can never be lifted?
This calm necessity that dwells with the matured man to get back to the
matter in hand, and dree his weird whatever befall, is a badge, not a
burden. It is the stimulus of sound natures; and as the weight of his
wife's arm makes a man's body proud, so the sense of his usefulness to
the world does but warm and indurate his soul. It is something when a
man comes to this mind, and with all his capacity to err, is abreast of
life at last. He shall not regret the infrequency of his inspirations, for he
will know that the day of his strength has set in. And if, for poesy,
some grave Virgilian line should pause on his memory, or some tongue
of Hebrew fire leap from the ashes of his godly youth, it will be enough.
But if cold duck await--why, then, to supper!"
UGLINESS IN FICTION
[_9 May '08_]
In the Edinburgh Review there is a disquisition on "Ugliness in
Fiction." Probably the author of it has read "Liza of Lambeth," and said
Faugh! The article, peculiarly inept, is one of those outpourings which
every generation of artists has to suffer with what tranquillity it can.
According to the Reviewer, ugliness is specially rife "just now." It is
always "just now." It was "just now" when George Eliot wrote "Adam
Bede," when George Moore wrote "A Mummer's Wife," when Thomas
Hardy wrote "Jude the Obscure." As sure as ever a novelist endeavours
to paint a complete picture of life in this honest, hypocritical country of
bad restaurants and good women; as sure as ever he hints that all is not
for the best in the best of all possible islands, some witling is bound to
come forward and point out with wise finger that life is not all black. I
once resided near a young noodle of a Methodist pastor who had the
pious habit of reading novels aloud to his father and mother. He began
to read one of mine to them, but half-way through decided that
something of Charlotte M. Yonge would be less unsuitable for the
parental ear. He then called and lectured me. Among other aphorisms
of his which I have treasured up was this: "Life, my dear friend, is like
an April day--sunshine and shadow chasing each other over the plain."
That he is not dead is a great tribute to my singular self-control. I
suspect him to be the Edinburgh Reviewer. At any rate, the article
moves on the plane of his plain.
* * * * *
The Reviewer has the strange effrontery to select Mr. Joseph Conrad's
"Secret Agent" as an example of modern ugliness in fiction: a novel
that is simply steeped in the finest beauty from end to end. I do not
suppose that the Edinburgh Review has any moulding influence upon
the evolution of the art of fiction in this country. But such nonsense
may, after all, do harm by confusing the minds of people who really are
anxious to encourage what is best, strongest, and most sane. The
Reviewer in this instance, for example, classes, as serious, Thomas
Hardy, Joseph Conrad, and John Galsworthy, who are genuine creative
forces, with mere dignified unimportant sentimentalizers like Mr. W.B.
Maxwell. While he was on the business of sifting the serious from the
unserious I wonder he didn't include the authors of "Three Weeks" and
"The Heart of a Child" among the serious! Perhaps because the latter
wrote "Pigs in Clover" and the former was condemned by the
booksellers! Nobody could have a lower opinion of "Three Weeks"
than I have. But I have never been able to understand why the poor
little feeble story was singled out as an awful example of female
licentiousness, and condemned by a hundred newspapers that had not
the courage to name it. The thing was merely infantile and absurd.
Moreover, I violently object to booksellers sitting in judgment on
novels.
LETTERS OF QUEEN VICTORIA
[_16 May '08_]
The result of Murray v. The Times is very amusing. I don't know why
the fact that the Times is called upon to pay £7500 to Mr. John Murray
should make me laugh joyously; but it does. Certainly the reason is not
that I sympathize with the libelled Mr. Murray. The action was a great
and a wonderful action, full of enigmas for a mere man of letters like
myself. For example, Mr. Murray said that his agreement with the
"authors" (I cannot imagine how Lord Esher and Mr. A.C. Benson
came to be the "authors" of the late Queen's correspondence) stipulated
that two-thirds of the profits should go to the "authors" and one-third to
Mr. Murray. Secondly, Mr. Murray said that he paid the authors £5592

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