in 1907 appeared one of the most characteristic of mr. marshall's novels, exton manor, which he began to write the day after he finished richard baldock. it was naturally impossible for any well-read reviewer to miss the likeness to anthony trollope. if i believed in the transmigration of souls, i should believe that archibald marshall was a reincarnation of trollope, and william de morgan a reincarnation of dickens. in an interesting preface written for the american edition, mr. marshall manfully says that he has not only tried to follow anthony trollope, "but the whole body of english novelists of his date, who introduced you to a large number of people, and left you with the feeling that you knew them all intimately, and would have found yourself welcome in their society. that particular note of intimacy seems to be lacking in the fiction of the present day, and i should like to have it back."
this instantly raises the question of victor[24]ianism, to some a stumbling-block, to some foolishness. for my part, if i did not believe that the best victorian fiction was superior to contemporary work, i should not be so hearty an admirer of archibald marshall. indeed the best victorian novels surpass our best twentieth century novels in the one respect where we chiefly plume ourselves on our claim to attention—i mean in the matter of sincerity. we talk about sincerity all the time, but we protest too much; the essence of sincerity is present perhaps more often in art, as it is in life, where its profession is least urgent. henry james, in the fragment of autobiography called the middle years, wisely though oracularly remarked, "phenomena may be interesting, thank goodness, without being phenomena of elegant expression or of any other form of restless smartness, and when once type is strong, when once it plays up from deep sources, every show of its sincerity delivers us a message and we hang, to real suspense, on its continuance of energy, on its again and yet again consistently acquitting itself. so it keeps in tune, and, as the french adage says, c'est le ton qui fait la chanson. the mid-victorian london was sincere—that was a vast virtue and[25] a vast appeal; the contemporary is sceptical, and most so when most plausible."
on a summer day in 1914, i had the pleasure of a ten-mile drive over the hills with one of the wisest old men in america—andrew d. white. i remember his saying that one of the most fortunate things that could happen to america would be a general ambition on the part of the more educated classes to look forward as to a goal in life to making a permanent home in the country. he said that in america men who make a little money move into the city as soon as possible; whereas in england, whenever a man makes a competence in the city he usually establishes a home in the country. no one can read the novels of mr. marshall without feeling that his books are so to speak based on this ideal; he repeatedly insists that life in the country is the true life for thoughtful men and women, and that the most delectable season for the solid enjoyment of it is the winter. nay, he takes the position—a position also occupied by one of our ablest american novelists, dorothy canfield—that the most favourable locality for studying human nature is the small country village. he says, "life in such a community as is depicted in exton manor is just[26] as typical of english social habits as it was in trollope's day. the tendency of those who have hitherto worked on the land to drift into the towns is not shared by the more leisured classes. their tendency is all the other way—to forsake the towns for the country—and improved methods of communication keep them more in touch with the world than they would have been fifty years ago. but in spite of this increased dependency upon the outside world, english country life is still intensely local in its personal interests, and quite legitimately so, for it must be remembered that, if the man who lives in a fairly populous country village comes across fewer people than the man who lives in a town, he knows all about those whom he does come across, and his acquaintances represent a far greater variety of type and class than is met with where types and classes tend to stratify. you have, in fact, in a typical country parish, a microcosm of english social life, and there is, ready to the hand of the realistic novelist, material from which he can draw as much interest and variety as he is able to make use of."
in another important question which concerns the art of the novelist, i might applaud[27] mr. marshall's dictum more unreservedly if i did not happen to know of a gigantic witness against him. in forestalling gossipy identification of his leading characters in exton manor, he says, "it is not a novelist's business to draw portraits, but to create living figures, and the nearer he gets to the first the farther off will he be from the second." this certainly sounds well; but unfortunately for its universal application, practically all of the characters in anna karenina are accurate portraits.
