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1142 THE LEADER. [Saturday,
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BUTLKR'S .AN j\'!,( .)(JY ¦« . JvlOJ ) l...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Jiasil: A Story Of Modern ' Life. Ivy W....
painfully well . My only desire , in writing this letter , is to claim credit for one humble , work-a-day merit to which anybody may attain by trying—the merit of having really taken pains to do my best . " There can be no literary man , I think , with the smallest respect for his vocation or for himself—whether lie be a Master of his Art , or only a student of it ( like me)—but must feel that tliis first , great merit of ' painstaking' has now become doubly and trebly a merit in the present state of' light literature / as it is termed , in England . ' " The mob of ladies and gentlemen who play at writing is increasing , in our day , to formidable proportions . With every new season appear additional numbers of the holiday authors , who sit down to write a book as they would sit down to a game at cards—leisurely-living people who coolly select as an amusement ' to kill time / an occupation which can only be pursued , even creditably , by the patient ,
uncompromising , reverent devotion of every moral and intellectual faculty , more or less , which a human being has to give . Books , by hundreds , are written now , which—making the largest allowances for human vanity—it is difficult to imagine could ever have seen the light , if the writers themselves had only ventured on the perilous ceremony of reading them over , on completion , within easy distance of a waste-paper basket or a lighted fire . And books of this kind are not only printed , but published ! not only published , but reviewed ! not only reviewed , but read ! not only read , but ( marvel of all marvels !) sometimes , even , actually sold ! ! To escape classification with the oft-hand professors of this sort of off-hand authorship , by the homely but honourable distinction of being workers and not players at their task , has really become an object of importance , now-a-days , for those who follow Literature as a study and respect it as a science . If my book should not succeed , let me at least try if I cannot establish my right to the . just , though hard verdict , that I have failed through want of ability , and not through want of care I "
We quote those words , for they are such , as every author should bear in mind . Let us now hear what he says on the aim of his present work ; we endorse every sentence of it : — " Having gained my modicum of literary success ( such as it is !) by writing a classical romance , it may be thought strange , by those who recollect enough of my former attempt to take some little interest in this , that I should have abandoned the field of my first labours , and have left past centuries for the present . The reason for this change is simple and soon told . I could not find , in Ancient
History , any second subject which , to « ryjudgment , offered itself so perfectly to all the requirements of romance , as the subject I was fortunate enough to find for A . ntonina . On that account , therefore , I abandoned the idea of building my second work on a classical foundation . Many subjects in Modern History I knew were open to me ; one subject in particular , I thought of choosing , and may yet take up at some future time , as good groundwor . k for a romance . But , on this occasion , the temptation of trying if I could not successfully address myself , at once , " to the readiest sympathies and the largest number of readers , by writing a story of our own times , was too much for me . So I wrote this book .
" Let me now tell you , and through you , those who may occupy themselves with these pages , what I have tried to do , to make my work worth perusal . " In writing a story of past times , I had been obliged to go through careful preliminary training for the task . In writing a story of present times , I thought it my duty to devote myself , "before I began work , to a second training , just as careful , though of a very different nature from the first . As the reading of past realities in books , gave me the materials for -making Anlonina ; so the reading of present realities in men , must give me the materials for making Basil . Industry in
collecting useful information ; discretion in selecting it ; and care and intelligence in using it , were just as important in the one case , as in the other . The difference was in-the quality of the knowledge required , not in the quantity : and the difficulty of employing that knowledge successfully when I had got it , was tenfold greater in the new task than in tlio old . When I was writing about the people of the fifth century to the people- of the nineteenth , many and many an error might be expected to pass unnoticed : when I was writing *>/ the people of our own times , to the people of our own times , what single error , what Disappreciation even , could hope to escape ?
" Feeling the difficulties of my undertaking thus , 1 thought long over what I desired to do , before I ventured to take pen in hand ; and on at length beginning this hook , resolved ( in the painter ' s phrase ) to ' work from the living model / not only in drawing my clmructers , hut in constructing my plot a . s well . Accordingly , J founded the main event out of which this story springs , on a fact in real life which liiid conic within my own knowledge : and in afterwards shaping the course of the narrative thus suggested , guided it as often as f could where I knew by my own experiences , and by the experiences incidentally related to me by others , that it would touch on something real and true , in its progress . JVly idea was , that the more of the Actual 1 could garner up as a Lex I , to speak from , the more certain I might feel of the genuineness and value of the Ideal which was sure to spring out of it . K . incy and Imagination , ( Jriice and Heauf . y , all ^ hose qualities which are to the work of Art what seent and colour are to the flower , can only grow towards Heaven by taking root in earth . After all , is not the nobles ! , poetry of prone fiction I ho poetry ofevery-dny truth V
" Directing my characters and my story , then , towards tin ; light of Ideality wherever I could find it , I have not licsitnteil fo violate ; some of ( he sentimental convcntioniilities of wuiLimenfal fiction . For in . stanee , the first love-meeting of two of the personages in this book , occurs ( where tin ; real love-meeting from which if , is drawn , occurred ) in f . ho very lust place , and under the very lust , circumstances which the artifices of sentimental writing would sanction . Will my lovers excite ridicule instead of interest , because I have truly represented them : \ s teeing each other where hundreds of other lovers have f'r . st , seen each oilier , as hundreds of people will readily admit when they read the passage to winch 1 refer r I am sanguine enough to think ' not . "
Tho broad line which . separates intention from execution , be il , never ho broad , cannot be perceived hy . 'in author until ho looks sit Imh work from ( lie distance of y earn ; when vVilkio Collins eonies to look n , |; liusil from tb ; it impartial point we are persuaded ho will think with us flint ho lias j ailed in ( he Juiimm . ii and n \ sl , lic ( , ie n . spoel . s of his story . Me will feel with us Hint tlie diameters wan ! . tlie sharp derisive outlines of realil v , the only living character being I hat of ( lie tfoodna ! mod . scamp K ; il pli . lie will feel with us that however I rue a . s a . mailer of fact ( he main incident may he , it , in not , truly presented in this hI ory ; an air of unreality pervades ( lie hook which makes even commonplace incidents loo It " improbable . " Wo ncod
not tell him that although Truth is stranger than Fiction , the very nature of Art forbids the admission of such an excuse . In the true circumstances however strange , the details all agree , and could we but know all , the im ' probability would disappear . In fiction , the author knows all ; it is he creates the details , and his task is to make the improbable probable otherwise where would be the limit P A man might pile extravagance on absurdity and laugh at all objection , by saying " Truth is stranger than Fiction ; so strange that you cannot say what is possible and what impossible . " There is also this further consideration . Men often declare they " have drawn their figures from nature . " Truly : a long way from Nature ! The question never is , Did you have a living model ? The question always is : Have you created a living figure ?
In taking up an improbable event Wilkie Collins has arranged his plot so as to make it probable ; and in his own mind the scheme may lay itself out consistently enough . But to the reader the case is otherwise . The reader rebels against Sherwin ' s vulgarity , and motives , no less than against Margaret ' s deceit , not because these things are unreal in themselves , but because they have not reality in their presentation . He rebels against Basil ' s patience and blindness , and Mannion ' s melodramatic blue fire ; against the story itself and the incidents which present it , although from its marvellous narrative power , he cannot leave the story unread .
T \ e are delivering a general verdict , not having time and space to enter into the several counts ; but as a plain yet not exceptional example of the unreality to which we refer , let the first meeting of the lovers in an omnibus be selected . In drawing a head the few decisive touches of an artist will bring out into distinctness the individuality of a human being , though but in outline ; whereas an K . A . will ambitiously paint you a head , which is manifestly not that of a human being , although you may perhaps find difficulty in saying where the fault lies—it lies in departing
from the lines of truth into the so called Ideal ; if the pencil swerve never so little the result is failure . This principle , true of the smallest things in art , becomes manifest on all exceptional occasions . Love at first sight is an exceptional occasion . Yet we have most of us some suggestive experience which will lend credence to love at first sight , if that be properly presented ; we have all felt a strange thrill at the sight of a certain facea presentiment that in that person lies some occult power which will work on our lives as an influence—and to this experience Wilkie Collins appeals in the passage we are about to quote : —
" I have said that the two additional passengers who entered the vehicle in which I was riding , were , one of them , an elderly lady ; the other , a young girl . As soon as the latter had seated herself nearly opposite to me , by her companion ' s side , I felt her influence on me directly—an influence that I cannot describe—an influence which I had never experienced in my life before , which I shall never experience again . " I had helped to hand her in , as she passed me ; merely touching her arm fora moment . But how the sense of that touch was prolonged ! I felt it thrilling through me—thrilling in every nerve , in every pulsation of my fast-throbbing heart . " It seemed as if I must have known her in some former state of being—as . if I
had died for her , or she for me , after living / or , each other and ivith each other m some past world ; and that we were now revived and reunited again , for a new life in a new earth . But , I repeat it , I cannot describe to others , except by p hrases which must read like meaningless rhapsody , the mysterious attraction which drew me to her , heart imd soul , the moment she appeared before my eyes . " The confession that what he has said will sound like " meaningless rhapsody" will not save this passage from being denounced as a swerving from truth into convention . It is true that a man may thrill at the sight of si fnvl . even though her veil be down , but it is not true , in any licence
of exaggerated diction , that he could feel he had lived and died for her and she for him in some former state of being after living together , and that they were now to be united ; and the " rhapsody" which says he did , is u mistake in art . For observe : this meeting in the omnibus , upon which as we have seen great stress is laid by tho author for its anti-conventionalism , is a critical incident , and because it appeals to our commonplace realities , demands more than common-place reality in its presentation . Did Koineo tell Juliet he had formerly died for her , no one would doubt hi . s word ; but wh ' at Romeo may do in * Verona in blank verse , J- Wsil
may not do in an omnibus in prose ! . We have touched on tlie . se points because we feel strongly that m throwing nil hi . s energy into one great requisite—narrative , Wilkie bolnns has neglected the oilier equally important requisites—and we cojichmo with the hope that in his next book , while preserving this mastery ol ino art , of'Htory-lelling , ho will turn hi . s eloquence , hi . s observation , his . reflection , and his imagination , to better account by transmuting realities mu > real-1 ooking fictions .
1142 The Leader. [Saturday,
1142 THE LEADER . [ Saturday ,
Butlkr's .An J\'!,( .)(Jy ¦« . Jvloj ) L...
BUTLKR'S . AN j \'! , ( . )( JY ¦« . JvlOJ ) l < : RN UN IHOIJKF . T / io Ana I tui ii of Religion , Natural and licmalvd . My . Hinliop Hul . lcij . ^ 'j' ^' j ' , " iSLiuulnrd . Library . ) " ' | CONCLUDING AKTK . 'l . IO . J Wio know nol , wliaUnir readers may feel , but for ourselves wo , V " r ! "' " ' , 'J * i red of exposing Ihe weak reasonings and sophistic " analogies <>» '' ' Hutler , and approach tho conclusion of our task with a sen . se ! ol ««>'"' £ deliverance ' t been shown trustpast questionthat w i
. I , Ims , we ,, , " j y merit Butler ' s Analoc / jj may have in tho eyes of those ; who , having "" ' ^' ^ made up their minds to believe , are only anxious to have ( h . serepa ^ " reconciled , " it allotfether fails to nicei , the requirements ol ri' "» ' controversy in our day : it says nothing to tho Now Theology ; aiMi , . ^ sequenMy , " if Oxford and ( Jam ' hridgo choose to en tor tho lists in i [ c . r [ iH ((> tho Old ' Theology Iliey must produce some new work , and not rele ' ^ Butler . Wo hoped the Mcstoraliait of lic . livf would have taken hoiih
position , but our hopes have been cruelly disappointed . mind , " " I don't mind listening to reason when onco I ' ve made up my ^^ Hays Croaker , in tho ( load Natural Man , " for then it can do n < S (> n , 1 )(> you know . " This wittily expresses the condition of orthoepy- ' , ( m their belief , tho orthodox meet with a smile what would ><> > ' ^ irromstible arguments . It would bo impossible , wo think , to Jiuu
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 27, 1852, page 18, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_27111852/page/18/
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