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But we demand that the conclusions shall follow from the premises, that the whole be consistent. We cannot tolerate miracle in a realistic novel or drama, or glaring inaccuracy of fact in a historical novel, because they are in contradiction to the laws of reality tacitly assumed. The final demand which we make of any work, of art is that it live.
The nomination of Franklin Pierce for the presidency was a piece of good fortune for Hawthorne such as the wildest expectation could never have imagined; and at length in his fiftieth year, with the consulate of Liverpool, he finally saw the wolves driven from his door. This realistic side of his life seems to have escaped the attention of his biographers.
"Art, you remember, in the end of the Victorian era had attempted to become realistic had attempted, that is, the absurdly impossible; and photography exposed the absurdity, For no man can be truly a realist, since it is literally impossible to paint or to describe all that the eye sees.
And as Bumpus had before hand written down all sorts of phrases used long ago on board the ships that sailed the seas in such white-winged flocks before the advent of steam gave them such a backset, he read these all out to his mates; and after that, whenever they could think of the nautical name for anything they insisted on using it, because, as Giraffe declared, it gave such a realistic effect to things.
Hence De Quincey was of the opinion that it injured Coleridge's poetic faculties; which probably was the case, since in genuine poetry the mind is prominently realistic, its motions are all outward, and therefore excessive indolence must of necessity be fatal. De Quincey's physical system, on the contrary, seemed preconformed to opium: it demanded it, and would be satisfied with nothing else.
But we must consider Dickens not merely as a friend, but as a novelist, and apply to his work the same standards of art which we apply to other writers; and when we do this we are sometimes a little disappointed. We must confess that his novels, while they contain many realistic details, seldom give the impression of reality.
Professor Murray writes of gregarious animals as though there existed solitary animals that are not gregarious, pure individualists, "atheists" so to speak, and as though this appeal to a life beyond one's own was not the universal disposition of living things. His classical training disposes him to a realistic exaggeration of individual difference.
As the ball progressed, and at the particular desire of those present, Mr. Boggs and Mr. Thompson entertained the company with that difficult and intricate dance known as the 'Mountain Lion Mazourka, accompanying their efforts with spirited vocalisms meant to imitate the defiant screams of a panther on its native hills. These cries, as well as the dance itself, were highly realistic, and Messrs.
And still the question remains: how much of this success is due to the playwright's skill or to the skill of the actors? How is it that in this play the actors obtain a fine result, act on a higher level, than in their realistic Sicilian tragedies? D'Annunzio is no doubt a better writer than Capuana or Verga, and his play is finer as literature than "Cavalleria Rusticana" or "Malia."
"Whatever there may be of truth in his story," she said, "one of two things is certain, either he has had most wonderful experiences out of which he may construct realistic novels which will give him fortune and reputation, or he has a startling imagination, which, if used in the production of works in the romantic school, will be of the same advantage to his future.
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