1897.] on Romance. 443 



or of Laving confused his theme and his auxiliaries to such a point 

 that the passion which it is the real work of the book to exhibit 

 becomes no more than a subordinate and sometimes a tedious incident 

 in it. Why are these books not romances? It is because the 

 strength of the emotion is not realised or exhibited, there is no power, 

 no imagination. If any such love-affair, or rather marriage-arrange- 

 ment, as I have indicated, is to be found in a true romance of which 

 love is the theme, it is there, not for its own sake, but as an auxiliary, 

 useful by way of contrast, by its tameness heightening the effect of 

 the great emotion whose exhibition is the real purpose of the book. 



Take another class of novels. I am in a difficulty about naming 

 it. If I say analytical, I confuse manner and matter ; if I say real- 

 istic, neither you nor I will be sure what I mean, and I shall probably 

 give a wrong impression. Perhaps I may take refuge in the semi- 

 slang phrase which came into vogue a little while ago, and speak of 

 the " problem novel." Problem novels are not romance ; the reason is 

 not the same as in the previous case ; there may be strength enough and 

 to spare in the emotions described. Nor is it because the emotion is 

 sometimes, as we say, illicit, being in conflict with law, or morality, 

 or convention ; there is in that nothing in the smallest degree incon- 

 sistent with romance — rather does romance find some of its finest 

 opportunities in situations so created. From the point of view of 

 romance, the fault here is the absence of simplicity and the resulting 

 want of confidence. The emotion is encumbered and complicated ; it 

 is surrounded by rivals ; it is tortured by problems social and ethical ; 

 it is mixed up with and obscured by questions of the relative duties, 

 the relative rights, the relative standards of men and women. Inter- 

 esting as all these questions are, they are not in the way of romance. 

 Or, again, the emotion is sapped from within ; it is hesitating, fearful, 

 doubtful ; it asks whether it really exists, or, if it exists, whether it 

 isn't something else than it seems to be, or if it really exists and really 

 is what it seems to be, then whether it has any business to exist, or 

 at any rate to be what it is ; or again, it does not know what it wants, 

 much less whether, if it wants it, it ought to want it, and so on. 

 There is no simplicity, no confidence ; in their place we find com- 

 plexity and self-distrust. 



But of course it is not always so easy to draw the line, and even 

 though we assume every confidence in the formula we have adopted, 

 we should still be puzzled from time to time how we ought to class 

 a novel. We should not hesitate to call the ' Vicar of Wakefield ' a 

 romance, a true case of romance, notwithstanding its everyday charac- 

 ters and scenes. But take the great novels of manners — ' Tom Jones,' 

 or ' Vanity Fair,' or ' Pendennis.' In the broad sweep of books like 

 these there will be found matter of a romantic character, and we are 

 tempted to the easy course of some such division as one of pure 

 romances and mixed romances. But I fear that to adopt such a dis- 

 tinction would be rather a concession to mental indolence than an 

 obedience to the truth of the argument. We must ask again, What is 



