The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1900-06-08


"Stello'D; Stendahl had not yet pointed
the way to that cruel and cynical OBJ
Servation of conduct and analysis of
motive that was to leave such pro-
found MARKS on the art of fiction Gle
Rouge ct le Noir. - La Chartreuse de
Parme'O; Merimee had written none
Of those well balanced masterpieces of
swift narration, vivid description and
Characterization that will long remain
models in their kind ("Colomba, -
Carmen" achievement de la Re
dOUte') Dumas, George Sand and Bal
FAC were still names unknown. When
'Ninety-Three' appeared in 1874 all of
these were dead but George Sand, and
her last novel had been written; the
best work of Feuillet, Sandeau, Cher
buleZ and all that generation was al
ready done; the main phases of the
evolution that the novel has accom-
plished in this century were fully de-
fined. FlaubeTt had long before started
realism on q new development with
Madame Bovary" Q85O; the brothers
Goncourt had brought it still further
on its way toward a scientific method
and dependence on documentary evil
dence- ('Renee Mauperin," "Gernninie
LacerteuXO; AlDhonse Daudet had
already given proof of that rare COM
bination of sympathy and sentiment
with penetrating and minute obserVa-
ton and of that magic gift of style
that lend his novels such a peculiar
and individual charm Gle Petit Chose,
Fremont Jeune ct Risler Aine"); and
Emile lola had drawn up the final
creea of naturalistic or experimental
novel, and had sketched the imposing
outlines Of that series OF "RougOn-
MacCuart' novels that were to fur
nish the natural and social history of
a family under the second empire
From this array of names-and there
is not one Of them that is not repre-
scented bT some work of more than
ordinary merritt is clear that the age
has been as conspicuous for the great
mass as for the quality of what it has
produced. But in spite again of the
conflicting claims of schools it may be
maintained that among all these con-
in a special way dominate the field
Hugo, Dumas, George Sand and Bal
FAC.
This does. not mean that these four
have been in all respects unsurpassed.
1t is quite likely that many would name
on their list Of the greatest French
novels d majority by other writer's It
is even quite certain that these have
not been the most important noveIists.
if we are thinking of their literary in
fiuence and the effect of their work
upon the theory and practice of the
art Of fiction.
No writers could well be more unlike
than these four masters of the novel
nor could four well be chosen any
where whose works would present a
greater variety Of qualities and inter-
est. They Well exhibit the wide range
of the novel as literary form and its
capacity for the most diverse effects.
If Victor Hugo comes first on the list
of novelists, it is not so much by rea-
son Of the fame of Les Miserables. -
which is perhaps for the mass of
English readers his only novel, but
because he was the great literary
genius of his time. the first man of
letters of his century. The novel was
far from being his main interest. One
sign of this, among many others, is
found in a peculiar feature of his
career aS a nOVelist--it is made uD OF
two periods, separated by the interval
Of a whole generation. From "Notre
Dame de Paris" QS3D to Les Miser-
abies" tlS62) no part of his incessant
activity was given to the novel, though
/ it was in these years that it was cele-
brating its great triumphs and assum-
ing a new and more serious import
ance. especially through the work ef
Balzac. And when he came back to the
novel in Les Miserables" there was
little to show that these changes had
had any effect on him. Les Miser-
ables' and the novels that followed it
are plainly from the same mind as
"Notre Dame" and were built upon the
same plan. In them all he is essentials
~ a poet. Their qualities are poetic
qualities-amplitude and grandeur of
conception, Imaginative power In
"NOtre Dame" he is a poet of so. in
the heydey of rOmanticism, under the
charm of the historical interest, in the
exuberanee Of youth; in Les Miser-
ables" he is poet of SO. looking back
on years of political and social agita-
ton and unrest, confronting from exile
the somber DerDlexities of his time,
and rejecting on the past and present
of human affairs and institutions. Each