Trace in the novel the conceptions of humanity in Matthew Arnold's poem, "A wanderer is man from his birth"; in Pope's Essay on Man ; in Hamlet's "what a piece of work is man," etc.; in Amphibian, and many other poems of Browning.

There is scarcely a great novel that does not illustrate the conception, "man is the political animal.". - Biological ideas of man's place in

the universe of life are influential upon the naturalists.

The scope of a novel is great enough to represent a great variety of persistent human impulses. The single, lyric often records a transitory and exceptional exultation of soul or depression of physical vitality; a painting may express a passion for nature, a dream of the supernatural, or an æsthetic delight in human beauty, of a quality not to be called universal.

Contrast the lyrical, pictorial feeling, characteristic of Elizabethan poetry, in Lodge's lines,

"Her cheeks are like the blushing cloud

That beautifies Aurora's face,

Her lips are like two budded roses

Whom ranks of lilies neighbor nigh,"

with George Eliot's novelistic appeal to "all who love human faces best for what they tell of human experience."

The medium of expression in literature-languageis more inherently and profoundly human than that of any other art; and in some respects the special language of the novel is more human than that of other forms of literature.

159. The Influence of Nature. In a real if somewhat vague sense, the novel may be viewed as ultimately a product of natural forces; as one phase of the general mani

festation of life. One important critical application of this view is found in the idea of the évolution des genres. This idea partly guided Taine in his History of English Literature, and has since been clarified and developed.1 A few points respecting the comparison of the novel with a biological species may be noted:

(1) The biological phenomena of struggle for existence, survival of the fittest, hybrid forms, individual variation, etc., find easy analogies in the history of fiction. (2) Attempts at a scientific classification of fiction seem arbitrary, compared with the classifications of botany and zoology. In the novel there are few if any types with characteristics fixed and organic enough to determine a satisfactory classification of individual works. The difference between a hermit-thrush and a meadow-lark is stable, objective, and determines at once the systematic position of individual birds. The difference between a pastoral romance and a picaresque novel is distinct enough in theory, but there is no law forbidding a combination of both types in a single work. (3) The novel itself is not a form of life, and has reproductive power only through agencies totally unlike itself. (4) The processes of nature which fashion, modify, perpetuate, or destroy species are mainly unconscious. This law has a certain analogy in fiction, if one considers society; but the will of the individual artist is a most significant factor. Human agency may of course considerably modify natural species, within a limited area. (5) The entire evolution of the novel covers an insignificant period, compared with the duration of biological evolution. (6) The phenomena of local habitat have partial, but only partial, analogies in the field of fiction.

1 Its specific application to the novel is briefly discussed in Stoddard's introduction.

In national literatures and in single novels, the influence of external nature is often apparent. Individual languages are modified by climatic and topographical environment. Russian fiction seems influenced by the vastness of the plains; Scandinavian fiction by majesty of mountains and beauty of fiords; American fiction by primitive landscape and nerve-stimulating climate.

Mrs. Shelley was clearly moved by the scenery of Switzerland while composing Frankenstein. - Oscar Browning notes that the climate of England depressed George Eliot, and thinks she would have been happier if she had lived more abroad.—In the preface to Dombey and Son, Dickens gives this evidence of the intimate association of natural environment with the creative imagination: - "at this day. . . I yet confusedly imagine Captain Cuttle as secluding himself from Mrs. MacStinger among the mountains of Switzerland. Similarly, when I am reminded . . . of what it was that the waves were always saying, I wander in my fancy for a whole winter night about the streets of Paris... as I really did, with a heavy heart, on the night when my little friend and I parted company forever."

CHAPTER XI

THE INFLUENCE OF A NOVEL

160. Popularity of Fiction. Few extended discussions of fiction fail to emphasize the importance, from either the æsthetic or the ethical point of view, of its wide popularity. This popularity has been variously developed in different regions, has shifted from type to type, and has known periods of critical hostility; but on the whole, its endurance for centuries is a notable fact of literary history.

The conditions of the later nineteenth century need no illustration. The following are representative testimonies of an earlier period. — Defoe wrote in the preface of Moll Flanders, "The world is so taken up of late with Novels and Romances, that it will be hard for a private history to be taken for genuine." — In 1773, a writer in the Gentleman's Magazine speaks of "this novel-writing age." That magazine lists about 140 novels for the decade 1770–1780, 40 being noted for the single year 1771. — Miss Reeve wrote in 1785 of 'the press groaning beneath the weight of Novels,' so numerous that they had become a "public evil." — In 1810, an editor of Richardson declared, "those who are most important in the ranks of civilized life, read scarcely anything else" but novels.

Popularity does not necessarily mean a real and deep influence. Some critics believe that the novel reveals the existing mental condition of its readers, rather than alters it. Even if this were the complete truth, a study of the vogue of a novel would throw light on social attitude; but in many cases it seems that a novel is, for practical purposes, a new influence in society.

Coleridge declares that "all the evil achieved by Hobbes, and the whole School of Materialists will appear inconsiderable, if it be compared with the mischief effected and occasioned by the sentimental Philosophy of Sterne and his numerous imitators."1

161. The Data. - Bibliographical facts furnish a practical basis for the examination of the vogue of a novel. Comparison of critical opinions, imitations, parodies, dramatizations, etc., serves to indicate the effect upon different historical periods and social groups. Biographical documents record the reception of a novel by famous individuals. The private opinions of the common reader and his circle of acquaintance may be reviewed in a critical spirit, with allowance for the personal equation. These are all external data. After they are collected and examined, one may return to the novel itself, for a more careful study of the probable causes of influence.

For a merely statistical basis of comparison, it might be well to establish certain norms of circulation. The following data of editions and sales are illustrative.

Editions::- Silas Marner (1861), seventh, 1861; Adam Bede (1859), seventh, 1859, tenth, 1862; - Sidney's Arcadia (1590), ten in fifty years; - Soll und Haben (1855), fifty-fourth, 1901; - Frau Sorge (1887), fifty-fourth, 1900; — Ekkehard (1862), one-hundred and seventyseventh, 1900. Sales:- Adam Bede, 16,000 in 1859; — Soll und Haben, 100,000 by 1887; -in 1892, La Débâcle, 110,000; L'Assommoir, 124,000; Nana, 166,000; — Uncle Tom's Cabin (in book form, 1852), 1,000,000 in England, 150,000 in America, first year. "The sale of Uncle Tom's Cabin is the most marvelous literary phenomenon that the world has witnessed." (Senior.)

162. Time Distribution. The essential elements of appeal in a novel may be as old as human nature. Some of the elements of novelistic form- plot, fictitious dialogue, character grouping, etc.— are perhaps older than

1 Aids to Reflection; On Sensibility.