CONCLUSION
We find, in the main, that women developed—and perfected—the domestic novel. They made circulating libraries respectable, establishing the right, and the power, of women to write fiction.
They carried on the traditions of Richardson and Fielding by choosing the middle-class for subject, at first confining themselves to Society and the County, but extending—with George Eliot—to all “Professions,” and to a study of the poor. They made novels a reflection, and a criticism, of life.
It seems curious that, with the possible exception of Charlotte Brontë, women were all stern realists: while even her imaginativeness can scarcely be called romantic. The fact is, probably, that the heroes and heroines of romance were mainly conceived for young ladies, and popularly supposed to represent their ideal. Wherefore, when women began to express themselves, they—more or less consciously—set out to expose this fallacy: to prove that they could enjoy and face real life. No school of writers,indeed, has more fearlessly or more persistently created their characters from flesh and blood than the school represented by Jane Austen and George Eliot. None has dwelt more persistently on the trivial details of everyday life, the conquests of observation. Whether concerned, like Miss Burney, with the Comedy of Manners; or, like George Eliot, with the Analysis of Soul; they have one and all found their inspiration in human nature. And, in reality, this was the main progress achieved in fiction between Richardson and the nineteenth century—the growth on which the true modern novel was built up. Critics, indeed, have treated the “romance” and the “novel” as independent entities; and if we limit the term romance to work precedingPamela, we may accept their dictum. There is an essential difference between “making up” characters from a pseudo-ideal of the possibilities in human nature, and reflecting life. The old system, no doubt, was unhealthy in two ways: The ideals not well-chosen, being composed by high-flown exaggeration; and they were so mingled with actuality as to deceive the young person. For that matter the complaint is still living that girls and boys continually fancy reallife will prove “just like a novel.” It does not, of course, differ greatly from those of Jane Austen or George Eliot. The former, in fact, was accused—in her own day—of setting too high a price on “prudence” in matrimony; and the latter of encouraging a gloomy outlook.
Obviously realism, as here applied, has no connection with that Continental variety of the art which has more recently usurped the name. Women-writers, of this era, had not developed the cult of Ugliness, they did not confound painting with photography, they did not busy themselves with the morbid or the abnormal. Their works are not documents, but revelations. They dwell on manners, without ignoring their spiritual significance. To-day we have some use for the new realism, while dreading its predominance. They had none.
In enumerating the classes, or types, of humanity with whom the women-writers were mainly concerned, we were witnessing, of course, the allied progress of history. It was during the second half of the eighteenth, and the first of the nineteenth, centuries that the great English middle-class steadily grew in power and importance, boldly educatingitself for influence,—before labour was heard in the land.
Fanny Burney has given us the “classes” at play; we fancy that Jane Austen, betraying their empty-mindedness, must have longed for, if she did not actually anticipate, better things; Charlotte Brontë utters the first protest, indicating a struggle for existence; George Eliot finds them busy about the meaning of life and its possibilities. Thus, finally, we read of real workers—men and women with the world at their feet, building an Empire, facing problems, questioning the gods.
And, in their own particular sphere,—the revelation of Woman,—we have seen already the same advance. Each of them gives us, for her own generation, a “new woman”; creating, by the revelation of possibilities, an actual type. By teaching us what was “going on”in women, they taught women to be themselves. They opened the doors of Liberty towards Progress.
Minor achievements, on the other hand, were mostly directed towards the extension of subject matter, and the provision of new channels for fiction. Mrs. Radcliffe—who stood aside from the line of advance—established the School of Terror,applying romance methods to melodrama, with more power than we can find elsewhere in English. Maria Edgeworth introduced the story for children, which was not a tract, but the literary answer to “Tell me a story,” the exploitation of nursery tales told by mothers from time immemorial. This was developed by Harriet Martineau and Charlotte Yonge, bearing fruit later in libraries of most varied achievement. As we all know, there have been several works of genius written expressly for children (as were not thePilgrim’s Progress,Robinson Crusoe, andGulliver’s Travels); innumerable delightful stories of a similar nature, and much inferior work.
The earlier women-writers set an excellent example in this field, if they retained overmuch moralising. They gave us a few nursery classics which show practical insight into the child’s mind, and the gift of holding his interest by healthy wonder. We need only compareSandford and MertonwithFrankto recognise their peculiar fitness for such work.
The invention (by Mrs. Craik) of the “novel for the young person” is an allied achievement. It was developed by Charlotte Yonge, and hasbeen always a legitimate province for women. Its dangers are over-sentimentalism (kin to Romance proper) and the idealism of the Woman’s Man. Mrs. Craik gave us one type inJohn Halifax, Gentleman; there are two in Miss Yonge’sHeir of Redclyffe.
It must be noted further that Harriet Martineau exploited philanthropy, and introduced the didactic element developed by George Eliot. Most women are born preachers—even Jane Austen occasionally points a moral—and this characteristic became prevalent early in their work. It was employed sometimes in the defence, or the exposure, of particular religious tenets; at others, on questions of pure ethics. There is a sense, of course, in which every story of life must carry its own moral; but George Eliot and most of the minor novelists obtrude this matter. In many cases the lesson is the motive, which is false art. However, the “novel with a purpose” clearly has come to stay. It outlived the period with which we are concerned, and is still vital. Speaking generally, the earlier women novelists contented themselves with raising the standard of domestic morality, upholding the family, and hinting atoneideal for thetwosexes. George Eliot, indeed, went into individual cases with much detail; but we note in all that their pet abomination is hypocrisy and cant.
Finally, and most important of all in outside influence, Maria Edgeworth invented the “national” novel—developed by Susan Ferrier and Mrs. Oliphant. We have noted already that in banishing the stage Irishman Miss Edgeworth inspiredWaverley; and the list of more recent examples (sprung from India, the “kailyard,” the moorlands, and a hundred localities) would prove too formidable for passing enumeration. Her instinctive patriotism has sprung a mine that is practically inexhaustible and has given us much of our best work. The “Hardy” country and all “local colour” are similarly inspired. It is not too much to say that in this matter Miss Edgeworth introduced an entirely new element, only second in importance to the revelation of femininity, which is woman’s chief contribution to the progress of Fiction.
While women were thus developing English fiction, with no rival of genius except Scott in his magnificent isolation, men had in some wayadvanced from Richardson to Thackeray and Dickens. It is worth noticing how far the two Victorian novelists showed the influence of feminine work, in what respects they reverted to the eighteenth century, and what new elements they introduced.
Both are still middle-class and, in one sense, domestic realists. Thackeray satirises Society (like Miss Burney and Jane Austen); Dickens works on manners, expounds causes, and takes up the poor. Both caught an enthusiasm for history from Scott, in which women did nothing of the first importance. Thackeray capped Lady Susan with Barry Lyndon, and Dickens produced a few overwrought washes of childhood—which women, curiously enough, never treated in their regular novels.
A certain resemblance in scope and arrangement has been noted already betweenVanity FairandEvelina; but, speaking generally, it is obvious that Thackeray writes of Society more as a man of the world, and with broader insight, than either Miss Burney or Miss Austen. He not only observes, but criticises. One might say that, like all moderns, he feels morally responsible for the world. The “manners” which constitute the humour ofDickens are more varied and, on the other hand, more caricatured than those of the women-writers. His fury against social evils is more public-spirited and less specialised; his knowledge of the poor more intimate and genuinely sympathetic.
They have learnt, it would seem, from women to elaborate details in observation, to depend on truthful pictures of everyday life, avoiding romance-characterisation or the aid of adventure in the composition of their plots. In fact, the development from Richardson’s revolution is consecutive, taken up by the Victorians where the women left it. New side-issues are introduced; the novel becomes more complex with the increased activities of civilisation, and grows with the growth of the middle classes. It is now the mouthpiece of what Commerce and Education began to feel and express. But thedirectionof progress is not changed.
So far it may fairly be said that Thackeray and Dickens have followed the women’s lead, and bear witness to their influence.
Yet Thackeray reverts, particularly inPendennis, to the “wild-oats” plot of Fielding; Dickens is quite innocent of artistic construction, as perfectedin Jane Austen; and neither of them seems to have benefited at all from the extraordinary revelation of womanhood which we have traced from its earliest source.
Thackeray’s heroines are, one and all, obviously made by a man for men. Amelia is a hearth-rug, with a pattern of pretty flowers. Beatrice and Blanche are variants of the eternal flirt—as man reads her. Lady Castlewood, Helen and Laura Pendennis are of the women who spend their lives waiting for the right man. Ethel Newcome is a man’s dream; and we venture to fancy that if ever a woman be born with genius to draw Becky Sharpe, she would findsomethingto add to the picture.
The case of Dickens is even more desperate. His “pretty housemaids,” indeed, are “done to a turn”; and Nancy is of the immortals. He could illustrate with melodramatic intensity certain feminine characteristics, good or evil, tragic or comic. But all his heroines belong to a few obvious waxwork types—the idiotic “pet” or the fireside “angel”; the “comfort” or the prig, composed of curls, blushes, and giggles; looks of reproach and tender advice. Possibly Dora is rather moreaggravating than Dolly Varden, Agnes is wiser than Kate Nickleby, but they all work by machinery, with visible springs.
It was reserved for George Meredith to understand women.