Basil | Page 2

I am sanguine enough to think not.
So again, in certain parts of this book where I have attempted to excite
the suspense or pity of the reader, I have admitted as perfectly fit
accessories to the scene the most ordinary street-sounds that could be
heard, and the most ordinary street-events that could occur, at the time
and in the place represented--believing that by adding to truth, they
were adding to tragedy--adding by all the force of fair contrast--adding
as no artifices of mere writing possibly could add, let them be ever so
cunningly introduced by ever so crafty a hand.
Allow me to dwell a moment longer on the story which these pages
contain.
Believing that the Novel and the Play are twin-sisters in the family of
Fiction; that the one is a drama narrated, as the other is a drama acted;
and that all the strong and deep emotions which the Play-writer is
privileged to excite, the Novel-writer is privileged to excite also, I have
not thought it either politic or necessary, while adhering to realities, to
adhere to every-day realities only. In other words, I have not stooped so
low as to assure myself of the reader's belief in the probability of my
story, by never once calling on him for the exercise of his faith. Those
extraordinary accidents and events which happen to few men, seemed
to me to be as legitimate materials for fiction to work with--when there
was a good object in using them--as the ordinary accidents and events
which may, and do, happen to us all. By appealing to genuine sources
of interest within the reader's own experience, I could certainly gain his
attention to begin with; but it would be only by appealing to other
sources (as genuine in their way) beyond his own experience, that I
could hope to fix his interest and excite his suspense, to occupy his
deeper feelings, or to stir his nobler thoughts.
In writing thus--briefly and very generally--(for I must not delay you
too long from the story), I can but repeat, though I hope almost

unnecessarily, that I am now only speaking of what I have tried to do.
Between the purpose hinted at here, and the execution of that purpose
contained in the succeeding pages, lies the broad line of separation
which distinguishes between the will and the deed. How far I may fall
short of another man's standard, remains to be discovered. How far I
have fallen short of my own, I know painfully well.
One word more on the manner in which the purpose of the following
pages is worked out--and I have done.
Nobody who admits that the business of fiction is to exhibit human life,
can deny that scenes of misery and crime must of necessity, while
human nature remains what it is, form part of that exhibition. Nobody
can assert that such scenes are unproductive of useful results, when
they are turned to a plainly and purely moral purpose. If I am asked
why I have written certain scenes in this book, my answer is to be
found in the universally-accepted truth which the preceding words
express. I have a right to appeal to that truth; for I guided myself by it
throughout. In deriving the lesson which the following pages contain,
from those examples of error and crime which would most strikingly
and naturally teach it, I determined to do justice to the honesty of my
object by speaking out. In drawing the two characters, whose actions
bring about the darker scenes of my story, I did not forget that it was
my duty, while striving to portray them naturally, to put them to a good
moral use; and at some sacrifice, in certain places, of dramatic effect
(though I trust with no sacrifice of truth to Nature), I have shown the
conduct of the vile, as always, in a greater or less degree, associated
with something that is selfish, contemptible, or cruel in motive.
Whether any of my better characters may succeed in endearing
themselves to the reader, I know not: but this I do certainly know:--that
I shall in no instance cheat him out of his sympathies in favour of the
bad.
To those persons who dissent from the broad principles here adverted
to; who deny that it is the novelist's vocation to do more than merely
amuse them; who shrink from all honest and serious reference, in books,
to subjects which they think of in private and talk of in public

everywhere; who see covert implications where nothing is implied, and
improper allusions where nothing improper is alluded to; whose
innocence is in the word, and not in the thought; whose morality stops
at the tongue, and never gets on to the heart--to those persons, I should