My Contemporaries In Fiction

by David Christie Murray

  XIII.--THE YOUNG ROMANCERS

  In the combined spelling and reading book which was in use in schoolsmore than forty years ago there was printed a story to the followingeffect:--Certain Arabs had lost a camel, and in the course of theirwanderings in search of him they met a dervish, whom they questioned.The dervish answered by offering questions on his own side. 'Was yourcamel lame in one foot?' he began. 'Yes,' said the owners. 'Was he blindin one eye?' he continued. 'Yes,' said the owners again. 'Had he lost afront tooth?' 'Yes,' 'Was he laden with corn on one side and with honeyon the other?' 'Yes, yes, yes. This is our camel. Where have you seenhim?' The dervish answered: 'I have never seen him.' The Arabs, notwithout apparent reason, suspected the dervish of playing with them,and were about to chastise him, when the holy man asked for a hearing.Having secured it, he explained. He had seen the track of the camel.He had known the animal to be lame of one foot because that foot lefta slighter impression than the others upon the dust of the road. He hadargued it blind of one eye because it had cropped the herbage on oneside of the road alone. He knew it to have lost a tooth because of thegap left in the centre of its bite. Bees and flies argued honey on oneside of the beast, and ants carrying wheat grains argued wheat on theother. The name of this observant and synthetic-minded dervish was notSherlock Holmes, but he had the method of that famous detective, and ina sense anticipated the plots of all the stories which Dr. Conan Doylehas so effectively related of him. Possibly the best stories in theworld which depend for their interest on this kind of induction areEdgar Allan Poe's. 'The Gold Bug,' 'The Murder in the Rue Morgue,' and'The Stolen Letter' have not been surpassed or even equalled by anylater writer; but Dr. Doyle comes in an excellent second, and if he hasnot actually rivalled Poe in the construction and development of anysingle story, he has run him close even there, and has beaten him in thesustained ingenuity of continuous invention; The story of 'The SpeckledBand' has a flavour almost as gruesome and terrible as Poe's 'BlackCat,' and an unusual faculty for dramatic narrative is displayedthroughout the whole clever series. The Sherlock Holmes stories arefar, indeed, from being Dr. Doyle's best work, but it is to them thathe mainly owes his popularity. They took the imaginative side of thegeneral reader, and their popular properties are likely to keep thembefore the public mind for a long while to come. To estimate Dr. Doyle'sposition as a writer one has to meet him in 'The Refugees,' in 'TheWhite Company,' and in 'Rodney Stone.' In each of these there is evidenta sound and painstaking method of research, as well as a power ofdramatic invention; and in combination with these is a style ofunaffected manliness, simplicity, and strength, which is at oncesatisfactory to the student and attractive to the mass of people who arecontent to be pleased by such qualities without knowing or asking why.The labour bestowed on 'The White Company' may very well be comparedto that expended by Charles Reade on 'The Cloister and the H earth.' Itcovers a far less extent of ground than that monumental romance, andit has not (and does not aim at) its universality of mood, but the samedesire of accuracy, the same order of scholarship, the same industry,the same sense of scrupulous honour in matters of ascertainable fact,are to be noted, and being noted, are worthy of unstinted admiration.It is, perhaps, an open question as to whether Dr. Doyle, in his latestbook, has not run a little ahead of the time at which a story on such atheme could be written with entire safety. 'Rodney Stone' is a storyof the prize-ring, and of the gambling, hard-drinking, and somewhatbrutalised days in which that institution flourished There are many ofus (I have made public confession half a score of times) who regret theabolition of the ring, on grounds of public policy. We argue that manis a fighting animal, and that in the days of the ring there was arecognised code of rules which regulated his conduct at times whenthe combative instinct was not to be restrained. We observe that ourcommonalty now use the knife in quarrel, and we regret the death of thatrough principle of honour which once imposed itself upon the worst ofrowdies. But there is little doubt that the feeling of the community atlarge is overwhelmingly against us, and it is for this reason that Iam dubious as to the success of Dr. Doyle's last literary venture.The makings of romance are in the story, and are well used. There areepisodes of excellent excitement in it; notable amongst these being therace on the Godstone Road, which is done with a swing and passion noteasy to overpraise. In the narrative of the fight and of the incidentswhich preceded it the feeling of the time is admirably preserved, andthe interest of the reader is held at an unyielding tension. But theprize-ring is a little too near as yet to offer unimpeachable matter forromance; and people who can read of the bloodthirsty Umslopogaas andhis semi-comic holocausts with an unshaken stomach, or feel a placidhistoric pleasure in the chronicles of Nero's eccentricities, will find'Rodney Stone' objectionable because it chronicles a 'knuckle fight,'and because a 'knuckle fight' is still occasionally brought off inLondon, and more occasionally suppressed by the police.

  But a more serious criticism awaits Dr. Conan Doyle's last work. It isoffered respectfully, and with every admiration for the high qualitiesalready noticed. In the re-embodiment of a bygone age in fiction, threeseparate and special faculties are to be exercised. The first is thefaculty for research, which must expend its energy not merely on thetheme in hand, but on the age at large. The second is the imaginativeand sympathetic faculty, which alone can make the dry bones of socialhistory live again. The third is the faculty of self-repression,the power to cast away all which, however laboriously acquired, isdramatically unessential. Two of these powers belong in generousmeasure to Dr. Conan Doyle. The third, which is as necessary to completesuccess, he has not yet displayed. In 'Rodney Stone' an attempt has beenmade to cover up this shortcoming, in the form in which the story hasbeen cast, and in the very choice of its title. But when the book comesto be read it is not the tale of Rodney Stone (who is a mere outsiderprivileged to narrate), but of his fashionable uncle's combat with SirLothian Hume, with the ring in which their separate champions appearas a battle ground. Many pages are crowded with people who are named inpassing and forgotten. They have no influence on the narrative, and noplace in it. Their presence assuredly displays a knowledge of the timeand its chronicles, but they are just so many obstacles to the clear runof the story, and no more. This is the chief fault to be found withthe book, but it is a grave fault, and the writer, if he is to take theplace which his powers and his industry alike join in claiming for him,must learn to cast 'as rubbish to the void' many a painfully acquiredbit of knowledge. To be an antiquary is one thing, and to be anantiquarian romancer is another. Dr. Doyle has aimed at being both oneand the other in the same pages. A true analogy may be taken from thestage, where the supernumeraries are not allowed to obscure the leadinglady and gentleman at any moment of action.

  Mr. Stanley Weyman, who is not Dr. Doyle's equal in other matters, isin this sole respect his master. He keeps his hero on the scene, and hisaction in full swing. He gives no indication of a profound or studiousknowledge of his time, but he knows it fairly well. Mr. Doyle's methodis at bottom the truer, when once the detailed labour is hidden, butwhen it bares its own machinery it loses most of its gain. Mr. Weymantells a rattling story in rattling fashion. His is the good old styleof easy-going romance, where courage and adventure never fail. He haschosen the realm of D'Artagnan and Aramis, of Porthos and Athos, and hehas plenty of vivacity, and can invent brilliantly on the lines onwhich the brave Dumas invented long before him. He is a cheerful andinspiriting echo. He cannot wind the mighty horn the elders sounded,but he can imitate it fairly from a distance. It is only when that crassreviewer comes along to tell us that the old original hunter of romanceis back again that his music gives us anything but pleasure. For my ownpart, I hope he may flourish long, and give us stories as good as 'AGentleman of France' as often as he can. My 'Bravo!' shall be asready as any man's and as hearty. Why--to change the simile used justnow--when a man is resting his legs in a comfortable _auberge_, anddrinking the honest light wine of the country (which doesn't pretend tobe better than it is), should the a
sinine enthusiast come to spoilhis enjoyment by swearing that he sits in the enchanted palace of SirWalter, and has before him the mighty wine Sir Walter bottled? Theenthusiast provokes to wrath. It's a very good _duberge_--it's acapital, comfortable house of call, and we should like to sit thereoften. And the wine--we found no fault with the wine. It's an honesttap, and a wholesome and a palatable, and here's the landlord's healthin it. But the magic vintage? Rubbish!

  Mr. Anthony Hope has been so lucky as to please the public in twostyles. In the one _genre_ he has displayed an undoubted capacity,marred here and there to some tastes by a not very defined seemingof superciliousness, and in the other he has taken us into the mostagreeable regions of unrestrained romance in which English readers havehad leave to wander this many a day. He has caught the very tone ofsimple-hearted sincerity in which his later stories demand to be told.As an example of the adaptation of literary method to the exigenciesof narrative it would not be easy to light on anything better. It is alittle surprising that the trivial story and the trivial style of'Mr. De Witt's Widow' should have come from the hand which gave us thehistories of the Princess Osra, and created the Kingdom of Ruritania.The one kind of work is clever, and smart, and knowingly--ratherpretentiously--man-of-the-worldish. The other is large and simple, sweetand credulous. Mr. Hope, from his latest pages, has breathed on a tiredand jaded time the breath of a pure and harmless fancy, and has earnedits thanks for that benefaction.

  It has been seen that the art of fiction as practised at this hourincludes almost all known forms of romance, and that no school may besaid to have its own way to the exclusion of another. It has been seen,too, that though this is not a day of pre-eminent greatness, we canboast an astonishing industry and fertility. The output of literary workhas never been so large, nor has the average of excellence ever been soequal or so high. It has been demonstrated--it is being demonstrated innew instances two or three times a year--that literary talent is not atall the uncommon and half-miraculous thing it was once supposed to be.

  Genius is as rare as ever, and is likely to continue so, but talentmultiplies its appearances in full accordance with economic rules. Noage ever submitted so constantly as ours to be amused or soothed by theromancer's art. The permission has opened the door to a great numberof capable, industrious, and workmanlike men and women, who have learnttheir business of amusement well. To the vast majority of us literatureis as much a trade as any of the accepted businesses of Holborn orCheapside, and, apart from a lingering sentimentalism, there is noreason why the fact should not be owned. There is no shame in honestcraftwork done for hire, and when the work is so excellent as at leasta score of living English writers can make it, we have a right to takeSome pride in it But with this day's newspaper before me I learn thatMr. ------, who is the thin mimic of a fine imitator, has surpassed hislast 'masterpiece,' and that a lady of name to me unknown has 'rivalled'his masterpiece, and that a gentleman to me unknown has produced a bookwhich must necessarily be a 'classic.' A masterpiece is a rare thing,and words have a definite meaning. We call 'Vanity Fair' and 'Esmond'masterpieces, when we desire to be enthusiastic. We call 'DavidCopperfield' a masterpiece, and we find plenty of people to dispute thejudgment. A masterpiece is the master work of a master hand. It mustneeds be a rare thing. It is not for the dignity of our work that itshould be greeted by that sort of hysteric hiccoughing against whichthese pages have protested. It is a shameless insult to letters at largewhen the hysteria is bought and paid for, as does sometimes happen, andnot less insulting when the gentleman who grinds the axe is fee'd inkind by the other gentleman who rolls the log.

  And now, what is done is done, and I leave my task with some misgiving.If here and there I have given pain, I have not written a word inmalice. The pleasantest part of my work has lain in the fact that withevery desire to be honest I have so often been compelled to praise.

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