Masters of the English Novel | Page 5

of thousands in the
last century; and is still the private though disavowed amusement of
young girls and sentimental ladies." The chief trait of these earlier
fictions, besides their mawkishness, is their almost incredible
long-windedness; they have the long breath, as the French say; and it
may be confessed that the great, pioneer eighteenth century novels,
foremost those of Richardson, possess a leisureliness of movement
which is an inheritance of the romantic past when men, both fiction
writers and readers, seem to have Time; they look back to Lyly, and
forward (since history repeats itself here), to Henry James. The
condensed, breathless fiction of a Kipling is the more logical evolution.
Certainly, the English were innovators in this field, exercising a direct
and potent influence upon foreign fiction, especially that of France and
Germany; it is not too much to say, that the novels of Richardson and
Fielding, pioneers, founders of the English Novel, offered Europe a
type. If one reads the French fictionists before Richardson--Madame de
La Fayette, Le Sage, Prevost and Rousseau--one speedily discovers that
they did not write novels in the modern sense; the last named took a
cue from Richardson, to be sure, in his handling of sentiment, but
remained an essayist, nevertheless. And the greater Goethe also felt and
acknowledged the Englishman's example. Testimonies from the
story-makers of other lands are frequent to the effect upon them of
these English pioneers of fiction. It will be seen from this brief
statement of the kind of fiction essayed by the founders of the Novel,
that their tendency was towards what has come to be called "realism" in
modern fiction literature. One uses this sadly overworked term with a

certain sinking of the heart, yet it seems unavoidable. The very fact that
the words "realism" and "romance" have become so hackneyed in
critical parlance, makes it sure that they indicate a genuine distinction.
As the Novel has developed, ramified and taken on a hundred guises of
manifestation, and as criticism has striven to keep pace with such a
growth, it is not strange that a confusion of nomenclature should have
arisen. But underneath whatever misunderstandings, the original
distinction is clear enough and useful to make: the modern Novel in its
beginning did introduce a more truthful representation of human life
than had obtained in the romantic fiction deriving from the medieval
stories. The term "realism" as first applied was suitably descriptive; it is
only with the subsequent evolution that so simple a word has taken on
subtler shades and esoteric implications.
It may be roundly asserted that from the first the English Novel has
stood for truth; that it has grown on the whole more truthful with each
generation, as our conception of truth in literature has been widened
and become a nobler one. The obligation of literature to report life has
been felt with increasing sensitiveness. In the particulars of appearance,
speech, setting and action the characters of English fiction to-day
produce a semblance of life which adds tenfold to its power. To
compare the dialogue of modern masters like Hardy, Stevenson,
Kipling and Howells with the best of the earlier writers serves to bring
the assertion home; the difference is immense; it is the difference
between the idiom of life and the false-literary tone of imitations of life
which, with all their merits, are still self-conscious and inapt And as the
earlier idiom was imperfect, so was the psychology; the study of
motives in relation to action has grown steadily broader, more
penetrating; the rich complexity of human beings has been recognized
more and more, where of old the simple assumption that all mankind
falls into the two great contrasted groups of the good and the bad, was
quite sufficient. And, as a natural outcome of such an easy-going
philosophy, the study of life was rudimentary and partial; you could
always tell how the villain would jump and were comfortable in the
assurance that the curtain should ring down upon "and so they were
married and lived happily ever afterwards."

In contrast, to-day human nature is depicted in the Novel as a curious
compound of contradictory impulses and passions, and instead of the
clear-cut separation of the sheep and the goats, we look forth upon a
vast, indiscriminate horde of humanity whose color, broadly surveyed,
seems a very neutral gray,--neither deep black nor shining white. The
white-robed saint is banished along with the devil incarnate; those who
respect their art would relegate such crudities to Bowery melodrama.
And while we may allow an excess of zeal in this matter, even a
confusion of values, there can be no question that an added dignity has
come to the Novel in these latter days, because it has striven with so
much seriousness of purpose to depict life in a