NOVEL WRITERS AND NOVEL READERS.
Auto-biography of men, who held no distinguished rank in the political world, is often very pleasant reading; especially where the writer has a strong tincture of vanity, and is obviously blind to his own character; for, if he does not know it himself, he is sure to let his readers know it; if he does not see the dark spots, he will not endeavour to conceal them; and, if he thinks them bright ones, he will blazon them. But novel-writing, when well done, is, after all, the best species of writing; for, if what all the world says, is true; what all the world reads, must be good. A novel writer, of any talents, will draw his portraits from the life—will catch at every striking feature, and generally paint man as he is; and there is this difference between actual histories and works of imagination, that the former are for the most part true in letter, but false in spirit; and the latter, false in letter, and true in spirit; the one is correct in names, dates, and places, but out of truth in everything else: the other is not correct in names, dates, and places, but perfectly true in every other point.
The worst part of a novel is the hero or heroine: these are too frequently fabrications from the author's fancy, instead of portraits from nature; or, if taken from life, they are tortured into a perfection that life never knew. This is too much the case with "Thaddeus of Warsaw," and ten thousand others. Ladies are not good hands in painting heroes, nor gentlemen always equal to the portraying of heroines. The author of Werter knew that, and therefore he did not disfigure his wicked and interesting work with an artificial Charlotte: he leaves her to the reader's own fancy, who has nothing to do but to fancy himself Werter, and his own imagination will paint Charlotte.
When the hero is made the vehicle of one moral lesson, as Vivian, in Miss Edgeworth's "Tales of Fashionable Life," then there is no need of artificial ornament; and when there is no intention of presenting an unmixed character of evil, nothing remains but to draw from life, and the work is perfect. One of Miss Edgeworth's failings is of great service to her, in this kind of painting: she wants what some persons call feeling, that is to say, she does not believe in the omnipotence of love, and therefore would never have written such a book as the "Sorrows of Werter;" and if she had possessed the same materials, she would have produced a very different work—not so full of genius, perhaps, but an interesting and instructive tale.
Novels are productions more easily criticised than any others: every one may judge for himself of the truth or probability of the events, and the accuracy of the features of character. It is impossible almost to deceive a reader—to palm upon him fiction for truth; for the truth is felt, if it be there, and the falsehood is palpable and revolting. There is also an extensive light of information in them. They do not merely give one scene, or character, or class of characters; but their principles are generally applicable to a very wide extent—they exercise the mind to a habit of observation, and so far from giving false views of life, they more frequently direct us to its true estimate. To be sure, there is sometimes a degree of improbability in some of the incidents, which is mostly forgiven, if the whole mass be, in the main, true and accurate. There are certain standard incidents, which are common property—such as the discovery of relationships—the change of children—and liberal aunts, who make nothing of presenting a young married couple with twenty or thirty thousand pounds on their wedding day; but, if any young lady or gentleman is silly enough to marry, without the means of support, because they have read such things in novels, and have also read of rich uncles all of a sudden returning from the East or West Indies, to shower gold and pearls on all their relations, all that must be said for them is, that they have not sufficient sense to read "Aesop's Fables," and they might as easily be misled into the imagination that brutes could talk. It is a very weak charge against novels, that they present false views of life; for, when they do, none but silly people read them; and they are just as wise after, as they were before.
If there be any evil in novels at all, it is when they take people from their business—when they occupy a mother's time to the neglect of her children—when they lead idle boys to neglect their lessons, and when they lead idle gentlefolks to fancy themselves employed, when they are only killing time. W.P.S.