OUGHT STORIES TO BE TRUE?
THERE was once upon a time a charming young lady, possessed of muchtaste, who was asked by her anxious parent, the years passing and familyexpenditure not decreasing, which of the numerous and eligible young menthen paying court to her she liked the best. She replied, that was herdifficulty; she could not make up her mind which she liked the best.They were all so nice. She could not possibly select one to theexclusion of all the others. What she would have liked would have beento marry the lot; but that, she presumed, was impracticable.
I feel I resemble that young lady, not so much in charm and beauty as inindecision of mind, when the question is that of my favourite author ormy favourite book. It is as if one were asked one’s favourite food.There are times when one fancies an egg with one’s tea. On otheroccasions one dreams of a kipper. To-day one clamours for lobsters.To-morrow one feels one never wishes to see a lobster again. Onedetermines to settle down, for a time, to a diet of bread and milk andrice pudding. Asked suddenly to say whether I preferred ices to soup, orbeef-steak to caviare, I should be completely nonplussed.
There may be readers who care for only one literary diet. I am a personof gross appetites, requiring many authors to satisfy me. There aremoods when the savage strength of the Bronte sisters is companionable tome. One rejoices in the unrelieved gloom of “Wuthering Heights,” as inthe lowering skies of a stormy autumn. Perhaps part of the marvel of thebook comes from the knowledge that the authoress was a slight, delicateyoung girl. One wonders what her future work would have been, had shelived to gain a wider experience of life; or was it well for her famethat nature took the pen so soon from her hand? Her suppressed vehemencemay have been better suited to those tangled Yorkshire byways than to themore open, cultivated fields of life.
There is not much similarity between the two books, yet when recallingEmily Bronte my thoughts always run on to Olive Schreiner. Here, again,was a young girl with the voice of a strong man. Olive Schreiner, morefortunate, has lived; but I doubt if she will ever write a book that willremind us of her first. “The Story of an African Farm” is not a work tobe repeated. We have advanced in literature of late. I can wellremember the storm of indignation with which the “African Farm” wasreceived by Mrs. Grundy and her then numerous, but now happilydiminishing, school. It was a book that was to be kept from the hands ofevery young man and woman. But the hands of the young men and womenstretched out and grasped it, to their help. It is a curious idea, thisof Mrs. Grundy’s, that the young man and woman must never think—that allliterature that does anything more than echo the conventions must behidden away.
Then there are times when I love to gallop through history on SirWalter’s broomstick. At other hours it is pleasant to sit in conversewith wise George Eliot. From her garden terrace I look down on Loamshireand its commonplace people; while in her quiet, deep voice she tells meof the hidden hearts that beat and throb beneath these velveteen jacketsand lace falls.
Who can help loving Thackeray, wittiest, gentlest of men, in spite of thefaint suspicion of snobbishness that clings to him? There is somethingpathetic in the good man’s horror of this snobbishness, to which hehimself was a victim. May it not have been an affectation, bornunconsciously of self-consciousness? His heroes and heroines must needsbe all fine folk, fit company for lady and gentlemen readers. To him thelivery was too often the man. Under his stuffed calves even _Jeames dela Pluche_ himself stood upon the legs of a man, but Thackeray couldnever see deeper than the silk stockings. Thackeray lived and died inClubland. One feels that the world was bounded for him by Temple Bar onthe east and Park Lane on the west; but what there was good in Clublandhe showed us, and for the sake of the great gentlemen and sweet ladiesthat his kindly eyes found in that narrow region, not too overpeopledwith great gentlemen and sweet women, let us honour him.
“Tom Jones,” “Peregrine Pickle,” and “Tristram Shandy” are books a man isthe better for reading, if he read them wisely. They teach him thatliterature, to be a living force, must deal with all sides of life, andthat little help comes to us from that silly pretence of ours that we areperfect in all things, leading perfect lives, that only the villain ofthe story ever deviates from the path of rectitude.
This is a point that needs to be considered by both the makers and thebuyers of stories. If literature is to be regarded solely as theamusement of an idle hour, then the less relationship it has to life thebetter. Looking into a truthful mirror of nature we are compelled tothink; and when thought comes in at the window self-satisfaction goes outby the door. Should a novel or play call us to ponder upon the problemsof existence, or lure us from the dusty high road of the world, for awhile, into the pleasant meadows of dreamland? If only the latter, thenlet our heroes and our heroines be not what men and women are, but whatthey should be. Let Angelina be always spotless and Edwin always true.Let virtue ever triumph over villainy in the last chapter; and let usassume that the marriage service answers all the questions of the Sphinx.
Very pleasant are these fairy tales where the prince is always brave andhandsome; where the princess is always the best and most beautifulprincess that ever lived; where one knows the wicked people at a glanceby their ugliness and ill-temper, mistakes being thus renderedimpossible; where the good fairies are, by nature, more powerful than thebad; where gloomy paths lead ever to fair palaces; where the dragon isever vanquished; and where well-behaved husbands and wives can rely uponliving happily ever afterwards. “The world is too much with us, late andsoon.” It is wise to slip away from it at times to fairyland. But,alas, we cannot live in fairyland, and knowledge of its geography is oflittle help to us on our return to the rugged country of reality.
Are not both branches of literature needful? By all means let us dream,on midsummer nights, of fond lovers led through devious paths tohappiness by Puck; of virtuous dukes—one finds such in fairyland; of fatesubdued by faith and gentleness. But may we not also, in our moreserious humours, find satisfaction in thinking with Hamlet or Coriolanus?May not both Dickens and Zola have their booths in Vanity Fair? Ifliterature is to be a help to us, as well as a pastime, it must deal withthe ugly as well as with the beautiful; it must show us ourselves, not aswe wish to appear, but as we know ourselves to be. Man has beendescribed as a animal with aspirations reaching up to Heaven andinstincts rooted—elsewhere. Is literature to flatter him, or reveal himto himself?
Of living writers it is not safe, I suppose, to speak except, perhaps, ofthose who have been with us so long that we have come to forget they arenot of the past. Has justice ever been done to Ouida’s undoubted geniusby our shallow school of criticism, always very clever in discoveringfaults as obvious as pimples on a fine face? Her guardsmen “toy” withtheir food. Her horses win the Derby three years running. Her wickedwomen throw guinea peaches from the windows of the Star and Garter intothe Thames at Richmond. The distance being about three hundred and fiftyyards, it is a good throw. Well, well, books are not made worth readingby the absence of absurdities. Ouida possesses strength, tenderness,truth, passion; and these be qualities in a writer capable of carryingmany more faults than Ouida is burdened with. But that is the method ofour little criticism. It views an artist as Gulliver saw the Brobdingnagladies. It is too small to see them in their entirety: a mole or a wartabsorbs all its vision.
Why was not George Gissing more widely read? If faithfulness to lifewere the key to literary success, Gissing’s sales would have been countedby the million instead of by the hundred.
Have Mark Twain’s literary qualities, apart altogether from his humour,been recognised in literary circles as they ought to have been? “HuckFinn” would be a great work were there not a laugh in it from cover tocover. Among the Indians and some other savage tribes the fact that amember of the community has lost one of his senses makes greatly to hisadvantage; he is then regarded as a superior person. So among a schoolof Anglo-Saxon readers, it is necessary to a man, if he would gainliter
ary credit, that he should lack the sense of humour. One or twocurious modern examples occur to me of literary success secured chieflyby this failing.
All these authors are my favourites; but such catholic taste is heldnowadays to be no taste. One is told that if one loves Shakespeare, onemust of necessity hate Ibsen; that one cannot appreciate Wagner andtolerate Beethoven; that if we admit any merit in Dore, we are incapableof understanding Whistler. How can I say which is my favourite novel? Ican only ask myself which lives clearest in my memory, which is the bookI run to more often than to another in that pleasant half hour before thedinner-bell, when, with all apologies to good Mr. Smiles, it is uselessto think of work.
I find, on examination, that my “David Copperfield” is more dilapidatedthan any other novel upon my shelves. As I turn its dog-eared pages,reading the familiar headlines “Mr. Micawber in difficulties,” “Mr.Micawber in prison,” “I fall in love with Dora,” “Mr. Barkis goes outwith the tide,” “My child wife,” “Traddles in a nest of roses”—pages ofmy own life recur to me; so many of my sorrows, so many of my joys arewoven in my mind with this chapter or the other. That day—how well Iremember it when I read of “David’s” wooing, but Dora’s death I wascareful to skip. Poor, pretty little Mrs. Copperfield at the gate,holding up her baby in her arms, is always associated in my memory with achild’s cry, long listened for. I found the book, face downwards on achair, weeks afterwards, not moved from where I had hastily laid it.
Old friends, all of you, how many times have I not slipped away from myworries into your pleasant company! Peggotty, you dear soul, the sightof your kind eyes is so good to me. Our mutual friend, Mr. CharlesDickens, is prone, we know, just ever so slightly to gush. Good fellowthat he is, he can see no flaw in those he loves, but you, dear lady, ifyou will permit me to call you by a name much abused, he has drawn intrue colours. I know you well, with your big heart, your quick temper,your homely, human ways of thought. You yourself will never guess yourworth—how much the world is better for such as you! You think ofyourself as of a commonplace person, useful only for the making ofpastry, the darning of stockings, and if a man—not a young man, with onlydim half-opened eyes, but a man whom life had made keen to see the beautythat lies hidden beneath plain faces—were to kneel and kiss your red,coarse hand, you would be much astonished. But he would be a wise man,Peggotty, knowing what things a man should take carelessly, and for whatthings he should thank God, who has fashioned fairness in many forms.
Mr. Wilkins Micawber, and you, most excellent of faithful wives, Mrs.Emma Micawber, to you I also raise my hat. How often has the example ofyour philosophy saved me, when I, likewise, have suffered under thetemporary pressure of pecuniary liabilities; when the sun of myprosperity, too, has sunk beneath the dark horizon of the world—in short,when I, also, have found myself in a tight corner. I have asked myselfwhat would the Micawbers have done in my place. And I have answeredmyself. They would have sat down to a dish of lamb’s fry, cooked andbreaded by the deft hands of Emma, followed by a brew of punch, concoctedby the beaming Wilkins, and have forgotten all their troubles, for thetime being. Whereupon, seeing first that sufficient small change was inmy pocket, I have entered the nearest restaurant, and have treated myselfto a repast of such sumptuousness as the aforesaid small change wouldcommand, emerging from that restaurant stronger and more fit for battle.And lo! the sun of my prosperity has peeped at me from over the cloudswith a sly wink, as if to say “Cheer up; I am only round the corner.”
Cheery, elastic Mr. and Mrs. Micawber, how would half the world facetheir fate but by the help of a kindly, shallow nature such as yours? Ilove to think that your sorrows can be drowned in nothing more harmfulthan a bowl of punch. Here’s to you, Emma, and to you, Wilkins, and tothe twins!
May you and such childlike folk trip lightly over the stones upon yourpath! May something ever turn up for you, my dears! May the rain oflife ever fall as April showers upon your simple bald head, Micawber!
And you, sweet Dora, let me confess I love you, though sensible friendsdeem you foolish. Ah, silly Dora, fashioned by wise Mother Nature whoknows that weakness and helplessness are as a talisman calling forthstrength and tenderness in man, trouble yourself not unduly about theoysters and the underdone mutton, little woman. Good plain cooks attwenty pounds a year will see to these things for us. Your work is toteach us gentleness and kindness. Lay your foolish curls just here,child. It is from such as you we learn wisdom. Foolish wise folk sneerat you. Foolish wise folk would pull up the laughing lilies, theneedless roses from the garden, would plant in their places only useful,wholesome cabbage. But the gardener, knowing better, plants the silly,short-lived flowers, foolish wise folk asking for what purpose.
Gallant Traddles, of the strong heart and the unruly hair; Sophy, dearestof girls; Betsy Trotwood, with your gentlemanly manners and your woman’sheart, you have come to me in shabby rooms, making the dismal place seembright. In dark hours your kindly faces have looked out at me from theshadows, your kindly voices have cheered me.
Little Em’ly and Agnes, it may be my bad taste, but I cannot share myfriend Dickens’ enthusiasm for them. Dickens’ good women are all toogood for human nature’s daily food. Esther Summerson, Florence Dombey,Little Nell—you have no faults to love you by.
Scott’s women were likewise mere illuminated texts. Scott only drew onelive heroine—Catherine Seton. His other women were merely the prizes thehero had to win in the end, like the sucking pig or the leg of mutton forwhich the yokel climbs the greasy pole. That Dickens could draw a womanto some likeness he proved by Bella Wilfer, and Estella in “GreatExpectations.” But real women have never been popular in fiction. Menreaders prefer the false, and women readers object to the truth.
From an artistic point of view, “David Copperfield” is undoubtedlyDickens’ best work. Its humour is less boisterous; its pathos lesshighly coloured.
One of Leech’s pictures represents a cab-man calmly sleeping in thegutter.
“Oh, poor dear, he’s ill,” says a tender-hearted lady in the crowd.“Ill!” retorts a male bystander indignantly, “Ill! ’E’s ’ad too much ofwhat I ain’t ’ad enough of.”
Dickens suffered from too little of what some of us have too muchof—criticism. His work met with too little resistance to call forth hispowers. Too often his pathos sinks to bathos, and this not from want ofskill, but from want of care. It is difficult to believe that thepopular writer who allowed his sentimentality—or rather the public’ssentimentality—to run away with him in such scenes as the death of PaulDombey and Little Nell was the artist who painted the death of SidneyCarton and of Barkis, the willing. The death of Barkis, next to thepassing of Colonel Newcome, is, to my thinking, one of the most perfectpieces of pathos in English literature. No very deep emotion isconcerned. He is a commonplace old man, clinging foolishly to acommonplace box. His simple wife and the old boatmen stand by, waitingcalmly for the end. There is no straining after effect. One feels deathenter, dignifying all things; and touched by that hand, foolish oldBarkis grows great.
In Uriah Heap and Mrs. Gummidge, Dickens draws types rather thancharacters. Pecksniff, Podsnap, Dolly Varden, Mr. Bumble, Mrs. Gamp,Mark Tapley, Turveydrop, Mrs. Jellyby—these are not characters; they arehuman characteristics personified.
We have to go back to Shakespeare to find a writer who, through fiction,has so enriched the thought of the people. Admit all Dickens’ faultstwice over, we still have one of the greatest writers of modern times.Such people as these creations of Dickens never lived, says your littlecritic. Nor was Prometheus, type of the spirit of man, nor was Niobe,mother of all mothers, a truthful picture of the citizen one was likelyto meet often during a morning’s stroll through Athens. Nor grew thereever a wood like to the Forest of Arden, though every Rosalind andOrlando knows the path to glades having much resemblance thereto.
Steerforth, upon whom Dickens evidently prided himself, I must confess,never laid hold of me
. He is a melodramatic young man. The worst Icould have wished him would have been that he should marry Rose Dartleand live with his mother. It would have served him right for being soattractive. Old Peggotty and Ham are, of course, impossible. One mustaccept them also as types. These Brothers Cheeryble, these Kits, JoeGargeries, Boffins, Garlands, John Peerybingles, we will accept as typesof the goodness that is in men—though in real life the amount of virtuethat Dickens often wastes upon a single individual would by moreeconomically minded nature, be made to serve for fifty.
To sum up, “David Copperfield” is a plain tale, simply told; and such areall books that live. Eccentricities of style, artistic trickery, mayplease the critic of a day, but literature is a story that interests us,boys and girls, men and women. It is a sad book; and that, again, givesit an added charm in these sad later days. Humanity is nearing its oldage, and we have come to love sadness, as the friend who has been longestwith us. In the young days of our vigour we were merry. With Ulysses’boatmen, we took alike the sunshine and the thunder with frolic welcome.The red blood flowed in our veins, and we laughed, and our tales were ofstrength and hope. Now we sit like old men, watching faces in the fire;and the stories that we love are sad stories—like the stories weourselves have lived.
Idle Ideas in 1905 Page 9