The notion of a “whitewashing” some well-known historical character is attractive to a writer, but it commonly makes a book somewhat tiresome. Writing up this or that theological or ecclesiastical view is still more to be avoided. This, however, will not prevent the employment of dramatic presentation of partisan views.
Accessories
You cannot be too careful about accessories, even of the most trifling character. I remember making the deplorable blunder of introducing forks among the belongings of an Oxford student of the fifteenth century. They were not used till long after that time. With this eminently practical caution I will conclude my advice.
ETHICAL NOVELS
Prof. Robert K. Douglas
Romance ancient and modern
The ethical novel is a natural product of modern times. In the days when the world was young, men gave vent to their fancies in poetical romances, in which the deeds of gods, goddesses, and heroes formed the staple themes. Homer’s inspired verses and Eastern romances, in which gods in the intervals of their amours battle with demons for the possession of mankind, exist to remind us of the kind of heroic pageants which interested and entranced the warlike Greek and the swarthy warriors of Asia. As civilisation advanced, doubts crept in as to the very existence of the heroes in which earlier generations had delighted, and minstrels and writers descended from the clouds, and tuned their harps and guided their pens to record the doughty deeds of their leaders on the hard-fought fields of their nations’ records. At such a time men desired rather to be startled and thrilled than to be taught to reflect and discriminate, and the old blood-and-thunder novel exactly suited their taste.
Painting
The history of painting runs a nearly parallel course with that of literature. Like fiction, the painter’s art received its first glowing inspirations from the current legends of celestial beings, and passed through successive stages until the comparatively modern phase was reached in which striking effects and startling situations became the principal stocks-in-trade. As in literature, this intermediate condition gave way to the expression of ideas rather than of physical force, and artists, like novelists, were led to aim at representing carefully drawn characters and suggestive surroundings. In the novels of the last century we see a gradual development of this stage of the novelist’s art. Any one who takes the trouble to compare Richardson’s Pamela with Fielding’s Joseph Andrews and Smollett’s Peregrine Pickle, will recognise the advance which took its rise when Queen Anne sat on the throne, and which has continued in obedience to the law of progress unchecked to the present day.
Early writers of ethical romance