Very pleasant are these fairy tales where the prince is always brave and handsome;where the princess is always the best and most beautiful princess that ever lived;where one knows the wicked people at a glance by their ugliness and ill-temper,mistakes being thus rendered impossible;where the good fairies are,by nature,more powerful than the bad;where gloomy paths lead ever to fair palaces;where the dragon is ever vanquished;and where well-behaved husbands and wives can rely upon living happily ever afterwards."The world is too much with us,late and soon."It is wise to slip away from it at times to fairyland.But,alas,we cannot live in fairyland,and knowledge of its geography is of little help to us on our return to the rugged country of reality.
Are not both branches of literature needful?By all means let us dream,on midsummer nights,of fond lovers led through devious paths to happiness by Puck;of virtuous dukes--one finds such in fairyland;of fate subdued by faith and gentleness.But may we not also,in our more serious humours,find satisfaction in thinking with Hamlet or Coriolanus?May not both Dickens and Zola have their booths in Vanity Fair?If literature is to be a help to us,as well as a pastime,it must deal with the ugly as well as with the beautiful;it must show us ourselves,not as we wish to appear,but as we know ourselves to be.Man has been described as a animal with aspirations reaching up to Heaven and instincts rooted--elsewhere.Is literature to flatter him,or reveal him to himself?
Of living writers it is not safe,I suppose,to speak except,perhaps,of those who have been with us so long that we have come to forget they are not of the past.Has justice ever been done to Ouida's undoubted genius by our shallow school of criticism,always very clever in discovering faults as obvious as pimples on a fine face?Her guardsmen "toy"with their food.Her horses win the Derby three years running.Her wicked women throw guinea peaches from the windows of the Star and Garter into the Thames at Richmond.The distance being about three hundred and fifty yards,it is a good throw.Well,well,books are not made worth reading by the absence of absurdities.Ouida possesses strength,tenderness,truth,passion;and these be qualities in a writer capable of carrying many more faults than Ouida is burdened with.But that is the method of our little criticism.It views an artist as Gulliver saw the Brobdingnag ladies.It is too small to see them in their entirety:a mole or a wart absorbs all its vision.
Why was not George Gissing more widely read?If faithfulness to life were the key to literary success,Gissing's sales would have been counted by the million instead of by the hundred.
Have Mark Twain's literary qualities,apart altogether from his humour,been recognised in literary circles as they ought to have been?"Huck Finn"would be a great work were there not a laugh in it from cover to cover.Among the Indians and some other savage tribes the fact that a member of the community has lost one of his senses makes greatly to his advantage;he is then regarded as a superior person.So among a school of Anglo-Saxon readers,it is necessary to a man,if he would gain literary credit,that he should lack the sense of humour.One or two curious modern examples occur to me of literary success secured chiefly by this failing.
All these authors are my favourites;but such catholic taste is held nowadays to be no taste.One is told that if one loves Shakespeare,one must of necessity hate Ibsen;that one cannot appreciate Wagner and tolerate Beethoven;that if we admit any merit in Dore,we are incapable of understanding Whistler.How can I say which is my favourite novel?I can only ask myself which lives clearest in my memory,which is the book I run to more often than to another in that pleasant half hour before the dinner-bell,when,with all apologies to good Mr.Smiles,it is useless to think of work.
I find,on examination,that my "David Copperfield"is more dilapidated than any other novel upon my shelves.As I turn its dog-eared pages,reading the familiar headlines "Mr.Micawber in difficulties,""Mr.Micawber in prison,""I fall in love with Dora,""Mr.Barkis goes out with the tide,""My child wife,""Traddles in a nest of roses"--pages of my own life recur to me;so many of my sorrows,so many of my joys are woven in my mind with this chapter or the other.That day--how well I remember it when I read of "David's"wooing,but Dora's death I was careful to skip.Poor,pretty little Mrs.Copperfield at the gate,holding up her baby in her arms,is always associated in my memory with a child's cry,long listened for.
I found the book,face downwards on a chair,weeks afterwards,not moved from where I had hastily laid it.
Old friends,all of you,how many times have I not slipped away from my worries into your pleasant company!Peggotty,you dear soul,the sight of your kind eyes is so good to me.Our mutual friend,Mr.
Charles Dickens,is prone,we know,just ever so slightly to gush.
Good fellow that he is,he can see no flaw in those he loves,but you,dear lady,if you will permit me to call you by a name much abused,he has drawn in true colours.I know you well,with your big heart,your quick temper,your homely,human ways of thought.You yourself will never guess your worth--how much the world is better for such as you!You think of yourself as of a commonplace person,useful only for the making of pastry,the darning of stockings,and if a man--not a young man,with only dim half-opened eyes,but a man whom life had made keen to see the beauty that lies hidden beneath plain faces--were to kneel and kiss your red,coarse hand,you would be much astonished.But he would be a wise man,Peggotty,knowing what things a man should take carelessly,and for what things he should thank God,who has fashioned fairness in many forms.
Mr.Wilkins Micawber,and you,most excellent of faithful wives,Mrs.
