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Ne i “lt Span MAb » a Naat ae "ett tA So ¥ ae * pe Cc ATTY | 34 , . te. ts wy Aide | a dee lad wh WU PMnHAG Naar Jt 2 eager fs Kis : ae 7 : Wh belt t ~ ‘ypenanar nt he A Alal avaeen ne aaa oe ell Se hae | 1A 1 * "2G y * ange ow ANC ANA’ ‘Yidu eeervge® yr ar iad he Y fe PETE v nad 1 Up : we Nl Pal NNiy Na, MAS 4 v @! "N\A? a ‘A - agape | nanny Nia PO Re FG 7 ha ity (fei wall “rtnnpttrt war g Ane Bibs AK annt WBN re euro tll un ft HELE e@ePres ~ Bel Pdi OY el eal OT eR TEE Epa La Wenn! bathe af ‘virin ogg Me Gacy Be aes ra Ieptentaeninrniayen te Wares ! Adsn- os ia bu ba ica MSY ‘yy, age 77 RAS S otaiale ee eee oo ina Glailaicd ee ] ‘ of A) Li AK MAJ eg tan | asgad Vy | : ore Willa ttre Wan. 4 eee. Je fala | USrin. se LY ~~ ww 1oud, 7 ys". Dene er | LP A eee. : , 2 ee ~ mat j wish bbe poe W\. Wag rt aif yee esee NTA gfiftt ag ! AJ rd ~ ¥ Vey S ~ ae oe Nw \ TU SAU al ] APT ieee WA aie ly HER ere Le ~~ OE ATO de ita NARA | Sg amram. OY RY Is pS ” Se | d ¥ AR A rz , = an = wis = hia ! wv ®& alr ‘~ ty ' : oY oVge? PES a ERRER SE. Or Oy! ‘we 2 4 = yy a aS é Baal | Irma sere ~"ah 27? a Beery LA hh : Serres hls ea See Wines: i vod Ms 4q reat 7 VUE \eeaae TT ann pian” rel reeled gthatd NAPA RB TeT sr age v sft 44. mses SPE e Sy i Siv..: LF Min, = ww "* vi AS mr sa AAAs; Javyge » warasanns Ty Sernales tes, wUy ym of wt Oe NS vs Vr vn one een Cabot LIL. SNe coterie ts oa ae BAND °F OSS ahh, Polska Lake TS “ wh’ Pon er Waste wt : e. = . Be Ary e % an. : te : & ee ; hears vimana wee? Te: wre TAS neg Arron w& , Ae”, - a0 (eu, “$d tiveygjy & we ul WAAR PS rire Age <*. | of . b AA Awe : Te et Ges MATC AY “i. Pe: 1p WSR, sue | TENANT Te geese GED rrr ee Tie PG e* a a Nerd @ 1g TAA ; ys “Se, “er, “res € rT Talal ainda le [aN Tate Sat @ ceaee peel te | create! PN hl) < oo ONUI Pan “Ag qill ONS Z nf ‘6 , EE bab be be |, 4 ‘ “yas BAC ue Nits A pA Pd || || feu Ste eee rte PRAT ALSS try T “s Won ts NARAIS Abate iwiry 3 Vall Wee t = ‘an #~ ~ 3 | 4 © AS Y gdh a0dvensev" * y als , Pula } Vw Phd Nw os S| : : ( (Vy¥ PRE tw! nd Ty] eT TT Me WA HA ee. 4 aA nf Ww ie Sh) hs Yny J We ha «nares were be bialal aleld ad = aa 4 “ow ri aN Le wi eo a Atcted chat Te - : pe Uae . ¥ gid eg AY ae | “dv: ME Reba de t Wy herress.. IMPS. " rq 164_ ‘whe y | Lae 4 t=» - ae bee oh a, . wicarnenay AAO LTE rt re ve vir Prey’ hh ear cg Ut TTT] ROUT DCRR PST ain apy i « \~ en wyer F ~- w NAA A wl Stand el Ee TTD nxn eeveerenens rehani esa UU SU ener, | baimenees || ODA IL RNP at OO Lia ple” OS well qe oe’ ot Ve | Minow e fete wore y Spee AL NAS rail a LR NAG PUL UNA TRI tea eine limo wa’ Why tks snl “th. wal’ At {1 uy? te, ee! wy x Onn , * 4 "Oey © ly i 2 : ; Ne bd a -7" 7. abe eh Pe wren he £. gat . ave ] the: amet “ 4?! e We ‘See 5 vem ee Dyctead en tar el eott- hhiy “pa ame i ft : Dey yant Un: nt. ye, ma it ee N@eeagees | sve lob ne ibe gre + ° peery fe pte a ime z 44). ND ways OTT yan {tite ¥ ™ + tna Lyte ware Vetere gh cave ( ogi ' h | ty 40 Waa a ees es . ey ae ade f mrt yr | > Tmt ee ATL Te | \ frie = SL Berl Mm pate ert ( ecguag ert ee erren ye ee eee ae en wa BY _—_ pat Miva MUSEUM OF THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION. PUBLIC LIBRARY BUILDING. ie - FP LP | A. Wm. Craigie, M. Wm. Craigie. M. Wm. Craigie, M. Wm. Craigie, M. Wm. Craigie, M. [. B. McQuesten, M A. B. McQuesten, M. A. Geo. Dickson, M.A. I. Geo. Dickson, M.A. Geo. Dickson, M.A. Geo. Dickson, M.A. A. Robinson, M. D. Wm. Kennedy Wm. Kennedy..... A. Alexander A. Alexander...... . Alexander Eee S ioc: . Alexander It Ss Se . Alexander jas Ss Se. . Alexander it, Ss Se: Alexander BS So Se A.W. Stratton, B A. -|C. R. McCullough . secre ce . Crawford... . lee ec Q . Crawford.... Richard Bull....... Richard Bull....... A. Macallum, M. A. Richard) Bull... 4. Richaraebulleaeeeseee Richard) Bulla... Richard) Bull... ..- Richard Bull...... Richard Bull....... Richard Bull....... Richards Bull ae Richard Bull...... Richard Bull....... Richard Bull....... Richarde Bullen: Richard Bull LIBR. AND CUR. . Mcllwraith. . . MclIlwraith.. . MclIlwraith.. - Mcllwraith. . . McIlwraith.. . MclIlwraith. . A. T. Freed.... W. H. Ballard, M. A. W. H. Ballard, M. A. W. H. Ballard, M. A. Wm. Turnbull. . A. Gaviller. A. Gaviller. A. Gaviller. A. Gaviller. . Gaviller. . Gaviller. Gaviller and . M. Leslie. Gaviller and . M. Leslie. ar>a> Pp PS MEMBERS Of. CogNnGls 1857—Judge Logie; George Lowe Reid, C. E.; A. Baird; C. Freeland. 1858—Judge Logie ; C. Freeland ; Rev. W. Inglis, D. D.; Adam Brown ; C. Robb. 1859—Rev. D. Inglis, D. D:; Adam Brown; Judge Logie; C. Freeland ; Richard Bull. 1860—J. B. Hurlburt, M.A., LL.D. ; C. Freeland ; Judge Logie ; Richard Bull ; Wm. Boultbee ; Dr. Laing. 1871—Geo. Lowe Reid, C. E.; Rev. W. P. Wright, M. A.; A. Macallum, M.A.; A. Strange, M. D.; Rev. A. B. Simpson. 1872—Judge Proudfoot ; Rev. W. P. Wright, M.A.; John Seath, Mia Aloe JEL JD), Cameron A, WU, Ines. 1873—Judge Logie; T. McIlwraith ; Rev. W. P. Wright, M. A. ; A. Alexander ; I. B. McQuesten, M. A. 1874—Judge Logie ; T. Mcllwraith ; Rev. W. P. Wright, M. A. ; A. Alexander ; I. B. McQuesten, M. A. 1875—Judge Logie ; T. McIlwraith; Rev. W. P. Wright, M. A. ; A. Alexander ; I. B. McQuesten, M. A. 1880—M. Leggat; I. B. McQuesten, M. A.; A. Alexander ; IRE, NG TeibaAIS Wile N53 ILL. IB), 1D). JD), 1881—T. Mellwraith ; H. B. Witton; A. T. Freed; Rev. W. P. Wright, M. A.; A. F. Forbes. 1362— 5 Mellwraith); EleBeeeVVAtton AG) shinee je Awe Forbes ; Rev: C. H. Mockridge, M. A., D. D. 1883—A. Alexander; A. Gaviller ; A. F. Forbes ; T. McIlwraith ; R. Hinchcliffe. 1884—A. Gaviller; A. F. Forbes; T. MclIlwraith ; R. Hinch- cliffe ; W. A. Robinson. 1885—W. A. Robinson; S. Briggs; G. M. Barton; J. Alston Moifiat; A. F. Forbes: ~~. 1886—J. Alston Moffat; Samuel Slater; Wm. Milne; James eshte MAD tC saChittendent 1887—J. Alston Moffat; James Leslie, M. D.; P. L. Scriven ; Wm. Milne; C. S. Chittenden. 1888—J. Alston Moffat ; B E. Charlton; T. W. Reynolds, M.D. ; S. J. Ireland ; Wm. Kennedy. 1889—T. W. Reynolds, M. D.; S. J. Ireland ; William Turnbull ; A. W. Hanham ; Lieut.-Col. Grant. 1890—Col. Grant; A. W, Hanham; W. A. Robinson; A. E. Walker ; Thomas Morris, Jr. 1891—Col. Grant; W. A. Robinson; J. F. McLaughlin, B. A. ; T. W. Reynolds, M. D. ; Wm. Turnbull. 1892-——T. W. Reynolds, M. D. ; W. A. Robinson; P. L. Scriven ; Wm. Turnbull ; Wm. White. ABSTRACT OF MINUTES OF THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE Hamilton Association DURING THE SESSION OF 1392-93. THURSDAY, OCTOBER i18th, 1892. SPECIAL MEETING. The President, Mr. A. Alexander, in taking the chair, stated that it was not his intention to deliver an inaugural address, but would reserve it for some future occasion. The custom adopted a year ago of inviting those interested in the work of the Association to attend the first meeting of the session was repeated, and there were present this evening nearly two hundred ladies and gentlemen. Biological, geological, botanical and photo- graphic specimens were on exhibition ; experiments in electricity were made ; pneumatic and microscopic instruments were operated ; and a musical programme was presented through the courtesy of Mr. J. E. P. Aldous, B.A. During the evening the President explained the aims and work of the Association. Seven applications for membership were received. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 27th, 1892. SPECIAL MEETING. The President in the chair. The Secretary reported the annual field day held at Grimsby. W. McD. Logan, B. A., Stuart Livingston, LL. B., W. J. Sykes, B. A., Miss Kate G. Swanzy, C. J. McKinley, Miss F. L. Davis and Geo. Rutherford, were elected ordinary members. Mr. W. Sanford Evans was then called upon to read the paper of the evening, entitled ‘‘ The Possibilities of Fiction.” The lecturer 8 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS. urged that the underlying principles of fiction must be understood before a right criticism could be possible, and that the time had come when novels should be treated scientifically. | Novels, it was claimed, were for more than mere pleasure, excitement and relaxation —they were a means of instruction through which to learn more of life. The work of fiction true to human nature preached in particular that which had been preached in general. The writings of George Eliot were considered by Mr. Evans to be the nearest approach to the ideal he had formed. A discussion followed. The President announced that no meeting of the Association would be held on November roth, that date having been set apart as Thanksgiving Day. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 24th, 1892. SPECIAL MEETING. The President in the chair. The Corresponding Secretary announced the receipt of a num- ber of exchanges from learned societies. The Curator reported donations to the Museum. Two applica- tions for membership were received. A paper on “The Zone Life of Ferns,” contributed by Prof. Wright, Los Angeles, California, was read by the President. A discussion followed. The Secretary then read the “ Biological Notes” of Mr. Wm. Yates, of Hatchley, Ont. A discussion took place afterwards. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 8th, 1892. REGULAR MEETING. The President in the chair. The addition of a number of specimens to the Museum was announced. A paper on “Southern California,” contributed by the Rev. Wm. Ormiston, D. D., LL. D., Azusa, California, was then read by | the Secretary. The paper dealt with the early history of the state, its products and resources. A discussion followed. A second paper, “‘A Revised Spelling,” was then read by Mr. James Ferres. The essayist dealt with the question of spelling THE HAMILTCN ASSOCIATION. & 9 reform, giving numerous examples of anomalies in English ortho- graphy. Charts were exhibited by which it was shown that a re- vision of our spelling might readily be made. A discussion followed. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 22nd, 1892. SPECIAL MEETING. _Mr. A. T. Neill, Vice-President, in the chair. After the transaction of business, Mr. H. B. Witton was called upon to read his paper on “ Ballads, and Ballad Literature.” The essayist dealt with the history and composition of the ballad, and gave a number of English and foreign selections. On the con- clusion of the paper a discussion took place. THURSDAY, JANUARY 12th, 1898. REGULAR MEETING. The President in the chair. There being no other business, the President read a paper on “The Flora of the Niagara Peninsula, West of Hamilton,” contributed by Prof. John Macoun, M. A., of Ottawa. The main object of the essay was to direct the attention of botanists to the desirability of thoroughly exploring the locality in which they reside, so\ that the gaps at present existing in our botanical knowledge might be filled in. A discussion followed. THURSDAY, JANUARY 26th, 1893. SPECIAL MEETING. The President in the chair. The Curator announced an addition to the Museum. After the transaction of business, Mr. S. B. Sinclair, B. A., was called upon to read his paper, entitled “‘The Golden Mean in Wealth.” After stating the views of Aristotle, that virtue is a means between two extremes of error, the essayist went on to show how the people of England had by legislation curtailed and finally over- come the tyranny of an absolute monarchy. It was then pointed out that the accumulation of enormous wealth by individuals led to absolutism in the financial world. It was held that there should be a curtailment of this absolutism through legislation. A general discussion followed. 1 Ke) JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS. THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 9th, 1893. REGULAR MEETING. The President in the chair. Two applications for membership were received. The Photographic Section then gave a lime-light entertainment. The majority of the views shown were photographed, and prepared for the lantern, by the members of the section. THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 23rd, 1893. SPECIAL MEETING. The President in the chair. Mrs. M. Davidson and Mr. John Pottenger were elected ordinary members of the Association. Mr. R. T. Lancefield then read a paper entitled ‘‘ Studies in _ Sociology.” A general discussion followed. THURSDAY, MARCH 9Qth, 18938. GENERAL MEETING. The President in the chair. The Curator announced a contribution to the Museum. Mr. L. Woolverton, M. A., of Grimsby, was called upon to read a paper entitled “Fungi Affecting Fruit.” The essayist pointed out that science is aiding in no slight degree the cause of agriculture, and that of late scientists had given its practical side more attention than ever before. A number of the insect enemies of fruit were exhibited, drawings were shown, and formule given to destroy pomo- logical pests. On the conclusion of his paper the lecturer answered a number of questions. Mr. H. B. Witton moved, and Mr. M. Leggat seconded a resolu- tion of condolence with the widow and family of the late Richard Bull, Esq., for a period of fifteen years Treasurer of the Association. The meeting was then adjourned as a mark of respect to the memory of Mr. Bull. THURSDAY, APRIL 18th, 18938. REGULAR MEETING. The President in the Chair. It was announced that the Annual Field-day of the Association would be held at the Albion Mills, on Saturday, June 24th. THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION. TEU The President reported that the Council had appointed Mr. H. B. Small, Corresponding Member of the Association, representa- tive at the forthcoming meeting of the Royal Society of Canada, to be held in the City of Ottawa. The Curator announced the receipt of a donation to the Museum. Dr. T. W. Reynolds then read a paper entitled “Fads.” In it the reader recommended the collecting and arranging of scientific and other curiosities. A discussion followed. THURSDAY, MAY 11th, 1893. REGULAR MEETING. The President in the chair. The application for membership of Mr. Arthur E. Mason was received. On motion, the rule requiring that applications for mem- bership be voted on at the following regular meeting, was suspended. Mr. Mason was elected an ordinary member of the Association. The annual meeting was then held. The following reports were read: % Report of the Council, by the Secretary. s ‘“‘ Treasurer, by C. R. McCullough. Y ‘“‘ Biological Section, by H. S. Moore. a ‘“‘ Philological Section, by W. H. Elliott, Ph. B. is ** Geological Section, by A. T. Neill. oe ‘‘ Philosophical Section, by S. A. Morgan, B. A. . ‘“‘ Photographic Section, by Wm. White. Corresponding Secretary, by Thos. Morris, Jr. The following office-bearers for the ensuing year were elected : resident: aie Al exanclerm iio SCs ( LON.) First Vice-President, - A. T. Neill. Second Vice-President, - TT. W. Reynolds, M.D. Corresponding Secretary, - W. McG. Logan, B. A. Recording Secretary, - C. R. McCullough. direasurer, 49-1 - - - Thos. Morris, Jr. Curator, - - - - Alex. Gaviller. Asst. Secretary and Curator, Walter Chapman. Council: James Ferres, A. E. Walker, P. L. Scriven, William White, W. H. Elliott, Ph. B. 12 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS. THE POSSIBILITIES OF FICTION. Read before the Hamilton Association, October 27th, 1892. BY W. SANFORD EVANS. I have chosen “‘ The Possibilities of Fiction” as the title of the paper I have prepared for this evening. My paper consists of a few thoughts on some of the principles underlying fiction. I have not attempted the criticism of particular works, but have attempted rather to present certain general aspects which it seems to me must be understood and decided upon before there can be such a thing as intelligent criticism or appreciation. The study of these general principles and general aspects will make clear to us what is greatest and most beneficial in novel-writing, or, in other words, will make clear the possibilities of fiction: hence my title. The world to-day has no universally accepted standard by their conformity with which we can finally adjudge the relative greatness of authors or of individual works. There is no reason from the nature of the case why such a standard could not be formed, but it is very evident that this standard must be based on the possibilities of fiction, and that these possibilities can be discovered only after careful and scientific investigation of the principles involved. My desire for personal satisfaction on this subject has led me to devote some study to it. To present even the few results I have already attained, in the short time at my disposal, is not possible, . and so my treatment must necessarily be incomplete. My only ob- ject will be to offer some general thoughts in the hope that they may prove suggestive. There came a time in the history of my reading of works of fiction when I paused to ask myself why I read them. I hada ~ preference for certain works and for certain authors, and I paused to ask myself the reason for my preference. There were periods, even of serious enquiry, when, of all the sources I knew, I turned to fiction to seek something to satisfy the undefined questioning that agitated me; and I paused to ask myself if it might not be, if it were not true, that in the novel there can be expressed better than THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION. 13 in any other way some of the truths about life that it is most im- portant for us to know. Since that time the novel, in its potentiali- ties at least, has been something more to me than a means of pastime. The more I have thought upon the subject the more I have been convinced that the novel holds possibilities of power and influence that make it no unworthy medium for the greatest thinkers of anage. The novel is great. The time has gone by when novels as a Class are to be forbidden, or even questionable, reading, and the time has come when they should be treated scientifically. The modern novel is not a toy; it is something instinct with modern research and modern thought, it is something that gains a readier and wider access to us men and women and exercises a more subtle and potent influence over us than any other kind of literature. Tell me what kind of novels a man reads and I will tell you how to sway him. I have thought that the most satisfactory form in which I could put what I have to say would be by proposing and answering some of the questions that naturally arise. These questions are : 1st. Why are novels written ? 2nd. Why are they read? © 3rd. What place do they fill? 4th. What is the greatest and most beneficial kind of novel ? To give full answers to these questions would require many lectures, and so, as I have already said, my treatment must neces- sarily be rather suggestive than complete. In the first place, then, Why do we write a novel? What is a novel from the author’s standpoint ? An answer to this is sometimes given by saying that “‘the object of the novel is to give pleasure;” that is, the novel is written to give pleasure to the reader, but surely such an answer is altogether superficial. No high art can be explain- ed by it. Can we think for a moment, without its cheapening our estimate of all great artistic work, that George Eliot, while elaborat- ing with such earnestness, sympathy and skill, the development of her characters and plot, was actuated solely by the desire of giving pleasure to others? Can we think it of Thackeray as he gives us the ‘history and fortunes of Becky Sharp? Can we think it of Victor Hugo while under the creative inspiration that has given us the pas- sion and the pathos of Les Miserables? Can we think it of Shelley, 14 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS. as we are spell-bound by his beautiful verse, any more than we can think that the little skylark about which he wrote: ‘‘ That from heaven or near it, Poureth its full heart In profuse strains of unpremeditated art,” sang only to please the poet who gazed after it and cried, ““Teach me half the gladness That thy brain must know, Such harmonious madness From my lips would flow The world should listen then as I am listening now”? No; I cannot believe that artistic production of any kind can be explained by referring it to a desire to give either pleasure or in- struction to our fellowmen. Art is not something done for the sake of its effects on others ; it is something natural, we might almost say instinctive ; and so we must look deeper for the explanation, we must find it in some fundamental psychological fact. That psy- chological fact is, that every perfected thought tends to express itself in some concrete form, either in imagination, or outwardly, in matter. It is in the highest degree necessary, in this connection, that we should have a correct understanding of what imagination really is. It isa mistaken idea that imagination is identical in meaning with the fantastic or the exaggerated. It is true that in popular usage it often has such a meaning, and this is particularly true of the conjugate adjective ‘imaginary.’ To say that a work is a work of imagination is taken as predicating of that work a certain quality of unreality and unnaturalness ; and the word seems nearly always to hold for us more or less of such signification. To confine the word imagination to this meaning is to mistake the true nature of the faculty ; it is.to define a generic word by a specific example. Imagination is the faculty exercised in Dante’s Inferno, but it is also the faculty exercised by the scientist when he represents to himself the motions of the atoms and ultimates in a molecule of matter. It is the faculty by which the mechanic sees, before he has shaped a bit of material or has put a line to paper, in fullness of proportion and intricacy of detail, his wonderful invention. It is the faculty that is used every day in the most strictly scientific and in the most prosaic affairs of life, as well as in the wildest flights of the poets. What isimagination? Itis image-making power. When we imagine THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION. 15 we make an image. It may be an image of plain fact or it may be an image of fairyland. What determines the kind of image we have is the abstract conception that lies back of it. If I understand all that is known of matter and the laws of its motions, I will have little difficulty in imagining atoms and their modes of motion, though no one has ever seen an atom. If I understand the laws of machinery I will have little difficulty in imagining a practicable machine that may be unlike any other in existence. According as my conceptions are complete so will my image be definite. This transition from con- ception to image is constantly made. Our conceptions are ever passing into images, and on the other hand the images presented to us are constantly being rationalized into abstract conceptions. These are two of the principal processes of mind; they are not separated in experience, but flow into one another. I hold, then, that imagination is simply image-making, that we make images of our abstract conceptions; and that the distinct- ness of the image depends on the completeness of the conception. This image-making is a natural process. In this natural psycholog- ical process we find the source of art. Every perfected thought tends to express itself in someconcrete form, first in imagination, and then afterwards, at our discretion, in a more permanent form in matter. This expression in matter, provided the conception of which it is the expression be of a certain kind, is a work of art. ‘The ultimate basis of criticism of a work of art is the conception of the principles of the subject in the mind of the artist, and will not be found in anything that may be called imagination. I would like to emphasize this as I shall return to it again. If the perfected conception in the mind of the artist be a concep- tion of the ideal in the female form, we will have the Venus of Milo as its expression. If that perfected conception be one of French peasants with heads bowed, while, ‘‘ with sound stupendous, throb- bing,” there “tolls the great passing bell that calls to prayer for souls departed,” we will have “The Angelus” as its expression. If that cenception be of the quality we call poetic, it will express itself in poetry. If that perfected conception be one of human life we will have a novel or a drama. Lord Lytton says “What Nature is to God, Art should be to man.” Art is man’s creation, it is the materializing of what he _knows, in the same way that this universe is the visible and tangible 16 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS. expression of some universe that God knows. Indeed are we not most god-like when we have reached that point in the fullness of our de- velopment where our thoughts are complete enough to take on a material form and stand alone. If anything further be needed in support of my position that the explanation of artistic production is to be found, not in a wish to please or-instruct, but in a fact of our natural constitutions, I will only ask whether the passionate devotedness to their life-work, their absorption and joy in their work as work, of those men and women whom the world has called great artists, does not demand an ex- planation in something other than their desire to tickle the eesthetic sensibilities of mankind. It is very true that the desire to give pleasure, as well as many other desires, may enter as elements in the production of many works of art, but they in themselves can never account for any of these. If the opinion of art here outlined be correct, the novelist will be one whose conception of human life finds expression in the portrayal by words of acting and mutually inter-acting men and women. Words are the material ofthis artist ; that with which he wishes to express his conception of human life. From his knowledge of the principles or the customary processes of human nature he con- structs in imagination individual men and women, and then presents them to us as naturally as can be done through the medium of words. Andhe does this because in the inscrutable counsels before the world was made it was decreed that it should be natural for man to try to express every completed conception in some material form. This is what a novel is, and this why we write one. We have thus far looked at the novel from the author’s stand- point, let us now look at it from the reader’s, and ask: znd, Why do we read one? I shall not give an exhaustive list of reasons, for I suspect that such a list would be almost co-extensive with the lists of temperaments and moods, but I will give the principal reasons that have occurred to me. We read a novel : Ist. For pleasure. The reading of many novels is an unal- loyed pleasure and there are many times when we pick out this kind of novel and read it for the mere feeling which it excites. We never attempt to analyze the story or search for any significance—we merely enjoy it. THE HAMILTCN ASSOCIATION. 17 2nd. We read a novel for excitement. In this case we select sensaticnal works and read them for the sort of intoxication they induce. This motive for reading is very common and is liable to lead to the same kind of intemperance that the desire for stimulants of any other kind may lead to, and to carry this analogy a step farther, these novels mav have a proper place as medicine. ; 3rd. We read novels for relaxation from study or care. ‘This is quite distinct in its motive from the two reasons mentioned above. When the mind is tired and tense from work, we often desire, and it is at times almost necessary, that we should have something to divert us and relieve the strain. We seek and find this something in the novel. The novel-reading of the great majority is explained by the above three reasons, but there is a fourth which is most important of all, namely : 4th. We read a novel to find out more about life, or for instruction. It may be objected that the novel is not read for this purpose, but I reply that from personal experience, as well as from the experience of others, I know that itis so read. In fact, do not a great proportion of modern novels appeal directly to this class of readers, because in them are propounded new religious, social, and philosophical theories? They are written on the supposition that there are those who will read them thoughtfully and critically. It may be objected, nevertheless, that to make a text book of a novel is to put it to a use for which it was never intended. I ask for what use it was intended? I have already dealt with the opinion that the object of the novelis to give pleasure, and shown in contra- distinction that the object of a novel is to give expression to a con- ception of life. And is not a conception of life, or any phase or experience of it, as worthy of study as a conception of nebule, or material elements, or anything else? Is it not, indeed, more worthy of study, inasmuch as how we live is of more importance than what we know? It seems to me _ that the reading of a good novel is only begun when we have followed the story ; it is completed only when we have discovered the conception the author must have had of the phases or principles of life presented, and when we have stored these thoughts up in a form for practical use. ‘This is true novel-reading. We study many classic dramas in this way, comparing part with part, yet the novel holds greater 18 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS. possibilities than the drama. This paper is merely afew thoughts upon the novel that is most worthy of such a reading. The third question is :— 3rd. What place does the novel fill? Philosophy finds its proper expression in a strictly accurate treatise ; logic, in the syllogism ; geometry, in hypothesis and demonstration ; dreams and flights of fancy, in poetry. Is there anything that finds its most effective presentation in the novel? Is there anything left undone until the novel does it? Is there any work the novel can do better than any other kind of literature ?_ I think there is. (1). It is the best means of extending our experience and know- ledge of life beyond the bounds of our personal lot. No matter how far we may have advanced in self-knowledge, and how skilful we may be in studying the life around us, it must happen, from the neces- sarily narrow range of an individual, that we will not come in con- tact with a great many important facts in life, or that we will meet with isolated facts which we cannot rightly understand because we cannot compare them with others of the same kind. A novel can best supply what we lack because it is the best form in which others can put their experience and observation of life. As growing out of this use of it: (2). It is a more effective way than any other of extending our sympathy with our fellowmen. ‘The reason for the lack of sym- pathy that is seen between class and class, between rich and poor, between employer and employed, for example, is found in the fact that we do see people as we see ourselves. We often hear quoted : ‘‘Oh ! Wad some power the giftie gie us To see oursels as ithers see us.” IT would like to transpose this and make of it a prayer that would give utterance to an even more deeply-seated need : “Oh! Wad some power the giftie gie us To see each other as we see ourselves, ’Twould from mony an evil free us, And foolish notion.” If the employed could recognize that his master’s life is just as full as his own of anxious care, and thought, and hope, and dis- appointment ; if the employer could recognize that his servant has essentially his feelings and needs, there could not but grow up an ever-strengthening bond of sympathy between them. The work of creating this sympathy cannot be done by quoting statistics or by THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION. 19 general statements. We read in our papers every day statistics of dis- asters, for example, of mining disasters, giving the number killed and an inventory of the loss, and we are comparatively unaffected, if, up to that time, we have had no bereavement in our own experience. But hand that same paper to one who has passed through such a scene as that recorded, and even the barest figures will make him shudder. In order to interpret statistics and general statements we must have a sympathy already in existence founded on our past experience. If we have not this we must have the scene presented to us with such vividness that we will live through it in fictitious experience. So in the case of the rich man and the poor man. It may accom- plish little or nothing to present the one class with general state- ments about the other; what is needed to arouse sympathy and un- derstanding is that a life be presented in the concrete, and it seems to me that this can be done more effectively in a novel than any other way, even than by introducing a living person or by visit- ing one in his home and _ surroundings, because then we see only the outward which shows the difference, and do not see the inner life of thought and feeling which shows the _brother- hood. In the novel, and in the novel only, can be shown at the same time both the outward and inward life, and this not by abstractions but in the form of a fellowman. We see that he is influenced by the same motives that are powerful with us; we discover our common humanity, and we discover that our humanity is common ; and, as one writer says, “‘more is done toward linking the higher classes with the lower, toward obliterating the vulgarity of exclusiveness, than by hundreds of sermons and philofophical dissertations.” In the work, then, of extending an understanding and sympathy between class and class, and between man and man, there is no instrument that can be more effective than the novel. (3). The novel is incomparably the best means of presenting a great deal that is essential to our development. As preliminary to the discussion of this point I would like to ask the question : What is the greatest in life? What is the summum bonum, the ethical end of life? We find this question has been mooted in all ages and that philosophical schools still divide upon it ; but the highest and truest philosophy answers the question in one word— self-vealization. What is the ethical end of life, the swmmum bonum, 20 ; JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS. the highest good ? It is to develop into actuality all the possibilities of our natures. The highest in life means the highest in every thought and action, the purest in every motive and feeling. To attain this three things are necessary : (a) We must know where we stand now—we must have self knowledge. ‘ (b) We must know what courses of thought and conduct lead to deterioration so that we can avoid them. (c) We must know what feelings, thoughts and actions are great, so that we may cultivate them. How are we to attain this knowledge? Any one who is a great student of human nature knows how very rare anything like adequate self-knowledge is ; most of us are perhaps more ignorant of self than of anything else within the range of our experience, and no one, at this stage of the world’s progress, can lay claim to a full knowledge of himself. We are perpetually congratulating ourselves that our actions and motives are magnanimous when they cannot possibly be anything but short- sightedly selfish. We are continually practicing deception on our- selves and we never suspect it. We do not realize the narrowness of our conceptions of what is highest. We do not try to recognize in their incipiency the tendencies and habits that will soon become too firmly set to be altered. Socrates revolutionized philosophy with his “‘ Know Thyself,” and I believe that it will have to be recognized that this self-knowledge is as essential to moral progress as it ever was to intellectual. How shall we attain it? You say, Study yourself. Yes; but suppose I should come to you and express a desire to know all about astronomy you would not say to me, Go and study the stars. If I wished to know all about geology you would not say, Study the ground. You would say to me, Put yourself under the best masters and get the best text-books and you will then find out all that the study of ages has established, and you will be in a position to make fresh advances. You would tell me that unaided I could not in a life-time hope to arrive at anything comparable to the fulluess of knowledge possessed by a modern schoolboy. The world advances because one age starts where the last left off. The ancient Norsemen had this idea when they compared life to a tre2 called Ygdrasil, which is growing age by age. We are among the clouds, not so much on account of what we have done, as because we are supported by, and grow out of, all the life that THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION. 21 went before ; and the coming age, the next year’s twigs and leaves, will be nearer heaven still because we have lived and grown. It seems to me that it is as necessary to have text-books and guides in a study of self as in any other study. Works on psychology do not cover the kind of self-knowledge we are consider- ing; but even if such works did they would not supply the want. What is needed is a concrete presentation of the facts and pro- cesses of human nature. We may learn a good deal about our bodies from scientific generalizations, but these cannot take the place of a physiological chart, or of actual dissection. To a psychological chart we give the name of novel. Ina novel we find not generalizations, but people who act as we do, and we find, besides, what the author, who isa specialist in this study, believes to be the motives that prompted these actions, and we also find what he believes to be the effect of these actions on the actors and on others. We find there what the author has discovered to be the modes of life of the men around him and the ends of life we bave practically and virtually before us. He traces and exposes the influences that are abroad in the world by showing their effect on men and women. We find the results that he has arrived at in this science of human nature, and we find them in the form that is most easily understood and most effective. He shows us where we are, which, as we have noticed above, is the first thing we require to know in order to self-realization. And I ask in what other way can this be shown ? Then in his bad characters he shows us the course of life and thought that lead to disaster, or deterioration, or to what is unworthy, and here we find what we have to avoid. In his good characters we find what courses of life and thought are necessary to development, and here we find what we ought to cultivate. It seems to me that the greatest need of the day is guidance in detail. We have righteousness preached at us, but we want to know what righteousness is when translated into the next act that we have to perform, or into the customary acts of our lives. We want to know what is better and worthier than what we are doing, and if this could once be shown, I have sufficient confidence in human nature to believe that a majority would try to follow it. This guidance can be given in a novel more directly than in any other way, and for this reason it is an essential supplement to treatises or 22 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS. sermons. A small minority only can be directly influenced in their conduct by an appeal to their reasons with abstract truth. You may persuade a savage that civilization is a good thing, but, unless, in addition to this, you instruct him step by step in the elements of culture, there is every chance of his remaining a savage. You may inculcate in a man the virtue of self-sacrifice, but unless you can tell him, at the same time, how self-sacrifice will show itself in his daily conduct, and in his particular acts, it is more than probable that he will go through life just as selfish as the rest of us. We have made wonderful advances in all the arts except the art of living. We are able to control the forces of nature even to the mystery of electricity, but we, as a race, are making no advance in that which is nearer to us, and should come first, the controlling of ourselves and the conforming of lives to a standard that is ever becoming higher. Lest I should seem to overstate the case I would like to give some testimony in support of what I have said. A writer in Zhe (Vene- teenth Century says: “‘ Crime in England during the last thirty years for which we possess official returns, has not decreased in gravity and has been steadily developing in magnitude.” In the United States, where we would expect to find life-problems being worked out under the most favorable conditions, what do we see? Hon. Andrew D. White in a recent address said: ‘‘ The number of deaths by murder in the United States is more than double the average in the most criminal! countries of Europe ; and this number is increasing in our country every year and in a ratio far greater than the increase of the population.” The statistics of 1890-91 show an increase of less than 25 percent. in population, but an increase of 59 per cent. in the number of persons charged with murder. Presi- dent Schurman, of Cornell University, said not long ago in speaking of divorce: ‘The United States grants more divorces than all the world put together. We grant annually more than 25,000—a hundred a day if you give the judges a Saturday half-holiday.” If the present rate of increase should continue “a hundred years from now more than half of all marriages will be terminated by divorce.” He says the evil of divorce is not a single isolated factor in out modern life, but only one of many kindred aspects of what we may call the modern spirit, “which is a tendency to selfishness, to impatience, to immorality, to irreligion.” Our daily newspapers are little but a catalogue of crimes in all grades of society. The world THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION. , 23 has had a great deal of righteousness in general preached at it, but very little righteousness in particular. Now I ask, is there any medium so effective as the novel for the presenting, and so the teaching, of the great desideratum—trighteousness in particular. Indeed, is there any other way in which can be shown the courses of thought and action that ultimately lead to fault and vice, and the courses of life that lead to purity and strength ? But now, in view of all these things, what must we decide to be the greatest in novel-writing ? What kind of a novel is the highest ? I would define the greatest in fiction to be the novel that portrays and describes, with the strictest truth to human nature, as nearly as can be done in written language, human life, not only as it exhibits itself in action but also as the actors are conscious of it, and shows the operations of mind and the conflicts of influences with their subtle effects. This novel makes men and women act before us, it describes the hidden life they lead in other realms than that of sense; it also traces the unrecognized workings that are gradually forming or changing their characters. It is the presentation of a complete human being ; we are shown his outward life and his in- ward life ; we know those processes by which he has become what he is and those by which he is developing or narrowing into what he will be. We must bear in mind in connection with this definition the many limitations that the nature of the case will put upon it. The novelist has only four or five hundred pages, say, in which to represent some phase of life. It is impossible in that space to put down everything that would be found in like circumstances in actual life, and it is not an object with him todo so, He aims to give a complete whole in a limited space, and to do so he must carefully select those points that are most prominent and most essential. He must get a proper pro- portion, a proper perspective, in his work. Out of this fact there arise a great many technical rules of art with which it is not my present purpose to deal. I am treating only of the matter of the novel and am not considering at all the question of the form in which this matter may be best presented ; and so, when, in the above definition, I said the greatest novel must be strictly true to human nature, I did not mean that it must present an exhaustive picture of life, but that whatever points it did present must be strictly conformable to the laws that govern men and women. 24. JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS, In the first place, before going on to establish this definition, we will have to meet an alarming array of opposing authority. Taine defines a novelist to be “one who labors to manifest the invisible world of inward inclinations and dispositions by the visible world of outward words and actions;” that is, Taine says that novel is the highest which confines itself to words and actions and has nothing directly to do with the inner life My definition expressly and emphatically includes the portrayal of this inner life. Taine’s de- finition is endorsed by Mathew Arnold and is accepted, implicitly at least, by many critics. I think this definition is already a little out of date, for modern novels almost universally show the works of the watch as well as the dial. The definition is too narrow, and for this reason: If we have a full, true conception of life we will find | that we cannot embody it in this kind of novel which is only an ex- tended form of the drama, because the life you and I live is not, can- not be, represented by our words and actions. What we say and what we do may point to the motives that outweighed all others, but will give nosign of the terrible struggles between conflicting motives that mark the crises of our lives and are more truly, andmore vividly, a part of our experience than anything external can be. There may be raging within usa battle whose issue entails more momentous conse- quences for our lives than did Waterloo for the political future of Napoleon, and yet the only external facts to be noted may be the pale cheek, the strained and anxious brow. Little of our joy and grief is shown in our smiles and sobs. The actual circumstances of the moment form but a small part of our experience at any time ; memory and imagination give nearly all the depth and power. There is probably no life without its romance, and yet there are very few lives in which there is any romantic incident. Romance has a solely subjective existence. The highest workings of our natures in intellect and imagination can show themselves only very indirectly and ambiguously in words and actions. Nearly all our wealth of passionate, rich, and exquisite feeling is known only to ourselves and never betrays itself in word or gesture. These secret workings of mind and heart make the real life of each one of us, and we often long for someone who would judge us, not by the conventionalities required of us, but by this truest and best life which is throbbing or soaring within us. All these realities of life may be talked about and described but cannot be made to exhibit themselves. Do not THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION. 25 these considerations, together with many more that might be adduced, clearly show that there is a great deal in our lives that cannot be embodied in a novel that confines itself to the external? There is no room in the novel, as defined by Taine, for the treatment of all that is deepest and most real in human life, therefore I say the de- finition is narrow and the novel he conceived falls far short of the possibilities of fiction. But in the second place, from the fact that I have insisted that the greatest novel must be true to human nature, I am met by the re-action that has set in against what is called realism in fiction. In these days to say you are an advocate of realism is taken as almost equivalent to saying you like filth, or, at least, insipidity. Now, in the first place, I protest against such a prostitution of the word realism. It is not real life that most of these books present to us. A writer on this subject says: ‘‘ Realism during the last thirty years has strangely deviated from its fundamental principles ; it has become rhetorical ; it has become idealism turned upside down—the ideal- ism of ugliness, viceand crime. * * This illusion is aided by the minute care taken by modern narrators to describe the surroundings, the places and the objects, in whichtheir fantastic personages live and move.” There is that in me which makes me believe that ugliness, vice, and crime, truthfully presented, cannot be attractive, for in that presentation we would find misgivings, loss of hope, and all the gentler feelings, atrophy of noble impulses and generous thoughts, gradual narrowing, hardening, and despair. Even granting for the moment that these novels against which the reaction has set in are true to nature, this could not be used as an argument against truth to nature as an essential of the greatest novel ; it could only be used as a crushing weight against the taste and common sense of the authors of such works. Beauty, goodness, faithfulness, and honor, are as much truths of life as ugliness, vice, and crime. Having thus to a certain extent cleared the way, it remains for me to bring forward some considerations that will tend to establish my definition, which is, that the greatest novel is that one» which, with whatever phase or circumstances it deals, is true to human nature, and gives us not only the external but also the inner life of thought and feelings, and the formative influences and the tendencies at work. I claim that this is greatest,— 26 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS. 1st. Because it is most beneficial. We have seen that it is one of the possibilities of the novel to be the best means of extending our knowledge of life beyond the bounds of our personal experience. To dothis the novel must give us the inner life, because the know- ledge of that life is most important, and it must present that life truly or else we will gain no knowledge at all, but will be led aside into error. The novel I have defined is able to supplement our experience and so enable us to have an acquaintance with the principal facts of life, after we get which it is an easy matterfor us to infer and deduct until we get rules of conduct, of motive, and of thought. Iam not advocating the novel that preaches or has a moral at the end. Any amateur in dialectics can draw conclusions, but it takes a trained scientist to establish the premises, to discover the real facts and laws ; and this is nowhere so true as in the science of life. It is another possibility of the novel to be more effective than any other agency in creating a sympathy and an understanding between man and man, and between class and class. To do this it is very evident that the men and classes must be represented as they are. How much do you think it would aid in bringing about the result if we found in our novels nothing truer to life than the peasants in opera, those “lyric rustics” in their elegant attire? How much do you think it would aid in bringing about this result if we found in our novels nothing truer to life than the peasants in poetry, who are always “jocund as they drive their teams afield,” who are always cheerful and smiling in harvest, who sing serenades and make bashful love? How much of the misunderstanding that now exists do you think is due to this poetic falsification, which calls out our sympathy for idyllic shepherds and idyllic plowmen that have no counterparts in nature. And to bring about this sympathy and understanding we must find in the novel more than we can see about us every day. We can see the difference in dress, we can see the difference between a mansion and a cottage, we can see the difference in manners, we can hear the difference in speech. These, as I have before said, are the things that mark the separation. We want to-know the things that mark the brotherhood. These are found in the thoughts, the feelings, the aspirations, the resolves, the temptations, the conflicts. We must be shown the force of circum- stances and all other shaping forces that have brought about the difference that remains after we have discovered the essential THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION. 27 brotherhood. Then, and only then, can we fully sympathize and understand ; and it is very evident that to bring about this result the novel must give us more than words and actions and must be true to nature. We have seen that it is also one of the possibilities of the novel to be the best means of presenting a great deal that is essential to our development. It is equally plain in this case, as in that we have just been considering, that to accomplish this result the novel must give us more than the external and must be true to human nature. To benefit us by giving us self-knowledge, a novel must present the courses of life that men actually follow, and must make plain to us the motives and principles that are really predominant. It is not moralizing that the world wants most, it is such an analysis of experience as shall lay bare its elements. It seems to me that after all these centuries the world to-day does not know enough about the universal malady, selfishness, for example, to give a satisfactory diagnosis. There are a great many facts referred in a loose way to selfishness, but where do we find the analysis that shows us the real elements, the psychology, of selfishness. They tell us that it is doing things for our own gratification, but this will not stand, because it makes it deliberate, and we all know that very little of the selfishness in the world is deliberate. We do not act for the purpose of gratifying ourselves at the expense of others, we simply do what seems best at the time. Then we will have to seek the root of selfishness in our knowledge of what is best and highest, or farther back still wherever our analysis may lead us. If we can once discover the true source it will be easy to prescribe a remedy. This one instance may help to illustrate what I mean by the necessity for an analytical and accurate knowledge of the facts of experience before we can form rules of conduct. The novel that truly represents the inner life gives us this knowledge. If, in this novel I am advocating, the character of a bad men is depicted with truth to nature, we will see the steps by which he became bad ; he will not seem to us some one outside the pale of our common humanity, where he is virtually placed by too many writers ; we will recognize in him a being like ourselves whose course of life has a sequence in it; we will find that he has motives that are to him as strong incentives to action as ours are to us; we will see in him what we might become if we took his first downward step. If the char- 28 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS. acter delineated in this novel be better than we are, we shall know what life is to him and how we must act to be like him; we will find out what in the conviction of great men and women are the thoughts and actions that are worthier than ours. The greatest care, however, should be exercised by those novelists who attempt to represent the perfect man, that they should make their representa- tives strictly true to the nature of man. A novelist can lead us no farther than he has gone himself, either in actual experience, or in careful calculations upon human nature. No novel can be wholly beneficial whose characters are not possible to actual men and women in like circumstances. | And, besides, if we are capable of indefinite development, as we all believe we are, then only God could describe a perfect man. The only ideal representable by man is an ideal of attitude towards the problems of life, an ideal of disposition, not of attainment. The only ideal characters are sincerely striving men and women ; but it would not be difficult to represent men and women who have reached a greater degree of attainment than we have. I think it is very evident, then, that the novel I have defined must be the most beneficial. We have seen that the novel is read not only for instruction, but also for pleasure, for excitement, and relaxation, and any novel that meets these needs may be a legitimate kind of novel and may have a right to be. I am not advocating one kind of novel to the exclusion of all others. Iam attempting to establish that this kind is greater than all others. It cannot be urged as an argument against it that it is not fitted to please, as proved by the fact that a majority are not pleased by it. We do not consider that it is an argument against a Raphael, or a Michael Angelo, that a great many people prefer a chromo. ‘There is such a thing as the development of taste in novel-reading. Weare not born with a ready-made appre- ciation of what is highest in fiction any more than of what is highest in anything else. We may come in time to enjoy only that novel which is worthy of study just as we may come to enjoy Beethoven or Wagner. The novel I have defined may, then, not only be most beneficial but give most real pleasure, and to those who have once learned to appreciate it all others may appear com_ paratively trivial. I know that very many people will take a decided stand against so serious a view of the novel as I have presented. Such a novel THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION. 29 and such a reading would not afford any relaxation which is one of the great uses of the novel. ‘They will contend that we get enough of this kind of thing in real life, and that when we pick up a novel we want something quite different from the life we are living. We want to read about hair-breadth escapes, or about lords and ladies with incompatible virtues and vices, and impossible fortunes. I cannot at all agree with this opinion. It is a very trite comparison, that of life to a voyage, but it is a very true one. We each have some harbor we would like to make. According to our temperaments and circumstances, our ambitions and desires adorn this island for which we set sail with all delights. Those who take this stand with regard to the novel, saying that we get enough of real lifein what we are forced to do, and that our chief object should be to get something to occupy our spare moments that would take us off into other realms, seem to me to advise that in entering on this voyage we merely weigh anchor and give sail. When the necessities of sustenance or the urgency of gales forces us to work and think, we are to do so, but when such necessities are not upon us we are to read of seas that we can never sail, of ships that we never made, of islands fancy-formed. We are to lie back and dream of journeys “* Over the seas With a crew that is neither rude nor rash, But a bevy of Eroses apple-cheek’d, In a shallop of crystal ivory-beak’d, With a satin sail of a ruby glow, To a sweet little Eden on earth that I know, A mountain islet pointed and peak’d ; Waves on a diamond shingle dash, Cataract brooks to the ocean run, Fairily-delicate palaces shine Mixt with myrtle and clad with vine, And over-stream’d and silvery-streak’d With many a rivulet high against the sun The facets of the glorious mountain flash Above the valleys of palm and pine.” Are there rocks ahead? Wedo not know. Are we sure that by driving before the wind or with the tide we shall ultimately reach our harbor? Are all the winds and all the tides certain to be favorable? Ought we not to change our course and beat up against the wind? We do not know. Is there really amid all the possibili- 30 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS. ties of formation such an island as we seek? We donot know. Meanwhile we are sailing and dreaming. Can such a voyage be compared in any respect to that of the man who thoroughly studies his boat until there is not a thing he cannot do, not an emergency for which he is not prepared ; then master the principles of navigation ; © then make himself perfectly familiar with the chart till he can place every rock and every shoal? When the sky threatens he understands it and prepares for storms, and when the squall strikes him he exults because he is ready for it and can weather it. When rocks frown he can escape them because he knows where the deep water lies. Is such a man’s voyage all drudgery as compared with that of the man who dreams? Far fromit. The sun is glorious at sea, the mist is weird, the stars are eloquent, the moonlight on the water is divine, and even the angry, crested waves are grand. His voyage is all pleasure, because he is safe, and he is safe because he has studied and because he knows. For this reason I cannot believe in devoting one’s time to fiction . that is admittedly untrue to life. I am anxious to understand life, and have not yet discovered that the only pleasure is to be found in temporary escapes into other, imaginary, states of being. But you say, since a novel is not written on account of its pos- sible effect on its readers, so much as on account of a natural desire for expression in the author, we must look for the greatest in fiction in what is greatest from the author’s standpoint, and surely that greatest will be found where he gives, as it is called, free scope to his imagination. I admit that before my case can be complete I must establish that what we have already seen to be greatest from the reader’s standpoint is greatest also from the author’s. I think that, from this point of view, as well as from the reader’s, there will be no discussion about that part of the definition which makes the greatest novel contain more than words and actions, for it is unquestionably greater in the author to exhibit not only the ex- ternal but also the hidden sources of the external. The contention will settle around the assertion that his presentation must be true to human nature. We have already seen that imagination is the power of making images of general conceptions. The difference in the images de- pends on a difference of conception. The difference between the works of Rider Haggard and those of Thackeray, for example, is not THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION. Sk so much difference in power of imagination as in the general concep- tion of life and of what is worthiest of being represented. If this be true, and if we can determine what conceptions of life are greatest and best, then these conceptions adequately imaged will be what is greatest in novel-writing from the author’s standpoint. To me it will ever seem that the greatest conception of life will be a conception of life as it really is, of the laws that actually govern it, and of the pos- sibilities it actually contains. This is greatest because it is truest and because it requires incomparably the most knowledge in the author. To follow a possible character through a natural develop- ment it is necessary that we know all the circumstances in which the life is placed from its beginning to its close ; we must know the bias given by heredity, by early training, by love, by hate, by opposition from others, by every motive, by every resolve, by every imagina- tion; we must recognize the effect of the gradual strengthening or weakening of character, and of the formation of habits. Only if we have all this knowledge, and much more, and work upon it without error, can we produce a character with truth to nature; while only the slightest knowledge of the generalities of human nature is neces- sary to the production of a work when the only standard is an arbitrary determination in the matter. The novel I have defined will be greatest, then, not only from the reader’s but also from the author’s standpoint. A practical question will here at once present itself, namely, how are we to tell what is true to human nature, and so, greatest ? Our judgments must be based mainly, I suppose, on our own experience of what life really is, and so at first will doubtless be very faulty, but this faultiness will gradually disappear with every addi- tional experience. Twelve months from now our standard wil! be higher and truer than it is to-day. In this case, however, we are not left to verify everything by our own experience In history and in the thoughts of great and good men and women of all time—that is to mention other sources than the most authoritative, Revelation— we have the solution of many of the problems of life. And it seems to me that in our reading we should have before usa few general principles drawn from these sources to supplement our own ex- perience in forming a basis of judgment. I think we may take it as established, for example, that that novel will not be true to the principles of life which 32 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS. 1st. Represents only that side of vice which makes it attractive. The world has found that vice brings disaster or meets it. Vice is an evidence of decay ; growth alone is truly attractive. 2nd. Which excites and feeds passions that we should control, the passions that cause trouble in the world. 3rd. Which weakens our reverence. 4th. Which makes us feel anything other than an appreciation and sympathy for our fellowmen. 5th. Which by its false ideals unfits us for the practical duties of daily life. 6th. Which makes the end of life consist in something petty that takes away any aim worth nobly striving for. In this class I would put that large proportion of modern novels which virtually make the end of life a marriage which society will sanction, and the only aim, particularly for the heroine, to be pretty, so as to win attention from the other sex. This list of principles might be largely extended. _I think that each one should, at least mentally, draw out for himself such a list that he may be able to distinguish between the true and the specious, or the false, to the end that he may get from great novels that com- pensation for the narrowness of personal lot, that help toward a proper understanding and sympathy with his fellowmen, that guidance in self-knowledge, that warning against the very first step downward, and that call to something higher, which constitute the grandest possibilities of fiction. My remarks have been all of a general nature. I know of no writer who fulfils all the possibilities of fiction, but, in my judgment, George Eliot, comes nearer to it than any other in the most impor- tant respects, though her representations are in a good many points only partial. I will not attempt to show this by a reference to any other works, I merely mention it to give my ideas a certain definite- ness by pointing to a limited embodiment of them. To me her works seem most worthy of careful study, and most rich in returns, because she never allowed a striving after effect to interfere with her expression of her conceptions of the true workings of the principles of life, and her rare mental endowments pre-eminently fitted her for the study of these principles. There are many other authors I might mention, but she seems so peculiarly suitable as an illustration of my principles, at least of some of the more important ones, that I will THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION. 33 mention no other, since I have not the time to make such compari- sons and distinctions as would be necessary for clearness. I end where I began by affirming that the novel is great, that it holds depths and breadths and heights, both for author and for reader, which may never be fully compassed. The great demand for works of fiction, far in excess as it is of the demand for any other kind of works, is not necessarily a sign of depravity or of frivolity ; it may be based upon the longing for that knowledge and guidance for which we seek in vain in philosophy or science, a knowledge of life as we must live it, and guidance that we may live it aright. We may not all seek for truth in the subtleties of meta- physics, we may not all count the stars and tell them by their names, but we must all live. Science may be for the few ; conduct is for all. For this reason the novel must ever be of interest and of value, and the novelist may be one of the greatest of human benefactors. His responsibilities are great in proportion to his power of influence, which extends not only to the men of his own generation, but on from age to age. An old monk said to Wilkie, concerning Titian’s “‘ Last Supper:” “I have sat daily in sight of that picture for now nearly three-score years; during that time my companions have dropped off one after another, all who were my seniors, all who were my contemporaries, and many or most of those who were younger than myself; more than one generation has passed away, and there the figures on the picture have remained unchanged ; I look at them until I sometimes think that they are the realities, and we but shadows.” It has been made possible for us to put what is best in us into such a form that it shall live when we are gone, and by its permanence seem a reality beside which we are but shadows =‘ Truth only will so live, and our truth will live only until the world shall have advanced beyond us into deeper and fuller truth. A great mind’s truth about human life may live from generation to generation, and from race to race, entertaining, instructing, confronting, and blessing, and helping to mould the life of all the world. Great are the possibilities of fiction. 34 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS. NOTES ON BIOLOGICAL SUBJECTS. Read before the Hamilton Assoctatzon BY WM. YATES, HATCHLEY, ONT. if After a somewhat mild winter, springlike days were of frequent occurrence after the 24th of March. Some persons who had sugar bushes, began the work of tapping their maple trees as early as that date ; the ice in streams and ponds had disappeared by the 4th of April, and on the 5th the first cranes of the season were noticed in these parts, and the piping of the frogs was heard. One or two days of bright genial sunshine about the tst of April, is sure to cause the blossoms of the Aepaticas to peep forth amid the fallen dry leaves of the forest. These were ornamented with the downy flowerstocks and spreading petals of that welcome spring token in the warm afternoon sunshine of the 5th of April, and before the labors of the sap bush have ended the golden heads of the dandelion begin to adorn the sunny roadside ‘“‘banks and braes.” Although the /efatica’s flowers are commonly assumed to be the earliest floral production of our Canadian spring, such is not the in- variable rule, for on one occasion, now many years past, the blossoms of the cardamine rotundifolia appeared in a very sheltered spot of ill-drained woodland on the 19th of March—three or four days in advance of the “epfatica flower, the same season. ‘The erigenta bulbosa has also been known to expand its florets quite as early as those of the traditional hepatica, or the sanguinarta. On the elevated banks of the Avon stream near Stratford, Ont., specimens of this ‘‘harbinger of spring” have been found in flower many days before the remains of the wintry snowdrifts had vanished. The cool temperature) and drenching rains of the last days of May and of the first week in June had the effect of retarding the bloom of many species of early summer plants, such as ousfontas, castilleias, and polygalas, lupins, etc., yet during the last week in May, and for some time afterward, there grew in damp spots by roadsides in some parts of Brantford and Burford townships patches of the THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION. 35 blue violet that were exceedingly attractive to the eye from the pro- fusion of their flowers, and the density and extent of their masses of color. No gardening skill, perhaps, could exceed the brilliancy and charm afforded to every passer by these natural adornments of the boggy wastes and damp roadside borders. In the course of a sum- * mer season, many other common wild flowers evince the same socal habit, and gratify the zesthetic craving that perpetually exists in the human mind. To give instances we need only mention the Blue Iris groups, so exuberant about the zoth of June; then, next, the Tall Vervain, verbena hastata, seen during the latter part of July ; then the Cardinal Flower of mid-August ; and lastly, the immense multitude of Asterworts (including the yellow golden so/zdagos) of the autumnal months. At the present date the clustered masses of the White Aster never appeared in greater glory and profusion on our roadside ditch banks; and in the ardent noon sunshine hosts of gaudily colored butterflies hover aud disport themselves around these vegetable denizens of the wilderness. The species we have just alluded to seem to be (Aster) corymbosus and (Aster) dumosus. There is also another very noticeable species whose multitude of congregated blossoms afford a massive expanse of pleasing lilac tints. These are most common in marshy situations. Then the more robust and tall growths of the strikingly beauteous purple New England Aer BIS tO lie Een Cin dry banks near fences, and, occasionally, near ditches. This in altitude and luxuriance of growth, nearly rivals its relatives of the golden-rod genus. As if imbued with a love of contrast, groups of white butterflies fluttered and rested on the purple blooms, whilst the large red and florid tinted lepidoptera mostly haunted the paler hued cymes of (Aster) corymbosus and one variety that resembled (Aster) memoralis or (Aster) ptarmuicoides. On the margin of the woods, if not also in the interior, the sere autumnal tints have now begun to manifest themselves on the foliage of the maples, and a number of the walnut trees are already shedding their leaves. ‘‘ The touch of autumn” seems capricious— a single branch, perhaps, aglow with yellow, orange and crimson, while on the remainder of the tree, a dull green lingers. The tints of decay show first on the margin of the leaf, then extend to the midrib, and the rich hue proves transient, soon changing to a dull brown ; then the leaf shrivels and falls. Some of the ferns, also, in { 36 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS. shady recesses of the forest, exhibit the same sensibility to the lowering temperature of the September nights, and suddenly Jdleach or change to an interesting cream color ere they droop and vanish under the influence of the chill rains and gales of October. Just now the mimetic tendencies in nature are plainly manifested in the white flowers of the snake-head, which is a common growth in the shaded bogs of this vicinity There is an idea of mockery or derision conveyed to one’s mind on aclose scrutiny of this remarkable flower; and the remembrance of the bloom of the cyprepedium to an Indian moccasin is perhaps not less suggestive. Again a very slight exercise of the imaginative faculty is required to see in the flowers of the Fringed Orchis of the same bogs, the outlines and expression of a benign human countenance! Only yesterday the same mocking trait was very evident on a number of groups of Golden Rods on which those ligneous turbinate excresences, near the summit of the plant stem, had become guz¢e ved under the influence of the fervid solar rays of September, and assumed a most fraudulent “fruity ” appearance. These semblances made one think of the historical “apples of Sodom.” In clusters of these plants by the roadside fora distance of miles, about seven-tenths of the individual growths had been victimized by this supposed parasite. In one, also, if not in both of the two species of baneberry, act@a spicata, a similar humor of feign- ing seems predominant. In the white berried variety, the fruit and its mounting or arrangement, mimics the work of the skilled con- fectioner, and resembles the sugar-coated investiture on elaborate frost cake. What a ruby-like tint, resemblance, and suggestiveness is seen in the fruit of the Wahoo or exonymus, var obovatus, than which scarcely any substance can be more insipid to the taste. The luscious red, too, of the ground cherry, and of the du/cemara and perhaps some other members of. the Nightshade family, give a promise to the eye which is not carried out, or is even treacherous, to the gustatorial sense. The fruit of the Dog-wood, rhus venenata, has a close resemblance to that of the white currant bush, but at the same time is an acrid poison, yet at a certain time is utilized as food by the ruffled grouse, (and with impunity to the ornithic consumer). The coral ruby-like fruit of the arum (Ariszema) ¢77pAy//um is said to have a seductive look, and has been eaten by children with painful, if not with fatal results. THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION. 37 The tendency toimitation in tree foliage, and in plants also, is very marked, and is perhaps too extensive a subject to be comprehended in the present communication, but one or two instances may not be thought irrelevant : For instance in the Mahonia, Berberis aquifolium, there is a likeness to the crisped and spinous leaves of the European holly, also a resemblance in the glow of color in the berries—at first orange-colored and afterwards blue. In the form of stem and leaves of Euphorbia polygontfolia or of £. maculata (Knot Grass Spurge), the imitation to 7lecebree is so close as sometimes to deceive a superficial observer. The very curious reticulations on the leaves of the Rattlesnake-Plantain, might suggest patterns for an artist in wicker, or basket weaving ; and the bronze helmet and vizor of the armoured knight of the medizeval periods, may have been copied from the seed capsule of several species of scu¢ellaria of swamp margins. © In this last mentioned in- stance the zmstator and imitated may be thought to have illogically changed positions. In some of the twining stems of shrubs, there is an exact fac simile to the scaly covering of the snake, as well as to the ophidian constrictions and contortions. A particular instance of this feature may be sometimes seen in the Moonseed shrub, JZenzspermum canadense. ‘There is, also, something that may perhaps be termed “fantastical ” in instances of ‘‘ albinism” in the motley designs some- times etched in white on the leaves of the common turnip, on pumpkin leaves, and quite frequently, on ribbon grass, as if the beginning of a whimsical design which had not been fully carried out, but abandoned for more practical and perfect ends. If it might not be thought a rambling from our orbit, one might finish by alluding to analogous traits in animal life, as in the curious etching on the upper side of the webbed feet of the Crested Grebe, as if put there to indicate the proper manner of folding the membraneous ex- pansion between the toes when not in use, as a closed umbrella ; also the rake-like appendages (for more efficient scratching among leaves) on the szdes of the Zoes of the Grouse. As we have introduced bird life, let us mention having seen crows with several whzfe wing-feathers, and with a part of the toe-nail white /—and the color of the remainder of the bird, black as ebony ! —suggesting that something, if only a modicum of pigment had been suppressed, as if “on second thought.” | 28 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS. The tufts of crimson and orange colored fibres that serve as a “nidus ” to the larvee of the gall cynips of the Dog Rose bush, (that, a few years since, grew abundantly on the Hamilton commons, not far from the Insane Asylum,) may be mentioned in this connection. In the prominent white involucre of several of the Dog woods (natural order cornacee) and notably in Cornus Canadensis the “bluffing” whim seems to come to the surface, and make one think of a flourish about one of the capital letters in nature’s penmanship, or “splurge” of paper shirt collar in the attire of a “‘ dude,” ex- pressing the sentiment, “‘ Beware of spurious imitations,” for ‘all is not gold that glitters.” Then the seemingly superfluous amount of petalism in the Guelder Rose, Viburnum lantanoides, and in the Snowball, V. opudus, as well as the profuse production of rainbow hues throughout the domains of Flora, and in autumnal foliage tints, leads an observer to surmise that mere utilitarian purposes are not the only ones kept in view by the Omniscient Designer of the universe. Nov. 24th, 1892. le There are now many indications that the spring season is at hand. Although there was this morning severe frost and a keen, raw northeast air, yet at sunrise the Robins broke out in cheerful song, and the melodious warbling of the Blue-bird seemed con- tinuous. ‘The sights and sounds peculiar to the operations of maple sugar-making are seen and heard on every hand. ‘The past winter was characterized by much snow and cold in its latter half, but I think with less frosty winds than in normal Canadian winters. Decided signs of a relaxation of the cold were manifested during the first week of the present month, and a few Blue-birds appeared near here in the mild sunshine of the 8th, although the snow was at least two feet deep in the woods. Mild cloudy weather continuing, with disposition to fog and rain, Robins made their appearance hereabouts on the morning of the 1oth, which is, perhaps, two or three days later than last year’s coming of these birds. Although there have been several wintry spells since the middle of the month, the birds have made good their presence in the woods and orchards every day. The large Meadow-larks were first reported in song on the 17th instant, and have been quite musical almost every day since THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION. 39 that date. Juncos were noticed feeding on the seeds still adhering to the dry culms of the Chenopodium weed on the 13th. Grackles and Kill-deer plovers came on the 13th also, and several large Hawks were observed careering and mewing high above the forest on the rath. On the 18th the Red-winged Grackle was seen and heard. We have always been accustomed here to liken the sound of the the Red-wing’s notes to the pronunciation of the syllables ““ Pope-ree, pope-ree.” There was a gloomy snow-storm on the 22nd instant, and although three or four inches of snow fell, yet on the weather be- coming clement a number of Cranes were seen on the following day. Two parties of Cranes, of four members each, were seen visiting some swamp-ash trees whereon were old nests occupied as breeding-places in past seasons. The Phcebe Fly-catchers were also reported as having been seen on the same day, but we did not see them until the following morning—the 24th. A mild wave set in before dawn on the 24th and the ther- “mometer showed 51 degrees at daybreak. At 3 o'clock in the after- noon it reached 60 degrees, and this had an inspiring effect on the birds. The Blue-birds were seen mating, and in search for nesting- places. The Robins were doubly demonstrative in voice and behavior, which subsided somewhat as the atmosphere cooled towards evening, when the wind changed from southwest to north- west. The Song Sparrows have also been contributing their quota almost daily to the bird concert since the 17th. The Chipmunks were noticed above ground by boys who had their dogs in the sugar bush on the 25th. (Ground Hogs’ tracks were seen in the snow near their burrows on the 23rd. A reliable ob- server, however, informs us that he saw a Ground Hog moving about in the snow near its burrow one fine cold day during the last week in February. If this be true it would seem to indicate that this animal, like the bear, awakes from its torpor on Candlemas Day, and if certain meteorological conditions exist, again goes into its retirement for a period of six weeks. Judging from the promptness of the appearance of the bird- hosts, on the subsidence of the cold weather, it would appear that they travel on the very crest of the warm wave, like a victorious army pursuing and harassing a discomfited and retreating enemy. 40 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS. Regarding the few Meadow-larks, which winter in these parts, it may be said that a family of these birds has, during the past winter, been located in several hilly-stubble fields and meadows near here. In one of these fields (wheat stubble) there was an immense straw- stack, or rather a slovenly-shaped mound of straw and chaffy seed, covering nearly a quarter of an acre, and in the interstices and cavities of this refuse the birds seemingly found ample food and shelter during the inclement weather of winter, and emerged to give out their well-known notes in the brief intervals and fine days of the cold season. Although these are supposed to be insectivorous birds they have been seen to eat the seeds of some species of grasses, such as timothy and clover, and also, with seeming relish, those of the dandelion and other weeds. The imperfect cultivation of our fields has multiplied the number of weeds, and the annual thistle crop, not to mention numerous other vegetable pests, affords food and nesting material for innumerable birds and small animals. Since the snow has melted from the fields, great numbers of the neatly-made nests of the Field Mouse are to be seen, especially | about the surface of the oat-stubble fields. These nests are like a round ball, and are as large as the two fists of aman. _If one takes them to pieces it will be seen that they have been made with much labor and skill. The inner cavity is lined with finely hetchelled grass and straw-fillers; and when one takes into account that all operations have been performed under the deep cold snow, the materials gathered by means of tunnels made to the distance of a number of feet from the intended winter residence, a store of food provided for the many weeks’ tenancy, and the cold from above, below and around carefully provided against, he cannot but admire the industry, skill, and foresight of the little architect and builder. One of our fur-buyers lately made some remarks about the eccentric markings of the Skunk, and stated that there is a great variety in the memphitic markings. In some of them instead of the white V on a black ground, there is a W, with other modifica- tions. Dame Nature seems at times to indulge in a singularly burlesquing mood, as seen in the face markings of the Raccoon, and inits ringed and banded caudal appendage. The curious black diamond-shaped spot on the chzz of the Chickadee, the white Have- lock hood of the black-plumaged Bob-o-link, the white choker of THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION. AI the owl, and the droll motley markings on the faces of young lambs remind one of the pantomimic rouged, the azure design, and arabesque on the face of the circus clown! March 28th, 1893. Phe The pleasant season of spring is now evidently at hand, and we are daily expecting to lgmar the voice of the plowman with his team in the fertile glebe. There are still small fragments of the winter’s snowdrifts to be seen in northern exposures of shaded fence corners, and people who are at work in the maple sugar bushes assure us that there is yet much frost in the ground, under the fallen leaves of the woods. The Song Sparrows have built their nests in the meadows, as also have some crows. The Phoebe Fly-catchers occasionally fly in at the open door or window of our house in their eager search for a suitable nesting-place. The Hylas were first heard piping on the 24th of March, and now they are quite demonstrative with their chorus in the bog puddles. The coming of the hardier species of insectivorous birds before the snow of winter has much diminished is a remarkable phenomenon. It is caused, perhaps, by the undue pressure of the bird population in those milder climates to which they resort on the approach of winter. I have been assured by acquaintances, who have wintered in Tennessee and Carolina, that Robins, Grackles, Wood-peckers, Fly-Catchers, and other common species, remained there during the entire year ; and it is to be noted here that a few hours of warm sunshine, or a warm south wind setting in at the beginning of March or even late in February, will cause a host of insects to emerge from their winter hiding-places, and these become a source of sustenance to bird life. So soon as the maples are tapped, and the receiving pails are partly filled with sap, great numbers of dark-colored moths assemble near the oozing fluid, probably attracted by its saccharine effluvium. These and many other two-winged flies, and several species of Hymenoptera, hover constantly about the sap vessels, and area source of some trouble to the syrup makers.