THE MORAL AND THE ARTISTIC IN PROSE FICTION.

THE popular novel of modern times is | Hamlet, it comes "easy as lying." Were perhaps too well known to need a definition. Still it may be proper, in reference to the acquisition of just standards, to throw out some general considerations in regard to this peculiar structure in art. The history of the novel is a very simple one. In general respects it is that of the drama; one of the happy modes by which ingenuity contrives to beguile ignorance to knowledge. Its beginnings are to be found amongst the first dawnings of the human intellect. The child himself is a raconteur. He begins the exercise of his thought by tasking his constructive faculty for its assistance, in the ambitious desire to provoke the wonder and admiration of his young and less endowed companions. He invents facts and situations, and accumulates events in proper order and becoming relation, so as to form a history. And in this exercise he becomes an artist. The continuance of the practice results in a greater or smaller degree of perfection, more or less modified by the surrounding influences of society and proper models.

older heads to give their attention to the boy narratives that spell the ears of the happy groups that linger by the schoolhouse porch, or in the play-grounds, or on a Saturday out among the woods, they would be surprised to discover, amidst so much of the frivolous and puerile, so much that betrayed thought and talent in invention, the invention or the capacity for structure invariably preceding the moral in the mind of the boy, and even the thought by which what is simply moral in the story is educed or indicated; the boldness of the fancy and the readiness of resource in the raconteur, still showing themselves superior to the general crudeness of the conception, and the feeble and common-place character of the materials. We are made to see the scheme in spite of the agency; made to observe a fitness of parts and a symmetrical design, leading through a thousand awkwardnesses and obscurities to a really judicious moral. Of course the moral as such forms no part of the object of the juvenile narrator, or his more juvenile audience. The common aim is the story-the simple accumulation of interesting incidents in relation to some hero for whom all sympathies are enlisted. But as truthfulness is never wanting in its moral, and as the great end of every artist is the approximation of all his fiction to a seeming truth, so unavoidably

Even in childhood, however, the faculty is an extraordinary one. It betrays talents which are by no means shared by many. Not one child in the hundred possesses the endowment, or certainly to no great extent. They may possess large faculties of thought and of expression. They may give forth elaborate sentiments and show proofs of inge-he inculcates a moral, of more or less value, nious speculation, accompanied by eloquent utterance. They may be poets even, without possessing the faculty of weaving together, in intricate relation and with due dependency, such scenes and events in life, indicated by the interposition of moral agents, as distinguish the labors of the composer in prose fiction. For this they strive vainly; and many strive, who, highly endowed in seemingly kindred departments of art, yet fail utterly to take the first step in the constructing of prose fiction.

Not so with him who is "to the manner
To him, employing the language of

whenever he tells a story. As the peculiar endowment which makes the raconteur is equally native and decided, so the passion for his narratives, even among those who do not share his faculties, is equally true to the moral instincts of his auditory. All listen with eagerness, and yield ready credence to all statements which keep within the verge of possibility; and with the eager and believing mind of youth, the limits of the possible are wonderfully flexile, and oppose no unnecessary barriers to the ardent spirit and the free imagination.

It is this ready faith in the auditory which

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real, into the rare atmosphere of an ideal which suffered from no incumbrances.

Gradually, as art continued to advance

As

determines the legitimacy of the art-which has been practised from the beginning of time, in all the nations and all the ages of the earth. No people have ever lived within the refinement of her own powers, and out their authors of fictitious narrative. No in the more facile employment of her own people can live without them, since the machinery, fiction became a thing of more faculties which find their utterance through complexity of form and of diminished imathis medium are the very faculties-the gination in respect to its conceptions. creative, the combining, and the endow the faith of the ignorant in the objects of ing-by which men are distinguished from former superstition became lessened and inall other animals. The art has shown itself flexible, the raconteur found it necessary to quite as decidedly among the savages of accommodate his fiction to the more rigid North America, as among the most highly and exacting standards of the popular belief. refined of the Asiatic nations. The inven- To seem like truth was still, as it had tions of our Six Nations, of the Cherokees, always been in all ages, the object of the Choctaws, and Catawbas, if inferiorin polish judicious artist; and the invention which . and variety, do not seem to have been less had hitherto been exercised with the vague daring and original than those of the Ara- and supernatural, suffered no real or great bians, to whom we are indebted for some of diminution of its resources, when it felt itself the most admirable of those legends which compelled to turn its eye without rather than seem particularly designed to do their of within for its materials; when the deeds of fices of tuition with a young and primitive man, rather than his secret soul and specupeople. These fictions, constituting some of lative performances, afforded the substance the very loveliest conceptions which art has of the chronicle; and the collective heart of over drawn from the fountains of the imagi- the multitude, in its open exhibitions, served nation, were at first simple, and like those for the field of analysis, in place of the sinof childhood. The additions of succeeding gle individual, being, doing, or suffering, generations, the more elaborate efforts of which hitherto had been the almost exclusuperior artists, have improved them for the sive study. Histories of men - periods delight of races more matured. At first which betrayed large groups in active issues, these performances were scenes and sketches such as the middle ages-naturally took the rather than histories, and were employed place of more primitive material. The roupon such events of the common experience mance of progress was the legitimate sucas were at once most natural and impressive. eessor of that which illustrated the purely But when religion began to act upon the spiritual nature-which, by the way, was a imagination, the artist soon became tasked romance of progress also, though in a sense for higher exercises, and glimpses of the very different from any other; and this, in wild and spiritual were made to elevate the turn, was followed just as naturally by the common-place and ordinary. This led to romance of society, or the ordinary novel of the machinery of superstition. Hence magic, the present day. as an agency by which romance was first begotten; hence diablerie, by which the soul was made to startle at contact with a spiritual world, even when the doctrine of a future itself was left totally untaught, except as a purely speculative philosophy. In the phantoms of the imagination, the spectres of ignorant dread, and those vague and shadowy aspects that lurked in lonely places, among the woods, in the hollows of desolate hills, in the depths of lovely but forbidden waters, the various orders and denominations of Gnome, Kobold, Ondine, Sylph and Fairy, we behold the fantastci creations of a genius struggling constantly to pass from the oppressive chambers of the

In each of the latter classes of fiction, the chief object seems to have been so to delineate the aspects of real life, under certain conditions of society, as at once to preserve all their distinctive characteristics, and to invest with a biographical interest certain favorite studies of character and situation. These objects render necessary an admirable co-operation of the artist with the philosopher; the painter of detail with the poet of fine conceptions. It must be evident, even to persons of the most ordinary reflection and understanding, that to execute such a design with only moderate success, demands a very rare combination of moral attributes. Scarcely any intellectual performance, in

deed, could task a greater variety of human has raised? He must be a person of great powers. Keen perception, quick instincts, vigilance and freshness of resource, else how delicate tastes, strong good sense, a perfect should he vary his entertainments for his knowledge of character, a nice appreciation guests according to their differing characterof all that constitutes the sensibilities, and istics and desires? The flexibility of his all that makes the virtues of the social man; intellectual vision must be great, else how -these are all absolute requisites for that should he be capable of that instinctive apartist, who, in the delineation of real life, in preciation of character which is called for by an atmosphere of fiction, must, to a certain the constant necessity of discriminating his extent, borrow faculties from every other dramatis persona, the great essential requidepartment of human art. The poet must site for success in portraiture and for drayield him fancy and imagination; the matic vitality in action? The first dawning painter, an eye to the landscape; the sculp- of the humors of a period,―using the word tor, a just conception of form and attitude; in the sense of Ben Jonson,-its passing the dramatist, combination and the art of moods and fashions, its singular traits of trouping—and even the lawyer and the moral and society, (which are mostly epigistorian must, or may be drawn upon,- demical, and flit with the progress of a the one for the capacity to argue out a case season,) are among the minor but scarcely from certain premises and facts to a just less necessary requisitions of his art; to conclusion, to weigh the motives to action, execute which requires a rare versatility of and determine the awards of judgment; talent. To this versatility no mere sumand the other, to sift the causes of social mary, like the present, could possibly do progress, to estimate duly the morals of justice. Let it suffice that the great or leading events, the effects which they should successful worker in prose fiction must be, produce, and the principles to which, taking Walter Scott for our most obvious whether for good or evil, they are likely to example, a person of equal imagination and give birth hereafter, affecting equally the cool common sense; of lively but healthy condition of the community and the aspira- sensibilities; of great tact, (which is another tions of the individual man. In a rare word for admirable taste,) and of equal vigijudgment all these faculties are necessarily lance and courage. He must be able to found to unite. The artist in prose fiction, observe without effort,-so endowed by namore than any other, must possess in ture and so trained by practice as to achieve, large degree the constructive faculty. Poe- so to speak, by the simple outpouring of try depends chiefly upon its courage and his customary thoughts. His habitual mensentiment; the drama upon its passion; tal exercise must be the acquisition of matemusic upon its spirituality; and painting rial, and its partial subjection to his purposes, upon its happy distribution of light and though in detached and fragmentary condishade, the harmony of its colors, and the ditions, susceptible of adaptation to more symmetry of its forms. But, borrowing in elaborate uses when his schemes ripen into some degree all these agencies, the artist in design. Carrying the materials which he prose fiction makes them all ancillary to thus habitually realizes, without effort and one particularly his own, and that we con- almost without consciousness, to the alembic sider the constructive faculty. With this of his thought, he will extract from them faculty it is that he frames and adapts his by a process which, in the trained author, materials to whatever sort of edifice it is the goes on without respite, all the sublimated particular aim of his genius to erect. That essences which, thus resolved, become aggreedifice may be a palace or a hovel, but it is gated within himself and constitute the required to be symmetrical, in compliance means and expedients of his own genius. with laws growing out of the very concep- He is original and inventive in due degree tion which suggests the structure. The as he has incorporated these external elebuilder, to achieve the reputation of a mas-ments in with his own thoughts, and the ter, must conceive boldly the plan and pur-habitual workings of his own intellect. pose of his fabric; and this requires a To acquire such materials, and to attain vigorous imagination. He must possess a these results, no mere fagging with a lively fancy, else how should he adorn fitly can possibly avail. No mere drudgery under and properly embellish the fabric which he the stimulating force of will can possibly

purpose

yield the habitual condition by which such prosecution of his scheme. There must be accumulations go on, with all the regularity no need to stop, and study, and adjust, beof advancing and returning hours. Cram- fore he can conscientiously set down. His ming is no more likely to produce digestion implements must all be at hand, and at his in the case of the intellectual, than in that of instant control. His mental constitution the animal condition. On the contrary, as must be that of the poet. He must be born in the latter, the effect is unfavorable to the to his task. You cannot fashion him to it proper incorporation of the food with the by any course of training. He works quite healthy flesh and blood, and true nature of as much by intuition as by calculation and the recipient. And without the harmonious common reasoning. His plan once fairly co-operation of the several powers and attri- conceived, his thoughts and fancies, to use butes, unless the aliment taken in by the the felicitous language of Milton, must, "like senses of the student and the inventor be so many nimble and airy servitors, trip about kindred in quantity and quality with that him at command, and, in well-ordered files, upon which his genius may be supposed to as he would wish, fall aptly in their own feed, the latter is enfeebled rather than sus- places." He leaps to his conclusions as if tained by the innutritious supply, and the upon a wing of equal certainty and fleetfruits of his labor lack equally congruity and ness; and the chief and difficult study behealth. If, as Milton hath it, the life of him fore him is at the beginning, when reason who would write a poem must itself be a demands that he should choose his gronnd poem, so must the habitual tendency of ob- and field of operations, with such a careful servation and thought of him who deals in regard to his peculiar tastes, studies and prose fiction, tend to the supply of means experiences, as shall give free play to whatfavorable in particular to his freshness, his ever is individual in his character and geinvention, and his just appreciation of all the nius. Great freedom of speech, affording a varieties of human character. Perhaps we ready flow in the narrative, a prompt fancy may say all this, when we adopt the pecu- to meet emergencies and supply details, so liar idiom of another nation, and say that that the action shall at no time falter or for his art there must be a nature. become flat; a quick and keen perception of the differing shades and degrees, in quality, of human character; a nice appreciation of the delicate and noble, the lofty and the low, the sublime and the ridiculous; an eye eager to seek and prompt to discern the picturesque; a facility in finding varieties and in the suggestion of lively contrasts; and that flexibility of mood, by which one, having a ready utterance, may individualize the several dialects of the dramatis personadialects which as completely distinguish the individual from his companions, as do the particular traits of his countenance, the sound of his voice, and movement of his body; these are all, in greater or less degree, essential to the successful pursuit of his art by the novelist and writer of prose fiction. If held generally, and in large endowment, and exercised with corresponding industry, these faculties must render him an artist of the highest order,―remarkable, as the Germans have it, for the great faculty of Shakspeare, his many-sidedness, or catholicity,-a poet, a philosopher and dramatist, a painter, a seer, and a prophet! His words will flow from him like those of inspiration. His creations, from their equal majesty, grace

It is very clear that, of the thousand fine issues which belong to every action in the progress of a story, the trials of the heart, the displays of passion, the subtle combinations of wit, the logical results of judgment, the fancy which happily relieves the action in the proper place, the vivacity which keeps the interest astir, the invention which provides the impressive incident, and all the various and numerous faculties, of feeling and understanding, which need to have fulness and free play in the development and action of a scheme which embodies equally and all the characteristics by which society is moved and human sensibility excited; it must be very clear, we say, that there can be very few of these agencies, about which, as the necessity for their employment arises, the author could deliberately sit down to reason. It would be morally and physically impossible, were any such necessity to exist, that his labors should ever arrive at the honors of a single volume. On the contrary, his resources should be so equally ready and ample, that he shall be conscious, his progress once begun, of no let or hindrance, calling for long pause or hesitation in the

and beauty, will seem worthy to have owned a divine original. His voice will swell, in due season, to a natural authority in every ear, and his works will gradually pass into the common heart, lifting it to an habitual appreciation of the high humanities which it is the becoming object of a genius so worthily endowed to teach.

The first conclusive proof that we have of the superior artist will be in the manifestation of design. The really great genius is conspicuous chiefly in this quality. It is talent that simply finishes. It is taste only that never offends. It is art that adapts with propriety. It is genius that creates ! To be sure of this faculty in the artist, we must see that he works out a purpose of his own; and we estimate his strength by the resolution which he shows, under all circumstances, in the prosecution of his scheme. It will not do that he follows, however admirably, in the track of other masters. It will not do, even should he rival them successfully, in a region which they had ex

and counselled by the lovely and the sweet, the graceful and the bright, which the garden groups beneath his eye, or the groves cherish and encourage about his footsteps. · And thus informed, insensibly to himself as it were, he models his own mind into images which posterity is fain to deify. Thus, while the tout ensemble of his fabric will awe The fabric of such an artist will be raised by its magnificence, the exquisiteness of its with an equal eye to its uses, its durability, detail must persuade to a near delight which and grandeur. It will be no mere pleasure- loves to linger upon the study of its cunhouse. Its objects are never temporary.ning joinery; and this is the perfection of The true genius works not less for eternity art, where the exquisite delicacy of the finthan man. It is, indeed, in working for ish is not required to compensate for defieternity that he works for man. He has cient majesty and greatness in the first conbut a slender appreciation of the importance ception. of his race, who only sees them as they exist around him; who, satisfied with the present sounds that fill his ears, entertains no hungering thirst for that faint voice, sounding ever in the solitude, which comes slowly but surely up from the far-off abodes of his posterity. He, on the contrary, who properly esteems his vocation, feels indeed that successful working must always imply the future only. To be of and with the present only, to speak the voice with which it is already familiar, to go nothing beyond it, to have no mysteries which it shall not and cannot fathom; this is, surely, to forfeit all claim upon the future generations, with whom progress only is existence. But the true artist knows better than to toil for such bar-plored already. The world can never be ren recompense. His ambition, or we should rather say, his nature is governed by a more selfish instinct. He builds in compliance with laws and motives which do not seem to consider earth. His conceptions are caught from the Highest, and would seem to emulate his achievements. In what con-imitative faculty, are very apt to do; but sists his material? The soul of man, his there will always be apparent in his performhopes and fears, his humanities; the inner ances that want of courage and enterprise, nature, the spirit and the heart, where lie which give to the original a masculine vigor his most permanent and most valuable pos- and proportion which men esteem the most session. And from what other of God's essential of all qualities in their guides and creations does he take the tributary forms leaders. The admiration which hails the and aspects which he groups around his imitator is seldom of long duration. It lasts subject as subservient to the action? The only while he seems like an original. It is sky for beauty and repose; the sea for im- by the strongest instincts that the world dismensity; the forest for depth and intricacy; tinguishes between the substance and the the rock and mountain for solidity and shadow. Not to sink into a pun, they soon strength such are the model forms and at- feel the difference between them. The distributes that impress his soul from the begin-covery once made, they resent the deception. ning, and fashion, unconsciously to himself, all the shapes and creations of his genius. His fancies, in like manner, are controlled

persuaded of his superiority, who shall do nothing better than multiply specimens under well-known laws and models. He may triumph for a season; he may give a certain degree of pleasure always, as adroitness, aptness and ingenuity, the sources of the

In due degree with the extent of the imposture, will be the scorn and indignation which follow its exposure; and the innocent fol