One of the worst characteristics of modern fiction is its so-called truth
to nature. For fiction is an art, as painting is, as sculpture is, as
acting is. A photograph of a natural object is not art; nor is the
plaster cast of a man's face, nor is the bare setting on the stage of an
actual occurrence. Art requires an idealization of nature. The amateur,
though she may be a lady, who attempts to represent upon the stage the
lady of the drawing-room, usually fails to convey to the spectators the
impression of a lady. She lacks the art by which the trained actress,
who may not be a lady, succeeds. The actual transfer to the stage of the
drawing-room and its occupants, with the behavior common in well-bred
society, would no doubt fail of the intended dramatic effect, and the
spectators would declare the representation unnatural.
Tragedy and the pathos of failure have their places in literature as well
as in life. I only say that, artistically, a good ending is as proper as
a bad ending.
Perhaps the most inane thing ever put forth in the name of literature is
the so-called domestic novel, an indigestible, culinary sort of product,
that might be named the doughnut of fiction. The usual apology for it is
that it depicts family life with fidelity. Its characters are supposed
to act and talk as people act and talk at home and in society. I trust
this is a libel, but, for the sake of the argument, suppose they do. Was
ever produced so insipid a result?
The characteristics which are prominent, when we think of our recent
fiction, are a wholly unidealized view of human society, which has got
the name of realism; a delight in representing the worst phases of social
life; an extreme analysis of persons and motives; the sacrifice of action
to psychological study; the substitution of studies of character for
anything like a story; a notion that it is not artistic, and that it is
untrue to nature, to bring any novel to a definite consummation, and
especially to end it happily; and a despondent tone about society,
politics, and the whole drift of modern life. Judged by our fiction, we
are in an irredeemably bad way.
The vulgar realism in pictorial art, which holds ugliness and beauty in
equal esteem; or against aestheticism gone to seed in languid
affectations; or against the enthusiasm of a social life which wreaks its
religion on the color of a vestment, or sighs out its divine soul over an
ancient pewter mug.