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第38章

memories and portraits-第38章

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novel; and that it would have been very differently conceived and 

treated had it belonged to that other marked class; of which I now 

proceed to speak。



I take pleasure in calling the dramatic novel by that name; because 

it enables me to point out by the way a strange and peculiarly 

English misconception。  It is sometimes supposed that the drama 

consists of incident。  It consists of passion; which gives the 

actor his opportunity; and that passion must progressively 

increase; or the actor; as the piece proceeded; would be unable to 

carry the audience from a lower to a higher pitch of interest and 

emotion。  A good serious play must therefore be founded on one of 

the passionate CRUCES of life; where duty and inclination come 

nobly to the grapple; and the same is true of what I call; for that 

reason; the dramatic novel。  I will instance a few worthy 

specimens; all of our own day and language; Meredith's RHODA 

FLEMING; that wonderful and painful book; long out of print; (13) 

and hunted for at bookstalls like an Aldine; Hardy's PAIR OF BLUE 

EYES; and two of Charles Reade's; GRIFFITH GAUNT and the DOUBLE 

MARRIAGE; originally called WHITE LIES; and founded (by an accident 

quaintly favourable to my nomenclature) on a play by Maquet; the 

partner of the great Dumas。  In this kind of novel the closed door 

of THE AUTHOR OF BELTRAFFIO must be broken open; passion must 

appear upon the scene and utter its last word; passion is the be…

all and the end…all; the plot and the solution; the protagonist and 

the DEUS EX MACHINA in one。  The characters may come anyhow upon 

the stage: we do not care; the point is; that; before they leave 

it; they shall become transfigured and raised out of themselves by 

passion。  It may be part of the design to draw them with detail; to 

depict a full…length character; and then behold it melt and change 

in the furnace of emotion。



But there is no obligation of the sort; nice portraiture is not 

required; and we are content to accept mere abstract types; so they 

be strongly and sincerely moved。  A novel of this class may be even 

great; and yet contain no individual figure; it may be great; 

because it displays the workings of the perturbed heart and the 

impersonal utterance of passion; and with an artist of the second 

class it is; indeed; even more likely to be great; when the issue 

has thus been narrowed and the whole force of the writer's mind 

directed to passion alone。  Cleverness again; which has its fair 

field in the novel of character; is debarred all entry upon this 

more solemn theatre。  A far…fetched motive; an ingenious evasion of 

the issue; a witty instead of a passionate turn; offend us like an 

insincerity。  All should be plain; all straightforward to the end。  

Hence it is that; in RHODA FLEMING; Mrs。 Lovell raises such 

resentment in the reader; her motives are too flimsy; her ways are 

too equivocal; for the weight and strength of her surroundings。  

Hence the hot indignation of the reader when Balzac; after having 

begun the DUCHESSE DE LANGEAIS in terms of strong if somewhat 

swollen passion; cuts the knot by the derangement of the hero's 

clock。  Such personages and incidents belong to the novel of 

character; they are out of place in the high society of the 

passions; when the passions are introduced in art at their full 

height; we look to see them; not baffled and impotently striving; 

as in life; but towering above circumstance and acting substitutes 

for fate。



And here I can imagine Mr。 James; with his lucid sense; to 

intervene。  To much of what I have said he would apparently demur; 

in much he would; somewhat impatiently; acquiesce。  It may be true; 

but it is not what he desired to say or to hear said。  He spoke of 

the finished picture and its worth when done; I; of the brushes; 

the palette; and the north light。  He uttered his views in the tone 

and for the ear of good society; I; with the emphasis and 

technicalities of the obtrusive student。  But the point; I may 

reply; is not merely to amuse the public; but to offer helpful 

advice to the young writer。  And the young writer will not so much 

be helped by genial pictures of what an art may aspire to at its 

highest; as by a true idea of what it must be on the lowest terms。  

The best that we can say to him is this: Let him choose a motive; 

whether of character or passion; carefully construct his plot so 

that every incident is an illustration of the motive; and every 

property employed shall bear to it a near relation of congruity or 

contrast; avoid a sub…plot; unless; as sometimes in Shakespeare; 

the sub…plot be a reversion or complement of the main intrigue; 

suffer not his style to flag below the level of the argument; pitch 

the key of conversation; not with any thought of how men talk in 

parlours; but with a single eye to the degree of passion he may be 

called on to express; and allow neither himself in the narrative 

nor any character in the course of the dialogue; to utter one 

sentence that is not part and parcel of the business of the story 

or the discussion of the problem involved。  Let him not regret if 

this shortens his book; it will be better so; for to add irrelevant 

matter is not to lengthen but to bury。  Let him not mind if he miss 

a thousand qualities; so that he keeps unflaggingly in pursuit of 

the one he has chosen。  Let him not care particularly if he miss 

the tone of conversation; the pungent material detail of the day's 

manners; the reproduction of the atmosphere and the environment。  

These elements are not essential: a novel may be excellent; and yet 

have none of them; a passion or a character is so much the better 

depicted as it rises clearer from material circumstance。  In this 

age of the particular; let him remember the ages of the abstract; 

the great books of the past; the brave men that lived before 

Shakespeare and before Balzac。  And as the root of the whole 

matter; let him bear in mind that his novel is not a transcript of 

life; to be judged by its exactitude; but a simplification of some 

side or point of life; to stand or fall by its significant 

simplicity。  For although; in great men; working upon great 

motives; what we observe and admire is often their complexity; yet 

underneath appearances the truth remains unchanged: that 

simplification was their method; and that simplicity is their 

excellence。





II





Since the above was written another novelist has entered repeatedly 

the lists of theory: one well worthy of mention; Mr。 W。 D。 Howells; 

and none ever couched a lance with narrower convictions。  His own 

work and those of his pupils and masters singly occupy his mind; he 

is the bondslave; the zealot of his school; he dreams of an advance 

in art like what there is in science; he thinks of past things as 

radically dead; he thinks a form can be outlived: a strange 

immersion in his own history; a strange forgetfulness of the 

history of the race!  Meanwhile; by a glance at his own works 

(could he see them with the eager eyes of his readers) much of this 

illusion would be dispelled。  For while he holds all the poor 

little orthodoxies of the day … no poorer and no smaller than those 

of yesterday or to…morrow; poor and small; indeed; only so far as 

they are exclusive … the living quality of much that he has done is 

of a contrary; I had almost said of a heretical; complexion。  A 

man; as I read him; of an originally strong romantic bent … a 

certain glow of romance still resides in many of his books; and 

lends them their distinction。  As by accident he runs out and 

revels in the exceptional; and it is then; as often as not; that 

his reader rejoices … justly; as I contend。  For in all this 

excessive eagerness to be centrally human; is there not one central 

human thing that Mr。 Howells is too often tempted to neglect: I 

mean himself?  A poet; a finished artist; 

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