Part 8 (1/2)

”When Payne Knight's _Taste_ was issued to the town, A few Greek verses in the text set down Were torn to pieces, led into hash, Doomed to the flames as execrable trash,-- In short, were butchered rather than dissected, And several false quantities detected,-- Till, when the smoke had vanished from the cinders, 'Twas just discovered that--_the lines were Pindar's!_”

There can be no assurance against cases such as these; and yet we are so free with our advice, always bidding the young aspirant to desist

There is perhaps no career of life so char as that of a successful es which I just now named are in themselves attractive If you like the town, live in the town, and do your work there; if you like the country, choose the country It may be done on the top of a mountain or in the botto of the sea and the yman, the lawyer, the doctor, the member of Parliament, the clerk in a public office, the tradesman, and even his assistant in the shop, must dress in accordance with certain fixed laws; but the author need sacrifice to no grace, hardly even to Propriety He is subject to no bonds such as those which bind other ehis 20,000 a year,The Prime Minister must be in his place on that weary front bench shortly after prayers, and h ---- or ---- should be addressing the House During all that Sunday which he yht o'clock cohts The Civil Service clerk must sit there from ten till four,--unless his office be fashi+onable, when twelve to six is just as heavy on hi when he is fresh frooes there And the author wants no capital, and encounters no risks

When once he is afloat, the publisher finds all that;--and indeed, unless he be rash, finds it whether he be afloat or not But it is in the consideration which he enjoys that the successful author finds his richest reward He is, if not of equal rank, yet of equal standing with the highest; and if he be open to the amenities of society, may choose his own circles He without ainst almost all but him and the wealthy I have often heard it said that in this country theof this to be that hts and baronets I do not think that they wish it;--and if they had it they would, as a body, lose ain I do not at all desire to have letters put after my nahes and Charles Reade becaht feel,--or hoife ht feel, if ere left unbedecked As it is, the man of letters ould be selected for titular honour, if such bestowal of honours were custoeneral respect of those around hinition of his worth

If this be so,--if it be true that the career of the successful literary man be thus pleasant,--it is not wonderful that many should attempt to win the prize But how is a man to knohether or not he has within him the qualities necessary for such a career? He ain! So many have succeeded at last who have failed more than once or twice! Who will tell him the truth as to himself? Who has power to find out that truth? The hard man sends him off without a scruple to that office-stool; the soft man assures hi aspirant,--if ever such a one should read these pages,--be sure that no one can tell you! To do so it would be necessary not only to knohat there is noithin you, but also to foresee what time will produce there This, however, I think may be said to you, without any doubt as to the wisdoiven, that if it be necessary for you to live by your work, do not begin by trusting to literature Take the stool in the office as recommended to you by the hardto you, let the praise which has come from the lips of that soft man induce you to persevere in your literary attempts Should you fail, then your failure will not be fatal,--and what better could you have done with the leisure hours had you not so failed? Such double toil, you will say, is severe Yes; but if you want this thing, you must submit to severe toil

Sometime before this I had become one of the Committee appointed for the distribution of the moneys of the Royal Literary Fund, and in that capacity I heard and saw s of authors I may in a future chapter speak further of this Institution, which I regard with great affection, and in reference to which I should be glad to record certain convictions of my own; but I allude to it now, because the experience I have acquired in being active in its cause forbidsman or woman to enter boldly on a literary career in search of bread I kno utterly I should have failed myself hadten years of work, which I commenced with some aid from the fact that others of h to buy ; and then when, with allpoint, I should have failed again unless again I could have given years to the task Of course there have been many who have done better than I,--reater But then, too, I have seen the failure of reater

The career, when success has been achieved, is certainly very pleasant; but the agonies which are endured in the search for that success are often terrible And the author's poverty is, I think, harder to be borne than any other poverty Thehim with extreher, it is probable, he will reckon his own merits; and the keener will be the sense of injury in that he whose work is of so high a nature cannot get bread, while they whose tasks are mean are lapped in luxury ”I, with ifts, cannot earn a poor crown a day, while that fool, who simpers in a little room behind a shop, makes his thousands every year” The very charity, to which he too often is driven, is bitterer to him than to others While he takes it he alives it to hi with a sense of injury

The career, when successful, is pleasant enough certainly; but when unsuccessful, it is of all careers the

CHAPTER XII

ON NOVELS AND THE ART OF WRITING THEM

It is nearly twenty years since I proposed to lish prose fiction I shall never do it now, but the subject is so good a one that I recommend it heartily to soable and light-handed I acknowledge that I broke down in the task, because I could not endure the labour in addition to the other labours of , the as very much the reverse It came to have a terrible aspect to me, as did that proposition that I should sit out all the Mayto my plan of such a history it would be necessary to read an infinity of novels, and not only to read them, but so to read them as to point out the excellences of those which are most excellent, and to explain the defects of those which, though defective, had still reached sufficient reputation to make them worthy of notice

I did read many after this fashi+on,--and here and there I have the criticisard to e within the book I have not, however, even a list of the books so criticised I think that the _Arcadia_ was the first, and _Ivanhoe_ the last My plan, as I settled it at last, had been to begin with _Robinson Crusoe_, which is the earliest really popular novel which we have in our language, and to continue the review so as to include the works of all English novelists of reputation, except those whowhen my task should be coed, and that which I had already found to be very difficult had become alan my own studies on the subject orks h a variety of novels which were necessary for ave me no pleasure whatever I never worked harder than at the _Arcadia_, or read more detestable trash than the stories written by Mrs Aphra Behn; but these tere necessary to ive an estimate of the novels as I found thelish novels of the present day have become what they are, to point out the effects which they have produced, and to inquire whether their great popularity has on the whole done good or evil to the people who read them I still think that the book is one orthy to be written

I intended to write that book to vindicate my own profession as a novelist, and also to vindicate that public taste in literature which has created and nourished the profession which I follow And I was stirred up to make such an attelishht, perhaps, be lessened by such a work This prejudice is not against the reading of novels, as is proved by their general acceptance aly in reference to the appreciation in which they are professed to be held; and it robs theh character which they ood teaching

No ht to considertends to evil or to good I have written many novels, and have known hts have been strong with the that these writers have received froenuity, or perseverance as eachto the, and a general understanding of the high nature of the hich they perform

By the comhest place in literature That nobility of expression, and all but divine grace of words, which she is bound to attain before she can ood, is not compatible with prose Indeed it is that which turns prose into poetry When that has been in truth achieved, the reader knows that the writer has soared above the earth, and can teach his lessons soht teach He who sits down to write his tale in prose makes no such attempt, nor does he dream that the poet's honour is within his reach;--but his teaching is of the same nature, and his lessons all tend to the same end By either, false sentiendered; false honour, false love, false worshi+p ht But by each, equally, may true honour, true love, true worshi+p, and true hureatest teacher ill spread such truth the widest But at present, ht and read, there exists still an idea, a feeling which is very prevalent, that novels at their best are but innocent

Young men and women,--and old men and women too,--readis easier than the reading of poetry; but they read them,--as men eat pastry after dinner,--not without some inward conviction that the taste is vain if not vicious

I take upon myself to say that it is neither vicious nor vain

But all writers of fiction who have desired to think well of their oork, will probably have had doubts on theirmuch of my own daily labour and of its nature, I felt rieved by the opinion expressed by wise and thinking rees, I dared to exas of such ant I began to inquire what had been the nature of English novels since they first becae, and to be desirous of ascertaining whether they had done har days, they had not taken that undisputed possession of drawing-rooe IV was king, they were not indeed treated as Lydia had been forced to treat then, when, on the approach of elders, _Peregrine Pickle_ was hidden beneath the bolster, and _Lord Ainsworth_ put away under the sofa But the faiven for the reading of novels were very few, and froenius and correct ether succeeded in ood in poetry could not be bad in prose I reo was laid upon novel-reading as a pursuit, which was to the novelist a much heavier tax than that want of full appreciation of which I now coo now May we not say that people of an age to read have got too much power into their own hands to endure any very coht and left, above stairs and below, in town houses and in country parsonages, by young countesses and by far students It has not only come to pass that a special provision of them has to be made for the Godly, but that the provision so made must now include books which a few years since the Godly would have thought to be profane It was this necessity which, a few years since, induced the editor of _Good Words_ to apply to me for a novel,--which, indeed, when supplied was rejected, but which now, probably, owing to further change in the same direction, would have been accepted

If such be the case--if the extension of novel-reading be so wide as I have described it--then very ood or harm must be done by novels The amusement of the time can hardly be the only result of any book that is read, and certainly not so with a novel, which appeals especially to the i A vast proportion of the teaching of the day,--greater probably than ed to ourselves,--comes from these books, which are in the hands of all readers It is froirls learn what is expected from them, and what they are to expect when lovers co men unconsciously learn what are, or should be, ormen will think so little of their natural instincts and powers as to believe that I aht In these times, when the desire to be honest is pressed so hard, is so violently assaulted by the areatness; when the temptations to which men are subjected dulls their eyes to the perfected iniquities of others; when it is so hard for a orously that the pitch, which so , will defile him if it be touched;--men's conduct will be actuated much by that which is frolorious results The wo obtained all that the world holds to be precious, by lavishi+ng her charms and her caresses unworthily and heartlessly, will induce other women to do the sa by exhibitions of bold passion teach others to be spuriously passionate The young man who in a novel becomes a hero, perhaps a Member of Parliament, and almost a Prime Minister, by trickery, falsehood, and flash cleverness, will have ht to lie heavily on the conscience of the novelists who create fictitious Cagliostros There are Jack Sheppards other than those who break into houses and out of prisons,--Macheaths, who deserve the gallowsof all this, as a novelist surely h my whole career,--it becomes to him a matter of deep conscience how he shall handle those characters by whose words and doings he hopes to interest his readers It will very frequently be the case that he will be te for effect, to say a word or two here, or to draw a picture there, for which he feels that he has the power, and which when spoken or draould be alluring The regions of absolute vice are foul and odious

The savour of theusting In these he will hardly tread But there are outskirts on these regions, on which sweet-sreen It is in these border-lands that the danger lies

The novelist may not be dull If he coood He rass in these neutral territories so!

The writer of storiesAnd he must teach whether he wish to teach or no How shall he teach lessons of virtue and at the saht to his readers?

That serreeable we all know Nor are disquisitions onfor our idle hours But the novelist, if he have a conscience, yman, and must have his own system of ethics If he can do this efficiently, if he can ly, while he char them, then I think Mr Carlyle need not call hi ear of fiction, nor question whether he be or not themortals

I think that lish novelists eneral result of our oork Looking back to the past generation, I may say with certainty that such was the operation of the novels of Miss Edgeworth, Miss Austen, and Walter Scott Co down toof Thackeray, of dickens, and of George Eliot

Speaking, as I shall speak to any who may read these words, with that absence of self-personality which the dead may claim, I will boast that such has been the result of h the works of the six great English novelists I have nairl to be ies have been described as dishonest and women as immodest, have they not ever been punished? It is not for the novelist to say, baldly and simply: ”Because you lied here, or were heartless there, because you Lydia Bennet forgot the lessons of your honest hoh your alitter of the world, therefore you shall be scourged with scourges either in this world or in the next;” but it is for him to show, as he carries on his tale, that his Lydia, or his Leicester, or his Beatrix, will be dishonoured in the estimation of all readers by his or her vices Let a woman be drawn clever, beautiful, attractive,--so as to make men love her, and women almost envy her,--and let her be randeur, as was Beatrix, what a danger is there not in such a character! To the novelist who shall handle it, what peril of doing harirl who reads of Beatrix shall say: ”Oh! not like that;--let me not be like that!” and that every youth shall say: ”Letrather than that!”--then will not the novelist have preached his seryman can preach it?