Sir Walter Scott | Page 2

Peveril of the Peak or Anne of Geierstein, which may be thought to resemble rather too closely the imitations of Scott, the ordinary historical novel as it was written by Scott's successors. But though the formula of the conventional historical novel may have been drawn from the less idiomatic group, it was not this that chiefly made Scott's reputation. His fame and influence were achieved through the whole mass of his immense and varied work; and the Scots dialect and humours, which make so large a part of his resources when he is putting out all his power, though they have their difficulties for readers outside of Scotland, were no real hindrances in the way of the Scotch novels: Dandie Dinmont and Bailie Nicol Jarvie, Cuddie Headrigg and Andrew Fairservice were not ignored or forgotten, even where Ivanhoe or The Talisman might have the preference as being more conformable to the general mind of novel readers.
The paradox remains: that the most successful novelist of the whole world should have had his home and found his strength in a country with a language of its own, barely intelligible, frequently repulsive to its nearest neighbours, a language none the more likely to win favour when the manners or ideas of the country were taken into consideration as well.
The critics who refuse to see much good in Scott, for the most part ignore the foundations of his work. Thus Stendhal, who acknowledges Scott's position as representative of his age, the one really great, universally popular, author of his day, does not recognise in Scott's imagination much more than trappings and tournaments, the furniture of the regular historical novel. He compares Scott's novels with La Princesse de Clèves, and asks which is more to be praised, the author who understands and reveals the human heart, or the descriptive historian who can fill pages with unessential details but is afraid of the passions.
In which it seems to be assumed that Scott, when he gave his attention to the background and the appropriate dresses, was neglecting the dramatic truth of his characters and their expression. Scott, it may be observed, had, in his own reflexions on the art of novel-writing, taken notice of different kinds of policy in dealing with the historical setting. In his lives of the novelists, reviewing The Old English Baron, he describes the earlier type of historical novel in which little or nothing is done for antiquarian decoration or for local colour; while in his criticism of Mrs. Radcliffe he uses the very term--'melodrama'--and the very distinction--melodrama as opposed to tragedy--which is the touchstone of the novelist. Whatever his success might be, there can be no doubt as to his intentions. He meant his novels, with their richer background and their larger measure of detail, to sacrifice nothing of dramatic truth. La Princesse de Clèves, a professedly historical novel with little 'local colour', may be in essentials finer and more sincere than Scott. This is a question which I ask leave to pass over. But it is not Scott's intention to put off the reader with details and decoration as a substitute for truth of character and sentiment. Here most obviously, with all their differences, Balzac and Scott are agreed: expensive both of them in description, but neither of them inclined to let mere description (in Pope's phrase) take the place of sense--i.e. of the life which it is the business of the novelist to interpret. There is danger, no doubt, of overdoing it, but description in Balzac, however full and long, is never inanimate. He has explained his theory in a notice of Scott, or rather in a comparison of Scott and Fenimore Cooper (Revue Parisienne, 1840), where the emptiness of Cooper's novels is compared with the variety of Scott's, the solitude of the American lakes and forests with the crowd of life commanded by the author of Waverley. Allowing Cooper one great success in the character of Leather-stocking and some merit in a few other personages, Balzac finds beyond these nothing like Scott's multitude of characters; their place is taken by the beauties of nature. But description cannot make up for want of life in a story.
Balzac shows clearly that he understood the danger of description, and how impossible, how unreasonable, it is to make scenery do instead of story and characters. He does not seem to think that Scott has failed in this respect, while in his remarks on Scott's humour he proves how far he is from the critics who found in Scott nothing but scenery and accoutrements and the rubbish of old chronicles. Scott's chivalry and romance are not what Balzac is thinking about. Balzac is considering Scott's imagination in general, his faculty in narrative and dialogue, wherever his scene may be, from whatever period the facts