Evening star., 1926-11-12
THE LIBRARY TABLE
By the Bookl0Uer.

y
father of the short story, though there
were many stray short-story- y-chiidren
before his time, and good ones. too.
Chaucer was the father OF English
poetry. Defoe and Fielding have for
years been auarreling from their
graves over the fatherhood OF the
English novel. Who fathered the SOIL
novel? That question has never oeen
settled eX cathedra, so we are AT
liberty to make our own researches
or guesses. The earliest fiction OF the
longer sort was thoroughly romantic,
and touched the soil only as the hoo1s
of the richly caparisoned chargers
pressed it when the knights and
ladies rode to tournaments. OCCASION
ally there Is a hint of a soil proDlem'
as in "Aucassin and Nicolette,
twelfth century romance by an un-
known author, when Nicolette. lost IN
the forest comes upon some peasants
who complain to her of their hard lot.
Early pastoral romances there are IN
abundance, such as Sannazaro 3
Arcadia" Montemayor's Diana.
Sidney's Arcadia" and Lodge E
"Rosalynde. but in these romances
the countryside is veiled in such rosy
mist that It's natural features can
scarcely be seen. 1t is always Sc
lected countryside, too, of the most
ravishing velvety meadows, brocaded
with primroses, cowslips and daisies,
of the most sparkling, musical
streams and the coolest woods, or
stately trees, with no underbrush. no
swampy places. 1t Is countryside
for music and love-making, not for
digging and sweating. The idealized
country Of the pastoral romance lin
=. Af- nntb nonf1YrU
realistic novel. Squire Allworthy's es-
tate in 'Toln JONES'" though it is
doubtless cultivated in private by
farm laborers. seems in the novel
chiefly a beautiful park for hunting
and poaching-and the daily rides OF
the squire. THE Vicar of Wake
field" takes us a little closer to the
real soil, but, after all. the vicar is
only d part-time farmer. and Wien
his house burns down and he is taken
to prison his farming ends.
X X X
OF the great novelistS of the early
nineteenth century. Scott chose ro-
nance for his field, though his Scotch
romances are full of realistic scenes
OF the soil, such as the picture of
Dandie Dinmont's farm in Guy Man.
nering"; Jane Austen knew only small
town and rural society; Thackeray and
Dickens were both most at home In
city life. and George Eliot and Char
lotte Bronte portrayed the country
from the point of view of the country
squire or clergyman. Until the COM
novelist concerned himself greatly
with the worker in the soil. his strug.
giles. his poverty, his family life, his
emotions of joy, sorrow. love, jealousy,
hate. Four of Hardys novels prob
ably represent his best work-"Far
From the Madding Crowd" THE Re-
turn of the Native The Mayor Of
Casterbridge" and THE Woodland
ers." Like Shakespeare. Hardy Is a
fatalist. and all his novels show fate
controlling human lives-a fate which
is the outgrowth OF character plus
environment, or we might say of
heredity plus environment. In each
of Hardy's novels some form or
phrase of nature is the background
and almost the protagonist of the
story. In Far From the Madding
Crowd" it is the sheep-raising
country and industry of southern Eng
land: in THE Return of the Native"
it Is gloomy Egdon Heath; in "The
Mayor of Casterbridge" 1t is the
cattle-breeding and farming country
about Dorchester, and in 'The Wood
landers' It is the woodland country,
with it's Industries of cider-making.
timber-cutting, bark-stripping and
hollow-turning.
The Russians, however. antedat ted.
Hardy in the soil novel. Hardy's first
novel. Desperate Remedies" was
published in 1871; but in 1881 Nicolai
Godol published Evenings in a Farm
Near Dikanka," stories depicting the
life Of Little Russia. and in 1887 his
masterpiece, Dead Souls" appeared.
Turgeniev's "Sportsman's Sketches"
portraying the utter Wretchedness of
Russian serfdom, came out in 1886,
Fathers and Children" in 1862,
Smoke" in 1867 and Virgin Soil
in 1877. The Russian influence can,
it seems to me. be traced in Hardy s
work. Bjornson, probably the earliest
of Scandinavian soil novelists. pub
lished "Synnove Solbakken" in 1857
and "Arne' in 1858. The French,
Germans and Italians seem to have
no typical soil novels earlier than
these dates. So we may perhaps con-
slider the Russians the parents of the
modern soil novel, and Godol, specifi-
cally. it's father.
X X X
The modern mOralist, a not infre-
quent literary form, has often pre-
scented a character which is a more
or less allegorical suggestion of the
Christ, acting as He might have acted
in a modern community. Such moral
tiles are Gods Fool" by Maarten
Martens; THE Passing of the Third
Floor Back" by Jerome K. Jerome;
THE Servant in the House" and THE
Terrible Meek" by Charles Ram Ken.
nedy, and "The Fool in Christ" by
Gerhart Hauptmann. Most of them
show in the course of their stories
that, If "the way of transgressors lie
harder. A recent morality novel 10
"Harmer John; an Unworldly Story
by Hugh Walpole. Harmer John, or
Hjadmer Johanson, OF Sweden, comes
to the provincial cathedral town OF
Polchester, and loves it. He loves 1t
so much that he wants to make II
better. and that Is why he gets into
trouble. He wants to clean up its
slum, SeatOwn, to make 1t all more
beautiful. to make its people happier
The trouble is that neither the best
people nor the worst people in the
town realize. that it needs to be made
better. The best people think that
Polchester is all right, that the ca
thedral is enough of beauty, and that
their hypocrisy, backbiting. snobbish
ness and pettiness are only evidences
Of superiority. The worst people down
in Seatown find no fault with their
wretchedness and only ask to be let
alone with their filth, their drunken
ness. their brawls. their indecencies
So Harmer John, after a brief rocket
Of popularity, finds his friends falling
away from him and loneliness and
animosity staring him in the face
Only cynical, aging Miss Midgeley
passive, remote. old Mrs. Pentthen
Tom Lonsstaffe, who has himself
felt the whips and scorns." and the
author remain true to him.
X X