The Question Stated

This is the way in which the question is most often stated, but the real question is more intelligently expressed by asking: Has the novel, as a form of literature, become obsolete? or is it likely to be obsolete in the near future? To many people the matter is dismissed with a contemptuous _Pshaw!_; others think it worthy of serious inquiry, and a few with practical minds say they don't care whether it is or not. Seven years ago Mr Frederic Harrison delivered himself of very pessimistic views as to the present position and prospects of the novelist, and not long ago Mr A. J. Balfour a.s.serted that in his opinion the art of fiction had reached its zenith, and was now in its decline. These critics may be prejudiced in their views, but it is worth while considering the remarks of the one who has the greater claim to respect for literary judgment. After exclaiming that we have now no novelist of the first rank, and substantiating this statement to the best of his ability, Mr Harrison goes on to inquire into the causes of this decay.

In the first place, we have too high a standard of taste and criticism.

"A highly organised code of culture may give us good manners, but it is the death of genius." We have lost the true sense of the romantic, and if "Jane Eyre" were produced to-day it "would not rise above a common shocker." Secondly, we are too disturbed in political affairs to allow for the rest that is necessary for literary productiveness. Thirdly, life is not so dramatic as it was--character is being driven inwards, and we have lost the picturesque qualities of earlier days.

I am not at present concerned with the truth or error of these arguments; my object just now is to state the case, and before proceeding to an examination of its merits I wish to take the testimony of another writer and thinker, one who is a philosopher quite as much as the author of "The Foundations of Belief" or the author of "The Meaning of History," and who has a claim upon our attention as an investigator of moving causes.

Mr C. H. Pearson, in his notable book, "National Life and Character,"

has made some confident statements on the subject of the exhaustion of literary products. He is of opinion that "a change in social relations has made the drama impossible by dwarfing the immediate agency of the individual," and that "a change in manners has robbed the drama of a great deal of effect." He goes on to say that "Human nature, various as it is, is only capable after all of a certain number of emotions and acts, and these as the topics of an incessant literature are bound after a time to be exhausted. We may say with absolute certainty that certain subjects are never to be taken again. The tale of Troy, the wanderings of Odysseus, the vision of Heaven and h.e.l.l as Dante saw it, the theme of 'Paradise Lost,' and the story of Faust are familiar instances... .

Effective adaptations of an old subject may still be possible; but it is not writers of the highest capacity who will attempt them, and the reading world, which remembers what has been done before, will never accord more than a secondary recognition to the adaptation" (p. 299).

There is a curious atmosphere of logical conclusiveness about these arguments. They carry with them, apparently, an air of certainty which it is useless to question. We know that the novelist has already exploited Politics, Socialism, History, Theology, Marriage, Education, and a host of other subjects; indeed, a perusal of Dixon's "Index to Fiction" is calculated to provoke the inquiry: "Is there anything left to write about?" We know that everywhere is springing up the "literature of locality," and it would seem as if the resources of this world's experience had been exhausted when writers like Mr H. G. Wells and the late George Du Maurier invade the planet Mars for fresh material. The heavens above, the earth beneath, and the waters under the earth have all been "written up." Is there anything new?

"Change" not "Exhaustion"

There can be no doubt that fiction has undergone great changes during recent years. These changes are the result of deeper changes in our common life. Consider for a moment the position of the drama. What is the significance of the problem play on the one hand, and the cry for a "Static Theatre" on the other hand? It means that life has changed, and is still changing; that the national character is not so emphatically external or spontaneous as in those days when Ben Jonson killed two men, and Marlowe himself was killed in a brawl. We have lost the pa.s.sion, the force, and the brutality of those times, and have become more contemplative and a.n.a.lytical. The simple law is this: that literature and the drama are a reflex of life; hence, when character has a tendency to be driven inwards, as is the case to-day, Maeterlinck pleads on behalf of a drama without action; and Paul Bourget in France and Henry James in England embody the spirit of the age in the fiction of psychological minutiae. Now there may be symptoms of decay in these manifestations of literary impulse, but the impulse is part of that new experience which the facts of an increasingly complex civilisation foist upon us. And, further, _change_ is not necessarily _exhaustion_; in fact, it is more than surprising that anyone can believe all the stories possible have been told already, or have been told in the most interesting way. It is a very ancient cry--this cry about exhaustion.

The old Hebrew writer wailed something about wanting to meet with a man who could show him a new thing. A new thing? "There is no new thing under the Sun." But we have found a few since those days, and the future will give birth to as many more.

Men and women have written about love from time immemorial, but have we finished with the theme? Is it exhausted? Did Homer satisfy our love of recorded adventure once and for all? There is only one answer--namely, that human experience is infinite in its possibilities and its capacity for renewal. If human experience--these vague and subtle emotions, these violently real but inscrutable feelings, these tremulous questionings of existence encompa.s.sed with mystery--if human experience were no more than a hard and dry scientific fact, well, our novelists would have a poor time of it. But life knows no finality; its stream flows on in perennial flood. Human nature is said to be much the same the world over, and yet every personality is absolutely a new thing.

Goethe might attempt a rough cla.s.sification by saying we are either Platonists or Aristotelians, but actually a great many of us are neither one nor the other, and there are infinities of degrees amongst us even then. New character is a necessary outcome of the advancing centuries, and new personalities are being born every day.

No; the world still loves a story, and there are stories which have never been told. It is, perhaps, true, that the story-tellers have not found them yet. Why?

Why we talk about Exhaustion

The answer is: We are becoming too artificial; we are losing spontaneity, and are getting too far away from the soil. Have we not noticed over and over again that the first book of a novelist is his best? Those which followed are called "good," but they sell because the author is the author of the first book which created a sensation.

Speaking of the first work of a young writer, Anthony Trollope says: "He sits down and tells his story because he has a story to tell; as you, my friend, when you have heard something which has at once tickled your fancy or moved your pathos, will hurry to tell it to the first person you meet. But when that first novel has been received graciously by the public, and has made for itself a success, then the writer, naturally feeling that the writing of novels is within his grasp, looks about for something to tell in another. He cudgels his brains, not always successfully, and sits down to write, not because he has something which he burns to tell, but because he feels it to be inc.u.mbent on him to be telling something... . So it has been with many novelists, who, after some good work, perhaps after much good work, have distressed their audience because they have gone on with their work till their work has become simply a trade with them."[146:A] There is often a good reason for such a change. The first book was written in a place near to Nature's heart; the writer was free from the obligations of society as found in city life; he was thrown back on his own resources, and fortunately could not spoil his individual view of things by mult.i.tudinous references to books and authorities. Do we not selfishly wish that Miss Olive Schreiner had never left the veldt, in the loneliness of which she produced "The Story of an African Farm"? Nearer contact with civilisation has failed to induce an impulse the result of which is at all comparable with this genuine story. It may or may not be of significance that Mr Wells, the creator of a distinct type of romance, dislikes what is called "Society," but I fancy that a few of those who lament too frequently that "everything has been said" spend more time in "Society" and clubs than is possible for good work. Mr C.

H. Pearson, in a notable chapter on "Dangers of Political Development,"

says: "The world at large is just as reverent of greatness, as observant of a Browning, a Newman, or a Mill, as it ever was; but the world of Society prefers the small change of available and ephemeral talent to the wealth of great thoughts, which must always be kept more or less in reserve. The result seems to be that men, anxious to do great work, find city life less congenial than they did, and either live away from the Metropolis, as Darwin and Newman did, or restrict their intercourse, as Carlyle and George Eliot practically did, to a circle of chosen friends."

In further confirmation of the position I have taken up, let me quote the testimony of Thomas Hardy as given in an interview. Said the interviewer--"In reading 'A Group of n.o.ble Dames,' I was struck with the waste of good material."

"Yes," replied Mr Hardy, "I suppose I was wasteful. But, there! it doesn't matter, for I have far more material now than I shall ever be able to use."

"In your note-books?"

"Yes, and in my head. I don't believe in that idea of man's imaginative powers becoming naturally exhausted; I believe that, if he liked, a man could go on writing till his physical strength gave out. Most men exhaust themselves prematurely by something artificial--their manner of living--Scott and d.i.c.kens for example. Victor Hugo, on the other hand, who was so long in exile, and who necessarily lived a very simple life during much of his time, was writing as well as ever when he died at a good old age. So, too, was Carlyle, if we except his philosophy, the least interesting part of him. The great secret is perhaps for the writer to be content with the life he was living when he made his first success. I can do more work here [in Dorsetshire] in six months than in twelve months in London."[148:A]

These are the convictions of a strong man, one who stands at the head of English writers of fiction, and therefore one to whom the beginner especially should listen with respect. A reader of MSS. told me quite recently that there was a pitiable narrowness of experience in the productions which were handed to him for valuation; nearly all were cast in the "city" mould, and showed signs of having been written to say something rather than because the writers had something to say. Mr Hardy has put his finger on the weak spot: more stories "come" in the country stillness than in the city's bustle. Of course, a man can be as much of a hermit in the heart of London as in the heart of a forest, but how few can resist the attractions of Society and the temptation to multiply literary friendships! Besides, it is always a risk to make a permanent change in that environment which a.s.sisted in producing the first success. Follow Mr Hardy's advice and stay where you are. Stories will then not be slow to "come" and ideas to "occur"; and the pessimists will be less ready to utter their laments over the decadence of fiction and philosophers to argue that the novel will soon become extinct. I cannot do better than close with the following tempered statement from Mr Edmund Gosse: "A question which constantly recurs to my mind is this: Having secured the practical monopoly of literature, what do the novelists propose to do next? To what use will they put the unprecedented opportunity thrown in their way? It is quite plain that to a certain extent the material out of which the English novel has been constructed is in danger of becoming exhausted. Why do the American novelists inveigh against plots? Not, we may be sure, through any inherent tenderness of conscience, as they would have us believe; but because their eminently sane and somewhat timid natures revolt against the effort of inventing what is extravagant. But all the obvious plots, all the stories that are not in some degree extravagant, seem to have been told already, and for a writer of the temperament of Mr Howells, there is nothing left but the portraiture of a small portion of the limitless field of ordinary humdrum existence. So long as this is fresh, this also may amuse and please; to the pract.i.tioners of this kind of work it seems as though the infinite prairie of life might be surveyed thus for centuries acre by acre. But that is not possible. A very little while suffices to show that in this direction also the material is promptly exhausted. Novelty, freshness, and excitement are to be sought for at all hazards, and where can they be found? The novelists hope many things from that happy system of nature which supplies them year by year with fresh generations of the ingenuous young." In this, however, Mr Gosse is very doubtful of good results: the fact is, he is too pessimistic. But in making suggestions as to what kind of novels might be written he almost gives the lie to his previous opinions. He asks for novels addressed especially to middle-aged persons, and not to the ingenuous young, ever interested in love. "It is supposed that to describe one of the positive employments of life--a business or a profession for example--would alienate the tender reader, and check that circulation about which novelists talk as if they were delicate invalids. But what evidence is there to show that an attention to real things does frighten away the novel reader. The experiments which have been made in this country to widen the field of fiction in one direction, that of religious and moral speculation, have not proved unfortunate. What was the source of the great popular success of 'John Inglesant,' and then of 'Robert Elsmere,' if not the intense delight of readers in being admitted, in a story, to a wider a.n.a.lysis of the interior workings of the mind than is compatible with the mere record of billing and cooing of the callow young? ... All I ask for is a larger study of life. Have the stress and turmoil of a political career no charm? Why, if novels of the shop and counting-house be considered sordid, can our novels not describe the life of a sailor, of a game-keeper, of a railway porter, of a civil engineer? What capital central figures for a story would be the whip of a leading hunt, the foreman of a colliery, the master of a fishing-smack, or a speculator on the Stock Exchange?"[152:A]

Since these words were written, the novel of politics, for example, has come to the fore; but does that mean that the subject is exhausted? It has only been touched upon as yet. There were plenty of dramas before Shakespeare but there were no Shakespeares; and to-day there are thousands of novels but how many real novelists? Once again let it be said that "exhausted subject-matter" is a misnomer; what we wait for is creative genius.

FOOTNOTES:

[146:A] "Autobiography," vol. ii. pp. 45-6. There is no harm in telling stories as a trade provided the stories are good.

[148:A] Interview in _The Young Man_.

[152:A] "Questions at Issue," _The Tyranny of the Novel_.

CHAPTER XI

THE NOVEL _v._ THE SHORT STORY

Practise the Short Story

The beginner in fiction often asks: Is it not best to prepare for novel-writing by writing short stories? The question is much to the point, and merits a careful answer.

First of all, what is the difference between a novel and a short story?

The difference lies in the point of view. The short story generally deals with one event in one particular life; the novel deals with many events in several lives, where both characters and action are dominated by one progressive purpose. To put it another way: the short story is like a miniature in painting, whilst the novel demands a much larger canvas. A suggestive paragraph from a review sets forth clearly the difference referred to: "The smaller your object of artistry, the nicer should be your touch, the more careful your attention to minutiae. That, surely, would seem an axiom. You don't paint a miniature in the broad strokes that answer for a drop curtain, nor does the weaver of a pocket-handkerchief give to that fabric the texture of a carpet. But the usual writer of fiction, when it occurs to him to utilise one of his second best ideas in the manufacture of a short story, will commonly bring to his undertaking exactly the same slap-dash methods which he has found to serve in the construction of his novels... . Where he should have brought a finer method, he has brought a coa.r.s.er; where he should have worked goldsmithwise, with tiny chisel, finishing exquisitely, he has worked blacksmithwise, with sledge hammer and anvil; where, because the thing is little, every detail counts, he has been slovenly in detail."[155:A]

It has been said that the novel deals with life from the inside, and short stories with life from the outside; but this is not so. Guy de Maupa.s.sant's "The Necklace" opens out to us a state of soul just as much as "Tess" does, even though it may be but a glimpse as compared with the prolonged exhibition of Mr Hardy's "pure woman."

Returning to the question previously referred to, one may well hesitate to advise a novice to commence writing short stories which demand such infinite care in conception and execution. The tendency of young writers is to verbosity--longwindedness in dialogues, in descriptions, and in delineations of character,--whereas the chief excellence of the story is the extent and depth of its suggestions as compared with its brevity in words. Should not a man perfect himself in the less minute and less delicate methods of the novel before he attempts the finer art of the short story?

There is a sound of good logic about all this, but it is not conclusive.

Some men have a natural predilection for the larger canvas and some for the smaller, so that the final decision cannot be forced upon anyone on purely abstract grounds; we must first know a writer's native capacity before advising him what to do. If you feel that literary art on a minute scale is your _forte_, then follow it enthusiastically, and work hard; if otherwise, act accordingly.

But, after all, there are certain abstract considerations which lead me to say that the short story should be practised before the novel. Take the very material fact of _size_. Have those who object to this recommendation ever thought of what practising novel-writing means? How long does it take to make a couple of experiments of 80,000 words each?

A good deal, no doubt, depends on the man himself, but a quick writer would not do much to satisfy others at the rate of 160,000 words in twelve months. No, time is too precious for practising works of such length as these, and since the general principles of fiction apply to both novel and short story alike, the student cannot do better than practise his art in the briefer form. Moreover, if he is wise, he will seek the advice of experts, and (a further base consideration) it will be cheaper to have 4000 words criticised than a MS. containing 80,000.

Further, the foundation principles of the art of fiction cannot be learned more effectively, even for the purpose of writing novels, than in practising short stories. All the points brought forward in the preceding pages relating to plot, dialogue, proportion, climax, and so forth, are elements of the latter as well as of the former. If, as has been said, "windiness" is the chief fault of the beginner, where can he learn to correct that error more quickly? The art of knowing what to leave out is important to a novelist; it is more important to the short story writer; hence, if it be studied on the smaller canvas, it will be of excellent service when attempting the larger. "The attention to detail, the obliteration of the unessential, the concentration in expression, which the form of the short story demands, tends to a beneficent influence on the style of fiction. No one doubts that many of the great novelists of the past are somewhat tedious and prolix. The style of Richardson, Scott, Dumas, Balzac, and d.i.c.kens, when they are not at their strongest and highest, is often slipshod and slovenly; and such carelessly-worded pa.s.sages as are everywhere in their works will scarcely be found in the novels of the future. The writers of short stories have made clear that the highest literary art knows neither synonyms, episodes, nor parentheses."[159:A]

Short Story Writers on their Art

I cannot pretend to give more than a few hints as to the best way of following out the advice laid down in the foregoing paragraphs, and prefer to let some writers speak for themselves. Of course, it does not follow that Mr Wedmore can instruct a novice in literary art, simply because he can write exquisite short stories himself; indeed, it often happens that such men do not really know how they produce their work; but Mr Wedmore's article on _The Short Story_ in his volume called "Books and Arts" is most profitable reading.

Some time ago a symposium appeared in a popular journal,[160:A] on the subject _How to Write a Short Story_. Mr Robert Barr could be no other than pithy in his recipe. He says: "It seems to me that a short story writer should act, metaphorically, like this--he should put his idea for a story into one cup of a pair of balances, then into the other he should deal out words--five hundred, a thousand, two thousand, three thousand, as the case may be--and when the number of words thus paid in causes the beam to rise on which his idea hangs, then his story is finished. If he puts a word more or less he is doing false work... .

My model is Euclid, whose justly celebrated book of short stories ent.i.tled 'The Elements of Geometry' will live when most of us who are scribbling to-day are forgotten. Euclid lays down his plot, sets instantly to work at its development, letting no incident creep in that does not bear relation to the climax, using no unnecessary word, always keeping his one end in view, and the moment he reaches the culmination he stops." Mr Walter Raymond is apologetic. He fences a good deal, and pleads that the mention of "short story" is dangerous to his mental sequence, so much and so painfully has he tried to solve the problem of how one is written. Finally, however, he delivers himself of these pregnant sentences: "Show us the psychological moment; give us a sniff of the earth below; a glimpse of the sky above; and you will have produced a fine story. It need not exceed two thousand words."

The author of "Tales of Mean Streets" says: "The command of form is the first thing to be cultivated. Let the pupil take a story by a writer distinguished by the perfection of his workmanship--none could be better than Guy de Maupa.s.sant--and let him consider that story apart from the book as something happening before his eyes. Let him review mentally _everything_ that happens--the things that are not written in the story as well as those that are--and let him review them, not necessarily in the order in which the story presents them, but in that in which they would come before an observer in real life. In short, from the fiction let him construct ordinary, natural, detailed, unselected, unarranged fact, making notes, if necessary, as he goes. Then let him compare his raw fact with the words of the master. He will see where the unessential is rejected; he will see how everything is given its just proportion in the design; he will perceive that every incident, every sentence, and every word has its value, its meaning, and its part in the whole."

Mr Morrison's ideas are endorsed by Miss Jane Barlow, Mr G. B. Burgin, Mr G. M. Fenn, and Mrs L. T. Meade. Mr Joseph Hocking does not seem to care for the brevity of short story methods. He cites eight lines which he heard some children sing:

"Little boy, Pair of skates, Broken ice, Heaven's gates.

Little girl Stole a plum, Cholera bad, Kingdom come,"