Old Friends, Epistolary Parody | Page 6

kind
of literature. One might say, to be sure, that he knows Hotspur a good
deal more intimately than he knows Mr. Henry Esmond, and that he has
a pretty definite idea of Iago, Othello, Macbeth, King Lear, as definite
as he has (to follow Mr. Austin) of Tito Melema. But we cannot reckon
Othello, or Macbeth, or King Lear as FRIENDS; nay, we would rather
drink with the honest ancient. All heroes and the heroines are usually
too august, and also too young, to be friendly with us; to be handled
humorously by their creators. We know Cuddie Headrigg a great deal
better than Henry Morton, and Le Balafre better than Quentin Durward,
and Dugald Dalgetty better than anybody. Humour it is that gives flesh
and blood to the persons of romance; makes Mr. Lenville real, while
Nicholas Nickleby is only a "walking gentleman." You cannot know
Oliver Twist as you know the Dodger and Charlie Bates. If you met
Edward Waverley you could scarce tell him from another young officer
of his time; but there would be no chance of mistake about the Dugald
creature, or Bailie Nicol Jarvie, or the Baron Bradwardine, or
Balmawhapple.
These ideas might be pushed too far; it might be said that only the
persons in "character parts"--more or less caricatures--are really vivid
in the recollection. But Colonel Newcome is as real as Captain
Costigan, and George Warrington as the Chevalier Strong. The hero is
commonly too much of a beau tenebreux to be actual; Scott knew it
well, and in one of his unpublished letters frankly admits that his
heroes are wooden, and no favourites of his own. He had to make them,
as most authors make their heroes, romantic, amorous, and serious; few
of them have the life of Roland Graeme, or even of Quentin Durward.
Ivanhoe might put on the cloak of the Master of Ravenswood, the
Master might wear the armour of the Disinherited Knight, and the
disguise would deceive the keenest. Nay, Mr. Henry Esmond might
pass for either, if arrayed in appropriate costume.
To treat a hero with humour is difficult in romance, all but impossible.
Hence the heroes are rarely our friends, except in Fielding, or, now and
then, in Thackeray. No book is so full of friends as the novel that has
no hero, but has Rawdon Crawley, Becky, Lady Jane, Mr. Jim Crawley,

MacMurdo, Mrs. Major O'Dowd, and the rest. Even Dobbin is too
much the hero to be admitted among our most kindly acquaintances. So
unlucky are heroes that we know Squire Western and the Philosopher
Square and Parson Adams far better than even that unheroic hero, Tom
Jones, or Joseph Andrews. The humour of Fielding and his tenderness
make Amelia and Sophia far more sure of our hearts than, let us say,
Rowena, or the Fair Maid of Perth, or Flora MacIvor, or Rose
Bradwardine. It is humour that makes Mr. Collins immortal, and Mrs.
Bennett, and Emma; while a multitude of nice girls in fiction, good
girls too, are as dead as Queen Tiah.
Perhaps, after all, this theory explains why it is so very hard to recall
with vividness the persons of our later fiction. Humour is not the strong
point of novelists to-day. There may be amateurs who know Mr.
Howells's characters as their elders know Sophia and Amelia and
Catherine Seyton--there may be. To the old reader of romance,
however earnestly he keeps up with modern fiction, the salt of life
seems often lacking in its puppets or its persons. Among the creations
of living men and women I, for one, feel that I have two friends at least
across the sea, Master Thomas Sawyer and his companion, Huckleberry
Finn. If these are not real boys, then Dr. Farrar's Eric IS a real boy; I
cannot put it stronger. There is a lady on those distant shores (for she
never died of Roman fever) who I may venture to believe is not
unfriendly--Miss Annie P. Miller--and there is a daughter of Mr. Silas
Lapham whom one cannot readily forget, and there is a beery journalist
in a "Modern Instance," an acquaintance, a distant professional
acquaintance, not a friend. The rest of the fictitious white population of
the States are shadowy to myself; I have often followed their fortunes
with interest, but the details slip my aging memory, which recalls
Topsy and Uncle Remus.
To speak of new friends at home is a more delicate matter. A man may
have an undue partiality for the airy children of his friends' fancy. Mr.
Meredith has introduced me to an amiable Countess, to a strange
country girl named Rhoda, to a wonderful old AEschylean nurse, to
some genuine boys, to a wise Youth,--but that society grows as
numerous as brilliant. Mr. Besant