Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-09-19

he turns, almost tnstinctively. to the
common people.
There are exceptions, Of course.
Thomas Burke, whose "kimehouse
Nights" is still remembered, has just
produced very condensed novel Of
London life. It Is too short. It por-
trays the life of one of the submerged
women OF that great place, but the
whole will strike many SIS being ar
tihcial. 1t is not long enough to get
one really interested, and it is too ar
tistic.
1t was Charles Dickens. after all,
who discovered the wealth of humanity
in the English cockney. At the same
time he had the common sense and
also the writing Sense-to realize that
art, for arts sake, as it is called, would
not do for these people.
There was and is nothing artful
about the life of the common people,
either in London, or New York, or
Washington. The world around, the
plain people are the plain people, and
the artist who desires to use them on
his verbal canvas must paint them as
they are.
His colors will be their trueness to
type, his high lights their variations
from type. With this solid back
ground Of type and this embroidery
OF the singular. he may go ahead to
produce greatness, as Herbert did in
Gipsies," as Mann does in his Albert.
X y
The long novel not only has the ap-
provaf OF readers-the authors like
it, too.
If story is really worth telling, and
II its characters take hold of the writer.
to begin with, in the same way he
hopes they will intrigue the fancy of
readers, then it Is but natural that he
will want to hold onto them as long
as he can.
Dumas stretched his inimitabIe
D'Artagnan through eight large vol
umeS.
Dickens wept at the death of Little
Nell, not because he was sentimental
ist, but because he truly loved her and
did not want to see her go.
1t is safe to say that regards of this
sort can be built up only by time. Every
reader has experienced the sense of loss
which comes to him on ending a really
fine novel.
He lived in it, for the duration Of the
pages; its sweep through life was his
sweep through life. And when the end
came. and he reluctantly shut the COW
erS he felt almost sad, even If the story
ended happily.
This is the privilege of the long novel
alone. No short work, no matter how
beautifully done, can work up this feel
ling Of the true passage of time which
belongs to the novel which actually con-
sumes much time in its telling.
1t need scarcely be said that mere
mass of words will not do it. Publish
ers' readers know better. Every year
scores of great unwieldy novels come
to their desks. Number of words alone
will not turn the trick.
once we were privileged to see novel
in manuscript which not only was long,
but which consisted of one sentence
only. The whole thing had been run
into one gigantic sentence of many
thousands upon thousands of words,
until the effect was tremendous in q
terrible fashion.
1t is fortunate for the noyel-reading
public that most writers know how to
write. Surely no era ever had better
writing than today. And it Is a par
ticularly happy thing that so many
of the fine living novelists are going
back, as If of one accord, to the writ
ing of novels of major length.
The long novel has come to stay, we
believe. It is being done best today
In London, by Londoners, about Londons
ers, but for readers everywhere.