IS THE SUBJECT-MATTER OF NOVELS EXHAUSTED?
The Question Stated
This is the way in which the question is most often stated, but the real
question is more intelligently expressed by asking: Has the novel, as a
form of literature, become obsolete? or is it likely to be obsolete in
the near future? To many people the matter is dismissed with a
contemptuous _Pshaw!_; others think it worthy of serious inquiry, and a
few with practical minds say they don't care whether it is or not. Seven
years ago Mr Frederic Harrison delivered himself of very pessimistic
views as to the present position and prospects of the novelist, and not
long ago Mr A. J. Balfour asserted that in his opinion the art of
fiction had reached its zenith, and was now in its decline. These
critics may be prejudiced in their views, but it is worth while
considering the remarks of the one who has the greater claim to respect
for literary judgment. After exclaiming that we have now no novelist of
the first rank, and substantiating this statement to the best of his
ability, Mr Harrison goes on to inquire into the causes of this decay.
In the first place, we have too high a standard of taste and criticism.
"A highly organised code of culture may give us good manners, but it is
the death of genius." We have lost the true sense of the romantic, and
if "Jane Eyre" were produced to-day it "would not rise above a common
shocker." Secondly, we are too disturbed in political affairs to allow
for the rest that is necessary for literary productiveness. Thirdly,
life is not so dramatic as it was--character is being driven inwards,
and we have lost the picturesque qualities of earlier days.
I am not at present concerned with the truth or error of these
arguments; my object just now is to state the case, and before
proceeding to an examination of its merits I wish to take the testimony
of another writer and thinker, one who is a philosopher quite as much
as the author of "The Foundations of Belief" or the author of "The
Meaning of History," and who has a claim upon our attention as an
investigator of moving causes.
Mr C. H. Pearson, in his notable book, "National Life and Character,"
has made some confident statements on the subject of the exhaustion of
literary products. He is of opinion that "a change in social relations
has made the drama impossible by dwarfing the immediate agency of the
individual," and that "a change in manners has robbed the drama of a
great deal of effect." He goes on to say that "Human nature, various as
it is, is only capable after all of a certain number of emotions and
acts, and these as the topics of an incessant literature are bound after
a time to be exhausted. We may say with absolute certainty that certain
subjects are never to be taken again. The tale of Troy, the wanderings
of Odysseus, the vision of Heaven and Hell as Dante saw it, the theme of
'Paradise Lost,' and the story of Faust are familiar instances. . . .
Effective adaptations of an old subject may still be possible; but it
is not writers of the highest capacity who will attempt them, and the
reading world, which remembers what has been done before, will never
accord more than a secondary recognition to the adaptation" (p. 299).
There is a curious atmosphere of logical conclusiveness about these
arguments. They carry with them, apparently, an air of certainty which
it is useless to question. We know that the novelist has already
exploited Politics, Socialism, History, Theology, Marriage, Education,
and a host of other subjects; indeed, a perusal of Dixon's "Index to
Fiction" is calculated to provoke the inquiry: "Is there anything left
to write about?" We know that everywhere is springing up the "literature
of locality," and it would seem as if the resources of this world's
experience had been exhausted when writers like Mr H. G. Wells and the
late George Du Maurier invade the planet Mars for fresh material. The
heavens above, the earth beneath, and the waters under the earth have
all been "written up." Is there anything new?
"Change" not "Exhaustion"
There can be no doubt that fiction has undergone great changes during
recent years. These changes are the result of deeper changes in our
common life. Consider for a moment the position of the drama. What is
the significance of the problem play on the one hand, and the cry for a
"Static Theatre" on the other hand? It means that life has changed, and
is still changing; that the national character is not so emphatically
external or spontaneous as in those days when Ben Jonson killed two men,
and Marlowe himself was killed in a brawl. We have lost the passion, the
force, and the brutality of those times, and have become more
contemplative and analytical. The simple law is this: that literature
and the drama are a reflex of life; hence, when character has a tendency
to be driven inwards, as is the case to-day, Maeterlinck pleads on
behalf of a drama without action; and Paul Bourget in France and Henry
James in England embody the spirit of the age in the fiction of
psychological minutiae. Now there may be symptoms of decay in these
manifestations of literary impulse, but the impulse is part of that new
experience which the facts of an increasingly complex civilisation foist
upon us. And, further, _change_ is not necessarily _exhaustion_; in
fact, it is more than surprising that anyone can believe all the stories
possible have been told already, or have been told in the most
interesting way. It is a very ancient cry--this cry about exhaustion.
The old Hebrew writer wailed something about wanting to meet with a man
who could show him a new thing. A new thing? "There is no new thing
under the Sun." But we have found a few since those days, and the future
will give birth to as many more.
Men and women have written about love from time immemorial, but have we
finished with the theme? Is it exhausted? Did Homer satisfy our love of
recorded adventure once and for all? There is only one answer--namely,
that human experience is infinite in its possibilities and its capacity
for renewal. If human experience--these vague and subtle emotions,
these violently real but inscrutable feelings, these tremulous
questionings of existence encompassed with mystery--if human experience
were no more than a hard and dry scientific fact, well, our novelists
would have a poor time of it. But life knows no finality; its stream
flows on in perennial flood. Human nature is said to be much the same
the world over, and yet every personality is absolutely a new thing.
Goethe might attempt a rough classification by saying we are either
Platonists or Aristotelians, but actually a great many of us are neither
one nor the other, and there are infinities of degrees amongst us even
then. New character is a necessary outcome of the advancing centuries,
and new personalities are being born every day.
No; the world still loves a story, and there are stories which have
never been told. It is, perhaps, true, that the story-tellers have not
found them yet. Why?
Why we talk about Exhaustion
The answer is: We are becoming too artificial; we are losing
spontaneity, and are getting too far away from the soil. Have we not
noticed over and over again that the first book of a novelist is his
best? Those which followed are called "good," but they sell because the
author is the author of the first book which created a sensation.
Speaking of the first work of a young writer, Anthony Trollope says: "He
sits down and tells his story because he has a story to tell; as you, my
friend, when you have heard something which has at once tickled your
fancy or moved your pathos, will hurry to tell it to the first person
you meet. But when that first novel has been received graciously by the
public, and has made for itself a success, then the writer, naturally
feeling that the writing of novels is within his grasp, looks about for
something to tell in another. He cudgels his brains, not always
successfully, and sits down to write, not because he has something
which he burns to tell, but because he feels it to be incumbent on him
to be telling something. . . . So it has been with many novelists, who,
after some good work, perhaps after much good work, have distressed
their audience because they have gone on with their work till their work
has become simply a trade with them."[146:A] There is often a good
reason for such a change. The first book was written in a place near to
Nature's heart; the writer was free from the obligations of society as
found in city life; he was thrown back on his own resources, and
fortunately could not spoil his individual view of things by
multitudinous references to books and authorities. Do we not selfishly
wish that Miss Olive Schreiner had never left the veldt, in the
loneliness of which she produced "The Story of an African Farm"? Nearer
contact with civilisation has failed to induce an impulse the result of
which is at all comparable with this genuine story. It may or may not
be of significance that Mr Wells, the creator of a distinct type of
romance, dislikes what is called "Society," but I fancy that a few of
those who lament too frequently that "everything has been said" spend
more time in "Society" and clubs than is possible for good work. Mr C.
H. Pearson, in a notable chapter on "Dangers of Political Development,"
says: "The world at large is just as reverent of greatness, as observant
of a Browning, a Newman, or a Mill, as it ever was; but the world of
Society prefers the small change of available and ephemeral talent to
the wealth of great thoughts, which must always be kept more or less in
reserve. The result seems to be that men, anxious to do great work, find
city life less congenial than they did, and either live away from the
Metropolis, as Darwin and Newman did, or restrict their intercourse, as
Carlyle and George Eliot practically did, to a circle of chosen
friends."
In further confirmation of the position I have taken up, let me quote
the testimony of Thomas Hardy as given in an interview. Said the
interviewer--"In reading 'A Group of Noble Dames,' I was struck with
the waste of good material."
"Yes," replied Mr Hardy, "I suppose I was wasteful. But, there! it
doesn't matter, for I have far more material now than I shall ever be
able to use."
"In your note-books?"
"Yes, and in my head. I don't believe in that idea of man's imaginative
powers becoming naturally exhausted; I believe that, if he liked, a man
could go on writing till his physical strength gave out. Most men
exhaust themselves prematurely by something artificial--their manner of
living--Scott and Dickens for example. Victor Hugo, on the other hand,
who was so long in exile, and who necessarily lived a very simple life
during much of his time, was writing as well as ever when he died at a
good old age. So, too, was Carlyle, if we except his philosophy, the
least interesting part of him. The great secret is perhaps for the
writer to be content with the life he was living when he made his first
success. I can do more work here [in Dorsetshire] in six months than in
twelve months in London."[148:A]
These are the convictions of a strong man, one who stands at the head of
English writers of fiction, and therefore one to whom the beginner
especially should listen with respect. A reader of MSS. told me quite
recently that there was a pitiable narrowness of experience in the
productions which were handed to him for valuation; nearly all were cast
in the "city" mould, and showed signs of having been written to say
something rather than because the writers had something to say. Mr Hardy
has put his finger on the weak spot: more stories "come" in the country
stillness than in the city's bustle. Of course, a man can be as much of
a hermit in the heart of London as in the heart of a forest, but how few
can resist the attractions of Society and the temptation to multiply
literary friendships! Besides, it is always a risk to make a permanent
change in that environment which assisted in producing the first
success. Follow Mr Hardy's advice and stay where you are. Stories will
then not be slow to "come" and ideas to "occur"; and the pessimists will
be less ready to utter their laments over the decadence of fiction and
philosophers to argue that the novel will soon become extinct. I cannot
do better than close with the following tempered statement from Mr
Edmund Gosse: "A question which constantly recurs to my mind is this:
Having secured the practical monopoly of literature, what do the
novelists propose to do next? To what use will they put the
unprecedented opportunity thrown in their way? It is quite plain that to
a certain extent the material out of which the English novel has been
constructed is in danger of becoming exhausted. Why do the American
novelists inveigh against plots? Not, we may be sure, through any
inherent tenderness of conscience, as they would have us believe; but
because their eminently sane and somewhat timid natures revolt against
the effort of inventing what is extravagant. But all the obvious plots,
all the stories that are not in some degree extravagant, seem to have
been told already, and for a writer of the temperament of Mr Howells,
there is nothing left but the portraiture of a small portion of the
limitless field of ordinary humdrum existence. So long as this is fresh,
this also may amuse and please; to the practitioners of this kind of
work it seems as though the infinite prairie of life might be surveyed
thus for centuries acre by acre. But that is not possible. A very little
while suffices to show that in this direction also the material is
promptly exhausted. Novelty, freshness, and excitement are to be sought
for at all hazards, and where can they be found? The novelists hope many
things from that happy system of nature which supplies them year by year
with fresh generations of the ingenuous young." In this, however, Mr
Gosse is very doubtful of good results: the fact is, he is too
pessimistic. But in making suggestions as to what kind of novels might
be written he almost gives the lie to his previous opinions. He asks for
novels addressed especially to middle-aged persons, and not to the
ingenuous young, ever interested in love. "It is supposed that to
describe one of the positive employments of life--a business or a
profession for example--would alienate the tender reader, and check that
circulation about which novelists talk as if they were delicate
invalids. But what evidence is there to show that an attention to real
things does frighten away the novel reader. The experiments which have
been made in this country to widen the field of fiction in one
direction, that of religious and moral speculation, have not proved
unfortunate. What was the source of the great popular success of 'John
Inglesant,' and then of 'Robert Elsmere,' if not the intense delight of
readers in being admitted, in a story, to a wider analysis of the
interior workings of the mind than is compatible with the mere record of
billing and cooing of the callow young? . . . All I ask for is a larger
study of life. Have the stress and turmoil of a political career no
charm? Why, if novels of the shop and counting-house be considered
sordid, can our novels not describe the life of a sailor, of a
game-keeper, of a railway porter, of a civil engineer? What capital
central figures for a story would be the whip of a leading hunt, the
foreman of a colliery, the master of a fishing-smack, or a speculator on
the Stock Exchange?"[152:A]
Since these words were written, the novel of politics, for example, has
come to the fore; but does that mean that the subject is exhausted? It
has only been touched upon as yet. There were plenty of dramas before
Shakespeare but there were no Shakespeares; and to-day there are
thousands of novels but how many real novelists? Once again let it be
said that "exhausted subject-matter" is a misnomer; what we wait for is
creative genius.
FOOTNOTES:
[146:A] "Autobiography," vol. ii. pp. 45-6. There is no harm in telling
stories as a trade provided the stories are good.
[148:A] Interview in _The Young Man_.
[152:A] "Questions at Issue," _The Tyranny of the Novel_.