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-The Project Gutenberg EBook of Archibald Marshall, a Realistic Novelist, by 
-William Lyon Phelps
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
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-Title: Archibald Marshall, a Realistic Novelist
-
-Author: William Lyon Phelps
-
-Release Date: November 14, 2019 [EBook #60686]
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-Language: English
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-Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ARCHIBALD MARSHALL ***
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-[Illustration: ARCHIBALD MARSHALL]
-
-
-
-
-                          ARCHIBALD MARSHALL
-
-                        _A Realistic Novelist_
-
-
-                                  BY
-
-                          WILLIAM LYON PHELPS
-
-            Lampson Professor of English Literature at Yale
-
-
-                           WITH FRONTISPIECE
-
-
-                            [Illustration]
-
-
-                               NEW YORK
-                        DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
-                                 1919
-
-
-
-
-                          COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY
-                     DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, INC.
-
-
-
-
-                                  TO
-                       THE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH
-                                  OF
-                       THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
-
-                 NOTABLE FOR SCHOLARS AND TEACHERS AND
-                         TWO CREATIVE ARTISTS
-
-                      THE NOVELIST ROBERT HERRICK
-                     THE POET WILLIAM VAUGHN MOODY
-
-
-
-
-PREFACE
-
-
-The original form of this book was a lecture on the William Vaughn
-Moody foundation at the University of Chicago, delivered on the sixth
-of February, 1918. A portion of it was subsequently printed in the
-_North American Review_. It now appears considerably revised and
-enlarged.
-
-                                                               W. L. P.
-
-  _Yale University,
-  Tuesday, 21 May, 1918._
-
-
-
-
-ARCHIBALD MARSHALL
-
-
-On a mellow day in the early autumn of the year 1900, I sat on an old
-wooden bench in the open air with an English gentleman, and listened
-to his conversation with a mixture of curiosity and reverence. The
-place was one of the fairest counties of England, the town on the other
-side of a screen of trees was Dorchester, and my seat-mate was Thomas
-Hardy. I remember his saying without any additional emphasis than the
-weight of the words, that the basis of every novel should be a story.
-In considering this remark, which came, not from a doctrinaire, but
-from a master of long and triumphant experience, I could not help
-thinking that what seems axiomatic is often belied by a majority of
-instances. Thus, we church-members would agree that religion must take
-the first place in our lives; yet a disinterested observer, who should
-begin at the other end of the proposition and examine our lives merely
-to discover what actually did take the first place therein, might
-conceivably miss the element of religion altogether. In the same way,
-while it would theoretically seem that every novel must be a story, an
-honest critic who should examine the total product of prose fiction for
-any given year in the twentieth century, might, in a large number of
-cases, easily fail to find any story at all.
-
-As we look back over the history of the English novel, it would appear
-that every permanent work of fiction has been a great story. _Robinson
-Crusoe_, _Clarissa_, _Tom Jones_, _Humphry Clinker_, _The Bride of
-Lammermoor_, _Pride and Prejudice_, _Esmond_, _David Copperfield_, _The
-Mill on the Floss_, _Richard Feverel_, _The Return of the Native_,
-_Treasure Island_, _The Last of the Mohicans_, _The Scarlet Letter_,
-_Huckleberry Finn_, although they represent various shades of realism
-and romanticism, have all been primarily stories, in which we follow
-the fortunes of the chief actors with steady interest. These books owe
-their supremacy in fiction--at least, most of them do--to a combination
-of narrative, character, and style; every one of them, if given in
-colloquial paraphrase to a group of men around a camp-fire, would be
-rewarded with attention.
-
-Sometimes the very thing that gives a drama or a novel immediate
-currency makes it smell of mortality; by taking advantage of some
-hotly-discussed social question, general interest is awakened; but when
-the question is obsolete, what becomes of the work of art? I shall not
-venture to make a prediction; but I think it is at least possible that
-some of the earlier plays of Ibsen, like _The Pretenders_, may outlast
-some of the later ones, like _Ghosts_; the later ones blaze with the
-flames of public debate, the earlier reflect the light of the stars.
-
-Of all forms of literature, the novel has suffered most by its
-desertion of art for propaganda. It has been debased by its popularity.
-It lends itself so easily as a channel for political, social or
-religious oratory. Every theorist uses it as a megaphone. Although
-novels are as common as grasshoppers, good stories are scarce. Now
-this desertion of art for propaganda is founded on the fallacy that
-a work of pure fiction cannot stand or ought not to stand by itself,
-but should lean on politics, social reform, science, or theology for
-support. We do not insist on a thesis in sculpture or music or painting
-or poetry. There have been, indeed, many attempts to turn Pegasus into
-a cart-horse; and unfortunately the attempt is almost invariably
-successful.
-
-I prefer novels that express the opinions of the characters in the
-story to those that express the opinions of the author. I do not mean
-that all novels ought to be impersonal; such a result, even when most
-ardently desired by the novelist, is impossible of achievement. The
-work of every true artist reflects his personality, and is, in a sense,
-subjective. Even the coldest novels betray their makers' sympathies,
-and the standpoint from which they regard the world. But there is a
-difference between having ideas and arguing a case. Women who have
-ideas are always more interesting than those who have only opinions.
-
-Why is it that so many novelists write their best books early in their
-careers? Is it not sometimes because the original impelling artistic
-impulse becomes dulled in contact with society, and thoughts take the
-place of thought? The thorns of this world spring up and choke them. It
-is by no accident that _The Mill on the Floss_ is a greater novel than
-_Daniel Deronda_.
-
-The most enduring novels come from the silent depths in a writer's
-soul, not from the turbulent shallows. To live deeply is easier in a
-country where deep living has been done for centuries than in a country
-whose human history is brief. If we should really feel chagrined
-by America's native contribution to literature in comparison with
-that of Europe, we might justifiably console ourselves by comparing
-America with Australia. Surely one reason why the British today write
-novels rather better than the Americans, is because their roots go
-down deeper into the rich soil of the past. Men of genius are scarce
-in any locality, and I am not at this moment thinking of them; but I
-am constantly surprised at the large number of contemporary novels
-produced in Great Britain whose literary style bears the unmistakable
-stamp of distinction. There are leaders, whose names are known
-everywhere; there are men and women who might conceivably be leaders if
-they lived out of Europe. The best reason why many admirable twentieth
-century works of prose fiction in England fail to attract general
-attention is because the level of excellence is so high.
-
-
-
-
-II
-
-
-H. G. Wells is not the hero of this book. I am holding my roses for a
-figure that has not yet appeared upon my little stage. But the career
-of Mr. Wells, whose novels have almost every quality except charm, is
-interesting to contemplate. That he is a born novelist was clear to me
-so early as the year 1895, when one of his best stories appeared--_The
-Wheels of Chance_. Not long after came the novels of science and
-socialism that carried his name around the world; he was discussed
-in the salons of Paris and in the prisons of Siberia. His books were
-all busy, noisy, talkative, restless; they reflected in their almost
-truculent mental aggressiveness the mass of undigested and indigestible
-quasi-scientific fodder that perhaps disturbs more than it nourishes
-the twentieth century stomach; they made many readers fondly believe
-they were living the intellectual life. I mistakenly supposed he would
-keep up this squirrel-cage activity to the end of his days; for I
-mistakenly supposed in all this clatter he was incapable of hearing the
-voice of the spirit. I used to think that if all the world suddenly
-became religious except one man, that man would be H. G. Wells.
-
-The war, which diverted the energies of so many quiet thinkers to
-matters of immediate and practical efficiency, produced a rather
-different effect upon this interesting man. He began to regard things
-that are temporal in relation to those of eternal import. He became
-converted--I have no hesitation in using the good old word--and while
-I can see no evidence of conviction of sin, for humility is not his
-most salient characteristic, he did come to believe and believes now,
-that religion ought to be the motive power of man. What direction
-his ideas may take in the future I cannot divine; but I am thankful
-for his conversion, if only for the reason that it inspired him to
-produce a masterpiece, _Mr. Britling Sees It Through_. This novel is
-not only far and away his best book, it is the ablest work of fiction
-about the war that I have read. But it owes its eminence not to its
-accurate reporting of the course of social history during the war, for
-after all, the much admired hockey-game is not much higher than major
-journalism, but rather to the profound sense of spiritual values which
-is the core of the book.
-
-I regard it as unfortunate that Mr. Wells felt it necessary to follow
-up the triumph of this tale with a treatise on theology called _God
-the Invisible King_, and with a propagandist novel, called _The Soul
-of a Bishop_. For the last-named book illustrates all the faults of
-its species, as well as the cardinal sin against art. _Mr. Britling
-Sees It Through_ is religious; _The Soul of a Bishop_ is sectarian. And
-_God the Invisible King_, while it should be read with sympathy for its
-author's sincerity and newly-found idealism, has all the arrogance and
-cock-sureness of an old-fashioned theologian without the preliminary
-years of devoted learning that gave the old-fashioned one some right
-to a hearing, provided of course he could induce any one to listen to
-him. No orthodox evangelist has ever been more sure of God than Mr.
-Wells. The novel was properly named _Mr. Britling Sees It Through_; and
-we might with equal propriety name the treatise, _Mr. Britling Sees
-Through It_.
-
-Strange and unfortunate that Mr. Wells should think that the religious
-element in Mr. Britling needed additional emphasis. A work of art
-founded on eternal verities will accomplish more for the cause
-of religion than any tract. Solely from the moral point of view,
-_Anna Karenina_ is a more impressive book than most of its author's
-subsequent exhortations.
-
-_The Soul of a Bishop_ is not a realistic novel, for there is no
-real character in it. It is already on its way to limbo, along with
-_Robert Elsmere_ and _The Inside of the Cup_. But it is an excellent
-illustration of the fate that awaits an artist when he sacrifices the
-truth of art for the enforcement of personal opinion. There was a time
-when the excitement over the question of trades-unions produced by
-_Put Yourself in His Place_ was at fever heat; but that novel today is
-almost forgotten, while _The Cloister and the Hearth_ will be read by
-generation after generation, simply because it is a great story.
-
-
-
-
-III
-
-
-In order to illustrate what I mean by a realistic novelist whose
-happiest effects are gained by writing good stories with real
-characters, I know of no better choice among contemporaries than
-Archibald Marshall. He is an artist of such dignity and refinement
-that only twice in his career has he written a novel that had for its
-main purpose something other than truth to life; in each of these two
-attempts the result was a failure.
-
-I know how difficult it is to "recommend" novels to hungry readers,
-for I have written prescriptions to alleviate many kinds of mental
-trouble, yes, and physical ailments too; but how can I be sure that
-the remedy will in every "case" be effective? I know that _Treasure
-Island_ cured me of an attack of tonsillitis and that _Queed_ cured me
-of acute indigestion; a United States naval officer informed me that
-he recovered from jaundice simply by reading _Pride and Prejudice_.
-These are facts; but what assurance have I that other sufferers can try
-these prescriptions with reasonable hope? Yet I have no hesitancy in
-recommending Archibald Marshall to any group of men or women or to any
-individual of mature growth. One scholar of sixty years of age told
-me that these novels had given him a quite new zest in life; and I
-myself, who came upon them on one of the luckiest days of my existence,
-confidently affirm the same judgment. Of the numerous persons that I
-have induced to read these books, I have met with only one sceptic;
-this was a shrewd, sharp-minded woman of eighty, who declared with
-a hearty laugh that she found them insupportably tame. I understand
-this hostility, for when girls reach the age of eighty, they demand
-excitement.
-
-Those who are familiar with Mr. Marshall's work and life will easily
-discover therein echoes of his own experience. He is an Englishman by
-birth and descent, familiar with both town and country. He was born
-on the sixth of September, 1866, and received in his home life and
-preliminary training plenty of material which appeared later in the
-novels. His father came from the city, like the father in _Abington
-Abbey_; he himself was graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge, like
-the son of _Peter Binney_; it was intended but not destined that he
-should follow his father's business career, and he worked in a city
-office like the son of Armitage Brown; he went to Australia like
-the hero's sister in _Many Junes_; he made three visits to America,
-but fortunately has not yet written an American novel; he studied
-theology with the intention of becoming a clergyman in the Church of
-England, like so many young men in his stories; in despair at finding a
-publisher for his work, he became a publisher himself, and issued his
-second novel, _The House of Merrilees_, which had as much success as
-it deserved; he tried journalism before and during the war; he lived
-in two small Sussex towns with literary associations, Winchelsea and
-Rye, in the latter from 1908 to 1913; then until 1917 his home was in
-Switzerland; he has now gone back to the scene of his university days,
-Cambridge.
-
-In 1902 he was married and lived for some time in Beaulieu (pronounced
-Bewly) in the New Forest, faithfully portrayed in _Exton Manor_. He
-spent three happy years there planning and making a garden, like the
-young man in _The Old Order Changeth_. Although his novels are filled
-with hunting and shooting, he is not much of a sportsman himself,
-being content only to observe. He loves the atmosphere of sport rather
-than sport. His favourite recreations are walking, reading, painting,
-and piano-playing, and the outdoor flavour of his books may in part be
-accounted for by the fact that much of his writing is done in the open
-air.
-
-Like many another successful man of letters, his first step was a
-false start; for in 1899 he produced a novel called _Peter Binney,
-Undergraduate_, which has never been republished in America, and
-perhaps never will be. This is a topsy-turvy book, where an ignorant
-father insists on entering Cambridge with his son; and after many weary
-months of coaching, succeeds in getting his name on the books. The son
-is a steady-headed, unassuming boy, immensely popular with his mates;
-the father, determined to recapture his lost youth, disgraces his son
-and the college by riotous living, and is finally expelled. The only
-good things in the book are the excellent pictures of May Week and
-some snap-shots at college customs; but the object of the author is so
-evident and he has twisted reality so harshly in order to accomplish
-it, that we have merely a work of distortion.
-
-For six years our novelist remained silent; and he never returned to
-the method of reversed dynamics until the year 1915, when he published
-_Upsidonia_, another failure. Once again his purpose is all too
-clear; possibly irritated by the exaltation of slum stories and the
-depreciation of the characters of the well-to-do often insisted upon in
-such works, he wrote a satire in the manner of _Erewhon_, and called
-it a novel. Here poverty and dirt are regarded as the highest virtues,
-and the possession of wealth looked upon as the sure and swift road
-to social ostracism. There is not a gleam of the author's true skill
-in this book, mainly because he is so bent on arguing his case that
-exaggeration triumphs rather too grossly over verisimilitude. He is,
-of course, trying to write nonsense; a mark that some authors have hit
-with deliberate aim, while perhaps more have attained the same result
-with less conscious intention. Now Mr. Marshall cannot write nonsense
-even when he tries; and failure in such an effort is particularly
-depressing. He is at his best when his art is restrained and delicate;
-in _Upsidonia_ he drops the engraving-tool and wields a meat-axe. Let
-us do with _Peter Binney_ and with _Upsidonia_ what every other reader
-has done; let us try to forget them, remembering only that two failures
-in fifteen books is not a high proportion.
-
-Of the remaining thirteen novels, two attained only a partial success;
-and the reason is interesting. These two are _The House of Merrilees_
-and _Many Junes_ (1908). The former was written in 1901 but publishers
-would none of it, and it did not wear a print dress until 1905.
-Meanwhile the author was trying his hand at short stories, for which
-his method of work is not particularly fitted, his skill being in the
-development of character rather than in the manufacture of incident.
-He did, however, publish a collection of these tales in one volume,
-called _The Terrors_, which appeared in 1913, their previous separate
-publication covering a period of sixteen years. They are amazingly
-unequal in value; some are excellent, and others trivial. This volume
-is out of print, and whether any of the contents may be rescued from
-oblivion is at present problematical. It is interesting, however,
-that he, at the outset of his career, supposed that invention, rather
-than observation, was his trump card. The realism of _The House of
-Merrilees_ is mixed with melodrama and mystery; these are, in the
-work of a dignified artist, dangerous allies, greater liabilities than
-assets. In a personal letter he confesses that this artificial plot
-hampered him; but he goes on to say, "the range of scene and character
-in that book is something that I have never been able to catch since."
-He has since--with only one relapse--happily forsaken artificially
-constructed mysteries for the deepest mystery of all--the human heart.
-In _Many Junes_, a story that will be reprinted in America in 1919,
-we have pictures of English country life of surpassing loveliness;
-we have an episode as warm and as fleeting as June itself; we have a
-faithful analysis of the soul of a strange and solitary man, damned
-from his birth by lack of decision. But the crisis in the tale is
-brought about by an accident so improbable that the reader refuses to
-believe it. The moment our author forsakes reality he is lost; it is as
-necessary for him to keep the truth as it was for Samson to keep his
-hair. Furthermore, this is the only one of Mr. Marshall's books that
-has a tragic close--and his art cannot flourish in tragedy, any more
-than a native of the tropics can live in Lapland. The bleak air of lost
-illusion and frustrated hope, in which the foremost living novelist,
-appropriately named, finds his soul's best climate, is not favourable
-to Archibald Marshall.
-
-The "relapse" mentioned in the preceding paragraph occurred in the year
-1912, when he published a long and wildly exciting novel, called _The
-Mystery of Redmarsh Farm_. This has all the marks of a "best-seller"
-and went through several editions in England, though it has not yet
-been reprinted in America. I regard the writing of this book as the
-most dangerous moment in Mr. Marshall's career, for its immediate
-commercial success might easily have tempted him to continue in the
-same vein, and if he had, he would have sunk to the level of a popular
-entertainer, and lost his position among British novelists of the past
-and present. Curiously enough, it came between two of his best works
-in the Clinton series, _The Eldest Son_ (1911) and _The Honour of the
-Clintons_ (1913). Maybe the chilling reception given to his finest
-stories drove him to a cheaper style of composition. Maybe his long
-second visit to Australia, where he saw and shared experiences quite
-unlike his English environment, made him try his hand at mystery and
-crime. In 1911 he had published _Sunny Australia_, the result of a
-sojourn on that continent, whither he had gone as special commissioner
-for the _Daily Mail_. There is a good deal of superficial cleverness in
-_The Mystery of Redmarsh Farm_; its plot is elaborate, with a flavour
-of _Lohengrin_; the beautiful lonely maiden's young brother is stolen
-by a villain and rescued by a young hero who is appropriately named
-Knightly; a misunderstanding separates the girl and her lover, who
-sails away to Australia. Unlike Lohengrin, however, he returns, and
-all is well. There is a conventional detective, and a murder trial and
-a shipwreck and a recognition scene--I kept looking back to the title
-page to see if the author really was Archibald Marshall. It is as
-though Joseph Conrad should write like Marie Corelli. Yet although some
-of the characters are unreal and the plot artificial and the villain
-theatrical, the environment, whether in England or in Australia, is as
-accurately painted as in Mr. Marshall's best stories. He will not write
-of places that he has not seen. When the gypsies are found, they are
-found in the New Forest; and any one who reads this yarn immediately
-after _Sunny Australia_, will see that these distant scenes are
-correctly described.
-
-
-
-
-IV
-
-
-It was in the year 1906, and in the novel _Richard Baldock_, that he
-revealed his power. This book, which will make its first American
-appearance in the autumn of 1918, contains a story so absorbing that
-it is only in the retrospect that one realizes the vitality of its
-characters and the delicacy of its art. There are no heroes and no
-villains. Every person has the taint that we all inherited from Adam,
-and every person has some reflection of the grace of God. There is no
-one who does not say something foolish or ill-considered; and there
-is no one who does not say something wise. In other words there are
-no types, like "heavies," "juveniles," and "ingenues." As is the case
-in nearly all the novels by its author, we are constantly revising
-our opinions of the characters; and we revise them, not because the
-characters are untrue, but because we learn to know them better. Human
-nature is consistent only in its inconsistency. It is forever fluid and
-dynamic; and although no individual has ever understood another, and
-least of all himself, increasing knowledge helps to make us certain of
-our uncertainty. No man will play the part his friends have written
-for him. One reason why Shakespeare was a first-rate and Jonson a
-second-rate dramatist is because Jonson created humours and Shakespeare
-created individuals. Among all Shakespeare's personages, Hamlet is the
-most interesting to readers and the most baffling to commentators;
-because the latter try to adjust him to a theory of madness, weak will,
-or what not. Is not the fact that he has never been understood by any
-one and never will be, the strongest proof of his reality? Some think
-he lacked backbone; others insist he was all backbone; some think he
-was mad; others that he only pretended to be mad; while America's
-greatest Shakespearean scholar said he was neither mad nor pretended
-to be. A young gentleman of Hamlet's copious temperament, placed as he
-was amid natural and supernatural forces, might easily at times seem to
-illustrate any one of the above appraisals. Indeed I suppose the sanest
-and most resolute among us seem at times to lack either resolution or
-sanity or both.
-
-The more complex a character, the less dependable he is. And everybody
-has some complexity. Even quiet Horatio, beloved of Hamlet for his
-steady self-control, tried to commit suicide.
-
-Every fine novel and every fine drama must of course illustrate the law
-of causation--the principle of sufficient reason. But characters that
-run in grooves are not human. In _Richard Baldock_, we have, as we so
-often have in the work of Archibald Marshall, strife between father and
-son--a kind of civil war. This war, like many others, is begotten of
-misunderstanding. There is not only the inevitable divergence between
-the older and the younger generation, there is the divergence between
-two powerful individualities. We at first sympathize wholly with the
-son. We say to ourselves that if any man is foolish enough to sacrifice
-all his joy in life to a narrow creed, why, after all, that is his
-affair; it is only when he attempts to impose this cheerless and barren
-austerity on others, that we raise the flag of revolt. At the deathbed
-of the young mother, one of the most memorable scenes in our author's
-books, we are quite certain that we shall never forgive the inflexible
-bigot; this hatred for him is nourished when he attempts to crush the
-son as he did crush his wife. Yet, as the story develops, and we see
-more deeply into the hearts of all the characters, we understand how
-the chasm between father and son is finally crossed. It is crossed by
-the only durable bridge in the world--the bridge of love, which beareth
-all things.
-
-Tolerance--when based not on indifference, but on sympathy--is tolerant
-even of intolerance.
-
-
-
-
-V
-
-
-In 1907 appeared one of the most characteristic of Mr. Marshall's
-novels, _Exton Manor_, which he began to write the day after he
-finished _Richard Baldock_. It was naturally impossible for any
-well-read reviewer to miss the likeness to Anthony Trollope. If
-I believed in the transmigration of souls, I should believe that
-Archibald Marshall was a reincarnation of Trollope, and William De
-Morgan a reincarnation of Dickens. In an interesting preface written
-for the American edition, Mr. Marshall manfully says that he has not
-only tried to follow Anthony Trollope, "but the whole body of English
-novelists of his date, who introduced you to a large number of people,
-and left you with the feeling that you knew them all intimately, and
-would have found yourself welcome in their society. That particular
-note of intimacy seems to be lacking in the fiction of the present day,
-and I should like to have it back."
-
-This instantly raises the question of Victorianism, to some a
-stumbling-block, to some foolishness. For my part, if I did not
-believe that the best Victorian fiction was superior to contemporary
-work, I should not be so hearty an admirer of Archibald Marshall.
-Indeed the best Victorian novels surpass our best twentieth century
-novels in the one respect where we chiefly plume ourselves on our
-claim to attention--I mean in the matter of sincerity. We talk about
-sincerity all the time, but we protest too much; the essence of
-sincerity is present perhaps more often in art, as it is in life,
-where its profession is least urgent. Henry James, in the fragment
-of autobiography called _The Middle Years_, wisely though oracularly
-remarked, "Phenomena may be interesting, thank goodness, without being
-phenomena of elegant expression or of any other form of restless
-smartness, and when once type is strong, when once it plays up from
-deep sources, every show of its sincerity delivers us a message and
-we hang, to real suspense, on its continuance of energy, on its again
-and yet again consistently acquitting itself. So it keeps in tune,
-and, as the French adage says, _c'est le ton qui fait la chanson_. The
-mid-Victorian London was sincere--that was a vast virtue and a vast
-appeal; the contemporary is sceptical, and most so when most plausible."
-
-On a summer day in 1914, I had the pleasure of a ten-mile drive over
-the hills with one of the wisest old men in America--Andrew D. White.
-I remember his saying that one of the most fortunate things that could
-happen to America would be a general ambition on the part of the more
-educated classes to look forward as to a goal in life to making a
-permanent home in the country. He said that in America men who make
-a little money move into the city as soon as possible; whereas in
-England, whenever a man makes a competence in the city he usually
-establishes a home in the country. No one can read the novels of Mr.
-Marshall without feeling that his books are so to speak based on this
-ideal; he repeatedly insists that life in the country is the true life
-for thoughtful men and women, and that the most delectable season for
-the solid enjoyment of it is the winter. Nay, he takes the position--a
-position also occupied by one of our ablest American novelists, Dorothy
-Canfield--that the most favourable locality for studying human nature
-is the small country village. He says, "Life in such a community as is
-depicted in _Exton Manor_ is just as typical of English social habits
-as it was in Trollope's day. The tendency of those who have hitherto
-worked on the land to drift into the towns is not shared by the more
-leisured classes. Their tendency is all the other way--to forsake the
-towns for the country--and improved methods of communication keep
-them more in touch with the world than they would have been fifty
-years ago. But in spite of this increased dependency upon the outside
-world, English country life is still intensely local in its personal
-interests, and quite legitimately so, for it must be remembered that,
-if the man who lives in a fairly populous country village comes across
-fewer people than the man who lives in a town, he knows all about those
-whom he does come across, and his acquaintances represent a far greater
-variety of type and class than is met with where types and classes
-tend to stratify. You have, in fact, in a typical country parish, a
-microcosm of English social life, and there is, ready to the hand
-of the realistic novelist, material from which he can draw as much
-interest and variety as he is able to make use of."
-
-In another important question which concerns the art of the novelist,
-I might applaud Mr. Marshall's dictum more unreservedly if I did not
-happen to know of a gigantic witness against him. In forestalling
-gossipy identification of his leading characters in _Exton Manor_,
-he says, "It is not a novelist's business to draw portraits, but to
-create living figures, and the nearer he gets to the first the farther
-off will he be from the second." This certainly sounds well; but
-unfortunately for its universal application, practically all of the
-characters in _Anna Karenina_ are accurate portraits.
-
-
-
-
-VI
-
-
-To all those who have not yet read a single work by our author, I would
-counsel them to begin with _The Squire's Daughter_, and then take
-up--with particular care to preserve the correct sequence--_The Eldest
-Son_, _The Honour of the Clintons_, _The Old Order Changeth_ [English
-title, _Rank and Riches_]. These four stories deal with the family and
-family affairs of the Clintons, and together with a separate book,
-_The Greatest of These_ [English title, _Roding Rectory_], belong to
-Mr. Marshall's best period, the years from 1909 to 1915. When I say
-the best period, I mean the most fruitful up to the present moment in
-1918. He is in the prime of life, and it is to be hoped that he may
-yet surpass himself; but since 1915, perhaps owing to the obsession of
-the war, he has not done so. _Watermeads_ (1916) is a charming story,
-and in _Abington Abbey_ (1917), and its sequel, _The Graftons_ (1918),
-he has introduced us to another interesting family; but neither of
-these books reaches the level maintained by the Clinton tetralogy, nor
-penetrates so deeply into the springs of life and conduct as his most
-powerful work, _The Greatest of These_.
-
-Mr. Marshall began _The Squire's Daughter_ as a long "short story,"
-starting with what is now Chapter XII, _Food and Raiment_. He fell in
-love with his characters, as many a novelist has done, and expanded
-the narrative. Then he wrote _The Eldest Son_, which is the best of
-the four books. Yet it was not a success in England, and at present
-both _The Squire's Daughter_ and _The Eldest Son_ are out of print
-in their home country; they are, however, having a daily-increasing
-circulation in America, which is bound to resurrect them in Great
-Britain. For that matter most of Mr. Marshall's novels are more widely
-known and certainly more appreciated in the United States than in the
-land of their nativity. In _The Honour of the Clintons_, the author's
-intention was to "take up the old Squire, see what all his generations
-of gentility and honour, and all his conviction that he is of superior
-clay, amount to when he is touched with personal disgrace." He
-discovered, as Dickens must have discovered in writing the _Pickwick
-Papers_, that his hero turned out rather better than he thought he
-would. This third book in the series was written under inspiration,
-completed in six weeks, and at the time came almost as near satisfying
-the author as it always has satisfied me. But a friend, with true
-English candour, said to him, "All the ingredients of the cake are
-there, but the cake hasn't risen." Anyhow, the Squire rose, whether the
-cake did or not.
-
-The final novel in the Clinton family, _The Old Order Changeth_, shows
-the effect produced on both Rank and Riches by the Great War. Mr.
-Marshall began this story with many misgivings, and it is still not one
-of his favourites, chiefly because "there are so many beastly people in
-it." But so long as I live it will hold a secure place in my heart, for
-this is the first work of the author's that I saw. Indeed I had never
-heard of him until I picked up _The Old Order Changeth_. I started
-to read it with no conception of the keen delight in store; after
-finishing it, I wrote to the publishers, "Who on earth is Archibald
-Marshall? There is no one like him in the world. Send me everything he
-has written." Since that moment of exaltation, I have read and reread
-the Clinton books, and each time they seem better.
-
-To read the Clinton stories is to be a welcome guest in a noble old
-English country house, to meet and to associate on terms of happy
-intimacy with delightful, well-bred, clear-minded men and women;
-to share the outdoor life of healthful sport, and the pleasant
-conversation around the open fire; to sharpen one's observation of
-natural scenery in summer and in winter, and in this way to make a
-permanent addition to one's mental resources; to learn the significance
-of good manners, tact, modesty, kindly consideration, purity of
-heart--not by wearisome precepts, but by their flower and fruit in
-human action. To read these books is not to dodge life, it is to have
-it more abundantly.
-
-If, as Bacon said, a man dies as often as he loses his friends, then
-he gains vitality by every additional friendship. To know the Clinton
-family and their acquaintances is not merely to be let into the inner
-circle of English country life, to discover for ourselves exactly what
-sort of people English country folk are, to understand what family
-tradition and ownership of the land mean to them--it is to enlarge
-our own range of experience and to increase our own stock of genuine
-happiness, by adding to our mental life true friends--and friends that
-are always available. For often the friends of flesh and blood cannot
-be reached when we need them most; perhaps they are asleep, or away on
-a journey; but the staunch old friends introduced to us by novelists
-never deny themselves. Is not this a fairly good reason why, among
-all the novels we read, some at all events should be selected for the
-immanent charm of their characters? I know how uncritical it is to
-admire any work of art that possesses the element of cheerfulness; but
-suppose our reading of novels were entirely confined to the works of
-Maxim Gorki?
-
-Why should we always select acquaintances in fiction that we always
-avoid in real life? Is it the same instinct that makes so many persons
-love to go slumming?
-
-There is perhaps rather too strong a flavour of tea in these stories,
-but that no doubt is a legitimate part of their realism. The sacred
-rite of afternoon tea plays fully as big a part in English fiction
-as it plays in English life. Tea--which would be an intolerable
-interruption to business or to golf among normal Americans--is never
-superfluous to the British. Among the hundreds of English novels that
-you have read, can you recall a single instance where any character
-_declined_ a cup of tea? And, in terrible crises or trivial vexations,
-is not the following exclamation familiar--"I am dying for my tea!" I
-sometimes think that if the house should be destroyed by fire at three
-o'clock, half-past four would find the family taking tea on the lawn.
-I remember, on a voyage to Alaska, a vigorous old English woman who
-appeared on deck every day between four and five, and when she saw the
-circulation of the china, a look of holy rapture dawned in her eyes,
-and from her lips came an ecstatic cry, "Ah, is there tea going?" It
-must be wonderful to love anything on earth so much as the English love
-their tea.
-
-Two months after writing the above paragraph, I received testimony
-which delightfully supports the view expressed. An Englishman informs
-me, that after the big sea-fight of Jutland, he had the privilege of
-conversing with an English blue-jacket who was perched aloft during the
-whole of that terrific experience. There he remained under orders, in
-the thick of the battle, with the bolts of death flying all about him.
-On being asked how he felt, the young man exclaimed with a tone of
-regret, "Well, of course, I had to miss my tea."
-
-Not since Fielding's Squire Western has there been a more vivid English
-country squire than Mr. Marshall's Squire Clinton. The difference
-between them is the difference between the eighteenth and the twentieth
-centuries. He is the man of the house, the head of the family, and it
-is not until we have read all four of the stories that we can obtain
-a complete view of his character. He is a living, breathing man, and
-we see the expression on his face, and hear the tones of his voice,
-which his daughters imitate so irresistibly. With all his pride and
-prejudice, with all his childish irritableness, he is the idol of the
-household. His skull is as thick as English oak, but he has a heart
-of gold. He is stupid, but never contemptible. And when the war with
-Germany breaks out in 1914, he rises to a magnificent climax in the
-altercation with Armitage Brown. We hear in his torrent of angry
-eloquence not merely the voice of one man, but the combined voices of
-all the generations that have developed him.
-
-Yet while Mr. Marshall has made an outstanding and unforgettable figure
-of the fox-hunting Squire, it is in the portrayal of the women of the
-family that he shows his most delicate art. This is possibly because
-his skill as an artist is reinforced by profound sympathy. The Squire
-is so obtuse that it has never dawned upon his mind that his wife is a
-thousand times cleverer than he, or that her daily repression has in
-it anything savouring of tragedy. In the third book, _The Honour of
-the Clintons_, intense and prolonged suffering begins to sharpen his
-dull sight; and the scenes between the old pair are unspeakably tender
-and beautiful. Mr. Marshall never preaches, never tries to adorn the
-tale by pointing a moral. But the wild escapade of the daughter in the
-first of these stories, and the insistence of the mother on a superior
-education for the twins exhibit more clearly than any letter to the
-_Times_ could do, what the author thinks about the difference between
-the position women have held in English country homes and the position
-they ought to have.
-
-Of all his characters, perhaps those that the reader will remember
-with the highest flood of happy recollection are the twins, Joan and
-Nancy. In the first novel, this wonderful pair are aged thirteen; in
-the second, they are fifteen; in the third, they are twenty-one. Mr.
-Marshall is particularly skilful in the drawing of young girls; and
-after one has read _Ann Veronica_, I can think of no better antidote
-than these Clinton books. Whatever may be woman's place in the future,
-whatever she may drink or smoke or wear or say or do, there is one
-kind of girl that can never become unattractive; and the Clinton
-twins illustrate that kind. They are healthy, modest, quick-witted,
-affectionate, high-spirited; when they come in laughing and glowing
-from a game of tennis, and take their places at the family tea-table,
-they bring the breath of life into the room.
-
-In _The Eldest Son_, which of the four delightful books dealing with
-the Clinton family, I find most delightful, there is a suggestion of
-the author's attitude toward humanity in the procession of candidates
-for governess that passes before the penetrating eyes of Mrs. Clinton.
-Her love for the old Starling--one of the most original of Mr.
-Marshall's creations--has not blinded Mrs. Clinton to the latter's
-incompetence for the task of training so alert a pair as the twins.
-Of the women who present themselves for this difficult position, not
-one is wholly desirable; and it is plain that Mrs. Clinton knows in
-advance that this will be the case. She is not looking for an ideal
-teacher, for such curiosities are not to be found on our planet;
-the main requisite is brains, and she selects finally the candidate
-whom many society women would immediately dismiss as impossible,
-the uncompromising, hard-headed, sexless Miss Phipps, who has about
-as much amenity as a steamroller. Miss Phipps bristles with faults;
-but they are the faults that spring from excess of energy, from
-a devotion to scholarship so exclusive that the minor graces and
-minor pleasures of life have received in her daily scheme even less
-than their due. But the twins already possess everything lacking in
-the composition of their teacher; what they need is not a sweet,
-sympathetic companion, what they need is what nearly every one needs,
-mental discipline, mental training, and an increase in knowledge and
-ideas. In this dress-parade of candidates we have a miniature parade
-of humanity in the large; no one is faultless; but those who have an
-honest mind and an honest character have something essential. And who
-knows but what the shrewd and deep-hearted Mrs. Clinton did not also
-see that in the association of this mirthless expert with two young
-incarnations of vitality and vivacity, both parties to the contract
-might learn something of value? Miss Phipps is about to discover that
-the country-side in winter has resources entirely unguessed at by her
-bookish soul; that there are many of her countrymen and country-women
-who find in outdoor sport a secret of health and happiness.
-
-       Her bedroom was in the front of the house, and she had
-       heard, without much heeding them, the wheels and the
-       beat of horse-hoofs and the voices outside. Now she
-       began to be a little curious as to what was going on,
-       and rose and drew up her blind and looked out.
-
-       The scene was quite new to her, and in spite of herself
-       she exclaimed at it. Immediately beyond the wide gravel
-       sweep in front of the house was the grass of the park,
-       where the whole brave show of the South Meadshire Hunt
-       was collected. It is doubtful if she had ever seen a
-       pack of hounds in her life, and she watched them as if
-       fascinated. Presently, at some signal which she had
-       not discerned, the huntsman and the whips turned and
-       trotted off with them, and behind them streamed all the
-       horsemen and horsewomen, the carriages and carts, and
-       the people on foot, until the whole scene which had
-       been so full of life and colour was entirely empty of
-       all human occupation, and there was only the damp grass
-       of the park and the big bare trees under the pearly
-       grey of the winter sky. She saw the Squire ride off
-       on his powerful horse, and admired his sturdy erect
-       carriage, and she saw Dick and Virginia, side by side,
-       Humphrey, the pink of sartorial hunting perfection,
-       Mrs. Clinton in her carriage, with Miss Dexter by
-       her side and the twins opposite to her, and for a
-       moment wished she had accepted her invitation to make
-       one of the party, although she did not in the least
-       understand where they were going to, or what they were
-       going to do when they got there. All this concourse of
-       apparently well-to-do and completely leisured people
-       going seriously about a business so remote from any of
-       the interests in life that she had known struck her as
-       entirely strange and inexplicable. She might have been
-       in the midst of some odd rites in an unexplored land.
-       The very look of the country in its winter dress was
-       strange to her, for she was a lifelong Londoner and
-       the country to her only meant a place where one spent
-       summer holidays.
-
-
-
-
-VII
-
-
-The novel _Watermeads_ (1916), particularly welcome to me because the
-friend who wore a grotesque mask in _Upsidonia_ showed his healthy,
-agreeable, English face again, opens characteristically with the entire
-family gathered around the tea-table in a sunlit room in an old manor
-house. This story is mainly concerned with the waxing and waning of a
-marriage-engagement; the rich fiancée seems well enough among her own
-people and in her own environment; her lack of breeding appears with
-steadily increasing emphasis when she is brought into the circle of the
-squire's household. The restraint shown by Mr. Marshall in contrasting
-her with the people among whom she is expected to live is worthy of the
-highest praise. There is nothing exaggerated, not a trace of burlesque;
-little touches, shades of speech and conduct, the expression at the
-corners of the girl's mouth when she is displeased or unsatisfied, all
-combine to lower the temperature in her lover's heart. Nor is there
-anything snobbish in this increasing coldness. No matter how important
-may be a difference in manners or social breeding, love could make a
-happy fusion; it is, however, not in one act of villainy, but in many
-trifles light as air that the young woman is finally, even to the
-myopic eyes of passion, revealed as wholly selfish.
-
-Two accidents--youth and cash--give to this girl an assurance that
-finally makes her odious; but women who have neither can be equally
-offensive. Her prospective mother-in-law, the squire's wife, parades
-the decline in the family's finances so obtrusively that she becomes
-as tiresome as a flapping curtain. When Lord Kirby is shown by her
-through the ancestral home, he escapes with a sense of enormous relief,
-saying to his wife, "That's an awful woman. You hear about people being
-purse-proud, but she seems to be empty-purse-proud, and I don't know
-that that isn't worse. If people are as hard up as that they ought to
-hide it."
-
-In _Abington Abbey_ (1917) and _The Graftons_ (1918) we have really one
-book, and the last page of the sequel makes me hope that the history of
-this charming family may be continued--I don't care through how many
-volumes. Mr. Grafton is a gentleman, and the way in which he settles
-the various problems of family discipline and the affairs of the
-estate springs from his unerring good sense. His daughters adore their
-widower-father, but each in her own manner. And though they are all
-attractive, I know which one I like the best.
-
-Mr. Marshall published with _The Graftons_ an exceedingly interesting
-Introduction, containing a defense of his methods which is not
-needed by intelligent readers, but which may enlighten those who
-do not understand what he is about. In a personal letter, however,
-he expressed himself in words that I like better than his printed
-apologia. "The Grafton family isn't so rich in varied interest as the
-Clinton family, but I hope they will make their friends. I think they
-are as 'nice' a family as any I've drawn. I set out simply to show
-them in their country home, and make their country neighbours display
-themselves in the light of their critical humour, without much idea of
-a story. It turned into something rather different, and I'm not quite
-sure about it yet. And it has taken two books to work it out."
-
-Now the reason why I like this ink-epistle better than the formal
-preface is because in the latter Mr. Marshall seemed to think it
-necessary to reply to those critics who said he ought to discuss in
-his novels the economic questions concerned with the tenure of the
-land. If he should by some evil temptation make economic questions
-the basis of his stories of English country life, he would commit the
-cardinal sin that has corrupted so much of contemporary fiction, the
-sin that I condemned at the outset of this essay. The most conspicuous
-element in his art is Charm. If some one should persuade him that he
-ought to become more "serious," his novels would lose their atmosphere;
-and he might find himself writing like that earnest student of modern
-movements, Mrs. Humphry Ward.
-
-I am aware that the most insulting epithet that can be applied to a
-book, or a play, or a human being is the word "Puritan"; and I remember
-reading a review somewhere of _Abington Abbey_ which commented rather
-satirically on the interview between Grafton and Lassigny, and most
-satirically of all on the conclusion of the interview, which left the
-stiff, prejudiced, puritanical British parent in possession of the
-field. But once more, Mr. Marshall is not trying to prove a thesis;
-he is representing the Englishman and the Frenchman in a hot debate,
-where neither is right and neither is wrong, but where each is partly
-right and partly wrong. Each says in the heat of the contest something
-injudicious, even as men do when they are angry. But when Lassigny
-literally takes French leave, we do not care who has scored the most
-points; the real winner is the one who is not present--the girl
-herself. For when two men fight about a woman, as they do somewhere
-every day, the truly important question is not, which man wins the
-fight? The only real question is, does the woman win?
-
-It will never do to make generalizations from merely one of Mr.
-Marshall's novels. If we had only _Abington Abbey_, we might imagine
-that he detested the clergy, for the clergyman in this book is surely
-detestable; but in _The Greatest of These_ there are two clergymen who
-are admirable characters, and a third who is by no means wholly or
-even mainly evil. Like an honest student of life, Mr. Marshall never
-considers a man as a representative of a business, but as a human
-being. No man is good because he is a clergyman; but it would be well
-perhaps if every member of that highest of all professions were a
-clergyman because he was good.
-
-
-
-
-VIII
-
-
-There is an unconscious double meaning in the American name given to
-the novel published in 1914, _The Greatest of These_, for it can be
-taken not only in the Pauline significance, but as the greatest of
-these books we are considering. It is the most ambitious and on the
-whole the most effective of its author's productions, containing also
-the essence of his religion--charity contrasted with opinions. We
-have an illustration of his favourite method of portraying the shade
-and shine of human character by placing in opposition two leading
-representatives of two large classes of nominal Christians--a clergyman
-of the Church of England and a minister of the Dissenters. Mr. Marshall
-never wrote a better first chapter. The reader is instantly aware
-that he has in his hands a masterpiece. Every leading character is
-introduced in the opening chapter either in person or in allusive
-conversation, and we know that Mr. Marshall has what most novelists
-seek in vain--a real plot. This book, which eventually rises to the
-highest spiritual altitude attained thus far by its author, begins on
-a note of sordid sex-tragedy, as unusual in the stories of Mr. Marshall
-as a picture like the Price household is in the work of Jane Austen;
-here it serves to bring forward the forthright and self-satisfied
-Anglican, who little dreams of his approaching humiliation; he is
-brought into conflict with a kind of Zeal-of-the-land Busy, whose
-aggressive self-righteousness is to be softened by the very man who he
-hoped would harden it. Here too, as in _Exton Manor_, we come as near
-as we ever come in Mr. Marshall's books to meeting a villain--in each
-case it is a woman with a serpent's tongue.
-
-The time-element in _The Greatest of These_ is managed with consummate
-skill. So far as the novel has a hero, it is the Rev. Dr. Merrow. He
-does not appear in Roding until the one-hundred-and-sixty-third page,
-but there is so much talk, for and against him, that the reader awaits
-his arrival at the railway station with fully as much eagerness as any
-of the village gossips. And then, owing to the Doctor's fatigue from
-the journey, the reader is as baffled as the parishioners. It is quite
-impossible to discover what manner of man he is. The author refuses
-to help us, preferring to let his leading character reveal himself
-without any manipulation behind the scenes. This revelation is gradual,
-made up of many little details of speech and behaviour, as it would be
-in real life.
-
-But although the personality of the man is not clear until more than
-half of the book has passed, the ninth chapter, which shows him in
-action in London as a public institution, is one of the most powerful
-pieces of prose Mr. Marshall has ever composed. He writes as if
-inspired by the theme. Not only is it a magnificent description of a
-great occasion, its dramatic power is immensely heightened because
-we see it through the eyes of a young ritualist, to whom it is as
-strange--and at first as repellent--as some vulgar heathen observance.
-But gradually distaste changes to interest, and interest to enthusiasm.
-Such passages as the following are entirely unlike the ordinary current
-of Mr. Marshall's style, but it is a proof that he can reach the
-heights when the occasion calls.
-
-       There came more of these sentences. The spark had
-       caught; the furnace was beginning to glow. George
-       gazed at the preacher with his own face alight. His
-       surroundings were forgotten.... If this was the kind
-       of preaching that had brought Dr. Merrow his great
-       reputation, then he understood its appeal, and was
-       himself moved by it. It came from something beyond
-       creeds, far beyond differences in methods of worship.
-       It had been heard in all ages of the Church, amidst the
-       splendours of mediæval superstition, as in the crude
-       barrenness of modern revivalism. The spirit moved on
-       the face of the waters; the stagnancy of mere words was
-       broken; there was life and healing in them.
-
-       The words came faster. The voice grew stronger, and
-       took on a different tone, as if on an organ a touch
-       of reed had been added to diapason. The slightly bent
-       figure became straighter, the worn face younger. The
-       preacher began to use his hands--thin, flexible,
-       nervous hands, which seemed to clutch at deep truths,
-       and fling them out for the world to take hold of. Soon
-       the burning words came in a torrent, as of a rushing
-       mass of water of irresistible force, yet bound within
-       its directing channel. Every now and then they sank
-       to a deep calm, but were still infused with the same
-       concentrative power. Such words had stirred men's
-       minds and souls in long past ages. Spoken on bare
-       hillsides underneath the symbol of faith, they had
-       converted kingdoms. Flung forth over throngs of rough
-       fighting men, they had turned bloodshed and rapine into
-       righteous crusades. Their power was older than that
-       of Christianity itself. In the dim ages of religious
-       history it had singled out Aaron for the priesthood,
-       and put him above Moses, the warrior leader. Later,
-       it had burst the bonds of the priesthood itself, and
-       winged the utterances of great prophets.
-
-Every page that we turn in this extraordinary book lessens the distance
-not only in time but in sympathy between the Rector and the Pastor.
-The orthodox evangelical chapel orator is drawn with just the insight
-one would superficially _not_ expect from a man of Mr. Marshall's
-birth, breeding, and environment. He is certainly the author's finest
-achievement, even finer than Squire Clinton, for he is more difficult
-to draw. The Rev. Dr. Merrow must be added to Chaucer's Poore Persoun
-and to Goldsmith's Village Preacher as one more permanent clerical
-figure in imaginative literature.
-
-Lesser personages in this story are given with the same care in detail,
-until we feel their presence as personal friends. The curate, the
-Rev. George Barton, so completely misunderstood by Mrs. Merrow, is an
-almost flawless portrait. His healthy, athletic outdoor nature and the
-development of his inner life are both presented with subtle, delicate
-strokes of the pen possible only to an artist of distinction.
-
-It is interesting to contemplate side by side in the reader's mind
-the wife of the Rector and the wife of the Pastor. Both are good
-women--their only similarity. Lady Ruth, a born aristocrat, with a
-"temperamental inability to comport herself as the busy wife of a busy
-clergyman" is one of the most gracious and lovely figures created by
-our novelist, which means that her charm is irresistible. The less
-admirable, but more energetic wife of Dr. Merrow is so perfect a
-representative of the busy city pastor's helpmate that we can only
-wonder how it is possible to put on paper any creation so real. There
-is not a false touch in this picture. William Allingham wrote in his
-diary after reading one of Browning's poems, "Bravo, Browning!" Upon
-finishing _The Greatest of These_, which I confidently call a great
-novel, I could hardly refrain from a shout of applause.
-
-
-
-
-IX
-
-
-Mr. Marshall is a twentieth century novelist, because he is happily
-yet alive, and because he writes of twentieth century scenes and
-characters; but he is apart from the main currents of twentieth
-century fiction, standing indeed in the midst of the stream like a
-commemorative pillar to Victorian art. He has never written historical
-romance, which dominated the novel at the beginning of our century; he
-has never written the "life" novel--beginning with the hero's birth and
-travelling with plotless chronology, the type most in favour since the
-year 1906; he has never written a treatise and called it a novel, as so
-many of his contemporaries have done. Every one of his novels, except
-the two unfortunate burlesques, is a good story, with a good plot and
-living characters; and he has chosen to write about well-bred people,
-because those are the people he knows best.
-
-It is also well to remember, that although his best novels are
-parochial, he himself is a citizen of the world. He has seen the North
-Cape, he has lived in the Australian bush, in various European cities,
-and has traveled extensively in America. One reason why he can describe
-English country life so clearly is because he sees it in the proper
-perspective. He is at home in any community on earth.
-
-I call him a realistic novelist, because his realism is of the highest
-and most convincing kind--it constantly reminds us of reality. I cannot
-see why a well-constructed story, that deals mainly with attractive men
-and women, and ends on a note of robust cheerfulness, should have any
-less right to the adjective "realistic" than an ill-arranged transcript
-of the existence of creatures living amongst poverty, filth, and crime.
-And so far as Mr. Marshall's Victorian reticence on questions of sex
-is concerned, this strengthens his right to the title Realist. As
-Henry James said, the moment you insist that animalism must have its
-place in works of art, there almost always seems to be no place for
-anything else. If a novelist is to represent real life, he must make
-subordinate and incidental what in some novels dominates every page.
-If a writer is to describe events as they really happen, to portray
-men and women as they really are, to create living characters that
-can be recognized in modern society, he ought to emphasize in his art
-what life itself emphasizes--the difference between man and the lower
-animals. The curious thing is that in many so-called realistic novels
-it is impossible to distinguish between human beings and the beasts of
-the field; the well-understood likeness is stressed so heavily that not
-only the individual, but even the type is lost. One can hardly call so
-total an absence of discrimination true art. Even the most elementary
-man or woman is less elementary than a beast; and is it not true that
-the greater the complexity, the greater the skill required to report it
-truly?
-
-And here is a strange thing. It is only in stories of human beings that
-our would-be realists insist that animalism should be most frankly and
-most minutely portrayed. When we come to dog-stories--of which there
-are many--the element of sex is as a rule wholly omitted. Yet surely
-this is more salient in the life of a dog than in the life of a man.
-
-Archibald Marshall is a realist. He represents cultivated men and
-women as we saw them yesterday, and as we shall see them tomorrow. He
-seldom disappoints us, for among all living novelists, whilst he is
-not the greatest, he is the most reliable. It is difficult to analyse
-the extraordinary charm of his stories, for they are simpler than
-simplicity. He takes us literally into the bosom of a family, where
-each member has a distinct individuality, and the novel progresses
-like beautiful voices with orchestral accompaniment--each individual
-in turn singing an air, while the family fortunes supply the harmony.
-To read his books is to associate with people whom it is highly
-important to know--not because of their social standing, but because
-of their solid worth. His good characters are fundamentally good.
-They are seldom brilliant, and almost never reformers. They are more
-altruistic than philanthropic. They possess the fine old virtues of
-purity, wholesomeness, generosity, loving-kindness, honesty, loyalty,
-tact, consideration; such persons are always lovable in life, which is
-why they are lovable in these books. His heroes are not saviours of
-society, they are simply good companions, be the weather fair or foul;
-and we are never sickened by the diaphanous veneer of sentimentality.
-His villains seldom break the law of the land, and do not reek of
-melodrama. They are inconsiderate, garrulous, inopportune, stupid,
-meddling, officiously helpful, which is sometimes worse than deliberate
-hostility. Mrs. Prentice in _Exton Manor_ is his most offensive
-specimen, and according to the wisdom of the Book of Proverbs, she is
-one of the four things for which the earth is disquieted--"an odious
-woman when she is married." These respectable villains, who often cause
-more suffering than professional criminals, receive the punishment
-of unpopularity. But in most of his characters the elements are more
-kindly mixed. We have on every page the delight of recognition--the
-figures are so perfectly drawn that we are under the illusion that they
-are alive.
-
-Although these stories are never explicitly didactic, they are
-ethically as well as artistically true. Beneath the surface of
-light conversation and trivial incident we find an idea that works
-for righteousness. This idea is so variously and so frequently
-illustrated that I think it must be the foundation of the author's
-philosophy of life and conduct. He would have us believe that different
-individuals, different social classes, different communities dislike
-and distrust each other mainly through ignorance. He would not
-say in the old phrase, to understand is to forgive, he would say
-something without any taint of condescension, something finer and
-more fruitful--to understand is to respect, to admire, to love. The
-inefficient aristocrat and the pushing millionaire despise each other,
-the haughty Churchman and the pious Dissenter distrust each other's
-motives until they are brought by the force of circumstances into an
-unescapable daily intimacy; the result of which to both is surprising
-and agreeable. Apparently what we all need is more imagination,
-more intelligence. These novels make a combined attack on the last
-infirmity of both noble and ignoble minds, that last citadel of
-stupidity--Prejudice.
-
-
-
-
-BIBLIOGRAPHY
-
-
-                                              English
-                                            publication  American
-
-  Peter Binney, Undergraduate                   1899       ....
-  The House of Merrilees                        1905       1905
-  Richard Baldock                               1906       1918
-  Exton Manor                                   1907       1908
-  Many Junes                                    1908       1919
-  The Squire's Daughter                         1909       1912
-  The Eldest Son                                1911       1911
-  Sunny Australia (_sketches of travel_)        1911       ....
-  The Mystery of Redmarsh Farm                  1912       ....
-  The Honour of the Clintons                    1913       1913
-  The Terrors (_short stories_)                 1913       ....
-  The Greatest of These (Roding Rectory)        1914       1914
-  The Old Order Changeth (Rank and Riches)      1915       1915
-  Upsidonia                                     1915       1917
-  Watermeads                                    1916       1916
-  Abington Abbey                                1917       1917
-  The Graftons                                  1918       1918
-
-
-
-
-
-End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Archibald Marshall, a Realistic
-Novelist, by William Lyon Phelps
-
-*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ARCHIBALD MARSHALL ***
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