as a vehicle and less limited in its uses, more various in subject and less trammelled in its mechanism, capable of everything that the drama (short of the stage) can do, and of infinitely more resource.
After pleading illness and arrears of literary work and correspondence in excuse of the brevity of his note, Mr. Collins says:
Besides, the expression of my opinion in regard to writers of fiction and their works will lose nothing by being briefly stated. After more than thirty years' study of the art, I consider Walter Scott to be the greatest of all novelists, and "The Antiquary" is, as I think, the most perfect of all novels.
Dear Sir: I think that my favorite novel is Dickens's "Tale of Two Cities." I will not trouble you with all my reasons for this preference. I may say, however, and I do so with humility, and merely as an individual expression of opinion, that it seems to me that in this great book Dickens touched his highest level. Of course, the greatness of the subject has something to do with the effect produced upon the mind, but in my view there is a dignity and an earnestness in the work which lift it above the rest. Also I think it one of the most enthralling stories in the language.
Dear Sir: You ask me to name my favorite novel, and if it should happen to be a work by a foreign author to mention my favorite English work of fiction also. I find it impossible to answer you. When I was a boy "The Last of the Mohicans" was my favorite novel; a young man and in love, "David Copperfield" became my favorite. When I grew to be a man "The Scarlet Letter" took the place of David and the North American Indian; but ever since I can remember I have always been reading "Monte Cristo" with unflagging delight. One's favorite book is a question of mood. Now and then one might be inclined to regard "Adam Bede" as the most companionable of fiction; there are other times when "Pickwick" appeals most to one's fancy, or when one is even in the humor for "L'Homme qui Rit." "Don Quixote" fits all moods, and there are moments when a page or two of "Clarissa" are to one's taste. But with Scott, Dickens, Thackeray, Hugo, Dumas, George Eliot, Hawthorne, Smollett, Balzac, Erckmann-Chatrian, Lytton, Lever, Ik Marvel, George Sand, Charles Reade, Turgeneff, and a host of other famous writers of fiction staring me in the face, don't ask me to say which of their works is my favorite novel.
Dear Sir: I hasten to acknowledge your letter. I do not think, however, that I can answer in a satisfactory manner. I am very little of a novel reader, and do not feel that my opinion on the subject of novels is therefore of critical value. Of the few novels I know (comparing my reading with that of the average Englishman or woman) I naturally prefer some; but to give you the titles of them – I think I should place first Tolstoï's "War and Peace" and Stendhal's "Chartreuse de Parme" – would not be giving your readers any valuable information, as I could not find leisure to explain why I prefer them.
Sir: Waiving the difficulty, if not the impossibility, of a complete and satisfactory answer to your question, I will come at once to the point. You ask me to name my favorite work of fiction, giving reasons for the preference. The interest of such a question will be found in the amount of naïve sincerity with which it is answered. I will therefore strive to be as naïvely sincere as possible.
Works of romance I must pass over, not because there are none that I appreciate and enjoy, but because I feel that my opinion of them would not be considered as interesting as my opinion of a work depicting life within the limits of practical life. The names of many works answering to this description occur to me, but in spirit and form they are too closely and intimately allied to my own work to allow me to select any one of them as my favorite novel. Looking away from them my thought fixes itself at once on Miss Austen. It therefore only remains for me to choose that one which appears to me to be the most characteristic of that lady's novels. Unhesitatingly I say "Emma."
The first words of praise I have for this matchless book is the oneness of the result desired and the result attained. Nature in producing a rose does not seem to work more perfectly and securely than Miss Austen did. This merit, and this merit I do not think any one will question, eternalizes the book. "L'Education Sentimentale," "The Mill on the Floss," "Vanity Fair," "Bleak House," I admire as much as any one; but I can tell how the work is done; I can trace every trick of workmanship. But analyse "Emma" as I will, I cannot tell how the perfect, the incomparable result is achieved. There is no story, there are no characters, there is no philosophy, there is nothing: and yet it is a chef-d'œuvre. I have said there are no characters; this demands a word of explanation. Miss Austen attempts only – and thereby she holds her unique position – the conventionalities of life. She presents to us man in his drawing-room skin: of the serpent that gnaws his vitals she cares nothing, and apparently knows nothing. The drawing-room skin is her sole aim. She never wavers. The slightest hesitation would be fatal; her system is built on a needle's point. We know that no such mild, virtuous people as her's ever existed or could exist; the picture is incomplete, but there lies the charm. The veil is wonderfully woven, figures move beneath it never fully revealed, and we derive pleasure from contemplating it because we recognize that it is the sham hypocritical veil that we see but feel not – the sham hypocritical world that we see is presented to us in all its gloss without a scratch on its admirable veneer. No writer except Jane Austen ever had the courage to so limit himself or herself. The strength and the weakness of art lies in its incompleteness, and no art was ever at once so complete and incomplete as Miss Austen's.
Every great writer invents a pattern, and the Jane Austen pattern is as perfect as it is inimitable. It stands alone. The pattern is a very slight one, but so is that of the rarest and most beautiful lace. And in all sincerity I say that I would sooner sign myself the author of "Emma" than of any novel in the English language – the novel I am now writing of course excepted.
Dear Sir: I have so many favorites – even in English-written fiction alone: I am very fond of good novels. I couldn't select one. Let me give you a few, only a few! The moment I have sent off this letter I shall be sure to repent some omissions. Fielding's "Joseph Andrews;" Scott's "Antiquary," "Guy Mannering," "Heart of Midlothian," and "St. Ronan's Well;" Dickens's "Pickwick," "Barnaby Rudge," and "Tale of Two Cities;" Thackeray's "Vanity Fair," "Pendennis," and "Esmond;" Charlotte Brontë's "Jane Eyre;" George Eliot's "Mill on the Floss;" Hawthorne's "Blithedale Romance;" and George Meredith's "Beauchamp's Career."
And I had nearly forgotten in my haste two great favorites of mine – Miss Austen's "Pride and Prejudice," and Gerald Griffin's "Collegians;" and, again, surely Hope's "Anastasius."
I had better stop.
Sir: Your question is an extremely difficult one to answer. One likes some novels for one kind of excellence, others for another, and the favorite – the absolute favorite – is apt to depend a little upon the good novel one has read most recently, and a great deal more upon one's mood.
I do not think that I could name any one novel, either English or foreign, as my first favorite; there are at least four of Turgeneff's, the bare memory of which moves me almost to tears; but I could not choose between "Liza," "Virgin Girl," "Fathers and Sons," and "Smoke;" and, of course, Tolstoï's "War and Peace" is a masterpiece which every one will name as a favorite (I give the titles in English, as I have read all these in translations only, French or English), and indeed I think I ought almost to name it as the favorite among foreign novels.
To turn to English masterpieces, there are parts of Fielding's "Amelia," which for tenderness, sweetness, and rendering of character and of home life I think finer than anything more modern; but other parts of the book are so unpleasant that I
