Morning journal and courier., 1882-11-18
A Gossip on Romance From Longman's Magazine

English people of the present day apt, know not why, to look somewhat down on | incident, and reserve their admiration for the 1 cllnk of teaspoons and the accents of the curate. It is thought clever to write novel with no story at all, or at least with a very ] dull one. Reduced even to the lowest terms, certain interest can be communicated by | the art of narrative; sense of human kin | ship stirred and kind of monotonous fit- ness comparable to the words and air of l 'Sandy's Mull," preserved among the infini tesimal occurrences recorded. Some people work in this manner with strong touch. MT. Trollope's inimitable clergymen 1 naturally arise to the mind in this connection. But even Mir. Trollope does not confine him. self to chronicling small beer. Mir. Craw ley's collision with the Bishops wife, MT. Melnotte dallying in the deserted banquet room, are typical incidents, epically con celved titly embodying crisis. If Rawdon Crawley's blow were not delivered, ''Vanity Fair" would cease to be work of art. That scene is the chief ganglion of the tale; and the discharge of energy from Rawdons fist is the reward and consolation of the reader. The end of ''Esmond" is yet wider excur- sion from the authors customary fields the scene at Castlewood is pure Dumas the great and willy English borrower has here borrowed from the great unblushing French thief usual, he has borrowed admirably we'll, and the breaking of the sword rounds off the best of all his books with manly,
 
 more strongly illustrate the necessity for marking incident than to compare the living fame of Robinson Crusoe' with the dis credit of ''Clarissa Harlowe." 'Clarissa" is book of 8 far more startling import, worked out, on great canvas, with inmita- ble courage and unfagging art; it contains wit, character, passion, plot, conversations full of spirit and insight, letters sparkling with unstrained humanity and if the death of the heroine be somewhat frigid and arti- icial, the last days of the hero strike the only note of what we now call Byronism be- tween the Elizabethans and Byron himself And yet little story of shipwrecked sailor, with not q tenth part of the style nor thou sandth part of the wisdom, exploring none of the arcana of humanity and deprived of the perennial interest of love, goes on from edition to edition, ever young, while ''Cla- rissa" lies upon the shelves unread. A friend of mine, Welsh blacksmith, was twenty five years old, and could neither read nor write, when he heard chapter of Rob lnson" read aloud in a farm kitchen. Up to that moment he had sat content, huddled in his ignorance but he left that farm another man. There were day-dreams, it appeared, divine day dreams, written and printed and bound. and to be bought for money and en- joyed at pleasure Down he sat that day. painfully learned to read Welsh, and returned to borrow the book. It had been lost, nor could he find another copy but one that was in English Down he sat once more, learned English, and at length and with entire de- light, read 'Rob1nson" 1t Is like the story of a love chase. If he had heard letter from "Clarissa," " would he have been fired with the same chivalrous ardor |? I wonder Yet ''Clarlssa" has every quality that can be shown in prose, one alone excepted pictori- al or picture making romance. While ''Rob- inson" depends, for the most part and with the overwhelming majority of it's readers, on nf