sfijsaaras
THK 8TUU00I,K9 OP T1IK AME1U0AN NOVKM8T.
VOL. VIII,
desire for popularity, lie, with many mis
givings, .surrenders the talisman of his
predecessors, assumes the costume of h's
profession, and becomes an additional
link in the mystic circle.
Aware that the public will appreciate
his work as he has ingenuity to thrill their
souls, he, as a result, studies his patron
rather than his novel. Controlled and
helplessly led on by this impulse, he at
length becomes as ignorant of the prov
ince of fiction, as the dupes of his sensa
tional vulgarity. Leaping from the sum-
mit of a majestic art, he pursues his
course to a sluggish bay. Torn from his
intellectual models, he falls a prey to an
uncultured criterion. Then has litcrarv
taste becomes a bankrupt, and the novel a
more whim in classical literature.
We are told that the literary curse of
this country exists in the fact that the
novelist conceives such llippanl notions of
his ideal art, that he depreciates the value
of his oflice until he cannot sustain a lim
ited degree of popularity. What incon
live is there, I ask, to aspire to a higher
plain of action? Where has the public
in the last hundred years offered an in
ducemenl for consumato execution ? Is
poverty and humiliation an incentive? Is
ridicule and literary ostracism an induce
ment? When public taste becomes so
perverted, when the national thought be
comes so indifferent, can we wonder at the
tone of contemporary fiction? Why,
then, huil upon the novelist a censure for
present abuses. Far better be it to (urn
upon the public, and, in its own words o(
stigma and reproach demand why it so
rolishes this same llippanl notion and, if
it itself carries not the deceitful curse to
shoulder it upon the novelist.
Witn a single impulse the classical
tinge of the novel has failed, it seems nev.
or to return. With it lias disappeared
an illustrious standard of literary excel
lence. Conscious of the degenerate state
into which literary taste has fullen, the
critic now oxh-ms the novelist to estal).
lisli a more artistic standard for the con-
trol of his imagination. But why the
need of this exhortation ? lint the novel,
ist in the last century produced nothing
but inferior and insipid stories? lias he
offered to the world no works of perfected
art? Let classic literature bear witness.
Time and again has he planted his stan
dard in the midst of public ribaldiy; ami
as often has the public, enraged at his au
dacity, hurled it to tho ground and in.
fumy upon its author. After such export,
once, there remains little novelty and less
pleasure in the repetition of the act; and
ere the public is again lavished with
novels of an artistic type, it must lirst
give some proof of a returning admiration
for studied execution and design.
Tho unfortunate condition to which
the novelist is subjected, renders success
in the higher field of literary splendor,
beyond profitable acquisition, to Ameri
can genius. Not yet have we attained
that regal wealth, which permits the ar
list of fiction to adorn society with decor
ations of the novel. Hence the workshop
and the olllcc receive thousands of gems,
that under other circumstances would flash
in literary circles. With no inducement to
ovor.coine the utilitarian spirit of the age,
we cannot but feel that the consummation
its sparkling genius, is only robbing the
novel of its vitality. Some there are', who
will attribute the decline of the novel to
iiilu'ient vices and herald the sotting f
its sun. But others, with more sympathy
for art and the preservation of the highest
menial faculty in its acquired perfection,
will struggle to retain the last vestige of
its relics.
i. i.... I.... i ........ . . .
iw ivuun uiai ma mi cuiminaicu in a
highly intellectual state of society is a
sense of satisfaction to the American nov
ist If it be charged that through his no
gleet it lost its lustre, the imperative de
mands of public taste vindicato-hisfldelitv.
If vices predominate to-day, they have
been instituted at no other pleasure than
that of the popular will. Not idly has the
novelist stood w-lcoming calamity; but
endeavoring to turn the stream of infec
lion from his luxurious Holds, he lias, in
turn, been swept along with the plunging
current. Liko the drama and the forensic
art, the artistic value of his work is sacri
ficed to an impcric standard rather than
to intellectual appreciation. C. E. S.
