CHAPTER I

The notary, Jean Rossignol, had been summoned to the top of a great

house in the Isle St. Louis to make a will; and now, his duties

finished, wrapped in a warm roquelaure and with a lantern swinging

from one hand, he issued from the mansion on his homeward way.

Little did he think what strange adventures were to befall him!--

That is how stories should begin. And I am offered HUSKS instead.

What should be: What is:

The Filibuster's Cache. Aunt Anne's Tea Cosy.

Jerry Abershaw. Mrs. Brierly's Niece.

Blood Money: A Tale. Society: A Novel."

The time was out of joint; but Stevenson was born to set it right. Not

seven years after the posting of this letter, the recent Romantic

Revival had begun. In the year of his death, 1894, it was in full swing;

everybody was reading not only Stevenson, but _The Prisoner of Zenda_,

_A Gentleman of France_, _Under the Red Robe_, etc. Whatever we may

think of the literary quality of some of these then popular stories,

there is no doubt that the change was in many ways beneficial, and that

the influence of Stevenson was more responsible for it than that of any

other one man. This was everywhere recognised: in the _Athenaeum_ for 22

December, 1894, a critic remarked, "The Romantic Revival in the English

novel of to-day had in him its leader.... But for him they might have

been Howells and James young men." As a germinal writer, Stevenson will

always occupy an important place in the history of English prose

fiction. And seldom has a man been more conscious of his mission.

Stevenson's high standing as an English classic depends very largely on

the excellence of his literary style, although Scott and Cooper won

immortality without it. (One wonders if they could to-day.) When some

fifteen years ago a few critics had the temerity to suggest that he was

equal, if not superior, to these worthies, it sounded like blasphemy;

but such an opinion is not uncommon now, and may be reasonably defended.

Stevenson lacked in some degree the virility and the astonishing

fertility of invention possessed by Scott; but he exhibited a technical

skill undreamed of by his great predecessor. From the prefatory verses

to _Treasure Island_, we know that he admired Cooper; and he loved Sir

Walter, without being in the least blind to his faults. "It is

undeniable that the love of the slap-dash and the shoddy grew upon Scott

with success." He "had not only splendid romantic, but splendid tragic,

gifts. How comes it, then, that he could so often fob us off with

languid, inarticulate twaddle?... He was a great day-dreamer, a seer of

fit and beautiful and humorous visions, but hardly a great artist;

hardly, in the manful sense, an artist at all." Stevenson seems to have

felt that Scott's deficiencies in style were not merely artistic, but

moral; he lacked the patience and the particular kind of industry

required. Scott loved to tell a good story, but he loved the story

better than he did the telling of it; Stevenson, on the other hand, was

fully as much absorbed by the manner of narration as by the narration

itself. Stevenson was keenly alive to the fact that writers of romances

did not seem to feel the necessity of style; whereas those who wrote

novels wherein nothing happened, felt that a good style atoned for both

the lack of incident and the lack of ideas. Stevenson's articles of

literary faith apparently included the dogma that a mysterious,

blood-curdling romance had fully as much dignity as a minute examination

of the dreary, commonplace life of the submerged; and that the former

made just as high a demand on the endowment and industry of a

master-artist. If he had had not an idea in his head, he could not have

written with more elegance.

There is, of course, some truth in the charge that Stevenson was not

only a master of style, but a stylist. He is indeed something of a

macaroni in words; occasionally he struts a bit, and he loves to show

his brilliant plumes. He performed dexterous tricks with language, like

a musician with a difficult instrument. He liked style for its own sake,

and was not averse to exhibiting his technique. In a slight degree, his

attitude and his influence in mere composition are somewhat similar to

those of John Lyly three hundred years before. Lyly delighted his

readers with unexpected quips and quiddities, with a fantastic display

of rhetoric; he showed, as no one had before him, the possible

flexibility of English prose. There is more than a touch of Euphuism in

Stevenson; he was never insincere, but he was consciously fine. Many

have swallowed without salt his statement that he learned to write by

imitation; that by the "sedulous ape" method, employed with unwearying

study of great models, he himself became a successful author. Men of

genius are never to be trusted when they discuss the origin and

development of their powers; it is no more to be believed that Stevenson

learned to be a great writer by imitating Browne, than that _The Raven_

really reached its perfection in the manner so minutely described by

Poe. The faithful practice of composition will doubtless help any

ambitious young man or woman. But Stevensons are not made in that

fashion. If they were, anyone with plenty of time and patience could

become a great author. This "ape" remark by Stevenson has had one

interesting effect; if he imitated others, he has been strenuously

imitated himself. Probably no recent English writer has been more

constantly employed for rhetorical purposes, and there is none whose

influence on style is more evident in the work of contemporary aspirants

in fiction.

The stories of Stevenson exhibit a double union, as admirable as it is

rare. They exhibit the union of splendid material with the most delicate

skill in language; and they exhibit the union of thrilling events with a

remarkable power of psychological analysis. Every thoughtful reader has

noticed these combinations; but we sometimes forget that Silver, Alan,

Henry, and the Master are just as fine examples of character-portrayal

as can be found in the works of Henry James. It is from this point of

view that Stevenson is so vastly superior to Fenimore Cooper; just as in

literary style he so far surpasses Scott. _Treasure Island_ is much

better than _The Red Rover_ or _The Pirate_; its author actually beat

Scott and Cooper at their own game. With the exception of _Henry

Esmond_, Stevenson may perhaps be said to have written the best romances

in the English language; the undoubted inferiority of any of his books

to that masterpiece would make an interesting subject for reflexion.

The one thing in which Scott really excelled Stevenson was in the

depiction of women. The latter has given us no Diana Vernon or Jeannie

Deans. For the most part, Stevenson's romances are Paradise before the

creation of Eve. The snake is there, but not the woman. This

extraordinary absence of sex-interest is a notable feature, and many

have been the reasons assigned for it. If he had not tried at all, we

should be safe in saying that, like a small boy, he felt that girls were

in the way, and he did not want them mussing up his games. There is

perhaps some truth in this; for the presence of a girl might have ruined

_Treasure Island_, as it ruined the _Sea Wolf_. Her fuss and feathers

bring in all sorts of bothersome problems to distract a novelist, bent

on having a good time with pirates, murders, and hidden treasure.

Unfortunately for the complete satisfaction of this explanation,

Stevenson wrote _Prince Otto_, and tried to draw a real woman. The

result did not add anything to his fame, and, indeed, the whole book

missed fire. He was unquestionably more successful in _David Balfour_,

but, when all is said, the presence of women in a few of Stevenson's

romances is not so impressive as their absence in most. It is only in

that unfinished work, _Weir of Hermiston_, which gave every promise of

being one of the greatest novels in English literature, that he seemed

to have reached full maturity of power in dealing with the master

passion. The best reason for Stevenson's reserve on matters of sex was

probably his delicacy; he did not wish to represent this particular

animal impulse with the same vivid reality he pictured avarice,

ambition, courage, cowardice, and pride; and thus hampered by

conscience, he thought it best in the main to omit it altogether. At

least, this is the way he felt about it, as we may learn from the

_Vailima Letters_:--

"This is a poison bad world for the romancer, this Anglo-Saxon

world; I usually get out of it by not having any women in it at

all." (February, 1892.)

"I am afraid my touch is a little broad in a love story; I can't

mean one thing and write another. As for women, I am no more in any

fear of them; I can do a sort all right; age makes me less afraid

of a petticoat, but I am a little in fear of grossness. However,

this David Balfour's love affair, that's all right--might be read

out to a mothers' meeting--or a daughters' meeting. The difficulty

in a love yarn, which dwells at all on love, is the dwelling on one

string; it is manifold, I grant, but the root fact is there

unchanged, and the sentiment being very intense, and already very

much handled in letters, positively calls for a little pawing and

gracing. With a writer of my prosaic literalness and pertinency of

point of view, this all shoves toward grossness--positively even

towards the far more damnable _closeness_. This has kept me off the

sentiment hitherto, and now I am to try: Lord! Of course Meredith

can do it, and so could Shakespeare; but with all my romance, I am

a realist and a prosaist, and a most fanatical lover of plain

physical sensations plainly and expressly rendered; hence my

perils. To do love in the same spirit as I did (for instance) D.

Balfour's fatigue in the heather; my dear sir, there were

grossness--ready made! And hence, how to sugar?" (May, 1892.)

On the whole, I am inclined to think, that with the omission of the

fragment, _Weir of Hermiston_, Stevenson's best novel is his

first--_Treasure Island_. He wrote this with peculiar zest; first of

all, in spite of the playful dedication, to please himself; second, to

see if the public appetite for Romance could once more be stimulated. He

never did anything later quite so off-hand, quite so spontaneous. His

maturer books, brilliant as they are, lack the peculiar _brightness_ of

_Treasure Island_. It has more unity than _The Master of Ballantrae_; and

it has a greater group of characters than _Kidnapped_.

Stevenson told this story in the first person, but, by a clever device,

he avoided the chief difficulty of that method of narration. The speaker

is not one of the principal characters in the story, though he shares in

the most thrilling adventures. We thus have all the advantages of direct

discourse, all the gain in reality--without a hint as to what will be

the fate of the leading actors. Stevenson said, in one of the _Vailima

Letters_, that first-person tales were more in accord with his

temperament. The purely objective character of this novel is noteworthy,

and entirely proper, coming from a perfectly normal boy. The _Essays_

show that Stevenson could be sufficiently introspective if he chose, and

_Dr. Jekyll_ is really an introspective novel, differing in every way

from _Treasure Island_. But here we have romantic adventures seen

through the fresh eyes of boyhood, producing their unconscious reflex

action on the soul of the narrator, who daily grows in courage and

self-reliance by grappling with danger. In Henry James's fine and

penetrating essay on Stevenson, he says of this book, "What we see in it

is not only the ideal fable, but the young reader himself and his state

of mind: we seem to read it over his shoulder, with an arm around his

neck." This particular remark has been much praised; but it seems in a

way to half-apologise for a man's interest in the story, and to explain

it like an affectionate uncle's sympathetic interest in a child's game,

who mainly enjoys the child's enthusiasm. Now I venture to say that no

one can any more outgrow _Treasure Island_ than he can outgrow _Robinson

Crusoe_. The events in the story delight children; but it is a book that

in mature years can be read and reread with ever increasing satisfaction

and profit. No one needs to regret or to explain his interest in this

novel; it is nothing to be sorry for, nor does it indicate a low order

of literary taste. Many serious persons have felt somewhat alarmed by

their pleasure in reading _Treasure Island_, and have hesitated to

assign it a high place in fiction. Some have said that, after all, it is

only a pirate story, differing from the Sleuths and Harkaways merely in

being better written. But this is exactly the point, and a very

important point, in criticism. In art, the subject is of comparatively

little importance, whereas the treatment is the absolute distinguishing

feature. To insist that there is little difference between _Treasure

Island_ and any cheap tale of blood-and-thunder, is equivalent to saying

that there is little difference between the Sistine Madonna and a

cottage chromo of the Virgin.

Pew is a fearsome personage, and a notable example of the triumph of

mind over the most serious of all physical disabilities. Theoretically,

it seems strange that able-bodied individuals should be afraid of a man

who is stone blind. But the appearance of Pew is enough to make anybody

take to his heels. He is the very essence of authority and leadership.

The tap-tapping of his stick in the moonlight makes one's blood run

cold. We are apt to think of blind people as gentle, sweet, pure, and

holy; made submissive and tender by misfortune, dependent on the

kindness of others. Old Pew has lost his eyes, but not his nerve. To see

so black-hearted and unscrupulous a villain, his sight taken away as it

were by the hand of God, and yet intent only on desperate wickedness,

upsets the moral order; he becomes an uncanny monstrosity; he takes on

the hue of a supernatural fiend. John Silver has lost a leg, but he

circumvents others by the speed of his mind; amazingly quick in

perception, a most astute politician, arrested from no treachery or

murder by any moral principle or touch of pity, he has the dark

splendour of unflinching depravity. He is no Laodicean. He never lets I

dare not wait upon I would. His course seems fickle and changeable, but

he is really steering steadily by the compass of self-interest. He can

be witty, affectionate, sympathetic, friendly, submissive, flattering,

and also a devilish beast. He is the very chameleon of crime. Stevenson

simply had not the heart to kill so consummate an artist in villainy. It

was no mean achievement to create two heroes so sinister as Pew and

Silver, while depriving one of his sight and the other of a leg. One

wearies of the common run of romances, where the chief character is a

man of colossal size and beautifully proportioned, so that his victories

over various rascals are really only athletic records. In _Treasure

Island_, the emphasis is laid in the right place, whence leadership

comes; everybody is afraid of Long John, and nobody minds Ben Gunn, dead

or alive.[14]

[14] It is interesting to remember that the crippled poet, W. E. Henley,

was the original of Silver. Writing to Henley, May, 1883, Stevenson

said, "I will now make a confession. It was the sight of your maimed

strength and masterfulness that begot John Silver."

There are scenes in this story, presented with such dramatic power, and

with such astonishing felicity of diction, that, once read, they can

never pass from the reader's mind. The expression in Silver's face, as

he talks with Tom in the marsh, first ingratiatingly friendly, then

suspicious, then as implacable as malignant fate. The hurling of the

crutch; the two terrific stabs of the knife. "I could hear him pant

aloud as he struck the blows." The boy's struggle on the schooner with

Israel Hands; the awful moment in the little boat, while Flint's gunner

is training the "long nine" on her, and the passengers can do nothing

but await the result of the enemy's skill; the death of the faithful old

servant, Redruth, who said he thought somebody might read a prayer.

Much has been written in both prose and verse of the fascination of

Stevenson's personality. He was so different in different moods that no

two of his friends have ever agreed as to what manner of man he really

was. As he chose to express his genius mainly in objective romances,

future generations will find in the majority of his works no hint as to

the character of the author. From this point of view, compare for a

moment _The Master of Ballantrae_ with _Joseph Vance_! But fortunately,

Stevenson elected to write personal essays; and still more fortunately,

hundreds of his most intimate letters are preserved in type. Some think

that these _Letters_ form his greatest literary work, and that they will

outlast his novels, plays, poems, and essays. For they will have a

profound interest long after the last person who saw Stevenson on earth

has passed away. They are the revelation of a man even more interesting

than any of the wonderful characters he created; they show that men like

Philip Sidney were as possible in the nineteenth century as in the

brilliant age of Elizabeth. The life of Stevenson has added immensely to

our happiness and enjoyment of the world, and no literary figure in

recent times had more radiance and wholesome charm. His optimism was

based on a chronic experience of physical pain and weakness; to him it

was a good world, and he made it distinctly better by his presence. He

was a combination of the Bohemian and the Covenanter; he had all the

graces of one, and the bed-rock moral earnestness of the other. "The

world must return some day to the word 'duty,'" said he, "and be done

with the word 'reward.'" He was the incarnation of the happy union of

virtue and vivacity.

X

MRS. HUMPHRY WARD

It is high time that somebody spoke out his mind about Mrs. Humphry

Ward. Her prodigious vogue is one of the most extraordinary literary

phenomena of our day. A roar of approval greets the publication of every

new novel from her active pen, and it is almost pathetic to contemplate

the reverent awe of her army of worshippers when they behold the solemn

announcement that she is "collecting material" for another masterpiece.

Even professional reviewers lose all sense of proportion when they

discuss her books, and their so-called criticisms sound like publishers'

advertisements. Sceptics are warned to remain silent, lest they become

unpleasantly conspicuous. When _Lady Rose's Daughter_ appeared, the

critic of a great metropolitan daily remarked that whoever did not

immediately recognise the work as a masterpiece thereby proclaimed

himself as a person incapable of judgement, taste, and appreciation.

This is a fair example of the attitude taken by thousands of her

readers, and it is this attitude, rather than the value of her work,

that we must, first of all, consider.

In the year 1905 an entirely respectable journal said of Mrs. Ward,

"There is no more interesting and important figure in the literary world

to-day." In comparing this superlative with the actual state of affairs,

we find that we were asked to believe that Mrs. Ward was a literary

personage not second in importance to Tolstoi, Ibsen, Bjoernson, Heyse,

Sudermann, Hauptmann, Anatole France, Jules Lemaitre, Rostand,

Swinburne, Thomas Hardy, Meredith, Kipling, and Mark Twain. At about the

same time a work appeared intended as a text-book for the young, which

declared Mrs. Ward to be "the greatest living writer of fiction in

English literature," and misspelled her name--an excellent illustration

of carelessness in adjectives with inaccuracy in facts. Over and over

again we have heard the statement that the "mantle" of George Eliot has

fallen on Mrs. Ward. Is it really true that her stories are equal in

value to _Adam Bede_, _The Mill on the Floss_, and _Middlemarch_?

The object of this essay is not primarily to attack a dignified and

successful author; it is rather to enquire, in a proper spirit of

humility, and with a full realisation of the danger incurred, whether or

not the actual output justifies so enormous a reputation. For in some

respects I believe the vogue of Mrs. Ward to be more unfortunate than

the vogue of the late lamented Duchess, of Laura Jean Libbey, of Mrs. E.

D. E. N. Southworth, of Marie Corelli, and of Hall Caine. When we are

asked to note that 300,000 copies of the latest novel by any of these

have been sold before the book is published, there is no cause for

alarm. We know perfectly well what that means. It is what is called a

"business proposition"; it has nothing to do with literature. It simply

proves that it is possible to make as splendid a fortune out of the

trade of book-making, and by equally respectable methods, as is made in

other legitimate avenues of business. But the case is quite different

with Mrs. Ward. Whatever she is, she is not vulgar, sensational, or

cheap; she has never made the least compromise with her moral ideals,

nor has she ever attempted to play to the gallery. Her constituency is

made up largely of serious-minded, highly respectable people, who live

in good homes, who are fairly well read, and who ought to know the

difference between ordinary and extraordinary literature. Her books have

had a bad effect in blurring this distinction in the popular mind; for

while she has never written a positively bad book,--with the possible

exception of _Bessie Costrell_,--I feel confident that she has never

written supremely well; that, compared with the great masters of

fiction, she becomes immediately insignificant. If there ever was a

successful writer whose work shows industry and talent rather than

genius, that writer is Mrs. Ward. If there ever was a successful writer

whose work is ordinary rather than extraordinary, it is Mrs. Ward.

To those of us who delight in getting some enjoyment even out of the

most depressing facts, the growth of Mrs. Ward's reputation has its

humorous aspect. The same individuals (mostly feminine) who in 1888 read

_Robert Elsmere_ with dismay, who thought the sale of the work should be

prohibited, and the copies already purchased removed from circulating

libraries, are the very same ones who now worship what they once

denounced. She was then regarded as a destroyer of Christian faith.

Well, if she was Satan then, she is Satan still (one Western clergyman,

in advocating at that time the suppression of the work, said he believed

in hitting the devil right between the eyes). She has given no sign of

recantation, or even of penitence. I remember one fond mother, who,

fearful of the effect of the book on her daughter's growing mind, marked

all the worst passages, and then told Alice she might read it, provided

she skipped all the blazed places! That indicated not only a fine

literary sense, but a remarkable knowledge of human nature. I wonder

what the poor girl did when she came to the danger signals! And, as a

matter of fact, how valuable or vital would a Christian faith be that

could be destroyed by the perusal of _Robert Elsmere_? It is almost

difficult now to bring to distinct recollection the tremendous

excitement caused by Mrs. Ward's first successful novel, for it is a

long time since I heard its name mentioned. The last public notice of it

that I can recall was a large sign which appeared some fifteen years ago

in a New Haven apothecary's window to the effect that one copy of

_Robert Elsmere_ would be presented free to each purchaser of a cake of

soap!

Although _Robert Elsmere_ was an immediate and prodigious success, and

made it certain that whatever its author chose to write next would be

eagerly bought, it is wholly untrue to say that her subsequent novels

have depended in any way on _Elsmere_ for their reputation. There are

many instances in professional literary careers where one immensely

successful book--_Lorna Doone_, for example--has floated a long

succession of works that could not of themselves stay above water; many

an author has succeeded in attaching a life-preserver to literary

children who cannot swim. Far otherwise is the case with Mrs. Ward. It

is probable that over half the readers of _Diana Mallory_ have never

seen a copy of _Robert Elsmere_, for which, incidentally, they are to be

congratulated. But many of us can easily recollect with what intense

eagerness the novel that followed that sensation was awaited. Every one

wondered if it would be equally good; and many confidently predicted

that she had shot her bolt. As a matter of fact, not only was _David

Grieve_ a better novel than _Robert Elsmere_, but, in my judgement, it

is the best book its author has ever written. Oscar Wilde said that

_Robert Elsmere_ was _Literature and Dogma_ with the literature left

out. Now, _David Grieve_ has no dogma at all, but in a certain sense it

does belong to literature. It has some actual dynamic quality. The

character of David, and its development in a strange environment, are

well analysed; and altogether the best thing in the work, taken as a

whole, is the perspective. It is a difficult thing to follow a character

from childhood up, within the pages of one volume, and have anything

like the proper perspective. It requires for one thing, hard,

painstaking industry; but Mrs. Ward has never been afraid of work. She

cannot be accused of laziness or carelessness. The ending of this book

is, of course, weak, like the conclusion of all her books, for she has

never learned the fine art of saying farewell, either to her characters

or to the reader.

It was in the year 1894--a year made memorable by the appearance of

_Trilby_, the _Prisoner of Zenda_, _The Jungle Book_, _Lord Ormont and

his Aminta_, _Esther Waters_, and other notable novels--that Mrs. Ward

greatly increased her reputation and widened her circle of

readers by the publication of _Marcella_. Here she gave us a

political-didactic-realistic novel, which she has continued to publish

steadily ever since under different titles. It was gravely announced

that this new book would deal with socialism and the labour question.

Many readers, who felt that she had said the last word on agnosticism in

_Elsmere_, now looked forward with reverent anticipation not only to the

final solution of socialistic problems, but to some coherent arrangement

of their own vague and confused ideas. Naturally, they got just what

they deserved--a voluminous statement of various aspects of the problem,

with no solution at all. It is curious how many persons suppose that

their favourite author or orator has done something toward settling

questions, when, as a matter of fact, all he has done is to _state_

them, and then state them again. This is especially true of

philosophical and metaphysical difficulties. Think how eagerly readers

took up Professor James's exceedingly clever book on Pragmatism, hoping

at last to find rest in some definite principle. And if there ever was a

blind alley in philosophy, it is Pragmatism--the very essence of

agnosticism.

Now, _Marcella_, as a document, is both radical and reactionary. There

is an immense amount of radical talk; but the heroine's schemes fail,

the Labour party is torn by dissension, Wharton proves to be a

scoundrel, and the rebel Marcella marries a respectable nobleman. There

is not a single page in the book, with all its wilderness of words, that

can be said to be in any sense a serious contribution to the greatest of

all purely political problems. And, as a work of art, it is painfully

limited; but since it has the same virtues and defects of all her

subsequent literary output, we may consider what these virtues and

defects are.

In the first place, Mrs. Ward is totally lacking in one almost

fundamental quality of the great novelist--a keen sense of humour. Who

are the English novelists of the first class? They are Defoe,

Richardson, Fielding, Scott, Jane Austen, Dickens, Thackeray, George

Eliot, Stevenson, and perhaps Hardy. Every one of these shows humour

enough and to spare, with the single exception of Richardson, and he

atoned for the deficiency by a terrible intensity that has seldom, if

ever, been equalled in English fiction. Now, the absence of humour in a

book is not only a positive loss to the reader, in that it robs him of

the fun which is an essential part of the true history of any human

life, and thereby makes the history to that extent inaccurate and

unreal, but the writer who has no humour seldom gets the right point of

view. There is infinitely more in the temperament of the humorist than

mere laughter. Just as the poet sees life through the medium of a

splendid imagination, so the humorist has the almost infallible guide of

sympathy. The humorist sees life in a large, tolerant, kindly way; he

knows that life is a tragi-comedy, and he makes the reader feel it in

that fashion.

Again, the lack of humour in a writer destroys the sense of proportion.

The humorist sees the salient points--the merely serious writer gives us

a mass of details. In looking back over the thousands of pages of

fiction that Mrs. Ward has published, how few great scenes stand out

bright in the memory! The principle of selection--so important a part of

all true art--is conspicuous only by its absence. This is one reason for

the sameness of her books. All that we can remember is an immense number

of social functions and an immense amount of political gossip--a long,

sad level of mediocrity. This perhaps helps to explain why German

fiction is so markedly inferior to the French. The German, in his

scientific endeavour to get in the whole of life, gives us a mass of

unrelated detail. A French writer by a few phrases makes us see a

character more clearly than a German presents him after many painful

pages of wearisome description.

Mrs. Ward is not too much in earnest in following her ideals of art; no

one can be. But she is too sadly serious. There is a mental tension in

her books, like the tension of overwork and mental exhaustion, like the

tension of overwrought nerves; her books are, in fact, filled with tired

and overworked men and women, jaded and gone stale. How many of her

characters seem to need a change--what they want is rest and sleep! Many

of them ought to be in a sanatorium.

Her books are devoid of charm. One does not have to compare her with the

great masters to feel this deficiency; it would not be fair to compare

her with Thackeray. But if we select among all the novelists of real

distinction the one whom, perhaps, she most closely approaches,--Anthony

Trollope,--the enormous distance between _Diana Mallory_ and _Framley

Parsonage_ is instantly manifest. We think of Trollope with a glow of

reminiscent delight; but although Trollope and Mrs. Ward talk endlessly

on much the same range of subject-matter, how far apart they really are!

Mrs. Ward's books are crammed with politicians and clergymen, who keep

the patient reader informed on modern aspects of political and religious

thought; but the difficulty is that they substitute phrases for ideas.

Mrs. Ward knows all the political and religious cant of the day; she is

familiar with the catch-words that divide men into hostile camps; but in

all these dreary pages of serious conversation there is no real

illumination. She completely lacks the art that Trollope possessed, of

making ordinary people attractive. But to find out the real distance

that separates her productions from literature, one should read, let us

say, _The Marriage of William Ashe_ and then take up _Pride and

Prejudice_. The novels of Mrs. Ward bear about the same relation to

first-class fiction that maps and atlases bear to great paintings.

This lack of charm that I always feel in reading Mrs. Ward's books (and

I have read them all) is owing not merely to the lack of humour. It is

partly due to what seems to be an almost total absence of freshness,

spontaneity, and originality. Mrs. Ward works like a well-trained and

high-class graduate student, who is engaged in the preparation of a

doctor's thesis. Her discussions of socialism, her scenes in the House

of Commons and on the Terrace, her excursions to Italy, her references

to political history, her remarks on the army, her disquisitions on

theology, her pictures of campaign riots, her studies of defective

drainage, her representations of the labouring classes,--all these are

"worked up" in a scholarly and scientific manner; there is the modern

passion for accuracy, there is the German completeness of detail,--there

is, in fact, everything except the breath of life. She works in the

descriptive manner, from the outside in--not in the inspired manner

which goes with imagination, sympathy, and genius. She is not only a

student, she is a journalist; she is a special correspondent on

politics and theology; but she is not a creative writer. For she has the

critical, not the creative, temperament.

The monotonous sameness of her books, which has been mentioned above, is

largely owing to the sameness of her characters. She changes the frames,

but not the portraits. First of all, in almost any of her books we are

sure to meet the studious, intellectual young man. He always has a

special library on some particular subject, with the books all

annotated. One wearies of this perpetual character's perpetual library,

crowded, as it always is, with the latest French and German monographs.

Her heroes smell of books and dusty dissertations, and the conversations

of these heroes are plentifully lacking in native wit and

originality--they are the mere echoes of their reading. Let us pass in

review a few of these serious students--Robert Elsmere, Langham, Aldous

Reyburn (who changes into Lord Maxwell, but who remains a prig), the

melancholy Helbeck, the insufferable Manisty, Jacob Delafield, William

Ashe, Oliver Marsham--all, all essentially the same, tiresome, dull,

heavy men--what a pity they were not intended as satires! Second, as a

foil to this man, we have the Byronic, clever, romantic, sentimental,

insincere man--who always degenerates or dies in a manner that exalts

the dull and superior virtues of his antagonist. Such a man is Wharton,

or Sir George Tressady, or Captain Warkworth, or Cliffe--they have

different names in different novels, but they are the same character.

Curiously enough, the only convincing men that appear in her pages are

_old_ men--men like Lord Maxwell or Sir James Chide. In portraying this

type she achieves success.

What shall we say of her heroines? They have the same suspicious

resemblance so characteristic of her heroes; they are represented as

physically beautiful, intensely eager for morality and justice, with an

extraordinary fund of information, and an almost insane desire to impart

it. Her heroine is likely to be or to become a power in politics; even

at a tender age she rules society by the brilliancy of her conversation;

in a crowded drawing-room the Prime Minister hangs upon her words;

diplomats are amazed at her intimate knowledge of foreign relations, and

of the resources of the British Empire; and she can entertain a whole

ring of statesmen and publicists by giving to each exactly the right

word at the right moment. Men who are making history come to her not

only for inspiration but for guidance, for she can discourse fluently on

all phases of the troublesome labour question. And yet, if we may judge

of this marvellous creature not by the attitude of the other characters

in the book, but by the actual words that fall from her lips, we are

reminded of the woman whom Herbert Spencer's friends selected as his

potential spouse. They shut him up with her, and awaited the result with

eagerness, for they told him she had a great mind; but on emerging from

the trial interview Spencer remarked that she would not do at all: "The

young lady is, in my opinion, too highly intellectual; or, I should

rather say--morbidly intellectual. A small brain in a state of intense

activity." Was there ever a better formula for Mrs. Ward's constantly

recurring heroine? Now, as a foil to Marcella, Diana Mallory, and the

others, Mrs. Ward gives us the frivolous, mischief-making, would-be

brilliant, and actually vulgar woman, who makes much trouble for the

heroine and ultimately more for herself--the wife of Sir George

Tressady, the young upstart in _Diana Mallory_, and all the rest of

them. By the introduction of these characters there is an attempt to

lend colour to the dull pages of the novels. These women are at heart

adventuresses, but they are apt to lack the courage of their

convictions; instead of being brilliant and terrible,--like the great

adventuresses of fiction,--they are as dull in sin as their antagonists

are dull in virtue. Mrs. Ward cannot make them real; compare any one of

them with Thackeray's Beatrix or with Becky Sharp--to say nothing of the

long list of sinister women in French and Russian fiction.

There are no "supreme moments" in Mrs. Ward's books; no great dramatic

situations; she has tried hard to manage this, for she has had

repeatedly one eye on the stage. When _The Marriage of William Ashe_ and

_Lady Rose's Daughter_ appeared, one could almost feel the strain for

dramatic effect. It was as though she had realised that her previous

books were treatises rather than novels, and had gathered all her

energies together to make a severe effort for real drama. But,

unfortunately, the scholarly and critical temperament is not primarily

adapted for dramatic masterpieces. In the endeavour to recall thrilling

scenes in her novels, scenes that brand themselves for ever on the

memory, one has only to compare her works with such stories as _Far From

the Madding Crowd_ or _The Return of the Native_, and her painful

deficiency is immediately apparent.

In view of what I believe to be the standard mediocrity of her novels,

how shall we account for their enormous vogue? The fact is, whether we

like it or not, that she is one of the most widely read of all living

novelists. Well, in the first place, she is absolutely respectable and

safe. It is assuredly to her credit that she has never stooped for

popularity. She has never descended to melodrama, clap-trap, or

indecency. She is never spectacular and declamatory like Marie Corelli,

and she is never morally offensive like some popular writers who might

be mentioned. She writes for a certain class of readers whom she

thoroughly understands: they are the readers who abhor both vulgarity

and pruriency, and who like to enter vicariously, as they certainly do

in her novels, into the best English society. In her social functions

her readers can have the pleasure of meeting prime ministers, lords, and

all the dwellers in Mayfair, and they know that nothing will be said

that is shocking or improper. Her books can safely be recommended to

young people, and they reflect the current movement of English thought

as well as could be done by a standard English review. She has a

well-furnished and highly developed intellect; she is deeply read; she

makes her readers think that they are thinking. She tries to make up for

artistic deficiencies by an immense amount of information. Fifty years

ago it is probable that she would not have written novels at all, but

rather thoughtful and intellectual critical essays, for which her mind

is admirably fitted. She unconsciously chose the novel simply because

the novel has been, during the last thirty years, the chief channel of

literary expression. But in spite of her popularity, it should never be

forgotten that the novel is an art-form, not a medium for doctrinaires.

Then, with her sure hand on the pulse of the public, she is always

intensely modern, intensely contemporary; again like a well-trained

journalist. She knows exactly what Society is talking about, for she

emphatically belongs to it. This is once more a reason why so many

people believe that she holds the key to great problems of social life,

and that her next book will give the solution. Many hoped that her novel

on America, carefully worked up during her visit here, would give the

final word on American social life. Both England and the United States

were to find out what the word "American" really means.

Mrs. Ward is an exceedingly talented, scholarly, and thoughtful woman,

of lofty aims and actuated only by noble motives; she is hungry for

intellectual food, reading both old texts and the daily papers with

avidity. She has a highly trained, sensitive, critical mind,--but she is

destitute of the divine spark of genius. Her books are the books of

to-day, not of to-morrow; for while the political and religious

questions of to-day are of temporary interest, the themes of the world's

great novels are what Richardson called "love and nonsense, men and

women"--and these are eternal.

XI

RUDYARD KIPLING

Mr. Rudyard Kipling is in the anomalous and fortunate position of having

enjoyed a prodigious reputation for twenty years, and being still a

young man. Few writers in the world to-day are better known than he; and

it is to be hoped and expected that he has before him over thirty years

of active production. He has not yet attained the age of forty-five; but

his numerous stories, novels, and poems have reached the unquestioned

dignity of "works," and in uniform binding they make on my library

shelves a formidable and gallant display. Foreigners read them in their

own tongues; critical essays in various languages are steadily

accumulating; and he has received the honour of being himself the hero

of a strange French novel.[15] His popularity with the general mass of

readers has been sufficient to satisfy the wildest dreams of an author's

ambition; and his fame is, in a way, officially sanctioned by the

receipt of honorary degrees from McGill University, from Durham, from

Oxford, and from Cambridge; and in 1907 he was given the Nobel Prize,

with the ratifying applause of the whole world. There is no indication

that either the shouts of the mob or the hoods of Doctorates have turned

his head; he remains to-day what he always has been--a hard,

conscientious workman, trying to do his best every time.

[15] A curious and ironical book, _Dingley_, by Tharaud.

Although Mr. Kipling is British to the core, there is nothing insular

about his experience; he is as much-travelled as Ulysses.

"For always roaming with a hungry heart

Much have I seen and known: cities of men,

And manners, climates, councils, governments,

Myself not least, but honour'd of them all."

Born in India, educated at an English school, circumnavigator of the

globe, he is equally at home in the snows of the Canadian Rockies, or in

the fierce heat east of Suez; in the fogs of the Channel, or under the

Southern Cross at Capetown. Nor is he a mere sojourner on the earth: he

has lived for years in his own house, in England, in Vermont, and in

India, and has had abundant opportunity to compare the climate of

Brattleboro with that of Bombay.

A born journalist and reporter, his publications first saw the light in

ephemeral Indian sheets. In the late eighties he began to amuse himself

with the composition of squibs of verse, which he printed in the local

newspaper; these became popular, and were cited and sung with

enthusiasm. Emboldened by this first taste of success, he put together a

little volume bound like a Government report; he then sent around reply

post-cards for cash orders, in the fashion already made famous by Walt

Whitman. It is needless to say that copies of this book command a fancy

price to-day. He immediately contracted what Holmes used to call

"lead-poisoning," and the sight of his work in type made a literary

career certain. He produced volume after volume, in both prose and

verse, with amazing rapidity, and his fame overflowed the world. A

London periodical prophesied in 1888, "The book gives hope of a new

literary star of no mean magnitude rising in the East." The amount and

excellence of his output may be judged when we remember that in the

three years from 1886 to 1889 he published _Departmental Ditties_,

_Plain Tales from the Hills_, _Soldiers Three_, _In Black and White_,

_The Story of the Gadsbys_, _The Man Who Would Be King_, _The Phantom

'Rickshaw_, _Wee Willie Winkie_, and other narratives.

The originality, freshness, and power of all this work made Europe stare

and gasp. For some years he had as much notoriety as reputation. We used

to hear of the Kipling "craze," the Kipling "boom," the Kipling "fad,"

and Kipling clubs sprang up like mushrooms. It was difficult to read

him in cool blood, because he was discussed pro and con with so much

passion. He was fashionable, in the manner of ping-pong; and there were

not wanting pessimistic prophets who looked upon him as a comet rather

than a fixed star. So late as 1895 a well-known American journal said of

him: "Rudyard Kipling is supposed to be the cleverest man now handling

the pen. The magazines accept everything he writes, and pay him fabulous

prices. Kipling is now printing a series of Jungle Stories that are so

weak and foolish that we have never been able to read them. They are not

fables: they are stories of animals talking, and they are pointless, so

far as the average reader is able to judge. We have asked a good many

magazine editors about Kipling's Jungle Stories; they all express the

same astonishment that the magazine editors accept them. Kipling will

soon be dropped by the magazine editors; they will inevitably discover

that his stories are not admired by the people. Robert Louis Stevenson

died just in time to save him from the same fate."

Many honestly believed that Mr. Kipling could write only in flashes;

that he was incapable of producing a complete novel. His answer to this

was _The Light that Failed_, which, although he made the mistake of

giving it a reversible ending, indicated that his own lamp had yet

sufficient oil. In 1895 he added immensely to the solidity of his fame

by printing _The Brushwood Boy_, the scenes of which he announced

previously would be laid in "England, India, and the world of dreams."

Here he temporarily forsook the land of mysterious horror for the land

of mysterious beauty, and many were grateful, and said so. In 1896 the

appearance of _The Seven Seas_ proved beyond cavil that he was something

more than a music-hall rimester--that he was really among the English

poets. The very next year _The Recessional_ stirred the religious

consciousness of the whole English-speaking race. And although much of

his subsequent career seems to be a nullification of the sentiment of

that poem, it will remain imperishable when the absent-minded beggars

and the flannelled fools have reached the oblivion they so richly

deserve.

In 1897 he tried his hand for the second time at a complete novel,

_Captains Courageous_, and the result might safely be called a success.

The moral of this story will be worth a word or two later on. The next

year an important volume came from his pen, _The Day's Work_--important

because it is in this volume that the new Kipling is first plainly seen,

and the mechanical engineer takes the place of the literary artist. Such

curiosities as _The Ship that Found Herself_, _The Bridge-Builders_,

_.007_, became anything but curiosities in his later work. This

collection was sadly marred by the inclusion of such wretched stuff as

_My Sunday at Home_, and _An Error in the Fourth Dimension_; but it was

glorified by one of the most exquisitely tender and beautiful of all Mr.

Kipling's tales, _William the Conqueror_. And it should not be forgotten

that the author saw fit to close this volume with the previously printed

and universally popular _Brushwood Boy_. Then, at the very height of his

ten years' fame, Mr. Kipling came closer to death than almost any other

individual has safely done. As he lay sick with pneumonia in New York,

the American people, whom he has so frequently ridiculed, were more

generally and profoundly affected than they have been at the bedside of

a dying President. The year 1899 marked the great physical crisis of his

life, and seems also to indicate a turning-point in his literary career.

Whatever may be thought of the relative merits of Mr. Kipling's early

and later style, it is fortunate for him that the two decades of

composition were not transposed. We all read the early work because we

could not help it; we read his twentieth-century compositions because he

wrote them. It is lucky that the _Plain Tales from the Hills_ preceded

_Puck of Pook's Hill_, and that _The Light that Failed_ came before

_Stalky and Co._ Whether these later productions could have got into

print without the tremendous prestige of their author's name, is a

question that has all the fascination and all the insolubility of

speculative philosophy. The suddenness of his early popularity may be

perhaps partly accounted for by the fact that he was working a new

field. The two authors who have most influenced Mr. Kipling's style are

both Americans--Bret Harte and Mark Twain; and the analogy between the

sudden fame of Harte and the sudden fame of Mr. Kipling is too obvious

to escape notice. Bret Harte found in California ore of a different kind

than his maddened contemporaries sought; his early tales had all the

charm of something new and strange. What Bret Harte made out of

California Mr. Kipling made out of India; at the beginning he was a

"sectional writer," who, with the instinct of genius, made his literary

opportunity out of his environment. The material was at hand, the time

was ripe, and the man was on the spot. It was the strong "local colour"

in these powerful Indian tales that captivated readers--who, in far-away

centres of culture and comfort, delighted to read of primitive passions

in savage surroundings. We had all the rest and change of air that we

could have obtained in a journey to the Orient, without any of the

expense, discomfort, and peril.

But after the spell of the wizard's imagination has left us, we cannot

help asking, after the manner of the small boy, Is it true? Are these

pictures of English and native life in India faithful reflexions of

fact? Can we depend on Mr. Kipling for India, as we can depend (let us

say) on Daudet for a picture of the _Rue de la Paix_? Now it is a

notable fact that local colour seems most genuine to those who are

unable to verify it. It is a melancholy truth that the community

portrayed by a novelist not only almost invariably deny the likeness of

the portrait, but that they emphatically resent the liberty taken.

Stories of college life are laughed to scorn by the young gentlemen

described therein, no matter how fine the local colour may seem to

outsiders. The same is true of social strata in society, of provincial

towns, and Heaven only knows what the Slums would say to their depiction

in novels, if only the Slums could read. One reason for this is that a

novel or a short story must have a beginning and an end, and some kind

of a plot; whereas life has no such thing, nor anything remotely

resembling it. When honest people see their daily lives, made up of

thousands of unrelated incidents, served up to remote readers in the

form of an orderly progression of events, leading up to a proper climax,

the whole thing seems monstrously unreal and untrue. "Why, we are not in

the least like that!" they cry. And I have purposely omitted the factor

of exaggeration, absolutely essential to the realistic novelist or

playwright.

In a notice of the _Plain Tales from the Hills_, the London _Saturday

Review_ remarked, "Mr. Kipling knows and appreciates the English in

India." But it is more interesting and profitable to see how his stories

were regarded in the country he described. In the _Calcutta Times_, for

14 September, 1895, there was a long editorial which is valuable, at any

rate, for the point of view. After mentioning the _Plain Tales_,

_Soldiers Three_, _Barrack-room Ballads_, etc., the _Times_ critic

said:--

"Except in a few instances which might easily be numbered on the

fingers of one hand, nothing in the books we have named is at all

likely to live or deserves to live.... It will probably be answered

that this sweeping condemnation is not of much value against the

emphatic approval of the British public and the aforesaid chorus of

critics in praise of the new Genius.... And the English critics

have this to plead in excuse of their hyperbolical appreciation of

the Stronger Dickens, that his first work came to them fathered

with responsible guarantee from men who should have known better,

that it was in the way of a revelation of Anglo-Indian society,

a-letting in the light of truth on places which had been very dark

indeed.

"Now the average English critic knows very little of the

intricacies of social life in India, and in the enthusiasm which

Mrs. Hauksbee and kindred creations inspired he accepted too

readily as true types what are, in fact, caricatures, or distorted

presentments, of some of the more poisonous social characteristics

to be found in Anglo-Indian as well as in every other civilised

society.... Do not let us be understood as recklessly running down

Kipling and all his works.... He possesses in a high degree the

power of describing a certain class of emotions, and the flights of

his imagination in some directions are extremely bold and original.

In such tales, for instance, as 'The Man who would be a King'

(_sic_) and 'The Ride of Morrowby Jukes' (_sic_) there are

qualities of the imagination which equal, if they do not surpass,

anything in the same line with which we are acquainted.... The

capital charge, in the opinion of many, the head and front of his

offending, is that he has traduced a whole society, and has spread

libels broadcast. Anglo-Indian society may in some respects be

below the average level of the best society in the Western world,

where the rush and stir of life and the collision of intellects

combine to keep the atmosphere clearer and more bracing than in

this land of tennis, office boxes, frontier wars, and enervation.

But as far as it falls below what many would wish it to be, so far

it rises above the description of it which now passes current at

home under the sanction of Kipling's name.... For whether Kipling

is treating of Indian subjects pure and simple, of Anglo-Indian

subjects, or is attempting a Western theme, the personality of the

writer is pervasive and intrusive everywhere, with all its

limitations of vision and information, as well as with its eternal

panoply of cheap smartness and spiced vulgarity.... Smartness is

always first with him, and Truth may shift for herself."

Although the writer of the above article is somewhat blinded by

prejudice and wrath, it is, nevertheless, interesting testimony from the

particular section of our planet which Mr. Kipling was at that time

supposed to know best. And out in San Francisco they are still talking

of Mr. Kipling's visit there, and the "abominable libel" of California

life and customs he chose to publish in _From Sea to Sea_.

Apart from Mr. Kipling's good fortune in having fresh material to deal

with, the success of his early work lay chiefly in its dominant

quality--Force. For the last thirty years, the world has been full of

literary experts, professional story-writers, to whom the pen is a means

of livelihood. Our magazines are crowded with tales which are well

written, and nothing else. They say nothing, because their writers have

nothing to say. The impression left on the mind by the great majority of

handsomely bound novels is like that of a man who beholds his natural

face in a glass. The thing we miss is the thing we unconsciously

demand--Vitality. In the rare instances where vitality is the

ground-quality, readers forgive all kinds of excrescences and defects,

as they did twenty years ago in Mr. Kipling, and later, for example, in

Jack London. The original vigour and strength of Mr. Kipling's stories

were to the jaded reader a keen, refreshing breeze; like Marlowe in

Elizabethan days he seemed a towering, robust, masculine personality,

who had at his command an inexhaustible supply of material absolutely

new. This undoubted vigour was naturally unaccompanied by moderation and

good taste; Mr. Kipling's sins against artistic proportion and the law

of subtle suggestion were black indeed. He simply had no reserve. In

_The Man Who Would Be King_, which I have always regarded as his

masterpiece, the subject was so big that no reserve in handling it was

necessary. The whole thing was an inspiration, of imagination all

compact. But in many other instances his style was altogether too loud

for his subject. One wearies of eternal fortissimo. Many of his tales

should have been printed throughout in italics. In examples of this

nature, which are all too frequent in the "Complete Works" of Mr.

Kipling, the tragedy becomes melodrama; the humour becomes buffoonery;

the picturesque becomes bizarre; the terrible becomes horrible; and

vulgarity reigns supreme.

He is far better in depicting action than in portraying character. This

is one reason why his short stories are better than his novels. In _The

Light that Failed_, with all its merits, he never realised the character

of Maisie; but in his tales of violent action, we feel the vividness of

the scene, time and again. His work here is effective, because Mr.

Kipling has an acute sense of the value of words, just as a great

musician has a correct ear for the value of pitch. When one takes the

trouble to analyse his style in his most striking passages, it all comes

down to skill in the use of the specific word--the word that makes the

picture clear, sometimes intolerably clear. Look at the nouns and

adjectives in this selection from _The Drums of the Fore and Aft_:

"They then selected their men, and slew them with deep gasps and

short hacking coughs, and groanings of leather belts against

strained bodies, and realised for the first time that an Afghan

attacked is far less formidable than an Afghan attacking; which

fact old soldiers might have told them.

"But they had no old soldiers in their ranks."

There are two defects in Mr. Kipling's earlier work that might perhaps

be classed as moral deficiencies. One is the almost ever present

coarseness, which the author mistook for vigour. Now the tendency to

coarseness is inseparable from force, and needs to be held in check.

Coarseness is the inevitable excrescence of superabundant vitality, just

as effeminacy is the danger limit of delicacy and refinement. Swift and

Rabelais had the coarseness of a robust English sailor; at their worst

they are simply abominable, just as Tennyson at his worst is effeminate

and silly. Mr. Kipling has that natural delight in coarseness that all

strong natures have, whether they are willing to admit it or not. A

large proportion of his scenes of humour are devoted to drunkenness:

"gloriously drunk" is a favourite phrase with him. The time may come

when this sort of humour will be obsolete. We laugh at drunkenness, as

the Elizabethans laughed at insanity, but we are only somewhat nearer

real civilisation than they. At any rate, even those who delight in

scenes of intoxication must find the theme rather overworked in Mr.

Kipling. This same defect in him leads to indulgence in his passion for

ghastly detail. This is where he ceases to be a man of letters, and

becomes downright journalistic. It is easier to excite momentary

attention by physical horror than by any other device; and Mr. Kipling

is determined to leave nothing to the imagination. Many instances might

be cited; we need only recall the gouging out of a man's eye in _The

Light that Failed_, and the human brains on the boot in _Badalia

Herodsfoot_.

The other moral defect in this early work was its world-weary cynicism,

which was simply foolish in so young a writer. His treatment of women,

for example, compares unfavourably with that shown in the frankest tales

of Bret Harte. His attitude toward women in these youthful books has

been well described as "disillusioned gallantry." The author continually

gives the reader a "knowing wink," which, after a time, gets on one's

nerves. These books, after all, were probably not meant for women to

read, and perhaps no one was more surprised than Mr. Kipling himself at

the rapturous exclamations of the thousands of his feminine adorers. A

woman rejoicing in the perusal of these Indian tales seems as much out

of place as she does in the office of a cheap country hotel, reeking

with the fumes of whiskey and stale tobacco, and adorned with men who

spit with astonishing accuracy into distant receptacles.

Mr. Kipling doubtless knows more about his own faults than any of the

critics; and if after one has read _The Light that Failed_ for the sake

of the story, one rereads it attentively as an _Apologia Pro Vita Sua_,

one will be surprised to see how many ideas about his art he has put

into the mouth of Dick. "Under any circumstances, remember, four-fifths

of everybody's work must be bad. But the remnant is worth the trouble

for its own sake." "One must do something always. You hang your canvas

up in a palm-tree and let the parrots criticise." "If we sit down

quietly to work out notions that are sent to us, we may or we may not do

something that isn't bad. A great deal depends on being master of the

bricks and mortar of the trade. But the instant we begin to think about

success and the effect of our work--to play with one eye on the

gallery--we lose power and touch and everything else.... I was told that

all the world was interested in my work, and everybody at Kami's talked

turpentine, and I honestly believed that the world needed elevating and

influencing, and all manner of impertinences, by my brushes. By Jove, I

actually believed that!... And when it's done it's such a tiny thing,

and the world's so big, and all but a millionth part of it doesn't

care."

Fortunately, four-fifths of Kipling's work isn't bad. We are safe in

ascribing genius to the man who wrote _The Phantom 'Rickshaw_, _The

Strange Ride_, _The Man Who Would Be King_, _William the Conqueror_,

_The Brushwood Boy_, and _The Jungle Book_. These, and many other tales,

to say nothing of his poetry, constitute an astounding achievement for a

writer under thirty-five.

But the Kipling of the last ten years is an Imperialist and a Mechanic,

rather than a literary man. We need not classify _Stalky and Co._,

except to say that it is probably the worst novel ever written by a man

of genius. It is on a false pitch throughout, and the most rasping book

of recent times. The only good things in it are the quotations from

Browning. The Jingo in Mr. Kipling was released by the outbreak of the

South African War, and the author of _The Recessional_ forgot everything

he had prayed God to remember. He became the voice of the British

Empire, and the man who had always ridiculed Americans for bunkum

oratory, out-screamed us all. In this imperialistic verse and prose

there is not much literature, but there is a great deal of noise, which

has occasionally deceived the public; just as an orator is sure of a

round of applause if his peroration is shouted at the top of his voice.

His recent book, _Puck of Pook's Hill_, is written against the grain;

painful effort has supplied the place of the old inspiration, and the

simplicity of true art is conspicuous by its absence. Of this volume,

_The Athenaeum_, in general friendly to Kipling, remarks: "In his new

part--the missionary of empire--Mr. Kipling is living the strenuous

life. He has frankly abandoned story-telling, and is using his complete

and powerful armory in the interest of patriotic zeal." On the other

hand, Mr. Owen Wister, whose opinion is valuable, thinks _Puck_ "the

highest plane that he has ever reached"--a judgement that I record with

respect, though to me it is incomprehensible.

Kipling the Mechanic is less useful than an encyclopaedia, and not any

more interesting. A comic paper describes him as "now a technical

expert; at one time a popular writer. This young man was born in India,

came to his promise in America, and lost himself in England. His _Plain

Tales of the Hills_ (_sic_) has been succeeded by _Enigmatical

Expositions from the Dark Valleys_.... Mr. Kipling has declared that the

Americans have never forgiven him for not dying in their country. On the

contrary, they have never forgiven him for not having written anything

better since he was here than he did before. But while there's Kipling,

there's hope." It is to be earnestly hoped that he will cease

describing the machinery of automobiles, ships, locomotives, and flying

air-vessels, and once more look in his heart and write. His worst enemy

is himself. He seems to be in terror lest he should say something

ordinary and commonplace. He has been so praised for his originality and

powerful imagination, that his later books give one the impression of a

man writing in the sweat of his face, with the grim determination to

make every sentence a literary event. Such a tale as _Wireless_ shows

that the zeal for originality has eaten him up. One can feel on every

page the straining for effect, and it is as exhausting to read as it is

to watch a wrestling-match, and not nearly so entertaining. If Mr.

Kipling goes on in the vein of these later years, he may ultimately

survive his reputation, as many a good man has done before him. I should

think even now, when the author of _Puck of Pook's Hill_ turns over the

pages of _The Man Who Would Be King_, he would say with Swift, "Good

God! what a genius I had when I wrote that book!"

His latest collection of tales, with the significant title, _Actions and

Reactions_, is a particularly welcome volume to those of us who prefer

the nineteenth century Kipling to the twentieth. To be sure, the story

_With the Night Mail_, shows the new mechanical cleverness rather than

the old inspiration; it is both ingenious and ephemeral, and should

have remained within the covers of the magazine where it first appeared.

Furthermore, _A Deal in Cotton_, _The Puzzler_, and _Little Foxes_ are

neither clever nor literary; they are merely irritating, and remind us

of a book we would gladly forget, called _Traffics and Discoveries_. But

the first narrative in this new volume, with the caption, _An Habitation

Enforced_, is one of the most subtle, charming, and altogether

delightful things that Mr. Kipling has ever given us; nor has he ever

brought English and American people in conjunction with so much charity

and good feeling. I do not think he has previously shown greater

psychological power than in this beautiful story. In the second tale,

_Garm--A Hostage_, Mr. Kipling joins the ranks of the dog worshippers;

the exploits of this astonishing canine will please all dog-owners, and

many others as well. Naturally he has to exaggerate; instead of making

his four-footed hero merely intelligent, he makes him noble in reason,

infinite in faculty, in apprehension like a god, the paragon of animals.

But it is a brilliant piece of work. The last story, _The House

Surgeon_, takes us into the world of spirit, whither Mr. Kipling has

successfully conducted his readers before. This mysterious domain seems

to have a constantly increasing attraction for modern realistic writers,

and has enormously enlarged the stock of material for contemporary

novelists. The field is the world, yes; but the world is bigger than it

used to be, bigger than any boundaries indicated by maps or globes. It

would be interesting to speculate just what the influence of all these

transcendental excursions will be on modern fiction as an educational

force. Mr. Kipling apparently writes with sincere conviction, and in a

powerfully impressive manner. The poetic interludes in this volume, like

those in _Puck of Pook's Hill_, show that the author's skill in verse

has not in the least abated; the lines on _The Power of the Dog_ are

simply irresistible. It is safe to say that _Actions and Reactions_ will

react favourably on all unprejudiced readers; and for this relief much

thanks. If one wishes to observe the difference between the inspired and

the ingenious Mr. Kipling, one has only to read this collection straight

through.[16]

[16] I have not discussed a new collection of Mr. Kipling's stories,

called _Abaft the Funnel_, consisting of reprints of early fugitive

pieces; because there is not the slightest indication that this book is

in any way authorised, or that its publication has the approval of the

man who wrote it. Perhaps an authorised edition of it may now become

necessary.

Like almost all Anglo-Saxon writers, Mr. Kipling is a moralist, and his

gospel is Work. He believes in the strenuous life as a cure-all. He

apparently does not agree with Goethe that To Be is greater than To Do.

The moral of _Captains Courageous_ is the same moral contained in the

ingenious bee-hive story. The unpardonable sin is Idleness. But

although Work is good for humanity, it is rather limited as an ideal,

and we cannot rate Mr. Kipling very high as a spiritual teacher. God is

not always in the wind, or in the earthquake, or in the fire. The

day-dreams of men like Stevenson and Thackeray sometimes bear more fruit

than the furious energy of Mr. Kipling.

But the consuming ambition of this man, and his honest desire to do his

best, will, let us hope, spare him the humiliation of being beaten by

his own past. After all, Genius is the rarest article in the world, and

one who undoubtedly has it is far more likely to reach the top of the

hill than he is to take the road to Danger, which leads into a great

wood; or the road to Destruction, which leads into a wide field, full of

dark mountains.

XII

"LORNA DOONE"

The air of Devon and Somerset is full of literary germs. The best advice

a London hack could give to a Gigadibs would be _Go west, young man_.

The essential thing is to establish a residence south of Bristol, grow

old along with Wessex, and inhale the atmosphere. Thousands of reverent

pilgrims, on foot, on bicycle, and in automobile, are yearly following

the tragic trails of Mr. Hardy's heroines; to a constantly increasing

circle of interested observers, Mr. Eden Phillpotts is making the

topography of Devon clearer than an ordnance map; if Mrs. Willcocks

writes a few more novels like _The Wingless Victory_ and _A Man of

Genius_, we shall soon all be talking about her--just wait and see; and

in the summer season, when soft is the sun, the tops of coaches in North

Devon and Somerset are packed with excited Americans, carrying Lornas

instead of Baedekers. To the book-loving tourists, every inch of this

territory is holy ground.

Yet the author of our favourite romance was not by birth a Wessex man.

Mr. Richard D. Blackmore (for, like the creator of _Robinson Crusoe_,

his name is not nearly so well known as his work) first "saw the light"

in Berkshire, the year being 1825. But he was exposed to the Wessex

germs at the critical period of boyhood, actually going to Blundell's

School at Tiverton, a small town in the heart of Devonshire, fourteen

miles north of Exeter, at the union of Exe and Lowman rivers. To this

same school he sent John Ridd, as we learn in the second paragraph of

the novel:--

"John Ridd, the elder, churchwarden, and overseer, being a great

admirer of learning, and well able to write his name, sent me, his

only son, to be schooled at Tiverton, in the County of Devon. For

the chief boast of that ancient town (next to its woolen staple) is

a worthy grammar-school, the largest in the west of England,

founded and handsomely endowed in the year 1604 by Master Peter

Blundell, of that same place, clothier."

From this institution young Blackmore proceeded to Exeter College,

Oxford, where he laid the foundations of his English style by taking

high rank in the classics. Like many potential poets and novelists, he

studied law, and was called to the bar in 1852. But he cared little for

the dusty purlieus of the Middle Temple, and not at all for city life:

his father was a country parson, as it is the fashion for English

fathers of men of letters to be, and the young man loved the peace and

quiet of rural scenery. He finally made a home at Teddington, in

Middlesex, and devoted himself to the avocation of fruit-growing. On

this subject he became an authority, and his articles on gardening were

widely read. Here he died in January, 1900.

His death was mourned by many thousand persons who never saw him, and

who knew nothing about his life. The public always loves the makers of

its favourite books; but in the case of Mr. Blackmore, every reader of

his masterpiece felt a peculiarly intimate relation with the man who

wrote it. The story is so full of the milk of human kindness, its hero

and heroine are so irresistibly attractive, and it radiates so wholesome

and romantic a charm, that one cannot read it without feeling on the

best possible terms with the author--as if both were intimate friends of

long standing. For _Lorna Doone_ is a book we think we have always been

reading; we can hardly recall the time when it had not become a part of

our literary experience; just as it takes an effort to remember that

there were days and years when we were not even aware of the existence

of persons who are now indissolubly close. They have since become so

necessary that we imagine life before we knew them must really have been

more barren than it seemed.

Like many successful novelists, Mr. Blackmore began his literary career

by the publication of verse, several volumes of poems appearing from

his pen during the years 1854-1860. Although he never entirely abandoned

verse composition, which it was only too apparent that he wrote with his

left hand, the coolness with which his Muse was received may have been a

cause of his attempting the quite different art of the novel. It is

pleasant to remember, however, that in these early years he translated

Vergil's _Georgics_; combining his threefold love of the classics, of

poetry, and of gardening. Of how much practical agricultural value he

found the Mantuan bard, we shall never know.

Contrary to a common supposition, _Lorna Doone_ was not his first story.

He launched two ventures before his masterpiece--_Clara Vaughan_ in

1864, and _Cradock Nowell_ in 1866. These won no applause, and have not

emerged from the congenial oblivion in which they speedily foundered.

After these false starts, the great book came out in 1869, with no blare

of publisher's trumpet, with scanty notice from the critics, and with no

notice of any kind from the public. In the preface to the twentieth

edition, and his various prefaces are well worth reading, the author

remarked:--

"What a lucky maid you are, my Lorna! When first you came from the

Western Moors nobody cared to look at you; the 'leaders of the

public taste' led none of it to make test of you. Having struggled

to the light of day, through obstruction and repulses, for a year

and a half you shivered in a cold corner, without a sun-ray. Your

native land disdained your voice, and America answered, 'No child

of mine'; knowing how small your value was, you were glad to get

your fare paid to any distant colony."

The _Saturday Review_ for 5 November, 1870, uttered a few patronising

words of praise. The book was called "a work of real excellence," but

the reviewer timidly added, "We do not pretend to rank it with the

acknowledged masterpieces of fiction." On the whole, there is good

ground for gratitude that the public was so slow to see the "real

excellence" of _Lorna_. A sudden blaze of popularity is sometimes so

fierce as to consume its cause. Let us spend a few moments in devout

meditation, while we recall the ashes of "the book of the year." The

gradual dawn of Lorna's fame has assured her of a long and fair day.

Possibly one of the reasons why this great romance made so small an

impression was because it appeared at an unpropitious time. The sower

sowed the seed; but the thorns of Reade and Trollope sprang up and

choked them. These two novelists were in full action; and they kept the

public busy. Realism was strong in the market; people did not know then,

as we do now, that The _Cloister and the Hearth_ was worth all the rest

of Charles Reade put together. Had _Lorna Doone_ appeared toward the

end of the century, when the Romantic Revival was in full swing, it

would have received a royal welcome. But how many would have recognised

its superiority to the tinsel stuff of those recent days, full of

galvanised knights and stuffed chatelaines? For _Lorna_ belongs to a

class of fiction with which we were flooded in the nineties, though,

compared with the ordinary representative of its kind, it is as a star

to a glow-worm. Readers then enjoyed impossible characters, whose talk

was mainly of "gramercy" and similar curiosities, for they had the

opportunity to "revel in the glamour of a bogus antiquity." But an

abundance of counterfeits does not lower the value of the real metal;

and _Lorna_ is a genuine coin struck from the mint of historical

romance. In the original preface its author modestly said:--

"This work is called a 'romance,' because the incidents,

characters, time, and scenery are alike romantic. And in shaping

this old tale, the writer neither dares, nor desires, to claim for

it the dignity or cumber it with the difficulty of an historic

novel."

In warmth and colour, in correct visualisation, and in successful

imitation of the prose of a bygone day (which no one has ever perfectly

accomplished), it ranks not very far below the greatest of all English

historical romances, _Henry Esmond_.

_Lorna Doone_ is practically one more illustration of Single-Speech

Hamilton. After its appearance, its author wrote and published steadily

for thirty years; but the fact remains that not only is _Lorna_ his

best-known work, but that his entire reputation hangs upon it. Many of

his other stories are good, notably _Cripps the Carrier_ and

_Perlycross_; the latter has a most ingenious plot; but these two now

peacefully repose with their mates in undisturbed slumber at dusty

library corners. They had an initial sale because they came from the

hand that created _Lorna_; then they were lost in the welter of

ephemeral literature. Mr. Blackmore offered his buyers all sorts of

wares, but, after a momentary examination, they declined what was "just

as good," and returned to their favourite, which, by the way, was never

his; he ranked it third among his productions.

For this novel is not only one of the best-loved books in English

fiction, and stands magnificently the severe test of rereading, it is

bound to have even more admirers in the future than it has ever yet

enjoyed; it is visibly growing in reputation every year. It may be

interesting to analyse some of its elements, in order to understand what

has given it so assured a place. The main plot is simplicity itself. It

is a history, however, that the world has always found entertaining, the

history of the love of a strong man for a beautiful girl. They meet, he

falls in love, he rescues her from peril, she goes up to London, becomes

a great lady, returns, is dangerously wounded on her wedding-day,

recovers, and they live happily for ever after--_voila tout_. A very

simple plot, yet the telling fills two stout volumes, with the reader's

interest maintained from first to last.

It is told in the first person--the approved method of the historical

romance. Professor Raleigh has admirably pointed out the virtues and

defects of the three ways of composing a novel,--direct discourse by the

chief actor, the exclusive employment of letters, and the "invisible and

omniscient" impersonal author.[17] It is interesting to note, in

passing, that our first English novelist, Defoe, adopted the first

method; Richardson, our second novelist, took the second; and Fielding,

our third novelist, took the third. Now, the great advantage of having

John Ridd speak throughout is the gain in reality and vividness; it is

as though we sat with him in the ingle, and obtained all our information

at first hand. What is lost by narrowness of experience is made up in

intensity; we follow him breathlessly, as Desdemona followed Othello,

and he has every moment our burning sympathy. We participate more fully

in his joys and sorrows, in the agony of his suspense; we share his

final triumph. He is talking directly to us, and John Ridd is a good

talker. He is the kind of man who appeals to all classes of listeners.

He has the gentleness and modesty that are so becoming to great physical

strength; the love of children, animals, and all helpless creatures;

reverence for God, purity of heart, and a noble slowness to wrath. Such

a man is simply irresistible, and we are sorry when he finishes his

tale. The defect in this method of narration, which Mr. Blackmore has

employed with such success, is the inevitable defect in all stories

written in this manner, as Professor Raleigh has observed: "It takes

from the novelist the privilege of killing his hero." When John Ridd is

securely bound, and the guns of hostile soldiers are levelled at his

huge bulk, with their fingers actually on the triggers, we laugh at

ourselves for our high-beating hearts; for of course he is unkillable,

else how could he be talking at this very moment?

[17] _The English Novel_, Chapter VI.

The plot of _Lorna Doone_, which, as we have observed, is very simple,

is, nevertheless, skilfully complicated. It is not a surprise plot, like

that of _A Pair of Blue Eyes_; we are not stunned by the last page. It

is a suspense plot; we have a well-founded hope that all will come right

in the end, and yet the author has introduced enough disturbing elements

to put us occasionally in a maze. This artistic suspense is attained

partly by the method of direct discourse; which, at the same time,

develops the character of the hero. Big John repeats incidents, dwells

lengthily on minute particulars, stops to enjoy the scenery, and makes

mountains of stories out of molehills of fact. The second complication

of the plot arises from the introduction of characters that apparently

divert the course of the story without really doing so. There are

nineteen important characters, all held well in hand; and a conspicuous

example of a complicating personage is little Ruth Huckaback. She

interferes in the main plot in an exceedingly clever way. The absorbing

question in every reader's mind is, of course, Will John marry Lorna?

Now Ruth's interviews with the hero are so skilfully managed, and with

such intervals of time between, that on some pages she seems destined to

be his bride. And, admirably drawn as her character is, when her

artistic purpose in the plot is fully accomplished, she quietly fades

out, with the significant tribute, "Ruth Huckaback is not married yet."

There is also a subsidiary plot, dovetailed neatly into the main

building. This is the story of the attractive highwayman, Tom Faggus,

and his love for John's sister, Annie. Many pages are taken up with the

adventures of this gentleman, who enters the novel on horseback (what a

horse!) at the moment when the old drake is fighting for his life.

Besides our interest in Tom himself, in his wild adventures, and in his

reformation, we are interested in the conflict of his two passions, one

for the bottle, and one for Annie, and we wonder which will win. This

subsidiary love story is still further complicated by the introduction

of young De Whichehalse; and in the struggle between John Ridd and the

Doones, both Tom Faggus and the De Whichehalse family play important

parts. It is interesting, too, to observe how events that seem at the

time to be of no particular importance, turn out later to be highly

significant; when, at the very beginning of the long story, the little

boy, on his way home from school, meets the lady's maid, and shortly

after sees the child borne away on the robber's saddle, we imagine all

this is put in to enliven the journey, that it is just "detail"; long

afterwards we find the artistic motive. In fact, one of the most notable

virtues of this admirable plot is the constant introduction of matters

apparently irrelevant and due to mere garrulity, such as the uncanny

sound, for example, which prove after all to be essential to the course

of the narrative.

As for the characters, they impress us differently in different moods.

For all John Ridd's prodigious strength, marvellous escapes, and

astounding feats, his personality is so intensely human that he seems

real. His _soul_, at any rate, is genuine, and wholly natural; his

bodily activity--the extraction of Carver's biceps, the wrenching of

the branch from the tree, the hurling of the cannon through the

door--makes him a dim giant in a fairy story. When we think of the

qualities of his mind and heart, he comes quite close; when we think of

his physical prowess, he almost vanishes in the land of Fable. I

remember the comment of an undergraduate--"John Ridd is as remote as

Achilles; he is like a Greek myth."

The women are all well drawn and individualised--except the heroine. I

venture to say that no one has ever seen Lorna in his mind's eye. She is

like a plate that will not develop. A very pretty girl with an

affectionate disposition,--what more can be said? But so long as a Queen

has beauty and dignity, she does not need to be interesting; and Lorna

is the queen of this romance. John's mother and his two sisters are as

like and unlike as members of the same family ought to be; they are real

women. Ruth Huckaback and Gwenny Carfax are great additions to our

literary acquaintances; each would make an excellent heroine for a

realistic novel. They have the indescribable puzzling characteristics

that we call feminine; sudden caprices, flashes of unexpected jealousy,

deep loyal tenderness, unlimited capacity for self-sacrifice, and in the

last analysis, Mystery.

The humour of the story is spontaneous, and of great variety, running

from broad mirth to whimsical subtlety. The first concerted attack on

the Doones is comic opera burlesque; but the scenes of humour that

delight us most are those describing friendly relations with beast and

bird. The eye of the old drake, as he stared wildly from his precarious

position, and the delight of the ducks as they welcomed his rescue;

above all, Annie's care of the wild birds in the bitter cold.

"There was not a bird but knew her well, after one day of

comforting; and some would come to her hand, and sit, and shut one

eye, and look at her. Then she used to stroke their heads, and feel

their breasts, and talk to them; and not a bird of them all was

there but liked to have it done to him. And I do believe they would

eat from her hand things unnatural to them, lest she should be

grieved and hurt by not knowing what to do for them. One of them

was a noble bird, such as I had never seen before, of very fine

bright plumage, and larger than a missel-thrush. He was the hardest

of all to please; and yet he tried to do his best."

Whatever may be the merits of Mr. Blackmore's published verse, there is

more poetry in _Lorna Doone_ than in many volumes of formal rime. The

wonderful descriptions of the country in shade and shine, in fog and

drought, the pictures of the sunrise and the falling water, the

"tumultuous privacy" of the snow-storms,--these are all descriptive

poems. Every reader has noticed the peculiar rhythm of the style, and

wondered if it were intentional. Hundreds of sentences here and there

are perfect English hexameters; one can find them by opening the book at

random, and reading aloud. But this peculiar element in the style goes

much farther than isolated phrases. There are solid passages of steady

rhythm, which might correctly be printed in verse form.[18]

[18] A writer in the _Atlantic Monthly_ notes especially the closing

paragraph of Chapter XXVIII, and parts of Chapter XXIX.

Mr. Blackmore's personal character was so modest, unassuming, and

lovable, that it is not difficult to guess the source of the purity,

sweetness, and sincerity of his great book. If he were somewhat

surprised at the utter coldness of its first reception, he never got

over his amazement at the size and extent of its ultimate triumph. In

the preface to the sixth edition, he said:--

"Few things have surprised me more, and nothing has more pleased

me, than the great success of this simple tale.... Therefore any

son of Devon may imagine, and will not grudge, the writer's delight

at hearing from a recent visitor to the west, that '_Lorna Doone_,

to a Devonshire man, is as good as clotted cream, almost!'

"Although not half so good as that, it has entered many a tranquil,

happy, pure, and hospitable home; and the author, while deeply

grateful for this genial reception, ascribes it partly to the fact

that his story contains no word or thought disloyal to its

birthright in the fairest county of England."

Mr. Blackmore lived long enough to see an entirely different kind of

"local colour" become conventional, where many a novelist, portraying

his native town or the community in which he dwelt, emphasised with what

skill he could command all its poverty, squalor, and meanness; the

disgusting vices and malignant selfishness of its inhabitants; and after

he had thus fouled his nest by representing it as a mass of filth,

degradation, and sin, he imagined he had created a work of art. The

author of _Lorna Doone_ had the satisfaction of knowing that he had

inspired hundreds of thousands of readers with the love of his favourite

west country, and with an intense desire to visit it. And being, like

John Ridd, of a forgiving nature, he forgave America for its early

neglect of his story; for being informed of the supremacy of _Lorna

Doone_ in the hearts of American undergraduates, he remarked, in a

letter to the present writer, "The good word of the young, who are at

once the most intelligent and the most highly educated of a vast

intellectual nation, augurs well for the continuance--at least for a

generation--of my fortunate production."

APPENDIX A

NOVELS AS A UNIVERSITY STUDY

Some fourteen years ago, in the pamphlet of elective courses of study

open to the senior and junior classes of Yale College, I announced a new

course called "Modern Novels." The course and its teacher immediately

became the object of newspaper notoriety, which spells academic

damnation. From every State in the Union long newspaper clippings were

sent to me, in which my harmless little pedagogical scheme was

discussed--often under enormous headlines--as a revolutionary idea. It

was praised by some, denounced by others, but thoroughly advertised, so

that, for many months, I received letters from all parts of the Western

Hemisphere, asking for the list of novels read and the method pursued in

studying them. During six months these letters averaged three a day, and

they came from the north, south, east, and west, from Alaska, Hawaii,

Central and South America. The dust raised by all this hubbub crossed

the Atlantic. The course was gravely condemned in a column editorial in

the London _Daily Telegraph_, and finally received the crowning honour

of a parody in _Punch_.

Things have changed somewhat in the last ten years, and although I have

never repeated my one year's experiment, I believe that it would be

perfectly safe to do so. Not only does the production of new novels

continue at constantly accelerating speed, but critical books on the

novel have begun to increase and multiply in all directions. At least

twenty such works now stand on my shelves, the latest of which (by

Selden L. Whitcomb) is frankly called "The Study of a Novel," and boldly

begins: "This volume is the result of practical experience in teaching

the novel, and its aim is primarily pedagogical."

The objections usually formulated against novels as a university study

are about as follows: (_a_) the study of fiction is unacademic--that is,

lacking in dignity; (_b_) students will read too many novels anyway, and

the emphasis should therefore be thrown on other forms of literary art;

(_c_) most recent and contemporary fiction is worthless, and if novels

are to be taught at all, the titles selected should be confined entirely

to recognised classics; (_d_) many of the novels of to-day are immoral,

and the reading of them will corrupt rather than develop adolescent

minds; (_e_) they are too "easy," too interesting, and a course confined

to them is totally lacking in mental discipline. These objections, each

and all, contain some truth, and demand a serious answer.

That the study of fiction is unacademic is a weighty argument, but its

weight is the mass of custom and prejudice rather than solid thought. In

old times, the curriculum had little to do with real life, so that the

most scholarly professors and the most promising pupils were often

plentifully lacking in common sense. Students gifted with real

independence of mind, marked with an alert interest in the life and

thought about them, chafed irritably under the old-fashioned course of

study, and often treated it with neglect or open rebellion. What Thomas

Gray said of the Cambridge curriculum constitutes a true indictment

against eighteenth-century universities; and it was not until very

recent times that such studies as history, European literature, modern

languages, political economy, natural sciences, and the fine arts were

thought to have equal academic dignity with the trinity of Latin, Greek,

and mathematics. There are, indeed, many able and conscientious men who

still believe that this trinity cannot be successfully rivalled by any

other possible group of studies. Now the novel is the most prominent

form of modern literary art; and if modern literature is to be studied

at all, fiction cannot be overlooked. The profound change brought about

in university curricula, caused largely by the elective system, is

simply the bringing of college courses of study into closer contact

with human life, and the recognition that what young men need is a

general preparation to live a life of active usefulness in modern social

relations.

That students read too many novels anyway--that is, in proportion to

their reading in history and biography--is probably true. But the

primary object of a course in novel-reading is not to make the student

read more novels, instead of less, nor to substitute the reading of

fiction for the reading of other books. The real object is (after a

cheerful recognition of the fact that he will read novels anyway) to

persuade him to read them intelligently, to observe the difference

between good novels and bad, and so to become impatient and disgusted

with cheap, sensational, and counterfeit specimens of the novelist's

art.

"The common problem, yours, mine, everyone's,

Is--not to fancy what were fair in life

Provided it could be--but, finding first

What may be, then find how to make it fair

Up to our means: a very different thing!

No abstract intellectual plan of life

Quite irrespective of life's plainest laws,

But one, a man, who is man and nothing more,

May lead within a world which (by your leave)

Is Rome or London, not Fool's Paradise."

That much of contemporary fiction is worthless, and that the novels

selected should be classics, is a twofold statement, of which the first

phrase is true and the second a _non sequitur_. Much ancient and

mediaeval literature read in college is worthless in itself; it is read

because it illustrates the language, or represents some literary form,

or because it throws light on the customs and ideas of the time. The

fact that a certain obscure work was written in the year 1200 does not

necessarily prove that it is more valuable for study than one written in

1909. Now it so happens that the modern novel has become more and more

the mirror of modern ideas; and for a student who really wishes to know

what people are thinking about all over the world to-day, the novels of

Tolstoi, Bjoernson, Sudermann, and Thomas Hardy cannot wisely be

neglected. Why should the study of the contemporary novel and the

contemporary drama be tabooed when in other departments of research the

aim is to be as contemporary as possible? We have courses in social

conditions that actually investigate slums. I am not for a moment

pleading that the study of modern novels and modern art should supplant

the study of immortal masterpieces; but merely that they should have

their rightful place, and not be regarded either with contempt or as

unworthy of serious treatment. The two most beneficial ways to study a

novel are to regard it, first, as an art-form, and secondly as a

manifestation of intellectual life; from neither point of view should

the contemporary novel be wholly neglected.

That many of the novels of to-day are immoral is true, but it is still

more true of the classics. The proportion of really immoral books to the

total production is probably less to-day than it ever was before; in

fact, there are an immense number of excellent contemporary novels which

are spotless, something that cannot be said of the classics of antiquity

or of the great majority of literary works published prior to the

nineteenth century. If immorality be the cry, what shall we say about

Aristophanes or Ovid? How does the case stand with the comedies of

Dryden or with the novels of Henry Fielding? No, it is undoubtedly true

that the teacher who handles modern fiction can more easily find a

combination of literary excellence and purity of tone than he could in

any previous age.

That a course in novels lacks mental discipline and is too easy depends

mainly on the teacher and his method. As regards the time consumed in

preparation, it is probable that a student would expend three or four

times the number of hours on a course in novels than he would in ancient

languages, where, unfortunately, the use of a translation is all but

universal; and the translation is fatal to mental discipline. But it is

not merely a matter of hours; novels can be taught in such a way as to

produce the best kind of mental discipline, which consists, first, in

compelling a student to do his own thinking, and, secondly, to train him

properly in the expression of what ideas he has.

APPENDIX B

THE TEACHER'S ATTITUDE TOWARD CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE

Two things must be admitted at the start--first, that no person is

qualified to judge the value of new books who is not well acquainted

with the old ones; second, that the only test of the real greatness of

any book is Time. It is, of course, vain to hope that any remarks made

on contemporary authors will not be misrepresented, but I have placed

two axioms at the beginning of this article in order to clear the

ground. I am not advocating the abandonment of the study of Homer and

Vergil, or proposing to substitute in their stead the study of Hall

Caine, Mrs. Ward, and Marie Corelli. I do not believe that Mr. Pinero is

a greater dramatist than Sophokles, or that the mental discipline gained

by reading _The Jungle_ is equivalent to that obtained in the mastery of

Euclid.

I am merely pleading that every thoughtful man who is alive in this year

of grace should not attempt to live his whole life in the year 400 B.C.,

even though he be so humble an individual as a teacher. The very word

"teacher" means something more than "scholar"; and scholarship means

something more than the knowledge of things that are dead. A good

teacher will remember that the boys and girls who come under his

instruction are not all going to spend their lives in the pursuit of

technical learning. It is his business to influence them; and he cannot

exert a powerful influence without some interest in the life and thought

of his own day, in the environment in which his pupils exist. I believe

that the cardinal error of a divinity-school education is that the

candidate for the ministry spends over half his time and energy in the

laborious study of Hebrew, whereas he should study the subjects that

primarily interest not his colleagues, but his audience.

"Priests

Should study passion; how else cure mankind,

Who come for help in passionate extremes?"

A preacher who knows Hebrew, Greek, systematic theology, New Testament

interpretation, and who knows nothing about literature, history, art,

and human nature, is grotesquely unfitted for his noble profession.