Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1889-01-24
seMUsT'' AND "OUGHT.~
Motives in Southern and
Northern Novels.

Anna l. Dawes in the Critic.
The novels of Amelie Rives are especially
and peculiarly southern novels. They are full
| of the distinctively southern atmosphere, the
environment here sumptuous and there ne
elected; the curious mingling of contempt
| for surroundings and dependence upon them;
the ignoring Of labor; the habit of command;
above all things, the imperious wills-all these
are traits as perfect and distinct as the ply
steal forms she pictures. And it makes little
difference where her plot is laid, in England or
America, the types are the same. It is life
| tropical NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. in drawing
rooms. most of all in mems passions. The
very plot of her most famous novel is simply
the question whether the heroine shall have
her own way or Eot-this and nothing else. It
glows with passion of body and soul, but it
turns on no incidents or actions of life, but
solely on the struggle between the will of the
dead and the will OF the living. This certainty
that man must have what he wants. that it is
only question of whose will shall dominate
| is the hallmark of fhe south, and the novel
which makes this its drama is the southern
novel. Duty may enter in. or even control
but there Is the point of strain The southern
imperative is must. Therefore it is that
THE HIGH-wRoUaHr NOVELS OF PASSION
are still realistic, because this is southern life
in its essence, enjoyment excitement, possess
sion, passion. Miss Murfree's books have the
same note, and thus are southern also. There
is little enjoyment in these however: the ex-
cltement and the passion together are Of a
herce Kind, and concern the public, not the
individual; and thus, although of the same
class, they mark a different region Her
mountaineers work their own will Just as truly
as Virginia cavaliers; but it is a wild will. a
love of feuds and fighting. a hatred of other
men. Murder is one of their tools. and human
nature cares not SO much for what it has as for
what it keeps others from having. These are
elemental. not civilized neutrality-suspicious..
hot passion; and there is no question of
material things, one way or the other.
THE NEW ENGLAND ENVIRONMENT
Contrast these two very different types with
the men and women who move about Howells
pages. The environment affects them. not they
the environment. They are bound down by
conditions of life. pecuniary, social, industrial
even climatic. They can and they cannot. The
effect OF their houses and their friends is con-
siderable, and even Aumptuousness is carefully
suited to the station lin which it has pleased
God to put" them. All this is strongly true to
life again. As must is the southern imperative.
so ought is the New England imperative. The
one life is all color the other all form. The one
writes in the air must and shall, the other hews
out of the rock ought and aciH. Put Annie Kill
burn, or Silas Lapham. or even Milton Corey
on plantation, how poorly they fit the sur
roundings. how unsuited to the environment,
their analytical lifel But Virginia of Virginia
would be equally ont of touch with the consid-
ering north. Howels could not paint south
ern beauty; neither Rives nor Murfree could
draw northern hero. Yet Howells' delicate
dissection is as truly realistic to its own home
as the fierce drama of the southern writers to
their country.
RUSSIAN REALISM.
Now, in single word, compare this charac-
teristic method with the method of the Russian
novels, generally considered the type of real
ism. In sense they are all alike. Minute
ness OF detail. close and clever intellectual an
alysls. dramatic treatment of philosophical
conditions, are common to all of them. A GER
tain feshliness a certain dirt and filth a GER
tain completely of living as well as life certain
common types of thought, are always to be
found in them. 1t is true that Tourgueneff is
very different from Tolstoi. and Dostoyeffsky
is al by himself; but the creatures thew work
with are just the same, and are moved by the
same motives and the same passions. You
might transpose the characters from "Anna
kGrenina' to Crime and Punishment" and Won
would have no difficulty in fitting them to their
new homes. Wide as Russia is. multifold as are
her people, her type is one and her literary
treatment thereof differs only as the individual
author and his outlook differ. This is so obvious
that it brings into stronger relief our own di-
versity, and the fact that while we are one also.
il is not single one, but complex one. 1t is
Plurlbus Unum in fact well as in oratory
Realism In Russia consists in depicting care
fully and deliberately the different people within
the great empire, who, under so wide a sky vet
breathe the same social atmosphere and, each
class for itself, think the same thoughts. Real
ism In America consists in expressing with
equal care the different types that have made
for themselves different social atmospheres.
here careful and considered, there wild and
ungoverned, there again passionate and i'm
pulsiye