The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-05-25
THE AMERICAN NOVEL.
From the N. y. Tribune.

From The N. y. Tribune.
MIR. Anthony Trollope has announced his
intention of coming to the United States, in
order to make new studies of character for a
forthcoming novel, which is but fair warn
ing to each of his hospitable entertainers to
refrain from indulging in any of our inera-
dicable national habits while Mr.. Trollope's
keen eye is upon him across the table. For
the American gentleman, Mr. Trollope has
already noted in one of his books, rises to
''orate" between each mouthful of potato,
and squirts tobacco-juice between each glass
of champagne. The American young lady,
even when she is possessed of money and
culture sufficient to entitle her to marry into
the British peerage, cannot conquer her
habits of ''orating" also, and addressing her
lady friends famIliarly as ''You ass"
Can we not convince this acute OBJ
server of character that there are exceptions
among us to even these general rules? We
wait with anxiety the result of Mr.. Trollope's
adventure into new world. Brother Jona-
than has come to be favorite figure in for
eign novels and plays of late. His likeness is
easily taken, the features being SO few and
marked. He is of necessity either the we'll
known lean Sam Slick, with his trowsers
halfway up his leg and jack knife in hand, or
Slick in middle age, grown rich and Con-
gresham, dangling ponderous seals over
paunchy black satin waistcoat, but still ad-
herring Gas all Americans wil) to his 81
swow," and 'Du tell, and 81 yum to man."
San Americon novel, we are informed by
the Saturday Re0ieao and other satisfactory
English authorities, sis an impossibility.
ALI men in that land of progress are alike;
everybody wears the same clothes, talks the
same dialect, and rides in the same cars. "
We might ignorantly have fancied that an
accretion of people from every country under
heaven, brought under new influences in
sweep of continent SO broad that England
would form but one of the counties in
Western State, might present some dramatic
or picturesque points. But it appears we
are mistaken. The old typical Slick,
like Aarons serpent, ,,, still swal-
lows all the Test. ''There is not
to be found" we are assured, ''that range of
caste and character and incident which British
society Offers and which are portrayed in
Trollope's novels. The only opening for fc-
ton in America is in the class of didactic tales
which dwell upon the miseries of mill
and miners. Every view of the subject,
therefore, appears to- be grave, and depressing
to our national literary ambition. Seriously,
the excess of material lying on the surface
of society, which awaits the hand of the
| artist in this country, is not available to a
workman like Trollope, from the very glaring
contrasts of light and shadow, and the variety
! of character, requiring bolder and more ef-
feotive treatment than he is able to give.
The charm of his books lies in the fact that
he knows but half-a-dozen characters, but
knows them thoroughly, and paints them
over and over again in each new novel with
Flemish minuteness. A cursory, swift glance
over this country, with the notes he will take
in the cars, or at Washington and New York
dinner-tables, will hardly enable him to re-
produce in American costume his bluff York
shire squire, his natty and vicious young
man, and sweet, obstinate young woman,
clinging desperately to her one sensual idea
of love.
1t will be better for American fiction, how
ever, when it, measurably at least, adopts
the Trollope school of art; when the novelist,
instead of using his dranlatiS persona as
characterless puppets to embody or preach
his favorite dogmas, or harrow the readers
soul by mysteries and murders most foul,
simply contents himself with photographine
the people and scenes about him. Mere re.
production is certainly legitimate art, if moi
the highest; and it assuredly is the most sue
cessful. What service Holmes has rendered
in this way to New England, Bayard Taylor
has given to Pennsylvania, Harte to Cali
fornis, and De Forest, almost unnoticed, il
now bringing bacK Gao ooalA AZ ~.