The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1903-11-22
in THE LITERARY FIELD
A SOUTHERN WRITER CRITICISES
NEUROTIC TENDENCY IN FICTION.
A Biography of John Fiske I'm Pros
pect-Disheartening Character
of Books of the Year.

Mrs. L. H. Harris. a Southern woman,
writing in the Independent of neurotic
symptoms in recent fiction, says:
Mr.. Dixon is the only novelist of the
year in whose work the neurotic symptoms
approach mania, but there are other writers
who are more or less afflicted with the dis
order. Perhaps the stories of Alice Brown
show the most rapid development of it.
Three years ago she could tell a tale with
refreshing vigor, but now her plots are
founded upon the nervous sickness Of her
characters. The purpose of her genius
has changed from interpreting that which
was strong and healthy TO what is morbid.
Real virtue never wrought the nervous dis
traction In any woman that it does in some
of the longing females depicted in these
books. And Arthur Stringer's heroine in
The Silver Poppy is too anaemic in ap-
pearance. too degraded in sensation. We
are accustomed to the morally scarlet wom-
an in history, Scriptures and fiction, but
literary neurosis develops the type into
such vampire of nervous passion as We
have never had before And the natural
delicacy Of Mr.. Stringer's perceptions has
enabled him to depict such a woman with
every refinement of details.
1t is impossible to mention all the novels
Of the year that have this flaw, but they
come from every other part of this country
more than from the South. 1 do not now
recall a single example of literary neurosis
among Southern writer's with the exception
of 1.-The One Woman" and the scene of
that is laid in New York. This is &C
counted for partly by the fact that the lit
erary genius OF the South has no very vital
a1oft 70 AID han NJ
the South are not retrospective; our self
consciousness is heroic rather than subjec-
tive. Such immoralities as we have are
actual rather than speculative. Besides as
/ have already intimated, the Southern nov
elist is not so much an interpreter of life
as he is a romanticist His nerves are his
torical. He is sort of poetaster of ideal
human nature conjured forth from history
and traditions. He declines with the grace
of a gallant Munchausen to recognize its
darker undercurrents. The most feverish
does is to slay his enemy with too much
ostentation. But not one of them is capa-
BILE of regaling himself with a purely nerv-
Gus and intellectual debauch in vicious SEN
sations. In so far as he is related to evil
he is not dramatist. but an actor. And
so, If he is sometimes represented by the
admiring Southern author as given to sane
'gentlemanly' excuses, his nervous CEN
tiers are sound-as sound as the cool and
healthy past from which he invariably
springs.
And this is not inconsiderable praise
when we reflect that in the North, East
and West, wherever wit has been sharp
ened most by science. energy quickened by
competitive ambitions, and intelligence
deepened by study and meditation, find
a certain genius for revelation, a DISPOSE
ton to expose everything, from commercial
facts to the nervous nakedness of the
secret mind. Sexual perversity becomes
philosophical and fascinating through a
neurotic power of portrayal. Indeed, our
scriptures of life are too much concerned
with the underworld of passions and our
gospels too much of wickedness, which is
unfortunate when we remember how young
we are and how long we must hold out
against the mania and wretchedness of
that darkness which is before and behind
us in prophecy and history.