New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1882-12-10
pODSNAPPERY IN LITERATURE.

Certain readable but hardly reroadable Amer
lean novels have frequently provoked the criti-
cism that they were destitute of plot, that moth
ing IN particular came to pass in them, that
they were good so far as they went but failed to
90 anywhere, that they were as unfinished as
the window in Aladdins palace, that they
broke off at a comma or colon rather than at
a period. People have called such peculiariSies
deficiencies, and have referred them to the
mental limitations of their authors. 1t was not
until few weeks ago that the world was IN
effect, informed that it was laboring under
mistake that what it had been regarding as 50
many faults of the new school of fiction were to
be understood as characteristics arlsng not
from pure inability but from studied restraint
The features which the reader missed and
sighed for we're absent by generalization. The
exclamation affects the average man who reads
somewhat as that Of tie tipsy person IN the
story affected certain of his fellow-men. In at
tempting to walk down stairs he fell at the top
and rolled to the bottom. Some smiling Samar-
itans who witnessed his mshap ran to pick HIM
m But Iesolutely declining their assistance
he staggered to his feet with the remark, None
"of your laughing, gentlemen-that is the way
81 always come down stairs"
WHY not put plot into novel; Why not
end il As well as begin it Why not do some
thing with characters after introducing them
ANY objection per SO to incidents The chief de
fender of the James school has his answer
ready. "The stories have all been told long
oeo.p Is his conclusive defence. We submit
that il is an explanation that does not explain.
II the stories have all been told, then the SIS
have all been sung, and the pictures have all
been painted, and the statues have all been
chiselled. For there is just as much to tell sto-
ries about in the world as there is to sing about
or TO reproduce on canvas or IN marble. The
truth is. however, and we appeal to the uni
versal experience to sustain our assertion, that
such are the chances and changes of this mortal
life that il is much nearer the mark to say that
there has never been any adequate story telling
tlau TO affirm that the stories have all been
told. We are willing 10 concede that the
authors of the new school are not story -tellers.
Rut that is very different from arguing that no.
body else in the universe can tell story, that
there are to be no story tellers hereafter, that
tle art has persisted from absolute exhaustion.
There were fighters before AgamcmnOn--and
after. There are as good fish in the sea as ever
came out of it. When Macaulay's traveller from
New Zealand takes his stand on broken arch
Of the Brooklyn Bridge to sketch the ruins Of
TAG TRIBUNE Building story-tcllers will still
be telling their stories and the world will still
be sitting up nights to read them.
To account for the lack of the story-teller's
art In the James school on the droll theory we
have criticised is very like Podsnappery. If
Mr.. Podsnap had written novels only to dis
cover that they failed to contain several Of the
essential elements of a good story he would
doubtless have put storytelling behind him
and SO have put il ont OF existence. That, it
will be remembered, was the Podsnap method
of dealing with all things that confronted him,
and. as Dickens shrewdly reminds us, Z" there
"was dgnifed Concusiveness, not to add a
"grand convenience" in tbs method. Mr. Dick
ems adds that Mr.. Podsnap considered other
countries a mistake. and of their manners and
customs would conclusively observe Not Eng
'Ish,' when Presto with flourish of the arm
"and flush of the face, theywere swept away"
The distinguished champion of the James
school having asserted that the stories had all
been. told. rested without stating whether or not