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.
[212] In Mr. John Morley's edition of "English Men of Letters," chapter ix.
[213] See Macaulay on "The Comic Dramatists."
[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.