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In the second place he made a new departure by his frankly admitted didacticism and by the skill with which in all but two or three of his books Bleak House, perhaps, and Little Dorrit he squared his purpose with his art. Lastly he made the discovery which has made him immortal.
Its didacticism lies so heavily upon it that it has nearly crushed its poetry like a stone on a flower. All poetry is true, but all truth is not poetry. When Burns treats a natural-history theme, as in his verses on the mouse and the daisy, and even on the louse, how much more there is in them than mere natural history!
Their stories are told without didacticism; the method displays at its brightest Mr Wells' intimate knowledge and understanding of the life and speech of the class portrayed; the developments are natural and absorbing enough to hold the interest of the most idle reader; and here and there, perhaps, an intelligent man or woman may be stirred to realise that he or she is in part responsible for the futility of a Hoopdriver or a Kipps, or for the jovial crimes of Mr Polly....
They are not quite free from the sentimentality and the didacticism which were both rampant in the novel of Miss Edgeworth's earlier time: but these are atoned for by a quite new use of the "national" element. Even Smollett and, following Smollett, Moore had chiefly availed themselves of this for its farcical or semi-farcical opportunities.
He is wholly free from any purpose to give ethical instruction; he is absolutely delivered from the temptation to didacticism; and yet he reveals to us the secret of the temperament and genius of his race. And he does this because he sees in his race the potentialities of the seed; the vitality, beauty, fragrance, and growth which lie enfolded in its tiny and unpromising substance.
But he lived in an era of general culture and æstheticism, and all his naturalistic tendencies were complicated with theory. He accepted the antique not merely as a stimulus, but as a model. He was not only a sculptor but a teacher, and the formulation of his didacticism complicated considerably the free exercise of his expression.
Still, it must be confessed that this attitude of the artist observer is broken in upon a little in the later novels, beginning with "Mansfield Park," by a growing tendency to moral on the time, a tendency that points ominously to didacticism. There is something of the difference in Jane Austen between early and late, that we shall afterwards meet in that other great woman novelist, George Eliot.
I envy you your escape to such a place." Lemuel opposed a cold silence to the lurking didacticism of these sentences, and Sewell hastened to add, "And I wish I could have had your experience in contrasting the country and the town, after your long sojourn here, on your first return home. Such a chance can come but once in a lifetime, and to very few."
Can it be denied that this man is all the better citizen for his ability to appreciate the wonderfulness of a sunrise? But while we extol and magnify the quality of appreciation, it is well to note that it cannot be superinduced by any imperial mandate nor does it spring into being at the behest of didacticism. It can be caught but not taught.
Schiller was evidently concerned to produce a pendant to the great scene in 'Nathan the Wise'. Saladin wants truth, Philip wants a man. Both the prophets prepare themselves for their ordeal in a brief soliloquy. Both monarchs get their wish, and a friendly relation ensues. Both scenes are purple patches of didacticism, the author preaching a sermon to his contemporaries.
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