University of Santa Clara - Redwood Yearbook (Santa Clara, CA)

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THE REDWOOD 15 Reade, a slightly eccentric but very- powerful tale-teller, dabbling in all styles with nothing common-place in any of them and still not a masterpiece to his credit. Following him we have Mary Cross, known in literature as George Elliot, a truly great writer, though affected by the incriminating consequences of uncertainty of charac- ter, which seems to have attacked the novelist more than any other class. And to close this great century of prose fiction we have Robert Louis Stevenson, the supreme story teller of the period. His native humor, and im- agination, his hardly surpassed faculty of telling a story, his wit, and his com- mand of the pathetic and horrible, to- gether with his many attributes, make him a writer that will never be forgot- ten and although we are sorry that he is gone, still we may be thankful that he lived at all and only hope that the first, yea even all the novelists of the coming century, may be only half as great as the last of the nineteenth cen- tury.

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14 THE REDWOOD greatest difficulty seemed to have been overcome. Following in the footsteps of Walter Scott we find Miss Austin, not much his junior, achieving hardly less suc- cess in other lines of fiction, especially those which he touched least. The first and most striking characteristic of Miss Austin ' s novels was their de- parture from the usual romantic char- acter, offering something to the public of the mild and pleasing in the way of good natured raillery upon the Terror School. Others who, in the early decades of the century, followed in the immense field which Scott and Miss Austin op- ened up to them, were Miss Edgeworth, a woman with a fair knowledge of hu- manity, a sense of humor and at her best, a light and easy style. But partly because of the direct influence of her father, she was too apt to infuse into her works too much moralizing. She was absolutely destitute of the power of managing a plot, and even in a dia- logue, she would lapse from a brilliant to a dull style with a suddenness that is more than irritating. John Gait, writing about the third decade, was another to take advantage of the opportunities the novel afforded him, and although he cannot be classed as a Scott or an Austin, still his books and style, though local, were very pleasing, especially in their peculiar Scotch dialogue. Thus, it is seen that the first three decades of the century were marked with a very prosperous advance of the novel. However, there came ' a time, covering about the fourth decade, when it might have seemed, to the acute and well informed judge, that the progress of fiction would be ar- rested. The immense impetus given by Scott and Miss Austin appeared to have waned with themselevs. Few of the novelists mentioned above yvqtq writ- ing and one or two, especially Lever and Bulwer, had their best work to come in 1837. But between 1826 and 1837, not one of absolutely first class was writing. However, the novel, as all other fall- en idols, was not without its rescuers. There were at this very time, growing up, two of the greatest writers of Eng- lish prose fiction, Charles Dickens, and William Makepeace Thackeray, who were very nearly of an age. These two men, writing at a time when the novel was and had been for some time decid- edly on the wane, fostered it in such a t ender manner that soon it soared high, upon the wings of popular favor, never again to alight. Of the two, perhaps Dickens was the most successful in com- mercializing his efforts, and was with- out a doubt greeted with much more favor upon the production of his first writing. However he never much ex- celled his first distinct essay, while it was years before Thackeray gave his full measure. The more important writers of the later part of the century, dating from about 1860 to 1900 were, Charles

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Nott Bm (Hmm In the wastes of infinity boundless Beyond furthest bounds of the world Dwelt Chaos, own mother of Cosmos, And to earth these words she hurled: ' ' Long have I haunted these reaches, This wild, this weary wold, Seared by the hand of oblivion Chilled by nihillic cold; ' Forgotten am I by my offspring. Cosmos and Chronos senile, Till I ' ve wearied and fretted in silence And longed for the world the while. ' ' But my advent spells tears and terror And thunder and anarchy dire, And wreck and wrack and reeking rot And flaunt of fuming fire. And the joys of men it drives afar As the wind drives thistle-down. While sorrows flock in its dismal wake Like thieves to a thriving town. And my breath like the breeze of some wierd, wan wind, That rushes hot from hell. Shall fan to fury a people ' s thoughts. And hate in their hearts shall dwell. 16