in order to illustrate what i mean by a realistic novelist whose happiest effects are gained by writing good stories with real characters, i know of no better choice among contemporaries than archibald marshall. he is an artist of such dignity and refinement that only twice in his career has he written a novel that had for its main purpose something other than truth to life; in each of these two attempts the result was a failure.
i know how difficult it is to "recommend" novels to hungry readers, for i have written prescriptions to alleviate many kinds of mental trouble, yes, and physical ailments too; but how can i be sure that the remedy will in every "case" be effective? i know that treasure island cured me of an attack of tonsillitis and that queed cured me of acute indigestion; a united states naval officer informed me that he recovered from jaundice simply by reading pride and prejudice. these are facts; but what assurance have i that other sufferers can try these prescriptions with reasonable hope?[11] yet i have no hesitancy in recommending archibald marshall to any group of men or women or to any individual of mature growth. one scholar of sixty years of age told me that these novels had given him a quite new zest in life; and i myself, who came upon them on one of the luckiest days of my existence, confidently affirm the same judgment. of the numerous persons that i have induced to read these books, i have met with only one sceptic; this was a shrewd, sharp-minded woman of eighty, who declared with a hearty laugh that she found them insupportably tame. i understand this hostility, for when girls reach the age of eighty, they demand excitement.
those who are familiar with mr. marshall's work and life will easily discover therein echoes of his own experience. he is an englishman by birth and descent, familiar with both town and country. he was born on the sixth of september, 1866, and received in his home life and preliminary training plenty of material which appeared later in the novels. his father came from the city, like the father in abington abbey; he himself was graduated from trinity college, cambridge, like the son of peter binney; it was intended but not destined that[12] he should follow his father's business career, and he worked in a city office like the son of armitage brown; he went to australia like the hero's sister in many junes; he made three visits to america, but fortunately has not yet written an american novel; he studied theology with the intention of becoming a clergyman in the church of england, like so many young men in his stories; in despair at finding a publisher for his work, he became a publisher himself, and issued his second novel, the house of merrilees, which had as much success as it deserved; he tried journalism before and during the war; he lived in two small sussex towns with literary associations, winchelsea and rye, in the latter from 1908 to 1913; then until 1917 his home was in switzerland; he has now gone back to the scene of his university days, cambridge.
in 1902 he was married and lived for some time in beaulieu (pronounced bewly) in the new forest, faithfully portrayed in exton manor. he spent three happy years there planning and making a garden, like the young man in the old order changeth. although his novels are filled with hunting and shooting, he is not much of a sportsman himself, being[13] content only to observe. he loves the atmosphere of sport rather than sport. his favourite recreations are walking, reading, painting, and piano-playing, and the outdoor flavour of his books may in part be accounted for by the fact that much of his writing is done in the open air.
like many another successful man of letters, his first step was a false start; for in 1899 he produced a novel called peter binney, undergraduate, which has never been republished in america, and perhaps never will be. this is a topsy-turvy book, where an ignorant father insists on entering cambridge with his son; and after many weary months of coaching, succeeds in getting his name on the books. the son is a steady-headed, unassuming boy, immensely popular with his mates; the father, determined to recapture his lost youth, disgraces his son and the college by riotous living, and is finally expelled. the only good things in the book are the excellent pictures of may week and some snap-shots at college customs; but the object of the author is so evident and he has twisted reality so harshly in order to accomplish it, that we have merely a work of distortion.
for six years our novelist remained silent;[14] and he never returned to the method of reversed dynamics until the year 1915, when he published upsidonia, another failure. once again his purpose is all too clear; possibly irritated by the exaltation of slum stories and the depreciation of the characters of the well-to-do often insisted upon in such works, he wrote a satire in the manner of erewhon, and called it a novel. here poverty and dirt are regarded as the highest virtues, and the possession of wealth looked upon as the sure and swift road to social ostracism. there is not a gleam of the author's true skill in this book, mainly because he is so bent on arguing his case that exaggeration triumphs rather too grossly over verisimilitude. he is, of course, trying to write nonsense; a mark that some authors have hit with deliberate aim, while perhaps more have attained the same result with less conscious intention. now mr. marshall cannot write nonsense even when he tries; and failure in such an effort is particularly depressing. he is at his best when his art is restrained and delicate; in upsidonia he drops the engraving-tool and wields a meat-axe. let us do with peter binney and with upsidonia what every other[15] reader has done; let us try to forget them, remembering only that two failures in fifteen books is not a high proportion.
of the remaining thirteen novels, two attained only a partial success; and the reason is interesting. these two are the house of merrilees and many junes (1908). the former was written in 1901 but publishers would none of it, and it did not wear a print dress until 1905. meanwhile the author was trying his hand at short stories, for which his method of work is not particularly fitted, his skill being in the development of character rather than in the manufacture of incident. he did, however, publish a collection of these tales in one volume, called the terrors, which appeared in 1913, their previous separate publication covering a period of sixteen years. they are amazingly unequal in value; some are excellent, and others trivial. this volume is out of print, and whether any of the contents may be rescued from oblivion is at present problematical. it is interesting, however, that he, at the outset of his career, supposed that invention, rather than observation, was his trump card. the realism of the house of merrilees is mixed with melodrama and mystery; these[16] are, in the work of a dignified artist, dangerous allies, greater liabilities than assets. in a personal letter he confesses that this artificial plot hampered him; but he goes on to say, "the range of scene and character in that book is something that i have never been able to catch since." he has since—with only one relapse—happily forsaken artificially constructed mysteries for the deepest mystery of all—the human heart. in many junes, a story that will be reprinted in america in 1919, we have pictures of english country life of surpassing loveliness; we have an episode as warm and as fleeting as june itself; we have a faithful analysis of the soul of a strange and solitary man, damned from his birth by lack of decision. but the crisis in the tale is brought about by an accident so improbable that the reader refuses to believe it. the moment our author forsakes reality he is lost; it is as necessary for him to keep the truth as it was for samson to keep his hair. furthermore, this is the only one of mr. marshall's books that has a tragic close—and his art cannot flourish in tragedy, any more than a native of the tropics can live in lapland. the bleak air of lost illusion and frustrated hope, in[17] which the foremost living novelist, appropriately named, finds his soul's best climate, is not favourable to archibald marshall.
the "relapse" mentioned in the preceding paragraph occurred in the year 1912, when he published a long and wildly exciting novel, called the mystery of redmarsh farm. this has all the marks of a "best-seller" and went through several editions in england, though it has not yet been reprinted in america. i regard the writing of this book as the most dangerous moment in mr. marshall's career, for its immediate commercial success might easily have tempted him to continue in the same vein, and if he had, he would have sunk to the level of a popular entertainer, and lost his position among british novelists of the past and present. curiously enough, it came between two of his best works in the clinton series, the eldest son (1911) and the honour of the clintons (1913). maybe the chilling reception given to his finest stories drove him to a cheaper style of composition. maybe his long second visit to australia, where he saw and shared experiences quite unlike his english environment, made him try his hand at mystery and crime. in 1911 he had published sunny australia, the[18] result of a sojourn on that continent, whither he had gone as special commissioner for the daily mail. there is a good deal of superficial cleverness in the mystery of redmarsh farm; its plot is elaborate, with a flavour of lohengrin; the beautiful lonely maiden's young brother is stolen by a villain and rescued by a young hero who is appropriately named knightly; a misunderstanding separates the girl and her lover, who sails away to australia. unlike lohengrin, however, he returns, and all is well. there is a conventional detective, and a murder trial and a shipwreck and a recognition scene—i kept looking back to the title page to see if the author really was archibald marshall. it is as though joseph conrad should write like marie corelli. yet although some of the characters are unreal and the plot artificial and the villain theatrical, the environment, whether in england or in australia, is as accurately painted as in mr. marshall's best stories. he will not write of places that he has not seen. when the gypsies are found, they are found in the new forest; and any one who reads this yarn immediately after sunny australia, will see that these distant scenes are correctly described.
