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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 he be a Master of his Art , or only a student of it ( like me)—but must feel that this first , great merit of « painstaking' has now become doubly and trebly a merit in "the present state of « li g ht literature , ' as it is termed , in England . „ ' , -
" The mob of ladies and gentlemen who play at writing is increasing , in our day , to formi * vble 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 , Avhich—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 off-hand professors of this sort of off-hand authorship , by the homely but honourable distinction of heing workers and not players at their task , has reaily 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 !"
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 my judgment , offered itself so perfectly to all the requirements of romance , as the subject I was fortunate enough to find for Antonina . 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 groundwork" 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 Antonina ; so the reading of present realities in men , must give mo the materials for making Basil . Industry in
collecting useful information ; discretion in selecting it ; and care and intelligence m 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 the 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 puss unnoticed : wlicn I was writing q / "the people of our own times , to the people of our own times , what single error , what niisappreciution even , could hope to escape ?
" Feeling the difficulties of my undertaking thus , I 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 diameters , but in constructing my plot us well . Accordingly , I founded the main event out of which this . story springs , on a fact in real life wliich had come within my own knowledge : and in afterwards shaping the course of the narrative thus . suggested , guided it as often as I could when ; I knew by my own experiences , and by the experiences incidentally related to me by others , that it would touch on something veal smd true , in its progress . My idea was , that the more of the Actual I could garner up as n text 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 .. Kniicy and lin : igin : ition , ( inu-e and Beauty , all those qualities which are to the work of Art what scent and colour are to the Mower , can only grow towards Heaven by talcing root in eartli . After all , is not the noblest poetry of prose fiction t be poetry of o . vcvy-dn . y truth ?
" . Directing my characters and my story , then , towards tlie light of Kcahty wherever I could find it , I have not hesitated to violate souk ; of Mm sentimental conventionalities of sentimental fiction . Kor iimtance , the first love-meeting of two of the personages in this book , occurs ( where the real love-meeting from which it is drawn , occurred ) in Hie very last place , and under Mic very lust cireiniisL-iuecs wliich the artifices of sentimental writing would . sanction . Will my lovers excite ridicule instead of interest , because 1 have duly represented them as weing each otlier where hundreds of other lovers have lirHt seen each other , as hundreds of people will readily admit when thry read the jcissage to which 1 refer ? I urn sanguine enough to think not . "
The broad liii ( ' which separates iiit < nti (» i from e . rcvittroii , be if , never ho broad , cannot l )( 5 perceived by an author unl . il lie looks at bin work from Mio distance of yearn ; when " Wilkio Collins eomeH to look at liasil from thai , impartial p oint wo are permiadod he will think Avith us tlml lie linn failed in Iho human and a ^ stlielte HKpeetw of his wtory . JIo will feel with uh that . the clianu'XorH waul , ! , lu > . sharp derisive outlineH of reality , the only living character beiiitf that of ( -he tfoodniif ured neamp Kalph . He will feel with uh that , however trim as a matter of fact the main incident may l > e , if . iH not , truly presented in this story ; an air of unreality pervades the hook which makes ' even commonplace Liculuuta look " improbable . " We need
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 improbability "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 P The question * always is : Have you created a living figure P
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 . We 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 unrealitv 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 U . 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 1 had died for her , or she for me , after living for eacb other and with each other in 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 M * ich drew me to her , heart nnd soul , the moment she appeared before my eyes . " The confession that what be has said will sound like " meaningless rhapsody" will not save this passage from being denounced as a swerving true that thrill at the sight
from truth into convention . It is a man may of a girl , 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 tor Her and she for him in some former state of being after living together , ana that they were now to be united ; and the " rhapsody" winch says he did , is a mistake in art . For observe : this meeting in the omnibus , upon wliich as we have seen great stress is laid by the 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 present - lion Did Konieo tell Juliet ho had formerly died for her , no one wouhj doubt his word ; but what Romeo may do in Verona m blank verse , Uabu
may not do in an omnibus in prose ! - We have touched on these points because we feel strong y tlia in throwing all bin energy into one great requisite—narrative , Wilkie Uj has neglected the other equally important requisites—and wo « oiirm t with the hope that , in his next book , while preserving tins mastery of ui « art , of story-telling , he will turn his eloquence , his observation , his iv - tion , and bin imagination , to better account by transmuting realituH real-looking fictions . ^
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lUJTLlllt'S ANALOGY v . JVIODKRN UNRKTJ KF . The Analogy of Kvliylou , Natural and Kcvmled . J » v Hinliop Jiutlor . ( , < 'j ^ , "" Standard . Library . ) (( 'ONCI . UinNU ARTICl . K . j aa / v , !„>„ ,., . w . i ,,-l ,,, f ^ . r- iv > . hI < tm imiv feel , but for ourselves wo arc he . nrti y
tired of exposing the weak reasonings and HonhiNtio " analogies of 1 * 1 Butler , and approach th « conelusion of our f . n » k with a neme of < - i * deliverance . It ban been nhown , we trust , past question , that u _ merit Butler ' s Analogy may have in the e . y < - » of those w u > , having mii j made up their minds to believe , are only anxious- to have ^^'' . Soiu . " reconeiled , " it altogether lailn to meet tl . o requirement * ol t > h controvert in our day : it « avH nothing to the W « W . h «;«» U >« y ; « £ f sequently / if Oxford and ( !* ml > ridgo chooso loonier the IihIh in a *" ; (() the Old Theology they must produce w . mn new work , and not i (¦ JJullor . Wo hoped the . Restoration of licluf would have taken Homo
position , bill our hopes have boon eruelly disappointed . , .. » J don't , mind likening to reason when once I ve mm ! « ^ hitrm nayH Croaker , in the Uood Naturcd Man , "lor then it can do »< „ you know . " This wittily expresses the condition ol orlJ «> j pYIn their belief , the orthodox meet with a , Hm . le what ; would > J > irrcsisliblo arguirienta . It would bo impoHBiblo , wo think , to Ji "
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H 42 THE LEADER . [ Saturday ,
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 27, 1852, page 1142, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1962/page/18/
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