Facts about Fiction (report 3 november 1893)
Facts about Fiction is an article published in the Lancaster Standard on 3 november 1893.
Report of a lecture "Facts about Fiction" given by Arthur Conan Doyle on 2 november 1893 at the Story Institute Lecture Society (Lancaster, UK).
Report
The third of the series of lectures at the Storey Institute was delivered last night, when Dr. Conan Doyle entertained a large and appreciative audience for little over an hour with a lecture on the above subject. Mr. A. Greg presided.
Dr. Doyle, in the coarse of his prefatory observations, remarked that there were many wails in the critical press lately about the "decay of English literature." They must remember, however, he pointed out, that in every age critics had been rather inclined to take a gloomy view of the era in which they have happened themselves to live. Each generation lived more or less in the shadow of that which preceded it. This wan not a peculiarity of the critic of literature alone ; but it was a general characteristic of all mankind ; that that which was far away always seemed more magnificent than what was near. In surveying the fiction of to-day, Dr. Doyle remarked that although they had two novelists of remarkable power — Hardy and Meredith — yet neither of them had got such a hold of the people as would entitle them to rank with their great predecessors, such as Dickens and Thackeray. He, however, claimed that fiction has of late years improved. The growth of the British Empire, among other things, had had an excellent effect upon the younger school of writers by rendering them less insular and broadening their sympathies. It was wonderful how cosmopolitan our literature had become, and with a tendency to become more accentuated from year to year. He referred to the contributions offered to the world of fiction by such varied writers as Rudyard Kipling, Olive Schreiner, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Ryder Haggard, while Australia and Canada had also contributed to swell the volume of our literature. Speaking of Meredith and Hardy, Dr. Doyle said the former from his unconventionality, pushed perhaps to an extreme in his later books, from his analytical turn of mind, and his great sympathy for woman, would have a niche of his own in English literature ; while Hardy, from his masterly painting of rural life, which he knew so well, would also find an enduring place among our great novelists. Passing on to review the work of Robert Louis Stevenson, who, he said, had a great deal to do with the style and mode of thought of the later school of novelists, the lecturer remarked that if the last generation of novelists were all under the influence of Dickens, it was no less true that those of the present day were all tinged with that of Stevenson. He was one of the few English writers who had been successful both in the short story and in the long. The two points were, of course, very distinct, and it was difficult to find anyone who had succeeded in both. Neither Thackeray, nor Dickens, nor Eliot, nor Scott, had written any short story which would take a place in the very first flight. Stevenson, he considered, had been influenced by Meredith. Every young author was under the influence of someone else. There was no originality in a young author. Every man in literature always stood on the shoulders of somebody else to begin with ; afterwards he might find his feet. Adverting to the importance which the period of marriage played in the life of the hero of the novel, Dr. Doyle remarked that it was put down as being the most important period of his life, while in actual practice they knew that that not so. It was a very momentous one. But he had also his work and his friendships ; all those oft-recurring dangers and difficulties which tested all that was good in him. Love sometimes only played a subordinate part in his life. It therefore jarred upon the truth to have it continually held up as being the predominating, all-important factor in life, and it was not unnatural that there was a tendency to avoid it. Dr. Doyle having dwelt on the absence of discursiveness in Stevenson's writings, his employment of apt words and his effective comparisons, he passed on to speak of the work of Olive Schreiner in her "Story of an African Farm." He considered that that writer had struck a deeper note than Stevenson, and in a style which was barely inferior. He regarded that work as one of the greatest books that ever had been written by a woman. If ever a woman used her heart for an ink-pot it was that woman. In her they had an unknown force capable of high development. Speaking of the works of Mr. J. M. Barrie, he remarked on the insight which was given into the Scotch character, and said that his works would be handed down with pride as a national possession of that country. Their value lay in their truth. Who was there that knew the Scotch, their self-respect, their desire to keep up an appearance before their neighbours, their attempts to make the best of the worldly advantages which they had, could fail to recognise the truth of Barnes writings? There was a quiet, sympathetic humour in them which made them love his characters though they might smile at them. Barrie's style was quite a model of what a style should be. There was a simplicity about it, but it was a simplicity which was the outcome of the highest art. He had heard him (Barrie) say that his chapters had been written ten times before he had been satisfied with them. He (the lecturer) considered there was a brilliant career before him ; he had already work which, he thought, was destined to live. Among other novelists touched upon was Rudyard Kipling, who, the lecturer said, was like an orchid among the English roses. Kipling was a political force, he had brought India nearer to us than the Suez Canal did. We had had no man since Dickens who had shewn so bright a promise at such an early age. The art of fiction, Dr. Doyle pointed was of all the arts the slowest to mature. With the solitary exception of Dickens no book of the first rank that he (the lecturer) knew of had ever been written by a man under the age of 30. He maintained that it would be nothing less than a national misfortune if anything were to occur to hinder the genius of Kipling. The wails of of the pessimistic, Dr. Doyle concluded, were uncalled for ; there were still some good saplings springing up in the old forest. Adverting to the claims of Jerome K. Jerome, the lecturer said that writer had never yet had that hearty recognition from the critics which he has long had at the hands of the public. A man who was capable of giving rise to so much innocent mirth had justified his existence more than the critics who were eternally raising their parrot-cry of "new humour." Humour must be new to justify its existence at all. Dr. Conan Doyle allowed that the humour of the classics and also that of Shakespeare's clowns was now scarcely appreciated. In closing the lecturer advised his hearers not to look upon fiction as an evil ; nor as a luxury, or pastime as so many of our modern critics tried to make it. It is, he said, one of the most vital things in the world. It is what people read, and what they read they thought, and what they thought they were liable to do. It moulded the characters and actions of men. After speaking of the influence of the novel upon the end-hearted, and the man, Dr. Doyle characterised the novelist as the philanthropist of literature. He thought that a could have no nobler work and no higher ambition than that of lightening by one feather-weight the load of care which darkened so many lives. (Applause.) Dr. Doyle quoted a few entertaining extracts from some of the authors he spoke of, notably from "The African Farm," "Scenes from Thrums," and an excellent sample of Jerome's humour.
The thanks of the meeting were awarded the speaker, on the motion of the Chairman.
