In the first place he tells a good story. No extravagant praise is due
him for this; it is his business, his trade. He ought to do it, and
therefore he does it. The 'first morality' of a novelist is to be able
to tell a story, as the first morality of a painter is to be able to
handle his brush skillfully and make it do his brain's intending.
After all, telling stories in an admirable fashion is rather a
familiar accomplishment nowadays. Many men, many women are able to
make stories of considerable ingenuity as to plot, and of thrilling
interest in the unrolling of a scheme of events. Numberless writers
are shrewd and clever in constructing their 'fable,' but they are
unable to do much beyond this. Walter Besant writes good stories;
Robert Buchanan writes good stories; Grant Allen and David Christie
Murray are acceptable to many readers. But unless I mistake greatly
and do these men an injustice I should be sorry to do them, their
ability ceases just at this point. They tell good stories and do
nothing else. They write books and do not make literature. They are
authors by their own will and not by grace of God. It may be said of
them as Augustine Birrell said of Professor Freeman and the Bishop of
Chester, that they are horny-handed sons of toil and worthy of their
wage. But one would like to say a little more. Granting that this is
praise, it is so faint as to be almost inaudible. If Hardy only wrote
good stories he would be merely doing his duty, and therefore
accounted an unprofitable servant. But he does much besides.
He fulfills one great function of the literary artist, which is to
mediate between nature and the reading public. Such a man is an eye
specialist. Through his amiable offices people who have hitherto been
blind are put into condition to see. Near-sighted persons have
spectacles fitted to them--which they generally refuse to wear, not
caring for literature which clears the mental vision.
Hardy opens the eyes of the reader to the charm, the beauty, the
mystery to be found in common life and in every-day objects. So alert
and forceful an intelligence rarely applies its energy to fiction. The
result is that he makes an almost hopelessly high standard. The
exceptional man who comes after him may be a rival, but the majority
of writing gentlemen can do little more than enviously admire. He
seems to have established for himself such a rule as this, that he
will write no page which shall not be interesting. He pours out the
treasures of his observation in every chapter. He sees everything,
feels everything, sympathizes with everything. To be sure he has an
unusually rich field for work. In _The Mayor of Casterbridge_ is an
account of the discovery of the remains of an old Roman soldier. One
would expect Hardy to make something graphic of the episode. And so he
does. You can almost see the warrior as he lies there 'in an oval
scoop in the chalk, like a chicken in its shell; his knees drawn up to
his chest; his spear against his arm; an urn at his knees, a jar at
his throat, a bottle at his mouth; and mystified conjecture pouring
down upon him from the eyes of Casterbridge street-boys and men.'
The real virtue in this bit of description lies in the few words
expressive of the mental attitude of the onlookers. And it is a nice
distinction which Hardy makes when he says that 'imaginative
inhabitants who would have felt an unpleasantness at the discovery of
a comparatively modern skeleton in their gardens were quite unmoved by
these hoary shapes. They had lived so long ago, their hopes and
motives were so widely removed from ours, that between them and the
living there seemed to stretch a gulf too wide for even a spirit to
pass.'
He takes note of that language which, though not articulate, is in
common use among yeomen, dairymen, farmers, and the townsfolk of his
little world. It is a language superimposed upon the ordinary
language. 'To express satisfaction the Casterbridge market-man added
to his utterance a broadening of the cheeks, a crevicing of the eyes,
a throwing back of the shoulders.' 'If he wondered ... you knew it
from perceiving the inside of his crimson mouth and the target-like
circling of his eyes.' The language of deliberation expressed itself
in the form of 'sundry attacks on the moss of adjoining walls with the
end of his stick' or a 'change of his hat from the horizontal to the
less so.'
The novel called _The Woodlanders_ is filled with notable
illustrations of an interest in minute things. The facts are
introduced unobtrusively and no great emphasis is laid upon them. But
they cling to the memory. Giles Winterbourne, a chief character in
this story, 'had a marvelous power in making trees grow. Although he
would seem to shovel in the earth quite carelessly there was a sort of
sympathy between himself and the fir, oak, or beech that he was
operating on; so that the roots took hold of the soil in a few days.'
When any of the journeymen planted, one quarter of the trees died
away. There is a graphic little scene where Winterbourne plants and
Marty South holds the trees for him. 'Winterbourne's fingers were
endowed with a gentle conjurer's touch in spreading the roots of each
little tree, resulting in a sort of caress under which the delicate
fibres all laid themselves out in their proper direction for growth.'
Marty declared that the trees began to 'sigh' as soon as they were put
upright, 'though when they are lying down they don't sigh at all.'
Winterbourne had never noticed it. 'She erected one of the young pines
into its hole, and held up her finger; the soft musical breathing
instantly set in, which was not to cease night or day till the grown
tree should be felled--probably long after the two planters had been
felled themselves.'
Later on in the story there is a description of this same Giles
Winterbourne returning with his horses and his cider apparatus from a
neighboring village. 'He looked and smelt like autumn's very brother,
his face being sunburnt to wheat color, his eyes blue as corn flowers,
his sleeves and leggings dyed with fruit stains, his hands clammy with
the sweet juice of apples, his hat sprinkled with pips, and everywhere
about him that atmosphere of cider which at its first return each
season has such an indescribable fascination for those who have been
born and bred among the orchards.'
Hardy throws off little sketches of this sort with an air of
unconsciousness which is fascinating.... It may be a sunset, or it may
be only a flake of snow falling upon a young girl's hair, or the light
from lanterns penetrating the shutters and flickering over the ceiling
of a room in the early winter morning,--no matter what the
circumstance or happening is, it is caught in the act, photographed in
permanent colors, made indelible and beautiful.
Hardy's art is tyrannical. It compels one to be interested in that
which delights him. It imposes its own standards. There is a rude
strength about the man which readers endure because they are not
unwilling to be slaves to genius. You may dislike sheep, and care but
little for the poetical aspect of cows, if indeed you are not inclined
to question the existence of poetry in cows; but if you read _Far from
the Madding Crowd_ you can never again pass a flock of sheep without
being conscious of a multitude of new thoughts, new images, new
matters for comparison. All that dormant section of your soul which
for years was in a comatose condition on the subject of sheep is
suddenly and broadly awake. Read _Tess_ and at once cows and a dairy
have a new meaning to you. They are a conspicuous part of the setting
of that stage upon which poor Tess Durbeyfield's life drama was
played.
But Hardy does not flaunt his knowledge in his reader's face. These
things are distinctly means to an end, not ends in themselves. He has
no theory to advance about keeping bees or making cider. He has taken
no little journeys in the world. On the contrary, where he has
traveled at all, he has traveled extensively. He is like a tourist who
has been so many times abroad that his allusions are naturally and
unaffectedly made. But the man just back from a first trip on the
continent has astonishment stamped upon his face, and he speaks of
Paris and of the Alps as if he had discovered both. Zola is one of
those practitioners who, big with recently acquired knowledge, appear
to labor under the idea that the chief end of a novel is to convey
miscellaneous information. This is probably a mistake. Novels are not
handbooks on floriculture, banking, railways, or the management of
department stores. One may make a parade of minute details and
endlessly wearisome learning and gain a certain credit thereby; but
what if the details and the learning are chiefly of value in a
dictionary of sciences and commerce? Wisdom of this sort is to be
sparingly used in a work of art.
In these matters I cannot but feel that Hardy has a reticence so
commendable that praise of it is superfluous and impertinent. After
all, men and women are better than sheep and cows, and had he been
more explicit, he would have tempted one to inquire whether he
proposed making a story or a volume which might bear the title _The
Wessex Farmer's Own Hand-Book_, and containing wise advice as to pigs,
poultry, and the useful art of making two heads of cabbage grow where
only one had grown before.