briefest passage--his very cursory allusion to the “conscious moral
purpose” of the novel. Here again it is not very clear whether he be
recording a fact or laying down a principle; it is a great pity that in
the latter case he should not have developed his idea. This branch of
the subject is of immense importance, and Mr. Besant’s few words point
to considerations of the widest reach, not to be lightly disposed of. He
will have treated the art of fiction but superficially who is not
prepared to go every inch of the way that these considerations will
carry him. It is for this reason that at the beginning of these remarks
I was careful to notify the reader that my reflections on so large a
theme have no pretension to be exhaustive. Like Mr. Besant, I have left
the question of the morality of the novel till the last, and at the last
I find I have used up my space. It is a question surrounded with
difficulties, as witness the very first that meets us, in the form of a
definite question, on the threshold. Vagueness, in such a discussion, is
fatal, and what is the meaning of your morality and your conscious moral
purpose? Will you not define your terms and explain how (a novel being a
picture) a picture can be either moral or immoral? You wish to paint a
moral picture or carve a moral statue: will you not tell us how you
would set about it? We are discussing the Art of Fiction; questions of
art are questions (in the widest sense) of execution; questions of
morality are quite another affair, and will you not let us see how it is
that you find it so easy to mix them up? These things are so clear to
Mr. Besant that he has deduced from them a law which he sees embodied in
English Fiction, and which is “a truly admirable thing and a great cause
for congratulation.” It is a great cause for congratulation indeed when
such thorny problems become as smooth as silk. I may add that in so far
as Mr. Besant perceives that in point of fact English Fiction has
addressed itself preponderantly to these delicate questions he will
appear to many people to have made a vain discovery. They will have been
positively struck, on the contrary, with the moral timidity of the usual
English novelist; with his (or with her) aversion to face the
difficulties with which on every side the treatment of reality bristles.
He is apt to be extremely shy (whereas the picture that Mr. Besant draws
is a picture of boldness), and the sign of his work, for the most part,
is a cautious silence on certain subjects. In the English novel (by
which of course I mean the American as well), more than in any other,
there is a traditional difference between that which people know and
that which they agree to admit that they know, that which they see and
that which they speak of, that which they feel to be a part of life and
that which they allow to enter into literature. There is the great
difference, in short, between what they talk of in conversation and
what they talk of in print. The essence of moral energy is to survey the
whole field, and I should directly reverse Mr. Besant’s remark and say
not that the English novel has a purpose, but that it has a diffidence.
To what degree a purpose in a work of art is a source of corruption I
shall not attempt to inquire; the one that seems to me least dangerous
is the purpose of making a perfect work. As for our novel, I may say
lastly on this score that as we find it in England to-day it strikes me
as addressed in a large degree to “young people,” and that this in
itself constitutes a presumption that it will be rather shy. There are
certain things which it is generally agreed not to discuss, not even to
mention, before young people. That is very well, but the absence of
discussion is not a symptom of the moral passion. The purpose of the
English novel--“a truly admirable thing, and a great cause for
congratulation”--strikes me therefore as rather negative.
There is one point at which the moral sense and the artistic sense lie
very near together; that is in the light of the very obvious truth that
the deepest quality of a work of art will always be the quality of the
mind of the producer. In proportion as that intelligence is fine will
the novel, the picture, the statue partake of the substance of beauty
and truth. To be constituted of such elements is, to my vision, to have
purpose enough. No good novel will ever proceed from a superficial mind;
that seems to me an axiom which, for the artist in fiction, will cover
all needful moral ground: if the youthful aspirant take it to heart it
will illuminate for him many of the mysteries of “purpose.” There are
many other useful things that might be said to him, but I have come to
the end of my article, and can only touch them as I pass. The critic in
the _Pall Mall Gazette_, whom I have already quoted, draws attention to
the danger, in speaking of the art of fiction, of generalising. The
danger that he has in mind is rather, I imagine, that of
particularising, for there are some comprehensive remarks which, in
addition to those embodied in Mr Besant’s suggestive lecture, might
without fear of misleading him be addressed to the ingenuous student. I
should remind him first of the magnificence of the form that is open to
him, which offers to sight so few restrictions and such innumerable
opportunities. The other arts, in comparison, appear confined and
hampered; the various conditions under which they are exercised are so
rigid and definite. But the only condition that I can think of attaching
to the composition of the novel is, as I have already said, that it be
sincere. This freedom is a splendid privilege, and the first lesson of
the young novelist is to learn to be worthy of it. “Enjoy it as it
deserves,” I should say to him; “take possession of it, explore it to
its utmost extent, publish it, rejoice in it. All life belongs to you,
and do not listen either to those who would shut you up into corners of
it and tell you that it is only here and there that art inhabits, or to
those who would persuade you that this heavenly messenger wings her way
outside of life altogether, breathing a superfine air, and turning away
her head from the truth of things. There is no impression of life, no
manner of seeing it and feeling it, to which the plan of the novelist
may not offer a place; you have only to remember that talents so
dissimilar as those of Alexandre Dumas and Jane Austen, Charles Dickens
and Gustave Flaubert have worked in this field with equal glory. Do not
think too much about optimism and pessimism; try and catch the colour of
life itself. In France to-day we see a prodigious effort (that of Emile
Zola, to whose solid and serious work no explorer of the capacity of the
novel can allude without respect), we see an extraordinary effort
vitiated by a spirit of pessimism on a narrow basis. M. Zola is
magnificent, but he strikes an English reader as ignorant; he has an air
of working in the dark; if he had as much light as energy, his results
would be of the highest value. As for the aberrations of a shallow
optimism, the ground (of English fiction especially) is strewn with
their brittle particles as with broken glass. If you must indulge in
conclusions, let them have the taste of a wide knowledge. Remember that
your first duty is to be as complete as possible--to make as perfect a
work. Be generous and delicate and pursue the prize.”
1884.
_Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, _Edinburgh_.
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FOOTNOTES:
[1] _A Memoir of Ralph Waldo Emerson_; by James Elliot Cabot. Two
volumes: London, 1887.
[2] “R. L. Stevenson, his Style and Thought,” _Time_, November 1885.
[3] “A Penny Plain and Twopence Coloured.” Republished, since the above
was written, in _Memories and Portraits_, 1887.
[4] In the _Atlantic Monthly_, for April 1883.
[5] _Pierre et Jean._ Paris: Ollendorf, 1888.
[6] Maxime Du Camp, Alphonse Daudet, Emile Zola.