NOVATIANISM 



5703 



NOVEMBER 



Dominion of Canada. It bad bad 

 representative institutions since 

 1758, liut tlit-ir corollary, respon- 

 sible government, was only secured 

 iilM.ui tin* I mil-, primarily owing 

 to tin- work of Joseph Howe. The 

 union effected, there was a strong 

 agitation for withdrawal, but 

 financial concessions were made, 

 the Inter-colonial Hly., part of the 

 bargain, was completed, and tin- 

 movement gradually died away. 

 Woman franchise was passed 

 into law in 1918. Tercentenary 

 celebrations took place at Anna- 

 polis in 1921. See Canada; Canso, 

 Cape; consult also Stanford's Com- 

 pendium of Geography and Travel, 

 Canada and Newfoundland, ed. 

 II M Ami, 2nded. 1915. 



Novatianism. Schism which 

 arose in the Christian Church in 

 the 3rd century. It was named 

 after Novatian, a presbyter of 

 Rome, who was joined by Nova- 

 tus of Carthage. Its adherents 

 called themselves Cathari (q.v. ) 

 and separated from the Church 

 as a protest against the laxity 

 of the Roman clergy in receiving 

 the lapsed to penance. Novatian 

 is described as the first anti-pope, 

 and he instituted a succession of 

 schismatic bishops which existed 

 for nearly 300 years. The Nova- 

 tians denied that the Church could 

 reconcile those who had fallen 

 after baptism into deadly sin, and 

 they re-baptized those who joined 

 them. See Diet, of Sect*, J. H. 

 Blunt, 1903; Catholic Encyclo- 

 paedia, 1907-12. 



Novation (Lat. novatio, mak- 

 ing new). In law, the substitution 

 of one legal obligation for another. 

 The situation constantly arises in 

 the case of a change of partners in 

 a firm. Thus if A and B are part- 

 ners, 'under the title of A and Co., 

 and have dealings with X, and B 

 retires from the firm and C comes 

 into it ; and X, with knowledge 

 of the change, goes on dealing 

 with A and Co., he is deemed to 

 accept A and C as his debtors (or 

 creditors) instead of A and B. 



Nova Ves. Town in the Slo- 

 vakia division of Czecho-Slovakia, 

 also known as Iglo (q.v.). 



Novel. Work of fiction written 

 in prose and presenting dramatic- 

 ally the interplay of human emo- 

 tions upon a stage of real life. It is 

 as the news of common life that 

 the novel differs from the romance, 

 which embodies the legend of 

 heroic times. Every age finds the 

 medium best suited to the expres- 

 sion of its own genius, and it seems 

 to be true that among every people 

 the novel is the latest form of 

 imaginative literature. 



Among the Greeks the epic came 

 first, followed by the drama, with 



it* ohorio and lyrical concomitant*, 

 and only at a very long interval by 

 anything notable in the shape of 

 prone fiction. Very considerable 

 extension must be made of the 

 term novel before it can be applied 

 with justice to the Cyropaedia of 

 Xenophon, and Plato's Atlantic, 

 admittedly the prototype of many 

 works of fiction, forfeit* the right 

 to be classified as a novel, part at 

 least of the function of which is to 

 amuse, by its primary didactic 

 purpose. It is not until th' Mm. f 

 Longus, Lucius of 1'atnw, tin- 

 Syrian lamblichus, Achilles Tatius 

 of Alexandria, and Heliodorus of 

 Emesa that the novel appears with 

 all its modern essentials of com- 

 plicated plot, diverse and dramatic 

 incident, and, in most cases, a 

 strong love interest. 



When Europe awakened from 

 its long sleep through the Dark 

 Ages the romance appeared, the 

 14th century delighting in the 

 exploits of Charlemagne and the 

 legends of Arthur, Alexander, and 

 Troy, which in the hands of 

 Malory, Caxtori, and Berners fur- 

 nished the stuff of which English 

 prose fiction was first made. But 

 these could not long continue to 

 satisfy the growing intellectual 

 activity of a world awake ; so, in 

 England, the Elizabethan age 

 found its expression in the drama, 

 the age of Anne in the poem in 

 heroic couplets, and the age of 

 Victoria in the novel. 



Origin ol tbe Novel 



The origin of the novel, like the 

 origin of the word, was Italian. 

 The short, racy fabliau of France 

 was appropriated and perfected by 

 Italian genius of the Cinquecento, 

 and as the novella of Boccaccio, 

 Masuccio, Ser Giovanni, and the 

 other novellieri was carried on the 

 tide of the Renaissance all over 

 Europe. The pregnant fact about 

 these early novelle is, as Masuccio 

 protests in the Prologue to his 

 Novellino, that they were true and 

 contain only what their authors 

 had learnt by the evidence of their 

 own senses. It was a true picture 

 of life as they saw it, with what 

 purpose is relatively unimportant. 

 Masuccio, in 1476, when the first 

 edition of his book was printed, 

 provided precisely the same bill of 

 fare that Fielding provided in Tom 

 Jones in 1749 " no other than 

 human nature." 



Truth to the facts of life, then, 

 is the first distinguishing note of 

 the novel. But there is more to it 

 than that. " I have purposely 

 dwelt upon the romantic side of 

 familiar things," said Dickens in 

 the preface to Bleak House, there- 

 by indicating the essential charac- 



teristic and the most powerful 

 dynamic of the novel That 

 characterutic is sympathy, en- 

 thusiasm of humanity, as Profewor 

 Seeley called it. power to pity tbe 

 suffering* of others and to under- 

 stand their souls, reverent recogni- 

 tion of man's individuality, and per- 

 ception of his relation, with duties 

 and responsibilities, to others. 



Qualities of English Fiction 

 The dynamic lie* in tbe irradia- 

 tion of ronmion workaday life by a 

 glimpse of the light above. Sight 

 is indispensable to the novelist, 

 but the great novelist must have 

 vision aa well In the 150 yean 

 that were the flowering time of 

 English prose fiction, between tbe 

 publication of Fielding's first novel 

 and Meredith's and Hardy's last, 

 the novel has been adapted to an 

 infinity of different shapes, domes- 

 tic, sentimental, realistic, philo- 

 sophical, didactic, propagandist. 

 But all great novels have this in 

 common, that they are an inter- 

 pretation as well as a presentation 

 of life, that they view things tem- 

 poral against a background of 

 things eternal, and that they are 

 an attempt to reconcile the known 

 with the unknown. See English 

 Language and Literature ; France : 

 Literature ; Romance ; also Dick- 

 ens ; Fielding ; Meredith ; Scott, 

 etc. ; consult also History of 

 Fiction, J. C. Dunlop, new ed. rev. 

 H. Wilson, 1888; The English 

 Novel, Sir W. Raleigh, 5th ed. 1903. 

 Novello, VINCENT (1781-1861). 

 British composer. Born in London, 

 Sept. 6, 1781, of mixed Italian and 

 English parent- 

 age, he became 

 a chorister in 

 the Sardinian 

 Chapel and 

 later an organ- 

 ist. He was a 

 founder of the 

 London Phil- 

 harmonic So- 

 ciety .composed 



lections of sacred music. The pub- 

 lication of these by himself was 

 the beginning of the business of 

 Novello & Co., actually founded by 

 his son Joseph in 1811. He died 

 Aug. 11, 1861. 



November. Eleventh month of 

 the Christian calendar, the ninth 

 in the old Roman calendar, whence 

 its name from Iat. novem, nine. 

 The Anglo-Saxons called it Wind- 

 monath, and also Blod-monath 

 (blood month), from the practice 

 of slaughtering cattle during this 

 month to be salted for the winter. 

 See Calendar. 



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