CHAPTER VIII.

_OLD NOVELS THAT ARE GOOD._

At the top of the ladder of literature is poetry, to which only a few succeed in climbing. Next is the essay, a large comfortable niche cut in the side of the rock of ages, which is never crowded, and so is all the more grateful to those who frequent it. And down at the bottom is the novel, which we all read.

Novels are read for various reasons, which are not often truthfully set down by the professional critic. Truth, however, is always best, and no one need be ashamed of it.

Most of us read novels for the same reason that we go to the theatre--for amusement. We want to get away from the weary commonplace things about us, and get some refreshment by dipping into another world. Perhaps our social world is narrow; but in a good novel we may move in the best society. Possibly we are ambitious, and wish to read of the things we would like to have if we could. Reading about them is next best to having them. Or possibly our world is so unexciting and dreary that we need the excitement of an exciting novel to keep us from dying of decay. Excitement is a good thing, really necessary to life, however bad it may be when carried to extremes. Some people become feverish in their chase for excitement and in their constant reading of exciting novels; but we must not condemn the healthy for the excesses of the mentally sick.

The excitement afforded by novels is of several different kinds. There is the excitement of love and passion--perhaps the most deeply grained sentiment of the human heart, and apparently the most necessary to health of the heart, especially in these days when our spontaneous emotions are constantly being repressed. Then there is the excitement of travel and adventure. Finally we have the novel of intellectual piquancy, the book full of epigrams and smart sayings such as Oscar Wilde might have written. The novel of love and passion may be the lascivious and dirty book, or sin equally by being the weakly sentimental Sunday school story. The abuse of the novel of travel and adventure is the cheap dime novel, or the high-priced dime novel called the historical romance. And the extreme of the epigrammatic story is the snobby smart novel, which tends to make prigs of us. This last novel is largely a modern development.

In any of these lines a novel is good if it gives us real men and women, acting naturally and truly, and is written with sufficient rapidity and lightness. The great sin in a novel is ignorance of human nature; and the next sin is dullness. Either is fatal.

The oldest examples of modern fiction are two great collections of tavern tales--Boccaccio’s Decameron and the Arabian Nights. These stories were told to amuse; because they amused those who listened to them, they have well succeeded in amusing English readers for several hundred years since. The Decameron is largely a series of stories of love and passion. They are many of them exceedingly amusing even to the modern reader; but according to modern standards so many of them are actually indecent that a translation of this book is hardly to be obtained in a respectable bookstore, and should never be allowed in the hands of a person under twenty-five.

For the young the great book of exciting adventure is the Arabian Nights. All the indecent stories have been omitted in the modern translations, and the excitement stops short of the point at which it can do any serious harm in over-stimulation. The best story to begin with is that of Aladdin, or the Wonderful Lamp--a story every one ought to be familiar with; and next to that the series of tales of the adventures of Sinbad the Sailor. After reading these, turn to Poe’s clever “Thousand-and-Second Tale of Scheherezade,” which closely follows the adventures of Sinbad, but bases every wonder on a scientific fact stated in a note. This modern tale of wonder is much more marvellous than the imaginary wonder stories of the ancients, though its wonders are in reality strict truths. Mr. H. G. Wells, the modern novelist, has followed out the same line successfully in his pseudo-scientific stories. By comparative study of this kind one will find fresh interest in an old book.

The Decameron and the Arabian Nights are not properly novels, but rather collections of short stories. The oldest readable novel is Don Quixote. It is an excellent book to read aloud in a mixed company, and is still as funny as any modern book. Don Quixote is a gentleman of kind heart and a certain innate refinement, in spite of the crack in his brain and his tilting at windmills. Sancho Panza is the thoroughly practical, faithful clown; and Sancho Panza’s mule and Don Quixote’s warhorse are characters in themselves. The book was written as a satire on chivalry; but its humanity has made it live long since the death of knight-errantry. Gulliver, too, was a satire, but now we read it merely as an amusing story; and Fielding’s Joseph Andrews was commenced as a satire on Richardson’s Pamela, but became so interesting as a story that even in its own day readers forgot all about the parody.

Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress was written in the seventeenth century, by a tinker, in prison; and it is a distinctly religious book. But even the non-religious will admit that it is a good human story. Intended originally as an allegory, we read it now for its own story interest.

Along with the Arabian Nights young people should, without exception, read Robinson Crusoe. Nearly every one has read it; but there are parts of it that will bear reading again and again and many times. The introduction may be skipped; but beginning with Crusoe’s shipwreck on the island we are deeply fascinated by all he does to care for himself and find some amusement. He is an intensely practical man, and never gets sentimental, because he is always at work, a good thing for some of us moderns who are inclined to bemoan our lot. For about a hundred pages this account of the life on the island continues, but when Crusoe is rescued the interest grows less, and we may very well omit the last half of the book.

The first modern novel was begun by Richardson somewhat over a hundred and fifty years ago as a book of instruction on correct letter writing. Richardson was a printer fifty years old. In his youth he had often helped young ladies write love letters. So it was thought he could write a good book of model letters. He put a story into them to make them more lifelike and interesting, and the story turned out to be the beginning of modern fiction as an established form of literature, for the good novels that had gone before had not led the way for others as Richardson’s books did.

All Richardson’s novels are written in the form of letters, and to modern readers are decidedly tedious.

Clarissa Harlowe is the best of them; but it is much too long, and often dull. Clarissa is beset by Lovelace, spirited away, made to quarrel with her family, and outwardly compromised in every possible fashion; but through it all she maintains her maiden purity, and finally compels the man to marry her. We would like her better if she were a little more human and spontaneous--in short, if she had been a little more of a sinner.

But there is one novel of that day and time which is first rate reading even to-day, and that is Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones. Fielding was a rake and a joker. He started as a novelist by making fun of the good Richardson. But his characters are certainly natural, even if a little spicy. Tom came into the world in an irregular way, and led a very irregular life. He is by no means a model for the young, and Fielding tells of his sins in a way that to-day would be considered positively indecent. And yet we cannot help liking Tom, and he comes out all right at the end. Sophia Western forgives him for his faults, and loves and marries him. Old Squire Western is one of the most famous characters in the book, and a mixture of shrewdness, drollery, roughness and good-heartedness he certainly is.

Other books of this period which have been often spoken of are Smollett’s Roderick Random, Peregrine Pickle, and Humphrey Clinker, and Stern’s Tristram Shandy; but they are a little tedious to the modern reader, and like Richardson’s novels must probably be left on the library shelves.

The last of the good novels of this period is Goldsmith’s Vicar of Wakefield. The perfect simplicity of this story is its eternal recommendation. The Vicar is a simple-minded man, and somebody is always “doing him” or his simple son or his vain wife and daughters. We cannot help liking the old man for his unquenchable cheerfulness under all misfortunes, and the women, though old-fashioned, are not yet out of date in their feminine weaknesses. It is the very shortest of old-time novels. Some may not like so very simple a story, but if one has a sense of sly humour, the Vicar will be found good reading.

There is also a French novel of this period which deserves to be read much more than it is. It is hard to tell just why it has somehow fallen into obscurity, unless it is the fact that it is French, and as unlike any other French novel as possible. It is Le Sage’s Gil Blas, and the scene is Spain. Gil is not unlike Tom Jones, though more of a wanderer, and goes from one adventure to another. Though some of his experiences are risqué, not one of them is offensive or even approaching indecency. The most innocent person will not be offended by anything in Gil Blas, for evidently Le Sage was a pure-minded man. The adventures are both exciting and amusing; and there is a fine string of them.

There is nothing subtle about the old-time novels. They are excellent amusing stories, and that is all. Originally no more than tavern yarns, they have lived because they give us real men and women, and tell the truth about human nature. They are not very refined, and there is nothing aristocratic about them. They come from the people, and have something of the vulgarity of the people about them. But time has softened away the objectionable points. While we may be offended by present-day vulgarity, we probably will not even recognize that of a former age.