Chapter II: Part 2

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 Bjoernson; 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 AEschylean 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!"

III

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 role. 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 Experimental_ 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 Bjoernson, 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.