Grant Allen, alas! lacked the benevolent qualities of the “spiritual” Mr. Shorthouse, and—as a result, no doubt—he is given less space, and his work and vogue are spoken of disparagingly. One of his books was a succès de scandale “on account of its treatment of the sexual problem.” Mr. Allen apparently neither “warmed the heart” nor “improved the conduct” of his audience. On the other hand, Mrs. Oliphant, in a long biography, is praised for her “sympathetic touch”; and we learn furthermore that she was long and “honorably” connected with the firm of Blackwood. Maurice Hewlett has nearly a half-column biography full of praise. Conan Doyle, also, is spoken of highly. Kipling’s biography, longer than Mark Twain’s, Bourget’s, Daudet’s, or Gogol’s, also contains praise. In H. G. Wells’s biography, which is longer than that of George Moore, “his very high place” as a novelist is spoken of; and Anthony Hope draws abundant praise in a biography almost as long as that of Turgueniev!
In the treatment of Mrs. Humphry Ward, however, we have the key to the literary attitude of the Encyclopædia. Here is an author who epitomizes that middle-class respectability which forms the Britannica’s editors’ standard of artistic judgment, and who represents that virtuous suburban culture which colors the Encyclopædia’s art departments. It is not surprising therefore that, of all recent novelists, she should be given the place of honor. Her biography extends to a column and two-thirds, much longer than the biography of Turgueniev, Zola, Daudet, Mark Twain, or Henry James; and over twice the length of William Dean Howells’s biography. Even more space is devoted to her than is given to the biography of Poe!
Nor in this disproportionate amount of space alone is Mrs. Ward’s superiority indicated. The article contains the most fulsome praise, and we are told that her “eminence among latter-day women novelists arises from her high conception of the art of fiction and her strong grasp on intellectual and social problems, her descriptive power ... and her command of a broad and vigorous prose style.” (The same enthusiastic gentleman who wrote Mrs. Ward’s biography also wrote the biography of Oscar Wilde. The latter is given much less space, and the article on him is a petty, contemptible attack written from the standpoint of a self-conscious puritan.)
Thackeray is given equal space with Balzac, and in the course of his biography it is said that some have wanted to compare him with Dickens but that such a comparison would be unprofitable. “It is better to recognize simply that the two novelists stood, each in his own way, distinctly above even their most distinguished contemporaries.” (Both Balzac and Victor Hugo were their contemporaries, and to say that Thackeray stood “distinctly above” them is to butcher French genius to make an English holiday.)
In Dickens’s biography, which is nearly half again as long as that of Balzac and nearly two and a half times as long as that of Hugo, we encounter such words and phrases as “masterpieces” and “wonderful books.” No books of his surpassed the early chapters of Great Expectations in “perfection of technique or in the mastery of all the resources of the novelist’s art.” Here, as in many other places, patriotic license has obviously been permitted to run wild. Where, outside of provincial England, will you find another critic, no matter how appreciative of Dickens’s talent, who will agree that he possessed “perfection of technique” and a “mastery of all the resources of the novelist’s art”? But, as if this perfervid rhetoric were not sufficiently extreme, Swinburne is quoted as saying that to have created Abel Magwitch alone is to be a god indeed among the creators of deathless men. (This means that Dickens was a god beside the mere mundane creator of Lucien de Rubempré, Goriot, and Eugénie Grandet.) And, again, on top of this unreasoned enthusiasm, it is added that in “intensity and range of creative genius he can hardly be said to have any modern rival.”
Let us turn to Balzac who was not, according to this encyclopædia, even Dickens’s rival in intensity and range of creative genius. Here we find derogatory criticism which indeed bears out the contention of Dickens’s biographer that the author of David Copperfield was superior to the author of Lost Illusions. Balzac, we read, “is never quite real.” His style “lacks force and adequacy to his own purpose.” And then we are given this final bit of insular criticism: “It is idle to claim for Balzac an absolute supremacy in the novel, while it may be questioned whether any single book of his, or any scene of a book, or even any single character or situation, is among the very greatest books, scenes, characters, situations in literature.” Alas, poor Balzac!—the inferior of both Dickens and Thackeray—the writer who, if the judgment of the Encyclopædia Britannica is to be accepted, created no book, scene, character or situation which is among the greatest! Thus are the world’s true geniuses disparaged for the benefit of moral English culture.
De Vigny receives adverse criticism. He is compared unfavorably to Sir Walter Scott, and is attacked for his “pessimistic” philosophy. De Musset “had genius, though not genius of that strongest kind which its possessor can always keep in check”—after the elegant and repressed manner of English writers, no doubt. De Musset’s own character worked “against his success as a writer,” and his break with George Sand “brought out the weakest side of his moral character.” (Again the church-bell motif.) Gautier, that sensuous and un-English Frenchman, wrote a book called Mademoiselle de Maupin which was “unfitted by its subject, and in parts by its treatment, for general perusal.”
Dumas père is praised, largely we infer, because his work was sanctioned by Englishmen: “The three musketeers are as famous in England as in France. Thackeray could read about Athos from sunrise to sunset with the utmost contentment of mind, and Robert Louis Stevenson and Andrew Lang have paid tribute to the band.” Pierre Loti, however, in a short biography, hardly meets with British approval. “Many of his best books are long sobs of remorseful memory, so personal, so intimate, that an English reader is amazed to find such depth of feeling compatible with the power of minutely and publicly recording what is felt.” Loti, like de Musset, lacked that prudish restraint which is so admirable a virtue in English writers. Daudet, in a short and very inadequate biography, is written down as an imitator of Dickens; and in Anatole France’s biography, which is shorter than Marryat’s or Mrs. Oliphant’s, no adequate indication of his genius is given.
Zola is treated with greater unfairness than perhaps any other French author. Zola has always been disliked in England, and his English publisher was jailed by the guardians of British morals. But it is somewhat astonishing to find to what lengths this insular prejudice has gone in the Encyclopædia Britannica. Zola’s biography, which is shorter than Mrs. Humphry Ward’s, is written by a former Accountant General of the English army, and contains adverse comment because he did not idealize “the nobler elements in human nature,” although, it is said, “his later books show improvement.” Such scant treatment of Zola reveals the unfairness of extreme prejudice, for no matter what the nationality, religion, or taste of the critic, he must, in all fairness, admit that Zola is a more important and influential figure in modern letters than Mrs. Humphry Ward.
In the biography of George Sand we learn that “as a thinker, George Eliot is vastly [sic] superior; her knowledge is more profound, and her psychological analysis subtler and more scientific.” Almost nothing is said of Constant’s writings; and in the mere half-column sketch of Huysmans there are only a few biographical facts with a list of his books. Of Stendhal there is practically no criticism; and Coppée “exhibits all the defects of his qualities.” René Bazin draws only seventeen lines—a bare record of facts; and Édouard Rod is given a third of a column with no criticism.