Pessimism in Fiction by Alice Meynell — Read

The told story was not at first used for the purposes of pity, terror, and purification, but mainly for fun. Shall we make a great exception of the Book of Job, the inspired novel all occupied with its subject, the history of a single valuable soul? A family swept out of life are of no moment to that novelist, save as their fate causes the affliction of Job. By and by he shall be comforted with other sons and daughters. These, like the dead ones, are negligible except as sons and daughters to one not negligible man. Never was art truer to a single intention. The earlier family have no names named, but the later receive names because they are to go on living for the final joy of a momentous man.

If we may be permitted (or may be permitted as time goes on) to read Genesis, too, as a divine and all-significant novel, here is an even earlier example of the novel written with the gravest intention, and with simple and economic art. Here the ‘stars also' are swept into being as the sons of Job are swept out of it, in a phrase that does not pause upon the universe that was to live, as the phrase did not pause upon the beautiful young men who were to die. The earth is central for that purpose, and Job for this.