Humphry Ward considers her Marcella a very fine
and estimable young woman. And I think it is just in this, that the
novel is not simply a fictitious record of conduct, but also a study and
judgment of conduct, and through that of the ideas that lead to conduct,
that the real and increasing value--or perhaps to avoid controversy I
had better say the real and increasing importance--of the novel and of
the novelist in modern life comes in.
It is no new discovery that the novel, like the drama, is a powerful
instrument of moral suggestion. This has been understood in England ever
since there has been such a thing as a novel in England. This has been
recognised equally by novelists, novel-readers, and the people who
wouldn't read novels under any condition whatever. Richardson wrote
deliberately for edification, and "Tom Jones" is a powerful and
effective appeal for a charitable, and even indulgent, attitude towards
loose-living men. But excepting Fielding and one or two other of those
partial exceptions that always occur in the case of critical
generalisations, there is a definable difference between the novel of
the past and what I may call the modern novel. It is a difference that
is reflected upon the novel from a difference in the general way of
thinking.
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