EVERYBODY'S PROTEST NOVEL
579
righteous, virtuous sentimentality, much in common with
Little Wo–
men.
Sentimentality, the ostentatious parading of excessive and spuri–
ous emotion, is the mark of dishonesty, the inability to feel; the wet
eyes of the sentimentalist betray his aversion to experience,
his
fear of
life, his arid heart; and it is always, therefore, the signal of secret and
violent inhumanity, the mask of cruelty.
Uncle Tom's Cabin-like
its multitudinous, hard-boiled descendants-is a catalogue of vio–
lence. This is explained by the nature of Mrs. Stowe's subject matter,
her laudable determination to flinch from nothing in presenting the
complete picture; an explanation which falters only if we pause to
ask whether or not her picture is indeed complete; and what constric–
tion or failure of perception forced her to do so depend on the descrip–
tion of brutality-unmotivated, senseless-and to leave unanswered
and unnoticed the only important question: what it was, after all,
that moved her people to such deeds.
But this, let us say, was beyond Mrs. Stowe's powers; she was
not so much a novelist as an impassioned pamphleteer; her book was
not intended to do anything more than prove that slavery was wrong;
was, in fact, perfectly horrible. This makes material for a pamphlet
but it is hardly enough for a novel; and the only question left to
ask is why we are bound still within the same constriction. How is
it that we are so loath to make a further journey than that made by
Mrs. Stowe, to discover and reveal something a little closer to the
truth?
But that battered word, truth, having made its appearance here,
confronts one immediately with a series of riddles and has, moreover,
since so many gospels are preached, the unfortunate tendency to make
one belligerent. Let us say, then, that truth, as used here, is meant
to imply a devotion to the human being, his freedom and fulfillment;
freedom which cannot be legislated, fulfillment which cannot be
charted. This is the prime concern, the frame of reference; it is not
to be confused with a devotion to Humanity which is too easily equat–
ed with a devotion to a Cau e; and Causes, as we know, are notorious–
ly bloodthirsty. We have, as
it
seems to me, in this most mechanical
and interlocking of civilizations, attempted to lop this creature down
to the status of a time-saving invention. He is not, after all, merely a
member of a Society or a Group or a deplorable conundrum to be
explained by Science. He is- and how old-fashioned the words sound!
