A History of English Prose Fiction

by Bayard Tuckerman

But we would not be understood to mean that a novelist or a painter is realistic, because he represents nature as it appears to him, whether he look at it through a glass couleur de rose, or with the distorted eye of a cynic. He may describe the sublime, the ordinary, or the vile, as nature supplies examples of all three, and yet be realistic, so long as he presents any one of these conditions without exaggeration, and without too extended an application.

The writers who have devoted themselves to the novel of life and manners have all sought to be realistic, and the value of their work largely depends on the success which has attended their efforts in this direction. The enduring vitality of "Tom Jones" is due to Fielding's fidelity to nature, and it is safe to predict that no novel which fails in this respect can have more than an ephemeral reputation. Nothing could be more false than the views of contemporary life contained in a large part of the fiction of the present day, and the future historian who looks to the novel of the nineteenth century for information concerning morals and social habits will have to exercise a constant discrimination.

III.

Scottish life and manners have been made familiar to the world by a series of brilliant novelists, first among whom stands the greatest figure in the history of English fiction. Sir Walter Scott was qualified to an extraordinary degree for the great work he was destined to perform for his country and for the novel. His ancestry, the traditions among which he grew up, his in-born love of legendary lore, his vivid imagination and keenness of sympathy all fitted him to appreciate and to put into enduring form the latent romance which pervaded his beloved Scotland. His practical experience as a lawyer and as a sheriff, gave him a clear insight into the institutions of his country. Previous to the publication of "Waverley," Scotland was a comparatively unknown land. Even Englishmen had little knowledge of its national habits, of its traditions, or its scenery. To Scotchmen, the history of their country was little more than a skeleton, till the magic wand of Scott it filled it with flesh and blood, and gave it new life and animation. "Up to the era of Sir Walter," says an eminent Scotchman, "living people had some vague, general, indistinct notions about dead people mouldering away to nothing, centuries ago, in regular kirk-yards and chance burial-places, 'mang muirs and mosses many O,' somewhere or other in that difficultly distinguished and very debatable district called the Borders. All at once he touched their tombs with a divining-rod, and the turf streamed out ghosts, some in woodmen's dresses, most in warriors' mail; queer archers leapt forth, with yew bows and quivers, and giants stalked shaking spears! The gray chronicler smiled, and taking up his pen, wrote in lines of light the annals of the chivalrous and heroic days of auld feudal Scotland. The nation then, for the first time, knew the character of its ancestors; for these were not spectres—not they, indeed,—nor phantoms of the brain, but gaunt flesh and blood, or glad and glorious;—base-born cottage churls of the olden time, because Scottish, became familiar to the love of the nation's heart, and so to its pride did the high born lineage of palace kings. * * * We know now the character of our own people as it showed itself in war and peace—in palace, castle, hall, hut, hovel, and shieling—through centuries of advancing civilization."

And it was not only to his countrymen that Scott made vivid and familiar the history of his native land. Since his genius described the Highland fastnesses, and peopled them with the chiefs and maidens of old, all the world feels at home in that land at once so small and so great. In Italy, in France in Germany, in America, Jeanie Deans and the Master of Ravenswood are household friends, and Scottish life and habits are known to tens of thousands who never leave their native town.

Besides making his country celebrated by his writings, Scott placed the novel on the firm foundation in public estimation which it has since retained. He redeemed its character from the disrepute into which it had fallen. He used it not only as a means of giving acute and healthful pleasure, but he made it the medium for moral and intellectual advancement. The purity of thought which pervades all his writings, the never-failing nobility of the views of life which he placed before his readers can have no other than an elevating influence.

Scott's literary success was due both to genius and to industry. Of his early precocity Mrs. Cockburn has left a remarkable instance.[203] "I last night supped in Mr. Walter Scott's. He has the most extraordinary genius of a boy I ever saw. He was reading a poem to his mother when I went in. I made him read on; it was the description of a shipwreck. His passion rose with the storm. He lifted his eyes and hands: 'There's the mast gone!' says he. 'Crash it goes! They will all perish!' After his agitation he turns to me: 'That is too melancholy,' says he. 'I had better read you something more amusing.' I preferred a little chat, and asked his opinion of Milton and other books he was reading, which he gave me wonderfully. One of his observations was: 'How strange it is that Adam, just new come into the world, should know every thing! That must be the poet's fancy,' says he. But when told he was created perfect by God, he instantly yielded. When taken to bed last night, he told his aunt he liked that lady. 'What lady?' says she. 'Why, Mrs. Cockburn, for I think she is a virtuoso,—like myself.' 'Dear Walter,' says Aunt Jenny, 'what is a virtuoso?' 'Don't ye know? Why, it's one who wishes and will know every thing.' Now, sir, you will think this a very silly story. Pray, what age do you suppose this boy to be? Name it, now, before I tell you. 'Why, twelve or fourteen.' No such thing; he is not quite six years old. He has a lame leg, for which he was a year at Bath, and has acquired the perfect English accent, which he has not lost since he came, and he reads like a Garrick. You will allow this an uncommon exotic."

The vivid imagination and love of knowledge which Scott displayed from his earliest years were supplemented throughout his life by an assiduous self-cultivation. The great and varied body of legendary lore which he accumulated, together with his ever active and universal sympathy with mankind, made the chief elements in his fictions. There is no one respect in which the Waverley novels are pre-eminent. As regards plot, Scott has been frequently surpassed. While "Kenilworth," the "Bride of Lammermoor," and "Ivanhoe," are well constructed, the plan of "Rob Roy" and "The Monastery" are lacking in sequence. Other novelists, too, have drawn character with quite as much power. But the Waverly novels have attained their supreme position in public estimation by a rare and well balanced union of different qualities. They contain beautiful examples of the sublime, and amusing examples of the ludicrous. They reflect nature in various phases, and always with picturesqueness, power, and truth. Of Scott's historical novels we shall speak elsewhere. Of those which relate especially to his own country, the most remarkable merit consists in the fidelity with which they have reflected the Scotch nationality. On this account they will always possess a value for the student of social history.

Of the estimation in which these novels have been held by the world, and the immense area over which their influence has extended, some idea may be formed from the fact that the actual profits which accrued from them to the author or to his estate shortly after his death, exceeded two millions of dollars. When we add to this sum the profits of the publishers, and when we consider the number of translations issued in Europe and the editions printed since Scott's death in Great Britain and America, we can realize how vast a sum the world has been glad to pay for the possession of these invaluable works.

Following the great Sir Walter in the description of Scottish life and manners, are many well-known writers. John Galt, in the "Annals of the Parish," gave many humorous descriptions of national character. In Wilson's "Lights and Shadows of Scottish Life," in "The Ettrick Shepherd," in the works of Scott's son-in-law, Lockhart, are scenes and characters still very familiar to novel readers. Jane Porter embodied rather ideal views of history in "Thaddeus of Warsaw," and "The Scottish Chiefs." The talents of Miss Ferrier, of Mrs. Oliphant, and of Mr. William Black have kept up the interest which the world has learned to take in every thing appertaining to the land which Sir Walter Scott taught it to know and love so well.[204]