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 CHAPTER II

THE REALISTIC

Realism in Victorian fiction, as we need only to be reminded, means not strictly that which is, but liberally that which might be. Its field is nominally the Actual but it encroaches unhesitatingly on the domain of the Probable, laps over into the Improbable, and barely halts at the Impossible. These expansive habits make it not incompatible with the Romantic, which indeed, in its soberer aspects, is a constant factor in the English novel up to and including this period.

Romanticism is reduced to a minimum by Maria Edgeworth, Jane Austen, Mrs. Gaskell, and Anthony Trollope, but the majority of our novelists have not been thus content to present life in its everyday garb, neat and prosperous enough, it may be, but neutral, inane, diffuse, inconclusive. They have insisted in the name of decorum and dignity on the dress costume and company manners which in civilized society are a prerequisite to public appearance and conspicuous position. Life is still life and not an impostor, even when robed in its best with some artifice of color and ornament and some evidence of decisive purposefulness in mien and bearing.