The New Orleans bulletin. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1874-1876, 1876-02-20
THE MODERN NOHEL.

There Is no absolute reason, that We per
ceive, why the novel should not be infinitely
more perfect than our greatest novelistt
choose to make it, why it should not take
artistic rank just under the very highest
poetry; and there is this much to be said for
it against all other finer products. that it ap-
peals to all classes Of the community alike,
and carries broadcast seeds which our poets
lock up in the ivory Baskets of mystic and
rhythmic speech. III our day we have seen
some half dozen novel-poems of the finest
and most delightful workmauship-Canon
Kngsley's "Hypstia and Westward Ho, .
Rsade's first version of the "Cloister and the
HEARTH" Rawthorne's ''Scarlet Letter,
Thackeray's " Edmond" and Dickens "Cop-
perfield."
None of these excellent works, however,
are SO distinctly and emphatically poetic as
the novels of Victor Hugo. Most poetic and
finished as works of art are the novels of the
late Nathaniel Hawthorne-most finished of
ell 1.-The Scarlet Letter." an effosion of ter
rible and Supplying gloom, bat wonderfully
festered BY an art as rigid as that of Haw-
thorne, and had restricted the size of his can
vas accordingly, he would have escaped all
those mad splashes Of the brush which dis
figure his best painting. Confined to the
compass of "The Scarlet Letter." "Les
Travailleurs de Ia Mer" would have been of
double its present value. We want all its
gold, but not any particle of its dross. lies
Miserables, too, might be curtailed one-half
with tremendous advantage. As for 81 Homme
qui Rit, We are not so sure that it might not
have been curtailed altogether, for one-third
Of it is hideous, another third Of it is nasty,
and the remaining third is only repetition
of what lts author has said better else
where.
Each of these works, despite its prose form,
is poem-a work which could have been ex-
pressed as we'll, or better, in verse. Why,
then, did Victor Hugo, whose command of
metrical effects is so consummate, abandon
them in composing his greatest works? Be-
cause, the truth must be admitted, he per-
ceived that the novel, with all its limitations,
bears the same relation to this generation that
the tragic drama did to the generation of
Eschylus in so far as it is the resource and
study of the entire reading world. During
the annual period of the dramatic perform
ances, it was the simple duty of every Athe-
MAN citizen to attend and behold them; they
were produced for the delight and ediication
Of the many, not for the aesthetic qualification
Of the few; and although their poetic claims
we're privately adjudicated by delicate critics,
their general appeal was to the public.
~ WOuAO OO HOAAk WV 40I W CUmDdkO tu0
productions of what was essentially religi-
ous festival with modern productions created
only for the pleasure Of the hour; but the
novel bears at least this resemblance to Greek
Eragedv-it gratifies, when successfully writ
ten, an enormous assemblage of people. LIS
literary form may be loose, its influence
ephemeral, its appeals undignifed; but surely
these are results which have nothing to do
with the question, Whether or not prose
story may not be as perfect in its way as a
Greek tragedy or at any rate. to reduce the
question to closer issue, infinitely more
perfect than any novelist, with the exception,
perhaps, of Hawthorne, chooses to make 1t |
We know scarcely any modern fiction in three |
7olumes, for example. which would not have
been infinitely better if restricted to Que vol |
lme, always excepting, of course, those COL |
ectionS OF humorous sketches which consti- |
ute story by Thackeray or Dickens, and in
which an infnity of diverting characters are |
Introduced almost at hap-hazard. with no
pecial adherence to serious chain of in |
crest.
Examine, for example. that very elaborate
york of art, Geo. 'Eiot's" Romola. No con-
temporary work is better con6sived, with |
more admirable characters, and Emore tragic |
dot; yet has any student ever read it through |
With anything but WEAKNESS, due to the
masses Of Unconditional verbiage by which the |
IDEAS are wrapt, disguised, and overloaded?
This, however, is an example of novel with !
,ut spontaneity, rather than of inordinate
ength, and it Is doubtful if any mere COM
PRESTON could make sRomola" the tragedy it |
,ught to have been. Turn to work of far |
lumbler pretensions, but of infinitely higher |
Vicar of Wakefield. Hsre is
poem, simple, spontaneous, hearty, beauti.
nj, and brief. This, however, is mere genre
picture; and for any parallel in fiction to the
mighty creations of the Attic STAGE we must
eturn to Victor Hugo.
Hugo has attempted, with more or less sue
less, as We have been endeavoring to show,
0 use the novel, as Eschylus used the drama,
q Q vehicle for the highest poetry Of which
he age is capable. The splendor of his
has justified q perilous expert
nent, and the question is no longer one of
mere art, in which his inferiority aud that of
he novel is seen and admitted, but of intel
ectual grasp and moral teaching. concerning
which there will doubtless be an infinity Of
liverging opinions. One characteristic must
trike ct once the most superficial reader of
lis novels-their unutterable despair. This
lso is tho characteristic of the stories of
George Eliot but while her despair is un-
suggestive of the Feuerbach she
in her literary youth, that of Hugo
) the despair of poet. His colossal mascu.
me types, while they triumph invariably
lore or less over the triple anarchy
religion, society and nature, double up like
ouses of cards before the anarchy of their
wn sentiments-or, as the writer expresses
!, "of the human heart"
The ocean closes over Gilliatt because he