Part 9 (2/2)

He, too, in his best days, always lived with his characters;--and he, too, as he gradually ceased to have the power of doing so, ceased to chars, we all res do not, I think, dwell in the minds of so many

Of dickens's style it is irammatical, and created by himself in defiance of rules--almost as coht thee, it must therefore be unpleasant But the critic is driven to feel the weakness of his criticises to himself--as he is coe, such as it is, the writer has satisfied the great reat writers have satisfied the readers of their own pages; but both have done infinite har novelist should ever dare to imitate the style of dickens If such a one wants a e, let him take Thackeray

Bulwer, or Lord Lytton,--but I think that he is still better known by his earlier nareat parts Better educated than either of those I have named before him, he was always able to use his erudition, and he thus produced novels from which very much not only hly understood the political status of his own country, a subject on which, I think, dickens was norant, and which Thackeray had never studied He had read extensively, and was always apt to give his readers the benefit of what he knew The result has been that very much more than amusement htness about theination, of study and of care, than of mere intellect--which has made many of them excellent in their way It is perhaps iether, as he wrote in variedin his earlier works, such as _Pelham_ and _Ernest Maltravers_, pictures of a fictitious life, and afterwards pictures of life as he believed it to be, as in _My Novel_ and _The Caxtons_ But from all of them there comes the same flavour of an effort to produce effect The effects are produced, but it would have been better if the flavour had not been there

I cannot say of Bulwer as I have of the other novelists whom I have named that he lived with his characters He lived with his work, with the doctrines which at the ti always of the effects which he wished to produce; but I do not think he ever knew his own personages,--and therefore neither do we know thes to us, as are Pickwick, and Colonel Newcoenerally been simple, facile, and successful The reader never feels with him, as he does with Wilkie Collins, that it is all plot, or, as with George Eliot, that there is no plot The story co for too much attention, and is thus proof of the coood, intelligible English, but it is defaced by mannerism In all that he did, affectation was his fault

How shall I speak of , jolly, joyous, swearing Irishmen Surely never did a sense of vitality come so constantly from a man's pen, nor from man's voice, as from his! I knew him well for many years, and whether in sickness or in health, I have never co over it and fun Of all the men I have encountered, he was the surest fund of drollery I have known s, many ould soh they would sometimes fail;--but he never failed Rouse hiht, and ould come from him before he was half awake And yet he never monopolised the talk, was never a bore He would take no more than his own share of the words spoken, and would yet seeht His earlier novels--the later I have not read--are just like his conversation The fun never flags, and to me, when I read them, they were never tedious As to character he can hardly be said to have produced it Corney Delaney, the old man-servant, may perhaps be na,--even if they may be said to be alive now,--because it is so What was hisI do not know, but I should think it must have been very quick, and that he never troubled himself on the subject, except when he was seated with a pen in his hand

Charlotte Bronte was surely a e the work of a novelist from one small portion of one novel, and to say of an author that he is to be accounted as strong as he shows hiest morsel of work, I should be inclined to put Miss Bronte very high indeed I know no interestthan that which she has been able to throw into the characters of Rochester and the governess, in the second volume of _Jane Eyre_ She lived with those characters, and felt every fibre of the heart, the longings of the one and the sufferings of the other

And therefore, though the end of the book is weak, and the beginning not very good, I venture to predict that _Jane Eyre_ will be read alish novels when otten _Jane Eyre_, and _Esrandchildren, when _Pickwick_, and _Pelhaotten; because the men and women depicted are human in their aspirations, human in their sympathies, and human in their actions

In _Villette_, too, and in _shi+rley_, there is to be found huh in circumstances not so full of interest as those told in _Jane Eyre_ The character of Paul in the former of the two is a wonderful study She must herself have been in love with some Paul when she wrote the book, and have been deter one whose exterior circu

There is no writer of the present day who has so much puzzled me by his eccentricities, impracticabilities, and capabilities as Charles Reade I look upon hiifted by nature with ordinary powers of reasoning He can see what is grandly noble and admire it with all his heart He can see, too, what is foully vicious and hate it with equal ardour

But in the co; and as he is altogether unwilling to be guided by the opinion of others, he is constantlyhimself to reproach which he hardly deserves He means to be honest He means to be especially honest,--more honest than other people He has written a book called _The Eighth Commandment_ on behalf of honesty in literary transactions,--a wonderful work, which has I believe been read by a very few I never saw a copy except that in my own library, or heard of any one who knew the book Nevertheless it is a volureat labour, and have been written,--as indeed he declares that it ritten,--without the hope of pecuniary reward He makes an appeal to the British Parliament and British people on behalf of literary honesty, declaring that should he fail--”I shall have to go on blushi+ng for the people I was born a” And yet of all the writers of my day he has seemed to me to understand literary honesty the least On one occasion, as he tells us in this book, he bought for a certain su a plot taken froht have used without such purchase, and also without infringing any international copyright act The French author not unnaturally praises hientleman” The plot was used by Reade in a novel; and a critic discovering the adaptation, made known his discovery to the public Whereupon the novelist becary, called his critic a pseudony the fact of his own purchase In all this he seenore e all iarism and literary honesty

The sin of which the author is accused is not that of taking anotheroff as his own creation that which he does not himself create When an author puts his name to a book he claims to have written all that there is therein, unless he nification to the contrary Some years subsequently there arose another similar question, in which Mr Reade's opinion was declared even more plainly, and certainly very much more publicly

In a tale which he wrote he inserted a dialogue which he took froht have been expected, one of the critics of the day fell foul of hiiarism The author, however, defended hi, that whereas Swift had found the jewel he had supplied the setting;--an argument in which there was some little wit, and would have beento Swift and not to hiular a e It has generally been his object to write down some abuse hich he has been particularly struck,--the harshness, for instance, hich paupers or lunatics are treated, or the wickedness of certain classes,--and he always, I think, leaves upon his readers an idea of great earnestness of purpose But he has always left at the sa a conviction that he has not really understood his subject, that I have ever foundthe part of those who a head, surely no novelist ever before had coreat

A his novels I would especially recommend _The Cloister and the Hearth_ I do not know that in this work, or in any, that he has left a character that will rehtly that to read them would always be a pleasure

Of Wilkie Collins it is impossible for a true critic not to speak with admiration, because he has excelled all his contemporaries in a certain most difficult branch of his art; but as it is a branch which I have not myself at all cultivated, it is not unnatural that his work should be very much lost upon me individually When I sit down to write a novel I do not at all know, and I do not very much care, how it is to end Wilkie Collins see, plans everything on, down to theto the end; but then plots it all back again, to see that there is no piece of necessary dove-tailing which does not dove-tail with absolute accuracy The construction is most minute and most wonderful But I can never lose the taste of the construction The author see happened at exactly half-past two o'clock on Tuesday ; or that a woman disappeared from the road just fifteen yards beyond the fourth mile-stone One is constrained by , however, that the mysteries will be made clear, and the difficulties overcoives e that the want of pleasure comes from fault of my intellect

There are two ladies of who , in order that I may declare how much I have adhton I have known theed to me No triters were ever more dissimilar,--except in this that they are both fe, and quite true to hu to prove that good produces good, and evil evil There is not a line of which she need be ashamed,--not a sentiment of which she should not be proud But she writes like a lazy writer who dislikes her work, and who allows her oant of energy to show itself in her pages

Miss Broughton, on the other hand, is full of energy,--though she too, I think, can become tired over her work She, however, does take the trouble to round And she has the gift ofthem speak ason the wall, to theto her brother Now Nancy, whether right or wrong, was just the girl ould, as circumstances then were, have called her brother a beast There is nothing wooden about any of Miss Broughton's novels; and in these days so many novels are wooden! But they are not sweet-savoured as are those by Miss Thackeray, and are, therefore, less true to nature In Miss Broughton's determination not to be s which ladies would not do and say They throw themselves at men's heads, and when they are not accepted only think how theythat I hope she may live to overcome her fault in this direction

There is one other nalish novelists of my own time would certainly be incomplete, and that is the naland Mr

Disraeli has written so many novels, and has been so popular as a novelist that, whether for good or for ill, I feel an his career as an author early in life, publishi+ng _Vivian Grey_ when he enty-three years old He was very young for such work, though hardly young enough to justify the excuse that he makes in his own preface, that it is a book written by a boy dickens was, I think, younger when he wrote his _Sketches by Boz_, and as young when he riting the _Pickwick Papers_ It was hardly longer ago than the other day when Mr Disraeli brought out _Lothair_, and between the two there were eight or ten others To me they have all had the same flavour of paint and unreality In whatever he has written he has affected so which has been intended to strike his readers as uncoht and aHe has struck theination ideas of a world , than their own But the glory has been the glory of pasteboard, and the wealth has been a wealth of tinsel The wit has been the wit of hairdressers, and the enterprise has been the enterprise of enerally been his hero,--some youth who, by wonderful cleverness, can obtain success by every intrigue that coe properties, a smell of hair-oil, an aspect of buhl, a re of the conscience which eneral accompaniment of paste diamonds

I can understand that Mr Disraeli should by his novels have instigatedwoman on their way in life, but I cannot understand that he should have instigated any one to good Vivian Grey has had probably as many followers as Jack Sheppard, and has led his followers in the same direction

_Lothair_, which is as yet Mr Disraeli's last work, and, I think, undoubtedly his worst, has been defended on a plea somewhat similar to that by which he has defended _Vivian Grey_ As that ritten when he was too young, so was the other when he was too old,--too old for work of that nature, though not too old to be Prireater things as to allow himent should have sufficed to induce him to destroy it ritten Here that flavour of hair-oil, that flavour of false jewels, that reer than in all the others Lothair is falser even than Vivian Grey, and Lady Corisande, the daughter of the duchess, more inane and unwomanlike than Venetia or Henrietta Te I have often lamented, and have as often excused to ment which enables readers to put up with bad work because it co so strongly, or was so little able to excuse it, as when a portion of the reading public received _Lothair_ with satisfaction

CHAPTER XIV

ON CRITICISM