Page:The Harvard Classics Vol. 51; Lectures.djvu/221

Rh her faults being put in chiefly lest there should be "nothing for the Divine grace and a purified state to do." Fielding, though less verbose, is no less explicit. He claims for "Tom Jones" that "to recommend goodness and innocence hath been my sincere endeavour in this history," and that he has "endeavoured to laugh mankind out of their favourite follies and vices." Of "Amelia" he says: "The following book is sincerely designed to promote the cause of virtue." The frequent satirical tone of Thackeray, as well as the nature of his analysis of human motive, testifies to his sharing Fielding's desire to drive men out of their follies and vices by ridicule and contempt. Dickens characteristically combines the improvement of the individual with the reform of institutions. Of "Martin Chuzzlewit" he says: "My main object in this story was to exhibit in a variety of aspects the commonest of all the vices; to show how selfishness propagates itself, and to what a grim giant it may grow from small beginnings." Again, "I have taken every possible opportunity of showing the want of sanitary improvements in the neglected dwellings of the poor." In contrast to such ethical claims as these, Scott's confession, "I write for general amusement," sounds more than humble. Yet he frequently repeats it. He hopes "to relieve anxiety of mind," "to unwrinkle a brow bent with the furrows of daily toil." At times he approaches the moral aim of his more serious brethren, "to fill the place of bad thoughts and suggest better," "to induce an idler to study the history of his country."

In contrast with these older statements of purpose is the assumption prevailing among the more serious of modern novelists that fiction is primarily concerned with giving a picture of life. This aim is set forth not only in explanation of their own work, but as a test of the value of that of others, irrespective of intention. By it is displayed the peculiar danger of "novels with a purpose," whether that purpose is moral or social. They point out that Richardson's method of "exemplars," whether of virtue to be imitated or vice to