I fear 'tis so with the novelist's
prosperities. Nature has a magic by which she fits the man to his
fortunes, by making them the fruit of his character. But the novelist
plucks this event here, and that fortune there, and ties them rashly
to his figures, to tickle the fancy of his readers with a cloying
success, or scare them with shocks of tragedy. And so, on the whole,
'tis a juggle. We are cheated into laughter or wonder by feats which
only oddly combine acts that we do every day. There is no new element,
no power, no furtherance. 'Tis only confectionery, not the raising
of new corn. Great is the poverty of their inventions. _She was
beautiful, and he fell in love_. Money, and killing, and the
Wandering Jew, and persuading the lover that his mistress is
betrothed to another,--these are the mainsprings; new names, but no
new qualities in the men and women. Hence the vain endeavor to keep
any bit of this fairy gold, which has rolled like a brook through
our hands. A thousand thoughts awoke; great rainbows seemed to span
the sky; a morning among the mountains;--but we close the book, and
not a ray remains in the memory of evening. But this passion for
romance, and this disappointment, show how much we need real
elevations and pure poetry; that which shall show us, in morning and
night, in stars and mountains, and in all the plight and
circumstance of men, the analogons of our own thoughts, and a like
impression made by a just book and by the face of Nature.
Pages:
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265