On a mellow day in the early autumn of the year 1900, I sat on an old
wooden bench in the open air with an English gentleman, and listened
to his conversation with a mixture of curiosity and reverence. The
place was one of the fairest counties of England, the town on the other
side of a screen of trees was Dorchester, and my seat-mate was Thomas
Hardy. I remember his saying without any additional emphasis than the
weight of the words, that the basis of every novel should be a story.
In considering this remark, which came, not from a doctrinaire, but
from a master of long and triumphant experience, I could not help
thinking that what seems axiomatic is often belied by a majority of
instances. Thus, we church-members would agree that religion must take
the first place in our lives; yet a disinterested observer, who should
begin at the other end of the proposition and examine our lives merely
to discover what actually did take the first place therein, might
conceivably miss the element of religion altogether. In the same way,
while it would theoretically seem that every novel must be a story, an
honest critic who should examine the total product of prose fiction for
any given year in the twentieth century, might, in a large number of
cases, easily fail to find any story at all.
As we look back over the history of the English novel, it would appear
that every permanent work of fiction has been a great story. _Robinson
Crusoe_, _Clarissa_, _Tom Jones_, _Humphry Clinker_, _The Bride of
Lammermoor_, _Pride and Prejudice_, _Esmond_, _David Copperfield_, _The
Mill on the Floss_, _Richard Feverel_, _The Return of the Native_,
_Treasure Island_, _The Last of the Mohicans_, _The Scarlet Letter_,
_Huckleberry Finn_, although they represent various shades of realism
and romanticism, have all been primarily stories, in which we follow
the fortunes of the chief actors with steady interest. These books owe
their supremacy in fiction--at least, most of them do--to a combination
of narrative, character, and style; every one of them, if given in
colloquial paraphrase to a group of men around a camp-fire, would be
rewarded with attention.
Sometimes the very thing that gives a drama or a novel immediate
currency makes it smell of mortality; by taking advantage of some
hotly-discussed social question, general interest is awakened; but when
the question is obsolete, what becomes of the work of art? I shall not
venture to make a prediction; but I think it is at least possible that
some of the earlier plays of Ibsen, like _The Pretenders_, may outlast
some of the later ones, like _Ghosts_; the later ones blaze with the
flames of public debate, the earlier reflect the light of the stars.
Of all forms of literature, the novel has suffered most by its
desertion of art for propaganda. It has been debased by its popularity.
It lends itself so easily as a channel for political, social or
religious oratory. Every theorist uses it as a megaphone. Although
novels are as common as grasshoppers, good stories are scarce. Now
this desertion of art for propaganda is founded on the fallacy that
a work of pure fiction cannot stand or ought not to stand by itself,
but should lean on politics, social reform, science, or theology for
support. We do not insist on a thesis in sculpture or music or painting
or poetry. There have been, indeed, many attempts to turn Pegasus into
a cart-horse; and unfortunately the attempt is almost invariably
successful.
I prefer novels that express the opinions of the characters in the
story to those that express the opinions of the author. I do not mean
that all novels ought to be impersonal; such a result, even when most
ardently desired by the novelist, is impossible of achievement. The
work of every true artist reflects his personality, and is, in a sense,
subjective. Even the coldest novels betray their makers' sympathies,
and the standpoint from which they regard the world. But there is a
difference between having ideas and arguing a case. Women who have
ideas are always more interesting than those who have only opinions.
Why is it that so many novelists write their best books early in their
careers? Is it not sometimes because the original impelling artistic
impulse becomes dulled in contact with society, and thoughts take the
place of thought? The thorns of this world spring up and choke them. It
is by no accident that _The Mill on the Floss_ is a greater novel than
_Daniel Deronda_.
The most enduring novels come from the silent depths in a writer's
soul, not from the turbulent shallows. To live deeply is easier in a
country where deep living has been done for centuries than in a country
whose human history is brief. If we should really feel chagrined
by America's native contribution to literature in comparison with
that of Europe, we might justifiably console ourselves by comparing
America with Australia. Surely one reason why the British today write
novels rather better than the Americans, is because their roots go
down deeper into the rich soil of the past. Men of genius are scarce
in any locality, and I am not at this moment thinking of them; but I
am constantly surprised at the large number of contemporary novels
produced in Great Britain whose literary style bears the unmistakable
stamp of distinction. There are leaders, whose names are known
everywhere; there are men and women who might conceivably be leaders if
they lived out of Europe. The best reason why many admirable twentieth
century works of prose fiction in England fail to attract general
attention is because the level of excellence is so high.