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  ESSAYS
  ON
  MODERN NOVELISTS

  BY
  WILLIAM LYON PHELPS

  M.A. (HARVARD), PH.D. (YALE)

  FORMERLY INSTRUCTOR IN ENGLISH AT HARVARD
  LAMPSON PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE AT YALE

  New York
  THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
  1910

  _All rights reserved_

PREFACE

Some of the essays in this volume have appeared in recent numbers of
various periodicals. The essays on "Mark Twain" and "Thomas Hardy" were
originally printed in the _North American Review_; those on "Mrs. Ward"
and "Rudyard Kipling," in the _Forum_; those on "Alfred Ollivant,"
"Björnstjerne Björnson," and "Novels as a University Study," in the
_Independent_. The same magazine contained a portion of the present
essay on "Lorna Doone," while the article on "The Teacher's Attitude
toward Contemporary Literature" was written for the _Chicago Interior_.
My friend, Mr. Andrew Keogh, Reference Librarian of Yale University, has
been kind enough to prepare the List of Publications, thereby increasing
my debt to him for many previous favours.

W. L. P.

YALE UNIVERSITY,
Tuesday, _5 October, 1909_.

CONTENTS

                                                   PAGE

  WILLIAM DE MORGAN                                   1

  THOMAS HARDY                                       33

  WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS                               56

  BJÖRNSTJERNE BJÖRNSON                              82

  MARK TWAIN                                         99

  HENRYK SIENKIEWICZ                                115

  HERMANN SUDERMANN                                 132

  ALFRED OLLIVANT                                   159

  ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON                            172

  MRS. HUMPHRY WARD                                 191

  RUDYARD KIPLING                                   208

  "LORNA DOONE"                                     229

  APPENDICES                                        245

    A. NOVELS AS A UNIVERSITY STUDY                 245

    B. THE TEACHER'S ATTITUDE TOWARD CONTEMPORARY
         LITERATURE                                 252

    C. TWO POEMS                                    258

  LIST OF PUBLICATIONS                              261

ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS

WILLIAM DE MORGAN

"How can you know whether you are successful or not at forty-one? How do
you know you won't have a tremendous success, all of a sudden?
Yes--after another ten years, perhaps--but _some_ time! And then twenty
years of real, happy work. It has all been before, this sort of thing.
Why not you?" Thus spoke the hopeful Alice to the despairing Charley;
and it makes an interesting comment on the very man who wrote the
conversation, and created the speakers. It has indeed "all been before,
this sort of thing"; only when an extremely clever person, whose friends
have always been saying, with an exclamation rather than an
interrogation point appended, "Why don't you write a novel!" ... waits
until he has passed his grand climacteric, he displays more faith in
Providence than in himself. All of which is as it should be. Keats died
at the age of twenty-five, but, from where I am now writing, I can
reach his Poetical Works almost without leaving my chair; he is among
the English Poets. Had Mr. De Morgan died at the age of twenty-five? The
answer is, he didn't. I am no great believer in mute, inglorious
Miltons, nor do I think that I daily pass potential novelists in the
street. Life is shorter than Art, as has frequently been observed; but
it seems long enough for Genius. Genius resembles murder in that it
_will_ out; you can no more prevent its expression than you can prevent
the thrush from singing his song twice over. Crabbed age and youth have
their peculiar accent. Keats, with all his glory, could not have written
_Joseph Vance_, and Mr. De Morgan, with all his skill in ceramics, could
not have fashioned the _Ode on a Grecian Urn_.

Sir Thomas Browne, who loved miracles, did not hesitate to classify the
supposed importance of the grand climacteric as a vulgar error; he
included a whole quaint chapter on the subject, in that old curiosity
shop of literature, the _Pseudodoxia Epidemica_. "And so perhaps hath it
happened unto the number 7. and 9. which multiplyed into themselves doe
make up 63. commonly esteemed the great Climactericall of our lives; for
the dayes of men are usually cast up by septenaries, and every seventh
yeare conceived to carry some altering character with it, either in the
temper of body, minde, or both; but among all other, three are most
remarkable, that is, 7. times 7. or forty-nine, 9. times 9. or
eighty-one, and 7. times 9. or the yeare of sixty-three; which is
conceived to carry with it, the most considerable fatality, and
consisting of both the other numbers was apprehended to comprise the
vertue of either, is therefore expected and entertained with feare, and
esteemed a favour of fate to pass it over; which notwithstanding many
suspect but to be a Panick terrour, and men to feare they justly know
not what; and for my owne part, to speak indifferently, I find no
satisfaction, nor any sufficiency in the received grounds to establish a
rationall feare."

Among various strong reasons against this superstition, Dr. Browne
presents the impressive argument shown by the Patriarchs: "the lives of
our forefathers presently after the flood, and more especially before
it, who, attaining unto 8. or 900. yeares, had not their Climacters
computable by digits, or as we doe account them; for the great
Climactericall was past unto them before they begat children, or gave
any Testimony of their virilitie, for we read not that any begat
children before the age of sixtie five."

The strange case of William De Morgan would have deeply interested Sir
Thomas, and he would have given it both full and minute consideration.
For it was just after he had safely passed the climacterical year of
sixty-three, that our now famous novelist began what is to us the most
important chapter of his life, the first chapter of _Joseph Vance_; and,
like the Patriarchs, it was only after he had reached the age of
sixty-five that he became fruitful, producing those wonderful children
of his brain that are to-day everywhere known and loved. Poets ripen
early; if a man comes to his twenty-fifth birthday without having
written some things supremely well, he may in most instances abandon all
hope of immortality in song; but to every would-be novelist it is
reasonable to whisper those encouraging words, "while there's life
there's hope." Of the ten writers who may be classed as the greatest
English novelists, only one--Charles Dickens--published a good novel
before the age of thirty. Defoe's first fiction of any consequence was
_Robinson Crusoe_, printed in 1719; he was then fifty-eight years old.
Richardson had turned fifty before his earliest novel appeared. And
although I can think at this moment of no case exactly comparable with
that of the author of _Joseph Vance_, it is a book to which experience
has contributed as well as inspiration, and would be something, if not
inferior, at all events very different, had it been composed in early or
in middle life. For it vibrates with the echoes of a long gallery, whose
walls are crowded with interesting pictures.

The recent Romantic Revival has produced many novels that have enjoyed a
brief and noisy popularity; its worst effects are noticeable on the
minds of readers, unduly stimulated by the constant perusal of
rapid-fire fiction. Many will not read further than the fourth page,
unless some casualties have already occurred. To every writer who starts
with some deliberation, they shout, "Leave your damnable faces and
begin." Authors who produce for immediate consumption are prepared for
this; so are the more clever men who write the publishers'
advertisements. An announcement of a new work by an exceedingly
fashionable novelist was headed by the appetising line, "This book goes
with a rush, and ends with a smash." That would hardly do as a
description of _Clarissa Harlowe_, _Wilhelm Meister_, or some other
classics. To a highly nervous and irritably impatient reading public, a
man whose name had no commercial value in literature gravely offered in
the year of grace 1906 an "ill-written autobiography" of two hundred and
eighty thousand words! Well, the result is what might _not_ have been
expected. If ever a confirmed optimist had reason to feel justification
of his faith, Mr. De Morgan must have seen it in the reception given to
his first novel.

Despite the great length of Mr. De Morgan's books, and the leisurely
passages of comment and rather extraneous detail, he never _begins_
slowly. No producer of ephemeral trash, no sensation-monger, has ever
got under way with more speed, or taken a swifter initial plunge into
the very heart of action. One memorable day in 1873, Count Tolstoi
picked up a little story by Pushkin, which his ten-year-old son had been
reading aloud to a member of the family. The great Russian glanced at
the first sentence, "The guests began to assemble the evening before the
_fête_." He was mightily pleased. "That's the way to begin a story!" he
cried. "The reader is taken by one stroke into the midst of the action.
Another writer would have commenced by describing the guests, the rooms,
while Pushkin--he goes straight at his goal." Some of those in the room
laughed, and suggested that Tolstoi himself appropriate such a beginning
and write a novel. He immediately retired and wrote the first sentences
of _Anna Karenina_; which is literally the manner in which that
masterpiece came into being.[1] Now if one will open any of Mr. De
Morgan's works, he will find the procedure that Tolstoi praised.
Something immediately happens--happens before we have any idea of the
real character of the agents, and before we hardly know where we are.
Indeed, the first chapter of _Somehow Good_ may serve as an artistic
model for the commencement of a novel. It is written with extraordinary
vivacity and spirit. But the author understands better how to begin his
works than he does how to end them. The close of _Joseph Vance_ is like
the mouth of the Mississippi, running off into the open sea through a
great variety of passages. The ending of _Alice-for-Short_ is
accomplished only by notes, comment, and citations. And _Somehow Good_
is simply snipped off, when it might conceivably have proceeded on its
way. His fourth novel is the only one that ends as well as it begins.

[1] _Léon Tolstoi: Vie et OEuvres. Mémoires par P. Birukov. Traduction
Française_, Tome III, p. 177.

You cannot judge books, any more than you can individuals, by the first
words they say. If I could only discover somewhere some man, woman, or
child who had not read _Joseph Vance_, I should like to tell him the
substance of the first chapter, and ask him to guess what sort of a
story had awakened my enthusiasm. Suppose some person who had never
heard of Browning should stumble on _Pauline_, and read the first three
lines:--

    "Pauline, mine own, bend o'er me--thy soft breast
     Shall pant to mine--bend o'er me--thy sweet eyes,
     And loosened hair and breathing lips, and arms"

one sees the sharp look of expectation on the reader's face, and one
almost laughs aloud to think what there is in store for him. He will
very soon exhibit symptoms of bewilderment, and before he has finished
the second page he will push the book aside with an air of pious
disappointment. No slum story ever opened more promisingly than _Joseph
Vance_. We are led at the very start into a dirty rum-shop; there
immediately ensues a fight between two half-drunken loafers in the
darkness without; this results in the double necessity of the police and
the hospital; and a broken bottle, found against a dead cat, is the
missile employed to destroy a human eye. In _Alice-for-Short_, the first
chapter shows us a ragged little girl of six carrying a jug of beer from
a public-house to a foul basement, where dwell her father and mother,
both victims of alcohol. The police again. On the third page of _Somehow
Good_, we have the "fortune to strike on a rich vein of so-called life
in a London slum." The hero gives a drunken, murderous scoundrel a "blow
like the kick of a horse, that lands fairly on the eye socket with a
cracking concussion that can be heard above the tumult, and is followed
by a roar of delight from the male vermin." Once more the police. _It
Never Can Happen Again_ begins in a corner of London unspeakably vile.

Zola and Gorky at their best, and worst--for it is sometimes hard to
make the distinction--have not often surpassed the first chapters of Mr.
De Morgan's four novels. Never has a writer waded more unflinchingly
into the slime. And yet the very last word to characterise these books
would be the word "slum-stories." The foundations of Mr. De Morgan's
work, like the foundations of cathedrals, are deep in the dirt; but the
total impression is one of exceeding beauty. Indeed, with our novelist's
conception of life, as a progress toward something high and sublime,
where evil not only exists, but is a necessary factor in development,
the darkness of the shadows proves the intense radiance of the sun. The
planet Venus is so bright, we are accustomed to remark, that it
sometimes casts a shadow. Christopher Vance emerges from beastly
degradation to a position of power, influence, and usefulness; the Heath
family, in receiving Alice, entertain an angel unawares; and the march
of _Somehow Good_ goes from hell, through purgatory, and into paradise.
It is a divine comedy, in more ways than one; and shows that sometimes
the goal of ill is very unlike the start.

We had not read far into _Joseph Vance_ before we shouted _Dickens
Redivivus!_ or some equivalent remark in the vernacular. We made this
outcry with no tincture of depreciation and with no yelp of the
plagiarism-hunting hound. It requires little skill to observe the
similarity to Dickens, as was proved by the fact that everyone noticed
it. In general, the shout was one of glad recognition; it was the
welcome given to the sound of a voice that had been still. It was not an
imitation: it was a reincarnation. The spirit of Dickens had really
entered into William De Morgan; many chapters in _Joseph Vance_ sounded
as if they had been dictated by the ghost of the author of
_Copperfield_. No book since 1870 had given so vivid an impression of
the best-beloved of all English novelists. This is meant to be high
praise. When Walt Whitman was being exalted for his unlikeness to the
great poets, one sensible critic quietly remarked, "It is easier to
differ from the great poets than to resemble them." To "remind us of
Dickens" would be as difficult for many modern novelists as for a
molehill to remind us of the Matterhorn.

We may say, however, that _Joseph Vance_ and _It Never Can Happen Again_
are more like Dickens in character and in detail than is
_Alice-for-Short_; and that the latter is closer to Dickens than is
_Somehow Good_. The Reverend Benaiah Capstick infallibly calls to mind
the spiritual adviser of Mrs. Weller; with the exception that the latter
was also spirituous. That kind of religion does not seem strongly to
appeal to either novelist; for Mr. Stiggins took to drink, and Capstick
to an insane asylum. There are many things in the conversation of
Christopher Vance that recall the humorous world-wisdom of the elder
Weller; and so we might continue, were it profitable. Another great
point of resemblance between Mr. De Morgan and Dickens is seen in the
method of narration chosen by each. Here William De Morgan is simply
following in the main track of English fiction, where the novelist
cannot refrain from _editing_ the text of the story. The course of
events is constantly interrupted by the author's gloss. Now when the
author's mind is not particularly interesting, the comment is an
unpleasant interruption; it is both impertinent and dull. But when the
writer is himself more profound, more clever, and more entertaining than
even his best characters, we cannot have too much of him. It is true
that Mr. De Morgan has told a good story in each of his novels; but it
is also true that the story is not the cause of their reputation. We
read these books with delight because the characters are so attractive,
and because the author's comments on them and on events are so
penetrating. If it is true, as some have intimated, that this method of
novel-writing proves that Mr. De Morgan, whatever he is, is not a
literary artist, then it is undeniable that Fielding, Dickens, Trollope,
and Thackeray are not artists; which is absurd, as Euclid would say.
Great books are invariably greater than our definitions of them.
Browning and Wagner composed great works of Art without paying much
attention to the rules of the game.

As compared with French and Russian fiction, English novels from
Fielding to De Morgan have unquestionably sounded a note of insincerity.
One reason for this lies in the fact that to the Anglo-Saxon mind,
Morality has always seemed infinitely more important than Art. Matthew
Arnold spent his life fighting the Philistines; but when he said that
conduct was three-fourths of life, there was jubilation in the enemy's
camp. Now Zola declared that a novel could no more be called immoral in
its descriptions than a text-book on physiology; the novelist commits a
sin when he writes a badly constructed sentence. A disciple of this
school insisted that it was more important to have an accurate sense of
colour than to have a clear notion of right and wrong. Fortunately for
the true greatness of humanity, you never can get the average Englishman
or American to swallow such doctrine. But it is at the same time certain
that among English-speaking peoples Art has seldom been taken with
sufficient seriousness. We are handy with our fists; but you cannot
imagine us using them in behalf of literature, as we do for real or
personal property. So far as I know, an English audience in the theatre
has never been excited on a purely artistic question--a matter of
frequent occurrence on the Continent. We seem to believe that, after
all, Art has no place in the serious business of life; it is a
recreation, to amuse a mind overstrained by money-making or by
political affairs. We leave it to women, who are supposed to have more
leisure for trifles.

For this reason, English novelists have generally felt compelled to
treat their public as a tired mother treats a restless child. Our
novelists have been in mortal terror lest the attention of their
audience should wander; and instead of taking their work and their
readers seriously, they continually hand us lollipops. Their attitude is
at once apologetic and insulting. They do not dare to believe that a
great work of Art--without personal comment--has in itself moral
greatness, and they do not dare trust the intelligence of spectators,
but must forsooth constantly break the illusion by soothing or
explanatory remarks. The fact that in our greatest writers this is often
presented from the standpoint of humour, does not prevent the loss of
illusion; and in writers who are not great, the reader feels nothing but
indignation. In the first chapter of the third book of _Amelia_, we find
the following advice:--

     "He then proceeded as Miss Matthews desired; but, lest all our
     readers should not be of her opinion, we will, according to our
     usual custom, endeavour to accommodate ourselves to every taste,
     and shall, therefore, place this scene in a chapter by itself,
     which we desire all our readers who do not love, or who, perhaps,
     do not know the pleasure of tenderness, to pass over; since they
     may do this without any prejudice to the thread of the narrative."

In the first chapter of _Shirley_, Charlotte Brontë prologises as
follows:--

     "If you think ... that anything like a romance is preparing for
     you, reader, you never were more mistaken.... Calm your
     expectations; reduce them to a lowly standard. Something real,
     cool, and solid lies before you;... It is not positively affirmed
     that you shall not have a taste of the exciting, perhaps toward the
     middle and close of the meal, but it is resolved that the first
     dish set upon the table shall be one that a Catholic--ay, even an
     Anglo-Catholic--might eat on Good Friday in Passion Week; it shall
     be cold lentils and vinegar without oil; it shall be unleavened
     bread with bitter herbs, and no roast lamb."

William Black once wrote a novel called _Madcap Violet_, which he
intended for a tragedy, and in which, therefore, we have a right to
expect some artistic dignity. About midway in the volume we find the
following:--

     "At this point, and in common courtesy to his readers, the writer
     of these pages considers himself bound to give fair warning that
     the following chapter deals solely and wholly with the shooting of
     mergansers, curlews, herons, and such like fearful wild fowl;
     therefore, those who regard such graceless idling with aversion,
     and are anxious to get on with the story, should at once proceed to
     chapter twenty-three."

At the beginning of the second chapter of _Dr. Thorne_, one of the best
of Trollope's novels, we are petted in this manner:--

     "A few words must still be said about Miss Mary before we rush into
     our story; the crust will then have been broken, and the pie will
     be open to the guests."

At the three hundred and seventy-second page of the late Marion
Crawford's entertaining story, _The Prima Donna_, the course of the
narrative is thus interrupted:--

     "Now at this stage of my story it would be unpardonable to keep my
     readers in suspense, if I may suppose that any of them have a
     little curiosity left. Therefore, I shall not narrate in detail
     what happened Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, seeing that it was just
     what might have been expected to happen at a week-end party during
     the season when there is nothing in the world to do but to play
     golf, tennis, or croquet, or to write or drive all day, and to work
     hard at bridge all the evening; for that is what it has come to."

Finally, in the first chapter of Mr. Winston Churchill's novel,
_Coniston_, the author pleads with his reader in this style:--

     "The reader is warned that this first love-story will, in a few
     chapters, come to an end; and not to a happy end--otherwise there
     would be no book. Lest he should throw the book away when he
     arrives at this page, it is only fair to tell him that there is
     another and much longer love-story later on, if he will only
     continue to read, in which, it is hoped, he may not be
     disappointed."

Imagine Turgenev or Flaubert scribbling anything similar to the
interpolations quoted above! When a great French novelist does
condescend to speak to his reader, it is in a tone, that so far from
belittling his own art, or sugaring the expectation of his listener, has
quite the contrary effect. On the second page of _Père Goriot_, we find
the following solemn warning:--

     "Ainsi ferez-vous, vous qui tenez ce livre d'une main blanche, vous
     qui vous enfoncez dans un molleux fauteuil en vous disant:
     'Peut-être ceci va-t-il m'amuser.' Après avoir lu les secrètes
     infortunes du père Goriot, vous dînerez avec appétit en mettant
     votre insensibilité sur le compte de l'auteur, en le taxant
     d'exagération, en l'accusant de poésie. Ah! sachez-le: ce drame
     n'est ni une fiction ni un roman. _All is true_, il est si
     véritable, que chacun peut en reconnaître les éléments chez soi,
     dans son coeur peut-être."

The chief objection to these constant remarks to the reader, so common
in great English novels, is that they for the moment destroy the
illusion. Suppose an actress in the midst of Ophelia's mad scene should
suddenly pause and address the audience in her own accents in this wise:
"I observe that some ladies among the spectators are weeping, and that
some men are yawning. Allow me to say to those of you who dislike tragic
events on the stage, that I shall remain here only a few moments longer,
and shall not have much to say; and that if you will only be patient,
the grave-diggers will come on before long, and it is probable that
their conversation will amuse you."

The two reasons given above, the fear that a novel unexplained by
author's comment will not justify itself morally, and that at all
hazards the gentle reader must be placated and entertained, undoubtedly
partly explain a long tradition in the course of English fiction. But
while we may protest against this sort of thing in general, it is well
to remember that we must take our men of genius as we find them, and
rejoice that they have seen fit to employ any channel of expression.
There are many different kinds of great novels, as there are of great
poems. The fact that Tennyson's poetry belongs to the first class does
not in the least prevent the totally different poetry of Browning from
being ranked equally high. _Joseph Vance_ is a very different kind of
novel from _The Return of the Native_, but both awaken our wonder and
delight. There are some books that inspire us by their art, and there
are others that inspire us by their ideas. Turgenev was surely a greater
artist than Tolstoi, but _Anna Karenina_ is a veritable piece of life.

I do not say that William De Morgan is not a great artist, because, if I
should say it, I should not know exactly what I meant. But the immense
pleasure that his books give me is another kind of pleasure than I
receive from _The Scarlet Letter_. _Joseph Vance_ is not so much a
beautifully written or exquisitely constructed novel as it is an
encyclopædia of life. We meet real people, we hear delightful
conversation, and the tremendously interesting personality of the author
is everywhere apparent. The opinion of many authors concerning
immortality is not worth attention; but I should very much like to know
Mr. De Morgan's views on this absorbing subject. And so I turn to the
fortieth chapter of _Joseph Vance_ with great expectations. The reader
is advised to skip this chapter, a sure indication of its importance.
For, like all humorists, Mr. De Morgan is a bit shamefaced when he talks
about the deepest things, the things that really interest him most. It
surely will not do to have Dr. Thorpe talk like the Reverend Mr.
Capstick, although they both eagerly discuss what we call the
supernatural. Capstick is an ass, but he has one characteristic that we
might, to a certain extent, imitate; he sees no reason to apologise for
conversing on great topics, or to break up such a conversation with an
embarrassed laugh. Most of us are horribly afraid of being taken for
sanctimonious persons, when there is really not the slightest danger. We
are always pleasantly surprised when we discover that our friends are at
heart just as serious as we are, and that they, too, regret the mask of
flippancy that our Anglo-Saxon false modesty compels us to wear. But, as
some one has said, you cannot expect your audience to take your views
seriously unless you express them with seriousness. Mr. De Morgan, like
Robert Browning, would doubtless deny that Dr. Thorpe spoke only the
author's thoughts; but just as you can hear Browning's voice all through
those "utterances of so many imaginary persons, not mine," so I feel
confident that amid all the light banter of this charming talk in the
fortieth chapter, the following remark of Dr. Thorpe expresses the
philosophy of William De Morgan, and at the same time the basal moral
principle underlying this entire novel:--"The highest good is the growth
of the Soul, and the greatest man is he who rejoices most in great
fulfilments of the will of God."

For although Mr. De Morgan belongs, like Dickens, to the great
humorists, who, while keenly conscious of the enormous difference
between right and wrong, regard the world with a kindly smile for human
weakness and folly, he is mainly a psychologist. To all of his novels he
might appropriately have prefixed the words of the author of _Sordello_:
"My stress lay on the incidents in the development of a soul; little
else is worth study." All the characters that he loves show
_soul-development_; the few characters that are unlovely have souls that
do not advance. Joseph, Lossie, Janey, Alicia, Charles Heath, Rosalind,
Athelstan, have the inner man renewed day by day; one feels that at
physical death such personalities proceed naturally into a sphere of
eternal progress. On the other hand, Joey's soul stands still; so do the
souls of Violet, Lavinia Straker, Mrs. Vereker, Mrs. Eldridge, Judith,
and Mrs. Craik. Why should they live for ever? They would always be the
same. This is the real distinction in these novels between people that
are fundamentally good and those that are fundamentally bad; whether
their badness causes tragedy or merely constant irritation. It is an
original manner of dividing virtue from vice, but it is illuminating.

The events in Mr. De Morgan's books are improbable, but the people are
probable. The same might be said of Shakespeare. It is highly improbable
that Christopher Vance could have risen to fortune through his
sign-board, or that Fenwick should have been electrocuted at the feet of
his wife's daughter. But Christopher Vance, Fenwick, and Sally behave
precisely as people would behave in such emergencies in real life. In
many ways I think Christopher Vance is the most convincing character in
all the novels; at any rate, I had rather hear him talk than any of the
others. There is no trace of meanness in him, and even when he is drunk
he is never offensive or disgusting. The day after he has returned
intoxicated from a meeting of the Board of Arbitrators, he seems rather
inquisitive as to his exact condition, and asks his son:--

     "I wasn't singin' though, Nipper, was I?" I said certainly not!
     "Not 'a Landlady of France she loved an Officer, 'tis said,' nor
     'stick 'em up again in the middle of a three-cent pie'?"

     "Neither of them--quite certain." My father seemed reassured.
     "That's _something_, anyhow," said he. "The other Arbitrators was
     singin' both. Likewise 'Rule Britannia.' Weak-headed cards, the two
     on 'em!"

The scene at Christopher Vance's death-bed, when Joseph finally
discloses the identity of the boy who threw the piece of glass into the
eye of the Sweep, touches the depths of true pathos. One feels the
infinite love of the father for the little son who defended him. He is
quite rightly prouder of that exploit than of all the Nipper's
subsequent learning.

While the imaginary events in this novel bear no sort of relation to the
circumstances of the author's own life, I cannot help launching the mere
guess that the father of William De Morgan was, to a certain extent, a
combination of Christopher Vance and Dr. Thorpe. For Augustus De Morgan
was not only a distinguished mathematical scholar, he was well-known for
the keenness of his wit. He had the learning and refinement of Dr.
Thorpe, and the shrewd, irresistible humour of old Vance. At all events,
this striking combination in the novelist can be traced to no more
probable source.

The influence of good women on men's lives is repeatedly shown; it is
indeed a leading principle in three of the books. One of the most
notable differences in novels that reflect a pessimistic
_Weltanschauung_ from those that indicate the contrary may be seen right
here. How completely the whole significance of the works of Guy de
Maupassant would change had he included here and there some women who
combined virtue with personal charm! "Were there no women, men would
live like gods," said a character in one of Dekker's plays; judged by
much modern fiction, one would feel like trying the experiment. But what
would become of Mr. De Morgan's novels, and of the attitude toward life
they so clearly reflect, if they contained no women? Young Joseph Vance
was fortunate indeed in having in his life the powerful influence of two
such characters as Lossie Thorpe and Janey Spencer. They were what a
compass is to a shipman, taking him straight on his course through the
blackest storms. It was for Lossie that he made the greatest sacrifice
in his whole existence; and nothing pays a higher rate of moral interest
than a big sacrifice. It was Janey who led him from the grossness of
earth into the spiritual world, something that Lossie, with all her
loveliness, could not do. Both women show that there is nothing
inherently dull in goodness; it may be accompanied with some _esprit_.
We are too apt to think that moral goodness is represented by such
persons as the Elder Brother in the story of the Prodigal Son, when the
parable indicates that the younger brother, with all his crimes, was
actually the more virtuous of the two. It took no small skill for Mr. De
Morgan to create such an irresistibly good woman as Lossie, make his
hero in love with her from boyhood, cause her to marry some one else,
and then to unite the heart-broken hero with another girl; and through
these tremendous upheavals to make all things work together for good,
and to the reader's complete satisfaction. This could not possibly have
been accomplished had not the author been able to fashion a woman, who,
while totally unlike Lossie in every physical and mental aspect, was
spiritually even more attractive. I am not sure which of the two girls
has the bigger place in their maker's heart; I suspect it is Lossie; but
to me Janey is not only a better woman, I really have a stronger
affection for her.

In _Alice-for-Short_, the hero is again blessed with two guardian
angels, his sister and his second wife. Mr. De Morgan is extremely
generous to his favourite men, in permitting either their second choice
or their second experiment in matrimony to prove such an amazing
success. Comparatively few novelists dare to handle the problem of happy
second marriages; the subject for some reason does not lend itself
readily to romance. Josh Billings said he knew of absolutely nothing
that would cure a man of laziness; but that a second wife would
sometimes help. Although he said this in the spirit of farce, it is
exactly what happens in Mr. De Morgan's books. Janey is not technically
a second wife, but she is spiritually; and she rescues Joseph from
despair, restores his ambition and capacity to work, and after her death
is like a guiding star. Alice is a second wife, both in her husband's
heart and in the law; and her influence on Charles Heath provides
exactly the stimulus needed to save him from himself. Fenwick marries
for the second time, and although his wife is in one sense the same
person, in another she is not; she is quite different in everything
except constancy from the wretched girl he left sobbing on the verandah
in India. And what would have become of Fenwick without the mature
Rosalind? Salvation, in Mr. De Morgan's novels, often assumes a feminine
shape. They are not books of Friendship, like _The Cloister and the
Hearth_, _Trilby_, and _Es War_; with all their wonderful intelligence
and play of intellect, they would seem almost barren without women. And
he is far more successful in depicting love after marriage than before.
One of the most charming characteristics of these stories is the
frequent representation of the highest happiness known on earth--not
found in the passion of early youth, but in a union of two hearts
cemented by joy and sorrow in the experience of years. No novelist has
ever given us better pictures of a good English home; more attractive
glimpses into the reserveless intimacy of the affairs of the hearth. The
conversations between Christopher Vance and his wife, between Sir Rupert
and Lady Johnson, between Fenwick and Rosalind, are decidedly superior
to the "love-making" scenes. Indeed, the description of the walk during
which young Dr. Vereker definitely wins Sally, is disappointing. It is
perhaps the only important episode in Mr. De Morgan's novels that shows
more effort than inspiration.

The style in these books, despite constant quotation, is not at all a
literary style. Joseph Vance is called "an ill-written autobiography,"
because it lacks entirely the conventional manner. Many works of fiction
are composed in what might be called the terminology of the art; just as
works in science and in sport are compelled to repeat constantly the
same verbal forms. The astonishing freshness and charm of Mr. De
Morgan's method consist partly in his abandonment of literary precedent,
and adhering only to actual observation. It is as though an actor on the
stage should suddenly drop his mannerism of accent and gesture, and
behave as he would were he actually, instead of histrionically, happy or
wretched. Despite the likeness to Dickens in characters and atmosphere,
_Joseph Vance_ sounds not only as though its author had never written a
novel previously, but as though he had never read one. It has the
strangeness of reality. There is no lack of action in these huge
narratives: the men and women pass through the most thrilling incidents,
and suffer the greatest extremes of passion, pain, and joy that the
human mind can endure. We have three cases of drowning, one tremendous
fire; and in _Somehow Good_--which, viewed merely as a story, is the
best of them--a highly eventful plot; and, spiritually, the characters
give us an idea of how much agony the heart can endure without quite
breaking. But though the bare plot seems almost like melodrama, the
style is never on stilts. In the most awful crises, the language has the
absolute simplicity of actual circumstance. When Rosalind recognises her
husband in the cab, we wonder why she takes it so coolly. Some sixty
pages farther along, we come upon this paragraph:--

     "Nevertheless, these were not so absolute that her demeanour
     escaped comment from the cabby, the only witness of her first sight
     of the 'electrocuted' man. He spoke of her afterwards as that
     squealing party down that sanguinary little turning off Shepherd's
     Bush Road he took that sanguinary galvanic shock to."

Our author is fond of presenting events of the most momentous
consequence through the lips of humble and indifferent observers. It is
only the cabman's chance testimony which shows us that even Rosalind's
superb self-control had the limit determined by real womanhood; and in
_Joseph Vance_, the great climax of emotion, when Lossie visits her
maligned old lover, is given with unconscious force through the faulty
vernacular of the "slut" of a servant-maid, who is utterly unaware of
the angels that ministered over that scene; and then by the broken
English of the German chess-player, equally blind to the divine
presence. Compare these two crude testimonies, which make the ludicrous
blunders made by the Hostess in that marvellous account of the death of
Falstaff, and you have a veritable harmony of the Gospels. Some
novelists use an extraordinary style to describe ordinary events; Mr. De
Morgan uses an ordinary style to describe extraordinary events.

Even in his latest book, _It Never Can Happen Again_,[2] the least
cheerful of all his productions, the title is intended to be as
comforting as Charles Reade's caption, _It Is Never Too Late to Mend_.
In this story, Mr. De Morgan descends into hell. Delirium tremens has
never been pictured with more frightful horror than in the awful night
when the mad wretch is bent on murder. No scene in any naturalistic
novel surpasses this in vivid detail. Indeed, all of Mr. De Morgan's
books might well be circulated as anti-alcohol tracts; the real villain
in his tragedies is Drink. Even though drunkenness in a certain aspect
supplies comedy in _Joseph Vance_, drink is, after all, the ruin of old
Christopher, and we are left with no shade of doubt that this is so. Mr.
De Morgan's unquestionable optimism does not blink the dreadful aspects
of life, any more than did Browning's. The scene in the hospital, where
the fingers without finger-nails clasp the mighty hand in the rubber
glove, is as loathsomely horrible as anything to be found in the annals
of disease. And the career of Blind Jim, entirely ignorant of his divine
origin and destiny, is a series of appalling calamities. He has lost his
sight in a terrible accident; he is run over by a waggon, and loses his
leg; he is run over by an automobile, and loses his life. He has also
lost, though he does not know it, what is far dearer to him than eyes,
or legs, or life,--his little daughter. And yet we do not need the
spirit voice of the dead child to assure us that all is well. Indeed,
the tragic history of Jim and Lizarann is not nearly so depressing as
the humdrum narrative of the melancholy quarrel between Mr. and Mrs.
Challis. In previous novels, the author has been pleased to show us
domestic happiness; here we have the dreary round of perpetual discord.
Of course no one can complain of Mr. De Morgan for his choice in this
matter; it is certainly true that not all marriages are happy, even
though the majority of them (as I believe) are. The difficulty is that
the triangle in this book--husband, wife, and beautiful young lady--has
no corner of real interest. It is not entirely the fault of either Mr.
or Mrs. Challis that they separate; there is much to be said on both
sides. What we object to is the fact that it is impossible to sympathise
with either of them; this is not because each is guilty, but because
neither is interesting. We do not much care what becomes of them. And as
for Judith, the technical virgin who causes all the trouble, she is a
very dull person. We do not need this book to learn that female beauty
without brains fascinates the ordinary man. The best scenes are those
where Blind Jim and Lizarann appear; they are a couple fully worthy of
Dickens at his best. Unfortunately they do not appear often enough to
suit us, and they both die. We could more easily have spared Mr. and
Mrs. Challis, the latter's abominable tea-gossip friend, and that old
hypocritical tiger-cat, Mrs. Challis's mother. Why does Mr. De Morgan
make elderly women so disgustingly unattractive? Does his sympathy with
life desert him here? The entire Challis household, including the
satellites of relationship and propinquity, are hardly worth the
author's skill or the reader's attention. One would suppose that a
brilliant novelist, like Challis, pulled from the domestic orbit by a
comet like Judith, would be for a time in an interesting, if not an
edifying, position; but he is not. Perhaps Mr. De Morgan wishes to show
with the impartiality of a true chronicler of life that a married man,
drawn away by his own lust, and enticed, can be just as dull in sin as
in virtue. Yet the long dreary family storm ends in sunshine; the
discordant pair are redeemed by Love,--the real motive power of this
story,--and one feels that it can never happen again. In spite of Mr. De
Morgan's continual onslaught on creeds, Athelstan Taylor, who believes
the whole Apostles' Creed, compares very favourably with Challis, who
believes only the first seven and the last four words of it, apparently
the portion accepted by Mr. De Morgan: and by their fruits ye shall know
them. It is certainly a proof of the fair-mindedness of our novelist,
that he has created orthodox believers like Lossie's husband and
Athelstan Taylor, big wholesome fellows, both of them; and has
deliberately made both so irresistibly attractive. The professional
parson is often ridiculed in modern novels; it is worth noting that in
this story the only important character in the whole work who combines
intelligence with virtue is the Reverend Athelstan Taylor.

[2] Through the kindness of Messrs. Henry Holt and Co., I have had the
privilege of reading this novel in proof sheets.

Seldom have any books shown so intimate a knowledge of the kingdom of
this world and at the same time reflected with such radiance the kingdom
of heaven. It is noteworthy and encouraging that a man who portrays with
such humorous exactitude the things that are seen and temporal, should
exhibit so firm a faith in the things that are unseen and eternal. In
_Joseph Vance_ we have the growth of the soul from an environment of
poverty and crime to the loftiest heights of nobility and self-denial;
and the theme in the Waldstein Sonata triumphantly repeats the
confidence of Dr. Thorpe, who regards death not as a barrier, but as a
gateway. In _Alice-for-Short_, the mystery of the spirit-world
completely envelops the humdrum inconsistencies that form the daily
round, the trivial task; this is seen perhaps not so much in the
"ghosts," for they speak of the past; but the figure of old
Verrinder--whose heart revolves about the Asylum like the planet around
the sun--and the waking of old Jane from her long sleep, seem to
symbolise the impotence of Time to quench the divine spark of Love. This
story is called a "dichronism"; but it might have been called a
_dichroism_, for from one viewpoint it reflects only the clouded colour
of earth, and from another a celestial glory. In _Somehow Good_ the
ugliest tragedy takes its place in the unapparent order of life. It is
not that good finally reigns in spite of evil; the final truth is that
in some manner good is the very goal of ill. The agony of separation has
tested the pure metal of character; and the fusion of two lives is made
permanent in the frightful heat of awful pain. The fruit of a repulsive
sin may be Beauty, like a flower springing from a dung-hill. "What
became of the baby?... _The_ baby--_his_ baby--_his_ horrible baby!"
"Gerry darling! Gerry _dearest_! do think...."

II

THOMAS HARDY

The father of Thomas Hardy wished his son to enter the church, and this
object was the remote goal of his early education. At just what period
in the boy's mental development Christianity took on the form of a
meaningless fable, we shall perhaps never know; but after a time he
ceased to have even the faith of a grain of mustard seed. This absence
of religious belief has proved no obstacle to many another candidate for
the Christian ministry, as every habitual church-goer knows; or as any
son of Belial may discover for himself by merely reading the prospectus
of summer schools of theology. There has, however, always been a certain
cold, mathematical precision in Mr. Hardy's way of thought that would
have made him as uncomfortable in the pulpit as he would have been in an
editor's chair, writing for salary persuasive articles containing the
exact opposite of his individual convictions. But, although the beauty
of holiness failed to impress his mind, the beauty of the sanctuary was
sufficiently obvious to his sense of Art. He became an ecclesiastical
architect, and for some years his delight was in the courts of the Lord.
Instead of composing sermons in ink, he made sermons in stones,
restoring to many a decaying edifice the outlines that the original
builder had seen in his vision centuries ago. For no one has ever
regarded ancient churches with more sympathy and reverence than Mr.
Hardy. No man to-day has less respect for God and more devotion to His
house.

Mr. Hardy's professional career as an architect extended over a period
of about thirteen years, from the day when the seventeen-year-old boy
became articled, to about 1870, when he forsook the pencil for the pen.
His strict training as an architect has been of enormous service to him
in the construction of his novels, for skill in constructive drawing has
repeatedly proved its value in literature. Rossetti achieved positive
greatness as an artist and as a poet. Stevenson's studies in engineering
were not lost time, and Mr. De Morgan affords another good illustration
of the same fact. Thackeray was unconsciously learning the art of the
novelist while he was making caricatures, and the lesser Thackeray of a
later day--George du Maurier--found the transition from one art to the
other a natural progression. Hopkinson Smith and Frederic Remington, on
a lower but dignified plane, bear witness to the same truth. Indeed,
when one studies carefully the beginnings of the work of imaginative
writers, one is surprised at the great number who have handled an
artist's or a draughtsman's pencil. A prominent and successful
playwright of to-day has said that if he were not writing plays, he
should not dream of writing books; he would be building bridges.

Mr. Hardy's work as an ecclesiastical architect laid the real
foundations of his success as a novelist; for it gave him an intimate
familiarity with the old monuments and rural life of Wessex, and at the
same time that eye for precision of form that is so noticeable in all
his books. He has really never ceased to be an architect. Architecture
has contributed largely to the matter and to the style of his stories.
Two architects appear in his first novel. In _A Pair of Blue Eyes_
Stephen Smith is a professional architect, and in coming to restore the
old Western Church he was simply repeating the experience of his
creator. No one of Mr. Hardy's novels contains more of the facts of his
own life than _A Laodicean_, which was composed on what the author then
believed to be his death-bed; it was mainly dictated, which I think
partly accounts for its difference in style from the other tales. The
hero, Somerset, is an architect whose first meeting with his future
wife occurs through his professional curiosity concerning the castle;
and a considerable portion of the early chapters is taken up with
architectural detail, and of his enforced rivalry with a competitor in
the scheme for restoration. Not only does Mr. Hardy's scientific
profession speak through the mouths of his characters, but old and
beautiful buildings adorn his pages as they do the landscape he loves.
In _Two on a Tower_ the ancient structure appears here and there in the
story as naturally and incidentally as it would to a pedestrian in the
neighbourhood; in _A Pair of Blue Eyes_ the church tower plays an
important part in a thrilling episode, and its fall emphasises a
Scripture text in a diabolical manner. The old church at Weatherbury is
so closely associated with the life history of the men and women in _Far
from the Madding Crowd_ that as one stands in front of it to-day the
people seem to gather again about its portal....

But while Mr. Hardy has drawn freely on his knowledge of architecture in
furnishing animate and inanimate material for his novels, the great
results of his youthful training are seen in a more subtle and
profounder influence. The intellectual delight that we receive in the
perusal of his books--a delight that sometimes makes us impatient with
the work of feebler authors--comes largely from the architectonics of
his literary structures. One never loses sight of Hardy the architect.
In purely constructive skill he has surpassed all his contemporaries.
His novels--with the exception of _Desperate Remedies_ and _Jude the
Obscure_--are as complete and as beautiful to contemplate as a
sculptor's masterpiece. They are finished and noble works of art, and
give the same kind of pleasure to the mind as any superbly perfect
outline. Mr. Hardy himself firmly believes that the novel should first
of all be a story: that it should not be a thesis, nor a collection of
reminiscences or _obiter dicta_. He insists that a novel should be as
much of a whole as a living organism, where all the parts--plot,
dialogue, character, and scenery--should be fitly framed together,
giving the single impression of a completely harmonious building. One
simply cannot imagine him writing in the manner of a German novelist,
with absolutely no sense of proportion; nor like the mighty Tolstoi, who
steadily sacrifices Art on the altar of Reality; nor like the great
English school represented by Thackeray, Dickens, Trollope, and De
Morgan, whose charm consists in their intimacy with the reader; they
will interrupt the narrative constantly to talk it over with the merest
bystander, thus gaining his affection while destroying the illusion. Mr.
Hardy's work shows a sad sincerity, the noble austerity of the true
artist, who feels the dignity of his art and is quite willing to let it
speak for itself.

His earliest novel, _Desperate Remedies_, is more like an architect's
first crude sketch than a complete and detailed drawing. Strength,
originality, and a thoroughly intelligent design are perfectly clear;
one feels the impelling mind behind the product. But it resembles the
_plan_ of a good novel rather than a novel itself. The lines are hard;
there is a curious rigidity about the movement of the plot which
proceeds in jerks, like a machine that requires frequent winding up. The
manuscript was submitted to a publishing firm, who, it is interesting to
remember, handed it over to their professional reader, George Meredith.
Mr. Meredith told the young author that his work was promising; and he
said it in such a way that the two men became life-long friends, there
being no more jealousy between them than existed between Tennyson and
Browning. Years later Mr. Meredith said that he regarded Mr. Hardy as
the real leader of contemporary English novelists; and the younger man
always maintained toward his literary adviser an attitude of sincere
reverence, of which his poem on the octogenarian's death was a beautiful
expression. There is something fine in the honest friendship and mutual
admiration of two giants, who cordially recognise each other above the
heads of the crowd, and who are themselves placidly unmoved by the
fierce jealousy of their partisans. In this instance, despite a total
unlikeness in literary style, there was genuine intellectual kinship.
Mr. Meredith and Mr. Hardy were both Pagans and regarded the world and
men and women from the Pagan standpoint, though the deduction in one
case was optimism and in the other pessimism. Given the premises, the
younger writer's conclusions seem more logical; and the processes of his
mind were always more orderly than those of his brilliant and irregular
senior. There is little doubt (I think) as to which of the two should
rank higher in the history of English fiction, where fineness of Art
surely counts for something. Mr. Hardy is a great novelist; whereas to
adapt a phrase that Arnold applied to Emerson, I should say that Mr.
Meredith was not a great novelist; he was a great man who wrote novels.

Immediately after the publication of _Desperate Remedies_, which seemed
to teach him, as _Endymion_ taught Keats, the highest mysteries of his
art, Mr. Hardy entered upon a period of brilliant and splendid
production. In three successive years, 1872, 1873, and 1874, he produced
three masterpieces--_Under the Greenwood Tree_, _A Pair of Blue Eyes_,
and _Far from the Madding Crowd_; followed four years later by what is,
perhaps, his greatest contribution to literature, _The Return of the
Native_. Even in literary careers that last a long time, there seem to
be golden days when the inspiration is unbalked by obstacles. It is
interesting to contemplate the lengthy row of Scott's novels, and then
to remember that _The Heart of Midlothian_, _The Bride of Lammermoor_
and _Ivanhoe_ were published in three successive years; to recall that
the same brief span covered in George Eliot's work the production of
_Scenes of Clerical Life_, _Adam Bede_, and _The Mill on the Floss_; and
one has only to compare what Mr. Kipling accomplished in 1888, 1889, and
1890 with any other triennial, to discover when he had what the
Methodists call "liberty." Mr. Hardy's career as a writer has covered
about forty years; omitting his collections of short tales, he has
written fourteen novels; from 1870 to 1880, inclusive, seven appeared;
from 1881 to 1891, five; from 1892 to 1902, two; since 1897 he has
published no novels at all. With that singular and unfortunate
perversity which makes authors proudest of their lamest offspring, Mr.
Hardy has apparently abandoned the novel for poetry and the poetic
drama. I suspect that praise of his verse is sweeter to him than praise
of his fiction; but, although his poems are interesting for their ideas,
and although we all like the huge _Dynasts_ better than we did when we
first saw it, it is a great pity from the economic point of view that
the one man who can write novels better than anybody else in the same
language should deliberately choose to write something else in which he
is at his very best only second rate. The world suffers the same kind of
economic loss (less only in degree) that it suffered when Milton spent
twenty years of his life in writing prose; and when Tolstoi forsook
novels for theology.

It is probable that one reason why Mr. Hardy quit novel-writing was the
hostile reception that greeted _Jude the Obscure_. Every great author,
except Tennyson, has been able to endure adverse criticism, whether he
hits back, like Pope and Byron, or whether he proceeds on his way in
silence. But no one has ever enjoyed or ever will enjoy
misrepresentation; and there is no doubt that the writer of _Jude_ felt
that he had been cruelly misunderstood. It is, I think, the worst novel
he has ever written, both from the moral and from the artistic point of
view; but the novelist was just as sincere in his intention as when he
wrote the earlier books. The difficulty is that something of the same
change had taken place in his work that is so noticeable in that of
Björnson; he had ceased to be a pure artist and had become a
propagandist. The fault that marred the splendid novel _Tess of the
D'Urbervilles_ ruined _Jude the Obscure_. When Mr. Hardy wrote on the
title-page of _Tess_ the words, "A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented," he
issued defiantly the name of a thesis which the story (great, in spite
of this) was intended to defend. To a certain extent, his interest in
the argument blinded his artistic sense; otherwise he would never have
committed the error of hanging his heroine. The mere hanging of a
heroine may not be in itself an artistic blunder, for Shakespeare hanged
Cordelia. But Mr. Hardy executed Tess because he was bound to see his
thesis through. In the prefaces to subsequent editions the author turned
on his critics, calling them "sworn discouragers of effort," a phrase
that no doubt some of them deserved; and then, like many another man who
believes in himself, he punished both critics and the public in the
Rehoboam method by issuing _Jude the Obscure_. Instead of being a
masterpiece of despair, like _The Return of the Native_, this book is a
shriek of rage. Pessimism, which had been a noble ground quality of his
earlier writings, is in _Jude_ merely hysterical and wholly
unconvincing. The author takes obvious pains to make things come out
wrong; as in melodramas and childish romances, the law of causation is
suspended in the interest of the hero's welfare. Animalism, which had
partially disfigured _Tess_, became gross and revolting in _Jude_; and
the representation of marriage and the relations between men and women,
instead of being a picture of life, resembled a caricature. It is a
matter of sincere regret that Mr. Hardy has stopped novel-writing, but
we want no more _Judes_. Didactic pessimism is not good for the novel.

_The Well-Beloved_, published in 1897, but really a revision of an
earlier tale, is in a way a triumph of Art. The plot is simply absurd,
almost as whimsical as anything in _Alice in Wonderland_. A man proposes
to a young girl and is rejected; when her daughter is grown, he proposes
to the representative of the second generation, and with the same ill
fortune. When _her_ daughter reaches maturity, he tries the third woman
in line and without success. His perseverance was equalled only by his
bad luck, as so often happens in Mr. Hardy's stories. And yet, with a
plot that would wreck any other novelist, the author constructed a
powerful and beautifully written novel. It is as though the architect
had taken a wretched plan and yet somehow contrived to erect on its
false lines a handsome building. The book has naturally added nothing to
his reputation, but as a _tour de force_ it is hard to surpass.

It is pleasant to remember that a man's opinion of his own work has
nothing to do with its final success and that his best creations cannot
be injured by his worst. Tolstoi may be ashamed of having written _Anna
Karenina_, and may insist that his sociological tracts are superior
productions, but we know better; and rejoice in his powerlessness to
efface his own masterpieces. We may honestly think that we should be
ashamed to put our own names to such stuff as _Little Dorrit_, but that
does not prevent us from admiring the splendid genius that produced
_David Copperfield_ and _Great Expectations_. Mr. Hardy may believe that
_Jude the Obscure_ represents his zenith as a novelist, and that his
poems are still greater literature; but one reading of _Jude_ suffices,
while we never tire of rereading _Far from the Madding Crowd_ and _The
Return of the Native_. Probably no publisher's announcement in the world
to-day would cause more pleasure to English-speaking people than the
announcement that Thomas Hardy was at work on a Wessex novel with
characters of the familiar kind.

For _The Dynasts_, which covers the map of Europe, transcends the sky,
and deals with world-conquerors, is not nearly so great a world-drama as
_A Pair of Blue Eyes_, that is circumscribed in a small corner of a
small island, and treats exclusively of a little group of commonplace
persons. Literature deals with a constant--human nature, which is the
same in Wessex as in Vienna. As the late Mr. Clyde Fitch used to say, it
is not the great writers that have great things happen to them; the
great things happen to the ordinary people they portray. Mr. Hardy
selected a few of the southwestern counties of England as the stage for
his prose dramas; to this locality he for the first time, in _Far from
the Madding Crowd_, gave the name Wessex, a name now wholly fictitious,
but which his creative imagination has made so real that it is
constantly and seriously spoken of as though it were English geography.
In these smiling valleys and quiet rural scenes, "while the earth keeps
up her terrible composure," the farmers and milkmaids hold us spellbound
as they struggle in awful passion. The author of the drama stands aloof,
making no effort to guide his characters from temptation, folly, and
disaster, and offering no explanation to the spectators, who are
thrilled with pity and fear. But one feels that he loves and hates his
children as we do, and that he correctly gauges their moral value. The
very narrowness of the scene increases the intensity of the play. The
rustic cackle of his bourg drowns the murmur of the world.

Mr. Hardy's knowledge of and sympathy with nature is of course obvious
to all readers, but it is none the less impressive as we once more open
books that we have read many times. There are incidentally few novelists
who repay one so richly for repeated perusals. He seems as inexhaustible
as nature herself, and he grows stale no faster than the repetition of
the seasons. It is perhaps rather curious that a man who finds nature so
absolutely inexorable and indifferent to human suffering should love her
so well. But every man must love something greater than himself, and as
Mr. Hardy had no God, he has drawn close to the world of trees, plains,
and rivers. His intimacy with nature is almost uncanny. Nature is not
merely a background in his stories, it is often an active agent. There
are striking characters in _The Return of the Native_, but the greatest
character in the book is Egdon Heath. The opening chapter, which gives
the famous picture of the Heath, is like an overture to a great
music-drama. The _Heath-motif_ is repeated again and again in the story.
It has a personality of its own, and affects the fortunes and the hearts
of all human beings who dwell in its proximity. If one stands to-day on
the edge of this Heath at the twilight hour, just at the moment when
Darkness is conquering Light--the moment chosen by Mr. Hardy for the
first chapter--one realises its significance and its possibilities. In
_Tess of the D'Urbervilles_ the intercourse between man and nature is
set forth with amazing power. The different seasons act as chorus to the
human tragedy. In _The Woodlanders_ the trees seem like separate
individualities. To me a tree has become a different thing since I first
read this particular novel.

Even before he took up the study of architecture, Mr. Hardy's
unconscious training as a novelist began. When he was a small boy, the
Dorchester girls found him useful in a way that recalls the services of
that reliable child, Samuel Richardson. These village maids, in their
various love-affairs, which necessitated a large amount of private
correspondence, employed young Hardy as amanuensis. He did not, like his
great predecessor, compose their epistles; but he held the pen, and
faithfully recorded the inspiration of Love, as it flowed warm from the
lips of passionate youth. In this manner, the almost sexless boy was
enabled to look clear-eyed into the very heart of palpitating young
womanhood, and to express accurately its most gentle and most stormy
emotions; just as the white voice of a choir-child repeats with
precision the thrilling notes of religious passion. These early
experiences were undoubtedly of the highest value in later years;
indeed, as the boy grew a little older, it is probable that the
impression deepened. Mr. Hardy is fond of depicting the vague,
half-conscious longing of a boy to be near a beautiful woman; everyone
will remember the contract between Eustacia and her youthful admirer, by
which he was to hold her hand for a stipulated number of minutes. Mr.
Hardy's women are full of tenderness and full of caprice; and whatever
feminine readers may think of them, they are usually irresistible to the
masculine mind. It has been said, indeed, that he is primarily a man's
novelist, as Mrs. Ward is perhaps a woman's; he does not represent his
women as marvels of intellectual splendour, or in queenly domination
over the society in which they move. They are more apt to be the
victims of their own affectionate hearts. One female reader, exasperated
at this succession of portraits, wrote on the margin of one of Mr.
Hardy's novels that she took from a circulating library, "Oh, how I
_hate_ Thomas Hardy!" This is an interesting gloss, even if we do not
add meanly that it bears witness to the truth of the picture. Elfride,
Bathsheba, Eustacia, Lady Constantine, Marty South, and Tess are of
varied social rank and wealth; but they are all alike in humble
prostration before the man they love. Mr. Hardy takes particular
pleasure in representing them as swayed by sudden and constantly
changing caprices; one has only to recall the charming Bathsheba
Everdene, and her various attitudes toward the three men who admire
her--Troy, Boldwood, and Gabriel Oak. Mr. Hardy's heroines change their
minds oftener than they change their clothes; but in whatever material
or mental presentment, they never lack attraction. And they all resemble
their maker in one respect; at heart every one of them is a Pagan. They
vary greatly in constancy and in general strength of character; but it
is human passion, and not religion, that is the mainspring of their
lives. He has never drawn a truly spiritual woman, like Browning's
Pompilia.

His best men, from the moral point of view, are closest to the soil.
Gabriel Oak, in _Far from the Madding Crowd_, and Venn, in _The Return
of the Native_, are, on the whole, his noblest characters. Oak is a
shepherd and Venn is a reddleman; their sincerity, charity, and fine
sense of honour have never been injured by what is called polite
society. And Mr. Hardy, the stingiest author toward his characters, has
not entirely withheld reward from these two. Henry Knight and Angel
Clare, who have whatever advantages civilisation is supposed to give,
are certainly not villains; they are men of the loftiest ideals; but if
each had been a deliberate black-hearted villain, he could not have
treated the innocent woman who loved him with more ugly cruelty.
Compared with Oak and Venn, this precious pair of prigs are seen to have
only the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees; a righteousness
that is of little help in the cruel emergencies of life. Along with them
must stand Clym Yeobright, another slave to moral theory, who quite
naturally ends his days as an itinerant preacher. The real villains in
Mr. Hardy's novels, Sergeant Troy, young Dare, and Alec D'Urberville,
seem the least natural and the most machine-made of all his characters.

Mr. Hardy's pessimism is a picturesque and splendid contribution to
modern fiction. We should be as grateful for it in this field as we are
to Schopenhauer in the domain of metaphysics. I am no pessimist myself,
but I had rather read Schopenhauer than all the rest of the
philosophers put together, Plato alone excepted. The pessimism of Mr.
Hardy resembles that of Schopenhauer in being absolutely thorough and
absolutely candid; it makes the world as darkly superb and as terribly
interesting as a Greek drama. It is wholly worth while to get this point
of view; and if in practical life one does not really believe in it, it
is capable of yielding much pleasure. After finishing one of Mr. Hardy's
novels, one has all the delight of waking from an impressive but
horrible dream, and feeling through the dissolving vision the real
friendliness of the good old earth. It is like coming home from an
adequate performance of _King Lear_, which we would not have missed for
anything. There are so many make-believe pessimists, so many whose
pessimism is a sham and a pose, which will not stand for a moment in a
real crisis, that we cannot withhold admiration for such pessimism as
Mr. Hardy's, which is fundamental and sincere. To him the Christian
religion and what we call the grace of God have not the slightest shade
of meaning; he is as absolute a Pagan as though he had written four
thousand years before Christ. This is something almost refreshing,
because it is so entirely different from the hypocrisy and cant, the
pretence of pessimism, so familiar to us in the works of modern writers;
and so inconsistent with their daily life. Mr. Hardy's pessimism is the
one deep-seated conviction of his whole intellectual process.

I once saw a print of a cartoon drawn by a contemporary Dresden artist,
Herr Sascha Schneider. It was called "The Helplessness of Man against
Destiny." We see a quite naked man, standing with his back to us; his
head is bowed in hopeless resignation; heavy manacles are about his
wrists, to which chains are attached, that lead to some fastening in the
ground. Directly before him, with hideous hands, that now almost
entirely surround the little circle where he stands in dejection, crawls
flatly toward him a prodigious, shapeless monster, with his horrid
narrow eyes fixed on his defenceless human prey. And the man is so
conscious of his tether, that even in the very presence of the
unspeakably awful object, _the chains hang loose_! He may have tried
them once, but he has since given up. The monster is Destiny; and the
real meaning of the picture is seen in the eyes, nose, and mouth of the
loathsome beast. There is not only no sympathy and no intelligence
there; there is an expression far more terrible than the evident lust to
devour; there is plainly the _sense of humour_ shown on this hideous
face. The contrast between the limitless strength of the monster and the
utter weakness of the man, flavours the stupidity of Destiny with the
zest of humour.

Now this is a correct picture of life as Mr. Hardy sees it. His God is a
kind of insane child, who cackles foolishly as he destroys the most
precious objects. Some years ago I met a man entirely blind. He said
that early in life he had lost the sight of one eye by an accident; and
that years later, as he held a little child on his lap, the infant, in
rare good humour, playfully poked the point of a pair of scissors into
the other, thus destroying his sight for ever. So long an interval had
elapsed since this second and final catastrophe, that the man spoke of
it without the slightest excitement or resentment. The child with the
scissors might well represent Hardy's conception of God. Destiny is
whimsical, rather than definitely malicious; for Destiny has not
sufficient intelligence even to be systematically bad. We smile at
Caliban's natural theology, as he composes his treatise on Setebos; but
his God is the same who disposes of man's proposals in the stories of
our novelist.

    "In which feat, if his leg snapped, brittle clay,
     And he lay stupid-like,--why, I should laugh;
     And if he, spying me, should fall to weep,
     Beseech me to be good, repair his wrong,
     Bid his poor leg smart less or grow again,--
     Well, as the chance were, this might take or else
     Not take my fancy....
     'Thinketh, such shows nor right nor wrong in Him,
     Nor kind, nor cruel: He is strong and Lord."

Mr. Hardy believes that, morally, men and women are immensely superior
to God; for all the good qualities that we attribute to Him in prayer
are human, not divine. He in his loneliness is totally devoid of the
sense of right and wrong, and knows neither justice nor mercy. His poem
_New Year's Eve_[3] clearly expresses his theology.

[3] See Appendix.

Mr. Hardy's pessimism is not in the least personal, nor has it risen
from any sorrow or disappointment in his own life. It is both
philosophic and temperamental. He cannot see nature in any other way. To
venture a guess, I think his pessimism is mainly caused by his deep,
manly tenderness for all forms of human and animal life and by an almost
abnormal sympathy. His intense love for bird and beast is well known;
many a stray cat and hurt dog have found in him a protector and a
refuge. He firmly believes that the sport of shooting is wicked, and he
has repeatedly joined in practical measures to waken the public
conscience on this subject. As a spectator of human history, he sees
life as a vast tragedy, with men and women emerging from nothingness,
suffering acute physical and mental sorrow, and then passing into
nothingness again. To his sympathetic mind, the creed of optimism is a
ribald insult to the pain of humanity and devout piety merely absurd. To
hear these suffering men and women utter prayers of devotion and sing
hymns of adoration to the Power whence comes all their anguish is to him
a veritable abdication of reason and common sense. God simply does not
deserve it, and he for one will have the courage to say so. He will not
stand by and see humanity submit so tamely to so heartless a tyrant.
For, although Mr. Hardy is a pessimist, he has not the least tincture of
cynicism. If one analyses his novels carefully, one will see that he
seldom shows scorn for his characters; his contempt is almost
exclusively devoted to God. Sometimes the evil fate that his characters
suffer is caused by the very composition of their mind, as is seen in _A
Pair of Blue Eyes_; again it is no positive human agency, but rather an
Æschylean conception of hidden forces, as in _The Return of the Native_;
but in neither case is humanity to blame.

This pessimism has one curious effect that adds greatly to the reader's
interest when he takes up an hitherto unread novel by our author. The
majority of works of fiction end happily; indeed, many are so badly
written that any ending cannot be considered unfortunate. But with most
novelists we have a sense of security. We know that, no matter what
difficulties the hero and heroine may encounter, the unseen hand of
their maker will guide them eventually to paths of pleasantness and
peace. Mr. Hardy inspires no such confidence. In reading Trollope, one
smiles at a cloud of danger, knowing it will soon pass over; but after
reading _A Pair of Blue Eyes_, or _Tess_, one follows the fortunes of
young Somerset in _A Laodicean_ with constant fluctuation of faint hope
and real terror; for we know that with Mr. Hardy the worst may happen at
any moment.

However dark may be his conception of life, Mr. Hardy's sense of humour
is unexcelled by his contemporaries in its subtlety of feeling and charm
of expression. His rustics, who have long received and deserved the
epithet "Shakespearian," arouse in every reader harmless and wholesome
delight. The shadow of the tragedy lifts in these wonderful pages, for
Mr. Hardy's laughter reminds one of what Carlyle said of Shakespeare's:
it is like sunshine on the deep sea. The childlike sincerity of these
shepherd farmers, the candour of their repartee and their appraisal of
gentle-folk are as irresistible as their patience and equable temper.
Everyone in the community seems to find his proper mental and moral
level. And their infrequent fits of irritation are as pleasant as their
more solemn moods. We can all sympathise (I hope) with the despair of
Joseph Poorgrass: "I was sitting at home looking for Ephesians and says
I to myself, 'Tis nothing but Corinthians and Thessalonians in this
danged Testament!"

WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS

Born in a little village in Ohio over seventy years ago, and growing up
with small Latin and less Greek, Mr. Howells may fairly be called a
self-educated man. Just why the epithet "self-made" should be applied to
those non-college-graduates who succeed in business, and withheld from
those who succeed in poetry and fiction, seems not entirely clear.
Perhaps it is tacitly assumed that those who become captains of industry
achieve prominence without divine assistance; whereas men of letters,
with or without early advantages, and whether grateful or not, have
unconscious communication with hidden forces. Be this as it may, the boy
Howells had little schooling and no college. All the public institutions
in the world, however, are but a poor makeshift in the absence of good
home training; and the future novelist's father was the right sort of
man and had the right sort of occupation to stimulate a clever and
ambitious son. The elder Howells was the editor of a country newspaper,
which, like a country doctor, makes up in variety of information what it
loses in spread of influence. The boy was a compositor before he was a
composer, as plenty of literary men since Richardson have been; he
helped to set up lyrics, news items, local gossip, the funny column, and
patent medicine advertisements. From mechanical he passed to original
work, both in his father's office and in other sanctums about the state;
sometimes acting not only as contributor, but "moulding public opinion"
from the editor's chair. And indeed he has never entirely stepped out of
the editorial rôle. During an amazingly busy life as novelist,
dramatist, poet, and foreign diplomat, Mr. Howells has acted as
editorial writer on the _Nation_, the _Atlantic_, the _Cosmopolitan
Magazine_, and _Harper's Monthly_. I think he would sometimes be
appalled at the prodigious amount of merely "timely" articles that he
has written, were it not for the fact that during his long career he has
never published a single line of which he need feel ashamed.

Type-setters and printers are commonly men of ideas, who have
interesting minds, and are good to talk with. Mr. Howells was certainly
no exception to the rule, and to the foundation of his early education
as a compositor and journalist he added four years of study of the
Italian language and literature in the pleasant environment of Venice.
He has always been a man of peace; and it is interesting to remember
that during the four years of tumultuous and bloody civil war, Mr.
Howells was serving his country as a United States Consul in Italy, and
at the same time preparing to add to the kind of fame she most sorely
needs. The "woman-country" never meant to him what it signified to
Browning; but it has always been an inspiration, and he would have been
a different person without this foreign influence. Besides some critical
and scholarly works on Italian literature, much of his subsequent
writing has been done beyond the Alps, and the plot of one of his
foremost novels develops on the streets of Florence. And in another and
wholly delightful story, we have the keen pleasure of seeing Italian
life and society through the eyes of Lydia Blood.

He formally began a literary career by the composition of a volume of
poems, as Blackmore, Hardy, Meredith, and many other novelists have seen
fit to do. He is not widely known as a poet to-day, though all his life
he has written more or less verse without achieving distinction; for he
is essentially a _prosateur_. In 1872, twelve years after the appearance
of his book of poems, came his first successful novel, _Their Wedding
Journey_. This story is written in the style that is responsible for
its author's fame and popularity; it is thoroughly typical of the whole
first part of his novel-production. It has that quiet stingless humour,
clever dialogue, and wholesome charm, that all readers of Mr. Howells
associate with his name. In other words, it is a clear manifestation of
his own personality. Now as to the permanent value and final place in
literature of these American novels, critics may differ; but there can
be only one opinion of the man who wrote them.

The personality of Mr. Howells, as shown both in his objective novels
and in his subjective literary confessions, is one that irresistibly
commands our highest respect and our warmest affection. A simple,
democratic, unaffected, modest, kindly, humorous, healthy soul, with a
rare combination of rugged virility and extreme refinement. It is
exceedingly fortunate for America that such a man has for so many years
by common consent, at home and abroad, been regarded as the Dean of
American Letters. He has had more influence on the output of fiction in
America than any other living man. This influence has been entirely
wholesome, from the standpoint of both morals and Art. He has
consistently stood for Reticent Realism. He has ridiculed what he is
fond of calling "romantic rot," and his own novels have been a silent
but emphatic protest against "mentioning the unmentionable." Every now
and then there has risen a violent revolt against his leadership, the
latest outspoken attack coming from a novelist of distinction, Gertrude
Atherton. In the year 1907 she relieved her mind by declaring that Mr.
Howells has been and is a writer for boarding-school misses; that he has
never penetrated deeply into life; and that not only has his own
timidity prevented him from courageously revealing the hearts of men and
women, but that his position of power and influence has cast a blight on
American fiction. Thanks to him, she insists, American novels are pale
and colourless productions, and are known the world over for their
tameness and insipidity. Mrs. Atherton has been supported in this revolt
by many very young literary aspirants, who lack her wisdom and her
experience, and whose chief dislike of Mr. Howells, when finally
analysed, seems to be directed against his intense ethical earnestness.
For, at heart, Mr. Howells resembles most Anglo-Saxon novelists in being
a moralist.

It is true that American novelists and playwrights are at one great
disadvantage as compared with contemporary Continental writers. Owing to
the public conscience, they are compelled to work in a limited field.
The things that we leave to medical specialists and to alienists are
staple subject-matter in high-class French and German fiction. In a
European dictionary there is no such word as "reserve." French writers
like Brieux protest that American conceptions of French morals are based
on the reading of French books whose authors have no standing in Paris,
and whose very names are unknown to their countrymen. But this protest
fades before facts. The facts are that Parisian novelists and dramatists
of the highest literary and social distinction, who are awarded national
prizes, admitted to the French Academy, and who receive all sorts of
public honours, write and publish books, which, if produced in the
United States by an American, would bar him from the houses and from the
society of many decent people, and might cause his arrest. At any rate,
he would be regarded as a criminal rather than as a hero. I have in mind
plays by Donnay, recently elected to the French Academy; plays by Capus,
who stands high in public regard; novels by Regnier, who has received
all sorts of honours. These men are certainly not fourth- and
fifth-class writers; they are thoroughly representative of Parisian
literary taste. Regnier has not hesitated to write, and the editors have
not hesitated to accept, for the periodical _L'Illustration_, which goes
into family circles everywhere, a novel that could not possibly be
published in any respectable magazine in America. I do not say that
Americans are one peg higher in morality than Frenchmen; it may be that
we are hypocrites, and that the French are models of virtue; but the
difference in moral tone between the average American play or novel and
that produced in Paris is simply enormous.

The modern German novel is no better than the French. Last night I
finished reading Sudermann's long and powerful story, _Das hohe Lied_. I
could not help thinking how entirely different it is in its
subject-matter, in its characters, in its scenes, and in its atmosphere,
from the average American novel. Now of course the subject that arouses
the most instant interest from all classes of people, both young and
old, innocent and guilty, is the subject of sex. A large number of
modern successful French and German novels and plays contain no other
matter of any real importance--and would be intolerably dull were it not
for their dealing with sexual crimes. The Continental writer is barred
by no restraint; when he has nothing to say, as is very often the case,
he simply plays his trump card. The American, however, is not permitted
to penetrate beyond the bounds of decency; which shuts him off from the
chief field where European writers dwell. He must somehow make his novel
interesting to his readers, just as a man is expected to make himself
interesting in social conversation, without recourse to pruriency or
obscenity.

Leaving out of debate for a moment the moral aspect of Art, is it
necessarily true that novels which plunge freely into sex questions are
a more faithful representation of life than those that observe the
limits of good taste? I think not. The men and women in many Continental
stories have apparently nothing to do except to gratify their passions.
All the thousand and one details that make up the daily routine of the
average person are sacrificed to emphasise one thing; but this, even in
most degraded Sybarites, would be only a part of their actual activity.
I believe that _A Modern Instance_ is just as true to life as _Bel-Ami_.
It would really be a misfortune if Mrs. Atherton could have her way; for
then American novelists would copy the faults of European writers
instead of their virtues. The reason why French plays and French novels
are generally superior to American is not because they are indecent; and
we shall never raise our standard merely by copying foreign immorality.
The superiority of the French is an intellectual and artistic
superiority; they excel us in literary style. If we are to imitate them,
let us imitate their virtues and not their defects, even though the task
in this case be infinitely more difficult.

And, granting what Mrs. Atherton says, that the reticence of American
fiction is owing largely to the influence of Mr. Howells, have we not
every reason to be grateful to him? Has not the modern novel a
tremendous influence in education, and do we really wish to see young
men and women, boys and girls, reading stories that deal mainly with
sex? Is it well that they should abandon Dickens, Thackeray, and
Stevenson, for the novel in vogue on the Continent? It is often said
that French fiction is intended only for seasoned readers, and is
carefully kept from youth. But this is gammon, and should deceive only
the grossly ignorant. As if anything nowadays could be kept from youth!
With the exception of girls who are very strictly brought up, young
people in Europe have the utmost freedom in reading. In one of Regnier's
novels, which purports to be autobiographical, the favourite bedside
book of the boy in his teens is _Mademoiselle de Maupin_. In a secret
ballot vote recently taken by a Russian periodical, to discover who are
the most popular novelists with high-school boys and girls in Russia, it
appeared that of all foreign writers Guy de Maupassant stood first. Is
this really a desirable state of affairs? Suppose it be true, as it
probably is, that the average Russian, German, or French boy of
seventeen is intellectually more mature than his English or American
contemporary--are we willing to make the physical and moral sacrifice
for the merely mental advance? Is it not better that our boys should be
playing football and reading _Treasure Island_, than that they should
be spending their leisure hours in the manner described by Regnier?

Mr. Howells's creed in Art is perhaps more open to criticism than his
creed in Ethics. His artistic creed is narrow, strict, and definite. He
has expressed it in his essays, and exemplified it in his novels. His
two doctrinal works, _Criticism and Fiction_, and _My Literary
Passions_, resemble Zola's _Le Roman Expérimental_ in dogmatic
limitation. The creed of Mr. Howells is realism, which he has not only
faithfully followed in his creative work, but which he uses as a
standard by which to measure the value of other novelists, both living
and dead. As genius always refuses to be measured by any standard, and
usually defies classification, Mr. Howells's literary estimates of other
men's work are far more valuable as self-revelation than as adequate
appraisal. Indeed, some of his criticisms seem bizarre. Where works of
fiction do not run counter to his literary dogmas, he is abundantly
sympathetic and more than generous; many a struggling young writer has
cause to bless him for powerful assistance; apparently there has never
been one grain of envy, jealousy, or meanness in the mind of our
American dean. But, broadly speaking, Mr. Howells has not the true
critical mind, which places itself for the moment in the mental
attitude of the author criticised; he is primarily a creative rather
than a critical writer. Here he is in curious opposition to his friend
and contemporary, Henry James. Mr. James is a natural-born critic, one
of the best America has ever produced. His essay on Balzac was a
masterpiece. His intellectual power is far more critical than creative;
as a novelist, he seems quite inferior to Mr. Howells. And his best
story, the little sketch, _Daisy Miller_, was properly called by its
author a "study."

Mr. Howells's literary career has two rather definite periods. The break
was caused largely by the influence of Tolstoi. The earlier novels are
more purely artistic; they are accurate representations of American
characters, for the most part joyous in mood, full of genuine humour,
and natural charm. A story absolutely expressive of the author as we
used to know him is _The Lady of the Aroostook_. As a sympathetic and
delightful portrayal of a New England country girl, this book is one of
his best productions. The voyage across the Atlantic; the surprise
caused by Lydia's name and appearance, and homely conversation. "I want
to know!" cried Lydia. The second surprise caused by her splendid
singing voice. The third surprise caused to the sophisticated young
gentleman by discovering that he was in love with her. His rapture at
his glorious good-fortune in saving the drunken wretch from drowning,
thus acting as hero before his lady's eyes; her virginal experiences in
Italy; the final happy consummation--all this is in Mr. Howells's best
vein, the Howells of thirty years ago. The story is full of observation,
cerebration, and human affection. As Professor Beers has remarked, if
Mr. Howells knows his countrymen no more intimately than does Henry
James, at least he loves them better. This charming novel was rapidly
followed in the next few years by a succession of books that are at once
good to read, and of permanent value as reflections of American life,
manners, and morals. These were _A Modern Instance_, _A Woman's Reason_,
_The Rise of Silas Lapham_, and _Indian Summer_; making a literary
harvest of which not only their author, but all Americans, have reason
to be justly proud.

Somewhere along in the eighties Mr. Howells came fully within the grasp
of the mighty influence of Tolstoi, an influence, which, no matter how
beneficial in certain ways, has not been an unmixed blessing on his
foreign disciples. What the American owes to the great Russian, and how
warm is his gratitude therefor, any one may see for himself by reading
_My Literary Passions_. It is indeed difficult to praise the maker of
_Anna Karenina_ too highly; but nobody wanted Mr. Howells to become a
lesser Tolstoi. When we wish to read Tolstoi, we know where to find
him; we wish Mr. Howells to remain his own self, shrewdly observant, and
kindly humorous. The latter novels of the American show the same kind of
change that took place in Björnson, that has also characterised Bourget;
it is the partial abandonment of the novel as an art form, and its
employment as a social, political, or religious tract. Mr. Howells's
saving sense of humour has kept him from dull extremes; but when _A
Hazard of New Fortunes_ appeared, we knew that there was more in the
title than the writer intended; our old friend had put on Saul's armour.
As has been suggested above, this change was not entirely an individual
one; it was symptomatic of the development of the modern novel all over
the world. But in this instance it seemed particularly regrettable. We
have our fill of strikes and labour troubles in the daily newspaper,
without going to our novelist for them. With one exception, it is
probable that not a single one of Mr. Howells's novels published during
the last twenty years is as good, from the artistic and literary point
of view, as the admirable work he produced before 1889. The exception is
_The Kentons_ (1902), in which he returned to his earlier manner, in a
triumphant way that showed he had not lost his skill. Indeed, there is
no trace of decay in the other books of his late years; there is merely
a loss of charm.

I think that _Indian Summer_, despite its immense popularity at the time
of publication, has never received the high praise it really deserves.
It is written in a positive glow of artistic creation. I believe that of
all its author's works, it is the one whose composition he most keenly
enjoyed. The conversations--always a great feature of his stories--are
immensely clever; I suspect that as he wrote them he was often agreeably
surprised at his own inspiration. The three characters, the middle-aged
man and woman, and the romantic young girl, are admirably set off; no
one has ever better shown the fact that it is quite possible for one to
imagine oneself in love when really one is fancy-free. The delicate
shades of jealousy in the intimate talks between the two women are
exquisitely done; the experience of the grown woman contrasting finely
with the imagination of the young girl. The difference between a man of
forty and a woman of twenty, shown here not in heavy tragedy, but in the
innumerable, convincing details of daily human intercourse, is finely
emphasised; and we can feel the great relief of both when the engagement
tie is broken. This story in its way is a masterpiece; and anyone who
lacks enthusiasm for its author ought to read it again.

His most powerful novel is probably _A Modern Instance_. This, like many
American and English fictions, first appeared in serial form--a fact
that should be known before one indulges in criticism. The old objection
to this method was that it led the writer to attempt to end each section
dramatically, leaving the reader with a sharp appetite for more. The
movement of the narrative, when the book was finally published as a
whole, resembled a series of jumps. Someone has said, that even so fine
a novel as _Far from the Madding Crowd_ was a succession of brilliant
leaps; whether or not this was caused by its original serial printing, I
do not know. This difficulty would never appear in Mr. Howells, at all
events; because his stories do not impress us by their special dramatic
scenes, or supreme moments, but rather by their completeness. The other
objection, however, has some force here--the fact that details may be
extended beyond their artistic proportion, in a manner that does not
militate against the separate instalments, but is seen to mar the book
as a whole. The logging camp incident in _A Modern Instance_ is
prolonged to a fault. Proportion is sacrificed to realism. From this
point of view, it is well to remember that _The Newcomes_ appeared in
single numbers, whereas _Henry Esmond_ was published originally as a
complete work.

But this slight defect is more than atoned for by the power shown in the
depiction of character. This is a study of degeneration, not dealing
with remote characters in far-off historical situations, but brought
home to our very doors. One feels that this dreadful fate might happen
to one's neighbours--might happen to oneself. It seems to me a greater
book in every way than _Romola_, though I am not prepared to say that
Mr. Howells is a greater novelist than George Eliot. There is all the
difference between Tito Melema and Bartley Hubbard that there is between
a fancy picture and a portrait. Mr. Howells is fond of using
Shakespearian quotations as titles; witness _The Counterfeit
Presentment_, _The Undiscovered Country_, _The Quality of Mercy_, and _A
Modern Instance_. Now the word "modern," as every student of Shakespeare
knows, means in the poet's works almost the opposite of what it
signifies to-day. "Full of wise saws and modern instances" is equivalent
to saying prosaically, "full of sententious proverbs and old, trite
illustrations." In the Shakespearian sense, Mr. Howells's title might be
translated "A Familiar Example"--for it is not only a story of modern
American life, it portrays what is unfortunately an instance all too
familiar. Bartley Hubbard is the typical representative of the "smart"
young American. He is not in the least odious when we first make his
acquaintance. His skill in address and in adaptation to society assure
his instant popularity; and at heart he is a good fellow, quite unlike
a designing villain. He would rather do right than do wrong, provided
both are equally convenient. He simply follows the line of least
resistance. Nor is he by nature a Bohemian; he loves Marcia, is proud of
her fresh beauty, and enjoys domestic life. Then he has the fascinating
quality of true humour. His conversations with his wife, when he is free
from worry, are exceedingly attractive to the impersonal listener. He is
just like thousands of clever young American journalists--quick-witted,
enterprising, energetic, with a sure nose for news; there is, in fact,
only one thing the matter with Bartley. Although, when life is flowing
evenly, he does not realise his deficiency, he actually has at heart no
moral principle, no ethical sense, no honour. The career of such a man
will depend entirely upon circumstances; because his standard of virtue
is not where it should be, within his own mind, but without. Like many
other men, he can resist anything but temptation. Whether he will become
a good citizen or a blackleg, depends not in the least upon himself, but
wholly upon the events through which he moves. Had he married exactly
the right sort of girl, and had some rich uncle left the young couple a
fortune, it is probable that neither his friends, nor his wife, nor even
he himself, would have guessed at his capacity for evil. He would have
remained popular in the community, and died both lamented and
respected. But the difficulty is that he did not marry wisely, and he
subsequently became short of cash. Now, as some writer has said, it does
not matter so much whether a man marries with wisdom or the reverse, nor
whether he behaves in other emergencies with prudence or folly; what
really matters is how he behaves himself _after_ the marriage, or after
any other crisis where he may have chosen foolishly. But Bartley, like
many other easy-going youths, was no man for adverse circumstances.
Almost imperceptibly at first his degeneration begins; his handsome
figure shows a touch of grossness; the refinement in his face becomes
blurred; drinking ceases to be a pleasure, and becomes a habit.
Meanwhile, as what he calls his bad luck increases, quarrels with his
wife become more frequent; try as he will, there is always a sheaf of
unpaid bills at the end of the month; his home loses its charm. The
mental and spiritual decline of the man is shown repulsively by his
physical appearance. No one who has read the book can possibly forget
his broad back as he sits in the courtroom, and the horrible ring of fat
that hangs over his collar. The devil has done his work with such
technique that Bartley as we first see him, and Bartley as we last see
him, seem to be two utterly different and distinct persons and
personalities; it is with an irrepressible shudder that we recall the
time when this coarse, fat sot was a slender, graceful young man, who
charmed all acquaintances by his ease of manner and winsome
conversation. And yet, as one looks back over his life, every stage in
the transition is clear, logical, and wholly natural.

From another point of view this novel is a study of the passion of
jealousy. No other American novel, so far as I know, has given so
accurate a picture of the gradual and subtle poisoning produced by this
emotion, and only one American play,--Clyde Fitch's thoughtful and
powerful drama, _The Girl with the Green Eyes_. It is curious that
jealousy, so sinister and terrible in its effects on character, should
usually appear on the stage and in fiction as comic. It is seldom
employed as a leading motive in tragedy, though Shakespeare showed its
possibilities; but one frequently sees it in broad farce. Of all the
passions, there is none which has less mirth than jealousy. It is
fundamentally tragic; and in _A Modern Instance_, we see the evil
transformation it works in Marcia, and its force in accelerating her
husband's degeneration. Marcia is an example of the wish of Keats--she
lives a life of sensations rather than of thoughts; and jealousy can be
conquered only by mental power, never by emotional. Marcia has no
intellectual resources; her love for her husband is her whole existence.
She has no more mind than many another American country girl who comes
home from boarding-school. As one critic has pointed out, "she has not
yet emerged from the elemental condition of womanhood." Jealousy is, of
course, an "animal quality," and Marcia, without knowing it, is simply a
tamed, pretty, affectionate young animal. Her jealousy is entirely
without foundation, but it causes her the most excruciating torment, and
constantly widens the breach between herself and the man she loves. If
she had only married Halleck! She would never have been jealous with
him. But jealousy is like an ugly weed in a beautiful garden; it exists
only where there is love. And a girl like Marcia could never have
returned the love of a stodgy man like Halleck. One cannot help asking
three vain questions as one contemplates the ruins of her happiness and
sees the cause. If she had never met Bartley, and had married Halleck,
would she have been better off? are we to understand that she is finally
saved by Halleck? and if so, what is the nature of her salvation?

The old sceptical lawyer, Marcia's father, is one of the most convincing
characters that Mr. Howells has ever drawn. Those who have lived in New
England know this man, for they have seen him often. He is shrewd,
silent, practical, undemonstrative, yet his unspoken love for his
daughter is almost terrible in its intensity, and finally brings him to
the grave. Although he admires young Bartley's cleverness, he would have
admired him more had he been less clever. He has a sure instinct against
the young man from the start, and knows there can be only one outcome of
such a marriage; because he is better acquainted with the real character
of husband and wife than they are with themselves. Squire Gaylord is a
person of whose creation any novelist in the history of fiction might be
proud.

When _A Modern Instance_ was first published, a contemporary review
called it "a book that all praise but none like." I imagine that the
unpleasant sensations it awakens in every reader are like those roused
by Mr. Barrie's _Sentimental Tommy_. The picture is simply too faithful
to be agreeable. Everyone beholds his own faults and tendencies clearly
portrayed, and the result is quite other than reassuring. The book finds
us all at home. But, as Gogol, the great Russian, used to say, quoting
an old Slavonic proverb, "We must not blame the mirror if the face looks
ugly."

It is both instructive and entertaining to try the effect of this novel
on a representative group of American college undergraduates. Those who
had lived in New England villages, and were familiar with the scenes
described, were loud in their praises of the background, and of the
Gaylord family. One young man remarked--he was at Yale--"I know a young
journalist who was last year at Harvard, who is going to the devil in
very much the same way." Another said, with an experience hardly
consonant with his years, that he had known women just as jealous as
Marcia. Most of them, however, believed that her jealousy was grossly
exaggerated; it looks so like folly to those yet untouched by the
passion of love. Another truthful and modest youth said pathetically, "I
am too young to appreciate this book." Still another remarked with rare
lucidity and definiteness of penetration, "In reading this story somehow
something struck me unfavourably." Minor improbabilities in the novel
produced the greatest shock--the hot-scotch episode seemed quite
impossible, and Mr. Howells was thought to be a poor judge of the
effects of whiskey. But the criticism I enjoyed most came from the
undergraduate who said in all sincerity, "I think this is a very good
book for young ladies to read before getting married." So indeed it is.

In the year 1902, by the publication of _The Kentons_, Mr. Howells gave
us a most delightful surprise. It was like the return of an old friend
from a far journey. In literature it was as though Björnson should
publish a story like _A Happy Boy_, or as though Mr. Hardy should give
us a tale like _Under the Greenwood Tree_. _The Kentons_ is a thoroughly
charming international novel, containing the pleasant adventures of an
Ohio family on the ocean liner and in Europe, written in the _Aroostook_
style, sparkling with humour, and rich in sympathy and tenderness.
Political, social, and ethical problems are conspicuously absent, and
the only material used by the writer is human nature. This is one of the
best books he has ever written; it has all the charm of _Their Wedding
Journey_, plus the wisdom and observation that come only by years. It is
wholesome, healthy, realistic; a thoroughly representative American
novel from a master's hand. In a French _roman_, Bittredge would of
course have been a libertine, and one of the girls ruined by him. In
_The Kentons_, he is merely _fresh_, and though he causes some trouble,
everybody in the end is better off for the experience. Mr. Howells seems
especially to dislike _Frechheit_ in young men, and he has made the
vulgarity and assurance of Bittredge both offensive and absurd. We have
too many Bittredges in the United States; and some of them do not lose
their bittredgidity with advancing years.

The five members of the Kenton family are wonderfully well drawn, and
are just such people as we fortunately meet every day. The purity and
sweetness of married and family life are beautifully exemplified here;
they are exactly what we see in thousands of American homes, and
constitute the real answer to modern attacks on the conjugal relation.
The judge and his wife are two companions, growing old together in
simplicity and innocence, happy in the truest sense--loving each other
far more in age than in youth, which is perfectly natural in life if not
in fiction; because every day they become more necessary to each other
and have common interests extending over many years. The scene in their
bedroom, as they talk together before slumber, while the old Judge winds
up his watch, is a veritable triumph of Art.

The younger daughter Lottie is a vivid portrait of the typical American
high-school girl, slangy, superficial, flirtatious, not quite vulgar,
and in every emergency with young men fully capable of taking care of
herself. After a round of joyous, heart-free, and innocent familiarities
with various youthful admirers, she finally becomes an admirable wife
and housekeeper. Her sister Ellen is of an opposite temperament, pale,
slight, and non-athletic. She is entirely different from the Booth
Tarkington or Richard Harding Davis heroine, and in her purity,
delicacy, and refinement, takes us back to old-fashioned fiction. As a
spectator on the steamer says of her, "that pale girl is adorable." In
her shyness and extraordinary loveliness she reminds us of Turgenev's
spiritual Lisa. The scene in the night, where her young brother steals
to her bed and pours into her sympathetic ears all the troubled passion
and sorrow, all the embarrassment and suffering of his sensitive boy's
heart, is exceedingly beautiful and tender. He knows _she_ will
understand. And at last it is Ellen, and not Lottie, who becomes the
fashionable, aristocratic, New York woman--preserving in her wealthy
environment all the fruits of the spirit.

Boyne, the small boy, the "kid brother," is a fine illustration of the
enthusiasm for humanity so characteristic of Mr. Howells. It is
instructive to compare this little man with the young brother of Daisy
Miller. Both are at the age most trying to their elders, and both are
faithfully portrayed; but Randolph C. Miller is made particularly
obnoxious, even odious, while one cannot help loving Boyne. The
difference is that one is drawn with the finger of scorn and the other
with the insight of sympathy. Mr. Howells calls Boyne "a mass of
helpless sweetness though he did not know it." His romantic love for the
young queen of Holland and the burning mortification he suffers thereby,
are sufficiently easy to understand. The contrast between the high
seriousness with which he takes himself, and the impression he makes on
others, is something that every man who looks back will remember. As
the novelist puts it, "He thought he was an iceberg when he was merely
an ice cream of heroic mould."

_The Kentons_, like some other novels by Mr. Howells, may seem to many
readers superficial, because it is so largely taken up with the trivial
details of daily existence. It is really a profound study of life, made
by an artist who has not only the wisdom of the head, but the deeper
wisdom of the heart.

IV

BJÖRNSTJERNE BJÖRNSON

For over half a century this intellectual athlete has been one of the
busiest men in the world. A partisan fighter born and bred, he has been
active in every political Skandinavian struggle; in religious questions
he has fought first on one side and then on the other, changing only by
honest conviction, and hitting with all his might every time; to him the
word "education" is as a red rag to a bull, for he believes that it has
been mainly bad, and if people will only listen, he can make it mainly
good; in a passion of chivalry, he has drawn his pen for the cause of
Woman, whose "sphere" he hopes to change--the most modern and the most
popular of all the vain attempts to square the circle; his powerful
voice has been heard on the lecture platform, not only in his own
beloved country, but all over Europe and in America; he has served for
years as Theatre-Director, in the determination to convert the
playhouse, like everything else he touches, into a vast moral force. In
addition to all the excitement of a life spent in fighting, his purely
literary activity has been enormous in quantity and astonishing in
range. His numerous dramas treat of all possible themes, from the old
Sagas to modern divorce laws; and after exhausting all earthly material,
he has boldly advanced into the realm of the supernatural; his splendid
play, _Beyond Human Power_, holds the boards in most European cities,
and has exercised a profound influence on modern drama. His novels are
as different in style and purpose as it is possible for the novels of
one man to be; and some of them are already classics. A man with such an
endowment, with such tremendous convictions, with buoyant optimism and
terrific energy, has made no small stir in the world, and it will be a
long time before the name of Björnstjerne Björnson is forgotten.

Had he not possessed, in addition to a fine mind, a magnificent physical
frame, he would long since have vanished into that spiritual world that
has interested him so deeply. But he has the physique of a Norse god.
Many instances of his bodily strength and endurance have been cited; it
is sufficient to remember that even after his mane of hair had become
entirely grey he regularly took his bath by standing naked under a
mountain waterfall. Let that suffice, as one trial of it would for most
of us. He came honestly by his health and vigour, born as he was on a
lonely mountain-side in Norway. It was in the winter of 1832 that this
sturdy baby gave his first cry for freedom, his father being a village
pastor, whose flock were literally scattered among steep and desolate
rocks, where the salient feature of the landscape during nine months of
the year was snow. More than once the good shepherd had to seek and save
that which was lost. For society, the little boy had a few pet animals
and the dreams engendered by supreme loneliness. But when he was six
years old, the father was fortunately called to a pastorate in a
beautiful valley on the west coast, surrounded by noble and inspiring
scenery, the effect of which is visibly seen in all his early stories.
We cannot help comparing this vale of beauty, trailing clouds of glory
over Björnson's boyhood, with the flat, wet, dismal gloom of East
Prussia, that oppressed so heavily the child Sudermann, and made Dame
Care look so grey.

At the grammar school, at the high school, and at the university he
showed little interest in the curriculum, and no particular aptitude for
study; but before leaving college he had already begun original
composition, and at the age of twenty-four he published a masterpiece.
This was the pastoral romance, _Synnövé Solbakken_, which for sheer
beauty of style and atmosphere he has never surpassed. For some years
preceding the date of its appearance there had been a lull in literary
activity in Norway. Out of this premonitory hush of stillness came a
beautiful voice, which by the newness and freshness of its tones aroused
immediate interest. Everybody listened, enchanted by the strange
harmony. Men saw that a new prophet had arisen in Israel. The absolute
simplicity of the style, the naïveté of the story, the naturalness of
the characters, the short, passionate sentences like those of the Sagas,
the lyrically poetic atmosphere, appealed at once to the Norwegian
heart. Why is it that we are surprised in books and in plays by simple
language and natural characters? It must be that we are so accustomed to
literary conventions remote from actual life, that when we behold real
people and hear natural talk in works of art our first emotion is glad
astonishment. For the same reason we praise certain persons for
displaying what we call common sense. Be this as it may, no one believed
that a pastoral romance could be so vigorous, so fresh, and so true. Of
all forms of literature, pastoral tales, whether in verse or in prose,
have been commonly the most artificial and the most insipid; but here
was the breath of life. I can recommend nothing better for the soul
weary of the closeness of modern naturalism than a course of reading in
the early work of Björnson.

He followed this initial success with three other beautiful prose
lyrics--_Arne_, _A Happy Boy_, and _The Fisher Maiden_. These stories
exhibit the same qualities so strikingly displayed in _Synnövé
Solbakken_. In all this artistic production Björnson is an
impressionist, reproducing with absolute fidelity what he saw, both in
the world of matter and of spirit. We may rely faithfully on the
correctness of these pictures, whether they portray natural scenery,
country customs, or peasant character. We inhale Norway. We can smell
the pines. The nipping and eager air, the dark green resinous
forests--we feel these as plainly as if we were physically present in
the Land of the Midnight Sun. The kindly simplicity of the peasants, the
village ceremonies at weddings and funerals, the cheerful loneliness
with sheep on mountain pasture, and the subdued but universal note of
deep rural piety, make one feel as though the whole community were bound
by gold chains about the feet of God. Björnson says, "The church is in
the foreground of Norwegian peasant life." And indeed everything seems
to centre around God's acre, and the spire of the meeting-house points
in the same direction as the stories themselves. Many beautiful passages
affect us like noble music; our eyes are filled with happy tears.

In view of the strong and ardent personality of the author, it is
curious that these early romances should be so truly objective. One
feels his personality in a general way, as one feels that of Turgenev;
but the young writer separates himself entirely from the course of the
story; he nowhere interferes. The characters apparently develop without
his assistance, as the events take place without any manipulation. As a
work of objective art, _Synnövé Solbakken_ approaches flawless
perfection. It has one plot, which travels in one direction--forward.
The persons are intensely Norwegian, but there their similarity ends.
Each is individualised. The simplicity of the story is so remarkable
that to some superficial and unobservant readers it has seemed childish.
The very acme of Art is so close to nature that it sometimes is mistaken
for no art at all, like the acting of Garrick or the style of Jane
Austen. Adverse criticisms are the highest compliments. Language is well
managed when it expresses profound thoughts in words clear to a child.

The love scenes in this narrative are idyllic; in fact, the whole book
is an idyl. It seems radiant with sunshine. It is as pure as a mountain
lake, and as refreshing. And besides the artistic unity of the work,
that satisfies one's standards so fully, there is an exquisite something
hard to define; a play of fancy, a veil of poetic beauty lingering over
the story, that makes us feel when we have closed the book as if we were
gazing at a clear winter sunset.

Björnson has the creative imagination of the true poet. In the wonderful
prologue to _Arne_ he gives the trees separate personalities, in a
manner to arouse almost the envy of Thomas Hardy. Indeed, the author of
_The Woodlanders_ has never felt the trees more intensely than the
Norwegian novelist. The prose style unconsciously breaks into verse form
at times, with the natural grace and ease of a singing bird. Not the
least charming incidents in Björnson's romances are the frequent lyrics,
that spring up like cowslips in a pasture.

    "Punctual as Springtide forth peep they."

The novels in Björnson's second period are so totally unlike those we
have just been considering that if all his work had been published
anonymously, no one would have ventured to say that the same man had
written _A Happy Boy_ and _In God's Way_. There came a pause in his
creative activity. He wrote little imaginative literature, and many
thought the well of his inspiration had gone dry. Really he was passing
through a belated _Sturm und Drang_; a tremendous intellectual struggle
and fermentation had set in, from which he emerged mentally a changed
man, with a new outfit of opinions and ideas. At nearly the same time
his great contemporary Tolstoi was also in the Slough of Despond, but he
climbed out on the other side and set his face towards the Celestial
City. Björnson's floundering ultimately carried him in precisely the
opposite direction. While Tolstoi was studying the New Testament,
Björnson applied himself to Darwin, Mill, and Spencer, and became
completely converted from the Christianity of his youth. Many minds
would have been temporarily paralysed by such a result, and would
finally have become either pessimistic or coldly critical. But Björnson
simply could not endure to be a gloomy, cynical spectator of life, like
his countryman, Ibsen, any more than he could leave his native land and
calmly view its nakedness from the comfortable environment of Munich or
Rome. Björnson has the sort of intellect that cannot remain in
equilibrium. He was ever a fighter, and cannot live without something to
fight for. The natural optimism of his temperament, so opposed in every
way to the blank despair of Ibsen, made him see in his new views the way
of salvation. He is just as sure he is right now as he was when he held
opinions exactly the contrary. With joyful ardour he became the champion
and propagandist of democracy in politics and of free thought in
religion; apparently adopting Spencer's saying, "To the true reformer no
institution is sacred, no belief above criticism." For the word
"reformer" precisely describes Björnson; like the chief characters in
his later novels, he is an apostle of reform, zealous, tireless, and
tiresome.

Lowell, in his fine essay on Gray, said that one reason why the
eighteenth century was so comfortable was that "responsibility for the
universe had not yet been invented." Now Björnson feels this
responsibility with all the strength of his nature, and however
admirable it may be as a moral quality, it has vitiated his artistic
career. As he renounced Christianity for agnosticism, so he renounced
romance for realism. The novels written since 1875 are not only unlike
his early pastoral romances in literary style; they are totally
different productions in tone, in spirit, and in intention. And, from
the point of view of art, they are, in my opinion, as inferior to the
work of his youth as Hawthorne's campaign _Life of Pierce_ is inferior
to _The Scarlet Letter_. In every way Björnson is farther off from
heaven than when he was a boy.

In addition to many short sketches, his later period includes three
realistic novels. These are: _Flags Are Flying in Town and Harbour_,
translated into English with the title, _The Heritage of the Kurts_, for
it is a study in heredity; _In God's Way_,[4] loudly proclaimed as his
masterpiece, and _Mary_. The first two originally attracted more
attention abroad than at home. The _Flags_ hung idly in Norway, and the
orthodox were not anxious to get in God's way. But the second book
produced considerable excitement in England, which finally reacted in
Christiania and Copenhagen; it is still hotly discussed. In these three
novels the author has stepped out of the rôle of artist and become a
kind of professor of pedagogy, his speciality being the education of
women. In _Flags_ the principal part of the story is taken up with a
girls' school, which gives the novelist an opportunity to include a
confused study of heredity, and to air all sorts of educational theory.
The chief one appears to be that in the curriculum for young girls the
"major" should be physiology. Hygiene, which so many bewildered persons
are accepting just now in lieu of the Gospel, plays a heavy part in
Björnson's later work. The gymnasium in _Flags_ takes the place of the
church in _Synnövé_; and acrobatic feats of the body are deemed more
healthful than the religious aspirations of the soul. Kallem, a
prominent character of the story _In God's Way_, usually appears walking
on his hands, which is not the only fashion in which he is upside down.
The book _Flags_ is, frankly speaking, an intolerable bore. The hero,
Rendalen, who also appears in the subsequent novel, is the mouthpiece of
the new opinions of the author; a convenient if clumsy device, for
whenever Björnson wishes to expound his views on education, hygiene, or
religion, he simply makes Rendalen deliver a lecture. Didactic novels
are in general a poor substitute either for learning or for fiction,
but they are doubly bad when the author is confused in his ideas of
science and in his notions of art. One general "lesson" emerges from the
jargon of this book--that men should suffer for immorality as severely
as women, a doctrine neither new nor practicable. The difficulty is that
with Björnson, as with some others who shout this edict, the equalising
of the punishment takes the form of leaving the men as they are, and
issuing a general pardon to the women. Rendalen, the head-master of the
school, is constantly bringing up this topic, and he makes it the chief
subject for discussion in the girls' debating society! These females are
going to be emancipated. A pseudo-scientific twist is also given to this
novel by the introduction of mesmerism and hypnotic influence, matters
in which the author is deeply interested. We are given to understand
that a large number of women are annually ruined, not by their lack of
moral conviction and will power, but simply by the hypnotic influence of
men. One may perhaps reasonably doubt the ultimate value of a wide
dissemination of this great idea, especially in a young ladies'
seminary. To the unsympathetic reader, the one question that will keep
him afloat in all this welter, is not concerned with pedagogy; it is the
honest attempt to discover why the book bears its strange title.
Unfortunately he will not find out until the last leaf. Then

     "the connexion of which with the plot one sees."

[4] In the original the title is "In God's Ways."

It is pleasant to take up the volume _In God's Way_, for, however
disappointing it may be to those who know the young Björnson, it is
vastly superior to _Flags_. It is what is called to-day a "strong"
novel, and has naturally evoked the widest variation of comment. By many
it has been greeted with enthusiastic admiration and by many with
outspoken disgust. Psychologically, it is indeed powerful. The
characters are interesting, and they develop in a way that may or may
not be God's, but resemble His in being mysterious. One cannot foresee
in the early chapters what is going to happen to the _dramatis personæ_,
nor what is to be our final attitude toward any of them. Think of the
impression made on us by our first acquaintance with Josephine, or
Kallem, or Ragni, or Ole; and then compare it with the state of our
feelings as we draw near the end. Not one of these characters remains
the same; each one develops, and develops as he might in actual life.
Björnson does not approach his men and women from an easy chair, in the
descriptive manner; once created, we feel that they would grow without
his aid.

For all this particular triumph of art, _In God's Way_ is plainly a