THE FIRST REALIST.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1497, 20 July 1912, Page 9

THE FIRST REALIST.

Miss' Austen U, in fact, the first instance in the- literni.uro of the century of the realistic.method .being applied to fiction. It was done .quite., instinctively, not with any idea of carrying out an artistic creed, but by the genius of a single mind, which .saw life so, and found spontaneously and in isolation a perfect expression of the principle. The wonderful thing is that it was done when the air was all full of romance. Scott with his prodigal power was writing great romances, and interspersing them with passages of frank realism; but all the structures of his books were romantic, and his main motives are generally almost epical in character. The realism of Scott is a kind of admirable by-play, an importation into his story of traits and types .which.ho.had' delightedly observed.'- Jlifs Austen has given nn admirably concise and modest .account of her- own methods.. ..She expressed no sort of rebellion against romantic methods. She' chose her own method simply because it was tho only method she felt capable of using and applying. ' The result is that all her characters and all' her plots are conceived ivith marvellous delicacy on an actual plane; no figure in her-books is ever consciously heroic, and the characters modify and affect each other's action and thought' exactly as the.r do upon (.he stage of life. The wonder is that, though she had many admirers, sl'.e had no ' imitators. Minds tised to romance not only demanded romance in fiction; but probably did not even discern that life was not romantic. And so from its very delicacy and fineness, from the subtle nnd charminghumnur which eieea all the. details ivith gold, -the beautiful perfection of her art ami] method was overlooked, and.the possibilities of Mich treatment neglected.— "North American Review."