New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1891-06-14
ENGLISH CRITICISM.
WITH EXAMPLES OF THE ART FROM MR.
JAMES PAYN AND OUIDA.

practitioners of high criticism, than they should
be. Mr.. James Payn is one of them. His proper
function in life is far the public knows, that
Of novel-producer and storyproducer; and TOT Do'h
novels and stories there are readers. But ne mas
long had another Junction. half critical, hall com
mercial. He is reader to an important pnohsh-
ng firm in London, a duty which would seem 10 IT.
quire critical gifts in certain degree, anu al
much higher degree, knowledge OF the marheV.
The question such person has 10 answer 10 noo
primarily whether q book be good literature or
not or even whether IL be literature at ALL Dut
whether it will sell. He must know the prevail
ING taste or caprice in books at given moment
II is not every publisher who, like the late MT
Murray. thinks himself able to afford both COM
mercal conscience and literary conscience, or
who would risk large sums his own belief OF
even his readers belief, in the purely literary
merits of O manuscript. Still, the occupation oi
the reader is probably less remote from criticism
than the occupation of novelwriter and so MI
James Payn may well have come TO take him.
self seriously critic
Tie has, moreover, contributed at least one crii-
sal paper 10 a monthly review, the main object
Of which was to deride everything old ana good,
and to elevate pure hippancy into q critical
standard. Nor is that all. He writes each week
A column or two of gossip in one of the illustrated
weeklies. under the title Our Note Book. 1t Is
sentence from the latest of these columns which
gave rise to this long dissertation upon Mr. Payn
and his relations TO literature. He has been SO
good as TO express opinion on his American
rivals in the production of novels; and this Is
the opinion:
American novels mostly Of two kinds-the
one with good deal of shooting and swearing, and
and the other purely domestic"
The higher criticism is not often so sweeping
ba xyho
likely TO gain by substituting the shovel for the
pen.
Then there is Ouida, whose passion for the
shovel is lifelong So worldwide is this lady's
renown that to no reader, not even of the Wild
est West, can it be needful to explain that Oulda
is a manufacturer of fiction; her duty or interest
or pleasure in life, or whatever it be-theSe, or
some of these have for years lain in that direction
a phrase ] ought TO cancel, but | leave 1t for
everybody so minded to rend in pieces Ouida has
expressed her critical concern for literature IN TWO
columns of the leading journal of this country ohe
declares that the word literature nowadays serves
to cover vast quantity of work which does not
possess any single literary quality whatever
1t does serve that purpose and l know OF NOBODY
better qualified than Ouida to testify to this point
The witness who turns States evidence is. in courts
of law deemed to need cOrrobcration, but think
most of us will accept Ouidas assertion without
any other support than may be drown from the
Inference that il is meant 20 include herself
But she goes further than she need. She al
leges that both in England and America this eX-
preston literature. is unfortunately applied TO
q vast confusion of printed volumes in most OF
which. as she repeats. there is no single literary
uualty diseemible Here she seems to Join hands
with Mr.. James Pawn. Both of them have
kind of dislike for what is American and the eX-
preston of this dislike is. in Oudas case frequent
and sometimes violent She tells the too credu-
ious Briton that the fatal influence Of America
ia a. disastrous to English writer's as to English
farmers. microscopic criticism might object
that disastrous is anti-clinax too fatal. but to
expect Ouida to take note of these niceties would
be unreasonable. She is too much In earnest,
too vehement even. TO whether she writes
English. Be il vebemence or be 1t some other
disturbing condition of mind. this indifference to
accuracy may be seen everywhere in her printed
books. However, it is not much the
fact that many Americans write good
English which vexes her soul all up and down
these two columns. as the other fact trat
the wicked American has invented the syndicate
for serial publication. 1t is Ouida's opinion that
the syndicate treats the author as Chicago treats
the pig; buys him, shoots him through a tube,
and delivers him, if he be pig, ham, or If he
. be an author as a wet sheet: wherever there IS
O demand for him. This 20 her mind Is an ofense
against the dignity of the author
She dslilSes the literary agent not less than
the syndicate; perhaps more. He gets ten per
cent commission and is revolving being alto
gether. Not only he, but anybody who turns
literature into commerce, is revolving. &" To every
author of imaginative mind and impersOnal feel
ing the association of trade with literature must
always be disagreeabe; the question Of pounds
shillings and pence must always chafe and jar
when brought into connection with the children
of thought Nothing of late seen in print can
have been so perplexing to the shOpkeeping and
trade-loving Briton as this sentence. don't
mean the grammatical and rhetorical perplexitles
Of il: to those the reader of Ouida is used. But
lie recoils from the notion that trade he Gs-
agreeable TO anybody. or that these pounds shil-
lings and pence which are the result Of trade or
sometimes are, can be anything but objects
Of keen desire to all the world, authors included
So, in his surprise, be puts rude questions and
wants TO know whether Ouida wrote and published
all her innumerable novels out of pure love, and
made presents of them TO the publishers and the
public.
These interrogative rctorts upon the excited
novelist are obvious bnt not the less effective for
that. There are persons who maintain that
nothing is effective which is not obvious or at
least commonplace and who act upon their
theory with the most admirable consistency.
Ouida is not exactly commonplace; she is only
common. l speak Of her, TO use her own word
impersonally; as a maker OF fiction, not as an
individual 1t might be hard TO name any modern
writer who has written down TO her public more
steadily than she has. Writing down is not per-
hans an accurate phrase. There are pubcs and
publics. a writer may choose his own sometimes
il he be a great writer, he may create his own
But it is a matter of choice, or of temperament
and sympathy, if not of creation; like
seeks like imagine that when NJ. Emile Zola
entered upon his career as writer of fiction he
may have said to himself that he had power
enough, even genius enough. TO attract and in
interest the best people by the best writing; oil
by writing of very high merit and literary crafts