A History of English Prose Fiction Part 17

But the so called fas.h.i.+onable novel is most often the composition of adventurers whose catch-penny productions aim at affording, to the middle or lower ranks, information concerning the habits of the aristocracy. It is hardly necessary to remind the reader that fas.h.i.+onable life in these novels is such as it might appear to an imaginative kitchen-maid whose idea of up-stairs existence is founded on the gossip of servants. When written by persons conversant with their subject, the fas.h.i.+onable novel forms a legitimate subdivision of the novel of life and manners. But it is most often a noxious weed. Its cultivators constantly make up for lack of talent by the excitement of immoral scenes, and give to their audience of sempstresses and grooms a most degraded view of aristocratic life. Even when harmless in matter, its rank luxuriance fills up s.p.a.ce much better occupied by the flowers of literature.

The eminent criminal novel is taken as a tonic by minds satiated with the vapidity of fas.h.i.+onable fiction. From Lytton's "Paul Clifford," and Ainsworth's "Jack Sheppard," down to "Merciless Ben, the Hair-Lifter,"

criminal narrative has been occupied with endowing burglars and murderers with the graces of gentlemen and the moral worth of Christian missionaries. In its celebration of successful crime, and its representation under a heroic aspect of villains and blacklegs, no species of fiction is more false to nature or more injurious to youthful readers.

To such writers as George A. Lawrence and "Ouida" the world is indebted for the "Muscular Novel," which combines all the worst elements of both fas.h.i.+onable and criminal narrative. In "Guy Livingstone," "Strathmore,"

and a hundred similar fictions, the reader is introduced to men of extraordinary physical development, whose strength is proof against the wildest dissipation; to women of extraordinary beauty, whose charms are enhanced in proportion to their coa.r.s.eness and lack of modesty.

Jack Sheppard, reposing on a velvet couch, smoking a perfumed cigarette, and wors.h.i.+pped by two or three ornaments of the demi-monde, is the type most admired by the muscular novelist. Lawrence and "Ouida"

have brought to their work a literary power which has given them considerable notoriety; and has placed them at the head of their particular school; but it is a school whose distinctive characteristics consist in extravagance, unhealthiness of tone, and falseness to nature.

English military life has been ably described by such writers as E.

Napier, G.R. Gleig, W.H. Maxwell, and James Grant. But as a maritime nation, England has been much more prolific of naval novelists. At the head of these stands Captain Marryat, who has celebrated the pleasures and described the incidents of sea-faring life in about thirty jovial, das.h.i.+ng books. Among the great number of odd and entertaining characters sketched by his hand, "Peter Simple" and "Mids.h.i.+pman Easy"

are perhaps the most interesting. Marryat's narratives are not carefully constructed, but flow on gracefully and easily, enlivened by an inexhaustible fund of humor, and enriched by an endless succession of bright or exciting scenes. The names of Captain Gla.s.sock, Howard, Trelawney, Captain Chamier, Michael Scott, and the author of the "Wreck of the Grosvenor," are among those most prominently a.s.sociated with the marine novel. These writers have not only dealt with the adventures of a sailor's life and the peculiarities of a sailor's character, but have studied the influence of the sea on the human mind.

Through the great interest felt by Englishmen in the manners and customs of Eastern nations, Oriental novels have become a recognized department of English fiction. In the eighteenth century, Johnson, in "Ra.s.selas," and Beckford, in "Vathek," had drawn on the romantic features of Eastern life. In the present century successful attempts have been made to study Oriental character through the medium of the realistic novel. Hope, in "Anastasius," described the vices and degradation of Turkey and Greece in the person of his hero. In James Morier's "Hajji Baba of Ispahan" and "Ayesha," are vivid delineations of Eastern character and highly humorous sketches of Persian life.

James Baillie Fraser, in "The Kuzzilbash," and Miss Pardoe in a number of tales, have still further enriched the department of Oriental fiction.

[Footnote 206: Other women who have contributed to the English domestic novel--. Mary K. Mitford, Mrs. Crowe, Mrs. Marsh, Lady Georgiana Fullerton, Miss Kavanaugh, Geraldine Jewsbury, Mrs. Alexander, S.

Bunbury, C. Sinclair, A. Strickland, M.C. Clarke, L.S. Costello, C.

Crowe, A.H. Drury, G. Ellis, M. Howitt, Mrs. Hubback, Hon. Mrs. Norton, M.A. Power, E. Sewell, Mrs. Marquoid, Hesba Stretton, Florence Marryat, Elizabeth Wetherell, Sarah Tytler, C.C. Fraser-Tytler, C. Craik, Hon.

Mrs. Chetwind, M.M. Grant, A.E. Bray, and others.]

[Footnote 207: "Pendennis," Chap. v.]

[Footnote 208: Many other well-known writers have contributed to the English domestic novel: Thomas Love Peac.o.c.k, H. c.o.ke, Samuel Philips, Angus B. Reach, Albert Smith, R. Cobbold, Edmund Yates, Thomas A.

Trollope, Thomas Hardy, James Payn, George Augustus Sala, William Thornbury, the author of "The Bachelor of the Albany," Mortimer Collins, G.H. Lewes, s.h.i.+rley Brooks, Douglas Jerrold, C. Crowley, T. de Quincey, S.W. Fullom, J. Hannay, W. Howitt, C. Mackay, G.J.

Whyte-Melville, T. Miller, L. Ritchie, F.E. Smedley, J.A. St. John, M.F.

Tupper, F.M. Whitly, F. Williams, C.L. Wraxall, and others.]

[Footnote 209: T.H. Lister, Marquis of Normanby, Lady Caroline Lamb, Countess of Morley, Lady Charlotte Bury, Lady Dacre, Mrs. Gore, Lady Blessington.]

VI.

James Fenimore Cooper said in regard to the materials for American fiction: "There is a familiarity of the subject, a scarcity of events, and a poverty in the accompaniments that drive an author from the undertaking in despair." But the truth of this statement has been greatly modified, if not quite refuted, by the work of that great novelist and of several others who have succeeded him. It is true that American life presents less salient characteristics than that of Europe; that cla.s.s distinctions are less marked; and that the energies of the nation are still so much confined to strictly utilitarian objects, that life moves along with unpicturesque sameness and evenness. But mankind remains equally complicated and equally interesting under whatever circ.u.mstances it may be placed. The vast extent of American territory and the infinite variety of its inhabitants afford material to the novelist which yet remains almost untouched. New England, New York, the Southern States, and, above all, the Great West, are rich in special customs, traditions, and habits of thought with which fiction has only begun to concern itself. The visitor to Was.h.i.+ngton cannot fail to be struck by the variety of men who jostle each other in that cosmopolitan city. The New England farmer, the New York banker, the Southern planter, the Western herder or grain merchant, the California mine-owner, the negro, and perhaps a stray visiting Indian chief, represent widely differing and highly interesting forms of life and opinion. Whenever native genius has cast aside foreign influence and has found inspiration in American traditions and inst.i.tutions, the extent and richness of its literary material have been made manifest.

The earliest examples of fiction in the United States were tentative and lacking in originality. At the close of the eighteenth century, Charles Brockden Brown began the career of the first American novelist with "Wieland." His pecuniary necessities and the slight encouragement offered at that time to American authors made it impossible for him to afford the time and care essential to artistic finish. His novels are of an imaginative and psychological character, often interesting in parts from the intense mental excitement which they describe. They were much admired by the English novelist G.o.dwin, whose works they resemble in intensity of conception and faultiness of execution. A novel called "Charlotte Temple," by Susanna Rowson, obtained a wide circulation in the beginning of the present century, due much more to its foundation on a notorious scandal than to its own literary merit. "Modern Chivalry; or the Adventures of Captain Farrago and Teague O'Reagan, his Servant"--a poor imitation of "Don Quixote"--as a satire directed against the Democratic party by H.H. Brackenridge. R.H. Dana's "Tom Thornton" and "Paul Felton" have little claim to attention beyond the excitement of their rather sensational stories.

But with the publication of "The Spy," Cooper opened a thoroughly national vein, and began a literary career which showed how little native genius need rely on foreign influence or on foreign subjects. He described the stirring events and the moral heroism of the American Revolution with patriotic sympathy and original literary power. He touched the romantic chords of that great struggle with a delicacy which met with a world-wide response. Not only did Americans feel that in Cooper's novels the picturesque and characteristic features of their country were delineated by a master-hand, but in almost every European land, translations of "The Spy," "The Pioneers," or "The Pathfinder,"

testified to the universal interest excited by the examples of simplicity, endurance, and sagacity which formed the subjects of Cooper's pen. In "The Pioneers," "The Last of the Mohicans," "The Prairie," "The Pathfinder," and "The Deer-slayer" figures the character of Leatherstocking, than whom no fict.i.tious personage has a greater claim to interest. His bravery, resolution, and woodland skill make him a type of the hardy race who pushed westward the reign of civilization.

The scenes among which he lived, the primeval forest, the great inland lakes, the hunter's camp, and Indian wigwam were described by Cooper with a fidelity and picturesqueness which will always give to his works a national value. Now that farms and manufacturing towns cover what a century ago was a trackless wilderness, where backwoodsmen and Indians shot bear and deer, it would be almost impossible for us to realize the previous condition of our now populous country were it not for the novels of Cooper. And this great writer not only described the wild aspect of American scenery and the hardly less wild features of pioneer character. He painted with equal skill the life of the American sailor, at a time when that life had an interest and excitement it no longer possesses. Long Tom Coffin, Tom Tiller, Bob Yarn, belonged to a period when the United Stales was a maritime country, before American enterprise and industry were shut off from the sea by legislative imbecility. No marine novelist has given a more life-like impression of a s.h.i.+p than Cooper, and none have excelled him in descriptions of the sea and in studies of those peculiar forms of human nature produced by life on the ocean. So long as Cooper confined himself to purely national subjects, his success was brilliant and continuous; but many of his works show the effect of misdirected talent, and have fallen into neglect.

The "Legend of Sleepy Hollow," and "Rip Van Winkle" are the specimens of American fiction most intimately a.s.sociated with New York. In these stories the traditions and scenery of the Hudson River were treated by Was.h.i.+ngton Irving with all the richness of imagination and delicacy of expression of which he had so great a store. Some part of that romantic interest afforded to the traveller by the castles of the Rhine, has been imparted to the Hudson by the exquisite pages of the "Sketch Book." The stories of Nathaniel P. Willis and some of the novels of Bayard Taylor and of J.G. Holland also belong especially to New York.

At the head of New England, and, indeed, of American writers of fiction, stands Nathaniel Hawthorne. His three great works, "The Scarlet Letter," "The House of the Seven Gables," and "The Blithedale Romance," are the finest specimens of imaginative writing which American genius has yet produced. The interest of Hawthorne's novels lies almost entirely in their subtle and astute studies of the hidden workings of the human mind. His fictions are remarkable for their want of action. "The Scarlet Letter" can hardly be said to have a plot. The series of chapters which intervene between the exhibition of Hester Prynne on the scaffold and the voluntary self-exposure there of the Puritan minister, simply represent gradual changes from the first to the last situation of the princ.i.p.al characters. But narrative excitement was never Hawthorne's object, and the want of it is never felt by his reader. Each scene is an appropriate sequel to the last, and a natural introduction to the next. Each chapter has its special interest,--the a.n.a.lysis of a condition of mind, a dramatic situation, or a highly finished domestic picture. It is in the delineation of character and the study of human motives that Hawthorne's chief excellence as a novelist consists. Nothing can exceed the penetration and vividness with which such persons as Zen.o.bia, in "The Blithedale Romance," and Holgrave, in "The House of the Seven Gables," are described. The homeward walk of the fallen young minister, in "The Scarlet Letter," when he had resolved to desert his flock and to connect himself again with Hester Prynne, is an unsurpa.s.sed delineation of sudden moral degeneration. There is nothing of modern realism in Hawthorne's novels, and yet they leave a realistic impression behind them. The greater number of his characters appear to us rather as representatives of certain mental conditions then as real flesh and blood. Neither in the dialogue, nor in what may be called the "properties" of his writing did Hawthorne strive at realistic effects.

Still, when the reader lays down "The Scarlet Letter," or "The House of the Seven Gables," he insensibly feels himself embued with the spirit and atmosphere of Puritan New England. Hawthorne was so intensely a New Englander in his sympathies, prejudices, and habits of mind, that his writings were always colored by the thought and sentiment of his native land. In "The Scarlet Letter," there is little evidence of the use of historical researches, and yet in that volume, colonial life has been made real and actual to us by the very intensity of the author's national feeling.

New England fiction includes a number of other celebrated and honored names. Catherine M. Sedgwick began her literary career with "Hope Leslie," a story founded on the early history of Ma.s.sachusetts, which was followed by "Redwood" and "The Linwoods, or Sixty Years Since in America." Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes studied New England village life in "Elsie Venner," and Sylvester Judd that of the Maine backwoods in "Margaret." Mr. T.W. Higginson has written "Malbone." Mr. W.D. Howells, Rev. Edward Everett Hale, and Miss E.S. Phelps are still adding to their reputations.

Among the novels relating to life in the Southern States, "Uncle Tom's Cabin" is the most prominent. The circulation and fame of this book have been the most remarkable phenomenon in the annals of literature.

Within a year, more than two hundred thousand copies were sold in the United States, and fully a million in England. Thirteen different translations were issued in Germany, four in France, and two in Russia; the Magyar language boasted three separate versions; the Wallachian, two; the Welsh, two; and the Dutch, two; while the Armenian, Arabic, Romaic, and all the European languages had at least one version. The book was dramatized in not less than twenty different forms, and was acted all over Europe. In France, and still more in England, all other books and all other subjects became, for the time, secondary to "Uncle Tom's Cabin." This extraordinary popularity was chiefly due to the importance and novelty of the subject treated. Mrs. Stowe imparted a considerable narrative interest to her work, and gave to her characters a very life-like effect. Her pathetic and humorous scenes are natural and well arranged. The peculiarities of negro life and habits of thought are placed before the reader with genuine sympathy and truth.

Uncle Tom and Topsy are fine and original creations. But taken simply as a novel, "Uncle Tom's Cabin" is not more remarkable than a hundred others, and cannot compete with such works as "Tom Jones," "Adam Bede,"

or "David Copperfield." Mrs. Stowe's extraordinary success was fully deserved, but it resulted less from the literary excellence of her work, than from the fact that when one great subject rose pre-eminent in the public mind, she was able to embody it in a popular and easily comprehended form. Gilmore Simms and John P. Kennedy have contributed largely to the novel of Southern life. Mr. G.W. Cable is now studying Louisiana characters, and Judge Tourgee the general condition of the South since the war.

Novels descriptive of Western life have been written by Charles Fenno Hoffman, James Hall, Timothy Flint, Thomas, and O'Connell. But none of these writers have given such original sketches of character, or have so graphically portrayed the spirit of life in the far West as Mr.

Bret Harte. "The Luck of Roaring Camp" and the other stories of this talented writer have opened a vein of romance where it was least expected.

American fiction has been exceptionally rich in stories adapted to the juvenile mind, among which the most prominent are Mrs. Whitney's "Faith Gartney's Girlhood," Miss Alcott's "Little Women," and Mr. T.B.

Aldrich's "Story of a Bad Boy." Edgar Allan Poe's "Tales of the Grotesque and the Arabesque," are remarkable for intensity and vividness of conception, combined with a circ.u.mstantial invention almost equal to that of Defoe. Mrs. Burnett and Mr. J.W. De Forest are still writing excellent novels of American life; and Mr. Henry James, Jr., is studying that peculiar form of human nature known as the American in Europe.[210]

[Footnote 210: Other American writers of fiction:--R.B. Kimball, Herman Melville, Dr. R. Bird, John Neal, H.W. Longfellow, Was.h.i.+ngton Allston, Maria S. c.u.mmins, W.G. Simms, Theodore Winthrop, Mary J. Holmes, Mrs.

Terhune, Augusta Evans Wilson, Catherine Sedgwick Valerio.]

VII.

The historical novel is obviously a subdivision of the novel of life and manners. But, dealing as it does with remote ages, with forgotten opinions and long-disused customs, it has to reconstruct where the novel of contemporary life has only to ill.u.s.trate. Strict historical accuracy can hardly be expected in fiction concerned with the past. The details of life, always difficult to seize, are almost beyond the reach of the novelist who deals with a subject with which he has had no personal experience. A certain amount of accuracy concerning dress, customs, peculiarities of opinion and language are necessary to give to a historical novel the effect of verisimilitude. But what is chiefly requisite in such a work is that the general spirit of the period treated should be successfully caught; that the reader should find himself occupied with a train of a.s.sociations and sympathies which insensibly withdraws his thoughts from their ordinary channels, and occupies them with the beliefs, opinions, and aspirations of a totally different state of society.

Such is the special merit of Scott's historical novels. Many inaccuracies of fact might be pointed out in them. His study of the character of James I, in "The Fortunes of Nigel," is in several respects entirely mistaken. His description of a euphuist in "The Monastery" bears no resemblance whatever to the followers of John Lyly.

In "The Talisman" and in "Ivanhoe," of which the scenes are laid in the time of Richard Coeur de Lion, the reader recognises little realism of language. But as Scott's historical novels deal with periods extending from that of the crusades down to the Pretender's attempt in 1745, an intimate knowledge of the innumerable social changes and peculiarities is not to be expected.

It is, indeed, to be doubted that a novelist can so reproduce a distant epoch as to satisfy the ideas of careful historical students. He can, however, make familiar to his readers the general spirit of a time.

And, in this, Scott was eminently successful. "Kenilworth" gives a vivid picture of the gay picturesqueness of Elizabeth's age.

"Woodstock" contains a fine contrast between the Cavalier and the Puritan character. "Quentin Durward" affords a lasting impression of the times of Louis XI and Charles the Bold. Scott's strong national feeling and his intense sympathy with the traditions of his native land naturally gave to his Scotch fictions a particular historical value.

"The Legend of Montrose," describing the civil war in the sixteenth century; "Old Mortality," dealing with the rebellion of the Covenanters; and "Waverley," occupied with the Pretender's troubles in the middle of the eighteenth century, threw into bold relief widely differing periods of Scotch history. Its is, indeed, extraordinary that one mind should have been able to seize so many and so varied historical conditions as are treated in the Waverley novels. Of these works, about fourteen deal with entirely distinct epochs, each one of which is given its individual character and obtains its appropriate treatment.[211]

Bulwer Lytton's "Last Days of Pompeii," and "Harold, the Last of the Saxon Kings," are both powerful, ingenious, and interesting narratives, and they give as definite an idea, perhaps, of the times of which they treat as is possible after so long a lapse of time. "Rienzi" leaves a greater impression of verisimilitude. "The Last of the Barons" is somewhat clogged by its superabundance of historic incident, but still affords a striking view of declining feudalism. In the "Tale of Two Cities" and "Barnaby Rudge," d.i.c.kens described the sanguinary scenes of the French Revolution and the Lord Gordon Riots with his never-failing power. Since the Waverley novels, the most perfect specimen of English historical fiction has been "Henry Esmond." The artistic construction of its plot, and the life-like reality of its characters, place it first among Thackeray's works. But its pre-eminence among historical novels is due to the fact that it reproduces so vividly the spirit and atmosphere of a past age. All the thoughts, opinions, and actions of the characters in "Henry Esmond" are such as we should expect from persons living in the beginning of the eighteenth century. Whoever is familiar with the pages of the "Spectator" will notice how faithfully Thackeray adopted the language of Steele and Addison. It is true that he had a far less difficult task before him in describing the age of Queen Anne than fell to the lot of Bulwer Lytton in "The Last Days of Pompeii." The latter work required far more historical research and a far greater effort of the imagination. But while in Lytton's novel the reader cannot divest himself of a certain sense of unreality, he feels that "Henry Esmond" really carries him back to the period it portrays.

George Eliot's "Romola" must always retain a high place in historical fiction. But its author's great creative power led her to bestow more pains on such of the characters as proceeded from her own imagination, than on those whom history provided ready-made. The reader's memory retains a more vivid impression of t.i.to than it does of Savonarola.

Charles Kingsley's "Hypatia" and "Westward Ho!" are among the most prominent of recent historical novels. The latter aimed at describing the time of Elizabeth, but resembles more closely that of Cromwell.

John Gibson Lockhart, in "Valerius," and Mr. Wilkie Collins in "Antonina," have studied the life of ancient Rome. James Fenimore Cooper in "The Spy" and "The Pioneers" threw into bold relief the stirring incidents of American colonial and revolutionary times.

Nathaniel Hawthorne reproduced the spirit of Puritan New England in "The Scarlet Letter," of which mention has already been made.

[Footnote 211: Horace Smith, Sir T.D. Lauder, and G.P.R. James are well-known historical novelists who have written under the influence of Scott. W. Harrison Ainsworth has made use of historical material in "The Tower of London," and similar writings.]

VIII.

The novel of purpose may be defined as a work of fiction of which the main object is to teach a lesson or to advocate a principle. Strictly speaking, every good novel has a purpose, or some well-defined aim, if it be only that of affording entertainment. But the novel of purpose distinctly subordinates the amus.e.m.e.nt of the reader to his improvement or information. With a few exceptions, such as "The Fool of Quality,"

this species of fiction is the product of the nineteenth century. It has special difficulties to contend against. To combine a didactic aim with artistic excellence is among the most difficult of literary experiments. If the lesson or principle to be inculcated be given too much prominence, the reader who opens the book for entertainment will shut it very soon in spite of any prospective self-improvement. If narrative interest or artistic beauty be the most striking feature of the work, its serious aim will be unnoticed. The safest plan for the writer of the novel of purpose to pursue, is to openly acknowledge his object, and to place that object before the reader in as attractive a manner as possible. But he cannot expect to attain success unless the principle he advocates be one of general interest and importance. Nor can he expect, when that principle has obtained acceptance, that the work in which it is urged can have any further prominence. He must be content that his object is attained, and that his book, having served its purpose, falls into obscurity.

Some of Miss Edgeworth's tales, and such novels as Miss Brunton's "Self-Control" and "Discipline," were among the earliest specimens of fiction having the professed object of moral improvement. These books were very popular at a time when a well-justified prejudice against novels prevailed. But since the character of fiction has been raised to its present standard of purity, professedly moral novels have become unnecessary for general reading. The successors of Miss Edgeworth's and Miss Brunton's works now appear in the form of temperance novels and Sunday-school books. A curious form of the novel of purpose is that written in the interest of religious sects or special tenets, of which specimens may be found in the writings of Elizabeth M. Sewell, who advocated High Church doctrines. Harriet Martineau made very successful use of fiction in conveying her ideas on political economy. In "Ginx's Baby," by Mr. Edward Jenkins, the popularity and interest of a political pamphlet had been greatly increased by the a.s.sistance of a narrative form.

The most important specimens of the novel of purpose are those written in the interest of some injured or suffering cla.s.s. A mere recital of general grievances is not likely to have much effect on the public mind. But a novelist who can interest a considerable body of readers in a few well-chosen characters, who can subject his fict.i.tious personages to the evils which he means to expose, and thus arouse the sympathy and indignation of a large number of people, can make a novel of purpose a very effective weapon of reform. Individuals are much more interesting than bodies of men, and the sufferings of little Oliver Twist or of the inmates of Dotheboys Hall, as related by d.i.c.kens, will arouse public attention far more actively than the report of an examining committee.