DIY History | Transcribe | Scholarship at Iowa | The Ethical Tendency of the English Novel by Helen M. Harney, 1897 | The Ethical Tendency of the English Novel by Helen M. Harney, 1897, Page 11

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The Ethical Tendency of the English Novel by Helen M. Harney, 1897

The Ethical Tendency of the English Novel by Helen M. Harney, 1897, Page 11

sees it, and the value of his book is in direct proportion to the largeness of his vision and the fineness of his touch. At the highest, his work is poetic - that is, beautifully and significantly true; at the lowest, it is journalist - that is, true t fact, to sense. But in every case, with the authentic artist, it is true to the actual proportion of life. If a novelist does not show us that success may be the worst failure and failure the best success; that poverty may be better than riches; if he does not gather the scattered parts of life and show "the axis on which the frame of things turns" - he might as well leave for human nature to turn its eyes on life itself. It is what art is for at its highest and I count him the greatest genius who touches the divine chord in humanity and who teaches that the world is ruled in righteousness.
8.

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sees it, and the value of his book is in direct proportion to the largeness of his vision and the fineness of his touch. At the highest, his work is poetic - that is, beautifully and significantly true; at the lowest, it is journalist - that is, true t fact, to sense. But in every case, with the authentic artist, it is true to the actual proportion of life. If a novelist does not show us that success may be the worst failure and failure the best success; that poverty may be better than riches; if he does not gather the scattered parts of life and show "the axis on which the frame of things turns" - he might as well leave for human nature to turn its eyes on life itself. It is what art is for at its highest and I count him the greatest genius who touches the divine chord in humanity and who teaches that the world is ruled in righteousness. 8.