So careful has been our author in this working-up of his story—in this nice dovetailing of its constituent parts—that it is difficult to detect a blemish in any portion. What he has intended to do he has done well; and his main intention, as we have before hinted, was perfection of plot. A few defects, indeed, we note; and note them chiefly to show the skill with which that narrative is wrought, where such blemishes are the sole ones.
In the first place, there are some descriptive passages such as the love adventures of Caleb Price, the account of Gawtrey’s early life, prefaced by that of his grandfather, and the dinner-scene at Love’s, which scarcely come within the category of matters tending to develop the main events. These things, in short, might have been omitted with advantage (because without detriment) to the whole.
At page 254, vol. 2, we perceive the first indications of slovenliness, (arising no doubt from the writer’s anxiety to conclude his task) in an incident utterly without aim, and composed at random. We mean the relapse of Philip into a second illness when nursed by Fanny through the first, at the house of old Gawtrey.
At page 21, vol. 1, we are told that Caleb Price, having received from his friend Beaufort a certain letter (whose contents would have been important in the subsequent attempts to establish Catharine’s claim) held it over the flame of the candle, and that “as the paper dropped on the carpetless floor, Mr. Jones prudently set thereon the broad sole of his boot, and the maid servant brushed it into the grate.”
“Ah, trample it out; hurry it among the ashes. The last as the rest,” said Caleb, hoarsely. “Friendship, fortune, hope, love, life—a little flame—and then—and then—”
“Don’t be uneasy—it’s quite out,” said Mr. Jones.
Now this is related with much emphasis; and, upon reading it, we resolved to hold in memory that this important paper, although torn, was still unburned, and that its fragments had been thrown into a vacant grate. In fact, it was the design of the novelist to re-produce these fragments in the dénouement—a design which he has forgotten to carry out.
We have defined the word “plot,” in a definition of our own to be sure, but in one which we do not the less consider substantially correct; and we have said that it has been a main point with Mr. Bulwer in this his last novel, “Night and Morning,” to work up his plot as near perfection as possible. We have asserted, too, that his design is well accomplished; but we do not the less assert that it has been conceived and executed in error.
The interest of plot, referring, as it does, to cultivated thought in the reader, and appealing to considerations analogous with those which are the essence of sculptural taste, is by no means a popular interest; although it has the peculiarity of being appreciated in its atoms by all, while in its totality of beauty it is comprehended but by the few. The pleasure which the many derive from it is disjointed, ineffective, and evanescent; and even in the case of the critical reader it is a pleasure which may be purchased too dearly. A good tale maybe written without it. Some of the finest fictions in the world have neglected it altogether. We see nothing of it in Gil Blas, in the Pilgrim’s Progress, or in Robinson Crusoe. Thus it is not an essential in story-telling at all; although, well-managed, within proper limits, it is a thing to be desired. At best it is but a secondary and rigidly artistical merit, for which no merit of a higher class—no merit founded in nature—should be sacrificed. But in the book before us much is sacrificed for its sake, and every thing is rendered subservient to its purposes. So excessive is, here, the involution of circumstances, that it has been found impossible to dwell for more than a brief period upon any particular one. The writer seems in a perpetual flurry to accomplish what, in autorical parlance, is called “bringing up one’s time.” He flounders in the vain attempt to keep all his multitudinous incidents at one and the same moment before the eye. His ability has been sadly taxed in the effort—but more sadly the time and temper of the reader. No sooner do we begin to take some slight degree of interest in some cursorily-sketched event, than we are hurried off to some other, for which a new feeling is to be built up, only to be tumbled down, forthwith, as before. And thus, since there is no sufficiently continuous scene in the whole novel, it results that there is not a strongly effective one. Time not being given us in which to become absorbed, we are only permitted to admire, while we are not the less chilled, tantalised, wearied, and displeased. Nature, with natural interest, has been given up a bond-maiden to an elaborate, but still to a misconceived, perverted, and most unsatisfactory Art.
Very little reflection might have sufficed to convince Mr. Bulwer that narratives, even one fourth so long as the one now lying upon our table, are essentially inadapted to that nice and complex adjustment of incident at which he has made this desperate attempt. In the wire-drawn romances which have been so long fashionable, (God only knows how or why) the pleasure we derive (if any) is a composite one, and made up of the respective sums of the various pleasurable sentiments experienced in perusal. Without excessive and fatiguing exertion, inconsistent with legitimate interest, the mind cannot comprehend at one time, and in one survey, the numerous individual items which go to establish the whole. Thus the high ideal sense of the unique is sure to be wanting:—for, however absolute in itself be the unity of the novel, it must inevitably fail of appreciation. We speak now of that species of unity which is alone worth the attention of the critic—the unity or totality of effect.