rage, will give the most faithful representation of such experiences.'1

It would seem, then, that with rare exceptions it is not until the actor has himself been stirred by some experience of the deeper issues of human life, until he has himself felt the deepened consciousness which comes in the presence of a great disaster, when the true relationship of the self to the external world is suddenly revealed, that he can rise to the full height of his interpretative function. And what applies to the highest emotions displayed in the supreme moments of the tragedy, applies also in a lesser degree to all incidents into which emotion, painful or joyous, enters. The actor must have a fund of personal experience to draw upon, and a trained capacity for feeling and displaying emotion, before he can represent emotion upon the stage.

With respect to the development of the drama in stage representation, I assume that the most complete command of scenic accessories is an acknowledged merit; and I propose, therefore, merely to suggest a principle which seems to fix the one and only limit which can be legitimately placed upon the stage-manager's advance towards absolute visual actuality.

The drama is an art. What the poet, the actor, and the stage-manager combine in producing is a work of art, and, therefore, must be beautiful.

1 Poetics, 1455*.

'Whatever feelings,' says Victor Cousin,' 'art purposes to excite in us, they ought always to be restrained and governed by the feeling of beauty. If it produces only pity or terror beyond a certain limit, above all physical pity or terror, it revolts, it ceases to charm; it misses its proper effect for an effect which is foreign to it and vulgar.'

But this principle limits the realism of the stage, not in the manner of representation, but in the choice of the subject which is to be represented. It places no restraint upon the realistic treatment of that which can be legitimately represented on the stage, but it wholly forbids the representation of subjects which cannot be invested with either physical or moral beauty. When Cousin says, ‘If I believed that Iphigeneia was really on the point of being offered in sacrifice by her father twenty paces from me, I should leave the theatre shuddering with horror,' and proceeds to argue against illusion, he misses the point. The effect to which he appeals does not provide an argument against illusion, but against the presentation of scenes of horror upon the stage at all. If Iphigeneia is to be sacrificed upon the stage, she had better be sacrificed with a due regard to historical accuracy and natural propriety; otherwise the effect would be merely ludicrous. But where in the drama the senses can be legitimately beguiled—that is to say, when a belief in the reality of what he sees and hears does not interfere with 1 Du Vrai, du Beau, et du Bien, p. 183.

the spectator's sense of beauty-complete illusion is the natural and proper goal towards which the stagemanager's efforts are directed.

One word in conclusion. If this be so that is to say, if the drama develops in the direction of actuality—the attempt to apply an exclusively literary test to the performance of the modern stage must be a mistake. Yet this is what is being done now by those alarmists who are for ever prophesying evil. Let us take heart. The Shakespearian drama has developed, though Shakespeare has added no word to the contribution which he made to that drama in

the Elizabethan age. And though men of creative talent should devote their power more and more to poetry and prose fiction, and leave the writing of plays to the playwright, the drama may yet progress towards its goal, may yet become a more beautiful and a more perfect art.

J

CHAPTER XI

THE NOVEL AS A FORM OF LITERATURE

EACH year the returns of the booksellers and the reports of the librarians testify afresh to the predominance of the novel in the world of books; and this evidence is supported by the every-day experience of each one of us. But, although the popularity of the novel has become a matter of common knowledge, the reasons for the predominance of this form of literature are not so well understood. And therefore, in an attempt to explain what is certainly a striking characteristic of nineteenth-century literature, it is desirable to have before us some statement which will show more precisely in what this predominance consists. Such a statement is afforded by a passage in Sir Walter Besant's Art of Fiction, in which he focusses the diffused impressions of common experience and observation to a clear conception.

'The modern novel,' he writes, 'converts abstract ideas into living models; it gives ideas, it strengthens faith, it preaches a higher morality than is seen in the actual world; it commands the emotions of pity, admiration, and terror; it creates and keeps alive the sense of sympathy; it is the

universal teacher; it is the only book which the great mass of reading mankind ever do read; it is the only way in which people can learn what other men and women are like; it redeems their lives from dulness, puts thoughts, desires, knowledge, and even ambitions into their hearts; it teaches them to talk, and enriches their speech with epigrams, anecdotes, and illustrations. It is an unfailing source of delight to millions, happily not too critical. Why, out of all the books taken down from the shelves of the public libraries, four-fifths are novels, and of all those that are bought ninetenths are novels. Compared with this tremendous engine of popular influence, what are all the other arts put together? Can we not alter the old maxim, and say with truth, Let him who pleases make the laws if I may write the novels?' 1

Without endorsing every expression in in this panegyric we may take this much as established— that in the novel we have a great informing agency, a power which has already been used in the past, and which will be used in an increasing degree in the future, to affect human character for both good and evil. What is not yet determined is its literary value. Is it more than an informing agency? As a form of literature, has it attained to artistic merit? Or, failing this now, is it capable of such artistic development in the future as will win it a secure place in the circle of the Arts?

Sir Walter Besant has already made up his mind on the point, for he commences his address with the proposition, that 'Fiction is an Art in every way

1 Art of Fiction, a lecture delivered at the Royal Institution, 1884.