FICTION AND ROMANCE.
Self-culture by the reading of stories! One can imagine some pedant
of a generation or two ago shaking his head over such a suggestion.
As well write of education by the playing of games! And yet it has
come to be recognised that neither connection of ideas is, in itself,
at all absurd or preposterous. The influence of fiction is a force to
be reckoned with in the formation of character—a force, indeed, of
no small magnitude; for there are an enormous number of girls whose
reading begins and ends with the story.
This is, of course, a mistake. In an earlier chapter of this series we
have sought to explain why fiction, even of the very best type, should
not form the staple of reading for anybody. But it will probably always
constitute a very large proportion of the mental food of young people,
and it is better to look the fact in the face than to bewail it and
preach!
The first form in which literature appeals, with any charm or interest,
to the child is as the story; and children of larger growth love the
story still. What would those do, whose lives are dull, sordid, or
depressing, without the power to transport themselves into the lives
of other people? It is an actual necessity to exchange their own
experience, even for a brief time, for the experience of others. The
novel, the imaginative work, appeals more perhaps to girls than to any
other section of the community. If they are lonely, ill, unhappy from
any cause, they find their solace, companion, anodyne, here. If they
are happy, they seek the reflection of their own light-heartedness, and
greater happiness yet to come, in the story pages.
The imagination is a factor too little understood in the training
of character. It is of the utmost importance to give this faculty
something good wherewith to nourish it, or it will prey upon itself.
Silly, vapid, or morbid girls might perchance have been made different
if they had been provided with books that were at once strong and
artistically beautiful, instead of the sentimental novelette.
We hold a high opinion of the value of fairy-tales of the best kind for
children, and are always stirred to wrath by the superior infant who
says: “There are no such things as fairies.” Fortunately there are not
many children who cannot, for instance, enjoy the charm and pathos of
such a story as _The Little Sea Maiden_ or _The Snow Queen_, by Hans
Christian Andersen, with many others by that great author too numerous
to mention. There are also the exquisite creations of the Countess
d’Aulnoy and Perrault, not forgetting two French authors who were the
delight of our own childhood—Madame la Comtesse de Ségur and Léon de
Laujon. Those delicious volumes, the “Blue,” the “Green,” and the “Red”
fairy-book, by Andrew Lang, are a real treasure-store of delight. And
it must not be forgotten that some of the fairy-legends they contain
are of wonderful antiquity, being found, under different forms, in the
early literature of many lands.
Girls, who are elder sisters, and possibly past the fairy-tale stage,
be gracious in the telling of stories to the little ones who cannot
read! It may be a trouble to hunt in your memory for these stories and
put them into words, but it is really worth while to do it, and do it
well, avoiding what is gruesome and fearful, but choosing all that is
charming and attractive. Even in the way of “self-culture” the task
will be good for you, and still better if you can succeed in telling a
story “out of your own head.” The present writer began her work in this
way when a child, writing fairy-tales, and recounting one by word of
mouth, entitled, _The Precipice Passage_, which continued from day to
day during many months, and was of the most thrilling description, as
well as of superhuman length.
A most beautiful book, though not exactly a fairy-tale, for children is
_The Story without an End_, translated by Sarah Austin from the German
of Carové (Sampson Low & Marston). The child who possesses this book,
with the original coloured illustrations, to pore over, will have a
foundation of graceful and tender fancies for the “culture” of riper
years.
“But,” you may object, “this paper is for girls, not for children, and
we have outgrown fairy-tales.”
There is one fairy-tale which you ought to read whatever your age, if
it is not already familiar to you—_Undine_, by De la Motte Fouqué.
If you can understand German, you should certainly read it in the
original. If not, an English translation is to be obtained. It is,
perhaps, the sweetest and most pathetic legend of all romance.
Romance! The charm of that word! One loves, even in middle age, to
linger regretfully upon it, and dream over the poet’s vision of—
“Magic casements opening on the foam
Of perilous seas in fairy lands forlorn.”
We do not envy the youth or maiden whose pulse is not thrilled by those
immortal lines; yet who can give a reason for their charm and spell?
The present generation, it is to be feared, do not read the prose works
of Longfellow as they should. _Hyperion_ and _Kavanagh_ are tender
mystical romances, full of charm.
It is, however, an impossible task to stand at the door of this vast
library of the world’s fiction, and point you to the volumes you may
take down from the shelves. One general observation may be made, seeing
that our title is “Self-Culture.”
The best novels will aid you indirectly in “self-culture.” The
worst will not leave you where they found you, but will do you
actual harm. You will be just one little bit farther removed from
“self-culture”—will be nearer that which is vulgar and paltry, and poor
and mean, to go no farther—for the reading of a “trashy” novel.
It is, therefore, not the indifferent matter you may think it, to take
up the silly sentimental story for the sake of an hour’s amusement.
Find your amusement where there is no need of repentance.
How ashamed one feels, even if quite alone, while reading a really
foolish book! and the feeling of shame is a right and healthy one.
Perhaps the type of story which does most harm to girls of the middle
and lower classes, is that in which a titled lover of fabulous wealth
appears suddenly like a “god out of a machine” to wed the heroine, who
is remarkable only for her beauty. He has a great deal to answer for,
that young aristocrat, whom we have not met outside the pages of such
literature.
No girl would deliberately reflect: “I am going to read such and such
a novel to improve my mind.” If she did, she would show she had not
much mind to improve. But she may bear in mind one or two general
principles and suggestions.
It is very desirable to read the best historical novels. For example,
_The Last Days of Pompeii_, by Bulwer Lytton, and _Hypatia_, by Charles
Kingsley, will help you to realise the early centuries of the Christian
era. _Hereward the Wake_, by Kingsley, and _The Last of the Barons_,
by Bulwer Lytton, may be read in connection with Freeman’s _History
of the Norman Conquest_. _The Cloister and the Hearth_, a magnificent
historical novel by Charles Reade, throws light upon the fifteenth
century, and _Romola_, by George Eliot, does the same so far as Italy
is concerned. _Westward Ho!_ by Charles Kingsley, is a stirring tale of
the sixteenth century. _John Inglesant_, by Shorthouse, will do more
to explain the Stuart period than any number of dry “Outlines,” while
Thackeray’s _Esmond and The Virginians_ may follow on. The _Tale of Two
Cities_, by Charles Dickens, will help you to realise the terror of the
French Revolution, and _The Shadow of the Sword_, by Robert Buchanan,
gives a forcible picture of the days of Napoleon.
There are many other good historical novels; but, as Scott is always
regarded as _facile princeps_ in such work, it may be useful to arrange
his novels in chronological order.
Before the end of the fourteenth century come _Ivanhoe_, _Count
Robert of Paris_, _The Betrothed_, _The Talisman_, and _The Fair Maid
of Perth_. After 1400—_Quentin Durward_, and _Anne of Geierstein_:
1500, _Kenilworth_, _The Abbot_, _The Monastery_, _Marmion_ (poem):
1600, _Fortunes of Nigel_, _Legend of Montrose_, _Woodstock_, _Old
Mortality_, _The Bride of Lammermoor_, _Peveril of the Peak_: 1700,
_The Antiquary_, _Guy Mannering_, _Waverley_, _Rob Roy_, and _Heart of
Midlothian_.
That history should be made real is a matter of no small importance.
After all, it is the story of men and women like ourselves, and
Professor Seeley’s remark in _The Expansion of England_ (a valuable
book) is worth remembering—
“When I meet a person who does not find history interesting, it does
not occur to me to alter history—I try to alter _him_!”
There has, during the last few years, been a decided increase in the
writing of romances and tales of adventure, pure and simple, removed
from everyday experience, and one need only suggest the names of Robert
Louis Stevenson, Anthony Hope, Max Pemberton, to illustrate the class
of story which much delights the author, and probably also her young
friends.
For the general run of fiction, here are a few names: Scott, Thackeray,
Dickens, Charles Kingsley and his brother, George Eliot, Mrs. Gaskell,
R. D. Blackmore (be sure you read _Lorna Doone_), George Macdonald, Sir
Walter Besant, Mrs. Oliphant, Charlotte Brontë—that wonderful, fiery,
lonely genius—you will read her _Shirley_ and _Villette_, whether we
advise you to do so or not. And, indeed, the list of writers of good
fiction is so enormous that it is absurd to attempt to give it. As soon
as a few names are written down, others press for mention. Therefore,
we will renounce the task; first, perhaps, reminding you not to omit
Mrs. Oliphant’s _Little Pilgrim in the Unseen_. All the stories of
this writer which have a tinge of the atmosphere of the spiritual
borderland, are deeply suggestive.
Do not read a novel only because it has a startling title and
“everybody” is talking about it. In these days that is no proof of
excellence. A story shoots up like a rocket, and its swift trail of
brilliance dies down as suddenly.
Do not read books which leave the impression that life is after all
rather a hopeless struggle, not worth the trouble. There are a great
many such stories in the present day, whose motto is Despair. Let
them alone. They may be works of art, beautiful and pathetic in
their tragedy; but you have to live, and make the best of your life;
therefore it is unwise to let yourself be paralysed by discouragement
near the outset. Some books have a way of arranging a perfectly
impossible combination of circumstances, and then calling upon the
universe at large to bewail the result. This is hardly fair. Choose
rather what makes you better able to live and to act, and inspires
you with a feeling that to do and to be your best, even in a world of
sorrow, is very much worth while indeed.
There are, broadly speaking, two ways of viewing art and literature:
one from the point of the “Realist,” and one from the point of the
“Idealist.” In our day the Realists have come much into prominence,
especially in France; but they are known in England too.
The Realist school in fiction cries out for “Life,” by which we
understand the visible, the material, that which can be seen, heard,
touched, handled. A realistic novel, for instance, may be made a mass
of information upon obscure and out-of-the-way subjects. Nothing comes
amiss—“Life, life above everything” its exponents cry. “You Idealists
have long enough been teaching men to dream with their heads in the
clouds. We lead them along a plain path and show them the world as it
really is. In our way lies safety.”
The Idealist school, on the contrary, has an absolute standard of
excellence to which it refers; it loves the hero or heroine in fiction,
the beautiful in art, and it sets itself to find out the “reality”
which underlies appearances.
To give a simple example. A “realistic” novel of poor life would depict
the bareness and misery of the cottage, the unlovely faces and clothing
of its inmates, the toil for daily bread; not one depressing item would
be spared, and one would rise from the story feeling as if one had
indeed looked for a moment into the poor household and shared in its
meagreness.
A novel written from the idealist standpoint, while not inventing
untrue and therefore inartistic details, would look below the surface
and bring out, besides the poverty, the beauty and the pathos that are
sure to exist wherever the human affections are found.
As an illustration of our meaning we may quote _A Window in Thrums_, by
J. M. Barrie, which, while sacrificing no vestige of truth, is the work
of an artist who is an idealist. Set in the humble interior of a Scotch
cottage, a lame homely mother, a workingman the father, a daughter of
whom we are not told she is startlingly lovely, or indeed startlingly
anything—this is the simple little company that, for the main part,
act out a drama of such pathos, and beauty, and charm, that the heart
is full of “thoughts too deep for tears” after reading some of the
inimitable chapters.
This is Life, and life seen in the true way—the idealist’s way—by the
artist who has imagination.
For imagination is the faculty, not of inventing falsehoods, but of
revealing a deeper truth than that which lies upon the surface of
things.
Are we straying into reflections that are too obscure? It is better to
suggest some means by which really artistic work shall be detected than
to string together a list of books which might not appeal to many of
our readers at all, and which might prove unsuitable for others.
Whatever is lovely, noble, and pure in fiction—whether it be the
telling of heroic deeds, or the discerning of significance in the
“commonplace,” the homely and trivial—choose and delight in it. Avoid
what makes you listless and dissatisfied with your daily life; choose
what helps you to live and to work, and to do and be the very best
that is in you; not forgetting that what is beautiful and exalted will
purify your taste, charm your mind, and remain with you as an abiding
power for good.
LILY WATSON.
SHEILA’S COUSIN EFFIE.
A STORY FOR GIRLS.
BY EVELYN EVERETT-GREEN, Author of “Greyfriars,” “Half-a-dozen
Sisters,” etc.