The San Francisco call., 1895-11-17
MODERN FICTION.
BY PROF. WILLIAM H. HUDSON.

The topic with which I have been entrusted
tonight. is one difficult to handle briefly and
to the point, partly because of its enormous ex-
tent and complexity, partly on account of the
important place which fiction is coming more
and more to fill in our modern world. In the
few minutes now at my disposal 1 can hope to
do no more than touch with necessary succinct-
ness upon one or two questions which, in so
rapid a survey OF our subject, may haply seem
OF the most general interest and importance.
1t is now number OF years since that sug-
gestive- critic, Sidney Lanfer, undertook to
analyZe the reasons for the universally recog-
aized fact that the novels and seems destined
to remain, the specific literary art form of the
nineteenth century, and this in spite of Victor
Hugos well-known and eloquent plea on be-
half of the drama. Mr.. Lanier pointed out
that prose fiction arose to take the place of the
drama with the gradual rise of a large and
general reading public, with the spread of
democratic feeling and the consequent extern
sion ofmen's interests over increasingly wide
areas OF human life, and with the crude begin
nlngs of what to-day we should call social
science The growing complexity of our civil
fzation, due to continual differentiation and
the implied accentuation of personality, COM
bine TO render necessary for adequate interpre-
tation an art form of an elastic and flexible
character-and such art form is to be found in
tuS uOfSls ~ oIIOuIO De remarked LnaL
when we speak in this way of the novel
as the characteristic literary art form OF
our ers we mean something more than
that it has become the widely accepted
vehicle OF literary expression. We mean
that 1T has become such a widely ac-
cepted vehicle to the more or less complete
exclusion of other literary art FORMS 1t may
be taken as general principle that no period
is Intellectually strong and rich enough to
produce and maintain more than one really
living and representative form of art. In pro-
portion as it pours its energy and genius into
one channel of self-expression it must neces-
sarily draw them from other possible channels
1 regard, therefore, the present pre-eminence
of the novel as in itself the most fatal obstacle
we have TO reckon with to such an immediate
renaissance OF the drama as Mr.. II. A. Jones
hopes 10 witness and to the production of any
large, new and original body OF poetry. Alfred
Aus tin, in the interesting but rather plain tive
preface TO his Human Tragedy" bemoans the
fact that people no longer care TO read long
POEMS and man who wrote many volumes
of verse, including one of the most lengthy
poems. in our literature, Robert Browning,
distinctly raises the question:
Have people time
Or patience nowadays for thoughts in rhyme?
do not think it is at bottom a question oi
time and patience; though-leti 1t be SAID with
out irreyerence-time and patience may have
something to do with the matter when we ind
ourselves confronted by such poem as 1.-The
Ring and the Book" 1t is rather question OF
the general absorption of power once given To
dramatic and narrative poetry by this other
medium of prose fiction. AT any rate, we can
hardly mistake the general tendency oil
things, or fail to realize that the literary
forces Of our time distinctly favor the con-