LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO Ptf *33/ H A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION BY BLISS PERRY Professor of English Literature in Harvard University AUTHOR OF "A STUDY OF POETRY," "WALT WHITMAN," "THE AMERICAN MIND," ETC. Revised Edition BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO SAN FRANCISCO HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY ;bc ftitoewfte pretf CambciOge COPYRIGHT, I9O2 AND IQ20, BY BLISS FKRRT ALL RIGHTS RESERVED CAMBRtDGB . MASSACHUSETTS PRINTED IN THE U . S . A PREFACE THE aim of this book is to discuss the out- lines of the art of prose fiction. It was first published in 1902, and has been reprinted so often that I have no excuse for any errors of fact which it may still contain. In the present edition I have altered a few passages in the text, and made considerable additions to the bibliography. I had hoped to add a chapter on Dialogue in Fiction, but the chapter is still unwritten. It happened that the author wrote fiction, after a fashion, before attempting to lecture upon it, and he is now conscious that the academic point of view has in turn been modified by the impressions gained during his editorship of " The Atlantic Monthly." Whether the professional examination of many thousands of manuscript stories is cal- culated to exalt one's standards of the art of vi PREFACE fiction may possibly be questioned. But this editorial experience, supplementing the other methods of approach to the subject, may be thought to contribute something of practical value to the present study of the novelist's work. It is as if an enthusiast for art, after serving first as painter's apprentice and then as lecturer on painting, had been forced to act as hanging committee for an exhibition, and now, with a zeal for his subject which survives every disillusionment, were to mount a chair in the picture gallery and preach to all comers ! For it is not to be denied that there is more or less sermonizing in this book. The homiletic habit lurks deep in the New Englander as in the Scotchman, and many a Yankee who can claim few other points of resemblance to Robert Louis Ste- venson is like him at least in this, that he "would rise from the dead to preach." It should be stated distinctly that the pre- sent volume makes no attempt to trace the history of the English novel. That task has been adequately performed by several excel- PREFACE vii lent handbooks, which are easily accessible. Most of my illustrations of the various aspects of the art in question are drawn, however, from English and American stories. While I have not overlooked, I trust, the work of the more significant contemporary writers, I have made no attempt to decorate these pages with references to the " novel of the year." On the contrary, wherever an allu- sion to the writings of masters like Scott and Thackeray and Hawthorne would serve the purpose, I have given myself the pleasure of such illustration, knowing that their books will continue to be read long after the novels of the year have faded out of memory. It is to be hoped that this discussion of the pleasant art of story- writing will not weigh too heavily upon the reader's con- science. If he likes, he may avoid the Ap- pendix. But the " painful " reader, who is after all the pride of the classroom and the lit" erary club, and who deserves one of the best seats by the family library-table, will, I hope, find in the Appendix much that will prove via PREFACE interesting and useful. The review questions upon Scott's "Ivanhoe" are reprinted there with the courteous permission of Messrs. Long- mans, Green & Company, the publishers of my annotated edition of that novel. BLISS PERRY. CAMBRIDGE, 1920. CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE I. THE STUDY OF FICTION .... 1 II. PROSE FICTION AND POETRY ... 28 III. FICTION AND THE DRAMA ... 48 IV. FICTION AND SCIENCE .... 73 V. THE CHARACTERS 94 VI. THE PLOT 129 VII. THE SETTING 154 VIII. THE FICTION- WRITER .... 177 IX. REALISM 217 X. ROMANTICISM 258 XI. THE QUESTION OF FORM .... 284 XII. THE SHORT STORY . . . . . 300 XIII. PRESENT TENDENCIES OF AMERICAN FICTION 335 APPENDIX : Suggestions for Study. Bibliography. Topics for Study. Original Work in Con- struction. Practice in Analysis. Review Questions 361 INDEX 399 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE . . . Frontispiece WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY .... 58 RUDYARD KIPLING *. 134 GEORGE ELIOT 150 CHARLES DICKENS 200 SIR WALTER SCOTT 260 ROBERT Louis STEVENSON 294 EDGAR ALLAN FOE ..338 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION CHAPTER I THE STUDY OF FICTION " There are few ways in which people can be better employed than in reading a good novel. (I do not say that they should do nothing else.) " BENJAMIN JOWETT, Life and Letters. IN beginning any study, it is , ,/ . J Nature of the well to take a preliminary survey problems in- of the field, and to note the gen- eral character of the questions that are likely to arise as one advances. When the chosen field of study is one of the arts, it is obvious that the student's curiosity may be aroused by various aspects of the art under consider- ation. He may find himself interested pri- marily in the artist, or chiefly attracted by the work of art itself, or concerned with the at titude of the public which takes pleasure in that particular form of art. In the study of prose fiction, for instance, one person may 2 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION discover that his chief curiosity is about cer- tain novelists who have been eminent practi- tioners in their profession. Another person may care little for the personal traits of writ- ers of fiction, but be greatly interested in novels ; and a third may find much to reward his endeavor in noting the various character- istics of the fiction-reading public. The gen- eral nature of the problems arising in the study of fiction is thus indicated, sufficiently for our present purpose, in saying that they deal with literary artists, with specific works of art, and with the public, great or small, to which the art of fiction makes a particular appeal. It confers a certain dignity upon The universal , . J r appetite for the study ot iiction to remember how universal is the human appe- tite for fiction of some sort. In one of the most delightful of Thackeray's " Roundabout Papers," " On a Lazy Idle Boy " who leaned on the parapet of the old bridge at Chur, quite lost in a novel, Thackeray comments upon " the appetite for novels extending to the end of the world ; far away in the frozen deep, the sailors reading them to one another during the endless night; far away under THE STUDY OF FICTION 3 the Syrian stars, the solemn sheikhs and eld- ers hearkening to the poet as he recites his tales ; far away in the Indian camps, where the soldiers listen to 's tales or 's, after the hot day's march ; far away in little Chur yonder, where the lazy boy pores over the fond volume, and drinks it in with all his eyes ; the demand being what we know it is, the merchant must supply it, as he will supply saddles and pale ale for Bombay or Calcutta." The universality of the liking for fiction is equaled only by the variety of tastes that are gratified by fiction reading. Some of the most intellectual men have con- fessed their preference for the most unintel- lectual stories, and very ignorant and stupid people are constantly and in a most praise- worthy fashion ! endeavoring to assimilate the lofty thought and profound emotion with which the great masterpieces of fiction are charged. Tastes are altered as we pass from youth to middle age and old age ; they change with every vital experience ; they grow delicate or coarse in accordance with the meat upon which they are fed. But the desire for " the story " outlasts childhood and savagery. It is a part of the spiritual hun f A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION ger of the most Highly developed individuals and races ; and it is impossible to foresee the time when fiction shall cease to be an impor- tant part of the world's literary production. " The demand being what we know it is, the merchant must supply it." variety of ^* on ty * s ^ s desire for fiction action* 1<>r an a PP e tite common to humankind, reading. | 3u t it is also to be noted that the particular motives which lead persons to read books of fiction are strangely varied. Many people like to read novels having to do with subjects in which they already have some special interest. As boys with a turn for history will easily learn to read Scott, or a scientifically minded youngster will take naturally to Jules Verne, so an adult's fond- ness for adventure, travel, the study of manners, for sociology, theology, or ethics will often prescribe the sort of novels he will read. There are other people who select stories that will carry them as far as possible from their ordinary pursuits and habits of thought. Fiction of this character, chosen for its power to afford distraction or even dissipation to an overwrought mind, unques- tionably serves a useful purpose, though it a need scarcely be said that an exclusive reli- ance upon trivial and sensational stories as furnishing mental relaxation is an indication of poverty of intellectual resources. From the point of view of the boy who sells novels on the train, "a good book" is the book that most easily absorbs the attention of the traveler, and there is much to be said for the train-boy's standard of criticism. Again, many of our choices, in the selection of fic- tion, turn upon the more or less unconscious desire to enlarge the range of our experience. Like Pomona in " Rudder Grange," we can first wash the dishes and then follow the adventures of the English aristocracy ; we can journey to the California of 1849 with Bret Harte, to a hill camp in India with Mr. Kipling, to Paris or the French provinces with Balzac. We can thus live vicariously the sort of life we might have lived if we had been differently circumstanced. We seek in novels a compensation for the dullness and monotony of actual life, or contrariwise, finding actuality too strenuous and stimulat- ing, we take refuge in the quiet sanctuary opened to us by art. I recall a mining ex- pert who had just come East, after a horse- 6 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTiON back journey of several thousand miles through the most inaccessible and dangerous mining camps of the Rocky Mountains. He wanted something to read, and his friend, a professor of chemistry, whose life was passed in his laboratory and lodgings, recommended to him a thrilling tale by Ouida, in which he himself had been reveling. But the mining expert declared the book too exciting, and settled down for a whole day's tranquil happiness with Mrs. GaskelPs " Cranford " ! Smallest of all the classes of fiction readers, and yet the most thoroughly appreciative of excellence, is that group who approach a novel without any preoccupation, who ask only that it shall be a beautiful and noble work of art. Guy de Maupassant has ex- pressed this thought in a frequently quoted passage from the preface to " Pierre et Jean." Yet it can scarcely be read too often. " The public is composed of numerous groups who say to us [novelists] : ' Console me, amuse me, make me sad, make me sentimental, make me dream, make me laugh, make me tremble, make me weep, make me think.' But there are some chosen spir- its who demand of the artist : ' Make for THE STUDY OF FICTION 7 me something fine, in the form which suits you best, following your own temperament.' ' Remembering this infinite vari- i i p Dogmatism ety of motive in choosing works of to be fiction, it becomes easier to avoid dogmatism. It is quite impossible to draw up a list of " the best novels" for any par- ticular person. The variations in human nature and aesthetic discipline are too great. And yet criticism has a function here which should not be overlooked. It should be able to pronounce upon the objective qualities of any book : to say what it contains, and to pass judgment upon the excellence of the form in which those contents are clothed. When we repeat the old maxim, " De gustibua non disputandum est," we should not stretch the maxim beyond the very obvious truth which it expresses. Tastes are purely sub- jective matters, and arguments about them, though interesting enough, are futile except as evidences of personal temperament and training. But the objects of taste, neverthe- less, have certain positive qualities which may profitably be analyzed and discussed. One reader may prefer Trollope's " Framley Par- sonage " to Hawthorne's " Scarlet Letter/' 8 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION and another reader's preference be precisely the reverse. It may be useless to discuss these preferences, but surely criticism can pronounce upon the characteristics of the two books. It can show their radical differ- ence in structure and style. It can point out the excellences and limitations of each of the two stories. Discussions of this sort are often illuminating and valuable ; they are not to be dismissed as the expression of mere personal whim. A man may prefer chocolate to coffee as his breakfast beverage ; he knows which he likes best, and it may not be worth while to dispute with him about his taste. But his physician, knowing the chemical pro- perties of the two beverages and their rela- tive effect upon the patient's digestive sys- tem, can probably tell him which drink is the more nourishing or stimulating for him. The physician's explanation of the positive qualities of chocolate and coffee may be com- pared to the judgment of a competent critic upon the constituent elements of a book. After the physician has delivered his opinion, it is still possible for his patient to say, " But I like coffee best and shall continue to drink it;" and after the critics have declared a THE STUDY OF FICTION 9 book to be commonplace or degrading it may be read even more than before. If the phy- sician and the critic are blessed with a phi- losophical disposition they will now shrug their shoulders and murmur, " De gustibus non disputandum est." They have done their part, and further discussion is useless. We touch here upon another of The study the fundamental differences be- tween fiction readers. There are lovers of all the arts who wish to "* keep their enjoyment of a beautiful object quite separate from an analysis of the ele- ments that enter into that enjoyment, who prefer to be ignorant of the technical means by which the pleasurable end is secured. There are connoisseurs of music and painting who profess to be guided by their personal impressions of the sonata or the landscape piece, without reference to any knowledge of the mathematics of music or of the laws of perspective, A good deal may be said for this happy impressionistic fashion of gather- ing pleasure, and it has no stouter adherents than among novel readers. A very large proportion of the readers of a story take no interest whatever in the technical side of the 10 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION novelist's craft ; they are interested simply in the results. They may possibly listen while Stevenson or Mr. Henry James dis- courses upon the difficulties and triumphs of the novelist's art, but they are chiefly con- cerned with the practical quest for another good story. The Anglo-Saxon, particularly, is not inclined to treat aesthetic questions with much concern. He doubts whether the serious amateur study of an art increases one's enjoyment of that art. It is precisely here that this book may part company with some readers who have cared to follow its opening pages. For our discussion will proceed upon the tacit assumption that the study of fiction does increase one's enjoyment of it ; that as the traveler who has studied architec- ture most carefully will get the most plea- sure out of a cathedral, so the thorough student of literary art will receive most en- joyment from the masterpieces which that art has produced. Upon the practical ap- plication of this theory of the relation of technical knowledge to enjoyment, some com- mon sense must of course be exercised. The novel which survives the test of searching THE STUDY OF FICTION 11 analysis, of classroom dissection, if you like, and gives any pleasure at the last, must be a good novel to begin with. If the doll is stuffed with sawdust, it is better not to poke into its insides. But if the novel be the work of a master if it be " Henry Es- mond " or " Adam Bede " or " Ivanhoe " there need be no fear of lessening the stu- dent's pleasure. He will soon learn to dis- cover the conventional tricks, the common- place devices of the hack-writer ; the books of the great writers will seem no whit less wonderful than before. Knowledge and feeling must indeed be kept in their due re- lations. To know is good. To feel is bet- ter, when it is a question of appropriating the form and meaning of a work of art. Analysis must be subordinated to synthesis ; the details must be forgotten in the cumula- tive impression given by the work as a whole. Yet the synthetic, comprehensive, sympa- thetic view of a masterpiece of fiction is not so likely to reveal itself to the casual reader as it is to the careful student of the means by which the supreme ends of literature are attained. 12 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION What method of fiction study is Methods . . oi fiction it wisest to follow? In school and college, much will depend upon the size and proficiency of the classes, the ex- tent to which the lecture system is adopted, the library facilities, the temperament and the training of the individual teacher. The independent student, or the member of a reading circle or club, must be governed more or less by special circumstances. And yet there are certain general modes of study between which a choice should be made at the outset. For instance, the English novel may be treated historically. Its origins and the main tendencies of its de- O velopment are not difficult to trace. One may plan a course of fiction reading which shall follow the sequence of history. He will find excellent handbooks to guide him. The advantages of following the historical method in studying any phase of a national literature are too obvious to be denied, and yet, as far as fiction is concerned, this method is not without its drawbacks. Very few libraries contain much material of an earlier date than the middle of the eight/- THE STUDY OF FICTION 13 eenth century, or represent more than a handful of novelists from that time to the generation of Scott. The minor fiction of any epoch is often more truly representative than the work of its greater names. But even were the material at hand, the tempta- tion in dealing with half forgotten or wholly forgotten authors is to content one's self with secondhand opinions about them, and it is precisely this indolent fashion of passing along a received opinion which has done much to bring the study of English litera- ture into disrepute. The reader must get the book into his hand if he is to receive much benefit from the opinion of the critic or historian. Of course every student of English fiction ought to know something of the lines of its progress in the past say as much as the little books of Professor Raleigh l or Professor Cross 2 will help him to acquire but it is doubtful whether any- thing more than the mastery of such a gen- eral sketch can successfully be attempted 1 The English Novel. By Walter Raleigh. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1894. a The Development of the English Novel. By Wilbur I* Cross. New York : The Macinillan Company, 1899. 14 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION under ordinary conditions. In the case of advanced students who have proper library facilities, the investigation of the historical development of fiction is too interesting to be likely to be neglected. criticism Again, the criticism of contem- ?orS em " porary fiction has been found to fiction. kg attractive and stimulating, both in the academic class-room and the literary club. Such a course of study traverses the immense field of latter-day fiction, and se- lects for analysis and judgment striking ex- amples of this and that literary tendency. From the standpoint of pedagogy, much may be said for this method. It requires little or no special preparation on the part of the student ; he may be assumed to have a certain interest in the book of the hour. It puts the teacher on a level with the class, forcing him to see more truly and to ex- press himself more clearly than they, upon books that have not yet won a permanent place in literature, and consequently have not become the object of conventional and hack- neyed criticism. Nevertheless the method has its dangers. It may tempt the teacher to popularize in the bad sense, to try to say THE STUDY OF FICTION 16 clever things about the novel which happens to be the latest fashion, to recognize, in making a choice among current fiction, the market valuation and thus to impress the market-value standard upon the very per- sons who most need to be taught the falli- bility of that standard. It certainly tempts the student to criticise that is, to perform the most delicate of mental operations be- fore he is in possession of any canons of criticism. It is always easy to mistake liter- ary gossip for literary culture, and a course of reading which gives prominence to con- temporary books and living authors is likely to result in a loss of true literary perspec- tive. Good style did not begin with Steven- son, and good plots are much older than Dr. Conan Doyle. While every method has no doubt The stndy its own advantages and disadvan- ^"nasaii tages, the method least open to flrt objection is that which, assuming that prose fiction is an art, devotes itself to the exposi- tion of the principles of that art. It takes for granted that there is a " body of doc- trine " concerning fiction, as there is con- cerning painting or architecture or music, 16 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION and that the artistic principles involved are no more incapable of formulation than are the laws of the art of poetry, as expressed in treatises upon Poetics from Aristotle's day to our own. They are indeed largely the same principles, as might be expected in the case of two sister arts. A student cannot begin the study of prose fiction more profitably than by endeavoring to grasp the relations between this art and the art of narrative po- etry. Quite aside from the task of tracing historically the process by which the prose romance grew out of the epic, there are rich fields for investigation in connection with such topics as the material common to the two arts, the qualities shared by the novelist and poet, and the similarity of much of their craftsmanship in the sphere of formal expres- sion. This suggests a study of their differ- ences in the selection of material, their vary- ing attitude toward their material, and the diverging requirements of effective expres sion in the two media of prose and verse. Then the affiliations of fiction with the drama must be made clear, through a study of such questions as the general similarity in construction of the novel and the play, and THE STUDY OF FICTION 17 the advantages and disadvantages of sub- stituting the novelist's indirect methods of narration and description for the direct re- presentation of action by means of the stage. Here the student may work out, in a com- paratively new territory, the familiar princi- ple of Lessing, and assure himself that the real field of the novelist is forever separated from that of the dramatist by the nature of the artistic media which the two men em- ploy. The student may well be asked, also, to estimate the bearing upon fiction of the modern scientific movement, remembering Lanier's remark about the novel being the meeting ground of poetry and science, and endeavoring to ascertain whether upon the whole fiction has gained or lost by its contact with the scientific spirit. After such a clear- ing of the ground as has been suggested, it is natural to pass to a detailed study of the content of fiction, a study, that is, of charac- ter, plot, and setting, in themselves and as interrelated. Selecting for classroom mate- rial some novels that have stood the test of time, methods of character delineation must be observed ; stationary and developing char- acters compared; the relation of main and 18 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION subordinate characters noted. The nature of tragic and comic collisions must be ana- lyzed ; the infinitely varied ways of tangling and untangling the skein of plot reduced to some classification that can be grasped by the student. The circumstances or events enveloping the action of the story whether it be set in some focal point of history or merely keyed to a quiet landscape must be accurately perceived. Setting and plot and character, whether analyzed separately or grasped in their artistic relations to one another, must further be discussed in con- nection with the personality of the fiction- writer. Yet pupils should be taught to look for the mark of personality, not in gossip about a novelist's hour of rising and favorite breakfast and favorite books, but rather in connection with the creative processes upon which the stamp of personality is really set. The outward facts of an author's life, the traits of his character, the history of his opinions are significant to us only in so far as they have moulded liis imagination. Finally, we must study the way in which differences in the nature of material and dif- ferences in personality have resulted in the THE STUDY OF FICTION 19 development of the varying forms of fiction. These forms are capable of infinite modifica- tion. Each writer's thoughts, dreams, con- victions, must be put into words. His mas- tery of expression is the final element that determines his rank as an artist, and there is thus suggested to the student an endlessly curious investigation of matters of technique and style. After some such equipment as is here briefly indicated, the student may profitably pass to the criticism of contemporary au- thors, if he pleases, or to some phase of the history of the novel. No one need depre- ciate either of those methods of study, but nevertheless the most important thing to be learned about fiction at the outset is the knowledge of what fiction normally is; a sense of what it can do and what it cannot do ; a recognition of the fact that in the most insignificant short story may be seen the play of laws as old as art itself; that Aristotle and Lessing, in short, wrote with one eye on Mr. Kipling and Mr. Hardy. As in the case of every other fine art, the student of prose fie- ana form tion finds himself occupied with 20 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION questions concerning content and form, and their relations to each other. Back of every art product there is a conception, vaguely or definitely present in the artist's mind. Upon the character of this conception or content depends the significance of the work of art ; its formal beauty depends upon the artist's skill to express his thought or feeling in the terms of the particular medium which he has chosen. Content and form are therefore most intimately related in the artist's per- sonality. He can express nothing through the concrete medium of his particular art whether it be a pigment or clay or a har- mony of musical sounds or a succession of words unless it has first passed through the lens of his own nature. It is always difficult, and in a certain sense unnatural, to make a sharp separation between the ele- ments of content and of form. The artist himself rarely attempts it. He "thinks ii? color " or feels in terms of musical sound The finer the work of art, the more indis- solubly are the elements fused through the personality of the artist. And yet it is often of the greatest value to the student to at- tempt this separate analysis, to distinguish THE STUDY OF FICTION 21 what has gone into the work of art from the external form in which it is clothed, and in prose fiction form and content are more easily separable than in poetry or music on even painting. No one will deny the importance The subleot . of the subject-matter with which * Iot prose fiction deals. Its field is hu- flctlon - man life itself ; the experience of the race, under countless conditions of existence. Fic- tion-writers have put into their stories a mass of observations, thoughts, and feelings con- cerning humankind. The significance of these records depends largely upon the sin- cerity, the truthfulness, of the writers. Some of them have been chiefly occupied with rendering the external truth of fact. Others, like the great romancers, have cared only for the higher truth which is revealed to and conveyed by the imagination. But however varied the scope of the fiction-writer's activ- ity, they all have something to say about life. A. chapter of first-rate fiction arrests the at- tention at every turn. It provokes interest, awakens curiosity, challenges comparison with one's own experience, and even while it is 22 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION energizing the imagination, concentrates it Poetry touches us at a higher level, it is true, provided it touches us at all. Poetry is a finer art than fiction, but for that very rea- son there are many readers who cannot come under the domination of poetry. They have no natural ear for its music, and at twenty or twenty-two they find themselves or think themselves too old to learn the notes. The appeal of prose fiction is more universal : it captivates the man who cares mainly for facts, as well as the girl whose heart is set on fancies. Its scope is so vast, it is so varied in its different provinces, its potency to at- tract and to impress is so indubitable, that the reader who makes no response to it, whose powers may not be developed by means of it, must be insufferably dull. Further- more, prose fiction is, even more than music, the great modern art. By means of it we are brought into contact with modern ideas, with the tumultuous, insistent life of the present. And this, for good or evil, is our life ; the life which we must somehow live, and about which we are conscious of an un appeasable curiosity. THE STUDY OF FICTION 23 Yet the educational value of fic- The ques- tion consists not merely in its con- tionoi ffiTin tent, in the significance of the ideas which it conveys to the mind, but also to a considerable extent in the form in which those ideas are clothed. In the best fiction that form is singularly perfect. The study of expression as such, the cultivation of the feeling for style, is inseparably associated with a well selected course in fiction. The special treatises in narration and description, for instance, which many teachers of rheto- ric are now using, draw their readiest and aptest illustrations from the novelists. The range of expression, the force and beauty with which ideas are uttered by the masters of English fiction, is unquestionable. It is hard to see how any one can come away from a close study of Thackeray or Haw- thorne without a new appreciation of form, a standard of workmanship ; without learn- ing once for all that imagination and pas- sion may coexist with a sense of proportion, with purity of feeling, with artistic reserve. These last are what we agree to call the classic qualities. We send boys to Greek and Latin literature in the hope that 24 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION will catch something of their secret, but if boys cannot or will not read Greek and Latin, they need not necessarily be unfa- miliar with works composed in the classic spirit. In a time like ours, when everybody writes " well enough," and few try to write perfectly, it is no small thing that students may be taught through fiction to perceive the presence of style, the stamp of distinc- tion. That sound Latinist and accomplished musician, Henry Nettleship, once wrote to a friend a passage about Wagner which is not without its bearing upon literature. " Wag- ner tries to make music do what it cannot do without degrading itself namely, paint out in very loud colors certain definite feel- ings as they arise before the composer. The older musicians seem to me to aim rather at suggesting feeling than at actually exhibit- ing it, as it were, in the flesh. I think much of Wagner would vitiate my taste, but per- haps my head is too full of the older music to take in strains to which my nerves are not attuned." Professor Nettleship may have been right or wrong about Wagner, but is there a better service which the teacher of fiction can render a pupil, or the solitary THE STUDY OF FICTION 25 student of literature perform for himself, than to make his head so full of the noble cadences of Scott and Thackeray, Eliot and Hawthorne, that there shall be no room there for what has been succinctly described as " the neurotic, the erotic, and the Tommy- rotic," and all the other contemporary varie- ties of meretricious and ignoble art ? No one need seek in any novel The novel an abstract and theoretical perfec- "Astiietio tion. A novel universally signifi- oriuolsin - cant in content and impeccable in form has never been produced. Some of the most stimulating and widely influential novels have been slovenly written ; and some of the most charmingly composed stories have been barren of ethical and human signifi- cance. But it is the province of esthetic criticism, none the less, to determine the ex- tent to which these two elements enter into the novel under discussion, to make clear, if possible, the relation of the form or content of any work of fiction to the mind of the artist who produced it. If " there is nothing in the work of art except what some man has put there," it is interesting to the critic to understand not only what intention the 26 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION man has put into his work but the form in which that conception has been expressed. To such criticism the novel presents a field no less attractive than that of the other fine arts. The aesthetic critic regards prose criti- cism as one species of literary art. He is primarily interested in novels, not for the useful information they may contain or the ethical guidance they may furnish, but for the aesthetic pleasure they impart. His study of fiction may lead him into history and bio- graphy, into grammar and rhetoric, perhaps into ethics and sociology, but what he is chiefly endeavoring to do is to ascertain the laws that govern the artistic expression of the phenomena of human life by means of prose narration or description, as compared with its expression through the media em- ployed by the other arts. Assuming, as we have already said, that prose fiction is an art, he proceeds to study its principles. He tries to formulate the group of facts and laws which constitute the " body of doctrine " concerning fiction. The value of such a study lies of this chiefy in the pleasure it yields, the discipline it affords, to the student THE STUDY OF FICTION 27 himself. The vast fiction-reading public is skeptical about the very existence of standards of judgment. " It is not that there is so little taste nowadays," said some one the other day, " there is so much taste, most of it bad." But it is the scholar's business to take the world as he finds it and to make it a trifle better if he can. The public, lawless and inconstant, craving excitement at any price, journalized daily, neither knowing nor caring what the real aim and scope of the novel ought to be, has the casting vote, after all, upon great books and little books alike. From its ultimate verdict there is no appeal. But the ultimate verdict is made up very slowly and often contradicts the judgment of the hour. Meanwhile the scholar can quietly, persistently, assert the claims of excellence. From schools and colleges, from reading circles and clubs, from isolated and unre garded rooms whose walls are lined with books, come, to serve as leaven, people who know good work from bad and who know why they know it. CHAPTER H PROSE FICTION AND POETRY **A novelist is on the border-line between poetry and prose, and novels should be as it were prose saturated with poetry." LESLIE STEPHEN, Daniel Defoe. " The great modern novelist is at once scientific and poetic : and here, it seems to me, in the novel, we have the meeting, the reconciliation, the kiss, of science and poetry." SIDNEY LANIEK, The English Novel. THE quotation which has just been made from Sidney Lanier will serve to indicate the theme, not only of this chapter, hut of the two following ones. In tracing the various relations of prose fiction, we must take ac- count of its affinities with poetry, and with that specialized form of poetry, the drama. But we have also to reckon with science and with the influence of the modern scientific movement upon literary art. Let us begin by noting the affiliations of prose fiction with poetry. Relations to Of the three great divisions into the lyrio. w hich poetry naturally falls, namely, PROSE FICTION AND POETRY 29 dramatic, lyric, and narrative, the first has so much in common with prose fiction that their lines of relationship will need to be discussed in a separate chapter. The province of lyric poetry, on the other hand, is so distinctive that its points of contact with prose fiction can be easily defined. The lyric is, beyond any other form of poetical expression, the vehicle of personal emotion. The " lyric cry " is the spontaneous overflow of the indi- vidual passion of the poet. Its joy or pain is egoistic. It voices the poet's own heart, no matter how many other human hearts find themselves beating in sympathy with his ut- terance. Now it is obvious that many novels contain lyrical passages, that is, episodes of heightened personal feeling, transports of happiness, anguish, or exaltation, which owe their inspiration to the same causes as those which produce, in the case of a poet, lyric poetry. There are certain novels, further- more, which represent to a peculiar degree the individual admirations and hatreds, the ardent convictions and aspirations of their authors. Passages in the Bronte novels, and whole books by George Sand, may thus fairly be called lyrical. But it is evident 30 enough that this highly emotionalized atti tude, this intimate expression of purely per sonal feeling, is very far from being the normal mood of the average fiction writer. It is in the task of the narrative Relations to /,) i n narrative or " epic poet that we find a much closer parallel to the work of the artist in prose fiction. Both men have a story to tell, and by comparing their methods of workmanship one may learn a good deal about the limitations and relative advantages of prose and poetry as media for narration. For the narrative poet, like the novelist, finds much of his material ready to his hand, and much more, no doubt, to be " invented," that is, selected and recombined from the mass of unrelated memories and impressions recorded in his mind. There is no better way of tracing the inevitable remoulding of narrative material by the poetic imagination than to take one of the old stories of the race and to see how poet and prose romancer have in turn dealt with it. The prose ro- mance is unquestionably a historic develop- ment from narrative poetry. Just as the " Iliad " was formed out of hero sagas and bal- lads of unknown origin and antiquity, so the PROSE FICTION AND POETRY 31 Homeric poems, in turn, were broken up in early mediaeval times into prose fictions like those of " Dares the Phrygian " and " Dictys the Cretan." The same process takes place with the post-classical romances of Alexander, the mediaeval Arthurian romances, the stories of Charlemagne or the Cid. Verse passes over into prose ; prose in turn gets versified once more. The material, for the most part, is immeasurably old ; " 't is his at last who says it best." A study of these changing forms of myth and legend as interpreted by different races and epochs and artists throws much light upon the laws both of prose fiction and of poetry. It affects more or less directly our appreciation of contem- porary literary art, for the universal sway of the mediaeval prose romance which itself sprang from a poetic imagination, and often out of actual embodiment in verse pre- pared the way for the modern novel as we know it. Yet those who possess neither _ The common the interest nor the facilities for material oi fiction and the comparative study of mediaeval poetry, literature can observe for themselves many of the correspondences and differences between 32 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION prose fiction and poetry. Let us turn, for example, to the material common to both poet and novelist, the sources from which they take the subject-matter of their art. Novelist and poet alike are primarily inter- ested in human life. They describe it as it seems to have manifested itself in the irre- vocable past, as it exists to-day, and as it may be found in the imaginary, unknown world of the future. They are interested in all that surrounds human life and affects its myriad operations. The external world, as it is portrayed by the novelists and poets, is chiefly a setting and framework for the more complete exhibition of human characteristics. The incidents which they narrate have for their aim the portrayal of character in this or that emergency and coil of actual cir- cumstance, or else they are as it were the mechanism the gymnastic apparatus by which life might test and measure itself if it pleased. Both novelist and poet, in a word, care first of all for persons. The differences of temperament and literary craftsmanship which separated Tennyson and Thackeray, for example, are relatively slight when com- pared with the common element of profound PROSE FICTION AND POETRY 33 curiosity with which these two writers ob- served men and women and reflected upon the conditions of human society. Indeed, the general distinction between men of let- ters, like Thackeray and Tennyson and Carlyle, and men of science, like Tyndall, Huxley, and Darwin, may be roughly indi- cated by saying that the former class are mainly occupied with persons, and the latter class with facts and laws. The novelist and the poet, fur- g nalltleg thermore, are alike in their habitual noveifst'Ld mental operations. Both of them poet must, to compass any high artistic achieve- ment, be thinkers. They must be able to generalize from specific examples. But they are not so likely as the historian, and surely they are far less likely than the scientist, to pass from particulars to a formulation of some abstract general truth. They are more apt to reason by analogy merely, to conclude that because the real Lord Hertford did this or that, the imaginary Marquis of Steyne, some of whose traits were copied from Lord Hertford's, would do it likewise. For artistic ends, this sort of reasoning is no doubt sufficient. The scientist and philosopher M A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION may argue that because Lord Hertford was wicked all men are wicked. Thackeray will be content to assert or imply the concrete fact of the wickedness of the Marquis of Steyne, reasoning by the light of example cast by the real British lord who served as the " original " of the imaginary one. But although the novelist and Dealing with & unknown poet are likely to step out or their quantities. . province and enter that of the phi- losopher and scientist in attempting to pos- tulate general truths, it must not be imagined that they are limited to any hard-and-fast set of specific examples. Though they reason concretely rather than abstractly, they deal constantly with unknown quantities. They are forever asking themselves, and piquing the reader's curiosity by propounding to him, questions about the potential qualities of persons. How will this fictitious person- age, more or less well known now to the O ' reader, behave in these new circumstances ? What will Ulysses do when he faces Penel- ope's suitors? Will Hamlet betray any excitement while his uncle watches the movements of the Player King ? Will Re- becca yield to the Templar, and will Harry PROSE FICTION AND POETRY 35 Esmond marry Beatrice or Beatrice's mother ? These are the questions the immensely fascinating questions ! which poets and novelists propose to us. If we are sufficiently absorbed in the poem or tale, we may have our answers ready. The creator of the tale or poem is of course bound to have his an- swer ready too, and it will turn very largely upon his sense of the action possible to a given character under a given set of circum- stances. But the decision or deed of one Wlthpoten . personage affects all the others. It Ualvalue - brings, as a painter would say, a new set of " values " into the composition, just as a shaft of sunlight, thrown into a room, alters all the color scheme of the room. Or it may be more simple to say that the potential qualities of the personages of fiction, whether in prose or in verse, may be compared to the value of the various hands of cards in the game of whist. If diamonds are to be trumps, rather than hearts or spades or clubs, the value of every card in the pack is shifted accordingly, and a corresponding scheme of play must be instantly evolved. And if, in a novel or play, " hearts are trumps," if 36 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION Hamlet believes the Ghost, or Tito Melema resolves to feign ignorance of Baldassarre, all the relationships of the persons, all the turnings of the plot, are thereby affected. The power to evoke the reader's curiosity and sympathy for such potential actions and situations is an essential element in the skill of the imaginative artist. The novelist and the poet have Both use i . i n " artistic" not only this common fund or. m- language. . , . ., terest in persons, and a similar fashion of making artistic use of the infi- nitely varied possibilities of human nature, but they are also working side by side in giving expression to their thoughts and feel- ings through language. Both are using what we rather indescriptively call " artistic " language, that is, words chosen for their clearness, force, and beauty as vehicles for the communication of conceptions and emo- tions. Later nineteenth century fiction was particularly noticeable for the extent to which it availed itself of resources more commonly considered to belong to poetry alone. It cultivated " prose poetry," words vaguely suggestive, instinct with emotional signifi- cance, and used in rhythmical combinations PROSE FICTION AND POETRY 37 that give much of the aesthetic quality of verse. Except in the hands of an artist like Poe, and indeed too often even with him, this use of poetic vocabulary and rhythm gives to prose fiction an over-ornamented, meretricious effect. But when a master of language desires to produce at some crisis of his story an effect comparable to the vibrant, poignant impression which poetry imparts, what does he do ? While holding firmly to the cadences of prose, he chooses his words, consciously or unconsciously, from the work- shop of the poet. Such wonderful lyric passages as Richard Feverel's first vision of Lucy by the river, the description of the Alps in " Beauchamp's Career," the Yar- mouth storm in "David Copperfield," are examples of the intimate relationship of the language of heightened, impassioned prose to that of noble poetry. The differences between the gen- eral functions of the poet and the novelist are no less suggestive. materiaL Though they may draw from a common fund of observations upon human life, the poet is forced to make a much more narrow 38 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION selection than the novelist. Since his task is the communication of emotion by means of verbal images, the poet may use only those images which affect us emotionally. Theo- retically, a poem should contain nothing un- poetical, just as a piece of music should be free from discords. To assert this, however, is not to forbid the use in poetry of much material that seems at first view non-poetical, even if not actually unpoetical. The great poets, like the great musicians, are constantly surprising us by the beauty, the intensity of feeling, which can be suggested by the most unpromising material. But it is nevertheless more natural that we should be moved by the image of " a violet by a mossy stone " than by the image of a " little porringer." It is hackneyed criticism to remark that, if the poet just quoted had possessed a more unerring power of poetic choice from among the ob- jects of common life which he celebrated in his verse, he would less often have made himself ridiculous. But the novelist is bound by no The novelist . i i i has the larger such necessity to avoid the triviaJ and commonplace. He is not al- ways, like the poet, occupied with the imme PROSE FICTION AND POETRY 39 diate transmission of feeling". He may de- vote a whole chapter to mere topography. He may chart the scene of his story, as Stevenson did before he wrote " Treasure Island," or as Blackmore made a map and sketches of the Doone country before he wrote his delightful romance. Like Balzac, he may write page after page of description of the external aspect of the house within which the human drama is to be enacted ; or like Flaubert, he may spend weeks of re- search in order to investigate and describe the precise details of a Carthaginian banquet table. All this fidelity to fact, this careful preparation of the stage scenery, may find its justification in the added sense of reality, of verisimilitude, conveyed by the story. But whether or not always justified in actual practice, this large freedom of the novelist in the selection of material contrasts very strongly with that compulsion which the poet feels to make each line in itself a thing of beauty. The novelist, in other words, is always more likely than the poet to make a generous use, in the practice of his art, of the material furnished by his daily observa- tion of men and things. One may imagine 40 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION the three men of letters, Longfellow, Haw- thorne, and Mr. Howells, walking down a street of Boston side by side. Out of the multitude of objects which would meet their eyes as possible raw material for literature, it is likely that the poet would make the most slender and scrupulous selection. The romancer would probably exercise a wider liberty of choice, and would retain in his mental notebook many facts and impressions which the poet would not find professionally useful. But the last of the three, the novelist, might conceivably make artistic use of every sight and sound and odor of the street, find- ing a place for it somewhere or other in his series of realistic pictures of contemporary American life. There is a further difference in Thedlfler- . < enoein the attitude oi typical poets and temperament. i novelists toward their material. The temperament of the prose writer is pro- verbially cooler. He does not wait to invoke the muses, nor does he ordinarily write under that " fine frenzy " which often accompanies the production of verse. The novelist, as such, when compared with the poet, is more of a quiet note-taker, a student of character PROSE FICTION AND POETRY 41 and manners and background. He is, as Henry Fielding loved to announce, "a his- torian of human nature." This tempera- mental and typical difference between the two artists, however, makes only the more noticeable those great lyric passages found here and there in the pages of masters of fiction, springing from the depths of emo- tion, and voiced with a nobility and beauty that we rightly associate with the poets alone. We may well believe that in the composition of such passages other novelists besides George Eliot have written under the over- powering impression which she described to Mr. Cross : " She told me that in all that she considered her best writing there was a ' not herself ' which took pos- session of her, and that she felt her own personality to be merely the instrument through which this spirit, as it were, was acting." CROSS, Life of George Eliot. The similarity already noticed i i P i i Verse and between the tasks or the poet and prose as d- the novelist, in that they both give expression through language to quickened moods of feeling, must not cause us to over- look the different requirements of expression in the two media of verse and prose. The 42 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION poet, thinking as he does in images, is bound to use figurative language ; thrilling as ha must be with emotion, that language natu- rally falls into rhythm ; his instinct for ordered beauty often leads him to the choice of rhyme ; and the nature of his imagination compels him to the use of those words and cadences whose very sound, through some occult and unanalyzable associations and by obscure imitative and suggestive potencies, stir the deep, if vague, vibrations of the soul. In these effects the writer of prose fiction may, as we have seen, share to a certain ex- tent. In proportion as his emotion rises in intensity, his language will tend not only to become tropical, but, like the language of the impassioned orator, it will tend to fall into periods of more or less regularly recurrent stress. Yet this rhythmical effect, often to be noted in powerful passages of prose fiction, is very different from metrical effect ; and whenever as notoriously in some of the pathetic paragraphs of Dickens and the ani- mal stories of Mr. Seton-Thompson the rhythm becomes the regular iambic beat of English blank verse, the writer's intention overreaches and defeats itself. With rhyme PROSE FICTION AND POETRY 43 the prose writer has of course nothing to do. Upon words of vague emotional connotation he sometimes does depend, in rendering cer- tain actions of nature or moods of men, but, as we have already seen, " prose poetry " is at best dubious ground. Most novelists fare better when, like Moliere's enlightened hero, they speak prose, and know that they are speaking it. It is not to be denied that the po- , , - The asthttlo et s use or metre, rhyme, and tone values of color will always give him techni- cal resources beyond those of the prose writer. He has all the instruments that the prose writer possesses, and more besides, if one ex- cepts the peculiar cadences, the distinctive melody and harmony that belong exclusively to prose. It needs a very fine ear to perceive these as yet unanalyzed aesthetic values of "loosened speech," the qualities that make a sentence of prose give pleasure through its sound alone. It may be that we shall some day understand this better. Future rhetori- cians and metricists may be able to point out the tone values, the intricate and unrepeated harmonies of a page of Daudet, precisely as we now endeavor to analyze the expressional 44 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION values of a page of Racine. It is quite pos- sible that they may assert that the prose writer was the rarer artist. But at present nothing is to be gained, and much has evi- dently been lost, by confusing the terri- tories of prose and verse, and producing, under the name of " prose poetry " and the " poetic short story," a mass of nondescript gelatinous rhetoric which can be classified as neither flesh, fowl, nor good red herring. There is still another way of ap- method oi preaching the subject of the rela- tions of prose fiction to poetry. It is perhaps even more interesting than those considered hitherto, although, like them, its value consists rather in clarifying one's gen- eral perception of the variances in literary forms than in furnishing exact critical for- mulas. The method of approach is this : to select writers who have been both novelists and poets; to study the different sides of their natures that have been expressed through the two arts ; and by this means to get light upon the character of the arts themselves. It is not difficult to see that George Eliot, for instance, betrayed through PROSE FICTION AND POETRY remember hearing a famous natu- ralist say that the crow is a typical bird, THE CHARACTERS 117 that is, that, compared with the woodpecker, the hawk, the crane, the crow represents the normal form of the bird family. Naturalists speak, indeed, of the type genus, the type species, and the type specimen, meaning thereby a division that is especially charac- teristic of the larger group which it repre- sents. And our distinction in fiction between the individual and the type would perhaps be more fully illustrated by the use of the terms " genus," " species," and " specimen." Genus, let us say, corvus ; species, corvus Americanus ; and specimen, some particular crow under observation, for example, old " Silver-Spot," so agreeably described by Mr. Seton-Thompson. This distinction is a perfectly simple one. When we say that the fox terrier is intelligent, we mean that the type is intelligent. When I say that my fox terrier is intelligent, I have the individual in mind. Let us see how all this bears on . , , Thlsdlstlno- the question 01 character-drawing uon applied .C\- \\T -11 4-U I to fiction. in nction. We will suppose that the novelist wishes to introduce into his story the figure of Abraham Lincoln. It is obvious that he must represent Lincoln as 118 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION belonging to the family of man, the genus American, the species Westerner, but that all these generic and typical traits must be further differentiated by delineating the qual- ities which distinguish the individual speci- men, Abraham Lincoln, from other Western American men. confusion oi But nothing is more frequent in SJiSivS.* 11 fiction than to find these two ttaL things confused. How does it hap- pen ? First, through an attempt to describe the individual by typical traits merely. If I say that a tramp came to my back door this morning and asked for some breakfast, and that he had torn shoes, old clothes, a slouch- ing gait, the face of a drinker, I do not iden- tify him in the slightest. If I were to put the police on his trail, armed with such a description, it would fit fifty other tramps as well as the one I have in mind. It is obvious that to identify this particular individual I must be able to describe some peculiarity of person or costume which differentiates him from others of his class, or at least to de- scribe such a combination of qualities and details as is not likely to be found in the case of any other tramp. THE CHARACTERS 119 Secondly, the type and the indi- Moral vidual are often confused in char- a * 8tractlOM - acter-drawing because the writer substitutes for the individual some moral abstraction. In the old moralities and miracle plays such characters as Good Fame, Virtuous Living, Tom Tosspot, Cuthbert Cutpurse, are nothing but signs of certain moral qualities, to be praised or reprehended according to the pleasure of the play-wright. Even the Eliza- bethan drama, in all its wealth of individual portraiture, is constantly presenting to us personages who are mere personifications of moral qualities, and Bunyan's masterly power of characterization does not prevent some readers from considering Mr. Worldly Wise- man and Mr. Faintheart to be moral im- ages rather than men. Thirdly, the type is frequently confused with the individual be- cause the artist gives a caricature rather than a portrait. In pictorial caricature, as wt know, certain features are exaggerated until the individual is far removed from reality. Tweed and Croker, if we are to believe the caricaturists, are not real persons. They are simply embodiments of certain abstract and 120 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION highly reprehensible moral qualities. It is easy to point out, in some of the very great- est fiction, examples of the fatal ease with which the writer can turn a portrait into a caricature. Sir Pitt Crawley's stinginess ap- parently tickled Thackeray's fancy so thor- oughly that he could not resist the temptation to exaggerate it until it was so much out of drawing that it robbed the character of its actuality. As compared with Sir Pitt Craw- ley, Becky Sharp's portrait shows constant restraint and a steady sense of proportion. Those personages of Dickens whom we are wont to speak of as " Dickensy " characters are all too frequently caricatures rather than portraits. Certain traits are so magnified for purposes of identification or humor that we see not the real person but only the " g a g>" the trick, the turn of farce, which presents him to the audience. Children de- light in this sort of thing, of course, but many older persons wonder, when they come to Dickens again, how all this false drawing could ever have given them pleasure. The causes ^ is more interesting, however, ofonfusion: to i nqu ; re i nto tne causes of this confusion. Why is it that the lack of clear vision. THE CHARACTERS 121 artist allows himself to substitute typical for individual traits and hence to lose the power of imparting a sense of actuality to his ficti- tious personages ? It is often true, no doubt, that the author fails to see clearly what he wants to express. He falls into abstract, typical delineation through mere irresolution or inattention, or it may be the overfondness for what he may like to call the " ideal," that is, for the abstract rather than for the con- crete. To this latter predilection must be attributed the feebleness of a great deal of Romantic art. It accounts for the weakness of Scott's character-drawing of ladies in com- parison with his masterly delineation of peas- ant girls. Then, too, the prevalence of a , , . . . Prevalence of fashionable artistic type is otten iastionabie found to overpower the artist's originality. The " Gibson girl," who is said to be due originally to the influence of a certain model in Mr. Gibson's early career as an artist, has continued not only to dominate most of Mr. Gibson's own drawings of women, but has been nothing less than an obsession, though a charming one, upon a whole school of American draughtsmen. In similar fash- 122 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION ion, there was a sort of Richard Harding Davis heroine who used to make her period- ical appearance in college stories. Indeed, college stories furnish an excellent example of the prevalence of a certain fashionable type and the consequent neglect of individ- ual portraiture. In all the college stories which have appeared in the last dozen years how few sharply characterized individuals are to be found ! It is far easier to describe the category under which a particular student belongs and to give the general traits of the " football man," the " sport," the " grind," than it is to portray the particular person who belongs to the category. In other words, most authors of college stories content them- selves, as far as character-depiction is con- cerned, by describing the pigeon-hole rather than the man in the pigeon-hole. Failure in I D the third place, although the expression. fi c ti O n-writer may see the individ- ual with perfect distinctness, either as actually present before him or in imaginative vision, he may nevertheless not be able to express what he sees. He draws the general charac- teristics of the type rather than the individual characteristics of the person because his vocab- THE CHARACTERS 123 ulary is not sufficiently delicate and precise for the task of portrayal. Here, again, col- lege stories afford a useful illustration. It is not to be supposed that the authors of those stories see their fellows less distinctly, nor that they perceive imaginative types with less clearness of outline, simply because they are dealing with young men and young wo- men. The defect is chiefly to be attributed to the lack of training in flexible and precise expression. But for one or another of these three causes which have been briefly uai oharao- outlined, how few individual char- acters have been created in fiction in the last ten years ! We have had certain types drawn over and over again with wearisome reiteration, but we have had few fictitious personages who have given us the impression of actuality. It must be remembered after all that the type is, in the last analysis, only a subjective abstraction, either in the reader's mind or in the mind of the artist. The mas- ters of fiction, surely, have generally con- tented themselves with creating personages and letting the type take care of itself. If the personage be so drawn as to convey a 124 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION mid sense of reality, his individual character* istics will be firmly outlined ; and if he gives to the reader an impression of moral unity, there is little doubt that he will in the true sense contain the type. For the type, so far as it is of any artistic value, is implicit in the individual. character- Before bringing to a close the contrast. consideration of the delineation of character, we should note that some of the greatest triumphs in the portrayal of character have been due to an effective sense of charac- ter-contrast. The differences between mem- bers of the same family as for instance between Adam and Seth Bede, Rachel and Beatrix Esmond, George and Henry War- rington have been utilized with consum- mate effect. The same is true of those pairs or trios of friends of which the history of the drama and of the novel offers so many brilliant examples. Hamlet and Horatio, Athos, Porthos and Aramis, Mulvaney, Or- theris and Learoyd, gain immensely in sa- liency and picturesqueness of outline because they are thrown into dramatic contrast with those friends in whose presence we are wont to watch them. THE CHARACTERS 125 Character - grouping on a still otaraoter- wider scale results from those mani- grouplnB - fold social, economical, and political rela- tions which place differently constituted indi- viduals in clearly marked lines of relation- ship. Master and servant, mistress and maid, lover and confidant, debtor and creditor, the dwellers on the farm or in the village, the representatives of a profession, the ad- venturers in some commercial or political enterprise, are linked together by bonds which give an opportunity for striking groups of characters. Indeed, in every story, as in every play, there is commonly some unifying principle, like a love affair, a crime, a journey, a business scheme, which instantly throws all the persons of the story into some sort of relationship with one an- other. Their attitude towards certain facts instantly ranks them, as by a kind of irre- sistible physical or moral gravitation. They are thrown into main groups or subordinate groups according to the part they play in the main plot or in the sub-plot of the tale. They work out their individual destiny in harmony or in contrast with the general destiny that presides over the fate of the 126 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION personages in the narrative ; they advance or retreat, compromise, surrender, or triumph as the judgment and the insight of the writer shall dictate. But in all the manifold and subtle relations into which the persons in the story are thrown, there is an opportunity for the most searching, the most spirited, the most brilliant methods of character-de- lineation. If, as Goethe said, a character is formed in the stream of the world, the char- acters in a novel form themselves into more and more plastic outlines as the stream of the story sweeps to its close. It is, therefore, quite impossible Harmony of . A J character and to conceive of characters in a novel action. . without taking into consideration the actions in which those characters are involved. The two elements, character and action, should be harmoniously treated. There will always be in fiction, doubtless, examples of " plot-ridden " characters ; that is, persons whose role in the story makes them do something which they would not naturally do. A high-minded girl is made to listen at the door simply because it is de- sirable that she should be aware of a conver- sation taking place between her father and THE CHARACTERS 127 her lover. An honest man is made to com- mit a crime because a crime is essential to the particular web of circumstances which the author desires to weave. But these instances of the violation of truth in charac- ter are usually punished by the sense of dis- belief which the reader is quick to feel. It is natural that we should demand in fiction, as in life, that the character should be true to itself, that under the given circumstances it should exhibit consistent behavior. What is more, we instinctively , , . , , . Moral unity. demand in the characters that im- press us by their individuality that moral unity by virtue of which each character shows evidence of what has happened to it in the past. Just as each one of us is conscious of his past, and is also conscious of the possibilities of the future, and bears this consciousness, although perhaps without real- izing it, into every act of the present, so we desire that the men and women described for us in the pages of the novelist should give this sense of the continuity, the unbroken web of life. To enter a railroad station say at Buffalo and see an east-bound ex- press standing on the track, resplendent in 128 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION paint and gilt, and ready to pull out of the station, is to receive an impression of actu- ality and power. But one has a far higher sense of power if one watches at the station this same train coming in from the West, an hour late, with vestibule and roof and win- dows covered with snow and ice, in evidence of the storm through which the train has passed. We picture to ourselves the winter landscape over which it has been flying in its struggle against time. We know that before it reaches Albany or New York that lost hour must be made up, if engine and engineer can do it. The past and the fu- ture of the train unite in their impression on our consciousness, and impart a thrilling sensation of personal force. In the same way, our vision of men and women in the greatest books of fiction is not confined to the immediate moment when they are pre- sent to our view ; we are more or less dimly conscious of the past and of the future of those characters and of all the moral po- tentialities of their lives. CHAPTER VI THE PLOT " Let him [the fiction-writer] choose a motive, whether of character or of passion ; carefully construct his plot so that every incident is an illustration of the motive, and every property em- ployed shall bear to it a near relation of congruity or contrast ; avoid a sub-plot, unless, as sometimes in Shakespeare, the sub- plot be a reversion or complement of the main intrigue ; . . . and allow neither himself in the narrative nor any character in the course of the dialogue, to utter one sentence that is not part and parcel of the business of the story. . . . And as the root of the whole matter, let him bear in mind that his novel is not a tran- script of life, to be judged by its exactitude ; but a simplifica- tion of some side or point of life, to stand or fall by its signifi- cant simplicity." R. L. STEVENSON, A Humble Remonstrance. IN discussing the affiliations of what plot the novel with the play, in the meaM ' third chapter of this book, I have had occa- sion to say something about the plot and its relation to the theme and to the characters of the play or the novel. The word means, as its etymology implies, a weaving together* Or, still more simply, we understand by plot that which happens to the characters, the various ways in which the forces represented 130 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION by the different personages of the story are made to harmonize or clash through external action. sources oi I D determining the nature and plot the details of the action of a story, it is obvious that the novelist may draw on the same sources of knowledge which he uses in the construction of the characters. The plot may be suggested to him by his own observation, by memories of what he has heard or read, or through the pure gift of inventiveness. One can scarcely say that there is marked superiority in any one of these methods. Many novelists, like Haw- thorne, have been inclined to confess rue- fully : " I have seen so little of the real world, that I have nothing but thin air to concoct my stories out of." On the other hand, the experience of writers like Dickens, Thackeray, or Mr. Kipling has crowded their memory with incidents and events admirably adapted to furnish the raw material of count- less plots. Sometimes, no doubt, it is dif- ficult to readjust such matter and make it sufficiently plastic to give free play to the imagination. The stories that come to one by inheritance through half forgotten memo- THE PLOT 131 ries of country-side legends and traditions, nar- ratives which one dimly remembers from old books or scraps of history and ballads, have often proved more stimulating to the con- structive imagination than any hints given by actual experience. Just as Liszt wrote his rhapsodies by utilizing hints and frag- ments of folk-lore and popular melodies, so Thomas Hardy finds it easy in his " Wessex Tales " to utilize the histories of decaying families, stories of adventure of long ago, strange tales that have been whispered by the hearth-fire from immemorial times. " Truth is stranger than fiction," and truth often needs to be recast by a fictive imagination before it is quite ready for the fiction-writer's hand. But this matter of plot gives lit- OJten a mat . tie difficulty to those born story- *- * tellers who have the gift for conceiving char- acters in action. For these natural spinners of the yarn, to whom invention is the most easy, the most fascinating, the most capti- vating of gifts, for a Stevenson, a Scott, a Dumas, to block out the plot of a story is a mere bagatelle. In Scott's own words, he " took the easiest path across country,' 132 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION following merely his whim or his natural in- stinct ; and one is bound to record the fact that the novels written or planned by these reckless, inveterate story-tellers afford quite as much satisfaction to technical students of plot-construction as do the more elaborate plans and devices of those writers whose in- terest lies foremost in the creation of charac- ter, and with whom the element of action is of secondary concern. riot in its Plt i n ^s simplest form may simplest form. concern itself with nothing more than the progress of a single character and its development and experiences at the dif- ferent stages of its career. Take, for in- stance, that admirable story by Hawthorne, " Wakefield," which concerns itself with the psychological analysis of the character of an excellent gentleman to whom it occurred one day that it would be a good plan not to go home that night, and who consequently sought lodgings in another street and stayed away from home for twenty years. Haw- thorne makes real to us the whimsical, yet singularly human and consistent motive that actuated this strange character in his aston- ishing performance ; and although the story THE PLOT 133 involves but a single personage, it would be difficult to point to any short story of equal length in which the reader feels greater in- terest. Usually, however, the plot of / , ' r Dealing with a story involves at least two char- twocnarac- . ters. acters. They embody different forces, different ways of facing and fight- ing the world of circumstance with which they are brought into collision. In " Silas Marner," for instance, the human problem involved is the influence of the love of a child on the lonely and embittered nature of a her- mit. The action of the story is designed to bring these two forces together and to note the nature of their mutual reactions. The plot of Hawthorne's " Rappaccini's Daugh- ter " involves the struggle between scientific curiosity and paternal love. These forces are embodied in the persons of the scientist and his daughter, and the plot is inevitably worked out by the natural laws of human character, " the truth of the human heart," under the peculiar circumstances which the author chooses to describe. And, to choose another short story of a different type, there is Mr- Kipling's " His Private Honour." In 134 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION this story a young British lieutenant, in a moment of extreme irritation, strikes a private soldier. The act is one that calls for dis- missal from the Queen's service. What is the officer to do ? He cannot send money to the soldier who happens to be the redoubt- able Ortheris himself nor can he apologize to him in private. Neither can he let mat- ters drift. Ortheris, too, has his own code of pride and honor ; he too is " a servant of the Queen ; " but how is the insult to be atoned for ? The way out of this apparently hopeless muddle is a beautifully simple one, after all. The lieutenant invites Ortheris to go shooting with him, and when they are alone, asks him to "take off his coat." " Thank you, sir ! " says Ortheris. The two men fight until Ortheris owns that he is beaten. Then the lieutenant apologizes for the original blow, and officer and private walk back to camp devoted friends. That fight is the moral salvation of Lieutenant Ouless. The plot of " His Private Honour " is, therefore, the narrative of the struggle between two kinds of pride, the pride of the officer and that of the enlisted man, and the solution comes through Mr. Kipling's power . THE PLOT 135 to make us realize the English love of fair play, the fundamental human equality which is common to both men despite the difference of their rank. It is far easier, however, to throw Three the lines of a plot into swift com- charactw8 - plication when there are at least three char- acters involved. The attitude of two of these characters towards the third may in- stantly be utilized to establish and carry for- ward new lines of action. In " The Knight's Tale " of Chaucer the two young men im- prisoned in the tower catch their first glimpse of Emily, and this moment marks the first entanglement of the threads of the future plot. In Miss Wilkins's " New England Nun " there is an extremely skillful example of this kind of plot. The story opens with a picture of Louisa Ellis, an "old maid," sitting in her quiet room on a summer afternoon, and receiving an embarrassed visit from her betrothed lover, Joe Daggett. Their en- gagement has lasted fifteen years, while he has been absent in Australia seeking his for- tune. Each has been faithful to the other, yet now that the wedding is only a week away, disorder and confusion seem entering 136 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION her cloistered life in place of peace and har- mony. She does not dare tell her lover how much, after all, she dreads to marry him. He, too, has become aware that their passion is a thing of the past ; he is conscious of a love for Lily Dyer, a younger woman ; but he is as finely loyal to his old promise as Louisa herself. How does Miss Wilkins cut the knot ? By making Louisa stroll down the road one moonlight night and un- wittingly overhear a conversation between Joe and Lily, in which she learns that they love each other, but that they both believe it cruel and wrong for Joe to break his engage- ment with Louisa. It is now easy and natural for Louisa to release Joe, to see him married to Lily Dyer, and happily, prayerfully, to number her own days " like an uncloistered nun." The "thre- I* ma y be added that the essen- ciover " re- *ial elements of this three-cornered lationship. game played by two men and one woman, or two women and one man, here handled by Miss Wilkins in one of its most innocent and unsophisticated phases, present to the fiction-writer, for purely technical rea- sons, a fascinating problem. Such a three- THE PLOT 137 fold relationship inevitably involves the play of strong passions, the elements of fear, of jealousy, of danger, of surprise, of remorse ; and all of these are furnished, as it were, ready to the novelist's hand by the theme itself. As was pointed out in the chap- compiicatiom ter devoted to the drama, the olplot complication of the plot begins with the introduction of new incidents or new per- sonages, or with the introduction of new mo- tives growing out of the relationships which are made evident at the outset of the story. In Hawthorne's " The House of the Seven Gables " the opening of the shop marks the beginning of the complication. In " The Scarlet Letter "it is the entrance of Roger Chillingworth. It is an interesting question how far the complication of the plot may be carried out without confusing or perplex- ing the reader. Novelists of the Latin races have commonly given evidence of a greater instinct for unity, are more simple in the constructive features of their work, than those of the Teutonic races. The novels of Dickens and Thackeray probably mark the extreme limit of complexity, as regards the number of personages introduced, the 138 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION variety of sub-plots, and the length of time required for the main action of the story. There are said to be seventy-five person ages in " Our Mutual Friend," and sixty in " Van- ity Fair." In " Middlemarch " there are twenty-two persons whose portraits are painted at full length. 1 American fiction has appar- ently been more influenced of late by Con- tinental than by English examples, and the result has been a more marked simplicity in construction. incident and I n studying the complication of situation. ^ ne plot, it often becomes advan- tageous to distinguish between incidents which reveal the true nature of the charac- ters and situations which determine char- acter. The difference in the thing is more to be insisted upon than the differentiation of names, and yet it is fair to characterize as an " incident " any event which gives the reader a clearer insight into the constitution and motives of the personages in the story. In " The House of the Seven Gables " the elabo- rate scene at the breakfast-table has for its sole aim the presentation of the character of 1 C. F. Johnson, Elements of Literary Criticism, p. 8ft. New York: Harpers. THE PLOT 139 Clifford, and the whole chapter is devoted to the revelation of the finer and more aesthetic traits of his worn, delicate nature. It is for this purpose only that the breakfast-table scene finds its justification. In " Henry Esmond," Harry's drive on the downs with Lord Mohun is the incident used to give a more complete exposition of character, as well as of the relationship gradually growing up between Harry and Kachel Esmond. It determines nothing. It simply informs us of what is going on, what must be reckoned with. On the other hand, to take another illustration from the same novel, the scene where Harry sees Beatrix descending the staircase, and also the one where Harry breaks his sword in the presence of the Pre- tender, or in " The House of the Seven Gables " again, in the scene where Judge Pyncheon demands entrance into the parlor and is refused, these are situations which really determine character as well as reveal it. Esmond is a different man after those scenes have been depicted ; and Judge Pyncheon has himself been judged. Perhaps enough has been said Cllmtt in the third chapter to illustrate 140 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION the similarity between the climax in the novel and the climax in the play. In both of these parallel forms of literature there is commonly some scene which marks the greatest tension, the keenest suspense, involved in the relation of the characters. The elopement of Stephen Guest and Maggie Tulliver, Gwendolen's aw- ful moment of hesitation when Grandcourt is struggling in the water, will illustrate George Eliot's management of climax passages. In such passages the personal forces involved are for the instant in equilibrium. Thence- forward everything sweeps on to the denou- ment or catastrophe of the story. There is little difference between the novel and the play in the technical disposition of the series of incidents and situations which make up the " rising " and the " falling " action. There is, however, a noticeable Catastrophe. m * distinction in the technical handling of the catastrophe. The absolute necessity in the drama of externalizing upon the stage the forces knit together in the final struggle makes compulsory the actual exhibition of various events which the novelist would pre- fer to suggest merely. Indeed, it has come to be the favorite theory with a certain THE PLOT 141 school of psychological novelists that, as life seldom presents any dramatic catastrophes, fiction had better avoid catastrophes too. In the novels of this sort nothing in particular occurs. At the close we miss the " God bless you, my children ! " and also the tragic allotment of disaster or disgrace. The char- acters live on, quite as if nothing had hap- pened, and it is only the new insight into personality, the new descriptions of the nat- ural world or of social forces, which the reader has as a reward for his pains. All this turns, as a matter of Theo iiarao- course, upon the relation of the tern 7eL personages to the underlying theme. In the novel of character, as opposed to the novel of incident, the author is chiefly concerned with the solution of certain problems of emotion or of will. When he has worked these out to his satisfaction, his task is finished, and he becomes relatively indifferent to the final disposition of all the personages of the tale. It is well known that Hawthorne added the present closing chapter to " The Marble Faun " at the request of his publishers, and this fact suggests the irreconcilable difference between the point of view of the romancer 142 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION absorbed in moral problems and of the readei who merely wants to know what happened " ever afterwards." The plot- 1 the plot-novel, on the other noveL hand, the inner truth of character may often be neglected or distorted, pro- vided successive shocks of surprise and plea- sure are cleverly arranged. The detective story, for instance, deals chiefly with the elements of curiosity and suspense. But the curiosity, while it must be stimulating, must not be carried to the extreme of perplexity, and the suspense must not be too long sus- tained. In proportion as the stress is laid upon adventure merely, as in the picaresque novel, there need be little if any complexity in the plot. The mere succession of inci- dents, like those in Stevenson's " St. Ives," is enough to hold the fascinated attention of the reader. The weakness, however, in many of the modern types of the novel of adven- ture, is not due to placing too much stress upon mere incident as an element, but tr the fact that character-interest has become a negligible quantity. If the reader does not, for the time being, believe in the reality of those characters whose adventures he is asked THE PLOT 143 to follow, he soon finds himself little con- cerned with the adventures. For, after all, as the history of the drama has shown so abun- dantly, that which perennially fascinates us in the human spectacle is the exhibition of character in action. Characters who do not act, and conversely the mere outward show and stir of movement not informed by any real intellectual or passional life, alike fail to move our interest, our hopes, or fears. The question of suspense in the Mys teryana plot leads naturally to the element m 7 stltlcaUon - of mystery. In any good story we are led to a normal interest both in what the charac- ters will do under the stress of unsuspected circumstances and in the shape which events will take. But this expectation of " some- thing evermore about to be," which lends in- terest to fiction as it does to life, must be dis- tinguished from that element of mystery with which many novelists have loved to surround certain of their characters, and in which they have liked to hide the intricacies of their plots. It is in this sense that Miriam in " The Marble Faun " is a mysterious character, and that there is a " mystery " in most detective stories. While this element of mystery is 144 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION by no means essential to the interest of a work of fiction, it is capable of the most artistic handling. But when the mystery becomes mystification, when both the person- ages in the story and the readers of the story are deliberately fooled by the author, the book commonly pays at last the penalty of this deception. When we learn at the end of Mrs. Radcliffe's "Mysteries of Udolpho" that all the mysterious terrors which have played such a potent role in the plot were the result of a mechanical contrivance, it is im- possible to reread the book with any of those delightful thrills of horror which the impres- sionable reader experienced upon the first reading. But between this deliberate decep- tion of the reader and the painful efforts of some realistic novelist to place the reader in possession of all the facts, there is an infinite variety of possible methods. Perhaps the critic cannot do more than say that that book is likely to give the most pleasure to the reader which presents, in accordance with the con- ventions and in the terms of art, the sense of uncertainty, the blindfold striving, the con- stant awaiting of the revelation of the coming moment, which play such an appreciable part in life itself. THE PLOT 145 Closely allied with the element i n -i Accident or mystery is that or accident, sometimes used as a complicating but more often as a resolving force. It is accident that weaves and unravels the plot of many a novel. The hero picks up a handkerchief, or steps on a lady's train, or unwittingly insults an unknown rival, or knocks at the wrong door of an inn, and upon these trivialities hangs, or seems to hang, his entire fortune. Simi- larly, when the climax of a story has been reached, there is often in fiction, as in the drama, some petty incident, apparently acci- dental but really hidden deep in the nature of things, which determines the catastrophe. Indeed, it may be said that it ,. , , J . . Retribution. matters little how frequently the novelist complicates or simplifies his plot by the introduction of the element of accident, provided the accidents seem to be thus a part of the natural order of things. Rich- ard the Lion-Hearted dies by a chance arrow, and yet what other fate would be so inevit- able to an adventurous, reckless, wandering hero ? Bill Sykes hangs himself with a noose of his own making, and yet Dickens seems to be a fellow-worker with Providence in de- 146 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION signing such an appropriate and wholly pleas- ing end for such a villain. It is a tempta- tion to the unskilled novelist to kill off his personages at a convenient time, to resort to all sorts of advantageous and unexpected devices to get rid of the superfluous figures in his story. But to link apparently acci- dental, external circumstances with inner laws of character and conduct, to make what happens to the characters a fit result of all which the characters have done or been in the past, gives an opportunity for the most profound insight into the moral structure of the world. When Judge Pyncheon tries by brute energy and with deadly hatred of pur- pose to force his way into the little parlor of the Pyncheon house, Hepzibah says to him, " God will not let you." The Judge re- plies, " We shall see." And we do see through the long hours of the ensuing night the terrible retribution which came instantly upon him. Yet Hawthorne takes pains to suggest that there may be a perfectly natural physical explanation of the sudden death of the Judge. Not the " visitation of God," as juries are wont to say when at their wits' end, but an inherited tendency to apoplexy, THE PLOT 147 joined with a moment of intense bodily and mental excitement, is sufficient to account for the Judge's death. An even more familiar example of extraordinary insight and truth on the novelist's part is evinced in the Tem- plar's death in " Ivanhoe." Here, too, a natural explanation is at hand. Ivanhoe has appealed to " the judgment of God ; " yet the Templar dies, Scott tells us, through the " violence of his own contending passions." But the threads of the story are drawn to- gether with so sure a hand that the reader feels certain that this dread event is fated. " ' This is indeed the judgment of God,' said the Grand Master, looking upwards e Fiat voluntas tua.' ' It is hard to say, indeed, iust U V t 1 ' J' Fatelnth. what we mean by rate in discussing modem the denoument or catastrophe of the modern novel. It is easy enough in com- menting on the Greek drama to point out the beginning and the end of the Nemesis action, and the conventions of the Greek drama as well as many of its moral implications have descended to us almost unbroken. Yet it is hardly possible, in a world pervaded, like our modern world, by Christian ethics and a Chris- 148 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION tian philosophy, that the old Greek theory of the role which fate plays in human affairs should still prevail. In one sense the world of art, the world revealed to us by the imagina- tion of the novelist or the poet, is a world which is neither Christian nor pagan. Even this imaginary world, however, can never be unmoral unless it be at the same time unreal. " Morality," said Mme. de Stael very finely, " is in the nature of things." The laws of human life itself, laws older than any pagan or Christian interpretation or revelation of them, assert that in any long view of life it is well with the good and ill with the wicked. It is true that in any stage of the world's progress it is possible that the individual artist may revert to an earlier, outworn type of philosophy and faith. He may cherish a pagan theory of the Christian world. Like Thomas Hardy at the close of "-Tess of the D'Urbervilles," which is an admirable ex- pression of a poignant, thoughtful, yet thor- oughly pagan interpretation of life, he may utter a cynical jest at the moral order oi this planet. Says Mr. Hardy, " Time, the Archsatirist, had had his joke out with Tess." THE PLOT 149 This is consistent with the theme .< Poetlo of the book, but it is inconsistent Justloe -" with the world in which Mr. Hardy is liv- ing and with the noblest teachings of the greatest masters of his art. In assigning "poetic justice " to the men and women of their stories, they have succeeded most truly when they have allotted the fates of their personages in accordance with what they have conceived to be the laws of Divine Jus- tice. The profounder artists in the imagi- nary world of fiction, and the Providence, however named, who presides over the real world of nature and human life, are working on the same terms and expressing the same truth. In following the main lines of . . Sab-plots. action in a story, the student of fiction will do well to observe the different ways in which the main and the subordinate plots are related. Often the subordinate plot is the mere reflection of the greater plot, as the love affair of Lorenzo and Jessica in " The Merchant of Venice " is the obvious replica of that of Portia and Bassanio. And where the theme of the novelist is philo- 150 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION sophical or scientific, designed to show the presence in human affairs of certain lines of causation and certain modes of thinking and feeling, the lesser group of characters may often be used most skillfully to reflect, in different degrees, the main teaching of the book. Thomas Hardy's peasants furnish ex- cellent examples of this philosophizing, as do the rustics of George Eliot. Frequently the sub-plot follows inevitably upon the main plot. If the story of " Silas Marner" turns upon the redemption of a lonely old man by a child, it becomes necessary to provide a child for the purpose, and this leads to the invention of Godfrey Cass's unfortunate marriage. Very often, however, the sub- plot is joined to the main plot in a purely artificial fashion. The minor characters are designed to give variety or relief, to supply a love interest or an element of comedy, or to pique one's historical interest concerning some great person who is made to appear for the moment upon the scene. Rose and Lang- ham, although they are most attractively and carefully wrought figures, have nothing to do with the real plot of " Robert Elsmere." ' 7, THE PLOT 151 Savonarola has no role to play in George Eliot's " Romola " except in so far as he is introduced to give advice to the heroine in the hour of her need, and to illustrate cer- tain characteristic phases of fifteenth century Florence. Something; has already been said J Plot-deter- about the danger of plot - deter- mined char- mined characters. Where the plot requires a love episode the novelist is tempted to make a given man fall in love with a given woman "upon compulsion," even if the natures of the two persons, as well as the ciir cumstances involved, protest against the alli- ance. There is no surer mark of the amateur in fiction than the fascination said to be exerted by certain characters who obviously have no fascination to exert. " Bright ideas " come to characters who could never by any stretch of the imagination conceive of a bright idea. We are assured of the sudden access of courage or devotion or folly in persons in whose temperaments and characters there is no room for these traits which it becomes necessary for the unfortu- nate author to discover and utilize. 152 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION Finally, the action of the story latedtoset- itself should be related not only to the characters themselves, but to those circumstances and events indirectly involved in the tale, and furnishing as it were the background and setting for it. The plot of the "Tale of Two Cities," for in- stance, must do no violence to the supposed characters of Dr. Manette and Sydney Car- ton, but it must also be faithful as far as possible to the spirit and the external facts of the French Revolution itself. Indeed, in the case of this particular book, it is well known that Dickens's imagination began to work on the period, upon the events and pas- sions of that stormy time, rather than upon the distinctive personages of the tale. He carried around in his pocket, for months be- fore he began to write the story, a copy of Carlyle's " French Revolution," familiarizing himself with the dramatic forces involved in that extraordinary epoch. When he came later to invent his personages and to assign to them their appropriate roles in the drama which they were to play, he depicted both characters and action in harmony with the enveloping circumstances, with the fears, the THE PLOT 153 hopes, the anguish, the suspense of the Kevo- lution itself. If, as we saw at the conclusion of the preceding chapter, it is necessary that the characters of a novel should be con- ceived in reference to the part they are to play in the plot, we must now recognize with equal clearness that the plot itself must stand in artistic relation to the setting. CHAPTER VII THE SETTING " Either on that day or about, that time I remember very distinctly his saying to me : ' There are, so far as I know, three ways, and three ways only, of writing a story. You may take a plot and fit characters to it, or you may take a char- acter and choose incidents and situations to develop it, or lastly you must hear with me while I try to make this clear ' (here he made a gesture with his hand as if he were trying to shape something and give it outline and form) ' you may take a certain atmosphere and get action and persons to express and realize it. I '11 give you an example The Merry Men. There I began with the feeling of one of those islands on the west coast of Scotland, and I gradually developed the story to ex- press the sentiment with which the coast affected me.' " The Life and Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson, by GKAHAM BAL- VOUK. " It is the habit of my imagination to strive after as full a vision of the medium in which a character moves as of the char- acter itself. The psychological causes which prompted me to give such details of Florentine life and history as I have given [in Bomola] are precisely the same as those which determined me in giving the details of English village life in Silas Marner or the ' Dodson ' life, out of which were developed the destinies of poor Tom and Maggie." QBOBGB ELIOT, quoted in her Lift by J. W. CROSS. Meaning* WHEN we read Victor Hugo's the word. "Ninety-Three," Pierre Loti's " Iceland Fisherman," Tolstoi's " War and THE SETTING 155 Peace," or, to take a modern instance, Mr. Frank Norris's " The Octopus," we are con- scious of one strong element of interest which lies outside of the sphere of character or action. This interest is provided by what we will call, for lack of a more satisfactory word, the setting. Sometimes we shall use this word as synonymous with milieu, the circumstances, namely, that surround and condition the appearance of the characters. Sometimes the setting of the novel corre- sponds precisely to the scenic effects of the stage, in that it gives a mere background for the vivid presentation of the characters. It will thus be seen that in the setting, that tertium quid which is neither characters nor action, we have something corresponding to what we should call " atmosphere " if we were to speak in the terms of art, or " en- vironment " if we were to use the terminology of science. The novelist secures the setting Basednpon of his stories precisely as he ob- what? tains his characters and his plot ; that is, by his observation, from his reading, and from that function of the imagination which recombines and invents, using the unassorted 156 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION fragments of experience. Tolstoi's " Sebas- topol " reproduces the author's memories of the Crimean War. " Lorna Doone " is an accurate presentation of Blackmore's study of the Doone country. In Scott's Borderland novels, as everybody knows, there is an easily successful effort to suggest the atmos- phere of his own country-side ; and together with this Scott utilized all the materials fur- nished by his vast and miscellaneous reading to construct the imaginative background for his historical tales. But very few books present to us, as far as the setting is con- cerned, a strictly veracious, unaltered tran- script of life. The novel is rather what a painter would call a composition from stud- ies, and the studies are brought together from strange and unrelated sources. Yet even in the most Utopian of novels, where writers have striven to invent a new world of the future and to present their heroes and heroines in an atmosphere wholly unfamiliar to the contemporary reader, they have never succeeded in getting very far away from the earth we know. The greater triumphs of fictive genius have commonly been in those stories where the setting is that of the ordi- THE SETTING 157 nary field and stream and town, but where the imagination touches all this with a new trans forming light. The present passion for histor- Hlstorlca i ical novels makes the subject of settln *- historical setting one of unusual interest. If one compares the work of Scott with that of George Ebers,the novels of Kingsley and Bui- wer Lytton with those of Mr. Stanley Wey- man and Mr. Maurice Hewlett, one will be conscious of an immense gain in accuracy. The growth of historical knowledge has been constant. There has likewise been a steady increase of interest in antiquarian detail. The elaborate and painful efforts of the modern stage to secure historically correct costuming has unquestionably affected the consciences of our novelists. More than one of them has confessed the toil it has cost him to prepare himself to write a book in- volving precise knowledge of such matters as heraldry or the details of monastic life. Some of our writers have shown extraordi- nary zeal in " getting up " their subjects, and have been able, in spite of it, to mould theii material with some freedom. Nevertheless, generally speaking, one may say that as the 158 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION standard of accuracy rises, the imagination, that other and indispensable end of the bal- ance scales, goes down. The spirit of truth to fact, as we have seen in the chapter on science, has often been hostile to the spirit of imagination. Doubtless there never were such persons as Scott's Saracens or Cooper's Red Men, but fiction would be greatly the loser if Scott and Cooper had confined them- selves to the basis of demonstrable fact. That mediaeval world in which Scott's imagination moved so delightedly and with such incompar- able vigor and variety had no existence out- side of the pages of his novels. But " Ivan- hoe "is no worse a book from the fact that such Saxons and Normans as move through its pages never wandered over actual English fields. The modern spirit of precise ob- Local color. . servation, however, has unquestion- ably aided many novelists in giving to their books the atmosphere of a definite locality. When a writer places the scene of his stories in the Tennessee mountains, a Californian mining camp, upon a New England hillside, or a Louisiana bayou, we can usually depend now-a-days upon a certain fidelity to fact and THE SETTING 159 sensitiveness to local coloring. He has prob- ably made an bonest effort to realize in his story the impression made upon him by the landscape and the people of those quarters of the world. The same is true of those studies . Occupations or great human occupations which and institu- 11 P 1 U01UI - have been so trequent in modern fiction. English politics or English clerical life thus affords an effective setting for Trol- lope's stories. Captain King chooses war, Mr. Hamlin Garland farming, Mr. Richard Hard- ing Davis cosmopolitan adventure, Charles Dudley Warner the life of the unemployed rich, Mr. Zangwill the life of the unemployed poor, as the setting, the enveloping action and circumstances of their stories. Preva- lent social ideas, long-standing social institu- tions, afford similar backgrounds for the work of the novelist. It thus becomes natural to speak of Scott as the romancer of feudalism, or of Mr. Howells as the novelist of Amer- ican democracy under contemporary social conditions. Other fiction-writers have used socialism or patriotism or monasticism as fur- nishing the underlying framework for their productions. In all these cases it will be 160 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION noted that the setting is something which lies back of the characters, and which may even be considered apart from them. Let us take one of the most Landscape . . . setting: striking instances which literature affords of the development of what was once a minor and accidental feature of the work of fiction into a recognized and im- mensely significant element of it, namely, the evolution of the use of landscape in fiction during the last century and a half. In Rous- seau's " New Heloise " there was a new force at work which the readers of that singular romance were not slow to recognize. It was the part which nature herself played in the story. The mountain, the lake, the stream, were there not merely for adornment, but as an integral part of the story itself. All the literary children of Rousseau have followed him in this recognition of the potency of natural scenery as influencing the thoughts and sentiments of human personages. In the fiction of Chateaubriand and of Victor Hugo, of George Sand, of Balzac, of Mau- passant, of Pierre Loti, there is everywhere to be traced that influence which was so ap- parent in the " New Heloise." THE SETTING 161 In England and America the in- Eighteenth direct influence of Rousseau has centu ry Instances : been scarcely less significant. In Detoe - the earlier part of the eighteenth century there is almost no landscape setting worthy of the name. Scarcely more than half a dozen passages describing natural scenery in the modern spirit will occur to the memory of the reader of Defoe. One of the most striking isolated instances of the effective use of setting is that passage in Defoe's " Cap- tain Singleton " which describes, in terms that Robert Louis Stevenson might have en- vied, a struggle with African wild beasts on " one windy tempestuous night : " " During our encampment here we had several adven- tures with the ravenous creatures of that country ; and had not our fire been always kept burning, I question much whether all our fence, though we strengthened it afterwards with twelve or fourteen rows of stakes or more, would have kept us secure. It was always in the night that we had the disturbance of them, and sometimes they came in such multitudes that we thought all the lions and tigers and leopards and wolves of Africa were come together to attack us. One night, being clear moonshine, one of our men being upon the watch, told us he verily believed he saw ten thousand wild creatures of one sort or another pass by our little camp ; and as soon as ever they saw the fire 162 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION they sheered off, but were sure to howl or roar, ol whatever it was, when they were past. " The music of their voices was very far from being pleasant to us, and sometimes would be so very disturb- ing that we could not sleep for it ; and often our senti- nels would call us that were awake to come and look at them. It was one windy tempestuous night, after a very rainy day, that we were indeed all called up ; for such innumerable numbers of devilish creatures came about us that our watch really thought they would attack us. They would not come on the side where the fire was ; and though we thought ourselves secure everywhere else, yet we all got up, and took to our arms. The moon was near the full, but the air full of flying clouds, and a strange hurricane of wind to add to the terror of the night ; when, looking on the back part of our camp, I thought I saw a creature within our fortification, and so indeed he was, except his haunches ; for he had taken a running leap, I suppose, and with all his might had thrown himself clear over our palisadoes, except one strong pile, which stood higher than the rest, and which had caught hold of him, and by his weight he had hanged himself upon it, the spike of the pile running into his hinder-haunch or thigh, on the inside, and by that he hung growling and biting the wood for rage. I snatched up a lance from one of the negroes that stood just by me, and, running to him, struck it three or four times into him, and despatched him." Mrg Fielding has some admirable par- agraphs of out-door description, but ordinarily, even in Fielding's novels, it rains THE SETTING 163 only to delay the coach, and not to affect or symbolize the sentiments of the passengers. But with the rise of the romantic school at the end of the century came an inrush of sen- timent regarding natural scenery. In such a typical novel of this school as Anne Rad- cliffe's " Mysteries of Udolpho," hero and heroine alike tremble into tears under the slightest provocation of the landscape. Here are four representative passages : " It was one of Emily's earliest pleasures to ramble among the scenes of nature ; nor was it in the soft and glowing landscape that she most delighted ; she loved more the wild wood-walks that skirted the mountain ; and still more the mountain's stupendous recesses, where the silence and grandeur of solitude impressed a sacred awe upon her heart, and lifted her thoughts to the God of Heaven and Earth. In scenes like these she would often linger alone, wrapped in a melancholy charm, till the last gleam of day faded from the west ; till the lonely sound of a sheep-bell, or the distant barking of a watch-dog, was all that broke the stillness of the evening. Then the gloom of the woods ; the trembling of their leaves, at intervals, in the breeze ; the bat, flitting in the twilight ; the cottage lights, now seen, and now lost were circumstances that awak- ened her mind into effort, and led to enthusiasm and poetry." "The dawn, which softened the scenery with ite 164 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION peculiar gray tint, now dispersed, and Emily watched the progress of the day, first trembling on the tops of the highest cliffs, then touching them with splendid light, while their sides and the vale below were still wrapped in dewy mist. Meanwhile the sullen gray of the eastern clouds began to blush, then to redden, and then to glow with a thousand colors, till the golden light darted over all the air, touched the lower points of the mountain's brow, and glanced in long sloping beams upon the valley and its stream. All nature seemed to have awakened from death into life. The spirit of St. Aubert was renovated. His heart was full ; he wept, and his thoughts ascended to the great Creator." " From Beaujeau the road had constantly ascended, conducting the travellers into the higher regions of the air, where immense glaciers exhibited their frozen hor- rors, and eternal snow whitened the summits of the mountains. They often paused to contemplate these stupendous scenes, and, seated on some wild cliff, where only the ilex or the larch could flourish, looked over dark forests of fir, and precipices where human foot had never wandered, into the glen so deep, that the thunder of the torrent, which was seen to foam along the bottom, was scarcely heard to murmur. Over these crags rose others of stupendous height and fan- tastic shape ; some shooting into cones, others impend- ing far over their base, in huge masses of granite, along whose broken ridges was often lodged a weight of snow, that, trembling even to the vibration of a sound, threat- ened to bear destruction in its course to the vale THE SETTING 165 Around, on every side far as the eye could penetrate, were seen only forms of grandeur the long perspec- tive of mountain-tops, tinged with ethereal blue, or white with snow ; valleys of ice and forests of gloomy fir. The serenity and clearness of the air in these high, regions were particularly delightful to the travellers ; it seemed to inspire them with a finer spirit, and dif- fused an indescribable complacency over their minds. They had no words to express the sublime emotions they felt. A solemn expression characterized the feel- ings of St. Aubert ; tears often came to his eyes, and he frequently walked away from his companions." " In the cool of the evening, the party embarked in Montoni's gondola, and rowed out upon the sea. The *ed glow of sunset still touched the waves, and lingered in the west, where the melancholy gleam seemed slowly expiring, while the dark blue of the upper ether began to twinkle with stars. Emily sat, given up to pensive and sweet emotions. The smoothness of the water over which she glided, its reflected images a new heaven and trembling stars below the waves, with shadowy outlines of towers and porticoes conspired with the stillness of the hour, interrupted only by the passing wave or the notes of distant music, to raise those emotions to enthusiasm. As she listened to the measured sound of the oars, and to the remote war- blings that came in the breeze, her softened mind returned to the memory of St. Aubert, and to Valan- court, and tears stole to her eyes." In the earlier decades of the nineteenth nineteenth century this sort of oentur * 166 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION sentiment was left mainly to the poets. The use of landscape as an aid in powerful emo- tional effects begins again, however, with Dickens. It is noticeably rare in Thackeray, although here and there in single phrases and sentences he introduces the element of landscape with singularly delicate effect. But George Eliot, William Black, and Thomas Hardy have written whole chapters, one may almost say books, drenched with their feel- ing for the natural landscape against which their fictitious personages are relieved. In the stories of Ouida, and in some of the sketches of Lafcadio Hearn, the landscape sense runs riot. But if rightly subordinated to the human element, as is almost always the case in the novels of Turgenieff, or in the stories of Mr. Kipling or Miss Jewett, it becomes an element of extraordinary power and charm. Sometimes the landscape seem? Used for vividness. to be used for mere vividness, for giving us a clearer vision of the characters at some crisis of the story, or simply for painting an attractive picture. Here are a few sentences from James Lane Allen's " The Choir Invisible " which are designed THE SETTING 167 apparently to do nothing more than give us an intimate sense of the physical presence of the things and the persons described. " Near the door stood a walnut tree with widespread- ing branches wearing the fresh plumes of late May, plumes that hung down over the door and across the windows, suffusing the interior with a soft twilight of green and brown shadows. A shaft of sunbeams pene- trating a crevice fell on the white neck of a yellow col- lie that lay on the ground with his head on his paws, his eyes fixed reproachfully on the heels of the horse outside, his ears turned back towards his master. Be- side him a box had been kicked over : tools and shoes scattered. A faint line of blue smoke sagged from the dying coals of the forge towards the door, creeping across the anvil bright as if tipped with silver. And in one of the darkest corners of the shop, near a bucket of water in which floated a huge brown gourd, Peter and John sat on a bench while the story of O'Bannon'a mischief-making was begun and finished. It was told by Peter with much cordial rubbing of his elbows in the palms of his hands and much light-hearted smooth- ing of his apron over his knees. At times a cloud, passing beneath the sun, threw the shop into heavier shadow ; and then the schoolmaster's dark figure faded into the tone of the sooty wall behind him and only his face, with the contrast of its white linen collar below and the bare discernible lights of his auburn hair above his face proud, resolute, astounded, pallid, suffering started out of the gloom like a portrait from an old canvas." 168 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION Sometimes this vividness of effect Contrast . , . . is secured by the familiar artistic principle of contrast. The physical weari- ness of the figure in Millet's picture of " The Sower " gains in poignancy because of the infinite peace of the evening landscape against which the figure is outlined. In similar fash- ion, in Mr. Hardy's " The Return of the Na- tive/' what a Rembrandt-like feeling for light and shade is in that gambling scene on the heath when the two men throw dice by the light of glow-worms ! " The Choir Invisible " may be used for another illustration. The second chapter introduces Mrs. Falconer at work in her frontier garden, and these lines present the singular contrast between the woman and her surroundings : "From every direction the forest appeared to be rushing in upon that perilous little reef of a clearing that unsheltered island of human life, newly dis- playing itself amid the ancient, blood-flecked, horror- haunted sea of woods. And shipwrecked on this island, tossed to it by one of the long tidal waves of history, there to remain in exile from the manners, the refinement, the ease, the society to which she had always been accustomed, this remarkable gentle-woman." The principle of artistic harmony is utilized at least as frequently as THE SETTING 169 that of contrast. The Wordsworthian shep. herd seems to be, as Wordsworth indeed usu- ally conceives him, a part of the very hills where his sheep are pastured. Cooper's In- dians and frontiersmen blend into his forest backgrounds with a harmony that is the re- sult of true artistic instinct. Let us take additional illustrations from " The Choir In- visible : " " And then more dreadful years and still sadder times ; as when one morning towards daybreak, by the edge of a darker forest draped with snow where the frozen dead lay thick, they found an officer's hat half filled with snow, and near by, her father fallen face downward." Or this : " She quickly dropped her head again ; she shifted her position ; a band seemed to tighten around her throat ; until, in a voice hardly to be heard, she mur- mured falteringly : ' I have promised to marry Joseph.' He did not speak or move, but continued to stand lean- ing against the lintel of the doorway, looking down on her. The color was fading from the west, leaving it ashen white. And so standing in the dying radiance, he saw the long bright day of his young hope come to its close ; he drained to its dregs his cup of bitter- ness she had prepared for him ; learned his first lesson in the victory of little things over the larger purposes of life, over the nobler planning ; bit the dust of the heart's first defeat and tragedy." 170 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION Or again : " The next morning the parson, standing a white cold shepherd before his chilly wilderness flock, preached a sermon from the text : ' I shall go softly all my years.' While the heads of the rest were howed during the last moments of prayer, she rose and slipped out. ' Yes,' she said to herself, gathering her veil closely about her face as she alighted at the door of her house and the withered leaves of November were whirled fiercely about her feet, ' I shall go softly all my years.' " It will be observed that in these Influencing thecharac- passages irom Mr. Allen, as in countless similar passages from fic- tion-writers of our generation, the landscape setting actually influences the moods of his characters, and in this way plays no incon- siderable role in the evolution of the plot. M. Brunetiere, in a well known critical essay, has brought M. Zola to task for pre- tending that the varying color in the water in the gutter on different mornings, should influence the action of his hero, Coupeau. But the principle which is here illustrated in its extreme form is one that cannot be neglected in a study of present-day fiction. Let us choose a more sympathetic instance of the influence of landscape on character. It shall be from Mr. James Shorthouse's " Blanche, Lady Falaise : " THE SETTING 171 "They came back down the steep path over the strewn and withered leaves. The rain clouds were sweeping from the valley across the sun, and the bare- ness and chill of winter was on the woods and on the blackened grass. A blank depression and presentiment settled down upon Blanche's spirit. It seemed to her as if she were walking in a troubled nightmare, amid difficulties which were absurd, yet from which she was utterly unable to extricate herself. It seemed to her, at least for the moment, that in all the illimitable uni- verse, limitless as the sky and plain before them, there was truly ' no other girl ; ' that in some mysterious way, struggle as she might, contemptuous as she might out- wardly seem, her fate was irrevocably bound up with his." Here is a longer and most significant pas- sage from the same story : " He threw away his half finished cigar, and placed himself by her side, and they walked up the woodland path that wound round the paddock. George Falaise stood looking at them for a moment as they moved up the path but only for a moment. Then he turned away and moved towards the seat before the bay- window of the drawing-room the same seat on which he had sat that first morning when Blanche had come out to him. There he sat down to finish his cigar. " The winter sun, setting behind the oak woods on the other side of the paddock, cast a kind of false and cold halo over the place where he sat and over the front of the house. He felt deserted and neglected. He hated this man. The cold winter sky, clear and soft and delicate though it was, out of the cloud tissues 172 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION of which happy men might weave fairy colored wreaths, seemed to him dun and chill. " For about a quarter of an hour perhaps he had sat there. The rhythm of the breeze through the sur- rounding woods soothed him as did the narcotic influ- ence of his cigar, when the setting sun, just sinking behind the woods, cast a sudden glow of dying bril- liancy over the place, and above, over his head, a golden haze of glory spread itself, beneath the rain clouds and the deep winter sky. He looked up suddenly, and they were coming back. He rose, threw away the end of his cigar, and went toward them. " Damerle evidently had been talking well. What- ever he was he was no hypocrite. Whatever he felt for the moment he really felt. The climate, physical and mental, of Clyston St. Fay affected him, with an intensity which it would not have exerted upon another man less easily affected in other ways. George Falaise even, who felt himself, so to speak, a stranger and a pilgrim everywhere else ; to whom this silent village, this home where Blanche lived, was the only spot upon earth, so far as he knew the earth, where he seemed really to breathe even he did not feel this excited revulsion and contrast of feeling and enthusiasm. Damerle had been speaking of high and sacred things and of the work which lay before them, for the girl's face was flushed, and her whole being and nature seemed instinct with a strange happiness and beauty which was not of earth. Never before, at any time, and most surely never afterwards, did George Falaise see her look like that, the departing flash of sunset around her, the set purpose of devotion, the glory of THE SETTING 173 unselfish love, the beauty which God gave to woman, all around her for a moment as they came up the path. " The angry, disappointed, perturbed spirit left him at this sight. All self-seeking, all self even, was lost in delight. He felt, in spite of himself, a supreme stillness and calm, a sense of result, of something, long wished for, being gained. It is a great mystery why such things are ; but to him, to whom so much had been given, had been added also the priceless gift of unselfish love. To what issue can love tend but to the happiness of the loved ? The perfect vision that awaits love must surely be this. At this happy moment, as it seems to me, many of us might well envy him ; yet at that moment the one thing in the wide universe that was denied him was the one thing upon which his heart was set. " As they came up the path the sunset glow faded from the sky above, and what a moment before had been a glory of yellow light was now gray and dark. They went back into the house." A more familiar illustration is in George Meredith's " Richard Feverel," where the great storm scene towards the close of the story develops a new sentiment in the hero and affects profoundly the dramatic situa- tion. Mr. Thomas Hardy, in his pantheistic interpretation of nature, finds it still easier to emphasize the intimate relation of his characters with their natural surroundings, 174 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION and over and over again in his novels lie has made nature itself take a hand in the evolu- tion of the plot. " Amid the oozing fatness and warm ferments of Froom Vale, at a season when the rush of juices could almost be heard below the hiss of fertilization, it was impossible that the most fanciful love should not grow passionate. The ready hearts existing there were im- pregnated by their surroundings." Tess of the Z>' Urbervilles. Determining ^ i even possible to assert that the incidents. ^ sett i n g not only affects the situations of the novelist, but that it fre- quently determines the nature of the inci- dents that are to take place. This is pecu- liarly true, of course, in the novels which deal primarily with some occupation or handi- craft. But even in novels of adventure, the novelist is compelled by the very force of circumstances to keep close to mere adven- ture. Tn a book like " A Gentleman of France " one is tempted to think that any- thing may happen, but after all only thos( things may happen there which are pertinent to the road, the camp, or the court during the progress of a particular campaign. In other words, the writer of adventure, who is THE SETTING 175 apparently enjoying such unhampered free- dom, is in reality working within closely drawn lines of limitation ; he is bound by the very terms of his implied contract with his readers to supply them with adventure and with little more. We know pretty well, therefore, what is going to happen. It is in novels like " A Nest of Nobles," or " Anna Karenina," or "Adam Bede," or " The Choir Invisible," that we cannot tell what will hap- pen, because anything may happen. Finally, it is the setting of a story Olving Mlty which often gives the deepest unity to the book< to the work as a whole. The setting is used to emphasize the fundamental idea of the book, to accentuate the theme, to bring all the characters of the story into proper per- spective. In a railway novel the scream of the whistle may be heard in every chapter. The characters of the story, from the presi- dent of a great system down to the humblest employee, all stand in certain definite rela- tions to " the road." It is " the road " whicl affects their feelings, their ambitions, their ac- tions, and one need not have the anthropo- morphic imagination of Zola to conceive of a railway as a monster, either beneficent or ma- 176 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION lign, which dominates the individual fate of every personage in such a novel. But in truth it is Zola who has given to our generation the most impressive examples of this myth-mak- ing instinct, which gives institutions like the department store, occupations like mining or farming, great campaigns like the Franco- Prussian War, great cities like Rome and Paris, each a personality of its own. In such cases one may freely grant that the setting is distorted, thrown into unnatural propor- tions, and frequently depicted with a morbid imagination that recalls the worst obsessions of romanticism. Indeed, it is largely because of this element in his work that Zola has been called by many keen critics essentially romantic rather than realistic. But what- ever the justice of this criticism, there is no denying that beyond most other novelists of our own day he has succeeded in making the setting of his novels reveal the essential unity of the book. That germinal idea which first stimulated the creative imagina- tion of the author remains with the reader as a haunting impression long after the persons and the action of the tale have faded from the memory. CHAPTER VIH THE FICTION-WRITER " Quelle que soit la formule, il n'y a jamais au fond del usuvres que ce que les homines y mettent." F. BRCNETIERE, Le Boman Naturaliste. " Every artist is a thinker, whether he knows it or not ; and ultimately no artist will be found greater as an artist than he was as a thinker." DAVID MASSON, British Novelists. ' ' There is one point at which the moral sense and the artistic sense lie very near together ; that is in the light of the very obvious truth that the deepest quality of a work of art will always be the quality of the mind of the producer. In propor- tion as that intelligence is fine will the novel, the picture, the statue partake of the substance of beauty and truth." HENRY JAMES, The Art of Fiction. WE are entering once more upon A new phase a new phase of our subject. In the Ol toe 8UbJeot last three chapters we have been studying the materials, whether of character or plot or setting, which are at the disposition of the literary artist. We are now to study the use made of these materials by individual men. What we have hitherto done may be likened to an investigation of the general 178 A STUDY OF PROSK FICTION relations of the art of painting, let us say., ta the other arts ; then, applying a closer scru- tiny, we have watched the various colors upon the palette of the painter, and have noted some of the technical processes by means of which these pigments are utilized. We have now to scrutinize the painter him- self. For after all, the use of the The man be- . . . , hind the materials or any art depends upon the man who employs them. The words of the great French critic, quoted as the first motto for this chapter, have been repeated in various forms by most of the writers who have thought deeply upon the expression of personality by means of art. It is conveyed in the famous formula " Art is a bit of nature seen through a temperament," as well as in the more technical definition of the writer on aesthetics, that the artist is " the middle term between content and ex- pression." Yet this interest in the story- writer himself is a more or less modern factor in the development of fiction. As we recede towards mediaeval times, the fascina- tion of the story becomes increasingly de- pendent upon the tale itself rather than THE FICTION-WRITER 179 upon the individuality of the teller ; and it is undeniable that the modern interest in literary personality has its seamy side. Per- sonal gossip about famous novelists has often taken the place of real criticism. No details of family history have been consid- ered too sacred to be offered to the public. In an age when a man is scarcely blamed for selling his father's love-letters for hard cash, it is not to be expected that the reading pub- lic will respect the reticences and reserves of private life. And one is forced to admit that an acquaintance with a fiction-writer's real experience of men and things, a famil- iarity with the more marked phases of his career, a knowledge of his friendships and his politics, of the things he hated, of the books he loved, is of great significance in the interpretation of his literary work. One can scarcely understand Balzac's novels with- out knowing something of Balzac himself ; and if, as Hawthorne has reminded us, the details of an author's biography often hide the man instead of revealing him, it is never- theless true that even in Hawthorne's own case a knowledge of his history affords one of the readiest modes of penetrating to the 180 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION essential nature of his productions in litera* ture. The noveiist'8 The fiction-writer's use of the experience, materials of his art is conditioned first by his experience. Experience provides the starting point for the work of the con- structive imagination ; it is a pier sunk into the solid earth from which the arch is sprung into the unknown. Here is a man who pro- fesses to interpret life for us. Well, what sort of life has he himself known ? What kind of men and women has it been his lot to encounter in his journey through the world ? Upon his answer to these questions depends very often his artistic verdict upon life itself ; that is, his handling of the ele- ments of character and action in the fictional world of his stories. It must be borne in mind, however, as we have seen in a previ- ous chapter, that extensive experience witlj men and things is often not so important a factor as intensive experience. ' ( The Story of an African Farm " can be told, provided the writer has insight and imagination, by one who has never left the boundaries of the farm. It is not the number of men and cities which the novelist has seen that counts THE FICTION-WRITER 181 BO much as do the eyes out of which he has looked and the brain which has reflected upon these observations. For experience at best furnishes suggestions rather than com- plete details. Said George Eliot : " It is invariably the case that when people discover certain points of coincidence in a fiction with facts that happen to have come within their knowledge, they believe themselves able to furnish a key to the whole. That is amusing enough to the author, who knows from what widely sundered portions of experience from what a combination of subtle, shadowy sugges- tions, with certain actual objects and events his story has been formed." In another of her letters she wrote : " There is not a single portrait in ' Adam Bede,' only the suggestions of experience wrought up into new combinations." Secondly, the fiction-writer's use The nove i ls f of the materials of his craft turns th0ttgllt upon his thought as well as upon his experi- ence. That is an admirable passage in Pro- fessor Masson's book upon " British Nov- elists : " " Every artist is a thinker, whether he knows it or not ; and ultimately no artist will be found greater as an artist than he was as a thinker." Sidney Lanier had this distinction in mind when he said of Edgar 182 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION Allan Poe that Poe did not know enough to be a great poet. He did not mean that a man rises in the capacity to produce poetry in accordance with the amount of informa- tion he possesses, but rather that one very real test of a poet's greatness is his power to coordinate the results of experience, to reflect upon the diverse phenomena of human life, and to construct, at least to some degree, a philosophical unity from the confused im- pressions which life offers. Yet the artist's power of thought is but one of the elements by which his work is to be judged. Dickens was surely not a thinker in the sense in which George Eliot was a thinker, nor was Dumas a thinker in the sense in which that word may be applied to Balzac. There is here, as everywhere in the world of art, a variety of equipment and a difference of gifts. Thirdly, this difference is never Emotion. . * 111 i more sharply marked than in the varying capacities of different writers for feel- ing and expressing emotion emotion called forth by their experience of life and reflection upon its phenomena. With a certain type of fiction-writers, as for instance Trollope, THE FICTION-WRITER 183 the capacity for emotion seems to be defec- tive, though this does not prevent admirable work within certain limits. But there is no limitation which more sharply sets the bounds for a man's possible achievement. In other writers, of whom Dickens is the readiest ex- ample, we are constantly called upon to ob- serve the evidence of overwrought emotion. Dickens is forever bidding us laugh or cry where Trollope simply asks us to look. Fre- quently, too, a work of fiction seems to owe its origin to the author's instinctive love or hatred for certain objects. There is where the novel and the eulogy on the one side, and the novel and the satire on the other, touch hands. Here is a striking illustra- tion of hatred furnishing the artistic motive for an extraordinary masterpiece of fiction. Flaubert, writing of his " Madame Bovary," says to a correspondent : " They think me in love with the real, whereas I execrate it : it is out of hatred of it that I have under- taken this book. . . . Do you really believe that this mean reality, whose reproduction disgusts you, does not make my gorge rise as much as yours ? If you knew me better, you would know that I hold the every- day life in detestation. Personally I have always kept myself as far away from it as I could. But 184 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION aesthetically I wanted this time, and only this time, tfc exhaust it thoroughly." More significant still is the in- Imaglnatlon. n . , ... . nuence or the artist s imagination upon his use of the materials of his art. It is a kind of resultant of his experience, thought, and emotion. Imagination, in the words of the Century Dictionary, is " The act or power of presenting to consciousness objects other than those directly and at that time produced by the action of the senses." Without at- tempting any arbitrary classification, we may note that the imagination of the novelist is constantly dealing with two classes of what we agree to call realities, and also with two classes of what are commonly designated as unrealities. Dealing with What do we mean by these realities. rea lities "? In the first place, the imagination of the story-teller is con- tinually at work in depicting things in the physical world as they are. The objects and events upon which the light of the imagina- tion is turned are brought home to the ev- ery-day consciousness of the matter-of-fact reader. Defoe does not meddle in the least with " things as they are ; " he contents THE FICTION-WRITER 185 himself with painting exact, vivid pictures of them, without seeming to alter his facts by a hair's breadth. He achieves a triumph of the artistic imagination ; but it is equally a triumph of that imagination when the artist portrays the work of those spiritual forces which are not to be apprehended by the physical senses. For in dealing with the mysteries of personality, with the profounder forces of the spiritual world, the imagination is penetrating to another and more veritable reality ; not what Hawthorne called " the big, solid, tangible unrealities " of the actual world, but that world which is no less eter- nal for being unseen. I remember hearing a clever woman say of a man who reproached a certain novelist for lack of imagination : " Mr. A. forgets that imagination consists in seeing things as they are, and not as they are not." As for " unrealities," there are Dealln g wlth two fields where the writer's im- unreaUUes - agination is called upon to display itself. There is first a mysterious borderland, a shadowy half-world, between the realm of unquestioned spiritual forces and the realm where the fear of superstition holds full sway. 186 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION The novelists of the " School of Terror," at the end of the eighteenth century, reveled to their hearts' desires in this ghostly atmos- phere of apparitions, portents, spirits, witches, and devils. As mankind advances in intel- ligence and scientific knowledge, it is con- stantly reducing the territory of the unknown, beating back this frontier of darkness and evil. Many of the phenomena, therefore, which in one generation would be accredited to demoniac possession, witchcraft, or the mysterious influence of other personalities, are in a later generation, as the history of hypnotism and telepathy so abundantly proves, capable of scientific demonstration. Such subjects still offer a tempting field, perhaps a field more tempting than ever to the imagination of the fiction-writer; but the theme itself becomes transferred, with the advance of civilization, from the realm of the unreal to the realm of the real. And finally, the imagination frequently exhibits its power in dealing with a second variety of the unreal, namely, the physical world of things as they are not. Nothing in the work of Victor Hugo or of Dickens is more impressive and masterful than the " pathetic THE FICTION-WRITER 187 fallacy " by means of which they love to distort our vision of the physical world, and seem to make its external phenomena and its secret forces sympathize with the spirit and the fate of their human char- acters. Such passages do violence, indeed, to the demonstrable truth of fact, but they often succeed in interpreting a higher truth of spiritual emotion, the " truth of the human heart," which Hawthorne thought it the function of the romancer to express. These illustrations of the four fields in which the imagination dis- stages <* plays itself will possibly throw some light upon Mr. Brander Matthews's frequently discussed theory concerning the four stages in the evolution of fiction. He has remarked with indisputable acuteness that the development of fiction has been from " the Impossible to the Improbable, thence to the Probable, and finally to the Inevita- ble." It is a convenient formula to bear in mind; but one must also remember that fic- tion displays a constant tendency towards reversion to primitive types, and that in any stage of the development of literature, writ- ers may arise who rely for their power upon 188 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION modes of thought and feeling which the race has apparently outgrown. Limitations of In studying the artistic produc- personaiity. tiveness of any man, it is necessary to take into account the limitations of his personality. Browning's line, " and thus we half-men struggle," may as pertinently be applied to the novelist as to any other mem- ber of the human family. Those limitations of thought, experience, and emotion which have just been discussed, as well as the de- ficiencies in moral insight which we have still to notice, must always be set down on the debit side of an author's real accomplish- ment. Even if he have the very highest en- dowment in the range of activities already indicated, he may lack that final creative im- pulse, that surplusage of vitality, which drives him to 'the making of a genuine book. Limitations No less sharply defined limita- 01 the age. ^ Qng are to k e ^aced in the in- fluence of the author's generation upon his own productiveness. The history of litera- ture furnishes abundant illustration of authors born out of due time. Matthew Arnold's well known criticism of the poet Gray turns not only upon the fact that Gray "never THE FICTION-WRITER 189' spoke out," but upon the causes that un- derlay this fact; namely, the influence of a prosaic age upon the sensitive mind of the academic poet. There have been many belated romanticists like Cervantes, belated Elizabethans like Charles Lamb, and few of them have been able to say as Lamb did so cheerily : " Hang the age ! I '11 write for antiquity." It is only a rarely endowed in- telligence that is thus able to make its own choice of company. Ordinarily, a man is forced to speak the speech and think the thoughts of his own generation ; and a novel-writer, let us say in France, in the full tide of the scientific impulse of the seventies, finds it quite impossible to com- pose such books as he might have written had he been born in the romantic generation of the thirties. And every writer, furthermore, The novelist's has a special public, provided he P eolal P ul)Uo - be lucky enough to have any public at all, and this public soon develops a peculiar capacity for requiring from the novelist a certain product, and no other. It is in vain for men like Defoe and Stockton to write books differing essentially from those by 190 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION which their first and great reputation was won. Some writers grow cynical under this enforced duty to produce a single kind of composition, and it has not infrequently happened that while the author's popular reputation has been sustained by works which he himself views in the light of " pot- boilers " pure and simple, he has found his deepest artistic satisfaction in producing a limited amount of work appealing to the most fastidious taste. There died not long ago a German artist who supported his fam- ily by painting comic little cherubic nudi- ties, and satisfied his real artistic cravings, meantime, by painting crucifixions which the public never cared to buy. This is only an extreme instance of a distinction which affects more or less directly the output of every novelist who works for the public. After he has become widely known, there is a definite commercial demand that he should turn out work in a particular vein, and he departs from it at his peril. Thack- eray is not the only famous British novelist who has complained of the limitations en- forced by the British Public upon the free presentation of the facts of life. Yet it ia THE FICTION-WRITER 191 doubtless better that the British Public should warn a novelist that he must not trespass upon a certain territory, than that it should order him to confine himself to questionable topics if he would satisfy the popular taste. After all, those writers are not the least fortunate who, like Jane Aus- ten and Oliver Goldsmith, have written mas- terpieces and quietly put them away in the drawer, leaving it to others, after an inter- val of years, to discover that these produc- tions were masterpieces. No doubt it seemed at the moment as if " The Vicar of Wake- field " and "Pride and Prejudice" represented wasted time and effort. But work done in this tranquil fashion is often surer of immor- tality than the novel which is " syndicated " from one end of the country to the other. The work of the novelist is very The novelist's directly affected by his philosophy iww- of life. Yet it is by no means necessary that he should be conscious of the view of the world which he in reality maintains. Here and there, indeed, there have been memorable examples of a novelist writing to illustrate, or to reduce to absurdity, some philosophi- cal theory of the universe. Voltaire's " Can- 192 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION dide " was written to ridicule the " whatever is, is right " theory, made famous by Leibnitz, Bolingbroke, and Pope. In Turgenieff's novels there is a tolerably complete exposi- tion of political and philosophical nihilism. The philosophical theory of pessimism has never been more brilliantly exemplified than in the novels of Flaubert, and the middle and later stories of George Eliot drew much of their inspiration from the tendencies of positivism and agnosticism. These writers are all what Professor Masson would classify as " thought men " rather than " fact men." If they may not all have been able to pass an academic examination in the history of philosophy, each of them had a more or less distinct theory of the scheme of human life and its relations, or lack of relations, to the unseen world of spirit. HIS practical ^ frequently happens that novel- aoctrine. j^ wno j iave troubled themselves very little with philosophical theories and generalizations about human life have never- theless with a fine unconsciousness delivered themselves clearly as to the meaning of life. Scott teaches us to be brave, Kingsley to be manly, Dickens to be kind. Mr. Henry THE FICTION-WRITER 193 James instructs us that life is an art, and that to play the game properly requires in- finite finesse. Such writers may not realize precisely the impression which they have conveyed. They do betray, however, con- sciously or unconsciously, the view of life which they have formed. They " give them- selves away," not necessarily in any one book, nor in the productions of any one phase of their creative activity, but rather in the totality of their work. It is as im- possible to mistake the every-day temper, the moral attitude of a writer who has ex- pressed himself in a dozen books, as it would be to misunderstand entirely his action and his motives if we were to watch him through a dozen years of his life. In discussing the ethical aim of Art and the fiction-writer, we trench upon mora1 *-" the ground of the old debate concerning art and morality. Has art the sphere of aes- thetic enjoyment anything at all to do with morals the sphere of conduct ? If these two fields do touch each other, what is the nature of their relations ? These questions have been asked and answered 194 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION more insistently and more bitterly concerning fiction than any other of the arts, rue artist is a Let us begin by endeavoring to human being. ^ race ne connection between the general moral attitude of the novelist and his excellence in his profession. We have already quoted the definition of art : " A bit of nature seen through a temperament." It is true that this definition emphasizes but a single function of the artist's complex task, yet that function is an essential one. The artist's own personality is as it were the crucible through which the " bit of nature " the material for art must pass in order to be changed into the work of art. What- ever affects personality, therefore, instantly and inevitably affects the work upon which the artist is engaged. Now sin is the nega- tion of personality. It turns a man into a brute. It minimizes the life of the spirit, until the spiritual faculties disappear. No- body denies this. The artist is a man like the rest of us. He is a moral being, and running the same moral risks as you and I, and presumably greater risks, owing to his finer organization. To say that his person- ality is not affected by the morality or im- THE FICTION-WRITER 193 morality of his life is to place the artist out- side the pale of humanity. It is to deny him the very attributes that make him a man. To declare that an artist's art is in exact ratio with the morality of his private life would be an exaggeration, yet it would probably be nearer the truth than to say that his life and his art are wholly unrelated quantities. We should note that the honest Labor itseii a labor of the artist is in itself a moralfaotor - moral factor. We who are inclined to look merely at the finished art product, and not into the workshop where the product is wrought, are constantly tempted to under- rate the moral qualities which the excellent workman must possess. One of the most suggestive passages in Ruskin's lecture on " Art and Morals " is this : " The day's work of a man like Mantegna or Paul Veronese consists of an unfaltering, uninterrupted suc- cession of movements of the hand more precise than those of the finest fencer : the pencil leaving one point and arriving at another, not only with unerring precision at the extremity of the line, but with an unerring and yet varied course sometimes over spaces a foot or more in extent yet a course so determined everywhere that either of these men could, and Veronese often ioes, draw a finished profile, or any other portion of 196 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION the contour of a face, with one line, not afterwards changed. Try, first, to realize to yourselves the mus- cular precision of that action, and the intellectual strain of it ; for the movement of a fencer is perfect in prac- ticed monotony ; but the movement of the hand of a great painter is at every instant governed by direct and new intention. Then imagine that muscular firmness and subtlety ; and that instantaneously selective and ordinant energy of the brain, sustained all day long, not only without fatigue, but with a visible joy in the exertion, like that which an eagle seems to take in the wave of his wings ; and this all life long, and through long life, not only without failure of power, but with visible increase of it, until the actually organic changes of old age. And then consider, so far as you know anything of physiology, what sort of an ethical state of body and mind that means ! ethic through ages past ! what fineness of race there must be to get it, what exquisite balance and symmetry of the vital powers ! And then, finally, determine for yourselves whether a manhood like that is consistent with any viciousness of soul, with any mean anxiety, any gnawing lust, any wretchedness of spite or remorse, any consciousness of rebellion against law of God or man, or any actual, though unconscious, violation of even the least law to which obedience is essential for the glory of life, and the pleasing of its Giver." What Ruskin, with characteristic eloquence, has here said of the painter is scarcely less true of the novelist. A task honestly under- taken, patiently carried through, is in itself THE FICTION-WRITER 197 a bit of morality. There is something very fine in Emile Zola's steady devotion, for twenty long years, to a single artistic plan : the com- pletion of the Rougon-Macquart series of novels. Fifteen hundred words a morning, every morning in the week, every week for twenty years ; no wonder M. Zola bears the worn, tired, patient face of the worker. Even though the Rougon-Macquart series proves, as time goes by, to have been a huge blun- der, this does not lessen one's respect for such an example of fidelity to an imagined duty. Fidelity to Such a duty is of -Laborareest course a very different thing from orare -" the religious consecration which made Fra Angelico breathe a prayer whenever he lifted his brush. " He who has not art," says Goethe, in a tone of Olympian condescension, "let him have religion." But Fra Angel- ico's painting was no worse for his prelim- inary prayer. The religious nature has often enough found a supreme expression through the arts. In a very true sense a man's art may be his religion, and where the religious element seems left out of an artist's nature, the great world's verdict commonly is that there is a defect in that man's art. 198 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION Witness the plays and poems of the Olympian Goethe himself. A complete In a11 this T . am sim P lv claiming man - that the novelist, like the poet or the painter, should be as far as possible a com- plete man. A defective moral organization, a deficient spirituality, will in the long run count as surely against him as a dull wit or a clumsy hand. But precisely how does an artist's Immorality . ,. . i . n and tech- immorality afreet his work .' Greorge Eliot's dictum that " A filthy mind makes filthy art " is doubtless sound, but it does not explain the process in question. We must look for the results of immoral conduct at the point where the specific immorality affects the artist's handling of the medium in which he works. One may declare with ab- solute confidence that Paderewski is neither a drunkard nor an opium-eater ; if he were, it would be physically impossible for him to retain his marvelously perfect control over the muscles of his fingers. He might perhaps be a miser or a thief without affecting his technique as a pianist ; but no miser or thief ever had the freedom and serenity of mind which are essential for the composition of THE FICTION-WRITER 199 great music. Benvenuto Cellini was a noto- rious liar, sensualist, and murderer ; yet as a silversmith and designer he was one of the most admirable workmen of the Renaissance. Here one may perhaps say that the effect of Benvenuto's immoralities was negative ; if he had not been so bad a man, he might have cared to attempt some of the more noble tasks to which contemporary artists devoted themselves. In Browning's poem, theft and treachery clip the wings of Andrea del Sarto's imagination, although he remains, as he was before his sin, the "faultless" painter. Such discussions turn largely upon the importance assigned to the element of technique in assess- ing the value of an artist's work. The more stress laid on technique the less important dees the question of morality become, unless immorality results in actual unsteadiness of eye or hand. Or, to put the matter a little dif- The gener ai f erently, we may say that the moral Uw- element enters into every art in proportion as that art touches human life and charac- ter. All the arts, indeed, group themselves about human life, but they do not all stand towards life upon terms of equal intimacy. A 200 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION mediaeval sculptor, chiseling grotesque gar* goyles for the eaves of a cathedral, is work- ing in a realm of art pretty thoroughly re- moved from human life and character. So is an impressionist landscape painter who is striving merely to reproduce, as cleverly as may be, certain color tones ; or a composer of old-fashioned Italian opera, basing artificial melodies upon the echoes of artificial feeling. Such artistic activities as these may be com- pared with Cellini's exquisite cutting of cameos; if the workman's hand and eye retain their normal power, his goodness or badness of heart is a matter of secondary concern. But in the composition of great music, or great poetry, or great fiction, mere manual dexterity occupies a subordinate place. The interpretation of life and char- acter becomes now the artist's all-important task, and a characterless, conscienceless man has no apparatus wherewith to decipher char- acter and conscience. He cannot interpret what he cannot comprehend. The old argu- ment of Quintilian that the good orator must be a good man an argument that has never been successfully controverted holds with equal force in the realm of fiction. A / THE FICTION-WRITER 201 bad man cannot become a great novelist. He might write excellent short stories ; he might even compose an excellent romance of incident and adventure ; but he could not write " The Newcomes," or " David Cop- perfield," or " The Antiquary." The novel would be beyond him. In all this we must bear in mind, Allowances however, that we are dealing with tobema(le - relative rather than with absolute values. The possession of rare literary gifts is no warrant that the possessor is superior to the weaknesses and vices of his own time, or of his own individual nature. There is a great deal of nonsense written about " the ar- tistic temperament " and the allowances that must be made for it. Yet the fact remains that the professional artist has usually been a somewhat specialized product of society. In the case of the double hydrangea, as of many other cultivated plants, beauty has been developed at the expense of fertility; this hydrangea does not bear fruit like the other members of the family of plants to which it belongs ; it fulfills its purpose by perform- ing the new function of producing beauti- ful flowers alone. By a similar analogy, we 202 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION are inclined to make certain allowances for " genius," that is, for extraordinary endow- ments of special capacity. As with a soldier drafted for service, society tacitly excuses the man of genius from some of the civic duties and civic virtues. If he takes advan- tage of this freedom, however, we may be sure that he and his work pay due penalty. We may not be able to appreciate either the force of his temptations or the degree of his repentance ; we do not know, as Burns has pathetically reminded us, "what's resisted." It is enough to remember that in a world of erring men and women the " artist " has his share of human weakness and struggle, and that in the presence of such mysteries as " sin " and " personality " and " creative power " all of which are involved in this discussion it is safer to avoid dogmatic generalizations. The moral in- When we pass from the moral attitude of the artist to the moral influence of the concrete work of whole art, we are upon somewhat surer ground. It is easier here to ascertain the facts, and to base one's judgment upon a THE FICTION- WRITER 203 wide comparison of experiences. We should note, for instance, that the influence of a book should be estimated by its effect as a whole, rather than by this or that detail. To select a familiar instance, it has fre- quently been pointed out that the sexual morality of Goethe's " Wilhelm Meister " is superficial, pagan, or bad, but yet that the influence of the book as a whole has been helpful to countless readers. There are some indecencies in Shakespeare's plays, and there is occasional grossness in Fielding's novels; but to emphasize such blemishes, and dwell upon them as if indecency and grossness were the characteristic qualities of Shake- speare and Fielding, is wholly to miss the splendid radiance, the robust humanity of these authors. Furthermore, a work of art. . : 7 Andbyartis- wnether painting, or statue, or tioaiiy trained novel, should be judged by artis- tically trained minds. Only such minds can determine the character of the work; can in- terpret the conventional language which the artist is forced to use. Artistic discipline alone, as sculptors find it necessary to re- mind us, can teach us to distinguish the 304 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION nude from the naked, the undraped from the undressed. The vast majority of culti- vated persons, in all civilized countries, feel that the undraped statue of the Venus of Melos, by its own inherent qualities, prohib- its indecent suggestion. If here and there some excellent person is to be found declar- ing that this statue is improper, the prudish- ness is not so much a sign of finer moral feeling as of defective aesthetic discipline. There are plenty of novels that frankly ap- peal to prurient and depraved taste, but before condemning, on moral grounds, a novel which has given delight to generations of mature readers, it is wiser to ascertain whether we have perceived the author's point of view and properly interpreted his inten- tion. There is rude common sense in Pro- fessor Raleigh's l blunt declaration " Books are written to be read by those who can understand them ; their possible effect on those who cannot is a matter of medical rather than of literary interest." "One man's This will serve to remind us of the homely and useful proverb that " One man's meat is another man's poison." 1 The English Novel, p. 171. THE FICTION-WRITER 205 In feeding the mind as well as in feeding the body, it must be remembered that the same stimulus produces in different people very dif- ferent reactions. There is such a thing as dissolute music, but a musical ear and some degree of musical training is necessary in order to perceive it. Of two persons equally responsive to the appeal of music, and lis- tening to the overture to " Tannhauser," the " Venusberg motif " will run riot in the mind of one, and the " Pilgrims' Chorus mo- tif " solemnize and uplift the other. Both hearers are listening to the same orchestra, but they are hearing and dreaming different things. There are pages of fiction which to some readers seem written in letters of fire, so glowing is their passion, so intense the subtle suggestions of the text ; to other readers or to these same readers ten years afterwards those magic pages seem gray and cold. In all imaginative art the specta- tor, the listener, the reader, plays an active as well as a passive role ; he too must become for the moment a creator, a " maker ; " he lives, in a very true sense, in that imaginary world ; and the forms and potencies thus created by the reciprocal activity of the 206 writer and the reader are as various and as little capable of rigid classification as are the infinite varieties of individual human character. Most discussions of the morals Sexual mo- rality not the of fiction drift back to the single sole morality . 1 .. tone con- question or sexual morality. JNo one who believes that " morality is the core of life," and recognizes the profound influence of sexual instinct in the actual ordering of human institutions, will quarrel with this tendency to scrutinize closely all that a novel may portray of the relations of the sexes. Yet such a scrutiny is apt to overlook the fact that it deals with but a single phase of morals. There are many other things that count, both in the business of this world and in the preparation for the Kinsfdom of Heaven. There are thousands o of good people who are shocked as per- haps they ought to be by a story that describes in plain terms the yielding of a young man to sexual temptation, but who are not shocked in the least by a story that glorifies brute force, sings the praise of war, and teaches that for the individual or the nation it is might that makes right. Yet THE FICTION-WRITER 207 which of these stories is really the more im- moral? Which is more dangerous to the life of the Republic ? Another aspect of fiction, very Speclflo ffloral frequently discussed, but never, in purpose - the nature of the case, capable of absolute, dogmatic statement, is suggested by the ques- tion of specific moral purpose. When a novelist sits down to write a story, should he have a specific moral intention ? Mrs. Stowe is supposed to have had such a pur- pose in writing " Uncle Tom's Cabin," to further the cause of abolition ; Dickens in writing "Nicholas Nickleby," to drive such schools as Dotheboys Hall out of existence ; Mrs. Humphry Ward in writing " Robert Els- mere," to preach Elsmerianism ; and Miss Sewell in writing "Black Beauty," to make people kind to their horses. Granting that these causes were praiseworthy, are the nov- els any better or greater because they were inspired by a definite moral purpose ? Be- fore I attempt to answer this question, two admissions should be made, one regarding the nature of fine art, and the other con- cerning the facts of literary history. 208 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION We must admit that fine art. as Fine art has 1 -111 no practical such, has no practical end what- ever. The pleasures which it af- fords are disinterested pleasures ; it creates for us an object for delighted contemplation, nothing more. Its divorce from the world of action is absolute. And prose fiction be- longs generically in its highest reaches, at least to the fine arts. The instant, therefore, that a work of fiction proposes as its end a definite action which is to be brought about through its influence such as the acceptance of some creed, the reform of an abuse, the marshaling of certain social forces against other social forces at that instant it ceases to be legitimate artistic fiction. It may be eloquent oratory, or clever pamphleteering, or effective sermonizing, but it is not the fine art of fiction any longer. The other admission, which ap- Butllotlonls * not "un- parently contradicts the first, is that as a matter of fact the " moral purpose " men have frequently written bet- ter novels than the " art for art's sake " men. In the words of Bernard Bosanquet, " His- tory shows that hazardous to art as the didactic spirit is, the mood of great masters THE FICTION-WRITER 309 in great art epochs is nearer to the didactic spirit than to the conscious quest for abstract beauty." x The explanation is, I suppose, that the " moral purpose " men have on the whole been greater men, more adequately endowed in sympathy and imagination ; and since prose fiction is more intimately con- cerned with human life and character than most of the other fine arts, this fuller en- dowment of moral sympathy has added a rich- ness and vitality to the work of the " moral purpose " men. Art, as such, is indeed " un- moral ; " an Indian basket, a Greek vase, a Morris wall-paper design, a Persian rug, are neither moral nor immoral. But to expect that a novelist can tell us the story of Ar- thur Dimmesdale or Arthur Pendennis or Arthur Donnithorne, and preserve the un- moral aloofness of the designer of a rug, is to fly in the face of the history of literature. The novelist is a man, and the men and wo- men he describes are not alien to him. " Sunt lachrymse rerum et mentem mortalia tangunt." Let us now return to our ques- i , i-i The novel tion about the novel with a specific with a pur- pose. moral purpose. Is it likely to be 1 Bosanquet, History of ^Esthetic, p. 227 210 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION on that account the better novel ? The chances are that it is not. If it has subor- dinated artistic considerations to the exigen- cies of some ethical doctrine, it commonly pays the penalty. Tolstoi's " Resurrection " is a sermon ; its point will disappear with the changes in Russian society ; his " Anna Karenina " remains an enduring work of art. The " novel with a purpose " has often had the instantaneous influence, the wide currency of a pamphlet, but in a few years it shares the pamphlet's fate. The " novel of the season " is not the novel of the gen- erations. The cleverness of its adjustment to the popular feeling or fad of the hour makes it all the more hopelessly outlawed when that hour is past. A " Pride and Pre- judice," written for sheer love of the writing, is surer of finding readers after another hun- dred years than any " novel with a purpose " in our literature. But is moral earnestness, then, has a puce in to be forbidden to the novelist? Have indignation against injustice, sympathy with the down-trodden, high ardor for human progress, and passion for the truth at whatever cost no place in the novel ? THE FICTION-WRITER 211 Have Fielding, Scott, Thackeray, Dickens, George Sand, Turgenieff, Daudet, no right- eous indignation, no strenuous moral passion ? To ask such a question is to answer it. But these great artists in fiction used their indig- nation and sympathy and zeal for human welfare as they used any other materials of their art. The artist in them save in rare exceptions controlled and directed the re- former. They wrote stories of human life, not merely tracts for the times. There is not in modern English poetry a profounder moral insight, a nobler spiritual aspiration, than in Tennyson's " Palace of Art." It affects the religious emotions more than a dozen ser- mons ; yet it is not a sermon. It is a poem. The poet and not the preacher has held cap- tive the ear and the soul ; we are moved to the very depths of our nature, but we are not exhorted to go forth and accomplish a specific task. " The Palace of Art " is not a purposeless poem, but neither is it a " poem with a purpose ; " and the creative power which used the elements of intellectual and moral passion in building " The Palace of Art " is the same power that wrought " The Scarlet Letter " and " The Bride of Lammer- 212 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION moor" and "Henry Esmond." In prose fic tion, at least, if not always in the other arts, the laws of beauty sink deep into the struc- ture of human life, and a novel that utilizes the deepest and strongest instincts of the heart is not the less likely, on that account, to possess consummate and enduring beauty. If, as I have tried to indicate, Theproiea- sionoi moral the presence ot a specific purpose is usually a detriment to the artistic quality of a novel, it follows that the au- thor's profession of a definite moral purpose is quite gratuitous. The eighteenth century men, with scarcely an exception, made the " moral purpose " plea in their prefaces. It became as conventional as the earlier dedica- tion to a patron. Defoe did it, but we know that that imperturbable liar wrote to sell. Richardson claimed that his object in writing fiction was " to promote the cause of religion and virtue." Fielding gravely advertised himself as a " faithful historian of human nature." But readers of " Clarissa Harlowe " and " Tom Jones " heed very little what tin prefaces say about the author's motive foi composition. In practical life we distrust a man who talks much about the good influ- THE FICTION-WRITER 213 ence which he is trying to exert ; and the great public cares absolutely nothing about what the author believes to have been his purpose in writing. It cares only for what he has expressed in his book, and the novel- ists who write magazine articles and give lectures in order to explain their intentions would do well to profit by Goethe's advice to " create and not talk," " Bilde, Kiinst- ler, rede nicht." The total impression made by any The nov eiit' work of fiction cannot be rightly artl8tloalm - understood without a sympathetic percep- tion of the artistic aim of the writer. Con- sciously or unconsciously, he has accepted certain facts, and rejected or suppressed other facts, in order to give unity to the particular aspect of human life which he is depicting. No novelist possesses the impartiality, the in- difference, the infinite tolerance, of nature. Nature displays to us, with an inveterate unconcern, the beautiful and the ugly, the precious and the trivial, the chaste and the obscene. If you lift up your eyes on a spring morning, you will see the bluebird flashing in the sun ; but beneath your feet there may be miry ways and the foul winter's refuse 2H A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION which nature, careless housekeeper, has not yet troubled herself to put decently out of sight. And a writer must choose whether he will look up or down ; he must select the particular aspects of nature and human nature which are demanded by his work in hand. A perfectly faithful " transcript of life " he cannot make, not even if he is a Shake- speare ; he is forced to select, to combine, to create. Stevenson wrote, in a characteris- tic passage : " Our art is occupied, and bound to be occupied, not so much in making stories true as in making them typical , not so much in capturing the lineaments of each fact, as in marshalling all of them towards a com- mon end. For the welter of impressions, all forcible but all discreet, which life presents, it substitutes a certain artificial series of impressions, all indeed most feebly represented, but all aiming at the same effect, all eloquent of the same idea, all chiming together like consonant notes in music, or like the graduated tints in a good picture. From all its chapters, from all its sentences, the well-written novel echoes and ree'choes its own creative and controlling thought ; to this must every incident and character contribute ; the style must have been pitched in unison with this ; and if there is anywhere a word that looks another way, the book would be stronger, clearer, and (I had almost said) fuller without it." The Art of Fiction. THE FICTION-WRITER 215 Stevenson loved a paradox, and undoubt- edly emphasized the principle of conscious artistic selection more than most men of his craft. It is enough, perhaps, for us to recog- nize that a selection of some sort must be made. Alike in the fairy stories of Hans Christian Andersen, the story for " the young person " by Frank Stockton, and the grossly naturalistic books of those novelists who " see the hog in nature and henceforth take nature for the hog," there is a deliberate suppression of whole departments of thought and feeling, Lhere is the building up of a new world, which may be, according to the artist's choice, better or worse than the actual world, but which is in any case different. This selection of subject, of ma- The lnstlnot terial, is accompanied by a kindred * orl)eailt y- instinct for the choice of form. Romantic and naturalistic epochs furnish constant illus- tration of the preference of content to form, of the desire to secure, at any price, the emotions of surprise and of recognition. But no epoch in the history of fiction is without illustration of the opposite tendency ; namely, to subordinate the element of content to that of form, to secure " effect " through symbols 216 A STUDY Oi 1 PROSE FICTION rather than by representation of objects. One sort of " effectivisin " is as vicious as the other. The fiction that has yielded plea- sure to generations of readers is that which reveals a deep synthesis of form and content, a fusion of those two elements that enter into the work of art. Such a synthesis must be traced back to the writer's spontaneous instinct. It is a process antedating the con- scious choice of words, the conscious selec- tion of this or that literary formula. After all, a man is born ev(f>vTjs with a beauti- ful, fair-proportioned mind or he is not. Scott and Jane Austen and Hawthorne were vl? , . , . . , they are partial conceptions it they are exclusive of one another. Ic it possible REALISM 229 to find a definition which shall include them all? By taking a hint from Hawthorne's well known distinction between the romance and the novel, I think we may get this nega- tive definition of realism in fiction : It is that fiction which lacks the romantic atmos- phere. But it may be objected that " roman- tic atmosphere " is a somewhat vague term, and that it implies a preliminary discussion of romanticism. Here, then, is a more posi- tive, working definition : Realistic fiction is that which does not shrink from the com- monplace (although art dreads the common- place) or from the unpleasant (although the aim of art is to give pleasure) in its effort to depict things as they are, life as it is. Let me illustrate. I want, let us The Uve say, a live eagle for a pet. Now a eagle> live eagle is not an altogether pleasant thing to have in the house. I know beforehand that an eagle does not dine on bonbons; there will be dried blood upon its beak, and filth upon its feathers, and the odor of car- rion about its claws. A stuffed eagle would be for many reasons far nicer : an eagle care- fully skinned, deodorized, and mounted, with insect powder in his plumage and varnish on 230 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION his legs, and a pair of glass eyes. A stuffed eagle would be more artistic, would be more of an ornament to the library, would give more pleasure to one's friends, would be much safer for the children. Nevertheless, I am perverse enough to say, " I don't want a stuffed eagle ; I want a live one." And I have a right to choose the kind of eagle I prefer. Is it not iust like that in the Choosing * n o T i the fiction matter 01 fiction ? I claim for my- one wants. ,/, , ., . . sell, or tor any one else, the privi- lege of saying to a novel-writer : " I am eager to know more about life. Literature, you say, is the interpretation of life. Therefore, by means of your art, interpret life to me. Only I am tired to-day perhaps I may have been for many days of reading about life as it used to be in the sixteenth century, or life as it is going to be in the twenty-first, or life as some one thinks it ought to be to-day ; tell me, you who have the eye and the tongue, about life as it is, about things as they are ! " One may demand this from a The field . J . . of fiction novel-writer without implying for a Illimitable. ,.... moment that realistic fiction is any better or greater than romantic fiction, or REALISM 231 historical fiction, or Utopian fiction. The field of fiction is illimitable. It is a great pity that some American champions of realism saw fit to begin by sneering at their betters, or by running round and round Sir Walter Scott, barking at him. Hawthorne had as good a right to construct a romance, laying the scene in Rome, as had Mr. James to set a realistic novel or at least a chapter of a realistic novel in Albany, or to derive his heroine from Schenectady ; and if Mr. James, who knows the theory of fiction so much better than Hawthorne, fails to make " The Portrait of a Lady " as great a book as " The Marble Faun," it simply proves, not that romance is superior to realism, or that life in Albany is any less suited to the novelist's art than life in Rome, but simply that Nathaniel Haw- thorne is a better story-writer than Henry James. In spite of the wide-spread inter- . r . . English est m romantic fiction just at pre- realism: sent, there is every reason for the champion of realism to keep his temper, and to read the books he likes best. No national fiction gives more triumphant evidence than the English of the success of the method that 232 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION does not shrink from the commonplace, the unpleasant, in its effort to render life as it is, things as they are. I turn at random the pages of the earliest master of English fic- tion, and come upon a passage like this : " When I came to open the chests, I found several things of great use to me ; for example, I found in one a fine case of bottles, of an extraordinary kind, and filled with cordial waters, fine and very good ; the bottles held about three pints each, and were tipped with silver. ... I found some very good shirts, which were very welcome to me ; and about a dozen and a half of white linen handkerchiefs and colored neckcloths ; the former were also very welcome, being exceeding refreshing to wipe my face in a hot day. Besides this, when I came to the till in the chest, I found there three great bags of pieces-of-eight, which held about 1100 pieces in all ; and in one of them, wrapped up in a paper, six doubloons of gold and some small bars or wedges of gold ; I suppose they might all weigh near a pound." The studied commonplaceness, the minute enumeration, the curious particularity, are of the very essence of realism ; they make up what we call the verisimilitude of " Robinson Crusoe," its life-likeness. These qualities wiU ; perhaps, be even more apparent on reading Defoe's less known books, such as " Rox- ana." Here the tone is grave, frank ; the REALISM 233 details circumstantial ; there is no fancy, no humor, no imagination, save the imagina- tion that is directed upon things as they are, physically and morally ; never was there a book with less of a romantic atmosphere; it is an absolutely realistic exposition of the sober, terribly earnest, Protestant theme that the wages of sin is death. The attitude is the same, though the technique differs, in Richard- son. At the age of fifty-one he wrote his first novel, " Pamela," whose heroine was a ser- vant girl. He thought, he tells us, that if he wrote a story in an easy and natural manner instead of a little book of familiar letters on the useful concerns of common life which his friends, the booksellers, had wished he might possibly turn young people into a course of reading "different from the pomp and parade of romance writing, and dismiss- ing the improbable and the marvelous, with which novels generally abound, might tend to promote the cause of religion and virtue." " To promote the cause of reli- f . Fielding. gion and virtue was somewhat os- tentatiously announced by all the great eight- eenth century novelists to be the object of 234 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION their labors. Their theory was that it could be accomplished by exhibiting men as they are, showing vice and virtue in their true light. " It is our business," says Fielding, " to dis- charge the part of a faithful historian, and to describe human nature as it is, not as we would wish it to be." " Alas," replies a critic like Sidney Lanier, " if you confront a man day by day with nothing but a picture of his own un worthiness, the final effect is not to stimulate, but to paralyze his moral energy. ... If I had my way with those classic books, I would blot them from the face of the earth. ... I can read none of them without feeling as if my soul had been in the rain, draggled, muddy, miserable." This is rather tropical language for a professed critic. Without claiming for a moment that eighteenth cen- tury fiction shows perfect art or a perfect morality, we may still assert that it is just as legitimate for a novelist to base his work upon human nature as it is, as upon human nature as he would wish it to be. If, following the first of these methods, his books paralyze our energy, then so much the worse for the nov- elist's conception of human nature. As for Fielding, who has to bear the brunt of the- REALISM 235 attack, he is quite capable of fighting his own battles. His readers will gladly sac- rifice "the sublimities" if they may be al- lowed to observe Partridge in the theatre, or " the postilion (a lad who hath been since transported for robbing a hen-roost) " playing the part of the Good Samaritan, or Sergeant Atkinson when he supposes himself to be dying and asks leave to kiss the hand of Mrs. Booth, or Amelia in that chapter " In which Amelia appears in a Light more Amiable than Gay." Such writing endures. It forms , , ,. ' . . , . The great the public taste, it is sure to be im- succession of i -n p reallst8 - itated. Even when the influence or Rousseau and the French Revolution brought new types into English fiction, embodying the social aspirations of the Revolution, the feeling for nature in her mildest and grandest forms, the gloomy, Byronic individual, the ro- mance of the picturesque and terrible, to say nothing of the splendid series of historical novels in which the genius of Sir Walter Scott fascinated England and the continent, England was rarely without some writer who did not shrink from the commonplace in the effort to represent life as it is. The great 236 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION Sir Walter, whose own Scotch novels exhibit such admirable realism, noted in his diary, March 14, 1826 : " Read again, and for the third time at least, Miss Austen's very finely written novel of Pride and Preju- dice. That young lady had a talent for describing the involvements and feelings and characters of ordinary life, which is to me the most wonderful I ever met with. The Big Bow-Wow strain I can do myself like any now going ; but the exquisite touch, which renders ordinary commonplace things and characters interesting, from the truth of the description and the sentiment, is denied to me. What a pity such a gifted creature died so early ! " Jane Austen wrote while the English ro- mantic movement was at its height ; then in the succession of the great novelists came Thackeray, who burlesqued the romantic movement and satirized it ; Dickens, with his vivid social sense, his glorification of lowly life ; George Eliot, who completed her theory of fiction before she wrote a line, and who was realist to the core. Students of the realis- tic method as it existed in England in the lat- ter half of the nineteenth century will never find more perfect harmony between criti- cal theory and creative art than is found in "Adam Bede" and " The Mill on the Floss." REALISM 237 The key word of George Eliot's art is sympathy; the key word of ism: Madam* the French realists is detachment. What is called realism or " naturalism " in French fiction appeared shortly after 1850. Some look upon Balzac as its founder, and indeed as Balzac was by turns a little nay, a great deal of everything, he was now and again a capital realist. But French realism was beyond anything else a reaction against the French romanticism of the thir- ties, and the book that voiced this reaction, the book that has been called the " Don Quixote " of romanticism doing for it what Cervantes did for chivalry is Flaubert's " Madame Bovary." The theme of this novel which has exerted such a profound influence upon French fiction is told in six lines at the end of the fifth chapter: " Before her marriage, she believed herself in love, but as the happiness which should have resulted from that love did not come, she imagined that she must have been mistaken. And Emma endeavored to discover exactly what people understood in life by those words felicity, passion, intoxication, which had seemed to her so beautiful in books." A romantic temperament put into real dis- tasteful surroundings, the fine false senti- 238 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION ment of books tested by life as it is : it is no wonder that with such a theme " Madame Bovary " is a masterpiece. Victor Hugo, De Vigny, and the other romanticists had prided themselves on their "local color," but the localities were far away in time or place : Flaubert took the Normandy of his own day, and studied its provincialism as Darwin studied a pigeon ; he was a passionate wor- shiper of style ; when he composed his book, he agonized over every sentence. " Madame Bovary " is incomparably written ; it is ab- solutely realistic ; its tone is cool, detached, brutal ; like " The Scarlet Letter," it is a piece of work that some one ought to do, done once for all. Followers oi Flaubert's method has been fol- Fiauuert. lowed of course with some modi- fications by numberless pupils in the past thirty years : by Zola, a man of. undoubted talent, of extraordinary imagination, who would have distinguished himself in any school of fiction, but who has offered himself as the champion of realism in his critical es- says, and in his writings has done more than any dozen other men to bring realism into disrepute ; by Daudet, who had that gift of REALISM 239 sympathy which has always marked English realism, and with it a delicacy of perception, a mastery of language, a knowledge of tech- nique, which placed him at the head of his profession ; by Maupassant, who might ap- parently have done anything that is, any- thing a pessimist can do in fiction had not his brain given way : and by a host of lesser men, who have now broken up into smaller groups or followed their individual caprice or conviction, for plain realism has long since gone out of fashion in Paris. We must pass over the great names and great books that realism American may claim for itself in Spain and Italy and Russia ; and likewise the names and books of the American writers who have been in fullest sympathy with the realistic move- ment. Ours has been a day of international influences in literature. American authors have been quick to learn from foreign mas- ters, and better still, have been fertile enough to write their own books in their own way. Realism has shown its fairer side in the American fiction of the last twenty - five years. It has betrayed its limitations, to be sure, and nowhere so markedly as in the 240 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION novels of the men who have stood before the public as the typical realists ; but leaving that aside for the moment, how observant, honest, clever, sympathetic, delicate, in a word how artistic, has been and is to-day the realistic fiction of our own countrymen and country- women ! TUB remain- ^ ave examined the theory ing Questions. o f rea ]i sm an d have glanced, how- ever briefly, at its historical development. It remains for us to inquire : What, after all, has realism accomplished ? What are its limitations, its dangers ? Finally, is the ul- timate question in the art of fiction one of method ? What, then, has realism accom- Reallsm has f i t n -r i n t i opened new pushed ( In the tirst place, it has opened new fields to the artist. Every great literary movement has indeed done that. Romanticism cried " Back to nature to feeling," but what was meant by " nature " was romantic nature, by " feel- ing," romantic emotions. There is but one aspect of nature, one element of passion that is romantic, to twenty that are not ; and realism has insisted that all of these are at REALISM 241 the disposal of the novelist. It has called nothing common, and, alas, very few things unclean. It has demolished the park wall that used to divide themes unforbidden from those forbidden to the artist ; it has advised him to take his brush and palette and to stray through the inclosure at will. It has given him absolute liberty to portray things as he finds them, and the range and freshness and vividness of the artist's work have shown what an immense stimulus there is in freedom. And realism has created a new _ Created a technique. Tell a man he may new tecii- . . . nlque. paint anything, provided he gives you the sense of actuality, renders the sub- ject as it is, and if he have the true artist's passion for technical perfection, he will learn to paint anything. In exact correspondence with that marvelous technical power exhib- ited in modern French pictures of the re- alistic school, there has been developed in realistic fiction a fidelity, a life-likeness, a vividness, a touch, which are extraordinary and new. Tolstoi describes a man standing upon the steps of his club, drawing on his gloves ; it is nothing, and yet the picture is unforgettable. Hardy describes the gloves 242 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION of a working- woman gathering turnips on an English upland, and the image haunts you. Here are a few lines exemplifying this new method in English fiction. Tess of the D'Urbervilles, desolate and forsaken, is ring- ing the doorbell of the empty parsonage where the father and mother of her husband had lived. " Nobody answered to her ringing. The effort had to be risen to, and made again. She rang a second time, and the agitation of the act, coupled with her weariness after the fourteen miles' walk, led her to sup- port herself while she waited by resting her hand on her hip, and her elbow against the wall of the porch. The wind was so drying that the ivy-leaves had become wizened and gray, each tapping incessantly upon its neighbors with a disquieting stir of her nerves. A piece of blood-stained paper, caught up from some meat buy- er's dust-heap, beat up and down the road without the gate ; too flimsy to rest, too heavy to fly away ; and a few straws kepi it company." We may look through the whole range of fiction, and we shall not find until our own day, and among the realists, a piece of blood-stained paper, beating impotently in the wind, used artistically, as a bit of the setting, to intensify the desolation, the hor- ror, that are falling upon the spirit of the forsaken wife. 243 But realism has had relations to Realism and many other forces. It has been the scientific closely allied to that scientific tem- per which was discussed in the fourth chapter. Poetry and science, as we have seen, meet in the novel, and in many of the notable achieve- ments of realism there is more science than poetry. The novels of so indubitable an artist as George Eliot would lose much of their qual- ity if they lost the exact observation, the analytic power, the faculty for generalization, which she possessed in common with Pasteur. No one can doubt that certain positive bene- fits have accrued to realistic fiction in thus linking itself with the far-reaching scientific spirit of our time. It has gained in precision, solidity, breadth. But we must in a moment inquire whether it has gained, in relation to qualities even higher than these, through its association with science. Realism, too, has had clearly Re iationsto marked lines of relationship with JjyShST the democratic spirit. We must Uanlty - touch upon these in the chapter devoted to the tendencies of American fiction. Further- more, I think it may fairly be claimed that the theory on which realism is based is in 344 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION close accord with the spirit of Christianity. For the theory of realism teaches that the " every-day life of all " is worth something if only worth describing ; it teaches the reality of our present experiences, the sig- nificance of common things. In childhood, perhaps, the real is too near, too obvious, to be attractive. We have seen big boys ; tell us the story of the Giants ! We have played with the rocking-horse; please read to us about Bucephalus and the Centaurs ! The far- away attracts us with a romantic charm ; anywhere rather than here is where we child- ishly long to be. These illusions fade as we grow older ; it is perhaps after a long period of disillusion that we turn suddenly to the real. Here is our world, ..." Here we find Our destined happiness, or not at all." The actual grows spiritually significant. The world becomes intelligible, interesting. It is a live world God's world. The forces about us are real forces ; the men and women we know are real personalities. Therefore we say to the novelist : " Show us as much of this most real of all worlds as you can. Let us see how deep is your vision ; does it REALISM 245 penetrate as the Eternal Vision penetrates, is it as comprehensive as that, as loving as that ? " Said the Russian novelist Gogol : " I have studied life as it really is, not in dreams of the imagination ; and thus I have come to a conception of Him who is the source of all life." It is the sentimentalist, the ro- manticist, who exclaims: "I have "tte&very- enough of ordinary life ; I experi- 7 me ' ence it ad nauseam ; give me the diamond, the unusual, the far-away, the exceptional." That was exactly the cry of Emma Bovary, poor Emma Bovary who, in Brunetiere's words, is just like all of us, only a trifle too sensual and endowed with too little intelli- gence to accept the daily duty, to learn its charm and its latent poetry. The value of " the every-day life " to the more thoughtful type of mind has been well expressed by Richard Holt Hutton in his essay on Shel- ley : " Poets, and artists, and thinkers, and theologians, who hunger after reality, hold, we suppose, that the actual combination of qualities and substances and personal influences as God has made them, contains something much better worth knowing and imagining accurately, than any recast they could effect of their 246 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION own. They believe in the infinite significance of actual ties. And those who feel this, as all realists do usu- ally feel it, must cherish a certain spirit of faithful tenacity at the bottom of their minds, a respect for the mere fact of existence, a wish to see good reason before they separate things joined together by nature, and perhaps, they will think, by divine law ; a disposition to cling to the details of experience, as having at least a presumptive sacredness ; nay, they feel even a higher love for such beauty as is presented to them in the real universe, than for any which is got by the dissolv- ing and recomposing power of their own eclectic ideal- ism." Literary Essays, p. 174. Now the great realists in fio Thesignlii- canoe oi the tion take the every-day lire or all ; from the material furnished by the average man in the ordinary situation they form their work of art. They reveal at their best moments the reality of things ; that is, the spiritual and enduring side of things, the divine in the human, God's world existing in and through our world. It is in this sense that Christianity is on the side of realism, because Christianity deepens our sense of the actual, and of the eternal signifi- cance of the Here and Now, of the infi- nite potentialities of character. When we have learned to look at men and women as they are, the world as it is, to see in it some- REALISM 247 thing of perennial freshness and suggestive- ness, to feel it beating with the Infinite Heart, then the writer of fiction who can interpret human life to us most closely, most sympa- thetically, bring it to us most intimately, is the realist. But if the actual world is en- nuyeux to us, then we should logically take refuge in another sort of fiction, in the stories of other times and other places, of other orders of beings, acting under condi- tions different from our own. If the sunlight, the clear, frank sunlight, is too strong for us, or too colorless, let us by all means spread a purple awning, and diffuse a romantic at- mosphere of our own. In what has just been written, I Llmlta tions have made the very highest claim ofreaUsm - for the possibilities of realistic art. Yet it is easy to see the limitations of realism. The realist says : " I paint things as they are, the world as it is ; " but by this he means neces- sarily things as they are to him, the world as it is to him. However objective he strives to be, he looks out upon the world through the lens of his own personality. His art is conditioned upon his vision, his physical 248 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION vision, his psychical vision. In the very nature of the case, that vision is more or less contracted, blurred. What he takes for reality may not be reality. There is but one real world, and that is God's world. The novelist's world, depend upon it, will be but an imperfect copy ; what he calls the real world will be his own world, not God's world, but a Turgenieff world, a Thomas Hardy world, a Miss Wilkins world. Alas ! what distortion ! what pitiful limitation ! A real- ist with well-nigh perfect physical vision may have what the brain specialists call psy- chic blindness, inability to perceive the meaning of the visual impression. He may be a pure materialist, seeing only the animal side of life, devoting great talents to the analysis of wrath and love as functions of the bodily organism. He may steadfastly ignore those hopes and aspirations that reach out beyond the confines of mortality, that lay hold upon the world to come. And realism has its dangers as Its dangers: . .. . well as its limitations. Ihe realist must represent actualities ; he must study them objectively ; he must be an ob- server ; and nothing is easier than for him REALISM 249 to learn to observe without sympathy. This is, as the reader may remember, what Haw- thorne dreaded ; it is the theme of his " Ethan Brand." It is the " detachment " which has been one of the catchwords of French real- ism, and which explains why so much of the fiction of the last generation in France, with all its wonderful qualities, has nevertheless been so pitiless. Another danger for realism lies i I-, Technique m that very technical excellence ana netting which the French writers have brought to such perfection. To the vivid rendering of the appearances of things, other qualities equally important to artistic work of a high rank have been sacrificed. Tech- nique and nothing back of it is a besetting foe to the realist. It is so much easier to start with painting the surface, to be content with outdoing one's rivals in cleverness, in tricks of the brush, in " impressionism." But the cleverest record of fact, the most sensitive rendering of atmosphere, fails, by itself, to make fiction vital. The lack of imagination in some of those books whose technical work- manship seems beyond praise is startling. By imagination I do not mean a journey into 250 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION cloudland, but the power of seeing real things imaginatively. One of the Goncourt brothers puts forth this request in a preface to a novel : " I want to write a novel which shall be the study of a young girl, a novel founded on human docu- ments. I find that books about women, written by men, lack feminine collaboration. The impressions of a little girl, confidences as to her feelings at the time of confirmation, her sensations when she first goes into society, the unveiling of the most delicate emotions, in a word, all the unknown femininity at the depths of a woman, these are what I need. And I ask my femi- nine readers, in those unoccupied hours, when the past, in its gloom or happiness, rises before them, to write these thoughts or memories down for me, to send them to me anonymously at the address of my publisher." Comment upon the delicacy of this propo- sition is quite needless, but did ever a pro- fessed artist make a more pitiful confession of his own imaginative sterility? To put yourself in another person's place is the first law of the novelist's creative imagination ; this disciple of Flaubert stretches forth his hands impotently for the other person's docu- ments. Facts not ^ * s j us * nere that ^ ne alliance * nou * h ' of realism with the scientific spirit, REALISM 251 which, as we have seen, has given fiction precision, solidity, breadth, has nevertheless with some schools of fiction wrought irrepa- rable mischief. The scientific temper, un- transmuted by artistic feeling, has never been of value in any of the fine arts ; the applica- tion of scientific methods to fiction has time and again crowded the creative imagination off the field to make room for the documents. There is of course an endless variety in na- ture and in human nature, but an endless succession of realists, working merely by sci- entifically accurate observation and record, can never produce a great novel any more than an endless succession of photographers can produce a great picture. They can give us a marvelous array of facts, but fact is not fiction. Science cares for facts, art, in the high sense, for facts only as they reveal truths ; and unless the writer of fiction uses facts to explain truths, his work is like the dead iron before it is carbonized into steel, like prose un crystallized into poetry. The last danger that the realist U Iu V ' runs is perhaps the most obvious, it it be not the worst. It is the danger, already elluded to in a previous chapter, of represent- 262 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION ing the body rather than the mind, the physi- ological to the exclusion of the psychological. A reviewer in the " New York Evening; Post " o has put this sharply, but not unjustly. " It is only fair to say that what we have called ani- malism others pronounce wonderful realism. We use the word animalism for the sake of clearness, to denote a species of realism which deals with man considered as an animal, capable of hunger, thirst, lust, cruelty, vanity, fear, sloth, predacity, greed, and other passions and appetites that make him kin to the brutes, but which neglects, so far as possible, any higher qualities which distinguish him from his four-footed relatives, such as humor, thought, reason, aspiration, affection, morality, and religion. Real life is full of the contrasts between these conflicting tendencies, but the object of the animalistic school seems always to make a study of the genus homo which shall recall the menagerie at feeding-time rather than human society." There is plenty of animalism in human so- ciety, as everybody knows ; but this does not justify a man of talent in writing as if there were nothing but animalism. The novelists who have followed their morbid-minded lead- ers over the park wall, in search of material which has hitherto been considered too sacred or too horrible to be used by fiction, have been so severely taken to task for it by the best critics, that we may content ourselves REALISM 263 with a single remark. Crossing the park wall leaves a man no better painter than he was before. He may sit outside, with brushes and colors and palette, and sigh for the for- bidden subjects. He may then cry, " Down with Reticence, down with Reverence forward " and follow his indefatigable leader across the broken wall ; he may select his forbidden fruit and begin to paint it. Very well ; he is just the same painter as ever : no more true of eye, no more skillful of hand ; indeed, since the man must often cross the barrier between de- cency and indecency with the artist, the hand may not be so steady, nor the eye so clear. What then is gained ? The picture, the book, sells to a debased public, which it helps still further to debase ; but to a sensitive writer of fiction there can scarcely be a worse re- proach than the thought that a book has sold at the expense of the artistic capacity of the writer himself. No more powerful protest against ,1 l- U 1 Thetestt- this naturalism has yet appeared moHyoi than the one uttered by the Span- ish novelist Valdes in the preface to his "Sister St. Sulpice:" 254 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION *'! believe firmly with the naturalist writers that /nan represents on this planet the ultimate phase of ani mal evolution, and that on this supposition the study of his animal instincts and passions is interesting, and ex- plains a great number of his actions. But this study lias for me only a historic value, because if man pro- reeds directly from animality, every day he goes far- ther and farther away from it, and this and nothing else is the basis of our own progress. We come surely from the instinctive, the unconscious, the necessary, but we are going forward toward the rational, the conscious, and the free. Therefore the study of all that refers to the rational, free, and conscious mind as the explanation of a great proportion of human acts, the only noble and worthy ones, is far superior to the first. It is more interesting to study man as man than as an animal, al- though the naturalist school thinks otherwise. ... In order that there should be beauty in man, it is neces- sary that he show himself as man, and not as brute." The bank- ^ ^ S * sucn CaUSGS that WC HlUSt reaUMttln assign the bankruptcy of realism in prance. France. It has ventured as far into forbidden territory as any fiction is ever likely to go, and it has brought back pictures that defile the imagination and sicken the O heart. It has made disreputable an artistic method which in other countries, and in the hands of many a French writer, has served great ends. The limits have long since been reached, and before the close of the nine- REALISM 256 teenth century the Paris critics began coolly to balance the assets and liabilities of realism, as with the ledgers of a wrecked concern. Yet in England and America, The tatl|w ^ and indeed everywhere outside this reaUsm - eddy in a single European city, the currents of realism have by no means spent their force. Realism has wrought itself too thoroughly into the picture of the modern world, it is too significant a movement, to allow any doubt as to the permanence of its influence. It is true that in the opening years of the twen- tieth century we Americans are witnessing a sort of " Romantic Revival," whose devotees are complaisant toward any books that excite and entertain them. In the face of this un- appeasable and perfectly legitimate thirst for romance, has the realistic method vitality enough to hold its own ? In art, no method, of itself, has vitality; it is men that have vitality, of men, not mi i i. ol method. The only promise or permanent life for a novel is in the creative imagination of the writer. Everything else has been proved transient. No " ism " can save a book beyond an hour. The ultimate ques- tion in the art of fiction, therefore, is not 256 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION what is the method of to-day, of the future ; it is, what are the men who are to be back of the method ? In place, therefore, of speculating as to the future of realism, let us turn to the future realist, and assert what manner of man he must be if realism is to be credited with any coming triumphs. The assertion may be made very positively, it seems to me, and in very simple terms. " Guy de Maupassant sees," said Seeing, fel- J . r / ing, and a recent magazine writer, Pierre thinking. T t> i TIT i i i> . Loti ieels, Paul Bourget thinks. Each of these admirable but highly specialized artists represents a quality that is essential to the greatest writers of fiction. How clearly Maupassant sees, how sensitively Pierre Loti feels, how delicate and grave is the thinking of Bourget ! The organization, let us say, is perfect. But what does this one see, and that one feel, and the other one think ? Does Maupassant bring to us nothing more than the pitilessness of life, Loti the pathos of life, Bourget a sense of the confusion of life ? We have a right to demand of the future novelist that he shall see and feel and think. But he shall see things as they are, the world as it is; God's world. He shall feel in the men REALISM 257 and women around him the revelation of the mystery of life. He shall think nobly, be- cause truly. And his shall be such mastery of his material that no technical resource shall be unknown to him, no feat of creative im- agination too hard for him ; and by virtue of that mastery he shall make us see and feel and think, so that when we read his book it may be with the joy of deeper insight and quicker sympathy and a new hold on truth. Truth shall be the key word of his art, and the truth that he reveals shall be seen of us as beauty. When that man comes, I should call him a realist : but he is welcome to call himself an idealist, a romanticist, or any other name he likes. And while we are waiting, we can turn once more the pages of " Amelia " and " Henry Esmond " and " Adam Bede." CHAPTER X ROMANTICISM " I cannot get on with Books about the Daily Life which I find rather insufferable in practice about me. I never could read Miss Austen, nor (later) the famous George Eliot. Give me People, Places, and Things which I don't and can't see ; Antiquaries, Jeanie Deans, Dalgettys, etc. ... As to Thack- eray's, they are terrible ; I really look at them on the shelf and am half afraid to touch them. He, you know, could go deeper into the Springs of Common Action than these Ladies ; wonder- ful he is, but not Delightful, which one thirsts for as one geta old and dry." Edward FitzGerald to S. Laurence, December 30, 1875. " The discussion is quite vain, into which so many fishermen have gone, on the question whether the artificial fly is to be used on the imitation theory. Trout take some flies because they resemble the real fly on which they feed. They take other flies for no such reason. And in this they are like men." W. C. PRIME, I Go A-Fishing. its various ^ the discussion of romanticism, meanings. ag Q rea lig mj one { s fj rs t o f a ll con , fronted by the fact that the word is capable of many varieties of meaning. Its signifi- cance shifts as the critic passes from one country, one generation, one group of men, to another. Fortunately for the student of ROMANTICISM 259 literature, however, there have been many brilliant and scholarly treatises upon the char- acter and history of romanticism. Some of the most important books and articles upon the subject are mentioned in the bibliography for the present chapter in the Appendix. It will be sufficient for our present purpose to ex- plain the more general meanings which have been attached to the word, and to indicate briefly the role which romanticism has played in various national literatures. We can then pass to the discussion of romanticism in fic- tion, and endeavor to see what qualities it im- plies in the writer, the book, and the public. One of the most famous discus- sions of romanticism is to be found in Hegel's " ^Esthetics." He points out that in the evolution of art there are three phases which characterize different stages of its de- velopment. The first of these phases is the symbolic, in which, according to Hegel, the material element overmasters the spiritual element. Most architecture may be said to remain permanently in this symbolic stage. Next comes the classic phase, where the material and spiritual elements are in equi- librium. This phase is best represented by 260 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION sculpture. Finally comes the romantic phase, where the spiritual element predominates over the material, and which is best exemplified by the arts of music, painting, and poetry. Hegel points out, furthermore, that these three phases may be illustrated in the history of any one art. In sculpture, for instance, although as a whole it is predominantly classic, there may be traced distinctively sym- bolic, classic, and romantic periods. While later critics have shown that this analysis of Hegel's must be subjected to many modifi- cations, it remains an extremely suggestive one, and affords a convenient starting point for our own discussion, -classic" Every educated person is more mantle" " or ^ ess distinctly aware of certain qualities. qualities which, when evidenced in a work of art, are by common consent called " classic." These classic qualities may be indicated by terms like " purity of feeling," " reserve," " perfection of form." It is true that these qualities are often accompanied by such defects as coldness and formalism. There are likewise certain " romantic " quali- ties suggested by the very word itself ; for in- stance, freedom, warmth, expressiveness. In ROMANTICISM 261 attaining these qualities the artist frequently runs the risk of falling into lawlessness, into the caprices of a disordered imagination. What seems significant to him may be vague or even meaningless to us ; for the romantic artist, generally speaking, deals more with the emotional element than with the purely intellectual factors that enter into the work of art. But, however one may choose to 7 J . ninstrationg. denne classic and romantic charac- teristics, it is apparent that in all the arts it is possible to point out specific objects which are characterized by one or the other group of qualities already mentioned. Thus the Parthenon is classic ; Cologne Cathedral ro- mantic ; the Apollo Belvedere classic ; Ro- din's " Apollo " romantic ; the " Antigone " of Sophocles classic ; " A Midsummer Night's Dream " of Shakespeare romantic ; Beetho- ven's music in its general features at least classic ; Chopin's romantic. However widely critics may be inclined to differ in their assessment of the value of such repre- sentative works of art as those just named, they would agree in the general classification here given. We find, then, that it is possi- 262 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION ble to apply to literature, as well as to the other arts of expression, the term romantic. Let us try to see still more precisely what the word connotes. Romantio The last century is rich in ex- tnmatu : am pl es f romantic movements in England. literature. In England, Germany, and France there have been sharply denned romantic periods, illuminated by great names and producing memorable works. These periods have had their special characteristics, their peculiar modes of development and channels of expression. Yet underneath all these differences it is easy to see that common factors have been at work. In England, for instance, we can trace far back in the eight- eenth century the beginnings of the roman- tic temper. Professor Beers 1 and Professor Phelps 2 have devoted interesting chapters to the first impulses, feeble and imitative as these were, to break away from the frigid conven- tions into which the great Augustan tradi- 1 A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century. By H. A. Beers. New York : Henry Holt, 1899. See also A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century. By the same author. New York : Holt, 1901. 3 The Beginnings of the English Romantic Movement. By W. L. Phelps. Boston : Ginn, 1893. ROMANTICISM 263 tions had degenerated. The English romantic movement came to its perfect flowering in such men as Coleridge and Keats, Scott, Byron, and Shelley. Curious as were the differences that divided the leading English romanticists, making many of them bitter personal enemies, these men all held to certain tenets of a common creed. Like true children of Rousseau, they cried, " Back to nature," emphasizing particularly the picturesque and terrible aspects of natural scenery. But they cried also, " Back to simple, elemental feel- ing." From this point of view, two such apparently diverse poems as Wordsworth's " We are Seven " and Byron's " The Cor- sair " are in fundamental accord. And the English romanticists insisted, and with in- creasing fervor as the romantic movement drew toward its close, " Let us go back to history, to the manners and institutions of our forefathers." Yet curiously enough, though all the English romanticists were strongly interested in politics, the romantic movement in Great Britain left politics and religion practically untouched. The German romantic movement, ... In Germany. however, was, as many critics nave 264 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION pointed out, a Catholic renaissance. It was a revolt against the classic paganism of Goethe, Lessing, Winckelmann, and Schiller. It idolized Roman countries, such as Italy ; the authors of southern Europe, such as Calderon. In such representative German romanticists as Tieck, the Schlegel brothers, and Novalis, there is everywhere to be found a love of warmth and color, the worship of enthusiasm, the desire to become like little children in sensitiveness to impressions, in naivete of emotion. Professor Francke 1 has pointed out the three phases through which the German romantic movement swiftly ran its course : first, that of individual caprice ; second, fantastic sensualism ; and third, a flight into the land of the supernatural and miraculous. In politics, as it is scarcely necessary to say, the German romantic move- ment was reactionary. It strengthened the hands of absolutism in government as in religion. In France, on the other hand, In France. . the romantic movement was pagan and republican. Instead of worshiping the 1 Publications of the Modern Language Association. New aeries, Vol. Ill, No. 1. ROMANTICISM 266 authors of southern Europe, it was most strongly influenced by such men as Scott, Byron, and Shakespeare. That is to say, it was a German, a gothic romanticism, grafted upon the French stock. The French writers who came in the generation of the thirties, such as Victor Hugo, DeVigny, Musset, George Sand, and Balzac, rescued the French language from the classic formalism into which it was in danger of declining. They produced a wonderful literature, glowing with colors like those of the great romantic paint- ers Delacroix and Delaroche, and echoing with fantastic music like that of Berlioz and Chopin. They performed a great patriotic service likewise, and in their common worship of art they sustained the French tradition of intelligent, capable workmanship. Such ro- mantic literature as this is sure to have in its own day and generation an immense vogue. Whether it meets the literary canons of suc- ceeding generations, whether it contains in itself those elements which may one day be recognized as classic, is quite another matter. How slender, how colorless a literary product seems Goldsmith's " The Vicar of Wakefield " when compared with Victor Hugo's " Les 26G A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION Miserables " ! And yet, as the years go by, it does not seem hazardous to assert that " The Vicar of Wakefield " possesses certain qualities which are likely to insure for it a more enduring life than was imparted to " Les Miserables " by the splendid exuber- ance, the affluent fancy, the poignant tragic power of the great Frenchman. It is only through wideacquaint- Critical J - 1 terms are ance with the books written during one or all of these representatively romantic periods that one becomes gradually aware of the elasticity of meaning, as well as the persistent drift of meaning, that abides in the term " romanticism." One perceives the justice of some of the famous definitions which make it synonymous with "aspiration," "mystery," " the spirit of Christianity," "the emancipation of the ego," " liberalism in literature," " the renaissance of wonder," and " strangeness in beauty, rather than order in beauty." Yet many of these defi- nitions reveal their inadequacy the moment they are applied to other phases of romanti- cism than the particular one which has evoked the definition. Romantic material may be treated with the spirit of classicism ; ROMANTICISM 267 and conversely the romantic method may be applied to subjects that are severely classical, And there is a true and a false romanticism, just as there is a true and a false classicism. Professor Beers, in the preface to his " English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century," re- affirms his right to use romanticism as synony- mous with " medievalism," making it, in other words, the reproduction in modern art or liter- ature of the life or thought of the middle ages. The working value of this definition is indis- putable, although it needs, perhaps, the fur- ther explanation of medievalism which is given in these words of Walter Pater : " The essential elements, then, of the romantic spirit are curiosity and the love of beauty ; and it is only as an illustration of these qualities that it seeks the Mid- dle Age, because, in the overcharged atmosphere of the Middle Age, there are unworked sources of roman- tic effect, of a strange beauty, to be won, by strong imagination, out of things unlikely or remote." 1 There is another passage in this essay of Pater's which becomes particularly suggestive as one approaches the study of romanticism in fiction : "There are the born classicists who start with form, to whose minds the comeliness of the old, immemorial, 1 Appreciations, p. 26L 268 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION well-recognized types in art and literature have re vealed themselves impressively ; who will entertain no matter which will not go easily and flexibly into them ; whose work aspires only to be a variation upon, or study from the older masters. ' 'T is art's decline, my son ! ' they are always saying to the progressive element in their own generation ; to those who care for that which in fifty years' time every one will be caring for. On the other hand there are the born romanti- cists, who start with an original, untried matter, still in fusion ; who conceive this vividly, and hold by it as the essence of their work ; who, by the very vividness and heat of their conception, purge away, sooner or later, all that is not organically appropriate to it, till the whole effect adjusts itself in clear, orderly, propor- tionate form ; which form, after a very little time, be- comes classical in its turn. The romantic or classical character of a picture, a poem, a literary work, de- pends then on the balance of certain qualities in it ; and in this sense, a very real distinction may be drawn between good classical and good romantic work. But all critical terms are relative ; and there is at least a valuable suggestion in that theory of Stendhal's, that all good art was romantic in its day." 1 Romanticism Bearing in mind, therefore, that in ficuon. a u critical terms are relative," let us turn more definitely to the field of fiction. What is meant by romantic fiction, as com- pared with realistic and other types ? The definition of " romance " given in the Cen* tury Dictionary will be helpful : 1 Appreciations, p. 271. ROMANTICISM 269 " A tale in verse in one of the Romance dialects, as early French or Provencal. A popular epic. A ficti- tious story of heroic, marvelous, or supernatural inci- dents derived from history or legend. A tale or novel dealing not so much [sic] with real and familiar life as with extraordinary and often extravagant adventures 1 Don Quixote ') ; with rapid and violent changes in scene and fortunes (' Count of Monte Cristo ') ; with mysterious and supernatural events (- Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde ') ; or with morbid idiosyncrasies of tem- perament (' Caleb Williams ') ; or picturing imaginary conditions of society influenced by imaginary charac- ters (Fouque"'s ' Undine ')." The reader will note that I have taken the liberty of italicising the words " not so much." We are concerned with a question of relative emphasis. According to the relative amount of stress which it lays upon the extraordinary, the mysterious, the imaginary, does the ro- mance differ from the novel. What is the reason for this difference in emphasis ? For answer we must look to the .. ,. , . The mood of writer ot romance, and endeavor to the romantic see why he turns away from the common facts of experience. It is a question of mood. The romantic writer, as such, is dissatisfied with the artistic material furnished by every-day life. This is not saying that, as a man, he is dissatisfied with life ; that he 270 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION is a pessimist or a cynic. Poe was this, and Hawthorne was not, although both were romanticists. It is simply saying that when he wishes to construct a story, the romanti- cist desires to weave it out of different ma- terial from that which his every-day experi- ence offers. In the words of Don Quixote's niece, he wants " better bread than wheaten." He seeks not the violet that grows in com- mon fields, but some mysterious " blue flower," which forever eludes him. He por- trays, not some woman whom he has met that morning on the street, but a woman of his dreams. The images, the sounds that haunt his imagination, are not those of wearisome, reiterated reality. And it should be needless to say that all this is perfectly legitimate, that it is wholly in keeping with one mode of the artistic temperament. The romantic 1^ is * this characteristic of the atmosphwe. roman ti c writer that is due what we call the " atmosphere " of romantic works of fiction. No better description of it can be given than that which was penned by one of the most perfect masters of it Nathaniel Hawthorne in the well known preface to The House of the Seven Gables." ROMANTICISM 271 " When a writer calls his work a Romance, it need hardly be observed that he wishes to claim a certain latitude, both as to its fashion and material, which he would not have felt himself entitled to assume had he professed to be writing a Novel. The latter form of composition is presumed to aim at a very minute fidel- ity, not merely to the possible, but to the probable and ordinary course of man's experience. The former while as a work of art, it must rigidly subject itself to laws, and while it sins unpardonably so far as it may swerve aside from the truth of the human heart has fairly a right to present that truth under circumstances, to a great extent, of the writer's own choosing or crea- tion. If he think fit, also, he may so manage his atmospherical medium as to bring out or mellow the lights and deepen and enrich the shadows of the pic- ture. He will be wise, no doubt, to make a very mod- erate use of the privileges here stated, and, especially, to mingle the Marvellous rather as a slight, delicate, and evanescent flavor than as any portion of the actual substance of the dish offered to the public. He can hardly be said, however, to commit a literary crime even if he disregard this caution. " In the present work, the author has proposed to himself but with what success, fortunately, it is not for him to judge to keep undeviatingly within his im- munities. The point of view in which this tale comes under the Romantic definition lies in the attempt to connect a bygone time with the very present that is flitting away from us. It is a legend prolonging it- self, from an epoch now gray in the distance, down iato our own broad daylight, and bringing along with it some of its legendary mist, which the reader, accord- 272 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION ing to his pleasure, may either disregard, or allow it t float almost imperceptibly about the characters and events for the sake of a picturesque effect." It is needless to say that, in books like " The House of the Seven Gables," " The Scarlet Letter," or " The Marble Faun," the reader sees the personages and events of the story through the warm or sombre romantic medium, the special atmosphere which the author has created for him. In the most suc- cessful stories of Mr. Howells, on the other hand, the atmosphere is precisely that of Bos- ton or New York during the year or decade described in the story. The realist has suc- ceeded with singular skill in making a verti- cal sunlight strike upon his pages. To turn from such novels as these to the romances of Hawthorne is to pass from the clear, frank sunlight of high noon into the mist of dawn, the glow of the sunset, the wavering outlines of moonlight. Which atmosphere is more attractive depends upon the temperament, the momentary mood, the literary training of the individual reader. It is foolish to en- deavor to prove that one type of book as a type is better than the other. All that we are now concerned to see is that there is a ROMANTICISM 273 difference ; that the presence or absence of the romantic atmosphere largely determines the nature of a work of fiction. How is this atmosphere to be se- Remoteness cured ? The writer frequently com- of ttme< passes it by the simple expedient of placing his story in a remote period, where the very distance enhances the atmospheric effect. Mr. Crawford's " Zoroaster " will serve to illus- trate this type of romantic novel. The mere remoteness in time from our own day and generation is sufficient to give such a romance an appeal to the historic imagination. In- deed, almost all historical fiction is in this sense of the word romantic fiction. Now and again surprising efforts have been made, as in the Egyptian novels of George Ebers, to paint the personages and the scenes of re- mote antiquity with all the detailed accuracy of a chronicle of the present day. Such experiments in applying the realistic method to the depiction of historical personages and events have commonly failed, however, to im- part either any sense of reality or any roman- tic charm. It is surely wiser to follow the course of the great writers of historical ro- mance in avoiding a too curious consideration 274 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION of exact details. " Quentin Durward " and " The Talisman " are all wrong archseologi- cally, yet they are triumphs of fiction-writing none the less. strangeness There is, too, a romanticism which oi scene. owes its atmosphere to strangeness of place rather than remoteness of time. We know how the imaginations of Southey and Coleridge were affected by the sound of the syllables in the word Susquehanna, upon the banks of which unvisited, romantic stream they were desirous of founding a Utopian colony. That element of our human nature which constantly tempts us to belittle what is actually present, and to idealize and glo- rify what is beyond the field of our own vi- sion, is constantly playing into the hands of the romance-writer. Mr. Crawford's " Mr. Isaacs," for instance, seems, to one reading the story in England or America, to move in a sort of fairyland. But the traveler familiar with the East is likely to have met the actual Mr. Isaacs in his jewelry shop in Delhi, and to smile at the mere romance of place which has so moved the imagination of the untrav eled reader. ROMANTICISM 275 But remoteness of time and place i Theatmos- do not contribute more perfectly to pnere ot passion. the creation of romantic atmosphere than do quite modern and present circum- stances, provided these are viewed through an atmosphere of intense emotion. Let pas- sion enter, let fury or pathos or tragedy brood over the personages of a story, and it mat- ters little how sordid and prosaic the world in which the characters move. We have used Mr. Crawford's " Zoroaster " and " Mr. Isaacs " to exemplify certain types of roman- tic atmosphere. There is a chapter of his " Casa Braccio " where he describes the in- terior of an Italian restaurant in a fashion that would do credit to any realistic writer, but the vulgar interior is flooded with the intense light of passion and crime. The familiar outlines, the scents and odors and sights of the place are filled, as it were, by the mist of anguish and terror. To be able to accomplish such a feat as this is to prove one's self a master of the methods of romance. We have been looking at the Romantic writer of romances and at those sentiment in qualities in his books which make 276 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION it possible for them to convey an atmosphere of romantic sentiment. This sentiment would be ineffectual, however, if it were not for the corresponding, the reciprocal, sentiment on the part of the public itself. The public is never more like a healthy child than in its thirst for the exceptional and the exotic. I have chosen as one of the mottoes for this chapter the verdict of a veteran fisherman, who declares that " trout take some flies be- cause they resemble the real fly on which they feed. They take other flies for no such rea- son. And in this they are like men." In truth, we all like, at certain seasons, the strange, bright-colored creations of a novel- ist's fancy, and the more vividly they differ from the sober colors of reality the greater the pleasure they afford, m youth and To youth, colored as it is with age> romantic hues of its own devising, no fiction seems so improbable as to forbid acceptance. Old age, disillusionized by many adventures, by many voyages into far-off seas, loves to cheat itself once more with the swiftly spun web of romantic delusion. The first motto for the present chapter is a pas- sage from one of the letters of Edward Fitz* ROMANTICISM 277 Gerald regarding the novels of Thackeray. It was written in December, 1875, when Fitz- Gerald felt himself " old and dry," and in no mood for the fiction that deals with human life in its prof ounder aspects. Yet only three years before he was writing about Disraeli's romantic novel " Lothair : " " Altogether the Book is like a pleasant Magic Lan tern : when it is over I shall forget it : and shall want to return to what I do not forget ; some of Thackeray's monumental Figures of ' pauvre et triste Humanite*,' as Old Napoleon called it : Humanity in its depths, not in its superficial Appearances." There could scarcely be a better illustra- tion of the shifting moods of a sympathetic, sensitive reader than that given by these two passages from FitzGerald's letters. All of us, in certain hours of A literature weariness, of relaxation from the olevaslon - daily toil, of twilight dreaming, desire to forget the disappointments of actual experi- ence. Romantic fiction furnishes a literature of evasion. It allows us to escape from the complications, the fret, the strain of liv- ing. In such hours one is willing to leave the reading of realistic fiction to the strong, the courageous persons who have no fear of 278 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION the facts of life ; who prefer to face them, with all their terrible implications. It is enough for the rest of us, for the time being, at least, to wander away into some enchanted land " far from this our war." It is easy to understand, there- The " neo- f _ romantic fore, now the modern " neo-roman- movement." . ., . tic movement has arisen as a re- action against realism. It is impossible to analyze exactly these changes in the reading public's temper. They are as unaccountable, apparently as whimsical, as the variations in any other human appetite. But there are few sympathetic readers of modern English fiction who do not feel grateful for the books written by the younger men who, with Steven- son as their gallant leader, came into promi- nence during the last twenty years of the nineteenth century. Few or none of these men have revealed themselves as great per- sonalities seriously engaged in interpreting the more vital aspects of human experience. Sometimes one is even inclined to doubt whether most of them have very much to say. But they have at least performed the useful service of giving delight to their con- temporaries. Many of them have been mas- ROMANTICISM 279 ters of the story-telling art ; they have learned brevity of description, brilliancy of narrative, ready invention of situations and events. Their task, after all, is far less difficult than that of the author of great realistic fiction. The Spanish novelist Valdes has remarked, in the previously quoted preface to his novel " Sister St. Sulpice," " The talent of dazzling with strange events, of in- teresting by means of complicated intrigues and im- possible characters, is possessed to-day in Europe by several hundreds of writers, while there are not much more than a dozen of those who can awaken interest with the common acts of existence, and with the paint- ing of characters genuinely human." But these " hundreds of writers " have learned at least to avoid certain pitfalls into which the authors of realistic fiction have been apt to stumble. They have learned not to preach, not to go too far in depicting un- pleasant phases of life, and not to let a love of accuracy of detail persuade them into the composition of pages that are only weariness to the reader. In the long history of the English novel there has been no period when so many readable books have been written as in the last twenty-five years. Whether many 280 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION of these books are destined to last beyond the moment may naturally be doubted. The very variety and originality which captures the public attention for the season are often an obstacle to permanent literary fame. To quote once more from the preface to " Sister St. Sulpice : " " Extremely original works produce a lively impres- sion upon the public for the moment, but are speedily forgotten. And this is because their originality fre- quently lies in a deviation from the truth, and truth is not slow in reasserting its sway, because it alone is eter- nal and beautiful. The public does not admire the poet or novelist who holds the reins of his imagination and makes it serve his purpose, who understands how to give fit preparation to his work and writes with naturalness and good sense. And yet as a general rule these are the ones that become immortal." Romanticism No discussion of romantic fic- and idealism. fi on ^ adequate which leaves out of view the relation of romanticism to ideal- ism. Idealism is necessary, is inevitable, in every true work of art. It means building up a whole in accordance with the artist's idea ; it means freeing his material from ac- cidental elements so that he may express its real significance. There is as profound and far-reaching idealism in a realistic novel Uke ROMANTICISM 281 " Middlemarch " as there is in a romance like Sienkiewicz's " Fire and Sword." But many discussions of realism have devoted them- selves to pointing out a supposed antagonism between realism and idealism, as if no realis- tic novel could possibly express an ideal. By far the more vital contrast is, as we have seen, between realism and romanticism. That is to say, along what lines is the artist to work out his ideal? Is he to stand solidly upon the earth, to base his work upon the actualities of mortal experience, or is he to leave the earth behind him and go voyaging off into the blue ? Tolstoi's " Resurrection," with its frank inclusion of many repellent and painful aspects of human experience, is a thoroughly realistic piece of fiction. Yet its main theme is to show what sort of recon- struction of human society would be neces- sary if the teachings of the New Testament were really to be accepted as an actual rule of life. There could be no theme more ideal- istic than this. On the other hand, Miss Johnston's " To Have and to Hold " is a frankly romantic story, one in which the men are brave and the women beautiful ; where there are pirates and shipwrecks, sword and 282 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION saddle, battle, murder, and sudden death. It portrays such a state of society as never ex- isted in Colonial Virginia or anywhere else upon the face of the earth. It likewise is a piece of pure idealism ; it " leaves the ground to lose itself in the sky." But it is as truly romantic in its entire texture as Tolstoi's study of contemporary Russia is realistic. In the last analysis, therefore, What floes . J . . ' the novelist the question becomes simply this : think oi life ? .... What does the artist in fiction think of life ? If he believes it to be a good thing, the best thing God has given us, he may wish, and probably will wish, to keep his art close to it. Provided he have ideas, there is no danger that his work will lack idealism. But if, on the other hand, he desires " bet- ter bread than wheaten," if life does not seem to him very good, then he must surely dream out something different. He must create an imaginary world, whether in Colonial Vir- ginia or elsewhere, and keep his art close to that. He too, provided he have ideas, will not lack idealism. But whatever he thinks about life itself, about the conditions in which plain men and women move and form the shifting figures in the pattern of the eternal ROMANTICISM 283 human comedy, it is his task to make some- thing beautiful. He must give pleasure, no matter from what materials the texture of his craft is woven, no matter what method he chooses to adopt. Which material or which method gives the higher pleasure, the more permanent delight, to generations of read- ers, will depend entirely upon the readers themselves. It can never be settled by any theoretical discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of realistic or romantic art. CHAPTER XI THE QUESTION OF FORM " The form, it seems to me, is to be appreciated after the fact : then the author's choice has been made, his standard has been indicated ; then we can follow lines and directions, and compare tones and resemblances. Then, in a word, we can enjoy one of the most charming of pleasures, we can estimate quality, we can apply the test of execution." HENBY JAMES, Partial Portraits. TO be well I N one ^ * ne m ost genial pas- wrltten - sages of his "Partial Portraits," Mr. Henry James has described those Sun- day afternoon gatherings of a famous group of novelists in Flaubert's little salon, where the talk concerned itself mainly with the methods of the art of fiction. These men had long since passed beyond the point where they interested themselves with questions of morals or conscious purpose ; to them " the only duty of a novel was to be well written ; that merit included every other of which it was capable." Mtttsr, man. What does " well written " mean ? MM*, j t j s a q ues tion of form, of adapt- THE QUESTION OF FORM 285 ing means to ends. In the earlier chapters of this book we have been considering the material used by the novelist in its rela- tions to the material used by cognate arts, as well as with a view to its adaptability for the structural purposes of the fictionist. We have seen how the elements of character, plot, and setting lend themselves to the mould- ing imagination of the fiction-writer. We then studied the fiction-writer himself, en- deavoring to estimate the influence of his personality upon his conscious or unconscious selection of material. In the chapters devoted to realism and romanticism we saw that these tendencies these general fashions of envis- aging one's material are to be traced back to the writer's attitude towards life, as well as to the influence of the literary fashions prevailing in different periods of a national literature. We have now to observe the final step in the production of a work of fiction, that is to say, the writer's, choice of form, his mastery of language, in short, his skill in execution. The matter, the man, and the manner ; that, for better or worse, has been the order we have followed. 286 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION TheproYince I Q analyzing a writer's manner, oi rhetoric. ^^ -^ y g p ersona i adaptation of the literary means at his disposal to the end he has in view, we enter upon the territory of rhetoric. It is the students of rhetoric, of style, who have made the clearest exposi- tion of those various kinds of composition which are to be observed in prose fiction. They have furnished special treatises upon " The Literature of Feeling," l upon narra- tion 2 and description, 3 and they have illus- trated every variety of technical method from the practice of the modern fiction-writer. They have balanced the stylistic advantages and difficulties of such varying fictional forms as the romance and the novel, the allegory and the short story. It is not the purpose of the present chapter to take up such questions in detail. All that I shall endeavor to do is to point out to the serious reader of fiction some of the paths which he may follow, if he will, and then, in the suc- ceeding chapter, to select one typical form of 1 J. H. Gardiner, The Forms of Prose Literature. New York : Scribners. 8 W. T. Brewster, Prose Narration. New York : Holt. C. S. Baldwin, Prose Description. New York : Holt. THE QUESTION OF FORM 287 fiction, the short story, for more detailed treatment. For it is only the reader who . . The student takes his fiction rather seriously ana the 1-1 i \ if public. who is likely to interest himself in questions of form. The great public con- cerns itself chiefly with the " stuff " of a novel ; it simply asks : Does this new book impart any thrills of emotion ? Is it inter- esting ? Does it have a good " story " ? Does it give a glimpse of people and places worth knowing : Lincoln, Napoleon, Richard the Lion Heart; California, India, London, Paris ? Whether the book is " well written,'* in the technical sense, is a question concern- ing which the general public is quite indif- ferent. And it is a wholesome thing for the student of style in fiction to place himself, now and again, frankly on the territory occu- pied by the great public ; to remember that the " stuff " in itself has aBsthetic values that are never to be neglected or underrated, that there are sound human reasons for that preference of the untrained public for the " picture that tells a story " over the picture that is simply well painted. I have known novelists to hesitate and agonize over the 288 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION question of writing a certain story in the first person or the third person ; drafting it now under one form, now under another ; rejoicing over the technical opportunities of the autobiographical method, and mourning over its necessary limitations ; liking the objective, impartial " third person " point of view, yet finding it perhaps too cold and colorless for that particular story. This is a good example of those questions of pure form in which students of fiction and some writers of fiction take a natural interest, but towards which the public remains blandly in- different. If " Esmond " is a " good story," thinks the public, what earthly difference does it make whether it is written in the first person or the third person, or now in one and now in the other ? The present chapter, however, is written for the compara- tively few people who believe that the choice of form is significant, as bearing upon the total impression made by the story. But it should be remembered, variety oi in the first place, that the forms of prose fiction are extremely flexible. It is impossible, as we have seen, to apply to them the comparatively rigid rules that are THE QUESTION OF FORM 289 exemplified in the epic, the lyric, the drama. And even after a general choice of fictional form has been made let us say, for in- stance, in favor of the short story rather than the novel as the better artistic medium for the conveyance of a certain idea, a certain impression of life there are infinite pos- sible modifications of form, due to the vary- ing personal power of expression possessed by different writers. Turgenieff and Mr. Kip- ling, let us say, will both exercise an unerring instinct in determining that a given theme can be better presented in a dozen pages than in a hundred. But there the similarity of choice ends. The two men have different eyes, minds, hands. The brush-work is not the same ; no trained reader can possibly mis- take a page of Turgenieff for a page of Kipling. The selection of words, the order- ing of sentences, the arrangement of events, reveal the style of the individual workman. The contrast between two works in different genres for instance Trollope's "Barchester Towers" and one of Hardy's " Wessex Tales " involves not only all those differences in material and in personality which we have already discussed, but countless subtleties of 290 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION style, of manner. Such a comparative study implies, on the one hand, a knowledge of the technique of prose fiction considered as an abstract medium of expression, and on the other, the closest scrutiny of the com- mand of language, the individual power over words, possessed by these two writers. How is the student of fiction to ot style: train himself in such analysis? I know of no better method than that followed in such excellent handbooks as Minto's " Manual of English Prose Liter- ature " l or Clark's " English Prose Writers." 2 In Professor Minto's book, for example, there are careful studies of representative British authors, who are minutely examined under such headings as Life, Character, and Opin- ions, in order to insure, first of all, an intelli- gent knowledge of the man behind the book. Then the Elements of Style are considered : the Vocabulary, its constituents and charac- teristics, the Sentences and Paragraphs ; then the Qualities of Style, such as Simplicity, 1 William Minto, A Manual of English Prose Literature. New York and Boston : Ginn. 8 J. Scott Clark, A Study of English Prose Writers: A Laboratory Method. New York : Scribnera. THE QUESTION OF FORM 291 Clearness, Strength, Pathos, the Ludicrous, Melody, Harmony, Taste. His Figures of Speech are then analyzed and classified, and finally, taking a broader outlook, there is an estimate of the author's accomplishment in the varying kinds of composition, such as Description, Narration, Exposition, und Per- suasion. Professor Clark's method of , . , . . ., . . Clark's analytic study is similar in aim, laboratory although it differs in details. In his own words, " the method consists in de- termining the particular and distinctive fea- tures of a writer's style (using the term "style" in its wide sense), in sustaining that analysis by a very wide consensus of critical opinion, in illustrating the particular characteristics of each writer by voluminous and carefully se- lected extracts from his works, and in then requiring the pupil to find in the works of the writer parallel illustrations." In the sec- tion devoted to Dickens, for example, there is first a brief Biographical Outline, followed by a Bibliography on Dickens's style. Then follows a list of Particular Characteristics as pointed out by competent critics, each char- acteristic being also illustrated by extracts 292 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION from the novels. They are grouped under eleven heads : 1. Fondness for Caricature Exaggeration Grotesqueness. 2. Genial Humor. 3. Incarnation of Characteristics Single Strokes. 4. Descriptive Power Mi- nuteness of Observation Vividness. 5. Tender, sometimes Mawkish, Pathos. 6. Gayety Animal Spirits Good-Fellowship. 7. Sincerity Manliness Earnestness. 8. Broad Sympathy Plain, Practical Human- ity. 9. Dramatic Power. 10. Vulgarity Artificiality. 11. Diffuseness. Does all this sound rather school- The value of . _ , such disci- masterish ? It is schoolmasterish if pline. done pedantically, with over-literal- ness, and considered as an end in itself. But it is only by some such exact discipline in the appreciation of a literary product that "we can enjoy one of the most charming of pleasures, we can estimate quality, we can apply the test of execution." Let the reader take a single book of any of the masters of fiction, and devote a few days or weeks to writing out, with the most scrupulous care, such critical notes upon it as Minto and Clark have sug- gested. He will not only never regret the labor, but unless he is a born pedant, he will THE QUESTION OF FORM 293 read fiction thereafter with new eyes and a new delight. If he be a born pedant, unwill- ing to look beyond his own critical categories, unable to see the wood for the trees, then his soul has gone blind already, and a little more rhetorical analysis will not do it any harm. The standpoint of the present The writer's chapter, it will be observed, has olnt * vlew - hitherto been that of the reader of fiction. It is based upon the belief that the pleasure to be derived from novel reading is enhanced in proportion to one's intelligent perception of the nature of the writer's problems and of the skill with which he has overcome them. Let us now shift our point of view, and en- deavor to place ourselves in the position of the writer of fiction. Does his understanding of the theory and technique of his art con- tribute to his practical mastery of it? Un- derstanding is not mastery, of course ; yet for all except the geniuses who may be trusted to find their road across country it is the straightest path to mastery. It was to some purpose that George Eliot had perfected her theory of fiction at thirty-five, before she had written a line of fiction herself. If the 294 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION " young writer " has objectively studied the laws of fiction, as they have been commented upon by such skilled workmen as Mr. Henry James, Stevenson, Bourget, and many more, it is his own fault if he has not gained a clearer knowledge of what he is doing, as well as some measure of inspiration for his task. How far is technical excellence in ing is neces- the composition of fiction a matter sary? . . _ . , oi training ? It is surely a miscon- ception that no training at all is required, that if " you have it in you," all that is necessary is to take pen and paper and begin. One is about as likely to turn out a great work of fic- tion by following that programme as he would be to paint a great picture the first time he handled the brush. Yet it is certainly easier to write a tolerable novel the " first time try- ing " than to paint a tolerable picture. The reason is, obviously, that the artistic medium of fiction, namely, language, is a tool with which all of us are somewhat familiar. And if, besides possessing resources of language one has already trained himself, consciousl} or unconsciously, in the observation of va- ried types of character, in vivid narration and description, in the dramatic, the imaginative THE QUESTION OF FORM 296 way of confronting human life, he may with- out suspecting it be already a matured novel- ist in everything except the actual writing of the story. How many letter- writers still pos- sess these gifts in perfection ! From this point of view, such famous " first books " as Scott's " Waverley," written at forty-three, Richardson's " Pamela," written at fifty-one, and George Eliot's " Scenes from Clerical Life," written at thirty-five, are not such per- tinent examples of " the first time trying " as of the long general preparation for an unfore- seen, specific task. It should be noted, furthermore, that technical excellence in compo- hand ana sition is often gained more quickly than the intellectual processes which are also involved in the production of notable fiction. The early work of Thackeray, Hawthorne, Stevenson, and Mr. Kipling is an illustra- tion of the hand maturing before the mind. Hawthorne and Stevenson, in particular, wrote admirable English before they really had any- thing to say. The ultimate question con- cerning a novelist is, of course, a two-fold one : What does he have to say ? and how does he say it ? In the case of many novel- 296 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION ists who have achieved great things, the sec- ond part of the question can be answered favorably long before one can reply with any confidence to the first. There is a charming story of the youthful Tennyson brothers, Charles and Alfred, to the effect that they stayed at home from church one Sunday, and Charles, the elder, assigned to Alfred the roses in the rectory garden as a subject for a poem. Alfred, who was not many years out of the cradle, obediently filled his slate with verses. Whereupon his elder brother remarked with grave finality, "Al- fred, you can write ! " That verdict can be rendered upon many men up and down the world to-day, who seem, nevertheless, to find nothing worth writing about. But in the mean time it is something, at least, to be a master of the instrument. This may throw some liffht upon Can the art of . J IIP notion be the question first brought before fni]p)it? the public by Sir Walter Besant's lecture upon " The Art of Fiction," namely, whether that art can be taught. If by this question one means the technical handling of narration and description as media of expres- sion, it should be answered in the affirmative. THE QUESTION OF FORM 297 In that sense fiction-writing can be taught, precisely as versification or essay and oration writing are taught. Thousands of young people are practicing it every day in this coun- try, under the eye of competent instructors in rhetoric. How far the pupil may go will naturally depend more upon the pupil him- self than upon the mere method of instruc- tion. In the class in " description " there will be now and then a young Daudet, or a Sentimental Tommy with a preternatural in- stinct for the mot juste ; and in the class in " narration " some Charles Reade or Clark Russell will exhibit an astounding facility in spinning a yarn. But as a rule this delib- erate effort to apprentice one's self to the novel-writing trade gives the " young writer " very much what the "young reader" may also gain from it, that is, merely a quickened perception of the nature of the novelist's craft. I venture to add without com- Besant . B ment Sir Walter Besant's "Rules for Novel- Writers," as an interest- Wrlters -" ing contribution from a writer who has won honorable recognition for his work : 1. Prac- tice writing something original every day. 2, 298 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION Cultivate the habit of observation. 3. Work regularly at certain hours. 4. Read no rub- bish. 5. Aim at the formation of style. 6. Endeavor to be dramatic. 7. A great element of dramatic skill is selection. 8. Avoid the sin of writing about a character. 9. Never attempt to describe any kind of life except that with which you are familiar. 10. Learn as much as you can about men and women. 11. For the sake of forming a good natural style, and acquiring command of language, write poetry. Fewer books, But it may honestly be doubted if ana better. these rules, or any rules or course of discipline, will turn a naturally poor work- man into a good one. If some one could devise a set of rules that would discourage mediocrity from rushing into print, and reduce the ranks of fiction-writers instead of swell- ing them, he would deserve well of his gen- eration. What we need, surely, is not more novels, but higher tests of excellence. The training suggested in this chapter is primarily that which helps the reader to discern the good from the bad, the genuine product of thought and passion from the shoddy senti- mentality, the empty sound and fury of the THE QUESTION OF FORM 299 fiction that perishes in a day. That instinct for form which gives the final perfection to a novel cannot be imparted by the study of form ; it is born and not made ; it comes from some glimpse of enduring beauty as revealed to the true artist soul. CHAPTER XII THE SHORT STORY "For here, at least [in the short story], we have the condi- tions of perfect art ; there is no subdivision of interest ; the author can strike directly in, without preface, can move with determined step toward a conclusion, and can O highest privi- lege ! stop when he is done." THOMAS WENTWOKTH HIQGINSON. A tint from THE initial difficulty in discussing Thackeray. ^ ^ort Btory fa fa^ ^fr danger of taking one's subject either too seriously or else not seriously enough. If one could but hit upon the proper key at the outset, one might possibly hope to edify the strenuous reader, and at the same time to propitiate the frivolous. Let us make certain of our key, therefore, by promptly borrowing one ! And we will take our hint as to the real nature of the short story from that indisputable master of the long story, Thackeray. In his "Round- about Paper" " On a Lazy Idle Boy" there is a picture, all in six lines, of " a score of white- bearded, white-robed warriors, or grave sen- THE SHORT STORY 301 iors of the city, seated at the gate of Jaffa ' or Beyrout, and listening to the story-teller reciting his marvels out of The Arabian Nights." That picture, symbol as it was to Thackeray of the story-teller's role, may well hover in the background of one's memory as he discourses of the short story as a form of literary art. Is it a distinct form, with laws isitadis- and potencies that differentiate it tinctlonn? sharply from other types of literature ? This question is a sort of turnstile, through which one must wriggle, or over which one must boldly leap, in order to reach our field of in- vestigation. Some of my readers are familiar with a magazine article, written many years ago by Mr. Brander Matthews, entitled " The Philosophy of the Short-Story," and recently revised and issued as a little volume. 1 It will be observed that Professor Matthews spells " short-story " with a hyphen, and claims that the short-story, hyphenated, is something very different from a story that merely happens to be short. It is, he believes, a distinct 1 The Philosophy of the Short-Story. By Brander Mat- thews, D. C. L. New York : Longmans, Green and Com- pany, 1901. 302 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION species ; an art form by itself ; a new liter* ary genre, in short, characterized by com- pression, originality, ingenuity, a touch of fantasy, and by the fact that no love interest is needed to hold its parts together. Mr. Matthews gives pertinent illustrations of these characteristics, and comments in an in- teresting fashion upon recent British and American examples of the short-story. But one is tempted to ask if the white-bearded, white-robed warriors at the gate of Jaffa were not listening, centuries and centuries ago, to tales marked by compression, originality, in- genuity, a touch of fantasy, and all the other " notes " of this new type of literature. The critical trail blazed so plainly by the professor of dramatic litera- ture at Columbia has been followed by sev- eral authors of recent volumes devoted to the modern art of short story writing. 1 But story-telling, surely, is as old as the day when men first gathered round a camp-fire or wo- men huddled in a cave ! The study of com- parative folk-lore is teaching us every day how universal is the instinct for it. Even were we to leave out of view the literature of 1 See the Bibliography for the present chapter. THE SHORT STORY 303 oral tradition, and take the earlier written literature of any European people, for in- stance, the tales told by Chaucer and some of his Italian models, we should find these modern characteristics of originality, ingenu- ity, and the rest in almost unrivaled perfec- tion, and perhaps come to the conclusion of Chaucer himself, as he exclaims in whim- sical despair, " There is no new thing that is not old ! " And yet if the question be put point-blank, " Do not such short story writers as Stevenson, Mr. Kipling, Miss Jewett, Bret Harte, Daudet not to men- tion Poe and Hawthorne stand for a new movement, a distinct type of literature ? " one is bound to answer " Yes." Here is work that contrasts very strongly, not only with the Italian novella, and other medieval types, but even with the English and Ameri- can tales of two generations ago. Where lies the difference ? For Professor Matthews is surely right in holding that there is a dif- ference. It is safer to trace it, however, not in the external characteristics of this modern work, every feature of which can easily be paralleled in prehistoric myths, but rather in the attitude of the contemporary short 304 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION story writer toward his material, and in his conscious effort to achieve under certain con ditions a certain effect. And no one has defined this conscious attitude and aim so clearly as Edgar Allan Poe. In that perpetually quoted essay upon Hawthorne's " Tales," written in 1842 one of the earliest and to this day one of the best criticisms of Hawthorne Poe remarks : " Were I bidden to say how the highest genius could be most advantageously employed for the best display of its own powers, I should answer, without hesitation in the composition of a rhymed poem, not to exceed in length what might be perused in an hour. Within this limit alone can the highest order of true poetry exist. I need only here say, upon this topic, that in almost all classes of composition, the unity of effect or impression is a point of the greatest importance. It is clear, moreover, that this unity cannot be thoroughly preserved in productions whose perusal cannot be com- pleted at one sitting. We may continue the reading of a prose composition, from the very nature of prose itself, much longer than we can persevere, to any good purpose, in the perusal of a poem. This latter, if truly fulfilling the demands of the poetic sentiment, induces an exaltation of the soul which cannot be long sus- tained. All high excitements are necessarily transient. Thus a long poem is a paradox. And without unity of impression the deepest effects cannot be brought about. . . . THE SHORT STORY 305 "Were I called upon, however, to designate that class of composition which, next to such a poem as I have suggested, should best fulfill the demands of high genius should offer it the most advantageous field of exertion I should unhesitatingly speak of the prose tale, as Mr. Hawthorne has here exemplified it. I allude to the short prose narrative, requiring from a half hour to one or two hours in its perusal. The or- dinary novel is objectionable, from its length, for rea- sons already stated in substance. As it cannot be read at one sitting, it deprives itself, of course, of the im- mense force derivable from totality. Worldly interests intervening during the pauses of perusal, modify, annul, or counteract, in a greater or less degree, the impres- sions of the book. But simple cessation in reading would, of itself, be sufficient to destroy the true unity. In the brief tale, however, the author is enabled to carry out the fullness of his intention, be it what it may. During the hour of perusal the soul of the reader is at the writer's control. There are no external or extrinsic influences resulting from weariness or in- terruption. " A skillful literary artist has constructed a tale. If wise, he has not fashioned his thoughts to accommodate his incidents ; but having conceived, with deliberate care, a certain unique or single effect to be wrought out, he then invents such incidents, he then combines such events as may best aid him in establishing this preconceived effect. If his very initial sentence tend not to the outbringing of this effect, then he has failed in his first step. In the whole composition there should be no word written, of which the tendency, direct or indirect, is not to the one pree'stablished design. And 306 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION by such means, with such care and skill, a picture is at length painted which leaves in the mind of him who contemplates it with a kindred art, a sense of the full- est satisfaction. The idea of the tale has been pre- sented unblemished, because undisturbed ; and this is an end unattainable by the novel." The starting -^ we assen t to Poe's reasoning, point. we are a j. once U p On fi rm ground. The short story in prose literature corre- sponds, then, to the lyric in poetry ; like the lyric, its unity of effect turns largely upon its brevity ; and as there are well known laws of lyric structure which the lyric poet violates at his peril or obeys to his triumph, so the short story must observe certain conditions and may enjoy certain freedoms that are pe- culiar to itself. Doubtless our professional story-tellers seated before the gate of Jaffa or Beyrout had ages ago a naive, instinctive apprehension of these principles of their art ; but it is equally true that the story-writers of our own day, profiting by the accumulated experience of the race, responding quickly to international literary influences, prompt to learn from and to imitate one another, are consciously, and no doubt self-consciously, studying their art as it has never been studied THE SHORT STORY 307 before. Every magazine brings new experi- ments in method, or new variations of the old themes ; and it would speak ill for the in- telligence of these workmen if there could be no registration of results. Some such regis- tration may, at any rate, be attempted without being unduly dogmatic, and without making one's pleasure in a short story too solemn and heart-searching an affair. Every work of fiction, loner or , j i f .. / -, Characters, short, depends tor its charm and plot, and , 1 J setting. power as we have already seen upon one or all of three elements : the characters, the plot, and the setting. Here are certain persons, doing certain things, in certain circumstances ; and the fiction- writer tells us about one or another or all three of these phases of his theme. Sometimes he creates vivid characters, but does not know what to do with them ; sometimes he invents very intricate and thrilling plots, but the men and women remain nonentities ; sometimes he lavishes his skill on the background, the milieu, the manners and morals of the age, the all-enveloping natural forces or historic movements, while his heroes and heroines are 308 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION hurriedly pushed here and there into place, like dolls at a dolls' tea-party. But the mas- ters of fiction, one need hardly say, know how to beget men and women, and to make them march toward events, with the earth beneath their feet and overhead the sky. character- Suppose we turn to the first of drawing. these three potential elements of interest and ask what are the requirements of the short story as regards the delineation of character. Looking at the characters alone, and not, for the moment, at the plot or the setting, is there any difference between the short story and the novel ? There is this very obvious difference : if it is a character- story at all, the characters must be unique, original enough to catch the eye at once. Everybody knows that in a novel a common- place person may be made interesting by a deliberate, patient exposition of his various traits, precisely as we can learn to like very uninteresting persons in real life if circum- stances place them day after day at our el- bows. Who of us would not grow impatient with the early chapters of " The Newcomes," for instance, or " The Antiquary," if it were not for our faith that Thackeray and Scott THE SHORT STORY 309 know their business, and that every one of those commonplace people will contribute something in the end to the total effect ? And even where the gradual development of character, rather than the mere portrayal of character, is the theme of a novelist, as so frequently with George Eliot, how colorless may be the personality at the outset, how narrow the range of thought and experience portrayed ! Yet, in George Eliot's own words, " these commonplace people have a conscience, and have felt the sublime prompt- ing to do the painful right." They take on dignity from their moral struggle, whether the struggle ends in victory or defeat. By an infinite number of subtle touches they are made to grow and change before our eyes, like living, fascinating things. But all this takes time, far swutdevei- more time than is at the disposal opmeilt of the short story writer. If his special theme be the delineation of character, he dare not choose colorless characters ; if his theme is character-development, then that development must be hastened by striking experiences, like a plant forced in a hothouse instead of left to the natural conditions of sun and 310 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION cloud and shower. For instance, if it be a love story, the hero and heroine must begin their decisive battle at once, without the ad- vantage of a dozen chapters of preliminary skirmishing. If the hero is to be made into a villain or a saint, the chemistry must be of the swiftest ; that is to say, unusual forces are brought to bear upon somewhat unusual per- sonalities. It is an interesting consequence of this necessity for choosing the exceptional rather than the normal that, so far as the character-element is concerned, the influence of the modern short story is thrown upon the side of romanticism rather than of realism, riot alone And yet it is by no means neces- wlll serve. ^ that ^ ^^ gt()ry s h ou ld depend upon character-drawing for its effect. If its plot be sufficiently entertaining, comi- cal, novel, thrilling, the characters may be the merest lay figures and yet the story re- main an admirable work of art. Poe's tales of ratiocination, as he loved to call them, like "The Gold-Bug," " The Purloined Letter," or his tales of pseudo-science, like " A De- scent into the Maelstrom," are dependent for none of their power upon any interest attach- ing to character. The exercise of the pure THE SHORT STORY 311 logical faculty, or the wonder and the terror of the natural world, gives scope enough for that consummate craftsman. We have lately lost one of the most ingenious and delightful of American story-writers, whose tales of whimsical predicament illustrate this point very perfectly. Given the conception of "Negative Gravity," what comic possibili- ties unfold themselves, quite without refer- ence to the personality of the experimenter ! I should be slow to assert that the individual idiosyncrasies of the passengers aboard that remarkable vessel, The Thomas Hyke, do not heighten the effect produced by their singu- lar adventure, but they are not the essence of it. " The Lady or the Tiger ? " remains a perpetual riddle, does it not, precisely be- cause it asks : " What would a woman do in that predicament ? " Not what this par- ticular barbarian princess would do, for the author cunningly neglected to give her any individualized traits. We know nothing about her ; so that there are as many an- swers to the riddle as there are women in the world. We know tolerably well what choice would be made in those circumstances by a specific woman like Becky Sharp or Dorothea 312 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION Casaubon or Little Em'ly ; but to affirm what a woman would decide ? Ah, no ; Mr. Stockton was quite too clever to attempt that. Precisely the same obliteration Obliteration . J of personal ot personal traits is to be noted in some tales involving situations that are meant to be taken very seriously indeed. The reader will recall Poe's story of the Spanish Inquisition, entitled " The Pit and the Pendulum." The unfortunate victim of the inquisitors lies upon his back, strapped to the stone floor of his dungeon. Directly above him is suspended a huge pendulum, a crescent of glittering steel, razor-edged, which at every sweep to and fro lowers itself inch by inch towards the helpless captive. As he lies there, gazing frantically upon the terrific oscillations of that hissing steel, struggling, shrieking, or calculating with the calmness of despair, Poe paints with extraordinary vividness his sensations and his thoughts. But who is he ? He is nobody anybody, he is John Doe or Richard Roe, he is man under mortal agony not a particular man ; he has absolutely no individuality, save possibly in the ingenuity by means of THE SHORT STORY 313 which he finally escapes. I should not wish to imply that this is a defect in the story. By no means. Poe has wrought out, no doubt, precisely the effect he intended: the situation itself is enough without any specific characterization ; and yet suppose we had Daniel Deronda strapped to that floor, or Mr. Micawber, or Terence Mulvaney? At any rate, the sensations and passions and wily stratagems of these distinct personalities would be more interesting than the emotions of Poe's lay figure. The novelist who should place them there would be bound to tell us what they and no one else would feel and do in that extremity of anguish. Not to tell us would be to fail to make the most of the artistic possibilities of the situation. Poe's task, surely, was much less complex. " The Pit and the Pendulum " is perfect in its way; but if the incident had been introduced into a novel, a different perfection would have been demanded. Nor is it otherwise if we turn to Th ei,aok. that third element of effect in fie- groun(1 - tion ; namely, the circumstances or events en- veloping the characters and action of the tale. The nature of the short story is such 314 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION that both characters and action may be al- most without significance, provided the at- mosphere the place and time the back- ground is artistically portrayed. Here is the source of the perennial pleasure to be found in Mr. P. Deming's simple " Adiron- dack Stories." If the author can discover to us a new corner of the world, or sketch the familiar scene to our heart's desire, or il- lumine one of the great human occupations, as war, or commerce, or industry, he has it in his power, through this means alone, to give us the fullest satisfaction. The modern feeling for landscape, the modern curiosity about social conditions, the modern aesthetic sense for the characteristic rather than for the beautiful as such, all play into the short story writer's hands. Many a reader, no doubt, takes up Miss Wilkins's stories, not because he cares much about the people in them or what the people do, but just to breathe for twenty minutes the New England air if in truth that be the New England air ! You may even have homesickness for a place you have never seen, some Delectable Duchy in Cornwall, a window in Thrums, a Californian mining camp deserted before you THE SHORT STORY 315 were born, and Mr. Quiller Couch, or Mr. Barrie, or Bret Harte will take you there, and that is all you ask of them. The popu- larity which Stephen Crane's war stories en- joyed for a season was certainly not due to his characters, for his personages had no charac- ter not even names nor to the plot, for there was none. But the sights and sounds and odors and colors of War as Crane imagined War were plastered upon his vacant-minded heroes as you would stick a poster to a wall, and the trick was done. In other words, the setting was sufficient to pro- duce the intended effect. It is true, of course, that many , J The Wenfl- stones, and these perhaps or the ing oi these MIT c modes - highest rank, avail themselves or all three of these modes of impression. Bret Harte's " The Luck of Roaring Camp," Mr. Cable's " Posson Jone," Mr. Aldrich's " Mar- jorie Daw," Mr. Kipling's " The Man who would be King," Miss Jewett's " The Queen's Twin," Miss Wilkins's " A New Eng- land Nun," Dr. Bale's " The Man without a Country," present people and events and circumstances, blended into an artistic whole, that defies analysis. But because we some- 316 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION times receive full measure, pressed down and running over, we should not forget that the cup of delight may be filled in a simpler and less wonderful way. This thought suggests the con- Opportunities . aHordedto sideration oi another aspect or our the writer. theme ; namely, the opportunity which the short story, as a distinct type of literature, gives to the writer. We have seen indirectly that it enables him to use all his material, to spread before us any hints in the fields of character or action or setting which his notebook may contain. Mr. Henry James's stories very often impress one as chips from the workshop where his novels were built, or, to use a less mechanical metaphor, as an exploration of a tempting side path, of whose vistas he had caught a passing glimpse while pursuing some of his retreating and elusive major problems. It is obvious, likewise, that the short story gives a young writer most valuable experience at the least loss of time. He can tear up and try again. Alas, if he only would do so a little oftener ! He can test his fortune with the public through the magazines, without waiting to write his immortal book. For THE SHORT STORY 317 older men in whom the creative impulse is comparatively feeble, or manifested at long intervals only, the form of the short story makes possible the production of a small quantity of highly finished work. But these incidental advantages to the author himself are not so much to our present purpose as are certain artistic opportunities which his strict limits of space allow him. In the brief tale, then, he may . . Didacticism. be didactic without wearying his audience. Not to entangle one's self in the interminable question about the proper lim- its of didacticism in the art of fiction, one may assert that it is at least as fair to say to the author, " You may preach if you wish, but at your own risk," as it is to say to him, " You shall not preach at all, because I do not like to listen." Most of the greater Eng- lish fiction-writers, at any rate, have the hom- iletic habit. Dangerous as this habit is, uncomfortable as it makes us feel to get a sermon instead of a story, there is sometimes no great harm in a sermonette. " This is not a tale exactly. It is a tract," are the opening words of one of Mr. Kipling's stories, and the tale is no worse and likewise, it is true, no 318 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION better for its profession of a moral pur- pose. Many a tract, in this generation so suspicious of its preachers, has disguised it- self as a short story, and made good reading, too. For that matter, not to grow quite un- mindful of our white-robed, white-bearded company sitting all this time by the gate of Jaffa, there is a very pretty moral even in the artless tale of Aladdin's Lamp. Posing The story - writer, furthermore, prowemi. j^ ^ Q advantage over the novel- ist, that he can pose problems without an- swering them. When George Sand and Charles Dickens wrote novels to exhibit cer- tain defects in the organization of human society, they not only stated their case, but they had their triumphant solution of the difficulty. So it has been with the drama, until very recently. The younger Dumas had his own answer for every one of his pro- blem-plays. But with Ibsen came the fashion of staging the question at issue, in unmis- takable terms, and not even suggesting that one solution is better than another. " Here are the facts for you," says Ibsen ; " here are the modern emotions for you ; my work is done." In precisely similar fashion does THE SHORT STORY 319 a short story writer like Maupassant fling the facts in our face, brutally, pitilessly. We may make what we can of them; it is no- thing to him. He poses his grim problem with surpassing skill, and that is all. A novel written in this way grows intolerable, and one may suspect that the contemporary problem-novel is apt to be such an unspeak- able affair, not merely for its dubious themes and more than dubious style, but because it reveals so little power to " lay " the ghosts it raises. Again, the short story writer is ArtItTary always asking us to take a great premises - deal for granted. He begs to be aUowed to state his own premises. He portrays, for instance, some marital comedy or tragedy, ingeniously enough. We retort, " Yes ; but how could he have ever fallen in love with her in the first place ? " " Oh," replies the author off-hand, " that is another story." But if he were a novelist, he would not get off so easily. He might have to write twenty chapters, and go back three generations, to show why his hero fell in love with her in the first place. All that any fiction can do very naturally is to give us, as we com- 320 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION monly say, a mere cross-section of life. There are endless antecedents and consequents with which it has no concern ; but the cross-sec- tion of the story-writer is so much thinner that he escapes a thousand inconveniences, and even then considers it beneath him to explain his miracles. What is more, the laws of brevity Omission of unlovely and unity of effect compel him to details. .... i P TP i omit, in his portrayal ot lire and character, many details that are unlovely. Unless, like some very gifted fiction-writers of our time, he makes a conscientious search for the repulsive, it is easy for him to paint a pleasant picture. Bret Harte's earliest stories show this happy instinct for the aesthetic, for touching the sunny places in the lives of ex- tremely disreputable men. His gamblers are exhibited in their charming mood ; his out- casts are revealed to us at the one moment of self-denying tenderness which insures our sympathy. Such a selective method is per- fectly legitimate and necessary ; " The Luck of Roaring Camp " and " The Outcasts of Poker Flat " each contains but slightly more than four thousand words. All art is selec- tive, for that matter ; but were a novelist to THE SHORT STORY 321 take the personages of those stories and ex- hibit them as full-length figures, he would be bound to tell more of the truth about them, unpleasant as some of the details would be. Otherwise he would paint life in a wholly wrong perspective. Bret Harte's master, Charles Dickens, did not always escape this temptation to juggle with the general truth of things ; the pupil escaped it, in these early stories at least, simply because he was work- ing on a different scale. The space limits of the short story n / u ri i Tlie horril)le - allow its author likewise to make artistic use of the horrible, the morbid, the dreadful subjects too poignant to give any pleasure if they were forced upon the atten- tion throughout a novel. " The Black Cat," "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," "A Descent into the Maelstrom," are admirable examples of Poe's art ; but he was too skill- ful a workman not to know that that sort of thing if it be done at all must be done quickly. Four hundred pages of " The Black Cat " would be impossible. And last in our list of the dis- impr^,,,,. tinct advantages of the art form lsm- we are considering is the fact that it allows 322 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION a man to make use of the vaguest sugges- tions, a delicate symbolism, a poetic impres- sionism, fancies too tenuous to hold in the stout texture of the novel. Wide is the scope of the art of fiction ; it includes even this borderland of dreams. Poe's marvelous "Shadow, a Parable," "Silence, a Fable;" Hawthorne's "The Hollow of the Three Hills," or "The Snow -Image;" many a prose poem that might be cited from French and Russian writers, these illustrate the strange beauty and mystery of those twilight places where the vagrant imagination hovers for a moment and flutters on. It will be seen that all of the The under- lying opportunities that have been enu- prlnciple. 1 . . 1 merated the opportunity, namely, for innocent didacticism, for posing problems without answering them, for stating arbitrary premises, for omitting unlovely details and, conversely, for making beauty out of the hor- rible, and finally for poetic symbolism are connected with the fact that in the short story the powers of the reader are not kept long upon the stretch. The reader shares in the large liberty which the short story affords to the author. This type of prose literature, THE SHORT STORY 323 like the lyric in poetry, is such an old, and simple, and free mode of expressing the art- ist's personality ! As long as men are inter- esting to one another, as long as the infinite complexities of modern emotion play about situations that are as old as the race, so long will there be an opportunity for the free de- velopment of the short story as a literary form. Is there anything to be said upon the other side ? Are the distinct advantages of this art form accom- panied by any strict conditions, upon con- formity to which success depends ? For the brief tale demands, of one who would reach the foremost skill in it, two or three qualities that are really very rare. It calls for visual imagination of a high order : the power to see the object ; to pene- trate to its essential nature ; to select the one characteristic trait by which it may be re- presented. A novelist informs you that his heroine, let us say, is seated in a chair by the window. He tells you what she looks like : her attitude, figure, hair and eyes, and so forth. He can do this, and very often seems 324 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION to do it, without really seeing that individual woman or making us see her. His trained pencil merely sketches some one of the same general description, of about the equivalent hair and eyes, and so forth, seated by that general kind of window. If he does not suc- ceed in making her real to us in that pose, he has a hundred other opportunities before the novel ends. Recall how George Eliot pictures Dorothea in " Middlemarch," now in this position, now in that. If one scene does not present her vividly to us, the chances are that another will, and in the end, it is true, we have an absolutely distinct image of her. The short story writer, on the other hand, has but the one chance. His task, compared with that of the novelist, is like bringing down a flying bird with one bullet, instead of banging away with a whole hand- ful of birdshot and having another barrel in reserve. Study the descriptive epithets in Stevenson's short stories. How they bring down the object ! What an eye ! And what a hand! No adjective that does not paint a picture or record a judgment ! And if it were not for a boyish habit of showing off his skill and doing trick shots for us out THE SHORT STORY 32d of mere superfluity of cleverness, what judge of marksmanship would refuse Master Robert Louis Stevenson the prize ? An imagination that penetrates Style to the very heart of the matter ; a verbal magic that recreates for us what the imagination has seen, these are the tests of the tale-teller's genius. A novel may be high up in the second rank like Trollope's and Bulwer-Lytton's and lack somehow the literary touch. But the only short stories that survive the year or the decade are those that have this verbal finish, " fame's great antiseptic, style." To say that a short story at its best should have imagination and style is simple enough. To hunt through the magazines of any given month and find such a story is a very different matter. Out of the hundreds of stories printed every week in every civilized country, why do so few meet the supreme tests? To put it bluntly, does this form of literature present peculiar attrac- tions to mediocrity ? For answer, let us look at some Whftt Jt j^ of the qualities which the short JiJSSSf 5 Story fails to demand from those power> who use it. It will account in part for the number of short stories written. 326 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION Very obviously, to write a short story requires no sustained power of imagination. So accomplished a critic as Mr. Henry James believes that this is a purely artificial distinction ; he thinks that if you can im- agine at all, you can keep it up. Rus- kin went even farther. Every feat of the imagination, he declared, is easy for the man who performs it : the great feat is pos- sible only to the great artist ; yet if he can do it at all, he can do it easily. But as a mat- ter of fact, does not the power required to hold steadily before you your theme and per- sonages and the whole little world where the story moves correspond somewhat to the strength it takes to hold out a dumb-bell ? Any one can do it for a few seconds ; but in a few more seconds the arm sags ; it is only the trained athlete who can endure even to the minute's end. For Hawthorne to hold the people of " The Scarlet Letter " steadily in focus from November to February, to say nothing of six years' preliminary brood- ing, is surely more of an artistic feat than to write a short story between Tuesday and Fri- day. The three years and nine months of unremitting labor devoted to " Middlemarch " THE SHORT STORY 327 does not in itself afford any criterion of the value of the book ; but given George Eliot's brain power and artistic instinct to begin with, and then concentrate them for that pe- riod upon a single theme, and it is no wonder that the result is a masterpiece. "Jan van Eyck was never in a hurry," says Charles Reade of the great Flemish painter in " The Cloister and the Hearth," " Jan van Eyck was never in a hurry, and therefore the world will not forget him in a hurry." This sus- tained power of imagination, and the patient workmanship that keeps pace with it, are not demanded by the brief tale. It is a short distance race, and any one can run it indif- ferently well. Nor does the short story demand . , . , Sanity. ot its author essential sanity, breadth, and tolerance of view. How morbid does the genius of a Hoffmann, a Poe, a Mau- passant seem when placed alongside the sane and wholesome art of Scott and Fielding and Thackeray ! Sanity, balance, naturalness ; the novel stands or falls, in the long run, by these tests. But your short story writer may be fit for a madhouse and yet compose tales that shall be immortal. In other words, we 328 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION do not ask of him that he shall have a phi- losophy of life, in any broad, complete sense. It may be that Professor Masson, like a true Scotchman, insisted too much upon the intel- lectual element in the art of fiction when he declared, " Every artist is a thinker whether he knows it or not, and ultimately no artist will be found greater as an artist than he was as a thinker." But he points out here what must be the last of the distinctions we have drawn between the short story and the novel. When we read " Old Mortality," or " Pen- dennis," or " Daniel Deronda," we find in each book a certain philosophy, " a chart or plan of human life." Consciously or uncon- sciously held or formulated, it is nevertheless there. The novelist has his theory of this general scheme of things which enfolds us all, and he cannot write his novel without be- traying his theory. " He is a thinker whether he knows it or not." Deals with But the short story writer, with all iragmonts. res p ec t to him, need be nothing of the sort. He deals not with wholes, but with fragments ; not with the trend of the great march through the wide world, but with some particular aspect of the procession as it passes. THE SHORT STORY 329 His story may be, as we have seen, the merest sketch of a face, a comic attitude, a tragic incident ; it may be a lovely dream, or a hor- rid nightmare, or a page of words that haunt us like music. Yet he need not be consist- ent ; he need not think things through. One might almost maintain that there is more of an answer, implicit or explicit, to the great problems of human destiny in one book like " Vanity Fair " or " Adam Bede " than in all of Mr. Kipling's two or three hundred short stories taken together and Mr. Kip- ling is perhaps the most gifted story-teller of our time. Does not all this throw some light Easy utera _ upon the present popularity of the ture- short story with authors and public alike? Here is a form of literature easy to write and easy to read. The author is often paid as much for a story as he earns from the copy- rights of a novel, and it costs him one tenth the labor. The multiplication of magazines and other periodicals creates a constant mar- ket, with steadily rising prices. The quali- ties of imagination and style that go to the making of a first-rate short story are as rare as they ever were, but one is sometimes 330 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION tempted to think that the great newspaper and magazine reading public bothers itself very little about either style or imagination. The public pays its money and takes its choice. And there are other than these me- chanical and commercial reasons why the short story now holds the field. It is a kind of writing perfectly adapted to our over- driven generation, which rushes from one task or engagement to another, and between times, or on the way, snatches up a story. Our habit of nervous concentration for a brief period helps us indeed to crowd a great deal of pleasure into the half-hour of read- ing ; our incapacity for prolonged attention forces the author to keep within that limit, or exceed it at his peril. Affecting It nas been frequently declared other form. that thig popu l ar i t y Q f tne suorfc story is unfavorable to other forms of imagi- native literature. Many English critics have pointed out that the reaction against the three-volume novel, and particularly against George Eliot, has been caused by the univer- sal passion for the short story. And the short story is frequently made responsible for the alleged distaste of Americans for the THE SHORT STORY 331 essay. We are told that nobody reads mag- azine poetry, because the short stories are so much more interesting. In 'the presence of all such brisk Does anyway generalizations, it is prudent to ex- know? ercise a little wholesome skepticism. No one really knows. Each critic can easily find the sort of facts he is looking for. American short stories have probably trained the public to a certain expectation of technical excel- lence in narrative which has forced American novel-writers to do more careful work. But there are few of our novel-writers who exhibit a breadth and power commensurate with their opportunities, and it is precisely these quali- ties of breadth and power which an appren- ticeship to the art of short story writing seldom or never seems to impart. The wider truth, after all, is that literary criticism has no apparatus delicate enough to measure the currents, the depths and the tideways, the reactions and interactions of literary forms. Essays upon the evolution of literary types, when written by men like M. Brunetiere, are fascinating reading, and for the moment almost persuade you that there is such a thing as a real evolution of types, that is, 332 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION a definite replacement of a lower form by a higher. But the popular caprice of an hour upsets all your theories. Mr. Ho wells had no sooner proved, a few years ago, that a certain form of realism was the finally evolved type in fiction, than the great read- ing public promptly turned around and bought " Treasure Island." That does not prove " Treasure Island" a better story than " Silas Lapham ; " it proves simply that a trout that will rise to a brown hackle to-day will look at nothing but a white miller to-morrow ; and that when the men of the ice age grew tired of realistic anecdotes somebody yawned and poked the fire and called on a romanticist. One age, one stage of culture, one mood, calls for stories as naive, as grim and primitive in their stark savagery as an Icelandic saga ; another age, another mood, - nay, the whim that changes in each one of us between morn- ing and evening, chooses stories as delib- erately, consciously artificial as "The Fall of the House of Usher." Both types are ad- mirable, each in its own way, provided both stir the imagination. For the types will come and go and come again ; but the human hunger for fiction of some sort is never sated. THE SHORT STORY 333 Study the historical phases of the art of fiction as closely as one may, there come moments perhaps the close of a chapter is an appropriate time to confess it when one is tempted to say with Wilkie Collins that the whole art of fiction can be sum toed up in three precepts : " Make 'em laugh ; make 'em cry ; make 'em wait." The important thing, the really The won(ler . suggestive and touching and won- worldl derful thing, is that all these thousands of contemporary and ephemeral stories are laughed over and cried over and waited for by somebody. They are read, while the " large still books " are bound in full calf and buried. Do you remember Pomona in " Rud- der Grange " reading aloud in the kitchen every night after she had washed the dishes, spelling out with blundering tongue and beating heart : " Yell after yell re- sounded as he wildly sprang," or " Ha ha Lord Marmont thundered thou too shalt suffer"? We are all more or less like Pomona. We are chil- dren at bottom, after all is said, children un- der the story-teller's charm. Nansen's stout- hearted comrades tell stories to one another 334 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION while the Arctic ice drifts onward with the Fram ; Stevenson is nicknamed The Tale- Teller by the brown-limbed Samoans ; Chi- nese Gordon reads a story while waiting hopelessly waiting at Khartoum. What matter who performs the miracle that opens for us the doors of the wonder- world ? It may be one of that white-bearded company at the gate of Jaffa ; it may be an ardent French boy pouring out his heart along the bottom of a Paris newspaper; it may be some sober- suited New England woman in the decorous pages of " The Atlantic Monthly ; " it may be some wretched scribbler writing for his supper. No matter, if only the miracle is wrought; if we look out with new eyes upon the many-featured, habitable world; if we are thrilled by the pity and the beauty of this life of ours, itself brief as a tale that is told ; if we learn to know men and women better, and to love them more. CHAPTER XIII PRESENT TENDENCIES OF AMERICAN FIC- TION. " The literature of a people should be the record of its joys and sorrows, its aspirations and its shortcomings, its wisdom and its folly, the confidant of its soul. We cannot say that our own as yet suffices us, but I believe that he who stands, a hundred years hence, where I am standing now, conscious that he speaks to the most powerful and prosperous community ever devised or developed by man, will speak of our literature with the assur- ance of one who beholds what we hope for and aspire after, be- come a reality and a possession forever." JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL, Our Literature. (1889.) " Democracy in literature, as exemplified by the two great modern democrats in letters, Whitman and Tolstoi, means a new and more deeply religious way of looking at mankind, as well as at all the facts and objects of the visible world. It means, furthermore, the finding of new artistic motives and values in the people, in science and the modern spirit, in liberty, frater- nity, equality, in the materialism and industrialism of man's life as we know it in our day and land the carrying into imagina- tive fields the quality of common humanity, that which it shares with real things and with all open-air nature, with hunters, farm- ers, sailors, and real workers in all fields." JOHN BURROUGHS, Democracy and Literature. IN concluding this study of the & Difficulties art of prose fiction, let me attempt of an adequate a survey of the present tendencies 336 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION of the fiction of our own country. It goes without saying that such a survey presents difficulties of no ordinary kind. The field at which one must glance is so vast, the varie- ties of production are so numerous, the charac- teristics of the phenomena to be examined so changeable in their nature from year to year, that anything like an exact appreciation of our national fiction is out of the question. One must content oneself with suggestions, rather than with any detailed exposition ; with a statement of some of the conditions that enter into the question, rather than with any elaborate attempt at reaching a fixed formula. A knowledge ^ ne danger should be avoided oi the past at t k e ou t se t a danger never so insistent in its pressure as at present the danger, namely, of being too contempora- neous in one's point of view. Even in trying to take account of contemporary tendencies, a historic sense is the most valuable equipment for the task of criticism. A knowledge of what has been already accomplished in the world of fiction is essential if one is to have any sense of perspective, any power of valu- ing new claimants to the honors of the craft. TENDENCIES OF AMERICAN FICTION 337 The heavens are full of literary comets in these days, and their course can be measured only by reference to the fixed stars. Those trite sentences of advice to young readers, " When a new book comes out, read an old one," " Read no book until it is fifty years old," were never more applicable than now, and in the field of fiction. The multiplica- tion of periodicals issued in the interest of publishing houses, and for very practical reasons devoted to the glorification of new writers more or less at the expense of old ones, the personal gossip about the literary heroes of the hour, tend to confuse all one's ideas of proportion. A people gifted, like ourselves, with a sense of humor will sooner or later discount the extravagant adjectives used in the commercial exploitation of new books. But meanwhile there is a mischief in it all ; and the mischief is that the mind of the reading public is systematically jour- nalized. The little men, by dint of keeping their names before us, pass in many quarters for great men. The historic sense is bewil- dered, benumbed ; and when we attempt an appraisal of fiction-writers and of the art of fiction itself our opinions are sadly con- temporaneous. 338 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION flobact Before our judgment of a CUP- luty years, rent book or a current tendency can have any particular value, we must un- derstand the work of American novelists for at least the last half century. And it is a somewhat curious fact that if we wish to point to American fiction-writers who have won a secure place in the world's literature, we must go back fifty years or more to find our men. When an intelligent foreign critic asks us what writers of fiction America has to show, of quality and force worthy to be compared with the masters of the art else- where, whom can we name? Fenimore Cooper for one : the author of " The Leather Stocking Tales," " The Spy," and " The Pilot ; " the creator of Natty Bumppo, and Chingachgook, and Long Tom Coffin. His rank is unquestioned. And so is the rank of Nathaniel Hawthorne, who has a reserved seat for immortality if any one has. And there is a third candidate for universal hon- ors, a short story writer, Edgar Allan Poe. Hawthorne, Cooper, Poe ; these men are be- yond the need and the reach of literary log- rolling. TENDENCIES OF AMERICAN FICTION 339 But when we have mentioned TJie names - these three Americans, we have nearly or quite exhausted, not indeed our riches in native fiction, hut the roll-call of those who by common consent have won through the art of fiction a permanent fame. Irving' s reputation is rather that of an essay- ist, pioneer in a certain field of fiction though he was. One would hesitate to place beside the names of Cooper, Hawthorne, and Poe the name of the author of " Uncle Tom's Cabin," although no American book has ever had so wide a vogue in other countries, or wakened such intense emotion in our own. Bret Harte would have some suffrages, no doubt ; and many a critic would linger in- quiringly and affectionately over the names of Mark Twain, Howells, Aldrich, Stockton, James, Cable, Crawford, and many another living writer of admirable workmanship and honorable rank. But I suppose that there are few critics who would deliberately select among these later men a fourth to be placed in equality of universal recognition with that great trio who more than half a century ago were in the fullness of their power. 340 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION quantity ana However, three such men are duality. enough to give distinction to the first hundred years of American fiction-writ- ing. If we institute a comparison in quality between American and English and Conti- nental fiction, we have simply to point to Hawthorne alone. In bulk his contribution to the world's pleasure in the form of books is slender when set alongside the volumes of Scott or Dickens or Dumas, but in point of quality the quiet New Englander is easily the peer of the greatest story-writers of the world. Even when judged by the more un- satisfactory test of quantity of production, American fiction can nearly or quite hold its own with the fiction of England, France, or Germany. The figures of the book market, while interesting enough to the curious minded, are vitiated, for one who is trying to estimate the American output of fiction, by the fact of the immense circulation of some novels which are literature only by courtesy, but which affect statistics just as much as if they were literature. If we apply the test of mere quantity of production, we must take into account not only all these books that are " borderland dwellers " between literature TENDENCIES OF AMERICAN FICTION 341 and non-literature, but an immense supply of fiction that does not even pretend to be lit- erature any more than a clever space-reporter for a Sunday newspaper pretends that his work is literature. But putting all such books aside, it is still possible to select twenty or twenty-five American story- writers of the past forty years who have published enough good books to place American fiction well alongside of American poetry, and certainly far in advance of American music, painting, sculpture, or architecture. From this body of work is it pos- p reTalent sible to draw any conclusions as to JUJj'jyjJJ the character of our fiction ? Can 80iL we indicate the tendencies which have been prevalent in the past, which are now oper- ative, and which consequently are likely to characterize to a greater or less extent the American novel of the future ? There are at least three tendencies to which attention should be drawn. I cannot do better than follow here the suggestions of Professor Richardson, 1 who thinks that the first is the production of novels of the soil, that is, the 1 Charles F. Richardson, American Literature. 2 Tola New York : Putnam, 1889. 342 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION presentation of American types and scenes- The service of Fenimore Cooper in this direc- tion was a most important one. Before his time, Brockden Brown, for instance, had treated American themes, yet in so romantic a fashion as to disguise the reality. But Feni- more Cooper's backwoodsmen and sailors and frontier landscapes have the verity of nature herself. Hawthorne, too, did for New Eng- land, by very different methods, but with an equal honesty of rendering, what Cooper did for northern New York. Before the war, notes Professor Richardson, there were few attempts to delineate American home life in the various sections of the country ; but the improvement in American minor fiction since 1861 is largely owing to the attempt to de- scribe American life as it is. This tendency is growing more and more marked with every year ; it is very little, if at all, affected by the present revival of romanticism ; it has been helped, rather than hindered, by the sudden crop of historical novels. If every American county has not its novelist, its painter of manners, as Scotland is said to have had, at least every state can show fiction-writ- ers who aim to delineate local conditions as TENDENCIES OF AMERICAN FICTION 343 faithfully as they may, and there is every reason for thinking that this movement will be permanent. A second characteristic which .... , . Excellence In has hitherto marked American nc- a limited tion, and one that follows closely upon the first, is its excellence in a limited field, rather than any largeness of creative activity. The qualities which a foreign critic would be inclined to postulate theoretically about our fiction, reasoning from our im- mense territory, our still youthful zest, our boundless faith in ourselves, our resources, in short, the general "bigness" of things American, are precisely the qualities which our fiction has hitherto lacked. Instead of fertility of resource, consciousness of power, great canvases, broad strokes, brilliant color- ing, we find a predominance of small canvases, minute though admirable detail, neutral tints, an almost academic restraint, a consciousness of painting under the critic's eye. Ameri- can fiction lacks breadth and power. What Walt Whitman tried, with very imperfect success one must admit, to do in the field of " All- American " poetry, if I may use the phrase, no one has even attempted to do in &14 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION fiction. Some magazine critics have expressed the opinion that the cause of this is to be found in the fact that the conventional stand- ards, the critical atmosphere, of the effete At- lantic seaboard have hitherto been dominant in our literature. They profess to believe that when the " literary centre " of the coun- try is established at Chicago, or Indianapolis, or thereabouts, our fiction will assume a scale proportionate to the bigness of our continent. But this matter is not so simple as it looks, and the question whether excellence in a small way rather than largeness of creative activity will continue to characterize Ameri- can fiction is still to be solved. We may find some light thrown upon it in considering the relation of sectional to national fiction. Fundamental ^ third fact impressed upon the morality. student of the American novel is its fundamental morality. It is optimistic. Its outlook upon life is wholesome. The stain of doubtful morality or flaring immo- rality which has often tinged English and Con- tinental fiction, and made both the English and the American stage at times unspeakably foul, has left scarcely any imprint as yet upon the better known American story-writers. TENDENCIES OF AMERICAN FICTION 345 Our greater magazines have remained for the most part unsoiled. Bad as our " yellow " newspapers are, brazen as our stage often is, people who want the sex-novel, and want it prepared with any literary skill, have to import it from across the water. The outlook for the morality of the distinctively American novel seems assured. If our professional novelists have, in the last five years, withstood the temptation to win notoriety and money by risque books, we can confidently say of the American fiction of the future, that while it may not be national, and may not be great, it will have at least the negative virtue of being clean. We are now in a position to esti- ,. . i i i The"repra- mate the conditions which must be sentative" met by an American writer who hopes that his books may be in some true sense representative of -the national life. Why does not the " great American novel" which we talk about, and about which we prophesy, get itself written ? One diniculty in the path of the representative American novel has already been pointed out indi- rectly. It lies in the immensity of the field 346 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION to be covered ; the complexity of the phenom- ena which literature must interpret ; the mixture of races, customs, traditions, beliefs, ideals, upon this continent. We are a united nation, and have never been more conscious of the national life and more proud of it than since the twentieth century began its course. But literature is an affair of race as well as of nationality. Study the variety of names upon the signboards of any city ; watch the varying racial types in the faces of your fel- low citizens as you travel east or west, north or south. Who can be an adequate spokes- man for all this ? Homer is Greece, but Greece was a hand's breadth in comparison with us ; Dante is Florence, a single city ; Moliere, Paris, another city ; even Shakespeare, the " myriad-minded," was the spokesman of but one little island, though that was the England of Elizabeth. But the truth is that not one of these men was probably conscious of speaking for his country and his time. It is only a Balzac, a sort of gigantic child, who dares to set himself deliberately to the task of representing all France, and thereby the entire Human Comedy. As civilization wid- ens, as more and more subtle differentiations TENDENCIES OF AMERICAN FICTION 347 make themselves manifest in society, the task becomes increasingly greater. In a Walt Whitman rhapsody a man might venture to speak for " these States," but a writer of prose, in possession of his senses, would per- force decline any such prophetic function. Then, too, the tendency to the sectional production of sectional fiction, to flct ^ on - which allusion has just been made, has pre- vented our fiction from taking on even the semblance of national quality. By dint of keeping their eyes on the object, many of our best writers have studied but the narrowest of fields. They do not represent, or pretend to represent, with adequacy the entirety even of that limited province for which they stand as representative authors. We speak, for in- stance, of Mr. Cable, Miss Murfree, Mr. Page, Mr. Allen, Miss Johnston, Mr. Harris, Miss King, and a half dozen more, as representa- tives of the South in contemporary fiction ; but they exhibit as many Souths as there are writers. Who can select any one book of these skilled story-tellers and say, " Here is the South represented through the art o fiction " ? Or take New England, as inter- preted by such excellent and such different 348 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION writers as Mrs. Stowe, Miss Jewett, Miss Wilkins, Mrs. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward. Mrs. Stowe shows one New England, Miss Wilkins another ; each is marvelously true to the local color selected ; but you cannot take " Old Town Folks " and " Deephaven " and " Pembroke " and " A Singular Life " and say " Here is New England." At best you can say " Here is a part of New England." Now if there is a difference in passing from the Vermont or Massachusetts of Miss Wilkins to the Maine of Miss Jewett, think of the dif- ference in passing from these to the Virginia of Mr. Page, the Northwest of Mr. Garland, the California of Bret Harte, the Alaska of Mr. Jack London ! If we can scarcely find a thoroughly representative sectional novel, how shall we expect a representative national novel ? international -^ n additional element in the iniinenoe. denationalizing of our fiction lies in the fact that ours is peculiarly a day of international influences in literature. Com- munication between the book-producing coun- tries of the world is now so easy, the work of foreign authors so accessible, international gossip so entertaining and necessary to us, TENDENCIES OF AMERICAN FICTION 349 that it sometimes seems as if literature were adopting the socialists' programme of doing away with national lines altogether, of creat- ing a vast brotherhood of letters in which the accident of residence in Belgium or Scot- land or South Dakota counts for nothing. So far as Continental fiction makes its influ- ence felt in this country, it touches not so much the mass of readers as those who them- selves are producers of fiction. In some inter- esting statistics showing the hundred novels most often drawn from American public libraries, in the order of their popularity, gathered by Mr. Mabie for " The Forum "" a few years ago, the absence of modern French and Russian masters from the list was most noticeable. The American public does not read Turgenieff and Tolstoi, Flaubert and Daudet, Bjornson and D'Annunzio so very much ; indeed it reads them very little. But wherever writers of fiction gather, it is names like these that are discussed. And even for the general public, a book's foreign reputation is impressive, although the book may be little read here. A London reputa- tion, particularly, may make the fortune of a novel on this side of the Atlantic. For all oui 350 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION talk about outgrowing colonialism, we have never been more colonial than at present, though we call this spirit cosmopolitanism. A very pretty essay might be written to prove that the much-praised cosmopolitanism of some of our successful young novelists is only a sort of varnished provincialism, the real fibre of it differing not so very much from the innocent provincialism of the man who comes back from his first ten weeks' trip abroad and tells you buoyantly that he has " been everywhere and seen everything." Genuine pro- Now a genuine provincialism, as vinoiaiism. tne history of literature abundantly proves, is not a source of weakness. It is a strength. Carlyle was provincial. Scott was provincial. Burns and Wordsworth and Whit- tier were provincial. They were rooted in the soil, and by virtue of that they became repre- sentative. In our own political life, who have been our most truly representative men ? Webster, the rugged son of New Hampshire and Massachusetts, spoke as no other man spoke, "for the country and the whole coun- try." It was the gaunt rustic President from Kentucky and Illinois who has become, in Lowell's noble phrase, " our first American." TENDENCIES OF AMERICAN FICTION 351 Perhaps these figures outside the A representa- field of literature will help us to see tive man of the conditions for a representative national figure in literature. Those condi- tions can be met only by a powerful person- ality in harmony with its age. The person- ality must be great enough to take up into itself the great thoughts and feelings of its time, and transform them, personalize them, use them, and not be overwhelmed by them. Such a personality represents its age and country, not by the method of extension so much as by the method of intension, not by a wide superficial acquaintance with cities and with men, but by seeing deeply, and thinking deeply, and feeling deeply. It is by means of such power that Cooper and Hawthorne are American, as Fielding is Eng- lish, Victor Hugo French, and Turgenieff Russian. If the future grants us sufficiently powerful individuals, thoroughly American- ized, we shall have representative American novelists. A further question forces itself 1 Democracy. upon us, and one by no means easy to answer. How is our fiction to be affected by the vast democratic movement which is 352 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION changing the face of society throughout the civilized world ? There is at the present moment a reaction against liberalism in England and upon the continent, and a corre- sponding reaction against republicanism here. These reactions are more wide-spread than at any time for sixty years past, but they have been brought about by peculiar conditions, and no one supposes that they will ultimately block the wheels of advancing democracy. " The people will conquer in the end," as Byron prophesied as long ago as 1821. Now how will this triumph of the people affect literature ? Are we to have an epoch of distinctively democratic art, and if we are, what sort of fiction can we imagine as flourish- ing in that epoch ? Said J. A. Symonds, in his essay on " Democratic Art," " In past epochs the arts had a certain unconscious and spontaneous rapport with the nations which begat them, and with the central life-force of those nations at the moment of their flourishing. Whether that cen- tral energy was aristocratic, as in Hellas, or monarchic, as in France, or religious, as in mediaeval Europe, or intellectual, as in Renaissance Italy, or national, as in Elizabethan England, or widely diffused like a fine gust of popular intelligence, as in Japan, signified comparatively little. Art expressed what the people TENDENCIES OF AMERICAN FICTION 353 had of noblest and sincerest, and was appreciated by the people." Can there be anything like this in the new era toward which we are hastening? Mr. Symonds himself was compelled to give up the question as at present unanswerable. It is undeniable that the aristocratic tradi- tion still holds firm in almost all the arts. " Kings, princesses, and the symbols of chiv- alry," says the English critic Mr. Gosse, " are as essential to poetry as we now con- ceive it, as roses, stars, or nightingales," and he does not see what will be left if this romantic phraseology is done away with. " We shall certainly have left," retorted John Burroughs, " what we had before these aristocratic types and symbols came into vogue, namely, nature, life, man, God." But can poets and novelists find new artis- tic material in the people, the plain people who are so soon to hold the field? Walt Whitman declared, in a fine passage of his " Democratic Vistas," " Literature, strictly considered, has never recog- nized the People, and whatever may be said, does not to-day. I know nothing more rare even in this coun- try than a fit scientific estimate and reverent appre 354 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION ciation of the People of their measureless wealth of latent power and capacity, their vast artistic contrasts of lights and shades, with, in America, their entire reliability in emergencies, and a certain breadth of historic grandeur, of peace or war, far surpassing all the vaunted samples of book-heroes ... in all the records of the world." "The divine The question is simply this: average." JJ QW W 'JJ a j} fa e ph enomena o f a great democratic society be able to touch the poet or novelist imaginatively? " And I think no one has felt the significance of this ques- tion more adequately than Whitman. He has tried to answer it in his not very clearly expressed phrase about recognizing " the divine average." What he means by the di- vine average is simply the presence of the divine in average human beings. If we grant the presence of that element in the " average sensual man," an element which appeals to the sense of beauty and sublimity, which fires the imagination of the artist, then democratic art is possible. Without it there can never be any democratic art, and we had better stick to kings and princesses, to Prisoners of Zenda and Gentlemen of France. But if one has read Dickens or George Eliot or Kipling, or any of the Ameri- TENDENCIES OF AMERICAN FICTION 355 can novelists who have been faithful to the actual life of these United States, one knows that an art of fiction is even now in existence which does recognize the people, which re- veals, however imperfectly, the diviner quali- ties in the life of the ordinary man. How is the art of fiction destined Puture to be changed as this recognition is types- more and more widely made ? Will the real- istic or romantic type of fiction be best fitted to the needs of the coming democracy ? Per- haps this question, too, cannot be answered, and yet one or two assertions may fairly be made. Democracy insists increasingly upon conformity to ordinary types. It is a pitiless leveler, whether up or down. It is fatal to eccentricities, to extravagant personal char- acteristics, in a word, to a large part of the field from which romantic fiction draws its power. Romantic types of character, as far as they have external marks of peculiarity, are probably destined to extinction. And our sense of wonder at outward things is steadily diminishing. Marvels have grown stale to us. We no longer gape over the telegraph, the telephone, the " wireless ; " we shall gape at the flying machine for a few 356 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION days at longest. There will be one day no more unexplored corners of the world, no " road to Mandalay." We shall be forced to turn inward to discover the marvelous ; " Cathay and all its wonders " must be found in us or nowhere. The effect of all this upon fiction will be unmistakable. If novels of the outward life, of conformity to known facts and types, are written, they will be real- istic in method ; the old romantic fiction machinery will become the veriest lumber. There will come again an age of realism in fiction, if a fiction is desired which keeps close to life. We may imagine that the readers of that age will smile at Victor Hugo and praise " Middlemarch." But the history of literature has taught us that men have al- ways craved what I may call the fiction of compensation, the fiction that yields them what life cannot yield them. And as the inner world will then be the marvelous world, I imagine the fiction of compensation will take the form, not of adventures in South Seas and Dark Continents, but of the psycho' logical romance, pure and simple. Readers will then smile at " Treasure Island " and praise " Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." TENDENCIES OF AMERICAN FICTION 357 If all this appears, as perhaps it well may, too fanciful a picture, let theme "' us turn to the kind of subjects with which American novelists of the immediate future seem likely to occupy themselves. That there will be very shortly if indeed there is not already a reaction against over-pro- duction of Colonial, Revolutionary, and other types of American historical fiction, cannot be doubted But this is chiefly because the supply nan Temporarily outrun the demand. The story of our own ancestors and their struggles upon American soil will never lose its essential fascination when depicted, not by a horde of imitative weaklings, but by masters of the fictive art. The marvelous epic of the settlement of the western half of the continent still waits an adequate reciter. We have had already a legion of Civil War stories, and yet we have not begun to see the wealth of material which that epoch holds for the true imaginative artist. The romance of labor, of traffic, of politics, in our strangely composite civilization, has been perceived by a few writers ; but how much is still to be told ! For American social life is chan- ging, taking account of itself before worl(L 358 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION our eyes, readjusting itself, and a thousand subtle, delightful, forceful themes are thus laid open to the novelist. He will follow in the wake of all these social movements of the twentieth century as the sea-birds follow the steamer, sure of finding the fit morsel soon or late. But that simile is inapt ; the novelist is not like a creature watching the course of a mechanism ; he is a creature en- raptured with something that is itself alive, changing from hour to hour, unfolding, per- fecting itself from generation to generation. We talk of human nature being ever the same ; but nothing is falser to the facts of life and the process of the world's growth. Brute nature does remain the same. The ape and tiger of this hour are, so far as we know, exactly the same ape and tiger that our ancestors fought in the stone age. But the ape and tiger in us dies, though slowly ; the brute passions are not destined forever to sway the balance in our lives. The human spirit changes, widens, grows richer and more beautiful with the infinite years of man's history upon this planet. And over against this wonderful process of development stands the novelist, himself a part of it all, and yet TENDENCIES OF AMERICAN FICTION 359 one of its interpreters. If, watching that changing human spectacle, he finds no stories to tell, discovers no charm or beauty or so- lemnity, it is not because these things are not there, but because his eyes are holden. We need have no fear that the V M future American novelist will iail n&tloo. in power of expression. The tech- nical finish of his work is assured by the standard that has been already reached. Decade by decade one can mark the steady development of the American novelist in all that pertains to mere craftsmanship. But the value of his work will not turn primarily upon its technical excellence on the side of form. Cleverness of hand he will certainly possess ; but as I have said more than once already, cleverness of hand is not enough. If his work is to have any significant place in the literature of the world, he must learn to see and feel and think, and what he sees and feels and thinks will depend solely upon what he is himself. The " great American novel " will probably never be written by a man who suspects that he is doing anything of the sort. It is quite likely to come, as other greater things than novels come, 360 A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION "without observation." You and I Gen- tle Reader with whom I am parting company may never see it, but ultimately nothing is so certain as the triumph of the things of the spirit over the gross material forces of American civilization. Summer itself is not so sure in its coming as the imagination in its own time* APPENDIX APPENDIX SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY THE first chapter of this book gives an outline of the method of studying fiction which has been fol- lowed throughout the volume. Teachers and students who may desire to do further work for themselves along the lines here suggested, or in other fields of investigation, are advised to give that first chapter a second reading, in the light thrown upon it by the book as a whole. It will help them to remember the specific purpose of this volume, and to see the rela- tion between its method and that of other works to which the attention of the student should now be called. Some of my readers will be solitary students, free to follow any path they like into the pleasant fields of the theory and practice of story-writing. Others will be members of reading circles and clubs, where there is a definite although perhaps not very strenuous line of study mapped out in advance. Still others will, I hope, belong to school and college classes, bent upon serious endeavor to learn as much as possible about an art which has established its significance and value as an interpreter of modern life. In the bibliographies and other aids and suggestions for study which I shall now give, I have endeavored to keep in mind these 364 APPENDIX varying requirements of my readers. Some of the work outlined is extremely elementary. But I have &lso indicated some tasks which will need the full pow- ers of the student. The arrangement of this supple- mentary work is such, however, that teachers will find no difficulty, I trust, in selecting from it such courses of reading and topical exercises as shall best suit the spe- cific needs of their classes. I cannot urge too strongly the advisability of a detailed analytic study of some one representative novel, and, if possible, an acquaint, ance with the entire production of one of the greater novelists, before attempting more than a bird's-eye view of any national fiction as a whole. The average college student, in particular, needs training in the analysis of a single work, and in steady reflection upon the pro- blems presented by it, far more than he needs a greater familiarity with the novelists of his own day. Most of us will remain readers of fiction all our lives long, but the chosen time for the serious study of fiction is in those golden years when we first perceive the treasures of thought and imagination, the breathing images of passionate human life, revealed to us by the novelists. I BIBLIOGRAPHY a. Introductory : ^Esthetics. Since the method fol- lowed in our study is primarily that of aesthetic criti- cism, the student of the art of fiction should, if possi- ble, acquaint himself in some degree with the theory of the Fine Arts and their place in human life. For a APPENDIX 365 general survey of the field of Esthetics, see the arti- cles " Esthetics," by James Sully, and " Fine Arts," by Sidney Colvin, in the Encyclopaedia Brltannica. Bald- win Brown's The Fine Arts (University Extension Manuals, Scribners) is a useful handbook. Bosanquet's voluminous History of ^Esthetic (Macmillan) is ex- tremely valuable to the advanced student. See also his Three Lectures on ^Esthetic (N. Y., 1919), and K. Gordon's ^Esthetics (N. Y., 1909). Most of the standard treatises upon ^Esthetics are indicated in the card catalogue of any good library ; for an extended bibliography, consult Gayley and Scott, Methods and Materials of Literary Criticism (Ginn & Co., 1899). b. Introductory: Poetics. After this preliminary survey of the field of Esthetics, the student is recom- mended to acquaint himself with some of the many helpful discussions of poetic theory. How closely the field of Poetics is allied to that of Prose Fiction we have already seen in the second and third chapters. The most famous of all treatises on Poetics is that of Aristotle. There are many good translations ; the admirable one by Professor S. H. Butcher (Macmil- lan, 2d ed., 1898) is enriched by interpretative essays dealing with the disputable passages. A general bibli- ography for Poetics, with brief comment upon the im- portant treatises, will be found in Gayley and Scott. The article on " Poetry " by Theodore Watts in the Encyclopaedia Britannica is noteworthy. Gummere's Poetics (Ginn & Co.) is an excellent brief handbook ; see also his Beginnings of Poetry (Macmillan, 1901) and W. J. Courthope's Life in Poetry Law in Taste (Macmillan, 1901). Volumes like Stedman's Nature and Elements of Poetry (Houghton MilHin Co.) and 366 APPENDIX C. C. Everett's Poetry, Comedy, and Duty (Houston Mifflin Co.) are stimulating. See also Fairchild's Mak- ing of Poetry (N. Y., 1912), Eastman's Enjoyment of Poetry (N. Y., 1913), Neilson's Essentials of Poetry (Boston, 1912), Newbolt's New Study of English Po- etry (N. Y., 1919), Lowes's Convention and Revolt in Poetry (Boston, 1919), Untermeyer's New Era in American Poetry (N. Y., 1919), and the bibliography in Bliss Perry's Study of Poetry (Boston, 1920). That portion of the territory of Poetics which is occupied with the Theory of the Drama is especially important for the student of fiction. Useful books are Freytag's Technique of the Drama (Eng. trans., S. C. Griggs & Co.), Elisabeth Woodbridge's The Drama; its Law and Technique (Allyn & Bacon), Alfred Hen- nequin's Art of Play Writing (Houghton Mifflin Co.), Price's Technique of the Drama (Brentano), Moulton's Ancient Classical Drama and Shakespeare as a Dra- matic Artist (Macmillan), Clayton Hamilton's Theory of the Theatre (N. Y., 1910), Studies in Stagecraft (N. Y., 1914), and Problems of the Playwright (N. Y., 1917), William Archer's Play-making (London, 19 12), Brander Matthews's Study of the Drama (Boston, 1910), Hen- derson's Changing Drama (N. Y., 1914), and G. P. Baker's Development of Shakespeare as a Dramatist (N. Y., 1907) and Dramatic Technique (Boston, 1919). c. Prose Fiction: Historical. Two admirable sketches of the history of English prose fiction are Walter Raleigh's The English Novel (Scribners, 1894) and Wilbur L. Cross's The Development of the English Novel (Macmillan, 1899). Dunlop's History of Prose fiction (2 vols., revised edition by Wilson, Bohn, 1896) is a standard work of reference. F. M. Warren's APPENDIX 367 History of the Novel Previous to the Seventeenth Cen- tury (Holt, 1895), Jusserand's English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare (London, 1890), Saintsbury 's The English Novel (N. Y., 1913), Hopkins and Hughes's English Novel before the Nineteenth Century (Boston, 1915), Chandler's Literature of Roguery (2 vols., Bos- ton, 1907), W. L. Phelps's Advance of the English Novel (N. Y., 1916), E. A. Baker's Descriptive Guide to the Best Fiction (N. Y., 1913), the Bibliographical Notesin the Appendix to Cross, and the Bibliography pref- aced to the first volume of Wilson's edition of Dunlop. d. Prose fiction : Philosophical and Critical. Sug- gestive discussions of general tendencies in modern fic- tion are found in F. H. Stoddard's The Evolution of the English Novel (Macmillan, 1899), Sidney Lanier's The English Novel (Scribners, revised edition, 1897), D. G. Thompson's Philosophy of Fiction in Literature (Long- mans, 1890), Zola's Le Roman Experimental (Eng. trans., Cassell, N. Y.), Brunetiere's Le Roman Na- turaliste (Paris), Spielhagen's Beitrage zur Theorie und Technik des Romans (Berlin), C. T. Winchester's Prin- ciples of Literary Criticism (Macmillan), Howells's Criticism and Fiction (Harpers), F. Marion Crawford's The Novel : What It Is (Macmillan), Sir Walter Besant's lecture on "The Art of Fiction" (Cupples,Upham&Co., Boston, 1885) , Henry James's essay in rejoinder on " The Art of Fiction " in Partial Portraits (Macmillan), R. L. Stevenson's " A Humble Remonstrance " addressed to Mr. James (reprinted in Memories and Portraits), Bran- der Matthews's The Historical Novel and Other Es- says and Aspects of Fiction (Scribners), Paul Bourget's " Reflexions sur 1'Art du Roman " in Etudes et Por- traits. See also Whitcomb's The Study of a Novel 368 APPENDIX (Boston, 1905), Home's Technique of the Novel (N. Y., 1908), Maxcy's Rhetorical Principles of Narration (Boston, 1911), W. L. Phelps's Essays on Modern Novelists (N. Y., 1910), Wilson Follett's The Modern Novel (N. Y., 1918), Clayton Hamilton's Man- ual of the Art of Fiction (N. Y., 1918), and Stuart Sherman's Contemporary Literature (N. Y., 1917). e. Prose Motion : Special Topics. Articles upon the various aspects of fiction have been frequent in periodi- cal literature, especially since 1880. For these, consult Poole's Index to Periodical Literature. Excellent com- ment upon novels and novelists is to be found in reviews and critical articles in periodicals ; if Poole's Index is not at hand, the index to the periodical itself will often put the student upon the track of helpful material. Biog- raphies of the great novelists, and their Notebooks and Letters, are full of suggestive comment upon their art. The footnotes to the various chapters of the present work give occasional references to books bearing par- ticularly upon the subject of each chapter; but as I have wished to keep the text as free as possible from notes, I will add here a few suggestions for special reading in connection with some of the main topics of the book. In studying chapter iii. for instance, it will be well to take as supplementary reading some of the books already mentioned under &, and especially Gummere's Poetics and Watts's article. For chapter iii., note especially Freytag, Woodbridge, Hamilton, Archer, Matthews, and Baker. For chapter iv., note Edward Dowden's Studies in Literature, J. Wedgwood on " The Ethics of Liter- ature " in Contemporary Review, January, 1897, and W. J. Stillman on "The Revival of Art" in the At' lantic, vol. Ixx. APPENDIX 369 In connection with chapters v., vi., and vii., the most profitable work is a first-hand study of the practice of various novelists, as indicated below under II. Topics for Study. For chapter viii., see Ruskin's " Art and Morals " in Lectures on Art, D. G. Thompson, chapter xiii., Lanier, chapter xii., Stoddard, chapter v., John La Farge's Considerations on Painting, Lecture II. (Macmillan), Charles F. Johnson's Elements of Liter- ary Criticism, chapter iv. (Harpers), and S. Sherman's Contemporary Literature, chapter xi. In connection with the discussion of Realism in chap- ter ix., see Howells's Criticism and Fiction, the chapter on Realism in W. C. Brownell's French Art (Scribners), ValdeYs Preface to Sister St. Sulpice (Crowell), Cross, chapters v. and vi., and Hamilton's Manual, chapter ii. Romanticism (chapter x.) is discussed in many recent volumes, such as the books of Beers and Phelps referred to on p. 262. See also Pater's essay in the Postscript of Appreciations, F. H. Hedge's article in the Atlantic, vol. Ivii., T. S. Omond's The Triumph of Romance (Scrib- ners), W. P. Ker's Epic and Romance (Macmillan), P. E. More's Drift of Romanticism (Boston, 1913), and consult the Bibliography furnished by Professor Beers. For chapter xi., see the references in the text to Minto, Clark, Gardner, Brewster, and Baldwin, and the critical essays of James, Stevenson, Brunetiere, Bourget, and other acute contemporary students of literary form. For chapter xii., compare Poe's criticism of Haw- thorne in Graham's Magazine, 1842 (in vol. vii. of the Stedman-Woodberry edition; Stone &Kimball), Brander Matthews's The Philosophy of the Short-Story (Long- mans, 1901), W. M. Hart's Hawthorne and the Short 370 APPENDIX Story (Berkeley, Cal., 1900), J. Berg Esenwein's Writ- ing the Short Story (N. Y., 1908) and Studying the Short Story (N. Y., 1912), E. M. Albright's The Short Story (N. Y., 1907), W. B. Pitkin's Art and Business of Story Writing (N. Y., 1912), H. S. Canby's The Short Story in English (N. Y., 1909) and A Study of the Short Story (N. Y., 1913), Notestein and Dunn's The Modern Short Story (N. Y., 1914), and H. T. Baker's The Contemporary Short Story (Boston, 1916); Edward J. O'Brien has collected in annual volumes the best short stories appearing in 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918, and 1919 (Boston) ; see Blanche Colton Williams's How to Study 'The Best Short Stories' (Boston, 1919). Collections of various short stories are now numerous : see Waite and Taylor's Modern Masterpieces of Short Prose Fiction (N Y., 1911), Stuart Sherman's A Book of Short Stories (N. Y., 1916), C. S. Baldwin's American Short Stories (N. Y., 1904), Sherwin Cody's The World's Greatest Short Stories (Chicago, 1902), Campbell and Rice's A Book of Narratives (Boston, 1917), C. L. Maxcy's Representative Narratives (Bos- ton, 1914). For chapter xiii., see Walt Whitman's " Democratic Vistas," Lowell's address on " Democracy," J. A. Symonds's " Democratic Literature " in Essays Specu- lative and Suggestive, W. H. Crawshaw's Literary Interpretation of Life, chapters v.-vii. (Macmillan), -C. F. Richardson's American Literature, vol. ii. (Put- nam, 1889), W. C. Bronson's Short History of Amer- ican Literature (Heath, 1901), Barrett Wendell's His- tory of Literature in America (Scribners, 1901), and A. G. Newcomer's American Literature (Scott, Fores- 111:111 & Co., 1901). Compare also F. L. Puttee's A Hi APPENDIX 371 tory of American Literature since 1870 (N. Y., 1916), and Bliss Perry's The American Mind (Boston, 1912) and The Spirit of American Literature (N. Y., 1918). f. Representative English Novels. To students desir- ing to understand the historical development of English fiction in its main outlines, the following list of typical productions is suggested: Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia (1590), Bunyan'sPiYgrrtra's Progress (1678-84), Swift's Tale of a Tub (1704), Defoe's Captain Singleton (1720) , Richardson's Pamela (1740) , Fielding's A mella (1751), Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield (1766), Ann Radcliffe's Mysteries of Udolpho (1794), Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice (1812), Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe (1820), Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre (1847), Thack- eray's Vanity Fair (1847-48), Dickens's .David Copper- field (1849-50), Trollope's Barchester Towers (1857), George Eliot's Middlemarch (1871-72), Hardy's Be- turn of the Native (1878), Stevenson's Treasure Island (1883), Meredith's Diana of the Crossways (1884), Kipling's Jungle-Book (1894), Conrad's Nigger of the Narcissus (1897), Butler's Way of All Flesh (1903), De Morgan's Joseph Vance (1906), Bennett's Old Wives' Tale (1908), Wells's Tono-Bungay (1909), Galsworthy's The Patrician (1911). g. Representative American Novels. The following stories are fairly representative of the tendencies of American fiction: Brockden Brown's Wieland (1798), Irving' 's Sketch Book (1819), Cooper's Last of the Mohi- cans (1826), Poe's Tales of the Grotesque and Ara- besque (1839), Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter (1850), Mrs. Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852), Bret Harte's Luck of Roaring Camp (1870), Eggleston's Hoosier School- master (1871), Clemens's [Mark Twain] Tom Sawyer 372 APPENDIX (1876), Henry James's The American (1877), Howells's Rise of Silas Lapham (1885), Cable's Grandissimes (1880), Harris's Uncle Remus (1880), Miss Wilkins's Humble Romance (1887), James Lane Allen's Ken- tucky Cardinal (1894), Weir Mitchell's Hugh Wynne (1897), Owen Wister's The Virginian (1902), Jack London's Call of the Wild (1903), Edith Wharton's House of Mirth (1905), Winston Churchill's Coniston (1906), O. Henry's Voice of the City (1908), Margaret Deland's Iron Woman (1911), Dorothy Canlield's Bent Twig (1915), Booth Tarkington's The Turmoil (1915). II TOPICS FOR STUDY It cannot be emphasized too often that the aim of this Study of Prose Fiction is to help students to use their own eyes and minds. Topics for independent study may be assigned in connection with almost all the chapters in the book, but v., vi., and vii. are par- ticularly well adapted for this kind of work. For in- stance, the student may be asked to write a brief paper, as the result of independent study in any author, of one or more of the following topics : 1. Character-Studies. (See chapter v.) A character embodying but one quality or passion. A complex character with one trait in predominance. A complex character consisting of evenly balanced opposing forces. A character involved in a conscious moral struggle, successful or otherwise ; in an uncon- scums moral struggle. Deterioration, with or without ft struggle. A character developing under prosperity ; APPENDIX 373 adversity; old age; influence of other personalities ; of religion, art, philosophy. A character illustrating professional, class, or national traits. A character ful- filling the requirements of its role as villain, lover, heroine, etc. A " plot-ridden " character. Character- contrasts : in the family ; among friends ; in wider relations. Character-grouping . as regards the unify- ing principle, subordination of parts, place in the book as a whole. 2. Studies in Plot. (See chapter vi.) An incident as revealing character. A situation as determining character. A climax in its relation to the theme. A catastrophe as poetic justice ; as illus- trative of the individual philosophy of the writer ; as unsatisfactory to the reader. Plot complication and resolution as dictated by character. Accident as a complicating force ; a resolving force. Fate as a re- solving force. Mystification in plot. Anticlimax in plot. Plot as determined by the characters. Sustain- ing of plot-interest. A perfect plot. A sub-plot as reflecting, depending upon, or artificially joined to the main plot. A plot as influenced by the setting. 3. Studies in Setting. (See chapter vii.) A given novel as illustrating the time and place of its setting ; for instance, the Egyptian, Oriental, Greek, Roman, or mediaeval world. The setting of a novel whose scenes are laid in a part of America with which you are personally familiar ; for instance, a Tennessee, Virginia, New York, New England, California story. A setting making artistic use of one of the great occu- pations of men : as politics, war, commerce, manufao* 374 APPENDIX turing, farming, mining, travel, student life, life of the unemployed poor, the unemployed rich. A setting fur- nished by institutions or ideas prevalent in society : as feudalism, democracy, socialism, patriotism, religion. The sea, the mountains, the city, the village, the coun- try, as setting for a given story. A landscape setting which harmonizes with the characters ; contrasts with the characters ; affects the incidents ; determines the situations ; gives unity to the book. Ill ORIGINAL WORK IN CONSTRUCTION This book is not designed, of course, to give training to " young writers " in practical craftsmanship. But it is often a stimulus to the intelligent and sympathetic reading of fiction to attempt for one's self some of the practical problems with which novelists are constantly called upon to deal. For class-room work, in partic- ular, some such exercises as the following will be found interesting : 1. Read the opening chapters of any novel until you feel sure that the main characters are all introduced ; then block out a plot which shall accord with your view of the characters. 2. Read until the complication is well advanced ; then block out the remainder of the plot. 3. Read until you are sure the catastrophe is immi- nent ; then sketch in detail a catastrophe which shall harmonize with the foregoing plot. 4. Construct a diagram of a plot involving but two or tiiree persons, indicating the lines of complication, the climax or turning point, and the denoQment. APPENDIX 375 5. Construct a similar diagram, indicating the situ- ations or steps by which the action advances to the cli- max, and thence to the catastrophe. 6. Describe a room or a house so that each detail shall serve to indicate the character of the occupant. 7. Write a conversation which indirectly reveals a character ; describe an action which directly reveals a character. 8. Describe an important situation, sketching briefly the antecedent and subsequent plot-movement. 9. Write a closing chapter, indicating the steps by which it is reached. 10. Describe a group of characters suitable for a sub-plot, with the briefest indication of their connec- tion with the main plot. IV PRACTICE IN ANALYSIS In studying representative novels, whether in the class-room or by one's self, it is well to read with pen- cil in hand, and to endeavor to sum up, as clearly as possible, the outline of the story, as regards plot, char- acters, and design. A simple method of analysis is here given, as applied to Thackeray's Vanity Fair. Vanity Fair. I. Aim. Where did Thackeray get his title ? What light is thrown by the title, the author's preface, and the references to Vanity Fair throughout the novel, upon the aim and spirit of the book ? In other words, what is Thackeray trying to do ? II. (a) Characters. Fiction exhibits characters in 376 APPENDIX action, by means of narration and description. Study the opening chapters of Vanity Fair with the aim of getting a clear conception of the characters there pre- sented, before the complication of the story really begins. (b) Plot. After doing this we must study the char- acters as they are thrown together, influenced by one another, and developed by means of the action. It will therefore be necessary, before examining the char- acters in complication with one another, to trace the action, or plot, of the novel. The plot of Vanity Fair may, for convenience, be summarized under seven divisions. 1. Introduction. (Chapters 1-11, inclusive.) The opening six chapters are concerned with Amelia, Re- becca, the Osbornes, the Sedleys, and Dobbin ; the next five chapters describe the Crawleys. 2. Development. (12-26.) This division treats mainly of Miss Crawley, Rebecca's conquests, the Sedley failure, Dobbin's affection for Amelia, and George Osborne's disinheritance. 3. The Waterloo Campaign. (27-32.) Here is the first great crisis of the book. Its significance in the plot, aside from George Osborne's death, lies in its definite revelations of character, particularly of Joseph Sedley, Dobbin, and Rebecca. 4. Struggles and Trials. (33-46.) This division cov- ers many years of time. Rebecca is successfully fight- ing her way up in the world, and Amelia is struggling vainly against poverty. Chapter 39 is important as affecting Rebecca's position. Note that chapter 37 prepares the way for division 5. just as chapter 43 is a preparation for division 6. APPENDIX 377 5. Lord Steyne. (47-55.) Here is the second and greatest crisis of the story. It contains the culmination of Rebecca's success, and the catastrophe. Chapter 50 is inserted here to show the lowest point of Amelia's fortunes. 6. Our Friend the Major. (56-61.) The re-intro- duction of two characters, and the deaths of two others, mark the turning point in Amelia's struggles, just as division 5 shows the turn in Rebecca's. 7. DenoHment. Note Rebecca's degradation, her tem- porary influence over Amelia, Dobbin's departure, re- call, and marriage, the end of Joseph Sedley, and Rebecca's final position in the world. (c) Setting. Having mastered the plot, in its main and subordinate features, it will be well to review defi- nitely the circumstances of time and place in which the action is laid ; as for instance, London life in the period 181430, Queen's Crawley under Sir Pitt, Brussels in 1815, the Rawdon Crawley establishment in Curzon Street, Gaunt House, or the town of Pum- pernickel. Be able to reproduce this historical and local setting as far as possible. (d) Review each character, first by itself, then in contrast with the other characters with which it is most closely grouped, and determine lastly what is the function of each character in the plot as a whole. Dis- tinguish carefully between the characters that are un- modified by the action of the story, as Sir Pitt or Mrs. O'Dowd, and those whose development is affected by the action, as Rawdon Crawley or Rebecca. III. Style. If we understand what Thackeray aimed to do in writing Vanity Fair, and what he has actu- ally done, we are ready to criticise his manner of doing 378 APPENDIX it, that is, his style. Judging from Vanity Fair alone, what inferences can you draw as to Thackeray's (a) cre- ation of character, (b) invention of plot, and (c) power of narration and description ; in other words, his gifts as a story-teller ? REVIEW QUESTIONS The questions to be asked of the student, in review- ing the works of fiction selected for his study, will naturally vary widely. The queries made by one teacher will not suit another at every point. But I have thought it worth while to give here a few examples of review questions, based upon such different material as Scott's Ivanhoe, some selected short stories of Poe and Hawthorne, and George Eliot's Middlemarch. They may serve as hints for better questions, if nothing more. a. Ivanhoe. 1 I. The function of the opening chapter of a novel is ordinarily to give a picture of the time or place in which the story is to move, or to introduce some of the minor occasionally the leading characters, or to strike the keynote of the dramatic action. . If it is prevailingly narrative, rather than descriptive, it usually deals with an event from which the subsequent events of the book distinctly take their origin, or an event or scene which must be explained before the reader can advance into the story, or one to the explanation of which the entire book is to be devoted. Which of 1 Reprinted by permission from the annotated edition of Ivanhoe, edited by Bliss Perry. Longmans, Green & Co., 1807. APPENDIX 379 these various purposes does the first chapter of Ivan* hoe seem to you to fulfill ? Compare it, for effective- ness, with the opening chapter of Scott's earliest nov- els, such as Waverley and Guy Mannering ; with some of his later novels, such as Kenilworth and Quentin Durward. Study this first conversation of the jester and the swineherd as an example of charac- ter-contrast. II. What do you think of Scott's habit of describ- ing in minute detail the personal appearance of his characters, before he has made them reveal their na- ture by speech or action ? Do you recall any other novels in which Scott has depicted a worldly minded ecclesiastic ? Compare the Templar with Marmion, in external traits and character, as far as this chapter re- veals the Templar to us. Are the references to Cedric and Rowena, designed of course to prepare us for the following chapter, skillfully introduced ? III. Compare Cedric with other fiery old people in Scott's novels, as Sir Geoffrey in Peveril of the Peak, Baron Bradwardine in Waverley, Lady Bellenden in Old Mortality, and Sir Henry Lee in Woodstock. No- tice how his talk is designed to heighten the reader's interest in the coming chapter. IV. Note the opportunity of which Scott here avails himself to describe again the personal appearance of two of his leading characters. Does the delay in Rowena's entrance add to its effectiveness ? Can you give a clear account, from memory, of her features and dress ? What is gained by having the entrance of a stranger announced at the very end of the chapter ? V. For prototypes of Isaac of York, read Shake- speare's Merchant of Venice and Marlowe's Jew of 380 APPENDIX Malta. Can you find other strongly drawn Jewish figures in the drama or in fiction ? Note that the quar- rel between the Templar and the Palmer furnishes a sort of " inciting moment ; " that is, an action which involves and leads to the subsequent plot-movement. Does Rowena's loyalty to the reputation of Ivanhoe indicate anything as to the relation between these two characters ? What interest is added to the story by the fact that the Palmer appears obviously in disguise ? What other instances of disguise can you recall in Scott's poems and novels ? VI. Note how the close of this chapter, as that of the preceding one, is designed to stimulate the reader's interest in the coming tournament. Review the first six chapters, all of which centre in Rotherwood, and see if you have the characters and the plot (as thus far outlined) clearly in mind. Notice carefully whether the main characters develop as the story progresses, or are left stationary as regards mental and moral growth, as is usual with minor characters in fiction. In a ro- mance of adventure, is there much gained by insisting upon this character-development ? VII. Can you draw a plan of the lists from mem- ory of the description just given ? Note the points of contrast between the figures of Rebecca and Rowena at their first presentation to the reader. VIII. In connection with this chapter the descrip- tion of the tournament in Chaucer's Knight's Tale may be read with advantage. Notice the very skillful fashion in which Scott leads up to the entrance of the Disinherited Knight, and the artistic effect of " the soli- tary trumpet." By what various means does he secure the reader's sympathy for the unknown champiou : APPENDIX 381 IX. What is the value, in this chapter, of the fic- tion-writer's privilege of explaining what is passing in the minds of his characters ? Can you criticise the dialogue in any respects ? X. Note the successive stages by which the manly character of Gurth is revealed to the reader ; also the effective race-contrast between him and Isaac. Is any- thing gained by the reference to the Knight's " per- plexed ruminations " which it is not now " possible to communicate to the reader " ? Can you point out any passages where Isaac's talk seems too rhetorical to be altogether natural? XI. The forest scene delineated in chapter xi. fur- nishes a sort of comic interlude, midway in the eight chapters that centre around the tournament at Ashby. What are the devices by which Scott secures our re- spect for Gurth and also for the outlaws ? What were the elements in Scott's nature, as far as you understand it, that would make the writing of a chapter like this a thoroughly congenial task to him ? XII. The foregoing chapter is one of the most famous in English fiction, and will repay the closest study. Note that the unlooked-for prowess of the Black Knight, and the discovery of the identity of the Disinherited Knight, furnish it with two distinct points of climax. In the first of these, what is gained by the unexpectedness of the incident ? Can you recall simi- lar feats of arms, as described by other novelists ? If you find Scott superior as a describer of such things in what points does his superiority seem to you to lie ? Does the dropping of Ivanhoe's disguise suggest any> thing to you about the danger of over-using disguise as an element of interest in fiction? Does Scott alto- 382 APPENDIX gether escape the danger in The Talisman, The Abbot, and elsewhere ? XIII. This is another very famous chapter. The effect of climax, in Locksley's successive shots, is in its way as finely artistic as Scott's management of the tournament in chapter xii. Study it closely. Similar feats of archery are described in Roger Ascham's Tox- ophilus (1545) and Maurice Thompson's Witchery of Archery, A mark like Locksley's, and an equal skill, is credited to various personages (Robin Hood, Clym of the Cleugh, William of Cloudesley) in old English ballads. For a discussion of these Robin Hood bal- lads, see Professor F. J. Child's English and Scottish Ballads, vol. v. Do you remember any other charac- ters depicted by Scott who have, like Hubert, " one set speech for all occasions " ? (See Woodstock, Waver- ley, etc.) XIV. Note how this chapter furnishes concrete illustration of those differences between Saxon and Norman which it was Scott's purpose to emphasize wherever possible. Why does Cedric's toast to Rich- ard increase the reader's sympathy for both of these characters ? XV. This is a good example of an intrigue chapter, as distinguished from one devoted to the exposition of character or to the depiction of a situation. Its pur- pose is to furnish a link between two stages of the nar- rative, and explain the events of the chapters immedi- ately succeeding. What do you think of Waldemar's soliloquy, as compared with similar ones in Richard III., Othello, etc., where the villain outlines his scheme ? Is a soliloquy, as such, better suited to the drama than to the novel ? APPENDIX 3S3 XVI. This is another comic interlude, in Scott's richest vein, and is the first of five forest chapters which separate the Rotherwood and Ashby groups of chapters from the eleven chapters that deal with the siege of Torquilstone. For the role played by Friar Tuck in the Robin Hood ballads, see the previous re- ferences to them. Scott's fondness for exhibiting the human not to say worldly side of his clerical fig- ures is noticeable. Can you recall any instances of it ? XVII. It is only an artificial division, of course, which separates this chapter from the preceding one. From your knowledge of Scott's poetry, do you con- sider the songs in this chapter a fair representation of his skill in that field ? XVIII. Does the language put into Gurth's mouth seem to you invariably in keeping with the character ? Notice the relatively slight interest, whether of plot or characterization, that this chapter affords, and then see how the interest is heightened, from point to point, during the next two chapters. XIX. Note the ease and precision of the character- drawing here, and the rapidity of the forward move- ment of the story. XX. The reader should observe how this chapter, like the two preceding ones, directs the attention for- ward, rather than concentrates it upon the events im- mediately before the mind. See also the suggestions at the close of the last chapter. XXI. This is the first of the eleven consecutive chapters that deal with the Castle of Torquilstone. Observe how careful Scott is to explain the technical words he uses in describing it. Have you a sufficiently distinct picture of the castle in your mind to enable 384 APPENDIX you to draw a rough sketch of its main features ? Try to do so. Compare Torquilstone with similar castles in Scott's other novels (The Betrothed, Old Mortality, Quentin Durward, etc.). Mark the sharp character- contrast between Cedric and Athelstane. Do you think the author's humorous insistence upon the latter's un- failing gluttony is overdone ? What device, frequent in romantic fiction, is used just at the close of the chap- ter to carry forward the reader's curiosity ? XXII. Is Scott's portrayal of Front-de-Bceuf as a " heavy villain " open to criticism at any point ? For the mingling of paternal affection and avarice in Isaac's nature, compare Marlowe's Jew of Malta and Shake- speare's Merchant of Venice. XXIII. The scene between Rowena and De Bracy is finely conceived, and affords an artistic contrast to the still more admirable scene between Rebecca and the Templar in the succeeding chapter. What quali- ties possessed by Rowena fit her to be the heroine of a romantic tale ? Has she shown any defects, as a typi- cal heroine, or as a woman, up to this point ? Are the last four paragraphs the inserted ones in keeping with the general tone of the story ? Do you think the writer of a historical novel ought to bring forward actual proofs of the manners and facts which he uses in his narrative ? XXIV. Notice the similarity in the construction of the last four chapters. In each a scene involving two persons (Cedric and Athelstane, Isaac and Front-de- Boeuf, Rowena and De Bracy, Rebecca and the Tem- plar) is interrupted by the " blowing of the horn " out- side the castle. Do you think that this scheme of following the fortunes of the different groups up to an APPENDIX 385 incident that affects them all could be bettered ? Why is the scene between Rebecca and the Templar the climax of the four ? By what means is the contrast in char- acter between Rebecca and Rowena most effectively shown ? In the Templar's story of his own life, do you find any traces of the conventional Byronic hero ? XXV. What details in this chapter seem to you most characteristic of Scott ? What are some of the differ- ences between conversation in novels and conversation in actual life ? XXVI. In this chapter, as in the preceding one, observe what is gained by shifting the emphasis so that it falls, for a while, upon the minor characters. Is Scott altogether consistent in the motives he assigns for Wamba's conduct ? What means are used to heighten our respect for the moral qualities of Wamba, Cedric, and Athelstane, in turn ? Notice how the disguises furnish a new set of interests and serve as an interlude between the more dramatic portions of the action. XXVII. May this chapter fairly be criticised for its lack of unity ? Is the delineation of Ulrica, and the story she tells, unnatural at any points ? Compare her manner of talk with that of Mrs. Macgregor in Rob Roy and of Meg Merrilies in Ghty Mannering. What speech of De Bracy, in this chapter, is most character- istic of him? In the discussion about the ransoms, study carefully the motives of each speaker. Do you think the haste and confusion of the latter part of the chapter enhance the effect of excitement and expecta- tion ? XXVIII. Do you consider the opening sentence of this chapter a fortunate one ? Can you recall instances, in the chapter, of purely conventional epithets, like Re- 386 APPENDIX becca's " slender " fingers and " ruby " lips ? Of sen- tences arranged in reverse order to give an archaic ef- fect ? Of sentences recalling the rhythm of the Scrip- tures, or that of blank verse ? Note that De Bracy's " middle course between good and evil " is one that Scott frequently forces upon his heroes. An interest- ing parallel to Rebecca's conversation about Jews and Christians will be found in Lessing's Nathan der Weise. XXIX. This chapter is one of the most famous in the whole range of English fiction, and is an admirable example of Scott's power of vigorous, impassioned de- scription. The device of making the observer of the action relate it to another, who is unable to witness it, is at least as old as the story of Bluebeard. It has been skillfully employed in Rossetti's Sister Helen, Tenny- son's Harold (act v.), and elsewhere. XXX. In this death scene, and in similar passages elsewhere in Scott's novels, do you think the author lays himself open to the charge of confounding tragedy with melodrama? XXXI. This admirable chapter, the final one of the eleven devoted to the siege of Torquilstone, contains obvi- ously one of the main climaxes of the book. It will be well for the reader to review the characters of the story and the general plot-movement up to this point, with the aim of seeing exactly what has been accomplished and what still remains to be done by the author in satisfying the expectations that have been raised. The account of the capture of the castle will be most enjoyed by those readers who are able to form an exact picture of the building and its outworks. Compare the features of this siege with similar ones described in Old Mortality, Quentin Durward, Woodstock, Peveril of tlie Peak, APPENDIX 387 and elsewhere. Is the manner of De Eracy's submis- sion an adequate indication of the real personality of the Black Knight? Observe how Scott secures our sympathy for all of the personages in this chapter by assigning to each of them some brave or chivalrous action. XXXII. The few sentences of landscape depiction, at the beginning of the chapter, may suggest a compari- son between Scott's novels and his poems as regards the extent to which he avails himself, in the two arts, of landscape effects. Distinguish carefully chapters like the preceding, designed to give a picture of char- acters in a certain mood, from chapters containing sit- uations or events that directly advance the plot. The freedom with which Scott makes his personages jest upon sacred subjects was sharply criticised by one re- viewer at the time of Ivanhoe's first appearance. Do you think this chapter, and the following one, are really at fault in this respect ? XXXIII. In this continuation of the comic interlude, begun in the preceding chapter, note the ease and skill with which national and professional types of character are contrasted with each other. The humorous situa- tion involved in making Isaac and the Prior fix each other's ransom is thoroughly characteristic of Scott. Mark his power of shifting sympathy from one side to the other, and of changing the tone of description to- ward the end of the chapter, as more serious interests again assert their claims upon the reader. XXXIV. In the delineation of well known historical figures, like Richard and John, how far do you think the novelist is forced to adopt the popular conception of (he figure ? Is Scott's depiction of the natural treachery 388 APPENDIX of John in accordance with all we know of that prince f Compare Shakespeare's King John. In an historical novel, is it better that some great historical personage should he the leading figure, or may that place be bet- ter filled by a fictitious character ? Study Scott's vary- ing methods in The Abbot, The Talisman, Kenilworth, Quentin Durward, Woodstock, and elsewhere. XXXV. This is the first of a group of chapters, the scene of which is laid at Templestowe. What are some of the obvious advantages of a change of scene in a story of romantic adventure ? Observe how the reader's attention, in this closing period of the story, is more and more directed toward Rebecca. In the delinea- tion of the Grand Master, notice how natural it is for Scott to make his ecclesiastics either worldlings or fanatics. The same thing is to be observed in Peveril of the Peak, Woodstock, Old Mortality, and elsewhere. XXXVI.. In this finely dramatic situation, note the precision of the character-drawing. The " scrap of pa- per " mentioned in the closing paragraph is one of the link-devices used to hold this group of chapters together. Do you find Scott superior or inferior to other novelists of high rank in the art of calculating his effects and giv- ing the reader hints of them a long time in advance ? Does what you know of Scott's method of composition throw any light upon this question ? XXXVII. It was possibly Scott's own legal training that made him delight in introducing trials into hi works of fiction. Particularly interesting analogies tc the one described in this chapter may be found in the account of the " Vehmegericht " in Anne of Geier stein and in canto ii. of Marmion. Rebecca's demand for a champion gives the artistic " motive " for the remain* APPENDIX 389 ing chapters of the story. Do you think any irony is intended in her last speech about England, " the hospi- table, the generous, the free " ? XXXVIII. Study the effective contrast between the mental processes of the cultivated Orientals and the un- lettered English messenger. XXXIX. Note what is called " tragic elevation " in the dialogue, i. e. a language removed, sublimated, from the speech of daily life. Distinguish between scenes that test the moral fibre of a person when he is quite unconscious of any struggle (see almost every chapter of Scott) and scenes like the foregoing, em- bodying a conscious moral or spiritual struggle, which are comparatively rare in Scott. Contrast him, in this regard, with George Eliot and Hawthorne. XL. Note, as before, how the forest scene gives re- lief from the high tension of the previous chapter. The variety and unforced humor and dramatic situa- tions in this chapter can scarcely be praised too highly. Review the successive hints that have been given as to the real personality of the Black Knight and Locksley. Do they enhance the reader's pleasure in the scene when the disguises are finally thrown off ? Observe the skill with which the Robin Hood legends and the actual traits of Richard I. have here been mingled. XLI. In Scott's analysis of Richard's nature, and especially in the words " the brilliant but useless char- acter of a knight of romance," observe how his shrewd Scotch judgment offsets his sentiment. It is in this capacity for alternate sympathy with both sides of a question that much of his power as a story-teller lies. See Julia Wedgwood's " Ethics and Literature " in the Contemporary Review, January, 1897. 390 APPENDIX XLII. Scott's note on the raising of Athelstane is the best possible comment upon his happy-go-lucky methods in arranging his plot. He said himself that he always " pushed for the pleasantest road towards the end of a story." As a whole, do you think he in- sists too much upon the gluttonous side of Athelstane's nature for even the best comic effect ? XLIII. For a parallel to the by-play among the minor characters, at the outset of the chapter, recall the scene between Isaac and Wamba at the beginning of the tournament (chapter vii.). The Templar's last proposition to Rebecca provides the " moment of final suspense " which often occurs in fiction and the drama. In the Templar's death, notice how Scott gives a natu- ral cause for an event which is designed to impress us, and does impress us, as an act of divine justice. Observe how simply, and yet how seriously and adequately, Scott deals with this great theme of the judgment of God. XLIV. The withdrawal of the Templars furnishes one of the most purely picturesque incidents in the book. Do you think the final disposition of the char- acters exhibits poetic justice? Reflect carefully upon the last paragraph of Scott's Introduction, which bears upon this question. It is one of the noblest passages in all of Scott's works, and it was written at a time when he had had full experience of both good and evil fortune. b. Hawthorne. [Review questions based upon the eight tales reprinted in the Little Masterpieces Series, Doubleday & Page, N. Y.] Dr. Heidegger's Experiment. How would you char acterize Hawthorne's humor, as here exhibited ? APPENDIX 391 Compare this tale with any other writings of thome in which the same theme appears. Do Dr. Heidegger's friends impress you as individ- uals or as types ? Is the final paragraph effective ? The Birthmark. Explain how the opening para- graph establishes the theme of the story. Do you find evidence here of a morbid imagination ? Is there anything fantastic or exaggerated in the devel- opment of the plot or the characters ? What do you think of Aylmer as a representative of the scientific spirit ? What do you conceive to be the " moral " of the story ? Ethan Brand. This should be compared carefully with those portions of the American Note-Books that describe Hawthorne's sojourn in the Berkshire Hills in 1838. Can you name any modern stories or poems in which the same conception of the Unpardonable Sin is found ? What are the most effective details in the setting of the story ? What are the most effective contrasts either in char- acter or between scenery and character? In what sense is Ethan Brand a fragment ? Sug- gest a plan for expanding it into a more complete whole. Wakeficld. What are the most skillful touches in the delineation of Mr. Wakefield's character? Comment upon the union of fancy and imagination in this tale. Do you detect any irony in it ? What are its chief points of suggestion to you ? Droume's Wooden Image. Comment upon the purely poetical elements of the theme. 392 APPENDIX Can you describe in detail the carven figure-head ? Is the clearing up of the mystery at the close alto- gether satisfactory to the reader? What part of the tale would give a story-teller the greatest difficulty in your opinion ? The Ambitious Guest. Point out the sentences, here and there in the story, that most plainly foreshadow the catastrophe. By what means has the author secured unity of effect ? Comment upon this tale as an example of " local color " in fiction. What seems to you its most admirable feature either in idea or workmanship ? The Great Stone Face. Does Hawthorne ever seem to you to err on the side of too great simplicity, as when we say that an idea is " childish " rather than " child- like " ? What do you consider the most memorable sentence in the story ? Is its ethical teaching too sharply forced upon the reader ? The Gray Champion. What points of excellence in narrative does this tale exhibit ? How can the writer of such a sketch show imagina- tive power while keeping close to historical fact ? Is anything gained by hinting, rather than actually declaring, that the Gray Champion was one of the Regicides ? General Questions. Which of these stories do you like or admire most, and why ? What are the most obvious characteristics of Haw* thorne's style, as here exemplified ? APPENDIX 393 Taking these tales as fairly representative, do you find Hawthorne's imagination too sombre ? Do you notice anything " bloodless " or " unsympa- thetic " or " dilettanteish " in his personality as a writer ? If you find these stories excelling most contemporary work in the same field, where does Hawthorne's superi- ority seem to lie ? c. Poe. [Review questions based upon the seven tales reprinted in the Little Masterpieces Series. Doubleday & Page, N. Y.] Fall of the House of Usher* How does the open- ing sentence strike the key of the story ? As the story advances, what details are most success- ful in securing a cumulative effect ? In what passages are the moods and forme of nature used to harmonize with human emotions ? Do you detect any intrusion of purely rhetorical de- vices? Ligeia. Trace the correspondence in physical fea- tures between the Lady Ligeia and Robert Usher and the portraits of Poe himself. Find instances of description by suggestion merely. Do the mythological allusions add anything to the effect ? Distinguish between the sensational and the emo- tional impressions produced by the closing paragraphs of the story. Do you find ground for Foe's opinion that this was the finest of all his tales ? The Cask of Amontillado. Point out the rhetorical means by which brevity and rapidity of movement are here secured. What is gained by the apparent reti- cence of the narrator ? 394 APPENDIX How do you think his tone of cold hatred for Mon- tresor is best exhibited ? The Assignation. Do you find any trace here of the Byronic hero ? How would you characterize Poe's taste as shown by the interior decoration of his houses ? Point out in- stances of Poe's fondness for allusions to far-away and mysterious places and objects. Do you find any use of symbolism as distinguished from sensuous imagery ? What is gained by keeping the secret of the plot until the final sentence ? MS. found in a Bottle. Why is the opening page characteristic of Poe ? What are the most effective details in the portrayal of the storm ? Study the sequence of the details that are designed to indicate the antiquity of the doomed ship. What elements of the story seem to you most genu- inely romantic ? The Black Cat. What are the dangers of an open- ing paragraph like the one here ? What faults of taste do you discover ? Is too much stress laid upon physical rather than spiritual horrors ? In what respects, if any, do you find this tale supe- rior to the ordinary " penny dreadful " upon a similar theme ? The Gold-Bug. What traces of Defoe's influence are manifest here ? What are the elements that make this story more cheerful than the others in the volume ? In the main plan of the story, what do yon think is gained by first showing the success of Legrand's APPENDIX 395 scheme, and then analyzing and explaining the method he followed ? General Questions. Which of these tales do you admire most, and why ? Do you see evidence of Poe's lack of power to por- tray objectively a variety of types and situations ? Do you think there is justification for the remark that " Poe has a manner rather than a style " ? Do you find Poe deficient in humor, judging from these tales alone ? What do you think of his skill in fixing the tone or atmosphere of each tale ? How is Poe's gift of imagination most clearly shown ? Summarize briefly your own personal opinion of Poe's artistic weakness and strength. d. Review questions upon George Eliot's Mid- dlemarch. How does the preface indicate the keynote of the book ? Determine to what extent the words first spoken by each character are intended to be typical of the speaker. In what ways are the characters of Dorothea and Celia most effectively contrasted ? How do Do- rothea's strongest and weakest traits unite with each other to help forward the action of the story ? Indi- cate the successive steps by which Dorothea's disillusion with regard to her husband was completed. Why do most of the attractive descriptions of Dorothea's per- sonal appearance come after her marriage rather than before it ? What are the commonplace traits in Lyd- gate? How far did he deserve his unpopularity in 396 APPENDIX Middlemarch ? In the delineation of his professional ambitions and struggles, how much is due to the time in which the book is laid, and how much would always be true of a young doctor with similar aspirations ? What are the forces that made him slacken his resolu- tion ? Why was his casting a ballot for Tike a crisis in his career ? At what point after their marriage did Lydgate definitely surrender to the superior will power of Rosamond ? Do you remember any other instances, in George Eliot's novels, of people crippling the lives of others by their egoism ? Was Lydgate justified in taking money from Bulstrode ? What were the causes of Mr. Casaubon's failure as a scholar ? Does your discovery of the serious nature of his illness alter es- sentially your attitude toward him? What are the characteristic qualities of Mr. Brooke's conversation ? Describe Will Ladislaw's personal appearance. Ex- plain his liking for Rosamond's society. Describe Mr. Bulstrode's voice. What hints are given of his hypo- crisy before we are actually told of it ? Compare him with any other hypocrites in George Eliot's books. Was Mary Garth right in refusing old Featherstone's last request ? Is the character of Featherstone over- done ? Does Rosamond's alleged cleverness appear in her conversation ? What trait in Rosamond is most irritating to the reader ? What are the attractive fea- tures of Farebrother's love for Mary Garth ? What are Farebrother's limitations, as George Eliot seems to have conceived them ? What is the process by which Fred Vincy attains to strength of character? Are there any characters in the book whose talk re- minds you of people in Dickens ? Instance the sta- tionary, an compared with the developing characters. APPENDIX 397 What group of characters do you consider most suc- cessful ? Determine to what extent the first action of each character is intended to be typical of the person. Give examples of very slight incidents which are nevertheless significant " moments " in the story. What situations do you think the strongest ? Why ? Can you recall any situations that are artistically ineffective? Do you think that the Dorothea-Casaubon plot is on the whole skillfully linked with the Lydgate-Rosamond plot ? In what ways do any of the sub-plots affect the main plot ? Is there justification for the author's own fear that in Middlemarch she had too much matter too many " moment! " ? Do the plot-requirements of the story force any of the personages into actions that seem out of character ? Do you think George Eliot success- ful in handling the Raffles episode ? In general, do you think her gifts and training were such as to fit her for managing mystery as an element in plot ? Is she apparently interested in action for its own sake ? Does the plot of Middlemarch, in any of its details or as a whole, seem to you to fail either in intrinsic power or in its ability to hold the reader's attention ? In the setting of Middlemarch, what are the traces of the impressions made by the author's own early life ? Why is there so little landscape depiction, when compared with some of her other books ? Give in- stances, however, of landscape in harmony with the mood of a character ; in contrast with the mood. What impression do you receive of George Eliot's ideas about the influence of village life upon character ? Of pro- vincial life in general? Of the power of environment in determining character ? What pictures of Middle- 398 APPENDIX march life do you most definitely recall, as you look backward to the book ? Can you think of anything in this novel which is out of keeping with its general atmosphere ? How far are you reminded of George Eliot's own personality in the account of Dorothea's girlhood? Does Dorothea's theory of life, as she gives expression to it in the latter part of the story, correspond with what we know of George Eliot herself? How far does she sympathize with Mr. Casaubon's scholarly labors ? Does she betray sympathy or antipathy for any particular character or groups of characters, or would you say that her delineation was perfectly im- partial ? What evidence is there in this book of her own revolt against evangelicalism ? Comparing Mid- dlemarch with her earlier novels, are you conscious of any change in her philosophical attitude ? Does the book show any evidence of the author's artistic instinct and purely scientific interest working at cross purposes ? In what features of the book is George Eliot's power of imagination most clearly manifested ? Comparing it with her earlier novels, do you discover any evidence of flagging energy ? Considering the book from the standpoint of style, do you find anything awkward or cumbersome in it? Why does the theme need, for its adequate treatment, a large canvas? Are any of the minor characters drawn with too much detail ? Is there any violation of the principles of good narrative style ? What char- acteristics of the author's writing do you think most admirable ? Indicate passages that betray through their vocabulary George Eliot's scientific knowledge. What do you think of her fondness for moral reflec- APPENDIX 399 tions ? What aphorisms in the book seem to you most striking ? Does the style impress you as being self- conscious ? Point out passages where the author, not satisfied with direct delineation of action, tries to make the action doubly plain by the addition of analysis and comment. To what extent does irony appear as an element of style ? Do you think the style is always in harmony with the subject-matter ? Summing up the book, does it on the whole give weight to the belief, inculcated elsewhere by George Eliot, that " character is fate " ? That ordinary causes are more significant, in the conduct of life, than extra- ordinary causes ? How would you express, in the few- est possible words, what you conceive to be the ''moral " of the story ? INDEX Accident, 146. ActiOD, 49, 50. Advantages of the novel, 66-68. Advantages of the stage, 68-70. ^Esthetic criticism, 26, 26. Aldrich, T. B., 316, 339. Alexander, 31. Allen, James Lane, 347; Choir Invisible, 166-170, 175. American fiction, present ten- dencies, 336-360 ; chief figures, 338, 339; marked characteris- tics, 341-345 ; representative novel, the, 345-348; interna- tional influences in, 348-350; provincialism in, 350 ; demo- cracy in, 351-365 ; future types Of, 355-360. Analysis of style, 290-293. Andersen, Hans Christian, 215. Animalism, 251-253. Apollo Belvedere, 261. Appetite for fiction, the, 2-4. Aristotle, 16, 19. Arnold, Matthew, 46. Art and morals, 192-213. Arthurian romances, 31. Artist, the, 74, 75. "Artistic" language, 36. " Artistic temperament," the, 201. "Atmosphere," 155. Austen, Jane, 191, 216 ; Pride and Prejudice, 210. Baldassare, 36. Balfour, Graham, 154. Balzac, 5, 39, 82, 91, 160, 179, 182, 237, 265, 346. Barrie, J. W., Sentimental Tom- my, 297. Beers, H. A., 262. Beethoven, 261. Berlioz, 265. Besant, Sir Walter, 296-298. BjSrnson, 349. Black, William, 166. Blackmore, K. D., Lorna Doone, 39, 166. Bolingbroke, 192. Bonheur, Rosa, 219. Bosanquet, Bernard, 90, 91, 208. Bourget, Paul, 257, 294. Bronte, Charlotte, 29, 64, 97. Brown, Brockden, 342. Brownell, W. C., 217. Browning, Robert, 86, 188; An- drea del Sarto, 199 ; Fra Lippo Lippi, 222. Brunetiere, F., 78, 90, 100, 103, 170. 177, 331. Bunyan, John, 119. Burns, Robert, 202, 350. Burroughs, John, 353. Byron, Lord, 45, 262, 265, 352; Childe Harold, 222 ; Don Juan, 222. Cable, G. W., 316, 339, 347. Calderon, 264. Canterbury Tales, The, 112. Caricatures, 119, 120. Carlyle, 33, 162, 350. Catastrophe, 66, 59, 140, 141. Cellini, Benvenuto, 199, 200. Century Dictionary, The, 268. Cervantes, 189, 237. Character, 17, 18, 94-128, 307. Character-contrast, 124. Character-grouping, 125. Characteristic traits, 111-124. Character-novel, the, 141. Charlemagne, 31. Chateaubriand, 160. Chaucer, 303; The Canterbury Tales, 112 ; The Knight's Tale, 135. Chopin, 261, 265. Christian, The, 71. Christianity, 243-246. Cid, the, 31. Clark, J. Scott, 290-292. Classic qualities, 23, 24, 260, 36L Class traits, 112, 113. " Climax," the, 55-59, 139, 140. Coleridge, 262, 274. Collins, Wilkie, 333. Cologne Cathedral, 261. 402 INDEX Comment, the author's, 103. Commonplace, the, 223. Complex characters, 106. Complexity of plot, 137. " Complication," the, 69. Contemporary fiction, 14, 15. Content in fiction, 19-21. Conventionalism, 218. Cooper, James Fenimore, 64, 158, 169, 338, 339, 342, 351. Crabhe, George, Tales of the Hall, 222. Crane, Stephen, 315. Crawford, F. Marion, 339 ; Zo- roaster, 273 ; Mr. Isaacs, 274 ; Casa Braccio, 275. Criticism of fiction, the, 7, 14, 15, 25-27. " Criticism of life, a," 46, 81. Cross, J. W., 41, 154. Cross, Wilbur L., 13. D'Annunzio, 349. Dante, 46, 346. " Dares the Phrygian," 3L Darwin, 33, 238. Daudet, 43, 211, 238, 297, 303, 349. Davis, R. H., 122, 159. Decay of Art, The, 87. Defoe, Daniel, 184, 189, 212; Captain Singleton, 161, 162; RoMnson Crusoe, 232 ; Rox- ana, 232. Delacroix, 265. Delaroche, 265. Doming, P., 314. Democracy, 243, 351-365. De'noument, the, 59, 61-64. " Detachment," 240. Deterioration of character, 109, 110. Developing characters, 106-108. De Vigny, Alfred, 238, 265. Dickens, Charles, 42, 52, 108, 120, 130, 137, 166, 182, 183, 186, 192, 211, 236, 291, 318, 321, 340,354; David Copperfleld. 37 112, 201 ; Tale of Two Cities, 55, 151 ; Our Mutual Friend, 138; Oliver Twist, 145 ; Nicholas Nickleby, 207. " Dictys the Cretan," 31. Didacticism, 208, 209. Disraeli, B. f Lothair, "ill. " Divine average, the," 354. Dowden, Edward, 73. Doyle, Conan, 15, 98. Drama, the, 16; as compared with the novel. 48-72. Dramatization of novels, 70-72. Dumas (the elder), 131, 182, 340 j Three Musketeers, 63. Dumas (the younger), 318. Ehers, George, 157. " Effectivism," 216. Eliot, George, 25, 41, 44, 45, 67, 76, 86, 103, 154, 166, 181, 182, 192, 198, 243, 293, 308, 327, 330, 354 ; Adam Bede, 11, 65, 106, 109, 110, 181, 209, 236, 257, 329 ; Ro- mola, 36, 62, 98, 110, 112, 151; Middlemarch, 55, 58, 109, 112, 138, 281, 324, 326, 356; Daniel Deronda, 98, 106, 109, 140, 328 ; Silas Marner, 133, 150; The Mill on the Floss, 140, 236; Scenes from Clerical Life, 295. Elizabethan theatre, 68. Emotion, the novelist's, 182-184. Enjoyment of fiction, the, 9-11. Environment, 155. Evening Post, The New York, 252. " Every-day life," the, 225. " Exciting moment," the, 53. Experience, the novelist's, 180, 181. Experimental Novel, The, 76-80. Exposition, the, 51, 52. Fact, 21. " Falling" action, the, 56-64, 140. Fashionable types, 121, 122. Fate, 147-149. Fiction-writer, the (general dis- cussion), 177-216 Fielding, 41, 83, 96. 97, 162, 203, 211, 233-235, 327, 351; Amelia, 106. 235, 257 ; Tom Jones, 212. " Final suspense," the, 60. Fine art, 208. FitzGerald, Edward, 258, 277. Flaubert, Gustavo, 39, 99, 192, 250, 284, 349 ; Madame Bovary, 183, 228, 237, 238, 246. Form In fiction, 20, 21, 23-25 ; gen. eral discussion, 284-299. Forms of fiction, 19. Fra Angelico, 197. Fragonard, 221. Francke, Kuno, 264. Freytag, G., 64, 59, 60. "Gag," the, 111,120. Garland. Hamlln, 159, 348. Gaskell, Mrs., Cranford,Q, (Jf'iiius, 202. "Gibson girl," the, 121. INDEX 403 Goethe, 46, 105, 126, 197, 213, 264 ; Wilhelm Meister, 203. Gogol, 245. Goldsmith, Oliver, 191 ; Vicar of Wakefield, 265, 266. Goncourt brothers, 250. Gosse, Edmund, 353. Gray, Thomas, 188. Hale, Edward Everett, 315. Hardy, Thomas, 19, 83, 150, 166, 173,241, 248 ; Tess of the VUr- bervilles, 55, 71, 109, 148, 149, 174, 242; Wessex Tales, 131, 289 ; Return of the Native, 168. Harris, Joel Chandler, 347. Harte, Bret, 5, 315, 320, 321, 339, 348. Hawthorne, 23, 25, 40, 64, '91, 97, 130, 179, 185. 187, 216, 231, 270, 295, 303-306, 322, 338, 340, 342, 351 ; Scarlet Letter, 1, 62, 71, 137, 209, 211, 238, 272, 326 ; House of the Seven Gables, 54, 104, 105, 137-139, 146, 270, 272 ; Marble Faun, 62, 106, 141, 143, 231, 272; Wahefteld, 132 ; Ethan Brand, 249. Hearn, Lafcadio, 166. Hegel, 259, 260. " Heightening," the, 54, 55. Hertford, Lord, 33, 34. Hewlett, Maurice, 157. Higginson, T. W., 300. Historical setting, 157. 158. History of the English Novel, 12-14. Hoffmann, 327. Homer, 346. Howells, W. D., 40, 46, 159, 225, 272, 332, 339; Modern In- stance, 110 ; Silas Lapham, 110, 332 Hugo, Victor, 47, 154, 163, 186, 238, 265, 351, 356 ; Lea Misero- bles, 266. "Human documents, the," 89. Hutton, Richard H., 245. Huxley, 33. Ibsen, 75, 318. Idealism, 218, 219, 280-283. Iliad, 30, 31. Imagination, 98, 99, 155, 184-187, 205, 220, 359, 360. Immorality, the artist's, 198-202. " Impressionism," 249. Incident, 138, 139. " Inciting moment," the, 63. Individual in fiction, the, 115-124. Instinct for beauty, 215. " Invention," 98. James, Henry, 10, 86, 89, 92, 94, 177, 193, 223, 231, 284, 294, 316, 326, 339. James, William, 86. Jewett, Sarah Orne, 166, 303, 315. 348. John Halifax, Gentleman, 110. Johnson, C. F., 138. Johnson, Samuel, 115. Johnston, Mary, 281, 347. Jowett, Benjamin, 1. Kean, Edmund, 70. Keats, John, 262; Endymion, 222. King, Captain Charles, 159. King, Grace, 347. Kingsley, Charles, 85, 157 ; Here- ward, 62. Kipling, Rudyard, 5, 19, 97, 130, 166, 289, 303, 315, 317, 329, 354 ; His Private Honour, 133-135. Labor, the artist's, 195-198. Lamb, Charles, 189. Landscape, 160-174. Lanier, Sidney, 28, 181, 235. Leibnitz, 192. Lessing, 17, 19, 264. Limitations, an author's, 188, 189. Limitations of realism, 247, 248. Lincoln, Abraham, 115, 117, 118, 350. Liszt, 131, 224. Literature of evasion, the, 277. Little Minister, The, 71. Local color, 158, 159. London, .Jack, 348. Longfellow, 40. " Loosened speech," 43. Loti, Pierre, 154, 160, 257. Lowell, James Russell, 335. Lytton, Bulwer, 157, 325. Mabie, Hamilton W., 349. Marlowe, Christopher, 220 ; His- tory of Dr. Faustus, 220. Masson, David, 177, 181, 192, 328. Materialistic tendencies, 90. Materials, the novelist's, 94, 95. Materials of fiction and poetry, 31, 37-M). Matthews, Brander, 187, 301-303. Maupassant, Guy de, 99, 101, 160. 239, 266, 319, 327; Pierre et Jean, 6. Mediaeval romancer, 82. 404 INDEX Melema, Tito, 36. Meredith, George, 93, 108; Or- deal of Richard Veverel, 37, 110, 173 ; Beauchamp's Career, 37. Methods of fiction study, 12-21. Michelangelo, 220. Milieu, 155. Millet, J. F., 168. Milton, 101. Minto, William, 290, 291. Moliere, 43, 346. Moral abstractions, 119. Moral purpose in fiction, 207- 213. Morals and art, 193-213. Moral sympathy, 101. Moral unity of character, 127. Motives for reading fiction, 4-7. Murfree, Mary N., 347. " Muscular Christianity," 85. Music, 22, 38. Mtisketeers, The Three, 63. Musset, Alfred de, 265. Mystery in plot, 143. National traits, 114. Naturalistic spirit, the, 88. Nature, 213. " Neo-romautic movement," the, 278. Nettleship, Henry, 24. Norris, Frank, 155. Novalis, 264. Observation of character, 96, 97. Ouida, 6, 166. Paderewski, 198. Page, Thomas Nelson, 347, 348. Paradise Lost, 101. Parthenon, 261. Pasteur, 243. Pater, Walter, 267, 268 ; Imagi- nary Portraits, 50, 110. Penelope, 34. Personal tastes in fiction, 7, 27. Personality, 18, 20, 34. Phelps, W. L., 262. Philosophy, the novelist's, 191- 193. Photography, 83, 84, 88, 223, 227, 251. Physiology, 85. Picaresque romance, the, 57, 107. Pilgrim's Progress, The, 91. Play writing, 64-66. Plot, in drama, 17, 18 ; in fiction, 129-163, 307. Plot-novel, the, 143. Plot-ridden characters, 126, 151. Poe, 37, 182, 270, 303-306, 310, 312, 313, 321, 322, 327, 332, 338, 339. Poetic justice, 149. Poetry, 16, 22, 28-47; lyric, 28- 30 ; narrative, 30, 31. Pope, 192. Portrayal of character, 102-105. Prime, W. C., 258. Prisoner of Zenda, The, 71. Problems involved in studying fiction, 1, 2. Professional traits, 112. " Prose poetry," 36, 37, 42-44. Psychology, 86, 87, 91, 92. Public, the novelist's, 189-191. Quiller Couch, A. T., 315. Racine, 44. Radcliffe, Mrs. Anne, Mysteries of Udolpho, 144, 163-165. Raleigh, Professor Walter, 13, 81, 204. Raphael, 219. Reade, Charles, 297, 327. Realism, 217-257; defined, 229; English, 231-236; French, 237- 239, 254; American, 239, 240, 255 ; future of, 265 ; dangers of, 248-254. Realities, 184. Regnault, Henri, 219. Remington, Frederic, 84. " Resolution," the, 59, 61-64. Retribution, 145, 146. Revival of Art, The, 87. Rhetoric, 286. Richard the Lion-Heart, 145. Richardson, Charles F., 341, 342. Richardson, Samuel, 97 ; Clarissa, Harlowe, 212; Pamela, 233, 295. Richelieu, 70. " Rising action," the, 56, 140. Rodin, 261. Roles in fiction, 113, 114. Romances, 30, 31. Romahtic art, 121. Romantic atmosphere, the, 270- 276. Romanticism, 240 ; general di! cussion, 258-283 ; English, 262 263 ; German, 263, 264 ; French, 264-266 ; definitions of, 266-268. Romantic mood, the, 269, 270. Romantic revival, 255, 278. " Romantic " qualities. 260,261. Rossettl, D. G., 86 ; Sister Helen, 222. INDEX 406 Rousseau, J. J., 160, 236, 262. Royce, Josiab, 91. Ruskiu, John, 195, 196. Russell, Clark, 297. Sainte-Beuve, 46. Sand, George, 29, 160, 211, 265, 318. Schiller, 264. Schlegel brothers, the, 264. " School of Terror," the, 186. Science and fiction, 17, 73-93, 243, 251. Scientist, the, 73, 74. Scott, Sir Walter, 4, 13, 23, 25, 45, 52, 93, 97, 99, 108, 111, 121, 131, 156, 157, 159, 192, 211, 216, 231, 235, 236, 262, 327, 340, 350; Ivanhoe, 11, 34, 147, 158; Antiquary, 201, 308 ; Bride of Lammermoor, 211 ; Quentin Durward, 274 ; Talisman, 274 ; Waverley, 295; Old Mortal- ity, 328. Sectional traits, 114, 115. Sentimentalism, 221. Seton - Thompson, Ernest, 42, 117. Setting, the, 17, 18, 66, 152-176, 307. Sewell, Miss Anna, 207. Sexual morality, 206. Shakespeare, 203, 214, 265, 346; Hamlet, 34, 36, 49, 53, 56, 57, 61, 72, 100; Macbeth, 53, 55-57, 59, 60, 70 ; Julius Caesar, 53, 56, 57 ; Lear, 56 ; Romeo and Ju- liet, 59, 70 ; Richard III., 60 ; Othello, 61; Falstaff, 100; Horatio, 107, 108 ; Merchant of Venice, 149; Midsummer Night's Dream, 261. Shelley, 245, 262. Shorthouse, James ; Blanche, Lady Falaise, 170-173. Short story, the (general discus- sion), 300-334 , character-draw- ing in, 308-310, 324 ; plot in, 310- 313; background in, 313-316; advantages of, 316-323; de- mands of, 323-325 ; what it fails to demand, 325-329. Sienkiewicz, Pan Michael, 55 ; Fire and Sword, 281. Simple characters, 105. Situation. 138, 139. Sophocles, 261. Southey, 274. Stael, Mme. de, 148. Stationary characters, 106-108. Stephen, Leslie, 28. Stevenson, Robert Louis, 10,15, 129, 131, 154, 168, 214, 226, 278, 294, 295, 303, 324, 326 ; Treasure Island, 39, 332, 356; Kid. napped, 54 ; Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, 71, 366 ; St. Ives, 142. Steyue, the Marquis of, 33, 34. Stillman, W. J., 87, 88. Stockton, Frank, 189, 215, 311, 312, 339; Rudder Grange, 5, 333 Stoddard, F.H., 80. Story of an African Farm, The, 180. Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 339, 348 ; Uncle Tom's Cabin, 83, 207. Struggling characters, 108, 109. " Stuff " of a novel, the, 287. Style in fiction, 290-293. Sub-plots, 149-151. Symonds, J. A., 352, 353. Sympathetic personage, the, 100, 103. Technique, the artist's, 198-201. Technique in fiction, 359. Tennyson, 32, 33, 75, 226, 296; Palace of Art, 211 ; Gardener's Daughter, 222 ; Rizpah, 222. Tennyson, Charles, 296. Thackeray, 2, 23, 25, 32-34, 52, 67, 103, 130, 137, 166, 211, 277, 295, 300, 327 ; Henry Esmond, 11, 35,109, 110, 139, 212, 257, 288; Pendennis, 53, 54, 209, 328; Vanity Fair, 55, 68, 71, 72, 104, 106, 138, 329; The Newcomes, 109, 110, 115, 201, 308; Becky Sharp, 115, 120, 311 ; Pitt Crawley, 120. Thought, the novelist's, 181, 182. " Three-leaved clover," the, 136. Tieck, 264. Tolstoi, 82, 101, 241, 349; Anna Karenina, 109, 175, 210, 228; War and Peace, 154, 156; Re- surrection, 210, 281. Topography, 39. " Tragic moment," the, 56, 57. Training of the novelist, the, 294- 299. " Transcript of life," 223, 227. Trollope Anthony, 159, 182, 183, 325; Framley Parsonage, 7; Barchester Towers, 289. Truth, 21. Turgenieff, 166, 192, 211, 248, 28S^ 349, 351 ; Nest of Nobles, 175. Tyndall, 33. 406 INDEX Twain, Mark, 339. Type in fiction, the, 115-124. Ulysses, 34. " Unpleasant," the, 225, 226, 228. Unrealities, 185. Valdes, Sister St. Sulpice, 253, 279, 280. Van Loo, Carlo, 221. Venus of Melos, 204. Verne, Jules, 4, 76. Voltaire, Candide, 110, 191. Wagner, 24 ; Tannhauser, 205. Ward, Mrs. Humphry, 86, 207; Eleanor, 62 ; David Grieve, 110 ; Robert Elsmere, 150. Warner, Charles Dudley, 169. Watteau, 221. Webster, Daniel, 350. Wells, H. G., 76. Weyman, Stanley, 157; Gentle- man of France, 174. Wharton, Edith, 86. Whitman, Walt, 85, 342, 347, 353, 354. Whittier, J. G., 350. Wilkius, Mary, E., 248, 314, 348; New England Nun, 135, 136, 315. Winckelmann, 264. Wordsworth, 38, 46, 169, 262, 350. Zangwill, Israel, 159. Zola, 170,175, 176,197, 238; The Experimental Novel, 76-80, 90 ; Lourdes, 89. J&SPUTI 116944