X.

In an article published in _The Ninteenth Century_, Mr. Anthony Trollope expressed his views on the good and evil influences exerted by works of fiction, and he has repeated very much the same opinions in his interesting book on Thackeray.[212] "However poor your matter may be," he says, "however near you may come to that 'foolishest of existing mortals,' as Carlyle presumes some unfortunate novelist to be, still, if there be those who read your works, they will undoubtedly be more or less influenced by what they find there. And it is because the novelist amuses that he is thus influential. The sermon too often has no such effect, because it is applied with the declared intention of having it. The palpable and overt dose the child rejects; but that which is cunningly insinuated by the aid of jam or honey is accepted unconsciously, and goes on its curative mission. So it is with the novel. It is taken because of its jam and honey. But, unlike the honest, simple jam and honey of the household cupboard, it is never unmixed with physic. There will be the dose within it, either curative or poisonous. The girl will be taught modesty or immodesty, truth or falsehood; the lad will be taught honor or dishonor, simplicity or affectation. Without the lesson the amusement will not be there. There are novels which certainly teach nothing; but then neither can they amuse any one. I should be said to insist absurdly on the power of my own confraternity if I were to declare that the bulk of the young people in the upper and middle classes receive their moral teaching chiefly from the novels they read. Mothers would no doubt think of their own sweet teaching: fathers of the examples which they set: and schoolmasters of the influence of their instructions. Happy is the country that has such mothers, fathers, schoolmasters! But the novelist creeps in closer than the schoolmaster, closer than the father, closer almost than the mother. He is the chosen guide, the tutor whom the young pupil chooses for herself. She retires with him, suspecting no lesson, safe against rebuke, throwing herself head and heart into the narration as she can hardly do into her task-work; and there she is taught how she shall learn to love; how she shall receive the lover when he comes; how far she should advance to meet the joy; why she should be reticent, and not throw herself at once into this new delight. It is the same with the young man, though he would be more prone even than she to reject the suspicion of such tutorship. But he, too, will there learn either to speak the truth, or to lie; and will receive from his novel lessons either of real manliness, or of that affected apishness and tailor-begotten demeanor which too many professors of the craft give out as their dearest precepts."

Such are the views of a close observer of human nature, whose works have had an exceedingly wide and an always excellent influence. While Mr. Trollope has probably exaggerated the educational power of the novel, it cannot be denied that this form of literature takes a considerable part in moulding the opinions and standards of the young. The impressions of life derived from novels are almost as strong as those we receive from what is passing in the world about us. If a work of fiction form a truthful reflection of nature, it must hold up to the reader's view examples of evil as well as examples of good; it must deal with depravity as well as with virtue. And, therefore, all that can be expected from the novelist is that he should endeavor to represent life as it is, with its due apportionment of beauty and of ugliness. And so much is demanded not only by the moralist, but by the critic. Many writers who have described the life of criminals, who have endeavored to make infamous careers attractive, and have pandered to the lower tastes of the reading public, would urge in their own defence: that they have nothing to do with morality; that their object is to produce a work of art; that no question of the good or evil effect of their writing should be allowed to trammel their imagination. But the critic would rightly reply, that truth at least must be respected in a work of art; that the imagination must not be allowed the liberty of misrepresentation; and that the novelist in whose pages vice predominates, or is given an alluring aspect, is no more artistic than the writer of Sunday-school books. In judging the influence exerted by the great body of writers of fiction whose names have been mentioned in this chapter, I shall therefore proceed on the understanding that that novelist who writes almost exclusively of good people is not necessarily the one whose influence has been the best, nor that he who has drawn many weak or evil-doing characters has necessarily taught the worst lessons. The standard by which we must judge an author, as well from an artistic as from a moral point of view, must be founded on the recognition that both good and evil prevail in the world, and that whoever undertakes to give a picture of life must paint both the evil and the good in their true colors.

In commenting on the fiction of the eighteenth century, its prevailing coarseness was reprehended. But this characteristic was objected to on the score of taste, but not at all on that of truth or morality. The novelist of that time would not have faithfully represented the society about him had he not allowed himself that license which universally prevailed. Nor could the coarseness of the eighteenth-century writer be objected to on moral grounds. Morality is concerned with thoughts, not with expression. Whether we speak plainly the ideas in our mind, whether we communicate them by means of some, circumlocution, or whether we keep them wholly to ourselves, is a matter of fashion, not of morality.[213] Our great-grandmothers were not less chaste because they spoke of things regarding which we remain silent in a mixed society: they were simply less squeamish. Mrs. Behn in her day, and Fielding in his, described a licentious scene openly and honestly without a suspicion of evil.

But a great change has come over public taste, and I may even say over public morality, during the present century. Licentious conduct is no longer a venial offence; gross and immodest expressions are no longer allowed in respectable society. The improvement has certainly been great, although not as great as it seems. Out of our higher morality, out of our new and boasted refinement, has sprung a vice more ugly than coarseness, more degrading than sensuality, and that vice is hypocrisy, which shelters all others behind its deceptive mask. Many a parent now winks at the hidden vice of a son, the exposure of which would fill him with shame and indignation. Thousands of young men feel that they can privately lead a life of dissipation, so long as they keep a respectable face to the world. It is not the vice that society punishes, it is the being found out. So when we think of our improved morality and refinement, we must temper our pride with the reflection that we may be simply more hypocritical, and not more virtuous than our ancestors. Still, the fact that licentiousness must now wear a mask of respectability, that social status is now greatly affected by moral worth, shows that a real advance has been made. This advance has left plainly marked traces on the fiction of our time, where, too, we shall find plentiful evidence of that hypocrisy which has become our besetting sin.

As we look back upon the list of the great authors who have written in the present century, it must be with a feeling of gratitude for the benefits they have conferred. They have devoted their lives to the production of literary works, the beauty and excellence of which have incalculably elevated the public taste. They have held up ideals and noble conceptions which insensibly impart a dignity to life, and an encouragement to youthful aspiration. They have described so truthfully and sympathetically the character and aims of different classes and different peoples, that whoever reads their works cannot but feel himself drawn nearer to great divisions of the human race, which he had hitherto regarded with an indifferent or a prejudiced eye. The novels of Scott, of Dickens, of Thackeray, of George Eliot, of Miss Austen, of Miss Ferrier, of very many others, have afforded to hundreds of thousands, young and old, a never failing source of healthful entertainment. Domestic life, as well in the cottage as the castle, has been cheered and enlivened by their presence. Their examples of heroism, of patience, of generosity, have excited the emulation of the young, while their pictures of selfishness and vice have stifled many an evil inclination and have given birth to many a good resolution.

Such writers as these have expressed the best tendencies of the age. And they have been able to do so because they themselves are among the best men and women of their time. But, unfortunately, as the nineteenth century has many evil characteristics, and as depraved and weak-minded persons are often endowed with some literary capacity, a great deal of poisonous matter has unavoidably come to the surface in English fiction. The writers who have prostituted their talents in pandering to the low tastes of their readers, have carefully avoided any such open representation of vice as was permissible in the last century. But they have hidden under an outward respectability of words the most immoral and degrading thoughts. They have recognized the fact that a not inconsiderable number of persons would be be glad to find in a work of fiction the same gross ideas which occupy their own minds. And thus a more dangerous, because a more insidious, species of literature has sprung up. The absence of parental censorship, the general freedom with which works of fiction are allowed to enter almost every household, permit these novels to fall into the hands of the youngest and most susceptible. The young girl or boy whose parents carefully put away the newspaper which contains an account of a divorce trial or a rape, is very possibly reading a novel of which the main interest lies in a detailed description of a seduction. It is not of the so-called "dime novels" or of the stories published in a police gazette to which reference is made, but to books issued by respectable publishers and often written by women. Of these novels, the subject is the unlawful gratification of the passions. Bigamy, seduction, adultery, are the incidents on which the story turns, and an effort is always made by the novelist to give to the sinners as attractive and interesting an aspect as possible, and to hold up any respectable people who may appear in the book to the contempt and derision of the reader. Perhaps we would be wrong in blaming a writer for his or her vulgarity. This is a fault into which some authors fall unconsciously, and is a part of their nature which they cannot shake off. If Rhoda Broughton or "Ouida" were to cease being vulgar in print, they would be obliged to stop writing altogether, a public benefit which we can hardly expect them to confer. But we have a right to severely call an author to task for representing vice in an attractive aspect, for condoning offences against morality, for depicting licentiousness as unattended by retributive consequences. In so doing, a writer is false to art and to nature, as well as to morality.

Critics have done their utmost to discourage and expose this kind of literature. The pages of _The Spectator_, of _The Saturday Review_, of _The Athenæum_, of _The London Examiner_, of _The Nation_, are full of reviews which denounce in unmeasured terms the vulgarity and pruriency of much of the fiction of the present day. But their censure can have little practical effect. So long as a class of corrupt readers exists, so long will evil-minded men and women find a sale for the low conceptions of their depraved minds. Parents alone, by supervising the reading of their children, can prevent the evil effects of immoral novels. Some may think that I have exaggerated the bad characteristics of modern fiction. A few examples of objectionable works will be found at the foot of this page,[214] an acquaintance with which will sustain my remarks.

The reader may possibly object that these are obscure names in literature, and that they represent writers whose works are ephemeral. The names chosen are the most prominent in the class to which they belong. Their obscurity is a redeeming feature of the society which can tolerate their existence. Although writers are able to find a sale for the most disgusting productions; although the critic is continually obliged, in reviewing current literature, to wade through the nastiest mire, it yet remains certain that public taste is not pleased with the vile. A limited circulation will be found for immoral novels among a depraved class, but it is to be said, for the credit of the nineteenth century, that talents prostituted can never bring fame. The conceptions of a Goldsmith, a Scott, a Dickens, a Thackeray, a George Eliot, remain among the dearest possessions of all English-speaking people. But the unhealthy, unnatural, and hideous pictures given to the world by vicious men and women receive the same wages as the sin they portray.

[Footnote 212: In Mr. John Morley's edition of "English Men of Letters," chapter ix.]

[Footnote 213: See Macaulay on "The Comic Dramatists."]

[Footnote 214: See "Strathmore," and others, by "Ouida"; "Not Wisely, But Too Well," "Red as a Rose Is She," "Joan," by Rhoda Broughton; "Cherry Ripe," by Helen Mathers; "The Lovels of Arden," by Miss Braddon; "Under which Lord?" by Mrs E.L. Linton; "A Romance of the Nineteenth Century," by W.H. Mallock; "Children of Nature," by the Earl of Desart. A long list of very nasty books might easily be added, but these will be sufficient to illustrate the bad tendencies of fiction, and to show how thoroughly female authors have kept pace in immodesty and indecency with their rivals of the less pretentious sex.]

THE END.

INDEX.

Addison, 180 Ainsworth, H., 303 Alcott, Miss, 312 Aldrich, T.B., 312 Alexander, Mrs., 288 Alice's Adventures in Wonder Land, 319 Allston, W., 312 Amadis of Gaul, 46 "Arcadia," Greene's, 83 ---- Sidney's, 92 "Argenis", 101, _note_ Arthur, King, 21, 39 ---- Combat with Accolon, 31 Atalantis, The New, 123 Austen, Jane, 287

Banim, John, 285 Barclay, Robert, 101, _note_ Barham, R.H., 291 Beckford, W., 247 Behn, Aphra, 125 Bird, R., 312 Black, W., 284 Blessington, Mrs., 302, _note_ Boyle, Roger, 121 Brackenridge, H.H., 307 Braddon, M.E., 327, 288 Bray, A.E., 291 Brooke, H., 243 Brooks, S., 302, _note_ Broughton, R., 327 Brown, C.B., 306 Brunton, Mrs., 316 Bunbury, S., 291 Bunyan, John, 106 Burnett, Mrs., 312 Burney, Miss, 251 Bury, Lady C., 302, _note_

Cable, G.W., 311 Calprenède, 119 Carleton, W., 285 Chamier, Capt., 304 Charlemagne, 21, 24 Chaucer, 42 Chetwind, Mrs., 291 Chivalry, Decline of, 45 ---- Origin of, 17 ---- Rise of, 9 ---- Romances of, chap., 1 ---- Theory and Practice of, 14 Clarke, M.C., 291 Cobbold, R., 302, _note_ Coke, H., 302, _note_ Collins, M., 302, _note_ Collins, W., 292, 315 Cooper, J.F., 307, 315 Costello, L.S., 291 Craik, G., 295 Croker, T.C., 285 Crowe, C., 291 Crowe, Mrs., 291 Crowley, G., 302, _note_ Cummins, M.S., 312 Cunningham, A., 281

Dacre, Lady, 302, _note_ Dana, R.H., 307 D'Arblay, Mme., 281 Defoe, D., 183 De Forest, J.W., 312 Deloney, T., 51 De Quincey, T., 302, _note_ Desart, Earl of, 327 Dickens, C., 295, 314 D'Israeli, B., 293 Drury, A.H., 206

Edgeworth, M., 285 "Eliana", 121 Eliot, George, 288, 315 Ellis, G., 291 "Euphues", 76 Euphuism, 76, 82, _note_ Excalibur, 26, 39

Ferrier, Miss, 284, 287 Fielding, Henry, 203 Flint, T., 311 Ford, E., 47, _note_ Fraser, J.B., 305 Fraser-Tytler, C.C., 291 Friar Bacon, 52 Friar Rush, 54 Fullerton, Lady G., 291 Fullom, S.W., 302, _note_

Galahad, Sir, 35, 37 Galt, John, 284 Gaskell, Mrs., 287, 318 Geoffrey of Monmouth, 24 "George-a-Green", 50 Glassock, Capt., 304 Gleig, G.R., 304 Godwin, Francis, 101, _note_ Godwin, W., 248 Goldsmith, O., 227 Gomberville, 119 Gore, Mrs., 303, _note_ Grant, James, 304 Grant, M.M., 291 Grattan, T.C., 286 Graves, 248 Greene, Robert, 82 Griffin, Gerald, 286 Guenever, 23, 34, 39 Gulliver's Travels, 173

Hale, E.E., 310 Hall, J., 311 Hall, S.C., 286 Hamilton, E., 284 Hannay, J., 302, _note_ Hardy, T., 302, _note_ Harte, Bret, 312 Hawthorne, N., 309 "Helyas", 46, _note_ Heroic Romance, 119 Heywood, Mrs., 193 Higginson, T.W., 310 Hoffman, C.F., 311 Hogg, 284 Holcroft, T., 248 Holland, J.G., 308 Holmes, M.J., 314 Holmes, O.W., 310 Hook, Theodore, 291 Hope's "Anastasius", 305 Howard, 304 Howells, W.D., 310 Howitt, M., 291 Howitt, W., 302, _note_ Hubback, Mrs., 291 Hughes, Thomas, 292 Humor in Sidney's "Arcadia", 100 ---- in the "Morte d'Arthur", 40

Ideality in Fiction, 111 Igraine, 25 Inchbald, Mrs., 255 Irving, W., 308 Isould, 34

"Jack, the Giant-killer", 24 James, G.P.R., 311 James, H., Jr., 312 Jenkins, E., 317 Jerrold, Douglas, 302 _note_ Jewsbury, Geraldine, 291 Johnson, Dr., 234 Johnson, R., 46, _note_ Johnstone, C., 240 Johnstone, Mrs., 284 Judd, S., 310

Kavanagh, Miss, 219 Kennedy, J.P., 311 Kimball, R.B., 312 Kingsley, C., 291, 315, 318

"Lady of the Lake", 26 Lamb, Lady C., 302, _note_ Launcelot, 22, 34, 39 Lauder, Sir T.D., 284, 314 Lawrence, Geo. A., 303 "Lear, King", 24 Lee, Harriet and Sophia, 256 Lennox, C., 254 Lever, C.J., 286 Lewes, G.H., 302, _note_ Lewis, 269 Linton, E.L., 327 Lister, T.H., 302, _note_ Lockhart, 284, 315 Lodge, T., 88 Longfellow, H.W., 312 Lover, S., 285 Lyly, J., 75 Lytton, Bulwer, 293, 314, 319

MacCarthy, J., 266 MacDonald, G., 284 Mackay, C., 302, _note_ Mackenzie, H., 241 Marquoid, Mrs., 291 Malory, Sir Thomas, 25 Mallock, W. H., 327, _note_ "Man in the Moon", 101, _note_ Manley, Mrs., 123 Mapes, Walter, 24 Marryat, Capt., 304 Marryat, F., 291 Marsh, Mrs., 291 Martineau, H., 317 Mathers, H., 327 Maturin, 269 Maxwell, W.H., 304 Meliadus, 25 Melville, H., 312 Merlin, 24 Miller, H., 284 Miller, T., 302, _note_ Mitford, M.R., 288 Moir, 284 Moore, Dr., 248 Moore, Sir T., 56 Morier, J., 305 Morgan, Lady, 286 Morgana, 26 Morley, Countess of, 302, _note_ "Morte d'Arthur", 24, 40 Mulock, Miss, 288

Napier, E., 304 Neal, J., 312 Newcastle, Duchess of, 122 Normanby, Marquis of, 302, _note_ Norton, Hon. Mrs., 291 Novel, Development of, _see_ Addison, Defoe, Richardson, Fielding Novel, in the xixth Century, 274 ---- of American Life, 305 ---- of English Life, 291 ---- of Irish Life, 285 ---- of Scotch Life, 280 ---- Criminal, 303 ---- Fashionable, 303 ---- Historical, 313 ---- Immoral, 303 ---- Military, 304 ---- Muscular, 303 ---- Naval, 304 ---- Oriental, 305 ---- of fancy, 319 ---- of purpose, 316

O'Connell, 311 Oliphant, Mrs., 284 Opie, Mrs., 286 "Ornatus and Artexia", 46, _note_ "Oroonoko", 126 Orrery, Earl of, 121 Ouida, 303, 326

Palmerin of England, 46 Palomides, Sir, 35 "Pandosto", 85 Pardoe, Miss, 305 "Parismus", 47, _note_ Parthenissa, 121 Payn, J., 302, _note_ Peacock, T.L., 302, _note_ Pendragon, Uther, 25 Perceval le Gallois, 25 "Pheander", 17, _note_ Phelps, E.S., 310 Philips, S., 302, _note_ "Philomela", 86 Picken, 284 "Pilgrim's Progress", 108 Poe, E.A., 312 Porter, Jane, 284 Porter, Maria, 284 Power, M.A., 291

Radcliffe, Ann, 265 Reach, A.B., 302, _note_ Reade, C., 291 Realism, 279 Reeve, Clara, 264 Religious Revival, 220 Richardson, Samuel, 193 Ritchie, L., 302, _note_ Robin Hood, 47 "Robert the Devil," 47, _note_ Roberts, H., 47, _note_ Romantic Revival, 259 "Rosalynde," 88 Round Table, 26, 33, 38 Rowson, S., 306

"Saint Gréal," 25, 35 Sala, Geo. Aug., 302, _note_ Scott, Michael, 304 Scott, Sir Walter, 280, 313 Scudéri, 119 Sedgwick, C.M., 310 "Seven Champions of Christendom," 46, _note_ Sewell, E., 291 Sewell, E.M., 317 Shelley, Mrs., 319 Sidney, Sir Phillip, 91 Simms, G., 311 Simms, W., 312 Sinclair, C., 307 Smedley, F.E., 302, _note_ Smith, A., 302, _note_ Smith, C., 257 Smith, H., 314 Smollett, T., 211 Sterne, L., 231 St. John, J.A., 302, _note_ Stowe, H.B., 310, 318 Stretton, H., 291 Strickland, A., 291 Swift, J., 170

Tautphoeus, Baroness, 287 Taylor, B., 308 Terhune, Mrs., 312 Thackeray, Miss, 287 Thackeray, W.M., 298, 314 Thomas, 311 "Thomas of Reading," 50 Thornbury, W., 302, _note_ "Tom-a-Lincoln," 46 Tourgee, Judge, 311 Trelawney, 304 Tristram, 22, 25, 30, 34 Trollope, A., 294, 295 Trollope, Mrs., 287 Trollope, T.A., 302, _note_ Tupper, M.F., 302, _note_ Turner, T., Diary of, 221 Tytler, S., 297

Valerio, C.S., 312

Walpole, Horace, 259 Ward, R. Plumer, 291 Warren, S., 291 Wetherell, E., 291 Whitly, F.M., 302, _note_ Whitney, Mrs., 312 Whyte-Melville, G.J., 302, _note_ Wilson, A.E., 312 Wilson, Prof., 284 Williams, F., 302, _note_ Willis, N.P., 308 Winthrop, T., 312 Wood, Mrs. H, 287 Wraxall, C.L., 302, _note_

Yates, E., 302, _note_ Yonge, Miss, 287