"Every one on the earth should believe, amid whatever madness or moral failure, that his life and temperament have some object on the earth." -- Chesterton's "Browning."
THE novel, said F. Marion Crawford in an amiable moment, is a species of entertainment. Could anything be more diverting than a remark so incredibly old-fashioned from a gentleman whose cosmopolitanism was the marvel of his generation? Things have changed and the novel is no longer even new, if one remembers that age is seldom defined in centuries. A man does not have to be a contemporary of the pyramids in order to be thought elderly, and there are no living creatures in geology. When Richardson and his brethren began to issue lengthy prose narratives, they handled a literary form which was as vigorous and almost as incorrigible as a child. That to the stirring chain of incidents they added a moral was due to a convention which they inherited from all story-tellers since the beginning. The aesthetes notwithstanding, no stories of consequence anywhere have been told for the mere sake of narrative; not even Sir Walter, who held the moral effect of novels in low esteem, could escape being almost the author of an ethical revolution. Nevertheless, the ante-modern story, with its eye on the individual, made very little pretense at social lecturing; it probably did not think itself old enough to teach in public. When Dickens preached it was like buttonholing the neighbors and decidedly not like arguing with humanity; Thackeray said a great deal to the Gentle Reader but scarcely anything to the nation.
The later novel, however, is nothing if not social. What is the problem propounder from Victor Hugo to Patrick MacGill, what are the great Russians, if not reformers of civilization? When in the twilight of the great classic period of the English novel George Eliot veiled her characters in the sage and sad outlook of the Positivist, something happened to fiction the importance of which has never been sufficiently recognized. Henceforth men would no longer read a story and be bored with the moral; they would read morality and be bored with the story. The novel, bespectacled and sitting with the elders, would talk philosophy. It is possible to enjoy Richardson greatly and at the same time consider him an ass; it is, very likely, impossible to relish George Moore under the same conditions. Genuine enthusiasm for Joseph Conrad is probably limited to psychologists; for Mr. Wells to liberals in politics; for Gilbert Cannan and John Galsworthy to persons who are not enthusiastic about anything. In short, the novel is as wise in its old age as the Sphinx, and for the sake of decency the word ought to be changed. Of course there are honourable exceptions like Thomas Hardy, whose mournful views of life are inserted in the ancient manner and may comfortably be neglected. But in general there is no gainsaying the fact that the modern novelist is an educator; he may be expected to break off a love scene at any moment to write a history of the world or a treatise on business efficiency. In America he is vigorously exhorted to tell the truth and is often vehemently accused of -- fiction. Whether we like it or not, the modern novel is the great medium of philosophic propaganda, and should be accepted as such. One may speak indeed of the narrative art; there are even superior people who take down shelves of books to discover "how they are done." Still, it is for the public that novels are written, for a public which absorbs from them its ideas of history and politics, of sociology and religion. And the strange truth is that any story which makes a point for positive belief is cleverly termed a boresome tract, while the pseudo-scientific naturalism of Zola and Dreiser, the scented materialism of Gautier and D.H. Lawrence, and the pure skepticism of Anatole France are labeled unadulterated art. It is an important truth to remember, for so saturated with this principle is modern criticism that the course of Catholic fiction has been very effectively blocked by it. The orthodox novelist has quite generally come to be looked upon as a bothersome peddler, and while he has not greatly minded this, he has often been forced to beg. One does not find in Catholic stories the straightforwardness, the energy, and the beauty that are so manifest in our poetry, philosophy and history. More than any other art, fiction is dependent upon its reception and the Catholic audience has not been sufficiently appreciative or discerning. When these obstacles are borne in mind it will easily be seen that the presentation of Catholic life in modern English fiction has been surprisingly successful.
There is little to be found among Victorian novels that has not already been considered. The ancient popular traditions of Christendom were revived by Dickens; Newman and Wiseman did something to bring about a better understanding of religious history. "Callista" and "Fabiola," with Miles Gerald Keon's forgotten book, "Dion and the Sibyls," were able if somewhat staid pictures of primitive Christendom. Newman's "Loss and Gain" proved a witty, controversial narrative of a conversion and later there was a similar book by Montgomery Carmichael. In the novels of Georgiana Fullerton, English readers met with a series of pietistic tales which were not well enough written to earn any large place in literary history. The genius of the Catholic revival that grew out of Oxford was too seriously concerned with higher spiritual issues to devote much attention to what was then a species of writing that aimed at amusing people.
If these books lacked the sparkle of modernity, the defect was abundantly compensated for by the novels of a most fascinating priest, Robert Hugh Benson. His work, as we shall see, was prompted by peculiar and special interests which may be summed up here as curiosity in the borderlands of life and an appetite for magnificence. Benson is the literary descendant of two remarkable men who, while vastly different in character, had a great deal in common. Joseph Henry Shorthouse, author of "John Inglesant," was a mystic Quaker who revivified in fiction the idea of sacramentalism. His novels are gorgeous pageants glowing with a deep quest for spiritual realities and the instincts of mediaevalism. The story of John Inglesant, with its colourful historical background and mystical subject, probably influenced Benson more than any other book. His other master was Huysmans, the volatile convert-mystic of modern French letters, whose Catholic life was an intense preoccupation with the transcendental aspects of religion, and who surrounded the faith with the artistic pomp of a mediaeval court. "En Route" and "La Cathedrale" deal with the arcana of belief but also with the gorgeous symbolism of worship, with music shuddering under dim cathedral arches or rising plaintive in Trappist chapels at break of day, and with the regal mysteries of architecture. Huysmans' life of Saint Lydwine, finally, is a ruthless dissection of a martyred soul fettered by a mission of expiation. These authors emphasized the things which Benson considered the realities of religion: God's hand on the unusual soul and the almost unearthly beauty of the Catholic ritual. All three were egoists, in varying ways of course, but serenely independent of the social life about them. Going their journey alone, of necessity they had no time for democratic fellowships. The average modern reader will therefore be perplexed by Benson's books, and certainly they do lack the large sympathy with which great novels are imbued; but that is the natural consequence of their modernity.
Some acquaintance with the character of Robert Hugh Benson will uncover an unusual individuality. The son of the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury and born into a family almost all the members of which were devotees of pen and ink, he grew up knowing his own mind, not particularly scholarly, and innately artistic. Having decided finally to go into orders, he was ordained, given a mission, and suffered to enter an Anglican community. The story of his conversion to the Church, which was achieved quite suddenly during a period of two years, is the subject of his interesting book, "The Confessions of a Convert." It would seem that his motives were theologically rather ordinary, but individually most unusual. He sought the Church because his religious inclinations beheld in her dogmatic firmness and mystic character the only satisfactory support for his personality. No social considerations such as moved Bourget, no deep historical research like that which impelled Newman to make the step, no problems of modern religious criticism, were concerned. He became a Catholic quite independently of the intellectual currents around him, because he was himself.
Of Benson the Catholic priest and the Monsignor it it is not necessary to say much here. He proved an admirable pulpit orator and a successful spiritual director. Even so, he insisted upon going his own way and making those investigations into the fringes of the supernatural which engrossed his attention. Often he was dull about ordinary matters, but a ghost could have aroused him at any moment. The details of an apparition left him in a state of eager excitement. His books were written breathlessly and blithely, without any of the deep brooding which gives works of art an inward virility that is the pledge of immortality. It was an adventure to think them out, to write them down; and Benson preserved to his dying day a boyishness of temperament that, satisfying its zest in unfrequented places, had a truly Stevensonian relish for experience. He might have agreed with Cotton Mather about the reality of the witches, but he would have opposed him on everything else.
The vivid mind of Benson sought its first literary expression in the historical novel. What he tried to do, however, was not to outline a great movement or to study a period, but to present a striking individual who, borne down by the pressure of earthly circumstance, would seek refuge in religion. The past attracted him by the heroism, the splendid pomp, of its setting, and he labored hard to reproduce the actual colours. His admirers do not think that he ever wrote for the sake of history; he presented history because he wished to write and this inspired him. Almost all of Benson's novels of this sort deal with periods of religious strife -- Elizabethan, Tudor, Stuart. "The Queen's Tragedy," perhaps the best among them, is a story of the futile career of Mary Tudor, made rich with elaborate description and fervent with religious sympathy. But the interest centers despite all extraneous incidents on the leading figure; we are made to follow closely the real character of Mary, to perceive how her weakness conspired to thwart all her hopes and to render her desperately unhappy. It is when the Queen is brought close to death that the horizon is lifted and made radiant, and the final scene, with its profound interpretation of the ritual, is a transcendently moving piece of writing.
"Oddsfish," probably one of Benson's most popular works, is the story of a youthful Papal agent who is connected with the court of Charles II. Here the character of the king remains somewhat in the background, but is the theme of the narrative none the less. Round about seethe the torrents of intrigue, the determined efforts to uproot the Jesuits, to annul Catholic influence, and to fetter the king. Charles, debonair, intelligent, but debauched and weakened, is presented with distinct skill, and manages to preserve his royal allurement despite his fatal insouciance. In general, the book evidences Benson's genius and its limitations. There is a characteristic and regrettable weakness of structure, together with a very conventional subordinate narrative. The author's talent for description leads him into paragraphs of detail which do not bear upon the issue, and his failure to give the women in the story reality makes such love interest as enters rather banal. Still, it is the soul of the central figure which is Benson's chief concern and he achieves its redemption with a glowing sympathy that wins the reader's highest admiration. Charles seen in the light of eternity, with death upon him and the priest by his side, is no longer a king but a frightened man; and the author is superbly powerful in showing the comparative value of that manhood. Of various other novels, "Come Rack, Come Rope" and "By What Authority?", little could be said that has not already been implied. As an historical novelist Benson analyzed certain characters of great importance from the Catholic point of view, and succeeded by reason of imaginative artistry and a grasp of the response of a harrowed and solitary soul to the faith.
These two qualities were shown separately in stories which gave their author something of an international reputation, "Richard Raynal, Solitary" and "The Lord of the World." Written with great care and with an unusual understanding of word-color, the life of Richard Raynal has a quiet grace that works into the heart of the reader as its subject must have taken possession of the author. Even if it be thought to stand somewhat apart from life in an atmosphere of unworldliness, the book is vital and sincere. In "The Lord of the World," however, Benson sketched a brightly tinted picture of what he fancied the judgment day would be like. The story has vivid scenery and verve, but the imagination conceiving it is ostensibly a bit wild. There is something of Mr. Wells' scientific inventiveness about it -- something which the Germans would term kolossal. It is a theme of tremendous possibilities, but Benson was not Michael Angelo and his work is melodrama. Let us risk boldly the statement that in these two volumes one will find their author at his best and at his worst, but employing all his powers.
Among the novels which Benson devoted to contemporary life, the discriminating reader will find two of especial interest. "The Sentimentalists" is able, healthy satire far above the average in ability. Christopher Dell, a dilettante redolent of Walter Pater and scented cigarettes, has the faith but no power of will. While he may be to some extent the caricature of a type, Dell is deftly and interestingly individualized. A healthy, common-sense environment having failed to save him, recourse is had to Mr. Rolls, a charming mystic too reflective and wealthy to be Patmorean, who redeems Dell by a surprising expedient. In this book Benson succeeds admirably with a group of fascinating men, fails utterly with a group of boresome women, and makes the point a little too obviously. But though the legerdemain is rough in places, it is a good book and will bear rereading.
The superiority of "Initiation" lies, first of all, in the selection of a daring and very modern theme: unmerited suffering and its influence on the soul. Sir Neville Fanning is a fine young landowner, not religiously enthusiastic but still thoroughly orthodox in comportment. In Rome he meets Enid Bensington, a beautiful egoist -- unfortunately too beautiful and too egoistic -- who finally spurns his love with insane cruelty. He turns to nature for solace, but soon discovers that the disease which he has inherited from a debauched father is fatal. Face to face with death, he sounds the depths of the Catholic faith and draws from it not only solace but truth. The exposition of his decline is made with a realistic understanding and imaginative sympathy almost too beautiful for praise. Harrowing though the story be thought, Benson's priesthood saves it from the tyrannical ruthlessness of a naturalist.
These books will have indicated sufficiently the range of Monsignor Benson's gifts. His novels, like Bourget's, are demonstrations but they are individual instead of social. The milieux in which the characters to be analyzed are placed are nearly always conventional: the entourage of royalty in the historical novels and dignified country homes in the modern stories. Philosophically, Benson was an egoist who did not consider sufficiently, perhaps, the nature and value of environment. Being concerned largely with spiritual cases, he never wrote without a religious purpose, and his books have some of the atmosphere of a "tract." Nevertheless, he succeeded in saying things which others had neglected, in winning attention by his own interest in the subject and by his brilliant skill. Never tiresome, he manages in spite of his psychological preoccupations to be normal. A man of intense convictions, he was not quite enough of an artist to attend to the finesse of craftsmanship, but he did honest work of which Catholic letters cannot be too proud.
The biographer of Monsignor Benson, Father C.C. Martindale, is himself an occasional novelist. In "The Goddess of Ghosts" and "The Waters of Twilight" he has written two very striking studies of religious temperament, which the average reader may find dull but in which the discerning person will rejoice. It must be borne in mind that Father Martindale is a stylist of the school of Pater, writing sentences that turn round queer corners and manage to say things by suggestion rather than by statement. There is about his two little books a subtlety of conception and a richness of meaning that are surprisingly educative without being in the least unctuous. "The Goddess of Ghosts" studies the differences between the Catholic and the Greek spirit in action. The author, who is a famous classical scholar, succeeds in giving to his delicately rhythmical prose the odour of distant schools of thought, and brings together in a quiet Breton garden the ends of the spiritual earth. Pater, had he been a Catholic, might have done this very thing, but it would not have been better work than his disciple's. "The Waters of Twilight" is an interesting resume of a phenomenally clever Englishman's religious opinions. They exhibit nuances of spiritual sensibility which cannot fail to delight the lover of such things. It may be an error to speak of Father Martindale as a novelist, for his books adhere to the vague form set by "Marius the Epicurean." Painstaking in their treatment of almost intangible ideas, they occupy a corner of their own in modern Catholic letters.
It is almost disconcerting to descend from these lofty rooms of thought to the honest commonplaceness of John Ayscough, who is, as everybody ought to know, Monsignor Bickerstaffe-Drew and despite his priesthood the literary brother of Anthony Trollope and Archibald Marshall. The author of a formidable array of books, John Ayscough is often guilty of writing for the sake of penmanship or rather for money to be expended philanthropically. His best work, however, is blessed with genial qualities that Alphonse Daudet or Mrs. Gaskell would have hastened to endorse. Marching comfortably along in the realm of platitudes, he describes the scenery and the people with soft, easy sentences that succeed by reason of a genuine whimsicality and shy humor. If it is necessary to present some exceptional person, saint or sinner, one may be sure that the author will render him quite tractable before the chapter is done. The hard egoism of modern letters seems to have fostered in John Ayscough the praiseworthy desire to be childlike; only, like all plebeian things, this is apt to prove a little dull at times. One is afraid that Monsignor Drew, despite his valiant priesthood, has retreated from the modern turmoil to a charming position that no longer exists.
Such a book as "San Celestino" may be termed a novel because it is a picture of manners, but it is really the life of a saint. Considered from the hagiographical point of view the book is admirable, for it emphasizes just what the average saint's story fails to present: the amiable humanity of the subject. Petruccio, the mystic Italian lad who becomes Fra Pietro the hermit and finally Pope Celestine, is made very understandable, though the iron in his soul is not melted away. As a study of society, however, "San Celestino" leaves much to be desired, despite the painstaking historical accuracy and picturesque charm of the narrative. The fierce Italian spirits of that riotous century are softened until they nearly blur. The best of the characters, like the best in Ayscough's other books, are those whose foibles make them subjects for quaint satire. What deftness the author's hand shows here! Pompous little ecclesiastics, so sure of their learning and position, provoke the most charitable of smiles. Written without the faintest trace of cruelty, the book is delightfully kind and yet spiritually intense. It is easily John Ayscough's most impressive achievement.
In "Fernando" and "Gracechurch" we are given two partly autobiographical studies of English country life. Not many stories of boyhood are so quiet and devoid of noisy pranks as "Fernando." The lad grows up in the midst of a leisurely environment which does not conduce to thrilling adventure, but does provide a host of odd, interesting people. They appear, one by one, for a moment and then disappear, as in a dream. This languid haze tempers their characters, but they all have character. Fernando's mother is an exquisite Victorian woman even though she is Irish. "Grace-church," a sequel, chronicles life in a small town with the fine taste of "Cranford," but rambles disconcertingly and draws attention to its author's woeful inability to construct narrative. There is absolutely nothing in it that resembles an adventure or an intrigue. What gives the book colour and interest is the genuine, delicate humour of the telling, a humour that is like a smile, without a touch of boisterousness or a desire to be brilliant. In addition, the story is spiritualized by a temperate vision of the faith which gains the hero's heart. Keble might have written just such a book had he possessed the twinkling spirit of Charles Lamb.
It would seem that John Ayscough served a long apprenticeship in the craft of writing, during the period of which he sought advice from the leading novelists of the modern time. "Dromina," at all events, is a book resembling so closely George Meredith's "Harry Richmond" that one suspects the likeness of having been deliberate. Gypsies appear from Romany with beguiling ways and mysterious customs; there is an eccentric if delightful Irish father, and a family of entertaining young people. The adventure leads to the establishment of a surprising West Indian kingdom and the martyrdom of the idealistic young ruler. Improbable and incoherent as the story is, the romantic atmosphere has the flavor of Meredith's happy book, its smell of woodland smoke and strange enchantment of scene. "Hurdcott" strikes the reader as a rather poor approximation to Hardy's "Tess of the d'Urbervilles." There is a queer young shepherd whose antecedents are unknown and who is suspected of undesirable qualities. Though he is a child of nature he manages to win the affections of a charming young lady, but is falsely accused of murder and sentenced to death. The mystic resignation of his fiancée is just a little too exalted for reality, and the catastrophe is too exactly the opposite, in spirit, of the grim finale of Tess. The book has fine rustic scenes and characters, but it is evident that the author gasps for air.
John Ayscough merits attention as the representative in literature of an attitude towards life that is both humorous and deeply religious. Fascinated with the spirit of rural Italy, as several of his books show, he applied its standards to the English life he knew and loved. It is unnecessary to say that he moves outside the busy currents of national affairs. No one would fancy from a reading of his books that there are such things as industrialism, an East Side, spiritism, or eugenics. His way of revolt against these details has apparently been to ignore them. Coveting peace, he looks at the world where it is bathed in a beneficent twilight, busy with little, heart-holding comedies and tragedies, conscious of no economic or social problems and content to be, simply, the world. It is a philosophy which can be scorned, but which is redeemed from commonplaceness by its firm hold on the now uncommon art of laughter.
It is significant that the three novelists just considered should have been clergymen and converts who brought their Oxford training into the service of the Church. Few other men would have mustered sufficient energy to undertake the difficult and slightly rewarded task of Catholic fiction. They were aided, however, by an intelligent and artistic woman, Mrs. Wilfrid Ward. Moving freely in cultivated circles and interested in the work of her husband, she brought to novel writing a thorough acquaintance with the environment with which she wished to deal. Religious influences are never lost sight of, although she treats them as social forces and not as matters of controversy. Gifted with a great deal of Jane Austen's skill in unfolding the intimacies of a situation, she has Bourget's view of the worth of the novel as a critique of institutions. "Out of Due Time," like the "Robert Elsmere" of another Mrs. Ward, is a study, from the Catholic point of view, of the relations existing between theology and the positive sciences, and has the limited merits of all stories written about and during a "movement." Her latest novel, "Not Known Here," is in many ways her best: it is a sincerely poignant narrative concerning a man of German extraction who lives in England and is ostracized during the war. The theme is one which has the sort of possibilities that may easily be bungled; to say that Mrs. Ward has succeeded is to restrain praise to the freezing-point.
Many critics are of the opinion that while she is not one of the most widely-known Catholic novelists, she is almost the best of them. For delicately devised situations, subtle and strong characterization, and fine, sharp-pointed style she is notable; her books have been done while so many others have merely been written. Probably the most popular of her tales, "One Poor Scruple" may seem a study of marriage from the Church's point of view, in which Madge O'Reilly is tempted to accept Lord Bellasis in spite of his living and disreputably divorced wife, but it is really a diversified and remarkably perceptive study of modern woman. Janet Riversdale and her budding daughter Hilda, Laura Hurstmonceaux, the manipulator of social alliances, Cecilia the thoroughly modern, and Mary Riversdale the mystic, are not figures in black and white wood, but living creatures with emphasis on their minds rather than on their hysterics. Some of the men are charming, too, but one feels that Mrs. Ward has done her best with women and proved them to have souls, a matter which a dispassionate survey of recent fiction would seem to deny.
No list of the English Catholic novelists would be complete without a mention of Francis Marion Crawford who, by reason of birth, belongs really to American letters. Nevertheless, because of his cosmopolitanism and essentially narrative gifts he shall be suffered to intrude here where there is room for him. Crawford, a hard student of history and Sanskrit, tumbled into fiction quite by accident, and while undervaluing the art paradoxically succeeded in it. Religion was the most serious concern of his life and he did not often talk of it in work which he believed was intended for idle-hour amusement. It may be that the lack of passion so apparent in his novels was due to this strange and misguided reserve. An admirable romancer, able to conjure up an atmosphere with amazing skill, and familiar with so many sides of cosmopolitan life, Crawford failed just where the best novelists succeed: in the creation of dynamic characters. Dickens, for instance, could present people who might reasonably be expected to go on doing equally entertaining things outside their book; Thackeray's Becky, we are sure, had many an adventure which her sponsor did not find it necessary to relate. In short, the masters of fiction have given their creatures enough life to carry them through life. Crawford's people seem to lack this abounding vitality, to be fit for books only. When this has been said, however, criticism of his craftsmanship must cease, and one bows to the miracle of his narrative instinct.
As has been stated, his artistic effort was not often concerned with his Catholic belief. Such stories as "Greifenstein" and "Mr. Isaacs" touch no philosophy of life very closely, and numerous others are pastels of love or some other passion. The great Saracinesca trilogy may be considered a contribution to the literature of Christendom, as a romantic presentation of the collapse of the Papal power. In addition to the splendid intrigue of the narrative there is a world of really valuable social information: the viewpoint of the great Roman families, the religious atmosphere of the city, and the industrial changes which came in with the new era. Unfortunately, the power of the first book, "Saracinesca," is not maintained, and while it stands a good chance of being read for many years, the others are already forgotten.
Nor is one likely to be deeply impressed by such books as "Marzio's Crucifix" and "The White Sister," into which Crawford ventured to inject considerable Catholic sentiment. The spirituality of these volumes is unmistakably deserving of the word "pretty"; and the effeminacy of their outlook is a denial of the stern position which Christianity occupies in modern life. The tirade of a somber man like Huysmans against the insincerity of doctoring the faith for popular consumption is relentless but also irresistible. How much better, both as a story and as a view of life, is that romantic novel "Casa Bracchio," a work of consummate narrative skill and insight into life! The dark moods of the Italian temperament burst into livid fire, nature is aglow with responsive gleams, and the whole story moves to its conclusion with the masterly unison of Hardy's best tales. Crawford did nothing better; it is a memorable novel.
It would seem that Marion Crawford was a man who knew exactly what he was expected to do, rather than a genius striving to impress upon the world the things he had been born to say. A fine, tactful student of men, his scholarly instincts made for absorption rather than transcendent analysis. No one knew more of Italian life than he did, although he thought it unnecessary to repeat everything he had found out. A manifold reflector of the pageant, he selected with nice discrimination what he fancied the public would like to hear. His readers were generous, graceful, and tolerant of convention; he believed it quite sufficient to entertain them without emphasizing his individuality in the manner of Stendhal. Crawford failed to be the great Catholic novelist because he did not foresee the social power that the novel would come to exercise and because he practiced too rigorously the discipline of the secret.
While these names are the most important, there are others of interest to the lover of the Catholic note in fiction. The brilliant work of Canon William Barry, an essayist with a startling synthetic grasp of history, is best shown in "Arden Massiter" and "The Two Standards." Written about a time when strong social forces were ebullient and unsteady, these novels view history as the reflex of human passion, as a record marred by desire. The ambitious verve of such books is easily contrasted with the quiet, comely art of Leslie Moore, whose "Peacock Feather" is fine vagabondish romance and whose other books, such as "The Desired Haven," have the natural piety of De Vere and a tranquil humour that recalls the work of Peacock. Something interesting might also be said about the work of John Oliver Hobbes, and a score of eager writers like M. E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell), Isabel Clarke, and Theodore Maynard.
English Catholic fiction has just begun. Now that the novel has taken on a new meaning and become the conduit of social speculation, it must not be allowed to fail as a weapon in the battle for Christendom. Our authors must learn how to respond to the impulses stirring in the present world, how to freshen their art with unfettered vitality, and above all how to dramatize their philosophy. The upheaval upon which contemporary life is based, the seething of delusion and the rolling of rebellious drums, must not find Catholic art in a distant upland country whence the din of these things is barred by convention. We are born of sterner stuff than that. There must be an eagerness for the heroic in this wilderness where all but the mightiest valour quails, and a concern for beauty even in the mire of a tumbling civilization. Story-telling merges ideals in life, and the common people have loved it because they have always followed leaders rather than abstractions. No novelist can be great until he has become an artist; and no artist is worth talking about unless he can rebuild his dreams from the stuff of life. There is one thing more. The great writer is naturally not made to order, but he cannot appear unless there is a demand for him. Readers must learn to read with discrimination, not to praise a book merely because it is Catholic and also not to heed the silence of hostile criticism and ignore a book because it believes in the soul. It is consoling and salutary to remember that in the background are the great Christian masters of modern Continental fiction -- French, German, Spanish, Italian, Polish -- who have solved the problems of an inimical environment and who have much to say that we can use to our great profit. To release our fiction from provincialism of outlook and parochial feebleness of handling, to make it truly representative of the Catholic pulse in the world, is the task that confronts both our creative art and our criticism.
BOOK NOTE
Robert Hugh Benson is noteworthy also as a religious essayist; F.M. Crawford has written charming volumes of history; John Ayscough is an essayist as well as a novelist; William Barry and C.C. Martindale have done much work of a scholarly character. Reviews of fiction by the writers discussed in this chapter may be found in quantity in the Tablet, the Athenaeum, the Dublin Review, and the Catholic World. For information concerning Benson, see "Hugh: a Memoir," by A. C. Benson; "Robert Hugh Benson," by C.C. Martindale; and his own "Confessions of a Convert." On Crawford see "A Diplomat's Wife in Many Lands," by Mrs. Hugh Fraser; "The Art of Fiction," by Bliss Perry, and "The Cambridge History of American Literature."