Mr. Besant has some remarks on the question of “the story” which I shall not attempt to criticise, though they seem to me to contain a singular ambiguity, because I do not think I understand them. I cannot see what is meant by talking as if there were a part of a novel which is the story and part of it which for mystical reasons is not—unless indeedthe distinction be made in a sense in which it is difficult to suppose that any one should attempt to convey anything. “The story,” if it represents anything, represents the subject, the idea, thedonnéeof the novel; and there is surely no “school”—Mr. Besant speaks of a school—which urges that a novel should be all treatment and no subject. There must assuredly be something to treat; every school is intimately conscious of that. This sense of the story being the idea, the starting-point, of the novel, is the only one that I see in which it can be spoken of as something different from its organic whole; and since in proportion as the work is successful the idea permeates and penetrates it, informs and animates it, so that every word and every punctuation-point contribute directly to the expression, in that proportion do we lose our sense of the story being a blade which may be drawn more or less out of its sheath. The story and the novel, the idea and the form, are the needle and thread, and I never heard of a guild of tailors who recommended the use of the thread without the needle, or the needle without the thread. Mr. Besant is not the only critic who may be observed to have spoken as if there were certain things in life which constitute stories, and certain others which do not. I find the same odd implication in an entertaining article in thePall Mall Gazette, devoted, as it happens, to Mr. Besant’s lecture. “The story is the thing!” says this graceful writer, as if with a tone of opposition to some otheridea. I should think it was, as every painter who, as the time for “sending in” his picture looms in the distance, finds himself still in quest of a subject—as every belated artist not fixed about his theme will heartily agree. There are some subjects which speak to us and others which do not, but he would be a clever man who should undertake to give a rule—an index expurgatorius—by which the story and the no-story should be known apart. It is impossible (to me at least) to imagine any such rule which shall not be altogether arbitrary. The writer in thePall Mallopposes the delightful (as I suppose) novel ofMargot la Balafréeto certain tales in which “Bostonian nymphs” appear to have “rejected English dukes for psychological reasons.” I am not acquainted with the romance just designated, and can scarcely forgive thePall Mallcritic for not mentioning the name of the author, but the title appears to refer to a lady who may have received a scar in some heroic adventure. I am inconsolable at not being acquainted with this episode, but am utterly at a loss to see why it is a story when the rejection (or acceptance) of a duke is not, and why a reason, psychological or other, is not a subject when a cicatrix is. They are all particles of the multitudinous life with which the novel deals, and surely no dogma which pretends to make it lawful to touch the one and unlawful to touch the other will stand for a moment on its feet. It is the special picture that must stand or fall, according as it seem to possess truth or to lack it.Mr. Besant does not, to my sense, light up the subject by intimating that a story must, under penalty of not being a story, consist of “adventures.” Why of adventures more than of green spectacles? He mentions a category of impossible things, and among them he places “fiction without adventure.” Why without adventure, more than without matrimony, or celibacy, or parturition, or cholera, or hydropathy, or Jansenism? This seems to me to bring the novel back to the hapless littlerôleof being an artificial, ingenious thing—bring it down from its large, free character of an immense and exquisite correspondence with life. And whatisadventure, when it comes to that, and by what sign is the listening pupil to recognise it? It is an adventure—an immense one—for me to write this little article; and for a Bostonian nymph to reject an English duke is an adventure only less stirring, I should say, than for an English duke to be rejected by a Bostonian nymph. I see dramas within dramas in that, and innumerable points of view. A psychological reason is, to my imagination, an object adorably pictorial; to catch the tint of its complexion—I feel as if that idea might inspire one to Titianesque efforts. There are few things more exciting to me, in short, than a psychological reason, and yet, I protest, the novel seems to me the most magnificent form of art. I have just been reading, at the same time, the delightful story ofTreasure Island, by Mr. Robert Louis Stevenson and, in a manner less consecutive, thelast tale from M. Edmond de Goncourt, which is entitledChérie. One of these works treats of murders, mysteries, islands of dreadful renown, hairbreadth escapes, miraculous coincidences and buried doubloons. The other treats of a little French girl who lived in a fine house in Paris, and died of wounded sensibility because no one would marry her. I callTreasure Islanddelightful, because it appears to me to have succeeded wonderfully in what it attempts; and I venture to bestow no epithet uponChérie, which strikes me as having failed deplorably in what it attempts—that is in tracing the development of the moral consciousness of a child. But one of these productions strikes me as exactly as much of a novel as the other, and as having a “story” quite as much. The moral consciousness of a child is as much a part of life as the islands of the Spanish Main, and the one sort of geography seems to me to have those “surprises” of which Mr. Besant speaks quite as much as the other. For myself (since it comes back in the last resort, as I say, to the preference of the individual), the picture of the child’s experience has the advantage that I can at successive steps (an immense luxury, near to the “sensual pleasure” of which Mr. Besant’s critic in thePall Mallspeaks) say Yes or No, as it may be, to what the artist puts before me. I have been a child in fact, but I have been on a quest for a buried treasure only in supposition, and it is a simple accident that with M. de Goncourt I should have for the most part to say No.With George Eliot, when she painted that country with a far other intelligence, I always said Yes.
The most interesting part of Mr. Besant’s lecture is unfortunately the briefest passage—his very cursory allusion to the “conscious moral purpose” of the novel. Here again it is not very clear whether he be recording a fact or laying down a principle; it is a great pity that in the latter case he should not have developed his idea. This branch of the subject is of immense importance, and Mr. Besant’s few words point to considerations of the widest reach, not to be lightly disposed of. He will have treated the art of fiction but superficially who is not prepared to go every inch of the way that these considerations will carry him. It is for this reason that at the beginning of these remarks I was careful to notify the reader that my reflections on so large a theme have no pretension to be exhaustive. Like Mr. Besant, I have left the question of the morality of the novel till the last, and at the last I find I have used up my space. It is a question surrounded with difficulties, as witness the very first that meets us, in the form of a definite question, on the threshold. Vagueness, in such a discussion, is fatal, and what is the meaning of your morality and your conscious moral purpose? Will you not define your terms and explain how (a novel being a picture) a picture can be either moral or immoral? You wish to paint a moral picture or carve a moral statue: will you not tell us how you would set about it? We are discussing the Art ofFiction; questions of art are questions (in the widest sense) of execution; questions of morality are quite another affair, and will you not let us see how it is that you find it so easy to mix them up? These things are so clear to Mr. Besant that he has deduced from them a law which he sees embodied in English Fiction, and which is “a truly admirable thing and a great cause for congratulation.” It is a great cause for congratulation indeed when such thorny problems become as smooth as silk. I may add that in so far as Mr. Besant perceives that in point of fact English Fiction has addressed itself preponderantly to these delicate questions he will appear to many people to have made a vain discovery. They will have been positively struck, on the contrary, with the moral timidity of the usual English novelist; with his (or with her) aversion to face the difficulties with which on every side the treatment of reality bristles. He is apt to be extremely shy (whereas the picture that Mr. Besant draws is a picture of boldness), and the sign of his work, for the most part, is a cautious silence on certain subjects. In the English novel (by which of course I mean the American as well), more than in any other, there is a traditional difference between that which people know and that which they agree to admit that they know, that which they see and that which they speak of, that which they feel to be a part of life and that which they allow to enter into literature. There is the great difference, in short, between what theytalk of in conversation and what they talk of in print. The essence of moral energy is to survey the whole field, and I should directly reverse Mr. Besant’s remark and say not that the English novel has a purpose, but that it has a diffidence. To what degree a purpose in a work of art is a source of corruption I shall not attempt to inquire; the one that seems to me least dangerous is the purpose of making a perfect work. As for our novel, I may say lastly on this score that as we find it in England to-day it strikes me as addressed in a large degree to “young people,” and that this in itself constitutes a presumption that it will be rather shy. There are certain things which it is generally agreed not to discuss, not even to mention, before young people. That is very well, but the absence of discussion is not a symptom of the moral passion. The purpose of the English novel—“a truly admirable thing, and a great cause for congratulation”—strikes me therefore as rather negative.
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 proportion as that intelligence is fine will the novel, the picture, the statue partake of the substance of beauty and truth. To be constituted of such elements is, to my vision, to have purpose enough. No good novel will ever proceed from a superficial mind; that seems to me an axiom which, for the artist in fiction, will cover allneedful moral ground: if the youthful aspirant take it to heart it will illuminate for him many of the mysteries of “purpose.” There are many other useful things that might be said to him, but I have come to the end of my article, and can only touch them as I pass. The critic in thePall Mall Gazette, whom I have already quoted, draws attention to the danger, in speaking of the art of fiction, of generalising. The danger that he has in mind is rather, I imagine, that of particularising, for there are some comprehensive remarks which, in addition to those embodied in Mr Besant’s suggestive lecture, might without fear of misleading him be addressed to the ingenuous student. I should remind him first of the magnificence of the form that is open to him, which offers to sight so few restrictions and such innumerable opportunities. The other arts, in comparison, appear confined and hampered; the various conditions under which they are exercised are so rigid and definite. But the only condition that I can think of attaching to the composition of the novel is, as I have already said, that it be sincere. This freedom is a splendid privilege, and the first lesson of the young novelist is to learn to be worthy of it. “Enjoy it as it deserves,” I should say to him; “take possession of it, explore it to its utmost extent, publish it, rejoice in it. All life belongs to you, and do not listen either to those who would shut you up into corners of it and tell you that it is only here and there that art inhabits, or to those who would persuade you that this heavenly messenger wings her way outside of life altogether, breathing a superfine air, and turning away her head from the truth of things. There is no impression of life, no manner of seeing it and feeling it, to which the plan of the novelist may not offer a place; you have only to remember that talents so dissimilar as those of Alexandre Dumas and Jane Austen, Charles Dickens and Gustave Flaubert have worked in this field with equal glory. Do not think too much about optimism and pessimism; try and catch the colour of life itself. In France to-day we see a prodigious effort (that of Emile Zola, to whose solid and serious work no explorer of the capacity of the novel can allude without respect), we see an extraordinary effort vitiated by a spirit of pessimism on a narrow basis. M. Zola is magnificent, but he strikes an English reader as ignorant; he has an air of working in the dark; if he had as much light as energy, his results would be of the highest value. As for the aberrations of a shallow optimism, the ground (of English fiction especially) is strewn with their brittle particles as with broken glass. If you must indulge in conclusions, let them have the taste of a wide knowledge. Remember that your first duty is to be as complete as possible—to make as perfect a work. Be generous and delicate and pursue the prize.”
1884.
Printed byR. & R. Clark,Edinburgh.
NOVELS AND TALES
ByHENRY JAMES.
Fourteen Vols. Pott 8vo. 2s. each Vol.
THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY. In three Vols.
RODERICK HUDSON. In two Vols.
THE AMERICAN. In two Vols.
WASHINGTON SQUARE.
THE EUROPEANS.
DAISY MILLER: A Study. FOUR MEETINGS. LONGSTAFF’S MARRIAGE. BENVOLIO.
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. THE POINT OF VIEW.
THE SIEGE OF LONDON. MADAME DE MAUVES.
THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. A BUNDLE OF LETTERS. THE DIARY OF A MAN OF FIFTY. EUGENE PICKERING.
CONFIDENCE.
MACMILLAN AND CO., LONDON.
NOVELS AND TALES BY HENRY JAMES.
THE AMERICAN. Crown 8vo. 6s.
THE ASPERN PAPERS. LOUISA PALLANT. THE MODERN WARNING. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
THE BOSTONIANS: A Novel. Crown 8vo. 6s.
DAISY MILLER: A Study. AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. FOUR MEETINGS. Crown 8vo. 6s. Globe 8vo. Paper Boards. 2s.
THE EUROPEANS: A Sketch. Crown 8vo. 6s.
FRENCH POETS AND NOVELISTS. New Edition. Globe 8vo. 5s.
A LONDON LIFE. THE PATAGONIA. THE LIAR. MRS. TEMPERLEY. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE, and other Tales. Crown 8vo. 6s. Globe 8vo. Paper Boards. 2s.
PARTIAL PORTRAITS. Globe 8vo. 6s.
THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY. Crown 8vo. 6s.
PORTRAITS OF PLACES. Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d.
THE PRINCESS CASAMASSIMA: A Novel. Crown 8vo. 6s. Globe 8vo. Paper Boards. 2s.
THE REVERBERATOR. Crown 8vo. 6s.
RODERICK HUDSON. Revised Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s. Globe 8vo. Paper Boards. 2s.
STORIES REVIVED. The author of “Beltraffio.” Pandora. The Path of Duty. A Day of Days. A Light Man. Georgina’s Reasons. A Passionate Pilgrim. A Landscape-Painter. Rose-Agathe. Poor Richard. The Last of the Valerii. Master Eustace. The Romance of Certain Old Clothes. A Most Extraordinary Case. In two Vols. Crown 8vo. 6s. each.
TALES OF THREE CITIES. Crown 8vo. 4s. 6d.
THE TRAGIC MUSE. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
WASHINGTON SQUARE. THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. A BUNDLE OF LETTERS. Globe 8vo. Paper Boards. 2s.
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER. THE MARRIAGES. THE PUPIL. BROOKSMITH. THE SOLUTION, SIR EDMUND ORME. Crown 8vo. 6s.
THE REAL THING, AND OTHER TALES. Crown 8vo. 6s.
A SELECTION FROM
MACMILLAN’S THREE & SIXPENNY SERIES
OF
WORKS BY POPULAR AUTHORS.
In Crown 8vo. Cloth extra. Price 3s. 6d. each.
By F. MARION CRAWFORD.
MR. ISAACS: A Tale of Modern India. (Portrait of Author).DR. CLAUDIUS: A True Story.A ROMAN SINGER.ZOROASTER.MARZIO’S CRUCIFIX.A TALE OF A LONELY PARISH.PAUL PATOFF.WITH THE IMMORTALS.GREIFENSTEIN.SANT’ ILARIO.A CIGARETTE-MAKER’S ROMANCE.KHALED.THE THREE FATES.THE WITCH OF PRAGUE: A Fantastic Tale.
MR. ISAACS: A Tale of Modern India. (Portrait of Author).DR. CLAUDIUS: A True Story.A ROMAN SINGER.ZOROASTER.MARZIO’S CRUCIFIX.A TALE OF A LONELY PARISH.PAUL PATOFF.WITH THE IMMORTALS.GREIFENSTEIN.SANT’ ILARIO.A CIGARETTE-MAKER’S ROMANCE.KHALED.THE THREE FATES.THE WITCH OF PRAGUE: A Fantastic Tale.
By Mrs. OLIPHANT.
A BELEAGUERED CITY.JOYCE.NEIGHBOURS ON THE GREEN.KIRSTEEN.HESTER.HE THAT WILL NOT WHEN HE MAY.THE RAILWAY MAN AND HIS CHILDREN.THE MARRIAGE OF ELINOR.SIR TOM.THE HEIR PRESUMPTIVE AND THE HEIR APPARENT.
A BELEAGUERED CITY.JOYCE.NEIGHBOURS ON THE GREEN.KIRSTEEN.HESTER.HE THAT WILL NOT WHEN HE MAY.THE RAILWAY MAN AND HIS CHILDREN.THE MARRIAGE OF ELINOR.SIR TOM.THE HEIR PRESUMPTIVE AND THE HEIR APPARENT.
By THOMAS HARDY.
THE WOODLANDERS.WESSEX TALES.
THE WOODLANDERS.WESSEX TALES.
By W. WARDE FOWLER.
A YEAR WITH THE BIRDS. Illustrated byBryan Hook.TALES OF THE BIRDS. Illustrated byBryan Hook.
A YEAR WITH THE BIRDS. Illustrated byBryan Hook.TALES OF THE BIRDS. Illustrated byBryan Hook.
MACMILLAN AND CO., LONDON.
The Eversley Series.
Globe 8vo.Cloth.5s. per volume.
The Works of Matthew Arnold.6 vols.
ESSAYS IN CRITICISM. First Series.ESSAYS IN CRITICISM. Second Series.EARLY AND NARRATIVE POEMS.LYRIC AND ELEGIAC POEMS.DRAMATIC AND LATER POEMS.AMERICAN DISCOURSES.
Essays by George Brimley.Third Edition.
Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.Edited byA. W. Pollard. 2 vols.
Dean Church’s Miscellaneous Writings.8 vols.
MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.DANTE: and other Essays.ST. ANSELM.SPENSER.BACON.THE OXFORD MOVEMENT. Twelve Years, 1833-1845.THE BEGINNING OF THE MIDDLE AGES.LITERARY REVIEWS AND ESSAYS. [In the Press.
Emerson’s Collected Works.6 vols. With Introduction byJohn Morley.
MISCELLANIES.ESSAYS.POEMS.ENGLISH TRAITS AND REPRESENTATIVE MEN.THE CONDUCT OF LIFE, AND SOCIETY AND SOLITUDE.LETTERS AND SOCIAL AIMS.
Letters of Edward Fitzgerald.Ed. byW. A. Wright. 2 vols.
Goethe’s Prose Maxims.Translated, with Introductions, byT. Bailey Saunders.
Thomas Gray’s Collected Works in Prose and Verse.Edited byEdmund Gosse. 4 vols. Poems, Journals, and Essays.—Letters, 2 vols.—Notes on Aristophanes and Plato.
Works by John Richard Green.
STRAY STUDIES FROM ENGLAND AND ITALY.HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. 8 vols.
The Choice of Books, and other Literary Pieces.ByFrederic Harrison.
Poems of Thomas Hood.In 2 vols. Vol. I.,Serious Poems. Vol. II.,Humorous Poems. Edited with Introductions byAlfred Ainger.
[In the Press.
R. H. Hutton’s Collected Essays.
LITERARY ESSAYS.
ESSAYS ON SOME OF THE MODERN GUIDES OF ENGLISH THOUGHT IN MATTERS OF FAITH.
THEOLOGICAL ESSAYS.
CRITICISMS ON CONTEMPORARY THOUGHT AND THINKERS. 2 vols.
Thomas Henry Huxley’s Collected Works.
METHOD AND RESULTS.DARWINIANA.SCIENCE AND EDUCATION.SCIENCE AND HEBREW TRADITION.SCIENCE AND CHRISTIAN TRADITION.HUME. With helps to the Study of Berkeley.MAN’S PLACE IN NATURE: and other Anthropological Essays.DISCOURSES, BIOLOGICAL AND GEOLOGICAL.EVOLUTION AND ETHICS, AND OTHER ESSAYS.
Works by Henry James.
PARTIAL PORTRAITS.FRENCH POETS AND NOVELISTS.
MACMILLAN AND CO.,Ltd., LONDON.
Letters of John Keats to his Family and Friends.Edited bySidney Colvin.
Charles Kingsley’s Novels and Poems.
WESTWARD HO! 2 vols.HYPATIA. 2 vols.YEAST. 1 vol.ALTON LOCKE. 2 vols.TWO YEARS AGO. 2 vols.HEREWARD THE WAKE. 2 vols.POEMS. 2 vols.
Charles Lamb’s Collected Works.Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by the Rev.Canon Ainger, M.A. 6 vols.
THE ESSAYS OF ELIA.POEMS, PLAYS, AND MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.MRS. LEICESTER’S SCHOOL, and other Writings.TALES FROM SHAKESPEARE. ByCharles and Mary Lamb.THE LETTERS OF CHARLES LAMB. 2 vols.
Life of Charles Lamb.ByCanon Ainger, M.A.
Historical Essays.ByJ. B. Lightfoot, D.D.
The Poetical Works of John Milton.Edited, with Memoir, Introduction, and Notes, byDavid Masson, M.A. 3 vols.
I. THE MINOR POEMS.II. PARADISE LOST.III. PARADISE REGAINED, AND SAMSON AGONISTES.
John Morley’s Collected Works.In 11 vols.
VOLTAIRE. 1 vol.DIDEROT AND THE ENCYCLOPÆDISTS. 2 vols.ON COMPROMISE. 1 vol.BURKE. 1 vol.ROUSSEAU. 2 vols.MISCELLANIES. 3 vols.STUDIES IN LITERATURE. 1 vol.
Science and a Future Life, and other Essays.ByF. W. H. Myers, M.A.
Records of Tennyson, Ruskin, and Browning.ByAnne Thackeray Ritchie.
Works by Sir John R. Seeley, K.C.M.G., Litt.D.
THE EXPANSION OF ENGLAND. Two Courses of Lectures.LECTURES AND ESSAYS.ECCE HOMO. A Survey of the Life and Work of Jesus Christ.NATURAL RELIGION.LECTURES ON POLITICAL SCIENCE.
Sheridan’s Plays.In 2 vols. With an Introduction byMowbray Morris.
[In the Press.
Works by James Smetham.
LETTERS. With an Introductory Memoir. Edited bySarah SmethamandWilliam Davies. With a Portrait.
LITERARY WORKS. Edited byWilliam Davies.
Life of Swift.ByHenry Craik, C.B. 2 vols. New Edition.
Selections from the Writings of Thoreau.Ed. byH. S. Salt.
Essays in the History of Religious Thought in the West.ByB. F. Westcott, D.D., D.C.L., Lord Bishop of Durham.
The Works of William and Dorothy Wordsworth.Edited byW. Knight. 16 vols.
[Now Publishing.
MACMILLAN AND CO.,Ltd., LONDON.
10.8.96.
FOOTNOTES:[1]A Memoir of Ralph Waldo Emerson; by James Elliot Cabot. Two volumes: London, 1887.[2]“R. L. Stevenson, his Style and Thought,”Time, November 1885.[3]“A Penny Plain and Twopence Coloured.” Republished, since the above was written, inMemories and Portraits, 1887.[4]In theAtlantic Monthly, for April 1883.[5]Pierre et Jean.Paris: Ollendorf, 1888.[6]Maxime Du Camp, Alphonse Daudet, Emile Zola.
FOOTNOTES:
[1]A Memoir of Ralph Waldo Emerson; by James Elliot Cabot. Two volumes: London, 1887.
[1]A Memoir of Ralph Waldo Emerson; by James Elliot Cabot. Two volumes: London, 1887.
[2]“R. L. Stevenson, his Style and Thought,”Time, November 1885.
[2]“R. L. Stevenson, his Style and Thought,”Time, November 1885.
[3]“A Penny Plain and Twopence Coloured.” Republished, since the above was written, inMemories and Portraits, 1887.
[3]“A Penny Plain and Twopence Coloured.” Republished, since the above was written, inMemories and Portraits, 1887.
[4]In theAtlantic Monthly, for April 1883.
[4]In theAtlantic Monthly, for April 1883.
[5]Pierre et Jean.Paris: Ollendorf, 1888.
[5]Pierre et Jean.Paris: Ollendorf, 1888.
[6]Maxime Du Camp, Alphonse Daudet, Emile Zola.
[6]Maxime Du Camp, Alphonse Daudet, Emile Zola.