A NOVELIST ON HIS CULT

Evening Star, Issue 12261, 30 July 1904, Page 7

A NOVELIST ON HIS CULT

Tcfi llcv. 'Joseph necking, brother of the T-:v Silas of that ilk, and himself a novclir:., ;adders that Thomas Hardy held up tiro •mirror to one ride of nature only, 'vdu’n ■?: cargo Meredith’s subtle aphorisms wore be* .Vdcring. No oao admired Browning more •■'■• an the speaker did; ho was a great poet, bo would have boon a greater pool if hj? •■‘••nld have put his thoughts into lauguaga fh d. the people could understand. At the . c ure tune,, he thought Meredith our greatest living novelist, but ha spoke, not to iho ’■Any, hut to the cultured few. “He would have been a greater novelist,” raid Mr Hwking. “if ho had hot only a message for the fow, but could hare so espressod himself' ns lo appeal to the heart or Urn nation.” Mr Hocking admired George Eliot and Charlotte Bronte, but ho did not place them on the name level as, those ho had already named, liy a process of exhaustion, the lecturer came io Thackeray and Dickens. Not being an .'tterviewer for a popular magazine, Mr Hocking did not profess to give any biography or discuss the genealogy of these two popular writers, nor did he say what amount of copy hey each turned out per day, but he declared hat they would survive any test that might bo laid down. That they possessed the power of story-telling no one would deny. Such works as ‘ David Copperfield ’ and ‘ Dorabcy and Sou ’ were unrivalled. Dickens’s character's were more real than the men with whom wo spoke to-day. He was a man with a message to the age, and he spoke not only to men of culture, but ho reached the heart of the people. What is humor? This is a much-debated qustion, Mr Hooking described it as nor atmosphere, and not simply the tolling of a funny story Which did not make you laugh after you had heard it once. Thackeray did a great deal to kill snobbery; Dicker,e laughed away some of the most cruel abuses. Thackeray had been called a cynic. A satirist he was, but a cynic he was not. Of his ‘Vanity Fair,’ iho rev. gentleman spoke in high terms. “ I would give a fivepound note to read it for the first time,” he said, amid applause. Analysing the story of Becky Sharp, ho characterised it as a specimen of real humor, and at the. same time one of the most pathetic pieces of wriliag ever given lo Iho world. ■, Corning to Dickons, Mr Hocking made a. confession. Dickens was a still dearer friend. “ I admire Thackeray,” be Said, “ but I love Dickons. Thackeray was his great compeer in the world of letters, hub ho never touched the hearts of the people like Dickens. The one had the lighter touch ; ho painted with a camel-hair brush where the other used a brush of much different size aril quality. Dickens laughed the poor law abuses of his day out of existence. He saw, too, the condition of some Yorkshire schools! And, he added, there have been some peculiar Yorkshire schools.” The lecturer gave several typical quotations from Dickens'" works and from ‘ Vanity Fair’ to illustrate the beautiful blending of humor and pathos in the writings of the two men whom ho had selected as our two greatest novelists.