MOTIVES IN ENGLISH FICTION.•
Tins is in reality a history of the English novel written by an American. It is packed with well-arranged information and resplendent with well-chosen quotations, but the English in which A is written is not always the King's, nor, for that 'matter, the. President's ; and the author's adventures in criticism will seem to English readers more strange than successful. Indeed, to speak correctly, Mr. Whiteford's criticisms sfiould rather be described as comparisons. He proceeds from page to page and from century to century by a process of analogy. One author " fingers forward " to another, sometimes at a great distance, so great that the reader cannot possibly discern the likeness. If he reads on, however, he Will become interested in the author's method, which resemblei game of patience. His object would seem to be to reduce the • Moliews in EtentisA Fietins. By Robert Noy:or Whiteford, Ph.D. London C. P. Putnam's Sole. ii0s. net.' personnel of. English fiction—both the writers and their creations— into as few types as possible, till at last they lie before the reader in little heaps as the cards lie before the patience-player. Under the pack faced by Sir Thomas Malory, for instance, we find some very unexpected persons, including George Macdonald. Nathaniel Ingelo's Bentivolio and Urania, published in 1660, contains a splendid description of a sea fight. How this description " fingers " towards Mr. De Morgan's novels we cannot see, but we are told that it does. Perhaps the analogy may be more patent to our readers. Here is the passage :-
" We see ships sinking by reason of ' incurable leaks, some blowing up their decks voluntarily, and some being fired against their wills. The air was filled with the noise of guns, cries of dying persons, and the shouts of conquerors ; the light of the day being obscured with clouds of smoke, and the sea discolored with the blood of wounded men, and made dismal with the bodies of the slain.' " .
Some of Mr. Whiteford's comparisons are of course happier than this. Ezekiel's " remarkable contribution to the Bible " has something in common with More's Utopia, but the works of Mr. Wells and Mr. Carnegie hardly seem to belong to the same category. Mrs. Humphry Ward and Disraeli do undoubtedly " move across the same upper ten parterre," if we have rightly divined the meaning of the sentence, but even they do not seem to bracket suitably together. That certain poor novelists will " live forever in the vivisection given them by Jane Austen " is a just criticism, if strangely expressed ; and the following piece of " fingering forward " is obviously true enough :—
" In 1766 tender-hearted twins were born ; namely, Goldsmith's Vicar and Henry Brooke's Mr. Fenton (Mr. Clinton, uncle of Harry Clinton). These philanthropic gentlemen afterwards introduced their old kinsmen Parson Adams and Uncle Toby to Matthew Bramble and Uncle Roland Caxton, so that all might unite in throwing the richly embroidered mantle of their perfections around the shoulders of Colonel Newcome."
Now and then our author's flights of imagination lead him into extreme singularity of diction. He personifies the pen of Sterne, which he describes as alternately under the guidance of the novelist and " Providence." In the grasp of the latter it is apt to give " an ironic jab," and when functioning alone it " describes a circle around the fire and scratches a place for us to sit down to listen to the tale that apparently never is to be completed." Another arresting sentence sums up the literary worth of the famous Mrs. Radcliffe (she who is kept alive by Miss Austen's " vivisection "). "Mrs. Ann Radcliffe possesses a clear and beautiful style that fringes the white color of joy with jet." This Professor of English Literature in Toledo University deals a good deal in " jet." He admires the power to create a melancholy atmosphere, which he describes as " craping," and considers an immense gift. He inclines to think happiness a species of delusion, pointing his readers to the consolations of Nature and adjuring them to " lap up the stars in the 'night time "—a sentence which considered in its context we take to be equivalent to " Gather ye rosebuds while ye may." But he ascribes " craping " to persons in whom we do not always see the gift. " The tiny mass of morbid realism in Adeline Mowbray presages the great dark land of its activity in the novels of Thomas Hardy, Hall Caine, and Mrs. Humphry Ward."
Mrs. Opie's book which turns upon the effects of upbringing is likened to George Meredith's masterpiece. "The pernicious system of education by which a mother ruined Adeline is similar to that motivated by a father to engulf George Meredith's Richard Feverel." To say that Clementine in Sir Charles Orandison will always " reign regnant " among the mad women of English fiction is, again, an odd way of expressing an unusual view. Surely it is Ophelia who thus reigns.
It is amazing to English readers that a man so well versed in literature should write like this. He can, however, do better. Let us show him at his best as well as at his worst. Of Miss Austen he has a real appreciation. Speaking of Emma, he says we cannot " forget the countenances and intimate dialogue of those who frequent the roadway between Hartfield and Highbury. Whether we are at Donwell, or Randalls, or at the Crown for the purpose of dancing, or off on an excursion to Box Hill, our associates Knightley, Weston, Churchill, Mrs. Elton, Woodhouse, faithful Perry, Miss Taylor, the guileless Harriet, the talk-a-pace Miss Bates, and Jane Fairfax, are all following their leader, the fascinating, exasperating Emma, who is their life as well as our own."
That is an excellent epitome of Miss Austen's masterpiece. The following also strikes us as an excellent piece of writing. Our author has just quoted the proposal to Lucille from Lyly's Euphnee :
"The subdued alliteration and the delicate arabesque antitheses in this proposal aid in oiling the machinery of euphuism so that it loses its monotonous click and responds to a vibratory warmth of an emotion that is genuine."
We wonder whether Mr. Whiteford has much influence over his students ? It is to bo hoped that they will form their style upon the authors to whom he introduces them rather than upon his own. We wonder also whether in Toledo the major part of his book reads strangely ? If not, we must face the fact that at least in some puts of America the English of the lexicographer is becoming a dead language.
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