he produced between 1871 and 1898, it may +appear that there is little fundamental change in outlook: the +tragic note, and the dark theory of existence, explicit in +"Tess" and "Jude," is more or less implicit in "Desperate +Remedies." But change there is, to be found in the deepening of +the feeling, the pushing of a theory to its logical extreme. +This opening tale, read in the light of what he was to do, +strikes one as un-Hardy-like in its rather complex plot, with +its melodramatic tinge of incident. + +The second book, "Under the Greenwood Tree," is a blithe, bright +woodland comedy and it would have been convenient for a cut-and-dried +theory of Hardy's growth from lightness to gravity, had it +come first. It is, rather, a happy interlude, hardly +representative of his main interest, save for its clear-cut +characterizations of country life and its idyllic flavor. The +novel that trod on its heels, "A Pair of Blue Eyes," maugre its +innocently Delia Cruscan title,--it sounds like a typical effort +of "The Duchess,"--has the tragic end which light-minded readers +have come to dread in this author. He showed his hand thus +comparatively early and henceforth was to have the courage of +his convictions in depicting human fate as he saw it--not as the +reader wished it. + +In considering the books that subsequently appeared, to +strengthen Hardy's place with those who know fine fiction, they +are seen to have his genuine hall-mark, just in proportion as +they are Wessex through and through: in the interplay of +character and environment there, we get his deepest expression +as artist and interpreter. The really great novels are "Far From +the Madding Crowd," "The Return of the Native," "The Mayor of +Casterbridge" and "Tess of the D'Urbervilles": when he shifts +the scene to London, as in "The Hand of Ethelberta" or +introduces sophisticated types as in the dull "Laodicean," it +means comparative failure. Mother soil (he is by birth a +Dorchester man and lives there still) gives him idiosyncrasy, +flavor, strength. That the best, most representative work of +Hardy is to be seen in two novels of his middle career, "Far +From the Madding Crowd" and "The Return of the Native" rather +than in the later stories, "Tess" and "Jude," can be +established, I think, purely on the ground of art, without +dragging cheap charges of immorality into the discussion. In the +last analysis, questions of art always become a question of +ethics: the separation is arbitrary and unnatural. That "Tess" +is the book into which the author has most intensely put his +mature belief, may be true: it is quiveringly alive, vital as +only that is which comes from the deeps of a man's being. But +Hardy is so much a special pleader for Tess, that the argument +suffers and a grave fault is apparent when the story's climax is +studied. There is an intrusion of what seems like factitious +melodrama instead of that tissue of events which one expects +from a stern necessitarian. Tess need not be a murderess; +therefore, the work should not so conclude, for this is an +author whose merit is that his effects of character are causal. +He is fatalistic, yes; but in general he royally disdains the +cheap tricks of plot whereby excitement is furnished at the +expense of credulity and verisimilitude. In Tess's end, there s +a suspicion of sensation for its own sake--a suggestion of +savage joy in shocking sensibilities. Of course, the result is +most powerful; but the superior power of the novel is not here +so much as in its splendid sympathy and truth. He has made this +woman's life-history deeply affecting and is right in claiming +that she is a pure soul, judged by intention. + +The heart feels that she is sinned against rather than sinning +and in the spectacle of her fall finds food for thought "too +deep for tears." At the same time, it should not be forgotten +that Tess's piteous plight,--the fact that fate has proved too +strong for a soul so high in its capacity for unselfish and +noble love,--is based upon Hardy's assumption that she could not +help it. Here, as elsewhere in his philosophy, you must accept +his premise, or call Tess (whom you may still love) morally +weak. It is this reservation which will lead many to place the +book, as a work of art, and notwithstanding its noble +proportions and compelling power, below such a masterpiece as +"The Return of the Native." That it is on the whole a sane and +wholesome work, however, may be affirmed by one who finds +Hardy's last novel "Jude the Obscure" neither. For there is a +profound difference between two such creations. In the former, +there is a piquant sense of the pathos and the awesomeness of +life, but not of its unrelieved ugliness and disgust; an +impression which is received from the latter. Not only is "Jude" +"a tragedy of unfulfilled aim" as the author calls it; so is +"Tess"; but it fills the reader with a kind of sullen rage to be +an eye-witness of the foul and brutal: he is asked to see a +drama develop beside a pig-sty. It is therefore, intensely +unesthetic which, if true, is a word of condemnation for any +work of art. It is deficient in poetry, in the broad sense; +that, rather than frankness of treatment, is the trouble with +it. + +And intellectually, it would seem to be the result of a bad +quarter of an hour of the author: a megrim of the soul. Elements +of greatness it has; a fine motive, too; to display the +impossibilities for evolution on the part of an aspiring soul +hampered by circumstances and weak where most humanity is Weak, +in the exercise of sex-passion. A not dissimilar theme as it is +worked out by Daudet in "Le Petite Chose" is beautiful in its +pathos; in "Jude" there is something shuddering about the +arbitrary piling-up of horror; the modesty of nature is +overstept; it is not a truly proportioned view of life, one +feels; if life were really so bad as that, no one would be +willing to live it, much less exhibit the cheerfulness which is +characteristic of the majority of human beings. It is a fair +guess that in the end it will be called the artistic mistake of +a novelist of genius. Its harsh reception by critics in England +and America was referred to by the author privately as an +example of the "crass Philistinism" of criticism in those lands: +Mr. Hardy felt that on the continent alone was the book +understood, appreciated. I imagine, however, that whatever the +limitations of the Anglo-Saxon view, it comes close to the +ultimate decision to be passed upon this work. + +One of the striking things about these Novels is the sense that +they convey of the largeness of life. The action moves on a +narrow stage set with the austere simplicity of the +Elizabethans; the personages are extremely commonplace, the +incidents in the main small and unexciting. Yet the +tremendousness of human fate is constantly implied and brought +home in the most impressive way. This is because all have +spiritual value; if the survey be not wide, it sinks deep to the +psychic center; and what matters vision that circles the globe, +if it lacks grasp, penetration, uplift? These, Hardy has. When +one calls his peasants Shaksperian, one is trying to express the +strength and savor, the rich earthy quality like fresh loam that +pertains to these quaint figures, so evidently observed on the +ground, and lovingly lifted over into literature. Their speech +bewrays them and is an index of their slow, shrewd minds. + +Nor is his serious characterization less fine and representative +than his humorous; especially his women. It is puzzling to say +whether Hardy's comic men, or his subtly drawn, sympathetically +visualized women are to be named first in his praise: for power +in both, and for the handling of nature, he will be long +remembered. Bathsheba, Eustacia, Tess and the rest, they take +hold on the very heart-strings and are known as we know our very +own. It is not that they are good or bad,--generally they are +both; it is that they are beautifully, terribly human. They +mostly lack the pettiness that so often fatally limits their sex +and quite as much, they lack the veneer that obscures the broad +lines of character. And it is natural to add, while thinking of +Hardy's women, that, unlike almost all the Victorian novelists, +he has insisted frankly, but in the main without offense, on +woman's involvement with sex-passion; he finds that love, in a +Wessex setting, has wider range than has been awarded it in +previous study of sex relations. And he has not hesitated to +depict its rootage in the flesh; not overlooking its rise in the +spirit to noblest heights. And it is this un-Anglo-Saxon-like +comprehension of feminine humanity that makes him so fair to the +sinning woman who trusts to her ruin or proves what is called +weak because of the generous movement of her blood. No one can +despise faithful-hearted Fannie Robin, dragging herself to the +poorhouse along Casterbridge highway; that scene, which bites +itself upon the memory, is fairly bathed in an immense, +understanding pity. Although Hardy has thus used the freedom of +France in treatment, he has, unlike so much of the Gallic +realism, remained an idealist in never denying the soul of love +while speaking more truthfully concerning its body than the +fiction-makers before him. There is no finer handling of sex-love +with due regard to its dual nature,--love that grows in +earth yet flowers until it looks into heaven--than Marty's oft-quoted +beautiful speech at her lover's grave; and Hardy's belief +rings again in the defense of that good fellowship--that +camaraderie--which can grow into "the only love which is as +strong as death--beside which the passion usually so-called by +the name is evanescent as steam." A glimpse like that of Hardy's +mind separates him at once from Maupassant's view of the world. +The traditions of English fiction, which he has insisted on +disturbing, have, after all, been strong to direct his work, as +they have that of all the writers born into the speech and +nourished on its racial ideals. + +Another reason for giving the stories of the middle period, such +as "The Return of the Native," preference over those that are +later, lies in the fact that the former have no definite, +aggressive theme; whereas "Tess" announces an intention on the +title page, "Jude," in a foreword. Whatever view of life may be +expressed in "The Mayor of Casterbridge," for example, is +imbedded, as it should be, in the course of the story. This +tendency towards didacticism is a common thing in the cases of +modern writers of fiction; it spoiled a great novelist in the +case of Tolstoy, with compensatory gains in another direction; +of those of English stock, one thinks of Eliot, Howells, Mrs. +Ward and many another. But however natural this may be in an age +like ours, the art of the literary product is, as a rule, +injured by the habit of using fiction as a jumping-board for +theory. In some instances, dullness has resulted. Eliot has not +escaped scot-free. With Hardy, he is, to my taste, never dull. +Repellent as "Jude" may be, it is never that. But a hardness of +manner and an unpleasant bias are more than likely to follow +this aim, to the fiction's detriment. + +It is a great temptation to deflect from the purpose of this +work in order to discuss Hardy's short stories, for a master in +this kind he is. A sketch like "The Three Strangers" is as truly +a masterpiece as Stevenson's "A Lodging for The Night." It must +suffice to say of his work in the tale that it enables the +author to give further assurance of his power of atmospheric +handling, his stippling in of a character by a few strokes, his +skill in dramatic scene, his knowledge of Wessex types, and +especially, his subdued but permeating pessimism. There is +nothing in his writings more quietly, deeply hopeless than most +of the tales in the collection "Life's Little Ironies." One +shrinks away from the truth and terror of them while lured by +their charm. The short stories increase one's admiration for the +artist, but the full, more virile message conies from the +Novels. It is matter for regret that "Jude the Obscure," unless +the signs fail, is to be his last testament in fiction. For such +a man to cease from fiction at scarce sixty can but be deplored. +The remark takes on added pertinency because the novelist has +essayed in lieu of fiction the poetic drama, a form in which he +has less ease and authority. + +Coming when he did and feeling in its full measure the tidal +wave from France, Hardy was compelled both by inward and outward +pressure to see life un-romantically, so far as the human fate +is concerned: but always a poet at heart (he began with verse), +he found a vent for that side of his being in Nature, in great +cosmic realities, in the stormy, passionate heart of humanity, +so infinite in its aspirations, so doughty in its heroisms, so +pathetic in its doom. There is something noble always in the +tragic largeness of Hardy's best fiction. His grim determinism +is softened by lyric airs; and even when man is most lonesome, +he is consoled by contact with "the pure, eternal course of +things"; whose august flow comforts Arnold. Because of his art, +the representative character of his thought, reflecting in +prose, as does Matthew Arnold in verse, the deeper +thought-currents of the time; and because too of the personal +quality which for lack of a better word one still must call genius, +Thomas Hardy is sure to hold his place in the English fiction of +the closing years of the nineteenth century and is to-day the +most distinguished living novelist using that speech and one of +the few to be recognized and honored abroad. No writer of +fiction between 1875 and 1900 has more definitely had a strong +influence upon the English Novel as to content, scope and choice +of subject. If his convictions have led him to excess, they will +be forgiven and forgotten in the light of the serene mastery +shed by the half dozen great works he has contributed to English +literature. + + +II + +Once in a while--a century or so, maybe,--comes an artist who +refuses to be classified. Rules fail to explain him: he makes +new rules in the end. He seems too big for any formula. He +impresses by the might of his personality, teaching the world +what it should have known before, that the personal is the life-blood +of all and any art. Some such effect is made upon the +critic by George Meredith, who so recently has closed his eyes +to the shows of earth. One can find in him almost all the +tendencies of English fiction. He is realist and romanticist, +frank lover of the flesh, lofty idealist, impressionist and +judge, philosopher, dramatist, essayist, master of the comic and +above all, Poet. Eloquence, finesse, strength and sweetness, the +limpid and the cryptic, are his in turn: he puts on when he +will, like a defensive armor, a style to frighten all but the +elect. And they who persist and discover the secret, swear that +it is more than worth the pains. Perhaps the lesson of it all is +that a first-class writer, creative and distinctive, is a +phenomenon transcending school, movement or period. George +Meredith is not, if we weigh words, the greatest English +novelist to-day--for both Hardy and Stevenson are his superiors +as artists; but he is the greatest man who has written fiction. + +Although he was alive but yesterday, the novel frequently +awarded first position among his works, "The Ordeal of Richard +Feverel," was published a good half century ago. Go back to it, +get its meaning, then read the latest fiction he wrote--(he +ceased to produce fiction more than a decade before his death) +and you appear to be in contact with the same personality in the +substantials of story-making and of life-view. The only notable +change is to be found in the final group of three stories, "One +of Our Conquerors," "Lord Ormont and His Aminta" and "The +Amazing Marriage." The note of social protest is louder here, +the revolt against conventions more pronounced. Otherwise, the +author of "Feverel" is the author of "The Amazing Marriage." +Much has occurred in the Novel during the forty years between +the two works: realism has traveled to an extreme, neo-idealism +come by way of reaction, romanticism bloomed again, the Novel of +ingenious construction, the Novel of humanitarian meaning, the +Novel of thesis and problem and the Novel that foretells the +future like an astrologer, all these types and yet others have +been practised; but Meredith has kept tranquilly on the tenor of +his large way, uninfluenced, except as he has expressed all +these complexities in his own work. He is in literary evolution, +a sport. Critics who have tried to show how his predecessors and +contemporaries have influenced him, have come out lamely from +the attempt. He has been sensitive not to individual writers, +but to that imponderable yet potent thing, the time-tendency in +literature. He throws back to much in the past, while in the van +of modern thought. What, to illustrate, could be more of the +present intellectually than his remarkable sonnet-sequence, +"Modern Love"? And are not his women, as a type, the noblest +example of the New Woman of our day--socially, economically, +intellectually emancipated, without losing their distinctive +feminine quality? And yet, in "The Shaving of Shagpat," an early +work, we go back t the Arabian Nights for a model. The satiric +romance, "Harry Richmond," often reminds of the leisured episode +method of the eighteenth century; and while reading the unique +"Evan Harrington" we think at times of Aristophanes. + +Nor is much light thrown on Meredith's path in turning to his +personal history. Little is known of this author's ancestry and +education; his environment has been so simple, his life in its +exteriors so uneventful, that we return to the work itself with +the feeling that the key to the secret room must be here if +anywhere. It is known that he was educated in youth in Germany, +which is interesting in reference to the problem of his style. +And there is more to be said concerning his parentage than the +smug propriety of print has revealed while he lived. We know, +too, that his marriage with the daughter of Thomas Love Peacock +proved unhappy, and that for many years he has resided, almost a +recluse, with his daughter, in the idyllic retirement of Surrey. +The privacy of Boxhill has been respected; next to never has +Meredith spoken in any public way and seldom visited London. +When he was, at Tennyson's death, made the President of the +British Society of Authors, the honor sought the man. The rest +is silence; what has appeared since his death has been of too +conflicting a nature for credence. We await a trustworthy +biography. + +The appeal then must be to the books themselves. Exclusive of +short story, sketch and tale, they include a dozen novels of +generous girth--for Meredith is old-fashioned in his demand for +elbow-room. They are preeminently novels of character and more +than any novelist of the day the view of the world embodied in +them is that of the intellect. This does not mean that they are +wanting in emotional force or interest: merely, that in George +Meredith's fiction men and women live the life of thought as it +is acted upon by practical issues. Character seen in action is +always his prepossession; plot is naught save as it exhibits +this. The souls of men and women are his quarry, and the test of +a civilization the degree in which it has developed the mind for +an enlightened control over the emotions and the bodily +appetites. Neither does this mean, as with Henry James, the +disappearance of plot: a healthy objectivity of narrative +framework is preserved; if anything the earlier +books--"Feverel," "Evan Harrington," "Rhoda Fleming" and the duo +"Sandra Belloni" and "Vittoria"--have more of story interest +than the later novels. Meredith has never feared the use of the +episode, in this suggesting the older methods of Fielding and +Smollett. Yet the episodic in his hands has ever its use for +psychologic envisagement. Love, too, plays a large role in his +fiction; indeed, in the wider platonic sense, it is constantly +present, although he is the last man to be called a writer of +love-stories. And no man has permitted himself greater freedom +in stepping outside the story in order to explain his meaning, +comment upon character and scene, rhapsodize upon Life, or +directly harangue the reader. And this broad marginal +reservation of space, however much it is deplored in viewing his +work as novel-making, adds a peculiar tonic and is a +characteristic we could ill spare. It brings us back to the +feeling that he is a great man using the fiction form for +purposes broader than that of telling a story. + +Because of this ample personal testimony in his books it should +be easy to state his Lebensanschauung, unless the opacity of his +manner blocks the way or he indulges in self-contradiction in +the manner of a Nietzsche. Such is not the case. What is the +philosophy unfolded in his representative books? + +It will be convenient to choose a few of those typical for +illustration. The essence of Meredith is to be discovered in +such works as "The Ordeal of Richard Feverel," "Evan +Harrington," "Harry Richmond," "The Egoist," "Diana of the +Crossways." If you know these, you understand him. "Lord Ormont +and his Aminta" might well be added because of its teaching; but +the others will serve, with the understanding that so many-sided +a writer has in other works given further noble proof of his +powers. If I allowed personal preference to be my sole guide, +"Rhoda Fleming" would be prominent in the list; and many place +"Beauchamp's Career" high, if not first among his works;--a +novel teeming with his views, particularly valuable for its +treatment of English politics and certainly containing some of +his most striking characterization, in particular, one of his +noblest women. Still, those named will fairly reflect the +novelist and speak for all. + +"Richard Feverel," which had been preceded by a book of poems, +the fantasia "The Shaving of Shagpat" and an historical +novelette "Farina," was the first book that announced the +arrival of a great novelist. It is at once a romance of the +modern type, a love-story and a problem book; the tri-statement +makes it Meredithian. It deals with the tragic union of Richard +and Lucy, in a setting that shifts from sheer idyllic, through +worldly and realistic to a culmination of dramatic grief. It +contains, in measure heaped up and running over, the poetry, the +comedy and the philosophy, the sense of Life's riddle, for which +the author is renowned. But its intellectual appeal of theme--aside +from the incidental wisdom that stars its pages--is found +in the study of the problem of education. Richard's father would +shape his career according to a preconceived idea based on +parental love and guided by an anxious, fussy consulting of the +oracles. The attempt to stretch the son upon a pedagogic +procustean bed fails disastrously, wrecking his own happiness, +and that of his sweet girl-wife. Love is stronger than aught +else and we are offered the spectacle of ruined lives hovered +over by the best intentions. The hovel is an illustration of the +author's general teaching that a human being must have +reasonable liberty of action for self-development. The heart +must be allowed fair-play, though its guidance by the intellect +is desirable. + +It has been objected that this moving romance ends in +unnecessary tragedy; that the catastrophe is not inevitable. But +it may be doubted if the mistake of Sir Austin Feverel could be +so clearly indicated had not the chance bullet of the duel +killed the young wife when reconciliation with her husband +appeared probable. But a book so vital in spirit, with such +lyric interludes, lofty heights of wisdom, homeric humor, +dramatic moments and profound emotions, can well afford lapses +from perfect form, awkwardnesses of art. There are places where +philosophy checks movement or manner obscures thought; but one +overlooks all such, remembering Richard and Lucy meeting by the +river; Richard's lonesome night walk when he learns he is a +father; the marvelous parting from Bella Mount; father and son +confronted with Richard's separation from the girl-wife; the +final piteous passing of Lucy. These are among the great moments +of English fiction. + +One gets a sense of Meredith's resources of breadth and variety +next in taking up "Evan Harrington." Here is a satiric character +sketch where before was romance; for broad comedy in the older +and larger sense it has no peer among modern novels. The purpose +is plain: to show the evolution of a young middle-class +Englishman, a tailor's son, through worldly experience with +polite society into true democracy. After the disillusionment of +"high life," after much yeasty juvenile foolishness and false +ideals, Evan comes back to his father's shop with his lesson +learned: it is possible (in modern England) to be both tailor +and gentleman. + +In placing this picture before the spectator, an incomparable +view of genteel society with contrasted touches of low life is +offered. For pure comedy that is of the midriff as well as of +the brain, the inn scene with the astonishing Raikes as central +figure is unsurpassed in all Meredith, and only Dickens has done +the like. And to correspond in the fashionable world, there is +Harrington's sister, the Countess de Saldar, who is only second +to Becky Sharp for saliency and delight. Some find these comic +figures overdrawn, even impossible; but they stand the test +applied to Dickens: they abide in affectionate memory, vivid +evocations made for our lasting joy. As with "Feverel," the book +is a piece of life first, a lesson second; but the underlying +thesis is present, not to the injury of one who reads for +story's sake. + +An extraordinary further example of resourcefulness, with a +complete change of key, is "The Adventures of Harry Richmond." +The ostensible business of the book is to depict the growth from +boyhood to manhood and through sundry experiences of love, with +the resulting effect upon his character, of the young man whose +name gives it title. It may be noted that a favorite task with +Meredith is this, to trace the development of a personality from +immaturity to a maturity gained by the hard knocks of the +master-educator, Love. But the figure really dominant is not +Harry nor any one of his sweethearts, but that of his father, +Roy Richmond. I must believe that English fiction offers nothing +more original than he. He is an indescribable compound of +brilliant swashbuckler, splendid gentleman and winning +Goodheart. Barry Lyndon, Tarascon, Don Quixote and Septimus go +into his making--and yet he is not explained;--an absolute +original. The scene where, in a German park on an occasion of +great pomp, he impersonates the statue of a Prince, is one of +the author's triumphs--never less delightful at a re-reading. + +But has this amazing creation a meaning, or is Roy merely one of +the results of the sportive play of a man of genius? He is +something more, we feel, when, at the end of the romance, he +gives his life for the woman who has so faithfully loved him and +believed in his royal pretensions. He perishes in a fire, +because in saving her he would not save himself. It is as if the +author said: "Behold, a man by nature histrionic and Bohemian, +and do not make the mistake to think him incapable of nobility. +Romantic in his faults, so too he is romantic in his virtues." +"And back of this kindly treatment of the lovable rascal (who +was so ideal a father to the little Richmond!) does there not +lurk the thought that the pseudo-romantic attitude toward Life +is full of danger--in truth, out of the question in modern +society?" + +"The Egoist" has long been a test volume with Meredithians. If +you like it you are of the cult; if not, merely an amateur. It +is inevitable to quote Stevenson who, when he had read it +several times, declared that at the sixth reading he would begin +to realize its greatness. Stevenson was a doughty admirer of +Meredith, finding the elder "the only man of genius of my +acquaintance," and regarding "Rhoda Fleming" as a book to send +one back to Shakspere. + +That "The Egoist" is typical--in a sense, most typical of the +fictions,--is very true. That, on the other hand, it is +Meredith's best novel may be boldly denied, since it is hardly a +novel at all. It is a wonderful analytic study of the core of +self that is in humanity, Willoughby, incarnation of a +self-centeredness glossed over to others and to himself by fine +gentleman manners and instincts, is revealed stroke after stroke +until, in the supreme test of his alliance with Clara Middleton, +he is flayed alive for the reader's benefit. In this power of +exposure, by the subtlest, most unrelenting analysis, of the +very penetralia of the human soul it has no counterpart; beside +it, most of the psychology of fiction seems child's play. And +the truth of it is overwhelming. No wonder Stevenson speaks of +its "serviceable exposure of myself." Every honest man who reads +it, winces at its infallible touching of a moral sore-spot. The +inescapable ego in us all was never before portrayed by such a +master. + +But because it is a study that lacks the breadth, variety, +movement and objectivity of the Novel proper, "The Egoist" is +for the confirmed Meredith lover, not for the beginner: to take +it first is perchance to go no further. Readers have been lost +to him by this course. The immense gain in depth and delicacy +acquired by English fiction since Richardson is well illustrated +by a comparison of the latter's "Sir Charles Grandison" with +Meredith's "The Egoist." One is a portrait for the time, the +other for all time. Both, superficially viewed, are the same +type: a male paragon before whom a bevy of women burn incense. +But O the difference! Grandison is serious to his author, while +Meredith, in skinning Willoughby alive like another Marsyas, is +once and for all making the worship of the ego hateful. + +It is interesting that "Diana of the Crossways" was the book +first to attract American readers. It has some of the author's +eccentricities at their worst. But it was in one respect an +excellent choice: the heroine is thoroughly representative of +the author and of the age; possibly this country is sympathetic +to her for the reason that she seems indigenous. Diana furnishes +a text for a dissertation on Meredith's limning of the sex, and +of his conception of the mental relation of the sexes. She is a +modern woman, not so much that she is superior in goodness to +the ideal of woman established in the mid-Victorian period by +Thackeray and Dickens, as that she is bigger and broader. She is +the result of the process of social readjustment. Her story is +that of a woman soul experiencing a succession of unions and +through them learning the higher love. First, the marriage de +convenance of an unawakened girl; then, a marriage wherein +admiration, ambition and flattered pride play their parts; +finally, the marriage with Redbourne, a union based on tried +friendship, comradeship, respect, warming into passion that, +like the sudden up-leap of flame on the altar, lifts the spirit +onto ideal heights. Diana is an imperfect, sinning, aspiring, +splendid creature. And in the narrative that surrounds her, we +get Meredith's theory of the place of intellect in woman, and in +the development of society. He has an intense conviction that +the human mind should be so trained that woman can never fall +back upon so-called instinct; he ruthlessly attacks her +"intuition," so often lauded and made to cover a multitude of +sins. When he remarks that she will be the last thing to be +civilized by man, the satire is directed against man rather than +against woman herself, since it is man who desires to keep her a +creature of the so-called intuitions. A mighty champion of the +sex, he never tires telling it that intellectual training is the +sure way to all the equalities. This conviction makes him a +stalwart enemy of sentimentalism, which is so fiercely satirized +in "Sandra Belloni" in the persons of the Pole family. His works +abound in passages in which this view is displayed, flashed +before the reader in diamond-like epigram and aphorism. Not that +he despises the emotions: those who know him thoroughly will +recognize the absurdity of such a charge. Only he insists that +they be regulated and used aright by the master, brain. The +mishaps of his women come usually from the haphazard abeyance of +feeling or from an unthinking bowing down to the arbitrary +dictations of society. This insistence upon the application of +reason (the reasoning process dictated by an age of science) to +social situations, has led this writer to advise the setting +aside of the marriage bond in certain circumstances. In both +"Lord Ormont and his Aminta" and "One of our Conquerors" he +advocates a greater freedom in this relation, to anticipate what +time may bring to pass. It is enough here to say that this +extreme view does not represent Meredith's best fiction nor his +most fruitful period of production. + +Perhaps the most original thing about Meredith as a novelist is +the daring way in which he has made an alliance between romance +and the intellect which was supposed, in an older conception, to +be its archenemy. He gives to Romance, that creature of the +emotions, the corrective and tonic of the intellect "To preserve +Romance," he declares, "we must be inside the heads of our +people as well as the hearts ... in days of a growing activity +of the head." Let us say once again that Romance means a certain +use of material as the result of an attitude toward Life; this +attitude may be temporary, a mood; or steady, a conviction. It +is the latter with George Meredith; and be it understood, his +material is always realistic, it is his interpretation that is +superbly idealistic. The occasional crabbedness of his manner +and his fiery admiration for Italy are not the only points in +which he reminds one of Browning. He is one with him in his +belief in soul, his conception of life is an arena for its +trying-out; one with him also in the robust acceptance of earth +and earth's worth, evil and all, for enjoyment and as salutary +experience. This is no fanciful parallel between Meredith and a +man who has been called (with their peculiarities of style in +mind) the Meredith of Poetry, as Meredith has been called the +Browning of Prose. + +Thus, back of whatever may be the external story--the Italian +struggle for unity in "Vittoria," English radicalism in +"Beauchamp's Career," a seduction melodrama in "Rhoda Fleming"--there +is always with Meredith a steady interpretation of life, a +principle of belief. It is his crowning distinction that he can +make an intellectual appeal quite aside from the particular +story he is telling;--and it is also apparent that this is his +most vulnerable point as novelist. We get more from him just +because he shoots beyond the fiction target. He is that rare +thing in English novel-making, a notable thinker. Of all +nineteenth century novelists he leads for intellectual +stimulation. With fifty faults of manner and matter, irritating, +even outrageous in his eccentricities, he can at his best +startle with a brilliance that is alone of its kind. It is +because we hail him as philosopher, wit and poet that he fails +comparatively as artist. He shows throughout his work a sublime +carelessness of workmanship on the structural side of his craft; +but in those essentials, dialogue, character and scene, he rises +to the peaks of his profession. + +Probably more readers are offended by his mannerisms of style +than by any other defect; and they are undeniable. The opening +chapter of "Diana" is a hard thing to get by; the same may be +said of the similar chapter in "Beauchamp's Career." In "One of +our Conquerors," early and late, the manner is such as to lose +for him even tried adherents. Is the trouble one of thought or +expression? And is it honest or an affectation? Meredith in some +books--and in all books more or less--adopts a strangely +indirect, over-elaborated, far-fetched and fantastic style, +which those who love him are fain to deplore. The author's +learning gets in his way and leads him into recondite allusions; +besides this, he has that quality of mind which is stimulated +into finding analogies on every side, so that image is piled on +image and side-paths of thought open up in the heat of this +mental activity. Part of the difficulty arises from surplusage +of imagination. Sometimes it is used in the service of comment +(often satirical); again in a kind of Greek chorus to the drama, +greatly to its injury; or in pure description, where it is +hardly less offensive. Thus in "The Egoist" we read: "Willoughby +shadowed a deep droop on the bend of his neck before Clara," and +reflection shows that all this absurdly acrobatic phrase means +is that the hero bowed to the lady. An utterly simple occurrence +and thus described! It is all the more strange and aggravating +in that it comes from a man who on hundreds of occasions writes +English as pungent, sonorous and sweet as any writer in the +history of the native literature. This is true both of dialogue +and narrative. He is the most quotable of authors; his Pilgrim's +Scrip is stuffed full of precious sayings, expressing many moods +of emotion and interpreting the world under its varied aspects +of romance, beauty, wit and drama. "Strength is the brute form +of truth." There is a French conciseness in such a sentence and +immense mental suggestiveness. Both his scenic and character +phrasing are memorable, as where the dyspeptic philosopher in +"Feverel" is described after dinner as "languidly twinkling +stomachic contentment." And what a scene is that where Master +Gammon replies to Mrs. Sumfit's anxious query concerning his +lingering at table with appetite apparently unappeasable: + + "'When do you think you will have done, Master Gammon?' + + "'When I feels my buttons, Ma'am.'" + + +Or hear John Thrasher in "Harry Richmond" dilate on Language: + + 'There's cockney, and there's country, and there's school. + Mix the three, strain and throw away the sediment. Now + yon's my view.' + + +Has any philologist said all that could be said, so succinctly? +His lyric outbursts in the face of Nature or better yet, where +as in the moonlight meeting of the lovers at Wllming Weir in +"Sandra Belloni," nature is interspersed with human passion in a +glorious union of music, picture and impassioned sentiment,--these +await the pleasure of the enthralled seeker in every book. +To encounter such passages (perhaps in a mood of protest over +some almost insufferable defect) is to find the reward rich +indeed. Let the cause of obscurity be what it may, we need not +doubt that with Meredith style is the man, a perfectly honest +way of expressing his personality. It is not impossible that his +unconventional education and the early influence of German upon +him, may come into the consideration. But in the main his +peculiarity is congenital. + +Meredith lacked self-criticism as a writer. But it is quite +inaccurate to speak of obscure thought: it is language, the +medium, which makes the trouble when there is any. His thought, +allowing for the fantasticality of his humor in certain moods, +is never muddled or unorganized: it is sane, consistent and +worthy of attention. To say this, is still to regret the +stylistic vagaries. + +One other defect must be mentioned: the characters talk like +Meredith, instead of in their own persons. This is not true +uniformly, of course, but it does mar the truth of his +presentation. Young girls show wit and wisdom quite out of +keeping; those in humble life--a bargeman, perhaps, or a +prize-fighter--speak as they would not in reality. Illusion is by +so much disturbed. It would appear in such cases that the thinker +temporarily dominated the creative artist. + +When all is said, pro and con, there remains a towering +personality; a writer of unique quality; a man so stimulating +and surprising as he is, that we almost prefer him to the +perfect artist he never could be. No English maker of novels can +give us a fuller sense of life, a keener realization of the +dignity of man. It is natural to wish for more than we have--to +desire that Meredith had possessed the power of complete control +of his material and himself, had revised his work to better +advantage. But perhaps it is more commonsensible to be thankful +for him as he is. + +As to influence, it would seem modest to assert that Meredith is +as bracingly wholesome morally as he is intellectually +stimulating. In a private letter to a friend who was praising +his finest book, he whimsically mourns the fact that he must +write for a living and hence feel like disowning so many of his +children when in cold blood he scrutinizes his offspring. The +letter in its entirety (it is unpublished) is proof, were any +needed, that he had a high artistic ideal which kept him nobly +dissatisfied with his endeavor. There is in him neither pose nor +complacent self-satisfaction. To an American, whom he was +bidding good-by at his own gate, he said: "If I had my books to +do over again, I should try harder to make sure their influence +was good." His aims, ethical and artistic, throughout his work, +can be relied upon as high and noble. His faults are as honest +as he himself, the inherent defects of his genius. No writer of +our day stands more sturdily for the idea that, whereas art is +precious, personality is more precious still; without which art +is a tinkling cymbal and with which even a defective art can +conquer Time, like a garment not all-seemly, that yet cannot +hide an heroic figure. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +STEVENSON + +It is too early yet to be sure that Robert Louis Stevenson will +make a more cogent appeal for a place in English letters as a +writer of fiction than as an essayist. But had he never written +essays likely to rank him with the few masters of that +delightful fireside form, he would still have an indisputable +claim as novelist. The claim in fact is a double one; it is +founded, first, on his art and power as a maker of romance, but +also upon his historical service to English fiction, as the man +most instrumental in purifying the muddy current of realism in +the late nineteenth century by a wholesome infusion,--the +romantic view of life. It is already easier to estimate his +importance and get the significance of his work than it was when +he died in 1894--stricken down on the piazza of his house at +Vailima, a Scotchman doomed to fall in a far-away, alien place. + +We are better able now to separate that personal charm felt from +direct contact with the man, which almost hypnotized those who +knew him, from the more abiding charm which is in his writings: +the revelation of a character the most attractive of his +generation. Rarely, if ever before, have the qualities of +artistry and fraternal fellowship been united in a man of +letters to such a degree; most often they are found apart, the +gods choosing to award their favors less lavishly. + +Because of this union of art and life, Stevenson's romances +killed two birds with one stone; boys loved his +adventuresomeness, the wholesome sensationalism of his stories +with something doing on every page, while amateurs of art +responded to his felicity of phrase, his finished technique, the +exhibition of craftsmanship conquering difficulty and danger. +Artist, lover of life, insistent truth-teller, Calvinist, +Bohemian, believer in joy, all these cohabit in his hooks. In +early masterpieces like "Treasure Island" and "The Wrecker" it +is the lover of life who conducts us, telling the story for +story's sake: + +"My mistress still the open road +And the bright eyes of danger." + + +Such is the goddess that beckons on. The creed implicit in such +work deems that life is stirring and worth while, and that it is +a weakness to repine and waste time, to be too subjective when +so much on earth is objectively alluring. This is only a part of +Stevenson, of course, but it was that phase of him vastly liked +of the public and doubtless doing most to give him vogue. + +But in later work like "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" we get quite +another thing: the skilled story-maker is still giving us +thrilling fiction, to be sure, but here it is the Scotchman of +acute conscience, writing a spiritual allegory with the healthy +instinct which insists that the lesson shall be dramatized. So, +too, in a late fiction like "Ebb Tide," apparently as picaresque +and harum-scarum as "Treasure Island," it is nevertheless the +moralist who is at work beneath the brilliantly picturesque +surface of the narrative, contrasting types subtly, showing the +gradings in moral disintegration. In the past-mastership of the +finest Scotch novels, "Kidnapped" and its sequel "David +Balfour," "The Master of Ballantrae" and the beautiful torso, +"Weir of Hermiston," we get the psychologic romance, which means +a shift of interest;--character comes first, story is secondary +to it. Here is the maturest Stevenson, the fiction most +expressive of his genius, and naturally the inspiration is +native, he looks back, as he so often did in his poetry, to the +distant gray little island which was Motherland to him, home of +his youth and of his kindred, the earth where he was fain to lie +when his time came. Stevenson, to the end, could always return +to sheer story, as in "St. Ives," but in doing so, is a little +below his best: that kind did not call on his complete powers: +in such fiction deep did not answer unto deep. + +In 1883, when "Treasure Island" appeared, the public was gasping +for the oxygen that a story with outdoor movement and action +could supply: there was enough and to spare of invertebrate +subtleties, strained metaphysics and coarse naturalistic +studies. A sublimated dime novel like "Treasure Island" came at +the psychologic moment; the year before "The New Arabian Nights" +had offered the same sort of pabulum, but had been practically +overlooked. Readers were only too glad to turn from people with +a past to people of the past, or to people of the present whose +ways were ways of pleasantness. Stevenson substituted a lively, +normal interest in life for plotlessness and a surfeit of the +flesh. The public rose to the bait as the trout to a +particularly inviting fly. Once more reverting to the good old +appeal of Scott--incident, action and derring-do--he added the +attraction of his personal touch, and what was so gallantly +preferred was greedily grasped. + +Although, as has been said, Stevenson passed from the primitive +romance of the Shilling Shocker to the romance of character, his +interest in character study was keen from the first: the most +plot-cunning and external of his yarns have that illuminative +exposure of human beings--in flashes at least--which mark him +off from the bluff, robust manner of a Dumas and lend an +attraction far greater than that of mere tangle of events. This +gets fullest expression in the Scotch romances. + +"The Master of Ballantrae," for one illustration; the interplay +of motive and act as it affects a group of human beings is so +conducted that plot becomes a mere framework, within which we +are permitted to see a typical tragedy of kinship. This receives +curious corroboration in the fact that when, towards the close +of the story, the scene shifts to America and the main motive--the +unfolding of the fraternal fortunes of the tragic brothers, +is made minor to a series of gruesome adventures (however +entertaining and well done) the reader, even if uncritical, has +an uneasy sense of disharmony: and rightly, since the strict +character romance has changed to the romance of action. + +It has been stated that the finer qualities of Stevenson are +called out by the psychological romance on native soil. He did +some brilliant and engaging work of foreign setting and motive. +"The Island Nights' Entertainments" is as good in its way as the +earlier "New Arabian Nights"--far superior to it, indeed, for +finesse and the deft command of exotic material. Judged as art, +"The Bottle Imp" and "The Beach of Falesa" are among the +triumphs of ethnic interpretation, let alone their more external +charms of story. And another masterpiece of foreign setting, "A +Lodging for The Night," is further proof of Stevenson's ability +to use other than Scotch motives for the materials of his art. +"Ebb-Tide," again, grim as it is, must always be singled out as +a marvel of tone and proportion, yet seems born out of an +existence utterly removed as to conditions and incentives from +the land of his birth. But when, in his own words: + +"The tropics vanish, and meseems that I, +From Halkerside, from topmost Allermuir, +Or steep Caerketton, dreaming gaze again." + +then, as if vitalized by mother-earth, Stevenson shows a +breadth, a vigor, a racy idiosyncrasy, that best justify a +comparison with Scott. It means a quality that is easier felt +than expressed; of the very warp and woof of his work. If the +elder novelist seems greater in scope, spontaneity and +substance, the younger surpasses him in the elegancies and +niceties of his art. And it is only a just recognition of the +difference of Time as well as of personality to say that the +psychology of Stevenson is far more profound and searching. Nor +may it be denied that Sir Walter nods, that there are flat, +uninteresting stretches in his heroic panorama, while of +Stevenson at the worst, we may confidently assert that he is +never tedious. He fails in the comparison if anywhere in +largeness of personality, not in the perfectness of the art of +his fiction. In the technical demands of his profession he is +never wanting. He always has a story to tell, tells it with the +skill which means constructive development and a sense of +situation; he creates characters who live, interest and do not +easily fade from memory: he has exceptional power in so filling +in backgrounds as to produce the illusion of atmosphere; and +finally, he has, whether in dialogue or description, a +wonderfully supple instrument of expression. If the style of his +essays is at times mannered, the charge can not be made against +his representative fiction: "Prince Otto" stands alone in this +respect, and that captivating, comparatively early romance, +confessedly written under the influence of Meredith, is a +delicious literary experiment rather than a deeply-felt piece of +life. Perhaps the central gift of all is that for character--is +it, in truth, not the central gift for any weaver of fiction? So +we thought in studying Dickens. Stevenson's creations wear the +habit of life, yet with more than life's grace of carriage; they +are seen picturesquely without, but also psychologically within. +In a marvelous portrayal like that of John Silver in "Treasure +Island" the result is a composite of what we see and what we +shudderingly guess: eye and mind are satisfied alike. Even in a +mere sketch, such as that of the blind beggar at the opening of +the same romance, with the tap-tap of his stick to announce his +coming, we get a remarkable example of effect secured by an +economy of details; that tap-tapping gets on your nerves, you +never forget it. It seems like the memory of a childhood terror +on the novelist's part. Throughout his fiction this chemic union +of fact and the higher fact that is of the imagination marks his +work. The smell of the heather is in our nostrils as we watch +Allan's flight, and looking on at the fight in the round-house, +there is a physical impression of the stuffiness of the place; +you smell as well as see it. Or for quite another key, take the +night duel in "The Master of Ballantrae." You cannot think of it +without feeling the bite of the bleak air; once more the twinkle +of the candles makes the scene flicker before you ere it vanish +into memory-land. Again, how you know that sea-coast site in the +opening of "The Pavilion on the Links"--shiver at the "sly +innuendoes of the place"! Think how much the map in "Treasure +Island" adds to the credibility of the thing. It is the +believableness of Stevenson's atmospheres that prepare the +reader for any marvels enacted in them. Gross, present-day, +matter-of-fact London makes Dr. Jekyll and his worser half of +flesh-and-blood credence. Few novelists of any race have beaten +this wandering Scot in the power of representing character and +envisaging it: and there can hardly be successful +characterization without this allied power of creating +atmosphere. + +Nothing is falser than to find him imitative in his +representative work. There may be a suspicion of made-to-order +journalism in "The Black Arrow," and the exception of "Prince +Otto," which none the less we love for its gallant spirit and +smiling grace, has been noted. But of the Scotch romances +nothing farther from the truth could be said. They stand or fall +by themselves: they have no model--save that of sound art and a +normal conception of human life. Rarely does this man fall below +his own high level or fail to set his private remarque upon his +labor. It is in a way unfortunate that Stevenson, early in his +career, so frankly confessed to practising for his craft by the +use of the best models: it has led to the silly +misinterpretation which sees in all his literary effort nothing +but the skilful echo. Such judgments remind us that criticism, +which is intended to be a picture of another, is in reality a +picture of oneself. In his lehrjahre Stevenson "slogged at his +trade," beyond peradventure; but no man came to be more +individually and independently himself. + +It has been spoken against him, too, that he could not draw +women: here again he is quoted in his own despite and we see the +possible disadvantage of a great writer's correspondence being +given to the world--though not for more worlds than one would we +miss the Letters. It is quite true that he is chary of +petticoats in his earlier work: but when he reached "David +Balfour" he drew an entrancing heroine; and the contrasted types +of young girl and middle-aged woman in "Weir of Hermiston" offer +eloquent testimonial to his increasing power in depicting the +Eternal Feminine. At the same time, it may be acknowledged that +the gallery of female portraits is not like Scott's for number +and variety, nor like Thackeray's for distinction and +charm--thick-hung with a delightful company whose eyes laugh level +with our own, or, above us on the wall, look down with a starry +challenge to our souls. But those whom Stevenson has hung there +are not to be coldly recalled. + +Stevenson's work offers itself remarkably as a test for the +thought that all worthily modern romanticism must not lack in +reality, in true observation, for success in its most daring +flights. Gone forever is that abuse of the romantic which +substitutes effective lying for the vision which sees broadly +enough to find beauty. The latter-day realist will be found in +the end to have permanently contributed this, a welcome legacy +to our time, after its excesses and absurdities are forgotten. +Realism has taught romanticism to tell the truth, if it would +succeed. Stevenson is splendidly real, he loves to visualize +fact, to be true both to the appearances of things and the +thoughts of the mind. He is aware that life is more than food--that +it is a subjective state quite as much as an objective +reality. He refers to himself more than once, half humorously, +as a fellow whose forte lay in transcribing what was before him, +to be seen and felt, tasted and heard. This extremely modern +denotement was a marked feature of his genius, often overlooked. +He had a desire to know all manner of men; he had the noble +curiosity of Montaigne; this it was, along with his human +sympathy, that led him to rough it in emigrant voyages and +railroad trips across the plains. It was this characteristic, +unless I err, the lack of which in "Prince Otto" gives it a +certain rococo air: he was consciously fooling in it, and felt +the need of a solidly mundane footing. Truth to human nature in +general, and that lesser truth which means accurate photography--his +books give us both; the modern novelist, even a romancer +like Stevenson, is not permitted to slight a landscape, an idiom +nor a point of psychology: this one is never untrue to the +trust. There is in the very nature of his language a proof of +his strong hunger for the actual, the verifiable. No man of his +generation has quite such a grip on the vernacular: his speech +rejoices to disport itself in root flavors; the only younger +writer who equals him in this relish for reality of expression +is Kipling. Further back it reminds of Defoe or Swift, at their +best, Stevenson cannot abide the stock phrases with which most +of us make shift to express our thoughts instead of using first-hand +effects. There is, with all its music and suavity, +something of the masculinity of the Old English in the following +brief descriptive passage from "Ebb-Tide": + + There was little or no morning bank. A brightening came in + the East; then a wash of some ineffable, faint, nameless + hue between crimson and silver; and then coals of fire. + These glimmered awhile on the sea line, and seemed to + brighten and darken and spread out; and still the night and + the stars reigned undisturbed. It was as though a spark + should catch and glow and creep along the foot of some + heavy and almost incombustible wall-hanging, and the room + itself be scarce menaced. Yet a little after, and the whole + East glowed with gold and scarlet, and the hollow of heaven + was filled with the daylight. The isle--the undiscovered, + the scarce believed in--now lay before them and close + aboard; and Herrick thought that never in his dreams had he + beheld anything more strange and delicate. + + +Stevenson's similes, instead of illustrating concrete things by +others less concrete, often reverse the process, as in the +following: "The isle at this hour, with its smooth floor of +sand, the pillared roof overhead and the pendant illumination of +the lamps, wore an air of unreality, like a deserted theater or +a public garden at midnight." Every image gets its foothold in +some tap-root of reality. + +The place of Robert Louis Stevenson is not explained by +emphasizing the perfection of his technique. Artist he is, but +more: a vigorous modern mind with a definite and enheartening +view of things, a philosophy at once broad and convincing. He is +a psychologist intensely interested in the great questions--which, +of course, means the moral questions. Read the quaint +Fable in which two of the characters in "Treasure Island" hold +converse upon themselves, the story in which they participate +and the author who made them. It is as if Stevenson stood aside +a moment from the proper objectivity of the fictionist, to tell +us in his own person that all his story-making was but an +allegory of life, its joy, its mystery, its duty, its triumph +and its doom. Although he is too much the artist to intrude +philosophic comments upon human fate into his fiction, after the +fashion of Thackeray or Meredith, the comment is there, implicit +in his fiction, even as it is explicit in his essays, which are +for this reason a sort of complement of his fiction: a sort of +philosophical marginal note upon the stories. Stevenson was that +type of modern mind which, no longer finding it possible to hold +fast by the older, complacent cock-sureness with regard to the +theologian's heaven, is still unshaken in its conviction that +life is beneficent, the obligation of duty imperative, the +meaning of existence spiritual. Puzzlingly protean in his +expressional moods (his conversations in especial), he was +constant in this intellectual, or temperamental, attitude: +"Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him," represents his +feeling, and the strongest poem he ever wrote, "If This Were +Faith," voices his deepest conviction. Meanwhile, the +superficies of life offered a hundred consolations, a hundred +pleasures, and Stevenson would have his fellowmen enjoy them in +innocence, in kindness and good cheer. In fine, as a thinker he +was a modernized Calvinist; as an artist he saw life in terms of +action and pleasure, and by perfecting himself in the art of +communicating his view of life, he was able, in a term of years +all too short, to leave a series of books which, as we settle +down to them in the twentieth century, and try to judge them as +literature, have all the semblance of fine art. In any case, +they will have been influential in the shaping of English +fiction and will be referred to with respect by future +historians of literature. It is hard to believe that the +desiccation of Time will so dry them that they will not always +exhale a rich fragrance of personality, and tremble with a +convincing movement of life. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +THE AMERICAN CONTRIBUTION + + +I + +To exclude the living, as we must, in an estimate of the +American contribution to the development we have been tracing, +is especially unjust. Yet the principle must be applied. The +injustice lies in the fact that an important part of the +contribution falls on the hither side of 1870 and has to do with +authors still active. The modern realistic movement in English +fiction has been affected to some degree by the work, has +responded to the influence of the two Americans, Howells and +James. What has been accomplished during the last forty years +has been largely under their leadership. Mr. Howells, true to +his own definition, has practised the more truthful handling of +material in depicting chosen aspects of the native life. Mr. +James, becoming more interested in British types, has, after a +great deal of analysis of his own countrymen, passed by the +bridge of the international Novel to a complete absorption in +transatlantic studies, making his peculiar application of the +realistic formula to the inner life of the spirit: a curious +compound, a cosmopolitan Puritan, an urbane student of souls. +His share in the British product is perhaps appreciable; but +from the native point of view, at least, it would seem as if his +earlier work were, and would remain, most representative both +because of its motives and methods. Early or late, he has beyond +question pointed out the way to many followers in the +psychologic path: his influence, perhaps less obvious than +Howells', is none the less undisputable. The development in the +hands of writers younger than these veterans has been rich, +varied, often noteworthy in quality. But of all this it is too +soon to speak. + +With regard to the fictional evolution on American soil, it is +clear that four great writers, excluding the living, separate +themselves from the crowd: Irving, Cooper, Poe and Hawthorne. +Moreover, two of these, Irving and Poe, are not novelists at +all, but masters of the sketch or short story. It will be best, +however, for our purpose to give them all some attention, for +whatever the form of fiction they used, they are all influential +in the development of the Novel. + +Other authors of single great books may occur to the student, +perhaps clamoring for admission to a company so select. Yet he +is likely always to come back and draw a dividing line here. +Bret Harte, for instance, is dead, and in the short story of +western flavor he was a pioneer of mark, the founder of a genre: +probably no other writer is so significant in his field. But +here again, although he essayed full-length fiction, it was not +his forte. So, too, were it not that Mark Twain still cheers the +land of the living with his wise fun, there would be for the +critic the question, is he a novelist, humorist or essayist. Is +"Roughing It" more typical of his genius than "Tom Sawyer" or +"Huckleberry Finn"? How shall we characterize "Puddin' Head +Wilson"? Under what category shall we place "A Yankee at the +Court of King Arthur" and "Joan of Arc"? The query reminds us +once more that literature means personality as well as literary +forms and that personality is more important than are they. And +again we turn away regretfully (remembering that this is an +attempt to study not fiction in all its manifestations, but the +Novel) from the charming short stories--little classics in their +kind--bequeathed by Aldrich, and are almost sorry that our +judgment demands that we place him first as a poet. We think, +too, of that book so unique in influence, "Uncle Tom's Cabin," +nor forget that, besides producing it, Mrs. Stowe, in such a +work as "Old Town Folks," started the long line of studies of +New England rustic life which, not confined to that section, +have become so welcome a phase of later American art in fiction. +Among younger authors called untimely from their labors, it is +hard to resist the temptation to linger over such a figure as +that of Frank Norris, whose vital way of handling realistic +material with epic breath in his unfinished trilogy, gave so +great promise for his future. + +It may be conceded that nothing is more worth mention in +American fiction of the past generation than the extraordinary +cultivation of the short-story, which Mr. Brander Matthews +dignifies and unifies by a hyphen, in order to express his +conviction that it is an essentially new art form, to study +which is a fascinating quest, but aside from our main intention. + + +II + +Having due regard then for perspective, and trying not to +confuse historical importance with the more vital interest which +implies permanent claims, it seems pretty safe to come back to +Irving and Poe, to Cooper and Hawthorne. Even as in the sketch +and tale Irving stands alone with such a masterpiece as "The +Legend of Sleepy Hollow"; and Poe equally by himself with his +tales of psychological horror and mystery, so in longer fiction, +Cooper and Hawthorne have made as distinct contributions in the +domain of Romance. Their service is as definite for the day of +the Romantic spirit, as is that of Howells and James for the +modern day of realism so-called. It is not hard to see that +Irving even in his fiction is essentially an essayist; that with +him story was not the main thing, but that atmosphere, character +and style were,--the personal comment upon life. One reads a +sketch like "The Stout Gentleman," in every way a typical work, +for anything but incident or plot. The Hudson River idyls, it +may be granted, have somewhat more of story interest, but Irving +seized them, ready-made for his use, because of their value for +the picturesque evocation of the Past. He always showed a keen +sense of the pictorial and dramatic in legend and history, as +the "Alhambra" witnesses quite as truly as the sketches. +"Bracebridge Hall" and "The Sketch Book," whatever of the +fictional they may contain, are the work of the essayist +primarily, and Washington Irving will always, in a critical +view, be described as a master of the English essay. No other +maker of American literature affords so good an example of the +inter-colation of essay and fiction: he recalls the organic +relation between the Sir Roger de Coverley Papers and the +eighteenth century Novel proper of a generation later. + +His service to all later writers of fiction was large in that he +taught them the use of promising native material that awaited +the story-maker. His own use of it, the Hudson, the environs of +Manhattan, was of course romantic, in the main. When in an +occasional story he is unpleasant in detail or tragic in trend +he seems less characteristic--so definitely was he a +romanticist, seeking beauty and wishing to throw over life the +kindly glamour of imaginative art. It is worth noting, however, +that he looked forward rather than back, towards the coming +realism, not to the incurable pseudo-romanticism of the late +eighteenth century, in his instinct to base his happenings upon +the bedrock of truth--the external truth of scene and character +and the inner truth of human psychology. + +Admirably a modern artist in this respect, his +old-fashionedness, so often dilated upon, can easily be overstated. +He not only left charming work in the tale, but helped others +who came after to use their tools, furthering their art by the +study of a good model. + +Nothing was more inevitable then that Cooper when he began +fiction in mid-manhood should have written the romance: it was +the dominant form in England because of Scott. But that he +should have realized the unused resources of America and +produced a long series of adventure stories, taking a pioneer as +his hero and illustrating the western life of settlement in his +career, the settlement that was to reclaim a wilderness for a +mighty civilization--that was a thing less to be expected, a +truly epic achievement. The Leather Stocking Series was in the +strictest sense an original performance--the significance of +Fenimore Cooper is not likely to be exaggerated; it is quite +independent of the question of his present hold upon mature +readers, his faults of technique and the truth of his pictures. +To have grasped such an opportunity and so to have used it as to +become a great man-of-letters at a time when literature was more +a private employ than the interest of the general--surely it +indicates genuine personality, and has the mark of creative +power. To which we may add, that Cooper is still vital in his +appeal, as the statistics of our public libraries show. + +Moreover, incorrigible romancer that he was, he is a man of the +nineteenth century, as was Irving, in the way he instinctively +chose near-at-hand native material: he knew the Mohawk Valley by +long residence; he knew the Indian and the trapper there; and he +depicted these types in a setting that was to him the most +familiar thing in the world. In fact, we have in him an +illustration of the modern writer who knows he must found his +message firmly upon reality. For both Leather-stocking and +Chingachgook are true in the broad sense, albeit the white +trapper's dialect may be uncertain and the red man exhibit a +dignity that seems Roman rather than aboriginal. The Daniel +Boone of history must have had, we feel, the nobler qualities of +Bumpo; how otherwise did he do what it was his destiny to do? In +the same way, the Indian of Cooper is the red man in his +pristine home before the day of fire-water and Agency methods. +It may be that what to us to-day seems a too glorified picture +is nearer the fact than we are in a position easily to realize. +Cooper worked in the older method of primary colors, of vivid, +even violent contrasts: his was not the school of subtleties. +His women, for example, strike us as somewhat mechanical; there +is a sameness about them that means the failure to +differentiate: the Ibsenian psychology of the sex was still to +come. But this does not alter the obvious excellencies of the +work. Cooper carried his romanticism in presenting the heroic +aspects of the life he knew best into other fields where he +walked with hardly less success: the revolutionary story +illustrated by "The Spy," and the sea-tale of which a fine +example is "The Pilot." He had a sure instinct for those +elements of fiction which make for romance, and the change of +time and place affects him only in so far as it affects his +familiarity with his materials. His experience in the United +States Navy gave him a sure hand in the sea novels: and in a +book like "The Spy" he was near enough to the scenes and +characters to be studies practically contemporary. He had the +born romanticist's natural affection for the appeal of the past +and the stock elements can be counted upon in all his best +fiction: salient personalities, the march of events, exciting +situations, and ever that arch-romantic lure, the one trick up +the sleeve to pique anticipation. Hence, in spite of +descriptions that seem over-long, a heavy-footed manner that +lacks suppleness and variety, and undeniable carelessness of +construction, he is still loved of the young and seen to be a +natural raconteur, an improviser of the Dumas-Scott lineage and, +even tested by the later tests, a noble writer of romance, a man +whom Balzac and Goethe read with admiration: unquestionably +influential outside his own land in that romantic mood of +expression which, during the first half of the nineteenth +century, was so widespread and fruitful. + + +III + +It is the plainer with every year that Poe's contribution to +American fiction, and indeed to that of the nineteenth century, +ignoring national boundaries, stands by itself. Whatever his +sources--and no writer appears to derive less from the past--he +practically created on native soil the tale of fantasy, +sensational plot, and morbid impressionism. His cold aloofness, +his lack of spiritual import, unfitted him perhaps for the +broader work of the novelist who would present humanity in its +three dimensions with the light and shade belonging to Life +itself. Confining himself to the tale which he believed could be +more artistic because it was briefer and so the natural mold for +a mono-mood, he had the genius so to handle color, music and +suggestion in an atmosphere intense in its subjectivity, that +confessed masterpieces were the issue. Whether in the objective +detail of "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," with its subtle +illusion of realism, or in the nuances and delicatest tonality +of "Ligeia," he has left specimens of the different degrees of +romance which have not been surpassed, conquering in all but +that highest style of romantic writing where the romance lies in +an emphasis upon the noblest traits of mankind. He is, it is not +too much to say, well-nigh as important to the growth of modern +fiction outside the Novel form as he is to that of poetry, +though possibly less unique on his prose side. His fascination +is that of art and intellect: his material and the mastery +wherewith he handles it conjoin to make his particular brand of +magic. While some one story of Hoffman or Bulwer Lytton or +Stevenson may be preferred, no one author of our time has +produced an equal number of successes in the same key. It is +instructive to compare him with Hawthorne because of a +superficial resemblance with an underlying fundamental +distinction. One phase of the Concord romancer's art results in +stories which seem perhaps as somber, strange and morbid as +those of Poe: "Dr. Heidegger's Experiment," "Rapacinni's +Daughter," "The Birth Mark." They stand, of course, for but one +side of his power, of which "The Great Stone Face" and "The Snow +Image" are the brighter and sweeter. Thus Hawthorne's is a +broader and more diversified accomplishment in the form of the +tale. But the likeness has to do with subject-matter, not with +the spirit of the work. The gloomiest of Hawthorne's short +stories are spiritually sound and sweet: Poe's, on the contrary, +might be described as unmoral; they seem written by one +disdaining all the touchstones of life, living in a land of +eyrie where there is no moral law. He would no more than Lamb +indict his very dreams. In the case of Hawthorne there is +allegorical meaning, the lesson is never far to seek: a basis of +common spiritual responsibility is always below one's feet. And +this is quite as true of the long romances as of the tales. The +result is that there is spiritual tonic in Hawthorne's fiction, +while something almost miasmatic rises from Poe, dropping a kind +of veil between us and the salutary realities of existence. If +Poe be fully as gifted, he is, for this reason, less sanely +endowed. It may be conceded that he is not always as +shudderingly sardonic and removed from human sympathy as in "The +Cask of Amontillado" or "The Black Cat"; yet it is no +exaggeration to affirm that he is nowhere more typical, more +himself. On the contrary, in a tale like "The Birth Mark," what +were otherwise the horror and ultra-realism of it, is tempered +by and merged in the suggestion that no man shall with impunity +tamper with Nature nor set the delight of the eyes above the +treasures of the soul. The poor wife dies, because her husband +cares more to remove a slight physical defect than he does for +her health and life. So it cannot be said of the somber work in +the tale of these two sons of genius that, + +"A common grayness silvers everything," + +since the gifts are so differently exercised and the artistic +product of totally dissimilar texture. Moreover, Poe is quite +incapable of the lovely naivete of "The Snow Image," or the +sun-kissed atmosphere of the wonder-book. Humor, except in the +satiric vein, is hardly more germane to the genius of Hawthorne +than to that of Poe; its occasional exercise is seldom if ever +happy. + +Although most literary comparisons are futile because of the +disparateness of the things compared, the present one seems +legitimate in the cases of Poe and Hawthorne, superficially so +alike in their short-story work. + + +IV + +In the romances in which he is, by common consent, our greatest +practitioner, to be placed first indeed of all who have written +fiction of whatever kind on American soil, Hawthorne never +forsakes--subtle, spiritual, elusive, even intangible as he may +seem--the firm underfooting of mother earth. His themes are +richly human, his psychologic truth (the most modern note of +realism) unerring in its accuracy and insight. As part of his +romantic endowment, he prefers to place plot and personages in +the dim backward of Time, gaining thus in perspective and +ampleness of atmosphere. He has told us as much in the preface +to "The House of The Seven Gables," that wonderful study in +subdued tone-colors. That pronunciamento of a great artist (from +which in an earlier chapter quotation has been made) should not +be overlooked by one who essays to get a hint of his secret. He +is always exclusively engaged with questions of conscience and +character; like George Meredith, his only interest is in soul-growth. +This is as true in the "Marble Faun" with its thought of +the value of sin in the spiritual life, or in "The Blithedale +Romance," wherein poor Zenobia learns how infinitely hard it is +for a woman to oppose the laws of society, as it is in the more +obvious lesson of "The Scarlet Letter." In this respect the four +romances are all of a piece: they testify to their spiritual +parentage. "The Scarlet Letter," if the greatest, is only so for +the reason that the theme is deepest, most fundamental, and the +by-gone New England setting most sympathetic to the author's +loving interest. Plainly an allegory, it yet escapes the danger +of becoming therefore poor fiction, by being first of all a +study of veritable men and women, not lay-figures to carry out +an argument. The eyes of the imagination can always see Esther +Prynne and Dimmesdale, honest but weak man of God, the evil +Chillingworth and little Pearl who is all child, unearthly +though she be, a symbol at once of lost innocence and a hope of +renewed purity. No pale abstractions these; no folk in fiction +are more believed in: they are of our own kindred with whom we +suffer or fondly rejoice. In a story so metaphysical as "The +House of The Seven Gables," full justice to which has hardly +been done (it was Hawthorne's favorite), while the background +offered by the historic old mansion is of intention low-toned +and dim, there is no obscurity, though plenty of innuendo and +suggestion. The romance is a noble specimen of that use of the +vague which never falls into the confusion of indeterminate +ideas. The theme is startlingly clear: a sin is shown working +through generations and only to find expiation in the fresh +health of the younger descendants: life built on a lie must +totter to its fall. And the shell of all this spiritual +seething--the gabled Salem house--may at last be purified and +renovated for a posterity which, because it is not paralyzed by +the dark past, can also start anew with hope and health, while +every room of the old home is swept through and cleansed by the +wholesome winds of heaven. + +Forgetting for a moment the immense spiritual meaning of this +noble quartet of romances, and regarding them as works of art in +the straiter sense, they are felt to be practically blameless +examples of the principle of adapting means to a desired end. As +befits the nature of the themes, the movement in each case is +slow, pregnant with significance, cumulative in effect, the +tempo of each in exquisite accord with the particular motive: +compared with "The Scarlet Letter," "The House of The Seven +Gables" moves somewhat more quickly, a slight increase to suit +the action: it is swiftest of all in "The Blithedale Romance," +with its greater objectivity of action and interest, its more +mundane air: while there is a cunning unevenness in the two +parts of "The Marble Faun," as is right for a romance which +first presents a tragic situation (as external climax) and then +shows in retarded progress that inward drama of the soul more +momentous than any outer scene or situation can possibly be. +After Donatello's deed of death, because what follows is +psychologically the most important part of the book, the speed +slackens accordingly. Quiet, too, and unsensational as Hawthorne +seems, he possessed a marked dramatic power. His denouements are +overwhelming in grip and scenic value: the stage effect of the +scaffold scene in "The Scarlet Letter," the murder scene in the +"Marble Faun," the tragic close of Zenobia's career in "The +Blithedale Romance," such scenes are never arbitrary and +detached; they are tonal, led up to by all that goes before. The +remark applies equally to that awful picture in "The House of +The Seven Gables," where the Judge sits dead in his chair and +the minutes are ticked off by a seemingly sentient clock. An +element in this tonality is naturally Hawthorne's style: it is +the best illustration American literature affords of excellence +of pattern in contrast with the "purple patch" manner of writing +so popular in modern diction. + +Congruity, the subjection of the parts to the whole, and to the +end in view--the doctrine of key--Hawthorne illustrates all +this. If we do not mark passages and delectate over phrases, we +receive an exquisite sense of harmony--and harmony is the last +word of style. It is this power which helps to make him a great +man-of-letters, as well as a master of romance. One can imagine +him neither making haste to furnish "copy" nor pausing by the +way for ornament's sake. He knew that the only proper decoration +was an integral efflorescence of structure. He looked beyond to +the fabric's design: a man decently poor in this world's gear, +he was more concerned with good work than with gain. Of such are +art's kingdom of heaven. + +Are there flaws in the weaving? They are small indeed. His +didacticism is more in evidence in the tales than in the +romances, where the fuller body allows the writer to be more +objective: still, judged by present-day standards, there are +times when he is too obviously the preacher to please modern +taste. In "The Great Stone Face," for instance, it were better, +one feels, if the moral had been more veiled, more subtly +implied. As to this, it is well to remember that criticism +changes its canons with the years and that Hawthorne simply +adapted himself (unconsciously, as a spokesman of his day) to +contemporaneous standards. His audience was less averse from the +principle that the artist should on no account usurp the +pulpit's function. If the artist-preacher had a golden mouth, it +was enough. This has perhaps always been the attitude of the +mass of mankind. + +A defect less easy to condone is this author's attempts at +humor. They are for the most part lumbering and forced: you feel +the effort. Hawthorne lacked the easy manipulation of this gift +and his instinct served him aright when he avoided it, as most +often he did. A few of the short stories are conceived in the +vein of burlesque, and such it is a kindness not to name. They +give pain to any who love and revere so mighty a spirit. In the +occasional use of humor in the romances, too, he does not always +escape just condemnation: as where Judge Pincheon is described +taking a walk on a snowy morning down the village street, his +visage wreathed in such spacious smiles that the snow on either +side of his progress melts before the rays. + +For some the style of Hawthorne may now be felt to possess a +certain artificiality: the price paid for that effect of +stateliness demanded by the theme and suggestive also of the +fact that the words were written over half a century ago. In +these days of photographic realism of word and idiom, our +conception of what is fit in diction has suffered a sea-change. +Our ear is adjusted to another tune. Admirable as have been the +gains in broadening the native resources of speech by the +introduction of old English elements, the eighteenth century and +the early years of the nineteenth can still teach us, and it is +not beyond credence that the eventual modern ideal of speech may +react to an equilibrium of mingled native and foreign-fetched +words. In such an event a writer like Hawthorne will be +confirmed in his mastery. + +Remarkable, indeed, and latest in time has been the romantic +reaction from the extremes of realistic presentation: it has +given the United States, even as it has England, some sterling +fiction. This we can see, though it is a phenomenon too recent +to offer clear deductions as yet. What appears to be the main +difference between it and the romantic inheritance from Scott +and Hawthorne? One, if not the chief divergence, would seem to +be the inevitable degeneration which comes from haste, +mercantile pressure, imitation and lack of commanding authority. +There is plenty of technique, comparatively little personality. +Yet it may be unfair to the present to make the comparison, for +the incompetents buzz in our ears, while time has mercifully +stilled the bogus romances of G.P.R. James, et id omne genus. + +But allowing for all distortion of time, a creative figure like +that of Hawthorne still towers, serene and alone, above the +little troublings of later days, and like his own Stone Face, +reflects the sun and the storm, bespeaking the greater things of +the human spirit. + + +THE END + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Masters of the English Novel, by Richard Burton + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MASTERS OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL *** + +***** This file should be named 12736.txt or 12736.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/2/7/3/12736/ + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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