Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1894-12-29
FRENCH AND ENGLISH FICTION.
The Different Ideals Held by the
Writers of the Two Nations.


Writers of the Two Nations.
From the Saturday Review.
1t is curious and interesting to note that
the English and French take opposite sides
in this dispute the English preferring now
always the romance, or rather its mod
crn form. the novel of adventure, while the
French take the keenest pleasure in the
analysis of characters or passions playing
within the frame of everyday life. Before
attempting to decide which is the better
of these two productions 1t may be we'll to
try and explain how the English came to
choose the romantic and the French the
realistic method.
The explanatio seems to lie on the sur
face. to be seen by any one who considers
the circumstances OF the two peoples. The
English is a Colonizing race that seeks ad-
ventures and tilds them in every quarter
of the globe. If Englishmen do not push
across painless forests TO conquer dragons
and deliver fair maiGcns or plunge into
sunless sea caves to war with monsters
more terrible than any to be found in up
per air. it is simply true to say that the
dangers have only assumed new forms.
Fighting fevers and famines in India or
tolinS for q livelihood on the frozen plains
of Manitoba; seeking gold amid the rain
storms of Mashonaland or on the sun
baked waIerless wastes of West Australia,
the BritOn'S life is apt to be one OF great
ssitudes, filed with events as strange
as those which, IN the telling, charmed
Desdemona. 1t is not to be wondered at
that the race that most loves adventures
and peris. and feels more keeniy than
others the fascination of the unkonWn,
should prefer works of art that reader
IT'S IecuI4ar passion; there is nothing, per-
haps, produced by Engl,shmen so English
Us Robinson CrUSOc." The novel of adj
l. oil
The chief type Of English creative work
in prose
TIE French ideal of prose fiction is
wholly different, corresponding closely, rs
it does. with French life and French
character. The Frenchnan is neither adj
VeEtuTUuS nor romantic, but, gifted with
the Latin rcasonableneSs and cIearness of
view, az art lover from his birth, with a
leaning toward refined aeusualIty. These
qualities and many other excellent differ
ences will be readily conceded to him by
every student of art or literature. Fer the
model of his Irose fiction, for the master
piece e,nbodyIng his characteristics, as
Robinson CIusoe' embodies the charac-
tcristcs of Englishmen, we must so not
TO gil Bias" with it's Spanish intrigues,
hut to "Manon Lescaut." Every one
knows the story of the CheNaiier des
Grieux and his passionate love of Manon;
every one knows, TOO, how Manon's light
ness and Sayety tortured and Fascinated
her lover; how the chevalier's parents
of Paris to separate the devoted pair, and
how they failed. No one who has ever
read it can have forgotten the story of
Manon's death in that American desert
ard of the chevalier's inconsolable grief.
This great work resembles Robinson
Crusoe" in nothing save the fidelity to
life Of its character drawing. Robinson
Crusoe is a finer study of an Individual
man, far more intimate, soul revealing and
elaborate than the somewhat careless,
sketchy portrait of Des Grieux. But
Manon can be classed, perhaps, even highe:
than Robinson Crusoe as a portrait taken
from life. The varying fortunes too, of
the French lovers are conditioned by their
characters and by the circumstances OF
the time, and are not to be compared III
strangeness and physical excitement with
the wholly accidental adventures which
called forth Crusoe's indomitable energy.
Both books are acknowledged master
pieces, and the charm of the ore for ma
ture readers Is certainly not surpassed pv
the fascination which the other exercises
over the imagination of boyhood.