A Guide to the Best Historical Novels and Tales | Page 7

Century Novelist, partly out of his erudite
conception of a former period, and partly out of the emotions and
thoughts engendered by that very environment which was his own, and
from which he could not escape!
Well, to all such criticisms it seems to me there are ample rejoinders. In

the first place it must be remembered that History itself possesses
interest for us more as the unfolding of certain moral and mental
developments than as the mere enumeration of facts. Of course, I am
aware that the ideal of the Historian is Truth utterly regardless of
prejudice and inclination, but, as with all other human ideals, this one is
never fully realised, and there is ever that discrepancy between Fact
and its Narration to which I just now alluded. This being so, I would
ask--Is not the writer of Fiction justified in emphasising those elements
of History which have a bearing on life and character in general? There
is, doubtless, a wise and an unwise method of procedure. One novelist,
in the very effort to be accurate, produces a work which--being neither
History nor Fiction--is simply dull; while another, who has gauged the
true relation between fact and imagination, knows better than to bring
into prominence that which should remain only as a background. After
all, there are certain root motives and principles which, though they
vary indefinitely in their application, underlie Human Conduct, and are
common to all ages alike. Given a fairly accurate knowledge as regards
the general history of any period, combined with some investigation
into its special manners and customs, there is no reason why a truly
imaginative novelist should not produce a work at once satisfying to
romantic and historical instincts.
Again, if it be true that the novelist cannot reproduce the far past in any
strict sense, it is also true that neither can he so reproduce the life and
events of yesterday. That power of imaginative memory, which all
exercise in daily experience, may be held in very different degrees, but
its enjoyment is not dependent on accuracy of representation--for, were
this so, none of us would possess it. In an analogous manner the writer
of Romance may be more or less adequately equipped on the side of
History pure and simple, but he need not wait for that which will never
come--the power of reproducing in toto a past age. If, in reading what
purports to be no more than a Novel, the struggle between Christianity
and Paganism (for example), or the unbounded egotism of Napoleon,
be brought more vividly before our minds--and this may be done by
suggestion as well as by exact relation, then, I would maintain, we are
to some extent educated historically, using the word in a large though
perfectly legitimate sense.

I recently read a work which here presents itself as admirably
illustrating my meaning. In her too little known "Adventures of a
Goldsmith" Miss M. H. Bourchier has contrived to bring forcibly
before us the period when Napoleon, fast approaching the zenith of his
power, was known in France as the "First Consul." The "man of
destiny" himself--appearing on the scene for little more than a brief
moment--can in no sense be described as one of the book's characters,
and yet the whole plot is so skilfully contrived as to hinge on his
personality. We are made to feel the dominating influence of that
powerful will upon the fears and hopes of a time brimming over with
revolutionary movement. Whether the Chouan revolt is in this
particular story accurately depicted for us in all its phases, or whether
the motives which impelled certain public characters are therein
interpreted aright--both in regard to these and other points there may be
room for doubt, but at least the general forces of the period are placed
before us in such a way as to drive home the conviction that, be the
historical inaccuracies of detail what they may in the eyes of this or that
specialist, the picture as a whole is one which, while it rivets our
attention as lovers of romance, does no injury to the strictest Historic
sense.
I know well that numerous novels might be cited which, besides
abounding in anachronisms, are harmful in that they present us with a
misleading conception of some personality or period; moreover, I
acknowledge that this defect is by no means confined to romances of an
inferior literary order. That Cromwell has been unreasonably vilified,
and Mary Queen of Scots misconceived as a saintly martyr-- how often
are these charges brought against not a few of our leading exponents of
Historical Fiction. Let this be fully granted, it remains to ask--To whom
were our novelists originally indebted for these misconceptions? Were
not the historians of an earlier generation responsible for