18. The hostility of Wordsworth to the "poetic diction" of histime rested on principles of which he scarcely seems himself tohave been conscious.[15] The poets of the last century had lost thegenuine sense of their high calling. Their productions for the most partwere, at best, practical philosophy in verse. They observed the outeraspect of things, and to make their observations poetry they clothedthem in "poetic diction," which thus became offensive, becauseartificial--because a superadded ornament, and not the naturalexpression of exalted passion or the emotion which accompanies ourpassage "behind the veil." Repugnance to this artificiality misledWordsworth into the celebrated assertion that "between the language ofprose and that of metrical composition, there neither is, nor can be,any essential difference:" an assertion which, as prompted by a feelingof the incompatibility of poetic language with prosaic thought, isreally a witness to the essential antithesis between poetry and prose.Verse is simple, harmonious, and unfamiliar. It is thus the fittingorgan for that energy of thought which simplifies the phenomena of lifeby referring them to a spiritual principle; which blends its shiftingcolours in the light of a master-passion, and passes from thecontradictory data of the common understanding to the unity of a deeperconsciousness. Even the spiritualist philosopher, no less than the poet,would have to speak in verse, if, instead of making statements, heportrayed: if, besides asserting that "all things are to be seen inGod," he sought to excite in the reader the emotion appropriate to thesight. Prose is the "oratio soluta." It is complex, irregular,inharmonious. It thus corresponds to the natural or phenomenal view oflife; the view of it, that is, in its diversity, as qualified ininnumerable modes by animal wants and apparent accident, and notharmonised by the action of the spirit.[16] The novelist must expresshimself in prose, because this is his view of life: and this must be hisview of life, because he thus expresses himself. It is indeed a viewwhich may vary according to the circumstances of the case, but onlywithin definite limits. There is an "earnestness" about some of ourmodern novelists, Miss Bronte for instance, which would have seemed outof place to those of fifty years ago; but this is merely because thelife they see around them is more "earnest." It presents to them scenesof sterner significance than were to be found among the coquetry anddissipation of the fashionable world or the dull courtesies of a countryhouse. But that they do not transcend this outward life we have onecrucial proof. Just in so far as each of us learns to regard his ownindividual being from within, and not from without, does he discarddependence on happiness as arising from external circumstances, andbecomes already in idea, as he tends to become in reality, his own worldand his own law. No novelist attains to the assertion of this spiritualprerogative. As we follow in sympathy the story of his hero, we findourselves lifted up and cast down as fortune changes, our lifebrightening as the clouds break above, and darkening as they closeagain. If the author chooses to disappoint us with "a bad ending," heleaves us, not as we are left at the conclusion of a tragedy, purifiedfrom personal desires, but vexed and sorrowful, sadder but not wisermen.
FOOTNOTES:
[15] "Humble and rustic life was generally chosen, because in thatcondition the essential passions of the heart find a better soil inwhich they can attain their maturity, are less under restraint, andspeak a plainer and more emphatic language; because in that condition oflife our elementary feelings co-exist in a state of greater simplicity,and, consequently, may be more accurately contemplated, and moreforcibly communicated.... The language, too, of these men has beenadopted (purified indeed from what appear to be its real defects, fromall lasting and rational causes of dislike or disgust), because such menhourly communicate with the best objects from which the best part oflanguage is originally derived; and because, from their rank in societyand the sameness and narrow circle of their intercourse, being lessunder the influence of social vanity, they convey their feelings andnotions in simple and unelaborated expressions. Accordingly, such alanguage arising out of repeated experience and regular feeling, is amore permanent, and a far more philosophical language, than that whichis frequently substituted for it by Poets, who think that they areconferring honor upon themselves and their art in proportion as theyseparate themselves from the sympathies of men, and indulge in arbitraryand capricious habits of expression, in order to furnish food for fickletastes and fickle appetites of their own creation."--Wordsworth, Prefaceto the 'Lyrical Ballads.'
[16] On the relations of prose and poetry, see Alden's 'An introductionto Poetry,' pp. 23-28, 128-138, 160-164, and the references there given.
H. THE NOVEL AN INCOMPLETE PRESENTATION OF LIFE
19. By the mere explanation of the difference between the ideal and thenatural, the poetic and novelistic, views of the world, we may seem tohave already settled the question as to the beneficial effects of each.The question, be it observed, is not as to the comparative influence ofthe discipline of art and that of real life. The man who seeks hisentire culture in art of any kind will soon find the old antagonismbetween speculation and action begin to appear. There will be a chasm,which he cannot fill, between his life in the closet and his life in theworld; his impotence to carry his thought into act will limit and weakenthe thought itself. But this ill result will equally ensue, whether theart in which he finds his nurture be that of the novelist or that of thepoet. The novel-reader sees human action pass before him like apanorama, but he feels none of its pains and penalties; his fancy feedson its pleasures, but he has not to face the struggle of resistance topleasure, or the suffering which follows on indulgence. Nor is it merelyfrom that weakness of effect which, in one sense, must always belong torepresentation as opposed to reality, that the novel suffers. Therepresentation itself is incomplete. The novelist, like every otherartist, must abridge and select. For many of the elements whose actionbuilds up our human soul, there is no place in his canvas. A great partof the discipline of life arises simply from its slowness. The longyears of patient waiting and silent labor, the struggle withlistlessness and pain, the loss of time by illness, the hope deferred,the doubt that lays hold on delay--these are the tests of thatpertinacity in man which is but a step below heroism. The exhibition ofthem in the novel, however, is prevented by that rapidity of movementwhich is essential to its fascination; and hence to one whoseacquaintance with life was derived simply from novels, its main businesswould be unknown. They are perhaps more brought home to us by Defoe thanby any other writer of fiction; but this is due to that very deficiencyof artistic power which makes his agglomeration of details[17] suchheavy reading to all but school-boys.
FOOTNOTE:
[17] Modern criticism inclines to the view that Defoe's "agglomerationof details" is the result of high and conscious art. If 'RobinsonCrusoe' were kept away from schoolboys it would doubtless be readpleasurably by adults.
I. PRUDENCE THE NOVELIST'S HIGHEST MORALITY
20. The novel, then, as being a work of art, must fail to teach thelesson of life in its completeness: as an inferior work of art, it haspeculiar weaknesses of its own. However extensive the influence of theliterature of fiction may have been, its intensity has been in inverseproportion. A great poem, once made our own, abides with us for ever.
"Amid the fretful stir Unprofitable, and the fever of the world,"[18]
the spirit, returning to it, may gain a fresh assurance of its _own_birthright, and purify itself, as in a river of Lethe, for an idealtransition to its proper home. The novel, itself the reflex of "thefretful stir unprofitable," can exercise no such power. It can but makeus more at home in the region from which a great poem transports us. Thevalue of that experience of the world, which it is its object to impart,is commonly overrated in our day. In the form in which it is imparted bythe novelist, we have perhaps had too much of it without his aid. Ourexternal environment is quite enough in our thoughts: we are not tooreluctant to admit that we are what we seem to be, dependent for good orevil on circumstances which we do not make for ourselves. Thisdependence is in itself, no doubt, a fact; but it ceases to
be so for uswhen we contemplate it in forgetfulness of that spring of potentialfreedom which underlies it, and of the law of duty correlative tofreedom. To the exclusive consideration of it we owe those profitlessrecipes for eliciting moral health from circumstances which are theplague of modern literature, and which one of our ablest writers haslately condescended to dispense, in an essay on "organisation in dailylife." This circumstantial view of life, if we may use the term, beingthe only one that the novelist can convey, prudence is his highestmorality. But it may be doubted whether prudence is what any one hasgreat need to learn. The plain man, who fronting circumstances boldly onthe one hand, looks reverently to the stern face of duty on the other,can dispense with its maxims. For the moral valetudinarian small benefitis to be gained from a doctor who will
"Read each wound, each weakness clear, Will strike his finger on the place And say, 'Thou ailest here and here'."[19]
It is far better for him, instead of poring over a detail of the causesand symptoms of the disease which he hugs, to be stimulated to an effortin which, though it be but temporary, ecstatic, and for an end notactually attainable, he may at least forget the disease altogether. Sucha stimulus a great poem may afford him; but in the whole expanse ofnovel-literature he merely sees his own sickly experience modified in aninfinite variety of reflections, till he fancies that the "strangedisease of modern life" is the proper constitution of God's universe.
FOOTNOTES:
[18]
"When the fretful stir Unprofitable, and the fever of the world Have hung upon the beatings of my heart." --Wordsworth, 'Tintern Abbey.'
[19] Matthew Arnold's 'Memorial Verses,' lines 20-22, adapted to thecontext.
J. EVIL EFFECTS OF NOVEL-READING
21. Novel-reading thus aggravates two of the worst maladies of moderntimes, self-consciousness and want of reverence. Many a man in thesedays, instead of doing some sound piece of work for mankind, spends histime in explaining to himself why it is that he does not do it, and how,after all, he is superior to those who do. Even men of a higher sortnever seem to forget themselves in their work. Our popular writersgenerally take the reader into confidence as to their private feelingsas they go along; our men of action are burdened by a sense of theirreputation with "intelligent circles." No one loses himself in a cause.Scarcely understanding what is meant by a "divine indifference" as tothe fate of individual existences in the evolution of God's plan, weweary heaven with complaints that we find the world contrary, or that wecannot satisfy ourselves with a theory of life. Thus "measuringourselves by ourselves, and comparing ourselves among ourselves, we arenot wise." The novel furnishes the standard for the measurement, and thedata for the comparison. It presents us with a series of fictitiousexperiences, in the light of which we read our own, and become morecritically conscious of them. Instead of idealising life, if we may soexpress ourselves, it sentimentalises it. It does not subordinateincidents to ideas; yet it does not treat them simply as phenomena toexcite curiosity, but as misfortunes or blessings to excite sentiment.The writer of the "Mill on the Floss" reaches almost the tragic pitchtowards the close of her book, and if she had been content to leave uswith the death of the heroine and her brother[20] in the flood, wemight have supposed that in this case, as representing the annihilationof human passion in the struggle with destiny, the novelist had indeedattained the ideal view of life. But the novelistic instinct does notallow her to do so. At the conclusion we are shown the other chiefactors standing, with appropriate emotions, over the heroine's grave,and thus find that the catastrophe has not really been the manifestationof an idea, but an occasion of sentiment. The habitual novel-reader,from thus looking sentimentally at the fictitious life which is thereflex of his own, soon comes to look sentimentally at himself. Hethinks his personal joys and sorrows of interest to angels and men; andinstead of gazing with awe and exultation upon the world, as a theatrefor the display of God's glory and the unknown might of man, he sees init merely an organism for affecting himself with pains and pleasures.Thus regarded, it must needs lose its claim on his reverence, for it isnarrowed to the limits of his own consciousness. Conversant with presentlife in all its outward aspects, he forgets the infinite spaces whichlie around and above it. This confinement of view, which among the moreintelligent appears merely as disbelief in the possibilities of man,takes a more offensive form in the complacent blindness of ordinaryminds. We have no wish to disparage our own age in comparison with anythat have preceded it. Young men have always been ignorant, andignorance has always been conceited. There is, however, this difference.The ignorant young men of past time, such as the five sons of SirHildebrand Osbaldistone,[21] knew that they were ignorant, but thoughtit no shame: the ignorant young men of our days, with the miscellaneousknowledge of life which they derive from the popular novelists, fancythemselves wiser than the aged. Whoever be the philosopher, the coxcombnowadays will answer him not merely with a grin, but with a joke whichhe has still in lavender from Dickens or his imitators. The comic aspectof life is indeed plain enough to see, nor is the merely pathetic muchless obvious; but there is little good in looking at either. It is fareasier to laugh or to weep than to think; to give either a ludicrous orsentimental turn to a great principle of morals or religion than toenter into its real meaning. But the vulgar reader of our comicnovelists, when he has learnt from them a jest or a sentiment for everyoccasion of life, fancies that nothing more remains unseen and unsaid.
FOOTNOTES:
[20] "Lover" in the original text of the essay. The error does not muchaffect the argument.
[21] In Scott's 'Rob Roy.'
III. TRUE FUNCTION OF THE NOVEL
A. A WIDENER OF EXPERIENCE
22. But there is another side to this question which we must not allowourselves to overlook. We have shown what the novel cannot do, and itsill effect on those who trust to it for their culture. We must notforget that it has a proper work of its own which, if modern progress beanything more than a euphemism, must be a work for good. Least of allshould it be depreciated by the student, who may find in it deliverancefrom the necessary confinement of his actual life. For the production ofpoetic effect, as we have seen, large abstraction is necessary. It iswith man in the purity of his inward being, with nature in its simplegreatness, that the poet deals. The glory which he casts on life is farhigher than any which the novelist knows, but it is only on certain ofthe elements of life that it can be cast at all. The novelist works on afar wider field. With choice of subject and situation he scarcely needtrouble himself, except in regard to his own intellectualqualifications. Wherever human thought is free, and human character candisplay itself, whether in the servants' hall or the drawing-room,whether in the country mansion or the back alley, he may find hismaterials. He is thus a great expander of sympathies; and if he cannothelp us to make the world our own by the power of ideas, he at leastcarries our thought into many a far country of human experience, whichit could not otherwise have reached. We hear much in these days of thesacrifice of the individual to society through professional limitations.In the progressive division of labor, while we become more useful ascitizens, we seem to lose our completeness as men. The requirements ofspecial study become more exacting, at the same time that the perfectorganisation of modern society removes the excitement of adventure andthe occasion for independent effort. There is less of human interest totouch us within our calling, and we have less leisure to seek it beyond.Hence it follows that one who has made the most of his profession is aptto feel that he has not attained his full stature as a man; that he hasfaculties which he can never use, capacities for admiration andaffection which can never meet with an adequate object. To this feeling,probably, are mainly due our lamentations over a past age ofhero-worship and romance, when action was more decisive and passion afuller stream. Its alleviation, if not its remedy, is to be found in thenewspaper and the novel. Every one indeed must lay in his own experiencethe foundation of the imaginary world wh
ich he rears for himself. Thereis a primary "virtue which cannot be taught." No man can learn fromanother the meaning of human activity or the possibilities of humanemotion. But this [Greek: pou sto] being given, even the cloisteredstudent may find that, as his soul passes into the strife of socialforces and the complication of individual experience, which thenewspaper and the novel severally represent, his sympathies break fromthe bondage of his personal situation and reach to the utmost confinesof human life. The personal experience and the fictitious act and reacton each other, the personal experience giving reality to the fictitious,the fictitious expansion to the personal. He need no longer envy the manof action and adventure, or sigh for new regions of enterprise. Theworld is all before him. He may explore its recesses without beingdisturbed by its passions; and if the end of experience be the knowledgeof God's garment, as preliminary to that of God Himself, his eye may beas well trained for the "vision beatific," as if he had himself been anactor in the scenes to which imagination transfers him.
B. AN EXPANDER OF SYMPATHIES
23. The novelist not only works on more various elements, he appeals tomore ordinary minds than the poet. This indeed is the strongestpractical proof of his essential inferiority as an artist. All who arecapable of an interest in incidents of life which do not affectthemselves, may feel the same interest more keenly in a novel; but tothose only who can lift the curtain does a poem speak intelligibly. Itis the twofold characteristic, of universal intelligibility andindiscriminate adoption of materials, that gives the novel its place asthe great reformer and leveller of our time. Reforming and levelling areindeed more closely allied than we are commonly disposed to admit.Social abuses are nearly always the result of defective organisation.The demarcations of family, of territory, or of class, prevent theproper fusion of parts into the whole. The work of the reformerprogresses as the social force is brought to bear more and more fully onclasses and individuals, merging distinctions of privilege and positionin the one social organism. The novel is one of the main agenciesthrough which this force acts. It gathers up manifold experiences,corresponding to manifold situations of life; and subordinating each tothe whole, gives to every particular situation a new character, asqualified by all the rest. Every good novel, therefore, does somethingto check what may be called the despotism of situations; to prevent thatossification into prejudices arising from situation, to which all feel atendency. The general novel literature of any age may be regarded as anassertion by mankind at large, in its then development, of its claims,as against the influence of class and position; whether that influenceappear in the form of positive social injustice, of oppressive custom,or simply of deficient sympathy.
An Estimate of the Value and Influence of Works of Fiction in Modern Times Page 4
