Essays on Modern Novelists Part 1

Essays on Modern Novelists.

by William Lyon Phelps.

PREFACE

Some of the essays in this volume have appeared in recent numbers of various periodicals. The essays on "Mark Twain" and "Thomas Hardy" were originally printed in the _North American Review_; those on "Mrs. Ward"

and "Rudyard Kipling," in the _Forum_; those on "Alfred Ollivant,"

"Bjornstjerne Bjornson," and "Novels as a University Study," in the _Independent_. The same magazine contained a portion of the present essay on "Lorna Doone," while the article on "The Teacher's Att.i.tude toward Contemporary Literature" was written for the _Chicago Interior_.

My friend, Mr. Andrew Keogh, Reference Librarian of Yale University, has been kind enough to prepare the List of Publications, thereby increasing my debt to him for many previous favours.

W. L. P.

YALE UNIVERSITY, Tuesday, _5 October, 1909_.

I

WILLIAM DE MORGAN

"How can you know whether you are successful or not at forty-one? How do you know you won't have a tremendous success, all of a sudden?

Yes--after another ten years, perhaps--but _some_ time! And then twenty years of real, happy work. It has all been before, this sort of thing.

Why not you?" Thus spoke the hopeful Alice to the despairing Charley; and it makes an interesting comment on the very man who wrote the conversation, and created the speakers. It has indeed "all been before, this sort of thing"; only when an extremely clever person, whose friends have always been saying, with an exclamation rather than an interrogation point appended, "Why don't you write a novel!" ... waits until he has pa.s.sed his grand climacteric, he displays more faith in Providence than in himself. All of which is as it should be. Keats died at the age of twenty-five, but, from where I am now writing, I can reach his Poetical Works almost without leaving my chair; he is among the English Poets. Had Mr. De Morgan died at the age of twenty-five? The answer is, he didn't. I am no great believer in mute, inglorious Miltons, nor do I think that I daily pa.s.s potential novelists in the street. Life is shorter than Art, as has frequently been observed; but it seems long enough for Genius. Genius resembles murder in that it _will_ out; you can no more prevent its expression than you can prevent the thrush from singing his song twice over. Crabbed age and youth have their peculiar accent. Keats, with all his glory, could not have written _Joseph Vance_, and Mr. De Morgan, with all his skill in ceramics, could not have fas.h.i.+oned the _Ode on a Grecian Urn_.

Sir Thomas Browne, who loved miracles, did not hesitate to cla.s.sify the supposed importance of the grand climacteric as a vulgar error; he included a whole quaint chapter on the subject, in that old curiosity shop of literature, the _Pseudodoxia Epidemica_. "And so perhaps hath it happened unto the number 7. and 9. which multiplyed into themselves doe make up 63. commonly esteemed the great Climactericall of our lives; for the dayes of men are usually cast up by septenaries, and every seventh yeare conceived to carry some altering character with it, either in the temper of body, minde, or both; but among all other, three are most remarkable, that is, 7. times 7. or forty-nine, 9. times 9. or eighty-one, and 7. times 9. or the yeare of sixty-three; which is conceived to carry with it, the most considerable fatality, and consisting of both the other numbers was apprehended to comprise the vertue of either, is therefore expected and entertained with feare, and esteemed a favour of fate to pa.s.s it over; which notwithstanding many suspect but to be a Panick terrour, and men to feare they justly know not what; and for my owne part, to speak indifferently, I find no satisfaction, nor any sufficiency in the received grounds to establish a rationall feare."

Among various strong reasons against this superst.i.tion, Dr. Browne presents the impressive argument shown by the Patriarchs: "the lives of our forefathers presently after the flood, and more especially before it, who, attaining unto 8. or 900. yeares, had not their Climacters computable by digits, or as we doe account them; for the great Climactericall was past unto them before they begat children, or gave any Testimony of their virilitie, for we read not that any begat children before the age of sixtie five."

The strange case of William De Morgan would have deeply interested Sir Thomas, and he would have given it both full and minute consideration.

For it was just after he had safely pa.s.sed the climacterical year of sixty-three, that our now famous novelist began what is to us the most important chapter of his life, the first chapter of _Joseph Vance_; and, like the Patriarchs, it was only after he had reached the age of sixty-five that he became fruitful, producing those wonderful children of his brain that are to-day everywhere known and loved. Poets ripen early; if a man comes to his twenty-fifth birthday without having written some things supremely well, he may in most instances abandon all hope of immortality in song; but to every would-be novelist it is reasonable to whisper those encouraging words, "while there's life there's hope." Of the ten writers who may be cla.s.sed as the greatest English novelists, only one--Charles d.i.c.kens--published a good novel before the age of thirty. Defoe's first fiction of any consequence was _Robinson Crusoe_, printed in 1719; he was then fifty-eight years old.

Richardson had turned fifty before his earliest novel appeared. And although I can think at this moment of no case exactly comparable with that of the author of _Joseph Vance_, it is a book to which experience has contributed as well as inspiration, and would be something, if not inferior, at all events very different, had it been composed in early or in middle life. For it vibrates with the echoes of a long gallery, whose walls are crowded with interesting pictures.

The recent Romantic Revival has produced many novels that have enjoyed a brief and noisy popularity; its worst effects are noticeable on the minds of readers, unduly stimulated by the constant perusal of rapid-fire fiction. Many will not read further than the fourth page, unless some casualties have already occurred. To every writer who starts with some deliberation, they shout, "Leave your d.a.m.nable faces and begin." Authors who produce for immediate consumption are prepared for this; so are the more clever men who write the publishers'

advertis.e.m.e.nts. An announcement of a new work by an exceedingly fas.h.i.+onable novelist was headed by the appetising line, "This book goes with a rush, and ends with a smash." That would hardly do as a description of _Clarissa Harlowe_, _Wilhelm Meister_, or some other cla.s.sics. To a highly nervous and irritably impatient reading public, a man whose name had no commercial value in literature gravely offered in the year of grace 1906 an "ill-written autobiography" of two hundred and eighty thousand words! Well, the result is what might _not_ have been expected. If ever a confirmed optimist had reason to feel justification of his faith, Mr. De Morgan must have seen it in the reception given to his first novel.

Despite the great length of Mr. De Morgan's books, and the leisurely pa.s.sages of comment and rather extraneous detail, he never _begins_ slowly. No producer of ephemeral trash, no sensation-monger, has ever got under way with more speed, or taken a swifter initial plunge into the very heart of action. One memorable day in 1873, Count Tolstoi picked up a little story by Pushkin, which his ten-year-old son had been reading aloud to a member of the family. The great Russian glanced at the first sentence, "The guests began to a.s.semble the evening before the _fete_." He was mightily pleased. "That's the way to begin a story!" he cried. "The reader is taken by one stroke into the midst of the action.

Another writer would have commenced by describing the guests, the rooms, while Pushkin--he goes straight at his goal." Some of those in the room laughed, and suggested that Tolstoi himself appropriate such a beginning and write a novel. He immediately retired and wrote the first sentences of _Anna Karenina_; which is literally the manner in which that masterpiece came into being.[1] Now if one will open any of Mr. De Morgan's works, he will find the procedure that Tolstoi praised.

Something immediately happens--happens before we have any idea of the real character of the agents, and before we hardly know where we are.

Indeed, the first chapter of _Somehow Good_ may serve as an artistic model for the commencement of a novel. It is written with extraordinary vivacity and spirit. But the author understands better how to begin his works than he does how to end them. The close of _Joseph Vance_ is like the mouth of the Mississippi, running off into the open sea through a great variety of pa.s.sages. The ending of _Alice-for-Short_ is accomplished only by notes, comment, and citations. And _Somehow Good_ is simply snipped off, when it might conceivably have proceeded on its way. His fourth novel is the only one that ends as well as it begins.

[1] _Leon Tolstoi: Vie et OEuvres. Memoires par P. Birukov. Traduction Francaise_, Tome III, p. 177.

You cannot judge books, any more than you can individuals, by the first words they say. If I could only discover somewhere some man, woman, or child who had not read _Joseph Vance_, I should like to tell him the substance of the first chapter, and ask him to guess what sort of a story had awakened my enthusiasm. Suppose some person who had never heard of Browning should stumble on _Pauline_, and read the first three lines:--

"Pauline, mine own, bend o'er me--thy soft breast Shall pant to mine--bend o'er me--thy sweet eyes, And loosened hair and breathing lips, and arms"

one sees the sharp look of expectation on the reader's face, and one almost laughs aloud to think what there is in store for him. He will very soon exhibit symptoms of bewilderment, and before he has finished the second page he will push the book aside with an air of pious disappointment. No slum story ever opened more promisingly than _Joseph Vance_. We are led at the very start into a dirty rum-shop; there immediately ensues a fight between two half-drunken loafers in the darkness without; this results in the double necessity of the police and the hospital; and a broken bottle, found against a dead cat, is the missile employed to destroy a human eye. In _Alice-for-Short_, the first chapter shows us a ragged little girl of six carrying a jug of beer from a public-house to a foul bas.e.m.e.nt, where dwell her father and mother, both victims of alcohol. The police again. On the third page of _Somehow Good_, we have the "fortune to strike on a rich vein of so-called life in a London slum." The hero gives a drunken, murderous scoundrel a "blow like the kick of a horse, that lands fairly on the eye socket with a cracking concussion that can be heard above the tumult, and is followed by a roar of delight from the male vermin." Once more the police. _It Never Can Happen Again_ begins in a corner of London unspeakably vile.

Zola and Gorky at their best, and worst--for it is sometimes hard to make the distinction--have not often surpa.s.sed the first chapters of Mr.

De Morgan's four novels. Never has a writer waded more unflinchingly into the slime. And yet the very last word to characterise these books would be the word "slum-stories." The foundations of Mr. De Morgan's work, like the foundations of cathedrals, are deep in the dirt; but the total impression is one of exceeding beauty. Indeed, with our novelist's conception of life, as a progress toward something high and sublime, where evil not only exists, but is a necessary factor in development, the darkness of the shadows proves the intense radiance of the sun. The planet Venus is so bright, we are accustomed to remark, that it sometimes casts a shadow. Christopher Vance emerges from beastly degradation to a position of power, influence, and usefulness; the Heath family, in receiving Alice, entertain an angel unawares; and the march of _Somehow Good_ goes from h.e.l.l, through purgatory, and into paradise.

It is a divine comedy, in more ways than one; and shows that sometimes the goal of ill is very unlike the start.

We had not read far into _Joseph Vance_ before we shouted _d.i.c.kens Redivivus!_ or some equivalent remark in the vernacular. We made this outcry with no tincture of depreciation and with no yelp of the plagiarism-hunting hound. It requires little skill to observe the similarity to d.i.c.kens, as was proved by the fact that everyone noticed it. In general, the shout was one of glad recognition; it was the welcome given to the sound of a voice that had been still. It was not an imitation: it was a reincarnation. The spirit of d.i.c.kens had really entered into William De Morgan; many chapters in _Joseph Vance_ sounded as if they had been dictated by the ghost of the author of _Copperfield_. No book since 1870 had given so vivid an impression of the best-beloved of all English novelists. This is meant to be high praise. When Walt Whitman was being exalted for his unlikeness to the great poets, one sensible critic quietly remarked, "It is easier to differ from the great poets than to resemble them." To "remind us of d.i.c.kens" would be as difficult for many modern novelists as for a molehill to remind us of the Matterhorn.

We may say, however, that _Joseph Vance_ and _It Never Can Happen Again_ are more like d.i.c.kens in character and in detail than is _Alice-for-Short_; and that the latter is closer to d.i.c.kens than is _Somehow Good_. The Reverend Benaiah Capstick infallibly calls to mind the spiritual adviser of Mrs. Weller; with the exception that the latter was also spirituous. That kind of religion does not seem strongly to appeal to either novelist; for Mr. Stiggins took to drink, and Capstick to an insane asylum. There are many things in the conversation of Christopher Vance that recall the humorous world-wisdom of the elder Weller; and so we might continue, were it profitable. Another great point of resemblance between Mr. De Morgan and d.i.c.kens is seen in the method of narration chosen by each. Here William De Morgan is simply following in the main track of English fiction, where the novelist cannot refrain from _editing_ the text of the story. The course of events is constantly interrupted by the author's gloss. Now when the author's mind is not particularly interesting, the comment is an unpleasant interruption; it is both impertinent and dull. But when the writer is himself more profound, more clever, and more entertaining than even his best characters, we cannot have too much of him. It is true that Mr. De Morgan has told a good story in each of his novels; but it is also true that the story is not the cause of their reputation. We read these books with delight because the characters are so attractive, and because the author's comments on them and on events are so penetrating. If it is true, as some have intimated, that this method of novel-writing proves that Mr. De Morgan, whatever he is, is not a literary artist, then it is undeniable that Fielding, d.i.c.kens, Trollope, and Thackeray are not artists; which is absurd, as Euclid would say.

Great books are invariably greater than our definitions of them.

Browning and Wagner composed great works of Art without paying much attention to the rules of the game.

As compared with French and Russian fiction, English novels from Fielding to De Morgan have unquestionably sounded a note of insincerity.

One reason for this lies in the fact that to the Anglo-Saxon mind, Morality has always seemed infinitely more important than Art. Matthew Arnold spent his life fighting the Philistines; but when he said that conduct was three-fourths of life, there was jubilation in the enemy's camp. Now Zola declared that a novel could no more be called immoral in its descriptions than a text-book on physiology; the novelist commits a sin when he writes a badly constructed sentence. A disciple of this school insisted that it was more important to have an accurate sense of colour than to have a clear notion of right and wrong. Fortunately for the true greatness of humanity, you never can get the average Englishman or American to swallow such doctrine. But it is at the same time certain that among English-speaking peoples Art has seldom been taken with sufficient seriousness. We are handy with our fists; but you cannot imagine us using them in behalf of literature, as we do for real or personal property. So far as I know, an English audience in the theatre has never been excited on a purely artistic question--a matter of frequent occurrence on the Continent. We seem to believe that, after all, Art has no place in the serious business of life; it is a recreation, to amuse a mind overstrained by money-making or by political affairs. We leave it to women, who are supposed to have more leisure for trifles.

For this reason, English novelists have generally felt compelled to treat their public as a tired mother treats a restless child. Our novelists have been in mortal terror lest the attention of their audience should wander; and instead of taking their work and their readers seriously, they continually hand us lollipops. Their att.i.tude is at once apologetic and insulting. They do not dare to believe that a great work of Art--without personal comment--has in itself moral greatness, and they do not dare trust the intelligence of spectators, but must forsooth constantly break the illusion by soothing or explanatory remarks. The fact that in our greatest writers this is often presented from the standpoint of humour, does not prevent the loss of illusion; and in writers who are not great, the reader feels nothing but indignation. In the first chapter of the third book of _Amelia_, we find the following advice:--

"He then proceeded as Miss Matthews desired; but, lest all our readers should not be of her opinion, we will, according to our usual custom, endeavour to accommodate ourselves to every taste, and shall, therefore, place this scene in a chapter by itself, which we desire all our readers who do not love, or who, perhaps, do not know the pleasure of tenderness, to pa.s.s over; since they may do this without any prejudice to the thread of the narrative."

In the first chapter of _s.h.i.+rley_, Charlotte Bronte prologises as follows:--

"If you think ... that anything like a romance is preparing for you, reader, you never were more mistaken.... Calm your expectations; reduce them to a lowly standard. Something real, cool, and solid lies before you;... It is not positively affirmed that you shall not have a taste of the exciting, perhaps toward the middle and close of the meal, but it is resolved that the first dish set upon the table shall be one that a Catholic--ay, even an Anglo-Catholic--might eat on Good Friday in Pa.s.sion Week; it shall be cold lentils and vinegar without oil; it shall be unleavened bread with bitter herbs, and no roast lamb."

William Black once wrote a novel called _Madcap Violet_, which he intended for a tragedy, and in which, therefore, we have a right to expect some artistic dignity. About midway in the volume we find the following:--

"At this point, and in common courtesy to his readers, the writer of these pages considers himself bound to give fair warning that the following chapter deals solely and wholly with the shooting of mergansers, curlews, herons, and such like fearful wild fowl; therefore, those who regard such graceless idling with aversion, and are anxious to get on with the story, should at once proceed to chapter twenty-three."

At the beginning of the second chapter of _Dr. Thorne_, one of the best of Trollope's novels, we are petted in this manner:--

"A few words must still be said about Miss Mary before we rush into our story; the crust will then have been broken, and the pie will be open to the guests."

At the three hundred and seventy-second page of the late Marion Crawford's entertaining story, _The Prima Donna_, the course of the narrative is thus interrupted:--

"Now at this stage of my story it would be unpardonable to keep my readers in suspense, if I may suppose that any of them have a little curiosity left. Therefore, I shall not narrate in detail what happened Friday, Sat.u.r.day, and Sunday, seeing that it was just what might have been expected to happen at a week-end party during the season when there is nothing in the world to do but to play golf, tennis, or croquet, or to write or drive all day, and to work hard at bridge all the evening; for that is what it has come to."

Finally, in the first chapter of Mr. Winston Churchill's novel, _Coniston_, the author pleads with his reader in this style:--

"The reader is warned that this first love-story will, in a few chapters, come to an end; and not to a happy end--otherwise there would be no book. Lest he should throw the book away when he arrives at this page, it is only fair to tell him that there is another and much longer love-story later on, if he will only continue to read, in which, it is hoped, he may not be disappointed."

Imagine Turgenev or Flaubert scribbling anything similar to the interpolations quoted above! When a great French novelist does condescend to speak to his reader, it is in a tone, that so far from belittling his own art, or sugaring the expectation of his listener, has quite the contrary effect. On the second page of _Pere Goriot_, we find the following solemn warning:--

"Ainsi ferez-vous, vous qui tenez ce livre d'une main blanche, vous qui vous enfoncez dans un molleux fauteuil en vous disant: 'Peut-etre ceci va-t-il m'amuser.' Apres avoir lu les secretes infortunes du pere Goriot, vous dinerez avec appet.i.t en mettant votre insensibilite sur le compte de l'auteur, en le taxant d'exageration, en l'accusant de poesie. Ah! sachez-le: ce drame n'est ni une fiction ni un roman. _All is true_, il est si veritable, que chacun peut en reconnaitre les elements chez soi, dans son coeur peut-etre."

The chief objection to these constant remarks to the reader, so common in great English novels, is that they for the moment destroy the illusion. Suppose an actress in the midst of Ophelia's mad scene should suddenly pause and address the audience in her own accents in this wise: "I observe that some ladies among the spectators are weeping, and that some men are yawning. Allow me to say to those of you who dislike tragic events on the stage, that I shall remain here only a few moments longer, and shall not have much to say; and that if you will only be patient, the grave-diggers will come on before long, and it is probable that their conversation will amuse you."

The two reasons given above, the fear that a novel unexplained by author's comment will not justify itself morally, and that at all hazards the gentle reader must be placated and entertained, undoubtedly partly explain a long tradition in the course of English fiction. But while we may protest against this sort of thing in general, it is well to remember that we must take our men of genius as we find them, and rejoice that they have seen fit to employ any channel of expression.

There are many different kinds of great novels, as there are of great poems. The fact that Tennyson's poetry belongs to the first cla.s.s does not in the least prevent the totally different poetry of Browning from being ranked equally high. _Joseph Vance_ is a very different kind of novel from _The Return of the Native_, but both awaken our wonder and delight. There are some books that inspire us by their art, and there are others that inspire us by their ideas. Turgenev was surely a greater artist than Tolstoi, but _Anna Karenina_ is a veritable piece of life.