NOVELISTS WITH A " MESSAGE "

Evening Post, Volume LXXXV, Issue 33, 8 February 1913, Page 13

NOVELISTS WITH A " MESSAGE "

It is one of the curiosities of human nature that most "messages" have to be made part of a 'story if they are to have any chance of being widely read ' (says a writer in the Sydney Mail), j Whether they have permanent effect in more than a few cases may be doubted. Lincoln, at any rate, thought that the author flf "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was the. "little woman who made this big war." In "Mrs. Humphrey Ward : Her Work and Influence," J. Stuart Walters claims that many slum reforms were due to references in certain of Mrs. Ward's novels; but it would appear even from citations in the book that the matter was ' very much to the fore in other ways. Early accused of being a novelist with a message, tho author of "Robert Els« mere," defiantly owned that sne was. Mrs. .Ward pointed out that the novel had been made to bear messages or anything else since the time of Cervantes, and that the only thing that could fairly be objected to was inadequate workmanship, causing the story to be badly told or weighed down to dullness. Tho author of the monograph essays to trace the influence of those of Mrs. Ward's books which have more distinctly had a j message, political, religious, social, or what not. Some of the later books ("Lady Rose's Daughter," "The Mar-, riage of William Ashe," "Feiiwick's' Career") have been less inclined that way. ;