My Contemporaries In Fiction Read online

  VI.--UNDER FRENCH ENCOURAGEMENT--THOMAS HARDY

  Within the last half-score of years an extraordinary impulse towardsfreedom in the artistic representation of life has touched some of ourEnglish writers. Thackeray, in 'Pendennis,' laments that since Fieldingno English novelist has 'dared to draw a man.' Dr. George Macdonald, inhis 'Robert Falconer,' whispers, in a sort of stage _aside_, his wishthat it were possible to be both decent and honest in the exposition ofthe character of the Baron of Rothie, who is a seducer by profession.Perhaps the most distinguishing characteristic of Thackeray was, thathe was a gentleman, and that his good-breeding and his manliness wereessentially of the English pattern. Dr. Mac-donald's most intenseimpulse is towards purity of life, as an integral necessity for thatcommunion with the Eternal Fatherhood which he preaches with so muchearnestness and charm. That two such men should have felt thattheir work was subject to a painful limitation on one side of it issignificant, but it is a fact which may be used with equal force as anargument by the advocates of the old method and the adopters of the new.It is perfectly true that they felt the restriction, but it is equallytrue that they respected it, and were resolute not to break through it.Their cases are cited here, not as an aid to argument on one side or theother, but simply to show that the argument itself is no new thing--thatthe question as to how far freedom is allowable has been debated in theminds of honest writers, and decided in one way, long before it came tobe debated by another set of honest writers, who decided it in another.

  There never was an age in which outspoken honesty was indecent. Therenever was an age in which pruriency in any guise could cease to beindecent. There never was an age when the fashion of outspoken honestydid not give a seeming excuse to pruriency; and it is this fact,that freedom in the artistic presentation of the sexual problemshas invariably led to license, which has in many successive ages ofliterature forced the artist back to restraint, and has made him contentto be bound by a rigid puritanism. In the beat of the eternal pendulumof taste it seems ordained that puritanism shall become so verypuritanic that art shall grow tired of its bonds, and that liberty inturn shall grow offensive, and shall compel art by an overmasteringinstinct to return towards puritanism.

  It is France which has led the way in the latest protest against therestrictions imposed by modern taste upon art. It may be admitted as afact that those restrictions were felt severely, for it is obviousthat until they began to chafe there was no likelihood of their beingviolently broken. The chief apostle of the new movement towards entirefreedom is, of course, Emile Zola. After having excited for many yearsan incredulous amazement and disgust, he is now almost universallyrecognised as an honest and honourable artist, and as a great master inhis craft. Nobody who is at all instructed ventures any longer to saythat Zola is indecent because he loves indecency, or is pleased by thecontemplation of the squalid and obscene. We see him as he truly is--apessimist in humanity--sad and oppressed, and bitter with the gall of ahopeless sympathy with suffering and distorted mankind.

  One English artist, whom, in the just language of contemporarycriticism, it is no exaggeration to describe as great, has elected(rather late in life for so strong a departure) to cast in his lot withthe new school. That his ambitions are wholly honourable it would bethe mere vanity of injustice to deny. That his new methods contrast veryunfavourably with his old ones, that he is lending the weight of hisauthority to a movement which is full of mischief, that in obeying inall sincerity an artistic impulse he is doing a marked disservice tohis own art in particular, and to English art in general, are with me somany rooted personal convictions; but I dare not pretend that they aremore. Mr. Hardy is just as sincere in his belief that he is right asI and others among his critics are in our belief that he is wrong. Thequestion must be threshed out dispassionately and judicially, if it befaced at all. It cannot be settled by an appeal to personal sentimenton either side. But in the limits to which I am now restricted it isimpossible to do justice to the discussion, and it would, indeed, bebarely possible to state even the whole of its terms.

  I am forced to content myself, therefore, with a temperamentalexpression of opinion in place of a judicial one, pleading only that thearguments against me are recognised and respected, although I have nopresent opportunity of recapitulating and disputing them. It appears,then--to speak merely as an advocate _ex parte_--to us of the old schoolthat an essential part of the fiction writer's duty is to be harmless.That, of course, to the men of the cayenne-pepper-caster creed seemsa very milky sort of proclamation, but to us it is a matter of gravemoment. I have always thought, for my own part, that the novelist mightwell take for his motto the last five words of that passage in 'TheTempest' where we read: 'This isle is full of noises, sounds and sweetairs, which _give delight and hurt not!_ Simple as the motto seems, itwill be found to offer a fairly wide range. When Reade tilted againstprison abuses and the abuses of private asyla, or when Dickens rode downon the law of Chancery as administered in his day, or when Thackerayscourged snobbery and selfishness in society, they were all well withinthe limits of this rule. We experience a delight which hurts not, buton the contrary is entirely tonic and inspiring, when Satire swings hislash on the bared back of Hypocrisy or cruel and intentioned Vice. Weexperience a delight which hurts not, but on the contrary freshens thewhole flood of feeling within us, when a true artist deals truly withthe sorrows and infirmities of our kind. To offer it as our intentto give delight and hurt not is no mere profession of an artisticGrundyism. It is the proclamation of what is to our minds the simpletruth, that fiction should be a joyful, an inspiring, a sympathetic,and a helpful art. There are certain questions the public discussion ofwhich we purposely avoid. There are certain manifestations of characterthe exhibition of which we hold to be something like a crime.

  Mr. Hardy would plead, and with perfectly apparent propriety, that hedoes not choose to write for 'the young person.' But I answer that hecannot help himself. He cannot choose his audience. Fiction appeals toeverybody, and fiction so robust, so delicate and charming as his ownfinds its way into all hands. When a man can take a hall, and openlyadvertise that he intends to speak therein 'to men only,' he isreasonably allowed a certain latitude. If he pitches his cart onthe village green, and talks with the village lads and lasses withinhearing, he will, if he be a decent fellow, avoid the treatment ofcertain themes.

  To take the most striking example:--In 'Jude the Obscure' Mr. Hardydeals very largely with the emotions and reasons which animate a youngwoman when she decides not to sleep with her husband, when she decidesthat she will sleep with her husband, when she decides to sleep with aman who is not her husband, and when she decides not to sleep withthe man who is not her husband. Now, all this does not matter to thementally solid and well-balanced reader. It is not very interesting, forone thing, and apart from the fact that it is, from a workman's point ofview, astonishingly well done, it would not be interesting at all.Mr. Hardy offers it as the study of a temperament. Very well. It is anexcellent study of a temperament, but it bores. The theme is not bigenough to be worth the effort expended upon it. Here is an hysterical,wrong-headed, and confused-hearted little hussy who can't make up hermind as to what is right and what is wrong, and who is a prey to theimpulse of the moment, psychical or physical. I don't think there aremany people like her. I don't think that from the broad human-naturalpoint of view it matters a great deal how she decides. But I am sure ofthis--that the more that kind of small monstrosity is publicly analysedand anatomised and made much of, the more her morbidities will increasein her, and the more unbearable in real life she is likely to become.Mr. Hardy's labour in this particular is a direct incentive to the studyof hysteria as a fine art amongst such women as are natively prone toit. One of the gravest dangers which beset women is that of hystericalself-deception. The common-sense fashion of dealing with them when theysuffer in that way is kindly and gently to ignore their symptoms untilthe reign of common-sense returns. To make them believe that theiremotions are worthy of the scru
tiny of a great analyst of the humanheart is to increase their morbid temptations, and in the end to renderthose temptations irresistible. The one kind of person to whom 'Jude theObscure' must necessarily appeal with the greatest power is the kindof person depicted in its pages, and the tendency of the book isunavoidably towards the development and multiplication of the typedescribed. This is the only end the book can serve, apart from the factthat it does reveal to us Mr. Hardy's special knowledge of a dangerousand disagreeable form of mental disorder, But it is not the physician'sbusiness to sow disease, and any treatise on hysteria which is throwninto a captivating popular form, and makes hysteria look like aninteresting and romantic thing, will spread the malady as surely asa spark will ignite gunpowder. This at least is not a mere matter ofopinion, but of sound scientific fact, which no student of that disorderwhich Mr. Hardy has so masterfully handled will deny. In this respect,then, the book is a centre of infection, and that the author of 'A Pairof Blue Eyes' should have written it is matter at once for astonishmentand grief. That is to say, it is a matter of astonishment and griefto me, and to those who think as I do. There is a large and growingcontingent of writers and readers to whom it is a theme for joyfulcongratulation. It is one of the rules of the game we are now playing torespect all honest conviction.

  Of Mr. Hardy, from the purely artistic side, there is little timeto speak. On that side let me first set down what is to be said indispraise, for the mere sake of leaving a sweet taste in the mouth atthe end. Even from his own point of view--that lauded 'sense of theoverwhelming sadness of modern life' which captivates the admirers ofhis latest style--it is possible to spread the epic table of sorrowwithout finding a place upon it for scraps of the hoggish anatomy whichare not nameable except in strictly scientific or wholly boorish speech.But it seems necessary to the new realism that its devotee should beable to write for the perusal of gentlemen and ladies about thingshe dared not mention orally in the presence of either; so that what adrunken cabman would be deservedly kicked for saying in a lady's hearingmay be honourably printed for a lady's reading by a scholar and a sage.It was once thought otherwise, but I am arguing here, not againstrealism _per se_, but against the inartistic introduction of grossepisodes. Every reader of Mr. Hardy will recognise my meaning, and thepassage in my mind seems gratuitously and unserviceably offensive.

  To come to less unpleasing themes, where, still expressing disapproval,one may do it with some grace, one of the few limitations to Mr. Hardy'sgreat charm as a writer lies in his tendency to encumber his page withdetail. At a supremely romantic moment one of his people sits down tocontemplate a tribe of ants, and watches them through two whole printedpages. In another case a man in imminent deadly peril surveys throughtwo pages the history of the geologic changes which have befallen ourplanet. Each passage, taken by itself, is good enough. Taken where itis, each is terribly wearisome and wrong.

  I do not know that any critic has yet recorded Mr. Hardy's singularlimitations as to the invention of plot. Speaking from memory, I cannotat this moment recall a novel of his in which some trouble does notcircle about a marriage licence, and I can recall many instances ofgoing to church to get married and coming back single. That, indeed, isMr. Hardy's _piece de resistance_ in the way of invention, and it cropsup in one book after another with a helpless inevitable-ness which atlast grows comic.

  But here we can afford to have done with carping, and can turn to themuch more grateful task of praise. I do not think it too much to saythat Mr. Hardy has studied his own especial part of England, has madehimself master of its landscape, its town and hamlet life, its traditionand sentiment, and general spiritual atmosphere, to such triumphanteffect as to set himself wholly apart from all other English writersof fiction. His devotion to his own beloved Wessex has brought himthis rich and merited reward--that he is the recognised first and finalmaster of its field. His knowledge of rustic life within his own bordersis beautifully sympathetic and profound. His impression of the landscapein the midst of which this life displays itself is broad and noble andalive. His literary style is a thing to admire, to study, and to admireagain. All worthy readers of English fiction are his debtors for manyidyllic happy hours, and many deep inspirations of wholesome Englishair. And if, at the parting of the ways, we wave a decisive farewell tohim, we are not unmindful of the time when he was the best and dearestof our comrades, and we leave him in the certainty that, whatever pathhe has chosen, he has been guided in his choice by an ambition which isentirely honourable and sincere.