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

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 these wrong judgments? True, the real Science of History--the sifting of evidence, and the discovery and unravelling of ancient documents--may be described as an essentially modern attainment, so it would be unreasonable to blame our older historians for errors which it was largely, if not wholly, beyond their power to overcome. And it is just here that I would emphasise my defence of the Romancist. If Historians themselves have differed (and still differ)! may it not be pleaded on behalf of the Historical Novelist that he also must be judged according to the possibilities of his time? For, while he may have too readily adopted