Quite as
surely as romanticism lurked at the heart of realism, something
that we may call "psychologism" has been present in the
romanticism of the last four or five years, and has now begun to
evolve itself in examples which it is the pleasure as well as the
duty of criticism to deal with.
I.
No one in his day has done more to popularize the romanticism,
now decadent, than Mr. Gilbert Parker; and he made way for it at
its worst just because he was so much better than it was at its
worst, because he was a poet of undeniable quality, and because
he could bring to its intellectual squalor the graces and the
powers which charm, though they could not avail to save it from
final contempt. He saves himself in his latest novel, because,
though still so largely romanticistic, its prevalent effect is
psychologistic, which is the finer analogue of realistic, and
which gave realism whatever was vital in it, as now it gives
romanticism whatever will survive it. In "The Right of Way" Mr.
Parker is not in a world where mere determinism rules, where
there is nothing but the happening of things, and where this one
or that one is important or unimportant according as things are
happening to him or not, but has in himself no claim upon the
reader's attention.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25