The weekly times-record. (Valley City, N.D.) 1912-1922, 1921-04-28

rhE WEEKLY l'MEs-REcoRD. "
that she swept copiously over the
book, laid it down unable to command
her feelings, could not sleep at night
for thinking of it. and needed all her
fortitude and the active sympathy Of
her husband to enable her to persist
in her agonizing task" This sounds
ludicrous, but we must remember that
Richardson the first sentimentalist
dealt with unsophisticated readers
"rich in virgin emotions"
Richardson" says one writer. chad
put all Europe in tears" A learned
German professor acknowledged that
he had ''wept away some of. the most
remarkable hours Of his life in sort
of delicious misery" /.
But admiration for Richardson was
not universal. Henry Fielding, q
dramatist Of the day, was Disguised
with his sentimentality and began q
burlesque on Pamela, but as he wrote
he became more and more interested
in his hero, and presently produced q
novel that depicted human nature and
delineated character. far beyond any
thing that had preceded it. Joseph
Andrews, the hero of this burlesGue
was as sentimental as Pamela, but the
story had virility Of which the "lit-
tie fat book printer" had no concep'
lions, and readers who had been weep
ing over Pamela and Clarice Harlow
were now laughing, grew angry. ana
serious and in turn over Fieldlng's
novel.
To Fielding is due the honor Of de;
veloping the plot. He may not always
have surpassed his predecessors IN
character portrayal but such COM
plexity and intricacy of plot had never
been known before in English prose
Moreover he had what none of his
predecessors in English fiction had
and that was style. He used neither
the "accurst autobiographical' meth
cd employed by Defoe, nor the detest-
ed epistletory form of Richardson's
| novels, but taking the reader into ms
confidence talks to him as to only one
listener.
In Fielding's novels we find COM
bined for the first time every charac-
| teristic we now expect in a modern
novel. and in him the 18th century
novel reached it's greatest height
There now began steady decline un-
til toward the close of the century.
For a time after Richardson, Eng
land was deluged with flood OF sentl'
| mental novels, but the English com:
| mon sense asserted itself, a natural
| reaction set in and by the last quar-
| ter of the century the romantic move
! ment. which reached a climax in the
! early 10Th century in Scott, had begun
and was soon in full swing. And no"
were stories of jousts and tourna
| ments. of 'ladies dead and lovely
knights" Terror was added to tears
and the. tales not only made people
| crv but "afraid to go to bed o'night.
Ajthouph the stories that raised the
18th century readers hair woulo no"
| only make us smile.
In the midst of the social, industrial
| economic, and religious upheavel o.
the 10Th century, the vital problems OF
humanity thrust themselves into tnt
literature of the times. and under sucf
strenuous conditions, fiction could no.
remain purely romantic: 1.-The suHer'
ings, longings and ambitions OF tnt
under classes cried for expression, Il
was challenge to the reallst and nj
answered it,
The century opens with two grea
novelists. a romanticist and real
list. Sir Walter Scott and Jane Austin
each a master in his own field. charm
ed his readers then as he does today
and both by a wholesome. clear, ant
lofty tone gave to the English move
a responsibility it had never enjoyed
before. =, .,u.
The trend of the novel by the middle
/ of the century. was evidently TOWARD
realism. Yet right into the midst o.
such realistic Writings as those. o.
Thackeray, George Eliot, Meredith
! and Hardy came Blackmore with ms
Lorna Boone" and William Blacks
"Princess of Thule" each containing
the very "essence of the romantic
While Dickens with his old-fashionee
belief in the ultimate victory of the
good and the true" although claimed
bv the realists, lessened the "rigor Of
realism' by his idealisnn. And the
10th century closes as it began win
| rivalry between IHe CWo oCiAooAo'
| ert Louis Stephenson. the greates'
successor of Scott: who cheat his mas
ter at his own game" made roman1l'
cism so fashionable that for fifteer
| years after his death, writer's. young
and old, fell into line and tried then
best to follow him. Only the old mas.
tiers of realism stood out against the
movement, and even Mr.: Howell, or
this side the waters, with his contempt
for the romantic rot" as he called IT
was so affected by the movement that
! for ten years, from 1892 to 1902, nc
| wrote nothing of great value.
It was during this time that so many
so-called historical romances appeared,
such as. for instance, Charles Majors
tWhen Knighthood Was in Flower,
winston Churchill's "The Crossing;'
| stThe Honorable Peter Sterling" and
"Janice Meredith" by Paul Leicester
Ford, and Nancy Johnston's ITO Have
and To Hold.' all of which and many
| more of the kind sold by the hundreds
of thousands and are all but forgotten