New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1873-12-01
FICTION AND ITS EMINENT AUTHORS


Tn his course of lectures before the Lower
Institute Boston, Mr. j. T. Fields spoke Of Fiction and
its Eminent Authors last Saturday. He began by say
ng IL never too early too late TO make the friend
ship Of really good novel; class OF literature 'hat
includes in it three such universally popular DOCKS as
1.-THE Pilgrims Progress" Robinson Crusoe,' ana
"The Vicar OF Wakefield" can never be lightly estF
mated. We read these three volumes over ana over
again without thinking that theyiare novels, and nov
els too in the best sense of the most exciting charsc
ter. A good old lady told Mr. Fields once " she
would never have story-book In the house,
but he discovered her spectacles one day left as a
mark in a wellthumbed copy OF John Bunyan' she
had been reading rstrate novel all her life and had
never found II out Mr. Fields said that the world pc
gan TO cry like child very early IN It's career Tel
US story" and he then went on with very RAPID ao-
count of the beginning Of fiction referring 10 Boo
caccios DecamerOn," Ceramics Don QulAote' anu
SIR Philip sidney's Arcadia" Then coming GOWN 10
De Foe and the British novests OF the eighteenth CEN
try, Mr. Fields said that these were the novels Una,
kent peope ND OF nights and made them weep ana
laugh they had done before ana that we now
read OF these same romances win very airy eyes
aod only a protraCted sense OF misery PuTer
streams have sprung up on whose banks Dowt ti
OF better hue ana IaSan t nioo e be SeadIy
nightshade school held potent sway over the novel
pages IL was the fashion sit down in sackclOth and
ashes and feel like Mrs. Pipchn VINO wore biack nom
bazine habuaily and itself could not hight her ny
after dark. Mr.. Fields says there was Que class OF
old novels which might be called " the idioe school.
Then there writer's OF ancient helion VINO seemed
10 nave come into the world with all the qualifications
perfect bores Then there was tho author who over
explains. overliustTdes, nOestS US win dates aud
sufiocates us with pedgrees. The oldtme moral
romancer took nothing for granted He went
the end. ThoreaU said it was sufficient cir
cumsantial evidence against the innhn1n when nen
be found trout in the milk Inc ora story
telling morallst would nave employed twenty epistles
between his hero and heroine in an endeay0r to account
for this pscatOry presence Mr. Fields sald he shelves
Of old libraries muSty with these forgotten NOVELS
People who died prior to the 7h of Jny 1874 were IN
fortunate in one respect II IN no other ior on mat Gay
was published the first OF the Waverloy novels MI
Fields said that Scott was not so deep as shaseSPe are
paid glowing tribute TO Maria Edgevorh and said that
wetO-do home with children IN IT, ought 10 be abi5
with a full set Of her works Mr. Fields was very
severe on many of Buwers novels and declared that
the world has never yet placed any lasting estimate on
unsOund fish simply because II shlnes BulWer 81"
human nature through bits Of painted glass from his
castle window Knetworth while Dickens walked aud
thought with his kind in the free open ar DICKENS
wrote with the yehemence OF conviction. and had from
the start enthusiasm for humanity Where the pous
Buwer ends and the prOnlgdte BulWef Degihs ~ ~
sometimes almost impossible to determine. Dekenss
characteristics as n0Neilst were ueseIioeu az esu
Mr. Fields said he labored all his life 70 break down
those walls which had so long oVertopped ana suhoa
the huts where poor men he He was always the s'ahu
ard-bearer OF the poor. ,,,
tendency of tine modern French novel He sara ne eheu
up OF the least damaging OF these precious OrateS
the other day, and in ten minutes perusal discovered
that the hero was fascinating Young farsldh hoDie'
Of course that he had one liked princlple only,
and that seinterest; that he was gambler AT the
hpaFy sge of ~ PoifEnef ee sht e wTn1 All
ignorant Of each others existence until they assembled
to hear the reading of their late amented husbands
will in which not of their names was mentioned
not even I'm connection with secondbest anything
Mr.. Fields said ThackeraY was the father OF what
might be called the intellectual novel," and that
while satire is the vertebra column Of nearly all of
Thackeray's ictiOns, there Is no hatred IN II, IL
IS gayety and not TaDcor that abounds. As Agas
sz dissects and examines turtle IhacHeray taxes
10 pieces "A soshelled snob. MI. Fields eulogzed very
earnestly the novels Fenmore Cooper aud said that
the English language must be forgotten before Cooper
ceases wholly be read. In Europe new TRANSACTIONS
Of him come out every year. and IN Holland alone four
different versions have already appeared MT Fields
said he had seen the monks in an Armenian convent
tongue for publication No author has ever touched the
romance OF the with greater power than Cooper,
and he equally at home on the grassy deserts OF the
West in the wilderness OF woods MI Fields sald III
was a bright day for American literature when wash
ingtcn Irving opened his pleasant ewes 70 the
light in 1888 The rich vein OF Hyings mirth
par. There traces of lrviues nature distinctly
marked in the early writings OF " BOZ" dnd Dickcns
Fields said every who knew Irving personally
loved him, and hat his spirit was gentle as the morning
light. His voice had ia 1t the very sound OF Pheasant
thoughts Speaking OF Hawthorne. Mr. Fields SAID that
IL difficult TO lind lifting terms applicable TO ms
genius To use "a phase OF COleridge. " lie was man
informing the from the mind aud not compound
English authors who polish and sweeten the LANGUAGE
and leave It better than they found IT, Mr.. Fields
early visit TO George Eliot and later one
made four years ago, and spoke OF her as the nobes
looking woman OF her age IN all England he called her
me greatest novelist now living.
Mr. Fields thought there never was more ausplcous
time for really great American novelist than now. We
have had our OF settlement Colonial ware battles
for independence, and civil strife the romance OF his
torv is reminentlv ours He believed that the great
lessons taught the novels OF the future should
be those which shall win the world TO true herOism,
shall teach story wen as III song the grander
utcrances divinely limited at in EmersOns quaran
Though love repine and reason chsfs
There voice without repEi
-lls mans perdito1 to be safe,
when for the truth he ought 70 de-