VILLAIN OF THE PIECE.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 136, 11 June 1927, Page 27

VILLAIN OF THE PIECE.

WHO IS THE GREATEST ? pjjW AMONG THE MODERNS. DICKENS' GREAT LIST. Who is the greatest villain in English fiction ? An answer would be easy if it were a question of stage villains. lago would enrely be the choice of the average theatre-goer or student of dramatic literature. From the work of modern novelists the selection would be extremely difficult.. Take Wells, as the foremost figure, still, among working English novelists of to-day. In the first place, Wells' supremacy would, doubtless, come immediately into dispute. But if, for argument's sake, we accept Wells gs holding among modern novelists the position most nearly approaching the enpremacy of Dickens among the Great Victorians, where do we find in all his novels a villain comparable with Mr. Tulkinghorn, of "Bleak House," or with Thackeray's Barnes Kewcome? 1 The reader will find it difficult to discover a real villain in any of Wells' greater novels. Sinners in plenty, according to a rigid code of morality, but no villains in the true sense. "TonoBungay" is Wells' greatest novel. Lord Carnaby is the villain, if any, but Carnaby, the little lean man with the grey-blue eyes in his brown face, and Jus cracked voice—Carnaby, elderly Toluptuary —is little more than a sketch. Beatrice Normandy declares: "Carnaby's not like the other men; he's bigger. They go about making love. Everybody's making love. I did. And I don't do things by halves."

; But if Carnaby is not like other men, decidedly he is like other figures in fiction. He is in direct line of descent from Lord Steyne, of "Vanity Fair." Steyne, through all his ' intrigue with Becky, is much nearer reality than Cfcrnaby. He is vivid—never so much «o, as when Rawdon Crawley finds him •with his wife, and Lord Steyne, with flame in his eyes, and looking his enemy fiercely in the face, seeks to march past liim, not doubting that Rawdon will give way. Hardy's Villain. Thomas Hardy has created a loathsome villain in his novel, "Tess of the DTFrfcervilles." Alec. D'Urberville is as foul a creature as moves through fiction of the eighteen-nineties. But though Hardy has lived well into this century of ours, the novelist Hardy is really one of the great Victorians. And Alec. .DTTrberville, seducer of Tess, and cause iof the life's tragedy that ends on the 'gallows, is not comparable with the villains of Dickens, or yet of Thackeray. Dickens, of all the novelists, has ; created the greatest number of great villains. Out-and-out villains. No subtleties for him; no defence of them for considerations of psychology, heredity. Be made allowances for all sinners, but rßot for his villains. A mere sinner— [Little Emly, or Nancy—might be -forgiven, but a real villain was bound to come to a bad end. Bradley Headstone itte unhappy schoolmaster, tormented T>y hopeless passion for Lizzie Hexam, and writhing under the insolent indifference of Eugene Wrayburn, is a tragic figure ending as criminal. A villain in his * attack on Eugene, and in his cunning attempt to shift his guilt to Rogue Riderhood, but a villain made, not born. The psychology of Headstone would pass the test of the most exacting follower of ; ~*eud. He is one of the outstanding figures of the novels. He is as great a creation as Madame Defarge, most evil of all the women-characters of Dickens, immovable as destiny, inexorable as ttttL

the riverside rat, is one of the greatest villains of Dickens. Jonas Cnrazlewit and Mr. Carker are great tb® R ogue. Jonas, with all the vile.Uriah Heep; plotting to poison - ~ OT his fortune;, a low ruffian a his treatment of his. wife, the hapless ««ry; and murderer, has been ranked oy enthusiastic Dickensians with lago. But is Jonas real, as lago is real? Is barker, betrayer of his master, and J*reer, betrayer of his master's wife, a «*mgman? The reflective Dickensian & ™ it > grudgingly, that neither is -Magnificently drawn, but figures melodrama after all—-melodrama in .hands of supreme genius. Most Real and Host HatefuL No! the greatest villain in the pages « Dickens is Mr. Tulkinghorn. Sidney wk, m that irritating little book UJarles Dickens" is right in this decision, laJkinghorn, he says, is the most real and most hateful villain in Dickens, of those inhuman monsters that +I r V\? t times into the world to prove «®at the devil exists. :. Tulkinghorn, lawyer of the old ■™®01, inscrutable, bloodless, dressed in "wty black, is unforgettable. He tortores Lady Dedlock, not fcr mere greed or power, not merely to humble her, but ***** sadistic love of cruelty. Mr. n^ng horn iB the greatest villain of English fiction. Thackeray's Barnes Aewcombe, or his Barry Lyndon, does ®ot compare with him. Emily Bronte, . sad she lived to write more than the masterpiece "Wuthering Heights," might . ve drawn a greater villain. HeathclifF was dread a being. But HeathclifF is the victim of mad passion, a figure of •error and torment, not a villain. The Master of Ballantrae, for cynical villainy, approaches Tulkinehorn, but his torture of his brother has at least purpose—desire for his brother's wife, desire for his estate. A villain—yet not always * villain for cold delight in villainy. after all, a charming villain. Stevenson's are conveys to the reader . all the fascination of thin master in the arts and graces. But a more delightful villain —the most delightful villain of English fiction John Silver of "Treasure Island." The reader hates the blind man Pew, just as he hates Stagg, the blind man of Barnaby Rudge," on whom Stevensoft modelled his dreadful scoundrel. But no reader really hates Long John Silver. He yields to the pirate's fascination, just las Jim Hawkins yields. He does not hate Long John even at his worst—when he is directing the plot aboard the "Hisriiola" for mutiny and murder, or when is spilling a little blood on the island. I*>ng John could never be allowed to swing at Execution Dock. With Stevenson's liking for him, which the reads' jharcg. Long John just has-to escape.