Stevenson’s death and the publication of this last effort of his fine genius may tend to draw away a measure of public interest from that type of novel which he, his imitators, and his rivals have so abundantly produced. This may be the close of a ‘period’ such as we read about in histories of literature.
If the truth be told, has not our generation had enough of duels, hair-breadth escapes, post-chaises, and highwaymen, mysterious strangers muffled in great-coats, and pistols which always miss fire when they shouldn’t? To say positively that we have done with all this might appear extravagant in the light of the popularity of certain modern heroic novels. But it might not be too radical a view if one were to maintain that these books are the expression of something temporary and accidental, that they sustain a chronological relation to modern literature rather than an essential one.
Matthew Arnold spoke of Heine as a sardonic smile on the face of the Zeitgeist. Let us say that these modern stories in the heroic vein are a mere heightening of color on the cheeks of that interesting young lady, the Genius of the modern novel—a heightening of color on the cheeks, for the color comes from without and not from within. It is a matter of no moment. Artificial red does no harm for once, and looks well under gaslight.
These novels of adventure which we buy so cheerfully, read with such pleasure, and make such a good-natured fuss over, are for the greater part an expression of something altogether foreign to the deeper spirit of modern fiction. Surely the true modern novel is the one which reflects the life of to-day. And life to-day is easy, familiar, rich in material comforts, and on the whole without painfully striking contrasts and thrilling episodes. People have enough to eat, reasonable liberty, and a degree of patience with one another which suggests indifference. A man may shout aloud in the market-place the most revolutionary opinions, and hardly be taken to task for it; and then on the other hand we have got our rulers pretty well under control. This paragraph, however, is not the peroration of a eulogy upon ‘our unrivaled happiness.’ It attempts merely to lay stress on such facts as these, that it is not now possible to hang a clergyman of the Church of England for forgery, as was done in 1777; that a man may not be deprived of the custody of his own children because he holds heterodox religious opinions, as happened in 1816. There is widespread toleration; and civilization in the sense in which Ruskin uses the word has much increased. Now it is possible for a Jew to become Prime Minister, and for a Roman Catholic to become England’s Poet Laureate.
If, then, life is familiar, comfortable, unrestrained, and easy, as it certainly seems to be, how are we to account for the rise of this semihistoric, heroic literature? It is almost grotesque, the contrast between the books themselves and the manner in which they are produced. One may picture the incongruous elements of the situation,—a young society man going up to his suite in a handsome modern apartment house, and dictating romance to a type-writer. In the evening he dines at his club, and the day after the happy launching of his novel he is interviewed by the representative of a newspaper syndicate, to whom he explains his literary method, while the interviewer makes a note of his dress and a comment on the decoration of his mantelpiece.
Surely romance written in this way—and we have not grossly exaggerated the way—bears no relation to modern literature other than a chronological one. The Prisoner of Zenda and A Gentleman of France, to mention two happy and pleasing examples of this type of novel, are not modern in the sense that they express any deep feeling or any vital characteristic of to-day. They are not instinct with the spirit of the times. One might say that these stories represent the novel in its theatrical mood. It is the novel masquerading. Just as a respectable bookkeeper likes to go into private theatricals, wear a wig with curls, a slouch hat with ostrich feathers, a sword and ruffles, and play a part to tear a cat in, so does the novel like to do the same. The day after the performance the whole artificial equipment drops away and disappears. The bookkeeper becomes a bookkeeper once more and a natural man. The hour before the footlights has done him no harm. True, he forgot his lines at one place, but what is a prompter for if not to act in such an emergency? Now that it is over the affair may be pronounced a success,—particularly in the light of the gratifying statement that a clear profit has been realized towards paying for the new organ.
This is a not unfair comparison of the part played by these books in modern fiction. The public likes them, buys them, reads them; and there is no reason why the public should not. In proportion to the demand for color, action, posturing, and excessive gesticulation, these books have a financial success; in proportion to the conscientiousness of the artist who creates them they have a literary vitality. But they bear to the actual modern novel a relation not unlike that which The Castle of Otranto bears to Tom Jones,—making allowance of course for the chronological discrepancy.
From one point the heroic novel is a protest against the commonplace and stupid elements of modern life. According to Mr. Frederic Harrison there is no romance left in us. Life is stale and flat; yet even Mr. Harrison would hardly go to the length of declaring that it is also commercially unprofitable. The artificial apartment-house romance is one expression of the revolt against the duller elements in our civilization; and as has often been pointed out, the novel of psychological horrors is another expression.
There are a few men, however, whose work is not accounted for by saying that they love theatrical pomp and glitter for its own sake, or that they write fiction as a protest against the times in which they live. Stevenson was of this number. He was an adventurer by inheritance and by practice. He came of a race of adventurers, adventurers who built lighthouses and fought with that bold outlaw, the Sea. He himself honestly loved, and in a measure lived, a wild life. There is no truer touch of nature than in the scene where St. Ives tells the boy Rowley that he is a hunted fugitive with a price set upon his head, and then enjoys the tragic astonishment depicted in the lad’s face.
Rowley ‘had a high sense of romance and a secret cultus for all soldiers and criminals. His traveling library consisted of a chap-book life of Wallace, and some sixpenny parts of the Old Bailey Sessions Papers; … and the choice depicts his character to a hair. You can imagine how his new prospects brightened on a boy of this disposition. To be the servant and companion of a fugitive, a soldier, and a murderer rolled in one—to live by stratagems, disguises, and false names, in an atmosphere of midnight and mystery so thick that you could cut it with a knife—was really, I believe, more dear to him than his meals, though he was a great trencher-man and something of a glutton besides. For myself, as the peg by which all this romantic business hung, I was simply idolized from that moment; and he would rather have sacrificed his hand than surrendered the privilege of serving me.’