A History of English Prose Fiction

by Bayard Tuckerman

A faculty which George Eliot possessed in common with Dickens and Thackeray was that of making very ordinary people interesting. And this is a talent characteristic of the best minds which have contributed to fiction or the drama. Shakespeare possessed it in a high degree, and the best creations of Scott are ordinary, unheroic persons. The faculty arises from superior powers of observation. Some people will take a walk through a picturesque country or a crowded city without having seen any thing worthy of remark. Others will pass over the same ground, and return overflowing with description. In the same manner, the great number of men and women pass through life finding every thing commonplace, and the observing sympathy of a Thackeray, a Miss Austen, or a George Eliot is necessary to light up the unnoticed figures which throng the path. George Eliot is particularly happy in drawing a really ordinary person, especially when a little pretension is added. She must have written Mr. Brooke's opinion of women with true enjoyment: "There is a lightness about the feminine mind—a touch and go—music, the fine arts, that kind of thing—they should study those up to a certain point, women should; but in a light way, you know." But though Mrs. Poyser be humble, she is far from ordinary. "Some folks' tongues," she says, "are like the clocks as run on strikin', not to tell you the time o' the day, but because there's summat wrong i' their own inside."

So long as George Eliot confined herself to her own sphere of action, she exhibited the same remarkable powers. But even her great name could not command admiration for "The Spanish Gypsy." Her limitations clearly appeared in "Daniel Deronda." When describing the characters and intercourse of Grandcourt and Gwendolen, when dealing with every thing English in that variously estimated work, she remained the great author of "Adam Bede" and "Silas Marner." But in undertaking the discussion of the religion and social position of the Jews, she mistook her own talents, and created in Daniel Deronda, an indefinite combination of virtues unworthy of her genius.

We have now noticed fifteen women, from Maria Edgeworth and Jane Austen to George Eliot, who have contributed to the single department of fiction concerned with English domestic life. Many other names almost equally deserving and equally celebrated might be added to the list. The enduring popularity of their works is sufficient commentary on the success with which woman's talent has been directed toward fiction. Not only have the productions of these writers a high literary value, but their widespread circulation has afforded a really healthful amusement to tens of thousands, and their influence has been uniformly for good.[206]

The novels of English domestic life written by men have been little more numerous or able, but much more extended in scope. "Tremaine" and "De Vere," of R. Plumer Ward, contain clever sketches of character, but the narrative is loaded down with political and philosophical disquisitions. Theodore Hook's stories were as unequal as his life. Almost all bear the marks of haste and carelessness, and yet very few are without some portion of that pointed wit and delicate humor which delineated Jack Brag, or described Mr. Abberley's dinner party in the "Man of Many Friends." Richard Harris Barham is well known as the author of the witty "Ingoldsby Legends," and Samuel Warren as the author of "Ten Thousand a Year." Charles Kingsley described the life and grievances of mechanics in "Alton Locke." Charles Reade began a long series of popular novels with "Peg Woffington" and "Christie Johnstone." His best work is "Never Too Late to Mend," in which he criticized prison discipline, and described the striking scenes of the Australian gold-fields. Few novels of the present day contain a more interesting story or more lifelike delineations of character. Wilkie Collins' greatest power lies in the construction of his plot; the "Moonstone" and the "Woman in White," are among the most absorbing narratives in the whole range of fiction. His studies of the morbid workings of the mind are often striking, but with the exception of Count Fosco and a few others, his characters are not strongly marked. Thomas Hughes accomplished a truly noble work in the composition of "Tom Brown's School Days" and "Tom Brown at Oxford,"—books which have found their way to every boy's heart, and have appealed to all that was most healthful and manly there. The novels of Benjamin d'Israeli are chiefly interesting in their relation to the character of their illustrious author. As works of art they are faulty in construction, exaggerated in description, and unnatural in effect. "Vivian Gray" and "Lothair" cannot pretend to be truthful studies of English life, nor would their author, probably, have represented them as such. But so much of the great statesman's power was instilled into his novels that they have a certain interest even for those who are most alive to their faults. They are the conceptions of a very rich imagination, and contain many pictures which, if untrue to nature, are still extremely vivid. D'Israeli's chief literary, and perhaps also his chief political characteristic, was a constant endeavor to make striking effects. The reader may be sure to find nothing commonplace in his writings. Every scene and every character is painted in the brightest of colors. If the background be sombre, it will simply throw out more brilliantly the figures in the foreground. It is said that most men have a favorite word. That of d'Israeli was "wondrous." He took his reader into wondrous baronial halls, filled with wondrous gems, with wondrous tapestries, with wondrous paintings, and introduced him to wondrous dukes and duchesses, looking out from wondrous dark orbs, and breathing through almond-shaped nostrils. He loved to bring the royal family on the scene, and to trace the awe-inspiring effect of their august presence. When we open a novel of d'Israeli's we are certain of moving in a brilliant society, although one belonging to a yet undiscovered world. Women whose political influence changes the map of Europe, irresistible Catholic priests are mingled with impudent adventurers and professional toad-eaters. And over every thing is cast, by d'Israeli's Eastern imagination, a glamour of unlimited wealth, of numberless coronets, and of soaring ambitions. The political career of the Earl of Beaconsfield is one of the most remarkable in history, and even his opponents cannot withhold admiration from the great abilities and undaunted resolution which brought that career to its triumphant close. But the novels of the Earl of Beaconsfield have little value beyond their reflection of his dreams and his ambition.

Among the most famous writers of fiction of the nineteenth century will always be mentioned the name of Sir Bulwer Lytton. More than any other writer, he studied and developed the novel as a form of literature. Almost every novelist has taken some special field and has confined himself to that. Dickens, George Eliot, Thackeray made occasional incursions on historic ground, but still their chief work was expended upon the novel of life and manners. Lytton attempted, and successfully, every department of fiction. In "Zanoni," he gave to the world a novel of fancy; in "Pelham" and "The Disowned," fashionable novels: in "Paul Clifford," a criminal novel; in "Rienzi," "Harold," "The Last of the Barons," historical novels; in "What Will He Do With It?" a novel of familiar life. And he brought to each variety of fiction the same artistic sense, the same knowledge of the world, and keen observation. To describe English life in all its phases, he was particularly fitted. Born in a high rank, he was perfectly at home in his descriptions of the upper classes, and never slow in exposing their vices. His studies of men took so universal a form that he became familiar even with the slang terms of pickpockets and house-breakers. "What Will He Do With It?" combines examples of the heroic, the humorous, the pathetic, and the villainous, and affords, perhaps, the best general view of the author's varied talents. Sir Bulwer Lytton is one of the most voluminous writers of a very prolific class, and yet he has never repeated himself. Mr. Anthony Trollope and several other novelists have shown how fallacious is the idea that the imagination is a fickle mistress to be courted and waited for. They have proved that she can be made to settle down and accustomed by habit to working at stated hours and for regular periods. But Bulwer Lytton not only forced his imagination to continuous labor, but he was able to insure an unending novelty of conception. In each one of his novels we are introduced to an entirely new set of characters inhabiting quite unfamiliar scenes.

With a few exceptions, Mr. Anthony Trollope has confined himself to the novel of English social life, but that mine he has worked with wonderful assiduity and success. In "The Warden," in "Barchester Towers," are studies of clerical character for which this writer has won a special reputation. "The Small House at Allington" is a love story of particular fascination. Few writers have described the manifestations of love in the acts and thoughts of a modest, sweet girl as delicately as Mr. Trollope has done in the case of the deserted Lily. Her rejection of a second suitor is felt by the reader to be the inevitable consequence of so pure a passion, and the treachery of Crosbie is traced through its various gradations with true fidelity to nature. "Phineas Finn" is an excellent example of a parliamentary novel. That work and its companions, "Phineas Redux," "The Prime Minister," and "The Duke's Children," keep up our acquaintance with the family and connections of Plantagenet Palliser, Duke of Omnium, than which few groups of fictitious characters are more continuously interesting. Mr. Trollope's novels will have a special value for the future student of English social life in the nineteenth century. The race-course, the hunting field, the country seat, Piccadilly, Hyde Park, the life of clubs and parliament, are described by him with photographic minuteness. And the novel-reader of to-day derives a constant pleasure from his books, notwithstanding the fact that the monotony of modern life is somewhat too closely reflected in them.

The works of no writer in the English language, except those of Scott, have attained so immediate a reputation and have won so wide-spread a popularity as the novels of Charles Dickens. "In less than six months from the appearance of the first number of the 'Pickwick Papers,'" said the London Quarterly Review in 1837, "the whole reading public were talking about them, the names of Winkle, Warden, Weller, Snodgrass, Dodson and Fogg, had become familiar in our mouths as household terms; and Mr. Dickens was the grand object of interest to the whole tribe of 'Leo-hunters,' male and female, of the metropolis. Nay, Pickwick chintzes figured in linen-drapers' windows, and Weller corduroys in breeches-makers' advertisements; Boz cabs might be seen rattling through the streets; and the portrait of the author of 'Pelham' or 'Crichton' was scraped down or pasted over to make room for that of the new popular favourite in the omnibuses." For forty years the writings of this great novelist have held their place in the public esteem without any sensible diminution. Hundreds of thousands, old and young, in Great Britain, in America, in every country of Europe, have followed the fortunes of Nicholas Nickleby, of David Copperfield, of Oliver Twist, and of numberless other celebrated characters with unflagging interest. Perhaps Dickens' most remarkable achievement lay in the number of his creations, and in the distinctness with which he could impress them on the memory of his readers. Of the great host of figures who throng his scenes, how many we remember! Their names remain stamped on our minds, and some of their characteristic phrases, like Micawber's "Something will turn up," or Tapley's "There's some credit in being jolly here," have passed into current phrases. Dickens' great object was to celebrate the virtues of the humbler ranks of life, and to expose the acts of injustice or tyranny to which they are subjected. This he did in a spirit of the truest philanthropy and most universal benevolence. The helpless victims of oppression, like little Oliver Twist, or the inmates of Dotheboys Hall, found in him an effective champion. Never has hypocrisy, the besetting vice of this age, been so mercilessly exposed as in the works of Dickens. It is not only in such a character as Pecksniff that its ugliness is revealed, but wherever pretence hides guilt behind a sanctimonious countenance, the mask is surely torn off. Dickens hated hypocrisy as Thackeray hated snobbism. And both, in their zeal, occasionally saw the hypocrite or the snob where he did not exist. Dealing, as Dickens did, so exclusively with common and low-born characters, it is remarkable that his books so rarely leave any impression of vulgarity behind them. And this result is due to the author's love of truth and detestation of all pretence. There can be no vulgarity without pretension. A great many novels of the day are extremely vulgar, because they describe ill-bred people and represent them to the reader as ladies and gentlemen. But Dickens' shopkeeper or street-sweeper makes no pretence to gentility, and therefore is as far from being vulgar as the man who has never known what it was to be any thing but a gentleman. The faults, like the merits, of Dickens' work resulted from the exuberance and power of his imagination. The same vividness of conception which gives such life to his description of a thunderstorm or of a quiet family scene, sometimes betrayed him into exaggeration and caricature. And yet when we consider the number and variety of the figures conjured up by his creative mind, from Paul Dombey to the Jew, Fagin, it is extraordinary that to so few this criticism will apply.

Dickens' vast popularity resulted only in part from the artistic merit of his works. The breadth of his canvas, his intense realization of fictitious scenes, and his extraordinary descriptive power are qualities enough to win for him his eminent position in fiction. But the affection felt for Dickens as a man, which has made him occupy so much the hearts as well as the minds of the reading public, was attracted by qualities apart from those which excited admiration for the author. Dickens was essentially a national writer in the variety of the characters with whom he brought his readers into communion. He was essentially popular, from the fact that he dealt with the masses and not with any particular class. He was essentially English, in that he was the apostle of home. No novelist who has treated domestic life has so thoroughly caught its spirit, and has so sympathetically traced its joys and sorrows, its trials and recompenses. Family life has been for more than two centuries gradually supplanting the life of the camp and the court. It is in the domestic circle that men now find the interest which was formerly sought in adventure or publicity. Not only in the Christmas stories, especially devoted to the celebration of home, but through all his great fictions Dickens made domestic life his chief study. And he is, above all others, the favorite household novelist. While he lived, each new work of his was welcomed alike by parent and child, and when he died, there were few homes where books ever came that the loss of a friend was not felt.

Scott, Dickens, almost all the great English novelists described heroes and heroines. They made their chief character an embodiment of virtue or strength, and strove to win for him the admiration of the reader. Even Tom Jones was a hero to Fielding, and Roderick Random to Smollett. But Thackeray said to himself as he looked out on the world, that humanity was not made up of heroes and villains. He had never met with the truly heroic, nor with the utterly depraved. It seemed to him that human nature lay between the two extremes. In "Vanity Fair," in "Pendennis" and in "The Newcomes" he resolved to describe man as he was, with virtues and failings, with occasional glimpses of the noble, and more common exhibitions of the mean and the little. Young men were to appear in his pages with their weakness and selfishness; young girls with their silliness and affectation. Thackeray, in a word, was to be more realistic than his predecessors in fiction had dared to be. He was to show his readers what they really were, and not what they would wish to be.

But in Thackeray's novels is evident the difficulty of establishing any generally accepted standard of realism. If this quality consists in representing a character as speaking and acting just as we should expect such a character to speak and act, Thackeray succeeded as perhaps no novelist, except Fielding, had done before him. Becky Sharp, Sir Pitt Crawley, Pendennis, Clive Newcome, all use such words as the reader would expect from them. Their actions are the natural results of the trains of thought into which the author has given us an insight. When the old reprobate, Lord Steyne, discovers that Becky Sharp had appropriated to herself the money which he had given her to restore poor Miss Briggs' stolen property, he is not indignant at the deception. The admiration of the noble rogue is only increased for the woman who has shown herself to be possessed of a more astute roguery than his own:—