In order to illustrate what I mean by a realistic novelist whose
happiest effects are gained by writing good stories with real
characters, I know of no better choice among contemporaries than
Archibald Marshall. He is an artist of such dignity and refinement
that only twice in his career has he written a novel that had for its
main purpose something other than truth to life; in each of these two
attempts the result was a failure.
I know how difficult it is to "recommend" novels to hungry readers,
for I have written prescriptions to alleviate many kinds of mental
trouble, yes, and physical ailments too; but how can I be sure that
the remedy will in every "case" be effective? I know that _Treasure
Island_ cured me of an attack of tonsillitis and that _Queed_ cured me
of acute indigestion; a United States naval officer informed me that
he recovered from jaundice simply by reading _Pride and Prejudice_.
These are facts; but what assurance have I that other sufferers can try
these prescriptions with reasonable hope? Yet I have no hesitancy in
recommending Archibald Marshall to any group of men or women or to any
individual of mature growth. One scholar of sixty years of age told
me that these novels had given him a quite new zest in life; and I
myself, who came upon them on one of the luckiest days of my existence,
confidently affirm the same judgment. Of the numerous persons that I
have induced to read these books, I have met with only one sceptic;
this was a shrewd, sharp-minded woman of eighty, who declared with
a hearty laugh that she found them insupportably tame. I understand
this hostility, for when girls reach the age of eighty, they demand
excitement.
Those who are familiar with Mr. Marshall's work and life will easily
discover therein echoes of his own experience. He is an Englishman by
birth and descent, familiar with both town and country. He was born
on the sixth of September, 1866, and received in his home life and
preliminary training plenty of material which appeared later in the
novels. His father came from the city, like the father in _Abington
Abbey_; he himself was graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge, like
the son of _Peter Binney_; it was intended but not destined that he
should follow his father's business career, and he worked in a city
office like the son of Armitage Brown; he went to Australia like
the hero's sister in _Many Junes_; he made three visits to America,
but fortunately has not yet written an American novel; he studied
theology with the intention of becoming a clergyman in the Church of
England, like so many young men in his stories; in despair at finding a
publisher for his work, he became a publisher himself, and issued his
second novel, _The House of Merrilees_, which had as much success as
it deserved; he tried journalism before and during the war; he lived
in two small Sussex towns with literary associations, Winchelsea and
Rye, in the latter from 1908 to 1913; then until 1917 his home was in
Switzerland; he has now gone back to the scene of his university days,
Cambridge.
In 1902 he was married and lived for some time in Beaulieu (pronounced
Bewly) in the New Forest, faithfully portrayed in _Exton Manor_. He
spent three happy years there planning and making a garden, like the
young man in _The Old Order Changeth_. Although his novels are filled
with hunting and shooting, he is not much of a sportsman himself,
being content only to observe. He loves the atmosphere of sport rather
than sport. His favourite recreations are walking, reading, painting,
and piano-playing, and the outdoor flavour of his books may in part be
accounted for by the fact that much of his writing is done in the open
air.
Like many another successful man of letters, his first step was a
false start; for in 1899 he produced a novel called _Peter Binney,
Undergraduate_, which has never been republished in America, and
perhaps never will be. This is a topsy-turvy book, where an ignorant
father insists on entering Cambridge with his son; and after many weary
months of coaching, succeeds in getting his name on the books. The son
is a steady-headed, unassuming boy, immensely popular with his mates;
the father, determined to recapture his lost youth, disgraces his son
and the college by riotous living, and is finally expelled. The only
good things in the book are the excellent pictures of May Week and
some snap-shots at college customs; but the object of the author is so
evident and he has twisted reality so harshly in order to accomplish
it, that we have merely a work of distortion.
For six years our novelist remained silent; and he never returned to
the method of reversed dynamics until the year 1915, when he published
_Upsidonia_, another failure. Once again his purpose is all too
clear; possibly irritated by the exaltation of slum stories and the
depreciation of the characters of the well-to-do often insisted upon in
such works, he wrote a satire in the manner of _Erewhon_, and called
it a novel. Here poverty and dirt are regarded as the highest virtues,
and the possession of wealth looked upon as the sure and swift road
to social ostracism. There is not a gleam of the author's true skill
in this book, mainly because he is so bent on arguing his case that
exaggeration triumphs rather too grossly over verisimilitude. He is,
of course, trying to write nonsense; a mark that some authors have hit
with deliberate aim, while perhaps more have attained the same result
with less conscious intention. Now Mr. Marshall cannot write nonsense
even when he tries; and failure in such an effort is particularly
depressing. He is at his best when his art is restrained and delicate;
in _Upsidonia_ he drops the engraving-tool and wields a meat-axe. Let
us do with _Peter Binney_ and with _Upsidonia_ what every other reader
has done; let us try to forget them, remembering only that two failures
in fifteen books is not a high proportion.
Of the remaining thirteen novels, two attained only a partial success;
and the reason is interesting. These two are _The House of Merrilees_
and _Many Junes_ (1908). The former was written in 1901 but publishers
would none of it, and it did not wear a print dress until 1905.
Meanwhile the author was trying his hand at short stories, for which
his method of work is not particularly fitted, his skill being in the
development of character rather than in the manufacture of incident.
He did, however, publish a collection of these tales in one volume,
called _The Terrors_, which appeared in 1913, their previous separate
publication covering a period of sixteen years. They are amazingly
unequal in value; some are excellent, and others trivial. This volume
is out of print, and whether any of the contents may be rescued from
oblivion is at present problematical. It is interesting, however,
that he, at the outset of his career, supposed that invention, rather
than observation, was his trump card. The realism of _The House of
Merrilees_ is mixed with melodrama and mystery; these are, in the
work of a dignified artist, dangerous allies, greater liabilities than
assets. In a personal letter he confesses that this artificial plot
hampered him; but he goes on to say, "the range of scene and character
in that book is something that I have never been able to catch since."
He has since--with only one relapse--happily forsaken artificially
constructed mysteries for the deepest mystery of all--the human heart.
In _Many Junes_, a story that will be reprinted in America in 1919,
we have pictures of English country life of surpassing loveliness;
we have an episode as warm and as fleeting as June itself; we have a
faithful analysis of the soul of a strange and solitary man, damned
from his birth by lack of decision. But the crisis in the tale is
brought about by an accident so improbable that the reader refuses to
believe it. The moment our author forsakes reality he is lost; it is as
necessary for him to keep the truth as it was for Samson to keep his
hair. Furthermore, this is the only one of Mr. Marshall's books that
has a tragic close--and his art cannot flourish in tragedy, any more
than a native of the tropics can live in Lapland. The bleak air of lost
illusion and frustrated hope, in which the foremost living novelist,
appropriately named, finds his soul's best climate, is not favourable
to Archibald Marshall.
The "relapse" mentioned in the preceding paragraph occurred in the year
1912, when he published a long and wildly exciting novel, called _The
Mystery of Redmarsh Farm_. This has all the marks of a "best-seller"
and went through several editions in England, though it has not yet
been reprinted in America. I regard the writing of this book as the
most dangerous moment in Mr. Marshall's career, for its immediate
commercial success might easily have tempted him to continue in the
same vein, and if he had, he would have sunk to the level of a popular
entertainer, and lost his position among British novelists of the past
and present. Curiously enough, it came between two of his best works
in the Clinton series, _The Eldest Son_ (1911) and _The Honour of the
Clintons_ (1913). Maybe the chilling reception given to his finest
stories drove him to a cheaper style of composition. Maybe his long
second visit to Australia, where he saw and shared experiences quite
unlike his English environment, made him try his hand at mystery and
crime. In 1911 he had published _Sunny Australia_, the result of a
sojourn on that continent, whither he had gone as special commissioner
for the _Daily Mail_. There is a good deal of superficial cleverness in
_The Mystery of Redmarsh Farm_; its plot is elaborate, with a flavour
of _Lohengrin_; the beautiful lonely maiden's young brother is stolen
by a villain and rescued by a young hero who is appropriately named
Knightly; a misunderstanding separates the girl and her lover, who
sails away to Australia. Unlike Lohengrin, however, he returns, and
all is well. There is a conventional detective, and a murder trial and
a shipwreck and a recognition scene--I kept looking back to the title
page to see if the author really was Archibald Marshall. It is as
though Joseph Conrad should write like Marie Corelli. Yet although some
of the characters are unreal and the plot artificial and the villain
theatrical, the environment, whether in England or in Australia, is as
accurately painted as in Mr. Marshall's best stories. He will not write
of places that he has not seen. When the gypsies are found, they are
found in the New Forest; and any one who reads this yarn immediately
after _Sunny Australia_, will see that these distant scenes are
correctly described.