There was a very good attendance at the meeting on Wednesday evening when the Rev. W. Nelson Bitton delivered a very able and interesting lecture on Realist and Idealism in Fiction."
Mr. Bitton began by giving a brief account of the history of fiction, and mentioned the earlier writers, Richardson, Smollett, and Sterne, Jane Austen, and Sir Walter Scott, and their works were also referred to with appreciation, as wore those of Dickens and Thackery, Coming to the present day writers, who belong by common consent to the school of new Realism, Mr. Arthur Morrison and Monsieur Emile Zola came in for some severe triticism from the lecturer, and "the shrieking sisterhood" met with anything but gentle handling.
Tt was shown by the extracts given from the two authors above-named that the Realism and Idealism depicted in their novels were neither true to the canons of art nor a correct delineation of life. What they described was not the normal but the abnormal conditions of life and Nordau was quoted as supporting The lecture was a brilliant and eloquent expression of the views of all those who are not lovers of the obscene and nasty, and Mr. Bitton concluded by saying that while we should not expect a novel to preach, and should resent it if it did, the tendency of the novel ought: to be to uplift and not degrade.
'A short discussion followed in which the President, the Rev. Dr. Edkins, the Rev. Dr. Muirhead, and Mr. Donovan took part. 'A cordial vote of thanks to Mr. Bitton was-carried by acclamation.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.