The San Francisco call., 1897-05-09
A NEW ESSAY IN DIDACnC FICTION.

TROOPER Pc TER HALKET OF MASHONA-
Landry Olive Schreiner. Boston: Roberts
Bros. For sale by William Doxey Palace Hotel.
Just how far an author is justified in making
fiction a vehicle for didactics is still an open
question. 1t will probably never be closed
while Mrs. Humphry Ward lives and writes
and if Mrs. Humphry Ward may write stories
with purpose political or poIemical, the same
privilege must certainly be conceded to other
writers.
For this reason Oliver schreiner's latest
book Trooper Peter Halket of Mashona-
land" must be noticed as fiction, though
Justice demands the concession that no child
could be more innocent than Nine. Schreiner
of the real art OF fiction.
The worth of the sort of story she has given
US is more easily passed upon than is the
question of its justification. Ii is doubtful if
any great ethical lesson was ever taught to
adults under the story guise that could not
have been better and more broadly taught by
simple, direct treatment of the subject itself.
The nature of fiction is such as to preclude
any but narrow and one-sided view of the
matters which IL treats, when these of
themselves outside its realm. The vehicle is
70 100 restricted, its limitations too rigidly de-
fined to admit of the broad, general view
essential in considering great questions. Had
Nine. Schreiner seen fit to give the world
statement of the truth ABOUT The present situ-
AuUu III OoulH AlflCdJ II lS
the world would have listenedto her. The au-
thor's personality is well known; her reputa-
lion and her long residence in the country of
which she writes are enough TO secure her a
hearing and a consideration that will never
be-accoTded to Trooper Peter Halket," whose
views OF the African situation are at first those
OF an ignorant English lad, not yet of age,
who less than eighteen months before had
"never heard OF Mashonaland"
Later in the story we find him acting from
the point OF view of man who has spent
night alone amid the terrors of the weld, the
great African plain; who on that night was
nearly starved and frozen, and who "has
never been the same man since," according to
the verdict of his comrades in arms, who
could not be expected to know that during
that night of horror the Christ visited Peters
campfire. showed him that the despised Afri-
can natives were his brethren, and sent him
forth on mission for their rescue.
Here again the limitations of fiction draw
hard and fast lines about the task to which
Nine, Schrelner has set herself. and the main
issue of the story, which is justice to the Afri-
can. is lost sight of in the inevitable specula-
ton over the artistic unit1es of the Christ
nature, as sketched by the author. Such
handling of themes is always delicate and
DANGEROUS Dangerous because our concep-
tions of tEs divine must necessarily be in
"N6utlNo IdlHeE ludH lI1dtAfCJ dho eAC ling
between sublimity and absurdity is SO family
defined as to be easily crossed.
Forum tely for her readers, the author
keeps wen up on the right side OF this line, and
yet. while we may not truly m easure the great
ness of any work or movement by apparent re-
suits, there is, in view of the story's weakness,
something almost grotesque in the spectacle
OF the machinery which she has set in motion
to carry on the action of her narrative. The
i1t iutn NJ Capil Rhodes and nr
Jameson is but one of the many artistic blum
Gers that characterize the book as work of
fiction. So also the reproduction as an illus
tration to the story Of photograph represent
ing group of white men watching three ne
groes hanging from tree is an offense against
the decencies which not even earnestness ef
purpose can justify.
1t is only as work of fiction that adverse
criticism applies TO the book. Olive Schreiner
is a woman who has touched life at many
points, and gathered from ii real message
for the world. She has insight and sympathy,
and the power to make her readers think and
feel. There is, moreover, certain high
imaginative quality in her work that arouses
and carries. There is much OF the same fine
force in Trooper Peter Halket'' that holds us
in Dreams" and other OF her best work, but
with this remains, as well. much of the
crudity, the one-ideaed intensity that charac-
hardly possible that she regards all English
men in Africa oppressors and brutes, yet
there is little in the book to relieve this
gloomy impression The story itself is hope
less and incouclusive. From first to last it
contains no word of hope or cheer. Yet one
cannot but recognize that the author has
spoken out of sense of hurt justice and in be-
half of the weak.
AS with all of Nine. schreiner's work the
central teaching is individual and internal
rather than outward and general. She sums
it up in the parting words of the divine
stranger at Peter Halket's campfire: ut is not
the act but the will that marks the soul of the
man. He who has crushed q nation sins no
more than he who rejoices in the death throe
of the meanest creature. The stagnant pool is
not less poisonous drol for drop than the
mighty swamp, though its reach be smaller.
He who has desired to be and accomplish what
this man has been and accomplished is as
this man, though he have lacked the power
to perform"