An age must always decry
itself and extol its forbears. The unwritten history of every Art will
show us that. Consider the novel--that most recent form of Art! Did not
the age which followed Fielding lament the treachery of authors to the
Picaresque tradition, complaining that they were not as Fielding and
Smollett were? Be sure they did. Very slowly and in spite of opposition
did the novel attain in this country the fulness of that biographical
form achieved under Thackeray. Very slowly, and in face of condemnation,
it has been losing that form in favour of a greater vividness which
places before the reader's brain, not historical statements, as it were,
of motives and of facts, but word-paintings of things and persons, so
chosen and arranged that the reader may see, as if at first hand, the
spirit of Life at work before him. The new novel has as many bemoaners
as the old novel had when it was new. It is no question of better or
worse, but of differing forms--of change dictated by gradual suitability
to the changing conditions of our social life, and to the ever fresh
discoveries of craftsmen, in the intoxication of which, old and equally
worthy craftsmanship is--by the way--too often for the moment
mislaid. The vested interests of life favour the line of least
resistance--disliking and revolting against disturbance; but one must
always remember that a spurious glamour is inclined to gather around what
is new.
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