Produced by David Widger
By Charles Dudley Warner
One of the worst characteristics of modern fiction is its so-called truthto nature. For fiction is an art, as painting is, as sculpture is, asacting is. A photograph of a natural object is not art; nor is theplaster cast of a man's face, nor is the bare setting on the stage of anactual occurrence. Art requires an idealization of nature. The amateur,though she may be a lady, who attempts to represent upon the stage thelady of the drawing-room, usually fails to convey to the spectators theimpression of a lady. She lacks the art by which the trained actress, whomay not be a lady, succeeds. The actual transfer to the stage of thedrawing-room and its occupants, with the behavior common in well-bredsociety, would no doubt fail of the intended dramatic effect, and thespectators would declare the representation unnatural.
However our jargon of criticism may confound terms, we do not need to bereminded that art and nature are distinct; that art, though dependent onnature, is a separate creation; that art is selection and idealization,with a view to impressing the mind with human, or even higher than human,sentiments and ideas. We may not agree whether the perfect man and womanever existed, but we do know that the highest representations of them inform—that in the old Greek sculptures—were the result of artisticselection of parts of many living figures.
When we praise our recent fiction for its photographic fidelity to naturewe condemn it, for we deny to it the art which would give it value. Weforget that the creation of the novel should be, to a certain extent, asynthetic process, and impart to human actions that ideal quality whichwe demand in painting. Heine regards Cervantes as the originator of themodern novel. The older novels sprang from the poetry of the Middle Ages;their themes were knightly adventure, their personages were the nobility;the common people did not figure in them. These romances, which haddegenerated into absurdities, Cervantes overthrew by "Don Quixote." Butin putting an end to the old romances he created a new school of fiction,called the modern novel, by introducing into his romance ofpseudo-knighthood a faithful description of the lower classes, andintermingling the phases of popular life. But he had no one-sidedtendency to portray the vulgar only; he brought together the higher andthe lower in society, to serve as light and shade, and the aristocraticelement was as prominent as the popular. This noble and chivalrouselement disappears in the novels of the English who imitated Cervantes."These English novelists since Richardson's reign," says Heine, "areprosaic natures; to the prudish spirit of their time even pithydescriptions of the life of the common people are repugnant, and we seeon yonder side of the Channel those bourgeoisie novels arise, wherein thepetty humdrum life of the middle classes is depicted." But Scottappeared, and effected a restoration of the balance in fiction. AsCervantes had introduced the democratic element into romances, so Scottreplaced the aristocratic element, when it had disappeared, and only aprosaic, bourgeoisie fiction existed. He restored to romances thesymmetry which we admire in "Don Quixote." The characteristic feature ofScott's historical romances, in the opinion of the great German critic,is the harmony between the artistocratic and democratic elements.
This is true, but is it the last analysis of the subject? Is it asufficient account of the genius of Cervantes and Scott that theycombined in their romances a representation of the higher and lowerclasses? Is it not of more importance how they represented them? It isonly a part of the a