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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf 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..f82a51a --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #51010 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/51010) diff --git a/old/51010-0.txt b/old/51010-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 37d42cf..0000000 --- a/old/51010-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,1761 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Novel; what it is, by F. Marion Crawford - -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/license - - -Title: The Novel; what it is - -Author: F. Marion Crawford - -Release Date: January 23, 2016 [EBook #51010] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NOVEL; WHAT IT IS *** - - - - -Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images available at The Internet Archive) - - - - - - - - - - - - THE NOVEL - - [Illustration: image of colophon not available] - - [Illustration: image of F. Marion Crawford not available] - - - - - THE NOVEL - - WHAT IT IS - - BY - - F. MARION CRAWFORD - - Author of “Mr. Isaacs,” “Dr. Claudius,” “A Roman - Singer,” etc. - - New York - - MACMILLAN AND COMPANY - AND LONDON - - 1893 - - _All rights reserved_ - - COPYRIGHT, 1893, - BY MACMILLAN AND CO. - - Norwood Press: - J. S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith. - Boston, Mass., U.S.A. - - - - -WHAT IS A NOVEL? - - -My answer can only be a statement of opinion, which I make with much -deference to the prejudices of my brethren. Whether it will be of -interest to general readers I do not know; but the question I propose is -in itself more or less vital as regards novel-writing. No one will deny -that truism. Before going to work it is important to know what one means -to do. I pretend, however, to no special gift for solving problems in -general or this one in particular. To give “the result of one’s -experience,” as the common phrase puts it, is by no means so easy as it -sounds. An intelligent man mostly knows what he means by his own words, -but it does not follow that he can convey that meaning to others. Almost -all discussion and much misunderstanding may fairly be said to be based -upon the difference between the definitions of common terms as -understood by the two parties. In the exact sciences there is no such -thing as discussion; there is the theorem and its demonstration, there -is the problem and its solution, from which solution and demonstration -there is no appeal. That is because, in mathematics, every word is -defined before it is used and is almost meaningless until it has been -defined. - -It has been remarked by a very great authority concerning the affairs of -men that “of making many books there is no end,” and to judge from -appearances the statement is even more true to-day than when it was -first made. Especially of making novels there is no end, in these times -of latter-day literature. No doubt many wise and good persons and many -excellent critics devoutly wish that there might be; but they are not at -present strong enough to stand against us, the army of fiction-makers, -because we are many, and most of us do not know how to do anything else, -and have grown grey in doing this particular kind of work, and are -dependent upon it for bread as well as butter; and lastly and chiefly, -because we are heavily backed, as a body, by the capital of the -publisher, of which we desire to obtain for ourselves as much as -possible. Therefore novels will continue to be written, perhaps for a -long time to come. There is a demand for them and there is profit in -producing them. Who shall prevent us, authors and publishers, from -continuing the production and supplying the demand? - -This brings with it a first answer to the question, “What is a novel?” A -novel is a marketable commodity, of the class collectively termed -“luxuries,” as not contributing directly to the support of life or the -maintenance of health. It is of the class “artistic luxuries” because it -does not appeal to any of the three material senses--touch, taste, -smell; and it is of the class “intellectual artistic luxuries,” because -it is not judged by the superior senses--sight and hearing. The novel, -therefore, is an intellectual artistic luxury--a definition which can be -made to include a good deal, but which is, in reality, a closer one than -it appears to be at first sight. No one, I think, will deny that it -covers the three principal essentials of the novel as it should be, of a -story or romance, which in itself and in the manner of telling it shall -appeal to the intellect, shall satisfy the requirements of art, and -shall be a luxury, in that it can be of no use to a man when he is at -work, but may conduce to peace of mind and delectation during his hours -of idleness. The point upon which people differ is the artistic one, and -the fact that such differences of opinion exist makes it possible that -two writers as widely separated as Mr. Henry James and Mr. Rider -Haggard, for instance, find appreciative readers in the same year of the -same century--a fact which the literary history of the future will find -it hard to explain. - - -Probably no one denies that the first object of the novel is to amuse -and interest the reader. But it is often said that the novel should -instruct as well as afford amusement, and the “novel-with-a-purpose” is -the realisation of this idea. We might invent a better expression than -that clumsy translation of the neat German “_Tendenz-Roman_.” Why not -compound the words and call the odious thing a “purpose-novel”? The -purpose-novel, then, proposes to serve two masters, besides procuring a -reasonable amount of bread and butter for its writer and publisher. It -proposes to escape from my definition of the novel in general and make -itself an “intellectual moral lesson” instead of an “intellectual -artistic luxury.” It constitutes a violation of the unwritten contract -tacitly existing between writer and reader. So far as supply and demand -are concerned, books in general and works of fiction in particular are -commodities and subject to the same laws, statutory and traditional, as -other articles of manufacture. A toy-dealer would not venture to sell -real pistols to little boys as pop-guns, and a gun-maker who should try -to sell the latter for army revolvers would get into trouble, even -though he were able to prove that the toy was as expensive to -manufacture as the real article, or more so, silver-mounted, chiselled, -and lying in a Russia-leather case. I am not sure that the law might not -support the purchaser in an action for damages if he discovered at a -critical moment that his revolver was a plaything. It seems to me that -there is a similar case in the matter of novels. A man buys what -purports to be a work of fiction, a romance, a novel, a story of -adventure, pays his money, takes his book home, prepares to enjoy it at -his ease, and discovers that he has paid a dollar for somebody’s views -on socialism, religion, or the divorce laws. - -Such books are generally carefully suited with an attractive title. The -binding is as frivolous as can be desired. The bookseller says it is “a -work of great power,” and there is probably a sentimental dedication on -the fly-leaf to a number of initials to which a romantic appearance is -given by the introduction of a stray “St.” and a few hyphens. The buyer -is possibly a conservative person, of lukewarm religious convictions, -whose life is made “barren by marriage, or death, or division”--and who -takes no sort of interest in the laws relating to divorce, in the -invention of a new religion, or the position of the labour question. He -has simply paid money, on the ordinary tacit contract between furnisher -and purchaser, and he has been swindled, to use a very plain term for -which a substitute does not occur to me. Or say that a man buys a seat -in one of the regular theatres. He enters, takes his place, preparing to -be amused, and the curtain goes up. The stage is set as a church, there -is a pulpit before the prompter’s box, and the Right Reverend the Bishop -of the Diocese is on the point of delivering a sermon. The man would be -legally justified in demanding his money at the door, I fancy, and would -probably do so, though he might admit that the Bishop was the most -learned and edifying of preachers. There are indeed certain names and -prefixes to names which suggest serious reading, independently of the -words printed on the title-page of the book. If the Archbishop of -Canterbury, or General Booth, or the Emperor William published a novel, -for instance, the work might reasonably be expected to contain an -exposition of personal views on some question of the day. But in -ordinary cases the purpose-novel is a simple fraud, besides being a -failure in nine hundred and ninety-nine cases out of a thousand. - -What we call a novel may educate the taste and cultivate the -intelligence; under the hand of genius it may purify the heart and -fortify the mind; it should never under any circumstances be suffered to -deprave the one nor to weaken the other; it may stand for scores of -years--and a score of years is a long time in our day--as the exposition -of all that is noble, heroic, honest, and true in the life of woman or -man; but it has no right to tell us what its writer thinks about the -relations of labour and capital, nor to set up what the author conceives -to be a nice, original, easy scheme of salvation, any more than it has a -right to take for its theme the relative merits of the “broomstick-car” -and the “storage system,” temperance, vivisection, or the “Ideal Man” of -Confucius. Lessons, lectures, discussions, sermons, and didactics -generally belong to institutions set apart for especial purposes and -carefully avoided, after a certain age, by the majority of those who -wish to be amused. The purpose-novel is an odious attempt to lecture -people who hate lectures, to preach at people who prefer their own -church, and to teach people who think they know enough already. It is -an ambush, a lying-in-wait for the unsuspecting public, a violation of -the social contract--and as such it ought to be either mercilessly -crushed or forced by law to bind itself in black and label itself -“Purpose” in very big letters. - - -In art of all kinds the moral lesson is a mistake. It is one thing to -exhibit an ideal worthy to be imitated, though inimitable in all its -perfection, but so clearly noble as to appeal directly to the -sympathetic string that hangs untuned in the dullest human heart; to -make man brave without arrogance, woman pure without prudishness, love -enduring yet earthly, not angelic, friendship sincere but not -ridiculous. It is quite another matter to write a “guide to morality” or -a “hand-book for practical sinners” and call either one a novel, no -matter how much fiction it may contain. Wordsworth tried the moral -lesson and spoiled some of his best work with botany and the Bible. A -good many smaller men than he have tried the same thing since, and have -failed. Perhaps “Cain” and “Manfred” have taught the human heart more -wisdom than “Matthew” or the unfortunate “idiot boy” over whom Byron was -so mercilessly merry. And yet Byron probably never meant to teach any -one anything in particular, and Wordsworth meant to teach everybody, -including and beginning with himself. - -There are, I believe, two recognised ways of looking at art: art for the -public or “art for art,” to adopt the current French phrase. Might we -not say, Art for the buyer and art for the seller? Or is that too -practical a view to take of what is supposed to be so eminently -unpractical as art itself? Has it not been said similarly, and with -truth, that religion is for man, and not man for religion? Is it our -province to please those who read our works, or to force them to please -us by buying them? Do not these questions lie at the root of the -conflict between realism and romance? Are we to take Talleyrand’s speech -as our guide?--“I have furnished you with an argument; I am not bound to -furnish you with an understanding.” The story is old, but the position -it defines is as old as humanity. When a novelist turns prophet, it will -be time enough for him to convert his readers at the point of the pen. -Are we writers so vain as a class, and so proud of ourselves as men, as -to be above affording amusement to our readers without attempting to -comfort them, to teach or to preach to them? We are not poets, because -we cannot be. We are not genuine playwriters for many reasons; chiefly, -perhaps, because we are not clever enough, since a successful play is -incomparably more lucrative than a successful novel. We are not -preachers, and few of us would be admitted to the pulpit. We are not, as -a class, teachers or professors, nor lawyers, nor men of business. We -are nothing more than public amusers. Unless we choose we need not be -anything less. Let us, then, accept our position cheerfully, and do the -best we can to fulfil our mission, without attempting to dignify it with -titles too imposing for it to bear, and without degrading it by bringing -its productions down even a little way, from the lowest level of high -comedy to the highest level of buffoonery. It is good to make people -laugh; it is sometimes salutary to make them shed tears; it is best of -all to make our readers think--not too serious thoughts, nor such as -require an intimate knowledge of science and philosophy to be called -thoughts at all--but to think, and, thinking, to see before them -characters whom they might really like to resemble, acting in scenes in -which they themselves would like to take a part. In trying to amuse, let -us be consistent each in his own way, never giving our public a pretext -of appealing from Philip drunk to Philip sober. If we have poetry within -us, let us put such of it as is worth anything into our books, for -almost all poetry which deserves the name is good. But let us keep out -of our novels all that savours of preaching and teaching, for our -readers’ sakes; and for our own, all such matter as is limited by modern -science, present fashion, and actual taste, and which consequently -imposes too wilful a limitation upon the permanence of our own work. - - -But I perceive that although this little essay is not a work of fiction, -I myself am falling into one of the errors which I have wished to point -out, for I am beginning to preach where I have no right to inculcate a -lesson, and mean only to express a purely personal opinion in the only -matter upon which a novelist is justified in expressing one at all. -Moreover, I hereby disclaim all intention of setting an example, since -in many points upon which I have touched I admit that I myself am the -last of literary sinners; and with this admission of fallibility and -confession of weakness I cry _peccavi_, and ask absolution of the -public. - -I do not wish to be accused of what is called smart writing. It is much -easier to attack than to defend and much more blessed to give hard -knocks than to receive them. A professed novelist is perhaps not a -competent judge of novels from the point of view which interests the -reader, and which is of course the reader’s own. We know the _technique_ -of the trick better than the effect it produces, just as it is hard for -a conjuror to realise the sensations of the old gentleman in the -audience who finds a bowl of goldfish in his waistcoat pocket. We do not -all know one another’s tricks, but we have a fair idea of the general -principle on which they are done and a very definite opinion about our -own business as compared with that of the parson or the professor. We -know our books from the inside and we see the strings of the puppets, -while the public only guesses at the mechanism as it sits before the -stage, watching the marionettes and listening to the voice from behind -the scenes. A novel is, after all, a play, and perhaps it is nothing but -a substitute for the real play with live characters, scene-shifting, and -footlights. But miracle-plays have gone out of fashion in modern times, -except at Ober-Ammergau. The purpose-novel is a miracle-play--and if it -be true that any really good novel can be dramatised, nothing short of -a miracle could put a purpose-novel on the boards. - -Most people have a very clear conception of what a good play ought to -be, and of the precise extent to which realism can be effective without -being offensive. But it is strange, and it is a bad sign of the times, -that persons who would not tolerate a coarse play read novels little, if -at all, short of indecent. An answer suggests itself which may be -comprehensive as an explanation, but is insufficient as an excuse. In -our Anglo-Saxon social system the young girl is everywhere, and, if the -shade of Sterne will allow me to say so, we temper the wind of our -realism to the sensitive innocence of the ubiquitous shorn lamb. Once -admit that the young girl is to have the freedom of our theatre, and it -follows, and ought to follow, and very generally does follow, that our -plays must be suited to maiden ears and eyes. It is a good thing that -this should be so, but the effect is rather strange. The men who hear -plays in English are not, perhaps, more moral than their contemporaries -of Paris, Vienna, and Berlin. We like to believe that our women are -better than those of foreign nations. We owe it to them to put more -faith in them because they are our own, our dear mothers and wives and -sisters and daughters, for whom, if we be men, we mean to do all that -men can do. But we are all men and women nevertheless, and human, and -we have the thoughts and the understanding of men and women and not of -school-girls. Yet the school-girl practically decides what we are to -hear at the theatre and, so far as our own language is concerned, -determines to a great extent what we are to read. - -But if we do not write for the young girl, who will? We have not the -advantage possessed by the French of satisfying the demands of young -people by translations from works in other languages. The young girl in -France, as a matter of fact, reads Walter Scott, Bulwer, and Dickens, -while her mother diverts her leisure with the more lively productions of -Paul Bourget, Guy de Maupassant, or possibly Balzac, whom all educated -Frenchmen and French-women are at least supposed to have read. The -advocate of a broader license in the English fiction of the future may -answer that the whole body of novels already in existence should be more -than sufficient for the delectation of “the young.” Should the -development of the new school, however, lead to the creation of a -literature in our language, resembling, as a whole, that of the French, -our novel, in its present form, would soon cease to be written, and -those of the type which are already in existence would in a short time -be regarded as antiquated, dull, and savouring of the Sunday-school. -Youth, too, dislikes to be treated as youth. The old, who regretfully -long to be young again, may find some consolation in the ardent desire -of youth for mature years. Moreover, it is easier to lower the reader’s -moral tone than to raise it ever so little. The ambition of all boys, -and probably of very many young girls, is to read such novels as their -parents do not habitually leave on the drawing-room table. Every boy -wants to read “Guy Livingstone,” and most boys do, with or without their -mamma’s permission, at a very early age. If we advanced so far as the -French realistic point of view, that book would become a common property -of boys and girls, and perhaps “Nana,” or “Les Mensonges,” would take -its place in the estimation of our children,--a consummation devoutly to -be prayed against. Our “books for the young” are not, on the whole, a -success, unless we are willing to modify the expression, and call them -books for the very young. There are not in existence, I believe, enough -really interesting, and yet perfectly harmless, novels to occupy the -vast amount of spare time which the young seem ready to devote to -literature, and which we, the workers, seek in vain. It is not always -easy to see--it is certainly not easy for us to explain--why we -novelists occasionally introduce a thought, a page, or a chapter in a -novel otherwise fit for a child’s ears, which may have the effect, so to -say, of turning weak tea into bad whiskey. Yet most of us have done it, -contemplate doing it, or at least go so far as to wish that we might -allow ourselves the liberty. Perhaps, if that liberty were universally -granted, we should desire it less. Perhaps a number of my colleagues -will not admit that they desire it at all. I believe that in most cases -it is only a desire to escape from limitations not unlike those -overstepped when an author writes much in dialect. It looks as though it -might be easier to write interesting books with the help of the -knowledge of evil, as well as with the help of the knowledge of good; -and after a certain number of years of hard work a novelist -instinctively leans towards any method of lightening his labours which -presents itself to his tired imagination. If he yields once, he will -probably yield again and fall into the slipshod, careless ways for -which the overworked man is often cruelly, if not altogether unjustly, -blamed. For the public, which most of us acknowledge to be a perfectly -just body in the long run, is as thoroughly unforgiving as Justice -herself. “He has written himself out.” How carelessly that little phrase -is often uttered! How terrible it is for any author to hear! It is -indeed a solemn _memento mori_, the phrase of all others of which we -dread the application to ourselves. For the romance of romancing soon -disappears. After the production of one, two, three, or half-a-dozen -novels, if the writer is really what we call “a professional,” and must -go on writing as a business, he discovers how serious is the occupation -in which he is engaged. Half-a-dozen books, or less, will make a -reputation; ten will sustain one; twenty are in ordinary cases a career. -Does any one, not an author, who reads these lines guess at the labour, -the imagination, the industry, the set purpose, the courage, which are -necessary to produce a score of novels of an average good quality? And -if not, how can he understand the intense longing for a removal of -restraint, for a little more liberty that tempts the overwrought -intelligence into error? Far be it from me to appeal in any way to the -public pity, for my own sake or in behalf of others. We are no more to -be pitied when we break down than an old shoemaker who can no longer -see the point of his bristles, and not so much as a broken-winded -cab-horse that has never had any option in the choice of a career. Let -this be taken as an explanation, not as an apology. To judge from the -standards of some people, however, the worn-out novelist, whose works -have filled the shelves of the young girl of the period, might find -profitable employment if he would adopt the tenets of realism and write -for the jaded taste of those who, whether already old or what is called -still young, have exhausted their capacity for bread and milk and crave -red pepper and stimulants. - -The taste for “realism” is abroad, and in opposition to all this. Out -of the conflict arises that very curious production, the realistic novel -in English--than which no effort of human genius has sailed nearer to -the wind, so to say, since Goethe wrote his “Elective Affinities,” which -an Anglo-Saxon young girl pronounced to be “a dull book all about -gardening.” That our prevailing moral literary purity is to some extent -assumed--not fictitious--is shown by the undeniable fact that women who -blush scarlet, and men who feel an odd sensation of repulsion in reading -some pages of “Tom Jones” or “Peregrine Pickle,” are not conscious of -any particular shock when their sensibilities are attacked in French. -Some of them call Zola a “pig” with great directness, but read all his -books industriously, and very often admit the fact. When they call him -names they forget that he writes for a great public of men and women, -not for young girls--and when they read him he makes them remember that -he is a great man--mistaken perhaps, possibly bad, mightily coarse to no -purpose, but great nevertheless--a Nero of fiction. But Zola’s shadow, -seen through the veil of the English realistic novel, is a monstrosity -not to be tolerated. We see the apparent contradiction in our own taste -between our theory and our practice in reading, but we feel -instinctively that there is a foundation of justice to account for the -seeming discrepancy. Both are coarse, but the one is great and bold, -and the other is damned by its own smallness and meanness. The result of -the desire for realism in men who try to write realistic novels for the -clean-minded American and English girl is unsatisfactory. It is -generally a photograph, not a picture--a catalogue, not a description. - -A community of vices is a closer and more direct bond between human -beings than a community of virtues. This may be because vice needs -solidarity among those who yield to it in order to be tolerated at all, -whereas virtue is its own reward, as the proverb says, and is happily -very often its own protection--far more often than not, in our day. This -seems to be the reason why the realistic method is better suited to the -exposition of what is bad than of what is good. Wordsworth and Swinburne -are two realistic poets. Most people do not hesitate to call Wordsworth -the greater man. I need not express an opinion which few would care to -hear, but so far as the relative effect of their work is concerned it -can hardly be denied that, of the two, Swinburne appeals far more -strongly and directly to sinful humanity as it is. Wordsworth speaks to -the higher and more spiritual part of us, indeed, but too often in -language which rouses no response in the more human side of man’s nature -which is most generally uppermost. These are but illustrations of my -meaning, not examples, which latter should be taken among novelists--a -task, however, which may be left to the discriminating reader. - - -It has always seemed to me that the perfect novel, as it ought to be, -exists somewhere in the state of the Platonic idea, waiting to be set -down on paper by the first man of genius who receives a direct literary -inspiration. It must deal chiefly with love; for in that passion all men -and women are most generally interested, either for its present reality, -or for the memories that soften the coldly vivid recollection of an -active past, and shed a tender light in the dark places of bygone -struggles, or because the hope of it brightens and gladdens the path of -future dreams. The perfect novel must be clean and sweet, for it must -tell its tale to all mankind, to saint and sinner, pure and defiled, -just and unjust. It must have the magic to fascinate and the power to -hold its reader from first to last. Its realism must be real, of three -dimensions, not flat and photographic; its romance must be of the human -heart and truly human, that is, of the earth as we all have found it; -its idealism must be transcendent, not measured to man’s mind, but -proportioned to man’s soul. Its religion must be of such grand and -universal span as to hold all worthy religions in itself. Conceive, if -possible, such a story, told in language that can be now simple, now -keen, now passionate, and now sublime--or rather, pray, do not conceive -it, for the modern novelist’s occupation would suddenly be gone, and -that one book would stand alone of its kind, making all others worse -than useless--ridiculous, if not sacrilegious, by comparison. - -Why must a novel-writer be either a “realist” or a “romantist”? And, if -the latter, why “romanticist” any more than “realisticist”? Why should a -good novel not combine romance and reality in just proportions? Is there -any reason to suppose that the one element must necessarily shut out the -other? Both are included in every-day life, which would be a very dull -affair without something of the one, and would be decidedly incoherent -without the other. Art, if it is “to create and foster agreeable -illusions,” as Napoleon is believed to have said of it, should -represent the real, but in such a way as to make it seem more agreeable -and interesting than it actually is. That is the only way to create “an -agreeable illusion,” and by no other means can a novel do good while -remaining a legitimate novel and not becoming a sermon, a treatise, or a -polemic. - -It may reasonably be inquired whether the prevailing and still growing -taste for fiction expresses a new and enduring want of educated men and -women. The novel, as we understand the word, is after all a very recent -invention. Considering that we do not find it in existence until late in -the last century, its appearance must be admitted to have been very -sudden, its growth fabulously rapid, and its development enormous. The -ancients had nothing more like it than a few collections of humorous and -pathetic stories. The Orientals, who might be supposed to feel the need -of it even more than we do, had nothing but their series of fantastic -tales strung rather loosely together without general plan. Men and women -seem to have survived the dulness of the dark age with the help of the -itinerant story-teller. The novel is a distinctly modern invention, -satisfying a modern want. In the ideal state described with so much -accuracy by Mr. Bellamy, I believe the novel would not sell. It would be -incomprehensible, or it would not be a novel at all, according to our -understanding. Do away practically with the struggle for life, eliminate -all the unfit and make the surviving fittest perfectly comfortable--men -and women might still take a curious interest in our present -civilisation, but it would be of a purely historical nature. To -gratuitously invent a tale of a poor man fighting for success would seem -to them a piece of monstrously bad taste and ridiculously useless. Are -we tending to such a state as that? There are those who believe that we -are--but a faith able to remove mountains at “cut rates” will not be -more than enough to realise their hopes. - - -It may fairly be claimed that humanity has, within the past hundred -years, found a way of carrying a theatre in its pocket; and so long as -humanity remains what it is, it will delight in taking out its -pocket-stage and watching the antics of the actors, who are so like -itself and yet so much more interesting. Perhaps that is, after all, the -best answer to the question, “What is a novel?” It is, or ought to be, a -pocket-stage. Scenery, light, shade, the actors themselves, are made of -words, and nothing but words, more or less cleverly put together. A play -is good in proportion as it represents the more dramatic, passionate, -romantic, or humorous sides of real life. A novel is excellent according -to the degree in which it produces the illusions of a good play--but it -must not be forgotten that the play is the thing, and that illusion is -eminently necessary to success. - -Every writer who has succeeded has his own methods of creating such -illusion. Some of us are found out, and some of us are not; but we all -do the same thing in one way or another, consciously or unconsciously. -The tricks of the art are without number, simple or elaborate, easily -learned or hard to imitate, and many of us consider that we have a -monopoly of certain tricks we call our own, and are unreasonably angry -when a competitor makes use of them. - -The means, all subservient to language, are many, but the object is -always one: to make the reader realise as far as possible the writer’s -conception of his story. - -That word “realise” has a greater value and a wider application upon the -question which I am endeavouring to treat so briefly than in ordinary -conversation. To realise means to make real from one’s own standpoint, -to see as vividly through the imagination what is partially imaginary as -what is altogether imagined; in other words, to call up an image as -coincident with the representations of fact as truth itself. Of course, -in a printed book, the author has no means to attain this end excepting -language, and upon the terms of language employed must depend a very -large part of his success. Language is the tool with which he makes his -weapons, and these in their turn may vary in manufacture and temper -according to his requirements. The most powerful weapon of all is what -is most commonly called truth to nature. Goethe said of his “Wilhelm -Meister,” “there is nothing in it which I have not lived and nothing -exactly as I lived it”; yet most people would call “Wilhelm Meister” a -fantastic book. Other means of producing an impression are local colour, -the use of dialects and foreign languages. Here I know I am touching -upon a very delicate point, and that I risk wounding the sensibilities -of many writers and attacking the individual tastes of many readers of -fiction. Nevertheless, the mention of the dialect-novel raises a -question which is before the literary grand jury of the world. Assuredly -every man has a prime right to make use of the material at his disposal; -and if some particular dialect forms a part of this stock in trade, he -is as free to employ it as an African traveller, for instance, is free -to introduce his own reminiscences into a novel, if he writes one. -Colour alone amuses some people, chiefly children. Small boys and girls -do not despise a kaleidoscope as a toy on a rainy day, and dialect -without dramatic interest is colour without form or outline, and some -novels in dialect are nothing more. But then, there are plenty of works -of fiction written in ordinary English which have not even that one -merit, and of these I do not wish to say anything. Take a really good -novel, however, in which more than half the pages are filled with -dialogues in a language not familiar to the English-speaking public as a -whole. Is not the writer wilfully limiting his audience, if not himself? -Is he not sacrificing his privilege of addressing all men, for the sake -of addressing a few in terms which they especially prefer? Is he not -preferring local popularity to broader and more enduring reputation? -Could he not, by the skilful use of description, by a clever handling -of grammar and a careful selection of words, produce an impression which -should be more widely felt, though less warmly received, perhaps, in -that one small public to which he appeals? Is he not, although he be a -first-rate man, often tempted to lapses of literary conscience by the -peculiar facilities he finds in the literary by-way he has chosen? How -much of what is screaming farce in the dialect of the few, would be -funny if translated into plain English for the many? Wit and humour are -intellectual, and when genuine are susceptible of being translated into -almost all languages; but dialect seems to me to rank with puns, and -with puns of a particular local character. A practical demonstration of -this is found in the fact that stories in dialect, when told and not -read, are duller than any other stories, unless the teller has the power -of imitating accents. Almost all limitations which a man willingly -assumes afford facilities for the sake of which he assumes them. - - -But this is not the place for a study of methods. So far as I have been -able, I have answered the question I asked, and which stands at the head -of this essay. But I have answered it in my own way. What am I, a -novel-writer, trying to do? I am trying, with such limited means as I -have at my disposal, to make little pocket-theatres out of words. I am -trying to be architect, scene-painter, upholsterer, dramatist and -stage-manager, all at once. Is it any wonder if we novelists do not -succeed as well as we could wish, when we try to be masters of so many -trades? - -Nor is this all. The great development of the modern superficial -education in society has brought with it a thirst for knowledge which -adds considerably to the difficulties of the novelist’s art. There are -few sciences, few of the arts, few of the branches of learning, in which -the reading public does not take some sort of interest. That interest is -not a profound one, but with its growth encyclopædias, primers, and -“cram-books” have multiplied exceedingly on the face of the earth. Upon -the slightest suspicion the reader accuses the author of inaccuracy, -goes to his own, or his friend’s, or the Public Library’s bookshelves, -takes down the “Encyclopædia Britannica,” the “Century Dictionary,” or -“Larousse,” and with cruel directness sets the author right. We are -expected to be omniscient, to understand the construction of the -telephone, the latest theories concerning the cholera microbe, the -mysteries of hypnotism, the Russian language, and the nautical -dictionary. We are supposed to be intimately acquainted with the -writings of Macrobius, the music of Wagner, and the Impressionist school -of painting. In these days when there has been much discussion -concerning the authorship of Shakespeare’s plays,--concerning which -“Punch” wisely said they were probably written by another man of the -same name,--the principal argument against Bacon’s authorship of them -seems to me to be this: No one man of whom we have ever known anything -can be conceived capable of having produced such an enormous body of -thoughtful work as is contained in what is attributed to Shakespeare and -in what is known to have been written by Bacon. And yet, for the sake of -a little profit and the inducement of a modicum of glory, we authors are -sometimes expected to rival both. The absurdity of this is apparent to -the most ordinary mind and painfully so to the ordinary critic, who, -though he may never have written a book, may very possibly know more -than we do about some subjects upon which we are obliged to write. Dr. -Johnson, it will be remembered, said that a man need not be a -coach-builder in order to say that a carriage is well made. I am aware -that many persons will think my statement exaggerated, or, if they do -not, will say that they prefer an honest love story to a tale involving -the intricacies of the modern invention. And I believe there has been a -reaction in this respect. With regard to the play, it is the opinion of -some of the best actors and most successful managers now alive, that the -public, if it really knew what it wanted, instead of being forced to -feed upon what it gets, would demand real, old-fashioned love pieces -rather than comedies, dramas and melodramas, in which the leading actor -is the mechanician and the hero of the piece is little more than a -“walking gentleman.” On my theory that the novel is, or should be, a -play, the same must be approximately true about fiction. An acquaintance -with the developments of modern science cannot do more than lend a -modern colour to the story, and so far as that goes the more closely -acquainted we are with such things, the better for us. But no one has a -right to demand that we should know everything, in order to find fault -with us if we lose our heads over the reversing gear of a locomotive or -the most approved fashion of rigging a top-gallant studding-sail boom. - -One may be pardoned for asking sometimes whether the advance of science -does not almost mean the retreat of thought. Again I protest against -the accusation of smart writing, which is so easily brought, so hard to -bear, and so difficult to refute. I do not mean that science thinks less -as she progresses, but I do mean to say that there is much in favour of -the _homo unius libri_--the man of one book--the man who reads less and -thinks more than his fellows. The wonders of science are very -attractive, many of them are decidedly spectacular and may be used by -the author to amuse when he cannot interest, but I doubt whether books -which depend upon them for success will be much more popular fifty years -hence than “Sandford and Merton” or Paley’s “Evidences of Christianity” -are in our time. At that not distant future date, our grandchildren -will probably look upon our quoted wonders and marvels with about as -much interest as we regard the experiment of asphyxiating a mouse under -the receiver of an air-pump, or making a piece of paper stick to a piece -of rubbed sealing-wax and explaining that it is electricity. Yet, to -take an instance, medicine and surgery play a considerable part in -modern light literature, and the fire-engine is a distinct feature on -the modern stage. Generally speaking, I venture to say that anything -which fixes the date of the novel not intended to be historical is a -mistake, from a literary point of view. It is not wise to describe the -cut of the hero’s coat, nor the draping of the heroine’s gown, the shape -of her hat, nor the colour of his tie. Ten years hence somebody may buy -the book and turn up his nose at “those times.” Until a date which may -still be called recent, it was customary to play Shakespeare with the -dress of modern times. Garrick, I think, played Macbeth in a full -bottomed wig. I may be wrong, but I have the impression that what we -call stage costume first became common in his days and to some extent by -his individual efforts. In Shakespeare’s times, Achilles in “Troilus and -Cressida” dressed like Sir Walter Raleigh, and Cymbeline perhaps like -Henry VIII., to give himself an air of antiquity. But there was nothing -absurd about the plays for all that, because they did not depend upon -such trifles as dresses, ruffles--or fire-engines for the emotions they -excited in the hearts of their listeners. - - -The danger of falling into absurdities lies not in anachronisms of -dress, but in speeches that contradict sentiments, and actions that -belie the character. We need not go far to find truth, but having begun -our search in one direction, we must not wander to another, or we shall -fall out of the natural sequence of events upon which we depend for the -effect of reality. For a man of superior gifts there is an easy but -dangerous way out of the difficulty. Instead of inventing his characters -he may take men and women who have really lived and played parts in the -world’s story and have made love, so to say, in the face of all -humanity. In other words, he may write an historical novel. - -The historical novel occupies a position apart and separate from others, -but it does not follow that it should not conform exactly to the -conditions required of an ordinary work of fiction, though it must -undoubtedly possess other qualities peculiar to itself. It is doubtful -whether any genuine historical novel has ever yet been written for the -sake of the history it contains. In nine cases out of ten the writer has -selected his subject because it interests him, because it has dramatic -elements, and possibly because he hopes to interest his readers more -readily by means of characters and events altogether beyond the reach of -the carping critic. If this is not the case, it is hard indeed to see -why the historical novel should be written at all, seeing that it is -neither fish, flesh, nor fowl, but salad. It is indeed a regrettable -fact, but also an indubitable one, that a good many people of our time -have derived their knowledge of French history from the novels of -Alexandre Dumas, and of some of the most important events in the story -of the British Empire from those of Walter Scott. But no one pretends -that such books are history deserving to be taught as such, and the -writers certainly made no such pretensions themselves. Where fact and -fiction are closely linked together, the elements may obviously be mixed -in an infinite variety, and in any possible degree of relative -intensity--all wine and no water, or almost all water and no wine to -speak of. Provided that no attempt is made to palm off the historical -novel as a school-book, there can be no real objection to it on other -grounds. - -It seems quite certain that the oldest form of dramatic art dealt solely -with subjects considered at the time to be historical, or which -constituted articles of belief. The Greek dramatists founded all their -plays, without exception, so far as I know, upon history, myths, or -traditions, either religious or secular, and produced works of -unrivalled beauty and enduring strength. Some one once called the novel -the “modern epic.” There is just enough truth in the saying to give it -social currency in conversation, but it is true, so far as we know, -that the ancient epic preceded the ancient drama, creating the taste and -the demand for emotions which the dramatists subsequently satisfied, and -it was perhaps because the epic was wholly historical in a measure, that -the drama was founded upon an historical basis. The average novelist -likes to make use of historical facts principally because he knows that -his critics cannot impugn the possibility of the situations he uses, -while the latter are so strong in themselves as to bear the burden of -the writer’s faults with comparative ease, if his talents are not -remarkable. If he is a man of genius, he gets a certain amount of very -valuable liberty by doing his “sensation work” with tragic facts widely -known, which help to produce in the reader’s mind an _a priori_ -impression of interest, perfectly legitimate because perfectly well -grounded, but enormously in the writer’s favour. Altogether there is -much to be said for the historical novel, if we take the view that the -novel itself is but a portable play; and there is no especial reason why -we should be so desperately true to the definitions of common parlance -as to say that the novel must be a work of fiction and nothing else. But -in the case of the historical novel there is a very important proviso -which must never be forgotten under any circumstances. It must be good. -The ordinary story may be bad from an artistic point of view, and may -nevertheless succeed as a literary speculation; but in treating of -history, where the personages are great and the events are of stupendous -import, the distance which separates the sublime from the ridiculous is -even less than the step to which Tom Payne limited it. No author can -make Julius Cæsar, Mary Stuart, or Louis XIV ridiculous; but no writer -should forget that they can make a laughing-stock of him in his book -almost as easily as they could have done in real life. On the whole, -therefore, the historical novel is always likely to prove more dangerous -to the writer than to the reader, since, when it fails to be a great -book, it will in all likelihood be an absurd one. For historical facts -are limitations, and he who subjects himself to them must be willing to -undertake all the responsibility they imply. Nothing is easier than to -write a fantastic tale against which no criticism can be brought beyond -a vague statement that it is dull or worthless, and not worth reading; -but so soon as a man deals with events which have actually taken place, -he is bounded on all sides by a multitude of details with which he must -be acquainted and from which he cannot escape. I have sometimes wondered -whether Walter Savage Landor did not really meditate writing an -historical novel at some time during the evolution of the “Imaginary -Conversations.” More than one work of the kind, and assuredly of the -highest order, must have presented itself to his mind, since he -possessed in a supreme degree the power most necessary to the historical -novelist, that of seizing the dramatic points in the lives of historical -personages and of creating splendid dramatic dialogues without at any -time compromising undoubted facts. In other words, he knew how to -combine the romantic and the real in such true and just proportions as -to demonstrate clearly that they may and should go hand in hand. And -this brings us back to the great question of romance and realism, two -words which can hardly fail to drop from the modern writer’s pen in -treating of such a subject. - - -There is much talk in our day of the realistic school of fiction, and -the romantic school, though not often mentioned, is understood to be -opposed to it. Of course, it is easy to enter into a long discussion -about the exact meanings of the two words; but, on the whole, it seems -to be true that if the people who talk about schools of fiction mean -anything or wish to mean anything, which sometimes seems doubtful, they -mean this: the realist proposes to show men what they are; the romantist -tries to show men what they should be. It is very unlikely that mankind -will ever agree as to the relative merits of these two, and the -discussion which was practically begun in Plato’s time is not likely to -end so long as people care what they read or what they think. The most -any one can do is to give a personal opinion, and that means, of course, -that he who expresses it commits himself and publicly takes either the -one side or the other. For my part, I believe that more good can be done -by showing men what they may be, ought to be, or can be, than by -describing their greatest weaknesses with the highest art. We all know -how bad we are; but it needs much encouragement to persuade some of us -to believe that we can really be any better. To create genuine interest, -and afford rest and legitimate amusement, without losing sight of that -fact, and to do so in a more or less traditional way, seems to be the -profession of the novelist who belongs to the romantic persuasion. - -That novel-writing is a business I am credibly informed by my -publishers. And since that is the case, it must be taken for granted -that it is a business which to some extent must be practised like any -other and which will succeed or fail in the hands of any particular man -according as he is more or less fitted to carry it on. The -qualifications for any business are three: native talent, education, and -industry. Where there is success of the right kind, the talent and power -of application must be taken for granted. The education is and always -must be a question of circumstance. With regard to novel-writing, when I -speak of education I am not referring to it in the ordinary sense. Some -people take a great deal of interest in concrete things, while others -care more for humanity. The education of a novelist is the experience of -men and women which he has got at first hand in the course of his own -life, for he is of that class to whom humanity offers a higher interest -than inanimate nature. He can use nature and art only as a scene and -background upon which and before which his personages move and have -their being. It is his business to present his readers with something -which I have called the pocket-theatre, something which every man may -carry in his pocket, believing that he has only to open it in order to -look in upon the theatre of the living world. To produce it, to prepare -it, to put it into a portable and serviceable shape, the writer must -know what that living world is, what the men in it do and what the women -think, why women shed tears and children laugh and young men make love -and old men repeat themselves. While he is writing his book, his human -beings must be with him, before him, moving before the eye of his mind -and talking into the ear of his heart. He must have lived himself; he -must have loved, fought, suffered, and struggled in the human battle. I -would almost say that to describe another’s death he must himself have -died. - -All this accounts perhaps for the fact that readers are many and writers -few. The reader knows one side of life, his own, better than the writer -possibly can, and he reads with the greatest interest those books which -treat of lives like his own. But the writer must have seen and known -many phases of existence, and this is what the education of the novelist -means: to know and understand, so far as he is able, men and women who -have been placed in unusual circumstances. And this need not and should -not lead him into creating altogether imaginary characters, nor men and -women whose circumstances are not only unusual, but altogether -impossible. We see grotesque pieces given at the theatre--too grotesque -and too often given--which make us laugh, but never make us think. They -would not make good novels. The novel must amuse, indeed, but should -amuse reasonably, from an intellectual point of view, rather than as a -piece of good fun. Its object is to make one see men and women who might -really live, talk, and act as they do in the book, and some of whom one -would perhaps like to imitate. Its intention is to amuse and please, and -certainly not to teach or preach; but in order to amuse well it must be -a finely-balanced creation, neither hysterical with tears nor convulsed -with perpetual laughter. The one is as tiring as the other and, in the -long run, as unnatural. - - -It is easy, comparatively speaking, to appeal to the emotions, but it is -hard to appeal to the heart. This may sound somewhat contradictory at -first, but there is truth in it, nevertheless. The outward emotions are -in real life much more the expressions of the temperament than of what -we call the heart. We all know that there are men and women who laugh -and cry more easily than others, and we are rather inclined to believe -that these are not they who feel most deeply. A very difficult question -here presents itself. Bacon says somewhere that we are apt to extol the -powers of the human intellect without invoking its aid as often as we -might. This extolling of humanity has been a fashion of late years, and -it has not yet disappeared, though its popularity is waning fast. In -England Sir Andrew Clarke, M.D., has recently talked learnedly of “the -religion of the body,” and Lord Coleridge with eloquence of “the -religion of the mind.” These things are good enough, no doubt, but what -of the religion of the heart, which is after all the only religion there -is--if the heart is the earthly representative of the soul? There are -some people--fewer than is generally supposed--who really do not believe -in the existence of the soul. Let me tell them that they are very near -to denying the existence of the heart. Perhaps some of them do, and -they may live to repent of their unbelief in this world, if not in the -next. - -What is the heart, or, rather, what do we in common conversation and -writing understand by that word? It looks a great deal like attempting -to define belief, but belief has received an excellent definition, for -belief is knowledge and nothing else, so far as the individual who holds -it is concerned. What we call the heart in each man and woman seems to -mean the whole body of innate and inherited instincts, impulses, and -beliefs, taken together, and in that relation to one another in which -they stand after they have been acted upon throughout the individual’s -life by the inward vicissitudes and the outward circumstances to which -he has been exposed. When all this is quiescent I think we call it Self. -When roused to emotional activity we call it the Heart. But whatever we -call it, it is to this Self or Heart that everything which is ethic and -therefore permanent must appeal. - -The foundation of good fiction and good poetry seems to be ethic rather -than æsthetic. Everything in either which appeals to the taste, that is, -to the æsthetic side, may ultimately perish as a mere matter of fashion; -but that which speaks to man as man, independently of his fashions, his -habits, and his tastes, must live and find a hearing with humanity so -long as humanity is human. The right understanding of men and women -leads to the right relations of men and women, and in this way, if in -any, a novel may do good; when written to attain this end, it may live; -when addressed to the constant element in human nature, it has as good a -right and as good a chance of pleasing the men and women of the world in -our day, as it had to appeal to the intellect of Pericles or to thrill -the delicate sensibilities of Aspasia. Their novels were plays in -outward effect, as ours should be in inward substance, and we must needs -confess that the form in which their intellectual artistic luxuries were -presented to them was superior to that of the modern effort included in -four hundred pages at one dollar and twenty-five cents. Possibly, even -probably, it is unfair to us to compare ourselves with Sophocles, -Euripides, and Aristophanes; yet the comparison suggests itself if the -definition be true and if our novels really aspire to be plays. - -We have indeed something in our favour which the genuine playwright has -not. We appeal entirely to the imagination, and, unless we use algebraic -_formulæ_ or scientific discussion, we give no standard measure in our -books by which to judge the whole. We can call up surroundings which -never were and never can be possible in the world, and if we are able to -do it well enough we can put impossible characters upon our stage and -make them do impossible things, and the whole, acting upon a -predisposed imagination, may create for the moment something almost like -belief in the mind of the reader. We can conceive a tale fantastic -beyond the bounds of probability, and if there be a touch of nature in -it, we may for a while transport our readers into Fairyland. We can -clothe all of this in poetic language if our command of the English -tongue be equal to the occasion, and we can lend pathos to a monster and -heroism to a burlesque man. But the writer of plays for the real theatre -cannot do this; if he does, he makes that which in theatrical language -is called a “burlesque” or a “spectacle”; or, if he be a follower of the -“decadent school,” he may produce what he has decided to call by a new -name--a production not always conducive to a high belief in human -nature. - -The writer of plays, if he write them for actual performance, has living -interpreters, and they and he are judged by the standards of real life. -He is to a great extent dependent upon his actors for the effect he -hopes to produce, and they are dependent not only upon him, upon their -individual education, depth of feeling, and power of expression, but -also upon the material conditions and surroundings in which they have to -do their work. The most dramatic scene of real life, if it actually took -place on the stage of a theatre, would seem a very dull and tame affair -to any one who chanced to find himself in the body of the house. The -fundamental lack of interest, until it has been artificially aroused, is -a gulf not to be bridged by such simple means as being really “natural.” -The art of the actor lies in knowing the precise degree of exaggeration -necessary to produce the impression that he is not exaggerating at -all--but exaggeration there must be. Without it, neither the words nor -the actions can speak or appeal to the intelligence of the spectator. - -But we novelists are in an easier position in our relation to our -audience. We are granted many privileges and have many advantages which -the playwright has not; for we can appeal to the heart almost directly -without the conscious intervention of practised eyes and ears, used to -realities and eager to judge by real standards. We speak of Edwin’s -great height, broad shoulders, noble features and silken moustache, and -are not obliged to look out for an actor who shall fulfil these -conditions of manly beauty before we can be heard without being -ridiculous. Angelina’s heavy hair is a fact on paper; on the stage it is -a wig, and must be a good one. Her liquid blue eyes are blue because we -say they are; but it would annoy a playwright to find that his leading -actress had light gray ones, when Edwin must compare them to the depths -of the blackest night. - - -All this is rather frivolous, perhaps; but a little frivolity is to the -point here, since there can be no amusement without a dash of it, and we -profess to provide diversion to meet the public demand. With most men -who have moulded, hacked, and chiselled the world into history, to think -has been to act. With us novelists, so far as the world need know us, to -think is to dream, and perhaps to dream only little dreams of merely -passing significance. Few novelists are poets; only one or two have been -statesmen; none have been conquerors. I suppose we are very -insignificant figures compared with the great ones of this earth; but -to our comfort we may dream, and if we need consolation we may console -ourselves, as Montaigne puts it, with the art which small souls have to -interest great ones, “_L’art qu’ont les petites âmes d’intéresser les -grandes._” - -Frivolity is not weakness, though in excess it may be a weakness. -“_Carpe diem_” is a good motto for the morning, but in the evening -“_Dulce desipere in loco_” is not to be despised as a piece of advice. -The frivolities of great men and famous women have filled volumes of -memoirs, and are not without interest to the little, as our little -interests do not always seem dull to the great. The greater men are, the -more heart they have, good or bad, and the easier it is to affect them -through it, through the multiform feelings which their varied lives have -created within them, or through the few strong sentiments by which most -of them are ruled, guided, or impelled according as they are -conscientious, calculating, or impulsive, and to some extent according -to their nationality, a matter which has almost as much to do with the -author’s dream as with the reader’s subjective interpretation of it, and -which largely determines the balance between sentiment and -sentimentality. - -Sentiment heightens the value of works of fiction as sentimentality -lowers it. Sentimentality is to sentiment as sensuality to passion. The -distinction is not a fine one and has grown common enough in our day to -be universally understood. We owe it, I think, to the international -balance of sentiment and sentimentality that the novelists of the -present day are the French, Anglo-Saxons, and Russians. With all due -respect to the great German intelligence, it does not seem capable of -producing what we call a novel though it turns out most excellent plays. -The German mind, measured by our standard, is sentimental, not romantic. -Perhaps there is as much romance to be found in the history and -traditions of Germany up to a date which I should place at about forty -years ago as there is anywhere in the civilised world. Yet for some -reason or other, the modern German, as I have said, seems to be more -sentimental than romantic in his habits of thought and feeling. - -It is not possible in a paper of this length to inquire into the -foundations of sentimentality and romance. Practically, however, what we -call a romantic life is one full of romantic incidents which come -unsought, as the natural consequence and result of a man’s or a woman’s -character. It is therefore necessarily an exceptional life, and as such -should have exceptional interest for the majority. When our lives are -not filled with emotions, they are too often crammed with insignificant -details too insignificant to bear recording in a novel, but yet making -up for each of us all the significance life has. The great emotions are -not every-day phenomena, and it is the desire to experience them -vicariously which creates the demand for fiction and thereby and at the -same time a demand for emotion. This is felt more particularly nowadays -than formerly. - -There was a great deal of artificiality in the last century, and I -believe very little real emotion or true sentiment. The evidences of the -truth of this statement appear sufficiently, I think, in the current -literature, the music, and the social manners of that time. Of the three -the music alone has survived. Musicians constitute, in a certain sense, -a caste, not unlike the Christian priesthood or the Buddhist -brotherhood. Their art is more distinctly handed down from teacher to -scholar, from master to pupil, than any other, and this may perhaps -account for their unwillingness to break through their traditions and -accepted rules. Few persons, however, can listen to an average symphony -for orchestra, or sonata for piano, especially to the _allegro_ -movements, without being struck by the utter conventionality and -artificiality of many parts of the production. This, it seems to me, is -not due to the instinct of the musician, nor to the taste of the musical -public, but is a distinct survival of a former existence, as much as the -caudal appendage or the buttons on the backs of our coats. This is -probably rank heresy from the musical point of view, and, like all I say -here, is a mere personal opinion; but to judge by analogy from the -remains of other arts cultivated a hundred years ago, there seems to be -some foundation for it. Can any one see such plays acted, for instance, -as Sheridan’s, without being forcibly struck by the total absence of -spontaneity and the absolute submission to social routine of the average -society man and woman of those days. Sheridan’s comedies are undoubtedly -as true to their times on the one hand as they are to human nature on -the other, but the humanity of them is thrown into vivid and strong -relief by the artificiality of the elements in the midst of which the -chief actors have their being. As for the literature, it is hardly -necessary for me to defend the statement that it was conventional. -There was an intellectual dress, as it were, put on by the man of genius -of those times. It hung loosely upon Goldsmith’s irregular frame. It sat -close, well-fitting and fashionable upon Addison, but Samuel Johnson’s -mighty limbs almost burst its seams and betrayed at every movement the -giant who wore it. On a sudden the fashion changed, and it has not done -changing yet. - -The French Revolution seems to have introduced an emotional phase into -social history, and to it we must attribute directly or indirectly many -of our present tastes and fashions. With it began the novel in France. -With it the novel in the English language made a fresh start and assumed -a new form. To take a very simple view of the question, I should like -to hazard, as a guess, the theory that when the world had lived at a -very high pressure during the French Revolution, the wars of Napoleon, -and what has been called the “awakening of the peoples,” it had acquired -permanently “the emotional habit,” just as a man who takes opium or -morphia cannot do without the one or the other. There was a general -desire felt to go on experiencing without dangerous consequences those -varying conditions of hope, fear, disappointment and triumph in which -the whole world’s nervous system had thrilled daily during so many years -and at such fearful cost. The children of the women who had gone to the -scaffold with Marie Antoinette, the sons of the men who had charged -with Murat, who had stood by La Tour d’Auvergne, or who had fired their -parting shot with Ney, were not satisfied to dwell in returning peace -and reviving prosperity with nothing but insipid tales of shepherds and -shepherdesses to amuse them. They wanted sterner, rougher stuff. They -created a demand, and it was forthwith supplied, and their children and -children’s children have followed their progenitors’ footsteps in war -and have adopted their tastes in peace. - - -Modern civilisation, too, has done what it could to stir the hearts of -men. Evil communications corrupt good manners, and it is not a play upon -words to say that the increased facility of actual communications has -widened and deepened those channels of communication which are evil, and -increased at the same time the demand for all sorts of emotion, bad or -good. Not that emotion of itself is bad. It is often the contrary. Even -the momentary reflection of true love is a good thing in itself. It is -good that men and women should realise that a great affection is, or can -be, a reality to many as well as a convenient amusement or a -heart-rending drama to a few. - -Modern civilisation has created modern vices, modern crimes, modern -virtues, austerities, and generosities. The crimes of to-day were not -dreamed of a hundred years ago, any more than the sublimity of the good -deeds done in our time to remedy our time’s mistakes. And between the -angel and the beast of this ending century lie great multitudes of -ever-shifting, ever-changing lives, neither very bad nor very good, but -in all cases very different from what lives used to be in the good old -days when time meant time and not money. There, too, in that vast land -of mediocrities, emotions play a part of which our grandfathers never -heard, and being real, of the living, and of superior interest to those -who feel them, reflect themselves in the novel of to-day, diverting the -course of true love into very tortuous channels and varying the tale -that is ever young with features that are often new. Within a short few -months I myself have lived in a land where modern means of communication -are not, and I have come to live here, where applied science is doing -her best to eliminate distance as a factor from the equation of -exchanges, financial and intellectual. The difference between the -manifestations of human feeling in Southern Italy and North America is -greater and wider than can be explained in intelligible terms. Yet it -is but skin-deep. Sentiment, sentimentality, taste, fashion, daily -speech, acquired science, and transmitted tradition cleanse, soil, -model, or deface the changing shell of mutable mortality, and nothing -which appeals to that shell alone can have permanent life; but the prime -impulses of the heart are, broadly speaking, the same in all ages and -almost in all races. The brave man’s beats as strongly in battle to-day, -the coward’s stands as suddenly still in the face of danger, boys and -girls still play with love, men and women still suffer for love, and the -old still warn youth and manhood against love’s snares--all that and -much more comes from depths not reached by civilisations nor changed by -fashions. Those deep waters the real novel must fathom, sounding the -tide-stream of passion and bringing up such treasures as lie far below -and out of sight--out of reach of the individual in most cases--until -the art of the story-teller makes him feel that they are or might be -his. Cæsar commanded his legionaries to strike at the face. Humanity, -the novelist’s master, bids him strike only at the heart. - - - THE END - - * * * * * - -LIST OF WORKS -BY -MR. F. MARION CRAWFORD. - -Uniformly bound in Cloth. =12mo.= -=Price=, $1.00 each. - - -_Just Published._ -CHILDREN OF THE KING. -A Tale of Southern Italy. - -MACMILLAN & CO. take pleasure in announcing that they have made -arrangements to add the following volumes (with the author’s latest -revisions) to their uniform edition of the works of Mr. F. Marion -Crawford, thereby enabling them to issue a complete edition of all his -novels. - - -A ROMAN SINGER. -_Now Ready._ -New Edition, revised and corrected. - - -TO LEEWARD. -_February._ - - -PAUL PATOFF. -_March._ - - -AN AMERICAN POLITICIAN._April._ -New Edition, revised and partly rewritten. - - * * * * * - -The Saracinesca Series. - -“His greatest achievement is the group of three novels on Modern Italy. -The three books present a wonderfully vivid picture of Italian social -life.”--_N. Y. Life._ - - -SARACINESCA. - -“His highest achievement, as yet, in the realms of fiction. The work has -two distinct merits, either of which would serve to make it great,--that -of telling a perfect story in a perfect way, and of giving a graphic -picture of Roman society in the last days of the Pope’s temporal -power.... The story is exquisitely told.”--_Boston Traveller._ - -“One of the most engrossing novels we have ever read.”--_Boston Times._ - - -SANT’ ILARIO. - -A Sequel to “Saracinesca.” - -“A singularly powerful and beautiful story.... Admirably developed, with -a naturalness beyond praise.... It brings out what is most impressive in -human action, without owing any of its effectiveness to sensationalism -or artifice.”--_New York Tribune._ - - -DON ORSINO. - -A Continuation of “Saracinesca” and -“Sant’ Ilario.” - -“The third in a remarkable series of novels dealing with three -generations of the Saracinesca family, entitled respectively -‘Saracinesca,’ ‘Sant’ Ilario,’ and ‘Don Orsino,’ and these novels -present an important study of Italian life, customs, and conditions -during the present century. The ‘new Italy’ is strikingly revealed in -‘Don Orsino.’”--_Boston Budget._ - -“We are inclined to regard the book as the most ingenious of all Mr. -Crawford’s fictions. Certainly it is the best novel of the -season.”--_Evening Bulletin._ - -“The plot of the story (‘Don Orsino’) is one of the best that the author -has constructed. The mystery of Maria Consuelo’s birth and her relation -to Spicca is most ingenious, continually suggesting a false trail to the -reader, and its end surprising and satisfying him with its adequateness. -When you combine all these things with a wonderful beauty of diction and -facility of expression, you have that very difficult achievement--a -thoroughly good modern romance.”--_Life._ - - The three volumes in a box, $3.00. - Half morocco, $8.00. Half calf, $7.50. - - -THE THREE FATES. - -“Mr. Crawford has manifestly brought his best qualities as a student of -human nature and his finest resources as a master of an original and -picturesque style to bear upon this story. Taken for all in all it is -one of the most pleasing of all his productions in fiction, and it -affords a view of certain phases of American, or perhaps we should say -of New York, life that have not hitherto been treated with anything like -the same adequacy and felicity.”--_Boston Beacon._ - - -THE WITCH OF PRAGUE. - -A Fantastic Tale. - -ILLUSTRATED BY W. J. HENNESSY. - -“Mr. Crawford has written in many keys, but never in so strange a one as -that which dominates ‘The Witch of Prague.’... The artistic skill with -which this extraordinary story is constructed and carried out is -admirable and delightful.... Mr. Crawford has scored a decided triumph, -for the interest of the tale is sustained throughout.... A very -remarkable, powerful, and interesting story.”--_New York Tribune._ - -“Mr. Crawford has not lost his oft-proved skill in holding his readers’ -attention, and there are single scenes and passages in this book that -rival in intensity anything he has ever written.”--_Christian Union._ - - -MR. ISAACS. - -A Tale of Modern India. - -“The characters are original, and one does not recognize any of the -hackneyed personages who are so apt to be considered indispensable to -novelists, and which, dressed in one guise or another, are but the -marionettes, which are all dominated by the same mind, moved by the same -motive force. The men are all endowed with individualism and independent -life and thought.... There is a strong tinge of mysticism about the book -which is one of its greatest charms.”--_Boston Transcript._ - -“This is a fine and noble story. It has freshness like a new and -striking scene on which one has never looked before. It has character -and individuality. It has meaning. It is lofty and uplifting. It is -strongly, sweetly, tenderly written. It is in all respects an uncommon -novel.... In fine, ‘Mr. Isaacs’ is an acquaintance to be made.”--_The -Literary World._ - - -DR. CLAUDIUS. - -A True Story. - -“‘Dr. Claudius’ is surprisingly good, coming after a story of so much -merit as ‘Mr. Isaacs.’ The hero is a magnificent specimen of humanity, -and sympathetic readers will be fascinated by his chivalrous wooing of -the beautiful American countess.”--_Boston Traveller._ - -“The characters are strongly marked without any suspicion of caricature, -and the author’s ideas on social and political subjects are often -brilliant and always striking. It is no exaggeration to say that there -is not a dull page in the book, which is peculiarly adapted for the -recreation of student or thinker.”--_Living Church._ - - -WITH THE IMMORTALS. - -“Altogether an admirable piece of art worked in the spirit of a thorough -artist. Every reader of cultivated tastes will find it a book prolific -in entertainment of the most refined description, and to all such we -commend it heartily.”--_Boston Saturday Evening Gazette._ - -“The book will be found to have a fascination entirely new for the -habitual reader of novels. Indeed, Mr. Crawford has succeeded in taking -his readers quite above the ordinary plane of novel interest.”--_Boston -Advertiser._ - - -MARZIO’S CRUCIFIX. - -“We take the liberty of saying that this work belongs to the highest -department of character-painting in words.”--_Churchman._ - -“‘Marzio’s Crucifix’ is another of those tales of modern Rome which show -the author so much at his ease. A subtle compound of artistic feeling, -avarice, malice, and criminal frenzy is this carver of silver chalices -and crucifixes.”--_The Times._ - -“It is as if it could not have been written otherwise, so naturally does -the story unfold itself, and so logical and consistent is the sequence -of incident after incident. As a story, ‘Marzio’s Crucifix’ is perfectly -constructed.”--_New York Commercial Advertiser._ - - -KHALED. - -A Story of Arabia. - -“That it is beautifully written and holds the interest of the reader, -fanciful as it all is, to the very end, none who know the depth and -artistic finish of Mr. Crawford’s work need be told.”--_The Chicago -Times._ - -“It abounds in stirring incidents and barbaric picturesqueness; and the -love struggle of the unloved Khaled is manly in its simplicity and noble -in its ending. Mr. Crawford has done nothing better than, if he has done -anything as good as, ‘Khaled.’”--_The Mail and Express._ - - -A TALE OF A LONELY PARISH. - -“It is a pleasure to have anything so perfect of its kind as this brief -and vivid story.... It is doubly a success, being full of human -sympathy, as well as thoroughly artistic in its nice balancing of the -unusual with the commonplace, the clever juxtaposition of innocence and -guilt, comedy and tragedy, simplicity and intrigue.”--_Critic._ - -“It has no defects. It is neither trifling nor trivial. It is a work of -art. It is perfect.”--_Boston Beacon._ - - -ZOROASTER. - -“The field of Mr. Crawford’s imagination appears to be unbounded.... In -‘Zoroaster’ Mr. Crawford’s winged fancy ventures a daring flight.... Yet -‘Zoroaster’ is a novel rather than a drama. It is a drama in the force -of its situations and in the poetry and dignity of its language; but its -men and women are not men and women of a play. By the naturalness of -their conversation and behavior they seem to live and lay hold of our -human sympathy more than the same characters on a stage could possibly -do.”--_The Times._ - - -A CIGARETTE MAKER’S ROMANCE. - -“It is a touching romance, filled with scenes of great dramatic -power.”--_Boston Commercial Bulletin._ - -“It is full of life and movement, and is one of the best of Mr. -Crawford’s books.”--_Boston Saturday Evening Gazette._ - - -GREIFENSTEIN. - -“Another notable contribution to the literature of the day. It possesses -originality in its conception and is a work of unusual ability. Its -interest is sustained to the close, and it is an advance even on the -previous work of this talented author. Like all Mr. Crawford’s work, -this novel is crisp, clear, and vigorous, and will be read with a great -deal of interest.”--_New York Evening Telegram._ - - MACMILLAN & CO., NEW YORK. - - * * * * * - -Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber: - -of very valuaable=> of very valuable {pg 71} - - - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's The Novel; what it is, by F. 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Thus, we do not necessarily -keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. - - -Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: - - http://www.gutenberg.org - -This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, -including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to -subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/old/51010-0.zip b/old/51010-0.zip Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index b56eaf1..0000000 --- a/old/51010-0.zip +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/51010-8.txt b/old/51010-8.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 5b321bd..0000000 --- a/old/51010-8.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,1761 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Novel; what it is, by F. Marion Crawford - -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/license - - -Title: The Novel; what it is - -Author: F. Marion Crawford - -Release Date: January 23, 2016 [EBook #51010] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NOVEL; WHAT IT IS *** - - - - -Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images available at The Internet Archive) - - - - - - - - - - - - THE NOVEL - - [Illustration: image of colophon not available] - - [Illustration: image of F. Marion Crawford not available] - - - - - THE NOVEL - - WHAT IT IS - - BY - - F. MARION CRAWFORD - - Author of "Mr. Isaacs," "Dr. Claudius," "A Roman - Singer," etc. - - New York - - MACMILLAN AND COMPANY - AND LONDON - - 1893 - - _All rights reserved_ - - COPYRIGHT, 1893, - BY MACMILLAN AND CO. - - Norwood Press: - J. S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith. - Boston, Mass., U.S.A. - - - - -WHAT IS A NOVEL? - - -My answer can only be a statement of opinion, which I make with much -deference to the prejudices of my brethren. Whether it will be of -interest to general readers I do not know; but the question I propose is -in itself more or less vital as regards novel-writing. No one will deny -that truism. Before going to work it is important to know what one means -to do. I pretend, however, to no special gift for solving problems in -general or this one in particular. To give "the result of one's -experience," as the common phrase puts it, is by no means so easy as it -sounds. An intelligent man mostly knows what he means by his own words, -but it does not follow that he can convey that meaning to others. Almost -all discussion and much misunderstanding may fairly be said to be based -upon the difference between the definitions of common terms as -understood by the two parties. In the exact sciences there is no such -thing as discussion; there is the theorem and its demonstration, there -is the problem and its solution, from which solution and demonstration -there is no appeal. That is because, in mathematics, every word is -defined before it is used and is almost meaningless until it has been -defined. - -It has been remarked by a very great authority concerning the affairs of -men that "of making many books there is no end," and to judge from -appearances the statement is even more true to-day than when it was -first made. Especially of making novels there is no end, in these times -of latter-day literature. No doubt many wise and good persons and many -excellent critics devoutly wish that there might be; but they are not at -present strong enough to stand against us, the army of fiction-makers, -because we are many, and most of us do not know how to do anything else, -and have grown grey in doing this particular kind of work, and are -dependent upon it for bread as well as butter; and lastly and chiefly, -because we are heavily backed, as a body, by the capital of the -publisher, of which we desire to obtain for ourselves as much as -possible. Therefore novels will continue to be written, perhaps for a -long time to come. There is a demand for them and there is profit in -producing them. Who shall prevent us, authors and publishers, from -continuing the production and supplying the demand? - -This brings with it a first answer to the question, "What is a novel?" A -novel is a marketable commodity, of the class collectively termed -"luxuries," as not contributing directly to the support of life or the -maintenance of health. It is of the class "artistic luxuries" because it -does not appeal to any of the three material senses--touch, taste, -smell; and it is of the class "intellectual artistic luxuries," because -it is not judged by the superior senses--sight and hearing. The novel, -therefore, is an intellectual artistic luxury--a definition which can be -made to include a good deal, but which is, in reality, a closer one than -it appears to be at first sight. No one, I think, will deny that it -covers the three principal essentials of the novel as it should be, of a -story or romance, which in itself and in the manner of telling it shall -appeal to the intellect, shall satisfy the requirements of art, and -shall be a luxury, in that it can be of no use to a man when he is at -work, but may conduce to peace of mind and delectation during his hours -of idleness. The point upon which people differ is the artistic one, and -the fact that such differences of opinion exist makes it possible that -two writers as widely separated as Mr. Henry James and Mr. Rider -Haggard, for instance, find appreciative readers in the same year of the -same century--a fact which the literary history of the future will find -it hard to explain. - - -Probably no one denies that the first object of the novel is to amuse -and interest the reader. But it is often said that the novel should -instruct as well as afford amusement, and the "novel-with-a-purpose" is -the realisation of this idea. We might invent a better expression than -that clumsy translation of the neat German "_Tendenz-Roman_." Why not -compound the words and call the odious thing a "purpose-novel"? The -purpose-novel, then, proposes to serve two masters, besides procuring a -reasonable amount of bread and butter for its writer and publisher. It -proposes to escape from my definition of the novel in general and make -itself an "intellectual moral lesson" instead of an "intellectual -artistic luxury." It constitutes a violation of the unwritten contract -tacitly existing between writer and reader. So far as supply and demand -are concerned, books in general and works of fiction in particular are -commodities and subject to the same laws, statutory and traditional, as -other articles of manufacture. A toy-dealer would not venture to sell -real pistols to little boys as pop-guns, and a gun-maker who should try -to sell the latter for army revolvers would get into trouble, even -though he were able to prove that the toy was as expensive to -manufacture as the real article, or more so, silver-mounted, chiselled, -and lying in a Russia-leather case. I am not sure that the law might not -support the purchaser in an action for damages if he discovered at a -critical moment that his revolver was a plaything. It seems to me that -there is a similar case in the matter of novels. A man buys what -purports to be a work of fiction, a romance, a novel, a story of -adventure, pays his money, takes his book home, prepares to enjoy it at -his ease, and discovers that he has paid a dollar for somebody's views -on socialism, religion, or the divorce laws. - -Such books are generally carefully suited with an attractive title. The -binding is as frivolous as can be desired. The bookseller says it is "a -work of great power," and there is probably a sentimental dedication on -the fly-leaf to a number of initials to which a romantic appearance is -given by the introduction of a stray "St." and a few hyphens. The buyer -is possibly a conservative person, of lukewarm religious convictions, -whose life is made "barren by marriage, or death, or division"--and who -takes no sort of interest in the laws relating to divorce, in the -invention of a new religion, or the position of the labour question. He -has simply paid money, on the ordinary tacit contract between furnisher -and purchaser, and he has been swindled, to use a very plain term for -which a substitute does not occur to me. Or say that a man buys a seat -in one of the regular theatres. He enters, takes his place, preparing to -be amused, and the curtain goes up. The stage is set as a church, there -is a pulpit before the prompter's box, and the Right Reverend the Bishop -of the Diocese is on the point of delivering a sermon. The man would be -legally justified in demanding his money at the door, I fancy, and would -probably do so, though he might admit that the Bishop was the most -learned and edifying of preachers. There are indeed certain names and -prefixes to names which suggest serious reading, independently of the -words printed on the title-page of the book. If the Archbishop of -Canterbury, or General Booth, or the Emperor William published a novel, -for instance, the work might reasonably be expected to contain an -exposition of personal views on some question of the day. But in -ordinary cases the purpose-novel is a simple fraud, besides being a -failure in nine hundred and ninety-nine cases out of a thousand. - -What we call a novel may educate the taste and cultivate the -intelligence; under the hand of genius it may purify the heart and -fortify the mind; it should never under any circumstances be suffered to -deprave the one nor to weaken the other; it may stand for scores of -years--and a score of years is a long time in our day--as the exposition -of all that is noble, heroic, honest, and true in the life of woman or -man; but it has no right to tell us what its writer thinks about the -relations of labour and capital, nor to set up what the author conceives -to be a nice, original, easy scheme of salvation, any more than it has a -right to take for its theme the relative merits of the "broomstick-car" -and the "storage system," temperance, vivisection, or the "Ideal Man" of -Confucius. Lessons, lectures, discussions, sermons, and didactics -generally belong to institutions set apart for especial purposes and -carefully avoided, after a certain age, by the majority of those who -wish to be amused. The purpose-novel is an odious attempt to lecture -people who hate lectures, to preach at people who prefer their own -church, and to teach people who think they know enough already. It is -an ambush, a lying-in-wait for the unsuspecting public, a violation of -the social contract--and as such it ought to be either mercilessly -crushed or forced by law to bind itself in black and label itself -"Purpose" in very big letters. - - -In art of all kinds the moral lesson is a mistake. It is one thing to -exhibit an ideal worthy to be imitated, though inimitable in all its -perfection, but so clearly noble as to appeal directly to the -sympathetic string that hangs untuned in the dullest human heart; to -make man brave without arrogance, woman pure without prudishness, love -enduring yet earthly, not angelic, friendship sincere but not -ridiculous. It is quite another matter to write a "guide to morality" or -a "hand-book for practical sinners" and call either one a novel, no -matter how much fiction it may contain. Wordsworth tried the moral -lesson and spoiled some of his best work with botany and the Bible. A -good many smaller men than he have tried the same thing since, and have -failed. Perhaps "Cain" and "Manfred" have taught the human heart more -wisdom than "Matthew" or the unfortunate "idiot boy" over whom Byron was -so mercilessly merry. And yet Byron probably never meant to teach any -one anything in particular, and Wordsworth meant to teach everybody, -including and beginning with himself. - -There are, I believe, two recognised ways of looking at art: art for the -public or "art for art," to adopt the current French phrase. Might we -not say, Art for the buyer and art for the seller? Or is that too -practical a view to take of what is supposed to be so eminently -unpractical as art itself? Has it not been said similarly, and with -truth, that religion is for man, and not man for religion? Is it our -province to please those who read our works, or to force them to please -us by buying them? Do not these questions lie at the root of the -conflict between realism and romance? Are we to take Talleyrand's speech -as our guide?--"I have furnished you with an argument; I am not bound to -furnish you with an understanding." The story is old, but the position -it defines is as old as humanity. When a novelist turns prophet, it will -be time enough for him to convert his readers at the point of the pen. -Are we writers so vain as a class, and so proud of ourselves as men, as -to be above affording amusement to our readers without attempting to -comfort them, to teach or to preach to them? We are not poets, because -we cannot be. We are not genuine playwriters for many reasons; chiefly, -perhaps, because we are not clever enough, since a successful play is -incomparably more lucrative than a successful novel. We are not -preachers, and few of us would be admitted to the pulpit. We are not, as -a class, teachers or professors, nor lawyers, nor men of business. We -are nothing more than public amusers. Unless we choose we need not be -anything less. Let us, then, accept our position cheerfully, and do the -best we can to fulfil our mission, without attempting to dignify it with -titles too imposing for it to bear, and without degrading it by bringing -its productions down even a little way, from the lowest level of high -comedy to the highest level of buffoonery. It is good to make people -laugh; it is sometimes salutary to make them shed tears; it is best of -all to make our readers think--not too serious thoughts, nor such as -require an intimate knowledge of science and philosophy to be called -thoughts at all--but to think, and, thinking, to see before them -characters whom they might really like to resemble, acting in scenes in -which they themselves would like to take a part. In trying to amuse, let -us be consistent each in his own way, never giving our public a pretext -of appealing from Philip drunk to Philip sober. If we have poetry within -us, let us put such of it as is worth anything into our books, for -almost all poetry which deserves the name is good. But let us keep out -of our novels all that savours of preaching and teaching, for our -readers' sakes; and for our own, all such matter as is limited by modern -science, present fashion, and actual taste, and which consequently -imposes too wilful a limitation upon the permanence of our own work. - - -But I perceive that although this little essay is not a work of fiction, -I myself am falling into one of the errors which I have wished to point -out, for I am beginning to preach where I have no right to inculcate a -lesson, and mean only to express a purely personal opinion in the only -matter upon which a novelist is justified in expressing one at all. -Moreover, I hereby disclaim all intention of setting an example, since -in many points upon which I have touched I admit that I myself am the -last of literary sinners; and with this admission of fallibility and -confession of weakness I cry _peccavi_, and ask absolution of the -public. - -I do not wish to be accused of what is called smart writing. It is much -easier to attack than to defend and much more blessed to give hard -knocks than to receive them. A professed novelist is perhaps not a -competent judge of novels from the point of view which interests the -reader, and which is of course the reader's own. We know the _technique_ -of the trick better than the effect it produces, just as it is hard for -a conjuror to realise the sensations of the old gentleman in the -audience who finds a bowl of goldfish in his waistcoat pocket. We do not -all know one another's tricks, but we have a fair idea of the general -principle on which they are done and a very definite opinion about our -own business as compared with that of the parson or the professor. We -know our books from the inside and we see the strings of the puppets, -while the public only guesses at the mechanism as it sits before the -stage, watching the marionettes and listening to the voice from behind -the scenes. A novel is, after all, a play, and perhaps it is nothing but -a substitute for the real play with live characters, scene-shifting, and -footlights. But miracle-plays have gone out of fashion in modern times, -except at Ober-Ammergau. The purpose-novel is a miracle-play--and if it -be true that any really good novel can be dramatised, nothing short of -a miracle could put a purpose-novel on the boards. - -Most people have a very clear conception of what a good play ought to -be, and of the precise extent to which realism can be effective without -being offensive. But it is strange, and it is a bad sign of the times, -that persons who would not tolerate a coarse play read novels little, if -at all, short of indecent. An answer suggests itself which may be -comprehensive as an explanation, but is insufficient as an excuse. In -our Anglo-Saxon social system the young girl is everywhere, and, if the -shade of Sterne will allow me to say so, we temper the wind of our -realism to the sensitive innocence of the ubiquitous shorn lamb. Once -admit that the young girl is to have the freedom of our theatre, and it -follows, and ought to follow, and very generally does follow, that our -plays must be suited to maiden ears and eyes. It is a good thing that -this should be so, but the effect is rather strange. The men who hear -plays in English are not, perhaps, more moral than their contemporaries -of Paris, Vienna, and Berlin. We like to believe that our women are -better than those of foreign nations. We owe it to them to put more -faith in them because they are our own, our dear mothers and wives and -sisters and daughters, for whom, if we be men, we mean to do all that -men can do. But we are all men and women nevertheless, and human, and -we have the thoughts and the understanding of men and women and not of -school-girls. Yet the school-girl practically decides what we are to -hear at the theatre and, so far as our own language is concerned, -determines to a great extent what we are to read. - -But if we do not write for the young girl, who will? We have not the -advantage possessed by the French of satisfying the demands of young -people by translations from works in other languages. The young girl in -France, as a matter of fact, reads Walter Scott, Bulwer, and Dickens, -while her mother diverts her leisure with the more lively productions of -Paul Bourget, Guy de Maupassant, or possibly Balzac, whom all educated -Frenchmen and French-women are at least supposed to have read. The -advocate of a broader license in the English fiction of the future may -answer that the whole body of novels already in existence should be more -than sufficient for the delectation of "the young." Should the -development of the new school, however, lead to the creation of a -literature in our language, resembling, as a whole, that of the French, -our novel, in its present form, would soon cease to be written, and -those of the type which are already in existence would in a short time -be regarded as antiquated, dull, and savouring of the Sunday-school. -Youth, too, dislikes to be treated as youth. The old, who regretfully -long to be young again, may find some consolation in the ardent desire -of youth for mature years. Moreover, it is easier to lower the reader's -moral tone than to raise it ever so little. The ambition of all boys, -and probably of very many young girls, is to read such novels as their -parents do not habitually leave on the drawing-room table. Every boy -wants to read "Guy Livingstone," and most boys do, with or without their -mamma's permission, at a very early age. If we advanced so far as the -French realistic point of view, that book would become a common property -of boys and girls, and perhaps "Nana," or "Les Mensonges," would take -its place in the estimation of our children,--a consummation devoutly to -be prayed against. Our "books for the young" are not, on the whole, a -success, unless we are willing to modify the expression, and call them -books for the very young. There are not in existence, I believe, enough -really interesting, and yet perfectly harmless, novels to occupy the -vast amount of spare time which the young seem ready to devote to -literature, and which we, the workers, seek in vain. It is not always -easy to see--it is certainly not easy for us to explain--why we -novelists occasionally introduce a thought, a page, or a chapter in a -novel otherwise fit for a child's ears, which may have the effect, so to -say, of turning weak tea into bad whiskey. Yet most of us have done it, -contemplate doing it, or at least go so far as to wish that we might -allow ourselves the liberty. Perhaps, if that liberty were universally -granted, we should desire it less. Perhaps a number of my colleagues -will not admit that they desire it at all. I believe that in most cases -it is only a desire to escape from limitations not unlike those -overstepped when an author writes much in dialect. It looks as though it -might be easier to write interesting books with the help of the -knowledge of evil, as well as with the help of the knowledge of good; -and after a certain number of years of hard work a novelist -instinctively leans towards any method of lightening his labours which -presents itself to his tired imagination. If he yields once, he will -probably yield again and fall into the slipshod, careless ways for -which the overworked man is often cruelly, if not altogether unjustly, -blamed. For the public, which most of us acknowledge to be a perfectly -just body in the long run, is as thoroughly unforgiving as Justice -herself. "He has written himself out." How carelessly that little phrase -is often uttered! How terrible it is for any author to hear! It is -indeed a solemn _memento mori_, the phrase of all others of which we -dread the application to ourselves. For the romance of romancing soon -disappears. After the production of one, two, three, or half-a-dozen -novels, if the writer is really what we call "a professional," and must -go on writing as a business, he discovers how serious is the occupation -in which he is engaged. Half-a-dozen books, or less, will make a -reputation; ten will sustain one; twenty are in ordinary cases a career. -Does any one, not an author, who reads these lines guess at the labour, -the imagination, the industry, the set purpose, the courage, which are -necessary to produce a score of novels of an average good quality? And -if not, how can he understand the intense longing for a removal of -restraint, for a little more liberty that tempts the overwrought -intelligence into error? Far be it from me to appeal in any way to the -public pity, for my own sake or in behalf of others. We are no more to -be pitied when we break down than an old shoemaker who can no longer -see the point of his bristles, and not so much as a broken-winded -cab-horse that has never had any option in the choice of a career. Let -this be taken as an explanation, not as an apology. To judge from the -standards of some people, however, the worn-out novelist, whose works -have filled the shelves of the young girl of the period, might find -profitable employment if he would adopt the tenets of realism and write -for the jaded taste of those who, whether already old or what is called -still young, have exhausted their capacity for bread and milk and crave -red pepper and stimulants. - -The taste for "realism" is abroad, and in opposition to all this. Out -of the conflict arises that very curious production, the realistic novel -in English--than which no effort of human genius has sailed nearer to -the wind, so to say, since Goethe wrote his "Elective Affinities," which -an Anglo-Saxon young girl pronounced to be "a dull book all about -gardening." That our prevailing moral literary purity is to some extent -assumed--not fictitious--is shown by the undeniable fact that women who -blush scarlet, and men who feel an odd sensation of repulsion in reading -some pages of "Tom Jones" or "Peregrine Pickle," are not conscious of -any particular shock when their sensibilities are attacked in French. -Some of them call Zola a "pig" with great directness, but read all his -books industriously, and very often admit the fact. When they call him -names they forget that he writes for a great public of men and women, -not for young girls--and when they read him he makes them remember that -he is a great man--mistaken perhaps, possibly bad, mightily coarse to no -purpose, but great nevertheless--a Nero of fiction. But Zola's shadow, -seen through the veil of the English realistic novel, is a monstrosity -not to be tolerated. We see the apparent contradiction in our own taste -between our theory and our practice in reading, but we feel -instinctively that there is a foundation of justice to account for the -seeming discrepancy. Both are coarse, but the one is great and bold, -and the other is damned by its own smallness and meanness. The result of -the desire for realism in men who try to write realistic novels for the -clean-minded American and English girl is unsatisfactory. It is -generally a photograph, not a picture--a catalogue, not a description. - -A community of vices is a closer and more direct bond between human -beings than a community of virtues. This may be because vice needs -solidarity among those who yield to it in order to be tolerated at all, -whereas virtue is its own reward, as the proverb says, and is happily -very often its own protection--far more often than not, in our day. This -seems to be the reason why the realistic method is better suited to the -exposition of what is bad than of what is good. Wordsworth and Swinburne -are two realistic poets. Most people do not hesitate to call Wordsworth -the greater man. I need not express an opinion which few would care to -hear, but so far as the relative effect of their work is concerned it -can hardly be denied that, of the two, Swinburne appeals far more -strongly and directly to sinful humanity as it is. Wordsworth speaks to -the higher and more spiritual part of us, indeed, but too often in -language which rouses no response in the more human side of man's nature -which is most generally uppermost. These are but illustrations of my -meaning, not examples, which latter should be taken among novelists--a -task, however, which may be left to the discriminating reader. - - -It has always seemed to me that the perfect novel, as it ought to be, -exists somewhere in the state of the Platonic idea, waiting to be set -down on paper by the first man of genius who receives a direct literary -inspiration. It must deal chiefly with love; for in that passion all men -and women are most generally interested, either for its present reality, -or for the memories that soften the coldly vivid recollection of an -active past, and shed a tender light in the dark places of bygone -struggles, or because the hope of it brightens and gladdens the path of -future dreams. The perfect novel must be clean and sweet, for it must -tell its tale to all mankind, to saint and sinner, pure and defiled, -just and unjust. It must have the magic to fascinate and the power to -hold its reader from first to last. Its realism must be real, of three -dimensions, not flat and photographic; its romance must be of the human -heart and truly human, that is, of the earth as we all have found it; -its idealism must be transcendent, not measured to man's mind, but -proportioned to man's soul. Its religion must be of such grand and -universal span as to hold all worthy religions in itself. Conceive, if -possible, such a story, told in language that can be now simple, now -keen, now passionate, and now sublime--or rather, pray, do not conceive -it, for the modern novelist's occupation would suddenly be gone, and -that one book would stand alone of its kind, making all others worse -than useless--ridiculous, if not sacrilegious, by comparison. - -Why must a novel-writer be either a "realist" or a "romantist"? And, if -the latter, why "romanticist" any more than "realisticist"? Why should a -good novel not combine romance and reality in just proportions? Is there -any reason to suppose that the one element must necessarily shut out the -other? Both are included in every-day life, which would be a very dull -affair without something of the one, and would be decidedly incoherent -without the other. Art, if it is "to create and foster agreeable -illusions," as Napoleon is believed to have said of it, should -represent the real, but in such a way as to make it seem more agreeable -and interesting than it actually is. That is the only way to create "an -agreeable illusion," and by no other means can a novel do good while -remaining a legitimate novel and not becoming a sermon, a treatise, or a -polemic. - -It may reasonably be inquired whether the prevailing and still growing -taste for fiction expresses a new and enduring want of educated men and -women. The novel, as we understand the word, is after all a very recent -invention. Considering that we do not find it in existence until late in -the last century, its appearance must be admitted to have been very -sudden, its growth fabulously rapid, and its development enormous. The -ancients had nothing more like it than a few collections of humorous and -pathetic stories. The Orientals, who might be supposed to feel the need -of it even more than we do, had nothing but their series of fantastic -tales strung rather loosely together without general plan. Men and women -seem to have survived the dulness of the dark age with the help of the -itinerant story-teller. The novel is a distinctly modern invention, -satisfying a modern want. In the ideal state described with so much -accuracy by Mr. Bellamy, I believe the novel would not sell. It would be -incomprehensible, or it would not be a novel at all, according to our -understanding. Do away practically with the struggle for life, eliminate -all the unfit and make the surviving fittest perfectly comfortable--men -and women might still take a curious interest in our present -civilisation, but it would be of a purely historical nature. To -gratuitously invent a tale of a poor man fighting for success would seem -to them a piece of monstrously bad taste and ridiculously useless. Are -we tending to such a state as that? There are those who believe that we -are--but a faith able to remove mountains at "cut rates" will not be -more than enough to realise their hopes. - - -It may fairly be claimed that humanity has, within the past hundred -years, found a way of carrying a theatre in its pocket; and so long as -humanity remains what it is, it will delight in taking out its -pocket-stage and watching the antics of the actors, who are so like -itself and yet so much more interesting. Perhaps that is, after all, the -best answer to the question, "What is a novel?" It is, or ought to be, a -pocket-stage. Scenery, light, shade, the actors themselves, are made of -words, and nothing but words, more or less cleverly put together. A play -is good in proportion as it represents the more dramatic, passionate, -romantic, or humorous sides of real life. A novel is excellent according -to the degree in which it produces the illusions of a good play--but it -must not be forgotten that the play is the thing, and that illusion is -eminently necessary to success. - -Every writer who has succeeded has his own methods of creating such -illusion. Some of us are found out, and some of us are not; but we all -do the same thing in one way or another, consciously or unconsciously. -The tricks of the art are without number, simple or elaborate, easily -learned or hard to imitate, and many of us consider that we have a -monopoly of certain tricks we call our own, and are unreasonably angry -when a competitor makes use of them. - -The means, all subservient to language, are many, but the object is -always one: to make the reader realise as far as possible the writer's -conception of his story. - -That word "realise" has a greater value and a wider application upon the -question which I am endeavouring to treat so briefly than in ordinary -conversation. To realise means to make real from one's own standpoint, -to see as vividly through the imagination what is partially imaginary as -what is altogether imagined; in other words, to call up an image as -coincident with the representations of fact as truth itself. Of course, -in a printed book, the author has no means to attain this end excepting -language, and upon the terms of language employed must depend a very -large part of his success. Language is the tool with which he makes his -weapons, and these in their turn may vary in manufacture and temper -according to his requirements. The most powerful weapon of all is what -is most commonly called truth to nature. Goethe said of his "Wilhelm -Meister," "there is nothing in it which I have not lived and nothing -exactly as I lived it"; yet most people would call "Wilhelm Meister" a -fantastic book. Other means of producing an impression are local colour, -the use of dialects and foreign languages. Here I know I am touching -upon a very delicate point, and that I risk wounding the sensibilities -of many writers and attacking the individual tastes of many readers of -fiction. Nevertheless, the mention of the dialect-novel raises a -question which is before the literary grand jury of the world. Assuredly -every man has a prime right to make use of the material at his disposal; -and if some particular dialect forms a part of this stock in trade, he -is as free to employ it as an African traveller, for instance, is free -to introduce his own reminiscences into a novel, if he writes one. -Colour alone amuses some people, chiefly children. Small boys and girls -do not despise a kaleidoscope as a toy on a rainy day, and dialect -without dramatic interest is colour without form or outline, and some -novels in dialect are nothing more. But then, there are plenty of works -of fiction written in ordinary English which have not even that one -merit, and of these I do not wish to say anything. Take a really good -novel, however, in which more than half the pages are filled with -dialogues in a language not familiar to the English-speaking public as a -whole. Is not the writer wilfully limiting his audience, if not himself? -Is he not sacrificing his privilege of addressing all men, for the sake -of addressing a few in terms which they especially prefer? Is he not -preferring local popularity to broader and more enduring reputation? -Could he not, by the skilful use of description, by a clever handling -of grammar and a careful selection of words, produce an impression which -should be more widely felt, though less warmly received, perhaps, in -that one small public to which he appeals? Is he not, although he be a -first-rate man, often tempted to lapses of literary conscience by the -peculiar facilities he finds in the literary by-way he has chosen? How -much of what is screaming farce in the dialect of the few, would be -funny if translated into plain English for the many? Wit and humour are -intellectual, and when genuine are susceptible of being translated into -almost all languages; but dialect seems to me to rank with puns, and -with puns of a particular local character. A practical demonstration of -this is found in the fact that stories in dialect, when told and not -read, are duller than any other stories, unless the teller has the power -of imitating accents. Almost all limitations which a man willingly -assumes afford facilities for the sake of which he assumes them. - - -But this is not the place for a study of methods. So far as I have been -able, I have answered the question I asked, and which stands at the head -of this essay. But I have answered it in my own way. What am I, a -novel-writer, trying to do? I am trying, with such limited means as I -have at my disposal, to make little pocket-theatres out of words. I am -trying to be architect, scene-painter, upholsterer, dramatist and -stage-manager, all at once. Is it any wonder if we novelists do not -succeed as well as we could wish, when we try to be masters of so many -trades? - -Nor is this all. The great development of the modern superficial -education in society has brought with it a thirst for knowledge which -adds considerably to the difficulties of the novelist's art. There are -few sciences, few of the arts, few of the branches of learning, in which -the reading public does not take some sort of interest. That interest is -not a profound one, but with its growth encyclopdias, primers, and -"cram-books" have multiplied exceedingly on the face of the earth. Upon -the slightest suspicion the reader accuses the author of inaccuracy, -goes to his own, or his friend's, or the Public Library's bookshelves, -takes down the "Encyclopdia Britannica," the "Century Dictionary," or -"Larousse," and with cruel directness sets the author right. We are -expected to be omniscient, to understand the construction of the -telephone, the latest theories concerning the cholera microbe, the -mysteries of hypnotism, the Russian language, and the nautical -dictionary. We are supposed to be intimately acquainted with the -writings of Macrobius, the music of Wagner, and the Impressionist school -of painting. In these days when there has been much discussion -concerning the authorship of Shakespeare's plays,--concerning which -"Punch" wisely said they were probably written by another man of the -same name,--the principal argument against Bacon's authorship of them -seems to me to be this: No one man of whom we have ever known anything -can be conceived capable of having produced such an enormous body of -thoughtful work as is contained in what is attributed to Shakespeare and -in what is known to have been written by Bacon. And yet, for the sake of -a little profit and the inducement of a modicum of glory, we authors are -sometimes expected to rival both. The absurdity of this is apparent to -the most ordinary mind and painfully so to the ordinary critic, who, -though he may never have written a book, may very possibly know more -than we do about some subjects upon which we are obliged to write. Dr. -Johnson, it will be remembered, said that a man need not be a -coach-builder in order to say that a carriage is well made. I am aware -that many persons will think my statement exaggerated, or, if they do -not, will say that they prefer an honest love story to a tale involving -the intricacies of the modern invention. And I believe there has been a -reaction in this respect. With regard to the play, it is the opinion of -some of the best actors and most successful managers now alive, that the -public, if it really knew what it wanted, instead of being forced to -feed upon what it gets, would demand real, old-fashioned love pieces -rather than comedies, dramas and melodramas, in which the leading actor -is the mechanician and the hero of the piece is little more than a -"walking gentleman." On my theory that the novel is, or should be, a -play, the same must be approximately true about fiction. An acquaintance -with the developments of modern science cannot do more than lend a -modern colour to the story, and so far as that goes the more closely -acquainted we are with such things, the better for us. But no one has a -right to demand that we should know everything, in order to find fault -with us if we lose our heads over the reversing gear of a locomotive or -the most approved fashion of rigging a top-gallant studding-sail boom. - -One may be pardoned for asking sometimes whether the advance of science -does not almost mean the retreat of thought. Again I protest against -the accusation of smart writing, which is so easily brought, so hard to -bear, and so difficult to refute. I do not mean that science thinks less -as she progresses, but I do mean to say that there is much in favour of -the _homo unius libri_--the man of one book--the man who reads less and -thinks more than his fellows. The wonders of science are very -attractive, many of them are decidedly spectacular and may be used by -the author to amuse when he cannot interest, but I doubt whether books -which depend upon them for success will be much more popular fifty years -hence than "Sandford and Merton" or Paley's "Evidences of Christianity" -are in our time. At that not distant future date, our grandchildren -will probably look upon our quoted wonders and marvels with about as -much interest as we regard the experiment of asphyxiating a mouse under -the receiver of an air-pump, or making a piece of paper stick to a piece -of rubbed sealing-wax and explaining that it is electricity. Yet, to -take an instance, medicine and surgery play a considerable part in -modern light literature, and the fire-engine is a distinct feature on -the modern stage. Generally speaking, I venture to say that anything -which fixes the date of the novel not intended to be historical is a -mistake, from a literary point of view. It is not wise to describe the -cut of the hero's coat, nor the draping of the heroine's gown, the shape -of her hat, nor the colour of his tie. Ten years hence somebody may buy -the book and turn up his nose at "those times." Until a date which may -still be called recent, it was customary to play Shakespeare with the -dress of modern times. Garrick, I think, played Macbeth in a full -bottomed wig. I may be wrong, but I have the impression that what we -call stage costume first became common in his days and to some extent by -his individual efforts. In Shakespeare's times, Achilles in "Troilus and -Cressida" dressed like Sir Walter Raleigh, and Cymbeline perhaps like -Henry VIII., to give himself an air of antiquity. But there was nothing -absurd about the plays for all that, because they did not depend upon -such trifles as dresses, ruffles--or fire-engines for the emotions they -excited in the hearts of their listeners. - - -The danger of falling into absurdities lies not in anachronisms of -dress, but in speeches that contradict sentiments, and actions that -belie the character. We need not go far to find truth, but having begun -our search in one direction, we must not wander to another, or we shall -fall out of the natural sequence of events upon which we depend for the -effect of reality. For a man of superior gifts there is an easy but -dangerous way out of the difficulty. Instead of inventing his characters -he may take men and women who have really lived and played parts in the -world's story and have made love, so to say, in the face of all -humanity. In other words, he may write an historical novel. - -The historical novel occupies a position apart and separate from others, -but it does not follow that it should not conform exactly to the -conditions required of an ordinary work of fiction, though it must -undoubtedly possess other qualities peculiar to itself. It is doubtful -whether any genuine historical novel has ever yet been written for the -sake of the history it contains. In nine cases out of ten the writer has -selected his subject because it interests him, because it has dramatic -elements, and possibly because he hopes to interest his readers more -readily by means of characters and events altogether beyond the reach of -the carping critic. If this is not the case, it is hard indeed to see -why the historical novel should be written at all, seeing that it is -neither fish, flesh, nor fowl, but salad. It is indeed a regrettable -fact, but also an indubitable one, that a good many people of our time -have derived their knowledge of French history from the novels of -Alexandre Dumas, and of some of the most important events in the story -of the British Empire from those of Walter Scott. But no one pretends -that such books are history deserving to be taught as such, and the -writers certainly made no such pretensions themselves. Where fact and -fiction are closely linked together, the elements may obviously be mixed -in an infinite variety, and in any possible degree of relative -intensity--all wine and no water, or almost all water and no wine to -speak of. Provided that no attempt is made to palm off the historical -novel as a school-book, there can be no real objection to it on other -grounds. - -It seems quite certain that the oldest form of dramatic art dealt solely -with subjects considered at the time to be historical, or which -constituted articles of belief. The Greek dramatists founded all their -plays, without exception, so far as I know, upon history, myths, or -traditions, either religious or secular, and produced works of -unrivalled beauty and enduring strength. Some one once called the novel -the "modern epic." There is just enough truth in the saying to give it -social currency in conversation, but it is true, so far as we know, -that the ancient epic preceded the ancient drama, creating the taste and -the demand for emotions which the dramatists subsequently satisfied, and -it was perhaps because the epic was wholly historical in a measure, that -the drama was founded upon an historical basis. The average novelist -likes to make use of historical facts principally because he knows that -his critics cannot impugn the possibility of the situations he uses, -while the latter are so strong in themselves as to bear the burden of -the writer's faults with comparative ease, if his talents are not -remarkable. If he is a man of genius, he gets a certain amount of very -valuable liberty by doing his "sensation work" with tragic facts widely -known, which help to produce in the reader's mind an _a priori_ -impression of interest, perfectly legitimate because perfectly well -grounded, but enormously in the writer's favour. Altogether there is -much to be said for the historical novel, if we take the view that the -novel itself is but a portable play; and there is no especial reason why -we should be so desperately true to the definitions of common parlance -as to say that the novel must be a work of fiction and nothing else. But -in the case of the historical novel there is a very important proviso -which must never be forgotten under any circumstances. It must be good. -The ordinary story may be bad from an artistic point of view, and may -nevertheless succeed as a literary speculation; but in treating of -history, where the personages are great and the events are of stupendous -import, the distance which separates the sublime from the ridiculous is -even less than the step to which Tom Payne limited it. No author can -make Julius Csar, Mary Stuart, or Louis XIV ridiculous; but no writer -should forget that they can make a laughing-stock of him in his book -almost as easily as they could have done in real life. On the whole, -therefore, the historical novel is always likely to prove more dangerous -to the writer than to the reader, since, when it fails to be a great -book, it will in all likelihood be an absurd one. For historical facts -are limitations, and he who subjects himself to them must be willing to -undertake all the responsibility they imply. Nothing is easier than to -write a fantastic tale against which no criticism can be brought beyond -a vague statement that it is dull or worthless, and not worth reading; -but so soon as a man deals with events which have actually taken place, -he is bounded on all sides by a multitude of details with which he must -be acquainted and from which he cannot escape. I have sometimes wondered -whether Walter Savage Landor did not really meditate writing an -historical novel at some time during the evolution of the "Imaginary -Conversations." More than one work of the kind, and assuredly of the -highest order, must have presented itself to his mind, since he -possessed in a supreme degree the power most necessary to the historical -novelist, that of seizing the dramatic points in the lives of historical -personages and of creating splendid dramatic dialogues without at any -time compromising undoubted facts. In other words, he knew how to -combine the romantic and the real in such true and just proportions as -to demonstrate clearly that they may and should go hand in hand. And -this brings us back to the great question of romance and realism, two -words which can hardly fail to drop from the modern writer's pen in -treating of such a subject. - - -There is much talk in our day of the realistic school of fiction, and -the romantic school, though not often mentioned, is understood to be -opposed to it. Of course, it is easy to enter into a long discussion -about the exact meanings of the two words; but, on the whole, it seems -to be true that if the people who talk about schools of fiction mean -anything or wish to mean anything, which sometimes seems doubtful, they -mean this: the realist proposes to show men what they are; the romantist -tries to show men what they should be. It is very unlikely that mankind -will ever agree as to the relative merits of these two, and the -discussion which was practically begun in Plato's time is not likely to -end so long as people care what they read or what they think. The most -any one can do is to give a personal opinion, and that means, of course, -that he who expresses it commits himself and publicly takes either the -one side or the other. For my part, I believe that more good can be done -by showing men what they may be, ought to be, or can be, than by -describing their greatest weaknesses with the highest art. We all know -how bad we are; but it needs much encouragement to persuade some of us -to believe that we can really be any better. To create genuine interest, -and afford rest and legitimate amusement, without losing sight of that -fact, and to do so in a more or less traditional way, seems to be the -profession of the novelist who belongs to the romantic persuasion. - -That novel-writing is a business I am credibly informed by my -publishers. And since that is the case, it must be taken for granted -that it is a business which to some extent must be practised like any -other and which will succeed or fail in the hands of any particular man -according as he is more or less fitted to carry it on. The -qualifications for any business are three: native talent, education, and -industry. Where there is success of the right kind, the talent and power -of application must be taken for granted. The education is and always -must be a question of circumstance. With regard to novel-writing, when I -speak of education I am not referring to it in the ordinary sense. Some -people take a great deal of interest in concrete things, while others -care more for humanity. The education of a novelist is the experience of -men and women which he has got at first hand in the course of his own -life, for he is of that class to whom humanity offers a higher interest -than inanimate nature. He can use nature and art only as a scene and -background upon which and before which his personages move and have -their being. It is his business to present his readers with something -which I have called the pocket-theatre, something which every man may -carry in his pocket, believing that he has only to open it in order to -look in upon the theatre of the living world. To produce it, to prepare -it, to put it into a portable and serviceable shape, the writer must -know what that living world is, what the men in it do and what the women -think, why women shed tears and children laugh and young men make love -and old men repeat themselves. While he is writing his book, his human -beings must be with him, before him, moving before the eye of his mind -and talking into the ear of his heart. He must have lived himself; he -must have loved, fought, suffered, and struggled in the human battle. I -would almost say that to describe another's death he must himself have -died. - -All this accounts perhaps for the fact that readers are many and writers -few. The reader knows one side of life, his own, better than the writer -possibly can, and he reads with the greatest interest those books which -treat of lives like his own. But the writer must have seen and known -many phases of existence, and this is what the education of the novelist -means: to know and understand, so far as he is able, men and women who -have been placed in unusual circumstances. And this need not and should -not lead him into creating altogether imaginary characters, nor men and -women whose circumstances are not only unusual, but altogether -impossible. We see grotesque pieces given at the theatre--too grotesque -and too often given--which make us laugh, but never make us think. They -would not make good novels. The novel must amuse, indeed, but should -amuse reasonably, from an intellectual point of view, rather than as a -piece of good fun. Its object is to make one see men and women who might -really live, talk, and act as they do in the book, and some of whom one -would perhaps like to imitate. Its intention is to amuse and please, and -certainly not to teach or preach; but in order to amuse well it must be -a finely-balanced creation, neither hysterical with tears nor convulsed -with perpetual laughter. The one is as tiring as the other and, in the -long run, as unnatural. - - -It is easy, comparatively speaking, to appeal to the emotions, but it is -hard to appeal to the heart. This may sound somewhat contradictory at -first, but there is truth in it, nevertheless. The outward emotions are -in real life much more the expressions of the temperament than of what -we call the heart. We all know that there are men and women who laugh -and cry more easily than others, and we are rather inclined to believe -that these are not they who feel most deeply. A very difficult question -here presents itself. Bacon says somewhere that we are apt to extol the -powers of the human intellect without invoking its aid as often as we -might. This extolling of humanity has been a fashion of late years, and -it has not yet disappeared, though its popularity is waning fast. In -England Sir Andrew Clarke, M.D., has recently talked learnedly of "the -religion of the body," and Lord Coleridge with eloquence of "the -religion of the mind." These things are good enough, no doubt, but what -of the religion of the heart, which is after all the only religion there -is--if the heart is the earthly representative of the soul? There are -some people--fewer than is generally supposed--who really do not believe -in the existence of the soul. Let me tell them that they are very near -to denying the existence of the heart. Perhaps some of them do, and -they may live to repent of their unbelief in this world, if not in the -next. - -What is the heart, or, rather, what do we in common conversation and -writing understand by that word? It looks a great deal like attempting -to define belief, but belief has received an excellent definition, for -belief is knowledge and nothing else, so far as the individual who holds -it is concerned. What we call the heart in each man and woman seems to -mean the whole body of innate and inherited instincts, impulses, and -beliefs, taken together, and in that relation to one another in which -they stand after they have been acted upon throughout the individual's -life by the inward vicissitudes and the outward circumstances to which -he has been exposed. When all this is quiescent I think we call it Self. -When roused to emotional activity we call it the Heart. But whatever we -call it, it is to this Self or Heart that everything which is ethic and -therefore permanent must appeal. - -The foundation of good fiction and good poetry seems to be ethic rather -than sthetic. Everything in either which appeals to the taste, that is, -to the sthetic side, may ultimately perish as a mere matter of fashion; -but that which speaks to man as man, independently of his fashions, his -habits, and his tastes, must live and find a hearing with humanity so -long as humanity is human. The right understanding of men and women -leads to the right relations of men and women, and in this way, if in -any, a novel may do good; when written to attain this end, it may live; -when addressed to the constant element in human nature, it has as good a -right and as good a chance of pleasing the men and women of the world in -our day, as it had to appeal to the intellect of Pericles or to thrill -the delicate sensibilities of Aspasia. Their novels were plays in -outward effect, as ours should be in inward substance, and we must needs -confess that the form in which their intellectual artistic luxuries were -presented to them was superior to that of the modern effort included in -four hundred pages at one dollar and twenty-five cents. Possibly, even -probably, it is unfair to us to compare ourselves with Sophocles, -Euripides, and Aristophanes; yet the comparison suggests itself if the -definition be true and if our novels really aspire to be plays. - -We have indeed something in our favour which the genuine playwright has -not. We appeal entirely to the imagination, and, unless we use algebraic -_formul_ or scientific discussion, we give no standard measure in our -books by which to judge the whole. We can call up surroundings which -never were and never can be possible in the world, and if we are able to -do it well enough we can put impossible characters upon our stage and -make them do impossible things, and the whole, acting upon a -predisposed imagination, may create for the moment something almost like -belief in the mind of the reader. We can conceive a tale fantastic -beyond the bounds of probability, and if there be a touch of nature in -it, we may for a while transport our readers into Fairyland. We can -clothe all of this in poetic language if our command of the English -tongue be equal to the occasion, and we can lend pathos to a monster and -heroism to a burlesque man. But the writer of plays for the real theatre -cannot do this; if he does, he makes that which in theatrical language -is called a "burlesque" or a "spectacle"; or, if he be a follower of the -"decadent school," he may produce what he has decided to call by a new -name--a production not always conducive to a high belief in human -nature. - -The writer of plays, if he write them for actual performance, has living -interpreters, and they and he are judged by the standards of real life. -He is to a great extent dependent upon his actors for the effect he -hopes to produce, and they are dependent not only upon him, upon their -individual education, depth of feeling, and power of expression, but -also upon the material conditions and surroundings in which they have to -do their work. The most dramatic scene of real life, if it actually took -place on the stage of a theatre, would seem a very dull and tame affair -to any one who chanced to find himself in the body of the house. The -fundamental lack of interest, until it has been artificially aroused, is -a gulf not to be bridged by such simple means as being really "natural." -The art of the actor lies in knowing the precise degree of exaggeration -necessary to produce the impression that he is not exaggerating at -all--but exaggeration there must be. Without it, neither the words nor -the actions can speak or appeal to the intelligence of the spectator. - -But we novelists are in an easier position in our relation to our -audience. We are granted many privileges and have many advantages which -the playwright has not; for we can appeal to the heart almost directly -without the conscious intervention of practised eyes and ears, used to -realities and eager to judge by real standards. We speak of Edwin's -great height, broad shoulders, noble features and silken moustache, and -are not obliged to look out for an actor who shall fulfil these -conditions of manly beauty before we can be heard without being -ridiculous. Angelina's heavy hair is a fact on paper; on the stage it is -a wig, and must be a good one. Her liquid blue eyes are blue because we -say they are; but it would annoy a playwright to find that his leading -actress had light gray ones, when Edwin must compare them to the depths -of the blackest night. - - -All this is rather frivolous, perhaps; but a little frivolity is to the -point here, since there can be no amusement without a dash of it, and we -profess to provide diversion to meet the public demand. With most men -who have moulded, hacked, and chiselled the world into history, to think -has been to act. With us novelists, so far as the world need know us, to -think is to dream, and perhaps to dream only little dreams of merely -passing significance. Few novelists are poets; only one or two have been -statesmen; none have been conquerors. I suppose we are very -insignificant figures compared with the great ones of this earth; but -to our comfort we may dream, and if we need consolation we may console -ourselves, as Montaigne puts it, with the art which small souls have to -interest great ones, "_L'art qu'ont les petites mes d'intresser les -grandes._" - -Frivolity is not weakness, though in excess it may be a weakness. -"_Carpe diem_" is a good motto for the morning, but in the evening -"_Dulce desipere in loco_" is not to be despised as a piece of advice. -The frivolities of great men and famous women have filled volumes of -memoirs, and are not without interest to the little, as our little -interests do not always seem dull to the great. The greater men are, the -more heart they have, good or bad, and the easier it is to affect them -through it, through the multiform feelings which their varied lives have -created within them, or through the few strong sentiments by which most -of them are ruled, guided, or impelled according as they are -conscientious, calculating, or impulsive, and to some extent according -to their nationality, a matter which has almost as much to do with the -author's dream as with the reader's subjective interpretation of it, and -which largely determines the balance between sentiment and -sentimentality. - -Sentiment heightens the value of works of fiction as sentimentality -lowers it. Sentimentality is to sentiment as sensuality to passion. The -distinction is not a fine one and has grown common enough in our day to -be universally understood. We owe it, I think, to the international -balance of sentiment and sentimentality that the novelists of the -present day are the French, Anglo-Saxons, and Russians. With all due -respect to the great German intelligence, it does not seem capable of -producing what we call a novel though it turns out most excellent plays. -The German mind, measured by our standard, is sentimental, not romantic. -Perhaps there is as much romance to be found in the history and -traditions of Germany up to a date which I should place at about forty -years ago as there is anywhere in the civilised world. Yet for some -reason or other, the modern German, as I have said, seems to be more -sentimental than romantic in his habits of thought and feeling. - -It is not possible in a paper of this length to inquire into the -foundations of sentimentality and romance. Practically, however, what we -call a romantic life is one full of romantic incidents which come -unsought, as the natural consequence and result of a man's or a woman's -character. It is therefore necessarily an exceptional life, and as such -should have exceptional interest for the majority. When our lives are -not filled with emotions, they are too often crammed with insignificant -details too insignificant to bear recording in a novel, but yet making -up for each of us all the significance life has. The great emotions are -not every-day phenomena, and it is the desire to experience them -vicariously which creates the demand for fiction and thereby and at the -same time a demand for emotion. This is felt more particularly nowadays -than formerly. - -There was a great deal of artificiality in the last century, and I -believe very little real emotion or true sentiment. The evidences of the -truth of this statement appear sufficiently, I think, in the current -literature, the music, and the social manners of that time. Of the three -the music alone has survived. Musicians constitute, in a certain sense, -a caste, not unlike the Christian priesthood or the Buddhist -brotherhood. Their art is more distinctly handed down from teacher to -scholar, from master to pupil, than any other, and this may perhaps -account for their unwillingness to break through their traditions and -accepted rules. Few persons, however, can listen to an average symphony -for orchestra, or sonata for piano, especially to the _allegro_ -movements, without being struck by the utter conventionality and -artificiality of many parts of the production. This, it seems to me, is -not due to the instinct of the musician, nor to the taste of the musical -public, but is a distinct survival of a former existence, as much as the -caudal appendage or the buttons on the backs of our coats. This is -probably rank heresy from the musical point of view, and, like all I say -here, is a mere personal opinion; but to judge by analogy from the -remains of other arts cultivated a hundred years ago, there seems to be -some foundation for it. Can any one see such plays acted, for instance, -as Sheridan's, without being forcibly struck by the total absence of -spontaneity and the absolute submission to social routine of the average -society man and woman of those days. Sheridan's comedies are undoubtedly -as true to their times on the one hand as they are to human nature on -the other, but the humanity of them is thrown into vivid and strong -relief by the artificiality of the elements in the midst of which the -chief actors have their being. As for the literature, it is hardly -necessary for me to defend the statement that it was conventional. -There was an intellectual dress, as it were, put on by the man of genius -of those times. It hung loosely upon Goldsmith's irregular frame. It sat -close, well-fitting and fashionable upon Addison, but Samuel Johnson's -mighty limbs almost burst its seams and betrayed at every movement the -giant who wore it. On a sudden the fashion changed, and it has not done -changing yet. - -The French Revolution seems to have introduced an emotional phase into -social history, and to it we must attribute directly or indirectly many -of our present tastes and fashions. With it began the novel in France. -With it the novel in the English language made a fresh start and assumed -a new form. To take a very simple view of the question, I should like -to hazard, as a guess, the theory that when the world had lived at a -very high pressure during the French Revolution, the wars of Napoleon, -and what has been called the "awakening of the peoples," it had acquired -permanently "the emotional habit," just as a man who takes opium or -morphia cannot do without the one or the other. There was a general -desire felt to go on experiencing without dangerous consequences those -varying conditions of hope, fear, disappointment and triumph in which -the whole world's nervous system had thrilled daily during so many years -and at such fearful cost. The children of the women who had gone to the -scaffold with Marie Antoinette, the sons of the men who had charged -with Murat, who had stood by La Tour d'Auvergne, or who had fired their -parting shot with Ney, were not satisfied to dwell in returning peace -and reviving prosperity with nothing but insipid tales of shepherds and -shepherdesses to amuse them. They wanted sterner, rougher stuff. They -created a demand, and it was forthwith supplied, and their children and -children's children have followed their progenitors' footsteps in war -and have adopted their tastes in peace. - - -Modern civilisation, too, has done what it could to stir the hearts of -men. Evil communications corrupt good manners, and it is not a play upon -words to say that the increased facility of actual communications has -widened and deepened those channels of communication which are evil, and -increased at the same time the demand for all sorts of emotion, bad or -good. Not that emotion of itself is bad. It is often the contrary. Even -the momentary reflection of true love is a good thing in itself. It is -good that men and women should realise that a great affection is, or can -be, a reality to many as well as a convenient amusement or a -heart-rending drama to a few. - -Modern civilisation has created modern vices, modern crimes, modern -virtues, austerities, and generosities. The crimes of to-day were not -dreamed of a hundred years ago, any more than the sublimity of the good -deeds done in our time to remedy our time's mistakes. And between the -angel and the beast of this ending century lie great multitudes of -ever-shifting, ever-changing lives, neither very bad nor very good, but -in all cases very different from what lives used to be in the good old -days when time meant time and not money. There, too, in that vast land -of mediocrities, emotions play a part of which our grandfathers never -heard, and being real, of the living, and of superior interest to those -who feel them, reflect themselves in the novel of to-day, diverting the -course of true love into very tortuous channels and varying the tale -that is ever young with features that are often new. Within a short few -months I myself have lived in a land where modern means of communication -are not, and I have come to live here, where applied science is doing -her best to eliminate distance as a factor from the equation of -exchanges, financial and intellectual. The difference between the -manifestations of human feeling in Southern Italy and North America is -greater and wider than can be explained in intelligible terms. Yet it -is but skin-deep. Sentiment, sentimentality, taste, fashion, daily -speech, acquired science, and transmitted tradition cleanse, soil, -model, or deface the changing shell of mutable mortality, and nothing -which appeals to that shell alone can have permanent life; but the prime -impulses of the heart are, broadly speaking, the same in all ages and -almost in all races. The brave man's beats as strongly in battle to-day, -the coward's stands as suddenly still in the face of danger, boys and -girls still play with love, men and women still suffer for love, and the -old still warn youth and manhood against love's snares--all that and -much more comes from depths not reached by civilisations nor changed by -fashions. Those deep waters the real novel must fathom, sounding the -tide-stream of passion and bringing up such treasures as lie far below -and out of sight--out of reach of the individual in most cases--until -the art of the story-teller makes him feel that they are or might be -his. Csar commanded his legionaries to strike at the face. Humanity, -the novelist's master, bids him strike only at the heart. - - - THE END - - * * * * * - -LIST OF WORKS -BY -MR. F. MARION CRAWFORD. - -Uniformly bound in Cloth. =12mo.= -=Price=, $1.00 each. - - -_Just Published._ -CHILDREN OF THE KING. -A Tale of Southern Italy. - -MACMILLAN & CO. take pleasure in announcing that they have made -arrangements to add the following volumes (with the author's latest -revisions) to their uniform edition of the works of Mr. F. Marion -Crawford, thereby enabling them to issue a complete edition of all his -novels. - - -A ROMAN SINGER. -_Now Ready._ -New Edition, revised and corrected. - - -TO LEEWARD. -_February._ - - -PAUL PATOFF. -_March._ - - -AN AMERICAN POLITICIAN._April._ -New Edition, revised and partly rewritten. - - * * * * * - -The Saracinesca Series. - -"His greatest achievement is the group of three novels on Modern Italy. -The three books present a wonderfully vivid picture of Italian social -life."--_N. Y. Life._ - - -SARACINESCA. - -"His highest achievement, as yet, in the realms of fiction. The work has -two distinct merits, either of which would serve to make it great,--that -of telling a perfect story in a perfect way, and of giving a graphic -picture of Roman society in the last days of the Pope's temporal -power.... The story is exquisitely told."--_Boston Traveller._ - -"One of the most engrossing novels we have ever read."--_Boston Times._ - - -SANT' ILARIO. - -A Sequel to "Saracinesca." - -"A singularly powerful and beautiful story.... Admirably developed, with -a naturalness beyond praise.... It brings out what is most impressive in -human action, without owing any of its effectiveness to sensationalism -or artifice."--_New York Tribune._ - - -DON ORSINO. - -A Continuation of "Saracinesca" and -"Sant' Ilario." - -"The third in a remarkable series of novels dealing with three -generations of the Saracinesca family, entitled respectively -'Saracinesca,' 'Sant' Ilario,' and 'Don Orsino,' and these novels -present an important study of Italian life, customs, and conditions -during the present century. The 'new Italy' is strikingly revealed in -'Don Orsino.'"--_Boston Budget._ - -"We are inclined to regard the book as the most ingenious of all Mr. -Crawford's fictions. Certainly it is the best novel of the -season."--_Evening Bulletin._ - -"The plot of the story ('Don Orsino') is one of the best that the author -has constructed. The mystery of Maria Consuelo's birth and her relation -to Spicca is most ingenious, continually suggesting a false trail to the -reader, and its end surprising and satisfying him with its adequateness. -When you combine all these things with a wonderful beauty of diction and -facility of expression, you have that very difficult achievement--a -thoroughly good modern romance."--_Life._ - - The three volumes in a box, $3.00. - Half morocco, $8.00. Half calf, $7.50. - - -THE THREE FATES. - -"Mr. Crawford has manifestly brought his best qualities as a student of -human nature and his finest resources as a master of an original and -picturesque style to bear upon this story. Taken for all in all it is -one of the most pleasing of all his productions in fiction, and it -affords a view of certain phases of American, or perhaps we should say -of New York, life that have not hitherto been treated with anything like -the same adequacy and felicity."--_Boston Beacon._ - - -THE WITCH OF PRAGUE. - -A Fantastic Tale. - -ILLUSTRATED BY W. J. HENNESSY. - -"Mr. Crawford has written in many keys, but never in so strange a one as -that which dominates 'The Witch of Prague.'... The artistic skill with -which this extraordinary story is constructed and carried out is -admirable and delightful.... Mr. Crawford has scored a decided triumph, -for the interest of the tale is sustained throughout.... A very -remarkable, powerful, and interesting story."--_New York Tribune._ - -"Mr. Crawford has not lost his oft-proved skill in holding his readers' -attention, and there are single scenes and passages in this book that -rival in intensity anything he has ever written."--_Christian Union._ - - -MR. ISAACS. - -A Tale of Modern India. - -"The characters are original, and one does not recognize any of the -hackneyed personages who are so apt to be considered indispensable to -novelists, and which, dressed in one guise or another, are but the -marionettes, which are all dominated by the same mind, moved by the same -motive force. The men are all endowed with individualism and independent -life and thought.... There is a strong tinge of mysticism about the book -which is one of its greatest charms."--_Boston Transcript._ - -"This is a fine and noble story. It has freshness like a new and -striking scene on which one has never looked before. It has character -and individuality. It has meaning. It is lofty and uplifting. It is -strongly, sweetly, tenderly written. It is in all respects an uncommon -novel.... In fine, 'Mr. Isaacs' is an acquaintance to be made."--_The -Literary World._ - - -DR. CLAUDIUS. - -A True Story. - -"'Dr. Claudius' is surprisingly good, coming after a story of so much -merit as 'Mr. Isaacs.' The hero is a magnificent specimen of humanity, -and sympathetic readers will be fascinated by his chivalrous wooing of -the beautiful American countess."--_Boston Traveller._ - -"The characters are strongly marked without any suspicion of caricature, -and the author's ideas on social and political subjects are often -brilliant and always striking. It is no exaggeration to say that there -is not a dull page in the book, which is peculiarly adapted for the -recreation of student or thinker."--_Living Church._ - - -WITH THE IMMORTALS. - -"Altogether an admirable piece of art worked in the spirit of a thorough -artist. Every reader of cultivated tastes will find it a book prolific -in entertainment of the most refined description, and to all such we -commend it heartily."--_Boston Saturday Evening Gazette._ - -"The book will be found to have a fascination entirely new for the -habitual reader of novels. Indeed, Mr. Crawford has succeeded in taking -his readers quite above the ordinary plane of novel interest."--_Boston -Advertiser._ - - -MARZIO'S CRUCIFIX. - -"We take the liberty of saying that this work belongs to the highest -department of character-painting in words."--_Churchman._ - -"'Marzio's Crucifix' is another of those tales of modern Rome which show -the author so much at his ease. A subtle compound of artistic feeling, -avarice, malice, and criminal frenzy is this carver of silver chalices -and crucifixes."--_The Times._ - -"It is as if it could not have been written otherwise, so naturally does -the story unfold itself, and so logical and consistent is the sequence -of incident after incident. As a story, 'Marzio's Crucifix' is perfectly -constructed."--_New York Commercial Advertiser._ - - -KHALED. - -A Story of Arabia. - -"That it is beautifully written and holds the interest of the reader, -fanciful as it all is, to the very end, none who know the depth and -artistic finish of Mr. Crawford's work need be told."--_The Chicago -Times._ - -"It abounds in stirring incidents and barbaric picturesqueness; and the -love struggle of the unloved Khaled is manly in its simplicity and noble -in its ending. Mr. Crawford has done nothing better than, if he has done -anything as good as, 'Khaled.'"--_The Mail and Express._ - - -A TALE OF A LONELY PARISH. - -"It is a pleasure to have anything so perfect of its kind as this brief -and vivid story.... It is doubly a success, being full of human -sympathy, as well as thoroughly artistic in its nice balancing of the -unusual with the commonplace, the clever juxtaposition of innocence and -guilt, comedy and tragedy, simplicity and intrigue."--_Critic._ - -"It has no defects. It is neither trifling nor trivial. It is a work of -art. It is perfect."--_Boston Beacon._ - - -ZOROASTER. - -"The field of Mr. Crawford's imagination appears to be unbounded.... In -'Zoroaster' Mr. Crawford's winged fancy ventures a daring flight.... Yet -'Zoroaster' is a novel rather than a drama. It is a drama in the force -of its situations and in the poetry and dignity of its language; but its -men and women are not men and women of a play. By the naturalness of -their conversation and behavior they seem to live and lay hold of our -human sympathy more than the same characters on a stage could possibly -do."--_The Times._ - - -A CIGARETTE MAKER'S ROMANCE. - -"It is a touching romance, filled with scenes of great dramatic -power."--_Boston Commercial Bulletin._ - -"It is full of life and movement, and is one of the best of Mr. -Crawford's books."--_Boston Saturday Evening Gazette._ - - -GREIFENSTEIN. - -"Another notable contribution to the literature of the day. It possesses -originality in its conception and is a work of unusual ability. Its -interest is sustained to the close, and it is an advance even on the -previous work of this talented author. Like all Mr. Crawford's work, -this novel is crisp, clear, and vigorous, and will be read with a great -deal of interest."--_New York Evening Telegram._ - - MACMILLAN & CO., NEW YORK. - - * * * * * - -Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber: - -of very valuaable=> of very valuable {pg 71} - - - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's The Novel; what it is, by F. 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Marion Crawford - -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/license - - -Title: The Novel; what it is - -Author: F. Marion Crawford - -Release Date: January 23, 2016 [EBook #51010] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NOVEL; WHAT IT IS *** - - - - -Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images available at The Internet Archive) - - - - - - -</pre> - -<hr class="full" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="314" height="450" alt="" title="" /> -</div> -<p class="cb">THE NOVEL</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<img src="images/colophon.png" width="150" height="51" alt="image of colophon not available" title="" /> -</div> - -<p><a name="page_1" id="page_1"></a></p> - -<p><a name="page_2" id="page_2"></a></p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/crawford_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/crawford_sml.jpg" width="317" height="478" alt="image of F. Marion Crawford not available" /></a> -</div> - -<p><a name="page_3" id="page_3"></a></p> - -<h1> -THE NOVEL<br /> -<br /> -<small>WHAT IT IS</small></h1> - -<p class="c">BY<br /> -F. MARION CRAWFORD<br /> -<small>Author of “Mr. Isaacs,” “Dr. Claudius,” “A Roman<br /> -Singer,” etc.</small><br /> -<br /><br /> -<span class="eng">New York</span><br /> -MACMILLAN AND COMPANY<br /> -AND LONDON<br /> -1893<br /> -<br /> -<i>All rights reserved</i><br /> -<a name="page_4" id="page_4"></a><br /> -<span class="smcap">Copyright, 1893,<br /> -By</span> MACMILLAN AND CO.<br /> -<br /><small> -<span class="eng">Norwood Press:</span><br /> -J. S. Cushing & Co.—Berwick & Smith.<br /> -Boston, Mass., U.S.A.</small> -</p> - -<p><a name="page_5" id="page_5"></a></p> - -<h2>WHAT IS A NOVEL?</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">M</span>Y answer can only be a statement of opinion, which I make with much -deference to the prejudices of my brethren. Whether it will be of -interest to general readers I do not know; but the question I propose is -in itself more or less vital as regards novel-writing. No one will deny -that truism. Before going to work it is important to know what one means -to do. I pretend, however, to no special gift for solving problems in -general or this one in particular. To give “the result of one’s -experience,” as the common<a name="page_6" id="page_6"></a> phrase puts it, is by no means so easy as it -sounds. An intelligent man mostly knows what he means by his own words, -but it does not follow that he can convey that meaning to others. Almost -all discussion and much misunderstanding may fairly be said to be based -upon the difference between the definitions of common terms as -understood by the two parties. In the exact sciences there is no such -thing as discussion; there is the theorem and its demonstration, there -is the problem and its solution, from which solution and demonstration -there is no appeal. That is because, in mathematics, every word is -defined before it is used and is almost meaningless until it has been -defined.<a name="page_7" id="page_7"></a></p> - -<p>It has been remarked by a very great authority concerning the affairs of -men that “of making many books there is no end,” and to judge from -appearances the statement is even more true to-day than when it was -first made. Especially of making novels there is no end, in these times -of latter-day literature. No doubt many wise and good persons and many -excellent critics devoutly wish that there might be; but they are not at -present strong enough to stand against us, the army of fiction-makers, -because we are many, and most of us do not know how to do anything else, -and have grown grey in doing this particular kind of work, and are -dependent upon it for bread as well as butter; and lastly and chiefly, -because<a name="page_8" id="page_8"></a> we are heavily backed, as a body, by the capital of the -publisher, of which we desire to obtain for ourselves as much as -possible. Therefore novels will continue to be written, perhaps for a -long time to come. There is a demand for them and there is profit in -producing them. Who shall prevent us, authors and publishers, from -continuing the production and supplying the demand?</p> - -<p>This brings with it a first answer to the question, “What is a novel?” A -novel is a marketable commodity, of the class collectively termed -“luxuries,” as not contributing directly to the support of life or the -maintenance of health. It is of the class “artistic luxuries” because it -does not appeal<a name="page_9" id="page_9"></a> to any of the three material senses—touch, taste, -smell; and it is of the class “intellectual artistic luxuries,” because -it is not judged by the superior senses—sight and hearing. The novel, -therefore, is an intellectual artistic luxury—a definition which can be -made to include a good deal, but which is, in reality, a closer one than -it appears to be at first sight. No one, I think, will deny that it -covers the three principal essentials of the novel as it should be, of a -story or romance, which in itself and in the manner of telling it shall -appeal to the intellect, shall satisfy the requirements of art, and -shall be a luxury, in that it can be of no use to a man when he is at -work, but may conduce to peace of mind and delectation<a name="page_10" id="page_10"></a> during his hours -of idleness. The point upon which people differ is the artistic one, and -the fact that such differences of opinion exist makes it possible that -two writers as widely separated as Mr. Henry James and Mr. Rider -Haggard, for instance, find appreciative readers in the same year of the -same century—a fact which the literary history of the future will find -it hard to explain.<a name="page_11" id="page_11"></a></p> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">P</span>ROBABLY no one denies that the first object of the novel is to amuse -and interest the reader. But it is often said that the novel should -instruct as well as afford amusement, and the “novel-with-a-purpose” is -the realisation of this idea. We might invent a better expression than -that clumsy translation of the neat German “<i>Tendenz-Roman</i>.” Why not -compound the words and call the odious thing a “purpose-novel”? The -purpose-novel, then, proposes to serve two masters, besides procuring a -reasonable amount of bread and butter for its writer and publisher. It -proposes to escape from<a name="page_12" id="page_12"></a> my definition of the novel in general and make -itself an “intellectual moral lesson” instead of an “intellectual -artistic luxury.” It constitutes a violation of the unwritten contract -tacitly existing between writer and reader. So far as supply and demand -are concerned, books in general and works of fiction in particular are -commodities and subject to the same laws, statutory and traditional, as -other articles of manufacture. A toy-dealer would not venture to sell -real pistols to little boys as pop-guns, and a gun-maker who should try -to sell the latter for army revolvers would get into trouble, even -though he were able to prove that the toy was as expensive to -manufacture as the real article, or more so, silver-mounted,<a name="page_13" id="page_13"></a> chiselled, -and lying in a Russia-leather case. I am not sure that the law might not -support the purchaser in an action for damages if he discovered at a -critical moment that his revolver was a plaything. It seems to me that -there is a similar case in the matter of novels. A man buys what -purports to be a work of fiction, a romance, a novel, a story of -adventure, pays his money, takes his book home, prepares to enjoy it at -his ease, and discovers that he has paid a dollar for somebody’s views -on socialism, religion, or the divorce laws.</p> - -<p>Such books are generally carefully suited with an attractive title. The -binding is as frivolous as can be desired. The bookseller says it is “a<a name="page_14" id="page_14"></a> -work of great power,” and there is probably a sentimental dedication on -the fly-leaf to a number of initials to which a romantic appearance is -given by the introduction of a stray “St.” and a few hyphens. The buyer -is possibly a conservative person, of lukewarm religious convictions, -whose life is made “barren by marriage, or death, or division”—and who -takes no sort of interest in the laws relating to divorce, in the -invention of a new religion, or the position of the labour question. He -has simply paid money, on the ordinary tacit contract between furnisher -and purchaser, and he has been swindled, to use a very plain term for -which a substitute does not occur to me. Or say that a man buys a seat<a name="page_15" id="page_15"></a> -in one of the regular theatres. He enters, takes his place, preparing to -be amused, and the curtain goes up. The stage is set as a church, there -is a pulpit before the prompter’s box, and the Right Reverend the Bishop -of the Diocese is on the point of delivering a sermon. The man would be -legally justified in demanding his money at the door, I fancy, and would -probably do so, though he might admit that the Bishop was the most -learned and edifying of preachers. There are indeed certain names and -prefixes to names which suggest serious reading, independently of the -words printed on the title-page of the book. If the Archbishop of -Canterbury, or General Booth, or the Emperor William published<a name="page_16" id="page_16"></a> a novel, -for instance, the work might reasonably be expected to contain an -exposition of personal views on some question of the day. But in -ordinary cases the purpose-novel is a simple fraud, besides being a -failure in nine hundred and ninety-nine cases out of a thousand.</p> - -<p>What we call a novel may educate the taste and cultivate the -intelligence; under the hand of genius it may purify the heart and -fortify the mind; it should never under any circumstances be suffered to -deprave the one nor to weaken the other; it may stand for scores of -years—and a score of years is a long time in our day—as the exposition -of all that is noble, heroic, honest, and true in the life of woman<a name="page_17" id="page_17"></a> or -man; but it has no right to tell us what its writer thinks about the -relations of labour and capital, nor to set up what the author conceives -to be a nice, original, easy scheme of salvation, any more than it has a -right to take for its theme the relative merits of the “broomstick-car” -and the “storage system,” temperance, vivisection, or the “Ideal Man” of -Confucius. Lessons, lectures, discussions, sermons, and didactics -generally belong to institutions set apart for especial purposes and -carefully avoided, after a certain age, by the majority of those who -wish to be amused. The purpose-novel is an odious attempt to lecture -people who hate lectures, to preach at people who prefer their own -church, and to teach<a name="page_18" id="page_18"></a> people who think they know enough already. It is -an ambush, a lying-in-wait for the unsuspecting public, a violation of -the social contract—and as such it ought to be either mercilessly -crushed or forced by law to bind itself in black and label itself -“Purpose” in very big letters.<a name="page_19" id="page_19"></a></p> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">I</span>N art of all kinds the moral lesson is a mistake. It is one thing to -exhibit an ideal worthy to be imitated, though inimitable in all its -perfection, but so clearly noble as to appeal directly to the -sympathetic string that hangs untuned in the dullest human heart; to -make man brave without arrogance, woman pure without prudishness, love -enduring yet earthly, not angelic, friendship sincere but not -ridiculous. It is quite another matter to write a “guide to morality” or -a “hand-book for practical sinners” and call either one a novel, no -matter how much fiction it may contain. Wordsworth<a name="page_20" id="page_20"></a> tried the moral -lesson and spoiled some of his best work with botany and the Bible. A -good many smaller men than he have tried the same thing since, and have -failed. Perhaps “Cain” and “Manfred” have taught the human heart more -wisdom than “Matthew” or the unfortunate “idiot boy” over whom Byron was -so mercilessly merry. And yet Byron probably never meant to teach any -one anything in particular, and Wordsworth meant to teach everybody, -including and beginning with himself.</p> - -<p>There are, I believe, two recognised ways of looking at art: art for the -public or “art for art,” to adopt the current French phrase. Might we -not say, Art for the buyer and art for the seller?<a name="page_21" id="page_21"></a> Or is that too -practical a view to take of what is supposed to be so eminently -unpractical as art itself? Has it not been said similarly, and with -truth, that religion is for man, and not man for religion? Is it our -province to please those who read our works, or to force them to please -us by buying them? Do not these questions lie at the root of the -conflict between realism and romance? Are we to take Talleyrand’s speech -as our guide?—“I have furnished you with an argument; I am not bound to -furnish you with an understanding.” The story is old, but the position -it defines is as old as humanity. When a novelist turns prophet, it will -be time enough for him to convert his readers at the point of the pen. -Are<a name="page_22" id="page_22"></a> we writers so vain as a class, and so proud of ourselves as men, as -to be above affording amusement to our readers without attempting to -comfort them, to teach or to preach to them? We are not poets, because -we cannot be. We are not genuine playwriters for many reasons; chiefly, -perhaps, because we are not clever enough, since a successful play is -incomparably more lucrative than a successful novel. We are not -preachers, and few of us would be admitted to the pulpit. We are not, as -a class, teachers or professors, nor lawyers, nor men of business. We -are nothing more than public amusers. Unless we choose we need not be -anything less. Let us, then, accept our position cheerfully, and do<a name="page_23" id="page_23"></a> the -best we can to fulfil our mission, without attempting to dignify it with -titles too imposing for it to bear, and without degrading it by bringing -its productions down even a little way, from the lowest level of high -comedy to the highest level of buffoonery. It is good to make people -laugh; it is sometimes salutary to make them shed tears; it is best of -all to make our readers think—not too serious thoughts, nor such as -require an intimate knowledge of science and philosophy to be called -thoughts at all—but to think, and, thinking, to see before them -characters whom they might really like to resemble, acting in scenes in -which they themselves would like to take a part. In trying to amuse, let -us<a name="page_24" id="page_24"></a> be consistent each in his own way, never giving our public a pretext -of appealing from Philip drunk to Philip sober. If we have poetry within -us, let us put such of it as is worth anything into our books, for -almost all poetry which deserves the name is good. But let us keep out -of our novels all that savours of preaching and teaching, for our -readers’ sakes; and for our own, all such matter as is limited by modern -science, present fashion, and actual taste, and which consequently -imposes too wilful a limitation upon the permanence of our own work.<a name="page_25" id="page_25"></a></p> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">B</span>UT I perceive that although this little essay is not a work of fiction, -I myself am falling into one of the errors which I have wished to point -out, for I am beginning to preach where I have no right to inculcate a -lesson, and mean only to express a purely personal opinion in the only -matter upon which a novelist is justified in expressing one at all. -Moreover, I hereby disclaim all intention of setting an example, since -in many points upon which I have touched I admit that I myself am the -last of literary sinners; and with this admission of fallibility and -confession of<a name="page_26" id="page_26"></a> weakness I cry <i>peccavi</i>, and ask absolution of the -public.</p> - -<p>I do not wish to be accused of what is called smart writing. It is much -easier to attack than to defend and much more blessed to give hard -knocks than to receive them. A professed novelist is perhaps not a -competent judge of novels from the point of view which interests the -reader, and which is of course the reader’s own. We know the <i>technique</i> -of the trick better than the effect it produces, just as it is hard for -a conjuror to realise the sensations of the old gentleman in the -audience who finds a bowl of goldfish in his waistcoat pocket. We do not -all know one another’s tricks, but we have a fair idea of the general<a name="page_27" id="page_27"></a> -principle on which they are done and a very definite opinion about our -own business as compared with that of the parson or the professor. We -know our books from the inside and we see the strings of the puppets, -while the public only guesses at the mechanism as it sits before the -stage, watching the marionettes and listening to the voice from behind -the scenes. A novel is, after all, a play, and perhaps it is nothing but -a substitute for the real play with live characters, scene-shifting, and -footlights. But miracle-plays have gone out of fashion in modern times, -except at Ober-Ammergau. The purpose-novel is a miracle-play—and if it -be true that any really good novel can be dramatised, nothing short of -a<a name="page_28" id="page_28"></a> miracle could put a purpose-novel on the boards.</p> - -<p>Most people have a very clear conception of what a good play ought to -be, and of the precise extent to which realism can be effective without -being offensive. But it is strange, and it is a bad sign of the times, -that persons who would not tolerate a coarse play read novels little, if -at all, short of indecent. An answer suggests itself which may be -comprehensive as an explanation, but is insufficient as an excuse. In -our Anglo-Saxon social system the young girl is everywhere, and, if the -shade of Sterne will allow me to say so, we temper the wind of our -realism to the sensitive innocence of the ubiquitous shorn lamb. Once<a name="page_29" id="page_29"></a> -admit that the young girl is to have the freedom of our theatre, and it -follows, and ought to follow, and very generally does follow, that our -plays must be suited to maiden ears and eyes. It is a good thing that -this should be so, but the effect is rather strange. The men who hear -plays in English are not, perhaps, more moral than their contemporaries -of Paris, Vienna, and Berlin. We like to believe that our women are -better than those of foreign nations. We owe it to them to put more -faith in them because they are our own, our dear mothers and wives and -sisters and daughters, for whom, if we be men, we mean to do all that -men can do. But we are all men and women nevertheless, and human, and<a name="page_30" id="page_30"></a> -we have the thoughts and the understanding of men and women and not of -school-girls. Yet the school-girl practically decides what we are to -hear at the theatre and, so far as our own language is concerned, -determines to a great extent what we are to read.</p> - -<p>But if we do not write for the young girl, who will? We have not the -advantage possessed by the French of satisfying the demands of young -people by translations from works in other languages. The young girl in -France, as a matter of fact, reads Walter Scott, Bulwer, and Dickens, -while her mother diverts her leisure with the more lively productions of -Paul Bourget, Guy de Maupassant, or possibly Balzac, whom all educated -Frenchmen and Frenchwomen<a name="page_31" id="page_31"></a> are at least supposed to have read. The -advocate of a broader license in the English fiction of the future may -answer that the whole body of novels already in existence should be more -than sufficient for the delectation of “the young.” Should the -development of the new school, however, lead to the creation of a -literature in our language, resembling, as a whole, that of the French, -our novel, in its present form, would soon cease to be written, and -those of the type which are already in existence would in a short time -be regarded as antiquated, dull, and savouring of the Sunday-school. -Youth, too, dislikes to be treated as youth. The old, who regretfully -long to be young again, may find<a name="page_32" id="page_32"></a> some consolation in the ardent desire -of youth for mature years. Moreover, it is easier to lower the reader’s -moral tone than to raise it ever so little. The ambition of all boys, -and probably of very many young girls, is to read such novels as their -parents do not habitually leave on the drawing-room table. Every boy -wants to read “Guy Livingstone,” and most boys do, with or without their -mamma’s permission, at a very early age. If we advanced so far as the -French realistic point of view, that book would become a common property -of boys and girls, and perhaps “Nana,” or “Les Mensonges,” would take -its place in the estimation of our children,—a consummation devoutly to -be prayed against. Our<a name="page_33" id="page_33"></a> “books for the young” are not, on the whole, a -success, unless we are willing to modify the expression, and call them -books for the very young. There are not in existence, I believe, enough -really interesting, and yet perfectly harmless, novels to occupy the -vast amount of spare time which the young seem ready to devote to -literature, and which we, the workers, seek in vain. It is not always -easy to see—it is certainly not easy for us to explain—why we -novelists occasionally introduce a thought, a page, or a chapter in a -novel otherwise fit for a child’s ears, which may have the effect, so to -say, of turning weak tea into bad whiskey. Yet most of us have done it, -contemplate doing it, or at least go so far as to wish<a name="page_34" id="page_34"></a> that we might -allow ourselves the liberty. Perhaps, if that liberty were universally -granted, we should desire it less. Perhaps a number of my colleagues -will not admit that they desire it at all. I believe that in most cases -it is only a desire to escape from limitations not unlike those -overstepped when an author writes much in dialect. It looks as though it -might be easier to write interesting books with the help of the -knowledge of evil, as well as with the help of the knowledge of good; -and after a certain number of years of hard work a novelist -instinctively leans towards any method of lightening his labours which -presents itself to his tired imagination. If he yields once, he will -probably yield again<a name="page_35" id="page_35"></a> and fall into the slipshod, careless ways for -which the overworked man is often cruelly, if not altogether unjustly, -blamed. For the public, which most of us acknowledge to be a perfectly -just body in the long run, is as thoroughly unforgiving as Justice -herself. “He has written himself out.” How carelessly that little phrase -is often uttered! How terrible it is for any author to hear! It is -indeed a solemn <i>memento mori</i>, the phrase of all others of which we -dread the application to ourselves. For the romance of romancing soon -disappears. After the production of one, two, three, or half-a-dozen -novels, if the writer is really what we call “a professional,” and must -go on writing as a business, he<a name="page_36" id="page_36"></a> discovers how serious is the occupation -in which he is engaged. Half-a-dozen books, or less, will make a -reputation; ten will sustain one; twenty are in ordinary cases a career. -Does any one, not an author, who reads these lines guess at the labour, -the imagination, the industry, the set purpose, the courage, which are -necessary to produce a score of novels of an average good quality? And -if not, how can he understand the intense longing for a removal of -restraint, for a little more liberty that tempts the overwrought -intelligence into error? Far be it from me to appeal in any way to the -public pity, for my own sake or in behalf of others. We are no more to -be pitied when we break down than an old<a name="page_37" id="page_37"></a> shoemaker who can no longer -see the point of his bristles, and not so much as a broken-winded -cab-horse that has never had any option in the choice of a career. Let -this be taken as an explanation, not as an apology. To judge from the -standards of some people, however, the worn-out novelist, whose works -have filled the shelves of the young girl of the period, might find -profitable employment if he would adopt the tenets of realism and write -for the jaded taste of those who, whether already old or what is called -still young, have exhausted their capacity for bread and milk and crave -red pepper and stimulants.</p> - -<p>The taste for “realism” is abroad, <a name="page_38" id="page_38"></a>and in opposition to all this. Out -of the conflict arises that very curious production, the realistic novel -in English—than which no effort of human genius has sailed nearer to -the wind, so to say, since Goethe wrote his “Elective Affinities,” which -an Anglo-Saxon young girl pronounced to be “a dull book all about -gardening.” That our prevailing moral literary purity is to some extent -assumed—not fictitious—is shown by the undeniable fact that women who -blush scarlet, and men who feel an odd sensation of repulsion in reading -some pages of “Tom Jones” or “Peregrine Pickle,” are not conscious of -any particular shock when their sensibilities are attacked in French. -Some of them call Zola a “pig” with great directness,<a name="page_39" id="page_39"></a> but read all his -books industriously, and very often admit the fact. When they call him -names they forget that he writes for a great public of men and women, -not for young girls—and when they read him he makes them remember that -he is a great man—mistaken perhaps, possibly bad, mightily coarse to no -purpose, but great nevertheless—a Nero of fiction. But Zola’s shadow, -seen through the veil of the English realistic novel, is a monstrosity -not to be tolerated. We see the apparent contradiction in our own taste -between our theory and our practice in reading, but we feel -instinctively that there is a foundation of justice to account for the -seeming discrepancy. Both are coarse, but the<a name="page_40" id="page_40"></a> one is great and bold, -and the other is damned by its own smallness and meanness. The result of -the desire for realism in men who try to write realistic novels for the -clean-minded American and English girl is unsatisfactory. It is -generally a photograph, not a picture—a catalogue, not a description.</p> - -<p>A community of vices is a closer and more direct bond between human -beings than a community of virtues. This may be because vice needs -solidarity among those who yield to it in order to be tolerated at all, -whereas virtue is its own reward, as the proverb says, and is happily -very often its own protection—far more often than not, in our day. This -seems to be the reason<a name="page_41" id="page_41"></a> why the realistic method is better suited to the -exposition of what is bad than of what is good. Wordsworth and Swinburne -are two realistic poets. Most people do not hesitate to call Wordsworth -the greater man. I need not express an opinion which few would care to -hear, but so far as the relative effect of their work is concerned it -can hardly be denied that, of the two, Swinburne appeals far more -strongly and directly to sinful humanity as it is. Wordsworth speaks to -the higher and more spiritual part of us, indeed, but too often in -language which rouses no response in the more human side of man’s nature -which is most generally uppermost. These are but illustrations of my -meaning, not<a name="page_42" id="page_42"></a> examples, which latter should be taken among novelists—a -task, however, which may be left to the discriminating reader.<a name="page_43" id="page_43"></a></p> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">I</span>T has always seemed to me that the perfect novel, as it ought to be, -exists somewhere in the state of the Platonic idea, waiting to be set -down on paper by the first man of genius who receives a direct literary -inspiration. It must deal chiefly with love; for in that passion all men -and women are most generally interested, either for its present reality, -or for the memories that soften the coldly vivid recollection of an -active past, and shed a tender light in the dark places of bygone -struggles, or because the hope of it brightens and gladdens the path of -future dreams. The perfect novel must be clean and<a name="page_44" id="page_44"></a> sweet, for it must -tell its tale to all mankind, to saint and sinner, pure and defiled, -just and unjust. It must have the magic to fascinate and the power to -hold its reader from first to last. Its realism must be real, of three -dimensions, not flat and photographic; its romance must be of the human -heart and truly human, that is, of the earth as we all have found it; -its idealism must be transcendent, not measured to man’s mind, but -proportioned to man’s soul. Its religion must be of such grand and -universal span as to hold all worthy religions in itself. Conceive, if -possible, such a story, told in language that can be now simple, now -keen, now passionate, and now sublime—or rather, pray, do not conceive -it, for<a name="page_45" id="page_45"></a> the modern novelist’s occupation would suddenly be gone, and -that one book would stand alone of its kind, making all others worse -than useless—ridiculous, if not sacrilegious, by comparison.</p> - -<p>Why must a novel-writer be either a “realist” or a “romantist”? And, if -the latter, why “romanticist” any more than “realisticist”? Why should a -good novel not combine romance and reality in just proportions? Is there -any reason to suppose that the one element must necessarily shut out the -other? Both are included in every-day life, which would be a very dull -affair without something of the one, and would be decidedly incoherent -without the other. Art, if it is “to create and foster agreeable -illusions,”<a name="page_46" id="page_46"></a> as Napoleon is believed to have said of it, should -represent the real, but in such a way as to make it seem more agreeable -and interesting than it actually is. That is the only way to create “an -agreeable illusion,” and by no other means can a novel do good while -remaining a legitimate novel and not becoming a sermon, a treatise, or a -polemic.</p> - -<p>It may reasonably be inquired whether the prevailing and still growing -taste for fiction expresses a new and enduring want of educated men and -women. The novel, as we understand the word, is after all a very recent -invention. Considering that we do not find it in existence until late in -the last century, its appearance must be admitted to<a name="page_47" id="page_47"></a> have been very -sudden, its growth fabulously rapid, and its development enormous. The -ancients had nothing more like it than a few collections of humorous and -pathetic stories. The Orientals, who might be supposed to feel the need -of it even more than we do, had nothing but their series of fantastic -tales strung rather loosely together without general plan. Men and women -seem to have survived the dulness of the dark age with the help of the -itinerant story-teller. The novel is a distinctly modern invention, -satisfying a modern want. In the ideal state described with so much -accuracy by Mr. Bellamy, I believe the novel would not sell. It would be -incomprehensible, or it would not be a novel at all, according<a name="page_48" id="page_48"></a> to our -understanding. Do away practically with the struggle for life, eliminate -all the unfit and make the surviving fittest perfectly comfortable—men -and women might still take a curious interest in our present -civilisation, but it would be of a purely historical nature. To -gratuitously invent a tale of a poor man fighting for success would seem -to them a piece of monstrously bad taste and ridiculously useless. Are -we tending to such a state as that? There are those who believe that we -are—but a faith able to remove mountains at “cut rates” will not be -more than enough to realise their hopes.<a name="page_49" id="page_49"></a></p> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">I</span>T may fairly be claimed that humanity has, within the past hundred -years, found a way of carrying a theatre in its pocket; and so long as -humanity remains what it is, it will delight in taking out its -pocket-stage and watching the antics of the actors, who are so like -itself and yet so much more interesting. Perhaps that is, after all, the -best answer to the question, “What is a novel?” It is, or ought to be, a -pocket-stage. Scenery, light, shade, the actors themselves, are made of -words, and nothing but words, more or less cleverly put together. A play -is good in proportion as it represents<a name="page_50" id="page_50"></a> the more dramatic, passionate, -romantic, or humorous sides of real life. A novel is excellent according -to the degree in which it produces the illusions of a good play—but it -must not be forgotten that the play is the thing, and that illusion is -eminently necessary to success.</p> - -<p>Every writer who has succeeded has his own methods of creating such -illusion. Some of us are found out, and some of us are not; but we all -do the same thing in one way or another, consciously or unconsciously. -The tricks of the art are without number, simple or elaborate, easily -learned or hard to imitate, and many of us consider that we have a -monopoly of certain tricks we call our own, and are unreasonably<a name="page_51" id="page_51"></a> angry -when a competitor makes use of them.</p> - -<p>The means, all subservient to language, are many, but the object is -always one: to make the reader realise as far as possible the writer’s -conception of his story.</p> - -<p>That word “realise” has a greater value and a wider application upon the -question which I am endeavouring to treat so briefly than in ordinary -conversation. To realise means to make real from one’s own standpoint, -to see as vividly through the imagination what is partially imaginary as -what is altogether imagined; in other words, to call up an image as -coincident with the representations of fact as truth itself. Of course, -in a printed<a name="page_52" id="page_52"></a> book, the author has no means to attain this end excepting -language, and upon the terms of language employed must depend a very -large part of his success. Language is the tool with which he makes his -weapons, and these in their turn may vary in manufacture and temper -according to his requirements. The most powerful weapon of all is what -is most commonly called truth to nature. Goethe said of his “Wilhelm -Meister,” “there is nothing in it which I have not lived and nothing -exactly as I lived it”; yet most people would call “Wilhelm Meister” a -fantastic book. Other means of producing an impression are local colour, -the use of dialects and foreign languages. Here I know I am touching<a name="page_53" id="page_53"></a> -upon a very delicate point, and that I risk wounding the sensibilities -of many writers and attacking the individual tastes of many readers of -fiction. Nevertheless, the mention of the dialect-novel raises a -question which is before the literary grand jury of the world. Assuredly -every man has a prime right to make use of the material at his disposal; -and if some particular dialect forms a part of this stock in trade, he -is as free to employ it as an African traveller, for instance, is free -to introduce his own reminiscences into a novel, if he writes one. -Colour alone amuses some people, chiefly children. Small boys and girls -do not despise a kaleidoscope as a toy on a rainy day, and dialect -without dramatic interest<a name="page_54" id="page_54"></a> is colour without form or outline, and some -novels in dialect are nothing more. But then, there are plenty of works -of fiction written in ordinary English which have not even that one -merit, and of these I do not wish to say anything. Take a really good -novel, however, in which more than half the pages are filled with -dialogues in a language not familiar to the English-speaking public as a -whole. Is not the writer wilfully limiting his audience, if not himself? -Is he not sacrificing his privilege of addressing all men, for the sake -of addressing a few in terms which they especially prefer? Is he not -preferring local popularity to broader and more enduring reputation? -Could he not, by the skilful use of description,<a name="page_55" id="page_55"></a> by a clever handling -of grammar and a careful selection of words, produce an impression which -should be more widely felt, though less warmly received, perhaps, in -that one small public to which he appeals? Is he not, although he be a -first-rate man, often tempted to lapses of literary conscience by the -peculiar facilities he finds in the literary by-way he has chosen? How -much of what is screaming farce in the dialect of the few, would be -funny if translated into plain English for the many? Wit and humour are -intellectual, and when genuine are susceptible of being translated into -almost all languages; but dialect seems to me to rank with puns, and -with puns of a particular local character. A practical<a name="page_56" id="page_56"></a> demonstration of -this is found in the fact that stories in dialect, when told and not -read, are duller than any other stories, unless the teller has the power -of imitating accents. Almost all limitations which a man willingly -assumes afford facilities for the sake of which he assumes them.<a name="page_57" id="page_57"></a></p> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">B</span>UT this is not the place for a study of methods. So far as I have been -able, I have answered the question I asked, and which stands at the head -of this essay. But I have answered it in my own way. What am I, a -novel-writer, trying to do? I am trying, with such limited means as I -have at my disposal, to make little pocket-theatres out of words. I am -trying to be architect, scene-painter, upholsterer, dramatist and -stage-manager, all at once. Is it any wonder if we novelists do not -succeed as well as we could wish, when we try to be masters of so many -trades?<a name="page_58" id="page_58"></a></p> - -<p>Nor is this all. The great development of the modern superficial -education in society has brought with it a thirst for knowledge which -adds considerably to the difficulties of the novelist’s art. There are -few sciences, few of the arts, few of the branches of learning, in which -the reading public does not take some sort of interest. That interest is -not a profound one, but with its growth encyclopædias, primers, and -“cram-books” have multiplied exceedingly on the face of the earth. Upon -the slightest suspicion the reader accuses the author of inaccuracy, -goes to his own, or his friend’s, or the Public Library’s bookshelves, -takes down the “Encyclopædia Britannica,” the “Century Dictionary,”<a name="page_59" id="page_59"></a> or -“Larousse,” and with cruel directness sets the author right. We are -expected to be omniscient, to understand the construction of the -telephone, the latest theories concerning the cholera microbe, the -mysteries of hypnotism, the Russian language, and the nautical -dictionary. We are supposed to be intimately acquainted with the -writings of Macrobius, the music of Wagner, and the Impressionist school -of painting. In these days when there has been much discussion -concerning the authorship of Shakespeare’s plays,—concerning which -“Punch” wisely said they were probably written by another man of the -same name,—the principal argument against Bacon’s authorship of them -seems to me to be<a name="page_60" id="page_60"></a> this: No one man of whom we have ever known anything -can be conceived capable of having produced such an enormous body of -thoughtful work as is contained in what is attributed to Shakespeare and -in what is known to have been written by Bacon. And yet, for the sake of -a little profit and the inducement of a modicum of glory, we authors are -sometimes expected to rival both. The absurdity of this is apparent to -the most ordinary mind and painfully so to the ordinary critic, who, -though he may never have written a book, may very possibly know more -than we do about some subjects upon which we are obliged to write. Dr. -Johnson, it will be remembered, said that a man need not be a -coach-builder<a name="page_61" id="page_61"></a> in order to say that a carriage is well made. I am aware -that many persons will think my statement exaggerated, or, if they do -not, will say that they prefer an honest love story to a tale involving -the intricacies of the modern invention. And I believe there has been a -reaction in this respect. With regard to the play, it is the opinion of -some of the best actors and most successful managers now alive, that the -public, if it really knew what it wanted, instead of being forced to -feed upon what it gets, would demand real, old-fashioned love pieces -rather than comedies, dramas and melodramas, in which the leading actor -is the mechanician and the hero of the piece is little more than a -“walking gentleman.”<a name="page_62" id="page_62"></a> On my theory that the novel is, or should be, a -play, the same must be approximately true about fiction. An acquaintance -with the developments of modern science cannot do more than lend a -modern colour to the story, and so far as that goes the more closely -acquainted we are with such things, the better for us. But no one has a -right to demand that we should know everything, in order to find fault -with us if we lose our heads over the reversing gear of a locomotive or -the most approved fashion of rigging a top-gallant studding-sail boom.</p> - -<p>One may be pardoned for asking sometimes whether the advance of science -does not almost mean the retreat of thought. Again I protest against<a name="page_63" id="page_63"></a> -the accusation of smart writing, which is so easily brought, so hard to -bear, and so difficult to refute. I do not mean that science thinks less -as she progresses, but I do mean to say that there is much in favour of -the <i>homo unius libri</i>—the man of one book—the man who reads less and -thinks more than his fellows. The wonders of science are very -attractive, many of them are decidedly spectacular and may be used by -the author to amuse when he cannot interest, but I doubt whether books -which depend upon them for success will be much more popular fifty years -hence than “Sandford and Merton” or Paley’s “Evidences of Christianity” -are in our time. At that not distant future date, our grandchildren<a name="page_64" id="page_64"></a> -will probably look upon our quoted wonders and marvels with about as -much interest as we regard the experiment of asphyxiating a mouse under -the receiver of an air-pump, or making a piece of paper stick to a piece -of rubbed sealing-wax and explaining that it is electricity. Yet, to -take an instance, medicine and surgery play a considerable part in -modern light literature, and the fire-engine is a distinct feature on -the modern stage. Generally speaking, I venture to say that anything -which fixes the date of the novel not intended to be historical is a -mistake, from a literary point of view. It is not wise to describe the -cut of the hero’s coat, nor the draping of the heroine’s gown, the shape -of her hat, nor the colour of his<a name="page_65" id="page_65"></a> tie. Ten years hence somebody may buy -the book and turn up his nose at “those times.” Until a date which may -still be called recent, it was customary to play Shakespeare with the -dress of modern times. Garrick, I think, played Macbeth in a full -bottomed wig. I may be wrong, but I have the impression that what we -call stage costume first became common in his days and to some extent by -his individual efforts. In Shakespeare’s times, Achilles in “Troilus and -Cressida” dressed like Sir Walter Raleigh, and Cymbeline perhaps like -Henry VIII., to give himself an air of antiquity. But there was nothing -absurd about the plays for all that, because they did not depend upon -such<a name="page_66" id="page_66"></a> trifles as dresses, ruffles—or fire-engines for the emotions they -excited in the hearts of their listeners.<a name="page_67" id="page_67"></a></p> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HE danger of falling into absurdities lies not in anachronisms of -dress, but in speeches that contradict sentiments, and actions that -belie the character. We need not go far to find truth, but having begun -our search in one direction, we must not wander to another, or we shall -fall out of the natural sequence of events upon which we depend for the -effect of reality. For a man of superior gifts there is an easy but -dangerous way out of the difficulty. Instead of inventing his characters -he may take men and women who have really lived and played parts in the -world’s story and have made love, so to say, in<a name="page_68" id="page_68"></a> the face of all -humanity. In other words, he may write an historical novel.</p> - -<p>The historical novel occupies a position apart and separate from others, -but it does not follow that it should not conform exactly to the -conditions required of an ordinary work of fiction, though it must -undoubtedly possess other qualities peculiar to itself. It is doubtful -whether any genuine historical novel has ever yet been written for the -sake of the history it contains. In nine cases out of ten the writer has -selected his subject because it interests him, because it has dramatic -elements, and possibly because he hopes to interest his readers more -readily by means of characters and events altogether beyond the reach of -the carping critic. If this<a name="page_69" id="page_69"></a> is not the case, it is hard indeed to see -why the historical novel should be written at all, seeing that it is -neither fish, flesh, nor fowl, but salad. It is indeed a regrettable -fact, but also an indubitable one, that a good many people of our time -have derived their knowledge of French history from the novels of -Alexandre Dumas, and of some of the most important events in the story -of the British Empire from those of Walter Scott. But no one pretends -that such books are history deserving to be taught as such, and the -writers certainly made no such pretensions themselves. Where fact and -fiction are closely linked together, the elements may obviously be mixed -in an infinite variety, and in any possible degree of relative -intensity—<a name="page_70" id="page_70"></a>all wine and no water, or almost all water and no wine to -speak of. Provided that no attempt is made to palm off the historical -novel as a school-book, there can be no real objection to it on other -grounds.</p> - -<p>It seems quite certain that the oldest form of dramatic art dealt solely -with subjects considered at the time to be historical, or which -constituted articles of belief. The Greek dramatists founded all their -plays, without exception, so far as I know, upon history, myths, or -traditions, either religious or secular, and produced works of -unrivalled beauty and enduring strength. Some one once called the novel -the “modern epic.” There is just enough truth in the saying to give it -social<a name="page_71" id="page_71"></a> currency in conversation, but it is true, so far as we know, -that the ancient epic preceded the ancient drama, creating the taste and -the demand for emotions which the dramatists subsequently satisfied, and -it was perhaps because the epic was wholly historical in a measure, that -the drama was founded upon an historical basis. The average novelist -likes to make use of historical facts principally because he knows that -his critics cannot impugn the possibility of the situations he uses, -while the latter are so strong in themselves as to bear the burden of -the writer’s faults with comparative ease, if his talents are not -remarkable. If he is a man of genius, he gets a certain amount of very -valuable liberty by doing his “sensation<a name="page_72" id="page_72"></a> work” with tragic facts widely -known, which help to produce in the reader’s mind an <i>a priori</i> -impression of interest, perfectly legitimate because perfectly well -grounded, but enormously in the writer’s favour. Altogether there is -much to be said for the historical novel, if we take the view that the -novel itself is but a portable play; and there is no especial reason why -we should be so desperately true to the definitions of common parlance -as to say that the novel must be a work of fiction and nothing else. But -in the case of the historical novel there is a very important proviso -which must never be forgotten under any circumstances. It must be good. -The ordinary story may be bad from an artistic point of<a name="page_73" id="page_73"></a> view, and may -nevertheless succeed as a literary speculation; but in treating of -history, where the personages are great and the events are of stupendous -import, the distance which separates the sublime from the ridiculous is -even less than the step to which Tom Payne limited it. No author can -make Julius Cæsar, Mary Stuart, or Louis XIV ridiculous; but no writer -should forget that they can make a laughing-stock of him in his book -almost as easily as they could have done in real life. On the whole, -therefore, the historical novel is always likely to prove more dangerous -to the writer than to the reader, since, when it fails to be a great -book, it will in all likelihood be an absurd one. For historical facts -are<a name="page_74" id="page_74"></a> limitations, and he who subjects himself to them must be willing to -undertake all the responsibility they imply. Nothing is easier than to -write a fantastic tale against which no criticism can be brought beyond -a vague statement that it is dull or worthless, and not worth reading; -but so soon as a man deals with events which have actually taken place, -he is bounded on all sides by a multitude of details with which he must -be acquainted and from which he cannot escape. I have sometimes wondered -whether Walter Savage Landor did not really meditate writing an -historical novel at some time during the evolution of the “Imaginary -Conversations.” More than one work of the kind, and assuredly of the -highest order,<a name="page_75" id="page_75"></a> must have presented itself to his mind, since he -possessed in a supreme degree the power most necessary to the historical -novelist, that of seizing the dramatic points in the lives of historical -personages and of creating splendid dramatic dialogues without at any -time compromising undoubted facts. In other words, he knew how to -combine the romantic and the real in such true and just proportions as -to demonstrate clearly that they may and should go hand in hand. And -this brings us back to the great question of romance and realism, two -words which can hardly fail to drop from the modern writer’s pen in -treating of such a subject.<a name="page_76" id="page_76"></a></p> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HERE is much talk in our day of the realistic school of fiction, and -the romantic school, though not often mentioned, is understood to be -opposed to it. Of course, it is easy to enter into a long discussion -about the exact meanings of the two words; but, on the whole, it seems -to be true that if the people who talk about schools of fiction mean -anything or wish to mean anything, which sometimes seems doubtful, they -mean this: the realist proposes to show men what they are; the romantist -tries to show men what they should be. It is very unlikely that mankind -will ever agree as to the relative<a name="page_77" id="page_77"></a> merits of these two, and the -discussion which was practically begun in Plato’s time is not likely to -end so long as people care what they read or what they think. The most -any one can do is to give a personal opinion, and that means, of course, -that he who expresses it commits himself and publicly takes either the -one side or the other. For my part, I believe that more good can be done -by showing men what they may be, ought to be, or can be, than by -describing their greatest weaknesses with the highest art. We all know -how bad we are; but it needs much encouragement to persuade some of us -to believe that we can really be any better. To create genuine interest, -and afford rest and<a name="page_78" id="page_78"></a> legitimate amusement, without losing sight of that -fact, and to do so in a more or less traditional way, seems to be the -profession of the novelist who belongs to the romantic persuasion.</p> - -<p>That novel-writing is a business I am credibly informed by my -publishers. And since that is the case, it must be taken for granted -that it is a business which to some extent must be practised like any -other and which will succeed or fail in the hands of any particular man -according as he is more or less fitted to carry it on. The -qualifications for any business are three: native talent, education, and -industry. Where there is success of the right kind, the talent and power -of application must be taken for granted. The education<a name="page_79" id="page_79"></a> is and always -must be a question of circumstance. With regard to novel-writing, when I -speak of education I am not referring to it in the ordinary sense. Some -people take a great deal of interest in concrete things, while others -care more for humanity. The education of a novelist is the experience of -men and women which he has got at first hand in the course of his own -life, for he is of that class to whom humanity offers a higher interest -than inanimate nature. He can use nature and art only as a scene and -background upon which and before which his personages move and have -their being. It is his business to present his readers with something -which I have called the pocket-theatre, something which every man may -carry<a name="page_80" id="page_80"></a> in his pocket, believing that he has only to open it in order to -look in upon the theatre of the living world. To produce it, to prepare -it, to put it into a portable and serviceable shape, the writer must -know what that living world is, what the men in it do and what the women -think, why women shed tears and children laugh and young men make love -and old men repeat themselves. While he is writing his book, his human -beings must be with him, before him, moving before the eye of his mind -and talking into the ear of his heart. He must have lived himself; he -must have loved, fought, suffered, and struggled in the human battle. I -would almost say that to describe another’s death he must himself have -died.<a name="page_81" id="page_81"></a></p> - -<p>All this accounts perhaps for the fact that readers are many and writers -few. The reader knows one side of life, his own, better than the writer -possibly can, and he reads with the greatest interest those books which -treat of lives like his own. But the writer must have seen and known -many phases of existence, and this is what the education of the novelist -means: to know and understand, so far as he is able, men and women who -have been placed in unusual circumstances. And this need not and should -not lead him into creating altogether imaginary characters, nor men and -women whose circumstances are not only unusual, but altogether -impossible. We see grotesque pieces given at the theatre<a name="page_82" id="page_82"></a>—too grotesque -and too often given—which make us laugh, but never make us think. They -would not make good novels. The novel must amuse, indeed, but should -amuse reasonably, from an intellectual point of view, rather than as a -piece of good fun. Its object is to make one see men and women who might -really live, talk, and act as they do in the book, and some of whom one -would perhaps like to imitate. Its intention is to amuse and please, and -certainly not to teach or preach; but in order to amuse well it must be -a finely-balanced creation, neither hysterical with tears nor convulsed -with perpetual laughter. The one is as tiring as the other and, in the -long run, as unnatural.<a name="page_83" id="page_83"></a></p> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">I</span>T is easy, comparatively speaking, to appeal to the emotions, but it is -hard to appeal to the heart. This may sound somewhat contradictory at -first, but there is truth in it, nevertheless. The outward emotions are -in real life much more the expressions of the temperament than of what -we call the heart. We all know that there are men and women who laugh -and cry more easily than others, and we are rather inclined to believe -that these are not they who feel most deeply. A very difficult question -here presents itself. Bacon says somewhere that we are apt to extol the -powers of the human intellect<a name="page_84" id="page_84"></a> without invoking its aid as often as we -might. This extolling of humanity has been a fashion of late years, and -it has not yet disappeared, though its popularity is waning fast. In -England Sir Andrew Clarke, M.D., has recently talked learnedly of “the -religion of the body,” and Lord Coleridge with eloquence of “the -religion of the mind.” These things are good enough, no doubt, but what -of the religion of the heart, which is after all the only religion there -is—if the heart is the earthly representative of the soul? There are -some people—fewer than is generally supposed—who really do not believe -in the existence of the soul. Let me tell them that they are very near -to denying the existence of the<a name="page_85" id="page_85"></a> heart. Perhaps some of them do, and -they may live to repent of their unbelief in this world, if not in the -next.</p> - -<p>What is the heart, or, rather, what do we in common conversation and -writing understand by that word? It looks a great deal like attempting -to define belief, but belief has received an excellent definition, for -belief is knowledge and nothing else, so far as the individual who holds -it is concerned. What we call the heart in each man and woman seems to -mean the whole body of innate and inherited instincts, impulses, and -beliefs, taken together, and in that relation to one another in which -they stand after they have been acted upon throughout the individual’s -life by the inward vicissitudes and the<a name="page_86" id="page_86"></a> outward circumstances to which -he has been exposed. When all this is quiescent I think we call it Self. -When roused to emotional activity we call it the Heart. But whatever we -call it, it is to this Self or Heart that everything which is ethic and -therefore permanent must appeal.</p> - -<p>The foundation of good fiction and good poetry seems to be ethic rather -than æsthetic. Everything in either which appeals to the taste, that is, -to the æsthetic side, may ultimately perish as a mere matter of fashion; -but that which speaks to man as man, independently of his fashions, his -habits, and his tastes, must live and find a hearing with humanity so -long as humanity is human. The right understanding of<a name="page_87" id="page_87"></a> men and women -leads to the right relations of men and women, and in this way, if in -any, a novel may do good; when written to attain this end, it may live; -when addressed to the constant element in human nature, it has as good a -right and as good a chance of pleasing the men and women of the world in -our day, as it had to appeal to the intellect of Pericles or to thrill -the delicate sensibilities of Aspasia. Their novels were plays in -outward effect, as ours should be in inward substance, and we must needs -confess that the form in which their intellectual artistic luxuries were -presented to them was superior to that of the modern effort included in -four hundred pages at one dollar and twenty-five cents. Possibly,<a name="page_88" id="page_88"></a> even -probably, it is unfair to us to compare ourselves with Sophocles, -Euripides, and Aristophanes; yet the comparison suggests itself if the -definition be true and if our novels really aspire to be plays.</p> - -<p>We have indeed something in our favour which the genuine playwright has -not. We appeal entirely to the imagination, and, unless we use algebraic -<i>formulæ</i> or scientific discussion, we give no standard measure in our -books by which to judge the whole. We can call up surroundings which -never were and never can be possible in the world, and if we are able to -do it well enough we can put impossible characters upon our stage and -make them do impossible things, and the whole,<a name="page_89" id="page_89"></a> acting upon a -predisposed imagination, may create for the moment something almost like -belief in the mind of the reader. We can conceive a tale fantastic -beyond the bounds of probability, and if there be a touch of nature in -it, we may for a while transport our readers into Fairyland. We can -clothe all of this in poetic language if our command of the English -tongue be equal to the occasion, and we can lend pathos to a monster and -heroism to a burlesque man. But the writer of plays for the real theatre -cannot do this; if he does, he makes that which in theatrical language -is called a “burlesque” or a “spectacle”; or, if he be a follower of the -“decadent school,” he may produce what he has decided<a name="page_90" id="page_90"></a> to call by a new -name—a production not always conducive to a high belief in human -nature.</p> - -<p>The writer of plays, if he write them for actual performance, has living -interpreters, and they and he are judged by the standards of real life. -He is to a great extent dependent upon his actors for the effect he -hopes to produce, and they are dependent not only upon him, upon their -individual education, depth of feeling, and power of expression, but -also upon the material conditions and surroundings in which they have to -do their work. The most dramatic scene of real life, if it actually took -place on the stage of a theatre, would seem a very dull and tame affair -to any one who chanced to find himself<a name="page_91" id="page_91"></a> in the body of the house. The -fundamental lack of interest, until it has been artificially aroused, is -a gulf not to be bridged by such simple means as being really “natural.” -The art of the actor lies in knowing the precise degree of exaggeration -necessary to produce the impression that he is not exaggerating at -all—but exaggeration there must be. Without it, neither the words nor -the actions can speak or appeal to the intelligence of the spectator.</p> - -<p>But we novelists are in an easier position in our relation to our -audience. We are granted many privileges and have many advantages which -the playwright has not; for we can appeal to the heart almost directly -without<a name="page_92" id="page_92"></a> the conscious intervention of practised eyes and ears, used to -realities and eager to judge by real standards. We speak of Edwin’s -great height, broad shoulders, noble features and silken moustache, and -are not obliged to look out for an actor who shall fulfil these -conditions of manly beauty before we can be heard without being -ridiculous. Angelina’s heavy hair is a fact on paper; on the stage it is -a wig, and must be a good one. Her liquid blue eyes are blue because we -say they are; but it would annoy a playwright to find that his leading -actress had light gray ones, when Edwin must compare them to the depths -of the blackest night.<a name="page_93" id="page_93"></a></p> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">A</span>LL this is rather frivolous, perhaps; but a little frivolity is to the -point here, since there can be no amusement without a dash of it, and we -profess to provide diversion to meet the public demand. With most men -who have moulded, hacked, and chiselled the world into history, to think -has been to act. With us novelists, so far as the world need know us, to -think is to dream, and perhaps to dream only little dreams of merely -passing significance. Few novelists are poets; only one or two have been -statesmen; none have been conquerors. I suppose we are very -insignificant figures compared<a name="page_94" id="page_94"></a> with the great ones of this earth; but -to our comfort we may dream, and if we need consolation we may console -ourselves, as Montaigne puts it, with the art which small souls have to -interest great ones, “<i>L’art qu’ont les petites âmes d’intéresser les -grandes.</i>”</p> - -<p>Frivolity is not weakness, though in excess it may be a weakness. -“<i>Carpe diem</i>” is a good motto for the morning, but in the evening -“<i>Dulce desipere in loco</i>” is not to be despised as a piece of advice. -The frivolities of great men and famous women have filled volumes of -memoirs, and are not without interest to the little, as our little -interests do not always seem dull to the great. The greater men are, the -more heart they have, good or bad, and the easier<a name="page_95" id="page_95"></a> it is to affect them -through it, through the multiform feelings which their varied lives have -created within them, or through the few strong sentiments by which most -of them are ruled, guided, or impelled according as they are -conscientious, calculating, or impulsive, and to some extent according -to their nationality, a matter which has almost as much to do with the -author’s dream as with the reader’s subjective interpretation of it, and -which largely determines the balance between sentiment and -sentimentality.</p> - -<p>Sentiment heightens the value of works of fiction as sentimentality -lowers it. Sentimentality is to sentiment as sensuality to passion. The -distinction is not a fine one and has grown common<a name="page_96" id="page_96"></a> enough in our day to -be universally understood. We owe it, I think, to the international -balance of sentiment and sentimentality that the novelists of the -present day are the French, Anglo-Saxons, and Russians. With all due -respect to the great German intelligence, it does not seem capable of -producing what we call a novel though it turns out most excellent plays. -The German mind, measured by our standard, is sentimental, not romantic. -Perhaps there is as much romance to be found in the history and -traditions of Germany up to a date which I should place at about forty -years ago as there is anywhere in the civilised world. Yet for some -reason or other, the modern German, as I have said, seems to be more -sentimental<a name="page_97" id="page_97"></a> than romantic in his habits of thought and feeling.</p> - -<p>It is not possible in a paper of this length to inquire into the -foundations of sentimentality and romance. Practically, however, what we -call a romantic life is one full of romantic incidents which come -unsought, as the natural consequence and result of a man’s or a woman’s -character. It is therefore necessarily an exceptional life, and as such -should have exceptional interest for the majority. When our lives are -not filled with emotions, they are too often crammed with insignificant -details too insignificant to bear recording in a novel, but yet making -up for each of us all the significance life has. The great emotions are -not every-day phenomena,<a name="page_98" id="page_98"></a> and it is the desire to experience them -vicariously which creates the demand for fiction and thereby and at the -same time a demand for emotion. This is felt more particularly nowadays -than formerly.</p> - -<p>There was a great deal of artificiality in the last century, and I -believe very little real emotion or true sentiment. The evidences of the -truth of this statement appear sufficiently, I think, in the current -literature, the music, and the social manners of that time. Of the three -the music alone has survived. Musicians constitute, in a certain sense, -a caste, not unlike the Christian priesthood or the Buddhist -brotherhood. Their art is more distinctly handed down from teacher to -scholar, from<a name="page_99" id="page_99"></a> master to pupil, than any other, and this may perhaps -account for their unwillingness to break through their traditions and -accepted rules. Few persons, however, can listen to an average symphony -for orchestra, or sonata for piano, especially to the <i>allegro</i> -movements, without being struck by the utter conventionality and -artificiality of many parts of the production. This, it seems to me, is -not due to the instinct of the musician, nor to the taste of the musical -public, but is a distinct survival of a former existence, as much as the -caudal appendage or the buttons on the backs of our coats. This is -probably rank heresy from the musical point of view, and, like all I say -here, is a mere personal opinion; but to<a name="page_100" id="page_100"></a> judge by analogy from the -remains of other arts cultivated a hundred years ago, there seems to be -some foundation for it. Can any one see such plays acted, for instance, -as Sheridan’s, without being forcibly struck by the total absence of -spontaneity and the absolute submission to social routine of the average -society man and woman of those days. Sheridan’s comedies are undoubtedly -as true to their times on the one hand as they are to human nature on -the other, but the humanity of them is thrown into vivid and strong -relief by the artificiality of the elements in the midst of which the -chief actors have their being. As for the literature, it is hardly -necessary for me to defend the statement that it was conventional.<a name="page_101" id="page_101"></a> -There was an intellectual dress, as it were, put on by the man of genius -of those times. It hung loosely upon Goldsmith’s irregular frame. It sat -close, well-fitting and fashionable upon Addison, but Samuel Johnson’s -mighty limbs almost burst its seams and betrayed at every movement the -giant who wore it. On a sudden the fashion changed, and it has not done -changing yet.</p> - -<p>The French Revolution seems to have introduced an emotional phase into -social history, and to it we must attribute directly or indirectly many -of our present tastes and fashions. With it began the novel in France. -With it the novel in the English language made a fresh start and assumed -a new form.<a name="page_102" id="page_102"></a> To take a very simple view of the question, I should like -to hazard, as a guess, the theory that when the world had lived at a -very high pressure during the French Revolution, the wars of Napoleon, -and what has been called the “awakening of the peoples,” it had acquired -permanently “the emotional habit,” just as a man who takes opium or -morphia cannot do without the one or the other. There was a general -desire felt to go on experiencing without dangerous consequences those -varying conditions of hope, fear, disappointment and triumph in which -the whole world’s nervous system had thrilled daily during so many years -and at such fearful cost. The children of the women who had gone to the -scaffold<a name="page_103" id="page_103"></a> with Marie Antoinette, the sons of the men who had charged -with Murat, who had stood by La Tour d’Auvergne, or who had fired their -parting shot with Ney, were not satisfied to dwell in returning peace -and reviving prosperity with nothing but insipid tales of shepherds and -shepherdesses to amuse them. They wanted sterner, rougher stuff. They -created a demand, and it was forthwith supplied, and their children and -children’s children have followed their progenitors’ footsteps in war -and have adopted their tastes in peace.<a name="page_104" id="page_104"></a></p> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">M</span>ODERN civilisation, too, has done what it could to stir the hearts of -men. Evil communications corrupt good manners, and it is not a play upon -words to say that the increased facility of actual communications has -widened and deepened those channels of communication which are evil, and -increased at the same time the demand for all sorts of emotion, bad or -good. Not that emotion of itself is bad. It is often the contrary. Even -the momentary reflection of true love is a good thing in itself. It is -good that men and women should realise that a great affection is, or can -be, a reality<a name="page_105" id="page_105"></a> to many as well as a convenient amusement or a -heart-rending drama to a few.</p> - -<p>Modern civilisation has created modern vices, modern crimes, modern -virtues, austerities, and generosities. The crimes of to-day were not -dreamed of a hundred years ago, any more than the sublimity of the good -deeds done in our time to remedy our time’s mistakes. And between the -angel and the beast of this ending century lie great multitudes of -ever-shifting, ever-changing lives, neither very bad nor very good, but -in all cases very different from what lives used to be in the good old -days when time meant time and not money. There, too, in that vast land -of mediocrities, emotions<a name="page_106" id="page_106"></a> play a part of which our grandfathers never -heard, and being real, of the living, and of superior interest to those -who feel them, reflect themselves in the novel of to-day, diverting the -course of true love into very tortuous channels and varying the tale -that is ever young with features that are often new. Within a short few -months I myself have lived in a land where modern means of communication -are not, and I have come to live here, where applied science is doing -her best to eliminate distance as a factor from the equation of -exchanges, financial and intellectual. The difference between the -manifestations of human feeling in Southern Italy and North America is -greater and wider than can be explained in<a name="page_107" id="page_107"></a> intelligible terms. Yet it -is but skin-deep. Sentiment, sentimentality, taste, fashion, daily -speech, acquired science, and transmitted tradition cleanse, soil, -model, or deface the changing shell of mutable mortality, and nothing -which appeals to that shell alone can have permanent life; but the prime -impulses of the heart are, broadly speaking, the same in all ages and -almost in all races. The brave man’s beats as strongly in battle to-day, -the coward’s stands as suddenly still in the face of danger, boys and -girls still play with love, men and women still suffer for love, and the -old still warn youth and manhood against love’s snares—all that and -much more comes from depths not reached by civilisations nor<a name="page_108" id="page_108"></a> changed by -fashions. Those deep waters the real novel must fathom, sounding the -tide-stream of passion and bringing up such treasures as lie far below -and out of sight—out of reach of the individual in most cases—until -the art of the story-teller makes him feel that they are or might be -his. Cæsar commanded his legionaries to strike at the face. Humanity, -the novelist’s master, bids him strike only at the heart.</p> - -<p class="c"><a name="page_109" id="page_109"></a>THE END</p> - -<hr /> - -<p class="cb"> -LIST OF WORKS<br /> -BY<br /> -<span class="lrgr"><span class="smcap">Mr. F. Marion Crawford</span>.</span><br /> -<br /> -Uniformly bound in Cloth. <b>12mo.</b><br /> -<b>Price</b>, $1.00 each.<br /> -</p> - -<hr class="smlr" /> - -<p class="cb"> -<i>Just Published.</i></p> -<p class="lrgr">CHILDREN OF THE KING.</p> -<p class="cb">A Tale of Southern Italy.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Macmillan & Co.</span> take pleasure in announcing that they have made -arrangements to add the following volumes (with the author’s latest -revisions) to their uniform edition of the works of Mr. F. Marion -Crawford, thereby enabling them to issue a complete edition of all his -novels.</p> - -<p class="c"> -<span class="lrgr">A ROMAN SINGER.</span><br /> -<i>Now Ready.</i><br /> -New Edition, revised and corrected.<br /> -<br /> - -<span class="lrgr">TO LEEWARD.</span><br /> -<i>February.</i><br /> -<br /> - -<span class="lrgr">PAUL PATOFF.</span><br /> -<i>March.</i><br /> -<br /> - -<span class="lrgr">AN AMERICAN POLITICIAN</span>.<i>April.</i><br /> -New Edition, revised and partly rewritten.<br /> -</p> - -<p><a name="page_110" id="page_110"></a></p> - -<hr /> - -<p class="lrgr"><span class="eng">The Saracinesca Series.</span></p> - -<p>“His greatest achievement is the group of three novels on Modern Italy. -The three books present a wonderfully vivid picture of Italian social -life.”—<i>N. Y. Life.</i></p> - -<p class="lrgr">SARACINESCA.</p> - -<p>“His highest achievement, as yet, in the realms of fiction. The work has -two distinct merits, either of which would serve to make it great,—that -of telling a perfect story in a perfect way, and of giving a graphic -picture of Roman society in the last days of the Pope’s temporal -power.... The story is exquisitely told.”—<i>Boston Traveller.</i></p> - -<p>“One of the most engrossing novels we have ever read.”—<i>Boston Times.</i></p> - -<p class="lrgr">SANT’ ILARIO.<br /> -A Sequel to “Saracinesca.”</p> - -<p>“A singularly powerful and beautiful story.... Admirably developed, with -a naturalness beyond praise.... It brings out what is most impressive in -human action, without owing any of its effectiveness to sensationalism -or artifice.”—<i>New York Tribune.</i><a name="page_111" id="page_111"></a></p> - -<p> -DON ORSINO.</p> - -<p class="cb">A Continuation of “Saracinesca” and<br /> -“Sant’ Ilario.”<br /> -</p> - -<p>“The third in a remarkable series of novels dealing with three -generations of the Saracinesca family, entitled respectively -‘Saracinesca,’ ‘Sant’ Ilario,’ and ‘Don Orsino,’ and these novels -present an important study of Italian life, customs, and conditions -during the present century. The ‘new Italy’ is strikingly revealed in -‘Don Orsino.’ ”—<i>Boston Budget.</i></p> - -<p>“We are inclined to regard the book as the most ingenious of all Mr. -Crawford’s fictions. Certainly it is the best novel of the -season.”—<i>Evening Bulletin.</i></p> - -<p>“The plot of the story (‘Don Orsino’) is one of the best that the author -has constructed. The mystery of Maria Consuelo’s birth and her relation -to Spicca is most ingenious, continually suggesting a false trail to the -reader, and its end surprising and satisfying him with its adequateness. -When you combine all these things with a wonderful beauty of diction and -facility of expression, you have that very difficult achievement—a -thoroughly good modern romance.”—<i>Life.</i></p> - -<p class="nind"> -The three volumes in a box, $3.00.<br /> -Half morocco, $8.00. Half calf, $7.50.<br /> -</p> - -<p><a name="page_112" id="page_112"></a></p> - -<p class="lrgr">THE THREE FATES.</p> - -<p>“Mr. Crawford has manifestly brought his best qualities as a student of -human nature and his finest resources as a master of an original and -picturesque style to bear upon this story. Taken for all in all it is -one of the most pleasing of all his productions in fiction, and it -affords a view of certain phases of American, or perhaps we should say -of New York, life that have not hitherto been treated with anything like -the same adequacy and felicity.”—<i>Boston Beacon.</i></p> - -<p class="lrgr"> -THE WITCH OF PRAGUE.</p> - -<p class="cb">A Fantastic Tale.<br /> - -<span class="smcap">Illustrated by W. J. Hennessy.</span><br /> -</p> - -<p>“Mr. Crawford has written in many keys, but never in so strange a one as -that which dominates ‘The Witch of Prague.’... The artistic skill with -which this extraordinary story is constructed and carried out is -admirable and delightful.... Mr. Crawford has scored a decided triumph, -for the interest of the tale is sustained throughout.... A very -remarkable, powerful, and interesting story.”—<i>New York Tribune.</i></p> - -<p>“Mr. Crawford has not lost his oft-proved skill in holding his readers’ -attention, and there are single scenes and passages in this book that -rival in intensity anything he has ever written.”—<i>Christian Union.</i><a name="page_113" id="page_113"></a></p> - -<p class="lrgr">MR. ISAACS.</p> - -<p class="cb">A Tale of Modern India.</p> - -<p>“The characters are original, and one does not recognize any of the -hackneyed personages who are so apt to be considered indispensable to -novelists, and which, dressed in one guise or another, are but the -marionettes, which are all dominated by the same mind, moved by the same -motive force. The men are all endowed with individualism and independent -life and thought.... There is a strong tinge of mysticism about the book -which is one of its greatest charms.”—<i>Boston Transcript.</i></p> - -<p>“This is a fine and noble story. It has freshness like a new and -striking scene on which one has never looked before. It has character -and individuality. It has meaning. It is lofty and uplifting. It is -strongly, sweetly, tenderly written. It is in all respects an uncommon -novel.... In fine, ‘Mr. Isaacs’ is an acquaintance to be made.”—<i>The -Literary World.</i></p> - -<p class="lrgr">DR. CLAUDIUS.</p> - -<p class="cb">A True Story.</p> - -<p>“ ‘Dr. Claudius’ is surprisingly good, coming after a story of so much -merit as ‘Mr. Isaacs.’ The hero is a magnificent specimen of humanity, -and sympathetic readers will be fascinated by his chivalrous wooing of -the beautiful American countess.”—<i>Boston Traveller.</i></p> - -<p>“The characters are strongly marked without any suspicion of caricature, -and the author’s ideas on social and political subjects are often -brilliant and always striking. It is no exaggeration to say that there -is not a dull page in the book, which is peculiarly adapted for the -recreation of student or thinker.”—<i>Living Church.</i><a name="page_114" id="page_114"></a></p> - -<p class="lrgr">WITH THE IMMORTALS.</p> - -<p>“Altogether an admirable piece of art worked in the spirit of a thorough -artist. Every reader of cultivated tastes will find it a book prolific -in entertainment of the most refined description, and to all such we -commend it heartily.”—<i>Boston Saturday Evening Gazette.</i></p> - -<p>“The book will be found to have a fascination entirely new for the -habitual reader of novels. Indeed, Mr. Crawford has succeeded in taking -his readers quite above the ordinary plane of novel interest.”—<i>Boston -Advertiser.</i></p> - -<p class="lrgr">MARZIO’S CRUCIFIX.</p> - -<p>“We take the liberty of saying that this work belongs to the highest -department of character-painting in words.”—<i>Churchman.</i></p> - -<p>“ ‘Marzio’s Crucifix’ is another of those tales of modern Rome which show -the author so much at his ease. A subtle compound of artistic feeling, -avarice, malice, and criminal frenzy is this carver of silver chalices -and crucifixes.”—<i>The Times.</i></p> - -<p>“It is as if it could not have been written otherwise, so naturally does -the story unfold itself, and so logical and consistent is the sequence -of incident after incident. As a story, ‘Marzio’s Crucifix’ is perfectly -constructed.”—<i>New York Commercial Advertiser.</i><a name="page_115" id="page_115"></a></p> - -<p class="lrgr">KHALED.</p> - -<p class="c">A Story of Arabia.</p> - -<p>“That it is beautifully written and holds the interest of the reader, -fanciful as it all is, to the very end, none who know the depth and -artistic finish of Mr. Crawford’s work need be told.”—<i>The Chicago -Times.</i></p> - -<p>“It abounds in stirring incidents and barbaric picturesqueness; and the -love struggle of the unloved Khaled is manly in its simplicity and noble -in its ending. Mr. Crawford has done nothing better than, if he has done -anything as good as, ‘Khaled.’ ”—<i>The Mail and Express.</i></p> - -<p class="lrgr">A TALE OF A LONELY PARISH.</p> - -<p>“It is a pleasure to have anything so perfect of its kind as this brief -and vivid story.... It is doubly a success, being full of human -sympathy, as well as thoroughly artistic in its nice balancing of the -unusual with the commonplace, the clever juxtaposition of innocence and -guilt, comedy and tragedy, simplicity and intrigue.”—<i>Critic.</i></p> - -<p>“It has no defects. It is neither trifling nor trivial. It is a work of -art. It is perfect.”—<i>Boston Beacon.</i><a name="page_116" id="page_116"></a></p> - -<p class="lrgr">ZOROASTER.</p> - -<p>“The field of Mr. Crawford’s imagination appears to be unbounded.... In -‘Zoroaster’ Mr. Crawford’s winged fancy ventures a daring flight.... Yet -‘Zoroaster’ is a novel rather than a drama. It is a drama in the force -of its situations and in the poetry and dignity of its language; but its -men and women are not men and women of a play. By the naturalness of -their conversation and behavior they seem to live and lay hold of our -human sympathy more than the same characters on a stage could possibly -do.”—<i>The Times.</i></p> - -<p class="lrgr">A CIGARETTE MAKER’S ROMANCE.</p> - -<p>“It is a touching romance, filled with scenes of great dramatic -power.”—<i>Boston Commercial Bulletin.</i></p> - -<p>“It is full of life and movement, and is one of the best of Mr. -Crawford’s books.”—<i>Boston Saturday Evening Gazette.</i></p> - -<p class="lrgr">GREIFENSTEIN.</p> - -<p>“Another notable contribution to the literature of the day. It possesses -originality in its conception and is a work of unusual ability. Its -interest is sustained to the close, and it is an advance even on the -previous work of this talented author. Like all Mr. Crawford’s work, -this novel is crisp, clear, and vigorous, and will be read with a great -deal of interest.”—<i>New York Evening Telegram.</i></p> - -<p class="lrgr"> -MACMILLAN & CO., NEW YORK.<br /> -</p> - -<p><a name="transcrib" id="transcrib"></a></p> - -<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="" -style="padding:2%;border:3px dotted gray;"> -<tr><th align="center">Typographical error corrected by the etext transcriber:</th></tr> -<tr><td><p>of very valuaable=> of very valuable {pg 71}</p></td></tr> -</table> - -<hr class="full" /> - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's The Novel; what it is, by F. 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