The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1902-08-24
in THE LITERARY FIELD
ASSERTION THAT WOMEN NOvELIsTs
LACK A "sENsE OF LARGENEss."
The Recipe for Literary Success Laid
Down Once MOre-MacauIay's
PainstaIxing Methods.

Mr.. Leslie Stephens lately published
volume on George Eliot has led the literary
chroniclers and critics to reconsider the
life and work Of that gifted woman, and
to overhaul their old opinions regarding
her position as a writer, says the New
York Commercial Advertiser. The discus
sion has not been very keen, or very fruit
full in new critical conclusions; and. in
fact. it is only over the merits of ''Romola"
that any especial vivacity has been mani
tested. Mr.. Stephens evident GOODNESS
toward this particular novel inspired
some Of ITS admirers to reassert the we'll
known claims in it's favor; and other
writer's have tried to hold the balance even
between prejudice and eulogy. No one
appears, however, to have seen wherein the
technical interest of "Romola" really lies.
The book is, in point of fact, a capital IL
lustration of just where it is that a woman
novelist invariably fails.
Women have won many a brilliant sue
cess in fiction; but when you come to
enumerate their successes you will find that
they all have to do with the delineation of
some small nook and corner Of life. man
and woman, or several men and several
women-these are the themes which the
feminine novelist can use with skill. Where
she fails is with men and women. She can
give you a whole series of situations, cpl
sodes, Incidents, events with which her few
picked characters are concerned. What
she cannot do is to hew out a great section
Of life itself, with it's variety and cross
currents and multitudinosity so wildly re-
produced as to make you feel that ii all is
he far KS
written by the most famous Of women, and
see whether there is even one composed
with that sense Of largeness which is so
frequent in the work of men. Can you
find this sense of largeness in Jane Austen
or Miss Edgeworth or in Charlotte Bronte
or George Eliot? Surely not. Always 1t is
the croquis, the miniature, the little picture
often exquisitely done, but never showing
breadth or range or the quality of large
ness. Yet among men this quality is found
so often that one takes it almost as q
matter of course. Scott has it TO a mar
velous degree. He will give you not merely
men and women, but a nation and an
epoch, with Infinite ease an unconscious
ness of effort. The same thing is true of
Dumas, of Hugo, of Tolsto and of lola.
1t is true of Thackeray-at least in Vanity
even true of Dickens in "A Tale of Two
Cities" All these writer's can go beyond
a little group of half a dozen characters
and can open as it were, window through
which you may gaze into the hurry and
rush of world in which every figure
is intensely alive. intensely real, and abb
solutely unconscious of your presence
But this is never so in the work of
women. Let George Eliot try to show us
Italy in the Renaissance and what do we
get? A carefully elaborated, pedantic
study, worked out with learning and ex-
cessive devotion TO minutiae; but you dis
cover no conception of the thing as a
whole 1t is all detail, and it is in detail
that you admire il. Each figure is we'll
done; the background is carefully painted
in: the minor objects in the foreground
are marvels of mechanical fidelity. But
taken altogether it is tumble. The artist
did not possess the sense of largeness.
She could not get far enough away from
her canvas 10 perceive its radical defect.
Mrs. Wharton's ambitious novel THE Val
ley of Decision" is another illustration of
the same thing. 1t is written with distinc-
ton. with abundant knowledge, with
sympathy and with a perfect conception
of what was to be done. Yet one can ad-
mire ii only I'm its parts and never as a
whole Set against Romola Charles Reade S
quite similar romance The ClOister and
the Hearth" and see the difference Reade
is eccentric. jerky, and not infrequently