NOVELS AND NOVEL-READING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume V, Issue 1434, 22 June 1868, Page 5

NOVELS AND NOVEL-READING.

By Peteb Bayne, A.M. hr ,:.p--,-Tf the noTel, metaphorically speakirigV'-iS' in. many cases the habitation of poisonous an<V malignant creatures; if there is a fictitious litera-, turc which is comparable to nothing better than a foul marsh, overgrown by the noxious weeds of guilty passion and sensual basenesss - r if the airs breathing from this discial region are not the bracing currents of the mountain side, stirring the mind with noble emotion, and nerving with new strength the arm of energy, but the deadly blast of fen-born malaria, intoxicating, paralysing, maddening; then assuredly any one who has awakened in this universe, -who believes that he can never fall finally asleep in it, and who, therefore, is earnestly bent upon making the most of his time, will put away the novel with abhorrent scorn. These are strong terms, but let any candid man of well-constituted mind, who has looked into our sensational fiction in all its grades, from those pages much conned in drawing rooms, in which female miscreants, skilled in every art of intrigue, revelling in murder and sporting with suicide, play the part of heroine, to those scarcely less extravagant columns in which foolish schoolboys are regaled with the exploits of midnight riders on Hounslow-heath, say whether they are too strong. The constant perusal of such writings can, in my opinion, have none other than a ruinous effect upon the mind. It must heat the imagination, inflame the passious, and fill the intellect with totally false conceptions of life ; relax the sinews of industry, aud wholly incapacitate the victim for performing the real work required of men and women. Let us boldly proclaim that no kind or variety of human composition is permitted to sever itself from truth. That which is true, be its form and enr elope what it may, forms part of the deathless melody of which poets have sung lis the music of the spheres, and which is nothing else than the ordered chiming of the laws in which Providence expresses its will—the rhythmic pealing, I shall reverently say, of the bells in God's cathedral, the universe. This will endure. Falsehood, on tire other hand, be its form what it may, is born a Cain; and, though the whole human family should rejoice at its appearance, it will in due time be branded and doomed. Form, in either case, is a matter of minor importance.

Tlie question, whether there is a legitimate, field, a distinctive work, a recognisable and honourable place, for fictitious writing, will resolve itself into this other.—whether there is any kind of truth that can be conveyed under the form of fiction more conveniently and effectively than otherwise. jS'o abuse can justify negation of use. If there are important lessons which cau be inculcated, important facts which can he recorded, important duti which can be defined and enforced, by aid of tl e fictitious form of composition better than by means of any other, than may we be eonfidcat that the j literature of fiction ought nol to be included in a sweeping condemnation. And this, I believe, i admits of proof. j The distinctive service performed by a fictitious literature, conducted upon just principles, will appear if we compare it with history on the one hanj. and biography on the other. History.if history has a field which cau be called specially its own —if Muse t Ho does not wear a motley crown, in which th? garlands of ail her sisters are interwoven—discourses of the actions of men in the mass. As the stately structure of national, power and glory arises, she watches the laying of the foundations, the placing of the pillars, the completion of the edifice, the noontide of its beauty and strength, the approaches of its decay, its crumbling down into ruin : and she chronicles them all. The march of armies, the emergence of dyna&ties, the rolling and surging hither and races upon the surface of the globe—these aWme things which interest her. Churches, senates, courts, tribunals, attract her gaze. Always she concerns herself with men acting in the mass: with the transformations, conflicts, achievements, characteristics, of the body politic ; with laws, religions, institutions. Such is the distinctive province of history. Biography, too, has a sphere of her own. The biographer deals, indeed, with men, but with men who have risen from the crowd, and who for that very reason cannot be taken to illustrate life in its prevailing aspects. Biography follows the steps of him at whose tread the earth has shaken, whom nations have followed and obeyed, who has been the load star of an epoch, who, either in the world of action, or of thought, has towered above his fellow men. And thus biography also has reference indirectly, to social and corporate action. Neither history nor biography, therefore, bring us face to face with persons like ourselves, or admit us into the scenes of domestic life.

It is in domestic life, in the life of the common, the generic man, in the experience of the individual and the family, that fictitious literature finds its distinctive and rightful province. The minute ripplings on the sides and in the furrows of those vast waves of which the historian and biographer give us the grander outlines, it is the part of the writer of fiction to delineate. And does not the nature of his materials itself impose upon his work the form of fiction ? It is a rule which may he pronounced of universal validitv that the value of a work of fiction will depend upon two things—the accuracy of the facts recorded, and the soundness and importance of the lesson taught. Did we take the first half of this rule without the second, we should leave a door open through which a whole host of sensation novelists, who think it enough to be true in their delineations, though their subjects arc of the kind upon which the human mind ought not to dwell, and hesitate not to paint up any horror or atrocity if only they are true to the details of the " Newgate Calendar," might enter. Did we give the second without the first, we should countenance the notion.than which nothing can be more absurd, that an excellent work of fiction may be produced by stringing together a multitude of moral discourses on a thread of commonplace and uninteresting incidents. Will not this rule, however, exclude what is called the historical novel ? History is a solemn thing. It is the record of the ways of God with men. It is the chronicle of Providence. To know it as it is and has been, is man's first duty regarding it, not to cast it into some imaginary shape. Must it not be admitted that, once we have read an historical novel by some great master of fiction, our minds retain indelibly that impression of the characters pourtrayed, and of the occurrences narrated, which it has been his pleasure to convey to us ? Among the finest historical romances ever produced are " Ivanhoe," and " Quentin Dufward ;" yet who that has any acquaintance with the facts of the life of Cceur I)c Lion, or with the real sequence of events in the period selected for description in " Quentin Durward," can fail to perceive that they are a mere burlesque of history? And is not history too serious a thing to be b irlesqued ? On the other hand, it must he admitted that art of every kind, more or less, modifies literal fact, and that the historical novel is not a less admissible form of art than the historical drama. * We need not, however, go further than Scott in order to establish the general position that truth of a kind too fine and exquisite for the broad touch of history can be told in the novel. All the histories of Scotland ever written, including that by Sir Walter -Scott, would be ransacked in vain with a view to attaining so correct, so profound, and so vivid an idea of what Scotland and Scotsmen are as is to be derived from the Waverly series of novels You may read history after history of Scotland, be familiar with the facts related of Bruce and Wallace, have an idea who were the Lords of the Articles, under-

stand the duties assigned to the Moderator [of the General Assembly, and yet have but a surface-knowledge of Scotland after all. But if you have made the acquaintance of the Scotchmen, whom Scott has pourtrayed—if you have chatted with Pleydell, ridden on the moors with Dandie Dinmont, looked well at Meg Merrilees and Edie Ochiltree, pressed the heather on the shoulders of Ben Lomond step for step with Bob Roy, lost your temper with Andrew Fairservice, argued a point in controversial divinity with Davie Deans, laughed at Oldbuck and the Caledoniad, listened to the snatches of old ballads sung by Elspeth Mucklebackit, seen the coffin of Steenie carried from the cottage door, watched the Cameronians forming front against Claverhouse at Drumclog, and studied the characters of Balfour of Burleigh, Mucklewrath, and Cuddie Headdrigg— then you know what kind of a man a Scotchman is, and you can understand how " the little kingdom" has played so remarkable a part in history. I knownothingin uninspired literature J .tter deserving the epithet of true than Scott's - elineation of his countrymen and of his country. As a novelist, Miss Bronte presents a marked contrast both to Sir Walter Scott, whom she herself pronounced supreme and unapproachable among novelists, and to Miss Austen, whose works her able and genial critic, Mr. Lewes, pressed upon her notice. she was a woman of splendid and original genius, no intelligent person can read a chapter of any of her books without discovering, that her pages abound with just and vigorous maxims, and exhibit an unfailing sympathy with all that is manly, truthful, brave, and constant in human life, cannnot be disputed. Equally true is it that she possessed a marvellous capacity of delineating the aspects of nature, the sublime, the picturesque, the beautiful appearances of the visible world. The bleak Yorkshire moors of her childhood had endless fascination for her heart, whether the blooming heather robed them in autumnal purple, or the moanirg gale made sad music over them in the winter night. Her pictures of the moonlit sky in high wind—not given with formal elaboration, but in glimpses of racing cloud and keensparkling stars —live for ever in the memory. And she had a power quite her own, an imaginative power very rare and very exquisite, by which she connected certain aspects of nature with shapings of the human fantasy, end enabled her readers to realise the origin of picturesque legends, in which strange, ghost-like figures play a part, among simple populations living in the depths of forests, or on lone seashores. Here is a ketch of the seaside, which will illustrate my meaning — " There tumbles in a stroug tide, boiling at the base of dizzy cliffs ; it rains and blows. A reef of rocks, black and rough, stretches far into the sea ; all along, and among, and above these crags, dash and flash, sweep and leap, swells, wreaths, drifts of snowy spray. Some lone wanderer is out ou these rocks, treading, with cautious step, the wet, wild seaweed ; glancing down into hollows where the brine lies fathom-deep aud emerald-clear, and seeing there wilder, and stranger, and huger vegetation than is found on 1-md, with treasure of shells—some green, some purple, some per -— Mistered in the curls of the snnky plants. .i_e hears a cry. Looking up and forward, he sees, at the bleak point of the reef, a mil, pale thing—shaped like a man, but made of spray—transparent, tremulous, awful; it stand:, not alone ; they are all human figures thri, wanton in the rocks—a crowd of foam-women —a band of white, evanescent Nereides." How often may an imaginative Greek, walking by the storm-tossed JEgean, when the sheetd 1 sprav glimmercd white through the mist, have shuddered as lie seemed to behold the phantomwomen at their eerie dance, and hurried home to tell his friends that his eyes had seen the daughters of JN T ereus ! It is one of the subtlest capacities of genius to recall the impressions of other times, and to enable us to realise, by imaginative sympathy, the feelings and beliefs of the past. But, with all her noble qualities, it cannot be affirmed that Miss Bronte was an altogether sound and healthful writer. A sultry atmosphere—a heated, feverish, electric air -broods over her works. " Jane Kyre," the most powerful of the whole, is also the most objectionable. It would be too much to say that the immorality of Rochester is entirely condoned by the author. He is to some extent punished. But he is the hero of the book ; and all the powers of Miss Bronte are put under contribution to lend him | fascination. There is no correct or sufficient '. exhibition made of the essential moral worth - lessness of a 'man who, meeting with a supreme disappointment in life, does not find relief in manly exertion, in self-control, in any worthy ambition, but takes refuge in sensualism, and ends in false and feeble surrender to the impulse of an unlawful affection. There is, perhaps, no emotion more enervating for the mind, more calculated to soften the intellectual and moral fibre of the soul, than that sentimentality which whines and moans over cunningly disguised vice instead of keenly detecting and vigorously detesting it. "Jane Eyre," therefore I must pronounce, on the whole an unhealthy book.

It was long ago remarked that women have a special capacity for novel-writing; that their lives are lives of observation rather than action ; and that their delicacy of taste and feeling preserve them from those exaggerations in which men are prone to fall. " Their delineaiions," it was said " though perhaps less vigorous than those afforded by the other sex, are distinguished for the most part, by greater fidelity and consistency, a more refined and happy discrimination, and, we must also add a more correct estimate of right and wrong. In works which come from a female pen, we were seldom offended by those moral monstrosities, those fantastic perversions of principle, which are too often to be met with in the fictions which have been written by men. Women are less stilted in their style ; they are more content to describe naturally what they have observed without attempting the introduction of those extraneous ornaments which are sometimes sought at the expense of truth. They are less ambitious, and are, therefore, more just; they are far more exempt from that prevailing literally vice of the present day, exaggeration, and have not taken their stand among the feverish followers of what may be called the intense style of writing—a style much praised by those wbo inquire only if a work is calculated to make a strong impression, and omit entirely the more important question— whether that impression be founded on truth or on delusion." This high eulogium, so well deserved by Miss Austin, can be claimed only in part for Miss Bronte, whose style is one of the most intense in the language; and, with Miss Braddon heading a phalanx of female sensation novelists, it will hardly be maintained • that female writers of fiction eschew exaggeration. That female genius, however, has a peculiar aptitude for fictitious composition I have no doubt, and the circumstance is sufficiently explained by the consideration that domestic life, which is found to be the distinctive province of

<j novelist, is the special sphere of women. At this moment it is generally held that ro living novelist can be placed before George Eliot. To characterise her works even in the most cursory manner would be impossible in the limits to which I am here restricted ; but I may say that they vindicate their title to be ranked as legitimate fiction by the manifest and determined intention displayed in them by their author to speak truth. When we turn from one of the flimsy sensation tales of the day to her books, we can hardly realise Ihe fact that the thought lies more close and compact, and is frequently of a deeper hand, in the reflective passages of her chief novels, than in the essays of Macaulay. The thought may be unsound, but it is never trivial. Too often it is bitter and satirical, hard and unhappy; but it never

lacks earnestness, and it is always the reverse of light writing. Goethe, the great Gorman poet and philosopher, embodied his deepest views of life in his novels, and George Eliot has followed his example ; but she has been more successful than Goethe in making her novels racy and readable. I know not where in the English language to look for a delineation of mental history comparable with " Silas Marner." The figure of Adam Bede, the English working man at hi» best, stands before us—a complete and living portrait—grand in homely strength and simple manliness, not too lofty, not above his class, yet a true hero, ltufus Lyon, the Congregationalist pastor, is one of the most admirable creations known to mo in the whole range of art. Beligion, sincere and intense, has raised him to a serene elevation far above the atmosphere of worldliness, and one supreme human affection has refined all his tones or feeling, and given him the tenderness and sensibility of a perfect gentleman. His figure presents itself to the eye of the imagination as that of an antique Christian hero, painted in imperishable colours on the azure of immortality, ltufus Lyon is a far higher type of man than his son-in-law" Felix Holt, the hero of the novel in which both appear. Felix, in fact, is one of George Eliot's failures. He is a kind of||"idealised Chartist much given to talk, a burglar in action; Adam Bede, the silent working man, is no end of a hero in comparison of him. On the morality of George Eliot's novels a long essay might be written. It has been strongly maintained that she has too daringly followed the French school in describing what were better left undescribed. No one, I think, has averred that though she may be daring in arranging her groups, she has been false to nature in depicting them. A graver accusation it is that, whatever she describes, she is the artist always, more than the artist neTer ; and that, whether it is in a Dinah Moi-ris, or a Kufus Lyon that she deliucates the religious character, she contemplates that character for none but artistic purposes. George M'Donald has a whole gallery of religious portraits in his novels. Some of them are Scotch, some English, and I should find it difficult to assign the palm to the one or the other. Thomas Craig, the Scotch stonemason, is a Calvinist of the old type —rugged, antique, thoroughly noble, seldom thinking whether the Almighty lias chosen this man or that, but resolute always to do his duty, submissive with his whole being to his God, fearful of the Divine Majesty, and tearing absolutely nothing else. Thomas may have seen only the back parts of the Almighty from a cleft of Sinai, but he is raised infinitely above those who kneel to the golden calf on the plain. David Elginbrod, also a Scotchman, is a different man altogether. The terror that is in the Most High presents itself to him as a manifestation of love. It may be in the spring sunshine, it may be in the consuming, purifying, sanctifying fire ; in the one and in the other it is ever love. This type of the religious character is also discoverable in Scotland, and M'Donald shows that his knowledge of Scotland is profound by finding it. But his portraits of men of true religior in England are, I think, as veracious and happy as those whose originals belong to Scotland. Old Bogors. the man-o'-war's-man—" why, there's scarce a wave on the Atlantic but knows Old Bogcrs" —is as racy a bit of life as ever was brouziM by the sea winds. "It 'ud be a shame of a man like me," says Old Rogers to his pastor after hearing him preach on trust in God, " not to know all as you said this niornin', sir,— leastaways, I don't mean able to say it right off as you do, sir—but not to know it after the Almighty had been at such pains to beat it into my hard head, just to trust in Him and fear nothing and nobody—captaiu, ho'sun, devil, sunk rock, or breakers ahead; but just to mind Him, and stand by halliard, brace, or wheel, or hang by the leeward earring for that matter. For, you see, what does it signify whether I go to the bottom or not, so long as I don't skulk r or rather"—and here the old man took off his hat and looked up— " so long as the Great Captain has His way and things is done to His mind." To advise people, young or old, not to read novels, would be to advise tliem to hare no acquaintance with a department of literature in which more of life is represented than in any other, and in which, therefore, much practical instruction was communicated. But it is my earnest counsel to all that, whether in the form of fiction or in any other form, they should seek the real and the true, and shun every kind of excitement,pleaeant as it may beat the moment I which depends upon falsehood and delusion ; and that, be the name of a book what it may, they should instantly fling it aside if they find that it does not foster within them reverent and earnest affection tor " whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report."