Show W 1 i 1 self education through the medium yf specially prepared Pre pored arcides by prominent instructors av wa fc f abo S e ethics of fiction by ANNE FITZHUGH MACLEAN l OM O rocoo OO I 1 the relation of fiction to life RS BROWNING eald that she dearly loved a story but that she did not confound that love with her lovo of literature in a parallel sense a novel may bo read cither for its story or as criticism of life and as a story may or may not be literature so a novel may or may not be 0 any value as criticism of life the persons who consciously make this use of their novel reading arc fow but there are scarcely any of us not scholars whose conceptions of life in other lands and times are not formed principally by the novels we have read history reading Is small in comparison with novel reading and to most its impressions are far oliver wendell holmes at eighty four dr characterized a lie as the handle ot the evils tools less vivid but besides this reason for the fact that we owe our mental pictures of foreign lands and distant periods chiefly to fiction there Is a deeper it Is that the whole body of fiction ot any given time truly represents the life of that period beginning with the earliest known traditions we have learned to trust the picture of life as given us in atory and in song the earliest were indeed not fiction and many thousands of years passed before recitals of heroic adventures ceased to be true or told as tho truth the invented tale Is a new thing in comparison with the immeasurable ages that preceded it indeed there are in the united states communities so primitive that a fiction is incomprehensible and exists only as any other W exists aa it was in the days of puritan england when under influence romance was driven out of the the land so it is alth these rural neighborhoods lodaya thing la true or false and by true they mean only in accordance with tact what you reading asked the trustee of a country school of the teacher who boarded in bis family II amlet timid young teacher glad to be found so worthily engaging her cl surji 1 writ by n friendt yours no Is it true the story quite true but ita all full ortruth of truth 1 what you mean eaid the trustee fixing eye upon her asiat its a lie nobody in my house aint got no call to read lies E you mus read read yo bible aa ten nights in a barroom how be hah arrived at the equality of the bible and ten nights in a barroom it would be hard to discover bubbis attitude toward fiction tin general Is that of nil primitives minds the change has been from adherence lo 10 fact real or pretended to adherence to truth independent of fact the first legends give us the charac of the first people simplicity of motive passionate impulse large action for ages the popular heroes were the same man la different situations at most there were two or three types chiefly two the good man and the bad their fortunes turned on a few alc pivot of homad in its primeval sense revenge desire for glory greed of gain such are the stories and such were the people who made and heard them subtlety complexity came iu witha the growth of self consciousness followed by belt analysis the latter buco as undeveloped as our psychic benso 19 today 3 nd so with cvar mgt jhc thc arthurl an and legends anro accepted aa couii best presentments of the life of those days bo the bodilly corrupt italy of alio thirteenth and fourteenth centuries li found in the novels of that elmp and country prosaic charae and trivial england of the early eighteenth century Is in its fiction it Is true that mr and not ho alone talla ua that novelete nove lets instead of being as they might be the greatest possible it they painted life ns it Is and in their true proportion prop and relation have born i and arc most part altogether 1 ox lous in of such A I 1 authority it remains accepted that taken as a whole tho fiction of a time fairly represents the life of that time A novel afo cither intentionally as in miss glistens work of rich ard sons in whom it Is particularly easy to distinguish the spontaneous representation from the attempted or indirectly as in controversial or romantic fiction by revealing through its subject style and modes of thought the temper of the day no single novel can be taken asa mirror of life it Is necessary to judge by the fiction of a time as a whole a task increasingly difficult each year for this purpose the best modern realistic novel Is as inadequate as any eingle historical or pseudo scientific romance la this bense hugh wynne Is as up to date as silas lapham parisian morals may not be judged by the best book of the best french novelist but it may be by the body of french fiction occasionally a ariter arises who has no discoverable timeliness it he Is not above mediocrity he perishes if as happens at long intervals he baa genius he Is independent of his age of the latter there is no more conspicuous example than poc it Is a sort of paradox that no matter what period a writer chooses as his field tho bettor he represents it the better he represents alsi own day charlca arcade not classed with the greatest novelists wrote the cloister and the hearth classed with the greatest novels and why because of its maracl ous fidelity to time and place it Is a fifteenth century tale which could only have been written in the nineteenth century margaret noblest sweetest woman perhaps in fiction Is impelled by a few strong fundamental motives gerard with more complexity of mind Is yet a fifteenth century man and not a modern arbitrarily set down years before ho was possible lovo of stories of hearing what has befallen other human beings was always strong in humanity but the history of fiction as we have it today is so brief that at a casual glance its appearance pe arance teems loss a development than a sudden phenomenon we are but years from the time of de foe called jhc thc father of modern fiction and the wonder arises how tho human race could have existed so long without or almost without what so quickly grew to be considered a necessity since the fiction of the past not only compels a certain intuitive belief but Is corroborated by history and archaeology chae since it is recognized as a mirro manner sand deeds may it not bo trusted adix mirror of morals the fiction of abo past was tor many ages small lu amount and only the best has survived banco judgment based upon it is i comparatively easy but to judge the present by the fiction of the present is a more complicated task there are many obstacles the overwhelming wh elming number of current novels the endless diversity tit theme and chiefly the impossibility of even tho wisest of critics deciding what of all this mass will narvye nir vye these difficulties make the work bewildering yet there are few questions more interesting te resting than these how far do tho edgar allan poe A genius independent of his agel novels of today represent life if true to facts does it follow that they arc true to tho significance of those facts As a beginning to somo suggestions for the study of how far the ethics of modern fiction agree with tho etulia of modern life let us in the next paper consider the novelists treatment of the lie which dr tells us Is the handle of th devils tools 1202 by lewla D of fiction by ANNE MACLEAN S II 11 the novelist and the lie must have seemed a simple LIFE affair in the old days when truth was a acro matter of expediency ency and a lie was shameful only if it failed such days there were for the heroes of myth and of early history make no pretense of veracity they tell any falsehood that suits their convenience and do it without impairment of their heroic standing in the eyes of themselves and others even in those times of spiritual case the he of cowardice and of malice was condemned but further than that no limitation was put upon inventive ingenuity and BO it was in mediaeval media eval fiction and almost up to our own period in the there is always a fascinating freedom from interferences of conscience many tales turn on a successful falsehood and close with ingenuous commendation of the cleverness of the achievement truth in tho abstract has been a favorite subject for cul lying in the concrete has been almost universally ver sally made use of by those same eulogists wo teach our children that truth Is the foundation of all virtue only to lead them into contusion when they come to abo reading of fiction for in fiction untruth is ignored justified even applauded nothing is ampre familiar in old fashioned stories than the lie which the recording angel blots with a tear but this lie usually an act of self lico to save another from shame or death la more comprehensible than the innumerable petty falsehoods with which fiction Is be sprinkled many of these are so unnecessary it Is BO difficult to understand why the truth or ifould not have edthe purpose that it would seem as if their inventors find in falsehood an artistic victoe hugo creter Cret gr of tha lie of sister simi allce in acs alon take for instance the girl with the headache how ubiquitous she is in life there es girls who will not feign illness simply because they need an excuse certainly a child guilty of euch fabrication would be punished but in novels the most exemplary heroine will feign a headache to avoid appearing at a weal or fulfilling some other social obligation i when sho sacrifices herself on iho family altar and loving one man mar rles another for whom clift has not even respect bhe never before the falseness of her solemn vow to love and honor jhc u later in her course of dramatic misfortune sho takes an name herself assaid br widow tureman available past her high integrity in the authors mind never sullied to the malo character a particular class of falsehood is permitted though to call a man a liar remains in fiction as in fact the most heinous of insults in the etiquette of lying he may not by on untruth save his own life but he amny make uso of one to conceal his movements his business private in english novels ats habit of invent ing an urgent telegram calling him away whenever circumstances suggest premature departure s so inveterate i that the reader wonders it english host esses do not suspect the genuineness of any telegram their guests claim to receive the hero not only caybut may but must lie to shield a comans womans reputation according to our general deduction that fiction as a truly represents life this attitude of novelists must mirror the attitude pathe public that it docs blits la evidenced by the gradual change in the novelists treatment of the question of veracity As an example consider the famous lie of sister in alps in the old days her lio would leave been n matter of coys yet see what victor hugo abo modern makes of it let iia dwell on 0 detail never to have eald for any advantage or even indifferently ferent ly a thins which was not the truth the holy was tho characteristic te feature of sister sho was almost celebrated itt the congregation for this imperturbable veracity however s luccaro and pure wo may be we all havo the brand of a little white lie ou our candor but she biad not can tharo bo such a thins as a lie nit innocent lie lying is the absolute alm a little Is not possible man who tho whole biej Is he face of the lend and hatan has two jamea satan and L trafla what thought and ebe practiced as eho thought sha took the name of through special choice of sicily our readers will member remember re is the saint who sooner let her bosom bo plucked out than say she was a native of segeste Se geste as she was born at syracuse tho nun Is in tho room the fugitive has concealed himself and the narrative goes on in bis ayea the officers n priest was a spirit that docs not deceive a nun a creature who does not lie this was that sister sim who had never told a falsehood in her life sister be asked are you alone in the rooer there waa a ter moment during which the old servant felt as it ho going to faint the sister raised her eyes and said yes ln that case javert continued 1 I beg your pardon for pressing you but richard le gallienne Gall lenne who with hewlett 13 classed as an unmoral writer my duty you have not seen this evening a person a man who has escaped and we are seeking that fellow of the name bave you seen him the sister anan cred no she had told two falsehoods one upon the other in rapid succession without hesitation Ss if devoting herself oh holy woman says te writer of this scene it Js many years since you were upon this earth you have rejoined in the light your sisters the virgins and your brothers the angels slay this falsehood be placed to your credit in paradise if there are degrees in lying sister achieved the highest degree she used her whole past record to intensify her one falsehood in that moment of deceit was spent the cumulative force of a lifetime of truth telling for javert would not have accepted the word of any one less famous for veracity yet observe the authors conclusion if then lying Is sometimes justifiable why have not writers of the courage to say so why preach i one thing and encourage their ideal personages in the practice of theop the fact Is that in lt Is not falsehood chichis chIs the absolute of evil but cowardice lying is peculiarly culi arly relative and few fiction writers have reached the spiritual viewpoint from which all lying Is cowardice the distinction honored by ieng usage seems to be this A lie Is wrong when it injures another or is the re suit 0 personal fear if it one it Is of no consequence it it another or enables th eteller to suffer in an others stead it Is praiseworthy but in this present time of close psychic investigation writers are more and more finding the lie a less simple thing to deal with for years there leave appeared at intervals short stories illustrative of the practical impossibility lity of a life of absolute truthfulness such stories express the mode nt determination to rest no longer content with the ancient and easy distinction of justifiable and falsehoods there are still many writers whose books are altogether unmoral like maurice hewlett and rich maurice hewlett si ard le Gall lenno into them no question of truth or falsehood enters but wo fed this to bo not the unconscious reflex ot the authors mind but an artistic attitude entirely modern in their treatment of thia subject brei very differently margaret acland abidi mary wilkins mrs presents her problem and leaves it for the readers solving with no more alian a sug gestson of her own idea miss has nothing finer than her record ti the struggles of stern souls who fall generally through their affections into deceit ISO by lewla D Sam panl |