Mr. Marshall is a twentieth century novelist, because he is happily
yet alive, and because he writes of twentieth century scenes and
characters; but he is apart from the main currents of twentieth
century fiction, standing indeed in the midst of the stream like a
commemorative pillar to Victorian art. He has never written historical
romance, which dominated the novel at the beginning of our century; he
has never written the "life" novel--beginning with the hero's birth and
travelling with plotless chronology, the type most in favour since the
year 1906; he has never written a treatise and called it a novel, as so
many of his contemporaries have done. Every one of his novels, except
the two unfortunate burlesques, is a good story, with a good plot and
living characters; and he has chosen to write about well-bred people,
because those are the people he knows best.
It is also well to remember, that although his best novels are
parochial, he himself is a citizen of the world. He has seen the North
Cape, he has lived in the Australian bush, in various European cities,
and has traveled extensively in America. One reason why he can describe
English country life so clearly is because he sees it in the proper
perspective. He is at home in any community on earth.
I call him a realistic novelist, because his realism is of the highest
and most convincing kind--it constantly reminds us of reality. I cannot
see why a well-constructed story, that deals mainly with attractive men
and women, and ends on a note of robust cheerfulness, should have any
less right to the adjective "realistic" than an ill-arranged transcript
of the existence of creatures living amongst poverty, filth, and crime.
And so far as Mr. Marshall's Victorian reticence on questions of sex
is concerned, this strengthens his right to the title Realist. As
Henry James said, the moment you insist that animalism must have its
place in works of art, there almost always seems to be no place for
anything else. If a novelist is to represent real life, he must make
subordinate and incidental what in some novels dominates every page.
If a writer is to describe events as they really happen, to portray
men and women as they really are, to create living characters that
can be recognized in modern society, he ought to emphasize in his art
what life itself emphasizes--the difference between man and the lower
animals. The curious thing is that in many so-called realistic novels
it is impossible to distinguish between human beings and the beasts of
the field; the well-understood likeness is stressed so heavily that not
only the individual, but even the type is lost. One can hardly call so
total an absence of discrimination true art. Even the most elementary
man or woman is less elementary than a beast; and is it not true that
the greater the complexity, the greater the skill required to report it
truly?
And here is a strange thing. It is only in stories of human beings that
our would-be realists insist that animalism should be most frankly and
most minutely portrayed. When we come to dog-stories--of which there
are many--the element of sex is as a rule wholly omitted. Yet surely
this is more salient in the life of a dog than in the life of a man.
Archibald Marshall is a realist. He represents cultivated men and
women as we saw them yesterday, and as we shall see them tomorrow. He
seldom disappoints us, for among all living novelists, whilst he is
not the greatest, he is the most reliable. It is difficult to analyse
the extraordinary charm of his stories, for they are simpler than
simplicity. He takes us literally into the bosom of a family, where
each member has a distinct individuality, and the novel progresses
like beautiful voices with orchestral accompaniment--each individual
in turn singing an air, while the family fortunes supply the harmony.
To read his books is to associate with people whom it is highly
important to know--not because of their social standing, but because
of their solid worth. His good characters are fundamentally good.
They are seldom brilliant, and almost never reformers. They are more
altruistic than philanthropic. They possess the fine old virtues of
purity, wholesomeness, generosity, loving-kindness, honesty, loyalty,
tact, consideration; such persons are always lovable in life, which is
why they are lovable in these books. His heroes are not saviours of
society, they are simply good companions, be the weather fair or foul;
and we are never sickened by the diaphanous veneer of sentimentality.
His villains seldom break the law of the land, and do not reek of
melodrama. They are inconsiderate, garrulous, inopportune, stupid,
meddling, officiously helpful, which is sometimes worse than deliberate
hostility. Mrs. Prentice in _Exton Manor_ is his most offensive
specimen, and according to the wisdom of the Book of Proverbs, she is
one of the four things for which the earth is disquieted--"an odious
woman when she is married." These respectable villains, who often cause
more suffering than professional criminals, receive the punishment
of unpopularity. But in most of his characters the elements are more
kindly mixed. We have on every page the delight of recognition--the
figures are so perfectly drawn that we are under the illusion that they
are alive.
Although these stories are never explicitly didactic, they are
ethically as well as artistically true. Beneath the surface of
light conversation and trivial incident we find an idea that works
for righteousness. This idea is so variously and so frequently
illustrated that I think it must be the foundation of the author's
philosophy of life and conduct. He would have us believe that different
individuals, different social classes, different communities dislike
and distrust each other mainly through ignorance. He would not
say in the old phrase, to understand is to forgive, he would say
something without any taint of condescension, something finer and
more fruitful--to understand is to respect, to admire, to love. The
inefficient aristocrat and the pushing millionaire despise each other,
the haughty Churchman and the pious Dissenter distrust each other's
motives until they are brought by the force of circumstances into an
unescapable daily intimacy; the result of which to both is surprising
and agreeable. Apparently what we all need is more imagination,
more intelligence. These novels make a combined attack on the last
infirmity of both noble and ignoble minds, that last citadel of
stupidity--Prejudice.